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What is up everybody?
Welcome to another edition of Playing Strange With Gamers.
I am your host, as in I am every,
almost every other time,
except for the times when Squid or Dave,
or that one time, uh, Steve is DMing,
but that's me. I'm your, I'm your boy John here on the mic, uh,
we're doing some little bit different this Go round.
The only other regular cast member I have in the studio with me right now is,
uh, David d.
Yeah.
Uh, the other two people we have in here are two, uh,
patrons that we have pulled out of the Discord. We have, uh,
repeat guest, Amanda Clements. Hello.
How are you, Amanda? All right. Uh, actually, before we started recording, Dave,
I was talking to Amanda. I'm like, let's see here.
We're doing a side thing and you're on the show, and Dave's on the show,
Dave's character is gonna die. I mean, that's, that's just how it's gotta be.
Yep.
That's a.
Fact. And then also with us is not our newest,
but one of our newest, uh, patrons, uh, Oliver.
I, I bring greetings from the land of Canada. Hello.
. Hey,
all this goofiness is brought to you from the magical land of Patreon. Uh,
if you want to help us out and be a patron and maybe,
maybe get selected to help out with the show every so often,
like these two work, uh,
go check out patreon.com/playing games with Strangers,
and you can subscribe for as little as a dollar a month,
uh, $5 a month. We'll let you watch this stuff live and hear all the
goof offeree that gets cut out by Dave. So.
I leave so much in.
. You, you're supposed to say you cut so much out,
and then they want to be patrons to hear.
That. Sorry, I read my script wrong. I cut so much out.
. I, for one,
can say I was very surprised listening to the unedited audio of Mickey Mind
Flair.
Yeah, there's some choice things that day , that gets cut.
We, yeah, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not gonna air. Yeah.
So if you wanna find out what we're talking about, go be a patron. Uh,
that being said, uh, wait, we don't have Josiah here.
I'm just gonna roll the credits playing.
You know, there's no danger
playing games with strangers.
With strangers.
Alright, so this episode is going to take place, uh,
between the last session we did and the session before.
We're basically picking up, uh,
we're picking up from where Amin had agreed to, uh,
kill some Tower falls, and the next day.
So this happens at the same time as the last session.
Uh,
we come in to a CD tavern on the
east side of Northern Tower fall.
Some might recognize this tavern as being one, uh, where, uh,
stumble foot spent a portion of his day post the coronation
in red.
Here we find a table of three shadowy
figures sitting at a table waiting for another person to
join them. So let's go ahead and go around the table. Dave,
we'll start with your character.
I will, I will tell you his name later,
who you would see sitting at this table would be this
six and a half foot to back seat. Very skinny,
very lanky, black coarse fur,
very bright yellow eyes. And, uh,
he is currently just sitting there with a dagger picking at his claws.
And sitting directly to his right, Amanda.
You would see an elf woman with black cloth
draped across her in like a robe fashion,
and then a hood up and a mouth covering of cloth as well with a
little bit of this light,
almost white blonde hair sticking out the side saying nothing.
That sounds like Princess Zelda in that game where you could play as her and
Oliver.
Greetings. I am Cn,
s e a n I am a robotic construct nom in
proportions made of brass with one singular blue sensor that
acts as my eye.
You guys are sitting there. Um, you guys don't know each other.
You may be familiar with each other's work as you are all in the same field
of employment. You, you haven't, uh,
necessarily met each other before.
But the one thing you all have in common is you all received an, uh,
an envelope asking for your presence here, midday,
which is an irregular place to meet midday.
Not that you wouldn't frequent a, a venue such as this,
but typically when you're in such a place and
it's work related, it's usually at night.
So a robot, huh? Really?
Yes. That is correct. I a robotic construct.
Right, right, right. And you pretty pretty princess.
I resent that remark. We're here for a job, aren't.
We? I suppose.
So. There's no need to talk unless it's about work.
Sure.
In, in the most serendipitous manner as, uh,
the elf says this,
the door opens and a ator walks in and proceeds to go
directly to your table as though he knew you guys were going
to be there. And he looks at the three of you, and then he looks at,
he looks at the back end specifically, and he goes,
I thought there was supposed to be four.
Uh, well, maybe somebody tripped and fell along the way. Mm.
Well, whatever. If they,
if they can't be bothered to make it here for a job proposal,
then I guess that just means more money for the three you. Am I right?
Absolutely.
That's what I'm saying. Uh, don't, don't drink, don't drink.
The swill they have at this place. I'm just telling you, I, I watched,
I watched the lady behind the counter give this guy,
basically the scraps from the day before Preston,
a mug called it some highfalutin hips to be,
it's the stupidest, I digress.
