In our last episode, the party joined together to begin their faded adventure. In the city of Grasarm Histra, they accepted a quest from Baron Reynold to go out and try to find any evidence of illegal automaton activity. Wigens and Carriages full of adventurers scattered in all directions to search. Join the party now, as they have been set to their own devices along the road.
Our adventurers today are Hazel, who plays Hector. How do you tell chicken fortunes? They're in, who plays Wilm. Oh, you're a skeleton!
How is that happening? Are you alive? David, who plays Nix. I can't believe this.
This is amazing. I'm a tent, but it has its own floor. Kirid, who plays Tass. Alright, let's go.
Let's leave this poor man alone. And I, sorry about that. I'm your DM, Ivy. Should I have used the word cock so much in that sentence?
Welcome Wanderers to Legends of Shell. I will sniff and look for tracks. So I will roll perception with advantage. For being a diorole.
Yes. It's just a whole couple of hard group of vad rolls. Yeah, so we got those covered. Nix and Wilm, you guys are not picking up anything out of the ordinary.
Tass, you, something does feel off, but you're not sure what. It's like there's a faint smell. It's somewhere within diorole sniffing range, but it's not something immediate, but there's sort of an unnatural smell. Okay, here's a question.
Here's a sort of a world building question for the group. What do you guys think that unfocused magic would smell like? Because I want to say ozone, but that feels like cliche. I was also going to say ozone.
Yeah, that sounds right. That's what I was going to say too. We do already associate magic with lightning, so ozone really just works. Okay, so it's just a sort of a little bit of an ozone smell.
Not like someone cast a spell, but a spell went wrong somewhere in the vicinity. Ooh, I like this. I'm going to go take a look. Well, this has to have any way to communicate this to the party or?
He'll look back and bark and sniff in the direction. He'll try to get him back. I will follow. So I'm going to say about the 13.
It's not quite clear where it is. It's definitely somewhere ahead of you, but it's not clear if it's directly ahead, but you get the feeling that if you can get closer to it, you can probably hone in on it with your animal senses. Yeah, I think I just keep my nose to the ground and sniff around until I got a clear picture of where it was. With the 13, you're not sure which fork in the road to take, but if you want to try rolling again, I'm not going to say with that.
Okay, we'll do that. That makes sense. Sir. It could be if survival's better than you.
Because you are tracking. Survival is better. I don't know why I rolled perception the first time. Oh, very good.
Okay, so now you're picking up on it. You can see there's sort of a narrow foot path that's not really an official road, but it also seems like it could be from ahead of you. Maybe it moved sort of. Where's the draw tool?
It was somewhere in the west and is or was headed to the north. Oh, so it looked like it crossed the little footpath? See, I assumed that we were going to end up. It doesn't seem like it came through here, but it seems like it was going in that direction, sort of relative to you guys, if that makes sense.
How does dog smell work? Because I know it's very precise and acute. Yeah, so it's a task of doing some sort of dog like a little shit. That sounds all right.
So I guess I guess I put this way. It seems like if you go to the left, you might find the start of what's causing the smell. And if you were to go north, you might find where it is now. It'll leave people down the footpath to figure out what was here before.
They figure out what we're following. Everyone cool with that? I'm going to follow the dog. Yep.
You're heading a little bit deeper into the forest. And you can see through the trees something doesn't seem right. Something seems disturbed. It looks like there's some kind of rubble or something blocking the path.
And so I'm going to say until you get closer, I think. Hmm. Well, it's kind of grumble as he approaches. You know, like what the fuck is going on here?
I really hope that what I did to the map actually communicates what it's supposed to be. I mean, it looks like a crater or some kind. I will follow the puppy. So keeping an eye out.
So as you all sort of get to the edge of the tree here, you all see, you know, the edge of the head of you, the path is like gone for the next several feet because some sort of long, not super deep, but pretty, pretty wide trench or like it's like something like big was like dragged through the ground or pushed through the ground. And there's like dirt kind of piled up on either side. There are upturned trees and fallen trees and broken things. And there's like bits of rock and some boulders that have been very obviously disturbed.
And it seems to be something came through this direction and just tore the forest apart. Just like left this wake of destruction behind it. So like, are you describing like a burrowing creature near the surface or more like a giant, even bigger than me, was like dragging its club behind it kind of thing? Why don't you roll me an investigation or nature or something like that?
Both of those are the same and bad. So I will roll investigation because it makes more sense to me. I got a natural sunny, which is a 19. You get the sense that this was not natural.
The lines are, I mean, there's no like straight lines, but they seem a little too, it seems a little too precise and it almost seems like something, either something big came through and left this trail behind it or some sort of magic was used to kind of carve this out of this piece of the ground up. Okay. Neat. So are we going to follow this trench now?
