seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Australia
seen from South Africa
seen from United States
seen from China
seen from United Kingdom
seen from Japan
seen from Austria
seen from United States
seen from Japan
seen from United States
seen from China
seen from United Kingdom
Godric (fairy warlock): Guys, I want a sip.
Una (genasi artificer): From the cursed well?
Godric: Yes. I'm not asking permission, I'm telling you what I'm planning to do.
Thaddeus (khajiit paladin): It's appreciated.
Billie (gnome ardent): Okay, but... Can we come with you?
Godric: Yeah!
Billie: We know what you're like. Once you get an idea in your head-
Godric: I have a very small head. There's only room for one thought at a time.
Tati (playing Seraph): I want to ask around Rustcliff and find out why the townsfolk don't live inside the wall anymore.
DM: It turns out that around 300 years ago, the inhabitants started having nightmares. All of them. The same nightmare, every night, of a giant lizard creature that turned into a many-legged horror and ate the world. Visions of the Red Mountain crumbling, of Shibanah collapsed in on itself, of Suda a flattened wasteland.
Adam (playing Billie): God, okay.
Hamish (playing Thaddeus): Guess that's the 'leviathan' I heard of.
DM: The miners dug further and further under the cliff in search of good stone over the centuries, and there are a lot of houses built inside the cavern now. Those were the first to get the nightmares, then those who lived in the open air. The whole place was almost abandoned until someone realised that you don't get the nightmares if you don't sleep in one of the stone buildings. They rebuilt the town from wood out here, and still mine the stone but export all of it now.
Tati: Do the people who buy the stone get the nightmares?
DM: Don't know, don't care. Nobody's complained.
Tati: *frowns* Nobody's realised.
Hamish: Can I find anyone who was alive before they moved outside the wall? Dwarves live to 300, right?
DM: You do in fact find one decrepit dwarf who remembers living inside the wall in his childhood. He says that the nightmares began when he was very small; by his late teens everyone was getting them; by the time he was thirty the town had been abandoned.
Tati: I want to go right up to the wall and do an Arcana check to see what would cause nightmares. Some kind of curse?
DM: You're not far off. It seems that the stone itself is not magical, but over time some kind of corruption has seeped into it.
Marijn (playing Godric): I want to ask what else changed around the time they moved out of the wall. Different water source?
DM: They actually did dig a new well outside, since it was inconvenient to keep using the one inside the stone quarry.
Marijn: So poisoned water? Cursed water? We should sneak inside the wall-
Tati: Yes.
Marijn: -and drink from it.
Tati: What? No!
Party recap:
Travelling Trauma Centre declared opposition to Ioreth, who wanted them to fetch the crown of ancient Gandarall for her but refused to reveal her reasons. With the race on, TTC bought a variety of flying mounts, researched the location of the legendary Crownkeeper's Lodge, and set off for the Red Mountain.
While pausing to gather information in the foothill village of Rustcliff, the party came to the startling realisation that the local myth of a 'leviathan that will destroy the world' refers to the Tarrasque, which is almost certainly slumbering under this very mountain range - and nobody knows how long it will be until the worldkiller awakens...
DM: Seraph, the town looks somewhat different from what you remember from your time travel. It was built entirely from the red stone in the quarry, including a token wall defining the boundary and keeping out wild animals. Now there are a lot of wooden structures outside the wall, and it looks like the inner town is completely uninhabited.
Tati (playing Seraph): Huh, that's weird. I kind of want to go find out why. But we should get the crown first.
Adam (playing Billie): We are on a tight schedule, but we could use some local expertise on these mountains. Let's pause here.
Tati: Deal. Let's not take our mounts into Rustcliff. We don't want to cause a stir - we shouldn't announce TTC's presence here. Let's not give Ioreth any information she doesn't already have.
Adam: Good call. We can leave the mounts with the absent players and the NPCs.
DM: Alright. What are you doing in town?
Hamish (playing Thaddeus): Let's split into two groups. Me and Billie, Godric and Seraph?
Marijn (playing Godric): I say, "I'd personally like to go do my own thing, but if you insist..."
Tati: "The last time I let you go off on your own you ended up cornered by Ioreth, I've learned my lesson."
Marijn: "Alright, alright."
Adam: Thaddeus and I are masquerading as husband and wife, and Godric is tethered to Seraph's shoulder basically on a child leash.
Hamish: He can be her pet fairy.
Tati: 'He can't talk, he can only do interpretive dance.'
