Welcome to the Azarr Steppe! (Part 1) | Altheya: The Dragon Empire #97

Pickaxe. Incredible community for the adventure of a lifetime. Hello and welcome back to High Rollers. Whilst visiting the ecliptic order stronghold called Gallows Aerie, our heroes found themselves trapped as one of the powerful planar prisoners attempted to take over the facility. Edict, a gnome bound to the plane of law, the precept coil, had infected many of the guards and other prisoners with a powerful, magical curse that bent them to her axiomatic mind. Having briefly taken control of Gruff and causing him to attack his friends, the wild heart knight charged into the depths of the prison to face Edict directly. The rest of the party and high inquisitor Argus raced after Gruff and a terrible battle ensued. But with Edict's defeat, the heroes now find themselves with the choice of returning home to Ash and Rest or venturing out into the Azar step to pursue Rowan's mysterious dreams. That, my friends, is where we're going to pick up the episode today. You stand in the grounds of the Gallows Aerie, decisions to be made before you. The whole stronghold is in a state of recovery. Bodies are being transported, ready to be given the proper burial rites. Any surviving prisoners are being escorted back down into the cells and the wounded are being tended to. The whole place is in a bit of a state and the focus is most certainly on themselves rather than on all of you. But high inquisitor Argus is nearby and ready to attend if anything is required. What do we see? Where is everybody currently? What is the current state that we find everybody in? I specifically remember the last episode. Oh, we ended it with, wait, does everyone else have important dreams? I wanted to just pick up exactly after that point. Wait, does everyone else have important dreams? You do too. Oh, all the time. Well, not all the time. A lot of the time. I tell you guys about them, right? No. Maybe. Wait, Ophelia, do you have important dreams? Not particularly, no, I sleep rather well. Really? Oh, you barely sleep? Yes, very well. Graph important dreams? I just stream of own and my wife. But like visions of the future or like, I don't know, no, guiding paths, that kind of thing? No. I had that. You did? Yeah. Yeah. Guiding paths, maybe a vision of the future, I don't know. Was it you? Was it us? Was it... Where were you? I thought all of you guys were in my dream. Oh, right. Oh, what's that? Wait, it wasn't... It wasn't, you know, that dream, was it, Ron? What dream? You know. The rather inappropriate one for polite company. No. Okay, all right. Not that one. Okay. This one was weird, and it felt different, so I don't know if it's similar to what you had. Okay, did it feel like you were there? I was in it, and I had... You were in it, and then you wake up and it's all not real? Yeah. But it felt super real. Right, okay. Yeah. So, okay, where were we? And I had... I could choose to do things. You had no control over it. Somewhat. It felt that real. It was crazy. Okay, and what were you doing? That's fucking wrong. I knew it, Ron. He didn't say it in the voice, so it's not Count Cannon. He said that in a Chris Trot voice, because he couldn't help himself. And what choices did you make? Also, how does that even work? It's just... Well, if it's one of the ones with... Yeah. Anyway... I was on a path, and it was a winding path, and there was storms all around me. Yeah. Sounds terrible. Big lightning bolts, somewhat inviting at the same time. Strange. And then I followed this path, and it started winding upwards, up a mountain of sorts. And I felt the pull almost, like I wanted to go towards it. And that's when I saw this smooth... Kind of smooth. This kind of dull, grey rock kind of embedded into the top of this place. Smooth, worn... As if worn down by ages of wind and rain, with this almost perfectly flat surface. Almost looked ultalike, or... as if used in various purposes. I didn't use it in that way. But I saw this, and it came out of the ground, and it looked otherworldly, but not at the same time. It looked and felt inviting. Where'd I...proto-merge IE? No, like that. OK. It felt more...godly. It felt similar to when you've connected with the Earth, when you use your powers. It felt like the power of Ulthay. And to...to solidify that, as I got closer, I saw the veins of Ultharite. Oh! Oh, OK. Through it. And it felt so real. Like when we were under water and we saw that vein in that little village. And you recall, Rowan, that process of... that stone, it did remind you of a stone, something that a blacksmith would sharpen a blade against. And in fact, you remember doing that with the blade and some sort of release of power. I was going into that bit, but fucking... Sorry. I don't know how much Chris Trot remembers, so sometimes I apologize. And how much were you being guided through this? How much was the other guy saying? I had this pull, like I wanted... like Ulthay wanted me to do something, but it was ultimately me that chose to get out the sword. OK. And it felt like I needed to do something. Like Ulthay wanted to see the sword, I think. But it was up to me to do something about it, and it was my... I don't know what is free will, Santhis. Oh. That's a broad question on a... Did I choose it or is everything predetermined? I don't have an answer for you there. I'm not in a position to answer that either. Yeah, it starts to feel like fate really is pulling the strings a lot of the time, you know? I mean, I also tell you what isn't free will, and that's being infected by the edict, or by the edict. Oh, we have to kill Gruff. Is that fully outside of your mind now, the edict stuff? I wouldn't have actually said it any of that. I was going to say, I don't think Gruff would choke about it. Gruff is not. We'll leave that. Yeah, we'll come back to that. Sure. I wouldn't usually bring up a dream like this, but I still feel that pull now in the waking world. Not in the dream world. Did you recognise where it was? I knew it was the Azar step. Where specifically, I don't know, I'd have to get out there and see if it rekindles a memory. It doesn't, it feels like a memory. Does it feel... But the memory hasn't happened yet. Does it feel at least nearby? Indles. It's also, yeah, you don't have a sense of direction or closeness. I have no sense of direction. You would probably imagine, Rowan, you know, the Azar step is a big province, and you've travelled much of it. You've walked across many places, but, you know, there are all sorts of strange natural landscapes, and you've not explored them all. But it is the kind of thing that, you know, the locals of the Azar step, something like that, you know, this was a huge plateau, and you remember the line of stone monoliths, these great stone, almost like spikes or columns that rose out of the ground that seemed to be struck by lightning, almost in a pattern, the sound, the memory. Something like that, the locals would know. So hopefully, if you could find someone, they would be able to guide you. I have a great idea. From here onwards, we start tattooing a tally marker onto us every single day. So when we have a dream of the future, we can just look at our hands or our arms, and we know exactly how distant in the future it is, because it will have the update to tally. That's so smart. So let's start doing that. Tattoos. Okay. Daisy, I don't really want to get a tattoo, no. Oh, okay. No, I... Because, like, what if it's just a dream? What if it's not a vision of the future? Then we're just making loads of marks on ourselves for no reason. And also... I'm at day 300. It's not that big. No, no dream yet. See that's on your arms. Right. So it would be really cool to get, like, a terrifying dream, and then you look at it, and it's like the day after. What if you start dreaming about your tallies, though? That's not an accurate... How do you tattoo that? Also, isn't your arm the marker? You're fucked up arm. You seem to get more fucked up after every dream. That's true. That's your point. I mean, none of your dreams thus far have been prophetic. They've always been more poetic. Sassy. Yeah. As you think about this, we do need to roll for fate. There's a last one. I remember. That's... Once I actually remembered. One! Oh, that's one for me. Twa. Oh, another one for me. Six. That's one for you. Five. That's another one for you. Oh, a lovely even Steven. I don't know why I said six. I rolled four, which is still for us, but I lied. Why did you lie? I rolled one, by the way. I was like, three to two. I was so quick with it, too. Just like, I'll have you to do it. Six. I knew it was for us, but it just wasn't six. I don't know why I lied. That's very interesting to know that you would just lie to me like that. I think I just round it up. I think I might need to see all of your dice rolls from now on. Don't round up all your dice rolls. I don't believe you now. He's actually 18. He's rounded up. Can you just watch his dice rolls? I'll keep an eye out on this scammer. I trust you, Rian. We've got to cheat you. We've got to cheat right there. He's rounded up. He's just lying. He's just lying about his dice rolls. I subconsciously lied, and I don't know what happened. You might need to see a therapist about that. Okay. Eight. The last half, four. On a guy. Yeah, exactly. I rolled four. It's the same result. I'll call it a six. Optimistic. Can you not do that? Can you not do that? Do you need to know what you actually roll? Sure. If I know I've won, I may as well make it good. With that, as Ron reiterates his dream, you do, yeah, you have a choice. The Gallows' Airy is up in the mountains. And you know from your conversations with Argus that there is a hefty trek from out onto the actual Azar Plains up to the fortress. So you will need to make your way back down through the mountains, and then you don't know how far you may have to travel before you encounter wherever Izraa needs to go or whatever it is. I will tell you guys, if you would like to proceed into the Azar Step, we will be going into a travel section, which means we are going to be using some of the new prototype travel rules. And that means that you'll need to think about your supplies, because obviously you came here through teleportation. I don't know how much kind of things like food and water and travel equipment you have on you, because most of it was stored on Rodry back at Ashland's Rest. So keep in mind that all of things like all your tents and things are currently with Rodry. We can just knit back. Knit back, knit back again? You could, but you wouldn't be able to come back here. You would then have to travel all the way through