Aerois - Episode 4: 2.5 Days to Die

Katie Morrison as Aila

 Kim Richards as Nova V'ger

Rhiannon Frost as Sentry

 Tom Hazell as Qillek Ad Khollar

**2.5 Days to Die** is the 4th episode of the Aerois Campaign. It was broadcast live on both the Yogscast Twitch channel and highrollersdnd Twitch channel on 22nd July 2018 from 5PM to 8PM BST.

*The gang continue their deadly battle with the Wild Elves while Lucius begins a countdown...*

## **Summary**

### **Announcements**

* Mark welcomes everyone and introduces the players.
* Rhiannon is away this week.
* Sponsors this week: D&D Beyond and Brilliant.
* Trott forgot his dice this week, so Mark loans him his My Little Pony sparkly dice.
* There will be no High Rollers next week because both Mark and Trott will be away.
* Email any fan art to highrollersdnd@gmail.com to ensure that they have consent to use your art in the fan art video. There is almost enough art for another video.
* Pride shirts are still in the Yogscast merch store until 27th July 2018. All proceeds go to Stonewall, an LGBTI+ charity.
* Russ Charles (who is a custom miniature sculptor and has made custom miniature sculpts for Nova and Quill so far, others to be made soon) has launched a kickstarter for minis called Dungeons and Doggies, with different dogs as different classes in D&D and rules to use them in your campaigns.

### **Recap**

"*You all had crashed on an airship called the Sparrowblade into a valley deep in the continent of Suvonna, southern Suvonna, in a place called the Bitterwood. You crash-landed, and after finding an NPC called Arval who had drifted off from the party, and helping him escape the hands of some savage-looking Wild Elves, you had started talking about where you were going to go, your plans, how you were going to survive, and you had made your way to the airship crash itself, to look for supplies. There you had discovered a few different items, you discovered the fate of a few things, and then you were discovered by another band of Wild Elves that had come to pillage the site themselves. You were spotted, so you ran off into the woods. During the run, during the escape, Nova and Lucius, you guys began becoming exhausted, tired, and slowed down. And rather than trying to push on, and continue running, you decided to make the choice to try and hide. trying to hide in the woods, you all scattered and did your best to try and hide yourselves and escape this band that were following you, chasing you behind. Unfortunately, Nova and Lucius were discovered, and they were being dragged away by this group of Wild Elves; Quill was then also subsequently discovered by their pet hawk, a snow hawk that had come with them. And you were basically facing the threat of being captured and taken back to their camp. Lucius managed to persuade the group to just take some valuables from them, and to let you go. You [Lucius] wanted to pay them off, but the shaman that you were speaking to had no interest in gold or anything like that, and instead ended up taking your food rations, as well as Lucius's arcane focus, Nova's sword that she carried with her, that looks very unusual, and two scrolls from Quill. They left you to fend for yourselves, and, very dispirited, you made your way to where the others were located to take a long rest. During that long rest you discussed what you wanted to do, and a plan was hatched to sneak into their camp at night and to try and steal your items back. You waited until it was midnight, you snuck into the camp, you spotted there were a few sentries around; unfortunately, Aila made the attempt to try and sneak up on the first sentry to take them out, made some noise through some bad luck of a natural 1, and alerted the sentry. Aila managed to injure the sentry quite badly, and then Quill attempted to finish him off by firing the thunderstone pistol, which makes a colossal noise. And thus a battle ensued, with you facing off against multiple sentries, the other Elves becoming awake. The shaman that you dealt with earlier was present, you managed to defeat him. But then as the battle began turning, and the numbers were overwhelming you, a figure emerged from one of their habitats, these shelters that they've built: a woman dressed in furs and leathers and bone trinkets emerged, and saw that you'd slaughtered a number of her people. Nova attempted to convince her to give your stuff back and then let you go, but she seemed very upset at the deaths of her friends and transformed into a large bear, using druidic magic.*"
### **Part 1**

*Things are looking dire for us as we continue the fight against the Wild Elves!*

