The Halls of Arden Vul Ep 01 - Old School Essentials Megadungeon | Very Dangerous.. You Go First

[Music] hey everybody welcome back it's episode one of the new campaign for 3d6 down the line we are playing the halls of arden wool a mega dungeon in the grand fashion we're going to be using of course as always the old school essential system by gavin norman and i am john i am your referee and going around the horn here we have i'm mike i'm playing a dwarf that is named goran black hood he's a clan-less dwarf so i thought blackwood would be kind of a cool like name for anyone who's clanless and gives them a reason to go out with these muppets and die in a horrible cavern who needs a reason to die in a horrible cavern right self-evident uh i'm david i'm playing varger mud club the thief uh full of scumbaggery that's my scumbag ish uh costuming right now and uh can't wait to die terribly [Laughter] this is just how you look this is what you look like it's a hundred and four degrees in california and i'm pretty sure these help cool me off you know there's a lot of things they're very cool they're enthused in some mystic manners um okay oh uh i'm matt and uh i will be playing avaricious epidemios and uh i shall be keeping all of these uh uh bastards alive as best i can afterwards we'll go out verdict and i'm ted and i will be playing osric the omnipotent a mage and total novice of the mystic arts nice all right so yeah and for our uh our audio listeners out there david was referring to the fact that he's wearing sunglasses not at night he just begins to describe it i've got i've got a deep cut uh button down and i also have a golden lock a pendant around my neck it's all good thieves should that's not his it's not his character's description either that's him that's what he's wearing that's what he's chosen for this first look episode an extra miami vice doomed to die in the end of the episode this is why you should uh never move out move out of your parents house because sometimes sometimes you do need to be dressed that kicked me out because i was dealing with right yeah well that'll happen yeah all right yeah so okay so this is the first session of our new campaign of playing the halls of alden rule by richard barton and uh if you've tuned into our la our session zero that's where we did all our character creation to kind of explain the campaign in general um in the description of every episode that we have i will be linking to a folder that contains my house rules and other documents so the way that i've kind of tweaked the system um for our own use uh it's a little bit further than what we use for dolman would but it's basically the same thing but for anyone who's interested in like some of the rulings that i may make or some of the classes that we're using for instance ted is being is using a an optional class from the carcass crawler official osc zine called the mage so just so no one's confused he's not playing a magic user it's actually a separate class called the mage um uh you'll find all of that information and uh what what i'm allowing and what i've changed in the game in the in that and that link in the description uh so please if you like the if you like what you're seeing and you like the past content and you're excited about this please like and subscribe of course as normal and uh big news for the channel we uh we we officially now have merchandise up on redbubble so you can have your choice of all sorts of different gear as you can see mike is modeling in the best fashion possible uh one of our hats that you can possibly get we can do both the 3d6 dtl logo and the written out down the line as well with all sorts of interesting and fun stuff so head on over there and help support the channel it'll be awesome and uh all right so let's get into it make sure the coffee tastes better i'm just gonna say it makes my coffee taste better it kept the sun off my bald pate that was really good all right so but only in three d6s right you can't get anything else is that no dice yeah no dice okay oh well that's next level the cool thing about our official dice is that they are just regular d6s so it's true any d6 as you can you get you're supporting [Laughter] we get a cut yeah exactly we all roll once all the time okay at the end of last session at the very last thing we did is we rolled uh random semi randomly for the time of year oh yeah what we came up with is that it is the month of lucreos which in this world is the fourth month of the year april and it's the 27th which is known as uh and uh the day of the week is taz day tsda d-a-y and so i thought as a quick little send-off to dolmen wood is that we would head over once one last time over to the um exploring the wild section of the dolmen wood campaign book and use its chart for spring weather and determine what the weather is like oh so head over there and uh i need someone to roll me too decent please he's got the sunglasses on so oh i see i was gonna say summer weather give us the good night give us a nice day yeah give us a nice statement don't blow the first roll like i did last gun there you go what's the total seven seven is the total yeah that's a good roll it's a good roll um it is a warm sunny spring day you might live there you go okay that was great because i can afford winter gear we can't afford spring game all righty just give me one second here okay so it's a nice sunny uh warm spring day in lucrios now you guys might have thought that you're starting in town in gosterwick right now no that's not good uh no no you guys are let's see how do i want to do this we're in a swamp aren't we starting in the belly of the goblin we're starting dead just get it over with next character all right let me switch up here to this uh give me one moment bring like a whole swamp on this guy but well marsh anyway oh burdock's valley oh all right okay you guys are uh you all of you are together and you have traveled the nine miles from gostwick along the imperial road and you are facing probably the most awe-inspiring sight that you have ever witnessed in your lives uh this thus far is the massive colossi that uh front this towering cliff face that rises about 1500 feet up the sound of the falls that are coming down on the western side on the right side of one of the of one of the two figures um is that the thunderous noise of it is so intense that you can barely talk to each other without shouting um the road that you're on that has led that leads basically south out of gosterwick and then curves back around to the north around topi lake that you've taken is an old imperial road that was built over 1200 years ago and it long lies it parallels basically the eastern side of the swift river which is the river that forms out of the basin of these falls and um it's the road itself is made of large rectangular cobblestones and you can see that at one point uh far in the past that this used to actually have like curbs and drainage along the side but that's long been overrun it's completely cracked now and there's grasses and small shrubs that grow through it um but it's a it's still like a heavily traveled road although less so in this direction now as you are approaching the falls about 500 feet away from these massive things the footing here becomes treacherous and slick and there's the humidity is intense and the spray from the from the falls is basically misting the air around you um and it's all quite overwhelming and through the mist though you can see these uh these huge what you've been told are known as the colossal defenders the one closest to you is a warrior that is kneeling with their left hand extended outwards upon their knee this is supposed to be the the mighty arkantian heroine arden and then her traveling companion and partner the sorcerer's vul and his hooded cape lies further to the east and in between you can see that there is a set of steps that switch backs between the two statues all the way up to the top of the plateau where you have heard that the ruined city of arden vool named after these two heroes uh rests on top of this plateau um although you can't see any sign of it from where you are so that's how you're approaching um you can see that on the western side of the falls that there's a section of uh what appears to be uh small of broken stairs they're actually on the western side of the falls itself but but sections of it have actually like huge gaps basically span whereas parts of it have fallen apart but about halfway up you notice that there is a grand like marble lined entrance that there's like that goes deep within into the cliffs itself but it's the only sign that you can see from this distance of some sort of um of uh you know human entrance to this place and this is separate from the switchbacks this is separate from the switchback yeah there is a there's a connected switchback yeah that goes all the way up to the top between the two sides right so this is this is off to the left of arden you said yes and i can show you this actually which might give you a better view that's metal dude pretty awesome okay so yeah the switchback i see on the right so you guys are like right here oh wow we are little did you move that or did i move that uh on the map the picture on albert i was moving i think that's me sorry okay is there another cave entrance at the connected switchback right by arden's like uh pauldron like his shoulder yeah i see that or her shoulder so this is it's difficult it's actually not really accurate because the mist is so strong that you can't really make out these things but just this is sort of to give you a general idea um sorry yeah so uh so basically what you guys are traveling along this road on your feet and um and well actually hold on let me just look real quick now on the road off to the side not very far from where you are right now probably about 50 yards you see that there is what appears to be an abandoned watch tower of our kantian make that it seems to be an extremely poor repair um it looks like all the upper levels of it have actually collapsed into the tower itself and the surrounding area around it in the base um and uh there's like a broken doorway that you can't really make out that's what's inside but um the there is you know the spray of the waterfall is constantly kind of pummeling the side of this thing at least on the uh on the western side of it uh time of day john i will say it's noon okay so it would we estimate that there is enough daylight to make it up the cliff probably right uh it depends on how treacherous it is it looks very very slick it depends very quickly and cautiously you go now go ahead how many skeletons do we see uh at the bottom of this of people who have slipped and fallen uh you don't see any signs of uh immediate habitation right now um but once again it's it's very difficult to kind of see anything yeah mike number one i have a couple questions the road that we're traveling on is it new construction you said it was old construction had been stripped of its gutters and all the rest that stuff it's like from the old arkantian empire correct yeah it's an old imperial road we traveled through dosterwick right yep assuming we stopped there did we do any rumor gathering or anything like that there is there any assumption that's my next thing yeah okay then i'll shut up and let you do that okay uh so you have heard two things in particular um and then we're gonna get into what you uh individually have heard all right first of all you've all heard this for whatever reason you came to goss to work and if you ventured on to arden bull um you've heard that the most accessible entrance to the caverns beneath the ruined city of arden bull are from within the pyramid of thoth which is one of the few remaining intact structures in the ruined city that's at the top of the cliff correct yeah the second thing that you've all heard um oh you could see it at the top yeah once i probably shouldn't have shown the picture you don't see any of that um the uh the other thing you've heard is that there is actually a uh accrued in beyond the boundaries of the ruined city of arden bull to the north um and i just forgot the name of it give me one second the drowned rat ah it's called the sign of the broken head oh that's perfect that's appropriate and there is there is an entrepreneur there whose name the the proprietor of that place is known as kronos kettlebelly with a k kronos kettlebelly um uh men from the inn have they found stairs in uh a certain dwelling that leads down to the first level and he could probably tell you more about that should you wish to go visit him if he wanted to get this and the the in um of the broken head or the sign of the broken head you said that was to the north so this is uh still down at the bottom before we go or is it up at the top no it's it it's it's actually just beyond the borders of the ruined city itself on the north side of the city so top of the cliff then sub yes north side you got to go through the ruins to get to it got it yeah okay all right so uh now in addition when you're uh gearing up and supplying in ghoster rick you had heard some things what do my dwarven ears hear john they're taking the hobbits to eisenguard i bet uh i bet i don't have any special mage knowledge about this either well going off of my experience as a magic user in dolmen wood no 100 years of college and you don't know jack you're like an intern dude you're like just people you're awesome definitely all right so uh gorand why don't you make me a d100 rule yes yeah wow do they have a d100 on this they do they do boom 82 82 oh that's bad that's a bad one all right give me a second here gotta read it here first it's not just a mega dungeon it's a mega rumors list yeah and so one of these uh dies within the the newly the the newly formed town of goss to work costa wick uh you were talking to some low-life adventurer who made it back um and he tells you now you were well in your cup so you don't really know like how uh john this is this guy was well in his cups and uh you're not really sure how how much you how much of this