One big step closer to their goal, the party begins their ascent to the spider infested fields outside of Nycatov.
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ReRole Gaming
Episode 124: The Spiderling Fields
Welcome to the Re-Roll Gaming Podcast, where I, Tanner Prentice, guide five of my closest friends through an original adventure playing the tabletop role-playing game, Pathfinder's Second Edition. In the World of Rail, five strangers brought together a resistance under the shadow of the Blackery Empire. Until everything changed. A villain and former lover named Hogoth fractured the plains of existence, ushering in an endless night and an era of undeath, all in the name of an undying dragon, Zarox. Now, the fate of rail is left to these five adventures. My name is Ayla, and I play Bo-Cantrell, a fallen Asmar and cleric. With Cosmios, the God of Fate as my deity. Hi, my name is Zane, and I play Cinder Lafayette, the halfling investigator with a dicey past. My name is Octavia, and I play Starlet Moonbow, Star, as she's better known by her companions, is on a mission to save her true love, Faya, from the Maiden of Spiders. Hi, my name is Latara, and I play Kiaran Nimone, the sadistic, the dolel champion of Emmon, who yearns for that redemption that is so far out of her reach. I'm Brendan Geyer, and I am Frost, your new favorite cobalt bot, Berian, honor bound to protect and serve grass party, and oath bound to finish its mission. These five heroes are the last best hope to save rail, but can they overcome this darkness that spreads under the shattered sky? Find out now on the reroll gaming podcast. What is that? Are you drinking milk? I'm drinking electrolyte juice, and he's drinking some other juice stuff. Coconut milk. Not actual pineapple. Milk from the teeth of a coconut. Welcome back to the reroll gaming podcast, your number one podcast for coconut nipples. Coconut tip milk, coconut titty juice. You know, I don't know why like coconut milk has been such a subject for me today, but this is like the fourth conversation I've had about it. I just found that interesting. Maybe instead of an opening question, I'll just tell you about what I talked about earlier with my friends. But where are your friends? I did claim this one podcast for coconut titty milk. Okay, if we're not walking the walk, where are we talking the talk? Coconut's involved because I don't think there are no coconuts. Okay, I'm saying it. Fuck you. So a while ago, there was this story. It was like a cringy Reddit story thing that I read or heard about or whatever. And there's this dude who like it was this is from the girlfriend's point of view. Got a girlfriend. Nobody fucking knows how because he's not that kind of guy. And you'll understand what I mean by the end of this. But they were, you know, like hanging out. They were gonna have sex. They were leading up to it. And he said, like he stops her and he's like, Hey, I feel like you're not really into this because you're clearly not turned on. And she's like, what do you mean? Like, I'm having a really good time. He's like, yeah, well, you're not lactating. Yeah, obviously, you're not turned on. And she's like, what the fuck are you talking about? That's that doesn't happen. And he's like, no, it does. I've seen porn. And she's like, that only happens when you're pregnant. And she's like, no, and he's like, no, that's not the truth. It's when you're turned on. So you're a lying bitch. And we're breaking up is some something along those lines. And like, I just, I want to understand somewhere on a multiverse. There are people who get horny and just spray milk. Like super so crazy. Honestly, I mean, if this is a real story, then I'm happy for her because then it stopped there and didn't go any further. I think you can see it in there that he was smelt bad. So good. I wouldn't be putting her cooter on that anyway. I like to imagine him like 15 years later in every sexual experience, he's like, I can't turn on a woman. And he's like, and they're like, he's still not wrong room, like just like strung out like, what is wrong with me? Also, the longevity milk that he got second hand. Yeah, you said put her cooter on him. It's like that's how sex works. You just put it on there. You're just gonna shoot it on or around. On or around the mail. In the vicinity of it. You shoot no kind of your titties and then you put your cooter on their hog. Wait, I got to take notes. Can you repeat that? Did you all not pay attention in health class? Yeah, I heard the word hog like 12 times. I think Lattara actually had an icebreaker. Do you have something that can save this brain dead conversation we're having? No. Well, it's possible we may have talked about this before, but we're all too dumb to keep track. And one of our followers requested that we have an icebreaker about how do we get TTRPGs in the first place, call out to Dan Monkey. I pay all my players and paid ounces of titty milk. Some of it's mine. That is actually coincidentally why I got a tabletop RPG. Is it titty? I was an offer. I couldn't refuse. Sure. That's whatever you want. Titty is titty flavored milk. I leave it. It's titty beverage. All right. Titty syrup condensed. Yeah. I got into TTRPGs. I probably, we've probably said this on the podcast before, but my family makes fun of me all the time because when I was younger and I mean up until like 15, I would just run across the top of my stairs fighting invisible bad guys. And in my head, it's like all sorts of Star Wars stories or Lord of the Rings or whatever. And this, I actually didn't, and I acted in high school, but I completely missed the like D&D scene and whatever in high school. And then I played here there, but I really got into TTRPGs after like a bad breakup. And I was like, I need to force all my friends to hang out with me one week for five hours. And this was the best way to do it. And the rest is history. That's actually funny because I don't know if this is just something that is like movies and TV shows, but like did our generation just kind of miss the like, I feel like there was always at least some kind of subset of group of like D&D like tabletop nerds in high school. But like we never really had that unless we just never saw it because everybody was keeping it quiet. But I don't think anyone in my high schools were like that. Like I really don't. Yeah. Because I didn't even know that that existed. Like maybe like magic, but like not really like straight up D&D. Yeah. Yeah. I was super shy in high school, so I don't know what anyone did. Yeah. And I think I saw somebody, I think I saw some people playing Warhammer once, but that was it. I was in the Warhammer. I was super in the Warhammer for decay. I think like for my gender, like my specific group as I was coming up, like Yu-Gi-Oh and shit in elementary