Part 5: Descent to Danger | Starter Kit - Advanced D&D

Last time on Starter Kit, we are being followed. We know that you have encountered Liam. What? And their faces start to bubble as they start to transform. No! They're all different weird things? Guys, wait for me! Oh, God! MUSIC Welcome back to your Starter Kit. I'm David Net. I'm your dungeon master for this adventure. Sometimes in Dungeons & Dragons, combat is sprung upon you, and the party has no choice but to fight their way through. But sometimes, when you have time to plan, a clever party can avoid combat altogether. MUSIC So when we left after last episode, you were in an alleyway having been ambushed by a bunch of rivers, thugs. Once you had gathered your wits about you, you regrouped yourself and made your way back to the precinct and then ultimately home to rest. But you were very careful to pick up two bodies in the way, one of them, the river's woman, the thief, who led you into that trap, bringing her with you to identify her if possible. And then you brought one of the fallen creatures, the, in fact, one of the rats that you killed. You brought that body that had reverted back to human as you were resting. Badly scarred, brutalized, some of the skin peeled back, looked weirdly burnt as well as the damage that you had done to that human. So you grabbed both of those bodies, brought them back to the precinct with instructions to your teams there to look at these two bodies, try to identify them while you retreated to get some rest. Everyone went back to their respective homes. Ignis, you live in the catacombs below the oldest parts of the old city down by the southern tip of the city. Eraviel, you live in the slum quarter. That sounds terrible. It's just the name of the area. Most of it is bad to be the truth. But you have reasonably nice apartments there, but you're very near the wharf gate. So you can lead the city quickly if need be, or a wood elf, so sometimes you just need more space than the city provides. Rent is cheaper. Rent is cheaper there. Leona, you live in the artisans' quarter near the university. It's good for your blacksmithing work. It also just keeps you close to work, so you can be there on call whenever you need to. Narlac, you live in the foreign quarter because... I am not from this world. Exactly. So you live in the foreign quarter. And Cheyenne, you live in Shacktown right outside the walls of the city. Also cheap rent. Very cheap rent. It's actually, there are some nice buildings and nice homes there. It's just a town that grew up along the walls outside of the great walls. There are bad parts and good parts just like everywhere else, but it's a good place for someone who's a little bit more of a loner to be able to separate themselves from the city. I'm comfortable right on the outside. So you all get eight hours of rest. And so this long, the sleep brings your hit points back up to their normal maximum. Oh, that is lucky. Everybody gets your spells back. Good. This long rest, all the people back at the precinct, look at the bodies that you brought. And I've got all my stuff back. You've got all your stuff back, all of your powers come back after that long rest. Oh, your armor. For you, because you rolled two dice during your short rest, Ignis, you'll get both of those dice back as well. So you're back up to your full five. Full five. Hit dice. After your nice rest, you all get a nice solid eight hours, but no more than that, you're out of bed, clothes on, heading over to the precinct. So if you guys want to move yourselves over to the, to near where Leona is, near where the precinct is. Help me, long arms. There you go. Thank you, Jay. So you all together, you come back to the precinct and you had planned to meet up. So you actually meet each other outside. You feel much better. Your mind is still reeling from everything that's happened in the last two days, but now you've gotten some sleep. You feel like your brains are ready to be ready to attack this thing. You enter in the precinct and up to your floor where your desks and your offices are. You're getting ready at your desk. You have a note from the medical examiner who looked at these bodies for you, asking you to come down to the morgue. So together you head down to the morgue to look at these bodies. In the basement there is where the medical examiners are. They're actually a branch of the inquisitors. They, like you, have some magical powers and some extra knowledge they're able to examine these bodies. And the woman's name is Tyllel, who runs, who's running this shift down in the morgue. And she summons you in, she's all business. And she says, these are some extremely interesting. This one, and she points to the body of the rogue that you had killed right out. She says, this one seems to be normal halfling, mid-20s. Looks like she's lived a rough life. A lot of scars, a little bit of malnutrition. Exactly what you'd expect from a street thug. However, this one, and she points to the other body, and this is one of the rats that was a giant rat and then reverted back to human form after Leona killed him. This one is very interesting. What you see is a scrawny male. She says, you know, human male, late teens. But what's interesting about this, is she looks at the body, she kind of motions you over, and she peels back some of the hanks of skin. Now, the skin on this guy is sort of like loose, and even over the places where his body's returned, it's like something bigger was inside of it recently. The skin sort