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Campaign 2 Episode 003 Transcript

Anthony 0:00
Greetings, adventurers and welcome to the Adventure Incorporated Podcast. I am your Dungeon Master. My name is Anthony Reed. This is Episode Three. It is the third part of the New Beginning story arc. And hey, welcome back. Well we’re doing it some more. There’s more to do. So, you know, let’s give a big thank you to our patrons. Patreon.com/adventureinc. If you are not a patron, if you are not aware of the things happening over at patreon.com/adventureinc. Let me give you a little insight. First of all, every month bonus episodes with guests, we have our special guests come and join us and play a little game. That is a one shot in the world. It is part of. This month we’re going to be building on this new world we’ve put together. They’re all in canon. They’re just maybe a little, a little bit tangential to what’s happening on the show. So you don’t want to miss those. There are a ton of fun. At the $10 level we have our patrons come and help us build game materials. This month, we finished our hybrid spells. You know, keep an eye out for those in the future. And then next month, we’re gonna start building a new subclass. So all kinds of fun stuff happening there. Patreon.com/adventureinc. You can pop the feed right into your pod catcher and you’ll get all the episodes right on that feed as well as all the bonus material. It’s totally worth it. At least a whole bunch of people already feel that way, and you can go and join them patreon.com/adventureinc. And I also want to shout out our Discord. We have a Discord. It’s a server where we can go. Chat rooms are back they’re the new, I guess, chat room. Chat rooms and their new chat room. And you can come and join our chat server and hang out with us and talk to the cast. Talk to the rest of the community. There’s all kinds of really great people there. And we’re and we’re just, we’re just hanging out, just come hang out. It’s fun. There’s a link in the show notes. As well as a link to transcripts we’ve been putting out. We’re very excited about this. With this season. We are going to be putting out transcripts for every episode. So if you know somebody that could benefit from checking out a transcript of the show, you know, for whatever reason, they do exist. They’re on our website and there are links right here in the show notes. So check that out. It’s a huge thing we’re so proud to be able to provide as part of the show. Alright, that’s that’s plenty. I’ve barreled through it. We’ll talk more next week. For now. Let’s get started.

Nobles and farmers, knights and scoundrels gather round gather round to hear a tale of excitement and mystery. Brave adventurers facing grave dangers. Belroth, the Ranger.

Belroth 3:03
She’s a grimalkin. That’s, but that’s understood no pets allowed. Even though she’s not a pet. I will wait outside everyone if anyone needs anything. I am outside.

Anthony 3:13
Skarpin, the Cleric.

Skarpin 3:15
Should I just try and snipe them from over here? Yeah, okay. I did say they were as good as dead I would hate for my you know, to break my word on our first contract is Adventure Incorporated.

Anthony 3:26
Ellori, the Bard.

Ellori 3:29
We would want you to leave this warehouse.

Anthony 3:32
He points behind you. Church!

Ellori 3:35
Oh, sorry. We want you to leave this church.

Anthony 3:39
Deeran, the wizard. He say you no, worship Shattered Fang.

Deeran 3:44
Yeah, man. He’s like super wrong. We love Broken Tooth, uh Shattered Fang, man.

Anthony 3:49
Prepare yourselves for these are the tales of Adventure Incorporated.

Who’s going to take responsibility for this stone that Wesley has? Who’s the responsible one so far?

Belroth 4:09
Wesley, what am I, what is this? And like, Belroth, kind of tepidly moves his hand towards the stone, not really knowing what it

Anthony 4:22
This is what we would call a special artifact of this world. By me telling you about this thing we will extensively double the number of people in New Meritta who know about these.

Belroth 4:38
Okay.

Anthony 4:39
They are very rare and and they’re a last art, but I am giving them to you now because we have no other choice. Around the Empire there are special places. We call them Nexus Points. If you take the stone and you have attuned it to one of these places this stone will take you from one Nexus Point to another. Whoa weird we do not know how these Nexus Points came to be. We do not know how these stones came to be but they were discovered, they were found. Two have the elders that Adventure Incorporated and myself know about these stones. And someone from the Silver Mask knows about these stones and as far as I am aware, that is everyone. Now apart from the four of you who are aware of these.

Ellori 5:45
I’m sorry, yes, you start in one place and then you, you hold the stone and then you’re in another, a whole another place

Anthony 5:55
You will find these Nexus Points. They are like gateways of stone. Large blocks of stone hoisted up on large pillars. Old runes carved the deep into the stone. And when you hold this stone near them, the gateway is open, but they are tuned to another point. When you use a spellstone to recharge these Travel Stones, you must imbue them with their destination Oh, this one has been attuned to the Demon Isles, that is where this one will go Oh, I will give you this stone and you will have the means to return to the Nexus Point that you know that you will travel to now to go there and then you will have to re empower it yourself.

Belroth 6:50
Okay.

Ellori 6:51
Okay. Can you do that for us?

Anthony 6:54
I cannot. Because I will not be going with you.

Ellori 6:58
What?

Anthony 7:00
I cannot go I have been forbidden by the Council. But you must go because someone must go. Someone must go and see if what I fear is happening is real. And if it is not, then so be it you enjoy your time and Demon Isles. You come back. And if something is wrong if things are bad there you come back. You tell me.

Deeran 7:25
Guys, I’m like really excited about this. This sounds so good. Like, of course, didn’t you feel like it feels like this is what we’re supposed to do.

Belroth 7:43
Belroth looks concerned because he still has some family in the Demon Isles, and he still doesn’t know what is wrong in the Demon Isles and he’s like, hoping to find out soon. But he’s processing.

Deeran 7:57
Deeran doesn’t get any of that from his face. He sees it. He sees his face. It’s making a face. Hey, man, our stomach alright, bud.

Belroth 8:12
Um, I mean no, it’s. I mean yes.

Deeran 8:16
I mean, yeah, that was like a lot of dead goblins, huh?

Belroth 8:20
No, it’s it’s not that it’s

Deeran 8:25
Well, that got me like, you know what I mean? Like, it was pretty nuts.

Belroth 8:30
Oh no, I’ve seen enough mutilated things in my life. I’m not super squeamish. I’m mostly concerned about the Demon Isles. What’s happening on the Demon Isles I think we can just go. I have family there I’m just

Ellori 8:49
Oh my gosh, we’re gonna meet all of Belroth’s family

Belroth 8:53
Not all of them are that

Skarpin 8:55
Sounds like we have a place to stay.

Ellori 8:56
What are all their names?

Belroth 8:58
Well, um. Jeez. That’s a big question.

Anthony 9:03
Welcome to my world, mutha fuckerrr.

Belroth 9:07
Well one of them is named Heaven. Nah.

Anthony 9:13
We do not have time for this. We do not have time to list names of Belroth’s family. no,

Belroth 9:18
No, we definitely do not have time for this.

Anthony 9:26
Honestly, I do not know what is happening in Demon Isles, and I hope truly nothing, but there is a feeling in the air. I have been alive a long time. And as this time has passed, I have lost pieces of myself, as I’m sure you all know people who have. The Fading has taken from us. Our memories, our thoughts. I cannot remember things that are, as authors have probably told you, that are beyond 80 years in age. That is the time in which things begin to fade.

Ellori 10:11
This is happening to my grandma too.

Anthony 10:15
This happening to all of those with lifespans like ours that continue on. For whatever reason, these pieces of ourselves will not no longer stick around and I am afraid that there are very important things important to this world that must be remembered that must be understood that I have lost. But I am not being allowed to search for these memories. I am not being allowed to follow up on these feelings, so I am sending you instead. I do not know what you will see if anything, but I know what I feel and I feel like something is wrong.

Ellori 11:06
Well if there might be something about The Fading on the Demon Isles we’ve to go.

