Hi everyone, Helen here, the voice of Azu, Enola and Laverne. Today I'm here to tell you about Malevolent, a podcast launched on the RQ Network. Malevolent is a weekly horror fiction podcast filled with dark, noir, eldritch horror. Arkham private investigator Arthur Lester wakes up with no memory of who he is or what has happened, only a nameless, eerie voice guiding him through the darkness. Blind, terrified and confused, his journey will lead him towards a series of mysteries in the hopes of understanding the truth of what has transpired. As cosmic horrors seep into the world, Arthur must ask himself whether this entity truly seeks to help him.
or are its intentions more malevolent? Search for Malevolent wherever you listen to your podcasts, or visit www.rustyquill.com or www.malevolent.ca for more information. Have fun, and see you later. Hello and welcome to episode 213 of the Rust School Gaming Podcast. I'm your host and GM Alex, and you'll be with me today. I have... Ben Meredith. Bryn Munro. Lydia Nicholas. And Helen Gould. And who are you playing? Zolf Smith. Hamid Salahir Neltehan. Sel Sipadam. And Azu. And I will turn this podcast around, okay? We have a very poor energy this week. I'm seeing a lot of silly faces. This is all video-based. They can't see. They will have to wonder forever. Pudge a plant in the face.
So, we'll give a recap, but I am, I must confess, erring towards the Ben camp slightly here and saying, you are choosing a foolish episode to start on. I am going to humour you, but we are reaching the point where this is a little bit silly. This is a little bit silly. Reaching? Oh, you thought I'd be 100 hours in, it was still viable. Technically, we are beneath St. Paul's, give or take. No, we're not. No.
We're not. We're beneath Westminster Abbey. Westminster Abbey, I remember that. Those are different places. I remember those. Those are different places, yes. Indeed, indeed. Oh, yeah, the commute is going to be much, much different to what I thought. So you are currently beneath London, I think is a sufficient statement. Yeah. And there is all manner of tricksy problems above ground that all are coordinated and trying to stop you getting to the top of Big Ben. I feel like that pretty much sums it. Oh, and you've got a best friend now. Yeah. Who is very dead, extremely dead, but in like a good way. Yeah. Old Jeff. And I believe the last thing was a warning from Babbage as you were all sort of doing your briefing going, there's a solid chance that Guive is kicking around.
Oh, wow. I've got that bit. I'm not very happy about that. Zombie dragon. No, I'm not mad for that. Especially as Griever is a gold dragon and therefore likely immune to fire, which makes me very sad. But really good at making fire. Yeah. No, that's bad. That's a bad thing, actually. I mean, at least it's not like your great, great, great, great, great granddad. It's true. I guess. I guess it could be worse. That would have been super awkward. In fact, I think tonally I picked the wrong dragon to completely take over retrospectively, but here we are. So I'm going to pick up more or less where we were at last time, which was you were all deciding that you were going to head up to the roof in order to basically...
scope it out and get a lay of the land and if it looked like there was an opportunity i believe the current plan was everyone invisible everyone flying screw it we'll just go straight to the top and try and rush it i think that was more or less the plan yeah speed Speed being our key asset. Our chief weapon is surprise. Surprise and a really big fireball. Fireballs are very often surprising in my experience. And a paladin on a camel. Our chief weapons are surprise. A really big fireball. And loads of hit points. Obviously loads of hit points. And I've given you all some more loads of hit points. Having finished our briefing, I think it's sensible that we're going to be making our way up. So at that point, I am going to suggest if anyone has any prep that they want to do before they leave, please do so now. To be clear, I'm not talking like...
If you've got something that lasts 10 seconds, do it now. It's going to be a walk. Jeff has openly stated there's going to be a bit of a walk before you get to the roof. It's not just to open a door and here we are, but it's more longer term stuff. I cast Mage Armor because it lasts many hours. Thank you for picking up what I'm putting down, Bryn. Yes, anything like that. Yeah, I am holding off on my Protection from Energy Communal because if Greaves about, I think I might do fire. If Greaves not, it might be something else. Yeah, that's pretty much everything that cell houses is in the kind of hour range. So it's the sort of...
Well, they're either hour or they're counted in rounds. Yeah, all of mine are like a minute, between a minute and ten minutes. You'd be surprised how many times you can hit a person in one minute if you've got a massive axe. According to the rules. That's true. Which I think is quite a surprisingly high number. In that case then, if no one else has anything that they wish to push you further, I'm going to go ahead and start pushing us up towards the rooftop, if that's okay. So I am not going to require marching orders from people because you sort of have a very creepy escort. So Jeff basically starts leading the way and starts leading the way out of the semi-mausoleum, semi-kind of...