you can actually take to be true if this thing goes for all the rumors you're about to hear but um this guy says he spent a couple of hours in the market run by the ardenville trolls and on that floor of that market cave he and his men glimpsed some ancient military insignia and it looked like the symbol of the sheepshead rangers uh this is uh that's the name let's see who wouldn't know that um well actually i don't think anyone even know that um but the way he says he says it was a little bit of a reference um and he goes wasn't that the uh wasn't that the legion that got destroyed with adrianic a few centuries ago he says i bet the drone would be interested in that information now the drone you guys all know the drone is basically the um the arm of the imperial bureaucracy the which is in charge of uh intelligence gathering they are um the secret service and um uh widely feared by most citizens of the empire um you said peeps had what rangers sheep's head rangers sorry i'm writing of course he says you you need hard evidence from the troll market to convince kiko the lame um uh you would take by the context that yeah that seems to be the case okay now roll me um 5d6 and subtract 4. me 14 he said subtract 4 yeah ten ten all right so this you probably may have heard in one of the temples in gosterwick um you hear tell that the the cult of thoth developed at least three major temples beneath the city one of these was located at the foot of an enormous underground chasm and it was accessible only by teleportation or flight so we're visiting that one first now you've heard that uh you guys are all well aware of course and especially um avaricious matt's cleric could tell you that uh worship of thoth is not necessarily prescribed but it's definitely died out he's one of the ancient twelve gods that the archonians used to worship they have since taken on the worship of the ten which are more greek analogues of these ancient egyptian themed gods so when you hear it when you hear like an egyptian named god it's more than likely no longer um technically worshipped by the empire at large and that one new and improved gods now that's right sorry that one that was only accessible by teleportation or flight was located where he gave a location for that a chasm yeah the bottom of an enormous underground cast got it yeah and don't forget we have the shared document that you can write all this stuff yeah i'm trying to type a lot of this in the doc so i'm like if you are catching stuff i'm like i'm like old schooling it all right no no no no okay um and uh goran does your as you're pondering these uh tantalizing hints um with a spray hitting your uh what what exactly do your companions uh see when they when they look at you or what have they what do they glean from you in the short amount of time you spent to go there i mean i look like i look like a [Music] um escaped or perhaps like unemployed craftsman and uh i'm wearing like the the the black hood which indicates that i'm planless um i have no beard but you can see that i'm trying to grow it in uh which is usually only done by the weapon by the uh warrior clans of in the dwarven um man my english is bad today uh in the dwarven society like only the warrior clans grow beards so like i i look like a tradesman that's kind of like absconded from my guild cool so do you have like uh is it is is is goran's beer growth sort of similar to your own is yeah like that that length coming in just coming in okay cool yeah all right sounds good all right uh varger why don't you roll me a d100 table as you're pondering the distinct lack of facial hair of your dwarfing companion this one does what'd you get it is a little it is a little disturbing what'd you get david 18 18. all right you quickly varga um connected with many of the criminal elements within augusta wick and were uh surprised and you're still having you're still trying to figure out if you're delighted or not by the fact that there is um such a strong presence of what's known as the benevolent brotherhood here in this brand new town but uh they are if any if nothing else they are a source of many many rumors about arden bull um and one you hear is that the place attracts wizards and priests like dung attracts flies as you give a side side-eyed look to your your friends osric and adversios um there's a crazed wizard named khan and yes it is that gone that spelling that rules the second level from the top with an eight with the aid of an army of ghouls and it said it said he needs new souls to keep him alive and his ghouls do the procuring for him and he goes the worst part he pretends to be helpful and that's when the ghouls strike so be on the lookout for khan god and then i need you to tell me five six minus four i hate him already love it uh huh we're all like hate it hate it hate it burgers like i love it all right 56-4 me yeah there's an sorry minus four is a six six all right all right so um i should tell you guys that the first rumor that i'm giving you guys is basically like a general adventuring rumor it's what you would have heard from the down and dirty angosta where people have actually been to hardinvool um the the second one the rule that you're making is actually more like historical rumors that you would have heard from like sages or read in some books maybe not even in gosterwick itself but they just had to be a little bit more esoteric in nature maybe a little more reliable that is totally up to your own judgment um uh so you hear that thoth was deeply important to the ancient empire as he represented the light of knowledge that erased the darkness of ignorance and for this reason the thoth priests were obsessed with light every one of their halls remains brightly lit with thoth's bright clear light that gave you some hope that maybe you wouldn't have to trudge through darkness all the time while you were in the depths interesting cool all right and what do uh folks see when they look at varga and i think he's a uh a dirty pimp a sinewy uh scandinav scandinavian sort with uh a blonde beard and uh ill intent cool uh now i was gonna ask you this uh uh off screen but um but i forgot and i'll just as ask you now so you're you're the the whiskin which is what barger is which is basically like a scandinavian analog um uh they are technically their homeland is on an island chain um off to the east into the north called borealia uh borealo borealios by the archontians um and they are technically under the under the rule of the arkantian empire though they still have their own culture and all that kind of stuff would you like to be from there or or the other option is that there are actually some whiskin outposts and steadfast that are actually on this uh continent cell continent itself of irethuan far to the north um like would you but basically it's sort of like if you were from the north you would have been more of like a um you wouldn't have been as much of like a like a sea reaver like a viking type you know i mean if you were from borealis it's quite likely that you would have lived by you know your trade and your livelihood would have been you know from the sea or somehow related to the sea but it might that may have not have been the the the case if you were from the north uh let's do the north just because i'm a thief and i don't think i'm leaving at sea okay that's cool that means that you traveled down from the north to actually get to gods to work from that's cool yeah instead of across from the sea i think i heard rumors of uh uh riches to be made and fools to be uh stolen from so all right cool uh osric the mage roman d100 oh that's me i thought matt would be next sorry i thought we were going around the horn um i'm a little meiji 56 all right sorry guys i'll be right back someone's out the door sure oh right 56 all right uh you heard uh from some a person who heard from a different person we'll say so you definitely don't know how reliable this is but that you've heard that the priest you've heard that the precincts of the ibis god are littered with these creepy statues all of which have eyes made out of huge gemstones but if you try to remove the eyes the statues animate and wreak bloody vengeance upon those who wronged them okay that's that's solid intel i would consider that yeah assuming you guys have shared your rumors and knowledge amongst each other um you this person who would only ever refer to that as the ibis god um you're very confident that who they're referring to is the god thoth okay um and then what is it 3d or 5d6 yes but you osric just roll 5d6 did not subtract 4. oh okay let me wait there we go one two three four five total is 16 16 all right okay so you know from your uh past research and talking to um to folks in the know that when the arkantians first came to arden bull they found the caverns infested with hopping toad-like creatures it took centuries of warfare before the hoppers were eliminated by the arkantians hoppers just called hoppers is that the that's what the the person that talked to you referred to them as okay yeah i would like creatures centuries to eliminate the hoppers yes okay and uh what do they see when they look at you so um ozrik has so long black hair a large black beard but wears um he's mythrick i think it's called mithrik right uh but he wears um bright multi-colored uh sort of a not exactly harlequin but kind of the uh troubadour kind of uh he's a traveling uh mage you know a wise man a wizard you know storyteller and so he kind of dresses the parts very cool uh it looks like a brightly colored ian anderson from the early jethro tall nice would you say you have a colored dreamcoat on no no he wears a short jacket with those you know those puffy sleeve things right and it's popped and slapped yeah he's got a uh you know jewels jewelry and necklaces and right on all right on his boots he's got fringe boots you know what i mean and for you guys and for everyone else out there um you should know too that uh that the there are the collegiate um of wizards that actually are sanctioned by the empire themselves so it's a it's a group of schools of which you would attend for um actual uh sanctioned magic use um and that is open to anyone with any sort of talent or desire to learn magic and that is thanks to the outcome of the great civil war that rent the empire um 1200 years ago the war between the sordians and the theosos the sordians ended up winning that war when they were fighting for um an egalitarian approach to magic learning instead of being hoarded by those elites who had influence and power usually represented by the old the old clerics i'm sorry the old temples to the old gods the sordians wanted it one of the schools open to anybody and they ended up uh they ended up winning that war um at great cost um but in osric's case you are more um i guess you would it depends on how you viewed yourself in your own mind but other people would view you more our conscience especially would view you more as like a hedge wizard um yeah um you know he doesn't actually cast any spells right but um but you have magic but he has magic knowledge he knows things he can do things and uh so i think of him more as like the kind of wizard you'd find at the like crystal and incense store then and at the uh uh the occult uh book shop if you follow my right exactly yeah but you're um it's you don't have necessarily like the background in training and lore that a typical magic user would have uh in other words like yeah you know it's like you're not here um what am i saying is you anything you've heard about ardenville or even past history would not have come from your your education uh which is right okay just so you're aware okay that sounds good i like it cool all right uh frother avaricios yes cleric of the xion lyseon uh i need you to roll me a d100 please i can absolutely do this i should have drink first this is what we do uh oh that was a uh 14. 14. all right now you chime in whenever you guys are relating your rumors to each other everyone's talking about thoth and thoth and blah blah blah you have heard that there is uh you heard from someone and they kind of got your blood boiling that not only is there a cult of thoth or there once was at least in the in the caverns of barnabal but there was also a cult of the feared god set and the cult of set favored blood red armor in an archaic style with breastplate greaves and helmet i need to get some of that and then why don't you roll me um 5d6 as well and because you're a little bit more learned um you can just roll straight 5d6 please awesome being learned it is awesome uh that is a 16. i think that's the thing that yes yeah same guy he's just going around town telling everybody about the frogs five d6 right uh that is a 13. 