Stardust Rhapsody | Ep. 14 | Am I Evil?
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Welcome to Legends of Avantris. I'm Pike, and you're listening to Stardust Rhapsody. Here's what happened last time.

I feel a little off. Oh gosh, was that that stuff in the ice? I am somehow attached to this planet thing. I can feed on this planet. We've got a serious problem. I just passed overhead of the temple that we left before. There seems to be a black river flowing from the ruins of the temple. I neutralized the creatures, the accord. What happens when you become more of that stuff?

than you are of your stuff. Well, gang, looks like you can't get anything done without me. Here's to my fans. Does anybody else feel that? Are you all right? Yeah, they're just visions. It's not real. It can't be. As we get closer to whatever is at the core of this, things can get a little weird. The water falls from the ceiling, and you realize as you move closer that it's not striking the ground.

It's striking an enormous sea of black water. The surface completely undisturbed as the droplets fall. A chill creeps up your spine. Space. You know they say that every life is a note in the music of existence? Well, like any song, there's that first chord. The moment the jam comes on and it touches your heart and soul. Every song has that first note.

Every song has a beginning and this beginning is discordant. Wait, what? Wait a second. That's not right. No, it's uh, it's empiric. That's not what I meant to say. Ah, wow. Do you feel that? Oh, it's uh, it's, it's Saurian. No, no, no, it's, it's not. Why can't I think? Name. Oh, no, it's

Space, good luck. Fighting back to save Pike's childhood home, the crew takes their next mission. Infiltrate and cleanse, or destroy, Aurora.

They send Labouche first as a scout. Quickly, he realizes that he has the ability to absorb and cleanse the land, momentarily empowering himself. The crew shortly joins Labouche planetside. Stepping out onto the planet, they sense something watching them from just beyond the horizon. Making their way across the corrupted, frozen land, they find a figure from their past, the Kinguin. A heated battle ensues.

Grappled by dark spears, the party grappled by dark spears sighs heavily as Rex rides in and saves the day. After laying low their old comrade, they reveal a much larger scar in the world. Labouche, consuming this, gets a much bigger boon as the dark energy swirls all about him. He knows now for certain they can win.

They simply have to find the source of the corruption. Continuing onward, as they're faced once more with the looming site of the ancient Saurian temple, following old footsteps, they find the mouth of the ice wall exactly where they left it, but with one new addition, a hole that leads to a deep darkness.

Descending down it, they're faced with a reality ripped straight from their nightmares: a large black ocean. From the bottom of your spine to the base of your neck, a familiar chill takes hold as you look out to the force that's drowned you so many times before. Droplets fall from stalactites on the ceiling. No sound is made as they strike the ground.

hitting the extending black sea as it reaches out seemingly endlessly in front of you. As they hit its surface, never disrupted, solely absorbed. You look just beyond the light casting, the light from Pike's finger casting a glow that just barely gives you visibility to the other end.

Making your way around the edge of this cavern, one more opening at the very far side of what looks like a waterfall filling this space. Oh my god. Well, fuck. This doesn't look good. Was this black sea always here? We never went through...

The temple started to come down, so we never went... This is the furthest we've been by a long shot, right? This is definitely the furthest you've been. I think you did explore the ice originally right afterwards, and in which Labouche had been blown apart when you went in,

I think you went as far as you could and you met just solid ice on the other side. That's right. But with no further time to explore as the temple was crashing down around you, you did leave. Waboosh, whatever you fucking do, don't get near there. I won't touch it. Just tell me where are the sources so that I can do something. Well, it looks like...

It's coming from there. And I'll point my finger to where the opening for that waterfall is coming out. I agree. I think it looks like it's pouring out of there. I mean, it's so eerie the way it just pours into this. Unmoving. Something's got to be feeding it, though.

How difficult does it look like to get up? How many feet up is this waterfall, the opening? How difficult does it look like it would be to get up in there? You would have to, so it's a little bit of a ramp as it moves around one side of the room as it goes up. And then when you come to this cascading waterfall that fills into this pool, it's kind of like crashing water that comes out. But as it hits the sea down at the base, unmoving.

Not like, not ripples coming out. No change in the level of the water, even where the waterfall itself crashes down into the collected, this collected underground reservoir. It's like the exact opposite of like laminar flow. I don't know how we're going to get up in there to even see where this is coming from.

All those little fishy looking guys would look like they were swimming. You think there's like a whole bunch of those little fuckers down there? Well, if on second thought, if there's a place for me to stand up there, if I can get within shot, I could easily blink up there. But I don't want to land in the water. I mean, I can walk along the ceiling and the walls if we need to and take a closer look. I mean, how slick is it? Your shoes gonna stick? Well, they don't call them sticky. It's quicker for nothing than that.

Let me demonstrate. And I do a bait. I lean far back and I take my... And I attempt to walk up the wall.

Uh... If I'm imagining this correctly. You do that, but you're at one side of currently this large cavernous opening. You'd have to walk all the way around the rim of the... uh... this- this reservoir to get to the other side and then walk up where the waterfall is. Do we think we can take the time? Gonna be a bit of a thrill to get all the way around. I don't see what else we're gonna do. We've come this far. We have to see where that water's coming from. What happens if you slip?

Well, just save all of my games for Dandy when she comes back. Also burn my room and delete my browser history. Let's get as close as we can, and then we'll make sure you don't fall in, alright? Okay. Man, I think you stuck a rag in my mouth. Oh yeah, I did. It was filthy. I didn't clean it.

Anyways, I think it's really our only chance to take a look with Dover. I can't- I- My- my magics don't go that far, but I can walk. What do we think? There's only one way forward. I can see. Okay. Well then, let's say you get across. Yeah. Then what? I'll radio you to see what I see. Alright. And again, if it's within jumping distance, I can instantly give him backup.

It's like really far away. No, no, I mean, I'm talking about from the lift up to the waterfall. Once you get there, he can hop up to it. Okay, I'll be right back.

It may take me a while. Okay. We should all go to the waterfall. We can all walk to the... You all move to the base of the waterfall. Oh! There's like a pathway that leads to the waterfall. Oh! We can all walk together, never mind. And then he would have to walk up the wall into the hole. Evie! Yes. Oh, we all walk together. Evie! Okay. Well, that would have become awkward. Oh, oh.

Let's all go walk in reflective phylum. I still keep the light glowing so that we have light as we walk along the side of this lake. You do so. I'm going to walk on the inside of the ramp. I want to put myself between the party. And the reservoir. Yeah. You do that. Wait, meaning what? If any of you are in danger, I know that this stuff likes me most. And so... Laboosh is thinking...

I'm going to be able to put my hand into it if one of you should fall or be attacked or something like that. He wants to walk traffic side. Yeah, I'm gonna walk traffic side. I see this. What the fuck did I just tell you? I'm in a giant piece of armor. This stuff makes me stronger. And yeah, you tap that thing. The entire thing sloops into you.

And all of a sudden you're some horrible Laboosh monster that either we need to fucking kill or kills us anyway. We don't know that. Yeah, I know we don't know that, but let's not fucking risk it. Take a step back. Yeah, Laboosh, if you consume an ocean of ooze, you're going to turn into a giant monster the size of a planet and we'll have to fight you flying through space as a badass rock song plays. About living and learning.

That would be really cool, actually. But don't do it! I gotta say, that sounds pretty cool. It sounds really cool, Baboosh, but we care about you. As cool as that would be, as cool as it would be, I agree with Rhett. I'm trying to protect you guys. We know it's very noble, but look at me. Do I look like I need protection? A little bit of drool starts to go from the corner of your mouth.

One eye like twitches a little. A fly. Do I look like I need protection? I'll just walk normal. No, you stay along the fucking wall. As far away as you can from all that. Let's get as close as we can to the waterfall and then Chuckles, test your footing.

Don't just go for it, you'll fall in. Okay, I'll be very careful. Labouche, what I like to do when I walk against the wall is take my finger and a little man will be walking alongside me. Can you do that? Won't that be fun? Labouche, what is the name of your little man? What? Labouche, you gotta name your little guy. What? It's like, you know, when you're passing by city, then you imagine a little guy running along the top of the building. Do you ever do that? No, what? What?

Name your-- what's the name of your little guy who's walking on the wall? I don't have a name for the little guy. What was his name? Let me know, tell him. John. John! John's doing-- make sure John doesn't stop walking alongside of the wall, okay? You're doing great, John. Okay, here we go. And you carry forward.

The cold air of Aurora is not so biting at this depth. As you move down, down through the planet, closer to its core, you almost get a sense of warming. The air around you is murky and hangs heavy. That sense of pressure, almost like...

You've swum too deep in the ocean. As you place your hands against the cavern wall, cool and wet to the touch, you walk John, you walk John along the wall's edge as you progress forward. The sides of the wall, a strange but dark ocean blue. And it doesn't quite feel like

like any rock you've touched before. It feels more organic, more almost at times sharp. You carry on for the couple of minutes it takes to get to the other side of this reservoir and you reach the cascading black waterfall.

as its dark liquid pours over the edge of this overhang that is about 30 feet up in the air. By the time we reach the end, I'll have gotten really into the Jon animation.

And my wrist will stop at his head, but it'll be an extremely humanoid body with clothes and his own saunter. He's riding a skateboard. He's doing kickflips. Man, Sean's looking so hip and fluid, he could be in an iPod. Good job, man. Yeah, I give him a wife. Two little kids, got a dog.

Oh, look out! It's a Garbanz truck! Oh no! You're about to get eaten by a kite! I think I'm gonna die. Never mind, I'm kidding. Okay, here we are. I'm just gonna take a quick look. I'll holler if I need you to bloop up there, okay? I take a look at the opening and I look back at Juckles and say, "Yeah, I can make it." And I'm gonna take a few steps back and kind of like, you can see that I'm eyeing it up and I'm like getting ready to make a move.

Okay. Juggles. Laboosh. If you can divert the flow of the waterfall with some object, we can jump up there. Whoa, I think we might be able to do that. Okay, before I go, Rex, I have one question for you. Fire away, Juggles. How do you imagine it'll feel when the boss is flaying off the skin of your fingers? Anyway, goodbye.

What the hell? Well, I imagine that would hurt pretty bad. For you. I haven't been able to feel my fingers in years. I wish. I don't have any skin. Just a clown flesh glove. Okay, I'm gonna walk up. And I'll keep like a wide berth, kind of keep an eye on it. Squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak.

You're moving up the side of this waterfall and you get towards the top where it's pooling over the the ridgeline And you're able to get to the top and right before you get there you hear like a low whimpering sound coming from the mouth of this space and as you get just a little closer and you

Flatten out, you get just above the waterline, you turn, and you start to walk a little bit closer. You peer into an extension of the cave where this river line extends forward and doglegs off to the right, beyond view. Just on the other side of this room, you see a wounded snow wolf. Guys, you're never gonna believe this! What is it?

There's no monster down here, just a poor little puppy dog with a dog leg. Are you sure it's not an illusion? What? What? An illusion. It's one of those wolves. Remember we killed a bunch of them? I'm sure this guy doesn't remember that. Hey, little puppy, puppy, pyke.

If you, the code word, the code word for you to come up and help me out is, oh, fuck, I'm dying, I'm dying. Please help. Wait, Chuckles, is there anywhere for me to even land up there?

Right to the waterfall that's pouring out over the opening. As it gets up there, the room does kind of walk out to the sides. So there's space on the right and left immediately to the side of the water as it's rolling over.

Okay, yeah, immediately to the right from the little hole. I don't think you'll fall in and get swept away if you boop up there. But maybe we should try to turn it off before you try it, so you don't get swept away and turn into a scary Shoggoth man. Okay, I guess. Okay. Off the pike.

What? Chuckles. I missed my white bike. I missed her a lot. No, Brett just needs to do this. I'll be back. I'm going to walk up. Oh, hey, little wolf. Ice wolf. Hey, what happened a couple weeks ago or over long it's been? It's all bygones, right? You're all right. Roll an animal handling check.

i hand pike another piece i'm gonna pull out a balloon it'll be a white balloon can this one bypass all of chuckle's communication mute i'm gonna tie it into like the like the cartooniest cartoon bone that you would see a cartoon dog eating and i'll wave it around oh it's okay puppy dog i'll roll the animal handling check right now

Oh, you have one twist. I'm just going to grab him. No? Hold on, Ren. That's not bad. Hold on. That could be worse. Oh, I wish I had my character sheet up full time. What are you guys talking about while I'm being a gondola? Oh, it's just the wolf! You know, Pike, credits don't grow on trees. I'm sorry, Ren. I just can't stand listening to Juggles talk about his wife. Yeah, I mean, it's kind of miserable and depressing.

But at least if these are our final moments, we get a brief fucking respite. Do we really think a space wolf is down here? I'm not convinced. He could be hallucinating. I'm just waiting for the words. I kind of think it's the Star Wolf.

Here, Wolfie Wolfie! What did you roll? Oh, a 17. Oh, okay. With a 17, you are animal handling effectively well. Extremely well. Extremely effectively, I'll say. The wolf turns, previously facing away from you. Oh!

As it moves closer to you to come to the bone, it limps. Its back right leg clearly hurt, broken, possibly from a fall getting down this far. You realize as you've beckoned it to you that its only path to get to you is through the river. And as it comes to the river's edge, a tendril fires out from the water and pierces its throat.

And instantly... Back up! Those weren't the words! I just looked at Rhett and I go... Instantly, it

Slumps dead. You're muted. On the edge of a black spear. Not really, not really. Plus he said he was gonna be "Oh fuck, oh fuck." I see him even screaming. We're gonna hear him, he's like 30 feet away! Anyway. But what happens? It slumps over? It slumps over as the black spear pierces its throat. Oh my gosh, are you okay? God, you're never gonna believe him. The wolf is dead!

What do you mean it's dead, Chaz? It is! Oh, it got killed by its brood! It got killed by the ooze! The ooze speared it! Oh, wow! Maybe you should get back down here, then. I think I killed the wolf by proxy. The ooze? Yeah, the ooze. The ooze. It walked in. How? How? It walked in. I wanted it to come closer, and it turned out the ooze killed it with a spike.

You can make spikes from the fucking water! Yes, yes, yes! Stay away from the water! Uh... Is everything else okay? Oh, I got to take a pee. All the clothes are new. No! Why? It's as you... Keep on going. Keep going, Vipa! Something's wrong, Rhett. There has to be a reason why we haven't been instantly killed.

It's as you move closer to inspect the wolf, instead of the spear pulling it into the water, casting it away, moving it back, it seems for a moment to pulse something up the spear and into the form of the wolf. It then begins to gyrate and vibrate, impaled on the end of this point until it opens its eyes

And they are jet black. Like the thing. Guys? Yeah, what? I think it's a monster now. I think it's a monster. Do you need help? Roll a dexterity saving throw. Hold up! I'm just like, get ready to shoot as I'm going to attempt to whip out from my hat a rolled up

black rabbit hole as I'm gonna attempt to cast vortex warp on it to send it back towards the mouth of the waterfall. - All right, we'll roll dexterity. - Oh! - Also check on the bits. - 23. - I'm checking. - 23, okay. And what are you trying to do? - I'm, oh wait, not 23. 20, yeah, 23.

