People Being Other People - DnD Actual Play

Something's wrong with the engine - and we're not even close to the next skyland. If we don't do something, we're going to fall. Tonight.
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What is People Being Other People - DnD Actual Play?

We are PBOP - a TTRPG actual-play podcast where we pretend to be other People! Join us for, hilarious improv, immersive storytelling, and an original score to set the mood. Subscribe now and adventure along with us - for excitement, for love, and for giggles!

Tim / GM:

Last time on Cloudfall, things were finally easy. After a month of just kicking it on backseat, the party took to the skies aboard their very own vessel, the Shatterhorn. With all of the clouds laid out before them, time is passing along like a sunny dream. They spent a whole day on an unnamed, uncharted skyline in honor of Aaron's birthday. They swam, they explored, and they ate cake.

Tim / GM:

Doran and Aaron finally got some time together while Guy grappled with some new old memories during his excursion with Poppy. And for once, nothing bad happened in the middle. For once, everyone had a day that started and ended easily. Would it really be so much to ask for more than one of those?

Maggie / Poppy:

If the Skyland is uncharted, could we claim it? Could we name it?

Thomas / Guy:

I think we have to plant a flag or something.

John / Doran:

We didn't But

Thomas / Guy:

we don't even have our own flag.

Hannah / Eryn:

I mean, maybe since it's my birthday. I mean, we could call it Aaron's birthday island.

Tara / Journey:

I was just gonna say that, actually. Like, Aaron's birthday would be the the name of the island.

Maggie / Poppy:

Yeah. Or just birthday island or Aron Island.

Hannah / Eryn:

I like birthday island.

Maggie / Poppy:

And, I know it's not really a flag, but I have a tea towel. I could I could quickly, like, stitch a little birthday cake or something on it. And we we plant it here.

Hannah / Eryn:

That's perfect.

Hannah / Eryn:

Are you are you okay, Dorn?

John / Doran:

Just inhaled it. Sky bug. Sorry.

Thomas / Guy:

Then we claim this island on behalf of all birthdays.

Tara / Journey:

Are we gonna come back here for everyone's birthday?

Maggie / Poppy:

Oh, that's actually a really cute idea. And then we could always do the same thing and have cake and be together forever.

Hannah / Eryn:

Remember, we can we can navigate back to these islands with the stones in the navigation.

Tara / Journey:

Right. Yeah.

Maggie / Poppy:

Okay. And we got one from the other the other weird place. What did you guys see over there? Oh, it's just,

Thomas / Guy:

It's less of a birthday island. More of a, desecrated island.

Maggie / Poppy:

Like ruinous castles and stuff.

Thomas / Guy:

Maybe that would be a good funeral island, kind of.

Maggie / Poppy:

Like life and death? Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of poetic in a way, in a morbid way. Anyway, as captain of the ship sorry, co captain, I claim this island as birthday islands.

Maggie / Poppy:

Yay.

John / Doran:

I support this as well as co captain.

Thomas / Guy:

Consider this island charted.

Tim / GM:

It's Ben.

Hannah / Eryn:

Sorry.

Maggie / Poppy:

Who invited him? Mikey, your voice has really changed. It's been

Tim / GM:

it's been a couple of days since you left that, now named Yep. Birthday island.

Thomas / Guy:

I was like, he's not gonna let us name it birthday

Maggie / Poppy:

island. Yeah.

Tim / GM:

Oh, yeah.

Hannah / Eryn:

My birthday. I want an island.

Tim / GM:

Since then, the weather has been ideal and the sun has been peeking in and out from behind the clouds as you sail through a billowing blanket of fluffy cumulus above and below. How have you been spending the last few days aboard the Shatterhorn?

Hannah / Eryn:

I think, Aaron would have spent the last couple of days asking Doran to teach them how to glide with their new glider.

Tim / GM:

How's that been going?

John / Doran:

Going well. Yeah. We've definitely exhausted my knowledge of gliding because I never got much formal training. It was just screwing around as kids. You know?

John / Doran:

Invited, Kesher to help teach us both a bit more.

Hannah / Eryn:

Yeah. Okay. Oh. So No. That's

Tim / GM:

perfect. Thanks. Yeah. Yep. Yeah.

Tim / GM:

So Aaron had asked you previously if you knew how to glide. You lacking perfect confidence in your own ability asked Kesher to help out with it. You are on the deck of the ship waiting for Aaron. Aaron shows up carrying their glider with the little cloud kip emblazoned on it that, that you got for them.

Hannah / Eryn:

So cute.

Tim / GM:

And then, Erin, as you're approaching Dorn, you see Cashier come out with their goggles down. Hey. What's up, fly guys? Hey.

John / Doran:

Hey. Yeah. Aaron, I, feel like we kinda got through a lot of the stuff I know, and, you know, Kesha could definitely teach us a few more tricks, like some of the the hard stops, you know, that I was talking about. Oh. Couldn't quite land and

Tim / GM:

Advanced lessons. You ready?

Hannah / Eryn:

I guess. Sure. I yeah. That's fine.

Tim / GM:

Cool. Alright. Doran, are you gonna come

John / Doran:

with us? Or yeah. I I think so. Yeah. I'd like to learn as well.

Tim / GM:

So Okay. Well, up to the crow's nest we go. Come on.

John / Doran:

Alright.

Tim / GM:

Come on.

Hannah / Eryn:

I guess it's good when a guy knows his own limitations, Kesher?

Tim / GM:

Never heard

Hannah / Eryn:

of that before. Oh.

Hannah / Eryn:

Oh. Aaron walks, angrily kind of towards the crow's nest.

John / Doran:

Doran's fully confused.

Maggie / Poppy:

Is there a way to ghost this situation? You're like, oh,

Hannah / Eryn:

and you put your hands here. Like a

Tim / GM:

tandem guy. Yeah. Yeah. Kesher goes up first. She leads you all up to the, crow's nest, and, she is ghosting you a little bit, Aaron.

Tim / GM:

Doran had showed you kind of the wrong way to really hold the glider in the first place. Doran has kind of a bad habit, as a lot of kids do of actually grabbing the ends of the glider and kind of, like, holding on to them. There's actually these, like, leather straps that is much more comfortable long term to kind of slot your hands into, but when you're panicked and untrained, you just kinda grab and hold. So Kesher shows you the proper form, and it feels weird at first, but totally makes sense after a while. Well, actually, I love this.

Tim / GM:

With your little bit of training with Doran here, I'm going to have you roll an acrobatics check.

Hannah / Eryn:

Okay.

Tim / GM:

To make this glide, and, Doran, I'm gonna have you roll it with advantage, just having a little bit more skill here. K. She's gonna go first, and what she's showing you is how to stop by doing a loop de loop and then coming back onto the ground. Easy.

John / Doran:

20.

Hannah / Eryn:

Aaron got 15.

Tim / GM:

Okay. Alright. Kesha goes first, shows you exactly how it's done. She does it so swiftly and so quickly. You can barely pay attention to how she's doing it.

Tim / GM:

Almost seems a little show off y in some ways. Aaron, you're invited to go next. And with your 15, it feels wonky because you do have to invert for a little bit, and it feels, you know, you're kind of hoping that you're gonna land on the deck and not just out in open air. But with the 15, it's plenty dextrous. You land safely on the deck and next to you in the blink of an eye is Doran, smirking.

John / Doran:

You know, it's funny. We were at LoRa, and I couldn't think of a thing to learn about. I don't know why we didn't pick up gliding. Oh, well.

Tim / GM:

That was really good, both of you. Erin, you've never done this before?

Hannah / Eryn:

No. But I jumped around a lot of building tops back in for a while.

Maggie / Poppy:

So Yeah.

Tim / GM:

That that tracks.

John / Doran:

You know, I was just thinking, now that we're getting more comfortable with this, we could actually use it if we pull up alongside a hostile ship or something. Worst case scenario, is there anything else you think we should know in terms of, like, maneuvers? These these were all the ones I was aware of.

Hannah / Eryn:

Can you use any weapons when you're on these things?

Tim / GM:

Drop stuff, but, it's not like you can really hard fight while you're flying. You can't stay close to people.

Hannah / Eryn:

Have you ever tried to shoot a crossbow while gliding?

Tim / GM:

No.

Hannah / Eryn:

I guess it would be hard to load.

Tim / GM:

Yeah. Anyway, it it might be a little dangerous to practice, you know, dodging projectiles, but you're not wrong, Doreen. This this could come in handy if we needed to board. Yeah. Hope it doesn't come to that.

Tim / GM:

Right?

John / Doran:

I know. I something that should just be fun, but I can't help but

Hannah / Eryn:

Weaponize it?

John / Doran:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know what I mean?

Hannah / Eryn:

I get it. Yeah. Aaron's nodding. Like, mhmm.

Tim / GM:

Well, I'm sure there's a whole much more that I could show you too, but we'll save that for later.

John / Doran:

Okay. Okay. Bye. Thanks, thanks, Kesher.

Tim / GM:

Kesher looks at Dora and goes, you enjoy yourself. Okay.

Hannah / Eryn:

I just love hating Kesher so much.

Tara / Journey:

So funny.

Tim / GM:

It's really

Hannah / Eryn:

fun for me.

Tim / GM:

Poppy. Yeah. It's been a while since we've seen Pinch. It was annihilated by Lirion a little while ago, back in Baxi. Well, actually, kind of a long time ago now.

Tim / GM:

I would think that sometime in that last month, you had, resurrected Binge. Right?

Hannah / Eryn:

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, because I only keep, like, a little bit of him on me. Mhmm. That's not really enough to fully form 1.

Hannah / Eryn:

Sure. I have to, like, grow the Yep. The mother.

Tim / GM:

Give it time.

Hannah / Eryn:

Yeah. Yeah. So, but I I definitely would like to have brought him back.

Tim / GM:

Yeah. Well, Say Pinch had a little bit of time off, but there was money to be made in backseat. So he's, he's been out and kicking for a little while probably.

Tara / Journey:

Yeah.

Tim / GM:

Where are you 2 at? You've had an interesting relationship since Bismite came into the picture.

Maggie / Poppy:

Me and Pinch?

Tim / GM:

Yeah. How do you spend your time on their ship together?

Hannah / Eryn:

I think I'd like to keep him more on my shoulder now

Tim / GM:

Yeah.

Hannah / Eryn:

As opposed to, like, hidden so that I

Maggie / Poppy:

don't forget he's there. Sure.

Hannah / Eryn:

Poppy has been spending some time trying to, like, mentor Mikey with his baking. Mhmm. I'll be damned if he's a lost cause. Yeah. Doing basic recipes with him because it's easy enough to keep track of, but I think I'll I'll be kind of experimenting with my own baking as well.

Tim / GM:

Yeah. I think that'll go in tandem with some of your level 7 increases and refining some of those backseat into useful weapons here. Yeah. But suffice it to say, at some point, you've done your flower bowl ritual to bring Pinch back, and he's definitely back in the picture.

