S1:E33 – The Battle of DIA

Theater of the Mind podcasts are for mature audiences only. Some of the content may be disturbing to certain audiences. Listener discretion is advised. Welcome to Theater of the Mind presents Retribution, episode 33. I'm Mike, and I'll be your dungeon master for this evening. And our question from James D'Amato's Ultimate RPG Campfire Card Deck is, do you have any weaknesses that you have come to accept or embrace? What has made you accept or embrace them?

My name's Amanda and I'm playing Mel Kelly. And Mel Kelly is perfect in every way, and she has no weaknesses. So I don't know what y'all are talking about.

Bollocks.

No. Okay. Outside of that, Mel knows that she's not the most intelligent person in any room. Like, she's not stupid. Stupid, but she's not. Like, she doesn't quite think things all the way through, and she knows that. And she's definitely not book smart. So by accepting this about herself, she accepts that when other people kind of know what they're doing, she should just go along with it.

I'm Jeremy. I'm playing Elliot Brandybane. And this might come as a surprise to everybody, but Elliot Brandy Bain is not exactly a fucking people person.

I know.

It shocked him, too. He used to really think he was a people person, and it was just other people's fault for pissing him off and being stupid. But he's lived long enough to realize that they can't help being stupid, they just are. And he just is forced to accept that just people are not his favorite people. You know horses. He likes horses. They do good. Cows are tolerable people.

Just.

Just no. You know, you have to deal with them sometimes, and so you just get it done as fast as you can. And he's also learned that they don't appreciate when you tell them they're stupid. And he thought it would help them to know that they're not doing right and that they can do better. And apparently they get all butt hurt.

You're a mean old man.

And so he just says, all right, fine, just live in your squalor.

That's some very Elliot shit you just said.

Elliot's shortcoming is that people are assholes.

Mel is offended. I love Elliot. Will you marry me, Elliot?

Yes, I will.

Again, I am Brunel. I'm playing Olnak Vaga Johnson. And on the same vein as Elliot, this may come as a surprise to all of you, but he has a problem regulating his emotions.

No.

And especially rage. He's got some anger issues, but he's come to accept, in this particular time anyway, that that can sometimes be beneficial and get him out of some scraps. His rage has gone off the handle a few times and he's done a few decapitations and vivisectomies, I guess would be the proper word, but, you know.

That'S too scientific for what that. That was.

Yeah, that's what I would call it. Because I don't know what else to call it when you split someone in half. Vertically.

Murder.

Yeah, but that's too simple.

It's called division.

That sounds all right. I'll go. Division.

We could do division.

What do they call it in the cooking shows where they. The cross section.

He likes to smash cook his enemies.

We'll take a look at that. Cross section on the sandwich.

Yeah, there we go. Okay. Cross section.

Smash. Cock works.

Smash.

I didn't know that's what that means.

I liked it.

I like the word smash.

Spine out of a chicken and you make it flat instead of round bird.

I. I do not. No, we're not gonna. Old doctor does not cook a lot faster.

Makes sense.

Olnock. Didn't know what that word was. But now that it's been said, he does smash people.

So he is the destroyer of the Johnsons, so it makes sense.

And then you did. Yeah.

Anyway, so the rage has come through in a pinch. And it's kept him alive. And also some of his companions at the most. For the most part. Except for that one time when, you know, people almost died. But nobody died yet. I don't think. I don't remember. Whatever.

We're all still here.

It's been a long day. Fuck you guys.

All right.

Anyway.

And there's that emotional.

He's come to accept that the rage can sometimes be helpful. He does understand he still has to kind of get a handle on it when he's in regular company, because you can't just fly out the handle and start killing people all the time. Even in the apocalypse.

Probably not yet. Anyway. We haven't devolved to that point.

We would recommend you didn't.

Yeah.

I like my head attached. I'm Downs. I'm playing James O'Brien. And as we've all discovered in the past, James has compulsory sticky fingers. So whenever he gets stressed or something, he tries to snatch something or acquire something tactically, to get that little dopamine burst. Sometimes it's Elliot shirts, sometimes it's shiny objects. Most of the time it's knives. James has come to terms with that. It's definitely been the Reason why he's had to bounce around so much because like, he'll stay in one place just long enough to get comfortable and then something will cause him to spiral and then he'll steal something, not get caught. Because he's still on the run, but he'll have to leave. That's what causes him to bounce from place to place.

You're lucky that a lot of these police databases are shot because we're going through a lot of states you would have been in.

Right.

No comment. I believe that's it.

I'm Casey. I play Emory Lee. And I don't know that Emory's necessarily come to terms with this, but she's definitely recognized it in herself. But she has a hard time connecting with people. Like on an actual personal level. She's pretty charismatic, She's a friendly person. She feels like she's got a pretty good attitude, but she does not have really close friends at all. And she has never really kept people. When she went to college, she lost a lot of friends from high school. When she left college, none of her college friends really stuck around. And she had just kind of landed at the Shamrock Sheep when all of this went down. So this group is honestly probably some of the closest friends she's had in a long time. And she still hasn't shared a ton about herself and connected and told people things. So it's something she recognizes. And it still kind of fucking hurts that she does not have people around her yet that she's like emotionally personally connected to.

Amoritar has come to acknowledge that he has a bit of a controlling side.

No, only a little one.

I don't think that's true at all.

All of his work companions say that he's the best ever.

That is true. They do say that there is no war embossing say. But he has used it to his advantage and has built quite the growth.

His coping skill is just make sure he is in control of everything.

He's a micromanager for sure.

Just embrace the OCD and go all out.

Yeah, that's anxiety. I must control the world. Oh wait, I can.

All zombies must be left handed.

What an awk.

I don't know. Can that be canon now?

Sure. Let's go ahead and roll for recap.

All the zombies in the world are left.

What are we looking for?

Let's go low 10.

We're doing okay then I rolled another 18.

14, 16.

Eight takes it.

Oh, Elliot's gonna recap. We finally got left out of the Stanley Hotel after a excruciatingly long breakfast. Made our way out of the mountains, which has made Elliot quite sad to see his beloved mountains go away. And started out into the plains of Colorado and we saw a group of cultists that were doing their feeding the hungry to draw people to their cause and decided that there wasn't anything they could do about that. Continued on and saw a flying creature snatch up a child outside of I think Longmont and apparently took them to the DIA airport. And we are in hot pursuit in attempt to retrieve Benny, I believe, and bring him up to his mother. And apparently the large demon horse statue out front of DIA is now hopefully gallivanting out in the Kansas plains because it is no longer out front.

Well, maybe it's happy now.

The horse is now running amok.

Yep.

Awesome.

And the last thing we did was.

Roll perception checks which were all terrible except for two.

James got a passive. I got above passive for the first time ever.

Nice.

What did you get?

I don't remember. But it was above passive. I was excited.

Awesome. So, yes, James sees that. So I'm gonna repaint the picture a little bit here and then we'll go into what James sees. You are now to the west side of the Westin Hotel, a large winged shaped, vaguely wish shaped glass building. Very impressive. Very large. Completely obscures any view of DIA behind it, which feels counterintuitive because DIA was designed, designed to be seen with its snowy capped roof.

It's a big ass airport.

It is very big. But you saw once you got to the west side of it that the back half of the airport had clearly been a very bad place to be. There had been several crashes. You see, you could tell there were several because there's helicopter and airplane bits. And a very large, very hot fire had broke loose, charring the back half of the building as well as all the tarmac is black, black. There's no plants anywhere nearby. You see some melted stair tractors and things of that nature.

Very squished.

Yes. And with your perception, you see that there is a decent sized hole in the roof of the building. And you could tell that there because it was blackened, you could see some white scratches left behind. Ah. Something has clearly been crawling out of this hole. Removing the charcoal buildup.

I'll point that out to the group. I think the giant flying creeper thing lives in there.

All right, let's go save that kid.

I'm glad.

Or it's some other eldritch horror. Let's go find out.

