Welcome to Legends of Evantress.I'm LaBouche, and you're listening to Stardust Rhapsody.Here's what happened last time.And I can't torture my fucking self about past regrets.
I've done that enough in my life.
Well, I'll be damned.It is the Sparrow.
I got a poster of you on my wall back at home.Are you a secret mystery racer, Pike?
Sorry, I'm a little off my game, because we witnessed the death of our friend.One of our friends turned into a horrible super weapon.And I witnessed my favorite animal being brutally murdered.
And either my greatest enemy or my dearest love, or both, I had to confront her just an hour ago.
That same orange hair that bleeds into vibrant red frame the face of Rex.
We'll be ready in time for the race, but it's all for naught if we don't get Khan's approval.I need his nomination before anything else happens.I heard you were back.Hey, Khan.You got some nerve showing up here.
Well, boys, I guess I'll see you after the race.
We'll see you in the winner's circle.Rex Maxim, on his speeder, has taken to the starting line.And by his side, Pike.In the spout!
Win or lose, Rex, this is your last day of freedom, so you better enjoy it.Something dark.
strikes the prismatic pathway so hard that it splits the racetrack.Aurora hangs in the sky above you.The ice planet where you almost captured Rives.It's a Saurian super weapon.Fine, you have to get out of here.We don't know what's happening.
Something terrible is coming down.I'm not just going to leave if there's anything I can do to help.
I'm not going to leave again. I don't know what we can do, but I know one thing.I think I got one race left in me.The Atlas takes off into the sky.It's a yellow sheen, undriven in years, but in pristine condition.
The number seven sits on its side as he takes off and flies directly at Aurora. Space, the infinite doorway.No path is kept from you when you take to the stars.You set your heading and become the captain of your fate.
But some paths end in a locked door, and some doors were locked a very long time ago.The problem, of course, keep knocking, and sooner or later, someone or something answers.
Having narrowly avoided eternal damnation, the crew of the Rhapsody finds themselves finally at the Prismatic Pathway, a technicolor raceway that Pike once called home.
It promised to offer the party a long-deserved moment's rest, but space holds all, it sees all, it tells all, and sometimes it lies.Arriving late, the party heads to the local diner where they run into Oh, 1950s style, the winner's card.
Arriving late, the party heads to the local 1950s-style diner, where they run into Rex, forming a plan that will let them enter the race and claim the one million credit cup.
Pike makes a last-minute plea to his former mentor, Leo Kahn, but it falls on deaf ears.The crew tucks in for the night, content with, for once, a peaceful sleep, all except for LaBouche.
Something within him stirs, knowing what he does not, a simple truth. Once you open a door, it stays open until closed.Waking, the crew heads to the stands in time for the race, only to find overnight, Pike's ticket was pulled.
Khan had decreed he wouldn't be watching the race, but riding in it.Pike made his way to the track, hopped in the Sparrow, and for the first time in years, faced off against wrecks on the battlefield they had danced so many times before.
ahem, the moon shining its spotlight on what could be their final performance.Exploding off the line, they move ferociously towards the checkered flag, fighting tooth, nail, engine, and flame.
It's impossible to tell who's gonna win, neck and neck, they approach the end, when suddenly, something crashes from the sky, ending the race. The cheers pause for just a moment before turning to screams.
Aurora hangs in the sky above them, unsettlingly out of place.Not the moon at all.It rains down dark black bloody tears that when fallen take shape, if you can call it that.
Bouncers fight back, but every victory is simple delay as these amorphous horrors from beyond reform and consume.All seems lost. Then you hear it, a sound the pathway hasn't heard in years, but no one has forgotten.
The Atlas, Leo Kahn's racer, roars to life.Exploding out of his garage, he weaves effortlessly through the sky like a leaf in rain refusing to fall.
His rage lights up the night, casting a technicolor symphony that almost seems to make the darkness think twice. Blasting off towards Aurora, he's determined to fight for his home.Tooth, nail, engine, and flame.Oh.
Rhett, LaBouche, and Chuckles, the crew, you've been blasting your way out of the stands through these creatures.A black ichor explodes in all directions around you as you punch, knife, claw, scratch, move back to the Rhapsody.
As fast as you can, you made your way back where Hank had gotten the ships back into the hangar bay.
As you turned the final lap, entering the garage where the Rhapsody lay waiting, Hank had word up the Hammerhead and let fly a massive blast of ether at a gathered charge of these monsters following right after you.
You duck as the blast soars cleanly over you and explodes as black rain washes all throughout the garage.As it moves to reform, all of the bits of it that strike Labouche
You can see yourself almost covered, not entirely, but definitely, sizably covered in a black ichor.As it lands on you, it goes to move.
You can see it almost extend back towards the opening of the room, the entrance, trying to reform, trying to gather.But your body doesn't let it. Your form reaches out and consumes it into yourself.
You find yourself moving faster, stronger, and mechanically, you enjoy an additional 10 feet of movement for the next hour. Pike, you are in the skies over the racetrack.You are piloting to and fro, seeing Leo take to the air.
You are peppering the skies once again, trying to hold off the rain, keeping it from landing on top of the pathway, giving your friends and all of the gathered crowd as much time as they can to get to cover.
But you know that it'll only slow down what's coming. And that is where you are.
So we're sort of inside this hangar, right?Are we still, are we on the Rhapsody?Are we on the Rhapsody?
You would be the blasted stricken at the entryway.You would be kind of like, you would have been running to it.LaBouche would have consumed aspects of this black ichor, but you would have been moving towards the Rhapsody the entire time.
You can either say that you are on it or you're extremely close to it.
Rhett, talk to me, buddy.Are you on the Rhapsody yet?We're almost there.What the fuck's going on?I couldn't even begin to guess, but you need to get out of here.I'm fine, I promise.I'll meet up with you guys as soon as I can.
I'm trying to provide some cover.Take it off in 30.Get the fuck on.
Oh, oh, my eyes.I don't know how to get here.Oh, gravity's really crazy, guys.I don't know how it works.
I just blast past you. Something has happened to me.Do I see anything different?
Is it like... Roll a perception check.God, I've been worried about LaBouche.
Perception, you say?Do I look different?Like I'm like all completely black or marbled greens and blacks?Or like, how do I look to myself?I know I've pulled in the ichor, but is it all just inside my suit and I can kind of ignore it?I'm just curious.
With a 14, we'll say that when LaBouche was splashed with the blast of these creatures, you would have noticed it trying to reform, probably, and then look like he had consumed it.Does he physically look different?No, not currently.
Maybe just a fraction of a hair physically bigger.
I would take note of that, but just rush to the cockpit and try to take off as soon as we can.
I don't think there's any reason I would wait.I feel like I would just stand at the entrance, make sure that Chuckles gets on board, and then as soon as he's on the ship, I would follow inside and try to secure myself for takeoff.
Khan, can you hear me?This is Pike.Khan.
Pike, you're coming through. What the hell is going on out here?I was hoping you could explain that to me.I don't know, but something terrible is coming from this planet.I aim to clear it out.
Alright, I can give you cover and try to get as many of these people to safety as possible.If you have commands or anything, you let me know what you want me to do.
I'm moving in closer.This is it.Get everybody out of the stands if you can.I'm going to see what's producing this.I'm going to see if I can blow it away.
All right, I'll keep laying down cover fire.Go!
And you'll see the Atlas rocket off towards Aurora.Trailing in the wake of the explosion, you'll see Rex's speeder following behind.
On the... That's a really cool mug.Thank you.Fuck you, man.Is that from the collector's edition?
This is from the collector's edition of the Ruined King.Oh shit!
Oh, that's pretty fucking cool.
And I promise you it's not relevant for any reason tonight.That's not why I brought it.What?On the Rhapsody, you sprint.Sirens blaring, everything under siege, the red light, beep! Beep!
As you make your way down that classic hexagonal hallway, as it runs to the cockpit, your foot falls echoing as it lands on cold, hard steel.You find yourselves in the cockpit.Hank, seated, everyone finds their place.Boop, boop, boop!
The Rhapsody, words to life.
All right, buddy, let's get a scan going.What do you fucking see?Are you telling me that's a goddamn planet?
And I don't know if we have any sort of like sense of like, you know, is this an illusion or do we literally think the planet that we were on a few days ago is like in orbit?
Roll an Aether Dwarf Technician's Pilot roll.Love that.
Pretty good, actually.Does my new feature give me a bonus?Flash of genius.
That's going to be really good later.
I'm going to save you some.For the audience, everyone had leveled up to seven.Everyone here knows that.So they'll be enjoying new abilities.
So that is going to be a 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14.
17.17, with a 17.The scans, the scanners on the Rhapsody send out into space.They ping off the Aurora.The answer comes back quick.It is the exact planet you landed on before, but with an odd frequency producing from it. The answer is clear.
This is Aurora moved very far out of the deep space that it's intended to stay in.Almost as if it was drawn here.
This isn't right.This fucking planet.
It's halfway across the fucking galaxy.How is such a thing possible?I don't know, but there's some kind of dark reading. And I'll kind of like look at you and furrow my brow a little bit.How you feeling, LaBouche?
How am I feeling?You, and I would say, as you say the words, how is such a thing possible?
You have this sensation in your body, almost like when you're standing, when you're standing like on the edge of a cliff, or even looking at the edge of a cliff, and you can feel yourself almost being pulled towards it, desperately wanting to move closer, but knowing that it's dangerous.
Oh gosh, was that that stuff in the ice?Is it back to get revenge? I think they are related.I can't.And can I try to expel?
If I have the ability to consume, I feel like I, unless it just disappears into some other pocket of me that I can't see or find, like a blind spot almost.If I had a spoon floating around in my body, I'd feel like I could tentacle that out, right?
But in this case, it's possessed me.It's in all of you. roll a insight check with advantage.
It's like when you use my new dice.Your new dice.Your new dice.Spell dice.That's bad.Death by ooze.Look how cool that shit is.Oh my god, incredible.It's easy.
It's easy.It's perfect.It's juicy.It's perfect.All right.I need to find my red dice.Oh.It's a 21.Ooh.Ooh.
With a 21 You as you were running out of the stadium you saw bouncers of the the raceway and really combatants of all kinds Attacking these creatures destroying them blowing them up, but they would always reform you
Having gone through this process, you gain the sensation that you've done something along the lines of cleansing this and intaking it.And as you have, it's powered you up.
It's spoken to something within you, but it's become almost like fuel for you, energy.It's not something that can be expelled, but it's something that makes you stronger. When the Icar hit me, it boosted me up.
I feel stronger from it.Well, are you gonna like turn evil or something?I feel I am in control.It is strangely pulling me to the edge almost.We gotta help Pike and that lion guy.What the fuck did we let out on that thing?
Well, probably Rex but oh gosh Rex is probably dead.
He's so many oyster shooters Are you okay?
Yeah chuckles I can hear you what's going on?Oh, we're coming.We're coming to save you.All right, be careful I'm providing cover fire for Khan and then I What do we do about this planet?Wreck, can you hear me?Do you think we can outrun this thing?
Can we just get away?I mean, yeah, we can get away, but is it going to keep following us?I'd rather it follow us and get it away from the prismatic pathway.These people are in danger.
All right, that's one fucking idea.Hank, let's do this.
And I'm going to hit the thrusters and once everything is ready to go and we'll blast off into space and just get a sense of what's going on and if anything's flying around. Get a sense of if I think the planet is moving closer.
If it's moving in any direction, if I can kind of triangulate if it's slowly moving.
I would say that with your previous role, you would understand the sensors would have read that it was slowly closing the gap towards the raceway. So it is in fact moving, but currently relatively slow.As you punch the Rhapsody jets into position,
They war to life, they explode.As you take off out of the hangar bay, you explode out into the open of space.And the night sky is speckled with black.As you try and maneuver, it is not simple.And I'd have you roll another pilot's handling check.
20, 26.26.With a 26, it is not simple, but you are not a simple man.The Rhapsody, as it soars through space, these creatures are falling, dropping through the air.
The Rhapsody dances through them, blasting out, creating openings everywhere you can, and you are trying to fly away?
I at least like sort of strafing it a little bit getting away from the raceway and trying to sense if we think that to Pike's idea if the planet all of a sudden shifts and moves.
fly straight out, so you ascend directly up from the raceway, almost towards Aurora, and you begin blasting at top speeds to circle around it to its other side.
And as you do this, you can see on the scanners that the planet, as you move to its side, stops moving.
And then as you strafe around to its other, continuously blasting, peppering the sky, obliterating these black creatures, as they burst and you crash through and they reform behind you, as you make it to the other side of this planet, it does start to move towards you.
I would like to, after having talked to Rhett and the crew, keep my eye on the Rhapsody, if I can see them, keep my eye on Khan, and attempt to also keep my eye on Rex while I'm just like laying cover fire and waiting for orders from either from Khan or from Rhett.
Brilliant fucking idea, Einstein!It's moving towards us! All right, whatever you do, don't let it get too close.Don't worry about me, I'll make sure I catch up.
So I'm gonna basically try to get around it and try to pull it away to get as much distance between the pathway and the planet as possible.
Yeah.With a 26, you firmly move to the other side of the planet, and like a tugboat, you are cruising through the skies, but it has a line tied directly to you, and it follows.
And as it does, it seems to almost gain speed, seeing that you are isolated.And you, LaBouche, can feel almost a... That pull, that desire, almost like an animal magnetism drawing you to it.I am somehow attached to this planet thing.
It's pulling from me.Don't get out of the ship, LaBouche.Maybe you need to get chained up.I don't know how you would chain me up.I'm ooze.Oh. I have an idea.We gotta put LaBouche in the brig and keep these cuckoo bananas. LeBouche, let's go.
Do you consent to going into the brig?I haven't.Cuckoo Banana's idea.Oh, what is your idea?Is it going to the brig and putting you in jail?I can eat more of those things.What?That's the opposite of what I was trying to say.Exactly.It's Cuckoo Banana.
Oh, no.We got to get you there.
Throw him in the brig for now.It's for your own safety, LeBouche.I'm in the cockpit.
I'll run up to the bridge and I'll hit the brig.Uh-oh.What do I see?Do I?
No, I'm leading you to the brig.