Hannah / Eryn:

I want him to be an active participant in the creation of these recipes.

Tim / GM:

Okay.

Hannah / Eryn:

Now realizing he's, like, a part of my magic, he's a part of me. It's kind of just, like, having me helping me.

Tim / GM:

Definitely. You all have seen Sir Bo and Tic have been spending some time together. Tic is just curious about Serbo's anatomy and, how self sufficient he is being able to fix himself all the time. We haven't seen much of Bobka and Ben for a while. You assume they've been back in their villa in Lotem.

Tim / GM:

April and Mikey have been constant companions around here. April's been back into her jars a lot. She seems to be, like, organizing and kind of reassessing. It's been a long time since they've assessed what they got out of lore with. There's also somebody else that hasn't checked in in a long time.

Tim / GM:

You're all in your separate areas of the ship. It's especially sunny today, and that's why on the main deck you have the loading doors open. There's a large large double doors, on the floor of the deck of the ship and those are open now so the conversation pit and the main level is lit by sunlight from above right now, and you are all drawn to this room by Ganymede. You're all kind of hanging out in your own separate areas, and 1 by 1 you hear, may I assist Poppy?

Maggie / Poppy:

Oh, hi, mister Ganymede, sir.

Tim / GM:

Do you have a moment?

Maggie / Poppy:

Of of course.

Tim / GM:

Your friends are waiting for you in the the cow king couch.

Hannah / Eryn:

Oh, sure. Just one second. And I, like, cover the dough I was working on and, like, set it to set it aside to prove.

Thomas / Guy:

We have a talking couch.

Tim / GM:

You've all gathered into this area to see the phenomenal talking couch and find only each

Hannah / Eryn:

other. He tricked us.

Thomas / Guy:

I'm Sir Kouchi.

Maggie / Poppy:

Oh, no.

Tim / GM:

I would, like the floor if it's possible.

John / Doran:

Where are you, talking from? Doran's looking around.

Tim / GM:

You're all hearing, Ganymede, the way that you always do, which is directly and telepathically through your own key item.

Thomas / Guy:

Oh, good. You all can hear this too. Oof. That's a relief.

Tim / GM:

I just mean I want to address you directly. It's been, since statute times. Okay. I also need to, collect myself, quite literally. Could you please place your items in the table?

Tara / Journey:

I guess.

Thomas / Guy:

Very well.

Tara / Journey:

Ladle. Ka chink. Stone.

Maggie / Poppy:

Yeah. Rock.

Hannah / Eryn:

Bracelet. Sword.

Hannah / Eryn:

Eyeball. Echo Bell.

Tim / GM:

Yeah. Eren just gouges around, say.

Thomas / Guy:

Your powers combined.

John / Doran:

Doran's unsure about, which shell is the Ganmined one, so he sets all of his empty pockets of shells.

Tim / GM:

One of them startles you by vibrating in his glove. It's this one. Oh, okay. I put this back.

John / Doran:

Should really label these.

Tim / GM:

Guy, you are also thrust into sudden embarrassment as your armor shakes apart and pulls itself off of

John / Doran:

the wall. Oh.

Tim / GM:

You see Gus, your armor, step away from you and pick up the items and kind of wear them as best Gus can. In this moment, it seems Gus and Ganomit are kind of reunited to form a simulacrum of a person, and he just takes a pensive moment. And what Ganymede's doing here is collecting all of his memories from his disparate parts. Ever since his soul was fractured, he can't retain knowledge from each of these pieces unless he joins up like this.

Hannah / Eryn:

Sinking to the cloud.

Tim / GM:

Sinking to the

Tara / Journey:

cloud. No secrets. We got no secrets, guys.

Hannah / Eryn:

None from Ganymede, anyway.

Tara / Journey:

That's what I'm saying. We were like, oh, yeah. You're my specific Ganymede, and I can tell you anything. No.

Tim / GM:

I'll acknowledge.

Maggie / Poppy:

Oh, I'm sorry. I tasted some weird stuff a few days ago.

Tara / Journey:

Does that

Thomas / Guy:

mean he smelled the

Tim / GM:

he just gives a big shiver and he goes,

Hannah / Eryn:

I've seen so many things.

Tim / GM:

You all have done me a great service. I mean this from the bottom of my heart. I ask you to party and you party hard. All 5 of you.

Hannah / Eryn:

Thank you.

Tim / GM:

Adrenaline is just as good as the fun and there's been a good dose of both. Some fighting, some freaking. Swim swimming and eating.

Maggie / Poppy:

Who's doing the freaking?

Tim / GM:

I'll never tell. It's time for me to give back. I promised you that these abilities would grow with time, and it's time. I want to increase your acuity, each of you. Doran.

Tim / GM:

You can hear things from far away, certainly, but I will give you the scrutiny you need to hear a subtle

John / Doran:

sound. Okay. Great.

Tim / GM:

You will be able to hear when someone is lying to you. Oh.

John / Doran:

Oh. Oh.

Thomas / Guy:

What a cool ability.

Maggie / Poppy:

That won't get anyone in trouble.

Tim / GM:

This will take some getting used to, but there are certain ways that people talk, some ways that their body betrays them and changes the little thing of their voice and you will notice this. Okay. You might. Doran, when you make an insight check, you can instead take a perception check with advantage to tell whether someone's being deceptive. Nice.

Tim / GM:

Okay. Is that even better for you? Yeah. It's like as a, fringe benefit to this, you can also hear creatures approaching within a 100 feet and know their number.

John / Doran:

Okay.

Thomas / Guy:

Leg loss powers.

Hannah / Eryn:

Everyone's been white lying to you this whole time. Oh

Tim / GM:

my gosh.

Tara / Journey:

Yeah. We all think you're really cool, Doreen.

Maggie / Poppy:

Yeah. Yeah. That Gambitstan is

John / Doran:

I haven't talked about the gambeson.

Hannah / Eryn:

You're incredibly fashionable.

Maggie / Poppy:

Such a good choice.

Thomas / Guy:

We all love the gambeson.

Hannah / Eryn:

Your gambeson.

Tara / Journey:

Shambison.

Hannah / Eryn:

It's made of Danone.

John / Doran:

It's my god damison.

Tim / GM:

I like that.

John / Doran:

It's my god damison.

Hannah / Eryn:

Erin. Me.

Tim / GM:

I know you've already seen some shit. Yeah. I'm going to show you some shit you've never seen. Shit that nobody's ever seen. Because it hasn't happened yet.

Tim / GM:

When people are about to jump, they lean first, ever so slightly. You will notice this. Just by glancing at someone in their physique, you can see where they're moving, what they're going to do next. In combat, Erin, you can make a perception check with advantage. On a 15 or higher, I will tell you what their plan of attack is for the next move.

Tim / GM:

Oh.

Hannah / Eryn:

I can see the future. Do these have a limit? You said perception check?

Tim / GM:

Perception check 15 or higher. Yep.

Hannah / Eryn:

Is that an action?

Tim / GM:

Bonus action. Okay.

Hannah / Eryn:

15 or higher.

Hannah / Eryn:

Thank you. That's sick.

Hannah / Eryn:

Cool.

Tim / GM:

Journey, I have decided that it's not enough for you to feel.

Tara / Journey:

Not enough.

Tim / GM:

Other people need to get on your level. They need to be able to feel what you're feeling. Sometimes emotion reasons faster than reasoning. When you touch another, they will feel what you're feeling. Oh, wow.

Tim / GM:

If that is compassion or love, or perhaps you were recently stabbed, they will feel that too.

Hannah / Eryn:

Oh my god.

Tim / GM:

Journey, when you touch someone and choose to do so, you will impart them with your emotional state. You do not get to choose what you impart to them, it just is what you're feeling. You can't betray that. You can't lie about that. Right.

Tim / GM:

They also gain any magical effects that you currently have for as long as it remains on you up to 1 minute, whichever comes first. Cool. So you can share mage armor per se.

Tara / Journey:

Okay.

Thomas / Guy:

Or with the 1 party member who doesn't have invisibility.

Tim / GM:

Yeah. No kidding. Also, if you choose to do so, they will take psychic damage equal to half the damage that you've taken since your last turn. Essentially, you can impart pain upon them that you felt. Poppy.

Hannah / Eryn:

Yes.

Tim / GM:

Poppy, only you have a palate so refined as to taste the flavors of the of the moment.

Maggie / Poppy:

You're right. I do.

Thomas / Guy:

I'm always saying this.

Tim / GM:

Your sense your, sense of taste goes beyond, oh, it goes beyond the culinary experience. You now have the ability to taste any given moment just by sipping the air. And you will either taste victory or taste defeat based on what lies around the corner.

Thomas / Guy:

It's like an augury thing.

Tim / GM:

Yeah. It is. So if you taste victory, it means that there is no impending danger. If you taste defeat, there is impending danger nearby. I will add on to these little flavor additions, that they will be interpretive.

Tim / GM:

Okay. They'll give you some clue as to what might be happening. So Okay. If you're wondering if the room on the other side of the door is on fire, I might say that you taste defeat and it's spicy. Okay.

Tim / GM:

For instance.

Maggie / Poppy:

Are you saying I can, like, taste the air then?

Tim / GM:

Yes. You will be able to. Almost like, seeing, the stink lines coming off of a pie.

Maggie / Poppy:

Stink lines.

Tim / GM:

You'll be able to taste it.

Maggie / Poppy:

My pies don't stink. Well Thank you.

Tara / Journey:

It's a good stink.

Tim / GM:

Stinks can be good.

Maggie / Poppy:

Stink just kind of implies bad smells. Right?

Thomas / Guy:

That stinky thinking puppy.

Tim / GM:

I guess he would be the judge, aren't

Thomas / Guy:

I do yes.

Tim / GM:

Perhaps my greatest work so far, imbuing you with a sense of smell to begin with, I am on the fence about the decision I've made with this, but it could be used for good, Guy, I'm going to make one scent very particular for you, and very powerful. Guy, when you smell fear, you will become empowered. I have noticed you have the ability to instill fear in people. It would be good for you to know when it works. Guy, you can make a perception check with advantage at any point to know if someone is afraid.

Tim / GM:

If you smell fear, you may levitate in swift leaps a distance equal to your walking speed. You may also levitate your head freely from your body.

Thomas / Guy:

This sounds very useful.

Tara / Journey:

Okay.

Hannah / Eryn:

This sounds like a feedback loop.

Tim / GM:

Guy, you get a little voice in your head, that is private to you whether or not you realize it in the moment. He says, when you live without fear, you can wield it mercilessly against others Or you can stand in the way of it and protect those who are afraid.

Thomas / Guy:

I'm not sure I understand, Guy thinks to himself.

Tim / GM:

Gus is slowly walking over towards you. He places all the items back on the table and he looks like he's going to shake your hand, Gus is, with his gauntlet, and as soon as you touch him, he just latches back onto you.

