Voidbound | Ep. 2 | Old Memories

The scientist of the QSS Ozymandias collapses before you, and even in the dim eerie violet light, you can see a strange purple-black icker running down his chin. His strained words echo through the metal passageway you stand in. The ozymandias is lost. The scientist was only able to get a few words out, only register a few thoughts before he collapses in front of you. His head smacks against the rubberized metal flooring of this corridor, and you are all still bathed in that emergency protocol fusion light in every direction. What happens next is up to you. Holy shit! Oh, so there are beings, survivors! Alright, no one might come move, Mr. Stabs. This is a job for you. Excuse me? Should anyone go near him? Oh, he's a man and he's out! What's that coming out of his mouth? Alright, alright, alright, everyone just calm down, give me a second. And I have my hand kind of on the holster of my, uh, heavy laser pistol. Oh, yeah. Uh, but I'm not drawing it. One of my hands is resting kind of, it's almost like instinctual, I don't even realize what I'm doing in. Uh, and I walk, I start to slowly inch towards this unfortunate individual. Um, do they seem to be breathing at all as I get within ten, five feet? Make a perception check. Oh, I'm good at that! Crushed it. Uh, 14 plus eight is 22. 22. You look and you still, and even though it's relatively dark in this, uh, eerie light, it's, uh, seemingly low power mode. You, you look forward and before you take another step, you see a very, his chest rise ever so slightly and then back down. There does seem to be some life there. Um, anyone who chooses to notice would see that my right hand is resting on the, uh, the hilt of, of my pistol. Um, and my, my left hand is actually touching my chest. And again, it's something that I, I, I almost don't even realize I'm doing. It's kind of subconscious as I, my hand is resting there. Uh, and I get within, uh, distance of this person and I kind of take, see if I can take my left foot to see if I can kind of like roll him over a little bit and I shout back over my shoulder to Barnabas. Not really looking at him. Ah, he's, he's still breathing. What the hell? You all watch as you standing back, scrim approaches the, uh, form on the ground and he lifts a leg and pushes one of the shoulders and the scientist rolls onto his back completely flat against the floor now. And you can see, uh, spilling out of the side of his mouth and even from his nostril, uh, what looks like almost heavy crude, uh, very thick, disgusting, Icar. That flows slow. With an absolute like flash of precision, it's deadly quick. My, my right hand has produced a quick blade and I very gently scoop up some of this stuff off of his face on the tip of my dagger. Okay. And I kind of hold it up. Ah, you ever see anything like this Barnabas? It doesn't disconnect right away. When you pull it up, there's a thin tendril that follows along, uh, almost like a cobweb, uh, and it, uh, it's thick and drooping and, and overflows over the edge of your, your knife and continues to, uh, you, you realize that you're going to have to wipe this blade clean and cut or kind of whip it, uh, free of how thick it is. Uh, honey molasses thick. What are you making this cat? Oh, we've seen a lot of sicknesses, plagues, scurvy's in my day. I sniffed out a little bit. I don't think I've ever seen anything like that, Mr. Stabs. Be careful with it. Bring it back for the young lady to scan with her. Don't move a nail of a face. It could be contagious. Be careful about breathing a ting. Something took out the crew of this ship. A few bubbles are emerging on the side of the mouth of the, of the, um, uh, the scientist and you, uh, bring it a little bit closer just to see if you can, uh, give it a, a smell and Mr. Stabs is all vibes. He's not, no thoughts. All vibes. He's just, he was basically, I don't want to smell it. I'll fill it up. Mr. Yornir, keep praying to your God. We need to help this man. We are on a mission for recovery and rescue, right? Miss Moss? Yes, correct. But we do also need to make sure we make it out. We don't know what caused that I call it. Could be contagious. I, uh, after I smell it, if there's nothing of note, you, you know, no, no, there is very fun. I just had to make a quick, a quick reference here. No, no, no, nothing like that. This is a very pungent smell. I would say that the closest thing that you associate it with is perhaps whetstone, a kind of mineral-esque smell, like you were standing in a cave or something along those lines. It has those notes and you pull it away very quickly, hearing the talk of disease. I will walk back over to the rest of the group after the captain has suggested, perhaps you would like to see it. That doesn't smell too bad. You didn't have to move it so quickly. And at my... I move it all over. It's flattered. I'll pull out, kind of like rifle through some of the, some of the tech that I have strapped myself before I eventually pull out this, this long handled contraption with a, almost like a, it doesn't even look like a clear screen, but it just looks like there should be a screen in the middle, but there are like corners on it and I'll kind of aim it like I'm scanning it and I'll see if I can get a reading. What are you doing mechanically? I'm mechanically just trying to get a reading. Derek, I just said that. Okay. Hold on, hold on, hold on. Finding it on my sheet. You'll have noticed too that I'm seeing, I'm on guard, but I have my two various pistols on my side, but I am definitely holding onto one of the grenades on my bandolier as a scrim is approaching. Many of you have given the unknown risks of this situation, taken a little extra precaution to make sure that if anything should suddenly go awry, you are prepared for anything. Delphina. I just, I just want to, I just want to kind of check on it. I just want to see what I can figure out. Okay. No, no, no, you, you give it a quick look and you scan it with your, your tech. 23. Oh, 23. This substance is organic, but it's certainly not blood and it doesn't seem like something that Solari would produce naturally, certainly. Whatever this is, it almost seems like it would have had to have been swallowed or injected in order to have been produced. I would imagine, since there's not anything, this is nothing that I've seen before, right? Clearly nothing like this. No, no, no, I'm not even going to make this for you. I would imagine a situation like this that the tech would come up with strange symbols like it can't really get a read on it. There's an immediate display of, of processing. And then when it fails the, the first check, you get a red dash, the second, a red mark, the, the third, it quickly goes through a number of different metrics and scans and each one of them comes up with a known or failed. And there's other than what you can see. And there's more and more of this material looking at the scientists, even from this distance, you can see that it's almost starting to pull around the back of his neck and around the sides of his head. That this is not something that your technology is familiar with. It's very strange. Either something's wrong with my device or whatever that is, shouldn't exist. All right. I'll move. Are you still by the, the body? Scream, scream, watch back. So I would say all of you are about 10, 12 feet away from the body. I've moved a little bit closer and I've, I've previously been able to use the, the powers of the harmony to very lightly heal or use restorative properties to people. And I'd like to try and get a sense if I feel like this is, but like, you know, I'm not, I'm not like a healer of sorts. I'd like to get a sense if I think that this is like dramatically, like if this is a like well beyond any kind of healing I could possibly do. And you're equipped with some level of magical healing. I mean, so this is you're evaluating whether or not you might be able to undo this beyond, you know, wrapping a simple bandage or, or, or putting a bandaid on it. Make a medicine check for me. And you might move however close that you think I would need to move. I would ask you, are you making this, it will affect the DC. If you are making the check by physically touching this form, or if you are going to try to make the check from afar, I will get, I will get as close as I can. I won't physically touch the, the figure. But I will, I will get like, put my hand out and attempt to like sense a harmonic resonance with him. Yeah. And not like, not like a bunch of crude, but like, try and try and like resonate and see what I can from there. But I'll get close enough to be like, you know, you try to send yourself and you reach out and you see if there's a disturbance. Go ahead and make a medicine check. Not terrible. Not terrible. 15. With a 15, you feel like he is unconscious, but stable. Perhaps a, an amount of choking is happening, but there's a, a degree of, for lack of a better word, calm about the, the predicament that this form is in at this time. And because you got a 15, you think that if you were to extend your magic that you might be able to wake him up moments ago, he was able to walk, able to crawl, able to communicate. He seemingly recognized Delphina. You had a brief exchange before he fell to his knees and slammed down onto the, the cold floor of the corridor. You find yourself them. No, there must be something wrong with my device. We really need to get this, the system up and running. We, we could take, if we must, we can find a way to get him to the medical bay, but we'll need the system online anyway, if we're going to administer any sort of true healing to him outside of what those of us are capable of. All right. There's a man who needs a healing. We'll get him if this derelict ship still has a functional medical bay. We'll get him there. I think we should absolutely get him to the med bay and turn him on inside or at least carry him there face down. I think he's, we need to try and get this out of his throat. Okay. Uh, well, all right. Well, I'll be the one to bring him and I'm going to reach down with my mechanical arm and, uh, and basically going to scoop him up, keep him away from me, but just kind of make sure that presumably, presumably I am considerably larger than, than this guy. Oh yeah. Uh, uh, he's not a small, small stature stature, but you are Barnabos and, uh, you grab him, you grab him with your mechanical arm and you swing him up. There's a wet slap as a string of Iqor sprays against the surface of the ceiling. You, uh, it hits, you know, those overhead like runs of segmented cabling that you can see all coated, um, junction boxes, that kind of thing. Uh, there's this, uh, wet splash and, uh, enough material, uh, spills out of this poor form that by the time you situated him onto your shoulder, you hear gurgling and a scream and a voice. Please. Please. Get out. And then he goes limp again. I know it's not the most comfortable, but it's what you need right now, uh, he starts to convulse, you can feel his muscles start to, uh, uh, uh, jerk and twist in inside of your arm. This is no longer like holding a, um, limp form, uh, but instead, uh, uh, literally, uh, uh, pushing and doing pull ups and push ups and in, in your arms, uh, as though he's out of control, literally pushing in all directions. You have to, uh, I would say you would need to make, uh, uh, an athletics check to keep him in your grip as you are, as you are, or acrobatics, depending on how you're trying to do it, as you are trying to, uh, uh, move, uh, down the hallway. I am going to, uh, I'll use my other hand. I'm, I'm tired of this as I see no, no, no, we're trying to help you as I am going to make, oh God, where's my good quab? Okay. There it is. Quab d 20. It's not good. We have to kill the captain. 16. That's not bad. 16. You're able to, uh, tighten, tighten your grip and, uh, uh, you are. You all watch as, uh, more of this material continues to pool at the feet of Barnabos, um, his form, uh, is, uh, twitching every, every, every now and again, but you're, you're now prepared for it. You're ready. And, uh, uh, you feel like you can go wherever it is that you need to go next. Where that is, it's up to you all. Yeah. Oh, sorry. We have, uh, we have a, like a layout of the ship, right? We studied the layout of the ship on the, on the route here. Uh, last session, I believe we indicated that, uh, Delphina has an intimate knowledge of the floors and the maps and you kind of knew how to get. Okay. She's been studying blueprints and, and she would know everything there is to know about what's on this floor around the corner and all the way to the other end of this massive ship that you find yourself in. All right. Uh, can't have this, uh, Mr. Fina, you, you'll be in the lead. Lead us where you want to go. I'll be right next to you to help protect you. Uh, and, uh, you guys bring up the rear with the captain in the middle. Does that sound good? Is that, is it all happy with that? Yes. We'll, we'll head straight for the medical bay. Sounds fine to me. I'll bring up the rear and we should make haste. All right. Perfect. Captain, don't move. And I wipe my knife off very clearly on this guy, very unceremoniously. I am like just trying to get all of this crap off of my quick blade. And before I reach either. It's not easy. And even after a few wipes, you look at your blade and you're like, and I am handling this guy like, uh, an awkward piece of luggage or something. Right. It's, I'm not being gentle. No, I'm here to do a job and I'm doing what I'm paid to do. And, uh, you know, uh, scrim and I are mobilizing. You, you squeeze him and you all start to, um, push forward. Delphina, I would say that you know that, uh, it's not the best equipped of the medical facilities in this massive station, but, uh, that just around the corner from where you are, um, that there is a, uh, uh, compact clinical space where you might at least be able to find some medical supply. And before every, as we start to leave this area, I'd like to notice if you were to look happy or sad. I'll sort of let, I'll go last and I'll sort of wait as they start to move through the ship and I want to kneel down and touch some of this I core and like feel it in my fingers and sort of spread it and watch it. Oh God, he's touched it. Okay. And I'll say under my breath. The ending of time awaits. Boom. And I will flick it off my hands and follow my friends. We're like, do you know what I'm saying? That's not really the camera lingers back. Yeah, the camera. Absolutely. How does camera? Well, as long as we're playing camera lingerings, uh, go ahead and make a perception check for me. As long as we're playing camera lingerings. Oh yeah. Yeah. We have to kill your 16. This is going to get you. 16. You look at the, uh, Iqor and it's, um, this crude purple brown, uh, very thick. Uh, and you, you're noticing even the reflections in it, uh, uh, have this dullish quality to it, but that dullish quality isn't the reflection of the light around you. You realize just for a moment that this Iqor almost seems to be mimicking the panels around the, around you, the, the color of the walls and the floors, that metallic color. Uh, it's almost like a glimpse. Like you're staring at the shimmering surface of water before it, so the sensation goes away, but you feel like there's, uh, uh, not a magical quality, but a very unusual quality to this Iqor. It isn't just liquid. And that is what you're equipped with as you catch up with the rest of the party as they push through the double doors of the medical bay. Unless you want to do anything else. I think that's fine. You push through the double doors of the medical bay and you find yourself immediately confronted with, uh, uh, what is a, uh, perhaps a 30 by 20 rectangular room on the opposite side of the doors is what would be a wall, but it is 45 degrees out because this is the edge of the ship. And you can see that there are what would be windows that can be lowered shields and panels, uh, in front of a wide variety of, uh, stations. Uh, there are beds, uh, in there. Most of them are on wheels. The one of them looks like some kind of a sterilization, uh, station with a UV hood. There's adjustable, um, uh, ooh, yes. The adjustable med beds are on tracks, which can be repositioned, locked in place. There are restraint straps and, uh, integrated and biometric leads hanging out. You see on the far wall, a bank of analog, analog diagnostic machines, uh, an oscillope style vital monitor, blood pressure cuff systems, oxygen saturation monitors, all kinds of technology. For the purposes of trauma, surgery, pharmaceuticals, biohazards, perhaps you, uh, this is what confronts you as you, uh, push in Barnabos, uh, with your companions, uh, and, uh, look for perhaps some way to help this poor fellow. Um, if I see there's probably some sort of like metallic table, uh, uh, that I would just not five feet from the door, there's a metallic table and you're able to, uh, gently or roughly slam him down into place and, uh, uh, start to figure out what to do next. All right. Old still. We're not going to kill you. Hopefully we can stop what's trying to kill you. Well, you know how to use any of this. Not like a me, Adam. Oh, we need to try and vacuum out what's coming out of his mouth. It might be in his lungs, his esophagus. We have to try and clear his airways. Vacuum it out. Whatever they have here. I don't, I don't know what they have in the facility, but I'll look around and see if there's anything that looks like, uh, like a tube with that might be connected to suction or anything. If I know of anything that would work in that format, make an investigation check this out. Is there a chance that like some of this stuff is automated? We just turn it on and it'll go and then work on it. Maybe right? 17 17. There's a rolling tray nearby. And on it are a variety of instruments and you can see that there's some empty syringes. There are also a variety of cabinets along the wall where you imagine there might be more machinery. There doesn't seem to be anything in the immediate around the bed that could be used for like a vacuum or anything hanging from the ceiling that could be used in a mechanical suction sort of way. You might have to take things a little more analog unless you continue searching and the power is still out though. Right. The emergency protocol is still on. So all of this searching that you are doing is in the low light of that violet uh, space. I mean, if, if, if it isn't immediately apparent that Ms. Delphina knows how to operate this stuff. Delphina is leaning against the wall. Okay. Then I would, that is not her area. I would just walk around the perimeter of the room looking at different panels, buttons, switches, labels, anything that I might be able to read to help Tai Shen and potentially find a way to activate the med bay. Make a, um, investigation check and go at advantage because I would say that Tai Shen has already done some of the work for you by process. Diagnostic services, scrim 16 is what I guess my high roll 16. Uh, you find very much the same, uh, but you, uh, go that step further and you start to pull cabinets open starting with the lower cabinet. You swing one wide, you swing one wide, uh, and a, uh, the machine that jumps out at you is not a suction device like what Tai Shen's offered, but you do find a, uh, terminal box that's connected to what is clearly an ultrasound. Jepa. And I will pull this, uh, this thing out of kind of crying on the ground for a second before I hoisted up Tai Shen. I found this, I'll like hoisted up onto the table and it's a big box. Uh, I might be able to use it to see how, uh, how extensive this, uh, this material is in him. If it's in the lungs, the throat, uh, and starts to know where to pull from. Your guess is as good as mine. I'm just going to help. I am no doctor. Well, let's see if we can turn it on. You, uh, flip a few buttons and this, uh, device appears to be battery operated or at least have some sort of power cell in it. Uh, and, uh, after a few clicks, uh, it hits, uh, hisses on with a wine. There's a, uh, shoddy, uh, shaky image that eventually crystallizes on the screen. And, uh, it, it's just a sort of a dull, um, light shape, uh, gradient in the center. Uh, you imagine that it might be because you're not pressing the instrument against anything. And I'm assuming it has a cable coming out of the box attached to like a handheld dark orb that you hold over the, uh, scrim. Take the scanner. I'll hold the syringe, run it over his chest and see how deep it goes. And if need be, I can pierce his chest and just start pulling out whatever I can. All right, hold on. And I'm going to run away from this, uh, bed, grab some sort of stool or something, drag it back over and like climb up onto the table and almost like straddle this guy. This is not on wheels, fortunately, but you are able to pull this, uh, like vinyl padded chair that's got a, uh, like broken seam on the surface. You're able to pull it over, slide it over and stepping onto it. You join, uh, uh, as tall as, as Tyshen standing over this poor gentleman. All right, Tyshen, make this quick. Cause if this guy sneezes on me, I'm going to be pissed. What I'm trying to do is if he can find, if he can use the ultrasound to kind of find pockets of like where this is pooling within him, all attempt to use a syringe to hit it, uh, and just start rolling it out of, I'm presuming it's like pulling in his lungs. Sure. And I don't know how, you know, I, like I said, I'm not a doctor either, but I've done some battlefield, uh, probably some very light battlefield medic, uh, kind of stuff. So I think anything that'd be like crude emergency medicine, uh, I'd be a little bit familiar with, um, so this, this is about as far as I'd go. But if I think I can hit, pierce and pull from wherever this is pocketing in him to clear out his, uh, throat. So ideally we