A Feast of Memories - Episode 26

After weeks of underground travel, the party has a bit of much needed downtime but they are forced to confront the realty of their situation: Indigo sheds, Lara emits darkness, and Sephel craves brain food. Will Stool survive this chaotic party?

Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition playthrough of Out of the Abyss adventure module, written by Wizards of the Coast.

Dungeon Master: William Johnston
All NPCs: William Johnston
Indigo Honeydew: Andrew Walker
Sephel Hesk: Brendan Proal
Lara Wippen: Sam Conklin

AUDIO:
Latin Electro #10 | Dmyra
Cosa Peluda | Dmyra
Night Sky | Jar of Flies

Dnd 5e, underdark, drow, wizard, cleric, warlock, Dungeons and Dragons, The Madness Table, D&D

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Transcript

0:02

[Music] so[Music] so last time you guys made it through this pretty rough fight you continued this pursuit both indigo and lara around and through the water of this aisle making it back to the house before she decided to show her again and she began lighting you up quite literally with um some lightning bolt spells uh and and taking you guys down pretty pretty quickly on your hp before disappearing again into the interior of the house in which safel lobota and stool were still kind of uh just getting over the the last of the battles with the basilisk and as you guys had made a commotion outside both stool and lobota kind of made it their way to the entrance and lara you had kind of created a hole for indigo to make their way into the house where safel found themselves face to face with the had ms maven delve and started getting very quickly destroyed by her claws and her magics as they tried to kind of fruitlessly tip over the the bubbling cauldron and it all eventually culminated in you all finally taking her down and as sefel laid upon the ground barely recovered with the help of a good berry from stool finds himself staring upon the hag's skull and dragging themselves over to it pulling back their tentacles biting in with their beak and then latching on and as they do sephel a a series of things start to appear in your mind you see uh images of these horrible twisted figures almost as shadows kind of in the background all of various sizes and shape one of them appears very tall with these long arms another is quite uh petite and hunchbacked with a long what looks like staff and another with these great big uh swirling horns coming off their head and another in a kind of odd-shaped gown you would presume and these shadowy figures stay within as you see these various images um of you see what looks like yourself looking down upon different creatures as they stand paralyzed before you and then you watch as what you feel like is your basilisk glare coming to your side and staring upon these paralyzed figures with your arm outstretched and they slowly begin to turn to stone and you feel yourself cackling and you you realize you're experiencing maven delves memories things that she has done and you're seeing glimpse after glimpse after glimpse after glimpse after glimpse one after the other of all these different scenes and they all match up to various statues that you have seen outside of her hovel uh and each time she welcomely warm or warmly welcomes these these these different figures some of which though uh immediately attack her even in her her guise as a maiden with this horrible tragedy tragedy that she's been afflicted with and her paralyzing them with a particular spell and you find yourself shifting into that information more what's this spell what's this thing that she she loved using so much and for indigo lara as you peek around the door stool in lobota who is truly disgusted at this site you see the back of sephel's cephalopod-like head start glowing and you see what looks like um and i i talked about this briefly with brendan before if you guys have seen indiana jones in the kingdom of the crystal skull when they're when he's staring into it you see all the lights and kind of look like synapses and stars kind of going off in the back of their head you're seeing a kind of similar vision beneath their kind of purplish gray skin and it's kind of just undulating and and moving along with their tentacles uh that still kind of cling to the head and safel you realize that this spell uh is hold person and that has now been officially entrenched within your mind you know it you have it you can call upon it um and lobota as we kind of step away from inside safel's head is actually kind of stepping away just this horrified look and encephal your eyes kind of open back up and come back into focus here and you see the others around you you still find yourself latched to this skull but what do you guys do what's happening do i have um so my eyes flicker back do i have control of this situation i know this was like a a lapse you had me do a save for this you do feel like your control this compulsion you had to consume her brain has now ceased okay um he kind of takes in what's happening and he after another moment unlatches himself hey paper paper and he like goes he's looking for his things like ins like he looks like he's gone from one to another insanity and he dives into his bag and he rips out his spell book and he's flipping through pages to to get to this this empty scrap it's not even like a full piece of paper it's just a shred and he whips out his quill and he uh and and his ink and he's like furiously and manically just writing these symbols down that like as they have appeared to him trying not to forget them um until there's just like this inky bloody just mess on one of the pages and as soon as he is done like as soon as it's down as soon as he has it he vomits all over the floor yeah yep lobota watching that and then kind of like you guys can see it too as you look back at the hag's body you can see their like the top of their skull has been clicked picked clean and it is fully hollow within and lobota herself just is like like and she quickly runs from the room and out of sight but you do hear wrenching from somewhere in the nearby uh lara is staring at the skull and when savelle gets up and starts scribbling on everything she's gonna look at indigo like what the [ __ ] wow that was really gross yes it was fell yes what a reaction it's like wiping this like gross mess of icker and probably a couple like small chunks from his beak like out of his tentacles covered in blood there yeah um i would like to summon my blade and point it at sephel yeah you do so um safel are you with us i am fine it was a temporary lapse i apologize he's like trying to he seems like he's holding back vomiting more like he he seems utterly disgusted you feel something small hit you in the side of the face and you like look down in your lap and you see that it's a berry and beside you stool is just like there with like a handful of them and it's just like don't do it again please and like as you go to say something he chucks another one don't that's fair that's fair well i guess now that is the first time i've ever seen seville eat anything so um maybe you should try to keep that down so it'll last i don't know for the next eternity or so[Laughter] yeah that'd be nice i i can't actually do what you did where like everything came up because i don't work that way but i wish i could i didn't know i could oh what does your god say about eating brains uh toro has a very strong anti-i don't know that wasn't like in the teachings that's not like a thing we cover in sunday