Monsters Below, Monsters Above - Episode 8

With the battle won, the party attempts to lick their wounds but fate has other plans. Lara faces difficult choices while the rest of the party attempts a rescue mission. But will they be in time?

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
And the Darkness Grew Like a Tree | Doctor Turtle

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] last time you guys uh you came into this large and what looked like a once grandiose uh kind of like entrance hall you saw all around you these nice statues uh old withered uh trophies like hunting trophies um and primarily the things that struck you the most were these large red glowing crystals scattered about the room and the numerous skeletal bodies also lying scattered about the floor um some dressed in armor old kind of archaic looking armor um some in rags some you couldn't even identify if there really was anything clothing like on them left and as you guys kind of ventured about kind of closely examining some of these crystals and a couple of the bodies you were able to determine that all of these skeletons were human uh and of kind of an indiscriminate age um and the as to trying to determine the uh cause of death uh it was very very hard but you could see numerous little bite marks on different parts of the bones and stuff like that that also appeared to be very old um so clearly something at some point had feasted on these bodies um there is a large set of double doors to what would be our your east there is a singular door all the way to the right and then what looked looks like a set of doors that would go northwards kind of in the center uh upward part of this this room that a couple of pillars and statues have crumbled in front of making the way very difficult during the course of your investigation of like what the [ __ ] was happening here you uh a number of skeletons actually rose up um and came after you and and during the battle you guys actually were able to make out especially elderth and um i believe it was indigo and safel um and correct me if i'm wrong heard some kind of voice deeper in the castle yelling out screaming more like um you're able to discern some things like no let them rest and then kind of cut off gurgled cries during the course of the battle you guys could feel something pulling at your magics as you were fighting these skeletons and eventually shadows that appeared from the darkness sapping your strength um with a couple of hits uh lara especially on one crystal managed to nick a large chunk sending electrical energy in and then it crept out in back into her causing her a little bit of harm bupido attempted the same um and a couple of uh the others of you also tried with various effects some of the lights and energy eventually kind of wisping out of these crystals as you did manage to make marks but no electricity coming back out at you and finally as the last shadow had been banished you all felt slightly invigorated as you leveled up um but lara you had kind of backed up exhausted from this fight that you just came through and you bumped into this crystal that we see but behind your pond here and you felt something kind of like shock through you and you felt like some kind of presence call out to you deep beneath this castle and before any of you guys have much time to react lara you feel you hear in fact actually you all hear a and laura you look down and you see the stone floor starting to crumble i need you to make a dexterity saving throw oh god all right i got a plus two that's a 15 so 17 all together okay you fall you these stones drop out beneath you and just oh you try to grab onto the edge and your your hands make contact the rest of you kind of like rush forward like what the hell is going on trying to grab her but she just and there's a moment of pause for you laura and then well you slam into something hard and you fly off and wham why i'm descending into this darkness until finally with thud you've land and you take you take 12 points of bludgeoning damage as you hit bottom that's no joke with your third level yeah oh no i guess she's dead how much how much hp did you have after that fight uh i didn't have any i think i had[ __ ] i uh i leveled up and i got rid of it i think i had two i'm unconscious yeah i'm sorry i wasn't thinking yeah yeah well now you're [ __ ] here i i know it was one or two at most it was too either i'm unconscious yeah i think you were dancing dancing with unconsciousness and death yeah so lara you fall unconscious you like as you're you fade off very quickly you see the light kind of above from a couple of the the others like looking down in but you your head kind of lulls to the side and you're able to make out an odd sight before you you close your eyes and that is you see a massive skeleton of some kind of creature teeth large teeth the size of your torso right in front of you you realize you're looking into a gaping maw of a skull and then your vision goes black and in that darkness as you are kind of fading off you're not sure where you are but it's almost like you're you guys ever play assassin's creed yeah no no all right so there's this in this like loading screen it's always like this gray empty expanse and it's like this thin water that just stretches out into nothingness but like the loading screen has you your character kind of there and you can run around in it but it never changes you find yourself in a scene very similar to that just darkness and fog as far as you can see and you hear the splashing of your feet and kind of look around what do you do yeah if laura's in this like never-ending hellscape um she's going to yell out um chao can like trying to reach out to her patron um if she can get any sort of communication okay you try reaching out and you feel like something's there something's there roll a d20 as you make a death saving throw okay uh that's a six so that is one failure and you feel a presence growing stronger you feel like something a shadowy form is kind of walking out of the mist towards you but you still can't make it out but before i go any farther on that we'll jump back to the rest of you guys you guys have just come through this battle you're all standing up there and all of a sudden you hear this crack and then all of a sudden laura just disappears through the floor as a