Okay, that's pretty fucking good. I'm trying to basically... If I had time, I would try to vortex warp it towards the waterfall and then try to kick it out. Kick it off of the... Use an ability to blast it off into the water.

Or at least basically now towards the waterfall to where basically Pike would be and anybody would be able to blast the shit out of it. I would say Vortex Warp opens a space and it allows you, like, it's coming in and you move it just elsewhere? I can basically take it and I point that and another point I can see, so back behind me. You could just drop it into the lake. Yeah. If you really wanted to. It's a flat surface. It has to be. It can't be midair. I see. Mmm. Right?

- Like above the holes that pop out. - So I believe technically the ceiling does not count as a surface according to-- - Oh, the surface that you can stand on. - Yes, yes. - So you could pop it up like-- - You have sticky squeakers. You can stand on the ceiling. - Well, if I'm allowed to have it be the ceiling, but then I would just keep just dropping things.

And I think that technically the intention of it, the rule is intended-- Just have it pop up right at the end. At the edge, so that you can see a wolf monster. Ideally, it'll get washed out or whatever, but basically that is my intention, to basically have it be snapped from there behind me so that it hopefully gets washed out to sea. And like a bullet, almost like the spear throws the wolf at you. It lunges towards you and you're able to produce this

you're able to produce this black hole opening in front of you as you extend out one of your Roger Rabbit tears. And it zooms through it, and from the other end, wherever you choose to produce it, the wolf will come flying out. I'm gonna try to get as close to the waterfall. My intention is to just basically have it get rushed out to the huge reservoir and fall into the water and get--

combined in the ooze. I would say that as the waterfall is cascading down, you walked up directly parallel to it. If you want, you can put it against the wall behind the waterfall. And so if it's shooting out, it'll shoot out directly into the waterfall. Yes, that's my purpose. Yep. Oh, it's coming towards you guys! It's the monster now! It's the monster now!

It's flung forward into the hole you send it. Directly, everyone else will see as a form, you almost can't catch it, but a form from behind the waterfall slams into the black ichor and almost...

stretches it out as it crashes immediately down into the pooling mass of black liquid. Once again, without even a splash, just disappearing beneath the level of the water. - Silent? Just like, almost like it clips through? - You would hear

this wailing cry of this wounded wolf as it is sent into the waterfall, but as it crashes into the water below, silent. I would say I wouldn't even have time to, I'd be too stunned at what I'm seeing, I wouldn't even take a shot. I would've misjudged where it was coming out, and then I would've followed it down into the water and been like, "Chuckles, now what?" "What did you do?"

I took care of the monster. It's now in the pile of goo. Okay, I'm gonna keep going. It was the wolf, the wolf died, it turned into a monster, and I got rid of it. What in the hell? Okay, I'm gonna proceed forward. How did it get down here? Something doesn't add up here, Rhett. You move forward, deeper into the cavern.

You follow the dog leg right of this turning reservoir and it breaks once more into a room. But this one, very firmly, the ground, the walls ahead of you, not a flat surface, but it doesn't quite seem like there's no more opening. The water runs beneath that dark blue substance.

that's now very obviously comprising the walls and the ground beneath you. Cold, wet to the touch. The room here, guys. I feel like if I keep going forward, I'm gonna die. So I'm gonna come back and let you guys up. Yeah. You're right, come back. Okay. Okay, guys. Squeak, squeak. Squeak, squeak. I feel like the fireman's ladder will do the trick. Uh-oh, uh-oh.

I use Song of Creation to create a fireman ladder. You do so. Out of your hat, you pull out this giant red ladder that hangs out over the edge that kind of attaches to the side of the wall and extends down so that anybody can climb up it. Hold on, Hank. And as you'll see on the side of it, it'll say Space Sector 777 FD. Oh.

Yeah. I hope they're already fired. That would help. And any high floors. Um...

Can the ladder support me? I guess I'll give it a quick check before I make my way up. You could probably stretch your monkey bar up there and just climb in, right? I'll just grab onto the top and pull myself up in one fall. Yeah, you do that. Rex will take hand over hand to climb the ladder as well. Pike may be just ahead of him. Rhett ascends. You all...

follow, you see just a little sprinkling on the other bank of this turn in the river. Little red, almost, not sand, but little red droplets where the wolf was impaled. You follow along this turn in the cavern when once again you enter kind of a room

But this, with a solid wall at the other side. The river of darkness running beneath it. Oh, damn it. Now what? How deep do you think this goes? The river itself? Yeah, the river. What else would he be fucking talking about? Okay. Yeah, idiot. Yeah.

You're lucky we don't throw you into the soup! I smack Rex on the back of the head. Well, Red, I thought he might be talking about the cavern system. To the source, how much further to the end? A classic Pike question. Are we there yet? Well, I don't think that's at all what he said. I mean, it's not even close. Anyway, I mean, I don't know how deep it is. I mean...

What do you know about the viewer here? Do you have any information? Can you make yourself useful? Why don't we just chain you up and throw you in with Mad Dog and have you starve to death? Listen, we're on the same side here until this is resolved. Why? How are we on the same side?

Well, because I didn't put a bullet in the back of your head when I showed up. I freed you from the kingwins' grasp. I also didn't force you to take oyster shooters and have you puke and shit your toe all over again. Yeah!

Who's keeping track? LaBouche also wasn't there. I wasn't there at all. Okay. We also just spent two hours looking at the jiggly pancake in the trash can. I still... Pike is just so confused. There's just this quizzical look on Pike's stoic face where he's just like... He looks at Rhett. Look...

I hope you're fucking here, because you feel some sense of personal responsibility for what's happened. Are you sure there's no other bits of information that you're leaving out from the boss? Not a bit. I don't trust the modifier. Guys, I don't think you can trust the boss. What? Yeah, his suit is way too big for him. What?

It's clearly a terrible challenge of quality. Anyway, I'll walk along the wall through whatever we have to do to get on to the next challenge. I don't think that's going to work here. Oh, shit. We're going to have to go in or find some other way through. How far across is it to the next? It goes under... The river runs under like a strange wall. This...

Almost glimmers not with multiple colors, but it kind of glimmers as the light if you're still producing. Oh, yeah, yeah. It strikes it. I can cast it at will. Like dancing, dancing, reflecting in the ocean light. It almost casts a kind of watery pall all around the room as it bounces the light back and forth.

Well, I'm feeling a little tapped out, guys. By motley and magic, I may have been a little too frivolous in defending myself. I think maybe one of us should go in to test it out. So I understand the setting, right? Is that basically we've gotten to the point where the river almost, it like goes underground, more or less. And so we have to swim in there. I think, and there's nothing further up.

There's nothing, there's no, like, cliff way up above or anything? Just a flat wall? Just kind of like a flat, jagged wall ahead of you. Resembles coral. I could try to stretch out and touch the wall. No, the laboosh, it's gonna turn you into... It's not the Icar. It's gonna turn you into a Shaw golf girl with no, no Rangoon. No Rangoon. No Rangoon.

That would be not W Riz. You understand what I mean. I think we throw Rex in there and see what happens to him. We're all like... No, we're just openly talking. I'm standing right here. Maybe Laboogean can throw Rex in there. Alright. What do I mean? I'm fine. I'll do it. I'll do it. I'm a Mottlian.

I can handle a lot of crazy ass shit. No, we throw in Rex before you go in. Yeah, but he'll also, if it's also cool, we can't trust what he says, right? I thought you meant that you were going to be the one to throw him in. No, I'll go in myself. No! There must be a reason why we haven't been attacked. Everything we've seen hasn't exactly been humanoid. Now, I'm not saying that this planet is anything other than unpopulated, but...

What if it's only going for beasts and things? Oh, you also said that this planet drew your friend here. Is it possible it wants him to get to the source? Why did you say something smart, you big idiot? Oh, well, you know, I'm just thinking. It couldn't have brought him here and allowed him through. Whoa. And then keep him away in the final moment. La bouche. Gosh, I hope it's in the cave.

That would make me really mad. But if you walk towards the wood, it'd be really cool if the ooze parted to let you through and all your friends. And then Rex would be right, but I'd be really mad, but why don't you try it? I will give it a shot if we all agree. I mean, just don't touch it. You can get close. I'll pull my hand in so that all I have on this side is just a wrist and...

This suit should protect me. Most of me from space might protect me here. I will steadily get over to the edge of the river just at the wall as close as I can get. And then I will lift one foot and I will start to lower it down.

presuming that the river might separate or react or something along those lines. I'll get it as close as I can and maybe hold it there just to see if it at least starts to, the Prince of Egypt starts to play and separate and, you know, I'm testing.

You move forward. Your lumbering steps shaking everything about you, but every step you take closer and closer and closer to the river's edge, it is serene. It flows by its own desire. As you move close to the wall and the mouth of this river, you dip your hand in, and as you place it in,

it responds to you. Familiar type of pull, a tug of war, as something tries to claim the power in front of you. But this reservoir belongs to another and you cannot absorb it. But it cannot absorb you. As you steady yourself, one hand against the wall of coral in front of you, you see another moment.

down in deep black waters at the very bottom of an ancient sea a clearing where strange figures gather surrounded by jagged razor black coral and as you place your hand against the wall its life responds to you responds to your beckoning and it begins to recede and open and move aside what in the hell?

It wasn't a wall at all. It worked. So it was like coral that moved out of the way. It was almost like living coral that moved away as he touched it. Recognizing... Recognizing... Nothing. Something. It just moved away. Whoa. Booshed out with a mating. Gosh, I hate that Rex was right. How did you know to do that? When I got close to...

I felt compelled to touch the surface of the river and when I did it showed me a vision. Figures in black coral like the portal we now go through. This isn't quite the same coral as if it's a false imitation of a pure form you saw in your vision. As if it's attempting to replicate itself. This was different.

The wall here, the pale imitation of what I am seeing, what it is showing me. Well, we can keep going then. So is it basically more of the, so now it's open and the river, we can still walk alongside of it. Okay. All right, well, don't just touch stuff willy-nilly, but I guess now you can start touching more stuff. I think we got a lead off, FlaBouche. I meant to step in and then I found my hand touching the surface.

I feel in control, but I... Laboosh, Lita. You were meant to be here. This was all meant to happen. Yeah. Never a dull day, Hanren. No. I'd like just one. Follow me. I'll take a big, abound breath, and I will...

start to make my way. How big is the actual opening here? I still am in my, like, mech suit mind, so I'm, like, thinking I'm, like, ducking down at this point and having to, like, kind of almost...

giant golden coin blocking of Eldorado rolls out of the way of Coral. It's a pretty substantially large opening. It's about ceiling height as it recedes upwards down to the side. As it takes place back against the wall. Probably about

12 feet high does it look like I can walk through the space without touching the river or am I gonna have to like waist deep this or is it like you could It's it's tight on one side trying to stick to a side But if you kind of gripped the wall and moved it round it what you see in front of you is not too

Well, a much larger cavern opening and the river runs to a spot on the opposite side that is a dark black open hole. There could be more drops. We might have to go deeper into the planet. As we're walking or moving slowly towards where you're describing, I look to Red and I say, if we ultimately have to destroy whatever we find...

You think that could do it? I point to the reactor that's in his chest. Or is it going to take us with it? Whoa. I don't think I hear this. I'm light talking. I'm afraid to entertain that thought, but if we need to, I could do it. And it'd just be one more daring escape, right? I don't think I'd be escaping, but the rest of you. Unless I can think of some way to delay it.

I'm not gonna leave you behind. It'll just be one more daring escape, just like always. Alright, Pike. Alright. I'll start proceeding. I'm just kind of thinking internally. Um... Where'd you get that thing from? None of your fucking business. Yeah, what do you do with Rhett's bus, by the way? Not to drudge up old things, what happened to it? None of your fucking business. What? It's Rhett's ship! Well... Not when I was through with it.

It's like a Jackson Pollock in there. I'm kidding. I've been proceeding forward, and I'm probably quite a bit ways farther down the tunnel now. A few guys are just talking and whispering, so you can just hear me, my voice echoing. It's...

It's scrapped crazy down here, come on you guys! It's fine, it's fine. Okay, it's gonna be fine. Just think about the boss slowly removing his fingernails. And toenails. Okay, we're coming, we're coming, Laboosh. Did you make that yourself? Looks aetherdwarf. Who else do you think fucking made it? Jackass. Well, you know it doesn't look quite aetherdwarf. You all are usually a little more... well, perfect.

Something about that. Your mama made you pretty, but she didn't make you very smart, did she? Hurtful words, Rhett. I made it. But no, it ain't Aetherdorf tech. Yeah. What do you know about it? Oh, nothing. Don't make me fucking beg. Let me guess. You found it with Mad Dog. And? So what if we did? How about this? We get out of here alive, I'll tell you everything I know.

You're still alive, ain't ya? Meh. We're not quite out of here yet, though. One last thing to do. I guess at this point, none of us make it, none of it fucking matters. If we get out of here, we will be having a discussion about the bus. Well, that's fine by me. And you move deeper into this cavernous room once again.

The river runs to this dark black open hole at the other side. And when you get there, you find your journey's come to an end. Nothing extends deeper than where you are now. You're faced with a still small pool, like the epicenter. Everything runs from here. And this is bubbling. Is this the source?

This is the end of the line unless we jump in. I think, Labouche, you need to punch it or something. No, no, we're not gonna punch it. Let's take a fucking look. Come on, Pike. We would like to respectively investigate and perceive. Hands in pockets.

Like we normally do. Falling closely... Get a ladle. Falling closely next to Rhett, we'll take a few steps forward and right to the edge. I take a look around where we're standing. Are there any loose pebbles or rocks? Sure. As we approach, without even thinking, I just kind of kick one in. Just hacky sack it. Yeah, I just have it tumble into this bubbling pool. Roll a perception check.

I'd be honored. At disadvantage. Oh, I would be less honored. If pools could frown. That's pretty fucking good. My low is a 14 plus 7 is 21. With a 21, you and Rhett walk up to the edge of this kind of like almost a lollipopped section of a river at the back here. It runs to this side and then extends just in a nice little circle. A radius...

A diameter of about 15... Three squares? 15 feet. Oh. Maybe like 20, 25 feet. It's big. You kick this pebble in and it hits the river, sorry, it hits the pool surface and it pauses for a moment until it sinks and sinks and sinks and just before it disappears under the water's edge

You can't see, but gosh, you swear you could. Something grabs it. Hello, you're red. There's something in there. I'll, like, grab you and I'll try to push you back. What the fuck do you mean there's something in there? I'm not so sure, but I could have sworn I saw something grab that pebble. Fuck. This is getting interesting. Just hold on.