Tara / Journey:

Ironman armor.

Maggie / Poppy:

I was just thinking.

Tim / GM:

Good to

Thomas / Guy:

have you back, Gus.

Tim / GM:

Keep on parvying.

Maggie / Poppy:

Yes, sir.

John / Doran:

Guy, you you can wear things under your armor just in situations like this.

Hannah / Eryn:

I think

Maggie / Poppy:

we should wash it.

Tim / GM:

I've never really seen the point, but,

John / Doran:

well, today is a point. It's so it's okay.

Thomas / Guy:

It's noted. Party on, Ganymede.

Tim / GM:

I would imagine the rest of that day is a balance of testing your new abilities and sensory overload as you kind of get used to the new edges on those. Towards that evening, however, Kesher calls a brief meeting with Poppy and Doran. She explains a bit of an oversight, and we're back to where we were at the start of last episode. Kesha explains that the bismite has been draining faster than it ought to have, and she doesn't know why. It's as if there's another engine running somewhere that's draining off of it or something.

Tim / GM:

She can't figure it out, but she doesn't think you have enough fuel to make it to Small Castle, and she doesn't know of a closer place to go. The co captains, Doran and Poppy, have been talking with Kesher and then talking privately about what to do the situation. Doran had doubts about whether even he's fit to be a captain. While Doran and Poppy were talking, something even more alarming happened. There was a cracking sound, a small, subtle crumble, and it takes you a while to find it.

Tim / GM:

You're in the navigation room looking over that giant compass, you know, that's pointing you to Small Castle, And when you find this, it's in those boxes of navigation stones that you have for all the different islands of the clouds. You see one of those stones has crumbled to pieces.

Maggie / Poppy:

Do we know which which stone it was?

Tim / GM:

The label on it says the rainy hills.

Maggie / Poppy:

Doran, I'm I'm worried this means that an island has fallen.

Tim / GM:

Yeah. Looking at the boxes, you also see an empty slot for where lore should be. You know that these stones are entwined with the islands that they came from. What this likely means is that those islands are no longer.

John / Doran:

We can't really change course now. We gotta go to small castle.

Maggie / Poppy:

But if we can't even make it there, what do we I think we need to emergency land somewhere.

Thomas / Guy:

Where?

Maggie / Poppy:

What whatever's next closest on the map. Right?

John / Doran:

What is closest on the map?

Tim / GM:

You ask Kesha's advice, and she kinda lays out her best charts. Small castle is one of the closest. You could take a gamble on a few others, but they might be equidistant, and it's not where you intend to go.

John / Doran:

You know, worst case scenario, we just sacrifice some magic, and we can rekindle the bismite. So we're we're we're not we're not gonna fall out of the sky no matter what. I might need to talk to our engineers or something. But, yeah, we we should certainly hear what Journey has to say as well.

Tara / Journey:

Journey was in the lounge area. She's got a bunch of the cushions from the couch underneath her on the floor, and she's practicing, hovering with her Fay buds. So they're they're floating her up into the air, and she's kind of, like, wheeling her arms and legs around and then falling onto the cushions and trying that over and over again when you guys find her.

Maggie / Poppy:

I'm sorry to interrupt. But oh, I'm so sorry. Hi. Hi. It's kind of an emergency.

Maggie / Poppy:

Could you come with us to the the bismite room?

Hannah / Eryn:

Yeah. Can I

Tara / Journey:

put the cushions back, or is it oh, no? I'm following you. Okay.

Maggie / Poppy:

Not important right now.

Tara / Journey:

What's what's going on?

Maggie / Poppy:

It's it's draining. It's draining faster than it should be. We might not make it.

Tara / Journey:

What?

John / Doran:

Well, we'll make it, but not without having to give the bismide a little help.

Tara / Journey:

Oh, the bismide is draining.

John / Doran:

Faster than we would have thought.

Tara / Journey:

Okay.

Maggie / Poppy:

I was wondering if you could help me if we could just, like, work together to try and figure out, like, maybe maybe a source, like, follow the follow the drain back to

Tara / Journey:

where it's coming from. Yeah. Let's let's try it. I mean, we've been practicing getting in touch with the bismat and the pin. Maybe maybe we can try it in on the ship.

Tara / Journey:

I don't know. Yeah. Let's let's try it.

Tim / GM:

Connecting to it like you have before, like Poppy has before, you can tell that it's weak and that it's going fast, but it's not it's not draining in the direction that you thought it would. It's it's not the engine that's pulling it, it's something else, something else on the ship.

Tara / Journey:

Do I get any sense of direction at all, or is it just not the engine?

Tim / GM:

Not the engine. It's actually pretty dark in this engine room. You can feel it being pulled in different directions. One feels sort of close, but a lot of it feels sort of spread out.

Tara / Journey:

Okay. Poppy, it feels like it's getting drawn out all over the place.

Maggie / Poppy:

I'm trying to connect to it.

Hannah / Eryn:

Okay. With my experience with connecting to the pin, using it to, like, put a glamour over things, can I tell if it's of a similar nature, like, arcana wise?

Tim / GM:

Interesting. Yeah. It's, it's not a magical effect that's being sustained. It doesn't feel like that. It feels like, you're getting the image of, like, a bat licking blood off of a cow.

Tim / GM:

Like, something is taking from

Hannah / Eryn:

it for itself. Can I try using my new Ganymede ability?

Tim / GM:

Okay.

Hannah / Eryn:

To, like

Tim / GM:

Mhmm. Yeah. Taste it.

Hannah / Eryn:

Taste the moment and, like

Tim / GM:

You taste dark chocolate defeat.

Maggie / Poppy:

Dark chocolate. It's really bitter and and dark, and it feels like something something is feeding off of it, like shadowy.

Tara / Journey:

Have we have we searched everywhere on this ship?

Maggie / Poppy:

I mean, I thought we had been, but they were very tricky people.

John / Doran:

I think we need to bring everyone else in on this.

Tara / Journey:

I wanna look on the outside of the ship. I just kinda wanna lean over the edge and see if there's, like I'll even use detect magic and see if there's anything, like, clinging to the ship. I don't know because I feel like we did a really good job searching the inside of the ship, but maybe we didn't search the outside because it was harder to get to because it was in floating in the air.

Tim / GM:

Give me an investigation check on the outside of the ship.

Tara / Journey:

That would be a 7 Can I because I'm terrible at investigation?

John / Doran:

I was just gonna say, can I help, Journey and participate in the search as well? Sure.

Maggie / Poppy:

15.

Tim / GM:

Here you go. Journey, you're right that you guys did a good job of looking through the ship at first when you left. You're looking through the ship now and, you know, you guys have gone down further into the clouds a little bit, so it's getting a little darker and a little gloomy on this ship, a little harder to see. When you look off the edge of the ship, you see bright bulbs, but they're not. It almost looks like a black balloon lost in the ocean or some kind of glossy, slimy jelly, but they've attached themselves by the dozens to the side of your ship.

Tim / GM:

It seems at some point you all went through a swarm of blight bulbs.

Maggie / Poppy:

Light bulbs. Motherfucker.

Tim / GM:

The implications of this are racing through your mind. Are these things natural? Where did they come from? Is someone making more of these things? Are they so populous now that they're taking over the clouds?

Tim / GM:

Are they going to drain the other islands? But at the same time, you've got an immediate problem to deal with.

John / Doran:

I mean, it could have been worse.

Tara / Journey:

Still pretty bad.

Maggie / Poppy:

What could be worse than that? We're up in the sky, and we might fall.

Hannah / Eryn:

What's wrong? Aaron walks up behind the 3 of you looking over the edge. We got

John / Doran:

the stowaways.

Tara / Journey:

Would we know what these are, that these are blight bulbs?

Tim / GM:

You guys have seen bright bulbs, like, tons of times, and you've seen several shadow transformations, and you know how that happens now.

Hannah / Eryn:

Okay. I was gonna ask if they looked like the inky.

Tim / GM:

Yep. They're like dripping shadows. Yeah.

Tara / Journey:

Okay. We got, an infestation that we gotta deal with. It's sucking up the bismot faster than we can take, really. They're all attached to the side of the ship if you look over the side. Be careful.

Tara / Journey:

Oh my god. That's disgusting.

Maggie / Poppy:

What, how do we

Tara / Journey:

Kasher, have you ever seen anything like this?

Tim / GM:

No. Not even a little bit. This is disgusting. And we're all out of loop. I would think we could just kinda, like, shlook them right off the side.

Tim / GM:

Right? Like, that would work.

Maggie / Poppy:

Is that what the loop was for?

Tim / GM:

Yeah. It was to keep the all the barnacles off. Really? No.

Hannah / Eryn:

Oh, okay.

Maggie / Poppy:

I was like, why did you

Hannah / Eryn:

tell us?

Tim / GM:

It's boat lube. No.

Hannah / Eryn:

Are we

Hannah / Eryn:

really out of lube?

Thomas / Guy:

Guy is going to levitate right behind the group. I'm sensing some fear or anxiety

Maggie / Poppy:

from that

Tim / GM:

shit there.

Thomas / Guy:

Is everything okay? What are you looking at?

Tara / Journey:

We got a problem. Barnacle blight bulb problem.

Maggie / Poppy:

What? Like, do you think we could find a way to scrape them off?

Tara / Journey:

I'm a

John / Doran:

big fan of stabbing things.

Hannah / Eryn:

Just generally.

Thomas / Guy:

We've already scraped a thing or 2 off this ship. I think Stede and I could take a stab at it.

Hannah / Eryn:

Maybe we should quick call everyone together and see if anyone knows how to handle these things. Maybe April?

John / Doran:

Yeah. Someone might.

Thomas / Guy:

April knew how to cook these things.

Tara / Journey:

Not these ones.

Hannah / Eryn:

A quick meeting and come up with a game plan.

Hannah / Eryn:

Yeah. Poppy gets on the giant horn.

Tim / GM:

The broken horn?

Hannah / Eryn:

Are those for

Tim / GM:

I guess. It's a PA system now.

Thomas / Guy:

The Gjallarhorn.

Tara / Journey:

We replaced the broken horn with a bigger echo bell.

Maggie / Poppy:

Attention crew members of the Shatterhorn. This is your captain speaking.

John / Doran:

Oh. Doren rolls his eyes.

Hannah / Eryn:

Like like like a pilot.

Maggie / Poppy:

We need everyone in the conversation pit stat. Chop chop.

Tim / GM:

Yeah. You call a quorum. Everybody shows up. Mikey's got dough on his hands.

John / Doran:

So, captain, please go on.

Hannah / Eryn:

Other other captain can speak to you?

John / Doran:

Oh, okay. Well, if you if you say so. If you deem it appropriate. Everyone, we are in dire we are in dire straits right now. Our ship is covered in, light bulbs.