of loose, lost its elasticity. She peels back part of the skin, and the edges of it are a little bit burnt, even though no fire was applied to this guy. Which, as you can say, this is all very interesting. It looks like this is skin almost pasted over his original skin. And if you look in here, and she peels this skin back, and it lifts up underneath, and brings up his liver. And she says, look right here, and you can peer close to the liver, and you see there are some marks, scar marks carved into his liver. Just looks like a little weird rune. Hmm, almost. Huh, excuse me. Do any of us recognize the rune? Roll an arcana check for me. So arcana is your magical knowledge, and you, of course, as a sorcerer, might have some of that knowledge. Nine. Okay, so yeah, you don't recognize this rune, but it's clearly magical writing. And the tylo puts down the liver, and peels back another piece of skin, and you can see written right on like the ribcage, another one of these runes. Cracks the sternum open, and you can see on the lungs, on the heart, there are all these runes like burned into these parts of the body. And she says, but this, this is the most interesting thing. And she, the butt flips the body over, poof, and goes to the back of the head. And you can see on the back of this person's skull, some of the hair is missing, and there's a big V-shaped scar here. She just right away peels that hair back. She says, and you can see, there's a chunk of the skull that is missing. And she says, the skull, chunk of the skull is missing. Also, a small bit of his brain is gone. Oh. She says, I don't know what any of this means, but it is fascinating. Thank you for this body. So if, since she's never seen anything like this before, it's likely that we've never seen anything like this before. You've seen nothing like this before. I mean, Narlak was unable to understand what the runes mean, but there's a bunch of them all over the place written together. Not the same one. Ravio, perhaps you could fewer warlock ways. My demon might, I mean, yes, I might know. Yeah, so roll in on a cannon, check for me. A cannon, come on, come on, Chacha. Ooh, 17. You actually do recognize this writing. So this isn't demonic writing or anything. Your hex blade doesn't recognize it as native to her. However, she whispers to you and you can see actually, there's a series of like potted plants over on the side of the room, the kind of plants that you all approach. And you can see the leaves kind of weaves around you here. Chacha, and you can see the leaves kind of weave around a little bit, giving you a message that you can read in those leaves. And it does tell you in fact, that this is a language of one of the outer planes. He, Chacha is unsure which one, but it is an extra planar language. You didn't recognize it as a language from limbo. I regret myself. But there is something out there that, you know, a language out there that looks like it's written in. Well, Chacha was unable to, I mean, I can't identify it directly, but it is definitely not of this world. Mm-hmm. Yes, yes, of course. I must have been distracted. Mm-hmm. So you take a couple more minutes talking with Tylo and she gives you her report, a couple pieces of paper and shoes you out. You guys head back up to your offices. Okay. There's not anybody who can just like translate that that we can take them to. Is there? You could try. I mean, you could maybe detect magic on the body. You could take this to a wizard or somebody, member of the Arcanum in the Inquisitor's Office right now. You guys are the most powerful magic users right now. So Narlak would be the closest thing to try to decipher this. And you can take some time if you want to just like pour over this line and ball it together and try to see now that you've been told it's an outer planes language. Yes. You grab some books and try to take a look at that. I'll definitely cast Detect Magic on it as well. Okay. Well, these things aren't magical. They've just been written down for you. Okay. But I can research the library. If you want to go back down to the body, you can truly research the library. I'm going to write down every rune. Sure, certainly. And then go into our precinct library. So we'll let you do a little work there and we'll hold that role for you at the end. As you're working in the books there, the door to smiles office opens and she steps out, looks around at you and says, I heard there was a bit of a kerfuffle earlier. I trust you are all all right? Yeah, we're good. Good, good. I have good news. I think you should come into my office. Now, do you stay and keep studying the runes? I would like to know what's going on. Okay, so you abandon your runes again at the office. You guys walk into Smiles' office and you can see as soon as you step in the door, there's a form huddled up on her couch, blanket over the shoulders and looks up at you and you see it's the young man that you encountered at the mansion, a little bit of a beard, baby face, kind of shaking and scared. Liam! And he says, how do you know my name? We just met your boss. Your boss was looking for you too. And also we should kill you. Liam slash CC, we're gonna call you CC or something. He says, I know they're looking for me. I didn't mean to do all those things that I did, but I can't go back there. Please don't make me go back there. And Smiles leans against her desk and says, I think young Liam here has much to tell you. Yes. Liam, please. Start from the beginning. Tell us everything. He says, I'm so sorry that I hurt, he says to you, I'm so sorry that I hurt you. I didn't want to. You tackled me and I was so scared. I didn't mean any of those things that I did. Well, wait on that till we hear the rest of your story. I didn't want to be able to change. I didn't want to be a changer. Sheeran told me I was special and that I would be the best of us, the best of the changers. And I believed her, but now I don't want this. How did this happen? How did you become a changer? She picked me. Sheeran picked me. She chose me because I was smart and fast. And she said, Grontok had a special transformation for me. Grontok. Who's Grontok? Do we, does, do any of us know? You guys can all roll if you want an intelligence check to see if you've heard of Grontok. Just add your intelligence bonus to the roll. 14. 