I hit the console and have the door... The door to the brig swings open as you go to take Laboosh in there, and you see...
Oh, we forgot to feed Mad Dog!Oh, there's just no time!Oh, wow, you have a lot of adventures, Mad Dog!There's no time!There's no time, I can't believe you're still alive!Okay, okay, different idea, different idea!
I'm trying to remember the status of our ships.Well, I know that Pike's ship was repaired, but everything else is just completely destroyed still, right?All of our, well, I'm sorry.Yes, everything was completely destroyed.
They'd begun to make repairs, but they had heavily prioritized working on Pike's ship and Rhett's ship, because Khan had almost taken over the work of the Sparrow personally.So my suit is still fragmented wreckage, basically, from the fight.
And we don't have Like this isn't a battle boss right like there's no weaponry on the stardust or is there?I'm the rap city.
Oh, yeah.No.No there are oh, this wouldn't be as yeah, there's some turrets.
Yeah.Yeah, it's like classic Yeah, yeah great Fox Millennium Falcon do I have a station I can get to Yeah I
You think I am a danger?I don't know how to say this.
No, no, no.I don't understand.Is it croissant or croissant?It's croissant. Okay, thank.Also, I don't know how to tell you this.Yes?What?I think you might be the problem.
Of course.I think you've gotten a whole bunch of people killed.Don't feel too bad about it.But, gosh.
LaBouche, I don't have enough emotional bandwidth to deal with you.I really need my wife.I'm really gonna go to my station.And you do you.Maybe you go in the brig.You can snack on the mad dogs.But I'm gonna go to my battle station.
I am putting you in danger.
You go to your battle station.It's back in the dunk tank. I'm just left alone in the hallway.You can hear the sounds of Mad Dog.I'm gonna start to make my way to the hangar.You do so, you make your way to the hangar.
Do you, I guess, how big is this planet?Can I kind of, are we like now totally behind it?And the planet's between us and the space flight?
I would say yes.You have at this point, you've been able to blast around the planet and it's now, Aurora is between you and the prismatic pathway.So almost like Orion's belt kind of format.
Oh, very cool. Uh, once that's the case, I will just basically turn and I'll say, uh, Pike, we're gonna fuckin' jet off here.
We're gonna go as fast as we can.
So, if you get into trouble, we won't be that close.Understood.I promise I'll be alright.Once everything's taken care of here at the pathway, I'll make my way to you.And then we gotta figure out what we're gonna do about this planet.
All right, buddy, thrusters to 100.
Let's do this.And I'll hit a button.Good luck.You'll hear clanking and chugging as the giant ether engines start converting, and the chemical reactions get stronger, and things rattle a little bit.
And the propulsion of the Rhapsody will basically be at full speed, the fastest we can possibly go.
full speed the Rhapsody ignites these engines were to like almost like the the start of an old beat-up car that you know is just gonna come on if you give it enough time and the engines
kick to life in absolute top speed, and you are blasting off away from the pathway, but you do get the sensation that though you've dramatically increased the speed and the output of the ship is as such, you have not actually increased the speed at which you're moving.
You have remained steady.
Scratch that. that they've got some pull on us.I don't know if it's a fucking tractor beam or what, but we can't escape it.
Oh no.Red, it is me.I can feel it.It is like I am attached to that thing.What the fuck are we gonna do about it?Your suit's not fixed yet.If it wants me, I can go. It will stop.No, no, no.We're not going to lose another one.
I can save all of these people.Fuck.
Do I remember how badly it was damaged and how quickly I think that. I might be able to at least patch it together to give him some kind of protection if I can get his Excavator 9000, or whatever we're calling it, up and going.
I think you would know that it was, I mean, everything was really badly wrecked, but they had gotten, they had been able to get most things back to just baseline functional.Not fully completed, but you would think if you wanted to
Hank autopilot Hank pilot run to the hangar bay you might have It might take you Five ten minutes to get it just a little bit closer to where you'd want to Before you do anything fucking stupid just give me a goddamn second
Hank, just turn on cruise control.And I'll hit the set.
And then I'll hit start.And I'll like up them at miles per hour, just a little bit more, as much as I can.Actually, no.Knowing that we have it increased, I'm actually going to drop the thrusters so that we're still going.
But I want to save some of the fuel.
Yeah, absolutely.You do so.And you can see the engine output. was pushing into red level conditions as you were trying to explode out, but it's drawing you back.
And so throttling back on the engines has brought you back into a functionally safe standpoint on the Rhapsody.Hank takes over piloting control, keeps your heading, and flies into space.
I'm gonna rush to my workshop, and hanging on my wall is that kind of canister that has the ether cord that we found on the junk planet, and I'm gonna rip it off the wall.Oh, shit.Better use using it now before we all fucking die.
And I'm gonna carry it under my arm and run down to the hangar, and basically, would you be there?I'm next to the panel to open the door. Okay, so I will meet you there.
All right, just give me 10 minutes.What is your plan?I can stop the deaths now.You need some fucking protection.You can't just go out there.And if I can utilize this, at least it'll give you a little bit of speed and power, all right?
You don't think that I need it?I think- What do you mean I'm fucking needed?I can consume them.You're just gonna fly out into space like you are?Go to the planet. Go to the planet.
I mean, if there's even a fucking, you know, I'm sure what we saw at the raceway was a fraction of what's on the fucking planet.
The stuff these creatures are made of, they make me stronger.Fuck.
Look, take the suit, all right?You might need it.And if you don't, leave it there for all I care. Who gives a fuck if the Grundkorper of the Empire finds that thing?
Ten minutes!Ten minutes. And I'll get to work.
And I'll immediately start doing what I can, and I'll try to very hastily kind of connect his propulsion systems and any kind of energy systems of the suit to the, basically the chess piece Iron Man style, right?
I'm sort of installing this canister into the center of it.But being hasty and knowing that every minute that waits, potentially more people are going to die.
Yep, it's not perfect.Well, we're all an engineering check.Let's see if it is.
Come on.Oh, it's gonna be perfect Yeah, I twist this twist yes, this is very important and there and while you're doing it I'm gonna one more twist
Pike!What is it, Khan?I don't know what your crew is doing, but it looks like the planet's moving away from the raceway.
The plan was to try to use them as a diversion, but they seem to be stuck or getting pulled back into the planet.There's a real chance I'm going to have to go after them, Khan.
That's strange.There must be something going on.I've moved into its low orbit to get a sense of the surface. Looks like almost has like black anthills these things are oozing out of.
I could shoot into them, but they seem to reform.Don't get too close.We don't know what's going on on the surface.If they get pulled in, we might have to land.I don't need you getting stuck there too.
We got to stop this thing, Pike.We don't know what it's going to do.It's not stopping on its own.
Alright, let me see if I can get a hold of Rhett, and I'll get back to you.Hang tight.Don't crash.Rhett!Rhett, come in.What's the update?You said you were stalled.I'm working, but...
LaBouche wants to handle this.What do you mean he wants to handle it?I'm not going to try to talk sense into him.I'm fucking giving up on that.
But I think it's drawn to him, and he thinks so too.Don't tell me he's going down to the surface.I don't know what he's going to do, but he's going to try to fucking absorb them.
Damn it! As I'm tinkering, I will, all of a sudden, something will click.And oh, if I attach this tube to this, and I can change the lubricant just a little bit, and I have a flash of genius.
As a reaction, I can add five to an ability check or a saving throw.What?I've been waiting for that.OK.And so I, my total is, 36.No, 37.For the natural 20.I roll the natural 20 plus, yeah, 37.This is rare air, everybody.
In 10 minutes, you have crafted perfection.
You start to route this core into the center of this suit, and then there's a moment Not that coupling, but here, if I route it this way, it changes the orientation of the flow and the cooling can maximize energy output.
And as you insert it, you know intrinsically that this is perfect work.And your intention to power this suit is absolutely gonna fucking do it.
All right, we'll boost this as good as it's gonna get.It's only been five minutes!It's done!Go, go, go!
And I will jump from my suit into the larger suit.
Essentially, my goo will fill the veins of this thing.What would normally be the... Oh, what's the word for... What?Hydraulics?
It's goo-draulics as I feel the hands and I'm able to move the arms.How does the new energy source feel?It's in your chest.It's in my chest?
It's not your chest, but it's in the chest of this giant suit.
um and i mean i think i leave it up to you when you juice into it and your form becomes and enters the hydraulics of the same becomes the movement uh you're empowered by the ichor but you feel this pulsing ether core
perfectly crafted with maximum output, all of the dangerous, unstable energy perfectly encapsulated by Rhett and connected to give you a feeling the likes of which you've never experienced before.
It's like the moment where normal All Might engages his form and you just fucking, you've never felt so powerful.You have all of the energy of all of the ages coursing within you.
You have created a masterwork.Can you get a little double D for me?
The hangar bay door.Close enough.
I hit a big button and the hangar door will open up and I'll take a step back.You're clear for takeoff.
Thank you. I don't see you again.I'll see you again.I'm going to a planet made of food.
And I will jump in one motion and fly out into space, endeavoring to reach the planet's surface, targeting it.
As this happens, Rhett, I don't know what you did to it as you go, general's gathered in the masses.
I also installed a stereo.
Two extra minutes once I finished Every time you get into a car in fortnight, this is the first button you turn the radio I LaBouche, roll an athletics saving throw.I'm going to use my big dice because I'm in my big suit.
Roll a strength or dexterity saving throw.I'm sorry.Saving throw, you say?Yep.But that's not what I want.Strength or dexterity?
Strength or dexterity saving throw.I'm going to go with a 21.
Pretty good. 21. Pike, what are they doing?It looks like they've just dropped a bomb towards the planet's surface.
I don't know how else to say this, Khan, but one of ours is going to the surface.They're sending one man down.Well, sort of.One jelly person.
You've made some weird friends. LaBouche, you start rocketing towards the planet's surface.You can feel, you feel completely free now.Like you're moving exactly where you're intended to be.
Your arms by your side, you fire out like a bullet as the planet is drawing you in or you are drawing it.At this point, it is hard to tell who is going to who.I let it, and I feel like maybe I have hope in my heart.
which is a remarkable feeling in this state. You start to ignite almost in flame as you break through the atmosphere of this planet.The ether engine core whirring, crackling, steaming to life as it makes your suit impenetrable.
As you're crashing towards the planet's surface head first, you're able to flip legs down and as you land, oh shit,
It would be like a, it would be.Oh yeah.
It would be like a cloud of white.
You get that far away shot from the lake where you can see the little plume on the surface.You land on the ground, and exactly that.You create a crater that sends spidering cracks throughout the ice in a hundred yard radius destroyed the circle.
You can see it on the planet's surface from the cockpit of the Rhapsody.A massive crater as you've landed onto the ground.And you take 15 points of damage.Very good.
It's not too bad.Oh, that's good.
I'm going to look around and see if I can find more of these black ichor creatures.I am encased in my suit, so as I do, I want to remove my suit's gloves to give myself essentially two hands to be able to absorb more of these.
Basically, two mouths that I can grab them with and hopefully start pulling them in to see if I have the same ability to consume these creatures that I did when I was first covered with the ichor. Roll an investigation check.
Would you see that like a high proportion of your body is now just in those two hands?So like really big hands.
Yeah, I would absolutely say that's the case.But if I am going to get bigger from consuming, then I can slowly fill up the food.Investigation, you say?This is going to be very high.Give me a five.
This is very narratively relevant.Give me a 14.With a 14, you move easily.You don't climb as much as you put one thundering footstep in front of the other as you ascend out of this crater you have made within the ice.
As you move out, you notice a couple things around you. This is truly Aurora.Around you, a sheet of ice, white snow.There's no wind today.
And you see simply what looks like one pulsating, dark, large anthill, like a fissure in the ground, a planet wound. directly ahead of you.
But you would expect almost from the volume that this planet was putting out, you would expect this place to be covered in something like that.But it doesn't seem to be.You find just one ahead of you.
I immediately targeting it I will look for for the others and be like I Think your friends will come you will have to be the appetizer And I will attempt to grab it and and swallow it with my hand if I can reach it You move out
boom, boom, as you take these lumbering footsteps as you approach.And I will go into a rage.As, on your final approach, it plumes and puckers
as it spits out a black orb that it sends, and looks like it loops around, almost like it's gonna head towards the raceway, but on your approach, you fire out a hand and catch it in air, and instantly, it is absorbed within your form.
I'm Michael Jordan pose as I grab the.
You reach out towards this planet wound, and as your hand hovers about it, it trembles and oozes and moves and shakes as tendrils of liquid are magnetized towards you as you start to wrestle with it, and I need you to make an athletics check, an athletics contest.
advantage, because you're raging.
That's exactly right.Let me just get over to, you say athletics or acrobatics?Athletics.Let's go with a 27.There's this pull as you reach out, and it tries to move back from you.
Desperately, desperately, but effortlessly, you don't let it, and your hand moves out, and as it mingles with it, it starts to pull this opening in the ground, this black ichor up out of it, and you absorb it, and you feel energized.
This is better than the waffles!
And you gain one strength. Whoa.
This might get out of hand very quickly.
I do not envy the Lucius.I somehow managed to make myself roll.I didn't know that was enabled on this.I'm going to have to figure out how to do that.But yeah, I have 21.That's cool.And I will start to look around.
Does it feel like I depleted this anthill?It is.So once you've absorbed it, it is now gone from the planet's surface.And in, you just see a crack in the ice.
Rhett, I think it worked.I can feed on this planet.Alright, how do you feel?Have you already consumed something?Yes, I consumed one little guy.And you're still yourself?I feel powerful.I feel good! All right.
Just the second you start feeling off, all right, you need to fucking stop.I'm going to go see if I can find more.Hopefully they are leaving the raceway planet and making their way here.
I'm storming off, and I'm going to continue to see if I can find anthills as quickly as possible and find these fissures, just hoping that I can play whack-a-mole with anything that I can find.
It's like an all-you-can-eat buffet, I presume.I'm at my battle station, which is a very large TV and an N64 controller.
Oh, it's just like Suncat 64.
and it's just like a super N64 style, 64-bit graphics as I'm attempting to use turrets.
If there's any goo creatures falling, are they goo creatures?Are they flesh and blood?Are they?It's hard to tell actually.
