Criminals of Isla Numus - Episode 34 - Ball of Darkness - Session Zero Heroes | TTRPG Actual Play Adventures & Improv Storytelling

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
[Music]
Hello, Eerie Traveler. I'm not sure what strange magic must have brought you here,
but you have stepped into a realm of my creation.
A sprawling city filled with danger and glory, and most importantly, lots of gold.

(00:25):
I call it Ilanumis. Who am I, you might ask? The name is Jarjim, and I'm the patron deity of gambling.
Long story short, this group of idiots, or as you may call them, heroes,
made a bet with me that they had when it took to make a mass trove of gold,
but left some of the key details blank, so I filled them in myself.

(00:50):
I sent them to this pocket dimension, into the city I had created with brand new bodies they have to attune to.
Can these fools pass my test, or will they be trapped here forever?
So, experience my world of trials and tribulations,
and join alongside this posse of pitiful people, or as I like to call them, the criminals of Ilanumis.

(01:17):
Welcome back everybody to another episode of the Criminals of Ilanumis podcast.
Where rather, the Session Zero Heroes podcast presents Criminals of Ilanumis, our D&D 5e actual play.
Thank you all for joining.
We'll jump right into introducing everybody and their characters,
so that we can jump right back into the action that we left you guys with as a cliffhanger last episode.

(01:39):
So, joining me today, to my right, we have Dave, who's playing Maki.
Cool!
Next to Dave, we've got Fatty Lumpkins, who is playing Theo, or well, Keto,
who has alternate identity sometimes.
Ixio Glisterskin.
Next to Fatty Lumpkins, we have Jackson, who is playing Dez.

(02:02):
Yeah, Dez. He's a guy.
He's a guy.
He's a guy.
He's a word.
He's now a bird, and he hates it.
You know what?
He hates it.
He wants money.
Fun fact about Dez being, and he was a triton before he became a kangaroo,
and so he hates sky creatures.

(02:23):
Oh.
Being a fish guy hates the sky creatures.
He's like, "You think you're so cool because you could float in air.
Dude, I can float in water and get on my level."
Things that are feathered tend to sink, usually.
So what are those thoughts on three-fifths of our party?
True.
He's constantly seething on the inside, but he looks at himself and he's like,

(02:45):
"Well, I can't be racist of me.
Those guys look like me."
So he just kind of cancels out for the moment.
Hopefully we could see all humans in that way and say they look like me,
whether they're a different color or not.
Yes.
And that's diversity.
Next to Jackson, we've got Cameron, who's playing Rory.

(03:09):
Hi. I'm Cameron.
Next to Cameron, we've got Quinn, who is playing Lil' Saul.
Try it.
Drop the gun a little bit.
We're going to kill some things.
Let's do it.
All right. Sounds good.
With that, encouraging and exciting,
I hope we get skunked.
No one but us dies.
TKO, introduction into today's episode.
I hope all the NPCs that came with us died,

(03:32):
and then we could take over a club.
You guys had so much fun with those guys.
Don't say that.
Did we?
Yeah.
You're the bartender.
You're pretty cool.
Oh, did that guy come with us?
Yes.
So with that being said, we're going to jump in today's episode.
All right, guys.

(03:53):
I wanted to address a really quick concern that I had.
Quinn, but when we let things off,
Lil' Saul was actively casting,
and I believe, if I remember hearing correctly,
maybe I misheard and you can correct me if that's the case.
I believe he said he was going to cast fireball.
Now, I'm looking at your spell sheet.
I don't see fireball.
Fireball.
Okay.

(04:14):
Just wanted to clarify that.
Before we jump into your little skirmish here.
Wait, that's such a dramatic start to the fight as you're casting.
Fireball.
See, in cantrip.
Fireball.
Yeah, exactly.
That's what I--
Here, take this.
I think he's just going to get mad.
Yeah, he's just going to get upset with it.
With that being said--
You're going to slap.

(04:35):
You haven't do half your health.
Before Lil' Saul was about to cast fireball,
Jackson was going to do something a little bit more stealthy.
I would assume during the conversation,
which you did hold his conversation for a strange amount of time.
A minute or two.
In fact, you guys were intruders.
Can you review the current setting?

(04:59):
Obviously, we're in the warehouse,
but where are all the enemy combatants in relation to us?
Yes.
So, just as a really quick recap for everybody listening,
you guys had followed some clues about the drug known as euphoria
that led you to the Rock Bottoms Club.
Now, most, if not all, the staff there were all saying that euphoria was a big no-no at this club.

(05:22):
Other drugs, maybe, euphoria absolutely not,
had been banned by their boss named Gravestone.
Now, you guys were certain, based on the clues that you had,
that the guy Radicus, who you had killed earlier on,
had been getting his euphoria at this club.
So, you guys talked to a few of the people.
You had a name.
It was McCool, and you inevitably found somebody that was a new who this quote-unquote McCool was.

(05:50):
And it turned out to be a familiar face, Sprout, the halfling,
who was on the jury at Little Sauce's trial.
You guys managed to snag Sprout and the bouncer at this club,
someone you also knew, the bugbear named Grizzletooth,
insisted that you guys take Sprout up to see the boss, Gravestone,

(06:12):
something that Little Sauce had been wanting to do anyways.
So, you guys went and met Gravestone, who is an awakened skeleton,
and he is the owner, he's a little crazy,
but he's the owner of the Rock Bottoms Club.
And he told you guys, and managed to get, or he talked to Sprout,
and managed to get Sprout to admit to where he was getting the euphoria from.

(06:35):
And you guys had all agreed to go help fight against this drug,
maybe in terms of the possibility of getting some personal gain out of it,
some money, or drugs to sell for money, or something along those lines.
I don't know.
I probably shouldn't even remind you guys that that possible quest,
but I'm sure you'll remember by the end of this.

(06:56):
We're on a quest?
Well, you guys had a personal quest of, well, we're going to go to a drug factory,
and maybe we can get a hold of some drugs for monetary person.
And/or money.
With that being said, Gravestone was very intent about destroying euphoria once and for all.
So, Gravestone, Sprout, Grizzletooth, and Rusty the bartender all came along with you guys to this factory that Sprout led you guys to.

(07:23):
Thanks to Jackson's bag of strange animals, you guys were able to sneak inside,
and you saw a number of different things inside this facility.
You found these sort of like vat-like, these clear glass vat-like things that had a bunch of mic nids in them,
and it seemed that that was where they were harvesting some sort of chemical or something from the mic nids,

(07:45):
which they were using and mixing with a lot of other ingredients to create the drug known as euphoria.
So, that's all kind of, all that production side of things is all taking up one half of the facility.
In the other half of the facility, you see a bunch of hats,
and they're like sewn, what's the word I'm looking for here, like knitted hats,

(08:09):
and they all have like a little pouch sort of inside the inline of them,
and what was happening was they were taking the little vials of euphoria and putting it into these hats in that inline.
So, that's taking up the other half of the factory.
You guys followed Sprout and you were approached by some individuals who were part of the manufacturing process.

(08:30):
It was the contact that Sprout had that he was kind of working with to get the drugs,
and Sprout kind of tried to talk you guys out of the situation a little bit.
Little Sauce kind of took over a little bit for that.
You come to find out that they were planning on firing Sprout anyways.
They were going down a different direction with their distribution model,
and so they were going to kill you guys.

(08:53):
And that was kind of where we left off with Little Sauce saying, "Well, I cast Firebolt."
That's kind of where we're at.
There are like stairways that lead up to sort of almost like a catwalk that goes above the factory,
and then there's like a main opposite of him.
But Jackson, yes.
So, while they were having that conversation, prior to the Firebolt being sneezed,
-Dess -Hey, this can do a lot of damage, okay?

(09:16):
Oh.
Dess was gesturing to Rorik to follow him up the stairs to the office.
Okay.
Because if we remember right, we went in and we were like, "Do you want to go left? Do you want to go right?"
We avoided the vat of dangerous chemicals and went towards the other side of stairs.
Yep.
So closer to the side where they're doing the cat.
So we're going to go to the opposite stairs.

