Critical Role & Sagas of Sundry - Vox Machina Ep. 18 - Trial of the Take

Episode Date: November 30, 2021

With the party now split due to requirements of The Slayer's Take, Scanlan, Percy, Vex, and Grog find themselves teaming up with an unlikely duo.      Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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It's far up north in this continent, and the weather itself is very cold. The landscape is very harsh and rugged. And the outside of the city itself, there is an extremely dark, oppressive, almost unnaturally fast-growing forest known as the Vesper Timberland. And this is where you encountered the Hydra last time.

And you just barely tracked out of the city and found that creature. Who knows what else lies out there. But the city seems very well prepared to defend itself against whatever atrocities make their way towards the outskirts of the city. So after Grog fought very gloriously in the crucible and just barely lost due to Matasso's strength

just didn't fall in his favor, he salted via ale and ladies back at the tavern. The party. Now after defeating the Hydra being called on their law breakage in Baslehem have been tasked to return the next morning as separate groups to figure out what contract is being given to them and what members of their team awake them as they arrive. So you guys have taken the evening to rest the next morning. It's come about to find yourselves waking within your respective tavern rooms, the members

of Oxmachina. What preparation would you like to embark? this morning for whatever mysterious trek awaits you. Do they have, like, a weapons closet? In the tavern room? Oh shit, I thought we were in the guild hall. No, yeah, you can go there if you want to, but if there's anything you want to do

before arriving at the guild hall, that's up to you. Skadlin. Oh, boy. Do you want anything from the tavern before we leave? What time is it? What time is it? What difference does it make? I want to take a shot with my brother.

I want to take a shot with my brother. All right, so as you and Vaxel down and get together at the bar, you have the strongest form of nasty Vasselheim liquor that they could possibly muster. It looks somewhat murky. It has elements of kind of blue and gray to it. But the bar keep assured you that this is what you're looking for to wake up in the morning, trust me.

Does it taste like NyQuil? Well, as you down the shot, it's not knowing what NyQuil taste like, because there's no such thing as Nike in this world. Ye old night. The flavor would be reminiscent of licking a wagon wheel that has seen at least 100 miles of travel. All right.

It's like your feet smell, brother. Of which Vax immediately kind of changes his face. Oh, well, that's rather uncouth. Not having Liam here. I'll just. Oh, God. Get rid of it. The foot is healed now.

The pudding healed. Come on. As you finish your shots, you say a dude to each other and... See you on the other side. Indeed. Stay safe. Bye, Vax. Bye.

Bye, Grog. And he kind of gives you a silent finger as you eat in true Vax fashion. He always mixes those fingers up. Any preparation on your guy's end? I'm going to load up my, whatever the thing. The thing. Your ironstone?

Yeah, is that what I have? The thing here. I'm going to load that up with an invisibility spell. Is that a thing I can do? You can totally do that. You can put up to three spell levels in there. That's two in there, right? Which you may be able to do before you slept in it before,

because you'd have all your spells back and that. So we'll say you did that. So you have an extra invisibility spell in your ion stone. And I can store three spells in there, right? Three spell levels. Three spell levels. Oh, so only one spell at a time. Or like you do three first level spells.

Oh, well then never mind. I thought it was three different spells. I've already got an extra lightning bolt in there. I won't add to it. Oh, then yeah, that's. Never mind. That is a full ion stone. Nothing is pulsing with energy.

I'm good. I'm good, thank you. Didn't understand. Fair enough. Bersie. Other than just tinkering on a few plans that I have rolling around, I don't really have the equipment to build anything particularly interesting before we head out.

So, all right. Frog might have something in the bag of holding that you could use. Oh yeah, I've got lots of shit. We have a salt lick rock, we've got three firewood bundles, dry food rations. How many fancy clubs left? There's two. Well, you know, that's something.

And we've got the leather from that weird bat creature from the under one of the Yeah, I'm sure it doesn't smell that. Oh, yeah. Is there any metal canisters in there of any kind? I've got my hooded lantern, but you can have that. It's dark in places. I bet Tiberius has some metal canisters. He's got so many canisters.

Two pieces of armor. Just armor. I may take a piece of armor and see if I can make a, put together some sort of of sort of thing. What? I want to just, I just want to make a, you don't know me. Just make a canister, put some black powder in there. Put the thing together.