Kelskars and back. That's a thank you for the Yiddic thing. They let us use the teleport circle again. They could send you to a place with a teleport circle. Ashland Rest does not have one that is publicly known. Could we get one out, didn't they? Could we get russians from them? You probably could get some supplies and things like that. Yeah, I'm sure that our high-inquiry straggers would be able to finish you with some basic supplies. Probably not going to be extensive camping equipment, but yeah, they can probably give you a couple of tents and some rations and water skins and things like that. We went shopping beforehand. I at least got everyone some clothing. You did? Yes. You did get all the clothing? Yes, that will. So, you at least have that. Okay. You don't have sleeping arrangements. I have a bedroll apparently. Okay. Also, I have a big frame and with that big clothes, so someone can just sleep inside. Sleep inside your clothes. That's true. That is true. You could enlarge. I can just enlarge and never sleep. You could just take your clothes off and then enlarge. Your clothes will be huge. Yeah, that is always the question. And then you wear those clothes again, enlarge again, and then take them off. The clothes are magically enhanced. They shrink. Yeah, they are much bigger. So, yeah, basically, Heinquist Rages will furnish you with basic supplies. But you need to kind of give an indication of how many days you expect to be traveling or at least they can't just give you infinite food, right? Same with like they can give you each a water skin to travel with. And probably I would say like a couple of tents, basically. Okay. How about this? Yes. Because I already feel a pang of guilt for taking us on this errand when we have more important matters. It looks all the way up this... It's not subtle. Up that piece of arm. Very slowly. I'm not picking up what you're putting down. The whole arm there. Yeah, arm. We are very close to figuring this out. Me? You. Oh, yeah. No, that's... I mean, you... Rowan, you've travelled with us for a long, long time and you've asked for very, very little. If anything, all you've done is provided for us. So it makes sense that we just spend 20 minutes... Have a glass. A cursor of a glass. Look out the window. No, not there. No, he'll see it. Anyway, that's your entire credit use. Oh, look, guys, it's just there. Oh, let's get back. Run out of time, sorry. We'll give another 90 episodes there. Maybe. Another 20 minutes. Yeah. Well, either way, what I suggest is we limit our rations to a specific amount of days, at which point that's enough searching and we should carry on elsewhere, even if we don't find what we're looking for. Sure. And at any point, we can just giant magic back, right? So we don't have to travel back. Please. Yacht near. Yacht near magic, sorry. The Hearthstone is giant magic. I think I know. Do you? Sure. So just to the... One thing to check before we do this. So Xantheus has a bedroll, Daisy has a bedroll. Who else has bedrolls? I have an award skin. I do have an award skin, yeah. I do not, but I have my bottle of blood. It's good to know. I do have some rations. Yeah, they can... Well, I think that any rations you have in your carriage sheet, because those are when you were travelling with Rodgerie back in Kaljur, I'm going to say you don't have things like rations, because you wouldn't have brought like a bunch of rations with you here. No. You weren't expecting to go on a journey. My dad always had. But they're going to provide you rations. So you should have a bag full of probably not great pastries now. I am not counting those as rations. I've got a shovel and a tent. But the bag of holding will mean... Bag of holding will mean it's easy to carry all of this stuff, basically. So we've got some pastries left, I think. Yeah, they're probably still in the stale window. I'm not counting them as rations. I'm not counting them as rations. I'm not counting them as rations. Too much sugar and healthy. Yeah, it's also like, yeah, it's not like travel rations, right? It's pastries and cupcakes and stuff. Yeah. Okay, so... No thingy for... I would do that. One, two, three. I said, it's a YouTube challenge video. Well, I have all the... Live off stale... Let's see, let's see. Live off muffins for a day. I could easily... No, but while you're hiking, like the Breckenbeekens or something like that. I would not, even if I had the correct food, I'd die there. Let's balutize it. Okay, hell yeah. So you speak with Heinkewitz-Drager, so they agree. Their supplies are limited, but they have also just lost a lot of people, and so they do have some food and things to spare. So what I will say... Let's balutize it. Hell yeah. So they will provide, let's say, five days worth of food for each of you, basically. Okay, cool. So that's gonna be five, ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five. Are we doing a pastry and ventrary of rations? I'm keeping a note of it as well. Well, don't forget that in this, this is all gonna convert into supply points. And then we're gonna track your supply points rather than, like, individual rations and stuff. Like, your rations basically become a pool, and then depending on what happens, we're gonna track supply, because some of them might get lost, they might get damaged, there might be conditions where you have to spend more of them. But it's also gonna include things like your bedrolls, your tents, water skins, you know, water supply, all of that kind of stuff. Okay, well I've added twenty-five rations to the party in... Sure. Oh, now I have to remove my five? Yeah, don't worry about it, it's too much. So sorry. So, you gather up these various supplies, you place them, you know, place, you know, things like the tents and the bags of holding and stuff like that, and then your plan is to head out of here, is it? So anything you would like to before you leave Gallows' area? So, I wasn't here last week, and I've only, I've missed the end of the episode, I've caught up with most of it, but not the end. Was there anything? That's the best bit. That was the entire thread that we just did there. Yeah, shall I just go over and... So, will you just complete... Just let Kim finish. I'll watch it now. BitBoy, you shall be there. I'll just bring it up on my phone, I can watch it now. If you just play it back into the mic so everyone... All right, yeah, yeah, okay, I'll do it. BitBoy, Kim gone. Um, was there... BitBoy, yeah. Anything with Argus, like after the fight, was there anything with... So, he was injured, but he did basically, he conveyed his immense gratitude to the party, um, saying that, yeah, basically, if you hadn't been here, things would have been a lot worse, probably would have lost most of, you know, his followers and things, and maybe would have had to have sealed the place or something like that. So, an immense amount of gratitude, um, and just, yeah, basically, there is definitely an implication that there is a good chance that this will be on his shoulders, that this failure will come back to haunt him, basically. Um, but that's kind of, you know, there wasn't much more than that, because we were kind of wrapping up. But if you wanted to speak to him, if anybody had any questions or moments, oh, there was also the case of Rackus, the child eater. Um, he has been firmly locked away back in the cells. Okay, good. Um, yeah, Argus and the others have made sure that he is firmly locked away. You probably heard his wailings and crying as you were led out of the gullet. Yeah, it was just a lot of failure. It was just the one child, actually. Oh, but he was so cute. Like, it's just a shame he ate children. It's just the one child. Yeah, that's a deal breaker for me. Yeah, it's just the one child. That's the deal breaker. That's the hard one. That's the line I'm going to draw. Yeah. Is there anything... What are you saying to Argus? What happened with Han? So Han is staying here, because that's his agreement that he has. He's provided you everything that you guys need. Daisy has her new weapon. And I believe there was this idea that perhaps in the future, when you decide sort of when and where you want to fight the Jäger, Argus or the Ecliptic Order may bring him to Daisy, because they think that that's the way to go. They're going to bring him to Daisy, because they think that that will draw the Jäger to them, basically. Right now they're better separate, because otherwise it might put a target on our back. Yeah, if Han comes with you guys or goes to Cal Scaris, the Jäger will turn up and probably indiscriminately cause a lot of damage. Yeet. Okay. Has Gruff apologised for... Well, I don't do any role-playing, so don't... Well, I heard these boys did great role-play. No, they played your character mechanically. I think the way that I had it was that Gruff was very internal, very quiet, just kind of keeping back, not really engaging. In that kind of like, he's clearly in his own mind and in his own thoughts about it. Just kind of hanging back and being quite reserved, even to the point of when the rackets matter did not seem to sort of... was too busy in his own head, basically. I think that's the way that I had it, was that Gruff was very internal, very quiet, just kind of keeping back, not really engaging. He did not seem to sort of... was too busy in his own head, basically. It's how we kind of play. Yeah, well, he already threatened Rikus to like, just stay the fuck back. I don't have time for you, John. Exactly. Yeet. I think, yeah, for now, I don't think... I think Gruff is still in that kind of... Kim is very much making sassy comments every few seconds, but I'm just happy to be here. Gruff is still a little quiet, a bit reserved, yeah. And I think everybody picks up on that, right? Gruff is definitely not taking charge, but he's very quiet and hanging back. Daisy's being sort of like, organizing, grabbing all the food rations and things with some of the people here. But yeah, if there's anything that anybody else would like to do, otherwise I will assume that you make your way out of Gallows' area and begin your journey. Rowan's building this like, puppy energy, knowing that he's about to go on a walk, and he just can't wait to hit the Azar step. Perfect. We're ready. We're ready to go. I think we're very close. Has everyone got everything they need? I think so. How are we all for rest before we go as well? Do we need to take a quick moment to just... You could stay the day or the night here in Gallows' area. It was a very tough... I know you're keen to go, but we don't know what we're going to face. I'm just... The open air. Beautiful, scenery. When was the last time you were here? Oh. So when did we meet? That was about three months ago. I can actually look that up and tell you. I mean, if you continue, I don't know what... Well, when we met, I had already been on my long journey for roughly three or four months. Three or four months? OK, so, wow, quite a long time. Coming up to a year, I think, before... When I left Azar step, I think, across the threshold. Yeah. Maybe longer. I don't know. OK, is there anything we need to know? Is there any kind of weird plan we need to watch out for? Trees that might... Terrible sea monsters that will swallow a boat whole, for example. Well, we're not going on the sea. We've never gone the sea. I went on the sea. Somehow I survived. I have something to ask you about that. That's madness. That's what that was. It was madness. We did also sail around the... Suncrest light. You also did that? No, but I mean, like, the sea sea. You never go in the sea sea. The big one. The big blue sea sea sea. Because all the... All the sea sea sea... The big blue sea sea sea... ...boy is going to kick off. Oh, there he goes. I want to... Can I just hard nix BitBoy? The harder you nix it. I don't ask for a lot. I accept a lot. BitBoy... You demand a lot. I'm getting rid of that. Then perhaps behave yourself and you won't be BitBoy. It has been a hundred... He's up your dream by saying you're fucking a rock. It has been 105 days. But that's charming and wonderful. He's close. Don't get me wrong. 