Marijn: Humiliating.
Marijn (playing Godric): I want to go inside the quarry and make an Arcana check.
DM: The same latent elemental taint you found on the stones oustide is evident here. It's stronger on the uncut stone.
Tati (playing Seraph): We need to find out where the stone is going now, who's buying it. What are their nightmares like? If they're the same, maybe that means we've still got a lot of time before the Tarrasque wakes; if they've progressed, the timeline's moving along.
Adam (playing Billie): I feel like we've got bigger priorities.
Tati: Yeah, I don't mean right this minute. But it should be on our to-do list.
Hamish (playing Thaddeus): Rather than actually sleep in the old town, I want to try meditating.
Tati (playing Seraph): Could Galwyn lead us in a group meditation?
DM: Sure, Galwyn guides you all through a meditation in one of the stone buildings in Old Rustcliff. Your vision darkens briefly and you find yourselves back in Suda. You're standing on a street in the Land District. You see a market down the road, there are people moving around. No sound, the silence is almost pressing against your ears.
Adam (playing Billie): Can we hear each other?
DM: You can see each others' mouths moving, but there's no sound.
Adam: Can I telepath with Seraph?
DM: That works, but when you do your vision wavers like it's going to pull you out of the meditation.
Tati: Let's not.
Marijn (playing Godric): I want to move toward the market.
DM: Yup, you walk down the street. Suddenly the oppressive silence is broken by an enormous crash from the east.
Tati: I jump.
DM: You turn. The Suda Palace is crumbling as a lizard as big as the palace tears its way out. The noise is stark and terrible.
Hamish: Does it match the descriptions we've had?
DM: Yes. It starts ripping through the city toward you. People scream and run - but still the only sound you can hear is the rumbling of breaking stone and rending earth. Suddenly the creature's skin splits like a cocoon and a titanic centipede emerges and starts coiling around buildings, crushing them easily.
Tati: We should get out! I make frantic 'cut it!' motions to Galwyn.
DM: The Tarrasque rumbles over you and you die and wake up back in the abandoned house.
Everyone: Don't like that!
DM: The gate to the old town is locked and chained.
Marijn (playing Godric): I fly over the wall.
Tati (playing Seraph): Are we not allowed in, or is it symbolically shut to keep the terrors of the old town contained?
DM: Yeah, you won't get in trouble.
Marijn: I look for the well.
DM: The town radiates out from a central plaza and the well is there.
Marijn: Is there a bucket?
DM: It's rotted away in 300 years of disuse.
Hamish (playing Thaddeus): I still have my bucket from when we went to the Bucket Realm. And rope.
DM: You manage to acquire Slightly Yuck Water.
Marijn: Arcana check!
DM: It's not magical at all.
Marijn: *frowns*
Adam (playing Billie): How about a Nature check?
DM: There's algae in it. Some tiny life forms wiggling about.
Marijn: Ew.
Tati: I don't know that we need to drink it if we know it's nonmagical.
Marijn: *disappointed* Yeah, I'm good.
Tati (playing Seraph): Wait, have we done a History check on the creature from the nightmares? Have I ever heard of anything like that? That's a 29.
DM: The only thing you can think of that matches the descriptions you've gotten - a leviathan that will destroy the world, a giant lizard or insect that eats the world - is the Tarrasque.
Tati: *eyes widen* I go pale and say as casually as I can, "Hey, uh. Godric. You ever heard of the Tarrasque?"
Marijn (playing Godric): "Nope."
DM: You didn't even roll for it.
Marijn: It's funnier this way.
Hamish (playing Thaddeus): I'd like to do a Religion check, and I'd also like to use my knowledge of Primordial to see if I think the red stone has been affected by an elemental creature.
DM: Doesn't seem primordial, and your Religion check doesn't turn anything up.
Hamish: Hmm, maybe not the Tarrasque, then. Isn't it an elemental?
DM: Nah, it's a natural beast. A heckin big one, but still just a really big, really hungry animal.
Adam (playing Billie): What a relief!
DM: *on wiki* Oh, oops! The Tarrasque is elemental! In that case you would find primordial influence in the rock.
Hamish: Shit.
DM: *reading* It was created by the Primordials in the Dawn War to destroy the creation of the gods, i.e. everything living on the Material Plane. So your Religion check would totally turn up the Tarrasque too!
Hamish: Fuck.
DM: *happily* I should really double-check these things before I throw them at you.