It doesn't even have a fuse. It's something I can toss and then shoot to, to, to, to trigger. Interesting. All right, I will say, due to time constraints, you would probably have to skip a decent breakfast to do this, so be aware you may be hungry later on. I've got food.

Done. We've got dry food rations in the bag. I have a granola bomb. Go ahead and make an investigate check. Well good. You're starting us off. I'm going to try to inspire him. Come on, come on.

Oh, well. I'm going to inspire him. You're going to inspire me? Just a little, a little. Boom, clap the sound of your. Gun the beat goes on and on a Nala, nana, that's all you. Okay, come out to me.

All right, so you can take your D-10 Bardic inspiration as his song, as it blare's into your left ear as you search the town for a decent location to possibly construct this. 19. Total of 19. All right. Asking around and speaking to a few folks on Vasselheim,

you eventually have a few hooks that point you towards this long, long abandoned workshop. That's been burned down and it hasn't really been touched. As you go to it, you have to kind of push some of the burned wood out of the way, but there is indeed a currently functional if, for a long time, unused forge and anvil available. And poor condition, but functional. So given about two, two and a half hours, you might be pushing your arrival time at the Guild Hall, but you could probably do it. Do you want to go and give it a shot? I'm going to give it a show.

All right. So, do you want to use another one of your Bartokin inspirations on this? Can I do that? You can use it up to, I think it's five or six times. It's fine. All right. At this one, I probably, I'm probably, I don't get a montage then, never mind.

All right, all right, it's all right, save it, for later, we're gonna need it for later. All right, so it takes a wild rummage through the, the ground to get everything set up. You have the tools of your tinkers kit that you usually keep with you anyway. and you begin hammering away at the metal and preparing yourself a nice little spherical container

using your black powder. You're starting to get a little low in black powder between your bullets that you've been constructed. I got to get that in my now. So something you can either, at some point in the future, try and scavenge up the materials for and make yourself. But just letting you know you're starting to run a little low in that. Yes.

So go ahead and make a, I'm going to say make a tinkering check with your proficiency bonus of four and we'll say your dextape. since this is very meticulous to make sure this thing doesn't detonate during construction. God, you'd really even use some inspiration at this point. No, I don't. That's 29. Yes!

Yes! Stimgy works. Like 2.9? Like 2.9? Like 2.9. Like not 2.9s, but 2.9. What did you roll? I rolled 19. Yeah, that'll do it.

All right. So, in spite of the terrible materials at your disposal, as far as you know, you know, The forge itself, you barely get it lit, but you can manage to heat it enough at least to ply a very soft metal. And there's like an aluminum base type that you construct as a container and then coat that with chunks of very, very hard steel

that you think will work as good shrapnel. You manage to complete it. You're not sure how effective it will be, but at the very least you know it'll travel safe. And that's really more important than anything else with these type of makeshift explosives. I made a holy hand grenade. Yeah.

He's got up out of your hand. Awesome. Indeed. Indeed. Excellent. All right, so as the rest of you gather up, you've had your breakfast, you're rested, you make your way towards the Slayers Take Guild Hall, approaching the front steps again, the wooden engraving and the front doors.

You step into the main foyer area and are greeted again by Merton, the kind of gruff-looking halfling who's in the process of thumbing through some books. He looks like he has a little bit of dried fruit in the side of his chin. He's a little groggy, like he didn't sleep well the night before. He's a little what? He's a little groggy. He's a little bit. Lucky chat.

He looks up as you guys approached. Very nice. You all could finally make it. It appears you're only a grand total of 25 minutes late. It's not too much of a problem. What's a minute? It's all right. There is not too much going on at the moment. I will not mention this to the wife. I mean the headmaster.

Don't mention to her that I refer to it as my wife. Cord strength to you, so you got a little bit, right? Yeah, then did it. Oh, that's not fake. Thank you, I appreciate the heads up. No problem, no. I hate to lose papaya. So, let's see, we have the four of you here.

This is the acquired necessary group for the first travel this morning. I'm excited to see what the mystery says available for you. First and foremost, let me introduce to you one of your traveling companions for another hopeful the Slayer's tank. Let me retrieve her. And you see Merton walks off to one of the back rooms, opens the door and kind of whisper, like, quit, your team is here.