John / Doran:

And, Poppy and I were wondering, and everyone else too, if anyone has any experience removing them or has any ideas. So far, we got, Guy and Steed going around and just cleaning ship, but we are in imminent danger. We may run out of bismide shortly. So, any thoughts or ideas would be super helpful.

Tim / GM:

Mikey's been holding his hand the entire time, and he goes, they're called bright bulbs.

John / Doran:

No. No. Mikey, look over the ship. These are a little different.

Tim / GM:

Oh. Yeah. They're all dark like blackberries.

John / Doran:

Right. Yeah.

Tim / GM:

Okay. So we gotta get rid of these.

John / Doran:

Yep.

Tim / GM:

Okay. Do we have any more lube?

John / Doran:

We already thought of that, unfortunately. Yeah. We're all out.

Tim / GM:

I'm out of ideas.

John / Doran:

Me too.

Maggie / Poppy:

Does anyone remember how we like, what was most effective against the other inky folk that we fought?

Thomas / Guy:

I found my blade to be quite effective.

Maggie / Poppy:

Was was fire effective in any way?

Tara / Journey:

Iron was.

John / Doran:

Is babka, with us as well?

Tim / GM:

Didn't show up to this meeting. No. Doreen up babka again.

Tara / Journey:

April, do you remember anything related to the brat blub bulb?

Hannah / Eryn:

Brat blobs.

Maggie / Poppy:

The brat blobs?

Tara / Journey:

The brat bulbs that might be helpful for these.

Tim / GM:

I'm not good with salt. That's about it.

Hannah / Eryn:

No. No. Poppy tries to sprinkle some salt over one of them.

Tim / GM:

They do seem to hate that, actually. Oh. Yeah. They kinda shrivel up. That helps.

Tara / Journey:

How big are these so that I can get a mental picture?

Tim / GM:

They're, like like, roughly double a basketball.

Tara / Journey:

Oh, okay. I was thinking they were the size of this room.

Tim / GM:

That's like a big beach ball. Yeah.

Tara / Journey:

Okay. Yep. I feel a lot better now. I was like

Tim / GM:

No.

John / Doran:

Yeah. Hey, sir Bo, how's your battery life right now? Doran.

Thomas / Guy:

That used the last of his power.

Maggie / Poppy:

Boy.

John / Doran:

He's doing a software update. There's a really bad timing.

Tim / GM:

I do not operate on battery power.

John / Doran:

Okay.

Tim / GM:

I am a fully sentient soul just like you.

John / Doran:

Oh, I didn't I mean, great.

Maggie / Poppy:

I feel bad. We've been calling him a a construct this whole time.

John / Doran:

Yeah. We will deal with that a little bit later when we're not in imminent danger. But, Serbo, can you fly?

Tim / GM:

Can I? That is a great question. My previous experiences with flying have been varied. K. My directional capabilities are not perfect.

Thomas / Guy:

He did break us out of prison by, crashing, I believe. It was

Maggie / Poppy:

okay. I was marginally able to steer him that one time.

Thomas / Guy:

That's right.

John / Doran:

Well, you're capable of carrying someone, so if you can just keep someone aloft and allow them to take some shots, we need to deal with this quickly.

Maggie / Poppy:

I can also cast fly.

John / Doran:

That's very cool and super handy.

Tara / Journey:

And we might not need to have everybody flying if someone or couple people get the bulbs on the bottom, then the rest of us can just drop crap on the rest of them.

Tim / GM:

My method would result in a 73% chance of survival for the passenger. Okay.

John / Doran:

That's less than ideal. Never mind, sir Ball. Carry on with whatever it is you do on the ship. I'm

Tara / Journey:

fully sentient. So he got that.

Hannah / Eryn:

He

Tim / GM:

gets back to his Sudoku.

Hannah / Eryn:

I'm worried that all of my weapons are, you know, daggers or crossbow bolts. I don't think they'll be very effective against gelatinous things.

Tara / Journey:

Well, if they're made of metal, they might be.

Maggie / Poppy:

Maybe we gather all the iron we can find and and use it.

Hannah / Eryn:

They don't like iron.

Maggie / Poppy:

Are you Irish?

Tim / GM:

They don't like iron.

John / Doran:

My name is Irene.

Thomas / Guy:

Yeah. Why don't they like me?

Tara / Journey:

This this corner of the table is struggling.

Hannah / Eryn:

After GR had trouble, we, like, we made eye contact to her. And I was like,

Tara / Journey:

Sorry. Bright blobs.

Maggie / Poppy:

Iron. Oh, my god. Oh, my abs.

Tim / GM:

You're all just, like, losing your shit laughing on the deck of the ship, like, knowing that you've got just a few hours of flight left.

Hannah / Eryn:

Yeah. Don't judge her panic response.

John / Doran:

I'll deal with Babka. And, Guy, there's no reason for you to wait if you got a thing going. Erin, how about I try to get us some, iron bolts?

Maggie / Poppy:

Sure. Does anyone want to be able to fly hands free?

Tim / GM:

Just offering this in the background. Everybody's like, we gotta think of something crazy.

Hannah / Eryn:

I'm gonna cast fly on myself then.

Tara / Journey:

Let's see if I got I'll

Hannah / Eryn:

wait until we're ready

Tim / GM:

to go.

Hannah / Eryn:

What if we tried

Tara / Journey:

hand axes that I imagine are metal.

Maggie / Poppy:

Yep. Journey, would you like to fly?

Tara / Journey:

I can try and chop some of them off the side of the ship. I got my axes.

Maggie / Poppy:

Great. I have sea salt.

Tara / Journey:

Yeah. If you could sprinkle that over the top of them. I don't know. Maybe that'll help.

John / Doran:

I'm gonna run off to the babka's room. Yeah. I'm gonna knock on the door very impatiently. Okay.

Tim / GM:

Yeah. You, you don't get a response at all.

John / Doran:

I'm gonna try to open the door.

Tara / Journey:

Are they staying in a closet? There's a carpet in a closet? Yep. Is that what we decided? Okay.

Tim / GM:

I mean, yeah. You go in there and there's there's nobody in the room. It's just the carpet in there.

John / Doran:

Can I based on what I saw before, did I see a way to maybe use it? Or okay. Ah, babka. Okay. I'm gonna try to go through the carpet.

Tim / GM:

Okay. Yeah. You, pull back the flap, and when you reach through, gravity actually reorients, in a 90 degree sort of fashion. It's extremely disorienting. So when you're reaching through there, you're actually stepping out of a wall.

Tim / GM:

Oh, weird. Okay. And, yeah, your whole stomach just kind of lurches as you go in. And as you stand up, I need you to make a, wisdom saving throw. 11.

Tim / GM:

Okay. You are paralyzed as the effects of hold person. You hear a little bell go off, and you see, Benjamin Butterhug running down the hallway. And all of a sudden, he goes, oh, sorry. Sorry.

Tim / GM:

Sorry. Sorry. Hold on. He, reaches up and pulls a little switch on the wall. He says, security measures.

Tim / GM:

You understand? But how can I help you?

John / Doran:

Of course. Hey. We're in dire straits right now. You have a shop out here. Right?

Tim / GM:

We do.

John / Doran:

I kinda like the way you said that. It's I'm intrigued. But what what we really need is, some iron bolts, if you have any. Just even just the tips are iron.

Tim / GM:

Certainly. Great.

John / Doran:

Can I get a a bunch of them?

Tim / GM:

Absolutely. Of course. Yes. He runs away. You could hear him rummaging around.

Tim / GM:

He's talking with Babka briefly. Babka kinda pops out and just waves at you.

Hannah / Eryn:

Aaron runs down to the rug Mhmm. After Dorn

Tim / GM:

Mhmm.

Hannah / Eryn:

And yells through the rug hole Mhmm. And under it and says, darn, try to get an iron chain as long as you can get.

John / Doran:

Iron chain too, I guess.

Tim / GM:

Benjamin leans out again and just gives you a bright nod. Comes back with a whole bunch of shit. So he's got 10, iron crossbow bolts. They're actually masterworks, so they're plus 1 to attack and damage.

John / Doran:

Wow. Okay.

Tim / GM:

And then just a long iron chain as well. Not very heavy, but plenty strong.

John / Doran:

Great. Thank you. Yeah. If you don't hear from us again, it's because,

Tim / GM:

Bob is walking out with little glasses on his nose. He says, master work arrows, a chain roughly 30 feet in length. 75 gold pieces should cover it, Doran.

John / Doran:

Can I bobcat Oh? 75

Tim / GM:

My apologies. Does Jorny have the coffers at the moment?

John / Doran:

Probably. You know what? We'll just take the chain. I think we'll just see how that goes, I guess.

Tim / GM:

The chain, only 5 gold pieces.

John / Doran:

Five gold. Great. Thank you. And if you don't hear from me again, it's because, the ship fell out of the sky and we all died. But I understand you're probably pretty busy and that's why you didn't come to

Tim / GM:

our emergency meeting. Ashamed to lose such a valuable customer.

John / Doran:

I love you too, Babka. And then I try to jump through the carpet.

Tim / GM:

As you're leaving, he's like, you'll be fine.

John / Doran:

Alright. 5 gold falls onto the ground after me. Alright. What do we need this for?

Hannah / Eryn:

Okay. I have this idea. I just I hope you're down for this.

John / Doran:

Don't even explain it. I trust you.

Hannah / Eryn:

Okay. I need your help, though.

John / Doran:

Okay.

Tim / GM:

Alright. We're on the edge of the ship. Dorn and Arryn have the chain. 1st, to narrate all of this, I want a d twenty from all of you. Nobody gets any bonuses whatsoever.

Tim / GM:

This is how you perform.

Hannah / Eryn:

Oh, boy. Oh, boy. No. Shit. Doesn't count.

Hannah / Eryn:

That's a nat one for Poppy. No.

Tim / GM:

Oh, no. With the salt?

Hannah / Eryn:

Can I can I tell you how I think it happened? Sure. Hey.

Thomas / Guy:

19.

Tara / Journey:

19 crew.

Tim / GM:

Nice. Let's go in ascending order here.

John / Doran:

We got 17. Alright. So

Tim / GM:

I think Poppy with a natural one.

Hannah / Eryn:

Okay. So after casting fly on Journey Yep. Which lasts for 10 minutes Yep. Poppy goes over to the edge with her little barrel of salt Mhmm. And thinks she has it lined up really well.

Tara / Journey:

Mhmm.

Hannah / Eryn:

Dumps the whole thing. It catches the wind and flies away. You should

Thomas / Guy:

give him, like, gachi now.

Hannah / Eryn:

And that's all the salt we had on the ship. It was gone.

Hannah / Eryn:

Oh, no. How am

Maggie / Poppy:

I gonna make

Hannah / Eryn:

you take one end of the chain and I'll take the other, and we can try to, like, one of us glide it around the ship.

John / Doran:

Oh, and just do, like, a sweep.

Hannah / Eryn:

And then, like, pull it back along the ship and try to scrape off as many bright bulbs as we can. Okay.

