Hi, This is Joe for miniature landscape hobbies and you're listening to Tale of the Manticor.

The following podcast is intended for a mature audience.

Listener discretion is advised.

Welcome back to Tale of the Manticor Season three.

Like the creature from which it takes its name, Tale of the Manticor is a mashup, a cross breeding between two different species of storytelling.

Here you will find the unpredictability of old school paper and dice games with the story craft of a dark fantasy novel.

No character is sacred and none will be spared if the dice decide their fate is at hand.

According to lore, the Tale of a Manticore is barbed with cruel and spikes.

There will be much pain in the days ahead.

Last time on Tail of the Manticor, in the last chapter, the party must contend with four animated suits of armour that come to life when they enter a room that has been designed to catch intruders.

Despite the double level up that happened before the fight, things go south quickly.

While the party members do score some hits, the animated armour lands blows frequently and hard, often scoring maximum or near maximum damage with their pole arms to devastating effect.

When it becomes clear to her that they are not going to win, Achillia throws down her weapon and calls for her allies to surrender.

They do, and mercifully, the animated suits of armor immediately stop attacking.

It's clear that they're programmed, so to speak, not to attack unarmed intruders, but instead to take them captive, and that is the exactly what happens.

The episode ends at the pieces being marched into a cell at Halberd Point.

Once inside, they're forced to manacle themselves before the door slams shut.

Chapter forty three, Part one, Day thirty six Evening Mythic Event Meaning sixty and eighty seven Abuse Magic party status Achillee seven out of fifteen hit points, Cord two of twenty four, Denni ten of nineteen ten, Tier nineteen of nineteen, fair Wind eighteen of thirty three, Flicker sixteen of sixteen supplies.

The companions have no food, remaining spells available.

Achillia can cast message and glitter Dust, Cord can cast and tangle, slow poison and hold animal, fair Wind can cast protection from Evil.

There was little talk among the companions As minutes turned into hours, there wasn't much to say.

It was clear to everyone why Achilia had called for their surrender, and her unanimous decision on the party's behalf this time did not create any animosity.

Warm look at Cord explained all the wooden construct had had chunks hacked off him.

There were deep clefts in his torso, even his head a spiked halbert tip had gouged his cheek, and beside his permanently mild smile, it made for a countenance that was perverse and distressing to look upon, as though he were quite happy to have been mutilated.

Achilia, Duranian Fairwind were not as badly off, but all three still had taken serious wounds.

They tended to themselves as best they could while manacled using the needle and thread duringing.

It taken from Deroth to stitch up the worst of their cuts, gritting their teeth through the pain of the operations.

Tener and Flicker had been miraculously untouched.

After the battle, they stayed silent out of respect for the others, who did not look like they wanted to talk.

In the end, the silence was broken, but it was not by any one of them, the magic mouth suddenly grew in the middle of their cell door and addressed.

Them, intruders.

You are now the lawful prisoners of the great and powerful wizard odok Zygog, within whose home you trespass.

Consider your bolly as you wait.

As abruptly as it had appeared, it withdrew the wooden lips, melting back into the surface of the door.

It must have signaled to Achillia that the time for despair and self doubt was over.

We need to come up with some kind of plan, she said.

The longer the show continues to air Tale of the mantic Ore, firsts get fewer and farther between.

But I think this is one.

The entire party has been defeated and imprisoned.

They be locked in a cell and manacled to boot, But because their captors were autoumatons, the Pecs still have almost all of their gear.

Immediately, two items come to mind that might help them out of this situation.

Achille's potion of Gassia's form and her spellbook.

Actually, let's take a beat and talk about spells for a minute.

Achillie had her spell of Detect Evil active during the encounter with the animated armor, so she knew that they were not created by means of an evil enchantment.

The spell description about exactly what constitutes objects under evil enchantment is I think, deliberately vague.

About a third of the skimpy spell description is a note to the DM saying they'll need to make a ruling.

Since this is a second level spell.

For it to have any utility, I have to give it enough latitude to say that Achillia knows with certainty that the animated suits of armour were not made with dark magic.

