Chasing Barendur Session 12

What the fuck? Hi, Craig. Yeah, I’m using a new recording thing because my other one has been having bad audio quality. Oh, no. But now it’s going to record each person as a separate audio line so that I can edit them independently. That’s good. That’s smart. I got a big new monitor, but now I have to wear my glasses because it’s farther away. Damn. I need to get a new computer, man. I’m running all this on a laptop and this guy can only handle so much. Yeah. Honestly, I got a gaming laptop just to run all my stuff off of a while ago, and it’s impressed me with how far they’ve come. I want to get a big tower PC eventually, but for right now, the laptop’s doing pretty good. I had preset dice roll buttons here like a minute ago. They just went away, though. Oh, that’s why. Okay. Yeah. The update also broke a lot of my modules that I had in there. So there’s going to be some features that might be a little while before they’re back. Understood, Captain. Hello. Hey, everybody. Hello. There’s no scorn today, is there? No. Oh, Scorn is going to be a puppet today. Don’t do him a disservice. Okay, so how do I stop the 3D dice? Because that’s an unnecessary effect that I do not need. Hold on, I think I just fixed it. Okay. My Saturdays have felt so long recently because I wake up to take my dog to the dog park at six and then we start playing at eight. And we’re usually playing until almost midnight. Yeah. I tried to fit in a nap today, but that wasn’t really all that successful. There we go. That’s a better dice rolling experience for me. Not next week, but the week after that, the 28th, I will be in Gainesville seeing my sister. I probably will be able to hop in anyway. I’m going to take all my stuff just in case, but just so, just like as a warning, I might not be available. Hello. Hey, that’s my favorite Taiwanese Brit. What’s up, dude? I’m good. How are you? I’m good, man. I’m good. I’m up. I’m awake. Excellent. What is this Craig thing? So, Craig is their new recorder that I’m using. It records directly from Discord, so it records everyone’s audio independently so I can level out the sounds afterwards when I’m processing the audio. Very cool. Smart. So that way I can go back through it so everyone sounds about the same when I’m posting the audio online. Makes sense. Have you been like editing those sessions or have you just found a start place for them and then just uploading them? I’ve been doing a little bit of editing, but not much. Mostly just stuff like trimming out silences and big gaps. Got you. Because I was like, I realized that when we broke for our 15-minute break, I was just like, oh, okay, he cut that up. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So I edit it. I didn’t know if you were like going to try that like that much for it. I thought you were just going to be like, eh, screw it. This is something they can listen to later. I don’t want to edit it. Yeah. I want to get better at editing them because I do want them to be pleasant to listen to. Yeah. I got into DD because of a DD podcast, so listening to it is fun. Which one? Dungeons and Daddies. The most non-DD one, really, because they really fuck around with the rules. But no, they became my obsession in 2022. I believe it was around that time. And I’ve been keeping up with them since. I’ve been a member of their Patreon. I saw them on tour last year, was it? Yeah, last year in Georgia. Because that was the closest place to me. I’m wearing their shirt today. Okay. Very neat. Cool. Yeah. My very niche fandom. I hear you. I used to be like a really big fan of high rollers like back in 2018. Their original campaign was really good. For sure. It’s always like it’s hard to get that like original because I feel like that happens a lot with a lot of podcasts. I mean, Dimension 20 is pretty good with keeping it exciting for all their games.
But that initials campaign, and then when they move past that, it just doesn’t have the same charm. Because this podcast, Dungeons and Daddies, is on season three, and they’re using the Cthulhu system on three, and it’s fine, but it’s like it’s a different vibe. It’s fun, but it doesn’t have the same charm as the first and even second season. But I’m a sucker. I feel like I’m the only person I know who’s been playing DD for years that hasn’t actually listened to a podcast. The only reason I listen to it is because I was a big fan of Freddie W on YouTube in his early days, and he’s a part of that podcast. Okay. You want to say hi? Hey, Pupper. Hey, Cutie. Who are you going to play today? What’s his name? His name is Shorty. Shorty. Shorty is short for Steven Shortington. That’s not what I thought it was going to be short for. No, his given name was Shorty. He’s four years old. So when we got him, you know, he already listened to his name and everything. So we didn’t want to change it. I would have for sure just named him some random white dude name, though, like Steven or some shit. I really like that for dogs because it’s like you have like dogs that are like pickle or Joseph, you know? So yeah, you really get one or the other. We have Luca and Corn the Betrayer. Oh, wow. Nice. Elias, you have cats, right? Yeah. Okay. I got two cats. I was trying to remember who sent pets to the pet chat. I feel like I’m the only one without pets. Is this an America thing? Everyone has a pet, or it’s just. It’s very common. I mean, I only just got the guy, so do you? Are you not interested in pets, or you just never felt the need to get one? Both? Yeah, I’m not interested and never felt the need. Get a fish, dude. I had my family, my family did have a dog when I was younger, and it was great. But that for myself was not. Don’t want to. It’s all the upkeep. I don’t want to do the, you know, depending on the pet. Like, we had to get pet insurance for him. You know, we’ve had to adjust our schedule and everything for him. So it’s like, it’s for sure a change, but it’s pretty fun having him around. Yeah, it’s fun. So I just want to do a little check-in. How are you guys doing, and what do you want to see in the next few sessions? That’s a good question, dude. I haven’t thought about it. I’ve just been enjoying whatever we’ve been doing so far. Yeah. Yeah, you’ve been doing a really good job at giving us the ability to do what we want, but also keep us on track. There are for sure been some moments where we’ll like we will have to look at each other and be like, well, now what? But you’ve been doing a pretty good job at keeping us steady and going. Oh, no. I got no bad notes. I got no additional things. I don’t, you know, I like what you’re doing so far, so I can’t complain. All right. Yeah. Maybe just the cult of Baron Dur still interested in finding out what the heck that is and the Celestial business. I think. I feel like, I guess, like the biggest thing is I’m for sure there are moments where I’m a tad bit lost on the premise because like there’s just a lot of information on the cult, on temples and stuff like that. So trying to like grasp the campaign has been honestly the hardest part for me. Yeah. And part of that does come from how I run the games where I start with a few different adventure hooks and then build the campaign as you go. And so for the premise of where you’re at right now was you encountered relics of an ancient cult and now you have been given various quests to go and track down the rest of them and there is someone else out there who is trying to get them from you. We’re not under the understanding that it’s just one party, right? That’s different groups. That’s what I okay. Yeah. So you a few of those groups that you’ve met would be the Cambians you met on the road into the crooked crossroads.
That would be some of the traders you met in the Crooked Crossroads. Some of the people hiring others to get these artifacts. It would even be Lexism, would be one of them. As he’s one of the people who have tried to get them in the past. I suppose the one thing I’ve not known how to describe it, but I would have thought there’d be some kind of authority somewhere who we would need to talk to about all these happenings and that they might be interested in it as well. As like the rulers of cities, but I know that Crooked Crossroads doesn’t have a ruler. But what about Drowning Wallace? You more or less showed up in Drowning Wallace and didn’t look for the authorities. That is true. I mean, you did talk to one of the central authorities of the city, which is Lackasism. Yep. But all he knows is that you went adventuring with his assistant who then died. And to my knowledge, everything about this cult is under wraps for the most part in these temples. A select few of people who know to look for this information know about it, but it’s not, I don’t, it’s not like a grand world problem where it’s just like, oh, you know, like, yeah, it has been actively buried. Okay, so I can imagine it’s not fully known. Pretty much. Yeah, most people, the average person, has no idea what’s going on with these. Sounds good. Other than that, I’m all good. So, where’d we leave off? We were leaving town, right? Getting ready to leave town. Oh, yeah. I’m just ready for more fights, but I guess I’m going to get a taste of that soon. Could you update your Discord name, Mars, to be your character name? Yes. It helps me keep track of who’s who. I hope I didn’t overcomplicate it too much, Elias. I put like my name, like what I go by, and then in parentheses, Ipid Paladin. Is that right? Character name in your class. That’s just how I differentiate who’s the different characters. Got you. Okay. Because when I’m running quite a few games, and so sometimes it gets murky. I text Elias. He doesn’t know my name. Who the f are you, dude? I don’t know. How many other games do you have? Right now, two. Oh, wow. And I’m looking to open up three or four more. Wow. Wow. And so as those go on, it’ll be a lot of making sure everything stays straight between the games. They’re happening in the same durance. I don’t think so. They’re all happening in the same setting. And so sometimes you’ll hear rumors, and that’s stuff that other groups are doing. Have you? I guess you said you’ve done that before. Doesn’t it get like super complicated to keep track of the threads of stories and stuff? It’s a little complicated the first time I did it, but I learned to more of take them apart instead of trying to keep them track of all those distinct threads as just things that happened in locations. Sure. And that’s one of the reasons I have them posted on a website is so I can go through and look at them all. And I have them tagged with different characters and the locations so I can go back and search through what happened where and what’s going on. Pretty smart, yeah. Did Starling get the spells sorted out? I remember there was something about spells. I did. I did take some time to do that earlier. And that other spell I gave you, it should be available in your character sheet now. I haven’t pulled up my character. Let me do that. I think every week I’m going to need to know what you’re drinking. Today we got very, very like, I just turned 21. This is vodka and watermelon lemonade. I went to the liquor stove and I was just like, shit. I was like, what do I get? What did I get this week? And there’s one of those brisk like tea combo things. I was like, all right. The main reason I’m doing all this is because I’m like building up my little bar area and I have a bunch of like different new liquors and I didn’t have a vodka and I
I had some guests over who were like, Yeah, I don’t have any vodka. And I’m like, I guess not. So I got a vodka and I was like, well, let me try it. So, on the managed spells on the DD Beyond sheet, it should be under known spells. It’s fourth level and a homebrew spell. It’s Midnight Veil. I see it. I’m going to swap something out for it. Let me know once you do that and I’ll update it on the foundry. Okay, I got it. The other thing I noticed the other day was Discord’s pretty good at not letting you hear too much background noise. I was good at canceling out the background noise. My kid was like screaming the other day when I was on with my other friends playing games and stuff. And I was like, can you guys not hear that? And they were like, what? No, it’s fine. What? I was like, amazing now. He was like running around, dancing, jumping, screaming, like laughing, playing. I couldn’t hear anything. It was great. That was really good. For Microsoft Teams, my dogs are always working and nobody hears them. And I don’t believe them. I think it just made nice. This has been nice. Like, so I’ve got a fan on right now. It’s pretty loud. Can you hear that? No. No. It’s because Discord has like that audio thing, like that crisp thing. It works pretty well, but sometimes when, and I tend to do this because I’m just an idiot, sometimes I tend to get loud. And because of how loud I get, it cuts myself out thinking it’s background noise. It’s like, whoa, what was that? But it was you. That happened a lot, like two sessions ago, where I was like in the middle of a sentence and I realized I got cut out. And I was, and I mean, you guys understood me, thankfully, but like, I for sure was like, oh, there’s probably moments where I wasn’t understood. No one understands me. But I’m ready to get into this. All right. So, where you guys are, you are traveling up into the mountains. It’s been about a week since you left Drowning Wallace. Wow. Okay. The hills are picking up and getting steeper. They are still farmed. And you’re passing through fields that have been harvested as autumn sets in. Are we on our horsies? Are on your horsies. Hell yeah. What kind of horse would Starling have? Does Starling have a mount, a magical mount, or did we buy one? Will we say we bought one? Well, we bought one, just a black mare. Okay, black one. Okay. Does it have a name? Horse. Horse. All right. So we’ve been traveling with each other for a week. How well do you, how, how well have we gotten to know each other, especially the new person in the party? What have you shared? Yeah. I mean, we need to know more about Starling, I think, right? Well, I mean, that’s up to her. She wouldn’t even be talking. She probably would have, she probably stayed quiet the whole trip. She spends basically all of her time either whispering to herself or weaving a tapestry. Got you. Got you. I imagine Ipid on his horse sort of like catching up to you and being like, so Starling, you’ve been pretty quiet. It’s been a week. Have you named it yet? I got very concerned when you bought the horse and you haven’t named it since. I feel like that’s a good way to keep a connection with a horse. Keeping connections. I don’t understand. Well, you know, like companionship, friendship, you know, I don’t just call Aldrich wizard. I don’t call you magic user. You know, I call you guys by the name. You know, we have that type of connection, you know? So it’s like my horse is name is Oath. You know, a little play on words there. But, you know, he’s a good pal. I’ve had him for a while now, and it’s a good way to open up a relationship with your horse. He’s not just a tool for means of travel, but he’s also my buddy, you know? I think you’re a very good tool, Ipid. And your horse probably is too. I okay, you know what? Thank you. And Ipid rides up ahead. As you’re riding through, you’re going through fields and forests, and you see a
Two farmers talking on the road. Okay, so hold on. I’m so sorry. What is the location we’re heading to? I had this written down somewhere. You are passing Drowning Wallace and crossing through the mountains to Linlithgau. Linlithgow, is that the next temple, or is that or was that something else? Because I had it under question marks. You are going to track down the celestial. Right. Okay. Okay. That’s the Celestial’s last location. Or what the blacksmith explained. Yeah. Got you. Okay. All right. Sorry. We get back to it. You all stop and gather as the round as you meet these farmers. They wave you down, standing beside their fields, now empty, awaiting winter. They hold up their hands. Have you heard the news? What news? Sorry, and Ipid pulls back on his horse. What news? There’s an army amassing in Balatur preparing to march. An army? For what? Seems they’re going to invade and try to take Aberfeldi. That’s the kingdom of Mara planning to invade the kingdom of Abane. Got you. Yeah, I can see that on the map. Got our map pulled up here. Aldrich asks, yeah, why? Why are they doing that? Is that there’s something in Aberfeldi. Something valuable. So it was so valuable that they want to start up a war for it? I’m sorry, the audio cut out from me there. Yeah, wait. Ballatur has been filled with soldiers for the past weeks. The rumor is they’re waiting for the river to freeze. Oh. And how long? How long? Yeah, how long till that happens? Probably about two moons. Oh. So, like, two days. Right, two days. A moon is a moon, a lunar cycle. So that’s about five to six weeks. Oh, right. Two moons is around three months. Well, that’s near. Well, Alberfeldi, right? That’s what Balater wants to attack. Yes. That’s not too far from my home. Where are you from? I’m from Spear McGregor. Oh, yeah. Can I roll a history or like do our characters? Is there any type of history that we may have known just being as people a part of this world? You would know that the river between Aberfeldi and Balater is the historical barrier. Even in the winter, the harsh snows and winds typically deter people from crossing. Got you. However, there must have been some discovery that is allowing them to travel in the winter. Must be something really important. Baltair wants to frickin’ attack Albertfeldi for it. Do we know these locations to be peaceful? Are they always kind of quick to action? They are almost never this quick to act. Oh, wow. Okay. Normally, they’ll declare a war or a border conflict months, maybe a year in advance. Well, thank you for the news, gentlemen, right? Or people? I don’t mean to assume. Farmers look towards you. What news comes from Drowning Wallace? We assume you’ve been there. You’re coming up on the road. Oh, yeah. Some pretty sick stuff. It’s much sunnier there than it has been. That’s true. The main reason why Starling liked the place is, well, it’s kind of gone now. That’s a shame. But the ghoul infestation, the issues that they had with the dear disappearances of civilians of the town, it seems to be a problem that is now dwindling. And it seems that a new chapter is going to be appearing on Drowning Wallace. A better chapter for them. Oh, a better chapter, you say. That is true. Yes. See, this is a good way to do it. Well, you know, like it’s not as gross and dark over there anymore. Used to be a lot of gross things lurking around in the streets at night, but that issue is no more. It’d be much safer to travel there. This is true. Yes. Looking back at you. Oh, that’s good news.
