Probability of Demise

Welcome adventurers to Probability of Demise, the podcast where critical fumbles meet critical facepalms. Join us as we delve into the darkest dungeons, slay the stupidest gremlins, and roll enough ones to make a beholder weep. Forget epic storylines and heroic deeds. Here we celebrate the chaotic beauty of bad roles, questionable decisions, and characters with more charisma than sense.

We'll be your dungeon masters of disappointment, guiding you through campaigns where the only guaranteed treasure is a mountain of laughter, and maybe some psychic scarring. So grab your Nat 1 dice, strap on your anxiety helmets, and prepare to witness the glorious trainwreck that is our D& D journey.

Because, in the end, Even if your character dies face first into a pile of pudding, at least you'll have the Dice God's permission to laugh your ass off.

It's our episode of Probability of Demise. So exciting to see you. Five, five, we can count past Well, not yet. We can only count to 20 and then we're out of dice. We've only got to 20 and I'm out of fingers and toes. Unless something bad happens soon. Um, With that transition loveliness and the gore, uh, it is time for our most favorite part of the day.

Word of the day. Okay. So, today's word of the day is APOM, A P L O M B. Which means self confident or assurance, especially when, uh, in a demanding situation. Used in a sentence, it is Mm hmm, mm hmm, mm hmm. The speaker handled the tough questions with am Amp. Amp. With a palm? With a palm! A plume. A plume! Uh, showcasing confidence and expertise.

Jessica has delivered the word of the day with a plume. A plume. I think we're at the state where like everybody currently has inspiration from this hot mess of a thing, except for Jess. Um. Uh huh. So maybe Jess just should practice that word a few times. I just forget it. Like, I'm just so in the moment where I'm like, Oh, good job.

Everyone else got it. I don't want you to be like, feeling like I'm digging at you, but I'm also like, we want you also to be inspired. Please be inspired to have a confession to make. I've been saying that word wrong all my life, and Jess was correct. It's aplomb. I'm inspiration. Jess can have my inspiration.

Two, two inspiration for, uh, willingly embracing failure, and Seraphina gets negative two inspiration for doing a silly dance. That's what I get for Be cocky. Oh, for saying a really funny word that makes me giggle every time Seraphina gets two inspiration back so you're now at zero.

Last time when we were together, you had delved into a brewery ale house, resolved a bit of a riddle puzzle situation, attacked a pack of tail entwined rats, followed another rat to a toilet, and come out of the bathroom to find Sticky Beak! Yay! Yay! Not at all confusing, no need to worry about the, uh, potential potty plumbing experiments that the team went through.

You can listen to the last couple of episodes to understand exactly why they would do such strange and curious things. But you, you come out of the toilet seat. Stand up in the tiny little bathroom, the three of you, open the door and there is Sticky Beak in a dimly lit office in Underton. One filled with maps, papers, and cryptic trinkets, and a very confused looking Sticky Beak.

Welcome back. To Probability of Demise, and welcome back to our characters Ulua, Gus, Gasundin, Schniffle, and Seraphina. There you are, Sticky Beaks dimly lit office in Undertown. You can see there's maps and posters and some cryptic little trinkets of a PI. Um, no, oversized posters of himself on the back wall painted or paintings of, you know, tree landscapes like we've seen in another particular office.

Um, but there is just the space and, and Sticky Beak has through the bathroom.

The awkward silence continues. As we start to kind of figure out exactly where we are, I'm just going to start to press to digitate. Use prestidigitation to, uh, Remove certain odors and, um, textures from my body. Eek, eek, eek, eek. You have that same squeak. I think prestidigitation officially in this world now requires the eek sound that Asher first coined.

Asher invented this spell. It is Asher's prestidigitation. There's a different type. But you, if you have Asher's prestidigitation. It's a subclass of the spell. Is it because you're a bard? So you learned this from the bard college and now. That's it. Ulua got it from like an old text that Asher had written up.

Bard 101. How to clean up your own messes.

All right. So we hear the sound of

I hear dolphins, what? Perhaps you would like to tell us what's going on, because we just crawled through a toilet for you, and we still don't know why we're here, exactly. The door collapsed, so I sent some messages through a hole, I guess I could have sent it through that hole, I just had hoped you would I don't know if I'm going to be able to help either get me out, or, apparently there's a different entrance to this space that I didn't, wasn't aware of, so, uh, I It was a little confusing down there, so.

You, and, and you didn't find the front entrance? We only found a collapsed entrance. And You couldn't just, it could, no, no, no, using a strange entrance of a different sort makes total sense. Appreciate it. Thank you. Do, do any of us, and I look at my colleagues, look like the type to be able to handle hard physical labor?

It's not like we would just walk around carrying a shovel all the time. That would be weird. Or pickax? Well, I suppose this puts me in a conundrum. 'cause I was hoping to delegate to those who can delegate where necessary.

Do none of you have friends who could?

Huh? All of my friends also don't like to. I have to worry about chipping a nail. I don't have many friends. Sorry.

You came in through the brewery. You could have asked some of the university folks. They have people who carry around huge casks. You could have asked some of the folks who let you in. For, uh, assistance. We just kind of let ourselves in. We abandoned the brewery tour. And Eh. And also you made it seem like you were in danger, so it wasn't something where the roof fell in.

That's pretty dangerous. Uh, thought this was rescued. Did not. Clearly my thinking was not as broad as yours to choose the plumbing as the exit that I needed.

