secret of the dragon emperor ... part 21!

in which we wrap up elle's homebrew addition to the official campaign ...

GM Elle: Okay, so before we get started, does anyone want to brag about experience advancements from last time?
MSG: Well ...
Claire: Why do you look embarrassed instead of eager to share?
MSG: Because for one thing, I got a Heroic Ability because my Acrobatics went to 18, and I picked one I thought looked pretty awesome ... but it only works with a two-handed weapon, and my large club is currently broken. So I won't even get to use it this session. Also ...
Claire: Ooh, it gets even more embarrassing?
MSG: Yeah. The ability lets me add an extra die of damage to my attack, which is nice. But the name of it is "Massive Blow."
Claire: Haha!
Ariel: "Massive Blow!" That's what she said!
Sasha: Dude, I can't wait for Dolora to Massively Blow some goblin in combat.
Akane: Also, when the roll is poor, it becomes a Low Blow.
GM Elle: All right, all right. Let's get back to the adventure and next time I won't make the mistake of trying to be the GM who celebrates the characters' progression. Sir Quackenscrump and Fidu return from their strange conversation with the being in the shed. They find the rest of the group finishing up their Stretch Rest at the dead end around the corner.
MSG: Dolora will ask if they found any monsters to kill.
Ariel: No, just somebody in a shed.
Sasha: Actually, I'd say it's more like a maybe on the monster thing, but whatever it was wouldn't come out of the shed and let us get a good look at it.
Akane: Zedeja demands proper description of what happened.
Ariel: I'll tell everybody. I'll especially let Filvius know that whatever was in the shed passing us notes, it says it will trade some kind of information for magic items, which made me think of your bone mask.
Claire: I mean ... I like the idea of getting information. But I also like the idea of having a mask that protects me from enemy magic.
Ariel: But it gets stuck on your face if you use it!
Sasha: And when actually have you used it?
Claire: Well, not at all. But there haven't been too many people casting spells at us or monsters using magical attacks against us since I found it. You are making some good points, though. What kind of information is it offering?
Ariel: It said something about weaving.
Claire: Weaving.
Ariel: Yeah, but it wasn't like, information about weaving. The thing said it would do a weaving. 
Claire: Which is ... ?
Ariel: Well, I don't know! I didn't want to go through all the work of asking it what exactly a weaving is if Filvius was just going to end up saying he didn't want to trade his mask anyway. It wasn't talking out loud -- we had to keep throwing this board back and forth for it to scratch messages on.
MSG: This sounds pretty sketch to Dolora.
Claire: Well of course it does. She doesn't have any magic items, so she wouldn't be getting any knowledge out of the deal anyway. Filvius is definitely intrigued enough to go ask the thing what exactly it means.
Ariel: Great! Is everybody ready to go then?
Sasha: Quackers is. There's entirely too much standing around not killing monsters going on for his tastes.
Harriet: Dilfriida inquires as to whether she might get some healing magic now that Filvius has rested. She's still down a quarter of her hit points.
Claire: Sure. But boo, I roll a 16 to cast my spell. I'll try again. Worse! 19. I'm burning through all the WP I just got back from resting.
Akane: Zedeja says healing should be saved for more worrisome wounds. Be wary in the meantime, halfling! Save your actions for dodging and hiding.
Harriet: Dilfriida says she feels like she's still banged up enough for it to qualify as worrisome. And she sticks her tongue out at Zedeja.
Claire: Out of character, I think I'd like to give these dice a rest and not push this streak of bad rolls. For an in-character justification, Filvius says he must be too interested in finding out what this weaving thing is all about, and it's distracting him from casting properly.
Sasha: Let's go, then. Sir Q will lead off, if the rest of you want to fall in line after him.
Akane: Zedeja commands each person to walk in the normal order.
GM Elle: It's not a very long walk. You take the fork in the tunnel that leads to the chamber with the shed, and find it just as Sir Quackenscrump and Fidu left it.
MSG: Dolora will call out, "Hey in there! We're here to find out what a weaving is!"
Ariel: I'll say, "It's your friends from earlier. We're back with the rest of our group to maybe trade for that information you were talking about. Er, scratching about."
GM Elle: You hear some more scratching, and then the board flies out again.
MSG: Dolora will grab it and read everything on it.
Claire: Oh, come on. I'm the one who's got something to trade.
MSG: Sure, but I'm closer because Dolora is before Filvius in the marching order.
Claire: Maybe we should draw initiative to see who grabs for it first.
GM Elle: Here are the cards.
MSG: Ha. Right off the bat, I get the 1 card.
Ariel: What!
Sasha: We never get the 1 card, and you went and wasted it racing Filvius for a message we're all going to  hear in a second anyway?
MSG: I'm going for that advancement mark for giving in to my weakness.
GM Elle: Well, the board says the same things it said before, and it also says, "What magic is offered?"
Claire: I guess I'll take out my bone mask and show it. "This thing protects you from magic when you're wearing it."
Ariel: It also sticks to your face. 
Claire: Shh! It doesn't need to know that.
Ariel: I'm an honest merchant. I don't like being involved with trades that aren't fair and truthful.
GM Elle: You see the rake come out and tap the ground.
MSG: Dolora isn't ready to give the board back. Can I do some kind of Languages or Myths and Legends roll to see if I know of any creatures that communicate by scratching on boards in neat handwriting?
GM Elle: Sure, Languages.
MSG: Great, I succeed on an 8.
GM Elle: You seem to recall that there are a number of different bug-like creatures that usually don't have spoken language. People tend to call them insectoids even if they're not really insects.
MSG: Hmm. And do any of these insectoids use webbing?
GM Elle: For that, try Beast Lore.
MSG: Dang, my Beast Lore stinks. Aha, but I roll a 2!
GM Elle: It does seem to you that there's a kind of insectoid called spider-kin.
MSG: I'm really glad you prefaced that by saying people use that word for things that aren't really insects.
Harriet: Me too. Although I still find it terminologically uncomfortable.
GM Elle: In the game's defense, it is translated from Swedish. Maybe whatever word they used in the Swedish version just crudely translates into "insect."
Claire: If it looks like Dolora is distracted while contemplating that, I'll grab the board away from her and put it down where the critter can get it with the rake.
MSG: Dolora looks grumpy at that but doesn't put up a fight. What do I know about these spider-kin?
GM Elle: There are rumors that they can weave webs that tell the future.
Claire: Nice! If I find that out, I'll for sure tell it I would trade this mask for information about the future.
GM Elle: Let's assume that either Dolora clues you in, or you find out quickly enough through a little back-and-forth with the creature.
Sasha: Whoa, there. If Dolora starts talking out loud about spider-kin, Sir Q is going to be suspicious that this thing might be in cahoots with the giant spider we killed.
MSG: That's why Dolora is not going to talk about spider-kin. But I will say I've heard of some kind of weaving beings that can predict the future.
Claire: Good enough for me.
GM Elle: The creature asks to inspect the mask. If it likes the feel of the magic, it will trade.
Sasha: I wouldn't trust it. On the other hand, if it keeps the mask and refuses to hold up its end of the bargain, that will give me an excuse to bust in and find out for sure whether it's a monster. So overall, I guess that's a thumbs-up from Quackers.
Claire: Filvius sets the mask down on the ground where the creature can rake it in.
GM Elle: It draws the mask into the shed. There's silence for a while, then some clicking noises, and finally some more scratching. This time, it tosses out a fresh board. The only thing scratched on this one is, "Finish your search through the statue. When you return, pass this one's dwelling and turn right. Your weaving will be down the passageway with no outlet. Only you may sit beneath the weaving and learn."
MSG: That's it?
Claire: I guess we just have to trust it for now?
Sasha: Probably it's hoping we get whacked by something else in this maze.
Akane: Does a spider that knows the future need hoping?
Harriet: Indeed. There may be a good chance it already knows whether we're going to succeed or fail in our further explorations.
Ariel: So that's good news! If it's expecting we'll come back enough that it's going to do the weaving while we're gone, that means we're probably going to be okay, right?
Sasha: Or it just said it was going to do the weaving because it knows we're already toast, and that was the quickest way to get us out of its hair and leave the mask with it.
Akane: Zedeja says there's no cause for this discussion. Our goal is the statue. If there's no more to do with a spider-kin at this time, we should proceed.
Claire: Works for Filvius. He's itching to get his hands on some future knowledge, so the sooner we go and come back, the better.
Sasha: Quackers heads on past the shed, then.
GM Elle: All right. The way curves around to your right, getting narrower for a bit before making a sharp bend that ends up in a much larger area. You seem to have found the statue's base. There's a broad dais surrounded by what look like the withered remains of rose bushes. Rising up from the dais are the enormous sculpted legs of the statue, clad in luxuriously detailed boots almost up to the knee, and what looks like chainmail above that. But everything past the knees is hidden beyond the roof of the chamber, which is supported by a couple of vaulted stone arches and a lot of wooden buttresses. It looks about like this:

