Dear Diary, I've got a joke. Why is Dracula so easy to swindle into this adventages' dealings? Because he's a sucker. It's funny, but also so sad and quite true. I take it right on my pointy and masculine chin now because when you live forever, you're gonna get hoodwinked. That's just love, large numbers. But as my old pal and fellow vampire Roger Doltry said, I shan't be fooled again. Fylo, you are floating weightless, not in the crimson waters you were just swimming
in. But in an endless black abyss and standing in front of you, you see a familiar face. It's not one that I think you've ever met before, given the sort of difference, the gap between your positions in the church. But from maybe some stained glass windows here and there, you see the turbo cardinal who is looking down at you piteously. I guess you did see him on the operating table. He didn't see Fylo, but Fylo did see him. He tried
to attack him. He is looking down at you as you gain your bearings and this space that you're in continues to take shape. You realize that the two of you are not alone in here, all around you in this void are humanoid figures. Some are moving, just aimlessly shambling about, some are kneeling in a fetal position. Nobody seems to be doing particularly great,
but they are giving a sort of wide berth to you in the turbo cardinal. You are sort of so bewildered by what you're seeing and this place that you have all of a sudden appeared in. It takes you a second to realize you're not a puppet. You are Fylo again in this place. The turbo cardinal looks down at you and he says, welcome my child. Have you come to give your confession? I recognize a member of the flock when I see one.
No, you're your eminence. I am not here for a confession. I'm here. Oh, this is going to take a while. I am here to help you. I'm a bit confused as to the situation. Can you explain to me where exactly we are? He looks around the space and smiles and looks down at you and says, I suspect we are nowhere at all. The physical laws that cover our world, or perhaps I should say your world do not seem to apply here. It would perhaps be simplest
to say that we are within the God. Oh, I want to do a religion check. Sure. To try to see if I can glean any more information from where we are and what state we're in. Maybe I think here in Y.O.V. I think maybe not a religion. I don't know what a religion check would get you here, but I do think a straight-up perception check might be more griffin. I have minus one in perception and plus six in religion. That's very exciting.
What about investigation? If you can tell me specifically what you are investigating in the form of the turbo cardinal and see if he still looks vampiric. Yeah, sure. Go for it. Come in investigation check or medicine check. I don't want investigation. Okay, that's a whole six. He looks different from the turbo cardinal you saw laid out on the table. More vital. His cheeks are less shallow. You don't see pointy teeth as he is talking
to you. As far as you can tell, this turbo cardinal you are speaking to does not appear to have that same affliction. Your Eminence, do you at all recall what was the onset of your vampiric state when last I saw you to be honest, when last I saw you, you were laid out almost at the state of death with vampiric tendencies and yet no bite marks. Do you have any recollection of being in that state? His smile vanishes and he looks down at the
floor and he says, ah, perhaps you should receive my confession instead. Oh, of course. What is your name? My child. I am Brother Philo. Yes. Philo. What is your rank? Oh, I am merely a monk. I am looking to advance. I am looking to move on. I was being audited in the Cathedral of Enumeration. Yes. And by Deacon Atreus, he took me to see you and you had bangs? Ah, I feared that maybe the case. Yes. But you may not be aware then of the
complex politics that our church must be embroiled in to survive. The throne, Philo, is no fan of our orthodoxy. The foundations of our church are crumbling and my pleas for soccer to the Lord of Light went unanswered. And so I must confess that I sought power in the only place where I knew power was guaranteed. In Ongray, I was invited to have audience with the entity in which we now reside. He needed my help so he claimed and would bestow
upon me power to save our order. But when I failed to provide it, he found another use for me, I suppose. That is how I came to the state in which you saw me. So it was on that turned you into the pseudo vampire that I saw you as. On is at the source of every vampire that dwells this world, I am shamed to have fallen into such a state. And I hope I did
not do you or any other members of our order, any harm. No, no, no, no. If I were to, let's say, eliminate this, this on, would it cure you if I were to be able to somehow murder the rise him or it they you you are young. I suppose you cannot kill a God, if I know you can only delay it and on has been much delayed. I fear that I am beyond saving in the physical world. You may be able to cure me of the virulent evil that has plagued my physical form,
but there will be no reunion for me. Any gestures to his, his sort of ethereal form. He says, when on turned me into what I am now, he drained me of it. Well, it would be too simple to say of all the goodness in my heart. He drained me to put it simply of my own capacity to be satisfied. Whatever man you would cure out there would lack decency of any stripe. I would ask instead you should curing me prove impossible that you dispatched me so that
what's left of my soul may rejoin the light. Outside of the heart, back in the meat space, we are in the petrified heart chamber. On one side, sort of the north half of this room, might you have just conducted a flawless ruse. Thank you. To turn the attention of the half dozen guards in this room to turn their attention to him. You have also knocked the gigantic flesh golem into the crimson waters as the gate of this
cell swung open. We're going to get to that in just a second, but on the other half of this room, Lady Godwin, you stand at the mouth of a tunnel. Yeah, Griff, you know, it's the problem with taking a little break or uski in between recording these episodes. I for the life of me, I'll be damned if I could remember what my plan was over here. It seems like mud's getting some good work done. Griff, I think what we got here is a classic case of a barbarian
trying to be useful in a stealthy situation. But I'll be damned if I could tell you what my goal was here. Yeah, sure. I mean, you got to do the least Justin, the end goal might have just simply been curiosity. I think if you guys looked at her at Lady Godwin, you would have seen her like ducky down, looking at the cape and all of a sudden she's kind of like stands bold up like what? As if a month's past. Sorry, God. It's a brain fart. Yeah. Why don't you give me a
give me a perception history check to remember what your plan was. That's good. Perception. Great. Okay, it's an eight. Okay, at an eight, I will sort of lay out the scene. You see mud doing this deception up on the north side of the room and it seems to be working quite well. All eyes are on hide right now. You get the impression though you are standing fairly out the open if you know one of these guards turns away from this from this ruse they they will see you.
