Hello and welcome to episode 185 of the Respectful Gaming Podcast. I'm your host and GM Alex and you're with me today. I have... Ben Meredith. Bryn Munro. Lydia Nicholas. I'm Helen Gould. And who are you somehow still managing to play despite everything I do to you? Does Ulf still got loads of hit points? Smith. Hamid actually quite hurt a little bit badly in a sense. Selah Harunel to Han. Sel actually better than usual because I piece morphed into a massive bat thing with a big...
wolfy snout and teeth and claws, so I got tons of hit points now. So, you know, and side bottom, yeah. In fact, that's a valid playing of cells. Minus two, even more charisma. This is why we keep cell out of mad discussions. And as you, Alex. Fine, fine.
You're on my list, Helen. Lydia's still my favourite for failing a check at some point. Only one. But you're on my list now. Fine. Should we do a clean take or are we just going to accept the lead? No, no, we're going to get to this. This is our in. Fine. Right. We all got to pick up then after Helen's horrendous, just, just visceral in. Okay. Yeah.
So, fine, yes. Lines in the sand are drawn. Me and all my monsters are on one side and you all are on the other. Bryn's a little closer to my side by virtue of allowing himself to get hit like 12 times. I got hit, it's just not very well. I tried. I was super invisible, but apparently that didn't matter. No, but that's why. Because you went invisible and thus I got to use their see invisibility thing. I'm really happy you at least engaged. That's fine. The rest of you are...
you know first warning all right hey cell is shaken but not affected by it but these crs are so high at some point i'll reveal like i'll go back and look over the audio and be like what was the cr for that ah 47 all i hear is this is so much tasty xp oh yeah oh yeah yeah yeah rin was like i want to hit a certain level all right okay there are quick ways of doing that I mean, I'm just saying, if the airship had crashed and you'd lost everyone, I might have given you some XP for that, but it's fine this way too. That's fine too. Oh, God. Okay, so we are going to be picking up where we left off, which is technically we are still in initiative because there are still two planty creatures and Summit Newell in dire polar bear form is also in dire straits by virtue of having failed a save and getting Silver Plant to the face. With that in mind then, I am going to pick up where we left off, which wasn't actually the top of initiative order. It was Summit Newell next. So the first thing that Summit Newell does is make another save. Such thrills. Good luck.
Okay, makes that one at least. Good. Then basically just immediately attacks the thing that went in her face. Oh, excellent. Makes sense. She does have to move out of the immediate group in order to do it because it was a little bit further out, but that's fine. Dead easy to do. In which case, she will.
She's rolled horrendously. Misses. You get the impression that she is missing by virtue of some kind of effect is happening on her. She's moving slower. She's a little bit clumsier than she was before. But again, she's a bear, so you haven't got a lot of frame of reference here. It is obvious. It's not subtle. It's like, OK, something is affecting you. At which point then, Azu, you are up. There are two visible plant dealies, but there's bells everywhere. OK, I'm going to attack the plant nearest to me. Yeah, that's fine. You'll have to move towards it so you can't do the full attack thing, but that's fine. That's fine, yep. Helen, you were going to heal Hammett.
Nah, Hamid's fine. Ooh, oh no, plant or Hamid. You can't see how messed up Hamid is, so it's fine. He is invisible. Oh, it's true. Presumably, Hamid's absolutely fine. I can't... Hamid, is your invisibility still on? Oh, yeah. Then I can't see him to heal him, so I'm going to have to kill the plant. I'm going to do this. Wah, wah, you have to walk in my way and get healed. By loud hands, your own fault. After the plant's dead, I'll do a child positive first, and hopefully that will hit Hamid at some point. Anyway, so that's just the one attack once I've moved to the plant, yes? Yes. Okay, so that'll be d20 plus 16.
Okay, that is 28. That's a hit. It's a really good hit as well. Okay. Yeah, this is what I've won. I want to roll above 25 at all times. So do I, Helen, but here we are. All right, then that'll be 2d12 plus 6 then.
That's a 14. So, yeah, this creature, you take a big old swing at it and it manages to sort of move slightly out of the way so that you only clip it, but you still do huge amounts of damage to it. A couple more hits like that and you get rid of all of them. All right, good. Cool. At which point then, Skrark's turn. Skrark moves up to the same one to flank it. That's easy to do. That's fine. And would be able to do so if you use the entire move action without provoking attack opportunity by basically just going around the house a little bit. 23 on the attack roll. Oh, no, 25. Is it hit? I love it when you do that, Brent. Once again, for getting bonuses.
Sneak attack is activated. Only 18 damage. That was the one that's just been here, yeah? Yep. Skrark manages to basically just lop the head off. That is, the flower head of it. Yeah. It drops to the ground and it sort of shrivels slightly and then all petrifies into what looks like solid metal. And then the strand that came from it, you can see it sort of petrifying back along that tendril. Okay. At which point then, Hamid, you're up. Hamid casts magic missile on the other one. A classic. Yeah. Classic for a reason. All reliable. Yeah.