(09:38):
I'm specifically going to the office to look for a safe or a vault key,
because they're drug lords. They're not using banks. It's here somewhere.
And it's true.
I will cover him.
Whilst that is going on, Keto is going to use his bonus action to project his echo behind the other people.

(09:59):
Okay. Sounds good.
Who are confronting us.
So I'm going to say that you get your echo behind them.
That's kind of a given, because that's just an automatic. That's not any kind of rule.
Rorik and Dess, I'm going to have you guys give me a stealth roll each of you.
20, not natural.
Okay.
Oh, I'm good at these.
I'm good at these.
We're both good at these.
That's a 23.

(10:22):
Okay. Wow.
Okay.
So as Lil Sauce is pulling, is going full care in on these guys,
deciding how he wants to be killed, which they've emphasized jumping up and down to emphasize his anger.
He hasn't asked for a manager yet. That's what's really surprised me.
No, I think,
but that's because he's got a firebolts ready.
I don't want to die.
I don't want to die the way they want to kill me. I want to die the way I want to die.

(10:46):
All right. Well, whatever the case, you guys using the distraction,
the very Karen level distraction that Lil Sauce has created for you managed to just kind of bypass this entire small crowd of people that's accumulated.
And headed up the stairs for the cat or up towards the catwalk that goes above this entire factory.
So you guys are headed up that way.

(11:07):
With that being said, I'm going to jump over to the rest of the group,
which now has an echo of themselves and they're about to cast firebolts.
So I will have all of you roll initiative.
Lil Sauce, I'm going to have you have kind of like a surprise round.
Yes.
Just like one, this one action that you're going to get before everybody.
Well, there's no way they expected this.

(11:28):
No, no.
Why?
Why me?
Well, however, five, five.
Final answer.
Dave, I got a 16.
16.
Nice. Okay.
Cameron and Jackson.
I got a 14.
Oh, you both got. Wow. Okay.
It's man. It's like we're together or something.
Yeah. Well, that's actually perfect.
Yeah, absolutely.
All right.
So kicking things off.

(11:49):
Ironically, you rolled a 20, which is the highest out of everybody in this.
So I don't know. I guess like you'll have, let's say you have two actions, I guess.
All right.
So you're firing your firebolts at this one guy.
He does have a couple of guys behind him as well because he had asked like who all has something to kill him with.
I think there's three total because there were two guys with maces and one guy with a javelin that was offering to kill you with those two options.

(12:13):
So you're firing your firebolts at the main guy.
Okay.
Roll the attack.
I'm going to use a lot of white.
Okay.
You're going to roll a one.
I did.
Oh, wow. That ain't much better. That's a three.
Okay.
You fire a fireball and it completely misses this whole group.
Like you try to like whip it out from, from underneath your.
Okay. Pause.

(12:34):
No, I'm accepting that.
I'm accepting that phrasing.
You try to whip it out from behind your back and it just kind of flings it off into the distance and you watch as it slams into one of those vats that has the mic in it.
Just one mic in it just to clarify.
And it hits this bat and actually shatters the glass a little bit.
You see the mic in it that's being stored inside sort of start to move and some of the people around it are starting to kind of panic a little bit.

(12:59):
You see like a little bit of sort of like a gaseous substance that starts to kind of leak out of this a little bit.
Sorry, sorry, sorry.
I didn't mean to do that.
I get, whoa.
Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry.
I get nervous when I'm totally wasn't here.
You're just through a fireball.
I got scared.
You're literally talking about killing me and I got scared.

(13:20):
I got a little nervous.
It kind of feels like fighting back and we don't like that.
No, I'm not fighting.
I'm not fighting nobody.
I'm not fighting nobody.
With that being said, you do have a follow up attitude.
Hang on.
I got something for you though.
I don't think I want.
No peace out of frame.
Peace out of frame.
I don't think I like this.
I'm going to do match.
Miss.
Okay.
And I can't miss.
So that means you're just rolling your damage, I think, right?
Are you going to upcast it?

(13:41):
You can cast as a level two spell and it just adds more damage to your match.
It's more D4s above level one.
Three D4s.
Yep.
Four.
Nice.
Eight.
Nice.
Ten.
And don't you add plus one to each one.
Oh, and then it's plus one to each one.
All right.
So you fire three bolts magical that all slip into this guy knocking him backwards into

(14:05):
his friend.
They catch him.
This guy falls backwards.
He gets caught by his entourage from hitting the ground and kind of pushing back up and
he says, "All right."
That's not going to fly.
I'll start to kind of come for you guys.
What?
What?
What?
I'm scared.
With that being said, Dave, you have a chance to act before they do.
You have your priority over their initiative.
Lockies, Shadow Senses, Tingle.

(14:28):
And almost involuntarily, a sphere of darkness appears around.
I'm going to use two sorcery points to cast darkness so I can see through it then.
Oh, okay.
Very nice.
I'm going to cast it on the button of my cloak by the clasp of my--

(14:48):
It's an object that'll follow you.
Yes.
Awesome.
Okay.
So we're surrounded.
Is that guy close?
Yeah.
He's probably like 10 feet away from you guys.
And who else is around us?
So there's a total of like four of them that have kind of like--they're not fully blocking
your way from getting onto the stairs.
They're kind of off to the side because they just came from like producing the hats and

(15:11):
putting the drugs in the hats and everything.
With that being said, I mean, there's a lot of workers here.
And the workers over on the side where the vats are and stuff, they're obviously distracted
at the moment by the situation with the mic in it that might be getting out.
But the people that are over in the hats section, I think, are starting to notice the confusion
that's going on over here and they might start making their way towards you guys.

(15:33):
There's probably a couple dozen.
Where have my companions gone?
Well, they're all behind you except for Jackson and Cameron have--horroric and des have run
up the stairs.
Okay.
I would like to go behind Keto.
Okay.
Keto.
It's me or Maki.
That's because you can't see it right now.

(15:54):
There's just darkness.
Yeah, all around you.
Oh, because it's magical darkness.
Yeah.
Hey, there boss guy.
He's going that way.
And I point him in the direction that their boss is going.
Okay.
Who's boss?
That guy who confronted us.
Oh, okay.
Okay.
Because how big of a darkness sphere is this?
It's 20 foot radius, right?
15 foot?

(16:15):
15 foot.
All right.
So you're just pointing him in the direction of where they're at.
They're grouping.
Okay.
And you had your echo already right behind them.
Okay.
Awesome.
So the guards are all stuck inside this darkness.
I think they're just going to kind of like start awkwardly moving at half their speed
and they're just, they've got their stuff and they're just kind of like lashing out.

(16:38):
One guy who's just here go, "Ugh!"
And you hear a thud on the floor.
With that being said, the other guys are all just kind of swinging wildly.
The darkness is definitely distracting them.
Jumping over to Jackson and Cameron.
So you guys are just up on the cat, I mean you guys are going up the stairs towards the
catwalk.
Going towards that office.

(16:59):
Towards that office.
Okay.
Sounds good.
You're at the doors of the office by the end of this.
Okay.
This round you're at the door.
And if we look back at where the other people were, we just see a giant circle of darkness.
Yeah.
You just see like this big ball of darkness practically.
Someone turned out ball right?
Key.
And occasionally you'll see like either a mace or a javelin like poker or swing out

(17:22):
of it.
Oh, so it's like a looney tunes.
Yeah.
Kind of yeah.
Like when everybody gets piled together and they're just piled.
It's like a cloud.
Yeah.
Yep.
Exactly.
And what you notice is the entire half of the facility where people are doing this stuff
with the hats, no matter what it is that they were doing, they've dropped their hats and
they're kind of starting to make their way towards the ball of darkness.