Ah, shit. You know what? I gotta do. But I gotta go. I gotta say I think I gotta go in. I think I gotta go in the cave with the eyeballs. I think I gotta go in the cave with the eyes. Okay, that's the only safe. I don't know if it's safer unsafe, but I know being out here is unsafe. So I'm gonna go I'm gonna head deeper into the cave to try to hide my presence here. Okay, cool.
You step foot into the cave and vanish from here. You share a bunch of tiny little animal voices go. Wait, what? Wait, really? Okay, I thought we went up. With us? Okay. Um, you step inside the tunnel and it takes you a while for your eyes to adjust. In here it is, uh, nearly pitch black, uh, aside from these yellow eyes that are watching you. Um, beyond those eyes, at what you assume to be the back of the tunnel, uh, some distance away, you also see a flicker of bright red light.
Uh, it is reminiscent of sort of the, uh, the flashes of light that you saw in the sort of seams, uh, in the tunnels in this, this cave system, the like arteries, if you will, leading into the heart chamber. This one is, is quite bright and now as you move into the tunnel, you can see it. Um, that light illuminates the creatures that are in here with you and they are numerous and, and, uh,
uh, various, there is a diverse collection of nocturnal beasts in here. You see foxes and wolves and bats and hedgehogs and, uh, any, any numbers, no as arc, it's no as dark in here. Ah, it's great. It's great. Um, however, these creatures do not, uh, attack you in some sort of, you know, weird hive mind foreman, formation like the rats you encountered on the spinal bridge earlier. They are, uh, fairly docile. In fact, a lot of them aren't even looking at you as you enter into the tunnel.
They, they appear, uh, emaciated, uh, and, uh, somewhat, somewhat bummed out. Um, these creatures that you are now in the tunnel with do not appear to be any kind of immediate threat to you, Godwin. What do you do? Um, I'm going to, without moving forward into sort of their space, I'd like to take a look at towards the light you were describing, uh, see if I can figure out anything else about it. My limited capacity to understand.
Sure. Give me, um, I think this could be perception or investigation. Um, either one is zero plus 13 is what I rolled there. Um, 12 better than it's well not as good as a 14. That's what I always say. Maybe 30 feet, uh, into this tunnel. It deadens. Um, this is, uh, this is not so much a tunnel as much as it is. It's just a little hobble that, uh, these, these pitiful creatures are kind of taking shelter in, uh, at the back, the back wall.
Uh, sure enough has an exposed scene of this red crystal, uh, vein, uh, and it is pulsating much brighter, much more steady than, uh, than, than any that you have seen so far. Um, not entirely sure why, but I think even you without, uh, any kind of like magical training to your name, you are feeling a, a, a great deal of just energy radiating off of this thing.
Man, this is like a really bad. I don't love any of my options right now. You got yourself some barbarian impulses over there. Yeah. Um, I'm not going to do. I'm not going to do anything. I'm not going to do anything. I don't know what to do. This all seems extremely bad. Uh, that is your prerogative. If you don't know, I'll be honest with you. I am, I am being colored by the conversation that I heard between like, filo and, and, um, the turbo cardinal about like, what is.