Right. Well, shall we go back the way we came? I suppose. No, no, no, no, no, no. I do have other, um I came through a break, came to a breakthrough, uh, probably while you were on your way here and he gestures to the, the maps behind him. Uh, I'm stuck to clarify. Are these maps in the bathroom? No, you've all hopefully at this point moved out of the bathroom and into the office to fully see that dimly lit under 10 office that I had described.

Um, the one filled with maps and papers and random trinkets here and there. Uh, so this is my private office. Uh, I find that fame fuels a pain in the ass, and so I work through intermediaries most of the time, uh, and there's a case that took me away, uh, from the murder of my dearest Canary, um, and I, I, I hope that you had picked up on that I was being torn in two different directions, not that I was trying to, to, to throw, uh, a case to you.

Um, I still need to resolve some aspects of that. Um, so I've heard rumors of these, the rooftop murders around the strip. Um, two bodies were found in an alleyway, uh, and it sparked something. It reminded me of something, um, that relates to the other case that I'm working on. Uh, there is a, That messenger master, uh, one of my key informants, and I believe that they were killed around the same time as my primary investigations subject or victim was killed.

Um, the details have not made, been made public yet that I'm aware of, because I've been stuck down here. Were they, were they pretense killed on a rooftop? And left underneath a parapet? No, but the parapet is what reminded me of the Batmaster. Because bats often live in parapets. And it was, it was an amazing case.

Two bodies, one was tucked at the parapet and the other was at the bottom of an alleyway. Um,

and it was a strange case. No leads yet, so, uh. trying to figure that one out, but it's not really my investigation. I need to maintain focus. If you, and she, and he looks over at you, Seraphina, if you would like to take on that one and be a primary on the investigation of these, these, these murders, I'm sure I can put in good word with the watch.

Well, those two people were involved in the killing of your canary and we healed them in self defense.

You see him processing this. I'm going to like dig through my stuff and find the notes that they were caring about, like, you know, silence her and like, whatever all that stuff was. And just hold them out.

Oh, does this mean I solved it? Do, can I still get that good word? Uh, well now we don't want you to be involved with the watch on this particular case because you're conflicted now. Um, Solving a current murder investigation in which you may be described as the perpetrators of the murder, even though we might not describe such as a murder.

You might understand why I chose not to. I fully understand why you chose not to share that and I am both suppressed and surprised by this. Well, uh, regardless of all that, um. I, I'm not, I refuse to be distracted. Uh, my key informant, the, the Batmaster, uh, a rumor is that my primary victim that I'm seeking to understand more from,

they are victim, I am so distracted by this whole idea that you just, three of you just killed two people. People and, and left bodies out and that is Um, uh, it was not willy nilly. They weren't trying to kill Seraphina and Allua. Uh, okay. More context is helpful. Uh, We, we were to pursue the stage manager.

And these thugs climbed out of a window and ran and I followed them. Of his residence. Of his residence. I ran and followed them. And followed them back around to the rooftop where they were overlooking Seraphina and Allua, and overheard them saying that they need to kill them to silence them from following up on the investigation.

I warned Seraphina and Allua, and then battle ensued. And they shot crossbow bolts at me. Yes. Self defense. Yeah, uh, I'm an investigator, not the law. Oh. And I'm going to worry about this less, except if anything comes back to haunt any of us. Uh, I think in the interim I will reach out, once I can figure out a way out of here that does not require using the loo, Um, and seek to quietly subvert that investigation on your behalf and my own.

Uh, at any rate. I need help finding one of the bats that belonged to the Batmaster and a message that it had from my highest priority client at the moment.

I am feeling like you may not be as capable as I've seen you in the past and, or a little bit I'm a little bit nervous about this delicate situation. So please help me understand how you might, if you could be of assistance, and maybe I shouldn't be offering anything, but

well, I leave it to you. Do you feel

I was just painting in the woods. You brought me into this. So

it sounds like you need me more than I need you. Yes, I'm a little offended, to be honest, none of this, except for maybe Seraphina here, none of this is our main line of work. We are doing this because, you know, we have been recruited and or, you know, have been asked for our help. So, perhaps. The criticism should be turned back on the recruiter rather than the recruited.

Well, I sought you out, Aloha, directly because you have seemed to, in the past, really understood the delicate situation that we are in politically. And some of the things that have happened as you've been brought together as a trio, That's understandable, but I've also never had, I've never been in a situation in any of our previous work where I've been afraid for my life.

So perhaps this is not up to, you're not up to this type of task and I should seek support elsewhere.

Tell me about. The Batmessenger and what you need us to do. I'm not feeling up to that any anymore. I feel like I crawled through a toilet for you, young man. Um, roll an intimidation check. Technically, didn't we kind of like, float?

Where's the air horn work? Did you, did you really? Oh, that is a 24. Awesome. Um, you see him step back a little bit.

It is, it does show commitment to crawl through feces on a message that you each received and that you came together with each of your messages is even more impressive. Uh, it does show that there is a team possible here that could be a very effective team. Uh, so I suppose. Your commitment is clear to me, uh, Gus.

Um, I just, I wonder if commitment is enough, and I am concerned about The bigger case that I may have before me and sharing any of those relevant details with you or the extended team. I don't, I feel, I feel Gus if I leave you alone to resolve this it would be unfair. So, I am He kind of looks at Ulua aSeraphinaina uncertain if the other skill sets here are enough.