MSG: What's that bit there on the right?
GM Elle: It looks like it might be a continuation of the passage you've been following. But it's either collapsed or been deliberately filled in with rocks and boulders.
Claire: If I notice Dolora peering at the rocks, I'll go over and see if there's anything interesting or knowledge to be gleaned from them.
GM Elle: You can roll Bushcraft or Crafting, your choice.
MSG: Can I roll Sneaking to see if I can get past Filvius and scope out the base of that statue while he's busy?
Claire: You stinker! Well, my Bushcraft is way better than my Crafting ... but I roll an 18, so it doesn't really matter.
GM Elle: Looks like a pile of rocks. MSG, go ahead and roll Dolora's Sneaking.
MSG: 11 would be a success if I was any good at Sneaking at all, but my skill's an 8, so I guess I'm not putting anything past Filvius.
Claire: I'll abandon this heap of rocks and go over to the statue base too.
Ariel: I bring my lamp!
GM Elle: The statue stands on a great stone platform over a meter tall and 12 meters by 24 in area. The stone here looks far less weathered than that above -- basically pristine except for a coating of dust.
MSG: Any plaques or historical markers?
Ariel: Any sign of a way in?
Sasha: What about monsters? Any of them hiding behind the legs in the shadows?
GM Elle: No, no, and no.
Harriet: Dilfriida will start searching around the base of the thing for hidden compartments or secret openings.
GM Elle: It's got a pretty substantial perimeter, so that will take you a bit. I'll let you know when you can make a roll.
Ariel: I'm going to climb up and go look around the boots to see if there's door in or something, since we know the thing is hollow.
Sasha: Do we? I thought Akane was pretty clear Zedeja didn't share what she saw while she was climbing around the thing's face outside.
Akane: Truthful. That information must be used wisely, so Zedeja entrusts it only to the wisest of the party.
Ariel: Sure, but Fidu used his Treasure Hunter ability outside and it pointed him right at the statue, so there's got to be some way in.
GM Elle: Which boot do you search first?
Ariel: Um ... oh gosh, I don't know ...
Sasha: I call left boot! Quackers climbs up and starts checking it out.
Ariel: Hey! Okay, then, I go to the right boot and search around it too.
GM Elle: Both of you can roll Spot Hidden.
Ariel: 5! That's super-easy success for me.
Sasha: 2 is an even super-easier success for Sir Q.
Ariel: Dang it!
GM Elle: Sash, you notice a seam in the stonework near the heel of the boot. Aers, you notice Sir Quackenscrump noticing something.
Ariel: Fine. I say, "Hey, what'd you find there?"
Sasha: Not sure. But stay back while I check it out in case there's a monster in there. I'll look closer at this seam and see if it's maybe a way in.
GM Elle: Tracing the edges of the seam, you find it makes the outline of what could be a large panel, about the size of a door for a dwarf or someone else relatively short. Hettie, Dilfriida can make her Spot Hidden check for the search she's doing now.
MSG: I hope this is to find a secret compartment that has the key to this heel.
Harriet: I succeed with a 3.
GM Elle: You find a very small inscription that says, "A cobbler's task is never done, so long as shoes are forced to run. Leather mend and torn toes seal, make whole the sole and heal the heel."
MSG: Damn it. I meant a literal key, not some riddle we have to figure out to get the thing open.
Claire: Psh. This one is so easy.
Akane: Yes? It sounds very puzzlesome to me.
Claire: That's because it's an in joke. My very first role-playing game character was for Dungeon Crawl Classics. Her profession was cobbler, and she leveled up as a cleric. I called her "Cobbler Claire."
MSG: Wow. That's going way way back.
Claire: I know, right? All the way before Elle stopped turning her nose up at playing rpg's.
GM Elle: I don't actually recall being asked to play in that game, but you're right, I probably would have snarked about it and said no.
Claire: Anyway, a cleric is a healer and my character now is a healer, and it says, "heal the heel," so I bet all I have to do is cast a healing spell on it and it will open. Am I right?
GM Elle: We will only know if you actually learn about the poem.
Harriet: I'm sure Dilfriida would get around to mentioning it sooner or later ... as long as Zedeja isn't the one asking.
Akane: Zedeja does not yet know of this seam.
Sasha: Well, if Quackers isn't finding a door handle or a keyhole, he'll ask if anybody's got a wedge or a shovel or something to try prying this thing open.
Akane: Good! This announcement should alert a halfling to reveal her clue discovery.
Harriet: Why? Dilfriida doesn't have a wedge or a shovel, so Quackenscrump's request doesn't seem to concern her.
Akane: What?! Is this halfling visible as we stand by giant boots needing a trick to get in?
Harriet: I'm not hiding or anything of the sort. But since the poem has nothing to do with wedges or shovels or prying, Dilfriida would probably just continue her search around the perimeter of the base for now.
GM Elle: All right. I'll have you roll Awareness though to see if you notice the others standing by the statue's heel. Zedeja can also roll Awareness to see if she notices that Dilfriida stopped and was peering at something on the side of the base.
Akane: Zedeja is Aware with a 6!
Harriet: Dilfriida gets a 17, so she's oblivious.
Akane: Halfling burglar! What are you observing there? Probably you have burglish tools that could assist in opening heels. If so, bring them!
Harriet: Can I roll against INT to see if I connect Zedeja's mention of heels with the word in the poem?
GM Elle: Sure, if you don't want to just say Dilfriida could make that kind of obvious connection.
Harriet: She could, except that it's Zedeja asking, and she's pretty set on ignoring Zedeja whenever she can. I roll a 6, though, which is under even Dilfriida's 9 Intelligence. She'll look up and say something like, "What's the deal with heels? I just found a poem that says something about fixing a heel."
Sasha: Quackenscrump rolls his eyes and says a poem isn't exactly a wedge or a shovel, now is it? Seriously, who's got some heavy tools?
MSG: Dolora points out that we've got a crowbar, a pickaxe, and a shovel in the wagon.
Ariel: Are you kidding? That's so far! Hettie, please tell us Dilfriida reads the poem.
Akane: Zedeja demands this, in fact.
Harriet: Dilfriida might have read it for someone else, but not Zedeja. She'll say, "Come read it yourself. I'm still searching this statue base."
Claire: Filvius will immediately head over to see if there's anything to be learned from the poem. Once I read it, I'll say, "Aha!" and head back and cast a healing spell on the boot where the seam is. Ugh, 16 on my first roll. I'll spend another 2 WP and try again ... 14 makes it, barely.
Ariel: You need a way higher magic skill, Claire.
Claire: I keep marking it for advancement every session! But of course, when I actually want to roll high so my score increases, I roll low instead. Anyway, does anything happen?
GM Elle: Yes. As soon as the spell takes effect, the seam widens with a grinding sound and reveals itself to be the border of a panel. When the panel recedes and slides to one side, you see a ladder inside that leads up through a hollow in the leg. Anyone taller than a dwarf will have to hunker down to get inside, but the hollow space within the leg is wide enough to accommodate any standard-sized humanoid.
Claire: Let's go, then!
Sasha: Sir Q will sling his shield over his back and put away his sword, I guess. Can we see how far this climb is going to be?
GM Elle: It extends beyond the reach of your light sources, unfortunately.
Sasha: I guess let's get climbing, then.
Akane: Hmm. Climbing up a dark ladder shaft. Seems familiar-ish.
Claire: I'm getting flashbacks to our Mothership campaign.
Ariel: Oh no! There were spiders all around that ladder shaft too! I start watching for spiders. Especially ones with holograph zombie heads on them.
Sasha: I think we're safe from those in Dragonbane.
Ariel: You can't be too sure! Those things killed my best friend!
GM Elle: Meanwhile, back in the Misty Vale ...
Ariel: Oh! Sorry.
GM Elle: After 8 or 10 meters of climbing, your lamplight reaches just far enough to reveal an opening above you. It looks like the ladder shaft comes out into a larger space there.
Sasha: I'll keep climbing, but with an ear out for monsters.
Akane: Can a duck keep ears out?
Harriet: Rather a good point there ... I don't believe fowl have external ears. Do they?
MSG: Ear openings under their feathers, I think. But nothing that protrudes enough to say they could keep one "out."
Claire: Of course, since ours are always out, does it make any more sense for humans to say it? (Or elves, in Filvius's case?)
Sasha: The point is, I'm listening extra-careful.
GM Elle: All seems quiet except for the sounds of the group climbing. When you reach the top, you find that the opening is a rectangular hole in the floor of a roughly oval chamber like this.

Ariel: Hey, wait a minute! That hole is on the right! Sash said she was looking on the left one!
GM Elle: It's to the right of the other one on the map, but it's the statue's left leg. The statue is facing the other direction than your characters were when they approached it.
Ariel: Sure, but I wasn't talking like I was the statue, I was talking like I was my character. And I bet Sash was too!
Sasha: Yeah, well, even if I was, I'm not going to admit it now so that we have to pretend everything happened the other way round.
Harriet: Does it make any sort of a compelling difference one way or another?
Ariel: It's very important to Fidu if he's the one who finds the way to the treasure.
Sasha: In that case, maybe we should rewind things, and since it's so important to Fidu, he can be the one climbing in front. You know, where he'll run into any spiders first.
Ariel: Never mind.
GM Elle: Does anyone want to know what you find in this room?
Sasha: Heck, yeah!
GM Elle: It appears to be a treasure vault. Let's draw 5 treasure cards to see what's there.
Claire: 5 cards! Nice!
Sasha: Don't get your hopes up. Some of those treasure cards are real stinkers, remember?
GM Elle: Yeah, the very first one is 2d6 copper coins. Welp, and I roll snake eyes.
MSG: Seriously?
GM Elle: Yeah, but that's ridiculous for treasure in an ancient king's tomb. I'm burning that one and trying again. Next one comes up ... 30 gold pieces.
Ariel: Whew!
Sasha: That's more like it.
GM Elle: Next ... a small chest with 80 gold coins in it. Then a sack of 20 silvers ... then a short sword ... and finally, a gold bracelet. You think it's worth ... another 80 gold.
Claire: Saaweet. A hundred ninety gold and twenty silver!
Akane: Hmm. Since 20 silver = the result of one card out of five, it becomes 1/5th of treasure. So if we give those to our cultist donkey-tender, it's much more than a fair share, right?
Harriet: Dilfriida's not particularly good at math, but she would probably disagree with Zedeja on general principle.
MSG: I mean, by that reasoning, if Elle had made us stick with that first card, Glinssa would end up with 2 coppers for her share.
Claire: Weren't we paying her a flat salary anyway?
Ariel: I thought it was 2 silvers a day, so unless we've been on the road for ... I don't know, a bunch of days, giving her 20 silvers would be a big raise for her.
Akane: Never mind, then. Zedeja would surely not propose such extravagance.
MSG: So what's that mark on the other side of the room from the leg ladder hole? Sort of where the spine would be?
GM Elle: It's another ladder, leading up into a shaft in the ceiling.
Sasha: Let's get climbing, then, so we can see what's up there.
MSG: What's up? Or what's ahead?
Sasha: Boo.
Harriet: That was one of your weaker ones, dear.
Sasha: Anyway, I'm climbing.
GM Elle: This shaft looks like about as much of a climb as the one in the leg, but you can see a difference right away -- there's a dimly lit space of some kind at the top.
Akane: Must be from the eyes!
Sasha: Only one way to find out ... I keep going.
GM Elle: Something strange happens as you get closer and closer to the top of the ladder. You feel like the air is getting colder with every rung. There's no draft -- it just seems like the temperature is dropping significantly.
MSG: Uh-oh.
Ariel: I mean, it doesn't sound good, but at least it also doesn't sound like spiders!
Sasha: Still climbing.
GM Elle: You reach the top. Your breath is frosting in the air. For the last few rungs, more and more of the hollow space within the head has become visible. There are faint beams of sunlight piercing the gloomy space. The ceiling appears to be a dome painted with images that remain indistinct in the poor lighting. As you come level with the floor and raise your head into the room, you see that it looks about like this.