memorial chapel that he's in through a set of doors and then starts heading along a corridor and gesture and Greg want to follow. I'm presuming people do. Unfortunately, as you head along that route, once you are outside of the double doors, that sort of feeling of slight nausea that emanates from Geoffrey is a little bit stronger. There seems to be a little bit of a dampening effect in that crypt or whatever it was. I'm not going to require saves from people, but there is a, ooh, hello, yes. You really are quite unpleasant to be around, but it's not your fault. Yeah, as you're heading along that corridor, it's in a similar setup where it's that work stone, etc. And then he carries on heading along and then...
turns to you all before another set of double doors, and with his sort of characteristically expressionless face. From this point, my companions might grow colourful. I would that you did not take umbrage with their passage. How do you mean colourful? Because we've had encounters with colours in the past, and it wasn't great, so... He gestures, and the double door sort of...
blow open so slightly dramatically. And then on the other side is two more of those iced guards, bigger than the last. One of them seems to be wielding some kind of flail. Just a massive warhammer. Just an enormous warhammer. An unnecessarily large one. What, like a collection? Like, these are my lizard men. Chaos Knights. Actually, I admire the paint job on this. I've actually had to ensure the collection it's worth more than my house. I've been working on my grass, Texas. I've got very good flocking on the bottom of my house.
Not quite, no, but thanks for the contribution. And as you start heading through those double doors, you start hearing the distinct sounds of what can best be described as creepy, ambient creepiness, the odd whisper from something that isn't there, you know, a passage of wind that isn't the right temperature for the space. And there are a couple of side passages here, and there's just the general sounds of restless dead. None of them seem to be sort of moving towards as a pair ahead of all of you, but nothing seems to be interfering with you, but you get the impression it... From the outside looking in, it would be a bit of an odd one to witness. And as you're heading along the corridor, it becomes apparent there's another one of those squared-off circular stairways like you came down a little while ago that's heading up this time. And Jeff gets as far as the stairway and then turns to the rest of you and goes... Beyond this stair, my situation grows untenable. If you ascend and then continue, I will find an access ever upwards. Avoid the main spaces.
we are directing these things in such a way as to clear you passage. This is not the same thing as fully removing them. Does that understand? Yes. Yeah. Thank you. I have to say it's extremely handy. We are extremely, extremely grateful. And I would love to talk to you about the mechanics of how you're doing it at some point. Maybe a later point. Not this point. But head to the doom. Yeah, right, so we should probably be off. Yeah, thanks for being out. Best of luck. And remember, when all else fails...
The power of the heart shall often suffice. Zolf, that is a Harrison Campbell quote that has just been delivered with a great sincerity and profoundness. Admittedly, Geoff is very good at being straight-faced, but you get the impression it's straight-faced behind that visage, in fact. I'll just give him a thumbs up. So, like, nice. As he was also going to give a thumbs up because for her, she's also like, and also, I've literally got a copy of The Heart of Aphrodite. That's excellent. That's very good. Very good working there. Yeah. Very clever.
Cell looks very thoughtful because they're thinking if there's some kind of thing in the mechanism of pumps that this is some kind of sly reference to a way to solve some sort of puzzle that they hadn't quite figured out yet. The valve opening for the power of the... So, with that in mind, as you presumably all start heading up the stairway, could everyone please give me a perception check? All right. First roll of the day. How are we doing?
Oh, not bad. 29. Ooh, who am I? 28. 28, okay, good, good. 19 for Skrark, 25 for Hammond. And Sel got 36. Aw, okay. Fine.
But for everyone breaking 30, so interpret that as you will. Me, 36, you got that. So everyone knows as you're heading up the stairway that that ambient creepiness continues, but it seems a little bit less as you're heading up. It feels like concentrated, a little bit more distributed. There's still like a slight skittering off into the distance, you know, the sound of, I don't know, a door closing and you get the impression that there was no one there to close it, that kind of thing. But beyond that, right on the edge of hearing, cell, you think you hear the sounds of like disturbance or maybe even sort of a battle or something.
Much higher up and probably even outside the building that's just sort of managing to echo its way through. It's right on the edge of hearing, but you get the distinct impression there's a commotion beyond your ambient creepiness. Higher up as in at the roof where we're heading to? Unable to discern yet. I would go so far as to say that you're pretty certain it's outside the building. Above your head is all you're able to discern at this point. The one thing that Sel would know about I don't is exactly what kind of point we're at. Like, have we got to ground level now? You're very quickly going to be at ground level. You're effectively just below ground level at this point. That's cool because the thing I wasn't clear on was whether above our heads meant like in the sky or on the streets.
Yeah. So I'll tell everyone, it sounds like there's a battle going outside. It's not really unexpected, is it? I don't know if any of you can hear the battling, but, you know, cool. It's nice that it's not us doing it for once. A little holiday going up the stairs. It's nice. Might be us soon. Yeah. Alex, are we in the bits of Westminster Abbey that Hammett has been in before yet? I will answer that accurately.
