Who Survives the Shadows? - Episode 7

The party steps into the dusty halls of a long displaced castle deep in the Underdark. As the doors slam behind them strange crystals and undead denezins spring to life. What madness awaits within this fell fortress?

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:
Ice Cavern | Tabletop Audio
Latin Electro #10 | Dmyra
Cosa Peluda | Dmyra

Dnd 5e, underdark, drow, wizard, cleric, warlock

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Transcript

0:02

[Music] so the audience doesn't know how long it's been but it's been months everybody we haven't touched die in a year no i'm just kidding um last time i see you far too often yeah you guys found yourselves wandering through um the winding tunnels and caverns of the underdark for a number of days in particular one of those days you found yourselves in a slightly lit cavern where you came across two skeletal corpses and in investigating them you were set upon by four worm-like creatures called grix they've got this parrot like beak this green worm-like body in these little barbed tentacles um that they used to try and pick you off and hopefully eat you however um you guys in a decent little battle uh having to push yourselves kind of hard you you made it through and you looted the bodies and kind of figured out which was the best way to continue you found your path that eventually started kind of leading up gradually and continued on for another six days um at which point you guys met at a very large intersection of two tunnels in which um billionaire told you that your way lied to the right and his path lied to the left or i should say theirs um they kind of told you keep out keep an eye out on um you know the kind of natural world down here and hopefully you guys would uh see each other again if all things went well um and so you guys proceeded on to the right and not too far and not too long afterwards you guys found a very r large and odd set of double doors sitting at an odd angle at the end of this tunnel kind of superimposed amongst the rocks and in investigating you were able to determine that these doors belong to a massive structure that had been put there with the use of conjuration magic you would believe some kind of massive teleportation circle as cephel was able to kind of pinpoint it down and as you kind of had your hand against the door and you had tried to use some other magic before uh or no actually it was in the detect magic you felt like something was kind of interfering but you were able to mentally push through it and as you kind of let that fade this massive awkward door just fell inward or i shouldn't say fell inward but swung inward and into the darkness you could see what looked like the beginning of a large room and in which you thought you could make out in the bits of gray and black that your darkness should dark vision allows bodies lying upon the floor and that's where we find ourselves what would you guys i had forgotten about the bodies yes yeah let the borders at the floor sorry you get eight seconds eight seconds it's okay if danny was here she would have like immediately hopped up to the mic and started singing that because that tiny little fiance of mine loves heavy like all types of metal music it's hilarious um all right anyways you guys you guys are here you can see into this this corridor that leads into a large room and you can faintly very faintly make out the forms of what appear to be bodies you're all i i almost like picture you all hanging around like stacked up on top of each other looking in like what the [ __ ] i'm happy to go in first here unless anyone else has any other ideas but i think we should continue forward i i'm i'm right behind you i'm fine with you sacrificing your body uh yeah laura's gonna kind of give a glare well perhaps no this is for the best and lara is just going to move forward um thinking best of uh potentially talking smack on the mind player in the group yeah um okay i would like to um kind of stealthily move forward um and see if i can well one she's definitely looking at the ceiling because of those uh creatures from last time um but she's just gonna kind of move forward and see if she can see anything moving all right you um you're creeping forward to see if there's anything alive in this area yeah looking for signs of movement if i can see that there's bodies i'm just curious if there's anything like that we need to be worried about that's alive in the room okay uh you've got dark vision right okay uh now i believe technically by the rules dark vision just gives you uh an actual perception check to see in the dark but it's at disadvantage am i correct on this resident uh rules lawyer uh no no you can still see you just can't discern color if it's further than the 60 feet okay all right you you can make that check good good all right here we are i'm moving you guys to the new map on rolling 20. very sorry i just punched my mic way to go we have to start everything over now do we do we get to talk about the governor again those days are over um all right tell me when you guys find yourselves and i'm sorry if the map is horribly grainy unfortunately um it was beautiful in uh in my my map maker but uh apparently the transfer over it didn't work out so well yeah the the trials of large map making yeah i'm i'm here looks good okay so you got you got a good range of things all right i'm gonna go ahead and reveal a pretty good swath here for you laura this is what you see you see this large uh grand hall you see that there are large stone pillars that go up to a large uh vaulted ceiling that reaches about 40 feet above you you see that there's amongst the kind of um fitted stone there's actually very nice and dust covered tiling um mixed in amongst the stone work and as you kind of like come up through the corridor and you peer into this room and you uh you actually see that there's these large clumps of large red crystals that give off this slight glow that fills a little bit of the room but not too much that um it counts as like a real light source and as you gaze about you see that there are cobwebs and you see skeletal forms scattered about the room selma and armor some in raggedy old clothing some uh in what appears to be no clothing and you see far across the room what looks like a set of large double doors once again however uh what looks like a couple of statues have crumbled in front of it making the way to those doors extremely difficult however go ahead and make a perception check for me 15. okay you see no signs of life okay um i would like to cast silent image and create the image of a person um and i think lara will make it look like um one of the drow okay and i'd like to have him like appear on the um east side of the room and just make it walk across the middle okay all right let's get a uh let's get a drow out here for you loading loading loading loading maybe and it says that this is purely visual so there's no sound smell or anything else okay but i can make it look like it's walking all right all right so you create a image of this drow and they're just walking from from right to left across this large uh hall or chamber yeah okay so they start making their way across no sound moving moving and as you watch them i'll reveal a little bit more you see that they come to a set of doors on the far side and you peer back over to the other side where you kind of started them and you see that there's a another doorway um leading in the other direction but your image reaches over to this door and do you have him do anything else any thoughts here i am i'm not seeing any movement in the room i feel like it's clear i mean yeah uh i i'd like to kind of see if i can take a look around too maybe see what's what happened to some of these folks sure i'll say all right and i'll move in to go forward up to the nearest um skeleton um and see if i can figure out like how this person died or perhaps uh what that like how long they've been dead okay uh make