18 damage. Yeah, similar to the damage that, as you did, it's just like crunch, another one of them, and you get fine. Technically, it might seem like, oh, we can just wrap this up. I can't. You'll all see why. Understood. Zolf, you're up. So, yeah, I'm going to use calming touch on cell. 1d6 plus 9 points of non-lethal damage, which I think is irrelevant, but you are no longer fatigued, shaken, or sickened. Okay, cool. So your shaking is no longer suppressed. It's literally gone. It's just gone, yeah. Very sensible. And then I will move up to the other plant so that it is 10 foot away from me. So basically, I'm moving up to threaten it. Yeah, understood. That's fine. And that's my go. Okay. At which point then, cell, you're up. Hmm.
I'm going to shoot the crossbow at the point. They're not in melee, so 8 plus the whole 3. 20? Hit me. 20. Yeah, another 20. Two hits. Cool, so then I do 1d10 plus 1d6 electric. You're still getting the wild bonus. Oh, wild's still there going... Jazz hands, battle jazz hands. 11 for the first, and... Oh, that's a 1 and a 2. So 3 plus 3 is 6. That's enough. Does that kill it? It kills it, yeah. Very glad I saved my bombs then, because that... Would have been a gross overkill. That's why I used Magic Missile, for the same reason. You take out the second one.
I can't drop out of initiative, but what I can do is do a little bit of metagame so that we don't just waste a bunch of time. I can't drop out of initiative because there is an ongoing effect on Summit Neal, not because I need you all to keep doing perception checks over and over and over again. It's because there is an ongoing effect. I rarely do ongoing status illnesses, which is why I'm explicitly flagging it, because otherwise you're going to misread this as, like... You know, I guess Summit Niel's just got to die because we've got to be ready for whatever this initiative's for, you know what I mean? Okay. So I'm going to stick an initiative because I have to, but I'm going to rattle through it a lot quicker now. Well done on taking out the plants, though, because that could have been a worsening situation. I'm glad you did that. So Skrark is technically up. Skrark can't go into help Summit Niel directly, so he will take up a, you know, ready position and scan for new threats, but we already know that they're aren't hitting it immediately. In which case then, it's now Summit Niel's turn. Are you inserting Skrark into the initiative order twice?
Yes, that was a test. It isn't Skrark's turn. It's just Summit Neal's. Aha, thank you. I would let Skrark just do things twice in previous... Skrark is an ambitious kobold on the up and up. Who am I to drag him down? You're fine. It won't really have broken it that much. Yeah, I think it's okay. I'm not too worried. You're right, though, that Skrark actively is now after our zoom initiative, so it is Summit Neal. Summit Neal is clearly struggling to breathe and sort of gives her...
and sort of is stumbling down a little bit and is shaking more. Also, you can see the silvery colouring seems to be spreading from where it hit further out across the face, like actively moving out across the face. So this looks like a polar bear in Mad Max Fury Road. Could everyone please give me, who can, a knowledge nature? 28. 28 knowledge nature is useful, thank you. Oh, would you allow a heel check? Yes, I would allow a heel check. Not to cure, but to find out what's going on, to be clear. That's 16. 18. Okay, so in terms of the knowledge nature, you...
have come across stuff like this or vaguely similar types of plants in the Americas. This isn't the right climate for it. But then again, you are in the garden, which is warmer than the surrounding area, but you wouldn't have expected to find it here. It is definitely some kind of ongoing poison. And for the healers, I will just say for free, because I'm feeling generous, this is...
possibly a magical poison, or if it's not a magical poison, it's generating an effect that you would normally see in a curse rather than via a poison, which actually is going to make it more difficult to heal. Like, this is something where you'd be like, if it was a spell, you'd be like, all right, remove curse or whatever, but it's not a curse, it's a poison. And you just know that, you can tell by the way it's behaving, it's not moving the right way and that kind of thing. But I would say then, Azu, you are up, because Summit Neal's entire turn has just been spent feeling worse, basically. Well, I shall move to Summit Neil and lay on hands. Okay. What does your lay on hands do specifically? It's been a little while since we've had to engage with the other stuff, like the mercies and so on. My lay on hands heals 46, harms undead, and delivers mercies deceived, enfeebled, and poisoned. Fabulous. So you do that, and immediately the movement of that silver stops. It remains upon her face, however, and she sort of looks at you with, in a way that only polar bears can, a real sad polar bear face her. Not the sad polar bear.
