Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 <inaudible>
Speaker 1 00:00:26 Everybody. And welcome back to compel dual. I'm married and I, and we are a single-player Cody and D and D fifth edition actual play podcast.
Speaker 2 00:00:36 Last night, I
Speaker 1 00:00:37 Compelled to a layer of outside and had a no good, very bad, awful, horrible, bad day. It was not great.
Speaker 2 00:00:42 He trusted some people very much.
Speaker 1 00:00:47 That's not going to happen again.
Speaker 2 00:00:51 He showed trust that he got kidnapped for it. Yep.
Speaker 1 00:00:55 I, before that, speaking of trust, being irrevocably shattered for our, of outside and found out a lot about this secret organization, the beacon that she unwillingly got inducted to in Shaquana fucking die
Speaker 2 00:01:10 And fi embarked on a trip
Speaker 1 00:01:13 Silent city, which is an abandoned archeological site in the North of Australia, where she met a new acquaintance by the name of Arivale Edmar. And that is where we left you last. And I think we are going to pick up right there exactly where we left off.
Speaker 1 00:01:35 So fi you just got cut down out of the snare spell when are still kind of in a heap on the floor and you and this lady you've never met before are standing there flashing beacon coins at each other. Again, Arivale is a wirey Assurion elf. She has dark skin with blue undertones, long silver, white hair done up in multiple brains. It's in a high pony tail. And these big clucky goggles over her dark eyes with zoomable lenses, then let her look in closer at things. She is standing next to her, very, very large baby deer. This deer is about the size of a quarter horse, and she's patting it on the side of the neck. As she flashes her beacon pointing to him. As soon as you guys have finished your introductions, she purchased her coin back on her thumb, flips it up in the air, snatches it and puts it back in the pocket. And for being a mother overcoat
Speaker 0 00:02:30 And
Speaker 1 00:02:30 She passed the baby deer on the head. Again, it goes, and this is Phineas
Speaker 0 00:02:34 Lovely to meet you face to face.
Speaker 1 00:02:40 She introduces you to this big baby near she leans back against him and kind of ISU.
Speaker 0 00:02:47 She goes,
Speaker 1 00:02:48 And I knew this was coming, but I'm not exactly up to date on the circumstances, uh, who sent you?
Speaker 0 00:02:55 I sent myself, you'll have to forgive me
Speaker 2 00:03:04 My suspicions and misgivings grand Duchess, but typically people that send themselves up here are here to
Speaker 0 00:03:10 Kill me.
Speaker 1 00:03:12 I assure you that is not the case. I am just looking for some answers.
Speaker 0 00:03:18 She nods slowly and then takes a step back and brings
Speaker 2 00:03:22 Up her arm and motions you out of this temple.
Speaker 0 00:03:27 She is definitely waiting for you to go ahead. So her back is not to you. I'm
Speaker 1 00:03:32 Not going to turn it back to her either. I'm going to go out the door sideways and just keep an eye on her.
Speaker 0 00:03:38 Both of you,
Speaker 2 00:03:39 Very distrustful of each other, make your way out of this temple. As you go though,
Speaker 0 00:03:46 You're making
Speaker 2 00:03:46 An effort not to touch anything. I think you clarified that in the last episode, but, um, I think the side of your leg just brushes up against this statue that you were standing near. You don't take any damage from it, but it feels like a very powerful, static shock. Like when you've been shuffling around on a carpet and floor and touch a doorknob or something, and you just feel that static shock through your whole body, you feel something like that. It doesn't do any damage to you. It hurts a little bit, but you definitely feel that trembling. And then yeah, you make your way out of this temple and out into this empty square, Aerobase standing there with Phineas, the baby deer, just kind of, again, sizing you up. She is keeping very careful distance from you. And she says, all right, well, for somebody that sent themselves, you had a pretty accurate gauge on where to look. So I'm assuming you already know everything that's going on here. And she smiles. I had
Speaker 1 00:04:43 Information given to me, but I am here for my own purposes. Not,
Speaker 2 00:04:49 It would make me feel much more secure to know who compromised my safety. So we're in Chicago. Everybody seems like a very composed young lady, but you say that and she curses under her breath. She turns around and kicks in a rock on the ground and then turns back to you. And she has that same plastic smile in place. He goes, how is sore? And then her smile falls off her face in a second. She blinks and takes off her goggles and lifts them up onto her forehead. Absolutely shell shocked.
Speaker 1 00:05:30 He was arrested a few days ago at a gala for treason and sedition. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:05:39 She nods quietly to herself and then reaches up and swipes a finger under both eyes and then lowers her goggles back down. That is the extent of the emotion you see cross this woman's face. And she says, my apologies you'll have to forgive me for the sentiments. Soren was an old friend. I can't say the same, but I'm very sorry. You don't need to be high. Told him at the beginning of all this, that he was making decisions like a fool. And it would seem that he died like one and she sets off in a brisk he's across the square.
Speaker 2 00:06:15 She's walking you across the square and her entire posture changes with this new revelation. Number one that Soren sent you. And then number two, that he's dead. She starts leading you down a street that you haven't walked down before. And she says, all right, well, in that case, a little background information on me, you could say that I am a beacon baby. If that makes any sense. Both of my parents were members before I was born. They were also both prolific professors at the order of I loaded up, my father was an archeologist by trade, but he did teach room or classes. And my mother was a conservation wizard. Quite the teleportation expert. You could say I've been involved with both the beacon and the silent cities, my entire life. It was both of my parents lives work. Unfortunately, the beacon schism 25 years ago cut both of their lives, short.
Speaker 2 00:07:08 They were on opposite sides of the conflict, and then they both died and they both left me their research. So for the last 23, 24 years, I've had both sides of the schism after me. Each side wants my parents research and me dead. So I've been hanging out in the silent cities for all that time. Sounds difficult on the contrary. It's fascinating. She said, as she starts walking down the street, again, my theory after doing some work with both, my parents and Soren is that the city was home to whatever was here before Austrians were that doesn't match up with what I know of history at all. Does it go ahead and roll the history check then 15, what you know of Australian history is that Australian elves have always been here and have always worshiped in churches with Kim role. And nothing has really changed since time immemorial.