We were planning to travel up for the winter. Yeah, lovely time of year to do that. Oh, yeah, because I guess you guys aren’t going to be doing much here during the winter. They did kill that fisherman, though, next to the tavern. That is true. Those creatures that once invaded that town did kill a fisherman that we were aware of, that we had met, but those creatures are no longer, and the city is in a lot better shape. Just saying, if you want those supplies from that fisherman’s shop, you’re not going to get them from him anymore. Oh, we’re not much of fishers. I’ll drink. Why are you being so dreary about this? Do you guys have an issue? He was halfway about to pull out a skull and it just doesn’t. Oh, my gosh. He doesn’t. He’s like, yeah, okay, whatever. It seems we’re not too far out from Lithingal, and it seems like you guys have been closer to there than we have. Any news about Lithingal that you are aware of? Something because we are traveling there. Be careful of traveling over the mountains. The giants have been especially active. Ooh, you don’t say. Yes, they’ve taken over the main pass. And nobody’s doing anything about it. No one has come through. All concerns are on the armies preparing to march. And are these giants sticking together in groups? Yes, they’re ugly things. They have large stone heads. Look like it was just molded out of clay. And you’ll see three or four of them together at a time. Oof. Have any of you guys dealt with giants? He looks back at his group. Not in my past. No. No, not particularly. Any recommendations on weary travelers ahead? Recommendations? Prepare well before entering the mountains. It’s already begun to snow. Oh, gosh. Okay. What do you think we’ll need? Are you going to like? Are we going to like how meta are we going to get about this? Are we going to need cold clothes? Probably, but there is a small town just before you get to the edge of the mountain pass. Perfect. Well, thank you for letting us know. We’ll be sure to stop there and well equip because we do need to get to Lithingal despite whatever may be on the path there. Will you be ready? Is this the farmer talking? Yes. Yeah. Giants are not to be trifled with. Even these lesser ones. I mean, do you know what will take them down? Any weaknesses? I don’t know much of the weaknesses of giants. Well, don’t worry about us. You know, we have gotten ourselves into a situation or two and we made it out just fine. It’s just about us keeping our wits about and being positive in that right group. And Ibid gives a big smile to his party. Ultric is just worried as usual. Not saying much. Yeah, we’re great. Don’t worry about us. But I really do appreciate the caution. Be ready. The days grow short and the wind grows cold and you feel the air rush over you, stealing warmth from your bodies as the leaves rustle and fall. Farmers begin picking up what they have around them and walking down the road. Waving back to you, saying, best of luck. We’ll see you later. Yeah. Thank you. Best of luck to you guys. Were those farmers weird to you guys, or is that just me being overthinking? They just seem like commoners to me. Yeah, I don’t know. They just seem. I mean, I guess that’s fair. They seem pretty worried about us when. I mean, they didn’t really have to be, but it’s nice to be thought about or worried about. Right. I don’t know. Seems to be the ways of small villagers. They all band together. They all look after one another. It’s hard to shake that behavior. Yeah, that is true. That is true. You know, back in the tribe that I’m from, we usually try to look out for each other’s back too. You know, days like these is when I really do miss home. Speaking of home, where are you? Where are you abouts from? I’m from a cloister far away.
I see. I’m from Darnuck. Oh, yeah? How’s life over there in Darnuck? All right. Well, it was dreary. It was dreary. Gotta say. So I left. Came to draw crossroads. Yeah. Sounds like a nice place to be. So there’s something in Aberfeldty. Do you think that might be what we’re looking for? You know, I was just thinking about that. It could be, but in regards to the temple locations that we’ve been given, it doesn’t seem like it should be anything of our concern, you know? We know there’s a temple in Alsdair’s Lost, Bolleter, and Falkirk. Wait, holy shit. Wait, I’m an idiot. Hold on. No, never mind. I guess my biggest concern is that there is a temple in Bolleter, but Bolleter is the one that’s attacking Aberfeldi. So I don’t know. Maybe we should go there. Perhaps. That is a bit out of our ways. Let me see here. Ipid takes out his map and looks. So we’re going to be heading to Lithengau in about… Well, to get over the mountain pass, how long does Ipid know that would take? With good travel, about a week. With what you’re expecting, two or three. Understood. And if we were to straight up just divert and head all the way up to Balater. Because that would be… Well, no, we would still have to take the mountains, would we? Or would that just be us avoiding the mountain? So you’re almost to Melrose, which is where you’ll be at before you go through the mountain pass. Oh, okay. So we could make the choice of heading back up or heading east. You could head up to Balater. However, there is no road direct from the Crooked Crossroads to Ballatur. So you would either have to trek through the wilderness between the two, which would take in the winter, maybe two months. Or follow the roads either to Pitakree and to Balater or to Falkirk than Balater. And then the Melrose to the Crooked Crossroads is about two weeks of travel. Got you. Okay. Well, the Celestial Bean is at least thought to be in Lithingau. And I’m really worried about that thing being there because who knows what it could be up to. But on the other hand, there’s a large conflict in one of our locations of interest. The other thing is, we were told last time there is a temple in Alistair’s Lost. That is true. I mean, that would be the idea from after Lithingal, we’d head over to Alasair’s Lost. Yeah. That’s what we were talking about last time. That sounds good. Yeah. Because then after Alzair’s Lost, hoping everything goes well, we’d be making the large track up north back up to Falkirk, and then from there to Balater. But I don’t know. It seems like the conflict might have already start by the time we even get over there. But news travels fast, so we might be aware of what’s going on. I don’t know. But for sure, we should stay the path because we have other dire things happening. What about learning a way to travel faster? Do you think that’s possible? You know, Thorn, Rose Thorne, she can just port all her way around. That is fair. I don’t know. I mean, I’m not one to know these kinds of things, Aldrich. I guess that would be more in your department or maybe even you, Starling. I mean, so far I don’t have a way. I don’t even know much about these things. My experience is more like, you know, divining, telling the future, and seeing if I could blow things up with fire. So I’m not sure. But it sure would be useful. I can travel in different ways, but not at that distance. There might be another way, though. Yeah, probably something really strong and powerful that we’d have to do together. But, you know, for sure, let’s not shut that idea out. It’s for sure a good idea, and it would help us save a lot of travel time. We had a guy that turned into goo and then just melted away and just like. Yeah, but he probably went like 20 feet until we didn’t see him. And then he just went back to his normal self and walked away. Just walked again. Yeah, probably. Keep these things in mind, Aldrich. We might be giving people more credit than they actually deserve. Just saying. But yeah.
No, but we should keep the track force to Melrose at least. And Melrose is a location I have yet to explore. So I’ve been to Alberfeldi. I’ve been to Bolliter slightly. Nothing too crazy, but yeah. As you’re talking, you begin to hear four voices arguing ahead of you on the road. Oof. Can’t quite make out what they’re saying yet. We let’s proceed with caution. From where we are, can I perceive to maybe get a better view at who we might be approaching? You don’t. You can only hear loud voices arguing about being hungry and everything’s gone. What time of day is it? Just wondering if I need light or something. Approaching the evening. Okay. How long would it take for us to get to Melrose? As you are now, you’ve been traveling out of Drowning Wallace for about a week. You’re going through some big hills, and then you’ll be crossing the river soon. Okay, so we’re not across the river. Do each of these hexagons have a value of distance? About one week of traveling. Gotcha. Understood. As you are on horseback. This is the map of the world. That’s an exact distance. Does Starling have the map? Yeah. Just to make sure. I don’t have the map. So in the Discord, in general, chasing Barador, if you look at the pinned messages, one of them will be a map. Yeah, it’s probably good you have a visual. We’ve been talking about this map. Not even. Yeah, I remember looking at it. Yeah, Drowning Wallace is in the bottom left there. And then we were kind of going in a northeasterly direction. I see Melrose. Gotcha. So based on my understanding, the white dotted lines, those are the paved paths and pretty much like your typical government paid highways, right? Pretty much for travel. They’re more or less the maintained roads. Got you. And the red marks? The red marks are the borders between countries. Gotcha. Okay. All right. And the cooked crossroads, its own country. Yes. Got you. So we’ve been in gobheading this whole time. Yes, this whole time you’ve been there. And we’ve been sticking to the paths, right? Yeah, we’re on the dotted line, almost about to hit the water from Drowning Wallace to Melrose. Let’s proceed lightly, crew. It seems like that group ahead, they seem to be arguing. And let’s hopefully we don’t have to get involved. Well, okay. If anything does happen, I’m going to. As soon as we know something happens, if something bad happens, Aldric would start to cast mage armor, but he’s not doing it yet. Aldric will ask Starling, do you have any way of listening to people or like sneakily finding out what’s going on there? I think you might be on mute. I can become invisible, but it would take a great deal of magic to do that. Maybe we should save it. Yeah, no, okay. Well, Aldric will just park a little bit behind Iput, maybe 10 feet away from Ipet’s horse. Aldric, Aldric, we fought a demon. Don’t worry. I mean, I trust you. You’ve always got my back so far. So that’s all this is. And you’re always behind my back, but you know, just how it is. All right, let’s move forward. As you continue, the voices are coming from the woods beside the road. You don’t see anyone. Can we try and like just saying, we’re hungry. Everything’s gone. I know it’s gone, but that’s not my fault. And this is coming from Aldros. People took it all. Yes. Okay. In like into the woods, you said? Yes, into the woods. I’m sorry. I’m having difficulties with the tabletop after the update. You’re good. I mean, we’re fear of the mind in it pretty hard right now. I think we’re all right. Ipit kind of like awkwardly looks and he’s just like, um, do we get involved in this? One option might be just running. Well, I mean, we don’t have to run, Aldric. What about the farmers? If more people come by or pass through, what if these whatever is speaking hurts them? We really should check it out. Yeah.
That that makes sense, yeah. Um uh Ipid leans off the leads off the main path towards the towards the noise lean off. You hear two voices coming from one area and two from another. It’s like people are standing in two different groups. Almost in synchronization, two voices are yelling, we should have taken them off the road. The other, we can steal what we need. Ooh, okay. Um, Ippid proceeds forward to find a clearing in all of this to find out where these guys are. Uh, Aldrich’s getting scared. He’s gonna hang back and cast mage armor as you head forward. You see two heads sitting on one pair of shoulders in front of you. Oh, uh, hello! Acts to you, and it turns, dragging a large club, points at you. We found meat. Is it a giant? It is. It stands about 14 feet tall. Oh, shape heads glaring at you. Aldrich’s like, I wish we would have run. I just want to run. You didn’t find meat. I’m just going to argue with it. You’re wrong. Yeah, we’re not meat. We’re people. I’m not wrong. This one is meat. No, just more meat. We didn’t say we found more meat. No, you just found me. What do you mean I just found meat? I found meat. No, you didn’t. Yes, I did, pointing at Ipid again. This one’s full of meat. I don’t believe he is. Prove it. Take off his armor and show us. I don’t. Nobody needs to be taken off anything. I’m not. I mean, I’m not meat. I’m people. There’s no need. There’s, I got, you don’t want me. I’m all scaly and gross anyway. I’m going to reach over to Ipid and I’m going to touch him and cast greater invisibility on him. Okay. If it’s like in the middle of speaking, and he’s just like, ah, you don’t want to eat me anyway. And I look over and I guess I blink out of sight. And starts walking towards you, waving its hand in front of you. Where’d you go? I told you there’s no meat. She’s gaslighting him, dude. One head looks at you. The others argue. See, she said there’s no meat. The other yells at him. I said there is meat. Ipid is going. Ipid’s going to. Fuck, I have heavy armor on. Without trying to make a lot of sound, Ipid’s going to try to maneuver around the guy so I’m behind the giant. So you’re standing behind the giant now. Cool. Do I sense they’re doing anything too rash? Are they just still just arguing with each other? They’re arguing with each other, and you realize you’re standing in between two of them. So Aldric’s gonna cast the gust cantrip. So if there’s two like that, Aldric would cast it to the… And like, whichever one, Ipid is not behind. Well, I wouldn’t know that, I guess. You wouldn’t know that. Wait, hold on. So wait, there’s a giant with two heads, but there’s another giant on top of that. There’s another giant with two heads behind you now. Oh, okay. So whatever direction is left of where we are. Aldric, I think I can make the trees or the bushes kind of rustle a little bit with a wind. And he’s going to be like, I think I saw some meat go over there. There could be animals in there. Two arguing heads began lambering over there. You said there’s meat over there. That’s where the meat went. They begin walking towards the bushes. I’m going to start easing away, like, back toward the road and horses. I’m going to whisper to Starlin. What are we doing? Where’s the man? We’re leading. Come on. Okay, I’ll follow you then. If it’s still face to face with this giant, right? Yes. Okay, but it doesn’t notice me. What is this giant saying about the other two guys? Or the double-headed giant fighting? It has been quietly watching me. This is another double-headed giant. Oh, he has no opinion. Okay. Hmm.