I'll grab like a little, it's like a little glass, like a canister and I'll pass it to one of my arms that will reach down. Let's go! Reach down and scoop up a little bit. And I want to try to take it out and like look at it and just inspect it. And if I can run any tests on it with the, with my mobile lab on my back. This is how Rhett dies. I'm going to go get some popcorn. You...

extend this arm with a vial into the section of pool and you scoop up this liquid. Once again, it doesn't break the surface, it doesn't cause tension, it doesn't send ripples, almost like you're scooping a solid object. You just kind of shim the top. And then as you go to right the glass and you begin to pull it out, you pull a bit of liquid until the vial

is just about to break out of the water and then it stops moving what in the hell what are you doing red pull it out i'm gonna grab the arm not the not the vial i'm gonna grab the arm and like try to try to help it what what are you doing come on put some muscle into it and i get to find him like a fishing rod and i start pulling him out

Man, that thing really is stuck in there. Come on, guys. Can you... I need a hand. I'll reach down and I'll glob the entire thing and just immediately lift it in one pull like a crane arm. Everyone gets their hands, their pulls around, waists on arms, pulling, lurching, squeezing as much as you can. But like Ahab's crew, you have hooked an impossible whale.

and pull as hard as you might. You cannot rest this vial from the water's surface. And as you pull, the arm cracks the top of the glass. It breaks and disappears slowly beneath the water's surface. Right when it breaks, we all comically fall back. What the hell? It's like some sort of... It's like all of it.

All of it is one thing! I think Labouche needs to be the one to punch the thing to death! Who has the highest passive perception? Definitely not me. Probably. For sure. Mine is 17. It's at this moment, even in the kerfuffle, even in the commotion, you hear sounds...

Coming from where you had to come to get here. Behind us. Behind you. The moment my head would snap back the way I would come and everyone would see me. Get up. What? Get up. Oh, fuck. And I would turn towards the opening, like, readied in a stance. And I'd begin to listen closer. One eye is on Pike, and another eye is on the pool for Laboosh. You...

here at this point what sounds like the charging padding of paws striking the ground roughly, but this is a large creature making its way towards you. It's some sort of giant animal. It's coming right forth. Is that fucking wolf? Oh, was it? Oh, did we power it up? Probably not. Uh, let's get ready though. *Zzzzzzzzzzz*

Hand on revolver, Rex also joins you in pointing at the opening. You're fixed at that coral opening in the wall when, for a split second, turning around the corner, yellow eyes stare out at you. And then you catch the silhouette as Leo Kahn charges into the room. Boys, you gotta get out of here! Kahn, you scared the shit out of us!

I had to touch down. I had to make it in. The Empire's here. They responded to the calls from the pathway. Oh no. How the fuck did you get down here? I landed. I followed your trail. You're not exactly subtle. No, we're not. We can't leave yet, Khan. We have to deal with this. They're gonna vaporize the whole planet.

You know what the Empire can do. The second you touch down, the smattering of ooze, pluming out, slowed dramatically. You moved it away from the pathway. It's safe. On second thought, I think it's about time for another daring escape. He moves closer and closer towards you, joining your group. Boys.

He nods at you and Rex. Oh, hi, by the way, my name is Junkle. I'm Pike's friend. I've heard so much about Mr. Con. Oh. Have I met Rex? No, none of us have met him. You've only heard of him. I would have mentioned him. And then I would turn and say, That's a fucking lion guy! Holy shit! What the fuck? I'll kill him! Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha!

Um... What the fuck?! Listen, I know that we were trying to destroy this planet from the inside, or cleanse it, whatever we could do to save the pathway, but I think we bought enough time for the Empire to get here. We bought enough time for them to handle this, for them to destroy this planet and deal with whatever this is. What I worry about, Khan, is if our friend Laboosh isn't the one who's gonna deal with this,

And the Empire just decimates this place? What if they send all of this just out into space? Once the Thirteen take flight, I've never seen them leave. Not a particle of dust floating out into the ether. Does that ring a bell, the Thirteen, to any of us? You all would know that there are Thirteen Prime Knights of the Empire. Okay, that's what I was afraid of. Each one...

rules and oversees its own empiric world, but drawn together in moments of grave cosmic danger. And we've seen one of them. You have seen one of them at the Siege of Nightingale. There's 12 more of them? Sweet Jesus. And they all have cool different flavors. I bet.

I can't go. You don't know that. I can't leave. If I go, then it will attack again. What if... To your point, what if it would love for this planet just to be blown up? What if it's trapped here? And send the goo to all corners of the galaxy? I don't know what to do, Lapooch. I think you gotta punch the shit out of this thing. I feel like, you know what? No offense, Mr. Kong, Mr. Lion Guy. We just met you. We don't know who you are. We're also a disc guy.

He's kind of a dick. I don't know why. We just lost all of our good friends. I also apparently have a wife that I lost, that I never knew I had. I'm very conflicted. I don't know what to do. You gotta understand, we're not really worried about the Empire right now. I mean, they're here. We gotta worry about them one way or another. Listen, you have 12 minutes. What? From when they got here. Whatever you're gonna do, if you think you need to act before we leave...

You have 12 minutes before they level this planet. 12 minutes?! Laboosh, punch it right now! Quick! Unless you don't want to. I don't know what to do. I'm gonna turn to Rhett and say, "I don't know the answer either, but I think we should leave it up to Laboosh." We've been through a lot. We've made it this far. And if it all gets blown to smithereens anyway, why the hell not? I'll take a step back. One final adventure. One last hunt.

I guess we're not cashing the bounty on this one. Can... can you rig this thing to explode? Dungeon Master? You can try. I can certainly try. I could do a lot of good if you can get away. We can make sure the raceway is safe. The Empire does not have to be involved. Look, if that thing's gonna blow it up, or the Empire blows it up, I'm not sure it makes a fucking difference.

The point is, is there a reason that it's calling you here? There's something else we can do. Is it the Weaver calling you here to fucking deal with this? Oh. I don't know. I can't begin to know half the fucking things I've seen in this goddamn galaxy, but... Yeah, and if the 13, if any of those, those, those knights find me, they're gonna, they're gonna turn me to soup. Clown soup!

Let me do this. I'm gonna walk away from the pool and sloop out of my armor. You can have the Aether Core. And I can, in my unsuited form, see what happens. Alright. I will walk up to the suit. And I would have installed some relatively easy disconnect or something to be able to pull it out. And so I'll, you know...

Drill into it.

and I'll pull the canister out. You push a paper clip into a small hole and a SIM card comes out. Your screwdriver comes down as your arms work to release it from its ether mechanism. And once all of the lockings strap off, the final signature hold is two fingerprints from your hand.

last remaining hand to release the engine. Only you can undo one of your machinations. Machinations. Machinations. Devices. There'll be, yeah, there's like a hand port. And like the film D2, I stick my hand in. Stick your hand in the box. Stick your hand in the box. What's in the box? I stick my hand in and it will read my genetic signature and it will

As registering this, and Babush is like, prepared to do whatever without even looking at him, I'll say: Rex? Are you scared to death? Yeah, I'd say that about describes it right now. There's not many times you're deep in the bowels of a planet with people that, well, you tolerate. And somebody's talking about throwing a makeshift ether engine into a black pit of eldritch war. Buckle up. Yeah.

- Sounds about right. - I will get to work even if whatever Laboosh does, you know, is what we need to do. I will start kind of tinkering with it and trying to rig some kind of like starter explosion that'll make the whole thing go. - Roll an engineering check. - If it's a natural one, it blows up immediately. - Rhett. - Yeah? - Have you ever seen Hank be a balloon?

What? What the fuck is that? What kind of question is that? Look at Hank! Oh, that's pretty cute. Thank you, Chuggles. I'll cast Bardic Inspiration, or use Bardic Inspiration on you. It's a d6. You can roll two and it's an ability check. I will add to that. Oh, baby! Spike to six. Let's go. That is pretty cute. Can you do a horse? Yeah, but not right now. Later. Yeah, you would be... You would be a horse girl. What's wrong with the majestic horse? Okay...

I'm super focused and feeling the pressure and going back to my training and my experience as basically a soldier for hire. I'm going to, my Spark of Genius will kick in again. Let's go. I'll add another five and from my roll of a natural eight, I got a 30. Yeah.

With a 30 you knew before even looking at it that your answer was coy you knew before

Even approaching that you could rig it to blow and you could rig it to blow remotely at your behest You just fear the consequences but you Sit down tool and tinker and you get to work reverse polarizing the Capsulation tube that holds this all in place and you know that with a press of a button the pressure sequence will change and It will go into meltdown

Whoa. Gravitational meltdown. All right, I think it's done. Thank goodness I've consulted my Mötley in power that I have nothing to contribute to any of it. It's up to LaBouche now. Certainly. Everyone back off! I'm not gonna back up super far. I'm gonna take, so just look a few steps back. I stand next to Rhett and I begin to light what potentially may be my final cigarette.

I will put Hank down, and I'll just have him, I'll give him, I'll reach down and give him a pet. And I'll just have him by my side. And then I offer one to Rex. Without my suit, I don't maintain a humanoid shape very easily.

I'm sort of in between. I'm not a complete jelly rolling forward. You can still see what might be kind of legs, and you can still see this network of nerves and eyes looking forward. You can still see the kind of sort of shapes of arms and elbows sort of poke out before reblobbing back and forth. I will goo forward to the edge of the pool and look down. You do so.

You goo forward to the edge of the pool and you look down and you sense a power rested away in the darkest pit of this planet. A power awakened by your own hand. A power begging to return. I think of Kvir and sort of say a quiet little prayer for a moment just hoping that something good can happen in this world and I will plunge

the equivalent of an arm in, to almost like do a handshake. I'm not going to attack. I am going to push my arm in and not try to feed, not try, I just am going to say hello and hope. - Damn, that's good. - When your arm pierces the water, it sends a ripple out from the mouth of this pool all the way down the river. - Holy shit. - Extending out of the room

down the waterfall, through the reservoir, up out of the temple, and to the face of the planet. You assume. Something shakes back, and I need you to make a wisdom contest. Oh, a contest. Oh! LaBouche. Think of Kvir. I don't know if you can get that down in time. Fifteen. Oh, not bad. Fifteen.

Can I inspire him? No. Shut up. With a 15, there's more than one way to absorb this power back to its full potential. As you go to try and draw the Black Icar into you, it does the same. Both creatures in command of the force within them. And there is an ancient battle.

You feel it pull on every essence of your very soul as it tries to draw you back into the pool. Not yet noticing this, Khan puts his hand on your shoulder. You know, I'm glad you ended up with people who look out for each other. Thanks, Khan. It took a while, but I think I finally found my people. And I look to Rhett and I give him a nod. Yep. You all made out okay. And he turns back and looks towards Labouche. And...

In an instant, you feel a forceful push on your shoulder. As you are looking at him, you don't see a black spear erupting out of the pool to strike at you. It first targets Labouche.

You, in a moment understanding its intentions, are able to extend your form as it... You create an opening in your body and it flies straight through you, headed towards Pike. Khan shoves you out of the way. I drop my cigarette in slow motion. I see it as I'm falling into Rhett. I grab Pike. As you're falling into Rhett, the tip of the black spear pierces Khan directly through his back.

The point extending out from in front of him.

Once I land and realize what happened, "No! Khan, no!" And I'm gonna immediately run to him and grab his shoulders and try to grab the spear and push it back through. I made a reflexive move to get out of the way, but as soon as I hear the sound behind me and I realize the spear has made an attack, I'm also going to try to swallow it with my body and try to pull it.

I'm grabbing it, so if that fucks me up, so be it. I'm trying to force it back through him. You grab the tip of the spear. Laboosh, you grab at the edge where the tendril has erupted out of the pool to strike you. You grab it through your form and you try and pull, and you try and pull. God, no!

You'll hear Rex shout out as the spear pierces. As you grip it to push it back, the barbed tendrils of the grappling hook-like pole extend out, piercing through your palm, cutting you. No, no, no! As it grips into him.

We gotta get him off of that thing. I can't, I can't! I can't push it off! We haven't been strong enough to get any of this ooze! We're completely helpless! Um, do I think that instead of pushing on the barb, can we pull him off of it? Without horrifically damaging his ribcage? There's no way! Uh, you don't.

Do I feel that I can contribute more to stop attacks, to stop it from doing what it's doing? I put in one arm and it reacted violently. Does it want me to...

jump in or do, I'm thinking radically at this moment as I'm hearing the violence behind me. You know that whatever this is wants to be made whole, but not by you consuming it, by it consuming you. - Shit. - And it will be won, but not without a fight.

we gotta figure this out pike it's okay khan it's all right it's all right i'm gonna get you off there bike stop no no i i can't let go khan i can't i don't want to let go khan do what needs to be done pike save them all and ripped out of your grasp as you see inky black

water fills in the whites of his eyes. He's pulled out and lifted up into the air and then sucked down into the pool. No, no! God, no! I will... ...warp the engine. And... Um... Laboosh? How are you feeling? I think there's only one way to end this! Meet in wood. It wants to be old again! One of us is gonna be next.

Is it gonna be you? Or is it gonna be that thing? Slowly, the surface of the water breaks as white hair crests out from under. Khan walks back out as he elevates out of the water. Black, pulsating black ink can be seen throughout his form. His eyes now jet black.

a wound, a gaping, almost star-shaped wound at his chest as he takes one step onto the surface in front of you and looks directly at Labouche and strikes forward. I blast. I shoot him right in the stupid face. I need everyone to roll for initiative. Oh, no!

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I sold salad dressing all over my Flavortown map. No, I got money on my own! He starts oil steams! Now I'm never not paying. Oh, I get advantage. I get advantage. Oh no! 19. 19. Oh, me too! You wanna go first? I would love to. I think you would go first. Out of the two of us. I'm like... I'm all for it. You hired Dex too, so that's a tiebreaker. 19? Works on Tangent Grail. That's funny. And then, uh... Wolfram.

Did Rex also get 19? He got 20. Ah, of course he did. Damn. God. I'm gonna use my actually Benlock. I had a fate on Rex's initiative. Do barbarians get something that gives them a bonus initiative? Dangerous signs, they get an advantage. Do monks ever get anything like that too? Rogues don't, I don't think. I believe there are certain subclasses where you add your wisdom to your initiative. Doesn't Kaio have? No, not yet. Not yet at least.

right what'd you get 16. oh damn we all rolled in the teens mid-die team not bad not bad um my seventh level feature is advantage on initiative and i'm just i'm loving it oh yeah why you don't have to jam them all in there you can go like yeah i'm going water i'm going water

Force you Matt, you gotta, you're gonna have to keep going. Just keep it. I just don't want to be too far. No, no, you're fine. You're fine. They can't see it's for you. They can't see it anyway. This is all just funny business. I don't know. For you guys, for you guys. No, no, I love that. Okay? I love that. We love it, Mace. We love it. Just believe us. We love it and we love you. We do love you. Okay. Okay. LaBouche dies. That's the start of the round. LaBouche explodes. Space fall. Um... Uh...