section of it crumbles away and you hear her yell and then nothing and you see bupido who was very close to laura i tried to reach out and he's like no and he's like looking into this hole what do you guys do uh well first it's just like we are like picking up right after um just as i run towards the hole i am going to stop over by saraf who also went down uh and i'm gonna hit him with a quick spare of the dying uh because that's you know i saw her fall but i don't know that she's unconscious but i do see him on the floor absolutely yeah i'm gonna remember your priorities indigo[Laughter] you brought a backup character right yeah yeah i'd do what i had to do uh with that accomplished i am going to kind of hustle over to the hall uh to the hole i'll look over at um safel um you um do you still have your feathers i do i was going to use this when she fell but it happened too quickly as if by an act of god and i will i will just sort of hang one foot over the uh the hole and i will allow myself to fall forward as i cast featherfall on myself and um uh indigo should he choose to to join me yeah i'll fall and as i kind of like swan dive in stool take care of sarf from the rest you're in charge when i'm gone bye does despair the dying actually bring someone back up to consciousness or are they still like at unconscious they're uh they're still unconscious but they're stable it stabilizes okay so sorry still on the ground tervy kind of approached a little bit but the others are just gathered around and as you both just jump in and indigo you yell that lupito's just like i suppose we'll just wait um and eldeth just kind of like huffs and she's just like well i'm i'm not sure what we're supposed to be doing ah and she just kind of like grabs topsy and starts going to investigate some of the skeletal bodies but you guys start um descending downwards uh which we realize is actually still fairly quickly um but it's 60 feet per round yeah so as you guys are descending and you both have dark vision i i'm pretty sure right yes yeah you see that it is that you're descending into what looks like an extremely large cavern hundreds and hundreds of feet long and wide and as you manage to quickly look up you see what looks like the bottom of this massive structure that you just fell from and you can see as you come down to land this gargantuan skeletal form of this long creature that stretches across almost this entire cavern you would have to guess because you can't even see it but you can you can hear your echo as you land and judging by the size of this massive skull in front of you that it has to be you know close to almost 150 feet long or more and you see laura she's crumpled on the ground fairly well beaten and all around this cavern used make out those same kind of glowing crystals and they seem to grow a little bit brighter but you see that there's red there's blue there's white there's even some green like glowing in these crystals all about you and you can feel a heavy magical presence in this this space here um jumping back to lara though you see this shadowy form starting to approach you go ahead and make me another death-saving throw and i this is um all right i got three failures before i'm [ __ ] 15. okay so you make it you then hear a voice as this figure kind of stops shrouded in the mist again you can't really make them out but they look appear to be humanoid why are you here lara i'm i've fallen in the pursuit of saving innocence what what is this hmm[Music] this is a place of my making but you are dying and your previous benefactor can't really reach you so i'm reaching out to this oh i i know a few things this world down here works a little bit differently than it does up in the wilds that they prevail over go ahead and make another death saving throw for me that's an eight another failure and you you actually feel it now in this kind of weird limbo place you feel pain deep within you and you hear the crunching of bones and this figure says that's a mighty nasty wound i see broken ribs i see punctured lungs i am not sure laura if you're gonna make this it isn't my time i'm i and she i imagine she's like thinking about the wounds in herself we're probably unable to actually put pressure on them and so she's like in the state of like frustration um i i have to save them i have to get my wings back um and she's just this frustrated anger yeah yeah you've come a long way this was the beginning of your hopefully triumphant comeback in a way and this this shadowy form walks out of the mist and they're just shadow they appear tall broad male if you had to guess and they as they are approaching you you don't hear their footsteps in the water the way you do yours but you then see your crumpled form and your two friends standing over you and this figure kind of gestures out at this scene and goes i don't know that your friends are going to save you in time i could though was i not uh she'll stop at that um i has kn placed you in my path no and what is in it for you to save me very much like you are here and he gestures one more time to the the scene conjured before you i find myself in a very poor compromised and on the edge of death with your help i could find myself brought back to a better life and if you were to do so i could very easily give you back your wings there i imagine that lara like in this state is like looking at this figure and as soon as he says i could give you back your wings she just like straightens up and looks at him and says i accept and you can see they're kind of like they [ __ ] their head my my so eager there is much that i have done wrong in my life and i know that getting my wings will bring me back to the divine origin that i came from and this figure comes closer to you and as this shadowy form stands in front of you excuse me you see that they are probably close to seven feet tall quite large and you can't really make out too many distinct features in this kind of wispy shadowy form but they hold out a large hand he said if you take this we are in agreement you help me rise and i will help you fly uh i imagine she looks at the hand for like a fraction of a second and thinks i hope can doesn't get mad at this and then she's gonna put her hand in his okay now out of game i'm going to i'm going to tell you something if you do this your patron will legitimately change[Music] okay