Last time, as the sagacious reader might recall, the valiant heroes had struck down the fireball-happy master of the shadow creatures, and the players delight in telling Gilbert how much ass he’d kicked. Using pretzel rods as cigars, they settle in for a classy night of gaming, while in the background an infrequent player makes a druid.

Transcriber’s note: thanks to the transcriber being an idiot, the audio skips a little. Not too bad but it may make for some loss in places.

DM: One of the more interesting people you managed to rescue is a Horic Joust. You weren’t given a list of the people that are missing but you do find that the people you found here is short, in terms of the total number of people. You were expecting to find maybe 30, 35 people, you’ve only found about 20 or so. Horic is of House Medani. After pulling the cages in, he does approach you. “Ah, my rescuers! Thank you. You have come but just in time. “

Silence.

DM: “A quiet bunch, I see… I would have been taken like my brothers, a few of the others were taken from here. I would have been next.”
Leonarus: “Taken where?”
DM: “That I can’t say. They pulled the cages down and did terrible things…”
Leonarus: “Who is they?”
DM: “The shadow things.”
Leonarus: “At the behest of their leader?”
DM: “Another one. All of them but the leader here, the one who controlled the other shadows, there were also larger shadows. They seemed different from the other ones, almost like a different shade of black. A deeper black. You looked into them, you’d almost look into nothing…”

House Medani’s Dragonmark is the Mark of Detecting, but Horic reveals he was unable to use his powers to detect the shadows. This is very odd and some cause for concern. Relatedly, they find an amulet with a mysterious purple gem that seems to draw in the viewer!

Warwick: “It’s an amulet.”
Leonarus: Stone?
Tristan: Gem.
Leonarus: Gem dragon. Oh no, it’s breathing dehydration!
Warwick: That’s a 22 on my Appraise.
DM: As you gaze – do you actually have the tools for that or are you just RPing it?
Warwick: I was just RPing it. I couldn’t find a jeweler’s loupe in the equipment list.
Leonarus: Dude, it counts as artisan’s tools.

Warwick goes silent and stares at the gem for a couple minutes till they snap him out of it. They head back up to cash in on their reward from the job board guy.

DM: “Welcome back! I’m surprised you lived! Tell me what happened.”
Leonarus: I regale him.
DM: “Truly!”
Warwick: Truly!
Tristan: “I have never been so regaled.”

They have stopped the vanishing, but King’s Forest is apparently the next source of disruption. Shadows escaped into the forest, just after they went down into the lower areas! But reward first, in the form of a hefty sack of gold. The guy stiffs them a bit but they each get a crapton of gold, 12,500. Horic offers to take them to a nearby town for a reward from his house for rescuing him. Gilbert attempts to replace himself with a figure.

Gilbert: This isn’t quite big enough to be my replacement…
DM: There’s a unicorn on the screen. Gilbert has been replaced with a unicorn.
Tristan: Noooo! No ponies!
Leonarus: It’s a pegasus, you asshole.
DM: What, did I piss you off?
Leonarus and Gilbert: Yes!

The group menaces Gilbert with an extremely sketchy chef-shaped timer, prompting him to quit. With their departure not till the next morning, they elect to seek lodging, and the DM tosses out several inn names of questionable quality.

DM: Nine Lizard Tavern… The Blond Blue-Eyed Knight…
Tristan: That sounds like a nice Aryan institution!

Someone finally moves the timer away from the microphone, putting an end to the constant ticking.

Leonarus: You know, in D&D a metronome is a gnome that keeps time for you.
Goruza: I thought it was like Tim Gunn or something, a metro gnome.

Horic arranges for a carriage and horses for the group. As they join up with him the next morning, he gives Warwick a funny look!

Leonarus: Are you wearing the Mask of Funny Looks?
Warwick: No, just a plain old blank mask.
Leonarus: Did someone scrawl on it while you were asleep?
DM: There’s nothing wrong with the mask. He shouldn’t be giving you that look, like you threw him off real quickly.
Leonarus: “What troubles you about our compatriot?”
DM: “Normally I’m very good about detecting groups of people approaching me, but for some reason when I turned I was only expecting to see five people. There’s six of you...” Actually seven…?

However many people were there, he didn’t expect Warwick. The group splits up between carriages and horses.

Tristan: “Either way.”

A very long silence.