No, yeah, well, you didn't hear me. You know what I mean? I know I didn't, but like my impulses, I'm trying to balance like knowing that with like what should we do. I'm going to head towards the light. I'm going to head towards the light. Fuck. I'm going to head towards the light. Okay. But with my hands up in a very non thread anyway. I'm singing a sweet song. Yeah, what does that sound like? Little night boys, my little night boys. Let's me sing to you of your greatest joys.
The moon overhead and the dew underneath. There is still mouse blood on your teeth. My night boys. My favorite song time from little night boys. I love the point. Give me an animal handling check with advantage. Yeah, here in the bandage. Out six. You get inspiration for that. I was inspired to what has happened to us. Griffin likes the song in Jesus doesn't.
You know what it is? Okay, here's what happens. With a six. I think actually what happens? The creatures love this song. And as you walk down this tunnel singing the tune, they start gathering around you.
So much so that you are having to step kind of cautiously so as not to trample any of them. As you near the glowing red vein, you feel little, little pitterpatters on your shoulders. You look over and you see that you have a handful of tarantulas that have descended from the cave ceiling and landed on you. Cute. He's got the way I'm picturing them. Hey, here's a little secret. If you're a freak at home, picture him cute. Yeah, that's how far have I made it?
You made it to the you have made it to this vein though. You are you are here and you can see it very, very clearly now. I will say at this. I'm feeling tell me what I you know what let me do. Would you let me do an insight check on myself to see like what kind of lying? No, I guess inside isn't exactly the vibe. I want to try to like really get a sense of what kind of vibes I'm getting from this like what kind of energy is right. I don't have any magical sense right?
Obviously, so I mean in our can a check. I don't feel like makes sense, but some sort of like what am I feeling from it? Okay, yeah, sure, give me an insight check. Oh, of course now critical 20. What a cool one to get a net 20. Her insight. Yeah, right. I open she sees all she is love everything is love. She understands herself on such a deep level. This is a this is a bit weird for me as a DM because I am generally uncomfortable telling you guys how you feel about a situation.
I really say try to be I'm asking this as I let me rephrase this question, Griffin as I approach it. How does my mood shift is there an outside influence? Yeah, I feel differently now close to it than I did before. Here is here is how I will answer this question you are a barbarian. You didn't used to be, but then your body got exploded and your head got transplanted onto a barbarian body and now you're a barbarian and as a barbarian, you have slaughtered some stuff.
You have killed things with your powerful acts, Jennifer Myers and severed heads and struck at vulnerable points on a number of different creatures. This thing you are standing in front of, you feel a vitality from it. You feel a weakness to it. That is I think the best I can kind of answer without you know, kind of directly guiding you and telling you what you know what to do or how you pay.
I'm going to pick up one of my little night boys and hold them right against it. I got a little possum handy. I can test. Yeah, sure. Yeah, you can pick up a possum. I see a react. It barely reacts. Let me roll for possum test. Yeah, roll possum.
Is it a quick possum check? You will perform it. So check us is another now 20 what the fuck Justin? Yeah, I don't know man. I really need to know what's going on here. I guess I don't know at a certain point Griffin like we all have plans right and you had to end.
So Justin starts she getting a possum. I know you had plans for how you want this thing to go and I had a plan which was rubber possum on it so good that I know everything. I'm sorry. Like there was a chase at this possum plan didn't pan out. Yeah possum plan pan out and now you got a you can't pan me. You got it. Yeah, you got to tell him your dark secret.
Give me the gold. You hold the possum gingerly it looks up at you. Trustingly it liked your son a lot and place it against this glowing red crystalline vein as you do so the possum. It's eyes go wide and it. Okay, I stopped. I stopped. No, I stopped. Oh, it's eyes go wide. It's up. That's fine. It's bad. It doesn't like it. That's fine.
No, the opposite choose. Oh God no. It looks stronger. It stretches its body out and as it does so you see it kind of snap out of it snap out of this fugue it's in and it does like a couple quick circles in your giant hands as you hold it and it looks like ready to fucking party.
Interesting. Yeah, okay, I'm going to hit it with my axe. Sorry, the possum or the vein. The vein. Yeah, my research is complete. I decided I decided after extensive testing that Griffin's not going to give me anything better than that because I got two twenties in a row, one of which was a possible test. So roll to hit it with ax. The possum. Now it's a six. Now it's a six. Now it's a six. Now roll and think you slam your axe, your trusty axe, Jennifer Myers into the vein.
It immediately splits down the middle and a spray of bright red blood shoots out of it like a fire hose. Fuck yes, let's go. It blasts you leaving a lady godwin shaped silhouette behind you in on the wall and it is pretty gross. You are now covered in God blood. How am I feeling right now? You feel incredible. You heal up to full. I don't even know if you have any damage, but you feel you feel like you are you've been revitalized.
