Critical Role & Sagas of Sundry - C2E5 The Open Road

Episode Date: January 15, 2022

The group hits the road, preparing for a long trip to Zidash. But trouble in the small town of Alfield stops the band of adventurers in their tracks… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Some of us are mentally lagging a little, but that's okay. It's been a long time. Welcome, guys. Before we jump into tonight's session, we're going to go ahead and just quick announcements. First and foremost, thank you to our returning sponsor and partner at the start of this campaign, and for this foreseeable amorphous future in which they wish to come along with us on this journey. D&D Beyond! They've been awesome, and I actually just learned today of a really helpful functionality that I probably should note about, where you can create your own campaign in there and

then send out a link to all of your players and their characters get added to your campaigns. Now I have access to all of your character sheets at all times, which was, alleviates me having to text all you all you all. What's your maximum hit points now? Wait, did you just have them? What do we need to send you our character? Well, no, I sent out the link earlier today, and you're one of the only ones who hasn't responded in. But you will later.

I didn't say it. That's okay. That's okay, so were we. I did look at my phone. It's all good. I think all of you guys were texting in your sessions. Yes, that's true. Yeah, that's correct.

We're that good. So, Sam, do you have a few words you wanted to say? I do. Here, give this to Matt. He'll need it. Oh, no. Our hardware this week is once again D&D Beyond. That's D&DBeyond.com. beyond beyond.com. And the big news is that D&D's newest book,

Morden Kynan's Tome of Fos, is available for pre-order now on the site. If you pre-order, you'll get exclusive character portrait frames, sheet backdrops, and theme colors that you can use with upcoming character sheet updates. I don't know what that means, but it sounds awesome. And the $10 off code, beginnings, can be applied to this order. To your pre-order, to celebrate, I'm going to personally be giving away

one copy of this book to either Travis Liam or Marisha, but they have to compete for it. Here's the rules. I'm gonna give you a race, class, and character description, just like that you can do on D&D Beyond, and all you guys have to do is come up with the name of that character. Me, sorry, Laura Talison and Matt will be the judges.

Oh, so these, oh, okay. Best out of three wins, all right? So you just have to come up with a name for this character. Ready? A male stout halfling swamp druid, who only wears a diaper made out of kelp and loves to wild-shaded. into manatees.

Liam, what is the name of that character? Twil Pilakins. Okay. Marisha, what is the name of that character? Squalls, Squatlock. And Travis? Merkin, Dullbringer. Judges, who wins?

Oh, Travis, easy. Easy win for Travis. It's a... ...into a swamp through it was too easy. It was too easy. It was you, Liam, until he brought out the Merkin. Remember, these characters can all be made on D&D Beyond. The next one is a male tabaxi bard with an electric guitar who constantly plays

pop songs and has a runny nose. What is his name? Liam O'Brien. Bath tub stealth cat. Marisha Ray. Oh yeah. Sorry, three names. Molly Squawk, the J-pop. Yeah. Okay. Travis? Pubert Pimple Pop. Judges. Judges. I got bribed. Oh. Follow your heart.

Travis again. I'm purchasable. All right. One more. We'll give this one of the This is worth two points. A female Kenku paladin with no arms or legs. What's a kangku? It's a bird. Okay, I know.

Shut up. Who worships the lobster-headed god blip-du pulp. Yes. And is a real god. And is dragged around by a pack of reindeer. Liam, what is the name of that character? Dagon Henry Kissinger.

Oh. Um, Madame Manikin Badee. Ooh, that's good. Travis? Phil McCreckin. Judges. Liam. Liam.

Yeah. Marisha. Liam gets two points. Travis gets two points. Marisha wins! Yay! Guffles! Guffles!

Guffles! I will personally buy you one of those books. Marisha hold me to it. D&D Beyond, everyone. Make your character today. Thank you, Sam. Thank you very much. That was good.

That got weird. It doesn't it always, though. That's pretty great. This is the one same game, so we'll see. It's so big. All right. So, finishing up from that, we have Talk to Mocky next Tuesday at 7 p.m. Pacific here on Twitch and Project Alpha to discuss tonight's episode of Critical Rule. Wow. Hosted by our fantastic Brian W. Foster, so check that out on Tuesday next week.

We have a new show called Weave coming up, Marisha. Do you want to explain this a little bit? We're one episode in. One episode in? Yeah. That's right. That's the lunch this week. Yeah. It happened last night. Wednesday night.

Wednesday night. It's after Wednesday Club, but it's being GMed by Amy Dallon, and it's kind of like an interactive storytelling RPG game, but it's got all the ladies of Geek & Sundry, so check it out. That's awesome. It's a dope jacket, by the way. Thanks, man. Yeah.

We'll get you one. Same size. Last week's episode of Critical Role is available in podcast form, wherever you can find greatest podcast to download. So if you have friends who are listening to the audio, they can do so now and be caught up with you until after tonight. Also, comic book issue four of Critical Role, Vox Machina Origins is available for digital download. Anywhere where you can find digital comics for the most part, Comaxology, the Dark Horse app, and other great places. He's so good, makes these in there killing thing.

I don't know. We've got a new one creeping up on the horizon. I've read the whole thing, I've seen the pictures. I've got to look the pictures. You're supposed to look the art today. Can't wait. Okay, so anyway, enough of that. Let's see.

And of course, our fantastic A26, LA and the A26 group that does fantastic after-school programs for kids to get in creative writing. Check it out if you haven't already, and if you can't give to help out with this charity, you can donate your time as well to help teach some of these kids and help expand their imaginations. So check it out. There are awesome people and we continue to support and push them forward. And any new appearances we want to announce or just keep, rinse and repeat the ones. If you want to know what conventions we're going to be at in the near future, watch last week's episode. Otherwise, it just gets monotonous for us. Anyway, any other announcements that I've missed? Apparently my breath stinks, so if anyone has any gum, we'll take it. Send your gum to Geekin Sundry.

Don't send your gum. Send your gum. I have something. The Shadow of War expansion pack. The Blade of Galadriel came out, and you could play and be me. So get it. Just you, Laura Bailey? Yeah, basically it's just me running around.

More doors. Duna pool, dunable, do not bull. Duna bull! You got ring of power and shit? Yeah, yeah, so check it out. Check it out. Shut up. What?

No? What? What's going on? And on that note, let's go ahead and dive into tonight's episode of Critical Role. And welcome back. So. He just tunes it out now. Like a rock.

I have to. Except when he doesn't. Except when I don't. It makes it a challenge for you guys, which does not help me. Anyway, so last we left off. The group of adventurers whose fates are slowly entwining found themselves meeting in the city of Trostenwall on the southern reaches of the Dwindalean Empire on the continent of Wildmount. Through a mishap in a circus passing through town, you began to give chase to the investigation that seemed to have caught you up in this legal issue, and you find yourself locked under house arrest and being considered possible murderers.

You sought the answer to this endeavor. You found the deviltoad or the nergolid, as you just said, as you discovered, was responsible. You hunted it down, slew it, brought its head back, and after arguing with a very tired and just kind of wanting to get over with law master and Trostenwald, managed to convince her enough to let you off the hook and leave most of the standing legal issues with Gustav, thus disbanding the circus and setting you and Yasha free. Yasha went on our own path while the rest of you, the six of you, decided strengthen numbers, and at the time being, you all seem to enjoy to this company. Purchasing a fresh map, looking at your future prospects and your dwindling funds, you decided to head northward towards

the city of Zadash by way of the Golden Road past the city of Allfield. And that is where he left off as you had smacked the rear end of the single horse and cart and sent it spooked into the northern field. Falsetto, you know. And we chase after it, right? You do, you chase up, and you keep up to do. We don't just lose it. We ride off the question dies. So, being relatively before noon at this point in time, you're heading northward along the Ember Road. The well-packed dirt of the 10-foot roadway gives you a clear path

toward your next destination. The gentle creek at the cart kind of mingles with the clumping of the horse hooves as you push forward. The midday air is warmer than you expected. This sky's common gray presence is broken into smaller cloud patches and the victorious blue peeking through. You guys continue for a few hours, kind of talking amongst yourselves a bit. If there's any questions you wish to ask for each other now at the time. Questions? Meaning if there's anything that coming out of the city you want to talk about, otherwise I'm going to continue to push forward with your journey. So stop me at any point.

Is Bo, is her face all jimity jacked? Or is it pretty normal looking at this point? Make perception check. But I watched anything from last week, because I didn't. 16. 16. You can see there is some faint bruising starting to show on the left side of the face. Maybe she doesn't want to talk about that. It's a good Shiner. Thanks. Did you give as good as you got? I wouldn't say I won because I lost. But I did pretty good.

good. What color is it right now? Is it like an orange or just got the green yellow sunset? Oh it's in the green yellow? Gotcha. It's just starting to spread tomorrow will be. Right, kind of good little orangey. Yeah. It's really pretty. Thanks. Significant improvement. That trouble gonna follow you as we go on our way or you think you're free and clear? Oh no. No, that was that was just a little bar fight. Nothing just a little friendly. A little friendly little Friendly sparring. Nothing, nothing crazy. Nice. Yeah. Does anyone want a donut from my bag? Yes, I have a donut, thank you. You're welcome.

Also like a donut, please. Okay, here you go. I don't have them in real life, just this one in real life. But in the game, you guys are having delicious donuts. How old are those donuts? Do you actually have donuts? I don't understand. Yeah, here you go. Oh, there it is. Imagination. You're doing it, Peter. You're doing it. Just going there. Thank you.

These donuts are not that old. What does not that old mean? It means they're young? Are they pretty new? They're pretty new, yes. Three days new? Or? Forget it. You know, I don't actually want to know the answer.

I'm just starting. It's good. Is it good and do we gain or lose hit points? I'm sort of curious. No hit point transition, no constitution saves. They're a bit stale, but still tasty enough. Of course. Any lint from the bag that they were being held in?

You can choose to remove it if you like, but it may be part of the texture. Lint is rough it. It adds color. That's right. It's like sprinkles. Yeah. Is this weird for you to not be traveling with your performing family? It's change, but travels travel, so.

Did you travel in a wagon when you were with your family? Oh yes, we traveled forever. It was constantly on the road. Once we left home, we stayed moving. Ironically, traveled in the exact wagon that you're in right now. Oh, nice. Some things don't change. We didn't have much of a chance to see you perform. I saw you do a card reading for Jester,

but things got way late at the circus. So what do you normally do? Oh, Tings, I'm not really much of a performer. I'm more just help set up, help run the shows, help make illusions, that sort of thing. I show off a little bit of a juggling. Well, you saw, yeah, like a, I guess you could say a techie. I show off a little bit of the sword juggling.

I got some things I was working on. Like this? You're Jack's on those big motherfucking swords? Yeah. You watch as he balances one kind of on the edge of the hand and then tosses it up and catches it as it falls, and takes it other one and glides it across, spins it up, catches it on his chin, on his nose, he makes it hop around. It's pretty decent. Can you swallow it?

Can you swallow it? Can you make a bat, Jack, if you want to try out? Well, it's a curved sword, so not the curved ones, but I could probably do a straight sword. I'm not going to swallow a curved sword. It would be very complicated to pull off. If anybody can do it, it's you. The chiefling am at me is very strange, you know. Flexible, I'm not that flexible.

I'm pretty flexible. I never nailed anything down for a really good act. A few hours into travel along the road, you catch ahead what looks to be the site of another caravan heading southward in your direction. They begin to crest over one of the hills, and as you look forward to The central portion of the Merrow Valley isn't just a smooth, constant, great. It's a series of rolling hills and high grasses and wheat and grains and a lot of wild weeds that have just kind of taken over the areas between bastions of civilization. How far away are they? You can see up there about maybe half mile or so as they crest over one of the hills in the distance. Yeah, I send Framkin ahead and see it and go blind and death here. So we'll get a close a look at them.

Which is fronkin now? Is it sparrows? Sparrow at the moment. And I don't have the components to put him back to the shape he prefers, which is a cat. What are the components? Charcoal and some incense, a kind of incense you have to use. Moll out, I used it all.

Not my incense. No. Is there money involved? Money? Well, you have to pay money to get the things to do it. Right. So he's, you know, he's been a couple of things before. He can last.

Anyway, off you go. Have you ever made him a turtle? You can't hear you right now, unfortunately. Have you ever made him a snake? Have you ever made him a roach? He's gone to the other place. He won't be able to respond. Have you ever made him a unicorn?

Oh my God. A unicorn would be really cool. I'd like to see that. Yeah. They exist, you know. I didn't know that. That's nice. As your vision crests up with the flight

of Frumkin. Make a perception check for Frumpin. Not fuss me, Scanlan. Oh, that's not Scanlan. That's Percy, but you did fuck me, Percy. That is very low. Do you just say it fails because it's a two. It's a two? Yeah, I want a two. Okay. At a safe enough distance to look down, there are shapes. The most that Frumkin makes out is that it looks to be six heavy wagons.

With each being pulled. Six heavy wagons. each being pulled by a trio of horses. You can rob them. The two horses. We could what? Well, we could rob them, or we could just go off the road and hide

and wait for them to pass. It's Frumkin back. Do we know all these things yet? Oh, we don't. We'll say it for the purpose of this. Pleasant day. And I started muttering as soon as I could see that. Oh.

Oh, okay. Yeah. Do they look like they're in armor? Do they look like they're soldiers? Can't hear you. Can't. Do they look like they're mean? They look like they're unicorns? Like traitors.

You can't hear you. Do you see, are they carrying money? Are they carrying people? He won't be able to talk to you for a while. You see, he's not really there. Coming closer down the road now, the gap between your traveling troop and this caravan grows smaller and smaller. All the rest of the road.

If you I like to make a perception check, please. And I think at this point, Fumpkin has, yeah. He's not back, but I release the site. Selection check? Nine. 20. Five. Okay.

Amongst all of you guys keep an eye out, you look ahead and you can see the wagons are covered. Some of them are bundled. Some of them are taller, some of them are smaller. What you do notice is at the front of each of the wagons, there is a figure with the reins that is in the process of just sitting there and occasionally making sure the pace is kept relatively steady forward. You do see by the long robes and ornate silk mantles of the highway men that are holding these reins, you get the impression that they probably are from the menagerie coast.

You, too, in particular, recognize it's not well-off merchantile clothing, but it looks like it's not rags for a person that makes this trek up and down the Amber Road. It looks like they're heading southward, probably returning after completing some sort of a trade run up to either Zadash or Wrex and Trimmon spaces nearby. As the gap begins to close, there's kind of a brief moment of chicken to see who's going to avert the path. As it's only about 10 foot wide, it would be a pretty tight fit to get both your troop and their wagons pass. Do you guys yield or do you continue to push forward? I would just like to suggest we might give way. There are six of you.

One point of that. Yes, agree. Yeah. You guys skirt your single horse. The poor thing is pulling this cart on its own. It's not really any faster really than you guys walking necessarily. But we're not walking. We get to be right. It's great.

Because it is not a riding horse, it's a beast of burden. So it's about the same pace that you're going. But as you guys pull slightly off into the grass, the cart kind of bumps as it hits some rocks. and patches of dirt and thick grass, they continue to pass. And as they do, you see the individuals, the one in the front has what looks to be a thick scarf tossed over the shoulder, obscuring part of the face, and she kind of gives like a hand salute up to you as it passes and a bit of a head nod. As you weave your hand frantically, kind of a bit of eye contact is made and continues past. Are you going to Nicodranes? No response. The first cart continues past.

Hi, hi, are you going to Nicodranes? The next one kind of looks over to you for a second, the head cocked a little bit. No, we are on our way to Port Zoon. Oh. By way of Nicarangas. Ah. Did you come from Zadash? We briefly did, yes, but we are returning. We have finished our wares, and we have things to bring back to Sera. How far is it to Zadash?

At this point, he's like passed by you and starting his voice is a bit louder over his shoulder, and he's like, like, from this point it's probably around 150 miles. Thank you. The next one continues. One after another, you begin to get a better look to the ones at the front that were pretty heavily covered, as opposed to the ones in the back which are a little taller, and as you look into the back, there's little flaps and openings in the inside. You can see there's families traveling.

Does it look like they have any wares that are? Make a perception change. And 19. 19. Glancing through, you can see, The three wagons towards the back seem to be more for transport of people. It seems like either these merchants are bringing their family with them. For long treks, they're not apart from them for so long, or their family is just a family of traders or transport.

Looking past them, you can see there are a lot of supplies behind them, but you're not sure if they're wares or just their personal goods. Molly, feel like making some coin doing a little bit of a show? The fifth cart's now passed, and you're moving on to the sixth cart. Do these people look like they're in the mood to stop? Yeah, do they look sad? What's insight? Plus five. Oh, where do you see that?

Oh, there it is. Thank you. 19. 19. I mean, they don't look sad necessarily. They're on the road, you know, they're just kind of looking out and keeping eyes in the vicinity. You're lost in thought. You do see a pair of children. Kind of hard to gauge their age at this distance, but they're under the age of 10, at least. and they seem to be looked relatively bored. I'll balance one of the swords on my head and just flash the cards and see if anybody bites.

Ah, has he dropped them all over the mouth. You watch as the young boy, he has this kind of tangled black hair that kind of poofs out a bit in the sides. He has kind of a deeper brown skin and he looks at you with this bright blue eyes. And as soon as you begin bouncing the sword, he kind of smiles a little bit and kind of like, just a little bit. bit and kind of like jabs his elbow into his sister who's a little bit older than him and glanced up from points. They both kind of point towards you. They don't hear anything, but they just point and smile as their cart pulls away, the sixth cart, making distance from you.

He can tell your fortune! They didn't poke for parents. They're stupid. But so, the caravan continues about you. Oh, that's very good. Is it? Yes. What does it mean? It means that you're on a cart. It was the chariot. Would you normally, you know, hijack a caravan like that? I mean, we have in the past, if we are confident we can get away with it, we would, we could...

Can you get away with something like that? There's a lot of people in that caravan, though. It seems like a risky maneuver. That's a pretty big matzabal of there. And stealing is wrong. But if you did it, like, could you get away with it? We could probably get away with it. Why? You want to follow them in... I was just going off what you said earlier. I don't want to change your behavior just because you're with us all of a sudden. I mean, sure, let's go do it.