school flash to like twirl up in the heavens or whatever and she's just like oh hell no no not not their brains no cephel is going to uh were are the berries that that um stool is throwing at me are they more good berries yes okay uh there's two more that sit in your lap so theoretically you can heal yourself two more ages yeah you should he's just gonna eat them devel i think that you should sit and then we need to talk and you're not going to move uh savelle is going to pick himself up off the floor but he is going to immediately sit on the side of the bed and he he's going to look um he's going to look at lara with like a mix of like there is there is genuine um shame and disgust with what he did but there's also a certain level of annoyance behind his face um and as he sits he's uh he's going to look at lara yes finally savelle did something that you can finally pin all of your presuppositions on let's not pretend any of us are innocent we're walking around with a narcotic mushroom you made a deal with the prince of hell and how is indigo still so happy through this none of us have a meat problem right now i apologize for my lapse in judgments but do not speak to me like the only monster here and he's going to settle and he's going to while he is slowly trying to recover um to try to ground himself he is going to pull out uh some of the magic things that he had gathered from dell's chest he's going to say um i am going to take some time and process and look into these because it is what i know if you would like to get some gold there are some in that chest i don't think we're interested in the gold but i am interested in hearing more about is this the first time that you've done this to my knowledge i wasn't aware of doing it this time you weren't aware and yet you stood up and started scribbling i i had i have um collections of[Music] images and information sometimes rarely but this i believe this is the second time[Music] since we've known each other it's happened the first was when i watched bupido kill sarth and you ate sarah sprayne no pay attention i'm saying it was the first time i had visions that led to knowledge that wasn't mine and that knowledge is magics i don't know i don't know what the visions are i don't even know if they're mine this this time it seemed like i was the hag i saw the i saw the basilisk and i saw and he like points out the window to uh like one of the statues and i saw that uh but alive and then not and i learned the magic that she used and it and it happened with bupido i i saw more visions but i don't know i don't understand it well you understand my concern here is that you don't seem to have control of yourself no i don't and i understand the concern i'm not a fan of it either i i can i can control it sometimes i had there's an urge before i black out i had it on the beach with the demogorgon with that[Music] grim grim grim was his name right yeah i had it when when i was near his body and i stopped it then i wasn't strong enough this time but i can i am capable of controlling it see laura one out of two that's that's only half the time i would can we remove your beak can we what do we do here this is like how is that your first reaction because he doesn't have full control if it's 50 50 then the next time it's going to be you what happens if i get knocked out mid-fight and he wants to eat my brain wow that sucks i don't know if i have a brain does someone want to check i don't want it eaten i can promise you if you were the last brain in favor i would not eat you okay mr 50 50. stool walks out this is she's going to say he got you pretty good can we it's not ideal i know but there has to be a way that we can help you in those moments perhaps through a muzzle can i just say i didn't picture like a muzzle you'd put on like a potential animal that's just like savage or whatever i just pictured like the muzzle of a barrel just like but like can we can we try putting a shotgun in your face will that stop you that's that's really dark where i went but that's just i'm just like just christ putting the barrel there like holy [ __ ] i unless you know the exact moment it's going to happen i don't know how preemptive you could help without hindering my existence in in general i need to be able to speak or or or i don't have my magics but in the moment if i appear as though i am not conscious or or cognizant you have permission to do whatever you wish at that point this is this at the end of the day what this comes down to and i'm gonna be completely open here it is the value of you being in this party versus the potential downside which is that you will kill us that's understood wait what that made sense to you guys that's that's no way to treat someone who's it's it is a matter of survival if your allies are more of a danger to you than what is around you you do not consider them allies if i am more an enemy than a benefit it is understood i don't like it i don't like not being in control but i am also not going i do not believe i am a monster there's something left over this this body that's not mine has impulses[Music] and i don't know where they come from or how to stop having them how frequent they'll be like i said this is the second time and it's been two incredibly stressful situations i don't know the catalyst the trigger the source i don't know and if i don't how how can you even begin to[Music] it seems like the trigger is that you are you're near something you find appetizing[Music] we have been around multiple dead bodies people ally and foe have died around us multiple times and this is only the second time this has happened um i i don't know the situation with grim but in this case i i gained knowledge of something that we did not we we didn't know the subtext behind this woman the past experiences i did not know her magics and now somehow i do maybe that accounts for something indigo what do you think i think if we're gonna keep surviving down here then we need to trust each other we've all seen some very interesting things since we got down there we're down here and he looks at sephel he looks at maven dell he looks at laura's like smoke grey sword that she conjured out of thin air there's a lot going on but i really think that the way for us to get through it is to get through it together you've brought up a good point uh she's gonna swing the sword to poited indigo sit indigo well that is very rude how about you explain what you turned into i'm sorry what happened to you yes while you were here snacking indigo was a five-second thing indigo transformed into a quadruped a large monstrosity yes[Music] and those size and genus that's interesting maven delve shoved him into a cauldron and when he came out he was gooey well all right that that is a very interesting choice of words but i'm sorry oh sorry you fell into one of her cauldrons and you came out a giant monstrosity look i i guess yes that that is happened um and i did not pass out in the bowl so felt like stands up and kicks the stand that the small cauldron was on and immediately just starts holding his foot and sits back down i'm i'm still trying to figure out exactly what i can do but remember my um remember my super cool mimic friend that you told me definitely not to take with me i do recall indigo turns into a mimic jar jesus i don't know who that is is it like a jar sitting on the bed yeah often like he's just like there's like a big like flash of like purple sinew and then there's a jar on the bed and it looks like a totally normal jar and then