session 2.5

The group is playing a game called "Die Curious" and they are joined by several characters. They escaped a ship and arrived in the city of Koba where they were followed. They set a trap that failed and were told to leave the city. They were then led to the Shadow Academy where they were questioned by a tiefling. The tiefling tells them to sit with the other first-year students for a ceremony. The tiefling introduces herself as Savari Darkness, the sub-mon of the shadow people. She announces that second-year students will have higher standards and more challenging missions. Third-year students will be closely watched and observed by non-academy people. First-year students will undergo a ceremony to determine their field of study. Savari mentions that the people they can trust are their teammates. After the ceremony, they will be led to the first-year dorms. Suddenly, an attack occurs and Senjin Elfwood, the highest-ranking person, instructs the eighth-year Starting the recording, waiting 10 seconds, 3, 2, 1, mark, awesome, alright, welcome back to the Die Curious Podcast, this, let me restart that, welcome back to the Die Curious Podcast where we are joined this week by Beholder playing Dust, Chocobo playing Boron, Witness playing Catholic, Baby Blue playing Wold, and of course your Dungeon Master, me, Pieces or Joey, doesn't really matter, but let's dive right back into it, so last time on the Die Curious Podcast, the players escaped the ship, escaping into a whaling boat, only to arrive on the shores of Diading, right outside the city of Koba, they then started going towards the city, only to discover that they were being followed, once inside the city they set a trap that did not work, they chose to go into a bar, and were basically told without plain English to head outside, once outside, they were then told to head outside of the city, they were then led to a small hut, house, building, whatever you want to call it, they then explained what had happened on the boat, or on the ship, only to find out that what happened was the actions of some rogue heroes, they were then teleported to the Shadow Academy, but during the teleportation, the Dragonborn that was teleporting them was murdered, they then arrived only to be questioned even more by a tiefling, and that is where we will resume this one, now we will begin, the tiefling is escorting you through the halls and into the main hall of the Academy, once you are inside the main hall of the Academy, the tiefling tells you to go sit with the other first years at the table, she points at a table where it looks like a bunch of normal people sitting at the table, everybody else in the room has a black coat on, roughly three to four hundred people, this hall is massive, so the tiefling tells you that all eight years of students have been gathered within this room, each there are, you can see that there are eight different tables, and at the edge of the hall is the table where you have been told to sit, with the other people that look like normal cadets, or normal first, normal, normal people, the tiefling then once again looks at you and says, go sit with the rest of your class, I need to go speak to some people, the first year ceremony will begin shortly, and she walks off, what do you do, yeah the table isn't full, yeah there's four spots where you can like all be right next to each other. As everybody is talking to each other, you see the same tiefling that I just talked to you, appear on the stage, but she is now wearing these long beautiful flawless robes, and as she appears, a hush falls over the crowd, hello, as many of you know, I am Savari Darkness, the sub-mon of the shadow people, the second highest ranked person in the shadow, in the shadow people, our clan, you see everybody else in the room except the people of the first year stand and start clapping, Savari, Savari raises her hand as she shushes the crowd, and they all start clapping and take their seats, first I will speak to the second year students, you have graduated your first year, this means that you will be held to a higher standard than you were during your first year here, you will also be given more challenging missions than you were during your first year, now on to the third year students, this will be your last year studying full-time at the shadow Academy, which means this will be the single most important year of your studies, during this year you'll be watched more closely than ever, to make sure that you can handle being out in the world, this is also the first year that non-academy people will be watching you, they'll be watching your every move, to see what city you and your team will be stationed at for the rest of your time spent with the shadow Academy, Savari pauses for a second and starts looking at the table of first years, the table that you were sitting at, now I speak directly to the first year students, you all have quite the experience ahead of you, you will undergo a ceremony here in just a few minutes to determine what field of study best suits you, here you will meet other students and will be assigned a third year student who will be something along the lines of a mentor to you, now regarding the people that will be by your side, the people who will fight beside you, the people who will bleed with you, the people by your side for the next few years, the only people you can truly trust outside the walls of this Academy, those people are the very same people who are along your side coming to this Academy, you have already met your teammates, it is the very people who for some of you have already fought by your side, you see Savari turns her