(17:44):
There's a good like two dozen people that are involved here.
All right.
I mean it's the entire half of the workforce that does this side of it.
And they're coming towards the ball.
Towards the ball of darkness.
Yeah.
The other half is just working.
The other half is freaking out because one of the miconids is getting loose and there's
gas spores and stuff that's leaking out of the vat that they were working with.
They're either trying to like put it back or fight it back or patch up the hole or whatever

(18:08):
the case.
Jumping over to Fatty Lumpkins.
Fatty is going to take a very simple attack action.
Okay.
From the standpoint of his echo.
And I would say that because Dave has represented your eyes, you do not have disadvantage for
being in the darkness.
Well then attack.
So does a 12 hit.

(18:30):
A 12 does hit actually.
Okay.
So that's going to be 14 damage.
14 damage.
So I can reduce the speed of the target.
Okay.
By 10 feet because of slashing damage.
Now he's really not because he was already cautiously moving through the darkness.
Now his leg is injured.
Now he's just crawling.

(18:51):
He's crawling through the darkness and you hear him shouting out.
Where are you guys?
I'm in a lot of pain right now.
With that being said, you have your three compatriots from the rock bottom.
Actually four compatriots.
Sorry.
What about my second attack?
Oh yeah.
Oh that's a fighter.
What about his second attack man?

(19:13):
That's a 25.
25 to hit.
All right.
So that'll be nine more damage.
Nine more damage.
All right.
So you slice down on this guy that was like limping his way.
With that being said, you kill the lead guy.
The guy that was arguing with Lulsos.
You have finished him off.
He is dead.

(19:34):
He is not moving any further amidst the darkness.
The last thing he saw was darkness before he permanently saw nothing but darkness.
The gang that has joined you, gravestone, grizzletooth, rusty and sprout.
They are standing, I would say just outside of the darkness and you hear gravestone shout
into you guys.
He says, well, I honestly, if you guys want to head on up, I think we can take care of

(20:00):
things down here.
I'll see you later.
We'll head on up.
Yeah, don't worry about it.
Canx.
Do we just walk around aimlessly until we find the end?
Yeah, I guess that's okay.
Well if you walk in one direction, eventually you'll get out a bit.
True.
Don't make any lefts or rights.
I mean, Maki can see in it.
Maki, here's my head.
Guide me, guide me.
I would like to think that we very in a friendly way grab each other's hands and he guides

(20:27):
me.
No, I'm going to move away from you guys.
Why?
What do you do?
So he can see.
Yeah, okay.
So all of a sudden the darkness pops away from you as opposed to you guys popping out
of the darkness, the darkness just moves away from you and all of a sudden you're standing
in the middle of the lighted room.
You can see this almost army of hazmat suit looking characters coming over from the hat

(20:53):
section and they've all got angry looks in their masks and they've all got maces or
something else.
They're just like ominously, you know, beaten into their hands as they glare at you guys
through their masks.
Yeah, I mean, it's quite a few, but you look back and you see gravestone and he's got this
big, it's just a cane, but it's glowing with purple magical entry.

(21:18):
It's kind of more of a magenta, but I digress magical energy and he's just twirling it and
it's almost like it's almost intimidating, but it's also almost like comical the way
that he's twirling it and he pops his hat off and he does that like is it the T pain
thing where he like twists it and puts it back on and he's like, oh yeah, we've got this
covered.

(21:39):
And grizzletooth, he's got one of those chain spiked ball and chain things and he's swinging
that and then he like swings it over his hand.
He pulls it tight.
He's like, a wise man once told me you got to know when to hold them and know when to
fold them.
But you know what?
I think I'll call.

(21:59):
It's so dramatic.
And Rusty's like, yeah, I'll have what he's having.
And then Sprouts just like, I don't know about this idea guys.
Do I get a weapon?
Can someone give me a knife?
I don't know.
And Gravestone's like, I think it's actually best that you take a back seat to this one,

(22:20):
Sprout.
Yeah, I'm going to go find a weapon and he just kind of runs off into the facility.
You guys don't even know where he goes, but he goes running off looking for something to
fight with.
But they all kind of like start to step towards this army of hazmat suit people like some
like the scene out of West Side Story minus the intimidating snapping.

(22:42):
I don't know.
Maybe they do.
So they step forward and they get their weapons ready and they're ready to charge into this
group of workers.
What are you guys doing?
I'm going to follow the darkness.
You're going to follow the darkness.
Right.
Isn't he there is a.
Yeah, I was going to say the ball of darkness is kind of somewhat between them and the

(23:04):
the army.
Look, he's digging through that guy's pockets.
Okay.
Yeah, maybe I can find a weapon.
Well, no one can see you.
You're just digging through.
Well, I'll tell you this.
You find his mace, which he had.
You find three vials of euphoria.
It comes.

(23:24):
It comes.
It comes.
And he takes all three.
He takes all three.
You find you find 20 gold and obviously he's wearing hazmat suit.
So I mean, you could try to strip it.
It might take a minute.
That sounds kind of gross.
Yeah, that's fair.
It's probably pretty sweaty in there.
All right.

(23:45):
So, uh, little sauce, you're following the ball of darkness.
Uh, Keto, what are you doing?
Keto, I guess is going to look towards the stairs where those other guys went and meander
up there.
You start heading up the stairs.
Okay.
Um, with that, a huge bat, I'm going to continue the, the, the turn order here, but with that,
a huge battle starts to ensue on the first, on the main floor of this place between gravestone

(24:10):
and the gang, Keto, little sauce in the darkness and this army of, of euphoria producers.
Okay.
So with that being said, I'll, I'll just continue following the turn order.
So little sauce.
You're at the top.
Okay.
What are you doing?

(24:30):
As you're, so we're, I'm going to work on the way upstairs.
Oh, I got to go through the darkness, right?
No, you don't have to go through the dark.
Dave was moving away.
Oh, you said, is that what they want?
That's what God graves don't say.
Yeah.
He was like, you guys go ahead.
Yeah.
Yes.
I'm going to start working my way up the stairs.
Okay.
I'm seeing what we can find maybe up in these offices.
So you and Keto both are going up the stairs.
Okay.

(24:50):
Understood.
Understood.
All right.
We'll jump over.
You, you guys start making your way down.
You're about like halfway there.
I'm already at the door of this office, right?
We'll jump over to Dave.
Dave, from the darkness.
Well, I guess you kind of, well, are you doing anything other than searching this guy?
No.
Are you maneuvering?
Once you're done searching this guy, where are you placing your ball of darkness?

(25:12):
Once I see that Keto in sauce have started going upstairs.
I'll follow them.
Oh, okay.
Okay.
So this, this ball of, it'd be so weird to like be looking from above on the cow.
I can just seeing this 15 foot radius ball of darkness, just like moving around.
You see one dead dude on the floor and then all of a sudden the darkness just envelops

(25:33):
it and then you move away and he doesn't have his clothes in.
Half me.
Yeah.
Half me.
Yeah.
All right.
So with that, this battle is ensuing.
You Maki actually like look back as you're going up the stairs and you can see like,
you know, gravestones got his cane and he's just smacking people back.
And then at one point he just starts twerking and like all these guards that were like in

(25:54):
the five foot radius around him are just like, they like get hypnotized for a moment.
And then he just B slaps them across the face and it like sends them flying backwards.
Obviously grizzled tooth and his, he's got his spiked flail.
He's just like, he's this big giant bugbear.
So he's just like slamming people out of way, like at the beginning of Lord of the Rings
with a sauron, right?

(26:16):
And then like right by him, you see Rusty.
Rusty, he's just got like brass knuckles, right?
And Rusty's just like punching these dudes in this like epic thing.
And the cool thing about it is that with grizzled tooth and Rusty, Rusty like flips over grizzled
tooth and like punches dudes on this side.
And the two of them are like perfectly in sync.

(26:37):
Right?
These are like best buddies.
They've been fighting together for a long time.
And again, you guys have no idea where Sproul went.
He's who knows where in this facility right now.
With that being said, we'll jump back over to Jackson and Cameron.
So you guys get to the door.
It's open.
Oh, right.
You peek inside and you see a bald man sitting there at his desk, looking out over the facility.