all of a sudden it grins and licks its lips and then also this normal jar again i'm sorry you pulled a sword on me immediately with the first weird thing i've done and you weren't even going to first address that apparently this happened well the difference cephal is that indigo was trying to save your life while you were eating someone i was trying to save us all the entire time i didn't turn into a beast intermittently i was here all right all right i think i think i know what is happening here it is clear that stool spores have invaded our minds and have killed him transforming us into different creatures we have no idea the effects of this mushroom it's time he dies indigo mimic licks lara's face it's disgusting he gives you a wet willy and it's got the sticky sap of a mimic too so it's just like it's real nasty oh god all right this this is overwhelming indigo can you stop this yes can we can we make it a pact that you never do that again and sephill never eats brains again uh indigo purple swirls his way back into indigo form i see your concern but the only reason i was able to get here in time to now he would point at the dead hag help out is because i was moving very very fast as a work if i had to be able to do that i'd just now be arriving i actually thought the work was quite helpful in a combat situation i meant the jar can you not turn into a jar ever again but laura think of all the mimic pranks i could pull just no just figures you think you're picking up your sword and then it's me yes i can see why that would be totally totally hysterical absolutely not sephill goes for his feather and then boom it's stuck to his hand oh i think we have a lot to worry about here i i don't know i haven't known you all for that long and it just seems like there's a lot here i mean yes there's a lot here i i think that's totally true lara but there's also so much we can do together just we just have to figure out how and also clean up the dead hack that's not my job sebel can clean it up wash your own dishes and i will clean but two indigo's point there has been usefulness from this i am not excusing the disgusting nature of what happened but this was a hideous evil creature she was for all intents and purposes already expired and while it may have been unsettling to observe um this is this is a terrible decision lara can you make a wisdom save what the [ __ ] oh no[Music] 15. okay 15 is my spell dc so for half so as he says that he reaches out to you like looking at he like flips to this new page reaches out his hand to you and for a split second your muscles convulse and pull taut and you feel like you were about to be on a entirely unable to move before it fades and and it does not take place um i would like to make a non-lethal attack against fell and attempt to knock him out granted i think it's like uh uh she feels that and then the instinct is oh hell no that's fair uh and that is a 21 to hit holy [ __ ] is that just is that with the [ __ ] sword i rolled a 16 plus six [ __ ] christ yeah okay 16 is not plus six but for 21. but you know what i meant no 16 plus 6 is 22. it's even higher yeah yeah that's that's definitely a hit on him yeah no and if your modifier is any more than three like two i'm unconscious okay he's unconscious cool yeah i get knocked out i don't know what he just did to me indigo oh okay um i'm gonna tuck sephill into the bed um as nicely as i can sure just going to roll him into the rescue position you know just in case he just attacked me indigo he tried to make me paralyzed oh i think he was like making a point he probably should have realized that was a bad idea but i why don't we all just take a little time to rest take some deep breaths and we can have another talk after we've had a little down time and sometime to clear our thoughts fine i'll keep watch you keep an eye on safel and i'm gonna i'll head out and leave the building and go um keep watch okay as as you leave laura like i'm gonna like lean down to sephill and give him like a um a quick cure wounds to take him back to the consciousness hey um go ahead and just stay in this room for a while laura's in a state right now so it'd be really best if you were just having some quiet time how many hit points do i go back up to uh let's see thank you i have to imagine with the amount of spell slots you have expended to fail and like the sheer amount of times that you've come in and out of consciousness that you have to be freaking exhausted oh no he's white no he's wiped and and part of his irritation is also that he like he is has been in a state of fatigue this entire time um but yeah as as he comes back to consciousness was a bad idea i acknowledge trying to prove the point these strange happenings have been beneficial i'm going to sleep i don't even do that but i'm going to sleep[Music] we have some things to figure out uh hey will yeah for you what's up when i reduced safel to zero hit points um what happened uh yeah was it visual that's what i want to know you're you're talking about your blessing yes was it visual did i feel it you felt it you felt like this odd thrill and like shiver go up your spine and you feel like uh man i'm not trying to like plagiarize here but it's it's it's such a good example not to use um you feel this like thrill and brandon sanderson does a really good job of like uh uh almost personifying this and some of his books and it's like this this overwhelming energy that overcomes you when you're in a fight and like how incredible is all these things that you're doing and it's almost like this this little smidgen of this feeling creeps through you of the satisfaction of like hell yeah i made my [ __ ] point you're down i'm still here i'm stronger and for that you feel stronger um it's like that exhaust it's almost like an adrenaline rush essentially of of this power that kind of comes through you yeah uh and i guess for everyone else mechanically i just got eight temporary hit points very nice um go ahead and sam just so i can keep track of everybody on the map wherever you decide to go outside uh just go ahead and move your token um indigo after you you very briefly have this kind of a side with stefael where do you head uh despite the uh cleaning plans that were just made um i'm gonna grab maven dell's body uh and just pull it outside um and maybe just like take it around the side of the house like[Music] over by some just conveniently dragon spine just find a place to tuck it away sure sure you take a little bit of time and you toss her amongst the odd grass that grows amongst the spines of this this uh dragon skeleton and uh her body is somewhat hidden between the shadows there that you can kind of make out through your dark vision and a little bit of candle light that seems to come through some of these windows and since you're over there i can actually reveal a little bit more of the map so you can kind of see the end of it there um okay do you go back inside after kind of tucking her her body away or uh i think i actually spent a little time out here um i'm gonna like tuck her in there i will say a brief prayer over here tutorial uh and then i'm gonna pull out my sketchbook um or so i guess my to my book uh and i'm gonna do a sketch of safel and um like when they were talking like kind of having him sitting on the bed stool in the background them like kind of both arguing but also coming to terms a little bit uh and i also want to do a sketch of maven dell both her in her like beautiful masked form and then her like nasty haggy form okay is