According to my calculations,
drinking that will give you a 99.999% chance of
contracting severe illness.
Oh, yeah. That was, that was kind of the point.
Well drink up Robot Boy.
. I am not waterproof.
Anyway, I brought yous here for a reason. You see, uh,
there's this chick that, uh,
well, there's this chick that I've been trying to get with and, uh,
she seems to be a bit distracted, so I'm gonna help her out by, uh,
taking some of the dis some of the distractions out of her life.
If you may I have an inquiry.
Okay. Uh, metal man.
What is a chick.
Female girl?
Listen to this chick. She knows what she's talking about.
I thought a chick was an abbreviation for it. Chicken.
That's true too.
Right? Uh,
I need a couple of these distractions removed. Uh,
I'm gonna take care of some of them myself, but, uh,
I can't be at all the places at once. And quite frankly,
I can't risk some of these other distractions going to the ones that aren't
informed about what's going on.
Okay. So let's get with it. If you would just.
Tell us where we're going.
All right. I need you to go. And he, he hands you, uh, a couple, uh,
addresses that are written down on a piece of paper. And then once you're done,
go ahead and bring proof of your Kill back here. We'll say bye tonight,
and then I'll pay you as soon as you're here.
If, have you ever done this before?
Of course. I've done this before. I've, you know, let, let me tell you,
let me tell you, uh, me and the Thieves Guild were like this.
In fact, I'm so hardcore that the Thieves Guild wouldn't have me. So,
uh, you know.
Would it be more convenient to meet in an alleyway instead of this tavern?
Who is this guy?
I don't know. I am. See, you're the one A and m.
S e a n a robotic construct.
Right?
Yeah. Are we, do we have to do this together?
I mean, I've, I'm told that three of you are the most effective at, uh,
well at what you do. So.
I am built to succeed.
Good, good. Good, good, good. Yeah. Uh, we could,
we could go now. Would that be a good idea? Two of you, uh, also,
sorry, I failed to introduce myself. Coil. Hello Coil. Uh,
that's c o i l, coil for you,
robot guy.
Interesting.
You can call me Mara.
Nice to meet you. You can call me Mara.
What kind of proof do we need?
Or do you have a preference?
Uh, I don't have a preference.
Just something that would be indisputable proof that the job's done.
Would it be suffice to bring the entire course?
No. The sky, I mean, seriously. No.
Uh, not the whole corpse.
I'm gonna assume heads are fine, but, you know, heads are heavy.
Whatever's, whatever you can bring to me, inconspicuously.
Okay? Sure. It shall be done. All.
Right. And then when you get back and it's all said and done, I'll have the, uh,
I'll have the, uh, 35,000 gold ready for use.
Okay?
Is that 35,000 gold for each of us, or is it to be divided?
However you want to divide It is fine by me.
Maybe if you, uh, don't make it back, you don't get it cut. How's that?
I find that situation extremely unlikely.
Well, let's, uh, let's shake on it. Let's.
See. So I stand, start walking out the door without.
Them seeing shakes his entire body.
I see what you did there. Okay, let's, uh, let's get outta here.
I'm already opening the door.
She moves fast.
Yep. So you guys are out in the midday. Really?
There's only two na two names that, uh,
come up on this list. There's a male name and a female name,
which whichever one, whichever one you guys want to go to first.
I am to not discriminate among targets.
Let's just go with the male.
All right. Someone actually made a decision. I'm not used to that.
That sounds about right. .
And to make it even weirder, their last name is Clements.
And she was married. .
Um, okay.
You go to the first folder that was handed to you guys,
you come up in a, uh, kind of a sub,
a nice suburban ish neighborhood.
You get to the front of the target location and you see a house with a
door that, uh,
you're fairly certain is well secured and locked up.
It's almost as if this person was prepared for a siege.
There is a slide covered looking hole on this door.
We should walk around the place, make sure there's no other entry point.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is there a way for me to access the roof?
In what, in what manner? Because what that sounded like was it sounded like,
tell me how I can do what I want to do. And that's,
that's not my job.
I would prefer ladder.
Okay. Garfield.
Work. Smart. Not hard.
So is there a ladder by chance?
I believe the ladder got left in Wilder's backyard last time we had a ladder.
Hmm.
. I wonder what else is in Wilder's? Backyard.
Barbecue. Mm-hmm. . Um, all right.
So you just by glancing around from standing in front of the house,
you don't see an obvious ladder. Uh,
there is a lattice on the side of the house.
Okay.
And what is your passive perception?
Passive perception is 16.
In fact, what is everybody's passive perception?
It's 22.
I have got a.