Ipid tries to slowly walk away from the situation. Try not to make too much noise. As you’re walking away, make a stealth check. Do you’re invisible? I get it. I know this is like screwing myself over, but I got disadvantage on it due to my heavy armor. So does it just even out? Yes. Okay. I could have just kept my mouth quiet, but I’m too much of a loser. As an eight. You step on a thick branch and it rolls underneath you and you fall down with a large clamor of metal. Giants look towards you. But I’m not visible, but they just heard where that sound was coming from, right? Yes, they can’t see you. But they turn towards you. But my gear and everything on me is invisible. Yes. Okay. If it’s going to try to react quickly and go into his pack, and I do. Come on, come on, come on. Ain’t no freaking way. Oh, wait. There it is. Please tell me I have. I have rope. Ibid’s going to take out his rope. And he’s going to try his best to maneuver around. Alright, so the best way I can explain this: Ipid’s going to Empire Strikes Back, screw up these guys ATAT style by wrapping up at least one of the giant’s legs, trying to run around it. I’m imagining that Ipid is still on his horse. Is that the case? Or would he have gotten down? I would have probably left my horse on the main path and then moved on. I assume that’s all we all did. Okay, just for my mind’s sink. Yeah. Yeah. But no, Ibid, he’s going to try his best to maneuver around these giants using their now confused. I don’t know. Their moment of confusion of everything. And try to get the one who’s been pretty aggro instead of the quiet one. All right. You’re trying to wrap up his legs? Pretty much, yeah. As you’re running, your armor clatters and they’re trying to follow the sound, twisting heads back and forth, yelling at you. Meet, meet. So, yeah, so the best, I’m going to try to do this the best way I can. If it’s going to run towards a nearby tree, and he’s going to wrap one end of the rope tight against that tree, so one end is taut and the other end is loose. And I’m going to try to lure the giant towards the tree that I got it tied to to begin wrapping around the giant. I will roll whatever you need me to roll. Roll athletics. I’m a trooper at that. While I can’t see anything on the forge, I can see your rolls, which is at least something. Yeah, I got a black screen, too, so it’s fine. I got a 10. That’s a 10. That’s a plus seven, too. Good lord. You managed to wrap your rope around its legs, but not quite get it around the tree. And you’re left pulling, trying to get it to touch the tree. The weight of the giant pulls against the rope as it walks around, pulling you behind it. Ipid is going to probably just give up the tree idea and to at least just get it on its just to get it prone and to have it fall down. If it’s going to pull with all of his might in the opposite direction to hopefully get it to trip while pulling the rope, now that it’s got it taught around its legs. Make a strength check as you pull against its legs, trying to pull it tight. Okay. 13. As you pull against its legs, it’s still pulling you backwards, but it begins to stumble and falls forward. Heck yeah. Does it fall face first or back first? It falls the direction you’re pulling it in. So make a dexterity check to see if it falls on top of you. That’s fair. Okay. I’m not very dexterous. Ooh, but I don’t care. Dropping the rope, you roll out of the way. Heck yes. Creature falls. In that immediate moment of it being on the ground now, Ip is going to take that remaining rope and wrap the rope around his head. So his legs are sort of. He’s like hogtied in a way. Wrapping the rope around both heads and against his legs, he is tied up and struggling. After that, does the other giant just not doing anything? The other giant is walking forward, curious about what happened. He pulls.
Points towards Starling. Did you do this? With magic? I know what magic is. You use magic, don’t you? And the other head says, yes, she uses magic. No, I’m sorry. I don’t know how to use magic. I’m not very smart. See, she’s dumb. She can’t use magic. If it, in this moment of Starling distracting the giant and this other guy on the floor, if it’s going to slice, it’s Achilles’ tendon. I’m at a rope deep into the leg. Are you cutting the tendon of the one that’s down or the one that is still the one that’s still standing, so they’re both on the ground. And I’m just going to run by them and then just slice. Roll to hit with advantage. Say less. Let me go through my thing. Ooh, that’s a natural 20-on-one roll. As you go, you cut through the tendon easily, slicing it as the giant falls howling to the forest floor. Ipid feeling like he’s done enough now. He’s going to run up to Starling and like grab her shoulder so she knows I’m there. And I say, let’s get the hell out of here. Sounds good to me. Let’s go. Come on, Aldrich. All right. You don’t need to ask me twice. As you go back to the road, you see where your companions are still standing with the horses. Oh, shit. Yeah. I forgot. We have Scorn. We have Tom. And that’s it, right? Yes. Okay. Oh. Am I still invisible? Yes. Until Starling says you’re not. Starling. Yeah, that’d be great. I reappear heavily panting, heavily sweaty. He’s like, quick thinking. Wow. Okay. Good job. Do you know anything about giants? There’s a couple of giants in the woods there. Who are you talking to? Tom. Oh, Tom. Tom looks at you. Giants, you said. Yeah, two-headed giants, and there’s a pair of them. I think Ipid must have. It looks like it’s under control, but is there anything you know in a while? I feel like. Have you ever fought a giant, Tom? Never fought a giant. I’ve never seen a giant. Okay, just as well. Well, you don’t have to see one now. We should get out of here. Oh, I think I would like to. Let’s go see the giants. Tom, no. We are. You know, I got them on the floor for now, but they’re bound to get up at some point. Let’s get the hell out of here. Tom begrudgingly agrees. And Scorn morosely follows, not saying anything at all. Ah, such a scorn thing. And Ipid hops on oath and gets the hell out of there, headed towards Melrose. I mean, I suppose at least we can mention to the townsfolk of Melrose that there’s a couple of angry giants to kind of watch out. Seems like the well, we were able to outwit them, thankfully. It doesn’t seem like these giants are very bright. But, I mean, any other traveler would have for sure, you know, probably gotten really messed up by these guys. But quick thinking there, Starling, thank you for that. For sure. Meat? I was a tool hours ago, and now I’m meet. I guess the horse can be meat. We’re naming the horse meat. Does that please you? You know what? Aghast, you would name a horse meat? It was just one of those things. You just had to be there, Tom. I love Tom. She loves meat, Tom. And that means she loves your horse. So, you know what? Let’s put traditional naming conventions aside, Tom. The horse is cared for. You’re under its care, too. Let her do what she wants. As you hear this, Tom looks at you. Let her do what she wants. He looks back. Starling. I’ll let you do anything once. Just nothing to the horses. I won’t hurt the horses, I promise. I don’t hurt anything at all. He looks at you. Oh, you can hurt things, just not horses. Okay. That’s fair. Like this guy, he points at Ipid. He can take a real beating. I prefer not to, honestly.
But I tend to get beat anyway. Just been unlucky a few times. Thanks, Aldrick. You’re welcome. You’re not drinking, are you, Tom? Tom looks at you. He takes a big swig from his canteen. No, certainly not. Right, right. Okay. So you wouldn’t mind giving me some of that water? I don’t have any water. Right, okay. Let’s head forward. As you continue on the road, you hear howling from behind you, and you hear the sound of giants wrestling. I would assume with each other. You hear two voices shout in unison: You’re going to be the meat now. Sounds like they’re going to eat each other. Sounds fade as you continue down the road. Let’s keep going. Keep going. Keep going. Just cutting meat the horse. What happens? The giants sound like they’re attacking each other. Oh, you know what? Better them with each other than us. I agree. And you didn’t even get beat up, did you? No, I didn’t. That’s all thanks to you, though. Very good. And yeah. And it’s not often that I get into a situation where there is a threat and I don’t not get hurt. But I didn’t get hurt this time, which I’m really grateful for. My back hurts. Not right now, but it usually does. You should get a back robin, Melrose. If we were at Melrose for pleasure and not business, for sure. As you continue along the road, it is quiet, and the wind blows as leaves fall down around you. Step by step, you continue towards the city. After a few days’ travel, you come across a large bridge crossing the river with a small toll house next to it. What’s this? What time of day is it? This is around noon. Okay. The sun is shining and you can smell freshly churned soil from the harvest. Got you. This is just a lone house on the path. It is a toll house next to the bridge. Oh, okay. Okay. I got you. Oh, we finally got to the water. Thank God. I think we might have to pay our dues. I don’t know what this is. If it, I mean, yeah, we approach the bridge. As you approach the bridge, a man looks forward at you. Are you here to pay the toll? I mean, if we have to pay a toll to get across, I mean, yeah, how much do you need, sir? He leans on the building. You notice it has been newly and quickly constructed. There are holes in the boards. It looks cold. He says, Tolls for the road. Yes, to go to Melrose. One gold each. Oh, that’s not that bad. May I ask who this is going to specifically? It’s going to the king. To the country. To the army. Does Ipit know this is BS? Do we have a king? This is complete BS. This country doesn’t have a king. Ah. I don’t remember the country of. Fuck, what was it called? What are we in? Gobaine. Gobaine. Go that word. I don’t remember this country being a monarchy. Oh, it’s going towards the army. Just the army. Army of what? There isn’t just one informal. Galbaine. Does Gobain have an army? It does. Oh, okay. Do you have any official… I mean, you don’t. Does he look like an armyman? Does he look like official? He doesn’t. He is dressed in cut leather that is patched all over the place. He has no official markings or badges. Sir, I don’t know, but by the looks of it, are you a member of the army? If so, or if you’re not, do you have any official word or document or ruling that explains that my toll is going to be going to the army of this country? He looks at you. Well, I don’t think that you need those.
Sorts of things. I mean, who am I? Look, as a citizen who is more than willing to pay his due to help this country succeed, I would just like to know where my gold is going to is all. Oh, you want to know where your gold is going? That’s okay. I understand. It’s going to the army. You’re not. You know what, sir? Do you live here? Is this your toll house? Are you paid by the army of this country to be taking tolls for this one bridge? Yes, this one bridge. I live here. I’ve always lived here. You’ve always lived here. Right. Last time you crossed this bridge, there was no one. Now, Ultric would like to look at the toll house and see. Is there anything official looking on it? Or what does that look like? That toll house. The toll house is more of a wooden shack built beside the bridge. It doesn’t have any official markings at all. And it seems to be built of copper nails and the cheapest wood he could find. Some of it’s still wet from when it was cut. I may be wrong, sir, but that this building, this toll, this booth, and the toll they even needed to pay to pass this bridge wasn’t here when I traveled here not that long ago. So for you to say you’ve lived here your whole life, I can’t help but feel like you’re completely lying to me. I would never lie to you, good sir. You said you’re a member of the army? No, I’m working for the army. Right, right, right, right. Under whose orders, specifically? Oh, I’m under someone’s orders. Ipid is going to get off. Ipid’s going to get off his horse and approach this gentleman and get very close to him. And he’s going to look. How tall is this guy? He is about four foot. So Ipid’s very attractive, seven foot height. He looks down at this guy and he says, I hope you’re not masquerading as an official person of this country just to make off with some petty cash. Do I look like somebody who wants to be fooled to? And Ip is going to try to intimidate him. Intimidation. Sure will. What are my roles? Holy shit. That’s a natural one. He looks up at you. I don’t think I have to tell you anything, sir. Well, if you don’t have to tell me anything, I don’t have to give you any of my gold. Oh, I’ll just send the army after you. You know what? Go ahead. I wish you would. If anything, I know the Delmir clan and the army of this country have a good relationship, so I don’t want to hear it from you. And hopefully, let’s just walk on. And I’m curious if my words of me telling him anything about me being a part of the Delmir clan would make him any, I don’t know, whatever. And Ipid’s going to walk past him and proceed onto the bridge. Ultric will start to walk as well. Can you see the map yet? Yeah. Yeah, we’re looking at it. Okay. I’m sideways. Fine. The man’s rubbing his hands together. Oh, I think you should just pay me. Or what? What are you going to do about it? I’m going to use some magic. We know all about magic. What kind of magic do you have? I have dangerous magic as he waves his hands back and forth in front of you. The kind you should fear. Can I roll inside? Oh, go ahead. You should really just hold him underwater till he stops lying. That’s to Ipid. Yes. Starling. I like the energy, but I think there’s a better way to go about that. I will keep that in mind, though. Thank you. If it’s going to roll insight. Oh, I’m going to go. Ultric is staring at Starling to see if this guy has any magic. He steps towards you, and you see magic burning around his fingers as he prepares to cast. Ipid shoves him. Just like a hard, like a hard push.
