S1:E58 – The Episode I wrongly introduced as Episode 60

Theater of the Mind podcasts are intended for mature audiences. Listener discretion is advised. Content warnings can be found in the podcast. Description. Welcome to Theater of the Mind presents retribution. Episode number 60.

Are you sure? 58.

I've also got us at 58.

I have us at 59 and 60 because we did 58 last time.

55 and 56 last time we just did 50.

I'm pretty sure I heard 59 in the beginning of the last.

One was 57.

I started. You did an the note on 57 and 58. And then I left for a week.

I was going to say either that or I labeled.

All right, here's an episode.

Not the one we thought it was.

Damn it. And this week's question is absolutely. From the Ultimate RPG Campfire card deck by James d'. Amato. And it is. If you lost one of your most essential abilities, how would you want to replace it? Who would you trust to teach you this new skill?

My name is Amanda and I am playing Mel Kelly. Mel has already been through this in the last couple of months. She gained an awesome new skill set, and then she lost it and had to fall back on the previous skill set, which she never honestly thought she would use as a true martial art. She really just figured tighten the knot was just some weird yoga exercise thing. So if she lost that, she would be kind of a mess. I'm not gonna lie. But I think that she, at this point would feel pretty confident that she could learn other fighting skills from Elliot and from Ulnock. She'll probably archery for me. Elliot and smashing things from Ulna. She's already kind of learning how to rage by proxy, so she could pick that up as an actual ability. I kind of love the idea of this tiny little blond chick who goes into her rage that could be fun.

And just flies off.

You can always multiclass.

Yeah, I'm not. I'm not against multiclass.

That actually crossed my mind. But I don't know, a monk barbarian just seems really fucked up somehow.

A sage and flurry of bulls.

A formerly warlock monk barbarian. And can you just imag imagine like, Mal before battle? Like, she sits here all peacefully, like, getting in touch with her inner key. And then they're like, ann, we're gonna fight.

Anne, fuck you.

Shaking with anger. There's the meditation for mindfulness, and then there's the release of anger.

I mean, don't get me wrong, it could be fun, but that just seems like a really awful combination.

Is Mel gonna be a coffee totem then?

Yes.

Coffee totem martyr.

I'm Jeremy. I'm playing Elliott Brandyvane. And probably Elliot's most important skill, he's really stuck on combat. So it would be his archery ability. If he were to lose that ability, he would probably go to Emory and attempt to learn magic from Emory. That would probably be his go to.

She would do her best to teach you, but it's really tough to teach something you're innately talented at.

It is.

It's true, Very hard.

That's very difficult.

So I cast the magic and then explode. Is that.

Is that how that works? We really don't know.

I've never thought about becoming a teacher because the things that I do that I'm good at, I didn't necessarily learn to be good at.

Right, you just are.

You just are.

And I cannot tell someone else how to do that.

Right, you just do it. I don't see why. What's so damn hard about it? That's the best teacher ever.

I've tried to teach people to read. I've tried. It doesn't work.

Logic puzzles. I've tried to teach people how to do logic puzzles before.

And.

And it.

You just gotta think about work.

Just do logic.

You just think about it and then.

You just work your way through and then it makes sense. And then you hear it out.

Yeah, that's okay.

Yeah.

I am Vernell. I am playing Ulnock Vaga Johnson. So if Ulnock lost his ability to rage. Cause I feel that's very important for me because I take half the damage and I can be the damage sponge.

For you guys for a while.

Oh, what would I do if I lost that?

So Mel will teach you Tied to not.

Does that help me not die faster?

Potentially.

Okay, well, that changes my answer a little bit.

Mel's version allows her to heal herself in battle.

That's true.

I think I drink.

I can learn monk stuff. Okay, you know what? You know what? I'm gonna go with that. Because I was going to try to learn armor from Elliot.

In my.

In my head. That made sense, but it probably doesn't because I don't even know if he wears armor. But being able to heal myself would eliminate some of that problem. So we're. We're going to go with that. We're going to learn how to. I'm going to teach her how to smash stuff, and I'm going to pray to God that she remembers how to heal herself with her fisty fisties.

So that's the new plan. We're going to multiclass into Monk barbarian.

Yeah.

We're just going to together their powers.

The ultimate power.

Got Monk, Barbarian and our Barbarian.

Barbarian subclass.

Barbarian subclass.

That makes sense.

Okay.

Which one?

A battle rager.

Okay.

It's from the book something.

Where is it? Where'd it go?

Come back, please. From the book. Skag.

Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide.

There you go. That one.

I should know as many of these acronyms as I do.

I'm impressed.

I mean, you are kind of in charge of the acronyms.

That's true.

I think that one would fit. It's a grappler based class.

I think I have this adventurous guide. I'll see if I can find. Pull it up.

We might need to know that shortly.

Apparently.

Apparently we're gonna have some multiclasses and it's not gonna be me for the first time.

I don't know. We'll see. I feel like I'm already kind of fucked up over here. Being a warlock. Charisma Monk. But, you know, why not?

This sounds like something you would like.

Really push it.

Okay.

Monk subclass called way of the long death.

Yes.

Exceptionally tanky.

Okay.

The way of the long death makes the monk very difficult to kill.

Oh my God.

That would replace my ring.

Yes. Beautiful.

Oh, God.

I am making my job hard.

So be careful what you create. You're the one who has to kill.

Like that would be all I say.

The harder you are to kill, the cooler shit I get to throw at you.

The best part about this though is that if Mel lurches to rage, like she would go all angry and ragey. But I think this is a result of working through the anger. She will be that much more when she's not.

You throw things bigger and better specifically against him.

Then I believe that's called bipolar.

No, I'm sure it's a perfectly healthy.

Way of dealing with.

Obviously, I think it's now borderline personality.

No, those are different.

Are they different? Yes.

Anywho, I'm Downs. I play James o'. Brien. And if James lost his ability to.

Steal. Shit.

Yeah. Stealing.

Yeah.

Sneak around and whatnot. He'd probably want to do something slightly more honest. So he'd probably look to Elliot for his living off the land abilities and whatnot.

Okay.

That'd be a sad day if James wouldn't steal stuff.

I can't steal things no more. My conscience got the better of me.

Other than my T shirts, what have you succeeded in stealing?

Not much Alcohol.

We did successfully heist alcohol. We got caught a little bit, but we didn't do that.

Just a little bit.

I was not the weak of that.

Hey, listen, I never said I would.

Be going to listen to it.

I just said I was good at it.

It was. I just offered to go, that's all.

I would also like to point out that I strongly suspect that James knife collection has gotten larger as we've been traveling.

Absolutely.

For sure.

I at least have one included now that we just got.

Yeah, we pointed out.

Did he take on re. Nice chef knives, too?

Oh, absolutely. The. Yeah, the moment that I.

Chef knives.

Yeah. Yeah. When I. When I said that I was going to investigate the kitchen, I was taking both his kitchen knives and his cookbook.

Looks like a salt.

It's amazing.

And the salt. Yes, I took all of his salt.

I'm Casey and I play Emery Lee, and I think the magic would be the easier thing to handle if Emery lost it, because she does have some other skills. She has her metalwork that she does. She could lean more heavily into some of that. And she's not a weak person. She could do some traditional fighting as well if she needed to. I think the harder thing to lose would be if she was no longer able to create and craft the way she does. Being artistic and engaging in that side of herself has been. I mean, she was in art school. She wanted to make a living out of it. This is something that she cares deeply about. And I don't know how you would replace a skill like that that's so intrinsic in person. As long as Emerie is able to create in some way, I think she will continue to be so. I mean, it might just be shifting methodologies and whatnot, but I think she likes to learn a little bit from anybody. You know, she's always curious about new skills. She's really been enjoying this kind of, like, stretch of connecting with farriers and blacksmiths and whatnot, as we've gone across and learning a few new practical applications of what she's doing, as opposed to the simply artistic versions. And I think she kind of wishes she had a little bit more time to play with some of that and think about things like more weapons and armor and stuff. And that's really tough to do when you're traveling across the country.

Well, with your current hairstyle, you can try woodworking.

Is that. Now, here's a question. Is that hairstyling or is that whittling?

It's hairstyling, but only a wittle bit.

That one was bad.

Funny.

Amoritar feels that his life would be much harder if he lost his ability of Diplomacy.

Oh, that's the one.

Okay. If he had to replace it though, he thinks he could just replace it with the sword and he would teach himself. Cause he doesn't need any.

Set the tyrant.

That means I'll be a really bad swordsman.

Yeah, you know what?

Let's.

You go ahead and do that, buddy. Let's see if we can.

His main weapon is a. Is a scythe, not a sword.

That's true.

As far as we know.

Let's go to roll. For recap. I rolled a 19 on the.

Very loudly rolled a 19. Yes.

Sorry, I hit the. Out of my microphone.

I rolled a 19.

Daisomatic. I rolled a 9. Studios.

Sixteen.

I also rolled an 18, if that matters.

We'll have to roll off.

I got 12.

10.

That's a line. Okay, hold on.

Wait, I thought he was.

Oh, yeah, you're not.

You know what?

Am I not allowed?

Okay, you know what? I'll just recap.

We're just skipping me for. Because I have recapped a lot and they've all been really awful. I get there.

Decent chance of being.

We always think that.

Fair.

Fair.