Yes, Gus, I, I do see your value and I, I, I would seek not to lose you in this. I am not Now I'm definitely offended and I go to crawl back through the toilet. I am not interested in working this by myself, so if you're not interested in them, then I'm not interested in staying.

Also, my brother trained under you. You trained him and he trained me. So if you don't trust me, I would say that's a you issue because, you know, the training circle wrong. So I looked to you Seraphina for your unique skills and perspectives, not necessarily as an investigator, but for your other talents and perhaps this fellowship should dissolve.

There's nothing to fear. I don't know. I want to point to Gus and I go, my brother liked this old guy. I'm sticking with him. Wherever he goes, I go, whether you like it or not. Um, could you go ahead and roll an insight check?

Insight check. Yes. Okay. Uh, 19 20, 21. Ooh. Send you a message, fin. Oh, uh, I don't know about y'all, but I was serious. I, I am making my way back towards the toilet hole. IG I'm gonna, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna be like,

oh, wait. I'm gonna, I'm not, I'm not a bar

Just,

I know. We haven't worked together a lot. But like, the three of us do work really well together. I just, we should try to show him that I think he's going through a really hard time. And so like, he's projecting onto us his insecurities. Um, so come on, I know you're amazing. Gus knows you're amazing. So does he.

He's just stressed. Please come back. I just, I, I'm a little confused as to how he thinks that if someone is murdered. How that isn't a dangerous, like, investigating that isn't dangerous and like, the fact that, you know, we are putting ourselves at risk and having to defend ourselves, people are going to get hurt.

And so, if he does want people to investigate this and allow themselves to be. come victims as well, then I am not, I'm not the girl for this party. So, I'm, uh, I'm not gonna let anything happen to Your, uh, beautiness. Um, I mean, I, I, I appreciate both you two. I, I, this was, I don't know if fun can be used appropriately, but I, I definitely enjoyed the time we've, we've worked together.

I found it thrilling. I found it, uh, stimulating. I thought we were, I thought we were helping people, which is what I set out to do when I started taking on this work. But yeah, I.

If, if we collectively aren't what he wants, I don't think we should have to change. I think what we, you're right, we work together. I think he's just stretched thin. And, um, will you just give me like 10 more minutes? And I'm not, I'm gonna envision my brother and try to like, I don't want you to leave. I won't.

I won't. I'll let you do whatever you feel is necessary.

Okay. Thank you. Um, after you, my lady.

I walk back in and I look for any sort of sitting apparatus slash furniture and I take a seat and I cross one leg over the other and then I cross my arms and I just level one of these as sticky beak. He doesn't even seem to be noticing you right now. He's. No, that's fine. It's just He's turned all of his attention over and as you're looking at him, um, are you like paying attention to him or are you just projecting how you're feeling?

At first I'm, I'm projecting how I'm feeling and then once I'm able to kind of let those feelings pass, depending on how long Whatever seraphine is doing, um, I'll start to observe because I realize I'm not being observed. So I'm not being engaged and therefore I start to get bored. Okay. So you let me know when that happens for for and let's continue her plan.

If I look, so I'm going to at the maps and the things on the wall, can I, like, discern anything from that as. Seraphina's talking to Stickybeak. Yes, you can. Go ahead and roll an investigation check and then, um, as soon as Seraphina gets past that dot Investigation! Investigation! Investigation!

I thought it was beautiful. I don't even think he noticed. Seraphina, go ahead and I don't think he did. whatever you were gonna do, uh, you can, you see exactly how I shared with you.

almost entirely shut down at this point. 14 on the investigation roll. Uh, I'm gonna go up to Gus and be like, Gus, can I borrow your magnifying glass? Okay, And I'm gonna, you know, start the, I'ma put it up to my eye and be like, now, Sticky Beak, I understand that you are very stressed out. Like it's a monocle.

You know, but also like looking, you know, trying to appear like a detective. Um, and I see that you, uh, don't have trust in us. And I think you should, uh, because I have a magnifying glass, and you know me, and I know you, and you know my skills, and I trust these two. Thus, you should also trust them. Um, let me Us ease your stress, put your faith into us.

At the, at this point, I'm, I'm, my focus has shifted to Seraphina and I catch on and hopefully to what she's doing, at which point I just kind of, uh, whisper, uh, uh, well, actually I'm going to wink at her and say, you got this. It just like, but like a little, like you got this and then inspiration. And then as she does that Seraphina.

I'm not sure what would happen when a seafoam green blue person blushes, but whatever that color is, just her whole face turns that. You can choose the color and let us know what color suffuses your face. Like, what is, what is the blood of a tiefling? Is it red blood? So that this is a red blush into the teal, which, you know, kind of becomes like a purplish thing or like, what do you, what do you think is going on here?

Yeah, I think it'd probably be like a really dark red blood. So, what, what, what do you, what happens when you mix red and green? Blue green. Green blue. So she Just like super She just Just like a Purple blue, black. Purple bluey, purpledness. Just Yeah. Just, boop. Dark, dark blushes. Uh. Uh. Makes sense. Almost starts to go into her horns, but stops because they're horns.

Like where the skin overlaps on the horns, there's like, the fade. Yep. Um, and I, I, Go ahead and roll a persuasion check with the, with the, uh, sorry, I totally just, at that point I was like, yes, this is, with the, uh, benefits of Ulua's inspiration.