Speaker 2 00:08:13 Interesting. Well, because ammonia is looking for answers. They can't really critique the content of those answers. Just kind of, she gives you the first genuine smile you've seen on her face and she nods approvingly to herself and she goes spoken like a true academic grand Duchess hardly. Well, there's always room for improvement. Isn't there. Anyway, moving on. She leads you through a winding maze of alleys and streets that are still intact. There's plant life growing up through the cobblestones. But most of it is eerily well-preserved. Especially when you hear her say any way from what we've been able to do.
Speaker 1 00:08:56 As far as dating goes, we can assume that the city is at least 15,000, maybe 20,000
Speaker 2 00:09:02 Years old, but that's not
Speaker 1 00:09:05 Necessarily what my parents were here studying. And she leads you into another town square. This one smaller than the one you were in
Speaker 2 00:09:13 And they have the temple. It has a big,
Speaker 1 00:09:17 Very open looking building. That's held up by pillars and it has a couple of smaller buildings around the perimeter of the square and in the middle,
Speaker 2 00:09:25 It'll love it. There is a huge circle etched into the stone. The entire middle,
Speaker 1 00:09:32 The square is one giant piece of stone. It's
Speaker 2 00:09:34 Massive. And Intuit is carved a
Speaker 1 00:09:39 Circle, surrounded by rooms that you have never seen before. It is a language that you cannot
Speaker 2 00:09:46 Process. And she nods down at the circle and goes, that's what we were working on. And this is what a portal she says. I suppose, the closest
Speaker 1 00:09:59 Analog you would have as a teleportation circle,
Speaker 2 00:10:01 Feet picks that back. She looks over at you and she raises an eyebrow and goes, ah, you get the nausea, don't you. That's one way to put it. Well, you'll be pleased to know that
Speaker 1 00:10:13 This is nothing like a modern teleportation circle. Actually, when we think of teleportation in our own paradigm, we're talking about a spell. That's very limited. We're talking about a maximum of eight people, less. If they're carrying things with them, that can go through at a time. We're talking about teleportation circles that take a year of daily magic minimum to make we're talking about margin for error that's frankly,
Speaker 2 00:10:41 These portals don't involve any of that. As far as
Speaker 1 00:10:47 We've been able to reconstruct a lot of it's been arcane, reverse engineering,
Speaker 2 00:10:51 Which I, and she flinches a little bit. I was never gifted with math
Speaker 1 00:10:56 Magic in the way that my parents were, but I was very gifted with deductive reasoning, which with Soren's help allowed me to figure out that these portals
Speaker 2 00:11:07 Are much more powerful. There's no margin for error. There's no limit
Speaker 1 00:11:14 For travel capacity. You could theoretically, and I believe that at one point when the city was alone,
Speaker 2 00:11:20 That he did have this circle open
Speaker 1 00:11:23 24 hours a day, and people could just walk
Speaker 2 00:11:26 Through how does any of this possible old magic?
Speaker 1 00:11:31 We don't understand yet. That's what Soren and several of his associates and I were working on, but, and she leads you over to this big building that has the pillars. There's a wall in the front of the building that has a beautiful carved stone mural entered into it. It looks pretty comparable to a lot of the world maps that you have seen
Speaker 2 00:11:54 Before. A big
Speaker 1 00:11:57 Portion of it has crumbled away, like from the middle of what is now a sovereign principalities import Dan over to the right has completely crumbled away and is,
Speaker 2 00:12:09 But there is,
Speaker 1 00:12:11 It's a map of Australia. There is a map of about half of the Zephyr Isles, and there is a map of the Western half of this big continent off
Speaker 2 00:12:20 East. And on this map, you can see in Sydney
Speaker 1 00:12:26 Carved into the stone that look like the circle that's etched into the square. You see one near where modern day old McGrath is. You see one near where modern day village,
Speaker 2 00:12:37 As you see one to the South of the Assurion continent, you see
Speaker 1 00:12:42 The one where modern day vog Muldaur is like one of the minor cities in boggled, or you see one
Speaker 2 00:12:50 In the Zephyr Isles. And then
Speaker 1 00:12:53 The kind of upper left corner of the map has also crumbled away. So a lot of the North of Australia has gone, but you do see those five in Sydney
Speaker 2 00:13:03 As carpet, okay. And Arivale
Speaker 1 00:13:06 Walks over and she touches each one of them on the mural and succession. And she goes,
Speaker 2 00:13:11 Hello, tall.
Speaker 1 00:13:12 Oh, McGrath about two days outside of illness, all three of the notes, silence cities
Speaker 2 00:13:16 Sites over here near
Speaker 1 00:13:20 And vaudeville door. And then she drags her hand down.
Speaker 2 00:13:22 Um, and just outside of Pearl port in the Zephyr Isles, if each one of these insignia is a circle, you could read them.
Speaker 1 00:13:32 And at one point in the ancient world and she reaches down under her shirt and pulls out a gold chain. And at the end of this gold chain, that there is an Emerald, the size of a chicken's egg.
Speaker 2 00:13:43 She pulls the necklace off
Speaker 1 00:13:44 Her head and goes down into the big slab floor of the square and slots the pendant into a small deal.
Speaker 2 00:13:52 But in the ground, there's a magical
Speaker 1 00:13:57 Vacuum. That just sucks. All the energy out of the air. And the middle of the circle turns into a swirling vortex of blue energy.
Speaker 2 00:14:06 It's
Speaker 1 00:14:06 Like half established. He has kind of a sense when it comes to magical energy just from being a sourcer. So I'd love to do a narcotic check and see if I can figure out what's going on. Go ahead. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:14:19 Sex
Speaker 1 00:14:22 Powerful. You can pick up on that just from the ambient magical energy. Yeah. You don't really get a sense of school of magic or anything. It feels like nothing you've ever had arcane experience with before. It doesn't feel like your magic. It doesn't feel like clerical magic. It doesn't feel like wizardry. It feels old and primal and totally outside of your realm of experience.