So anyway, we started the heist.

So we started and we worked our way over to Denver, and then I think we're in Kansas, Nebraska at some point, L.A. no. Okay, last episode. After killing the last of the Cajuns, who were in fact demons at this.

Point.

We began in the vault trying to remove the sleeping people from the beds. The magic circles kind of created this weird bungee effect, so they were hard to remove. But once we got them further away, the circle weakened and then the lights went dark. Oddly enough, our language barrier also disappeared. Thankfully, the girls that we found are kind of emaciated. They've basically been starved since they were plugged in, so to speak. But we do get help from the guards at the bank as well as Ashton to get the girls upstairs. When we get upstairs, we find out that the most of town has frozen. The cool kids group did get most of town around the bank so that we could present them. Unfortunately, everybody's just sort of. We found out Jacob's birthday is April 4th and he's 10. After basically getting the rescuees to safety and recouping a bit, we went over to Laroy's mansion, had a brief pointless conversation with Amelia, and then we retrieved to see mysterious book.

What?

I just feel like y' all laid into a couple kind of hard.

Like I said, brief but pointless. Anyway.

Came to her house, yelled at her, took a book.

Yelled at her, ransacked her house.

Your husband's an asshole. We're taking your book. Yep.

That's exactly how that went.

And I'm taking all your cookbooks.

We could have been nicer. It's true. We're all so tired and in pain, and husband was really a mess.

That's like the wrong choice.

Found about. About a historical figure that's basically a lower eye. But that's aside. We take the book, we determine that it is, in fact, it's some kind of grimoire that was based off of notes that Leroy had written in there. Dropped by a flying horse. There's things in there in several. Flaming.

Sorry.

Flaming horse.

Flaming. Flying.

Flaming. Flying horse.

Flying. Flaming horse.

Flaming. Flying.

Yes.

And if I remember correctly, the owner of said flaming horse was Ashraphael.

Yes.

You are aware that Ash Raphael owned a flying flaming horse.

There might be more. We don't know.

Who knows?

There could be a flaming horse. Taxi service.

So the short version is that there were several different people that had written in the book. The book included both, like, health things and herbalist stuff as well as demonic things. We determined that Leroy was not always a demon, but he was later possessed. They managed to open some kind of gate, and we think it was using a seal that can be renamed the city of Maeth Hel. And now we have to go find the seal, isolate the seal, and then force our will upon it. We don't know what that means. We also looted the house, found some cool boots, a necklace, a chime that makes loud noises and unlocks things. A set of dice. One of them blows. A dagger which went to James, and a really cool set of hand wraps that actually fit Mel.

That's the most magical item so far.

We're excited the grimoire is in Mel's keeping because everyone knows that she won't read it and her soul doesn't belong to her, so she's safe. And she put the grass or portable hole. Ulnock has drunk perfume.

Because barbarians do. Barbarian.

Barbarian. Gonna barbarian.

We have now gone to the laundromat because we've concluded that since the laundromat was under guard, there must be something else going on down there. That's fitching.

Yeah.

We were all of the mind of. There's probably a portal to hell in a dryer somewhere.

Yeah, basically.

And when we got there, there were noises behind the door that we needed. Knew the guy worked behind and asked where we cut. Yep.

Yeah. We heard a noisy noise.

Correct.

More space. All right.

So you are in a laundromat. It's a noise behind a door that's not open.

Can I check the door for traps?

Sure.

Roll an investigation.

I was almost really gone, and then it's crap.

It almost landed on a 19 and it is to a three. So it's a total of a nine.

You do not find any traps.

I also rolled a 9.

You also find no traps.

All right, guys, I don't know why I try to help.

I'm gonna unlock. I'm gonna open the door.

Yeah, the doorknob turns. You cannot move it.

Roy's keys. Let's try those.

Oh, you know what? I always forget about checking.

There's not like a deadbolt on this one. No. So the doorknob turns. It should open. It's not locked. Okay, great. Does it push inward?

It should.

Okay.

Are the hinges on our side?

They're on the other side.

Okay, I'll knock.

I'll knock.

Okay.

What you need.

Go go Gadget door opener.

Oh, wait, wait, wait. We've got that chime. Oh, wait, no, that only unlocks.

The door's already unlocked.

Right. Sorry, I can't. I've caught up.

So we want me to kick the shit out of the door.

We need you to use your head.

Yes, but don't hurt yourself, please.

I cannot promise that. I am very drunk.

Give me a strength check.

I have like, the ace binges ready.

He is very drunk.

A dice is dead to me.

Fuck.

And seven.

Yeah, that doesn't work.

No, it doesn't.

You kick. You just like soccer kick to the bottom of the door.

I could have done that.

That was the worst way to attack that door.

Hold on.

I could have done that.

Sounds on the other side of the door cease.

Well, hang on. Grab that chime. To begin.

The door is more unlocked than it was before.

If it's unlocked, it should open.

The knock spell.

Well, no, it's not a knock knock. Oh, it casts knock. Okay. Because. Yeah. Chime of opening would just.

This is the chime that knocks.

Chime of knock.

Is there a keyhole?

It's just the.

It's just the doorbell piece. It's the piece of the doorbell that rings.

Okay. It's unstuck.

Perfect.

We can open the door now.

Okay.

He does that while Belle's trying to, like, peer through a non existent keyhole.

And it just swings open.

Or she's like, bent down trying to look at the crack underneath.

And you see that? I needed a cliffhanger. There's nothing in this room. But there's another door on the other side. You've not yet gone through.

Okay. Is it lost?

I checked the door.

You could have said there was this door.

Do we need five minutes?

No.

Oh, should I check this one's open.

Okay, I'm rolling. The new day. I got. This one's unlocked.

Trudy?

Yes, Trudy from Board Dogs Games gave me a door condition.

Board. Grand Jump Fox game. For real.

And despite rolling again, it's still open.

Yay.

Perfect.

So we open that one and look through it.

So this takes you to if any of you have been in the back of any like strip mall. Those strip malls have got like a hallway that connects all the stores.

Yep.

This is a hallway very much up that alley. Concrete floor, slot buckets or slop sinks. Maybe a bucket staff passage. Not out of the question. As you venture down a little further, there's a door that's weirdly warm to the touch.

Oh no.

Not unlike the doors in the bank basement were.

So should we go down that one?

Probably, yeah.

I checked the door for crabs.

Gonna roll an investigation, I take it, for trust.

You sound so upset by this.

I'm just not rolling for an investigation anymore.

You're not sure how doors.

You're not proficient.

You're not a push door or a bulldozer.

And to be fair, the only traps you've ever seen so far either make noise or give you a weapon. So the traps you've seen, you're not.

Finding 19 on that one.

This door is firmly not trapped. Okay, cool.

Can I open it?

You can.

I would like to open the door.

It opens and you see a big asshole on the floor. That was very clearly.

What was this bed.

Like, broken out. You see like sledgehammers and shit. Somebody broke this floor open. And you're looking down into a room you've not seen before with a very familiar looking magic circle. Ah, it looks like the two magic circles that so far have done nothing that were in the bank vault.

Is this with doing something though?

How far below us, 12ft?

Yeah, far enough that you could like dangle and drop and not be too fucked up.

Okay.

Is this what this is in there?

You're not confident you'll be able to cut back this way because the floor is kind of like bowling in a little bit from the destruction.

Is there anything around that looks like we could tie a rope to?

You could find something.

There's probably quite a bit of pipeworks back here with it being the back rooms of 100%.

Yeah, we'll say this is like the water heater room. So there's pipes and shit.

Okay. I would like to find something secure. Fix one end of the rope, too, and toss the rope down the hole.

Mission accomplished.

Is there anything low wind or anything like the magic circles were?

No.

It is really quite warm in here. But you could feel the heat, like, is dissipating from what it was when you were down there last time, if that sense makes sense.

Sure.

It is less hot than it was last time, but it's more hot than makes sense.

Okay, I follow.

Cooling engine.

Can we see into the room below? Like, does it? Is it leading?

It's dark. I mean, you're in a dark closet into a black room.

I'll cast light again and at least give us some light to work by and see a little bit better.

Want to cast, like, light on a.

Wrench and chip it down?

Yeah, that's kind of what I was thinking.

Yeah, I'll do that.

Like a glow stick.

Yeah.

It tingles quite lightly on the hard tile floor below you.

Well, I guess we go down and investigate.

All right, gang, let's not split up and look for clues.

Let's stick together and look for clues.

I'll stand up top with my bow drawn in case bad guys show up. Until we're all down.

Perfect.

I've got Overwatch able to safely get down. That doesn't need to be a puzzle. Okay, you're in the bottom. You guys could give investigation checks.

I will try again. But I shouldn't.

That's.

Yep.

1312, 16, 22.

All right. As per our norm this side of the table, you don't find much. To an extent. That's weird. This is very clearly a room that used to be like a safe deposit box room. And you see a lot of holes that. Safe deposit boxes should have been there. With a distinct absence of those boxes.

Where in the heck of the boxes?

At a door. Oh. A door that you would safely presume leads to the hull.

Okay.

Okay.

Because we're in a safety deposit.

Safety is happy.

Terrible.

So it's not intended to be a pun.

He's gonna turn it into a pun.

It paid off every time.

I've known him for years. It's every time he doesn't get away.

