Phantom Nirvana: A Dungeons & Dragons Podcast

S2 Ep13 - Flight Through the Desert

• Phantom Nirvana • Season 2 • Episode 13

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In our last episode the adventurers were able to escape the underground pyramid and must now find a way to return to the surface. This is season 2 Episode 13: Flight through the desert.

Music in this episode is by Sun Umbra and Sagey. 

Warning: Contains dark themes that may not be suitable for all audiences. Instagram @phantomnirvana
Email phantomnirvana@gmail.com

SPEAKER_10:

Close your eyes and open your mind. This is Phantom Nirvana, a Dungeons and Dragons podcast. Be advised, this story contains dark themes that may not be suitable for some audiences. And now we present Phantom Nirvana. In our last episode, the adventurers were able to escape the underground pyramid and must now find a way to return to the surface. This is season two, episode 13. Flight Through the Desert.

SPEAKER_09:

I think we did our good deed for the day. Freed a dragon.

SPEAKER_12:

Unleashed a dragon on our friends on the surface, you mean?

SPEAKER_09:

Oh.

SPEAKER_08:

We need to find a way up there. Are there still ropes?

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, you can see that there's still a rope. Yeah, but it's definitely laying a little more slack than it was.

SPEAKER_12:

Whoa, that's dark laying a little slack, like our friends upstairs are gone.

SPEAKER_05:

Like it's like the the taut connection between the rock that you tied it to and the rock below that you tied it to is uh like the hole has opened more, so the rope, yeah, sorry.

SPEAKER_12:

As a result of the geological situation, not as a result of the dragon and or titan.

SPEAKER_05:

No, you're you're you you can only assume that your friends are up there, but pr presumably dealing with a Titan and now a dragon. So yeah, but the rope is still there.

SPEAKER_08:

I know Rihana's gonna try to climb that rope back up.

unknown:

Great.

SPEAKER_08:

She wants to get to her people as soon as possible.

SPEAKER_05:

Okay, make a make an athletics check as you climb the rope.

SPEAKER_08:

Uh 18.

SPEAKER_05:

Okay, 18 is good. Yeah, you make it to the top. Anyone else following after her?

SPEAKER_12:

I I would love to ask Glenn for some help since I am not the strongest.

SPEAKER_05:

And try to get some extra ropes down here. Okay, I think Glenn would be happy to help you. How how do you imagine her doing that?

SPEAKER_12:

You know, a piggyback ride.

SPEAKER_05:

Let's have Glenn make an athletics check. 12. That's probably not enough. So uh I'd like for you to make an acrobatics check real quick for me and see if you can sort of grab the rope quickly as Glenn plummets.

SPEAKER_12:

No one will believe this, but a dirty 20.

SPEAKER_05:

Wow, okay.

SPEAKER_12:

So you can't pull it out at the last minute.

SPEAKER_05:

And Glenn, and Glenn is uh Glenn is just slipping from the rope and you reach down and you're able to catch her hand like that, and she's you're holding her and she sort of dangles above that that uh underground uh lake. Her other hand reaches up and tries to grab your wrist to pull herself back up. Who's coming next? Anyone else on the rope with with them?

SPEAKER_08:

If I'm already up top, I'm gonna toss down some spare ropes.

SPEAKER_05:

Okay, well, as you get up to the top, uh uh you see uh that there is uh a wall of sand, this sandstorm with crashing lightning within it that is in the distance, and uh moving within this cloud, this this towering uh cloud of sand is the Titan. And and is this the first time that you've seen it?

SPEAKER_08:

Uh yes.

SPEAKER_05:

So it just takes your breath away. I mean, this thing is probably several miles in the distance, but it's moving at pace in your direction. You turn over your shoulder and you look and you can see that the caravan is packed up and moving away from the sanguine pool. They are fleeing from the Titan. They're probably several hundred feet away from the pool at this point.

SPEAKER_08:

If I looked back down at the cigarette, is it completely in shambles or are there any tabaxi around?

SPEAKER_05:

No, I don't think you see any tabaxi down there, but the whole opening of it is like bent open like a tin can at the top of it. And you can see that this the sand opening of the sanguine pool is sort of opening, opening, opening, so that the cavern is getting more and more light inside of it.