He's just trying to get you in trouble. Oh, okay. I am not. Merely asking a question. Would you join in in the standoff? What is that? What is that? Would you join the stage coach robbery?

We're pointing them down? We're putting them down. Reach for this guy. Careful, those fingers are loaded. Yeah, but I would ask, are you asking you because that is something that you have no experience with, or are you wondering maybe is that something that we could join you in? Only because I have no experience in it. I was just curious what it was that you might have done, you know, previously.

Did you hijack the cart? We were more small-time thieves. We wouldn't typically hijack moving caravans. usually we'd wait till they park somewhere and then just go sneak on and steal something out of the back. Mostly whatever we can walk away with. The things with moving carts of that big. Families and natures, they tend to prep.

You don't know what kind of people or weapons they have with them. Always go for a sure thing. You know how we're pretty sure that everyone on this road is going to kill us? Yeah, everyone else thinks that too. Fair enough. But if you need me to teach you how to steal, you can tag along sometimes. Well, I might take you up on that, yeah.

All right. Continuing on your path, I want to ask which two of you are taking point in keeping an eye on the road and the landscape around you as to progress? Yeah, I'll take watch. Oh, sorry. Okay, Beau and who will? So generous of you. You want to do it? I was going to say, yeah.

The inspiration is keeping it around. I'm not used to keeping an eye out on the road. Okay. So the two of you are taking point up until you guys decide to change it when it comes to travel along the road. Let's just change general perception. Yes, I would like you both currently, about an hour's journey past that intersection with the other caravan to make a perception check. Oh, I bet someone's gonna try to hijack our shit on the road, just like we're talking about that. Too bad.

18. Yeah, smash. 18 and 8. Actually, both of you don't really notice anything. Oh, wait, take that, take that back. Take that. Both of you keeping an eye out, the hills continue to roll. You see patches of trees in small wooded areas.

The grass field is tall, but it's beautiful. And the light breeze that blows through, you can see the waves of wind as they come across, and you can hear the faint kind of sound of it, moving the fields across. Is there a tree that looks climbable that I could get like a vantage point? There is, it's maybe about 600 feet off the road, but you can try and head over there if you want to. Plus, if we've been traveling for what, about an hour and a half, two hours now? I'd say total right now you've been playing the road for about four hours. We should probably rest the horse for just a bit.

Sure, anyone want to take a quick pee break? Yes. Yes, please. All right, so do you guys leave the cart on the road or do you take it off the side? We should leave a guard with the high-carpull. We should lead it off the road. Can we take it with us fairly easily? I mean, you can. The progress will slow a bit because you're now taking it through the hills and the field and having to push the cart through the grass.

No, we should take it off the road. Just off the road, but we don't have to go all the way to the tree. I can... Okay. I'll sit with the cart for the first role. I'll stay with you. All right. Where are you going to do? I'm just going to go check out this tree over here, see if I can get a little better advantage.

Okay, I have a bird that can go probably higher than the tree if you want. Yeah, I kind of forgot about that. Would you like me to do that? Maybe she likes climbing trees. Or you could, I don't want to rob you of the joy of climbing a good chie. No, no, I mean, I... Or falling out of it, which we would really enjoy. That would be extremely entertaining.

Both are very pleasant, but I do not necessarily need that to feel fulfilled, so... Okay, well, I will sit in the field then and give him a little chook under their chin. Oh, wait, before I go away, am I looking for anything specific? There's people coming. People coming. All right. So, as the rest of you, take a moment to step off to the side of the road, pull out some of your travel supplies to feed the horse, give it a rest. Pick some flowers.

Pick some flowers. Which you can find. They're wildflowers. They're bright white and kind of scattered and simple, but they're beautiful in their own right. You all take a bit to relieve yourselves off a little ways off the road. You make your way towards the nearest tree, and it's a cluster out five or six that are kind of nearby, this pocket where it seems like some sort of, seeds long ago got dropped by a bird probably over the sky and then proceeded to grow and sprout. The tree is, the lowest branch is about 10 feet up, so you're going to probably have to take a quick leap and try and climb. I wanted to wait for Caleb first. Oh, that's right, you're waiting, never mind. So never mind, you see that tree and you go, I'll get to that later.

It's a damn good tree. You sit down and focus in the middle of the field. I do miss climbing trees. Do you need to lift you up to the branch? Your eyes cloud over. They do, and as the bird is flying just for a second and You know, ordinarily, I can't hear you, but he's a cat almost all the time. So this is a rarity, and you'll be able to climb many trees and many other times, but we should

take advantage of him. Well, okay. Oh, look at that. None of us were nearby when he was saying. No, you guys were quite a ways off. No one was in earshot. That's what's been sitting in the bushes. Yeah.

A lady bug lands in his nose and kind of goes into his nostril, but he can't feel it. Feel it? I can feel stuff. Maybe not this. You're too focused. I know. Okay, great. There's bugs in my nose, does fish on my ass,

it tickles a little bit. It tickles a bit. Shave it all in, everybody. Be fair, your face itches in general just by the sheer amount of filth that's on there, so it's hard to really differentiate between the... In the middle of the field you hear, who look at that.

What do I see? An exception check for your birdie. That's a nine. A glancing over and doing a nice wide pass around as everyone begins to gather your things and head back towards the cart. The road's pretty open. At this point, the previous caravan isn't visible from that height. The hills kind of close that distance. You don't see anything coming your way. So it seems pretty open and safe. Okay. Greetings adventurers. Spring has sprung here in Los Angeles,

and that means it's a brief period where it's only 75 degrees instead of 95 degrees. I'll take it. And that means I've been outside a lot more, walking around, occasionally galloping after a toddler hopped up on juice boxes, traveling a bit, you know the vibe. And after doing some spring cleaning, my wardrobe, I gotta say, looking a little bit sad. I want clothes that can keep up with me and my son, but updating my wardrobe every spring sounds pretty expensive. So that's why I wound up signing up for Fabletics as a VIP. It let me overhaul my springtime outfits without obliterating my bank account.

New VIPs unlock major savings on that first purchase, so trying new fits feels way more doable. When I signed up as a new VIP with Fabletics, I got 70 to 80% off everything. It made it easy to grab a few new pieces without overthinking it. And the quality really surprised me. Everything feels premium and soft and breathable, but you're not paying those premium prices. What I like most, though, is how versatile everything is. You've got stuff you can work out in, but also wear out. There's matching sets, lightweight hoodies, joggers, teas, you name it.

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This is a limited time offer, so don't wait. Again, that's Fabletics.com slash Critical Role for 70 to 80% off everything as a new VIP. And now, on to the show. Greetings, Adventures, Lentures. Lately, I've been getting a bit more intentional about what I wear from day to day, because instead of just falling out of whatever laundry baskets nearby, I've been leaning into pieces that feel easy and comfortable. but still put together because it just makes getting dressed simpler when I have a plan.

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Okay. I live up to the branch just because. Okay, okay. Kind of feels like childhood, you know? It's kind of, do you want up here? Yeah, I'll jump. All right, I'll jump. Okay.

So we sit up in the branch. Okay, cool. It's a nice view. It's impossible to believe him. Is there anything carved in the branches and in the tree trunks? Make an investigation check. The tree and eats you. Shh, don't spoil it.

18. 18. No carvings of names or letters, but you do see what appear to be a few knots in the tree that currently have been carved out and probably made a home to a number of woodland creatures. I've never climbed a tree before. Really? Yeah. Wow. This is really pretty.

Yeah. What do you think lives in that hole? Probably very small unicorns. Have you ever seen a unicorn? Yes, I've seen many. Okay. The little ones can be as small as hamsters. Pocket unicorns?

Yeah. Where do you find such things? All over, you just have to know where to look. And believe. What is it like being in your head? It's pretty great. Yeah. Yeah.

Eventually you guys all gather yourselves again back at the wagon, cart it back onto the road, and head northward. Another few hours pass before the sun begins to set. As the sky grows darker and darker, the clouds from the north, northeast begin to filter in with a colder wind. And you get the sense that the warm day that you had is probably coming to a close. and who knows how long the current cold weather will keep. But the light begins to fade darker and darker until eventually you get the sense that you have about 30 minutes before this field goes pitch black. How cold is it out?

You can see your breath. It's pretty cold. That's cold. It's not like super thick, but you can see a little bit of the breath before you. Should we pull off on the side of the road and get a campfire going? I'd say let's get a bit off the road if possible.

Does there look like any trees, any base of mountains, any place that would be a good kind of sheltered campsite? There's no mountains anywhere in the vicinity. You're kind of in the center of the rolling hills. There are a cluster of trees you've got to go to. It's about maybe 300 feet or so off the road. It's three trees. It's not a lot of cover, but unfortunately you're kind of in the middle of a valley. Oh, dude. Sure. Can we get the horse over to them? Yep.

a little bit and that you spend probably about 45 minutes in pitch dark, kind of keeping an eye in that direction. Before eventually you come upon the tree, you can just faintly see the outline of the tree against the faint bit of light that's making it through the cloud cover. You guys kind of stopped right there, get the horse a little bit of water and feed, and this site's yours. Set a tent, start a fire. This is why we should have taken one of the circus tents. They take an awful lot of time to put up, you know.

But think about how big a process. How cool it would be. Oh, it would be amazingly. I've done it, it's great. Oh, right. This is nice too. Shall we collect some, you know, wood and start a fire? All right.

Sounds good. Mm-hmm. Who's starting the fire? Oh. Who's starting the fire? Anybody want to come with me to find some kiddling? An adventurer's kit, doesn't that have like a tinder box? That's some tinder in it?

Okay. Shall we? Sure. All right. Go look for some deadish brink. I'm gonna, I'm a little, be my eyes. Super dark. Oh, maybe you should,

do you want to wait, how? Sure. You know what, I'll just start clearing a bit of a pit. We'll say, I'll start digging a little. No, hold on, hold on, I pull that rag out and I put one little of the dancing lights and I make that hooded lantern again. Okay, so that I'll see.

All right. With that light, easy enough to find some small kindling, not a whole lot in the vicinity. mainly being just an open field. But you find a few pieces of fallen tree and some general dead plant life in the vicinity that can get something going. We can chop it up. Dead grass. Yeah. So eventually you get a fire going. It's a little beacon of light here in the darkness. You can see the orangeish kind of flickering against the interior, the three trees, as you guys are situated there.

And you figure you've made it a little under halfway to Alfield, which is the small city of the city of the city of the city. on the way to Zadash. It'll take you another little over a day as to travel, or if you push ahead, you could probably make it in a day, but you can run the risk getting a little tired. Up to you. Okay. Okay. But for resting this evening, do you guys, who wants to take watch? We're all going to sleep. While they decide that I'm going to pull out my silver thread and I'm going to start winding a circle around, like a 20-foot circle around the fire. I give my little bouquet of wildflowers and I give it to naught.

Oh, that's very nice of you. Well, you said all girls like flowers, so I think you did. That's very nice of you, thank you. What did I do to deserve this? No, you were my friend. Single tear, paws on a porcelain cheek. I'll take first watch. Everybody has a little...

So I hit a little bell that I have this part of it, and that's it. I'll sit up with you, Jester, and take first watch B, one B. I like them. All right. We'll say for the purposes of expediency on this, I'll take three perception rolls from three different people that are keeping watch throughout the evening. So with the setup of your spell, you go to rest. Jester, you first. Oh, damn it.

Oh, that's pretty good. Yeah, I won. So pretty good. All right, natural one. About ten minutes. Sorry, guys. About ten minutes into your watch, the inspiration hits for you to just start drawing interesting faces and weird trees, and you start just sketching into your... A little tiny hamster unicorns!

There you go, there you go. And so as you begin to sketch down, you are not paying attention at all to the air around you. It's pretty cute. Cute. Little floofer boots. Like all wrapped up in like a little swaddling blanket. It's clear as day. Oh my gosh.

Giant miniature space unit. However, I think Jester might be cuter than me. Even though you roll really poorly, your watch goes through and abated. Oh. Second watch, who's taking that? I'm so tired. I will stay up for a little bit, yeah. All right.

Go ahead and roll perception check, please. Mm-hmm. Kayla! Keighla! Keel! Oh, that's pretty good. That's a 19. Whoa. Okay.

Keeping an eye out at this point, you see a little ways off. It's hard to make it in new shapes because you're human eyes. And with the firelight that's near you, your eyes can't adjust to the darkness as well. But there are bits and pieces where the clouds do break and the moonlight comes down. You can see what looks to be a distant shape that's just kind of moving through the field, maybe about 400 feet off. It's just over, like you can see it just. You can see just pushing through the height of the grass, and it's just kind of moving slowly.

Am I the only one awake at this moment? Yep. I slowly tiggle, not awake. Get up, get up, get up, get up. Hey, hey, it was flying in class. The handle got wrong. What's going home? Out around a fire, a ways.

Why, we leave you on watch you can't see in the dark. No, I saw it in shape. It's not dark, there's a fire here. Okay, okay. Let me sneak around and look. Right? We don't want to wake everyone because... Because we want them to die.

I think we should probably wake everyone. It's nothing. Then they'll be upset with us. There's nothing more dangerous. No, no, she's the most irritable. There's... I'm what? Sorry.

Did you say I'm fucking irritable? Look, I've been proven correct. She said most beautiful. There's a thing out there out in the field. Something is moving. Two humans. Look at the field. Jesus.

No, wait, wait, yeah. I'm gonna dart off sort of in a flanking. Make a stealth check. Flanking maneuver. 18 plus stuff. And as soon as I see her do that, I start swatting forward on the back to wake him up. Okay. What do I see?

You vaguely see like this shape moving, but it's hard to see. It's only because of the middle light. All right, nod, as you stealth up and quickly move through the grass, Eventually you hear this, when you glance up and you can see, there is not one, but three large buffalo-type creatures that are just kind of lumbering through the field. Buffalo-type creatures? Or buffalo? You're not sure you're not close enough to see.

You see they're bipedal, they're thick, they're muscular, and they have these large kind of horns that curl off to the side and out. And there's three from just kind of moving. It's like quadruped, not bipedile. How far am I from the camp? Quadipers. How far am I from the camp? Where are you about maybe 80 to 100 feet from it?

Cool. I'm gonna pull out a piece of copper wire and remembering the motions that Caleb taught me. I'm going to twirl it around in my hand and hold it up to my mouth and whisper a message just to Caleb. Shit. What? And I'm gonna say, it's three buffalo. These three buffalo-type objects, creatures, what do you want me to do?

I'm so proud. I don't know that spell, so I cannot talk back. Yes, you can. What? Who said that? If you can hear me, I don't think you can. Come back, get with a group. Can you hear him? Is that how message works? Yes, I can hear you. That's all. So you can, the whispers continue back and forth. All right, it's just one.

It's one back and forth. I can talk to him, he can reply once. For one round. For one round, six seconds. Yeah. Sick. That's cool. This is a cantrip.

Do you be texting? Oh my gosh. I love it. Oh, if it's cantrum. You just do it over and over again. Is it a cantrip? Yeah. Oh, it is.

What a catrip? What a great catrip! I've never had it. It's like the two soup cans with a strain. Essentially. How far does it go? You don't know. Yeah, there you go.

You're talking hamsters. Oh, the cute is unicorn hamsters. So, Na'u'u'i doing? He said to come back, so I'm coming back. I'm going to come back and on the way back just sort of see if they're eating, sleeping. What are they doing? They're just moving. And as you head back to the camp, you can see they just passed and continue heading kind of in a southwestern direction in the field, not making notice of your fire or the fire or the

the encampment. They could be good for meat. We could go kill them and eat them for meat. Is she back? Yes, no. I scooped. Do you. You cast us, pal.

You spoke to me. You said to do the hand movements and the whispery thing, and I did it, and it worked. It's just as simple as that, isn't it? Yes. Oh, I'm so proud of you. We need to calm down and go back to bed. Oh, but we could have eaten those buffalo-type creatures. What the bug did you wake us up for anyway?

Ha ha ha, ha. Got you. It was a joke? No. I thought we were all going to die, but it was just, um, what was it? Three large beasts of burden. Wait, we could use them to pull the cart. You saw, yeah. I mean, where are they? They went that way in the dark. You're sure they were just like cows or like donkeys or like buffalo type things? I don't know. I don't know what they were, but they looked at, you know.

were, but they looked big and able to pull the cart. Well, it's going to look at one. You want to go cow tippin, don't you? Fuck, yeah. He never let it take me cowtipping, son! Oh, dear. Echoes in the field. What happened?

Back to call. Are we going to go after them, or are we going to go back to sleep? Are we going to go back to sleep? Yeah, let's go look at one. Well, shit. I guess we're going to look at a buffalo. Let's go. I'm still sleeping.

Yes, you are. I'm still sleeping. Yeah, all right, so while Molly and Jester continue to enjoy their continued long rest, you all interrupt it to get up and head in the direction of these creatures. So I would like you all to make a stealth check, please. 12.

11. 11. 11. 16 on a terrible right. All right. Okay. So you guys all, as the four of you, kind of shoulder to shoulder, keeping low, making you away through the field.

Stepping, stepping ever so carefully. And there's this sound as one of you accidentally goes completely foot down onto some sort of a field frog that had been there. And as the croak hits, you watch this one of the could just and they all just start running away. Spooked by the sound. Can you tell what they are now that we're closer and saying them? perception check if you want to. I'd like to with my dark vision. I had

disadvantage on you, unfortunately, at this distance. Welcome to Hugh. That's okay. Doesn't matter. Nope, m, m, m, m, five, six. They look like buffalo-like creatures. Thirteen? They look like buffalo. Yeah. I never know what they were. Well, that was worth of look. You aren't too familiar with a lot of the indigenous animals that live or been brought to this region if they haven't been near the port towns that you grew up in, you haven't seen these type of creatures before, but you know, you vaguely know, they're in the ballpark of what a buffalo you imagine looks like. It's vaguely what I imagine a buffalo would look like.

Yeah. Sorry. Well, it's still dark. Let's go. Back to sleep. Yeah. Don't step in shit. Ruffle Knott's hair on the way back to camp. Who's got the third watch? I'll take it. Turn watch. All right. Turd watch. Turn watch.