That knowledge was a key factor in her decision to surrender.

Actually, by extension, Achillia's perception of odog Zygog as a potential enemy, something she knows has never been more than an assumption, is now challenged.

That said, I really stop the narrative to try to figure out some kind of plan of action for the PCs.

Here are the key components of the situation as I see it.

One, the party members are all manacled and locked in a room.

For argument's sake, i'll say they've tried the door and confirmed that it is indeed locked.

Two, some of them are badly wounded.

Three they can assume they'll be left alone for a while, since the magic mouth told them to consider their folly while they wait, so hours are likely to pass before anything further happens to the PCs.

Four Achillia has a potion of Gassia's form and will soon have access to a new enchantment, or rather disenchantment, when she acquires dispel magic after rest and studying.

Five Flicker has the ability to blink, possibly through a door.

Probably would that even be helpful, I'm not quite sure.

Six The pieces still have access to mundane items like rope, thread, oil, etc.

I think I need to step away from the game and have a good long think.

See you later.

Okay, I'm back and I have had a chance to let the marbles roll around in the attic for a while.

My first thought concerned Achille's potion of Gassy's form.

If she used it, she could escape her manacles and even the prison cell with no problem.

It's not a magical door with her medical seal or anything.

So let's say hypothetically she does that, then what she floats around like a cloud hoping to find a key.

It's not likely to happen.

Eventually, she'd recorporealize as an aked half elf running about in a highly dangerous and well guarded wizard's home without access even to her own spell book, so that choice is clearly not a wise choice.

A much better option is to wait with the intention of learning spells that could help in their situation, like shrink Hey, it worked for Derenni when Achillia met him.

It could work again, and Achilia is not the only one to get a new and potentially useful spell.

Fairwood, since his level up in episode forty, now has access to second level spells, I think he'll choose hold person as the most likely to be useful in an escape attempt.

With this course of action pretty much decided, I redirected my train of thought and started thinking about the Seclusium itself.

I know certain things about this place that the characters don't, and I've kept him close to my chest.

In general.

I mentioned that not as an annoying tease, but to say it does and will greatly affect a thing's play out.

But I'm getting sidetracked.

Here's what's most important right now.

The parties stay in the cell will not last forever.

They've been told to wait, wait for what we'll see soon enough.

But the point is that the pieces do not have unlimited time to prepare.

How much do they need and how much will they have while they need about twelve hours to rest and memorize new spells.

Knowing what I do about what's happening outside their cell, I can say that they won't be interrupted in the middle of the night.

But let's make things interesting and add an element of randomness here.

I'll say there's a one and six chance that they will be interrupted first thing in the morning before they can memorize their spells.

We'll just grab eighty six.

Okay, we're looking for anything except one on the die.

Here's the role.

Very good.

I've got a five chapter forty three, part two, day thirty seven, sometime in the morning.

Misic event meaning abuse, magic party status achillea eight out of fifteen hit points having gained one point through natural healing, Cord three out of twenty four, having gained one point through natural healing, tour Any eleven of nineteen having gained one point through natural healing, ten Tier nineteen of nineteen, fair Wind nineteen of thirty three, having gained one point through natural healing.

Flicker sixteen of sixteen supplies the companions have been without food for one day.

After today, they will not be able to heal naturally until they have eaten.

Spells available.

Achille can cast, shrink, message, detect evil, glitter, dust and dispel magic.

Cord can cast and tangle, locate plants and animals, slow poison, create water, hold animal, and speak with plants.

Fair Wind can cast, cureled wounds times two, and hold person.

While it had been impossible to track the passage of time inside their presumably underground cell, the companions eventually grew tired.

For most of them, their worry and their wounds made sleep come with difficulty.

If they hadn't had their bed rules, perhaps Achillia and Dorrenni might never have passed out.

Poor Court, who never slept, had to stay awake all night feeling his injuries in whatever way plants feel pain.

At least he had Robin to keep him company.

Some hours later, as morning arrived in the outside world, the companions woke up groaning and stiff, their hurts complaining, and with the graveness of their situation hurtling into focus.