No, you're not. You continue up the stairs. Okay, now you're at. You're literally one layer too low. You are going to go up through some stairs, and I don't mind spoiling going, and then you're going to be at the bit going, oh, I know where we are. This is a lot of the Chorister passageways where you can actually get a lot of distance here without going into the main space and stuff like that. For the sake of ease, I'm going to say that you can get up to the rest of the stairway fine. There's a little bit of like a navigation between the two spaces, but nothing's important. And the door itself isn't actually even locked, and it's very easy to just do a sneaky little open and close. I'm skipping all of this because there's nothing on the other side of the door. You're in a comparatively cramped, but not claustrophobic because it's an old building. And yeah, it takes you all of two seconds to go.
I know where we are. Yeah, this is a Chorister passageway. I can use this to get there, this to get there. You've never been on the roof because you wouldn't have been allowed, but you know where that is and you will be able to navigate to it comparatively easily. Sure. I am going to presume that you might be taking the lead in order to do so. Yeah, probably. Okay. Similarly, I'm going to be assuming that Ghostbuster Zulf with his brain backpack is going to remain in the middle. Yes, it's very much so. Understood. In that case then, as you all start heading through basically these routes carefully, there is an ambient sound of sort of...
foliage coming from what seems to be inside the main space of the abbey. It's not very, very pronounced, but it's just a sort of, it's the ambient sound of maybe more like someone disturbing a tree rather than wind through the trees is the best way to describe it. It's almost reminiscent for Zulf of a creaking ship more than foliage. And as you're heading along these corridors, it becomes a little bit louder. I'm going to say that as you're ascending, there are going to be some parts where you've got to be careful because you know you have those sort of, I forget what the word is.
artistic holes cut in the side to allow people to sort of see into the spaces and out of, et cetera. Like an arrow hole, but like... But not for arrow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like an arrow slit, but for faith. I don't know what to call that. Alex, we've all been choristers in strange schools. I mean, look at us. We all went to school in basically Harry Potter land, didn't we? But we are British, so I guess, you know. Ah, yes. All of our schools are castles. If you haven't been to a cathedral that's at least 800 years old, can you really call yourself British?
I mean, fun fact for everyone outside the UK, all British births happen in a cathedral. That's a very old tradition. One of the fun things I like about that is that the primary school I went to was about 1,000 years old, but it was mostly actually port-a-cabins. Because there's a ruined monastery in Barking, and it's been educating people since about the Doomsday Book. But it's a poor area. I do enjoy gesturing to some port-a-cabins saying, and behold our hallowed halls. Following in that vein, looking through those faith halls, I don't know what to call them.
You do not. You do not see port-a-cabins, but also you do not see cathedral. What you see is some kind of gargantuan plant is occupying the main space of the abbey. And everyone, please give me a perception check. 17. No, 21, so I can't count. 14. Back to normal. Yes, forgive me, Helen. Big plant. 26. And 28 for Skrark. 28 for Sel. And in additional to big plant, Zulf, you can see that there appear to be almost like pea pods on all of the walls surrounding this main plant. It's quite large, but I do sort of mean that pod shape, you know, in lines, as it were, attached to the walls and hanging from the ceilings and so on. For everyone that broke 25, you can see there are mostly human, but not all human.
blue-veined people within those pods. Pod people? Seemingly asleep. However, there is the sounds of small amounts of activity in the main space, and as you're sort of watching unobserved, you're being very stealthy, no one's expecting you there, so I'm not requiring the stealth check. You see a huge tendril from the main plant reach out, caress a specific pod, and then a second tendril lifts a full pod.
and places a new pod up affixed to the wall. Cool. Very creepy. We're like, the Matrix, but plants! If we're getting out, like, is there a big dragon around? So, I will get to this. As you're heading up, it is clear that the commotions are coming from outside. It sounds like distant magical warfare of some kind. It's less raw, swords and shields, and a lot more... Frankly, it might, to our ears, sound a little bit more modern. You know, you're thinking more of the deep vroomf of an explosion, and then a quiet bit, and then a lightning, and then some more quiet, and that kind of more, like...
more of a sort of, like, ranged skirmish than a pitched, like, meat grinder of a fight. But it is clear that there is something happening outside. And as you can continue up, you reach the point, Hamid, where you're certain that this is the stair that you won't have to go up. And if you go up here, you can make your way to the roof. Does it have just, like, a little rope? Because none of them would have come up here. Like, just steal the little rope with a nice sign saying, like, caretakers only from this point. I mean, Hamid was a pretty naughty schoolboy. The idea that he never snuck up onto the roof, I'm not convinced. But, you know, Alex is the GM. I like to think Hamid did, but was caught just before making it up to the top. Fair, fair. Also, if I don't, it's just going to be another one of those, if I take one more step up, this will be the highest up in
Yeah, if you head up, you eventually make it to the point where there is a very narrow, because these things tend to get a little bit narrower and smaller the higher up, because, you know, that's how stone works, you've got to make it lighter somehow, and you find yourself at quite a tight doorway that you're certain will lead out onto the rooftop. I will, however, request a perception check from whoever is going to open that door, because I'm assuming you're doing it carefully rather than just throwing it open and going, hello world! I've got some spells that I want to, just because I've got an hour length, so before we actually open the door. Yeah, at this door I am going to cast Terrorism on Scar, because that's my multi-hour spell, absolutely. Cell is going to chug an alchemical allocation of Dragon's Breath, and Cell is going to...