(27:01):
And he says, "When my parents started this business, which was then in turn stolen from
me, I swore that I would let no one else stand in my way.
And yet, and he stands up like a Midwest dad, letting out a groan.

(27:25):
You annoyances decide to break in and cause me trouble.
Well, I will have none of it.
Who are you and why do you have the audacity to do what you are doing?"
And as he turns towards you, you see, he's probably middle-aged.

(27:46):
He's wearing a full suit and tie, red tie, but otherwise it just looks very like overly
professional.
He looks like a lawyer, right?
That's like just at his office.
But instead of eyes, he has these big like whirring, whizzing, clockwork looking spectacles.

(28:06):
But it's a, you can see that it's attached to his skin.
It's not like exterior goggles.
It's not glasses per se.
It is just these lenses that are like ingrained into his eye sockets.
And as you watch, the entire back end of his head starts to sort of like pull itself back,

(28:26):
not in a gruesome gross way per se, but as if it was like skin toned plates that start
to retract.
And you see a handful of just various cogs and stuff that are worrying amidst his brain
area.
We see that from the front.
Yeah, yeah.
Like just, like you can see the top of his head start to kind of retract back and then

(28:47):
you can see little like cogs and stuff behind it.
Why are you here?
Dez is going to summon his swarm.
Okay.
Just little twig guys, I think.
Yeah, yeah.
They just come marching in single file from behind me through the floor.
He's gonna, he's gonna step inside, step inside the office and he holds his chest like he's

(29:11):
got suspenders.
Eddie, he, oh.
He opens his mouth and he says, get a job.
I don't, I don't, that's like a mini episodes ago.
Dez, Dez used that voice to like get out of trouble.
So it's the like one phrase he knows.
That's amazing.
At the moment.
And he just, he, he, he readjust his tie a little bit and he says, hard and then.

(29:37):
Dez would like to have his swarm move the big guy if they can move him.
He's got to do a strength say, and it's, it's a, if they can move him 15 feet, he wants
to, the swarm to like throw the guy out the window.
They just, they just start swarming him like the little raptors in Jurassic Park too.

(29:58):
They're gonna move him 15 feet out the window and drop him.
Okay.
It is a 10 even.
A 10 doesn't beat it.
Okay.
So he, they, they just sort of like this swarm like rolls forward as a, as an army of these
little twig things and just slam into him knocking him backwards.

(30:19):
You might have found his one weakness with the fact that it's his little cute little
twig guys.
Does he not get thrown out the window?
No, he's, he's getting thrown backwards out the window and you hear it shatter and he
falls off this balcony with a split second later, his head reappears as he flies back

(30:41):
into the office and stands there floating and he says, you have my attention.
What do you want?
Um, my friend here can't speak well is too good.
So we both want to know what the safe is.
Oh, my safe or I keep my valuable.
I thought it wasn't yours anymore.

(31:02):
I thought it was these guys who took the job from you.
Oh, I don't know.
Just say now.
And he, he points over and you see this little like small safe in the, in the corner underneath
his desk.
It's got like the classic combination lock.
So that's where all the drug money is.
Well, a portion of it.

(31:23):
Where's the big portion?
If he says banks, I'm going to scream.
And that gets handed over to those at a higher power.
Wait, you're not the top.
I have achieved quite a bit when it comes to total replacement, but I am far from the
chosen one.
So the chosen?

(31:46):
Indeed.
So the chosen's the top?
The chosen has not been found yet.
So where's all the money?
The money is with in the hands of my associates leading the Legionnaires.
You know a strangely small amount for someone that is breaking into my facility, which leads

(32:08):
me to believe you.
That I'm not the brains of the operation.
I'm just a muscle and I pull out my bow and arrow and I like twirl my arrows.
I notch it into the boat and I pointed.
I'm going to say, safe, open it now.
Des will do the same with his long bow.
Just takes a little bit longer because you got to, it's a very impractical indoor.

(32:31):
Stretching it with his feet.
Can I roll intimidation?
Yeah, if you want to.
Why was he going to fail already?
And it's like if you want to, it's not going to work, but sure.
2022.
Allow me.
And he just motions towards the safe and it invisibly, some invisible force opens the

(32:52):
safe for you.
Awesome.
Do we see glittering jewels in him?
You see a variety of sacks and that suggests that they have something in them and even
a couple of gold bars.
Roy's going to say, watch clockwork.
I run over to the safe to load everything into my bag of holding.

(33:17):
Yes.
So as you move towards the safe, it explodes.
See Cameron says, check for traps.
Rory wouldn't check for traps.
He just sees piles of money and goes, finally, this is what we've been out for this whole
time.
This is all we needed.
You rush towards this safe.

(33:39):
You suddenly hit an invisible wall and it actually knocks you back a little bit.
And he says, and as you kind of like fall backwards, he says, what's wrong?
It's open.
Help yourself.
What's this wall?
And Rory like sticks his foot out the field for the wall.
Yeah.
And it just kind of like hits this.
And it's almost like when you have two magnets of opposite or sorry, of the same pole and

(34:05):
you try to push them together and you know how you can like, you can like get a little
bit of give, but otherwise it just hits this force, that this invisible force that you just
cannot like push it past.
That's exactly what it feels like.
Whether Rory recognizes what a magnet, how that would work or not.
You Cameron, that's, that's how I would describe it to you.
So it's like a force field.

(34:25):
It's like a, it's like a, it's kind of like a wall of force is the best way to describe
it.
Okay.
I'm going to throw an arrow at him again and I say, turn off the wall then.
I want the monies.
You know what I'm feeling especially invincible today.
Why don't you take a shot?

(34:47):
Des makes a motion and points at the guy and he's got his other arm in like a ring shape
and he said points at the guy and shoves his fist into the ring shape.
You look like you're giving someone a new guy.
I don't know how else to say it.
I want to describe it.
Take, you had, you had it.
I'm still holding the bag of holding.
Okay.

(35:07):
Okay.
Rory's just going to go, you're going to see that that was the first thing I thought
of though.
He didn't have to explain it.
He sees death do that and he scratches his head and goes, okay.
And he runs over to the dude and attempts to jump up and put his head in the bag of holding.
Oh, okay.
So you rush forward, you jump holding this bag of holding up and just into this wall

(35:31):
and fall backwards.
Oh, well.
I thought you were going to fire the arrow, but I'm not that dumb as I'm lying on the
floor.
I know you wizards.
You got traps and stuff.
Well, if you don't mind, I'd need to make a call and he picks up what Cameron would
recognize as like a wall phone, except it's like one of those old ones.

(35:53):
Old old one.
Sorry, Jackson.
You wouldn't know.
Yeah.
Well, it just means because you're doing.
Yeah.
No, no, no, no.
I mean, you would both.
Yes.
Sorry.
So there's the mouthpiece on the phone.
You have to like twist the little dial, right by hand.
And he turns towards this and he starts to twist.
And as he does, you just hear him say, yes, if I could get some associates upstairs, I

(36:18):
have a bit of a problem to deal with.
And he hangs it up and he turns towards you and he takes a seat and he starts working on
some paperwork.
He does would like to mentally send for one of his twigs to like attempt to subtly crawl
up his legs.
Aren't they all next to him still?
They slammed into him.
They pushed him back.
He floated back in.

(36:38):
So I mean, when they still be in the same area, he floated back to where he was roughly.
But I mean, this is this wall of forces.
What did it say?
One quarter of an inch thing.
So I mean, this no matter how much space there was between him and them, I mean, it could
have easily cut through.
It's like right next to him.
Yeah.

(36:58):
Oh, okay.
Well, it started next to him and pushed out.
Yeah.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
They maybe give us a second.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
We'll cut back over so our brains can think.
So with that being said, the rest of you guys arrive at the door.
And I mean, basically you see the scene, right?
You see this this balding man or bald, 100% bald.