Deeran 11:11
Yeah man, that’s what I’m saying. Like this is our chance! This is our chance to make TESSA huge. Everyone’s gonna know.

Skarpin 11:22
Yes, I agree I agree and Wesley as long as you remember to file our, get our paperwork processed then yes, I am definitely willing to join and go.

Anthony 11:34
Yes, yes I’m sure that will all be taken care of. No problem.

Skarpin 11:38
Excellent. Excellent.

Anthony 11:42
Go now to Nexus Point. You will have to head to the South for a bit and to the West. Follow the tree line across around the forest at the bottom of Frost Peak. You are heading to a town called Mourning Hill. When you reach Mourning Hill you will have to head out of town from there, but you will find Nexus Point. I am sure many people know of place but do not know what it is. They do not know its true purpose.

Ellori 12:11
What should we tell them if they ask us why we’re disappearing?

Anthony 12:16
Don’t bring them with you. But don’t let them see. It is outside of town you should not unless you purposely bring people with you to stones, which I would not recommend. Please don’t. Please don’t do this thing. There is a lot of.

Unknown Speaker 12:34
Hasn’t gone well in the past. So we shouldn’t bring any more people, no.

Belroth 12:39
Yes.

Ellori 12:40
Oh.

Anthony 12:41
These items of medical power are, it has been difficult to share pieces of magic like this because of the power that it holds for those who wield them. And it is difficult to to give that power away. I am certain that there are people who would call me foolish for giving you this thing and telling you about them. But I need you, so this is what I can provide.

Deeran 13:10
We’re super, we’re so excited. We’re so ready to help out. Thanks for you know, seeing how we fit in here man.

Anthony 13:24
Okay, go and I will. hHe looks around at the corpses. You know I’m going to go too. I think it’s best if we all just go.

Belroth 13:39
Yeah. Belroth takes the Stones. I feel like he’s most responsible, but I don’t know if he’s the most responsible. I think he thinks he’s most responsible.

Anthony 13:51
That feels like the important part.

Skarpin 13:55
I bet he has the most storage on him.

Belroth 13:57
Oh definitely. There’s like a saddlebag on Freya that he like puts it in

Skarpin 14:02
There we go.

Deeran 14:05
Deeran’s got like crazy huge pockets inside his jacket

Belroth 14:08
Cargo pants?

Deeran 14:09
Yeah yeah, he’s just like. Stuff gets lost in there a lot. You know, it’s like, it’s like Jnco Jeans.

Belroth 14:18
So deep.

Anthony 14:20
Wesley bends down to the corpse of the. Yuan-Ti and he yanks a tooth out from the creature. He says, This I will also have to look into, and he takes his hood and he pulls it up over his like long braided hair and pulls the cloak around himself and says good luck.

Belroth 14:44
Can I steal a tooth too?

Anthony 14:46
I am indifferent.

Belroth 14:50
He does. He goes over and just yanks it out and just like puts it in a specimen bag and locks it shut.

Skarpin 15:03
Feels good not cutting off skin and keeping it like you weirdos.

Deeran 15:08
Why is everybody doing that?

Skarpin 15:11
I don’t know. I don’t know why anyone would ever do something like tha.

Anthony 15:13
I don’t know why Belroth did.

Belroth 15:15
Well I’m interested in its Biology. I mean I’ve never seen a creature like this before and you pulled something seemingly important so I was like I maybe I shouldn’t investigate this myself and I pulled something. I’m gonna i’m just gonna look at it. I’m gonna, I’m gonna observe it. I’m gonna take some notes.

Anthony 15:32
I am going to try and track the magical signatures on it and find out which plane this came from.

Belroth 15:37
Study it.

Ellori 15:40
I’m not gonna do anything with teeth for this snake.

Deeran 15:44
Are there any more like real long, cool looking ones?

Anthony 15:49
I do not have time. None of us have time for this.

Deeran 15:53
Belroth, do you see any more like sweet ones while you’re in there?

Belroth 15:56
You can have mine when I’m done with it.

Deeran 15:59
Yeah, but I don’t want to wait man I want to put it on a necklace like now

Belroth 16:05
Belroth looks over at it, the Yuan-ti with its mouth like pooling with acid.

Anthony 16:10
Yeah, I mean the two fangs have been pulled out of this creature.

Belroth 16:14
I don’t think there are any cool ones anymore Deeran. I apologize.

Deeran 16:19
I’m gonna have to wait forever man.

Skarpin 16:22
Deeran in the Demon Isles. In my travels I’ve heard they have some sweet necklaces that you can grab too. Oh, there’s some great ones there.

Deeran 16:29
Of course though, of course they’re there. You know like, we have to go there and they’re sweet necklaces, like obviously man. I knew it. And Deeran like starts walking.

Anthony 16:42
Okay, okay great whatever, yeah, that’s fine.

Deeran 16:50
Do you guys know where Frost Peak is?

Anthony 16:55
Wesley turns to the forest that is to your East and he just looks up at the mountain that is poking up out of the forest. He’s like that’s Frost Peak.

Deeran 17:06
Oh. So like

Anthony 17:08
You don’t have to go to Frost Peak. You go around forest at base of Frost Peak.

Deeran 17:13
No, I listened. You said Frost Peak, and I didn’t know you know alright.

Belroth 17:18
Let’s, let’s get moving. I feel like I need to corral some people.

Anthony 17:25
Wesley swirls around his cloak billowing behind him and just heads off.

Belroth 17:30
How does he get his cloak to always billow when he leaves?

Skarpin 17:33
He’s cool

Deeran 17:33
He’s just so cool.

Ellori 17:37
Do you want me to teach you twirling? I’m ready for this one. And Ellori takes her cloak and like does a little twirl and billow with it ripples out behind her and then swishes around.

Deeran 17:52
Oh man.

Skarpin 17:54
Wow, yeah that was impressive.

Belroth 17:55
Belroth is like trying to lead the pack but also trying to billow his cloak.

Anthony 18:03
He’s like Naruto running.

Skarpin 18:09
He’s trying to get a bug off probably.

Belroth 18:11
He’s doing it kind of weirdly. And then Freya is like batting at it. It’s not a game!

Deeran 18:16
I was doing something serious, jeez.

Ellori 18:23
So Belroth, when we get to the Demon Isles, should we should we bring things for your family? Or is it?

Deeran 18:34
What are your customers like, man?

Belroth 18:36
I mean, you don’t. Everyone likes a good present, but you don’t need to bring a present. I mean

Deeran 18:44
Do people bow there?

Belroth 18:46
No.

Deeran 18:48
Is it handshakes or what is it?

Belroth 18:50
Neither. Hello? Just say hello.

Deeran 18:52
How do you greet people where you’re from?

Belroth 18:54
They speak Common. Just say hello

Deeran 18:57
No, of course man. But like, you know, the other stuff that like makes your place special? You know?

Belroth 19:04
I feel like there’s probably some posture and some sort of science. Just follow my lead. Everything will be fine. Nothing will be, you will not offend anyone. I promise. Oh, that’s

Deeran 19:17
Oh that’s a big promise. I mean you saw how Elgroman treats me like I don’t know, man.

Belroth 19:26
Well don’t. Well, well.

Deeran 19:29
Well, that’s it like I just don’t want to make like, you know, I don’t want to be an asshole.

Belroth 19:33
My my my twin sister who still lives there. She’ll know if you steal something and she might steal something from you too, so it’ll be fun.

Deeran 19:43
Whoa, I’m not a thief, man. I just like touching stuff.

Belroth 19:47
I know.

Ellori 19:48
My grandma always says when you meet new people don’t steal their stuff.

Deeran 19:54
Your grandma’s so wise.

Belroth 19:57
What a good saying.

Ellori 19:58
I really hope that we can find something about The Fading.

Skarpin 20:01
Seems pretty intuitive.