It just kind of happens. It's my curse, and so I make it yours.

I will share it.

Shall we check the door?

Between what we read in the book and looking at the circle on the floor, is there any way I can kind of figure out what this circle was meant to do?

Give me an Arcana.

Okay.

I'm not performing proficient.

You'Re as proficient as anybody in this town.

Now I am.

You can give it as well. You also looked at the book. You. You read a different book. You.

I rolled a six.

I got 11.

21.

21.

You are pretty sure that this. You see runes that have kind of a, like, movement vibe to them. Movement meaning kind of in the same way that the last ones had, like, change. These ones have more like, move, and you get the sense of, like, Big gap.

Okay.

So this might be. This might be a teleportation circle.

Is kind of.

You could think that. And you also. The heat was very obviously emanating from this. The hottest part of the room was from this circle.

So it must have the tile.

You could actually see it was a waxed floor and the wax is all fucked anywhere near the room.

Yeah.

So it must have been heat generated from them and teleporting from here to there.

Or they teleported straight from hell.

I was gonna say. Is there anything denoting location?

You could definitely see that there are, like, glyphs around the edge that are very clearly being connected.

Okay.

They may fuck all to you.

Yeah.

Yeah. My guess is this is where they came in from hell.

Indicated by the heat, maybe.

Yeah.

So, but we still. So we still need to find the circle that they started when they renamed the town.

Yeah, we need to find the circle.

That's the circle we're still looking for.

Well, we got that door we can just seal.

Yep. Unless there's anything. Well, we've searched this room thoroughly, and I'm wondering if they got into the safety department deposit boxes to get like, silver or gold for maybe something they needed for their spells.

Is there sacrifice?

Maybe? I don't know.

You gotta pay on the safe deposit box. Is it there? Is there any way to determine if the number's missing or in any kind of pattern?

They're all gone.

Oh, all gone.

Oh, they're all gone.

There's no safety deposit boxes.

Okay. Like, they've been ripped out of the wall.

Not ripped, removed.

Okay.

Because you don't get the feeling in here that this was like a rampage.

It was. It was deliberately done. I wonder why they would bother.

Payment for services.

Demonic powers.

All right, let's head out the door.

Yeah.

I'm serve chips. Okay. Give me a fresh investigation. I was just about to say I was going to let it ride.

Well, he's a natural trap. Investigating.

There are no traps on any doors down here.

Okay, cool.

This magic circle, like the other ones that were in the vault, like, you can't scuff it up or remove it. Whatever's been put down is, like, dangerous.

Yeah. It's now, like, burnt, sheared into the ground. Yeah. So you're confident? Well, you can't scuff it. It's not like, drawn on the floor. Okay, it is. It has now kind of, like baked in the floor.

I just don't like leaving them whole. Like, what if something else developed power enough to come here?

Once I rest and have spell slots back, I might be able to do something about it.

Maybe.

Can I mending a piece of the floor?

Uh, sure.

That takes a while. Never mind.

I was gonna say, can he Firebolt1 and, like, change the nature of the room rune or something? Oh, it's.

It's a minute. I thought it was 10 minutes. It's only a minute. So if I can. I like mending it's. It repairs a single breaker tear in.

An object I touch, such as a broken channel.

Whatever.

Whatever you break.

No larger than one foot in any dimension. But I might be able to, like, make a break in.

Please don't be standing on it.

When you're able to repair some of the damage to the polymers of the wax that was caused by the heat and breaking their bond, and you have a pretty shiny floor tile.

The mark is still finished in it.

Yeah, it's still on it.

Okay, well, for a mandate, that's fair.

Okay, fine.

Worth a try. It was the cantroop that I had available to me.

Well, that's why I was gonna say I'm like, James, can you, like, firebolt it and change the rune or something? Firebolt.

That tile is now fucked. Okay, back up.

Sorry.

I wasn't aiming for that one specifically.

I wasn't emotionally tied to it or anything.

Okay. Sorry. I gave up, guys. I was trying.

That was worth a try.

There's definitely, like, a singe mark near it now, but the ground didn't shake.

Didn't hear any demons screaming.

We can come in and break up some tiles later.

Yeah, if you want to break up tiles, you need to know there were sledgehammers above.

You throw my hammer at it.

You can absolutely throw your hammer at it.

Does it do anything? See if I do it.

What? Attack? Okay.

Me. Hold on.

Roll, Roll in the thing. That doesn't count.

No, I wasn't thinking about doing battle. We might do battle today. This feels like a good day for battle.

Okay, today is a good day for.

All right. I can get my revenge. You can't roll 10 again.

10 plus what?

3? 13.

We'll say that's enough to beat the AC of A waxed floor.

Pressure you get.

And you're not raging, so.

I'm going to rage.

Please.

Damn it.

All at heart, you slightly dented a tile.

It's with my hammer.

Oh, honestly, that was. Sorry. That was a 19 to hit anyway.

Well, you definitely hit it.

So I hit it and then it's plus six, so eight.

So you absolutely crack a couple of floor tiles. I mean, you have. You could fuck up a floor by dropping a bowling ball. So you definitely crack it. And you do. You do. You are the only magic one now.

But she's like, like full magic.

You feel like, like a.

Oh, that did something.

A good something or a bad something.

Tough.

You know, it's like when you can hear, like, static, but it's been going on so long that you forgot you can hear it and then it turns off.

Oh, yeah.

Like, yeah, Let me do it again.

I think let's just kick some of these tile pieces out of the way that you've broken. If you want to.

It's probably good enough.

But it did feel like that shifted something.

It did something. I hit the shit out of it. I beat it.

It was more of a release than an impending doom.

No, you don't get like a. Oh, foot.

Yeah, someone didn't like that.

There's definitely. It almost hit your soul the way that a classic car door shutting. That thick, heavy metal door jumped in.

Gotcha.

I think we're fine.

I think we're fine.

I think that worked. All right, so I think we're good. All right, we'll kick those pieces of tile out of the way just to make sure they're not, like, holding the circle in place there.

The nice thing is you managed to nail one of the glyphs and it is just powdered. Okay, good. You guys are able to kill another, I don't know, 30 minutes down here. It's a little slow in the basement because it's like really super dark. And right now you have a lido wrench.

It's a flash wrench.

Yeah, flash wrench.

It's bright light in a 20 foot radius and dim light for an additional 20. Like, it's not.

Yeah, like, I'm not shooting on it. That's your light source is a glow wrench. So, I mean, you're not like hauling ass through here, right? You're not splitting up. And what you do see is this is the emptiest bank vault ever. Currently, the only things in any of these rooms are a total of 10 beds and a handful of rapidly decaying demons.

And we also make sure we break up any of the the other magic circles too perfect.

And you're able to rinse leather repeat.

Did.

Did we go into the laundry mat and then travel into the bank?

Yeah, you came from the laundromat down into leather rep portal.

Okay.

All that down did connect. We theorized about that the laundromat was connected to the bank, but it actually was.

We decided to just go head on into the bank.

So. Yeah. There is a total of four safety deposit esque rooms which you knew you passed by them. They were all warm. They are all totally gutted. There is fucking nothing left. They all have the exact same magic circle on the ground. Every time you Hulk smash it. You feel a car door closing your soul. And they perfectly match the two magic symbols that had bit. Or the two magic circles that had been useless through your fight in the big vault.

Okay.

And the bank fault? The primary bank fault. You didn't really give a. When you were in here fighting demons and saving women.

You were busy fighting demons and sa.

There is nothing of value in there aside from the beds. Technically they have a value.

All of the valuable stuff ends up.

Going probably on the other side of the portals.

Oh yeah. Maybe.

So where do the portals go? Hell. By adventure Gas.

Hell's real.

We fought demons.

I mean.

Yeah, that's fair. Have you been here the last six months?

Hell's kind of here.

Saying Hell's empty and the devils are all here.

Something like that. Well.

If that seal's not here, I don't know where else. We could look in dude's office upstairs.

You can. Which dude? Oh, Zephyr. Yeah.

We didn't really investigate up there very much, have we?

Have we investigated everything down here Here we can find.

Yeah. And there's nothing of substance left on any of the dead dudes down here. And they are rapidly decaying. There's not much flesh left down here.

I'm just glad they're not coming back.

They appear to be almost like charring.

Don't you put that out to the universe.

Then you hear a noise from the hallway. Damn. It's the ghost of a me.

Quick, ask about cooking tip stole my knives. You're not using them anymore.

Finders keepers.

Losers gets killed and turned into a ghost.

The seal is no longer where it was.

They didn't leave it in the park. Which is where they had the ceremony.

And I didn't have any.

It wasn't in the mayor's house. We Haven't.

No.

We were in City Hall.

Kids club took us through City Hall.

Right.

So we would have seen it if they headed in there.

We didn't hit all of City hall investigated.

Well, let's go.

I don't know then should we go.

Back to City hall and check it.

Other places. No, I mean other places that the Cajuns were.

We had.

The tailor, the diner.

And the inn.

But all the townspeople keep staring at the bank.

At the bank.

We're in the bank. Did we check Henri's or office? The bank manager's office.

That's what I was.

You have not. You were downstairs.

Well, that's what. Yeah, that's why I was check Zephyron's office.

Let's check their office. Cause like says the only thing we've got is the townspeople keep staring at this building. Which makes me believe that possibly this is where it's at.