I'm going to give the broom to Jacob. Jacob if things get dicey, fly away from here.

I don't know. I'm pretty sure those things were faster than the broom.

They get faster than the broom.

Yeah, but if they can pick up off the ground, at least you might be able to get away. On a broom. You can't get away on the ground.

What if he just holds onto a horse real tight?

I'll try the. I'll try the horse. Karate on the broom.

That's a lot.

Stay close to one of us.

Stay close to somebody who's at the back of the fight at all times.

So. Not me.

So Elliot.

So Elliot or Emery. Yes.

Stay close to Elliot.

Okay.

There you go.

Yeah. Way we don't stay close to Emorett in case she explodes.

I'd explode magically. Sometimes times. Stay close to Elliot.

He just goes Mario Superstar.

If you can't find Elliot, you can stay close to.

Worst case scenario, we. You could escape on the broom. Probably.

Yeah. But for now, stay next to someone taller than you.

Yes. Yeah, totally.

So any of us.

Okay.

How old did the kid that got picked up look like? Jacob's age or younger?

Younger. We'll say like five, six.

I'm just trying to get an idea of how big this creature is. Like, would that have been large for it to pick up or average size.

You get the feeling it can't go a whole lot bigger?

Okay.

Jacob would be a challenge.

Okay, so it's not like ginormous.

Ginormous, yeah. It wasn't a dragon.

Disturbingly large.

Still the smallest of us, so.

Oh, no, I agree with you.

She was gauging whether or not it could pick her up.

You could still suggest.

Actually, now that you mentioned Jeff's gonna.

Hang out at the back, you were.

Thinking the same thing, weren't you?

Yep. I was immediately like, oh, she's gauging sizes. Being the second tallest person in the group.

The second shortest.

Can you pick me up?

Yeah. Awesome.

Well, Elliot's gonna grab his bow and say, come on, we gotta go.

Yep.

I'm gonna grab my bow too. Come on, Gay.

All right, you guys.

How good did. How. How good of a view did we get of this creature that flew?

Not great.

Not great. Okay, got it.

Not great at all.

I am not sure what the best way to get up the building is.

One at a time.

Go in. If the scaffold building inside is still up from all the construction, that maybe we can climb it. There's not really, like. I guess there must be, like, access.

There has to be access going up.

There's probably still, like, internal stairs and stuff.

Yes. Well, at least it probably can't pick up the horses.

Yeah.

What if we leave the horses down there with Jeff?

Yeah. Hey, Jeff, can you hang onto the horse, kind of keep track of him for us?

Yeah.

Jeff, Jacob and Charlie.

I don't think Jacob's willing to be left, honestly.

Either way, we gotta go or this kid's not gonna make it. So we gotta.

I feel like he's of the size variety that we should probably take him inside a building where he's not gonna.

Get yeeted off the ground.

I would love to be confident in leaving Jacob down there, but last time I told him to do something, he blatantly disregarded me. So at least if we know where he's at, that's fair.

He can stay by me.

Jacob can stay by me, Stick by Elliot.

He was trying to do Hong Kong Spooky.

And we'll start heading in.

All right, you go in through the doors nearby. We'll see you going through the front entrance. It's not locked. They didn't think to do that. They didn't really care.

And if they were, the glasses already busted out, so we can just walk through the door.

And so what you see when you come in is a pretty large area. You can see up to the roof. You can actually see the light coming through where the hole would be. You see, very obviously there was a short spat of chaos within this building. There's luggage strewn about. There is. You know the rest. If I'm assuming I've never been in this place, I'm assuming there's restaurants in there. You can see that they just up and left the tables. Never got bussed or anything like that. Right. Everybody just bounced pretty quickly. You would have a safe time. Assuming that some of the wrecks were pretty immediate. Being one of the busiest international airports in the country.

Kind of also walk straight into where the security is.

So you can see where the TSA setup would have been. It's obviously vacated.

Oh, good.

We'll get the camera.

Shut up.

The permanent temporary tsa.

This is the shortest lines I've ever seen here.

Yeah, we could get through in seconds. Perfect.

We don't even have to take our shoes off.

And I'm secure. I'm not secure. I'm secure. I'm not secure. But I just wanted to do that.

How are you guys going through, buddy? Just chit chatting, I guess.

Sorry, sorry.

Probably not over. Like, we are looking for a way to get up into the nest. And because of how big this area is when there's not people in here. Probably like once we open the door, we hear that kind of echoing.

Oh, yeah, it probably echoes like crazy in here.

So I don't imagine we're being especially loud because you don't have to when a space is dead silent.

Can I get a fresh round of perception checks? I will roll for Jacob. Oh, fucking. Jacob rolled a nat 20.

I rolled a nat one, so. Thank you, Jacob.

Passive nine.

Elliot got 19.

I got another 16.

Passive nine.

Passive 10.

Technically, I was bit busy doing the whole secure and unsecure.

Do we have to check our firearms?

So Jacob being with Elliot as he was instructed, the both of you hear at about the same time a cracking noise.

Like bones cracking.

It wouldn't be unlike bones cracking. More stone.

Like, did it sound wet?

No, it sounds very dry.

Oh, good.

It does come from above, but not nearly above enough to be the roof. I need you guys to roll initiative.

Cool.

I will roll Jacob. Jacob rolled a NAT one.

Balancing it out, Digger.

All right. You're all over the map there, buddy. Uh, Jay, 16.

Elliot, he did pretty good. 25.

Dang, that's low for you.

Yeah, I'll knock fucking 19.

Nice.

I'm ready this time, Mel.

12.

Emery also 12.

Mel has better dice.

We'll give you an 11 then. Okay, that's what you have. Fuck me, that dice is going in time.

You are not here no more.

Roll the metal ones.

That was one of them.

Unless it's for Jacob. And then, for the love of God, do not roll the middle ones.

Elliot, you are first. You see above the baggage claim area, which you can clearly see from where you're standing. One of the sculptures that is fairly unique to DIA is they have a piece of Samsonite luggage up high with a gargoyle coming out of it. This is a real thing. And that gargoyle is moving. It is breaking loose. It is cracking its way loose. Its eyes are starting to glow a deep red and it looks at you. It is your turn. What would you like to do?

Elliot really doesn't believe that an arrow is going to have much effect on a stone creature.

That's a valid assumption.

So he's going to take a gamble because he has a potion of magic weapon. He is going to crack this scroll of magic. Potion of magic weapon.

Okay.

And he is going to crack this potion of magic weapon and apply it to his bow.

We do have. It is a scroll.

It's a scroll.

Oh, but you can still cast it, I think. Cast magic.

Oh.

I have it. Written down on mine.

Oh, okay.

I guarantee I edited that episode a couple weeks ago.

Okay. Sorry, I wrote it down incorrectly. I wrote it down as a potion.

It is fun as a potion. I like the.

I like the visual of, like, dipping your arrows in it.

No, not that I was. I wanted to apply it to the bone.

Gotcha. But you can absolutely read the scroll of magic weapon.

Okay.

And absolute. So to everybody else, Elliot looks up, pulls a scroll out of his pocket and starts reading some just fucking nonsense. That would be an action to do that.

Yes.

Do you have any bonus action you would like to do or movement?

I'll cast hunter's mark on it as well. That's a bonus action.

Perfect.

And then I just want to make sure I'm clear of the door for everybody else to come by me.

Yeah. I'm assuming you guys have, well, moved in before this happened. I've got you guys pretty much in the middle of.

Okay, that's what I got.

Perfect.

I'm jumping in and out of the security line so we wouldn't move past it.

At that point, Ulnock Elliot has started saying absolute nonsense.

How far away from me is thing.

I'm going to say it's probably like 50, 60ft.

Okay.

And it's up. Closet. Oops. 12ft up.

That one's gone.

Forever hoping I can get it. I'm gonna move towards it a little bit to give my range a little. Get a little closer.

Define a little bit.

Let's say 20ft.

Okay.

And then we're gonna double extra attack it with my dwarven thrower or my thrower.