Perception check, please. So dough. Six. Okay. What is that? Six? As you keep an eye out, does everyone out sleeps throughout the evening? Eventually you nod off and fall asleep with the rest of them.

I would like to ask all of you to leave the table, please, for a moment, except for Ford. Oh. It's your turn now. Why? Why in your own? I literally don't know. Oh, no. That's actually the problem.

Just don't like, get a little. Get a litchfalactory installed in you again. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, no. I've thoroughly enjoyed your accent. Oh, shit. So, Ford, as darkness takes your mind, dreamless like most,

you await the emptiness of sleep to carry you to the day. Your sense of body fades, but your mind and the dark linger. linger, minutes, hours, days, time loses real sense and meaning, but you're conscious for it, and that is almost maddening in that split second or endless stretch of experience that you're currently unable to express.

And as the time passes, the air grows colder around you. The faint shimmer of shifting midnight blue, muted and distant, now showing endless depth before you, rippling. You begin to flail about, your senses returning with the dropping temperature, but there is resistance to your limbs as you push in the space around you. You're sluggish.

There's force. It's not air. It's water. You suddenly feel the burning pain in your lungs as your breath fights to escape you, but you hold tight. You see. in swim in desperation, choosing any direction,

but the shimmering blue is directionless. There is no up, there is no down. It's just depth, movement. The Universal Shadows dance is one right to left. With a speed that pulls you along with the current, you feel yourself being jostled as it shifts again to the left to right around behind you. You find yourself toppling head over end,

eventually coming to rest again. You spiral over and over again, the darkness swallowing you, tightening around you as this kind of dance, this shape, this endless coil, this spiral around you. As the current tugs at you, battering you, you cannot fight any more as the increased power of the current pulls on your form. You cough, and the freezing waters rush into your body, the briny taste of salt water stinging your insides. Your wincing eyes, open with the pain that clutches the interior of her chest, only to see a gargantuan mass moving through the water around you, like a massive noose closing in.

The pain in your chest vanishes, as your breathing normalizes, thicker than air, but breathable all the same. It feels strange yet weirdly familiar. In that moment, yellow light bursts before you in the shape of an enormous yellow eye, an impossibly low tone, rumbles through the waters around you, shaking you to the core like an organic war horn

the size of a canyon. The eye narrows as the tone grows stronger. A thought enters your mind, a jumble of emotions that your brain attempts to make sense of until a word congeals into the center of your consciousness, watching, waiting expectantly. What are you? Watching me?

Eye kind of opens a bit and leans closer towards you. Chaw. My potential. What are you asking of me? Would you have me learn? Provoke. I don't understand. Reward.

Reward for this. I'm listening. My closes, and the light is gone. You feel the darkness and the cold completely suffuse your entire world as the panic and solitude. The true quiet of your unconsciousness begins to take hold. take hold. At that moment, you gasp for breath and your eyes open, coughing and sputtering in the morning air. We can have everybody else come back to the table, please. Call them back in.

The war is over and both sides lost. Kingdoms were reduced to cinders, an army scattered like bones in the dust. Now the survivors claw to what's left of a broken world, praying the darkness chooses someone else tonight. But in the shadow, Dark, the darkness always wins. This is old school adventuring at its most cruel. Your torch ticks down in real time, and when that flame dies, something else rises to finish the job. This is a brutal rules-light nightmare with a story that emerges organically based on the decisions that the characters make. This is what it felt like to play RPGs in the 80s, and man, it is so good to be back.

Join the Glass Cannon podcast as we plunge into the Shadow Dark every Thursday night at 8 p.m. Eastern on YouTube.com slash the glass cannon with the podcast version dropping the next day. See what everybody's talking about and join us in the dark. The world of Sonic the Hedgehog has been thrust into a not so dark, not so stormy, hard-boiled detective story that probably nobody saw coming. Follow Sonic and the Intrepid Chaotic's detective agency as they take on their biggest case yet. This high-flying action-packed adventure will take them across the world, fighting for every clod they can fight.

It's one heck of a tale, which is good, because this story might be the only thing that can save their lives. Well, if that's all, I can just dispose of you. Wait, what? All will be revealed in. Sonic the Hedgehog presents The Chaotic's Case. files. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. When the chaotic are

on the case. What were those words? Watching potential, learn, grow, provoke, consume. We'll go over the rest later. Come on him. Come on. Are we supposed to come back in?

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. You are. You are. Everybody in? All right. Sorry, I found a patch of strawberry. Everybody back? Everybody back? Are you okay? Yeah, you're fine, everything is good. Okay, good.

Just doing dandy. Yep. You would tell us if something was wrong. Sure. That was fast. Yeah, that was much faster we expected. You really fought five guys in an alleyway that fast? Sometimes it doesn't take that long.

What does he look like? What are we doing? You should see the other guy. As the rest of you have already kind of come to consciousness in the morning air, kind of begun to situate your belongings and put out the embers of the fire that lasted throughout the night. Your morning belches getting out. Ford has kind of slept in and has been ever so still in his sleep. Suddenly, without warning, he suddenly shoots up from his sleep. His eyes wide and as he opens his mouth, begins coughing and spitting water up.

Oh no, he's injured. Have I ever seen this happen to him before? Can you speak? Yeah, no, I'm fine. Yeah, you're looking. You just spit a lot of water out and you were sleeping. You're fine? Yeah, no, I...

Is that a lot of water? Yeah, I get it out, big guy. It was like a sizable glass filled with water. I'm gonna do something very weird. I'm going to walk over and... I'm gonna walk over and dampen my hand on the water on his chest really quickly. Ew. Okay.

It's... It's probably... It's briny and salt. Uh-huh. Why are you drinking salt water? You don't know that. Oh. Why are you drinking salt water?

Cheese, Ford, that's a lot of drool. Yeah. Does it taste like stomach acid? Because that's gross, man. Yeah, no. One way to find out. Reflux. Refluces. You're like out his hand?

Like a mama bird. Just everybody have some of what I puked up. I don't, but I want to make an inside check. That's weird, isn't it? That's weird. That's weird. That's weird. Yeah, make that check. Yeah, okay.

That's 22. Yeah, I don't think it was acid reflux. You taste like a seaman. I don't know. I just don't know. Oh. I want to shake your hand, but at the same time I want to smash it. I'm going to be more proud of my wife.

Wow. That's not normal. What happened for? This seems like he's covering some confusion to me. Seems like he's covering some confusion or at least trying to deflect. I had a dream. I'm sorry. A vivid one just kind of shook me to my core a little bit. That's all. I'll be fine, really.

It's not a common thing. Why the water though? I don't know. You never told me where you got that sword. Just because I saw I get a little soggy, a little drippy when we were fighting the frog thing, so you know. As you glanced down at your sheath on the ground, it is empty.

What? There's no falchion. Yeah. That sword is a pickle. It's a pickled sword. Are there benefits to pickling your weapons? There's a mystery. Oh, right, right.

He's not wrong, no, it actually is a pickle. You can taste it. Yeah, it's very salty. Yeah. I do like pickles. That's not bad. Is our group going to be all about puns and that stuff? It's the lowest form of humor.

Is it really the lowest? Level three. Okay, there are some pun competitions that are, I get serious. Are you all right, Fjord? Yeah, I feel funny. Caleb, you remember me asking you about your arcane prowess? Yeah.

My small experience with the arcane, Came to me around the same time that that sword did. How ago was that? Not too long ago. Very recent. Not before I met up with Jester. Were you in the ocean? Uh, yeah, I was. I was.

Um, did a lot of merchant sailing previously. Had one trip that didn't go so well. Suffice it to say after it was done, I found that sword. What happened on the trip? Rough waters? Yeah. Yeah. Did anyone die?

Yeah, I'm not real comfortable talking about it, but. What about the sword? You said you found it on the ocean. You found it in the boats you're on? You're on an island? What do you mean? I found it on the shore. When I got back to land, it was just there.

And I'm not super familiar with a ton of weapons. The sword I know, I was, had some training in it, but this seemed like a unique sword. I felt like it almost called to me. I know how that sounds, but when I picked it up, it seemed like everything changed. And ever since I've been able to do more things, been able to reach out with some of the stuff

I've seen you do. And that's why I'm trying to make it up to the academy. Trying to figure out what it is that I have. D.N. When I cast Detect Magic in the first game in the tavern, did that sword let up? Yep.

I don't mean to alarm any of you, really. I'm trying to be as forthright as I can. Where is the sword right now? Can I make it appear? Well, you look down and it's not in the sheath. You glance around. It's nowhere near you. And if you focus, reach down.

He looks down at his open palm and there is a flash of greenish-blue teal energy out of his grip and there clutched within his grasp, you see the falchion coated in the remnants of sea floor life. You see the barnacles encrusted around the edge and up the back of the blade. You see as it begins to just drip water of the same kind that was coughed up by Ford this morning. Oh, ho, ho, ho, ho. You can see why I'm a little curious about this item. That's a great trick. Would you, I don't even need to touch it, but would you trust me to study it for a moment?

Do you have any experience with items like this? Well, I'm good at figuring things out. figuring things out. I'm Clifford. I might be able to help you with that. I've read a few. He's kind of obsessed with like underwater life and mermaids, I've read a few books. Could we revisit that idea, perhaps? I'm sorry. The night has left me a bit shaken and I feel like I just need a moment to kind of get my bearings, if that's all right.

Yeah, you can understand that we would be curious, but I don't want to push anybody I mean, we've just met. Of course not. And I don't want to make anyone feel uneasy. I'm getting trying to be as transparent as I can. I just, I don't quite understand. And I appreciate your patience in advance, and I make advantage.

You watch as it just disappears out of your grip. And he says he doesn't quite understand, is he telling the truth? Is that the same inside check or a new one? Yeah, you have to make a new one. 23. 23. Do you have been, I have been,

Yeah, the whole story I've just been watching. As far as you can tell, as forthright and honest as you've heard him be. That's so disappointing. All right. Do you think you're slowly turning into water? Nope. I hadn't considered that terrifying thought. But thanks. I'll just add that to the fucking list. If you feel like it's happening, let us know and we'll try to catch you in a jar. In a jar.

Well, I mean. Unless he runs away. We're not gonna let you run into the dirt. Maybe something can happen. Tell you what, I start sweating real hard. I'll let you know. Okay. It's fine.

It's fine. Is that happened to you before, by the way? The whole waking up coughing, salt water thing. Really remember. You wouldn't have to remember that far back. You said that this all started just a few weeks ago when you made this one. I'm not a, I don't really remember my dreams all that well. They kind of leave me quickly.

I remember all of mine, I don't know. I've never seen him wake up with water all over him. Well, excited to see what unfolds. Shall we? If you're gonna vomit something, I mean, salt water is pretty decent. It could have been way worse. It's way better than vomit. Oh, it's far superior.

Yeah. Already, you're proven to be an acid. If we get really thirsty, we'll just come to you in the morning. You can't drink so. No, you can't do the salt water. It just makes you thirsty. Dehydrates you. Oh, really?

It feels like you should be able to be, you can't. Should we get back on the road then? If you wouldn't mind. How is horse doing today? Horse? How's horse? What is his name? Mr. Horse.

I was wondering the very same thing, actually, all night. I was wondering what we would call. These horse? Well, maybe he has a name. Molly? Does the horse have a name? The Norse had a... If it did, I'll just make one up.

Norse horse. It probably had a few names in travel and you've gone through view horses and... Try not to name them. In that regard, too, yeah. Just named him... His name was Winter's Crest. If he lived that long, that was when we were going to butcher him and eat him. Oh.

You can rename him, it's fine. I like it. It's like a celebration. That was the plan. Maybe for sure we'll just call him W.S. You're going to butcher at Winter's Crest. Yeah. And that is, that's a special treat? It means you're going to eat meat, and then you're going to make some jerky,

and then you're going to buy another horse with the money you make. Interesting point too. For most of you, Winter's Crest would have little meaning. It's largely celebrated in continents to the west, as it is specific to a historic meant it did not happen in Wild Mount. But we're a carnival. But you're a carnival, so you guys have kind of more of a vast and strange and we celebrate everything.

So always says Winters Crest, maybe, maybe Bo. Have I ever read about it? I feel like my mom saw lots of visitors from other places. It's possible, but just for a bit of information. I feel like the Snooty Town that I came from would have like a Winters Crest Festival, kind of like how we have October Fests out here. Just a drinking festival. Even though we do.

The real business having them. She's glug. She'll really do it. Lots of glorg. All right. As you guys look off at this conversation of the horse, the horse is currently about 30 feet off in the field, just kind of like eating grass into the field.

If you're on the road long enough you eat a lot of animals, you eat a lot of be suburbden. I wander over to the wagon and I just go and sit down and start drawing because I need to. I need to spend a little time. a little time. Oh, yeah. Pull not over.

Do you know what W.C. means in Zimnian? What does it mean? Toilet. It's a pun. I get her now. All right. As you guys gather up in the fresh morning air, back into the cart. Do some pull-ups on the tree branches.

As Bo just gets nice and swole for the morning. Morning pump. Baskas. Just a little bit. Too bad, Vasquez. Baskis is a pretty good print. Yeah. Hell yeah.

They were talking like Vasquez and Starbuck from the new Battlestar, both like good character prints for Bo. I'm like, yeah. I love that. All right, so as you guys bring the cart back up onto the Amber Road northward, you begin your second day trek. You guys push on for you. push on for a few hours. Who, is it still Bo and Molly Mock keeping point? Okay.

I don't mind. Have you both your role perception check, please? Do we have the highest perception? I did until it bounced. Fuck, I almost got same, same zies. 11. Five. Okay.

Calm fields. I might be distracted looking for things that I can like pluck out of the field. Okay. All right. You push on for a few more hours. few more hours the afternoon starting to get late. You can choose soon when it goes dark to set up camp again and stay another evening out in the fields, or you get a sense looking at the map that you had procured that if you push an extra hour or so past,

you could probably make it to all field before the night's done. Let's do that. Most of us could see you in the dark. It's not a big deal. Yeah. You guys just hunker down in the wagon, okay? You'd be safe. Deal. Must be nice. Okay. Can't say that. All righty. So, you guys push forward, kind of pick up the pace a bit of the horse,

and those of you who are on the side of the card, if you wish to you, you can kind of jog along the side to kind of alleviate some of the burden. Keeping an eye out. With my shitty vision. Okay. The sun does eventually close towards the Sirius Mountains to the West,

and night begins to fall. At this point, you do see just over the distance in a hill as darkness comes. You can see the faint glow, a cluster of light, of what appears to be a village in the distant hills. And you get the sense this is probably all field at the perimeter of your vision. As you continue to push forward, you've now gone

into past eight hours of continuous travel. Into that ninth hour, I would like you all to roll a Constitution saving throw, please. Natural 20. Natural 20. Whoa. That's because you guys are, oh no, you're writing in the clock. I'm writing.

16. I'm just like strong. Nine. Nine. Nine. Nine. Nine as well? Wow.

Ramstein on that side of the table. Rammstein on that side of the table. All right, so the three of you take one level of exhaustion. How do we do that in view? How does that affect us again? This is a good good good look up. So essentially for per point of exhaustion. Can you go to your HP?

Yeah. Oh, you have disadvantage on ability checks. So you have disadvantage on ability checks. And so you take a long rest to get rid of it. Disadvantage on abilities? Yes. On ability checks. So like skills and like that.

Okay. Okay. Okay. All right. You guys are, you're a few, you're probably about a half mile away from all the field. It looks even at this distance a bit smaller than Trostenwald, where you were. You can see the faint clusters of trees on the kind of north-eastern and north-eastern sides of the city. Otherwise, it's just kind of in this little pocket beneath a few hills.

It's a bit podunk in size you can gather from this distance, but it's welcoming. There's a flash of orange light. The outskirts of the town. Did that look arcane to me? No, it just looked like a flash. It could have been arcane. It's hard to tell this distance. It's quite a ways away. That's weird.

Is that a... There's a second one. And you just faintly see what looks like the distant curl of flames beginning to spread across what appears to be a roof. Oh, shit. Oh, no. Kind of think we just watch someone commit arson, you guys. How far away? Let's go kick their ass.

About a half a mile. Does it look like the fire spreading at all? I mean, as you sit here and watch. We're watching. Yeah. Let's head that direction and start yelling at people. Pulls print. Fire!

You guys begin to go into a faster jog in that direction. As you do, you can see the fire is now beginning to consume a handful of buildings. And the flames reading to flicker higher. You begin to hear in the distance a very, very faint, like a high-pitched yelp or some sort of a screech. It's hard to make it out at this distance. It's kind of an open field area, and it's mingling with what sounds like now, dozens of voices screaming and entwining. As you can see, the uncontrolled flame still progressing on the eastern side of the village. You can just see, as you get within a few hundred feet, the western side of all field, people just running.

Villagers, probably a few hundred of them are now just running out of the town. as you guys begin to approach. Towards you and out into the field. So as you're approaching, they're coming in your direction. I'm going to stop one and ask what happened. Okay, as you glance over, you see what looks to be a family of five halflings rushing right past you.

The mother's dragging two of the younger ones by the hand while the father is running alongside the eldest daughter, probably in her teens. The father wears like a leather cap and has like a handlebar mustache and kind of simple farm clothing. And as you shout out, you kind of makes your eye contact. What has happened?

Oh, I don't know what happened. It's hard to burn the building, and these things started to rush, and the city's under attack. What the... My dog face, I can't really. Come on, and they just keep running. At this point, you guys can see people, more people are fleeing, and as you get closer and closer about 100 feet outside of the city, you watch as the people, the droves of people are beginning to get, at least either the ones that are actively fleeing have made it out of the city, or in the process the stragglers. are still coming through. You see what looks to be a young human man with kind of a

scrappy, tattered brown hair, a bit of blood dripping down his face running. Before his back arches and he falls into the grass and you can see what looks to be an arrow protruding from his back. At that point you can see standing up from behind one of the exterior walls of the city, a humanoid creature stretching up to about seven feet tall. Muscular torso with thin dog-like legs. You watch as an extended neck, with spots of fur, these ears curled upward as it has a dog-like snout to the front of it. You watch as it leaps onto the back of this fallen villager, bites into the shoulder and tears a chunk out. Swallows it before it growls into the air.