She looks exhausted as a bear. She looks not mechanically exhausted, to be clear. She just looks like she's gone through the ringer very quick, like really quickly, and there's still powder across her snout and so on, and she just lays down and just rests for a sec. I can now drop out of initiative. She still does not look well. Oh. I have a thing in me that may well... Yes, I thought you might. So, I have Liberty's Blessing. Basically, I can grant a willing creature a boon. The boon can, as a swift action, allows the creature to, as a swift action, make a saving throw against a single spell or effect it's suffering from that grants a save. The DC is equal to the original. If the saving throw is successful, the effect ends.
I don't know if this is any different. Unfortunately, that's not really... No, it's not really going to apply like that. What I would say is the initial healing check I got you to do was you have an ongoing effect. You need to stop ongoing. I will give you both a chance to do a fresh healing effect to now fix whatever is not worsening, but there. I will assist Azu. Yeah, that's absolutely fine. So I need to roll and see if I give a bonus. Okay. I rolled a 17, which I think the DC is 15 on assists. Yeah, you've succeeded. Azu gets plus two. Okay.
I'm helping. So, do I lay on hands again? No, no, no. Just give me a heal check. Because I don't think Submit Neal has actually taken any hit point damage. No, that's the weird thing here. Truth be told, this combat came out very oddly. Oh, I also just channel positive energy because there are hurt people here and it's cheaper for me to channel than it is for Azu. So, I'm going to roll 5d6 and tell you how many hit points you'll get back. Yay! Okay. Also, that was a 20 on the heal check. So, I will give you a mechanical answer. Okay. Submit Neal appears to have taken basically a bunch of dex damage. Ah, Azu understands that. Azu's like, oh, I've played this game a lot. Given that it was only active for a short space of time.
six dex damage. Okay. That's not enough to paralyze it by any stretch, but this is closer to Azu after the paralysis was wearing off back in Egypt. That's what you're dealing with. However, for the heal check, I would also say that is a secondary effect for this poison. You think this is some kind of petrification effect that you've managed to stave off if it was left to run its course. Bear statue. Basically, she'd have ended up paralyzed, then petrified. As a nasty poison. Yeah, as a bear statue. So as a result, you've managed to stave it off getting worse, and you now know that there is dex damage. However, I'm going to have to be a bit meta in this, and it isn't just a, I can't use a normal heal check to fix that dex damage. I need like...
Magical rest, basically. So just FYI, everybody get 22 hit points back. Yay! I never lost any in the first place. Zell is 18 over their usual amount. This combat went so weird. Well, I'm now back on full, so that's great. Hammond is not quite back on full, but he's doing fine. I need you to know, if that first portal had held up longer, it would have gone very differently. I'm sure it would have, young man. That's why we used the big guns on the first portal. So if there's a petrification effect, I've got something that can help with the effects of the petrification.
I don't know if I can reverse the petrification, but I might be able to. I don't know. Well, give it a go. You don't think the petrification has taken, to be clear. It's not like... She doesn't have a stone nose. Yeah, like, it's not that someone now has a stone face. It doesn't quite work like that. So you're not reversing petrification. Okay. You're dealing with a secondary effect. If the primary effect is petrification, the lay on hands effectively stopped that by stopping the poison. Oh, okay, fine. You are now dealing with a secondary effect. It is worth spelling out, because that means very different things. Yeah, I can get rid of it, but I'll need some time to meditate again, and... Okay. Well, we'll have to wait till the end of the day. So, um, I don't know. Sumit Niel, can you...
deal with this for now. I mean, I'll fix it as soon as I can, but there's a limit on what I can do. Summit Newell looks up, gives a very, very sad look, and then gives basically a nod. Right, okay. Hammond is visible again. I have a question. Please. How strong is a celestial mount? You... I'm wondering whether if some of Neil can't walk, I can follow up the camel. Also, some of Neil can turn back into a person. Oh, yeah. Okay, good. I would say, yeah, you're fine. Some of Neil sort of sits, but is now sat as opposed to just, like, flat out. Okay. And he's kind of sat and hunched. Wild stops the support music, as it were. What breath control? He was providing a backing track. The ringing of the bells has lessened, but is still sort of all around. Our guide has been...
So maybe we should go, Sumit Niel, can you not be a bear for a bit? We can have a conversation. Is that something you can do right now? Sumit Niel sort of turns, looks a moment, closes her eyes, stands, but in the process of standing, starts to shift down and converts back to, yeah, basically as she was. So she starts wiping off the, it's almost like pollen off her face. This isn't my intent, but I'm aware that it will have a certain Mad Max witness me vibe. But yeah, she's wiping it off as a material. It seems very reluctant to leave the face, but she doesn't appear to have any permanent scarring or something.
This is all wrong. This is not what I would have expected, but... Do you know what any of the things were? There were so many different... Yeah. No, they're not of this place. None of them. Even this is... Those plants shouldn't really be in this environment. I don't even mean the frozen waste environment. They shouldn't be in a temperate forest environment. That's a jungle thing. Maybe we caused this. Maybe it doesn't want us here. It's impossible to tell. We made a lot of noise. What do you think we should do? Something you'll take a moment.