Okay. Go for it.

Oh, okay. So a 19 plus nine hits a 13. Plus nine.

Yes.

It'S plus nine.

When you're not raging, you haven't raged. It is not a plus nine.

So it only be a plus plus seven. Seven.

No.

His dwarven thrower. It was a plus three.

Plus three. You have a range.

It was a plus three weapon. No, he doesn't get it. He doesn't. His rage doesn't up his attack.

That does.

Yeah. It increases his advantage on strength checks.

He's got a plus three. He's proficient. For another plus three. That's six. It's a plus three weapon. That's plus nine.

Okay.

That has nothing to do with raging.

Cool. Okay.

So I forgot to do that. But I will. Bonus action rage after I attack.

Okay. You definitely get a bonus to damage, right? Yeah. Bonus. Okay. Okay. Yeah.

You'll be the smaller plus six.

Okay. So 2D eight.

Eight plus six.

14 14.

Okay, that's the first one.

Yeah.

15.

Eight plus nine.

Okay.

No, no, I'm bad at math. 17.

Cool. It eats those. It doesn't love them.

And then I will bonus action rage.

Okay, you are now angry because I'm.

Mad that it didn't hurt it like I wanted it to.

James Ulnock just threw his hammer at a statue that appears to be moving.

All right, well, BO ain't gonna do, so I'm going to fire a firebolt at it, I guess, see if that does, you know.

Okay.

I've never killed stone before. This is new. That is a 14 to hit.

Misses.

Is there anything you said, like the baggage claim was in this area? Right. Am I close enough to get to one of those turnstiles for the. Not turnstiles, the conveyor belts or something like that. The hide behind.

Yes.

Okay, cool. I would like to do that bonus action hide.

Okay. Roll your stealth.

My second damage was wrong. It wasn't plus eight. It was plus six. Sorry. So it's nine plus six.

15.

I got a 29 for stealth. I got a natural 20.

Yeah, you frickin disappear from the face of the earth.

Yep.

All right, so Ulnock throws his hammer twice. You shoot some fire into the air and then vanish. And Mel James is gone probably.

Hello.

Mel sees the statue and goes, well, let's see if this works. And then goes up and attacks it with her short sword.

It's.

It's fifth. Yeah, 50.

And it's up a bit.

Yeah, it's up like 12ft in the air. Oh, so you do not do that.

I do not do that. Mel thinks about doing that and then decides that's implausible. So what Mel does instead imagines it.

Vividly in her head.

Ed goes, no, that is less ignore.

Realizing this isn't the matrix.

Mel.

Well, she took the bonk, actually. Mel instead opts to pull out her shortbow, I guess, and try to hit it. Maybe it'll work. I don't know. Sounds weird.

You can absolutely try.

That is going to be a dirty 20 to hit. That hits for four points of damage.

All right, you see your arrow fly true and tank off of it. It does some damage, but not what you would anticipate.

All right, well, she'll do it again because why not? That's gonna be a 22 to hit.

Still nails it. Yep.

For seven points of.

Maybe seven points of damage, same thing. It hits true, you do a good shot, you're shooting the shit out of it. You're hitting right where the kill spots should be. But your arrows are shattering off of its carapace, leaving small divots behind you. Definitely you are doing something to it, Emery.

Great. I am going to move a little ways. Not so much hiding as just like cover a little bit. And I'm going to cast mage armor on myself.

Cool. That brings your A.C. from what to what? From 14 to.

From 11 to 14.

Oh, I just have you set at the major.

Yeah.

Okay. We'll say you stepped into like the. The metal detector thingy to provide you some cool. With a horrible screech, the gargoyle finishes breaking itself loose from its Samsonite ish enclosure. And it does not see James. It knows that the big guy did some serious ouches upon it and is.

Also yelling loudly at him.

Yes.

In anger.

Yes. So it is going to leap at you. And.

Unlike raged. Right.

I did rage. 21 to hit.

That does.

Does an amount of damage equal to four have two summit.

What am I hit with?

57 of 59.

59. 57. I'm going to use my countdown.

And now that it has landed upon you. 18 Plus, I'm assuming hits slightly better than the last one.

It does.

It bites down on you, dealing you eight points of biting damage halved to four.

Why does everything fricking bite me?

Cause you hit hard.

Does he have to roll a con save for gargoyle length of pain?

Yeah, I'm gonna be a gargoyle werewolf now.

No, you just have rock hard abs.

With that. From a supply closet. Not terrible. Far away, you start hearing some serious banging noise. And then from behind everybody, you hear a very, very similar cracking, screeching sound as a second gargoyle breaks itself out of the other Samsonite case over the other baggage claim area.

Good.

Sweet.

Awesome.

This one looks a little more slender. It's got a little bit more of a beakish type mouth, whereas the other one's got a little bit more of like a. Like a puggish face. And this one pops out of its Samsonite ish case. It starts moving in your direction.

Is it chittering like that?

Very more almost like a strangled bird screech.

I can't like the way that like snap their beaks. Have you seen the.

Oh, like the shoe Bill?

Yeah.

That is a terrifying noise that basically sounds like a machine gun going off.

Yeah.

Jacob takes the dodge action near Elliot and good boy. It's your turn.

Okay, the first one that we've been putting damage on, that's gonna be my first target.

Perfect.

I'm guessing this is not undead nor a Beast. So I'm sure I don't get 15 to hit.

Just hits.

That'll be. That'll be 17 points of magical piercing damage.

Beautiful. That hurts.

Still up?

Yes.

I'll take second shot.

It looks pretty fucked up, but it's up.

Are you adding your hunter's mark damage?

I missed with the second shot.

I missed with the second shot. All right, movement. Anything else? Bodice sections.

Ah, nope.

Okay. Ulnock. There is one super fucked up goblin gargoyle on you.

Yeah, he's on me. On me, right?

Yeah, on you, on you, basically.

Just so question, because it's a thrower, but it's also just a hammer. Can I just swing at it?

Yeah.

Is it the same modifiers or would that change?

You have the card. I don't know.

That's what? I don't know. It looks like it is.

Yeah, it'll be the same.

Go for it.

You just don't have the distance.

Okay, so we're in a rage.

Yeah.

And I'm going to go ahead and extra attack it again. Well, one misses cuz that's a 10. Even with the plus 9 that does. But the other one hits cuz it's 16 plus 9 that does hit.

Go and describe.

Oh, nice.

Oh, I don't even got a roll.

No, it's 2D.

Okay, whatever. Anyway, I am going to swing at its stone head and even though it's a hammer, I'm gonna just try to whack its head off. And apparently it works.

Yeah.

And I go, yes. Blood decapitation.

Sweet. If nothing else, it's because it's a statue that it works. You crack the head off, it bursts into powder, concrete powder, and the body stops trying to hurt you.

Paul Knock's gonna go around with a fucking big ass hammer. Just golf swinging people's heads off.

It's gonna be so distressing with that.

Flesh and blood thing. Yeah.

The sound, that crunchy squelchy sound.

James, you are hidden.

Yay. And you said there was another one that was coming out?

Yes. Opposite side of the terminal from you.

Assuming I'm still hidden, I would like to shoot at that one.

You are still hidden from that one.

Cool, so I get advantage then. Don't sneak attack though, because this isn't a range.

What is the range advantage you get?

Oh, it's a spell.

Firebolt's 120ft.

Okay. It's right at the edge of what you can hit, but you can.

Yeah.

Okay, cool.

I mean this is an entire airport to a moment.

Fair.

Yeah.

Glad I had Advantage. That is a 25.

Yeah. Yeah. That hits. Cool.

Duty 4 is coming at you for a whopping 15 points of fire damage.

That hits it. It doesn't. Love it.

Cool. I would like to move to the opposite side of the baggage claim and rehide if I can, please.

Two D10s.

Okay. You set D4 worse.

You did say.

Did I really?

You did.

I'm sorry.