Belroth 20:03
Say that again. I’m sorry.

Deeran 20:06
He said seems pretty intuitive man.

Skarpin 20:10
I mumbled it. I didn’t mean for you to hear. Oh, that’s good billowing Belroth. Doo duh doo.

Anthony 20:22
As you guys settle in to rest for the night of traveling to the South in the West, you all feel that the encounter that you had with these kobolds has strengthened your resolve. And you are all a bit stronger? Let’s do some character management! You’re all level two is what I’m trying to say.

Deeran 20:50
Oh, man.

Skarpin 20:53
So much to manage.

Deeran 20:55
Right?

Anthony 20:57
Belroth, what’s your level to look like?

Belroth 21:00
Pretty easy, I got a fighting style. So I picked archery. So I just get plus two to hit with bows. And then I got Ranger spells. So I took some Ranger spells that I can take, obviously, one of them is Hunter’s Mark. But that’s, that’s pretty much it. It’s pretty easy. Pretty easy peasy. And then like pit points and whatever.

Deeran 21:24
What do you get for hit points?

Belroth 21:25
Oh, my God. Well, I took the high average.

Anthony 21:32
That’s, that’s all Deeran wanted was to shame you for that.

Belroth 21:36
Feels great. I have 18 hit points.

Deeran 21:42
Cute.

Anthony 21:46
Mike’s, like I just rolled a three. But I’m a wizard. So that’s half anyway. Skarpin, what’s your second level look like?

Skarpin 21:58
Skarpin is excited about his third first spell slot level that he got. And also he gets Channel Divinity, which is, he’s a little bit more strong against undead creatures. Yeah, he can Turn some Undead and make them go away.

Anthony 22:17
Now also you get to channel divinity for your subclass, right?

Skarpin 22:22
Yeah, the Dream Cleric. So I get to Inflict Dream. So I can target a creature within 90 feet. And they have to Wisdom save, or they fall into a magical sleep for 10 minutes. So, Skarpin is looking forward to using that.

Anthony 22:35
Yeah, that’s cool. So that’s like a targeted Sleep. You don’t have to worry about hitpoints

Skarpin 22:40
Yeah, yeah. Which is nice.

Anthony 22:43
Ah, okay, Ellori. What’s your level look like?

Ellori 22:47
I got a new spell. First level.

Anthony 22:54
Perfect.

Ellori 22:56
I’m trying to decide which I know that the right move is Detect Magic.

Skarpin 23:04
Nah, we’ll just make a new friend

Deeran 23:06
Deeran knows Detect Magic.

Belroth 23:08
Oh, does he?

Deeran 23:09
Yeah, he just never prepares it.

Anthony 23:11
You don’t have to. It’s a ritual.

Deeran 23:13
Oh, perfect.

Anthony 23:14
It’ll take it’ll take 10 minutes, but

Deeran 23:21
Story of my life.

Anthony 23:22
Oh? Take me 10 minutes, even if I used to spell slots.

Skarpin 23:26
For that to work in 10? hmm

Anthony 23:30
But yeah, it won’t cost you a spell slot and you don’t have to have it prepared. Rituals or read. Um, okay. Cool. So that means Ellori you may have an option to take something that isn’t the right answer. That’s fun.

Ellori 23:43
Yeah. No, that’s awesome. Cuz I was like, I know that’s, I know, that’s the right move. But it’s not the fun move.

Deeran 23:52
That’s right. Do the fun move.

Ellori 23:54
I don’t know what the fun move is. If there was an obvious fun move, then I would have already done that and said screw the right move.

Deeran 24:00
Sure.

Anthony 24:04
Deeran, what’s your level look like?

Deeran 24:06
Deeran is now a level two wizard. I know this will come as a shock that I did not multiclass Deeran. But I have not yet.

Anthony 24:16
You weren’t like one level of wizard is plenty.

Deeran 24:21
That said a level two of a wizard does get a cool thing. I get to choose my arcane tradition.

Anthony 24:31
So you’ve entered your subclass?

Deeran 24:33
Yeah, so my arcane tradition is the Arcane Tradition of the Adept. This was a class that Anthony and the Beholder level Patrons at Adventurer Inc’s Patreon account. I don’t know whatever you call it.

Anthony 24:54
Nailed it. Keep going.

Deeran 24:56
Y’all built this together. And so the first thing that I get is that second level, I get Pattern Recognition. When I see a spell that I COULD know being cast, meaning that it’s on the wizard spell list, and it’s of a level that I can cast, I can make an Arcana check, a DC 15 plus the spell level. On a success, I can replace one of my prepared spells with that spell, twisting the magics I’ve prepared to fit the new spell. I cannot copy that spell into a scroll or into my spell book. But I can use it until the long rest. So that’s pretty neat. Like, Hey, I think I see what’s going on there. I’m gonna give this a shot.

Anthony 25:45
And then later, you’re like, I don’t remember how I did that.

Deeran 25:49
But I did it y’all saw.

Anthony 25:54
So this is fun. Oh, go ahead.

Deeran 25:56
I was gonna say I also got two new spells. But what’s fun about it, Anthony.

Anthony 26:01
I like that the two subclasses we’re tied into right now. Skarpin with his Dream Cleric and Deeran with his Adept Wizard are you know Patron created. So this is kind of fun. We’re gonna get to see how these play out. And how potentially horribly broken they are.

Skarpin 26:21
I’m pumped about it. Everyone’s asleep. Always.

Deeran 26:26
I just hope it works. DC 15 plus spell level feels high but we’ll see.

Anthony 26:34
There’s no restriction on it. Right. You can do it. Anytime you see a spell cast.

Deeran 26:39
Anytime I see a spell cast, right.

Anthony 26:41
So it should fail sometimes.

Unknown Speaker 26:44
Yup. I took as my spells I took Shield and Thunder Wave.

Ellori 26:51
Oh shit.

Belroth 26:53
Did you take Thunder Wave?

Ellori 26:55
That’s what I had just clicked.

Deeran 26:59
Fine. I took shield and Tenser’s Floating Disc.

Ellori 27:03
Great.

Anthony 27:04
Perfect.

Ellori 27:05
I just thought it’d be really cool tambourine spell perfect.

Belroth 27:17
Here comes the slambourine!

Anthony 27:25
Okay, so you guys continue to travel Westward. You know it’s gonna be about three days before you could reach Mourning Hill. This area is not particularly safe. On your way out here there was like a well traveled road. And that well traveled road continues to the South. But once you have to start heading back up Northwest to Mourning Hill, things get dicey. The road that would travel toward the Brass Palace falls away from you. You have to separate from it to head now to the Northwest on the other side of this forest. So after a full day of travel, things become a little harder to progress. The road is not as well maintained, and there is fear of bandits here. That’s a pretty common thing on the roads especially on these less traveled roads. Less traveled also by patrols and soldiers and the like. So we are going to

Deeran 28:32
Are we going to roll for a random encounter?

Belroth 28:34
Oh my god.

Anthony 28:35
I am going to roll some dice.

Deeran 28:37
What?

Belroth 28:39
He’s not gonna tell me what they mean, but like if he feels like that’s a bad number. It’s a bad number.

Deeran 28:46
This is honestly listeners you are in for a treat. This is I think the first time this has ever happened

Anthony 28:54
On the show certainly. Okay, as you travel up this path, you come across a caravan on the side of the trail that has been just pulled apart. The body of the caravan is on its side. The wheels have been torn off. It looks like everything of value that wasn’t bolted down was taken from this large caravan that came through here. But it is clear that this was pretty recent. Like just by the the dirts all kicked up. The road is a mess. It looks like this might have happened like within the last day.

Skarpin 29:50
Oh, no.

Deeran 29:55
Skarpin man like I know you’re you’re you must be real hungry but like you could at least pretend to be concerned for the people?

