Episode 9: Fires in the Forge Transcript
Transcript Note: Next in the Order’s episodes are hand-transcribed by members of the cast. If you find issues with accuracy, clarity, or formatting, please let us know and we’ll get it fixed as soon as we possibly can! You can contact us via Instagram or Twitter @nextintheorder.
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JAS: The man tugs his crisp, perfectly tailored black suit down, before leaning forward over his desk. “Let me get this straight. This bumbling crew of idiots just stumbled across it? I don’t believe that for a second.” “It- it’s true, sir. Just, in the middle of the cow pasture. One of them, the bird, was able to grab it.” “Well, then it looks like I ought to pay them a visit.” He stands abruptly, and begins casting a spell. This is Next in the Order
[THEME MUSIC]
JAS: Hello one and all, and welcome back to another episode of Next in the Order! I am Jas, your not-so-humble DM. Let’s check in and do some pronoun vibes.
WINK: God, I wanna say my name is Pants again. But, no, my name is Wink and I use they/them pronouns.
MARS: You could have - you had a perfect opportunity, you could have said “my name is Shirt,” but.
WINK: My name isn’t Shirt, though! My name is Pants!
JAS: If people start calling you Pants… Mars!
MARS: He/they.
JAS: He/they, tasty. Alrighty! Last episode we were doing some investigating. We had some Identify cast, we talked about what a Fissure Core is, maybe, possibly? We went searching for… well we found out more information on why this Fissure Core may be where it was, including the fact that Henry’s great-times-seven-grandfather was a person named Decadraz, a centaur named Decadraz, who was the original owner of Sylacrum’s notebook. And you went on a search for Decardaz’s, like, space… his… I don’t know.
MARS: The Den of Decadraz.
JAS: I don’t enjoy that.
MAR: I hate that, actually.
JAS: You go for the Den of Decadraz…
MARS: I could have said Dungeon.
MAR: That’s worse.
JAS: Dungeons and Decadrazes. Anyway.
MAR: I would like it to be known that my notes currently say, “Last Episode: Identifying™. Decadraz. Other bullshit.”
JAS: Correct. That’s exactly what happened. And then you all went searching for it, and that led you to the barn where you found, in the hayloft, you found - do not start singing Hayloft by Mother Mother, I felt it in your eyes.
WINK: You were touching their eyes?
MAR: That’s my thing! I wear contacts.
WINK: Slash trigger warning body horror.
[SLIGHTLY UNHINGED LAUGHTER]
JAS: Okay, you went, in the hayloft you found a hidden door. Yeah, and Caelum kind of fell into it. What do you do?
MAR: I’m gonna go down the trapdoor.
JAS: It’s not a trapdoor, it’s a hidden door in the wall.
MAR: Fine.
JAS: Bitchass. Pay attention.
MAR: I heard Caelum fell through and assumed it was going down. Sue me.
MARS: That leads to my question. Isn’t the hayloft of a barn on the second level?
WINK: Not necessarily. So, typically, yes. Like, in mine it is, but in some cases it’s just an extra room, or even a partitioned off section.
MERCER: Well, you told me that I had to go up a ladder.
JAS: I did! It was in fact upstairs.
MAR: All right, fine, I’m going through the… I’m going upstairs and I’m going through the door.
JAS: Great. Excellent. You go upstairs, you go through the door. There’s a ladder, it is very dark. You’ve got darkvision, though, so I guess you’re chillin’. Is everyone else going?
WINK: No. Hesperis doesn’t fuck with ladders.
JAS: Okay?
WINK: If she was meant to go up, they would have put stairs. If she was meant to go down, they would have put a slide.
JAS: What’s a ladder’s purpose, if not to take somebody up?
WINK: A ladder’s purpose is for people with death wishes.
JAS: Okay, fair enough.
MERCER: So she won’t go up a ladder, but she will jump into a random portal?
WINK: Yes.
MERCER: Fair enough.
JAS: Checks out.
MAR: Don’t question Hesperis’ logic.
JAS: All right…
WINK: (quietly, almost inaudibly) You think Hesperis has logic?
MAR: No, I don’t.
MARS: Sylacrum follows Cire, but puts on his mask as well before walking in.
MAR: God, I wish I was my other character right now! Because my other character can become a night light!
JAS: Yeah, well. I don’t think Aasimar have darkvision.
MERCER: I have darkvision, and I can also cast Light.
JAS: Oh, tasty!
MARS: I was gonna cast Light too.
MERCER: I’m gonna… fuck it. Caelum is gonna cast Light on his wings. So now they’re just glowing.
JAS: Glowing wings.
MAR: I don’t know how mechanically your thing… does it happen with cantrips too?
MERCER: Hmm?
MAR: The roll for the…
MERCER: It’s first-level spells and up and then ki points.
JAS: That is obviously a lot of homebrew there, but…
MAR: Right. That’s why I asked, because I only know the rules as written.
JAS: Especially because that’s a racial one, right?
MERCER: Yes, it’s a once a day thing.
MAR: I don’t magically know how your homebrew rules work, I just know how the homebrew rules for my subclass work, because I wrote the thing.
JAS: Fair.
MAR: And even then, I don’t always know how it works. Sometimes I have to look it up in my own writing.
JAS: Right. All right, you go down the ladder, and you go down the ladder for a little bit.
MAR: Down the ladder? Is there a ladder up to the door and then another ladder on the other side?
JAS: So, there’s a ladder up to the hayloft. There is a secret door. You go through the secret door, there’s a little bit of a ramp - that’s why Caelum didn’t fall completely just straight down, otherwise that could have been bad. And then there is from there, a ladder down.
MAR: Okay, yes, I will go down the ladder. I did not process the ladder, I’m sorry.
JAS: You are all Gucci. You go down the ladder and with the light of Caelum’s wings, you all see - Well, all but Hesperis. You all see there is a large, sprawling room. You can see there is - and Sylacrum, you recognize it immediately. This is a workshop, and there is a forge here. There is a stool sitting in the middle of the room with a note on it, and then there’s just scattered tools. The whole place is left in disarray. And there is a forge that appears to have been bricked over.
MARS: Sylacrum’s gonna walk up and try to read the note on the stool.
JAS: Cool. I am sending you the text of the note in your secrets from god channel.
MARS: Just out of curiosity, what language is it in? Or is that going to be in the secrets from god?
JAS: It’s in Common.
MARS: Okay.
MAR: Is there a way to get under the bricks? Over the forge? Cire would certainly like to try.
JAS: Under the bricks, what do you mean?
MAR: You said it’s bricked over, is there a way to see what is being blocked by the bricks?
JAS: When I say bricked over, I mean it is the front of a massive forge, and the front of it has been bricked in so it is no longer usable.
MAR: Is it hiding something?
JAS: Maybe.
MAR: Can I find out if it’s hiding something?
JAS: Yeah, you can make some attacks at it. Whack at it.
MAR: I would like to bonk it with my mace.
JAS: Yeah, go for it, make an attack roll.
MAR: Okay. I’m not gonna ask that. That is… hold on, what’s my attack… that’s a 25.