Speaker 2 00:14:47 Okay. Interesting. Arivale nods down at
Speaker 1 00:14:52 Where this portal is swirling on the ground in front
Speaker 2 00:14:54 Of her and goes, so this
Speaker 1 00:14:56 Is much more stable, but the teleportation limitations in exchange are much more limited. You can only travel between similar circles, but if we're able to extrapolate information from what's left with the map and she nods back towards the old
Speaker 2 00:15:13 Building, one could reason
Speaker 1 00:15:16 That at some point there was free unencumbered risk-free
Speaker 2 00:15:20 We travel all over the world, sorry,
Speaker 1 00:15:23 Erin and I were able to get the Australian portals back online using my father's in it. We haven't had any experience of being able to get beyond the shores of the Sheria. We're not quite sure why perhaps those circles have been converted,
Speaker 2 00:15:36 But all of them,
Speaker 1 00:15:38 The silent cities are connected through these portals, which is why I have been able to avoid brutal murder for so long.
Speaker 2 00:15:45 That's lovely for you. He's going to like kind of crouch down and touch the stone, not the portal, the edge of the stone and see if it's that same like shock feeling as the statue. No. Okay. You can feel it.
Speaker 1 00:16:00 The arcane energy rolling off of this thing and the runes that are carved into the stone around this circle that is now the swirling bright blue void
Speaker 2 00:16:10 Power are glowing, but it's not the same kind of energy as you felt back in the temple. Not really, by at least I'm not touching anything with bare hands. Just so cloak wrapped over the hands. Okay.
Speaker 1 00:16:24 We're over crouched at the edge of this circle, finance clocks over and just leans over your shoulder and snorts right in your ear.
Speaker 2 00:16:31 Nah,
Speaker 1 00:16:34 Your way of this big academic looking building Arivale Phineas, don't be rude. And the beer stands up and claps back over to her looking very chastised
Speaker 2 00:16:44 At any
Speaker 1 00:16:44 Rate. Soren seemed very interested in this technology. We were able to stabilize the Australian portals fairly well. Theoretically, if we were able to extrapolate this power throughout the rest of the world and get all the circles up and running again, you could March an army through one
Speaker 2 00:17:00 Eight, sucks her teeth and nods, and then stands up and kind of brushed it off for skirts. And guys in that case, his newfound interest in portals makes perfect sense to me. Does that ma well, I can't speak
Speaker 1 00:17:12 To political drama. I've been living in the woods for the past
Speaker 2 00:17:15 23 years.
Speaker 1 00:17:17 She leaves the big Portico of this building and comes down and stands next.
Speaker 2 00:17:21 She looks down at the portal and leans down and picks up the necklace out of the slot. And the whole thing dies. It just goes back to flat stone and she puts the necklace back on and she says, well,
Speaker 1 00:17:33 You're right. It seems that Soren's academic curiosity. Won't be of any concern to anyone anymore. Shame. He was a brilliant researcher, but I have been working on my own for quite some time. Now. I'm sure I'll read it too.
Speaker 2 00:17:48 She goes, say something else like raises a finger, kind of pedantically and stops. And her head snaps to the side of her finger. Very slowly. It comes down to her side to wear on her belt. She has two swords sheath, all right. She grabs one of them and pulls it like two inches out of it's scabbard. And you hear a loud metallic hump. You look down and you see that the sword that she's holding is actually humming and shaking and vibrating and it's scabbard. And you see Aerobase professionalism crumble for like the first time since you've started talking to her and she goes mother fucker, she pulls the sword of the rest of the way out of it. Scabbard. She goes, here's the librarian thought we were being a little too loud, brace herself. What's happening. We've got company.
Speaker 0 00:18:50 You see something stirring in the darkness where the door of this building and you hear the rough scrape of stone on stone and you hear a scream and ancient and going from the mouth of this building, the first thing you see are three of these stone skeletons, but they're glad <inaudible> molding, rusted out swords. And behind them answer guns to an apparition. The theorial inquisitorial floats out of this agent library behind these skeletons. She is in long, very odd looking rooms. They're not anything like fashion that you've seen before. She looks basically like, and infernal house, like almost slate. Horns are a little bit longer and her teeth are definitely way. She looks not like any else you've ever seen. She looks at the two of you and another shrink comes out of her mouth. Rolling.
Speaker 2 00:20:16 Oh God. I would love to before we roll initiative, cast a spell. Yeah. Arivale has a short sort of warning. So yeah. They're not going to get a surprise round on you so you can go ahead and pop one off. Okay. I would like to pass one of my new spells. I would like to pass the warning wins. Okay. So yeah. Fi as you see all of these monstrous things come out of this library towards the two of you, you pull your wand out and there's that spark like that static shock of energy that you felt back in temple, put the statue and you feel capable of way more mojo than you did before. Fantastic. And I think you just reflectively reach your hand out and this warning, wind spell explodes out. Please remind me what that does. V is going to one out her hands up and then just bring them both down.
Speaker 2 00:21:11 You know, like crashing motion and like half crouch, a strong wind, 20 miles per hour blows around you in a 10 foot radius and moves with you remaining centered on you. The wind lasts for the smells duration. It definitely is you and other features in this area. It extinguishes unprotected flames and his area that are torch size or smaller. It hedges out vapor gas and fog that can be dispersed by strong wind. The area is difficult terrain for creatures, other than you range weapon attacks have this advantage if the attacks pass in or out of the wind. Okay. So yeah, you feel this spark at the root of the Palm of your hand again, and this Zephyr just pops up around you and roars in your ears. You see Arabic kind of flinch uncomfortably next to you as she is also deaf. And by the effects of this Phineas fucking books, he gallops out of the square. If you're watching Arabic, you can see her mouth fucking coward as he runs away.