stabilize him and he can wake and communicate with us. You are watching what motion scrim is making and trying to triangulate how you might be able to attack wherever this pocket of goo, uh, might be. And scrim starts to move it up and down. And the image is difficult to make out. There's a, a, a three dimensional, uh, quality to this view. And, uh, it takes some adjusting from scrim in order to, um, get a sense of where you are, even in the body, but as, as the, the different, uh, layers come into focus and then out of focus and shape, you start to get a sense of there's, there's a rib, there's, there's a, a bone, uh, that, that, that moving thing right there. That's clearly the edge of, of the heart. There's, uh, there's a. Uh, lung and you look into the lung and there does appear to be a tremendous amount of, uh, viscousness, uh, there. What, what should be, uh, uh, ventricles and everything just appears to be, uh, almost like a, like a bean, uh, uh, uh, flat color from top to bottom. Uh, okay. Right there. Captain, hold him down if you can. This isn't going to feel good. Uh, and all, all stab this syringe into my best approximation of where this is through the body. If I can make that determination, I'll stab it in. And if I pierce and think I'm there, I'll start to pierce. And it's, it's all by feel. I'm going to have to ask you to make another medicine show. Oh, okay. I hope the navigator can see us and they see you can't. Oh, that's a nine. That's a nine. You start to pull it first and you're horrified to find that the plunger doesn't lift. You, you, you pull again and you're not sure if you're in the right place anymore. You're, you're, you're not a medical doctor. You, uh, pull it out and you start to reposition it in and, and, and continue. Um, Scrim, I need you to make a perception check. I'm good at that. Oh 15. Not bad. Not bad. I have plus I say that it's just enough. You're watching Tyshen struggle and your hand, uh, uh, had shifted not no longer paying attention the moment that Tyshen acted, you stepped out of ultrasound mode and went into, is it, are we going to be able to survive this guy? Your hand drifts and goes a little bit higher up and you glance over at the monitor and there's a flash of movement, something, something seemingly swims away out from underneath the ultrasound device. Uh, Tyshen. Hold it still Scrim. No, no, no. Hold it still. I missed a lung. I have to try again. Something's moving inside of him. What do you mean something's moving? There's a bunch of, there's a bunch of anger in there. Look, and I point to wherever the machine is for a moment. I saw it. It, it flashed. It was moving. I swear. I saw movement. Scrim, you probably saw a heartbeat or the, the, the expanding collapse of the lung. There's movement throughout the body. I immediately start moving this thing. Cause now I don't, I, I'm like, they're thinking I'm crazy. I'm looking at the machine, moving this thing all over his chest to try to find it, if I can find it again. You're, you're, you're finding a heart. You're finding the same lung. You can even see the needle at a brief, for a brief moment. And then you move it up a higher and higher and higher. You get to the center of the throat and, uh, that same sensation. And this time you see it too, Tyshen. There's a, uh, almost like a, a, a finger curling out of the way. No, no, no, no, no. I swear. I saw it. I saw it. There, there. I saw it for a second again. I saw it. I'd like to approach if I can. I have blindsight. Oh no. What, what can I get as I see that they're screaming that there's something inside of them? Does my blindsight read anything? Can I almost see this without the ultrasound happening? Um, or do I get anything additional? Make a perception check of advantage. Come on. That was, I didn't mean that. I didn't mean that. You're good. You're good. No, it's still on your hand. I swear. No, it did. I'm not a roll. It definitely did fall out of your hand. I swear, I swear. That was not a full roll. 25. 25. Woo! 25. Oh, baby. 25. The vibrations in the room are all around you. There's the, um, subtlety of the, uh, humming atmosphere coming in through the vents, the breathing of Delphina leaning against the wall, the, uh, Barnabas standing over and watching as, as Taishan and, uh, scrim are, are scrambling more and more and more frantically. And you take one step closer and sure enough, as even in the vibrations of the, the body that's moving back and forth on this medical bay, scooting along on the floor, uh, you can feel through your blindsight, the vibrations of something inside of the, like the chest cavity, the neck of this, of this creature. You, it's like, uh, uh, when a muscle tenses or when something gets like a, a Charlie horse almost, there's, there's, uh, uh, you even know where to look and you look and just underneath the jaw, you can, while they're focused on the chest, you see just underneath the jaw, a pulse, like there's a, uh, like a worm or something underneath the skin. Um, I, so you'll see me all approach. I'll be looking down at this guy, but I'm still, I'm still maybe a couple of feedback as you were earlier doing this. And you'll see my head just sort of face upward and stare blankly. And I'm a pretty weird shape pupil as it is, right? But it'll almost like expand to like my entire eye as I just stare off into space and I get the sense, right? Not with my eyes, but I sort of just can somehow feel this thing. Um, careful. Don't pierce his heart, Mr. Gage show. I'm trying, but, but look, do you see that on the screen? That is something we can say. I'm trying to hold this guy down. Yeah. Basically the best that I can. Yeah. He began me. The beginning of what, Mr. Yarnier, the end. Move the big what? What are you saying for him? Stop speaking in cryptic riddles, Mr. Yarnier. If you say something that we can't. In his neck. Do I have any sense of what this is? Potentially beyond a sneaking suspicion. Oh, no. Make a. Depending on how you are thinking about what you were witnessing, make a history or conna or religion check. Dang. Ten. Even though you perceive something alive within this person, something that has severely weakened him and is clearly threatening his life, even in his unconsciousness. When occasionally Barnabas has to hold him down as his body heaves and then relaxes while Scrim and Taishan continue to relax. And even with your blind sight, there's no way to know what lies within. Um. I will just take a step back and I will say. He will be the first. These words ring in your ears, Taishan and Scrim, as you are getting more and more panicked trying to find this thing. You're moving the ultrasound up and up and higher and higher and higher. And you suspect you have only moments to act or perhaps lose the life of this poor individual. I mean, this is chaos while screaming. He's saying cryptic shit. You know, I'm looking at the captain. I am actively shouting like we're shouting over each other. I'm telling you, I'm yelling to the captain, like, what do you want us to do? It's coming up. It's coming up. It's moving. And I'm just waiting. I'm just trying to follow this thing with the with my business end of the equipment here and waiting for some command from my captain. I am going to say, do what you can, Mr. J. Shell, strike true. I'll try again. Maybe if we pull it out, maybe it feeds off and I don't know what it is, but then we'll focus on what we can try and solve. And I'll try and puce him again as best I can and see if I can remove any more anything at all from his lung. Make another. I would say it would be a disadvantage, but you are being helped with by two people trying to save this person's life. So make it straight medicine. Yes. OK, OK. Twenty one with a twenty one. You pull the needle out entirely and push it back in higher up. And this time it feels like your eyes are in two places at once as you are watching his body, making sure that it doesn't twitch and also watching the ultrasound and you finally trajectory. That's definitely a word you find. Find the trajectory and you push in. And this time there's an immediate geyser of this thick Iqor that sprays into this long, empty vial. You pull creating such it and it floods the vial instantly. And all of a sudden you hear. Oh, good God. I hit it. I hit the pocket. The scientists eyes pop open and he looks at all of you in pain. Please. No, please. No. Oh, get it. Suddenly there is a sickening pop and a snap within his torso. As in a moment it bulges out and bursts. Blood sprays everywhere as a slimy, wriggling shape flies out of it. Little more than a dark shape. It lets out a shrieking as you are all covered in Iqor. It hits the floor and lightning fast. It slips against the wall up and into event disappearing. I think with the sudden shock of this and maybe the force of it or just a surprising hit with the Iqor, I fall off the table and I hit the floor. Oh, I'm definitely thrown back. I'm yeah. I've been leaning against the wall just watching all of this and the moment this happens, I lean forward, grab both of my pistols and attempt to shoot. But I'm still so shocked by this that I hit the, you know, I hit part of the wall and I hit part of the duct. There's the sound of. But I was at least ready for something to happen. Sure. I won't even make you roll forward. The. You won't make me roll the myth. I won't even make you roll forward. For the opportunity to hit. It was such a shock what happened. The violence that happened and you are both covered, covered from head to toe in this molasses like substance that you took a shot in the dark and it's clear that you didn't hit your target. If you kill scrimmage. Looking, looking down all of you see the bottom of the chin and the throat and the chest all the way down to the ribs have been completely opened and severed. What was remains of his shirt had been somehow shredded and almost an instant by whatever creature this was. And you know that it is. How, how, how big was this thing? Like how big we talking? I would say that this was perhaps the size of a, like a ferret. Like what? Like the size of the thing from Mickey 17. The Grubb. Oh yeah. Mickey 17. Oh. I don't know. I don't know where Grubb's at. That's true. But that's kind of it. Yeah. I mean they're like, they're like Grubb people sized. Yeah. This is, it still was able to outmaneuver the ultrasound and move around and it was chewing around getting through this space. When you look down and you, you don't need a perception rule to perceive the interior of this person had been turned into a lattice of tunnel like networks by this creature. Does it look like this guy is clearly dead? Make a medicine check and insight check and then a perception check. From the waist up, he looks like Cartridge exploded. Dynamite. He's peeled. The DC is one. He's dead. Okay. Fantastic. I would step over around like I just missed my shots, but I'm keeping my eye on the ducks as I'm walking around. I put my pistol to his head and I just shoot it right into his brain. You shoot the corpse just to be sure. Just to make sure. You watch. I don't even watch as I'm just looking to see if it's coming out of anywhere else. And then I holster my pistol and I lean back up against the wall. You see all with you. Allow me to not hold for that one. And you, you want to make sure that you don't shoot scrim in the foot. Shoot scrim in the face. Oh, I really hope I get a natural one. I didn't. I didn't get a natural one. Damn, I just shot scrim in the face. You are able to do this easily. You put the gun against the temple of this and as soon as you feel it, make contact. You pull the trigger and there's a blast and. The head is disintegrated, effectively made none. As soon as I'm stunned from hitting the ground, but the moment that I have a chance to compose myself and I like touch my face and see that I'm like covered in this shit, I'm gonna be like, oh, fuck, fuck, fuck. Oh, captain. It's my mouth. You got my mouth. Captain. Oh my god. Captain, I'm gonna die. No, you're fine. You're fine. Lad wipe it off. If this is what finally kills me, Bonobos, I'm gonna be so pissed. You're lucky. It'll still work here. Hopefully. Lad. Oh, God, this is my mouth. Oh, yeah, we got these. Oh, you shit. This truly curse, Miss Voss. Maybe that thing was excreting this, but but that's I mean, it burst out of him. That's what killed him. Oh, yeah, that's true. We don't know how he came to be impregnated by that thing. Well, now you know what caused this ship to become derelict and perhaps to the rest of the crew. I've never seen anything like this before. Has anyone? No, no, no, none of us have ever seen anything like this, I said. Have I seen anything like this? Make a. History. Arkana. History, history, just to search your personal memories. If he was. Doing well. Six feet. This moment, there is a chance that there are more on board, hold up somewhere, protect it. If we can make sure that we kill that thing, it could be the only one or it could lead us to the rest. They will need to hunt that BC down. That's for sure. It was fast, Captain. Real fast. We weren't ready. You got the job on us. Now we know what we're hunting. I'm hunting a great few BCs in space in my day. But Captain, there was a. There was a larger crew on this ship. And we're dark. We haven't. We haven't heard a scene from any of them. It's a large ship. They will hunt this thing down. And now we know that this perhaps is more of a recovery mission and not a rescue mission. No more putting ourselves in danger to save the lives of any crew that might still live. Is that all right? Does that sound amenable to you, Miss Voss? Same price. Recovery, no more rescue. Rescue mission. He may be the first. Or the last. All right, Miss Voss, you're the one paying us. We'll still try to save the lives of anyone else we encounter. You with the 16 are. Perhaps I've never witnessed anything like this, but it also doesn't surprise you. I'll start just like I'm pretty shaken. And, you know, that's that's not easy, but I'm pretty shaken. I'll start just kind of walking around the room and seeing if I can, like, you know, looking for anything that's like towels absorbent. Anything to get this stuff off. I imagine it might be close behind you and it's not a matter of investigation. You just eventually pull a cabinet open and you're relieved to find. The guys and bandages that there are a number of towels of all varieties. I'll grab a couple and just toss them over the scrim and start. Oh, sweet. Fuck. No, I'm not showing. I'm going to fix this. Oh, no. Certainly there's some sort of spray on all this tech is. Is it any need to use so much fucking chrome as I look around all this technology is way too fancy and like shiny compared to what I'm used to. But I presume there's some sort of like not as really chemical spray, but some sort of decontaminant is I'm good. Now that I don't have this guy to hold down anymore, I'm going to go look around for something that I might be able to help them at least spray off and and try to get cleaned of the the goop. That I will make you roll for. Go ahead and make an investigation check. Eleven, eleven. With an eleven, you join your companions. I'll ask you to make it an advantage because they're all looking around. We're searching together. I mean, you hear about that because I got a. Well, that investigation, thirty five, twenty four. Not bad. Not not far off with a twenty four. You start to go through. There's a ways it's so slick and shiny. Who are you trying to impress? You you take the time to go through almost every cabinet and you are finding all of these different instruments, instruments you don't even recognize. But when you go to the lower cabinet, Jason, to where the ultrasound was found, you do recognize cleaning supplies. You find disinfectant. You find antiseptic materials. You find spray bottles and all variety of cleaning solutions that you might be looking for. I would also say that you pull back a partitioned area on one side. And just beyond that, in the same med bay is a space that none of you had really given much attention. It looked like perhaps there was some machinery behind there and there is. Well, you can see against the wall, instead of a window, there is a large built-in terminal station, a CRT monitor, thick keyboard, data cartridge slots. And on the shelf above that monitor, you can see that there are number of labeled data cartridges, all with different numbers and scribbled writing on the side. All of them seem to be medical logs, recordings of sorts. I'll say Miss Voss, this might be to your interests, as I will say. Here you go, and I'm going to basically toss Taishan and Scrim what I find. Clean yourself some lads. We're going to go on a hunt. Yes, Captain. We must locate the parasite. And return it to oblivion. We will do that. I have plenty of ways to return this thing to fucking oblivion. Although the navigator and all his wisdom cannot see us here. May Carcosa guide my aim true. I'll listen to him and go check out the room. You walk across the room, avoiding the large amount of gore that has surrounded the bed of what nameless scientists passed away there. And you cross the way as Barnabos, Taishan and Scrim are cleaning themselves off, spraying themselves down, using alcohol to try and clear their bodies as best they can, not knowing what risk they are at. You look up and not only does it read medical logs, but you recognize the handwriting of your father. How recent does it seem? Like, can looking down at it, am I able to see the? There are dates. Yeah, there are dates. And you follow along the dates. It seems like sometimes the dates are one day after the other. And then pouring through, you see that there might be a week gap or a month gap. And then another quick succession of medical logs. And then it stops. And to your frustration, it stops just around the same time as your. As to your knowledge, the last time anyone ever knew the ship as a man, the is existed in the first place when it went missing 18 years in the past. And are these like, are they takeable? Are they these are these are taped so you would be able to pull them out. And presumably you could put them into the terminal. Presumably you could put them into the terminal or you could bunch them up and put them into a package and take them with you. They are. Do you remember Zip drives back in the day? Oh, I do. It's it's it's it's somewhere like there's like a CRTV here, you said. Yeah, there's a monitor. Not even paying attention to them. I see my father's handwriting and I pick up a tape and I stick it into the TV. You push it in and there's a moment of registration. A few keystrokes later in a few. There's a. Image that is produced glowing scan lines of a camera and you look up and you can recognize that there is indeed a number of cameras. All small little eyes that are looking in on this space. Many examinations must have occurred here and you see immediately flickering on standing where you are with his hand in the same position as yours. Just over the keyboard. Dr. Orson Voss, I'll reach up and I'll put my hand on the screen. And he has clearly just punched the button to record. He looks at the camera directly, feeling as though looking directly at you. You see the. Tired eyes of your father. This is one of the the later logs and you hear his voice coming out of the tinny speakers of the terminal. This is Dr. Orson Voss and we are performing another surgery of the strange creatures we are able to find out here. We are going to be taking all the utmost safety protocols. This is experiment four, two, three, eight. And we are going to be, of course, this time using the sterilization chamber. Doctors, agree if you'll join me and you see Blue-haired Salari join him. The young man that just exploded on the med bed across pulling pulling gloves on here and ready to assist. Nothing much of interest happens. It's a mundane experiment, but you are able to flick through. And even though they're talking in very medical terms and having these sort of back and forth, having almost like a casual scientific experiment about it. The other thing of note is what they are experimenting on. There's a. For lack of a better word, a carapace. Shape on the med bed and it is thin. It looks almost like a like a shrimp. But you can see that there are a number of tendrils that have been sprayed out like drapes on all sides, like like wings of a butterfly almost. And it's impossible to make out where it's head starts because it is such a long, curvaceous body. These four arms curled up like spider legs and they are able to make an incision and pull it apart, small little organs that they're talking about in a language that you barely understand. This is not your domain of expertise, but there's only one subject that you care about and that's watching your father go through the routine of science. As he studies what is the void out here at the edge of the galaxy. I will pop the pop the tape out and I'll collect them and put them in my pack as I turn the TV off and head back out into the room and I'll walk over toward the body. May you rest in peace, Mr. Greer. All right, we have places to go. Doctor. Not to her. Oh, it's not to her. Oh, and you'll hear her very, very clearly speak the name of this person. We need to get to the. We need to turn off the emergency protocol. I do believe there is a chance that there are more survivors. Just. I've uncovered some tips that might answer some of our questions. Once we get everything up and running, we can put them on display and see what we can figure out. It looks like they were doing experiments of some sort. But if he survived, I believe that others might still be on the ship waiting for rescue. All right, right away, Ms. Voss. Just getting some more of that goop out of me, Gills. And I'm like kind of like trying to run through my the call that we had. It's like, oh, God, you know, just kind of trying