There is a minor correction from last week: Sentry has an item that allows her to reduce the damage she takes from each attack by 1, so being hit twice last week, she should have taken 2 fewer damage, and is therefore on 1 hp. The party sees this bear bite down on and swipe at Sentry with its claws: she buckles and goes down on one knee and the lights in her eyes start to dim, but she still lives. Aila is under the effect of Hold Person, and fails her saving throw, so is still held. Lucius appeals to Quill and Nova to save Sentry, then casts Acid Splash on one of the Wild Elves who is aiming an arrow at him - the acid hits for minor damage, hitting more surrounding foliage than enemy. Two Elves aim their bows at Lucius, but both miss; Quill gives bardic inspiration to Nova and prepares the dodge action. They notice one of the Elves glance back at the shelter behind them as if he's heard something, and they then see beams of purple light coming from inside the shelter erupting from the doorway and between the wall and roof timbers; the building explodes into shards of timber, almost wounding the Elf. They hear a yelp, and see that emerging from the building is Valla, holding Tiangong in one hand and Lucius' arcane focus in the other; she spies Lucius and Nova, then concentrates, mutters something and suddenly becomes incredibly quick, dashing over towards them, calling "I've got them! I've got them!"

Sister Yusef is startled at seeing Valla, but casts Sacred Flame on the bear, attempting to protect Sentry - the bear ducks and the spell misses, however. Nova moves towards Valla, but being just out of reach, and unable to get Tiangong in hand, she casts Eldritch Blast on the bear - Nova notices that Tiangong seems to have been drained sightly, and that the energy levels available are less than before; the bear is hit. Sentry stands and heals herself with her Lay on Hands; the bear attacks her again but misses with both bite and claw. Aila misses, Lucius readies an action and calls to Valla to toss him his arcane focus. One Elf drops his bow, pulls out a hatchet and runs for Valla but misses, the other aims its bow at Lucius and hits. Quill ducks behind Sentry and casts Resistance on her. Valla disengages, throws Tiangong to Nova, gives Lucius his arcane focus (who casts his readied Chromatic Orb at one of the Elves - he hits with an acid attack and kills it, the other is hit with his dichromancy). Sister Yusef casts Sacred Flame again and misses yet again; she calls to Valla to hide behind her. Nova casts Hexblade Curse on the bear, then Eldritch Blasts the bear, hitting with significant damage and breaking the druid's bear form.

Sentry attempts to hit Kalla with her battle axe, then shield slams at the last minute, hitting for significant damage - Kalla fails her concentration check, freeing Aila from the Hold Person effect. Kalla casts Ice Knife at Quill, doing minor damage, which then explodes missing Quill but damaging Sentry. Aila attacks Kalla recklessly, hitting her in the back with her hammer - Kalla is disoriented but still barely alive. Lucius cries out, "Stand down, or I'll kill your last clan friend!" - Kalla hesitates, seeing the fear on the last Elf's face; he then turns tail and attempts to flee into the woods. Quill re-loads his thunderstone pistol and points it in Kalla's direction, trying to persuade her to yield. Valla has not noticed Kalla's hesitation, only seeing that she is still holding a spell and ready to cast it, and, shaking uncontrollably, throws three magic missiles at Kalla, killing her. Nova decides that they will not leave any survivors, so chases the last Elf and Eldritch Blasts him; Aila runs after him as well, Lucius goes to Valla and sees that Yusef has thrown her arms around Valla. Yusef is saying to her, "What are you doing? You're not supposed to use your magic! You're not trained enough!" - Valla is still in shock and replies, "She was going to kill them! She was going to kill them!"

Quill is worried about Sentry and checks her over for damage - there are broken branches and purple energy leaking out, but she is alive. The last Elf tries to stealth and escape, both Aila and Nova have lost sight of him. Aila stealthily tracks the Elf, with Nova creating noise elsewhere to assist, and finds him, knocking him out - she carries the unconscious body back to the Elf camp. Valla is being soothed by Sister Yusef, and her once vibrant violet eyes are now dulled, and Valla is quiet and subdued. Aila ties the unconscious Elf to a tree. Lucius tries to surreptitiously give Valla a thumbs up, but she is withdrawn and staring at the ground and a nearby dead body - Lucius lies on the ground to attract her attention and waves at her, she looks to him and nods, giving him a half smile. Yusef is looking directly at Lucius and clears her throat at him.

They scour the camp, with Nova finding some fairly foul-smelling food and grain, water skins, fur throws, and animal hide and fur cloaks. She also finds oil lanterns and flasks of oil, Quill's scroll case with its two scrolls, 50g in a coin pouch that looks like Lucius', short bows, arrows, spears and a spear tip that the druid was wearing. The money is returned to Lucius (who gives it to Aila and Nova); Nova takes the spear tip from Kalla's neck. Aila notices that none of the Elves are wearing any tartan, and that a number of their tattoos have been scarred over or drawn over as if they are exiles from other clans. Lucius wants to cremate the bodies, but Aila wants to wait for the unconscious Elf to awaken so that she can ask about appropriate death rituals - Quill reminds them that he fired a very loud gun in battle, and Sentry reiterates that Kalla told them there were more Elves on a scouting mission that could return at any time. Aila slaps the prisoner awake and tells him that he and the rest of the group should leave the party alone as they move through the woods or they will be killed - he sees that Kalla is dead and says that he is not sure how they will survive now, and that they will have to raid a nearby human farm to the north. He says that they used to be part of the Kalen'Rus, but are no longer a part of them because they did something that the elders did not like and got kicked out; he also says that he will not come after the party, having seen what Lucius did to his friend, Vorr, and that he will try to convince the others not to come after them either (but that he cannot promise anything since they will be mad at what has happened).