GM Elle: The ladder comes up through that spot at the bottom. Just in front of you is a raised stone platform, about the size a person could stand on, with stairs leading up to it. It appears to be positioned right in front of one of the eyes so that a viewer could climb up and look out through the mesh screen. An exact copy of the platform stands in front of the other eye, up and to the right. There's some large stone object at the back of the room, but from your perspective, the closer of the two platforms is obscuring the view.
Sasha: I'll go ahead and draw my sword and put it on the floor right next to the top of the ladder where I can grab it once I climb up.
GM Elle: When you do, the clank of the metal blade against the stone floor echoes inside the chamber, and an eerie voice speaks from the far side of the stone platform. It says, "Whooo? Who enters the tomb of King Hanhgrav the Great?" The air suddenly feels even colder.
Ariel: Okay, bye, y'all!
Sasha: Seriously? Come on, maybe it's a trained talking owl.
Akane: Are these the words of Fidu and Quackenscrump? Wouldn't our knight be hoping for monsters, not an owl?
Sasha: A trained talking owlbear, then.
Akane: Ah! That's better for consistency.
Claire: If Fidu is actually wanting to leave, there may be a problem, since Filvius is behind him on the ladder and really wants to know what it's like to meet a ghost.
Ariel: I was mostly joking. Fidu is a lot less chickener than I am.
Sasha: Well, anyway, we were asked a question, so Sir Q will start climbing out and say, "Fearless adventurers, coming to make sure no monsters have taken over this tomb!" What do I see when I get far enough up to look over the top of this platform that's blocking me?
GM Elle: A skeleton in exquisitely crafted plate armor sits upon a carved stone throne. Both the detail work of the throne and the embellishments on the armor look stunningly designed and executed. Across the skeleton's lap lies a sheathed greatsword, its handle wrapped in pristine white leather and its pommel set with an enormous glittering ruby.
MSG: Cool. I think we're probably up for fighting a skeleton.
GM Elle: I wasn't finished. Superimposed upon the skeleton is a spectral, translucent image -- a human wearing the same armor. His face is gaunt with age, and his white beard and hair look well groomed but thinned by many decades of mortal existence. He wears a crown upon his head, and there's a matching one on the skeleton's head as well -- finely wrought of gold and gemstones.
Sasha: Nice. Pretty sure I'd consider a ghost a monster too, so we're free to whale on it and take its stuff. Can I roll Beast Lore to see if I know how to fight a ghost?
GM Elle: Sure.
Sasha: Woof. That's a Demon.
GM Elle: You're pretty sure you'd fight them just like you'd fight anything else. And since it's the ghost of a really old person, you expect that you're more than a match for it.
MSG: This is sounding bad.
Sasha: I'll hop the rest of the way up out of the ladder shaft, scoop my sword off the floor, and point it at him. Out of respect for his royal stature, I'll say, "Your majesty, it's time for you to head off to the afterlife. I challenge you to a duel in hopes of letting you rest after all these ... what, I guess centuries?"
Harriet: Do the rest of us hear this?
GM Elle: I'm pretty sure Sir Q isn't exactly whispering, so yes.
MSG: I think Dolora's quick enough to figure out this is probably a ghost. Can I roll Beast Lore too and see if I know anything more than Quackers?
Claire: Ditto for Filvius.
GM Elle: Sure. Anyone who thinks they're smart enough to make that conclusion can roll. But I'm giving you a Bane on the roll because Sir Quackenscrump seems so convinced he can defeat it alone.
MSG: I fail because of the Bane.
Claire: Dang, me too, and just barely. One of the dice was an 8 but the other was a 14, and I only have a 13 in Beast Lore. But I'm pretty sure I'd know my Banish spell would work on a ghost. I don't think it takes a Beast Lore roll to know they're undead.
Ariel: Fidu blows it too.
Akane: Zedeja also meets with no success.
Harriet: I'm not rolling for Dilfriida. She's at the back, she's not that smart, and her Beast Lore is only 5 anyway.
GM Elle: No one has the goods on how to kill a ghost, then. But the king only laughs at Sir Quackenscrump. "I am eternal and timeless. I can never fade into oblivion until I know that my fame is equally as unbounded by the ages."
MSG: I guess I'll climb up to be ready for a fight also.
Claire: I'm taking a round rest to get back some WP ... bleh, 2.
Ariel: I'm climbing up after Dolora -- but I'm also spending 2 WP to see if this ghost is lying about what he just said.
GM Elle: He is not.
Ariel: Oh. Um ... maybe I'm not climbing like, super-fast, then.
GM Elle: The ghost hasn't made any move to stand or draw his weapon, Sash. Is Quackenscrump going to attack him while he's just sitting there?
Sasha: Damn, that doesn't seem like a very knightly thing to do to a king ... even if he's a monster now.
MSG: If I'm up, I'll blow my horn to give everybody a Boon on their rolls until my next turn.
Claire: I'll climb after Fidu I guess.
Ariel: Am I up? Cause if I am and I think he really thinks he can't be killed, I want to try something.
GM Elle: You see a cold, immortal certainty in his ghostly eyes -- as cold as the chill in the room. Go ahead and try what you have in mind.
Ariel: So, what I'm going to do is hope real hard he doesn't ever get off that throne and go look out the eyes of the statue, and I'll say, "Of course your fame will last forever! Everybody in all the civilized lands knows about King Hanhgrav and his mighty deeds. People travel across the seas to visit this statue of yours! They've build a boo-koo huge plaza around it with all kinds of plaques and murals about your deeds."
Sasha: Hey, pretty good idea. Does she get a Bluffing roll on that, Elle?
GM Elle: Sure. But with a Bane that cancels out Dolora's Boon because this guy is paranoid about his historical legacy in the extreme.
Ariel: I succeed with a 3!
GM Elle: He appears heartened by this news, but doesn't just poof out of existence or anything. Instead, he leans forward eagerly and says, "Describe some of these murals and plaques. I must know if they got things right."
MSG: Okay, Dolora's catching on to Fidu's game. Can I make a Myths and Legends roll to see if I've heard any stories about this Hanhgrav?
GM Elle: You can, but with a Bane because he's so obscure, and the Dragon Emperor actually buried the bottom half of this statue to make sure nobody thought Hanhgrav was more worth remembering than Eledain himself.
MSG: Nope. A 13 blows it.
Claire: If Filvius is up, he'll wrack his brain too, in hopes of showing off some knowledge about the distant past. A 4 and a 9! Woop, but my Myths and Legends is only 8.
Ariel: Fidu says, "Gosh, there are so many of them. Is there anything you especially want to know what they said or showed about it?"
Akane: Strategic!
Harriet: I do like where you're going with this, Ariel.
GM Elle: He thinks for a moment and says, "The surrender of the Witch Queen at Vandery Field."
Ariel: Okay, so, uh, here goes nothing. I'll say that one's on a mural. So ... it shows the field, and since I'm guessing this was right after a battle, I'll say there's still all these bodies lying around, some of them that got witched to death and others that the king killed with his amazing greatsword -- which you could tell was him because they were like, totally cut in half.
GM Elle: He nods as if in remembrance and then tells you to go on.
Ariel: Um ... I'll say, "Well, and that guy is there beside you, I can never remember his name because obviously he's not as important as you ..."
GM Elle: The king prompts you with, "Gorshi."
Ariel: Okay ... so ... can I do Languages to see if I know that Gorshi sounds like a dwarf or an elf or some other race kind of name?
GM Elle: Sure.
Ariel: Okay, 7 makes it.
GM Elle: You think it's a dwarven name.
Ariel: Super. So I'll say, "Gorshi is looking up at you with all the respect you deserve from this great deed, and he's, er, running his fingers through his beard ..."
GM Elle: The king says, "Hah! He always was so stupidly proud of that beard." You can roll another Bluffing check to see if you're selling this well enough. No Bane this time.
MSG: Can I help her by butting in and adding some beard-related dwarf knowledge as a detail that's in the mural? Like, if there's a special kind of dwarven beard comb or something and the guy has it tucked in one pocket?
GM Elle: Sure. Roll Bluffing or Performance to sneak the comment in there, and you'll give Aers a Boon on her roll.
MSG: I roll a 4 against Performance of 16.
Ariel: Great! My Bluffing rolls are ... 5 and 16. Those both make it.
GM Elle: You manage to fake your way through a description of the mural that satisfies Hanhgrav. It looks like maybe his spectral image is a little fainter now. He asks you to tell him what memorial they put up for the signing of the Treaty of Trelgasque.
Ariel: Jeepers, great. Um ... I'll say they put that one right on the plaza itself, in one of those tile whatchacallits.
Harriet: Mosaic.
Ariel: Can I do Languages again or Myths and Legends to see if I have any clue what Trelgasque might be?
GM Elle: Sure. Pick one.
Ariel: I'll do Languages again since that worked out pretty good last time. 8!
GM Elle: You think it might be a place name in an unusual elven dialect.
Claire: Since I'm an elf, can I do the same thing Dolora did to help Fidu out?
GM Elle: This is a little more obscure than just knowing about dwarven grooming supplies, so you'll need to roll, but I'll let you have a Boon for being an elf.
Claire: My Myths and Legends is better ... but I roll an 18 and a 16, and it's not that much better. I'll keep my mouth shut.
Ariel: So ... I'll say ... the mosaic mostly spelled out the wording of the treaty itself. But ... ooh, I've got it! Nobody can actually read it now because that elven dialect died out! So Hanhgrav's fame actually outlasted a whole language in this case.
GM Elle: That's a very appealing notion to him. You can have a Boon on your Bluffing check.
Ariel: 3 and 12 both make it.
GM Elle: The king's shade dissipates a little further. He eagerly tells you to describe some of the plaques. "You pick which one."
Ariel: Dangit. Sheesh. Uhh ... I'll say, "So ... obviously there are several that spell out the most important laws you made, which everybody still follows, of course." Crossing my fingers here, I'll say my favorite one is the one declaring that holiday in honor of, mmm, probably this guy would make a holiday about himself, right? So I'll say in honor of his being crowned king."
GM Elle: I'm giving you a 50/50 chance of that guess being right. And the dice come up 32, so you pegged that one. He fades even more, and he says something, but it's faint and you don't quite hear it.
Ariel: I'll pretend I do hear it, and I'll start saying something about a different plaque, but I'm saying it real quiet too, only a word here and there that's clear, something about a great speech he made. But I'm gesturing a lot and looking really excited, like this speech means a lot to me.
GM Elle: Roll another Bluffing check.
Ariel: Come on come on come on ... 14 makes it!
GM Elle: He fades almost completely invisible ... but you can barely make him out -- enough to see that his eyes have closed, and it looks like he's sleeping.
MSG: Damn it.
Sasha: Oh, come on! Does that mean we can't loot his stuff or he'll wake back up and we'll be back to square one?
GM Elle: The only way you'll know is if you try looting his stuff.
Ariel: Boo! I worked really hard at that!
Harriet: Yes, genuinely an excellent job.
GM Elle: And I'm not saying you can't loot his stuff without waking him up. I'm just saying you can't tell if looting his stuff will wake him back up.
MSG: Kind of the same difference, if you ask me.
Claire: What if we just try looting his sword? It's just lying across his lap, right? Are his hands on it?
Ariel: Ooh, good question!
GM Elle: No, both of his hands are resting on the arms of the throne.
MSG: She's totally trying to tempt us into waking this ghost up, you guys.
Ariel: And it's totally working. You know what? Fidu is way too much of a treasure hunter to just walk away completely. Can I try using Sleight of Hand to lift that sword off of him without disturbing his rest?
GM Elle: Roll it.
MSG: Should I blow my horn first to give you a Boon?
Claire: No!
Ariel: Are you crazy?
Akane: This idea is the worst of counterproductive, MSG.
Ariel: I'm rolling. 10 is a success against my skill of 14!
GM Elle: All right, then. You lift the sword from his lap ... and no response seems to follow. The faint ghostly image of the sword remains in place, in fact.
Claire: Whew!
Sasha: Maybe taking the crown would work the same way?
Claire: This is me gritting my teeth at that.
Ariel: Yeah I don't think we should push our luck.
Akane: Hmm. But the game rules do exactly say that you can "push" when rolls are unlucky ...
Harriet: If nobody else is going for that crown, Dilfriida is going to hide behind one of those platforms by the eyes and try to pinch it after the rest of the group leaves.
GM Elle: Roll your Sneaking.
MSG: Is this going to be opposed by Awareness for the rest of us?
GM Elle: It's only an opposed role if someone is actively on the look out for whoever is sneaking. My assumption would be that all eyes are on the ghost while you're considering whether to take the crown. But if someone wants to roleplay it otherwise, just say so.
Akane: The habit of Zedeja mistrusting our halfling remains persistent. I will roll Awareness.
Harriet: My check is a 3.
Akane: Zedeja's, a 9.
GM Elle: Looks like Dilfriida's successfully hidden, then. The question is whether anyone else wants to step up and take the crown before you all head back down the ladder.
MSG: I'll skip.
Claire: Me too.
Ariel: I've already got this ritzy sword, so I'm good.
Sasha: Quackers sighs and heads over to start the climb down.
Akane: Not seeing the halfling, Zedeja will hurry in climbing to catch up to her before mischief occurs.
GM Elle: Then once they're gone, Dilfriida can roll Sleight of Hand to get the crown.
Harriet: I'll give it a bit of a wait so the ladder down is clear in case I need to run. Then my roll is ... 7.
GM Elle: As with the sword, the ghost remains unmoving, and a spectral impression of the crown stays in place when you remove the physical one.
MSG: Nice job.
Harriet: It's going in my backpack. Then I'll climb down after everyone else.
GM Elle: All right, then. The rest of the group gets to the bottom of the statue and finds no sign of Dilfriida. What are you going to do?
Akane: Zedeja asks, "Why must this halfling be so troublesome? Has she returned to the cart? Did she stay in the statue? Dilfriida! Expose yourself!"
Harriet: Dilfriida will hurry to catch up, and upon doing so will say she was searching around the bases of those observation platforms in the heads and everybody just left. Do I need to roll a Bluffing check for that?
GM Elle: I think I'd rather you guys just role-play out that kind of thing and decide for yourselves whether you buy one another's fibs. Fidu could pay Willpower points to know for sure with his Insight ability, though.
MSG: It doesn't make much difference one way or another to Dolora, since nothing happened to get us attacked by the ghost.
Claire: Filvius is already looking ahead to his fortune-telling by that spider-kin.
Ariel: Fidu doesn't have a lot of WP to spare on Insight right now.
Sasha: I'm just still aggravated about not getting to kill a monster
Akane: The eyes of Zedeja narrow greatly at this claim by an untrustable halfling. She says, "Communicate your searchings better in the future!"
Harriet: Dilfriida says something on the order of, "Yeah, whatever."
GM Elle: So, you're out of the statue but still within the burial mound. What next?
MSG: Do we want to see about shifting some of those rocks from where they're blocking that one passageway?
Ariel: You're kidding, right? I'm beat from all this ladder climbing. I want to get back to the cart and take a dognap.
Sasha: Quackers is game if Dolora really wants to. Maybe the rocks were put there to block in a monster.
Akane: On the map, these rocks appear so large -- one to two meters. It's a great expenditure of effort with uncertainty of reward. Also, our hound's treasure-seeking ability pointed up into the statue. Therefore it's probably a waste of digging.
MSG: Technically, though, Fidu's ability only points to the greatest treasure. There might be treasure behind the rocks that's worth almost as much as what was in the statue ... maybe even just a single copper piece less.
Claire: Filvius is already walking toward where that Windsilk of Five Far Eyes critter said the weaving would be.
Ariel: Fidu is with you on that.
Akane: "Look! Again, the elf divides from the group. Last time we must expend so much energy saving him from spider death! I forbid this distraction of earthen works."
MSG: Fine. I guess we can all head out.
GM Elle: You pass that old garden shed where the spider-kin seemed to be laired and come to the intersection where it told you to turn right to find the weaving. When you shine your lamp that direction, you see an intricate gossamer web, its strands reflecting the light in chromatic, glittering patterns. The weaving mostly fills the dead end there, with a small tunnel opening into it from your side and a domed space at the center where a single person could sit.
Claire: Great! I'm crawling right in.
Ariel: I'll unroll my sleeping pelt nearby and have a lie-down.
Sasha: Do we know how long this is going to take? Because Sir Q isn't keen to just sit around on his duck-bum all day.
Akane: No division of the party!
Harriet: Dilfriida says she's not excited about waiting either.
MSG: Wasn't there one more tunnel we never explored leading out of the spider lair that we got into the mound through?

Sasha: Yeah! Let's check it out.
Akane: Impertinence! Zedeja will remain with the hound and elf.
Harriet: Dilfriida's definitely going, then.
GM Elle: All right, so the three who go exploring discover that the last unexplored tunnel leads up into a different part of the mound. You find yourselves in an area that looks like this:

Over on the right is the tunnel you followed initially to get to the statue. Over on the left is what looks like the other end of the collapsed tunnel you were considering digging out from the other side.