As I roll, I'm going to continue my speech because it's so good. I'm going to hand my thing back to Gus and simply say, I know that you may be doubting our skills as a group, but let us, we have not let you down yet completely. So just, you know, give us one more chance to help you in your need. And I rolled a something.

What do we want? Okay. Persuasion. Persuasion. Oh, thank God. Plus four. Okay. So. And then you also have inspiration from Allura. Yeah. It wasn't great. That's going to be a solid. Oh, it's a six. Oh, thank God.

Much better. Not still that great, but,

uh, 16. That's not bad. Remember your levels. You've gotten so used to being a level 20 genius that you got to hold on to the idea that like that's actually really awesome. Normal everyday peasant person rolls a 10 and that's like normal everyday I've accomplished great things. So don't, don't, don't poo poo the high level rolls that are less than 20.

Um, So, Zarafina, with that roll, you see that Sticky Beak takes a breath, perks up, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm struggling a little bit here, so, here, um, maybe you can make something else out of this, and he tosses you that contraption you saw just behind him.

Um, I'd like to put on All of my magnifying glasses down. Okay, I would like you to roll a 10, 000 check. Which now I find is dumb because I had magnifying things in my goggles, yet I took Gus's magnifying glass. It was perfect. I loved it. I was like, that is so We were with you every step of the way. I have tinkering tools, but I can't find them.

Well, they don't have a rollable on them. You, you just have proficiency in them. Okay. So you have proficiency in a ton of tools, by the way. Yeah. But roll a d20. Okay. Roll a d20. Okay. Add your proficiency bonus to it. Efficiency bonus. Okay. And then in this case, add your intelligence modifier to that.

Intelligence modifier. Even with that, it's not good. Eleven. Eleven!

Scotland! Eleven! Uh, so you, you, you, you're looking at this and, and you can see that it's been very badly mangled. Um, you can see that part of it that actually usually carries the message has been torn off and is not part of this little contraption, the harness and some of the buckles that were there. So, you know, that the rest of this is probably still attached to the bat.

That's as much as I can give you with that role, um, but just looking at it, you can see what's missing is the message piece and a piece that would attach that that's gotten ripped off. So it's either still attached to the bat or something, but something has occurred where most of this messaging harness, um, and most of its safety guards have been ripped free of the bat itself.

Mm hmm. And then Gus's mappage. I don't know if that will help with this at all. I'm going to screen the magnifying glass back onto my staff and then hold it up to the map. And then I'll be like, these are all Grange brand facilities. Sticky Beak just makes eye contact with Gus and nods his head.

Is Grange brand your other client?

Well, uh, I don't,

well, I appreciate Miss Seraphina reviewing that bit of evidence there. Um, I'm, I'm just not certain that, This is the task that you all wish to get involved in. And

he looks over at Ulua, there is danger here. There's danger in all aspects of life. There's danger in your work. Every day you take risks and you've worked to alleviate those risks for many.

I admired that bravery you had. I did not realize that you no longer felt that.

I'm just behind Sticky Beak being like, trying to mouth like, you got this, tell him we're awesome. Like really bad charades of like, like. Um, Lua, you had that opportunity to observe him without him observing you. Um, would you have liked to roll an insight check? Sure.

Begrudgingly so. Well, if you don't want to, don't do it. No, I do. I think I'm just saying like, in terms of where her attitude is at right now, it's like, she's watching him, but only because. Okay. Then you roll that insight check. If that's, if that attitude is still there, you, and you don't feel like it would be role play wise, what she would do, don't do it.

Yeah,

I'm, what is it you want from us? We work well together. At least that's the impression that I got. I, I don't understand what it is you're asking of us. And you want us to take this case or no, you want us to take this case, but change our methods. You need to be, you need to speak plainly here. I can't give you a case that you're not comfortable performing.

And if danger is no longer something you embrace, I should not put that into your fine. You just have to understand that we're going to defend ourselves if the situation arises. No, I totally expect you to take care of yourselves. However, not having information means I may have put investigators onto you without realizing that I was unaware of the bodies.

And if I had known this information, I could have subverted that investigation. And now there is a full fledged investigation funded by the Hollow Council and to those who And I could have helped avert this, but also if you're feeling unsafe and you don't wish to be in those spaces, it's better for me to break off this relationship now.

As a private investigator yourself, you understand that the day to day actions of our investigation are not safe. Something you'll always necessarily be privy to, and our role is to provide you a report when we solve the problem we've been assigned. As someone who's For you to accuse us now of withholding information from you, that's not the case.

We just had not finished our investigation.

I just fear that you're more acting in loose cannon mode. Bodies that were not something that were felt important enough to share.

It's, you can see the complication here, right? There's Yes, and I, and I, I understand what you're saying now. Before, I thought you were I mean, you are still judging us for, at least it feels like it, for having defended ourselves. Um, however The judgment is not on your defense of yourselves. It's now that I have potentially incriminated you and have to work against My own advice to you, I mean, so let me ask, let me ask this, the, I have contacts in the hollow council that I can, you know, possibly try to.

At least coordinate with to

perhaps it in a way we can, you know, with between Gus's esteemed reputation, um, my esteemed reputation, perhaps it is that we can somewhat come forward and explain that we were attacked. They, they needn't need to know why we were being followed. Me and my line of work, it happens in general. There's, there's violence against Combshare.

It's one of the many reasons that I fight so hard to provide a safe haven for many girls that aren't affiliated with any houses.

