The truth of the Astroexanimus is revealed. Separated and losing health, the party must race to the essence before their time runs out. Will they escape in time, or will the looming skyscraper become the tomb of yet another victim?
Content warnings for this week’s episode include coarse language.
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Dungeon Master, Editing, and Community Manager is Tyrone Cross
Noah is Steven Edwards
Timothy is Olive Jerome
Lucille is Rosemary Ochtman
Magnolia is Jorja Odd
Elias Moffat is our Content Producer, Narrative Consultant, and Transcriber
Theme song is “Belly of The Beast” by Lily Harnath and Henry Lucas (@lilyharnath & @henrylucas5)
We’re on the lookout for a couple of people to join the team as a Community Manager and Transcriber. Send us an email if that sounds like you!
Email us at portalquandary@gmail.com
Sound effects used in this episode include:
Soda Water Bottle - Greencouch
Magic_byMondfisch89 - Mondfisch89
bass200000000003322 - levelclearer
siberia - levelclearer
SupernovaLarge - aj_heels
CD_CONTACT_011FX_Red_star_Magic_planet.wav - kevp888
Metal thunder impact_1(8lrs,mltprcssg) - newlocknew
This podcast was recorded on the lands of the Wurundjeri people and produced on the lands of the Awabakal, and Wurundjeri people. Portal Quandary acknowledges and pays respect to our traditional custodians and to their past and present leaders.
The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased) is intended or should be inferred.
The truth of the Astroexanimus is revealed. Separated and losing health, the party must race to the essence before their time runs out. Will they escape in time, or will the looming skyscraper become the tomb of yet another victim?
Content warnings for this week’s episode include coarse language.
Join our Patreon
Find us on Instagram
Follow us on TikTok
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Threads
Dungeon Master, Editing, and Community Manager is Tyrone Cross
Noah is Steven Edwards
Timothy is Olive Jerome
Lucille is Rosemary Ochtman
Magnolia is Jorja Odd
Elias Moffat is our Content Producer, Narrative Consultant, and Transcriber
Theme song is “Belly of The Beast” by Lily Harnath and Henry Lucas (@lilyharnath & @henrylucas5)
We’re on the lookout for a couple of people to join the team as a Community Manager and Transcriber. Send us an email if that sounds like you!
Email us at portalquandary@gmail.com
Sound effects used in this episode include:
Soda Water Bottle - Greencouch
Magic_byMondfisch89 - Mondfisch89
bass200000000003322 - levelclearer
siberia - levelclearer
SupernovaLarge - aj_heels
CD_CONTACT_011FX_Red_star_Magic_planet.wav - kevp888
Metal thunder impact_1(8lrs,mltprcssg) - newlocknew
This podcast was recorded on the lands of the Wurundjeri people and produced on the lands of the Awabakal, and Wurundjeri people. Portal Quandary acknowledges and pays respect to our traditional custodians and to their past and present leaders.
The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased) is intended or should be inferred.
Steven/Noah: Portal Quandary has some content warnings. You can check them out in the episode description.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: At the long table of the conference room, a group of fairies sit patiently awaiting the demonstration. Cleary, from her place beside Thaumus, catches Kyro’s eye and grins. Alongside Parav and Onyx, the king’s advisor, Illumen, stands vigil beside King Oberon. Kyros meets each of their eyes, then takes the lid off a wooden box on the table.
Tyrone/Kyros: I appreciate you being here, as I know things are busy on Moving Day - Thaumus, I’ll make this quick so you can get back to your duties. As you all know, Cleary and I have been working for some time to build a device capable of inter-dimensional travel, something we previously believed we did not have the resources to do. Thanks to the tireless research of my team, we now know this is false. The Astrolustris, as we call them, have provided to us magical essences with unique properties that Cleary and myself have devised a machine to exploit. We travelled through Neptis, Theran, Novis and Avos to retrieve unique essences that all provide different crucial components to the device. I present to you, the orrery.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Kyros lifts the orrery out of the box, showcasing it to the room.
Tyrone/Kyros: With the orrery, we will not only be able to create portals that transcend this dimension, but reliably track where we are going in order to map our way back to Atrius. Observe.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Kyros twists a several dials at the base of the orrery. The essences contained within its rings light up, and with a hum a purple doorway ejects from the orrery. With another hum, the air on the other side of the conference room splits open, a second portal appearing seconds after the first. Kyros takes a small breath before stepping through the portal. He emerges on the other side of the conference room.
Tyrone/Kyros: Now I know we are familiar with teleportation across the planet, so for my second demonstration, I shall attempt to travel across dimensions. I am inputting coordinates that Cleary and I have strong reason to believe is a viable candidate for our home dimension. While we can’t be certain, I believe this is a good starting place for seeking Atrius back out. I will travel there and be back, at which point we can discuss logistics, concerns, and I will be more than happy to answer any questions.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Kyros begins setting the orrery, and the two portals in the room blink out of existence.
Tyrone/Thaumus: Are you sure it’s the best idea to jump straight into the portal without more. . .I don’t know, testing maybe?
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Thaumus hedges. A new portal spits out of the orrery, rippling with energy. Kyros sets his shoulders.
Tyrone/Kyros: Glamos has nearly taken the entire planet. There isn’t time for caution. Besides - I have complete confidence in our work. I’ll be ten minutes maximum! Do prepare to sing my praises. And Cleary’s, of course.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: With one final salute, Kyros steps into the portal. It fizzles for a moment, then closes. Parav clears his throat.
Tyrone/Parav: Cleary? It was supposed to do that, right?
Tyrone/Cleary: Uh. . .probably. Yes.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: The minutes pass.
Tyrone/Thaumus: I really must be getting back to Moving Day, but tell Kyros to find me tomorrow and we can discuss things in detail after we’ve settled the city.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Thaumus stands. Onyx moves to follow her, waving to the party before leaving to monitor the celebration taking place outside the palace. Ten minutes becomes twenty. King Oberon stands.
Tyrone/Oberon: I’m sure he’s just caught up in whatever new landscape he’s found himself in, Cleary.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: He offers to her.
Tyrone/Oberon: We will meet again tomorrow to discuss what Kyros has found, when he returns.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Parav pats Cleary’s shoulder.
Tyrone/Parav: Any second now for sure. Any…second…now.
Theme Song: [rock music plays]
Finding home in the belly of the beast, to make it home we can’t accept defeat, so roll the dice and come along with me, finding home in the belly of the beast
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Hi, and welcome back to Portal Quandary: Prophis episode twenty two. Woah. Two-two.
Rosie/Lucille: Woah.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: You guys have pissed off an entire building-
Olive/Timmit: Woo, woo, woo!
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: And now it’s time to fuck it up, I think.
Olive/Timmit: We’re going to damn try.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Could everyone please roll me initiative.
[energetic electronic music plays]
[dice rolls]
Rosie/Lucille: Eight.
Olive/Timmit: Eleven.
Steven/Noah: I got eighteen. I was happy with an eighteen.
Jorja/Magnolia: Twenty.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Natural twenty?
Jorja/Magnolia: No.
Olive/Timmit: It’s probably best that we aren’t going first, to be honest.
Rosie/Lucille: Honestly, I’m thrilled that I’m not going first. This is the best outcome for me.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Magnolia, you are at the top of the order. All of you have just taken damage. You’ve taken five points of necrotic damage as a wave of necro has come over the building.
Jorja/Magnolia: No! Not necro!
[laughter]
Jorja/Magnolia: Okay, we’ve speculated that the power source is at the top?
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Yuh huh.
Jorja/Magnolia: And there’s only been one wave?
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: One wave. You don’t know how frequent the waves are yet.
Jorja/Magnolia: How long did it take us to get up by stairs?
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Probably a couple of minutes at least. It’s fifty flights of stairs! How long does it take you to walk up fifty flights of stairs?
Jorja/Magnolia: Like, three seconds.
Olive/Timmit: Well, hang on. How many steps are in a flight of stairs?
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Twenty-two.
Olive/Timmit: Twenty-two steps in a single flight of stairs. We can move sixty feet in one round. Sixty feet… Ten seconds…
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Just a reminder that Timmit gave up after two flights of stairs and rode Skittles the entire way up.
Olive/Timmit: Oh yeah, no. He’s not very well known for his ath-athlet- [stumbles over words]. Athleticism. I’d say that we could cover about five flights of stairs in thirty seconds.
Jorja/Magnolia: Oh, do I want to…? Have we seen any sign that they have control over the building itself?
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Not that you’ve… No, not so far. You’ve just seen that the PA system is how they talk. That’s about it so far.
Jorja/Magnolia: I’m scared to get in the elevator.
Steven/Noah: Why?
Jorja/Magnolia: In case they kill me in it.
Steven/Noah: I mean Jackie survived the elevator.
Jorja/Magnolia: I’m just going to start… I’m going to get in the elevator. Fuck it.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Okay, what are you going to do?
Jorja/Magnolia: Hold my action to press the top floor button.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Okay, anything for a bonus action?
Jorja/Magnolia: Nope.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: What a thrilling first move.
Jorja/Magnolia: Yeah, I like to start out strong.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Okay, the building is going to take its lair action at the end of your turn to close the door.
[elevator ding]
Olive/Timmit + Jorja/Magnolia: [shocked exasperation]
Steven/Noah: That’s so sick and cool.