Is that a weird hyena? Have we seen these things? You have. You've encountered a roving band of these on your way southwards. What is some of the seat? It's, I believe. It's, I think they're, well, we don't know what they're called. We just fought them.

I don't know what they called. We fought one before. Do you know what to kill him? You just hurt them until they die. It swallows the flesh grabs the body and then darts back into the city dragging the corpse of the village that is just killed with it rapidly. Oh, God. That's weird. So.

Is it a Walden city or is it just a huts here and there? No. They're small like waist high and like shoulder high walls that kind of partitions here and there. We're going in. But it's largely a farming city. No, not at all. Is he within range too hit with a spell? No, he's about, well, depends on the spells. Right now he's about 200 feet from you, and he's running into the city.

You can see the flames are further in, but you can see the orange glow kind of flickering in the distance. Can I do like a quick scan and see if I see more? Perception check. Don't fuck this up. That's okay. Uh, 17. 17. In the immediate vicinity, you do not.

You see more people from the village starting to run. The village is starting to run out screaming. You see a handful of Crown Guard kind of come out and one of them looks wounded and is kind of, to the north. Where are they coming from? And you see the two of them dart off northward into the city. What are you guys doing? I chase after the crown guard. Okay. I guess you go after the one that stole the guy. We'll go after the one that stole the guy.

Is this making my spider sense tingle? Can I track them? No. Okay. Like these, you get the sense at the moment. that there's no active idea that these would be considered and a creature that would draw your attention. All right. As you all kind of, are you leaving the cart there on the outskirts? Yeah.

Yeah, we leave the toilet behind and we run. All right, as you guys go charging into the city, you're kind of pushing past fleeing villagers and you can see some of the buildings now have been locked shut and you can see faintly through the windows, furniture being boarded up from the inside. People are just kind of hunkering down for whatever this assault is. As you enter, you see the Crowns Guard kind of went northward,

but the one creature that you saw charge in went straight towards the heart. And right now you can see there's two main streets that bisect of the small village. There's one that kind of goes at an angle northwest to south-the-east and one that goes kind of right towards the center, west to east. And as you head towards the center, you can see the flames are more near that central square. As you guys begin to run, kind of push past a few more people, the smoke is starting to billow up and you can see now there's embers, kind of rising and then falling. It's like very faint, ashy rain of small points,

of reddish-orange light that begin to fall with the ash. As you turn around one of the buildings, you can see now, there's one of the side walls. You can see four Crowns Guard all ducked down behind the wall with crossbows and long bows, all kind of back behind it. You can see one that's adorned with, it looks to be more ornate armor. You see a person there with what looks to be elven features, but hinted a mixed lineage. They have their helmet on the ground showing shoulder-length blonde hair that turned red in places from a spattering of gore. Through gridded teeth, they curse in pain as the bandages are applied to what you can see

as a wound right around the midsection, the thigh area, and other soldiers in the process wrapping it. You watch as they go, God, you fool! Bind the wound, don't stuff it! Goes and they pull a bolt back into the crossbow and knock it at the ready, glancing up and seeing you approach. They kind of scan past you, most of you now with kind of weapons at the ready, it seems, charging forward. And you suddenly have a ray of arrows, about five or six, come over the wall. One

of them manages to pierce the back of one of the Crown's Guard heads. Falls and crumbles to the ground and they all get lower again. And you hear in the distance, and the individual looks back to you. You, are you able-bodied? Yeah. Very. I've been told. And you're armed. We are. Yes. 30 golden old ear. Now get in there and help. No, no. No, 30 gold and no ear. How many are they out there? Just go get on.

They give you look like, oh. Yeah. Not and Jester, do you guys have ways to block arrows? Two of them lancet and fired two crossbow bolts over the wall and then duck back behind. You hear what sounds like heavy smashing of wood, some more barks and gibbering, just kind of echoing around the way. And you can see now flames curling up to the top of the building that you're all right next to before the sun. small wall that bisects the entryway. I start one of my swords in the back of my neck.

We are sitting ducks here. What do we do, Ford? It's all on the other side of a wall? Correct. Let's go towards the wall. To give you perspective now. This will help. This will help. Hey, sight now.

Where's my fucking wine? That's a question, isn't it? Is it gone? Is it gone? No. It's just on the table. Whoa! Oh, gorgeous.

Oh my gosh. Where are we? So, we're about to be placed. You guys. Oh. This is so cool. Look at that flame on the side of the roof. You guys are all right.

I love Dungeons and Dragons. Over in this area of the corner. So arrange yourself as you feel you wish to be over there on the far end. Oh, God. Wow, what a cool map. So if you wish to, you can place to you place to yourselves where you wish and show me where you want them to go. I would be pressed against the wall of that house.

Right here. Before I ran over here, I'm going to, Caleb, I'll hit you on the shoulder and say, Bless you! And I'm going to give you blessing of the trickster just in case you want to stealth because you're squishing you're Okay, so I have advantage on stove? Yes. Oh, thank you. And the...

Jester. All right. And the enemies are just all over that direction, right? With a little bit you've looked over to the side, you've looked over to the side, you You can see there's some up on the rooftops in the distance. You can see they're dark figure silhouetted by flames and what looks to be other bits of light that normally fill the streets in the center of the city. Most you can see are just these up here and you can already see a few bodies of guards and civilians that are lying on the ground kind of carved open

and not moving. You see spatters of blood and you still hear kind of them barking and giving orders next to each other. How far away is that, like are the ones on the roof? How long of a distance is it? Over here? At this distance, it's hard to say, probably in this neighborhood of about 70, 80 feet from you. Okay. So, you guys, I would like, if you're trying to stay out of sight, make a stealth check, please. Those of you with a point of exhaustion, you have disadvantage.

All 19. Oh, wow. There we go. Six. Yes. 21. 15. 16.

25. 14. 14. Okay. Do you take? Yeah, well, I'm exhausted. That's okay. So as a group for the moment, for the moment, you guys haven't drawn the attention.

You're still right next to where there are Crown's Guard who seem to have been in the process of a firefight with whatever's in this vicinity of the city. However, you may or may not make it through for the moment unseen. And you're not certain how many there are, but you can hear a lot of yipping and growling right around this large two-story building that is currently engulfed in flames. I have an idea. We need to move away from here, right? Ford? We do. We have to use the cover of the buildings.

All right. I think I can do something that would make them fire many of their arrows maybe at something, but not us. Should I do that? And then as soon as they fire their arrows, we can run? Diversions are absolutely wrong. Diversion. That's what it's called. It's a diversion. All right. So I will, may I? May I move? Is that a thing? Is that a thing? You may. You're still currently.

I take out a bit of fleece and repeating the words and doing the hand gestures that I've been taught and tracing the image of a creature on the fleece. I will make a silent image of the guard who told us 30 gold of a knoll, and I'm going to have the image of that guard dash across, slowly dash across this alleyway, like that way. So maybe Amber more than Dash. Yes, yeah, not Dash. Just sort of walk in a way that he could be easily shot. Okay.

Interesting point of order. Not too certain of the gender of this individual. Oh. Kind of fluid. Okay, great. That long-haired guard individual. There you go. As their figure leaps over the wall and McGinn's making a run towards the center area,

you watch as about four different arrows, pf-p-past their its form before one of these null creatures, goes lumbering forward and slashing, it clashes out to it. This knoll, interestingly enough, the other ones you see are all the one you saw before the city are built and muscular. This one seems to be porous. With a brief bit of view you can see, there's like clumps of fur and it looks to be exposed bone, and part of its skull is just kind of pushing out of its snout with teeth gnashing, and as it tears into the illusion, kind of claws through, confused, and it kind of looks over in your direction. As you're finishing, drawing your your blade across your back, what normally would be cold energy suddenly flickers

into this beacon of bright white light. Something clicks in your mind and you're like, oh, I know you. I'm preparing. How close am I to this thing? This entity would be here now. It would have just left out to that section there. Does it see us? It does. No. I'm going to use vicious mockery at it really quickly. All right. Can I invoke publicity? You may. I'm giving you all one round preparation before we roll initiative. Yeah, I was going to say, if you want to, we're in it.

Because of this is a fight. So anything you want to do now, do it. I mutter a few words and my form starts to blink in and out of you and then there is another Caleb next to me and another Caleb next to me shifting, blinking, flashing back and forth and it's kind of hard to see where I am. Okay. Is that concentration? Yeah, it is.

All right, I'm going to put a concentration marker on you just so we remember it. Can I also, knowing that we're probably going to be up close, danger close, I'm going to cast armor of Agatis on myself. You see a spectral frost start to harden around my armor in a shimmering light. That's cool. All right, so that's you. That's you. You're vicious mockery. I'm going to use vicious mockery. I'm going to look at him with my eyes glowing and my sword glowing and in infernal safe. The light comes to blind your eyes and burn your flesh. Yeah, 1d4.

That was a roll of 13 minus 3, I believe it's wisdom, correct? Yeah, it's a wisdom saving throw. Wisdom saving throw. So yeah, I'm pretty sure that's a 10 that does not make your DC. Yep, so he takes three psychic damage. All right. And he is, yeah, he is, it's a, yeah, he is, disadvantage on his next attack roll.

And I'm going to use my bonus action. Yeah, fuck it. Let's go for it. I'm going to activate both swords. Okay, so you drag the other at your plate off of that. So. Can I use? All right, so you've taken a total of six damage,

and your max HP is down by six, but you have currently the new invoked right on each blade. So keep that in mind. Can I use my bonus action really fast? You may. To say a little prayer to the traveler. and I'm going to cast spiritual weapon. I may do that. Where are you going to cast it?

I'm going to cast it right above this zombie knoll, and it's going to be in the shape of a giant, like, lollipop. Like a bludgeoning lollipop. All right? Yes. So you watch as this flash of purplish energy suddenly apparates into the air, this thick, like, wouldn't handle this, I wouldn't handle this jammed into a massive, bludgeoning, solid piece of sugary goodness.

Old-fashioned swirly guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, and so with that, you can go, you can go ahead and make an attack with that as soon as it comes out. So make a melee spell attack, please. Okay, okay. Sunshine and lollipops. 17? 17 does hit.

Seven radian damage. Seven radian damage. Nice. So as it strikes down, wham! From the creature already kind of watching its bones and its form kind of shake. Wait, wait, wait. I was looking at the wrong spell. Hold on, hold on. Okay. Oh, one the eight plus three. So seven plus three, ten. Ten. Oh, that'll be enough. So you watch as it kind of pulls back with the infernal shouting of Molly Ma kind of causing it to prepare itself for a lunge. As it gets low, its jaw kind of snapping open, you watch as bits of its skin kind of fall onto the

as it does so. And right before it leaps, wham! It just smashes it into the ground and its bones go flying and scattering in every which direction. Oh! Is that one of the wearer things? Damn. The dear is mine! All right, so that's...

Bo, what are you doing? You all have one round of prep, and so right now you guys, you've gone... I cast a spell. Can I also move? You can move, yeah. I would, as soon as I, the arrows flew by, I'm going to dash across the alley. Okay. I'm going to send my duplicate after him. Okay. So you'll run over that way?

Yep, as far as I can go. All right, and you send your duplicate over there as well? Yeah. All righty. And, uh, Beau? I'm also going to use my speed dash across. And can move 40. Can I peek into this window and see if I can see anything in here?

Sure. Kind of easy to see it in this perspective. You glance inside. Stelsela. As you glance inside, you can just barely see around the corner. The place is tossed. It is shattered and ruined. It looks like it was once the interior of a small tavern of some kind, but the kitchen is wrecked,

and you can see two of these knolls are in the process of grabbing large sacks out of the kitchen and pulling them out to the front door on the opposite side of the building. Look at two unicorns inside. They're doing. They're doing. I would like you all now to roll initiative. Yeah. Oh, I'm second guess never there.

Natural 20. Whoa. That's, I don't want to know that. Oh, wait. Is this an ability check? Yes, so these are with this advantage. Oh, really? Yep.

Oh, that was worse. All right. Initiative is ability? Yes. Are attack rolls? No. Okay. Did I already ask that? No. Don't worry though. I touched all your dice, so they're gonna roll great to me. Thanks. Thanks, Sam. All righty. So. Can we look this one? This is one that one. 25 to 20 anyway. 25 to 20. 24. 24. Don't quit if I go, I'm going to try it. Maybe I'll go away well.

It's very pretty good. It's so pretty hard. 20 to 15? 16. 16. 16. All righty. 15 to 10? 9. Oh, no, never mind, yeah. Wow, guys. Wow. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. All right, 10 to 5. Nine. Seven. Six.

Six. Okay, so that order. I want them to get a little closer anyway. They're all far. It's all part of the plan. It's all part. It's gonna go great. Molly, then Jester, then Caleb. Yeah. And not. What did you get?

Six. Oh, together at last. All righty. So top of the round, as some of this has happened, the one knoll kind of skeletal form is shattered under the ground. Some of the other knolls begin to look over in that direction and see a few of you over by the guards now, kind of standing up and darting over the way. They're preparing for some sort of

Whatever's coming, but however, first of the round is you bow. I turned a knot. Huh? Hey, you want to take these guys? You ready for this? Yes, yeah. I mean, I'm gonna drink from my flask. Just kidding.

Get ready, I want him to come through this window, okay? I'm gonna go. Okay. Try and get their attention. Okay. Right here. Make a performance check. What?

It's a gold. Whistle? Not right. Gras and all three? All right. So the whistle has a bit of volume to it, unfortunately, with the sound of all the breaking of furniture, them all growling at each other and the general screams the vicinity, it's kind of lost in the chaos.

It's not necessarily a quiet atmosphere to draw a guard's attention. The knolls don't seem to care much for a whistle around the window. They're more focused on grabbing and running out the front other way with whatever they're taking. Is that like a my action or a bonus action? I'll let that be like a bonus action, we'll say. Bonus action. Because you do, we're waiting for something to happen.

Merciful. Shit. Conan, and I jump through the window and before one of them leaves, I'm going to crack them with the staff right over the... Okay. With a 40-foot movement, that brings you, you're able to, because as you... You do. As you go through the window, because they've mostly shifted into the other room now,

it's where you see the moving, they're not in the room that's closest to you, so you go jump through the window, over the mass, make your way through the living room and you watch as they're exiting the door. So you get all the way through. I'm so much closer than that. Unfortunately, no. But you do manage to make all the way to this door there. Oh, they're going out like the back door.

I thought they were going out that way. Nope. Okay. That's just bad disadvantage. Farg of war. Farg of war. Yeah. Well, here's what you do. As you rush through to go after them, as they're fleeing out the other side,

you come to the doorway and you can see there's one knoll right in front of you right in front of you that hasn't noticed you rushing behind it. It's currently throwing what looks to be a corpse of one of the villagers onto a cart that's sitting right outside of that door. That cart which is piled up with other corpses and bags and whatever things they were robbing from the inside of this building and have thrown onto this cart. You can now see there's four knolls that are gathered around it in the process of throwing things onto it and it looks like they're getting ready to start pushing it. They haven't noticed your arrival as you just darted into the doorway. What are you going to do?

Okay, I'm going to kind of double, can I, I can't move anymore, can I? No, that was your move to get there. I am going to spin a key point and do patient defense. Well, as your action, you can just go into it, that haven't spent a key point. Oh, really? Because you already use your bonus action. So yeah, the key point allows you to do it as a bonus action, but you can just do it as an action any time. Great, I'll do that.

So you just go into the Dodge action. I'll just kind of, and kind of hold back and wait. Right, so you're holding back in the doorway and you're ready to use the door, to help defend you if it needs to. Okay, so that ends Bo's turn. It's now their turn. Oh shit already, oh God. Yeah. Yeah, they rolled so bad. They rolled really high on the initiative. What are we calling me? Thanks. No. G N-O-L-L.

So, one. K-N-O-L-L-L. Visibly off to the side, there is... N-O-L-L-L-L. Yeah, that's going to be two of them firing their both. Actually, no three, because they watched you come out. There's three of them they're going to be firing their bows at bow. Oh no. Oh no, bow and bow, bow, bow, bow, bow, bow. They all have disadvantaged on the attack, however. She's a patient defense.

She's going to be fine. As this one fires off in the direction of your duplicitous form as it just disappears through. That's the only thing it can visually see. And it's going to stay behind the wall. So that's three attacks disadvantage against bow. And they all have disadvantaged. They do. They do.

The first one is... This is cool. With a long bow, that's a 15? Missed. Right, misses. So the first one, you watch as it just moves past you and slams into the door. The next one from this guy up here. Whoops.

It's a 12 and a 2. The other one misses into the wall. This one over here is going to go ahead and fire at you. That's a 16 and a 14. 14 plus three at 17. Oh, 17 is my armor class. So the first two, one hits the door, the other one duck out of the way, and the third one comes right,

and it's piercing right towards your chest. It's going to deal seven points of piercing damage. Okay, I'm going to use deflect missiles. Oh, right, because you got that for you. Okay, so as a reaction, you watch this one arrow that you can't get out of the way. All right, so go ahead and make the roll. But it's not super, I'm still level three,

so it's more of like a cat swap. You're trying to like swat it and see if you can carry the momentum with it. Yeah. 20! That is 7 on the dice plus 7.14. So you reduce the damage to zero and you catch it. Whoa! If you want to, you can spend a key point to throw it if you want it.

Oh! Throw it on a shirt! Yeah, let's do it. Just cut the cat. This is a new. Where are you throwing it to? That's the fish who attacked you or the guy in front of you. I'm going to do it at the guy in front of me who's like right behind me.

Okay. So I'm going to take it, I'm going to spin around in like a full flourish, and I'm going to just throw it like the gambit card. Yeah. All right. So as you grab it, you spin around and throw it, go ahead and make the attack roll. What's the attack roll? It should be your...

What is this? I've never did this before. I know this is new. It's probably new. I don't know how they work. Here we go. I may so, so you just make a range attack with it. So, deflect missiles.