Perhaps we should just leverage the information from the ledger to make this go away. Or that.

I would like Allua to roll a persuasion check with advantage based on Gus's sharing.

22. Okay, that was with advantage? Yeah, I rolled a 15 and I have a plus 7. Cool, cool, cool. Um,

You can see his eyes as you speak soften, become, I mean it's an avian face, so there's always a hard edge to a beaked face. Um, but you can see his eyes soften and his feathers go from slick, and tense to a little fluffier. Um, and as you end your, your, your statements to him, he says,

I just don't want

to be creating a worse situation because I don't know enough to help alleviate things. Well, baby, as long as we're all here for the foreseeable future, until we decide to leave one way or the other. We could set some ground rules about what it is you expect of us if we continue to work as a group, what information you would want to know, uh Oh, oh, you don't have to.

And Seraphina's just in the back, just like, oh, oh, me, me. And I think Seraphina has some ideas. Sticky beak turns and a huge beak blocks Seraphina's face as soon as his beak turns. But then I have a suggestion. It seems to me From what I have been observing, that you wish to have more information of us throughout our journeys.

Uh, and I'm going to hold up the thing he just gave me, and I go, I'm not totally understand understand this yet, but what if I can make something that will send you a letter, and I I'll write all the things we've been up to, and send it to ya. If it can get through a caved in wall, or through a Yep, I can do that.

I don't know about the wall, but I mean, maybe. You got something through the wall. The toilet! I'll just make it waterproof. Well, there's no water there. You do realize that you crawled through the sewers of the city. Yeah, it was wet down there. And then I just like, hold up my shirt and be like, I'm still a little damp.

You just, on the other side of Sticky Peak, you just see Ulua now.

Gus will just be like, uh, when you're done.

So, I mean, that, that might help a little bit. You know, I don't know how long it'll take for me to make one. But, uh, I'm good at making stuff. Here's, here's what I think, what I would request. Things that the city currently deems illegal, felonies, maybe not worried so much about misdemeanors, but those things that could land you in prison or worse.

Let me know so I can help. And as he's, he turns and he sees Ulua kind of eek eek eek eek, he says, So I can start eek eek eeking them.

Or let you know where to talk politically. To eek eek them. And his face is just fully, Enchanted and entranced by the prestidigitation at this moment. Is that your squirrel?

Um, and as he says this, he, he, he nods to Gus. You were correct. Those are all, um, Grands Brands locations. Uh, and this is where I need to ask you all if to tell me Grands Brand for centuries has done. impressive things and occasionally horrifying things for Overton and Underton. But many here directly and indirectly find their employ and their livelihood in their homes through that organization.

They have survived wars. They have survived the Guild Wars. They have survived the Ascended. and continue to provide a lot of work and spur explorations of the continents beyond Atland. I believe that they were even involved in the moon expeditions at some point.

This investigation is going to close with their dealings and work quite closely and has the potential, if it's not handled well, to destroy that organization.

Handled in a careful manner, though, it could strengthen

the very fabric of the city and the people that live here.

May I ask a clarifying question? Please. If I can't answer it without pulling you too deeply, I will. Oh, I just mean, I just meant to ask, which people, which people will it strengthen? The everyday folk who live on and below the surface of Underton and Overton. It might destabilize some more lofty purchase, which Oh, what a shame.

Sounds like my kind of job. Sounds like a real party I'd want to attend. I thought it might appeal to you. But I also don't want to put you in the situation if it's I mean, we absolutely can keep you informed when situations like that happen from now on. And I think It all, it left us all perhaps a little on edge.

And so it's not, it's, you know, when something like that happens, it's, you, you don't run and tell someone, uh, by default. So I think all three of us. When you're working as a contractor, you don't necessarily want to bring your client into the know and incriminate them as well. So there's also that. Well, I may have.

fumbled that and created more culpability should you be found out. So I'll be working to resolve that. Um, Well, like I said, if there's anything I can do with my contacts in the Holo console, or if it comes to the point where somehow, They find evidence of us, and it would be best if we come forward and explain the majority of what they would need to know as to what happened.

I'll, uh, seek to feed a little rumor you might hear about in this next assignment that I'm requesting of you, and he has a file that he proffers to you. If you're willing to take this. I'll share with you what I've been investigating and this specific work is around

that, that harness and finding out what message is missing

because it could prove crucial to my case.

Are you up for this opportunity?

I found a lot of lost animals doing nothing, but I suppose.

He looks at Allua. If they're in, I'm in.

Grand is dead, and he passes the Manila folder.

Well, that's troubling.

Wait, I assume that this is, I assume this is surprising information. This is, I mean, roll a history check, Seraphina, with advantage, because you've your whole life, but like that would make him really, really old, right? This is the current head of household. And I think all of you without having to roll any sort of history check, just know that the grand family was has been a very linear line of individuals.

Each grand has only had one child that survived through to adulthood to inheritance. And this grand does not have any children. This is the end of the grand line as far as you're aware. And it is mind boggling. Like if you thought about like, During the height of the industrialist revolutions, any of those big, huge industrial families, industrialist families, just the amount of connections, power, money, folks who were employed.

If, if their line just suddenly ended, what would happen if we ran out of Kennedy's?

Well, these days that might not have as huge of an impact, but like, if we ran out of Kevin, uh, Kennedy's in 1973, yeah, 1960, yeah. Like, this is a family that has tremendous 18 on your history check. Okay. So with that additional piece, I would say that you also know that, um, Grand's brand started off as this bombastic, historically bombastic, uh, sort of sales pitch that grew and grew and grew and grew.