school, just kind of ruined fantasy through high school. Like really, it was just like coming out of fuckers. Because it was everybody around you talking about either Pokemon or Digimon or Yu-Gi-Oh, it just like for me when I went to high school anyway. And it seemed like a lot of people around me were the same way. We were just like fucking, I don't know what's the real world doing these days. I've never asked my question. I don't want to see the answers you've heard every time. Yeah. Seems bad. It is. That is interesting though, because like, um, like you weren't, if you, if you weren't into Pokemon or Yu-Gi-Oh, you like weren't cool, like in elementary school. That's true. I remember. Yeah. Pretty much. Yeah. Um, my elementary school, like cool kid shit was those little like, either those like rip it things where they, yeah, they blades or the little, uh, I think they were called like Bakugan or something like that, but they're little like, balls and the thing. No. Yeah. They would roll and they'd go like, boop. Yeah. They like, I know you're talking about and I don't think there were bugs. I didn't really dinosaur looking shit. I don't know. I think I assumed there were bugs because they got into a ball and I was like, that's a bug. That's that potato bug right there. Right. Can I eat that? You gonna have that later? If we're going probably back to battle me in Yu-Gi-Oh, you significantly longer. Okay. No, go ahead. You should be. I'm just going to say we're going all the way back to elementary. That was Poggs and Tamagotchis in my time. Oh shit. Tamagotchis. My sister was so in the Tamagotchis. I killed her once and she. She was mad. She killed us. This was for what happened. I passed away that day. You can kill if her be. What the fuck? Yeah, her excellon made it sleep forever. Tamagotchis. I was just never opened its eyes again. Yeah. So when you kill the Tamagotch, Tamagotchis, don't you say that right? Tamagotchis. Tamagotchis. They get floated off to heaven. When you kill Tamagotchis, your sister beats the shit out of you. No, Wafford not Thomas D. Wafford's the little animal. You can get like a new virtual pet on the same machine. You just reset it. Oh, it's like what it's like. You got to use a piece of shit. Tamagotch a new one. Yeah. But a straight up dies though. Yeah, it did. Yeah. Do you like that? Imagine if you're like a Nintendo dog died? I don't die, but they do run away from my lifeline. Yeah, I still have my original game. It was my first DS game when I got a DS and I remember going to Barnes and Noble and getting it was my first game. I still have the same original dog name, silly. What was the last time you fed it? Oh my god. Every once in a while I go in there and I'm like, get back and I'm like bye for like a couple years. I honestly not going to make me feel like I want to go dig it out. We have a real dog. We have to take care of that one. We want to shoot even like Tanner, you have to have ten dogs. I think if you if I buy Nintendo dogs and you find your thingy, then I have we can have them do like play dates. Yeah, you can. We should. Oh, yeah. You cannot feed them for three and a half years together. No way the Nintendo servers are still up. Why not? 100% is. Oh, I'm looking it up. All right. We're playing this fucking game back to the original question. Actual answer to Monkey's question. I'm not the protagonist in my getting into TTRPG's Tanner is protagonist. He told me he's one of the problems that was forced into spending time with him. Yeah, he's like, no, really. I was like, oh, okay, protagonist or antagonist. I'll take either. Well, you played like became the antagonist as soon as I started playing. That's true. I played like a tiny bit of D&D with like this dude that lived on my block when I was maybe like 15 or something. And the problem was it was just like a one-on-one thing. It was just me and him. So I didn't really get it. Like I understood how it worked, but it just like it didn't click until, yeah, like a decade later when we all sat down and played together. And then I was like, okay, like I understand this now because it's a whole group of people like writing a story together. And then I was like, okay, this is kind of fucking legit and I have been hooked ever since. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. For me, it was a I was at a friend's house from work when I was like 16. And they had Palladium books. I don't know if any of you guys know Palladium. I don't even know. It's a really old one, a ship similar to D&D, but older. Well, not older than the original. And I just would look through them and thought it sounded so cool. And I begged him to teach me how to play. And then I made a character, but then we never played. And then cut to like five years later or so. I was living with my brother and a couple other roommates. And we decided to try playing. And I went to the comic book store and the person was like, not not D&D. You should play Pathfinder. Because this was before D&D 5E. Oh, that makes sense. And so we got Pathfinder and did like the intro campaign. Tried a couple more times after that, but never went too long. And then cut to like five more years later. I begged Tanner to run a game on my birthday. In the words of the late, great Miley Cyrus, I came in like a wrecking ball. It's true. Maybe my whole life get turned into tabletop. And I force the guys to work for no money every week to produce something nobody listens to except monkey. Shout out. Yeah, thanks. Yeah. Thank you for keeping this D&D Pathfinder sweatshop at Crankin. Yeah. Keeping a lot of time, truly. Not that I don't know. It matters because my answer is basically the same. It's just about everyone else here. But it was, I think Tanner invited me to come hang out and I had like been a scare actor in a fucking haunted house before it was like, that's the closest thing I've ever done to role playing. And then I watched the play. And I was like, that's kind of fucking nerdy. I might be into that. And then I moved into that house with everyone. I was like, well, I'm here now. Yeah. Well, I think it's one of those deals where it's like, we're already all in the same room drinking beer together. We might as well like all. Yeah, taking shots to kill. And it's like, you know, you can only play so play ride the bus so much and blackout so much before you're like, oh, we're going to come modernize this experience with a very complex and interwoven narrative story. You're just like bombing tonight a little bit. Ellie, you got anything you want to add? I mean, I've already told this before, but I'll say it again. It's the same thing. Just getting like ripped into it, being a roommate in the cat house and just like the blank house, not a blank house that that one house. Yeah. We should do that. The show? Yeah, the