My instinct would be to proceed. Though I am wearied, we've not even found the centre of the blight yet. Really? And better this journey is completed than abandoned. Doing everything again will only increase the risk. Indeed. We're burning daylight. Indeed. We need to get out again before dusk. Wilde speaks up. I agree. At the risk of sounding callous, we came out of that almost fine. Yes, thank you, Zulf. I'm almost back to normal, I think. I'd rather get something useful from this journey, basically. Oh, right. Well, Sametnail, if you're willing to keep going, we should keep going. We should do it now.
If you can't walk, I can get a camel and she'd be happy to carry you. I'm not familiar with what you... I can walk. Are you sure? Yes, I can walk. You don't have to force yourself to. It is fine. All right, all right then. I will not be slow, I will just be clumsy. In fact, one moment, she kneels, tries to reach for soil, but there's just bare earth under it. She sighs for a second, stands back up, reaches into a pouch and pulls out some soil.
rubs it between her hands, basically muttering some kind of incantation or something similar. There's a glow of green light coming from the dirt between her hands. And then she rubs it across her face, think more like a sand bath type deal. And with it, the silver pulls away and she adopts her... I was going to say, stands up straight. She's still hunched over, et cetera, but straighter, I guess. A natural pose. Yes. I am fine. This is a temporary effect. Difficult to remove oneself whilst it is still... The ringing concerns me. Right. I think we should proceed, but if we do, I think we should proceed very carefully.
One of these plants is not a problem. Even two is sensible, but we all deal with these at the same time. This is a problem. Yeah, makes sense. All right. Beyond this point, I have no more advice. I've never been able to proceed any further than here. She gestures at just, you know, the swathes of icor that are still coating the poisoned ground. Obvious reasons. Should we spread out a little bit or continue to stick close together?
you know, benefits to both tactics. I think we should probably stick together so, you know, one of us doesn't get separated and blown up. Yeah, I agree. We've still got to worry about the distractions and stuff, I guess. This is still the Garden of Yerlik. Corrupted, yes, but it is still the garden to travel into the garden alone is to invite visitation. I do not believe we should necessarily be upon one another, but certainly do not stray. Yeah. All right. That's a good point. I've been tied to Wilder's entire time, haven't I?
Yeah, you had enough rope, so it's fine. But you've been zipping around the place like a bungee gone before. I love that. Just dragging him around the battle map. You've kind of got him on a little kiddie leash. No wandering off. Okay. He was just moving in concert with you because you're so in sync. I mean, that's a far more elegant way of putting it. You know what? Let's take this as a break. It feels like a natural break point. And then we can press on after the break.
And welcome back. So, pressing onwards, yeah? Okay, what I am going to ask then is, are people going just as a sort of loose bunch? Are people going in single file? How do you want to do this? I would suggest a slightly looser bunch than previously, personally. Like, I might be ten foot away from people rather than five foot away. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's fine. In that case then, as you're advancing through, can everyone please give me a perception check first and then we'll go from there. Okay.
27. 29. 23. 21 for Hammett, 28 for Skrark. Okay, so everyone, as you're moving forward, start to see these silver forms distant at the edge of vision in your direction, sort of hidden behind trees. Everyone also hears the sort of distant bells and so on. For Zulf, Skrark, and Sel, you still have... You remember those portals were prefaced by just a sense of hostility? Mm-hmm. You still have a lingering sense of hostility in the area, but it doesn't seem to be so much following you as...
It is moving. It's hard to explain. Sometimes it feels like it's a little bit closer, and sometimes it feels like it moves further away, but it does feel like... You know when you went to a room and you could swear that there was someone in that exact spot, not just that, oh, I think someone's a bit there. It's that kind of thing where it's like, something doesn't like me over there, but there's nothing there. But it is a non-physical, this isn't something you're hearing, this isn't something you're seeing, it's a strictly spiritual perception on this one. And also, with its movement, is this a single thing moving around, or it's here and it disappears and it reappears over there, or what's the feeling? I know it's abstract, but... What was the highest perception?
29 was it from Cell? It's very hard to place. Cell thinks it's probably a thing moving around rather than a thing just popping around the place. You know what I mean? It's quite difficult because there is a sense to the movement, but you can't trace lines. It's not that consistent. You know what I mean? Interference is the best way to put it. So it's almost like a...