12Th. Okay. So Mara,
you're the one who notices it. But in the grass,
every so often you see some,
almost like riding on the grass that's only slightly different color
than the grass itself. So it blends very well,
but it looks like a, a writing that you're not familiar with.
So I wouldn't have any idea what type it actually is. Just that it's writing.
I don't know.
Um, if you want, if you want to know what type, what type of writing it is,
I would need you to make an archana role.
Sure. I can do that.
May I also, um, if she, if I see her investigating it,
like look at at it.
Well, she hasn't investigated yet. She's just seen it.
So six.
Uh, no. You have no idea what it is. Cool.
So I'm gonna point it out to everybody else. Okay.
Does anyone know what that is?
I do not. No. For.
I would like to also check.
All right, me too. I've got a 12.
I got a dirty 20.
You got a dirty 20. All right. Coil.
You know this as being a roon or a glyph
and you don't know which specific one it is,
but you do know that people set these up for home defense
and interacting with them is never a great idea.
Yeah. Uh, don't, don't touch that.
We should probably just step away and, um,
yeah, let's ignore that and try and find a
safe way in.
That's what I said when we first got here.
Yeah. Well, I'm just saying this is not the safe way.
So let's leave this alone. Okay.
What is unsafe about riding on the ground?
It's this particular riding on the ground that is the problem.
So is back away and, uh, let's,
I don't know, check the windows.
Understood. I shall check the windows.
So I start circling around the house the other way.
Keeping an eye on the grass for any more cliffs.
You know, they're there, but, uh, you know,
being able to see ones that you aren't aware of.
I need you to roll an investigation check please.
It's, uh, 22.
Okay. Uh, you start making your way around,
you're finding that getting onto the lawn is going to
be a bit of a task with how many of these cliffs,
it's kind of like he's got his lawn set up to be like a minefield more than once
the idea goes through your head. Like,
could somebody have sold us out already to this individual?
Like he seems a little bit overly prepared for a situation like
this coil. You said you're going to the windows?
Yeah.
Okay.
Make an investigation check on that window that you're
at because he's got like an inset porch and he's got like a front
window. All the other windows would be on the lawn,
which you would also probably have noticed more glyphs as well.
What did you roll for the window?
11.
Seems okay.
Hmm. Yeah. Maybe I should try and get up on the roof.
I'm not buying this one from where I'm at.
How far would you say the lattice would be? Like if I could, I, could I jump?
The lattice is on the side of the house.
Okay.
But like on the right side of the.
House, is there a fence on either side of the house?
There's a fence going around the outside perimeter. Mm-hmm.
of the yard.
Okay.
Obviously if you got your yard set up like a minefield,
you don't want the neighbor kids just accidentally running into your yard.
Right? Yeah. From where I'm at.
Could I jump onto the fence or attempt to jump onto the fence?
. Um, . Okay. Uh,
gimme a second here.
Cuz you're making me pull out physics I haven't had to use for this game ever.
I haven't either. So this is all kinds of fun math I'm seeing.
I'm gonna sit here and think so somebody else can go and make a smarter decision
than I'm probably going to.
Can I roll to come up with a smart idea?
? Gosh, is that an actual thing roll for?
Cause I'm gonna roll for every session.
Dm, give us a smart idea.
Yeah, I'd like a smart check.
I've got a higher intelligence stat than I feel like I can role play properly.
So I mean, I do too.
Since coil seems to recognize these marks on the ground,
I'm gonna ask him a few questions about it. Excuse me. Feline,
this is needed as coil.
Do you know if these glyphs activate when an object touches them?
I rolled a 20. Do I know that.
You would know that? Yeah.
Uh, yeah. Does that not seem obvious when I said get away from 'em?
They seemed to be magical. If writing itself can be dangerous,
therefore I assumed that only a creature could activate it. Unfortunately,
I am not immune.
I don't understand anything you just said.
I'm going to take my 1000 ball bearings and one by one toss them out
to activate the different mine fields before I do that. Like,
make sure everybody backs away.
Okay? There's.
No way this could possibly go wrong.
No, none whatsoever.
I've never lost so much money so fast in my life.
But you know what you do? You.
Uh, yeah. So if he's gonna do that, I'm outta here.
Goodbye. I'm gonna,
I'm gonna cast invisibility .
All right. So, uh,
go ahead and make a ranged attack roll to hit the first cliff.
23.
How far away from the property did you move?
I would've moved 20 feet.
And the other two of you.
? Uh, I moved my full walking speed of 30 feet.
I moved the full distances that I could hopefully into some trees nearby.
Nothing could possibly go wrong. No nothing. And run over two calculations.
Just two.
I feel like two is a very high number. Relatively.
This might be the fastest I've ever lost a character.