Olive/Timmit: Get ready to suck it in.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Yep, moving on to Noah.
Steven/Noah: How far away from the elevator am I?
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: What did I say last time? I think it’s a thirty foot square room, so maximum: thirty feet.
Steven/Noah: Okay, I’d like to move to the elevator and press the elevator door.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Okay, it’s coming up with a little error message at the top. It just says: ‘Service Mode.’
Steven/Noah: Don’t make me whip out my smith’s tools.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: I’m going to make you whip out your smith’s tools.
Steven/Noah: Pry the door open! Fuck your service mode, the engineer’s here. I don’t know, can I see any circuit boxes or something that I can pry open to have a look inside?
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Yeah, elevators have that little panel thing to the side, right? That you can open and fuck around with the wires.
Steven/Noah: Yes.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: I’m trying to picture my elevator. Yeah, sure.
Steven/Noah: Okay, Noah’s going to pull out one set of smith’s tools and one set of tinker’s tools. He’s going to attempt to hijack this bad boy.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Roll me a sleight of hand check. DC seventeen.
Steven/Noah: Am I able to add on my tool bonus?
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: I think this one is justified actually because you’re trying to use a service panel.
Steven/Noah: This one’s justified. As opposed to all the other times I’ve used it.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Yeah, that one you used your bonus action to aim your crossbow.
Steven/Noah: Yeah, I calibrated it. You’re going to fight maths? Good luck.
[dice rolls]
Steven/Noah: So, I rolled a ten.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Plus?
Steven/Noah: Plus my five from being a sleight of hand.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Yes.
Steven/Noah: Plus my six from my tools, or should I add twelve because I’m using both tools?
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: You get six, which still beats seventeen.
Steven/Noah: Beautiful.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: So, that’s a twenty-one total?
Steven/Noah: Yes.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: What is your objective?
Steven/Noah: Get the elevator door open.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Yeah, you know what? With a ding-
[elevator ding]
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: It’ll open again, and there’s Magnolia freaking the fuck out.
Steven/Noah: Can I see a similar access panel on the inside of the elevator?
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Elevator’s have those, don’t they? In case you get fucking stuck in one of them. Yeah.
Steven/Noah: Cool! I’m going to run inside.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Okay.
Steven/Noah: You have no power over me!
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: That sounds like all of your actions
Steven/Noah: I do believe so, yes.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Beautiful. It moves down to Skittles’s turn, but Skittles is on you, so it’s fine, so it moves it down to Timmit.
Olive/Timmit: After watching the elevator door suddenly close and then reopen, I’ll look in and be like, “Was that you? Did you-”
Jorja/Magnolia: Huh?
Olive/Timmit: Walk over, look into the elevator and say, “Was that you? You guys good? Is that going to be safe?”
Jorja/Magnolia: Yes.
Olive/Timmit: “Okay.” I’ll tentatively walk into the elevator. Just somewhat uncomfortably going against my gut, and I’ll pull out my sword and hold it, and that’s my turn.
Steven/Noah: Don’t worry, I can hack the mainframe. Photosynthesis. [mimicking typing noises].
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: No action?
Olive/Timmit: No, I’ve got nothing to do.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Okay, Lucille?
Rosie/Lucille: So, why are we all getting in the elevator?
Steven/Noah: So, Noah did a check on the power supply to the woodchipper, and it’s going up, so assumedly the power source is up. So, to stop the building we need to cut the power somehow.
Rosie/Lucille: Okay, I’m following now. Awesome. Well, I might just go and fly up. Can I do that?
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Oh yeah, through the roof?
Rosie/Lucille: Well, I was going to smash a window.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Oh yeah.
Rosie/Lucille: Can I smash a window and fly out and look through the other window?
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: I mean, you can try. I should remind you that it was explicit last episode that a chain did hit the window and did not smash it,s o it’s up to you if you’d like to try and smash it.
Steven/Noah: Hit the same one. It’s weakened.
Rosie/Lucille: Yeah, but what if it was just a weak chain, you know? Or, I could just fly up the stairs, but I feel like I want to fly outside the building and be a little spy, so I’m going to be a little spy. I’m going to smash a window. Yeah, I’m going to do it even though you warned me I shouldn't. I’m going to do it.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Okay, roll an attack.
[dice rolls]
Rosie/Lucille: That’s a sixteen.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: A sixteen will not beat it, I’m sorry Rosie.
Rosie/Lucille: [sobbing] No!
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: You’re just hitting your walking stick against the window, and it’s just-
Rosie/Lucille: I’m like, “Nrgh!”
Steven/Noah: Skittles has got his arm in the door like, ‘You coming, or?’
Rosie/Lucille: Like, “Sorry guys. I nearly beat it. I nearly beat the building, but not quite.” Okay I’m done.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: That’s your turn?
Rosie/Lucille: Yeah, I’m just there weakly hitting it, not even much force behind it. Just [sobbing].
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Alright, it’s now going to use its lair actions again at the end of Lucille’s turn. Using one point to close the elevator doors again, and another point to drop down five floors.
Jorja/Magnolia: I was holding my action to press the top floor button. Can I press that now?
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: You sure can. As you’re dropping?
Jorja/Magnolia: Yep.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Yep, you can press it.
Steven/Noah: Did this building turn off its elevator safety mechanism?
Jorja/Magnolia: This elevator isn’t up to code.
Steven/Noah: This elevator is not up to code. Lucky I’m here to fix it.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: You can press the level one hundred button, and it lights up. It doesn’t mean it’s going that way.
Olive/Timmit: I just look up at you like, “Cursed elevator. Cool. Great, great. Awesome.” [rapid breathing]
Jorja/Magnolia: “I could jump around a bunch if you want to?” I start shaking the elevator.
Olive/Timmit: [panicked noises]
Steven/Noah: Noah is completely still because of the amazing suspension Skittles has.
Jorja/Magnolia: What’s that- the gyro centre?
Olive/Timmit: Timmit has his hand up like, “Please! Please let me on! Please!”
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Alright, it moves to the Astro’s turn. At which point everyone take’s five points of necrotic damage as another wave of necro - as I put it - goes over the building. It moves it back to Magnolia’s turn. The doors are going to ding-
[elevator ding]
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: And open up on the forty-fifth floor.
Olive/Timmit: Press it again.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: You’re just there pressing the door closed.
Jorja/Magnolia: Yeah, I’m just going to tap it repeatedly.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Something you notice on the forty-fifth floor while the door’s open… Magnolia.
Jorja/Magnolia: Yes?
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Can you describe your bedroom back in Melbourne for me?
Jorja/Magnolia: Ooo, okay. She has one of those really low to the ground beds with a yellow duvet and a sunflower pillow, and plants hang from every corner, and there’s little suncatchers so when the sun comes through the window it’s all different colours, and there’s little fairy lights and books everywhere, and a little propagation station on the windowsill just sitting there.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: That is what you see when the doors open up. Where your closet or your wardrobe would be where the elevator sits, and where the door to your bedroom is where the door to the stairwell sits.
Rosie/Lucille: It’s like in Monsters Inc.
Jorja/Magnolia: Umm, sick. What the fuck man?
Olive/Timmit: Why? What is it?
Jorja/Magnolia: “This is a really sick room. It looks really cosy and inviting,’ and I’m just hitting the button as fast as I can.
Olive/Timmit: I mean, should we go in?
Jorja/Magnolia: No.
Olive/Timmit: What if there’s something useful here?
Jorja/Magnolia: There isn’t.
Olive/Timmit: Okay…
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: The door closes, and you start going up. How far do you reckon an elevator travels in six seconds?
Steven/Noah: Fifty floors.
Olive/Timmit: We win.
[laughter]
Steven/Noah: We win! [laughter]
Rosie/Lucille: Twelve. I think it’s a floor per half second.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Oh, I’ll give you that. You’re going to have to start keeping track of that, but you’re on the fifty-seventh floor now.
Rosie/Lucille: Where am I? Fiftieth?
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: The fiftieth floor.
Rosie/Lucille: Okay, cool.
Olive/Timmit: Is Lucille going to be okay? I don’t know about leaving her on her own… Okay, silent contempt it is.
Jorja/Magnolia: I can hit the fiftieth button, but it’s-
Olive/Timmit: Let’s not! Let’s not go down again. Let’s not-
Jorja/Magnolia: It’s not my turn. Timmit, we’re in initiative right now.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Anything else?
Jorja/Magnolia: I don’t think I can do anything else.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Yeah, that’s fair. Probably pressing a button is a bonus action. I’ll give you that. You don’t have to use a whole action to press a button.
Jorja/Magnolia: In that case, I’ll hold an attack.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Okay, that sounds fun. Noah, your go.
Steven/Noah: Well, as I’m stuck in a tiny box suspended in an elevator shaft, I am going to locate the service panel, and I’m going to hold my action.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Okay, that’s your turn?
Steven/Noah: Oh, and Skittles is going to repair himself.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Oh yeah, tell us about that as you’ve literally never used that.
Steven/Noah: I haven’t had to.
Rosie/Lucille: I forgot to say, I automatically heal as well.
Steven/Noah: ‘I’m a robot. I mend myself.’
Rosie/Lucille: Yeah.
Olive/Timmit: ‘I have passive healing.’
Steven/Noah: ‘It’s not magical though, it’s just…’
Rosie/Lucille: No. I’m just really good. Like, a really good immune system.