you're you're you're packed and stuff like that not going to change doesn't change doesn't change just who the patron is you know it may be a genie it may be something else are you okay with that or no um uh so i would i think that so i assuming that this like meta between you and i dm the player occurred like in her brain of like second guessing it looking at the hand i would like to make one more death saving throw um and i would like to use my inspiration point that i earned in our first combat can i do that i'm going to allow it i don't know that you traditionally can but i'm going to allow it okay although i still need three successes don't i and i only had one one success in two failures all right well i still i would still want to at least take that time to think it over yeah go for it if i get a success on this absolutely all right that's not 20. okay so you you do feel yourself all of a sudden just feeling better and you do feel like you know you're gonna pull through this like you are okay however but i'm still with this being you're still with this being do you take the hand or do you tell them no i imagine that she's like her her arm is like her you know her arm is bent but like the hand is like held up in the air and she looks at it and then she like clutches this invisible wound and she looks them in the eye and she just says i think that there's more for me to do with my current standing i would rather take this one as it is uh and she'll like fall you know like fall away to like embrace her injuries yeah and as you you do this figure its arms go behind its back and it says i will be here when you next fall and it all dissipates and as you kind of return back to your wounds you actually hear faintly in the distance the rumbling and crackling of a storm coming now jumping back to you indigo encephal you land and it does not look good you see her crumpled form you see the broken bones you can tell very very quickly um however as you guys get close you see one large shaky breath kind of come out of her however she still is unconscious what do you guys do uh since we leveled do i have access to those slots um since yours are divinely given um i will say yes i will say versa fell though you'll you'll need to wait to prepare kind of a thing it's understandable uh i think indigo's absolute first instinct is to rush over and immediately lend a helping hand uh in the form of a cure wound to the second level because she looks rough um yeah then he would want to help as much as possible as fast as possible okay[Music] uh you know that's what we like to see um that's 19 points of healing for you [ __ ] damn i should go heal who says heels aren't exciting yes uh so lara you reawaken what do you think uh yeah um i imagine the indigo what happened well um you fell down a hole and then we jumped down after you and now we're here and uh thank you for the goodness of toril you're back up and looking like fine where is he where's there was a a man no no no no it's just the three of us down here is that giant skeletal figure here yeah it's like right next to you guys are like right next to the skull of this massive creature that's obviously dead i was gonna say that while um while indigo was was healing up lara i wanted uh oh mike boom man grabs cat hell yes go go kitten go i wanted to she's being a little [ __ ] today and she's about to go in another room um while indigo was healing up lara i did want to do i wanted to see if there was any check that i could do to identify what that skeleton might be sure i will allow nature or arcana okay uh i my bonuses are equal for both but for the sake of this um i don't know we're in a weird place with a weird magical aura i'm gonna i'm gonna say this is an arcana check okay uh 16. okay you hmm this is a tricky one i can give you a little bit you feel like this creature as you're kind of like are you just looking at the skull are you walking along it what do you think you're doing no i i feel like he would be analyzing the whole creature like he would he would start with the head and then he'd kind of walk beside it to see you know the length see try to like check its structure see if this the magical aura if it's all centralized in the area or if maybe some of its residual of whatever this beast might have been um okay trying to key into to what it may be sure um the magical auras kind of thing that will be more of like a detect magic as for this creature as you are kind of looking at the skull and walking around you see that this skull appears appears to be kind of draconic in a way um and as you kind of follow this huge skull back you see that there are a pair of horns that kind of come back but they're shorter and they kind of sweep straight back and come to a small point and then the rest of the skeleton is kind of odd it's a weird mixture you see something of a rib cage that looks a little bit more serpentine you do find some very large long limbs skeletal limbs that come off into large kind of clawed like digits and as you're following it back you actually come across a large mound of something just kind of like weirdly uh in the middle of this room and as you kind of walk along the rest of this creature you see that this skeleton has curled around this spot and you see that it is in fact probably about 175 feet long it's a very large creature um you see that it's got four legs but something about the structure would suggest to you that this creature had the ability to like expand uh its ribs exceedingly wide as their you see as it's they're kind of like half buried in the earth here that they're not fully attached to the um uh the spinal column that remains kind of intact here um but the only thing you can recall i'm kind of picturing the head gaping dragon from from dark souls yes but yes and no the the head is far larger the you would think um the best context that i could put this in is um oh man let me um[Music] uh yes okay look up if you guys know what i'm talking about a earless monitor lizard and just get in get get some images up of that so if you find it it's it's got this very long torso these kind of shorter legs in this very long tail that kind of come up into a dragon-esque slash um crocodilian kind of face um so you while you're kind of going along the length of this creature think it would look similar to this however it