attention from the general direction of the table to the party, to y'all specifically when she says that, then she returns to glancing over the table, now after the ceremony ends and you find out what you are truly destined for, you will be led to the first year dorms where each team will have their own dorm, the dorms have separate bunk areas for each team member, but you will share the common area with each other, so please try to get along, the moment Savari says the last word along, she vanishes into like a mist, a beautiful shimmering mist, and then a few moments after Savari disappears, a human takes her place, greetings, as most of you know I am Senjin Elfwood, the Marron of the Shadow People, the highest ranking person within the entire clan, and one of the privileges that come with this honor is the honor of hosting the first year ceremony, this ceremony is that everybody within the Shadow People knows who you truly are and why you are truly here, once your name is called, you will approach the stage and the member who guided you and allowed you to join us will appear on stage alongside you, they will attest to what you did that earned you a spot in our ranks, Senjin starts to call out names and as he does, first years stand up and approach the stage, and once they arrive on the stage, a sort of shadowy figure appears beside them and starts telling the stories of what these people have done, and they range everywhere from stopping a thief to stopping a mass genocide for one of the students, then he calls Wolf's name, Wolf, please approach the stage, you get about halfway to the stage, and then you hear a loud bang, Senjin Elfwood smashes his head towards it and his eyes start glowing a bright green color, and he looks at the table that is on the opposite side of you, 8th year students, we are under attack, take the first years to their dorms, make sure they are safe, everybody else return to your dorms immediately, use your powers only if necessary, is that understood? And you hear the entire crowd, except the first years, yell in unison, yes sir, as they all stand up and start doing as ordered, you hear banging and magic casting all throughout around you outside of this main hall, there is explosions, there is shimmering that you can hear, you can see outside of some of the windows that there are fireballs being cast at the academy, that there is magic shooting by the window, all the 8th year students rush up and rush the table that you are sitting at, there are a considerably less amount of 8th year students than there are first year students, so it's like a 4 to 1 ratio, so they all start yelling, and one comes up to the York party specifically, it is a high off, and they say follow me now, as they turn around and start running out. You have your weapons, you have your weapons with you. Yeah, you have everything with you, you didn't change or anything before you got to the dining hall. Awesome, you have your daggers out and you're following, and this 8th year student is running through the halls, are you following them? Okay, you're running through this hall, and the 8th year student looks back at you and goes, if we, she's like looking back as she's still running forward, if we run into trouble, I will stop them, you will make sure you follow everybody else and get to the dorms, is that understood? Then, out of nowhere, a wall beside you explodes, and the rubble catches her and pins her up against the wall. You can't tell, she's covered in rubble. You saw a large explosion, and then that explosion hit the wall and made the wall collapse. What'd you say? There is not anything coming through the wall, but you can look through the hall and you see the academy, which is in the shape of a pyramid, and it is under attack. There is magic being casted from both directions surrounding the academy. Outside of the academy, the academy is shielded by this dark blue dome. Past that, you can see walls that are very far away from this dome that the academy is encased in, and then you can see bright red glowing, and then you can see outside of that, beneath the academy is lava. So you can assume that this academy is within a volcano. As you start to move the rubble around, you see the rest of the first year and the eighth year students rushing past you. Hey, give me an insight check. The look on everyone's faces, like the students and the faculty, everyone that was in the main hall looks shocked, and like the students, like the younger students look like they're in fear of their lives. Like this is not supposed to happen. As you say that, you feel like a concussion, a concussive force push against you as the rubble flies off of her, and she starts charging down the hall and says, follow me, what are you doing, why did you stop moving? As you are now in like, before you were ahead of the pack, like you were one of the first people in the pack, now you are in like the middle of this massive group of first year and eighth year students, I need all of you to make a dexterity check right now. Or no, not dexterity checks, dexterity saving throws. What did you get? What did you get? What did you get? I need the exact number. Okay. Did anybody else get below a ten? Awesome. The three of y'all are running down the hall, and there's so much noise that you can't really make anything out, as dust falls to the ground and gets trampled for two points of damage, as you force yourself back up and start running with the crowd again. And y'all run... If you were to turn around in the middle of this crowd, you would have to make another dexterity saving throw to move the opposite direction of the crowd. Okay. Okay. So