show. We don't want that anymore. Am I bad? Yeah, I don't mean don't. So dude, I mean, I'm sorry enough with the game. I can't. It's too funny. You know, I'm not keeping off right now. I think the one unifying thing though, like at the end of the day, all of our divergent stories coming together, what we really all need to remember and the most important thing is that if we stop playing the bomb in the chip inserted in the base of your school will date. That wasn't. You know, it's fucking me. I also like to think about is that I was think 20 when we moved into that house. And so we've been so I've been playing D&D and stuff. I don't think that it's not that much for other people, but for seven years. That's like a long time to me. Time flies. Three campaigns under my belt and yeah, I've been doing about the same. Yeah. Just a real quick before we jump in, we got that question from our Discord channel. So feel free to join our Discord channel. And you have an icebreaker. And you'll get one icebreaker. Three, eight fluid outs, jar of titty milk that may or may not have a palm liquid. 10% juice. 10% titty beverage flavored. Also Octavia, really quick, the Nintendogs servers, I think shut down this year in April. So we're too late. I didn't even bother. Actual servers for that game. Well, it's like online play. So this is the worst. Okay, you can actually do it over the internet. Yeah, we can still try, but I think they are gone now. All right. Well, let's get back to the pinnacle of our TTRPG to defeat the hunt's experience. Let's compare. All right. You know what? Yeah, let's all go watch move on. Please. I love that. There's kind of a watch party where no one can see what we're seeing. We're just commenting on it. That sounds awesome. We have to mute the movie audio for lack of purposes. Yeah, don't actually tell him what movie we're watching either. So you have to guess. Yeah. Where we last left off, you had braved the more treacherous leg of the journey across the Whivern Blood River, making your way through murky waters filled with predator eggs, sharpened log traps, violent rapids and no michartillery. You finally approached the base of the plateau that Nikotov sits on. You've traveled for several hours by boat. I imagine you are pretty tired. And ahead of you is a snake-like trail winding up this cliffside carved probably a millennia ago. What? Cinderella exasperatingly look up at the cliffs and just say, more bloody cliffs. It's also very funny that you said the dangerous leg of the tour because Octavia or star shoved her dangerous leg into the hole. That was her pet. You don't know. Maybe it was my like. She's like, like dog. So like, aren't they all legs? My foot claw. Even if you're walking on the back, I don't know. She's a fox. Yeah. That turned my tail into a gouging claw, actually. That'd be cool. What time of the relative day is it even though we're underground and there's no sun anymore? You imagine it's probably early afternoon or the equipment? No sun o'clock. Idiot. Oh my God. I mean, center will turn if she sees that path and just say, well, we can continue downriver or we can make our way up this cliffside, but I'm not sure which one is better. Did we know that the more southern cliff was harder to climb? Is that what you said? Yes. Far more dangerous. This is the path that leads to the city gates. But at the top is where the spiraling field start. Correct. And that is where we might start running into dull L. Correct. Feasible, you could run into some on the path traveling to. Well, I guess maybe we should discuss our strategy. Once we get to the top of this cliff, it's far more likely we might come across dull L. We have 20. No, 16 disguise potions, which will get us a minimum 32 hours of disguise, which needs to be split amongst us, of course. So five of us is that each one of you will have one, one person will have one. I could potentially go without a potion and just disguise myself. Is it is there any feasibility to the possibility of center disguising herself? Is it as a gnome or are they characteristically like visually pretty different? They are significantly shorter than you are. Okay. Yeah. But also be a very dangerous place for a gnome to go. Yeah, you'd have just like a captive or something. Yeah, yeah. Well, maybe we should get up there, have a look around, see what we're dealing with. How hard does this cliff seem to be to climb? I can take a while. It would probably take another two hours. But we can do it with a relative amount of safety because of this old path. Yeah, there's there's going to be no climbing checks you need. Would we know if there's a place we might be able to hide and sleep at the top? You would know that the spiraling forest or not, sorry, the spiraling fields are filled with ruined buildings, overgrown, uninhabited farmlands. There's there's plenty of places for somebody who doesn't want to be found to to reside. In fact, now I, excuse me, now I think is a great time to show you all, except for Karen, could you already had it? The map of Neikatov. You visual context. It's completely dark. One second after. That's just how it looks down here. Oh, there's a little something. Yeah, I see a little tiny. That's four pixels. We will go over this a little bit more later. Cinder will ask Bo. Or really anybody's listening would probably Bo. Does this, does this cliffside trail look like it's well traveled to you? Or does it look more forgotten? Bo will take a closer look. Give me a survival check. Cindra, do you know if it's often traveled? No, no, I'm asking Bo shut off. I heard you asking. I am asking Cintra. This is the way I came with my raiders. It's the most obvious way out of the city. Oh, well, I don't even fucking anything. Oh, okay. Do they, how often do they send out groups? It depends on the house and it depends on their desires, I suppose. Yeah, I was just trying to get an idea if it's like maintained, or like if it seems like it's been left to ruin, but it seems like it's relatively. Yeah. Okay, cool. There aren't really gods that patrol it. This isn't belonged to any of the houses. It has no value. Most of the city is so sufficient. Any reason we have to leave Nykata of usually is raiding or scouting. Slavers, of course, will come out here, but there are plenty of less fortunate ones in the city. I have a very random question. No, I am not lactating. I'm not horny at the moment. Thank you. Thank you. What's wrong? This recipe of Baldur's Gate, you just haven't gotten your relationship far enough. So they're like, "No, thanks." I'm not turned on enough for you or the words of my steering. It's in you. Hey, never with me, absolutely to. So my question is, so I have a messenger ring that basically creates like a small creature that can send a message, like an animal messenger. Could I use that