(37:19):
He's just standing there.
And then you see Rory and Dez standing there with a bunch of little twigglings and everybody's
just standing there or sitting there.
I guess in his case, he's sitting there doing paperwork.
And it just feels kind of weird because your friends rather than like doing anything to
this guy are just standing there.
And that's the scene that you find.
So I'm picturing like a big gang plague on this second level.

(37:42):
And then it just leads to this office area.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
So it's just a big like catwalk basically.
Yeah.
And then it does have railing that goes up to about your waist.
That's the safety requirements.
That's the that's the FEMA level that's required level that's required here.
Yep.
And then you turn the corner and there's just this big office that kind of like comes
out of the wall.

(38:02):
And then it has a big glass thing, which actually shattered.
In fact, you guys would have seen it from the other end.
This guy, the same guy, get knocked out in his full suit.
And then like maybe five feet of falling, he suddenly stops and then just floats back
up and places himself back inside.
So you guys, yeah, you guys would have seen that as you were making your way down this
catwalk.

(38:22):
Yeah.
I'm going to hang back so you guys can still see.
Oh, yes.
You guys have just been being chased by this ball of darkness.
Yeah.
I guess Keto will enter through the doorway and yeah, I guess there's your two friends
doesn't really.
Are you also following the situation?
So can't really yeah, prepare or attack anything without knowing what's going on.

(38:45):
Is your echo with you?
Like did it follow you?
I think it would have disappeared if I walked more than 15 feet away.
Okay, but can you make it follow you?
Yeah, I can.
So yeah, we'll have it follow me.
So two Keto's and a sauce walk into the room.
Is this a joke?
Is this like a, this feels like a setup for something.
And then while a ball of darkness is chasing them.

(39:09):
The ever omnipresent ball of darkness.
It follows in your peripheral.
Well, hey, easy, easy episode title.
It's a symbolism of inevitable death.
But yeah, now that you mentioned it, once Keto enters the room, the echo disappears
from him and then just reappears behind the dude.

(39:30):
Actually, I think that's supposed to take two turns.
It's one bonus action to dismiss it.
So we're not in combat.
Well, yeah, technically, you're not.
I mean, I'm going to keep the same initiative order, but you guys are not in combat at the
moment.
Sounds good.
Hey gang.
Oh, look, he called for backup, but they showed up.
Loser, loser, come on.

(39:51):
Loser, loser, loser.
He pauses his paperwork for a moment and he looks over and he says, oh, more of you.
Is anybody else want to, any of you new individuals like to explain to me who you are and why
you're here?
Or is it simply for what's in the contents of my safe?
Wow.

(40:11):
It was the safe originally, but now this guy's really pissing me off.
I just want to see him dead.
Des writes on his little chalkboard better than being pissed on.
Oh yeah.
That's happened to me before.
Never again.
Anyways, there's a force pill.
Has to hurry.

(40:32):
He sticks his hand into it.
So if anyone's got a way to just get on the other side, I'm all for ideas.
You see as he stands up on the now open ledge, thanks to the glass shattering.
He stands up on top of this opening that is where the glass was and he out stretches his

(40:57):
hand and similarly to little sauce's attack that you saw just moments ago, he fires some
bolts of magical energy flying down into the battle that's ensuing below and slam into
grizzletooth, rusty and gravestone.
And you see gravestone gets hit, but it doesn't really bother him that much, but you see rusty

(41:20):
and grizzletooth both kind of get knocked back and they were kind of in the middle of
their focused fight.
It is completely thrown off their proverbial groove if you want to put it that way.
And you see a couple of the guys get a couple of swings in on top of that because they've
gotten thrown off their rhythm and they're getting slammed.

(41:40):
Rory's going to hit his chest and go, "Why don't you fight us, chump?"
"Well, you don't seem to be much of a problem right now."
"Oh, well, I think you're a chicken."
"Oh, chump, you can't fight you.
You're a chump.
You're scared to fight us.
Come on, take down the wall."
"Charmed person."
Interesting.
Okay.

(42:00):
He rolls against that, right?
Is it a wisdom save?
Yeah.
That is a 17.
I can roll.
I can use one of my bardic inspirations to when an opponent is making an attack roll,

(42:21):
a billy check or a damage roll.
I can use one of my bardic inspirations to roll a d6 and minus that from their roll.
I'm using that now.
I got a six.
Nice.
Okay.
Cutting word.
"You got chump.
Drop the force field.
You got chump."
He grabs his head for just a moment and he looks like he's faltering a little bit.

(42:44):
Then you see him do a hand motion and he snaps his fingers and he shakes his head.
He said, "That was actually quite impressive.
That was a close call."
Now, I have given you the benefit of the doubt in assuming that you were obviously powerful
enough to get this far.
I assume you can't possibly have taken this much risk and fought this much danger to get

(43:10):
to me just to tell me that you're just here for the contents inside this safe.
Well, that's true.
Now, who sent you and why are you here?
I am quite curious.
I'm not worried, but I am quite curious.
I don't know why we're here.
We heard, well, the three of us are here because we heard money's here and we want money.

(43:37):
Interesting.
And we know that if we rob drug dealers, they can't go to the fuzz.
He's here for completely different reasons as I point at a little sauce.
Des writes on his chalkboard, "He's the fuzz."
Oh yeah, he's the fuzz.
Nice to meet you, the fuzz.
With her being said, why couldn't you have just simply said you were with a thieves'

(43:57):
guilt?
Oh, because we're not.
You're not?
No, thieves' guilt is cramping my style.
His heart glicks, puffs out his chest a little.
You're telling me that you're independent contractors who are willing to take on this
freelancers?
Freelancers.
Interesting.
Keto, can you kill him already?

(44:18):
With that being said, your echo is right behind you.
Yes.
Keto, take a slashing attack from behind his back.
All right.
Does is 17 hits.
A 17 does hit.
Then he'll roll for damage and that will be another 14.
Wow.
All right.
So your echo slashes his back and as it does, you see it, he gets slashed across his back.

(44:47):
He falls forward a little bit.
He turns around angrily and looks over at your echo.
He's taking the damage as you have dealt.
The force field could drop?
No, it did not.
I did roll for it though.
I did roll for it though.
So the force field is planar.
It's just like a glass wall between us and the front of him, but not the back of him.

(45:09):
Correct.
You see him point towards it in fire bolts.
I've been able to do my other two attacks.
You would.
Okay, 20.
20 ones.
All right.
Yep.
That also hits.
That's only going to be six, but it makes him roll again.
Let's do an accent surge.
All right.

(45:30):
And then you're doing accent, action surge to take another action.
Yep.
All right.
The 19.
19 that still hits.
And nine damage.
Nine damage.
All right.
You flash into him.
He angrily turns around and he lifts his hand and he fires a fire bolt in the direction
of your echo.

(45:52):
19.
Yeah, that'll hit and probably kill.
This guy, I mean, as he turns and fires this fire bolt, you, he, he, he turns his back
to you guys.
Fires the fire bolt to get rid of your echo.
You can see his back is all sliced up.
And although there's a little bit of blood that's pouring out from his back, that the

(46:12):
sections that have been opened, you see what look like mechanical parts inside.
Like half his, his innards are replaced with mechanical parts or some sort of like weird
clockwork bits and pieces.
Even his heart you can see is partially encased in metal and gears.
And then he turns back towards you guys.

(46:33):
Technically you guys would have, I'm going to say you guys have an action before he acts
with the exception of you obviously.
We can go to the top of the order essentially.
Little sauce, are you doing anything?
I'd like to attack him with the wall of force.
But I don't know how.
Right.
That's your problem.
Wasn't done yet.
Maybe if you have a boomerang you can like throw it out the window or.
I got a crossbow, right?

(46:55):
Okay.
I'm not shooting it off a piece of metal and.
And how it ricochet.
Let me try thunder wave and just see what happens.
Okay.
Can't you fly?
Can't you kinkus fly?
I don't know.
Do not have the fly spell.
No.
I have, oh well, hang on.
I'm enlarge or induce and spider climb.
Yeah.
Rutter climb could work.
You can cast that on somebody else.