Opens the door and walking out, if you want to describe yourself. Oh, I walk out in a black cloak. My hair is white, and I have silver eyes, and a long staff with four dragons and a moon stone planet, as it were, in their midst. I walk out slowly, and I look them all over one by one, saying, I don't know you. I don't know you as my tail whips back and forth.

Oh, damn, damn, what? I don't know you, almost hitting you with my horns. You, I know. I saw you at the crucible, didn't I? Maybe. Huh. Well done against the hammer. Thank you. I often get confused with Philip the terrible.

Yes, I bet you do. You don't like that terrible to me, though. Grom begins to blush a large blue color on his cheeks. What's your name, woman? Zara. What? Zara. Zara.

Zara Hydrus. Lovely. And what's yours? Me? Yes. Well, I'm known by different names in different places. I think that the truth. Really?

Some call me Kingslayer. Ah! Some call me scammen. Some just call me when they want a good time. Mostly we just call him scammal. I'll keep the good time in mind. All right. And you?

Oh, Percival, Frederikstein van Musil, Kowalski did Roland prefer? You could call him. They just called me Percy. You see, you have many weapons, aren't you? Yes, I dabble. You dabble of things? I do dabble. Yes.

Any forging? Yes, actually. I just picked it up recently. I've been working on things. I pull out the holly and grenade. Ah. Getting better. I saw one of those in Antioch once.

It's where I've seen them written of, so... Yes. We'll see. It's something new. We'll have to compare notes sometime. Absolutely. Yes, I'd love to see your technique. Good.

There is something mildly off putting by her intense red skin, her relatively pointed incisors, and the very prominent, you know, teafling demonic blood in her body. But nevertheless, there is an elegance to the way she walks, and there is this almost look of silent judgment as she continuously passes her eyes over the rest of the group. Did you want to know my name? Yes, I would. No, I'm not so sure. But please, humor me.

Vexania, it's a pleasure. Pleasure's all mine. What's a nicey head, great, indeed. I love being out here without my brother. I just love it. I love it. You have a brother? I do.

Oh. How fascinating. I am Grog, the unintimidated. It's nice. know your true name, Philip. I mean, Rog. Oh. I think she knows. No, but it's...

I'd like to run a good perception text. What are you trying to do? I'm trying to figure out if she's titled. She certainly strikes me as titled. I think she has blood. She's got blood. She may not have blue blood. I would say this is more of an insight check.

An insight check? All right. To just like, take flight. Uh, ten. Okay. Best you can tell the... Her posture, the way she walks, there is definitely, the lack of a better term, a non-arrogent self-importance

to how she holds herself, but there's something about it that there's like a mild hint of insecurity in there. Interesting, all right. Could I ask you what your weapon of choice is? It would be my staff. Oh, right, yeah. It took many years to forge it.

You made it yourself? I did. Damn, that's impressive. Thank you. At this point, Merton's looking angrily at a small pocket watch that he pulls out, looks at.

This is very unusual. Let me see who's supposed to be leading your group. Hold on just a moment, and he gets up and exits the room briefly. He comes back after about two minutes with a small handbook and reads through. Yes, well, it is customary that as part of these trials,

there is a member of the Slayer's take is to accompany you on this journey to make sure that you... I volunteer to be leader of the group. That is not up one. discussion. I am sorry, small man. Which committed by a halfling. I'm magically making a cup of peat. He looks like slightly impressed, but only slightly. By the way, being called small man by a halfling is a beat in of itself.

All right, so the assigned leader to be your guide slayer for this venture. Oh, really? They should be curious indeed. Well, she's late, it seems, at which point the door opens to the front of the guild hall and in comes stumbling, a human female. And I run, and I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry, I'm late, I'm so sorry, and then I trip. Ridiculously, and I still cut papaya everywhere. Oh! Oh my gosh.

That is disappointing. That is just disappointing. Hello, every, oh my gosh, you're so impressive. How lovely. I'm Merton, I brought you some Popeye, and I'm so sorry. It's all over the floor right now. You know what? I'll go get a broom. I'll clean it up.

No, no, don't worry about it. I insist. Stay with your group. We have important business to discuss. I appreciate the pie. Well, I just wanted to be, this is my group. Yay! Here's me to meet all of you.

