It's a Chasm Countdown

It's a Chasm Countdown — Ch 1.3

The crew chases a rumor below the docks and into a room of glittering purple stones that do far more than just glow. When a bottomless chasm opens up — splitting the party, leaving half at the entrance and the other half in a hall of tortured and caged animals — one glorious bad idea will light the fuse for mayhem. It’s a Chasm Countdown… will things ever be the same again?

Chapter / Episode	1.3 — It’s a Chasm Countdown
Arc	Above the Clouds
GM	Steve
Date / Duration	2024-07-09 · ~2h16m (gameplay from 00:09:44)
Party	Xeros (Dave), Nortle (Steve), TBD (Chris), Basil (Brin), Foulclaw (Jesse)
Sidelined	Gypsy Jenkins (Haley) — felled by Ricor Broadbelt’s “special croissant,” she waits out the delve; the party has no rogue
Ends on	a blind, tripping Xeros hurling the rescued [[The Grung

Synopsis

Fresh off the Knight’s Brawler brawl and clutching a wax medallion, the crew sets out to crack the Ascendant’s Library — the one place in the sky-city of El Cinede that might hold word of the missing Lashïng, Manni. It goes badly from the first handshake. Their rogue, Gypsy Jenkins, is doubled over from Ricor Broadbelt’s parting “special croissant,” so the group climbs into the clean, walled High Spire with no lockpick and a hangover. Two Crew guards clock Xeros as no true Aasimar and refuse the group entry; TBD forges a “Crew VIP” pass with Minor Illusion, Xeros weaves Charm Person and Suggestion into his fiddle to send one guard scurrying off “to the loo,” and none of it works. Flagged with suspicion, they retreat down an alley to Xeros’s tiniest, saddest violin.

Plan B is the rumor Ricor dropped — that his purple-glowing fighters come from below. The party sneaks to the port stairs, cut into the living rock and lit by an eerie glow, and here the session tips into a hallucinogenic haze: Xeros, already drunk on Envious Pinot Red truesight, slips and cracks off a purer crystal — a Veil Stone — and a natural-20 trip reveals that crushing and inhaling one upcasts your next spell a level. So all three casters snort the dust (“when in doubt,” Xeros reasons, “just make sure it goes right up your nose”). Baked and glittering, they descend into a rave-lit cavern of wailing cages and arrive at the episode’s title card: an enormous chasm of “darkness visible,” a hundred-and-twenty feet across, with a hall of captive creatures on the far side.

What follows is a countdown. While Basil clears the gap with her new Boots of Leaping and Foulclaw flies across to talk to the prisoners, the two most stoned members of the party — Xeros and TBD — decide the fastest way over is to pile Veil Stones and detonate themselves across on an epic power chord, and Steve starts counting down the minutes. Basil sprints back and leg-sweeps the pair, kicking the stone-pile into the void, where the crystals vanish in a flash of deeper black — matter meeting anti-matter, as TBD’s Detect Magic soon confirms. On the far side, Foulclaw finds the very Choldreth he converted with music last session — now speaking, glowing, and preaching a church in his name — frees it, diffuses the Resonating Chamber that had been mutating the mainland’s netted captives, and christens his first disciple Amla the Eldest. The crew hauls out a rescued grung, a floating gnome-workshop of a win — and then a blind, napping Xeros wakes to its ribbit, panics, and pitches the poor thing into the abyss. Full delve, zero library, one dead frog.

🎵 Song Recap (rhyming — drop into an AI song generator)

Scheme: AABB verses + chorus. Suggested vibe: psychedelic desert-rock rave anthem, building to a stadium-huge chorus.

(Verse 1) No card, no key, and no rogue to bring, Just a lanyard of wax and a hangover sting; The guards said no to the whole damn crew, So we snuck down the stairs where the purple lights grew.

(Chorus) It’s a chasm countdown, tick-tick-tick, Pile up the stones and light up the wick! Kick ‘em to the black where they cease to be — One more chord and that woulda been me!

(Verse 2) Crack a little crystal, take it up the nose, Now everybody’s tripping and the whole cave glows; A bunny takes a leap that a bird can’t fly, A hundred-twenty feet of the darkest sky.

(Verse 3) The spider still loves me, he learned how to speak, Built a church in my name from a hymn and a squeak; I hushed the loud chamber, I named him the First — A reluctant messiah with a magical curse.