Sometimes my face gets itchy after I eat. My face is always itchy all the time. That's my secret. You have a neck-sheet allergy. I don't think so. I'm Italian. You know how many times I've eaten tomatoes in my life? Well, you know, you could develop allergies later in life. I would probably just end it all. I'm just kidding. All right, here we go. Kahn rises out of the water.

as his white mane extends out above him, the black ichor dripping around his form, he gets to the water's edge and takes one step out. And then, as he stands over the river,

He suspends, mildly, his paws, the jagged claws at the end of his paws hanging just above the water's edge, still connected to the black spear in his back. His eyes jet black. He turns towards you, Pike, for a moment. He looks at you and he tries to speak.

and a gurgling black drowning noise is all you hear in response. I'm so upset. Rip. Let him go, you crazy creature! And Rex will fire off two shots into the pool.

You hear the gunshots ring out, reverberating through the cavern that you're in. As the bullets strike the water level, stop for a moment and slowly sink in. Khan doesn't seem to notice. What does happen next is everyone, everyone will make a dexterity saving throw. - Dexterity? - Is Leo Khan voiced by Jeremy Irons?

Oh, I hope. He is now. Yeah, obviously. I'm gonna use one twist. 17. 25. 18. 18. I'm gonna use one twist as well. That's worse. Man, we didn't take a short rest. We didn't heal, did we? No. We didn't take a short rest. We didn't feel like there was time. That's bad. It never even came out. Oh, yeah, I'm fucked.

I am going to use, as a reaction, I'm going to use my Flash of Genius. Oh, go ahead.

Unless you would consider the walk down there a rest. I mean, you could take the walk down there as a short rest. If you want to do a round of short rest. Are you sure you want to let us? Yeah, I think it's, I think it's. We're going to short rest very quickly. You can take the walk down there as a short rest. You didn't really like deal with anything or do anything. It was a casual stroll. As we were going, I was saying, oh, this is Thornbrick.

I'm aboard for some revenge! I'm the thing! We all lose hit points. I was like, catch Song of Rests and you take your Song of Rests die. Just kidding, thank you. Is it a d6? I'm at full health. I think it's a d8, actually. Artificers are d8, right? Let me just make sure.

*singing* This is the song that never ends. *singing* This is the song that never ends. *singing* Somebody started singing it but knowing what it was. *singing* And they just kept on singing it forever just because this is the song that never ends. That's very good. Crazy? Where is Saur of Rest? I was crazy once. They put me in a rubber room. I died. They buried me. Worms. Slimy, slimy worms. They tickled my feet. They drove me crazy. Oh, it's extra 1d6. They're taking extra 1d6.

I'm using all of my... There are so many variations of that. One of them mentions rubber rats, like rubber walls, and then it starts over again. It's crazy. 99 bottles of beer on the wall. You got a 25. What did you get for the deck save? 17. Chuckles? What was your deck save? For the lair action. 18. So I rolled 11, and I think it's plus...

11, 12, 13. But then I'm going to use a Spark of Inspiration as a reaction to add five to that. Nice. So 18, right? Good, good, good. All right, so Jethla Boosh fails. 17? You all pass. Oh, flash of genius. But you will take eight points of piercing damage as around the room, except you, as around the room, black

tendrils will erupt out of the water and reach out to you to try and grasp you. But not the spears. Sorry. No, the spears. They'll fire out and try and grasp you. You all dodge, but you will take nine points of piercing damage. Except Pike. Holy shit. Oh, not, only nine. I did ten. Nine. One HP might make a difference. Pike.

Watching Rex like kind of like shout this and then does he look like he's panicking? He looks he was distraught emotionally distraught He's not like running for the door, but he's not Disturbed he's certainly disturbed without looking at Rex but still looking at Khan kind of hanging there. Um

I will like, have been standing with my hands at my side, blood dripping from my hand, and I will kind of assume the fight position that you've seen me do so many times, and as I squeeze my right hand, the blood kind of like runs down, down my wrist, it's running over the gauntlet from being pierced from trying to get him off, and I say, "Come on, Rex! That isn't Khan anymore!" And the sooner we get him down, the sooner he can be at rest.

I'm coming! And I immediately charge him. As it sees you move up, in response, it'll move just out of the river. So you'll be one square back, and it'll be just in front of you.

Yep, exactly perfect. And as I am dodging the tentacle tendrils that are shooting out of the water near us, I dodge to my left underneath the tentacle and I come up to deliver four strikes using Flurry of Blows as well. I'm gonna roll them individually.

The first one is a 26 to hit. That'll hit. I'll make it a Stunning Strike, DC 15, con, saving throw. 22. Okay, I'll just roll the remaining three of my attacks. One of them's a natural 20, one of them is a 19, and one of them's a dirty 20. They all hit. All right, the first one is gonna be 8. The next one is going to be plus 6. 8 plus 6 is 14. 14.

plus five is gonna be 19, then the crit. 19 plus eight is going to be 27, plus six is going to be 33, plus 20 is 53 points of damage over the course of basically what is five attacks. And I am, as I'm connecting in the dark,

of this cave, there are these brilliant radiant flashes as I'm connecting. And I would say that only Labouche would be able to see if he were to look back like a single tear running down Pike's cheek as I stone-faced pummel what is essentially the corpse of Leocon.

You race up and these tendrils strike out at you. One passes just before you put a hand down, you leap over it. Another comes for your head, you duck, roll right under it. You meet the form of Leo Kahn and you strike out. He moves slowly and you move like a crashing river.

But even as you throw your punches, his blocks are there to intercept, as if this is a dance you've done a thousand times before. Like his body remembers the person who began your training on how to fight, but not the one who ended it.

And that's when your fists start to glow with that magenta light as each strike begins to land and find space in him where he doesn't expect it to be. And boom, boom, boom, boom. You find purchase in every blow that lands, a solid crushing moment to your former mentor.

This is like a really close, intimate, like, hand-to-hand combat. Oh, yeah. Like from Doom 2. May your blade chip and shatter. May your blade chip and shatter. I'm not coming back until I wash food, too.

Damn it! Oh, God, that's good. Do you want to watch Dune 2 after this? Do you want to just leave right now? Yeah, let's go. Let's go. Dune 2. Yes, it's exactly that. I love Dune 2. Dune 2. Dune 2. Dune 2.

Yeah, I'm just picturing that. That's all. Yes, exactly. It is a very close fight. You do notice as you're landing your punches, Khan is not standing flat on the ground. He's hovering just three inches before it. And as he moves to block your initial strikes as they come in, slowly but purposefully, like hitting a brick wall,

It's almost like the slow movement of the tendril behind works to shift his body to meet your embrace until you kick it into overdrive and you start to really level in some insane damage. Labouche. I had my own tendril in the goo pool prior to all of this unfolding.

Am I grappled? Do I feel like I can remove it? And does Labouche feel like if he jumped in, he would stop all this madness? Good question. Roll an insight check. One more insight check. We're twisting this. All right. Searching. My insight's plus two, so... Yeah. Fucking mad. I want to shoot stuff. All right. One twist. One twist. Oh, sorry. One more twist. One more twist. So...

Meant to be. 16. That's not bad. Not bad. You search the darkest parts of yourself. You think about your hand reached into the pool. For a moment, you find yourself back on the sandy beach. Inside your core, you look out at the white webbing that extends, coloring the black sea within you. Because that's what it is.

and you see that the roiling sea of darkness that lives within you is bubbling and bouncing against the white webbing that holds it at bay and you know that you cannot yet consume this power to engulf yourself would be to

challenge a creature that's in full control of the power it wields, a much larger planet-sized source of energy than what you currently carry within you. Looking inwards, do I feel there is any action that I can do to release what is trapped inside of me and return it? You...

would step to the edge of the webbing, the white webbing cast within you by the weaver to keep the force of whatever this creature is at bay sealed away within you. You put your fingers under its webby hold that stretches out at the edge of the sands and you pull as hard as you can

The force as you extend up, stretching, trying to rip the web clean from the beachhead. But it is immovable. It is something that is put in place by its own ancient force for your own protection. But you move it ever so slightly, and for just a second,

Like streaks of lightning, the black goo tries to burst out from under. But the webbing snaps back and seals it in place. Coming back to myself, I will...

continue to meditate on this and try and continue to pull underneath. As I'm also afraid for my friends, afraid for what's happening in front of me, I lash out violently, an appendage coming off from the side of my large, amorphous form, attempting to strike into the body of Khan. Roll to attack. 27. 27 again.

Let's go. Plus 14. Sorry? 7 plus 7. Remember to add your rage. Sorry. Yes. So... No, no, no, no, no. This is my first because I have an additional d12. Oh, shit. Oh, shit. That's right. Oh, my gosh. So it's 19 plus 5 is 24 plus 2 is 26. Babush is yoked. And then...

No, no, no, I'm out of his suit. Oh, that's right. So he's just kind of like... Just bigger than normal. 26 plus 5 is 31, plus 5 is 36, plus 2 is 38? Sounds right. I just... Like, I'm good at pummeling. That is where my fort is. My mind is still focused on the webbing and seeing if I can...

think of a solution to this problem, but in the meanwhile, I am participating. I am here.

Your mind locked in thought, is there a way to resolve this situation and keep all your friends safe without risking any more lives lost? That you barely notice the tentacles as they reach out towards you, as the spears charge inward, your body responds almost innately, creating openings, creating forms, as something works to dodge the attacks.

It is Khan's turn. He will strike out at Pike in response with two crushing blows. 23. That hits. And 21. That hits. There's trading blows at this point.

18 points of damage as he swings around with a right leg that crushes into your arms as you get a block up just in time. And then he spins around with the back of a closed fist, striking for the other side of your face. But once again, you're blocked just at the last moment. But blows that fall like boulders strike your arms. As I take this massive hit, I look this creature in the eyes and I say,

Now I know you're not Khan. He hits way harder. Oh, get him! He chuckles. And so I understand that if I just yoink him, if I try to use my magic to teleport him off of the thing, it's not going to de-puppet him, right?

- I think you would know innately from a magical sense that this like barbed hook that's worked into his flesh is not a tether you can break by simply moving him to another direction. - Yeah. I am going to say,

Oh man, I'm sorry, I know you just met Mr. Kong. And I know that you're kind of like anti-thin. I mean, not anti-thin. I know that you're kind of like Pike's dad and Rex's dad. And this is really awkward, but I gotta burn your face out with that. I just gotta. I'm going to cast Thompson's Caustic Brew. Ooh, that's fancy. Dex, 16. Another jackass cowboy.

I was actually thinking of Cowboy Andy. I wasn't thinking of Pike. I wasn't thinking of Player Andy! I was thinking of Cowboy Andy from fucking Cowboy Bebop! No, I never meant to say that. That's so funny. Oh, I mean, the character inspiring him. I mean, it's flattering.

14 as a dex save. Oh, it failed. Or whatever. Was it a dex save? It was a dex save, yeah. Okay. So it failed. So he's covered in asset. I'm going to...

One, two, three, four, five, six. And when he moves, Rex has an attack of opportunity if he wants to. Oh, there's only me! Well, this is your last time. I look like the guy from the beginning of Kung Pao Under the Fist, where he just shotgunned the chunk out of me. So he will take damage at the start of each of his turns. Okay. As acid will come from my flower gun, I...

Switch it back to acid. Flower petals sprout out and acid shoots out. Rhett? Um...

I will see Pike and Kahn locked into this combat. I'll say, go help Pike, buddy. You got this. Yeah! He'll sort of power up, and he'll... Oh, no, he's on the ground. So he is going to run after Kahn and leap as I shoot him with a charged-up Theomars.

thin beam that when I shoot it, it actually maintains a connection between my harness and him as I cast Warding Bond on Hank. And he is going, so that's a second little spell. And then as a bonus action, I will tell him to attack. He will attack Leo Kahn. That might hit. Looks pretty good. It looks pretty good. I need to roll for wild magic.

Uh-oh. Uh, does a 16 hit? 16 hits. Okay. Oh, he needs to make a strength save. Here. Eight. 16. That passes, but he will take... He'll take six points of piercing damage. Um...

And I just want to say that, you know, if I had a nickel for every time I drew an animal on a Dungeons & Dragons token with a scar over its eye, I'd have two nickels, which isn't a lot, but it's kind of weird that it happened twice. That's very funny. That's my turn. You know what? I think I'm going to stay. I'll stay right there. As I cast Acid and I back up, I trigger my Wild Magic. But... Oh, no.

Then, I suddenly, oh, my forehead! Oh gosh, a really terrible CGI eyeball better not appear on my forehead like Doctor Strange! Oh no! A terrible CGI eyeball will open on my forehead. Got him! Oh gosh, it's like this was horribly rushed and under budget! Oh!

I just have advantage on perception checks. For the next minute. That's very funny. That might actually come in handy. You can just see the horror. So, an eye appears on your forehead. Yeah, it's one minute. Okay. You're right, Pike. We gotta put him down. Rex spins the barrel of the revolver and snaps it closed and puts it down to his side once again and then says...

It's time to hang it up, old man. And pulls the gun out and in one, what sounds like one gunshot goes out, but he empties the revolver. Damn! Okay. In almost a single file stream of lead, it fires out. I'm not sure if that's first. Man, you really are Hollis Mason in this game. Oh no!

Absolutely not. Absolutely not. That was foul. Oh, is that why I have this trophy? That was foul. Oh, man. Hey, boomers. I almost forgot. Remember Watchmen? How could I forget? That's a brutal scene, man. It really is.

The sound reverberates through the cavern as the shots fire out, as every one of them blasts through the form that is Khan. Rex will also take two steps back. Let's get a battle cam. Yeah, good idea, Rex. We're being brave by helping out the moat from the back.

And once again, I need everyone to roll a dex saving throw. I'd be honored. I would be very honored. I wouldn't be. Uh-oh. I got a 16. 16. Do we think 15's enough? I would like it to be because I also know 15's enough. Let's let it ride. 15 and 16. Did you roll with advantage? Do you have that yet? Danger sense. Can I see what's coming? Where are you? Where are you facing? I get advantage if I can see what's coming.

You're facing the pool? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, you can see what's coming. 15. 15. 16. If you passed, you take two points of piercing damage. What was the pass? 16. I take only. If you failed...

You are impaled on a black spear. Oh no. And you take four points of piercing damage. And you are grappled. Oh no. Does one go for Hank, or is he just like a little pug that they don't really go for? When you put it like that. A tendril comes down and is like, you're such a good boy. You're so good. Yeah, it doesn't notice him. Okay. Yeah, it fires out at the main party. It's a robot. It's firing out at you. It's a robot.