15. 11. 8. 14. So you haven't heard, you don't know of a Grontok, but you've actually heard names. Like that's a name that you recognize, not of a person necessarily, but of your realm. Like Grontok is a fairly common name among the creatures of limbo. So he says, well Grontok, he's Sheeran's friend. He helps us, he helps us be strong. He helps us get stronger and take what belongs to us. Well, okay. He says, I was picked because I was fast and smart, but on our monthly ritual, Grontok made me into what I am. Monthly ritual. Does Grontok work with Sheeran? He said, Grontok's Sheeran's friend, he helps us. Might you all change or get forms around the time of a certain sort of moon? He says, no, our changing happens. Some of us who are more used to it are changing happens when we want it to. For some people like me, I don't control mine very well yet. Sometimes it just happens to me when I'm scared or excited. But eventually I'll learn to control it. And that's what happened in the Flagstaff house. Yes, I tried, we were there, we were supposed to take whatever the harpies had stolen. We were waiting for them to finish ransacking the house. We were supposed to take it, but we didn't surprise them. They knew we were coming and they ambushed us. And when they started to attack us, I couldn't control it, it just happened. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to hurt anybody, I especially didn't mean to hurt my friends. And you remember one of the river's bodies was also torn. Yeah. Lim from lim. So you tore the people up and then we showed up while you were hiding. I hid when I heard more people coming, but then when I heard somebody coming down the hall and I needed to get out of there. And so I ran and then you tackled me and I'm sorry I didn't mean to do that to you. It's okay. Liam, when the change happens, are you saying you're no longer in control of your actions? I barely remember, I can see flashes and images, I know that I hurt him. I know that I ran, I know that I went down into the sewers, but I don't remember much of when I'm like that. I don't like it, I wish it hadn't happened, I wish Grontok had never changed me, I wish I hadn't listened to Sheeran, I wish it never had happened. Is that true for everyone who changes? I don't know, he says it's a special ceremony, it's an honor for us when Sheeran chooses us because we're special. They say they control their changing, I don't know if they remember what they do when they change. I can't control it. Did she choose you from an orphanage? He says she found me at an orphanage, yes. About six months ago, yes. I was getting too old, I would have gone into the streets, she took me in and she took care of me. How many of the rivers change like this? He says we, well Grontok started performing the ritual just after I arrived, so, and the ritual only happens every month during the moon, and there's only a few of us each time, maybe 20? I must study the rooms again immediately, I leave the room and go back and start. The news is, it's maybe now 15. So you guys know what he says, the moon, you guys know that the full moon is actually tonight. That was gonna be, yes, so the full moon, and you know where they perform this ritual. In our home, in our lair by the sewers. Ah, can you take us there? He's like, I don't wanna go back there. Can you tell us exactly where to find it? Yes, I mean, I can draw you a map, sure. At this point, Shywen, one of the things that you guys may or may not know about her is that she joined the city watch because she is a champion for those who can't help themselves, and hearing that she's been taking advantage of these kids from orphanages incenses her and she wants to go find Sharon and put her down. Yeah, at Grontok. Ah, the Regency Era. You might know it as the time when Bridgerton takes place, versus the time when Jane Austen wrote her books. The Regency Era was also an explosive time of social change, sex scandals, and maybe the worst king in British history. Vulgar History's new season is all about the Regency Era, the balls, the gowns, and all the scandal. Listen to Vulgar History, Regency Era, wherever you get podcasts. The war is over, and both sides lost. Kingdoms were reduced to cinders, and armies scattered like bones in the dust. Now the survivors claw to what's left of a broken world. Praying the darkness chooses someone else tonight, but in the shadow dark, the darkness always wins. This is old school adventuring, and it's most cruel. Your torch ticks down in real time, and when that flame dies, something else rises to finish the job. This is a brutal rules-light nightmare, with a story that emerges organically based on the decisions that the characters