As you go to shove him, you see his body turn to stone as he resists your push. Sorry, could you repeat that? I’m sorry. His body turns to stone as you go to push him, and he grins at you. So you do have magic. That means nothing. I still am not. You just want money. Yeah, you still. It doesn’t change anything. You still just want our money. And we’re not scared. Oh, you should just pay me. No, because. No, I’m not going to pay you if anything. You know what? I should take you to somewhere where you might be arrested because this just isn’t right. What? How many people have you swindled out of their hard work and money? Oh, I’ve never swindled anybody. I have just honestly requested they pay my toll and they have. All right, well, I’m not doing that. All right. I think you can spare on four gold, dude. Well, six. You’re not going to pay the toll then. No, I’m not. You see him muttering under his breath as he casts a spell. And can I say that Ultric is kind of moving a little bit away? Yes. As he’s seeing that, maybe like that. If it’s going to keep looking on, if it’s right in front of this guy, he’s going to just look him dead in the eye. He’s going to be like, for your own worth, I would advise that you don’t do anything too rash against me or my friends here. He grins at you, and you see his leather fade away and being replaced by a uniform of the army mage of the country. Nice threads, man. You see him wave his hands as he casts fireball. Tom, run! The fireball whizzes past you and explodes from behind. Make your dexterity saving throws. Why isn’t it rolling, though? Oh my. What happened? I rolled a four. Oh, there we go. Oh, wait, no, I didn’t. Oh, my God. Why is my. Dude, my foundry’s hella slow right now for some reason. It’s like laggy or something. Has my roll showed up? Yeah, I can see you’re 21. Yes. And roll initiative. Okay, cool. Because I can’t see anybody’s rolls or anything because my thing’s just not loading. Maybe try refreshing the page coming out, coming in. Yeah, let me try that. It’s going to work. You need to roll your dexterity saving throw as well. Got it. Just roll it directly from decks. Yeah. Okay. All right, then everyone go to the combat encounters and roll initiative. It’s the crossed swords on the right. Okay. Come on. What’s going on, dude? The page was running just fine, but then now we want to do something. My thing’s being weird. I might just do this. Hold on. Alright, I turned off all the animation. See if that helped something. Alright, I’m loading back in into it. Maybe I’ll refresh as well. I just refreshed and that made things worse. Oh, no, it’s here now. It’s here now. Okay, cool. Yeah, no, I’m loaded in. Let me roll for initiative. It’s laggy, though. I don’t know if that’s just my system. Come on, everything’s loaded fine. Let me do my thing. So, what did they do in this update? They broke everything. They did. It was running fine before. Yeah, no, they really screwed this up. What the hell, man? Our spells were supposed to move over, right? From DD me on the shorty. Okay. Oh, my gosh. Okay, so what’s the damage going to be for this fireball? 38 fire damage. That kills me. That’s more than my HP. All right, Aldric, you’re now unconscious on the ground. Okay, we’ll pay the toll. We’ll pay the toll. I’m sorry. We’ll pay double the toll. He looks at you now, standing in his military garb. You should have believed me.
And you see the illusion on the shed has dropped as well. Why would you pretend not to be who you are? Were you bored? Part of an undercover operation. I get that, but you guys are official members of this country. Why not just be serious with your feet, with your population here? None of you are from here. I saw a group of strange people from other countries approaching on the road, and then they begin to threaten me when I ask for a normal toll. Seems like spies. Ibid, realizing that maybe things have calmed down a bit. Hold on. I’m sorry. It’s just, I’m not, I don’t have my initiative up. I’m just, hold on. Don’t worry, we’re not in combat right now. Okay, cool. Um, yeah, Ibid’s gonna like awkwardly just make a backstep to Aldrich and place his hand on his head and give him five HP with my lay-on hands. Aldrich, you wake up feeling toasty. Having been knocked forward off your feet, you’re laying face down in the muddy and the leaves. What happened? Look, sir, I understand your concern about us, but that is no way that a soldier should act, especially towards people of the public. We didn’t intend any threat until we realized that you may have been posing as a liar for what you actually are. You would want civilians to want to bend over for to listen to people who pretend to be members of the government who aren’t. Oh, no, this illusion is only visible to people who aren’t from this country. Okay, well, still, that’s still a given. I feel like where we’re coming from is a bit fair. He’s looking at you, unconvinced, and thinking about casting another fireball. Listen. And Ibid puts his shield down on the floor and keeps his sword shelled. Shelled shield. Keeps his sword sheathed and approaches the man in a not-threatening manner and gives out his hand to shake. Look, I’m a soldier as well for my home. I understand things can be tense, and we usually have to rely on our pure instincts, but we don’t mean any harm to this country. And anyway. Then you don’t mind paying the toll. Well, for sure, yeah, no, no, we don’t mind. Ibid doesn’t even bother the rest of the guys, the rest of the party, for their gold, and he just goes ahead and pays the sufficient amount that would be needed for all of them, and then he throws in an extra two gold. Battle Mage looks at you. Are you headed to the crossroads? More specifically, God, I keep forgetting the names of these places. Hold on. We’re not going to crossroads. We’re headed to Melrose. We came from the crossroads to Drowning Wallace, and now we’re headed to Melrose. You should be warned. War is brewing. We did hear that. Would you happen to… Army is a massive near our borders in the north. We heard. You wouldn’t. I mean, you wouldn’t happen. This country wouldn’t happen to have any like any reason with this war. You guys just preparing for anything in case. Oh, there’s always a reason for war. Doesn’t matter if it’s a good one. There’s always a reason. So is this explaining the increased security then? Is that what this is? We’re watching for spies and others. Anyone who might try to push the locals around. I see. Well, we have no. You almost killed me. Aldrich’s wiping the burn stuff off his bulk. I would like to cast the cure wounds on myself. As I’m saying all this, as I’m doing all this. He looks at you, all four of you. Looks at Tom. Are you going to actually be going to Melrose? Yes. Our plans are to head over to Melrose and then.
Hopefully, afterwards. Listen, Gal. As you’re saying this, you begin to hear thumping coming from the distance behind you. Ibit picks up his shield again. You see the wizard swear under his breath. There’s been rumors of giants around lately. Yeah, those rumors are true. We dealt with a couple not too far, not too long ago, on the way here. Did you kill them? Uh, no, it incapacitated them momentarily. So you made two giants angry and then came this way. Ah, that wasn’t. Look, who they could have gone either way. Look, regardless, whatever’s happening is happening now. Shut up. And Ipet stands at the ready. Hear the thumping. They’ve been following you for a long time. Well, if you’re some kind of authority here, I think it’s your job to get those giants. Wizard looks at it with contempt. Don’t mind my friend here. This is something that we will help with. I’m not inclined to help very much at the moment. Aldric’s still sitting on the ground and he’s trying to tend to his wounds. Aldric, for as long as I’ve known you, you’ve got the heart of a soldier. I know it. So let’s not die. Let’s not give up now because if we don’t do anything, we will get killed by this thing. Oh, fine. I don’t think I can gaslight them twice. We’re going to have to fight them. I played. One with two heads on its shoulders and another two heads dangling from a necklace. Oh my gosh. Can we tell based on the faces which one is the dead one and which one’s not? The one you had tied up is the one that won. Hey, that’s one hell of a comeback. If we’re about to get into a fight here, Aldrich didn’t actually heal himself three times. It’s just been clicking the button because it’s lagging so badly. Yeah, I don’t know what’s going on. It was running smoothly, like, but as soon as we tried to do stuff, yeah, so I cast it one time, not like five times. So just like, I guess the first one was like 13 points. So that should be my HP. Hold on. I’m going to do this. Did that roll just show up on the acrobatics role that I just did? Did it show up on Foundry? No. No, it didn’t. Okay. Because I was going to try to do it from DDB on because I know you can do that, but I don’t think I think it’s taking too long. I hate it when they update Foundry. Yeah, no, this is lame. Shorty! Uh-oh. That’s what I thought. Mars, is this lagging for you too, or is it just me and Aldric? It’s lagging for me, too. Yeah. It’s lame. It wasn’t too bad earlier. Well, I’m going to work on optimizing that later. Yeah. I’ll move my spells over manually for next session. Did they not roll over with your character? No, they didn’t. I mean, right now I’m just going to be looking at my DND beyond sheet at this point. It looks like they did migrate. Did they? Yeah. Extra ones like daylight. Maybe they’re just baked into my Twilight Cleric. So those are the spells that your Tyler clerk can prepare. The ones that are prepared have a little sun icon that is golden on the right side of the spell. Thank you. Yeah. I had trouble with that when we first started. There is like a filter you can do as well. There’s a filter icon. You can filter by prepared. So that would be a way to stop casting unprepared spells. Yeah, that’s how I have mine organized. I got it. Thanks. I had a lot of trouble remembering about prepared and unprepared when we first started. I’m so glad. Well, Aldric was casting every spell he knew. Yeah. Spells he didn’t even know. Through spell a wizard could know Aldric was casting.
Yeah, but yeah, no, Foundry, it’s not working for me, so if it’s okay, I’m just gonna be working off DD Beyond. Could you reload and see this? I turned all the settings down. Okay, I’ll do it. I think it’s responding better for me now. Yeah. Before, it was like click and then three-second delay, and then the action would happen. Now it seems to be responsive. Let me. I don’t think this is how Gygax intended his game to be played. I think there’s a lot of things about online DD that are different than what Gygax could have imagined when writing it. What do you mean? They’re writing dragonborn smut. Do I still have my mage armor active then? It’s not been more than like eight hours or whatever. Yeah. Cool. Or we could say I cast it again. Yeah, we could say you cast it again. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, after getting hit by a fireball, he probably would have done that anyway. Now that we have it going again, let’s have everyone roll initiative. Okay. I just manually set my HP back as well. So does it show on your side that it’s 13? Yeah. Yes. There we go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. My thing’s working now beautifully. Beautifully. Right, there we go. Hold on. I just need to update some things on my sheet. How much gold did I give him? I gave him one for each of us, so that’s six. I was just wondering, I have the bloodied effect on my thing. What does that do? So the bloodied effect basically means that you are at less than half health. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah, because I only gave you five. I probably should have gave you more because I didn’t expect this to happen. Oh, you gave me five HP? Yeah, I gave you five lay on hands to get you back up on your feet. Cool. So I’ll be at 18 then because I’ve just cured myself for 13 as well. Oh, beautiful. Awesome. Bloodied doesn’t have any additional effects. It just means you’re below half. Yeah, that’s what I was worried about. I was worried like something had happened. One second, guys. No problem. Oh, it’s responding now. Yeah. It’s the way it was before. Thank goodness. Lovely. It’s 71 degrees in my apartment and I’m freezing. That’s a real Floridian talk. I was going to say, yeah, where you’re based is quite cold. Where you’re based is quite cold. Florida is not cold anyway. You’re in Florida. I’m in Florida. It’s just that I usually keep my apartment at like 70, 71, 72. But the thing is, where my desk is set up and everything, the air duct is right there. So it just blows directly onto me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So to not have Sarah dying of, you know, of heat while she’s in bed, I, you know. Oh, it stopped for a bit. Yeah, but no, Florida, dude, summer has gotten here so early and it’s been kicking our asses. And I work outside all day, so it’s not fun. No. The wizard reacts first, stepping past Ipid and then holding out his hands and unleashing a blast of lightning. This guy’s cool. I can see the giant as well. That’s pretty cool. Oh, yeah. Let me see what he looks like. He’s down at the bottom of the page. Holy shit. Yeah. You see it light up leaves and a tree that’s directly in his way, so he shoots the bolt straight through the trunk and at the giant. The tree falls over as it burns, as the giant is struck directly in the chest with the bolt. And it’s dead, right? We got it. Maybe. No. That’s still a lot of damage. A lot of damage, but it is still standing. Its chest smoking from the lightning bolt. Wow. Is this wizard attractive? Is he a good-looking guy? Yes, he is a good-looking guy. Damn it. Middle-aged salt and pepper beard. Oh, you hate it. You hate to see it. He’s strong. He’s got that dilf look. God damn it. And Scorn steps up, tired and angry. Yeah, his boot thing left. Oh, yeah. I mean.
Went back home. No, it’s just I have to translate your phrase into my own English because I mean I use British English. I mean, I’m also 23, so I’m technically Gen Z. That’s its own thing. So that sounds you hear is like translation. Oh, oh, okay. In canon, it’s just me speaking draconic. The dumb shit I say. Do I speak draconic? Let me see. As Scorn casts a spell under his breath, you see the giant’s movements slow. And Ipid, it is your turn. This giant is so far away, and I can’t. Hey, so sorry if to interrupt. I’m very sorry. I do actually speak Draconic, just in case we want to do that in future. Holy shit, you do. So, like, Aldric’s like slowly translating because he doesn’t know it very, but he’s like, oh, oh, oh, I think I knew what you said. Fun fact: Aldric has also heard every little kind of judgy remark Ipid has kept to himself, but he’s too polite to say it in common. He says it to himself. Okay, well, this Ipid, this giant is way too far for me to even try to go and hit it with my bare hands. So, what can I do, dude? What should I do, dude? Oh, you know what? This might help. I’ll do another one, because you can see it makes range. Um, to help the other people, because on a failed save, the target has disadvantage on attack rolls against other creatures. Uh, from where I’m standing, I’m gonna look at it and I’m gonna compel duel to him. And that is a matter of um, hold on, oof, what the hell is going on? I try to compel a creature into a duel. One creature has to make a wisdom-saving throw. I don’t know what the DC is here, it doesn’t say ah, yes! So, he is uh imposed to try to attack me. Um, I’m concentrating since I’m all the way in the back of the group, uh, and he has disadvantage against attack rolls against other creatures and can’t willily move to a space that is more than 30 feet away from you. And he is 30 feet away from me, so he’s going to be coming close, but he’s going to have other people trying to mess him up. Uh, and um, and I think that might be it if it if it just tried to piss him off, starling. It is your turn. The creature is at least within 120 feet, yes. Okay, I’d like to cast a moonbeam on it. All right, here we go. Let’s see, damage roll, it fails its constitution saving throw, okay. And it takes sorry, 14 damage. Oh, no, no, I do apologize, it takes five damage. All right, it takes five damage as the light burns down on it, and it is now bloodied as it’s burned by the shining light of the moon. That’s my turn. Ipid’s happy with his current party, he’s glad people are capable to do shit like that. Aldric, it is now your turn, our favorite boy. Uh, yeah, um, Aldrich will stand up or you know, get up from his position and dust himself off, uh, and we’ll say I could do a fireball too, and I’ll uh throw one over at the giant. Uh, it’d be the best time to do that, he’s far away from us, yeah. Uh, hold on, he makes his saving throw roll damage, damn. Um, let me see this: that’s there, damage, roll, okay, 31. So, unsave half. So, that is so as you see it blast, it rips through the giant, knocking the heads from its necklace and knocking off one of its heads. Oh, one head is now loosely dangling from a broken neck that, as its hair burns, has the other head roars at you. Aldrich’s kind of looking at the other mage. He’s gonna, he’s kind of looking like he wants to impress that mage because he’s just seen how much damage that guy can do. Aldrich’s like super impressed.