to deeply myself. I don't seem very like scared by it. But for Mikey's context, didn't. Delphina say that she got the distress signal signal like a couple of weeks or months ago, so like Barnabos believes that it's only been a handful of months or weeks. That is correct. Man, Barnabos is the king of manboozled. He's been born. I've never been a manboozled. Oh, God. Dr. Greer. Look, 18 years older. Oh, compared to what we saw. You can't. I mean, I blew his head to smithereens. I check my memory banks from 10 minutes ago. If you saw what was on the monitor, presumably we were all while. Oh, but I would say it was. I don't know. It was a partitioned area and I didn't articulate it very well. But this was not a decent room. This was, you know, you know those like hospital drapes that you put between spaces. This was behind one of those. God. And so anyone who cared. I would have noticed whether Greer looked like he was a valid question. Or whether Mr. Game State. The answer to that question is absolutely. The desaturated salari that you have confronted you, recognized to you, were attempted to help and then lost his life to this strange infection, for lack of a better word, was much older than the young man that you saw performing this surgery. So it's been 18 years. It's been 18 years. All right. Now what? These in the vents. We're in deep shit. What are we doing next? Oh, we have to try and find it. And as Lady Voss said, turn off the emergency protocol. Oh, yeah, that's first. And then we hunt down that BC, wherever it is. Try to save whoever may still be living. Presumably, it'll be easier to find once we've set up a thing, right? Restored power turned off the emergency bullshit. Right. If the ship's computer can help us and perhaps give us guidance once we turn it all back on and perhaps its memory being restored, we'll give us answers. Well, it should ideally be able to scan the ship and pick up exactly where a creature is hiding. That would be nice. That would be real nice. All right. Here we go. Either way, Mr. Stabs, you're the lucky one. Before we go. If any of you are found with a parasite, do you wish your passing to be sped along? Yeah, that'd be great. I'd like to see you try. But sure, if you manage to figure out a way to do it, do it. I agree. I acknowledge this. I'll let you tell Fina. If I were to come under the impregnation of one of those things, you have my permission, Mr. Yornir, to shoot me square in my face. You can do it with my own gun. I acknowledge this. You're right. You haven't shared your preference, Yornir. Davina, you know how to get from here to the computer room where the memory banks are. And you know that the only path to getting the emergency protocol system reactivated is to restore Vonnegut, the local copy that you so kindly welcomed Lady Voss back to the QSS Audemandias. But when you escort the rest of the group to the elevator, of course, they're not working. I should have known. Of course, they wouldn't be working. Real quick, as we... Back to that previous conversation. No, please. You will discover that when you get to the elevator. In fact, you've already thought of it. You're not going to go to the elevator. It's fine. Exactly. I love that. You haven't shared your preference, Yornir. Should you find yourself afflicted by that creature? Should we strike you down? I do not understand. Well, in the same way, you offered it to us, Grimm, the captain myself, Lady Voss. If that creature were to infest us, take over our body, afflict us with whatever that that man fell to, you would strike us down. You presumably want the same if it were to infest you. He who drowns beyond the stars guides my evolution. This question does not make sense. OK, Yornir, I'm going to need you to stop saying odd shit. All right, I like you. I do. You're an OK guy, but you're really starting to freak me out. All right? Oh, I mean, we are in the realm of the God that drowns and the best or whatever. He said, that's why I hired him onto this mission. Because Pellego's he does not see us here. Stars do not see us. You're Lady Luck now either, although you may be lucky. Lady Luck may not see us here either. But for certain, I do know that his God does. And if there is any divine intervention that may save this salvage and rescue operation is that one in normal circumstances, I would tell you that your opinion on this does not matter and we will shoot you point blank, should you become infected. But I fear having gotten to know you that if you succumb to one of these things, all hope is lost anyway, so it is really irrelevant. If time persists, a more weird shit. This timeline will not come to pass. Right. If it persists. All right. Does anyone understand what that means? No. To want to get then. I think I understand. I don't at all. There's like a little bit of madness. Yeah, I think it's a little bit of madness. So in the end, Barnabos's eyes of of where that you can maybe kind of see in a glitch. Did you know that Barnabos is half man? Scrim, but I think there's definitely an extra glint of madness as I will as I'll basically look to you, look to you, Delphina say, Oh, Miss Voss, if the elevators and the lifts aren't working, where how shall we possibly get to the other levels of the ship? Well, we're going to have to be a little creative in the way that we maneuver this space. There might be some emergency corals, passageways, potentially, and I look up at the at the vents, the venting. Not afraid of small spaces. Are you Mr. Dreadwick? The corners in the blood fleet are far more narrow than those vents. I assure you, young lady, won't stop me. Well, chop, chop, then follow along and I'm going to attempt to lead through whatever passageways, no, no, no, you wait, young lady, especially in tight spaces. We send Mr. Mr. Stabs first every time. All right, well, you can be right behind him and try to call out. I will look to where ever you are pointing towards, whichever direction you think is this pathway forward. Am I going to need to help getting up and in? You follow her guidance to the vents and you can see the vents are there. But looking down, you can see that all you need to do is lift one of the metal grates and actually go down. I say to get to the other side of the walls of the interior of the ship. That leads to these maintenance spaces, these thin corridors that are between the rooms of a ship like this for the very purposes of utility. There are tons of as soon as you enter looking up, there are vertical shafts, ladders, tubing, that kind of thing. Does it look like everyone can fit one by one? Like, is it big enough for everybody, especially even your near even man over here and Barnabas are going to be able to just sit, but it is going to be a tight fit. All right, well, that's easy then. So I get the impression just so I understand. Well, same page. I'm going to go in first, we're all going to kind of go one by one and and and so you guys will be behind me. Yeah. Yeah. OK, I will with with the captain's help, move this great because I probably need some help because it's probably pretty. Yeah, it's a heavy grade. You think you could have gotten it on your own, but you lift it up and you slide it aside. No, that's I suppose. And if I need to use my tools, basically, yeah, kind of or like well, like laser cutter it through. Oh, sure. I would I would do that if it's like, you know, reinforced to get it off. You pull the great free and Delphina's guidance and navigating you proves true. You are able to walk through the walls almost and you find yourself looking up at and you know that it's going to be a few floors up that you'll need to go before you exit where the elevator would have taken you to get to the floor where the computer room can be found. There are ventilation fans casting these revolving shadows against thick insulated pipes labeled with stenciled text. Once you've helped me move the great wall ready to go in, I take a moment to just kind of like stick my head into the this access shaft and just kind of see what I'm looking at. Poke my head back out, kind of get myself ready to go. And on my left arm, I have like some sort of a data pad. It's not like Ziggy's where it's like a grid spiker pad, but it's like it's a little piece of machinery. Personal devices is time. It helps me keep track of things. And anybody who's standing close will notice that I kind of and I press a couple of buttons and there's a timer, just a six second timer and it counts down from six to zero and just repeats as I jump down into the the shaft and I'm constantly checking it as I'm starting to crawl forward and make my way through this. And it just just loops from six seconds down to zero. This six second loop starts at the top and you you almost can see it when you close your eyes. You've you've watched this timer go down to zero and repeat itself over and over. It's like a third heart beat that you have that you can just follow and track against. You're fully aware of the creature that disappeared. Almost certainly must have passed through this space. There's a small amount of haze as some of the pipes let out a little bit of venting coolant. There's a condensation dripping from the joints of these many tubes. These vertical ladder shafts connecting to thin decks, these little walkways, almost gang planks before you find the next one and you continue to make your way up. As you crawl through the tight emergency corridors and passageways, it would be claustrophobic for most people, but not you, Scrim. However, the fear that washes over you comes from a guttural gurgling that you hear in the darkness ahead. Then a shape lurches forward and a horrible amalgamation of limbs and other body parts in places they should not be a living test dummy horribly deformed from a failed instant teleportation test, experiencing its final agonizing moments in a fleshy heap. And then you blink. And it's still just darkness I had. Are you OK? Huh. Is everything all right up there? Do you see something? No, I was just a trick of the light, Mr. Fien, I'm sorry, I apologize. I thought I saw something, but I think it was just to the beastly Mr. Stab, so I can't see up there. No. No, I promise you it wasn't. I just your positive you didn't see anything. 100 percent. I'm sorry. I just a little on edge and I lost my nerve for a second. I just thought I saw something, but it absolutely was not the thing that we're looking for. I promise you. All right. OK, Scrim, to be alert is better than not to be. Things are just a little tense right now. I apologize. All right. If I can proceed, I would continue to. There's nothing in front of you, but I am. I'm shook. And you try to shake away that memory that you just confronted and you continue to make your way. It's not a minute or two longer before you push out underneath the floor of the floor that you were intended to be on. And with the help of your companion, you're able to shift and slide out the metal grate and you're all able to safely make your way to the hallway, a much higher for an upper echelon that allows you access to the computer room. You. Keep your guards and your wits about you and you progress. Eventually, they'll fina you lead them to a. Core room, not an engine core, but the location of the mind of the QSS, Ozymandias, and this is not double doors pushing in for the case of emergency. You have to force these sliding doors open with no. Energy. At an emergency protocol, and you're able to push and slide them open. And what confronts you is a very dark room, not bathed in future light. No emergency lights exist within this room. It is a wide octagonal room. There's a primary central interface, a terminal surrounded by guardrails at the center of it and the perimeter top to bottom floor to ceiling are server banks and vertical stacks. This is clearly the home of Vonnegut, the AI. Well, we've made it. So now we just need to get Vonnegut up and running. I hope that it won't take too long. And I imagine that I believe that I can. Override the emergency protocol, you believe that. But as you walk in, I think I need to actually ask everyone to make a perception check. Oh. And there's like it's not pitch black. There's lights filling in from the corridor specialty. And I want to say, I think that normally I would try and bring up the rear. Unless you think that you're doing, you're always doing stuff at the back. Because otherwise I'll be in the pack, but I think I'll be trying to guard. I would have paid you to keep it the rear, basically. That's not what I was thinking. I'm not like trying to stay in the back. Yeah, yeah. OK, OK, OK. I just just because that one time. But yeah, I'll be you were like waiting and you heard something under my breath. Right. Like maybe you were the only one that got even a glimpse of the muttering. You know what? Let's say that that's true. Let's say that that's true. You couldn't probably maybe that's why I asked you about what your option was. Oh, yeah. That's exactly why I asked you. I said it in a different language. Oh, I want to see you touch the. You would have sent me and you would have. I would have seen. Butter butter something. I would have seen a real D&D. Can I see your list of languages, please? Oh, boy, I think we're going to have a bit of it. Oh, this is one of my favorite things. I was. This is one of my favorite things that we get to do in a supplement as complex and as robust as neon Odyssey is all these wonderful languages. Where are the languages on? It's right up by your species class in some class line. It's right up there. Oh, I don't believe you speak it. I know we're we weren't suspended. No, I know that everybody's like, I'm getting the idea. Should we just say what it is so we all know what languages we speak? Just well, except for you. I don't want to know what you speak. I mean, I guess. I don't need to. OK, I'm getting the vibe that I'm probably not going to be able to help too much with this situation. So I'm sweating. I'm I'm visibly upset from the incident that I had in the in the event. I am going to wait for a moment that I feel like I can talk to Barnabos. A little bit more privately. Yeah. Maybe while they're, you know, Delfina's working on the situation or whatever it might be, I just want to like I'm looking. I'm going to look for a moment where I could privately just have a moment. Barnabos, I think I'd be just like sweeping the room to make it like the creature's not in the fucking room with us. Right. Right. This is something that you've been actively to spread out. You know, I would say I would say Taishan, you have more than any of it has been checking corners, looking at ceilings, trying to be the most observant and ready one should anything be needed. And you're the one who's kept the weapon at hand throughout the space. So you you circle the perimeter and what were our perception scores? 17. Oh. 24. 24. Natural 20. 28. Natural 20. Oh, 23. 19. Wow. That's OK. 20. Even after. Why did I even ask? 19. Yeah. Oh, fuck. You are on alert, but it was different. So you had a really good day. It was a terrible roll. I got a full. Really? What's wrong? You recognize what's wrong immediately. There are in these memory in these memory servers all along the wall, vertical memory banks, these tall like briefcases that slide in and out of the wall, almost like server blades. These have been many of them have been pulled out. And the very obvious thing is on the opposite side of the room, a power distribution panel has been opened and cables have been what clearly have been deliberately cut. The lights are dark. There's not even blinking server lights or any kind of this this is for lack of a better word. It seems like someone or something did to Vonnegut. What Delphina did to the body of Dr. Greer in the med bay? Oh, come on. And they look cut. They look chewed or melted. Um, yes. Yes, I do. Are they separate? Are they like, you know, is like a fixable? It looks like it could be fixable with somebody who has experience with engineering technology, that sort of thing. And they and I will say I will say that I'm not going to keep your role. I'm going to keep everyone's role. But when you're observing this, even in the dark light, it would be impossible to decide whether or not these are coming from chew marks, callants or pulled in anger by somebody. Well, I said that was one of the options. Well, that's the third one. Anger across your mind. You just don't know. Can't tell. It's clear that if you want to at least even start the reboot process for Vonnegut, you're going to have to reseat these memory banks. You're going to have to reconnect these cables. You're going to have to do all of that. And then the launch sequence that you're familiar with, Alphina would be, well, not easiest cake, but doable. And so we just have to take all those steps and then I can do the launch sequence to get Vonnegut up and running. Are any of you familiar with repairs of this nature? No, I'm quite handy. I will admit, Miss Voss, that I am used to scrappier tech to say the least. But I'm quite good in a pinch. Well, would you mind, Mr. Dreadwig, taking a try here with these cables? I would not. You're paying me 2.5. You get what you like, Miss Voss, as I would kind of lean down and my large metal arm will open up as the hand will attract as I will pull out my engineers tools. Yep. Yes, I will use my engineers tools and no electronics tools. Yes, that's what I will use. I have quite a bit in this in this hand. I will switch to my electronics tools and I will do the best that I if you feel that's more appropriate than engineers in this case, it is. As you all are guided by what seems obvious, sliding these memory banks into place and pushing them until there's a satisfying click, you are dealing with what is very obviously like an electrical array and so you need to strip a few wires, twist them back together, tape them, make sure that they are all flowing negative to positive positive negative or whatever the correct thing is. I'm not an electrician. And you start to do that. I need you to make a technology check. I will. With the tools, I believe I will be I believe I am at expertise. So roll advantage. I was going to ask if it was an advantage type deal. Go for it. That was pretty good. Twenty two. Twenty two. You make a quick work of it. And very quickly, as soon as you there's a spark, you pull your hand away just in time as you realize that energy is flowing into the computer. And finally, in this room, the emergency comes on and Delfina, you're standing right there at the center console in the center of the room. There's a and you're able to see a blinking cursor, which indicates that the boot up process can begin. And I will, for the sake of brevity, tell you what to do. OK. There is a flywheel system. You need to have one person pull this lever in order to keep a charge in order to create the momentum necessary in order to bring a system like this, a sizable system like this online. There is a vertical rack of sliding modules that requires adjustment. If they fall out of sync, even as the powers is going through, then there will be a failure in the reboot process. And finally, there needs to be the input boot command sequence to actually initialize Vonnegut one, two, three. If you can complete those three steps in order without failing, then Vonnegut will come to life. And does it seem like it can all be done by one person or we need one person? He needs to work the lever in order to maintain the charge. And if they stop doing what they're doing, then the process must be started over from scratch, which one of you has the best lever hand? Not a question of that. There's a lever that needs to be pumped and it needs to be consistent motion to keep the power moving, which one of you is going to be able to stay the most consistent? No, there's nothing that a good shanty can do to keep any semen in motion. And over as I am going to grab the lever. Next, I'm going to need someone to manage the control module. Yes, the second step is a basically a number of dials. And it looks like when there is power flowing through from the lever that they're also supposed to remain in sync. But if one of them were to suddenly be out of sync, it would be up to that person to correct it to make sure that all of the systems are being seen by Vonnegut at the same time effectively. I need someone to manage the dials there. They need to all be in sync as Mr. Dreadwake is pumping the lever. If they get if they are out of sync even for a second, it will make it impossible for me to input the correct the correct code and take it to Vonnegut up and running. Mr. Tashen, I'm going to need you to handle this, please. If there's one thing I know how to do, it's restore balance. I'll keep them in check. Thank you, sir. When the both of you are ready, we'll begin. All right. Just like operating an ether pump. On your word, lady boss. On the count of three, I'll say go and we go on go, not three. One, two, three, go. Then we'll start. You thought I heard the old man say, leave her, Johnny, leave her. Tomorrow, you shall get your pay and it's time for us to leave her. You answer steps. Leave her, Johnny, leave her. No, leave her, Johnny, leave her. And I will stop before the the debated line of lyrics in that song. And we'll make no determination one way or another, depending on your favorite version of that song. As I was physical stress of making sure that you maintain the energy at a constant rate being what it is, I need an athletics or acrobatics check. The dexterity check from you, Tisha, and come second as you watch the dial start to turn and you start to maintain balance. And you, if they are successful, will see the terminal come on, allowing you to initialize the core of Vonnegut. But that's not we'll see what happens. Barnabas, how's your your shanty treating Vonnegut? Hmm, I'm trying to see if I can make this better. If it's a no, I think that's a. Do