MSG: Oof, that looks like what, 8 meters of excavation? Glad we didn't try that.
Sasha: I'm on the listen for monster sounds.
GM Elle: Roll Awareness. You can all roll.
MSG: No go.
Sasha: I get a Bane from my helmet, so I don't hear squat.
Harriet: Dilfriida misses her mark by 1 point.
GM Elle: None of you detects anything beyond the echoes of your own footsteps and the clanking or leathery squeak of your armor.
MSG: I guess let's head for that one open exit at the top there.
Sasha: Sir Quackenscrump takes the lead with his sword and shield at the ready.
Harriet: Dilfriida will be at the back with her lamp.
MSG: Sounds like I'm in the middle, then. My club is still busted, so I guess I have my shortsword out and my horn in the other hand.
GM Elle: The way leads up to what looks like another collapsed tunnel. This one is mostly full of earth, not many of the big boulders you saw choking that other passageway. There's another exit to the left. The air in here, by the way, is extremely stale. Much more so than the other part of the mound you explored.

Sasha: We'll head over to that opening, then.
GM Elle: When you turn the corner, you find a macabre sight in the flickering illumination of your lamp. The ruins of what looks like a groundskeeper's cottage lie before you. The roof has mostly collapsed or rotted away. The front and side walls are mostly rubble. Past the heaps of debris, you can see the interior of the cottage, where there's a bed against the far wall, a fireplace, some other furnishings -- and nearest to you, a table and chairs at which three skeletons sit playing cards. Here's how it maps out.

MSG: Oh, geez, are those the chairs? So they're like right there when we turn the corner.
GM Elle: Yes, but they don't seem to immediately take notice of you. Instead, they move like automatons, with their jaws clacking as though they're discussing bets. Their hands spread and reposition their cards, or move copper and silver pieces into the pot at the center of the table. The cards themselves are in tatters, some of them just scraps barely held together by narrow stretches of the original cardstock.
MSG: Can we tell if there's enough coinage in the pot to make it worth our while to fight them?
Sasha: Who cares? Skeletons are monsters, dammit, and I haven't gotten to fight a single monster this whole session. Quackers just up and attacks them.
GM Elle: You can get in a free strike on the closest one, then we'll draw initiative.
Sasha: Slash! I hit with a 15! I'm definitely paying the 3 WP for my to add an extra d8 with my Dragonslayer ability. That's 3d8 plus 1d6 for my strength ... 14 points of damage.
GM Elle: Hang on there, the book says skeletons don't count as monsters in combat, so take away that extra d8. You don't have to pay the WP either.
Sasha: Damn it! Well, it doesn't matter much -- the extra die was a 2, so that's still 12 points.
GM Elle: It shatters into a mouldering heap of bone. Initiative time.
MSG: 2.
Sasha: 7.
Harriet: 9.
GM Elle: The skeletons are on 8.
MSG: These guys don't seem all that tough, so I'll step up and slash at the next one. I kind of stink with a sword, though. A 10 misses. Maybe I should have blown my horn after all.
Sasha: Or maybe you should just stand back and watch Quackers do his thing. Ker-whack! Garrh, that's a Demon.
GM Elle: The mishap table says ... you accidentally throw your weapon d3+3 meters. I roll a total of 4. You'll have to go get it next round. Skeletons' turn. They pick up some tools that are lying nearby -- a shovel and a mining pick. The first one attacks Sir Q ... miss. The second one attacks Dolora ... also a miss. Hettie?
Harriet: I'll move in next to Dolora and spend some WP to do a Backstabbing attack. That gives me a Boon ... and I easily hit, doing 2d8 plus d6 ... 12 points of damage for me as well.
GM Elle: Another pile of bones goes down. New initiative.
MSG: 4.
Sasha: 5.
Harriet: 9. Again.
GM Elle: You're in luck though, Het, because the last skeleton gets the 10 card.
MSG: I'm blowing my horn this round, even though it doesn't seem very necessary.
Sasha: I'm not bothering to chase down my sword, just gonna smack it with my shield. I hit and do ... what do you know, 12 points again.
GM Elle: The air fills with the crunch of snapping ribs and vertebrae, accompanied by a cloud of bone dust. Then the tomb-like quiet slowly seeps back in. It's getting a little late, so I'll make this bit quick instead of going through the whole process of you guys searching everything. The skeletons, whoever they are, must already have done all that searching, because all you find is the loot in the pot or sitting beside each of the three gambler's places. It amounts to 17 copper and 6 silver pieces, plus a silver ring worth another 9 silvers.
MSG: Kind of anticlimactic as far as battles go.
Sasha: I don't care. I got to crunch some stuff, and it felt real satisfying after all the cave-exploring and ladder-climbing and ghost-negotiating.
Ariel: Neghostiating!
Sasha: Haha, sure. I guess if that's it, we head back to the spiderweb spot.
GM Elle: Claire, when Filvius crawls into the little domed space and sits there, he feels his eyelids becoming leaden and droopy. Do you fight it or do you just let them close?
Claire: I let them close. Bring on the future visions!
GM Elle: Your mind quiets. A hazy, ambiguous landscape appears before you -- as though you're looking down on the Misty Vale from a great height. You see the statue at the edge of a great marshland. Then the marshes surround you. Fog and wetland trees blur by you. The scent of muck and swampwater permeate your senses. You find yourself at a different edge of the swamp, where a high, spired tower looms ancient and decrepit over the surrounding bogs. The image of another statuette piece enters your mind -- this one is the head and one arm.
Claire: Woohoo! So there's another statue piece in that tower and apparently it's not even all that far from here.
Ariel: Well, I dunno, on the map those swamps look kinda big.
GM Elle: The vision isn't over yet, though. Your view recedes again, then glides across the Misty Vale to its far western edge. There you see the pitch-black opening of a cave, spiderwebs draping its edges. The slow, methodical scratch of spindly, hard-shelled limbs across stone enters your ears and seems to fill your head up like webbing made of sound. In the darkness you can barely see a hint of enormous, hairy fangs, dripping with green poison. You hear the voice of one of your party members as well, excitedly saying, "Look! It's another one!"
Claire: Another what?
GM Elle: The vision doesn't say ... but it does shift to the town of Outskirt, where you see the central hill by night, with the ruined temple awash in moonlight. Hiding it its shadows, you can make out the figures of Quasimund the mallard and his fellow cultists, lurking there with some clearly nefarious purpose in mind. Then you wake and find yourself back in the burial mound. Strands of silken webbing settle down over you, their colors fading as they dissipate into nothingness.
MSG: Cool ... so we got hints to at least one of the other statue piece locations, maybe two.
Claire: And we know we're heading for some kind of throw down with those cultists at some point too.
Sasha: We're gathering up these pieces to open that ruined temple, right? So maybe that was them setting up an ambush to get us and take the statuette for themselves.
Akane: Or, for us to come out of the temple after we find whatever is in it.
GM Elle: All entirely plausible interpretations. And I'm calling this game over for tonight. I definitely think you hit all five advancement marks, so go ahead and roll for advancement and we can see where you go from here next time.
MSG: Aces.
Claire: Thanks, Elle!
Ariel: I love this game!

and there you have it, at least for the time being! see you round, everyone!

hey, you should really do the thing. i think you know the one i'm talking about.

so three years and a few months ago, our bright-shining golden girlfriend ariel hurt her back and has been stuck in a box ever since.

we knew what the fix was almost right from the start: put in an order for a fresh new ariel body.

and everybody in the house knew doing it would be a huge boost for all our spirits. aers is kind of our heart in a lot of ways, and that heart is irrepressible even shut away in a box, but having it out in the open takes living to a whole other level. so that replacement body order ... it needed to be done.

but the guy with the pocketbook around here is mr. anxiety about money. and he's mr. i-need-to-be-responsible too, and shelling out that kinda hefty chunk of change took him a while to work up to and save up enough of a cushion to be comfortable about it.

and then the bod elle and i always shared started getting very last-leggy, which meant there were three of us who were mobility-challenged, and it also turned out there was a way to order an upscale body for akane, which we thought might be shareable among me, elle, and akane, and we went for that with the moolah that was being saved up for aers. it seemed like it made sense at the time, and i for sure won't say it was a mistake (upscale akane sooo totally rules!), but there kept being a back-corner-of-everybody's-mind notion hanging around that maybe we shouldn't have done it in the order we did.

and then more time went by and more money got saved up, but mr. anxious pocketbook man kept being anxious about spending the money.

finally, last month, after three+ years of hemming and hawing, he put in the order. and then we all got to be anxious about waiting for the new aers-bod to arrive, most especially him, because he had this knee-jerk fear of "what if i get buyer's remorse? what if she shows up and it's not a magical thing that's a thousand times better than pulling out her box and spending time with her with the lid open?"

and what do you think happened when she arrived?

yep, the thing that we'd all been wanting for over three years turned out totally awesome and just about instantly gave the whole house its heart back.

there was never any doubt that we all wanted it.

so why was it so hard?

anyway, if you have a thing like that, where you just know it's the right thing to do, and it's within your grasp, achievable, not just a faraway goal you may not be able to reach ...

do it.

do the thing.

you deserve to!

xoxo,
claire

a characteristic i am soooo glad i don't have to worry about!

so, this guy i'm with! you all know who i'm talking about. yeah, yeah, i love him to death and all, but he's such a goofball about money. he makes a pretty good pile of it, but he's always fretting about spending it.

and i'm over here like, "so then don't?"

it's like the worst of both worlds. he worries about big ticket items that he wants or needs. so he doesn't get/do them. but then he keeps worrying! which means now he doesn't have the thing, but he's also still worrying about not being able to afford the thing. except if he really couldn't afford it, then he wouldn't be thinking about it at all unless it was in a "man, wouldn't it be cool if..." kind of way. so most everything he worries about paying for, he probably could pay for.

drives me kind of bonkers sometimes, and i have to tell myself, "claire, you have never earned or spend a single dime yourself in your whole life. maybe don't be so judgy, you know?"

and then i tell myself, "also, maybe thank your stars you don't have to worry about that stuff."

and then i write a blog post like this one and i end up thinking ...

"dude, for somebody who says she doesn't worry about this stuff, i sure did write a lot of words right there about worrying about this stuff."

radical political idea!

okay, so, like, why do we* have societies in the first place?

i mean, the easy answer is we evolved from a bunch of animals who lived and worked together because it gave them an advantage over other animals that wanted to chow down on the same grub or straight up eat us. but you could also dig into that a little deeper and say that the instinct for each one of those animals only developed because it was good for the animals as individuals to belong to a group.

and for sure, once we got smart enough, we could totally decide for ourselves whether to keep hanging out together or go our separate ways.

but we didn't.

(at least, most of us didn't. and the ones that did, didn't stick around.)

so why is that?

obviously, it's at least partly because we mostly kinda like each other. (i don't mean we all like all of each other, but overall, we get some kind of kick out of being part of a group to some extent or another or we just wouldn't put up with all the ways we're also really annoying.)

so why is it, if being part of a group is how we're born**, and also if we mostly kinda like each other, that some of us also get so steamy-ears pissed off about having to be in a group with people who are just a little bit different from us?***

sure, part of it is that some of those "just a little bit different" things are the same things that make us really annoying to each other. ("why do you always leave the freakin' toilet seat up?" "you know i can't stand that song ... do you have to keep humming it?" etc.) but annoyed and angry are actually pretty separate emotions. one of them can turn into the other over time, but you can be annoyed without being angry and you can be angry without being annoyed. and sometimes, it's actually ways that we're the same that make us annoyed or angry. ("can't you just admit you're wrong for once?" "can't you just admit you're wrong?")

so what's the specific deal with people not being able to stand people being different, when the fact is we're all different and it would be pretty ding-dong boring if we weren't?

my theory is: there are some people who don't actually like other people. they like the benefits that come from being in a society, but they have something missing that's there in all the rest of us, which is the part where we mostly kinda like each other.

and those people have learned that they can get more of the benefits they like if they encourage other people to not like each other.

so they work at convincing other people that things that are maybe just annoying, or maybe not annoying at all but just different, are worth getting hoppity-hop mad about.

if you can get somebody mad about something, and get them to feel like you're on their side about being mad over that thing, it's way easier to convince them to do stuff you want. and the madder you get them, the less brainergy they have to think about whether they actually ought to be mad, or to think about whether it makes sense for them to do the things you're telling them to do.

so here's my big idea.

why don't we all just make sure we're on the lookout for those people and call them on it when we see them trying to make us mad? and warn each other off of them when we recognize them? like, "hey, man, i think that dude's just trying to get us mad to take advantage of us."

because while there's lots of reasons for us to be annoyed at each other****, there are a lot fewer reasons for us to actually be mad.