me a medicine check uh not so bad it's a 19. okay um so this particular individual that you are looking at who's kind of near this pillar and kind of their skeleton appears to have collapsed over on their side you're looking them over and there's no clear signs of trauma upon upon this this skeletal form you you carefully um peruse over the bones and any kind of marks you see on them appear to be uh i believe the term is uh post-mortem so you know after they died and you see what looks like small bite marks and um you see that one of their legs like their their bones have been broken in one spot so something must have like stepped on this or moved over it um but you you feel like something more natural in terms of like starvation or or something else must have occurred that that killed this particular individual oh wow it doesn't look like they died violently but they do seem like they've been down here for a while do you think we should kind of explore a little bit check this place out yeah it's all clear we're good nothing worrying at all yeah yeah i will um check out one of these red crystals this red crystal lara that you that you've gone up to investigate here you see that it looks like it's burst through the stone that made up the floor and has kind of grown up here it looks very similar to the the kind of composition as of like quartz you know um kind of hexagonal in shape and it comes up and you see deep in its center it kind of glows with this reddish light um but towards its uh it's tips it actually grows to kind of like a clear cult uh color kind of translucent i should say um and if you go ahead and make a perception check for me it's a four that's four okay yeah this you like kind of stare intently for a moment at this this light that kind of sits within the heart of this crystal formation crystalline formation and your your eyes actually kind of get that that blindness when you know when you look at the sun for a brief moment and it's just like that white hot dot you see and you kind of blink your eyes and after a minute it eventually goes away um but yeah it's it's very weird and lara will walk away okay uh so as far as we can see right now the north end of the room and the west end of the room seem to have openings but the north end is blocked right now so the north end here has had what looks like some statues and pillars kind of crumble in front of the doors so the uh to what would be us the the west and the eastern sides do have doorways that you could conceivably go through if you wanted yeah cool well um do you want to take a look around maybe take a one of the sides and just poke around a bit great idea i'll take the wes i think we should stay together just just in case this is quite odd i've never encountered nor heard of a human castle far below here have any of you and this is bupido and he's he's kind of looking to the others and elder shrugs she's like uh no i've i would have no idea anyways and sarith shakes his head no and topsy and turvy kind of actually separated turbies kind of gazing at one of these crystals and and uh topsy has gone over to one of the skeletons and kind of poking at the armor and in stools like nope no no idea i didn't even know things grew like this oh well all right i i don't remember if i um last time when we like first encountered this if i had done a check to like try to i know i did the identify spell to like know that uh this was teleported here but is there anything i could do to try to identify architecture to maybe um like a time period or a you know get some sort of scope of what this place might be sure absolutely um i uh which which specific thing do you want to do or do you just kind of want all of it um let's go with um i guess i will go with history as i am a more a a learner a learned man and i'm more curious if you know if this strikes any time period or area i might be or have read up on anything like that go ahead and rule history okay no as a uh there's a natural two for a nine but still still not great yeah this you try to kind of like think back to both your your hazy and oddly concrete knowledgeable memories you know it's kind of a thing of like when you try to picture a memory or a moment it's it's very hazy but your your kind of facts and knowledge base usually comes straight to you in this particular case you're like i have no idea how how old this is clearly it's been here for a very long time um you perhaps with the help of indigo could try to determine how long these bodies have been here based off of like the uh the degradation of like the skeletons and stuff like that so you guys could work together on that if you wanted to to kind of help you pinpoint um a little bit uh more knowledge on it i mean i'm totally if that if indigo is interested in that kind of check i would um or if he's just more um indigo i am strangely unfamiliar with the architecture and make of the area we find ourselves in you possibly take a look at the bodies and see perhaps cause of death and length of their stay in this state well hey you know it's all good not knowing stuff it just means you have a new chance to learn sephill and i did just took a look at one of the bodies and i can't really tell what caused it to die but uh as far as i know all these corpses look to be human which is kind of weird for down here but maybe maybe we put our noodles together we can try to figure out maybe how long they've been down here um so i would love to help him with that if he yeah sam it sounded like you were gonna you were gonna say something what's up yeah well when indigo says that about not really knowing anything about the skeletons um i think lara's gonna approach this one that is closest to her and um break the skull with her foot it doesn't even require as much force as you thought it did because your foot makes contact and it just like crumbles into dust but at that exact moment you all hear this[Music] god damn it lara some of the skeletons starting to starting to pick themselves and like float up off the floor some of the ones in armored clinking all of you make a process nobody panic their bones are extremely brittle they're all a perception check man i'm doing great with these perceptions six oh six okay that's all right that guy uh indigo has a 19. um safel has a 17. okay safel in indigo you guys here echoing from somewhere far in the distance you don't know quite where from you just hear no[Music] let them rest all of you roll for initiative i am going to make sure that never makes it into the audio uh all right laura what you got we got a cheeky seven seven all right i'm really knocking out these low rolls so that later on i'm really going to kick ass smart smart sefal well cephel is already aware that he is twice as good as lara will ever be but let's let's put it in the numbers uh cephel got a 14. lara just runs over and beats him over the head indigo what you got how would you like your first round on the ground yeah um that's cute guys natural 20 total 22. i'll walk this up for you guys don't don't you worry oh he's spitting because when you rolled it you did this little fist pump in the air oh man you vlara and fell are just duking it out an indigo comes over and slaps our heads together and it's like amateurs all right it's business time it's business yeah all right don't forget your npc's so we've got bupido with sam so go ahead and roll that one for me yes and we didn't explicitly state it but i would have given boopio a weapon okay what weapon did you did you give them in the interim yeah i would have given them uh my staff your staff okay who has my staff all right and that is a two plus taxes for initiative okay foreign don't you i do and then andrew you've got stool and sarith if i'm correct yes and uh i have sarf with a 17 uh and i should you not our voice stool also has natural 20. damn uh it is a flat 20. okay zero modifier all right what's what's elda's got there brendan uh elvis as i roll in this moment how nice of you is a seven seven oh boy all