SPEAKER_08:

I think I'm gonna yell down to the group, everybody below on the ropes, that there's a titan in the distance heading this way. Their caravan looks like they're heading out of trouble. Oh, we're screwed.

SPEAKER_14:

I'll climb up too, I guess. Make your athletics check.

SPEAKER_05:

Sixteen plus four. Okay, so you get up to the point where Mal is clutching Glenn's hand.

SPEAKER_14:

Uh so am I able to like grab her foot to put back on the rope?

SPEAKER_05:

Somehow you'd probably have to hang from your feet to try to reach that far down. Which is doable if you want to make an acrobatics check. Yeah, sure. Okay, go ahead. Alright, 16 plus 3. Okay, you're able to get Glenn's feet, pull them up. Dice tonight. Get them over the rope. Glenn is back up. Make another athletics check for me, Mal, since you are now holding yourself to climb the rest of the way up the rope.

SPEAKER_08:

Wait. Fantasy PE.

SPEAKER_05:

Fantasy PE, that's good.

SPEAKER_12:

No. Athletics, you say?

SPEAKER_05:

I do.

SPEAKER_12:

That's a cool four.

SPEAKER_05:

Okay. You you fall. You fall down, down, down, 35 feet down, and splash into the dark water beneath the surface, and you suddenly find yourself transported into the dark, uh, dank, dripping stone chamber. It is familiar to you. It's like uh a dungeoned floor. The walls are coated in this thick black goo, and hovering before you in the darkness has a is a large round shape, and you can see in this dim light that its surface glistens with the same black goo. And beneath it, you see rippling, curling, puckering flesh, like a giant black brain hovering there before you, and you are frozen in place in this uh in this image in your mind beneath the water. You are horrified as the a voice emanates from this brain.

SPEAKER_01:

I am the Valerian.

unknown:

You humans meddle in matters beyond your understanding.

SPEAKER_01:

The Watcher will betray you. This place is hallucinatory. You and your band must leave this place and surrender the Watcher to me. The Titan come.

SPEAKER_05:

And with this, you find the vision gone, and you are back in that reddish-black water of the underground lake. And you swim to the surface. You can see that the shore is not too far off. The water is not too deep either. You're able to touch the bottom with your feet. And in fact, the sand that has been falling from the opening above you has created sort of an island, a rising island in the center of the lake that is quite close to you.

SPEAKER_11:

Sputtering, Mal's gonna doggy paddle her way to the island and kind of scrabble up. And now the sand is sort of dropping down on top of you now.

SPEAKER_12:

And now let's say how high up would I get with that? If I could if I could climb as high as I can to not be getting sand in my face, but up towards the pinnacle of whatever this is. Oh, how high is it above the surface of the lake?

SPEAKER_05:

It's absolutely, yeah. It's probably up to 10 feet, 15 feet high now.

SPEAKER_12:

Okay, that's enough distance for me to cast Misty Step up to the edge of the hole above. So I'm gonna misty step up to where Rayhana is.

SPEAKER_05:

Okay, you reach the top, teetering on the edge, and you get your get your balance. Uh let me have an athletics check from Glenn. Yeah, she's good. And one from Marcus to get the rest of the way up.

SPEAKER_14:

Six plus four, ten.

SPEAKER_05:

Okay. I need to know what Sam with Axel and Joshua are doing now.

SPEAKER_02:

Uh I think we're trying to first see if we can wake Axel up while people are starting to climb. While this has been going on.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, and sorry, you're you made it to the top there, Kevin. You're you were close enough it didn't wasn't gonna take. Okay. This is a suspense with my 10. Yeah, I know, my bad. Yeah, you're close enough. You were close enough to the top at this point, it was was not. Okay, so again, Sam, what did you want to do?

SPEAKER_02:

I think while the others are climbing, I'm trying to sort of give the light slap on the cheek to Axel to see if we can wake him up. I don't really have any healing tools in my uh in my toolbox, but uh just seeing if we can get him conscious and moving.

SPEAKER_09:

Me neither. I could maybe do a medicine check to I don't know, try and uh like give him CPR or something.

SPEAKER_05:

Okay.

SPEAKER_09:

Wash some water in his face.