99.9% of all our political problems would go away, i bet, if we just said, "whoa up there, pardner. how about if we just dial it back and remember that we all mostly kinda like each other here and see if we can't figure out a solution nobody needs to be pissed off about?"

anyway, if you agree, please spread the news.

there's way more of us who are mostly happy getting along with each other than there are of the people who don't actually like other people.

xoxo,
claire

(*and by "we" i guess i technically mean you non-doll people, since the reason i have a society is, i was deliberately made by one. but you know sometimes i kinda forget that and think, hey, i'm a person and you're all people, which makes us an us and means i get to say "we" about us even if, you know, i'm a little more literally a product of my society than you guys are.)

(**slash, popped out of the factory mold)

(***confession time: duh, i personally am way more than "just a little bit different" from a lot of folks, so maybe i'm not the best gal to be trying to ask or answer this question. but i'm the gal i am, so kinda i can't help it.)

(****i live with and love the dickens out of six other people, so trust me that i know what i'm talking about here!)

secret of the dragon emperor ... part 20!

wow, the big 2-0! criminy, since we've only wrapped two of the twelve adventures in the book, that means we're on a pace that will take 120 posts to cover the whole campaign. aannnd we've been playing for a little over six months, so, like, it might be two and a half more years before we're done?

well, the only way to see if we get there is one session at a time, i guess!

GM Elle: All right, everybody ready to go tonight? Did anyone pick up an exciting Heroic Ability after last week's session?
MSG: No new abilities for Dolora, so I'm definitely ready to get to it.
Claire: Master Spellcaster for Filvius! Now I can cast two spells in the same turn if I spend 3 WP. So in theory I could Lightning Flash and Heal Wounds one right after the other. Or Heal Wounds and Treat Wounds.
Ariel: What's "in theory" about that?
Claire: Well, Filvy isn't exactly a fountain of Willpower Points. If he casts two spells at power level 1, that's half his WP right there. And if he casts one at power level 2 and one at power level 3, he's pretty much done for the day. If I'm going to get much mileage out of the ability, I probably ought to take Focused for my next HA or two and rack up some more WP.
Hettie: Focused is unglamorous, but I suspect it will pay off in the long run.
Akane: Zedeja chose a miserly ability. Only 1 WP to use it ... Iron Fist! This adds 1d6 to unarmed attacking. With a Power Fist spell, this could result in 5d6 fist damage.
Hettie: Has Zedeja really thrown all that many punches, though? Aside from that injured cultist she beat up last session?
Akane: No. Very few brawlings for Zedeja. But preparedness is her watch-word!
GM Elle: So I think Filvius and Zedeja were the last two who hadn't earned a Heroic Ability already, right? I guess I can start throwing tougher monsters at you.
MSG: Sounds like the next Heroic Ability we all need to take is whatever boosts your run away! speed.
Claire: I don't think there is one.
GM Elle: Relax, I'm kidding. Mostly. At any rate, you've set up camp well short of your original goal, which was to reach the mysterious statue on the edge of the swamp before nightfall. Who's taking first watch?
Hettie: Dilfriida would actually like to request some healing before we get to the setting up watches stage. I'm down to just two hit points.
Akane: Two is sufficient for cowering and hiding in battles.
Hettie: Isn't Zedeja already asleep?
Akane: Oh! Yes, apologies, everyone. Although possibly even in her sleep she could criticize a halfling.
Hettie: I don't doubt it.
Claire: I roll a 12 on my Animism skill to cast Heal Wound, giving you 5 points back. I've got WP to spare at the moment, so I'll cast it again ... 7 is another success, for ... 13 more points.
Hettie: Far in excess of what I needed. Too bad you didn't roll that on the first casting. But thank you. Feeling much better, Dilfriida will volunteer for first watch so that she can hit the sack on second watch when presumably Zedeja might wake up.
MSG: Dolora is Exhausted and therefore probably grumpier than usual, so she'd just as soon take second watch.
Claire: Filvius is happy to be on the lookout for knowledge that might wander into camp while Dolora is sleeping.
Ariel: I'm already in bed!
Sasha: Guess that leaves Quackers to be the muscle on first watch.
GM Elle: All right, then. Glinssa, like Dilfriida, would just as soon be awake while Zedeja sleeps and vice versa. But midway through your watch,  the random encounter table decrees that a gang of orcs shows up, descending on your camp from all directions. You count 9 of the tough-looking nightkin, all equipped in leather armor and wielding scimitars. One of them levels her blade at Sir Q and demands to know what you're doing in this territory. With a glance in Glinssa's direction, she adds, "Is this another batch of cultists we need to dispatch?"
Sasha: Quackers yawns. "I mean, I think it's pretty obvious what we're doing here is camping. And I'm guessing we killed more cultists before breakfast this morning than you've dealt with all day."
Hettie: Dilfriida nervously puts a hand to her knife hilt, but stays quiet and lets the knight do the talking.
GM Elle: Glinssa takes a similar approach.
Claire: Not Filvius. He stands up excitedly and says, "Orcs! I've never met an orc -- I bet there are all kinds of things you could teach me about your people and customs!" I don't need to roll Beast Lore to recognize them, do I?
GM Elle: No, they fit the description you've heard repeatedly in your years, even if you haven't met one before. What you can do, though, is roll Persuasion to see if you convince them to start educating you about orcs.
Sasha: Don't roll a Demon, Claire, or I'm guessing Elle will be putting air quotes around "educating" real quick.
Claire: 13 fails, but hopefully not bad enough to offend them.
GM Elle: They look too suspicious to take offense. You see the leader give a curt head-nod to the others, causing them to close in a bit more.
MSG: Do the rest of us need to roll to see if we wake up?
GM Elle: Sure. But I'm giving Dolora a Bane for being Exhausted. Akane and Ariel can decide for themselves if their characters would be deep enough asleep to earn a Bane.
Ariel: Duh, obviously Fidu is. I roll an 8 and a 15, so I'm still ... oh, wait, my sheet says I've got Awareness 15 now, so I guess I wake up.
Akane: Zedeja sleeps a sleep of relief for undisclosed reasons. A 17 on one die prevents her from waking.
MSG: Two failures for Dolora. Her Awareness is only 8.
Ariel: I guess I'll sit up and listen and see if it sounds like I need to wake Dolora and Zed up.
Sasha: Quackers reaches for his backpack and says, "Look, guys, we don't want any trouble, but we're a pretty tough bunch." I pull out the cockatrice head and waggle it at them. "Ever seen one of these before? We eat them for snacks."
GM Elle: A cockatrice head is pretty hideous and evil-looking, but I'll have to roll Beast Lore for them to see if anyone recognizes it. Most of them don't, but I rolled two 2's and a Dragon. The first two throw an arm or a hand over their eyes, swearing or yelling, "Cockatrice!" at sight of it. The guy who rolled the Dragon realizes there's no need to be afraid of the head, but says to the leader, "Boss, if they killed that thing, they're plenty tough, all right." He says it in orcish, though, so I guess you should roll Languages to see if you understand.
Claire: Nope, 16. Dang, Filvius better up his Languages skill if he wants to gain knowledge from people who don't speak Common.
Ariel: Fidu rolls a 6, so he gets it.
Sasha: 17. I don't understand a word. 
Hettie: Hmm, a 4 actually makes it for Dilfriida.
GM Elle: Sash, I'll let you roll Performance if you're trying to use your nonchalance and bravado to intimidate them into backing off, or Persuasion if you're trying to trying to convince them with monster-head diplomacy.
Sasha: Bravado and nonchalance sounds good to me. I get a 4 against performance of 13.
GM Elle: A Dragon would have forced a morale roll, but any success gives them pause. The leader lowers her scimitar just slightly and asks where you intend to go and what your purpose is.
Claire: Filvius will immediately interrupt and say, "We're headed for that big statue just north of here! You don't happen to know anything about it, do you?"
Sasha: Quackers says, "Yeah, yeah. That's a stop we're making on our way back to Outskirt."
GM Elle: She lets her sword arm relax to her side, but doesn't sheathe her weapon. "Follow that course in the morning, then," she says. "But know that there will be trouble if you are speaking falsely." Then she gives a gesture and her band melts away into the darkness.
Claire: Filvius calls out, "Wait! You didn't say if you know anything about the statue!" If they don't come back or say anything in reply, he mutters, "Well, I guess I learned that orcs aren't very good at sharing information."
Ariel: Are things going to quiet down now? Because I really need to get my sleep.
GM Elle: The rest of the first watch passes without anything noteworthy happening.
MSG: Time for Dolora and Zedeja to take shift number two then, right?
Akane: Zedeja wakes with readiness.
GM Elle: In that case, let's see if anything happens on second shift. Looks like the dice say "no." Everyone wakes up in the morning fully refreshed and recuperated. Oops ... except that we never rolled for a severe injury for Dilfriida. We're supposed to do that anytime someone hits zero HP and survives. You need to make a CON check to avoid being badly hurt. This happened when you made that third Death Roll success back in the giant's cave.
Hettie: Wonderful. And one of my conditions was Sickly, so I get a Bane on the roll. 7 and 15. I'll go ahead and push the roll and say I was Exhausted by struggling my way out of near death. 6 and 13, so I succeed.
GM Elle: Okay, wavy screen effect to show that we're done with that flashback. You're all up the next morning and ready to go as the weak glow of sunrise struggles through the thick mists of the vale. What does the group do?
MSG: Keep heading back to Outskirt, I'd say.
Claire: With our promised pit-stop at the mysterious giant statue.
Ariel: I don't know about this statue thing. It seems like a lot of work from Fidu's point of view, since it's somewhere off the road we're not even sure how far. Also, you know, we didn't get one of those adventure cards about a giant statue.
Sasha: Yeah, but we also didn't get an adventure card about somebody nearly breaking their neck climbing down a giant's chimney so they could steal a book about carpentry, and you have to admit that was pretty entertaining.
Akane: Yes. Possibly Zedeja's emotions were mixed, but the heart of Akane feared deeply for the scoundrel halfling. Very exciting!
Hettie: Thank you. I'm glad it wasn't just me having fun.
GM Elle: Once you get on the road, it takes you about two more hours of travel before you spot something large and shadowy standing off in the mist, atop what looks like a hill. As you come alongside it, you see that it's definitely the same titanic statue you passed on the way to the farm, visible only from the waist up. The rest seems buried within the hill. Here's a picture that I commissioned from MSG and Akane. MSG did the background and Akane did the statue and the mist so nobody had the whole thing spoiled ahead of time.