Skarpin 30:03
Yeah, no it’s seems like something bad happened here

Deeran 30:08
Yeah, Deeran starts to like look around to see if there are any signs of like survivors.

Anthony 30:16
Give me an investigation check.

Deeran 30:20
Okay actually, he’s smart so he’s pretty good at that. 14

Anthony 30:28
Okay, you begin to move through this space and try and find anything you can see. Like signs of a struggle or maybe a path that leads away from here or anything. Now it looks like outside of the immediate area of this you can’t find any sign that there was any struggle or people like you know, no one was dragged or anything like that. Just in this area there was bad stuff happened and then it’s just smooth and clear around it as though like there was no struggle outside this space

Deeran 31:08
Hey guys, this seems like it might be a trap.

Belroth 31:14
Or the remnants of a trap. Like this is what happened like they just took everyone and then took everything else inside the caravan.

Deeran 31:24
I mean maybe but like there’s no like people leaving around you know like you know normally like when when somebody gets like dragged away like, you see all the like fight marks or whatever like scuffs in the ground and stuff.

Anthony 31:44
Additionally, you see no blood and no signs of people.

Deeran 31:49
Also mean I see like no blood and no signs of people.

Skarpin 31:52
What?!

Deeran 31:52
Can I can I make some sort of an observation or investigation to like, try and see if we’re being watched?

Anthony 32:08
Yeah, give me a Perception check.

Belroth 32:09
You know it bud, got it.

Deeran 32:12
Don’t worry Ellori we’ll be in like people town soon enough.

Ellori 32:16
Oh, oh, yeah. No, I was just you know

Belroth 32:20
Uh, 16.

Anthony 32:24
Okay, yeah. Deeran starts to talk about a trap, and you just turn your back on the group and start scanning the tree line looking out into the woods looking at the paths around. You do not see anyone out there.

Belroth 32:42
Hmm.

Skarpin 32:47
We should just be careful and maybe we keep going and maybe, maybe during wrong hopefully.

Anthony 32:54
Deeran you see one other thing in your investigation. Printed along the side of the caravan in paint. It says “Renaris”. It looks like that’s something that was part of the caravan initially not like added to the fact.

Deeran 33:13
Deeran jotts down in his little notebook like his conspiracy notebook. And it just says RENARIS in all capital letters, like underscored three times with a big question mark at the end of it.

Skarpin 33:27
I feel like everything is underlined three times with a question mark and circled. Every page is just that.

Deeran 33:32
Okay. That’s rude. Some of them are only two underlines. What could it mean??

Skarpin 33:43
Every page: Woah! Woah!

Belroth 33:46
So full of secrets.

Deeran 33:48
Yeah. So like, are we going to move on or?

Belroth 33:53
Yeah, I think we should move on and just keep going.

Ellori 33:56
Yeah, I don’t think this is a great place to camp.

Belroth 34:00
Belroth draws his, is it getting close to time to make camp or?

Anthony 34:07
No this is pretty early in the day I think as you travel North on here. I mean there’s still, you’re like a day and a half away from Mourning Hill.

Belroth 34:16
Well Belroth draws his long bow to just have it ready and kind of scans the periphery for wandering eyes.

Anthony 34:25
Okay.

Skarpin 34:25
Hey, Freya, have you learned how to sniff things out? He’s just talking directly to Freya.

Belroth 34:32
Freya does the thing where she just stares at you tilt her head to the side.

Skarpin 34:38
Oh, you’re not there yet, that’s fine. That’s fine. We’re all new here.

Belroth 34:43
She rubs up against you. And then that’s it.

Skarpin 34:47
Yes, yes, thank you. Yes. Skarpin keeps going.

Deeran 34:54
While they walk, Deeran is going to be trying to figure out anagrams of Renaris.

Anthony 35:05
So I Ran.

Belroth 35:11
Ellori, you asked me a question I never answered. You wanted to know about my family and the Demon Isles.

Ellori 35:18
Yeah.

Belroth 35:20
What do you want to know?

Ellori 35:22
Um, oh, okay. No, this is great. Okay, so,

Belroth 35:27
We’re having this conversation obviously as we’re walking.

Anthony 35:29
Yeah, yeah. Rob has frantically been writing names for the last 15 minutes.

Belroth 35:32
I have been. You’re not even wrong.

Ellori 35:37
Okay, so who is the family that you have there?

Belroth 35:40
Well, my father and my mother are not on the Demon Isles. They’re still in Prosperity. My father’s Mavrius Verity. He is all the way doing research in Prosperity. My mother Belvine Sanctity. She’s with my father. My sister however is at the Demon Isles Her name is Dorcia Sly. She is retired from being an adventurer.

Anthony 36:04
He’s just like, literally reading a list to you.

Belroth 36:07
Pretty much. She retired with her partner down there Erin Song to hang out and potentially have a family. Maybe not I don’t know.

Deeran 36:19
Did you say AREN SIR?

Belroth 36:21
Song?

Deeran 36:22
Oh, nevermind.

Belroth 36:24
Why?

Deeran 36:25
Just, no reason. And he scratches out AREN SIR from his anagrams.

Belroth 36:36
And then there’s my brother Skannon and haven’t seen him in a while. Don’t actually know where he is. And then several million cousins. But that’s another thing.

Ellori 36:47
Million?!

Belroth 36:48
Well, not well I’m being, well. I don’t know if I’m exaggerating. But I’m definitely potentially exaggerating.

Ellori 36:56
I guess if you count every blade of grass in our home, which feels like part of our community, you could say I have a million people in my family.

Belroth 37:04
That’s a good way to look at it.

Deeran 37:06
Belroth, I’m sorry, I assumed your your parents would also have the name Beacon.

Belroth 37:15
Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. And then like Belroth rolls up his sleeve and shows the tattoo of the eye in the star with that’s like bleeding. And he’s like, this is our marking to show that we are part of a family. When you join a family, you can either be born into the family or you can choose to join a family. We are very open. That’s a custom that’s probably foreign to you.

Deeran 37:42
So what’s your dad’s name? Again? Sorry?

Belroth 37:45
Mavrius. It doesn’t have any it. There’s no way you can spell it with the word you just saw.

Deeran 37:50
No, no. And like he just does he go by Mavrius or does he go by his like, last name.

Belroth 37:57
I mean, I guess.

Deeran 37:58
Last name, what is that?

Belroth 38:00
Verity?

Deeran 38:01
Verity?

Ellori 38:02
Yeah, do we? Do we call your sister like Mrs. Sly?

Belroth 38:07
No, just call her Dorcia although she would find that probably very funny. I think you’ll like Dorcia I feel like she’s going to bully Deeran. I have a feeling that she’s going to bully Deeran.

Deeran 38:20
I mean, I get along with a lot of people, man. Elgroman, you know, not, not included, but like

Ellori 38:39
Sorry, I want to know more about this bleeding eye.

Belroth 38:42
Oh, this is just I don’t know, necessarily the origin of this tattoo. But this is the shape the form the figure is the marking that our family has had for generations. And that is been passed down and transferred and continued as our family has continued.

Ellori 39:03
It’s very cool.

Belroth 39:04
Thank you. We like I like a good, I like a good tattoo. Who doesn’t? Right? But it’s nice when they have a good meeting. But yes,

Anthony 39:14
Not like these friggin swirls on my foot.

Belroth 39:19
I do regret at least one.

Deeran 39:26
Mamily crest is way less cool looking.

Belroth 39:29
Oh, well, you don’t have one of those markings I’m sure, but what is it?

Deeran 39:34
No. Like, where I’m from, like, Federation Bay, you don’t really get tattoos. Like that’s not a thing unless you’re like on the docks, you know? But like, our crest is like, well, it’s got the like the four quadrants you know, and like one color is, like the top left is yellow and the bottom right is yellow. And like, there’s a There’s like a deer head in the middle.