make. This is what it felt like to play RPGs in the 80s, and man, it is so good to be back. Join the Glass Cannon podcast as we plunge into the shadow dark every Thursday night at 8 p.m. Eastern on youtube.com slash the Glass Cannon with the podcast version dropping the next day. See what everybody's talking about, and join us in the dark. Yeah, I can do. So he says, I can tell you, he says, do you know where the sewers enter empty into the river? And you guys vaguely know that this is what happens with the shadow, and it's right across the river, actually, from Shacktown there. You know, when you walk in through the high gate every day, you actually pass over them. So Shacktown is right there, and sort of right by the West Wharf here, before you come in to the gate, there are two sewer pipes that pour into the river right there. All right. So, this guy, you can picture it in your head now, it's these two sewer pipes sticking out, pouring sewage into the river, because sanitation's so fantastic in this age. But when you think about the river symbol, you think about, to those two dots above that river. Both the two dots above the river. That seems very much in your mind right now, like those sewers. It was there the whole time. He says, that's where we come in, that's how we get to our home. He says, be careful because of the, just know the word. He says, the angry logs in the water with teeth. The crocodiles. Okay, yes. They're right inside the sewer pipe, so you have to be careful. Oh my gosh, David, when you said angry log, the first time I thought you meant a poo. Well, there's lots of that as well. Show me an eye-close of there too, but it's a real old one. Like, wait, angry log. Yes. He says, the angry logs just eat the crocodiles live right there inside, so you have to be careful. I can draw your own map, he says. Yes, please do. Draw us a map to the lair. And then maybe we, no offense, should lock you up if you can't control your teeth. Yes, and for protection. Because that's okay, if you will keep me safe. I've done terrible things. That's what I deserve. We're gonna need to put you someplace very secure for your safety as well as the safety of others. Absolutely, I understand. I understand. I'm trying to find a way to make this better for you too. Thank you, thank you. Please, if you can take this curse away from me, I would be, I would appreciate it greatly. And if not, I know that you want to hurt Shere and I think that she's probably just a good person and doesn't understand this, but Gron talks who did this to me. I understand not being able to act of your own free will. He starts to cry a little bit as he's sitting there in the chair. Smiles walks over and puts a comforting hand on his back and kind of, she turns to you and she says, well, it seems like there's more information that you have, these rivers headquarters, perhaps we want to attack it. And she turns to him and she says, you said that the ritual is on the night of the moon. Is that the full moon? He nods and she looks at all of you. It's tonight. That's the night. What time? What time does it start? The ritual? Yeah. He says, once the moon has risen, the rivers will gather in the morning to greet the transformed special ones. But tonight, when it was me, it's just us and Gron talk. They take us to his room and then we went to sleep. I don't know what happens after that. All right. So when the moon, we got to get to him before the moon has risen. All right. Anything else you want to ask Liam? No, he told us there are 20, so there's 15 of them waiting. Well, but how many rivers are there total? He looks at his hands. A few dozen, I don't know for sure. I've only seen, not everybody comes down, not everybody lives in the lair. Some of us are above, you know, doing our work on the streets. So a few dozen, maybe more, 50? I want to look at the back of his head and just very gently, if you don't mind. He flinches away from your touch at first. Okay, it's okay. I don't want to hurt you. I just have reason, just give me one second. Does he have a V? He does have that same scar. It's sewed up, but he has that same scar on the back of his skull. Yeah. Have I discovered anything more? So you're looking at those rooms. Now with this knowledge, hearing the name Gron talk, kind of looking at this more closely, there's still a little bit out of your grasp. This isn't a language that you speak and it's not an arcane language that you're familiar with, but you do now knowing what you know. You can see how some of the rooms would go together to indicate transformation. In this particular one, you see a couple of rooms together that you think might spell, might be indicative of vermin or a rat. So you think that this is almost like, these rooms might almost be placed in the body to tell the body what to change into and how. Like if I cut Liam open, there'd be a carrion crawler. It may be the case. Yeah, really? Don't do that. I'm not going to cut him. Okay. Yeah. So, do you guys, is it, you're going to infiltrate the river's lair? What are you going to do now? What time of day is it? So it's like midday right now. So, you know, like one o'clock, two o'clock in the afternoon, you've got a good long bit of day ahead of you before the moon would rise in the sky. I wonder, yeah, I was gonna ask Liam, are they there all the time or? They. Your rivers. Sheeran and Grandtoc. There's somebody there all the time. Sheeran's often there. Lots of us live there. Not everybody, but lots of us do. Does Grandtoc live