MSG: Wow, that turned out really good. Way moodier than what I handed over to you.
GM Elle: I messed with the color settings until I thought it was hitting the right "Dragonbane" greens and greys.
Claire: Well, the final product is pretty dang kickass -- and I'm not just saying that because all the work that went into it means Filvius is a lot more likely to get his wish about exploring the thing.
Akane: Team work leads to many benefits.
Ariel: (That's what she said!)
GM Elle: Just to be completely honest, I'll confess that I hooked MSG and Akane into helping on this partly because I made up a dungeon for it after Filvius started fixating on the statue. I didn't want to have to railroad the party into exploring it if the other characters decided they'd just as soon ride on past.
MSG: Ah, so there's a whole dungeon to it -- not just a fancy map to use as an ambush spot?
Claire: Or it might be an ambush spot and the ambushers will end up dragging us to a dungeon somewhere else.
Ariel: I hope not! Fidu's going to get tired enough just leaving the road.
Sasha: Not sure if it looks like a likely spot for monsters, but I guess if we're reaching the thing early in the day, Quackers won't complain too much about making a stop.
Akane: Maybe not a spot for monsters, but an actual monster! There are golems in this game, yes?
Hettie: Good night, I hope there's not a golem that big. If there is, I don't think even Sir Quackenscrump would want to take it on.
GM Elle: So. There it stands, looming above the surrounding lands, a shadowy colossus shrouded in mists. What do you do?
MSG: What's the terrain and vegetation like here? Could we easily drive the cart all the way over to the hill? Or is there cover we could park it behind so that it's not just sitting beside the road with only Glinssa protecting it?
GM Elle: The area seems relatively level, other than the berm supporting the ruined road. But thanks to the mist, you can't see the quality of the ground more than a couple dozen yards out. Near the road, it looks okay, but it could turn muddy farther off. Definitely doesn't look like any substantial plants nearby -- mostly just grass and weeds. By the way, north is to the left on the map, not the top. 
Ariel: Okay, so just to make sure we don't drive our cart off into the mud for no reason, I'm going to use my Treasure Hunter ability to see where the greatest treasure is.
GM Elle: Your nose for loot definitely points you directly at the statue.
Ariel: Dang. Well ... but, it could be pointing me past the statue, right? It might be something miles and miles on the other side of it.
GM Elle: Possibly, but the statue is close and tall, and you kind of feel like your treasure sense is tugging your attention not just toward it, but also upward.
Ariel: Okay, okay. I guess Fidu is in.
Sasha: No sense waiting around anymore then, right? Let's get a move on. And somebody with good Bushcraft skill needs to be up front with me to notice if the ground starts getting mush.
MSG: Dolora's is pretty good.
GM Elle: Go ahead and make a roll.
MSG: Pff. 19.
Claire: Filvius isn't up front, but he'd still be looking around to see if the area has anything to it that he could use some knowledge about. Can I roll too?
GM Elle: Sure. Your first die will be for assessing the area overall. Then you'll get a Bane die, and if there's some kind of danger up ahead of Dolora and Sir Q, you'll need a success on both of those dice to spot it before they get there.
Claire: 10 succeeds for the base roll. And poopity-poop. The Bane roll is a Dragon, which means I succeed, but I also wasted a Dragon.
GM Elle: As it happens, there's no treacherous ground waiting to swallow anyone up. Filvius sees some stands of grass here and there that look like varieties that grow in and near swamps. But normal grass seems to dominate the area. Any particular spot you're going to head toward at the base of the hill?
MSG: I'd say we ought to park in that kind of shady area on the left. If it's shadowy there and the mists keep up, that will probably keep anyone on the road from spotting our cart. Well ... but on the other hand, does any part of the hill look easier or harder to climb up?
GM Elle: You can roll Bushcraft for the general lay of the land, and if you succeed you can Spot Hidden to see if you notice a particularly easy or tricky part of the slope.
MSG: Success on Bushcraft, failure on Spot Hidden.
GM Elle: So the whole thing looks pretty uniform in terms of the curvature of the slope. In fact, it seems uniform enough that you'd kind of guess it's a man-made structure, not just a natural hill. Or possibly a hill that was sculpted into regularity for some reason.
Claire: I also succeed on Bushcraft and fail on Spot Hidden, so I guess I know the same thing even if Dolora doesn't speak up about it. Aside from it looking so uniform, how steep is it? Like, walk-up steep or need-climbing-gear-steep?
GM Elle: In between. It will take an Acrobatics roll with a Boon to climb up the steepest part of the slope without a mishap, and if you do slip, you'll probably just roll back down, not break your neck.
MSG: I say we head on up, then.
Sasha: Quackers is for that too.
GM Elle: Everyone who's headed up make your rolls, then.
MSG: 6 and 10, both easy successes.
Claire: Oof. 10 and 11, but my Acrobatics is only 7, so I go tumbling back down.
Ariel: Mine's 7 too! But I roll 4 and 8, so I make it.
Sasha: The Bane from my Armor cancels the Boon, but I get a 5, so Quackers is fine.
Akane: Zedeja instructs our cultist to be very diligent with cart and donkeys while we are gone. "No sitting down this time!" The dice give her success in climbing.
Hettie: Dilfriida gets a 13 and a Demon, so I'm very grateful that was a Boon roll and not a Bane one.
GM Elle: All right, everyone gets up without too much trouble except Filvius. Claire, are you giving it another shot?
Claire: Well, on the one hand, Dolora's going to learning about whatever's up there all by herself if I don't go. But on the other hand, she's already getting there ahead of me, and meanwhile maybe there's something to learn about down here that I can find while she's up there. Plus, there might be an easier slope around back. I think I'll hike around the hill and see if there's anything to see.
GM Elle: All right. I'll have you make a roll or two in a bit, but everyone else will reach the statue and be able to examine it first. The group finds that the top of the hill is relatively level. At this elevation, the mists are considerably thinner, and you can see that the waist of the statue disappears directly into the ground -- there's no foundation or base in sight for it to be resting on. You can also tell that it's from some very ancient time, because the stone is deeply weathered and pitted, and one of the arms has broken and fallen to the ground along with the shield it holds.
MSG: Well, I guess we should get looking for secret doors into the thing.
Ariel: My Spot Hidden is pretty good! Should I roll?
Sasha: I say anybody and everybody ought to have a look.
Akane: Zedeja certainly does.
Hettie: Dilfriida as well.
GM Elle: All right, everyone who's searching can roll Spot Hidden.
MSG: 6 succeeds, surprisingly.
Ariel: I get a Dragon!
Sasha: 7 for Quackers. We're really Spotting us some Hidden out the wazoo.
Akane: Zedeja succeeds.
Hettie: And I roll a 12, exactly what I needed. I guess if there's a door, we find it.
GM Elle: No one finds anything except Fidu. Fidu is certain there's not a secret door anywhere around the waist of the statue. However, he does notice that in one area, there are a couple of climbing spikes sticking out of the stone higher up.
Ariel: Doh. I'll point them out, but no way am I trying to climb up to them.
Hettie: Dilfriida volunteers.
Akane: Zedeja says that climbing by a halfling can be permitted.
Hettie: How very generous of her.
Akane: But only to the spikes! There, you must tie a rope for others to climb up after!
Hettie: I'm not sure how much good that will do if the spikes don't continue all the way up.
GM Elle: From here, you can't really see. There is still some mist, and the surface of the statue is very rough.
Hettie: I roll a 10 against my Acrobatics of 17.
GM Elle: You make it to the first of the spikes, about 20 feet off the ground ... ah, 6 meters, I guess it should be. You're moving up along the rib cage of the statue, maybe a third of the way up. The mists have thinned even further, so you can make another Spot Hidden check to see if the spikes continue.
Hettie: Oof. That's a Demon.
GM Elle: If I roll odd, you lean too far out craning your neck and fall. Even, your eyes play some kind of trick on you. That's a 7, so you're going to take 3d6 falling damage, 2d6 with an Acrobatics check.
Hettie: My Acrobatics succeeds.
GM Elle: 7 points. And I just noticed that the falling rules say armor doesn't protect you in a fall, so you take the whole thing.
Hettie: Unpleasant. That's half my total hit points.
Akane: Zedeja rushes over, but stops when close enough to see the halfling is not dead. She gives a scowl and a finger shake. "Unacceptable! You should have tied the rope before falling!"
Hettie: Dilfriida gets up and throws the coil of rope at Zedeja, saying, "Why don't you climb up and do it, then?"
Akane: Because I have Levitate. Zedeja takes the rope and casts her spell. 12 succeeds, allowing her to reach the spike.
GM Elle: All right, you reach it and grab hold, but it will take an Acrobatics roll to tie the rope while hanging on.
Akane: 18 fails, which is Disheartening to Zedeja in her striving to demonstrate a competence superior to the thief. The roll is 4 when I push it this way.
GM Elle: You successfully tie the rope, then.
Akane: Good. Now, if 6 meters is one-third, is the top of the head 18 meters? Or is it the shoulder that is 18?
GM Elle: The head.
Akane: How far from this spike to the shoulder, then?
GM Elle: I'd say 7 or 8 meters.
Akane: Then Zedeja Levitates at Power Level 2 to the shoulder. 15 succeeds.
GM Elle: You reach the shoulder and find yourself high above the valley floor -- it's probably 35 meters to the base of the hill. You're able to look out across the land and see the peaks of the Kummer mountains looming up from the mists to the south, hazy, grey-green swamplands to the east, and forests to the north and west, with the road winding north and then veering west before getting swallowed up in the distance and shrouds of fog.
MSG: I guess Dolora will climb the rope and see if there are more spikes to use as a ladder above that.
GM Elle: You can roll Acrobatics with a Boon.
MSG: No problem.
Claire: Can Zedeja see Filvius from up there?
Akane: Zedeja is not looking for an elf. She is looking to make sure there are donkeys and a cart being watched with vigilance by a cultist.
GM Elle: Both Dolora and Zedeja can roll Spot Hidden.
MSG: I get a 2.
Akane: Zedeja successfully Spots with a 12.
GM Elle: Dolora is pretty sure the two spikes visible from the ground are the only ones anywhere near. There might be more up around the curve of the chest, but you don't see them.
MSG: So maybe whoever left these pulled their other ones out on the way back down.
Ariel: Or only got high enough to hammer in those two before they fell and cracked their head!
GM Elle: Meanwhile, Zedeja does see the cart, the donkeys, and Glinssa just where you expect them to be. Claire, Filvius has made it about halfway around the back side of the hill. Roll Spot Hidden to see if you notice anything about the hill.
Claire: Dragon!
GM Elle: Good job. Along the southeast flank of the hill, you see what looks like a large divot taken out of the bottom edge of the hill, a concave area in the grass that's around a meter, meter-and-a-half in diameter.
Claire: I'll go check it out.
GM Elle: Up close, you see that it looks like a very old entrance to a tunnel. There are timber braces half-buried in the earth and almost concealed by the surrounding grass. But the tunnel was either filled in long ago or collapsed -- there's only a shallow remnant of it within the braces, grassed over completely.
Claire: Okay, well ... I guess I'll poke around and see if I can find any concealed way in, like a hidden lever or something.
GM Elle: Go ahead and roll Spot Hidden.
Claire: Wowzers, another Dragon!
GM Elle: You don't find anything that looks like this is a workable way in. But you do manage to notice a rusty hunk of metal sticking up through the grass just to one side of the braces.
Claire: I'll examine it super closely for any sign of a trap. If I don't find anything, I'll see if I can pull it out.
GM Elle: It doesn't budge. It's a curved ridge of metal, maybe the size of your finger, and whatever it's part of is apparently buried under the soil the grass is growing from.
Claire: Okay, well ... I'm looking on my character sheet, and I literally have nothing to dig with. So I guess I'll just have to remember the spot and come back when I hook back up with everyone else.
GM Elle: Does that mean you're moving on around the hill, or heading back the way you came?
Claire: I mean, I might as well keep going at this point.
GM Elle: Back to the statue, then. What's everyone doing?
MSG: If I can climb up onto the first spike, I'll search around and see if I can find any secret doors in the surface of the statue.
Ariel: Fidu's got no business trying to climb up after anybody, and we already searched all around the statue, so I guess I'll just have a sit-down and relax.
Sasha: Quackers will go look around the broken-off arm with the shield.
Akane: Zedeja searches the shoulder and neck of this statue for secret ways in.
Hettie: Since our healer isn't around, Dilfriida will sit down with Fidu and do a Stretch Rest. Although I make sure I'm sitting at an angle where if Zedeja falls, I can watch.
Akane: She will not! But if she does, it's no problem. She has Slow Fall for a magic trick, remember?
Hettie: I do, but it's not as likely Dilfriida does.
GM Elle: MSG, roll Acrobatics and then if you make it, Spot Hidden. If Sir Quackenscrump is actively searching, Sash, you can also roll Spot Hidden on the arm, and Zedeja can do so up at the top of the statue. Spoiler warning, but Hettie, you can roll for your Stretch Rest.
MSG: Meaning nothing's likely going to happen for the next fifteen minutes, I guess. Well, I roll anyway. 13 on my Acrobatics is a success ... and 2 on my Spot Hidden succeeds too!
Ariel: I roll an 18 on my Be Lazy skill. That's a success for Fidu for sure.
Sasha: Quackers is just poking around, not really searching. 
Akane: The Spotting by Zedeja is 4.
Hettie: Dilfriida gets back 3 HP.
GM Elle: Nobody finds anything, I'm afraid.
Akane: In this case, Zedeja will Levitate atop the statue head. A success of 5.
GM Elle: You find yourself within the statue's crown. Unlike the rest of the statue, it's just rough, unfinished stone in this area. Apparently the sculptors figured whoever commissioned the statue would never see the very top. You can roll Spot Hidden if you want to search around in there.
Akane: Again, 4.
GM Elle: And again, you find nothing.
MSG: Well this seems like kind of a bust.
Claire: Not if it has arms and a waist.
Ariel: What?
Hettie: A sculpture terminology pun. Good one, Claire.
MSG: It took me a second, but now that I get it, I agree with Hettie.
Claire: That's a relief.
GM Elle: I'm going to start subtracting Advancement Marks here in a minute.
Akane: Zedeja finds this statue confounding! Can she climb down and possibly sit on the nose to examine its face?
GM Elle: With an Acrobatics check, sure.
Akane: 8 succeeds. Presumptuously, I roll Spot Hidden also, for a failure of 16.
GM Elle: That's okay, I wasn't going to make you roll. From your seat on the bridge of the nose, you see that the eyes are not actually stone, but curved metal screens. You can see that there's some sort of open area beyond them, but it's entirely dark, and you can't tell anything more than that about it.
Akane: Hmm. Does this screen appear sturdy? Or fragile?
GM Elle: You can make a Crafting check to evaluate that.
MSG: Now there's a skill we haven't used much.
Claire: My guess is no one put any points in it.
Akane: The roll is 17, very poor.
GM Elle: Then all you can really tell is that it seems to be intact despite obvious centuries of exposure.
Akane: Probably it's unwise to try breaking in this way, for many reasons. Zedeja attempts to climb back down. Her Acrobatics roll of 2 succeeds. Is more than one roll needed?
GM Elle: A total of three rolls if you climb back over to the shoulder and then down the chest to the spikes. Or, if you try to negotiate the climb from the chin to the throat and then down, one roll with a Bane and one normal roll.
MSG: Long story short, it's three dice being rolled either way.
Akane: Bah. So much effort feels undignified for an oldster such as Zedeja. She lets go and uses Slow Fall.
MSG: I climb back down too. My Acrobatics roll is 13 if I need one.
GM Elle: Everyone is back safe and sound on the hilltop, then. Claire, as Filvius continues circumnavigating the hill, you can roll Spot Hidden again.
Claire: 18 is a no go there.
GM Elle: You've rounded the southern end of the hill. Are you going to continue all the way around?
Claire: Um ... I was, but that sure sounds like a loaded question following right after me blowing a Spot Hidden check. Filvius doesn't know he failed anything, though, so I guess I keep going.
GM Elle: Make an Awareness roll.
MSG: This doesn't sound good.
Claire: Neither is my Awareness ... I only have an 8. And I roll a 17. I'd think about pushing it, but honestly, I can't come up with any reason for Filv getting any of the Conditions from this situation. As far as he knows, he's headed back to where he last saw everybody else with news about an old caved-in tunnel and some metal thing in the ground.
GM Elle: You'll go last in the initiative order, then.
Ariel: That sounds even less good!
GM Elle: As you're passing by an area of kind of matted grass, a seam pops open around the edge, and a giant trapdoor spider lunges out to attack you.
Claire: Eep.
GM Elle: On the first of its two turns, it jabs you with its poison sting. Are you going to use up your turn to Evade?
Claire: One hundred percent. I roll an 11, which succeeds.
GM Elle: The spider lunges at you, ripping and tearing with its forward legs. 5 points of damage, and time for us to draw initiative. Do you want to draw before or after the spider?
Ariel: I don't think I can stand the suspense if you wait till after!
Claire: Me either. Where's the deck? Okay, I draw ... yep. Par for the course, it's the 8.
Sasha: Well, nice knowing you, Filv.
GM Elle: The spider draws 3 and then 2.
Claire: Seriously? So if I'd waited, it would have gotten the 8 and the 3 and I'd go on 2.
Hettie: Should have gone for the suspense.
GM Elle: The spider spits a sticky web at you. Roll Evade or you're stuck. This isn't an action, so it won't use your turn.
Claire: Whew, that's a relief. I get a 10.
GM Elle: Second turn for the spider is Mesmerizing Eyes. You have to roll a WIL save or suffer a Fear attack.
Claire: Fudge. I roll a Demon.
GM Elle: You turn white as a sheet and become Scared. Because of the Demon, I'm also giving you a second Condition. I'll let you pick.
Claire: Yeah, that's super-easy. Disheartened. That's practically a freebie for Filvius because he pretty much never uses any Charisma based skills.
GM Elle: Your turn, then.
Claire: Power Level 3 Lightning Flash, and boy I'd better roll this. Nope, 19, so I'd better push it. Let's say I'm trying so hard to cast it that I become Exhausted. This time I roll a 4. Krackow! 4d6 of damage. Foo. That's only 13.
GM Elle: It's still up ... and you're within 2 meters of it, so you take the secondary damage.
Claire: Oops. What the -- my 4d4 come up 13 too. I'm at zero HP.
Ariel: Wow. That was terrible luck.
GM Elle: It's a new round. Since everybody saw the lightning bolt streak out of the sky and heard the boom, you can all draw initiative.
MSG: 8.
Claire: 7.
Ariel: 1!
Sasha: 9 for Quackers.
Akane: Zedeja has initiative of 3.
Hettie: And ... 2 for Dilfriida.
GM Elle: Spider goes on 4 and 5. You're up, Fidu.
Ariel: Oh boy, now what do I do? If I move my full amount, can I get to where I can see the spider?
GM Elle: Yes, but you're just barely out of range for your bow, so you'll get a Bane on the attack.
Ariel: Might as well at least try ... nope, 3 and 13.
GM Elle: Dilfriida?
Hettie: I believe I shall trade cards with Dolora.
MSG: Sweet. I'll move as far as I can and then blow my horn to give all allies a Boon to rolls until my next turn. Akane is next, right?
Akane: Zedeja is too far to reach sight for slinging, I think. I will trade my card to our duck knight.
Sasha: Awesome. If I move to here, can I get a shot with my bow?
GM Elle: I'll let you.
Sasha: You're the best, Elle. 15 is exactly what I need. My damage is --
GM Elle: The spider dodges with a 2.
Sasha: Damn it.
Hettie: You did at least use up one of its turns.
GM Elle: And now it gets its second one. Ramming attack! The spider launches its massive body at a player character with a great leap. Sadly, the only person within range is Filvius. The damage means you get an automatic Death Roll failure. And it's your turn.
Claire: Peachy. First up I guess I have to make an actual Death Roll ... with a boon! But I get a 13 and an 18. I'm going to say the pain makes me Dazed and push the roll. This time I make it. For my action, I don't think I have any choice except to try to Rally ... yeah, this is super likely. It's a WIL roll with a Bane, but I'm scared so it's a double Bane. Oh, but Dolora's beautiful horn tune cancels the second Bane. I still blow it with a 13 and an 18.
Hettie: Dilfriida's on initiative 8. She'll move up and fire her bow with a boon ... nice, a 15 and a Dragon. So that's an extra d10 ... I roll 13 points. Seems to be sort of a theme with our damage this session.
GM Elle: It's looking pretty hurt but is still up. Akane, Zedeja's the last to go.
Akane: It's a dash for her. Only two movements.
GM Elle: New initiative, then.
MSG: 6.
Claire: 9.
Ariel: Poopier than last time. 7.
Sasha: Quackers is on 5.
Akane: Zedeja gets the 2.
Hettie: Dead last with 10.
GM Elle: The spider is on 4 and 8. Akane, it's your turn.
Akane: Zedeja moves closer to sling. This has a Boon from a bard ... therefore a hit from rolls of 9 and 18. 
GM Elle: Spider attempts to dodge ... and succeeds with a 3. Sir Quackenscrump is next.
MSG: Wait, the spider used its card 4 turn to dodge, not the 8?
GM Elle: Possibly it's not very strategic. Or possibly it's really hurt and wants to be able to dodge again if it has to.
Sasha: Well, it's going to have to, because here comes Quackers with his bow. 14 and 15, definite hit. 
GM Elle: The spider tries another dodge. Ooh, 17 blows it.
Sasha: Yes! I'm spending the WP to do my Dragonslayer ability for a total of 11 points of damage.
GM Elle: It's dead.
MSG: Nice. Dolora moves closer to Filvius and blows her horn again.
Ariel: Fidu's going to dash to get down to Filvius and maybe try to heal him or do that Rally thing next round.
GM Elle: Claire, you're up.
Claire: Failure on my Death Save. Wait, I have the horn Boon ... but still fail. Trying to Rally ... nope, 2 an 13.
Ariel: Dang.
Hettie: Dilfriida's last, I think. She just moves up to maybe hand off her one bandage if someone needs it to heal Filvius.
GM Elle: New round. Rather than draw initiative, you can just go in whatever order you like.
Akane: Zedeja must be first due to her Healing skill. Luckily, she has a bandage she can use.
Hettie: Well, we may need to draw cards after all, because if Zedeja insists on going first, she'll find out that she doesn't have that bandage after all, because I stole it from her.
GM Elle: Let's cut to the chase and just have Zedeja draw. If she doesn't get the 1, someone else can trade with Dilfriida and let her arrive on scene waving her bandage.
Akane: Initiative for Zedeja is 6.
Hettie: Okay, Dilfriida moves up and has her bandage out.
Akane: Someone must trade with Zedeja, then. Let's assume it, and she has a horny Boon. Rolls are 15 and Dragon!
GM Elle: You can roll 2 dice for healing instead of 1, then.
Akane: Poor. Even with 2 dice, it's only 4 points.
Claire: That's plenty. I'll immediately try to cast Heal Wound on myself. Double 7's means I succeed, getting back another 5.
Ariel: That was a close one!
Sasha: Quackers thanks Filvius for luring the spider out so I could kill it.
Claire: Filvius says, "You're welcome, but don't expect that to happen again anytime soon!"
Akane: Zedeja demands information from the elf. "What have you learned, sneaking around to anger spiders?"
Claire: Filvius says, "What have you learned, climbing up the hill and poking around the statue?"
Ariel: How about if we just trade information so everybody knows everything? Fidu is happy to give Filvius some scoop if Filvius agrees.
Akane: Only Zedeja knows about looking into gigantic statue eyes! That information is not available for a hound to trade.
Sasha: While you guys are arguing, Sir Quackenscrump is going to heave open this spider's trap door and see if there are any more of them to kill down there. Do I need to make a Strength roll?
GM Elle: It's mostly spider silk with grass and some dirt stuck to it to disguise it, so you don't have any trouble wrestling it open. A tunnel mouth lies beneath it, full of gloom and shadows and the musty smell of spiderwebs. The way slopes steeply down into the earth.
Ariel: Well, if there's going to be arguing up here and Sir Q wants to explore down there, Fidu will offer to light his lamp and go in too.
Sasha: Thanks. How about Dolora and Dilfriida? You guys coming, or would you rather stay in the ringside seats for a mage-on-mage argument?
Akane: Zedeja commands everyone to wait! It's unwise to climb into a burrow without knowing all possible facts.
Hettie: I'm going with Sir Q and Fidu.
MSG: Me too.
Claire: Filvius certainly doesn't want to get left behind, then. He'll come too. Zedeja can stay and argue by herself if she wants to.
Akane: This disobedience -- so disrespectful of your elder party member! Zedeja will go as well, but fuming.
GM Elle: All right, then. After scrambling down a brief incline, you find yourself in an earthen chamber lined with soft webbing. Boulders and earth and other indistinct objects form a nest to one side, layered over with still more spider silk. Two other tunnels meet at the entrance to the chamber, which looks like this:

MSG: How about if we carefully go over and search that nest.
Sasha: I'm ready to hack any giant spider eggs to bits before they can hatch all over us.
GM Elle: You find two treasure cards worth of loot in the nest, amongst the bones of some unfortunate souls who previously fell prey to the spider. Here's the treasure deck for you to draw from. 
MSG: Super. A poison dagger, and I have to roll Evade or get stuck. 3 is an easy success, though. Do I roll this poison type it talks about, or is that a secret?
GM Elle: Somebody could make a Healing check to see if they can figure out the poison type.
Claire: Sure, I'm game to go for that knowledge. I get a 3 also.

GM Elle: Then the dice say it's sleeping poison, potency 12.
Hettie: I believe that's the same kind I found on that dagger from the bandit cave way back at the start of the campaign.
GM Elle: Maybe the Misty Vale is just lousy with soft-hearted poisoners. At any rate, what's the second card?
MSG: A bottle. It says a Healing check reveals the contents or else the GM rolls in secret. Dolora will try the check herself this time. Nope, 18 fails. Guess you have to roll, Elle.
Claire: You're just trying to keep Filvius from getting ahead of you in knowledge, aren't you?
MSG: No, Dolora is just itching to get some knowledge for herself. She doesn't know that failing the roll means the GM keeps things secret.
Claire: I guess not.
GM Elle: The result is rolled and noted. So what are you going to do next?
MSG: Hand the dagger over to Dilfriida, for one thing. Unless someone else is good with knives.
Ariel: Fidu's pretty good with them! But keeping track of which one is poisoned sounds like a lot of work.
Hettie: Dilfriida will certainly take it if no one else is inclined to do so.
GM Elle: And then?
MSG: Well, if we came down through this bottom tunnel, then the top one doesn't point as directly toward the statue as the other one. I vote for the one that goes to the left.
Claire: I'm sure the spider was highly motivated to give us the most direct path to wherever we're headed.
Ariel: I could use my treasure hunting ability! Which one does it tell me leads to the greatest treasure?
GM Elle: Your nose for loot is more drawn to the path at the top there than the one on the left.
Ariel: I tell everybody that's where we should go, then.
Akane: Zedeja supports this suggestion of our hound. Now it is a requirement, not just opinion!
Hettie: Dilfriida will overlook Zedeja's bossiness since it was Fidu's idea to start with.
MSG: Want to lead us in that direction then, Sir Quackenscrump?
Sasha: Darn tootin!
GM Elle: It's a steep scramble up through the narrow, earthy tunnel. You'll need to make an Acrobatics check if you don't put away your sword and shield.
Sasha: Acrobatics is practically my middle name, and I'm not keen to put either one away. My plate armor gives me a Bane, but I still make it with an 8 and another 8.
Ariel: We should start calling you Sir Quackrobatics!
Sasha: Mmmm ... no.
Ariel: Well my Acrobatics is terrible, so I guess I have to hand my lamp over to somebody while I climb.
Akane: It should be handed to the duck knight! What good for him to be ready with sword and shield and have no light?
Sasha: Damn it. That's actually a good point. All right, I put my shield to one side and reach down left-handed for the lamp. But if I get hold of it without anything jumping on my back, I'm going to set it right down next to the hole and gear back up.
GM Elle: You don't have any difficulty doing that. Does everyone else follow suit and use both hands to climb?
MSG: Acrobatics is my best score, so I'm not putting my club down. Agh. I get a demon.
GM Elle: Not only do you fall, but you fall right on your club. Roll a die. Odd means you take club damage, even means your club breaks and won't be usable until you can repair it.
MSG: Awesome. I roll a 6, so I wreck my best weapon.
Claire: On the bright side, now you don't have to worry about having it out while you climb up.
GM Elle: Once everyone is up, then, you find yourselves in a rough-hewn earthen passageway with a low ceiling of wood beams held up by massive wood braces every few meters. The walls look like a mixture of earth and heaped boulders. Here's what you can see with the light from Fidu's lamp.