They fluctuate between these unsettlingly amorphous black shapes, and in moments, especially after you'd have seen on the planet, after consuming, after killing onlookers, they almost for a moment seem to take actual form.
And you see, you would remember seeing at the time what looks like terribly sharp teeth, tendrils, and the most unsettling color of eyes.
Oh, there's a lot of them.
Are they attacking?Roll an attack roll.Oh, gosh.So they're also in space.They're also in space.
Is it like a spell attack roll?Right.It's like pluming out.Oh, I'm sorry?I'm going to use a twist.You can use a spell attack roll.The church would be powered by whatever you do.
I'm going to cash in my Twist Fate to reroll this one.Oh, it's 16.I also got a roll on my Wild Magic Surge, too.Oh, thank goodness.Thank goodness.Oh, why am I pulling?Oh, 16.It's like a 24.
24, yes, with a 24, you're at your gun turret and you lock into it.You're sitting, you have your N64 controller in front of your Rathoid K tube. Cathode-ray tube, that's what it is.
Cathode-ray tube TV, as you're firing out, and instead of the classic laser guns that the Rhapsody shoots out, you're shooting out like twin water blasts out into the air of Seltzer.As these creatures are flying all around the ship,
Hank still piloting as best they can to avoid any collisions, but there are figures hitting the hull, but you're blasting out Just shattering these goo creatures all around you as best you can.
But as you destroy them, you'll notice that as you destroy them for a moment, as they get disintegrated and blast apart, as you attack them, it looks almost like they won't reform.They take much longer. But eventually, they do still reform.
Oh, they keep coming.Oh, gosh darn it.I said I liked crab rangoon and goth chicks, not crab rangoon and shoggoth chicks.
Oh, oh, hold on a second.I open up the space ribs.I grab a bag of frozen lasagna pizza.
I run to the break.Here you go, Mad Dog.
TALIESIN and TRAVIS laugh.
SAM and TALIESIN laugh.MATT Roll a perception check as you gun towards the planet.TRAVIS and TALIESIN laugh.
TRAVIS and TALIESIN laugh.
Perception.Oh, God.We need to jettison his ass out into the vacuum of space.
I got a six.A six?With a six.As you're gunning through these creatures, you're now the planet.You can tell the planet is getting closer and closer to you.It's drawing you in in a gravitational pull.You catch
The oddest glinting from the planet's surface.Not like reflected light, but kind of like a weird... colorful light.
Guys, have you seen this weird colorful light on the planet?I thought this was all just black and white because of ice and ooze. I would be, I would still basically be, I would be back in the cockpit and I would be taking the ship away.
Now that Laboos is on the planet, is there any change in like, has the planet stopped moving?Is it like, are we now making distance away?
Good question.Yes.So you would see on the sensors, absolutely.The planet has now stopped moving. that LaBouche has reached its surface.
It no longer is moving away from the raceway, but it is still drawing you in through its gravitational pull, though it doesn't seem to be following you anymore, just an aspect of space.
All right, LaBouche, you being down there, the planet stopped moving.Any other signs of danger?
When I hear strange light, I'm looking at all the horizons around me.Do I see any colorful light in my general vicinity, or am I gonna have to circumnavigate this globe?Roll an investigation check.I would be happy to.Four.No.You do not.
It's like a rainbow in the dark! Can you give me some orientation?Oh, it's to your... Hold on.
Rhett, Rhett, can you give me some orientation?I can't see the planet.
Hold on, I'll adjust my rear view here.
To your left as you adjust your rearview mirror You say objects in mirror may be closer than they appear and the planet is taking up the entire mirror I don't think I would be looking at like like it's cuz I would have a perspective and I roll the six Do I get like any orientation?
No, yeah, not necessarily Turn left
I immediately start stomping left, and along the way, if I'm hitting any anthills, we're calling them, or fissures, or if I'm seeing any more of these creatures, I'm making noise.I'm shouting.I am stomping.I'm trying to crack the ice.
I'm doing everything that I can to try to attract these creatures that I think, for whatever reason, benefit me, and I can neutralize and hopefully save lives. And you're finding them.As you move around, you find smaller visher after smaller visher.
Not that they're getting smaller, just like they're small-ish ones, you get the sense.You're finding them, and as you do that same tug of war, but you're capable of consuming them, and it feels amazing as you draw them out of the planet.
And you get the sense that around this area, you are healing.You are expunging whatever taint has afflicted this world.But you also are getting the sense that this is just the tip of the iceberg.You have to find the source.
And you start to, after moving around, you start to recognize the area just a little bit as the same area you touched down before when you made your way to the Saurian Temple.
With that relative idea of landscape, do I have a general sense of where the temple was? You have a general, I would go this way, kind of sense.
And I start to turn, and I start to make my way, cracking through the ice.And as I come across Smallfisher, Smallfisher, I will heal the wounds.
But I'm starting to look for either colorful light or for the temple, using my memory and recollection to the best of my ability.OK. You head down a familiar path, and you make your way there.
We'll say at this point, the gravitational pulls become so strong that the Rhapsody has entered low orbit, and you are moving towards landfall.
Pike, we're not escaping this.How are things at the raceway?
How are things at the raceway?Things at the raceway.So actually, once LaBouche touched down on the planet, you would have noticed a distinct and dramatic lessening of the pluming of these dark figures.
So you're still flying through air, peppering them, destroying them, keeping them away from the raceway.But at this point, much of the amassed gathering of the crowd has been able to scutter away and make it to safety or is killed in the stands.
But they're either safe or had fallen in the first moments.
It looks like we're gaining ground.I think things are gonna be okay here.You said you're not able to escape.Shoot me your coordinates, I'll be right there.
All right, here we are.Hank's in a mover.
Do I recognize that we're on a similar side of the planet in the same way that sort of LaBouche does, but from this vantage point?
You so the snow storms aren't happening that they were when you first fell so when you first fell It was very hard to scan the surface of the planet and understand where you were what you were looking for This is not the situation you find yourself in now the planet
You can understand the surface to a certain degree.You're getting pulled down not too far away from where you left, where LaBouche had made landfall.And you also have a degree to kind of pilot down in and land where you'd like.
But you would be able to tell, you see a similar, like, cut out in the ice that leads towards a ravine that leads towards what you believe to be the temple, and you understand you're approaching rapidly a very familiar place.
So knowing that we're being pulled, right, and that I'm just going to try to use the thrusters, sort of have like a controlled crash almost, and try to make it as least damaging as possible, and guide us to a place close to La Bouche, but where we're not going to get like crashed and stuck if we fix the problem and then are able to take off.
Yep, absolutely.We'll just keep your 20 freaking six.As you are making landfall, you are hitting this rapid approach, but you know the instant you can engage the reverse thrusters.
And instead of attempting to slow and burning out your propulsion as you get closer, you save for the perfect moment.You kick in the repulsor burners as you come towards the planet's surface.
vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv Be safe out there.
I'm still in low orbit.I'll track anything that looks like it's taking off the planet.Destroy it.And if you need covering fire, I'll provide it.
I don't know what I'm going to find when I touch down, but if we can deal with this thing, get as far away as you can.Be safe, Pike.You too, Khan. I follow the coordinates to find the Rhapsody.
And you do so.You fly in a lower trajectory over the planet's surface.You make a perception check.
Perception, you said?Perception.
Dirty 20.With a dirty 20, you are blasting over these icy hills.You see, actually, the ruins of the temple.And as you fly over it, you see what looks like almost... a river running out of its mouth of black liquid.
And this is the temple that we originally had been in.This is the temple that you'd originally been in.And as you fly over and you make your way, you're going almost the reverse, the path that you took here the first time.
As you fly over, you see a similar glinting light on a horizon, and it is oddly, As Chuckles described, almost like a rainbow light.That disappears, flashes for a briefest moment and disappears in an instant.
Hey guys, can you hear me? Yeah, we can hear you loud and clear.
Yeah, Pike, I've got you.
We've got a serious problem.I just passed overhead of the temple that we left before.The ruins, it's a nightmare.There seems to be a black river flowing from the ruins of the temple.A river, you say?
Yeah, and beyond that, I saw some weird flash of vibrant multicolored light on the horizon, just for a moment.I should be getting to the Rhapsody any minute.
All right, we've made touchdown.It ain't going anywhere, so we're gonna make the rest of the way on foot.All right, sit tight, I'll catch up.Chuckles, get off the goddamn game, let's go.
No, I'm shooting, oh, it was all in my, it was all fun cat, I was playing fun cat.
Battle station is just so he can have fun during I know we didn't have fun the really cool giant red ball Okay
I'll join the rest of the crew.
So we're leaving the Rhapsody, and probably as Pike maybe gets to where we are.
You see a sparrow come screaming around as you get the hangar for you so that you can dock it.You are getting your ice gear on in the hangar bay as you send the command to drop the hangar door.
as it opens, and Pike expertly lines up, flies in, spins it, and parks it right in the spot.
And then once I come running out of the Sparrow, out of the hangar to where you guys are on the bridge, I'm just wearing what I normally wear, except it's a giant puffy magenta jacket with a blue scarf.It's just what Pike wears all the time.Yeah.
Hell, yeah.Hell, yeah.You have that.That's fine.
I'm going to go grab my popo outfit as well.And I'll look and I'll see the pink one hanging next to the blue one.
All right, as soon as I get to you guys, I'll skid to a stop and be like, all right, any update on LaBouche? Do we see him actually?
How far would he be from here?
Not much further ahead.He, a superhero, Marvel superhero crash landed into the planet, but you were able to kind of like fly down and you made more of a like diagonal trajectory as you approached.
And you would have known to kind of like be on his tail.You would probably be, he would definitely be within your vision range.But ahead of you, but you'd see him. All right, it looks like he's just ahead.
We're gonna catch up, LaBouche.Keep doing your thing, but don't get too far.
I'm moving at dash speed, right?I'm moving 100 feet, 100 feet, 100 feet, 100 feet.I'm like the Hulk as he smashes through with the forest.
a Marvel film and just jumping and then reaching the next thing, stopping to briefly pull out one of these weird gooey boys and then just crushing it and continuing on my way.It sounds like we'll be there around the same time.
So I will, I guess, I will, I'll bring Hank with me.And I think we would just start hustling towards the temple.Yeah.
As you step out of the Rhapsody, you're immediately hit with a familiar chill as the air takes hold.But it's not the cold that sends the shiver up your spine.
The feeling an animal gets when it's being hunted slowly creeps from the bottom of your spine to the base of your neck.Something knows you're here, and you get the sense that it's watching you.
You know, if you're gonna go anywhere, you'll have to make it back to the Saurian Temple, and you all head out.Uh, Laboosh, you were bounding ahead.
You know, obviously, you would have seen or felt or maybe you're so laser-focused locked in, but you would know that the Rhapsody had landed behind you and your party is making their way to you, but you have this sense of purpose.
You are energized by what you're doing.You are the hero of this story and you are the janitor.You can clean this place up.
And I think I would be, not beelining necessarily, recognizing that my friends are just behind me, I might go a little bit wider to find additional fishers to absolutely guarantee that they won't run into any of the same... Like a snake.
Like a sneaky snake, yes. You're slithering along the ice back and forth.You find pockets here and there of these visures in the ice and you consume.You're feeling good as you bound forward when the crew catches up.
As I turn, I'm in this massive worker drone neck suit thing that we haven't named, and one of my hands is absolutely huge at this point.The other hand is there to make sure that I can scrape along the ice.
I'm sure I'm covered almost in frosty residue and such.Do I look...
even bigger, does my hand look different, or am I just straight absorbing this stuff and remaining in control?When you are absorbing this stuff and remaining in control, you feel almost In an interesting sense that you aren't hungry.
That kind of like uncontrollable primal hunger that's come over you and you've grappled with this power before is absent.You are just emboldened.You're just empowered. You do, however, you are noticeably bigger than before.
Not like comically huge, but it's now not just like a fraction of a size increase that you'd have to really be paying attention to.You would look bigger, and it's not just the suit.It's noticeable.
Literally looming over the three of you, you can hear over the loudspeakers on my suit.
Hey, you guys!Baboosh!You been working out?
Sick game.Working out this problem.How are you?
Yeah, I'm okay.I'm better.I played some Suncat 54.
Oh my gosh!We're on a hill, baby! Oh gosh, these are mountains of madness, truly!Oh, we're at the mountains of madness!Oh!
It's gonna be all right, I will protect you!
How are the modifications, how are they working out?It is a masterwork, I have never felt stronger!And it's not just because of the Echo.All right, well, why don't you go first, we'll be right behind you.
Yeah, I'll just walk casually because I'm at this point like me just having like a casual stroll You guys have to actually probably have a light jog in order to keep up And I will turn presuming that I at this point must be in view of this Temple and start to beeline and if we happen to come across any fissures before my friends arrive I will reach down inside and I
Crack it like a glow stick and pop it back.You're not inside of the temple just yet.It is over a couple more ridges before you can get there.
You have a general sense of just about how far it was, because you've flown over it and made the trip extremely recently.And you make your way along through a very familiar pathway.
And as you approach where you had once ridden the cart before, as you evaded charging wolves and giant land sharks, you see what looks like almost a snow-covered giant mound and a red pool in the snow ahead of you.In my...
minutes on the surface of this planet, perhaps longer.I've been going from fissure to fissure.Have I come across any creatures or seen anything like wolves or anything like that at all?Not yet.I'll stop in my tracks when I see this mound.
Guys, the creatures on this planet, they may not have survived. Oh, the little penguins that Kavir loved riding so much and wasn't afraid of at all.
Yeah.So whatever we did here, we destroyed all of the ecosystem too?
I don't know if it was- Yeah.For those things, but whatever we let out, Maybe there was room for nothing else.
Oh gosh, all those Ithwolves.Well, there's a lot of it too.I mean, it is pouring out from the core of this planet.
Can none of you check out that mound?
I'm afraid I might hurt anything delicate.
All right, give me a second. And I'll go to where he pointed and very quickly and quietly, I'll try to very deftly move up to it and see if I can get within range of what he's talking about to get a closer look.
That's where I'mma bite you.