there? I think so. His rooms are in the back. I know he's there during the ritual. I don't know where he is otherwise. I've never actually seen him. Because if we go too early, then we might scare them off. Right. Obviously, we want it. But if we go early and there are less of them. We can kill them in a lay in the lake. Yeah, we might do our own ambushing. But if Grandtoc only comes at night, yeah, we don't wanna. Me but the quicker we get there, we could get there, secure the area when Grandtoc arrives, we could then ambush him. Yeah, let's get down there and get the lay of the land before. Yeah, I like that idea. Before it's dark. I do have to say here, as much as we didn't know what the rivers were, we should have, and they needed to do a little bit better job of picking a name. Yeah, right. This was pretty easy to figure out. This was pretty obvious. You should have figured this out. It's so on the nose that we looked right over. Come on guys. Sometimes that's the best way to hide. Before we walk out, I go to Liam. His smile, like Captain's smile, gonna take care of locking him up. Should we lock him up first? His smile says that, no, I'll take care of it. I'll make sure that he's comfortable but also very secure. Okay, be careful, Captain. I will be. Thank you. And I go up to Liam and I say, have faith, young one. That's it. He nods and smiles a little bit. Thank you. Thank you for helping me. Thank you. You guys leave the office? We leave. We leave. I'll go out of the office. Smiles follows you and closes the door behind you and says, be careful. This is a day you are my best squad. You're strong, powerful, but this is dangerous, so have care. And she goes back into the office. Do you guys now, this time you're going out, you're not going into skies, I imagine. No, we're taking all the weapons. All right. Armor. Okay. I mean, they already know what we look like anyway. That's true. They've found us. Many people have found us. They should know by now we're coming. That coyote we let run off. Yep. Was able to probably describe. Yeah. Just so we're aware, you know, before we're gonna go do some recon, but before we go in tonight, I do wanna take advantage of that pass Absolutely. So if you guys are gonna sneak somewhere that's gonna be your most powerful ally there, right? Okay. So you guys head across the city, out the gates down to the wharf, to that point where the sewage does spill into the river. And you can see it now, there are two sewer grates, very like this pouring sewage into the river. Oh my gosh, how did I not see that? What? Wow. I just saw it a little while ago. See, I was like, Well done. So as you approach, you can see that there are two of these right below sort of the wharf line. There's a walkway above it. It wouldn't be hard to get down there. Now it's a bustling day on the wharf, people are around. So if you're trying to hide going into there, you may need to be a little bit extra sneaky, but you can certainly get down to those grates easily. And as with this one here, you can see that on one of them, the bars are bent just enough to squeeze a person through. Oh God. If anyone does look at us suspiciously, I use message to them and I say official inquisitive business. You are wearing your cloaks. You are wearing your cloaks. You are wearing your cloaks with your inside. You're inside your head. Sure, sure. How many times do I have to rest before I cast the second? So now if you look at your spell sheet, you can see, so what level spell is that? Pass with true, two. Okay, so if you look at your spell sheet there, there should be a number that tells you how many second level spells you have. So the first one, you have two second level spells? Okay, great. So you can cast that twice before you have to have a long rest to get it back. Okay, should we do that now? So nobody sees us going into recon the place and then do it again later? Well, not like has a solution about you being the police if you wanna use that. If you don't want anybody to see you, however. Right, because what if somebody sees us from afar that he doesn't talk to and is like, hey, we're not doing anything. How long does it pass without a trace last? An hour. Then for all of us, you can do it for all of us. As long as you stay close to her, you all get the advantages of it. What if we go inside a building close by, you cast it on us and then we walk out? Okay, hello. No one sees us. Are we gonna do this to go into the sewers? Because we wanna do a little recon work, right? Entering the day and they probably have people. So we'll have an hour? You'll have an hour to walk around? Yeah. All over the place. Let's do it. Okay. So you duck into just a little shack nearby. There's tons of little buildings and actually behind some crates and stuff. It's the wharf so they're offloading equipment. You stand close and you cast your pass without trace. And as Shywen casts this sort of this dark fog, like emerges from her fingers and sort of swallows her in almost like a 30 foot radius. And at first it's very dark and very visible. And then it sort of fades and it's almost like she's blending into the background all of the time. You know where she is because you saw her cast this and she's still there, she's visible. But like a casual glance might not see her at all. And as you get closer, you can see as you step into this haze, you all have these same effects. A veil of shadows and silence radiating from me, masking me and my companions from detection. For the duration, each creature you