So he’s like, I could, I can. Just like that. So I think that’s my turn. The giant comes running forward. Is that how we get the most out of Aldric now? We just have to get another magic user next to him. He’ll be pumped up. He makes it 25 feet as he slowly crawls forward against the effects of the spells. And then is the wizard again. Shift and scroll. Shift and scroll. Aha. You see him look and cast another fireball. Holy shit. I’m thinking Pedro Pascal. I’m thinking a more rugged guy’s name. Casts the fireball, and the Eton succeeds, barely staying on its feet, its eyes rolling wildly in pain. Scorn doesn’t do much. He gives Ipid Bardic inspiration, and now it is Ipid’s turn. Thank you, Scorn. So this thing isn’t looking good. This guy looks like he’s close to calling it quits. He looks like he is about ready for his second head to fall off. Okay. Ipid’s gonna throw a spear at him. No fanciness in any way. He’s just gonna chuck it at this thing. The 21. That hits. Roll damage. That’s a nine damage. As you throw the spear, it flies straight into the eye of its remaining head as it crumples and falls forward, driving the spear out the back of its skull. Ooh. Hell yeah, dude. Guys, I think I got him. Wizard looks at you guys. We’re getting more and more giants these days. Something’s driving them out of the mountains. Ooh. I say, what a hit. Ipid. Thanks, man. And Ipid goes and gives Aldric a bro, like the most bro high. No, the Predator high five with from Predator. Yeah, yeah, that’s fine. But it’s Ipid’s buff ass arm, and then there’s Aldrich. Aldrich’s like very pale, messy sleeves. He’s like, thanks, man. Wow, man, that was pumped. Man, that was good. Hey, you know what? Good job, everyone. You guys all did great. Wow, we really get that thing. Wizard is looking at the giant and walks up to it. What did you do? Why does it have other giants’ heads? Okay, so that wasn’t us. That was him. He did that. He got mad at the other giant. He was looking for food. He kept saying meat. Yeah, he was hungry. They’re so hungry, they’re cannibalizing each other. Oh, what do giants usually eat if not humans? I mean, you said that they were being driven out of the mountains and they’re coming out here. I mean, what were there? Like, what? Was there like some sort of animals they were hunting up there? Or I’m no expert on them, but normally wild animals, whatever they can find. And when was the last time giants have been down from the mountains? 140 years ago, there was another time they all came down. The mountains had raging fires through them, and prey was scarce. Ugh. I mean, we could say it could be because of the winter hibernation for the other animals, but if this hasn’t happened in that long, I’m sure something bigger than just hibernation. Sure, the main reason we’re traveling through the mountains is whatever we’re looking for might have a connection to this, so we’ll be for sure on the lookout for whatever might be causing this. You have news? Um, Ipid’s a main follower of Fox News. I’m joking. He’s not that guy. Um, if it’s like, well, Drowning Wallace had its issues, um, but not no more. Uh, the streets of Drowning Wallace are clear and empty of danger on the ghoul infestation it once had. I’m sure that you’re aware of this. No, someone dealt with the ghouls. Yes, someone did. And problem for thousands of years. Well, not anymore. He’s looking at you guys. Well, you best be on your way. More giants may be coming.
Thank you. And again, sorry for the misunderstanding there, sir. But I mean, you kind of also kind of give us cut us some slack. We thought you were impersonating an actual official. Be careful. There’s more on the road who are under disguise. Got you. Be sure to keep that in mind. What happened to that shack? Is that still there or is it dispelled or something? Where there was once the shack, you now see a stone tower hundreds of years old. Was that where was that there when we came through? No, yeah. Oh, we caught it. You crossed a bridge that had a troll on it. Yeah. That was somewhere else, though. Fine. That’s some pretty powerful magic you got there. I mean, I was upset before, but now that I’ve seen that. Yeah, I’m a high-ranking warrior. I fight with magic and do all I can. That’s an honorable thing to do, especially since this post has been completely left up to you to just to defend. So I’m sure that you’re a strong warrior. Be wary, there’s spies on the road. Understood. Don’t give them the impression of anything valuable, or they might kill you for it. I understand. Do you mind if I ask you a question, though? Looks at you. What do you need to know? Ibid kind of gets a little closer to him and lowers his voice. You wouldn’t have happened to come across another dragonborn traveler, similar armor to well, actually, never mind. I changed armor. Wouldn’t happen to come across a dragonborn who has been traveling these roads. He might be wearing this insignia, and from his pack, he pulls out what is a shoulder plate, but it has in the insignia of a dragon head on a shield that’s been scratched. And he shows it to him. He says, No, but I’ve seen this before. There’s a dragonborn I met in the crossroads who had this insignia. He said he was taking a job out near Jedburg past Allsdere Lost. Wait, really? How long ago was this? About four months. Oh, gosh. Okay. Jedburg, you said? Yes. Okay. And Ipid puts it quietly back in his pack. Wow. Okay. Thank you for that information, sir. I really appreciate it. And Ipid turns back to the group. Are you guys ready to get going? Almost. Sir, do you know how to create portals by any chance? Fast travel anywhere? He looks at you. No, I wish I did. That magic’s under tighter lock and key than I know any other. Yeah. That’s what I think as well. We’re just, you know, sometimes we see we’ve seen people step through portals, turn into goo, fly. All we got is these horses here. Yeah, it’s pretty bullshit. I’m not gonna lie, but whatever. Well, imagine what they could do with an army if they could just do a portal to anywhere. Yeah, that would be dangerous. All right. Magic. I guess you could say that is what the kids call game-breaking, but you know. Be careful who you tell. That magic is very valuable, and some might go after you for it. Oh, good, good point. Notice. I guess because we helped you with this giant, we don’t need to pay the toll, right? He already paid the toll. We already paid the toll. Oh, okay, okay, fine. Aldric, you cheapscape. Aldrich starts whistling. I’m ready. Starling, you’re all good? I’m all good. Are you? You were hurt pretty badly. Oh, yeah. I mean, I will need to get some healing. I got you, man. And Ibid, how much HP do you have left to be up to full? I think it is 19. Ibid will give you 19. He has 30. Really? Yeah. Amazing. So I’ll be left with 11 landhands. So just max out. Max out. I’m going to just plop that in manually then. Ibid gets back on oath and is ready to head back out with a sense of like joy. Like he’s like, okay, good. Let’s get going. Here’s Scorn muttering. Only Ipid would get blasted to hell by a fireball and look happier for it. Scorn, you.
Been pretty quiet today. Let’s keep it that way. We’re going to take a break here and pick up in 15 minutes on the road to Melrose. Perfect. Sounds good. Thanks, guys. Sounds good. Fucking Craig. I haven’t heard anything in five minutes. He’s getting lonely. Poor guy. Yeah, Craig gets a little lonely sometimes. Sometimes bears get like that. That’s a shame. It’s pride. I think up until now, ever since we started, Aldrich is now, I think, the only player to have not missed a single session. Yeah. And I mean, Mari’s first streak starts, so we’ll see. We’ll see who keeps consistent. You know, it’s always good to find consistent players. Yeah. That’s one of honestly, in my opinion, that’s the hardest part about being a DM isn’t the isn’t running the game or any of that. It’s the finding players consistently. Because honestly, it’s just not even a problem of people are inconsistent. It’s that someone might join a game, assume that they can play, and then have something happen. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That happened with two of the players in this game already. Or they just had stuff come up. Yeah, it sucks, but it happens. Better than somebody leaving a group if it’s like it’s better than somebody leaving a group for like reasons that are like nah, I just hated the people I was playing with. I once had someone leave one of my games because I wouldn’t let him just have the most powerful abilities he wanted. He basically wanted to be able to multi-class and then have all the class abilities of both classes of whatever level they were at. And I told him that’s broken and you can’t do that. And he’s like, no, this is terrible. I hate this. I’m like, okay, I’ll do a lot to work with you. If you want to do homebrew stuff or something different, yeah, sounds like fun. But if you just want to just straight up ignore the rules, then I can’t, then we’re not playing the game anymore. Yeah, exactly. All right. And then when Starling gets back, we’ll get back into it. Okay. I had another my games weren’t focused enough. Like, you let people talk about whatever. And I’m like, yeah, kind of. It’s like, you can’t just expect everyone to always be like, oh, all I care about is rolling dice. Yeah. I mean, it’s also fun to just have like the players do their own thing too sometimes, you know? Yeah. What were you saying, Aldrich? Oh, I was just trying to say, I’m so glad Foundry’s back. Yeah. Yeah, we’re sorry about that. So what happened was when Foundry updated, it used my PC settings as the blueprint for what it set the new settings to. And so it had everything super high. Ah. But the problem with that is like, what the fuck? The server that it’s getting hosted on isn’t fast enough for that. Your PC is better than the server. Yeah. It’s because I don’t pay for a super expensive server. Oh, okay. I paid for a super expensive PC. Yeah, that’s a well, that makes sense. Yeah. Enjoy your own PC. Yeah. So do you do like gaming or other things that are quite intensive? Yeah. Yeah. I do a lot of gaming. And so it’s like, it really needs good performance. But also, I do engineering and make a bridge. The software requirements for that are crazy high. So the computer I work use at work is a 16 CPU computer. And it has a hard time running my programs quickly. I have files that sometimes take 20 minutes to load. And that’s on the best PC we can get. Wow. That’s the first time I’ve ever heard of something like that. I can watch YouTube on my laptop. Yeah. So it’s a lot of needing to get used to very intensive workloads. You have like a routine, like turn on the software, go make a coffee and something to eat, and then put 10, 20.
Minutes later, you can use it, or it’ll be like I’ll turn on my software, start loading the file, and then I’ll go walking around for however long. I thought the days of those kind of things was over. I mean, that was probably standard, or you know, maybe not 20 minutes, but at least I don’t know, a few minutes to load things up. That was like standard for even home PCs and stuff way back in the day. It used to take even longer to load them. It used to be like 30 minutes sometimes to load one file. And it would be ridiculous because they basically load up a file and they’d have to keep it open the whole week they were working on it. Do you need to save changes? Yeah. Would that take a while to write? Yeah. Yeah, sometimes updating a file, it’d be like we’d make one change and it would take 10 minutes to load up and do it all right, and then we could go make another change. But the way these files are is that they’re basically like a bunch of little connected files that one big file calls for all of the information from them and loads. And so most of the time we edit the small files independently, and then we only work on the big one when we really have to. And so, like, what I do are these big sampling tools that are used for soil collection, and they’re about the size of a truck, and so they have thousands of parts. But anyway, let’s get back to the game. Good to know. So that’s why your PC is so powerful. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry about going off on that little tangent, guys. That’s fine. That’s fine. It’s good to know a little bit about people sometimes. It’s fine. You’re getting back on the road. Sounds good. Sounds good. Ibit has a little more pep in his step or in his horse’s step as he’s very eager to get going where we’re about to go. Especially now. So on to Melrose. As you are traveling on the roads, you see more and more signs of giants. Upturned trees, occasionally a large body butchered by many swords. There is unrest in the air. I wanted to make a New York Giants joke there, but I don’t know much about football to have done that. You continue. The air grows colder, and the wind blows harder. And after many days and nights of travel through these lands, seeing the signs of giants and frequent patrols of soldiers, you come to Melrose, a city surrounded by a large, strong wall that normally stands proudly, but today has big gaps in the wall where boulders have been tossed through and the bodies of giants left to rot where they attempted to climb over. Oh, this is a sore site. What happened here? Clearly, the giant problem seems to be a lot worse closer to the mountains, but it seems like Melrose is still standing. Barely, though. These guys need some help. Is there a city gate or wall door or something like that? You are approaching where there used to be a gate, but has since been battered down. In this large hole in the wall, you can see where stone has been torn out when smashing through the gate. And on the inside, you see large rows of bodies wrapped in cloth waiting to be buried. And just outside the city gates, you see them digging a very large hole. Dear. This is grim. I’ll look for like a is there any like guard or anyone in charge? You find a few guards standing around the bodies. They’re dressed in regional garb, signalizing their guards of the city of Melrose. And they look tired. Their eyes are sunken. Their movements are slow. Hey there. We just arrived. What happened here? Guard slowly looks up at you. His eyes as hollow as an empty well. He says, We.

Any time our scouts have seen him, we’ve seen him with a small regiment of ogres, three or four at least. Do you have anyone in town with supplies? Like magical supplies? Yes, we have some. We’re a trade town. Just in case we might want to buy something that can help to take these guys down. Hold on, Aldric. We have made a deal. Whatever we will be getting to help our journey, they will be covering. Is that what they said? Oh. I don’t even realize. We appreciate any help and any supplies. All we ask is to rest our heads for the night, and in the morning, we’ll be sure to head straight first to the mountains. You guys are taking the brunt of it being, you know, right next to mountains. So we will take up that job for you. And Aldric would like to message Ipid and just say, should we tell them about the Celestial? The mission we’re on. And then Ipid takes out his iPhone and he’s like, nah, dude. No, Ipid turns over to Aldric and shakes his head slightly, trying not to make a big deal about it. Yeah. Fine. No need to worry these people more than they already are. Yeah, that’s what Aldric expected. Guard begins gesturing you quickly. Hurry, get behind here. I see other guards bringing a barricade forward. Alright, I’ll go in. You see them driving a barricade into the ground with massive stakes as you see ogres approaching. Holy guy, do you guys have enough men right now to ward off that group? He points up to the walls where you see many archers preparing. We have men for these. We’ve been holding the wall all right from the small ones. Okay. And we head on in into the town limits. As you head within the town, you see many boarded windows where people have packed up and left. People have been fleeing. You see buildings that have been burned out from the inside, with large holes punched through the sides of walls where flaming boulders were thrown over the walls. It’s giving attack on Titan. Aldric starts googling. As you’re preparing, one of the guards is leading you to the guard house. He brings you in, and inside he hands you some small vials. What are these? Let me guess. You take these and all your wounds will be healed, but you’ll fall deeply unconscious. He looks at you confused. If it elbow checks Aldric to get him to shut up guard looks at you holding out the vials. No, this is oil. It’s made from the weaknesses of the giants. Oh, I see. Wow. Thank you. We really appreciate it. This will do us great help. Shame we don’t have more. It’s fine. We’ll make good use of what we’ve been given here. Thank you. I don’t use a sword. Do you think I could put it on my staff? Rub a little oil on my staff. I don’t think that’s how it works. Nope, not falling for it. Nope. No. Aldric, you put oil on your staff another time. Don’t worry about it. I might need to change into a warrior type here. I don’t know. It seems like, you know, everyone’s got swords, arrows. You never know. I mean, Starling doesn’t use a hand weapon, do you? I do. Oh, never mind. Yeah, Aldric, you’re the only one. I don’t know. That’s fine, Aldric. Yeah, your style’s fine. We’ll put this oil to use, and if we’re able to find something for you, we’ll give you some. Let’s keep this handy in case of anything. But Ipid turns to the guard and he’s like, well, thank you so much. We’ll go ahead and get some rest for tonight. And tomorrow in the morning, once we have everything together, we’ll head first thing to the mountains. Best of luck.