(Chorus)

(Outro) We got nothing from the library, no map, no clue, A frog met the void and the truesight’s through — The lights go out on a job half-blind… It’s a chasm countdown — leave the win behind.

📋 Point-by-point breakdown (player catch-up — everything that happened)

1. 00:01:15 · 📖 Lore — Steve retcons the sky-city’s native spelling to El Cinede (C-I-N-E-D-E), riffing on being “part of the spell-check generation.”
2. 00:05:05 · 📖 Recap — Last session: Digby Blatherington oriented the party on arrival, Gimp the Imp sold Xeros his illusion-disguised cargo pants, and the crew staged an anime-violence brawl at the Knight’s Brawler for Ricor Broadbelt.
3. 00:10:06 · 🎭 RP — Ricor’s parting “special croissant” makes the part-cat Gypsy Jenkins violently ill; she stays behind in the hallway to compose herself, leaving the party without a lockpick.
4. 00:11:12 · 🎒 Loot — Ricor’s rewards confirmed: the Tallow Lanyard (a 3-use wax skeleton key for the Ascendant’s Library) and, for Basil, the Boots of Leaping.
5. 00:16:08 · 🎭 RP — TBD explains the lanyard via “the genie and the lamp”; Foulclaw clarifies that tallow is basically wax — “for keyholes only. No other holes.”
6. 00:25:04 · 🎲 Mechanic — Hungover Xeros rolls a d8 for a drink and pulls the Envious Pinot Red from his extradimensional cargo pants (truesight 8h, then 8h blindness); he shares Gluttonous Hard Apple Cider (a luck point each) with the group.
7. 00:30:27 · 🧭 Travel — Foulclaw’s “faith compass” (a religion check) leads them uphill — really he just flew above and spotted the spire — into the clean, walled High Spire.
8. 00:32:04 · 🗺️ Arrival — The Ascendant’s Library: Neo-Greco columns and gleaming letters, ringed by an intimidating wall and two guards demanding ID and purpose.
9. 00:34:46 · 🎭 RP — The Crew guards read Xeros as an outsider, not a native Aasimar; the party gets the Host-vs-Crew lay of the land (“Crew wants to screw you over; Host wants to host you”).
10. 00:36:43 · 🎲 Mechanic — TBD forges a “Crew VIP” pass with Minor Illusion (animated, “admin plus three”); the deception flops and a guard crumples it, adding to the suspicion die.
11. 00:44:56 · 🎲 Mechanic — Xeros weaves Charm Person + Suggestion into fiddle music; one guard wanders off “to the loo,” but the charm is saved against and the breach fails. Suspicion rises; the party retreats down an alley.
12. 00:51:00 · 🧭 Travel — Following Ricor’s tip about the “down-stairs,” the party sneaks back toward the port (Foulclaw’s silent flight gives everyone advantage) and descends the living-rock port stairs.
13. 00:57:44 · 📖 Lore — Xeros slips and cracks off a purer crystalline chunk: a Veil Stone. A nat-20 arcana trip reveals that crushing/inhaling one upcasts the next spell a level (Magic Missile 3 → 4 darts).
14. 00:59:48 · 🎲 Mechanic — All three casters snort the veil dust (“when in doubt, snort it up”); each pockets 1d4 stones. Basil rubs it in her hair and ears to no effect (non-casters gain nothing).
15. 01:04:12 · 🧭 Travel — The stairs open into a cavern lit like a rave by ambient veilstone glow; wailing lamentations echo from somewhere deeper.
16. 01:11:15 · 🗺️ Reveal — Foulclaw scouts ahead to an enormous ~120-ft chasm of “darkness visible,” rows of cages and captive creatures lining the far side. (the episode’s namesake)
17. 01:14:56 · 🎲 Mechanic — Basil clears the chasm from a standstill with the Boots of Leaping (constitution save, no exhaustion); Foulclaw flies across.
18. 01:17:06 · 🎭 RP — Truesight-tripping Xeros hallucinates angel wings and drifts toward the ledge to “fly”; TBD grabs him back by the cargo pants.
19. 01:19:23 · 🎲 Mechanic — The chasm countdown: Xeros and TBD start piling Veil Stones to blast themselves across on an epic power chord; Steve counts the minutes down aloud. (the episode’s namesake)
20. 01:22:47 · 📖 Lore — Across the gap, mutated Veil-infected captives (a hissing Tabaxi among them) leak purple pus; Basil and Foulclaw find a sane, homesick grung and haul his cage back.
21. 01:33:22 · 🎲 Mechanic — Fleeing, Foulclaw trips (foot in a hole) and the grung’s cage skitters toward the edge — but they keep their feet and make the jump back.
22. 01:40:49 · ⚔️ RP — Basil leg-sweeps Xeros and kicks the whole veil-stone pile into the void; the stones vanish in “darkness visible.” “You were one chord away from suicide.” (the namesake climax)
23. 01:42:41 · 📖 Lore — TBD’s Detect Magic reads the void as anti-matter to the Veil Stone’s matter — contact annihilates both; in theory, enough stones could seal the chasm (with a catastrophic cave-in).
24. 01:45:09 · 🎭 RP — Reveal: Nortle spent the entire delve slowly descending the stairs. “He has now arrived at one step.”
25. 01:47:39 · 📖 Lore — Foulclaw finds the Choldreth he converted last session — glowing, ecstatic, hailing him “savior”; it gained speech, started a church in his name, and was netted up near Kren in the Barren Drift.
26. 01:51:22 · 🎲 Mechanic — Foulclaw blasts the cage lock open with a veil-amplified Magic Missile (4d4+4).
27. 01:59:30 · 📖 Lore — The Resonating Chamber: off-the-charts Veil-Tear magic concentrated to mutate captives, resonating on the same frequency as Foulclaw’s wild surge — so he diffuses it the way he’d calm his own wild magic.
28. 02:05:37 · 🎲 Mechanic — The wild-chart result: Foulclaw glows in a 30-ft radius, blinding (flashbanging) his new disciple. He names the Choldreth Amla the Eldest and receives the Scroll of Jubilee and Lamentation.
29. 02:14:23 · 🎭 RP — Blind-tripping Xeros wakes to the rescued grung’s ribbit, panics, and hurls it into the void — where it slowly unravels — as his 8-hour truesight expires and he goes blind. Session ends.