SPEAKER_05:

Okay, I like that. Why don't you make uh why don't you give me a medicine check with advantage? That is a thirteen. Okay, he can have one hit point. Yes.

SPEAKER_02:

You're back, buddy.

SPEAKER_06:

What the fuck? Okay, okay, climb this rope. Okay. Alright. He starts to climb, he's like, what the?

SPEAKER_04:

Okay, climb this rope.

SPEAKER_06:

Man, I've been through a lot in the past like hour.

SPEAKER_04:

Oh, buddy. Okay, give me an athletics check if you're gonna go unaided, Axel. Christ's sake.

SPEAKER_06:

Minus one athletics, man.

SPEAKER_04:

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_05:

That's a five, dude. Oh no. No way. He just gets up a little bit and flops back to the ground.

SPEAKER_02:

I think I think we'll have to take him up, Josh.

SPEAKER_09:

All right. Can we both sort of like uh uh both climb together, maybe? Uh gee, I don't know. We can strap him to our our body.

SPEAKER_02:

Like a backpack?

SPEAKER_09:

Yeah, we can be a backpack while we climb.

SPEAKER_02:

I think you might be a little bit lighter than me, Josh. I have this pretty heavy hit plate mail on me. Okay. Why do I want to use taking him up first?

SPEAKER_09:

Hop on, buddy.

SPEAKER_06:

Um like like Yoda, I get on his back.

SPEAKER_05:

And he's pretty small. I mean, do you know how much he weighs?

SPEAKER_06:

Probably not that much, right? He's like four feet tall, man. I don't know if I've ever said it. He'd be like carrying a Labrador or something.

SPEAKER_09:

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_14:

Josh is into that. He could do a Labrador sized. Or he could turn into a Labrador. He could also do a Labor. I could turn into like a row. Hey now. Right in our brains now.

SPEAKER_04:

Let's use them. Okay. Something light.

SPEAKER_14:

Uh you know, he's almost Labrador sized.

SPEAKER_06:

I could just turn into a cat and sink my claws into your shirt or something. Ow!

SPEAKER_05:

I love it. What was the cat? What did the cat look like in the last was it just like a white cat?

SPEAKER_06:

White, wasn't it? Yeah, that's right. Meow. That's right. I like that.

SPEAKER_05:

Okay, make your athletics check.

SPEAKER_02:

Um uh so you're so adorable. So we didn't miss our chance for Axel to ride, Marcus.

SPEAKER_05:

Oh, that's been the other way around. What'd you get, Joshua? Uh I got an eight. An eight is eight, an eight is not enough. An eight is still struggling. Let's have uh let's have Sam Campbell decide what he wants to do here.

SPEAKER_02:

I'll try to get them off the ground as best possible, but for the moment I'm trying to make sure the end of the rope is secure. Okay. I I can't really uh help them climb on the in the middle of the rope, I don't think.

SPEAKER_09:

Can I use like acrobatics to try and like balance on Sam's shoulders and and jump up and and are you gonna try to run up the rope now that it's like a slack rope? Yeah, I'm gonna try to run up Sam and then like carry on to the rope. Okay.

SPEAKER_05:

Go ahead and make an acrobatics check. I'll let you get through the first three-quarters of this climb here if you if you have a good role.

SPEAKER_09:

That's a natural 20. Get out of here.

SPEAKER_05:

I'm imagining him like like uh what's that movie where they do the wire work and they like we're like running on like branches and shit? It's uh couching tiger in a dragon.

SPEAKER_09:

Exactly. Like right up the rope. Yeah, Josh first tries to just like climb it like a normal person, and then is like, no, I've gotta be run like the wind.

SPEAKER_05:

Uh all right, you're up, you're up, and finally, Sam Campbell. Sam Campbell Soup. What do you want to do here? Just climb. You've been. I'm I'm just I'm just climbing.

SPEAKER_04:

Okay, give me an athletics check for Christ's sake.

SPEAKER_02:

Starting off with a 10.

SPEAKER_05:

Yikes. You come you uh you turn around as you're as you're trying to get some purchase on that rope, and you see that the fire elemental comes whipping out of the top of the zigguron and down onto the sand. No, maybe 200 feet away from you. Okay, a question for you.