y'all are still running through this hall, and then all of a sudden, another blast hits the wall in front of you, and the rubble crushes a group of students that's in front of you. As humanoids start... like, all different races start to charge in to the academy through this hall. You see the high elf that spoke to you before, say, turn around and run the other way, as she starts casting magic at these people. And the group basically turns around and runs the other way, and you are now at the back of the group that is running in the opposite direction. The... it's her... it's her and two other Aether students that stay behind to fight off these people. You sure can try. There's no one directly within five feet of anyone yet, because the high elf that was with you is more of a ranged spellcaster, so she's not going to be right up on them. But I mean, I guess technically, yeah, they would be under rubble, but they would still be within five feet, so yeah, you would have advantage on that. Uh, fifteen hits. You pull your bow back, you release the arrow, and it flies, and it strikes a, um... it strikes a tiefling in the knee. Everybody else turns around and starts running the other way. Are you all going to run with the crowd? You start running with the crowd as they turn in the opposite direction, still being led by Aether students, as y'all start going back the way you just came, turning down different hallways and stuff, trying to get around this area. Um, you can hear footsteps behind you. Does anybody turn around to see what they are? You see the three Aether students that stayed behind are falling back, but they are still casting magic and making attacks and everything, and you see the high elf that was with you cast a very... a decently high level spell. Um, and she has to stand still for that. So she stands still for a moment, casts a spell behind her, so like more towards y'all, and then you hear screams. And as soon as you start hearing those screams, a wall forms behind you. And then you start hearing bangs on the wall and everything, and then y'all keep running down the way. Um, the two other first year students, or the two other eighth year students are past the wall, so they're with a group now, and they're running with you as well. Um, it's not a... it's not like a wall that's within the rest of the academy, it's like a wall that was put there by the high elf that was... yeah. So y'all are running... So the only options that you have been given right now is to get to the dorms, to the first year dorms. Um, so the only thing that... there's not like maps or anything throughout the school, so the only way you would know where to get that is by following the other eighth year students that know the campus. There's two behind you now. The high elf basically sacrificed herself to place that wall. So as you're doing this, um, people are still running through the hallways and everything. Um, I need everybody to make a wisdom saving throw. It is not a charm... er, yes, it is a charm effect. Two. So as you make this saving throw, nothing happens to you. Um, but you see these smaller sized, um, races, so like, um, gnomes and dwarves, um, they fall to the ground unconscious. Um, what is your hit points? Nothing happens to you. So as y'all are running through this hall, you take another turn. You're taking a series of turns throughout this area, um, until you finally reach this spire. And you see that the eighth year students are all commanding the first years to get inside as they basically post guard outside of this dorm area. Um, there are a few, as you are going up, you see different rooms. Um, so you're going through like the middle of this spire. Um, the exterior is like connected to like the actual dorms themselves. So y'all, you go into this spire, and as you're running up, you see a room that is marked with the four of your names. You're about halfway up the tower. You can't, you can't really gauge the tower because you can't really see outside right now, um, but you can see from like looking up that you're about, and looking down, you can see that you're about halfway up the tower. Um, you haven't gone inside your room, so you don't know what's in the room. So the four of you pile inside. Duff stays outside. Are you inside the door, or are you outside of the door? The tower seems secure. Um, as the three of you enter the door, the door slams shut behind you. Um, the door slams shut behind you, Duff is outside of the room, the three of you are in the room. What do you do? The room has a small window that you can see outside with. The door does not open. It's locked, yes. Um, do you have a thief's toolkit? You can, um, roll for that. How was that almost a nat 20? Oh, I thought you meant, like, you rolled a 19, and I was like, that's, an 8 is not, okay. Well, unfortunately, an 8 doesn't do it, um, and you cannot get the door unlocked. Um, you see further up, there is a, um, there's another room that has four other names on it. Who is she? Who are you talking about? Um, she didn't say anything specifically about entering other people's rooms, no, she did not. Make a dexterity saving throw. When you grab this handle, you feel your hand, and it feels like it's on fire. You shout a bunch of random words and nothing happens. Um, the moment your skin connects with the knob, like, your hand, like, you don't get burned. It creates a force that is so strong that it burns your hand and it knocks your hand away. When you grab the door knob and nothing happens. Um, you do not, they are all down below, but you do now hear active fighting down below you. Um, you look outside the window, and your