Belroth 40:02
Is that where your name come from?

Deeran 40:05
Oh, God, I hope not man. Like my parents, I, I never asked them because I’m really worried that, yes. You know what I mean? Like I always tell people “No”. But I feel like I can trust you guys to like, admit that to you.

Ellori 40:24
That is very brave you do you Deeran

Deeran 40:26
Thanks

Belroth 40:30
Well, I mean, I told you about my family, Ellori, now tell me about yours. All I know is your grandmother, who is a very wise lady.

Ellori 40:38
Yeah, she is. She is the very best. But I’ve got I’ve got a big family. My grandmother is the head of our of our community. So she is the natural storyteller, you know. And that’s kind of, basically when we reach a certain age, we have to go out and find our own stories. You know, we’re set out to find the world and bring new stories home. But that’s kind of why I stayed out is so that I could find the missing pieces of some of our older stories.

Belroth 41:07
Fascinating.

Ellori 41:09
Yeah, I also have a lot of other family. Do you want me to list them?

Belroth 41:12
Yes, list them all.

Ellori 41:16
Very academically.

Belroth 41:17
I mean, you don’t have to I mean, if you don’t want to I just curious.

Ellori 41:24
I mean, my mother’s name is Faile and my father’s name is Caghan. So that’s them. I mean, my mom’s a weaver and my father was a dancer.

Deeran 41:38
I love that like, dancer is the thing that you can be in your town.

Ellori 41:43
A dancer is the thing that you can be anywhere.

Deeran 41:46
Well

Ellori 41:47
Deeran, if you want to dance, you can dance.

Belroth 41:50
You can dance if you want to Deeran.

Deeran 41:53
I think my parents really upset if I came home a dancer.

Ellori 41:59
Well, I think I think if there’s dancing in your heart, then you should put that dancing in in your feet. My grandma didn’t even say that one. That was me.

Belroth 42:15
That’s a good one.

Deeran 42:17
That’s an Ellori original?

Ellori 42:18
Yeah.

Deeran 42:20
That’s really good.

Ellori 42:21
I want to be just like her.

Deeran 42:22
You should write that one down.

Ellori 42:23
Okay.

Belroth 42:29
Skarpin, what about your clan? Your your family? No? Okay.

Skarpin 42:44
Maybe on our next trip. I’m realizing I just went to my character history. I did not name my parents. I have some other details.

Belroth 42:57
I’m sure they’re fascinating.

Anthony 43:01
None of your business, Belroth.

Belroth 43:06
Get away from me.

Anthony 43:09
Mind your own business.

Deeran 43:11
I don’t think I need to say it.

Anthony 43:18
So you guys travel a little while longer?

Skarpin 43:20
Thanks Rob.

Belroth 43:20
I just want you to feel included? Yeah, exactly.

Skarpin 43:27
No, I thought that was nice. That was real.

Anthony 43:29
That was a real thanks. It’s not as sarcastic as is sounds. You travel North and around the edge of the forest for a little while longer. And after a couple days of travel. You see what you suspect is Mourning Hill. At the top of this large mound, there is a small village. Around the village are hundreds of graves coming down off of the village and over the hillsides around the town it looks like this is what this place is intended for. It’s a burial place that has you know a village has sprouted up here as a means to take care of and support this place that is built for burials. As you make your way toward the town itself about 20 minutes from the village in the distance you start to the gravestones are getting closer and closer to the road and you are walking past row after row after row of the stones. There’s definitely this I don’t know a somber heaviness to seeing these stones all laid out like this. There is feel on this place just sort of hangs in the air.

Skarpin 45:09
A peaceful place. He just kind of is looking around approvingly.

Ellori 45:18
Yeah. So when they get kind of to a high concentration of gravestones, Ellori is going to unwrap some vines from her hair and kind of put them in just like a little circle between a few of the gravestones. She’s going to pluck out a few, a few little notes on her uke and then keep keep up. Like it’s nothing she would stop the group for, but

Anthony 45:49
Okay, cool. You guys make your way up the hill, to the entrance of the village. The village is you know, a smaller village and there’s this is like not an agricultural village. So it’s not just all farms. Most of the work here is done on supporting people who come to visit and to the upkeep and maintenance of the area around the town. And so the there’s a lot of shops and things here like a couple of taverns. And one thing that you see at the top of the hill Darren that immediately draws your eyes is a wooden sign above a building red lettering that says “Renaris”.

Deeran 46:36
Hey guys that’s the same thing that the like, that the the wagon said that we saw. Should we like check it out?

Yeah, I think that’s a good idea.

Skarpin 46:52
Oh, yeah, perhaps they could send, maybe they don’t know what happened to their caravan.

Deeran 47:00
Cool. stands there just like waits for someone to like, head that direction.

Skarpin 47:10
Oh, yeah. Let’s go. And Skarpin does it.

Anthony 47:17
Skarpin you step inside. As you push open the door. They have a little bell rigged up on the door. So you push it opens like ‘ding’ and tinkles out into the room. But the room is pretty dark and quiet. You don’t see anybody down here in this reception area. There’s a long desk with a couple of ledger books. And then it looks like a wide open space out behind that’s cluttered with all kinds of objects like boxes and just like random things stacked up back there. And but it’s like a big wide space.

Skarpin 48:00
Skarpin looks for a bell on the desk.

Anthony 48:03
There’s no bell on the desk but you do hear some movement coming from upstairs. There’s a small staircase behind the desk. You hear some movement coming from upstairs.

Skarpin 48:15
He goes towards the stairs and knocks on the wall with his quarterstaff and says hello hello, anybody here.

Anthony 48:21
Oh, I’m coming I’m coming!

Skarpin 48:24
Thank you.

Anthony 48:26
You hear the the some tromping down the stairs like thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump thump. But you don’t see anybody. It stops at the foot of the stairs but you don’t see anybody.

Skarpin 48:38
Skarpin just looks up the stairs and looks back at the group.

Ellori 48:43
Do you think? Sorry. Excuse me, sir, are you a ghost?

Anthony 48:50
no ghost. He he pulls over something. You’re scraping from behind the desk and then he climbs up and the halfling jumps up onto the top of the bar. And he’s like, ah, welcome to my establishment. I’m Renaris.

Ellori 49:10
Ellori is like the tiniest bit disappointed that he’s not a ghost.

Anthony 49:19
Just because we got a bunch of graves around here, I’m a ghost.

Ellori 49:23
I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you and you have a lovely establishment here Mr. Renaris.

Anthony 49:29
I feel like I’m not offended. I thought it’d be a little weird for me to be offended but I am not a ghost.

Ellori 49:38
I see that now.

Anthony 49:40
What can I ship for you?

Belroth 49:43
Well Mr. Renaris, we are travelers traveling through this area, and we just wanted to report that we found a caravan with I think your name on it completely taken apart along our trip.

Anthony 50:01
Where?

Deeran 50:04
It was like up the trail there, like a round around Frost Peak.

Anthony 50:12
Oh no. Oh no.

Skarpin 50:16
Yes. Yes, everything seemed to be gone from it. It was quite empty, and but no signs of struggle though. It was kind of strange.

Anthony 50:23
Did you? Did you find Irvine?

Belroth 50:25
It was, there was nobody there.

Anthony 50:30
That fool boy.

Deeran 50:32
It didn’t even seem like anybody like had like you know struggled away or whatever.

Anthony 50:42
Were any of the good s still there? We were shipping a lot of spellstone.

Deeran 50:48
Oh no like there was nothing there man like everything was everything a value was gone even like the wheels and axles and stuff. It was just like the side of the the thing with your name on it picked

Belroth 51:00
Picked pretty clean.

Anthony 51:02
Ah. Poor Irvine.