(47:16):
He's probably strong.
Yes.
Probably.
I'm going to cast spider climb on him.
Okay.
You suddenly very much like in Toby McGuire's Spider Man.
You look at your your hands and on each one of your fingertips, you see these tiny little
hairs start to almost emerge from your hands and as you touch them together, your fingers,

(47:39):
they feel kind of like sticky.
They have grab to him.
Hey, I gave you spider climb.
Go web.
Go.
All right.
Jumping over to Dave.

(48:00):
Maki the ball of darkness.
I'm assuming outside the room.
Yeah.
I was kind of standing at the doorways and the doorways was like a little half Domo.
The darkness coming through the rest of you guys look behind you and it's just blank.
It's coming for us all.
We just hear a deep guttural like, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.

(48:22):
Any bodies I can lose.
Maki's going to walk up to the force wall.
Okay.
You guys are all enveloped in the darkness.
Yeah.
Say good luck doing that paperwork now.
You see a lens actually kind of come down onto his sort of eyes, which are now like

(48:43):
these, like I said, clockwork goggles, essentially, and it just pops into place and he looks at
you and he says, I think you've all proven quite enough that you are a distraction from
my paperwork.
So yeah, he can see me, but on the bright side, he's enveloped in shadows.

(49:04):
There is no bright side.
It's pitch black.
Maki reaches out his hand says, all right.
Time to do that various shadow caster proud.
And he just he focuses his energy on the shadows on the other side of the wall.
And not that any of you guys can see, but perhaps he can, since he appears to be looking

(49:26):
right at me, the form of like a aberrant beast or like a wolf made of shadows appears.
And oh, that has to roll initiative.
Added 20 to initiative.
All right.
But this was a class feature.

(49:47):
Okay.
Hound of ill omen.
The Hound of ill omen.
And then does it act next?
I think so.
Okay.
Sounds good.
So once we get back around in the initiative order, this shadow wolf will have an opportunity
to attack with that being said, you guys hear some voices shouting behind you and you see
for all you see four guards in hasmat suits.

(50:12):
They've removed their the headpiece or the hood from the hasmat suit, but they are running
towards you guys with javelins in hand, ready to attack you from behind.
I'm not going to have them attack just yet.
They've just been summoned, but just be aware that they are right behind you.

(50:33):
Des and Rorik, I'll leave it up to you guys, whichever one of you wants to do something
first.
If you want to do something, but what I will say is that you guys are technically enveloped
in darkness right now.
Dang it.
Thankfully, it's a small room.
And if you guys were facing this guy, it would be easy to like turn around and sort of feel
your way out.
You only need 15 feet, even if your speed was had, that would be just enough to get

(50:56):
to the edge of the darkness.
I'm going to step just outside of the room.
Perfect.
Yep.
So you peek out from the darkness and I'm going to fire my longbow at one above.
Okay.
What you already had at the ready, which is great.
Yeah.
You know what?
I did that.
It is a 16.
16 to hit.
That hits.
All right.

(51:17):
All right.
Hits the guy at the front of the line and it will do six damage, six damage.
You see it.
It hits him right into the shoulder.
Opposite of the hand that's holding his javelin.
He's like, oh, he stumbles a little bit.
He kind of falls back in line a little bit.
The other two guys kind of, or three guys push past him.

(51:37):
Oh, I'm not getting paid enough for this.
And so yeah, he is, he's now injured.
Rorik, what are you doing?
I imagined Rorik was like the furthest from the door to get in.
Okay.
And he was like close to the, he was next to the force wall and the wall of this, the
back wall of this room because that's where the safe was.

(51:59):
Okay.
So Rorik just wants to push up against the force wall and then hug it so that he's right
next to the wall.
And all he's doing is waiting to feel the force wall come away so he can immediately
run to where he remembers where the safe is and just start grabbing everything into
the dark.
All right, sounds good.
So you're just, are you readying an action?
I guess the action is run to the safe to load money into my bag of holding the instant

(52:26):
the force wall goes down.
Okay.
Okay.
Sounds good.
But if the darkness goes away, come that, then I'll change my action.
But that, as of right now, while it's dark, that's what he's planning on doing.
Yep.
Okay.
That works for me.
I do that because as we move over to the individual's turn, this bald man who nobody bothered

(52:50):
it, ask who his name was, not important.
Although, I guess technically he did say that this was his family's business.
So you can assume that his last name is Steelborn given that that's what you saw on outside
of this facility.
Whatever the case, you don't see anything, but those who can see currently in the darkness,
which I believe is just Maki, you watch as he motions his hand to sort of like, "Oh,

(53:12):
like swipe something out of the way."
And as that happens, because that you were first in the, before him in the initiative
and because that's exactly what you were waiting for, I will give you the opportunity to kind
of move forward towards the safe.
So you're at the safe.
Yeah.
He sees you move past him.
He kind of shrugs a little bit.
He looks at the rest of you and he points out his thumb and index finger towards you

(53:34):
guys.
So the rest of the group?
Right.
Like all four of them?
Yes.
And he pushes his thumb down like it's a gun going off and fires a...
I cast counter spell.
Okay.
At what level?
Bird.
If he's casting a spell fourth level or higher, make an ability check using your spell casting

(53:56):
ability.
The DC equals 10 plus the spells level.
Oh, that's going to be a six.
Oh no.
No.
I'm going to try.
Yes.
A bolt of lightning comes flying at you guys.
Everybody but Rorik needs to make a dexterity saving throw.

(54:18):
It's happening again.
This is how Rorik lost his last party.
Was this exact spell?
He was the only one not in the rake.
Does Rorik recognize the sound?
Yes.
Oh no.
11.
11.
Okay.
I got a 17.
A 17?
Okay.

(54:38):
Oh no.
I got a one.
I got a one.
We have two ones.
The lightning bolt comes shooting forth.
Huge chunks of this bright light that technically don't...
Well, it is magical light.
So I'd say for a flash of a second, you see a burst of light that breaks through Maki's

(55:04):
magical darkness.
But it's so instantaneous and so fast, there's very little opportunity to dodge.
Thankfully, Dez is a much faster individual than the rest of you as far as reflexes go.
And he manages to sidestep.
So the large chunks, the large arms of this lightning bolt slam into Lil Sauce, Maki,

(55:25):
and Keto, and a small fragment of an arm slams into Dez.
Those who took the full brunt of it, it's going to be 26 lightning damage.
And then Dez, you're taking 13.
I'm dead.
You're not dead.
You're down.
No.
Well, there's a huge difference.
Yes.

(55:45):
There's a pretty big difference.
He looks at the damage that he's done.
He sees one of the individuals go down and sees the others with at least some amount of
smoke just stemming off of your person.
Did the dark...
It wasn't this far.
It's just a nice of its concentration.
That's a good point.
Five.
Five.
So sure enough, yeah, as this lightning bolt slams into everybody, it illuminates this

(56:10):
darkness, which is immediately dissipated, replaced by whatever residual brightness kind
of is stuck in your eyes as you guys blink away the bright light that just slammed into
you.
With that being said, Keto, you're up.
So now there's no more force field?
Correct.
Okay.
Yes, Keto will use his bonus action to cast another echo behind the dude.

(56:37):
Okay.
Going to do his attack through the echo again.
Okay, sounds good.
Just slashing him from behind.
Yeah.
Okay.
13.
13.
He slashes and he actually makes contact, but you notice that some of the metals that
make up his back sort of magically glow for a moment and tense up and it just goes shing,

(56:57):
like it makes a loud sharp noise as the blade hits, but it doesn't penetrate.
It doesn't actually cut into it.
Well, they'll do it again.
All right.
Okay.
19.
19.
This time as it slashes, he turns around and he lifts his hand and instead of hitting
him, it hits this wall, not a wall of force, just to clarify, but just an invisible sort

(57:19):
of magical blockage that the blade sort of slams against and then retracts.
We jump over to the beginning of the order.
So you are down, Will Sauce.
I need you to roll a death save.
18.
18.
Okay.
So that's one success.
Good job.
You're still alive.