I meant to say 2 du Christ. Must have a serious modifier to damage 2d4s. Are you kidding me?

No, it was 2d4s and you did 15 points of damage that I don't.

Even know what I was looking at.

Plus 12.

Jesus Christ. Okay, Anyway.

Would you say the opposite side of the baggage claim, like from here to here?

Yeah. So that I'm no longer. Yeah, just do a loop if I could.

Perfect.

And rehide. Yeah, yeah.

That is a 19.

Okay, Mel.

So seeing that the arrows though I hit it weren't working very effectively on the last one, I'm going to bonus action stow my shortbow.

Okay.

And then I'm going to dash to the number, the one that's 120ft away. Dashing will get me 90ft.

Okay.

So then I'm going to hold my action. If it comes up to me, I'm going to punch it.

Okay? Yeah. You don't bonus action stash. You stash as part of your movement because you didn't draw your sword.

I had my shortbow on, though. Normally if you switch weapons, you have.

To drop it if you want to drop and draw.

Okay.

If all you're doing is stowing, you can stow as part of your movement.

Okay. Then I'm going to stow and still hold my action.

Your action is dashing unless you get the bonus action. Dash like a rook.

Oh, right. Okay, fine.

But you can absolutely dash up to.

Key point dash as a bonus action of the wind. And you can dash.

I think that's what I'm trying to say.

Okay. That's the thing that could be done.

I'm going to do that thing.

Perfect.

You just missed the key element to that.

The point is. Yes, yes. So I'm burning a key point and I'm dashing. And then I'm going to hold my action so that if it comes up within reach, I'm going to punch it.

Perfect. This won't tickle.

That sounds like a terrible idea. My fists are magical.

You are.

That just means you're not gonna bust all of your fingers when you actually punch it.

Yeah, you are about. I'd say because you were closer, you're about 15ft from it now.

After many, I figured it could probably break the distance.

Yeah. Just to keep that picture fresh. Emery, you see a fireball bolt come from nowhere, and then Mel goes running at the gargoyle.

Cool. I'm gonna move forward out of my cover just a little bit. Not quite. I don't want to stand next to Elliot and Jacob.

Okay.

I want to keep us a little spread out, but not too spread out.

Okay.

And I'm gonna cast a chaos bolt at this thing. My range is 120ft.

Okay. Yeah, it's in the. It's within range.

That was the wrong dice to trust. Does a 10 hit?

Nope.

Okay.

So a bolt of magic goes near the goblin. Gargoyle. Gargoyle. Gargoyle. Why I keep saying goblet Gargoblin?

Because you check my notes for tomorrow.

Maintain that judge. All right. From the supply closet, you now hear the splintering of wood. And something very strange steps out of the supply closet.

A janitor.

That would be much, much more happy for you if that were the thing. Instead, out steps a 10 foot tall statue of Anubis.

What in the fuck is that?

Oh, yeah, that's. Yep, that's there too.

We have one of those.

Yep.

There's a lot of weird shit in.

DIA on display in DIA from 2010 to 2011, when the King Tutankhamen display was in Denver, there is a large statue of Anubis that went missing after the event ended. Apparently missing was in the supply closet.

I didn't think to check that. Custodian.

Swayback trash.

It is out of reach of anybody, but it does start very heavily stomping in your direction, cracking the floor as it rocks. The floor is a pretty, like, terrazzo granite ish material. Well, it still is. It's just not quite as pretty where it is. With that, much to Mel's expectation, Gargoyle the sequel closes the distance. Surprisingly agile for a hunk of stone, triggering your held action of Punch It.

21 hits. That is going to be eight points of magical punching damage.

It magically dislikes this.

I magically dislike it too. My knuckles first.

Your knuckles a little bit.

Yes, it does.

I accidentally punched a tree this week and it.

You're supposed to lick those, not punch them.

It's probably, like I said, accidentally.

I don't know if it's granite or sandstone, but it's abrasive. I know that.

Yes.

Yeah. You just punched basically concrete.

Aw.

Which hurts.

I don't know if you've ever punched a sidewalk.

It kind of starts with a he.

Ow.

Oh, that hurt more than I expected.

It seems offended that you would punch it.

How dare you do that to me.

Fair.

16 plus 4 to hit.

Ouch. Yeah. That hits.

Bell's about to get yeeted across the fucking room.

That reaches out with its clawed hand, slashes across your chest area dealing.

I don't know why I thought you were about to slap her in the face.

Five points of.

No, it doesn't.

Because slashing damage.

It doesn't. I have a windfall.

What? Yeah, yeah. You got a wing from before.

That's right.

That's right.

Dodgy McDodgy Dodge.

You do a really artful backbend. Yes.

It aims for my chest and I do the matrix backbend and dive out of it.

Fully frustrated now that you would bite or you didn't bite it. You would punch and then dodge it. Would like to bite you in response with its peaky face.

I bite back.

And it almost assuredly misses with a nine.

Yes, it does.

Jacob continues the dodge action. And it's Elliot's turn.

Got a boy.

So to paint the picture here, all the action has been moving east, west. Statue came from the north, marching towards you guys. I have mentally got Emery kind of northish up towards tsa. Elliot, I had you back kind of southish towards the main entrance. Is that accurate to everybody's picture?

Yeah, I moved a little bit back, but not all the way.

So you're nowhere near the thing.

Yeah.

You're just the nearest. Yeah.

Yeah.

And I've got Mel and James pretty much running up the middle as well as Olok. Been running center field, if you will.

Elliot's gonna see that Mel's got the gargoyle engaged. He really is spooked about that great big son bitch coming. So he's going to bonus action. Move his hunter's mark over to this. You've got him labeled as Anubis.

Yes.

Okay, so he's gonna bonus action. Move his hunter's mark over to Anubis. And then he is going to reach into his pack, grab two arrows at a time. He's gonna release both of them at Anubis. 13 on the first one.

Oh, that misses.

Misses. All right, 25 on the second shot that hits. He will take eight plus six. He'll take 14 points of magical piercing damage.

All right. He takes it does not care for that. You do see that it looks directly at you as if assessing.

Got it. He's still quite a long ways Away.

Yes, you are quite a long ways away.

And if I remember correctly, I should be pretty much just inside the doors, so I should be able to back backwards if need be.

Yeah, you're safe. But it definitely.

Yeah. And I'm gonna kind of look down at Jacob and say, if that thing starts to get close, we're gonna back out of here.

Okay.

All right, bud, you're doing good. You're Ulnok.

What is closest to me? Am I closer to Anubis, or am I closer to Gargoyle? To the sequel?

Honestly, it's probably Gargoyle, too, but not, like, by a significant margin.

Can I get within 60ft of Anubis to attack him twice? Yes, I want to do that.

Okay.

And I'm going to double attack, but I'm also going to use my greater weapon master.

Okay, read that out for the audience.

So my greater weapon master gives me a plus 4 on the attack, but then a 2d8 plus 18 for damage if I hit.

In addition to your plus 9 already?

No, no. Takes minus 5 to his attack, so.

It'S for a plus 10 to damage.

Gotcha. Okay.

That was the wrong move, so I'm sure both of those miss with a 14 miss and a 12 misses more. So I just run into battle and go. Just bounce it at its feet and go, shit.

The cool thing is this is the first time that you've seen your hammer go flying through the air and come back to you having not bounced.

It probably just orbited the thing and then just came right back.

Almost as if, like, by a magnetic pole, it comes straight back to you.

Okay.

Without having made contact.

So it didn't bounce, like, off the wall or anything, Just came right back?

Yep.

Fuck, yeah. That's kind of cool. I'm gonna have to test some shit.

We have the Force. James Olmok has the Force. Anubis is coming towards you, and a gargoyle is trying to eat Mel.

What the choices? Choices.

I like to take confusing scenes for 500, please. Assuming I'm still hidden on the other side with a 19 for that. Stealth.

Yeah.

Is Anubis within 120ft of me?

Yeah.

Cool. I would like to fire bolt Anubis.

You sure can try.