I'm not 31st, then you reduce the mission. Roll D20, add your dexterity modifier, and your proficiency modifier. So the same as any of your other attacks. Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, 16. 16 hits. All right, so it takes 1D8, so roll 1D8 plus two.

I have four, four damage shovel. All right, four, I just had, I wonder if it does it add your damage bonus to it or the original weapon? Because it is your strength, throwing it back. Pardon me, folks, we're figuring out new abilities that they can use. You make the attack with the proficient

and the missile counts as a monk weapon It is your attack, so you get to add your deck's bonus. So six total. So six? Yeah, six total. All right, so six points of damage. It sinks, you watch as the arrow, it just sinks into the chest of its thick hide armor. I go, oh.

The other ones that are throwing stuff under the cart hear this commotion and kind of turn around and look at you. Three of them continue just throwing stuff on the cart faster, while the one that's immediately in front of you spins around and stands tall. You can see it now looking down at you. A full foot and a half, almost two feet taller than you. It's going to go ahead and it grabs a spear off the side of the wall that it had leaning it. It's going to try and thrust it at you. It still has this advantage in the attack though, because you're in your stance. That's 12. 16. Miss. This one, as he goes and thrust with the spear, kind of coming off of the adrenaline of the deflected missile, you go ahead and duck low and then kick the spear up, it slams into

the top of the door frame, completely misses you. He's now almost like stepping into the door frame, completely filling it as you're backing up into your space. And the two of you are just kind of in this very, very intense, small occupied block. No, seriously, dude, did you see that? My legs are jumping around like crazy. These guys are going to begin pushing the cart. I feel like a looney tune skirt. It's going to move at half their movement to there.

Just a jab. Alrighty. So this one here is going to go ahead and move up to here, right around the side of this wall. It's a fucking shi-law. And it's going to go ahead and take us long bow and fire at you, because you're the one they can see. It's fair, yeah. Cushion. This advantage, that is 15. Miss. Miss. This one actually, you see you up at the fire and you grab the front of the armor of the knoll and pull him in front of you and it actually hits the back of his armor, splintering.

It goes, the smell hits you. Excuse me for a second. Thank you. And as you let him go, like there's this kind of thick, oily, kind of horrible liquid that's kind of matted in the fur, and you, ugh, the touch of it's kind of nasty. The smell itself is very kind of accurate, of rotting flesh and just mangy fur. All right, and then that's going to end all those guys there. They're pushing there. All right, that ends the Null's turn. Ford, you're up. Yeah. Okay. With my 30 feet of movement, can I wrap

around the far side of the house. You can go. And just get the cover of the corner. 30, that's exactly where you can get. Now there is an individual over there that sucks, right? Correct. You see, like, it has a long bow, and it's currently reaching back,

and it's pulling another arrow and getting it gnaw up. That made your forgiveness for trying some shit. I would like to cast. We're all trying some shit. It's okay. Crown of Madness. Yeah! Oh, that's Fowl. All righty, so what's the save on that one?

It is, uh, da-da-da-da-da-da. Wisdom saving throw, I believe. Let me double check. All right. Yeah, wisdom saving throw. No, that's an eight. I'm pretty sure that does not matter. So he becomes charmed and a jagged crown of iron appears around his head. And madness glows in its eyes. It's concentration, correct? Yes, it is.

Elimium concentration circle on you. All righty. So, that is charmed target and must use its action before moving each of its turns to make a melee attack and other than itself he mentally choose. Yeah. So it has to be a melee attack. Oh, melee. Fucking shit, I saw the bows.

Damn the words in this book. That's okay. But I can make him move towards something, right? You can. Okay, good. I'm gonna have him climb up on that roof and attack that other fucking knoll. That's up on that, so bitch. Okay, since it has to use its action before its movement,

you watch as it kind of looks up at the top of the roof. and leaps up, climbs scampers up at the side, and gets right up into base to base with this guy, confusing the other knoll. It kind of looks down at it like it's about to help him, and it doesn't seem to notice there's any sort of threat there. But it can't aim, make an attack this round? That's fair. Can I use my bonus action to use my mask of many faces to make myself look like a knoll? Now they're taller. They're too tall. Well, they're medium. Two feet taller. I can only do a foot taller or shorter.

They're, it's couldn't close. You look like a small knoll. I'd like to do it. Okay. Teeny knoll. All right. So. He's the runt. All right, you are visible to a number of knolls in this courtyard.

You don't have any movement to back away from that edge, unfortunately. I was hoping to just be like, because I can't see that far, like, to be right here to hit the only guy that could see me on the ground there. Yeah. Yeah, you're right on the corner. But that's how you're able to kind of see him and send him this way. Right. The guy on the roof can see me as well? Yeah, but they can both see you.

Just so you know. Okay. The rest of the probably can't. yourself into what looks to be a knoll-like appearance. Okay. All right. Seconding your turn? That is it. All righty. In the back of the alleyway, you see one of the knolls stands thicker, more angry and more ornate than the rest of the pack. You see what looks to be a heavy scale-male armor across the torso and a large helmet across its head. You look as what looks to be thick spines about a foot and a half

to two feet long are woven into the scales themselves off the shoulders. the back of the helmet and the sides of the armor. They look natural, as opposed to metal, almost like just long, bony spines that are put onto it, both as an ornate adornment, or possibly just a means of defense, and it looks scary. But it begins barking, and steps forward, kind of giving motions to some of the other knolls and the ones that are on the cart to continue pushing it as it steps forward to there. It's going to use it on that, fucker. It's going to go ahead and use...

I don't see him back to the crowns guard? Oh, no, he's like a grand master, Noel. No, no, the guy next to him. Oh. Alrighty. That's going to be, there are a few. It's going to use Insight Rampage. Ooh, what does that mean?

So it looks over towards the one that's right next to bow. The one that's in the middle of the area with you, here's that, grins, and then gets an extra attack against you. With disadvantage and a four. That defense is helping you up. So yeah, it goes to strike again and as it comes out with its claw, it's putting its spear to the side, you manage to go ahead and just misses you entirely. That's going to go ahead and it's turned at the moment. Then it goes to the guards on this end. So these guards are going to go ahead and begin to fan out. Come on, let's go. Let me, run, run, go. We're going to darting back around this way. They're going to go ahead and find the corner next to you, Jester, and I'm going to go ahead

and take a shot at the Nolet's up on the roof next to the one that you have charmed. Shit, it's going to miss. Five plus five. So it fires and just goes wide. You see it vanish into the rising cloud of embers and flame. That's going to end the guards' turn. They're getting around and preparing for our next round to shoot up on the shoulder and say, don't worry, nobody saw that. They kind of glance over their shoulder and he's like, shh. Molly, you're up. I'm going to take a run.

Yeah, am I going to do this? Am I going to be this idiot? Yeah, yeah, let's be an idiot. I'm going to take a run to try and get cover at the other house. I'm going to try and run across the alleyway. This one? Dash-a-dash. You put you about there. Yeah.

But that's your round. That's my round. Okay. Cool. All righty. That ends. Molly's turn, Jester. You're up. Oogie dokey. Um, I am going to send my, oh god.

I'm going to send my duplicate out against the wall on this house. Over here? Yeah, like against that wall. Okay. She can go up to 30 feet. So, one more. Yeah. Up to the body, on the billi or the villagers.

I can't reach, but I'm going to run. I run across. That space? Yeah, like can I get against the wall like further in? Yeah, like there. Okay, we'll be through it. That's good. Okay, that's your turn.

You still have an action. Oh yeah, I'm gonna use my bonus action to... You currently cannot see anything for it to attack. You need to be able to see a target for it to attack something. Oh. So you'd have to be either further out. Can I... You can do this part of the movement as you run across, make it move and attack, and then continue.

Yeah, as I'm running, can I use my spiritual weapon? Yes. Can you move it 20 feet? I think it's 30 feet. Um, b, b, p, p, p, p, p. 20 feet. All right, which direction? Towards the giant guy.

And hit him! All right, make the roll. Hit him with the rock! 15. 15, unfortunately, does not hit. Boo! Okay. It just misses.

You watch as the shield comes up and just. and just deflects the large, glowing mace of a lollipop. And then you continue the rest of your movement to kind of direct behind the building. So at this point, you've all pretty much shown your cards that you're here and as part of this fight. You are the only one who's up in the air. For my action, so can I still see my duplicate

around the corner right there? Correct. So she's gonna cast. Well, you would be able to as you're running with you. Okay. So she. is going to use the cantrip, Secret Flame. All right, against?

Against the same big guy. All righty, so these would be things you've done right before you ran across, what we'll say. Yes, basically, yes, that's what I did. So, sacred flame. Technically, I did this before I moved. So you know, usually you have to do that as party movement.

I did this before, technically. All right, so dexterity saving throw. That is a 12. Oh, good. He has to be 13. So it hits him. So it takes one to eight points of radiant damage. Yes, it does.

Hurt somebody. Four. Yeah. So after the shield deflects the lollipop. The flash of radiant energy just burns across the armor and the torso. Instinctually, puts the shield up to try and deflect the blow from the eyes. And looks out and doesn't see where it came from, but singed a little. Yeah, howlva.

All right, that's interest's turn. Caleb Nott, you're up. Yeah, okay, I will move along table over here. That's one method. I think I have a good view of the big gnaul, correct? From there. Big one, you do. Yeah, through, okay, so I mutter a few arcane words under my breath,

and a circle of flame spins around my hand and three beams of fire shoot out. out towards this big guy. All righty. I cast scorching ray, and each one is a separate attack. Correct. So make the three strikes. Yeah, so first one gets a 16. 16 hits.

The second one is also a 16, and the third one is a 17. All three hits? So six D6 on him. Six D6? Yeah, because they all hit. So that's four on six. Okay, yeah. That's nine.

That's the six. No, no, you're 20, which one was it? This one. That's the Grog one. Oh, thank you. Nine. Oh, that's 12, and then you've got all this 15, and also there's a total of 19 fire damage on him.

19 points of fire damage. So as the three beams arc out and blasts, you see as the large knoll kind of, it seems to be like a pack lord or a leader of some kind, sees this coming, tries to put the shield up, but all three blasts into its armor. You watch its flames just burn out of it suddenly. As it withdraws and takes a step back, it just looks angry.

It looks hurt a little bit, but it's angry. And I probably have 10 feet of movement, which I would like to use to move back to where I was and to try to not hyperventilate against the back of this building. Okay. So dead center of, yeah. Okay, good. All right. Good to know.

I like that you're facing the wall, so it looks like you're like, oh. I gotta get against the wall. No, I'm like this. I'm doing this. Knott, you're up. All right, I'm going to, Knott's going to poke her head into the window where Bo is inside. Bo is within a few feet of a batty, right?

Right. All right, I'm going to shoot the batty next to Bo. What's going on? Super busy. Ooh. Plus. Something like a pachinkgo machine. What happened?

15. 15? 15? No, for the regular null, that hits. Oh, yeah. It just hits, barely. Regular no. Regular no. Regular no.

Regular no. Yeah. Regular no. Regular no. Jeez. It's stupid. So tall. It's all hard.

Okay, so nine points, that's including sneak attack damage. Nine points of damage. Plus Fury of the Smoore. So 11 points of damage. Well, it's your level, right? You went up a level. So technically. That's 10 points of damage. Wait, what did I say?

No, 9, 12, 12, thank you. So 12 points of damage. So, as this knoll is in the process of slamming through the front door where you can watch the door having been kind of bashed inward a little bit at each side and bow is just in the process of dodging and weaving and getting out of the way, you find one opening and fire your crossbow bolt. It goes through the window, through the doorway, by second, in the two different rooms, and straight into the kind of under the clavicle near the heart section of it. As it pierces in,

And it coughs of a bunch of blood onto the front of its hide armor. It's not dead, but it's pretty hurt. Ooh. It has, yeah, that was a pretty nasty blow. And you can still move. Movement I will use to climb up into the second floor window. All right. That's not me.

I'm trying. One next to your right. There we go. All righty. So go ahead and make an athletics check just to go ahead and. That was good, but it's disadvantage. That's better. Okay, athletics.

Oh, no, it's just a straight 10. 10's exactly what you need. It's a DC to get up under the second floor. So as you come up into the second floor, you immediately climb and leap up through the window into a chamber that is just filled with roaring flames. And immediately like, trying to avert your gaze.

The heat's just pressing into you. You can see there's a table that's on fire. You can see most of the roof has just been burned away, and there's beams that have fallen, and you're like, this was a bad idea! This was a bad idea. I just say, this is fine. Yeah.

Oh, yeah, they're all. Perfect. Can I use my dash? Was that all my movement? No, that was your movement to get up there, and you could use a bonus action if you'd like to. Okay, I'll use a bonus action to get, is towards the window less fiery? It's still burning, but you're going to have to leap over the flames to get there. So make a...

Sure. All right. I'll say make an acrobatics check the tree. and like leap over parts of broken. Oh no, come on, come on. No, it was two threes. Oh, yeah. So you make it across.

You leap onto the first beam and it breaks and you're like, oh, that burns! Leap again, the next one, oh, that burns too! Eventually you get over there, hot, hot, hot, your boots are on fire and you're having to pat them out real fast. You do. Oh no. Yeah.

Suffer five points of fire damage, getting across the room. Rough, rough. But you're in an area where it seems it's just embers, and most of the flame is catching behind you for the moment. You get the sense it might begin to spread in the next minute or so. But at this point, you're not immediately in the thread of flame, and you have a look down in the entirety of the courtyard here with a little bit of cover. Okay. At fact, you're considered half cover up in here. Half cover. Half cover.

I'm done. All right, that finishes. Look at that. That's me in my window. All right. At this, which point, you can see the skeletal knolls that are out there all at once kind of turn and begin shambling forward. There's one this way. It begins to run up and then take a swing at your duplicitous form before striking out with no effect. This one spins and comes up into bow. And then there's one that emerges from...

I can't actually see where. I just am going to point out I've been doing it wrong because I was thinking of my duplicitous. as Trinket was, which had movement the same as me. And it is a bonus action to move my duplicate, which I did not realize. So I'm going to stop doing that. That's okay. We learn with the new ability to do. Yeah, I just looked it up and I'm sorry. That's all good. That's all good.

So your duplicate is somehow less useful than Trinket? Is that what you said? Oh. Oh. She doesn't give a shout about that bear. All right, so as out of the doorway here, another one of them burst through and runs to the back. And then sees the direction where Jester is in the process of the next one of the side. Oh, this sweet is real me.

And then uses its action to just charge up into combat with you. It can't actually make an attack this turn, but it's just right up to you. It's like gaping, vacuous skull. open sockets trying to bear down on you. That's going to end their go, except for the one that's striking at you, Bo? Yeah. There's one on the roof still, too. Well, that's not one of the skeleton. Oh, that's going to be with disadvantage. It says 17 to hit.

17 hits. 17 hits. It bites out towards you with its kind of broken toothy jaws, and you suffer six points of piercing damage as the jaws clamp down on your forearm. You're like, oh, God. And it's like pushing now through, trying to find a sprucey jaws. space next to the larger null, and they're both just currently blocking the doorway from your escape. I'm kind of doing the animal control thing and being like, no, no, that's... Back! Which, by the way, top of the round, Bo, your go. Uh, my go. Okay, hang on, let me put these hit points in.

Bing, Bing, Bing, bing. D&DBI-Bi-Bi-Bing. Applied changes. Meow-Miam-Mia. Um, okay. Oh, this makes my duplicate way less fun if I can't move her. Well, how often you're gonna be gonna bonus actions all the time? Yeah, but that's my spiritual weapon. Well, check, she may move, if you move away from her like 30 feet,

she might just come with you. 120 feet. Oh shit. But you can leave her out in the open and then- Yeah, at least she's directing fire. Yeah, jig, definitely. Do a jig. Okay, I am going to, okay, I want to try and do something creative. I'm gonna take the arrow that not just fired into the guy's chest.

I'm gonna grab it. can I rip it out with my off hand and spin around and stab them back in the blade? Awesome. All right, so go ahead and roll for your main attack. I'll leave that one back. God, bless him. That's not good. That's a 10. A 10. You pull it out and it's like a horrible pain to yelp as you yank it out. As you spin around and attempt to slam into its back, its giant signal arm slams into the doorframe and blocks your ability to pass forward. You out, you out. actually kind of get caught over its arm and have to withdraw. Okay, and I'm going to take my other off-hand attack, the one that just bit down on me.

I'm just going to rip from it and then just elbow crack it right in the nose. The one that just bit you? All right, go for it. Pretty cool. Damn it, it's 11. 11. 11 doesn't hit. Unfortunately, a lot of whiffing on both sides when it comes around bow, but as you try to strike on elbow, it does strike its skull, and it watches this jaw kind of unhinges. and then snaps back into place.

Oh. Shit, that was my bonus action. That was my bonus action. Damn, we're in a tight spot. I can't use a key point, can I? I mean, as a bonus, you use a key point to do two as your bonus if you have it, to do Flurry Blows. I always wanted to do a key point to do a Pitch and Defense again.

Oh, no, you used your bonus action, yeah, sorry. You want to move or stay where you are? Yeah, can it back up into the house and close the door? The door frame is pretty banged up. You can try. Can certainly try. Sure. All right, so backing, taking a step back.

Well, they both have, or the one has spears, so you're still in its melee range. You try and close the door. They'll both get a tax opportunity on you if you do that. No, I'll say. Okay, so you stay there kind of holding their position. All right, that ends Bow's turn, the Knowles go. So before we do anything, the one that is right up next to the guy on the wall, what do you want it to do? Melee, so if he has a weapon or anything, hit him, and if not, just push, knock him up.

Knocking my fucking up the roof. Or it's a spear, or you can make a shove. Up to you. Spear! All right, so the spear attack, it's going to go ahead and as it climbs up to the top, and flushes out with its arm. Go ahead and make attack roll for me. Oh, okay.

Plus anything? It is plus five. Oh, that's a 20. That's 19. 19 definitely hits. All right, so go ahead and roll 1D6 damage, plus 2. Plus 2. It's with two hands, technically.

It would be 1D8, sorry. Yeah, thank you. That's much better. Oh, God. Nine. Nine. Nine. Nine.