Well, let's start checking off boxes and start searching everything else.

Okay. So you guys make it back up this increasingly familiar flight of stairs and you make it to Sephrin's office. Gotta give a fresh round of investigations. Investigation.

Remind me, remind me who Lolly Bear was.

Zephyrin.

Oh, okay. He's Zephyrin Lolibear.

That might have done good this time.

I got a nat 20.

Dirty 20.

I got a nat 20, but it's a minus one. So 19, 30.

Minus one. So 21. You minus your one and you give it to you.

Yeah. All right. What'd you get there, James? Sorry.

30, 20.

3020. So 19, 20, 21. Nice. So you guys check the break room. There's not much in there. Some decent. You can restock your Folgers, Snake.

Hell yeah.

Can we take all the coffee?

Absolutely.

Oh yeah.

Just because I've already stolen a shitload of booze.

Quick, put it in the hole.

The creamer is pretty dirty.

Oh no, I, I. Mal steals the sugar though.

They're not the shelf stable little packets.

Nah, they had the good shit in the fridge.

Mal absolutely stuck with the sugar packets though.

But you guys are tearing through Lolibear's office and really you kind of realize that one of his walls is sooner than it should have been.

The room's not as big as it should be.

Yeah. And you're able to false wall like paw on it and it has one of those like spring loaded magnetic things where you kind of push it like that and it pops open. So sorry. And it swings out and tucked away up in there is the seal.

Hey.

Upon the wall.

Perfect hey, guys.

And you're feeling all sorts of juju coming off this side.

Okay.

What do we do with it? Should we break it? Should we. What was it? Force our will upon us.

Isolate it and force our will upon it.

Is it already isolated?

Let's do salt. I don't salt things.

Okay.

All right.

Hey, seal. We're gonna take you and fund you a different home. Let me just start talking to the.

Seal so I can do we want.

You know, it's like a metal thing with shapes in it. Not an art. Art, art, art.

I know this. That was just a joke.

Come here, seal.

This bad boy is a big ass fucking hunk of like obsidian. Some flavor of stuff she is.

But we can walk around it. Is that correct?

Yeah, it's like mounted on the wall.

What if we broke it Currently. I mean, obsidian's fragile.

Well, okay, hang on. Because I was hoping to make a circle of salt around this. But if it's on the wall, should.

We take it down off of the wall?

Put it on the ground?

If we can.

You're gonna be swarm forever.

I mean, there's not five of us.

How big is it?

Like that big.

There's five of us we can look at.

How thick is it?

It's thick. Too thick.

Like how many?

Not quite.

3, 2C.

That doesn't.

4 in 5 inches?

About that. About 6 inches.

6.

6 to 8 is okay.

That's gonna be a heavy.

Yep. Let's try to set it down. All of us.

Yeah.

We're gonna all need to be involved.

If we all work together.

If you all work together, you can pull it off. And she was thankfully just kind of like nestled picture.

Okay.

She's not like sealed to the wall.

It's.

No, the seal was sealed to the wall.

Yeah.

And then we'll take the salt the way brought and then we'll pour very carefully. A unbroken circle of salt. Perfect salad.

All right, you guys. Lay a nice thick bead of salt around it.

Don't know if this is going to work, but what I got it's least seasoned now.

Salt.

Think at it.

And now getting a closer look at.

I can't talk to him, but we could think to it.

I'm sure there's a lot of things in this circle, this magic circle that go to like control and absolutely get control.

It is. If you were to think of magic circle design as a font. It's in the same font as the six circles you've made.

Okay.

The ones that were quite warm. It's in the same like Style, if you will, as those very different. This doesn't. Doesn't say anything about movement or, you know, any of that. It is very controlly vibes. It is very. You get the feeling of memory. And unlike the other one that had like. It's still got shit around the edge. Glyphs around the edge. The presumably teleportation ones had like coordinates drawn, almost like a sigil. Right. This thing is more geometric designs, overlay.

Okay.

So you don't get the vibe that it's like a passcode of this one, this one, this one. That one does thing. It's triangles and stars and circles and hexagons. No pentagons.

Does the magicy weirdness change when it goes in the salt circle?

Negatory.

I don't know that salt is going to be enough for isolating it.

I'm going to sprinkle some salt on it like this.

I am something and I'm not sure. Yeah, I'm not sure what force your will upon it means, but I think as a first, I mean, do we want to try and put this somewhere less like, more isolated?

Do we want to.

Like what?

I could put it in a part of a hole. I'll take the grimoire. Maybe they shouldn't be the same hole at the same time.

I want to put those next to.

Each other for valid points.

Just.

That's like, like, that's like adding gas into a fire.

What about the.

Oh, was that the portable hole that.

Was in the air? We have like a treehouse.

Oh, that's Alias plus.

That doesn't last very long. So we're then going to have the problem come falling back on our heads and that's heavy.

That's gonna suck. That is a heavy.

I have to get it off the rope.

Oh yeah, that's right. It's up there.

Now what?

Why don't we just break it?

We could break the seal. I'm a little worried about what would happen if we don't isolate it properly first. If there's.

If we're supposed to force our will upon it, whatever the fuck that means, and we break it. Maybe it doesn't break the spell.

Right?

Like, you know what I mean? Like, maybe if we break the seal. That doesn't necessarily mean it'll be break the spell.

We're supposed to force a world.

There's a possibility if we break it, we, you know, like you break the controller, you don't work the mark. It's just. And then it's permanently whatever the last setting was.

Exactly. It's just stuck.

Right?

Like now we're.

Now.

This town is just the way it is forever. Now we can't undo it.

Sorry, guys. Good luck. Bye. Suck.

Stuck.

All right, kids, you're in charge. We're out of here.

Look, we already saved fucking four of you.

I'm sorry.

We've doomed the rest of you to.

Just stand here and stare at a base.

Technically three. Three. Three more visitors.

Emery.

What?

What?

What other thing do you think we could do to isolate this?

I don't know. The only spot I could think to move it to is the vault. And I'm not sure that's gonna change anything either. But.

What if we get it outside the town?

Ooh, that might be a good idea.

It's heavy.

We have horse.

What if we.

Right.

Do we have a wagon? Ability to, like, make all magic go wagon?

Are there wagons in.

I doubt we can.

Well, I don't, because, like, none of the townsfolk are gonna stop us. They're just staring at a hole.

Yeah.

Do we have.

You know what I mean?

Do we have, like, spell anti. Like, magic be gone. We have, like, some spray in it.

Yeah, like a spray and wash. You.

Know, what if we put it in a dryer?

Put it in one of the dryers. I don't think it's talking about how big and heavy this thing is. That's definitely gonna exceed the weight limit of that dryer.

It didn't say return. I was just thinking, like, the most ghetto flywheel possible. Well, no. Like, if you've got something magnetic, you put it in that pipe.

You're coming up with a lot of analog solutions to a magical problem, and.

I don't think that's gonna work.

If anything, we're gonna have to fight a sentient dryas.

Fanny Mae. Tiny.

That's true. Edna Mae.

Edna Mae. Granny Mae.

Yeah, I said Fanny Mae.

But I.

We met Granny.

Obviously.

We could see if she's strong enough. We could ask some questions. She might have. I don't know.

She's got the same kind of intuitive sense about magic that I do, too, though. Like, we could ask.

Yeah, but she's got some age on you. No. No offense.

Did you ever feel cut off from your magic at any point in any of our endeavors?

In which case, we should put it there.

That would be great. Have you felt anywhere that that is a character?

I feel like you felt like you could access it.

I don't believe so. Yeah. Yeah. I'm hearing from my sources.

No, you're conscious.

My memory is letting me know that.

No, I didn't.

Well, especially in this town. You've been intimately aware of your magic. You have not.

I. I am.

It has been alarmingly present.

What if we threw it off a cliff? It worked for my phone.

Did it, though?

We're in Iowa. Have you seen any cliffs in Iowa?

We could take it up to the first.

We might find an overpass.

We could take it up to the second floor edge of the building.

I think that gives us the same problem as breaking it.

Yeah, probably.

That's essentially just burying our issues.

I think the vault is closest we'll get to isolation. Maybe we do the salt circle in the vault and then.

I'm going to try that.

That sounds reasonable because it's at least.

Got to carry this heavy down the stairs.

We don't have to carry it. We can just slide it down the stairs.

If something happens, then it's going to mostly stay contained in the vaults.

I'm good with trying that. I say we can. How much salt do we have left, James?

We can scoop most of that.

I took quite a bit. I took like everything.

If we need to move this back up, we will.

We should just.

So that we don't.

Oh, yeah, yeah. We got like a full.

We're good.

All right. Well, we would like to try to move this to the vault.

It takes a while.

Sure.

She heavy.

There's a lot of cussing.

Oh, yeah. I'm glad to know that Elliott's back's in better shape than mine is because my back hurts talking about this like.

No, I just had to move a stone table that was like an inch thick and it was 400 fucking pounds.

So I think this might be one of those instances where Elliot's the supervisor. No, shift it that way. No, the other way. You're gonna hit the banister.

Oh, no.

Those stone tables.

I don't know. It just feels like relying on salt only.

That's fair.

Not enough.

Well, if this doesn't count as.

Isolation.

If we sleep, I can make it. I can shrink it tomorrow.

So.