Player Characters

Character	Player	Race	Class	Note
Xeros	Dave	Tiefling	Bard	Fiddle-charms, truesight, and hallucinated wings; nearly leaps the chasm — and ends the night blind
Nortle	Steve (GM)	Tortle	Monk	Fills out waivers in triplicate, then spends the whole delve reaching step one of the stairs
TBD	Chris	Goliath	Wizard	19-INT “book smart”; forges the Crew VIP pass; Detect Magic decodes the void
Basil	Brin	Harengon	Fighter	Boots-of-Leaping chasm-jumper; she sweeps Xeros’s leg to stop the suicide stunt (she/her)
Foulclaw	Jesse	Owlin	Sorcerer	Reluctant messiah — frees and names Amla, diffuses the Resonating Chamber
Gypsy Jenkins	Haley	Shifter (Fey-blooded)	Rogue	Sidelined by Ricor’s croissant; the party’s badly-missed lockpick

NPCs

NPC	Role	Note
Ricor Broadbelt	Crew fighter, Knight’s Brawler	Gave the party the lanyard and Basil’s boots; his “special croissant” downs Gypsy Jenkins; sources his purple minions from the down-stairs
Amla	Converted Choldreth (“the Eldest”)	The spider Foulclaw converted last session; gained speech, founded a church in his name, freed and re-named; gifts the Scroll of Jubilee/Lamentation
The Grung	Caged frog-person captive	Sane and homesick — rescued from the far side, then lost to the void when Xeros panics
[[Manni Dugal	Manni]]	Missing Lashïng
Lashara	Gnome artificer (patron)	Sent the party to study Levitorum; they debate selling the veil-stone formula instead of reporting back
Digby Blatherington	Host antiques-seller	(Recap) Hank-Hill-voiced local who oriented the party on arrival
Gimp the Imp	Pemptorium proprietor	(Recap) Musically-inclined imp; source of Xeros’s illusioned extradimensional cargo pants
Turgra Strongsmith	Theater-loving Aasimar	Runs Turgra’s Theater, floated as a daytime alternative but not visited
Library guards	Crew	Two intimidating Aasimar toughs who bar the Ascendant’s Library