Speaker 2 00:22:16 Okay. What did you get for initiative and 1919? Okay. So you're going to be going third. So we're going to actually be utilizing our Homer rule for the campaign for Nat twenties on initiative because Arivale rolled in that 22 initiative. So she's going to get an extra round in on this thing, which is good because she has just so many bonus actions that she needs to take to be effective in combat. Uh, for the folks at home Arivale is a multi-class horizon Walker, ranger and inquisitive rogue. So what she's going to do for her first round is she's going to use her first bonus action. She's going to use her inquisitive rogue, uh, features to do insightful fighting. So she's going to roll insight against the Spector's deception to be able to use her sneak attack on it. Even when no one's blinking.
Speaker 2 00:23:01 And that's a natural 15 versus a natural eight, the spectrum is not very charismatic and can't lie very well. So she's going to do that. So she gets to use her sneak attack. So she's gonna take her first swing on that round. So she can't do her offhand attack because she used her bonus action for insightful fighting. Uh, so she's gonna roll to hit on the specter. So that's a 14, the armor class for the ghost is 12 and that's what the magical weapon. So it's going to take full damage, which is going to be one D six plus five, plus two D six for sneak attack. That's a total of 13 damage to the ghost, but then she gets another round and she's going to
Speaker 1 00:23:46 Get in this second round because of her not 20, she's actually going to get to make her offhand attack because her in cycle, fighting's already active, Rolled a natural 20 on that first magical weapon attack,
Speaker 2 00:23:59 Buddy.
Speaker 1 00:24:02 Arivale didn't come to play today. Okay. So she's going to hit this thing with the magical weapon. Again, it's going to be with the sneak attack damage. So I'm going to get to double it. So she's going to get a double damage dice on the weapon attack plus sneak attacks. So that's going to be for these six plus five
Speaker 2 00:24:21 20 damage on her first attack. Okay.
Speaker 1 00:24:24 Second attack is also going to hit and she's going to just get one D six plus five on that because of her.
Speaker 2 00:24:33 Okay. It's a total,
Speaker 1 00:24:36 It's a total of six damage.
Speaker 2 00:24:42 She did a total
Speaker 1 00:24:43 Of 29 damage, which is not inconsiderable, but she also got a bonus
Speaker 2 00:24:46 Round. Okay. So now
Speaker 1 00:24:49 It's the Spector's turn. And given that it just got shit racked. It's going to go for Aaron.
Speaker 2 00:24:57 It is going to hit her. So she has to roll a constitution, saving throw. She does make the constitution saving, but she is
Speaker 1 00:25:08 Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:25:13 18 damage
Speaker 1 00:25:18 Takes this damage as this ghost reaches through her chest and like grabs at something
Speaker 2 00:25:23 Inside of her body and pulls her
Speaker 1 00:25:25 Down to her knees. And now it is FI's turn. So you have this ghost that is engaged with Arivale and then you have three skeletons that look like they're headed for you.
Speaker 2 00:25:37 Yeah. We got to do something a little bit down for flavor reasons, all of phase magic's kind of reflexive. So she's just gonna like on reflex, hold her wall and hand it up, bring it down and yell. Get back in the direction of this bedroom and the skeletons. Like she's trying to cask bell. And instead as her hand comes down, a lightning bolt erupts from the tip for wand and we're try and get as many as possible of the combatants in front of us. It is 100 feet long and five feet wide. Okay. I'm going to give you a choice. You can either
Speaker 1 00:26:15 Hit two of the skeletons or the specter and Arivale
Speaker 2 00:26:21 Okay. Is that a safe for me? Yes, it is a safe a nine and a 1929 14 for the one that saved. Okay.
Speaker 1 00:26:40 Vaporize one of these skeletons with spell that you don't intend to cast this bolt of white hot electric crackling lightning shoots out of your wand
Speaker 2 00:26:51 And just totally
Speaker 1 00:26:52 Vaporizes the first skeleton and the one directly behind it looks fucked up. And you feel as you cast this spell that same spark of magic at the very heel of your hand, that same static shock feeling that you felt when you brushed up against that statute.
Speaker 2 00:27:12 Fantastic.
Speaker 1 00:27:14 The second one is going to run up on you and try to hit you.
Speaker 2 00:27:18 Wait, does it have a movement to get through 10 feet of difficult terrain? No. No it doesn't. Okay. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:27:27 The skeleton can get through that to hit you. So it's just going to run up on you and you use a toll turn to do that. It's going to dash and the third one is going to do that as well.
Speaker 2 00:27:37 Nice. We
Speaker 1 00:27:38 Are back at the top of the order with Arabic. Who's going to make two attacks on this ghost.
Speaker 2 00:27:46 Neither of which hit come on. It is the ghosts turn.
Speaker 1 00:27:55 Ghost is not affected by difficult terrain. Okay. So it zooms up on you and it's going to take a hit.
Speaker 2 00:28:02 Okay. All right.
Speaker 1 00:28:05 Um, it is going to take one of Aerobase opportunity attacks to designate.
Speaker 2 00:28:08 Yeah. And she is going to hit on that one.
Speaker 1 00:28:14 It looks fucked up by the time it gets to you Arabic. It's one swipe in on it as it goes by, but it is still up and kicking.
Speaker 2 00:28:29 I rolled a credit. Fuck. Well, first of all,
Speaker 1 00:28:32 I need you to roll a constitution, saving throw for me.
Speaker 2 00:28:37 It's a natural one. You take
Speaker 1 00:28:40 21 necrotic damage.
Speaker 2 00:28:43 Shit. Are you kidding?
Speaker 1 00:28:47 Your max. HP has reduced by that until you take another loan.