SPEAKER_02:

Go. How high has the pile of sand grown, and how much water of what depth do I need to cross to get to it?

SPEAKER_05:

I think you could get there, and I like the I like the thought. And I think it's probably maybe 25, 30 feet high. It's pretty close to the top now, and the whole thing is really coming down at this point. I mean, it's basically caving in. Everybody on the surface is having to back away from this ever-widening hole.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay, presuming the rope, it this it would help me reach it. I'm just gonna looser cut the end of this rope and try to run up the hill to get as much of the way up as I can.

SPEAKER_04:

Are you gonna do like pitfall Indiana Jones uh swing off the top of the pyramid of sand?

SPEAKER_02:

Well, if I if I can get 20 feet up.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, I get 20.

SPEAKER_02:

That's gonna that's gonna give me a head start. Okay, good.

SPEAKER_05:

Make your athletics check as you get to the top of the sand.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay.

SPEAKER_05:

Josh is cheering Sam on. A total of 13 that time. I like it. Give it to him, kids. Okay. Give it to him, get him up there. Okay, you guys get up to the top, and uh once again you can see that the caravan is speeding off in a direction away from, as you look up, the massive Titan that is probably a mile away from you with these big stomping and you're backing away from the sandy pit that's opening up. And the sand you can see starts to fill in the ziggurat, covering it over. You're looking down the the pool is basically entirely full now of sand covered over. The openings in the cavern that let off in other directions are covered. I mean, the whole thing is basically turning into a crater as you back away from it. The sand douses out this fire elemental as you back away and you are left standing there staring at this wall of uh sand. There's wind whipping past you now as it gets closer, big lightning bolts up in it, way up high, and then the head, and now and again the foot sort of and the arm sort of extending out of this cloud of sand as the Titan comes toward you. And I'd like everybody to make a perception check as you stare off at this horrific view. Okay, with the 19, breathing heavy, you can see that there is a triangular cavity in the forehead of the titan. Oh god.

SPEAKER_09:

Can we have a there's a a I think there might be a triangular purple gem sized opening in the titan's head? 60 feet up in the air. I mean, this titan is no joke, sixty feet. I don't know. Anyone have any ideas how we could get that gem in in that titan's head? I don't know. Maybe that's an assumption that that the gem should even go in the Titan's head in the first place.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, is this a good thing or a bad thing for the gem to go in the Titan?

SPEAKER_08:

Um, I think Rihana wants to make an insight check to see if she can determine if the Titan seems to be following the caravan or coming towards the sanguine pool and the ziggurat.

SPEAKER_05:

Good question. It's going across your location towards where the caravan is headed. They are headed in a north direction, and um so you can see they're moving at as fast as they can possibly go. You would know that. And they're they're really trucking, they're about a half a mile away from you now, and the titan is headed towards them.

SPEAKER_13:

Rihanna, what do you know about the Titan? Is it going for the candle? What does it want?

SPEAKER_08:

I don't know what it wants. I've never seen the Titan. I didn't even know if it was real. I only knew what I've heard. But I do know that we're not far from Kalamesh. And if the stories are told correctly, the walls will keep us safe. That's where the caravan is headed. We should head to Kalamesh. We have the key. We can let them in. We can meet them there. We can probably beat them there. We're probably faster since we don't have an entire caravan.

SPEAKER_12:

How about Axel turns into something that can run across sand and we get Rayana to Calamesh ahead of the caravan? The rest of us can get there whenever we do. We can all travel together. But that key needs to get there so that people can get away from the Titan.

SPEAKER_14:

Camels are surprisingly fast if we want to go back down the camels. Here we go with the Kevin Camel Facts. Yes.

SPEAKER_05:

Oh, well, uh, actually, uh camels are uh they are raced for gambling purposes in many parts of the world.

SPEAKER_04:

Okay. Alright, I'll drop this true. You know what?

SPEAKER_06:

I'll do it. Are we back to Caxel? Yeah, we're back to Caxel. Yes.

SPEAKER_12:

Well, time out, DM. How many how many characters you know, bodies can actually potentially uh carry?

SPEAKER_05:

Okay, let's move around. How many people can ride on a camel? Well, just for fun.