You have secured it in the vault.

Thank you.

It is properly salted around the rim.

Perfect.

It is one big ass margarita. Hell, yeah.

I wish. And I think for a first try of forcing our will upon it, Emerie's going to try to connect with it on a magical level and kind of push some of this like. Like reverse the spell kind of energy at it.

Give me a charisma save.

Great.

That's not good.

I figured this was a lower stakes first try, isn't it?

That's not great.

That doesn't sound like lower stakes to me.

No.

13.

Okay, so you think real hard at this seal.

Does a seal bark?

It does not. In this case, the seal's bark is not worse than its bite. So, first off, you can definitely feel. Consciousness isn't quite the right word. This stone is not feeling.

Thinking at you, a force of will.

You can feel a desire has been placed upon the seal. You can feel an incredible amount of negative energy just on the other side of the seal, which is confusing because the other side of the seal should be the floor. But you do not feel that way. You feel. Something really, really angry on the other side of the ceiling. And you could tell while you're trying to think at it, you can feel it pressing back and fighting back against him.

While Elliot's watching this, he wants to step up and actually grab her hand. And then he wants to attempt to add his will into this fight.

Ooh, the powers combined.

You're gonna take 13 psychic damage.

Okay.

For not succeeding on this. The charisma check.

Should we all do that? Should we all attempt to force our will upon it at the same time?

We have. The better off we are.

I'd use already channel key would be the most logical description I could think of.

A sorrento.

No, not kia, just key.

Elliot would like to also sometimes refer.

To his soul, his connection to the.

Wilderness and to the nature that he has. And he would like to try to somehow use his knowledge of survival to sort of put against this, the natural, this world, this material planet. Against what, whenever it's on the other side.

Group charisma.

Group charisma.

Charisma.

Save.

Yes.

God damn it.

We know a 13 did not save 19th.

So.

11, if we're working as a group, can we get advantage?

No, I think it's going to be a collective.

I pulled it down.

I'm sorry. That's a three.

Three plus.

Jesus.

You only have a plus one to your. To your 25.

All right.

You'Re welcome. Guys, I'm pulling it back up.

Thank you.

I rolled well up.

I feel like Mel's logic.

My first roll was solid and it went out herself.

Maybe she could use her 16. Break the will of the thing.

So now all of you, your new skill set is formed around your sense of self will.

So, yeah, it doesn't work when you inflict yourself on others.

All of you feel this just fucking incredible willpower pushing back against you guys. Like, I don't know if you've ever been in a conversation with Somebody I know you have. You've been in this conversation with somebody where it does not matter what you say. They fully, to their core, believe they are correct and you are wrong.

Yeah.

It doesn't matter how many facts you bring to the table. Doesn't matter how much emotion you bring to the table. They have decided they're right, you're wrong. You feel that level.

We're all too old, would not have.

At least been obstinate and rage. And you could feel that this again, this isn't a portal in any sense. It's almost kind of a window, though. You feel yourself kind of the spiritual equivalent of looking through this portal. And there is something hella powerful on the other side. And this pass did not succeed. Its will won this lap. You do feel that perhaps, though, you are on the right track.

All right, let's see that you're all.

Going to take 13 psychic damage.

That's the one I'm not resistant to, even if I'm raging.

Using my brain is giving me a migraine. I don't like it.

Emery's not looking so great suddenly.

I don't know if anybody else's fucking head hurts.

White.

Yeah.

And even if you rage, that ain't gonna help you because it's freaking psychic dead.

It might help me push back against its rage. Theoretically. But then that depends on the pm.

Go ahead and give me a lap of perception checks.

Could I argue for an insight?

I thought that was my chair.

Sorry.

Cause I literally, like, rotated my chair at the same time. I'm like, what in the hell?

What is your argument for insight? What are you inciting this entity on.

The other side of this thing.

Okay.

It's full of rage. Completely blue.

All right, great.

Passive. 16.

10, 12, 14.

You guys, when you take the damage, it's hard because you're really. You think you heard something kind of like a cry of pain, as if like, like 90 people all yelled in pain, gently together.

Oh, no.

It's like millions of voices cried out in terror.

Terror.

I wonder if we could somehow get him moved away from the square. Maybe it's somehow. Somehow channeling energy from them. Maybe if we can get them away, they can't feed it and maybe we can try again. Maybe.

It's gonna be a heck of a lot easier moving them than getting this damn thing back out of here.

Yeah, there are a lot of them.

They're not moving.

I think it's worth taking a break on the Man. My head fucking hurts.

I don't know. Reminds me of the way I felt when I kicked OG onto the curb. Not a fan, but it feels like that.

So what's the plan then of getting the people out of town? Should we put like. Like try getting them out of the city and closing the gates?

I would think the further away we can get them, the better. But I don't know if we can even get them to move at all, let alone any distance.

Yeah, they didn't move out of our.

Way because they were drawn here. So I'm hoping if we can get them, at least a block will have.

Them be gathered here.

Well, that's true.

Hypothetically speaking, there's also five other sorcerers at our disposal.

Well, once they feel better, I feel.

Like we could use a better word than disposal. I almost died saving them.

They're present and they have power, and I know that they're not at their best, but maybe when they're slightly less, no problem.

If anything, I. I hate to say it, but they might actually be a.

Weak link of like, easy hit here.

You might not be wrong.

They might not be on their life.

Force for a minute, whatever this is.

But they may also possibly have some insight into this future that we don't. That's true.

Because it probably has been controlled by it.

Maybe they know some stuff about it that we don't.

I was just.

I do think we should go upstairs and check on everybody out in the square, though.

Yeah.

Out in the street.

At the very least, attempt to move them away and.

Yeah, we can give it a shot. And that feels. That did not feel good at all.

We take a 10 and come back and try this again. Yeah, like trying to do calculus.

We need to. We need to change the. We gotta change part of the equation in our favor.

Maybe it's less trying to change what it's doing and just disconnect it. Like make this not a window that works for it anymore.

I'm good with it.

I don't know. Just like, change.

Change the parameters.

If we can't make it what we want it to be, than just turn it off.

I want to try something. I don't think it's going to work, but I feel like I just got to try. So I take all of the odds and ends out of my portable bowl and I throw the hole over top of it and then I close it up.

Okay.

Does it change anything?

Like how we're feeling?

Well, if you think about it, that's going to be a hell of an easier way of getting it out of here.

Oh, God. I should have thought of that breaking it down.

Does it.

Does it make the magic hole heavy or. No?

No, it doesn't. It's now weightless. I told you.

Why do we fucking carry it downstairs.

Now we can get it out of town.

Look at this.

Look at it.

I didn't think of that.

So that's a plan.

We put it in the hole and we take it at a test.

Try again.

So it changed everything and nothing.

Okay.

Obviously it revolutionized her plan. None of that. Did it change anything?

The immediate evil forebodingness is not immediately equally foreboding.

So what we do is we assert our dominance.

I'm not gonna finish that sentence. Our will.

I'm not committed to that sentence.

Sentence.

Stare the hole down. No.

I forget. Can we go in the portable hole?

I think so. Yeah.

It's.

Or is it like a holding holes?

If it's open. Let's see if it's open.

It's just a temporal hole, but that would probably.

If you get enclosed in it, you have like 10 minutes before you die.

We have holes folded up. The creature with a hole's extra dimensional space can make a strength check. Thought successful. It forces its way out. A breathing creature in a portable hole can survive up to 10 minutes. So technically we could go in the hole. But I don't know why we would want to.

To force our will if it's.

If it's disconnected.

It feels more isolated when it's in the portable hole.

Yeah, that was the sentence I was to going to say.

But we can't.

But you were not phrasing it right.

I don't think we closed the hole up on ourselves. It's not.

And that's what I was wondering.

Like I don't think we could just jump in and then shut the door.

Yeah, I don't think we can just loose cano our way in and out of that.

Jacob.

Close us in. Yeah. And then let us out in 10 minutes. In less than 10 minutes, count to.

300 and let us out.

I mean we have the ability. If we're in the hole, we can make a strength check. And if we succeed, then we pop out.

Yeah.

I can just give Jacob my watch.

Oh, there we go.

Oh yeah, I forgot. You got a wind. Yeah. You got a wind up.

Do we want to. I do want to make sure that no one died outside.

Yeah.

Let's go check out what's going on.

Six feet wide and 10ft deep. So I mean we could technically all fit in there pretty tight.

Be pretty tight.

Stuck.

Do we want to attempt to like take it out of town. Try it that way first.

Or that's true. We could get it away from the people instead of move the people away from the hole. Let's start before we leave. Before we leave, when we go up to check on the people. I'm going to go grab my rope really quick.

Right, okay.

That I left in the laundromat.

Okay.

We can check on the people and if we can move the hole like this. Let's just take the hole out of town away from the people. Maybe that'll be far enough to break the connection with them.

Okay.

Well, so mildly, alarmingly, when you get back upstairs, everybody is on the ground.

Lake, are they breathing?

You check and there is breath. It is shallow. They are breathing. Okay. But the entire populace around you is now laying down as if they. Well, no, they're still. You can't see them. They're in the tavern.

Perfect.

Everybody you can see outside is now laying on the ground. And it's not like they laid down.

Sure, they fell down. All right, well, sucking juice out of the townsfolk.