Nova suggests that they should take some of the gear that she has found, and asks the Wild Elf what burial rituals his people follow: the Elf says to leave them and that he will take care of them. Aila says that she is not interested in killing Wild Elves, and the Elf says that if they had known what the party was capable of, Kalla may have sought their assistance with a tribe of Goblins to the west rather than hunting them and taking their gear. Nova, being sorry for hitting the Elf, now offers him a blanket to ensure that he does not get too cold while waiting for his friends to return to the camp. Lucius is wandering around the shelter, realising what has just happened and having a miniature internal meltdown, Quill and Sentry have wandered off a little and Sentry begins to take a short rest.

The camp is in disarray, there are seven dead bodies with various levels of terrible wounds, there is blood all over the ground, and the smell of burning and melting flesh - Yusef is looking at the scene in horror and has faced Valla away from it, who is now praying with one of her daggers in the dirt. Quill slumps down next to Valla who notices his compass and asks him about his knowledge of maps and navigation; Quill says that he has been mapping this area and some other lowland areas with Sentry (Sentry is attending to her wounds and there is no longer purple energy leaking out of her). Quill says that he has never seen anything like this and asks if Valla or Yusef have: Yusef says that she is from the Lowlands, and was born on Aelseraph - she says that she met Valla when she journeyed to the Temple of Siaska in the skycity of Horizon. Yusef says she spent a number of years there training priests and priestesses in Siaska's name, and Valla was a ward there, starting to display arcane powers which were not always controllable - she is a sorceress. Yusef said that she was put in charge of being Valla's ward, and that they used to go to bakeries and libraries and shops, but they have never seen anything like this.

Quill says that he has never seen anyone so young with such powerful abilities - Yusef says that while it is rare, it is not unheard of, and there are a few individuals each year. The Temple of Siaska and the Temple of H'esper often take in young students like Valla because they can become dangerous, not being able to control their powers - emotions can lead to outbursts of power. Quill asks Yusef if she can feel Siaska with her; Yusef looks up to the stars and the Cradle and says that she can when she looks to the stars, that it feels like a mother bundling up a child. Quill reiterates what one of the Wild Elves said, that H'esper is not in these lands, but Yusef counters by saying that people in the Lowlands are upset that H'esper favoured the elven sky cities and did not save those in the Lowlands, she does believe that H'esper has a presence in the Lowlands, however. Quill says that while the people here are upset that they did not get saved, Quill is more upset that he did - Yusef says that this is something that Quill will need to work out for himself, but offers to talk to him about this somewhere else, away from all the dead bodies.

Everyone takes water skins and 3-4 days of rations.

### **Part 2**

*The gang make plans to finally leave the Bitterwood and find some semblance of civilisation!*

They decide to get Arval and Corin, then head east to the river and follow it north to Goldthrone. When they return to their own camp, they find Arval, propped up and resting, but no sign of Corin; Arval wakes and says that Corin has gone looking for Valla. Fortunately, he hadn't gone far, and returns to camp once he hears the noise. Valla gets in trouble from Yusef for sneaking off.

Lucius is traumatised because this is the first time that he has killed anyone, and was not able to buy his way out of their strife. Yusef says that she understands why they took the actions that they did, but that the party has murdered people, while the Wild Elves were just thieves - there is a moral quandary that she wants the party to consider. There is some discussion about how long Lucius would survive on his own in the Lowlands - Nova thinks it would be about 2.5 days, but Lucius thinks that Daddy would find him before that,

Arval thinks that if they head north of where they are, the first major settlement they will end up in is Rosehall in about 3-4 days; he says that the Harvest Guard will keep the roads safe, so they should have safe passage to Goldthrone from there. They know they are being watched and followed by a small, 3 ft tall creature, clothed in scraps of fur and leather, it has big yellow eyes and long ragged ears, and has little knives tucked in its belt - it is a Goblin, and not particularly good at stealth. Quill starts talking about bogus treasure to try to encourage it to come out - it looks like it is listening to them, but does not understand anything they are saying. Aila sneaks up on it, and when it realises that she is there, it screams and runs off.