Uh, Dave and Amanda,
your characters just managed to get out of the way of the blast as
a giant, as a orange bead of light comes off the awning of the house,
and slams into where the, uh,
glyph was that was activated by this ball bearing. Um,
15 feet out. Uh,
unfortunately does not clear the impact area
of the fire. I say.
I moved plenty right after you said, okay,
because I suddenly sensed I was in danger. Yeah.
Yeah. That, that's called medicating.
Sir. That's mitigating, yeah, you're right. You're right.
Yep. So you take 28 points of fire damage.
Still alive, but barely breathing.
As this loud explosion happens, the slider on the door opens.
You see a pair of eyes behind the door and he goes, what's going on out here?
He can't see me. I'm invisible.
Alright, I forgot you're invisible.
Since I'm totally gonna be the face of the party and don't have a minus due to
charisma. I'm gonna try to talk my way out of.
This .
Okay?
Greetings. I'm here to interview a you a boat,
your opinion on error file, name not found.
Make a perfor, make it to a deception check, please.
That would be a 12.
He just kind of side eyes you and then he looks over,
he looks over at you coil and he goes, is this he a junk?
Yours?
Oh, yeah. Uh, sorry.
He is not programmed quite right. Uh, lost his ball.
We were just playing catch. Sorry.
Um, okay. Um,
I'm gonna suggest that you don't do that near my yard for reasons that just,
uh, demonstrated themselves.
So while they're talking,
I'm gonna walk over the giff area that was activated as I'm invisible very
slowly.
Make a perception check as you're moving over that glyph.
There's a nats funny.
Okay? You are starting to feel, uh,
arcane energies build under your feet. Like that glyph is recharging.
As you stand there, you,
you become increasingly more in danger of setting it off
again.
Okay?
You guess.
So with that, could I skirt around it and see, like,
since I can feel that energy building up,
can I skirt around the area of effect that I would feel there?
Make a perception check for me, please.
I have face step, so I could use the misty step spell.
Okay.
I can teleport up to 30 feet to an unoccupied space that I can see.
Okay?
So I would try to get within that 30 feet distance to the person
speaking at the door and cast that spell while still visible.
Okay.
Well, he's still inside the door.
He's still inside the door. All he did was slide open the heap slot.
Okay, I'm gonna do it anyway. That's fine.
Okay.
So you are right up there in front of the door and you can see in through the
peep slot.
Okay. Hey, uh, C uh, what,
what was that thing you were questioning him about? Again?
I was questioning him about error file him not found.
As C is is talking to this guy.
I'm hoping that would divert his attention,
and I would like to fling one of my daggers right through the,
the eye slot.
Really?
I would like to try that.
Okay. Go ahead and make an attack. Roll.
Okay, that is 8 25.
Uh.
Mara , what's your ac.
Not 25 .
15.
Ooh.
Okay. Uh, go ahead and roll. Damage.
That is seven piercing.
Uh, Mara, as you're standing there looking through the eye hole,
you catch a dagger in the back of your neck.
You take seven points of piercing damage,
and the sky is looking to see this dagger floating in space.
It's fine.
.
That's the most squid response to that ever. Uh,
mera, I need you to make a constitution save for this,
uh, spell of yours.
To be fair, I was planning on doing that before you moved in front of the door.
So.
The dirty 21.
All right. So yeah, you main you maintained concentration to stay invisible. Uh,
so yeah, that hurt the occupant of this house. You,
you see his eyes move down to this floating dagger and he is like,
you mind explaining this to me? Then?
Those are the effects of air fondly not found eating it or consuming it
can cause minor illusions to appear before your very eyes.
Okay? I need .
So many roles for that to work. Uh, Oliver,
I need you to make a deception check.
I've got great charisma. This will totally work.
Coil. I need you to make, uh, slide a hand check to,
to determine whether or not he saw you throw it.
I got a 28.
Okay. Uh, what'd you get for the deception?
14.
Okay. Uh, he seems like he,
he's not quite buying what you're, what you're selling,
but he's not in siege mode. Like, he, like, things are weird,
but he's, it's more he's trying to figure out what's going on. He's like,
are are you with the tower falls?
Excuse me.
But are you referring to the royal family or the towers falling as if
we're.
He looks over at you coil.
In what regard exactly?
Do you work for them? Are you supportive of them?
Uh, we're maybe what you might call, uh, contractors,
uh, surveying. Surveying the area. Yeah.
Hence the questions and the whatever it is he's looking for.
Hmm. That's what I thought. I'll have you,
the two of you know that this is my own imminent domain.
I am considered a sovereign citizen.
I do not identify as a servant under the crown.
And I will ask you to leave my property. And he slides the visual slider shut.
Mera you also, two things.