Do we want to go down the trench or up the trench or, and pay more of the trench? Where does this smelly go? Where does this smelly go? I guess I'll keep sniffing the air for the raw magic smell, I guess, and try to follow it.
It's definitely north of you, maybe a little bit northeast. Yeah, because I figured it follows this trench, so like walk along side. Yeah, it is very strong near the trench, but a little bit faded like this, like this was made a while ago. I'll start walking alongside it and bark.
Cool. I will probably say I don't really recommend going into the trench. That seems dangerous, but we can walk next to it. Yeah, so you all walk alongside it and eventually it does come to an end.
It just sort of tapers off and it looks like there's some kind of like a scorch mark maybe or something, but it's everything's a few hours old, so it's hard to tell. But you continue following the smell and that takes you here and you realize that you're kind of running parallel to the original road you were on. You are at kind of the base of a small ridge and now the road is up on the ridge and you guys are walking parallel to it just at the bottom. And you can see something through the trees ahead of you, do north.
Okay, I will, when we can see the thing, I will like put my hands on Tass' back and be like, do you want me to take the leader? You good to keep going? He'll just bark and keep going. Yeah, he just jumps ahead.
Happy as a clam. Yeah, so we head towards the thing, I guess. So what you find is an overturned cart. Its cargo is just strewn on the ground.
It seems like it fell over or was knocked over and whoever was driving it ran off and so did whatever was pulling it. You can see there's sort of a, like the side is just kind of erect. I used a scorch mark, but it's more like a hole and kind of like splintering and cracking on the side. And it looks like that was pushed it off the road and then it is, the axles and wheels are broken more from the fall than from anything.
But it doesn't look like a robbery. It doesn't look like anyone picked through this stuff. It was just making its way down the road and something came and knocked it off. And is this one of the carts that we were transported here in or is it something else?
You don't recognize it and it looks like it had a load of like objects or like items like it, like maybe it was a traveling merchant or it was someone traveling to like restock a store or something. If you can, you can always roll investigate and see what exactly was in there. Tazzle snipper ounce for some food and try to get a snack. All the wagons and carts you guys and the other adventurers took, those were all like emptied out so that them as many people as possible could sit in them.
How high is the ridge? Like can we see up there or is it? You can just almost see over it. You could probably climb it pretty easily.
Your party members can't see on top of it. Okay. But they could climb it fairly easily, I think. I pretty much want to look for like the signs of anybody or any like animals, horses or donkeys or whatever that are hurt because I don't want that.
Okay. Go ahead and roll me a, yeah, it could be perception or investigation, whichever of those is going to be better for you. Okay. I got an 11.
It seems like if there was an animal, it's long gone by now. You don't see any evidence of it being down here with a cart necessarily. So it seems like maybe when the cart was knocked off the ridge, the rains or whatever that was holding the animal were just broken immediately and it ran off somewhere. Well, that's good.
Tazzle look for some food in the cart. Just a few trash peckers. Sure. Go ahead and give me an investigation.
Seven. You find some like hard tack, like the kind of stuff that would be in like any rations pack that you would get as like adventuring gear. Nothing exceptional. It seems like mostly this was carrying non food items.
Hmm. He's still not, he's still not on the hard tack. Yeah. That kind of why I wanted to do the same thing, see if there's any calcite.
Go for it. Yeah. 11. You find that one of the barrels actually does have calcite and it's got like, it's like stamped on the top with this brand name that you're very familiar with, which is Captain Kitty's calcite.
Don't ask me how that's spelled or anything. So just made it up. So it's like a brand name snack and calcite specifically for this new market of skeletons. Someone's already exploiting you all by making snacks for you.
That's very, very weird. Oh, I'm probably strong enough to carry a whole barrel of calcite, baby, but that seems kind of cumbersome. So I guess I'll take, I'll take some out. You have it later.
How much, how many days rations of calcite you think I can get out of here? Gosh, how much can you carry? It's a lot. It'll last you.
It could, if you can fit enough of it in your pockets and your bag, it might last you the campaign. I guess I also don't know how much you have to eat. I guess that's the other factor I don't really know is how much per day you need to survive. That's a pretty good haul for me anyway.
Okay, I'll take a, maybe don't worry about food for the rest of the campaign. And that's probably solved itself real quick. I was kind of worried about it. This is not what I expected is what Willem says.
So like I'm going to look around and I just want to see, is there sign of some sort of big magical happening other than whatever pushed the cart off the road? From down here, not really. Are you looking up on the ridge over the ridge again at the road? Yeah, I'll look over.
I'll climb up. And if anybody wants to hand up. The ground here is kind of torn up, not nearly as bad as the trench, but it seems like some sort of magical force was like expelled here. Like someone like shot like a big spell at this cart and knocked it off the road.