become monster. Have we had any confirmation that Guiwa is here? Not yet. No roars, no dragon flapping or something. In fairness, you've been in a very narrow stone corridor that mostly looks inwards, so it's been quite difficult. No, I'm going to take the gamble. I'm going to bring everyone in to sort of touch hands and cast Protection of Energy Communal. There are six of us. Here's a question. Is Babbage included in my casting of it?
So we've covered this one before, yes. Okay, so we are going to have a shared pool of 120 temporary hit points. So yes, the best way to think of it is Babbage counts, as mentioned before, as regardless of sentiment, mechanically a sapient object, like a magic sword. So as a result, it is effectively... Think of it as a force field that affects you and what you're carrying. You are carrying the Babbage array, therefore it is protected in the same way. All right, so he doesn't really have a separate health track. Yeah, what I would say is if you were to leave Babbage in a corner somewhere and run off, it follows you, not him. Yeah, cool, okay. Yeah, okay, so in which case... Oh, I'm going to have to give it to myself.
As it was probably the most... No, no, no, because Hamid's already got fire resistance, so he needs it less than me. Okay. In which case, everybody except for Hamid gets 20 minutes where they have 120 extra hit points versus fire. Holy moly. But only against fire. Hamid has 10 minutes because I have 11, 10 minutes slots to share around. I see how it is. This is how we slowly introduce the idea that you can finally rid yourself of Hamid, but you will blame us. You have limited resources. I see how it is. He's reducing like 10 hit points each time or five hit points each time because he's, you know, so... True facts.
The little dragon. True facts. But yeah, but I will say, right, we've got 10 to 20 minutes a week. We've got to, like, get him over on now if we want to make use of this. I, at least, am excited about the feather. So Sel now has 112 hit points. That's a lot. That's loads. Loads of hit points. That's more than me. Yeah, I've got 111 hit points. I think you're nearing the point where you could just jump off the roof and do a superhero landing without powers and survive. Well, I mean, why would I do that? I've got wings. So, I am going to need to know, I'm assuming it's Hamid that opens the door since Hamid's been leading the way. I'm going to let Scrap do it.
Understood. In that case, then, can I please get a perception check from Skrark? Well, I rolled a three. That never helps. But that is still at least 16. 16. Skrark opens the door a crack. Just a crack. Sort of looks around. Just turns to everyone and then goes, I think we're okay. Right. Should we cast, like, Fly Now and just, as soon as we're on the roof, fly over to Elizabeth Tower? Skrark looks around a bit.
I reckon we should see more of the lay of the land first. All right. Because if it doesn't work, we're flying down a bunch of narrow tunnels. You know what I mean? Right, yeah. Hamid's going to have to take, like, 30 seconds to do us all. Tell you what, give me a second. Scrock opens the door, closes it behind himself, heads off. There's a moment of quiet and stillness with the occasional, like, whamph of an explosion distantly or a crackle of thunder or whatever. Scrock comes back in, closes the door and looks at everyone. And as much as Scrock can, looks quite pale. There's quite a lot. I think you might all need to come in.
Right. And I'm going to take a break there. And welcome back. So, Skark has just come in and said, yeah, you'll want to come have a look. Don't draw attention, but there's enough things to hide behind. I'm not worried. Right. Skark opens the door, does a quick check again, and then heads out. Do people follow? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Now, I will ask for some lenience with regards to, no doubt, the two listeners who have extensive knowledge of the rooftops of this building, having worked there for years and knowing every single nuance of the layout. I do not. I'm going to be making some educated guessing, and I ask people to bear with me. So, as you head out onto the...
Let's? Question mark? So there's a lot of contours to this. There's a lot of layers. There's a lot of still statues and what looks to have once been plinths that held gargoyles, things like that. It's still decorative up here, but there's a lot of balustrading of stone and things like that. Makes it very easy to navigate. But as you come up, that sound of surrounding battle does seem to be at play. However, it seems to be quite heavily localized to one side. And looking over to that side, you can see that there is the occasional flash and pop. And there seem to be a decent number of flying humanoid figures around that area. Can I get a perception check from everyone, please? A lot of perception checks today.