DM: “You want me to decide for you, sir? I’m confused…”
Tristan: “I shall walk!”
Leonarus: “All right. Heads the carriage, tails the horse.” (miming flipping a coin) “What the?!” It balances perfectly. “...guess I walk.”
DM: “Stabler! A DRAGON!”
Warwick: “I think I shall reside in the carriage.”
DM: “Excellent. Two horses and the largest carriage you have.”
Leonarus: He wheels up that mobile fortress.
DM: “A little big, sir!” “It’s either this or the small one, that’s all we got!”
Leonarus: “I need the biggest seed bell you have. No, that’s too big.”

Somehow Warwick ends up killing the driver and assuming his identity, except not. The driver spends some time bemoaning to Warwick about the decline of carriage business, and incidentally drops a nugget about bandits in the king’s forest! The day passes uneventfully, and they stop at a small cabin that serves as the first waypoint on the trip. They set up a watch order, kicking the NPCs out of the order as they do.

DM: You don’t quite…
Tristan: You don’t hear what’s out there…
Leonarus: Or see it.
Warwick: Such a mediocre roll…
Goruza: Don’t hear anything?
DM: Not at first. You hear the crackling of a fire… the chirps of some animals…
Warwick: Chirp chirp! I’M AN ANIMAL!

But then Goruza hears some rustling! Then rolls uncharacteristically poorly on her Listen check, but sees movement approaching. She bangs on the door!

DM: As you’re banging on the door, something bursts out.
Tristan: (dramatic stinger)
DM: He’s looking around desperately, breathing heavily. He sees you, goes to speak… when a dagger pierces his throat. Attached to the back of the dagger is a rope.
Tristan: GET OVER HERE! Wait, this person came out of the woods?
DM: Yes. As he came close, dagger to the neck and he’s getting dragged back to the woods.
Goruza: Well, I’m still…
DM: Banging on the cabin. Listen checks. How deep is your slumber?

The rolls don’t go well… Meanwhile, the brush stops moving and all is silent and motionless again. Horik emerges and is shocked to hear of this tale, even though he saw the figure for a moment. Goruza describes a blade of purest black as the others slowly lurch their ways out.

Leonarus: I step back in. Give Warwick a nudge with the bone boot I wear…
Warwick: (sadly) How much damage do I take…
Leonarus: (grabs a dHandful) 10… 24… 28… 30… 48… 59… 72…
DM: Now that you’ve calculated how much damage your foot received when you missed and accidentally hit the floor…

They follow the blood trail into the forest, only to find that it stops abruptly several minutes in. Warwick abruptly feels the amulet vibrating strangely in his pocket.

DM: As you take the amulet out of your pocket it lifts out of your hand.
Leonarus: Seize it….
DM: You snag the necklace and the amulet just sort of sits, just before the trees. A wall of shadows begins to form almost a door, perfectly fitting inside the trees. The amulet stops just before the door.
Warwick: Now tear the door off its hinges.
Leonarus: (miming kicking the door down)
DM: An almost-door. You pull the almost-hinges off the door and the door just chills out. Like, “I’m a passageway… there’s no actual door…”
Tristan: (blows on the door with increasing fervor)
DM: You are winded.

Leonarus makes a secret gesture to Warwick to beseech a mindlink. He dons a hat. Tristan confuses the gesture for one of asking Warwick to change masks, startling Leonarus, who didn’t expect to actually hide his intentions. Leonarus then steps through the portal.

DM: Stepping through this portal gate is an odd sensation—
Leonarus: There’s a tree directly behind it! (miming stepping through, smashing into the tree, and immediately collapsing)
Warwick: “Imbecile.”
DM: You don’t see the frame at all, but the moment you pass through it, you’re somewhere else. You’re standing atop a cliff.
Leonarus: “I’m on a cliff.”
DM: Above you, the darkest, brightest sky you’ve ever seen.
Leonarus: “An oxymoron lurks above me.”
DM: The place seems almost unnaturally bright and unnaturally dark at the same time. The sky seems too bright for as dark as it is on the ground.

With two paths to explore and unable to return, he keeps up a running commentary on his location and surroundings to the others.

DM: You’re able to hear [Warwick’s] thoughts, but Warwick, you are not able to hear his thoughts.
Leonarus: Wow. How am I communicating all this time.
DM: I meant to stop you earlier…

They quickly clarify that mindlink is planar in range, and turns out they’re communicating just fine. Leonarus picks up the trail of blood again, primarily by slipping on it, but after only a short trip, discovers another spot that looks like it should have a portal. The other direction leads to the spherical boundaries of the pocket. He prods the edge of the sphere.