19.19.19.You creep forward, and you move, arm at the ready, combat stance, as you move swiftly, but deftly, almost as if the footing under you never leaves the ground, but you cascade across it towards this...
this creature, and the smell hits you first.The smell of death, the smell of decay, the smell of rotting.And as you get closer, you realize that the snow has been stained by blood.
And if you continue forward and you start to move around it to see what this is, a huge, like iced land shark is covered in snow on the top and has a massive gaping wound on its side and lies dead on the ground.
Oh shit.I get as close as I can, do my best to ignore the smell to see if the wound has any of this black residue that we've been seeing like mixed in it.
Damn it, that's not the one.Come on. Hey!Come on! Natural 20!I felt it happen.For a total of 21 investigation.
For a total of 21 investigation.
So I squat, like, on my heel.I slop squat, like, right next to it.
You, as you walk around this thing, you now realize that stealth is not as much a priority.You put your hand out on the side of this beast, and you know immediately that it has been long dead.
As you move to the gaping wound, and you look at it, and you squat down, and it almost envelops you as you're in it.It is a giant, tearing hole.You notice something interesting.It looks like a bite mark.
but not bite marks, it looks like a single bite mark has been taken out of the side of this creature.
And you do notice where almost it's been burned in as places where the skin, the flesh, the muscle was severed away, you do find hints of the black ichor.
While I'm looking at it, I reach into my puffy overcoat and I pull out a cigarette and I light it.And then I quickly, you know, not run, but I move quickly back to the rest of the group to where I found it.Bad news.
Some sort, one of those ice sharks, it's been dead for a while, but it looked like it had one giant bite taken out of it.Whatever ate it left behind a lot of that black residue. Like one giant fucking bite.Yeah.Is it okay?
No, it's been dead for days, weeks.
Oh.It's always the bigger fish or land shark or laboosh.
So I've got this feeling like there's something lurking, watching us.
I think we have to go to the fourth.You think it's whatever the fuck did that?
Well, whatever did, what worries me is this stuff might be coalescing and maybe it's taking some horrific form.
My plan is to explore as much of the planet as possible and consume.Perhaps I can go less faster.
Are you sure that's a good idea, LaBouche?It is.
Not nourishing me, but it makes me stronger.
More important, I neutralize the creatures, the Icar.What happens when you become more of that stuff than you are of your stuff?Here's the thing.
Hank hit dozens of them with lasers and They don't fucking die.They explode and they come right back together.It seems like whatever he's doing is the only way that actually fucking stops him.
Maybe this is whatever the Weaver did to you.Maybe he gave you some kind of power, like this is your fucking purpose.Maybe, or perhaps, anyone of my type might have the same reaction.
Well, I'm with you, Rhett.If the second something starts feeling off, you tell us.
As soon as I lose control, I will let you know.Right now, I feel like LaBouche.Oh, should we go get Mad Dog in case he needs a snack that isn't one of the ooze guys?So he doesn't eat us?I'm not hungry.Now you aren't? What if I crave humanoid flesh?
I must have a mortal.I've never craved human flesh.
And if we get off this fucking planet, we're gonna need credits to survive, and Mad Doc's still got a bounty on his head.
Oh, you're right.With dead or alive, right?
Yep.Let me check.So... Yep.
I don't know if he ate the pizza, but... I'm glad it was either or.
Open the pizza drawer or the arsenic drawer I
I don't know why we picked up those beets and slice-shaped wedges of arsenic.
I can't remember why we got those.I think we were trying to hunt space rat.Anyway, I think I picked the right one.We leave.We leave shuffles.We continue on to watch the ruins of the temple.
You carry on a familiar path.
rising up against you as you walk an icy pathway that declines downwards.Rising up is that same ice cliff that hugged your left as you raced away from creatures charging at you.
You can see, embedded into the wall, blaster burns, almost magenta heat flares, scratches in the ground where LaBouche was firing punches out at the onslaught of charging nature that was chasing you last time.
You see your signature, the signature of the Rhapsody.Damage and destruction everywhere you go.And you come to the end of this pathway.And once again, off in the distance, not too far, just a bit ahead of you, you see a huddled mass of dark figures.
Each one looks to be about six and a half, seven feet tall.There are about 10 of them huddled up around each other.They seem still.They seem still.
Should I go and?Go smash them and eat them. I think so, yeah.Hold on, hold on.Is that what you've been eating down here?I've been pulling the liquid free from fissures in the ice.All right, well do your thing.Just smash into them.
I use my turbo charge.Wait, you said there's 10 of them, right?There's 10 of them.Perfect.
Specifically, see, turbo charge kills 10 Ichor right here.Roll an attack roll.I will run up and I will, oh, this is not my, it didn't land on, okay.Man, okay, that was weird.Oh, thank God.Attack roll, you say?Good grief.
I'm going to enjoy a 17 to hit. With a 17, you run up, bounding.The rest of you can feel the ground quaking beneath each one of his steps as he charges forward.You take bigger and bigger strides as you start to gain air.Eventually, you just leap.
into the air and you form into the, you just get two giant mallet arms as you crash down onto the ground and you obliterate four of these objects.
As you stand up, proud of your accomplished work, you look around and you see the forms of your penguin friends as you have decimated four of them. covered in blood be covered in blood beak viscera ice and death it rubs out in all directions
I got this.Don't come nearer.All right, all right.
Lil' J back here.Lil' J back.
How's it going?You've got this, LaBouche.Take him out and finish the six left.These ones seem okay. Hold on, let me play some pump-up music for you, that new stereo system.
When there's space lightning, you know it always brings me to tears.
When there's space lightning, there's space rainbow in the dark.
I quit.I don't know what to do.Wow.That was incredible.If they start running away, I just let them run away.They don't start running away.
Come on, you guys, go!Go!Please, go!They are going to order me to kill you!I can't yell at the others, no, please, go!Laboosh, you're doing great, six left!Six to go, you just gotta smash these presents forth so easily!
Not only do they not run away, in fact, they don't respond to your presents at all. Guys.
Please, go!Please!I'm warmin' up the ether, Kaden!You better let me know, LaBouche!I'm gonna, like, scoot one with the back of my hand.I'm gonna try scootin' one.
Come on! You reach out.Oh, fuck.You reach out and you touch the form of this penguin and you feel ice cold.Roll an investigation check.
Oh, maybe they'll already be dead.Thank God.
Please let them already be dead.Four. With a four.It's hard to tell.You move around to the front of this penguin, and looking directly into its eyes, you know that it is long dead.Damn.And there doesn't seem to be any life, any movement inside.
Thank God.They stand collected in this strange circle, And the only odd thing is they're almost posed.Like they're paused in time.That's a nightmare.One looks like it was in the middle of throwing a snowball to the other.
One has a playful look on its face, having just been struck.The others look like they may have been in the middle of building a snowman, but no such structure remains.Like Pompeii style.
Yeah!Have you seen the same thing?Great pull. Guys, it's not the echo.It's... What was it?We've run out.Yeah, yeah.Oh, it's safe.Okay.
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.Oh, oh, oh, oh.Oh, oh, oh, oh.Oh, oh, oh, oh.Oh, oh, oh, oh.Oh, oh, oh, oh.Oh, oh, oh, oh.Oh, oh, oh, oh.Oh, oh, oh, oh.Oh, oh, oh, oh.Oh, oh, oh, oh.Oh, oh, oh, oh.Oh, oh, oh, oh.Oh, oh, oh, oh.Oh, oh, oh, oh.Oh, oh, oh, oh.
Oh, oh, oh, oh.Oh, oh, oh, oh.
Oh, oh, oh, oh.Oh, oh, oh, oh.Oh, oh, oh, oh.Oh, oh, oh, oh.Oh, oh, oh, oh.Oh, oh, oh, oh.Oh, oh, oh, oh.Oh, oh, oh, oh.Oh, oh, oh, oh.Oh, oh, oh,
Give him a quick once over before we leave.Check for any of that stuff.We can't stay here long.Just quick.Real quick, all right, fine.I'll keep a lookout, don't worry.
I'll approach and my eye will start to glow and sort of scan them up and down and see if I can get any sense maybe how they died or if there's any kind of signature of the ooze or the goo or anything else on them.
Roll an investigation check.
Do I have some kind of advantage thing?I think I just have a skill.
I think I made myself a... Investigator.Don't you have eyes of minutes seeing? I love the eyes of Moosey.
That's one of the oldest jokes in Avantris.
Yeah, it is.No, that's just gonna be a investigation.
That's gonna be a 17.That's plenty.
With a 17, you take one step back and your eye flicks to different scanning modes.You flick thermal, nothing.You flick frequency, nothing.You flick x-ray,
and you see that each and every one of them is impaled by a giant black spear that pierces from the base of the ground up through their skull.And as you look down, you can see it penetrating from the ground, and it runs directly up them.
Almost, almost, when you do that to an animal,
It's almost like a taxidermied penguins set on black spears.What in the hell?
LaBouche, lift one of those penguins straight up.
I'll just lean down where I'm standing and grab the nearest one and sort of... Role in Athletics Contest. I will spike a 25.
It's been more than a minute.
You're in a suit, so maybe.You got the perfect ether engine charge.
Maybe it's like a perma rage, yeah.
If you want to give me perma rage, I'll roll again to fish for a 20.You can have perma rage right now.
Are you kidding me?26 actually.
With a 26, you put your hands around the sides of this penguin.It's arms up, almost like it was giving a little dancey wave, and you go to move it up.There's resistance for a moment. Rhett, you see it just a little too late.
With an athletics handling check of 26, you are so strong that it can't stop you.But as you go to lift it off the spear, the spear doesn't want that.It moves.The tip of it extends out and down, almost like a grappling hook.And as you move it off,
you scuttle the inside of it.As you rip almost the skin of this penguin clean off the spear, and its innards fall to the ground.As soon as I realize that I'm wrestling with this...
eek or spike, I will toss that away, try to push that out of my mind at the same time, and immediately try to wrestle to get to it so that if I can connect with it, I might be able to suck it up the way I have been with the other smaller fishers.
Roll one more Athletics contest.
Nice.Oh man, 26 again.Fucking go. With a 26, you find this spear, you grab it, and you forcibly go to absorb it like you have so many other times to this point.But this belongs to another.You don't absorb it.It stands firm, jutting out of the ice.
And as much as your body wants to intake it, wants to bring it in, something pulls back.
What is that thing?It's in all of them.
What do you mean it's in all of them?
It fucking killed them somehow.Like it erupted from the fucking ice.I look down.Killed them and froze them in place.Are we standing on it?
Now.LaBouche, can you come with us?Can you let go of that thing?LaBouche!Shoot it!
We just lay into it.I'm gonna try to get my hand out of the way fast enough while it's still exposed.I'm assuming it might like slurp or attack.
I just wanted to endeavor to destroy it, see if I can actually get some other things to like blow it apart if I can.
Or if it just stays there, right?Right, it could just.I said mind acid.So I'm using acid spray, splash, acid splash, one of the cantrip pills.
Roll attack rolls at advantage.Poison spray and acid splash.
I'll make two attacks.I can just find it actually on my list.
Oh no.Wait.Why are you looking at me like that, Mace? It's a dexterity saving throw.Does it automatically fail?It'll automatically fail.That's a good sign, maybe.Seven points of acid damage for me.Yeah, 23 to hit for both shots.
LaBouche, as you let go, all of you lay into it with a cascade of explosive power, once again demonstrating just how formidable a force you are.This kicks up an unbelievably cold plume of ice and dust and smoke for a minute.
as you almost disintegrate this land in front of you, and you blow an aspect of the ground clean away.And you create, once again, like a little, like a cupping in the ground.As the ice clears, you may all roll damage.Okay.
Woo-hoo!Seven for me.17 over two attacks.
Uh... 12 plus 14 is what?26.Plus 20 is... Get the fuck out of here.That's 46.
Yeah.Oh gosh, I didn't know you were ever doing this.I mean, I made him sharpshooter attack.Seven is pretty... I mean, seven's pretty good. Yeah, like I'll set it to like acid.
I have a big thing and then a flower will kind of go around the nozzle of my gun and it'll spray acid.
I thought you guys were going alone.
As you just level the ground in front of you, the smoke and ice, the shattering clears, and disintegrated is the Black Spear.Nowhere to be seen.
It's gotten the other penguins again.Is it gone? I don't know, but we shouldn't be standing here.We don't want the same thing to happen to us.And it could come up from the ground at any minute.
You are in danger.This is different somehow.I'll give it one more scan, but let's start fucking moving.
And I'll do a scan again to see if the spikes are still in the other penguins.
You do the same. You do the same flipping, just out of habit, almost.You know that the other frames won't see anything.
You turn to leave, and as you flip through, you don't see the sixth, but you see the five other black spears still embedded in the penguins.And X-ray. frequency and thermal as you turn.
And just as you're turning to move away, as you look out, the thermal scans the ridge line and you see one heat signature at the top of the ridge.And as your eye flips back off thermal, you see a black silhouette standing atop the ridge line.
Look up there. You see that too?What is going on here?
You think it's her?No.You think?I mean, you heard what she said about this place and how it made her feel.Is it in the direction that we need to go?
It is very close to the direction you need to go and you see one other thing in the black silhouette sitting atop the head looks like the shape of a crown.
We gotta go, now.Come on!Let's go.And I just start sprinting.
It's gonna be our chance, let's go!Oh, I start sprinting.Now!If it's her, I didn't bring my pink parka!I didn't go back and get it, I didn't go back and get it!
And as you start running towards this silhouette, it moves towards you, but it doesn't run.It does a slight little hop, and then it looks like it rides its belly down the mountainside.
It's not long before it comes into view and you see the one thing you didn't see at this gathering of penguins the one with the crown and as it pulls up and It stops and it moves standing in front of you with almost like pulsing veins of black energy
Deep-set black eyes.Oh no with no pupils It's beak you see The penguin that helped you most prominently the last time you were here fully corrupted by the black ichor I Need everyone to roll for initiative
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I need everyone's initiatives, and the map you'll see when the creature spawns will be the furthest point away from me.That little curved inlet is the slide that it comes down.Are we using me, or should we create a
Here, where did the cardboard token go?There's this one.There's this one.
He's huge, right?He would definitely be huge.I don't know.Huge is pretty.It's the size of a giant.
