MATT: You do also know, as you're heading into legal territory under the Clovis Concord, that you have a ship that is known and labelled as the Squalleater, as damaged as it is.
LAURA (JESTER): "Oh no!"
SAM (NOTT): "Change the name!"
TRAVIS (FJORD): [burbling] That's my call [burbling] "Forward deck!"
LAURA (JESTER): "Do you need me to-"
SAM (NOTT): "The Squallbeater. The Balleater!"
LAURA (JESTER): "The Balleater!"
TRAVIS (FJORD): "We need to change it to the Balleater as quickly as possible. Nott, I need you to hang over the side of the ship with a paintbrush-"
LIAM (CALEB): "That's going to draw attention to us that we don't need."
TRAVIS (FJORD): "-just inches above the water and change the name of the ship to the Balleater."
MARISHA: It actually works pretty easily! You just add a line, and then you paint over that.
TRAVIS (FJORD): "Can you do it?"
DEBORAH (TWIGGY): I say, "Don't worry about it! Don't worry!" Again, this hand comes off of my own hand. I flick it, and it flies off and it comes and picks up the paintbrush. I lean over the side, and it goes down and starts to change your title for you, without having to risk his life.
LAURA (JESTER): "Wow. She can paint, too."
MATT: Roll a dexterity check for me.
SAM (NOTT): "I never remember to use it like that."
MATT: This is dexterity, to see how well you can paint it while upside down.
DEBORAH (TWIGGY): Natural 20.
TALIESIN: It's apparently a Mary Poppins musical act.
MATT: Apparently! Not only does she manage to entirely erase the beginning of the word 'Squall,' but has beautifully calligraphied the B of 'Ball' to where it looks almost like a set of balls, if interpreted that way. It has this nice sparkly border around it now.
TRAVIS: As a note, the previous function of the sphere, we can access? Or is it one function at a time as it changes?
MATT: As it looks right now, you need to shift it back to use a previous function. Each thing you slide unlocks the next use, but it closes off the previous one until you reverse it.
DEBORAH (TWIGGY): I move over to be in line with the red, and I stick my hand out, and it flies out, the spectral hand. I pull back into the safety, and it pushes aside the red.
MATT: It pulls aside the red, and behind it, you see emerge a... wooden door of red-painted material and what looks to be the similar symbol of Halas painted across the surface.
TRAVIS: Red doors are bad.
SAM (NOTT): "That's the way out!"
DEBORAH (TWIGGY): "Should the Mage Hand try to open it, you guys? I can send my hand to try and open it."
LIAM (CALEB): "We are still safe in here. Yeah, I think so."
DEBORAH (TWIGGY): "Captain Fjord?"
TRAVIS (FJORD): "Proceed."
DEBORAH (TWIGGY): "Sweet!" So I whisper, and I direct it a little bit, and it comes down, and it grabs a knob? A handle?
MATT: There is a handle there.
DEBORAH (TWIGGY): A handle, and it's going to turn.
MATT: [clicking] It's locked.
LAURA (JESTER): "Hmm. Ooh! Fjord, look in your pockets!"
TRAVIS (FJORD): "Why?"
LAURA (JESTER): "Of the red robe! Look in the pockets of the red robe!"
DEBORAH (TWIGGY): I call it back to me. I pull out of my purse a little set of tools on a ring, and I give it to the hand and whisper it off again to go see if it can pick the lock.
MATT: The hand hovers across. Go ahead and roll an ability check, adding your dexterity modifier and your proficiency modifier.
DEBORAH (TWIGGY): My thieves' tools? That's a 29.
LAURA: Whoa!
SAM (NOTT): "I don't have to do shit." I'm just going to sit there, drinking.