message in a different way where I could use the animal as a scout and then it could report back to me with its own message? No. Because it's more of like an illusory thing. Yeah, it's not actually like a sentient being. Um. Cinder will say, "Well, I feel confident that it should we come across anybody on this path. I should be able to quickly hide myself. I can take point if you'd like." Possibly, or we might keep me in Cinder up front and we can give you heads up, whereas because we won't look suspicious necessarily. We could also move as fast as possible and just try to get to our destination before anybody sees, and if they do, we'll kill them. You seem capable enough, all of you, especially the lizard. That, I don't know what you're talking about. I saw you kill my men, women. Yeah, but you did. Women. You saw that. Oh, shit. Processing is incredibly stealthy. Truth, he told there were nowhere near my skill and just struck me down, so I suppose I owe you a thanks. In fact, it feels kind of refreshing to be near somebody that dances with death so smoothly. You're welcome. Is Cinder flirting with Frost? Cinder, you're lactating. Are you okay? Here are the looks Cinder tries to see if it's wet. I'm so stoked. Maybe all three. You guys try to hide and scout as best you can, and we'll walk in the open quickly. With this, speaking about kind of the, I don't know, the word death came up, and Bo kind of like rubs his ring on his finger with his thumb, thinking about that, because it's a grim ring, so it detects undead, and he makes them think of the undead, and he asks, have you ever seen undead down here? Yes, of course, since about a month ago. Many of her dead began to rise, but with my mother's prowess in necromancy, she was able to teach many of the priests. The priests of our dark city, how to bind them to our service. Because they'd kind of like enslaved the undead that they have conjured and raised, right? Were we kind of talking about that? Yeah, yeah. They have been using them for menial labor. What is the range on that ring? Fuck it, smart. I can't believe I never thought of that. Uh, well, let's see. It says, reveals the presence or absence in the area, but doesn't pinpoint their location, so it doesn't really matter. Okay. It's more of an exploration activity, so if you're like in an area searching, you can try to detect undead. So it's, I would think from this conversation, they wouldn't generally be out wandering or by themselves. They usually are under some kind of... Yeah, probably closely watched by somebody who could dominate them. Okay, but it wouldn't be like a waste, I think, to even to check. Like, if I were making camp or something, I don't know, it might be worth it. Yeah, totally. While Bo's looking at this ring is his hand open. It's probably facing the ground and, or he's, it's by his side, so he's just kind of like touching it with this thing. Just curious what we saw. Just while he's thinking about it. I mean, if you're really looking, maybe you would know. I mean, I wouldn't know to look. It was just, I mean, in the air, because you're looking at a ring. Well, in the morning too, if, if, you know, you woke up when he kind of gassed, gassed awake, or, you know, he would probably have, in the morning, been looking at it himself, he wasn't, it wasn't, this is a gift. This isn't something he would be trying to hide. Cinder is going to do the thing that everybody does when they see tattoos and just think that it's perfectly acceptable to walk up to you and yank your arm away from you. Like, look at it. Like, yeah, I mean, if you're hiding it, I don't think. No, he's not hiding it. Oh, he's not. Okay. He's not, he's not ashamed. You know, there's no sense to him to hide something that he was bestowed by his god. In fact, I think maybe your feet, that's odd. Cinder, when she is fidgeting with her ring, you see this almost gold flicking color coming from the inside of her palm. You can't quite make out what it is. The Cinder will cock an eye on it. On it, cock an eye at it. On it. Yeah, cock her out. We'll put her eye on it. But the cooter on or near it, the eye on or around it. Cinder will make a note of that, but it won't actually say anything about it and just kind of return to whatever she was doing. Because I mean, if anything, you know, like fidgeting with the ring, not would spend too much time on this, but it is an interesting ring. It has like a skull shape on it and is, you know, if he was fidgeting it, it might even draw your attention to her. So who knows? Well, shall we? Yeah, I think Cinder will, will take point trying to be quiet and will be prepared to, I don't know, mimic a local bird call or something. If she sees anybody. Okay, so tell me what you guys are doing for the next few hours. As your scaling cliff, are you hiding? Are you searching? Are you moving fast? I think I would stay hidden at the rear of the group. Okay, I'm going to hide this. Cinder and frost hiding. What about you, star? Uh, can I just stealth too? Stealth too, totally. And then Bo, what about you? I mean, Bo is usually a fan of like trying to find a good place to end up for the night. Well, at this point, you know, there won't be enough room on these, this winding path. So it's more like what you want to do while traveling up there. You could follow the expert if you wanted to stealth, or you could use your ring to detect any undead in this area. I think that was something I would do, like once we find a place to be. Okay. But I think that Bo's looking out for any tracks that are stirring that might point to anything of interest. Okay, great. Roll a survival. And then you, the other three of you, roll a stealth and then Karen, what are you doing with Syndra? I think that I will kind of double check mine and Bo's disguise kit. I mean, disguises with a disguise kit. And since we're not as good at hiding and then make sure that Bo's kind of sandwich between me and Syndra as we're walking to hide him a little more. Okay. And then just look like, try to do our best to look like a group coming back from a scouting mission. Okay, so go ahead and give me a deception check for you and for Bo. And you do get a plus one because of your disguise kit. One thing I will say is this decides kit will eventually run out of stuff, and you'll have to replenish the supply eventually. Well, do we have an idea of how long? Because maybe I won't do my own disguise yet then. I just can pull my hood up more. You've tried to use it once before. You get the sense you probably have. Maybe. Oh, five more disguise uses. Shoot. Um, okay, maybe we'll just hold off on the disguise kit for now, but just make sure we have those cloaks that we got from the bodies up and do our best to look like. Okay. Why don't you roll me a deception check? I'll make sure Syndra has her hood down and is kind of being the face. Follow my lead. Roll a deception, is that what you said? Roll a deception. And then so stealthies, what did you guys get? 29. 