Steven/Noah: Yeah, three times per day he can repair himself, which is two d8 plus proficiency bonus, which is my proficiency bonus because we share it.
[dice rolls]
Steven/Noah: Heals twelve.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: You haven’t even lost twelve. What does this look like for Skittles?
Steven/Noah: Skittles is going to stand on two legs and use his front two legs, and he’s going to reach into my pockets, and he’s going to pull out some tools, and he’s going to start repairing himself. He’s going to put it-
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: [imitating welding and construction noises]
Steven/Noah: And then he’s going to put them back in my pockets, and then bend down.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Beautiful. It’s now going to take its lair action to halt, What did we say? We’re at the fifty-seventh floor. It’s going to halt as one action.
Steven/Noah: I would like to use my reaction. My held action.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Yes?
Steven/Noah: I’m going to override that mother fucker,
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: What am I going to roll? You’re going to roll a sleight of hand. What am I going to roll? I’m going to roll-
Rosie/Lucille: Dice.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: I feel like this is almost an intelligence battle. If you’re hacking, the building has to do an intelligence save.
Rosie/Lucille: [gasp] Is the building hogging the magic, and then when we kill the building everything will be magic?
Jorja/Magnolia: Yeah.
Rosie/Lucille: Yeah?
Jorja/Magnolia: Yeah, there was a point where someone - me maybe - someone saw magic going into it.
Rosie/Lucille: Oh, very cool.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Yeah, Noah saw it in a picture. I think Olive saw it. You were doing an arcana check on Exanimus.
Rosie/Lucille: Oh yeah, true.
Steven/Noah: Yep.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Please roll me a sleight of hand check with your skill proficiency.
[dice rolls]
Steven/Noah: Nineteen.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: I rolled a sixteen, so you have won the contest.
Steven/Noah: Hehe, the base was eight.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: You would like to tell it to keep going basically?
Steven/Noah: Yes.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: You put it into service mode and control it via service mode.
Steven/Noah: Yes.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Timmit, it is your go.
Olive/Timmit: With all the stopping and starting, I’m just going to hold my action to dash in case it’s needed. Yep, that’s it.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Okay.
Steven/Noah: Elevator door opens and he just yeets.
Olive/Timmit: Yep, the first chance he gets.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Beautiful, we’re going to move it along to Lucille.
Rosie/Lucille: Hi.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: What’s happening after the futile attempt to smash a window?
Rosie/Lucille: Well, I would have seen the doors close to the elevator and everyone just leave, so I’m like, “Guys!? Guys, we’ve got to smash the window! If we get out then we kill it from the outside! Not from the inside out, outside in!” Then there’s no answer.
Tyrone/Astroexanimus: I’m here with you.
Rosie/Lucille: Do I actually hear that?
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: You know what? Yeah.
Rosie/Lucille: God? Is that you?
Olive/Timmit: I’m surprised your first reaction wasn’t, ‘Conscience?’
Rosie/Lucille: No, that was a different voice. That’s not my conscience voice.
Tyrone/Astroexanimus: Yes.
Rosie/Lucille: No, but actually though?
Tyrone/Astroexanimus: Yes.
Rosie/Lucille: Alright, I’ll believe it. So God, I need you to tell me, will I get back to my goats any time soon?
Tyrone/Astroexanimus: You’ll join them real soon.
Rosie/Lucille: Oh, in the paddock? In the lovely paddock with them all there?
Tyrone/Astroexanimus: Sure.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: It’s just stalling for time now, baby.
Rosie/Lucille: Yeah, so now I’m pretty invigorated by this, so I think I’m going to go on a little jaunt because obviously I know that I can’t get back to the goats until we find this essence, so I really want to speed that along now, so I’m going to go and fly up the stairs as fast as I can.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Okay, so you’re going to use your action to dash and go sixty feet of movement?
Rosie/Lucille: Yes, I knew I could do that.
Olive/Timmit: You can do ninety.
Rosie/Lucille: I can do ninety as a matter of fact.
Jorja/Magnolia: Yeah, she can run, dash as her action, bonus action dash.
Rosie/Lucille: Does it sound like the building is talking to me? Is that what it sounds like, or is it just this voice-
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Yeah, it’s through the PA.
Rosie/Lucille: Yeah, I thought so.
Jorja/Magnolia: Nah, it’s God.
Rosie/Lucille: It’s God.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Alright, it’s about thirty feet out of the room and then sixty feet walking up the stairs?
Rosie/Lucille: No, flying. I’m flying up the stairs.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Haha, I was trying to trick you.
Rosie/Lucille: You can’t trick me.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: How tall is a floor?
Olive/Timmit: Ten feet.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Yeah okay, so Rosie you are currently- You’re now at the fifty-sixth.
Rosie/Lucille: Cool.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: It’s going to use a lair action to open the door at the fifty-sixth floor.
Rosie/Lucille: What’s there?
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Would you like to have a look in?
Rosie/Lucille: Yeah, I’ll have a little look.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Yeah, Lucille, if you could please describe to me Lucille’s bedroom.
Rosie/Lucille: My bedroom or where I sleep?
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Wherever is most comfortable to Lucille.
Rosie/Lucille: Okay, so it’s basically a part of the loungeroom that’s also a part of the kitchen. It’s kind of like a granny flat that i would say is not attached to the house, but it’s next to the house. Some might call it a bit of a barn situation. So, you look in and there’s a couple bales of hay. There’ll usually be a couple of goats on it. Then to the side there’s a laundry tub with some dishes stacked up. There’s a microwave, and then there’s a large fold-out futon couch that has some knitted blankets on it of all different colours. If you look around there’s also some shawls - often in purple - and there’s a nice wooden floor that’s a bit creaky.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: So, that sounds larger than a thirty foot square room, so it’s like that if it fit inside a thirty foot square room.
Rosie/Lucille: Are there goats?
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: There are goats. You know what? There are goats.
Olive/Timmit: Well, we’ve lost Lucille.
Rosie/Lucille: I was going to say, if you say there’s goats…
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: It’s not your turn yet at least, so you can’t go in, but that’s happened.
Rosie/Lucille: Yep, it’s going to happen now though. You can’t stop it now.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: It now moves to the Astro’s turn where everyone will take another five necrotic damage.
Rosie/Lucille: I’m going to die before I get to these goats. I’m on fifteen.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Yep, it moves back to the top of the round. It is Magnolia’s turn.
Jorja/Magnolia: Button!
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Yep, what did we say? Twelve floors.
Olive/Timmit: So, sixty-nine.
Jorja/Magnolia: Haha! Stop elevator, stay here.
[laughter]
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Everything seems to be going smoothly with the elevator this time because Noah has taken control.
Steven/Noah: Hehe, I am the captain now. Look at me.
Jorja/Magnolia: So, it’s a bonus action to press buttons. Can I use my action to help Noah?
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: What do you want to do to help?
Jorja/Magnolia: The equivalent of holding the flashlight for your dad.
Steven/Noah: You’re doing great sweetie!
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Yeah, you know what? That’ll grant Noah advantage next time he needs to do that.
Steven/Noah: I need it.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Is that Magnolia’s whole turn?
Jorja/Magnolia: Yep.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Moving nice and quick. Noah, what are you up to?
Steven/Noah: I’ve currently got my hands in a service lift. I’m just going to hold them there, and also my action.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Hold your action for what?
Steven/Noah: For the service lift that my hands are in.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Yep, so it probably gives everyone a bit of a fright when the service hatch at the very top of the elevator just opens up as part of its lair action for the turn. Now you can see right up into the elevator shaft as you’re heading up. Skittle is not doing anything?
Steven/Noah: Nope, he’s chill.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: He’s chill. Timmit?
Olive/Timmit: I’ll look over at the two engineers, and I’ll look over and, “Do you guys want to get off at floor one hundred, or do you want to get off at floor ninety-eight? Do you want to run right into the flame, or do you want to get a feel for the saucepan?”
Steven/Noah: Well the saucepan is currently whacking us over the head, so I’d rather get there as quickly as possible.
Olive/Timmit: Okay, I’m also worried that we won’t have Lucille with us.
Rosie/Lucille: She’ll be right.
Olive/Timmit: If you guys let me off at floor ninety-eight, I’ll see if she’s on any of the floors coming up, and then we can meet together. If she’s already there then just send me a message.
Jorja/Magnolia: I don’t think we can send a message.
Steven/Noah: We can send no messages.
Olive/Timmit: Fuck magic! God this sucks.
Jorja/Magnolia: Yep.
Steven/Noah: RIP magic.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Yep, no rubies.
Olive/Timmit: Shit.
Jorja/Magnolia: The last Lucille saw we were - well we were going down - but we wanted to go up.
Rosie/Lucille: Which Lucille knew.
Olive/Timmit: Look, just let me off at floor ninety-eight.
Jorja/Magnolia: I’m not in control. I’m holding a flashlight.
Olive/Timmit: Noah, could you please let me off at floor ninety-eight. I don’t really want to run headlong into it. I can try and see if there’s a way to the floor from another angle.
Steven/Noah: If there’s time.
Olive/Timmit: Okay.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: So, Timmit did nothing for his turn?
Olive/Timmit: I will continue to hold my action to dash.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Okay.
Steven/Noah: Waits faster!
[laughter]
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Good gosh. Lucille, how are you doing?