this just like an in-depth kind of character question here because i'm sure some of our listeners are curious is this both a therapeutic tool for indigo as well as a like scholarly pursuit like what goes through indigo's minds and his reasons for continuing to sketch considering all the things that have happened here yeah absolutely it's it's not any like scholarly value to have these little scenes but he it's how he processes his academic work you know by drawing them out he can see better how the anatomy how the physiology functions and in the same way he's trying to like better understand what just happened by you know pulling these little pinpricks these little scenes of what transpired nice cool okay so i'm going to go spending some time doing that stool has kind of wandered over to the large fireplace and is kind of on their own you don't see any spores any of you that have left the house uh don't see any of his spores kind of spouting out and how he communicates to you all laura as you had exited the house you saw that lady lobota had gone down to the the kind of shores near your boat and was kind of just kneeling upon the ground seeming very pensive and worn out and as you've kind of made your way to the western part of the aisle you eventually after a minute or two hear the soft pads of footfalls as she approaches you and she stands about 15 feet away and she goes lara i very much appreciate your rescue of me and while i'm sure that there is um she keeps like looking down and back up while i'm sure there is very much good and great intentions in the three of you i see that there are many i don't want to say secrets but there's quite a bit of secrets all right secrets um and and depth to you all that have seemingly come forth in quite a fashion and i knowing my own past and what i might find myself delving towards think perhaps it's best for me my to go my own way um i have seen many horrors committed on the battlefield and soldiers and warriors and all sorts i think you know if this will do anything to survive i myself am no unmarked or saint of any kind but that was some true acts of barbarity and i have put such things behind myself or i strive to acting only out of true necessity and if this is the road that you all travel i very much feel it is for my own safety and journey that i go alone now you're referring of course to the final ending for mavendelph yes and the creature that your hobgoblin friend found themselves to be somehow i have never seen i've seen many walks before but not something of that kind i and she's she looks truly disturbed and um from what you've been able to glean of of lobota as well and from her scars and her visual appearance like this woman has clearly seen a lot but these are just have truly shaken her um she goes i i you you're a you're a warrior a warrior for good is what i used to i used to fight alongside those like you i think i think i can see in you a desire to to see what is right and true in this world and what you saw in there you don't believe aligns is that what i'm hearing yes yes yes it is precisely so um the the the path i find myself on now i try to ascribe to a path of good it was not always so and i refuse to fall back into what i once was i how long has it been for you on your path oh it has been 25 years since i last carried the mantle that was put upon me in open war and have tried to ascribe to peace it's part of why i find myself on this hunt now for for my former armor and weaponry i believe and those that have stolen it i in turn believe think that my previous warrior spirit still resides in it and whether it's true or not i think it's best to return with me or if it does hold that monster that i was i i would not see it used upon any other life is the armor here[Music] i thought it was and perhaps for a time a piece of it was i i shall do a quick search once again but i do not feel its presence as such i spent a good 23 years of my life in and out of it and i have felt a deep bond with it ever since are you from the surface yes are you returning once i have collected my armor i will find a way to the surface if i can or die trying to destroy it my armor that is um when you were on the surface did you know of the the winged the winged armies had you heard of them i feel somewhat familiar uh how long ago was this this would have been 30 years ago that i was a part of that air calvary of what lance was this a part of corin ah yes yes i that brings back many details no i'm very well aware of corin i did not face any of your your company or armies i come from a kingdom far to the south east and i had faced small roving companies from the fallen korean empire encrouching upon my lands i think i instilled enough fear after so many years that many did not come and now it is my children and grandchildren's fight to keep peace i believe it i saw you fighting in there it was impressive for a rusty mechanical arm and weary bones i suppose it was not bad it was the opposite of bad thank you it seems as though we have a common goal in that you'd were you don't know where your armor is but do you know your way around because it seems as though perhaps not that you couldn't handle yourself on your own but i think it's clear that you could use assistance if it was offered and if you trusted it i've only made my way about here in the underdog through the tugs i feel from its its pieces i have not found any for certain means of navigation but i did notice something that perhaps you did not when you first came here follow me and she kind of leads you back up to the north side of the isle to kind of like the rocky coast past the shack that you had freed her from and she points out into the darkness to what would be the north of our map into the darkness in the waters and she goes you may be able to see it and i have only slightly heard it missing and as you listen closely uh make a perception check for me[Music] uh 17. okay you hear this extremely faint but still unmistakable sound of what sounds like metal on metal in the water not in the water it sounds like it's far far away across the water and as you you start to pick up the sound and kind of pinpoint where it might be coming from you see ever so slightly in the gloom what looks like a faint glowing red and orange light um you know when like if you've ever been out on like a a camping trip or something like that and you're on a side and you look out and it's close to evening you can see the lights of a house like far across on another mountainside or something like that how small that looks it's essentially that you see a pinprick of light far in the distance across the water and you know that that's where these sounds are coming from it sounds like a hammer on metal and labor goes i'm not sure what that place is and i do not feel the draw of my armor there but no doubt it rings of civilization no that it does considering we have no other direction this might be our our next stop and i hope it is but i think my path and she kind of looks out to the the west she goes i feel something faint pulling me that way and i think i should best pursue it while the rest of you find your own way and[Music] sort through your secrets and perhaps if any gods find it fitting will find each other again i hope they do i wasn't going to say this but the path that you have found yourself on for these last 25 years is the path that i currently find myself[Music] so it would be good to have some companionship with similar experiences in the future[Music] she uh kind of steps