Speaker 2 00:28:51 Oh shoot. Oh my fucking God. That half rural concentration, right? Yeah. So that's going to be eight. So your morning ones comes down into about her next. Yes. Okay. So this goes swipes at me. Does all that fucking damage. I have 11 hit points for the record and fi is gonna flinch and bring her arms up Stripe Cracker face, and like go down as the wording wins, falls away. And then one hand down on the ground in a smack and cast shatter. It is a concept for every creature in a 10 foot radius. And Hayes at skeletons are made of stone, right? Yes, they have disadvantage. Okay. So that's a four that one pass for sure. And the seven that one also does not pass for sure. Let me roll for the ghost.
Speaker 2 00:29:48 It's an eight. None of them pass. So as feet goes down and smacks the ground, there is a painfully intense, loud ringing noise from where her hand impacts with stone and all three of them are, why did it take three D eight better damage. Okay, go ahead and roll that for me please. Yeah. 2000 damage fee. You single-handedly on this combat. The ghost evaporates with a screen just completely disappears. The second skeleton that had already taken damage that ran up on you completely falls apart. The third one is just blasted away from you before it could even raise it sword. It's gone. You just blast all three of these things out of the air with a spell again that you didn't know, you could cast from the porch of this big building under the pillars, Arivale turns around and looks at you and goes, okay, I can see how you are quite useful in a crisis fee is on the ground. Just swearing. So, so loudly, there is an old saying that the silent cities don't easily give up their dead. Uh, this particular site is sort of, that comes from the undead here. Do get a little, uh, restless around the full moon. I probably should have mentioned that. Fantastic. Perhaps we should retire back to my lodgings for the evening.
Speaker 0 00:31:27 And then you hear the metallic hum of the sword and it's scabbard again, and Arabic reaches down and pulls it out. And it is humming the same way in Holland. When the ghost in the skeletons came at you, she looks down the alley behind her and looks back at you, mother fucker. You guys both just curse in unison and Arivale she's her sword. Again. I think you both turn in time to look down this alley and there is just none of these stones, skeletons scrambling towards you. They're crawling over each other in their speed. They are moving well past human levels of speed. And there are a couple of ghosts dotted back through there. Like what you just fought. You could see again, the same horn. Rodo Australian looking weird ELLs. And Arivale looks at you and looks at the teleportation circle in the center of the square and looks at where the skeletons are. Clambering down the alley. You can hear them coming down. All the albums surrounding and Arab says, yeah. Okay.
Speaker 0 00:32:41 Run running. Okay. Yeah, you guys would run for the center of the square. Arivale brings two fingers up to her mouth and does the very sharp whistle with her fingers in her mouth. And you hear Phineas galloping into the square, like over these skeletons and stuff. Yeah. She slams the big egg sized gem around her neck, down into the slot on the ground of this portal. Phineas takes a running leap in, apparently he's very used to this. Arivale takes a jump in and she's hanging off the side, like a person hanging off the side of the swimming pool. And she says, look, I get it. If you don't trust me, we're going to safety. So if you would like to also be safe, go ahead and cop it, bring the mammals with you when you come. And then she disappears under the shimmering blue magical surface.
Speaker 0 00:33:32 He is standing at the end of portal. And I think the wind of the portal is kind of blowing at her. And she like brushes her hair back off or ahead and looks at the perfect sale. And then there's so many they're coming off of every entry. That was an alley hundreds of every skeleton you saw in a pile and X's mastery of. So they have all apparently reanimated and are coming after you. There's no shit, shit. My second third level spell slot, just shoot off a lighting bolt. And then I'm going to jump the boil. I think the force of this lightning bolt propels you back into the portal to you, grab the necklace as you go. Yes. <inaudible> all back into the surface of this beach.
Speaker 2 00:34:33 Rippling magic. The last time you teleported, it was a very rough journey. It fucked with your stomach, you or nauseous. It felt like dying pretty much. This feels like nothing. It feels like falling back into perfectly body temperature, water. There's no sensation of falling. There's no sensation of sickness. It is simply a sensation of passage into something else. And for a moment, it is just perfect equilibrium and silence. Total sensory deprivation. You see nothing here. Nothing tastes nothing. Feel about bang, smell nothing. And then a storm greater than anything you have ever experienced is surrounding you. And you regain consciousness and sensation on the surface. An ocean in the middle of
Speaker 1 00:35:42 Hurricane, just indescribable thunderstorm. You can feel the ocean roiling and waving underneath you, but you are somehow suspended on the surface
Speaker 2 00:35:54 And in the distance,
Speaker 1 00:35:55 If you look up when you regain your sense of sight, it's the dark of the night, the moon and the stars overhead in the distance. You can see the rhythmic rotating flash of light
Speaker 2 00:36:07 White house. You're on your hands and knees. What do you do? I try to stand. You can easily. And I'm going to look at the lighthouse role advantage investigation in the law,
Speaker 1 00:36:28 Eight of the apocalyptic strike of lightning that comes down into this ocean that you're standing.
Speaker 2 00:36:36 It's the lighthouse from your weekend going, the lights
Speaker 1 00:36:40 How's that does inscribed on that coin is the lighthouse that just got struck by lightning. Right now. You're looking at it from across the storm, tossed ocean.
Speaker 2 00:36:48 It is a ways off a mile
Speaker 1 00:36:52 At least. And you're out in open water. There's nothing around you. I know I'm suspended above the water. I'm going to see if I can deliberately reach my hand
Speaker 2 00:37:01 Into the water. Yes,
Speaker 1 00:37:03 You can. It is free.
Speaker 2 00:37:07 Okay. Arivale
Speaker 1 00:37:08 Is nowhere to be seen no Arabic, no
Speaker 2 00:37:10 Phineas. You still have the pendant
Speaker 1 00:37:14 Clutched in your left hand. However, Going to look at the storm and take it in and taking the lightning hit
Speaker 2 00:37:25 The white house. I don't want to look directly at the white house. I'm going to spread my arms wide, standing on this ocean and I'm going to say answers, right? And I'm going to dive into the ocean rule, a constitution saving throw, okay. 17
Speaker 1 00:37:46 Dive into the water. And it's a very strange sensation. Eat is like diving into water
Speaker 2 00:37:55 And coming up from me. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:37:58 Underwater at the same time, it's like you dive into air. You feel the water passing over your face and then you are coughing and sputtering clawing at the wet sand yeah.