My other question is, is it only affecting those that were gathered and were close to it? Or like if I'm assuming that's not the entire town that they managed to gather, I'm sure there were some people who chose not to show up.

Give me a history. Check.

21.

You know that you guys did not clasp hands. You know the CKG did not clasp hands.

Clasp pants.

I heard glass pants and I'm like, what?

What?

I'm wearing glass pants.

You did not glass pants.

And I. Oh, I. I think she's asking about the effect we're right now of people in proximity to the bank. No, I know what she talks about.

Giving her the information she has access to. The CKG did not clasp everybody.

That clasped hand is part of the connection, probably wherever they're at.

So the entire town other than us and the kids, everything.

In which case getting it far away.

Obviously the people that were down there. Cuz they didn't clasp hands because they.

Were down getting it far away, might not do anything. In that case then.

Well, on a positive note, all the townspeople get killed, then it'll be they'll have less to suck on. But I don't want to either. I don't know how to break the connection with the townsfolk.

I guess we're gonna have to fight the demons in the hole.

They won't suffer anymore. They don't have to worry about food or water.

That's not a reason to kill a Hole.

I'm not saying that it's reason. I'm just saying that the silver lining like possible bright side. That's all I'm trying to say.

Look, Skyler, I'm sorry. We killed everybody else. We saved Angel.

We saved your person that you want.

Well, the other one is leaving this thing.

Everyone else died.

Well, but I mean there's stuck here if we do.

I've come to terms with the other humans that we've killed. But I don't feel like killing an entire town is.

I don't. I don't feel good about it at all. I'm just saying we can.

We can still go talk to the sorcerers and see if they've got any insight from being connected to it.

I like that idea.

Grimoire and see if that she glean anything else off of this seal based off of whatever page we found. Up till this point. She hasn't read it.

You haven't go to give me an investigation?

No, I'm not going to play.

Yeah, you can't look at where she is. Okay.

Could I possibly like help? Cuz I've poked through it and I've done so I can kind of point her in the right section and.

Sure. You can provide the eight. Action. Help. Action.

Whatever.

12. It got better.

Yeah. Yeah. It can help you. From what you're able to glean, you guys. You think you guys are sniffing down the right trail. You're able to tell that this thing is clearly drawing a connection to the town to assert control over the town at the behest of the creature called Cambion. I'm not there. At the behest of the creature called Cambion. Which is the book. And presumably was Leroy when you killed him?

If we killed him, how could he still be exerting his control?

Ew.

The actual is still on the other.

Side of the door.

You can maybe make an insight on the text.

I mean it could, but probably won't help.

I feel like we should try that idea of opening the hole, getting into the hole and then fighting it in.

The hole with it closed.

Fuck it.

Double let's. You know what? Let's give it a shot. What's the worst that can happen, right?

We kill an entire town of people.

Oh, that. I keep keeping up. I have a headache.

It's the worst that could happen.

Everyone dies.

Oh right.

I feel like it'd be. It's gonna be easier with the hole closed because the connections.

I mean we could take it to the other side of the wall.

I think it's worth. It's worth trying getting it far away, farther away from people. But if it's connected to them because of the ceremony and it's not a distance thing, then. It might not, but it's. You know, it's worth a shot. I'd say let's maybe like you said, at least the other side of the wall, inside the portable hole.

I've got no other ideas.

So to circle the wagons, the ideas that have been presented so far are transport this thing as far from the town folk as possible, or take it to the sorcerers and get more hands on deck.

Maybe.

Maybe we can get the rest of the cool kids to link hands and fight this thing too.

Yeah, potentially.

I mean, maybe. Maybe we need more people.

Are you demons?

What do you guys think?

We can offer it to distance raid? Yeah, like let's maybe go outside the wall.

I don't know.

The wall might have something magical about it. Go outside the wall so we're further away from everything. See if we can get the other people who were not involved in the magic circle to assist. If they're willing. Knowing that it will hurt if we fail and see where we end up.

Right?

Because my thoughts is we gotta take it outside of the area where the light was shining to begin with.

That hurt.

I don't know how far that is.

Yeah, it could potentially. It could kill someone.

It could kill someone to kill.

If we fail again.

It's true.

We can. We. I mean, all we can do is.

And I can only do this one more time and it'll kill me too.

I feel like we should. We should probably actually try just us with us in the hole with it.

I'm okay with the in the hole option.

And I think you're right outside of the radius of town where they had the lights on.

I mean, that makes sense to me.

I don't.

I'm not the magic expert, obviously, but if that's what the seal was doing and actively working with. Right, because it came from the bank.

That's how.

Where the lights were shining. Go outside of that perimeter. Maybe it'll sever the bond.

Maybe.

Let's try it and see.

Hey there, listener. It's Mike the DM here for a quick ad break. First I want to take a moment and plug our local games again. If you're listening to this, when it's dropped, we will be in Palisade tomorrow at Restoration Vineyards. And then the next Tuesday, we will be back in Fruita at the Fruita Tavern. We have one event every week the location is just on a rotation. Both events have had very strong showings. Everybody who's shown up seems to be having an absolute blast. I know those of us who are dming for the events are having just a truly a really very fun time, and we have enjoyed having you all there. If you prefer, however, a little bit more of an intimate setting, we have been starting private events where we can meet you at your house or whatever location you prefer and run a game for you and your friends. So far, we've done this twice, and both times we're in absolute blast. I want to thank everybody who joined us at our learn to play events with our friends at board fox games. This event was a significant boost from our previous, and we can now welcome an additional 16 new players to the community. We will be holding these events once per quarter, so stay tuned for our next one. As always, thank you, listener, for your support. And here is the rest of the episode. All right, so you just move it to just the other side of the.

Wall, outside the radius of wherever lights were before we came.

Pretty much the wall. Okay.

Because was it basically left side the wall?

Are we gonna go in the hole inside it?

Yes.

Okay.

And have Jacob close it?

I guess any way that we can increase that distance would help. If we think it's a distance thing.

This is explicit.

We also did not sorcerer. Correct. He didn't talk to them at all.

Or like, I think the sorcerer's nothing.

Well, they might not be conscious yet. Extra dimension.

Okay. Okay. So, yeah, you guys move outside just through the gate. Unless more is desired.

We go back.

To, like, our campsite. Makes sense to everybody because we weren't super far away, but we knew where that was.

I think our biggest thing was just to get it outside the radius of where the magic was affecting, which was the city walls.

Yeah. And I think we spend no more than, like, a minute and a half in the hole with it closed. Maybe two minutes.

Jacob says, okay, I will unfold the hole in a minute and a half.

Jacob, this isn't meant to be an insult, but I know that you're quite young. Were you taught how to read a hand watch?

Yeah.

Okay.

Awesome. You're above a lot art. So there you go.

She's got to do a lap and a half.

There you go.

Exactly.

Perfect boy.

Yep.

You got it.

The really shorthand, right?

No, the one that's moving around.

That's a long time.

That was Jacob. I like that. That's good. Remember, you're a good boy.

We can do strength checks. To try to get out. We're not really trapped in there.

Keep an eye on Charlie, too.

Oh, yeah. Yep, he's here.

He just follows us around, that's all.

A real fight, though. Fight. Okay.

Okay.

I'll hold on to this scary book. You weird accrue. I want you guys climb into a hole, and then we'll fold you in.

Yep. Okay. What a weird world.

What a sentence, buddy. Here, hold the flying broom just in case.

Oh, yeah. In case I need to run away from whatever comes out of this hole. Please come out of this hole.

I'm really hoping it's not alone.

Ideally, that's our preference.

You know what? And he will take off his quiver of arrows and hand it to him. Hang on to this for me.

Okay.

All right.

We're gonna be fine.

We'll be back.

Two minutes.

Totally fine. Two minutes, bud.

Okay. All right.

Jump in.

Make a hole on the floor. You guys cozy up around a really rather large rock.

We might be, like, partly on top of this rock, maybe a little bit.

Incidentally, I think it's a really uncomfortable floor. Weirdly, it kind of blends in. Really black rock.

Pretty damn dark in there.

And it's about to get real dark as Jacob confusingly makes the whole a semicircle and then a quarter circle, and then you're done.

I can I cast light again, too, so we can see a little bit.

You can see each other and the gloss of the rock. It is a glossy, pretty rock.

You guys ever wonder how the we.

Got to this point?

We daily just talked about this a.

Minute and a half.

All right, sorry, sorry.

Let's focus.

Let's wax philosophically later.

We need you to lock the in.

Okay.

Get a round of charismaes.

I am going to use. Did I use this? I don't think I did. My tides of chaos.

You haven't used that in a while. Okay.

To give myself advantage because I rolled a NAT one.

Fair.

So anytime before I regain the use of this feature, you can make me roll on the wild search team.

Oh, Lord.

Listen, do you have NAT1 on the hole?

I know, but we're all so close.

It's that or I have a NAT one on this.

We'll resolve that.

We already risking poking our eyes out.

7.

Oh, shit, guys.

15.

18.

It was a 3, but I used my inspiration and got a natural 20.

Nice.

For a total of 20.

Okay, 23.

Much better this time around, guys. Much better. So your total this time is at 83. Your total last time was 59. That's much better. Which last time meant Your average was in 1.11.8. Your average this time is a 16.6. So you are in about as close to a sensory deprivation tank as you're going to get. This dangerous. If you've ever been in a primo.