Spiritual concealment is at play a little bit. Nice. Cell's going to... I've just checked. And drinking their alchemical allocation dragon breath elixir, they can use it for an hour afterwards. Nice. Good idea. So they're just going to swig that. Good idea. And spit it back into the jar. Nice. Nice. And just say something is moving around and it doesn't seem to like us very much. I'm not sure what it's... I mean, Cell's currently on charisma minus two. Wild speaks up. Could this be the thing, the portal thing? Well, it's the same kind of feeling, isn't it? It's the same kind of feeling as something that doesn't...
want you there. But, you know, I don't know. Is that just my anxiety? I don't know. Can you feel it? Yes. Okay, that's useful. That's useful to know. Yeah, because you're quite selfish. Because it's over there. Wild just turns and points. And you both have a sort of vague sense it might be in that direction. Wild's like, it is there. Like, bang. He just seems to have a bead on it. You seem to be a lot clearer on it. Do you have any idea? Can you see a thing? Is there a thing that you can see there? Is there... I think I can hear it. What's it saying? Or doing? Or singing? A wounded animal? I don't know how to explain it. It's not speaking. So, Neil, is that something we should follow up?
You ask questions of things, you're beyond my knowledge. My instincts say the blight comes from a source, a centre. The centre has not moved. To guess, I would guess this is a symptom of the sickness, not the sickness itself. All right, this is your garden. But this is a guess. If I knew these answers, I would have solved the problem. Fine, it's a better guess than what we've got, so we'll stick with going to the source. Could everyone please give me a stealth check? Bear with me, there is a logic here which is very simple, which is, I'm assuming you are trying to avoid fights rather than invite them. This is not a stealth check to avoid the thing that you can't really avoid. This is more like, you've got bell plants all over the place, it might be good to avoid them. So I'm just kind of wrapping all of that just in a...
stealth check rather than doing survival and this and that and blah blah blah 16 16 okay 22 for Hamid Skrark rolled a natural 20 for a total of 37 woo 12 minus, I don't know. Let's say seven. Let's say that I rolled a seven. Big, clanky lady. Yeah, so you're clonking along. It's clear to everyone else. It's not possible for Azu to be quiet enough in a way to help. This is just a fact. There's too much stone. There's too much leaf litter. There's armour. Too much metal. Too much pink. As you're moving, your position is clearly being given away. This does not mean you're immediately under attack, but it means that the ringing does not stop. It is still surrounding you and seems to be moving with you. There are a couple of moments where Summit Neil will put up a hand to stop. We'll point out.
against a hanging vine or something, and then gesture quietly to move around. She must have astonishingly good eyesight, by the way. Far better than she has any right to have. But she seems to be doing a decent enough job of navigating around, but there is a lot of navigating around because you are effectively moving through almost like a live minefield. There's a lot of circle back or whatever, but you are making clear and steady progress, and as you do so, it becomes clear that there are far more than two of those silver figures. Best white people, I guess.
You're starting to get the impression there is a crowd of silver figures if you can just get past this tree cover. Are they moving? No. Are we entering a sort of Medusa's cave sort of situation? That's certainly the vibe you're getting. I was thinking of the Snow Queen or whoever it is from now on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Similar vibes where you're going along and it's becoming clear there are figures. Are they all human-sized? Everyone give me a perception check, please.
20. Ooh, 31. Mine is also 31. Whoa! About 20. Hi! Nice. Yay. 20 for Hamid, 20 for Skrark. Only Selenazu can spot this. In fact, we'll even summon you. That's quite a high roll. Summon you, I'm not sure. I don't think Wild could. They're all dwarven. Ooh. In full battle armour, it looks like to your eyes. Oh no! Svalbard's full of dwarves! Maybe they fit... Oh no! Oh no! Everything was fine until the dwarven nation attacked.
That is exactly the vibe, the Medusa's cave kind of thing I'm going for, where some of them are slumped on the ground, some of them are face down, most of them seem to be in various forms of either fight or flight, but there's a crowd that is becoming apparent, like a decent chunk, and you can't see the edges of it because there's too many trees. I was going to say all of that, especially pointedly to something, you know, like, so were there this many dwarves, dwarf statues before? Is it a tradition with your people to carve dwarves in battle poses, or are these frozen people, like, is that maybe something that you, like, cells on a massive minus charisma thing, they just ramble. I do not like to guess, but... I would doubt that these are statues, given our predicament. Seems like a force of dwarves attacked and maybe got caught by the flowers. Attacked what? How would a force of dwarves attack without you lot knowing about it, though? Yeah. A portal? We've had portals, yes, but maybe they've been... I don't... We don't know, right? Or a teleporting. That guy... Yes, we only saw. The fleshy friend, a non-friend, said that... That was a teleportation. Yeah, but that was undead one. Yeah, fine. But whatever it is, it doesn't matter. They're all dead. So let's keep going to the source. Well, we have... This is wild. We have one advantage. We're not dead? Yeah, that's one. Well...
I at least think that we might have an engine that we have a solid guess as to what caused it. That looks like petrification to me. We've run into it. At least we have a warning. I mean, I don't know how it would happen, but if they didn't know what they were dealing with, think how much damage all of this could have done if we'd have run into a hundred of them. Yeah, watch out for more of those vines. I think we're going to have to be very, very careful not to set them off. I was thinking of not being very careful, but now you've said that. I'm just thinking. Thank you for that, Zulfide. I missed your sharp rapier wit. It is good to have you back, Wilde. It is, isn't it? Yeah. Gosh, I'm fabulous. But in all seriousness...
