Episode 241 - The Actual Diary of Sinu the Red, Seriously This Time

Finding the diary of a crazed wizard is a tough thing. Do you read it? Do you read it extra carefully because the wizard may have put strange arcane spells within the dusty pages? You have to read it, of course. There is just too much potential knowledge that you just have to ignore the danger and barrel forward. Libraries and Books are the true dangers of our world, not those pesky dragons or dank dungeons.

## **Story**

The Ätlän-tã Fælcons have just defeated the undead corpse of Sofina Gadreel, the former mentor and maybe unrequited love of current party adventurer Denton Glenchester. Jaela and Toby look around the room as Rowan attempts to calm down Denton, who is weeping. She gives him a potion that is the opposite of a Five-Hour Energy, and makes his voice slow down a lot. Steve drapes an arm (not his arm. *An* arm...) around Denton, and convinces him that Sofina is probably better off now that she is dead, as she was a soul-less monstrosity before they came along. Instead of Denton refuting that he is sad that she was dead to begin with, it works! And he is no longer as sad as he was. Toby Detects Magic (as a ritual) on the flying sword from before, a rapier. It *IS* magic. Steve Identifies it. It is a Dancing Sword. The gang has officially spent *"Too Much Time"* on this sword thing. There are a lot of spells Toby finds that he has never heard of, prompting a string of expletives from the gnome. They also find a bunch of magical items as listed below, and Toby learns some new spells. It's all pretty OP, IMHO, LOL, NSA.

Toby gives the Iron Golem book to Steve, and takes the Robe of Stars for himself, along with the spell book, obvs. Rowan gets the Dancing Sword, and Jaela takes Charisma book. Rowan also randomly gets the Constitution book. Rowan finds a keyhole in the bookcase and Jaela uses the key to open it. Inside is a secret bookcase with a 67 red journals in it. Jaela pulls out Book 23 and reads it. It says that the writer has learned the *Duplication* spells, and is using it to make these journals. If the "master" found out what the writer truly felt, *"he would surely kill me and feed me to his imp"*. The writer has been physically and psychologically abused, and speaks of an event in which the master made him befriend a boy from the nearby village and lure him back here to perform horrific experiments on. They open the first book, and the hand writing looks as a young person's does. The author, presumably the same person as the other notebooks, seems to have a great reverence for the master. In the last book, number 67, several pages seems to have been placed in, from other books. It says *"I can't believe I found my sister after all of these years. I though for sure she must have been dead. I thought at first I couldn't believe it was her, but she even had my mother's old brass locket."* The handwriting on the out of place pages is less tidy, and says *"I finally have the pure soul I need for my phylactery. It is done. Only a great holy weapon can destroy it. I will keep it hidden, and keep it safe. And then nothing can defeat me."* They flip to the end (*I think all of them are reading the book together, in one big group, like in Scooby-Doo or something)* and read *"They are at the gates. It is an army. They say that I am evil. Me, the man who single-handedly saved this entire plane of existence. Let them come. They can't begin to understand my power."*

They theorize about what it could all mean; the books are all very old after all. Steve rips the bookshelf off the wall. Toby is reasonably sure that these are the Journals of Sinu the Red. Sinu was a very prominent wizard who gained huge amounts of power and let it all go to his head, so eventually, the realms had to band together to destroy him. Anyway, they can't find the body of Sinu the Red Lich, so they talk about Rowan's family. Baby Xena interrupts, and it's very cute. Toby reads from the journals:

About halfway through Sinu escapes and swears to do good to make up for the bad he did. The books explain a lot of the good he did, including when he stopped the invasion of an army of monsters. He is beginning to gain a bit of a following even. After a long time, his old master calls on him again, and Sinu experiences fear for the first time in a long time. The next thing is the crazy handwriting, placed in pages. It says *"My old master has finally paid for his years of 'teaching'."* It then describes how he defeated his master, bound him to a chair, and slowly tortured and killed him. After the torn pages, the handwriting goes back to normal, and it describes how Sinu has "lost time" and he has a very bad feeling, as if the torturing spirit is separate, or "taking over". As Toby reads he figures out that each time there is a torn out page, it is preceded by Sinu experiencing fear or anxiety, and then crazy handwriting detailing some horrible event.