13. all right you heard oh wow this is this is kind of nice among the symbols so you you heard this about like what a cult of set within the ruins of arden vult well i'm gonna look into this and then you lo and behold you did and you found out a little bit more among the symbols of the ancient cult of set were the desert dust storm the black boar the crocodile the serpent a red-headed man and a strange animal with a snout of a dog but with squarish ears oh my god okay you're gonna have to read that for me again i got a lot to write don't forget that does it [Laughter] it's all right uh yeah okay the what do they say all right so that you were gonna you were kindly if you would uh repeat that for me uh there was a the symbols include a desert dust storm the black bore the crocodile okay the serpent a redheaded man and a strange animal with the snout of a dog but with squarish ears man what's what's with ginger hate in here with the cult of set man that's seriously all right i'm interested so we we should definitely uh collate all of our rumors right so everybody knows no one's going to go prying the eyes out of the uh ibis god i suspect he might yeah parker's going to do it anyway but at least we told him yeah we're going to be clear we know to be stand clear when he does it's absolutely going to happen i mean i'm curious is it a true rumor um no what what do people see when they see uh fraud or operations okay well foreign he's a really nice uh guy uh he's uh about 510 uh a human gentleman slightly poorly uh uh you'll see that like that the top of his left ear is just gonna nick clean off uh but he works it you know he works it pretty well shaving you know stuff happens um there's like a little scar like a straight line scar kind of right along the line there um he's uh he's uh sporting some uh kind of modest uh leather armor uh but he's uh uh in general very good-natured he's kind of got the uh the olive skin and darker uh hair of uh uh of a narcotian uh he's uh he's from the south and uh yeah he um uh very much believes in uh the tenets of his god which is that uh uh joy brings you closer to god uh wealth brings you closer to joy uh ergo uh it's not a very long uh uh trip to uh from gathering wealth to uh being closer to one scout nice and uh avaricious god is lician which is one of the ten and that is the god of wine indulgence madness raging creativity so if you think of bacchus or dionysus you wouldn't be far far from from the kind of god that uh have received worships of the booze god absolutely we're going to have lots of like parties uh you know lots lots of toasting beers these guys can't see it but i did add a nice little a nice little uh graphic here for everybody um i can now actually boom show their ability scores down there on the right side down the line baby um so you guys can all keep track of what uh everyone's really horrible scores are uh okay so let's set the scene once again you guys are about 500 feet um away from the base of from the basin of these falls you have to shout over each other you have to shout in order to be heard the mist is basically pummeling your face you can barely see the the the shadows of the colossi um looming through the mist itself and dominating your vision right now are the crumbling remains of this tower off to the right side along the imperial road you now at this point have to watch your step as this um as the sheen of water has slicked the cobbles of the ancient imperial road and you can see off to your left the rushing um swift river as it heads on its merry way down to toti lake which abuts gusterwick which is where you're from um oh and if you uh draw your attention over to albert once again real quick i want to give you a real world example of what this might look like i found this um and it's relatively accurate so this is um i can't remember the name of the falls but it's down in mexico and the chihuahua state um and it's um this fall is 850 feet tall the one you're looking at is 1500 feet tall so almost twice that look at look at the size of the spray coming off that thing in the basin and this is smaller than the one that you're looking at all right but the sheerness of it the sheerness of the cliff um and the terrain surrounding you at the bottom um is very similar to what you're looking at in that actual photo okay okay all right and john like is the um climbing around here is it more like deciduous like northeast or pacific northwest it's not like the jungle right no it's temperate it's all temporary yeah so um you can see that the cliff face itself through the mist is uneven rock and there's bits of shrubbery and small trees that are growing out of it um but you can't make out much more than that it just looks uneven you can barely make out the fact that there are two sets of stairs like i said one that is complete that goes switchbacks all the way up between the two statues and one on the other side of the river which is broken and with huge gaps but does end um about uh let's see i'll find that for you just so you know give me one second um one moment maps folks out there is going to be a lot of referencing so you're going to have to give me a moment while i do this stuff hundred pages of material yeah it's a lot it's a lot well while you're doing that i i i know something uh that uh avaricious would want to talk to his companions about uh uh brothers before we go uh all this way up uh with this structure here perhaps we could uh you know do some searching see if there's something uh useful in there that we might be able to uh aid our journey it's it's just right there we could just take a few minutes look around maybe somebody dumped some uh materials or something on their way back to town you know so they don't want to carry it so you want to steal it uh no i mean if it's if it's just there maybe if it has their name on it says please don't steal oh okay but uh you know if it's just there and then ruin it uh i agree i'm not opposed yeah i'm not opposed to that i would also like to uh john well when john's done switching uh every every thief knows that water hides the best escapes and so i'd like to get a general idea of the uh diameter of this pool and whether any paths perhaps leading behind the waterfall just just to clarify the the the stairs that are on the other side of the river are um they end at that cave entrance that is uh lined with marble um about 700 feet above the valley floor and always remember when i give you any heights um we're talking about a total height of 1500 to get to the ruined city itself this is 700 feet up what's that excuse me all right so what would you like to do john uh well actually matt why don't we go and follow your uh right i mean it's just like it's on the web it's right over there right right it's right there and john and i know that you already gave us like our rumors and stuff like that but during the course of our conversations could be any guy a description of like the way to arden vool or anything like that did anything mention this tower is it like a known stopping point or a known wrestling point no one no one has mentioned it no one has mentioned that they ever use it but don't like it's never come up in conversation at all all focus seems to be on um what they've heard about within the cavern within the halls of arden bull itself or in the ruined city atop the cliff got it okay i agree we should go to this tower and study its ancient and time laden stones and delve deeply into the mysteries of the ancient works of our forefathers of course we should go it's just a ruined tower it's right over there we can just take it i don't know if there's last minute these are the very stones laid by the ancients i think it's made yes i'll go okay so you see that um it appears to be uh quite old many centuries old it's extremely poor repair as you as you approach it um and it looks like the upper levels of it have collapsed inward into the tower itself um yeah and there is a broken doorway it looks to be about 50 feet by 50 feet square uh would you guys like me to scoop that out maybe stonework matches the stonework of the road uh yes it's definitely our continent right so there's so uh you say there's a doorway and the top is collapsed in does it appear that the four sides at ground level are intact is that what you're saying yes but the upper floor is yeah but there's a new there's a lot of rubble uh skirting it because right like the upper floor collapse rather than collapsed in it looks equal like it looks like it just fell down basically okay okay um you know the two that uh that are kantian when i say like it when basically from here on out when i say something that is like made of our kantian uh architecture or our kantian features um what that means is it is as equal today as it is in the past as well although probably a little bit more refined um is that um the masonry of our content architects is generally like relatively high compared to a lot of others um with like neatly trimmed walls um and that we're used to if they're ruins they usually are like you could tell that they were originally covered in plaster modern arkantian features are covered in plaster um and painted with bright colors a lot of times with painted frescoes and things like that so this this like all the plaster has been stripped away of course and it's just like um well-formed masonry that is completely uh collapsed due to age in the weather it looks like to you well all right with you guys i i'd quite like to try out a mage thing and just go up to the door and use my uh actually oh my my strength is actually more powerful than my mage ability on that never mind the door is shaking it's a door we can just open it i know i just wanted to you know be dramatic about it as a major would want to do so it's a doorway like where the door is basically like almost collapsed and been completely deteriorated from the constant water uh hitting it so it's like there's basically like it's like a shred of wood that's basically hanging on and it just like you can see like there's a you know an entrance that goes in that's dark at the moment john can i just like take a quick glance at uh uh the road around us is it muddy is it dried out are there any like obvious footprints or like regular traffic going to and from no it is as i said it's it's it's completely soaked with water like it's extremely extremely hard to to to walk like you all have to be very cautious when you're walking because it's constantly slicked um and so it's therefore impossible to tell um if there's been any traffic along the road why don't i um kind of uh creep up just take a listen uh go ahead this one i asked and i'm sorry if this has been asked and answered already the tower is right by the door road right yep right by the road yeah one bloody track up to it while he's gonna go do the scouting i'm gonna go walk the perimeter around the tower and see if i see tracks in the muddy ground around there okay sorry go do your ninja stuff ninja boy i'm i'm confused wait what are we doing because i i was doing that that's why you were going in the door i thought i thought john was saying the tracks were impossible to see because it was too waterlogged because the doorway is right by the the road and the road doesn't show any tracks but the muddy area around the tower might show tracks but it is or isn't submerged in water i'm confused i'm sorry it's not it's on the side of the road but not on the side of inside the lake or something so nothing emerged yeah nothing submerged i want to be clear about this what i'm talking about is that the force of the waterfall is so strong that when it hits the basin at the at the base the explosion of mist and water is so intense that it soaks everything around it within hundreds of yards it totally makes sense so my remark which is in line with mike's was that that being the case i think the mud would be very early ground be very muddy and therefore tracks would be easy to spot and so i think both mike and i would like to scout around as quietly as we can uh four tracks before you know approaching the tower very closely yeah okay cool um let me check here so honestly i think when those guys leave i'm going to go open the door fair enough be very paranoid it's a door uh i don't think anybody's home the whole place fell down i'm just curious to open the door and take a look around go for it all right so um as gorend and vargar kind of skirt the perimeter you uh surprisingly because i mean this is as far as you know like this is the approach to arden bull from the south from burdock's valley right you know if anyone's coming up here and you've heard numerous stories from supposed adventurers who have been inside these halls um you don't see any signs that anyone has ever rested in here um for on the outside like there's no there's no tracks or anything like that now it is extremely muddy and um it's constantly being pounded by waterfall um so who knows but uh in the meantime avaricious when you peek through the dark wooden doorway um you can see that uh you can confirm that the upper levels themselves have collapsed and there is a bunch of rubble that leads to a very treacherous treacherously footed ground floor it's rather oppressive inside it's completely dark it looks like the rubble has fallen in a manner that there's basically very little light that can actually leak in from the top but it's surprisingly dry and you attribute that to um as you sort of like well of course um are the arkantian build of the place that uh what has remained has been able to weather the um the the constant um erosion of the water um and so there's like a wet spot um that is in the doorway itself that the water can enter through but other than that in that 50 by 50 area um except for the rubble this looks like it would actually be like a dry and relatively safe respite you know what i mean if you uh you know if you needed to get back to it or something like that john real quick uh albert question uh is is it possible for instance for us to take notes on top of this map and not interrupt your use of the map or will it become really convoluted uh if you if you guys want to take notes you can if you'd like yeah so that's what you see when you peer in adversios do you uh uh like it it doesn't sound like i can see very much so i would a uh spark up uh spark up a torch just to kind of look around all right mark it off i can't see in here it's dark what do you want me to do oh sure this is all about your pleasure priesthood again you can't spend any coins you cannot see all right so uh you you peer in with your torch it illuminates all of the the fallen timbers and rubble um there does not appear to be any sign uh kind of lining up with what varga and goran may come back and report to you that there has been any um camp set up here there's no remnants of a fire pit or supplies or thankfully no no bodies or anything like that um it's there's just a general feeling of like being a little bit oppressive it's all you you attribute it avaricious as maybe it's just like the sudden silence that sort of um whenever you like like whenever you enter the door and it's dry and it's relatively safe and like you're suddenly dry and it's not like the pounding noise of the waterfall aren't in your ears and so it's like it's such a jarring um change in your senses that it just kind of sort of just makes you feel a little bit off but uh yeah that's right i call out hey hey ozrik it's