has a far more draconic head interesting um[Music] upon hearing that uh she's alive and everything um i think that lara would like to take her um so she has her um genies uh trinket at the edge like she has it tied to the end of her braid um and she's going to unravel that and hand it to indigo um indigo um hold this would you and then she's going to disappear into the bottle whoa okay uh and the hope is that when she arrives inside that she'll be able to convene easier with her patron okay describe what the inside of this bottle looks like yeah uh this actually i i'm struggling to figure out what exactly laura's would look like um but i imagined it to be like um just kind of modest um probably with like a bunch of like crap that she's picked up on her travels like nothing of necessary any value like lara grew up fairly modestly so the inside of this is just kind of like holding her crap um and so it's kind of like a round room um the the size i think can only be like 20 feet um so it's not big uh and then there's just like um very uh plush seating um so that if you're there you can sit comfortably but otherwise it's just kind of like stuff unorganized in um boxes and on like coffee tables kind of thing so you arrive in this space and you're you're going to try and commune with your patron yeah she's going to sit um and kind of like in a like a very comfortable seat and just like close our eyes and really think about um air and the atmosphere and storms and um really try and conjure up can if at all she can you concentrate and you focus for a while and you're drumming up images of kane's domain and you're calling out to them but you just you don't feel that connection um yeah after like i don't know i don't think she would have the pages to wait very long uh and she'll just um open her eyes and sit there and then with like the scowl on her face and then she'll pop back out um out of indigo's hand and she's just [ __ ] well that um i'm getting really tired of being down here down here um in in like at the bottom of this pit down here um inside this small metal object or down here in the um the underdark down here where there's no open sky so all three gotcha um i'm sorry that that sounds very frustrating thanks she'll take the bottle back and tie it back on the end of her brain okay um by the way what what but you're just gonna you jumped inside a magic bottle and we're just we're not gonna talk about this i can't i can't take you with me if that's what you're asking it's kind of like my little yeah i look i'm i'm[Music] i kind of um made a deal with a ginny um and that's kind of part of me is that i can reside in this bottle and she'll hold it up if i need to um but for the most part it's just kind of yeah a nice place to go if i need to huh but i can't take you with me i'm sorry i mean that's i i knew a girl named jenny i didn't get a magic bottle but it's not the same i mean hey i'm not here to judge it's fine no if you met k n you would know that it was different um and i i'm she's like very proud of her patron um but uh yeah she's frustrated in this moment um did we find anything out about what's going on here in indigo i i apologize thank you for um bringing me back hey it's what i do this skeletal creature seems draconic in nature but different from normal dragon fanaticism hmm lara you do feel that same pull and you kind of feel it almost like a like a in your in your core and it's pulling you as you can now look about the room a little bit easier you or the space you see that mound and you feel like whatever this thing is that you felt above is coming from that did you explore this uh and she'll she'll immediately head toward that direction um and investigate it okay uh no good good luck no i will uh cephel will follow i'll keep respectful distance um just for shiz and giggles uh andrew go ahead and make me a nature or arcana check as you're kind of looking about this space as well and this this weird skeleton creature nature time it's a a poultry tin okay yeah for for some reason this you know you're flipping through notes you you can't really recall or identify what this thing is but the two of you kind of go up to this mound it's probably about six feet tall and probably about 15 feet wide and it looks like a very large mound of packed dirt but you laura feel like there's something inside of it you you're both going wait a second where where is sarath eldeth bupido where is everybody we're up here here here you see torchlight as you look up and just like a bunch of faces looking down are you alright right right yeah um why are we going back up at some point hopefully no we're gathering rope rope rope up all right well that's that um i you're going to have to believe me on this there is something in this mound that's not a hard cell it's a strange creature most likely surrounding very obviously amount of packed dirt there is something calling to me inside of it and i will be finding out what is inside would you mind perhaps readying yourselves i don't know what will happen indigo inches backwards savelle just stands there he's just waiting okay yeah he's just standing there yeah he he like meets your gaze and like a little bit of a sigh comes through and his tentacles like open a little bit as he does but he's just he's just waiting i imagine safel has like a tentacle twitch as like a a telltale sign that he's annoyed just like one of them shivers or something it is the uh the third one on the left the third on the left yeah fair enough uh and she will um start to just like hand over hand like get in there okay you start digging through this dirt yeah it it's a little hard at first but i'm eventually you're able to start pulling away larger chunks and getting in there and it gets softer and as you do you actually find you actually cut yourself a tiny bit not enough to take damage on something sharp and as you dig a little bit more you pull out something very like it looks black and in your your eyes you can see what looks like something kind of like refracting and unless you have light you really wouldn't be able to tell what like if this thing has any colors to it or not but it looks like a piece of something and kind of puts it put it to the side and you keep digging and you find more and more and more of these various different shaped things and then eventually you come across