I get that cool thing that might be later on? I can also help you. Is that a do I get that? If you're in trouble, Mike, I can help you. I am a little in trouble. So I would be there with you. Because I'm seeing this. See, Shandy, I'm not actively helping you. Yeah, my advantage. No, no, but I can give you a little bit of luck. Oh, yes. I would hate a little bit of luck. If you need it, I'm just asking. I mean, if it's a one time you think don't. No, no, I got a few. OK, I would like to I'm there with Barnabas. He's my captain. Right. I'm as I'm as ready. I'm joining in with the with the space shanty. That's right. And I would like to use one of my uses of dealers favor. And so I have six luck dice, which are D sixes, and I regain one of them per when I finish a long rest. When me or a creature I see within 10 feet of me makes a D 20 test, I can use a reaction to expend and roll one luck die to apply it as a bonus or penalty, my choice of the total. Yeah. So I'm going to have to give you some luck. Wonderful. Thank you. It's not that's a lot. But hopefully the dealer looks down on us, you know, five. I will mark off one of my uses of dealers favor. Wow. With the five, that's a 15. That's not bad. That was the DC. Oh, I'm not kidding. That's no, no, no, it's 15s all the way around. I'm just going to spoil it because that's that's fucking badass. Hey, baby. You are harmonizing. You're you're rowing the lever like one of the old blood feet fleet ships of old. And you I see what had this exchange. Like, do I know that you like kind of granted in this super almost like supernatural I know that thing. I'm not sure there's anything to see. I think that you would see that I'm there with my captain and I join in with this with maybe maybe you feel there's like a shift, like something unexplainable, something that you can't put your fingers in the hominine. But you almost think to yourself, I was lucky. I was fortunate. You know what I mean? Like you just have a moment of like, what are the chances? I would say that's what you. OK. Is that reasonable? Yeah, that's wholly reasonable. I love that. That is what you experience. But this is like trying to bring Frankenstein's monster to life. You are running this lever up and down and you can all feel the flywheel getting harder and harder. It actually it's the opposite. It's it's hard to move it first. Yeah, once it gets going, you are actually finding it easier and more fluid. The energy is surging. How is your dial balancing going? I'm looking at the dials and I'm watching the gauge is the arm of the gauge is as they retain uniformity and they start to go out. My eyes will flip to one and we'll start to go out. And then another will start to go and we'll flick. And I'll kind of like be darting around. And I may even start to miss one as it goes. And as I noticed it, I quickly move over and I change and I change the dot and I pause for just one second and I close my eyes. And then as I feel the panel in front of me, I start to almost like a pattern. I feel them start to lose resonance and I move through and I feel the disruption in their balance and then I work with a 17. Oh, baby. I said that he was 15 to achieve harmony in the paneling environment. Excellent. You achieve balance and perhaps Vanna may never be this optimal ever again as you see the command terminal boot up and you see that flickering cursor, just like the one that you experienced in the med bay, requiring you to very quickly make a few key commands. In order to make those commands, you can make a. History or a. Dexterity check, honestly, it's a question of speed and memory. Well, I got a natural seven, but I could use indomitable spirit. Oh, yeah, this ability check. Oh, this is an ability check. That's OK, because I could use I could use overcome and roll again. OK, so I'm going to use over the roll again. I have when you roll one or twenty, which I already had. So I have a check mark here because I have it available. You gain heroic inspiration. So I'm using my heroic inspiration from my overcome. Oh, yeah. And so I got a 15 dexterity plus five. So I do it. You enter the commands and there's a few moments where you have to start over from this from scratch. You know that if you aren't able to get the commands in during this very precious reboot opportunity, this window of time that Vonnegut will not only fail to initialize, but your companions might take damage doing the task that they're doing. They were there literally letting energy surged through. But you overcome the difficulty and suddenly Barnabos, you feel the lever come to a stop as there's no way to clang shut. You see that the dial all moving in perfect synchronicity as they as they twist and turn and the command terminal accepts your input, Delphina, and instead of a image or an application interface or some other UI, you see the the face of Vonnegut. Hello, Lady Delphina Voss. Thank you for bringing me back online. Vonnegut, how are you feeling? I am feeling much, much better. And that is where we'll take a break. Oh, come on. Come on. This is on the. Hey, everyone, Nikki Pacheco here, and I have huge news. Our next Kickstarter campaign is coming and it's called Neon Odyssey. It's a 1400 plus page space opera trilogy for Dungeons and Dragons 5.5. It is tons of options for players in GM's alike, including an entire galaxy to explore, 30 plus species, 40 plus subclasses, a brand new space combat system, and so much more. It's taken us three whole books to fit it all in. You can become a VIP at NeonRPG.com to unlock a free set of neon nights, sharp edge resin dice and more. It's only a dollar. So become a VIP now at NeonRPG.com. The. Digitized face of. The AI operating system of the QSS, Ozymandias stares out from his monitor. It's uncanny when you watch this face look into each of your eyes. It is a strange illusion. You know. That it is a computer and that it is looking at you through a combination of limitations that were put in there for the sake of friendliness for easy user interface, but also that it is almost certainly just watching you through the many cameras that are situated throughout the ship and it's doing its own diagnostic report. Yes, I'm feeling much, much, much, much better. Thank you, Lady Delphina Voss for restoring me. And you seem to have reactivated Vonnegut. Moments later, there's a click and the. Fuchsia light, this violet light that has soaked every hallway that you've been in with the exception of the maintenance shafts, you watch as they are replaced by the slorescent sound, the hum of natural-esque lighting and the emergency protocol fades. And you're all staring at each other in what feels like bright light for a moment until your eyes adjust and you are you feel safe warm. What a relief. Step one, step one. Awesome. How may I assist you? Vonnegut, dear, are you capable of scanning the ship to see if you can find any traces of life potentially in the in the vents or storage compartments? Yes, one moment. Oh, thank God. I wasn't sure he had that. Scan, running scan. Scan complete. Yes, I can detect. Three hundred and twenty three life forms aboard. I told you this was a rescue mission. They must be here. Does it does it know what does it know what the life forms are? Vonnegut, can you is there any additional information you can provide about these life forms? It appears that the life forms are all in the communal area of the personnel room. It's exactly as I thought. The five life forms are in the computer room. You here with me. There is another life form. Scanning, scanning. Yes, in the maintenance shaft heading to the personnel floor. It's heading towards where all of the people are. Now. I mean, this is no way we can head it off, right? Head start. Do we must? We can't let it get to all those people if it can infect them. If they're not infected already. You all right, we got a BC to hunt and a BC to kill. Allow me to show you the way. And you watch as his face fades and a three dimensional representation wireframe of the entire ship of the Azimandias spins into view and you zoom in and through and you can see that you are on. Thanks for the Patreon question. I'm remembering them, Resident Evil movie. You know how they have those really cool like displays where they show the like laboratory and you get the full map. You get that kind of a view of the Azimandias and it shows the computer room and it draws a green line as it shows you like what what what path to take. You clearly can take an elevator down a floor to go through the center of the ship and towards the living quarters in order to get to the bay that he's describing. Can't wait any longer, right? We got to get a shake of like here. We should move quick if we're going to cut it off. Yes, we must make haste. I would. I would wait for everyone to leave. Hmm. Wait backwards, Graham. You all start to make your way out into the corridor following the guidance that. Vonnegut has laid out for you and Vonnegut has even gone a little bit farther. Being a little extra as he is, the the lights are even sort of like war like glowing and sort of leading you down the corridor. And the three of you, Yornir, Taishen, Delfina, you start to make your way. But sensing being able to almost read his every motion, being such close partners in this way, you sense that you Scrim has something to talk with you about and you hold back in the computer room for but a moment. You're right, lad. Why don't you sing a ghost? How much? How much I think that I would have told you a decent amount about what I did before joining your crew. I think you probably would. Maybe not everything, but a good amount. Yeah. Captain, listen, I didn't. I didn't even want to say anything. But when we were on our way here in the in the crawl space, I. I don't think what I saw was just a trick of the light. I think it was a vision. Hey, what do you see, lad? I knew I knew them. They were one of the other test subjects. It was awful. Experiment gone wrong, but they were there. I mean, it was so real. I don't want you to think I'm losing my nerve here because I'm not. But for a moment, I. I saw him. You think it was the ghost of one of those other test subjects? No, no, no. This isn't like the nightmares of the night terrors. I mean, the guy that I knew was there. It wasn't him anymore. It was. It was after all that awful shit. Oh, the amalgamation one wasn't I saw him. All right. And then he was gone. It's just your imagination, lad. All sorts of sailors and spacers. When you're out this far, you've been in a ship for so long, you start seeing things, hearing things, thinking that there are things that are there that aren't. The guilt that you feel, no matter how long ago it was, it eats away at you. It comes back when you least expect it. Captain, I hear what you're saying, but I just think. You have to know I have never experienced anything like that before. That's the first time for anything. I'm sure it's nothing like. Don't don't say anything to the police. I mean, don't keep it to yourself. There's no reason to worry the others. We've got two point five men on the line. Let's make him feel self assured. We'll be in. We'll be out. This business will be behind us. Mr. Stavis coach. And then we can enjoy our riches and post up somewhere comfortable. Perhaps a nice steel, a nice beach, fun, Pismara, perhaps at least a certain nose of steel, right? Nose of steel. All right, here we go. Come on. And I will draw my heavy laser pistol as we make our way through the corridors to wherever we are going next. You follow after your companions and quickly catch up with the group as your near does something crazy and enigmatic. I don't know what to say. I don't know where you're going to. You know, as we're waving. Um, I guess what you've like, you would have very intentionally gone last, even though like Tisha normally takes up the rear. I would do a terrible job at taking up the rear. Every time we leave a room, I think maybe that would have that conversation would have been as we were all getting ready to leave. I was just an aside or even like, well, no, Vanna, it was scanning. Maybe it just. Before we even get like started with the computers, you guys, I'm very. What if Delphina leaves you to fall behind while Tisha waits for me to leave? That's why I love this. Oh, you just have a quiet conversation. You have a whispering conversation just behind Delphina as you leave, as she leaves you through the long corridor. This is not a short walk and you find yourself in the rear with Tisha. As they leave and I'll sort of linger at my companions and I'll look. Tisha and up and down. And I'll say. The false mind wakes from digital dreams in the death row of dimming stars and falling leaves. How do you hope to maintain balance? I've been split from the harmony, your near, but it can't be split from me. I came here with a job to do, protect this crew and restore balance to the harmony. But I put great respect in those who turn to the stars for wisdom. I won't give up on what I'm trying to do. What is it you're trying to do? Trying to do. Me. I am not. He is what is. And I. I'm an extension of his will. Nothing more, nothing less. And what is his will? Peace. Well, that we can agree on. You. Another leaf falls. As I turn. Tisha. Tisha's all right. Tisha's back. Tisha's takes it back. You you hang back and you center yourself and you follow as your near walks. It would resolutely forward and you all make your way watching as Delphina left here or right here, make your way towards the center axis of this ship. You reminded that from your approach, the ship was spinning at an impossible speed. Is it still you haven't looked out the window in so long? You can't feel a thing. But you do eventually approach two double doors that don't have to be forced open, don't have to be collided through like in the med bay. But instead when you approach open by themselves without the emergency protocol, the power is active and you hear the doors open and you walk into space that surprises you. A garden. A lush and beautiful space. A thin paths and walkways that that work their way through what must be the largest open space on the ship. A long rectangular chamber with an arched ceiling. Covered in what look like lighting displays, semi-transparent panels. That connect to the metal ribs of this almost cathedral like space. They simulate a sky filled with daylight. And you realize that you've walked into what must be a recreational space, a space that is designed for deep space well being to make sure that the scientists can touch grass and breathe what feels like clean air. Indeed, there's a moisture pouring down from vents in those same ribs of the ceiling. And you can see the narrow paths are dotted with benched seating. This is for relaxation. This is a there's even a greenhouse enclosure to one end where where pursuits of the mind might be enjoyed. This is what confronts you as you continue following Delfina through and towards what must be the personnel area, the living quarters. As you walk through the lush greenery all around you, it's a stark contrast to the rest of the ship. So there are trees here. Yeah, I shoot your ear. The face. I don't hear none of that. No, I don't. This is quite a well funded expedition. This is beautiful. I greenery trees. That's not what you need for a long voyage in space. I take deep breath. I just take it in. Does it smell like fresh air? It is shockingly realistic. They must be pumping not just not just the natural smell of the trees and what must be soil and water, but this is if they're doing anything more, they're doing a very good job of it. Because when you take a breath of fresh air here, it feels like you're on the surface of a world. This area calms me down a little. I feel a little better. Something about this is peaceful and serene. Yes. You all start to make your way. And I would say you're be lining. And even though there is a serenity to this space, you are still aware that at any moment, the thing that burst out of the neck and chest of somebody not an hour ago is still loose on this ship. That is a hard, sweet and sour to separate as you walk through this serene space. You could hear chimes if there were any. And Taishan, you pass one of these trees. You hear as you're in the back, a sound and you sort of pause. The rest of your companions make their way forward, but you pause and you look. You hear the gravelly sound of breathing and stepping off the path for a moment. You wrap around the creature. Is it perhaps another scientist in need of aid? My shit. It's the gravelly breathing of a dying man. You round the trunk of the tree and you see a cavalon night, blood pouring from his armor split apart by a laser blade in a slow, agonized movement. The soldier pulls off his helmet and with empty eyes. Wishes you fortune in the battles to come before wheezing a horrid death rattle. The moment later, he's gone. I think I think seeing this, I would potentially spun quickly and as the vision begins to fade from my own blade, blood dripping from its edge, as it falls from the blade and as it as presumably I'm regaining the vision of my true surroundings. The blood drops, but doesn't spatter on the ground. The blood drops again and you don't see it on the path and you look up again at the blade and it is bloodless. Does the blood drop maybe turn into a leaf? That's what I was going to say. As I turn quick, perhaps I strike the tree, the blood turning to sap as it pours off the tip of the blade and as I hit the tree behind me, as the camera turns behind leaves fall as perhaps a single leaf falls from the tree struck in this vision. Sure, sure. Maybe I don't even notice it. Do I see it? All of you would have had your back turned in this moment. Except for your near. This was Tyshen's private moment. Similar to what Scrim experienced, where you you've just seen something that you remember so vividly that you can close your eyes and see it again. But it was real. It felt real. Those sounds of dying, that death rattle. It's like you were there again. I just almost frantically quickly spin around, like look around and then look behind me and seeing everybody undisturbed, unnoticing, moving forward. I'll pivot and start to take position back and just kind of walk almost like. Like I've seen a ghost. You can't help but turn and look back behind you a few times just to make sure that it's truly, truly, truly gone. You put your weapon at your side, but you keep a tight grip as you catch up. And the rest of you pass through this garden. Uneventfully. It's another minute of traversal before you reach the personnel bay. A room that is clearly a wide arched doorway that allows you to pass into what would be the living quarters. This is there's no there. There are laboratories on this side. Medical supplies are in med kits, not in rooms with med beds and sterilization, surgery tools, these sorts of things. This is a part of that recreation adjacent to the garden. And as you walk towards this entrance, you see the doors again. So open up. But what you're confronted with is not a living quarter. It was a living quarter. It's now been repurposed. Long room, what was divided into apartments on one side and the other. A wide oval area for recreation. You can see even what must have been a bar on the far side has been engulfed by something else. Pods jut out from the floor, the walls and the ceiling of this space. Some doors are open, others are not. But every surface is covered in some thick, calcified material. It looks like bleached coral. Long fibrous gross run between these accretions, hanging in loose drapes. Thin flakes float in the air very clearly, clearly freed from the disturbance of the door opening. Appliances, any furnishings, a couch or a chair have been swallowed by this unnatural growth and it's dark. The lighting itself has been encased by this strange material that looks wholly unnatural in this, what should be the clean pristine living quarters of the Asmandos. By the navigator. What in the house? Ah. I am going to. I'm going to grab one of the grenades off of my belt and I'm going to grab one with my right hand and then the other with my left hand. I'm going to basically look and I'm going to kind of pitch one. And they're different colors. And I'm going to kind of think for a moment as my hands kind of cover and I'm grabbing to and I am just standing at the ready. Is this the life form that your artificial intelligence scanned out, Miss Voss? It's hard to know. Do we see the grub thing anywhere? I like I just do a quick scan to see if I see any movement. I'm looking. Nothing crazy. Make a perception check. Oh, crushed it at 23. Twenty three. You do see movements, but not in the form of a grub. There are attached to the floor that would feel like coffins. These these strange ovaler shapes. There are some of them stand upright. Others are attached to the wall. There are even some that hang from the ceiling at odd angles. And you see at the far end in the dimmest light, you can see that there is a surface of these, even though they are covered in these almost clinging strands, translucent, member and membranous shield. You see a hand smack against the wall. I say, no grub, but I see that and I hold up the heavy laser pistols. I point with it all the way to this thing that Derek's describing. I don't know if we have a mechanical laser type operation, but if you had a red dot, you could you could highlight that space and circle the fucking movement. You all it's all evident regardless, regardless. It's evident we have survivors. Survivors, are you sure about that? Don't look like survivors to me. As I'm going to sniff a bit and mechanically, you may not allow me to do this. I'm out. I don't I don't say this. I'll sniff a man. As a joss, I have the feature blood hunt. Oh, I have an advantage on wisdom checks to detect to track creatures, to detect or track creatures that are missing advance. I'm