They still don't know what to do, so Toby pops on over to the Astral Plane, just to look around, I don't know. Hell. What he sees blows his mind...

## **Trivia**

* The fact that Nika Howard hates when people speak very slowly is once again brought up, when Denton Glenchester is given a potion by Rowan. It was last seen in Episode 173 - A Guttural Reaction with the mushroom people.
* Toby is the only one to have brought up how fucked up it is that Steve is bringing along baby Xena on their adventures.
* Baby Amelia! AAAAAAHHHH! Baby Amelia shows up in the stream and makes some noise.
* Toby has been to many planes, including Gnome Heaven.
* The titles for this episode and the last one were accidentally switched, as they were recorded and edited together. This episode was initially to be named *"The Diary of Sinu the Red"*, and the last one was accidentally named that for a while, but it was fixed.

## **In This Episode...**

### **Cast and Player Characters**

* Michael DiMauro - *Dungeon Master*
* Tim Lanning - Toby Treacletart
* Jennifer Cheek - Rowan Grey
* Mike Bachmann - Steve Meloncamp
* Nika Howard - Jaela

### **Locations**

* Drunkeros
	+ The Crypt of Sinu the Red
* The Astral Plane

### **Inventory Updates**

* +1 Dancing Sword
* +1 Spell book with: *(ahem)* One 7th-level spell, one 6th-level spell, two 5th-level spells, two 4th-level spells, two 3rd-level spells, two 2nd-level spells, and two 1st-level spells.
* +1 Manual of Bodily Health - (Increases CON score by 2 permanently)
* +1 Tome of Leadership and Influence - (Increases CHA score by 2 permanently)
* +1 Manual of Iron Golems - (Teaches you how to construct Iron Golems)
* +1 Robe of Stars - (+1 bonus to saving throws while you wear it, also, you can pull off one of the stars and use it to cast Magic Missile at 5th level, ALSO, you can use an action to enter the Astral Plane while wearing it)

### **Quest Log Updates**

* [Active] - Curse of the Raven Queen / Destroy Sinu the Red
* [Active] - Find Teddy

### **Quotes**

**"Listen, I just go wherever the muse takes me, and the muse takes me to weed juice... or whatever..."** ~ *Jennifer Cheek*

## **Rolls**

* **Recap**
	+ Jennifer - 15
	+ Nika - 13
	+ Bachmann - 13
	+ Tim - 14

* **Toby** does an *Investigation* check to look around the room, specifically, at the books, like a Toby do - 19
	+ Finds several magical tomes in a bookshelf.

* **Jaela** does a *Perception* in the room to look around at things - 21
	+ Finds a small silver key.

* **Rowan** does a *Medicine* to remember what potion she just gave the weeping Denton - 15
	+ Michael doesn't know what it is, so he can't tell Jennifer what it is. It's a bit of a mess for a second. Denton drinks it anyway.

* **Steve** rolls *Persuasion* on Denton, to convince him that Sofina is probably better off dead now - 17
	+ Success - He is less sad.

* **Tim Lanning** rolls 1d6 to choose who gets the Constitution book - 1
	+ ROWAN!

* They all *Perception*
	+ Jaela - 15
	+ Toby - 8
	+ Rowan - 17
	+ Steve - 11
		- Rowan notices a small keyhole in the bookshelf.

* **Steve** rolls *STR* check to yank (or *Tug???*) a bookshelf off the wall - 20
	+ Success - He does that.

* '*Toby* rolls *History* to see if he knows anything about the journals and their author - 25
	+ Success - He knows that these are those of Sinu the Red.

* **Jaela** and **Rowan** do more *Perception* checks, since they have moved things around a bit
	+ Jaela - 19
	+ Rowan - 16
		- They feel as if they've cleaned the place out, and there is nothing of note left over.

* **Toby** rolls *Investigation* while reading through the journals - Nat20
	+ Success - Figures out that the inserted pages begin about two third of the way through the book.

* **Toby** rolls *Investigation* to remove all the placed in pages and find their original tomes in the pile of torn binders on the floor - Nat20
	+ Success - Is able to align the tears to find their original places.