JAS: Great. Roll damage against this brick.
MAR: Okay, so that is… and this is not a great weapon, so if I roll a 1 or a 2, I just have to keep it.
JAS: Yeah.
MAR: Well, that fell in the crease of my… 6 points of damage.
JAS: Six points of damage is enough to…
MAR: I mostly chose my mace because my mace does bludgeoning damage and my other two weapons do slashing damage, and I didn’t know how effective slashing damage would be against brick.
JAS: So, you hit it hard enough to pull some chunks out of it, decently, but it is solid brick.
MAR: Can I keep a brick?
JAS: You did not knock and intact brick out.
MAR: Just… like a brick’s worth of rubble, because I think it would be funny.
JAS: Sure? Okay, great.
MAR: So, what’s behind it?
JAS: More brick.
MAR: I would like to bonk it again.
JAS: We’re just gonna assume you carve through it.
MAR: (laughing) Okay!
JAS: There is nothing… this forge has been bricked all the way through. It looks like the bricking was not to hide something, more to make the forge unusable.
MAR: Okay. Is there anything about the forge or in the room that would be able to tell me why they didn’t want it used?
JAS: Make an Investigation check.
MAR: I’m so bad at these!
JAS: While Sylacrum’s standing in the middle of the room reading a note.
MARS: So, I finally finished reading it. I had like a fucking brain fart while I was reading it. Sylacrum opens the book and slams the note shut in a random-ass page in the notebook.
MAR: Before I do the Investigation check, what was that about?
MARS: We should not be here.
MAR: Okay. Care to explain why?
MARS: Don’t. Don’t take anything, don’t touch anything else. We need to leave.
MAR: (said more as a statement than a question) Why? I’m not leaving until you tell me why.
MARS: I think the reason that’s bricked over is that’s what made the Fissure Core.
MAR: Okay.
MARS: Because this is Decadraz’s forge. But it was also a forge of Oathar.
MAR: So what makes it dangerous now if Decadraz is dead?
MARS: Well, not to look a gift horse in the mouth…
MAR: It’s an eleven for the Investigation check that’s an eleven.
MARS: Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but the guy who wrote the notebook… that had information containing, I don’t know, maybe world-ending destruction, tells you to not look into something, I think we should not look into the thing.
MAR: But why? Why are we not supposed to look at it? What’s here?
MARS: I don’t know, it just says don’t look at it, don’t take anything. Use the information here, but don’t use it for power. Wait a second.
JAS: Psst. It says, “You may take what you like from this place.”
MARS: I completely misheard that, I’m so sorry.
MAR: What did you read? Cire was busy… bonking some bricks while you were reading the note.
MARS: No, I know. Sylacrum didn’t read it out loud or anything.
MAR: What does the note say?
MARS: It says he found the pieces, he gave them form, and if you’re reading this you probably know what I’m talking about. Which, I’m assuming is the Fissure Core.
MAR: Right, that’s the piece that we have… we have a piece of it.
MARS: And then he said, I buried it under the ground, I left a Core in the woods with him, I sold a piece to a devil, I threw one into the Forever Sea, and Sylacrum turns his head a little bit. “One more is upside down.”
MAR: Can I read the note?
MARS: I mean, yeah, and opens up the book where very clearly the note’s being held in place with like thumbtacks, just very hastily stuck into it.
MAR: I just want to know what happened here. Why is the forge specifically dangerous?
MARS: Well, if it put together a Fissure Core… I don’t really think we want a forge capable of making a bunch of Fissure Cores active.
MAR: Okay, but how do we know that it’s the forge itself and not the person who made the Fissure Core?
MARS: Well, it takes a lot to run a forge, you’re right.
MAR: But it could just be that it was a person that ran the forge, not the forge itself.
MARS: Well, if that were the case, there’s probably more than one forge.
MAR: Right.
MARS: So, it wouldn’t make sense to brick up this one if there were multiple forges just lying around Citarya.
MAR: Well. So, if… did Decadraz create the Fissure Core? Like, the full thing.
MARS: He assembled it.
MAR: He assembled it… so how was it created?
MARS: [UNCERTAIN NOISE] You’d have to ask the horse. And the horse is very very very very very very very very very very very... very dead.
MAR: Okay, yeah. I still don’t understand why we have to leave.
MARS: We can look around a bit more, but I don’t think anything here is going to be safe outside of this place.
MAR: What about the hammer? The one you tried to locate? If you got… if you got locate object on it…
MARS: (overlapping) Actually, you’re right.
MAR: That means it’s here somewhere, right?
MARS: Yeah. Can I make an investigation check to see if I see the hammer anywhere?
JAS: Yeah.
MAR: Can I help Sylacrum with this?
JAS: Absolutely, Sylacrum, do it at advantage.
MAR: Phew. I’m glad that was at advantage, because that first roll was a nat 1, and the second one is a fifteen, plus three, so an eighteen.
JAS: Eighteen? The DC was fairly low. The nat 1 wouldn’t have done it, cause it’s a nat 1, but with that you are able to… you start picking around the forge and you see tucked in a corner, there is a massive warhammer. It’s probably about four feet tall, it’s got a long handle, and it is just a massive piece of stonework at the top that is welded down to this metal staff.
MARS: Well, that’s that. There’s a hammer.
MAR: Does it do anything?
MARS: It’s most likely magic.
MAR: Do you have Identify prepared.
MARS: Yeah.
MAR: Maybe it’s worth it. It’s up to you, they’re your spells.
MARS: There’s no way in hell I’m carrying that out of here, are you kidding? That thing’s the size of me! Shorter, but you know what I mean.
MAR: Well, I’d still like to know what we’re dealing with, if we’re just gonna leave it here for someone else to find.
MARS: Yeah, couldn’t hurt to try. Out of character, how does ritual casting work?
JAS: (quietly, to Mar) You got it?
MAR: It takes an additional ten minutes on top of the casting time and it allows you to cast it without expending a spell slot.
MARS: Can I ritual cast this? I just don’t wanna do a spell.
JAS: Fair. Yeah, you can ritual cast it. You take the time to sit down and I think a lot of what that looks like is a lot of taking pieces from different mechanical things and snapping them into place while waiting on hold. You don’t get the Fast Pass. But then after the ten minutes you hear, “This warhammer was the belonging of Decadraz. Decadraz used this warhammer during the Great War. It can help hit extra hard and hurt your enemies harder. It also can Heat Metal once per day.”
MARS: Wait, hold on, go back. Repeat that?
JAS: “This warhammer used by Decadraz.”
MARS: Fucking hate automated systems. Skip forward like twenty seconds.
JAS: “It can also use Heat Metal once per day.”
MARS: Thank you very much… and just hangs up the fucking call.
MAR: [PREPARING TO ASK ABOUT MECHANICS]
JAS: Mechanically, it is a plus 2 warhammer that has one charge of Heat Metal, and looking at it, you could probably heat the hammer to do extra fire damage.
MARS: Well, I was right, it’s magic.
MAR: Yeah.
MARS: It’s a flaming hammer. Essentially.
JAS: Not flaming. But burning metal.