John / Doran:

That's sounds terrifying. But I got a way to get us out if someone falls. But, yeah, let's let's do it.

Hannah / Eryn:

Okay. Since I'm the better glider, no offense.

John / Doran:

It's debatable. Just what I've seen so far.

Hannah / Eryn:

Do a race

Hannah / Eryn:

I mean or something. Okay. Later. But, yep. I'm gonna just jump off the side here, the chain.

Hannah / Eryn:

Wish me luck.

John / Doran:

Bye forever. Yeah.

Hannah / Eryn:

Alright. Bye.

Tara / Journey:

No. We know the roles. No.

Maggie / Poppy:

Aaron jumps off. No.

Tim / GM:

Aaron jumps off holding the chain in one hand and the glider in the other and should have been hanging on to the fighter with both.

Hannah / Eryn:

Iron chains are heavy.

Tim / GM:

Erin, you get near the end of your descent, and you see your glider rocket out ahead of you, and you just let go of it. No. The one that Doran had got for you especially in detail. No. You hit the bottom of the chain.

Tim / GM:

Doran, I need you to make a strength save. 15. Alright. You feel the chain tug hard. It slams you up against the balcony, and you crush your ribs.

Tim / GM:

And you, like, feel this chain slip through your fingers as it tears your skin, and you grab onto this thing and feel Aaron at the end of it. Aaron, you wrap your hand around it, and you just see the whole thing go taut and hit the side of the ship. To your benefit, you actually do scrape off a few of these barnacle shadow creatures off the

Tara / Journey:

side of the ship.

John / Doran:

Like in a swing.

Tim / GM:

Yeah. As you pendulum across.

Hannah / Eryn:

Yeah. You got a good grip up there?

John / Doran:

Yeah. Yeah. Nope. This is nothing.

Hannah / Eryn:

I lost the glider.

John / Doran:

I did notice that. That's well, it's not gone yet. I'm sorry.

Hannah / Eryn:

Okay. I'm gonna swing. I'm gonna I think we can get a few more. No. We can get a few more.

Hannah / Eryn:

Eren's gonna wrap it the chain around their

Tim / GM:

arm Yeah.

Hannah / Eryn:

And then try to start swinging their legs back and forth like a, trapeze artist.

Tim / GM:

Give me an acrobatics check.

Maggie / Poppy:

I'm very good at acrobatics.

Tim / GM:

And, Doran, at the same time, you hear something approaching quick behind you. What'd you get, Erin?

Hannah / Eryn:

Hold on. 24. Wow.

Tim / GM:

Alright. With a 24, Eren, you pendulum for a little bit going side to side. Once you get enough momentum behind you, you figure it out. You sprint along the side of the ship and you just you catch your foot on a windowsill and you're able to jump and then you catch your foot on the edge of a board on the trim of a window and then you're finally up back to the balcony. You had also cleared the side of the ship on your way up.

Maggie / Poppy:

Fuck yeah.

Tim / GM:

When you look back down, you see Kesher had jumped off the side of the ship with her glider. She sails straight down towards your glider, Erin, and she intercepts it. Nice. You see her spiral, go high above the ship, and loop de loop land just like she taught you.

Hannah / Eryn:

With my glider?

Tim / GM:

With your glider.

Tara / Journey:

Now you can't hate her.

Hannah / Eryn:

And I'm I got back up to the top of the ship deck.

Tim / GM:

Almost. You got up to the balcony, and then you slipped a little bit because you had put so much energy and momentum, and that last little bit was just too hard.

Hannah / Eryn:

I tried to grab the edge of the ship.

Tim / GM:

Yeah. You see Erin kind of come up towards the balcony and sort of slip as she's grabbing for the edge.

John / Doran:

Okay. I lurch down and, like, grab her, on the arm. Gotcha. Yeah.

Hannah / Eryn:

I hoist me up and I land on them now. I think we got him.

John / Doran:

That worked out perfectly.

Hannah / Eryn:

Great job. Sorry about the landing. And Aaron pushes himself off.

Tim / GM:

Aaron, you see out of the corner of your eye, Kesher is just quietly propping up your glider against the wall and just kinda walking away from the 2 of you.

Hannah / Eryn:

Hey, Kasher.

Tim / GM:

Yeah. Hey. That was pretty cool.

Hannah / Eryn:

Thanks thanks for saving my glider. It means a lot to me.

Tim / GM:

Oh, yeah. I'm like a dog. You know, I just gotta fetch. So, good luck out there.

Hannah / Eryn:

Aaron just nods, but with a smile. Okay. A rare smile to catch her.

Tim / GM:

An Aaron smile.

Maggie / Poppy:

Mhmm.

Tim / GM:

Yeah. She smiles back. Cool. Guy and Journey. Let's do Guy first.

Thomas / Guy:

Guy takes the steed and starts circling his ship looking for another concentration of blight bulbs.

Tim / GM:

Yeah. You come down the side that Aaron's on. You see that whole dramatic thing and you're flying out on steed and you're like, oh, whoop. And it's like over by the time you get there. You're like, okay.

Tim / GM:

Mhmm. Wow. You, you even go for the, the glider a little bit and you see cashier just swoop down and grab it. You're like, well, fuck me, I guess. And then when you round the other side, you see this, like, cancerous cluster hanging off the side of the ship.

Tim / GM:

Probably the the biggest concentration of these things. Something to really sink your teeth into, guy.

Hannah / Eryn:

Is a group of light bulbs a tumor? Ew.

John / Doran:

I like that.

Hannah / Eryn:

You're welcome.

Tara / Journey:

I hate it. Thank you.

Thomas / Guy:

Alright. Get us close, Stede. I wanna take a closer look.

Tim / GM:

Alright. I wouldn't get too close to these things. They look nasty. He does fly you in closer, almost in striking distance, and does a couple passes.

Thomas / Guy:

Yeah. I'm gonna do a few just jabs at him.

Tim / GM:

Yeah. Not only do you, like, split them open like you'd expect, but it leaves this, like, frothing, momentarily, like, gleaming cut when you do. Oh. It reacts like acid almost.

John / Doran:

Yucky. This will be fun.

Thomas / Guy:

Alright, Stede, why don't we get above the ship here?

Tim / GM:

He flies you straight up. You can see the ship is a bit of a dot. He might have overdone it, but why not be dramatic?

Thomas / Guy:

Alright. Gonna go as fast as we can and get as close to that ship as you feel comfortable.

Tim / GM:

Oh, I'm pretty comfortable up here. You all hear that familiar As he's up high, he's never done this straight down before, but he uses his speed burst and starts rocketing towards the ship. Guy, the ship becomes real big, real fast as you rocket towards these

Thomas / Guy:

light bulbs. I'm going for a overhead slice

Tim / GM:

Okay.

Thomas / Guy:

Of the big group.

Tim / GM:

Yeah. Give me, give me a melee attack.

Thomas / Guy:

18

Tim / GM:

to hit. Oh, yeah. Plenty to hit the side the broad side of a ship. Yeah. You bring this slicing down, and, Guy goes by in such a glimpse so quickly to the rest of you that it has that, anime effect where you see this bright line flash through them, and then all of a sudden this whole group just shears in half and explodes in jelly, and you see this cluster fall away and just drip into the open clouds.

Tim / GM:

Journey, you catch a glimpse of this as it comes to you with your hatchets.

Tara / Journey:

Journey, despite the flying, does in fact take a rope and then rappel off of the side of the ship and down, and then just uses the flight to kind of float between little clusters, little tumors, and, just patient as can be, just starts chopping them away with the hand with the hand axes.

Tim / GM:

You kinda did the same thing as Guy where you saw Eren go off the side of the ship, tried to chase them, saw the glider go out, tried to chase that, look to where Guy is going, looking for the cluster that he was going after, he took that. You notice there's almost none left for you. I'm okay with that. But there are light bulbs scattered about the ship in less concentrated areas. You're able to sort of moonwalk with a tether as you bounce around the ship and pick these things off 1 by 1.

Tim / GM:

It's actually sort of viscerally satisfying to pop these things 1 by 1. Mhmm.

Thomas / Guy:

As Journey gets to, like, the last one, Guy's gonna fly up right by her. Okay. Journey. Good work on these.

Tara / Journey:

Yeah. Gosh. I saw your big show earlier. That was pretty cool.

Thomas / Guy:

Thank you. Thank you. Do you think there's any tactical advantage to keeping one of these on the ship? Not on the ship, but perhaps extracting it and studying it.

Tara / Journey:

I mean, we know we know what they are, and we know how they happen. Is there anything in particular you're trying to figure out?

Thomas / Guy:

No. I just would like to know more about these and how our enemies have been using them against us, but I must admit I wouldn't know where to start.

Tim / GM:

You see the light bulb begin to wiggle, and it dives for Journey. Oh. Woah. Journey, when it hits you, it actually puts its, like, bell over your head, and it's just, like, almost suffocating you as it's just, like, jellied over you.

Thomas / Guy:

Guy's gonna grab it with 2 hands and try to lift it up?

Tim / GM:

Yeah. Yeah. I I think that's the better path than the sword,

Hannah / Eryn:

And Journey becomes a dull

Tara / Journey:

Turn a hand.

John / Doran:

I got it.

Tim / GM:

Oh, it's nothing. You'll get used to it. It's effective. These things are not, like, formidable creatures in the first place, so peeling it off of Journey is enough force to kill this thing kind of as you tear it off. But Journey, you you lose a level 1 spell slot out of that it was trying to take from you.

Tara / Journey:

Oh. Oh, thanks, god. Oh, that's so nasty.

Thomas / Guy:

Okay. I'm gonna do one thing before I throw it into the clouds. K. Gonna smell

Hannah / Eryn:

it. Okay.

Thomas / Guy:

What's that? Perception? Yep. No. It's not great.

Thomas / Guy:

It's a 10 or a 13.

Tim / GM:

Okay. Yeah. It's familiar. It's about as far as it gets.

Thomas / Guy:

Can I smell fear in it?

Tim / GM:

No. Okay. I don't think so. Yep. Okay.

Thomas / Guy:

I tossed it

Tim / GM:

over my shoulder. Yeah. Yep. Big blob to the wind. The rest of that day is a lot less hectic.

Tim / GM:

After that, Kesher is keeping a close eye on the drain rate of the bismite, and it's where it should be now.

Maggie / Poppy:

What do you think Do you think we'll get there? Because it's not actively draining as fast. Or

Tim / GM:

Cheshire takes a long, long pause. She shakes her head no.

John / Doran:

Okay. Well, let's trust in Ganymede a bit here. Poppy, can you

Hannah / Eryn:

I don't know. I don't know what that was.

John / Doran:

Can you use your ability again and get a sense of what the rest of the day tastes like?

Maggie / Poppy:

I lick the air. Sure.

