Ruthfulness

Ok, so I saw a post recently about the word ruthfulness, which is the opposite of ruthlessness, and basically means gentle, compassionate.
They were talking about how some people are ruthless in their lives and do whatever the logical thing is ruthlessly, without any compassion for how it affects anyone else, as long as it gets results.

And what actually struck me about the post was the part where she said that we don't have to live our lives pushing as hard as we can every day, ruthlessly, anxious about everything. Worrying that we won't get everything done actually creates friction in the process, and that fear can keep us from getting things done. We need to be compassionate- to ourselves. Yes, approach the day with a purpose, but don't kill yourself to do it. If it's going to take more time, either cut some things, or take more time to do those things, instead of trying to cram everything in and then feeling terrible when you don't. It's ok to be relaxed and still work on things and get things done.


Showered. It's 11 PM and I'm about to go
vacuum the bedroom and maybe the rest of the house, because I feel a need to do it.
Maybe launder some towels since I know I'll be up a while.
I also need to make Relly's bed before he gets home.
Fold some laundry/put away before game day.
Get ready for game day. List of magical items and etc.

Nighty

Invoice for minis to paint is paid, they are supposed to ship by Saturday. 

Post it’s have been written. Heroes of the storm was played. 

It’s 3:45 and I’m just now going to bed. Please wake me up at your discretion. I love you. 

I hope to be in bed much earlier tomorrow night. 

Meals are made except the pasta + tomato dish. At least, the chicken is cooked for the other two. Taco shells have not been baked. 

Anyway, I’m tired, and I have permission. Hopefully will be resting and asleep before 4am. 

Love you so much! Emily

Critical Role summary

They finished killing priest etc, looted underground room, and an orb. They closed up the hole that connected the safe house to the fish people. 

Still in swamp, they decide to go after the troll for their 100g by blowing up his house with their last stick of dynamite. 

"What if it’s an innocent troll’s house?" -jester

"Then we should rob it first." -molly

Nott sneaks up to the house and then realizes he has no way to light the dynamite. Finally Yasha has a tinderbox. Fuse is 6-24 seconds long.

Mage hand to put dynamite into house, tree house explodes. 

Cut tree house in half with scissors. 

Roll 2 d6 , double 1s.  Troll knocked prone, Nott takes 3 dmg from flying tree shrapnel. 

Combat. 

Horrible fails: 

Mollymauk falls in water. Bo throws a flask of oil right past the troll’s head. Yasha throws a lit torch at the troll and misses, lighting the oil behind the troll that Bo just threw. Jester, Guiding bolt at 3rd lvl misses and knocks over a tree. Caleb slowed the troll. Fjord goes unconscious 3 times, because acid spray, half Orc thing, jester heals. 

Troll comes back to conscious and attacks fjord who goes unconscious for 3rd time. (Regen 10 hp per round/turn) and fails 2 saves. 

Caleb burns it to death with a spell, and then fails wisdom save against basically panic attack. Bo stays with Caleb.

Fjord passes save, they bring him back awake. 

Jester tries to cut out its heart after fire goes away. Success! 

Recovered 26 g 10s 50c scattered all over area. 

Short rest.

Return to The Puddles before dark. 

Send, message to gentleman: found cleared safehouse. Talked way too far past 25 words. Gentleman responds. Ok, good job, keep trucking? (Confused because jester talks lots)

Approached by figure at edge of town. Horace! He’s not dead! Advised him to wait til he heard from Dolan to return. 

Apothecary: the fungal font (store)  Smythe Durban (sp) 

Might buy troll heart, trade for potions. Tomorrow. 

Jokes about guy having a gimp. Halfling wrapped in parchment paper under the counter, no zipper but laced mouth. (Group joking around because of characters voice)

Decide to stay at the Drowned Nest  which is drier and nicer than the other place (keystone pub) they stayed overnight. Innkeeper is female and flirts w fjord. 

Decide to go to shady creek run the next day. 