You can see sort of like where the wheels kind of cut into the dirt and everything. I'm not even going to make you roll for it. I would say they're big enough that you notice them. There's these sort of odd footprints.
You can't, there's not like a definite trail, but like there's a few just sort of leading off into sort of the brush. I will follow the odd footprints, I guess. Yeah. Cool.
And like all, I, Theron wouldn't, but Willem will probably be talking out loud about everything she's doing. She's like, oh, look at all of these footprints. Tasty. You think you can pick up the scent of a person?
Also just like a random chit chat. Sure. These footprints smell, they smell like the ozone, but they also smell like high quality steel. Like, like very good, like expensive.
He looks at it weirdly. It just cocks his head to the side, but keep going. Okay. So as you all continue following, you're still more, you're still falling fairly close to the road, the road's insight, and you actually come up to where, I'm sure you all saw that, there's a river that kind of cuts through sort of the middle of the map, sort of from north, northeast.
You all are walking, you're like, oh, hey, there's the river. Cool, cool. And emerging is this medium size, but just barely in that medium size range humanoid. That is, it seems to be made of metal.
It looks, the metal looks very old. It's extremely like tarnished. There are parts of it that look like maybe this thing was sitting still for so long that some plants started to grow on it or some moss. It's vaguely sort of vaguely humanoid, but it's kind of almost like, like someone did like a stylized version of a human.
It looks like one normal hand and then another hand that there's something, you can't tell what's going on with it, but it looks like maybe it was damaged in some way. It has these sort of pale blue eyes and there's, wherever there's like a seam in the metal, you can see sort of a pale blue glow from inside it. It's flickering a little bit and it looks like at you all and it makes a hideous kind of screeching noise and it raises that damaged hand and it glows really, there's like a point of light at the end of that hand that glows really brightly and then it sort of fizzles and pops and hector in its return since you are at the top of the initiative. I'm going to say, so do you think we need to find this thing or are we going to raise that staff that we got and say by the power of grace, all or whatever it was?
Or it does seem like some kind of indication. Oh, right, that's a good idea. I think both. Here's the answer.
We're going to have to fight it, but we should set off this thing. Okay, so I guess I'm going to go up to the metal of Monstrosity and swing at it with my halberge. That is a 23 to hit. Yep, that absolutely hits.
Oh, a nice, nice for slashing damage. Cool, cool. Anything else on your turn? Nope, so I moved to within 10 feet of it and slashed it with my halberge and dumped it very much damage probably because it's made of metal.
Well, it seems like it's pretty beat up, so it definitely seems like you were able to hurt it maybe not a time, but definitely it definitely had an effect. So this bad boy is going to move up and take a swing at you since you swing at him. He's going to unarmed strike of 14. 14 to not hit.
Oh, it swings and it just misses. It's like kind of tipsy and unbalanced and it just kind of tries to do a haymaker and just totally misses you and it makes its arm, its glowing arm just sort of makes a weird kind of geary grinding noise and the pieces of it seem to be shifting almost like it's trying to do something with it, but it's just too busted up and then it is Womb's turn. So I have a spell. I want to cast heroism and I would like to cast it on task and on Hector, but they're kind of far away.
Like if I touch task and then walk over to Hector as I'm casting in touch them, is that okay with you? That's fine with me. Okay, so I'm going to cast heroism and they are immune to being frightened, which I'm not sure if that will come up, but each of you being three temporary hit points at the start of every turn for as long as I can keep it going. Nice.
So and I will end my turn over just behind Hector and what that looks like is I sort of tap each of you with like my hands and I start singing that song again, but I'm doing a better job this time. It's sort of like you get the impression that I've been practicing it in my head the entire time we've been on this adventure because I'm kind of embarrassed about how badly it went before. Cool. Thank you Mel.
I'll pass that back now. Was that it for you? Yep, that's it. So it is now, here in sir.
I pass it around, bubble around for that staff again and point it up and go, does anybody in higher eye found the evidence? Like what's nervous is he pointed up to the sky and like crud his head away from it? There's a sort of like a fizzing and then a pop and the end of it actually kind of explodes open and not really hard or forcefully but there's this blue sort of sparkle that shoots up into the sky and then it goes off like a firework and you see a big blue emblem of the Imperial Guard that's just sort of floating in the sky and slowly fading away. It's an automaton reveal party.
Oh my god, I hate it. If I hadn't already given you inspiration here and I'm counting that as a bonus action so you still have like an action and all that. Okay. If you want to do other stuff then I will move a little further away and then look at it and be like good.
It's going to cause heat metal on it. So it needs to make a DC 14 concept. Okay. I'm going to go ahead and say that it has disadvantage because it's made of metal probably.
Oh no, yeah, it fails. And so you take 10 points of fire damage as it's torso starts to glow red hot. Nice. It really is.