105 days since... So three months. Looks like all BitBoy was correct. Oh, we're okay calling you BitBoy. No! Well, don't forget that months in this have 36 days. Yeah. So it's just under three months. Let's round it up. Like I do with faith. Sure. 105 days. No, there's no other treasure things to worry about. Nothing at all. No. Okay. There's plenty. All right. It's a dangerous place. So just follow your... Geographically. Okay. Tropologically. And you... The verticality. Right. Okay. From what? Yeah. And this... Have you been across like all of our stuff? I went through it, yes, from top to bottom. But I haven't done the breadth. Okay. So you've seen... I winded. You might have seen my time. You've seen this part of it. Atendantly. Yeah, across the south to... In order to get down to Kelskires. Okay. Well, kind of like beasties we're talking about. Monsters, like... At night and day? Yeah. Particularly night. Particularly at night. Okay. Okay. Wow, that's just like... Crowns for happens here too, like I said. Yeah, okay. Because in my youth there was one nearby. Huh. Cool. What a cool... Bad, really bad. Yeah. How you did, you probably did, yeah. You're too busy branding up. So there's plenty on offer. Put it in worry. I made it. We know the right stuff if we start to gather like foods and stuff like that. Yeah. If we need to. We probably don't have breakfast. Edible flora. Yes, a fauna. Edible fauna. Plenty. Fantastic. They all have fauna. New parsley. Has blood. Wonderful. That I've noticed. Well, that's good to know. Thank you. And yeah. And these ones sometimes are warm-blooded too. Warm-blooded? Not all lizards. Don't give me too much. There are mammals and things as well. It's not just reptiles and worms. You should see the goats. Yeah? They love to climb up these really treacherous vertical cliff sides and they're like, whoa, I'm so high. But why? My hoof's up here. It's crazy. I watch them all day. I love goats. Eating them. Oh. We don't have to go to a disaster, actually. No, come on. We're right here. It's just... We're just going to eat all the wildlife. It's not been outside for a long time. You have. It's been a day. It's been too long. You very much have been outside. No, I want to go back inside. I want to eat. Okay. Hungry. I think we're ready to go. Are you ready to go? All right, well, we need a long rest. Yeah, are you going to stay here the night and head off in the morning or do you want to go right away, like right now? I'm spraffed. Should we get some rest first? Actually, no, I'm not. Argus will say, sort of take a moment and say, as I said, if you do wish to stay here, we have plenty of rooms and things that will accommodate you, at least, so that you can rest after your battles. Very kind. Thank you. Of course. Well, I can do a quick hour. Let it get going. So... I can make you just a quick pop-up. Just a quick rest, yeah? Yeah. Just a little... Graff's probably the same. Where is Graff, anyway? It's a little juice. Yeah, where is Graff? I don't know. Where are we right now? You are in Gallows' Aries. You're in the sort of... You're in the sort of... You're in the main complex, in the main building of the Gallows' Aries, so on the maps you've got there. So I imagine that you're sort of hanging around the tower near the entrance, sort of gathering up these supplies, kind of mounting up your packs and things like that. We went to the store and then came back down, I think. Yeah. So it's been August and stuff. If you're fucking around near the entrance... I wouldn't say fucking around. Traitorizing. He's probably just a little bit away from the group. He's been helping with drying up the packs and doing all the practical stuff, typical dad trying to round up the kids going out the door. But he keeps, I guess, probably looking at the shrine, just kind of like, you know, while you guys wobble on, like, you know, he's like, man, can I just go... Just like, you know... He wanders off, starts making his way towards the shrine. As you make your way there, Gruff, you see that it's only a small place, a small little church for the brothers and sisters of the Holy Order here. He visited it before. He visited it before. Before everything kicked off. There are a few brothers and sisters, most of them wounded in some way, broken arms, gouges, slashes, you know, covered in bandages, who are either in mourning or praying. One of them, you see this brother, you think he's shaking from sobbing or crying, but you just see it's actually in rage. Like, just anger boiling up to the point in desperate prayer. His nails almost biting into his hands. They're clutched so tightly. And it's directly by the Pyras Memorial. Not Memorial, the Pyras altar. And it's just muttering under his breath. You catch words like vengeance and sort of, you know, help me show my wrath. You can see that this is somebody who's so in rage that they couldn't do more. But the others are in quiet mourning and things like that. He kind of would just linger around the back, like just, like, not really wanting to disturb anyone and just like, yeah, kneel down and start his own prayers. I think if anyone was listening, it would be very much on the theme of forgiveness and regrets and being scared. Like, I think in his head, he would see the look in Rowan and Daisy's eyes when he turned to attack them. Does he pray to a particular one of the gods or the scions, the saints, or is this just a prayer to any of whom would listen? I think the one that came into my head was Saint T'Lan. Saint T'Lan, Saint of Healing. Yeah, Saint of Healing. Perhaps because, like, especially in the fight, like, he was healing and he was, you know, maybe that's why the amulet, like, it's most on his mind right now is Saint T'Lan. Can you give me a religion role, please, Kim? Ooh! That is a plus three for me. Six. You offer this prayer to Saint T'Lan, asking for forgiveness, confessing your fears, and you don't feel anything. Those feelings linger. The room is still, you can hear the occasional sobs and shuffle of feet, but nothing comes to you. I think Graffa almost expected that. Wanted that. Would have actually kind of hated it if someone did reply. Is there anyone or people in this room who look particularly injured or anything like that? Oh yeah, there's two. There's a brother and a sister. One of the two of the survivors, like I said, the woman has a broken arm. Looks like maybe it was, like, hit by a powerful strike and shattered or, you know, broken bones. And then the other, he has gouges. Looks like maybe those crown-steal prisoners corrupted by Edith kind of tore into him and he's got covered in, like, scratches and grazes. Just covered in bandages. So I think kind of muttering to him, like, oh, just sort of, he would go around and he would cast healing magics on them. Sure, yeah. They graciously accept the broken arm. A healing spell won't mend that, but it eases the pain and it sort of reinvigorates us so she'll heal quicker. But the scratches and the cuts and the grazes and the gashes on the man do quickly heal up. Leaving scarring, like, heavy scarring. This man is going to be not disfigured from the scarring, but these will be scars that will be carried throughout his life. And he bows his head and she will say, Thank you, Nidah. And we heard that you and your companions were the ones who took down Edith. We were just trying to, we got so injured we had to flee into the tower. Thank you for what you and your friends did. I dare not think, Saints and Scions, what would have happened if you had not done that? We just, I can't believe that Edith managed to get close to one of us to infect one of us. It's awful. The planes, their power is just so, it's so terrible. But my faith, seeing what you and your friends did and knowing how important our mission is, I know that what we do is important now. Thank you. I'm just sorry. I'm sorry we couldn't do anything sooner. I'm sorry I couldn't do anything sooner. No, you did more than enough, Knight, aren't you, Gruffith, isn't it? No, please, and the man will sort of put a hand on your shoulder. Everything you have done, no one could have done it faster. There is no way that you could have done any more than what you and your friends did. Please, my friend, do not burden yourself with this grief. What happened is a tragedy, but we must look to the brightness, we must look to the sun, we must look to hope. Take that with you. Saints and Scions go with you, brother. Thank you, my brother, thank you, sister. It's not their heads. We'll just wander back out again and probably see these lots still bickering. Yeah, this is just a brief moment. Does anything that just happened actually change anything for Gruff, or is he still very much? He's still, you know, he's having a brood. He's having a bit of a brood. Yeah, we still see these kind of lingerings. What are you up to? Sorry, I know we're keeping the rations for the journey, but I was really hungry. Xantheus, you haven't even left yet. I know, but I just had to have one. Okay, well that means that one meal you have to have all the stale things from Rowan's bag. That's your dinner tomorrow. How bad can they be? Oh, can I just one muffin? Are they still good, right? They're