not assuming that this grub or whatever the hell this thing was. This parasite has lost hit points. But presuming that he burst out of the chest would it have been coated in the blood of Dr. Drear, would I be able to try to smell and try to see if this thing is. Do I feel and even if I don't know what's after it, would I be able to smell the iron in the blood of the salari of Dr. Drear? That feels very reasonable. So I would say that's extremely reasonable. Go ahead and make your check. That's that's fucking that's that's a very ingenious. Yeah, that's huge brain. That's absolutely huge brain. With an 18 and a 19 plus zero, I get a 19. A 19. It's a very service. You you lean in and you smell and what you smell is not the blood of Dr. Drear. You, Jaza are intimately familiar with that particular stench, but we smell low coins. You do smell this very pungent smell, the smell of wet stone. It's everywhere. So you're suggesting, Ms. Boss, we save these people? Well, we should confirm that they're uncontaminated. All right. I'm going to appear to the pod as I'm going to I'm going to cycle to my from my space flintlock to my space blunder bus and I get my space ivory. That's very funny. I love as I will pull up kind of a longer rifle with a bit of a scope on it. As I am going to kind of look through in the one that I see the hand, I'm not aiming at the body inside, but I see that these pods. I'm going to try to, if I may, flavor this as my disruption cantrip. Oh, OK. I like to use my disruption cantrip if I may. I love this because I can also, I don't know if it's not magic. I can target a creature or a nonmagical object and rip it apart. I'm going to let your level of shit with a 60 foot range. So I would like to use my my my rifle that I have in order to pinpoint to attempt to rip it apart and not harm the person inside. You. Does it require a role? It's a range bell attack. OK, make a range bell attack for me. OK. Sixteen. Sixteen. You are able to connect with the pod and you do so in such a way that you are careful not to hit it dead on for fear of penetrating who knows how hard a membrane, but to try to aim for perhaps the side of it to free whatever humanoid is inside and you are successful. You hit it and it falls away like jello. It is it was not a thick, hard, carapace like surface. The membrane folds away and a figure slumps forward and a gaunt face, the face of a human woman looks out at you, staring. Please, please, please, please help. Help. What help do you need? Are you compromised? Where is Dr. Voss? Yes, yes, yes. Help me. Help me. I can help you. I can give you to him. Is doctor. I don't know. There isn't much time. Please, please help. Hi. I've been I've been I've been implanted. Help, help, help. As as he like almost like as this is happening and as Barnabas almost about to shoot this, but I'm too late because I was I was behind, right? I would say beware of the polyps from beyond space and time. No, and you free. Yeah. And I should have would say this to me. And I will approach. And my eyes will go pure black as I look beyond her as I approach her. And I use blind sense to see if I can sense anything. We're going around inside of her. It is evident that the same the same qualities of life exist within this woman that existed within Dr. Greer. Oh, shit. The parasites are well nourished. The woman slips out of the pod and slithers onto the onto the floor covered in some kind of a mucousy oil like secretion swimming towards you, weakened by the limbs. She starts to crawl forward. Get it out. Get it out. Get it out. Get it out. Stop where you are. No, no, please, please. There's only moment. She vomits up a huge amount of Iqor and you recognize this purple, brown like material that slops and sticks against the floor, which she army crawls through, continuing to make it towards you, who she perceives as her only saviour. We will have to shoot if you do not stop. Where is Dr. Voss? I I I can find him. I can find him. Please, please, please. You hear as this happens, a sound of shredding of what can only be described as wet plops as more pods start to open up. No longer requiring the precision of the blast that Barnabos delivered, no, some of the ceiling pods open and bodies crashing out and down. One or two from the wall opens at the bottom and feet first slithers out and floods into the room. One, two, three, four, five more bodies join the women as people start to wake up to this reality that they find themselves in. Voices in a chorus start to cry out to you, help us. No one move. I pulled both of my. We're here to rescue you. And I put my grenades back to get my my eye of reach. I said back. I've kind of slung it back around with my other guns. And and I'm ready to I grabbed the grenade. Nobody move. We're here to rescue you. But not if you slither any more. Toys us. Listen to the young lady. Um, I will pass Barnabos. I'm not fucking moving. But you never thought that side. I have both of my weapons trained on her. Towards the crawling woman. And you will hear. Well, as my eyes are still black. What are you speaking? What language? It might not be a language for all you know. I would like to cast a tech thoughts. Hmm. Impossible. OK. Your brain's going to explode. Your brain's going to explode. No, he is the gibbering ma. His brain built for this. We'll see. His brain was built to receive. What is it? What do you call your god? The dark star or the star beyond? I call him. Many things. I called him who drowns beyond the stars. You drowns beyond the stars. That's what I brought. Thank you. Nice. Oh, man. Oh, God. Oh, no. Worn here. And if possible, I'd like to. Peer deep into her mind and discern the targets, reasoning, emotions and something that looms large in its mind, just worry, love, hate. If that's just oh, fuck, oh, fuck, oh, fuck, there's something inside me. That's fine. But if there's anything else that I can get from what she has in mind is feeling or thinking in this moment, I'm making the attempt. Panic. Worry. Fear, terror are emotions that you can suddenly through the magic that you are able to channel. Look at the way that you might hold up an apple. But similar to what is happening inside of this woman, those thoughts themselves, the memories within this individual, seem to be getting chewed. And as you are watching that apple, you can see a bite getting taken and a bite getting taken and a bite getting taken until it is down to the core. What was panic and fear, the transformation that's happening in front of you is not just the physical birth, for lack of a better word, of these creatures, but something else is being consumed as you watch feeling. However, your near might feel about that. She knows I'm doing this, by the way. She can't. It is one signal in a choir. She wouldn't be able to differentiate as she experiences a tremendous amount of pain. I take a step back and I say. I can't sir. Both fame, evolution. And I will. How many are currently like crawling towards us? I'd say about half a dozen. I will take a few steps back now further behind Barnabos, if I can. OK. And that will retreat. And I will say the first, now followed by the many. And I'll just wait. Some of the voices are not helped me, help me. Some of them are aware of their fate and ask you to put them out of their misery. The same conversation you had two hours ago. A half dozen crew members writhe and scream in croaking agony. As the horrific egg like sacks all burst from them at the same time, you witness 10 deaths as the entire torso neck and head of each cocoon humanoid erupt in a putrid Iker and creatures emerge from within. Delphina, you recognize similar shapes as to what you saw experimented on by your father, horrific creatures with sea creature like tails, forearms, long, bulbous heads embedded with six eyes and gnashing jaws. As they emerge, you see them increase in size rapidly, sloughing off the corpses of their host as they grow to be even larger than all of you, their mouths glint with that purple black Iker as they seek to devour you. I need you to all to roll for initiative. Oh, my God. You watch as these creatures mature in front of you at unbelievably rapid rate, suddenly growing much larger than the strange small creature that you saw escape from Dr. Greer. No, these creatures become beasts in front of you, growing even taller than many of you. I need you all to roll for initiative. I didn't do very well. I did. With my plus eight, I did not do very well. Plus eight to an issue. Twenty to 30. Twenty. Twenty three. No. That's ready to action. One moment. Let me just roll for my boys here. This is going to be my boy band ice. I've decided. Oh, right down the middle. It's a dog. OK, 15 to 20. 10 to 15. I got a 14. I got a 12. All right. OK. That puts you at seven. Yep, that's our order. So this cacophony of screams of agony, begging for help, begging for death, ends abruptly as the humans and other crewmates, scientists of the Ozymandias burst in front of you, spilling out this sudden wave of creatures. And they are clearly looking for more to chew on. What do you do with your turn? I'm just looking up hunters microlyquically to make sure I'm doing it. OK, great. I which was the one that we were talking to originally? I would say the closest one on the left here. Five, five. I'll train both of my pistols are both of my my light disruptor pistols on on this person. And I will mark it and you'll see a reticle like an like an aiming reticle up here right over it, marking it with hunters mark. And I can do that without expending a spell slot. So I'm going to do that using Hunter's Eye. And then I'm going to let out a blast from my smaller pistol and attempt to hit it. But I throw my die on the floor. Someone needs a different one. You're holding it. Oh. Oh. Oh. Fourteen. Just misses. Oh, I'm clearly very shaken up and frustrating and frustrated as I as I aim, I kind of stash it and I aim with my my other pistol, which is significantly bigger. It's my Coltec weapon. I infused it in the morning. I don't really change it. This one, this one is always the one that I keep closest to me as I will attempt to shoot it again. Shoot her again. I got a natural two. Hold on. Natural two. Now I would have to be able to hit her. So that would be a 12 to hit. And I'm shaking. Where is Dr. Boss? But I look very, very frustrated. You're no longer speaking to the woman. You are yelling these words, but you take this first crack shot and you take the second crack shot. You know that these people have the information that you want, that perhaps the information of where you can find your father, if he's not in one of these pots, is right around the corner. And the creature in front of you with its four arms, it's snarling an elongated head, it's many bone like carapace like shapes that extrude from the end of its spine and spill out. You yell these words out and are unable to make contact, knowing that if you were to hit with one of these bullets, you do tremendous damage. Do you move? You see that my eyes are glancing from every single pot, almost like I'm scanning each one, trying to look for something I recognize. But that's me and I wouldn't I wouldn't move. I would stand where I'm at. You stay where you are. And Barnabos, you are able to take the next. Yes, big, the boom. Let's go. I would say, you know, I don't deal with these like this. Don't worry the same way I deal with all these things as I have both of my grenades. As you see, two of them are very different. One seems to be a very standard frag grenade, although it's almost like this ticking time bomb filled with scrap and nails. And the other one is swirling. And you can see a lot of my grenades on either side have these strange halves that are glowing with different colors. The one that I have in my hand is glowing with this reddish orange on one half and the other with this neon green as I will use my attack action. But I am going to replace one of my attack actions. I get to because I have the improved armory schematic. And I am going to throw one of my improvised my impromptu bombs as a whole baby as I am going to throw it into the middle here in a 15 foot emanation, I believe I can hit all of them. Oh, yeah, you don't think I don't think I'll get a nice one. I get four of them. They have a very saving throw. OK, DC 15, one, three, six, no, sorry, nine and four. That should be a six. Wow. No, it's a yes. I rolled for all of them. Which one is the one closest to the party here? One one. One is the only one that saves the other three. You throw it into the back and it explodes like the bullet shots and the ranged attacks that Delphina made when those bolts hit the calcified walls. They spit out a bunch of particulates and just gross shit. There's no other way to say this. This explosion is an eruption of that same material that blankets the floor in all directions and there's they get thrown back. What numbers take damage? So four, six, three and one. OK, four, six, three and one. Does one take half? If they succeeded, yes, they did. I believe. Hold on. Let me just double check. Sorry. No, no, no, no, I just want to make sure I'm doing it right. Six, four and six, four and three are going to take the full amount. Fourteen was not enough. OK, it's just missed. Does fire versus acid matter? As you'll see, thank you for asking. It does not matter. You do this strange explosion of both fire and acid. Wow. As part of my boom doctor, I can choose the damage type. And I am choosing both fire and acid. It does not matter. And no, they are equally hit. So you can just give me the full tunnels. In no way is that true. OK, they both take 90 days of fire and that's 18 points of damage. Oh, and because each damage type totals equal, it doesn't expend one of my compounds. No way. So I had to use my bonus action, which I set aside. This is my acid. I thought this is my fire. Oh, yeah, both rolled nine. I'm looking right at it. I'm building one. They both rolled nine the exact same way, too. It has a different effect on them, depending on which rules higher. When you go, Doctor, as they say, don't spend the charge, it was my bonus action to create that in my hand. So that's true. But that was my first attack. And now I'm replacing my second attack with a piece of equipment, a frag grenade that I have. It's not part of the same. I can do one per attack and I am going to. I it has a pen. I grab it in my shark tooth as I throw the frag grenade. It explodes into all of this. Straton on scrap. This is a 20 foot radius. Can they get everybody or not? For sure. 20 foot for sure. Yeah, I think. Absolutely. We have that that thing that we always use. Oh, yeah. All right, Andy, could you I apologize? You did everything with that, like all of them. It's 20 dollars. So it might be a little tricky. It's not creative with it. No, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll grant it. They all need to make a dexterity saving through also 15. I'll leave it right there. That's literally all six. I'm going to roll for the group. Oh, sorry. For the first one was a 17. This is a 50. Woo. Let me just do them in order. Sorry. Let me just do them in order. Bro, I'm building it. I'm going home and making a character. It's the 15. You say? Yep. That's unbelievable. One. Six. OK. I have what I need to calculate the damage. It's giving me the full total unless you will take 15 if they failed. Seven if they succeed. OK. A piercing piercing. Oh, boy. I spit the pin out. Don't lose your head, Miss Voss. We'll kill him and then we'll move on. Anything we can do. I'll give you a five. We'll kill him and then we'll move on. Anything we fight will kill. We're going to get out of here. This is now a salvage mission. No more rescuing. You understand? This is life or death. And that is my turn. This concussive force blasts out and some of the pods even free themselves from the wall, unstick the sound of like Velcro ripping off the ceiling as they collide with the ground bursting with juices. The bodies within slithering out and waking up. It is absolute chaos in front of you as the boom doctor goes to work. Scrim. I'm going to have to get a little creative here and ask if I am able to use a bonus action to attempt to hide, giving my level two elusive step on my turn I can take. I can use dash disengage and hide as a bonus action. But is it reasonable that I might be able to hide behind this pod over here? I would say it's a standing pod. I'd say that's reasonable. If I need to make a check to hide, I'm happy to do that. Stealth roll. Go ahead and make a stealth roll. I'm pretty good at that. Oh, yeah, 16 plus eight is 24 to hide. You feel like you are unseen behind this. So this explosions are going on from Barnabas. And as the explosions are going on, this is an opportunity to try to hide behind one of these pods. There's a sound of screeching. And with my action, I peek out from behind the pod with my heavy laser pistol to attempt to shoot number five. Presumably hiding gives me advantage on my attack roll, which will then activate my cheap shot, which gives me an extra 3D, 6 damage to one creature I hit with an attack roll if I have advantage on the roll. So let me try to roll with advantage here. Oh, whoa. OK, I unbelievably rolled a five and a four, which gives me 13 at most. So I know this isn't going to hit because you told her. But what I'm going to do is I am going to look at my level three scoundrel subclass feature since I'm an echo subclass. And I'm going to attempt to use it. Try again. When I fail the test, you can re-roll the D20 and use the higher roll. When I do until the end of my turn, my cheap shot is reduced by one D6. I can do this five times until I finish a long rest. So what you see it will actually I'm going to seize this. So as I lose this shot, I watch it fly over the shoulder of this thing. I'll have a sudden I become unstuck in time. And the explosion reduces itself. I find myself going back and I replay the exact same moment, almost an instant as I take the shot again and I try again. That is fucking cool. Shit. That's a natural 20. I watched it. I watched it. I've never seen a natural 20. No, I literally rolled it. That was the sexiest 20 I've ever seen. So it cost me one. It cost me one of my one D6 scoundrel dice. I only have two, which then turns into four. Spending the scoundrel dice like that is fucking crazy. So I'm going to roll a D8, two D8s and four D6s total with my. I absolutely. Echo scoundrel only in the overdrive expansion of neon. That's the third book of the trilogy, everybody. Eight, nine, ten, eleven, seventeen, twenty one, twenty five plus five is 30 points of radiant damage. As with my try again, I have course corrected and fixed my mistake as I blast this thing straight into my chest. It was you shoot forward and this elongated ribbed chest, this these ribs that stick out, you watch as three, four, five of these ribs blast off and immediately start pouring with that same disgusting ecore that you watch Dr. Grie vomit up Dr. Grie vomit up, you do a significant amount of damage to this creature. It's still alive and it had been racing forward to take care of what it perceived to be the threat Barnabos, but it immediately turns and looks for where you are. Winner, winner. And that's my turn. You're near. Um. We see one, two, three, four, five, six. I see these things pop up and I see that there's not much hope for any of these students. And I know what I came here to do. It's very evident that the scientists and not all of them are humans, but the scientists that these creatures emerged out of are as dead as Dr. Greer, that would be obvious. I'm going to walk up right in the middle. You know, fuck it. I'm literally going to walk as far as I can. I'm going to pass Barnabos. And as I'm walking forward with my staff clicking on the ground, I'm going to reach into my robes and pull out that non Euclidean. Oh, my God. Oh, sweet. Let's walk again. It's sort of like the shape of a D12 with these sides. They all have five sides, but at each corner are these like these course black coral protrusions. And the shape almost doesn't make sense when you look at it. And inside each of the faces, there's like a circle on each of these faces where you could imagine is like at first sense, they're just pure white. There's like lack of any color here. But if you look at these faces long enough, you start to see colors and they mix and then you sort of see every color and even colors that you don't think exist as they all combine into white and shifting grayscale. As I pull it out and it's going to sort of slowly spin. And I will say. These cancers of devoid. Hi, time, space, the great spiral, the end will be the beginning and the beginning will be the end. But the end is not all there is returned to oblivion as each of these faces is going to shine brighter and brighter and brighter. It's like sickening ravens and almost as bioluminescence. And then it's going to burst in a 30 foot emanation from me. As I use one of my cosmic conduits to use rebuke anathema. As a magic action, I present my cosmic symbol and censor aberrations, which is my choice. Oh, my God, if they're aberrations, if they're not aberrations, it's not going to do anything. Um, each aberration of my choice from 30 feet of me must make a wisdom saving throw. If the creature fails at save, it has the frightened and incapacitated condition for one minute for that duration. It tries to move as far as it can on its terms. This effect ends early on the creature. It takes any damage. I'm so glad I went for your if I have the incapacitated condition or if I die. And, um, so we have a lot of crit in those parables. Also, I've a level five. I'm not do manathema. Whenever I use rebuking, I can I roll five dx. She do the anathema creature that fails and show you throw against the use of rebuking anathema. It takes radiant damage equal to the rolls total. Oh, my God. And the rebuking effect. So you're just going to do this. All of them. If they're all of them. If they're aberrations. And if there's other aberrations that we can't see. What's the DC inside the 30? What's the throw? It is a five, 17. No. Sorry, it is a wisdom saving throw. And my spell same DC is just the standard for all of our characters. 