choose within 30 feet, including you, has a plus 10 bonus two dexterity checks and can't be tracked except by magical means. It's just dexterity stealth check. So it's not like acrobatics. Dexterity stealth. A creature that receives this bonus leaves behind no tracks or other traces of its passage. So again, if people are looking for it, they might see you, but you'll get a massive plus 10 bonus to your stealth. So you guys move out of the building and because you're moving slowly here, there's no duress or anything. You kind of move slowly and cautiously across down by the pipes. Because you're moving so slowly, I'm not gonna make you roll here. You move through the crowd, nobody sees you. Keep out of the way, you don't bump people. You're very quiet. Even inside, you're like the sounds of your own feet and stuff are muffled as you move with this path without trace. And so you're able to get down by the sewer grates, climb over the planking and down to where the sewer opening is. And do you slip inside? Oh yeah. Yes. Okay. When you slip inside, you come to a large sort of pool. This is a, there's sewer water pouring out of these grates into the river, but then there's a pool where it is sitting and festering while it sort of settles. It's the detritus in it, settles to the bottom before the water pours out. They're trying to keep the river a little cleaner. And along this room, there's a big pool here and along the sides, there's a little three foot wide walkway that moves around the whole sides of it. And at the far end, lift about three feet above, there's another hole leading off into the sewers. And you can see a little trickle of sewage pouring out of that hole as well. It smells really bad down here. The way that it smells in that juncture that you found below, actually it smells like here. It is pungent and powerful. The pool is relatively still, there's some stuff floating in it and then there's walkways around the sides that look very slimy. Do we see anything here, anybody? Roll a perception check for me. See, this is where you're just trying to spot what's going on here. Three plus five, it's eight. Okay, so just the smell is overwhelming. There's a sound of the pouring water. You actually don't hear anything out of place or anything here. Does anybody else wanna check? Yeah, sure. Everybody kinda looks around. 12. Ooh, 24. Yes. Oh, where was I? 17. Perception 20. Okay, so the two of you, so everybody else, you kinda look around and you hear the pouring water, you smell the stench, you can see the walkway. Here the sound is the wharf outside, but the two of you are kinda looking out into the water. You can see several floating, almost long, like shapes on top of the water. You kinda quick count them between the two of you, count eight of them. And you can tell Igneous just because of your knowledge of the place and you've been down in the sewers and you've seen them before. They're definitely crocodiles floating in the water. Got it. Crocodiles crocks floating in the water. So you'll want to not fall in the water. We'll wanna not fall in the water. Can I converse with them? Yeah, can you make friends? Oh, you can, totally, you can try. Now, conversing with them is one thing. You can always talk to them. You just hear regular conversation. You can try to call them to you to have a conversation. Their disposition would be different from the rats, so we'll see if you're successful. But you also have to speak with animals' spell. Yes. Doesn't mean you make friends with them when you speak with them, but you can actually just directly talk to them. So they understand you normally, but you can use that spell if you want to. Either way, doesn't guarantee they'll come talk to you or that they'll be your friends. You'd have to coerce them to you somehow. Hmm. There's no other apparent doors in this room. There is that pipe on the far side. That's the pipe. Yep. I'm gonna try to speak with animals, because I do have the plus six animal handling. So what does it say there? So this, gain the ability to comprehend and verbally communicate with beasts for the duration. The knowledge and awareness of many beasts is limited by their intelligence. They can give you information about nearby locations and monsters, whatever they can perceive. You may be able to persuade a beast to do a small favor for you. Okay, so this is very similar to the innate power that you have, so it's not always a spell slot. It's just to use your power speaking with creatures. So the circle, circle shepherd. It's the separate circle power. Yep. So you're gonna try to coerce them to you using animal handling. What are you gonna try to bait him to you? What are you gonna try to do? Just see. So the spell doesn't allow you to bring them closer to you. It'd be animal handling. I was gonna try to use my animal friendship. Oh, you have that. That maybe seems like a better deal. Yeah, let me use animal friendship because this spell lets me convince a beast I mean it no harm. Choose a beast they can see within range. It must see and hear me. If the beast's intelligence is four or higher, the spell fails. It's not, it's a crocodile. It's okay, just man. Might be a smart crocodile. Otherwise, the beast must succeed on a wisdom saving throw or be charmed by you for the spell's duration. If you or one of your companions harms it, the spell ends. So this seems more useful than to speak with animals because this is a creature that wouldn't normally be friendly to you. Right. Now, the crocodile can't, well