19. Uh, I got a, I got a nat 20, but I have a question. Okay. Um, and I will probably still go with the nat 20, but I'm just curious what your take on this is. Would it make more sense in a situation where I think I just want to hear or know that somebody's approaching before they notice me? Like, could I, instead of doing stealth, just kind of walk at the front of the group and roll a perception and see if I can notice traveling people before they would hear me? You could respond to it as appropriate. You definitely could. The risk you run there, of course, is if somebody's waiting an ambush or something. Right. Or somebody spots you beforehand. Yeah. Yeah. Or, I mean, in theory, though, I could notice people in ambush with a perception too, though, correct? That's true. Um, but also depending, you know, you might have somebody who's like, on a watchtower, a ways away and would have seen you or something. But, you know, it's definitely possible. Yeah. That's just a question. I mean, I'll, I'll probably stick with the nat 20 for stealth, because why wouldn't I? Right. Yeah. Definitely possible in the future. Because I think I might lean more that direction in the future, because my skills are more social and stuff, unless we're really trying to stay hidden, like, no matter what. But yeah. Bo, what did you get for your survival? I don't. The role is gone. Where is it? Oh, 22. I do. Okay. And Karen, what'd you get for deception? 15. Okay. So as you travel on, Bo, looking at the path below you, nothing quite sticks out. This path you can tell is well traveled. You see, you know, scattered humanoid footprints, maybe footprints of spiders that are larger and leaving prints, but you can't really make much out. It's very muddled. What does a spider footprint look like? Oh, just a little peg. Now in little. Just the ones that are wearing dress shoes. Yeah. Sin dress, and she doesn't need to disguise necessarily be doing perception. She was. Don't worry. Okay, cool. I got you. Just want to make sure someone's doing perception. Everyone's looking down at their feet or often like a very specific direction. Cinder, you are hugging the cliffside wall as you're traveling up, star right behind you in tow. And you notice that frost is walking along the opposite edge, and there's a moment where he steps in a place that you know the dirt is very loose and about to give, and you sort of jump in and just. Excuse me. You, with a quick word, you warn frost before he steps down and through your critical success, you're able to assist your teammate in being a little more stealthy. Nice. Jim, let's talk about. What birds? I can hear them coming in through a year, Mike. Damn. Kiaran, you're feeling nervous as your approach. You've walked on this path before and you're right outside the city, a place I don't think you ever imagined you'd return to. And it's hard. You feel like everyone can hear your heart beating in your armor. Syndra is keeping her eyes peeled as you continue up this snake-like trail, the clomping hooves of Anara kicking up dust behind you. And you continue traveling on with no disturbances, and though the road is exhausting, it doesn't seem to last long before you crest the top of the hill, revealing a towering city in the distance, filled with gothic spires and colossal stalagmites interconnected with miles of dense webbing. The city itself is three levels, each one 50 to 100 feet above the one before it. Naikatov, the city of spiders, awaits behind this crawling, unsettling expanse of the spiderling fields. And not too far in front of you, you see these fields, of course. This miasma of dense webbing that spans miles and miles of this farmland. And across these dark fields, steel poles are arranged in parallel rows, covering covered with thick walls of silk and crawling with silver, dog-sized spiders. Along these dark farms, there are dilavidated bunkhouses, towering guard towers, and all manner of war-like equipment. But you're not quite there. There's some space between you and the spiderling fields. Do you want to continue onwards? Scouting ahead, do we see any good buildings that we could kind of regroup in or take of a position in them, I have a good view of the field? Give me a perception check. All right. Uh, 30. Okay. You see this dilapidated, two-story farmhouse that seems to be missing most of the walls of the second floor, reduced its sort of bare bones. This place looks empty, and there are only a few emaciated workers on this field. In fact, Cinder, you kind of dwell on the closest one to these fields, trying to assess if he's any sort of threat to you. But this thin dolle is barely covered in rough rags, and you watch as he approaches one of these spider silk walls. His arm shakes as he pulls out a wooden club, and he quickly plunges it into the webbing, spinning it as fast as he can. It's like he's done this a thousand times. It's muscle memory. Totten candy. Disgusting. And as he's ripping this spider silk, a few yards away, one of these silver spiders pivots, and with unsettling speed, it skitters towards him with a bloodthirsty higher. The elf draws a dagger as fast as he can, fumbling with it a little bit with his thin bony fingers, and he starts sowing away at his tool, and he finally cuts it free, dropping to the floor, falling back with his frantic panic, narrowly escaping the spider's pounces it turns, loses interest, and begins weaving its webs. He stands, coughs, wheezes, catches his breath, scrapes off the silken to a woven basket, takes one defeated breath, and walks towards the next web wall, an endless cycle of this poor soul. And he is alone. Did it did only center see that? At this point, only center has seen this. How far away is he? Probably 50 feet. So he's gone down a little bit, and now he's working on another batch of this spider silk. Yeah, you can tell he's kind of trying to decide which wall to go for next. Every time these walls are disturbed, it draws these dog-like spiders, so he's trying to find one with an equidistant between one or the other. Okay. Yeah, I think Cinder kind of reacting instinctually, sort of seeing a moment to capitalize on. Frost, are you nearby? Yeah, I believe so. Okay. I think she'd catch your eye and kind of motion for you to follow Cinder over towards this guy. Yeah, Frost or the hole is axed. Get low and follow you. Okay. Do you say what you're doing or that you're doing? She's doing this quick. It's up to you guys if you see this or not. You definitely see Frost leaving. Does it seem like you're going towards the elf to us? Like, do we see what you're doing? Cinder is the only one who saw the elf. But once Cinder is making