it's nice in here come on in uh if you see the other guys tell them it's fine i'll i'll follow him in rubbing my hands along the stone and kind of blissfully looking around john can i hear that communication from i can't so it's not drowned out by the sound of the waterfall well it depends i assume that they're talking loud enough to oh yeah whether the silence within is natural oh well that depends on whatever is if everest if you're communicating at the way that you would need to you you let me know i don't know i'm not doing anything magical i just called out uh uh uh azrael who's right outside the door come on in yeah sorry he yells out basically so that's hard you can hear him it's loud out there i would call that loud enough so you can hear all right so searching around for the tracks and then lighting a torch appearing in a turn goes by oh no oh trap so the inside here is uh featureless or did this tower originally have um like a fireplace uh staircased upper levels anything like that uh it looks like there yeah there was indeed once uh at one time a staircase um wooden it's destroyed completely um okay but um there looks like there was the remnants of a hearth at one point also destroyed i i guess the hearth itself is probably still intact but the chimney of course is is completely gone okay uh okay uh do you uh do you take the time to kind of give it a thorough search i would actually like to search the the fireplace chimney see if there's any evidence uh it could be reopened and used for example uh yeah and i'd i'd like to see if there's uh any wine around okay stored away a turn goes by the guard house seller door you found it all right i mean you know so you you pick your way amongst the timbers that's like you can't help but make kind of you know it's crunching and snapping through like uh old stonework and and wood and stuff like that um and you're finally as uh goran and varga are you back in in the in here as well yeah we didn't find anything i think we would have joined okay so you're able to talk in like normal tones here as you're kind of picking your way through uh how they're doing that john can i do some dwarfy stuff like at the same time what would you like to do the first things i want to do is detect room traps okay sure and that's a two and six roll i believe yeah go for it all right that'd be great if you detected traps guys totally fine you're good stop stop my i haven't met also from checking for traps it's just like like doing stuff um the other thing i want to do is i want to um do my other dwarfy thing and that's the text tricks so the turn that the first turn that they're in there where they're lighting torches and looking around and stuff like that that will be the room trap and then the turn when they're searching the fireplace and stuff like that i want to try and search the room for like any sliding walls like secret passageways or ways down um into the into the bottom and that's also a two and six okay now nothing to see here okay you don't uh you don't see anything like tricky as if someone was trying to hide something however corn is you're kind of looking around um kind of woefully like uh man these are kantians never could do it as good as the as the dwarves um you do see that in the northeastern corner of the tower there is a um uh there's a trapdoor in the floor oh it doesn't look like but what i'm saying is it's like you didn't need to succeed at your dwarven thing to find it because it's not like it's there yeah it's just there yeah it's but it was it was sort of hidden underneath a pile of rubbish you're like kicking it out of the way you're like what do we have here you know all right i'll gesture over to varger i'm over ah very dangerous you go first i'm just oh uh as a as an aside can i just pocket a few stones this is a bunch of rubble here i just want to have a few spare how much encumbrance is that yeah right we're talking pebbles baby come on come on don't don't kill me like this um he picked up six pebbles and now drops 30 feet in his movement okay all right i i i'm just gonna uh similar to when we were outside i'd like to inspect the trapdoor see if it has you said it was under rubble yeah it's like under rubble but growing like kick some of it away in order to reveal it uh does it seem okay like i think what's important to me first is to if it's possible to determine whether that rubble aside the door appears particularly dusty or dirty or if it has been does that make sense like it doesn't look as though it has been used and it's relatively clean and the rubble has been placed over it versus it has been buried for a very long time and there's just cakes it looks like it's been buried for a very long time okay um this is all from just looking at it not not yet with him and i run my hand uh across the seam since feel if i have any draft coming through or anything like that okay so when you run your hands over the seams it is deathly so it's you have to get like really close yeah really close like rushing your hands over it um around the the the four edges of it um uh it's deathly cold like not normal cold like freaking out yeah like like emanating out but not it's only only something that vargas can pick up and you the rest of you just sort of see his hand just sort of like like jerk back um reflexively um and um because it's so odd right yes it's springtime it's nice it's a nice day and um it's like super cold coming from there but it's not like a blast it's just sort of like emanating from there and then you can also see when when you're like whoa what is that you can see that the the the metal uh handle that raises the trap door um is uh rusty uh from age um but is also uh you can now see rhymed with frost that is very odd very interesting okay what i would like to do is uh uh do any of you go go ahead ted can you pause that a second and just let's settle the chimney oh yes yes yep ostrich so oh um over at the chimney um you can see that you can basically like when you're standing up and looking at the and you're approaching the hearth like the remains of the chimney are um are like below your head like it's been completely shorn like broken down and you have to step through the rubbles of the stones itself um but in the in the hearth there is there is nothing there's not even like a um an iron um uh what do you call a basket to hold the wood or anything like that yeah yeah so it does not appear to and there's no ash like that's all gone right um so there's like some some wildlife uh what do you call it um brush and stuff like that but right could you light a fire in it and have the smoke kind of go out or would it fill the room up um it would it would go out because it's not okay yeah okay yeah great back to you burger and the wait the other thing we were looking for very important uh any wine or booze uh any bottles no no so uh interestingly enough there does not appear to be the remnants of any um habitation here right like was obviously built by our kantians but any furnishing is absolutely there's nothing here it's only like the structure itself and that's in ruins and no travelers trash or you know my goddess you're taking this place he's rapper ever ever is make me um what did you roll for your secondary scale by the way irisios uh farmer farmer okay cool uh so roll me a d6 that is a three a three okay cool nothing nothing to report here move along everything's fine right on all right so trap door full of cold air um it could be a cold storage cellar that's the spell still works could be full of vampires or ghouls um that is it is very strange to have this temperature difference while it's not so cold outside uh i don't like it you had an idea uh yeah i saw you i saw your lips moving it's a pretty cool trick my friend what were you saying oh yeah yes i've been trustworthy uh turn goes back i realized uh do any of you have a spear or pole or long thing i have a snap okay you have a staff uh do you want to show this what two oh yeah you have okay that's great two questions john one the position of this handle is it laying flat so that i would have to lift it if i want to uh for instance like try to thread a rope through the handle would i have to touch the handle to lift it up to would you have to touch the handle to thread a rope if i wanted to thread a rope around the handle would i have to touch the handle to do so do you think no so it's literally just like a like a normal clasp right yeah just like a like a uh if you see my fingers just like you know yeah it's bolted into the thing and you just you know what pry it open so i actually go ahead there are there is on the opposite side yes i would like to gently thread a rope right um and in fact i can do the you know uh i don't know uh my boy scout years along behind me you know one can have a a loop on one side and you can you know a tightening sort of knot where you can pull it so two half inches sure two half edges we actually have rope yes of course i wanted i don't know where this action is going it's going to take some time audience sorry um i want to i want to thread it and i want to sort of like tell everyone to back up a bit um i'll say this when you when you when you thread it and you're being like you're being very careful because i mean you asked me like do i need to touch the handle sort of thing right so when you when you thread it through some of the rhyme of frost like kind of like it makes like a sound everyone's like very quiet as you're doing it right it's like as you kind of slip underneath a little bit of the frost tinkles away and you could swear varga and you're the only one that hears this because you're so close to these seams right that along with the emanating cold uh air that's coming out of there you you hear something something come out of there and it sounds like a cold hollow voice that whispers out on the on the cold air almost seems to form in the air itself you hear an interrogative sort of tone naima like a cold hollow male voice do i discern an accent uh difficult to tell because you don't know the word okay so it doesn't sound like a a proper noun it sounds like a sounds like a name to me all right well it's asking if you're the key master and only uh barger hears this correct yeah um i mean i'll share this with everyone i think i heard a voice call out that's slightly creepy nothing alive is down there there's not enough um right but there might be a way into ardennville that doesn't involve a 1500 foot climb on a wet switchback you know maybe somebody else does that wizard on the second level with an army full of ghouls that wants to make friends okay so here's my thinking here's my thinking game we got a lot of rope we don't need to be sitting here this is this assumes that i can even get the thing open but i have sorry i have ways ancient secrets this may be very convoluted but i'm very paranoid and i throw the rope over one of the walls so that it would land in other words it's tied to the latch it would land on the other side of the the perimeter of this um tower yeah so that way you could go about the perimeter and pull it and listen yes i thought the ceiling was like still kind of intact which is why it was dry in here uh it's it's it's not intact it's that the rubble is so uh um packed it's sort of like a like a canopy of trees can sometimes block out like a storm okay okay what i mean okay yeah yeah did anyone actually have the money for a mirror uh i believe i bought a mirror because if you did we're going to knock that door completely off someone's going to stand outside and reflect sunlight into the room so we have a mirror i can either be the one that pulls the rope or the one that holds the mirror it doesn't matter to me um i think yeah like you said reflecting light is a good idea and it also gives us an eye on it right that doesn't involve us staring it down whatever it may be and if you see it in the mirror then that tells us something too sure okay so uh do we feel good about this plan no we're all gonna die i love it we're all we're all going to get outside of the building right we're outside of the building i think i think that if someone wants to have a mirror on the ready either to spy around the corner like that right to see if they see anything or like mike's saying to use it as a as a a light channel uh i'm done with that but i think we should not be in the room when i do whatever i'm going to do okay do it let's do it all right hold on so so uh varger is going to he's tied the rope he throws the rope over he's going to go outside and pull the rope yes uh i'll volunteer to hold the mirror that's fine why don't both of us why don't both of us haul the rope david so that we have a better shot at doing it sure sounds good to me and audrey you're going to stand outside the front door right with the mirror so that you can kind of like throughout the door like yep i i was i will stay near him i want to if this turns out to be something of an undead nature like i can try to turn him i don't know if it will succeed i can try okay i'm fairly certain that that will be the case uh as everyone takes position it's just a guy down there i'm sorry it's fine everything in my minutes of adventuring experience suggests it's undead varga as you tie off the rope uh on the handle itself the door um actually like like racks up like like bubble like real quick like and you have to jerk your hand back it stays it's like as if something's forced trying to force its way up and you hear the voice more strongly in anger um with like um with real rancor it says set heights with this word sedites yeah i know there's worshipers and then and then it goes quiet again as you as you tie off the rope okay nasty do we want to like douse like a perimeter of oil around this thing and just burn it out am i getting way too granular that said that doesn't seem to impede your plans at all um but if you it's up to you if you want to reassess but let me know if you want to continue with your plan this seems like a totally normal thing to do okay all right i'm gonna go outside and i'm gonna i'm gonna attempt to open by a polling