MAR: Can Cire… she wants to test the weight and see what the hammer would feel like in combat.
JAS: Yeah, you pick it up and instantly are like, “Oh, this thing Hefty.”
MAR: Hefty as in “has the heavy property” or hefty as in like “too hefty for Cire to wield.”
JAS: It has the heavy property. But with an 18 to strength.
MAR: I assume two-handed?
JAS: Yes. With an 18 to Strength, Cire can definitely wield this. Probably, you would guess that anyone who was less strong than you would have a difficult time with it. Mechanically, you have to have an 18 to wield it or else it is at disadvantage. So. And it can… you put it in your hands, test the weight of it, and you’re like… you could get some pretty hard swings with this thing.
MARS: Well, what do you think?
MAR: It’s a quality weapon. If we’re gonna end up fighting things more often, it would be helpful to have, but it’s…
MARS: To be fair, we have kind of been attacked multiple times the past four days.
MAR: This hammer seems kind of like… sort of your domain.
MARS: A little bit. If need be, I can just make a copy of it in the morning. What, you didn’t know I could do that?
MAR: No.
MARS: Yeah, most “clerics” of Oathar learn that when they’re still in diapers.
MAR: Can I Insight check Sylacrum?
JAS: Yeah, go for it.
MAR: That is… that’s a 21. Mars, are you bullshitting me?
MARS: No, I’m being dead fucking serious.
JAS: You also pick up, “cleric” there was an extremely loaded word.
MAR: This… it would be helpful to have.
MARS: Yeah.
MAR: Can Cire cast Detect Magic again to see if there’s anything else in the area that is magical.
JAS: Roll a... no, it’s fine. Looking around, you see there’s a lot of, there’s quite a few little knickknacks that are magical in some capacity. You can see a lot of remnant magic in the forge. You also see… it’s. Okay, I know this is not a school of magic. However, I want the vibes here, so pick up what I am putting down. You see remnants of celestial energy, you can follow their footsteps in here. And you can literally see the footsteps, they are walking around, walking to the forge and to a desk, and then they vanish. You also see on a desk, there looks to be… it’s made out of similar clockwork to a lot of what Sylacrum’s pieces look like, but it looks like it could… you’re looking at it, and it’s weird. You see that it has… Okay. It’s technically transmutation, but essentially, what you see is there is some kind of clockwork device, and it has charges. It is charged with the cantrip Thaumaturgy, it continually has it. And specifically with the ability to amplify sound. And you realize, “Oh, this is literally an amp.”
MAR: Sylacrum. This is an amp!
MARS: Yeah?
MAR: Yeah!
MARS: [DISBELIEVING SOUND]
MAR: Yeah! Look, it’s, it amplifies sound.
MARS: Why would… well, that’s convenient.
MAR: We left a bard in the barn.
MARS: We did leave a bard in the… huh. You know, that’s conveniently plot convenient.
MAR: Should we bring it back for her?
MARS: Well, it’s just collecting dust here. You can’t really take down a country with a single amp.
MAR: Well, in Hesperis’ hands, you might be able to.
MARS: She might be able to take down a city block with that.
MAR: Well. And do any of these little pieces look interesting to you? They kind of look like they’re in you wheelhouse.
MARS: Well… and Sylacrum’s gonna slowly walk through the shop and see if there’s anything that can be added on to their wing, like any little pieces, anything like that that’s just “Ooh, that’s neat!”
JAS: There are tons of bits and pieces, but as you walk you also, as you are sweeping around you also notice something. There is another book sitting on the desk. And it appears to be hand-bound. Its spine is open still, but it has a leather cover on the front, and you see that sitting there, and then there’s other pieces that you can definitely add to your.
MARS: Hmm. Last time I touched a book it went so horribly wrong.
JAS: This is an intentional book this time!
MAR: I still have Detect Magic up. Is the book magical?
JAS: No.
MAR: Okay. It’s not magical!
MARS: Out of character, oh thank God. You don’t under… for everybody listening, you don’t understand how many times in every fucking campaign a book will come up and somebody almost dies.
MAR: I forgot about the fairy book. I forgot that happened to you.
MARS: You get Polymorphed, I get random books that almost kill me.
JAS: This one won’t kill you, probably.
MAR: Probably. Sylacrum, would you mind if I held onto this hammer?
MARS: Yeah, go for it.
MAR: Okay.
MARS: I kind of don’t have the space in my kit for it right now anyways. And Sylacrum pulls out his big-ass motherfucking lance. And just goes, “This kind of takes up a lot of space.”
MAR: Fair enough.
MARS: To be fair, I do need a new weapon, but…
MAR: Is… [LAUGHING] We don’t play with encumbrance rules, right?
JAS: (disgusted by the mere thought) No.
MAR: Okay!
JAS: We’re just going to get comically stacked over here.
WINK: Fuck encumbrance and fuck economy.
MAR: So Cire is going to hold onto the warhammer.
JAS: Perfect.
MAR: She’s gonna take a spare bit of leather that’s just wrapped and buckled-ish around her pack and she’s gonna use it to sort of do some crafty shit to create another loop to put the warhammer also on her back with the sword and the axe.
JAS: Great.
MARS: I think Sylacrum sees you doing this as they’re walking over to the book and outstretching both their wings so it’s in front of them so they can put pieces on while they’re reading the book. But head turned, same owl shit, just like, you know I can just make you another scabbard, right?
MAR: Cire, the leather that she pulls off of her backpack matches the leather that her current setup is made of, so it’s pretty obvious that she made it herself, and that it’s well-made enough that she’ll be able to keep her weapons well-secured.
WINK: This is why Cire carries leather conditioner in her pack.
MAR: Well, that and her Profs.
WINK: Yeah, well.
MARS: While all of this is going on, what the hell are the rest of y’all doing?
MERCER: Caelum is sitting, fully had plopped down, is sitting in the doorway so the light is still available for y’all to use, and is fully zoned out?
MAR: And Valus?
NORTH: Valus is too stuck looking around, intrigued by all the trinkets.
WINK: Hesperis starts singing upstairs to entertain herself, she just starts singing.
NORTH: Valus is as fully incased, or enthralled by the workbench full of tools and magical items. He’s kind of rubbing the ring that’s on his pointer finger, and mumbling to himself. It’s not really coherent, but it’s mostly talking to himself.
MERCER: Caelum is just standing there with his wings stretched out, because they still have Light cast on them. And he looks annoyed.
NORTH: Caelum is the lamp.
WINK: Wait, is Caelum Jesus?
[MERCER LAUGHING]
WINK: Hear me out, he is lighting, he is the light of this world.
JAS: I am going to kick you in the teeth.
MAR: Cire has the hammer and the amp for Hesperis, and she’s…
WINK: Is it a square hammer?
MERCER: God damn it, Wink.
MAR: I don’t know what you mean…
WINK: The ghost song!
MERCER: God damn it.
MAR: Oh, okay. I’m very confused.
WINK: I need to indoctrinate you more.
MAR: I was more focused on keeping you from seeing my cursed note.
MARS: Hey, God? I just remembered something. Wasn’t I reading Decadraz’ fucking sketchbook or whatever the fuck that book was.