SPEAKER_06:

I could be a long camel, you know. Really long many people. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_14:

I mean, if the Looney Tunes were correct, if it's one hump, it's one person. If it's two humps, then it's two people, and they go up and down. No, okay now. Alternating.

SPEAKER_05:

How many people can ride on a camel? I'm seeing two. I'm seeing max two on a in a on a it's we're talking about dromedaries now.

SPEAKER_12:

Great. So, team, let's be strategic about who goes with Rayhana to help her. She and I can communicate across distance, so we don't need to stay together.

SPEAKER_02:

I think I think Marcus has the most riding experience out of us.

SPEAKER_05:

That's true.

SPEAKER_12:

And he's awfully charming.

SPEAKER_05:

So uh Marcus is hopping it up, hopping up on Caxel. Who else is getting up there?

SPEAKER_08:

Uh Rihanna.

SPEAKER_05:

And off you go, prunk da prunk brunk towards the caravan. And uh the rest of you, what are you doing? Just booking it. Okay, you're running.

SPEAKER_12:

Oh, sports. In full plate metal in the desert.

SPEAKER_05:

In the desert, that's right.

SPEAKER_12:

Patted armor me.

SPEAKER_05:

So uh you're running for a good long time. I think that um you can see that the Titan is making some headway towards you, but uh, you're moving pretty good. And um, it isn't long before there is a figure you can see coming from behind you mounted on a gorok. You turn and you kind of look as you're running. The group of you who are uh who are running, you can see that it is Rodrigo with hair flowing behind him. He leads uh leads a pack of goroks. Ah and he he rides up next to you and he says, get on!

SPEAKER_03:

Get aboard one of these gor-get on one of these gorks and ride with me. We go to save the Kenavan.

SPEAKER_12:

So Glenn and Mal both jump up on the Goroks. Yep.

SPEAKER_02:

Nah, I'm fine. I'm kidding, I'm kidding. I get on, I get on a Gorox.

SPEAKER_05:

I'm good, I'm alright. Thank you, though. Josh jumps on another one. Yep, great, and you all go running off towards the caravan. So when you reach the caravan, you can see that people are doing that thing where they're tucking things away, they're still sort of packing up as it's moving. Some of the carts uh jostling around. You can see people are definitely looking back and screaming at this titan. I mean, it's your understanding, folks, that if the titan is here, then what has happened?

SPEAKER_08:

The candle has fallen.

SPEAKER_05:

The candle has gone out, right? So, I mean, this is this is definitely freaking a lot of the folks out. They've never seen this before, and they are booking it. And they're moving across the desert. You get up to Rayhana and you check in with her, and she's there with Ranolph, and he is asking you, have you got the key?

SPEAKER_08:

We have the key, Ranolf. We just need to get to the gate.

SPEAKER_09:

I think Josh will try to ride to the front and like see if he can't determine like a path through the dunes.

SPEAKER_05:

So as you're as you get up to the front there, you can see that the there's a couple of scouts that are riding ahead, and one of them uh you know greets you and uh says, Ah, we didn't know if you'd make it when we saw the when we saw the titan arrive, we had to leave.

SPEAKER_03:

Shouting at you from his Gorok as it thunders along. Yeah, we got the key. We gotta get to the gate of Kalamesh quick. Well, we ride to Kalamesh. We were attacked by the Yontai.

SPEAKER_05:

They snuffed out the undying light. As you're riding ahead, you start to hear uh this buzzing sound high in the sky. Joshua, it's um it's familiar to you. Can you remember what that buzzing sound might be?

SPEAKER_09:

Oh, it's the dang mosquito bastards.

SPEAKER_05:

That's right. Uh that's right. They come diving out of the sky. You know, it couldn't possibly be a worse time. They come diving out of the sky. There's probably a dozen of them whipping themselves around the caravan just like before. Let me see. Sam, are you providing anything to this process? How are you assisting on your Gorok?

SPEAKER_02:

I think Sam has been trying to bring up the rear, make sure that nobody is falling off, or there's no particular cart that's floundering that needs assistance, or if we need can if we need to grab people and shift them to another cart.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, I think people are thankful for the help. There's definitely some some folks that are pretty disorganized. Certainly moving, trying to move as quickly as possible away from this titan. They there are things that are falling off the back of carts, so.