I don't.

That is a 15 to hit misses. Yeah. Do the math. Right. I don't know.

I did do the math.

It still misses, then. Yep.

All right. In that case, it sees you. Yeah. I would like to tide with some different emotional baggage if I could.

Okay. Let's see how well you do.

Not great.

17.

Right you are. Each one has been lower than the one before. Yeah.

This pile of luggage is not as. It's a lot more shallow than I was expecting it to be.

Mel, a gargoyle's trying to eat you.

I'm gonna try to punch him.

Okie dokie.

I'm absolutely positive. One misses.

Okay.

Thirteen misses. Okay.

Come on, Mel. You've punched gods before.

Not helping.

Anything else you would like to do?

Not particularly.

Okie dokie. Emory. Mel is a gargoyle. Trying to eat her. Ulnok has the Force and Anubis is marching.

Yes. These are all things that have happened. I'm going to use a couple sorcery points to quicken a spell and cast true strike on Anubis.

Okay.

Which gives me advantage on my next attack against it.

Okay.

That is two source. Okay, cool. Sorry. Just making sure I got my numbers right.

Yep.

And I'm gonna cast another chaos bolt at it.

Okay.

True strikes. It can trip.

Okay.

Just for reference difference.

Thank you.

This is a legal move.

I feel like that's the only way to make true strike work.

17 autonubus.

Yes.

Just hits.

This is force damage. And it does seven.

All right.

Oh, Emery's got the Force now, too.

I do force push.

It takes some damage.

I don't think I've ever heard a Jedi yell force push before.

We're good.

Before we get to the next person, I would like my hit points back, please. I did not get hit.

I also didn't get hit for the record.

Okay, but I wonder who those were supposed to go to.

Well, I. I figured on mine, you'd probably already subtracted when I declined the hit.

Oh, that's what it is. Yes. That's.

I don't know what happened to everyone.

Mine appeared when you added damage to alt lock.

What is that?

But I was just going to leave it because I know what my hit points they're at, so.

So you should.

53 is where I'm at. We're good on mine.

Okay.

Yeah. I'm at full.

Everybody else's healths look correct.

Yes.

You can make ELH more if you want.

Bring him up a little bit.

But you don't have to. He didn't earn it.

Probably will decline that invitation, but I appreciate the offer.

Just don't notice. James, refine.

Yeah. All right. Anubis's turn. It is perplexed by what Emory just did to it. Emerie is also the closest thing to it.

Oh, I shouldn't. I was celebrating hitting it.

Yeah, fair. Fair.

Did you Blow up.

No, I didn't.

It is going to dash at you.

Oh, good. Great.

So if there's one thing that's terrifying, it's a walking statue. It's running statue.

Yeah. No shit, right?

And it's able to get within. I'll say. It's within 10ft of you.

Awesome. Super cool.

And that's its turn. It's a scary turn.

Yeah.

Probably leaving like gigantic gouge mark in the ground.

Yeah, it's straight up, just crumbling the floor under its feet.

Bits and pieces of it go flying out from underneath its feet.

Yes. Life and Gargoyle, the sequel, is still not a fan of how its last round went. So it's going to strike back out with its clawed hand at. No bob and weave and miss for that one. And getting genuinely frustrated at this point. It is going to try to bite.

That's fair. I would be fine.

I still don't think 12. So I think it still misses. Weep weave. We.

Mel is very agile. I don't know what that sound effect means.

Yeah, me either.

She graduated from bob and weave university.

Weave, weave, weave. Gotcha.

I was just hearing Oui oui.

Say sorry.

Confused.

Oui, oui. I guess that's the sound of a gargoyle. No longer a scary screech. It's wee.

That's the sound a gargoyle makes when it misses.

The terrifying sound.

It's the rare sound of a gargoyle crying. Elliot, it is your turn.

He's gonna go wee wee all the way home.

He's gonna continue his attack on Anubis.

That is. Maybe we could be friends.

I don't know. I feel like we're gonna get stonewalled.

Do I have a statue here?

An 18 +9 is 16 +9. Both of these are gonna hit. Oh, my God. That was max damage on his second shot. So his first shot was 13 magic on his first attack.

Okay.

His second attack was absolute max damage. God, I wish he would have Nat20. But let's see here. 20 points of magical damage on the second attack.

Nice. So your arrows go flying and you actually manage to blast a couple of chunks off of Anubis Dog ears. Like he doesn't have them anymore.

Oh, he's looking for. It's looking for weak points and cracks in the statue. And that's what he's aiming for. Those points.

Beautiful. Oldak, you're confident Anubish can't hear anymore. Sweet.

I'm still. He's closest to me, right?

He's much closer to him.

Okay. I'm going to regular extra attack him with the same weapon. So I have a plus nine to my modifier again.

Okay. Ball it.

All right, so a nine plus three, I'm sure doesn't hit.

Correct.

And then a nine plus six also doesn't hit, does it? 17 fucking ball sacks.

All right, James.

So I just jump in frustration.

Yeah. Ulnock is throwing his hammer around, and it comes right back to my hand.

Because it is alarmingly close.

Is that a hammer or a yo yo?

I don't know.

That thing doesn't obey the laws of physics at all. I would like to attempt to firebolt the Anubis.

Okay.

Did. Was I six? Okay, cool. Figured I checked since I'm getting worse at that anyway.

Here we go. That's a cockpit.

That's worse. That's a dirty 20.

That hits.

Cool.

2D10.

That's nine fire damage.

We.

That's disappointing for 2D10s, isn't it?

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right.

I'm not puzzling over the math on it.

Hide movement. What else do you want to do?

Yeah, I would like to rinse and repeat. Just hide in some other people's luggage.

Okay. In the luggage now. Okay.

He's just in somebody's area crawling into a suitcase.

Now I'm just gonna hide in his suitcase. That's a 27.

Yeah. You did it.

It was a big suitcase.

Ninja vanish.

I'm hiding in, like, so much cello case or something.

Mel, this sad weet wheat gargoyle is trying desperately to do you harm. You hear some very scary, very fast thudding with a little bit of a yelp, I'm sure from Emery.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure it'd be more like. Oh, shit, oh, shit, oh, shit.

Yes. Strange noises.

So in place where it would normally be movement, Mel drops her punch posture for a minute and goes, aw. And then she tries to hit it.

Oh, I feel sad. Moment's over.

She hits it with one for 17 plus six.

Yep.

The other one I'm confident. Mrs. For 10.

Yeah.

That was a sympathy punch.

Yeah. Wow. For four points of damage.

Boom.

Okay.

And then I will burn a ki point and take the dodge action as my bonus action.

Perfect. Emery, a new Bish is getting quite close.

Great.

It appears to be.

I hadn't fully decided. I knew my turn was next, and I hadn't fully decided. I'm gonna cast Dragon's Breath on myself.

Okay.

For acid damage.

There you go. I was thinking the same thing.

Okay.

I don't explode.

Yay.

Yay.

We don't get a Potted plant with dragon breath. You would just turn into a potted plant of snapdragon.

Yeah.

Just spitting. And then I'm going to blast acid at this thing. It needs to make a dex save dice.

It makes sense. 18 plus. How dare it moved freakishly dexterously.

That's what I was saying. I'm like, there's. How dexterous could it be?

It does still take half damage. So total roll was 14. It would take seven.

It does do that. It takes seven.

I'm gonna back the hell away. Way full 30 foot movement.

Okay. That would mean that the new closest would be olnock.

Unless it chases the person who's running away from it.

But then you did just vomit on it.

I did do that. Yeah.

You just did Exorcist all over it.

So it is going to move 30ft in your direction.

Can I taunt it?

Sure.

Can that be a free action?

Yeah, you can free action. Yell at it all you want.

Bring it on, you dog face bitch.

It looks at you and keeps marching in Emory's direction.

You are an Emory.

I need you to make a wisdom save.

Oh, good, good. This is not the character I play. That's good at these. I'm going to use my inspiration and reroll. That's worse on.