JAS: Yeah, you were looking over his notes, a lot of them are entirely incomprehensible. A lot, like the later half, and a lot of it is written in code.
MAR: What do you have over there?
MARS: Well, it looks like chicken scratch, gibberish, and maybe a coffee stain? Or two? Hard to tell coffee stains from oil stains, sometimes.
NORTH: Valus is going to walk over, because he’s looked at just about everything that was over there. In detail, and… Can I see it?
MARS: Well, yeah, and Sylacrum opens up the wing cocoon a little bit and wraps it around Valus too so they’re standing… two bros, standing in a wing cocoon, looking at a book.
NORTH: But we’re not five feet apart.
[LAUGHTER]
NORTH: No. So, you said there’s a code?
JAS: Yeah, a lot of the text in there is written in code of some kind. There’s a lot of strange symbols. Make an Intelligence check.
[NORTH MAKES AN EXCITED SOUND, FOLLOWED BY DICE ROLL]
NORTH: Okay, hold on.
MARS: [MAKES A NOISE LIKE THEY WANT TO SPEAK]
JAS: You’re welcome to make an Intelligence check.
MARS: Well, it was the same fucking roll. That’s a seven.
JAS: Both of you, looking at it, right now, you’re like, “This is gonna take some time to figure out. Like, you can’t decipher it sitting right here right now.
NORTH: I know I failed the Intelligence check, but can I make an Investigation check to see if there’s any kind of cipher.
JAS: Yeah.
NORTH: Why are they doing this to me?
MAR: Your new dice have betrayed you.
NORTH: That’s a seven.
JAS: A seven!
MAR: Do you have proficiency in Investigation?
NORTH: No.
MARS: Can I also do Investigation?
JAS: Go for it.
MARS: Jesus fucking… it’s gonna be better, but not by much. It’s a thirteen. I think we’ve broke them, officially.
JAS: Yeah…no.
MAR: Cire doesn’t necessarily want to look for a cipher, she just wants to be nosy. Can she be nosy?
JAS: She can absolutely be nosy.
MAR: How do I roll to determine Cire’s nosiness.
JAS: Perception or Investigation, dealer’s choice.
MAR: I will do Perception, then. Maybe… which one am I better at?
MARS: I have a genuine question. Just because I need this image in my head. Cause…
MAR: That’s a twelve.
MARS: Because Valus and Sylacrum are wing-cocooning, two bros, chilling in a wing cocoon, looking at a book, is Cire just tiptoeing over, looking.
MAR: No, I’m tiptoeing around the room trying to be nosy.
MARS: Oh.
JAS: So you don’t see a cipher with that.
MAR: I wasn’t looking for a cipher, I just wanted to be nosy.
JAS: Your nosiness finds you a few crumpled up sheets of paper that are just scattered about. You see that there is one piece of paper that is half-burned. For some reason. And then you read the end and it looks like a breakup letter of some kind.
MAR: Can I try and figure out more of the tea about the breakup?
JAS: Yeah, roll an Investigation check. Or Insight. Insight also would work.
MAR: Let me check my stats real quick.
WINK: Jas, I’m putting something in the whispers channel.
JAS: Okay.
MAR: Investigation or Insight?
JAS: Yup.
MAR: Insight. That’s a 21.
JAS: 21? All right, you get all the juicy deets. Anything that hasn’t been burned off. This doesn’t appear to have been written to Decadraz or by Decadraz. It was actually written by somebody else, her name’s Julia. And she signed it “With love,” but it appears to have been sent to a friend of Decadraz’, so not remotely… you don’t figure that it’s important, because this is a 702 year old… not seven hundred and two. I don’t know how old. Yeah, 700-year-old breakup letter.
WINK: Eeby deeby.
MERCER: That paper is surprisingly well-preserved for being 700 years old. Jesus Fuck.
MAR: Has this forge been sealed for 700 years? Is there any indication of how long it’s been sealed?
NORTH: Did you break down a wall to get in here?
MAR: It was just a door, was it sealed?
JAS: The door was not… it creaked like a motherfucker.
MAR: Right.
WINK: The residual celestial magic is just like magical climate control.
JAS: The worst part is, is you’re not far off.
MAR: Cire’s just gonna go up to Sylacrum and tap him on the shoulder and be like, look what what found! Look at this!
JAS: Sylacrum, you get the dirt.
MARS: Well, that guy wasn’t having a fun time. Must have been a very shit week for him.
MAR: Okay, but I kind of want to know more.
MARS: Well, there’s probably more to this letter.
MAR: Yeah, but it’s burned!
MARS: I don’t know what you want…
NORTH: There’s nothing you can do to restore…
MERCER: Could Mending theoretically fix it?
MAR: Do you have Mending?
MARS: I have Mending.
MERCER: I also have Mending.
JAS: Mending would not fix it, you would need the pieces there.
NORTH: You could do the ash.
MAR: Can I look for the pieces?
NORTH: It’s burned, I don’t know…
JAS: It’s burned off. You would guess that the rest of the paper is probably a pile of ash.
MAR : [DISAPPOINTED NOISE]
WINK: Has the fireplace been swept recently, in quotation marks.
JAS: There’s not a fireplace in here, it’s a forge. And the forge has been bricked over.
MAR: Yeah, okay, Cire wants to break into the forge and see if there are ashes of the breakup letter.
NORTH: The plot chicken.
JAS: There’s just some old ashes in there, you’re not sure what they’re from but there are ashes in there.
MERCER: Could someone Locate Object the ashes of the breakup letter?
MAR: Okay, actually, Cire would probably not go to that much effort to try and find the ashes, she’s just going to be forever curious and so desperate to know, but she’s not gonna know. She’s just gonna put the breakup letter back because she doesn’t want to carry those bad vibes with her.
JAS: Fair enough.
WINK: She’s trying to get a girlfriend right now, she does not need breakup vibes.
JAS: Speaking of trying to get a girlfriend, Hesperis. You are upstairs in the barn, right?
WINK: Yes.
JAS: And the barn door is still open from where y’all walked in, and walking straight up to the door is a horse. This horse is a chestnut mare. So this mare walks up to you and shakes her mane, and I would like you to make an insight check.
NORTH: How many hands is the horse?
JAS: What?
WINK: How tall is it?
JAS: It’s a… I don’t know how tall horses should be. It’s about an average sized horse. I know next to nothing about horses.
WINK: What kind of horse is this? You said it’s chestnut, that’s a coloration, is it a quarterhorse, is it a gaited horse, is it?
JAS: I know about cows, not horses!
WINK: Okay. Can I have advantage on this for being a horse girl?
JAS: Yeah.
MARS: There’s a whole table of horses.
WINK: That’s a nat 3 and a nat 2.
NORTH: Who’s horse is that?
WINK: There is a horse, loose in the hospital.
JAS: Plus? Do you have plus anything?
WINK: I have plus four, so that’s a six and a seven. Okay, horses’ body language is incredibly easy to read if you know what you’re looking for. And I do.
JAS: Does Hesperis?
WINK: Um…
MARS: Has Hesperis, hold on.