up closer to you she's like facing you face to face and she um how tall is lara again like five foot something right uh or is she taller five nine five five nine so labor is looking down at you lara and she like raises one of her ceramic mechanical fingers and she kind of like points it towards your chest and she goes the hardest part is wrangling the beast the devil or the demon and like with that last word you really kind of feel this weight in your chest inside of you accepting it and knowing that it will probably always be within you i think it is something that all us warriors carry but knowing that it does not have to control you[Music] each path is our own though how we find ourselves to that same peaceful end and i hope you find it lara[Music] thank you i think you've helped more than you could ever know and i hope our paths cross again i'm glad to hear it now i will take a quick search about the house before taking my leave i believe i still have a small boat if i am lucky on the other side of the aisle and she kind of leaves you on the coast there before quickly going inside and safel you kind of hear footsteps and the creaking of chairs and different things like that before uh you hear these large footsteps exit and lobota makes their way indigo you probably see them start to cross across the island um do you say anything to lobota she doesn't seem to notice you where you currently are[Music] instead of interrupting her i feel like she's kind of like it it looks like that she's on a mission right like that she is going towards an end yeah yeah you see that she's walking with purpose uh then instead of stopping her i'll just take the opportunity to sketch her with that look of determination and of something we all kind of need of knowing where she wants to be and what to go um right you know just preserve that yeah okay cool uh so she kind of makes her way you see her disappear between some rocks and then eventually you hear what sounds like the splashing of oars and those sounds eventually disappear what are you guys doing now do you guys spend time laura you kind of keeping this look out and patrol and safel kind of sitting within the bed kind of perusing these magical items and the thing that happened what are you what's going through all of you guys now i do want to look at those magic items but a lot has been going through safel's head in the in the however long this has been and against indigo's judgment or against indigo's advice um safel would like to go find lara[Music] okay um and he he does that when he's like if i feel like after that conversation she'd sort of be doing some self-searching of her own or maybe her her mind is elsewhere so for sure when he gets close by uh he would say um i'm approaching[Music] i don't have anything i left my things inside she swings around and cuts off your head yeah well that that's exactly why i um i understand that we we all need to process a lot of things um and i have multiple things uh multiple failings of late that against my ego i owe apologies for and they will not be the last in our time down here if history is any indicator i will however say this one thing and then i will leave you to your peace and and me to mine i go back and forth with you i i don't remember a lot of people and that's something that i'll get into eventually but i the people that i do remember have types they're predictable they have mannerisms and reactions and they have patterns and yours has changed so frequently i find it hard to know how to interact with you and i understand my situation is off-putting more than others in that i sympathize i will never be your ally if you are waiting for me to be your enemy i cannot prove anything to you if you have made your decision for me i i don't like these developments any more than you do but if the aid that i have been is taken for granted and my many mistakes only serve to confirm your bias i cannot do anything about that and you will never trust me i think she's she's sitting on this like ledge like looking out into the water like where that pinprick of light was um and when safal comes up she's just kind of like she doesn't like summon her blade or anything but she keeps sitting there and um when you finish you know she's been quiet the whole time um i think she turns and she looks at you it's a foul um so you're asking me to trust you again to give that chance i'm asking you to trust me once because i do not believe you yet have i don't pretend to know your history it is dark as any of ours and obviously very different from my own[Music] but nothing down here has been normal or sane or safe and the only constant we've had are the people that have survived which so far has been us and i don't know what i i don't know [ __ ] about you or indigo who now turns into war beasts and mimics he's incredibly furry or stool who is a psychedelic liability i don't know anything about any of us but we have kept each other alive and i would like that to count for something well you're right i have not trusted and as a result there was no path for you to go up so uh she's gonna pat the ground next to her like gosh your blade's not out no no no it's not he he like flinches like you're gonna draw it and then he he like does that thing where he like wraps his robe to his legs and like crosses his legs on the ground as you sit down she summons it and slices through i'll bring my new character next week okay good she uh she looks at you and says um safal we're all wrangling the beast demon or devil inside of us[Music] you could not have thought of that yourself that's far too poetic for your disposition it's completely ridiculous all i'm saying is i will trust you[Music] and i won't lie and say that i'm not worried for myself and even for indigo but not stool i i would think less of you if you weren't well don't cast any more spells on me yeah that's that's fair that was done um i did learn one though is what i was was trying to demonstrate the um the hag had a pattern of uh immobilizing her prey before uh calling her pet to petrify them and it seems my unsightly interaction with her memories granted me the knowledge of that spell so you can get power in that way it does appear so you like it i like knowledge which is something incredibly lacking down here i have not been able to find many sources of arcana or it's sparse at best materials knowledge civilization i have knowledge for you uh she's got a point out across to that thin print prick of light and it takes you a moment to fell but you eventually managed to see it oh and this is i know this is the north on our map would we don't really have an idea of you don't know what the actual bearing is yeah okay so he wouldn't even be able to judge like what direction it could be right back to sloopadoo yeah yeah it's the eye of the demogorgon yeah well that is a direction away from this[Music] that it is what do you think about um indigo you're calling to him all the way across the island no no i'm asking cephel what do you think about indigo oh um sorry i just said it like i was yelling it he is about indigo in general or this this transformation i've yet to see the transformation and also the fact that each time he loses himself he becomes violent i mean i i will say i there is a similar bias in him that you have where it does seem i become the target of his aggressions fairly often um it hasn't gone unnoticed but he does attract a menagerie of strangeness yes he's useful and if he is if this account of the benefits of him turning into this