right tervy got a two in topsy got a six let's get them skelly boys all right no joke i just literally wrote skelly boys instead of skeletons because you know my life is just winning all right believe it or not folks i did not pre-roll these all right two three all right first up as these skeletons come into a view as they rise up from the ground indigo you see them what do you wanna do oh yeah so glad i get to finally do this uh indigo is gonna step up and protectively stand in front of stool uh for a shield on one arm he's gonna clutch his horse and with the other that's holding up his shield hand hey everyone just say calm i need you all to get away from me and i'm going to turn undead yeah it's clear time is that a uh channel that is a us yes first channel divinity and everyone is within 30 feet all my undead friends here uh they gotta go they have to make a wisdom save all right all right all right all right all right let's see that wisdom bone uh this one here uh that's a seven so i'm assuming that's a fail yeah dc is 14. okay wow wow let me put the is there a frightened condition here a little bit of a frightened condition i don't see it where is it what's what the hell is the ninja mask roll 20 you know what i'm just going to put that up for now nope not the death symbol he's just afraid all right this one to the north natural two here's freudian all right this one up here in the corner uh natural 17 they make it this one here[Music] a sweet in my bonus nope they fail as well okay okay okay um all right just double check one thing here folks just just all right it's uh you said all undead have to do this right yeah everyone within 30 feet of indigo which is all the skills that i can see[Music] okay all right cool yeah you got their turn running away no reaction the only action they can take is dash that's fine that's fine is there anything else you can do on this turn well let me just get uh no that's good okay all right well uh what's stool gonna do what's our poor mica knight boy gonna do uh victory or death uh how fast oh [ __ ] all right uh school's school's movement speed is is truly um spectacular uh and he is going to stay exactly where he is and take the dodge action wow stool coming in hot he's uh he's the true savior as we've all seen brave a brave warrior god yes yes truly stool man all right sarif oh i could take it all at once i know i agree at you yeah sorf is gonna see this like skeleton like like come up like rise up and then also then get like uh get wobbly in the knees uh very quickly uh and he's gonna strike out with his bone short sword take a swipe at the skeleton next to him all right all right all right let's see what he can do that's a natural one we're out of good rolls folks you guys got this right yeah uh so sorry swings out and it just like goes straight through the ribcage of this skeleton um and he misses all right uh okay that's all she wrote that's all she wrote safel you are up yeah so i've got a weird uh d d [ __ ] question um the spell bone shard yes only requires skeletal remains you're a monster if if my enemies are skeletal remains can i throw a skeleton at another skeleton or at least pieces of it you can definitely throw some pieces but it's not gonna be the whole skeleton i'm gonna i'm gonna say that's fine yeah okay take his leg take a leg yeah that's fine i'm gonna choose this skeleton right here next to sarith damn it and i'm gonna reach out i'm gonna like whatever arm he's holding a weapon in i'm gonna target like the shoulder blade and just fling it at this dude uh to the left uh a little bit north of indigo okay hell yeah uh before you do that can i have you do a constitution saving throw please oh [ __ ] okay all right oh god okay i do have a question does this involve a disease or poisoning effect [ __ ] no get that get out of here okay [ __ ] i'm i i have to ask natural [ __ ] 20. oh god what so that is a 23 although although that could have been for my attack so it could have been so all right you you feel this weird energy like around this space here and you you guys actually um notice that around the crystals you see what looks like little sparks of like red lightning just like they almost come alive a little bit more as you cast this spell and you overcome this weird prevalent magic within the area and you you manage to fire or fire off the spell um but you see the crystals almost like lightened up in this little sparks arms before they fade all right cephel obviously takes note of that and i'm going to make my range spell a chat uh spell attack to have this guy over here hit his friend back here okay all right all right ah that could have been so much better could have kept that 20 i mean it's still a 23 but like it could have been a crit it's a hit shut up roll your damage whatever okay whatever so he's gonna take he's gonna take uh five okay perfect half and half he takes uh five piercing damage and five necrotic damage whatever yeah so you rip out uh his this skeleton scapula their shoulder blade and it just like boomerangs it across the room and almost friggin decapitates this skeleton here uh and you just this weird ominous crying oh i love what i do i i will say the one that just took the damage is no longer turned i forgot about that oh yes how one minute four until they take damage uh okay and you said you'd used bone shard so it tore a chunk out of this guy can you go ahead and roll me a d4 brennan sure can that's a four good buddy that's four okay so the one that you rip the scapula off of and projected it across the room 15 feet into a skeletal friend in the north you uh you see that their their form kind of shakes a little bit as they took some damage from that that bone oh hell yeah yeah yeah double whammy i forgot all those spells and a[ __ ] cleric in the party it's amazing yeah i mean the one that lost a shoulder blade is also not turned he is no longer charged as he took the action ah [ __ ] thank you for keeping me who's [ __ ] up now spell don't don't attack the one over there you fill out the wobbly knees he's our special boy we all congratulate you and then we're all [ __ ] on you yeah god it's the life of a wizard it really is you get to do the coolest [ __ ] at everybody else's expense including your own all right is that is that your whole to be fair uh yes that is my entire turn um but like if if we're being fair you gave me the one enemy that i could pull this kind of spellcraft [ __ ] with this wouldn't work in any other fight no it's very true and i i'll be honest i totally forgot about that spell so uh yeah that's your fault yeah uh well yeah that is that is bell's turn your your best buddy eldest is up now oh excellent okay so elder is going to uh i don't have control over her but she's going to come up next to her uh good buddy sarith and the one that just uh lost part of its scapula she's going to pull her she doesn't have any weapons [ __ ] keep forgetting that she had a wrong yes that is right uh well seeing that it took some damage and seeing how easily lara crushed the other one's skull eldeth is going to take this rock and attempt to crush the skeleton's head in okay go for it all right what did we have we just had strength modifier on this one because yeah she's not proficient okay she does have her multi-attack so that first one probably misses that's a nine yeah that's a miss uh and the other one is a natural 19. yep that one's a hit okay and we're just doing was it d4 damage for the rock uh that is three points of bludgeoning damage all right uh so she swings in with this rock and actually manages to smash off the entire jawbone and into like the the cheekbones it crushes through the nose and knocks off a good bit of it as you see uh she does quite a bit more damage than uh you thought uh with that swing in that skelly boy is not looking good okay uh and she's going to quickly look around the room um are there any strewn about weapons did any of these corpses that did not raise have any like swords or or real weapons on them