You caught a smell of spices coming from behind the door,
and you hear more latching and
clicking from behind the door as well.
Was I able to tell anything about the figure from eyes?
Go ahead and make a, uh, investigation. Check on that,
please.
That's 24.
This is a, uh,
this is a race of creature that is not
typical to this part of the world.
I'm assuming that you have an active knowledge of the known
fauna or what was up to date at the time that you were created.
But you have,
you recognize this individual as being a fanar more
locally present in another nation known as
Fania.
I will share this information with the rest of the group,
but subtly only with coil, because I don't see Mera here.
You don't, you don't see the, just the dagger and.
The blood. I see the dagger, but I don't know that that's you necessarily.
So I'm gonna pull the dagger out of my neck and kind of quietly just go.
You too are more hindrance than a help.
She,
she says this as she pulls a dagger outta her neck and there's arterial spray.
Just.
It appears that you are injured.
Who do you think did that?
Definitely me.
Not the target.
I didn't know you were there.
Mayra, I need you to make a constitution safe for me, please.
15Th.
There was a brief moment where you could kind of feel yourself slipping into a
very comfortably numb state after smelling the spices
that were coming from the inside of that doorway. Like you,
you start to kind of bliss out a little bit and all of a sudden you just kind of
bring yourself, professionalism, kicks back in and pull yourself out of it.
And you're like, okay, there's something going on inside this house.
Wonder if it's flammable.
We should probably find all the exits, um,
just in case, right? Yes. Are we in agreement.
Again, what I stated when we first got here.
I don't remember. Okay, well,
I'm gonna head toward the back door.
Don't step on the brooms.
Don't touch the lawn. Got it.
Yeah. Basically,
I'm going to nimbly try and access the fence
that paralleled the house so I can climb the fence across
to get, uh,
how do I wanna do this?
It literally sounds like you're just trying to describe a giant cat walking
along the top of.
The fence, essentially. That's what it is. .
Are you down on all fours when you're doing this too?
Or are you just tight roping it?
Oh, damn that down on all fours. That's better grip. Awesome.
Awesome. Are you gonna yawl like a cat at night too,
when people are trying to sleep?
Not this time.
Okay. You're not gonna sing the song of your people.
Nope. I assume that's an acrobatics.
Yes, please.
Perfect. That was a nat one. I quit kind.
Of a cat. Are you.
A bad one?
I didn't say if I drank any of the stuff at the tavern. So.
.
We're professionals here. This is fine. I'm just having a bad day.
Dave, go ahead and, uh, roll me a D eight please.
Three.
Okay.
A blue beam fires out from the le
the roof of the house. As you fall into the yard,
you get incredibly cold and take
32 points of freezing damage as you land in this yard.
Don't, don't do that. Don't do that. Oh, mm. Nope.
And you can begin to feel the arcane energy start to recharge on
the glyph that you're currently laying on top.
Of. What do I roll to? Scramble Super fast away.
. Uh, I'm just gonna say that. I mean,
you can jump over the fence and back out of the yard.
Okay.
Fur all puffed up. Just.
. Yeah. .
Just giving you the mad cat look on his face. His ears are cocked back and.
Uhhuh
wiry hair already. Just like, yeah.
So that's what I would like to do if I could just get away from where I'm at.
Yeah.
Yeah. I, I, I'm assuming just.
Letting me do it. Okay. Mm-hmm. . Okay. Uh,
maybe just go through the front door. I don't know anymore.
There's too many locks on the front door.
By the time we get through all of them, he'd know we were there.
I could pick them quietly.
Can you do anything quietly? It's.
A serious question. I have a volume button on my back. You should use it.
My volume is adjustable. To what level would you like me to set my volume?
Zero.
.
I'm gonna start try to skirt around the house. Like how much of the house?
Like is there any sort of, um,
foundational like ledge that I could step onto? That's not the grass.
I, it just,
it just occurred to me that we are literally playing a tabletop R p g version
of the floor as lava right now. Mm-hmm. .
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
So now Dave's roof idea isn't so dumb. You just didn't do it.
You couldn't even get to the house to get on the roof.
Leave me alone. .
Like a true cat looking for a ladder. .
This is one of those, uh,
situations where as a dm I'm sitting here thinking like,
I have thought of so many different way things to try here, . Like,
I can't suggest anything to you. Um,
let me paint this mental image of what this house looks.
Like. That'd be good.
You're, you're in a suburban neighborhood. It,
there's a white fence that goes around this house.
There is a walkway that goes from the sidewalk to the front porch of this house.
The front porch is set in and it goes across
the front of the house at, with the top of the house coming forward,
like an awning over the top of it where there's some patio furniture on,
on the front porch that does not look particularly used.