But Achilia found her resolve and, despite being manacled, managed to fumble open her book of spells and began to study, hoping to learn those enchantments that might prove most useful in an escape attempt.

While she was pouring over the arcane text, part of her mind began to ponder the nature of the beings that had captured them.

She realized that she had some understanding of how the animated seas of Armour worked, and although she lacked the skill to make anything like that, she might just have enough to unravel it.

She turned to the pages at the back of the book and found what she was looking for.

Yes, there it was a spell that had never made any sense before.

Now she understood it, and the knowledge could not have come at a better time.

She'd been to the task of memorization.

Beside her, fair Wind was tending to cowards wounds.

He put its bound hands on the construct's torso and eyes closed, allowed his energies to flow out.

While Achillie is learning dispell magic, fair Wind will create some magic of his own.

He will use both of his secure light wounds prayers to bring Cord back to I hope reasonable health.

Each spell does one to six plus one points of healing, so I'll roll twoty six plus two here we go, hmm, that's not great.

I have a five on the dice for a total of seven points.

Cord is restored to ten points, and while that's not a lot, at least now a light breeze won't send him to meet his maker.

When Achillia closed her book of spells and looked up, she saw dor Ready and tent Tears, sitting with her backs to the wall, side by side, conversing in low voices.

Flicker was snoozing by her side.

She jerked a little at the sound of Achillee's book closing, and then immediately returned to her nap.

Cord and Fairwind were standing by the shelf that held the remaining manacles, the construct, she realized, was looking somewhat better.

Understanding what Fairwynd had done, she thanked the cleric for his ministrations.

Or thank me, the gift of healing comes from Sadal's divine grace.

Fairwood replied.

Achilie looked over Cord's renewed body and saw how his wounds had closed to some degree.

Then she looked at her own stitched upcuts, even they were beginning to scab and heal, albeit slowly.

She touched one gingerly and winced.

Then led back at Cord once again noticed something.

Some of the wood sprouts and muss that had been hacked off him were destroyed had grown back, but in different places.

She pointed it out to Fairwind, who smiled knowingly and chuckled to himself.

Proof of the immortal soul, come again, said a Chilia.

Oh, I said, it's proof of the soul.

Does the soul's existence need proving?

Achillie was a bit confused.

Cord and Robin are proof enough.

They wouldn't exist if al they hadn't.

No, no, no, not to us.

Fair Wind cut in.

But without Cord or Robin at my side, I might struggle to explain the existence of an immortal soul to a Cameranthia farm hand, or a soldier or someone's dying old grandmother.

You know, before I came out east, I traveled in the West teaching the word of Sadal.

Achillia didn't know that, but she was unclear.

Noetheless, but how could Cord's wounds prove the existence of a soul?

She asked the construct leading in and listening to the conversation intently, he had an existential interest in the matter.

After all, there's a story I would tell sometimes.

Let's see, how does it begin?

The parable of the clergy House.

In the western reaches of cameronth where the land meets the sea, there once was a fishing village with an old church made of stone and wood.

Beside this church was a second, smaller building, called the clergy House.

It had a roof of drooping thatch.

There was a little garden in the back where the priests grew tomatoes and green beans for the supper.

Time.

War on the house, as it does on all things, a roof beam rotted, and the villagers replaced it.

The plaster walls cracked.

They were mended over the years, one by one.

The bricks, the timbers, even the doors themselves were replaced.

Eventually it was said that not a single original stone or beam remained, Yet the villagers still called it the clergy House, the same as they always had.

One day, an innocent child asked one of the clergymen if it was really true that all of the parts of the church had been replaced at one time or another, to which the priest replied that indeed it was.

Then the child asked a second question, if none of its parts were original.

Was this building truly the clergy house?

Or was it some place new?

This question might have made an unwise man laugh, dismissing the question as silly, even foolish.

But this priest, this priest had the wisdom to understand its true importance, and the child never forgot the answer they received.

All things and all beings have a divine form, began the priest, and their existence is not essentially in the material world.

Forms are eternal.

They exist before and after the life of the person.

The tree, the wagon, or the building has come and gone.

You and I are no different.