uh without needing to make a perception check that you see the one that is near or she sees the one near laura and the one up here and let me just double check uh and the one over here actually uh have some short swords by their their their side stream about them okay uh eldeth was right next to me so ten okay so she can get so she's going to provoke she's gonna sort of look around sort of panic seeing this like the rock is great but she needs a real weapon she's going to pull away invoking the attack of opportunity um and she's going to move to this square next to one of the skelly boys that has a short sword so she can obtain a weapon okay uh so this skeleton that you you just hit they are gonna swing out with their short sword and that is a 14 plus four so an 18 hit that head does yeah okay that does indeed hit that is seven points of piercing stan damage as it stabs into her and then you kind of wanted her to go this southern path over to the skeleton right yeah the one that has the the short sword okay um as she starts moving down and like jumps between the crystals you guys see that from the darkness this black form reaches out and tries to claw at her uh all right oh no uh that's a that's a seven so that's is that a miss i forget what our unarmored ac is uh that is that is indeed a miss okay so you see this shadowy form reach out and try to touch her and it just misses and she doesn't even notice it as she runs over uh and on her next turn she can pick up that short sword i believe unarmored ac is just 10 i believe so too yeah unless yeah uh i think the only time you get your dex bonus to it is if you are a monk or a barbarian so yeah yeah that's just a base level 10. uh okay lara you are up okay lara is she's got um her clubbing one hand and the dagger in the other um she's going to yell the bupido um assuming that standing next to the short sword she's seen it um lupito grab this and she'll like kind of nudge it with her foot um but then she's gonna go move around this skeleton to get to the one that is not right or um turn excuse me okay you're going to need to take an extra step just because this one this space right here is actually a pillar yeah and this guy is still turned so you can't take reactions if you want to yeah ah i think you're i think you're looking at the same amount of of movement either way okay yeah we'll stick with this so i'm between indigo and the skelly boy yeah you're fighting the skeleton to the north to the north yes and i'm going to cast booming blade um and attack with my club okay so you cast a spell i need you to make a concentration check so eight uh it's a can trip if that matters ah all right i should have uh all right what was your your d20 roll just the number on the d20 seven seven okay all right you're fine you're fine i uh i just need to quickly double check a rule all right so you're you're able to cast that uh that that can trip and you're swinging out at the skelly boy correct uh that is a 18 to hit yeah that's a that's a hit okay and this is gonna be 1d4 damage that's two damage plus three so it's five and then i'm also gonna toss on my two thunder that i get through my patron so um five bludgeoning two thunder and then i would like to uh she's gonna so she swung the club like against the side of the skeleton's head and then her bonus action she's gonna come at it with the dagger okay go for it with the two weapon fighting that's uh 11 yeah uh no actually but it doesn't matter because the reason you miss is you come around with the with the club and you smash into the side of the skeleton and its body as the thunder and your booming blade spell come in just like you just hear this as this concussive force launches the skeleton's body in pieces around the room and that one's dead and so like your dagger just comes across into empty space you just had it in swing already cool uh that's it for laura all right oh look at you guys just clearing up house this is this is going really well guys you know what this is going really well i'm proud of you guys um there's only what a dm says when he's just about to murder you all you're a little bit happy about it yeah you know what maybe we'll see because it's the skelly boy turns um so this one he's gonna start running and because you guys have to like engage in a fight first to be able to take an opportunity attack right because topsy hasn't gone he doesn't get a free swing or does he i forget no he does okay if any creature is in your melee range and leaves it you get an opportunity attack okay uh well unfortunately topsy freaking misses you useless little deep gnome uh so this skeleton is going to run all the way into the corner and it's just like hitting into the wall and like clawing at it trying to get away uh from indigo uh that one's dead the next one farthest to the north and kind of near the blocked off door is gonna move five ten fifteen twenty five and get up on laura in the indigo and is going to swing at laura with their short sword let's see if this roman numeral die wants to help me out today uh all right that is a 16 to hit that is all right you take four points of damage as it stabs into your side[Music] uh and that is their turn this one is going i would like to take a reaction oh [ __ ] yep and cast alice rebuke okay roll a d20 for me knew that was coming oh it's all four fall before one[ __ ] oh it's gone it's gone i'm gonna re-roll it because i didn't look at it tell him it was a 20. tell him uh well this is a 19. all right you are fine cast away i got it she's got to be modest yeah this is this is fine so and then uh they have to make a deck saving throw well that's they're totally gonna pass that like come on that's a natural six no they don't okay cool um so that's going to be 2v10 fire jeez um crawl 20p 15 fire damage uh yeah describe your friggin kill yeah so it's fire damage but it's um that blue lightning kind of thing that shoots out um and i imagine that this is gonna um kind of wrap around the skeleton and um just like spin dirt like just like dissolve it into ash nice yeah so it stabs you and i imagine you kind of like you're like and then you glare at it and this lightning slash blue flame just like carries up the short sword and just envelops it and turns it into dust the old armor clanging to the ground ah well these guys were fun while they freaking laughed all right uh this skeleton is gonna move over actually he doesn't even need to and he's going to stab at sarith no not brave soros i can't catch a break that's a natural too this myth scully boys suck all right uh jesus that's it for the skeletons it is now topsy's turn topsy uh kind of like looks at you all kind of like confused and then just kind of like runs all the way over to the skeleton like clawing at the wall and he's gonna try and punch at it natural 19 wtf goddang coming through in the clutch uh and they do measly four points of damage uh okay all right that's that's fine i can hit myself just fine all right so we've got bupido or not bubito uh topsy running up into the northwest corner taken a uh stab at things now it is bupido's turn bupino is going to hop over um move five feet to grab that short sword that i that lara indicated um and use his turn to just swap weapons uh because i think he's gonna have to stow the staff across his back and grab the short sword okay um so that's probably all that he'll do so as bupido starts running towards the body to pick up this short sword another one of those dark figures kind of reaches out from behind bupido and tries to take a swipe at him oh no it's a natural 16 so that's a 20 to hit oh yeah that's uh that's not good yep uh they take nine points of necrotic damage and they take four points of strength damage jesus down they've got 13 hit points what do you mean they're down didn't you say nine and four nine straight four strength damage oh i'm sorry i was not paying attention i didn't even know there was a thing in 5v the hell is strength damage that's why i'm like oh you guys will know why in