As well, I'll be honest. That's a large crowd, meaning there must be a large amount of these plants. With the army, you're a bit of a liability, and I mean that with the most care in the world. I'm not sure it's a good idea for me to take it off. So, as far as I can tell, and people, correct me if I'm wrong, our options, I can see, are we split so that we can get closer without... basically without running the risk of setting them off with your armour. We doff the armour, which I don't think is something that's necessarily a good idea either.
or a third option that I haven't really arrived at. Well, is there anything that we can do to potentially make Azu less noticeable? I'm thinking Hamid was able to make himself invisible. I can make myself invisible. Unfortunately, my potions tend not to work on other people. I can make Azu invisible, but it's mostly the sound. We need a muffling thing, I suppose, but I don't know if that's... I don't know.
Maybe I should just... I think Aziz should be with us, and I think that that's part of the risk we're taking coming here. I don't think... Yeah, we live or die together. We ain't leaving anyone behind. Thank you, Sol. Or anyone to armour behind. So what Neil speaks up? I have, much like yourselves, ways that can help, but not such that would solve this problem. Then we keep going. I concur. All right. We'll just be alert then, and I'll have my axe ready. I feel I must lead as your guide. Anyone who is able to help those who might get sprayed might need to be at the centre of the group.
that they can help the ones at the edge. Yep. All right. Summit Neil starts moving on very slowly, very cautiously. Okay. I am not going to require checks from people, because basically you've managed to save Summit Neil, who's doing a lot of the looking out for you, but the going is painfully slow. I don't mean that you're burning hours and hours, but I do mean that there's no straight line. You're having to curve quite wildly out of your way and loop back, and it's taking a long time. She resorts to, like, picking up a rock and hocking it in a different direction. All the survival tricks she has at her disposal, she is using to get you there. But I am happy to just jump ahead to she succeeds. When you say a long time, how long?
at least half an hour for half an hour but to cover a couple hundred feet because it's just a wash i've just got several effects on the only last an hour or 90 minutes yeah and it gets that dense that even with all of the like basically the camouflage that a plant hidden amongst plants has it becomes very clear that this place has a decent like a wash of them eventually though you are drawing close you are drawing closer this is you're looking at a dwarven route this is not a battle this is people fleeing with some people trying to stand their ground whilst others flee as you're approaching closer the ones that you're first seeing are the ones who are just you know mid flee effectively or are flat on the ground where they fell with a couple of people covering their backs and so on i am not really as a person hooked into dwarven culture but Given that I'm a dwarf and had dwarven parents, is there anything that I can glean from the way they look, the way they're dressed? Like, I was not exactly immersed and I spent most of my time in the Navy and pirate ships. I can give you a bunch. I can give you a bunch. And also, a check might come in soon. Does anyone have knowledge history? Ben, you're going to be getting a free info because of heritage stuff. Okay. Sal's got quite a bit in it. Can I have anyone who has knowledge history first and then I'll give an additional sprinkling of personal information for Zolf? Mm-hmm. 29. Should I also roll knowledge history to supplement the personal information? Do you have knowledge history? Yeah. Oh, right, then yes, please do. That'll make it easier. Sorry, I didn't know you had it, in which case then I can add you a bonus for your personal history. I'm going to roll a seven, so...
Okay, cool. Cell, I don't think you would have encountered the cultural markers that are sort of on display here. Like, there's insignia that you don't necessarily recognise. You might have run into them as, like, an obscure trading partner kind of thing, but you've not really had any direct contact. The way that Cell has skill points, I assume that they read lots of things and wherever they go, ask questions, notice things, and study up. So that's what I'm leading to, is that you don't have any first-hand personal experience with this. However, based on a couple of things to do with, like, things as simple as, like, armour shaping, the fact that they're all wearing heavy, heavy furs,
They seem to be wearing a lot of interior clothing as well. They don't look to be like they are set to run out. They're wearing, like, effectively house furs, if you know what I mean by that. Like, you know, if you're in a house that has no windows and it's cold, but you're still interior, you have those big sort of, almost like a fur dressing gown and so on. Some of them are in armour. Most of them are in interior clothing. The ones who are in interior clothing are more often the ones who seem to be mid-fleet. Zolf.
You are aware that there is a... You already know this, obviously, that Svalbard has a heavy dwarven population. It's a specifically dwarven stronghold, not for wartime, but it is a stronghold is the right word. You will have been, over the course of the time jump, reading up on Wiles' instruction on Svalbard and stuff like that. You would make a very heavy, educated guess that these are Svalbardian dwarves. And even if there are some that aren't...