25. 18. 29 for Hammond, 26 for Skrark. 29. Big wings getting in the way. Yeah, everyone apart from Sel's in the sort of same remit there. For everyone, you can see that it looks like squizzards are starting to be engaged in effectively a fully pitched battle. Lots of like fly-by attacks and that kind of thing. You realise you've gone quite a decent distance from where you were. However, you all reckon that's probably more or less where the one that got away is. It seems like they are engaging a hostile force there. Looking down and around, you can see just...
hordes. Hordes and hordes of humanoids. Mostly human, but also, you know, some dwarvish, some halfling, etc. Just... not swarming in the sense of like monsters that are, but walking quite calmly en masse towards that location, clearly being drawn away from this location. They don't appear to be like charging. Amongst them there, you can see some of them seem to have clerical regalia, some of them seem to have guard armour and things like that, but it's just a mass of people effectively is homing in. And you get the sense that it is a limited amount of squizzards versus an enormous amount of people in inverted commas. Of those people, you can see that there are a few who seem to be flying around at that area as well. So it's not just a bunch of magic versus civilians or anything like that.
moving your way across the building with Skrark, sort of leading the way. He's basically heading towards Elizabeth Tower, gesturing for to be quiet and so on, and then sort of points down and over. And as you sort of all cross various sight lines, it reveals the majority of the area has been consumed by an enormous plant, very similar to that which you saw in the Garden of Yarlick, to be clear. And Svalbard, it was the same plant. And Svalbard, yeah. Although the Svalbardian one was a weird kind of... It was kind of dead. Dead, yeah. This one's not. This one makes the one in Yarlick look small.
This is massive. It has consumed most of the building. You can still see a bit of the tower poking up from it. So when you say the building, you mean the House of Parliament, not Westminster Abbey? Yes, sorry. So Westminster Abbey is still distinct from it, but you can see there's a large number of tendrils leading from whatever the plant is in that abbey, out through the doors and across to Parliament. The House of Parliament has just disappeared. They must be in there somewhere, but it is almost entirely this huge, bulbous plant. The tower is a little bit offset from the main houses, so as a result it sort of...
from the main body of the plant and it is still visible out of it. As you look down from the rooftop, you can see that there's a huge amount of this sort of blue pulsing plant matter crisscrossing all of the ground around there. And for everyone apart from Cell, you notice that even though a huge mass of people are heading towards that distant battle, there's a decent number of people in inverted commas still wandering around the space. What's interesting is there seems to be two types. You see some effectively blue-veined people heading around doing what they were when you were around previously. A lot of sort of like manual labor, moving stuff, lots of coordinated action and so on. And then you can see some figures wandering around who have...
no external signs whatsoever. They effectively look normal. I'd say that they're still... They're not like yelling orders or anything like that, but whilst the others are very sort of like a coordinated workforce, these are sort of moving amongst it in a far more natural manner. They seem to be sort of walking around rather than marching in place and things like that. And as you're watching, you see a single figure, you don't recognise them, walking, and I use walking, not marching, out of the abbey and into that sort of group, and there seems to be those two groups. Beyond that, you can occasionally, as you're sort of looking up and around Parliament, see a sort of flying humanoid head past, but it doesn't seem to be like a massed force so much as like patrols and things like that.
However, it's very difficult to see the actual top of the tower itself, even from this distance, because A, it's quite a detailed building, so something small could be hiding there, you wouldn't know. And secondly, the plant matter is such that occasionally with the sort of steam and smoke, which is still in the city and so on, and with the flying figures, it's quite difficult to make out the top of it. There is no sign of an enormous 400-foot dragon sweeping around the place, but I will tell you for free, because you would just know this, Hamid, humanoid shape-changing is obviously not just an apophis thing, that's just a dragon's thing. So there could be Gweev. 20 feet away as a person just suddenly going, boop, hello, blah. But this is the state of affairs. I'd say that you suspect with invisibility in flight, it probably would be possible to make it to the roof of the tower. However, that's assuming you have absolute knowledge, and that's a big assumption. Because it's clear, as you're seeing all of this mass of people, occasionally you'll see a spell being cast amongst the sort of humanoids who are down there. There are magic users there. There are sort of clerical magic users there. It is a hodgepodge of people. It's not just civilians wandering around with wheelbarrows, if you know what I mean.
Well, I don't think we can guarantee invisibility will work, but it seems like our best chance, maybe. Right, in which case, we're all on time limits, and the quicker we go, the fewer people are going to die at gesturing towards the one that got away. So, let's go. Wild calls like with a hand up to just halt for a moment and goes, we're going to need a backup plan. If we get close and it turns out there's something there that's going to render the plan unusable, we need a fallback location. I mean, we don't have one, right? Like, Azu and I, we're the payload. We've got to get it there. If we don't, then we fail. I'll distract them.
This is the kind of thing I'm talking about. I'm sorry, I just mean that if we turn up and there is some unknowable evil that's waiting at the top of the thing, what do we do? That's what I need to know. I'll draw them off. I can cast sparkly things, explosive things. I can make big explosions, and you can do illusions, right? Maybe together we can make a big, exciting thing that unspeakable evil couldn't possibly turn down. Something like, you know...