And there is a railing going across the front of the porch area.
And then the lawn, from what you can tell,
goes all around the front of the house with a
rosebush shrubbery lining the outside of the house
with the way you guys approached on the right side of the house,
you did notice that there is a lattice that goes up to the top
of the house along the, uh, the chimney.
Huff far away from the porch. Is the lattice located on the side of the.
House?
I'd say you'd have to go across the front of the house about 15
more feet than hang a left for another 15 feet.
Does the house look flammable?
? I mean, it's a house.
We'll keep that as Plan Z .
So if I, I were to, um,
I'm on the porch then since I'm next to the door, correct?
Yes.
Okay. Are there any windows within the porch area?
There is a window on that porch area,
but it does have those decorative bars.
Decorative. Sure.
I mean, we all know who this is. This shouldn't be shocking to anybody.
Sometimes I forget that. Not everybody can see what's going on inside my head.
It's safer that way, .
Honestly, it is. Yeah.
All right. So I'm not even in the same property, right?
Am I that you said I jumped over the fence
to like the neighbor yard, yard.
Out. You are out. No, you are out on the sidewalk going in front of the house.
Okay. Okay. Uh, maybe the lattice this time. I don't know.
Uh, this isn't normally how this stuff goes. Usually it's kind of a get in,
get out kind of thing. It shouldn't be this hard. Why is it this hard?
It appears that the target is quite paranoid.
Apparently.
He's now also been alerted to our presence,
thanks to someone throwing balls at his yard.
To be fair, I was trying to set off the trap.
You succeeded.
Like I always do. But is there a like,
clear path to the front door?
Like there's, there's like a walkway to the front door, like, like a paved Okay.
Like a paved walkway to get to the porch.
Okay. So we can get to the porch just fine. It's surroundings. That's difficult.
Exactly.
Okay.
I'm gonna walk to the left side where the,
the porch does go and pull out my rope and look at what the roof looks like.
If there's anything I can wrap my rope around.
Like I said, the, the awning comes off of the house over this porch area,
cuz the gap between the top of the railing that's going around the, that's,
that's going across this porch.
The gap between that and the edge of that awning is probably
four, five feet. Okay. Um,
the awning extends a little bit out from the
railing. Uh, so you would have to, so I can balance on it.
You maybe jump backwards and grab it or maybe
backwards.
That's what I was gonna try to do, just with the ropes help.
Okay.
Essentially . So if I do that, is that gonna be acrobatics.
At? Yes ma'am. Acr acrobatics.
Good. I got a 13.
Total.
Yeah.
Okay. Here's what this looks like to everybody else.
You guys see Princess Zelda from the Wind Waker, um,
jump off this, uh, railing.
And she does this backwards. Like it,
it's almost like she's trying to do a backwards, uh, basketball slam, right?
And she hooks her hands up and she misses with one hand and she's basically
just hanging there, just sl dangling, swinging back and forth,
trying to maintain. Wait.
So invisibility is gone?
Uh, yeah. Uh, based with, with, with that type of a maneuver. That's,
that's okay's what happens?
She's dangling there and looking desperate to keep her grip.
I will gladly run up there and help give her a boost.
This tei comes up and grabs your feet and steadies you,
and you're able to get your hands on there and you do a backwards pull up and
flip yourself over onto the roof of the house. You have made your way up there.
Yay. See, that's what I, that's what I wanted to do,
but I didn't wanna show off. So .
That's a very good cat-Like reflexes. Yes.
Yeah. So how about this? Um, you could lower the rope down.
We, I could get myself up there. Um,
I don't know about you robot boy.
I could toss up a PE of mine to help keep the rope in there.
Maybe.
Does Astro Boy have any sort of like jet pack.
Smells, .
Jet pack? I wish that be cool.
You know who would've had a jet pack? Gareth,
if he would've let me take his leg like I wanted to.
I'm take his leg.
It's true.
I wouldn't go tie my rope around the chimney or equivalent
on the roof. Hopefully it's close enough and,
and lower it down that side. It's, it's a 50 foot rope, so it should be,
it should be enough to tie around for coil and then to climb up.
All right. So I need coil and CN to, uh,
roll an athletics check to get up the rope, please.
2314.
Okay.
Uh, yeah, you both make it up the rope fine.
So you're on the roof of this house.
I would like to immediately head to the overhang of the back door
basically to watch for anybody that might come out.
You go to the back of the, the back of the roof and,
uh, it,
yeah. So you, sorry, I, I just had some thoughts.
. I'm sure you did.
No, I did and I'm going to do it. Uh, so yeah,
you get to the back of the house and you notice that there is no door on the
back of this house, but there is a big window.
