HighRollers: Lightfall/Episode 14

"Trial of Strength" is the fourteenth session of High Rollers D&D. It was broadcast live on the Yogscast Twitch channel on May 8, 2016. With Katie absent for this session, CaffCast joins as a special guest.

In this session, Elora shapeshifts into a rat to seek help from the city officials. Loben rejoins with Jiǔtóu and Trellimar, and meets Wald and Effice. All five of them must now navigate through the labyrinth and complete several challenges that lies ahead in order to join the Broken Sky. Most importantly, they must not die.

Campaign Summary
At the torture room, both Elora and Loben settle on a plan to escape: Elora will be disguising as a rat and seek help from the security forces of Talis'Val while Loben puts up an act to prevent her from leaving. Although initially worried, Lao and Li is convinced to let Elora and Loben carry out their plan.

Back to Jiǔtóu and Trellimar, the duo are lead by Victoria and several guards to the barrack. The barrack is a large stone room, housing up to 30 people at one time. Bunk beds are arranged neatly with a chest person by the end of each bed. Guards are seen standing around, each donning leather armour with a crest of the Broken Sky emblazoned on it and armed with crossbows. Resting inside the barrack are a few people, mostly young human, but none of them have any weapons, only bits of armour. Victoria commands both Jiǔtóu and Trellimar to surrender all of their belongings to the guards, informing them that these belongings will be returned after the trials are completed. The duo hands over all of their belongings without resistance, much to Victoria's surprise as she expects them to complain. She then tells them that they may take any unoccupied beds while preparations for the trial is underway. Victoria takes her leave.

Among the people in the room, five of them stands out: a young six-feet tall male half-orc; a grey-skinned male gnome chatting with some humans; a young lady with a short ponytail wearing leather armour pacing up and down the barrack; another young lady in tattered clothing and broken manacle on both her wrists; a young man with cropped hair around his ears chatting away with some other people. Wald is among the people in the barrack.

Trellimar walks up to the nearest bed and sits on it, putting his feet up. A man wearing a blacksmith gear underneath his blue shirt walks up to Trellimar and orders him to get off his bed. Trellimar refuses, even after the man's second warning. This time, a couple of people are now watching the scene unfolds as the man cracks his knuckles and counts down to three. Just before he could finish counting, Jiǔtóu hits him on the back of his head. The man falls on his knees. Jiǔtóu presses on a nerve point on his neck and the man freezes up, crying in pain. Trellimar then questions the man whose bed is he on; the man now says that it is Trellimar's bed. Jiǔtóu lets go of the man. The other people in the room are amused by the sight; the man in blonde hear applauds, the gnome comments that Jiǔtóu is better than the other two tieflings, the woman that was pacing across the room grinds at Jiǔtóu. On the other hand, Wald just watches amusingly and assessing the situation.

After a short rest, Victoria now comes back to the barrack, this time with 10 guards behind her. She announces that the trial is ready and split the people into groups of five; Jiǔtóu, Trellimar and Wald are in one group with one other human recruits. Wald requests if he can not be with any tieflings, but Victoria declines. The guards now place hessian bag on all participants and they are lead to the first trial.

Back at the torture room, a jailer comes in with two guards. Just as he was about the speak, he ponders if there were supposed to be three or four prisoners, unaware that Elora has escaped. He then shakes off the thought. The jailer tells them that they are now given a chance to prove themselves to be worthy to join the Broken Sky. The guards proceed to unlock the jail doors; Loben sneakily holds back the jail door a bit since he unlocked it earlier. Hessian bags are then place on Lao, Li and Loben after being stripped off all weapons and belongings.

All participants are lead through a series of corridors and staircases. Unable to see anything, Jiǔtóu, Trellimar and Wald can hear that everyone is being split up. The trio now enters a room with another man. Loben is also being split from the two tieflings and is now in the same room as the other four. The door shuts behind them.

Wald is the first to remove the bag. He now notices that he is in a part-natural, part-man-made cavern with four other people. They then removes the bag. Jiǔtóu and Loben notice that hovering overhead is a nearly-invisible glowing sphere; Loben recognises it as an Arcane Eye. Loben then mocks Jiǔtóu on how her plan has turned out and she glares back at him. Wald asks everyone to introduce themselves since that they will be together for a while. Loben and Trellimar introduce themselves. Jiǔtóu instead questions Wald why he dislike tieflings, only for Wald to responds that he finds them weird. As the other man backs off cautiously, Wald asks for his name. He is Effice. Wald finds his name weird as Effice retorts back. This then starts a squabble between the two. Wald tries to punch Effice in the face, but misses and stumble onto the barrel. The barrel tips over and coarse sand spews off it.

The voice of Varesh now echoes around the room (Loben knows that it is coming from the Arcane Eye). Varesh says, "Welcome recruits! You may be wondering what is going on. I'm here to inform you of the first trial of the Broken Sky. Welcome to the Test of Strength. What you stand in was once a temple to the mighty Kord, god of battle and strength. I have repurposes it to determine that those who wish to serve Her Majesty are strong enough to become her army. There are very few rules in this trial. Very simply, the last five who stand will join our ranks. The rest will be casts into the pit and thrown to nothing. How you accomplish this tasks is up to you. You may do so through any method you wish, but I favour action rather than inaction. Your weapons and tools have been taken, but I have done a grace by placing several amongst this labyrinth. If you can find them, you may use them if you see fit. And one last warning, you are not alone! This temple was once home to guardians and beasts that the disciples of Kord had to test themselves against. I believe that they still roam these halls. The trial begins now!"

The Meta-Game
Since Cam is still practicing for the performance, Chris plays as Wald, a Broken Sky recruit, for this session.

When the characters removed the hessian bag off their head, Mark described that not only Loben now reunites with Jiǔtóu and Trellimar, he also met two human: a guy that looks like Chris Hemsworth (referring to Wald) and another guy looking like Tom Hiddleston, only with curlier hair.