All right. As you pull Jennifer Myers back, I didn't know as a HP thing. I would have just popped it. I actually would have killed all those guys and then pop the HP absolutely. As you pulled Jennifer Myers back, the blade of this ass. What is Jennifer Myers look like? You haven't really I think described kind of what sort of ax is.
Oh, well, here I go. So imagine the long stick. And then at the end of it, there's two curved blades kick ass, dude. Yeah. No, for sure connected in the middle or separate. No, no, no, this is the best part right? The two blades are connected to the stick at the end. Holy shit. Yeah, dude. That's so sweet. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, I didn't tell you the best part. Runes. Whoa.
And do the runes mean something or just decorative? Well, it's not her act. She doesn't know the mystery of the room. But they are. Oh man, guys. When I start getting into the runes, yeah, you are not going to be able to it's going to be a lot of like a lot to unpack. The runes are really important. Yeah, sure. Can you give us any indication on the weight of it? What the weight of the ax? Yeah. This is about an act. This is about an X worth. Yeah, an X worth a way.
A standard kind of big acts. Yeah, the only thing different about it. It's like almost too normal. Yeah, except for the runes. And we will adjust it as the blade just loose in the stick. The blade is connected to the stick with glue. Okay. But the other thing about it is that there's only 12 runes and each one means something really important and different. Cool. Yeah, it's pretty cool.
As you pull Jennifer Myers out of the vein, you see that it's appearances change somewhat. Oh man, the half that you just started drawing it. The half that you attacked the vein with the blade now has a splash of red crystal making up a part of that blade that sort of streaks dramatically back towards the chat. I tried to wipe it off. It doesn't come off. It is crystal. It is part of the blade. You can see that these red veins as they reach the shaft of the ax, they weave downwards.
They drip and harden and crystallize between weaving between the runes, these important runes and where they meet sort of the grip where you are holding it. It almost looks like they're forming like thorny finds around the shaft of this blade. I just need to just add one more clause for if you would just add making the runes illegible making the runes.
Oh, it was a whole transmedia property. The mystery of the runes. Damn. This is damn it. This act is sure how could you take that away from just like I'm sad, but the listener at home you should be devastating. This is the worst photo of your day. You don't even know it. In the presence of this powerful blood, you feel your ax has gotten stronger.
It is feeding off of this sort of vital blood and you get the sense that if any of your own blood were to get on this ax, it would reach a truly lethal potential. Jennifer Myers has become a blood rage great ax. A magic item you gain plus two bonus to attack and damage rolls made with this magic great ax while you have half your hit points or fewer.
Let me tell y'all a listener to home what I love in the in the test versus Dracula. There have been a lot of moments where Justin dad and I have done things that have thrown Griffin for a loop and he's had to quickly prepare and figure stuff out. I love that Griffin knew that when presented with a big glowing vein Justin was going to hit it with his angst so in this one circuit like he was ready for like you know, he knew Justin so well in this circumstance.
I can see why those were more lucrative. The possum seeing this blood rage great ax looks up at you and not sort of violently and scampers and sort of traips itself around your neck like a mink. Is this something that's still happening or is this like the blood has stopped. It is now sort of feebly dripping from the vein which has gone now almost completely dark. It is that the scene in here has calmed down except you are literally like head to toe covered in blood on your front side.
That's a quick announcement next week Vancouver and Tacoma Washington is very exciting Vancouver sold out and Tacoma taz will be taz versus the great gatsby. It's going to be wild. I'm very excited. I simply cannot wait. I hope you want to be there too. If you have questions you want answered or wish for fun galore that you want read aloud you can email it to mbmbm at maximumfund.org and put the city you're going to be at in the subject line.
It's also helpful if it's a fun galore thing to just put fun galore in the subject line as well. So it would be like Tacoma or Tacoma fun galore or Vancouver or Vancouver fun galore. And Jim 21st through the 23rd we're going to be in Kansas City Missouri St. Louis and Tyson's Virginia tickets are on sale now go to bit.ly slash macrory tours for tickets and more information.
Sound heap with John Luke Roberts is a real podcast made up of fake podcasts like if you had a cupboard in your lower back what would you keep in it? A small handkerchief that was given to me by my grandmother on her deathbed. Maybe some spare honey. I'd keep batteries in it. I'd pretend to be a toy. If I had a cupboard in my lower back I'd probably fill it with spines.
If you had a cupboard in your lower back what would you keep in it? Doesn't exist. We made it up for Sound heap with John Luke Roberts. An award-winning comedy podcast or maximum fun made up of hundreds of stupid podcasts. Listen and subscribe to Sound heap with John Luke Roberts. Now. We actually can't guarantee that but you can find it on maximumfund.org or wherever you get your podcasts.