With bars.
Nope, no bars.
Hey, uh, this idiot doesn't actually have a door.
It's just a big old window.
Go walk over. Take a look. We could smash it.
We could. Hey, swing that rope over here.
Smashing. It would cause a.
Lot of noise. I would like to use the rope to kind of lower myself down,
upside down to look through the window. Sneakily.
I am having flashbacks to the first Mission Impossible movie right now. .
Toast. Toast, toast. Um, all right, uh, so you're sneak,
you're sneaking down this back win down this, the backside of this house.
Mm-hmm. . And you see you're at the window. Mm-hmm. .
And what are you doing?
I'm currently just looking through the window to see if I can see specifically
the person that we just saw at the door,
or if there are other people inside.
Uh, no, in fact,
you're looking through this window and then this,
you're looking into like a kitchen area. Across the kitchen area.
You can see something that looks like a fireplace.
Everything seems fairly dust covered.
Like there hasn't been anybody in this area for a while,
or it hasn't really been used.
I'm going to lower myself the rest of the way down.
Can I do a cool little, like, spin and then.
And you're gonna land on the lawn?
Sure.
I need you to make a perception check to see if you are going to
land on a glyph.
Without a doubt, he'll land on his feet, but.
30, 20.
All right. Uh, as you are dropping off this rope,
it suddenly comes to you. Oh yeah. Glyphs.
And you notice you were about to land directly on one,
but you managed to throw your body forward just to get underneath the lip of
the roof. And you are propped up right against the house,
uh,
next to the window because obviously you don't want the mark to see you standing
in this backyard and you safely dodge landing on a glyph.
Okay. So my feet are in the yard, but body pressed up against the house?
Yes.
Okay.
There's no back decking area on the back of this house,
so it's just lawn house, you know. So.
I'm gonna lean over the roof down to him. Is it locked?
Uh, yeah. It doesn't look like it even opens. So,
uh, this is not gonna be a quiet night.
Here. Am going to give him his dagger back.
Catch.
And drop it handle first.
You trying to, you gonna catch.
That? I'm going to try. Yeah. Acrobatics.
Uh, make a, uh, slight of hand.
Oh, slight of hand. That makes sense too. Uh, 25.
Okay. Yeah, you catch it mid-air.
All right.
You are good for something. Okay.
Uh, as I grab it, um,
I'm going to
pull off my cloak and I'm going to
cover part of the window and then use the butt of my dagger
to just kind of tap and hopefully crack the window
just a little bit like very slowly.
You, you couldn't just use your, your claw.
I, I am so glad I am not the only person who thought of that.
.
Or the dagger blade or like anything else, but no, let's smash it.
. It's, it's, it's been done. It's been done. Um,
obviously you can break or crack this window with the dagger.
That's not the issue. Uh, what I would like you to do,
trying to think of how to try to roll to see if you do this
quietly. Stealth durp. Yeah, stealth. Go ahead. And.
That's what I was getting at. I was trying to be just quietly.
Um, okay. Yeah, go ahead and roll.
That is a 17.
It sounds like what it would sound like if someone was to step on a
tic-tac bo package, you know that kind of, that crunch sound. Mm-hmm.
, you wait a second. You don't hear any footsteps,
but you have punched, uh, almost like a fist size hole in this pane.
And there's, uh, it kind of spiderwebs out from there.
I'm gonna go to like,
the edge of the roof where the door is to make sure he doesn't exit through that
door.
Oh. Uh, so far nothing. No one's come out of it.
Yeah. I'm gonna proceed to, yeah.
Considering it doesn't open, um,
I'm gonna proceed to try and be quiet and make a,
uh, large toy sized hole in there.
Okay? Uh, make another stealth check please.
30.
Holy good Lord. Okay. Uh,
so in a meticulous process,
you're grabbing the pain with your paw and you're just kind of
pulling against it and just barely tap,
tap tapping along these spiderwebs to elongate these, uh, cracks. It,
it, it, it, it's no louder than a bird pecking at a tree.
Uh, and then as you are able to manipulate this crack around this window,
you're able to remove it as a solid piece.
Okay?
And set it down next to the house.
Meanwhile, mayor has taken a short rest.
.
I would, I would say that that does that, that would allow for a,
uh, a short rest. So if you want to roll some hit dice during that, uh,
I'll allow that.
Okay.
, could I also be taking a short rest?
Oh yeah, you did. You did lose some hit points when both,
when you took that fireball. Yeah. Uhhuh.
.
So this star, this short rest is brought to you by Dave's in decision.
Hey, sometimes it pays off,
especially when you stat yourself for slight of hand and stealth.
coil.
You have a coil size hole in this window
in front of you. What would you like to do?