Rosie/Lucille: Pretty good. So, I’m tossing if Lucille has grown as a person enough to check the room before going into it to see the goats, and I want to believe that she has.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: What are you checking it for?
Rosie/Lucille: I don’t know, hey. I want to roll something to check if this is real. Is this fake? Is this really my house?
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: That is insight, please.
[dice rolls]
Rosie/Lucille: I got twenty.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Natural twenty?
Rosie/Lucille: No.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: A dirty twenty is still good. A dirty twenty is still amazing. Yeah, you’re having a look at Sparky who’s bleating to you in the room.
[goat bleat]
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: But, you know Sparky doesn’t have that little spot above their eyebrow, and you’re like, ‘Wait a minute…’
Rosie/Lucille: Okay. “You’re not Sparky!” And I’m going to dash!
Steven/Noah: I honestly thought you were going to give it a bop like, ‘You’re not real!’ Donk!
[laughter]
Rosie/Lucille: Oh, I should have.
Steven/Noah: No, you would have wasted precious time.
Rosie/Lucille: I would have, which my character is aware of.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Alright, dashing is another nine floors. You guys are travelling at twelve floors but she’s only travelling at nine floors.
Rosie/Lucille: So, now I'm at sixty-five.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Yep, you’re at the sixty-fifth floor and they’re on the sixty-ninth floor. At the end of Lucille’s turn, you’re going to hear inside the elevator - you know the little help intercom thing? You’re going to hear that activate. You’re going to hear a familiar voice of the building that we’ve come to know and love.
Rosie/Lucille: I don’t hear this, do I?
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: No, not Lucille, but the other three will hear:
Tyrone/Astroexanimus: You’re heading the wrong way if you’d like your friend to continue living.
Steven/Noah: Is it the wrong way if we want to continue living?
Tyrone/Astroexanimus: If you’re happy letting her die.
Steven/Noah: Clap your hands [claps twice]
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Okay.
Steven/Noah: How are we supposed to help her!? Like, cool we get to Lucille and then we all die! Awesome.
Olive/Timmit: Yeah.
Jorja/Magnolia: We all ran into an elevator. Lucille punched a window and then didn’t run into the elevator afterwards. Alright, bye then!
Rosie/Lucille: Hey! I whacked a window.
Jorja/Magnolia: [mocking mumbling]
Olive/Timmit: Unsuccessful.
Jorja/Magnolia: I have full faith that you’ll show up and then die.
[laughter]
Rosie/Lucille: But if Lucille dies at least she got to see a goat at the end.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Anyway, it moves to the Astro’s turn and everyone takes five points of necrotic damage as another wave passes through the building.
Rosie/Lucille: I’m on ten.
Steven/Noah: Okay, theoretically if we defeat it the necrotic damage stops. She stops dying.
Olive/Timmit: Sure, how do we defeat it?
Steven/Noah: Sure, well I haven’t figured that out yet.
Olive/Timmit: [mocking mumbling]
Steven/Noah: But I’d rather figure that out on the floor where it is rather than with Lucille dying in my arms.
Olive/Timmit: Fair, fair.
Steven/Noah: Like, ‘Cool! We got there.’
Rosie/Lucille: Aww, Noah would pick up Lucille? That’s so cute.
Steven/Noah: No, no, no. Skittles would. Noah doesn’t touch people.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Magnolia.
Jorja/Magnolia: Hello.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Hello.
Jorja/Magnolia: Is the hatch above us still open?
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Yep.
Jorja/Magnolia: What would looking up there be? Would it be an action or a bonus action?
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Would you just be turning your head and looking up?
Jorja/Magnolia: Yeah, I just want to perceive upwards.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Getting a little look would just be a bonus action.
Jorja/Magnolia: I do that.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Okay, roll me a perception.
[dice rolls]
Jorja/Magnolia: I am blind.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: What did you get?
Jorja/Magnolia: One.
Steven/Noah: She looks up. ‘Argh!’
Olive/Timmit: Forgets which way you’re holding it.
Jorja/Magnolia: That was a bad idea, sorry guys.
Steven/Noah: Can you hold it still please.
Jorja/Magnolia: Yeah, sure. It’s pointing the other way.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Yeah.
Olive/Timmit: Ow, my eyes!
Jorja/Magnolia: “Fuck, sorry!” I’m just going to stand still.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Okay, skipping right through that?
Jorja/Magnolia: I’ll help Noah when I can.
Steven/Noah: Thank you.
Jorja/Magnolia: You’re welcome.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Nice. We’re at the sixty-ninth floor, which makes us up to the eighty-first floor. That’s where we’ll be. Noah.
Steven/Noah: That’s me.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: What are you doing? Anything?
Steven/Noah: I don’t think so. I shall continue to hold my hands in the service lift.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: In the service lift. Beautiful. Okay, Skittles isn’t doing anything either?
Steven/Noah: Nope.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Timmit, my dear.
Olive/Timmit: Same old, same old. Repeat. Hold dash.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Okay, we’re moving through it pretty quickly. So, Lucille, just dashing ninety feet?
Rosie/Lucille: Yep.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: We’ll move this along a little bit to get to the top of the roof, so Lucille, you’re now on the seventy-fourth floor. It then moves to the Astro’s turn, and we all know the drill at this point. It’s another five HP off of our total.
Jorja/Magnolia: Heal five, right?
Rosie/Lucille: You know, Lucille actually has this really cool little ability where when she gets down to five hit points she starts healing ten for every five she loses.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: That’s a crazy rogue feat.
Rosie/Lucille: Yeah.
Olive/Timmit: That’s a sick strat.
Rosie/Lucille: It’s pretty cool.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Let’s do a quick HP recap. How are we all doing?
Olive/Timmit: I’m on sixteen.
Rosie/Lucille: I’m on five. Teehee.
Steven/Noah: Noah is at twenty-seven, and Skittles is at twenty-one. He repaired himself, and he’s got two more ready.
Jorja/Magnolia: Thirty-six.
Rosie/Lucille: Oh my gosh.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: That moves us back to Magnolia with thirty-six HP. We've moved up to the ninety-third floor now. Are we speeding right through along this round?
Jorja/Magnolia: I’m climbing onto the roof of the elevator.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Okay.
Steven/Noah: You’ve got to press the button first.
Jorja/Magnolia: Oh, I… Yep, button.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: What button are you pressing?
Jorja/Magnolia: Ninety-eight.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Okay, then you’re using… Oh, your bonus action to hop usually, so I’ll allow you to use your action if you want to hop. It’s a bonus action to press the button so can’t also-
Jorja/Magnolia: Can I use my action to press the button?
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Yep.
Jorja/Magnolia: And then use my movement to climb, or is climbing an action? I just want to pull myself up.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: No, yeah okay. That could work.
Jorja/Magnolia: I’m strong as hell.
Steven/Noah: Gym junkie doing a pull-up.
Jorja/Magnolia: Yep.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Roll an athletics check.
Steven/Noah: Should be a free action, no sweat.
[dice rolls]
Jorja/Magnolia: Okay, okay, okay. Math. This is simple math! Nineteen.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Yep, that’s just a chin-up for you. So, that’s your whole turn Magnolia.
Jorja/Magnolia: No, because I haven’t used my bonus action.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Okay.
Jorja/Magnolia: I’m going to hold my bonus action while I’m standing on the top of the elevator. I’m going to hold my rabbit hop for when the elevator stops.
Rosie/lucille: Ooo, and then you’ll shoot off because when it stops you’ll go [explosion noise].
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: What’s the trigger?
Jorja/Magnolia: An open door.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: An open door at the top of the elevator?
Jorja/Magnolia + Steven/Noah: [giggles]
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Are you waiting for the ding of the elevator?
Jorja/Magnolia: No, I’m waiting for door one hundred to open.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: You’ll be at the top of the elevator.
Jorja/Magnolia: Yeah, and it’s going to stop at floor ninety-eight.
Olive/Timmit: They’ve got a plan. They’ve got a fucking plan.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: I’m confused, but sure. Noah.
Steven/Noah: Hello.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: I hear you have a conniving plan as well.
Steven/Noah: I do.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: What is it?
Steven/Noah: Before we move to that conniving plan, can I use my reaction while Magnolia has climbed up? Because I’m currently holding my action with my hands in the elevator box.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: And what are you doing?
Steven/Noah: I want to use it to open the door to level one hundred.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Mmm, okay. I see.
Steven/Noah: Which normally can’t be done because of the safety features.
[laughter]
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Which you’ve already established-
olive/Timmit: They’re no one, are they!?
Steven/Noah: They’re not up to snuff, are they?
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Let’s do the same thing as before. The skill check versus the saving throw.
[dice rolls]
Steven/Noah: No.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: What’d you get?
Steven/Noah: Fourteen.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: I rolled an eighteen.
Steven/Noah: That’s okay, I have my turn.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: You’re going to hear it through the PA system, like:
Tyrone/Astroexanimus: Stop fucking with the controls.
Steven/Noah: [taunting noises]
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: So yeah, your turn.
Steven/Noah: I’m going to do the same thing.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Okay, if that’s the way you want to do it.
[dice rolls]
Steven/Noah: Twenty-four.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Fifteen.
Steven/Noah: [taunting noises]
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: I’d like to picture Noah doing that. Somewhere up above you you hear a ding.
[elevator ding]
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: And some doors open.
Jorja/Magnolia: And I jump.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: From the ninety-third floor?