You are large, you are not. You're so pretty. Oh, you are too. Oh my gosh, I've heard about her. She is something. She is, yeah. Nice to meet you, nice to meet. Hi.

Hi, hi. Hi, I'm Lyra. Lyra. Lyra. Lyra. Yes. Fairness to meet you all. Yes. You can see from her, she's dressed in a nice blouse.

Her kind of just past shoulder length, somewhat curly hair is kept as much as a frazzled woman would keep. A large pair of glasses, a door in the front of her face. And she definitely is not who you were expecting to be considered leading this group into its journey. What sort of fighter are you, Lyra? Oh, oh, this is so exciting. I'm getting out, Merton.

They're letting me out. It's so exciting. This is probably a technicality. I'll have to make sure this was maybe not tough. Oh, I don't think so. Do you find yourself sitting behind a wooden structure most of the day? Something sort of flat, like this. Like a desk. Like a desk or a table.

Oh my gosh, do you have sciabilities? Just intuition, I guess. Oh, no, this is so funny. I've seen you from far, but I'm very busy in the back room. You know, I'm very, I'm invaluable, really, right, Martin? She is useful. Yes, yes. I mean, I'm very good at appetizing.

Listen, we're going to catch up so much. I'm just really excited. I'm leading it. They're letting me out, Martin. Have you led a group like this before? No, it's so funny. You wouldn't be able to tell, right? It's so funny.

No, no. No, it's amazing. Very, very in charge. Thank you, thank you. I mean, listen, I just wanted to welcome everybody. No, no, they don't actually let me. out a lot and I I was you know when I got got the scroll in front of it was just I this is my best row you got a little papy juice in front of oh no oh no

and then I'm like brushing it and actually just just the robe falls off and I'm like oh my god oh god that was in and burning you hear this this this awkward smack sound as Merton his face palm this unbelievably hard as he can at the edge of his desk, I shall retrieve the hunt master. He gets up and leaves, exits. You guys are left alone in the foyer for a moment. So, Vyra, you're already a full-fledged slayer? I am in fact.

Have you slayed? I am a member of the guild, well, I mean, if you wanna be... You seem like someone from the guild. Yes, I'm a guild member. It's funny, It was kind of a technicality. I don't know how that happens, but I'm here. What do you normally do, bookkeeping storage?

Oh, well, it's a really long story. Can I tell you all about it? Abridged. Abridged. Well, yeah. Look, papaya. Oh, yes, some of it's still clean. He doesn't.

He doesn't. He's still good. Oh, okay. Yes, so I'm going to. Trink it. Oh, yes. Do we get drinking? This is my bet.

Yes, of course we get trinket. Do we get drinking? As you turn, you see that the door after you pass and the giant armored bear has made its way in and kind of just pushes past your shoulder abruptly and immediately goes nose down and joins Grog eating papaya off of the ground. Hey, get your own papaya.

Fascinating. What time is there? A big one. We start to arrest so much. Demently. It's my papaya. You let go. Does anyone have any allergies if I take some to-go, you know, little lunches?

Oh, that'd be lovely actually. Actually, I think Percy's quite hungry. I actually am quite hungry. I was, I don't know if I'm quite capable of eating papaya off the floor, but if there's, I don't know, something brunchy, I don't suppose. Oh, I have some dry food rations, would you want those? It'll do in a pinch. Here's a crumbled biscuit.

A crumbled biscuit sounds out. I like her already. That will do. Remember this slight. So have you slain? Have you had any battle experience at all? Well, you know, it's funny because I'm here. I'm actually from the city, but I was in Iman and I was studying,

I'm a wizard, you know, the wizardly arts, the art... Oh, I've heard of them, yes? Yes, absolutely. Yes. I dabble with me. Exactly, and my uncle is actually the diplomat from Enron here. Oh, in Vaseline. It's very funny. Yes, oh, that's so funny. Perhaps you've heard of us.

Vox Machina? Castle Grey Skull. Castle Grey Skull. Some know us as the shits. According to a big view. Good. No, but it's... I'd love to hear all about it. I'll put it on a scroll. Anyway, so I came here because my boyfriend, Aldor, is here. And he's out, yeah, he's going to be my boyfriend.