It seems like it's kind of like having trouble moving. Like you may have heated the metal so much that some of its parts may have fused together now and it lets out just a very it's like a high-titched line of like almost like a motor that's really trying very hard to start up but not quite making it. If it doesn't drop the object it has to just a fan of time throws and building checks until it starts. Oh shit, heat metal is really good.
Yeah, heat metal is great. I usually feel like the ways to use heat metal on humans or like not metal creatures is like too evil so I won't do it. Like I'm going to cast them so they can armor and cook them. That's like gross but this works.
Mm-hmm. And anything else is at your turn. Nope, that's my turn. As I move just out of 30 foot range.
Yeah. Alrighty, that brings us to next. Okay, I'm going to move to there. And then as a bonus action I'm going to cast Magic Stone and then I will use my sling and sling a stone at it.
Nice, I'm a fan of that spell. Alright, so it's a 22 to hit and it does 8th legen advantage. Oh, I'm going to say you landed in sort of like one of those seams where the glow is and it seems like it really does like that. And so, oh wow, it's really tearing this thing apart.
Okay, and if that's all for next that brings us back to Hector. Okay, I will attack with my halberd once again. Was it 19 to hit? Yep, that definitely hits.
4. Again, you hit it and like a big chunk of the, like a big plate comes off of it. Like you just pried off some of its outer layer and you can see a whole bunch of these gears spinning at like different rakes and these like cogs and various other things. Moving some of them appear to be jammed but some of them look like they're spinning way too fast.
Like maybe they're no longer connected to the rest of the mechanism. And yeah, it's looking pretty gnarly. So it's moves back. It takes a step back from Hector and it actually it sees wim and you're so, you're like such a big obvious target.
It raises its other arm, especially to damage one again. And it seems like it has finished shifting around and it just sort of is this big hollow. I guess, I don't know, do cannons exist in shell at this point? Yes.
Okay, so it looks very much like a cannon except it's full of glowing light. If it steps away like that, doesn't it get an attack of opportunity? Oh, from that distance does do you? Hector, it's still within your range.
So it didn't step out of your range. It's within my range but not sure who will. Aren't you also reached? I don't have reach just because I'm dead.
Okay. My attacks are still within five feet. It only applies to monsters. So if we're all it's going to, it fires.
This can't. Oh no, it only got a seven. It's not hard to hit me but it's harder than that. Yeah.
It fires and the shot goes wide and the sort of carves another small, significantly smaller trench across the road. I think that is its turn. So will. This is like a deciding moment for me.
I feel like I am going to pull out my umbrella and step towards it. Actually, just in case that this doesn't work, I think I'm going to sort of very gracefully with like a spin around it so that I'm like, Hector will be able to flank if I don't finish it off. So sort of twirl almost ballet style around it and then try and stab it with the umbrella. Like it.
Uh, 21. Oh, that absolutely gets. So I do seven damage. Uh, seven.
A seven is definitely not too, not too, not too, not too much more famous DM but how do you want to do this? So what I picture is I do that sort of twirl around it. I mean, I'm about to find myself up behind it but then I see that like giving hold of the plate of the phone off and I just wedge my umbrella into that and sort of like push it and just keep pushing until it's like gears stop moving and it falls over backwards. Nice.
If I may just add a couple of details. When you do that, there's it actually some of the gears like break loose and seem to be cutting into other machinery and these sort of weird cables snap and pop up. Once it stops moving and as the glow fades from the crease of the cracks and it's armor and all that, it plays what sounds like the melody of the song that you've been performing. Okay.
And with that it falls silent, it falls dark. It actually it's not going to fall over unless you like push it over or unless you know, getting your umbrella out. I mean, I'm like pushing it until like I can't push anymore because I have to push it over. Yeah.
So when you pull your umbrella out really, that's what ultimately knocks it off balance and it just falls down completely still. Thank you for listening to Legends of Chill. Our GM this season is Ivy. Hey, that's me.
You can follow me on Twitter at esoteric90sip. Hector is played by Hazel Stapp. Follow her on Twitter at hazel underscore dot underscore basil. Wilm is played by Theron Stapp.
Follow them on Twitter at explosive runes and visit Theron dot card dot co. That's card with two Rs to learn about their podcast transcription side hustle. Tass is played by Kieran and Nix is played by David. You can't find either of them on Twitter, but they both lurk in our Discord server.
The Forgotten Army theme is brain drain by Christ Clark. You can find him at Christ Clark dot bandcamp dot com. Additional music credits can be found in the show notes. This show is a land of shell production edited by Theron Stapp and made possible through generous donations on our Ko-fi page.
If you like the show, you can subscribe to us or make a one-time contribution at Ko-fi. Go get access to bonus content either way. To learn more about the players, characters and other shows from Shell, visit landofshell.net or check us out on Twitter at landofshell. Until next time, happy travels!