Recording room.

This is what it feels like. The silence around you is. Is bordering on deafening. You hear your heart. You almost feel like you can hear your blood. Those of you who have the tinnitus. It is God damn loud.

And the rest of us can't stand how loud everyone else is breathing.

Could you just stop?

There's not.

We're all pressed together so much a.

Wall as a force pushing you in as if the air behind you is made of rubber band.

Okay.

Just compressing like a compression shirt that's a size too small. Just pushing you guys towards each other while you're very precariously kind of trying to not fall down on the rock that you're sort of standing on in front of me. And that rock is just fucking livid.

I'm getting kind of pissy myself.

The other side. Again. Thinking of this as a window. It went from there is something real mad at you on the other side of the window to just an inferno. You could feel rage and heat and bordering on. Almost as if like magma is rushing underneath this thing. Just raging beneath you. And much like the portal in the sequel when you killed Asherophael where he drew a hole in the ground that people were standing up looking through at the wrong angle. It's the same sensation. Whatever you're standing on is 90 degrees off center at you. And you get the sense of a rather large cat's eye come up to the window and observe each and every one of you to your soul. Very cute.

Joke's on you.

I mentally flip it off and you.

Can feel it pushing against your mental barrier. But you push back just harder.

Yeah.

And you're able to shove whatever is trying to leak out back. And as you do you hear one hell of a crack. And you see even in despite the light spell that's been cast on this hole, just a blazing hot red bordering again on magma. Slice across. Melting through the magic circle.

Hot, hot, hot, hot, hot.

But it's weird. It's hot to your soul. Not physical. Your flesh doesn't react. But you're spirit feels the heat.

Oh God.

This is worse than heartburn. And as soon as it finishes cracking and splintering its way across, the window is closed. And I would like to report that I wrote this before you Guys.

You.

Didn'T see that coming, did you?

We were supposed to be in the vault, weren't we?

Never expected that going range, did you? You smell something truly rancid.

That was not me. I swear.

I didn't do it. I smell like perfume, remember?

Against your light spell. It's as if darkness itself is starting to try to fill the hole. And it's getting thicker. And it's occupying the space in which you are.

I think we gotta get out of here.

Time to go. Time to go. Time to go. Time to go.

Start pushing and try to break our way.

Strength checks.

Strength.

Chase.

Oh, my God.

Trust it. What'd you get? You only need one successful. You rip your way out. You push. And it's really goddamn confusing because the air above you goes from night. Starless night sky. Yeah. To boom. It's daytime. Ah, God. In a perfect circle. Yeah. Yeah. And you guys are. You collapse out. And this thick rancid smoke is billowing out of the cut. And I need a series of dex saves. By a series, I mean one from each. Actually, I'm gonna give you guys advantage considering you are falling out of. From a hole. Fuck.

19, 23.

23, 11, 8.

Half damage.

So I'm gonna get hit.

Do you have Anderson's?

You're not that kind of barbarian, are you?

I have an advantage on decks, but we already get. We're given advantage against.

Okay.

Some things that I can see.

Okay. Yeah.

I have evasion. So.

Okay. What did you get?

19.

19. This was a DC 18. How hard am I to take half of 23?

So it's a full 23.

So 11 round down on the half.

I can use evasion on that, right?

Yeah, evasion.

Yes, evasion. You can spend to take half of.

That half when you're subject to an effect that allows full damage.

Was 23.

You take half. So he halves the half. 23 is full. So Elliot takes 23.

Yep.

So according to evasion takes 23.

Y. That hurt.

Emery passed.

Yeah.

Does not have evasion.

Correct. I take 11.

You're still up.

I'm still up. Emery looks f. Like. Emery collapses. All rolls to the side and collapses to the ground, coughing and gagging.

Mel succeeded taking 11. But you have evasion. She feels bad and read evasion. Exactly. Cause I had to fix two party members.

Hold, please. I just closed it up.

Do you have it up?

When you are subjected to an effect that allows you to make a dex saving throw to take only half damage, you instead. Instead take no damage. If you succeed on the Saving throw and only half damage if you fail.

Okay. You both take no damage. Well. So the black smoke completely fills the hole. And it's just starting to bubble over. Kind of like. Kind of like dry ice in a pot, but black. And as soon as it hits outside, you see it just spark in the fire. And effectively. I don't know if you guys have ever done this where you fill up a glass bottle with a bunch of butane and light it and get that. But big, real goddamn hot burns itself out. You look. Once you guys have recovered and shaken yourselves free from the fire, look down. And the stone is a pile of ash.

Ooh. So far.

Cute.

The thing I texted you is no longer relevant.

Belle picks up her hole and shakes it out real good.

Ash.

What a sentence.

A rather large pile of ash falls out your hole.

I walked right into that.

You did?

Deed. Some might call it your ash hole.

I make sure to shake it out real good. Then I fold them back. Or I put the grimoire and all the other odds and ends back in. Shove it back in my pocket.

Jacob looks incredibly relieved. Very eagerly gives you back your quiver.

Thank you.

I'm glad. I didn't need that for very long. That hurt.

That sucked.

Yeah, it did. I think it worked though.

Good job, guys.

I wonder if any of the townsfolk survived.

God, I hope so.

We didn't hear a bunch of screaming. Jacob, did you hear a bunch of.

Screaming that was really loud?

I saw fire.

Just like putting guys open a hole. Ran the hell out, smoke came out, and then it went whoa. Really loud.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I assume you didn't hear any screaming.

Not from anybody that wasn't you.

Yeah.

Did anybody else feel like their soul was on fire? Or was that just me and the.

Funny blast, considering three of you just got cooked a little bit. You screamed. I don't know if you know that, but you did.

I didn't mean to, but that fucking hurt.

And I'm not positive that was volume.

Mel reaches over and puts one of emery sticks out.

Oh, God.

Thanks.

I don't remember how long that lasted for, but it was kind of weird. As you touch it, you could feel like breaking apart. Almost exactly. Yeah.

That is the weirdest thing.

It's starting to become more of a liberty spike and less of a stick.

Yeah.

Is one of those sticks like. Because I forgot you had white.

Yeah, she's got one acid branch.

I don't think this one will cause any painkilling effects though.

It's up to you.

If you lick her my hair.

You know, we've already took a turn with the ashy hole. Let's not go any licking day.

And you guys have a full on delirious laughing session.

Yeah, absolutely.

Emery's at three hit points. She's feeling bad.

Yeah, yeah, No, I think that it. Yeah, it's absolutely that one where you're.

Just like, I was only up to 40 and then I took 13 twice. I gave you full health and then 11.

Okay. I like your number better.

Yeah, yeah. I. I'm leaping from the tree. I love that hysterical laughing session.

You see a series of frog. No.

There'S absolutely like hysterical after this point.

Do you want me to roll on the wild search table while we're having this kind of hysterical laughter? Yes, I do.

Oh, no.

Oh, boy.

Have you.

And again, for those of you following along at home, this is the wild search fiddle from the game master's book of astonishing random tables by Ben Egloss.

I will, I will note, I don't think Emerie has gotten up from where she kind of collapsed on the ground. I think she's been laying there talking, laughing, like she feels fucking horrible.

Oh, yeah.

And it totally would make sense story wise for James to just book it for no reason.

And Mel is once again standing near her because she put her hair out.

We're all standing.

We're all in the blast zone this time.

We're all meandering around this area, including Jacobs. I got an 81.

Well, hopefully we all speak the same.

Language, won't become a problem.

All right, well, the caster casts detect magic.

This would have been.

Okay, that has a duration of eight hours.

Wow. Okay.

However, because of the constant input of information from this spell, the affected creature makes all wisdom saving throws and wisdom based ability checks at disadvantage for the duration.

Okay.

So you are very aware of a magic hole in Belle's pocket leaking all sorts of.

Emery is just like fully attuned to magic now, especially after being on edge. And like, that'd probably make somebody sensing magic. I mean, she may have a couple times. That might be the thing. You guys notice Emery has the. This hysterical laughing bit with you guys and then rolls over and goes and.

Vomits with you Being of an artsy persuasion.

Horrible.

Wouldn't be surprised to find out that you've tried a hallucinogenic or two.

Yeah, probably.

This is like a really mild troops everything. Some things just have more color than they should for a while.

Okay.

I think when she recovers for a minute she's just kind of staring at everyone. One, a little Bit and all the.

Magic crap that we're carrying.

My hammer's going crazy, and she's got this splitting headache from the 26 psychic damage she's taken, so she's just kind of, like, squinting almost at all of you.

And, like, Mel's hands are magic all the way up to, like, her elbows.

My hands. Because I'm wearing the bracers, too.

Yeah. Your arms, your hands are magic. Your Elliot's feet and back are magic.

Yeah. No, there is so much magic right.

Now, it would be practically blind magic right now. And, oh, boy, my head does not feel good enough for that.

You know, let's go back inside and find out if the townspeople are alive, and then we can all.

Great. Maybe after a nap, I can figure out what our items do.

Yeah.

Yes.

Right.

So you guys make your way back to the gate, and you open the gate. The gate opens openly, and you see a rather large group of people starting to, like, sit up.

Oh, good.

Oh, good, you're alive.

You do see quite a few pretty gnarly bloody noses.

Sorry.