all pastries. How preserved? I'm so hungry. They're full of sugar. I mean, how bad can they be? Exactly. Every time. If things get really hot, they get hot. There's no nutritional value, but yeah, if things are really bad. If things are really, really bad, though, I'll just have a little blood. It looks that you were disgust. Why not? You wouldn't share it. No. With me? No. What? Get your own. On that, I think Argus comes up and will just say... That is just dying. Rooms have been prepared if you wish to rest. Otherwise, yes, if you are ready, they're prepared for you. So, are you long resting or short resting? I'm fine short resting. Short rest, short rest. All right, short rest for everybody. Can I just say something that I found quite entertaining when you guys had this bite? I was checking my character sheet and I kept logging in and refreshing. It was just so funny seeing my HP go up, down, down, down, down, up, down. Yeah. You took some big blows. Big, cute blows. So, yeah, spend your hit dice to your short rest. Gain any abilities back on a short rest. I will do that for Daisy. I think she's pretty much fine, though. I will just spend a hit point for her. I am just shy of full. I just rolled two hits. How do I get on a short rest? Just healing, I think, for me. You might get some abilities, but yeah. I get nothing. Daisy is at full. I get nothing. So, I imagine this is all happening probably... I would say noon. You guys are getting ready to head out. It's about noon. You've gathered your supplies. You've gathered everything that you need. Yeah. And are preparing your journey. I'll let everyone finish doing their short rest. How is it weather-wise looking at that? Well, you've not stepped outside yet, so you're currently still in the fortress. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, I'm assuming that... I'm going to open the doors to just a torrent of wind and rain. Find out. Maybe we can go later. Tom, I've got to do the Dark Souls, you know, you open the doors and then see the light. Oh, really slow. The White Fog. Yeah. Well, not White Fog, it's just more like you get that visual moment, right? Elden Ring style. So... Argus, well... Thank you for all that you've done. And I entrust that this will not be our last meeting. There is still business that we must attend to. Mm-hmm. Sister Superior, Malady and Sister Superior, Benedictor, I'll wait you back in Ashen Rest. And please keep us informed, Xanthius, of the matter with your sibling. Yes, I will do, yes. And when you are ready, young Daisy, contact us and we will deal with this Yeager problem. I will bring Han wherever you feel it best. But good luck in your travels and thank you once again. Saints and Scions, and may my blessed moon go with you. Thank you very much, Argus. Bowes his head, offers a paw to each of you to... Gruff will shake his hand. And Gruff will, but just awkwardly just doesn't make eye contact. Just... Sure. I think Argus kind of senses that and just sort of pats you on the shoulder and shakes your hand. But yeah, shakes, you know, takes a paw, shakes all of your hands. Can I have a moment of privacy, actually? You can see that his wound has been bandaged and he's still kind of favoring, you know, he's still kind of favoring his other side, not quite limping, but definitely still healing. Pulls up his dark hood, kind of like fits just over his ears and his long mane and begins making his way out, leaving you guys to head on your journey. The doors have to be opened by some of the other brothers, the holy brothers and gods in this place. These great enormous doors that you can see had been covered by edicts like metal, thorns and vines, but those have all been broken and rusted away. And now these great doors press open, huge chains on either side of the fortress being wheeled as the brothers pull on the great pullies. And they open out onto a vast mountain range, high, high up, almost to the point where the clouds make it misty and foggy as you are high, high up in the southern mountains of the Azar Steppe. Blue, grey stone just seems to rise and fall in jagged peaks all around you. And the sky is dark with the beginnings of what will perhaps become a storm. There is a light rain currently falling everywhere you look, but through the fog, through glimpses of clouds and distances, you see tiny pinpoints, tiny little breaks in the cloud. And you see these rolling green fields that just seem to spread out for miles and miles and miles. But first, you must make your way down from the mountains and you head out. So going into some travel rules here, I would like to have so to remind you guys, you have to pick a journey roll. There are three rolls that must be filled and then there are some bonus rolls that can be done as an optional thing to give you some bonuses. Your journey difficulty is affected by difficult terrain such as being in mountains, not having any map or directions of where you are going, but also can be impacted by things like harsh weather such as storms, heavy rain, snowfall, etc. And this is also quite a challenging environment. So this is going to be a pretty, pretty chunky DC, not super-duper high, but pretty good. Can't get lost if we don't have a destination. True. You can get to safety. So to remind you, you've got the navigator who is all about basically plotting the journey and keeping you guys on track. And their associated skill is survival. You have the lookout who's responsible for keeping an eye out for danger, perception is their key skill. Quartermaster, the quartermaster responsible for keeping track of the party's rations, water and camp supplies as well as any other useful equipment. Just putting it in a bag of holding will not keep it safe. You might lose the bag of holding potentially. So their key thing is athletics. And then you have the bonus roles which is the scout who uses stealth to stay advanced to the party and warn them of any incoming danger. And then you have the expert who provides insights and information about the local area, fauna, flora and terrain. And they use arcana history, nature or religion. In this case, it would probably be nature-based. But you might be able to make an argument for the other skills as well. And then finally, you just have the supporter who basically just gives somebody advantage or a bonus d4 on their role. I think I'm going to have Daisy just do the supporter role for one of you, just because it makes sense. And then it's not an active participation. I know she's very good at stealthing, but just for the ease of her not being here. So... I'm bad at literally all of those. Somebody has to pick them. So even if you've got a bad skill role, you're going to still need somebody to take it on. Can I take either perception or a survival and plus a on both? Nice. If I was to min-max, it would be survival plus 10. Cool. However... We did say you were going to be the guide as well, so it's not min-maxing as such for that. No. It makes sense. This is your landscape. I also want to be the expert. Okay. Oh, right. Okay. Telling stories, yeah. About my nature's plus one. My history's plus seven. I mean, history could become an attribute. I'd use historical sites or landmarks. It will entirely depend on the event or the thing that's taking place. So it could be any of those roles. Something in more of that at the moment. Yeah. I mean, this is entirely up to you guys to pick. I just want to do that. Yeah. I'm happy to be a lookout or a scout. Go ahead. Super any danger or a faith sense? Rough potentially being the guide then because that's the navigator lookout and Quartzmaster have to be filled. They have to be filled. So, gruff navigator. Is that preset? That'll be survival. That's survival. And then lookout needs perception. So, Ophelia, would you want to go scout? I can go scout. Okay. That means, well actually, Xantheus, you'll have to be the Quartzmaster or lookout in that case. Daze can help you as well. You're going to have to. I'm not doing a lookout. Don't forget, the scout and the expert are optional roles. True. So you have to fill the other three first before you do those. I mean, somebody could try and do two, but you're going to get penalties if you try and do that. True. I don't mind taking just any... I can do Quartzmaster if you want to do something else or... Yeah. Lookout for Xantheus? Yeah, sure. Okay. What's your survival? It's okay everyone, don't worry. Anything's coming towards us and I'll see him coming. What's your survival? Sunglasses down. Eyes closed while walking forwards. What's your survival? My survival minus two. Same as his perception. Yeah? Yeah. It's okay everyone, just follow my lead or just be reactive I suppose. Let me know if you need my help with anything. Daze, can you... And again, these are prototype rules, right? So these might get changed as well. Daze is like, yeah, I can help Xantheus, yeah, no problem. And so, sure, helps Xantheus basically. I want to roll a performance check to convince everyone that I'm really good at this. I don't think there's a performance check Xantheus in the world could make. These people have been spending enough time with you. Three. Yeah, they've known you long enough. I'll round up to 20 though. You will have advantage on it because Daze is going to support. Nice, hell yeah. Okay. So, for the first leg of this journey, you guys don't... Also, I'm not going to tell you how many days this journey is going to take because you don't know this is a brand new area. I do know how long it will take. So, Gruff, can I get a survival roll to begin with please? Ten. Total? Mmm. Excellent. Roll two. Oh yeah. Roll two. Oh, thank you. X. Usually, I'm the navigator. But I think I trust you so much that you should lead the pack this time. All he can hear is screaming. Like, you're specifically Rowan screaming. I believe in you. In his head. You can do this. Oh, thank you, Rowan. I'll do my best, boy. Cut to now. Sure. Falling into a river. As you begin, you set off about noon and you begin making your way. The first leg of this journey is a very easy switchback because there is a set path that the brother, the monks, and the holy order have made. And in fact, you pass a couple of watchtowers. You can see that this sort of zigzag switchback, there are a couple of watchtowers to prepare for anybody trying to assault it, the actual fortress. But then you quickly just go on to a very unused, very rocky, natural track. Like, there really is barely any sort of track to follow. And you are just trying to hike through these high, quite intense mountains. As I said, the mountains, the rock here is this kind of almost slate gray, blue-tinged stone. It's cold, but not cold enough for snow or ice or anything else to feel. But the air is thin and some of you, perhaps everybody except, I would say, probably Gruff and Rowan, at times you do find yourselves getting quickly out of breath and you really have to kind of stop and pace yourselves as you make your way. After several hours of traveling as the sun is beginning to sort of descend, you are making your way when you find yourselves, you reach a point where you have to narrowly sort of begin sort of scooting and crossing across very narrow parts of this mountain's pass. And as you are traveling, this is the journey event that I just rolled. Ophelia, you've got the party supplies, you've got things like the rations and various bits and pieces on you. And as you are making, the whole thing begins to crumble under your feet. Can I get an athletics check, please? Oh, kidoge! I have advantage. Oh, yeah. Do you only get advantage when you're raging? Oh, not too bad. 17. 