window is positioned in a way to where you can, like, the tower is on the, like, so there's a pyramid in the middle, right? And then the dorms are, like, separated from the pyramid and within, like, form a fortress wall around the pyramid themselves. And then within, between the fortress wall and the pyramid are, like, lands of fields. Um, this will be edited out. Ashlyn, can you send a picture of that rough draft that you sent me? Of the school, yeah. And now we are resuming. This will not be edited out. So you look out your window and you can see that, like, you, your window points more outside of the academy than inside of the academy. To where, like, you can kind of see what's happening within the field and between the fortress wall that you are on and the pyramid, but you can't get, like, a clear shot. No, it's like, it's like a slit along the wall. Uh, on the, on what door? The door with your names? Yes, they are within reach. You can reach up and touch them. They're not at eye level. You touch your name and the door opens. You walk inside and the door shuts behind you and you hear a, um, you hear, like, a magical sound. All of a sudden, everybody sees in the middle of your room, there is a, um, there's kind of like a campfire. Um, it's just like the heating element within your room. Um, the fire changes into a bright green fire. The same green that the human Sinjin Elf would. Whenever his eyes change to green, it is the same green. And you see Sinjin Elf would appear within your fire. But it's not him, it's like a hologram, almost, of him. And he says, students, the school is under attack. You are about to be mass teleported to different cities throughout the world. And he disappears. Um, and then all of a sudden, I need everyone to make a decision whether you will, um, you are willing to or not willing to accept this mass teleport. Click, click. Nope, nope. It is, it is, it is happening now. You have to decide with your character and your character only. Wolf? You're good. Um, do you, are you willing to do this mass teleportation? All of you are instantly teleported and you are no longer in the academy. You are within a black room. It looks like the same exact room that you were teleported into the academy at. No, no, no, no, no. Not that black room. The black room where the dragonborn teleported you to the academy. So there's like a doorway that you can clearly walk out of. You can give me a perception check. You don't hear a word. You don't hear anything. Um, you hear like normal happenings throughout the city. Um, not unless you open the door. Uh, not as, not, not that appears to you. The only thing in the room is the four of you and um, five orange torches. One note. Uh, I mean, yeah, you can stand along the same wall that the door is on. So are y'all taking a rest or are y'all waiting? So I will tell you right now, it has been almost, it has been a full day since you had your last rest. And if you go much longer, you will be getting levels of exhaustion. Yeah, you sure can. Um, it's not a permanent teleportation circle. Um, it's just like a room that they use to cast teleportation circles since it is such a massively obvious spell to cast. So are y'all taking a long rest or are y'all waiting? Yeah, you only need four hours. Um. All right, so I'm going to say everybody took a long rest. Um. So. At the end of the long rest, you're still in the room. Nope. Everybody has to wait. Okay. Yes. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. As you say, hide in the shadows. Nope, it is just a black, it's like a folded up black cloak with your name, um, like, uh, embroidered into it. Like a button in the middle of the cloak with the shadow people symbol on it. Okay. So does anybody put the cloak on? Boron does? Okay, if I could have you two please go to the one-on-one with DM. Both of you. Well. Hello. Well. Both of you, while you are wearing the black cloak, get a plus five distil. All right. Now back to, or, um. I'll say it gives you advantage on stealth, though, instead of plus five. Yep. So let me redo that. This will be, all of that will be edited out. This will be the real part. You will now receive advantage on stealth. Back to the general party chat. All right. So the two of you put your black cloaks on. And what do you do? What does the party do? They do not. Okay. As you step out of this building, you realize you are not in a city. And the noise that you were hearing, Kethic, immediately stops as the door opens. You are in a dense forest. Surrounded by trees on every side. It is silent. There is no sound. Not birds chirping. Not things crawling through the grass. Not the rush of wind blowing through the leaves. It is silent. I mean, it's a forest. Oh, you're asking if it's that forest. Okay. No, it is not the forest that you grew up in. I thought you meant if it seemed like the same kind of trees. And I was like, I mean, it's a forest. Hold up. Hold up. Do you just know tree facts? Like... Like how Brennan know bird facts. Do you just know tree facts? I... Okay, why would you need tree facts for a fantasy novel? Like what... Okay. Okay. Okay, you know what? You're in a large Midwest forest. There's oak trees. There's spruce trees. There's all kinds of trees in this forest, alright? I don't know what kind of trees they are. I don't know. I didn't do that much planning for this, alright? Well, they do in this world. They do in this world. As you start walking around, you notice... Give me a perception check. You notice that your footsteps don't even make noise. Catholic does not. Everybody else does. It's midday. Oh. It's... I mean, it's like shaded. It's not like so dense