Bunch of joyous puppies. I don't know what evil hates. And something that looks bigger than it is and flies off fast and gives them time. The fact of the matter is, this is bigger than all of us. We get Babbage in, we place him down, and we do whatever we can to keep him safe. If we get separated in the fight, I guess the best place to meet again would be back in Chaucer's crypt, maybe. It's likely to be safer than anywhere else, if there's people defending it. We can do that, but if we get separated, we either meet in the new world, or we probably don't. Yeah, yeah. This is it. Are there any other, maybe, I mean...
It just has to be a high point, right? I don't know. I'll quickly whip out the headphones and be like, Babbage, do we have to, like, be at the top of the clock tower? Like, where do we need to be exactly? Yeah, so...
It's gonna have to be the clock tower, but the main array you might be able to get away with just being high within the tower as long as that You'll see there's a sort of extendable rod if you look over your shoulder As long as that is atop the roof that the rest of the array could be near the roof like I suppose Right, but we want to be on the roof not inside the clock tower But the aerial will need to be on the roof. Yes, we can't be on the roof. Right, right, right, right. Thanks We're gonna make the run now, so yeah, see you on the other side Try not to drop me. Yeah, take the headphones off Right, yeah, so you heard that. We've got to be on the roof, or we need to get the aerial on the roof and Babbage nearby if we need protection, but I think on the roof is the best bet. All right. Then I'm going to suggest if everything goes south, we might need to retreat to within the clock tower itself as a fallback. It's better than nothing. Very well. I've got rope. I know how to tie things to things. We'll get the aerial up there. If there is something that we can't fight off, I'll try to draw it off. We shouldn't make our stand at the same place, you know? All right, yeah, do that. Me and Sel will be in the air. We'll get anything.
That comes in. Yeah, you've got to run harassment. I've got to place the thing down. That's really... Skrark takes a moment and then turns to everyone. I'm wondering if I should go first. Listen to me on this one. If I can fly over invisible and have a look, anything that's going to see invisible things is going to see me and go for me, right? That way, if there is something up there, it isn't coming for all of us, it's coming for one of us. It's a sensible decision. It's your choice, so... Skrark. I don't think I'm wrong, am I?
Are you sure you'd want to? It shouldn't be you. It should be me. I've got a better chance of getting away from it. I've got a better chance of fighting it off. I hear what you're saying.
But, you know, A, you can't fly very well. You're a bit rubbish. I mean, I'm not trying to put you down, but you're not great. You're good. It's fine, as I said, times are the essence. I don't want to be a d***, but we're all going to have an opportunity to sacrifice ourselves heroically in the name of saving the world, OK? Well, the second thing is, you're right, you can cast a bunch of spells. If there's something there, I can just lead it away. I'm not going to be exploding things. He pulls out his dagger, and this is only so good, you know, a gargantuan plant that's controlling the world. I'm not sure a dagger's going to cut it. OK, OK, let's go. Stay safe. Yes. OK, Hammond is going to cast lots of spells. OK, good. The first spell Hammond is going to cast is Message.
Understood. I don't think I've cast this since the very beginning of the campaign. It's been ages. It's odd because it's normally like an absolute staple. This allows us to whisper messages to each other. If we're right next to someone and we shout, the shouted message is audible to people around us too. But it basically gives us walkie-talkies as long as we're within 200 feet of each other. We can just whisper messages and basically the message gets whispered from just next to your ear. Hamid casts Fly on Skrark. Hamid casts Fly on Wild.
And then Hamid casts invisibility. Now, you can do your own invisibility, can't you, Lid? Yep. So, Hamid is going to cast invisibility on Hamid, Skrark, Azu, Zulf, Wild, and... Topaz? I was about to ask, yeah. We'll need it, otherwise it'll be a little bit Wonder Woman in the invisible jet. Yeah. I shall summon Topaz then. Okay, Topaz turns up, naturally. I think there's an element of, oh, that's a very big, bright light. Did anyone see? But I'm going to be like, no, you're fine. You're not where anyone expects you to be. Does he do like, oh? And you're like, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh,
You get the impression that Topaz is very aware of weirdness all around and looks very business-like as opposed to just like, hey, how are you doing? What are we doing? I shall give her some pets and a little treat and then I'm going to cast Skysteed on her. Describe it for the audience because that one's not happened before. It has not. So while I am petting her, I close my eyes and I think about how much I love my camel and how important all of this is and she sprouts angelic wings. It also gives her a bonus on flychecks.
I like to think that each feather is a fond memory you share. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Okay, Topaz has wings now. Nice. She looks great. I love that. Alex, I would like to request we enter initiative order, and I'm going to tell Skrark to go when he feels my final spell affect him, because all the invisibility is going to get cast first, but I'd like to enter initiative order to cast my final prep spell, because its duration is measured in rounds per level. Understood. I think that's very reasonable as a request, so with that in mind, can I please get everyone to roll initiative? Yeah. Ooh.