Tim / GM:

You taste victory, meaning that there's no impending doom, impending danger. And I'll say you've got a it tastes like there's fixins, a side dish. There's something else to it.

John / Doran:

Do we got any ambushes coming?

Maggie / Poppy:

No. It tastes safe. Okay. But there's, like, something extra about it.

John / Doran:

Okay. Okay. Well, anyways, I I think, Poppy,

Tim / GM:

you get an aftershock that makes you shiver head to

Hannah / Eryn:

toe. What?

Tim / GM:

Your whole neck is buzzing with some sort of excitement that came a moment after that flavor.

Maggie / Poppy:

Like a good excitement?

John / Doran:

Maybe. You okay? You got the chills?

Maggie / Poppy:

I don't I don't know. I think something good might be happening.

John / Doran:

Okay. Yeah. We can work with that.

Hannah / Eryn:

Another idea. Do you have any bismide left on the rolling pin as backup reserve?

Maggie / Poppy:

Oh, Yeah. I think a little bit. I'd probably not near enough to power the ship, but

Thomas / Guy:

There was that chunk I procured on back seat as well. That could help a little bit.

Maggie / Poppy:

Yeah. Maybe we we bring it

Hannah / Eryn:

in just just in case.

Maggie / Poppy:

I'll can we leave, like, a small amount for the pin just in case we need it?

Hannah / Eryn:

I mean, that's that's up to you. I think falling to our death is maybe slightly more important to found. Right.

Maggie / Poppy:

Right. That's probably better. My priorities are a little twisted, I guess.

Thomas / Guy:

No. It's your whole life, you've said.

Maggie / Poppy:

I think I can confidently say at this point that you guys are part of my life now too. Oh. Anyway, let's go.

Tim / GM:

There's a bit of tension aboard the ship. Although the immediate problem has been solved, there's this background feeling of what if we don't make it and you're doing everything you can sourcing your bismite, but there's a snag. Not only do spark engines slowly drain the overall power of the crystal inside the engine, they also disintegrate the crystal around the edges, and what remains in your engine now is not enough. Even if you were to recharge this every day, it would be disintegrating at an efficiency. That means you might be doomed anyway.

Maggie / Poppy:

Maybe we can offload some weight or or, maybe Babka has access to Bismite Or

Tim / GM:

Do not worry. In the event that the ship goes down, we will survive. Even if I lose my blanket in the process, we'll survive. We will all go to the Plains of Lodom together.

Maggie / Poppy:

Then we lose the ship and and the rolling pin.

Tim / GM:

Indeed. But it's better than our lives, is it not?

Hannah / Eryn:

Erin's nodding like, yep.

Tim / GM:

Erin don't give a shit and a half about the pin.

Hannah / Eryn:

I like Bobca's idea. We can just leave.

Tim / GM:

Again, it should be a last resort. Yeah.

John / Doran:

Yeah. Nobody wants to go to Lotem. Nobody wants to

Tim / GM:

lose the blanket. Oh, yeah. That boy. Excuse me. Do any of you have a portal blanket?

Tim / GM:

Wait. Permanent portal?

Maggie / Poppy:

I have a question. Mhmm. Aaron. Mhmm. Could you go up to the crow's nest and and, like, scout ahead to see if there's any closer, uncharted skylands?

Maggie / Poppy:

Yeah.

Hannah / Eryn:

I mean, I can.

Maggie / Poppy:

Could you go up

Hannah / Eryn:

to the crow's nest and just, like, fuck off for us? Yeah.

Maggie / Poppy:

Erin, we need to get rid of any unnecessary

Hannah / Eryn:

fat ass off the shirt.

Hannah / Eryn:

I know what I'm not wanting. No. I'm just saying. Eren climbs Come

Thomas / Guy:

on, Doran.

Hannah / Eryn:

Yeah. Come on, Doran.

Hannah / Eryn:

And they glide off into the sunset.

Hannah / Eryn:

Aaron climbs on up to the crow's nest to take a look.

Thomas / Guy:

Right. The ice.

Hannah / Eryn:

Wow. What?

Tim / GM:

Is that a 1 and a 2?

Hannah / Eryn:

It's a 1 and a 7. Mhmm. But I rolled the big die, and it's a big natural one.

Tara / Journey:

Well 13.

Maggie / Poppy:

13.

Tim / GM:

Awesome. Okay. Yeah. 13 is plenty being that, you really didn't need supervision. Sorry.

Tim / GM:

You didn't really need supersight to,

Tara / Journey:

Doran. Aaron? Supervision.

Hannah / Eryn:

Darren, can

Tim / GM:

we have you supervised, please? Aaron, when you get to the crow's nest, it's windy. You've been down in the lounge talking to people for a while. You didn't realize how dark and fucking windy it got out here.

Hannah / Eryn:

Mhmm. When

Tim / GM:

you get to the top of the crow's nest, it's just whipping your hair side to side and you have to kind of tie it back or just get rid of it altogether because why not? It's just balls.

Hannah / Eryn:

I mean, you could just do that whenever you want. Right?

Tim / GM:

Momentarily. Yeah. Yeah. Looking out into the distance though, you're seeing thunderheads, like, all around you, and you can just see this light flashing deep within them. You guys have sunk down a layer of clouds now here in that lower cumula area.

Tim / GM:

Typically darker, often safer in terms of being concealed and away from other things. And, Aaron, you see a storm cloud ahead that while all of these others are flashing, this one is just bright. And as you gaze upon this massive thunderhead, so bright and silvery as if glowing from inside, you see a dark shadow, massive, moving towards you out of the storm cloud and you see the mist break around it as it bursts into view. A giant sailing vessel with loose, tattered sails flailing in the wind uselessly and a brilliant light at the bow that seems to guide the ship along. That angles towards the shatterhorn.

Tim / GM:

What do you do?

Hannah / Eryn:

Eren, tries to call down to everybody and says, hey, oh, ship ahead.

Maggie / Poppy:

Hey, oh.

Hannah / Eryn:

Hey, oh.

Maggie / Poppy:

Oh god. It's the flying

John / Doran:

Dutch oven. Poppy, one captain should stay on the ship. Guy, do you want to come with me and we can see who this is?

Thomas / Guy:

Want to scout ahead? Yeah. With you on a glider?

John / Doran:

Greet them.

Thomas / Guy:

Very well.

Maggie / Poppy:

So I'm I'm sorry. You're giving me the captain goes down with the ship role Right. While you escape? Okay. K.

John / Doran:

I'm, like, kinda doing no. I'm kinda doing the already sinking thing.

Tim / GM:

Oh, okay. Erin, you see that ship is closing in, and as that ship nears, you see that light become more defined, and you realize the light at the front, it's not actually attached to the ship, it's floating out in front of it And that light is a person. It's clear they intend to board as they move with precision towards your vessel. And when that glowing person gets close, you see a half orc covered with a dense constellation of tattoos, a bare torso and a chest tightly bound in linen. However, her expression is inscrutable.

Tim / GM:

Were you expected to see the sage confidence of a deity? You see blank curiosity. She looks up at you, briefly raises her chin and says, 'Sup?

Hannah / Eryn:

I'm so excited.

Tim / GM:

Doran, you see this person with your glider. Are you flying over onto their ship?

John / Doran:

Yeah. I was picturing Guy and I kind of going over to meet them.

Tim / GM:

This scene is gloomy, the skies are green and sickly, and the wind is whipping, and it's dark and stormy. And you see standing on the deck of this ship is a Minotaur with 1 broken horn wearing this bandanna tied around their head. He kind of looks down at you with this giant cleaver in his hand and he says, good evening.

John / Doran:

It's very serendipitous. You're beholding the shatter horn.

Tim / GM:

He looks off the side, holds his horn. Well, look at that.

Thomas / Guy:

It was our idea first.

Tim / GM:

Oh, sure. I like you guys already.

Hannah / Eryn:

Is Stede in the picture currently?

Thomas / Guy:

Stede is probably, like, on the edge of the ship, and it's a little cloudy. Yeah. As as Dora and I approach, but but Stede's there.

Tim / GM:

This Minotaur looks down and sees a guy riding Steed, and his eyes just go wide, and he gets this big, like, smirk on his face, and he goes, what are your names? I'm I'm Dave. How do you know how do you know bidet?

Thomas / Guy:

I do not think I have met this bidet.

Tim / GM:

Oh, he gestures down to the, donkey that you're riding with dragon wings. Sorry. Did he introduce himself differently?

Thomas / Guy:

Oh, no. My friend here is known as Steed.

Tim / GM:

Steed. I

Thomas / Guy:

believe you are mistaken unless the 2 of you are acquainted?

Tim / GM:

He looks at Steed for good bounces. No. No. No. You're right.

Tim / GM:

I had it wrong. It's Stede. Certainly. Please, your names were? He's gesturing to the half orc at the front of the ship.

Thomas / Guy:

I am known as Guy.

John / Doran:

I'm Doran.

Tim / GM:

Uli. This is Guy and Doran. They're from, they're from that ship.

John / Doran:

We're from the mainland deck, you know, primarily

Tim / GM:

Oh, no shit. Us too. Oh, yeah. Great.

John / Doran:

Don't see many. We just lots of cats.

Tim / GM:

This glowing glowing half orc is flying towards you and settles down and goes, Oh. Yeah, like back sea? Like the cats on back sea?

John / Doran:

Yeah, that's where we came from. Dude, they're obnoxious.

Thomas / Guy:

Yes. And they smelled quite bad.

Tim / GM:

Oh, don't say that though. Wow. They get fucking weirded

Hannah / Eryn:

out. Yeah.

John / Doran:

Well, good to meet you. We are in a bit of a crisis situation.

Tim / GM:

Yeah. Us too. Oh, okay. What's wrong? We really need some help.

John / Doran:

I really hope you have too much bismite because that would really work out well for us.

Tim / GM:

Willy looks at Dave, and Dave looks at Willy and says, yeah. We've got bismite. That's never been a problem for me. My family actually owns a bismite mine. Oh.

Tim / GM:

So, yeah, we've got a lot and we don't use any of it. We don't need it whatsoever.

John / Doran:

How how is this what's that now? Never mind. What's your issue? It sounds like you can help us. You hear this?

Maggie / Poppy:

Oh, Uli's hungry. Got it. Oh. We,

Tim / GM:

haven't eaten in a while.

Maggie / Poppy:

Oh, I was joking.

Tim / GM:

So, you know, if, if you have food, we have bismite.

Thomas / Guy:

It just so happens we have the Besterbaker and Baxi onboard our ship.

Tim / GM:

Oh, he goes, oh, dude. Fuck yeah.

John / Doran:

No joke. Yeah. I mean, our ship will fall out of the sky in a matter of hours, without more bismide. So, but if you're coming for food, as long as you don't want something salty, because we accidentally threw all our salt off, you're in good hands.

Tim / GM:

No. Yeah. It's good. I'm on, like, a low sodium thing. Yeah.