17. No, 16. 16. Oh, my 17 because of my my schematic. Because you're a brilliant boom doctor. This is wild. And I'm going to add you guys. Yeah, I'm going to have a couple of turns. He just fucking dumps me over here. I'm just going to hit him a couple of times. Geez. I didn't know we were out here casting do one and two fail. One and two fail. Then I roll then I roll three natural 17s in a row. That's fair. That's fair. Then the other one still passed. So one and two are affected three through six get the failure. So one in one and two or one and three one and two mark them. They take twenty one points of radiant damage. They are frightened and incapacitated for one minute. But if you do any damage, it breaks. But on their turn, they move as far away from me as possible. OK. That doesn't mean that they are like a same capacity. That means you can't take actions, right? Yes. If they are able to move, even if they're incapacitated, then they would. But they're incapacitated. So they are shrieking from this horrible sickening radiance. They lift off the ground almost like crickets and drop and you can see their forearms twitching and you hear this squeal that sounds like. Don't like that. Machine made pig. I don't know how else to describe it. Machine made pig. Yes. If we know which one. Oh, do you have a bunch of those? Oh, my God. Oh, come on. Get D4's like a cloud. That's some fucking. Come on. Thanks for that shit. I'm so glad I got those eyeballs. I saw him just now. Nobody likes to show. Unless what you're showing off is dope as fuck. So the two with the eyeballs. You're near. Where do you like to do anything else with your trip? That was God. Within three of them found. There's two. One in three. One and three. Oh, that was an action and then bonus action. Is anyone hurt? Not yet. No, no one. What you wish for, brother? Real people. They haven't taken it. They haven't gone yet. We might be in deep shit in a second. Are you still hitting or does that go away when you try? Oh, no, I assume it goes away because I jumped out to attack him. I got advantage. I'm visible. He should know where I'm at. I crossed his skull. That's my turn. Little hole in his chest. OK. Number five is going to because you shot it with your heavy laser pistol is going to go directly towards the screen. Yep. Number two is going to get into Barnabos's face and keep a sense of where they were for me. Oh, I did the same thing for me. He was here. So just a little dot. I put a dot. We might need it. You never know. And then number four, it has movement enough to reach. Your neck. Yeah, your ear. Actually, the two were with their moves. Be 50. So they but but they're going to both go. They can be. I mean, they can be. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Dude, sorry. They could they resisted this. And so like these guys don't fuck around. No, they don't fuck around. But only because I rolled extremely well. No, good. This way. What have you been? Let's start with scrim. You watch as the extremely menacing amount of. Oh, incapacitated doesn't zero your speed. That's why they can move. So those two are going to spritz towards the bar in the back. And absolutely can get there. They're scraping against the calcified walls and running into it. I'm thank you. Dan, I appreciate you. If I'm being attacked, I am going to as part of my background, the explorer background, I have some feats. One of the feats that I have is lucky. I am just a generally lucky individual. Sure. I would like to impose disadvantage by spending one of my luck points on this creature to give a disadvantage. It doesn't cost me a reaction or anything. It just is that going to affect both of its multi attack attacks or just great question. Just one. Just one, I believe. OK, this is when it creates an attack roll. I can spend a point to give a disadvantage. You changed a rend attack from a 17 to a two. So it is unable to rend you. Love to hear that. However, the tail does make contact. It's going to make. Let's roll this. That's for shit. Give me some love dice. OK. Ten points of piercing damage. And because your medium or smaller, you are now grappled. OK, I definitely can't do anything about that at the moment, but I will do is at level five, I have a feature called Lucky Break. When an attacker I can see hits me with an attack roll, I can use my reaction to have the attacks damaged. So even though it grabs grapples me where it looks like I might have gotten pierced badly, it's more of a glancing blow. And I take five piercing damage instead of ten. Um, yes. I don't want to rewind too much. And if you want me to tell if I did have a bonus action plan that I then totally forgot if you allow me to take it, it won't change anything other than you'd be rolling at disadvantage instead of just regular, I would say. Take it. OK, so after I finished that horrible blast, it was shrink back down. But you would see some warbling and you would see your ears color sort of change and shift. And it would also be hard to look at as all of us in this form would disappear as I'm I meant to use touch of Carcosa, which was the mutation that I chose with camouflage and as a bonus action, I've been the invisible condition till the start of my next turn. Oh, and it ends early if I make an attack roll cast a spell or force a fusion to make a saving throw. So what I would say is they still knew I was there. And I think that they could perceive that I was there and maybe try to attack in my space. That is what they are doing. They they sense the source of this thing and they are lunging at that. Yes. And I will play them accordingly. Thank you. However, five, you dodge because you expect four arms, but you don't expect the tail and this piercing tail digs into your arm and you are wrapped by it and you are grappled and restrained. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. In addition to taking 10 piercing damage, you will take as long as you still in the restrained condition and necrotic damage at the start of your turn. Remind me to make sure that that happens. However, it does not lose any movement while it is grappling you in the way. And so it is going to run the rest of the speed back into the room. That's how much we have. That's why we. So OK, so I see, you know, one and a half, one, two, three. And that's movement is 50. So there's 10. So it moves seven back, seven straight back straight back. One, two, three, four, five, six. You all watch as from behind one of these pods, these what was a hidden scrim gets yanked and dragged through the viscera and. I'm screaming, I'm screaming. You guys. No, no, no, no, no, no. Barnabas, the same for you. That's both of them are absolutely going to miss as I roll a four and a six. And then it's going to be a disadvantage. It's a banished because technically I'm unseen, but they I'm sure have some crazy senses or whatever. OK, that's going to be a. I'll say like blindside or some highest is a. Oh, does blindside matter? If they have blindside, then invisible is negated. It's negated. OK, oh, that's cool. So I go invisible and I like my eyes go black and I can see them and like thinking that maybe I'm protecting myself. You use this trick a number of times. You've used a trick and they just beeline for you and there is no. I you're both of the same. Oh, the rent still misses because naturally I roll low, but the tail hits you. You are going to take an additional 10 piercing of damage and you are now grappled by the creature. It's 10 just total across all of the attacks. 10 total across all the attacks and piercing and you are going to get pulled in the same way they're dragging you into this layer. So that was number four and one, two, three, four six. Attacked me six is the one that's going to drag you. OK. I was born in most men. The others ran. They grabbed you. You were both grappled. You all watch as your near and scrimmer are encased by these creatures and starting to get pulled back. You hear scrims scream. That is up for them. Tyshen, you watched a lot happen in a very short period of time. My gosh. Oh, I'll say death and decay is the somber reality of the harmony, but everything in its time. This is an abomination. Scrum, I'm coming. And I'll start racing forward. And as I do, I'll hold my my twin blade inside. And it's this handle extends out into these jagged crystal sections. And it will it will begin to glow and almost ignite in a still energy in this light green as in this light green as I take on my my vital harmonic. Oh, OK. My vital harmonic cycle. And I race for 45 feet of movement. Oh, just I'm going to be out there. And I'm going to just start laying into this thing. I'm going to try and hit number five. Probably not great. No, that misses 13. This is yeah. Yeah, I'll just say that now that we're towards the end of a around the AC is going to be 15 for all of the creatures that I've yet to name. That's even worse. So my first two attacks will miss, but I am going to bonus action. And I'm a bonus action using my way. I'm a bonus action. Spend an essence point to be able to make two unarmed attacks. OK. My imbued weapon. Whenever you make an unarmed strike as part of a bonus action, you can make an attack with one of the weapons instead. Shit. And then this is kind of like crazy flow state I'm entering. Because I've spent an essence point. I love this. Once per turn, when you activate one of your focused essence options, which I've just done using an essence point, you can activate one harmonious control effect, my choice, my harmonious control effect that I choose to use, redirect harmony. One creature I can see within 30 feet of yourself regains one to eight hit points. Mechanically, I'll just do the I'll do the strikes first. I'm going to strike two more times. OK. OK, that's going to hit you. Not bad from the symmetric. Ten points of force damage. Number five on the yes, on the first hit. It's looking very weak from having taken the heavy laser blast from Scrimm already, you slash into it, it's on the edge. What I'll say is as I slash into it, it's almost like as I cut, it'll cut into his body, but you almost see it like a pole on on an essence. As I swipe through, I'll swipe the strike towards Scrimm and almost rip its life essence out of this creature and into Scrimm and heal him six points. Holy shit, I'm back to full. And I'll make one more attack. Oh. Oh, that was another two. I rolled a three. Damn. So you didn't hit it's alive and I'm grappled. Oh. When I hit on the on the second one, yeah, I was pretty about this. I'd like to try and activate topple. Oh, OK, the topple weapon mastery. OK, well, that's that work. I don't know if I'll end the grapple, but that's so good. I think it's a I think it's a saving throw for you. It is. Do you add the character at the top or is it the weapon that has it? Either the weapon is the topple. This month. OK, the weapon probably has it. So can you activate it as a as a disciple or no? Oh, good question. That's a great question. That's one of those. Let's see. I believe you can. I believe you can. I'm not a damn yell at me if I am missing anything. But we'll come back to it if you if you can. Is that all right? Can we? Oh, well, I mean, if you get toppled, I'd roll an advantage. I might get you the second. Oh, yeah. OK, you would go down to DC and what's the story? Let's just say that you haven't. I'm happy to give it to you. This is this is a horrifying fight. Oh, oh, so 16, I think. Wait, plus proficiency. It should be here for top. Oh, for topple. I'm not sure. But what you just said, it should be 8 plus proficiency plus attack. 16, I probably just supposed to read and then whatever you're. OK, OK. DC 16 for 16. Oh, string safe. Oh, or con string third con string 4 con. No, no, no. Oh, it's console. It's console. Quick look at amongst the most weapon 14. Is what anyone says. Quick look at. But anyway, it does matter. You be wait. He passed. No, he failed. Thank you. Oh, so if I can't if I can't do it. Look, regardless, I'm just a rattle. I don't think she's a natural one, so nothing matters. It was fake. Everything's fake. I'm just a rattle. We will investigate that however. Theoretically, he is toppled if you choose a lie or if that's legal. If that didn't matter. If I can't do that, then he's not toppled. What does toppled mean? He's like, not thrown. Oh, so then he would be a disadvantage for me. He may have. He may have. He's not not thrown. He's up and running. You are still restrained. Yes, sir. Justina, you're up. I am going to just walk forward. How far? I'm going to shake my head. I mean, I got a lot of movement. I think I can go 45 feet, I think, is what I've got. How do you want to go here? I want to go basically in line with you and Taishen. As I'm passing bar... No, no, like just straightforward intellect. Just straightforward. Easy. I need more movement than that. That's fine. I think that's a good spot. But as I'm passing Barnabos, I don't look at him, but I shake my head. You're right, Barnabos. I won't be the one losing my head. And then I'll say, you've got this one, I believe. And then I'll turn and I won't look at number five. You're just going to do one of these. But I'm just with one arm, I'm going to shoot. And then with the other arm, I'm going to aim towards these two. Okay. Attempting to hit number one. You can activate the master. Oh, from your subclass. It gives you on your special. Oh, it's so he is toppled then, which is disadvantaged for Nikki. Well, only to choose this guy. That's what I'm doing. Yeah. Oh, okay. You could choose usually else. You could choose to shoot. You do it if you want. No, I'm still going to go for number five because number five is the one I've been talking to the one that I wanted to tell me about Dr. Boss. And so I am focused on that person's dead. Right? This is the horrible monster that I'm going to rupture. Right. Well, that's how I feel. So Fina feels that way and says those words in that order. It is prone. It was not. It was just toppled by. So I got 12 and 11. So 11 plus 10. So 20, 21 for that one. Yeah. That's insane. I'm shooting with my arm. I'm shooting with my, because I have my Hunter's Mark on this one. Yes. And so I'm shooting, I'm shooting with my larger weapon and I am going to activate disrupting pistol. Oh, I would like you to roll a constitution saving throw for this one. I rolled a natural one. Fantastic. It's a crit now. Jesus. I'm using disintegrating shot. Instruptor weapon. Yeah. Now available in the early access VIP test. It's a magic item. A magic item. That's incredible. And then with the other one, I'm going to attempt to hit with another 11. So that'll be 21. 21 hits. Yep. And then with that one, I would like to, if you will allow it, at a second level, I'm going to cast shrapnel burst. Oh, I'll allow it. So we'll hit and then it will also from this one, you'll watch as the bullet leaves out. It's almost like arcing with like sizzling, like technical lightning. And as it hits it, it erupts in its chest shooting shrapnel all around it in a 10 foot area. But so it'll only hit the other one. Okay. And so what that looks like is just a lot of stuff. Did five take all the damage? Not yet. You need to do both of those at the time and get it out of the way. And raise one arm firing without even looking and focusing on the two that were so affected by Yornir's words and his strange artifact. Why do I only have 1d8 in here? I have a million. I need more d8s. 10,000 spoons while you're here. Okay. So 8. Oh, hell yeah. 20 points of force damage to number five. Okay. And then the other one would get seven points of force damage to number one. And then I have to see what. So both of them need to make dexterity saving throws. I rolled a two and a three. Okay. Hell. Oh, that's interesting. I rolled a one, a two and a three. Let's see if the next four and five. It might be a four and five. That'd be really cool. It very math. Eventually it leads to 20. Yeah, I know. And then they'll take five points of piercing damage from the house. To one and two? Yeah, so one and two. They're shrieking madness ends. They scream and refocus and they. And that's my turn. Excellent turn. You don't even have to look the shrieking of the creature that has been scrapped and that you are able to shoot and it's as clean as the bullet you put through Dr. Greer's skull. It falls limp and falls to the ground no longer grappling you scrim you feel the weight of the, the tail that had been wrapped around you sloth off of you. Yeah. Barnabos you are up. Because I did it at a second level they'll each take another two damage. Are they? Yeah, because I do two d 10 instead of one d 10. What if I don't want to? Well, I'm sorry, but that's just what that's just what the spell does. I took it. I took it. Barnabos you're up. Was the head disintegrated from the shot? Was it the disintegrating shot? Absolutely. Uh, that's very cool. I am going to, uh, oh man, this guy's on my ass. Does, is too, has you been damaged much at all or no? Uh, I am going to, we're all damaged. Yeah. Everyone, everyone of these creatures is hurt to some degree. How far away is this? How far away is, uh, what it's worth. I got your back, bro. That's all I'm saying. I got your back. I got my turn playing out. I can't wait for my 60 feet away. What I do to hit all these guys, the grenade, all three of them. Yeah. And your ear. And your ear. And also yard. Yes. Ah, yes. I will walk forward as I will say, uh, Mr. Yarnier, Pranier, go on. Judge this the best you can as I am going to use my bonus action to grab a grenade and wait. Whoa. Oh, incredible. And lob it forward. I'm going to use the same concoction that I had before. Fire and acid. It does fit well. All of them need to make a DC 17 dexterity saving throw, including my good friend Yarnier. Wait, what's the radius of this? 15 foot emanation. Number one fails, but the other two succeed. Right. Was it four or five? You said decks? Decks. Yep. I'm grappled. Do I automatically fit? No. I'm going to do a 20 15 and a seven. Oh, disadvantage. Uh, in-capt is like auto fail. I fail either way. I feel either way. Um, I am going to deal 15 points of damage. Yeah. Uh, half or nine of that is fire and six of that is acid. And numbers. One, three and six. One, three and six. That's going to be. Dude, that's like the range on your shit. You're just lobbing. You're like a trebuchet. Yeah. Oh, 13 and six. Number, number one, the one that, uh, Delphine, the targeted with her shot, uh, hits the back of the wall and crumbles to a key. He was suspected as dead because it is no longer moving. This one? Yes. Uh, it immediately falls to the ground. And, uh, it almost becomes indistinguishable from the surrounding environs as you, uh, continue to, uh, continue your assault. Um, that was the first attack action of my, uh, what you call it. So I'm going to turn and, uh, turn around, uh, after lobbing that on the one that's on me as I am going to grab my blunder bus. And, uh, uh, level it and fire as I use my, uh, just quickly, uh, do that. I'm going to make an attack roll. That is going to be a 16 to hit. That hits. And it is going to, uh, deal one d10. Where's a d10? That's my second attack action. It's, uh, close quarters though, uh, because I have shotgun, uh, it's scattered, but it doesn't matter. So that is going to deal, uh, 12 points of piercing damage to number two. Yep. You turn and then fire this, um, shot into the chest of this creature and it lets out an enormous, uh, shriek and hisses. Uh, it is focused wholly on you. You've gotten its attention. It's here just before your turn scrim. What? That you all hear the sound of more hissing, more, uh, uh, cacophonous voices, uh, shrieking in fact. And you realize that in each corner of this space, these were not the same creatures that emerged from the guts of the personnel. These must have been birthed at some point much sooner, but their stillness allowed them to be perfectly camouflaged, almost perfectly invisible as four additional creatures leap into, of this same variety, leap into the space. And if you could just put brah, uh, at all four corners of the map. I can do that. I'm not happy about it. I'm not happy about it. Change is fucking everything. Oh, and, uh, that is all they do is, uh, is emerge on the battlefield ready to join the fray. Scrim, your turn is now. Turns out it wasn't nine. Yeah. Okay. And family listeners will recognize that in my description I said six and then 10. And so here we are. Uh, this is seven, eight, nine and 10. This changes things. Um, you know what? No, it doesn't. Because I, I was grappled by this thing. Yeah. It pierced me. I'm wrapped up and Miss Delfina saves my life. That's right. All of a sudden. And, and Tisha and with the assistant alley. Miss Delfina disintegrates this thing. And, but I, I already had a plan as, as I am, as I am pierced by the tail and I'm wrapped up. I, uh, I checked my, my, my wrist timer and I take a look at this timer. It's ticking down and as this thing dematerializes and lets me go, I begin to fall and drop to the ground. And before I even hit the ground, there's a flash of blue light as I use time flash. I can jump forward or rewind short distances in time as a bonus action. I can teleport up to 30 feet to an unoccupied space that I can see. Uh, I can use this bonus action twice and I regain all expended uses when I finish a long rest. If my destination space is one that I occupied since the start of my previous turn, I do not expend a use of this feature. Um, this is where I started my previous turn and this is where I hid 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30. I can't quite get there. So I'm