It's a long story. Anyway. We've met Aldor. We have? We have. Where did we meet Alder? Yes, we met Aldo. He was the leader of the team that found you guys in the forest.

That's right. That guy. We tangled with him. Our first run-in with Alder was not fortuitous. Did he look good? Did he look like healthy? I mean, he looks kind of like a dick, if you want my personal thing. She means that he was...

Strapping. Strapping. Straping. Well, he is, he's very large and we won't talk about that area. I have seen it, but let's not talk about that either. Oh. Yeah, so, yeah, I'm here. Amazing.

Yeah. What is your weapon of choice, Lyra? Oh, I have a wand. I have a wand. It's right here. Oh, okay. It's not very long. What's it made of?

Oh, it's Ash. It's ash, which is a, you know, it's lovely. It's very nice. Do you want to know more about it? I would love to. At which point, the Huttmaster arrives. Vanessa Sindraal steps into the room and looks about the rest. Very nice to see that you've all gathered your teams for the day.

And I am also curious to see your first foray into leading a group of slayers yourself, Lira. I just want to thank you. Thank you, Vanessa. Thank you for entrusting me with this group. I have been reading up a lot lately, and I'm very excited to use the commanding presence of a guild leader and prove my membership of the guild. Yes, I would like to thank you very much as well.

Yep, I do. For putting us in her capable hands. This was more of a choice of convenience and a test universally, as you are both a team of unproven fighters in the eyes of the Guild, and, well, we have a relatively unproven member. Well, I mean, I'm a member, so.

Technically, yes. However, I think that her knowledge and experience would be a very good use on such a track, and... Yes, it should prove to be quite educational, I would think. We'll learn a lot from hearing her talk. Yay! Thank you! You're welcome. She tried the biscuits.

You try the biscuits, they're just slaying me. It's all right. What do you eat? Do you eat like, how do you, does it get stuck in your teeth a lot? Well, it does sometimes, but you know, you carry around, you grab a twig. Some sort of twig and just sort of work it out after a while. It gives you a little something later to chew old.

Twigs work good, don't they? I like twigs. Don't we have some guilds to prove membership to? Yeah, can we kill something now, please, before we learn anything else? She snaps her fingers loudly, and Merton comes rushing out from around the corner. carrying something in his arms.

As you are on this journey for us and for the sake of this guild and your own personal name and title within our establishment, we would like to provide you with a semblance of protection, or at least a useful little package, a gift from us to you. And she puts her hand on the table. Merton comes over and hands you what looks like a small leather chest. It's made of sculpted leather, pulls back and pushes it forward, and pushes it forward, and you can hear the clanking of glass as he does so.

And in the inside, you can see there are four glass vials prepared with some sort of a swirling red silver liquid inside. You recognize these as being healing-based potions. Like moderate? Superior? Superior? These would constitute as greater healing potions, and there are four in total. You can distribute as you see fit.

I think the members of box market should get them. That doesn't seem really... Is that what you think? Oh, I... Just not. Just because I... As a leader, I enjoy being hospitable, and I agree with this person, small person.

Well, Scanlan, if you feel needed... I already have a couple, so I'll gladly give one to somebody who's wanted to need it. I've got plenty. Take it if you needed. I have plenty myself. Thank you very much. More for me. Very well. Now that we have this situation... Has everyone gathered the provisions they require for this journey? Are you ready to embark?

Did you good enough? We don't have a body bag for some of these chums. This it was very filling. It was extremely filling. It was very well. Thank you. I can go get some more. Can I just go to the kitchen and just grab some bit? No? Okay. Anyway, this is a secondary gift temporarily lent out for your contracts. And Merton brings up what looks like another satchel. It has a series of metal snaps across the top,

these little buttons that snap together and enclose it entirely. It's like a one over-the-shoulder type throw. As he opens it and you look inside, it resembles the bag of holding, but it's not quite a bag of holding. This is used for the transportation of, how do you say, perishable aspects of your quarry.

Things that you would harvest from the creature you have been assigned tend to, depending on the creature. rot away within a very short period of time. When placed within this, they should be sustained for a few weeks at the very least. So please do be very mindful and careful of this. Should it be lost, there is a very small chance

you'll be able to fulfill your contract. So who shall be taking this on the journey? You've already got the bag of hold of that. Oh, I'll... I shall. You'll kind of stealthy. I shall take it. I shall take it.