all right you pull um and it gorin like agoran's help is not necessary because it's just you just kind of you use the rope and it's got the full you know the left the was that a fulcrum up at the top i don't know what this word is but anyways it's like it's very easy just like rock and you kind of yank and you can hear that you can hear inside rock as it kind of cranks up um uh osric and yo avaricious you're standing near each other right yeah yeah okay near the front door um the first thing you notice is that there is a blast of cold that like just shoots out um you can uh you hear timber um sort of explode outward in all directions a couple of harmless pieces kind of shoot out past you as well um osric uh as you reflexively sort of jump back a little bit you could still have enough presence of mind to keep that you're like what the [ __ ] you kind of like look in the in the mirror and you um uh actually i don't think a mirror would actually reflect this um there is a definite and uh there is a definite presence that makes itself known on the ground floor of the tower as it shoots out of that trapdoor avaricious you can immediately tell as your blood runs cold that you are facing extremely powerful unliving thing um uh but you are both determined not to actually directly look into the room so it's only uh osric you also can have racios you both feel the cold adversios you can confirm that it is the cold of something unholy okay hell yeah um time to back away from the door yeah i think we back i think we go back away from this side of have you come for more you have taken enough already from me uh i will destroy you all you blasphemous set heights listen talk to the guy we're not said i it's the same uh uh what's my charisma okay i'm gonna i'm gonna i'm gonna speak from uh the other side of the wall uh saying uh uh we we have no allegiance with the uh slithering satellites we come because we heard this one needed aid who speaks where are you and like more timber like flies all around as it appears at this thing whatever it is is like turning over rubble and leaving it show yourself coward i am uh uh like yourself a spirit of benefits and i have come to free you of your pain but you must speak this pain for me to do so i long to be with my love naima taken from me by those cursed priests where can we find her we will find her to bring her to you if it will bring you peace yeah spirit cry i'm here for you here you go come on [Laughter] what do you ask him he asked him where naima is yeah where her name is they took her i know not where does she lie within the walls of arden fool [Laughter] you you're here like you could feel like the attention of the thing kind of turned towards you os rick who speaks enter i fear to look upon your countenance oh great one please find my lost love can i can i do i'm going to take that way can i go stand in the doorway oh [ __ ] you can do whatever you want all right i want to go stand in the doorway sword and shield out but sword not brandished might eat charisma coming to bear and be like i am gloria into the dwarven people i worship no settites or any other human gods what is your name and what is your trouble you look in and you see what appears to be a ghostly visage hanging about two feet off the floor completely phantasmal in nature um and it appears to be a uh what looks like a a human figure male but arkantian but of it but of a uh of antiquity antiquity the the the whites and pale blue robes that it's wearing obviously speak to like a a time a long you know like it's not in fashion anymore basically right um uh its eyes though are black pits right um that stand out amidst the rubble as as it's hanging there it appears to be actually grasping one like fallen timber to kind of hold itself erect as it's sort of swaying and it looks over at you and it does like the classic like ghostbusters in the library sort of thing where it like looms forward with it's like its face like like it comes forward um and it bears it's like skeletal teeth at you um and it's uh uh it opens its mouth but the words that are speaking doesn't cause its jaw to move it just opens and the words emanate outwards um and it says my name is iretol spell that john get up for you why and uh and he says you dwarf i hunger so much and with lightning speed a clawed hand shoots out of its robe straight at you out of the doorway and you can see almost like a dog on a chain it like if we get a close-up shot of like your neck and it's clawed it just barely like misses you right and because you're standing right at the doorway right right and then it like pulls its hand back and growls at you a little bit thank you burger for your great suggestion whispered somewhere upon the wall all right kill yourself spirit i am no easy meat you may hunger but do you hunger for my life or for your naima which would give you greater pleasure naima then tell me what happened and we'll see if we can retrieve her for you the priests came so long ago and took her from me i know not where curse me to this existence i desire only rest i'm so tired and his head goes down then it comes back up but it's black pits again but so hungry and it like lurches towards you again once again just barely missing you okay three drops of pee come out of my breast pop [Laughter] all right all right well i think this answers was naima removed from your tomb or were you together in life because i hate to tell you this but you're not alive anymore and all the people that you knew were are dust from like 500 years previous gentlemen uh he says um we were married and you lived in arden pool we on it you see it sort of like thinks for a second and it's like yes i remember that name yes when he says we were married sorry i don't want to steal your thunder mike i just want to interject foreign my tragic fellow if we find neymar do you have your loved wife do you have a token a ring perhaps we can show her that we might prove you are looking for did we already visit this story the ghost went back to winter's daughter i'm i'm both being helpful and also very much a thief right now is what's going on yeah so goran you can see that the ghost like whips around to face like this uh this voice that's coming from the other side of the ball yes um in anger um and it says fool she is dead long long ago these centuries i know what the priest must have done to her but her remains her remains are all that i desire fair enough find them and bring them back to me did she have any token with her remains that might help us identify her um something that would a wedding ring something that we will know when we see them that they are her well remains tell you that we go into arden fool to explore the the dungeons there and they very well find the set temple to which she was taken she wore a pendant of lapis lazuli that i myself carved for her and what was this pendant of a dragon lapis is it was a stone like just like a cut stone independence stone not like a dolphin or a tasmanian devil or just a facet i'm going to i guess i'm going to pipe it one more time just because i can't help myself while he does that i'm going to go check in my kid okay i'm going to say uh and if god's forbid she is in a similar state of unlife as yourself do you also have a pendant that we may show her to prove that each of you uh uh need rest i have nothing anymore just this unending hunger all right well uh i think with that parker doesn't have much to pass them with um we shall return and and and uh i thank you yeah that's it and uh he uh gore and you can see his form sort of uh dissipate and basically look like it's almost been sucked down like a vacuum almost back into the seams all right not the seams the open uh trapdoor into the basement when uh some time has passed does the door like slam back as well magically does it stay open uh it stays open [ __ ] well unless i mean you you know you're holding it okay well i want to get the rope back that's what i'm trying to figure out so yeah i don't know if that's happening you're literally hanging on to it right now like you're holding the door open with with both hands can i let go and see if it gets back down if you let go it goes and shuts okay uh i'm gonna wait for a few minutes and then go on and tie the rope after it's shut okay uh that encounter took a turn jeff um and then you uh yeah you go around and back inside into the tomb there is the remnants of the of the cold are still within the um the tower ruins itself um it does not you know you never check to see if the trapdoor itself is locked but it appears to be in the same state that it was before uh is there any uh equivalent to a uh what's it called not thieves can't but like um like a character symbology symbology that thieves use like around cities to indicate certain meanings you know what i'm talking about sure yeah language we used to do huh that would that would be canned that would be canned who that would be okay i would like to take the chalk i have and upon the doorway indicate essentially danger like do not enter but only something that sees from the benevolent brotherhood only something that thieves would know okay cool you could do dead inside nice yeah yeah yeah some that that makes sense too yeah but but that's that's what i want to communicate for any uh thieves that might come up upon this okay all right and i don't know if they're should i have a signature dead inside larker the best thief of them all yeah everything would be like who the [ __ ] is this yeah yeah i mean i actually am going to do that i'm going to do some sort of dead inside and just like put a v as like a signature okay who wrote it cool uh and with that i think we should uh get out of here yeah i do still oops i do still very much want to uh scout out the the waterfall side of the river slash like i guess at the feet of the warrior statue and see if there are any paths that might lead behind the waterfall john i don't know if everyone else would like to do that as well but that is definitely vargas uh i i like the idea of a little at least trying to look i don't really particularly want to go swimming or get swept away but i i want to see if there's something the concern is too and i'll just throw this out but i'm happy to do whatever is that we want to be at the top of that precipice before nightfall and hopefully at the end by the time nightfall comes right like i don't want to be stuck on the side of the cliff when the sun sets well i would i agree i agree i will say uh we're probably equidistant to gastric and it's going to take longer to climb up than to run back to glossaryck if we're really worried about time not that we want that situation to come you're much closer to the to the statues than you are to costa rica right now and it's only going up which backs is going to take a while right if i were to ascend i mean i don't know we whatever level of realism we want to deal with if i were to ascend up 1800 feet it would take a hell of a lot oh yeah i'm sorry i thought you meant like to the to the statues yeah you're here yeah now my point is if not that we are but if something happens then we get caught closer to nightfall i i'm suggesting as fargo that we run back to town rather than try to like make camp up at the top of the ruins if that makes sense okay but so you've got you got the you're you're outside in the road yeah you've got the river which is not too far uh to your left to the west uh the colossae in the cliff face and the uh stairs are in front of you yes um and then you um and then you have watched the watchtower obviously right to your right and you have goss to rick behind you so i would basically like to uh head up road and then when we get about to the base of uh uh the path upward split left towards the shoreline of this i don't know if you can see where i'm indicating i can in the shoreline here and and one see if there are any boats just because it would be good to know if people are raising boats around here and to see if there's any foot traffic in the mud or indications there might be like a slim path either a human or an animal going behind and around in that direction behind her foot or something well yeah it appears to me that behind the waterfall is one possibility but behind the statue exactly both of these things i think are very valid possible yeah like if her leg is actually like going into the cliff exactly so i think i think i would really like to search that whole area pretty thoroughly so are you going to the basin first or to the statue of arden first let's let's do the statue first yeah this dryer john let me let me just ask one quick housekeeping question so i can keep track did we have do i mark off three turns off of the torch or four for when we were in there uh four turns total return certainly okay he would extinguish that obviously okay got it all right uh so you continue on to the slick road to slow going as you're taking your time to make sure that you don't uh twist an ankle or anything like that upon the imperial road um and as you uh approach the colossus like when you're right at the base of it um basically now the sunlight which is almost basically uh directly overhead um i would say that the uh that the slight shadow of the cliff face itself is basically encompassing you this close to the face itself as well because the basin of the waterfall is right next to you what i described to you before at the watchtower as far as like the noise and the spray is basically exponentially increased it is so intense right here right um right have any of you guys ever been to like niagara falls or anything like that done like the mist like you know you know how it can be like like when you're on the boat that's your baby yeah it's like it's it's crazy i mean this you can't do anything i mean it's like so intense uh so it's like just a a foam of mist all around you at all times the massive uh huge form of arden is like peering up through this mist like above you in the darkness um uh so she the arden the swordswoman she looms like a thousand feet above the valley floor um the carving itself is uh um it's