And so far, that's that. Pike. I'll make an attack. Oh, that's gonna be a miss. Uh, 12 to hit. Ooh, 12 misses. Okay, that first one's a miss. I'm gonna use Flurry of Blows. So this is three of four. Ah, 19 natural. I'm gonna hit and make that a stunning strike, so I need you to make a con, uh, 15 DC saving throw. Seven. Oh, he would be stunned then until the end of my next turn. So my next two attacks would be at advantage. 17 to hit.

17 hits? Awesome. Last one. Plenty. Oh, that hits. What are the odds this is actually... I won't talk about doing anything. Or that, like, I'm making a horrible mistake here. 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 31 points of damage for 3-tax. That's a lot of damage.

So the first, after taking that crushing blow from this false imitation of Khan, my first roundhouse kick will whiff, but then I'll come back with two punches and a knee to his rib cage.

And you do as you lay your flurry of blows down. One, he's able to dodge out of the way as the tentacle moves him down. The other three land brutally into his body as you can almost hear the bones cracking. Laboosh. He stuns, so tax her advantage. Oh, good. I'm grappled, so that shouldn't do anything. I mean, I get reckless anyway.

Your movement's zero. That's all that matters. Yeah, but everything that I care about right now is in my reach. I'm going to look inward again, and I'm thinking of the Weaver's Web that is blocking this thing from being released back to where I am imagining it might be its home.

and I'm going to speak aloud into the pool. Tendrils are in me, my art, like one appendage is down into the pool. I'm lashing out like this, and as all of this is happening, I will form a mouth, and I will project. If you can understand me, help me take what you want back back! Help me release this thing so you can be whole again! Oh shit, uh-oh.

And then I'll make two attacks on comm. Roll a persuasion check first. Oh no! Oh no! Dirty 20. Dirty 20. The dirtiest. Oh yeah. It's so fucking dirty. That made it uncomfortable. For a moment, the pressure in the room seems to fluctuate, seems to waver. Up through your arm.

A single black spear pierces through your form and slowly travels up your arm. It doesn't get absorbed, it just progressively moves. I let it. It comes up your arm. You can feel it. It's painful. Every inch it moves. Like it's cutting through muscle to get to what it's looking for. Oh my god!

It is agony to allow it to explore you. And then it reaches your core. And for a moment, it stabs at something where you would think maybe just beneath your heart. And this strange white glow, for a moment, shines at your core. And then the black barb recoils.

and snaps out of you. Oh no. Weavering weapon. Yeah, it can't. No way. It can't. You think briefly of the moment when the Kinguin died and it having mastery over a similar force upon its death returned it to the land. This creature dies or you do. Those are its terms. I...

My rage redoubles, and I do everything I can to pummel the animated con. 24. 12. To hit? Yeah. 12 misses. Yeah. Wow. 19, 24, 26 points of bludgeoning damage. I give it a quick spanking. 26. Jeez, he has hit hard. Don't spank. He's gonna spank, Colin.

You have to be like an emotional baby. You with this black jagged barb ripping its way back out of you. It has a similar tearing sensation as it moves through your form. You don't have muscle to speak of, but it doesn't rip at that. It rips at everything that you are. Yeah.

As it recedes back into the pool, you lash out in fury. Two massive blows crushing, extending over the river's edge, firing out these rocket fists at the corpse of Leo Khan as you smash two brutal blows into his body. He is stunned.

He's not stunned. It's not him. He's not there. Should my attacks not have been at advantage then? Okay, alright. He... Well, from a certain point of view. Yeah, I know what he's talking about. Instead of throwing punches, he strikes out at every one of you. And he does this...

by the tentacle that's strapped in his back, flinging him around the room, and as he moves, his limbs flail wildly, as his brutal, physical...

Not like a Muppet. Not like a Muppet. It's too American World. Not like too American World, but we see it there. It's really cool in pieces. It's really dark. It's really badass. It could be horrible. He also needs to take acid damage. Oh, yes. And we all get attacked at the opportunity, right? How much... He's going to take... That's how that works. He's being forced to move against his own volition. Technically, if he's attacking anyone other than me, I can use my reaction to it.

9, 13. It's not really an attack per se. 21 points of action. 21 points of damage. This is my dime! That's in the glossary of the DMG. Well, I've never read the DMG.

Me either. I'm the only one that's probably read it. I've read it. I have definitely not read the DMG. I've read the player's guide, but not the DMG. He zips around the room, the tentacle whipping him around. It's not so much as punches that come next as it is the form of his body crashing into you. And I'll roll an attack against every single one of you from my left to right. We'll start with Rhett. Your eye may see me, but you need to talk to me about anything you

We're sorry about the pizza. We're sorry. Please don't mention the pizza again. The pizza is awesome. The dude was like, I'm going to teach you about pizza jokes. What did I say? I said some very simple things in the beginning. Buckle up.

Uh, it misses Rhett. You need to whack me to play the whole arm-pulling tune, man. How much Rhett? It misses Rhett for sure as a 12. Uh, Chuckles, 17. Oh, that'll do it! LaBouche, 12. Nope. Pike, 18. Disadvantage. I dodge. Disadvantage? Uh, Hank was gonna go, "Rawr!" but... Oh, nice. Okay. I'm gonna GAC.

And Rex 19 which will hit Who did I hit? Just Chuckles? Oh, it's gonna be fine. Oh, I'm way back! Hey Rex, they're not gonna- We're all the way back here, but you can't get in! Oh no! Rex is gonna have go-cuckoo bananios. He's gonna lose his mind as he's getting beaten by the bloody corpse of his old mentor. Oh god. This is a nightmare.

Uh, Chuckles... Chuckles and Rex, uh, take 20 points of damage. Oh my gosh!

as Kahn is flown wildly about crashing into each of you. And should you choose to do so, you may use reactions to take attacks of opportunity at disadvantage. Oh, hell yeah! You're crazy if you think I'm not gonna do that. May I take a regular attack? My reactions will do anything. Because I have both reckless and sentinel.

What will Sentinel do? Sentinel means if you attack anyone other than me, I can use my reaction to attack. Oh, sure, okay. 23. At a disadvantage, I get a dirty 20. You hit. Where are we in the initiative? Boss? Boss. Yeah. Hank will... 16 points of bludgeoning. Hank will make an attack. 11 points of damage. 27. Hank hits. Make a strength save.

12 on the last strength save. 12? Yep. Derek, I stole your dice and spiked max damage. 16 points of lightning damage. This is some good-ass shit, man. So he takes 8 piercing damage. If he could be grappled, he would, but I have a feeling like this isn't really a grapple. Do you attempt to grapple him? Hank does, yeah. So Hank bites out of it. Hank does successfully grapple him.

Drop like figurative father? Pulled along as Khan is flown through the air because he cannot stop, he can stop the movement of Khan, but Khan is not moving of his own volition. They take extra damage. Okay, yeah, yeah. That's incredible. What's Hank's damage die? Just a D6.

That's a very good growl. Thank you. That's exactly what he's doing right now. You need to use that growl more often, holy shit. Five points of additional damage, Shuckles. I'm going to die! See, they're the idiots, they're in front, they're gonna expect it. I'm going to die!

And it's actually just the two of you that hit it. Well, Chuckles, I think we gotta-- OH! Is that a dog?! Oh my god! Is that-- Is that my dead mentor on a dog?! So where does he end up again? Right there?

We'll put him right next to Pike as the final person he struck. And actually, yeah, mechanically you were the first, so Hank would've, uh, that would've been all legit. That would've been all legit. That's all legit. Kinda to an extent. Above board. It's very funny. Um... Chuckles. Oh gosh. He's... I don't care how he's looking. I gotta... I will say, uh, I'm looking. He's the other guy.

You have like black gaps in your nose. My nose? Yeah. My nose on the side of my head. So your teeth are like shingles that are all over your heart. There's kind of little hanks running around your head in a circle. For your third eye, there's a cuckoo that comes out. Oh, God, right in the bad CGI eye. Hey, you, Mr. Lion King.

Looks like you could use a little NYEAH! As I eat a pie in them. It gets catapulted. My last third level spell slot. Oh, little Dunya. Wildman, drink that shit. I hope you get it. I hope you spike it. Holy shit. Back to a d12. How long does the eye last? DC is 16. And do your, what you call a stack. 16 is the save.

16 is the save? Oh yeah. Yeah. And how long is the eye lasting? A minute or so? One minute. Okay. DC's the 16 for the dex. Oh, that was close. How much damage does the pot do? Uh, oh, it does, um... For a save. Uh, 5d8. Do you roll that, or do I roll that? Oh, he got hit? Oh, he gets hit. Yeah, absolutely.

I'm gonna do it. 5 TA's insane. 5 TA. That's not really good. Are you casting? Catapult. Catapult. Thank you. Catapult's great. I'm gonna use your... Clayton, hit it. 4. Oh no. 7. 14. 20. That's 5. That's 5. 20. I'm going to use my Metamagic. Which means I'll trigger Wild Magic.

I'm gonna reroll those two ones. And the two. So it'd be 18, which then turns into... One goes to a six, so we get five more. 25. The other one turns into a two, or five, so that's four more, so 29. And then I'm, the other two. To a five, so 29, 30, 31, 32. Nice. 32 points of damage as wild magic triggers.

So it just happens? No, I had already rolled. I was going to basically use Metamagic to redo the damage. But I didn't want to say, "Oh, I rolled a 2, so I'm not gonna do it." I'm maintaining game state. I see. Because no matter what I was going to do, I was going to reroll the damage to max it out. Oh, when you Metamagic, it increases the odds? Yeah, it's 1 or 2. It triggers. Really good. So I don't say, "Oh, well, actually..." Let me reroll it now. Yeah, I was going to... That was fair.

I will tell you what I got from that. You just got hit in the face with the corpse of a zombie lion man attached to a robot bug, attached to a horrific... I'M GOING CUCU BANANA THREX! Ooh, is that a 20? What was it? A 44? It's probably not that bad. Not a bad CGI. I can teleport as a bonus action!

"Oh, hey Rex, can you believe that-" And I'm facing the wall. We're, uh... One, two, three, four. And I'm facing the wall as I just blink out of existence and appear right here. Chuckles, keep it together, everything's on the line down here! Where- where'd he go? Whoa! I'm only- I'm only twenty feet away! Are you- are you okay? Did you always have three eyes? I was talking to that wall over there.

Was your nose always on the right side of your face? My mouth is like over here. You produce this pie, and you notice that it has a faint cherry scent. And as you fling it at Khan, it deals the damage you stated. As it lands, it explodes.

Everyone within a 10 foot radius of Khan needs to make a dexterity saving throw. DC 16. I got a twist.

Is Hank just like a little pug and eats fire? He eats double damage. He's got a roll. 22. 19 for rat. On a fail, you'll take 12 points of fire damage as the pie explodes. On a pass, you'll take 6 points of damage. Fire damage. Everything reminds me of her. I get it. What's the DC? 16. 10 and 12.

I'm gonna do one special. Thank god it was 44 instead of 42. 41 or 42. Everyone passes. So we take 5 damage instead? Yeah. 6. 6. Okay, so I take... I take 9. And Hank takes 3. Oh, you're... yeah, yeah. As you throw the flaming pie at the figure of Leo Kahn, it explodes upon reaching him. The flames burst out and lick at even your allies.

As the smoke clears, he hangs at the end of this tendril, limply, as his form falls to the ground. First to his knees, then face down. For a moment, Quiet... Do we do it? ...returns to the land. For a moment... Ah, that's the same song. For a moment, Quiet returns to the land. Is it over? I don't think it's over.

I'm just gonna lean down on one knee and like put my hand to his neck to see if I can feel any kind of a heartbeat or anything Rex will run up just directly across from you at the river's edge. Not in the water. So yeah directly across in the river's edge Pike. Yeah? Roll a medicine check. Oh, it's Wiz! Yeah?

21. Wow. 21. With a 21, you have your hand on his neck to feel for his pulse, and you feel the strong beat of a heart. You investigate. You move your hand around. You put compressions over his chest. You look for his mouth. You try and see, is he breathing? Can I sense something? You check his eyelids. Black. Black.

You put your hand over his mouth, no breath. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Beating in the neck. As you move your hand to his chest, the heart unmoving. Something else keeps his form alive. He's gone, Rex. He has a pulse, but his heart isn't beating. Something is keeping him alive. This thing is trying to keep him alive.

Can you get him off the spear? I would stand up shakily and kind of lose my balance for a second and like get behind him and from his back see if I can grab the tentacle and see if I can pull it out. So you're saying he's alive? He doesn't have a heartbeat and he's not breathing. But if he's got a pulse when we can restart his heart.

There might be a fucking chance! I'm gonna run up, and while they're pulling him, I'm gonna take out a big, like, med-pack thing, and I'm gonna jam it in the side of its neck and cast Spare the Dying. If there's any chance at all to save this guy, I'm gonna just...

stab it, and then plunge in that purple, kind of, alchemized ether, will inject into his veins, almost like an adrenaline, just to kind of keep him going, if there's anything left in him. You do so. You pump a large syringe into the neck of Leocon. You plunge its energies into his form.

The ether-sparing healing energies course into his body. And for a moment, the black ink starts to fade out of his pupils. And once again, yellow eyes. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. God! Hey, hey, can you hear me? Fuck.

Easy, easy. What is it? Is that you? Yeah, I'm here. I'm here, Con. It won't stop. Connie's a tough son of a bitch. It's... It's trying to consume everything.

It's just, hold on, hold on! And I'm gonna walk this down a little bit and try to shoot, um, like, the part of the tentacle far enough away where it's not gonna hurt him. Just blast, like, directly into it if I can to see if it'll, like, explode it or let go or whatever else. Roll an attack roll. 24.

You fire off at this tentacle your graviton ether cannon Warring the life is you hear that classic? war of power As the orb flies out and lands in the tentacle and in the weakened condition Uses its gravitational force to separate it

And you'd be right there, right? To grab, to catch him? Oh yeah, the moment I see it, whether the rest of the tentacle falls apart or whether it dissipates or disintegrates,

I'm there with him. I'd be like, Rex, help me move him! Help me move him farther from the pool! Rex leaps over the water. Go! As soon as I see the separation, I'm going to, like a wave, hop and jump and sploosh over and create as wide a shield with my body as possible.

You do so. And as the aether cannon unleashes its devastating gravitational blast, the edge of the spear, now cut in half, sucks down back into the pool and ripples start to form. One down the river, two down the river, three down the river,

down the river. Four down the river. As you and Rex slump Khan over either- both- both two arms over either side of your shoulders as you move slowly to move him away. And I would say you could make it maybe ten more feet from where you are currently. *coughs*

He's a big, heavy dude. He's a big, heavy dude. Spear still piercing through his chest, but the ether energies that course through him doing everything they can to stave off an ancient power. While Rex and I are carrying him slowly and just trying to get him as far away from the pool as possible, I'm going to say...