where no light gets through. It's like you can still see what's happening. It appears to be a normal forest. Like you can see birds flying around. You can see all kinds of stuff like that would be in a forest. You just can't hear it. Catholic, you hear it. The rest of the party does not. You are ten feet away from the party right now. You sure did. Party hears it except Catholic. Catholic hears it. The other two do not. You see smoke coming from the west. There's not specifically a clear path, no. You can see the building that you came out of. It's still there. So you go to the fire or the smoke? You walk towards the smoke. It takes about 30 minutes to get there. It is an empty camp. Like there's a clearing of trees and within that clearing of trees you see this camp. There are two shelters. Make a perception check for me. There is nothing left in this camp. And whenever you're looking around, do you step into the clearing? Okay. There's footprints all around the camp. There's some coming, there's some going. This looks like a fairly used camp. Yes. They stop at the edge of the clearing. Anybody that wants to make a perception check? Is Catholic the only one rolling? Sure. Yep. Everybody looks behind them and looks at the ground and realizes there's no footprints behind them. Like you're not leaving footprints behind you. You step into the clearing and you start hearing the crackle of fire and you're leaving footprints now. He did not, but regardless of how close you are, you can no longer hear him. There are no birds within the clearing, but no, you cannot hear forest sounds or birds or anything. You just hear the crackle of the fire. In Boron, when you take a step outside of the clearing, it goes silent again. The four of you walk into the clearing and you hear the sound of a fire crackling. Everybody roll initiative. Nope, roll initiative. Does that stay a 20 with your dex modifier? Okay. So as you are talking to the rest of your group, out of one of the tents that is within this springs a goblin. Does a 19 hit you, Dust? That's going to be 7 points of damage to Dust. Then the second one, we'll look at Wolve. Wolve does a natural 20 hit you. Are you sure it hits? For a total of 7, or not 7, double die, or double damage, double die basically. So that's 3, 4, 5, 6. That's 6 points of damage to Wolve. And that will move to Dust's turn. Y'all are all within like 5 feet of each other right now. Both of them are about 60 feet away from you. 6-0, yes. That's a clear. They shot you with their bows. So you're going to prepare your movement to move with Kepic. Okay, it is Wolve's turn. Okay. What is your movement speed when you're shifted? So you are 30 feet away from the goblins. That will now be this guy's turn. Wolve is the closest. I am so sorry. I should really record my die rolls and send them to you. It is another nat 20. This die is doing amazing. It is the same exact die that I rolled for you earlier. I don't think that's going to matter. That is 16 points of damage. It is 2d6 plus 4 on a nat 20. Are you double damaged? You took 6 damage before. What is your max? 10. What was your temporary? 4. So you were down to 8. 8 minus 12 is negative 10. Wolve barely survives. Yes, Wolve barely survives. But she has knocked it down. She is running towards this goblin. This goblin sees this half-wolf creature running at her, draws his bow, and snifes her in the face. That is now the other goblin's turn. There are only two. They took a sneak attack round, and now this is their roll-in initiative. Boron does a 17 at you. 60 feet. I rolled 2. I'm going to roll 1. That is 5 points of damage to you. Boron and Kethyx, who has the higher DEX? That is Kethyx. Kethyx, you are... 16 hits. Kethyx. Kethyx is dead. Next is Boron. You shoot the crossbow, go ahead and roll for attack. An 18 sure does. He is still up. He is severely injured though. Yeah, you can walk 30 feet. Alright, that goes back up to dust. Alright. That is your full action, I'm assuming? Alright, that is Wolf. Wolf, you get resurrected, and you have 1 hit point. She is prone, yes. I'm going to say no. You do have to take a full action to stand up. Or half movement, yeah. You would still be 15 feet away from the goblins. I believe it is 30 feet. You can hit this goblin with the dagger. Okay, go ahead and roll for attack. A 16 hit. Just 4? This dagger flies out of your hand and pierces this goblin. He stumbles back, but then draws his bow. He is not dead. It is his turn in initiative. He gets stabbed by this dagger, draws his bow, and releases the arrow. No. But it is a natural 19. Plus 4, making it a 23 to hit. Wolf, does a 23 hit you? I think it might. Oh, I think it does. Wolf, that is a full 4 points of damage. Wolf throws this dagger at this goblin, pierces this goblin in the chest. This goblin draws back his bow, releases his arrow, flies, and strikes. The arrow is still in Wolf's head. Wolf strikes this arrow in the same exact spot, splits the original arrow in half, taking the second arrow straight through the same spot. And that will be Kethick's turn. An 11 does not hit. 14 does not hit. That will go to Boron. Okay, you can try. A 22? 22 misses. I'm kidding, yeah, 22 full on hits. Boron sees this arrow get split down the other arrow, knocking out Wolf once again. Wolf falls back to the ground. Kethick runs up, swings at this goblin with one dagger. The goblin matrixes out of the way of the first one. Kethick swings with the other dagger, matrixes out of the way of that one, and then Boron is like, alright, I've had enough of this. Raises his crossbow, fires once, goes into the goblin's chest, and he drops. And that is the end of this episode.