17 is just in the... Actually, no, because the weather is, I forgot to mention this, it is heavy rain. Like, as you were making your way journey, a storm is beginning to brew. I did roll to see it was going to weather. The rain is hammering down. And this storm is beginning to build and build and build. And you go to reach out and you catch yourself on the rock, but it's so slippery and wet that you do fall. And, you know, one of the water skins and several packs of rations all go flying out. You lose some, like, various pieces of equipment, like rope and things like that. And you are going to lose some supply points. Can you roll a D4 form, please? Yes. Yup. Four. Oh, good. Okay. That's better, right? Yeah. Okay. Just the point, you had 44 supply points, you are now at 40. So, I'm going to keep track of that. But, yeah, so as you're making your way down, Ophelia slips, you scrape all your, like, legs and things like that. Nothing to cause you severe damage, but you watch as various cooking implements and rations and one of the water skins goes tumbling down and is lost for... Teeth mouth! Scratch resistant! You carry on for the remainder of that day and that storm, what was just heavy rain, you begin to hear the peels of thunder. And in the distance, you see flashes of lightning out in the clouds. One thing you notice as the storm, and this is a raging storm, the clouds themselves, it's almost as if the clouds begin to form an enormous dragon that covers the entire sky and those peels of thunder, they begin to sound like roars of a dragon. And almost the lightning seems to fill its wings as it flies over. It comes and goes, it's not always ever present, it's like the cloud takes that form for a brief time and then sort of dissipates into a regular storm. But as it does, it seems to take this place. One thing that you notice as you are travelling, as you're near in the end, the lights fading, you're looking for a place to take for a moment of respite. And you notice that out of the mountainside, it's strange, you've never seen this. It's like a piece of stone has grown out of the mountain like a spike. And you see that there are thick veins of copper that seem to run through it. And this almost natural stone spine or stone column that rises out, as you're travelling, it's sort of a distance to you. But as that storm is raging, one of those lightning blasts comes flying down and you watch as it is not drawn into, but it strikes this stone. And then another one strikes it and it seems to just completely absorb it as this stone is acting like a natural lightning rod conductor and almost bringing the stone down to it. After that, as you're travelling, Graf, as you're leading them, you need to find a place to camp. What kind of campsite would you try and find? What are you looking for for where you're going to spend the night? So we're kind of on a little scruffy mountain. You are on a pretty intense mountain range. You are hiking in high mountains at this point. Probably a cave or something like that? Yeah, yeah, a natural sort of light litly. So it's getting late, you're starting to worry, you've got your torches and lights and various magical sources out. And then eventually you come across not a particularly large one. You check it out, it seems kind of safe and dry, no animals. And the group of you settle down and spend the night in the cave that first day of the journey. This is an opportunity if there's anything as you guys are getting ready, this is a perfect time. Things are winding down, you begin preparing dinner and meals. Is there anything you guys would like to talk, is this a conversation you would like to have or is there anything you would like to do as a group or any RP or anything? So guys, I don't want to mention this. Did anyone else see Ophelia fall down that hill? Yeah, it was all four. Was it? It was quite dangerous. It was just a four row up. Guys, what are you laughing about? Nothing. Brutus is laughing. Is that a piece as well? Brutus is absolutely not laughing. You should have heard the noise she made. Are you okay Ophelia? I think so, I'm really sorry Ophelia. You've got such little brother energy. I bet you pushed her. You pushed her. Ophelia, I'm really sorry. I'm sorry, I can't look at you. Why would you talk as my hair is a mess? Oh, it's fine. I know my knees are all cut up. I'm fine, right? I look fine? Okay, I'm sorry I lost the good pan. You're crying for ages. It really kept going. It would have stopped cast irons. He thought it was done and no of another. I can still hear it. There it goes. Still calling. With that, if there's nothing else. What do we think? Oh, it's Rowan. Beautiful, right? When we stepped out and we saw the mountains for the first time, that was incredible. Yes, I know. And the rain. Oh, I was about to say, I wish I could see more than 15 feet in front of me because of all the rain. You'd be too overwhelmed by the beauty of that. Must be, it must be that. The Storm Dragon, beautiful. That was incredible. I thought I was imagining something there. No, no, it happens. Oh, right. It's not something we should hide from or... I was obviously near one of the coppercaps. Coppercaps. That's the lightning thing. That's what we call them. It's certainly what Rowan calls them. Coppercaps. Coppercaps. Is it safe to go near those? Because obviously, like... Not too close. Not too close. But they will... They love the lightning. Okay, good. That's good to know. Good to know. Rowan, do you actually know where we're going? Down. Down, okay. There's probably something I can do to help find this location in your dream, but I need a bit more information. If that's all right. Yeah. Is it mortal or anything? No, I don't think so, but it felt like it had been there for always, um... older than the mountain itself sometimes. I don't know. Or something very, very old. Put it there. Either way, it looked very distinct and unique from the mountain. It looked different. Sorry, I'm imagining a thing here again. Do you remember seeing any kind of settlement or bodies of water nearby or anything? Only this path of... What were they? So copper caps are like this tiny, natural... smaller kind of natural version of them. But you know, they're called stone watcher monoliths. And they're these ancient natural formations that, you know, it's infused with copper and different types of metals. And they act as like almost larger versions of the copper caps. And these stone watches, there was a path of them, like a trail of them leading towards the plateau. They guided me to it. Right. So that's the iconic bit, I guess, that would really stand out. No settlement or anything like that. No bodies of water. And you said you saw some althite... in the altar. In the altar. Yeah. Okay. No creatures, anything like that. No. It's a pleasant dreamer than all the storms. Well, I'll sleep on this, but I think in the morning I might be able to find at least a journal direction to go. Great, thank you. Anything I can do to help your own. That's all right. I know you would always help. You're not doing any extra right now. You're always there for me, Gruffus. Apart from that one time. When you attack me. I don't see that. When you throttle the life from me. So one thing that you can do, and I know that you're going to be able to do this, can now take a long rest, but before you do, the last thing that you might want to do is you could try and forage to replenish some of your supplies. Things like food and water. Pan wash. Well, I can create water. Oh, great. Yeah. So that will basically replenish. I would say that that would be as if you had succeeded on a check. Yeah. I will create water to make... To fill your water skins, basically. Okay, cool. And then in terms of food, do you want to try and forage for food or anything like that? Gruffus. Roll a D4 forming Gruffus, just to see how many supply points you replenish. Four. Four. Um, the pan just rolled back into the cave. The pan! Do-do-do-do-do-do. Have you ever fished at night time in heavy rain? Not in... There's no rivers. What? I mean, yes, I have. I live in Isart. It's mostly rain, if not snow. And it's quite dark when I get up in the morning and go for the morning fish. But, um, now I don't... Obviously, this is your land. I know it well. Snow water. What? Quite high up in the mountains. Quite high in the mountains. That's crazy. There's nowhere for me to fish for you. All right, well... Rowan. Rowan. Rowan. Hello, I feel it. Yes, I'll take your next question. Yeah, thank you. I have a few chances that there are going to be some goats around here. Sister Raphilia, do you not have your bottles? I do, but I really want to go hunting. I really don't want you to attack the four goats. Love the game. Love the game. Love the game. Love the game. No, there's no goats. Actually, I lied. There were no goats. Lied about the goats. I did lie, and that's my first lie. You lied to me about the goats? Yeah, and that's... I feel awful about lying. I was so excited about seeing those goats. Oh, you were? There are goats. I'm sorry, there are really are goats. So, is that a lie? There's probably goats out there. Are you the real Rowan? I don't know. Maybe I've got something to dream Rowan. Oh, good. There are goats. There are goats. I lied just then. That was my first lie. Rowan. I feel awful about it, Raphilia. I'm pretty sure that's not your first lie. Anybody who does want to forage, let me know. And there's a roll you can make. I'll just set up the camp if you guys want to get food and stuff. And Xanthias is just going to spend that time picking up a stool, moving it slightly to the left. We have stools? Yeah, you can carry some bits of pieces. That roll looks pretty good. And I'm done. Lay down. You could start a fire. You're good at firing. I can do that. Lay down on the bedroll and just put your flame into some wood. Daisy's like gathered some firewood or something. Or like got... Like trying to throw rubbish into a beer. Certainly like pockets of rice. Like just scorch marks on the stone. Nope. So while Xanthias is doing that, I feel like you're going to go forage. Go hunting, please. All right, can you give me a survival roll, please? That's the same noise you made when she fell down the hill. It's a river. It's pretty tricky in this terrain. Eleven. Eleven. You spend hours trying to hunt. You try and search for these goats. Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go. You... I won't touch you. We don't even get worried because we can hear you. You have dark vision. So you're not stumbling around in the dark or things like that. But you wander around and at some point, whilst you are trying to search for these goats, you find yourself at some point, I imagine. Like a kind of... What would be like a good... Something bad to happen to you in this time? Break a nail. You trip on the pan. The pan hits you in the head. The pan is gone. Let's make that very clear. It's someone else's pan. Oh, another one. No, I imagine... Or maybe it's just you basically lose your way and you don't get back to this cave. You get lost and you lose out on sleep because you fail. Unfortunately, you fail by a significant amount where you gain a level of exhaustion. Oh! As you spend the evening trying to forage but have no success. As you failed the DC by a significant amount. So, Ophelia does not return till way later into the evening. Exhausted. The rest of you... Sound asleep. Yeah. Hungry. I'm not feeling your return. Yeah. We're not worried. Yeah, we're not worried. It should be better. I'll do first. You... Can all take a long rest. Nice. And subtract 10 from your supply for your rations and things like that. So, you're at 34, I believe. Yep. So, we're using 5.5 rules. Recovering all or half hit dice? It should be... I think you only recover half hit dice. You don't recover all hit dice. Or is that a new thing in 2024? There's 2 options in the air. 5.5 is recover all. So, there you go. I don't think that's stupid, but... I think that's really dumb. We can literally pick which one we want. I prefer the other one because I like the idea that you don't always get... It kind of means that you then are forced to take longer rests in a town or a settlement to get all your hit dice back. I think giving all of it... Because you already get all your hit points back on a long rest, you shouldn't get all your hit dice back. I don't get that. So, half your total you recover. I would say you get half your hit dice back. Yeah. That makes sense. But yeah, and then you start on your next day. Thankfully, I will tell you that thankfully, as you awake in the morning, you will have drenched, you will cold throughout the night, whatever fire Xanthias made has managed to dry out most of your clothes, but it was still quite a miserable evening. As you awake, the sky is remarkably clear on the next day. And the air is fresh and clear. And you can now see through the mountains, you know, you're still quite high up, and the mountains sort of cover you on a long rest. But you can now see like a great sort of green stretch and like dusty fields and things like that stretching out before you. Not high enough to really spot too much like detail, like settlements and locations and things, but you can begin to see the Isar step proper. Beautiful stretches out for miles and miles. And in fact, in the fair distance, from here, you would very, very faintly maybe just be able to make out on the far, far horizon what would be the best way to do it. And then, you know, you can go into the far horizon, what would be the jagged pizza that start the mountain, the collar that leads into Ice Heart, maybe. Oh. This is obviously hundreds and hundreds of miles away. But yeah, so again, if everybody is taking it up, I need your navigator, which is gruff, to make a survival check. Before we do that, may I cast Commune with Nature. You absolutely may. Can you read the spell out and tell me what you want? Commune with Nature, Spirits and Game Knowledge of the Surrounding Area. In the Outdoors, the spell gives you knowledge of the area within three miles of you, in caves and other natural settings. The radius is limited to 300 feet, so I'd do it outside. Do it outside, yeah, three miles. Choose three of the following facts. You can learn those facts as they pretend to pertain to this spell's area. Location of settlements, locations to portals to other planes of existence, location of super cool creatures, location of the most prevalent kind of plant, mineral or beast, and locations of bodies of water. So I think on that one, I would search for Altharite. Mm-hmm. I would... I'm curious about portals to other planes of existence, because I think gruff's thought was like, if it's linked to Althay, a god, like maybe there's some kind of, like, you know, weakness of the veil or something like that there. Sure. And I don't know... I kind of want to double up on minerals and be like the kind of minerals that would be in those stone watches, but I don't know if that's allowed. Like... Yeah, you could pick, like, copper or something like that and just try and search for that. What I will say is three miles is really not going to get you far. It's going to get you basically to, I would maybe say the base of the mountain range. It's not particularly far. You'll... So you cast the spell, you commune, and you get a sense of this mountain range. But you don't sense Althay, you don't sense any planes of existence or portals. You do sense that there are, you know, vast amounts of natural metals throughout this mountain range within the three miles. Likely there are caves or mines or natural veins of those metals present, but nothing that really would indicate anything out of the ordinary. Unfortunately, you are just two, you know, three miles is just not a big enough range as it currently is, but could be cast tomorrow and continue to be cast to search for that. So, you can't really get rid of these things. Well, unfortunately, I can't really get a reading. I was trying to do... I remember when we were under the sea looking for battle tracks, I was trying to do that again. But I can't get a reading of any authrite or anything like that. Well, it's just early days right now. We're still in the mountains. I think we just keep going down. Yeah, hopefully. And then making our way forward. I can try again tomorrow or even later today, but perhaps we should make some distance before I try casting the spell again. I reckon we'll hit the bottom, get a whole new perspective, and I'll be like, it's totally that way. Sure. Are you feeling any different now or... What do you mean? It's just, you know, compared to yesterday. Do I look different? You look... I could have been swapped. You might have been swapped from your dream self, but do you feel that pull again? Anything guiding you in a particular direction? I think I tried to... Spin around. I start spinning violently. And stop. How does that feel? The heat is dangerously close to quite a steep edge. You guys moving? Looks like the arthritis down there. A lot of stuff is down there. Why are we spinning? Yeah. Sadly, no feelings or general direction. Also, the other thing I could do is I could, you know, I could transform into a flying creature and I could go and scout from the skies. You could, yeah? Yeah. I'm happy to do that. Wait, what about Saren? Could you send Saren as well? I can send Saren as well. Again, I do just want to make the point. You are currently deep in the mountains. Even flying, you would spend days flying out and then have to return. Probably a good idea once you get out of this section. Right now, your real goal is... The best thing you can do is get out of this mountain range and get into the Azar step proper, and then stuff like that will probably be more useful. But right now, you're, like, deep in this mountain range. You could use it if you wanted to try and scout, like, a safer route or something like that, but it's not going to help. I think Graf is just trying to throw solutions up. Yeah, sure, sure, sure. You're never ending guilt. I think, Graf, we should take things... What's that for the time? Come on, let's go. Okay, hang on a second. And with that, that's the line. I'm going to rustle a bedroll. Come on, Daisy. Daisy, grab the end of the bedroll. Start dragging. Perfect. Would you like Daisy to do the same thing and support Xanthias again for Lookout? Yeah, that makes sense. So, can I get a survival roll from Graf, please? Can I get a lookout roll? Oh! The DC is lower because the weather is better today. Mmm. 28. 28. Oh, brainless. My sprain cell has activated. Sprain cell, sprain cell. My sprain cell. At the cost of speech. Hey. I just sprained it a little bit. It's fine. You, Graf, I think maybe that first night win the storm and your mind racked with guilt and what happened in the fort, but today feels a bit clearer. You're like, no, you're set to your purpose. You want to help, bro, and you want to help your friends. And you make great travel with the weather being clear. You travel for the whole day and don't encounter any troubles. You manage to make your way down, weaving your way through this kind of natural path, perhaps finding like an old goat trail that is like, oh, this is actually a pretty safe way for us to go. No goats. No goats yet. But you do travel for the full day. You make camp that night. This time on the camp, I won't ask you what you're looking for, and so I will just give you one. You come across a strange, as you're making your way, following this maybe like an old goat herders trail or something like that, you come across a rather tall, plain stone building. Nothing on the inside, just a simple wooden door, shuttered windows, and, you know, not even like steps or anything like that. The roof is angled with the shape of the mountain to kind of ease wind blowing over it and stuff like that. It looks very crudely made. But, Rowan, you would know, you recognize this, this is called a botiac, and it means wandering, wanderers' house in giant, and it's basically for hikers and travelers. Like, it's a safe place to spend the night, basically. And, you know, with Graf's excellent role, you guys manage to camp in that, and it provides you perfect shelter for the evening. Again, is there anything like as you make camp, is there anything you'd like to talk about, anything you would