Hang in there, Khan. You have to hang in there. I'm... I'm sorry. I never should have left. We're gonna get you out of here, Khan. We're gonna get you out of here. We'll get you back. You can watch the races again. I'm going to, uh, walk up to the edge of the water next to La Bouche, and I'll say, "We may only have a couple minutes. Are you with me?" It wants what is inside me. I can't let it go. It won't come out! And that's why we're gonna fuckin' kill it.

And I'm gonna just double charge and hopefully like fish in a barrel, I'm gonna shoot into the pool knowing that Pike said he saw something. And whatever's in there, I'm gonna try to shoot it and fucking kill it. And the ripples move away as something ascends out of the water.

and readying your actions, you may take immediate attacks as it makes its form clear.

but a giant toothed maw breaks out of the entire diameter of the pool as it opens and you just unfurl blasts, punch of goo blasts of ether as it slowly arises out of the black ichor and takes form in the space. One single tendril,

comes off of its head and dangles limply in the air above you, severed in half. And if you would, place that. No. As soon as I see this creature, I strike. I harden. I...

- Yeah, I would shoot twice. - Then you will lose. - Natural 20. - Oh! - I would have run up to them after seeing, not wanting to get involved with Rex and Pike, I would have run up to the rest of my friends to help however I can. Oh no. - Can you mirror those on the other side? - I might have hit the camera with my big old hand. - No, you're good. - Oh no. Oh no, this is devastating.

Alright, that's gonna be... 52 points of bludgeoning damage as I literally... I'm not jumping, I'm no longer in humanoid form. I would do essentially what it has been doing to us. As soon as I see this target, I turn into a spike and just attack forward, attempting to almost pierce it. And that was 52.

I don't know if it's just one of the attacks. I think one hit-- one was a 17 and one was-- defeated the mess. Damn. What was it? One's a 16 and one was a... 13. 13 movements. You both fire blasts, rocketing your own spear in response to everything you've seen this do now. You rocket your own spear forward.

and the ether cannon whirling, firing blasts of energy. One crashes and lands directly in its mouth. The other seems to almost like strike a tooth and blow just right at the front, stopping just shy. I have been able to make an attack as well.

Did you ready an attack? Nah, you weren't there. You weren't there. You weren't there. You didn't know. No, I mean, I didn't realize you were still utilizing the battle map. Basically, I would have run up to Laboosh and Rhett and let Pike and Rex drag off what's-his-name. I trust you.

Yeah. I trust you. 'Cause I rolled a natural 20. If you would've--okay, I don't know. I saw it rolling. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I thought you. I

Get back! As I will zap him. Natural 20. I missed my chance, DM. I missed my chance a lot. There's a submerged maw rising from the depths like from the hit film Dune II. 21 points of lightning damage. 21 points of lightning damage. You guys suck. So 21 points. Brett, how much did you do?

Oh, I did a... What did I do? It was a six and a seven. 19 points of damage. This hideous toothed maw rises out of the back of this pool as it completely assumes the full entryway of this small cave, clearly the source of all of this corruption. It is...

Stares out and breathes in deep. Boys, you gotta put me down. You gotta finish it. It fears your friend. It wants control. If it can take him, it thinks it can take the Empire. But there's something else. Something else fostered it here. Helped it grow. I couldn't see, but...

There was... a man. *cough* Yep. Yep. Drop me. Finish it. Let your friend cleanse this place. And get the hell out of here. Khan! Pike. Fine. He'll lower him down on his side. We'll do everything we can to keep him off ya. Uh, and seeing also as it's come out of this pool at the back, uh, erupting around the room now giant black tentacles. Um...

giant black tentacles, not spears, but tentacles that almost seem to create these eldritch archways over the ceiling as they rise up and up and hang above you in the air. Rex turns around, seeing this hideous toothed maw at the back,

I'll kill you for what you've done! And he fires out three shots from his gun. The bullets ring loud as they fly back. Laser energy blasts engulf them as they fly out, crashing into the maw of this creature.

It seems to land a solid blow. I think we can do it! And then it exhales. And almost a black liquid washes over the room. Everyone needs to make a con saving throw. Oh no.

This might be the one that does me in, boys. I twist that. Khan? Grant me one twist. Khan? Khan! Would you consider this poison? No. Would you consider this a charmed or a stunned condition?

- You wanna get one of these, go ahead. - Well. - I feel like I should try one twist. - I took two twists. - What's the relevance of it? - I get advantage if I'm avoiding, if it's poison, charmed, or stunned. - What's that? - How are you gonna roll? Obviously you don't have to spoil it, but. - Why don't I roll once and see if I pass? I don't.

Why don't you roll twice to see if you're better? I'm using one twist. I used two. I used two. I would say you would not be at advantage. Okay. And Av and I will twist as well. You know what? Just make it fair. I pass. I twisted. I got a 19 after the twist. 21. Hank rolls a natural 20. Oh, thank God. Hank and I both rolled a natural 20. So I have like 27 or something. That's the full result.

If you fail, you take 38 points of water damage. Oh my god. If you pass, you'll take half. Half? 38? 18? 19? 19. 19. That means I take 38. I have one hit point. I'm mostly water. Wow. Okay. This wasn't worth it.

I can't like choose to not take the damage on Ording Bon, right? Probably not. That's pretty funny. Oh, you're fucked. It's actually against AoE damage is really bad. You're like just adding. So what's half of 38? 19. Thank you. I hit 20 hit points, folks. Oh my god. You had that much? I have one hit point. Yeah, you have one hit point left. Okay.

It's just your mouth now. There's no body. It's just literally a floating like. Um, Pike. After this deluge just hit, Rex and I in the back here, like all the way in the back, I like steel myself against these waves and as it dies down, I sputter and cough and spit it out and I look at him, I say, Rex, you got my back? Keep that cover fire coming and don't hit me. I got your back.

Move up and let's finish this thing. Um, I, uh, start to run. I run as fast as I can, and after I move 5, 10, 15, 20, I, um, like, I leap forward and I blink out of existence as I move another 30 feet forward. Uh, 25, 30. And I have 45, I have 75 total movement with all of the, uh, with all of the movement plus the blink. And I will, uh, land in front of this thing.

And only make two attacks to use my bonus action to do that. So is this the river? Would this be water? You could easily make it right there. Yeah, yeah. That is river. I will blink to the other side of Chuckles, and as I blink back with a brilliant flash of magenta light, land or attempt to make two attacks on this creature. Uh-oh. 15 to hit is my low, so that one might miss. 15 hits. Okay, they both hit then. Big beefy boy.

Eight, nine, ten, eleven, fifteen, twenty-five total points of damage for two attacks. Nice.

You leap forward, exploding in flame as you disappear out of existence for a moment. You reappear in a magenta starlight right next to Chuckles as, in the air still, as you're landing, you lay two extreme blows down on top of this hideous abomination. Labouche. I will...

More fists than man now just continue to pummel into this creature. I'm going for teeth I'm looking for weak spots 19 19 away natural 20 Yeah, that's in set it's 60 plus 14 9 10 18 29

36 plus 12 is 48 plus 14. 62 points of blood damage. As I am speedballing teeth into oblivion, this maw is getting mauled. It's pretty cool. Yeah, I'm not saying anything. I'm not taking the time to make mouth sounds.

spots on my body to yell at you guys. I'm pure muscle at this point. I'm just crunching and blabooshing as much as possible.

Uh, you're doing it. You are focused. You are angry. You are doing everything you can to end this as swiftly as possible so that no more lives are lost. Um, you slam your blows into the maw, finding the weak spots as you go, uh, avoiding the teeth actually as razor sharp bone, uh, hard, uh,

juts out of just impenetrable force, and you fire fists at its tongue, at the roof of its mouth, into the side. The gums. The gums, if you will. Places like that, and you land devastating blows. You hear a crash behind you as all of the tendrils slam into the ground. They create

lines across the room as they form and they move ten feet closer and anyone that's in a line is moved ten feet closer to the Maw, which will push Rex and Khan ten feet closer. I love that. That's fantastic. That's very good. Oh no! The Maw

then begins to swirl. I drop a, I drop Warden Blonde. I can do it any time. I can do it any time. It's gone, it's done. Guys, guys, I know you were joking about another boss from Big Funkin' 64, and I know I said it with Lord Wumpach's eye. I was joking. I didn't think I would feel like Lunky Kong fighting John Anglerfish. What are the chances? Ah! Ah!

This is a nightmare. Holy shit! Oh god! This is like, this is like... Chuckles is on the edge of death. Who are the two directly in front of the wall? Chuckles and Laboosh. Yeah. Make a dexterity saving throw. Yeah, you're just me. The two of you, Chuckles and Laboosh. No, no, no. Oh, you mean these two, yes. Dexterity, you say? Mm-hmm.

23. Okay. I'll let it ride. What do you have? Three. Can you roll an advantage? Danger sense. I'll let it ride. What is it? 19. Oh, wow. That's hard to read. I'll take a 20. I'll let the 19 ride. I thought it was a six. The one looked like a pip. I thought you were being sarcastic. I thought it was a six.

The maw in front of you begins to spin its razor-sharp rows of teeth, almost like a blender, as they just work circularly around the mouth.

You can hear, not mechanical, but this hideous grinding as the bone moves, ready to tear you limb from limb, but both of you able to jump back in the last second, and you move five feet backwards. You also hear,

From the hit movie Dune II. Juggles, this is just like Dune II! As Juggles tries to get away from the mall, I took him into the mall. If this happens in Dune II... I'm coming back here, I'm killing everybody. Yeah, who knew secretly you were just playing the spoilers the whole time? Oh, that's fucked up. That would be so fucked up. You know, they call me the Lisa Frank in Al-Kahim. Oh!

You guys would get that if you'd seen the hit movie, Dude 2. It's actually very funny. It's actually perfectly funny. Okay, Chuckles, it's your turn. You sandbag and son of a bitch. I have one spell slot left. And one hit point left. I had forgotten to expend the spell slot when I helped Rex from, I mean, Rhett from falling. Not Cowboy Andy, Rex. Not that Andy.

Too many Andys, too many cowboys. Too many Reds. His nose is now firmly on the back of his head. The all-seeing eye is circling. Andy from the Toy Story film franchise is standing right here. I have one sorcery point, one first level spell slot, and one hit point. It's time to rock. I wanna rock! Do these look attackable?

The tentacles? The wave tentacles? The pushes? Uh, physically in the room, you could certainly try to attack them. She's my cherry pie! Good thing I walked back here. Okay. I'm gonna get behind you, Pike. You can teleport, remember. As a boner. I mean, it's been more than a minute, right? No. Or was it? No. That was like, what just happened?

I can tell you- In the reality of the world that was all like- This is also all happening extremely quickly. I know we've been doing this for kind of a while, but this is like... Keep in mind when Khan showed up originally before any of this started, he said you had 12 minutes before the Empire evaporated the world. We have 1200 more. We have 1200 rounds of insane. We have 1200 rounds to take care of business. I'm going to take my gun.

I remember when I felt about being the lethal Frank that all got eaten. That was pretty funny. Dang. I'm gonna use my final spell slot to Acid Spray on these two. He's out of range. Just Paralate. Damn. A Dexterity saving throw on six and four.

It's 120 rounds. Uh, they're unmoving. Well, except for moving forward, so they won't pass. Oh. So they will take acid damage on their turn, I guess. They're coated in acid. Okay. And I'm gonna use my bonus action. I'll stumble forward as a big hole will open and I'll drop into it as I will hit one, two, three, oh shit. How can I move 20 feet and I can't, fuck.

Because they're forming beams, right? Yep, they're forming beams. They're all the way across. You don't go straight, go at an angle. I just didn't want to print like 47 of them. This is more than 20 feet, right? Yeah. You have to go shorter and go like this direction to get 20. Oh, that's kind of cool. Okay. It's a cool thought. Because that's like 15 at an angle, right? Because it's 7 1⁄2, 7 1⁄2. You can probably get like there. Okay. I'm going to jump over the river. Jumping over the river. And I'm going to...

Are you teleporting or are you just physically jumping over the river? I'm teleporting. Okay. Don't you have physical movement also? I do, but they're beans. So I can't always walk away. I've already used 20 feet. Anyway, I'm going to say, okay, favorite. Who's up next? Red. Hi, Red. Here's another pug. I mean...

I'm making a Shia LaBeouf. Actually, this is so exciting, I need some popcorn. No, no. I'm going to make a balloon. No. Shia LaBeouf's popcorn bucket. As it'll float around right. What am I supposed to do to that thing? It's the extra butter. That is my turn, and I'm going to just check for wild magic. Okay, perfect. We're good.

That's my turn, sorry. But you're contractually obligated to say I'm probably not gonna hit just before you actually drop the wild magic die. It's Rhett's turn. Rhett. Hank and I are gonna swap places here. That's my last spell slot. Hank's gonna get up in the business. Can you say there are beams here? The tentacles are like, they're all the way across so they meet each other.

I see. And they're forming over. Do I feel like if I walk through, there would be... It would be very painful. Walk through? Or like, can I not physically get through here? You can't. They're like, these aren't quite like the thin like spears that shot out you kind of like watery. These are like solid tentacles. I see. Like massive, you know, probably like six feet diameter tentacles. Yeah, yeah. They're big boys. Yeah.

And it looks like they're going to push us into the mall if we do nothing to stop them. You do get the sense that that is the ticket. Now what I will say is, you did see Chuggles on the other side blast acid at the two up this way, which also makes it even funnier that he moved to the other side. I see. That totally makes sense. Um... Huh?

Poor Chuckles is holding my brain. Oh boy. If I'm the Pokemon, I'd be... All my skin is just flashing red. Or my nose is flashing red. Like the Operation guy.

And actually all of my wounds is perfectly forming the operation things. You can see my funny bone and my heart and all that. It's all exposed. I just, I mean, I have four hit points. I just don't think it's worth an action to... I don't think it's worth an action. You have an AMC exclusive... That's true. ...popcorn bucket. Which can add to healing, right? Uh... Yes. Um... Yes. Oh, 20 foot Q. Okay. You don't get to enjoy my creation bar feature, but you can add to healing. I have.

This is what I'm gonna do. This might seem crazy, and I might get chuckles. If these are all the way across, right? If I cast Web, this is a 20-foot cube, and I put it here,

Could it, like, restrain all-- basically, if I'm doing it, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four-- Is it a fireball radius? No, no, no. Oh. So basically, Webb here, could it theoretically restrain them to stop them from pressing us forward if they fail? Theoretically. Okay. So, uh... I'll be looking around, I'll say, "Hey, keep going, buddy. We're gonna be okay."

He's gonna make an attack action on the maw, but then I will turn around and you'll hear clunking and whirring of my pack and like a nozzle will come out from the back.

And like a spray foam. It's going to basically spray this like, this very light purple foam all over. And it's sticky. And everyone in the area needs to make a... Strength save. Oh wait, no, hold on. Deck save. You produce a...

canister that says "grundestuff" and start spraying rapidly expanding foam. 21! That's very funny. Strength saves? No, dex. Can they make dex saves? No, they can't make dex saves. So they fail. They're unmoving. They are restrained as long as they remain in the webs or until they break free. A creature restrained by the webs can use its action to make a strength check against my spell, so if it succeeds, it is no longer restrained.