Group tries to figure out what book she is reading, rolls 9s repeatedly to steal, see, distract, persuade what the book is. And then Yasha rolls.... a ZERO.  2 minus 2. 

"Feather Leather" Mollymauk gives her 2g and promises not to tell any of the group  what the book is. 

Jester regains 3rd lvl before bed, and casts sending to her mom, her mom responds, both cut off halfway through message because they don’t understand how it works lol. 

Fjord and Mollymauk look over Fjord’s sword, Molly rolls a 20 arcana.  (References to jamming something an eye into fjord’s stomach)  It’s very old, resides beyond the land and the sea.  Sword eye. 

Mollymauk casts charm person, but fjord saves. Molly says I thought you might not remember so I wanted to try to get it out of you. 

Fjord doesn’t trust the sword. He concentrates on the sword. Intelligence check, 10. Feels a sense of someone watching him, constantly. But can’t make anything else out. 

Long rest

Pick up horses. 

Caleb, kierie, and nott go for a stroll. Looking for a stone. That’s about the size of a baseball, with a ring around it. Caleb says it’s a lucky rock.  Nott gives Caleb the scroll of invisibility from kally. Nott apologizes for getting Caleb in trouble with Bo about the bowl, asks if they are ok. Caleb says I think she’s ok, we are all a little weird. Nott says "yessa" was the name of the halfling man she tried to save from goblins. 

Talk about what to do with kierie the bird.  

Apothecary makes healing potion and potion of protection from.. something.  He doesn’t know what. It’s blue and sparks. 

Gives them both potions and an additional 50g. 

Molly buys sleep potions and lavender essential oil

Jester asks Molly to keep owner in store for a minute. Tries to change sign name to "the fungal fart"  success! And same font too. 

Kierie says out loud "yessa was his name. The halfling man from before" when the rest of the group comes together. 

Hupperduke. For next quest. 

Something about mountains. 

Bo says lots of gnomes live there and they work hard and throw raging parties every night. 

Weeks worth of travel to get there. 120 to crossroads, then 110 miles farther. crossroads is a caravan selling town. People set up for one day to sell and also rest from travel. 

Discuss 300g worth of diamond to Rez people. 

Jester yells at Traveller for not letting her keep diamond like Caleb with prism spell for Rez spell. "The Traveler is my copilot" 

Jester has kierie draw her parents and tries to cast sending, but it does not work.  Not great at drawing. 

Travel checks. 

They buy stuff at the crossroads. 

-Relly phone call-

They arrive at hupperduke. Generally nice city. Hupperduke is the industry area. 

Head to idle work shelf to find lodging.  Blushing Tankard Tavern

Gnomes! Working to make war machines, weapons of war. Bolt throwers. Giant crossbows. Siege towers. Giant battering ram. 

Clockwork type city. There’s a elevator platform , worked by clockwork chains. To get to second level of the city. 

Refused service to the elevator by guards, 

Female red headed gnome begins talking to them. Reesa. Offers to show them around, because she’s bored. 

Awesome character voices this session. 

No weekends, no breaks in hupperduke. Just party at night. Everyone works all day. 80% gnomish, some dwarves, other.  No one wandering the streets, they’re all walking with a purpose to get somewhere. 

The shelf is the tavern district, inns, party areas. 

There’s a tower section, where the residential is.  Tall thin towers, 3 stories tall, with windows, catty-corner building structure. 

Fireworks at sunset, and all the people come out, leave work, whistles. And everyone floods into the streets to go home, to party.  They work hard, and at night they play hard. 

End session. 

Dream

She comes in with a body. She's been hunting for the sacrifice. It's a man, unconscious. For a moment I think it's a trick, the way she holds back and delays about the knife. Maybe it's someone she knows or loves, maybe he will spring up and kill the priest and save us. The priest tells her to kill him, and she cries and begs and screams not to as he holds her hand and forces her through the motion of cutting his throat. It's done, and she is screaming in remorse and agony. She did not want to be a killer.