something solid um when i started pulling out random things i would guess light okay so you cast light all these materials on my stack yeah you you pull these things out you cast light and you see they look like thin kind of curved opalescent almost what looks like glass but it's the black opal kind of color so it's got miniature rainbows kind of refracting off of it and you know you can see it kind of flashing light and you can you guys can all see this now it kind of reflects about the the cavern that you're in here um and you you kind of feel like you hit something very solid down in that mound you're probably a good three feet in now here and ago i'm sure you'll want to draw this uh and she'll toss it over shoulder i will do my best to catch it um okay and then so i'm actually like a solid thing it feels like something solid it feels kind of like it's got a there's some kind of domed thing that you're kind of like tapping up upon but it feels like it's very solid and it has the same coloring if you clear away a little bit more of the dirt as the shards of whatever you've pulled out um and i'm that well i think we need to uncover this um i can't tell you why exactly i'm i'm feeling this has meant this we have to uncover this uh and she's going to um like continue to like just like get all the sides clear so that she can really see what this thing is okay um indigo go ahead and make me another nature check with advantage now as you have this piece and you're kind of going over it[Music] you can assist on your own if you want okay so 18. well i was going gonna say if if this is probably taking a long time because she's digging with what i assume are just her hands on a very large dirt mound now once she uncovered the first one we're all kind of taking a look at it i can sit down for 10 minutes and cast identify okay so you're trying to identify magic here specifically uh it doesn't necessarily have to be magic it just identifies what it is so just to make sure i am correct on that uh you choose one object that you have to touch throughout the casting if it is a mad uh if it is a magic item or other magic imbued object i learned what its properties are and how to use them um i learn whether any spells are affecting the item and what they are if the item was created by a spell i learned which spell[Music] if i instead touch a creature i learn what spells okay so it is it is magically inclined uh okay yeah all right um do you touch the shards or do you touch the thing that she's currently trying to uncover uh the shards because theoretically i could do both okay um there's no magic the shards okay so you would presume that it's something naturally formed um indigo you kind of look back to the creature you look back to the shards you look back to this creature you look back to the shards and you are starting to kind of dance on the edge of something that semi concerns you if you feel like your hunch is correct but also you're like no this isn't true like this this can't be the same thing because all other reports of what this thing could be don't really match what we found here you're like in your head you're like there should be at least four more pairs of legs on this creature if it's what you think it might be and so lara you finally get all the edges dug out and you it hits you you're looking at an egg it's probably about two feet tall in about a foot and or like maybe close to 14 to 15 inches in uh diameter so it's pretty big and now you're basically like in this mound and you can see you see all the other shards are broken eggs and as you touch this you feel like this shock kind of travels through your fingers and into this egg and inside you see like these multi-colored facets just scaring through in it and you kind of like bring your fingers back like whoa and inside you can see what looks like some kind of creature and you feel that thumping in your own chest that your heart's starting to pick up and then you see like in the flashes within this egg it's starting to move and then you all hear this and it continues to grow and to grow and to grow in indigo you recall tales of a creature supposedly now no one's fully sure if it's confirmed or not of a creature created by giants supposedly that was used to aid them in a millennia old war between them and dragons and this creature was reportedly said to be used by the giants to kill off dragons and as this egg all of a sudden explodes laura you see in front of you very similar to an earliest monitor lizard with these kind of lumps and ridges all about it it's got these uh four limbs small but powerful looking however instead of kind of the more um crocodilian like snout of a of the monitor it's more of it's it's got the same length but it has this large kind of neck that comes up and it looks like it has stretch to it and you see that there's these little ridges that run along it and two little horns that come backwards and you see that its hind legs are surprisingly powerful like it could probably prop itself up on it and you see two sets of eyes open on its head and they are a bright blue color and you just see it slowly start to pick itself up till it sits on its hind legs a little bit it's two upper arms kind of hanging down by its side poised in front of it it's long tail supporting it upwards and it just looks at you in this kind of awkward blink and then opens its mouth and have you guys ever seen the inside uh i know i'm throwing a lot of animal stuff at you you guys ever seen the inside of a snapping turtle's throat uh andrew can sport this yeah it's got like all these teeth that look like it kind of like helps push stuff down in through its gullet you see that this creature's mouth lara just like opens up weirdly wide and you can see that same kind of gullet but then it quickly closes its mouth and it's a small creature and it kind of clops itself down onto all fours and starts kind of walking up to you very quietly its uh skin in the light is kind of a similar shimmery blackness and you can see as it kind of like approaches you it's making like this weird this weird little noise and you can see these flashes of kind of light travel along its body indigo do you realize looking at this creature though it is not similar bears a lot of similarities to the creature created by giants supposedly and these long serpentine creatures