They finally get to the river by the time the sun is rising. Lucius does some Mending on Sentry to fix cuts and scrapes in her armour while they are travelling. They finally introduce themselves to each other. Nova tells them a little about Vortinssar and the Jassavir Experiment while Aila tries to fish with her javelin. The Jassavir Experiment is ancient history about one of the original elven cities from the founding age that went missing - many centuries before the Sundering, the elven city of Jassavir was experimenting with planar magic, and was teleported away, only to be replaced by another city, Vortinssar. This is how the Genasi, elemental beings, came to be on Aerois: they thought they had been kidnapped, and there were battles fought and sieges before it was realised what had happened. No one knows where Jassavir is now,

Aila has fallen in the river, but also managed to catch precisely one fish. The rest are still doing introductions: Yusef is human, originally from Aelseraph but was most recently in Horizon; she is in her mid-late 20s, has dark skin and black hair, but wears a head scarf, and wears dark robes of the Starmourner. Corin is human, mid-20s, and wears the same robes as Yusef, but has cropped blond hair and a short beard: he is from Horizon and has been there his whole life, was an orphan, and grew up in the church. Nova tells them that she had to trade in (or send home) a lot of her books at the last town they were in (Immixan).

Aila asks Nova if she has ever seen her tartan before, but she cannot identify that particular design. Nova reveals that she has access to specialist areas of libraries. Arval tells them that if they can get him back to Goldthrone, he will reward them handsomely - he has worked hard since his days in the Harvest Guard (he has had Evangeline, his crossbow, since then), and now has a large estate. They continue their journey and a couple of nights later, while Aila is on watch, she sees six sets of glowing eyes and cries out - the Goblin is back with friends, and they attack, four go for party members, while two ransack their belongings and grab whatever they can.

Two jump on Lucius and start pummelling him - Lucius falls unconscious. Aila crushes one with her hammer, Corin is stabbed in the stomach and collapses. Quill injures three, Yusef heals Corin, Sentry kills one and Aila kills another. Valla throws her dagger and kills one that was going for Yusef; Arval crushes one that was trying to steal Evangeline, and Nova finishes off the last Goblin. Quill heals Lucius to save him - it is the end of the second day, and Nova's estimate was very close.

## **YouTube Timestamps**

00:00 - Episode Start
6:07 - Intro
7:29 - Recap
11:33 - Part 1
48:11 - Quill "Are we the bad guys?"
52:20 - Lucius "Do none of these Wild Elves know about cologne?"
1:11:50 - Break time/Donations/'Brilliant' question
1:17:16 - Break ends
1:18:09 - Gameplay resumes
1:19:30 - Mark "I will turn this car around!"
2:26:29 - Outro/Donations/'Brilliant' solution

## **Featured Characters**

#### **The Adventuring Party**

* Aila
* Lucius Virion-Elluin Elenasto
* Nova V'ger
* Qillek Ad Khollar
* Sentry

#### **Returning NPCs**

* Arval Dagos
* Brother Corin
* Kalla
* Sister Yusef
* Valla

## **Featured Locations**

* Suvonna
	+ The Bitterwood

## **Trivia**

* Mark, saying that he's "a nice DM" recommends (as a DM pro tip) that any player who is not going to use their action should otherwise take the 'dodge' action to give disadvantage on attacks against the player.
* The title of this episode comes from the second part of the episode, where Nova thinks that if Lucius had to survive on his own in the Bitterwood, it would take him 2.5 days to die.
* Mark describes Goblins as "like trash pandas that would kidnap kids, murder you and steal your stuff".
* The party finally introduces themselves to each other in this episode.
* Yusef, Corin and Valla are identified by Mark as human.
* It is mentioned that the last town they were in before the crash of the Sparrowblade was Immixan.
* It is mentioned again that there is no moon on Aerois, the stars provide all the light at night, and the Cradle is like an aurora borealis - a multi-coloured halo that casts an ever-present glow around the planet and protects Aerois from planar travelling magic.
* The PCs levelled up at the end of this episode (to level 3).
* Mark mentioned that he was going to give Yusef and Valla XP along with the PCs because they had fought in every significant fight to date.

## Notes

1. ↑ Recap was briefly interrupted by discussion on why Quill had the thunderstone pistol rather than Aila - he apparently convinced her to lend it to him.