a moment here and you see as bupido's been hit and he's just like and kind of like crumbles to the ground trying to get this uh this short sword and changing it out you see these forms starting to draw out from the shadows about you oh good it's not good alright so that was bubito's turn coincidentally it is the shadows turn so let's let's have a little fun we gotta move bupido first don't we though we gotta have him over here so the first one here is going to swing it uh it's actually actually let's yeah it's going to swing out at tervy hits does eight points of necrotic damage uh and you see turvie's[Music] just getting pretty beat there and then they're gonna take three points of strength damage and you can see their muscles kind of start to atrophy as this uh shadow reaches into their body and just you can see it pulls out wisps of what looks like this white kind of energy um if i had to describe these creatures they basically look like dementors but of complete like complete shadow um okay uh and then this one here is going to[Music] you see it just disappear from your view as it slinks back into the shadows um and then this one over here by bupido is going to actually leave him seeing his form kind of start to fall and flutter upon the ground uh lupito is going to get an attack of opportunity as the shadow leaves their area let's go ahead and swing with that short sword sorry he's talking while muted uh he got a five to hit yeah that's a mess all right uh so then it is going to move over here and it's going to reach out at you indigo no i don't like that at all oh that's a 15 to hit uh that is the ac that's a hit all right you take over my dice go you tank you take eight points of necrotic damage and your strength is reduced by two okay and then using their bonus action ah they can't you see them try to kind of like fade into the shadows but the uh kind of they kind of can't seem to blend in just enough so you're able to still see them and then this one here right behind sephel i picture it just like drawing up behind him hits fingers and arms reaching up and over is going to swing at you but this this might not be good uh let's double check that to hit that's a 16. uh i cash shield okay all right that does not hit you are able to bounce it off the shield kind of like a very interesting spell from oh wait roll that d20 for me i almost forgot you sly slick boy uh okay that is an eight i don't add anything to it correct no no no because i i've figured out how to correct myself here um just an eight yes well actually what's the field of magic or school of magic i should say uh it would be ab duration for a shield all right yeah you're fine whatever i tax miss oh i'm so sorry that i don't have to take your stupid homebrew damage this isn't homebrew this is this is a very early monster actually from the manual um really yeah cause yeah i i thought strength damage was only a pathfinder thing i haven't seen anything like that nope this is this is literally called a a a creature called a shadow and if they that's terrifying yeah let me let me just really nail it home how [ __ ] dangerous these things are for you guys um they've got a little thing called strength drain so if they hit you uh 2d6 necrotic damage and the strength the target strength score is reduced by 1d4 the target dies if this reduces its strength to 0. otherwise this reduction lasts for a specific amount of time and something else nasty happens if that person dies so enjoy that little wow um you were saying strength damage i'm like you mean the pathfinder [ __ ] that is awful because like pathfinder is one thing where your scores can get into like the 30s a d4 to your strength for a shitty strength rolled character is awful yeah yeah it's uh it's quite bad guys uh and then this one you see disappears back into the shadows behind you uh and you cannot see it uh okay uh last but not least tervy they don't know what to do so they're just going to run as far away as they can and we are now back at the top of the order indigo what do you want to do this shadow stands beside you most of the skeletons are gone i do not enjoy their proximity um just gonna again graham grab my holy symbol just a quick you know twirl protect us uh i'm gonna go for a sacred flame with the one right on top of me okay what uh school of magic is that i believe that is a vocation yes invocation okay uh roll a d20 for me no bonuses uh 11 okay you're all right you managed to launch this spell off um do you you do you have to sustain it because you're five feet with the spell and that counts as a ranged attack or uh it's a dexter on my part is this deck save yeah okay all right uh that's a nine so i'm assuming that's uh no good yes that's it that's a hit then and six points of radiant to our friend oh so you hit it with this sacred flame and you actually watch it actually catch fire with this this radiant damage and it's just a kind of silent scream as it's like clawing at itself and like you can see what looks like on a skull's mouth opening behind this like dark almost fabric-like feature covering its face uh as you light it up very very badly you think you harmed it way more than you thought you did oh wow house sorry but also oh not that sorry uh and then with my bonus action i'm gonna attempt a quick heal on myself i'm gonna try to um healing word myself okay roll that d20 uh 16. okay you're all right cool and that is a five points to myself but i don't want to die it's a good thing to not want to have happen all right uh stool and your boy sarith are up next so go ahead and take those turns all right uh for my beloved beloved stool i can't risk him he's too precious he's gonna take the dodge okay he takes that dodge accent lara is standing there like stool get in the fight no no don't you understand he's the key safel is plotting how easy it would be to kill him in our sleep and then over here uh sarif uh unfortunately unaided by stool uh is going to attack this uh skeleton right that bone short sword for the bone daddy all right perfect uh that is a dirty 20. yeah that's a hit all right there is all right seven points of piercing damage all right you uh stab into it and you manage to get up through the the skull and it just crumples the body just crashes to the floor as the skull stays uh pierced upon the bone blade you have killed the skellington awesome i'm gonna have him step up next to uh cephel then okay since that is our frail squiddy boy okay uh well i take great offense to that oh well this there's more you see let's see here uh nope that's not the button i want you see from the darkness that shadow appear and take a swipe at him oh that's a natural 17. so that's a yeah yikes that's nine points of necrotic damage and three points of strength damage all right you are up okay i was hoping that a shadow would reveal itself to me i mean there's the one next to aim to go but [ __ ] him this one right in actually while i have the time to do so i am going to try to move myself back to the wall uh to give myself a little bit more cover and then i am going to take a shot at the shade that is up in sarath's business with uh a celestial burst well before you do that we got to resolve a little something because yeah i [ __ ] know oh [ __ ] wings as you move not sure what i thought at all 15 that is a 19 to hit uh yup even if i wanted a shield that would hit oh you take 10 points of necrotic damage and you go [ __ ] yourself oh no how much strength does cephel have uh cephel has a 10 strength it just went down to six oh yikes yeah okay yeah so now he is actually like frail again like he didn't look as frail in mind player form as he did in old man form and now his like arms have shriveled a little bit and he like sucks into himself okay that that changes my target then uh because i feel the swipe and this energy literally sapped out of my body and he just reactionary like spins around and and throws out a hand and launches this celestial burst at uh the shade that reappeared and attacked him