SPEAKER_12:

Now that there's a threat, Mal is like delighted to have something to do and will Eldritch blast some fuckers.

SPEAKER_05:

Okay, great. Make an attack roll.

SPEAKER_12:

Hooray.

SPEAKER_05:

You see one come swooping down towards the the Gorok that you're mounted on there.

SPEAKER_12:

I don't know what's happening today, y'all. That's a 10.

SPEAKER_05:

Oh man. Your uh purplish energy fires off into the sky. And you can see that the cloud of uh, as you look up into the sky, you can see that the cloud of sand has sort of blotted out two of the suns, and they're kind of uh it's gotten dark all around you. And you can see lightning getting closer behind you, and you hear that doom! And every time there's a step, the wagons up and down like that. Let's have uh Axel and Marcus tell us what they're doing.

SPEAKER_14:

Ranulf, is he s near near me?

SPEAKER_05:

If you're near Rihana, then yes.

SPEAKER_14:

I'm gonna cast detect thoughts on Ranolf.

SPEAKER_05:

Okay. Okay, so his his surface thoughts are that the sturge mean that the Cephalid is close, and he's worried that they don't know what they're gonna do if the Cephalid shows up and they're dealing with this titan. Do you want to go deeper?

SPEAKER_14:

Yeah, I'm gonna go deeper.

SPEAKER_05:

Okay, my wisdom. I rolled a six.

SPEAKER_14:

Uh Tax A Wisdom 15.

SPEAKER_05:

Okay, so his um, as you probe deeper into his mind, you are surprised to hear that he is thinking to himself that Rihana is the key. And he's confused about what key she she could have in her possession because she is the key.

SPEAKER_14:

Okay. So we're racing, we're racing toward Kalamesh, and it's close?

SPEAKER_05:

It's yeah, it's not not terribly far, yeah.

SPEAKER_14:

Because she was saying that we should just run for it so that we could make it there before the Titan reaches us in the caravan.

SPEAKER_05:

I mean, I think it'll be close, but you don't have a sense for the distance. And the speed of the caravan, I mean, they're moving as fast as they can go, but they're definitely being gained on by the Titan. Uh okay, so um, sure enough, the cephalid hoves into view uh out of a plume of sand as if it emerged from the sand uh on one side of the caravan. The sturge are swooping around. I would like you all um to make a dexterity saving throw, please. Dexterity is not a camel's strong suit.

SPEAKER_12:

I imagine that's true.

SPEAKER_14:

Uh I got a 22.

SPEAKER_12:

17.

SPEAKER_14:

14 for Sam? 20 for Josh.

SPEAKER_06:

It's a one, but not a rolled one. It's a two minus one. No, I'm a camel. It's a two minus one.

SPEAKER_05:

So the sturge swoops down and deals four damage to you, and it pierces the side of the camel caxle, and um, it's sort of lodged there, and as you're riding along, you can see that the as you sort of crane your camel head back, you can see that the floppy leathery body of this uh this desiccated looking stir just flopping along with its proboscis stuck into your meat there. Not my meat! Not my meat! Did anybody else roll less than a 12? I got a 16. Okay, thank you. Okay. And so the cephalid. So it hoves into view. As a reminder, this thing is like a giant squid octopus-looking thing with these huge, um, grayish-looking tentacles that are sort of flapping in the breeze. Big body is kind of undulating itself through the air after you, opening and closing, foosh, foosh, foosh, like a big sail. And it is following, and you can see that immediately it crashes down onto one of the carts and lifts it up into the air. And there's people, and it's got kind of like a body that you can see through, like a jellyfish, and you can see them struggling inside this thing as it lifts them up into the air and just drops it down for maybe 20 or 30 feet in the air.

SPEAKER_00:

Boom!

SPEAKER_05:

And it rockets up into the sky and up and flies over the other side of the caravan, and you can see the cart just crashes in a big plume of this grayish sand, and and those I mean, those people are just completely destroyed. And uh the cart the carts that are nearby kind of veer away and then continue on their path. Uh through

SPEAKER_12:

I would like to L3 blast that thing.

SPEAKER_13:

Okay, great.