Jorja/Magnolia: No, we’re at ninety-eight. The elevator moves on my turn.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Didn’t we just move there?
olive/Timmit: Yeah, we just moved to ninety-three.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: We just moved to ninety-three.
Jorja/Magnolia: No.
Steven/Noah: No, on that rotation.
olive/Timmit: At the top of the round it moved to ninety-three.
Jorja/Magnolia: On my turn we were already on ninety-three.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: On your turn it moves to ninety-three.
Jorja/Magnolia: I swear we were on ninety-three.
Steven/Noah: I swear we were on ninety-three.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: You’re a bit early.
Steven/Noah: Bugger!
Jorja/Magnolia: Dammit!
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: You can keep holding it until you stop at the ninety-eighth floor, which will happen at the top of the round.
Jorja/Magnolia: Yeah.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Yeah?
Jorja/Magnolia: Perfect. In my mind we were at ninety-eight.
Steven/Noah: Yeah, in my mind we were at ninety-eight. Okay, well in that case I didn’t really need to do any of that, but that’s fine. You’re still on the top of the elevator, so that’s fine. We’ve pressed ninety-eight.
Jorja/Magnolia: Yep.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: You’ve set it up, we’re just a little bit early.
Steven/Noah: Whoops! Oh well.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: So, you open the door ready-
Steven/Noah: I mean one hundred is open. I don’t have to succeed again, so that’s fine.
Jorja/Magnolia: Yeah.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Yeah, that’s the end of your turn Noah?
Steven/Noah: Sí
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: And is that the end of Skittles’s turn, or would he like to use Mending or something?
Steven/Noah: Potentially. Yeah, you know what? Let’s do it. Let’s mend again. He’s going to have more health than me but that okay.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Sure, give it a roll.
[dice rolls]
Steven/Noah: Nine.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: [mimicking construction noises]
[welding noises]
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Yes exactly. Wonderful, Timmit, it is your go.
olive/Timmit: Alright then, I do the same as always: hold my dash action for floor ninety-eight.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Which is happening soon.
olive/Timmit: Yeah.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Are you fucking ready?
olive/Timmit: Yeah.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: For the doors to open? You’ll go like, ‘Zoom! Zoom!’
olive/Timmit: Ah, my dice.
Rosie/lucille: When you hold enough dashes does that mean you’ll be super dashing? Like in The Incredibles.
olive/Timmit: Yeah, I’ll move four hundred feet in one turn.
Rosie/lucille: Yeah.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: I was thinking in Mario Kart when you have the super mushroom. [zooming noises]
Rosie/lucille: Yeah, although the speed doesn’t stack, and if you click it all at once you end up wasting it.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Yeah, you’ve got to time it just right.
Rosie/lucille: Yeah.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Lucille, it is your turn next. What are you going to do? Dash like in Mario Kart?
Rosie/lucille: Okay, so I’m pretty annoyed at this building because, you know, it’s stuffing things up a little bit. Like my plans of going back and seeing my goats.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Of course.
Rosie/lucille: So, I am going to run, but I’m not going to… Can I do two things? Like where I run and then I also hit something.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: So you can use your movement and your bonus action to run sixty feet and then use your action to attack if that’s what you're planning.
Rosie/lucille: Yeah, so I want to run sixty feet and then there’ll be a door there, right?
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Yes, at the eightieth floor.
Rosie/lucille: Yeah, nice. Yeah, so I’m going to get up there and then I’m going to attack the door with all of my might, and I’m going to yell out, “For the goats!” and I’m going to whack it with my walking stick because I’m like, ‘Well, I’m going to whack it,’ because I don’t really understand that it might not be the whole building, so I feel like if I hurt a bit of the building that I might be hurting this thing. So, by hitting the door Lucille really does think that she’s taken out a toe or something.
Steven/Noah: She’s doing stuff.
Rosie/lucille: Yeah, she’s there. Do I have to roll?
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Yeah, roll an attack. I think it’s futile, but you still have to roll it.
[dice rolls]
Rosie/lucille: Eleven.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: You hit a door with an eleven. Roll the damage.
Rosie/lucille: Eight.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Eight damage to this door. I’ll write that down.
Steven/Noah: Wow!
[laughter]
Rosie/lucille: I would like the viewers to know that Tyrone didn’t actually in fact write that down.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: It’s like when you throw a ball for a dog but you don’t actually throw it.
[laughter]
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Lucille, just before you take the last five points of damage the door will open, and please describe to me what your ex-husband’s shed looks like.
Rosie/lucille: Oh, pulling out those heartstrings there. So, it’s metal and it’s got a concrete floor that isn’t very good concrete so it’s got some sort of rocks in it and it’s very bumpy. It’s not smooth. There’s a big wooden slab for a desk with some really dusty old tools on it that he says he’s going to use to build the new kitchen bench, but he never gets around to using them to build the new kitchen bench. In the other corner is a saddle for the horse, which is a bit of a soft spot for me because I didn’t want the horse around the goats, and apart from that there’s a big wooden bench in the centre, a chair that he would sit on, and a stubby cooler.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: And that is what you see when the door opens in front of you as you take - along with everybody else - five more points of damage.
Rosie/lucille: Oh my.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: I believe that brings you to zero Roise.
Rosie/lucille: It most certainly does.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: When it comes back around to your turn, you’ll be in death saving throws.
Rosie/lucille: Heck yeah. Yeah I can do that. I always roll twenties. I just like to downplay it.
Jorja/Magnolia: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You’re making us feel better.
Rosie/lucille: Yeah.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Magnolia.
Jorja/Magnolia: Hello.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: The elevator has stopped at the ninety-eighth floor, and you’re going to use the momentum to jump up-
Jorja/Magnolia: No, I use my bunny hop to jump fifteen feet, and if it’s at ninety-eight…
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: That’s not fifteen feet.
Jorja/Magnolia: Yeah, but if you’re at ninety-eight - the elevator is at ninety-eight - the door is below me.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: This is part of your scheming, isn’t it?
Jorja/Magnolia: Yeah, we were figuring out the mechanics of it.
olive/Timmit: We did the math.
Jorja/Magnolia: I’m going to one hundred.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Okay, you’re launching yourself up to the top as your reaction, and now it is your turn.
Jorja/Magnolia: What do I see?
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: You see the rooftop. Even as you’re launching yourself up in the air you can hear wind galing. You can picture being on the fucking one hundredth floor of a skyscraper. There’s a lot of wind, and you can see this purple energy above you swirling as it goes into the lightning rod at the very top of the skyscraper. Roll me a perception check.
[dice rolls]
Jorja/Magnolia: Ten.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Even with a ten, the only thing you notice is the lightning rod with a nice spherical object sitting right at the top of the lightning rod. You don’t notice anything else on the rooftop with a ten.
Jorja/Magnolia: How far away am I from said lightning rod?
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: The lighting rod starts from the rooftop. It’s in the middle, so I suppose fifteen feet away to the centre of the room, and I’m going to say it’s a pretty tall one. It’s going to be ten feet tall.
Jorja/Magnolia: Okay, I leisurely walk to fifteen feet, use another bunny hop and jump up fifteen feet.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Okay, you’re now dangling from a lightning rod.
Jorja/Magnolia: I want the thingy.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: You’re going to grab it? Roll me a twenty. Just a flat twenty for luck.
[dice rolls]
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: You don’t get struck by lightning. In fact, you can feel all of the magic flowing back into you as you feel all of that magic going into the lightning rod flow back into you.
Jorja/Magnolia: I am a god!
olive/Timmit: Unlimited power!
Jorja/Magnolia: Okay.
Steven/Noah: Did we win?
[laughter]
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: I mean, everybody doesn’t feel the magic flowing back into them yet, but you have got the essence in your hand. This little silvery black marble in your hand.
Steven/Noah: Did the doors open at floor ninety-eight?
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: They did.
Steven/Noah: Is a little red man now dashing as fast as he possibly can?
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Yes.
olive/Timmit: Yes, I absolutely would be. As soon as the doors open I’d be straight out on the floor.
Jorja/Magnolia: You go too early.
olive/Timmit: Yeah, I just hit my head. ‘Bonk! ‘Oh shit!’
Jorja/Magnolia: Shit, fuck!
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: What are you doing?
olive/Timmit: I dash out, what do I see?
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: You see - please describe to me the lobby of Miller and Miller- I think it’s Miller and Sons, that’s correct.
olive/Timmit: Oh, it is Miller and Sons, that’s right. The lobby? I was totally prepared to answer the question for the bedroom. I had a whole thing planned out, I was not thinking about the lobby. Pretty clinical. It’s pretty clean and somewhat warm and inviting, but it’s got a lot of opposing darker grey colours and polished marble flooring and countertop to match. There’s a little greenery in the room to give it a little pop colour, but that’s about it. You walk in through glass doors. There’s a nice service desk there, and to your left there is a security system with the elevators behind it that go up, and that’s about it.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: So, the elevator is where the elevators would be in that room, and then where the door is into that room is where the door into the stairwell would be, and sitting at the receptionist desk is Margaret.
olive/Timmit: Margaret?
Tyrone/Margaret: Oh hi doll, did you find your office door okay?
olive/Timmit: Oh, no. Would you remind me what floor that is again?