But yeah, back in the chamber, the cultists are beginning to cross the bridge across this blood river to confront hide. You've sort of stepped away from this situation. What is your kind of like plan now that you've stepped away from? Now I look over to where I know my friends Fylo and Lady Godwin are just waiting for my signal ready to tell them like they're distracted. Let's go. I solve this room. Everything's going according to, they're not there. They are not there.
No. No, yeah, you are alone in here, aside from the many guards that are confronting hide. Hide looks over at you as the guards approach him and is like, you've got to help me, man. Come on. You're trying to kill Dracula, right, bro? I can get you there. I would never. Unless we wait. How do the rats all the guards, the cultists all look at you. Like, and the leader of the cult said, did you say we would never, we hate Dracula. Yeah, I mean, we would never not kill him, right? Yes. Yeah, man.
He kind of eyes you suspiciously and then turns back to hide. Hide is going to start. That guy's a real Dracula lover. He was telling me before. I said he was going to save Dracula and then he said, I want to turn on off. And he like laughed really hard at it. He thought I was really clever. He said he shouts out, I don't love Dracula. If anything, I'm ambivalent about Dracula. He is going to start trying to fight these guys off.
And are you just going to stand there and watch this scene sort of unfold? Or they're all facing him, right? Yeah, yeah. Was there maybe a straggler guard towards the back that maybe no one would miss? Yeah, I mean, there is a guard standing nearest to you. You would have to be pretty stealthy to dispatch him without anybody noticing, but it is, you know, it's possible. Okay. Let's do that. Okay, give me a stealth check first. Well given that's 10 plus 4, a 14.
Okay, I'm going to just roll for the leader here who is sort of the one closest, a perception check to see if he notices. Okay. Go ahead and make your attack. Okay, uh-huh. That's a natural one. Oh, god. Oh, shit, man. Now, right now. You bring your dagger towards the neck of this cultist. And just before it finds a purchase in his exposed throat meat, he ducks out of the way. Exactly according to plan. And he looks at you and says, Hey, man, the sacrifice. We're not doing that right now.
No, man, I'm being controlled. Hides using some kind of mind control. I'm trying to resist. Oh, he really want me to slit your throat, man. I'm doing my best over here. This guy's such a dick. Give me a deception check. Boom, boom, boom, boom. That's a 19. A natural 19. I've always said that guy has psychic powers. You've always heard me say in it. I don't trust him on a count of a psychic powers. Okay, well, I'm going to turn my back to you again. Okay, yeah, man. I think I got this thing beat.
All right. Good. So you can do this. Okay. Turn it down. Okay. So I'm still not in an initiative or come anything. I'm trying, I want to figure out where everybody is. I'm going to use locate object to find phyllo. Sure. Yeah, that works. Because you use a puppet. Yeah, go ahead and use that spell object. You definitely this works. He's inside the freaking heart, man. It's fucking crazy. But even with everything going on, just like, oh, oh, man, oh, man, oh, all right. Okay. I'm going to.
Okay, great. I'm going to cast protection from good and evil on myself. Okay. And then I'm going to charge the heart. Cool. To attack it or yeah, or like, I don't know, man. I like, I'm down. How are you attacking it with what? I'm just like going to try to like shoulder check it. I don't know, you know, what, what, can I see liquid moving inside of it? Or is it crystallized all the way through? You know, what am I looking at? Is blood pumping into it? It is.
Yes, the blood, the river of blood that flows through this room is going through the heart. And you can, you can see as much, you can faintly see through the sort of like crystalline surface of the, of the heart. And you can see liquid sort of roiling around inside. Yeah. I'm going to try to hit it with, you know, my size or something. I'm just trying to crack it. My dagger stab it, I guess. Okay, this is going to raise suspicion, obviously, but this is. I'm being controlled. To trap good news.
I either we can for you or I didn't. Yeah. One of the two definitely have it. Go ahead. And for its angrier and more powerful than ever. Go ahead and make an attack roll against the heart. That right there is a gentleman's 20. Okay. Okay. Sure. And no, you swing this side into the surface. That would be the dagger. I'm stabbing it because I don't have a plus seven with the sickle. Okay. You stab the dagger into the surface of this heart.
And when that happens, a spray of bright and powerful blood shoots outward. I forgot about that. I know that just happened. And that happens and you pull the dagger back. It is covered. It's red. You got acid and scribot for it's given. What is my father's room's dagger? Well, give that to me and say when you solve these rooms. Yeah, I'll come back. Well, tragically, the room's more eligible as a weaving pattern of red crystal. I have a 11 of 12 figured out, Griffin.