All right.

Not great.

The other one was a six. I had to use the inspiration.

Ah, dope.

Hang on, hang on. I think I have a sorcery point thing that I can do to make this suck less.

Yeah.

Before you spend anything, you have to beat a DC17 team.

Okay. So one of them I can bend lock. That doesn't help enough. The other one is Tides of Chaos. I can gain advantage on one attack roll ability check or saving throw.

Okay.

Before I regain use of this feature, you can have me roll on the wild Surge table after I cast spells.

You failed. Okay.

You can have me cast cast on it before I regain you.

No, it's the K surge.

Oh, that's what it does. Gotcha. Okay.

You basically force force the Wild Magic surge.

What are you doing back there?

Good. Lot of shit just fell.

I'm basically giving myself advantage on this roll again.

Okay, well then absolutely roll on the Wild Magic surge table. We're using the one.

I got a 17.

Nice. Okay.

Nat 17. Which is good because my wisdom's plus zero.

That is good.

I will roll on that table.

So from here forward, we're actually going to be using the variant Wild Magic table from the game Master's book of Astonishing random tables by Ben Egloff.

I do not explode but it is now a 50. 50 chance.

Okay.

Oh, no.

We're getting close.

Getting close.

I squeak by on that wisdom save.

You do barely squeak by pulling everything you can muster. And that's its turn.

You're up to 10.

I'm up to 10.

Jesus.

Wow. That's never happened before.

So fair warning. I decided that instead of, like, when we have a couple days of travel where I. I don't cast spells as. That is not interesting if it wipes down to zero every time. So I've just been decreasing one.

Oh, gotcha.

I only decreased two for the two days we spent traveling.

Okay.

So I started this battle at five.

That makes more sense.

Yeah.

I was like, I don't think you've done that.

I feel like that it's too easy if it just goes away every time you have a couple days of travel.

As somebody who hasn't been rolled up enough, you know?

Fair.

Yeah, that makes sense.

I don't know. I like the chaos.

I roll it up. Not once. It kind of pans out normally, don't you?

I'm up to 10.

Not for the wild magic, you don't.

When you do wild magic, though, you make some memorable moments with wild magic, though.

I don't know if it makes me go off too often. Let me know and we can go back.

But okay, Mal with disadvantage because you took the dodge action. Yes, I rolled a 15 and a 12, but that's plus four. So that'd be a 16 as my lowest 12. Plus four.

16 the only one hit. So I have a DC 17.

Okay. So nice. No, that doesn't hit. That was with disadvantage on one attack. Disadvantage on the second attack also misses. So again, the gargoyle does things near you.

Weave and bob, weave and bob.

The gargoyle at this point has decided you are impossible to hit.

He's a giving up.

And it is going to.

You're not fun anymore.

Leap and fly away from you. I forgot that they have granting you an attack of opportunity if you would like to take it.

I absolutely would. Oh, that is a 19 plus. Plus some stuff.

19 plus some stuff.

Swing up.

Aim for the under character for max damage, which is going to be nine points.

Nice. All right. Nine points of Punch it with your magic fist damage.

Yep.

Occurs. And I figured out why I'm reducing your health.

Okay.

So I know what not to do now.

Okay. Please don't do that.

And it flies 60ft, landing it near Emery.

Oh, good.

Wait, hang on.

They've just zoned. They've honed in on Emery, that's great.

Get back here when I'm punching you.

You smack it as it flies past. And it lands right behind Emery. And it's Elliot's turn.

Sorry.

Well, Jacob dodges again. Now it's Emery's turn. Elliot's turn. The other e. Elliot. Anubis is moving.

He's going to continue his attack on Anubis just like he's been doing. If he rolled like he did the last time, he'd like to sharpshooter. But he's not going to sharpshooter. That was good. One of those probably hits. Yeah. Dirty 20.

Yep.

And that's going to be 4, 6, 7. It's gonna be for 13 points of magical piercing damage.

He takes it.

All right. The other one missed.

Okay, it's time to not look great. You're developing quite a bit of cracking on its carapace. For one of a better descriptor, its chiseled exterior. Ulnok.

That was good as the stonewalling.

I enjoyed that.

All right.

Can I put myself in between Anubis and Emory? Yes, I would like to do that.

Okay.

And then I'm going.

You are absolutely in melee with it to do that.

Yes. Which is fine cuz it doesn't hurt my thrower. I can still swing it as a hammer and it has the same things. So we're going to go ahead and double attack it with the regular hammer stance.

Okay.

Twice.

Go for it.

17 plus nine hits.

You hit it.

That one didn't. That's a nine plus three.

That did it.

So the first one. That's not bad. So 13 plus 8.

21.

Gorilla smash with hammer.

21 damage to Anubis. You miss with the second one because you haven't intentionally hit stone with this before.

Yeah.

And it shocks your hand.

Oh God.

King.

Ah, that's Woo. That's got a tingly feeling.

James Ulmak finally hit the guy. Yay.

And he was startled by it.

It's a real loud tank.

The cello case would like to rinse him repeatedly.

Inflatable.

Right back in.

Here's hiding in a suitcase.

I've been doing that just to generate advantage.

I mean, it makes sense. It just sounds ridiculous. I crawled into a suitcase.

That is a natural 20 that hits.

That'll surprise you.

Weird.

I'm assuming Anubish. Yes.

Sorry. Should have specified who I was hitting. And that's for 28 points of fire damage.

All right. Anubis is starting to look pretty rough.

Fuck you, Anubis.

Get shit on action.

What that was it I mean, sorry, bonus action.

Sorry, no more of those.

You did that one.

Yep. So I couldn't remember if the cape was a bonus action or not.

Shit. I don't.

Oh, doesn't oh.

Cape of the Mountebank just flash point.

You out of there?

I think it was an action, but I could be wrong.

Oh yeah, I had to read like the whole entire paragraph. Yeah. Okay, nevermind. So I will. I will move to a different.

Okay, just rolls from one suitcase to another.

He rolls, shoots, rolls into a new one.

Yes.

You just hear the.

Yeah, that's all you guys hear is.

Just.

What the hell is happening over there?

It's a 19. Yep. All right. Mel, you are standing all alone. Emory looks quite scared.

Can I get to Gargoyle too? From where I'm at in a normal 45ft of negative at 360. Okay. Then I'm going to dash over to gargoyle two.

Okay.

And bonus action. Give it a single punch.

Okay.

You know, actually we're not doing all that bad. I think Olmax, the only one, is.

Taking damage and I'm supposed to.

Yeah. So weirdly enough, it's working.

Yeah, it's working out.

18 hits, four points of damage.

Four for Magic Hand damage.

Yep.

Pretty much covers all your bases.

Yep.

Emery, Anubis is quite close. Gargoyle is quite closer.

And suddenly Olnok is right in front of me.

Yes.

And Mel's right next to you.

Yeah.

The last round, a lot of things came at you.

I'm going to move. So I am back to back with Olmac because the, the Anubis was on one side of me, Gargoyle's on the other. So I'm now facing the gargoyle.

Okay.

And I am going to breathe acid at it.

Okay.

This is very.

It needs to make a deck save.

Okay.

It's a 15 foot cone. I'm making sure Mel's not in it.

Thank you.

Okay. She appreciates that greatly.

I don't like it when people throw up on me. It's kind of a phobia.

It fails.

I feel like it'd be weirder if.

You go and describe that.

Nice.

Fair.

So I turn and I'm back to back with Olnok. And this just like wave green acid goop flies out at this thing and it melts into a stone colored puddle on the floor.

Nice.

That sounds so sloppy.

Mel looks at you. Do you need a breath mint?

Maybe later.

That acid reflux is a bitch, man.

Oh God. Immediately after this, you're gonna have to brush Your teeth.

Yeah, definitely.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Don't have tubs.

All right, guys, I found that acid.

And it really helped. You hear from.

Where the hell is he?

Doesn't matter. 100% K shows up at after the fight. It's fine.