might not be able to see you right now because of your past with that trace spell. So you'll have to move away from the rest of your group in order to expose yourself. Can I get back to that? Oh, sure, certainly. Okay, good. As long as I can go back. You can walk into it and step out so you become more visible. I'll step out and become more visible to the crocodile. So mark down the spell for me. Where do I mark it down? So you've got a spell, so especially you just went past. Yep. You can use, it tells you how many of each spell level you can use per day. So is this a first level spell? First level spell. So you get four of those per day? You get three, you get three left. Three left. Cool. Behind the scenes, look at the iconic TV shows. We're talking Chicago Fire, Chicago PD and Chicago Med. Join me each week for an exclusive conversation with the writers, the crew members and the stars. Void's doing the right thing for Void. Check out the One Chicago Podcast from Wolf Entertainment and USG Audio. Available now, wherever you get your podcast. The world of Sonic the Hedgehog has been thrust into a not so dark, not so stormy hard boiled detective story that probably nobody saw coming. Follow Sonic and the Intrepid Chaotix Detective Agency as they take on their biggest case yet. This high flying action packed adventure will take them across the world, fighting for every clue they can find. It's one heck of a tale, which is good because this story might be the only thing that can save their lives. Well, if that's all I can just dispose of you. Wait, what? All will be revealed in Sonic the Hedgehog presents the Chaotix Case Files. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. The Chaotix are on the case. All right, and you cast the spell. As soon as you step out of the concealment, several of the crocodiles start to move toward you, but one of them does take a lead, sort of a curious lead moving toward you. So you cast the spell. So I cast the spell on that dude. Okay, you try to charm him. And he continues to move toward you, but slows a little bit and rises a little bit in the water, kind of a curious look toward you. Comes up to the edge and he opens his mouth and you guys hear, mwah, but what you actually are because you stick with him is how can I help? Oh good, we're looking for people. People like us who live down here. People are delicious. They are. You don't have to tell me, but in this particular instance, I'm just trying to figure out where, how have they get in and out of this room? Where do they go? He says they walk on the edge, very frustrating. Oh yes, and then where do they go once they walk? And he kind of moves his, points his nozzle in the hole. They go through the hole. That's the only way out of here. Climb up, sometimes they fall though, delicious. Oh, I can imagine. That must be really, really, really, really, really, really, oh, that's nice. That's nice that you guys share. That's good. So we've got to go through the hole. Great. Have you seen anyone come by recently? He kinda cocked his head. Recent isn't a concept that, you know, they have a very strong. Right. Sense of. He says, people come, people go. Anyone come, well, they don't have a today, do they? Not really. Not really. Suer. I think this is about as much as I'm going to get out of this guide. And like, thank you. Hold on. I want to see you about asking him for a favor. Mm-hm. Let's see. Yeah, we got snow white over here. So the favor was something you could ask him if you speak with an animal, but the charmed animal is kind of gonna do you a favor if you ask him if he's charmed. So long as it's not against his nature. Yeah, gonna ask you if other humans come in here behind us, attack them. Oh yes. Yeah. Should we wait until they fall in the water? No, no, you can come up out of the water. Oh really? Yeah. That sounds fabulous. Yeah. Absolutely. I'll tell my friends we will do that. Yeah, of other people, after I have left and my friends have left, go for them. We will. All right, great. Thanks, that'll be useful. He says be careful, don't fall into the water. Yeah, I will make sure. I won't hurt you, but my friends were very hungry. Yes, all right, we won't fall in the water. Nobody fall in the water. Okay. All right, so then I come back to the group. So he kind of swims around, you come back into the fog of the, you guys heard him like kind of grunting and hissing at this thing and you know. Yeah, so. And so apparently we got to go through this hole here. Walk around, we'll be very careful. Don't fall in the water. The crocodiles will eat you if you fall in the water and they're also gonna eat anyone who comes in after us. So that should cover our flank for a while. Sweet. Yeah, be careful getting out of here. Yes, and be careful now. Like if you fall in the water, it's not gonna be good. You guys are gonna inch along the sides, kind of keeping your backs to the wall trying to move. The rock is very slippery. So I am gonna need everybody to make a check for me to move around here to avoid falling in the water. So hold on first. This is going to be a dexterity check. So you're trying to keep your feet while you're moving around the walls. Are you guys taking any extra precautions that I should know about before you do this? Should we have the most dexterous one go ahead and then tie a rope and throw it back to us to prevent us from falling? We have a rope. You can definitely try that. It's okay if you don't have anything you wanna do. I just wanted to see if you