It's still the vast majority that are, like, these are people who... This is everything you would have expected. I don't know how else to put it than that. Like, all of your sort of research, which would have been even just tangential for any kind of hints, these are Svalbardian dwarves. How they got here, God knows, but they're there. These dwarves are from Svalbard. Ah, well, thank you. It reminded me of a thing from a book that I... Huh, how... So, just clarify something for me. They look to me like they're wearing things that you would wear inside the house. Am I out of date or incorrect there? There's no way that these people knew that they were going to be here. It looks like some sort of...
teleporting effect and they suddenly found themselves here and were trying to get away. Summit Neal speaks up, no, that can't be the case. You say can't be, but this one's in a dressing gown. That should not be the case then. It makes... The garden doesn't...
So Summit Neal starts moving on for the first time without, you know, warning people to catch up or anything like that. Just starts moving on towards the centre, past them. Well, while this is happening, I think Azu has been, like, murmuring, like, I don't know, like, funeral blessings, that kind of thing. Whatever the Aphrodite rituals are for that, like, once she's understood that these are all dead people, then, you know. Wild sort of comes up to Azu specifically, puts a hand on Azu's shoulders. I don't know if this is better or worse. That might be premature. Oh, Wild. Oh, no.
Petrification isn't there. It's an imprisonment. That is worse. It can be, but it isn't always. I don't know. It depends on what's going here, but I know there are spells. Hamid, you'll know this. Flesh to stone. Stone to flesh is a thing.
I mean, it's impossible to say whether this was lethal or not. But wouldn't they have starved? Part of me hopes that it was, in a sense. Unless, I mean, finding a way to reverse this for this many people would be... A monumental task. Best not to dwell on it until we've dealt with whatever the immediate problem is. There's some sort of... We know that there are the portals that open something, location, space, and it doesn't mean... But yeah, we need to keep going and find out what we can. Oh, I don't think I mentioned that. Those tentacles and stuff. That were the ethereal plane, so make of that what you've worked. Really? Yeah. Or, I mean, my best guess. I mean, it wasn't a sign, but...
What's this serial player? Azu, specifically, can you please give me a knowledge religion? Yeah. That's only a 13, sorry. 13. Alex is going to give you a very bad crash course in your teachings on planar cosmology because you just, every religion role I get, you just did not pay attention in seminary. You kept blowing it off for axe practice and it keeps coming up, okay? It was axe practice and kissing girls. Paladins, they just, you know. Okay, here's Azu's understanding of planar cosmology, right? Existence is basically a sandwich, right?
So in the middle, right, you've got your meat, which is the material plane, right? And you can go in that direction, and then you've got other planes. You've got stuff like, I don't know, the ethereal plane, which is a bit more like ghosts, I guess, but not like religious ghosts. It's more like a ghost monster ghoulie kind of place. But you've got the hells as well. That's like your tomato at the bottom, right? And then you've got the outer planes. They're like your bread. And then heaven...
isn't the ethereal plane. It's like, and then your knowledge of the plane and stuff starts to break down because you're not really sure how heaven fits into the sandwich. That's when lunch actually, you know, the bell for lunch actually went on. But I'm afraid that with that role, this is broadly speaking a knowledge of planar cosmology. It's not a core part of your religious teaching. You know enough to know you can travel around the planes without literally meeting like the gods there. It's more complex than just hopping in and saying, hello. Very quickly, ab at me because I know enough to identify it. But Ben has no damn clue. So I know that you have knowledge of religion. Do you have planar knowledge as well as a thing? Yeah, that's what I rolled to get there. Could you please give me another knowledge planes? I know that you already know it. It's just, this is going to...
Determine specificity. Oh, that's not terrible, actually. That's a 21. Okay, cool. Sandwich model's not really accurate.
It's an oversimplification that's useful, and it would be the kind of analogy that you've heard people use before. Like the flat electron. Yeah. The ethereal plane is not a plane. This is not the, you're dead plane. It doesn't work like that. The ethereal plane is more a plane where spirit is material, and material becomes spirit. You can move through the ethereal plane, and distance goes a little bit wobbly, but you can enter the ethereal plane, move through a wall, and then pop out from the ethereal plane. It's like the rules of spirit and material are almost reversed in ethereal specifically. It doesn't mean it's full of gods. Is it the space that people effectively go to when they cast Dimension Door and stuff?
Like, briefly? Yes, broadly speaking. There's other elements at play I'm oversimplifying. And again, Einstein had to have a whole field day with this. But broadly speaking, teleportation effects involve minor movements through the planes sometimes and things like that. The more elaborate the teleportation, the more elaborate the transposition, the more likely it is to interact with the planes. Grisop would have known, right? That's how Grisop got to Rome, walking with Eldarion. There were planar elements at play there, yeah. I won't dive into specifically what it was. I know what it was, but I can't say because it isn't material that you would know. But yeah, effectively...
it would make sense that if something is going wrong on a planar level in this area, you are more likely to encounter things like outsiders or creatures from the ethereal plane poking their heads into the material plane. Elementals are more likely to be turning up. You can expect things to be alive that shouldn't be and things that should be alive not to be, that kind of thing. It isn't a planar chaos. That would be, you know, like primordial, up is down, earth, it does not exist, there is a void, it's not that. This feels more like a smaller tear. It's very unusual, you're not aware of situations like this before. Cool, so in character...