Olock does a 21 hit.

Jesus Christ.

Sure does.

I need you to take 14 damage. Have to seven.

Okay.

Ouch.

And. Oh, that might not 13 to hit.

Miss.

Okay, so now that Anubis is back, coming within striking distance. It just hammer fists you right over the dome piece and it comes in for a swipe across. But you ducked from the first impact.

That's because it hit me too hard on the top of the head. I was like, ow. And then it just swung over the top.

Yes.

You probably like sunk a foot into the ground.

Yeah. Compacted your spine. You're like an inch shorter now. I feel like I clocked my head hard enough.

Honestly. Still nothing compared to that werewolf transformation.

That's true.

Fuck, that would be miserable.

The amount of popping of your spines.

Does damage matter if it's magical for you?

I think he's resistant to everything except for psychic.

Except psychic.

Everything except psychic.

Even with magic weapon, that doesn't matter. Okay, perfect. That's what I assumed, but wanted to make sure I wasn't, you know, short changing you here.

I just had to. I had to look at it real quick.

But.

Yeah, that's correct.

Awesome, Jacobus.

Attaboy, Elliot.

All right. He sees Anubis out there laying, laying blows on whole knock and he's like, ah, I gotta. I gotta do something. He's gonna keep shooting him. That seems to be working pretty well. One of those is gonna hit. Well, wait, the other one might. No. 15. 15 hit. No. Okay, so only the other one hits second arrow. That was.

6.

13 points.

Awesome. You are very consistent.

Done a lot of 13s.

Yeah. Any movement, bonus action E flavored things? Nope. Okay. Ulnock. You got domed by a big ass statue.

I'm gonna take a swing at him twice with my extra attack.

Okay.

18 plus nine hits.

Three plus nine misses.

That's like the third time you've rolled a three.

It is. You're also weirdly consistent.

11 plus eight. 19.

19. All right. He is starting to look real rough.

God damn it, die already.

He's a dog, right?

Rough motion, bonus action Y flavored things.

I don't think jackals are technically geeks.

They're more like coyotes.

I'm trying to think if I have any books.

They're their own species. Yeah, they're definitely Their own species.

Actually.

I'm just gonna kind of rub my head like fair.

Suitcase. There is a large dog jackal flavored monster.

The suitcase would like to cast firebolt.

I am surprised. What?

Go Go Gadget Firebolt.

You know, you don't even have to get out of the suitcase. You just poke one eye out and your finger.

Yeah.

That is a 24. Yeah. Honestly, if I hit any other magical to be doing other than firebolted, that's eight points of fire damage.

All righty, Mel.

Oh, hold on, hold on. I have to switch suitcases.

Sorry. Yep, that's right.

You gotta come on one with a hat.

Oh, fuck.

This one's really tight. I couldn't fit all the way into this one.

This one's got the zipper lock on in case you couldn't get it open.

Damn it. Damn it.

It's a 12.

Okay.

So I like go to zip it up and I get like hair cotton or something like that.

Now there is a puddle of garcoid failed near you. Emery appears to have some wicked indigestion and ulnock is hitting a rock.

I'm looking at Anubis going, God, this is gonna hurt. And I'm gonna go and try to punch Anubis.

All right.

Yeah, punch another God off my back.

A little bit of like cushioning. So you're not absolutely destroying your hands, right?

Oh, that's not great. Is 15 misses and whatever's eight and six misses.

14.

Well, I did think it was gonna happen.

Your hands feel okay?

Oh, good.

Emery, Mel is shadow boxing.

Mel's gonna try to psych herself into punching a second.

God, I want to move so I can catch this thing in the acid blast, but not either of my friends. So okay, if I have to be in melee with it to do that.

Probably need to be. Yeah, you could be in melee behind it though, aiming kind of like across it. Because you got two people up in melee with it. I'm assuming you're Both at a 15.

Foot cone, that's all. So I just want to make sure.

So you could be on its side and kind of catch it with the side burst.

Yep, we'll do that. It needs to make a deck save.

Kind of's got an advantage on that. What does he do? Where is it? Dex Save. Yeah, that is still a fail. Still a fail.

All right, it takes 11 acid damage.

Go ahead and describe that. Nice.

Yes. Okay, so I don't think this one melts into a full puddle, but the acid still kind of starts to break down the stone. But it starts kind of at the head and just works its way down. It just slowly stops moving.

Nice.

As it disintegrates. Enough.

Here you go. You have defeated by a Nubian puzzle.

For a fun can Ulnock just keep beating it with a hammer until it turns to dust?

Absolutely.

Hell yeah, I'm doing it.

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James, he said there's Tums in one of those suitcases.

Guys, I'm stuck in the suitcase.

Mel.

I got a little ambitious with this one.

I go to try to help but I'm not good with zippers either. So it's just Mel like yeah, it's.

Just try to caught it. You're just go untangle James from the suitcase.

Ah, Elliot is gonna move deeper in. He was like to he wants to listen or look around to try to figure out where that kid got taken to.

Perfect. Give me an investigation check for favor.

Four.

You don't. You don't think you're gonna find him.

With a four a hand bust out of the suitcase holding Tums.

Oh good. Thank you. I take the Tums and open the suitcase the rest of the way. All right, so we should.

You know what I'm going to pull because we're in a very large building, I'm going to pull the magic broom out of my pack.

Okay.

I'm going to hand it to Jacob.

Okay.

Tell Jacob I don't want you to get further than about 60ft away, but I want you to see if you can see or hear where that kid went.

Okay.

We are now search and rescue.

Yeah, don't go far, but see if you can see better with elevation.

Yeah, get high enough to see over.

Some of the obstacles because those things could fly, so there could be a chance that he's like up on a ledge or a mountain or something.

Okay, Mr. Elliot.

Yes. Be very careful about that.

I can cast mage armor on Jacob.

What's Jacob's stats?

Can you have it on you and Jacob at the same time?

It's not concentration.

Oh, nice.

A willing creature who isn't wearing armor.

He is not wearing armor.

Say no to that.

All right, before you take off, come here. I've got a cast mage armor on him. His armor class is now 13 plus his dex.

Okay.

What happens when you roll the mild magic token?

Oh, God.

Yep.

Oh, Jesus.

With Jacob in immediate proximity, I don't go off.

Oh, Jesus crap.

I'm using all of my good rolls on the stupid wild magic.

If there was ever a time, it's when you're in close proximity to the.

Kid, casting a defensive spell on him.

Here, this will make you better. Oops.

Boom.

Fireball.

Or the one which just turns you into a bright ass flashlight.

Just blind him right before he's off to investigate.

Yeah.

Here, this will help.

Flash.

What's Tesla? Okay, so he goes up, up, up, up. He's cruising around to an aerial patrol and fucking at 20.

Atta boy.

He is on it today.

I'm glad Jacob's rolling better than that gargoyle.

Yeah, good thinking, Elliott, for the room idea.

So he goes up and then immediately lands next to you guys. Said, I see a bunch of scratches on that bit of the floor over there.

Okay, thank you. You can hang on to that broom if you want to wait. No, no. Down, down, down, down. Don't leave. Hang on to the broom in case you need it.

Okay. Damn.

Okay, and then I'm gonna head towards where he pointed out the scratches to be.

All right.

I think the rest of us will go with him.

Yeah, snacking on a couple Tums.

I found some peanuts too, if anyone wants any. Send me the peanuts toss.

So as you guys are moving through just cause, you know, not a lot of things take place in DIA and I want to point out some of its weird peanuts. As you're looking specifically at the floor, because he just pointed it out. There are four areas of the floor that have got these descriptions engraved in them in a language none of you can read. First one says besh dit gehi. And it's got a picture of like one of those white gilded silver, gilded leaves where they replace the leaf with silver. It's got one of those embedded into the floor. Another one says zit dit gahi gai. Another one says nina ni nakaya nikaya. And then sis najini are engraved in the floor.

I've never been in this airport, but I don't think this is part of the original design of the building.