MAR: Has Hesperis seen a horse?
MARS: (overlapping) Has Hesperis seen a horse? Not in a hospital, just any horse.
WINK: I feel like Hesperis has seen variations of horses, so I feel like she would be able to read a horse-like animal’s body language fairly easily.
MAR: That was the advantage for being a horse girl. Maybe Hesperis was just not paying attention.
JAS: This horse is going to walk up to you, walks up to Hesperis and bumps Hesperis with her nose.
WINK: With the flat of her forehead?
JAS: The flat of her forehead, yeah.
WINK: I don’t know what that’s actually called, I should!
JAS: The front of the snout bitch thing.
WINK: It’s basically her forehead, just headbutts her.
NORTH: The pet zone.
WINK: Yes!
MAR: Is that affectionate?
WINK: It depends.
MAR: Oh, fun!
WINK: What do her ears look like?
JAS: Whatever the affectionate one is.
WINK: Okay, so it is affectionate.
JAS: Yeah.
WINK: So I would like to reach out and pet her nose. Just give her a little rub in between her nostrils. And then, I don’t know… does she have any markings on her face.
JAS: She’s got a little star on the forehead.
WINK: I want to rub her little star.
JAS: Okay.
WINK: Did you know that… okay, so I used to have a horse that was a chestnut mare with a star on the forehead and her name was Cricket, and if you, you could rub baby oil onto her star and it would shine and it would be so cute. Anyway.
JAS: While you are petting the star of this horse, you catch… something catches you off guard. For just a moment, you see the horse’s eyes change. Suddenly, they look a lot more human, and it’s kind of upsetting.
WINK: Do you know about horses’ eyes? Horses have vertical, not vertical, horses have horizontal pupils.
JAS: Yeah, no, it’s like the eyes of this horse have been replaced with human eyes.
[WINK SHUDDERS]
NORTH: Is this Loki?
JAS: [LAUGHS] The eyes are green.
MERCER: Is this a My Little Pony?
JAS: The eyes are vibrantly green. They look at you, wink, and then the horse shakes its head and whinnies, and it is back to normal horse eyes.
WINK: I’m gonna cast Speak With Animals.
JAS: Okay.
WINK: Ah, hello!
JAS: (as the horse) Hello?
WINK: Oh, hi!
JAS: Hi!
WINK: What is your name?
JAS: (as Cricket) I’m Cricket.
WINK: [DELIGHTED NOISE THAT SOUNDS ALMOST DISTRESSED] Okay, sorry! Forgive me if this is impolite to ask, but what the fuck is up with your eyes?
JAS:(as Cricket) I thought my eyes were normal.
WINK: They’re very pretty, but for a second there they changed? And that was concerning.
JAS: (as Cricket) I kind of blinked weird for a second. It kinda went black for a second, so I don’t know.
WINK: Oh, dear.
JAS:(as Cricket) I’m sorry, I don’t know what happened.
WINK: It’s okay! No big deal, and I just pat her nose. Maybe scritch her neck and help her calm down.
JAS: She kinda shakes her mane just a little bit. And leans into the pets.
WINK: God, I wanna play with a horse now! Yes, North?
NORTH: I think at this point, Valus is gonna come up, because we’ve seen, we have the book and we’ve seen basically everything else.
MAR: I think Cire is also done.
NORTH: I’m not gonna be the one to bring up the amp because he has an six to strength.
JAS: Oh, the amp itself is fairly small.
MAR: I’ll bring the amp.
JAS: Yeah, it’s not that large. So you come up, you climb the ladder and you’re standing in the hayloft, and you see Hesperis having this interaction with this horse.
MARS: Sylacrum stays in the forge, just to keep looking around.
MERCER: Caelum looks very wistful after Valus and Cire and then shakes his head and cuts the light off, because you’re an owl, you should have darkvision.
MARS: I do have darkvision.
MERCER: Cool.
MAR: Cire and Valus also have darkvision. We’re elves.
MERCER: Caelum is not the smartest.
NORTH: Are you the only one that needed the light?
MERCER: No, I also have darkvision.
MARS: Who doesn’t have darkvision?
WINK: I think we all have - no, I also have darkvision.
[LAUGHTER]
JAS: Damn, okay.
NORTH: Valus is going to come off the ladder and once he sees the horse he’s going to decidedly walk up, and pet down the horse’s nose, the pet zone? From like the forehead down to the nose? You know what I’m talking about.
MARS: Can this be an animal handling check? This does not feel right at all.
JAS: Yeah, make an animal handling check. How does this horse vibe with you?
NORTH: Okay, let’s see. That is a… where is it?
MAR: It’s under Wisdom.
NORTH: That is an eleven.
JAS: Cricket says, “I don’t… I don’t know about them…” and kind of backs up from Valus.
WINK: Hesperis takes a step forward and scritches behind her ears, and is like, no no no, he’s one of my friends. He’s just excited to see you.
JAS: (as Cricket) Okay. Um, okay.
WINK: Yeah, he’s nice, and then Hesperis is going to… I didn’t do that in a Hesperis voice, but it’s fine. Hesperis is going to grab Valus’ hand and put his hand on her nose.
JAS: Okay.
WINK: Are there any, like… we’re in a hayloft, right?
JAS: You are no longer in the hayloft.
WINK: Not in the hayloft, okay.
JAS: But you’re still in the barn.
WINK: Are there… okay, so at my granddad’s house, we have a barn, that’s where we keep my horses. I’m a horse girl in case you haven’t noticed. And… their names are Chico and Charlie. Anyway. We have jars that we keep peppermints and stuff for them. You’re not supposed to give horses peppermints, but they love them, so… And also little buckets of horse treats. That are like… actual horse treats, but they like peppermints better. My boys get what they want. Is there anything like that around?
JAS: There is a sealed container off to the side of sugar cubes.
WINK: Hell yeah! Hesperis is going for the sugar cubes.
JAS: Yeah.
WINK: She takes one, and she puts one in her mouth and offers the second to Cricket.
JAS: Cricket, literally licks your hand to pick them up.
WINK: This is my friend, Cricket.
NORTH: It’s very nice to meet you.
MAR: You make friends quickly.
WINK: What can I say? They like me. I have an 18 to Charisma, so I should hope that I make friends easily.
NORTH: Eighteen to Charisma…
WINK: I’m a bard!
NORTH: That’s true.