Hold on.We're going to show off my little raven.That one's blank.That one's blank.The size of a horse is large. Wouldn't LaBouche be huge?
But this is large.No, these are large.What is this, then?Or horses.I guess horses are pretty large.That's too much.So Derek probably just had that.Thank you, you, nuclear blue, 10 gifted subs.Thank you.Wow.Amazing, nuclear blue.Unreal.Thank you.
I don't know, but how big's huge?Huge is like.Well, no, but if an ogre is large, right?An ogre is what, nine feet?Yeah.How tall is this guy?How tall is this suit?
This will be ridiculous if it's huge oh, they're all sizes depending on it's a so where are we compared to where the slide ends?
You would have been walking up this side So what you have here, and this is probably a little bit too big of a space, but all the well On the right side is that cliff that falls off into the ravine where you jettison the wall?
I want to show people at home the left side so like so there's a line here.This is the cliff yep, and Okay, and then this side is like something.
That's the ice wall that you've been walking along that raises up into your left, and that's where like your blaster burns, all the remnants of your previous journey are etched in that wall, and you're walking that direction.
And the penguin monster has slid down the map at that ramp on the other side.Right here.So he is?
No, right there.Oh, here.
Release on all guys.Whoa.You know, you know, miss.He doesn't look like this.Hold on.No, no, no.
He has a dart in his eyeballs.
Angry eyebrows.Yeah.And put a couple of, like, black veins on him.
He looks like he looks like feathers McGraw
feathers McGraw.And he is kind of cute.I need everyone's initiatives.25.Fuck you guys.
25.Or you, Laboosh, 22.Yep.
How far away from him do you want us?
He would have been coming down kind of to meet you, so you don't have to be super far away unless you think you would have been.Pike and Rhett, where were you guys?You were 13, Rhett?I'm dead last.I got a 17.So I might as well be dead last.
I think Feathers McGraw taught me like the true meaning of evil.What the hell?He was so sinister.Really?And such an evil character that like as a kid, it kind of fucked me up.It was like, he was so dark.
Like I got kind of scared watching that movie. What's feathers McGraw from he's the so there's a Wallace and Gromit movie called Wallace and Gromit and the mechanical trousers or something There's a villain.
That's a penguin pretending to be a chicken and he has like a red rubber glove on his head Oh my god, and he's like he's like a mastermind like criminal Villain, it's it's insane.It's insane does Does the helmet... Wrong trousers, thank you.
Does the crown look like it's kind of like grafted into its skin at all?
Yes.Oh wow.It does.Okay. battle this, too.Does that still work?Almost like now what was before it looked like something it had found on the ice, placed atop its head.It looks almost like a hideous bone growth that extends from its skull.
So it's not a metal crown. It's a bone.He's a penguin.I wasn't sure if he was literally wearing a crown.This guy's wearing a crown!Yeah.
This is wearing a hat! I'm ready.It's very cute.Yes.So this dark silhouette that you now know to be the penguin that helped you so long ago slides down the hill on its belly.It pulls up in front of you and rights itself and walks closer.
It looks almost as if it's trying to speak to you as the beak opens and you see rows of razor jagged teeth.
As it goes to make a noise, the only sound you hear is the sound of drowning as a burbling black liquid gargles in its mouth as it walks closer to you.Chuckles.
I will... Feel free to move yourself, too.I actually put us kind of like where we would be.Yeah.Feel free to move.
I will... walk up and say, you're not a penguin.You're not a penguin at all.
As I will take out my large wooden mallet out of my light blue parka, as I will see, actually, I need to be how far away?60 feet.Oh, you might've been in range from behind if you want to stay behind us.Well, I gotta get like from out behind you guys.
Okay, all right.I trust you.I'll step, Because I will see maybe a large, is there ice on the ground kind of?
Yeah, oh yeah, this is like a sheet of ice with pockets of snow, so it's not the same kind of like Slip slidey like every movement you you just slide forward, but there's ice Oh, and I'll just spin forward as I'll spin around and around and around as I'll use a side B And I'll let the hammer go
You're going to get Whack-A-Penguined!Oh, god.I cut himself off, and I cast Catapult at it at a third level.Nice.
Oh, my gosh.You produce this wooden mallet with a golden star at the end.You begin to circle as you twist and twist and twist.Oh, it actually does.Thinking that you're about to throw a hammer at DDD, who invented hammers.
Yeah.Who, the inventor of hammers?The inventor of hammers.A dexterity saving throw.Oh. Oh, we're gonna mess this guy up.
No.We're gonna peng live.
It fails.It's going to take... Damn, okay.10, 19, 20 points.20 points of magical bludgeoning damage.And I am going to just make sure that there's nothing else to it. Yes, the hammer will strike into it 20 points of bludgeoning damage.
I need to roll a d8 for my wild magic surge.I'm good.That's my turn.Oh!And I'm going to... And I'm going to make a... a bright blue penguin, blue and red penguin balloon, holding a hammer, and I will send it towards LaBouche's big suit.
As I make, I don't know.As it floats around you.
Inspiration.That's what I thought.What's your inspiration, Isaac?1D8?Oh, I actually don't know.It should be.It should be an 8.
Yeah, I think it is, I guess.
I'm only bar four.That's right.I forgot.That's fair.
Oh, yeah, because you're split.
You took bard instead of sorcerer.Yeah, for now.I will ask the DA if I think of it.I think I'm going to level bard.
I will, seeing this creature and knowing that possibly I may be able to help and absorb this creature, I will race forward.At 50 feet, I can reach the creature without having to double my speed.
And so I will get right on top of this corrupted penguin and put my two hands together and just quickly go. attempting to crush the creature.I'll attack twice recklessly.
Roll an attack roll, and you'll see as you bound forward once again, the ground absolutely trembling as you move.As you run up, you can almost see this penguin, kind of like the shaking of the ground like an earthquake.
almost hopping as it awaits your arrival.As you close the gap, you would see that in a similar way, it has also become bigger, emboldened by being enveloped by this power.And it is almost as large as you are, though you still stand taller.
It's just you and me!That first is going to, I obviously, I rage.My first attack is going to be an 18 to hit. 18 will hit.Okay, and then I'm going to make my second attack.That's going to be a natural 20.Nice!
So that's going to be one of you, and one of you, and one of you, and we're going to do a little of this, and we're going to roll that out.Nine, 18, 25 plus... 10 is 35 points of damage as I slam into it over and over.
And that's my bonus action in action and movement.That's the end of my turn.
You run up and slamming both your fists down almost just on either side of its head, you can feel like a crunching in its shoulders as your giant gauntleted fists crash down upon it.It bounces visibly as your blows land, and then
I need everyone to roll a dexterity saving throw.
Dex, I say.That's a 20.Dexterity.I got a 24.17.17.17.Scooby-Doo.16.Oh, hold on.No, no, no.
Everyone passes, everyone takes 10 points of piercing damage as out of the ground beneath you erupts pillars of black spears.
In the final moments, as you can feel almost like just the slightest quake as the movement occurs under your foot, you all sense it coming, and in lightning reflexes, you're able to dodge out of the way, Even so, the blades strike you passively.
You have evasion.You don't take any damage.Yeah, I get out of the way.That was already half.You miss entirely.I mean, it misses you entirely.Like Indiana Jones.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.Very good.I like the spikes from Prince of Persia.
Yeah, that's it. Oh, I was thinking more pride from full metal alchemist Now the penguin the penguin once again will take like a
Half a step back not moving away from you, but just half a step back before it launches itself forward It will move kind of diagonally if it can It's penguin sliding at you, and it will attempt to move towards if it can it will hit the whole party
Oh, to like dash through all of us?Yep.Holy shit, that's awesome.
Yep.And once again, everyone needs to make dexterity saving throws.Let's go.Dex you said?I presume that you can get an attack of opportunity.Oh, come on.
I thought the answer might be no.That's OK.Do we think 16's good enough?
13?16.I'm going to twist.
You're a monk, so... I'll twist once.I have a very high chance of passing.
I smash it, but it continues to move out of the way.Keeps my die rolled over your way.
Meantime, I'm going to roll this one.But I am able to move out of the way with a dirty 20.
Do the rest of us get attacks of opportunity for passing us?
Uh, it would just move, like, just to the other side of you and be right there.Well, who's the one in the center, kind of?That's Shuckles.You can take an attack of opportunity if you choose.Oh!
And I took the War Cap defeat!Oh!
Does 4 ever change, Shuckles?4... It's kind of changing a lot.I mean, there's a lot of new tactic technology.
Gosh, I wasn't expecting... I'm gonna let it ride.What did everybody get on the deck save?11.Dirty 20.Shuckles? Oh, a 27.Dexterity, you say?
Would he hit Hank?Oh, yeah, he'd definitely hit Hank.Is it just his hitbox, or would he basically clip both of them?I think he would clip both of them.I think so.Hank's going to try to dodge that anyway.Not bad.I think I had 17. I think you're okay.
So the lowest we got was an 11.
I passed the initial attack.
I almost certainly failed.The lowest we have is an 11 and then a 17.
16 is the DC for penguin slide.
So anyone that passed moves five feet in whatever direction they choose to dodge the slide, but will take five points of damage.
That's half.I take no.Okay. Anyone who failed, so I'm presuming just Rhett, will be knocked prone and take 10 points of damage.
All right.I'm just not ready, and I'm loaded with all this gear.
As I do that, Hank's been being carried by the arms.He effortlessly just leaps out of the way out of the robotic arms.
Your arm like subconsciously like You take the hit so that you can save Hank points of damage yep
I will reach out, and as he barrels past me, I'm going to think, oh, but we never introduced ourselves.I'm chuckled, as I'm going to try to cast Shock and Grasp on him.There's no way that hits.That is going to be a 15?Yeah, we got one.One twist?
Yeah, try it.Oh, jeez.Hold on.Hold on.I got twists.
So he's a slippery customer.
Yeah, I'm gonna start with multi-tack to make two attacks.We're under attack.I'm gonna start with a multi-tack to make two attacks, but then I'm gonna use a ki point to flurry of blows for another two attacks.There's gonna be four total attacks.
And then I'm gonna have to spend some ki points after that if any of these land.Jeez. Oh, oh boy.Does a 21 hit?Yeah.Okay, and then one will miss, because I got a two, which is a 10.Okay.
And the last one is a 26 hit, so three of the four attacks will hit.
On the first one, I'm gonna spend a key, the first hit, I'm gonna spend a key point to make it a stunning strike, so I need you to make a Constitution 15 DC saving throw.Con saving throw of DC 15. Rolls a 12.All right, so it's stunned.
My damage doesn't break.The previous next one won't break the stun.No, no, no.OK.
Um, so then the total damage- Do you roll additional damage for the stun?No, no, no, it just is- Advantage.It's- Oh.
The rest of my attacks are then advantage?Yeah, yeah, yeah.Oh, okay, hold on a second then.
So yeah, you gotta fish for crits.When you land your first blow, and you empower your body, and you connect with the form, and you pass your energy through it to stun it, you'll see it take kind of like a, ugh,
paralyzed form for a moment, and then its black, eldritch eyes will flash, and it'll shake off your stun.
Then I will just keep my rolls exactly as they were, then in that case, no fishing for crits or anything like that.In that case, I got 13 plus 15 is 28 points of damage over three attacks.
And they are considered magical for the purposes of resistance and immunities and that matters.
If we hear that again, can we pause?
Are we sure it's not just thunder?I think it might be just thunder.It is thunder.It's very loud and long.I would, yeah, I would imagine it's thunder.If it's not, we have much more.Or it's a little breeze outside and going crazy.
So I pepper this thing with two punches and a kick directly to the chin, which it's... guns it, and then it shakes off.
You move up, and this penguin sees you coming, and it has its penguin flippers out, ready to block.But you move with lightning speed, and your first punch is a feint.
You dash upwards, and your knee connects with the underside of its chin as its paralyzing blow sends shivers down its spine.But it shakes it back off as you land back down on the ground and slam two more punches into its abdomen.
I am knocked down, and I'm gonna get up.
And it's not stunned, right?It's not stunned.No.I think I'm going to... I think I'm gonna back up, I guess.And maybe take an opportunity attack?
I don't think it's a bad idea.It's early in the fight.
So I'm backing up.So 30, I now have three squares of movement, so that's one and a half, two and a half.So I'm just backing up.
It'll hit.It'll go for a attack, and as it sees you move out of its range, its penguin's beak will open, and then the sound of what is like the sound of tearing leather as its beak will split in half vertically.
And it's two, it's four hideous, jagged mandibles, almost, will open as the cheeks rip back down to its jawline.And this massive, toothed maw will open and snap at you, catching the, catching you mildly.Derek, you need to do the sound that it makes.
John Carpenter's the thing.
And it would make that sound except as the mall is opening up to snap at you these these four almost tendrils of of a razor teeth coming at you the gurgling black sound of Drowning is the only thing that meets your ears as the teeth and grab Don't grab hold of you, but slice at you as you back and you'll take 13 points of slashing damage
As I stumble away, he's going to get between me and the penguin.And I'm going to have him go in first.That'll be my bonus action.That is storing like crazy.
We hope we don't lose power.Yeah, it'll be fine.
Oh my god, if we lose power, folks.
I was going to use my mind.I was going to use my mind.
Hankrolls at 19+.Come on, buddy.And then I go to extras, and it's here.And it's a bite attack.1d6 plus 3.Max damage, 6, 7, 8, 9 points of piercing damage.And if the target is a creature, it must succeed on a DC 13 saving throw.
That's it.Oh, and then my action will be, I'll warp to Aether Cannon.I'll take two shots.
As Hank bites into the flippers.It's AC is five.
They're not gonna be overcharged, either charged. It's not even worth the twist, I messed up.What'd you roll?I rolled a two and a three naturally.
Hank got in there though.
You are, you've been scratched, you were knocked prone, you were cast to the side as the penguin rolled through, and you just blast, you're wiring up the ether engine as you blast back to the top of the round, but what happens next, you can't,
as the penguin, now with a taste for blood, enters into a frenzy.And once more, the spears erupt out of the ground.Rhett frazzled. A bit of it catches you, piercing through maybe your arm, your side.Chuckles, laboosh, overconfident, you are caught.