like uh but what should i say it's almost like i don't want to put like a negative spin on it but it's sort of like uh like the sculptures that you would see with like mussolini's like fascist italy sort of thing you know like realistic but like heavily like carved and chiseled you know it's like like very sort of um it depicts her kneeling on her right knee and her right hand holds a broad sword point down while her left hand is extended palm up the the the extended palm is about 100 feet off the valley floor her head is helmed in a hoplite style helmet uh which is typical of the ancient arkantians even the modern archangels have have versions of this same sort of helmet um chin greaves um and her eyes are staring downward at her at her left palm as if she's looking at something in it um her hair braids extend below the helmet and she appears to be wearing a breastplate um the it looks like she obviously because the waterfall is coming straight down constantly for god knows how many eons uh directly upon her right side which would be the western side um it's co it's covered with wet and moss covered on that side particularly you see that no significant pieces of the statue have actually fallen off um but the uh the water stains that uh have have uh collected upon the statue actually make it appear as if she's been weeping like the the stains on her below her eyes when you talk about the moss sorry go ahead go ahead when you talk about the moss growing up on one side is there any other sort of like vegetation like fines or you know like things affixed to the stone itself that might look like uh an easier way of climbing them it doesn't look easy there are definitely like long like long pieces of vegetation and and moss and stuff like that are mostly upon the right side um the problem is is that it's um it's right next to what is a torrential falls yeah like torrential um makes sense uh so it doesn't look doesn't look easy at all um and you know too that everyone here like i know that uh and viewers out there you should know as well in case you didn't watch session zero that varga and osric are both thorken which are um native peoples to this land to this local land um who are uh were once upon under the dominion of your conscience in ancient times and now have recently fallen underneath their sway again as the archons have expanded back into this continent once again um but regardless of uh the origin even the dwarf knows who's from hails from a kingdom far to the west um of the stories of the famed uh uh adventuring couple and lovers arden and um they are one of the 20 worthies of the irkantian empire um and that they are most arden is particularly famous for the um uh for her 12 labors that she did which is recounted in the famous work known as the 12 labors of arden which all school children learn it's just part of like the common mythology um but they of course are most famous for the fact that their greatest achievement was founding um the city that bears their name of arden mike scott john real quick are the statues carved from like the the rock or are they like bricks that have been set in place and then carved into nope they've been carved out very much like mount rushmore style gotcha they're not fully detached from the stone behind them they are not but um it's it's a high relief right i really but like basically as that illustration um as you see there like that the head and shoulders are basically uh freestanding but then as it because she's kneeling like i guess like you would say like the lower back and buttocks are like probably adjoined to the yeah stone itself so there's a cavity back there there is a cavity back there yes um but you in that uh both that illustration and this illustration oop not that one never mind don't look uh this illustration you can see you can see how close the falls are to her right side yeah i wonder if um vool might actually be a more uh wise choice for looking for a place to climb and go in i assume vool is considerably drier i've always much yeah the wool is basically not uh completely dry yeah okay uh now the falls themselves as you're standing here so um uh they fall 1500 feet into a bowl carved out of solid rock um the the the plunge pool itself the basin um you estimate to be about and you probably would have had to judge this when you were further back along the road kind of approaching because it's impossible to tell from this distance it's approximately about 275 feet across and the force of the falls hitting the water produces a constant swirling motion and you can just tell be as you as you're basically on the banks of this of this basin that it would be death to enter that water like instant death that's that's the power of the water that that's hitting that that basin do i see the uh uh barrels of uh [Laughter] foolish tick-tockers or something okay um okay cool um it also looks like the uh so the the the swift river runs out of this pool you've already passed the point where where it exited it out right um is uh is named very appropriately especially as it exits out of the pool so it's it's a very very swift running it is um it is not something that you can simply hop across and you didn't notice uh any likely uh fords on the way over here so at least from where your vantage point right now and what you've assessed so far it looks near impossible to get to those broken stairs where that where that marble-lined entrance was 700 feet above the cliffs all right it basically looks like the entire uh western side of the cliff face seems to be inaccessible from this side of the river from this side of the river yeah we have a thought as a seasoned climber that barker is uh uh high vantage points give much information and going down is easier than going up yes yeah yeah so a couple thoughts i i sorry if it was unclear to me john the answer was no in terms of any sort of causeways or pathways at the foot of the statue behind the waterfall like in this area like there's no land there's no land in other words that i might be able to like wiggle across in this in this area at it it's uh there's no pathways nothing like that there that you can you can try to scramble of course there's stuff to scramble over stuff like that but it is it is being constantly pummeled by high velocity water like i cannot express enough how dangerous it would be right so i i have two thoughts that seems too dangerous even if we put like a rope around his second thought uh to use our visual aid if we do ascend the first two segments of this switchback yeah we will only have a clear view of what is in the palm of this statue should it be important yeah but theoretically you could we could uh traverse across or upon the statue itself with these pieces like that i think that is probably a as a climber barker would would sort of be like kind of eyeing you know uh the cut stone especially since it's a statue it's going to have much more uh distinct like edge work right i imagine right there are seams in other words for it to be a statue which would be easier for me to like climb across than like raw rock face so should we should we want to try to get to the west as we're looking at this western door i think the best way to do it is to to do a traverse of that well i i think a thing to keep in mind uh my friend is that uh i i am certain your climbing skills are really good mine aren't that you're using the term we here but i'm not going across there i would say good luck to you and say a prayer uh i i'm sure you're one out for you when you fall and die but i'm if this happens i would uh make sure you were very secure to a rope and not taking any undue risks i would be lead climbing here um well i think it's certainly worth going up yeah i also think we've wasted i won't say we've wasted it we've spent enough time yeah poking around down here i don't want to go back let's go up let's go up i agree um all right so yeah i'm gonna start back up the switchback i think yeah i think we started to switch back um although i don't just make a point though real quick and i'm sorry real quick we're gonna go up the thing it's gonna be very slippery why don't we use um vargas rope to tie ourselves together yes so i i agree there's you can caterpillar basically for like fast climbing if we all tie at increments across the hundred feet of rope i have it's a lot safer if one person falls because the three other people have stability so even if you're not like a fix to a sorry go ahead john let me give you just a description of what this what the switchback looks like so you can make your plans accordingly makes sense yeah so just uh really briefly because you're at the base of it so you can you can see clearly what this looks like now it's not stairs okay this is different this is interesting because it's not what you saw from across the river the what we saw across the river were wide broken sections of actual stairs that were carved and carved out of the mountain out of the cliff face this appears to be a narrow ramp that rises slowly in switchbacks okay um uh and it looks like it was it was sheathed with large flagstones that were mortared together at one time but um the flagstones now have been broken and are rutted and looks like quite dangerous treacherous footing at some points um uh so that's what you're looking at there's no obviously no railing um but it's quite narrow and it's a it's a ramp when when you say quite narrow are we talking six inches are we talking like two feet no uh yeah let's see i'd say it's probably about i probably say it's about six feet wide oh okay so it's it's it's a it's a it's gonna feel really narrow when we're walking up there yeah and then it's a sheer drop yeah imagine being like imagine being 500 feet up right which is a third of the way up which is as high as the washington monument and only having six feet from the cliff face to certain death oh yeah i'm afraid yeah cole uh vargas is very excited you see sort of a thrumming uh uh uh it is a weird word for it but yeah all right uh cool all right boys well uh you came for adventure uh uh whether you uh uh intended to have me along for this purpose or not i am would appear and i give like a long look to all of you to be the only one remotely qualified should i take the lead um i do suggest a stick and in fact that's not a bad idea uh everybody could cut one while we're in the woods i think it would be very since we're in the woods i think it'd be useful for people to have a stick as just a balancing sort of device for their own confidence if everyone would like to do it is that possible john since they're a bunch of woods at the base for them you can you cue a couple branches i have a hitmax so we can do it probably pretty quickly i'm going to say that's going to advance the time to to uh one o'clock though okay and john when we start our ascent so i'll have my walking stick in one hand but weapon sheath and my shield slung across my back so i have as many hands free as possible yeah okay with the upper limit of two no no actually you didn't know this but dwarves and art and will actually have four arms oh that's fantastic yes love that good point oh that is great that is great maybe i missed uh just i'm clear uh on how this best works i have like a small hammer and spikes they can use the spidens yep um they're in my backpack uh if i wanted to use something like that on the fly going up do they need to be essentially uh equipped like weapons i need to be holding them in either hand yeah we don't have to get that nitty-gritty what i basically need to know though is like what's in your hands right so um but yeah if you're if you're using hammer and spice and obviously that's what b would be in your i'd like to have a couple spikes and a hammer on the ready essentially is what i'm getting at yeah should i need them okay i need to throw a rope over it real quick all right so just uh let's go down the line so i know what gordon and varga have in their hands what does ozrik and adversions have in their hands i have my staff that's okay um i don't think i have anything else useful to hold on to other than you know uh your dreams my dreams my hopes and wishes hopes of living my faith in the wisdom of the master ancients all right adversios uh yeah uh he is going to have his faith uh in the uh new uh steady staff that he is uh uh uh we have forged from the trees and uh also in his other hand he's going to carry a crowbar because he thinks having something with a strong metal hook would be a good idea if he needs her cool does anyone have a shield that they've had to pack away because of this i said that already right okay yeah you did i slung it across my back so just don't forget um and you don't have to like erase stuff and all that kind of stuff but remember that that now goes into your packed items things rather than your equipped so that may reduce they may push you down into like a lower level of movement just you know that's the kind of stuff that we need to keep track of all the way so for this for the for this particular ascent i assume that you're moving as slowly and as cautiously as necessary of course but just something to keep in mind as we move forward i have one more question that's only now occurred to me and we'll apply later on perhaps but you know the hammer within the equipment list is presumably to use for hammering things in like spikes um does it make sense that the broad side of an axe could do the same thing i mean you in real life it would right you could just turn the axe sand axe and hit it correct yeah is that too cheesy are you just saying you want to do it so that you have a weapon ready sort of thing yeah if i ins rather than having a hammer if i wanted to use an axe and so i'd have an axe that i could double as a hammer or is that possible or is that too i buy i don't see why um you know it depends on the axe uh actually a a a roman um dollar actually has a spade on the back but he's talking about like using like the part where it actually meets the wood yeah i know yeah roman dollar which is like a hand axe trenching tool you couldn't use as a