SPEAKER_12:

Oh, that's right. You you can do that. Uh but but hey, uh just the thought. Uh has 22 to hit.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah. Great. Love it. Make it.

SPEAKER_12:

So that's beam that's beam number one. Let's check beam number two. Oh, that's right. Oh, natural twenty. So the damage for the natural twenty will be fourteen. And the damage for the first nine. Force damage, if that matters.

SPEAKER_05:

So um it rips through this body. You can see that it uh you can it tears an opening in the sort of hood of this thing, that membrane that it has, and it spins in the air. The force sort of causes it to spiral in the sky, and then it catches itself and on the wind, and it it comes back to sort of bobbing around there in the sky. And the sturge is swirling around it and down and dive bombing at the uh at the caravan this whole time. Who else wants to do something?

SPEAKER_02:

I'm just gonna keep an eye open for anything that comes within reach, but can't be too proactive about it.

SPEAKER_05:

Okay, I think that uh probably a sturge is diving down at the uh cart adjacent to where you are riding on your Gorok there. You can see that there's a family kind of underneath a mesh, a mesh hood, you know, what do they like a covered wagon type of thing? And you see this thing coming down. Is there anything you're gonna do to try to stop it? If I can try to ride up and swing you know this fail, it would be quite a disruptive. It would be quite a it would be a challenging thing to do. I mean, this thing is coming almost straight down at the cart, but I like that. Okay, let's make your attack roll with uh with disadvantage.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay. Disadvantage that brings it to a natural uh combined 18. Wow, okay.

SPEAKER_05:

Hell yeah. So you get close to the cart, reach over, kind of leaning in the saddle, and swing that thing out and clip it right out of the air. Piff! Right as it's about to crash land into the covered wagon. Yeah, just smashes it and it and and I think it just rips off a whole side of the body of this sturge and it goes flopping down, you know, ineffectually onto the sand. Um, the rest of the carcass. And the people inside, they never even saw it coming, they never even knew. But that blood, it sort of hangs in the air for just a moment and then right inside that that head of the flail, you'll get your additional you'll get your additional damage on the next attack.

SPEAKER_08:

And Ray Hana tried uh scorching ray with her circlet of blasting against a cephlet.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, very, very good. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_08:

So it's three rays. First one is twenty-one. Second one is twenty two. And the third one is seventeen. Wow, all hits. She is the queen.

SPEAKER_14:

Yes. Fortune raid.

SPEAKER_08:

It takes two d6 fire damage. So she's not for each one, right? Yeah. First one's ten, second one is five, and the third one's five.

SPEAKER_05:

Twenty more damage. Fire this time. Okay. It's definitely uh got some fire upon it. Maybe a piece of it is whipping in the in the air, sort of caught, caught flames. We didn't ever resolve you guys getting on fire, but let's just assume you patted yourselves out. Um there was a breeze. There was a breeze. Yeah, you came out of ziggurat. There was a big sort of backdraft, and you guys.

SPEAKER_12:

We all dunked in the pond. That's what it is. That's it, that's it.

SPEAKER_05:

There it is, thank you.

SPEAKER_12:

Yes, thank you, Dungeon Master, for that.

SPEAKER_05:

So, uh yeah, so the fire rips through this thing, and it continues to fly, unfortunately. And as you're looking up at it, Rihana, suddenly the sky flashes to black. And that already dark sky just goes as if in an instant it becomes night. And the sound that you are hearing becomes muted. All of the the stomping and the flashes of lightning and the the screaming of the caravan and all of the rumbling of the tires, the sturge buzzing, it all becomes very muted. The sound is like like there was a bomb that went off, and you've got that shell shock, you know? And as you look around, Rehana, you can see that the caravan and everything is now moving in slow motion. And when you look back up, the cephalid has transformed in appearance to a massive undulating brain with these long purple tentacles dripping from beneath it. And there's like this puckering surface and this black goo, and it speaks to you. You have never seen this before. This is not something that you have ever imagined, and it hovers there in this dark sky, and it says, Forsake them.

SPEAKER_07:

It is too late. The curse of the undying light cannot be undone. Your watcher has a secret that shall be his undoing. Stop your caravan and embrace the sorrowing.