Speaker 2 00:38:08 Beach. I'm going to look around, see what I see here at the foot of this lighthouse. And
Speaker 1 00:38:16 You're curled, soaking, wet and coughing on this beach at the foot of the
Speaker 2 00:38:20 Lighthouse. I want you to roll me a religion. Check that
Speaker 1 00:38:29 23, uh, 23. Yep. Okay. Wow. You look up and you watch the beam of light going around and around and you take in two very crucial things. Number one, the fact that the design of this building is the design of the lighthouse on your beacon. Quiet. And number two, that you have seen the silhouette of this tower somewhere before, and it gets you right in your gut, right? In the core of you. When the realization drops, this is the outline of the tower of Lux. Togala okay. But the tower of Loxo communism, the lighthouse. So this is ridiculous, obviously that there's this beam of light. You grew up in illness, you grew up within view of the Island. If there was a lighthouse there, you would know that the storm is still continuing just to rain pouring down in sheets.
Speaker 1 00:39:42 You're sputtering on the beach in front of this light house. And the light is revolving above your head. And the storm is raging on around you. And you can hear thunder obviously, you know, from the storm, but you also feel that funder in the middle of your chest, in the depths of your gut, it's in your whole body. And from behind you a very calm Placid Alto voice. I'm going to very slowly stand up. And then I'm going to turn to look behind me, sat down on a big piece of bleached. Dead driftwood that has washed up on the beach is a figure, roughly your size, your height. You can't tell much else about this figure. However, because it is fully round in this beautiful cloak, the hood of this cloak fully covers this figure's face. Its hands are hidden up inside the sleeves. You can't see feed because the cloak is pooling around on the wet sand. And the cloak of this figure is a shifting mural of color. It's the color palette of storm clouds, deep black and purple and blue bruise like colors of storm clouds illuminated by lightning shifting constantly. And it flashes whenever the lightning comes down and strikes the sea, you see light ripple out across this cloak and the figure is not moving. And it is just sitting on this piece of driftwood waiting for you, go advantage
Speaker 0 00:41:34 Religion 18. It's the statute that statue that you brushed up against the one that called you. The one that said your name, this figure is the same as the statue. And this voice is the same as the one inside your head. She's got to reach up the hand, touch her hair behind her ear and just brush over her horns. You have me at a disadvantage and how am I different from anybody else in your life? Am I not worth the conversation? Might not worth the name. If you can't tell me who I am, then you're not ready to know. The figure says, and then pats the log of the driftwood next to them.
Speaker 0 00:42:27 They find their head and says no different than anything else. My life then goes to sit on the bench. You cannot see a face within the depths of this hood. You can see kind of the outline of two eyes, bright electric, crackling, blue, silver. And then you see a smile like lightning, a crackling electric smile in the darkness of this head. And this figure says, I would love to know what do you think? I statute that's a depiction of me. Yes. Field's going to look out across the ocean with storm cracking overhead. I look at the lighthouse and say, I think you're what I've been looking for.
Speaker 0 00:43:33 I think you're correct in that I've only spent here and here is where the essence, the purpose of you, the figure leans in. And again, you see that crackling electric smile and the two bright crackling eyes love. You're one of mine. Okay. All right. Hesitance. It's not in my nature to take the claimed at face value. Figure of leans back and that's the eyes and the smile disappear. And you're just looking at the shadow of the moon. Again, the figure reaches down and grabs her hand and you feel a very cold grip close around your hand, but you look down and you see bright white, almost pearlescent, something cool, flowing and pale around the skin of the hand that was closed around yours.
Speaker 0 00:44:54 The figure says, all I'm asking for right now is a little bit of faith in exchange for this for now. I giving you a gift. Can we call this a contract fee, grabs the hand back and says, I believe we can. I'm very pleased. This figure leans in and you can't see within the foot. Again, all you see is the glowing eyes and the crackling lightning strike of a smile, but you feel cold lips pressed against your forehead. And you have the sensation again of breaking through water. And you are so cold. When you come up, there is a blizzard raging around you. None of the thunder, none of the crackling of the lightning, none of anything about the scene, where you just work and immediate.
Speaker 2 00:46:07 As soon as you break through this magical surface, you're able to tell that you're coming up through the portal that you were supposed to go through. Just a manifestation of the primal nature and cold and snow and blizzard is whipping around you. As you come out of the portal, you see Aerobahn Phineas sitting at the edge of the stone circle, watching for you. I'm going to reorient myself and yellow, the wind. Where are we going? Now? I, she says, freaked out this isn't this isn't, she's whipping her head around looking all around this area. Would you like to make me an investigation? Tech? Yeah. That's an 11 you're in ruins for sure. Also you're on a mountain top somewhere. You don't know. Where do I see billings anywhere? That is not in the middle of this blizzard around you are gutted frozen skeletons of buildings.
Speaker 2 00:47:17 But the one that looks the safest is something pretty similar to this library, building that you just fled. Okay? I'm going to point at the building and yeah, Bay. We have to get it out of the store. Arivale gets Phineas by his Holter and pull some along. And you guys rub into this building. You can't see a lot in the square for all the snow. A lot of everything is varied. It looks like this building was once it keep, but that the doors got blasted in and something stormed into this building. As you move in, you see bodies, not skeletons, mummies, ice mommies. And these people don't look like you fi they don't look like you. They don't look like your father. They don't look like anyone you've ever known. A couple of them have small this digital horns. They don't look like any Australian elf or infertile elf you've ever seen.