Tyrone/Margaret: Honey, that’s the hundredth floor, okay?
olive/Timmit: “Perfect, thank you. Got it.” I’ll just take that in for a second. ‘Okay!?’ Turn around and rush up the stairs to get to level one hundred.
Tyrone/Margaret: Honey, that’s the front door! You’re going the wrong way. I’ve got this Margaret. Thank you, bye.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: It’s interesting because the windows you see is like the ground floor. You look out into the cityscape, but when you go through the door it’s the stairwell of the thingy.
olive/Timmit: That’s fucking trippy as balls. I love it.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: That’s thirty feet of movement, so you still have another thirty.
olive/Timmit: Yes, I’ll move that, and then I’ll use my action to dash again and move.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Up the stairs?
olive/Timmit: Yes.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Interesting. At which point I think all of us reach level one hundred at the same time. Noah gets to level one hundred, ding-
[elevator ding]
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: At the same time you rush out the doors. Noah, it is your go. Sorry, back to Magnolia first. You still had an action, we just had a quick aside.
Jorja/Magnolia: I heal myself for fifteen.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: How do you do that?
Jorja/Magnolia: Lay on Hands, which I’ve had the whole time. I’m going to reach up, and - as I grab the essence - feel the magic come back to me (that was always there), and feel my pendant and feel like I can breathe again, and then I get all warm and fuzz.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Beautiful. Fuzzy little bitch.
Steven/Noah: ‘Who wants heals!?’
Jorja/Magnolia: ‘I’ll give you fucking heals!’
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: What does that bring your total to?
Jorja/Magnolia: Forty six
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Jesus Christ. Noah.
Jorja/Magnolia: That’s me.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: The doors have just opened to the hundredth floor. The doors closed, went up two floors, and opened again. Ding.
[elevator ding]
Steven/Noah: I will now remove my hands. [mouth pop]. Leave them behind, I don’t need them.
[laughter]
Steven/Noah: Yeah, I guess the doors will ding open, and he’ll just remove his tools from the service hole thing, and then, yeah, I’ll walk out of the elevator.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Beautiful, you’re met with this beautiful storm happening at the top of this skyscraper. Magnolia’s suspended from the lightning rod.
Steven/Noah: She’s wired with power.
Jorja/Magnolia: Yep.
Steven/Noah: I love that for her.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: What have you got? What are you doing?
Steven/Noah: I guess I’m going to scream out, “What have you got there?”
Jorja/Magnolia: I got it.
Steven/Noah: Is there a storm still going into that essence?
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Not yet. The storm is still there.
Steven/Noah: No, but you said the storm was swirling and being attracted to the magnet rod.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Yep.
Steven/Noah: Right, so is it still not attached to the essence?
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: No, it’s sort of the whole mechanism. Just because that’s one component doesn’t mean it needs that, and it needs the building.
Steven/Noah: Okay, so is the swirling still going into the lightning rod?
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Nope.
Steven/Noah: So, you’re still holding it?
Jorja/Magnolia: I don’t know if it was an action to move it or what.
Steven/Noah: Oh, okay, so you’re on the lightning rod?
Jorja/Magnolia: Yes.
Steven/Noah: Stunning. I love that for you. Yeah, I guess I’ll proclaim, “Yay! We got it!”
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Okay, we’re still in initiative because Rosie’s fucking dying, and she needs to do death saving throws. I’ll move down to Skittles?
Steven/Noah: That’s it.
[laughter]
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Okay.
Steven/Noah: That is all.
Jorja/Magnolia: He’s just full blank staring.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Timmit, it’s your go.
olive/Timmit: I’ll climb the last few steps onto the one-hundredth floor, kind of, “[panting] Okay. Oh, did we do it? Is that it? Are we done?” I’ll try a little cantrip. I’ll do a Create Bonfire on the roof and see if anything sprouts.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: It does not quite spark yet. You do not feel your magic flow back into you quite yet.
olive/Timmit: Magnolia, how are you doing?
Jorja/Magnolia: I feel great!
olive/Timmit: I’m going to move myself to be closer to Magnolia. Just standing next to the electric thing.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: You know what actually? Yeah, when you - are you going to touch the lightning rod in any way?
olive/Timmit: I’ll stand there for a second, and if nothing really feels different I’ll just boop.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: It’s almost like static electricity as Magnolia making contact with the lightning rod and you making contact with the lightning rod at the same time, you feel a little zzrp of magic. Just a little bit.
olive/Timmit: [pained exclamation with a hint of pleasure]
Jorja/Magnolia: Timmit, you’re not allowed to touch this.
olive/Timmit: [To the tube of U Can’t Touch This by MC Hammer] Can’t touch this.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Movement… Action was the cantrip.
olive/Timmit: Yep.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Bonus action?
olive/Timmit: I will cast Expeditious Retreat on myself, if I can, with a bonus action.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Yeah, you know what? You can, just this once. Don’t tell anyone.
olive/Timmit: Secrets.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Secrets. And what does this look like?
olive/Timmit: It’s just going to be the winged boots that Timmit has on will start to - as he’s holding the lightning rod - with his fingers, they’ll kind of flame up a little bit and he’ll brush them against the heel. They’ll spark a little bit and they’ll have this soft glow of ember along his feet.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Fuck yes, and that moves us down to Lucille who’s currently unconscious on the eightieth floor.
Rosie/Lucille: [stereotypical old lady groan]
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: [stereotypical old lady groan] It’s been a while since we’ve done death saving throws because I think the last one was actually you in episode three.
Rosie/Lucille: I always die, that’s my thing.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: It’s just a flat twenty, yeah? And if it’s above ten you succeed. If it’s below ten…
Rosie/Lucille: If it’s flat you can’t roll it.
[dice rolls]
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Rosie/Lucille: It’s a five.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: That’s a fail, isn’t it?
Rosie/Lucille: Yeah. Am I dead?
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: No, you need three fails to die and three successes to live.
Rosie/Lucille: Woah, that’s crazy.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: You get two fails on a nat one and two success on a nat twenty.
Jorja/Magnolia: Nat twenty you’re up with one HP.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Oh yeah, there you go.
olive/Timmit: Can you modify those rolls-
Rosie/Lucille: Can I modify those rolls with luck?
olive/Timmit: You’ll have to check the feature.
Rosie/Lucille: Because I haven’t used any of my lucky points today.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Okay everyone, the answer is you can. ‘Death saves are mechanically a saving throw, so any abilities that can affect saving throws such like Bless or the Lucky feat can apply while making them.’
Rosie/Lucille: I reroll.
[dice rolls]
Rosie/Lucille: It’s a three.
[laughter]
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: You mark one fail.
Rosie/Lucille: I’ll just keep it all in my head. This luck is a scam.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: It moves to the Astro’s turn.
Rosie/Lucille: Do they heal now?
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: They... You don’t seem to feel a wave of necro, but instead you hear the voice of the Astro. I guess you guys on the roof hear it from the elevator intercom. You hear it say:
Tyrone/Astroexanimus: You have cursed this planet for taking this essence from me. You will live with the consequences.
Jorja/Magnolia: Ah, but we’ll live.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: And it moves to the top of the round. Very luckily, because if Rosie took damage that would be two automatic fails I believe, and you would have been dead. Jorja, what would you like to do with your turn?
Jorja/Magnolia: Hello, can I move away from the lightning rod?
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Yeah, are you going to climb back down?
Jorja/Magnolia: Yeah, but I’m only like ten feet up. I’ll step down.
Steven/Noah: Step down.
Jorja/Magnolia: And I’m taking the essence with me.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Yep, and you see the storm above stop heading into that essence, and you see it rise back up into a cone back into the sky, and like an implosion it spreads out. I want to say it's like a supernova. That’s what I’m picturing, like it implodes out and spreads across the land.
[energy builds up before an explosion, then twinkling]
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Everyone on the roof, please roll me a perception check. Not you dead Rosie.
Rosie/Lucille: Lucille.
Jorja/Magnolia: Bleeding out Lucille.
[dice rolls]
Rosie/Lucille: I don’t know if she’d be bleeding out. I don’t think she has that much blood left.
Jorja/Magnolia: I got a twenty total.
olive/Timmit: Twenty-three for me.
Steven/Noah: I don’t wish to discuss this without a lawyer present.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: You’ve got a lawyer present.
Jorja/Magnolia: That’s the defendant.
olive/Timmit: Yes, Timmit knows these things.
Steven/Noah: Thirteen.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Timmit and Magnolia, you will see while - I don’t know - Noah is too distracted by the…
Steven/Noah: He’s polishing Skittles.
Jorja/Magnolia: Job done.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Job done. You’ll see as the magic spreads out over the land. You’ll look out to where Lambence is and you’ll see that Glamos has completely surrounded the city now, and where you came through from Neptis - Glamos is growing through.
olive/Timmit: I think we’ve got to move, otherwise our ride is going to be gone.
Jorja/Magnolia: It’s probably fine.
olive/Timmit: No, I don’t think so this time.
Jorja/Magnolia: It’s fine, it’s fine.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: You can see on the borders as well where you first entered Exanimus. You can see bits of Glamos growing into that as well.
olive/Timmit: Shall we get out of this hell hole?
Jorja/Magnolia: Yeah, where’s Lucille?
olive/Timmit: “Oh fuck, Lucille.” I’ll do a scout around on the top floor and not see her. “Do you still feel magic?”
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Part of that implosion was that all of you - even the unconscious Lucille - feel their magic come back into them.