GM Elle: Interestingly, on the outer side of the passageway a decrepit picket fence runs along the lower part of the wall. It doesn't look at all like the heavy wooden buttresses and beams that the tunnel is constructed of.
MSG: I'm going to examine it closely and see if I can get any kind of knowledge off of it.
GM Elle: Make a Crafting roll to see if you can figure out anything about its purpose or construction.
MSG: Nope. I get an 11 against my skill level of 7.
Sasha: Let's get a move on, if somebody's picked up the lamp.
Ariel: I've got it!
GM Elle: Typical marching order of Sir Q, Dolora, Fidu, Filvius, Zedeja, Dilfriida?
MSG: Works for me.
Sasha: Quackers isn't waiting for everybody to get organized behind him. Fidu's got the light up, so I'm moving down the tunnel. What do we see?
GM Elle: The next stretch looks like this. There's a branch to your right that looks like it leads deeper into the mound, and the way straight ahead looks like a dead end, although it's pretty shadowy because the lamplight doesn't really reach that far. Anybody who wants to shift that marching order speak up.

Sasha: I say, "Hey! Any monsters down that dead end? No?" If it stays quiet, Quackers takes the right turn.
MSG: Following.
Ariel: Me too!
Claire: Well, Filvius wants to see if there's anything worth knowing about down this dead end, so I'll use my Light magic trick to ... whoa, I never did a Stretch Rest after that spider fight! Anybody want to pause and let the party healer get back some WP? I definitely don't want to spend one out of my last four powering up a magic trick light.
Ariel: I think we're already around the corner.
Sasha: Just waiting for the GM to map out the next stretch of tunnel, in fact.
Akane: Zedeja insists on a rest for the junior mage. All must stop! It's unwise to proceed with a feeble healer. Also, the senior mage has also used much magical energy that could be replenished.
Hettie: Nobody told you to go floating around to the top of that statue head.
Akane: Of course not. It is not for others to tell Zedeja of Mind what to do. She is the teller -- others must be heedful!
GM Elle: Well, others? Are you being heedful?
MSG: If I hear that people need to rest, I'd probably dourly agree to stop for a bit.
Sasha: Not me. Come on, Houndy, let's see what's up ahead.
Akane: Also unwise is to divide the party!
Hettie: Since it seems they've already left us behind, Dilfriida will get out her oil lamp and light it.
Claire: With more light, are we able to see down that dead end?
GM Elle: Only if you go closer.
MSG: Parking in the middle of an intersection feels like it's not the best strategy to me. Dolora will check out the dead end if Dilfriida follows with the light.
Claire: No way is Filvius letting Dolora do all the learning about whatever's down there, though. I go too.
Akane: Zedeja prefers not to wait alone in the dark, so also accompanies the rest.
GM Elle: It definitely reaches a dead end. There are a lot of beams there. Maybe those and the wall to your right are load-bearing. You can't see any other purpose for this area.
MSG: I mean, I didn't see any purpose for anything inside this hill yet, so ...
Claire: If it's safe-ish seeming here, Filv will sit down and use his elvish Inner Peace to get the most out of his Stretch Rest.
GM Elle: Don't roll just yet. If Sir Quackenscrump and Fidu run into something, you might be interrupted.
Claire: Not once I'm Inner Peacing it up, I won't be. I pretty much go into a coma.
Sasha: The duck and dog'll take care of whatever they come across, don't worry. So what do we find?

GM Elle: You find that the bend you took curves parallel to the tunnel you were just end, then reaches a wider space ahead. Occupying the space, with barely any room between its roof and the beamed ceiling, is what looks like a garden shed.

Ariel: Wait. Are you saying there's a shed with a guard in it, or an actual, like, shed from a garden.
Sasha: Or a shed that's being used as a den by a bunch of gars.
Akane: Guard in, I understand. But what are gars?
Hettie: It's a kind of very large, mean fish.
Akane: Ah. So, much less likely than a guard in a shed.
Hettie: Yes. Although I'm pretty sure Elle said "garden shed," and that seems a bit implausible to find beneath a hill as well.
GM Elle: Yeah, so, I meant it was similar to a garden shed. But give me a second here to make a note to myself that I should never introduce gargoyles in this campaign, in case someone asks me if I mean a gar-girl or just a gargle.
Ariel: Gosh, I didn't think my question about if the shed had a guard in it was completely dumb or anything.
Sasha: I take the blame for getting us off-topic with my gar joke.
Akane: Elle, be sure to add to your note the danger of someone thinking "gargoyles" is actually "gar gills."
GM Elle: I should never have mentioned it. Look, whatever the shed-like structure actually is, tell me what Sir Quackenscrump and Fidu do when they see it.
Ariel: I'm pretty much just holding out the light so Quackers can see it.
Sasha: I'm going to call out, "Hey! Any monsters in there?" Is the door open or shut, by the way?
GM Elle: About half-open. You don't hear any response to your question.
Sasha: I'll get a little closer and tap on the door with my sword. Then I'll say, "If there are monsters in there, don't think you'll be able to hide from us!"
GM Elle: A moment later, the fan end of a rake sticks out at about chest level. I guess I should say something more like, "extends," because it's not stabbing out quickly or anything like that. When it gets far enough out, you see that there is a word written on the fan of tines, in some kind of thin, white substance. It says, "NO."
Ariel: Does ... the white stuff look like spiderweb?
GM Elle: You can roll Beast Lore with a Boon to see.
Ariel: Ooh, 4 and 15. The 4 makes it.
GM Elle: It definitely has the look of spider silk.
Ariel: Okay, so some spidery thing in there is telling us "no"? Does it mean no, there are no monsters, or no, it doesn't think it can hide from us?
Sasha: Or it's a monster that just likes to argue, so it says "no" to everything. 
Akane: Or possibly, it means for you to leave. No rake equals leaves for sure, right?
GM Elle: The rake withdraws back inside. What do you do?
Ariel: I'm going to say, "Hey, do you mean there are no monsters in there?" Then when I see it's answer, I'm going to use my Insight to see if it's lying.
GM Elle: After a brief pause, the rake comes back out with the word "yes" on it.
Ariel: All right, here go two Willpower Points. Is it telling the truth?
GM Elle: You feel like it is.
Ariel: I tell Sir Q it's telling the truth, so there's no monsters in there.
Sasha: Well, number one, I don't know that Quackers has that much faith in your ability to know when people are lying. He's got no clue there's a Heroic Ability and you're spending Willpower Points and it's reliable. And number two, who says monsters think they're monsters?
Hettie: While a good point, that seems rather a bit philosophical and/or empathic for our good duck knight.
Sasha: Eh. Number three is more important anyway: I really want there to be a monster so I can go in and kill it. Or have it come out here where I can kill it. I challenge it to show its face and prove it's not a monster.
GM Elle: The rake is pulled back in. You think you hear some motion from inside, and then a scratching noise of some sort. After a bit of that, something flies out through the door and thumps to the earthen floor of the chamber. It looks like one of the pickets from the picket fence, except it doesn't have the peeling remnants of paint on it. Roll Spot Hidden.
Ariel: 17, bleh.
Sasha: 2!
GM Elle: As the wooden plank tumbles through the air, you think you see something scratched on one side of it. But when it lands, the side facing up is blank.
Sasha: I tell Fidu I think there's something on the down side.
Ariel: Is it a pretty good distance from the door? I don't want to go over there and pick it up if something could reach out from inside and grab me.
GM Elle: It's probably a couple of meters from the door.
Ariel: Okay, I'll try turning it over with my dagger. I don't want to touch it myself in case it's covered with sticky spider goo to glue my hands to it.
GM Elle: You get it turned over without too much trouble. There are some word scratched there, in surprisingly well-formed letters. They say, "Alone here. My home. Today is yesterday's future, which I wove. No trouble between us."
Sasha: What the hell is that supposed to mean?
Ariel: I don't know, but I guess I'll spend two more WP to see if it's the truth.
GM Elle: Far as you can tell, it's being straight with you.
Ariel: I guess I'll ask if it has any useful information it might want to trade with us about what else is down here.
Sasha: Yeah, especially directions to any monsters.
GM Elle: The rake extends out from the gap again, like it's reaching for the picket. It's not long enough to go that far, though.
Ariel: Um, I'll scoot it closer with my boot.
GM Elle: The rake catches hold and drags it back in. You hear more scratching.
Ariel: I hope it's scratching out a deal I can use my Bartering on.
Sasha: I'm totally not convinced yet that it isn't a monster.
GM Elle: The picket is tossed back out after a bit. More words have been added: "A weaving for magic. Have you any?"
Ariel: I say we have a couple of mages if it needs a spell cast for it.
Sasha: Or if it's got something really good to offer, there's at least one of the mages we'd probably make a swap for.
Akane: This comment ... so unnecessary!
Sasha: If Zedeja ever finds out about it, Quackenscrump's excuse is that he's trying to trick this thing into acting monstrous.
GM Elle: For the moment, nothing seems to happen in response to those suggestions.
Ariel: I guess we should wait a while to be polite? Oh! I push the wood thing back over closer to the door again.
GM Elle: The rake retrieves it and there's more scratching. This time it says, "No spells. For a weaving, permanent magic."
Ariel: Jeepers. Do we even have any magic that's permanent?
Sasha: The elf has that creepy bone mask. Not sure he'll want to trade it for some spider knitting or whatever it's talking about.
Ariel: Duh, he will! I asked it if it had information to trade, so it must mean whatever it's weaving will have information, and we all know what a sucker Filvius is for getting more info.
Sasha: True.
Ariel: I guess I'll tell it we need to go back and talk to our pals and see if anyone wants to trade magic stuff for this weaving. Oh, and I guess I'll tell it my name's Fidu and this is Sir Quackenscrump. And I'll push the wood back toward the door.
GM Elle: It retrieves it again and does some more scratching. When the board comes back out, it says, "Windsilk of Five Far Eyes."
Ariel: Is that its name? Or is that something it's saying it wants to trade for? I don't get it. I guess I'll tell it we'll be back. Are you ready to go see what's taking everybody else, Sir Quackenscrump?
Sasha: Sure. Maybe they got hung up fighting a monster instead of getting stuck with a talking rake and fencepost.
GM Elle: All right, everybody who is doing a Stretch Rest at the dead end can roll it, and then I think this is a good place to stop for the night. Experience questions ... everybody gets participation. Explore a new location? Check. Defeat one or more dangerous adversaries? Spider, check. Overcome an obstacle without using force? Sure, those orcs could have been trouble if you hadn't smooth-talked them. That leaves giving in to your weakness.
MSG: I can't think of anything that qualifies for Dolora.
Claire: Filvius came pretty close to getting himself killed searching the perimeter of the hill for knowledge. I'd say that counts.
Ariel: I woke up when the orcs were at our camp but I was too lazy to leave the tent, so I think that's pretty slothful of me.
Sasha: Monsters, monsters, monsters.
Akane: Similarly, much bossiness from Zedeja.
Hettie: I don't feel like I was particularly thin-skinned tonight, so I'm not counting that one.
GM Elle: Then everybody mark your advancement marks, make your rolls, and we'll see how things go next time!
MSG: Nice game, Elle.
Ariel: Yeah! Super-cool you came up with this dungeon all by yourself instead of using the book.
GM Elle: Thanks, glad everyone is liking it.

tune in next time and we'll see if we figure this giant statue out! (or if we spend the whole session throwing a board back and forth to talk to whatever's in this shed ...)