hammer really not very effectively okay that's good to know but um uh you know sort of we'll say viking period kind of that kind of axe they'd often don't have anything on the back it would make a fine hammer not a great hammer but a fine hammer i always picture it as like my hatchet you know like my hatchet that i take camping you use that to hammer ten stakes in that's right that's what i do yeah yeah which is why i asked that's fine yeah all right cool so i'm gonna have that just so i have the weapon rather than okay cool and then we're we're we're tying each other with rope how how uh we've got 50 feet of rope right i have 100 feet okay yeah let's just think we need 100 i think 50 is all we need but just yeah let's just do a 50 foot length and do 10 foot lengths yeah so what i'm going to do john is i'm going to have 50 coiled around me like a climber would just like over my shoulder in other words not being used yeah and the other 50 is going to start tied to me and then at an even increment across we'll tie everyone the rest question about that uh should the bulk of the rope be actually tied around whoever is the strongest i don't know if that is actually a factor in this kind of thing david that is that is actually virgo that is as you can see by you guys can't see but as the viewers can see by my lovely graphic yeah um yeah i i mean it's sort of a material on this i think are you pressing your burger sorry what are you packing in the old str department oh oh 15. he's much like the player yeah it's that whisking blood yeah okay okay okay so uh what is the marching order then uh virgo first then uh i'll go well so here's my next question if we've got a strong anchor with all that rope then i guess and this is a little bit meta john so take it for what you will uh it's going to be um based on a string thing or based on a dex thing that kind of deal because i'm thinking that like the so the strongest and most dexterous people should be leading uh as and then they remain the anchor for anyone who else who slips if that makes sense okay so slipping um there is a there's a high chance because you're going up these stairs that they're right that you may have to there might be an issue with the slickness of the of the ramp that way that will be dexterity based um okay then um should you have an issue because you're tied to the strength like basically like your ultimate fate will be determined by strength if you know what i mean yeah so i don't know if it makes sense with the two best people at the front in the back okay front and back sure so i'm a 13th strength and at 12 decks i don't know where that puts me uh i'm 10 and 13 so i'm probably in the middle somewhere then i i'm in the middle too you're stronger than that i'll follow up i've got my staff and my steady feet and okay oswick second averagio's third and goran last is that what i'm hearing no no other class oh audrey glass i'm sorry okay quick who's going second quick sure me okay gordon average he owes osric yeah i don't like this plan okay oh right you start to make you ascend your way up and you're it is uh it's like after the first like 30 feet or so it becomes absolutely terrifying and you're thinking to yourself the entire time as you're slowly making your way up hand over hand over these ropes um as uh as you can't even hear the sound of vargo pounding in the spikes it's up it's like little pinks like that you can barely hear over the roar of the um of the uh of the waterfall it's like you've talked to like almost dozens of people who have claimed to have seen the wonders of arden villains inside who have nominally gone up this same section of state of uh of a ramp all the way up to the top of your like that is [ __ ] insane like they are full of they are full of [ __ ] i think i think i think while this is happening uh varga is singing not quite the equivalent of she'll be coming around the mountain but sort of a whiskey version of like a a song of like uh you know like a like an asteroid like a like a scandinavian named woman who's a giant you know who kind of like uh uh what's the giant lumberjack guy no giant a giant scandinavian woman running through the mountains right uh trolloping over them like they're nothing uh this is what the song is uh you got weird songs from your village man hey listen okay don't jump don't kink shame all right so you it's it's very muscle it's it's much like a a waterlogged version of the passing over carathross right here and i mean it's like it's really slow you're very careful like pushing through like the water um every step it's like you can't you can barely find purchase um what you think is like a solid set of flagstone set by the excellent you know the the expert arkantian architects of years ago suddenly like slips out from underneath you um causing you to stumble and caught you know causing other people to like grasp whatever whatever shrubbery they could find like growing out of the side of the of the cliff face um it's nightmarish it's really awful um and uh uh i need everyone to this is an interesting way of doing it you're gonna roll 2d6 and you want to roll underneath your decks but because you guys have taken the precautions of actually roping yourselves together you get to subtract two from the roll which is a good thing because you're trying to go underneath your decks oh an order of climbing i'll go first oh okay gordon made it you know i made it parker got a five he made it okay all right my dex is eight oh boy probably not that's the lowest lowest one oh that's a four and uh oh that's a that's an eight but with the minus two i'm good [Laughter] good uh audrey got a five all right yeah yeah you guys all really really shitty which is really good um it's just i'm that dexterous that's what it is looking across looking it's actually really nice now that i can actually see your guys ability scores i wish you guys could actually see what i'm seeing but um uh for as you guys can notice surprisingly and ironically enough the dwarf is the most actress of the group with the 13. um so you are able to make your way up to that first switchback um that's all for one switchback oh my god oh no i should say i'm sorry two so you make your way up to the first one and you to this to the um the second one now this is interesting okay at the second switchback here uh you see that there is a yes there is a 20 foot wide um i'm going to i'm going to reset this image and it's perfect for the viewers so please don't move it just adjust your screen or or albert to do your own thing but don't move the image okay so uh at the second switchback there is a 20-foot wide entrance into the cliff itself that's what i saw yeah it uh it uh it looks like it's been expertly carved into the cliff it's not something that's natural like a crevice right it's been carved but it does it's not like lined with marble blocks like that grand entrance you saw on the western side of the falls right it's just like a plane cut entrance into the into the side um yeah it's dark like like you i'm i'm gonna assume you haven't looked into it yet but it's just dark in there there's no light um but at this angle here as you kind of it's much wider here i would say it's probably about around like give or take around 10 feet wide so you can kind of like move around on this landing you can see directly over you're at arden's shoulder now you can see her helmed face like looming up you know like if you look up into your right you can see like her her massive face like uh uh glowing down upon her hand which is below you right so when you look down you can see her hand um in the hand what's in the hand john what's in the hand the hand what's in the hand banking uh you could see that in her hand is nothing i thought nothing nothing in the box um john i have a couple questions uh one uh each segment i guess is it written uh how long each segment of this uh switchback is we have a sense of like well i can tell you where you are right now you're you're 750 feet above the valley so you were exactly halfway up and how long did that take us uh i would say going super slow and careful i'd say probably about a half hour oh so we made good time yeah um i i was i didn't do it earlier because uh well what i would like to do is like put a couple spikes on that path if we want to re-traverse this at some point just so we have like a fixed spot is it possible to retroactively put one at each juncture since we said we just did two i wasn't sure where we were you want to put them out at each switchback yeah so eat it at the fulcrum of each before the turn i just want to like put a spike in the ground yep no sorry i don't want to do that i'm sorry i wanted if this is if this is uh not possible let me know i'd rather do it at the center point between each does that make sense i got you yeah sorry like on the incline itself on the incline halfway up the incline on either side i'd like to put a spike so if anything were to happen on our traversal of this it would be something that i knew was there if i needed to grab onto it or if a rope could get snagged on no problem yep so mark off two spikes off your inventory yeah well cool i i have a question john yeah so we're standing here at this i guess sort of a platform or something by this carved entrance yep and i'm looking at this uh these this path up and looking across well having earlier looked at the earlier uh on the other side so that was stairs up to a marble entrance am i getting the sense that that's like the visitors entrance and this is the service entrance kind of feeling like this would be the ramp you'd take bring a cart up into this sort of ordinary cut stone entrance as opposed to you know climbing up the grand steps to the marble entrance it's totally a reasonable assumption to make the only problem is that you can't confirm it because you haven't been close you haven't been able to get close enough to to the other set to determine the age difference between the broken stairs and the ram that you're on so you don't know like this could be added later or pop possibly but but like i said like really you really have no idea but it's it's totally a reasonable assumption to make that this this just to be clear how does the parts got up yet just to speak through the stairs with the western yeah yeah and so this entrance has no marble is there any any indication that it previously had marvel that it was decorated in some way and has fallen into ruin somehow no or any like signs or writing around like any like wooden stakes no it literally looks like it was just expertly carved to form like a rectangular entrance into the stone but it is completely um devoid of any sort of uh remnants of like there's like uh there's no like um holes where marvel would marble would have been riveted in or something like that yeah yeah it was stripped yeah could goran look at this and say that that's an arkantian carving or not impossible it's um like i said it's just it's just been carved out of the bare rock just in an extra fashion okay our continents had the ability to do this you can you know that right and you have not you have not actually peered in this is just sort of like you got them up to the top right right well i think it's time to peer in oh we definitely went appearing last question on the on the carving of it does it seem uh like finished and smooth or like rough quick like you know big chunks out uh sort of i i i know this is kind of wishy-washy but it's actually sort of in the middle it looks like utilitarian okay right it's like that's good it's like someone carved it with it with a with um yeah it's neat and tidy but not fine yeah it's like someone like like a mason who would do it up to a certain standard and wouldn't never bring himself below a certain standard right that sort of thing yeah sorry my last question really fixed it down the rock give give a thief a uh a wall um everything is a no uh her per my question earlier like i'm really interested in the connection point right of when rough human raw rock becomes sculpture and i'm re i really want to check and see if there is like ah a wedge like it's really common for climbers to wedge through you know to use the leverage of of like a a wedge as if that makes sense yep a v point in the point in between and if there is varger would use that for instance to help traverse he would try to get across through that because it'd be the safest least exposed way of doing so to kind of go up and over the shoulder type of situation okay so that's a good question so at this point um this is actually an ideal point the the the um the pauldron of her armor um is right there like you can literally like climb right onto it and it is at this point at least uh where you are under the sculpture that the um that the statue of arden vool actually connects with the rock right here at this landing so the seam is um is is tight right here like there's no you can't climb behind the pauldron and get behind her you would have to climb up onto the pauldron and go behind her head in order to get to whatever lies below i'm sorry behind her head right now um but uh and also at this point too uh the falls are far enough away where you're still getting spray but it's not it's not obscuring vision at this point either right like it's it's not dry but it's still treacherous but it's um um but you could you have that clear view down onto her palm right so you could uh depending on where you want to go you could climb up onto her pauldron um anyone could attempt this obviously varga would have a much easier time than the rest of you um but it is definitely something that you could you could simply walk onto her pauldron right but in order to ascend it you would have to probably make a roll um i would like to see what's behind her head but i don't want to dominate the session so if you guys would rather go in first like let me know i just think it's it's a you also see my my spider senses are tingling well just so you get a clear picture as well you can also see too that there are those vines and growths that are hanging that are dripping down her the