(57:39):
With that, we jump over to this new entrant, the Shadow Wolf, Maki's mysterious bringer
of death.
Oh, yes.
So as the sphere of darkness collapses in, some of the tendrils of darkness are seen
to be absorbed into this beastness and it kind of pops out of the darkness, almost.
It is with single-minded intent, it darts towards our assailant.

(58:08):
So it closes the distance, gets right up next to it.
Oh, yeah.
It's pretty close.
It'll flank in sort of so without what the echo behind it, on its left side or something.
Which is relevant because it does get packed.
Packed.
Tactics.
Yup.
I got a 20.
Nice, okay.

(58:29):
So it's biting using the bite attack.
Right on the bump.
Right on the bump.
So do two knee six.
Okay.
Plus three.
You see these shadowy teeth clench down into his bum and you see it actually like his teeth
sort of push past the magic that seems to be blocking him and actually jams into that

(58:51):
metal that's underneath and starts to pierce it with its shadowy fangs.
How much damage?
So B24.
Holy crap.
No, he's.
Yes, it bites.
It doesn't just bite into him.
It also like rips it away.
I guess it just takes like an entire butt cheek off this guy and he stumbles and he says,

(59:14):
"Those pads cost more than you will ever see in your life."
Is this guy a creature?
Yes.
He must succeed on a DC 13 strength saving for or be knocked prone.
Oh, yes.
So as it rips his butt cheek away, he stumbles and he says that that angry comment towards

(59:39):
you and as he does his leg just pretty much buckles underneath him and he falls on the
ground.
So the guards at this point have reached you guys.
Who would be at the back of the line?
I'm going to.

(01:00:00):
He just has a door just outside the door.
That's right.
Okay.
So these four guys are all attacking.
I'm just going to do it real quick.
They're just jabbing at you with their jab ones.
Does a 16 hit?
Yeah, yeah.
Okay.
So I got two hits here at a 16 and a 17 is 11 damage as they managed to stab at you a
couple of times.

(01:00:20):
The other two guys are too far back.
One of them is the one that you shot and so he's just, he's like, "Oh, it hurts when
I move it."
And then the other guys just like, "I can't get him.
Get out of the way.
I can't stab him."
And they're like, "Dude, we're stabbing him.
Just chill out.
You're going to have your turn to stab in a second.
We'll all stab him when he's down.

(01:00:40):
Then we'll just jam him into full holes."
Quit jamming my holes.
He's like, "We've got to make the hole before we can jam your hole.
Let us make a hole."
Quit that.
You can now rebut all because it jumps over to your turn.
Des has his longbow.
Okay.
Right.
But I mean, they're pretty close range.
Hey, no.

(01:01:01):
I'd have to.
They're like, "Hold on.
I've got to run back a little way."
He didn't shoot at you from over there.
He's just going to grab his hand axe.
Nice.
And he's just going to start swinging.
He's going to swing to the guy who was left.
Got it.
Okay.
It hit, I don't know if it hits, but it goes for 16.

(01:01:23):
Oh yeah, that hits.
All right.
Nice.
You sort of like bonk the javelin out of the way.
And then you come back, turning the hand axe to the sharp end and you slash at the guy.
Eight damage.
Eight damage.
Nice.
You slash him and he goes, "Oh, whoa.

(01:01:44):
Oh, gosh.
Oh my gosh.
He got me."
And he grabs another dude and he's like, "You go.
You're so intent on stabbing him."
And they're like awkwardly pushing each other around on this narrow catwalk.
Kind of a little hazzardly, actually.
But you definitely got this guy for a pretty hefty fourth of his health.
There we go.
Yeah.
I don't know.

(01:02:04):
This probably is off the record.
Would I know whether or not the big bad evil guy is a construct?
Here's what I'd say.
They are a favorite enemy.
That's why I ask.
No, that's a good question.
I think he's enough construct that you register him as sort of a humanoid construct.

(01:02:24):
Kind of.
So I would count it for sure.
Okay.
You've got a whole organization of people that would fall under that category.
That'll be really helpful for you losing forward.
Whoa, wait a second.
Ranger's favorite enemy comes into play in a campaign.
And I need to write it that way.
That happens.
I know.
And I'm not even being sarcastic.

(01:02:44):
Fantastic.
We jump over to Rorik.
I would love to do my turn.
Yes.
Because I have a really cool turn planned, but you did skip Maki.
You went for his wolf, not Maki.
Oh, you're right.
Yeah, that's true.
I only did your wolf.
That's a good point.
We all got so focused on your wolf.
All right, Maki, what are you doing?
I'm trying to write his other butt cheeks.
Yeah, use your mouth.
Use your mouth for his cheeks.
Use your beak.

(01:03:05):
It's when we got two butt cheeks, soon he'll have zero.
He turns towards you and he says, "I'll just get robotic implants."
You fool.
You thought you could remove my butt cheeks, but they will only come back stronger and
metal.
My thoughts will be created by little air sacs powered by cogs.

(01:03:27):
Clockwork.
My thoughts will occur like clockwork.
Perfect timing.
Oh, that full control over my bowel movements.
Maki cracks his knuckles.
He's like, "All right, I'm going to destroy you with shadow and flame."
Oh, and he cast- It's a bellrog?

(01:03:50):
Little light and darkness.
You're going to cast bellrog?
Yeah, I'm pretty much out.
I have milfs.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Milfs what?
Milfs, minute meteors.
Oh, man.
We don't want, we don't want minute.

(01:04:11):
So Maki cracks his knuckles outward, and then he focuses his energy and draws his hands
apart and in between his fingers appear like six meteors that start circling around him
or whatever.
Yeah, that's sick.
And then he ingesters two forward and he targets the point on the ground in front of

(01:04:34):
the prone guy.
That's true.
But not so much as to catch his allies in the blast radius.
Okay.
Yeah, he has to make a dexterity saving throw, which he has disadvantage on.
Oh, it's good that you did that.
Of the hound of Il-Omen was within five feet.
Fair enough.

(01:04:55):
Ten.
It's a good thing that you did that had the disadvantage because he rolled a nat 20 on
the first dice, but then he rolled like a, like a 10 on the, on the second one.
So take 10 damage, another five.
As you fire these meteorites at him.
So the first one slams in and like takes out his entire left chunk of his body, arm,

(01:05:17):
shoulder.
And again, it's just wires and clockwork and metal chunks.
The other one he, he manages to rotate out of the way a little bit, but it still slams
into sort of the hip area on his left side, taking out another chunk, causing him to fall
backwards onto his table.
He's practically in pieces now.

(01:05:38):
You see sparks shooting out different parts of his body that have been ripped open.
Obviously chunks of sharp metal, just jutting out from the places where he's been ripped
asunder.
And he's leaking a mix of blood and black oily goo.
And he lays there against the thing and he says, who are you?

(01:06:04):
I don't understand where you've come from.
What are you doing here?
Well you see, we've traveled across planes to kick your butt, your oily, greasy butt.

(01:06:27):
And take your money.
Wait, planes, you've been outside the city.
You've seen the world beyond.
Well naturally, yeah.
Wasn't born here, you know.
Here from the other world, the one he has promised us.

(01:06:48):
Oh.
Oh.
You're sure to find him, especially if you are from the other world.
He's bound to come find you.
He wants to leave this place.

(01:07:09):
I did not manage to achieve total replacement, but my soul is promised a place for it in
the world outside of this one, where I assume you call home.

(01:07:30):
Well down the good line.
Just kind of sees all of these gears and oil and stuff coming out of the big bad's body
and he just right, he holds up a finger to the guys that were fighting him.
And he writes on his whiteboard or chalkboard or whatever it is.
He goes stupid clanker.
Nice.

(01:07:50):
Puts it back away.
I want to see your auras.
He reaches up and he pushes and Rory jumps and just steps over his body and just takes
out a sword and just stabs it straight into his chest.
Okay.
No, you don't get it.
Where's the chosen ones?