okay uh what school of magic it is a vocation can trip okay thank you okay all right uh i rolled a five all right then for the attack uh 14 uh that is a hit okay all right so that is going to do because it is a creature stupid ass homebrew spells uh it does three points of radium damage okay yeah you you hit it and you see it start to get that kind of burn like uh crawl all over its body it's doing that silent shriek again that's screaming and um you almost swear sephel that you hear screams and yelling from somewhere deeper within this place as you did that jesus christ uh okay is that your whole turn or you got more no that is uh that is my whole turn and nothing about the turn all right well have eldeth go cause she's up now yes uh now armed with a short sword in hand she is going to see this shade that is she looks at the shade attacking sephel and sort of looks back and forth as having sort of a struggle of whether to help the drow or the mind flare uh it's a tough choice she is i'm actually i'm i'm gonna roll a die for her between but behind the scenes okay she's gonna help sarith so she's gonna move uh right up into she's gonna give one last glance at safel uh and then she's going to move up next to sarith and swing twice with her short sword that finally gets a bonus to an attack natural 17 for a 21. okay um let me just double check something that is uh that is six points of piercing damage she slashes through and you just see it like cut through like there's nothing there and the shadow kind of like reform a little bit you feel like you she didn't really affect it that much okay okay not much is not at all isn't not at all so she's gonna do it again for a 18 to hit which i believe hits okay for an uh another four points of piercing damage okay uh yeah once again she cuts through and just doesn't feel like she's truly affecting the shadow just okay gliding and she is she just moved thirty to get up there yeah a perception check would be an action right it's free i'll give it to you for free okay so she's going to use her keen hearing ability as a scout uh to make a perception check uh catching a little bit of those um you know those screams from deeper in she's gonna do a perception check to try to lock into the you know the direction that those screams are coming from sure okay okay so i get advantage on this check i don't think i'm gonna need it uh oh yeah she has got a spicy perception score that is a 23 total she feels like they're coming from the north beyond these doors these blocked off doors okay ah that figures all right cool uh she's just going to take note of that and then um turn back to the the shadow in a guarded stance obviously not mechanically guarded not mechanically but i get you like it doesn't do anything but it looks cool flavor laura you're up um watching all of this the shadows kind of not taking any much physical damage um are you medicated are you medicating on me how dare you i'm just kidding i mean i saw it right um laura's going to turn and go and just say um or to i guess she'll kind of shout it out um do we do we think that these crystals are a source of power here should we be attacking the crystals and not the shadows um is that a free action i'm assuming yeah yeah to talk it's free yeah totally if you're gonna monologue for like five minutes i'm gonna be like your first sentence probably got out but uh filibustering senator sununu really come on i'm just kidding governor whatever um if you have a means to attack them it's not a bad idea yeah [ __ ] it i'm going to go ahead and um i'm going to move i'm probably going to take that's fine i'm going to move closer to it let's see this metal die has been nice to me natural 15 for a 19. oh yeah oh how many hit points you got uh i've got 10 right now you just took max 12 necrotic damage oh i guess it's a good thing laura's resistant to necrotic damage oh[ __ ] yeah buddy there are only a few times in a pc's life that you get to give that kind of middle finger to your dm relish that moment sam you know what i'm very happy that happened however however you still take two points of strength damage okay all right so you're gonna you're gonna swing at this crystal yes which is swinging out i'm gonna swing at it with my action is gonna be the club uh that is a only uh eight to hit but it's a crystal you you hit it oh no oh if you said something we didn't hear it oh i said you hit it oh i didn't hear it oh cool um okay so then yeah all right so the club is gonna do um seven bludgeoning i'm gonna tack on the two thunder uh and then lara is going to also bonus action two up and fighting try to hit it with the dagger as well okay uh and that's a nine to hit you hit so that's another two piercing with the dagger okay so you launched this attack at this um not quite as large crystal formation as the one you were looking at before but this one appears a little more solid you come in with the club you hit it and that lightning actually like goes in as you make contact and you see a small crap start to form in the crystal and it travels down into it and you see that light that red energy in there start to warp a little bit and electricity that electricity you send down and changes it into kind of like this white light inside and then all of a sudden shoots back out at you and you take two points of electric damage or lightning damage um and then you swing in with the dagger and i'll say like you hit with the club you make this crack it sends that energy and you stab with the dagger into it and all of a sudden that energy just travels back out through the dagger and into you however the thing you notice is is that crystal no longer glows red it actually has no color inside of it it just sits there now this muted clear i turned it off i turned the light off guys good job i i think i don't know but that's it for lara alrighty then my one remaining skelly boy gets to go some [ __ ] good he'll be uh well he did get attacked so he's no longer frightened so he's gonna turn on topsy and he's gonna swing with a short sword uh oh natural nineteen uh so you you guys hear this light scream ah his topsy gets stabbed with this short sword uh doing a little bit of damage just a little bit of damage guys uh all right that is their turn now it is oh it's actually topsy's look at that i got a little bit of the initiative order wrong last time so topsy's going to go and he's going to punch this sucker right back if she can natural 20. nice uh oh two two ones on the dice ugh uh but however they are vulnerable to bludgeoning and with that that oh it's still standing but it's you just see her bust out most of the chest cavity on this skeleton in the corner and it's just hardly holding itself upwards as she busted into it all right now that i have my initiative fixed again it's the shadow's turn this one here right next to you indigo it's gonna reach out and strike i hate that uh no fears though because that's a natural one yeah damn it uh this one here ooh four options here indigo eldeth sarif or stool oh my gosh i'm gonna do a monster one d4 one is stool two is indigo three is eldeth four is sarith here we go stone stone stars it's a three it's eldeth damn uh that's out of the box 13 plus 17 to hit oh yeah uh i i did want to make a correction uh because my dumb ass was in the heat of battle and forgot a very basic rule base ac for any player care or any like character is 10 plus your dexterity bonus some uh some classes that have the unarmored defense like feature get to add their constitution bonus to that as well okay but standard is is 10 plus your decks so her her unarmored ac is a little bit higher than we previously thought okay uh well she takes six points of necrotic damage okay and three points of strength damage okay how's she looking she's she's uh she's at a minus one right now okay so she's got a little bit left in her a little bit left uh oh i forgot to do the bonus actions of this guys let's see this guy's gonna try and sink back into the shadows oh yeah yeah he