To you and sleep well. Thank you. And I assume he leaves. He points you to many empty bunks. Got you. Take your pick. Aldric will choose anyone that’s furthest away in the corner. Go and sleep in the bunk with Aldrich. Huh? Yeah. Either top or bottom, whichever one you don’t choose. Okay. Aldrich’s on the bottom bunk. You know what? That wait, wait. Aldrich’s bottom bunk kind of guy. He is. He’s got his books. He’s going to read a book. He’s going to have some tea. Typical. That’s all. Typical bunk. That’s all. Starling’s just a top bunk kind of girl. Perfect. You see, Ipid switch from between his top and bottom bunk. Wow. We’re rowdy tonight. Ipid hops on the top bunk, and there’s some loud creaking because he is way too heavy for these beds. Yeah, and you’re like seven foot. I have him in his description that he’s seven foot, like 340 pounds or something like that. And you chose the top bunk sense of authority up there. And Ipid lays his things down in the bottom. They’re like, no, we’re going to take this. All right. Sounds good to me. Oh, shit. Where’s Scorn sleeping? Scorn, you want to be bunk buddies? You could be right under me and goes and sits on a random bunk. Oh, what about you, Tom? Want to be my bunk buddy? Tom looks at you up on the top. Only if I’m on top. I don’t sleep on the bottom bunk. That’s what she said. No, it’s fine. You can find another bunk. Well, I’m going to go tend to the horses before we go to bed. Ah, yes. Thank you. Yeah. Before going to bed, Ipid takes out his religious symbol. And he takes out that shoulder plate, trying to keep it hidden. And he sits crisscross applesauce nicely on the top bunk and begins to pray with that shoulder plate. You hear an echoing voice. What does it say? You have pain in the future. I will drive you through it, but you will suffer. Be steadfast. Do not fall. If you fall, everyone behind you will fall. And then it goes quiet. Okay. Ipid snaps too, and he opens his eyes. And he’s breathing heavily. This is the first time he thinks he hears from Bahamut ever since he made his original connection to him. He puts the shoulder plate and his holy symbol away. As you sleep, the sound of fighting continues echoing from the walls around the city. Do we long rest? Yes, long rest. Hell yeah. When you wake up in the morning, you see wounded men in the beds beside you, having fought through most of the night and been left there when too wounded to continue. Wow. Okay. We wake up next to half-dead men. The room is quiet and still, and you don’t see Tom. Ooh. Ipidly quietly tries to get off the top bunk without making a lot of noise. And he looks for Aldrich’s and Starling’s bunk. Finding them in the corner. Are you guys still asleep? Right, so it’s morning time. Yes. Yeah. I think Aldric would be on the bunk making some tea. And he’s going to be having a worried look on his face. And he’s trying to just generally get a feel what he can think about might happen in the future. He’s just kind of. I think he would close his eyes and just.
Think and that’s that’s how Ipid would find him. Uh, hey, oh, hi, morning, Aldric. Morning, are you? Are you okay? What are you doing? I’m just you know, I’m just looking for what I can see. Okay, well, if there’s anything I can, you know, if I if there’s anything I can feel about what we’re about to do, well, you know, yeah, yeah, um, yeah, no, take your time with that, but um, after you’re done with that, let’s get our things together. We gotta get out of here, and um, Ipid uh peeks up at the top bunk to see if Starling’s awake. Starling’s awake. Um, she just gets out of out of her bunk. She sees that there’s men in various states of injury all over the place. She’d just like to go through each individual bunk and make sure no one is dying. Oh, so the bunk is empty when I check it, so I just see Darlene walking around. Yeah, oh, you’re checking the men. You find none that are dying, they’re all stabilized. It seems the fighting was bad enough that anywhere close to dying wouldn’t make it to a bunk. Oh, I just let them be, they seem to be in good condition, good enough condition to make it. Good morning, Starling. Did you sleep? What are you doing? I’m checking the men. I don’t really have to sleep. I just meditate. Oh, yeah, I guess, yeah, that’s fair. You’re uh, I see. Um, uh, all right, well, I guess we should get a move on. This is pretty grim. We gotta stop these guys from getting beat up like this. I agree. Um, uh, have you have you guys seen Tom? I didn’t have, I didn’t see him in his bed. Scorn over at you. Tom’s up. Getting to the horses. Oh, okay. Oh, yeah, you too, Scorn. Hey, morning. He’s been so quiet. I mean, yeah, this is the most quiet you’ve been, Scoring. You still not over your little girlfriend? Scorn just glares at you. All right. I’m sorry, Scoring. And he pats his head. Aldrich finished and he’s ready to go. He walks over to Ipid. Let’s go. All right. Sounds good. Yeah, I guess we can check with the guard that we spoke to or whoever’s running the show here. And hopefully, they’ll be able to set us up before we head out. So I think let’s just step out of the barracks and see who we can find. All right. But yeah, we head out of the bunk rooms to find the guy who set us up yesterday to hopefully get some supplies before we head out. All right. As you head out of the bunks, you see Tom waiting outside with horses already loaded up with rations. Oh, perfect. And I assume clothing to keep us warm if needed. He has large cloaks. Oh, hell yeah. Oh, morning, Tom. Thanks. Got us all set up here. I feel like Tom is becoming the MVP of this group. He’s being amazing. Dude, Tom’s great. He’s one of the new boomers I’m okay with. We have a long journey ahead. We sure do. Cyclops led an attack last night. Oh, gosh. Yeah. Did you see that? How many casualties were there? Casualties, I don’t know. They were still counting when I talked to them. I mean, Aldric would like to go back and get his tea stuff and then go and hand a cup of tea to Tom. Okay, thank you for getting all the stuff ready, man. That’s really good. As you pick up the tea, you get a small glimpse of the future. And you see Ipid standing in his armor on his feet, but with blood seeping through the cracks. Ultric, you okay? Yeah. Uh-huh. I’m fine. Yeah. Okay. You just, you know, spaced out a bit there. Aldric did it that so, Raven. All right, man. Ipid pats Aldric’s shoulder. Anyway, Tom, would you like this tea? Tom takes the tea. Yes, thank you. Better be ready and awake. You see him without any sense of delicacy, drink the whole thing in one go, just throwing it back.
Aldric messages Ipid and says, that’s the first non-alcoholic drink I yeah, I don’t like it because that thing was that tea looks really hot too. Okay, there’s herbs in it and everything. It’s healthy. I get that, but like do you do you just just just like never mind. You never just down a hot cup of tea? Like I’m still I’m learning not to question Tom and what his ways are. That’s fair. That’s fair. But yeah, let’s get a move on to the mountains. Let’s go ahead and take care of this Cyclops bastard. Darling, as you’re leaving town, you hear a whisper from your god. And the whisper says, Watch. He will bend and break, but he will not fall. Thank you, Lord Sapphrus. Jesus. These giants are relentless. I feel like it’s surprising, you know, because I didn’t really think much of those giants that we dealt with earlier. They seem pretty foolish, but these guys, these guys seem like, I don’t know, they seem different. I think they’ll be more organized because of that Cyclops. He’s probably telling them where they can go and what to do. For sure. We’re going to find this Cyclops, man. I want to roll my portent dice. I’m sorry. Oh, yeah, roll your portentice. Yeah, yeah. Sorry, go ahead. There’s a beaten trail leading towards the mountains, where the giants have been running through. Seems like this might be the path we should take. Looks like it’s coming from the mountains, and these paths look… These steps look big enough to have been from giants. Yeah, just… Aldric says to Ipid, just before we go up there, just be careful, okay? Wait, but I mean, yeah, you know, thank you, Aldric, but you know, I usually try to always be careful. I mean, like, Aldric’s privately remembering what he saw, that image of Ipid. So he’s just, you know, a bit worried privately. He doesn’t let on. Can Ipid roll insight to see if Aldric may be… Cool. What do I beat if it’s a fellow player? Am I deceptioning him, this guy? Yeah, would it have to be a versus roll where he rolls something, I roll something? No, you’re just going to roll and I’ll tell you what you notice. Well, I will. Bro, I know what fucking Aldric, like, I don’t know. You’ve been traveling with Aldric and seen him reading omens, you realize something. He has seen something terrible, and what he saw was about you. And I’m just kind of looking at you in a concerned way, you know, that kind of take care, okay? As you’re realizing that Ipid turns his head a bit like a dog, and he looks at Aldric. Aldric, what are you hiding from me? You know, sometimes I see glimpses of things that haven’t happened yet. Okay. And I’m just… Okay. There was… There was you, and then there was blood. But you were still standing, I think. You think? I think so. And but there was blood in it, and it made me scared. I’m scared for you. Aldric, we’ve been traveling for fucking half a year now. Really, it feels like. And you know me to take a punch here and there, Aldric. Me and Blood are no new friends here. You’ve taken a lot of beatings, yeah. Thank you. It’s just, but every time you get back up, right? But I don’t know. It just made me worried. That’s all. Ipid grabs one of Aldric’s shoulders and he looks at him deep in his eyes. And he says, I appreciate you being honest with me, Aldric. Next time if something like that pops up, you let me know. I.
I know that these troops and these visions that come up to your head, they weigh heavy on you. But I do appreciate you being honest with me. But I will for sure take it into consideration. I’ll be extra careful. Yeah. I’m going to be watching your back a bit more. Don’t tell Starling. I mean, I’ll still be watching for Starling, but just, you know, take care of you a bit more. Yeah. Aldric, you’re good. But I watched the just as much as I watched the cruise back, you should be watching the rest of the cruise back. All right. We don’t play favorites here. We’re all in this together. High school musical. All right. As you ride out of town, the atmosphere is grim. The air is heavy with the smell of smoke and stone dust. You can see from the tracks, many giants ran down the hills, but only a few returned. Most of them fought until they died against the walls. I’m sorry, that was the guards’ bodies, was it? Or the giants’ bodies. Okay. So they’re really going for it. Yeah, it looks like we’re getting closer with all these signs. We need to keep moving forward. Yes, can we get hills? What? It’s okay. No, go ahead. Go ahead. As you ride up into the hills, the path gets narrower and more beaten. And you can see where trees have been torn up from the ground to be used as weapons. Boulders have been picked from the ground with great strength. The earth itself has been torn asunder by the many passing giants. And up in the hills, you see ruins. You hear something. Aldrich’s casting mage armor because I think it disappeared when I did the long rest. I’ve done it privately. Whatever. So, what do we hear? You hear the echoing of stone. Got you. You hear the sounds of giants arguing and preparing. Should we try to find if there’s a way around, like, to catch them by surprise or something? Maybe if we can just find the Cyclops and kill the Cyclops, the others will follow. You know, we won’t have to worry about them. They’ll leave. That actually might happen if we do get the clear shot on the Cyclops. But let’s make our distance a little closer to see what the scenario looks like a little more detailed. Because right now we just hear the giants now, right? You just hear them. Okay. Up ahead, it narrows into a mountain pass. Okay. I guess we want to leave Tom a bit with the horses. Horses get through there. Can I see if the horses can get through there? Yes, it is a wide pass. But let’s let him wait before he goes in there. I think we might have to go in there first. That mage armor thing didn’t take probably because I did it by mistake as a private thing. It didn’t take. All right, we’ll put that down once we pull your tokens in. Yeah. So Aldric’s going to just say, well, while this is getting loaded, Aldrich’s going to say to Starling, so you can heal. You can heal people a lot. Yeah, a lot. So, you know, I can heal a bit, but probably not as much as you can. You’ll be covered, don’t worry. Yeah. Yeah. If you can cover the healing, if you can cover the healing, I could focus more on the blowing things up kind of thing. We’ll see. But you can definitely blow things up. Aldric smiles. Are we supposed to be seeing something right now? There’s something I have to tell you guys. Oh, yeah. What’s up? Whenever the Cyclops goes down, just be very careful that he doesn’t get back up. Oh, don’t be too close to him. Okay. Any reason you say that? Don’t worry about it. You know, Starling, I’ve loved having you around, but.