Belroth 51:07
Was Irvine the the person in charge of the shipment?

Anthony 51:12
Yeah, he was my driver. I just just brought him on. He’s a good kid of one of the people in town. And I agreed to bring him on. Oh, poor Irvine. He’s 14.

Belroth 51:27
Oh no.

Ellori 51:29
Well we’re not, we didn’t we didn’t check thoroughly for for footprints. He might he might have gotten away

Anthony 51:41
Oh that boy if if the stuffs gone, you know he’s he probably didn’t make it. But I think the family would really appreciate it if someone went and you know, found him.

Belroth 51:56
Like Belroth looks back at the group. Kind of like shrugs. I think should we have sidebar? Everyone? Sidebar real quick?

Skarpin 52:09
Yes

Belroth 52:09
We just go to the other side of the room.

Anthony 52:13
He just stares at you.

Belroth 52:15
Do we have time to do this? But I feel bad if we just leave a child.

Skarpin 52:19
No, we don’t have time. No, not to be insensitive. I really apologize. I sometimes come across. I’m not really. I worry about our you know, our position at Adventure Incorporated if we deviate from our task.

Deeran 52:36
I mean, but like it’s a whole lot of spell stone that went missing man.

Belroth 52:43
I mean, and a person.

Deeran 52:47
Well, yeah, but like Skarpin doesn’t care about the person. I didn’t know if he forgot about the spellstone.

Skarpin 52:53
I care, I care about people.

Deeran 52:58
And the spellstone

Skarpin 53:01
And spellstone.

Deeran 53:04
Ellori? You look pretty shocked, man.

Ellori 53:08
I mean, I think that we should go try to find this Irving?

Belroth 53:12
Irvine?

Ellori 53:13
Irvine, Irving. If we’re gonna shout his name into the woods, we should probably get it right.

Oh, for sure.

Skarpin 53:21
Irvine.

Ellori 53:22
I think that we’ve got to travel to the Demon Isles tomorrow. I think it’s probably past the time that people would be willing to you know, get get a good rest and get out there first thing in the morning so. It’s not really delaying Wesley’s request, and it’d be doing something good.

Skarpin 53:47
That’s fair. That’s fair.

Belroth 53:50
All right. I feel like that’s. I feel that’s three to one Skarpin and I apologize.

Skarpin 53:57
I’m kind of, uh, ambivalent

Belroth 54:01
Three to zero to abstained.

Deeran 54:05
I really want to call it the requesly, but like Deeran wouldn’t and that’s killing me.

Belroth 54:13
Not Jebeddo baybee

Deeran 54:16
I hate this guy. But like,

Anthony 54:23
Oh, I sure wish someone would go find Irvine. Oh, anyone.

Belroth 54:28
Listen, plot hook NPC, wait a second!

Deeran 54:32
I just like, I feel like it sounds like he needs somebody and we’re here. That’s got to be important.

Belroth 54:39
And it wasn’t that far. We didn’t travel that much further. I mean, I think we can.

Deeran 54:44
Yeah, we just gotta like basically go through that creepy graveyard again.

Skarpin 54:47
Yeah, yes, Renaris, yeah, we’ll do it. Yeah it’sfine.

Deeran 54:52
Good job. Good job, Skarpin.

Belroth 54:54
Really sold us.

Ellori 54:56
Deeran? Yeah. You know, my grandma always says a graveyard’s only creepy if you’re afraid of ghosts.

Deeran 55:01
I’m definitely afraid of ghosts.

Ellori 55:04
No, she also says that ghosts are great because they were people once.

Deeran 55:11
But they’re not anymore.

Ellori 55:13
But they’re, it’s it’s imagine if you’re a person

Deeran 55:17
Yeah, I am.

Ellori 55:18
And then you die and now you’re a ghost.

Deeran 55:22
That’s terrifying man like

Ellori 55:24
You’re still around. You can still do things.

Deeran 55:27
Don’t you see where that’s like messed up? I think once you’re dead you should like, oh, he just stops talking like he looks at Skarpin and he’s like,

Skarpin 55:39
Go on.

Ellori 55:42
Oh, man.

Anthony 55:49
You finish that sentence, right now.

Deeran 55:52
Deeran I’m not gonna help you with this. You have to finish the sentence.

Hey, man, we’ll definitely like go find. Is it Irvine or Irving?

Anthony 56:03
Oh, yes, Irvine.

Belroth 56:04
I thought it was Irving.

Anthony 56:06
Nope. All right.

Ellori 56:11
We’ll go find him for you.

Anthony 56:12
I’m very grateful. And also, I mean, finding Irvine’s body would be really, obviously, very important. If you could recover the spellstone also that would be really

Skarpin 56:26
Valuable, no?

Anthony 56:27
And of course, I’d be willing to share some of that value.

Skarpin 56:32
Oh, that’s so generous of you to offer that spontaneously. Yes, yes. I’ve heard spellstone’s quite valuable. So yes, we would be happy to help you. Very good any any troubles in this area lately? Is there been a particular

Anthony 56:48
Always with the bandits? Always with the bandits? We’ve tried to get the Emperor to deal with it. But of course the Emperor is busy with all the other things the Emperor has to deal with and so we don’t get any bandit protection.

Skarpin 57:04
Yeah, that makes sense. Very busy.

Ellori 57:07
Mr. Renaris. Do you have anything of Irvine’s? Maybe a coat or a or a sweater or a hat or something? We’ve got you see we’ve got Freya here.

Belroth 57:17
Freya is currently just like flopped over belly up looking really stupid

Anthony 57:25
Oh yeah, hmm. Let me see what I got. He hops down and he tromps back up the stairs don’t

Deeran 57:34
Hey, Skarpin while he’s up there you want to drop a contract

Skarpin 57:43
Yeah, I could do that. Yeah let’s see let’s see. And he goes to the desk and takes a scrap piece of paper and start to draw one up.

Deeran 57:52
Deeran is trying to like figure out any way to make this exciting or good for Skarpin even a little bit like. There’s paperwork man.

Skarpin 58:01
No, no, it is true. We’ll have completed another contract and that will even give more value to Adventure Incorporated

Belroth 58:08
And by the time we get back we’ll have three contracts completed.

Skarpin 58:16
We’ll be on our way. And he draws it up and it says

Belroth 58:22
Your handwriting is atrocious.

Anthony 58:27
What are you a doctor?

Skarpin 58:31
Maybe in another life. But it says that we can each get 50 spell stones so 200 spellstones upon recovery.

Anthony 58:52
Tromp tromp, tromp, tromp, tromp. Oh, right. All right. I got it here for you. He tosses a straw hat over the counts.

Belroth 59:01
It flies over to Freya and it just like plops on her and she wakes up.

Anthony 59:10
He climbs back up his stepstool. All right.

Skarpin 59:16
So Renaris I just drew up a quick contract right here. If you’ll just sign this line right here. This will just help us, you know, outline the terms and we’ll recover your spellstones for you.

Anthony 59:26
He pulls out a monocle. And he fits it in his eye and he’s right. He takes the pen from you. He’s scanning over it and he says, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. No, no, no. Do you know how much spellstone that is? First of all, it’s

Skarpin 59:45
It’s 200 spellstone

Anthony 59:46
It’s yeah, it is. You’re right. There is not 200 spellstone out there. So don’t get your hopes up. Second of all, this is this is 1000s of gold what you’ve written down here. That’s not happening at all.

Skarpin 1:00:04
That’s a good starting position I think and

Anthony 1:00:06
Sure.

Skarpin 1:00:07
I’m willing to hear

How about five each. I’ll give you five each.

10 each

Anthony 1:00:17
Deven

Skarpin 1:00:20
Deal.

Anthony 1:00:23
He crosses out 50 and rights seven above it.