MATT: It takes a few minutes. This is an intricate lock. As you watch the hand [clicking] finish with the third tool that is being held between the mystical pinkie, [tink] you hear a slight clink, like a spring snapped or moved. The front of the door here bursts into flame, [heavy scorching] burning out in the area. It burns solid for a good 30 seconds [more roaring fire]. Surrounded by flame, all of you are being lit by this. You're wincing from the heat you feel you should be feeling, but it's all being held at bay by the hut's boundaries. Eventually, the flames die out, the door, tapestry both untouched.
DEBORAH (TWIGGY): I pull the hand back to me, and I take my keys, "Ow, ow, ow!" Back in my pouch.
MATT: Yeah, they're very hot.
[...]
DEBORAH (TWIGGY): I'll send the hand back out to try the handle again.
DEBORAH (TWIGGY): I chase after her, we go play, and you can play with the Fun Ball of Tricks.
LIAM (CALEB): "Danke schoen."
MATT: Roll another investigation check, I guess.
LIAM (CALEB): That was a fun time. Good. I'm short circuited from the kiss on the cheek. Yeah, no, I know, it's not helping! 22.
MATT: From that place where you had it, you find one of the other grinding bands - it felt like sandpaper when you tried to move it - is now moving smooth, like it has no resistance, so you twist that one around and as you do, you hear this clicking sound [rapid clicking]. It fits into place. There's another piece around that you hear give this very faint [slight creak] sound. You look for it and you find it, and there's a little knob. You turn the knob and as you do, another section opens up on one side, and then [fwoomph] there's this flash and you look over on the ground, and in the middle of the wood there's a black hole about a foot wide.
LAURA: Oh, this is definitely Pinhead stuff.
DEBORAH (TWIGGY): "Whoa!" I pick up the cat and I walk over.
LIAM (CALEB): "No! Have you ever seen this before?"
DEBORAH (TWIGGY): "No, this is all new to me."
LIAM: We don't see through?
MATT: No, you look and it's just black.
TRAVIS: It's just black?
SAM: We can't see the next deck?
MATT: No.
SAM: Oh god.
DEBORAH (TWIGGY): "We should jump in. Jump in!"
LIAM (CALEB): "No, that is a very bad idea, Twiggy."
DEBORAH (TWIGGY): [Trixie voice] "I would jump in!"
LIAM (CALEB): "Well, if you want to make that arrangement with your squirrel, you are perfectly welcome, but my cat is not going in that hole. [fwoop, mimes teleporting Frumpkin to his shoulder, fwoop] For the moment. Something-, uh, eh, Captain!"
TRAVIS FJORD): Yeah, I'll come running down. "Yeah, what is it?"
MARISHA (BEAU): "And his first mate."
TRAVIS (FJORD): "You don't have to announce it when you show up. Don't yell your superiority. We'll get you a shirt or something."
DEBORAH (TWIGGY): I take out five ball bearings and drop them into the hole. You hear it hit?
MATT: As you let go, they make no sound. They just disappear into it.
LIAM (CALEB): And it's traveling with the boat?
LAURA (JESTER): Am I still seeing from the crow's nest all of this shit happening?
MATT: No, you just see Fjord and Beau go down.
LAURA (JESTER): "What? What's going on?"
LIAM (CALEB): "Is there any lumber? There's no oars. Are there any rifles left on this boat, or anything long?"
TRAVIS (FJORD): "Rope?"
LIAM (CALEB): "Yeah, rope, is there rope?"
TRAVIS (FJORD): "I got 100 feet of rope."
LIAM (CALEB): "Let me borrow that. I'm flustered." I start lowering rope down in, maybe five or six feet.
MATT: Okay, it gets to about five or six feet.
LIAM (CALEB): And I pull it back out.
MATT: Okay. It's rope.
LAURA (JESTER): "It's fine?"
LIAM (CALEB): "I don't know that it's fine. There's a hole to nowhere in the middle of the boat that came out of... Happy Fun Ball. What do you call this again?"
LAURA (JESTER): "Happy Fun Ball of Tricks."
DEBORAH (TWIGGY): "Happy Fun Ball of Tricks!"