Tim / GM:

Smart. Smart. Yeah. He's once again kind of running his hand over his horn as he walks onto your ship, kind of, invited for dinner, more or less.

John / Doran:

Dorn's gonna scout out just real quick, look for, who else is on their ship. They seem pretty legit. But Yeah. Can I actually just listen instead?

Tim / GM:

Oh, fine.

Hannah / Eryn:

Natural 20. Oh my god. Oh my god.

Tim / GM:

You should've said no.

John / Doran:

That's so funny.

Tim / GM:

Alright. Okay. Well, you know their number. Right?

John / Doran:

Yeah. Sure.

Tim / GM:

Yeah. I mean, you perceived. So, there are, we'll say, 5 younger, slighter creatures. You notice at other times, there's a a motley crew of adolescent young adults. Okay.

Tim / GM:

Of all different races. All different types.

Tara / Journey:

All of them.

Tim / GM:

Yeah. Yeah.

Tara / Journey:

One of

Tim / GM:

these. Yeah. Yeah. You can tell they've got an assortment of, younger people, what might be adopted. Oh, okay.

Tim / GM:

Crewmates. Yeah.

John / Doran:

Good. Okay. Well, I Doran's at ease a bit, and, yeah, we'll, guide them onto the shatter horn.

Tim / GM:

Yeah. When Uli comes over, she's carrying 2 metal buckets full of piz Is this gonna be enough, you think? Or like Wow. That's excellent. Bismuth could be fine.

John / Doran:

How many cookies do you think this is worth?

Hannah / Eryn:

What? Oh,

Tim / GM:

that's 1, 2, 3. Like, 10 20 cookies? Yeah. Easy. Yeah.

Tim / GM:

Oh, we got it.

Thomas / Guy:

We could fill those buckets with food, I think.

John / Doran:

Equivalent exchange. Yeah. That sounds good. If you're okay with that, Poppy.

Maggie / Poppy:

Oh, hello, sir and ma'am. I am the co captain.

Tim / GM:

Hey. Uli reaches down to, like, shake your hand.

Hannah / Eryn:

Hi, giant Yeah. Woman.

Tim / GM:

Yeah. She shakes it enthusiastically, just like ripping your body up and down. And, and this this magic energy that's rolling off of Uli is it it's euphoric. Woah. The the capacity that you have for magic, it's it's it's similar to kind of what's pouring out of her, and it it it just makes you feel so excited.

Maggie / Poppy:

Well, it's it's great to meet you. Oh my gosh.

Tim / GM:

She kinda gets into it too and she's like, yeah. Wow. Holy cow. And she, like, hugs you in close.

Maggie / Poppy:

Okay. We're hugging now. Doran, said something about food?

Tim / GM:

Oh, yeah. I need dinner. I haven't had dinner in, like, 3 or 4 dinners.

Maggie / Poppy:

That's probably a fate worse than death, honestly.

Tim / GM:

No good. Yeah.

Maggie / Poppy:

I was just making dinner, so you guys are welcome to stick around.

Tim / GM:

That's perfect. Oh, here's a bunch of rocks for you guys. It's bismite.

Maggie / Poppy:

What happened, Taurus?

John / Doran:

So, yeah, it worked out great. We got some bismuth. We just need to feed them and their crew, and, I think it's a great time to give Mikey a shot at, sous chef again.

Maggie / Poppy:

Oh, sorry. Did you want to impress the guests or not?

John / Doran:

I think so, but yeah. Yeah.

Maggie / Poppy:

Okay. Keep Mike. You're far away from the kitchen.

John / Doran:

Can we still call him sous chef? I'll just have him do dishes.

Maggie / Poppy:

Sure. Well, he broke a couple plates last time.

John / Doran:

Okay. I just

Maggie / Poppy:

Maybe have him, like, pick up debris off of the the deck or something.

Tim / GM:

I don't know.

John / Doran:

Well, we'll keep them busy.

Thomas / Guy:

I can help out again, Poppy. Although, I am curious to know more about our guests from the mainland.

Maggie / Poppy:

Well, they can hang out in the kitchen with us if if well, anyway, I gotta get back. The soup is, boiling. So

Tim / GM:

Good. Hot soup. Yeah.

Hannah / Eryn:

Soup again? Yeah.

Maggie / Poppy:

I'm sorry. It's really easy.

Tara / Journey:

Well, and really, it's the bread that shines, so it's all worth it.

Maggie / Poppy:

You know, that's mostly pinch, literally. What?

Tim / GM:

You, you bring them down to the conversation pit to, await dinner, and, there's a bit of an awkward lull where he's just Dave is kinda just looking around the room and, like, makes eye contact with Uli just briefly in there. Just, like, it's a really nice ship you've got.

Tara / Journey:

We got it. We well, we took it. Well, we kind of won it. Well, it was supposed to belong to the Blat, and then we got rid of the Blat on Baxi.

Tim / GM:

Oh, so you're not with the Blat?

Tara / Journey:

No. No. We hate the blight. Well, they hate us.

Hannah / Eryn:

Aaron puts a hand on Journey's shoulder to calm Journey down and then says, who are you again? Why are you guys in the clouds?

Tim / GM:

Private business.

Tara / Journey:

Okay.

Hannah / Eryn:

InsightCheck?

Tim / GM:

Sure. We

Thomas / Guy:

really trust this Dave guy.

Hannah / Eryn:

You messed up my role.

Hannah / Eryn:

It was

Tara / Journey:

gonna be a one. I helped you. Alright.

Tim / GM:

Tag team Roland.

Hannah / Eryn:

10.

Tim / GM:

I mean, yeah. He's clearly hiding something. That's as far as it goes.

Hannah / Eryn:

Well, you're obviously hiding something.

Tim / GM:

Yeah.

Hannah / Eryn:

How How did you find

Tim / GM:

us? We really didn't. We're,

Hannah / Eryn:

You just happened upon a ship with 1 horn, and you have 1 horn?

Tim / GM:

Well, yeah. Yeah. That that was kinda weird, I guess. He's getting, like, really uncomfortable and just kinda losing himself. And Yeah.

Tim / GM:

He can see, like, you know, if cows could blush, he's really just kind of, like, getting too, like, uncomfortable with himself. Because, like, there's, like, 12 people in this room, like, staring at him waiting for an answer and Uli kind of saves the day and just says, we're looking for a friend of ours. He's a he's a long time friend of ours. His name is Tibio. We had all sorts of adventures together and apart, but but recently, there was a death that really upset him, and he kinda tore off on his own.

Tim / GM:

You can see there's some real pain involved with this, and she closes her eyes to recite the rest. She says, Our friend Emery died. Was killed, actually. And it's it's been complicated. Tibia feels responsible, I guess, in a lot of ways.

Tim / GM:

So he came out here to try to make it right, but he came out alone. A fucking idiot. And now we're out here looking for him. Everyone's out

John / Doran:

here looking for him. Everyone?

Tim / GM:

Yeah. We're all part of, like, this weird ass cult thing that we joined, like, 15 years ago. She, like, holds out her arm and just shows you this one tattoo that she's got. It's called curse breakers. It's like this, forget about it.

Tim / GM:

Anyway, we're just, we used to do stuff together, and we still do sometimes, but mostly we just hear from each other, and nobody's heard from Tibio ever since Emery.

John / Doran:

I can't say we've met Tibio.

Hannah / Eryn:

Yeah. I would remember that weird name.

Maggie / Poppy:

Alright. Is everyone ready for dinner? Oh. Did I interrupt something? I'm I'm sorry.

Tim / GM:

Billy just stands up and goes, soup.

Maggie / Poppy:

Yeah. Okay. This is, my special punch you in the face with vegetables soup.

Hannah / Eryn:

Oh. This is, like, every vegetable.

Maggie / Poppy:

But there's also meat in there too. And here's some sourdough bread, and well, I made a whole bunch of cookies too because I just got excited. So dig in.

Tim / GM:

You see Mikey busting through him and he goes, I got all the crubs off the main deck.

John / Doran:

Awesome. Mikey, that's so good. Can you put him back now? Yeah. Yeah.

John / Doran:

Sweet. Thank you.

Maggie / Poppy:

Hello, Mikey.

Thomas / Guy:

Was Dave a vegetarian or

John / Doran:

am I making that up?

Tim / GM:

I don't

John / Doran:

know. That sounds right.

Tim / GM:

I don't know.

John / Doran:

Yeah. Kinda.

Maggie / Poppy:

Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't ask if anyone had any, like, diet restrictions and, I can just No.

Tim / GM:

I can pick around it. It's fine.

Maggie / Poppy:

I used a vegetable base.

Tim / GM:

Oh, that helps. At least I'm not drinking meat.

Maggie / Poppy:

I'm sorry. Oh, and I used beef too. I was, oh, I'm so sorry.

Tim / GM:

He kinda gets cross and he's like he's like, what is it with humanoids always comparing people to animals?

Maggie / Poppy:

I'm so sorry.

Tim / GM:

I'm not a cow. I'm fine. I know you're not. You're I miniature. Beef before.

Maggie / Poppy:

Okay. I don't mean any offense.

John / Doran:

Anyway, Doran's glaring at Poppiger now. I don't know.

Maggie / Poppy:

I've never seen the world before, Doran.

Tim / GM:

Dave kind of wraps up the story for Uli. He says, anyway, he came out here alone. We've been looking for him. Can't reach him by any means. Messages, sendings, echo bells, whisper quills, seances.

Tim / GM:

We've tried everything. But we haven't given up, clearly. But it's likely he's not on this plane. But the clouds are a good place to start.

Thomas / Guy:

This is more of a boat than a plane.

Tara / Journey:

Get out. Get out.

Tim / GM:

You guys run into a small object in the sky that sounds like.

Maggie / Poppy:

Oh,

Tara / Journey:

well, I mean, we're kinda looking for someone too. Well, we know where to find them, and we don't know them, but we're looking for them.

John / Doran:

So this was for Stede. Right?

Thomas / Guy:

It's a friend of Stede's. Yes.

John / Doran:

Would Stede be willing to recant some of the details here

Thomas / Guy:

too? I'm sure he'd be more than willing to brave him out.

John / Doran:

Yes. Mhmm.

Thomas / Guy:

Oh, get to that part about the

John / Doran:

I love this part. See

Maggie / Poppy:

None of us can speak donkey.

Thomas / Guy:

Oh, yes. I have a telepathic link with Stede.

John / Doran:

Do you wanna just just for everyone else, can you

Thomas / Guy:

Oh, a paraphrase. I can't tell it as good as Stede, but, he has a friend named Maisie who is being held, on the island of Smallcastle, much like Mabel on the isle of Baxi. She is perhaps being forced to take from the island against her will.

Tim / GM:

You see, Dave and Uli are both, like, open mouthed with, like, spoonfuls of soup halfway to their faces. They put it back down. Dave goes, how is Maisie?