DM: Give me a Strength check.
Leonarus: 18.
DM: As you do that, it feels like it wants to pull your hand through it. You’re able to hold yourself steady, but any weaker and you feel like your arm may have shot itself out. To where, you don’t know. Give me a Knowledge(arcana).
Leonarus: Only 11, I rolled crap.
DM: You don’t recall the details of what this could be, but you do remember ancient tales of an ancient sorcery that allowed for a bubble space.

Lacking any other options, Leonarus returns to the second door indentation, only to hear mumbling and muttering – one angry voice, one calmer one! Both are invisible, but this doesn’t discourage Leonarus; he charges in and attempts to grapple! Naturally he fails, and despite his Listen being good enough to get a bead on them, he can’t manage to hit the concealment miss percentage to save his life through the entire battle.

DM: Do you have anything preventing crits, back attacks, that sort of thing?
Leonarus: I don’t think my armor does that yet…
Tristan: 13 on 6d6!
DM: The d6s like you lots.
Tristan: 13 on 6d6!
DM: A total of 25 points of damage as he finds a nice nifty weak point in your armor. Stabbing it as if there were a sign there saying it was your kidneys.

Leonarus blows his attacks again, but a solid blackness appears in front of him and deals 10 physical…

DM: Uh…. Uh, like a dark feeling. We’ll just go with…
Tristan: Vile damage?!
DM: I don’t know how to describe vile damage. Is it burning, is it…
Tristan: It HURTS!
Leonarus: It sucks.
DM: Could you tell the difference if you got hit with it? Like, “Oh, ouch, that’s VILE…”
Tristan: The way [a different DM] described it, I’d think so!
DM: You feel a tearing, almost. You look down and see the wound, expecting it to heal again, but you don’t. Parts of it begin to stitch closed, but parts of it do not.
Tristan: It’s bypassed his mutant healing factor.
Leonarus: So how much vile damage do I take?
DM: Just 2, he rolled bad.
Leonarus: “They inflict wounds that do not heal. I am probably going to die. So save yourselves.”
DM: I love the calm voice. “I am going to die. Please save yourselves. Goodbye, my friends.”
Warwick: Wait, did you actual say that through the link?
Leonarus: What?
Warwick: That you’re going to die?
Leonarus: Yes.
Warwick: Oh, okay.
Tristan: “Is he just being dramatic?”
Warwick: “No, I think this is serious, he’s not one to say such thing.”
Leonarus: They’ve cut me down to half hit points in one turn of combat and I can’t heal some of the wounds they’re inflicting, so yeah, another round of combat, they both hit me and I’ll probably drop.
Warwick: Okay, I’m going through.
Leonarus: What part of ‘save yourself’, you evil bastard, don’t you understand?
Warwick: Oh, I didn’t hear the ‘save yourself’ part. Eh!
Tristan: Now Vox will probably come charging to your rescue…

A die turns traitor on the DM, meaning one misses his attack, and Leonarus returns fine with two strikes that hit! They briefly question if one is visible now…

DM: Your Ebony Eyes are working against you, right now. They’re concealed in darkness, you see through darkness, you don’t see them.
Leonarus: It doesn’t affect magical shit like that! It’s only a level one spell, it doesn’t do awesome shit! If it’s dark out, I can see as if it wasn’t dark! That’s what it amounts to. And I can see through magical darkness. If they’re concealed in darkness I can see what’s beneath the darkness, and that’s about it.
DM: We’ll keep the initial stuff but now they have 20% concealment instead.

One of the foes attempts a bull rush on Leonarus, and with a natural 1 on his Strength check he pretty much agrees to it implicitly.

Leonarus: Can I get a Wilhelm scream, people?
Tristan: Aah!
DM: He pushes you back, past his friend, and you fly off. You feel yourself fall for a single moment. As you hit the edge, you fall through. Warwick, give me a Reflex save!
Warwick: A critical failure COULD happen…
Leonarus: Double kill! I take the fall damage, you take the falling-on damage!

A hand reaches out of the portal to grab something, but Warwick had put the gem away so it seizes only air. Warwick seizes the hand in turn!

Warwick: Ah, with my Strength of 11, let’s see how this goes… 5.
DM: Sadly, while you’re able to grab, his strength overwhelms you, and he pulls free.
Leonarus: I cast Hold Person on the hand.
Warwick: Ooh.
DM: You are still dazed.
Leonarus: How long am I dazed for?!
DM: This is all happening just as you fell out.
Leonarus: …Goruza, wanna help out?
Goruza: Am I CLOSE enough to do a grapple?
DM: It matters how close you were to them.
Goruza: Well I was probably close enough to Warwick – oh, here it is. I got that 3 earlier for this, because I got a natural 20.
Leonarus: On demand!
DM: Roll your Strength!
Goruza: 18 plus 3 is 21.