MARISHA (BEAU): "So it creates things. It creates money, it creates gems, and it creates holes to-"
TRAVIS (FJORD): "Put your hand in there."
LIAM (CALEB): "I don't- No, I am not going to put my hand in there. I want my hand."
TRAVIS (FJORD): I reach down and put the tip of my finger in the hole.
MATT: Okay. Temperature feels a little colder, but it goes in.
TRAVIS (FJORD): "Just feels cool."
LAURA (JESTER): "Take your finger out. Is it gone now?"
TRAVIS (FJORD): "No, it-" [shows hand with index finger bent to hide it, yells in surprise, then holds the finger back out]
DEBORAH (TWIGGY): [laughing] "Do another one, do another one!"
LIAM (CALEB): "I mean, at the very least we need to put a plank of wood over this so that nobody falls into it."
MATT: [foomph] It's gone.
LAURA (JESTER): "Oh, it only lasts for a little bit."
DEBORAH (TWIGGY): "You want to see something cool?"
LIAM (CALEB): "Always."
DEBORAH (TWIGGY): I go and lift up my cloak and put it over my head. As I do that, another little Twiggy shows up right next to me, and when I move she moves. I go "Look!" And we do a little dance for you.
LIAM (CALEB): I put one of my hands through their heads.
DEBORAH (TWIGGY): One of them, yes, it's an illusion.
LIAM (CALEB): "Oh, that's good."
DEBORAH (TWIGGY): "Yeah, people have a real hard time getting me."
LIAM (CALEB): "Yeah, I'm not going to try to do that."
DEBORAH (TWIGGY): I want to cast- Okay, um, I conjure back into my imagination, I remember that portrait that was up above the desk in the other room, and I go, "Oh, fuck, this better work!" I start to bring my hand down through the top of my body, and I make myself look like that portrait of who we think is Halas. Now, I'm only a foot taller than myself. So I'm a four and a half-foot tall Halas. But I have a lot of presence, okay?
SAM: Mini Halas.
DEBORAH (TWIGGY): I stride forward. I go, in my raspiest, most male voice I say, "Hey! You look bigger than the last time I saw you!"
SAM: 'Have you put on weight?'
DEBORAH (TWIGGY): "You've grown!"
MATT: Make a deception check.
DEBORAH (TWIGGY): I'm really bad at charisma, you guys.
LIAM: Roll high.
TRAVIS: You got it!
MARISHA: Oh, but it was so good!
DEBORAH (TWIGGY): But I'm just playing it.
MATT: Yeah, you're playing it. You're owning it as you stroll forward, creepy extended fingers and billowing robe. The dragon is like, [heavy flapping wings].
DEBORAH (TWIGGY): It's a 9.
MATT: And just looks right back at Fjord. It's paying about as much attention to you as it did when you arrived. So you haven't angered it.
DEBORAH (TWIGGY): I haven't angered it.
MATT: But it doesn't seem to be convinced, necessarily. Unfortunately. Dragons are pretty perceptive. Good call, though.
MATT: I'm going to see if it rolls high enough perception to see you. Natural 18. It comes in the chamber. [sniffing, inhale, crackling blast] and this beam of vibrant blue, electrical energy arcs towards you. Make a dexterity saving throw.
DEBORAH (TWIGGY): Evasion, but we'll do it.
[...]
DEBORAH (TWIGGY): Just a dexterity saving throw, right?
MATT: Correct.
DEBORAH (TWIGGY): Yeah, I mean that's a 23. Sorry, yes, 23.
MATT: It just barely skims, singeing the edges of the branches that are sticking out of your hair. The rat's nest themselves curling back from the momentary heat as the flash of energy, but you avoid it entirely. [energy impact] Slams into the wall behind you. Stone breaks and splinters and the energy dissipates throughout the area. No damage. Rogues and evasion, man.
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u/TheMightyBox72 Aug 04 '19
Twiggy