A lot of people looking at the world around him. Not unlike how Emery is just dazed and pained. Some of them have a little bit of blood coming out of their ears. Some of them come out of the corner of their eyes, but you don't see anybody not getting up.

That's good.

They just had a migraine from health.

It's fine.

Literally worst migraine ever.

Yeah, I think, you know, if we're walking past people and people are pulling themselves to their feet, Emory will stop and help people up and, like, just checking on people, making sure they're okay and not necessarily sticking around with any individual person, but making sure everyone gets up okay and all that.

Hey, look at that. Kill the top.

Yeah. You guys make your way back to the inn. I'm pretty positive as where you're headed.

Yep.

And in there, you do see, you know, all of the girls you saved are stirring. They're up.

Oh, what are they making?

Butter?

Some noise. Some noise. Not a lot. Just a little bit of noise.

At this point.

Edna Maze sitting up and mobile. She's kind of weakly assisting some of the other girls. And as you guys are overlooking them, all of you, just in the back of your heads, remember that eye burning into years old? And that's for the episode Fun. We saved Carson.

Yay.

It's actually Carson again.

But did it act differently on Mel's.

What?

Well, because, like.

Oh, I'm pretty sure she's gotcha.

Yeah. Like, black spots, spot on. Your soul sold your soul. She does.

You felt it on most of your souls.

You have no frame of reference.

I don't know.

Because you can't feel the other people's souls.

I.

She just. She doesn't. She put it in a box so she didn't have to deal with it.

You definitely felt like all the bad thoughts. That eye staring to your core.

Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

I don't know.

I'm sure it's fine.

Probably not important.

Oh, it is. But you saved Carson.

Yay.

We saved Carson.

Good job. Carson is safe.

Leader of the Mind presents Retribution is Amanda Arston as Mel Kelly. Jeremy Arston as Elliot Brandy Bane. Michael Burnell as Ulnock Fargher Johnson Michael Downes as James o'. Brien Casey Weingarten as Emory Lee and myself, Mike Shock, as your Dungeon Master. We release episodes every two weeks, so our next episode will drop on February 8th. Yes, I did in fact read the calendar poorly last time and promised February 4th for this episode, not the actual release date of February 1st. My b. Yo. If you want to follow us, our social media and website can be found on 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. Our music this week was sourced from Epidemic Sounds, who we are not sponsored by under the Creative Cummins license. The songs used, in order are Roy's Lament by Roy Edwin Williams. You will meet a tall, dark stranger with a flamenco guitar by Jonathan Bondeson and the Flame by Franz Gordon. The Theatre of the Mind theme ad break and Outro were written by Mike Schock. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products or our collective imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual events, places or people, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. That doesn't sound familiar at all.

You got, you got.

I remember that one.

Lamb chop I love. What do I need to not be in here? Okay.

I watched bill nye. You remember beekman's world. Anybody else remember beacon world? That was a spin off from Animaniacs.

I get the comfy chair, though.

Yeah, there you go.

That's the real reason you wanted Dylan to go home?

No.

Get out of here, man. I want the good chair.

It's my chair now. That? Yeah it's not your scar.

Yeah, it is.

My ass was hurting.

Yeah.

Shock.

I keep doing the math and I'm like, we're gonna get done with this. We're gonna go and go to sleep. Wake up, grab the and head over.

Go run the other one.

Do you want me just come pick you up?

Sure.

No reason to take two.

Oh, yeah.

You guys have to be up early to watch.

Not super early. 11 or 11:30.

11. That's not that bad.

No, it's not. Crazy.

I gotta be up at 5. I'm gonna have to say sorry, you guys can't hang out till three tonight.

That's fine.

I'll fucking fall asleep watching them play D and D tomorrow.

I assume he's been up since 7 this morning.

What?

I was at the college at 7 this morning. So watch people set up so people could walk for 22 minutes at 11.

I cheated though. I took an epic nap. That was a good one.

Three and a half hour.

That's time. Do you remember Roly Polioli?

I missed a lot of those good PBS shows. There was a period of time we didn't have tv.

That's why we.

And there's Oswald of the Blue octopus.

You are 10 years younger than me, Arthur. So my age appropriate period of time was 10 years before you.

Like. I remember when Blue Clues came out, but I was too old for Blue's Clues. But sometimes I catch the end of it because it was right before little Blair. And I remember thinking, wow, this is.

Really dumb because I was watching it.

Because I was a child.

I started watching Blue's Clues, like right at the transition from Steve to his when he went to college.

I do remember being horribly offended when Not Steve was on there.

Yes.

Yeah.

Popped on. I'm like, ooh, like, ruined my shirt.

Like, what this fucking guy.

The thing I was more pissed about was the fact that he had a different shirt because Steve had like the lines and the new guy had squares. And I'm like, what the hell is this?

What is this?

I did not know there was.

I don't like change.

They actually had like three different.

Or Barney. Barney was totally my favorite.

The original guy started doing his own.

Like, Barney was my jam when I.

Was a little kid. He's doing. He did a metal band for a while. Yeah, yeah. Shaved his head. Got into metal for quite a while. And now he's doing. He's trying to put out Blues Clues for adults, basically. Yeah.

It's like.

I don't know what that is.

It's like a Podcast.

Yeah.

He's so. He's trying to help kids work through their trauma and shit, basically because they grew up watching.

It's.

It's a great idea. I don't know how it's going to work.

Dude got shell shocked hard because he hopped on TikTok. Was like, hey, guys, it's me. I'm back. It was like, fucking trauma dump.

Life sucks, dude.

The official. The official Elmo Twitter page. The same thing.

Oh, my God.

That was dark.

So dark.

Like, Jesus. And then for a little while, somebody took over Elmo and he became, like, Nazi for, like a week.

Yeah, that was a dark.

Yeah.

Elmo got hacked.

Yeah.

I was like, when did this happen? Like, I thought it was, like, on the show.

No, no, no. That'd be a wild week of fucking Sesame Street.

What is going on?

Elmo went to CBGBs, CGBGs, whatever. That popular music venue in New York is.

Some flavor of those letters.

Bcgs.

I don't know what you're talking about.

It was a venue that every punk band went through in New York for a long time. CBGB's.

I know what you're talking about, but I don't know the actual name of it.

It's some combo of those sounds that I have to know now because that's saying.

Gotta Google it.

God damn it. Cbgb.

I hate how often I do that in the truck when I don't have service and I can't look it up. It drives me nuts in the middle of nowhere.

I have a question, because now every time it comes up, I hear your voice saying, secret tunnel. Where does that come from?

Avatar.

The Last Airbender.

I. I'm not familiar with it. I just, like, literally every time somebody talks about tunnels or anything. I hear you. Secret tunnel.

Tunnel. It's genuinely.

It's. It's one of the really, really good. The musical episode.

One of them.

There's a few, but it's one of the more.

I couldn't remember, but they.

Because they find some traveling musicians.

Yeah. And they go through a secret tunnel.

Like Adlers.

The song.

Two lovers sworn from one another A war divides their people.

He sounds about like that.

Yeah.

It's not good.

No, it's hilarious.

It's pretty close.

Yeah.

So bands that you would know that broke at cbgb. The Ramones. Okay. Blondie.

Okay.

Talking Heads. Oh, wow. Misfits. Okay.

Oh, like all the P. The Police. That's not P. Cross.

Okay.

They were. And then they. Then he got into tantric sex.

You know, that actually explains A lot about the change in their musical style.

Yeah, they were a punk band, and then he thought that was the thing. The Cramps.

I don't know that one off the.

Top of my head.

I don't think about that.

The Runaways, which launched Pat Benatar and Lita Ford, I believe. Okay. And then they got, like, real punk. Yeah. To where? I don't know any of these.

We got Roma Reagan Youth.

Nope.

The Flesh Tones.

Oh, that's where it got into the indie rock suit.

Yeah.

White Zombie came out of there. Oh, wow. Which is Rob Zombie's first band. Yes.

With, I believe, his brother Yar.

Believe. So Violent Femmes is from there.

My partner listens to them, but I.

Don'T know them personally.

The Damned launched out of there. Same.

That's the same thing. My partner was born to.

The hardcore punk singer. The Strokes. You'd know them. They launched from there. CRO Mags, Richard Hell and the Voidoids. Just fun to say. But anyway, that's CBGB's.

Yay.

Here's your musical history of popular music.

What's our question for this episode?

This question is a thing.

One of them somewhere.

If you lost one of your most essential abilities, how would you want to replace it? Who would you trust to teach you this new skill? Oh, fuck.

Okay, this one's gonna require thinking.

Yes. Intentionally so.

I don't want to do this. I know what skill I would be very sad to lose.

As my character.

Decapitating.

No, I'm not losing that. That's not a skill, is it?

I mean, you could do it poorly.

I mean, your head's above the rest of them.

I was thinking if I lost. Well, I guess rage is an ability, right?

Ask the French.

Yes, you can decapitate poorly. This is why we have the guillotine.

The closest way to humanely do that.

You did say skill.

Yes.

Okay, so is rage and ability.

No, I said essential ability.

Okay, so ability to me, and then skill.

So both. Aha.

Okay, a new skill.

That's weird.

I don't like that.

I think we're ready.

I don't like that. And go.

All right, full speed.

Here we go.

Send it.

Bucket it.