We were here before we were born, and we will remain after we die.

Our time on Marath is a blink in the grand scheme of things.

This thing I refer to is Sadal's greatest gift, yet most men are not even aware of it.

Only the wise can perceive the immortal soul.

Are you two also working on a plan?

As de Rennie from where he intent here were sitting.

We have had a few ideas, none of them are very good.

Though Achillia bit her lip without really answering the question, She replied, I.

Think I can break these manacles open.

How would you manage that.

Achillie considered trying to explain the epiphany that led to her understanding of the new spell.

But before she could begin her answer, the magic mouth reappeared on the door of their cell.

Everyone looked up as it spoke, Intruders.

The great and powerful wizard odok Zagog has decided to speak with Hugh, prepared to explain your presence in his home.

Attempts at trickery will be unsuccessful.

Attempts to resist will be dealt with severely.

Achillia's mind raced.

Her shrink spell could free one of them, but what good would that really do.

She didn't even have time to think that course of action through before the familiar clanking sound of the animated suits of armour could be heard.

Another option was to use her disenchantment spell on all their manacles.

A third was to cast it on the suits of armor themselves.

The clanking sound was louder now the captors would be there any moment.

What do we do?

Asked Tender, looking around nervously, courage little mass soothed der Annie carriage.

Achilia really did not know what the wisest course of action would be, and at the same time knew that hesitation would cost her in options.

Flicker now backed up and lowered herself as though about to spring, facing the door.

A low growl spilled out of her throat.

Then the door opened, and there, looking just as they had before, were the three remaining headless suits of animated armor.

They were still battered and beaten.

The one missing an arm still held its halberd one handed.

Something about this struck Achillie as odd.

If odoak Zygog was such a great wizard, why do he not repaired his sentries or sent different ones?

These looked like they could barely stand upright.

She put a hand on Flicker's back when she noticed the blink dog was preparing to lunch.

No Flicker, she said, and the dog relaxed.

Dented and shaky or not, the animated armor held weapons, while she and her companions were almost defenseless.

Even if she could free them from their manacles, they would be outmatched.

And what if they did somehow defeat the sentries?

What then?

They could not presume That the rest of the wizard's home was undefended, and she was unwilling to leave without speaking to him for these reasons.

When the armor gestured for them to leave the cell and re enter the corridor.

She complied, Her friends followed her lead, and soon the whole company was moving down the corridor, away from the direction they had come and deeper into the complex.

They moved at a brisk pace, as lagging resulted in the firm poke of a halberd tip, and it didn't take many of those before the companions learned to keep up the pace.

The corridor turned east and then went straight for a long way before turning once again to the north.

In the space between the bends and the hallway were a number of archways and doors.

The doors were all closed, but some of them had odd sounds coming from behind them.

Others had weird smells seeping through.

The archways all opened into libraries and studies of different sizes.

Even the smallest of these contained dozens of volumes, and by the time they reached the turned north, Achillia guessed that they must have passed by at least five or six hundred.

Books a historian.

Indeed, she thought the rooms must have included the archived collection of Odok's life's work.

It was an astonishing notion that so many thoughts and ideas could exist together in essentially one place.

The companions were herded around the corner and now faced north.

The corridor ahead of them stretched for about sixty feet and terminated at an open archway with scroll work decorations worked into the stone along its top.

The only other feature in the hall was a pair of ensconced torches set opposite each other on the wall midway along.

These were not the only sources of light, however, nor the strongest.

A bright yellow orange glow emitted from beyond the arch, so bright that whatever was producing it was impossible to see.

This did not change as the party passed the torches and drew closer to the arch, but now they could feel heat come from the room and hear a dull, low roaring sound like that of a bonfire.

Even though a meeting with odok Zygog was all Achilia had wanted for weeks, she was now beginning to feel a mounting sense of dread.

When she hesitated, she got the tip of a halberd between her shoulder blades.

As she cried and lurched forward, it looked like she was going to have this meeting, whether she wanted it any more or not.

Her heart beat throbbed in her throat.