beast are to be believed i can't i can't say it's any stranger or more dangerous than either of us have in our arsenals i just don't understand how he has remained so naive i think he's simple you didn't know anyone like that where you're from oh you call it simple oh that's nice[Laughter] no i there were there were similar adults who acted like children harmless often times incredibly intelligent but naive at times jose it has seemed to protect him in a frustratingly effective way he can keep light and oftentimes objective which is strange for someone with his disposition but an interesting strategy to contemplate for sure i don't know that i could ever pull it off i don't know what you're talking about you're a beacon of light and joy she like shoves him but it's a little too hard he like just falls over in the mud well perhaps we should see if he's willing to show you his warg form perhaps you can learn something from it that's an interesting thought have you contemplated that i might have to eat his brain to learn it i'm trying not to i think we all need time to process our beasts but i simply wherever we go from this island we cannot be divided we will not survive anything more than this it's honestly a surprise we've survived this long so i need to take time there are some items i need to look over maybe that will clear my head but yes and i need to take stock of the island and what we can get from here smart food resources as you say that's a fell food laura you actually feel this huge hunger pain just like come across you and it like hits you that you don't know how long it's been since you've eaten and like because of the adrenaline rush of everything that has happened here within the last hour that like as your body finally starts to truly relax that you're like oh [ __ ] i really do need to eat and drink and indigo those same feelings start to come over you so phil you're like yeah i got a belly full of brains i'm good to go what's that like hunger never heard of her[Laughter] yeah no um he is going to he is just going to stand up um and um yeah he's going to like awkwardly look at her like he's going to say something and then regain whatever like bit of ego that he can from just the pure shame of the last day and he is just going to nod like two white dudes nod at each other when they pass and he is going to walk back to the shack to check out those items okay uh yeah lara where did you go now with this break do you go back to the house you said you're kind of checking out the aisle what are you doing um yeah so while she's been out here i did want to look for ashney while i was out here sure sure i'll let you roll perception or investigation while i find out from andrew what is up with indigo now uh i think once indigo feels hungry um he's gonna go looking through the house specifically over into the kitchen see there's any actual food there um and when he finds all the disgusting gore from the hag's blood suppers um he's just going to open the window and start like chucking things out uh i've got to try to make like a reasonable space there okay sure uh sam what'd you get for your investigation or perception uh 13 plus 2 15. okay uh how much time do you spend doing this uh so when she got out like basically before lady labota got to her before cephale got to her that's what she was doing she was keeping an eye out for ashley and then i think she would stick around for maybe like 30 minutes to an hour and then wait for indigo to stop chugging things out the window and then she'd go in okay all right you yeah you spend a while doing this and you look out through the waters you look about the aisle and after a while you you find no signs of ashani and what does that bring up in in lara that lost connection that once profound and now lost connection yeah i think um she was i i think that ashley is like that last little bit of hope that she has that she could that she could feel the same way that she did toward like redemption um and every time that she doesn't find ashley she gets a little more committed to her new path so it is it's like um disappointment but also resolve okay um[Music] yeah those things those things go through through your mind and eventually you finally hear the last clattering of bones as indigo philly finally cleaned out the the kitchen of all the horrible bones and and flesh and all the while in the go you did feel this odd sensation within you of like this almost more growing[Music] constant hunger as you're you're throwing this away and it's like man i wish i wish there's some more meat that would be that'd be real nice right about now but but eventually you do you do clean it out um man hungry makes me think the weirdest things that's crazy okay uh and then you're going to search the kitchen right yeah i'm gonna see if there's any humanoid non-cannibal food around i'll help on that roll if i'm there sure sure uh yeah let's do a joint investigation check then uh sephel are you what are you doing for for these items while they're while they're doing these roles so it would take him a bit um because he so he's gonna cast identify on the items that he found i believe there were four of them i've met uh three rather three out of three yes so it was the the vile with the blue liquid the dark leather satchel and the horseshoe that we're all giving off magic yes so it's going to take him a half hour to cast identify on all three because uh he is going to have to do it as a ritual as he has no more spell slots okay all right um andrew tell me what you got 13 13. okay um you spend a decent amount of time kind of pouring through all the different cabinets and even pulling in through like the ovens and stuff like that and you're not really finding much of anything um however though because of your keen perception and investigation here you realize that there is no[Music] no kind of like cold storage here and like all this meat granted it appeared to be humanoid bones and stuff like that you would think that you have you would imagine there would be some kind of storage for it and as you kind of search about you your toe stubs on the corner of something and you see that there is a rug kind of shortly beneath the table that you have somehow caught your your foot on oh wow uh yeah he's gonna kind of pull that rug aside see what's underneath okay you you pull up the corner flap of it and you see what looks like a slightly larger gap between some of the boards there[Music] all right i'll peel those back see what's hiding crawl space um you you have to kind of push the table to uh the side a little bit and you start to pull up more of the of the carpet and you realize that there is a trap door that was hiding beneath that carpet in the table well done indigo wow thanks for uh i'm gonna open this up um because of our previous door based experience here you might wanna take a couple steps back just on the you know off chances another explosion thank you i will please open it so encouraging uh yeah i'll go ahead and open that up uh it is locked so you're gonna have to try to pick it if you want to get in all right and then i will pull up my little thieves tool kit and i will give it a try okay uh we're gonna jump back over to safel while you're doing that roll so we will go ahead and do one item for you while they're doing that sfell which item are you most desperate to know about first i am i'm honestly super intrigued with that horseshoe i have i mean the liquid is probably a potion of some kind the satchel i have a couple ideas for it