Thomas / Guy:

But captured as far

Tim / GM:

as I know. Yeah. I suppose. I suppose.

Thomas / Guy:

Do you know of this Maisie?

Tim / GM:

We do. Yeah. We know her.

Thomas / Guy:

From the mainland then?

Tim / GM:

Yes. She's actually a, a Tildree native if you've ever been out that way.

Maggie / Poppy:

Oh, I'm from Tildry.

Tim / GM:

Oh, no kidding.

Maggie / Poppy:

Yeah.

Tim / GM:

Uli's, well, she's not from Tildry. It's kind of a suburb well, it's actually, like, days away, but in that area.

Maggie / Poppy:

Okay. So you've been there? You've have you been to the School of Magic?

Tim / GM:

Yeah. I have. I kind of I kind of blew up the school of magic. Oh. Yeah.

Maggie / Poppy:

Oh, I I've heard about this.

Tim / GM:

It's

Maggie / Poppy:

kind of a legend.

Tim / GM:

Yeah. So I'm a little afraid to go back, but yeah.

Hannah / Eryn:

I understand.

Tim / GM:

Yeah. They don't like me so much there or in Lamplaid.

Maggie / Poppy:

I've never been there.

Tim / GM:

Oh, anyway.

Maggie / Poppy:

So you know Maisie from Tildry?

Tim / GM:

Yeah. But this is tough. See? Like, we came out here for Tibio, and we can't divert.

Hannah / Eryn:

We can't

Tim / GM:

change course.

John / Doran:

Don't worry about don't worry about Mayzie. We'll we've had a pretty good record so far. I can tell that you'll need to be on your way soon, for your search for Tibio. Yeah. We'll have Maisie under control, but we should be able to find a way to stay in contact.

John / Doran:

Why why is that funny?

Tim / GM:

Yeah. You'll have Maisie under control. Okay.

Maggie / Poppy:

Oh, should we be more worried about this than we currently are?

Tim / GM:

Not worried. No. Yeah. Mayzie's kinda eccentric is a great word for that.

John / Doran:

I know eccentric people. Yes. They're not

Tim / GM:

not not all the way crazy, but yeah.

Maggie / Poppy:

Just mildly crazy?

Tim / GM:

Yeah. A little bit.

Maggie / Poppy:

Not concerning.

Tim / GM:

She's great, though. You guys, it's just great.

John / Doran:

So from someone who blew up a school of magic, you're saying Maisie is crazy.

Tim / GM:

Scares me. Yeah. Okay. Well

Maggie / Poppy:

Now I'm worried. Question.

John / Doran:

What did you get us into?

Maggie / Poppy:

Does Tibio know Maisie?

Tim / GM:

Yeah. We all do.

Maggie / Poppy:

Is there a chance that might be linked?

Tim / GM:

I don't think so. I mean, yeah, we all know her, but we're not all that close. We see her every couple years maybe. But, no, Tibio's he's on something else, and it's give me a perception check, Erin. This would be with advantage.

Tim / GM:

It's for sight.

Maggie / Poppy:

That they realize.

Hannah / Eryn:

16.

Tim / GM:

Okay. You see Uli and Dave just lock eyes for just a quick second. Willie says, what Tibeo's doing is really big. Really big, and he's got to stay on that path. So I I appreciate you all taking care of Maisie.

Tim / GM:

And, Erin, you can tell that even with that, Uli is severely downplaying how important this is. Like

Hannah / Eryn:

The Tibio thing?

Maggie / Poppy:

Yes. Mhmm. Will

Hannah / Eryn:

she trust us when we get to Small Castle, you think? Or

Tim / GM:

No. Yeah. She'll trust you pretty much implicitly. She's good like that. She likes people, but Maisie trusting you doesn't mean that no harm will come to you around Maisie.

Maggie / Poppy:

-Good to know.

Tara / Journey:

Is she that dangerous?

Tim / GM:

-She does not think through every step of her plans. She gets very excited about the early parts. Okay.

Hannah / Eryn:

Well, maybe we can give you guys some food, and you can give us a little bit more bismite before we part ways.

Tim / GM:

I think that's a great arrangement. We'll, we'll bring over a few more buckets after this.

John / Doran:

I do want to, if you're willing to share, you know, we and we we can reciprocate that with our own information. There's a lot going on in the Skylands. There's a broader conflict that I think we've stumbled upon and gotten ourselves in the middle of. Can you tell us anything about what Tibia was trying to do?

Tim / GM:

Well, I think Uli understands it a little better than I do. It has to do with, like, the existence of life and death.

Thomas / Guy:

That sounds big.

Tim / GM:

Yeah. So, the thing that got Emory, it's been a thorn in our side for a long time. It's kind of the thorn in our side. We thought we had kind of done away with the hard part of our lives back in Vindorn a long time ago, but we didn't. There was something else going on at the same time that we ignored.

Tim / GM:

There's a thing out there, we don't have a great name for it, But, it's got a lot of eyeballs, and it turns into a lot of things, and it makes it almost impossible to track it down. The one tell it has is blue eyes. That's the one thing it can't change about itself.

Maggie / Poppy:

We we've seen that. We've encountered it a few times. Where?

Tim / GM:

How long ago?

Tara / Journey:

Out here in the clouds.

Maggie / Poppy:

I recall seeing him on lore. I don't know if

Hannah / Eryn:

we ever saw him on back

Tim / GM:

Where's lore? How far is that

Maggie / Poppy:

from here? Where's it gone? At the bottom of the clouds.

Hannah / Eryn:

Do you

John / Doran:

are you familiar with the the great beasts? Yeah. We don't know for sure, but based on what was seen, we'd suspect that whatever that thing was, Journeys saw it first.

Tara / Journey:

I saw it as an old man. It felt old and powerful and almost close to godhood, just so incredibly powerful and beyond the scope of my experience, and it was able to change shape at will, and it seemed almost disconnected from this plane.

Maggie / Poppy:

Aaron and I saw it, basically, drain all the bismite from lore just by breathing.

John / Doran:

We also suspect that it possessed or overtook Kree, the beast protecting lore.

Maggie / Poppy:

It might be working with the Blight.

Thomas / Guy:

More likely the Blight is doing its bidding.

Tim / GM:

You're correct on all accounts, and the fact that it got a great beast by now is real bad.

Maggie / Poppy:

God, what do you mean?

Tim / GM:

It it's a collector. It grows in power with everything it takes. Every person it's taken it can turn into, it knows everything that they know it can do, everything that they could do, and it just keeps going. We had a chance to deal with this 15 years ago, and we slept on it.

Tara / Journey:

Rude.

Maggie / Poppy:

Is it does it does it share any qualities with changelings? No offense, Erin. Sorry.

Tim / GM:

Changelings. Like like shapeshifters.

Hannah / Eryn:

Yeah.

Tim / GM:

I I mean, it changes shape, but I thought changelings could change like a whole bunch of stuff. Like like their whole appearance and everything, so I wouldn't think so. Also, changelings, aren't they kind of like like treasure chests and just like little monsters and stuff?

Maggie / Poppy:

I think that's a mimic.

Hannah / Eryn:

Oh,

Tim / GM:

yeah. Mimic. So what's a changeling? Like, a little, like like, fairy thing that turns into other stuff?

Hannah / Eryn:

Yes. Yep. Oh. Oh. Yeah.

Hannah / Eryn:

You that's right.

Tim / GM:

Yeah.

Maggie / Poppy:

So what is this thing?

Tim / GM:

We know it's not from this plane for certain. I don't know if it's fey or celestial or a demon.

Tara / Journey:

It felt it felt celestial and fiendish when I encountered it. I wouldn't put the limiters on it that way.

John / Doran:

It killed this Emery person that was also part of your crew?

Tim / GM:

He's the only one that took it seriously. He had beef with this guy forever. The whole impetus behind him even finding us was this thing. He fought it once, and it took an eye from him, and then it tortured his existence by looking like him, and it would destroy entire villages with his visage. He had a rough go for a long time and just decided enough was enough, and he came for it, and he did not win.

Maggie / Poppy:

It takes eyes?

Tim / GM:

Yeah. It takes your eyes, and then it can turn into you. Oh. And it fought like Emery, too. This Emery was a fearsome combatant?

Tim / GM:

He's fine.

Maggie / Poppy:

Yes.

Hannah / Eryn:

He's just always kind of around.

Hannah / Eryn:

You know?

Tim / GM:

We'll cherish his memory, certainly, but he didn't deserve this.

John / Doran:

I have a feeling that our paths may cross again. Whatever creature this is seems to be a major part of our struggle as well.

Tim / GM:

We'll have to keep in touch then, but we don't really know of any good way to keep in communication with other people. Do you?

Maggie / Poppy:

Oh, we have oh. Have a bunch of echo

Hannah / Eryn:

bells. Doors are sliding.

John / Doran:

Step on it

Tim / GM:

for you.

Hannah / Eryn:

I don't give a fuck.

Tim / GM:

Yeah. You give them an echo bell. They promise to attend to it at least once a week. Okay.

Tara / Journey:

They're putting it in a room by

Maggie / Poppy:

Why don't you need all this bismite?

Tim / GM:

Oh, yeah. Uli just flies the ship by herself.

Hannah / Eryn:

How? And can you teach me?

Tim / GM:

Willy looks down and kinda folds her arms over her chest and goes, sorry, kid. Can't teach you. Gotta be born with it.

Maggie / Poppy:

Oh, okay.

Tim / GM:

Actually, that's not true. I've learned about everything. Yeah. I could probably teach you, but I don't know if I have time.

Maggie / Poppy:

Okay. Well, maybe you can just drop me some hints over the echo bell sometime.

Tim / GM:

So step 1, absorb so much power that you explode and destroy an entire tower.

Hannah / Eryn:

I'm maybe I don't wanna Step 2

Tim / GM:

You should

Thomas / Guy:

be writing this down, Pablo.

Tim / GM:

Banish an otherworldly deity back to its plane. Step 3 Mhmm. Marry a hunk.

Maggie / Poppy:

Oh, I don't,

Hannah / Eryn:

I don't know about that, but

Tim / GM:

Dave just kinda looks at the ground and goes, oh, shucks.

Maggie / Poppy:

Basically, just be an entire badass. I got it. Yeah. That seems doable for me.

Tim / GM:

Just be a whole badass. And I think we'll end it right there.

Hannah / Eryn:

Just be

Maggie / Poppy:

a whole badass.

Tim / GM:

Thank you all so much for listening. I am Tim, your GM.

Hannah / Eryn:

I'm Erin. I'm I'm Hannah playing Erin.

Tim / GM:

Transformation is complete.

Tara / Journey:

I'm Tara, and I am Journey.

Thomas / Guy:

I'm Thomas, and I am Guy.

John / Doran:

I'm John, and I play Doran.

Maggie / Poppy:

I'm Maggie, and I play Poppy Kenmore.

Tim / GM:

Share the show with people you love. And we'll see you next time.