(01:08:12):
And he just stabs it straight into his chest.
Okay.
Okay.
That was 24 damage.
24 damage.
His feather was alive right now.
That's mad or raw.
24 damage.
You jam the sword into him and you just rip it downwards and you cut his body in half.
And it's very reminiscent of like alien when the dude that they end up finding out is sort
of like a part robot or whatever you want to call that and he's like leaking milk.

(01:08:37):
It's a white just like liquid and I've always like ever since I saw the movie I was like
it's like this is who's buying from the horse ranch.
Oh no.
All the constructs run on horse ears.
It's on my feet.
It's on my feet.
You see slice him in half.
So his lower body is completely separated from his upper torso and he goes and he starts

(01:09:03):
coughing up this oily consistency.
And you see him kind of like start to shudder as if he had like cogs or something that were
like jammed and it's trying to like force himself.
And again, sparks just shooting out of parts of his body.
And then finally he just falls limp.

(01:09:24):
Everything is ceased moving.
And then all of a sudden from the center of his chest you just see a red light start flashing.
Oh.
Can I just toss it out the window?
Wait, is it just his chest?

(01:09:44):
Yeah.
Like is it a ball or is it?
He has a shirt on.
So you're not sure.
I will help you toss him out the window.
But you're not next to me.
Are his hit points reduced to zero?
Yes.
As his life force or whatever electrical power he was running on is this half humanoid.
Yeah.

(01:10:04):
I mean he's still a living being.
It's just that part of him that a lot of him has been replaced.
The shadow hound fades away.
Rorik doesn't see this beeping thing.
He just goes, I'm not losing any like steps on his head.
And he goes, I'm not losing my friends again.
And he looks over and he sees little sauce on the ground.

(01:10:26):
Right.
Uncautious bleeding out.
And he's torn because he doesn't like little sauce.
But then he sees--
Oh yeah, because of the argument earlier.
Yeah, the bar.
But then he sees a flash image of pork.
His long and lost best friend and died from the exact same thing.
And he like sees his body on the ground.

(01:10:46):
And he goes.
I'm not losing friends again.
And he casts cure wounds on him.
It's not a what.
But you get five back.
You get five.
So you're just amidst like a dream of darkness and amidst this sort of void.
You see a figure approach you and he says, sauce.

(01:11:11):
It's me.
Charge him.
Hey, yo, what's going on?
Hey, well, I think you're dead.
No, I'm still breathing.
And you look down and you see sort of like amidst the void, you see this opening.
And it's sort of like looking through a TV or a window or something like that.
You can see the scene below you as your body is laying there lifelessly almost.

(01:11:34):
Except you can see just the subtle movement of his chest as he's breathing.
And he says, well, I guess we'll just wait and see.
And see how things turn out.
Do you want to have a seat next to me?
Yeah, if I have to spoil him, well, what an option do I get.
Yeah, absolutely.
So question for you.
Yeah, sure.
How you been liking my world?

(01:11:56):
Dile a new miss and all that.
Well, you know, it's home.
It's home.
It's not bad.
Sure.
It's normal, pre-normal, you know.
But I wouldn't know what else there is really.
Oh, there's nothing out there.
No other worlds.
Oh, not in there.
No, I'm saying like it seems normal to me not to, you know, I've never been to the

(01:12:19):
other worlds.
I was swimming.
Oh, sure.
Right.
So it's evolved quite a bit since I first created it.
Oh, really?
Langspace.
Yeah, that didn't exist.
Yeah, that's pretty crazy.
I mean, I kind of let society kind of run on its own.
So it's really interesting how that's all kind of pieced together.
It's impressive that you've become a part of it.

(01:12:42):
And now you're here.
Yeah, yeah.
So now I'm here, I'm dead potentially, maybe.
Well, that's what I was going to kind of tell you, is that if you die, I mean, not to say
like that forage the contract, but I can't really do much for you.
Oh, what do you mean?
Well, if you die, you're going to pass on.

(01:13:03):
It's out of my hands.
Souls, I mean, I can get access to them sure, but not in the instance.
You'll move on to wherever you end up going in the next life.
And just like bringing back, you know, I would have to move me on to the next round.
Well, that's what I'm saying is you'll move on to the next round.

(01:13:25):
You'll be reborn potentially.
Oh, here and this.
Oh, no, no, no, no, it'll be elsewhere.
I don't have control of that.
So that sucks.
Yeah.
So hopefully, oh, look at this.
Your friend, Rory, he hates him.
Yeah, but look at it.
And you see, you see this at Rory's hand glow and you suddenly just like in the instant

(01:13:49):
you feel yourself get pulled into this TV that you're watching of your body going unconscious.
And then all of a sudden you just feel the most pain you've ever felt in your life as
you suddenly awaken into where into where your body is.
Smells like toast.
My own is stroke.
Oh, why did you bring it back?

(01:14:13):
Oh, God, the pain.
Well, I wish I knew what the secretary's name was.
I can only imagine that when she went through the head to the same.
Oh, God, oh, help me.
With that being said, you guys are all standing around as you see this.
And then as you little sauce awaken and alarm starts to sound in the facility and you hear

(01:14:37):
a voice.
It sounds a lot like the guy that you just you just got rid of.
Again, you don't know his name.
Let's say that there's one of those little placards on his desk and it says Professor
Augustus Steelborn.
I just assumed it said steel.
Yeah, steelborn.
And you hear a steelborn steelborn.
Yes.
So I still don't know his name.

(01:14:58):
Yeah.
Oh, do I hear the voice of this a steelborn, but it's very like mechanical as if coming
out of like a recording or something.
And you hear it just say a self-destruct sequence has been initiated at the steelborn facility.
If you are still inside the facility, we recommend that you evacuate immediately.

(01:15:19):
You have one minute and 30 seconds.
And you see the scene down below.
You see just a bunch of dead bodies, most of which are the.
The staff of this steelborn industries euphoria manufacturing plant.

(01:15:41):
You see a dead mykonid, which is interesting, over by the shattered tube, glass tube, where
it was being held.
And you see your friends from the rock bottoms and you see Sprout with a mace that he must

(01:16:02):
have picked up off of one of the dead bodies.
And he's swinging it back and forth kind of half hazardly.
He doesn't look like he knows at all what he's doing at a couple of the still on on
slotting staff members of this facility.
You see gravestone with his staff, but you can see that the aura of his magic, that like

(01:16:22):
magenta color that was kind of coming on from him has faded significantly as if he's kind
of running out of juice.
And you see his movements.
He's not doing his twerking anymore.
That's for sure.
And as he swings his cane, he looks also just exhausted and then behind them as if they were
like sort of guarding these two, you see Rusty and he is just knelt down next to what looks

(01:16:50):
to be a downed grizzled tooth laying there on the floor.
And worth that we're going to end this episode.

(01:17:13):
Thank you so much for listening to criminals of island numus, a Dungeons and Dragons fifth
edition actual play podcast set in a homebrew world created by me, Skyler Gorsett.
If you've been enjoying our show so far, be sure to like, follow and subscribe wherever
it is that you're streaming from, whether that be Spotify, Apple podcasts, YouTube or
anywhere else that podcasts can be streamed or just check us out on our website, session0heroes.com.

(01:17:35):
Additionally, if you enjoy coin, you might enjoy some of session zero heroes other shows
such as our benders and brews and avatar legends actual play where we jump into the world of
avatar, the last airbender and legend, a Quora using the avatar legend system created by magpie
games or one of our various one shots, which we are currently coming out with where we
use a variety of games and TTRBG systems to tell a variety of fun, exciting, emotional

(01:17:59):
and hilarious stories within our group.
We have all sorts of other content that we highly recommend checking out within the SZH
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(01:18:22):
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[Music]

(01:18:44):
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Criminals of Isla Numus - Episode 34 - Ball of Darkness

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Criminals of Isla Numus - Episode 34 - Ball of Darkness