does he he does uh and they are going to yeah this would be interesting okay and then the one that just attacked eldeth is going to attempt to do the same thing uh but no such luck and then finally the one near sephel[Music] does a 16 hit you uh it would if i didn't use another spell you're going to do it i am roll that d 20. it's what's gonna happen what's gonna happen hi okay that is a 13. all right you're fine god damn it okay i feel like this is yeah i feel like this is a super cool thing for very specific spells and we just haven't given him the satisfaction it's fine it'll happen when it happens i guess uh this one attempts to slink back into the shadows but no luck all right bupido is now up um sorry i'm still thinking through what you just said you said the the one that attacks the foul tried to sleep back in the shadows that it can't yeah yeah the one next to eldeth did the same they both tried but weren't able to for whatever reason yeah you see them every time they like reach out and strike at you they like stretch from the darkness that envelops most of this room and as they try to slink back into it there's just like you just manage enough to see like the discrepancy discrepancies in their movement amongst the natural darkness that you're still able to pinpoint where they are you think they're like trying to uh hide on you after they attack you okay um yeah bupido on his turn is going to attack the crystal nearest to him um having heard lara scream out about it okay he moves over he's gonna go for that go for it swing the hair uh that is an uh it's an 11 but he lost four strengths with a nine he hits thankfully and he just like tings off of it cool cool so that's gonna be a i'm sorry short swords should be should be a d6 um yeah so that's six damage okay he like swings into it but his blade kind of like bounces off and he's not quite sure if he really dug into it or not she's like i'm not sure if i can really make a dent in this hmm okay well that's it for him all right next up is turvy uh turvy doesn't really want to [ __ ] do anything around this so they're just gonna run this way all right back up at the top indigo oh yeah um so this is a spooky spooky sweet place uh i'm looking down to the south towards safel um does indigo have a clear shot at the the uh the shadow here carrying our our mind flare companion uh you do you do and you also have this one here as well it is like real close though don't love that um also looking around how i think safel and lara have both taken some hits who's looking who's looking worse i okay he he looks a little beat up but he doesn't look like he's on death's door either i don't think that um lara is i mean lara's background like she's not one to show that she's hurt well she's taking some hits i'm like hurting but not really hurting i'm a i'm a tough guy i'll probably go down and then you'll realize how bad it was well in that case you're fine you're fine i i am going to again kind of raising a hand up swirling uh above my head i am going to shoot a burst of radiant light uh i'm going to try guiding bolt the one over by stefael what's the um what's the the school of magic here uh this is some good good education[ __ ] okay roll a d20 please seven you're fine i kind of wanna i wanna fail this check i don't know what the [ __ ] is happening like right now like you know how terrible that is like when someone tells you the stove is hot and you're like i know they're right and so logic tells me not to touch it but i really want to find out i know right every time you guys you're you're kind of seeing a pattern here every time you guys cast a spell you notice that the crystals in the room seem to react like there's that that that bump in their in their brightness and that kind of like a little spark around them and you feel like something's trying to interact with the magic that you're conjuring into your hands or through your staffs or wands however however it is manifest or magic something is like almost interfering or trying to warp it you can just kind of feel something's wrong in in in the general area here it's wild don't like that i don't like that one bit no three three primarily spell casters it's uh not a great problem to run into no casual uh that is gonna be a 19 on the guiding bolt though oh yeah that's a how many how many dice you're rolling over there 46 yep oh [ __ ] uh wow yeah it's a 4 14 points of radiant damage um describe your obliteration i would just love to uh so yeah indigo stand there they raised their hand up swirl around gather a bit of light as they're kind of muttering under their breath and just out this blast that goes right over stool right past the one shadow and it just absolutely obliterates the one by safel and he gives you a toothy thumbs up nice uh hey how very anime of you yeah that's what i'm here for elderth because of your key hearing you feel like you hear after that this kind of like that same yelling you feel like you started to hear it and then it kind of like got choked off into this garbled cry just interesting uh at any particular point like when uh when a crystal was struck like when an attack happened as that shadow was obliterated she heard that oh that's weird um all right indigo is that your turn yes that's all indigo gondo all right well you got stool and sarith what these boys gonna do stool is just so brave he is braver than anyone he gives him credit for and in this moment when the chips are truly down he's gonna take the help action oh[ __ ] sweet sweet serif in his attack um i'm loving it just yeah i bet he's like anymore i'll just like some spore clouds go out in the shells like[Music] and then sarah's gonna mix uncanny all right he's going to make sarva is going to make an attack with the short sword uh good thing we had an advantage there uh it's not pretty that is a 13. that is a hit all right and that is uh seven points of piercing from our voice serif all right once again feels like that that damage coming through doesn't quite fully penetrate but the shadow does seem smaller in size now after that swipe excellent excellent all right the indigo boys rest oh righty so phil europe just been saved by radio how does that make you feel that the young goblin just took over for you yeah if i if i'm remembering correctly because you know it's it's so much time between our our filming of episodes uh this is not the first time this has happened this actually i believe is the second battle where indigo has saved uh safel sorry ass and safel is i think between the the intelligence that he sees coming every like blue moon from indigo the the attack like the attacks that do that much damage the knowledge to use radiance and the power behind it there's a very thin line of something that could almost be confused with respect for indigo um must be so difficult for them yeah no it's it's a hard time um so safel is going to acknowledge that uh like any healthy emotional moment he's going to suppress it to be dealt with later and he is going to uh step out to get a clear shot at this shadow harrowing eldeth okay and he is going to cast a celestial burst once again okay eight you're fine this dc must be so low you're fine just cast your stupid all right it's a 17 to hit you're gonna be okay bud yeah yeah you can it's whatever okay all right well just know i care about you okay i want this to be fun for you uh i no you're right i don't that's why i uh i rolled six points of radian damage describe your kill of the shadow yeah he is uh he is going to process those emotions not healthily he's going to repress them he's going to step out and in in the first steps of processing is going to have that like denial bargaining sort of phase where he needs to now prove his own uh usefulness so he's gonna sort of copycat and reach his hand up grasp that like almost legend of zelda manifest something that in the air that wasn't there before grasp this ball of light and curveball toss it at this shadow and blast it back from once it came in the game