And now it is a organization so deeply entrenched into the society. That there are operations in effect that are literally like how the sewage works. They're owned and operated by Grands Brands to huge big deals of like daily things of like the magical farming. Um, and one of the things that has happened over the centuries is Grands Brand has grown and each, uh, generation of Grands Brand head of household has, has arisen.

There have been waves of good and bad things that have happened, but on the whole, um, it's been an altruistic organization that's sought to grow Overton's success and prominence, um, and also tried to, to lift up a lot of the other cities around, uh, the whole of Atland. Um, but Overton being Grand's largest city.

The original grand's home base has definitely benefited the most from these, these pieces. Um, and then like it, even just thinking through history, like there are certain grants that have actually subverted economic success to make sure people had what they needed. And they were some of the, um, biggest spenders during the period of time when, um, magic for everybody was a big deal.

Like that. It's still an ongoing civil rights sort of thing, but making magic available to anyone and having the access that magic provided, having the economic wherewithal is, has been a major part of the grand brand vision. And they've, Pushed really heavily on that to the point where there was a couple of times where the grand's brand had grown as a family of people, like the actual family had grown only to be cut down by assassins and others who, you know, were unhappy with a grand brand choices and behaviors and what they were championing, championing, championing.

Can't say that word. They've also been big mistakes. Uh, they were the ones who started the magical farming, which has caused magical pollution, which messed up a few different things. They were the ones who, uh, tried to get cragside crowds to float. They wanted to have a normal, everyday part of the city be a successful floating island, not just these wizard's towers everywhere.

Um, and while they got it to float, They couldn't keep it up, and they couldn't get it to hold still, so that's why the Crackside Crowds has been chained to, um, the city in the way that it's been chained, and why it has its kind of mix of well to do and rough and tumble ness, um, so they've, they've, they've never been perfect, but there's a ton of infrastructure that just relies on that Grands Brands promise.

Mm hmm.

In that case, Seraphina will go, GASP! at the news.

Immediate roleplay, but much delayed in that roleplay. That's how it works in D& D, right? Like, just like, eight minutes later, GASP! Yeah, I probably shouldn't have talked so much anyways. No, it's just good information. The, uh, file that was handed to you, um, looking through it quickly, it's information on the deceased bat master's home slash workshop.

Uh, and it, there's some information about how it's definitely abandoned at this point and it's been sealed by the authorities to kind of like keep others out, uh, with a couple of descriptions of how to use the roofs to get in. Um, there is a whole sheaf of things about watching out for the rooftop killers.

Um, Which you are after the series of conversations know who those people are, um, and that there's a lot of rumors. Well, if it wasn't us, it would have been the other people. So. And there's a whole, whole bunch of rumors swirling about the rooftop killers. Um, and Sikibeak has a lot of notes in there that very much come from the angle of these are, this is probably a problem and need to be careful of and take care of.

And if you find anything, uh, uh. Here are the invest key investigators to inform of the issues, um, and it's, it's, it's, uh, so there's a little bit of like, oh, yeah, um, yeah, that's us. We don't have to worry about that so much anymore. Um, but there is in part of that, uh, one thing that sticks out to you is there's a, there's a start to a rumor that the rooftop killers are vigilantes.

And that they have, uh, because one of the, at least one of the people identified was identified as, um, someone who had been hitting people up for money, um, protection money in the, in the strip area.

It's me, the green arrow, Gus. You, you get the information that the home of the, of the Batmaster is probably locked, probably passively being guarded by some member of the Watch, and may have some traps set. Because of the high profile nature of Grand's death and that Grand's death is currently on the download, that they're trying to keep it, they're trying to squash any information around that.

Um, They also share that they don't know where in the workshop the bats go to when they don't have a, um, when the bat master isn't actively there taking care of them. So there's, you just kind of, you're unsure. And then Sigibee kind of wrote out like he's never been in that space before. He just recommends that, you know, you might have to do some checks because these are magically treated bats.

That might be an avenue of investigation or any other way or method you might have to finding one of these messenger bats. Um, and, The last kind of sheaf of this information is, uh, if you find the bat dead, um, there are some ways to, to, to find out more information, but look for the message, which will hopefully still be attached.

And if you find the bat alive without the message, see if there's a way to figure out where that message has been placed, because it may be crucial to absolving. Someone very close to Grand of the crime who would be very useful to further investigations. But at this point, they can't be a trusted individual.

Um, so you, you can read through all that information. Um, I can't speak with that animal. Speak with the dead. Uh, and I think that's it. I think that's all the information sticky beacon has collated in there. Um, but you, you zip through it.

I don't have much more information than that. So if, if, if you're. You're in it now. I, I hate to say this to you, but the information you have now could If an Ascended realized, you know what, you know, they would love to gain control.

Well, considering there's already been two assassination attempts on us, including those on the rooftop and whoever it was that visited us at Seraphina's. Oh, yeah, perhaps Gus, your Wherever you live might be the best place to store this information, or is it best if we just commit this to memory and leave it with you?

The council is trying to repossess my house through eminent domain. So I'm working on that. So maybe not there. Well, um. Thank you.

We could leave it at my house. No, I don't want to do that, actually. I could just put it in my bag of holding. Hang on to it.