Wiggles around the blade and where it reaches the hill. It forms like the thorny vines. This is now a blood rage dagger. Okay. And Griffin, I have to tell you something. When I added that to my inventory, it was green. And that created a high, the likes of which I've never experienced in this show. Yeah. I've never added a green item to my inventory before. And the fact that you had just done this. It's cheap in it. It's cheap in it.
And the fact that you put it in this fashion is I'll never be able to forget it. Well, for what it's worth, this is not a weapon that you use very much. But, but yeah, not well, not not until now. Yeah. You are also similarly covered in blood. We're going to have to hack this item into the game because I'm pretty sure blood rage dagger does exist. But now I have now established a sort of one stop shop for magic items. Anybody else wants to have this? Files going to be so pissed.
Yeah. I rub my, I rub my crossbow on it, I guess. Oh, no, no. Crossbow now has crit. No, they doesn't. You see every face in this room, including hides, turns to look at you. And the cultist says, I got to be honest. You're taking some liberties with kind of like our whole deal here. You don't stab the God hot. No, yeah. I'm like, I told that other dude being controlled, man. This is all part of the heart. So I'm doing it again. I'm doing it again. Okay, make an attack roll.
Because it's not like crap. Travis, attack with your boot. Get a magic blood boot. That's it. 24. Yeah. It's a attack with your, Travis, attack with your weeder. It's your butt. Blood rage. Take it easy. Make it do it. Make it do your blood rage. No, that time it was with the sickle. Because that would hit. And then I went, I want a blood rage sickle too. Yeah, man, sure. Now you've got a blood. No, no. No. The magic item shop has closed for the day. Okay. Why stab it again with the dagger.
Okay. You stab it again with the dagger and some shards of it break off and fall. Fall into the water. And then the leader of the cult looks over at you and says, all right, this dude is acting awfully sus. Yeah, tell me about it. You got to attack hide and break his concentration. I'm just going to keep undoing it again. No. At this point, cultists are now sprinting across the bridge to seize you. Filo. Oh, yeah. Can I do one more thing? Real quick, yes.
I sure hope somebody helps me smash these big crystal harts. I'm going to lot stronger than me who's good at attacking things. Okay. Back, back inside the heart, the void. You are growing sort of accustomed to this like weightless feeling in this space. The turbo cardinal says, I am not positive. The rules of this intangible space we are speaking in, but I would caution you against staying too long. Lest you have your own goodness poured from your body. You should return.
I will and I will free you from this curse I vow. He smiles and says, you are a noble. You are a good man, Filo. Where I still in charge, I would see to your advancement. I do believe I am beyond saving, and so I will simply say this. You are pure of heart, and that makes you vulnerable to arms, machinations. Do not trust him, no matter how sweet his voice may seem. I will try to be more cynical. He nods and he says.
Oh, and the most important thing, his weakness and Dracula's weakness, and basically the key to your whole quest is... And then a giant fleshy paw grabs you from below and rips you downwards. And you have been pulled back into the crimson waters of this underground chamber. First of all, point of order. Here brother Filo, Slesh Pinocchio, has been floating in this magic godblood that gave him super weapons. I am super weapons. Yeah. I, your honor.
I maintain that brother Filo has now become a blood rage puppet. Blood rage puppet, you say. Okay. Yeah. Filo, you now have cool red crystal on your body, and when you make an unarmed attack roll at below half health, you'll get plus two to attack and damage. Thank you. You look, you look also kind of sick. Okay. You see a doctor there, you look bad. Okay, so I was pulled out of the heart, correct? Yes. How close am I to the opening where I swam in?
A few feet, but you are in the grip of a giant meaty hand. That's fine. That's fine. What do you do? I'm going to cast air bubble. Oh, shit. Inside the heart. Oh my god. Wait a minute. Fuck. Now, is that a real air bubble? Air bubble. If Dr. Sidney were here, she would tell you that the medical term for that is an embolism. Okay. Fuck. This is the thing. I'm casting an air bubble in the heart as I'm being sucked out to create an embolism in the heart of on.
Okay. Wait, guys, it's coming across my desk right now. It's the most confident thing our dad's ever done. I'm really not doing this. Not just it's the most confident thing. A macaroid male has ever accomplished. Wow, that amazing. What a moment. Okay. Getting some liberties with the air bubble spell, which is supposed to go around. I know. I know. The head is a thing, but I'm such a fan of this move. You are being crushed by this big beefy paw.
And so as you reach up and release this air bubble, you see it float upwards into the heart and as it vanishes, as it passes into one of the chambers of this heart, everything goes still and quiet for just a moment. And then a trimmer tears through this chamber. Some above might, you see a rift form in the ground. The rift sort of cuts across the river at one point. And you see a sort of almost like a whirlpool start to form as the blood just starts to kind of like fall out of this room.