Pike, you are able to dodge out of the way, but by grabbing the tip of the spear, and as you touch it, it forms around your hand and grabs you. You are all momentarily restrained.
Real quick, how much damage was it?Does anyone remember that I took?13 points of damage.
And while we're doing corrections, the creature should have taken an additional six damage because I forgot to add my rage.
Oh, I have my rage graph here.
How do you want to do this? It's very far away.Yeah, that's very funny.Yeah, we are momentarily restrained.
We didn't take any damage.You'll find out.
Okay, you gotta stop being so mysterious I don't use D10s for anything, so enjoy it.
For a moment, you all feel and hear the same thing, which is an absence of sound, an absence of touch, an absence of sight, as you are drowned all around you in a dark, black sea. The tendrils pull you in to the ocean's depths.
In a moment, you get the sense that something swims around you.Something hunts you.The shiver moves up your spine.And then you hear the roar of an engine and the crashing sound of one gunshot. but five bullets ring out.
You snap back out of the Black Sea, in the center of combat.Did you do the honors?I hate you.
Like literally in the center?In the center of combat.Next to Chuckles.Uh, in a flourish.
It's like that scene from The Office.Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, gang, looks like you can't get anything done without me.Here's to my fans.And in what sounds like one gunshot, is actually four.As the bullets rain out in a swirl, they're impossible to track, the black tendrils shatter, and you're released.
You all take three points of damage. And I can attack whenever I want, right?Is it non-magical bludgeoning piercing, or?It's piercing.OK.Piercing.I'll cut it.
As he rode up, leaping off of the speeder, in air as he swirls to the ground, you don't even see the flash of silver, the flash of steel as the gun rains its shots down around him.You all hit the ground, released.
What are you doing here?Why aren't you vomiting up oyster shooters?Get out of here.How do you know about that?Oh.There was a lot of talk.
It was very embarrassing for everyone, especially you.
Oh, that was you guys.I knew you wouldn't play fair, Pike.First race in years.And you didn't want to take me one on one. Using my Shellfish allergy it wasn't us.
It was two ladies.I'm too late.Yeah, you're hot boy.I'm blonde.
We're wearing your exact outfits No idea what anyone is talking
And as he lands in the center of combat his Stainless steel revolver in hand well, let's drop this thing then chuckles oh with me I
Like the poor soldiers from Starship Troopers when they get hit by the big beetle, but I'm gonna turn and use every Gosh I mean, I don't have a lot of spells You have Artic Inspiration, so then I am going... Who does melee attacks?
You can give more than one Inspiration.
Ike and Laboosh.And Hank.
That's what I'm gonna do.
You're gonna inspire Hank?
I'm gonna say, watch out!Watch out, Hank! There's some pants-shitting perverts around.And Pike, you too.
There's only one way to defend against it.
And if you want to avoid perverts, you should probably inflate yourselves. Oh, that's the opposite.Oh, well.Oh, without my bike, my tire.
And I will Twin Spell shoot over to Hank and to Pike and cast Enlarge.What?
This isn't the first time you've done this to me.
And both of you will grow large.
And you will deal an additional.Oh, hell yeah.Enlarge, reduce.I stomp on Rex.There's more magic. I pop his head off like a Pez dispenser.Grab one of the other ogres.
I Leo Rex.You have Vandal strength checks, and strength saving throws, and all of your weapon attacks deal an extra 1d4 damage.Oh, perfect.For both Hank and Furl.
The other side doesn't have an illustration of it.There you go.
And if you don't mind me, I'm getting away from this pervert.
And so, Enlarge, Reduce, and then with that extra bit, I will, I'm going to send over a Balloon Sparrow over to fly around Pike.And so you bar Conspiration as well, that's a decent.Nice, decent.And I need to cast, I need to roll my Wild Magic Surge.
Okay, I gotta remember I have inspiration as well.Jeez, that's a lot of stuff.My Saturn eats his son, Rex.No!Oh god, there's so many perverts around.
LaBooze, LaBooze, speaking of perverts, it's your turn.
Hey, watch out!Hey, watch out, there are perverts everywhere.
I will leap over Pike.Even though he is so massive, I will leap over Pike and make it to 50 feet to here.And landing next to the creature, I will continue to pummel it, giving it one punch and then another as I dig in.And we'll see how that goes.
Who's the barbarians attack another one?
That's crazy.All right.The first attack was not meant to be second attack.
Oh, making up for it, making up for it.
So that's going to be two of these guys.That's going to be 16 plus five is 21 plus two rage damage is 23 and Do I get a feeling that I'm doing any of the same absorption that I've been doing with these smaller fissures from before?
When I hit it, am I getting the blood hitting my hand and I can get some extra goo in me?Am I feeling empowered at all, or is this different and somehow hardened and separate?Roll an insight check.I would be happy to.Give me a... Two, 13.
You get the sense that as you're striking this creature, and blood is coming off of it, and it does look like it's taking a beatin', you get the sense that you are not absorbing energy from it.
As you are striking it, it is firmly within control of this area's corruption.I'm just doing damage.Correct.Okay.
It's just you and me, creature!Let's go!
and I continue to pummel in on it.And you pummel it.It's at this point, as you're hitting it, it kind of, as you land two blows into both of its sides, it pauses for a minute and starts to do this, as it waves back and forth as it stands.
And... That's interesting.I like that a lot.
If you wanted to roll a d6, if you want to use your Barrier Concentration, you could still possibly have your first stack.
No, it was a 1, 3, 1.3 plus 8 is 11.Plus 6.Oh, it would have to be a 6.
No, no, no.Save it.Might be better for a saving throw, you know?
Roll a group perception check.
Gosh.Oh, not very good.Oh, 26, baby.Let's go.Huge.Got a 19.
Man, playing a sorcerer is... Who would get that right? It's a lot of work.It's a lot of math.Yeah.Yeah.You sense it before you hear it or you see it or you feel it.
You know what he's summoning and from behind you over the hill line, almost like popsicles, the penguins march, and the frozen penguins rapidly approach you, completely unmoving as they close the gap, riding the black spears.And each one will move
To one of us?Yeah, why don't you just take all of them?
I'm handing them out one at a time.Oh, that's how I missed one.I was going to say.So five, only five.I do have five.Now, one on the field.One on each of us?One on each of you.So no hand.
You can put one on Rex.These are like penguin corpse puppets. And it's almost like when a structure moves at the carnival, and it's stuck as it moves from one side to the other.Do we have a six?
You do not have a six, because you destroyed five of them.That's right.That was sick. And they all are frozen in this horrific, happy memory, as they will all dash up and strike down at you, one at a time.And so, it's just, at everybody?
We'll do one at a time.I'll just do the initiative roll, so Chuckles, LaBouche, Pike, Rhett.
And Rex.And Rex.Thank you. 19. Chuckles is 10.Pike is 15.Miss.Rhett is 20.Miss.He's got 21 AC.Fine.Fine. So just chuckles then.We'll take eight points of damage as these penguins roll up.
And as they're stuck in these movements, one throwing, the spear moves and rotates them as in its cast of throwing a snowball, the outstretched arm moves down and strikes you with an open palm. And then the penguin, once again, will strike twice.
The first at Hank around it, the second at whoever is on its left from my orientation.
LaBouche is closest and then me.
Okay, so LaBouche and Hank.Oh my god.We'll say that was with LaBouche.Natural 20.And then a 17 to hit Hank. I think that barely hits.It's attacking Hank.It's attacking you and Hank.Okay, just a minute.So you.
Because it makes a creature within five fate of me makes an attack against a target other than you, I can use my reaction to make a melee weapon attack against the attacking creature.
So when it goes after Hank, I'm going to endure the hit that it did on me, and then I'm going to get a net dirty 20 to hit.
And so I'm going to do an additional two, seven, nine points of bludgeoning damage as I knock its kidney in response to its attack.It unfurls its terrible penguin maw, and once again, that sound of tearing leather as its flesh separates and opens.
Great, great.The maw closes around you and rips back.You take 24 points.Damn! Slashing damage.I am you do not have resistance to it.Oh, thank you for telling that's unfortunate the Then the attack goes to Hank.
Hank will take eight points of slashing damage as it turns around and its maw chomps him as well.And as it makes its turn, LaBouche, you find your opening and you level a thudding blow into its side once again.How much damage did you do?
I told you how much damage I did, and the answer was 9 it was nice.It was 2 plus 5 plus 2.Yeah, I trust you.I missed it.I remember tonight I was annoyed that I rolled a 2 on my deep well God, okay.I totally forgot to put him up here I Rex?
He started at the top of the round, unless you're putting him somewhere else.That was more like cinematography.
That's fine.That was fine.
Put him right in front of Pike.Yeah, right in front of Pike.Yes, right in front of Pike.Actually, he falls here.
Holy shit, this is one hell of a situation you got down here. He misses.He fires out after he's gotten there.
He clicks the hammer on the revolver twice, as he fires out two bullets, but once again, only the echoing sound of a single shot fills the valley, as his bullets fly to either side of the penguin.And, Pike.
I'm gonna do the exact same thing.I'm gonna start by using a ki point to flurry of blows, which gives me four attacks, but I'm gonna roll them individually this time, because I'm gonna try to stunning strike this thing again. All right, 20 to hit.
20 hits.I'll spend a ki point to Stunning Strike, so a con saving throw of 15.
So first I'll just roll the damage for that first attack.
As you strike and your energy courses through its form, for a moment, you see this look in its eyes, it's almost like it's trying to summon the power, but it just makes that same dark, drowning, burbling noise, and it is stunned.
Yes, okay, so the first one's giving me 11 points of damage, now the next attacks, three attacks will be at advantage. Ooh.Definitely hits.Definitely hits.Definitely hits.So it's going to be 5, 11, 12, 13, 14.And then V4s?
21, 22, 23, 24 plus 15 is 39 points of damage.So I land all four blows and my fists are just flashing with magenta, orange, yellow light as I'm connecting with my fists and my hands.Absolutely raining blows down on this thing.
And it's no longer bigger than I am.I'm basically toe-to-toe with it at this point.
You're now large, and you're just cascading, thundering blows down, but not with reckless might, with precision skill.
As your first blow lands and says a shiver through its body, then everything that follows finds an opening, finds a weak point, and you deliver an absolutely brutal cascade of damage.
It is stunned until the end of my next turn.
I will turn and I'll see this thing saying, hey, buddy, keep going, I got you.
And I'm going to, you'll see from my cannon a pinpoint beam of purple energy will shoot at Hank.And it's like from Overwatch when Zarya gives somebody a bubble, sort of this very faint kind of gravity bubble around Hank appears.
And I'm going to use Warding Bond on him.Nice. which gives him an AC, plus one to saving throws, and then he and I will share damage if he gets hit.
And then as a bonus action, he will then, and he'll lunge, and he will attack the stunned.
Does that go both ways?If you take damage, he takes half of it instead?
No, it just feeds one way.
Oh, so close.It hits, and it's going to do an extra D4, right? Because he's also enlarged.Yes.Oh, my gosh.Let's go.6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 points of damage.And it needs to make a, I don't know if it can, make a strength saving throw.
When it's stunned, I don't know, I'd have to look.Does it automatically fail strength and dex?That would be nice.On the stunned conditions here, it can't move, it can only speak.
Automatically fails strength and dex.
Fails strength and dex, and attack rolls against a creature I have advantage.
So in total, a six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, and then 13, 14, 15, and that's your three piercing damage, and the penguin is now grappled in Hank's jaws.
How much there 13 it was 15 total yeah, okay, so the whole hit was 15
And then the escape DC, if he wants to spend an action, is 13.
Okay.As Hank bites down into the flippers once again of this penguin and chuckles, top of the round.
Oh gosh, is it my turn already?I am going to... Oh man.
I'm just gonna peel back around here.Fireball.
No, it better be lightning bolt, because you also kill Rex.
This is my new answer for my favorite reaction by players to something I've done.
You have no idea how seriously I consider just turning and moving all of those damage points on Rex instead.
I'm going to go here, and I am going to put a line here, so all four, including Rex, Yes!Including Rex is going to have to make a dexterity saving throw as I still have my gun set to flower.
I can't avoid you, Rex!I don't have the clear shot.I probably shouldn't take it.Which one is the real one?
And I cast Tasha's Caustic Brew here.All four need to make a dexterity saving throw.I'll pass.I'll pass.I love your trick question, Andy.Not five.
No, no, no.Stop watching.
It's not long enough.That's fine.
Ever since the first time I had to do it in the Witch Light special that we did right after Maggie was born, I was like, I need to be better at doing trick questions.
I don't know what class Rex is, but I have a feeling it's Hydex.
Yeah, Rex gets a 22.Nice.I'll just roll all these at once.
I'm casting it at a third level.
Okay.Okay.And you're, like, firing down the line at the frozen.
I'm firing, so you have four, three, and two.Okay.I'm trying to coat with my acid gun as it'll spray. Not acid.Oyster.Oyster gun.Oyster gun.And so, they'll just be coated in acid if they fail.
Okay.All of the penguins fail.
At the start of each of their turns, they will take 6d4 acid damage.Okay.6d4.Does anything happen to Rex?
I'm going to uh, that's a lot of damage.That's according to plan.
Yes.I trigger my wild magic As you fire out the first and Rex goes to dodge out of the way, they're so pretty Straight eight eight.
Oh, it's gonna be bad.Oh gosh.No, I'm sure it's dad's gonna be a nightmare No, I'm sure it's fine.Hold on.Sorry Oh Why is it not loading?Your eyes pop out of your sockets like a cork gun and just dangle there.Wild.
I had it even pulled up and it just wasn't suddenly unloaded.
The creature of your choice dies instantly.I'm Truthwrecked!
It's not that bad.It's not that bad.
You cast Fireball at a third level?
Get the shit.Get the fucking shit.We gotta rotate it.It's gotta be over there.Oh my god. Oh, Rex, sorry, did I get acid on you?
Hold on, I have a hanky for that.Hold on, and I'll reach into my coat to pull out a handkerchief.As I am going, I'll pull out a bomb.Uh-oh!
It's going to clip me, but it's going to hit one in three.Hold on.
And you'll see as you pull out this bomb, Rex will go, hey, watch where you're pointing that thing.