were gonna hold hands or tie a rope to you. How am I holding hands? Our leader. That's the leader. That's right. Yeah, let's hold it. It would be wise for us all to hold on to each other so that we can pull anyone out of the water. Yes. So you guys move along the wall. So we're just gonna go around and have everybody make your roll. So Leona, you take the lead and you make a dexterity check for me. And this is a, if you, not gonna use acrobatics. So let's just make a pure dexterity check to keep your feet. Can I use athletics? You cannot use athletics, unfortunately. There's nothing to hold on to it. You can use your strength for this is dexterity. I just have a lot of that. Yeah, you do. So you roll and add your dexterity to that. 14. Yeah, you are able to make it by, it's only, you're just trying to hit a 10. So we're just trying to hit a 10. So you are able to keep your feet as you go around, but you're holding on to igneous. So igneous, why don't you roll? Dexterity roll, if you're gonna hit a 10 or better. 12. All right, tell us, so you're able to keep your feet, which is good. I don't think you have a bonus to your dexterity. I do have a plus one. What do you do? So 13. Behind you then, Arabiel. 18. 18, so you're able to keep your feet shy when, your dexterity is crazy high, so. 19 plus five. So 24, so you sort of dance along the edge of it. And then last, you're holding our lax hand. Long, lanky, weird alien guy. Yes, 12. All right, so you're all able to make it around the edge. As we get there, Leona, you're very strong. You can boost everybody into that sewer pipe and you boost them up into the sewers. And you find yourself. Just a human, huh? Just strong pushing them all up there. And you find yourselves back in the sewers. This is like the rest of the sewers. It's about 20 feet wide. There's a channel running down the middle, murky water running down it, dripping water from the ceiling. The ceiling's about nine feet high. And you've got the map that Liam drew for you. You know that there is a crack in the sewers. About a mile from here, by the way, winding through the sewers, that leads to the river's lair. So you begin to move through here. You have good confidence you won't get lost because you've got a ranger with you that never gets lost. You've got Igneous and his rat friends down here so that anything go awry. And you begin to move through the sewers into the darkness. Does anybody cast any light or anything before we go? I will cast light upon my staff. Right? Thank you. Narlak holds his staff alight, bangs it on the ground, and it's the top of it lights up. The light shrouded in the spell as well? So yeah, you guys, the spell is still the spell. So you're still gonna have that bonus as you move. So you can see, but it will still be hard for people to see you. So as you guys move forward, stealthily into the sewers, toward the river's lair. And that's where we're gonna end for this time. If you wanna find out what happens as our party reaches the river's lair, you can join us next time on Starter Kit. Next time on Starter Kit. The sun will be down in moments and he'll begin his ceremony. The thing turns and sees you. Your people escaped us a century ago. How fitting that you should bring yourself to me now. What a dick. Yeah, right? Oh please, not that music. That music gives me nightmares from my childhood. Could we get something a little bit lighter, some lighter music here? Are you a fan of true crime TV shows? And what about Unsolved Mysteries, the show that jump-started all of our love of true crime? I'm Ellen Marsh. And I'm Joey Taranto. And we host, I Think Not, a true crime comedy podcast covering some of the wildest stories from your favorite true crime campy TV shows all the way to Unsolved Mysteries. Baby, you will laugh, you will cry, you'll think about true crime in a whole new way, and you'll also ask yourself, who gave these people mics? New episodes of I Think Not are released every Wednesday with bonus episodes out every Thursday on Patreon. And every Monday, you can listen to our true crime rundown where we go over the top true crime headlines of the week. So come and join us wherever you listen to your podcasts. Hi, this is Rob Benedict. And I am Richard Spate. We were both on a little show you might know called Supernatural. It had a pretty good run, 15 seasons, 327 episodes. And though we have seen, of course, every episode many times, we figured, hey, now that we're wrapped, let's watch it all again. And we can't do that alone. So we're inviting the cast and crew that made the show along for the ride. We've got writers, producers, composers, directors, and we'll, of course, have some actors on as well, including some certain guys that played some certain pretty iconic brothers. It was kind of a little bit of a left field choice in the best way possible. The note from Kripke was, he's great. We love him, but we're looking for, like, a really intelligent, decovany type. With 15 seasons to explore, it's going to be the road trip of several lifetimes. So please join us and subscribe to Supernatural then and now. Ever open up your podcast app, scroll forever, and still not know what to listen to. And there are millions of podcasts, and most of them, they just don't grab you. That's why I created Something You Should Know. Every episode is built around surprising, useful, and fascinating ideas. We're consistently ranked in Apple's top 200, with thousands of five-star reviews. 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