like to do, would anybody like to forage? Rich, try hunting again. You don't have to, it's just if you want to try and replenish some of your supplies. What happened to you get back last night, I feel you. I don't know, well, the sun was starting to rise while the time I got back. It's starting to rise? Yes. Are you having any goats? No. Oh. I think I've felt every single hunt I've attempted here. That's a shit. I should probably stop because it's quite treacherous out there, and if we don't want you falling again. I really want a goat. Me too, but not for the same reason. I have weird eyes. Anyway, here's a yak-yak. Both yak. A what? A yak-yak? Bless you. People call them both yaks, but I call them a yak-yak. Both yak. Both yak. What does that mean? It means rock... dwelling. Rock dwelling, okay. Both yak. So you love both. It's a different language, Santheus. Bro. Thoughts in it would make me... Okay, sorry. You love the yaks? Different language. Right, okay, sure. I don't actually know what it means. You lied again. What is it? I didn't say it. I did, no. I just said I'd call them the yak-yaks. But you said it was a rock dwelling. I did square around the truth that night. What is it with this area and... I danced dangerously. You really did? I'm so sorry. You were really experimenting with something, and I'm not sure I like it. I'm different. I told you I've been swapped. This is dream rowing again, isn't it? This is dream rowing. You're so... I'm back real rowing. I swore. I knew it back. I did. That is wrong. Shulkin, actually. Um... Okay. That's a good opinion. All right, good night. Have fun with the hunt, Ophelia. No, I'm not hunting. I'm not hunting. Hunts canceled. No foraging today. I could do the crate, water again. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Hup! Dos. Dos, okay. So, add two supply points. That will bring you up to 36. That's a rough... And then you guys take another long rest... Take another long rest... So, you can get your more hit dice back. Take another long rest. And minus 10 from the supply. So, down to 26. I'm back up to four hit points then. Does anyone know any good games we can play tomorrow? I'm enjoying the journey, Rowan. I really am, but... There are so many games we could play. Okay, yes, yeah. Oh, we'd completed one. Find the yak-yak. Right, okay, yeah, okay. We'll leave them playing. No, well, that's a really easy game. Well, I suppose it took two days to find that, but... We could play rocks? Rocks. Okay, how do we... How do we play rocks? So, everyone plays... It's not just look at a rock, is it? Because, again... Oh. Yeah. But they're everywhere. Everyone finds their favourite rock. Okay, and we have to pretend they're like particular shapes or something, or just... And... No. You just find the best rocks and we all compare rocks. We could find some rocks. We could find some rocks? Yeah. Okay. All right, let's find our favourite rocks. Let's find our favourite rock. Okay. Well, the next day starts up. Unfortunately, the weather does take a rather nasty turn again. Storms are exceptionally common here. They seem to come and go very rapidly. Those of you who are familiar will probably associate this part of the Archdragons magic here. So, the rain is heavy. However, Graft, you made such a good roll yesterday. You continue making progress. There's no event that takes place today. But I would like you all to roll Perception to see if you find your favourite rock. Favourite rock? See what kind of rocks you find. I will roll for Daisy. Oh. In fact, does she... I think she has a thing where she can't roll below a certain amount. Can I... Can I lie again? I'm going to get out of rock from my satchel that I know is already amazing. Why is that? What? Okay, you can do it. I can do it, but I want to know why Rowan is lying about it. Why is Rowan not just playing the game? Especially. What's driving the motivation behind it? This is... This is prison Rowan. Yeah. I want to know... Yeah, this is racket. You can do it, but I just want you to justify it. I think we have a child eater amongst us. So, Rowan rolled a three, which suggests that he finds a bad rock. He can't find a good one, and he really wants to impress his friends. Okay. Yeah. So, instead... Or a slight of hand, actually, to swap them out. It'd be slight of hand. 14. 14. Okay. Daisy and Gruff would both notice that Rowan... Yeah. He picks... You see him pick up this rock, and he puts it in his bag, and he pulls out a different rock. This is not a good rock for him. But you've noticed it. I'm not going to say they don't quite know. What am I going to do is swap it. What did we get from our perception? A two. A two. What about Xantheus? A two. A two? The two of you fight... You find the same... We both pick up the same rock. You pick up the same rock. You pick up the same rock. It's goat shit. We haven't found any goats. It's a solidified... We pick up the same rock. Yeah, no, we're not... It's not my... No, no. Give it to me. Give it to me. It's the same solidified goat shit now. That's what you're both fighting over at thinking it's a rock. This is such a cool shape. Why is it crumbly? Oh, it's broke. More rocks. It broke my rock. More rocks. I'll take half. We share it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll put it back. Rowan, you will not believe what we found. What did Gruff get for his rock? A humble 27. A humble 27. Oh, God! A diamond. I think that you... 250 feet diamond. You find like a geode. It's not like a valuable, like, diamond or anything like that. But you think, oh, that's quite a nice rock. And as you go to it, you're like, wait a minute. You turn it over and yeah, it's like one of those geodes with all the crystals inside. You're like, oh, that's really pretty. And like, you find that. Daisy just finds a rock that's the shape of Stuart. Aw. She finds a Stuart shaped rock and is very pleased with that. But Daisy kind of looks at you, Gruff, and looks at Rowan and is like... I would perhaps go over to Rowan. Like, imagine these two are squabbling and kind of just, oh, stumble a little bit. Oh, this is a great rocky fan. And it's gross rock. He's like, look at it. Look at it. What on earth is a rocky fan? What? I didn't find this rock. You found it, Gruff, as if you were okay. No, you... this was the one you picked up for you. I'm living a dream. None of this is real. Gruff, pinch me. Just the gentlest tap. I'm not dreaming. Gruff, I just saw you put it there. That's yours. Actually, can we do it so that Daisy distracts Rowan and Gruff swaps the rocks? Do that later on. Like, you kind of have this weird, like, no, no, you found it, and then Daisy's like, oh, it's here. Sneaks round and, like, swaps them in. You two... your rock has crumbled into almost like powder. I can feel it in the background just like... It stinks. Something's wrong here. This feels really weird. That's goat poop. What? You guys have goat poop there. That's not a rock. No. It's not a rock. It's a rock. Yeah. And it looks like you had the same one. You just split the goat poop. You licked it, didn't you? I... I... No. I was... No. I didn't go. I feel like goat poop. No, it isn't. Usually that's good luck. Is it? Is that true? Wait, Rowan, is that true? Yeah, I'm not lying. You've been lying a lot today. Oh, my God, you don't... Is this really goat poop? Is it good luck? It's good luck. There you go. Finding goat poop is good luck. And is licking it? That's what you said. You said licking it was good luck. No, it's finding it's good luck. Okay, there you go. Licking it's a terrible idea. I've never felt half as bad. You shouldn't have licked that. All right, so you two put that down and wash your hands, please. You kind of wash your hands. You don't have a rock. No. No, we thought that was a rock. We thought that was it. See, I like shiny rocks. It's a huge mistake to make. That other people find. So you found goat poop. Yeah. Oh, because other people find the shiny rocks for me, normally. Right. Right. I see. With this delightful game having been played out and the two siblings bickering and fighting on their way, Graf, you continue leading them. The weather by the end of the day does begin to clear up. And just as the sun is setting and you've made great progress, you're now basically in the lower parts of Mount Sin, coming into the hills. And now you can see that as the mountains have cleared out to the sides, you are beginning to see the Azar step fully open. Hills, not mountains, but like large hills, hills, forests kind of scatter the environment. It rises and falls in different places. And then there are these huge stretches of just flatlands. As the sun is beginning to set on your final day of travel, one thing that you see in the distance is flying through the mountains a distance somewhat away. You see a pack of these reptile like flying creatures with these long pointed beaks and wings as they're known, but they're Pteranodons and Pterodactyls basically. And you can see that their wings almost seem to gather charge as they fly through the sort of stormy clouds and a pack of them fly through the air and begin making their way probably to their nest or to their home in the mountains somewhere. Everyone look, quick, a firefly. Whoa! Quality farting shit. It's a tiny little float. That was real good. You should have grabbed Ree's head and turned it. Yeah. Rowan, what are they? Do you run? Her storm. Storm wings. Storm wings. What are you pointing at? Please. I'm trying. This is dangerous BitBoy behavior. It's not BitBoy behavior. You pointed to a DM that doesn't exist. Look past that. Okay. Storm. Wing. Storm. Storm wings. A flock of storm wings. Are they dangerous? Yes. Should we run? No. It's quite a distance. It looks like they're flying away. They're just charged. That's all. So don't touch them. Don't agitate them or go to their nest. What are they like? What are they dislike? They're like flying. Well, I can do that. What noise do they make? AHHHH! So sorry Sam. And that echoes. That echoes throughout the mountains. Would you like that again? No. Right. They're coming closer. Yeah, I think they heard that. You see them sort of wheel about. Uh oh. They seem to take in and they fly off again. They're flying back and I think they're randy. I feel like they love flying and fucking. That's it. Turn to y'all. They're doing the crustace. Love it. It's a very silly mood today in this room. A very silly mood. We're on a journey. It's a city face. That's what it is. It's a city face. After this you guys continue making your way down and you find a nice sheltered bluff where you can make camp. No cave or building this time so you are a bit more out