And as he dodges out of the way and you shuffle for your objects and you find what you're looking for, you produce this bomb that is this strange off red.
And you'll see for just a moment before it explodes right in your face, this strange square toothed grin.
Imprinted on the bomb The DC should be 16 I got a 19 I take nothing.Yeah, you take nothing.Oh my god evasion has been so good
This is gonna be great.It's fine, 10, 15.This is great.This actually worked out perfectly.Except for Chuckles.26, I gotta roll.You gotta dex your own.Oh, I pass, so I'll take half of 26 points.13 fire damage.13 points of fire damage.
So three, two, and one, they have to make dex 16 as well.
Do they take half damage?They take half, so it's 26 fatal.
As the blast moves out, the explosion, you almost hear this faint on the wind, it's hard to tell if it's howling winds moving through the valley or the cackling laugh of something lost in another space.
The flames will erupt out as the explosion of the bond expands, and you will melt the penguin pops as they still stand straight up, impaled on the spikes, but they will slump down, no longer holding their stance.
And you can move them off the map, obviously.Thank you.
What did you think you laid a record for?That actually worked out pretty well.I'm like a Looney Tunes character being shot in the face.
I'm covered in soot.Yeah, my hair is straight back.Exactly.Oh, my god.Covered in soot.And then I always use bonus action to convert sorcery.It spells a bunch of sorcery points.
Nice.I know that you can do that, so that's fine.
I am aware of how that functions, so I'm aware.
I definitely mechanically understand that.Laboosh. I will see that Hank has, uh, hopefully held this nightmare creature in place.And, uh, seeing that, I'm going to harden my fist instead of, uh, doing these pummeling
smashes that I normally do, I'm going to almost T-1000 my hand into a cutter blade, where it's a thin, sharp cutting edge, and I'm going to attempt to shave off.
I'm flavoring Bite from the beast form so that I can hopefully heal as I also attack from it.I'm reducing my d12 to a d8, but I'm hurting, and I would like to not be hurting anymore, so I'm going to attack twice.
that's going to be a 24 to hit and that's going to be a more than that to hit and so with two d8s I'm going to do 6 plus 5 is 11, plus 1 is 12, plus 1 is 17, plus 4 is 21.21, and I will also take healing from that.
So 21 points of damage for my two attacks.And I don't have anything to do with my bonus action, so I'll just hang out here.How do you want to do this?Wow.Barbarians, folks. I harden my hand into, like, scissors.
And seeing this creature, I am, like, grappled by Hank.I'm going to go in with a side swipe like this.
And basically, if you've ever gotten that, like, perfect zone where you have scissors running up a wrapping paper, I'm going to just shear it in half.
And what's left of it, I'm going to catch, like, a tarp and pull in through my mouth hand. You plant your feet into the ground.You are just shy of gargantuan.You can feel the pulsing energy of the ether engine as it courses through your suit.
You feel the power that's been gifted to you from this space as you have gone cosmic janitor and cleansed the wound of this world. You wore your fist back.
It changes into the form of a sharpened blade, and as it does, as you choose that sharpened form, the extension of your arm will turn jet black.As you lunge it forward, you hear a ringing crash throughout the valley. Don't worry, Gaz.Saved ya.
As the gunshot of Rex pierces the head of this penguin and it falls to the ground dead.
Jackass.How long does the enlarge spell last?A minute.It's plenty of time.I rip Rex in two.
Your like scissor punch extension Flies just over the top of the penguin as it's falling back gunshot wound to the side of its head Are these two guys still alive are they dead?Oh Those are the acid guys right?
Okay.They're super done.Yeah, I I'm basically looking underneath me to see if there are spikes coming up or where this extension may have withdrawn to, not believing that just because we cut off a finger that we're in any kind of safety.
What do you mean it's dead?It could be returning at any moment.I mean, was that the fucking penguin or is there something bigger beneath us? I think it may be underneath.
Is it all one giant super organism?I don't know what you guys are freaking out for.I mean, it shot it.It's on the ground dead.
Not another word out of your mouth unless it's you telling us what you were drilling for.
Whoa, testy.Listen, why don't we just resolve this first, and then we'll talk.We put our differences aside, and we save one of the only places we've called home.How does that sound to you?What were you drilling for in the ice?
I told you before, and it wasn't a lie.I found something when I hit the boss's safe. He had something that said there was a treasure of great importance, great power, locked behind this wall on this planet with coordinates.
And I went there to find what it was.I started drilling, I could barely cut through.Until you guys showed up and tried to take me in.I don't know exactly what it was.
Well, whatever's behind the ice is now flowing in a horrific black river all over this place.It's coming from the temple.I don't know if you saw it when you were coming in.
I saw it.Something's oozing out of that space.I don't know what we do, but I think if we gotta hit it at its source, we could shut it down.
I've hoped that every Bit of this thing would be absorbed by me on the planet, but this proves there are little guys and big guys.
You might yet have your opportunity.Who knows what lies beneath the ice.So the spikes still erect out of the ground, holding the penguins there as they fall limply, some burned, some chewed away by acid.
The spikes recede as the penguins fall to the ground dead all about you.
As the larger penguin hits the ground, the Kinguin, as he lands on the ground, Rhett, you'll see, just as you're looking through your x-ray eye, looking for what's happening, you'll see the spikes will recede back under the ice up into him, and as that happens, the form of the Kinguin will melt and pool into a large, black,
The moment that happens, I sort of hesitate for a moment, but imagining that it may empower me to fight harder next time, but also that I'm trying to destroy something that has put so many, including my friends, in danger, I'll reach down and press my palm into the pool and attempt to absorb it.
And as the Kinguin falls to the ground, and that black pool forms, that sensation that's lived at the back of your spine, that tickle, finally recedes.Moments of calm, moments of peace, as Labouche plants his palm into the larger black pond.
The liquid turns your arm jet black as tendrils swirl about you as it starts to form a whirlpool.This is the largest absorption you've made.
As it starts to suck into your arm for a brief moment, your entire arm, shoulder to fingertips, turns jet black.And for a flash of an instant, something hard forms around it, but not long enough to sense what it is or even catch a good look at it.
You absorb this full power.Mechanically, when you strike, you may roll an extra damage die, and your AC increases by one.
Holy fuck.Wow.While I'm watching this happen, I will point out the spikes and maybe the holes that they left behind in the ground, and I'll look direct, and I'll say, As we move to the temple, watch your step.Stay light on your feet.
We don't know when those things are gonna jump up and get ya.
Yeah, you too.Look like you got clipped a little there.
I check my hand to see if there's any like lasting damage from where I had grabbed it to like push out of the way You look and you were actually so definitely able to move out of the way.
It never really struck you It's just as you went to push off of it to move firmly away it formed around your hand Gripping you so you have no damage, but almost like this sensation of
You know, dipping your hand in ice cold water, like it kind of burns almost.Yeah, stiff.Yeah, like freezer burn.
Come on, let's get a move on.
All right, well, maybe you lead us through the ice.Just keep your eyes open.I'll be right next to you.I can take care of the little guys.
We're all a little rough, though.
You held the bomb.And a new one grows from the inside.
Oh, so it's like a cartoon bone?Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Until you, like, grow a new hand.I'll blow, and another hand of Mautlian flesh, of glove flesh, will pop out.
Yeah, good job dodging that, Rek.
Yeah, watch where you're aiming that next time.Probably you've really saddled up with just a stone-cold group of weirdos.
Why does it sound like there's a perverted thing when you say it?Anyways, let's go blow up the planet or whatever.Do you think that was my ex-wife saying that she's changed?What?Never mind.
I lead the way to the temple, and I keep my eyes out for anything that movement, sensing the ground, trying to see if, you know, shit moving beneath us.I try to lead the way the best I can and point things out.
I have a feeling I'm going to cash in on this inspiration before it runs out here.Yeah, I'm going to use it.I'm going to use it just because it's going to run out anyway.Oh, it is a special effect.OK, 14 plus 4 is a total of 18.With an 18.
Unless something else happens from like, say, I'm assuming I'm normal.You get to roll it twice and choose which to use.Hell yeah.You have it, yeah.20 total.
With a 20.You survey the land around you.You've made this track.
just once before, and you start to make your way, one foot in front of the other, quiet, except for the resounding, thundering steps of LaBouche as the ground shakes beneath every footfall.You make your way.
And as you do, collecting small pocket of viscer here and there, relatively uneventful, until the temple comes into sight.Stretching out in front of you, that same open, frosted runway leading right up to the temple doors,
In the distance, you can see what looks like almost a river running out from the center of the door.Something else, a little bit of color closer to it, but it's hard to see from here.As you make your way forward, and you take every additional step,
you make your way towards the entryway of this place.A flowing black river moves on your side. As you get towards the mouth of this temple, just at the opening of this doorway, a little bit of thaw has occurred around it.
And at the entry, around the stairs, extending out in front of it, not very far, but a field of dandelions.
I should avoid the river, yeah?
I can't even begin to imagine what would happen if you tried to absorb all that.Why are there flowers?I'm afraid to ask.
That's where Dandy communed with the planet.He's right there.Is that fair to say?
Yeah.Oh, man. Does it look like the flowing river of this stuff is running through this area that she communed with the land?
Looks like it's cut through it.OK.All right.But around it, it's almost like a large, not quite large, but a solid embankment on either side, but a sizable river that runs by. If you were really trying, you could probably running, like, leap over it.
It's not immense.But on either side of it, this river's cut through a field of dandelions.And a thaw, kind of, around the entrance of the temple.Dandy did this?
I can't believe they're still here.
Yeah.Speaking of, where are the other two?Still enjoying waffles? No, they're gone.
Gone?Yeah, they're gone.Dani's gonna come back though.She's just like on a trip to like, I don't know, do some stuff with dinos.She'll be back.
There's still hope. I'm gonna reach down, and even though my hand would be absolutely massive, I'm gonna try to very delicately pick up one of the dandelions, and find somewhere that I can put it on my person to keep that with me.Roll a dex check.
I feel like... Iron and Rose from fucking Minecraft right now slide of hand whatever ten minutes one of the other It's at least ten yeah for sure has it been ten minutes of Lucille embark inspiration I
Yeah, it's all right.I'll throw my cat.You can roll twice take the higher and take the higher It's been nine minutes and 59 seconds perfect.
Yep.That's gonna get me to 17
With a 17, almost like a giant gorilla trying to pluck a single flower, you get in with your index and your thumb, you're able to get around it relatively delicately, though you do upend a flower or two, and you're able to pluck out a dandelion.
Let's keep going.If we can find the source, then...
Perhaps I can take it down.I would lead the way as I can, keeping my eyes open to try to point things out as we enter further in to this temple ruins.
And you keep your awareness as you move forward.A very similar sight unfurls in front of you.You walk up just a couple steps as you enter the temple.You walk down just a couple steps on the other side.
And you actually see that this river is almost blown up through the floor.As it's running, the water is pouring vertically upwards from below.Whoa.As it's moving out the front and down the steps.
In front of you, you see that same familiar bridge that extends to the other end of the room, and you see the now defunct and broken, blown up, I think, destroyed elevator, you now know elevator, on the other side of the room.
So we're able to walk to the side of it without touching.Correct.Yep.It's not terribly wide, but it's not like a trickle either.It is definitely what seems to be a pouring of this darkness.
We have a problem.Yeah.Not only is the elevator busted, but if the water, goo, or whatever that is, is geysering up out through the caverns below, it's all filled up.
Well, I'm going to approach the edge if I can and look down.And as I do, I'm going to turn to Rex and I'll say, I want you to realize you're fucking responsible for this.
I'm responsible?How am I responsible?You knocked me out.If you hadn't fucking been here, we never would have followed you here.Oh, so it's my fault that you were hunting me for a bounty?Yeah, it's your fucking fault.
You're a dirty thief and you had mining buffs!Hey, who does that?I'm extremely clean.Look at this.And his belt buckle sparkles.One of the buckles he got while he was in the shop when you attempted to honeypot him.
Didn't attempt, you successfully honeypotted him.
Wait, you're really that clean?If you're really that clean, why would you be rolling around?Are we in the field of flowers? We're getting ice.
We're inside the tent once if you'd moved inside the time we're inside the temple Why are you rolling around in the dirt and the grime and all the ooze?I can't suggestion But also totally if we hadn't shown up he would have just done it himself
I mean he would he didn't have a way.
What is this fuck-up DC 16 is it wisdom?Shit, I should memorize you have dreads.
Don't forget Is it 18 for whiz oh That passes it passed.It's 14 for end if that's it's whiz damn
Why you gotta do all my wild magic, maybe I'll explode on this guy Quit trying to explode on me, okay?
Well, I don't know why you would be doing that they clearly not Would you know that you're casting that I don't think they know okay hold on maybe they do I
So it's basically, can he perceive that he was like using the arcane magics to do it?Oh, it doesn't actually say it.But for suggestion, it's not that explicit, like once it ends.
Right.Yeah, yeah, yeah.Like they know you've charmed them, like charm friend or whatever, yeah.
That was worth a second level spell.While that's happening, I'm approaching the edge and looking straight down.
You do so. You approach the edge and you look straight down.Roll an investigation check.
Oh, that's around the wagon.Not bad.
That is a 23.You look down and with a 23, we'll say you engage your eye.Otherwise, you'd be looking down into what would feel like pretty much obscure darkness towards the ground.
But as your eye does zoom in and you look, you get the view of the icy ground floor.And from where you were when you went to the bottom of this cavern the last time, you get the sense that it's probably about 200 yards down.
Not a jump that you'd wanna make. It is not covered in black ichor, but you can see it running from the ice wall. around the room and up the side of the wall.
But does it look like if, like this is the bottom of the pit, right?And it's running through the middle, like we could just go down on this side and not like land in it.
Yeah, there's definitely a side you, you could find a path should you choose like the correct wall to go down where you would not, if you went just straight down, you would not land in it.
Defying all the fucking laws of gravity.What do you mean? This fucking goo.It's running from that crevice out across the fucking room and straight up.
Like it has a mind of its own.
Should we see where it's going?Should we climb up there?Damn.When you were flying around, did you see where the river ended?
So it's pouring out.No, it's pouring outside.Into the world.Yes, into the world.And it does end in kind of like a large pool outside.