I'm just gonna climb through it. I'm not even gonna tell anybody.
So you're letting go of the rope.
I guess I assumed that I already had done that.
Uh, so yeah,
you step into this kitchen area and,
uh, uh, despite the fact that you have, uh, punched you,
like you pulled the front, the pain of glass out. Mm-hmm. ,
there's broken glass all over the floor in here,
and there is,
but there's like a thick dust coating everywhere as well.
One other thing I will,
I will mention to you as well being as I'm feeling
gifty with information, um,
you felt a slight tingle as you went through the window frame.
And there is something a little bit off in the room that you're in.
The glass that I see on the floor.
Does it look new or is it covered in dust as well?
It's covered in dust as well.
What are like the exits out of this kitchen? Like,
does the kitchen just flow right into another room? Is there a doorway?
If I were going to exit the kitchen, how would I go about doing that?
Well, coming in through the window you just came through to the left,
there's going to be,
that looks like there is a doorway that leads into an unoccupied bedroom.
Okay?
And then there's a opening that goes into kind of a front room on the front of
the house.
And if you get down and you look in the fireplace,
you can see through the fireplace into that front room as well,
which is also unoccupied and equally as dusty.
So can I only see through the fireplace or could I like squeeze
through the fireplace into that room?
I mean, if you wanted to, you could. And that's, that's kind of weird. But.
, no, I guess I'm saying this from a surveillance
perspective. Like,
could I go into chimney and or fireplace
and look for anybody that might be
there.
In the fireplace? No.
No, no. In the, in the living room. [inaudible] .
You wanna look through the fireplace? Mm-hmm.
to see if there's anybody in the other room.
Right? Basically, I, I want to be undetected if possible.
I got you Real stealth.
Okay. 29.
All right. You feel pretty darn stealthy. Uh,
you poke your head through the fireplace and uh, you noticed two things,
okay? One,
you didn't have to be that stealthy because there's nobody in that room. Hey.
Better sleep, sorry.
And two, when you look through the front window, where,
where the bars are at mm-hmm. ,
it's nighttime through those windows.
And that suddenly you understand why it felt off in that back room
because there was no light coming from the front of the house.
That confuses me.
Wasn't it midday when we started?
Sure. Was.
Is okay.
From our perspective, how long has he been in there by now?
At least an hour. We took a short rest.
Mm-hmm. .
I'm gonna at this point ask Mera, what is our next objective?
We have to kill the target.
What is the next step to our objective?
He seems to have been in there for quite some time by now.
Well, it appears he's gotten in so we could follow.
Unless you want to stay out here as you don't seem very stealthy.
I am extremely stealthy.
All right.
Built to succeed.
If you get us killed on this mission, I will kill you.
What is death like.
.
I gotta lower myself down the rope.
.
All right. Um, are you going all the way down?
I'm going down just slowly down to where I can get to the opening and the
pain. All.
Right? Uh, yeah. So you make your way into the, uh,
house just in time to see coil poke his head into a fireplace.
All right.
What are you doing? See him?
I'm following. At a distance.
At a.
Distance. Shortly afterwards, you, you pop into and you see,
also see coil with his front half crammed in a fireplace.
Everything is dusty as well.
And the broken glass and everything else I talked about earlier.
Data analyzed.
Did you find our target inside the fireplace?
How quiet were they coming in?
Yeah. Roll. Stealth. Both of you. Okay.
25, 17.
Pretty.
Darn quiet. What's your perception? What's your passive perception?
My past is, is 16.
Yeah. The, you, you didn't hear them actually come in.
As soon as I hear Mera, like I,
I jump and like smack my head on the chimney.
Okay?
You jump and you smack your head on the chimney and it hits against something
that you feel shift and the floor of the fireplace falls out from underneath of
you.
Goodbye wife.
, I mean coil.
And you fall down a staircase.
Cool. I assume I'll take some kind of damage for that. Yes.
Uh,
I'll just give you an even two cuz I I'm not gonna punish you for me
moving. Okay. Narrative.
And it did move. So it wasn't like a hard surface. You hit,
you hit a moving surface.
Wasn't as painful. Right?
When I reached the bottom of said staircase, what do I see?
You encounter a slight hall that enters into a circular
room that has an ascending natural rock staircase on the
opposite side. And there is a podium in the middle of the circular room,
a with a couple pools of, uh,
like a couple puddles of water in the room as well.
You have been listening to the Playing Games With Strangers podcast,
with the voices of John Har you, Katherine Zinsky,
Dave Clements, JS Earls, Celeste Mora,
Josiah Crandall, Eric Campan, and Steve MacDonald.
The theme music was written and performed by Steve Arthur,
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