Factions

Faction	Note
The Crew	Aggressive Aasimar faction (“wants to screw you over”); holds the High Spire and the library; Ricor is Crew
The Host	Rival faction (“wants to host you,” as guests); the party’s would-be allies
Aasimar	The winged native people of El Cinede / Levitorum; the party reads as outsiders
Foulclaw’s Missionary Faith	The ITYS-rooted word Foulclaw carries abroad; Amla founded a church in his name among the captives

👹 Monsters

Monster	Threat / Role	Note
Choldreth	Spider-folk — one converted into the ally Amla	Fought in ch1.2; here a caged, converted Choldreth is freed, not fought — now an NPC. (entity is BOTH monster and NPC)
Veil-infected captives	Mutated menagerie (a hissing Tabaxi, others)	Netted off the mainland and driven feral by concentrated Veil-Tear magic in the Resonating Chamber; caged across the chasm, not engaged

🎙️ Notable Moments

00:01:46 — Before the game even starts, Steve retcons how the sky-city's name is spelled, then blames the profession.

Steve (GM): I kept spelling it the wrong way — it is actually spelled C-I-N-E-D-E. Look, I’m part of the spell-check generation. Xeros: Okay. See you in a day. Foulclaw: Sinoday keeps the doctor away?

00:16:08 — Asked what the tallow lanyard actually is, TBD reaches for his finest metaphor.

TBD: You guys ever heard of the genie and the lamp? The genie of the lamp gives you three wishes. This thing right here gives us three chances to open a door. You’re welcome. Xeros: I’m just going to quite literally let that go in one ear and out the other. Can you explain to me what tallow is — just for the non-super-magically-inclined?

00:18:01 — Foulclaw finally lands the explanation, with a firm usage guideline.

Foulclaw: It is for keyholes only. Keyholes only. No other holes. Xeros: No mouth holes… no ejection holes… no suppository holes. Okay. Got it.

00:27:20 — Xeros samples the wine from his cargo pants and casually sets up the entire ending of the episode.

Xeros: The only issue is, after 8 hours it’s going to make me blind for 8 hours — so we’re going to have to get this done in 8 hours, or I go blind.

00:37:24 — Locked out, TBD conjures a forged all-access pass. The guards are unmoved.

TBD: Crew VIP. It’s got my image on it, flexing, it’s beautiful — a little bit of glowing purple, too. Admin plus three. Steve (guard): (picks it up) …Why are you naked in—? (crumples it up)

00:47:45 — Plan C: Xeros sets a Suggestion to fiddle music, and it is not subtle.

Xeros: Yes, you have to piss. Yes, you have to piss. Listen to this. Steve (guard): (nudges his mate) I have to go to the loo.

00:59:48 — A cracked crystal turns out to be a spell-boosting drug, and the party immediately makes the responsible choice.

Steve (GM): …which — that’s you, right? Like, when in doubt, snort it up. Xeros: When in doubt, just make sure it goes right up your nose. There’s nothing there to protect.

01:11:15 — Foulclaw sneaks to the front and finds the thing the whole title is about.

Steve (GM): You have arrived at an enormous chasm — and there’s something in the darkness that, if you stare into that abyss, the monster might stare back at you. Don’t blink. Steve (GM): It’s like 120 feet.

01:17:06 — Xeros, tripping on truesight and convinced he has wings, walks toward the edge to fly across.

Foulclaw: No — TBD, grab him. TBD: Whoa, whoa, whoa, there, Xeros. Whoa! Xeros: My eyes are like the size of silver dollars right now… and I just slowly walk closer and closer to the edge.

01:41:33 — The countdown ends the only way it safely could: Basil kicks the stone-pile into the void and sweeps Xeros off his feet.

Basil: You were one chord away from suicide. Steve (GM): The stones do not bounce back up. You see a flash of — best way to describe it is darkness visible — deeper blackness as the stones go into the chasm. Basil: That would have been you.

01:45:09 — Amid the chaos, Steve remembers where the fifth party member has been this whole time.

Steve (GM): By the way, Nortle the entire time was simply sitting cross-legged, just watching. TBD: I forgot he was there! …Oh, I missed the show! Steve (GM): He has now arrived at one step.

01:48:56 — Across the chasm, the spider Foulclaw once converted with a song has been busy.

Steve (Choldreth): I started a church in your name… I’ve tried to talk to some of my other children and they just — they don’t talk. But I’ve been doing what you did, trying to spread your word. Foulclaw: (freeing it) His name is going to be Amla. He is the first — he’s the eldest.