I mean, there's a few hideaways in Sincere House that

we each have made in order to

Let's just say that each of us have our own little hidey holes. And None of the other occupants know where anybody else's hidey holes are. So I suppose I could hold onto it for now.

Um, so I guess,

I suppose we can go out the way we came and ask for help in removing the rocks so that you can leave unless you would like to follow us out. and oversee that instruction yourself. He looks towards the bathroom door and looks to you. Although are there any other windows? Uh, this is a totally underground space that you're in.

So go ahead and roll a, uh,

roll a perception check to see if you can spot any other ways to make egress or All right. I wasn't sure. Based on the fact that we rose, uh, up to exit the sewers, if we were on like a ground level, or if we were still in the underground. No, you're still very much in the underground. Uh, you said perception?

Yeah. Ooh, that's not gonna be high. Five? Five! No, never mind. I love it. Seraphina's like, hmm, hmm, never mind. Um, you don't see anything. I might be able to move the stones. Stickybeak's head whips to you.

I don't know if I'm strong enough.

What? How? In what way? Well, I got one of my runes. I might be able to use those. I just remembered.

I just want to Think about and imagine Ulua and Gus reacting to someone saying that they can clear the way after they've lost it. Maybe! May, maybe. So, so I want like, don't know if I'm strong enough. Pause for this moment. And Ena, what are you thinking of doing? Because I just need to know so badly right now.

I, I, well, I was reading through and it, I have thunder wave, which for non, you know, living things, they get pushed back 10 feet by the spells effect. Mm-Hmm mm-Hmm. . So maybe it could push the rocks. Yeah. Saying that, but also there was a cave in, so yeah, I don't know if thunder, it might just make things a little worse.

I appreciate the idea. Could, that's why I said maybe. Maybe . Seina, you are a tinkerer, an artificer, an engineer of some, some development going on here. I would like you to make an intelligence check with advantage about whether or not you could place a thunder wave such that it opened up the space. As, as, as she goes to do that, I just kind of, uh, I know I'm so smart.

Okay, nevermind.

If you feel confident, then nevermind. What'd you get, Seraphina? I'm confident. You should be. Natural 20. Plus 10. Pew, pew, pew, pew! Plus how much? Seven. See? Seraphina's really smart. Jessica, not so much. So Seraphina's like, I know what, no, we can't do that. Seraphina, this, this was literally designed. For you in the last session.

And as you were mathematically laying things out and figuring things out from the other side, you would have had so many places to really get a solid break open for that pile of rubble from this side. There's only one spot you can place it. You will break some of sticky beaks objects, but you can see a way to do it without causing further cave in.

But if I went to the other side. If you went back through the sewage, back up the stairs and to the front of the door, you'd be able to do it without breaking things.

Uh, StickyBeak, how much do you like your stuff? Not all your stuff, just some of the stuff. What, what, what do you, what do you mean? Uh. Like, if stuff were to break, and you couldn't choose which of your stuff would break, would that be okay? All of our notes for the investigation are in here. Like, this is

all of the secrets. All of the they're files. What are you thinking of doing? Without even explaining anything, she just like lowers her head and starts heading to the bathroom. I'll be back! She says, I'll be back, Sticky Beans. And I, and I just, I just like, go after her and I just, you know, just grab onto her arm and I'm like, what do you I could, I could move the rocks, but if I do it from this side, stuff is gonna break.

But if I do it from the other side, it won't. Okay, well, I mean, I can come with you, and I can No! No, you're so clean and nice to look at. You don't need to dirty yourself again. Well, either way, I can I can clean this again, but you don't have to come back. You can just come through the area you clear, right?

You said I'll be right back. Well, I mean, I'll be back in the sense of like, I'm gonna come in a different way. Okay. But I gotta go out this way. I'm really not comfortable with you going by yourself. Not that I don't think you can handle yourself. I just, I'll make Gus go. The rats. The rats were not friendly.

I mean, they were all hearing this sticky be in the hall. Hearing just turns to you, Gus, why were, why weren't they friendly? They're usually great neighbors. Oh. They attacked us. In a giant Really? In a ball of giant ratness. Oh, that's not the rats I was thinking of. Oh, okay. Well, that seems like there's some sort of monstrosity happening down there.

Maybe I should go check on my friends.

Right. The Rat King. Well, do you want to come with me after all and make sure the rats don't hurt me? Uh, Stickybeak as he had stopped before, because things happened, um, gestures to his leg and probably for the first time ever, um, to your knowledge, because he moves his coat away, you can see that he has a prosthetic leg.

I don't travel so well in that manner.

See, it's settled. I'm coming with you. And I just go fine, but I turn her head and I go, but you're too pretty to be dirty. Honey, I get myself in all sorts of sticky situations. You don't need to worry about it. I've cleaned up mess, much worse messes. Believe you me. Believe you me. Okay. I'll come with you also, unless you think I should stay here with

I mean, we could all just go and I could just blow it up and then he can leave when he wants to. I was just trying to be the hero. But if you all want to just come, you can just come. I mean, you're still the hero. You're the only one that can get to him. You're the only one that can move the rock.

Technically I'm pushing him, but yeah.

Don't sell yourself short. Okay. I

got a girl crush!

Alright, so Seraphina hadn't done the Seraphina's so lucky because she's not even laying it on.

Anyways. A quarter of folks going, three of you, Um, Lua, are you trying to go down the toilet first to be, uh, a slow descent on the broom again? Or, um Well, now I think, considering if I'm not mistaken Depending on what I have. Alright, we just have the broom problem. Maybe I won't go so that the broom can hold the weight.