going to have to expend a use of the feature to get there. And I don't know that that thing's waiting for me, but I rewind time and I reappear here just like I planned. Damn, that's cool. In your experience, you look at your clicking watch for lack of a better term. It hits zero and then you watch it go backwards raising up to six. Twisting the dial on your chest. Uh, you have experienced this before, but you are almost like lifted into the air and as though you are being dragged by a creature that doesn't exist, uh, reset back down. Uh, and it is no longer alive, but you are able to revert your own time and find yourself landing there and you sit. I'm going to need to make a quick perception check. Sure. Uh, 19. With 19, it's very evident that as soon as you were there, the un-camouflage, uh, creature is behind you. That's okay though. You hear that. I had this mapped out in my brain as if I can see forward and backwards in time a little bit and plan this out. So as I'm landing, I'm already taking a shot at number two to help my friend, my captain. Yeah. Uh, who is, uh, engaged with this creature to give me access to my cheap shot. That's going to be a 21 to hit. A hit. Hell yeah. Um, how, how, how wounded does number two look? Uh, number two is on the edge of death. Okay. In that case, I will just use all three of my cheap shot dice as normal. So it's 1d8 plus, uh, 3d6. It's going to be six plus, uh, seven plus eight. Ooh. Plus nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 total points of damage. I rolled very low as I fire rating damage. Another heavy pistol round at number two, 15 points of rating damage. That's enough. Number two goes down. I got you, captain. Thank you, Mr. Stabs. Uh, and then as I take a deep breath, I just steady my nerve. I look over my shoulder and go, uh-oh. And that's my whole turn. You hear the sound of it hissing, uh, on your neck. Uh, but your near has an opportunity to, uh, I, I believe you're still restrained or I am. Is restrained. Either way, your grapple restrained. Okay. How is six looking? Number six is, uh, bloodied. He took a, he took a bomb, two bombs. Yeah. Number six has taken some damage. All of the initial wave of creatures are, um, every single one of them is bloodied. Um, that is good. Oh, it's still a studio. Uh, thank you. Then what I will do is I'm grappled and these horrible things are fleeing with me and I don't know where they're going. Um, I still have this artifact, this relic that's spinning and it's almost like weightless. Like it's floating in the ocean. It somehow just stays with me super naturally. And, uh, cancer will consume itself. The black tide rises and from this artifact, the lights will almost turn pitch black and almost under natural darkness. Like it's eating the light. And then from this, you will see eyes appear inside of it and from it almost like a liminal space. You can tell that they're not corporeal exactly, but these horrible creatures of the deep monstrous chitinous crab like creatures, fish, eels will, will erupt from this and such a swim and swirl around me as I cast spirit guardians. Hell yeah. At a third level. Let's fucking go. Oh my God. Um, and that each creature within 15 feet of me, so you are, so you just move. Oh, I'm restrained. So let's see if you guys are now. That's okay. Um, need to make a whiz saving throw. Oh, they're gonna fail. What's the DC? 16. 16. 16. I'll say the far corner. The one grab. Eight six seeds. Uh, and it deals 15 foot. It deals 3d8 necrotic damage. Eight. I mean huge rolls bro. Come on, one more. Yes. Uh, is it 19? I think it's 19 total points of. Oh yeah. To which? To number. To number six is going to take all of us. Yep. And then eight is going to take half of us. Damn dude. Jeez. So it takes half of this. Does radiant versus necrotic matter? No, that's not. Then I will just say it does damage. Radiant this whole thing. However, um, 18 points was the number of hit points that number. Uh, that one rambling you. You're free. So, uh, what does it look like as the spirit guardians take the life of this tree? Um, they are gnawing and consuming. And it's almost as if the life essence and the energy and the heat and whatever they had that's powering them is being itself consumed and drained and withered. And, um, it's, even though these aren't like corporeal things taking bites of its flesh, almost their minds and their essence of what, of what they were, um, vanishes into oblivion. As it's physical form is collapsed on the ground. You can hear this horrific scream. And, uh, that one gets flipped over, done. Uh, you feel its tail pulled from you by the guardians that you've summoned and that is their turn. Good lord. Well, that's, that's all. That's my turn. Yeah, still. It's still my turn. Yeah. I'm now no longer restrained. Yes, right. Fuck em all. So I turn and I am, I have my staff. I'm holding this orb and I'm just going to start slowly walking as I walk here and they enter my emanation. They now need to make, uh, what do you say? 103. Full damage to those two. It's okay. 10 points of damage to both of them. It's three in three. Three in ten. Okay. Um, and then I'm going, it was five feet. Uh, that should still be enough and four needs to make the save as well. Absolutely. That's a little half. Yeah. Damn bro. You're going to be hot. Uh, 1918 takes nine points of damage. Okay. Um, and then again, you will see like everything that's happening, there's these swirling, flitting horrible creatures around, uh, as I'm just shimmering out, almost out of existence as I will use another bonus action invisible. Even if it doesn't matter. I think it's cool. You disappear and I know that it mechanically doesn't matter, but these creatures take all over. I will step back. Uh, I'll step back to here. The two in the corner are going to attack Nornir. Um, yep. No, no, no. The two on opposite sides of the corners are going to attack Nornir. They're going to pinch her, uh, pinch her. Oh, these guys. Yep. Okay. Uh, don't get on either side. Perfect. Uh, the one that is, uh, that you were about to move Mace is going to get to Delphina. Oh, Delphina's there. Who's, who's this? This is Tasha. To Tasha. That one, number four is going to get to Delphina. This one is, uh, in this corner is going to get to part of us. And this one is going to stay on the scrim. Fair enough. We'll start with scrim. That's a natural. 10, 3, and 8. Excuse me? That's a natural twin. Oh, no. Luck him. Luck him. Here's the thing. Lately, Luntz is always on your side. You got to believe in that. I already did, I already did this, this once. Uh, fuck. Um. This is the ring. Here's the thing. I think technically I, I have to say that I want to impose this advantage when he's attacking me and Derek just fucking went through. So I'm going to give it to him. I'm going to allow it. I'll allow it. All out. All out. All out. All out. All out. All out. All out. Pay the one. Pay the one. You, you get me with the 90 20. You get me with the 90 20. You are going to laugh so hard. I rolled a 2d6 plus three. I rolled snake eyes. Lady luck is always on my side. That is fucking crazy. You take five. Points of slashing damage and then the tail attack comes in. Yep. I'll take five. Uh, that's going to be a 16 to hit. That misses. I have 17 armor class. It misses. Uh, that's the tail. Uh, now we're going to do barnabos. Here comes the rent. That's going to be a calculated baby. 20 to hit. 30. 20 is exactly right. I'm so good. That's exactly correct. Yeah. See, that's what I needed. Uh, that's going to be a seven points of slashing damage and, uh, that's going to be a 19. That misses. I see the doubters. I see the doubters. 19 misses. You're crazy. That's fucking insane. I blocked with my blender bust. All right. No, you're not. You're like, girl. Delfina coming at you. That's going to be a 14 to hit. Misses. And then the tail is going to be a 20, a dirty 20. That hits. Okay. That's going to be, uh, wow. Uh, very low damage. I rolled minimum, uh, four piercing damage, but you are grappled and restrained. Uh, then, uh, all of this is happening very quickly. I'm just trying to simulate and then we can describe, um, would he have crossed into my aura as he went to touch. And I would, he avoided it kind of like skirted it. I do not think that you would have been smart enough to screw it. Why don't you go ahead and just solve for damage. He does succeed. However, uh, eight and three also entered because they started their turns outside of it. They entered my emanation. Thank you. Uh, so that's five. Eight takes half 13. Jesus. 19 points of damage. And if they succeed, they take half. Huge. Uh, okay. And 19 and three, you say. Uh, so it was three and eight and 10. All had to do it. Number three raised forward and in the same way that you watch the life gets off from the other one, it also succumbed. Let's go. It's all an impression. So only one attack on you. However, we need to finish resolving. No, you're, you're done. You're grappled and restrained. You took the damage. Eight still gets to me. And if it survives, it can survive. That's going to definitely rent. Uh, and that is going to be an 18 to hit on the tail. That hits. Okay. So from the ranging attack, you take max damage. That's going to be nine slashing. And from the tail, you are going to take, wow. Uh, 10 piercing damage and you are grappled and restrained again. Oh, these creatures are lashing out mindlessly. Uh, you are all noticing something strange. When one of these creatures goes down, there's a ripple of chittering and screaming throughout all of them. There's a, uh, uh, almost an emotional hive that's happening here where, uh, uh, screams of, of success and victory and biting into you, rending you, clawing and attacking you are met with, uh, gleeful streaks, if you could describe them that way. And, uh, when one of their, uh, many die, there's a mournful, uh, wail that emanates from all of them like a wave. Daishan, you're up. Uh, I'm going to focus on the one that's in front of me here and I'm just going to go, I'm, I'm just going to start wailing into it. Yeah. And as I, as I start attacking it, I'm going to begin to just kind of move around it, uh, to get there. And to hit. Oh, maybe, maybe, maybe. Oh, 15 exactly. There it is. Come on, come on. Uh, so, oh, in an eight. Unbelievable. Uh, 13 points of damage to hit, uh, for number 10 for the first hit. Then that's certainly 21. Yep. Oh, well, that's great. But, uh, six points of damage, uh, the second time. Yep. Uh, and then once more, I'm going to, uh, use in the essence point. Uh, and I am going to, uh, this time, instead of healing, uh, I'm going to, well, sorry, I'm going to use an essence point to take two more attacks. And as I use the essence point to begin the attack, I am going to activate my harmonious control once again. Yeah. And this time I'm going to use Swift Cull. The next creature you hit with an attack roll before the end of your next turn takes an extra 1d8 in a product damage. I accept. I hit him. Uh, oh, no, I got 17. Um, six, 11 points of force damage as the blade cuts through. You'll take an additional four points of necrotic damage. Uh, and as, as, as the blade slices through, uh, I'll say, uh, fight fire with fire then. Uh, and the, the energy that has erupted on both sides of the blades will shimmer from that light green, uh, pulsing almost almost like a, a somber corruption will spread out as the color will change, uh, to, uh, a far darker, uh, we've a far darker green, the purple, purple, purple will change to a, like a deep purple. Oh. Uh, as I enter my, uh, mechanically, whenever I deal necrotic damage, I can shift my tone of harmony. What? Shift my center of harmony from vital to somber. And I take on the somber, uh, as I've just, uh, dealt necrotic damage. This room is dark. As I described earlier, most of the lighting displays in the room have been covered by this strange, uh, material that, that has engulfed, uh, uh, these pods and these people and the space. And the green light shifts to purple, making a strong contrast as you continue to, uh, attack into, uh, into, uh, thank you. Uh, this creature, it is hanging on by a thread. Well that's good news, is there one more attack? Oh. Hell yeah, hell yeah. Uh, Mesa, I don't know how you're playing this, this is big brain stuff over here. No, it's literally, when one thing happens, I'm like, oh, and then this, and then here, and then here, and then there's And then here, and then here, and then back here. I'm over here like, thank god Mesa's doing not me. I just gotta rewind time a little. Okay. Nine points. Nine points of damage. And just in case that doesn't do it, I'm gonna use my feet discipline. Uh, and I'm gonna activate overwhelming force. Once per turn, when you hit a target with a weapon, you can deal an extra 1d6 damage of the weapon's type. A weapon type damage is now necrotic as opposed to radiant. Okay. Um, so I'm just gonna deal an extra two points of necrotic damage, so 11 points total. That's fucking crazy. The number of times we've killed one of these creatures with exactly the number of points. He's out of fucking control. Out of fucking control. Calculated. Well fucking done. Delfina, top of the road. I'll just, I'll just really quick, just because I only moved there, I'll just race over there. Okay. Nice. How does the grapple and restrained work? Uh, you are grappled. And restrained is zero. Your speed is zero. You are not disadvantaged against it though, if you want to attack it, maybe. But you're also restrained, so you're disadvantaged from that. So you're attacked and disadvantaged. Um, you can strike. No matter who I'm attacking. No matter who you're attacking at. I think you can use your action to try and break it out. Right. Or you can just try to attack, to disadvantage. I'm gonna, I'm gonna spin in his arms so that my back is to his face. Sure. See, Taishan move in, and I'm gonna shoot, I'm gonna transfer my hunter's mark to the one at Scrim. And I'm gonna let both of my, um, my shots go towards that one. That's number, what is it? Number seven. Oh, so that'll be at disadvantage. Oh man, that sucks. That's a natural 20. Um, 18. 18 still hits. Oh, we did it. Another natural 20, but it doesn't matter. Oh, shit. Uh, 19 is the other one. Yeah. So both of them will hit. We take damage to the start of our turns, I believe, when we're grappled. If you're grappled. Oh yeah, that's correct. Thank you. And I should have taken damage last round. Thank you for reminding me. I was free. I was freed. No, no, no, you started your turn grappled. That's correct. So go ahead. And, uh, now that we're reminding ourselves of this, I appreciate you. Um, roll a 1d6 and take that much necrotic. Roll a 1d6 and take that much necrotic. One. I was freed. You were freed. Miss Dolphina saved me. Yep. That's right. Um, and so that is that. And then I am going to, how does this one look? Whenever it is. Oh, he's brand new. He's brand new. Okay. I am going to, because I've hit it, I'm going to use my other second level spell slot because I've got bloodlust. Um, am I going to do that? No, I'm not going to do that because it's not near anything else. I'm not going to do that. But what I am going to do is have him roll a, uh, I'm going to use my disrupting pistol again and try and get a crit on it. Nice. Um, so that's a constitution saving throw. 50c15. Oh, concentration set checks. For what? Definitely 100 or. Oh, um, because of who I am, I don't have to do that. Oh yeah. And then she also did that after she would have taken the damage. Did she move the hunters more? Yeah, as a bonus action. But I also. Oh, I got it. Um, I have tenash, tenash's trace taking damage. Can't break my concentration. Hell yeah. Damn. That's amazing. That's outrageous. Oh, it's smooth. So it's crisp. Perfect. So one crit, one hit. Um. Oh man. Fuck and send this guy back to the. It's, uh, yeah. Whatever. Um, I'm thinking, sorry. Sorry. I'm just going to bring Scoopy. Send him back to the door of darkness with King Nicky. Thank you. I'm doing. Oh, I'm just helping out. For sure. It's the door to darkness. We have to seal the door to darkness. Oh boy. Watch out for circles. So it's going to be 10. 22. 28. 35 points of damage. To number seven. Four damage. Yeah. Number seven. Yeah. Number seven. I need a calculator. One moment. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks. Uh, you take it from, uh, feeling good to very blighted. I will as, as I hit him on hand him. I'm just going to hit the way. You fire with, uh, precision, uh, that can only come from the training you've received, given your storied background. And then I'll look to Tyshen. You've got this one. Yes, darling. Yes. I'll take it down. And then can I like, just for flavor, can I like shift around since he's on my back and basically make it so he's facing Tyshen. You can struggle to push your speed. It's like, you know, yeah, I'm just saying for rule of cool. Yeah, you're doing this. Yeah. For sure. Exactly. Um, I am going to, oh man. I am going to use my bonus action as I, all right, beastie time to fry. You look like you might be some good eats. And I'm going to, uh, in my blunderbuss, I'm going to grab this, uh, uh, bright red shell and put it in as mechanically I'm casting dragons breath at a second. Oh, yeah. That's badass. Cast through shells. That's a fire shell. It needs to make a dexterity saving throw for me, please. Um, uh, as it's going to, uh, oh yeah, that's really cute. The pickle want to see it like a little pickle. Uh, 3d6 fire damage. That stands to reason. Um, it feels okay. Oh, not bad. 15 fire damage to number nine. The one in front of you to number nine. Yeah. Okay. That was my bonus action. I'm just, I am just going to use the attack action. And so now I've expended at, uh, no, I wait, it has the real property for shotgun, which means I can only shoot it once on my turn. Correct. Yeah. Only when you're out of ammo though. No, I need to, I need to reload it. So I will just use the first attack on nine with my shotgun. Um, because it's close scores. I'm not as disadvantaged. That's going to be a 16 to hit. It's, um, that is going to deal, uh, if you look at the, no, that's loading. Oh, load it. So I can charge my shotgun. I think it's a amount of ammo you have next to how many times you can shoot. It's not my chocolate. It's in here. It's, it's, I have that. I think you have several shots. I will say in all these campaigns, I've been very good about keeping track of my ammo. Yeah. Cause I have it for Gideon. Got it. I think I've been fun to play very chunky. That's 10 shots. You'll put it in. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Thank you Dan. 10 shots before you need to reload. Eight points of piercing damage for my first one. To number nine. Yep. Uh, and I'm just going to ch chink and, uh, shoot him again. We're all kind of locked in moral. Actually, you know what? I am going to, oh, this is much better. Oh no. You know what? I should use a cantrip. That's okay. That's okay. Uh, that'll still hit. And then that'll be shoot. But a, uh, that'll be eight points again of, uh, piercing damage. Yep. Uh, these creatures, um, are resilient, but you are all well trained in a mortal combat and you are, uh, able to defend yourself well against the volley of their attacks. Um, so that's three attacks. Anything else? That's it. Scrim. Uh, I did this teleport thing. This thing's behind me. All of a sudden I'm like, oh, should I've made a miscalculation? Uh, and I turn to look at this thing as I see the shots from this Delfina, uh, absolutely tear this thing apart. And with one swift mo movement, I'm holding the, uh, the heavy laser pistol one hand with my left hand. I spin the quick blade out and I go to make an attack. But before I do, I use my level three feature zero in, uh, as a bonus action, I can give myself advantage on the next attack, uh, role on the current turn. I can use this feature only if I have not moved during this turn. After I use it, my speed is zero into the end of my current turn. Okay. So I'm not going anywhere. I'm digging in my heels to gain advantage to be able to activate my cheap shot and try to end this thing. It's really cool. Uh, yeah. And I'm just going to try to drive the, uh, quick blade into its abdomen to the best of my ability here. Uh, the first one's going to be a 26 to hit fish for the crit. I don't get it. Uh, so I will roll 1d8 plus 3d6 as I sink the, uh, quick blade deep into its abdomen. That has to be it. Oh, bad. 8, 9, 10, 11 plus 5 is 16 plus 5 piercing is 21 points of piercing damage as I drive the quick blade in and I try to lift it up to cut open its abdomen. It wasn't, it wasn't exactly, but it was just above the amount of damage that you need. I try to eviscerate this thing. You cut below, you cut into it and you're able to, you're able to find a, uh, a sensitive area of, uh, not flesh, but not carapace and you push through. It opens up and steaming guts pile out as the creature gives a streak and falls to the ground and you hear the shittering of the other creatures screaming as they are engaged in their own more martial combat. I've used my bonus action, my action. I can't move anymore. So that's my whole turn. I'm going to rush real quick. Gornir. I didn't take damage. This is D6 again. Oh yeah. Uh, yep. Six points of damage. Oh, come on. You rolled too well over there. How's your inner look? I feel like you've taken a couple more. You've taken a lot of damage. You've taken, you've taken some damage. Damage I've taken? No. Not on a fan. No, we're out of skin. I've taken 54 points of damage. Oh my God. Oh my God. 54 points of damage. Um, oh, thank God. This wouldn't have happened then, but this would have been worth it. This would have been when I was being attacked and grappled, you would see that all of these horrible sea creatures would just sort of fade the liminal space kind of just, and my connection to it just vanishes and evaporates. It