I shall take it. I shall take it. Why don't we roll for it? Why don't we roll for it? Why don't we flip a coin for it? Do you know Rochambeau? That would be great. Congratulations. I'm so happy for it.

Oh, wait. Should we ask the leader of the movie? I'm so sorry. Sorry, Lyra. Oh, that's okay. Quite all right. Thank you for actually. Sorry, Lira. Of course. As the leader of this party, I will agree with the Rochambeau. So is decreed. Oh, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean for my tail to hit you as well, rear end, so sharply. Sometimes it has a mind if it's written.

I know. At which point Vanessa is just watching with a grin on her face. It's good to see you have already established a pecking order within your travel and companions. This bodes well for your journey, most certainly.

To you. And she hands you the satchel. I won. I won. That's me. What? Please. I'm sorry. I don't think it was given to you.

I would have it on my shoulder. It's too late. I'm writing it down. I certainly hope you don't lose it during our quest. Vanessa, I'll have a question. What happens if we don't come back with all the members we left with? Well, I suppose they would not be allowed into the Guildhall. Mostly for no longer returning to the city of Vasselheim.

But that is not our problem. There is danger within this, which I should get to, actually. Yes, please tell us where are we going? You've now received your gifts and your various requirements. various required implements for this journey. A contract has just recently come to us from the crown of Arathis within this portion of the city. It has been approved for slaying.

This will prove quite a challenge based on how highly you spoke of your abilities. I will warn you, the quarry is quite dangerous. Should you find yourself in trouble, I wish to remind you that it is better to live and fail and to be foolish and die. So, let me pass on to you the contract of which has been selected for you.

And she reaches out in hands this over to New Percy. I can read this quickly. And Lyra, Lyra? Oh, no, let me try it. Oh, no. Maybe you should pre-asked. I can't amend me. Oh.

Oh, you can do that? As she flicks her wrist, a small, spark of kind of purplish, dark energy, shoots from her finger, slams into the side of the contract, and the tear in the contract, repairs itself immediately. You have scotch tape, that would do it too. Oh, congratulations. Scots have nothing to do with.

Ordered and paid in advance by our Commiss O'Anne Grant, client, this contract binding in honor of the elements set upon the agreed members of the Slayers. Take guildhall of the task of locating and slaying, the below-mentioned entity and recovering the blow, listed, harvested, autonomy, items, any anatomy. Items not recovered or not in function, nor the commission will be deducted from the final payment

and refunded to the client. This client is good. I'm sorry, could you go over again what the harvesting includes? Oh, we haven't gotten to that yet. Oh, it's all right. This contract is good for three days and should the contract not be fulfilled within that time period.

All payments are null and void. This contract is non-avoid, and the membership within the slave's take is revoked. Outside the Huntmaster's willful forgiveness. This is the fine print. Get it. Yeah, there's details. Quartzman's been for hunting by there.

Holy Paramount, is the crown of Arathus. The quarry, one adult white dragon. One adult white dragon. A white dragon, but are they, this is not good. I would know, I would know, because I've studied them. Yes, having dragons being a very, very specified, favorite enemy for you.

White dragons are one of the chromatic dragon circle. They are considered largely very spiteful, arrogant, a little more beastile, and very, very dangerous foes. Yes, they're glorious. Didn't we kill a white dragon? No. No, I thought that.

Flatham dragon? Once upon a time. The ice dragon thing. Wasn't she white? Once upon a time, you battled back at Western. I don't see race, so I don't know. What kind of an element is a white dragon? The ice and frost.

Oh, that's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The woman and she turned into the dragon. Yeah, Ashley killed her. Yeah. I mean, my heart. We've got a fire guy. This both well if you have already defeated such a creature,

then it should be a very simple task. Yeah, no problem. This is going to be easy. What are we going to bring back? They want eyes, tongue, heart, claws, and teeth. Oh, so anything else we get to keep ourselves? Two eyes, one tongue, one heart, six claws, and 20 teeth. Is what they are requesting.