would or ambush predators they would sneak up on unsuspecting foes and have this deep-seated hatred for dragons in which they would try to before a dragon could fly off run and constrict their long bodies around a dragon clawing at it and they had a similar breath weapon to dragons however it was much more powerful at a shorter range and they would use it to try and uh target the dragon's head and then basically very much like a constrictor snake try to swallow them and like completely consume them and you think that this creature bears very interesting resemblances to that one and lara you this creature comes up to you kind of sniffs you and then kind of starts to rub against you and kind of start to climb its way up your body and you feel like it's got some it's got some heft to it but you feel its power and its nature and if you look in your extras on your dnd beyond page you have your new packed friend oh um she will um as this creature is like rubbing up against her um reach out her hand um and like go to like hesitantly like touch this creature and she'll whisper um ashley and it's like the word for lightning um oh okay so what language is that well in in our world it's hindi so that's what i stole it from um yeah we'll say it's a variation of common of a kind yeah yeah so she's just got this like wonder in her voice as she like reaches out it uh looks at you kind of for a second looking at your outstretched hand and very much like a cat then just kind of like leans into it allowing you to stroke it um and it's got this like while it's ridges are very hard you can feel that there's almost a softness to its body as well um i don't know if you guys have ever pet like the underbelly of like see i've got grizzly my bearded dragon it's very soft but you can still feel the scales it's almost of like a similar texture in between the ridges and stuff like that it's very interesting as this is going on indigo indigo has his sketch pad out and he is making notes uh everything like that he suspects about the hears and also seeing this new creature and doing some some quick sketches um into his book uh as this creature begins to interact with lara yeah it surprisingly seems docile enough but you you're not sure you've heard horrible stories about behears um so it kind of it kind of makes you wonder what's going on but you're not it doesn't seem to be threatening her or you guys and uh if you guys actually pop over to roll 20 i'll show you a picture of what a bahir normally looks like tell me if you guys see that it's got this long oh yeah yeah blue serpentine body and these numerous short legs that come up to kind of a longish face and you can see a little bit of lightning and it's got these weird curled horns this creature only has four legs this one that's in front of you and instead of these curled horns it's two very sharp ones that kind of point backwards and but the the rest of the face is somewhat similar except that it's it's a little bit broader in the face and it's this black kind of opal-ish color so yeah that's what uh that's what you got in front of you nice and um as you guys so lara's like place this creature in my path for a reason and she looks at safal and indigo to see what they think well this is great i mean look at it it's so cute and also it might someday get very very large and it's very exciting it seems to be friendly um it does eat out of your rations though i think i think it's absolutely lovely i think this is a fair choice as well now if we're done with all the theatrics can we find a way out of this hole and as you say that a very long piece together rope all of a sudden falls from the hole lands on the ground and uh you see stools form being held by one of its weird legs kind of dropped down from the hole in someone's hand and she's like come on guys guys guys guys guys let's go go go well you you heard stool i put them in charge and they're coming through so i'm heading up the rope this is entirely useless uh but it's more of just a flex safel is going to use his adjust density feature to make himself half as heavy so he can get up the rope easier quicker and put his own mind at ease that not being not going to cause let's just say not because he's just a weak creature i mean that too but he's not he's not a shriveled old man he just doesn't have to uh oh yeah that that's an important point uh i'm still my strength is still down to six i believe did we did we know how to no fix that or was that just a okay cool yeah you haven't actually had the time to figure that out no i i had actually totally forgotten about that so yeah actually at this moment it is very much because he is weak he is going to uh he's going to half his own weight so he is much easier to uh it's much easier for him to climb back up okay wow you you're a lot more agile than i i thought i mean i guess your new cephalopod form is really working out for you as much as i would like to take credit for my physical prowess it is my magical means that make me capable of doing this mind over matter incredible how far up is it uh you think it's probably about 80 feet okay wow you only took 12 damage you're lucky as hell yeah i will i'll gesture for um ash knee to like get on me because they're small and then i'll climb up oh yeah they have no problem clinging to you their claws actually kind of hurt a little bit as they they hold on to you as you climb out of the hole and start making your way up what's your strength sitting at laura did you get hit at all by the shadows i did not um bupido did i did not okay um i'm sitting at 16. all right well roll me a strength check and the the rest of you can as well as you're you're trying to climb your way up this rope strength or athletics uh yeah athletics i mean i'm sorry blanked out for a moment on what the basic rules of the game are does cephel have to do that where he's made himself super light in order to just glide up that rope you uh you definitely have advantage it's a dc5 [ __ ] check my dude it's a rope like you have most of the weight taken out you need to understand though i am still i am still very capable of failing that check uh okay i roll i'll roll with the advantage but yeah the first one i rolled was a natural 8 which comes out to a 6. my advantage gave me a a 14 total all right yeah you you managed to scale up with no problem lara 15. okay you