the horseshoe is really intriguing to me okay as you complete this ritual it comes to you that these are called the horseshoes of a zephyr and you know that this is a very rare wondrous item and i will go ahead and tell you the description here these iron horseshoes come in a set of four and as you kind of like cast the identify you see they kind of like slide apart as they appear to be one while all four shoes are fixed to the hooves of a horse or similar creature they allow the creature to move normally while floating four inches above the ground this effect means the creature can cross or stand above non-solid or unstable surfaces such as water or water or lava the creature leaves no tracks and ignores difficult terrain in addition the creature can move at a normal speed for up to 12 hours a day without suffering exhaustion from a forced march a pretty good item if you had a horse or similar creature i mean we might have a warg yeah right good luck putting those horseshoes on it is that a similar creature don't have to have hooves just has to take a nail in the foot yeah nails in the foot yeah i'm sure that'll go fine i just i picked it just small aside i pictured doing that and then when indigo comes out of it just his hands and feet he has like [ __ ] horseshoes just like nailed through what have you done i'll never cast again uh quick aside hey sam check discord i had two questions for you i need uh you to text me answers oh my bad my bad do you kill safel in his sleep i literally put it on silent because it kept going off the last time no worries no worries okay jumping back indigo what'd you get for your thieves tool 16 16 click the small latch and uh lock come undone and you find yourself able to now open this trapdoor all right i'll ease it open see what's inside okay you pick up this door and you see that there is a short ladder that goes down into what smells like a very musty and dank cellar and you can feel the cold air kind of rushing upwards looks like she had a root cellar here um if you hear any screaming come down after me uh and he's gonna pop on down okay you climb down the ladder and as you do you realize you're in like a half standing basement half crawl space you see the natural stones kind of underneath and this area isn't particularly big there's sand beneath your feet and you can hear it kind of shifting and feel it shifting beneath your feet as you kind of go forward and from the darkness you see that there appears to be some kind of large or i shouldn't say large medium-sized bundle in a far corner well okay okay uh indigo's gonna hesitately walk on over uh and give it a look okay uh we're gonna jump back to laura laura you feel a presence a now familiar presence of your patron kind of there with you and you kind of hear this whisper in your ear of lara dear i think it's best if you would perhaps make your way back over to the now broken cauldron there's something there for us to discuss as you deem i shall do uh she will back up out of the doorway and kind of walk over to the cauldron in the other room no no no the one with the large ring about it where your friend was transformed all right as interesting as your tentacle trendy is i think at best we speak alone[Music] so fal i'm heading out i'm gonna keep watch i'll be back don't forget the milk on your way back up uh yeah back before sundown there's all kinds of monsters the worst ones are inside it's true i can tell and she goes in the basement[Laughter] taking a good care of me and there's no reason for me to be afraid down here because i have backup just up the place there's nothing but trust in this group nothing nothing while stool sits by a very small dwindling fire just by themselves uh lara heads off towards the stone circle okay uh slash stone circle slash alter sephel item number two okay what do you want it to be let's do the satchel okay this is a black leatherish beaten bag of holding yes it has clearly seen better days uh it almost looks ancient and you cannot necessarily identify the the type of leathery hide that it came from or is made of but you definitely know that this is that very coveted item by all adventurers and at parties that's all right you don't need to tell me it's people skin we can already infer uh back to you that's what lara want we're actually going to jump back to indigo indigo[ __ ] you laura[Laughter] you aren't the dm you don't dictate these flash floors um indigo you as you get closer to this bundle you see that it appears to be a humanoid figure in rags and um like ties of various types of cloth that cover almost all parts of itself and it is kind of curled up in a semi fetal position against the far wall there you don't see it move or anything at your approach we're in time to save you buddy oh well uh and i'll like lay back some of the cloth so i can get a look at their face um you start kind of and it's all i want you to picture semi-like mummy wrappings but not that like necessarily tightly bound or that consistent it's more of like patchwork have been put over to cover whatever this body is um and as you start kind of pulling away in the dark it's very hard to distinguish exactly what this material is but as you start to kind of reveal more of the face as you can only really see it in black and grays with your dark vision right now um it almost appears crystalline like and as you start to see what looks like a nose and a little bit of like cheekbone a hand one of its hands very quickly comes up and grabs yours and you feel the shifting underneath the rags about its mouth go please don't please don't oh oh hello there um you are still alive how about that yes[Music] yes is she is she gone oh yeah no the bad litty mask nasty pet yes oh yeah we took care of that would you like to not be in this basement right now please please and you can see they're very weakly trying to move but as they are also trying to like sort themselves they're quickly like covering their face back up again from the rags that you kind of slowly had undone oh yeah uh i'll like put an arm underneath their armpit and kind of like help them to their feet okay and they they uh kind of very slowly accept your your aid but in their weakened state it seems like they they'll just they're happy to have something someone there and uh i'm assuming you're heading back towards the stairs to go back up yeah yeah lara there's laura a there's a person down here okay could you some help uh a moment later you hear like[Music] as these little knobby legs appear and then you see stool bending over and a puff of spores and then like oh my god it's a it's a it's a thing it's a thing that looks kind of like your shape what is it who is it who or what i think it's a what's your name buddy it's it's it's pain pain oh [ __ ] that's hardcore[Laughter] hey so this guy's name is payne ah hi hi hi what hello payne i'm stool i'm still and this figure kind of looks up and it's like just nods as they kind of grasp for the the ladder stairs and they start weakly crawling their way up uh this figure you think indigo probably stands around five feet tall and appears while thin um they're quite wiry and as you were carrying them they feel they felt hard like weirdly tough underneath uh underneath all that cloth and wrappings um and we're gonna quickly jump back over to safel last item you find out is a potion of animal friendship how very fitting for this party you can just throw that one out we have indigo that's a permanent potion of animal friendship yeah right um and then quickly going back