Steven/Noah: Time to search every floor.
Jorja/Magnolia: Well, she’s not on the outside, so maybe she went to the stairs? She wanted to go outside, but that wasn’t going to fucking work.
Rosie/Lucille: Hey! It could have. I was going to smash a window.
Jorja/Magnolia: You’re dead!
Rosie/Lucille: Yeah, but dead people hear things.
Jorja/Magnolia: I’m two hundred feet away and you’re bleeding out. Ah, broom.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Yeah.
Jorja/Magnolia: Jiji! I’m going to check the stairwells.
olive/Timmit: If you get in my way you’re going to get burned. Not threatening you. Just a genuine cautionary message.
Jorja/Magnolia: “I have so much health. I could heal this whole time,” and I run away. I’m going to - on the broom I can move one hundred feet in a turn.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Okay. One hundred feet gets you… Fifteen feet to the door plus five feet down, so you’re currently on the ninety-second floor, and you cannot see Lucille.
Jorja/Magnolia: That’s alright because I can go straight down the middle.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Zoom, zoom, zoom. ‘Jiji! [zooming noises]’
Jorja/Magnolia: [zooming noises]
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Just nosedives. [mimicking cartoon plane noises]
Jorja/Magnolia: I’m actually standing on the bristles and it’s pointing straight down.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Surfing.
Jorja/Magnolia: Yeah.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: I believe that moves to Noah. What are you doing?
Steven/Noah: I’m polishing Skittles.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Oh okay, you don’t want to do anything?
Steven/Noah: [sighs] As the slowest character, I’m going to take the stairs.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: On Skittles?
Steven/Noah: Yes. He will walk towards the staircase.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Okay, so that would be ten feet to the door and another thirty feet down.
Steven/Noah: I’m pretty sure it’s sixty feet.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Oh right, dashing. That would be fifty feet down, so fifty feet down gets you to the ninety-fifth floor.
Steven/Noah: Wait, did you jump down the stairs? I thought you jumped off the building?
Jorja/Magnolia: No, I jumped down the stairs.
Steven/Noah: Oh okay, cool.
Jorja/Magnolia: I knew she wasn’t going to fucking break the window.
Steven/Noah: Oof.
Jorja/Magnolia: She’s not Jackie.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Was there anything else?
Steven/Noah: I guess I’ll just yell down because I guess from the stairs I can see Ms. Witchypoo going down the staircase, so I’ll just yell out, “Yell out when you see her.”
Jorja/Magnolia: Okay!
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: O-
Jorja/Magnolia: Okayyyyy [descending]
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: [mimicking cartoon plane] Okay, Skittles is with you doing the movement and stuff, so-
Steven/Noah: I think he’s going to repair himself again.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: While he’s running?
Steven/Noah: Yeah, he’s dexterous as fuck.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: It’s creepy because he’s running on two legs while the other two-
Steven/Noah: I’m sorry, can you run on two legs and also use your hands? I thought so.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Roll the fucking heals.
[dice rolls]
Steven/Noah: Fourteen.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: He’s done some pretty good heals today. Beautiful. Moving down the order to Timmit.
olive/Timmit: As soon as the words leave Magnolia’s mouth, ‘I could heal the whole time,’ there’s a fire that fills Timmit’s eyes, and it’s just this quiet contemplative: “You what? [sigh] Okay.” He’s hands are going to flare up in this bluey-green tinge flame that will shoot down sparking along his legs to ignite the embers that are already covering his feet, and they’ll wrap around up his legs and they will split, and he will move fifty feet - casting Ashardalon’s Stride - down the staircase, and then using my action (because it’s a bonus action to cast) I’ll move another fifty feet, so one hundred feet down the stairs.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: You’re at the lightning… So, fifteen feet then another eighty because it’s a total of one hundred, so you’d match Magnolia on the ninety-second floor.
olive/Timmit: Cool, that’s me. I’m done.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: I’m picturing you two in a fucking race.
olive/Timmit: I can see her. It’s like a greyhound chasing a rabbit.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: You’ve gone right down the middle and he’s circling you.
olive/Timmit: Yes! That’s a sick image.
Steven/Noah: And I’m just there.
olive/Timmit: There’s this trail of this green-embered fire that’s left down the stairwell.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Lucille, it’s time to roll a death saving throw. If you roll a one that’s two fails.
Rosie/Lucille: I wouldn’t roll a one.
Jorja/Magnolia: You still have luck anyway.
Rosie/Lucille: Yeah, I’m pretty lucky.
[dice rolls]
Rosie/Lucille: Eleven.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: That’s a success, yeah.
Rosie/Lucille: Success!
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: So, you have one success and one fail.
Rosie/Lucille: They cancel out.
Jorja/Magnolia: In a way.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Kind of, and we move back to Magnolia at the top of the round.
Jorja/Magnolia: Okay, I move a hundred feet.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Which moves us down another ten floors to the eighty-second floor. At which point we can see Lucille unconscious another two floors down from you.
Jorja/Magnolia: Lucille!
Rosie/Lucille: [stereotypical old lady groan]
Jorja/Magnolia: I bonus action cast Misty Step, and my broom flies through a little, tiny cloud portal, and I disappear into it, and I reappear cradling her head. Just kneeling down next to here, and I say, “It’s okay, just hold on a little bit longer. It’s okay, it’s okay.”
Steven/Noah: You two should kiss.
[laughter]
Jorja/Magnolia: [kissing sounds] Give you the kiss of life.
Rosie/Lucille: Mwa darling.
Jorja/Magnolia: Mwa darling.
olive/Timmit: Lay on Hands?
Jorja/Magnolia: Emphasis on ‘lay’.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Timmit and Magnolia are having this race, and you fucking cheat and go through the portal.
Jorja/Magnolia: Yeah! “Hey Timmit, fuck you. I could do this the whole time as well.”
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Noah darling, racing down as well?
Steven/Noah: Well, I just heard about twenty floors down, ‘Lucille!’ so I’m going to assume that they found her, and I’m just going to chill.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Just going to hang out in the stairwell?
Steven/Noah: Yeah.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Yeah? Good job.
Steven/Noah: Maybe actually- What floor am I on?
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: The ninety-fifth.
Steven/Noah: Wow that’s pathetic. You know what? I’m going to open the door and go into this floor.
Jorja/Magnolia: What’s your bedroom look like?
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: That’s what I would have asked until the essence was taken away.
Steven/Noah: Now it’s just a dilapidated room full of nothing.
Jorja/Magnolia: Joke’s on you, that’s what his bedroom looks like.
Steven/Noah: Bam.
Rosie/Lucille: Do you guys think that stairwells are called stairwells because it’s like a well where stairs would go, but it’s got stairs in it instead.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: I do think that.
Rosie/Lucille: Really?
Steven/Noah: So, what do I see?
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: You see essentially the room that the shredder was in. It’s a nice abandoned office building - minus the shredder.
Steven/Noah: Cool, I’m going to go to the lift.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Okay, you’re going to take the lift down?
Steven/Noah: Yeah, I’m going to press the ground floor. I don’t know what floor they’re on.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: That’s fair.
Steven/Noah: They’ve got this.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: I’m surprised you didn’t use your tools to be like, ‘Okay, judging from the sound they’re roughly…’
Steven/Noah: Don’t tempt me.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Alright, that sounds like your turn.
Steven/Noah: I think so, yeah.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Ding.
[elevator ding]
Steven/Noah: I mean, these two are being aggressively heroic. I think they’ll be fine.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Yeah, true. Timmit, I believe we’re moving another hundred feet?
olive/Timmit: So, seeing the cloud appear and then swallow Magnolia whole and then disappear - do I see her reappear?
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: I reckon.
olive/Timmit: Yeah?
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Yeah.
Steven/Noah: Assuming you can see Lucille.
olive/Timmit: Alright then, yeah. Would I be able to see where Lucille is from where I am?
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: You’re currently on the ninety-second floor, and they’re down on the eightieth floor.
olive/Timmit: So, probably not.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Probably not, no.
olive/Timmit: Yeah, so immediately I’ll see the swallowing of Magnolia, and it’s like this…
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: ‘Panic.’
olive/Timmit: ‘Danger.’ I’ll kick off the wall and I’ll do a flip, and I’ll go into my Bladesong.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: That you now have, yes.
olive/Timmit: That I now have.
Jorja/Magnolia: Falls down stairs.
[laughter]
Jorja/Magnolia: He goes to jump over the railing, and his foot gets stuck, and he just falls the whole way down, and the elevator doors open on the ground floor as he lands.
olive/Timmit: I’ll jump off each section of the walls doing this Bladesong, just doing this pirouette dance as I leap from one side, just moving down. I move sixty feet, and then I use my action to dash to move another sixty feet - so one hundred and twenty feet total.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Which maths exactly to be on the eightieth floor, yeah.
olive/Timmit: I’ll hop down, and I’ll land. I’ll see you and the flames will peter out and dissipate, and I’ll kneel down. “Is she okay?”
Jorja/Magnolia: *panicked* I don’t know. I’m trying. Just give me a second.
olive/Timmit: It’s okay. It’s alright. Just do what you do best.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: The thing is that Lucille has to roll another saving throw before we can heal.
Rosie/Lucille: Oh, I can do that easy.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Yeah, roll it.
Rosie/Lucille: I’ll roll it. It’s going to be a one.