They yank hard and come out with only the arm, as their foe apparently sacrifices it to escape them. The gate shatters!

Leonarus: Well, good work on disarming him.
Goruza: (exasperated sigh)
Warwick: Let’s see how fast I can pull up The Price is Wrong.
DM: The trees seem to vanish. This entranceway is gone.
Warwick: “Curiouser and curiouser.”
Leonarus: I’ll have more to say when I’m not dazed!
DM: You’re all right now.
Warwick: “By the way, Leonarus, you’ll be happy to know we disarmed him.”
Leonarus: …I see how it is!
Goruza: Using your own jokes against you, hell yeah.

The arm has a curious marking that may or may not be a dragonmark. They also score another magical gem, this one blue. The hand disintegrates as they examine it.

DM: All your hit points are healed but the two.
Leonarus: Yeah, I know how it works.
DM: I’m sorry, I just have to inform you, just like developers have to inform you that you died, in case you weren’t quite sure of the situation. Every game, “Oh, I guess I died.” “YOU DIED.” Thank you, video game. I wasn’t sure.

It turns into a ribbing of Feign Death. They head back to camp, finding Horic and the driver standing over two dead and one captive bandit. Horic reveals he could detect none of them as they approached, and questions if they have another gem.

Warwick: 28 to my Bluff… “We’re GHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSTS! Oooooooh!”

Warwick uses his Bluff check to conceal their acquisition of another gem. They return to sleep! Meanwhile, the occasional player passes her sheet to the DM for approval.

DM: What is, in fact, a Dan O Saur?
Lilith: Dinosaur!
DM: There’s a space between the Dan, the O, and the Saur. It’s clearly a Dan O Saur.
Goruza: Everybody gets their load of shit. There’s yours.
Leonarus: Open the door, get on the floor. Everybody walk –
Leonarus and Warwick: The Dan. O. Saur.

The next day passes completely uneventfully, as the DM questions if they want to actually talk about stuff.

Warwick: I’ll just make more small talk. Tristan likes to kill people for a living, I’ll talk to him about it!
Tristan: “Who says I kill people for a living? That’s an awful accusation to make.”
DM: “Who’s been talking about my profession?!”
Warwick: “Considering how handily you took down that one fellow…”
Tristan: “If anyone in this group were a professional killer, I’d assume it was your companion.”
Warwick: “What gave him away? Was it the bone armor, or the swirling daggers that float around him? I know skilled killing when I see it.”
DM: If you look at his sheet, you can see Knowledge(things that kill).
Warwick: Knowledge(killing).
Leonarus: Knowledge(player characters). “Yeah, I rolled that so I know that you can kill.”

Lilith and her raptor hide in the bushes as the carriage approaches, aware of their approach before they are aware of her. Gilbert, with a lucky roll, picks her out almost immediately, with Warwick achieving the same a moment later.

DM: If either of you have Knowledge(animal), you can try to guess what it is.
Warwick: It’s a bloody dinosaur, I know what it is…
Tristan: There’s a 1. “It’s a DRAGON!”
Leonarus: “IT’S THE TARRASQUE!”
Gilbert: Is it a horse?
DM: No, it not a horse.
Warwick: “It seems we have a visitor on the road.”
Tristan: It’s a Stromboli golem!
DM: “I see what you’re talking about now! …probably shouldn’t have said that out loud.” Give me a Listen check – oh, you’re part of the group already, you’re dropping your dice.

Lilith emerges from the bush, but no one notices her because people are walking the dinosaur and the music distracts them. The halfling advances towards them, riding atop her Dan O Saur, and the party assembles to ‘greet’ her. Lilith introduces herself!

DM: “Why ya down here, Rose?”
Lilith: “I’ve been seeing odd things.”
Tristan: Like dinosaurs.
DM: “Ah yes. Living amongst the woods, you would see a lot.”
Lilith: “Yes, but odder than normal.”
DM: “Tell me, have you seen shadowy creatures?”
Lilith: “Yes. They’ve been showing up a lot more than the bandits that I’ve seen.”

Horic invites Lilith to come along, not at all conveniently! Even with their increased numbers, Horic suggests they can make it to Wroat by midday on the morrow. The group spends a while trying to figure out exactly how the name of this town should be pronounced, because no one is sure.