make it up indigo 12. all right you guys all managed to climb out and you see your friends kind of gathered about um except for a still unconscious uh sarith kind of still laying off in the corner nobody seemed to have uh approached him he's fine but uh eldeth comes up to you and she goes that's uh that's a bit of a an odd creature there um lara what have you picked up this uh indigo called it a here she'll look questioningly over it indigo i it it's like up here but a big hero usually has more legs and the horns are a little different it may be like a sub species i'll do some more research yes this creature is a gift from my patron uh and she'll she's like convinced this creature was like put in her path for a reason yeah uh and she will like uh lean forward if to see if um ashni will do anything toward eldest um so it's kind of like situated yourself kind of like you've seen some like snakes like across the shoulders so like its head is over by your the right side and it's uh it's it's front limbs are kind of like on the back of your neck so it's uh its neck is fully around towards like the front of your face and its back legs just meet your left shoulder and then it's long tail kind of like curls down your arm in a coil it's probably about almost three feet long already simply because the tail is so massive but you lean down towards eldeth and eldith is kind of already questioning and then uh ashni as you've as you've named it uh kind of sniffs and growls and hisses at eldeth and elton kind of backs up and there was like this spark of kind of uh odd energy from its mouth as it did so and it kind of like glows for a minute and you see its like throat actually expands as this pulse and it growls kind of like shivers down its body it's uh and else it's like all right well um good for you behears don't never met one i i think i'll keep uh i think i'll be keeping my distance thank you and um the others are kind of just like nodding in agreement and still is like oh it's so cute stay the [ __ ] back stool whoa whoa okay no i'm just gained so much respect for laura like like if the respect was down at the bottom of that hole it has now climbed the rope up to the top no love for the best character in the entire campaign i will kick that [ __ ] mushroom down the hole i will draw your birds pretty man uh she would she would just um she wouldn't actually say that to school to be fair that was more me just being an[ __ ] um it's okay over here finding my business might have a new friend here stool assuming that ashni is friendly i haven't really figured that part out yet it might be a vegetarian[Laughter] my research says that's highly unlikely your research also says it should have multiple more legs that's fair hasn't done the peer review yet that's fine it seems you um have much to learn of this creature but i think we have more pressing issues as to where we are and something i noticed and you you see that it's bupido talking and he actually walks over to this hall and points back towards the doors you guys came through uh do you guys go look absolutely you guys walk over and you look back down the hall and the door that had swung inwards from safel's touch is now closed i have already tried it but it appears to be locked and i have had no particularly good means of opening it all the others have tried as well blunt force picking the lock nothing has worked well i guess we'll just have to go deeper on in i mean we have to go this way anyway this is the way we're going and we won't let a few creepy passengers stand in our way we'll figure this out i do want to mention something as i i noticed some of you having slight bits of trouble it occurred to me that you are unfamiliar with a very important part of our world down here do you feel that disturbance in the air yes i think so it's a unusual magic energy that the drow call ferrez it pervades most of the underdog the origin of its of this power is rather unknown though the legends state that ancient elven magic dating back to when the dark elves were first exiled from the world above is what created it what permeates much of this lands down here we have used it in some ways to protect ourselves from natural predators and larger creatures that might prey on us down here be careful if you sense its presence as it will try to trip you up well thanks for the information bupito you're welcome we all must survive if we are to return to our respective homes best to not let you die along the way agreed now do we rest or push forward our friend zarif and myself are in quite weak conditions huh um i also said i think we might as well take a take a break here for a while i sense my endurance is dwindling my physical faculties have been sapped in some way from those dark creatures also i seem to recall some new knowledge that i don't feel like i can use recall new knowledge capacity yet it is a strange situation wow i feel like once were my own that that's amazing that you can recall new stuff that's incredible wizards are amazing i really don't want you getting in on this the the mages are talking stool you're still truly the wisest thank you indigo but i think that's a fell clearly i kick him down the hole no[Music][Laughter] do you really no i'm joking but we're this [ __ ] close[Laughter] try me split boy try me i'm ready to go yeah him with that slots left him with his nose strength yeah no he's um safel is going through a weird situation where little bits of knowledge are like slowly trickling back into his brain but he doesn't on he doesn't know if it's it's kind of the definition of madness it's like he's seeing glyphs and arcane symbols and in writings that right now makes zero sense to him but he feels like he knows what they are like there is some deep part of him that feels like he understands them and he he needs time to meditate on them now is as good a place as any um good as time to place as any for all of us to take a long rest you think we should sounds good to me oh and okay sarf up wake up and i i will i will killing the word sarah before we like sit down to rest so it's not just like unconscious floating in the void for the next like eight hours okay a weird genie creature permeates his dreams sorry if just like full to wake he's like shadows fairy people what hello hi everyone did we win i'm sorry are we not going to talk about the