[THEME MUSIC]
JAS: Hey guys, it’s Jas, as per the [FIRST SYLLABLE OF USUAL], you know what’s up by this point, and I am here to do some adver-tis-ments for you all. Hmm.. adver-tis-ments, that’s how you say that word. Podcasts! Your words, someone else’s ear holes! You’ve got an idea, and the world needs to hear it. Easiest way to do that? Talk into a microphone! Great! You have a podcast episode, but it’s sitting in this sad, lonely file on your computer. Your voice needs to be out there, and how do you even do that? Why, with Buzzsprout, of course! Buzzsprout is the easiest and best podcast hosting site out there, and you can get started right now for free! And, as a bonus, you’ll get a $20 Amazon gift card with a paid account when you use the link in the description of this episode. See why over 100,000 podcasters choose Buzzsprout. Also, you can head over to patreon.com/nextintheorder to support the show. You can see some exclusive content, hang out with the cast and other fans of the show in the patrons’ only Discord server, and maybe even have some influence on future episodes of the show. That’s patreon.com/nextintheorder. We also have a ko-fi [PRONOUNCED Koh-fi]. Ko-fi[PRONOUNCED ‘coffee’]? However you say it, you can support the show with no commitment by going to ko-fi.com/nextintheorder. That’s K-O-dash-F-I.com/nextintheorder. Links to all of that can be found in the bio of our Instagram - that is @nextintheorder. Lastly, thank you Magic Sword for the use of their song “Battlefield (Dance With The Dead Remix),” as the theme song for the show! We just had the opportunity to go see them in concert, and it was an absolute blast! They’ve got some absolute bangers and you can find all of that and more at the link in the description of the episode. That’s all from me this week, enjoy the rest of the episode! Buh-bye!
[THEME MUSIC]
JAS: There’s a horse, Sylacrum is still in the forge, I think Caelum has come out.
MERCER: Yeah.
WINK: Is Caelum gay?
[LAUGHTER]
NORTH: Took a while.
MERCER: Caelum is aro/ace.
JAS: Anyway there’s a horse, what do y’all do?
WINK: Um… befriend her.
MAR: Cire is going to walk up to Hesperis and just hand her the amp.
WINK: Thank you?
MAR: It amplifies sound.
WINK: I am aware of what an amp is?
MAR: Okay, does it -
JAS: It doesn’t look like a normal amp. It is this long cylindrical thing with gears and clockwork inside of it, and there’s some kind of arcane core in there that is making a little whirring noise. But it isn’t instantly recognizable as an amp.
WINK: What the fuck is this?
MAR: It amplifies sound. I thought you might like it.
WINK: Oh. Oh! How does it work?
MAR: I’m not entirely sure… um, this is Mar being unsure of how much of her notes are things that…
JAS: Roll an Arcana check, Hesperis.
MAR: ‘Cause I have the details of the item in my notes, but I don’t know if Cire knows that.
JAS: Yeah.
WINK: This particular die keeps betraying me.
NORTH: Valus is hearing them talk, and is gonna jump in and say, the one person who could kind of look around and find out for us is - and he’s gonna lean back, or yell towards the door - is still downstairs!
MARS: What? Sorry, I’m a little bit busy here, and Sylacrum’s got a bunch of random-ass gears in his hands, shoving them onto his wings. And just goes, I’ll be up in like twenty minutes, more or less?
NORTH: Well, when you’re done with your Build-A-Bitch, we’ll be upstairs!
MAR: I, Mar, am in love with Valus.
MARS: Professor… you know I’m very much not of age to buy one of those things, right? That is for sad old men. Hint. Hint.
MAR: How old are you?
NORTH: I don’t remember the age conversion that we did, but it’s like 26, but…
MAR: Oh yeah, you’re like 175.
NORTH: Yeah, 175.
MARS: So unless you want to fill us in on something, I’m going to keep building my wing, and you go play with your Build-A-Bitch. In your free time, Professor.
MAR: Sylacrum, are you aware of how elves age?
MARS: Eh…
JAS: I need the scope of how y’all are yelling this back and forth to be clarified to you, because Sylacrum is down a ladder underneath y’all technically, but the sound is having to travel through the the open door upstairs in the hayloft. So, like…
MARS: Well, he’s an owl, he’s got very good ears.
MERCER: Can I cast Thaumaturgy to amplify this conversation?
MARS: Oh, it’s almost like there’s an amplifier that y’all could use.
WINK (and MAR, a beat behind): We don’t know how it works.
MAR: You’re the one who knows how it works!
NORTH: Or could at least find out.
MAR: You could come up here and show us?
MARS: Do I have to do everything for y’all? And when Sylacrum gets to the top of the ladder, his prosthetic wing usually looks slightly… like when a baby bird rolls down a hill a little bit, so the metal wing is a little bit disheveled and poofy, and there’s little metal bits sticking out of it, and they’re going to say, what did you need me for? I was doing something.
NORTH: Well, we have the tool that we came for, and we have a new book that we can look at. We have to figure out how this sound amplifier works.
MARS: Oh, that thing?
NORTH: And there’s a horse.
MAR: So, what… how does the amplifier work?
MARS: Well, I could cast Identify on it.
MAR: You don’t just know?
MARS: No, I don’t just know. Do you just hit things with a sword? No, I don’t just know.
MAR: Yes, I literally just hit things with a sword!
MARS: Well, that’s a very simplistic view on life.
MAR: Do you want me to hit you with a sword?
MARS: No, I want you to hit me with the hammer so we can figure out how that bitch works.
WINK: Right now you are not fulfilling your purpose which is to be good at tinkering with shit -
MARS: Isn’t your purpose to sing?
WINK: Yes, and I have been doing that.
MARS: It’s an amplifier, sing. Do some shit, sound.
WINK: Okay, but you’re the tinker here, you’re supposed to fix the shit so that I can use it to fulfill my purpose.
NORTH: To be fair, it is very old, and I doubt they’ve seen it before.
WINK: You know what else is very old? Your mother. I still fucked her last night though.
[LAUGHTER]
MAR: Did you cast Vicious Mockery on Valus?
NORTH: Valus is very sensitive about his mother.
JAS: Yeah, I was about to say, roll an insight check.
WINK: Roll a Wisdom saving throw.
NORTH: You know, I am rolling a Wisdom saving throw.
JAS: Roll it at disadvantage.
MAR: Do they need to though?
NORTH: Please don’t make me roll this at disadvantage.
WINK: What did you roll? No, roll it at disadvantage. Roll it at disadvantage!
NORTH: Oh.
MAR: Still a five.
NORTH: It’s gonna be, so Wisdom saving throw is you add your…
MAR: So, you add… yours is +3. Because, you have proficiency, so you add your Wisdom modifier to your proficiency bonus, which is +2.
NORTH: So, eight.
WINK: So, you’re gonna take…
NORTH: Oh, this is great.
WINK: One point of psychic damage.
NORTH: Okay.
MAR: Does Cire realize that Valus has taken a point of psychic damage?
JAS: I mean, Valus probably flinches.
NORTH: A little bit.
MAR: Are you all right?
NORTH: I’m - I’m fine.
MAR: May I roll an Insight check?
JAS: Yes.
MARS: While this is going on…
MAR: Well, that’s a nine.
MARS: Can I make a sleight of hand?
MAR: Is Valus deceiving me? Does Valus have to roll a Deception check against my Insight check?
JAS: I think with a nine, you can tell that something has hurt Valus, but what specifically, you have no idea. What are you trying to Sleight of Hand?
MARS: The fucking amp.
JAS: From who? Hesperis?
MARS: Because Hes is holding it.
WINK: I am holding it in my hands, in front of a group of people.
MARS: Very stealthy bird.
WINK: You are a lorge bird… I feel like you have disadvantage on Stealth.