Give me a dexterity saving throw. Okay, pretty good, those. Gentlemen's 20. Yes. Okay. On a gentleman's 20, you nearly lose your footing in this place, but holding onto the dagger embedded in the the crystalline heart, you manage to stay upright. Some rocks and stalactites fall from the ceiling, landing on several of the cultists here. You see hide kind of leap out of the way of one of them, the fanatic is looking around, he looks terrified.
And you see as the water in this chamber drain, you see filo in the grip of a flesh golem. And they're both completely covered in blood and the flesh golem though is sort of lying still on the ground and kind of twitching, whatever has just happened here seems to have neutralized whatever magic was animating him. Godwin, this trimmer as it passes through this tunnel, the creatures in here all of a sudden snap out of their fugue and all begin just pouring out of the tunnel running away.
You look around and realize that this somewhat neurotunnel that you are in has begun to collapse. Oh, I'm going to run out of the tunnel. Okay. Okay. Give me played video games before. One ends close, well. See ya. See ya, that's the suckers bet right there. Give me an athletics check. Now that I can do. Usually, it's a two fuck. Oh, there on that roll. Plus six. Okay. The creatures here hoof it aside from the possum, which is kind of chilling with you. And just go sprinting out of the tunnel.
I think maybe it takes you a beat too long to kind of like figure out what's going on. By the time you start running, you are able to do so. You are able to make your way out of this tunnel. However, at several points, part of the ceiling just kind of cleaves off and an enormous bit of stone topples down onto you. Just sort of smashing against the side of your head, very nearly trapping you in this tunnel, but you're able to make your way out.
You do however take 11 points of bludgeoning damage as this big rock bonks you pretty hard. But from where you are, you see a flood of nocturnal animals, compouring out of this tunnel, immediately retreating from this room through the sort of southern entrance where you all came in earlier. And after all of them, you see a puff of rubble sort of shoot out of the tunnel and from it emerges a blood-soaked barbarian wielding a giant axe now adorned with red crystal.
And she comes out with the axe like, everybody look, everyone look, I've never seen it's equal. The most exciting thing happened. You won't believe it. Oh man. Why do you have to see this? This is going to really send you green within me. Oh, a thrice in a lifetime of current. What is wrong with you? Look at your butt. You all are step out into this chain. We're all blood-soaked. You are covered in God blood. Yeah, this is going great.
The surviving cultists look around at each other, unsure what to do. The kind of like bioluminescent... Biolumines. An algae. What? Sorry. From Oana. Anytime I hear someone say bioluminescent, I... Sorry. Oh, I get you from the guy from... Oh, it's covered in bioluminescent. An algae. You. You all are standing in this chamber. The cultists are getting their bearings and they take up their weapons and have heartedly begin to walk towards you and then a voice passes through the chamber.
From beyond the heavy port callus, you hear a voice say enough. Bring them to me. And the port callus of its own volition slides upward disappearing into the ceiling. The cult leader looks at the other cultists who have not been crushed by rubble and takes a step back and says, tell me this. Are you really one of us? Because I really am starting to suspect that... Oh, no, sorry man, and I click off the runes. Oh, no, sorry man. No, we took Toby's robe. He took his robe.
I, as we call it, I told everyone that if we do this thing where we disguise our appearances we'll be so easy to infiltrate. Yeah, man. And as long as I'm coming clean, Hyde wasn't in on it at all. He's pretty much innocent, man. He should let him go. But that means that we should hate him. No, no, no, no. I just don't want you to think that he was really in on it and I was the good guy. I was the bad guy in that circus he was.
And I was making it seem like Hyde was doing all the bad stuff but I was doing the bad stuff. When I stabbed the heart and I said, always controlling me to do this. He wasn't controlling me to do that. You dink, you're in front of my friends. Yeah, and I'm sorry about that, man, but I'm being honest now, right? And that counts for something, right? Boss, oh, should we let this guy go? Can you hear a voice from beyond where the poor call is raised up? Say, whatever, I don't care.
Sure. And Hyde goes, woohoo. And goes sprinting off. Okay, you owe me. Bye. Uh, okay. The cultists step aside and the cult fanatic helps you up out of the now dry gulch for your standing. Filo, he holds out a hand for your to lend you aid. Uh, Filo slaps it away. Oh, damn hard. Damn, dude, that's hard. Hard. He's pissed. He's pissed. Yeah, man, fuck, yeah, the hard. Fuck, that's so hard. That's hard. You keep your helping hands. Whoa. And he clambers out of the gulch. Make an athletics check.