Well, does anybody have rope? Oh, I'm bad. I do. Good question. Does anybody have an adventurer's pack because then it would be in the Well, that's weird because I have Mine says adventuring gear. Rope! I have rope. Alright. You have climbing equipment, dude. Who does? Seraphina. She has pitons, hammer, she's got, she's Oh, piton.

I don't know what that was. She's fully She could have fully gotten you up the toilet without the umbrella shakiness. You, you need to play some Uncharted games, my friend. I guess so. You're cracking me up, Seraphina. Um, it's the little, it's the little, uh, things that you Yeah,

anyways, um, I'm going to secure the rope somehow in the, in the, in the room. Um, I say, well, here we don't need, um, am I staying or am I going? Might as well come. I mean, am I staying or am I going? Because of my voice. Um. You are coming. Okay.

Wait, do you do that in character? Yes. I will, I'll pick up my immovable rod and I'll just place it above the hole and then we can tie the rope to it. Since we're coming back through, I can grab it.

Okay. I'll tie the knots. Quickly. Ulua, tie the knots with advantage. Dexterity check.

Can I add my proficiency bonus? Ulua knows a thing or two about tying knots. Oh, not great. Um, dexterity, just a dexterity check. These robes aren't as silky as the usual ones. Uh, hold on. Uh, 15 plus, 5 reverse and C, right? Okay, that would be a 17. Hemp's not your preferred medium, but a figure eight on a bite is a

You brush away a few little hemp slivers, not the, not the I might have to get a little Seraphina some upgrades here.

Add it to my mental list. Bye broken rope. All right. Yes. Easily able to slide your way down. Um, The rope is tied off successfully, no problems with that. I'm not, there's no need for special roles about different things. Nevermind that brick in the background, just rolling up. My bricks moved today, you know, they're a little She's got, she's the collapsed wall at this point.

Great role playing! Um, so Ha! Quickly make your way up to that room. And, and here, Seraphina staring at this, like it's an engineering puzzle that makes so much sense to you now that you're actually properly looking at it and not just plunging forward. And do you cast, I'm just trying to remind somebody to watch her spell list.

It's so hard. You beat it. I should have just been a puncher. I should have just been a puncher. A puncher. Okay. Uh, you cast the spell? Yeah, I take a touch of one of my little dangly bits, some horns, and cast Thunderwave. Uh, yeah. It's a sharp, percussive sound. Um, and, Oh, yeah. I tell everyone to close their ears.

Close their ears. Close your ears and cover your eyes. I need you both to roll Dexterity saving throws to see if her close your eyes or your ears is processed quickly enough to protect your hearing as she casts the spell, cause that's just funny. Oh, Dexterity. End. 13! 13? Yeah. It's not that hard. You, you, you, quickly.

14. Oh yeah, you both, quickly. And as this You close those ears.

I don't know, maybe your species do have ways to close their ears, like uh, uh, uh Seals? Yeah. Um Do we look aquatic to you? And the thunderous force sweeps out from Seraphina as she's standing there, um, and it blasts this area of the entranceway, and It all seems to shove, just based on where she was positioned, back into where it collapsed from, sealing up a space, and you kind of can see, Seraphina, as you do it, that you, there was a bit of a void created by the collapse, and you've kind of shoved it all up in there.

You don't know if this is a long term solution, but it does fully clear the area, um, and you invoked it through the rune? Mm hmm. Yeah. Great.

So the passageway is clear and you see Sticky Beak slowly, you can hear Sticky Beak actually coming down the hall, doing the tap, claw, tap, claw, tap, claw, which finally, like it's a bit of a walk down this hallway from, from his chambers, but it's not that much. And he goes, Okay. Well, thank you. I, uh, I'm going to go get my immovable rod.

And the rope. Great. I'm going to go over to Seraphina, and I'm just going to kind of, uh, take a piece, a strand of hair and like, tuck it back behind her horns. Uh, and like, touch one of the runes, because I'm assuming I've noticed that she's done it, and I'm going to say, one of these days, you're going to have to show me how you do that.

Okay, all

right. So are the four. I'll give Seraphina back. Awesome. Materials restored to proper places. The three of you, um, are off to what are you going to go investigate the bat situation? Are you going to have other plans? What are you up to? Um, when are we all, um, we can coalesce at my, at my place. I have a nice chez that you could sleep on.

Uh, and my bed is certainly big enough for Seraphina and I to each fit and have plenty of room to, to have our own space. It's just, I'm just saying it's no, there's no, there's no need. Although I do have a very, very, very nice, um, rug, but it doesn't provide a lot of cushion. It's more just really soft and nice to lay on, but it doesn't have a lot of, no, that's not that comfortable to sleep on, at least in my experience, but yes.

I, the, the, the bed is, it's plenty large. We won't have, you know, there's, we'll each have our own space and I'll, I'll bring up some extra blankets. Plus the food is to die, to die for.

I do like food.

Works for me. The three of you agreeing to your plans for the evening start to head off. Sticky Peak says, I'm going to work on a certain rumor mill and see if I can't change our directions in some things. Thank you all. And with that, we're going to close on out and have a wonderful, wonderful, joyful, whatever.

Find your pod and we love you. Bye! Bye! Bye! Bye! Bye! Bye! Bye! Bye! Bye! Bye! Bye! Bye!