front of her um breastplate and the pauldron itself and they do actually kind of dangle down down towards her knee and her open palm down there right like there's gross like all over her i think it's a little david i think it's worth exploring all right i agree why don't you just go ahead and leave us behind so on this platform what i want to do is we have a hundred feet of rope right yeah take the road with you i uh uh we'll say the first how can we do this we should we should put this spike in right here i'm gonna put a spike in here and you guys should be on one end of it as a belay as a belay right i'm going to go 50 feet right i'm going to spike in right yeah i'm going to go another 50 feet i'm going to spike in etc etc and the first thing i'm going to do is try to get behind the helmet that's the first sort of trajectory i'm going for that way i'm tied you guys have it another side of me if things go to [ __ ] i'm swinging down and it's still dangerous but i'm not falling to my death does that make sense all right yeah okay i can believe what's your second character by the way [Laughter] uh yeah exactly so so john just just to clarify if this makes sense yep visually i am lead climbing where they are spiked and holding me blame me from the fur for the first 50 feet yep i'm then going to spike in i should probably do it every 25 but i don't know how many spikes i have is the problem i'm going to spike in another 50 feet with my second section of rope and tie off there as well and continue does that make sense so if i fall on the second segment i'm falling to that center point you're probably going to have to take the rope away from us at that point which i would also do right and then i would continue to caterpillar across does that make sense i got it so i'm always i'm always going to have 50 feet of rope attached to some point i understand this yep yep and we'll say that uh i don't know i think it's six spikes is what you get for a set so but if it doesn't say that that's what you have so you all right or i got 12 maybe that's that's fine okay so now you just okay so if you if you bought two sets then you have 12 spikes which means you're down to 10 right now i have 10 right now okay you can also receive them as you come back yeah i'll pull them if i need to on the way back okay so first objective is behind the head all right cool so you there are uh so this is kind of an interesting thing you've got plenty of hand holds um and you've got this in addition that you have tools you have you have the spikes and you've got the climate and you've got the help of your friends um and um but the thing that's kind of hindering you is the slickness um and constant uh you know the the wetness coming off of the waterfall um but mitigating that is the fact that you are a thief who can actually climb sheer surfaces um so what is your current uh what is your climb shear surfaces my current climb shear surfaces is three so it's uh fifty percent okay uh so i'm gonna have you make a roll because it is dangerous but i'm gonna let you use that but i'm gonna up that by two so i'm gonna give you a five and six chance um and this is only because you're a thief basically anyone else who would wanna give this a try i probably give them a two and six rather than a one and six because of the equipment that they had um but but you're an expert so so walk with i'm just rolling one d6 you're you're rolling 1d6 and you want to get um five or lower and i did yay cool all right so yeah you you you spike in um and ah i'd probably say it would probably take two spikes to get to well no you'll probably take one spike to get to a point where you could actually slip behind her head right so her head is fully detached from the cliff face um now uh already when you guys were ascending these stairs you were in shadow because you were um uh uh just because the nature of the sun was kind of past zenith and you were in the shadows of this cliff but now you're in complete almost total darkness um because you're uh you're in that that narrow cleft in between the the head and the cliff itself right um actually i would say like the sun is actually shining like like a like a ray like like like right through that that that dark uh that dark crevice in between the head and the cliff you can see that the the rock of the cliff face itself um has definite like it's definitely been hewn in huge amounts right like where it was actually like where the the statue was carved out of that for that that rock right like it's definitely not natural there but it has been worn down over the over the centuries um because of the water erosion so that is sort of like these kind of gentle folds but you could tell that it's not that it was it was hewn by somebody you know i mean like like a massive team like a huge effort um uh and you can see that there is a massive pile of vegetation that has basically grown up in the v part where like the the back of her like like her shoulder blades right like like the the what's that what's it called the back here the scapula or the nape the nape of the snake yeah the nape is where like it where it connects again with the with the cliff face do you understand what i'm saying and it forms like a v and down there is extremely lush with vegetation because it's like um uh you know i mean it's like wet and moist like a hundred percent dry all the time right but it's also very very dark um but it does get sun at certain points of the day and um and so there's uh and you can see like the whole area that you're stepping into or climbing across is like draped with like heavy heavy vegetation um all very very wet but you don't you don't see anything like you don't see any entrances you don't see any um sparkly treasure or yeah i'm just trying sorry i'm trying to visualize a little bit is there like a chasm where this vegetation is growing below like is is it no like is it just vegetation upon the neck or is there like erosion that's created a face no i'm saying like the head is completely detached right um let me see if i can put it in frame here so um uh let's see sorry i'm trying to do like my camera so this this is her um this is her head yeah okay and this is the cliff wall right understand so the head is detached from the cliff wall all right and then um as because she's leaning forward and resting resting uh on her knee right um her back is sloped i'm sorry this is her head her back is sloped and so eventually hits the cliff wall yes right and so that's where it attaches again and then that crevice right here is all this vegetation and how easy would it be for me to get down to that vegetation uh not not too hard because there's tons of like you can using the rope and especially in the hanging vegetation it would be minimally difficult okay and even if you fell you would fall into that bed of vegetation with maybe a d6 worth of damage so i have my spike there right i'm going to use my second 50 and i'm going to repel down there okay cool all right no roll and you you a light down into um this patch of of extremely wet um sure thorny masses and stuff like that but no no damage or anything like that um and you basically you kind of drop down and it's like you it basically almost goes up to your neck and like thick vegetation like you're really like in there um snake you're gonna find snakes shut up all of you hear a dreadful cry in the air like a [Applause] like uh there's a [ __ ] nest there's a [ __ ] nest it's a huge cry uh like out in the air somewhere um you see a shadow you're already in almost total darkness virgo and you can see like above you for a brief instant for about two seconds you can see the sun get blotted out by some large thing that is flying from the western side of the of the cliff face towards the east as it flies over you and you um you are you are physically um pushed down by the by the massive force of wing buff it is and something crosses right over top of your guys heads the rest of you guys back on the landing as you see a uh a green scaled massive uh serpentine figure a light uh come winging by you it does not appear to see you but wings and then like slowly almost lackadaisically circles in the sky above you i i would just like to say that earlier when we felt like the rumors and people we talked to and things about the switchback they didn't mention i feel like we've really dropped the ball i would like to lodge a complaint yeah it does not appear that is what what it appears to be oh although you've never seen one but it sure seems like one it does not appear that this dragon um has noticed any of you okay um extended beyond the hundred feet of this rope can i start pulling on him and he said he took them into the rope with them i have two like so so there's there's a method for me to get back to you on my own if you want to hide i'm gonna go i'm gonna hide yeah i was gonna pull you but if you've pulled the rope are you more than 100 feet from me if the answer is yes i can't pull on the rope because you have all your you can pull on the rope yeah okay all right so you're like oh [ __ ] and you you guys race into the into the um into this entrance you can see that um it leads into what appears to be a re relatively low chamber only about eight feet high um and it's made it's carved out a very neatly shaped rock without any decoration or ornamentation at all there doesn't appear to be any sort of furnishings at all inside but you do see that there is in the center of it there is a fire circle and there is a two weeks would you i don't know how you would know that but i'm going to tell you right now there appears to be like a two-week supply of firewood stacked neatly against one of the sides of this chamber there does not appear to be anything it just appears to be just a small little room like a little wash post perhaps or something like that uh does not appear to be as far as you can tell any sort of uh further uh you know entrance to anything further deeper into the into the cliff itself um but it definitely does uh protect you from whatever's outside there sure well well while they're pulling up our thief i'm gonna don't do an appointment he's just nuts while they're doing what they're doing i'm gonna go search for secret doors in the back of this tunnel okay cool all right so roll me a secret door's checked um unless you're doing unless you're doing something specific like well i want to check i want to check first of all um it's just a square you said right uh yeah rectangular but yeah all right on the back wall i'm gonna look for any bricks that are loose i'm going to use the um end of the back end of my at my hatchet to try and my hand axe to try and find hollow spaces okay um and uh i was hoping that i'd be able to use my dwarfis the uh detect uh construction tricks to see if there's like um sliding walls new construction sloping passages anything like that sure that it's not a substitute for secret doors but um but uh if you so it would take like one turn to do that sort of stuff and then another turn to do like specific secret doors okay so i'll do the construction trick thing okay cool go ahead and roll uh john do we need to is it so dark in here we should uh light up it is definitely dark although there's enough light coming in from the outside that you don't necessarily need unless you plan to spend a lot of time here nope totally fine guys totally safe not gonna have goblins come out of a secret door and eat this later that's totally cool sweet i roll the three all right so we we do have to wrap up here um just so we're all in the same place um varga do you want to um do you want to do anything further here in this yes of course okay so we can leave it here that's fine so we can have varga basically still attach the rope a dragon has just winged by and basically lazily made circles in the air as it sort of rode the uh the the um the currents of the air upwards and then it disappears off as far as you can tell over the cliff like you you just kind of watch it look as it kind of disappears what you think is into the ruined city itself but you're not really sure and you can hear one last cry as it disappears um and um uh varger is basically up to his neck in the shadowed recesses of this vegetation and the nape of the neck of the statue of art and while the rest of you guys are in that chamber um and uh we can leave it there if that's cool sound good he lives there now right on all right all right they have made it half well yeah about halfway up the cliff already some exciting juicy stuff to dig into it a long adventure boys yeah we did not see a giant nest in the hand right no you saw nothing in the hand except like a vegetation like a little bit of vegetation but um paul was the vegetation not not tall knocked on not anything near what you saw but just like an open palm um but it does appear that you could like if you crested the pauldron which you've already done in order to get back to this point but if you crest in the other direction that there are enough vines that you could um you varga would um it would not be that too terribly difficult to get down into that hand um for everyone else would be quite difficult and quite dangerous still a little bit of danger for you just so you know um but it is possible uh all right so yeah we'll we'll leave those decisions until a further time but uh anyways awesome first session guys thank you so much thank you thank you john man that's really fun yeah absolutely uh thanks everyone for joining in i hope you guys enjoyed it um and uh hopefully we'll see you guys soon for session two and we'll see what these uh misfits get up to um in the meantime don't forget to please like and subscribe please share everywhere you possibly find so we get get some more viewers more people into it um and uh we will see you guys next time so thanks so much guys have a great week take care bye okay you

Channel: 3d6 Down The Line

Views: 25,924

Keywords: OSE, OSR, Old School Essentials, D&D, RPG, Actual Play, Arden Vul

Id: UL0rYJw-Q9M

Length: 137min 6sec (8226 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 05 2022