And comment, say, will, you better believe I will. And that would be, uh, that one. You started to clank. That's soft. That's fun, believeable. You start to clank her out of the gulch and then you're still a fish. No, you're, you're wouldn't partially crystallized hand now slips off the edge of the gulch and you fall backwards and the cult leader is like, come, pay, man. Darn. Come on. Just, he leads, he bleans down and holds out a tent. Just like it's just, I'm just trying to get you out.
You'd find, okay, fine. Yes, fine, fine, fine. Help me out. Help me out. That's great. Uh, one of the cultists behind him says, well, puppet, man. You can't climb out of the gulch by himself. Hey, pal. Listen. The dies fault. Wow, cringe much. Uh, the cult leader ignites a torch. Now that things are not lit up by the, uh, the red heart so much anymore and says, follow me, my lord. Um, wishes to have audience with you. Okay. Again, man, sorry about how all that, whatever dude.
Okay. Uh, and he leads you to the, uh, now raised port callus and gestures you inside. Yeah, I did. Yeah. Um, okay. You pass beneath the port callus and travel down a narrow tunnel. Uh, and, uh, the noise of the chamber behind you, uh, slowly phazy or the cultists. Trying to lift some rubble off of their friends. Uh, your ones say, oh, no, he's pretty good in crush, man. Um, and you step out into a chamber that is as cold and quiet as a crypt. Uh, and that's because in a lot of ways it is.
Uh, you, you step into this chamber and the floor below you feels hard and hollow. Um, you, you recognize that, that feeling from the spinal bridge you, you crossed earlier. You're standing on a bone, but it is so vast that it takes you a second to sort of recognize it as any kind of anatomical feature. Uh, you're standing on the chin of a jawbone attached to a skull, the size of a football field.
Uh, like the bridge, uh, the skeleton that this skull belongs to is in a supine position, carrying up the ceiling, uh, of this chamber in a sort of pained rictus. There is a single source of light illuminating this chamber, uh, casting the features of this skull in, in dramatic shadows. Uh, this light source is in the distance over the teeth, uh, and beyond the sort of nasal cavities, uh, up toward where you assume the, the eyes to be.
Um, and in the distance, you hear the port callus slam shut behind you. You have been left alone in here. Uh, hello? I tried, I tried to open the port callus. Um, make a strength check. Ugh, nine plus three. Uh, no, it is, uh, it is enormous. It is far, far too heavy for any human to. Well, I'm not as I deers. Okay. Hey man, anybody here? Yes, come forward. Step into the light. Okay. I do, I do that. Okay. Yeah, same.
You all approach the light source, uh, clambering over the teeth bones, which is how the gum look out stomach. No, you're not going into this thing smell. This, this skull is basically forming the floor, uh, in this, in this chamber. Uh, anything past it, if you were to go sliding off, there is just, it just endless darkness below you. You cannot see where, where the bottom of this chamber is. So you're traversing the skull.
Um, it is somewhat difficult getting, uh, over the mouth area, uh, due to this skeleton's slight overbite, um, but you navigate sort of over that and around the nose hole and eventually sort of shuffle towards the top of, uh, of this skull, ensuring that you don't slide down the rounded frontal bone and fall into the abyss below.
And, uh, as you reach that place, uh, the light source reveals itself to you and you see the hilt and several inches of a pristine silver sword is buried in the skull, uh, several feet beyond the brow line. Uh, the hilt is adorned with several large shining rubies, uh, and you can see the blade is etched with these ornate Celtic knots. Roons. Yes, these roots are, but these are actually important rooms. I know we've had a lot of fun with ruins here today. Um, make a history check. What?
Okay, now Griffin, can much just guess that that's Scalibur? Wow. Like, I don't know why we've talked a lot about a big shiny sword. Wow. I don't think I need to make a history check. Not cool, man. Not cool at all. Ah, well, you've violated a pretty secret city here. Hey, hey, hey, guys, no joke. That's an episode. We gotta talk about this. We gotta circle the wagons a huge, huge bunch of trust. This is a problem. This is, yeah, that's the end of it. We'll try to get nicely.
This is like untill. No, hold on. Wait, we need a tight button here. Hold on. Okay. It's a little bit of a little bit of a deal in your fucking soul that you stand in the presence and you didn't work this out yourself. Oh, the mighty blade is Scalibur. It was at Griffin. I'd probably honest I felt nothing. I felt nothing that I wanted. I wanted those crinkled tinkels so well. You taken everything from me. Oh, Griffin, I can see it in my head. Little guy. I can see you.
I know how beautiful it is. I can see it. I can imagine how wonderful it is. It's beautiful. I feel no guilt. I know, I've... I know, I've... I know. I know. I know. I know. I know.