Nine. What have I wrong? Great. So with that, it jams the spear of both hands into its friend, and then Nol kind of grabs it and pulls it and looks at it confused and angry. Trying to figure out what exactly happened as it does so it's going to attempt to shove it off the wall that just hit it. Maybe I should have. So, sorry, that was cocked.

Sorry, that was cocked. All right, make a roll for the athletics check of the other knoll. Adding my modifier or it's? It's modifier. 16 plus. 16 plus two. That beat it. It rolled a 17.

So after it gets stabbed with it, it looks back at the null that each to control and just like Sparta kicks it off of the edge of the roof. It then slides and tumbles down. Right in front of lighting. Landing onto the ground prone right next to Molly. It does suffer. Very Christmas. One point of falling damage.

Oh, so it's good. You use the spear. Yeah, that's true. So it's like on the ground, Moll, he watches it stumbles and hits the dirt next to you, and it's like, he watches this kind of mystical crown of weird iron horns are kind of floating above its head. Is this? All right, that takes up his turn. With this, this guy's going to go ahead and move forward and advance.

Let's see. We're all off to the side. This is unfortunate for Bow partially. This one's going to go ahead and fire. This one actually can see Knott. It's going to go ahead and take a fire, and this one's going to take a shot at Knott as well, actually. So one attack against you, Bo. Longbow strike from that and all there. That's going to be seven plus four. Eleven, misses. It actually hits the wall and bids itself into the side of the door frame.

The two attacking U-Not. You do have partial cover on these guys, so half cover will give you plus two bonus to AC. Oh, great. So the first one is going to be a 20. Hits. All righty. The second one is a, oh no, it's a natural too. All right, so the one that does hit you, we suffer nine points of piercing damage. Nine? A lot of nines tonight. As the arrow suddenly arcs upward and hits you right in the side of the jaw and carves through part of your neck that way before it exits the other side. You see how this big gash wound in the side. Doesn't quite hit the jugular, thankfully, but it is pretty messy as you're starting to bleed down the side of your neck.

Is it she harder to hit because she's so little? Yeah, but that one had some decent name. All right, that one lost that one. All right, these guys here continue to push forward that way, and they're going to use their other action to push forward. This guy's going to go ahead and throw another body up onto this as the other one's pushed. They don't get quite as far because one of them stop

pushing, but they're going to get to the map. The one that's snarling there is kind of watching them vanish behind. This guy around the edge is going to, let's see. Look, there are a lot of celebrity interview podcasts out there, but there's only one happy, sad, confused. I'm Josh Horowitz, and yeah, I'm the host of the show, so I'm a little biased, but truly happy, sad, confused is the place for nerdy and intimate conversations with all your favorite actors and filmmakers. From Andrew Garfield and Scarlett Johansson to Christopher Nolan, casting what ifs, backstage stories, and much more. Listen to HappySag Confused on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Mick Unplugged, the number one podcast for self-improvement and modern leadership.

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because your next breakthrough is just one episode away. This is Mick Unplug, the voice and face of modern leadership entrepreneur and self-improvement. Let's get started. Actually, seeing you Yelp up in the window is going to go ahead and take a shot at you. Sure. Bo's currently being dealt with two of them and you're up in the flames right now. That is going to be a 15, which I do not believe hits. No. This one does actually strike the ember wood on the outside and breaks through, but it only

comes partially out and is actually embedded, missing you by like an inch as you kind of. All righty. That finishes the Knowles' turn, I believe. Oh, this guy's going to turn and take a swing of up. With the spear, two hands. That is 16. Missed. 60 misses. Man. Swings out and you actually catch, you catch the spear off of the side, and you're now, but I'm like a strength tug of war with its own weapon as it's... My stick. My. Drop it.

Drop it. Drop. Do you want to play or not? All right. Ending there go, that goes to Ford's turn. The crown of mad is a piece of shit. Can I go ahead and send using my action to maintain it? Can I send that stupid ass back up the roof?

Well here, let me double check something. He's hitting. Yeah, the damage may have broken down. Knocked out? Oh, no. I don't know if that's the case. More that's movement. He's on the back.

That's half movement just hit up. Well, it's not just that. It already moved on its turn. It takes its turn. You just have to spend your action to maintain the spell. So it won't do anything on your turn. So either you just continue to maintain the spell, and the next turn it's still under your control,

or you do whatever you want to, and the next turn everything is or you could drop it because he's prone and Molly will get, like, super advantage on hitting him. Super advantage. Up to you. You don't know what the crown is. Fuck it. I'll drop it, and I'll run, I'll come into the street down the way, 30 feet.

But I look like a knoll. And I will. Concentration's gone. That's right. Two other times. Thank you. They're often. But I still look like an old, thank God.

You do. And that will be my turn. All righty. Are you holding your action to do anything? Oh no, I guess because I dropped it. I have it. Yeah, you have your action because you didn't maintain the spell. With my action, I'm going to cast Hexblades curse on that big son of a bitch in the middle. This guy? Yeah. I believe it's a bonus action to do that, isn't it?

It is. Yeah, so you still have an action. You could even probably make it to get in his face. Does that do then? All righty. With my action, I will Eldridge blast from where I am. Go for it. Thank you.

Skidooosh. It's a 15 plus 6. 21. That hits. Go and roll damage. Amazing. 1D10, 8 plus 4. 12 plus it adds something.

Bonus to the damage roll. Sorry, I should have looked this far hand. Two. 14. 14. 14 points of damage. 14 points of damage. So as you rush up, you watch as this kind of squatter knoll saunter's out in the middle, points to the seeming leader of this cluster. And as it does, you watch as the soot and ash on the ground begins to affix itself around

the inside of its armor, holding it in place, it seems for the moment. And with the other hand, holding the suddenly appearing barnacle-studded blade, you unleash this blast of Eldridge energy that slams into the the center of the armor, you watch this energy kind of courses through all the crevices between the scales that are overlapping. And as it fades, you watch as this bit of steam and blood kind of out of its mouth. And it turns right to you, its head turning. It spits a cluster. We'll get to that. That's your turn? Okay, it's his turn now. Now it Yeah!

And goes running. Well, that stays there. The rushes up towards you. You watch as previously it just kind of had this large pull on its back. It pulls it and brings it loose as you see a large two-handed glave. Come swooping, which doesn't actually have to get there and still hit you because of its reach. So as it runs forward, it brings it down. It's going to multi-attack you twice with it.

First one is going to be a 21 to hit. That'll hit. And a 17 to hit. Both hit. Both hits. Oh, boy. That's okay, I got the armor. It deals damage when you hit me.

That is eight points of slashing damage on the first hit. That's the large pull arm with the axe-like hooked blade at the end of it. You can see the same spines that are in its armor are kind of a fixed to the edge of it. As it slams down towards you, the armor bursts this coal energy back. How much damage does he takes? So I got 10 temporary hit points at a second level, so he takes eight points of cold damage. Slick. Second strike. He rolled a one. That is going to be four points of slashing damage with the second strike. So he'll take two points of cold damage, and I'll take the other two points.

Nice. Cool. Oh! Yes, do they have to spend gadgets? I know. Oh, and he does get back his Insight Rampage. At which point he's going to go ahead and glance over. Towards the knoll that is, hmm. The grassy knoll?

The grassy knoll, yes, thank you, Sam. Yes, thank you, Sam. All right, yeah, the only one that I can currently see that's in melee range at the moment, because the wall's there, it's going to be the one next to bow. No, really. Thank you, Sam. Sincerely. Sincerely.

So after it strikes you twice with the glave, You watch bits of ice shards kind of spray off with each blow, kind of now affixing the ash and the energy that's kind of instilled its armor after you blasted it. It looks over to the one right in front of bone goes, and it kind of glances over its shoulder and the renewed strength, pulls the spear free from your grasp and goes for another strike against you as a reaction. Bad dog. That's going to be a... Water bottles to hit.

How much? 19. That one hits. How many are at age with you right now? Two. Two right now. Two right now. That's going to be seven points of piercing damage.

Okay. Apologies to my friend. Okay. All righty, that's going to end his turn and the guards back here are going to come forward. Let's go this way. We should go right. They're both going to fire at the one on the rooftop. Hey!

That is... A miss, that a miss. The first one's a miss. The second one is a 16 that hits. Hey! So that will be... And it's an eight plus two, so it's ten points of damage, which based on the crown of madness damage it took earlier from the spear is enough to finish it off. So he watches it on the top, it goes and draws an arrow and pulls it back, looking down at you, as you're kind of down in the square.

And then one of the guards pulls its crossbone, it stumbles back and falls dead on the ground there. Okay, here we go, here we go. All righty. That ends that one, the other guard over there. They're going to go ahead and move up to the side and step out now that it seems to be opening, and it's going to fire towards the skeletal knoll that is currently in the process of harassing the image, that as far as their concern, is just Jester. It's going to be 15. Yeah, that hits.

Without issue. I'm not used to melee combat. This is so terrifying. Get up in that. I don't want to get up in that. Get a whole bunch of . With that, pulls out the heavy crossbow and fires and does 11 points of of damage, which is enough to shatter this skeletal knoll witherling, falls to the ground

and breaks into a scattered pile of bone bits and dried knoll flesh. That ends the guards turn. Molly, you're up. I'm going to stab this thing that just fell right in front of me. I'm just going to stab it. You have it. It is prone, so you have a advantage against it. Yep. With each attack. So question about right of the dawn. Do I add one, is it just a plus three or is it just my wisdom or is it also a... Well, the wisdom bonus is against undead creatures currently. Okay, and this is not an undead creature. It is not. This one isn't. There are undead

creatures as part of the pack, but there are none there. So it's just straight right damage. So it's a 1d4, it's just the extra 1d4. Okay, just checking that could that, that's how that works. Okay, cool. So that's, let's see if I hit. I love your head. Thank you. 13? 13, unfortunately, misses the first strike. Oh my God. As you swing downward on the ground, it kind of scrambles about and pulls its shield up just in time. and your blade catches the edge and kind of embeds itself an inch into its weird. I hit it with the other one. You kind of use your one blade to push the shield off at the side as it's still born in and try and jam downward.

Go for it. Definitely hit. Come on. Oh, thank God. Cool. Oh. 21. 21 hits.

Go ahead. Roll damage. Level three. So that's five, six, seven. That's nine points of damage. Nine points of damage. All righty. So you manage to jam underneath and kind of hit it in the chest.

It kind of shrieks the pain, and pushes the blade out of its body almost like a sheer flexing of its muscle. And it begins to try and get up off the ground. It's hurt, but it's still standing or about be standing in a moment. You can move if you'd like to. Yeah, that's right, because I can break combat within it doesn't matter. Is that right? At this point, does it get an attack of opportunity? It does get an attack of opportunity, but it has disadvantage.

Can I... I'm going to... There's no way I can circle around. I can circle around up onto the wall, is there? Under the wall? Yeah, just get a little advantage on him. You could. I won't be able to hop on,

because I'm going to head that direction afterwards. All right. So yeah. You get up on the wall. And that way, if he tries to run or do anything, I can, that's with him. Cool, that's fine. Molly, your turn is over.

Jester, you're up. Yay! I'm going to run away from this guy that's next to me. And I'm going to run out into the alley so I can see people. This way? Yeah. Okay, as you rush out, it takes

swing and take opportunity towards you. This is going to be with a club. It has this heavy wooden club in it. It makes a giant arc towards you as you speed away. Oh, that is 19 to hit. Can I use a reaction? You can, yeah. I'm going to say, I am rubber, you are glue and you sell as a rebuke on him. Okay, so. In Infernal. All right. First, the club hits you and you take five points of bludgeoning to

Okay. And as you turn around and you say that at him and unleash your hellish rebuke, he gets to make a constitution saving throw, I believe it is, right? Uh, y have maybe. Hold on. Hold on. I've got to hit, I'm applying my changes to my health. Yeah, now X.

Yeah, now close out of that. This is so much. Yep, constitution savings. No, dexterity saving throw. Which it does not make. No! No! So it suffers 2D10,

Collage. So, how much did you do you do? Oh, 2D10. Okay. Deepers are rapers? Nine. Nine. This is becoming a thing.

I'm so sorry, guys. I'm your shoulder again. All righty, so as you dart away, you release your fury and anger, and you watch, suddenly this kind of blast of cold water and ice energy kind of burst out of its body. The inside of its kind of somewhat cavernous rib cage is now filled. with frost crystals, jutting out and breaking parts of the ribs. It looks heavily damaged but still standing. Ooh, chilly. Cherry. All right. You still have your action, right?

I know, and my bonus action. Yeah. So for my bonus action, I'm going to send my lollipop towards the giant guy and try to hit him. All right. At the same time, I'm going to cast. What am I going to cast? Radiant. No. Guiding bolt! Okay. With, you know, I'm gonna do like a little flourish and like pink energy comes out. All right, go to make your spell attack.

Okay. Okay, spell attack. Ooh. That was a 19 plus five. Five hits, go and roll damage. Okay. It's a new dice, man. Yes, yes, yes.

You didn't touch these ones. That's why they rolled so shit. Six, eight, nine, radiance. Nine. Nine. More than nine. Really? And then.

Yep. We're losing subscribers. So I guess. So that's a negative damage. We just lost nine. And then the spiritual weapon. All right. Getting bold, the next attack against that has advantage.

Oh, good. So then the spiritual weapon will have advantage. Great. Halt de munt. Oh, good. So that's 20. That hits. Go and roll damage for the spiritual weapons.

Nice. Where's my eight? Plus three is nine. is nine. Nine. Nine. This is absurd, guys. This is absurd. It's a special. All right. Is that on your turn?

Oh, I'm going to use the rest of my movement to run over and try to get behind this wall. You're from over there. That's 20. You have ten more feet. So you can get like there. That'll work. I was going to go to the brick wall. Oh, the brick wall? It'll get up onto it. Yeah, sure. Why not? It's considered right. rough terrain, so you technically can't get all the way on the other side. You climb up onto it. All right, so that finishes your turn. As you finish blasting with the guiding bolt, at the

same time as it slams and sparkles, you watch as the Lillipop, clubs down onto the back of its head. All right, it ends your turn. BAM-BOM-B-BORN-You're up. I start moving back towards the same vantage point ahead before, and I see Jester above me, and I see a guy over there covered in ice, and I whip around, and the diamond comes up and I go, And I was about to make it acid, but there's ice everywhere, so it's ice now. Chromatic orb off to the big guy in the middle of Town Square, yeah.

All righty, go ahead and make the attack roll. Yeah, that's, uh, it misses entirely. It spins and hits the ground, and you watch his ice, crawls up the side of the building. I will say it does manage to put out part of the fire that is currently burning the thing. Nice. You did good today. You made lemonade. Way to make some lemonade.

All righty. You just got the participation. And then I used the rest of my movement to press my back against the wall and go, 9, 9, 9, 9. So as you move out, where is, where are you right now? No, there. Still behind the same building. Oh, I do it.

Yes, that's what I do. All righty, that ends your turn. Not. Okay. Just a little perspective here. The knolls pushing away the cart. How many are there and what are they? There are currently what looks to be three that are gathered immediately around it in the process of pushing it. And they're getting momentum as it's going.

No obvious weak points on the cart or anything. Make a perception check. Okay. Let's take a bonus action to do so. Take out a wheel! Oh, it's going to take my bonus action to do so? Then I will not look at the cart. It'll move slower if we kill one.

I'm sure it will, but I don't know if I could kill one on one shot. So instead, I will, using my goblin feet claws, just kind of dig in, and I'm going to go upside down so I can see into where Bow is and shoot one of the ones next to her. You can do that. So as you dig in and hang down, you watch as your hood and hair kind of hangs upside down, you pull the crossboat down, and you're watching the tension of the bolt is holding it in, thankfully. Otherwise, it would just fall from upside down. point and you fire so you can go and make a strike. Technically you have two that you're in view of here. They both have, they both have three-quarters cover because of the nearby door and the angle. The one's next to her? Yeah. Well, I got a hill. Yeah. So which one are you shooting? The skeletal one or the... The one that I hit before.

Okay, so that one, go for it. Okay. That is 17. 17. 17 would hit if it didn't have three-quarters cover, which gives a plus-five bonus to AC. Oh, well-bursts. Unfortunately, it's just a large part of the door frame in the way, and there's bow in the way, and there's just a lot going on in that moment. So as you go in fire, it just zips past and slams into part of the now broken door that's coming off the hinges. Okay, okay, okay. Okay, I'm gonna go pop back up to the top floor and use my bonus action to hide. All righty, go ahead and make a self-check. martial arts film, not a, nope.

Oh, 10. 10, okay. So you get down low, but your hood and hair is now going to frizzing out. All right, then ends your turn, not. This one is going to rush forward. Pursuing jester as it's been slammed, and that one's going to go ahead and attempt to continue to just wail on bow. Yep.

That's going to be a 15 against bow. Miss. stuck out of the way as it tries to bite towards you and like slam your elbow into its snout, knocking it out of the way. Just holding on this doorway. The one that runs up towards you is going to go ahead and attempt to hit you again with the club. That is going to be a 19. Again, two 19s in a row.

Of the D4, sorry. That is, oh, okay, that's six points of bludgeoning damage. As the club hits you in the back of the head as you're just coming over the stair or the top of the wall and you have to catch yourself from tumbling face first into the dirt on the other side. You've managed to catch your footing on top of the top of the wall. of the wall, but it's now like up and it's in combat with both you and the guard from earlier. All right. That insertion top of the round. Bo, you're up. Okay. Okay. I'm going to just kind of taste a little bit of blood that's now in my mouth, get real fucking pissed off. I'm going to do like a kind of Star Wars-style flourish and just

go crack down to the one who's the new guy. D-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Oh, the skeletal one? There's a skeleton one or there's the one that's been fighting you this whole time? Let's do the, which one that looks like he has less damage? The skeleton one hasn't been damaged yet, but it looks a little more fragile. The one that's shot by not earlier still has like the big... Let's do the skeleton.

All right, go for it. Go to the attack. Come on. Come on. Not good at all. The 14. That hits. Oh!