24. Oh, good start. 20. Oh, hello all. Hi. 10. Sorry.
So hilariously, the best possible time to roll a natural one is actually on initiative when it has no negative effects. So that's a nine for Hamid and a 24 for Skrark. Cool. Well, since I've asked everyone to only start doing stuff when they feel my final spell, it's irrelevant because basically no one else's actions will take effect until after my first one. Although I love that if it was a natural one, like you go around without, there's just someone touching on the shoulder and it's like, Hamid, are we going? And you're like, oh.
Technically, I'm going to have everyone hold actions until Hamid, since you were like, please follow my lead. So with that in mind... If Hamid is last initiative order, it makes sense just to begin round two, basically. Effectively. So Hamid, you're sort of both bottom and top of the initiative order. Hamid casts Haste. A shiny new spell. Haste affects all allies within 50 foot, as long as none of them are too far away from each other, basically. But everyone gets faster, is the simple thing. So this gives you a plus one bonus to attack.
a plus one bonus to AC, and a plus one bonus to reflex saves. And when you take the full attack action, you get an additional attack at your highest possible roll. But yeah, those bonuses should all stack. Additionally, it increases your move speeds. So any movement modes you had, your speed in them gets increased by 30 foot around. Wow. Or if your move speed was only 20 foot before, it gets doubled. So you don't get a full 30, you only go from 20 to 40. Okay.
But that includes fly speeds. So whatever Topaz's fly speed, for example, was, it's now improved by 30. It's 50. It's 80 feet. That's a lot. You are welcome. How long does it last? One round per level. So I will be ticking it down on my initiative every turn. I will tell you all when it ends. Good stuff. Wonderful. And it will be on your turn that it ticks. Yeah. So technically, Wild was after you in the initiative order because Wild rolled garbage and has a very poor initiative modifier. However, Wild is choosing to hold his action. In which case then, we are now at the top of a round just for people's knowledge. So who is currently residing atop a winged camel? I guess me and Zolf. Yeah.
Because I've got that big backpack on, I'm basically like a motorbike sort of sitting behind Azu and kind of like holding onto a torso. Yeah. Understood. I feel like I should buy the rights to Born to be Wild, but I don't think we're going to be able to do that. I do just want, like, before Scrap leaves off, like, a lovely tableau image of, like, so there's, just to take a moment to enjoy.
like Zulf and Azu atop angelic camel like monster cell crouched on the ground with their big like flappy wings out there and the teeth everywhere like golden hamid sort of on the other side and then like Skrark Skrark and Skrark and Wild both just hovering naturally with the power of cool flight yeah yeah although rather distressingly what it actually is is a brief shot of an empty rooftop yeah yeah yeah yeah The only person that appreciates this is, in fact, the enemy that can see through invisibility. Kweeve's like, I'll kill that. It's the classic Avengers assemble pan, except it's just an empty rooftop.
Slow motion and everything. So, anyone else have anything further where it's like, I want to cast this thing so that I can hit you extra hard knowing that you've prepped. Mine are actually kind of the opposite in that I'm going to cast Barkskin, which makes Cell kind of canonically crinklier and cracklier. So that's plus four natural armour. That's 11 rounds from the Abbey Roof. But I'm counting everything from the roof. And the other one is one that I have been excited about in the past but haven't used yet, which is Caustic Blood, which is really ideal if you're expected to be a pact because it sprays out Caustic Blood. Now, both of those are...
counted per round so my assumption is that they could cast one before Hamid does his big invisibility splurge and one after in the round where everyone it seems is casting something. Everything else that Cell has is measured in minutes and or blocks of 10 minutes so they're kind of done pre-initiative. Okay so with that in mind then we're at the top of the initiative round technically at which point it's Skrark because Skrark rolled real well. What is Skrark's current fly speed? 90 foot around and he can he can double move so if he double moves with a fly speed of 90 he can move 180 foot.
Can you take the run in inverted transactions as a fly? You cannot take a run action while flying. So I am saying I have to fudge it a little bit because it's surprisingly hard to be allowed to run a tape measure from Westminster Abbey to Big Ben. I tried. They said no. Apparently it's weird. So with that in mind, I'm going to say it's about 500 feet that it's got to be traversed. Skrark just goes. Obviously there's nothing to see because you're invisible, but it feels like someone's just set off a bullet from a gun or fired an arrow next to you.
Mechanically, Skrark just bombs it 180 feet in a single round as fast as possible towards the tower. Technically next, it's Zulf in initiative order. However, you said that you wish to hold. So after Zulf, it provisionally Zulf, if you know what I mean, it is Azu. Yeah. So you are, for the sake of my simplicity, in control of your steed. So I'm going to say that Topaz is moving on your turn. Okay. Are we going to hang around one round to let Skrark? This is what I'm asking. Are you hanging around or are you just bombing it anyway?