So the ethereal plane is basically an inversion where the spiritual becomes material and the material becomes spiritual, basically. I reckon that because of all the stuff that's going on, the walls between the planes have been weakened, so things are popping through and it's all getting a bit muddled up. Sort of like an interdimensional hernia. Yeah, I guess. Ooh, yeah, hernias are nasty. Wild looks at sell for a moment. I'm stealing that. Well, whatever happened to these people, I think they probably need my prayers regardless, so... Yeah, of course.
Summit Neal is a little bit further ahead than she probably should be, but not in a way that she's suddenly going to fall out of sight. Well, I scooch to catch up then. Yeah, I'm going to ask people to gently catch up a little bit there and then we'll press on a little bit further. As you're continuing, you realise that you're, broadly speaking, reaching the base of this cauldron I've been talking about because it's flattening out. And as you look outwards from where you are, you can see curving up the mountainside, they're healthy trees, even if you are currently amongst the blight and there are still things obscuring the vision and so on.
But as you start continuing through, there's a brief sort of flurry of dead leaves and so on, and the visibility is turning a little bit poor again. There's almost a sort of miasma here. I would say the feeling of that unwelcome animosity is still sort of stalking, I guess, but wild still has a bead on it, and it never really comes close enough to seemingly do anything. But there is a second layer at play here, and it's just an unease, and it is an ambient unease of... The world's wrong somehow. I can't place it. It's going into your house and finding that every single thing has been moved one inch to the left. It is knowing. It is knowing. I know. I know I closed the microwave door, but the microwave door is open, that kind of thing. And you can't place it. You've never been here before, but it's wrong. And you don't know why, but it's slightly wrong. And the visibility is a little bit poor. But as you keep drawing nearer, something literally huge starts looming out from the distance. Not moving, but there. At first, it looks like maybe a structure. No, it's a dragon. Maybe a... You can't place it. Like a cathedral has been dropped there or something. And then you realise there's...
two more there's three of these big huge shapes they seem to be organic almost curved and then there's a moment where the sort of miasma so on clears just a little bit and there are three huge utterly alien plants in the middle of a slight clearing again at the risk of selling out the uh the drama a little bit you know that the jumanji plant wants to eat people with the big bull yeah think big Big, huge bulbs. Building-sized bulbs. Little shop of horrors. Yeah, times 100, but yeah. Like, big shop of horrors. Huge, huge bulbs. Gigantic shop of horrors. And you can see that the strands of these sort of ringing bell vines seem to be leading gently towards them as a sort of root tendrils, maybe, or something. But you can see that there is hundreds, as this miasma clears, there are hundreds of these dwarven statues. And they all seem to be fleeing one of the large bulbs. Everyone give me one last perception check for the episode. Well, glad it wasn't a dragon.
16. 27. 33. 27 for both Hamid and Skrock. Okay, forgive me for this one, Ben. You just didn't hit my threshold. The three bulbs are not equidistant from you. They're a little bit staggered. The nearest bulb is the one that you can see all the dwarven statues apparently fleeing from. The furthest one you can't see is almost mostly obscured by the other two. But you can see, now that you're looking, now you're really straining to see, there appears to be basically animal statues coming from the other one. What looks to be a large cat of some kind. Cell to your eye. Yeah, I've seen animals like that in the Americas. But there's a moment of stillness as Summit New Earl is just...
and she seems utterly distraught as you look at an utterly silent sea of silver statues and these enormous, I can't say monstrosity, but alien bulbs sat there warping the world around them. And I'll end the episode there. Very nasty, I like it. High fantasy's the best fantasy. Bad gardening. Burn them.
Not good, God. So, how are we doing? Are we okay? Got a little bit intense there towards the end. Ooh, I feel another massive fight coming on. I can feel it in my bones. The first one was just a warm-up. This is the actual one. Well, I'll leave you all to brew up some theories as to what's happening and no doubt cook up some other ridiculous way to completely annihilate everything that turns up immediately with no effort whatsoever, yeah? Hey, hey, hey. Some effort was expended. Oh, thanks for your pity, Ben. Bye. Bye!
Thanks for listening. Three, two, one.
Ben always makes me laugh because I don't think it's intentional but you have the exact stance of the fire alchemist from Full Metal Alchemist whenever you click your fingers the exact angle I don't know how or why I am a moody teen at heart and Tim is a giant like haunted set of armour so it all works out