once again eldeth hears another choking it almost sounds like sob as this shadow disappears um and it is her turn okay um there's one skeleton remaining in a shadow that has disappeared somewhere you don't know where okay she she doesn't have anything she can do at the moment what crystals have already been attacked the one here next to bupido and the one to the north up by lara okay now that she doesn't have to worry about uh getting attacked by this one that safel just destroyed she's going to take a step back to this uh southeastern crystal and she is going to swing at it with her short sword okay[Music] that is oh well they don't have a high ac it is a it's a natural seven and i'm forgetting her modifier at this point oh yeah she's got there's an 11 to him all right uh minimum damage for three points of piercing damage yeah she she like stabs into it and she doesn't even like leave a scratch right off the crystal okay she's going to uh she's going to try once again actually can she she's leaving uh the um leaving the short sword in her her main hand she's going to pull the rock that she had in her off hand okay and she's going to see if she can maybe crack it with that she's assuming that maybe trying to to stab a stone isn't the best idea maybe not so okay uh i do need to account for the fact that her modifier is lower uh so that is an 11 so that hits right yep okay yeah very very low ac on this okay uh two points of bludgeoning damage then yeah she she uh actually manages to hit it and you hear this as a very small crack starts to form and that energy that red kind of light inside of it actually kind of crawls up like smoke within the crystal and reaches into that crack and just starts to kind of like dissipate out of it and gradually that light just leaves that crystal and it is now okay kind of that muted clear look okay oh she didn't take any of the no like electricity damage from striking it or anything like that nope okay odd and spoopy ain't it anyways it's topsy's term she's going to strike there's no consistency it's no [ __ ] consistency well you just don't understand uh all right she hits the skeleton and she's just like in the corner boom boom hear the snapping and smashing of bones as she destroys the skeleton and then she just starts sprinting backwards uh crying out for turby she can't actually see him uh and tervy is going to stay where they are hiding behind that column over there and it's now the shadows turn the last remaining shadow is going to pop back[Music] oh that's 15 points of necrotic damage holy [ __ ] let me just let me just check on something a quick google search if you don't mind that's great that's that's that's not concerning everything is fine is uh is this a is this a question to if necrotic kills on us that one i already know i'm wondering if the strength damage is also doubled oh that's interesting okay all right you might have a hard time googling him nope i got it fir it came up right away it is not doubled so sarith takes that 15 points of necrotic damage and four points of strength damage how sore are you doing uh you know how are any of us doing um uh sarf is um unconscious with three strength points left oh[ __ ] oh man just out of curiosity how many hit points did he have left before that hit four and what is his max hp uh thankfully 13. okay so yeah oh wow okay well zarth is uh down and uh let's see if the shadow can slip back into the shadows nope they are not able to uh okay skelly boys are dead shadows are done oh laura we totally skipped your turn it's your turn girl what am i doing i'm so sorry i wondered but i don't i don't no it's fine i gotta get better with the initiative tracker on roll 20 so we can all help keep me accountable so please please take your turn lara is going to sprint south to um where the shadow is um and i would like to cast which bolt make a d20 roll not related to the attack that those are some big guns uh that's an 11 flat you're fine he's so sad though it's the the perfect thing that no one will be able to appreciate is watching will's face is it's like every time there's another check a little bit less excitement graces his face because there's no satisfaction to be had i'll tell you right now anything for every single one of these checks have been like an eight yeah well i mean it's a cool thing that's in the book and it's just like it's never gonna happen so it's just disappointing yeah anyways yeah it's a hit um i rarely use this dice what kind of what kind of damage human yeah nobody uses the d12 on it honestly um this is lightning damage okay and it creates an arc between me and the shadow yes so we shouldn't lose him all right that is two lightning tacking on the two thunder okay you uh you feel like you hit it with this lightning bolt and while it attaches the two of you you see it kind of like turn towards you and it doesn't look like it really affected it by much interesting um all right well it's bupido's turn okay we'll return to his job of smacking the crystal smack tag crystal uh that is a 21 to hit yeah five damage yeah a little bit more you he actually oh my gosh excuse me he manages to actually get a nick in and as well that wispy energy comes and crawls out and eventually that crystal loses that red light but no lightning comes up and hits it okay that's it that's it yes all right uh indigo you're up all right well uh as they have um oh poor innocent sarah can't forget about him i dare not i dare not forget i will rush to their aid yeah i i'll stay right and i am gonna uh risk the weird crystal magic uh ritual yet again uh i'm gonna go for a quick um wow sorry my brain just stopped functioning there uh sacred flame okay yes full stop i know we're back sacred flame forgotten i know that's a nine you're fine uh like a little deck save why don't you huh[Music] that is eight radiant damage describe your kill uh indigo is you know seeing sarah on the ground like once you get through a quick almost like absent mildly just like flicks their hand up uh opening a small you know kind of fischer in the rock beneath and a jet of white fire just licks up and just burns away uh one last silent scream from the shadow sick do you guys hear everything become quiet as you stand in this hall and things kind of tone down you see the skeletons around you the blasted points where these shadows once clawed from the darkness at you and uh actually give me a moment because something interesting might have just happened for you guys let me just let me just checks that xp[Music] uh[Music] level three you all earned just enough to reach level three and laura as you are you you this connection fades from the two of you and this like exhaustion comes over you you kind of like step back a bit and you actually bump up against the crystal and as you you feel slightly stronger for a moment having come through this odd experience you touch this crystal and there's like this shock that runs through you up your back and you get like a flash and you feel some presence almost calling out to you deep beneath your feet and you know without a shadow of a doubt that whatever called out to you you have to find it you feel an inexplicable bond between you and that's where we'll leave it today hey everybody this is sam conklin i voice laura in the madness table we are so delighted to have you here thank you so much for listening to our dinky little podcast we pour our hearts into this so to have you here it's just it's the world if you haven't already we have a twitter instagram and facebook at the madness table you can also shoot us an email at the madnesstable gmail.com we would love to hear from you love to hear how you're enjoying the show any questions you have for the characters we might even shut you out in some future post show notes so please do so if if you're loving the podcast we would just adore you if you shared it with a friend and that's it so we'll see you in two weeks for our next episode when[Applause][Music][Music] do[Music] do[Music][Music][Music] do you