I think we're going to hang around, but thank you, Lid, for reminding me about the various skin spells, because I might cast iron skin. While we wait. Yeah, well, yeah, may as well. I think I'll cast it on Topaz, because if Topaz gets got, then we're all falling. So you're now flying on... Well, you're now going to be flying on a celestial-winged iron camel. Yes!
Good grief. Does topaz have the beard? Alas, this is not iron beard. No, it's iron skin. Camels tend to have a little bit of a grufty thing going on on the chin, so there'll be a little bit of iron filings on the chin, maybe. Cool, cool, cool. Just checking. So the enhancement bonus increases by one for every four, cast levels above fourth, which even as I say it sounds like absolute gibberish to me. Like, I've got no idea what I just said. But basically, she had AC of 21, and now she has AC of 26, which is higher than mine. And it means that if there's a critical hit or a sneak attack against her with a physical weapon, she can negate it.
It's as simple as, you are now flying upon Iron Camel, and I'm okay with that. Hell yeah. So, after Azu, because it's a cast and then a weight, are you inserting your action? I am. Zolf. Okay, cool. I cast Shield Azu on Azu. Understood. Aw. Duration is 11 hours, so we don't need to worry about that. So the subject gains a plus one deflection bonus, so this probably won't stack with other stuff, if we already have a deflection bonus. I already do have a plus one in my deflection modifier. You get a plus one resistance bonus on saves, for Topaz.
For Topaz? Yes, I'm doing it on Topaz, because as you say, if Topaz goes down, we all go down. Okay. Topaz is more important than, well, you. Behold the most powerful camel. Look upon my works, ye mighty in despair. So you did say initially, Ben, you were casting Shield Other on Azit. Did you mean to say you were casting Shield Other on Topaz? Sorry, yes, I meant Topaz all along. Okay, so Topaz probably doesn't have a deflection bonus already. Oh, that's true. She does not. Okay. So that's 27. And also, when she takes hit point damage, and only hit point damage, she takes half.
and I take that other half. Oh, my God. Yay! If hit by an area of effect, I will take 1.5 damage. Topaz will take 0.5 damage. Self. Sacrificing self for Camel. I told you, we're all going to have an opportunity to sacrifice ourselves for Eric. Do you all have any idea how much I wish there was this little goblin who just jumped out and goes, dispel, dispel, dispel, dispel, dispel. Also, just so people know, I have another shield other for Babbage when I put him down. Okay. Anything else? Or are you now just ready to go? That was it. Cell, you are up. I think at this point I'm casting caustic blood if this is the... Yes, that's correct. Cool, yep. Casting that during the other parts of the...
Round the same. My blood is literally boiling. Hamid, you're up. I take off one round of haste. Yep. Anything else? No. Wild holds his action. At which point? Skrark, we're going to... Again, filmically, this does not work unless we do the movie magic thing where we can see Skrark even though Skrark's invisible. So Skrark continues to vomit towards the tower. And you cast Whisper, didn't you? Yeah, but it only works within 200 feet. Yeah, I thought you cast Message. Yeah. Sorry, Message even. So yeah, 180 feet.
Just as Skrark is passing out of range, you hear, I think there's something on the tower. At which point, something begins to just unfold from the tower. There we go. Something huge, something golden, with streaks of blue running through it, more like roots from a tree than veins in a person. It is vast, and it unfolds facing in your general direction, and you get the impression that it is right now focusing Dew Skrark, and it looks...
really, really ready for a fight. And I'm going to end the episode there. Oh, here they are. So, how's everyone doing? You okay? You're good? Yeah, let's save the world. Don't talk to me too much or some of the numbers might fall out of my head. I was going to say, can I interest anyone in some further maths before we do any... I'll take more maths, please. Well, on that, I'm going to end the episode here because we're going to be bouncing straight into the next one. So while everyone else waits a week, we're just going to find out what happens. Bye!
Thanks for listening. Hi everyone, Helen here, the voice of Azu, Enola and Laverne. Today I'm here to tell you about Malevolent, a podcast launched on the RQ Network. Malevolent is a weekly horror fiction podcast filled with dark, noir, eldritch horror. Arkham private investigator Arthur Lester wakes up with no memory of who he is or what has happened, only a nameless, eerie voice guiding him through the darkness. Blind, terrified and confused, his journey will lead him towards a series of mysteries in the hopes of understanding the truth of what has transpired. As cosmic horrors seep into the world, Arthur must ask himself whether this entity truly seeks to help him.
or are its intentions more malevolent? Search for Malevolent wherever you listen to your podcasts, or visit www.rustycrull.com or www.malevolent.ca for more information. Have fun, and see you later.