And do we get paid for such items? Yes, there are individual prices for each individual object. eyes and 900 gold each. The tongue is 1,200 gold. The heart is 3,500. Clause 250 gold each, and teeth are 50 gold each. If there are any remaining organs, we can rocheambeau for it.

And scales, definitely. There'll be plenty of scales. If we're not dead, that is. Very good for armor. Very good for armor. Does you say where this dragon lives? No. Ah, see, that is part of the...

of the job. To find one's quarry is why we are so specialized in the Slayers' Take. So, you may now embark once we signify the pact of the contract. And as she reaches out and touches the edge of it, you can see there are these arcane sigils that are actually on the contract itself. They glow and pulse briefly, and she just walks across the group.

First, you, Percy, we're holding it. Place your hand against the contract. As you do, they light up, and you, you feel a surge of kind of warm energy go through your torso, at which point you now see at the bottom of the contract, your name inscribe itself on its own magically to the contract. She then takes it and passes it to each one of you

to the same point. And as the spell binds. What about trinket? I suppose he is part of your band. And she reaches out the paper and Trinket, shake. Slams it out of her hand. knocking the contract under the ground.

And there's a brief moment where she pulls the paw back. And the paper's a little wrecked a little bit, but there is indeed a paw that inscribes itself on the bottom of the contract for Trinkets Insignia. I have a busy day to attend. I wish you with the utmost of safety. Good luck and safe thrones. Thank you, I guess.

Bye. I'll alphabetize the rest of the ingredients. When I get back, don't worry. It's going to be fine. I'd appreciate that. Okay, great. Good luck. Bye-bye.

Thanks again for giving me a chance. That's great. Please go. Okay. Are you the housekeeper here? No, no. Listen. No, I'm a guilt member.

Okay. On its typical, but yes, I'm a guilt member. Tell me again, what have you slayed? Well, well, it's a, it's, we can, we can. No, very abbreviated. Just to short, can you just say the word of what it is? Maybe the biggest thing. Yes, it's the biggest one.

Just what is it? It was a warg who almost absconded with my boyfriend outdoor, and at the last minute. You killed someone who was sleeping with your boyfriend? No, no, it was a warg. A warg. Okay. It's a... It's a... Is that a thing? We haven't encountered one of those, I don't think. It's a person that changes into animals, am I right? No, it's a thing. A warg is... It projects itself into animals.

In a certain book series, yes. I'm a very prolific reader. And I've never read the forks other than in that circumstance. We're in twilight, that's true. That's good. It's in the fairy tale section in the library. It sparkles. But only in the sun.

Orgs in this world are essentially a side breed of large bulbous wolf-like entities. Oh. A bulbous, dire wolf. Oh, you're a bloated wolf. It's a large wolf. It's not quite dire wolf. No, yeah, that's very.

Like for instance, out of character here outside of the world, in Lord of the Rings, the things that the orcs ride. They're really scary. It was quite a situation, but it was either the war or outdoor, and I would do anything to save outdoor. What did he look like when you saw him? Oh, go on, here we go.

He looked actually kind of frightened. Was he wearing like an armor, like a reddish sort of very much? It was hard to focus on his armor with all of his screaming and whimpering, really. He is very brave. No, yes, he seemed like he would have been. He did find.

He fought well. He fought bravely and treated us fairly. Especially when he got burned by Tiberius. You lived. You burned my kind of boyfriend? Not the face, not the face. Not the face. I didn't do it, it was fine. We need to talk more about this on the road,

but we should get going. Let's certainly start talking. Yes, let's do. As you all leave, the Huntmaster expectantly waiting for you to exit the Guild Hall, you find yourself out amongst the streets of Asselheim with no particular direction in where to find a white dragon in three days.

Three days, yeah. Vex. Yes. Hey, Vex. Can any of us sense a dragon within six miles of here? That's what I'm doing. I'm here. I know.

Oh, yes, I can just cast locate creatures. Oh, that works too. Yeah, let's do it. Boz is gather. Do we need some sort of anything for you to cast the spell? Oh, no, I have all my ingredients. No, but I mean, do you need to know something of what you're trying to locate, or does it just work on name alone?

As per the locate creature's spell, it can only locate creatures within a thousand feet of the ritual that is completed. But it locates them with pinpoint accuracy. Oh, that's great. Well, then we can use it in conjunction, because I can use primal evil awareness and find any dragons within six miles. Can I try to grow my beard real quick? Can I try to grow my beard?