Okay.You read my mind.I was gonna ask if you thought it was sentient.I don't know.
I mean, this planet has a fucking, some way to target LaBouche and head towards him.Maybe like, It's like, whoa, you're our cousin.Because I'm ooze and you're ooze.We're all ooze, yeah.
Yeah.Are you saying that this planet followed your friend here to the raceway and then rained death and destruction on top of it?
Yeah, sometimes when we show up to places, the entire planet's destroyed.What of it?
And you think I'm the bad guy.You are the bad guy.And everywhere you go, people die, huh?
Well, not everywhere.Just to Nightingale, with the spooky boys, and to the Prismatic Pathway, and of course, this planet.
Oh yeah, no, LaBouche's, I mean, Kavita's friend died on, oh yeah, everywhere we go, people die.
Look, this is my prison fucking deduction, alright?I don't know anything for goddamn sure.I know we get fucking visions, I know there's all sorts of black ooze, and it feels like we're fucking drowning.
Can we get down there?Yeah, we can get down there.I don't know what we're gonna do when we get back to the crack in the ice, but we gotta get closer. I can take a quick look, I can just walk down.
No, just everybody, come on this side.
We're not gonna land in the river.Come here.Gather around.
When we get down there, is there any way we can destroy the source?
Well. and it's gonna be up to you.
And I'll turn a few knobs on my cannon, it'll start to whir, and I'll point at the ground and this like wave will go.
And when it sort of emits from the cannon, you'll feel a little lighter as I cast Feather Fall on up to five targets and there's five of us.Beautiful.So gravity has been lessened in our creation.
Now all we gotta do is take a leap of faith.
I'll be the first and I said you've definitely done this before in our travels.Yeah With both my hands in my pockets, I would just like casually step off and follow right now Yeah, Hank will jump into the cannon and they'll grab him.
Oh, I thought Hank was just gonna
No, I will grab Hank and I will I'll walk off and float down.I dispel Rex's
Wow aether tech hell of a thing And Rex will also step off the edge.
Oh, this is my favorite part I'll jump into the air and kind of do one of these floating on my side really yeah So it only lasts a minute It only takes a minute for us to get down there.
I'll jump up well just after Rex and I'll just be like oh
Popped a loogie into his hair.
You manipulate the gravity of this space, and everyone can feel the pull as you're brought downwards, but it's a familiar float to all of you as you make a gradual descent.And as you do, you can see the ground start to come into shape.
You can see from where the elevator is, that same section of open stairway, you see the ice wall at the other edge.
still the blaster marks, still the giant chunk cut out of the center, but the hole that was there previously when you investigated has eroded to become quite larger.
And as you're falling slowly, you see the black river pouring out of its mouth through the center of the room, towards the wall, up the edge to the bridge, splitting through the bridge and out into the world.
As you move down, I need everyone to make a wisdom saving throw.Oh yeah.And you are dreaded.
Oh boy.Natural one.Natural one.
Natural one, natural one. Damn, I got a three.
Natural three, natural three.So that ends, oh boy.
Natural four.Oh, you're fucked, dude.
Seven total.Hold on, I got a, yeah, five total.
As you're descending, you all feel a familiar sensation, like pressure in the air around you. The last words you hear are Rex saying, Oh, yeah.Does anybody, does anybody else feel that?And then chuckles.Oh, you see a woman with long
auburn hair about her shoulders, standing at the top of an altar, a llamacorn splayed across it.She drags a knife across its throat and spills its blood into the ground.
You fall to your hands and knees, and as she does it, her hair gathers about her head forms into two spikes that jut out from either side and turns bright blonde.Rhett, a scarred battlefield, death and destruction all around you.
You lay on your back on the ground, a piece of your face blown off. your arm missing, the agony immeasurable as a Saurian warrior walks up to you to finish the job.Pike, you stand looking out, surrounding you a field of flowers
You look up at a tower that stretches up into the heavens.It sits atop a floating rock.At its peak, a burning bright energy of light.And you think, I should tend the lighthouse. Labouche, you see all manner of people around you.I'm sorry.
You find yourself beneath the ocean's waves in a dark black sea. You don't feel.You don't see.You don't sense.But you swim.You circle.And emanating from you, an unmistakable, brilliant glow.As you all land on the ground.
Are you all right?Are you all right?
Are you all right?Yeah.They're just visions.It's not real.It can't be.What the hell was that?
As we get closer to whatever is at the core of this, things can get a little weird.Rex.Rex.
Yeah, it chuckles.I miss my wife, Fred.
I miss her a lot.Man, this guy is a downer.You travel with him all the time, Pike?
Yeah, if you're any lucky... I'll be back.If you're lucky, he's gonna save your life.
Well, just ten minutes ago, he blew himself up.Anyway...
It's fine.Whatever you do, don't touch that crap, okay?
Sorry.No, I would just like one hand on Rhett's shoulder. like, nod at him and start to, like, slowly creep forward towards this horrific crack in the ice.Giving this flowing river a wide berth.
And I'm still in my, like, huge armor and I'm gonna, like, stomp forward and, uh... Are you sure you want to go first?I can... check it out.
You stay the fuck away from me.Back all the way the fuck up, you understand?
It may be like the other fissures.
This river, it could pump me up.Yeah, but look at the fucking size of it.And it doesn't look like it's slowing down anytime soon.
Take a look.But if you need my help, you call.Let's go check it out.Yeah.
I'll rattle around in my side pack and I'll pull out a vial and I'll hit the plunger into one of my ports.
Alright.So you depress the plunger now.
Alright, let's go.I will be behind Pike, but not just a couple steps behind.
And I'm moving forward, but with purpose.And caution.As I get as close as I possibly can to this crack.Without touching the river.
As you move up, you see that there's a little bit of a raise, almost like a hill, as it goes up to the opening in the ice.
This is not enormous, but it's a large circular opening that looks like, that was much smaller the last time you were here, but it looks like the force of this ooze expunging out from behind this space has forced it to widen.
There is a crack that runs vertical, but the split centrally where you would walk in is enough to avoid it without any missteps. and you make your way up and into the hole in the wall.
As we get closer, I'll raise my gauntlet in hand, my right hand, and with the shape of a gun that I've done so many times before, but at the tip, just a little ball of light will form, and the light moves from magenta to orange to yellow back to magenta as I cast light.
and just a little bit of radiant light will help light up the area about 20 feet around me as I keep that little ball of energy just at the tip of my finger as we move forward.
Pulsating technicolor glow emanates from your finger as you draw the power straight to the tip.It illuminates the hole in the wall as you move forward.You make your way.Is everybody, just you two guys?
I was gonna follow after them.I'll be next to Jekyll.
You make your way down through this opening and the ice, all the while being extremely careful to stay to one side or the other, not wanting to slip and fall into the cascading movement. You continue on, and it begins to slope downwards slightly.
This previously was maybe a 10-foot space into the wall behind it.It now extends.
You walk 10 steps, 20 steps, 50 steps deep into the underground behind this, when eventually you see this pouring out from one more deep drop in the ground, a larger cylindrical opening, shrouded in darkness, that once again, the water is climbing up and out.
Dammit.It goes even deeper down.Well... Fuck.
Baboosh?Yes?You feeling alright?I feel fine.
But we can't see down there.
Like, it's just dark.It's just dark.
Well, I can get us down there again, but you don't know what we're dropping into.
Or how deep it is.Can we drop something shiny and glowy down there?
Yeah.Technically, I can, but it'd be way cooler if Rhett did.
And from a mechanical sense, I'm going to use infuse item.
But what I'm going to do is I'm going to pull out this little kind of metal contraption and It's sort of like a flare, right?Yes.But it's, yeah, maybe it's sort of like, it's more like a stick.Not the light orb from Dune part two.It's just that.
It's the light orb from Dune part two.
And I. There's a light orb in Dune part two.
I. I hold it out, and I press a button, and it floats in midair, and it sort of starts to glow this pale white, but there's a hint of purple light, and then it will just descend down as it goes down.
It casts its light as long as it can.What is it, does it just?Basically, I'm infusing like a rock.If this is a D&D, I would infuse a rock with like the glowing option for my infuse.You cast this glowing orb down into the opening.
It shines its light until it goes out. strikes the ground.Oh.And as you look down, you see another large drop, but the rock sits there.You cannot see what surrounds it.
Is there a, but we can see that there's ground where there is no river.Yes, yes.
All right, well, at least we know we can land safely.
Does the side of the wall look like it?Does the side of the wall look climbable?Like, how sheer is this drop?Could I start to... It's magical tinkering, not a fuse item.You can try.Gotcha.
I could kick into the wall. Punch my way down.You could use my punches as handholds.
Well, that also raises a good point.We all have to make a decision here.Because getting back is not going to be easy.So if anybody wants out... Hey, look at Rex.Now's the time.
I came here to complete a mission.Save the pathway. There's no turning back now.Me too.
Oh, again.We all feel lighter again, so I think it only lasts like, yeah, it lasts a minute, so.As soon as I do the thing, I will- As quickly as we can.I'll nod and I'll step out and flip down.I'd like to start a car from doing
I was like, what are you talking about?
May your blade chip and shatter.Yes.Once again, everyone leaps off as you make your way slowly down this opening.Pike, for just a moment, as you enter the opening and you descend down, you hear a crackling over comms, but just a crackling.
I would, like, tap to see if I'm, like, getting anything.
You tap, you tap, static for just a moment, and then dead silence.
I would look to Rhett and be like, uh, hey, big guy, keep an eye on your, uh, instruments and such.I'm getting some weird feedback.
All right.Do I see anything, anything off?
You can check your connection to the Rhapsody.And you will see that when you check your gear, like things are working as normal, but any kind of outside frequency is being disrupted.So you are losing vision.
You're right, something's blocking the signal down here.
We're gonna be completely on our own. Well, at least Hank is with us.And we left the ship unguarded.So if anything attacks it, it'll probably blow up.
That be true one way or the other.Why would that be a good thing?
Oh, yeah.That means it's a bad thing.Sorry.
You presented that information very positively.
I get a little mixed up sometimes.You just don't get chuckles.
Yeah, you wouldn't get it.It's a chuckle thing.
Who's out there?Who's taking things up out there?
Is that you?You make this descent.You feel the sensation of the comms cutting out as you're losing distance, you're losing connectivity as you float down, down, down.You eventually touch the ground.Everyone roll a dexterity check.
Nine. So just adding our dexterity, not a save.No, no, dexterity saving throw.
Let's take some twists.All right, it was a nine.That's pretty good.Good enough, anyway.
I'm still getting to know this dice.
God, that smells so good.
Yeah, I'm gonna die. I'm going to die?
I got a 14.How could you? 14.
As you're approaching the ground, as you make your way through this opening, you start to see the ground, and you get the sensation of gravity shifting back in, but you're still probably about 15 feet away from the bottom of the ground.
You will have to act, anyone who didn't, you guys are fine.You two will have to, wait, what did you roll again?I got a nine.Nine?
14.22.I also have the monk feature slow fall.
Oh yeah.All right.Rhett and LaBouche, as you're coming down, you see the glowing orb to one side of that dark river that runs upwards, defying gravity.
But your sensation of weightlessness as you descend down into the cold depths of this cavern, you can feel it failing.And you know, if you don't act while the gravity removes from yourself, you will very possibly fall into the lake itself.
Oh my God. I cannot help you.If I can see that, can I attempt to, oh, you have slow fall, right?
I can pseudopod, right?I have this long, gooey arm.If I can, I could reach out 15, 20, 25, 30 feet and sticky myself to something and attempt to pull myself in before it's too late.
As you're falling and you feel the weight return, you start to pick up velocity, you just for a moment catch the sight of a stalagmite.Roll an attack roll.
I'm gonna get a dirty 20.
Dirty 20, you fire out your hand and like one of those sticky fling hands.Thank you.You grab the stalagmite and you let it pull you towards it as you rock it over.Actually cracking the stalagmite on the ground.
So they're falling, who's falling?
Right here, take a balloon!As my hand will stretch out oddly, and then my hand will pop off, and so we'll be holding just a red, bright red balloon, and hand it to you.Grab it, hold on!As I catch Feather Fall on, I can re-up it on all of us, but.
No, I'm good, I can fall from like 50 feet, I'll be okay.
Thematically, yeah, I'll just, I'll grab it.
know why something about the gravitons down here maybe it's different I don't fucking know hope I don't blow us up we all look over a wreck I'm overconfident life saver juggles oh that was a close one oh can you get my hand back there's like
It's still in the balloon.And you have the bone.There's like a cartoon white bone sticking out of it.The balloon pops and your hand like hits the ground.
Uh, here.Oh, thanks.I would immediately raise my hand higher and see if I could look to see around us with the light still emanating from my fingertip.It only provides about a 20-foot radius of light around me.
You hold, you extend your hand upwards and you cast the light out and it, the range of it ends just at a wide opening on the other side of the room that you're in.You can see it's where this river runs and as you get to it, its mouth widens.
It looks like there's only one way forward. What are we waiting for?
Guys, do you think there's a scary monster down at the heart of this planet?I feel like there's gonna be a scary monster.
What else could it possibly be, Chuckles?Right, gotta be a scary monster.
Well, so far it's just been penguins in pools of black water.
Well, maybe it'll be okay.
Maybe Danny's down there.Maybe she needs our help.I don't think so, Chuckles.Let's go.OK.
We go?I'm still right behind Pike.
The same shaking of the cavern with every step Labouche takes thunders throughout.The sound echoes through the voluminous walls of the cavern as you reach this opening.A gargantuan space unfolds in front of you.
Stalactites hang from the ceiling, seemingly daring you to stand beneath them.As you look at them, jet black in coloration.Droplets fall. Thank you for the support Black droplets fall To strike the ground ahead of you 20 days later I
Uh, the, the almost rhythmic rain that falls about you slowly hits the ground ahead.Um, but what's strange is it doesn't seem to make a sound as it lands.Uh,
The water falls from the ceiling and you realize as you move closer that it's not striking the ground, it's striking an enormous sea of black water.The surface completely undisturbed as the droplets fall.No movement, no ripple, no sound.
from the base of your back to the bottom of your neck, a chill creeps up your spine.And that's where we'll end the session.
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