Whoa, careful where you spray that thing. He dodged all the suns. God, that thing was thinking to fill it with scary water, and I put on my snorkel. And my floaties. And then Hank is going to attack. I have a llama core in her tomb. Oh, that's going to hit. And then... Oh, it does...

Four points of damage. It needs to make a strength save if it can. 26. Yeah, it passes. So Hank does four points of piercing damage. And then for my movement, I can't really go anywhere. That's that. Okay. Yeah, that's it. Rex will... Rex will holster the pistol.

and seeing these tentacles slam down just to, you can see him, but to his left side, his duster will float out as he reveals the Peacekeeper and he'll grab the shotgun and you'll hear the racking of a energy shell in the back of the room and then a loud pulsing blast. - Pretty cool. That is cool.

It's really pretty badass. You hear the racking of a shell. Boom! A loud pulsating blast as the tentacle that keeps him from chuckles is cut clean, blasted in half. And that can remove off the board. So two and four? Just the one side.

Oh, nice. Okay. So the other still falls, uh, like, kind of around the edge. Not bad, Rex. Maw inhales, takes a deep breath. Pike, it's your turn. This isn't good. I can attempt to destroy the tentacles so we can all back up, and I think that's what I have to do. These guys got acid on them. Oh.

Oh, if this is their turn, then they would take an acid damage. Oh! If Lair is their turn. Okay, that might change what I do here. How much acid damage does it take? I forgot that they... It's not a little. Oh, it's only 2d4. Come on.

Oh, pretty good. Pretty good. Six points of acid damage. Six points of damage. The acid burns through the tentacles on that side, and those two remove. That's huge. But the back two will have pushed Rex and Khan ten feet closer and moved up. The frontmost one won't have moved, fallen to the web. Oh. So, yeah.

Oh, hey Rex. Sorry I threw an exploding pie at your dad or whoever. Get it together, Chuckles! We're fighting for our lives out here! I look down at all my operation size holes. I'm definitely gonna spend a ki point to Flurry of Blows. I only have two ki points left. I'm going to start by using a ranged attack, uh, uh, uh, firing off a radiant sunbolt from the gauntlet.

I kinda like look back over my shoulder and raise my finger to shoot at number one with a radiant sunbolt. Okay. 19 to hit. 19 hits? Let's go. 12 points of damage to number one. 12 points of damage as the radiant blast fires from your extended finger.

The magenta light courses through the air, strikes the tentacle as it shivers back and recoils into the water. Okay, awesome. The other three are going to Big Mom, Mr. Mom. Big Mr. Mom. Big Mr. Mom. I love that board game. The lowest one is a... 15? It's a 15. No, it's a 14. Fuck. I'll make two attacks. Two hit.

9, 13, 17, 27 points of damage with two punches to this horrific Maul creature.

You turn back and fire your magenta blast at the tentacle behind you. And as you bring your hand back around, you quickly snap a fist forward. Boom, a knee straight into its under jaw. And then your left fist crashes into the side of the mouth as well. It is starting to look rough. Laboosh.

Seeing the danger that all of my friends are in and realizing that that tentacle's gone, I will back up, jump, and lash out with two attacks. That's going to be a 22 to hit. 22 to hit. And that's going to be a higher to hit. And so that's going to be four. Nine, 17, 28, 27.

Uh, plus 14 is 42 points of bludgeoning damage. Jesus. I think it's getting weaker! We can do this! Come on, you guys! Well, we'll see. The maw once again swirls and whirs, its spinning, jagged teeth, as Pike and Hank need to make dexterity saving throws. Dex, you said?

- Oh no. - 15. I was due. - I'm gonna twist for Hank. - I was due. Nice. That's a 20, I think. - 20 will pass, 15 will fail. - Should we, oh, that's okay.

As you're striking out almost wildly, your fists controlled, but anger drives your blows. As the maw starts to spin and turn, you get caught up in the teeth for a moment as you throw a wild punch and a slash cuts through your forearm. You take 12 points of slashing damage in the maw. Okay.

Hank is able to leap back and would move probably five feet at the diagonal. Was it no damage if you pass and full damage if you fail? Or was it half? It's full. No, it's you avoid it if you pass. You take full damage if you fail. It's just feast or famine. Got it. Chuckles. Hello, Mythica.

I'm going with the knife. I'm just gonna go with the blade. There's some webbing here. Boop! One, two, three. You're at the tentacles. I'm... Oh, I got it. I stumble forward, I fall face first into a splash of, like, of putt-putt water, and then I splash back out again. And I am going to...

step forward I guess there and if the tentacle is going across here I'm going to say Takoyaki and I'm going to grab

Grab it with my cantrip. You're a mess, man. I'm going to make an attack roll. That's going to hit. That's going to be an 18. Or 20. 20 hits for sure. And then 2d8 lightning damage. Oh, nice. 10 points of lightning damage on number three.

Ten points of lightning damage on number three. As you reach out and you say Takayaki, and you hit it with a lightning blast from your hand, your Honk If You're Happy Joy Buzzer in your palm courses this energy through it. It shrivels once again, scrolls back into the water.

Uh, and, uh, drowns, but, uh, sleeps. Hey, you guys are good. You guys are good. Don't worry anymore. Chuckles is here to save the day. I can't believe I'm saying this, but thanks, Chuckles. I can't believe I'm saying this. You know what? I wouldn't want to see your finger get flayed. Wow. Thanks. You're welcome, my man. Rhett? I'm gonna look at Pike, and I'll say, We gotta go. Let's fucking run.

I mean, is it taking damage? Does it feel like we're taking damage? Seems like it's rough. Is this thing like dying? Oh, it's looking pretty rough. Yeah. Okay. That being said, I'm going to turn to Hank and I'll say, here's how much more we can do, buddy. Let's get out of here. One, two, three. I'm going to step over Liu Kang's body. Yeah, that's fine. Oh, hey, little doggy.

Oh, hi doggy. You're my favorite customer. Hank is like over here. I'm gonna turn and I'm gonna say, I'm gonna give you cover and fire, but we don't have much time. And I'll shoot two attacks and I'm gonna make them both ethercharged or whatever we're calling it. Oh, yeah. It's probably pretty good. Yeah, baby. It's probably pretty good. What has happened?

That is a 17, 18, 19, 20 to hit, I think. And a... Or no, 22 to hit and an 18 to hit. Stacy's 15. Okay, let's both hit. One plus 21. 30, 33, 43, 53 points of damage. Damn, son.

Shit. You stumble backwards. You get back to, and then casually step over Leo Khan's body. You turn around, fall to a knee, and the ether engine...

fires out two blasts. They shoot out, they join each other in a gravitational dance as both orbs fire forward. The maw takes a large, deep, long inhale and then the black seawater begins to bubble at the back of its throat.

As it exhales out, and the moment it touches its lips, your ether engine blasts strike the water and explode it in the mouth. Oh, shit. How much damage was it? Fifty... Damn! What is that? Bar inspiration damage? I didn't, but I want to save it. Okay.

i want to save it because i don't think that'll make the difference what did i say 50 54 58 58 i think it was 58 54 58 50 56 it wasn't it was an it was in the 50s 53. 53 53 53 53 53 53 damage sorry chat i ain't no cheetah i'm cheetah but that one token for this show looks like one

Is that your turn? That's my turn? Actually, I did not use my bonus action. Let me just see real quick. Oh god, bonus action. I'm going to have my bonus action. I'm going to command Hank to dash just to get further. Get outta here. Not too far ahead, but I want him to go on ahead so that he's safe.

Okay. As you reach the other end of the tunnel, there stands Mad Dog. You hear something coming from behind you. The paw prints fall slightly lighter on approach. He's out of a bitch.

Once again, Rex will roll out to the side, letting go of the Peacekeeper and grab the outlaw and will fire off six shots from the revolver.

The bullets will fly out, firing into the maw. As he takes his stance just to the side of Khan. On one knee, holding the revolver, smoke coming from the end of its barrel. He's dead. Oh, he's gone. Pike and Labouche.

Make a dexterity saving throw. I have to pass this one. I'm good, thanks. I gotta pass this one. You have to. Eight teenies. Come on. That's cocked. It's cocked. It is. It's literally being rushed. 100% cocked. It's cocked. Wow, that was cocked. That was cocked. That's the truest definition of it. Oh! I got a 28. The tentacles having receded into the water on multiple sides of the room.

Two erupt on either side of the maw. They slash out, dashing towards Pike and Labouche on either side. They attempt to grapple you, but you both pass, so instead you will just take, well, not you. Labouche, you'll take eight points of bludgeoning damage as the tentacle strikes at you. Neither of you are grappled.

Pike. I unleash on this thing with the white, the magenta hot fury of a thousand magenta colored zones. As I cast, I use my, I only have one key point left after this. One of my two remaining key points to use flurry of blows to make four attacks against this thing. Oh, wow. One's going to miss. You said 15 hits though? 15 is the AC. All right. So two hit, three attacks hit. Come on.

Can't pick up all the pyramids. 8, 10, 12, 15, 17, plus 15 is 32 points of magical bludgeoning damage. How do you want to do this? I am like, I'm still bleeding from when it pierced my hand. Its tooth absolutely sliced through my forearm. I'm bleeding all over the place. My arm all battered and bruised from when Leo was smacking me around. I would basically deliver...

two radiant blasts and then sensing that it's weak, take a step forward, pointing my, uh, the gauntlet at hand, like, straight down its throat and seeing that if I can, uh, finish it off by firing a blast deep into its gullet.

You have a cut just over your eyebrow, and as you know, head wounds bleed. Your vision almost obscured as the blood trail flows over your eye. You land two decisive blows, the first punch missing, but it's clear that the creature is reeling from your fists as they fall about it like crashing thunder. As it stays dazed for a moment,

You extend your hand directly down its maw. The energy swirls at the tip of your finger as a magenta orb forms. Bang. As you send your radiant blast down its throat straight back to hell.

Ripples go crazy in the water. Everything shrieks and trembles as the black ichor fluid moves all throughout the river. It's pulsing, vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom, as this creature drips in droplets, as it expunges a big wave

sweeps throughout the room as it washes everyone kind of away and towards the back. You'll be moved by the water if you're hit. No, like, not all the way. Ten feet or so as you're pushed back by a strong wave of hideous eldritch ichor. And quiet returns to the room.

We gotta go. Labouche is done. I look in word. Do I feel that it is done? You don't yet. If it is, it is not done within me. I jump the river with a little bit of still grace that I have and I hobble over to the other side of Leo next to Rex and I say, come on, help me get him up. And I'm like holding my ribs while I'm trying to help him up.

You're holding your ribs as you're raising Leo's arm around you. Rex takes the other side. For purposes, I'll ask you to swap sides. Sure. Oh, should I get the camera? I can't wait to imagine what's gonna happen to me standing next to this horrific river. You hoist Leo Kahn, both arms on either sides of your shoulders. Well, hell, I...

There's a moment there, even I didn't think we'd pull it off. We gotta get out of here though. Khan said, what, 12 minutes? How long ago do you think that was? Maybe like two hours ago. Sure feels that way! We gotta fucking try, let's go! Focus Rex! Let's go! We're not out of this yet. Let me get some of that popcorn above your head, Rhett. I start buttering. I try to get everybody moving.

Go, go, go, go! And I'll do this. I'm hobbling pretty bad myself, even though I'm like Elf and Rex, I also am not moving very quickly. Hank's gonna jump up and get caught by two of the arms, and I'll just try to lead everybody out. I'm going to look back at the maw body briefly to see if I have a pull or a tug there just before I start to run back towards my suit, which is presumably farther up the cave. You all start to mobilize.

As you get ready to make your way out of here as quick as you can, the black form of this creature recedes back into the pool. And as it dips down and in, it changes the water level. And as the water level changes, something rises out from behind it. A jet black form of jagged, broken coral.

What in the hell? That was what I saw before, when I was given that vision of figures surrounded by that theme. You know immediately, to cleanse this is to heal Aurora. If we can cleanse this, we can heal Aurora. What the fuck are you waiting for? Go touch it! Go! I race for Aurora. Oh, gosh.

I will... I'm still walking back. I'm still trying to get to the exit, even though Laboosh is doing his thing. Rex, Leo, and I are moving slow. Yeah. So we're still just hobbling farther away. As Laboosh moves to the coral at the back of the room...

You make your way there. Oh, he's dead. You all, as you're churning to get out, to leave as quickly as you can, you can't help but turn to look at what happens next. As you reach out, Labouche, and you touch the coral, you gain a familiar sensation. As you reach out to it, it fragments in your hand and absorbs through your body.

It moves within you and as you remove it from the space, the water that's running out of the room begins to slowly turn from black to murky, slowly clearer as you cleanse this space. I'm all in. Immediately as I feel anything break and I get a sense that that is what I am here to do,

I throw my whole self onto it. I'm not using an arm or an appendage. I bubble around it and attempt to crunch it inside of my digestion. You do so, but it doesn't consume in the same way that everything else has. It swirls within your form for a moment. It moves to the outside. It takes place on all sides of your body. And then...

Rex drops Khan for a moment and steps back. Without saying a word, he levels the revolver at your head. You gain a new ability, but don't read it aloud. Who's the people on the revolver at? You. I basically fall to my knees under the weight of Khan and how damaged I am, and I just look up at him. What are you doing? Before you can even speak,

the shots ring out. The last thing you see is the look on his face and the horror on Rhett's. As you're surrounded by a field of flowers, you look up at a hill floating on an island, stretching as if towards the heavens themselves, you see an ancient lighthouse. Like it's always been there. From its doors, cloaked figures.

orange, red, magenta burst out. You fall to your knees. They run towards you, and the whole scene goes up in flame. You look down at a dark jet black claw that's extending through your torso. You turn for a moment, and you see the hideous form of your friend Le Blouche turn to jet black.

And you may read your new ability. With my Dark Embrace, when a creature within 60 feet of me drops below 50 health, I instantly appear next to them, killing them instantly. You heal, I do, 2d4, and my next melee attack rolls an additional die. I can attempt a wisdom saving throw to stop myself from doing this. I would like to try not to do that, but it sounds like I failed the first time. Not this time.

The shots ring out over your shoulder attempting to stop Labouche as he was crashing towards you. No! Pike! You fall forward to the ground, dead. I immediately open fire on Labouche. Roll to attack. I'm twisting them. I'm twisting them. Is Labouche right here? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What's your AC? 19. Yeah, 18. They both hit.

20, 30, 40, 50, 52 points of force damage. I'm screaming as I fucking unload. That would have been well over even after healing what I have left. So I go unconscious. Not yet.