02:14:23 — The rescue unravels. A blind, napping Xeros is woken by the grung's ribbit.

Xeros: It ribbits and wakes me up from my nap. I freak out — because I think I’m on the other side — so I throw him away from the magic. But it actually chucks him right into it. Steve (GM): He kind of unravels. You just watch him, almost as if he were made out of string, slowly unraveling and screaming the entire time. Xeros: And with that, I go blind.

🗺️ Locations

Place	Mentioned / Traveled	Note
El Cinede	Traveled	The sky-city atop Levitorum; its native spelling is retconned this session
High Spire	Traveled	Clean, walled upper district; Crew territory; home to the library
Ascendant’s Library	Attempted	Neo-Greco vault the Tallow Lanyard is meant to open; Crew guards bar the way; still unbreached
The Port Stairs	Traveled	Living-rock stairs beneath the city, lit by veilstone glow
The Chasm	Traveled	~120-ft abyss of “darkness visible”; anti-magic that annihilates Veil Stone; cages line the far side
The Resonating Chamber	Traveled	Deep chamber where concentrated Veil-Tear magic mutates captives; Foulclaw diffuses it
The Knight’s Brawler	Mentioned	(Recap) The Lower-Gate fight club; Gypsy Jenkins waits outside
Lower Gates	Mentioned	The grimy lower district the party came up from
Turgra’s Theater	Mentioned	Turgra Strongsmith’s playhouse; floated as a daytime alternative
Blackguard’s Inn	Mentioned	One of the Lower-Gate establishments Steve rattles off
Levitorum	Mentioned	The floating realm above the clouds the party uplifted into
Kouréas	Mentioned	The mainland far below; captives are netted up from it
Barren Drift	Mentioned	Southern region (near Kren) where Amla was snatched by a net

🎒 Items

Item	Used / Introduced	Note
Tallow Lanyard	Introduced	A 3-use wax skeleton key for the library’s locks; unspent by session’s end
Boots of Leaping	Used	Basil’s homebrew boots; add running speed to a standstill jump (double on a dash) — clears the 120-ft chasm
Envious Pinot Red	Used	Patchouli wine from the cargo pants; truesight 8h, then 8h blindness; advantage on insight/medicine/perception/survival
Gluttonous Hard Apple Cider	Used	Halfling-weed cider in dwarven mugs; a luck point each, plus euphoria and appetite
Veil Stone	Introduced	Opalescent crystals that upcast the next spell one level when crushed/inhaled; annihilated on contact with the chasm
Zenzu Fruit	Used	Foulclaw’s senzu-style fruits; discard for a full reroll or add a die to a check
Scroll of Jubilee and Lamentation	Introduced	Amla’s gift; amplifies spells at will, but each use risks wild magic — every 7th use grants a Jubilee bonus
Xeros’s cargo pants	Used	Illusion-disguised extradimensional “bags of holding” — his bottomless bar and veil-stone stash

⛩️ Pantheon & Lore

Entry	Mentioned / Seen	Note
Father ITYS	Mentioned	The faith Foulclaw carries abroad from the School of ITYS on his “study abroad”
Foulclaw’s Missionary Faith	Seen	Amla’s church-in-his-name among the caged captives
The Veil-Tear	Seen	The rift-magic concentrated in the Resonating Chamber; mutates creatures and powers Veil Stones
Wild magic / wild surge	Used	Foulclaw’s sorcerer mechanic; resonates on the chamber’s frequency; his diffusion triggers a 30-ft flash
Orb of Aether	Mentioned	Steve’s “heart-shaped orb” retcon joke at the top of the session

Cliffhanger

A full delve and the party has nothing to show the guards for it: the Ascendant’s Library is still sealed, Manni is still missing, and their one clean win — a rescued grung — is snuffed out when a blind, tripping Xeros pitches it into the annihilating void just as his truesight fails. Lights out, literally.

Transcript

Full cleaned transcript: 240709-ch1.3-its-a-chasm-countdown-transcript.

Related

Echoes of ITYS · prev: 240626-ch1.2-are-you-not-entertained · next: 240807-ch1.4-honey-i-shrunk-the-wizard · El Cinede · Ascendant’s Library · The Chasm · Veil Stone · Amla · Foulclaw · Ricor Broadbelt · Lashara