You know, sometimes I feel like you’re, you know, letting us on with some information when you know more than you’re letting on, you know? Wouldn’t you say the same thing about yourself? I mean, I saw you and Aldric whispering earlier. What did you have to say? Nothing. I was just comforting Aldric over some concerns that he had in his dreams. That’s all. Okay. I understand. Yeah. Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry. If it turns around, and I guess I would say moves closer, right? To the sound of whatever. You hear the giants in the distance. The sounds of ogres talking with a cyclops. Oh, okay. Are you still getting the thing together, or are we just gonna? Yeah. Okay. No problem. Sorry, with the update, everything changed. You’re not the same anymore. How did you know about the Cyclops? The Cyclops. Yeah, I’ll whisper. Yeah. How did you know? I don’t know, Cyclops. They just seem to be very powerful and strong. You never can tell. I’m going to stab that dude in the eye. Aldric knows there’s something else going on, but he feels there’s something else going on, but I guess he doesn’t say anything. He’s like, hmm, okay. Ibit has been thinking about what Aldrich sold him earlier, but he’s trying not to make a big deal about it. It’s like, how often has Aldric’s visions come true? Good question. I was about to say, Ipet’s like in his head, it was just like, this is the closest lead I’ve gotten. I do not need to die today. Just a moment, guys. I’m going to click the light off. You’re good. Aldrich’s looking up these spells, trying to get ready for this encounter. He’s taking a moment to think. And, yeah. I bet Elias is very happy with this foundry update. Oh, it makes me want to kill someone. Get it figured out. Okay, there we go. So, you guys are on the edge. Can you see it yet, or did it not work either? It still looks like a black screen to me. But in this situation, I actually see my token in the middle. But oh, there we go. You can see it. Yeah. See it. Awesome. You guys are approaching where you hear the giants. See a large Cyclops, massive, lounging on some ruins. Well, it has ogres beside it. Do we get a sense of how many? You can see three ogres in the distance surrounding the Cyclops. Does anyone have anything? I don’t think so, but Starling, you don’t have a thing that you could send. I know that some wizards and some magic users have like a companion or a. I don’t have that. I don’t have a companion. Yeah, yeah, or a beast or something. Nothing, right? No. No, I don’t have that either. Do we hear what they’re talking about? Are they talking with each other over there? You hear the ogres arguing amongst each other about which one they’re going to eat next if they don’t get more meat on the next raid. I think we should eat the shortest one. Well, I think we should eat the fattest one. He’ll go the furthest. It seems like they’re planning their next attack on the city, guys. I don’t know what’s the best way to approach them, but I think that Cyclops over there is their boss. Has the Cyclops said anything at all? No, the Cyclops is asleep in the pile of rebel. Okay, okay, I got you. We have to be smart. We can’t just fight them all at once. Exactly. Maybe we could lure them away. Oh. I think that’s a good idea. Something like that. Yeah. Would be the best way to head on. Hey, Don, we’re going to get smashed.
That’s what she said. What time is it? In-game? About midday. Soon it will start approaching evening. What do you got, Starling? I could fly above them. And but it just has to be darker than this. It’s just too early. Yeah. Oh, I mean, it seems like if they’re prepping for a raid tomorrow, they’re probably going to try to get some sleep tonight. If anything, if we wait for all of them to be asleep, it might help our might help do to do it, might help to do whatever we’re here to do. That’s smart. And one of themselves, and then we’ll have loss to deal with. That is true. They’re not good enough to not cannibalize on each other. And plus, if we just stay here hidden until they’re all asleep, we can see what other ogres are here to report to him immediately. Because right now we only see three, but that number could totally go up. You’re right. But our main goal is that Cyclops. So I say let’s make a slight ink, like a slight cover with these rocks, and we’ll stay here until nightfall until these guys are asleep. Let’s hide the horses. Oh, yeah. You know what? Yeah, Tom. You know what? Go ahead and take the horses and get them out of here as far as you can. And we’ll come and get you once we’re able to take care of this, okay? All right. All right, sounds good. He lashes the horses together and you see him begin riding off to go hide. Okay. Well, now it’s just a waiting game. As you’re waiting, what do you do? How do you prepare? I mean, it doesn’t really have any effect, but Aldrich would definitely be looking at a spell book, kind of making sure he’s flicking through the pages and making sure he’s prepared all of the spells that he can. If it’s going to sharpen his blade, and he’s going to take one of those vials of oil that I was given from the guard in the other town and pretty much soak the blade and rub oil on it. Alright. As you rub the oil on the blade, you feel it has a magical hum. Ooh. And it begins to glow in the presence of the giants. Oh, gosh. Okay. Ipid uses his cloak to keep it covered for a bit so that it’s not an extremely bright light that might wake these guys up if and when they do go to sleep. Right. It’s just a faint red glow. Oh, ready enough to illuminate the blade itself. Oh, okay. So I still got a pretty light blade. I’ve got the choice between two spells. Out of the game, I’ve got the choice between two great spells for my fourth level. And not Aldrich, but the player is like, oh, I’m not sure which one to use. What are they? The first one was that troll one you gave me, the blazing Brearheart. That sounds awesome for taking down the Cyclops specifically. But I also feel like having a summoned construct there would be useful. So I want both, but I’ve only got one slot. Tough choice. Night has fallen. The ogres are sleeping in the ruins. It is quiet. It doesn’t seem like any new orgers have come and gone. It’s just still the three plus the cyclops. Still just the three plus the cyclops. Ogres and cyclops like night night creatures. Like, what do you call it? That nocturnal? Nocturnal? Not these ones. Gotcha. Okay, guys. They all look like they’re asleep, right? Yeah. Okay. Ipet’s going to go ahead and unequipped his armor and just sort of like leave it in like a little covey so that he’s just wearing his basic clothing and he says, I don’t need we don’t want to make a lot of noise. What do you guys think would be the best approach to this? Should we? I don’t know. There’s four of us. Four of those things. Hmm. Any ideas, guys?
I have a construct. I can try and summon my construct near to those. This is just an idea. Near to those ogres and try and draw them away towards the construct. Or at least trying to make my construct run back towards us and see if we can get one or two to follow. But I can’t say if that would wake them all up. I could try to draw them off with a construct, like draw them away from the battle. That’s about all I’ve got. I don’t know. I could throw a fireball in, but that again, we don’t want to take them all on. Well, if they’re all asleep, we have the upper hand here. Hmm. Is there any feature of the area? Like, there’s some ruins there, right? Yes, there are some ruins that they’re sleeping on top of. There’s something like we could hide behind. I mean, there are many rocks and boulders in the area where you could hide. Can you do illusions, Starling? Can you do illusions? Or maybe even Scorn? No. Maybe do illusions. But Scorn, can you create illusions? Maybe make something pass by that looks like it’s some meat for those guys to eat and then draw them towards us or something. Can Scorn do illusions? We had a corpse, I could make a corpse animate it, bring it back. Or a skeleton. We just have to find one. I don’t think. I don’t. You know what Scorn could do? He could banish one of them. Oh, shit. He could do that, huh? And they’re asleep, so it might be, it might have a better chance of. Oh, because it’s asleep, it’s a charisma saving throw, so it’s an automatic fail. Oh. Oh. Guys, what if we just… What if we just get Scorn to just banish the Cyclops and get it out of here? How long is it banished? Up to a minute. Oh, well. But that would maybe give us enough time to destroy the other guys first. Right. In a minute, that’s a long time. In combat terms. Yeah. Right. Something crazy like how many rounds? Maybe 12. You could banish the Cyclops and then fireball the ogres. To weaken them. Yeah. And where’s the. where where does the where does he get banished to a demiplane so just he basically gets stuffed in a bag of holding got you we’re there i like this this is this sounds all right so far all right so if he does get banished he wait you say i’m sorry he could come back or he’s just stuck there he’s stuck there for up to a minute okay and as it’s as long as scorn can hold concentration so we keep scorn out of the battle keep scorn out of it do you think or at least he can stand stand far away and do firebolts or his other magic stuff from a distance right right we don’t want them to touch him yeah so he can’t be touched because he will lose that spell and the cyclops will come back so as long as he stays out of the battle or on the edge of the battle he should be fine yeah and then i feel like when he because like does banishment make a lot of noise no okay so scorn could totally banish him i feel like before he banishes him though we can all get into position over a certain ogre right he banishes the cyclops and then as the ogres are asleep it’ll be easier for us to inflict damages to these ogres so we’re able and like all each of us will get an ogre there’s three of us and it’ll give us the a one-up on the combat over these ogres that sounds good yeah let’s do it problem is i don’t tend to hit things very often with my staff so well whatever whatever you pick aldrick it’s it’s asleep so you’ll hopefully be able to hit it get a hold of it charm it whatever you may do but something that that packs a punch and that won’t kill me or starling if we have to get close and i don’t know about starling but i gotta get right up in close and next
To one of them, yeah. See, if I threw a fireball, that would do a lot of damage, but it would wake them up, I assume, so you wouldn’t get your surprise around. Or do we know that he would all that’s the thing, though? We would all attack at the same time, but you shouldn’t be in the area when there’s a big fireball going off. That’s I don’t want to hurt you. This is very true, Aldric. Um, so I could do it around the edge, the ogres are big. You could you could hit the ogres and then have have Ipet on the other side. Yeah, if I can, if I know I can control that like that, that’s my concern: is that I would waste Ipet’s turns by fireballing too wide, you know. The fireball could be the first thing you do to get them going, but since we kind of get the jump on them anyways, you can do that. I’ll do my thing, and then um, Starling can do her thing so that we have a max output of some type of pain that on them, you know? Sounds good to me. Okay, uh, Starling, do you need to get close to one of these ogres, or are you able to do what you need to do from a distance? I can do what I need to do from a distance. Okay, cool. It looks like all right, I’m getting close. Um, okay, Aldric, the one to the left of the ogre is going to be the one that I’m going to be in position to attack once you throw your fireball, okay? Yeah, okay, so this is the plan: Scorn on Scorn’s signal, that ogre will be banished as soon as he’s banished. Aldric, you toss over a fireball, and then uh, Starling, do what you need to do. Is is yours would yours hurt more than one of the ogres, or would uh, would I be in the clear to go ahead and attack that ogre to the left of it as soon as Aldric throws his fireball? You can be in the clear, I can cat, I can hold one of them, hopefully, and that would just leave two to deal with. Okay, okay, well, I’m let’s see how things go with the first one, and then and then you’ll decide which one you can hold after. Okay, I have one more thing I can do: I can summon my thing, and it can go up to the one on I’ve got a summon, I can summon my the guy that I did last time, a big stone guy. Yeah, that sounds good, but that’s gonna be probably later on if this fight tends to be a little more complicated than we intend it to be, you know. Or I could summon it now, and you can just wait with us, though. That wouldn’t affect you summoning your fireball, don’t think so. That’s not a thing, you can cast other spells while doing concentration, you just can’t cast another concentration spell. Yeah, I’ll be concentrating on that, so I can’t do other concentrated stuff. But got you, I understand. Yeah, no, if you want to get your guy there so that he can help me get the jump on them after your initial attack and uh and tends up like we’ll be able to tell it what to do, Aldric, which one will you be summoning? Ah, yeah, so I’ve looked at the my spell book, and uh well, I can does Aldric have knowledge of each of those that I could like tell my party guys, yeah, I could, right? So, I could just tell you guys directly. What do you guys think? Uh, the heated one, there’s a metal one that can go heated, and if anyone touches it, it will take 1d10 fire damage. There’s a stone one, which is um a wisdom saving throw if if it’s within 10 feet of the bad guys, uh, the bad guy will take a wisdom saving throw, and on the fail of that, he can’t use reactions, and its speed is halved, or there’s a clay one which goes berserk and gets an extra attack if someone attacks it. What do you think? Clay one kind of sounds nice for the extra attack. I also like the one that’s hot because if these things are these guys are gonna go crazy and try to attack it, and if it’s able to get a little bit of damage every time that thing gets a swing on it, it might be good. It’s between those two, honestly, in my opinion. Let’s go with the metal one then, the heated one that’s gonna do the damage. Okay, so a creature that touches the construct or hits it with a melee attack while within five feet takes construct spirit the metal, right? Yeah, so consume the spell. I’m gonna do it while you do that. Um, Ipid’s gonna go ahead and cast divine favor on himself so that his attacks with weapons will deal an extra 1d4 damage on a hit. And Ipid that oil mechanically, when you hit a giant with it, you deal double damage.
My plan is to one-shot this ogre after Aldric does its initial damage. But yeah, okay. Sounds good. Hold on. Just in our minds, the metal construct will look like a priest like last time, but he’ll be metal. Of course, he’ll have a robe with a hood up and an amulet around his neck. Oh, nice. That’s kind of what Elias has put there. Okay. Okay. Ibid’s going to go ahead and take his sweet time because there’s no rush in it because they’re asleep and position himself near this ogre. Scorn has to get within 30 feet of the Cyclops to banish it. Okay. Aldric, can you control the construct? Yes. So the construct would try and get on the one on the right. As close as possible without being heard or seen and whatever. Somewhere there, I imagine. But yeah, something like that. So in-game, the best way we can explain this is that we all get an action before the full-on combat gets started since they’re asleep. Yeah. Okay. Sounds good. Okay. All right. Are you guys in a good position to do what you need to do? Or? Yeah, I think Fireball’s got a huge range, actually. Yeah. So I’ll be somewhere behind Scorn. Let me see. Yeah. This is the type of DD I like. I like making these little niche, little, tricky little plans. And isn’t it going to fall apart within like one range? I mean, it totally fucking could, but, you know, we’ll see. But it’s fun, man. Yeah. All right. Is everyone ready? I think so. Scorn is ready. If it’s ready. Darling’s ready. Yeah, I think Aldric’s ready to cost stuff. Alright. Aldric, or Scorn, do it. Yeah, I assume Scorn could message back and forth between Aldric, and we could, you know, Cyclops, and then begins running away. So now that the Cyclops is gone, Aldric! Aldric’s range of fireballs, something like that. Can you see what I’m doing there? I don’t think we see your damage area until you place it. Oh, really? You have to place it first. They’re just like normal. That’s perfect. Would they have disadvantage on their saving throws, maybe? No, they automatically fail because they’re asleep. Hell yeah. Roll that DP. Roll that damage. And you could cast it with a fourth level slot for a little extra if you wanted to. I couldn’t. I’ve just used it, though, to do this. Oh, yeah. When I get more spell slots, maybe I’ll. Okay, cool. Oh, not bad. It could be worse, man. It could be worse. In seeing this, now that the fireball has been casted, Ibid’s going to run up to the closest ogre of him, and he is going to smite it. He gets two attacks with his special thing. So for his first swing, he’s going to go ahead and great sword this guy. That’s a 22 to hit. Sure hope so. And he’s going to go ahead and roll damage now. Okay, hold on. I got to do math here. So that’s going to be a 16 plus a d4 because of my what was it called? Or actually, hold on. Sorry. I’m going to roll damage one more time, and I’m going to take the best of the two because of that savage attacker. I’m going to still keep that 16. I’m going to get back to the first roll. I did. 2d6. Oh, God, I did. I’m not. I wasn’t even thinking. 1d4 because of that spell I casted. Beautiful. That’s a 19. And then with that, I’m also doing a… Where is it? I’m going to be using my Divine Smite. These aren’t fiends, aren’t they? They’re just ogres. Just ogres. Got you. So that’s a 9. So that’s 28 damage. And then that’s x 2 because of the oil, right? Yes. Or is that just times 2 based off the initial attack or everything that I just did? Times 2 on all of it. Okay. So that’s 56 damage on the first ogre. Alright. So, how do you kill the first ogre? While the ogre is charred and I guess trying to wake up after getting a fireball thrown at it, Ipid’s going to run up behind.