to indigo safel you can hear kind of the kerfuffle and voices coming from the kitchen area this figure finally kind of collapses out onto the floor between stool and indigo i'm assuming you come up kind of quickly after them absolutely yeah um and now that you're in the light you can see that all these rags and fabrics are of like different drab kind of colors and they just kind of back themselves up to the wall sitting uh sitting down and they kind of draw up their knees and they're they're kind of shading with their arm kind of like their eyes they just haven't seen light in so long like i'm sorry i just i i need a minute to adjust oh okay okay take the time you need friends and as they're kind of like rubbing their eye one of the wrappings uh kind of undoes around the finger uh and the color that appears underneath this wrapping as it comes undone is very surprising to you it's of this kind of deep translucent reddish color uh think and you can you can google this i think it's called a pananite stone it's a type of gemstone it's almost like a ruby but has a deeper kind of color to it um and as they feel that come undone they they quickly like wrap it back up again and it had this brilliant shine to it and uh they kind of you can't really make out of their eyes because of this this cloth that is covering them but they seem to be looking back up at you and they go i'm so sorry for my rudeness what is what is your your name and thank you oh hey no worry buddy my name is indigo it is a pleasure indigo do do you happen to have any water oh uh i will uh yeah oh actually i'm like feel around the pack and pull out like a flask of water thank you thank you so much uh and they kind of pull some of the rags aside and they take a swig and they hand it back to you and uh their voice surprisingly doesn't change too much but they don't thank you very much for that i i appreciate it happy help and now jumping back over to lara lara you have now appeared in front of the altar and kind of standing in front of this large stone arch you see the shadowy form of grazit where kratz appear uh there the only kind of truly distinguishing feature is these white eyes appearing from the shadows as they turn to you and look down apart in you and they say very well done laura i i'm very impressed are you impressed with yourself i would say that i am although i have a strong team it seems they are a very interesting sort no doubt but you you have the fine makings of a leader about you more so than you did in that precious army you have completed the first step into your rebirth lara and i always keep my promises but i'm curious you spoke of your your family what um what was your mother and father's names my mother soria my father tanner is that i've not thought of them in some time hmm soria what a very interesting and unique name well lara i will not refuse what i offered and if you continue to work together there will be many more gifts such as this and you feel your skeletal wings pull from your back just appearing bursting outward and while it's painful it feels good to unfloral them and then you watch as new muscle and sinew just glide forth over the bones and new feathers start to appear and grow outward until finally two very large black feathered wings appear on your back and they feel strong they feel good and i imagine it's a both familiar and wonderful weight to them for for you yeah i don't think that lara ever smiles but she is smiling right now[Music] and you see a return smile upon graz's face as they see this kind of joy in you they are well deserved i shall call upon you again but and they kind of wave you closer to them as they kind of stand upon the altar and they look out through the arch to the north of our map here and they raise a hand and point into the distance where you see that faint glow again there i have another pawn in place i think it best if you find yourselves with your companions making your way there it's called crackle stuck hmm that aligns nicely my liege uh and she's going to kneel conjure her blade and and basically like hold it and like bow over his blade um and then she'll kind of look up at him i was planning on going there anyway i will do it in your name and a little bit more of them seems to kind of appear in the shadow and uh make an insight check for me interesting let's see well it was rolling pretty good today so this tracks um three okay you can't quite necessarily make out what is playing across their face but they say no no no rise aquilara this is your moment of triumph and it will continue to be stand in your own name yeah she uh she gets this like smug look on her face and then she smiles um and she like holds the sword powerfully and then she kind of like looks up it um draws it with this like oh hell yeah kind he nods at you and you just faintly hear the words good good as this shadowy form of them disappears and very quickly i imagine cephel would probably after doing all these spells make their way into the kitchen to to kind of like hear these voices but i don't know you tell me nah [ __ ] that uh [ __ ] that okay cool no just checking so he was um i mean he has to be pretty zoned in to do the identify spell and um honestly being with no spell slots and barely any hit points and then casting three ritual spells right in a row was probably the rest of the energy he had he is actually going to decide to let them handle their own [ __ ] uh and he is going to he is actually going to enter his uh trance state he's going to uh begin the process of resting and so he is actually for all intents and purposes he's he's zoned out he is cool absent good to know um so jumping back to you straight away then indigo you stool and this new figure um this figure kind of wobbly starts to rise and get to their feet and they go i i need to find my my armor have you seen it ah no what what did it look like yeah nothing special just bits and pieces of various kinds just a patchwork really or my sword or shield have you seen it i i haven't hey stool have you seen anything like that around no i haven't really been looking but uh maybe it's in maybe in the bedroom where like all that other cool stuff that um safel found maybe like maybe it's in there i don't know oh great idea still uh yeah well let's let's want to take a look pain we'll see if it's oh yeah all right i almost fell to sleep let's go right and they follow you into the bedroom where there's kind of a couple more cupboards and bookshelves and different things like that uh and you see that safel has drifted off into his familiar meditative state and as pain enters the room he looks over and kind of like jumps back against the wall and his uh you see like you kind of hear like the unwrappings of a couple things and you hear uh them go what what are you doing with a mind flayer oh that's a phil it's fine you're friends with it oh yeah no he's a great guy he's well he's very smart and sometimes he's very rude but usually he's very useful and he knows lots of nice things[Laughter] and as you you like look back and you say these things to pain you see that part of their uh face wrappings have come undone and you now see that their face consists of this same stone-like uh formation and that's when it occurs to you that pain is an earth ganassi and that's where we'll leave it tonight hey you loyal listener you've made it this far to the post show notes and that means the absolute world to us thank you so much for being here if you have one 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