[dice rolls]
Rosie/Lucille: It’s a fifteen! Woo!
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Yeah baby! That’s two successes. Magnolia darling.
Jorja/Magnolia: Olá. Umm, I might just walk around.
[laughter]
olive/Timmit: ‘I might just go for a stroll.’
Jorja/Magnolia: Might just go for a stroll. I’m going to desperately cling to my necklace, and the orrery [essence] I already had, I’m going to hold it to Lucille, and I’m like, “Please, please, please, please, please,” and I’m going to use all of the rest of my Lay on Hands to heal her fifteen points.
Rosie/Lucille: Do I heal?
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: You do heal, yeah.
Rosie/Lucille: Oh cool, nice.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: And your eyes flutter open.
Rosie/Lucille: *strained* Magnolia.
Jorja/Magnolia: Fuck, I aged her somehow.
[laughter]
Rosie/Lucille: Did we win? Did I hit the door good?
Jorja/Magnolia: You did. You did. You got the essence for us.
Steven/Noah: Why the fuck would you say that?
Jorja/Magnolia: She’s going to say it anyway
Steven/Noah: True.
Rosie/Lucille: It was my husband. He did it. I saw him in the room.
Jorja/Magnolia: Okay.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: You look back at the room, and it’s just an abandoned office room.
Rosie/Lucille: Oh, I sound crazy right now
Jorja/Magnolia: Yeah, just this moment.
olive/Timmit: As opposed to when we walked in here? No.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: You guys are out of initiative now that we don’t have to worry about death saving throws.
Steven/Noah: Just Noah in the elevator: [sings a little ditty].
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: What would you all like to do in this moment?
Jorja/Magnolia: I give Lucille a little cuddle.
Rosie/Lucille: I give Magnolia a little pat on the head, and I go, “Thank you darling.”
Jorja/Magnolia: Oh, thanks.
Rosie/Lucille: Should we go to the goats?
olive/Timmit: Yeah.
Jorja/Magnolia: Yeah.
Rosie/Lucille: Yes.
Steven/Noah: I’m going to cast Cure Wounds on myself.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Roll it.
[dice rolls]
Steven/Noah: Six.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Six?
Steven/Noah: Six.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: You’ve never cast Cure Wounds, I don’t think. What does that look like for Noah?
Steven/Noah: Hmm, you know what? He’s going to pull out his smith’s tools and his tinker’s tools, and he’s going to touch himself. Woah, that sounded really bad.
[laughter]
Rosie/Lucille: Ah, Noah?
Jorja/Magnolia: It’s like a car battery. ‘I feel alive!’
Steven/Noah: Noah is going to grab the smith’s tools in one hand and the tinker’s tools in the other hand, and he’s going to place them against his chest, and he’s going to sort of jump-start himself.
[electricity]
Steven/Noah: And feel some energy back.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: I love that. Thank you.
Steven/Noah: He thinks he’s robot.
Jorja/Magnolia: I’m going to: “Timmit, can you help me get her up.”
olive/Timmit: “Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.” I’ll lean over and help Lucille sit up.
Jorja/Magnolia: As we do that, I’ll put my hand on Timmit and cast Cure Wounds.
Steven/Noah: Can I also just tune into my ear piece and be like, *radio* “Did you get here?”
Jorja/Magnolia: *radio* No.
Steven/Noah: *radio* Oh.
Rosie/Lucille: *radio* It’s me!
olive/Timmit: *radio* It’s okay, we got her. She’s alright.
Steven/Noah: *radio* Cool, I’m back on the ground floor. You can take the elevator if you like.
[dice rolls]
Jorja/Magnolia: I heal eight.
olive/Timmit: I’m healed eight. *radio* Oh sweet, elevator. Did you hear that guy's voice in the elevator again?
Steven/Noah: *radio* No.
olive/Timmit: *radio* Okay.
Steven/Noah: *radio* Just the elevator music.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: [sings a little ditty]
olive/Timmit: Are you okay with her? I’m going to get the elevator and bring it up here. Can you carry her?
Rosie/Lucille: I can walk.
olive/Timmit: Sit down grandma.
Rosie/Lucille: I hobble up with my walking stick all stubborn and plant it into the ground just glaring at you for possibly thinking that I can’t walk. “How dare you, but thank you.”
olive/Timmit: Timmit just nods and is like, “Okay.”
Jorja/Magnolia: Magnolia has had her thumb up this whole time, like “Can do.”
olive/Timmit: I’ll walk over to the front of the elevator and I’ll press the down button.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Yeah, the elevator leaves where you are, Noah, and heads up, and ding.
[elevator ding]
olive/Timmit: Is the panel back in place or is it still ripped off the wall?
Steven/Noah: It’s still ripped off the wall. There wasn’t time.
olive/Timmit: I’ll hold the elevator door and let Magnolia and Lucille go in first, and then I’ll climb on in, and I’ll take a look at the speaker where the voice came out of earlier. I’ll lean in. “Hello?”
Jorja/Magnolia: I just hit the ground button.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: No answer.
olive/Timmit: Hello?
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: No answer.
olive/Timmit: Well, I guess they’re gone. We did it.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: And you head on down to the ground floor and reunite.
olive/Timmit: As we reach the ground floor and the doors open, I’ll just lean in and, “Heh, I beat you you little nugget. [snickers]” and I’ll quickly dash out of the elevator.
Jorja/Magnolia: I’m going to very quickly - seeing that we’re now back together and knowing we’re all accounted for - take out my Sending Stone and message Cleary.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: What do you say?
Jorja/Magnolia: I say, *radio* “Okay, we’ve got the last essence, but it looks like Glamos is getting closer everywhere. Are you guys okay?”
Tyrone/Cleary: *radio* Yeah, are you guys okay? I totally saw that explosion. I’m right near the border right now. I was thinking about coming in. Are you guys okay?
Jorja/Magnolia: Can I respond to that?
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: It’s a Sending Stone, so you can say that as many times as you want.
Jorja/Magnolia: Sending Stone has charges, but you can send it and they can respond, and then they can send it and you can respond, I think.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: I guess she’ll use hers again.
Tyrone/Cleary: *radio* Do you guys need me to come in there and help you, or are you going to meet me at the border?
Jorja/Magnolia: *whispering* Are we going to meet her at the border?
Steven/Noah: *singing* Meet me halfway.
olive/Timmit: I think we can do the border, that’s okay.
Jorja/Magnolia: *radio* Yeah, we’ll just meet you at the border, but watch out because it looks like Glamos is spreading fast and to here where it wasn’t before.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: No response.
Jorja/Magnolia: That bitch- no.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: What’s happening with the essence by the way?
Jorja/Magnolia: I carry it?
olive/Timmit: Yeah, just put it in your pocket, I guess.
Jorja/Magnolia: Okay, I hold it.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: You hear in your ear via the ruby phone:
Tyrone/Cleary: *radio* Hey girl, we don’t have the Sending Stones but we still have the ruby phones.
Jorja/Magnolia: *radio* Oh shit, you’re so right and so smart and so beautiful…
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: And we’ll finish up with King Oberon once again chiming into the ruby phones say:
Tyrone/Oberon: *radio* It’s so great to hear that you’ve all succeeded on your mission. Let’s all meet up again at HQ and we can talk about the next Moving Day.
olive/Timmit: *radio* Alright, wonderful. Sounds promising, your lordliness. Alright, we’ll see you soon. *regular* I don’t fucking like this guy.
Jorja/Magnolia: Who fucking snitched!?
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Thank you so much for listening to Portal Quandary. Portal Quandary is made possible by the following people: Myself, Tyrone Cross as Dungeon Master, Editing, and Community Manager, Steven Edwards as Noah, Olive Jerome as Timothy, Rosemary Ochtman as Lucille, and Jorja Odd as Magnolia. Elias Moffat is our Content Producer, Narrative Consultant, and Transcriber, and that theme song is Belly of the Beast by Lily Harnath and Henry Lucas. We’re on the lookout for a couple of people to join our team as a Community Manager and as a transcriber, so if that sounds like you, please slide into our DMs or shoot us an email, and that email is portalquandary@gmail.com. We’re also on a bunch of social media now including Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Threads, and Patreon, all of which are @PortalQuandary. And this podcast was recorded on the lands of the Wurundjeri people, and produced on the lands of the Awabakal, and Wurundjeri people. Portal Quandary acknowledges and pays respect to our traditional custodians and to their past and present leaders.
Theme Song: [rock music continues]
Finding home in the belly of the beast, (in the belly of the beast), to make it home we can’t accept defeat, (there’s no turning back) so roll the dice and come along with me, (come along with me, let’s go), finding home in the belly of the beast.
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: It moves down to Skittles’s turn, but Skittles is on you, so it’s fine. [laughter]. You understand.
Steven/Noah: He’s pulling my levers!
[laughter]
olive/Timmit: Ratatouille style?
Steven/Noah: Yeah. ‘Come on master, move.’
-
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Something that I forgot the mention is that there’s beautiful elevator music playing this entire time.
Rosie/Lucille: Can you please give us a sample of it?
Tyrone/Dungeon Master: [sings a little ditty]
Jorja/Magnolia: It’s almost the Wii music.
Rosie/Lucille: I’d like that as my ringtone.
olive/Timmit + Steven/Noah + Rosie/Lucille: [recreates the Wii theme music.]