action out of it, then we would see that. Yeah, I'm more wondering if Cinder is letting us know somehow. No, she's not. So, at this point, Cinder went ahead and scouted and came back and grabbed Frost. Wait, what do you see? Information. And she's not going to wait any longer. Don't be seen. It's not worth it. We have all our information here. Cinder breaks a piece of her chalky ration and throws it in her mouth and she says, Kia and your friends are quite reckless. I mean, yeah, Cinder is still just going to go for it. Cinder is trying to get up behind this individual. And again, she's only doing this if he's like pretty verifiably on his own. Yeah. Are you approaching Stelfly or are you trying to bum rush him? What are you doing? Stelfly. Okay. Both of you give me Stelfths. Okay. Exactly. I'll be in my last row 19. I'm trying to decide if I want to use a reroll on this or not. You have to take the reroll if you use it, right? Correct. Okay. Fuck it. Nice 31. Okay. And I think if, for sake of argument, I think more so, she wanted Frost to just like cover her. So he doesn't need to be like right up there, but depending on how Stelfry will shakes out, Cinder, you get pretty close. You're maybe 15 feet away, and this dollal has not noticed you. But at that point, for us, this heavy grade acts that you wield. It's long handle that is probably roughly twice the size of your body, snags on the ground a little bit, kicking up some rubble, and he turns quickly and sees you out of the corner of his eye, and he begins just running. What do you do? Oh, he runs. Yeah. Okay. And I wasn't able to get close enough with that. You're about 15 feet away. What are you? What are you doing right now? Aiming for the leg. Okay. Roll it. God damn it. 18. That is a hit. Okay. He is dressed in rags. Roll your damage. That's a good point. [MUSIC] Seven. Hopefully it doesn't kill him. Your crossbow bolt goes directly in his knee, and he lets out this wheel like a pig being stuck with a sharp object as he tumbles the grounded rolls, and you can see this pool of blood as he's gripping his leg, and he's trying to drag himself. But there is relatively little chance of that happening. Yeah, I think Frosty just a meanwhile has already started charging towards him, I think while Sender was taking aim. Stop! No! Please! I say we'll get up to him pretty fast, and put one hand over his mouth, then try to just grip above the wound with the other, the other hand, temporarily slowly bleeding. Okay. Do you have any sort of medicine score? I don't. Yeah, you're not going to... You squeeze it, but it just hurts. [MUSIC] He's like, "It's okay." Don't worry about it, bud. Honest mistake. Yeah, I think, yeah, Sender quickly also closing the distance. Neil's down next to him, and puts her dagger to his throat, and says... Gets like really close to his face, and she says, "Scream again." And I will make sure your death is a slow one, and she looks up towards the spiders. Roll an intimidation check. All right. 28. He very frightfully gives you a nod. [MUSIC] Okay, and then she'll kind of, yeah, maybe nod to Frost take his hand away from his mouth. He does, huh? Puts it back on his axe, stands up. Yeah, and Sender's just kind of kneeling down, maybe with like her knee on his chest or something, keeping from moving. And you can see he's shaking from the pain, but he is completely silent. Okay. First question, that building over there, how often is it used? Never. And is the last time somebody came through here? First of the week, I'm the only one left. Because of those, and he nods his head, and you see about maybe a hundred feet away is this one armed zombie, loosely lamely doing the same motion with much less rhythm to it and much slower, gathering the spider silk. But these dog-sized spiders do not seem to attack the undead. Do any of these undead servants, have they ever been attacked by spiders before? Sometimes, if they're too foolish, or if they get stuck, but they're not teaching. In that group that he mentioned that came through, does that line up with when Cindra said that she had set out? Yeah, I think she said about a week ago. Okay, I could be wrong, but do you know who's with the group that came through you? No, I just keep my head down, and I harvest the silk, like the masters say. Okay, I'm just trying to think about any more questions. These masters, how many of them bother? I don't, I don't understand your question. How many are left alive working these fields that aren't like them, and she'll motion to the undead? I, I don't know. I don't leave this place. I work for House Alucan. Sometimes, I'll sleep in the basement of that house you pointed out, but it's been me for at least two days now. Well, what's your name? Benjin. What's keeping you from running Benjin? What? What's keeping you from leaving this place? Where would I go? What would I eat? They would find me. Do you know what happens to servants who run? I don't know where you're from. If you're from the gnome town, what? I've never seen people like you. You need to leave this place. It won't like you. They'll kill you. They will try. But, Benjin, my use for you is concluded. You can either stay here, live in servitude, and die like the rest of them and only to have them resurrect your corpse and put you back to work. Or, I can take you over to my friends. We can patch up that wound, and you can go start a new life somewhere. Or, a third option. If you want to do something really stupid, I could put one on your other leg and feed you to the spiders right now. It's your choice, Benjin. He looks down at his half-filled woven basket of silks and his bloody leg, and he says, "I won't meet my quota like this. You have to heal me, or you... or just kill me. I don't... I won't go empty-handed." What does he mean by that go empty-handed? It seems like he likely... the person who comes once a week likely collects the silk, and with this wounded leg, he would probably not be able to avoid these spiders or harvest very much silk left. Okay. So, wait, what is he saying he wants to do? He's like, "You have to heal me, or you're essentially killing me." I already offered. We could patch him up. That was one of the things I offered to do. "Yeah, well, heal him or kill him." "Yeah, Frost is gonna..." Are the rest of you guys approaching, or are you guys hanging back? I mean, no, you snuck off purposefully and ignored my warning, so we're just at least... And I'm just waiting. And Bo's notoriously, like, not stealthy, and he fears you of it handled, but hopes you're safe. Okay. Well, my friend here, Frost, he's going to carry you back to the rest of our group, but my previous instruction stands, scream again, and I'll feed you to the spiders. By making Frost get rid of his knee a lot thicker than him? Frost is strong. Frost already picked him