He throws the body down the hole in front of the carving that takes up the whole wall of the temple. And then he turns to me.
"It will be easier for you. Here, drink this, and then climb down."
I know it's poison. It even has the poisonous wasp still floating in the clear liquid. I take the small shot glass sized glass goblet, and step back as he tries to put a hand on my back and the glass to force me. I step toward the hole, and throw the glass down, dashing past and climbing down.  There are alligators down here, I'll have to be careful.

I wander the tunnels, many close encounters with water creatures, alligators, etc.  Then I hear people. There it opens to a great underground lake and cavern. Across the lake are many open topped boats, like water lilies, but with people, in ball gowns and dressed up. The far shore is the beginning of their city. All of them are white.

Above ground, the dark skinned are prominent, in charge of all the ceremonies of the jungle and the demands for sacrifices. Here underground, with no sun (but somehow it's still well-lit), the people are all pale and ghostly.  Maybe they are ghosts.

All the children (but not their children? It seems they don't have any around them. Maybe it's in preparation) must go through the challenge, the underground maze, to prove their worth. And to thin out the amount of people, as there isn't room for everyone. We will supposedly be facing the adults, but they go in another way. We each get a box, for safekeeping. We have to arm ourselves.

There are all kinds of rooms and tunnels here, it's like a city. How much time do we get? We don't know, and we aren't supposed to speak or help each other, although later someone refers to me as 5-blue, because the vest I've been given (with all these pins and award pins on it, that maybe were mine before, but now I don't remember) is blue fabric, and I begin to team up with and help the other blue vests. My vest has one pin I remember, and it's a D20, and on the back in pen is written "Scanlan". The rest I forget.

I find a giant wooden root at first, in a workstation room, but it has a curve to it, and is much bigger than I should be wielding. It's 2handed for a normal person, but for me it's tough to even lift. I think about cutting it down, there's a saw in this room, but it would attract attention, and take a while, and leave me vulnerable. So i just take it as is. I'll look for something better as we go along.

One giant boy attacks me, and I fend him off and make my way through a smaller tunnel he can't fit through. He has a stone club.

I make it into a "kitchen" area, run by an adult woman. I don't trust her, and eat nothing, even though the other children are accepting all kinds of things. How could I trust them, they sent us here to die, and are supposed to be on a different team. Someone comes in with a huge butcher knife, but huge, and has a 2 foot handle, and she just tells them if they want food, they cannot use knives to fight or defend in her kitchen, sanitation purposed, she doesn't want blood everywhere. And it works. Everyone trusts her. She hides us once, but I still eat and drink nothing. Some people take knives as we leave the kitchen.

We head down more tunnels, there's a few of us now. I find a baseball themed room. I trade out my heavy staff for a baseball bat that feels solid but is in my weight range. I even find a baseball helmet in the next room.

A tunnel opens out again, and we see the first group of adults. (the children have basically all begun attacking each other, and trying to thin us out before we even face the real challenge). It's a golf course. The adults (and lets face it, a lot of these people are OLD) are golfing. It's an interesting golf course, since it's all underground. It's more like long range putt putt than actual golf. No one has the guts to attack them, and we have this foreboding that we should hide and wait for them to leave.

After they go home for the day (we are still stuck in these tunnels, lost and hungry), our group beds down for the night, with plans to explore this golf course for useful things after a short nap. The chef/nurse woman comes back, and reminds me to open the box I've been given. Inside is the goblet of liquid from before, and there are live wasps in vials in each of the four corners of the box, built in like corner pillars. I am so thirsty, I almost want to drink it, but I again stand firm and refuse, and am certain that this is poisoned. The others in my group have opened their boxes, and are drinking their drinks, of various liquids they know and love from their home. purple, blue, all kinds of various juices.

She tells us the challenge we must complete to make it out. We have to run the course from 1 through to the end. She tells us where challenge 1 is, it turns out the vest I was wearing has a map on the inside. It's way deep down into the caves, and the whole challenge winds up and down for miles. But we can't complete it "during the day" when the adults are out and might catch us. So we have to go now to get started, and each challenge will help us in some way.