Skarpin 1:00:28
Skarpin initials.

Anthony 1:00:32
He looks over the rest of it and he says “fine” and he signs the rest and hands it to you.

Skarpin 1:00:37
Well very good very good. Yes yes. We have a new contract!

Anthony 1:00:41
28 spellstone. He grumbles as he’s getting down.

Belroth 1:00:47
Really good negotiation there Skarpin.

Skarpin 1:00:50
I mean, maybe.

Deeran 1:00:53
How much are we trying to find any way?

Skarpin 1:00:59
Less than 200 spell stones? More than 28. Honestly that’s a pretty good range. Like we’ll be able to feel like this is what we’re looking for.

Belroth 1:01:10
We found 29, whoopsie.

Anthony 1:01:14
Bring them back to old Renaris.

Skarpin 1:01:17
Will do.

Deeran 1:01:20
How many? How many are you missing?

Anthony 1:01:25
Well, the shipment had 150.

Deeran 1:01:29
cool.

Skarpin 1:01:29
He gave us 20% of them.

Ellori 1:01:35
Alright, I guess we’ll get going now. Thank you Renaris. We’ll be back hopefully soon and hopefully with Irvine.

Anthony 1:01:45
Please

Skarpin 1:01:49
Skarpin heads out.

Belroth 1:01:51
Belroth grabs the straw hat that Freya is playing with and like chewing on and like leads her out as well.

Ellori 1:02:00
Belroth, I assume that Freya can track

Belroth 1:02:02
Oh no, not not really but I felt like it added a level of confidence.

Skarpin 1:02:13
No that was good. I think it got us the extra spellstone

Belroth 1:02:16
It really sold it.

Deeran 1:02:17
I’ll see you later Renaris. Deeran leaves.

Anthony 1:02:21
He’s just been hanging out.

Deeran 1:02:24
H just kind of spaced out a minute.

Anthony 1:02:26
Yeah, Renaris was already upstairs he just like “What?”

Deeran 1:02:34
Gosh. Yeah, he like runs out the door. sees his friends like down the road a little bit like once you catch up.

Anthony 1:02:46
Okay, so what are the four of you? How are the four of you going to go about beginning this search?

Ellori 1:02:54
Well, we’re not going to let Freya sniff the hat and then find Irvine.

Belroth 1:02:58
Ellori this could maybe maybe we could this could be a great learning experience for Freya. Maybe we can train her to do such a thing. She’s never done it before.

Ellori 1:03:11
I anticipate that would be wildly helpful for our future.

Belroth 1:03:13
I think you would be correct so let’s let’s let’s work.

Ellori 1:03:17
For now though, don’t you have like, isn’t this what what you do?

Belroth 1:03:22
Oh, yeah, I feel confident that I would be able to track, and Freya would be able to assist but Freya is not as some might say a bloodhound.

Skarpin 1:03:34
Some might say.

Belroth 1:03:37
Freya will definitely help. We are definitely a team when we track things.

Skarpin 1:03:42
Okay, now sniff the hat and let’s go.

Belroth 1:03:45
Belroth sniffs the hat.

Ellori 1:03:46
Belroth you tell us, you tell us what to do.

Belroth 1:03:50
Okay.

Ellori 1:03:51
This is your, This is thing.

Belroth 1:03:54
This is my thing. Belroth goes to, obviously I assume we’re back at the cart now?

Anthony 1:04:02
So it’s I mean a day and a half’s travel to a cart.

Belroth 1:04:05
Oh well we travel I figured once we get to the cart we would search, I would look a little bit more in detail for some prints and stuff. Keep an eye out and open for any traces of struggle along or like along the way to the root as well. And again, like kind of keep an eye open for prying eyes because if there’s bandits and we find those bandits I have a feeling we might find that guy as well.

Skarpin 1:04:37
And on the camp or the when we set camp the night before Belroth or, oops, Skarpin is going to reach out into the dreamscape and see if he can find groups of individuals just gathered near them.

Belroth 1:04:53
That’s really handy.

Anthony 1:04:55
Okay, so give me a wisdom. Check a wisdom check.

Belroth 1:05:02
That’s really cool. Is anyone taking a nap around here? Anybody?

Skarpin 1:05:13
13

Anthony 1:05:15
Okay, so uh, you as a cleric of dream as you reach out to the dream plane while you sleep. Now, I think it’s important to know that Skarpin you don’t dream naturally because of your Corpsen nature. Yeah, your affliction. But as a cleric of dream, you are able to reach out into the plane of dream and touch pieces of it. It is not like you walk the plane. It is not like you have full control, but you are able to sense pieces of that dream. The night that you camp before you reach back to the caravan. You do sense that there are dreams coming from you know, the village behind you like that, that is life that way. But there is also a pocket of life in the forest. There are people who you can’t pinpoint their location. But there is a group of people living in the forest, probably bandits that are causing that are touching the dream plane naturally.

Skarpin 1:06:40
Okay, would Skarpin be able to kind of tell if it was a singular person or a great number or a not like the exact amount but

Anthony 1:06:50
Yeah, you can’t get an exact amount. But you get a sense that it is like more than a band, but less than a village. You know, even if you were to estimate you would say a 20 to 30.

Ellori 1:07:02
More than 28 but fewer than 200

Anthony 1:07:05
Correct? Yes.

Skarpin 1:07:07
No, that’s helpful. That’s very helpful. Skarpin communicates that to the group.

Belroth 1:07:15
Very specific numbers.

Deeran 1:07:17
Hey you like, you can see spell stone?

Skarpin 1:07:23
So I can tell that there’s a group of people and forest. Yes, yes. I imagine that’s the group we’re looking for. I think if we had to that caravan like we were doing and just head into the woods, we’ll be able to detect them maybe Belroth with his super sniffing abilities.

Deeran 1:07:41
Yeah, Belroth if you just like pretend they’re monsters. Like, you know, like, I remember when I was 14. I was I was a terror. You know?

Belroth 1:07:52
I mean, I can I can track things that aren’t monsters. I just prefer to track monsters.

Deeran 1:08:02
Maybe Irvine’s really bad.

Ellori 1:08:05
Also, it sounds like these people might have kidnapped him that is pretty monsterous.

Deeran 1:08:09
That’s pretty monsterous man.

Belroth 1:08:11
Those facts don’t make me any better at this, but I appreciate the support deeply

Skarpin 1:08:18
It’s all about the motivation, Belroth.

Belroth 1:08:20
It has has made me very motivated. And he like pets Freya’s spray his head.

Deeran 1:08:25
Yeah, man, like you can smell that out all you want. I don’t need it.

Skarpin 1:08:32
I don’t either.

Deeran 1:08:32
If you want to like sleep with it, like, I don’t know. I don’t know how this works. We won’t judge you man.

Skarpin 1:08:37
Do what you need to do to get motivated.

Belroth 1:08:43
He like looks at the hat and he’s like, has horns so can’t even us it.

Skarpin 1:08:54
I want him to wear it.

Belroth 1:08:58
I’m magining a straw hat like I don’t know.

Skarpin 1:09:01
Yeah, easily pokable.

Anthony 1:09:03
Yeah, easily destroyable, yes. Okay, so you guys arrive back at the caravan, and Belroth you begin to do your search. So give me your, I guess Survival check.

Skarpin 1:09:22
Wow, so of these this season.

Belroth 1:09:24
Yeah, so many dice being rolled. 18

Anthony 1:09:30
Yeah, look around the area. Again, the area around the cart. It looks like there was a lot of turmoil. A couple more days have passed, things aren’t quite as fresh here. And then there’s just nothing, but you head to the tree line. And you think that this area of the woods has been traversed, frequently.

Belroth 1:09:54
Belroth points out some of the things he’s seeing to like Freya to try and like train her to like figure out to look certain things.