MARS: I have disadvantage right now because I have the fucking…
MAR: You have disadvantage on Stealth with certain types of armor, but it is not normally applied to Sleight of Hand. It’s… rules as written it’s not applied to Sleight of Hand, but it could, at DM’s discretion.
JAS: You can roll it. I’m going to tell you, the DC is incredibly high because you’re standing in front of a group of people.
MARS: It’s a thirteen.
NORTH: I was gonna say, I feel like you’d have to roll at least an eighteen or higher.
JAS: Hesperis, you see Sylacrum go to grab the amp.
WINK: I think the fuck not.
MARS: Well, you told me to Identify it, I have to fucking hold it to Identify it.
WINK: You did not have to try to steal it from me. Ask nicely and use your words.
MARS: I’ve been trying to use my words, they were having a conversation, I didn’t want to be rude and interrupt.
JAS: What is the party’s passive Perception?
MARS: Fourteen.
MERCER and MAR: Thirteen.
WINK: Fourteen. It is your Wisdom modifier plus proficiency…
MAR: Are you proficient in Perception?
NORTH: Yes.
MARS: Wait, it’s Wisdom mod plus proficiency, plus ten?
MAR: Passive scores are your modifier plus ten. It is meant to represent the average score you would get on a check of this skill. So for you, it would be thirteen. We both have a +3 to perception, and therefore a 13 to passive perception. I know how passive scores work, because I built a character around having an incredibly broken passive perception.
WINK: What is it, like 23?
MAR: 28, actually.
MERCER: Um, actually. It’s 28.
JAS: Yeah, she built different.
MAR: She is built different.
JAS: So you try to grab the amp. Cool, what was the highest passive perception?
MARS: Fourteen.
JAS: Fourteen.
MARS: For Sylacrum and Hes.
JAS: Okay, cool. Yeah, continue your conversation about the amp.
MARS: I hope you know Sylacrum’s fully wings tucked, both hands on it. What, you were having a conversation?
WINK: Okay, so you tap me on the shoulder.
MARS: I can’t reach your shoulder, are you fucking kidding me?
NORTH: What is Sylacrum’s Charisma?
MARS: Fat fucking goose egg is what it is.
NORTH: Okay, ‘cause it shows.
[LAUGHTER]
WINK: Damn!
NORTH: I feel like -
MAR: Damn, maybe Valus should have Vicious Mockery.
NORTH: I feel like Valus and Sylacrum have very similar Charisma scores.
MAR: On one end of the spectrum, Hesperis and Cire. On the other end… what does Hesperis have?
WINK: I have an eighteen.
NORTH: I have an eight. You’re ten points higher than I am, Hesperis.
MARS: You have an eight?
NORTH: I have an eight in Charisma.
MARS: You’re a professor, you teach people!
NORTH: I can say the things that I know well, I do not speak to people outside of that boundary well. I’ve not had much social skills.
MARS: Maybe this is why Valus has been single for…
NORTH: Valus has no focus on love at all.
WINK: Except with Oberon.
[LAUGHTER]
MAR: Actually, not.
JAS: Back on track!
MARS: Let’s not talk about…
WINK: There’s a track?
MAR: ‘There’s a track?’ Yes, there is a track, and we are trying so hard to avoid it.
NORTH: Valus is gonna get a letter from Wayne and Henry in the future, ‘hey, come back? teehee.’
WINK: My mommy always told me not to walk on the tracks.
JAS: I’m going to hit you upside the head.
[WINK GIGGLING]
NORTH: Okay! There’s a horse!
JAS: There is a horse -
WINK: Loose in a hospital!
JAS: There is a horse, you two are talking about the amp, continue talking about the amp.
MARS: Well if you would just let me see the thing, I can Identify it.
WINK: Use your words. Say please and thank you.
NORTH: Please make the transfer, please.
WINK: No, Sylacrum has to use their words.
MARS: I was doing something, y’all called me up, stopping me from doing what I was doing, to Identify the thing and now you don’t want me to Identify it?
WINK: You can Identify it if you say please instead of just trying to take it out of my hands.
MAR: Also, you’re the one who wanted to leave the forge initially. You wanted to leave everything alone and come back up here. So why were you staying behind?
MARS: Are you kidding me? Did you see how much scrap metal’s down there? I can make a second wing out of that shit?
MAR: Do you need a second wing?
MARS: I have five! What, you think this is the only one?
WINK: Where are you going to carry them?
MARS: Well, I…
WINK: Hmm? I believe the word you are looking for is “touché.”
MARS: No, I was going to say I was going to get a We-Haul.
MERCER: It’s We-Move. That’s not Caelum’s fucking voice.
MAR: Hello.
MARS: I keep forgetting it’s We-Move. Out of character, I just forget it’s We-Move.
MAR: It is W-Move.
WINK: It’s W-Move, because when you say “We-Haul” in your Sylacrum accent, it sounds like “wee hole.” No, wee hole like a pee hole!
JAS: I’m gonna cry.
MAR: I might need to take 30 seconds in the bathroom.
[NORTH LAUGHING]
JAS: Anyway, Sylacrum, as you reach out and get the amp from Hesperis, if Hesperis allows?
WINK: No! Sylacrum did not say please!
MARS: Well, that’s fine, figure it out by yourself.
NORTH: Fucking children.
WINK: Please do not do that.
MARS: Do you want to say something, Professor? Do I need to report you?
WINK: That is a severe abuse of your power.
NORTH: I want you to use your words and say please. And I want you to give him the amp, so he can do his work and we can move on.
MARS: That is not in my vocabulary.
NORTH: I know there’s a lot of chicken around here, but the plot is not one of them.
[MARS CLUCKING]
MARS: What, wait, plot? Are you looking at that fourth wall over there? Are you having a stroke?
NORTH: I’m gonna, out of character, go mad at this table. Please use your words. I wanna talk to horse… please use your words.
MARS: You can talk to the horse, we can just say this is going on in the background.
NORTH: I just wanna figure out why the horse is here.
WINK: The horse is here because we’re on a fucking farm, Valus.
MARS: It’s a farm, you’re gonna find horses.
WINK: It’s a horse farm, you’re gonna find horses outside.
NORTH: Valus gives up. Valus has fully given up.
[WHILE NORTH IS SPEAKING, MARS TRIES TO RETORT BUT COUGHS THROUGH IT]
WINK: It’s fine. I will figure it out by myself.
MARS: Fine, if you want to be like that…
WINK: I do.
MARS: Fine, then I guess we’re in agreement.
WINK: Fine. I guess we are.
JAS: So, Hesperis, you are looking at this amp, right? And then Sylacrum, you feel a strange sensation. Of your back opening up, and the book flying itself out and into Hesperis’ hands.
NORTH: The book can fly?
MARS: The book can fly?!
WINK: You never asked it, did you?
MARS: Well, no, it’s a book, why would I ask…
WINK: What do I see?
JAS: It flips open to the diagram of the amp.
WINK: Oh, thank you! Sweet book!
MARS: This is some bullshit. None of them were musicians, who the fuck knows how to play… the fucking Grung. He didn’t even put his name in, that explains a lot now.