up. Frost is strong. Yeah, the cinder is definitely not. I think cinder was more narrating. It's just like, "Frost is gonna carry you back to the..." Okay, but don't need to make this. Look at him go. So strong. So maybe he's got a quarter to make. We want to make sure he... The basket's like on your tail. He's the one worker that's managed to last the takeover of the fucking zombies. Like, this man deserves his job. Well, one thing I will say is, you are on the edge of the fields. It gets much more denser and larger spanning as you go in. So there are likely more living workers, but where the field he's currently at, he is the last living worker. Oh yeah. Just the two things up. Yeah, sure. Yeah, so you guys probably, the rest of the party, probably see us approaching up over a little berm that we disappeared behind or something. In fact, as cinder and frost approach with a male dolel, slung over frost, shoulders, cinder turns to eukia, and it says, "Not even 30 minutes outside a night guitar when they've already found themselves a servant." I don't actually... He's got the coordinates still. Yeah. I'll turn to them as they're coming up and just be like, "And what good is this?" As... Look, I know. Good. As you approach frost, you drop him down next to the party. Yeah. Yeah, I'll set him down humanely. You set him down and he looks up at Kiernan's incinerances. That's just, and he drops and starts sort of groveling, and you can see him wincing pain, but he doesn't make an audible noise. He says, "I wasn't patronizing that they ambushed me. I have silks. I'm still working. Please, please." I think the... Maybe we should kill him, sit in there. You're probably going to... Excuse me. You're probably going to have to. You're probably going to have to. Probably you're gonna have to. You will probably have to kill the servant. He likely will be able to tell whatever violence master he has. Exactly who we are and exactly where we are. Good work. Like, Kiernan, did you have something? Kiernan's gonna just seem like I do this. Be like, "Yes, my new slaves have yet to be trained better. They will fetch a price, I'm sure, but I'll have to train them more." I'm sorry for the inconvenience, sister. I didn't say that to Syndrome. Basically, she's trying to put up a charade of... So we hopefully won't have to kill him. For who? For him, not for Syndrome, right? Give me a deception check. Bo, did you want to do something? I think I'm all aid with this, too, if you want. Sure. Well, I think I'm 17, so I don't know how much aid will help, but maybe you'll crit. Yeah, sure. I'm a master in deception, too. Or no, I'm an expert. It's the only one I'm not a master. Well, where do you want me to do something? Mm, maybe not. Okay. What do you say to aid this deception, sender? I think she'll, after a moment, she will say, "But master, I saw him, went to question him, and he ran. I'm immediately acted on impulse. I apologize. I got a 29." So hard to find competent health these days. So that brings a total. You're an expert. So that brings a total, I think, to a plus two, still. Yeah, I think so, with expert. The male dolel Benji, or Benjyn, rather, looks up, makes eye contact with you, Kiran. And you can tell he doesn't believe you. Enough of this. Syndrome draws a dagger. She says, "He doesn't believe you, Kiran. You see it." It feels like a repeat of our time with Flint, does it not? And she'll kind of say that to Star. I think, uh, sender will kind of, like, dropping the shirad, just sort of square up, against, uh, or square up to, um, cindra, and just say, "Look." You sit high and hold a lot of prestige here. You know a lot of things, but frankly, and I've seen this myself because I've been there. People like this see a lot of things that you can't. He is useful to us. There's information to be had here. Whether or not we kill him afterward is entirely up to you. I do not care. But if you can get off your high horse for a moment, he might be able to tell us something useful. Seeing that you're coming to his-- She is kind of, like, also, like, eyeing Kiran a little bit with this, too. Like, thinking that maybe, you know, can't see the force for the trees sometimes. Um, seeing that you're coming to his defense though kind of acts naturally and helps him to his feet and starts looking at his knee. Just kind of reinforcing the fact that, like, we're in kind of-- You're squaring up. We're kind of in charge here. Like, we're going to be kind of doing what we need to do. For now, though, we should probably take this argument inside, and she'll motion to the abandoned house and say, "It's empty." Uh, Kiran will turn and walk towards the house. [music] Okay. As you're walking towards the house, navigating carefully through these walls of spider silk, syndrome walks up to you, Cinder, and says, "Don't mistake my coldness for cruelness. In this city, even if you look like a dole, you fraternize. In somebody like this, you will draw suspicion and violence. Whether or not they know you're an intruder or foreigner, they will still kill you." In a diagram, Cinder, the males are often overlooked and see things that the houses do not know they see. But in this instance, the only thing this male sees is this field. "Was it worth it? Now we have a life on our hands." "Thank you, or enthusiasm for protecting life stands in your way more often than not, Kiran. We may not need to kill them, but if it comes down to it, I will do anything to further our mission here. I don't think you can say the same." "I will do what is necessary, but that does not mean we need to harm people, always, to do that. I can see being around people like you is probably why Flint thought this was okay too." "Ooh, boom, roasted." "I think, like..." Cinder cries really hard, it's super awkward. "She's just a kid. You didn't have to get on her ass like that. Trying to, like, kind of break the tension, boat just..." "Well, really quick to follow up too. I think she, like, kind of, this argument getting a little more heated. She will kind of, like, quickly respond, maybe unintentionally. I didn't want to shoot him. He gave me no choice." "Bo, go ahead." "Okay, so yeah, Bo, trying to kind of break the tension and just says our offers. Maybe let's just minimize our interference here. We're here for a reason and we're not trying to draw attention to ourselves." Cairn will take a deep breath and let it sink in that maybe she's taken a little more anger from the situation before out on Cinder than she should. "I understand you didn't mean to hurt him, but now we are left with a witness that could expose us and because in this city there are not people that look like you or a life we must take." "There's always a choice. There is." "I understand that this is the only life that he's ever known. But we can offer an alternative