This was it, and the responsibility to not fail was like carrying a mountain on her shoulders, and she approached and then passed under the scrolled larchway.

Achilia could never have anticipated what was waiting for her and her companions beyond.

Even before they saw it, they felt it.

A wave of intense heat that pulsed out from the back of the room.

The source of the brightness that had been obscured by its own light was now visible above a wide two step dais.

An enormous ball of fire hovered.

It was bigger than the biggest bond fire any of them had ever seen.

It must have been six feet across, perfectly round, with a surface of roiling flames like a miniature sun.

Now Achilia's heart banged in her chest like a smith's hammer.

She faltered, but caught herself and kept advancing before the halberd tip could prod her again.

The companions were marched into the room, a white marble square of forty feet per side.

Floor, walls, ceiling, and dais were all made of the same polished stone that caught and reflected the orange of the floating ball of fire.

The room had no other exits or features.

With a clanking sound, The animated armor now arranged themselves so that one flanked the companions on either side, while the third remained behind them.

Raised halberds made sure that they were all corralled tightly together.

Why is it All's grace?

Breathed Fairwind as he pressed against Tenier's side.

The Elven brother echoed his sentiment, or Sendiu save us.

In the face of the heat and the fire, that Kellia had to squint and sma.

Though she felt no joy, she had a promise to fulfill, and she was determined to do right.

My name is Achillie Muog, apprenticed to Old Vay Muog.

She practically shouted at the blazing sphere.

There was a moment where Fate seemed to stretch out, hanging in the room while the blistering heat beat at her.

Then a face became discernible in the self consuming, self regenerating fireball.

It had two black pockets of eyes and a gaping crescent slit for a mouth.

The members of Achille's party trembled anew Fawan's frantic mind madly recalled a carved pumpkin lantern seen once in Camrades during the Festival of Autumn.

The fireball spoke with the voice of an inferno.

It began.

Elia could not stop herself from shaking.

Somehow, the great ball of flame produced no smoke, neither did it consume any fuel.

All the same, a new wave of heat pushed out of it when it spoke again.

Thank you for listening to Tale of the Mandicor if you'd like to help support the show, there are a bunch of ways to do so.

You could recommend it online and to friends.

You can like and repost episode announcements on social media.

You could produce a Tale of the manticor t shirt at Bare art stats store or one of my offerings on drive through RPG.

And finally, you can rate and review the show on your favorite podcatcher.

All these things help and I appreciate it.

At this point, I'd love to share a listener review.

This one was left on Apple Podcasts by sir Helius.

Sir Helius writes, mind blown, this podcast managed to scritch an itch that almost no other D and D media could.

It takes itself and the adventures seriously, a refreshing antithesis to the silliness that took over the game and the way many people play it.

I'm happy this art piece exists and I'm looking forward to listening to it in its entirety.

Thanks very much, sir Helius.

You know, I'm always surprised by how few quote unquote serious D and D shows there are.

The comedy style shows simply dominate the field, and I still don't know why.

Though I am a little less bothered by it than I used to be, which is probably good for my blood pressure.

Anyway, I'm very grateful that you and other folks that listen in here exist and have the same tastes as I do.

Thanks a million for that review, and I have more thanks to give.

Let's talk about this episode's guest of voice actors.

We're back to the usual core trio of Kevin Barringer, Kylon and Dave Cooper playing Tentier Doranian Fairwind.

Thanks very much, guys, and yet again, playing the voice of the Magic Mouth is Amanda Tea.

Thank you, Amanda.

Check out her work at Wicked Underscore or Loving Underscore Lies on Instagram.

Trust me, it's really good stuff for those curious to learn more about Tale of the Manticore.

I keep a blog or I post all kinds of show on RPG related stuff like sketches, maps, tables, crafts, and show notes.

You could find it at tale of Themanticore dot com to get in touch with me, and I'm at Solo Roleplayers Network dot com, Tell of Themanticore a dot blues guide dot social, Tell of the Manticore podcast on Instagram, or Tale of Themanticore at gmail dot com.

I read and respond to every email I receive.

The adventure will continue on the next episode of Tale of the manticor it's the story We're chaos roles