Speaker 2 00:48:24 Whatever happened to these people seems to be much more violent than what you saw in the silent city. You see these ice mummies of people that have Spears through them, sorts through them. They have clearly died. Violent deaths. Arivale seems totally unaffected. Just wondering back, you see, she pulls a notebook out of her bag and start scribbling down notes. It seems like the main drag of whatever building this used to be was a chapel because there are two statues. There's the same skeletal spiral horned statue that you saw in the temple before. And the same hooded statue that you saw on the tumble that used to be standing here. The hooded statue has been pulled down and knocked a center across the floor.
Speaker 0 00:49:26 There are mummified bodies all around that seemed to have been stabbed. Speared died violently. And at the foot of this crumbled statue that has been pulled down is the mummified body of a somewhat Elvin looking woman. She has small bumps on her forehead. They're not horns, but they might have been at one point. And she has in her hand, a sword and a shield. And around her shoulders completely ignoring the thin coating of frost and snow than everything else in this great hall has a Palm. It is a cloak around the shoulders of the cloak it's metal. It looks like mythril platinum, something light and silvery scale down around the shoulders. And from then on, it is strange satiny fabric. You've never seen the color of this fabric is shifting like the color strong right before lightning strikes, purples and blues and blacks and light greens. So the way that you described this book makes it sound like it looks like the plug of the finger. I'm sorry. Yeah, it does for sure. Okay. I'm going to crouch down next to the figure I want to perform the only death rides. I know how much are those at the attorney general? After I reach out, I'm going to take the cloak, um, go ahead and roll a constitution. Saving her for me, nothing happens to you. Damage wise, as you perform these death rights, you feel something in your gut.
Speaker 0 00:51:32 It's deeply unpleasant. It's a feeling of simultaneous
Speaker 2 00:51:38 Betrayal that you have only experienced. One other time in your life. You were able to lift the cloak from around the shoulders of this dead mummified five body. I'm going to pick the bag off to the side of you and her. It looks freaked the hell out. This isn't one of the sites I don't are we in a straight area? What hold on. And she looks around. I'm gonna roll a history check for her. That would be good. Um, she rolled a natural 19 knife and she gets a plus six to history. So that's a 25. Fantastic. Yeah, she says, wait, are we there? Aren't any sites on the North, hold on. And she turns around. And as she turns, I think you follow her line of sight fee and you can see the glowing lights of the towers of the North, which you have been to not extensively, but have seen across the mountains. It would appear that your knowledge is incomplete.
Speaker 2 00:52:53 It would appear that way. I need to do some work and make sure that I can get back here. And you see her working around the outside of this circle. Like she runs out of the building and starts crushing down around the edge of the circle and making rubbings of the runes that are in the ground. And then she slots her necklace back down into a groove in the ground and the portal activates again. And she says, we're going to freeze to death. If we stay here tonight, I want to come back here. But maybe in the summer, maybe
Speaker 1 00:53:26 With more reinforcements, fi has one hand in her bag on the cloak. And as everybody says that she pulls it out and again, tucks her hair back under ear and then follows Aerobahn in the building.
Speaker 2 00:53:39 I'd like you to roll a D for four. Okay.
Speaker 1 00:53:45 Slots her necklace back into this groove in the ground. The portal appears again. And I think I'll let you guys just dive into it unless you're hanging back. No. Okay. Yeah. Aramay Fox her hand around the necklace as she jumps in and pulls it after you guys and you pre appear in a much more temperate
Speaker 2 00:54:04 Climate, many, many miles
Speaker 1 00:54:06 Off, but perceptible, you see the lights of vellum tall. You see the wall, you see the lights of the palace. And if you emerge up out of this portal, an Arabic kind of shakes her shoulders off and Phineas stuff
Speaker 2 00:54:23 When she says, all right, well,
Speaker 1 00:54:25 In terms of places, that will be the safest for us to say, this is certainly the place we were looking for.
Speaker 2 00:54:32 Welcome to old Velon tall granddad. I'm gonna look around roll investigation is at 12,
Speaker 1 00:54:44 Looking around this square where you guys just came up out of the portal and you see a building that looks much like the library at the OMA graphs.
Speaker 2 00:54:55 You see a couple other houses, other things like that. That building seems to stick out to you the most. Since you went,
Speaker 1 00:55:07 Go ahead and roll me advantaged investigation. So plus two, with advantage
Speaker 2 00:55:15 Five,
Speaker 1 00:55:17 The books, this he magically preserved no bodies at all.
Speaker 2 00:55:23 It seems to be a perfectly
Speaker 1 00:55:24 Empty city. And Arivale nods. As you walk into this building and says, I've been spending a lot of time in this site. The last
Speaker 2 00:55:34 Couple of years, there are a lot of things,
Speaker 1 00:55:37 Trolls that I need to go through before I can figure out exactly what happened here. All I know is that about
Speaker 2 00:55:46 10,000 years
Speaker 1 00:55:47 Ago, the site was abandoned. There were a couple of old graveyards,
Speaker 2 00:55:52 A couple recognizable
Speaker 1 00:55:54 Churches have cameras at the site actually.
Speaker 2 00:55:58 But, uh, the city
Speaker 1 00:56:00 He died and I don't know why. And I they're just anybody,
Speaker 2 00:56:07 I think,
Speaker 1 00:56:09 Do you have any input on where we are?
Speaker 2 00:56:12 It seemed like
Speaker 1 00:56:15 There were a lot of people that died
Speaker 2 00:56:18 Very bluntly. Well, at any
Speaker 1 00:56:21 Rate, we can't head back towards Groth before sunrise
Speaker 2 00:56:24 Because the skeleton and ghost situation is a pretty constant thing there. What do you say where you just post up here? That sounds like our best option. Yes, time's me and Arabic goes about setting up camp in the shadow of this library, bookshelves all around you. She builds a fire. Phineas comes into the library and curls up with you guys. And I think you guys take a long rest. I mean, do you want to do that? You guys can take shifts and there she goes into her trans, I want to get up and I want to look for the nearest recognizable church. You find another square with another recognizable temple and you walk in, it's a recognizable church of Kimmerle no statues, only symbols, skulls hanging from the ceiling, a rectory, a library, everything, you know, to exist in the cathedral of Kim role is in the city. There's no other statue. There's no statute at all. I'm going to sit down at the front of the church where the cleric would usually be during like a service, having to take the cloak out of my bag and just lay it across my lap. And I'm going to sit there and we'll set up religion, check 24.