DM: Rote? Rot? Raout?
Leonarus: “I will make no pretense of trusting you, but we will allow you to accompany us for a time.”
Lilith: “Understandable.”
Warwick: “Tell me, what do you call that beast you’re riding?”
Goruza: Dan O Saur.
Lilith: Dan for short.
DM: Denver the Last Dan O Saur.
Leonarus: (pulls up the theme song so quickly, he had obviously been planning to do so for some time)
Goruza: God damn it, Leonarus.
Leonarus: (looking at the app he’d pull the song from) Okay, Denver the Last Dinosaur is here, but not Widget the World-Watcher? I’m offended.
Warwick: I kind of am too.
Tristan: Widget.

They arrive at their next station, and take up the same watch order as before. Lilith offers to take a shift, which the group regards with great skepticism.

Leonarus: “What’s your NAME?”
Lilith: “Lilith Rose.”
Leonarus: “Lilith. That’s a trustworthy name.”
Warwick: “Just because it’s common amongst succubi doesn’t mean we shouldn’t trust her.”
Tristan: “I never met a man named KRAAL that I could trust.”
Warwick: “But Cruroar, common as mud…”
DM: Not in this dimension! Not a single Cruroar on my NPC list. Every time it came up, I crossed it off.
Warwick: Twenty. Seven. Hundred. Times.

Goruza’s watch is peaceful, and she rouses Warwick in turn. With a masterful roll, he hears something on the other side of the cabin, a rustling. A 23 on Move Silently sees him circling around to the back of the cabin, but he can barely see movement that might have been nothing, or the wind.

Goruza: It could have been the dinosaur farting.
DM: It’s silent again.

Warwick manifests Read Thoughts to detect what might be out there. The DM rolls up some saves.

DM: Awesome job, 20s. Awesome. You hear whispers. “Did he see us? I don’t think he saw me. I’m a good hider today.”
Tristan: Just not a smart one.

Tristan and DM debate how many cops the Terminator killed. The DM then questions Warwick on his intents.

Tristan: Thunderstone!
Warwick: I was thinking about that. But I think I’ll try a more subtle approach. Oh wait, can I see any of them?
DM: No you don’t.
Warwick: Thunderstone may be the option.

In the background, Leonarus suggests that Terminator 2 would have lost all its respect if the Terminator had sunk into the molten metal while heiling. Warwick whips out the thunderstone! The DM blows the saves for the two people caught in the effective radius, while the group in the cabin lurches awake from the sound.

Leonarus: “Oh, he’s hurling thunderstones at things again.” I riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiise.
DM: No. Bluff check. Do you assume he’s lying?
Leonarus: I lie to myself!
DM: You go back to sleep. You don’t trust him.
Leonarus: He’s the boy who thunderstoned wolf.
DM: That’s an expensive boy.
Leonarus: He throws a thunderstone, we all wake up and go running into the forest to look for the wolf, we come back and he’s laughing at us. Then one day he got really savaged by a wolf and threw a thunderstone, but nobody woke up!
Warwick: “I am about to say something I rarely every say. I’m sorry.” …next night. BWAM! “WOLF! WOLF!”

Warwick sees people faintly running away, while the rest of the group heads out to see what’s going on. Warwick motions for Leonarus to go around the other side to flank.

DM: You circle around the back. Do you proceed silently?
Leonarus: I have no CAPABILITY of proceeding silently! Let’s see what happens when I try to move silently. (rolling) Natural 1! Negative 5.
DM: For some reason, the bones you chose to make your armor out of were as hollow as possible, making a loud clattering sound.
Leonarus: Thank god these guys are deaf.
Tristan: His bone armor is actually a xylophone when he turns.
Warwick: “If the stone hasn’t deafened you, I suggest you should come out. Now.”

Nothing comes of Warwick’s Intimidate. Leonarus fires a knife into a random bush… and rolls his third natural 1 in a row.

DM: The dagger flies off. Into space.
Tristan: Hobbles a horse.
DM: You see a bird, just, “Aaaah!” Bam.
Leonarus: Huh. …I meant to do that.

Leonarus continues to fire blindly into bushes and hiding spots, since he has infinite knives from his Persisted spell. He does eventually hit, and Warwick fires an Energy Push into the bush! Initiative ensues!

DM: All right. Lilith, you come around the corner to see all of them staring down or looking at an individual who has a life in his leg, and he has experienced energy damage to the face. They’ve said they want him alive.
Tristan: No disintegration.