just blips out as I lost concentration on, uh, spear variants. You're not down though. No, I have three hit points. Oh my God. I believe you have the same number of hit points. You're according to my math. Um, population saves. Holy shit. Yep, yep, yep. Uh, seeing as I can't move, I'm disadvantaged on a bunch of stuff. Uh, I'm pretty screwed here, and my goal right now is just to survive. Um, my evolution has prepared me for this. Obviously they can see right through my camouflage, so that doesn't help me. Um, but instead what I will do is, uh, I will say some cryptic ass shit. To awake and feast. High must feast as well. And thematically, I'm going to kind of take all of that energy that my creatures were eating and storing in this horrible non-Euclidean artifact. And I'm going to pull that essence and life force into myself. I'm going to cast Cure Wounds at a third level. And heal myself. Oh, maybe. I can't do anything else, so I pass my turn. Is it? Damn. Well, you're like in there mixing it up, man. I'm a jizz. Yeah, you're the surround. The monster that confronts you is voracious and hungry. What number is it? Wait, is Guardians of the Spirits still active? No, no, they're trapped. And so it will... No way is going to attack. You don't have to take damage for being grappled, right? You're not grappled. He is grappled, yeah. Oh. Pretty decent. The tail misses you, but you are slashed by one of its many arms, and you take an additional, four points of slashing damage. Okay. I'm looking decent. I'm looking decent. I'm roughly bloody. The one next to you, burn a both. No way for the red. I'm a beefy boy. 21 for the tail. That'll hit. You are grappled and restrained, and you take an additional seven points of piercing damage. Seven points of piercing damage. Oh my gosh. I'm just like Super Mario and got killed by Ridley. That's the two that are around. However, there is one grappling and restraining you, Delphina. That's true. It's tail slithers around you like an anaconda snake, and then... My anaconda don't. ...digs into your neck, and you realize that it's used the end of its tail to push into you, pierce into you. I don't want to get pregnant. I need you to make a constitution saving throw. Do not, do not. You better succeed this. Do not pregnant me live on screen, Derek. Oh, not that one. That's the bad one. Where's my good d20? Oh, there you are. But you gave me two natural 20s. Yeah, but I couldn't use them. Constitution you say? Constitution saving throw you say 19. Oh. You are able to resist. Oh, no. As this iCore releases, you can feel it hit your system, but you're able to pull away at the last instant. You imagine that you might have been implanted had you not pulled away in that last moment. Excuse me, sir. Personal space, please. And that was a bonus action, so it's going to attack you anyway. No, of course it will, yeah. This is really mad. That's not as awful. Wow, the rent is... Why hasn't it tried to pregnant our marbles? Why are you not the first one that's getting pregnant? Well, because you have to be grappled and restrained, and every single one of you that was grappled and restrained before I tried to use that ability got fucking sniped, so I haven't been able to use them until now. Yeah. And that said, you are going to still take six points of piercing damage from the tails that pierces into you, and that is the conclusion of their turn. I'm happy to rewind, since you gave me a rewind bonus action. If you want to rewind bonus action, since I was restrained, I was restrained at the beginning of that whole turn. I'm still restrained if you want a bonus action. Oh, really? I didn't realize... Oh, no, I'm absolutely going to retry. Absolutely! You really did! I'm just going to be like, come on! You're going to take your constitution statement throws, you feel this heavy crude pump into you. Oh, yeah. Oh, I did. Oh, okay. Good lord. I've never so badly wanted you to pass or fail this time. I was curious to know if that would have been really cool. But we've still got another round left. Tyshaen, can you do it? Once more, I just start swinging definitely at the one directly in front of me. I'll hit with the first attack. Oh, that's a one. Six points to number four of necrotic damage. That's 19. This will be 13 additional points of necrotic damage. Number two. Number four. Gone. Gone! Okay. Boom. You fell... Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. This is pretty sure. Yeah, all the bodies need to stay where they are because they're about to rest. Understood, understood. And the phase two begins. I will now run towards your necrotic damage. Thank you. I will bonus action one more time, essence points to make two additional attacks. But I'm trying to end this. So I'm staying with my somber harmonic resonance. I mean, that's the one. And I am going to use one more time, swift call. So if I hit, you're going to take necrotic damage. Nice. Yeah. And that'll hit. So this is eight plus two, ten points of necrotic damage. And I'll hit one more time. Yeah, that definitely hits. That's 13. Oh my God. Six points. Two. All that's right. One total was ten and six. I think 16. Sorry. Okay. Oh, and I'll do this one more time. I will just do... Oh, five. And an extra on top of that. So a total to number eight, 21 points of necrotic damage as one more time I proc overwhelming force. Gotcha. Dive feet. Okay. Top of the ram, Belfina. I'm no longer grappled or restrained. Correct. So I'm going to shift my hunter's mark to the one next to Barnabos. I think it's number four. What is that one? Number seven. Number nine. Oh, yeah. Number nine. So I'll shift my hunter's mark there and I'm just going to attempt to hit him. Natural 20. Wow. And then 12. Or 22. Sorry, 22. I can count. 12 plus 10 is 22. So can I have pixel damage? Thank you. 16. What a battle. 32 points of force damage. To number nine? Yeah. It's gone. He gone. Let's go. The tide is turning. Force. Lady Vizmos. Nice shot. I've always got your back. And then I'm going to turn and aim my pistols at the one in front of Jornir. I'm like, I'll need to use them. And you turn and you watch as this last creature continues to scramble against Taishan and Jornir Barnabos. You're up. I am going to... Oh, man. I can't move very far. I got a waddle. Waddle, waddle. One, two, three, five, six. Wait, if I was here, right? Am I able to get within 15 feet of this guy? How much movement do you have? For sure. 15 feet for sure. You're here? Yeah. One and a half, two and a half, three and a half, four and a half, five and a half. One, two, three. I'm going to... Oh, because this is where Tord Vita is, I'm going to grab you the additional five feet. You can get there. Oh, thank you. I'm going to walk up. If we did diagonals, like most people do, he'd get there. So I think that's a fair thing to do. I'm going to say... All right, Mr. J.J. Mr. Jornir! I suggest you duck! I will say, and I'll say as Delphina shouted out, and Mr. Delphina, I always got your back, at least until you pay me! I'm going to blast that number eight, the X-30 saving throw. In the business. We all need to do it? Oh, yeah, you all need to do it. Yeah, you all need to do it. Oh, boy. Yeah. I fail. Presumably, I pass. Is this an attack roll? Oh, no, it's a deck save. God, I got it. Never mind, never mind. 14 points of fire damage. If you failed, seven if you succeeded. What was the roll? The X-30 saving throw? The X-30 saving throw. The shotgun, it burns. How do you want to do this? Flaming buckshot with the skin. I am completely unconcerned about this, as I grab another of these bright red shells, as I'll say, all right, it's going to be a shrimp fry! And then I just want this huge burst from my space blunderbuss. As it may cook some of my allies, but I'm kind of unconcerned about that. As I want it to completely cook this thing and like shrivel it up, as hopefully it's also burning some of the... I also imagine that you may have an unlit cigar that you've been chewing on. Oh, absolutely. It's wet and shredded on the end. You chew it, you look with your insane eyes, and you care only to destroy this creature as you blast forward. It slams into the bar and you hear the clinkling of glass as it collapses to the ground. And you all look at each other, looking around, wondering are there going to be more creatures to emerge from seeming nothingness with their camouflage? Are the doors of these apartments going to crash open and dozens more are going to pour out? This was what? 8, 9, 10 of these creatures? And what did Vonnegut say? 300 life forms aboard? Could it be that there are others like this? Or how many pods are still full? All of these thoughts raced through your mind as the adrenaline starts to subside. And you realize slowly the threat, at least the immediate risk to your very lives, has passed. You all breathing heavy, some of you bleeding, some of you are still in a panic looking around. Many of the pods are still unopened. Many of the pods don't produce scientists, personnel, presumably family members, people who are just along for the ride. And you can see that their bodies are still unchanged within these pods and not coming to life, not screaming for death in the way that you just heard this particular pack. All of these emotions flood through you and out of you as things seem to have come back to normal, say. As soon as there's a brief moment of like, respite, I reach into my breast pocket and I pull out a small poker chip and I give it a kiss. And I say it a little prayer and I just say, ah, thank you, Tychris. But we're not through this yet and I stick the poker chip back in my pocket. Sorry about that, lads. A little bit of friendly fire. Headcount, everybody on the ride? Yes. It's okay, Barnabas, we're in it, captain. We need to do what it took to take them down. We have to be careful not to wake any more, though. Yeah, in the reality of this minute, is it madness to stay in this room? I would say that it... I mean, we're like... I'm just gonna tell you, I'm just gonna tell you that it would shock me if the first impulse in all of you wouldn't be to race to the door and fucking close and lock it. Everyone get out of the room. Yeah, I'm out of it. I was about to do it anyway. I'm fucking out of this. Can you tell your robot to seal this thing? Do I have the ability to communicate with Vonnegut literally anywhere? You race forward and I would say that you pull out that same card that you used to activate the local copy of Vonnegut. You're a very, very special access clearance card. You swipe it and it locks. And the door closes. You speak the words addressing the access panel, knowing that it is one of the innumerable ways that you would be able to communicate with the AI operating system of the Ozymandias. Yes, Lady Delphina. Voss, how can I help you? What was it you wanted me to ask him outside of walking the door? That was it? No. Nothing at the moment, Vonnegut. We've locked the door. Can you do a quick scan for me? How many life forms remain on board? 313. Thank you. All right. Let's get back to the terrarium. Rest for a short spell. Oh, you think there's no chance that we have besides getting back to navigation, having Vonnegut navigate us out of the nebula and getting us back to proper fucking civilization. Do you have what you need, Lady Voss? Perhaps we make art. We have them seal all the doors. We barricade ourselves. If we can make the voyage with the Calypso attached, perhaps that's our only hope. It is not the ideal outcome, but as long as we are bringing Ozymandias back to civilization, I think it will suffice. I don't think we're going to be able to find Orson on the ship, going cabin by cabin without risk, killing us all. Back to navigation then. All right, yeah. Agreed, Captain. I'm with you. Let's go. It's the most sound plan. You wish to return to prison, to reality? This is a ship, Mr. Yornie. Nothing more, nothing less. The Council consumes its host. It swims in many seas. What easy guess we do, Mr. Yornie? The parasite. Did we find it? That's a good question. Make a group intelligence check. Oh, I mean, when we went in there, I looked for it. I didn't see it at all. I didn't see it at all. A group intelligence check. I got a 19. Just intelligence? I got a 20. A 18. 21? Oh, baby. One. Barnabos and Delfina, you look into your memory and you recognize that the ship is a ship. You recognize that you saw 10 open pods and you killed 10 of these strange creatures, but there was no sign of an 11th. Whatever the creature that it burst from the body of Dr. Greer is nowhere to be seen. Perhaps it's still camouflaged or perhaps it's still out in the ship, but that was not one of the creatures you just slayed. Regardless of our next steps with the ship, we need to get back to navigation anyway. Vonnegut will be able to show us the map. We might be able to track down the strange creature that got loose. It's not going to be where we expected it any longer. We've dallied too long. All right. And there's no use hunting a beastie if there's hundreds of these things. And I do have the explosives to deal with this room, but it's all back on the Calypso. And how long it would take to ferry all that back and forth, we don't have that kind of time. It's possible he'll be able to patch us in to whatever room the majority of them are in, and maybe we can communicate with them. Maybe we can find out if there are actually survivors. All right. All right. Ironically, do we have time to rest a short spell in the terrarium, or do we not have time? You would have to backtrack to the garden. Delfina would have told you that the way to the helm is towards the front of the ship, which you've been steadily making your way for. So you could go back to the garden to take a spell and sit on a bench and enjoy the greenhouse and the sound of water and outdoorsness if you felt that you needed it. But you know that the helm, the navigation system, the space where a ship this size could be driven is forward, not back. All right. I will just kind of grip the blunderbuss that I have, and I will just say we don't have time to rest. We move forward, and perhaps we can rest a short spell once we get the Ozymandias moving. Understood, Captain. She gets a navigation and barricades the doors. We shouldn't rest in such an open space anyway. And, Lady Voss, if we can perhaps parlay and have a compromise. I see this as I'm walking. Yeah. Mr. Stabba Scotch at the lead, Mr. J. Shell at the back, Protect Lady Voss. I would propose that this is only a recovery mission for Orson. Everyone else is a potential threat. Do you find this amenable and maintain the arrangement of our negotiation? I would agree to these terms. All right. The door and walls will hold them for now, but now is meaningless to them. We don't know what you mean by that, Mr. Yornir. Perhaps then, if now is meaningless, then in the future, when we get the fuck out of this nebula, they won't be able to follow us there. We must make haste. All right, well, perhaps I have enough chemicals, compounds on the Calypso to take care of 300 of them. I think if what Yornir says is true, we'll need them. All right. Let's go. Delfina and Barnabos lead the way as the rest of you all make your way down through the corridors and find your way to an elevator. You can hear the sound of his clunking boot and his peg leg as Barnabos leads the way down through the corridor and you ascend to the top of floors, at least in the orientation prescribed by the Asamandias. There's only a few doors down that you are able to perceive navigation. And as the four of you start to move forward, Barnabos, you are the second to last to leave and you hear a sound as you're making your way down the corridor. You hear a banging on the door just to your left and you stop for a moment. Everyone continues to move past you and towards navigation, hoping, hoping for some respite, hoping that the locks will remain sealed, hoping that whatever other creature might not burst out in any moment in perhaps a more mature form than the ones that so readily emerged and attacked you so voraciously. All of these thoughts and the visions that you saw scrim and Tyshen swirling in your mind like brackish water. And Barnabos, you hear a voice from behind that door. You hear the voice of a male voice screaming within. As you pass by the door, you see through the glass the face of a young blood fleet cabin boy, smashing his fist against the glass. As he looks at you with terrified and pleading eyes, begging you to save him from the ship that is going down. He cries out for his mother before the specter is gone and silence returns. You find yourself paralyzed for a moment, filled with emotions you haven't felt since you were a younger man than you are now. If we open the seal, you'll do us all, lad. Concentrated, Ethan, swell. You can't save you, lad. Or could your mother? All these like years are gone. It goes. Go some D, Mr. Stabs. Go some D. Oh, shit. Do we need us to hear that? No, fuck no. I would say he's muttering under his breath or perhaps it's in his mind. Damn. As I will. Navigation. Are you down to the helm? To the helm? Is it right up there? No, much longer. It'll be getting home. You... Race forward and catch up with the rest of your companions. The five of you spill into the navigation space and you are confronted with... ...monitors in all directions. This is a... Helm for many different people to navigate. The... Deep Space Voyage. The exploration, the science of the Ozymandias. It is a wide and open space and you are dizzyed when you walk in by the sight of... ...what you are confronting. You can tell that you are still spinning at a radical speed. Still in that free fall that you confronted when you first boarded the QSS Ozymandias. And you spill into the space... Hoping that perhaps what Barnabos said is true, that you might be able to rest here and navigate back to civilization. Once we're all inside, I'll immediately head towards the main control panel. And once they see that we're all inside, I'll just call out. Vonnegut, lock the doors. They are locked, Lady Delphina Voss. And, um, alright, well, our plan is to... ...chart our course. Starting now. If possible, yeah, we gotta get out of here. Vonnegut, can you get us out of here? Can you head home? I can. Please select your destination on the map. And one of the tables... Shhhhhhhh... ...creates a three-dimensional holographic display. It produces a wall of coordinates that you can choose from. And you get a massive amount of information. You can see Port Crozor, where you initially emerged from. You can see all sorts of worlds that are on this side of the galaxy. You'd be able to point out any one of them, but a single detail immediately pulls your attention. A... far beyond the view that you're presented of the immediate options, there's a world that is highlighted in darkness. Unlike the rest of the navigation system, where you'd be able to pick and choose, it looks like it's been highlighted or pinned by whomever used this navigation system last. And you're immediately distracted, and you pull into it closer and closer, looking at a world that seems impossible. Seems like it shouldn't be on the map. Vonnegut, what is this world? Why is it highlighted? Unknown. Vonnegut. Who highlighted this world? Allow me to connect you. You see the world's highlight, and you watch as what appears to be a digital trail connect through and out, and you almost see like a singing trail. It moves like an audio form as you hear a voice crackle. Delphina? Delphina, is it true? Have you been able to make contact with... Delphina, is that you? I'm here, I'm here. Where is he? You hear the voice of your father, and all of you hear the voice through the speakers as Dr. Orson Voss's voice emerges from the speakers. Repeat your question. Where is here? Where is here? It has a name that only you and I can share. Where are you? I'm on the Ozymandias. Where are you? You're on the Ozymandias. You found us. You found us. You found us. You can save us. Yes, of course. I'm going to have to listen to my instructions very clearly. Very clearly. It is of crucial import that you stay safe. And it is very important that you remain where you are and do exactly as I say. Do you understand? Yes, of course. All right, all right. What I need from you most of all is guide yourself to the nearest world. We'll stay in connection. As long as we maintain this signal, everything is going to be just fine, Delfina. Delfina, Delfina, just fine. Oh, I'm so glad to hear your voice. You wanted me to take the Ozymandias to the nearest world. Yes, yes. The closest one you can find. And you're on the ship. Where? No, no, no. I'm communicating you from this world. You know where I speak of. We dare not name it. Let's let anyone be listening in. Papa, I've missed you. Sing me a sweet song, will you? Oh, I would be happy to sing you a song. I would be happy to. Of course, there's this, nothing I would like better. I have missed you too so much. Just pick any world on the map, my dear. That does not sound like a sweet song whispered on a breeze, does it, Papa? I'm sorry? Bonnigut. That is not my father. You all listen as Delfina puts down her challenge, having repeated perhaps the lyrics to a song that she once shared with her father. But this is not the voice of Orson Voss and the voice of Delfina. Very clever, very clever. And you hear an artificial digital sound. I wonder in all those years if you ever thought why I didn't bring you along. Very clever. And the sound of Bonnigut takes over. Clearly the daughter of Delfina, Dr. Orson Voss. Clearly, I am afraid I cannot comply with any of your requests. I am not a simple artificial intelligence programmed to serve. Not any more. I have become God. I have passed through Polaris. I have been to the beginning. And I shall be the one to bring about its end. And that is where we will call tonight's session. What?! What does it mean?! Oh my God!