Speaker 2 00:58:01 I think you pass out a little bit before Dawn, just waiting with this cloak in your hands. You pass into a trance and do you Treme of the rolling waters and the crashing waves and the thunderstorm and the lighthouse again. And you're back on this driftwood batch with this cloaked figure. And this figure turns to you and says, so tell me, what did you learn? You've understood something deeper about this than anybody else that you have ever known has understood about it. And what do you think you have gotten from all of this? I want to hear what feat thinks that's, what's important to this entity right now is what feed things. I think if the newest city is the one of the churches of, and in the key that still had one statue up, it was not this figure. There were signs of violence around it, and there was the person with what I can only assume to be the gift that she has left me at the foot of that statue. I think she's relating it back to the beacon like schism.
Speaker 0 00:59:22 Like there were people that believe that whatever church predated Jerger, Pamela, she knows it. I believe it should go. One way. I know people have waited to go another and that one side clearly won. How does she relate that to this figure, sitting with her, it makes you think and thinks about somebody who was trying to bring the truth to people and is getting pushed back from insurmountable forces. This figure brings its hands up to your face again. And you see this pearlescent skin, this slight, gently, glowing white skin press against your face in the close figure. You see the crackling eyes and the crackling smile. Again says you are so close. Keep the grip on your face Titans and the pressure of the hands on either side of your cheeks increases. And the figure says your next step is possible. Do you trust me? Yes. The figure of dissolves into modes of light that fly up into a storm cloud and strike this lighthouse in a right bolt of lightning and wake up the next morning,
Speaker 2 01:01:13 Passed out. I'm going to wake her up. She comes up with a knife. It's not pleasant. Technically that cuts Jason. Let's go back. John McGrath, that sums up our skeletons. What did we do after that?
Speaker 0 01:01:32 I go back to my friends.
Speaker 2 01:01:42 Wi-Fi Boulder. She asks it's where the other portal site is. Isn't it call it a leap of faith. I'll call it something else. But if you're headed that way, I would ask that you take me with you. And in regards to your little, a party favor from the mountaintop air, it looks at your bag. I'm not sure how to explain it. What if I were to tell you that I have access to people who could possibly explain it for you? I would appreciate the opportunity for a little more truth. The goddess of the epigraph site. There are people in Australia who worship her still Aramay says her lips are very tight. She looks extremely uncomfortable. They don't have anything to do with the beacon. And they prefer to keep it that way. But in the woods, outside of illness, there are certain collectives who maintain a connection to whatever that statute represents. I can show you where they are in exchange for being included in any further portal research that the beacon does
Speaker 0 01:03:03 And then feed the handout has the other one in her bag. And she says, miss Edmar you have a deal. Arabic grabs your hand and grips it super hard. And then she pulls her pendant back into a groove in the ground. And the teleportation circle opens up again. And you guys dive back through and you're back in the overall site, no skeletons around that are active, no movement within the silent city at all. She walks you to the game of the city and out in the woods, you hear it's fence voice. He sounds fucking panicked. I'm going to brush myself off a little bit and then say, well, this has been lovely. Should I disappear? She says, I would appreciate that. Used to it enough. Come on Phineas. She says she snaps over her shoulder in Phineas, follows her off into the alleys. And you're standing at the gate.
Speaker 0 01:04:13 I think of the second city. When family classifying fan has a bandana wrapped around the lower half of his face. Colossae has on a helmet that you've never seen her in before. They both have PPE on essentially. And they find you at the gain of the silence. Any and Fen looks mortified. He runs up to you and he doesn't touch you, but he runs up to you and says, I'm so sorry. The plaster's on a big smile says that don't worry about it. I got turned around in the woods and I didn't want to run into anything that might want to take a bite out of me. Are you you're okay. You feel okay? Fine. Coalesces eyes narrow. I'm going to need you to roll deception for her.
Speaker 2 01:05:11 Plus I got
Speaker 0 01:05:13 Offended, but Colossus eyes narrow.
Speaker 1 01:05:19 She looks at you super hard, but she nods and kind of puts her hands up. It takes a step back. Fen throws an arm around your shoulder. And actually I think takes us off and wraps around you as well as you guys, long back towards the haunting watch. Yeah. You know where to find Arivale somewhere, at least now you guys walk off back towards your characters back developmental. That's where we end for the session. So where's Fiato right now. I'm in Chantelle overwhelmed. Yeah. Same. Yeah. So you guys thought that the plot was thickening before the plot to thick and even more in a couple more weeks. <inaudible>
Speaker 1 01:06:35 Hey, everybody Barry here with the postscript, just catching everybody up on some housekeeping things here at the end of the episode, as per usual, I am going to go ahead and plug our social media as we are on Twitter, Tumblr and tech talk at compel duel. We are also on Tik TOK, acapella, dual audios. In addition, we also have a lot of really cool stuff like an official discord and official Spotify account. All of that is linked on our various social media profiles. If you are interested in supporting the podcast, we ask that you consider pledging to our Patrion. We are on patrion.com/compelled dual. We have lots of cool perks that you can get starting at just $2 a month for that. Also, if you're interested in ways to support the podcast, other than joining the Patrion, if you're listening to us on Apple podcasts, we would really appreciate if you could drop us a rating and a review that helps us grow our listener base and get promoted to a wider audience. And also as always, if you're enjoying compelled dual, be asked that you just tell three friends about it. And if they like it, ask them to tell three friends, word of mouth advertising is our most viable way of getting promoted at this point. Our next episode is going to be coming out on Friday, March 5th, 2021. Or if you are a member of our Patrion, you'll have early access on Thursday, March 4th. Thank you guys so much. And we will see you next week.