No, I'm gonna go with no. But di is weird enough. Maybe that sounds like Navajo.

It should be.

I know, exactly.

And you're also, as you're walking along, you're looking at the walls, you see that there are three rather odd. It's a three paneled mural. They stand out. It's a weird picture. The first panel shows a vaguely Soviet soldier marching with a gas mask on, with a roughly AR15 style rifle and a large sword in its hand, towering over these scared children with a row of weeping mothers off to its side and a background of crumbled destroyed buildings behind it.

Now that definitely doesn't look like it should be here.

It doesn't look like it should be, but it is.

I've ever been in this terminal that is there.

That is there. That is part of dia.

Really weird.

That is not out of place. That is not an alternate dimension. That is what the mural is.

They have weird arts.

And it gets weirder.

The second panel shows quite a few children at the center of the panel weeping over a display of dead animals. And there's a couple people in glass coffins, very snow white kind of coffin with a raging forest fire behind them.

What the fuck is this doing in an airport?

And the third panel shows all of the children of the world holding their nation's flags, very happy with the soldier from the first panel lying gray and dead at the base of the panel.

Okay, well, at least it was a happy ending.

I'm very puzzled by this. I don't want to ever be in this terminal.

And finally you make it to the area that Jacob pointed out and you find it's a large section of the floor, a perfect square of the floor. And in the dead center of the floor is a gold gilded picture, for want of a better word, that appears to display a minecart. Very simple. It's just the outer border of a Minecart with two wheels visible, a pile of something at the top, and the letters AU and AG engraved in the center of the trapezoidal minecart body.

Okay. I actually get that one. Gold and silver.

And this is where the scratches are. Kind of around the edge of this very large chunk. O floor.

If I look straight up in the air above us, do I see anything above us?

It. The hole is above it. But no creatures or nests or things of that nature.

Do the scratches look like they're leading anywhere or is it just like this? Looks like they've been landing and taking off from here.

It's their perch.

You can see that the scratches are on the floor next to James.

Let's see if we can see if.

This is the door.

Let's see if we can get this open.

Okay, gotcha.

How do you plan to do that?

I have no idea. I get down and start trying to twist or push on things or see if there's a gap. We can pry and see if this is some kind of a door.

Can I investigate it for any kind of like moving mechanisms?

Absolutely. Yeah.

It's probably under construction.

That's not great.

That's a.

Like I can do math.

13 with a 13. You can see that the scratches are very much on the floor around this. I'm gonna use the word tile. It's a really fucking big tile. Like probably like a 5 by 5 foot tile. The tile itself is not scratched up. And with that roll, you can see that the wagon wheel or the cartwheels are ever so slightly bowled out.

So it looks like maybe we can press those as buttons.

Yeah.

I will relay that to the group.

Do we want to stand. Can we stand next to the thing and press the buttons or is it too far to.

You'd have to be on it to push buttons.

I could do it. And if worst case scenario, I can use my swishy cape to get off of it.

If goes, you could also have Jacob with the broom. He could sit on the broom and twist it. He could up, up.

I think let James do that one.

Yeah.

He's got cape of teleport. So even if he gets dropped into a hole, he can okay himself out.

Yep.

I'm going to step under the thing and attempt to push.

Okay. You hit. You push on the hard floor. The wheels. The floor pushes back with an equal force. Weird.

So it's a floor.

So they're not buttons.

They are not buttons.

The raised wheels are not buttons.

They're not raised. They're concaved. Like a bowl.

They're concaved.

Oh, they're bowled out, not raised out. If I did a bad job describing, I apologize.

Thatcher.

I don't think this is where I could.

You think we need to put something in the bowls?

Gold and silver.

I have a little bit of silver.

And we do have gold coins, too.

Yeah, I got a few gold coins from the.

That's right.

We could do that.

You want me to do that?

Yes.

Cool.

You take the silver and you put it under, what, Au or AG S.

I think it is.

Yeah.

And au.

And then au is. Yeah, I will do that in that order.

Well, I would have got it backwards.

You are able to get the. You get it down in there, and immediately you feel that tile. Sound sinks down and it starts to rotate under the floor. Like it dropped, and now it's starting to pivot away.

Oh, interesting.

Slowly enough, it is opening a thing. Yep.

Okay.

You should jump off of it onto the floor.

Yes.

This is a standard build for a DIA you know, there were.

Like I said, there were conspiracy theories about secret things underneath it, but it's so busy here all the time.

I don't think this is.

This is the security area.

Who the hell was gonna put silver and gold on the wheels in the ground to test stuff?

It turns out this is just the TSA break room.

Jeff rolled decent. He grabs your silver and gold back out, and the mechanism's able to keep going, so you don't have to sacrifice your goods.

Cool.

Do you mean Jeff, or did you mean Jacob?

Jacob didn't roll for shit. Jeff rolled well.

All right.

Jeffrey, my boy.

Apparently, Jeff got bored of watching the horses and came in to see. What, all the noises.

Oh, yeah, he's outside. You lose your stuff? Just kidding.

Sorry.

That's good. I forgot he was outside.

Damn.

It gave you a lot of.

Just a little bit.

So what you see is a stone spiral staircase leading down into a black abyss. And that is where we're going to end the episode.

Did it go? Did it make the stairs as it was opening, or were they there already?

They were there already.

Well, guys, it's all downhill from.

Theater of the Mind is Jeremy Arston as Elliot Brandy Bain. Amanda Arsten is Melanie Kelly. Michael Burnham Cornell as Ulnag Fargher Johnson. Michael downes as James O'Brien. Casey Weingarten as Emory Lee. And myself, Mike Schock as your Dungeon Master. We release new episodes every two weeks, so our next episode will release on February 16th. If you want to follow us, our social media and website can be found in our link tree which can be found in the podcast description. Also in the podcast description you can find a link to Pinecast as well as our referral code to get you 40% off your first four months of a paid membership, as well as our referral link to Epidemic Sound, which gets you a one week trial period to their excellent platform. The music this week was sourced from Epidemic Sounds, who we are not sponsored by under the Creative Commons license. The song Things Used in Order Spiral Geometry by Copy Costa Goliath by Dream Cave, Place youe Bets by Experia and the Detective Story by Ruiki Zhao. We also used Glass Double Glazed Knock times two from the Sound Effects library. The Theater of the Mind theme Ad Break and Outro were written by Mike Schock. All people, places, events, etc. Are used in a fictitious manner. Any similarities to people, places, events, characters, other things, etc. Are purely coincidental. 16 Last Session okay, so I did hear that, right? You did say passive 16?

Yep, passive 16. And once once I level up my dexterity again, it'll be passive 18.

Damn.

Because I now I feel obligated to take wisdom just because my wisdom is so terrible even though I'm a big sturdy Sorry. My I really want to take the alert because it would totally justify to find out anxiety.

Yeah, it makes sense. Can absolutely take it.

You're also, you're also learning like actual life lessons on the road and like becoming more reliant on yourself than other people. You are forcefully gaining into yourself another person.

Which is why taking wisdom makes sense too. But I just really want the alert feed because I'm like yes, I have anxiety and everything scares me now.

What the fuck is that?

You have to have a surprise wisdom score for alert.

No, but she can't take the wisdom.

I can't do both. I have to do one or the other.

I think in the long term the wisdom will suit you, will serve you better probably.

Yeah, it'll be helpful for a lot.

Alert's a fun feat to have, but a lot of your effects and stuff are wisdom based. So if they're rolling against your spell.

DC I think I determined this is.

A good time for a break.

Yeah, I think I determined one that because I did the way of the open hand, it's not until like level 10 or 11 that any of my feet or any of my features actually matter for wisdom score.

Interesting.

If I had taken one of the others, then having a 4 wisdom score would totally be hurting me right now.

So you have time to build it up.

Basically.

I also like that one because I can heal myself.

There you go.

Very useful.

Yes. I didn't think we've been recording yet.

Hasn't been crazy long, but.