You are not just... I'm gonna do like T1000. You are not just jet black. You are encased in an armor of dark coral. And as the aether blasts land into your chest, the coral shatters and you're once again back in your green form.

and you are looking upon the sight of what's happened. Rex Revolver leveled at you. The Aether Cannon smoking, having just fired. What has happened? What did you do? You just killed Pike! Pike! No! I'm gonna run up to him and stab him with adrenaline or whatever, presumably doing nothing. No, no, no. I'm gonna pick him up in my arms. Pike! I'm gonna fucking go hot now.

I'm going to turn and start booking it with Hank, and I leave everyone else behind if they follow. Rex takes off a black strapped gauntlet, and he tosses it at you. You hear, as the area was cleared, you hear the roar, the second this starts to go down, you hear the roar of a smaller engine. Get him out of here!

You gotta have med bays on the Rhapsody. You could save him. And the speeder bursts into view down the hallway. Control it with the gauntlet. Get him back as quick as you can. I will, uh, grab it and I will, uh... Shhh.

Thank you. I'll put it on and I will, do I get a sense that I know how to control it? It, the, once it, not innately, but once it connects to your body and it syncs with your mechanics that you wear normally, you gain the functions of the wristband and the speeder responds to you instantly. You can hop astride it and toss Pike over the back.

I will, it'll speed towards me, and yeah, immediately I'll hop on, and I will toss Mike over the back, I will let you to very gently have him in front of me. Hank is within the mechanical arms, and I'll turn back and I'll say, "Good luck."

And it's just going... Oh! It's gonna be okay, everybody. The engines explode as you head off down the bend and you fly out down the edge. What's everybody else doing? Not you, obviously, but... Holy shit! Chuckles! You and the rest have to get out of here! Yeah. Um, okay, Rex. Let's get your dad out of here. Uh...

Sorry for throwing you in his floating pipe, Mr. Lion Man. I can take him myself. You're not going to make it if you help me bring him. You should run as fast as you can. You sure about that?

I have my way. I still have all my floaty stuff. I just... You're like Big Flippers. I am Big Flippers. Come on, Laboosh. We gotta get out of here. We gotta save Pike. You go. You go. I gotta save Pike. And I fall off.

off the cliff down my ladder as I'm just trying to run as quickly as I can. You are all charging out of here. The speeder well on its way. You don't worry about anything. You, as you blast out of the door of Coral, they didn't close behind you as the boss fight had started. You erupt through, well, actually it broke it. You get through the Coral. The speeder explodes out of the room down the

down the waterfall over what's now a clear pond. As you are racing out, you burst back into the open, the iced down area, the bottom elevator section, and you kick the speeder forward. It's base pointed directly at the ground. It fires straight up in the air. As you climb without hesitation, you crest over the bridge

and you make your way out of the temple. You two run as fast as you can, bounding, moving. Who has the most passive perception? - Mine's now officially zero. - Mine's now officially zero. - Oh, hold on, hold on, hold on. - Passive perception? - Usually it's 15 for me. - 11.

Labouche, as the two of you turn the corner, you catch the unmistakable but somber smell of cigarette smoke. As you burst out of the hallway and you charge forward, you drop off the... You're not leaving?

Why would I leave? I've just done this horrible act. I feel like I'm the danger. Unless there's a reason why LeBouche would think that he needs to run...

I'm trying to get them away from me. I would want them to run. I would want Chuckles and Rex and everyone to disappear in this moment because I have no way of controlling myself. All of a sudden, I had this loss of agency where I did this horrible thing to Pike. Suddenly, I'm just like, I don't know what to do in this moment. When you...

changed shape when you consumed a pure form of dark coral from the ancient days, from the first day, and you changed shape. You, in that moment, couldn't control what was happening. There was a different driver behind the wheel. As you executed your act and your friend, and he fell,

the powers of the weaver wrestled with the ancient magics of a long, thought-lost race. And the web was able to consume and shift that portion down. And you don't believe that it has always sealed the way, but you believe that you have control momentarily.

I'm going to let them get a good distance from me, knowing that I could suddenly appear. If any one of them should suddenly trigger this new form and power that I have, I don't want to hurt anyone else. Seeing how hurt Chuckles is, seeing that Khan and the Wrecks are trying to make their way, I would give them some distance before I would start to make my own way out to protect my own safety. Okay. Um...

Rex and Khan have made their way out of this room, down the bank of the waterfall, and if you move anywhere near, like, in their wake, you would get the sense that if they go one side around the room, you could go the other and give them wide berth. Thank you. So there's no threat of any kind of harm befalling them.

But still, as you charge out of here and you let Chuckles go far ahead, across the river, then you'd even see a small light of a cigarette light up, potentially, one final time. And the smell of smoke carries across the reservoir as you bound forward. Does it look like Rex to me? Does it look like... Rex has gone the other way. Okay. Mm-hmm.

The speeder crashes out of the temple. You see once again the sky unfurling in front of you. One enormous destroyer class kingmaker ship and empire, the empiric ship of the prime knight has come.

In the distance, you see what looks like a giant 12-sided forming energy circlet.

Not around the planet, but off in the distance. Almost like an immense dream catcher being woven out in the background. You are speeding. There are Empire troops on the ground battling these creatures, fighting back. But as the events have happened, you'll see the creatures actually burst and destroy everything.

disintegrate into the area. Chuckles, you would, long after this, break out of the temple. You hit solid ground. You start to make your way back. Laboosh, right behind, a fair distance behind him. Oh, what? If Chuckles trips, he dies. I'm 61 feet away from Chuckles.

My feet are just spinning now. You make your way out. Rhett, you get back almost all the way to the Rhapsody. Empire troops are right around it, flanking the ship as you get there.

You pull up maybe in a frenzy and one front-facing troop big not big blue armored but in kind of like a white armored mech suit with blue accents down the arm like a blue stripe down each arm and one golden line down the center of the chest Who goes there?

I don't have time for this! Get the fuck out of the way! Someone's dying! Stop there, immediately. You come from a infested planet. Oh, fuck. Uh, do I know of any guns on the ship that I could activate remotely to blow these guys away to smithereens? Uh... You... Um... How many are there? Can I take them?

There are... I have 40 points. There are ten heavily armored Empire troops around. And even then, maybe you start hitting it and the Rhapsody floats and starts to turn around. Halt! We don't mean harm. Show us your man. We're not corrupted! And he might be dead, but if there's anything you can do, please, I fucking beg you,

And I'll lift him off the bike. Seeing that, I have no way to get in my own fucking ship. They'll run up. Fuckin' way these guys run. And they get right up to you. Oh my god. What happened? What happened here? It's a long fucking story. Can you help him? We can save him. We have to get him immediately to Demirel's ship. Alright. How the fuck do we do that?

We can fly him up there. You can follow us in yours. All right. Stabilize him, quick! And you'll see the other troops run up and move to take Pike. They get out kind of the form of a beam stretcher as these beams of light cascade over him and seem to prolong his status.

Is it just you two? We got a few more coming if they fucking made it. Before you go, hold on. And I'm gonna reach into his jacket and get his pack of cigarettes. I'm gonna take one out and just put one in his mouth. And, uh, one of the, there's gonna be like a little lighter that comes down and lights the cigarette. Come on, buddy. You can stick it through. Just one more. Come on, buddy. You can do this. As the, as you do that, you put the cigarette in his mouth and you light the end of it.

You would notice the faintest draw. The faintest draw at the edge. So that's not remotely good for him in this condition. Trust me, I promise you it is. Please just take him. Fine, I'll take it. The stretcher puts it out of me. You need to move.

And they clear the way so that you can get on the Rhapsody.

Without a word, I'll just go into the Rhapsody and I'll get ready and hopefully be ready to go the second Laboosh, if he's fine, based on the last time I saw him, and Chuckles and Rex and Leo too, I guess. I would go. I'm like, "Ah!"

If I see Imperial soldiers and knowing I'm like, suffer not the Xenos, suffer not the Discorda, I'll walk in like, oh gosh, I'll chuckle the Gigavap, and I'll just walk towards, I'll see all the Imperial soldiers and I'll just be like, okay, the Gigavap, I'm no longer for you in.

You win. Shut the fuck up. I'm coming to get you. I know my rights. I'm coming to get you. By that I mean I know I don't have any. As you walk up, Ruth's outstretched, readying to be arrested and summarily executed as per empiric right as it pertains to Motlians. You walk up, but all of the empiric soldiers are beginning to

lift off of the planet as you see what looks like a 12-pointed star in the distance that begins to glow.

At its center, at each one of its pinnacles, off in the distance, you see a different glowing light. And you see the forms of what you know to be these giant mechs. In its dead center, on the other side of this pointed star, stands one slightly larger mech.

that seems to ready a pool of energy at its core. Oh, this is how I die. Could I give the Emperor... If I could take the Rhapsody, since I was so much faster on the speeder, basically take it directly to where they would be leaving the temple doors, try to get them on the ship as quickly as possible.

You do that. You can find the signatures of Chuckles and Labouche. Labouche, as you exit the temple, attempting to stay well behind Chuckles and ahead of Rex, as you walk out, you see that same similar sight. Empiric destroyers blotting out the sun, blotting out the starlight. You make it a couple bounds ahead.

And then Rex and Khan make it out of the temple just behind you. Rex looks up. The cigarette falls from his mouth as he sees the Empire. He calls out after you. Babush! Babush! What? Come here! You should stay far away from me. Damn it, man! Come here! Just don't prick your finger or anything. Ha ha ha!

No, I don't say that. Hesitantly, I will approach slowly, like trying to tense a muscle, like hold my breath, trying everything that I can without my suit on, without my mech suit or the ether core or any of these things, just green and a nervous system and eyeballs and organs. Listen, Babush, you don't know what this means yet.

But whatever happens next, you can't let the Empire take Pike. Take this. And he puts a stack of papers in your hands. The real treasure I stole from the boss. Information. Everything. Everything he had done was because of them. He was some kind of go-between to insulate them from works. Everything is in those papers.

You can't let the Empire get them. Make sure he doesn't get on a ship. I will do what I can. Go. As fast as you can. I am quite fast! And I will, like... I'm not running. I'm literally, like...

leapfrogging at this point, just landing, splooshing, and then jumping forward in huge arcing waves to try and as quickly as I can catch up to where I think Pike and anyone else might be. I'll plug my comms into the, I'll send a signal to the Imperial shuttle that's taking Pike out. All right, boys, get him on that ship, good job! And it docks on the ship for Demarel. Well, make sure to save your friend.

Follow us back to the Empire. You won't see this. Wait, what did he say? But as Rex looks up at the 12-pointed star in the sky that shines with a brilliant light, he sits down on the ground and takes one long draw from the cigarette, Khan resting next to him. As you bound towards the Rhapsody, everything left in your wake.

You get there just as it's taking off the ground and you're able to leap. You can see Chuckles almost like goofily climbing up the ramp, stumbling forward, and you just leap from the ground as it takes off and you land onto its gangway.

I will rejuice myself and I will look for any Imperial guard, Empiric guard, and find if Chuckles is there, I'll be able to yell out to him, but I'm looking for Pike. You do so. You frantically start to search the cargo bay. All you find is Chuckles as the hangar bay door closes behind you. Where is Pike? I don't know. I got here. laughter

Is he on the ship? Do you say that on the comms? Oh, hey! I don't have comms. Oh, right. Hey, LaBouche, where's your big old suit? Where's Pike? He can't be on the ship! He's not here right now. Fuck! Do I think I can go... I guess I... Do I see Leo and Rex? No. I think I have a hole in me.

I will reach into the hole and I'll pull out your comms unit. Oh, that's where it went. Rex! Anyone! Pike! Can you hear me? What? What is it? No, he's going to be fine. The Empire's going to take care of him. He can't go with the Imperials. He can't. Rex, he gave me more... Why? Why? Why? He gave me... Get the fuck up here!

Am I on the Rhapsody? You're on the Rhapsody. Oh, yeah. I didn't realize I was on the Rhapsody. I thought I was on an Imperial ship. I will splash through the hallways and immediately arrive to you. He's on a space ambulance, basically. Yeah, yeah. And we're following the ambulance. I thought I jumped on the ambulance, so I will, flying past Shuckles, make my way to the... We gotta give the two guys an honor.

I take... Do you give me whatever heatwreck's in there? As soon as I get to you, I go, You have to see this! Isn't this? It's the... I mean, I'm just... Oh, if I can like quickly scan it just to even get a gist of what it might say, so that I have some sort of information to make a tactical decision. You start to skim these notes, and the story unfurls before you.

Everything is signed by a Dr. Edoho. A call to the boss. A partnership. A go-between. There's certain experiments the Empire needs done, but can't be seen doing themselves. You will contract this out. Maze will steal equipment. We will let it happen. You will set up a base. He will conduct experiments. Next page.

Not yet cracked energy cores. We think we're close to replicating aether dwarf technology, but we can't be seen testing it ourselves. The Emperor himself would have us disintegrated, tamper with the ship's engine, defunct it in Mad Dog orbit. The fool will find the wreckage and he won't be able to help himself. That's how we'll test it. Next page. Successful trials

The boy lives. All this begins to unfurl in front of you. Someone in the Empire conducting secret experiments beyond the authorization that they would ever provide. As the realization dawns on you, Demeral's ship kicks into orbit and flies off into space. The twelve-pointed star fired by the thirteen knights of the Empire. The planet of Aurora

disintegrates behind you. No vapor trail leaves it. And that is what we'll call tonight's session. Holy shit! Hey, is the rest okay? Gotta give it up.

Rhett kicks something in frustration, stubbing his toe. I kill him instantly. I meant to write on there, but that can only happen once a day. Oh, really? Oh. I didn't mean to imply that that was always rocking. I was getting close to like, oh, if I can get to the Imperial Guards now and I can just do damage to some of them, as soon as I damage one, they'll all fucking go. Cut to the credits. Yeah. Yeah.

No, that's fine. That's fine.

Thanks for running the session. What a great fucking session. Thanks for playing, everybody. I can't wait to play next month. I think that Chuckles actually has luck bending magic like wild magic sorcerer. That's not a single Imperial card. I'm like walking through and they're like, "Hey, Motley!" And then a giant like, anglerfish like Chuckles is in there. I'm just like walking through a battlefield, like,

Like, gosh, I think I heard the same coming up. Some say the universe is a song, that all things are made from the same stuff as the stars, and that every life is a note in the music of existence that echoes through infinity. So when you feel insignificant and alone, just remember...

We're all irreplaceable parts of that grand cosmic melody, the Stardust Rhapsody. Thank you for listening to the Legends of Avantris podcast. We hope you enjoyed the session. If you want even more campaigns to listen to, become a member of our Patreon at the Pearl Dolphin tier or higher to unlock Shroud Over Saltmarsh.

a patron-exclusive campaign set on the high seas. You can find that at patreon.com/legendsofavantris. If you want to chat about the episode with the Avantris community, join us on Discord at legendsofavantris.com/discord. We also post content nearly every day on YouTube,

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