to him. If he doesn't take it, that's entirely on him." "We must make it the only option for him." "And at this point you have approached this dilapidated farmhouse. The door is stuck ajar. Looks like only the smallest of you can squeeze into it." "What are you doing?" "I can frost 'til I put this prisoner down and kind of approach that entryway." "Cool. Give me an athletics or try and knock it open." "All right." "I want to use that ring here." "Okay. So I think you have to..." "Just as for us puts the prisoner down being one of the two people that was actually there, you can say, "I would advise when you do see her masters." "Don't they react as you did just now? You did tell us some information they might not want us to have." "And he's gonna go ahead and walk over to the door." "And get a 28 on athletics?" "Not even a second. Just boom! The door flies off its handles, and it looks like Captain America punched it down and sent it all the way across." "Frost like walks up to it." "I just casually turns away and wacks it with his tail as he walks back towards the group." "There was a basement entrance that could have led you to." "Inside nearly is cool. Inside the entire ceiling is draped with cobwebs. You are on the first floor, and this place has been ransacked. Part of it's been burned, and you even see axe splinters from random aggressions. But it seems secure enough. Putting this dolo down the frost and bow you looking at his wound, he has a crossbow bolt sticking directly through his knee. It looks like that when I found him." "It looks very, very painful. How would you like to help him out?" "I mean, he's just gonna go ahead and heal him." "He's using a heal spell or treating wounds with your medicine." "Let's see. Let's see what I have." "I don't have enough, okay. Well, yeah, I'm just gonna cast heal." "Are you casting it normally or in a special way?" "Not in special way, only because he's not necessarily trying to hide it, but he's also not trying to display it, especially in front of Cindra." "So, this is really quick. As bow is casting the seal spell, I know that Barrow is probably removed magically, but Frost was going to use a little cobalt breath to numb the area since I can do that fairly freely." "That's funny." "You let loose this sort of cold breeze out of your mouth, this condensated white plume of Frosty air, and it chills the flesh around, and even starts to turn it black like a frostbite until this warm radiant pulse from bow's hands wash over and the bolt snaps into as his leg heals up and he rubs it and he says, "What? What in the name of the maiden did you do to me?" He puts his hand on his shoulders and gives him one of his classic bow smiles and he's like, "I healed you," and he stands up and kind of gives it in the space, but also had the imagery of it's really cool in this in Pathfinder having a dragon breath, but imagining a human in a first aid scenario would be like, "Shh, onto your wound, just like breathing on you, have your hot breath, your like, dude, stop." "I have to show a first aid certification." "Aww, it's infected." "Yeah." "You're not excited." "You're like, "What do you do?" "Well, we shot you and then we un-shot you." "It's kind of what we do." "I've had a very long day." "You outsiders don't know what you've done." "You, little when you speak of a choice, you've given me no choice. Either I present a lame quota and I'm flogged and beaten for it, and if they sense that I know anything else, I'm tortured, taken to the city, ripped apart. You've burdened me with knowledge. And what else, you say, go run have another life here? They'll have my head outside of Devara's gate, writhing in undeath as a warning. Can you have done this to me?" "You're muted, Latara." "He speaks truth. He's not a trained warrior, leaving the city as a death sentence as well." "Okay, for us, he's going to pick up the basket and feel like I'll help you fill your goddamn quarter." "This is how we begin the arc of the story where we're all trying to keep up appearances for this lol so that he can rise up through the management levels of the spiderling fields." "It's still just like early afternoon, right?" "It's probably like five or six, yeah." "Okay, so if Ross helps him, he could feasibly maybe make his quota before it's like night-time, night-time." "Are you actually doing that?" "Yeah, because Beau has a tinge of guilt as well and wants to help. That's like shit, man." "I was kind of thinking, like, to this guy filling his quota might just make it a fucking lot easier to keep a secret." "Yeah, just let him move on." "I can't think of a better currency that we have for him if we want to try to keep him alive." "Yeah, and we've made spider friends before. I mean, there's a special ring in our position that Star has that could help out if he fires up." "I have a big axe, I can just whack him on the side of the head." "I mean, I think it would be very opposed to this plan, but that's only if this is actually the direction that we're heading with this." "That's what Chiaran was kind of thinking. It's like, it's a risk, but let's go about or kill him. I mean, I can't, like, Beau's thinking, "Oh, it can't be that hard, you know, to like, just at least finish the job." "That's insulting, it's incredibly difficult and dangerous." "Well, Beau doesn't know that." "No such thing is on skilled labor." "Yeah, we're all the privileged kids here, where you're like, "God, it can't be that hard to work a 40-hour-a-week job. My parents will just give me money if I don't work it." "That's how I'm comparing this. I'm really tired." "Prost as you pick up his basket and he looks at you in a completely befuddled manner, and he's like, "I don't understand." "What it is, the betterton of their knowledge. If you were highly betterton, extra silk when you returned tonight." "We wouldn't want too much, that might be in the other direction." "If the masters come for their silk and I have it, they will leave quickly. I won't have to hide. I'll tell you whatever you want to know." "I want to know that we are safe." "Nowhere's safe and nagazov. And we'll pick this up next time on the re-roll gaming podcast." "Guys are in the city for roughly 10 minutes and already are like, 'We might need to kill this guy for what he knows.'" "I mean, that didn't go as well as I thought it was as I wanted it to. I was going to question him and then not have to shoot him in the leg, but whatever." "Yeah, but regardless of shoot him in the leg, it's still have the same use." "Sinder was willing to do something that Kiaran probably wasn't so chill with, but that didn't shake out that way. So now we're here." "Thank you for listening to the re-roll podcast. The world of Rel and all characters within are copyright and fictitious. 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