It and with Divine Smite, jab his great sword into the back of this ogre’s neck and twisting it until it stops moving. And then he pulls out. Pause. And he still has an extra attack, doesn’t he? I still got another attack. Yeah. Shit, am I out of movement, though? How much did I move? Or does it? Yikes. Okay. Okay, cool. 25. Okay. All right. I’m going to run up and do the same thing to this guy. Except this is just going to have to be a normal attack since I already used this. That’s a 20 to hit. That hits. Damage 12 plus D4 times 2. That is 30 damage. This one is still alive. You cut deep into its flesh, but it is still writhing. And at this point, I’m going to let Starling get a hold of whichever one she thinks she needs to get a hold of. Okay. I am going to cast whole person on this one back here. All right. Guess well. DC 15 with wisdom saving through. It fails. All right. It’s held. Beautiful. I would like to move up to this one. Cool. That’s my turn. Now, is that all of our actions? Now I’ll draw his construct. Yeah. Oh, yeah. If I can see that that one’s held, I would like to go up to it with the construct. That’s 25 feet. I think. I don’t have this. How did I load this that one for that? You should double-click on the icon. Right. It’ll stay paralyzed even if it gets hit while it’s paralyzed, right? Yes. It only repeats the save at the end of its turns. Got you. Okay. Yeah, so he runs up. He’s got this monthly attack thing, which I believe two attacks. Slam attack. That’s the attack roll. 18. That hits. Oh, so slam attack damage is there. You should add an extra four to that. Oh, okay. That would be a 10. And then one more attack. Oh, so I don’t need to click that. Right. I don’t get advantage or anything, do I? Because he’s held. Oh, yeah, you do get it held because he’s held. So you get to roll again. I’ll roll one more d20 for the last attack in case it was a critical. Yeah? Yeah. We love to see the system. Yeah. No, no, never mind. That was the advantage, but he didn’t really get an advantage there. Attack. With advantage, I’ll do advantage this time. Oh, dear. That hits? Still hits? Wow. Okay. Oh, my gosh. He’s been rolling rubbish, but okay. Another 10. 6 plus 4. All right. Now, everyone roll initiative. Okay. He rolled. He had two attacks with one D8. They were both two on the dice. Oh, shit. I forgot to put my armor back on. Did you? Or did you? I only have my shield at the ready. I don’t think I need a rolled initiative for the construct. I think he just comes after me in the order. He just operates on your initiative. Yeah. It takes a whole action to equipped armor, right? Yeah. Okay. All right. Noted. Ip is rocking at 12 AC. Shit. Why did I forget to do that? All right, Ibid. You are first in combat. Ip is not going to waste his first move to put on armor. Ibid’s going to look at the ogre that he’s looking in front of, and he’s going to go ahead and hit it with his nice little stick. That hits. That hits. All right. I’m going to go ahead and roll for Dimage. I want to take the better of the two. I’ll take that 14 at D4 because of that. So that’s 17 damage on the first hit. Alright, and that’s doubled. So how do you kill this one? Beautiful. After doing the initial hit and see that it was still standing, Ibid’s going to lunge up towards its chest and jab.
As deep as he can with his great sword to where his heart is and pull it back out, letting it slowly bleed to death. You are now doused in ogre blood. Is this Aldrich’s vision? I still have one more attack. Now that this thing is dead, if it’s going to keep on moving, he sees the one behind it die, come back to life, and then the other one died in front of him. He’s going to move on to the second one and hit it as well. 22 hits. Oh, and you have advantage, so check for a crit. Oh, yeah, it’s held. Okay. Let me attack one more time then. No. But I’ll go ahead and stick with that damage roll. 14 plus 3, 17 times 2. How do you kill this last one? Hell yeah. If it, as it’s tied down, he is going to. I mean, there’s no nice way to say it, but it’s on the floor. He’s just going to jab the sword into the back of its skull. Hold back out until he now that it stopped moving. No. You have nine rounds before the Cyclops is back. Yeah. First thing IPI does. Guys, great work. I loved how quick we were with each other. You know, Starling, you did a really good job with getting that thing held. Aldric, I’m proud of you, man. This stone guy, too. While he’s saying that, Ip is using one of the moves he has to put on his armor. Do you have anything to protect yourself? Aldric asks the group. I mean, just general protect yourself, make yourself stronger. I mean, other than my armor, I could give. Hold on. I could give one of you guys Shield of Faith, but it is a concentration, and I am going to be. Or wait, no, concentration is broken when you’re fighting or when you have to cast another concentration spell. You have to cast another concentration spell or when you get hit and fail your concentration saving throw. Understood. Starling, what’s your AC? Let me see. 16. 16, Aldric? Well, I have to ask the DM. I did cast Mage Armor earlier. Would I or has time passed and it’ll have it? I can still have it. So it should be 14, but it didn’t take when I did it on the porch. So I believe it should be 14. Thanks to Mage Armour. Even with Mage Armor, you’re still at 14? Yeah, well, wizards. I guess. Damn. Okay. Can Shield of Faith stack on that? Or. Yeah. Okay. Sorry, Starling. I think Aldric’s going to need this more than you. But yeah, I’m going to go ahead and cast Shield of Faith since I’ve never really fucking used it. Shimmering Field surrounds a creature of your choice within range, granting it a plus two bonus AC for the duration. Wait, do we want to cast it on the construct? No, that’s not a real life. Oh, cannot? Well, he’s going to be right there next to you. He’s going to be right there next to you with the Cyclops. I can’t, but if it gets hit, I’d rather that get hit than you get hit and die. Fair enough. Okay, that’s not me. Yeah. I believe the construct gets a plus four to the armor class, which is not showing up here because of real quick. But yeah, Aldrich, you can go ahead and add two to your AC, so you’ll be at 16. Yep. Okay. Thank you, Ipid. Of course, man. I don’t need you dying on me because this ogre might be. Might be tricky, honestly. I would rather not be knocked unconscious immediately like I was with that fireball as well. It wasn’t pleasant. Yeah. And it sucks because that guy was like a really attractive man. He was really good looking. Yeah. Yeah. It just, no, it’s just like, I’m sorry. I don’t. I mean, I’m not. I’ve never. I’m not saying anything. I’m just saying that I’ve never. Anyway, it just, it always pisses me off that the people who are always.
The coolest and the strongest to always happen to have good looks. You know, have you noticed that? Is it just you know, whatever? You know, you know, it I wasn’t really paying attention to how good he looked. Well, I get, I guess that’s your, yeah, I get, yeah. I mean, I was, I’ll stay quiet now. I’ll stay quiet. You have any more preparations to make before Scorn releases the banishment? I just wanted to say, really quick, I just think it’s hilarious that we’re talking about this while we’re waiting for this cycle. You’re like, yeah, yo, remember that mage? She was really good. He was really handsome. What can I say? I could admit he’s handsome, right? I don’t know if it will really, we can really care about this, but if we can’t see if it’s getting dark or anything, I don’t think it’s concentration. So Aldric would cast light on a stone if it’s as long as it’s not concentration. He would like light up the area. All right. Yeah, because it’ll come back. Wait, this ogre’s going to come back into the same place that it disappeared in, right? Yeah. Do you want me to cast another fireball when he reappears? I mean, I mean, you can’t. Why not? Sure. I mean, why not? We could make this job really easy. Well, I mean, it depends on him. He could be like super tough. So I think I mean the construct to wait outside of that range of the fireball. I would say, like, yeah, Starling, maybe you should stand back a bit. Okay. So yeah, you can’t. You throw that fireball and whatever initiative that thing will take, we will get on it. Fire is what I got, so let’s use it. Or how will it work? Will we be able to do something to it as it appears? Or when he appears, he’ll roll initiative and whatever he gets, whatever will happen. What it is, is you can do a prepared action. Nice. So do we have an action available? Reaction to do that when he reappears. So you can do something right as he pops back in. Oh, okay. All right. Well, yeah, that’s the plan. Oh, yeah. Because we’ve got many rounds, right? So we’d have an action available because we’ve got all these rounds. Yeah. So we’d use a reaction to store an action. Is that what you just said? Yeah. Okay. So since it’s nine rounds, we get nine attacks on him, right? Without being bothered. No. Nine fireballs or something. Mirage him. I’m going to pass. Drops back in. Yeah. Aldrich, do it. Oh, man. I love the roleplay, dude. Same place, basically, as last time. Does he get us dexterity saving throw then? No, because he’s still asleep. Oh, we didn’t have woken him up. You told me he got banished and he stayed asleep in wherever the hell he went. Well, it was quiet and comfortable. Yeah. Bro, got banished to a demi-plane and just said, fuck it. All right. Here we go. Damage roll. Big money. Oh, that’s a little bit better. Yeah, that’s pretty much better. Yeah. Okay. Do we have to go into a specific order now, or is it whoever? If anyone else has any prepared actions they’re going to do, I mean, the construct would rush in and try to do an attack if it’s got if he’s got a prepared action like that. And Ipid would have at least prepared an attack with his sword. Yeah. Okay. So you can do those. Okay. Cool. Okay. Oops. Oops. Oops. What happened there? Okay. Construct runs in. That’s a 14. That hits. Okay, cool. Oh, I take the better of the damage. 9 plus 4. 3. 12. I just thought it might be. 24. No, you’re good. Let me use my second attire. Oh, my gosh. How many tabs? You rolled two ones on your damage dice. Sorry to say, Ipid. Oh, my gosh. But do you take the better damage or something? Yeah. I cast a moonbeam, but I don’t know what happened to it. It got lost in the stack of stuff.
Going through the comments. Okay. I got 44 damage total. Wow. That’s sword oil, man. That’s what helps. Now you can roll your damage for the moonbeam if you scroll up a bit in the comments. Okay. Hell yeah. Oh, that’s more like it. So that’s 44 plus 22 plus. What did you do, Aldric? 34. 34. Yeah. And then you still have your stone construct? Yeah, so instead of attacking, could he have prepared the idea is to that he would like kind of jump on him and try to restrain the cyclops somehow. Grapple or. Oh, he’s what? The cyclops is 30 feet tall. Oh, okay, okay. So okay, so the construct was going to do. Right. I could do it. So, yeah, Aldric was going to command him to do that, but then sees his size and goes, holy, and then changes it. Can you change that to be an attack then? Yeah. I don’t know. Yeah, if you let that happen, yeah. Maybe just attack him. So slam. Ooh. 24 to hit. That hits. Damage. Ooh. Plus 4, I believe, as well, which is 15. Yep. The Cyclops is bloodied. Holy shit. We did like over 100 damage on it and it’s bloodied. I thought for sure we had gotten it already. All right. Well. All right, Ipid, you have one turn before the Cyclops gets to attack. Make it count. Ipid’s like, say hello to my little friend. And then he takes out his big friend, his greatsword, and he goes to hit it. And he misses. Ah, Graze, though. He gets three damage. Yep. He’s going to use a second attack to try to hit him again. 22. That hits. I’ll take the better of the two damages. That’s 14. Let’s see. I’ll take that 14. And then I still have my favorite. It’s 18 damage total. Oh, wait, times two. Is it doubled? Yeah, because of my sword oil. So that’s 36. Oh, wait. It would still count against him, right? Because he’s big. Yeah. Okay. So yeah, that’s 36 damage. You see him bleeding heavily, wounded and angry. He’s not dead yet. 30 foot tall. Holy shit. He wields his great club and swings at Ipid. No, you don’t. You suck. Now you swings again. Damn, that hits. Okay. With his first hit, he deals 24 damage to Ipid, and he swings again. All right, you still have your armor, Aldric? Aldrich still has missed both times. He swings, pummeling the ground of Garanju again and again, beating holes into the earth. And now it is Starling’s turn. Okay, I’d like to renew Moonbeam. Let me see. Scroll back up into the madness. Okay, DC 15 Constitution saving the room. I failed. That was the wrong one. That’s okay. Okay. He fails. How much damage? 12. He’s not a shape-shifted creature, is he? He’s not. Okay. How does he die from the moonbeam? Hell yeah, hell yeah. It just burns a hole straight through his body. It just hollows out a hole, and there’s just like a hole straight through him. Wow. The cycops collapses as a hole is burned straight through its head, down all the way through its chest and between its legs, and it falls over almost on top of Ipid. Ipid stands impressed. Does Aldrich see Ipid has blood on him? No. Oh. It’s not that easy. Can’t get it out of that easy. That was the most video game-ass way to kill a boss. That was like Destiny Raid. Like, all right, guys, going with the heavy armor.
Make sure you guys have your supers ready. All right. Well, that’s where we’re going to leave off today. Beautiful. The session did run a little late. You did a lot of damage in those attacks, right? You did with your swords. There were 200 damage in those first from when Cyclops got back and died. Wow. Beautiful. That’s one hell of a wake-up call. Bro got vanished to the fucking plains of whatever, came back and immediately just got murked and got a hole put through his chest. Good times. That was a lot of fun. It was. Yep. Thank you guys. I’ll see you next week. I’ll see you. We’ll see you next week, too. And hopefully, Scorn will be with us. Yep. Yes. Bye, you guys. Bye. You guys have a good night and a good rest of your day for those who are just starting it. Thank you. Have a good one. All right.