He doesn't have a strong in armor class as the other one, so. Okay. Eight points of damage. Eight points of damage. That one's already been damaged previously. As you bring the staff down with both hands, you slam right through the center of its chest and clavicle, and you watch as the torso breaks and folds from the weight

of the blow, the skull kind of tumbles off and hits the ground, and it just falls into a pile of bones and rags. I'm going to use my bonus action with that moment. I'm going to stick the staff in the ground and use that to lift myself up and do it to two-footer kick into the other guy. Go for it. Sick. Single attack? Let's do flurry a blows.

All right, so is your third key point? Nope, this is my second. Right, because you did the, no, because you did a flurry earlier, didn't you? I did, but I did it as an action and not a bonus action, and you said I didn't have to use a key point. No, a flurry of blows, I thought. I did, patient defense, I did one flurry of blows. Patient defense, you did the Dodge action as an action, which didn't take any key points. Right.

You spent one, you were doing a flurry blows earlier. I spent one doing deflect. Correct, and then one doing... And then I did one to do flurry blows. Right, so this is your third one. No. This is the second one. This is the first flurry blows I'm doing.

I'm sorry, that was what I was asking. My confusion. All right, so go for it. Okay. Shit, I don't remember what... This was what I rolled, right? Okay. It was not good.

Ten. Ten against him? Nope. Okay. As you kick both feet forward, one hits and skims off the shoulder, the other? The other is a... Okay, um, 15. The team just hits. Yeah!

Whip-choo! Go ahead and roll damage. Put some sugar on hell. Okay, seven. He's allergic. Seven points of damage? Yes. All right, based on the damage that you would say earlier and the blows from earlier, as you strike him with the other foot, you snap the side of his jaw, which breaks out.

And as he kind of stumbles back, or you take the back at the staff and then crack up underneath the jaw, snapping the neck, the rest of the wall. and it kind of falls to the ground, no longer moving. Yeah. One at a time. One at a time. Okay. Solve your movement. Okay.

And now I'm going to look around. And now I'm going to step back into the house for just a minute. Into the house? This is fine. This is fine. Step back into the home. Just so I'm not in there, you have it. Just so I have cover, just so I'm not right in the door.

Just going to take a quick timeout. Quick timeout. It's like a really loud ticking clock in the room with you. Okay. You should like, find the distance. With that, this normal is going to stand up. I know I'm being an asshole. That's okay.

Up on the wall. Stands up. Man. I know. I'm normally the one with shaking hands. Well, it's more just under these walls are not the most absurd. There you. Stands up to you.

Oh, that's unfortunate. This one's going to be. to go ahead and step forward into the way. This one's going to go ahead and join in there. This one's going to go ahead and... 30. All righty. So those three, now within the visual range, yep, these two are both going to go ahead and take shots at Jester. This one's going to go ahead and take a shot at Ford. So two longbows, aiming in your direction. That's 20. 20, and a natural one. The second one misses. So you suffer that is eight points of piercing

damage as the arrow sinks right into your torso, right in the stomach area and kind of pierces through and you catch it with your hand, but it's still a few inches into your actual mixed section. And then there's the one over here that's that turned around and sees you now engaging with the current pack leader. But I'm a knoll. Ah! That's it, three. Fifteen? I'm just confused. Who's that hits?

All righty, so that's going to be six points of piercing damage. Okay. As this one now slams into the side of your knee and kind of hits the meaty part, so thankfully it's not locked in the bone or any of the joint, but it kind of hits you in the side, and you feel you're kind of buckled a little bit to that side from the pain. Understood. This guy over here, he's going to go ahead. You know what, he's going to leap down.

invent his ways. And we get helping push the cart. No. We need a card. And with that, the cart pushes another full 40 feet. And it's currently off of the board. Oh no. Off the volume.

How do we feel about the cart? You gotta get the cart. I can take a shot at the cart, but what's one arrow gonna do? We can take out people pushing it. All righty. That finishes the most turned there. Oh, there's the one that's attacking you, Molly? It's going to go ahead and take its spear and attempt a two-hand strike at you.

That is a... You have a spear? I thought you got a bow. Oh, he's got both. 13 to hit, which I don't think hits you. No, it does not hit. You on the wall, just kind of dance off the way. Not an issue, kind of leap as it goes out. All right.

And I believe that's all the Nol's immediate being of vicinity. The air itself of combat. That ends the Nol's turn. Ford, you're up. Yeah. Great. Awesome. Sweet. Can I use Eldridge Blast against the big, the big. fucking guy because he didn't get any closer for a melee attack, right? He's still...

Well, you're still within his attack range. He's, he has the glave. So you do have disadvantage on Elmish Blast. Oh. I'm gonna fucking move out of his attack rate. Does that give him an attack of opportunity? Yeah, I'm doing that anyway. I'm gonna move back towards the corner where I was going. Right there? No, all the way back. Yeah, back towards my original hiding place. All right. So I pull back to the corner there. As you pull back, he takes a step forward and reaches out with the glade to try and strike you.

Does he have any disadvantage or anything? Nope, that is a 23 to hit. Oh, that is going to be... At a moment. I should have. Ten points of slashing damage. Okay. Great. As you back awake, arcs downward. And I will use... I will now out of his melee range Eldrous Blast. Oh, God, that's not great. 13. 13 is not hit. Oh, no. Now that it's seen the blast and you see it after it strikes and kind of

grins, you hear this... ...andar its breath, you turn around and go to strike out with the Eldish blast and it kind of pulls one of the other knolls nearby and yanks it in front of him just as the shield kind of takes it off and then sets him back in place, and deflects it with its own guy. Nice, nice. As I'm pulling around the corner, I'm going to use my bonus action to just draw the stupid runty null look. You don't have some bonus action.

You just drop it. Okay, good. So pulling back from the fire. Yeah, I can get just around that corner back where you were. The guard kind of lets you get by. I need cover. All right, that ends your turn? Yeah.

All right, the leader at this point kind of makes this like loud gibbering sound that kind of echoes throughout the alley turns. No. No. In the bathroom, right. He just runs off to pursue the car. He left. He's dashed away.

That's got to be an acceptable option right now. No! That means we almost killed him. That means we almost had him. Does it? Yeah. That ends his turn. The guards now who have notched their crossbows again are going to take shots at both of those guys right there.

Fucking two and twelve plus four. That does hit. The other one gets hit. Have we killed any of the knolls? Nolls? One, yeah. It's simple numbers. I killed two.

Them leaving is a good. Yeah, but the slice at this guy again. Go for it. I don't have advantage anymore. He's not prone anymore, unfortunately. Slice number one. For fuck's sake, 10. 10 does not hit, unfortunately.

Slate number two. That hits, thank you, 23. 23 will hit, go ahead and roll damage. Mm. For fuck sake. That's five points of damage and two points of extra damage. The rating. Yeah.

All right. All right. So the first one you swing and it kind of, ducks out of the way and attempts to try and try and strike up with its spear. As you do, you knock it to the side with the scimitar of the mist, and then with your other hand, strike down right across its face. You arc through and you actually carve one of the eyes in Twain, you see a large red mark where you've split part of its face, and it's hurt really bad, but it's still standing. There's just gorge ripping out of the socket where it's ruined

eyesets. That ends us. I'm going to try and circle around it to get out of the way of the archers. I'm going to hop back off and get behind him. You can do that, not a problem. So you should kind of like, like leave frog off of him, like grab his shoulders and land behind him, scimitars at the ready. Okay, ending Molly's turn.

Jester, you're up. What about the guards? The guards already went. Oh, she didn't fire. Sorry, thank you for reminding me that. The other guards did go. She did not. They did not.

Are they going to attack the skeleton one that's like right here next to both of us? So they throw their crossbow to the ground and pull out what looks to be a morning star. And does a side swipe towards this. And see, that is a 19. Yeah, that hits. That shirt hits.

Five plus eight points of damage to that one. So that one, I don't think you've damaged that one yet, right? Yes, I had. I did the hellish rebuke to it. That's right, you did. That was the wrong one? All right, so yeah, with that, they swing backwards with the mace

and hit the side of the skeletal head, which shatters immediately upon impact. It's ruining its form, and it was no longer part of the battle. I'm so surprised I fall off the wall. You are. You just tumble in that one. Get out of the city.

All righty. So that, Jester, your turn. Okay. Okay, I'm going to, are either of those two nose over there damaged? From what you can tell? Nope. Okay, well, I'm going to,

I'm going to use my giant lollipop and like it's going to swing in there a couple times and try to hit one like a bat. Go for it. Mm-hmm. Okay, this is the one you lit. Okay. Bum, bum, bum. Bha.

Bha. Slam spit. Not a good luck charm. As it swings in the air and spins, they both just kind of take a one step back and it fits the dirt and they both look at each other. Shit. All righty. I'm going to cast cure wounds on my I'm going to leap off the wall with great flourish and land next to Caleb.

Okay, yeah, no, that's a good idea. I'm going to land next to the guard. And then I'm going to skip away to the building. There you go. All righty, that ends Jester's turn. Caleb Knott, you're up. Oh boy. Okay, I'm just going to do my same dog and pony show to I'm going to go to the corner. I should be able to see two or three knolls, I think, over there, yeah? Yes, over here. Okay, so it starts to burn in my hand. Chromatic orb out to hit, whichever one is... That's probably the easiest to see right now. Then that's the one I'm going to go for.

All righty. Come on. Shammal. Oh, that's good. That's a 17th. That definitely hits. Thanks, Kilith. And that is... What?

Oh, that is 3D8. So where is my eight-sided die? That is. This is fire, and it's 11 points of damage. 11 points of fire damage. Nice. So as it bursts into it, you see the fur burn and singe, and it kind of pats it out, and the flame's kind of subside.

You see it's charred and burned, and see this in the flesh is kind of cracked and blackened, but it's still injured, but it's standing. Okay, and I inch back again and say, if it isn't broke, don't fix it. I'm building. All righty, that ends your turn. Not? There's two knolls in front of me that I can see, right? You can see those down there.

The one just got blasted with the familiar, fiery explosion of Caleb's chromatic orb. Either he was untouched. The other one I will point at and I will remove a tiny rotten tart from my pocket and crumple it onto the floor and take a feather and move it around over the crumbs and and say, hey, what happens to a frog when it, frog's wagon, when it breaks down, it gets towed away. I thought we had a rule. And I will cast hideous laughter on the,

hideous indeed. No bad Halle Berry lines. I thought it was, yeah, I totally. What happens to a to a toad? We're all like, no, don't do this please. So wisdom saving throw? That is a natural 11. What is your spell, these six?

13, all right. And so with that, I like the theory that he does a personal laughter, he just holds the groan pain, it's just the, I would like to think that he does laugh hideously and despises himself poor. The one who was blasted with the fire, the one that was untouched one.

You watch as the one that was currently untouched that was drawing another arrow, glances up and hears us it goes, and falls to the ground, he's like, just laughing, this horrible hyena chuckle that is just billowing out into the street, clutching its stomach, dropping its weapons to the side, just rolling on the ground. Its friend next to it is like, looks up and sees you.

Okay. All right, I'll use my bonus action to hide. Okay, go for it. Oh, I have a stolen. Oh, god damn. Okay, that's 13. 13. Okay. That ends your turn. Oh, there are no more of the undead types. So there are the thing, Beau, you're up. Okay, I step out of the burning building,

kind of sauntering like a badass John Woo film. Perfect. Go everywhere. Does five feet of moving. Yeah, and looking at this one, I go, hey, your friends I just have an inside joke without you, pointing at the guy blowing down. As soon as he turns, like a whack, like a baseball bat right across the same. As soon as he glances over to the side, looks back just as you're already in his face. Oh, that's good. A swing away, but... That'll definitely hit.

24, 24. That'll definitely hit. Roll damage. It's a triple. Swing away. That won't take that. That's 13. Sorry, 10.

Nope. 11. If you watch this, about five or six null teeth go flying from the impact. The jaw kind of quivers a spittle and blood goes careening off the side of the impact. It kind of falls and stumbles if you want to follow it up. And I'm going to take it. I'm going to just using that momentum, do like a helicopter flourish above and go crack down over top. Go for it. That's a natural 19.

That's good. Go and roll damage. There's those rolls. Oh, wait, but this is technically an offhanded. Right. So it's D4 for this one, but we're using the staff for the flourish. Ooh, that's a four. So eight points of damage.

Eight points of damage. Wham! As you bring it down over the top of the head, it falls and gets up. It's dazed, it's beaten within an inch of its life, it's ready to go. It's barely standing at this point. Like one eye is kind of lolling around

and trying to find the other one is kind of swollen shut now and can't actually see anything. It's in a bad place. Fuck. I'll hold. Okay, that ends your turn bow. So the guy in the ground is just laughing his ass off. It's going to try, at the end of its turn, it's going to try and make a saving throw.

No, that is a two. It is still laughing on the ground. This one, seeing kind of, the rest of its allies run, kind of turns around and it's just going to run. That's the one you just hit? No, no. How many are over there? Two, now is you and I've got one. This one, seeing the other one flee, is going to attempt to try and flee after it. You're going to tack a opportunity.

I have advantage on that? You do not. Fuck. I get him. Boy, but that's still good. 18. That hits, roll damage. Yeah.

Kill him, kill him. Is that my regular attacker? Yes. Um, eight damage. And you knock and crush him to the floor. As he tries to run, you just wha! And hit him and you watch him just kind of take a few steps and skid and fall into the ground and is not moving. The one over here, who is not currently in the process of knowing that everyone else is fleeing, since it's been stuck over here, is going to try and

Take a spearstack at you, Molly. I'm going to use my, I'm going to snap at him. I'm going to use blood maledic. Hellish, snap. Yeah. Which is good, because he rolled a natural 20 on the first goal. No, no he ain't. So this advantage that brings him to a 15.

That is my armor class. So just hit you. But at least it's not a critical attack. Nope. All his friends running away and he's going to kill me and my friends are going to kill. Four, five, six, seven, eight. So its eyes kind of go dark, and it pulls back, and still you, it seems to have the sense.

The sense of smell can still find your placement in the vicinity. And as you kind of pull out of the way, it still manages to find, shh-h-h-h-h. The spear pierces in, kind of right around where the hip is, and you kind of pull back, greeting your teeth. That's going to end its go. My turn. Yep. Gonna hop around the corner again.

Mm-hmm. Grum-brum-brum. Start up the fold. Yeah. And I'll go and use my 30 speed to close in on the prone doubt. Oh, 30. Great, and I'll use Eldridge Blast against that. All right, it has disadvantage on against it?

Because it is prone. 11. 11. As it's rolling around on the ground, you're just kind of, it's difficult to find a proper shot, and you fire it hits the dirt next to it, sending a bit of dust over it. It stops laughing for a second as the dust kind of, and it goes, And he goes, it just laps even harder at the actual dust. That's it. That's my turn.

All right, so that ends your turn. All right, third time. The guards go. The leader just continues to run and is now disappearing into the smoke and ash. You don't have a visual on the cart at the moment. It's now kind of pressed into where a lot of the fire is and it's obscuring their escape. These guards are going to move forward as they load their crossbows. And they're both...

Actually, you know? because he's in the ground laughing, you're coming on that one. They're both going to turn fire at the one that's in front of Molly. It has, it does have three-quarters cover because of the wall, but they're just trying to help you out. You need the assistance of guards, guys. And this hits the wall and we're embarrassed. It's hard. It's hard. That does it. That is a 21, actually. So that does, even with the bonus to armor class from the three-quarters cover, it still hits. So, guards are killing more than who you've been able. No. And with that, as it's there in front of you, we're in front of the three years, we're going to be.

that spear after stabbing it, it pulls back, and you watch as a crustlebone out of its forehead, its jaw kind of goes slack, and just falls to the ground dead before you. Oh, come on. Don't you want to ask that nameless guard how he wants to do this? Well, there's still one left. There's still one left on the ground, which will say for the purpose of narrative here, who wants to do this? What we really want to be. Is it our turn soon, Caleb and me? Yeah.

Say, where we come back around, it would be Molly's turn, Jester, then Caleb and Knox. So whatever you guys want to do in this moment before it comes back, let me know. I would like to jump down from the wall and run as fast as I can after the leader in the card. Yeah, really? Whoa! Make an acrobatics check. Oh, disadvantage.

Ooh, Jesus. Eleven. Eleven. You jump off this time, you land, you do suffer four points of bludgeoning damage as you hit the ground and your feet buckle and you actually slamming your face hits the dirt. But you use momentum to scurry back up, and then getting to move forward, you get... And if you're using the rest of your... And you should make a concentration check, by the way.

Oh. So make Constitution saving throw up because you did take... Oh, this is saving throw. That's not disadvantage. 16. Yeah, so you maintain control of the hity's level. Okay. So you rush into the cloud of ash after them and you begin to see some of the shapes ahead of you, of the, of the, of the... knolls they're pushing the cart. You're still behind them by about 30 or so feet. And right as you rush forward, kind of darting in, the heat from the embers into your lungs kind

of burn and you put your mask over to kind of block and help filter a bit with the cloth and bandages. And right as you rush forward, you see the back of the heavy armored leader that's kind of to the, he's bringing up the rear of where the cart is. And he turns and sees you. Oh, God. As soon as you finish your movement, you're like, ah, it's a spins and looks kind of just in your vicinity to see that you're alone. Oh God. Takes his glave. Oh, God.

And closes the distance with a giant downward swing. What are you thinking? Wait, is it his move or is it his turn already? At this point, the narrative timing on this. I was going to run that way too. I thought we were still. Yeah. Who old is it allowed to run?

Well, this is not after you. Okay. So I want to. But then we didn't get to go because not just jumped it. Yeah. Cool, all right, well let's roll it back a little bit here and see how this helps you. All right, cool. So, no, it's fine.

So Jester, Molly, what do you guys want to do? I was running, I was gonna run to see where the cart was going. Full dash. Okay. So as you sprint off, I'll say from a, a... So you with a full dash, you don't quite get as close as not does. No, I wouldn't. Because not...

It's fast. It's much faster. Is he triggering my spider sense at all? No. Okay. What's your spider sense? It's not really a spider sense. But, like, you know.

But basically, you know what I mean. You're about that far back, I would say. I was going to have my duplicate go over and touch the guy laughing on the ground and cast, inflict wounds. Go for it. Dope. So it's a melee spell attack, correct? You have advantage on it because he is currently incapacitated. And if he's still around when she's done, I would have done my same single tree. Natural 20. Yeah.