fact that you were dreaming about fairy people i mean he's an elf what i didn't feel like that's a little bit generalized you're doing great sir if you just haven't we're taking five thanks okay five that sounds great thank you thank you i i need it and he's like trying to push himself off the crowd about eight hours oh thank god and he just like 960 really um all right so you guys are gonna settle in for a long rest are you guys gonna try and keep watch as you're in this creepy place or are you going to just go ahead and sleep yeah we should do that i i can take a first watch i still got a couple slots left and i'm feeling fine sure who wants to take second you guys can volunteer npcs that you control by the way uh safel is going to be sitting up against just a wall of the chamber doing his weird stasis uh for four hours which will um sort of give him time in the middle of the night as well to focus in on this new magic uh that he is coming to understand or re-understand he's not he's not sure which he's getting rather frustrated though that all of the magic that he is gaining seems to be coming from out of nowhere that it's it's coming from some past part of him and he really isn't he doesn't feel like he's learning anything like his his typical study techniques and the way that he goes about magic just hasn't been available to him down here and it's becoming increasingly frustrating okay um i don't think that it makes sense for indigo to not get a full rest i think that we would be better off having sephel take a four hour and then yeah i don't know eldeth or sarah take a four hour sure sorry i can't remember no all day i'll i'll volunteer sarah for a a second or third watch okay all right um coco so go ahead and roll that first watch then sephill all righty 12. okay uh all your companions kind of pile up near the door and kind of settle up backs to backs or backs against the walls as they they rest you see the uh snivel ben twins topsy and turvy kind of together you see bupido eldeth stool um sarith just laid back down where they had been reawakened by indigo and your time goes by so slowly as you're trying to keep yourself aware go ahead and make uh did you make the perception check i can't remember jesus it was two seconds i did i got a uh i got a 12. okay yeah you don't hear or see anything during your four hours um do you guys want sarith or uh eldeth to go next uh i will say uh eldeth does have the keen hearing uh feature so her her ability to watch out for things might be a little bit better and it might give sarah the time he needs to to rest and recuperate i think start only needs four hours whereas elvis needs eight right oh that's correct that's right i was trying to be nice for a change if you want to if you want to you know kick that i can just continue being my crotchy old man self i appreciate it but sorf has a job to do he needs to earn his keep that's right okay [ __ ] went down he used to show he couldn't stay with the crew he spent the last 10 minutes of sleep you know no i got you it's it's we do natural selection here though the weak are pushed harder to test whether or not they're worth keeping how else we would know who is the strong yeah unless it's stool because apparently he gets a free pass at everything he has saved our life so many times stools stool is a god let's be honest uh all right sarith go ahead and roll that that perception check oh yeah that's a 17. 17. um great as they have set up for watch and you guys have settled back in cfl you kind of settle back into your trance and these images in this knowledge that you're trying to recall slash that is coming to you as you settle into this trance starts to come faster and faster and you just start seeing the weirdest things you see runes in scripture that makes sense to you but don't at the same time and you're able to pick out bits and pieces you see uh mind flayers you see twisted corpses you see horrible abominations and i need you to make me a sanity check oh so d20 and then so this is my first sanity check so it's the d20 and then the sanity score has its own modifier correct yes okay so and it's not a proficiency thing it's just the modifier right right okay um that's not great so that's a flat 10. okay i need you to roll me a d-100 please oh jesus uh where's my other percentile there we go uh 83 on the percentile as you this knowledge and these horrid things are careening through your mind you find yourself snapping awake but stunned as a short-term madness sets in with all the things you just saw that make sense and don't make sense to you and you're just sitting there and you're just your tentacles and your hands twitching and you're still able to see around you and you see sarith sitting a little ways away from you propped up keeping watch and you watch with performer as you see quietly tiptoeing up behind[Music][Music] by the mouth and just start stabbing him in the chest repeatedly and this quiet and horrifying smile grows over vepito as he just keeps the sickening sound and squelching of blood as he murders sorrow and you are stunned unable to do anything as you watch this immupido finally pulls out this horrible stone dagger and then quickly across the neck and you hear him quietly utter to myself i pray and sarith's body crumbles to the floor imbu pedo brings the dagger up to his mouth and he licks the blade[Music] and he starts to turn and he sees you with your eyes wide open your body shaking and [ __ ] his head and sees that you don't do anything and that smile grows on his face and he starts walking towards either dagger he kind of waves faints at you with a knife and then like slowly brings it up towards your chest and like puts the point of it against your left breast angles[Music] when you take a point of damage you're still stunned shaking as this dagger slowly goes then he pulls i want you to know something i appreciate you getting me out of there[Music] i now can continue on my quest not enough people remember who i am that i am a god reborn[Music][Music] and then he backs away from you and then you see him run towards the far left doors you hear it[Music] what the [ __ ] williams[Music] 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 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 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] do[Music][Music][Music][Music] you