but the weather does seem to clear up and it looks like you will be able to sleep through without getting rained on. Last chance if there is any, if you do wish to do any foraging or have any little RP conversations, I give you this opportunity. How many supplies do we have left? Well I dropped a few. Equipment. So how does 26 a quite two days worth of food and equipment? Some of the tents have been damaged, you know, things like that. Two days? About two days worth. Things are looking quite bleak. Well how close are we to the? Not even at the bottom of the mountain range. You are, you are basically there, I did describe the distance. We're at the bottom of the mountain range. Okay, so from here on it's just keep going forwards. So long as we can forage and I guess we'll use our rune to get home. Things get desperate. But also if you once you get onto the Azar step hopefully you'll be able to find a settlement or some traders or travelers or something like that. Two days to find civilization of sorts. How do you feel being back home? It was amazing. I got my friends in the Azar step. Yes you definitely seem cheery and sassier. I know, I think it's the air. You seem very happy. I'm very happy. I've seen the way you were looking at everything as you went past all those plants and the rocks, you were really... So many good rocks. Yeah, that's actually a good point. You reminded me something I forgot to describe to you is any vegetation that you've seen, it's not been a lot in this mountain range, you've still been quite high up. But there is this sort of scrub brush that you keep finding and maybe the first time that you encounter it, I don't know, Xantheus or somebody goes to touch it. As soon as you sort of approach it and there's any sort of disturbance of air around it, you do see that it sort of retreats and sort of restricts itself. Going from this like large spongy, thorny kind of like bush and it kind of coalesces almost like a little urchin. It kind of sucks itself in. You don't see a lot of like trees in the mountains or anything like that. Very kind of shattered plains, kind of like creatures and plant life that protects itself, it either draws itself in or it's like clinging vines that are wedged that will find little cracks in the stone and sort of use that to grow into and latch on to with little buds, hard little shells and buds that grow all around them. Are these things edible, Rowan? I wouldn't. They might bite back. They might bite? I'm going to leave it where it is then. Well, they're really good at hiding themselves from the weather. Is it so treacherous up here? So, don't you? I wouldn't, no. Okay, alright. Is there a kind of the Chikani Tround here? Lots on that well, I don't really... It's really hard to live up in the mountains. The goats do it. I don't know where they find it. They must have moss and things like that. I can't imagine it's that nutritious for us. As we're saying, can I commune with nature again? But this time I wouldn't want to search for althorite, but also can I search for goats? You don't get any sign of althorite, but yeah, you detect large amounts of goats, kind of nestled in the hills and mountains all around you, probably like a small herd of them not too far away. So, cerophilia, come with me. Okay. And then we'll go hunting goats. Okay, great. Using that. Sure, can you both give me a survival roll, please? Graph is the best day ever. 19. 19. 17. 17, okay. You, Gruff, take Ophelia, leaving Daisy, Rowan and Xanthias in this little sheltered, kind of little valley camp that you've made. And you take it not too far, like for 20, 30 minutes of journey, weaving your way following this communal spell which is driving you. And you find a tiny, thin, natural stream kind of weaving its way through the mountains now into these lowland hills and gathered around it are a family of about four Azarian goats. You can see that their fur, their set of wool is quite thick and coarse, very water absorbent. Their horns almost have rocky texture to them and almost seem to have veins of copper and metals kind of rolling through it, like the large stalagmite that you saw. Their mouths, they definitely have like a more protruded teeth, like kind of snout than sort of earth goats do. And you watch as like one of them goes up to one of these like, you know, plants. And as they approach it, the plant shrinks down. But you notice that the goats have basically developed the ability where they stand so still that the plant then thinks that whatever is there is gone and it re-blooms and it moves so slowly that it doesn't disturb the plant and then it chomps in one great, massive, quite vicious bite and just, and then chews away at the thing that it's done. That it's grabbed and they begin eating away and you see these four kind of, and they're thick, you know, quite muscly, quite probably quite fatty goats. You know, they're well insulated. Is there any fish in the stream? It's quite thin, so I don't think that this would be like something you could fish in. But the two of you, if you wanted to, you could absolutely hunt these goats and harvest their materials, shall we say? Oh, I'm going to like that rowan so fucking much. You can do what you like. We can just sit and watch them for a bit. Just, are they amazing? They are rather... The other thing I would tell you is like, you watch the plants that the goats eat. If you wanted to, you could harvest the plant matter and berries and things that they're consuming because it's obviously safe. That's what I was thinking. So you could do that rather than get the goats themselves. I was thinking about that and not judge whatever Ophelia does. So I'm going to start gathering whatever vegetation and things like that. What are you doing, Ophelia? You want to slaughter some goats? Have you tasted meat? Do you taste the goat meat, Deuce Mone? Yeah! Yeah! So stalking your way down, Ophelia, these goats, you know, unaware of your presence, making sure that you follow your hunting instincts, moving downwind, you know, making sure you're not downwind, sorry, you sneak up. And as soon as you lunge, two of them manage to get away and escape, but you quickly grab and seize to plunge Verasty in, silence them as they fall down to the ground. Meanwhile, gruffs just slowly gathering berries and mussels and things like that. But yeah, you harvest together. You would harvest about four supply points worth of food. But also, for Ophelia, if you wanted to, you could just drain these goats right now. Oh yeah, I'll drain some goat blood. That's your share. It's very tingly on the tongue. There's like a little spark to their blood. Oh, these are amazing. Thank you, gruff. Absolutely. Just, I heard what you said about not wanting to drink from your bottle and... That, sorry, there's something out the way I said that, that I was just like, I just infantilised Ophelia so fucking much there. Baby doesn't want a bottle! I just wanted fresh for such a long time, gruff. It's been a little while. Oh, understandable. And it's just been so long since I've had a good hunt. It reminds me a lot of back home. My parents used to raise goats. Oh, really? Yes. Yes, farmers, my parents were for a long time. Very good farmers as well. Oh, for some reason I thought your lady was your, was your parent. No, no. I don't remember a whole lot about my parents, really. I just remember the smell of livestock and just watching them from my window. And then the house of blood being very interested in what my parents were doing. Anyway, um... Are you okay? You've been very quiet the last couple of days. I am absolutely fine. You sure? I'm not fine. What, what, what, what's wrong? I attacked Rowan and Daisy. Oh, gruff, gruff, it wasn't your fault. I absolutely knew what I was doing as well and I couldn't stop it. Well, of course you couldn't. It was the edict, the horrible, horrible edict that... But I wasn't strong enough to repel it. I don't think anyone would have been. It took down... You were? Well, barely. I took a lot of help for me to get through it. It was a very difficult thing to get through and it's quite haunting. How easily something like that can take over somebody, something so small, can be so powerful. But you got through it. And it wasn't your fault, gruff. We know that. It was just the look in their eyes when I turned and raised my axe. This axe that Lord Obsidius entrusted to me. And the first thing I did was strike my friends. But you didn't choose to do that. It wasn't your choice. We've had a lot of talks about choices lately and about what, you know, the right things and the wrong things to do and etc. And I think... You always do the right thing. I always try. And you always do. It took some otherworldly entity from the precept coil to make you do something wrong. And I think that says more about your courage and your strength as an individual than it does about your weakness. Thank you, sister Ophelia. But I don't think this is going to take some time. It's understandable. But you have nothing to apologize for. You're a good man, gruff. Always have been. I just wish... I wish they'd shouted me or something, you know. They just seem fine. They seem like it's okay and they've already forgiven me, and... They have. But there's nothing to forgive, gruff. I could have killed them, though. We have ways of bringing people back. We've proved that more than once. It's okay. It takes a toll, though. I can understand that. They should be able to trust me. And they do. I promise you that they do. I do. I don't really hope so after this. You're a good person, gruff. Thank you, sister Ophelia. It'll be some time before I feel that again. Well, I'm always here. I know we are very different people, but... We are aligned for the same causes, and... You are a very good friend. And I hope I can be the same to you as you are to me. Sister Ophelia, you know I've always held you in high regard. You are a person of conviction. That is something I admire in you. Would you like a hug? I've learned that from Rowan. Would the hugs help? I suppose I could give it a try. Sorry, I just... Yeah, you've got a little bit of... Yeah, sorry, sorry. Yeah, it's too... Come here. Come here. Very awkward. So awkward. So most awkward hug, yeah. Weird dad hug. Weird, like, social anxiety. I don't know what I'm doing hug. I think that is the perfect point where we take our break as we get that beautiful image of the awkward hug over the slaughtered carcasses of two goats. That's a moth. Yeah, it's still alive. And that is where we will take our break. We'll take a short five-minute break here, everybody. We'll see you back very, very soon. Yeah. See you next time. You