MERCER: Can I cast Shut The Fuck Up?
JAS: If you explain what it is.
MERCER: Shut The Fuck Up is a quote unquote “homebrewed version” of Mage Hand that is just a Mage Hand, over someone’s mouth, and I use it frequently in our home campaign with Mars’ character.
MARS: It is a Mars-specific spell, essentially.
MERCER: Can I cast Shut the Fuck Up on Sylacrum?
JAS: Yes, you may.
NORTH: What, you just put a hand over?
MERCER: It’s just an invisible hand over Sylacrum’s mouth.
MAR: It is a Mage Hand. Covering someone’s mouth.
MARS: Can it come from the book?
JAS: No, it just comes from…
MERCER: It is Caelum lifting his hand and making the gesture to shut someone up but Caelum is not next to Sylacrum.
JAS: Hesperis, I need you to roll an Intelligence check.
WINK: That’s a… just straight Intelligence?
JAS: Yeah.
WINK: That’s a fifteen.
JAS: Fifteen? All right, so a lot of technical stuff, you’re like [NOISE OF CONFUSION AND UNCERTAINTY]. However, looking at this book, you can kind of see how it works. Basically, you could take an instrument, a voice, anything like that, it is powered by the Thaumaturgy spell, and it takes something and makes it louder through the cantrip Thaumaturgy. But looking at it, oh, easy money, I can get this channeled through my bass. Basically, you would just need to put… attune the bass as your input to it. So if you attune to it, you can use your bass as the input, or your voice as the input. Or whatever you want. So.
MAR: Mechanics question, if Hesperis is attuned to it, would she be able to use either her voice or her bass or both interchangeably?
JAS: Interchangeably, but not at the same time.
MAR: Okay.
NORTH: That was one of my questions, the other question is, does this make it almost an arcane focus?
JAS: For Hesperis… ehh. Because Hesperis, music is going to be the arcane focus, because bards, it’s a little spicy and different. So, kind of, yes. No? Yes? It could be, I think, for somebody else, but for a bard, it’s just…
NORTH: So if I thought of it as an arcane focus, you wouldn’t shut that down?
JAS: I would not shut that down.
NORTH: Okay.
JAS: It has some kind of arcane core in it that is powering this Thaumaturgy. It’s just an enchantment, though.
WINK: So I don’t need Thaumaturgy.
JAS: No.
WINK: Okay.
JAS: But it automatically will amp up your bass.
WINK: Tasty.
NORTH: So it’s just a bluetooth speaker.
JAS: Yeah. You’re looking at it and you’re like, “That looks like a Fantasy Beats Pill”
NORTH: Okay, okay. That makes sense. Makes sense.
JAS. But like clockwork and you can see, it’s like a Beats Pill, but you remember how how like…
NORTH: Steampunk Beats Pill.
JAS: You remember how Wii remotes back in the day, they would have the clear casing ones?
NORTH: Yeah.
JAS: It’s like that, but for a Beats Pill, and clockwork.
WINK: Okay, so I believe the way that I did the thing before with Sylacrum’s speaker was with Hesperis’ bass already had a Bluetooth pickup, right? Okay, just checking that out. But I don’t even need that for this.
JAS: Correct.
WINK: Sweet!
JAS: So Hesperis, as you’re reading over that, kind of figuring that out.
WINK: How big is it?
JAS: It is…
WINK: Is it like, hot dog size, or like?
JAS: Longer than a hot dog.
WINK: Oktoberfest bratwurst size?
NORTH: Like the whole hot dog or just the meat aspect of it?
WINK: Like a hot dog.
JAS: I would say Oktoberfest bratwurst.
WINK: Okay.
JAS: Is our department. [NORTH:(presumably holding a large Monster can) So, like this?] It’s the size of a large Monster can.
MAR: All right, what happens now?
JAS: So, Hesperis, you’re looking over that and all of the sudden, you hear, (as a stranger) Well, that conversation was awfully painful.
MERCER: I’m going to drop Shut the Fuck Up.
JAS: And you all turn to see a tall man, his face is kind of obscured, but you can see he’s wearing a hood, you can see that it is pointed out, so he has pointed ears, large pointed ears, and his, you can see his hands as his arms are crossed in front of him. And his hands are a pale blue color. And, yeah. That’s what you see.
MAR: How pale?
NORTH: Like an ice blue.
JAS: Like, almost like a robin’s egg, but a little less vibrant.
NORTH: I now have to google what robin’s egg means.
MAR: Okay.
WINK: You know, like, Tiffany blue? Like that but more greyed out.
NORTH: Who’s Tiffany?
MAR: This is his skin tone?
JAS: Yes.
MAR: How does it compare to Cire’s skin tone?
JAS: Cire’s skin tone is a bit more purple-y.
MAR: Do you understand where I’m going with this?
JAS: Yes.
MAR: Is he an elf?
WINK: I know what he is.
JAS: Do you?
WINK: He’s a tiefling!
JAS: Maybe, you don’t know.
MAR: Okay.
JAS: But he is leaned on the wall and looks casually like he has been there for a minute.
MAR: Okay, looking at him, does Cire think he is another moon elf of Halluc?
JAS: No.
MAR: Okay.
NORTH: So, a question about passive perception. So you said he’s been standing there for a while. Would that be something that passive perception would notice.
JAS: Yes.
MAR: So passive checks and passive scores are frequently used by a DM when they would want to have us make a perception check, but they don’t want to tell us that we’re making a perception check, because telling us that we’re making a perception check would reveal that something is there. So a lot of DMs will have all of our passive perceptions written down. I’m not that organized when I DM, so I don’t have them written down, I just ask for them, but basically it’s a way to be able to tell what most characters would pick up or wouldn’t pick up.
NORTH: Okay, so at the sight of this stranger, Valus’ wings are spread out a little bit, not much, but as in ready for something. It’s like cowboys with their hand.
JAS: Yeah.
NORTH: But he’s gonna look at him and say, well you don’t look much like a ranch hand. Who exactly are you?
JAS: And he picks up his head and flips off his hood, and you can tell that he’s not a ranch hand, and looking at his clothes, actually, I need Sylacrum to roll a history check.
MARS: That’s a 22.
JAS: 22. Sylacrum, you know who this is. Immediately. In front of you, you all see a genasi man, but with pointed ears, so it looks like he may be part elven. And once he’s pulled his hood down, he has all of this ornate jewelry, he’s got chains hanging from his ears, all these earrings, the entire length of his ears, and you can tell, the way that he holds himself is very regal, you see he’s got this dark, slicked-back hair, and he has a bit of a goatee. Why are you laughing at a goatee? It’s a goatee.
MARS: Because you just described him like he’s the fucking devil or some shit.
JAS: And Sylacrum, you know who this is. This is the CEO of Hydrox, Incorporated.
MARS: Oh, shit.
JAS: Valren Hydrox. And he says,
JAS: (as Valren) I think you have found something that is of great interest to me. And I sure would like it. So.
JAS: He leans forward off the wall, and brings his hands together. And says,
JAS: (as Valren) Let’s make a deal, shall we?
[THEME MUSIC]