The DM insists Leonarus is in fact Card Captor Sakura, and creeps himself out in the process of envisioning it. Lilith takes forever to decide on an action, so they move on to Goruza.

Goruza: I’m going to give him some subdual damage, if he’s trying to get up.
DM: Not moving yet.
Warwick: He’s probably already dead. We’re just hitting the body. Somehow that thunderstone killed him. “My one weakness, loud sounds.”
Goruza: I’m going to give him the People’s Elbow.

Goruza grapples him! The enemy grabs his magical gem and freaking swallows it whole, which causes darkness to begin engulfing him! Leonarus casts Hold Person on him and Warwick attempts to Heimlich him. Lilith still can’t pick her action, so the group spends a while on Filet’O’Fish marketing jingles. Spot and Listen checks occur, and some of them see a figure dashing away!

Tristan: I cast Sleep.
DM: Sadly he shakes it off.
Tristan: Oh well. Next.

The dinosaur runs ahead to grapple the foe, but the enemy worms away. The fleeing person had thrown a mysterious objects in their direction, and Goruza identifies it as a crumpled scroll.

Goruza: I’m Heimliching him. 18.
DM: You see something starting to work out. But as you begin to squeeze him, you feel yourself slipping, almost as if you’re being pulled into the blackness. His body begins to become patchy with shadows and blackness. Parts of your arms seem to slip into this blackness.

Gilbert approaches the burning scroll, but it bursts into smoke! Goruza spies the gem crackling and shattering, while Leonarus fires an arrow into the melee with gratuitous sound effects. Lilith or her dinosaur manages to wrestle a stone away from the fleeing figure – it’s gotten very confusing, since she’s sitting on the other side of the room. Tristan wrestles the gem out of the grip of the guy being consumed by it, then crushes it with a natural 20 on his Strength check.

Tristan: I’ve assassinated the gem.
DM: The shadow dissipates.
Tristan: Along with my arm.

Gilbert turns out to be substantially smarter, with an Int of 14, than anyone expected. He uses his many skill points to roll a Heal check for the shadow-consumed guy.

DM: He will not die. But he will not live long.
Tristan: Wha – wait…
DM: You stabilized him, so he won’t die immediately. But unless he gets some natural healing, he’ll die regardless. Warwick, what’re you doing?
Warwick: Hmm.
Tristan: Thunderstone.
Warwick: Thunderstones for everyone!
Leonarus: When criminals in this world appear and break the laws that they should fear and frighten all who see or hear the cry goes up both far and near for THUNDERSTONES!
Warwick: Well done, sir.
Leonarus: You know what beats thunderstones?
Warwick: What?
Leonarus: Thunderpaper.

Dead. Silence. Tristan collapses.

Leonarus: Wow, normally I just hurt Tristan, but I think I actually saw his will to live take a hit there…

Warwick vows to Energy Push their foe to death, and rolls to do just that. With some mighty rolling indeed, he knocks their foe back and down! The raptor pins him to a tree. Goruza determines that their unconscious foe is not only having trouble breathing because of the holes the shadows ate into him, but is attempting to suffocate himself.

Goruza: I can help him stay alive, I think I have Heal.
Tristan: Are you gonna put him in a Darth Vader suit?! You can’t grow him another lung!

Leonarus convinces the DM to treat his wounds as Con damage, thus making his wounds treatable by Restoration spells. Their fleeing opponent breaks free and manages to shadow-kill himself! They slap around their captive till he’s unconscious and can’t kill himself any more.

Tristan: Search him! Make sure he doesn’t have another shadow-cyanide on him!

Warwick gets a cheap laugh over his spell list for interrogations. Searching the bodies, they find daggers like the one that was thrown on a shadow-rope the night before! Leonarus believes the weapons were created by those with the Mark of Making, to his distress.

Warwick: Are their sheathes for them?
Leonarus: (completely mishearing) Cheese forks?!
Warwick: Sheathes. For them.
Leonarus: Okay! I’m like, “What?”

Warwick tries donning the knife in its sheath, trying to experiment with its properties. He hurls the dagger, and it coats itself in shadow as it slams into Leonarus’s shield!

DM: Giving the slightest wrist movement is enough to trigger it as it pulls back. Give me a Strength check.
Leonarus: If he manages to rip the shield off of its straps, off of my ARM, it’s going to suck all around.

He doesn’t. They split the daggers up between Warwick and Tristan, despite how cool it would be to grapple across a pit by throwing each dagger into the ceiling and swinging from them in turn. They only work with the larger gems they possess, however. The game winds down with them preparing to interrogate their captive…