Well, that's a... That'll be... Oh my God. To roll the dice. He's gonna turn into powder. 13, 26. As he's laughing, your image walks up with a skip, bends down and touches him, and he's like,

and just like suddenly withers into this this completely dried out husk of what the No-Once was, the life force drawn and cast out of his body. He stops laughing, and then the body just kind of falls like a mummy to the ground. Your duplicate can cast spells? Yeah. That's why it's more fun if I can move her.

That's why it's like a bear. All right. So, finishing those turns, back to the top of the round. No, I would have leaned out if I had seen it was dead and no enemies. I would use my movement and action to move further up to the corner. Not much besides that, but join Will Ford and the duplicate are.

Okay, that's it. All right, seven's your turn. A little friend took off running. That's all happening. Oh shit. It's simultaneous. It's simultaneous. It's your turn.

Hearing you say that, I'm going to be like, I guess we're race yet! And I'm going to take off running after not. Okay. 40 feet speed. So you managed to catch up right around basically where Molly is there.

We're off the math. You have, do you have a key point left? I do. If you wanted to use your... And that would just get me... Yeah, I'll save it for right now. Okay. But I can see not, and I can see the guy, and I can see the card.

And there's a cloud and ash, embers just kind of pushing into the atmosphere now. The nearby buildings are actually like in flames and engulfed in the side here. And that was a double move? That was a double movement to get to there, yeah. All right. All righty. So, as you and Molly, you and Molly, you and you and you, you and Molly, you and you, you're... You and Molly are about 15, 20 feet from each other, and ahead you can see the shape of

knot and you see the leader of them. And you can now see from nearby buildings, about 10 other knolls are all gathering around the cart. And it's now, like, they're all leaving. They're all carrying giant sacks on their back. They're all dragging bodies and corpses behind them. Yeah. This wasn't the only knolls that attacked the city. This was just our little patch, our knoll patch. So, finishing Bo's turn comes back to Ford. The rest of the knolls continue pushing the cart.

A few join them and giving it more momentum, and about six more of them kind of begin stepping up flanking the leader who's now staring at the three of you. Now's not the time. Yeah, I'll run forward using my 30 feet, but I will call out, Knott, get back here. Yeah. Right? All right. All right.

Don't blow my cover. Let them go. Okay. What? That ends forth, it's turned the leader. Oh no. Yep. Kind of sees the three of you there, puts the glaive away with one hand, turns around as he draws his long bow and

fires an arrow right at you. That is a 17 to hit. Hits. Oh no. Yep. Nope. That is eight points of piercing damage. No!

Are you down? He is so down. The arrow just strikes nod in the chest. Who just... Slow-mo. Falls, unconscious onto the ground. The ash and embers just starting to spill over his unconscious body. With that, because I believe, yeah, can make two attacks, so it's long long.

He's going to make a second strike now. This one is going to be at... You can't decide in the moment. This will be a four. That's a natural 20. No. No. I didn't actually all just last.

That is 18 plus 3. 21 points of piercing damage. You gotta be fucking kidding me, really? Gold and 9. It's D10 in his crit. Oh, I'm down. Molly goes down. Oh shit.

And with his movement, he puts the bow back away and just keeps walking with the rest. I grab forward. And I say, just wait. Wait. Let me go. And you watch, as the form, all of them kind of turn around. And they all begin to gather. You hear like this cacophony of different gibbering cries in the distance as they're all starting

to call themselves back to leave the city. And they all step into the clouds of smoke and ash in the distance before eventually all the shapes disappear. I want to like train and watch them as far as I can to kind of try and pinpoint a direction that they're heading in. Okay. Make a survival check in just this moment. It's dark too.

It is dark. Not great. Eleven. Okay. It's hard to tell all the smoke. You can't see the moon. You can't see the placement of the sky, but you make a note of where this direction they're traveling based on the street. Those both are on the ground.

As Beau continues doing this, you guys begin to rush up and you see both Molly and not on the ground. I run up and I'll cast cure wounds on Molly. Um, and then I'm going to run over and do the same thing at level two. same thing at level two to knot. So that's six points of healing for you. I'm sorry. And then I'll run up and cast it on knot. Oh no, knot. I pulled her up into my lap. 13, oh, 13 plus... Oh, 13 plus some... Five! No, plus three.

And that immediate first breath is filled with pain both from the wounds you've sustained and the immediate influx of burning ash that sweeps into your lungs. your lungs. Oh my consciousness. Oh my God. What are you thinking? I was just going to follow them from afar. I forgot they had bows and arrows.

That's literally the only thing that's been happening. I thought they wouldn't see me because of the smoke. Oh, boy. You're going to put out these fires. Yeah, exactly. Oh, no, I'm not getting up. Town, you guys, and go back and start trying to put off the fires. I'm going to crawl up back towards the...

As you guys be going to be going to get up. to regather your troops, more of the crown guard that you see have been battling and am partially wounded by a lot of the other knolls are beginning to gather their dead, beginning to try and put out what fires they can and acknowledge which buildings can't be saved. As you begin to take what remains of your energy to do, so we're going to go ahead and take a break. We're going to take a break here, and we'll have a little Danuma to this episode tonight. But before I leave, we have another contest tonight. Our friends at Wormwood actually have a pretty cool giveaway tonight, As part of their new Kickstarter, it's a human?

Yes, it is. Made of wood. They have this kind of all-inclusive package here, which is both a dice box with the leather base and on the inside here, kind of an all included package for your dice. No, I know I want it. They just started producing them. We need it, you guys. We need it. These are Walnut Adventurers Arsenal kits, is what they're called.

We're giving away two of them. Awesome. So the keyword tonight is MAP, MAP, based off last week's episode. Thank you, Devin. So during the break, in Twitch chat only, come in there, and when you're prompted, go and enter the keyword map into the chat, only once, more than once, and it'll be disqualified. But two of you will be chosen during the break, and we'll come back to see who wins that. We'll see you guys here in a few minutes.

Oh, geez. Welcome back, everybody. So that was on the air, yeah, well done. All right guys. So the winner of the Adventure Arsenal are, we have two of them, the bravest, the bravest and Grand Master Block, B-L-A-Q. Congratulations to both of you guys for the win. Go ahead and Donova will reach out to you

and get your contact info and we'll get those to you. If those of you are curious to look at it, this particular Kickstarter, you can find on Wormwoodgaming.com to look and see the kind of cool thing that this new release is gonna entail. So thank you very much, one one. I'm excited for the new... All right, so with some of the flames dying down,

30 minutes or so of the chaos descending, the Crown's Guard begin to come back, those that are still living. Many of them wounded and tending to their wounds are helping the survivors that are still within the town. You see some families are starting to unblock their entranceways and the people who had escaped the city are slowly beginning to filter in.

You can hear the sobbing in the distance of families that are coming back to homes that have been destroyed. The smoke still chokes the air and at, At this hour now, it's probably pushing close to 11 o'clock or later. But as the guards come through and begin to take in the essence of what's happening, the armored individual that kind of helped you when you first arrived and gave you the command to aid in this approaches.

You see their half-elven face, kind of solemn, intense approach and extend the hand. There aren't many who would immediately jump into the phrase you did. I would say that we would have lost many more, and perhaps all of my men had you not been there, so thank you. Cut off the ears of some of them. It beat me to it. You said 30 minutes went by, I wanted us to be doing that all right now. We're like, all ready. We'll say, we'll say, put out this fire.

Yeah, we'll say during that time. These people have lost it. Everything. I'm just waiting for you to pause. Yeah, no worries. You know where your mom is? Unfortunately, through the three skeletal ones, you only managed to get one full ear. That's fine.

That's fine. Because we got two ears off of all the other ones. You did. And we'll say for that, for those who would have been destroyed or damaged, so you go ahead and roll and see how many ears you're able to pull up. I'm also going to cut off a chunk of tail and see if it will pass. See if it's quite. I like to think that we leaned down on with the same knoll cutting and just went, same hat, same hat.

So you managed to pull up about 12 ears intact between all the fallen new bodies. That's great! Some you killed, some maybe you didn't. He just came across the body elsewhere in the square and just kind of took the ear. I totally remember kicking this guy's ass. Other guards are collecting them as they go, and there were a couple moments for like someone was going for an or a knoll that you had killed and you went to the guard and went, They kind of backed off.

But anyway, the soldier head who is speaking with you extends the hand and they say, I am watchmaster Bryce Fielder, assigned here to Allfield now in my fourth year. Thank you. Watchmaster. Watchmaster. Watchmaster. Watchmaster Bryce Fielid.

What were those creatures? Have you encountered them before? We've encountered them before, yes. in smaller hunting packs, maybe a half dozen at a time, usually on the outskirts. They don't come to civilization like this. It's generally too dangerous for them

and the smaller numbers they travel. What the fuck are they after? Such a grisly scene, they seem to be carrying away bodies on that cart they had. That was weird. Did you notice they had some undead knolls with them? I did.

There were. Have you ever seen anything like that? I've maybe crossed one of the ones. maybe crossed one or two as part of the roving packs. It's not terribly uncommon, but... What turns them like that? What is it? Is there something in the water? I have no idea.

I don't know the ins and outs of the creepy, beastial lifestyle, but... And you watch as they kind of sit down for a second leaning against a wall, thinking, kind of scratching the edge of their chin. Word came of a small hunting party of these beasts spotted to the south, so we sent a small troop to slay them, not but two hours before they struck here.

Now, we had sent more than half of our men's strength to go and deal with them, so we were unprepared and at the time unguarded for the most part. So we were caught at half strength. It can't be a coincidence. And they must be desperate and desperate to assault head on like this. There's plenty of small game in the surrounding wood

and they're known to be provoked of violence. but I've only heard of Nol's picking off the outlying folk, those that wandered too far from the fields. Do they eat the bodies? They eat what flesh they can get a hold of, but we went through a number of the buildings, and they've ransacked two of the inns. They completely took the entire butcher's stock.

They've just carved the city of whatever meats fresh or dried we had. Word came? Where did word came that they were in the south? Where did word come from? What came from some of our Crownsguard who were running a patrol? We have seen these things as far south is Tristan Wald, further even. Has there been something else going on that you can think of that might cut off their food supply?

Nothing I can think of. I mean, for the most part, this far south, other than a few run-ins here and there, they aren't... I mean, conflicts of this size don't make it past Blade Garden. Blade Garden? It's where most of them, it's where most of the Empire's military and guard are training and sent out throughout the rest of the valley. That's a lot of meat that they've acquired from us, and they've lost many, I thought, of their kin in this battle as well. Too much meat. What are they feeding?

What's making them so hungry? Oh, or that. Indeed. My concern is that they'll return. We've fended them off for now, but they'll come back. Especially if they're as desperate as you say they are. We've sent three of our scouts to try and find out where they went, track wherever they're taking their spoils. Reports come in that most of the bodies they took were dead, perhaps not all.

So we have to do our best to at least recover any survivors. to have us wipe out what remains and prevent this never happening again. Have you heard local farmers complaining about them stealing livestock? Missing livestock? I'm gonna look into that, actually. I'm sorry, I'm still gathering my thoughts. WC. I get up and I run and see if our horse is still there.

Oh, WC. Okay, so you charge out for the Far City, and you do find WC still affixed to the cart. currently chewing on what looks like a small bag of oats where one of the families of villagers who had fled have come back and just begun to feed them. Thanks, ma'am! Thumbs up to the family, I'll run back to the group.

You're going to run back in the group or bring W.C. with? No, I'm going to leave it out there. Those are petting as they're going on in the train. To the rest of you, Bryce says, well, as well, as, as, As rash as it was said, and our coffers are not as strong as they could be, I will request more of a monetary influx up north. For the years you've taken, you'll be paid. Any more that you find, those will be paid as well. Well, and we're going to need some lodging anyway, so perhaps some trade can we work that? Indeed, we could provide some extra muscle, perhaps for some...

lodging while we stay, and maybe we could aid your men in their efforts to exterminate this foe. Well, I would normally put you up in the candle glow in, but they gesture over towards the large building that you had walked through that is now currently a pile. It's literally glowing like a candle right now. It's literally going out. I feel really bad for saying that out loud. That's just not let Thaddeus know as his life. I have a question. I have a question. After listening to this for a while, I start looking around the town.

Would you say that with all these burnt buildings everywhere, that if I start picking through the rubble, I would find enough charcoal to reduce the costs I would need for find familiar eventually? Because I still need the incense and the herbs, but if I get a lot of charcoal from these burnt homes. I will say if you take 30 minutes to find good pieces of charcoal and roll an investigation check. Yeah. Right. It has to be. Yeah.

Done and done. That's good, and I have a good investigation too, so that is a 23. All right, you managed to reduce the cost of your next fine familiar spell by three gold pieces. Yeah, that's gross. Nice. From the hopes and dreams. The hopes and dreams of all field. All right, so Bryce looks out to you. I can have you put up at the Feed and Mead Tavern. Feed and Mead? Feed and Mead Tavern. It's not the most comfortable place, but it'll do. It's a good name. Or in my accent, I did not name it, but I'll pass it on to Crout, the owner.

Crout. Tell him that Bryce sent you and you were being put up by the crown for as long as you are hunting these creatures. We appreciate that. Hopefully there won't be another call to action while we're here, but you can count on us if there is. Well, they reach and do a pouch and begin to count out gold. for the number of ears that you've collected. So with 12 years. 360 gold. Mm-hmm.

Do you? After bringing the ears forward, they can advance over. Actually, I'll be right back. I may need to acquire a bit more change. And after a brief wait, Bryce returns, and you are paid the full amount. So 360 gold at your disposal.

Shall we do it up equally? If we do, that's 60 gold a piece. That's Laura talking about. I'm fine with that. We hope to hear back in the morning of our Scouts' findings. If you wish to, if you can hunt whatever remains of these creatures bring back proof that they've been wiped out. I'll see what I can have sent to Southwood of Zadash to make it worth your while. In the meantime, you wouldn't have anything that might help us and our...

help us in our little expedition, would ya? Healing potion might be nice if you got one hiding away somewhere in a closet, forgotten. I don't mean to be brusque, but at the moment I think we have a number of our guard who are in more desperate need. Fair. I can help them.

Morning. Well, I'm sure that would be appreciated. For the moment, you all look about as bad as I feel. Rest up, come on. Let's see, they would be at, Meet me outside of the Broad Barn. The Broad Barn? Broad Barn.

Broad Barn. Broad Barn. Broad Barn. Broad Barn. Broad Barn. They pointed out to you. It's on the western side of the town. There, we'll make sure you get basic supplies necessary. Hopefully we'll have information on where to go. And if you so choose,

conscribe you to be under our intent to destroy these creatures. Think on it, rest. We'll speak in the morning. Bryce turns around and kind of limps off with a few of the other crown's guard. As you guys eventually find your way to the feed and mead, you are immediately met by Coole who is this ornery, salty looking dwarf of kind of tousled white-grey hair, this single tuft of a beard that kind of dangles down towards the belly button before it hits a ring of gold.

Oh, so you've been told as the ones who are coming to sleep. Got one of our two rooms for you. One? He never quite makes eye contact with you. He's like looking at your shoulder or like right above your face. Yeah. Yeah. I think he's got two glass eyes. Come, I'll show you. Turns around and leads you to your space.

There are four beds kind of jammed in here. It's very kind of like a youth hostile-type living situation here. But it's functional. Are they double fools, queens, twins? They are pretty much as twin bed as you can get. I'm fine with the floor. I'm fine with the floor. I'm great with a bed.

I am already got the silver thread out and I am looping it over any open window and by the door. Was there a beer downstairs? Is there a help? You can go ask? I'm gonna drop my things and run downstairs. Okay. You come down, there's nobody inside. This is not a tavern night for a lot of people. Yeah.

Right, right, when I'll be it. Is there a drink? Is there smoke? Smoke, smoke you don't have. A drink, that I can use. I'll take something interesting. Interesting, you say. Takes out a bottle, looks like a deep green glass

and kind of uncorks it. Takes a small, looks like a shot glass almost, that has a bulbous bottom, pours it to the very, very top of this liquid that looks like a deep, kind of sea-teal green, and slides it forward. Fast or slow? Well, it depends on how much you like to dream. How much?

For that, and before I heard you did, it's on the house. Nonsense. For the night, you want more, you're paying top shelf price. What's the top shelf price? For that drink, eh, I'd ruin you about. Three silver. I just put a gold on the table. Not going on the complaint.

Consider in advance. It's been a rough night for everybody. Right, right, of course. I'm going to sip this mother. What is he looking? It has a very, very, very smoky kind of like oak barrel flavor to it at first as it hits your tongue. And then it kind of burns into this very medicinal herbal, almost anise mixed with burnt charcoal. That sounds nice. I'm going to sit and sip this and grin and very silently have a mild nervous breakdown about what just went down.

Herbal. Herbal. As you all, Echin it, as you all slowly come to rest, exhausted, sore, beaten, trying to fall asleep to the distant muffled sound of shouts and wailing in the streets. And Jester jumping on the bed. And Jester. You find yourself to rest, preparing for what the morning may hold. And that's what we're going to pick up for next week's session.

Worst roommate ever. You're not the only one. Caleb is going. One gold. 60 gold. 60 gold. 60 gold. Caleb.

This was a good idea. This is working out weirdly. I'm excited. We all have an extra 60 gold, yeah? Yeah. Not often. For all the work that voted. Jesus.

Kind of sort of mix it up. That was some Jackie Chan You're just in the doorway, dodging everything. We now need to have a Stephen Chow night. That was some crazy show. We are hitching our stars to your wagon. She shot some Sun Chip out of her mouth. You're welcome in her net.

Oh. Giff that. Oh, there it is. I found it. Waste not and whatnot. That's my wife, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you guys so much. Thank you guys for watching. Thank you, Dean Deacon.

I'm learning more and more of the app and enjoying it. Thank you for his part in the show. Thank you all for joining us tonight. We'll see you next week and is it Thursday. Nine. Good night. Nine. Welcome to Mick Unplugged, the number one podcast for self-improvement and modern leadership.

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