Anthony 1:10:01
You point out like a bent a bent twig, and she just like pulls it down and is chewing on it. Just playing with it.

Belroth 1:10:07
Yeah, she’s, she’s getting it. I’m also going to look for, like, not necessarily footprints, but like secondary markings as in like someone’s swept up footprints to try and like make it look natural. But like that might have some sort of a border if it was sort of like swept quickly. There might be some sort of trace of that.

Anthony 1:10:32
Okay, so give me another Survival check.

Belroth 1:10:36
Eight. It was a dumb idea. It was a very dumb idea.

Anthony 1:10:40
Yeah, you you don’t have a lot of inclination of that. You just have the initial signs that you saw. So you just push deeper into the forest and you’re looking for really any signs that will lead you to a track that will pull you toward what you’re looking for. Give me another Survival check.

Deeran 1:11:00
Yeah, as we’re going Deeran is like asking Belroth what he’s looking for and taking notes and like, documenting the whole process, he’s so intrigued.

Anthony 1:11:11
Is Bill Roth good at conveying this information. It’s not his field of study, but he is like, practiced in it. Is he good at teaching?

Belroth 1:11:21
He’s good at teaching, but his, his focus is split three ways right now. He’s trying to like, tell like, show Deeran, like what he’s doing. He’s trying to also speak in infernal to like, train Freya like command words, and also trying to track. So he’s trying to like figure out like, he’s trying to do three things. So it’s just a lot of like, well, so over there. Um. So there’s and he’s like, pointing at stuff more than saying stuff. And then like, ~speaking Infernal~and, and then there’s over here, you can see this, this, this branch is a big sign and ~speaking Infernal~

Skarpin 1:12:07
Belroth? Belroth?

Belroth 1:12:08
What? I’m sorry.

Skarpin 1:12:09
We just went in a circle this this tree, I sat on it earlier, I was taking a break and it’s the same tree, I’m very sure.

Anthony 1:12:19
Give me another Survival check.

Belroth 1:12:23
Oh, that I think I never told you the roll. Right?

Anthony 1:12:25
Correct.

Belroth 1:12:25
Alright, which was, it was I rolled a 19. So plus four baby, 23.

Anthony 1:12:31
I see you didn’t want to get rid of that one.

Belroth 1:12:33
I didn’t want to get rid of that roll at all.

Anthony 1:12:39
Okay, so you find a path. As you travel through here, you find a trail that looks like it is used by maybe a team of people, but regularly like this is part of a regular patrol. Okay. And so you can follow that path in either of the directions, if you so choose. Or you can use it as a reference point. So what would you like to do with this path you found? You can track the trail one direction and the other direction.

Belroth 1:13:12
Use it as a reference point because I don’t want to bump into bandits quite yet. And then get things be alerted. But use it as a way to sort of anchor myself as to the location of where we are. And also, well, everybody, I think we’re getting closer to bandit territory, so I think we need to lay a little bit lower, and we may be ambushing some people unwillingly or not. But we’ll find out.

Ellori 1:13:43
Is Belroth addressing this directly to Ellori who has been continuously humming and and making flower crowns.

Belroth 1:13:56
So one of the things that stealth involves is no noise Ellori and I feel this is very nice, but we got to be quiet. Can you do like shadow puppets? That’s a silent fun activity.

Ellori 1:14:09
Oh, I can I can definitely do that. We got to we would have to sit here though. I would have to I could take a couple trees, and I could make them into a stage and then what I’d have to do is I have you know, a light source coming through the other side.

Belroth 1:14:22
Scratch that. Terrible idea.

Skarpin 1:14:25
I can create light.

Ellori 1:14:26
I can, yeah, I can. I can do shadow puppets.

Belroth 1:14:30
But I think we just need to be on edge and like keeping our eyes open because this path right here is patrol path. And so we might find some guards, some bandit guards soon. I think we’re getting closer to the spell stone and potentially Ervin. Irving? Irvine? I still don’t know.

Skarpin 1:14:47
Irvine!

Ellori 1:14:49
So totally quiet.

Belroth 1:14:51
Totally quiet

Ellori 1:14:52
Totally quiet.

Belroth 1:14:56
Sing, sing the song inside of your heart.

Ellori 1:15:00
We’re zipping our hearts and our lips and our mouths.

Anthony 1:15:08
You did say sing the song that’s inside your heart.

Belroth 1:15:10
No. Take the song in your heart, like sing it in your heart, not the song from your heart.

Ellori 1:15:17
Okay, no, I can do that. I can, yes, I can do it.

Belroth 1:15:21
I believe in you.

Ellori 1:15:22
She like holds her lips closed.

Anthony 1:15:26
Belroth give me an Intelligence check to use this path as an anchor point.

Belroth 1:15:32
Alright. Alright. Alright 17.

Anthony 1:15:36
Okay, so now make a Survival at advantage.

Belroth 1:15:39
Whoo. Ugh, in a parallel universe, terrible things happened. I rolled a 1 and an 18. So I’m very happy. So 18 plus 4, so 22.

Anthony 1:16:00
Okay, so you push forward with the group using the path, you are able to move sort of alongside it, and you can begin to see the pattern of the patrol path. And that gives you a direction to head to sort of be in the middle of it. And you push the group ahead and you find yourself at the outskirts of what looks like a campsite village here in the woods. You’re far enough away now that you know you can just see people moving around like just movement and the tents that are set up here and a couple of cook fires.

Belroth 1:16:44
Do I see any remnants of the caravan like wheels or any sort of obvious like tents that are for storage?

Anthony 1:16:52
Not from this distance? It’s very hard to pick anything like that out you can basically just tell through the trees that a tent site exists.

Belroth 1:16:59
Okay, so I can’t even see how many people I just see movement.

Anthony 1:17:03
Right?

Belroth 1:17:04
All right, we’re even closer now. Now we’re getting really close to the action. There’s a camp out there. I don’t quite know how many are out there yet, so we’re gonna have to be a little bit stealthy now. Is everybody ready for the stealth game? Ellori are you ready for the stealth game?

Ellori 1:17:25
I’m ready for the stealth game.

Belroth 1:17:28
Great. Excellent.

Ellori 1:17:30
Reaaadyy.

Anthony 1:17:32
Everyone give me Stealth checks. I can’t wait to hear what Deeran’s stealth check is.

Deeran 1:17:39
It’s really great.

Belroth 1:17:42
Lots of crunchy leaves baby. Belroth, he got a 19.

Skarpin 1:17:55
So, that carries my 10.

Deeran 1:17:58
Hey I didn’t do worst. I got an 11.

Ellori 1:18:00
Ellori as she’s walking as she’s trying to keep her mouth closed and quiet, she trips over a rock and her tambourine falls off of her hip. And as she tried she also drops her umbrella ukulele. So you hear this like? Clonggg! I got a seven.

Deeran 1:18:31
Oh, it’s not that bad. That sounds like natural one.

Belroth 1:18:34
Yeah, I thought you thought you beefed it.

Deeran 1:18:37
Let everyone know. I had the second best stealth baby.

Skarpin 1:18:45
You beat a Tortle and a Bard who was singing actively.

Anthony 1:18:49
So the four of you move forward. Ellori stumbles. Sound clatters out into the forest. You all freeze in place, listening. It does not sound like you were detected. Belroth you take one step forward and the magical alarm rings out.

Hey everyone, DM Anthony here, just reminding you that if you’re enjoying the show, tell your friends, tell your family. Let people know word of mouth and you can support the show at patreon.com/adventurinc. Or you can check out the shop at adventureincpod.com/shop. Make sure you check the show notes and the website for all our social media including our Discord where you can come and hang out with some great people. We’ll see you there and until next week, I wish you nothing but critical success.

Adventure Incorporated 1:20:10
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Transcribed by https://otter.ai