You can grow my beard? Sometimes. Not really. 33. That's better. At this point, and you guys noticed it and didn't make it mention, because for some of you, it was just a very dire morning.

But since I woke up this morning, he had a very, very nice coat of somewhat bristly, translucent, not very attractive facial hair, but a facial hair by definition. It's like fishing line coming out of his face. Damn pirate now, watch it. Like a 14-year-old whose father doesn't love them enough to teach him how to groom him.

Oh, she's sick. There's a story there. Percy's seen some shit. There's no parental issues over here. Wow. Can I do that? All right. You can.

So you, along with, you know, trinket by your side, you find a small space. I can't find his exact location, but I can gather. How far away from the wood at this point? You are still in the city of Asselheim. You're in the Quad Roads District, which is kind of the most central portion of the city. This is kind of the erathus-driven area.

You're about a 15-minute walk from the nearest walls that exit out into the Bastogne. 15. All right. Do I know anything about where the dragon might be, or? You have no idea. idea. This would be one of those occasions where your best bet would be researcher asking around. Dragon.

So can I, but can I... No. Nope. Nope. No. No. Don't do that. So you take a moment, you ground yourself and you kind of place your hands on the dirt and take in the general feel of all natural creatures and unnatural beasts that you're attuned to in the vicinity. You focus on the essence of what is dragon and dragon kin, dragon kind, and find that within the six mile radius, there is...

There is nothing that catches your attention. Oh, shit. All right. Lyra, Ira. Lyra? Thank you for asking, because some people just don't care. Yes, yes. I want to get it right.

Who, you've been living here for quite some time, I know. Well, I grew up here with my uncle, Uncle Randy. Would you, you want to go meet him? No, probably not. No, no. No, a mussin is knowledgeable about dragons. I was going to ask you, where should we go to ask

who might know things about the woods, about the wilds, about where dragons might keep. That is a very good question. I would say Aldor, but he will not talk to me. That's unfortunate. It's really, do you want to talk about it? Because I can use some advice. Zara, what about you?

We could have some girl talk later. Right now, focus on the dragon. Okay. I don't know where the dragons are, but I'm so sorry. I did not mean to interrupt, but I do, I can use beast speech. And so if we come close to anything, I could ask potentially to understand,

maybe get an idea. Well, there may be somebody at the Abundant Terrace who might know something about the woods and direction. That might be a good place to start. It's a section of town where it's, you know, they concentrate on, yes. So we go there. All right, let's do that.

Yes. Let's go there, please God. All right, so in following Lyra, towards the Abundant Terrace, which which is on the western side of the town. This area is very different in visual style. As soon as you approach this kind of small hill that leads into the terrace proper,

it is almost entirely farmland. In this strange harsh environment, there is something about this entire district that is structured to be the source of vegetation, crops, and essentially feeding a large portion of the population here. You also see there are a series of small temple towers and statues that are focused around a particular deity,

I want you guys go ahead and roll religion a little fast. Is the roll in the 20? Yeah. It's starting off where? The right first roll. The first rule is not good. 13. All right.

You know this information, but before you can even say it, as you eagerly to mention, you sense that there is the worship of Melora here. Malora, which is sort of the goddess of wilderness in the sea, and is one of the five, soon to be six, of Pikes Temple raises, deities that essentially rule the belief system and lifestyle of the city of Vassalon. And so through the blessing and touch of Malora in this district, they're able to treat the land as magically fertile territory to grow. And you gather upon stepping

inside that there's a cluster of kind of dirty looking but very, very cluttered and busy taverns in general stores, like the entire portion of the town that isn't, that portion of the district that isn't farmland is just jammed into this one little corner. Go ahead and make an investigation check. Six. Twenty-two. Twenty. Two.

Oh, yeah. First thing? 17. 17. 17. All right. You guys kind of split up a little bit briefly to try and find more information. One of the groups that coalesces is Vex.

Scanlan and Lyra. The three of you come upon a place called the Midnight Breath Tavern. You step inside and speak for a bit, and eventually you meet the co-owner, a gentleman named Dagan, who is an older human. He has what looks like a reddish, but somewhat patchy, red and brown beard.

A couple scars in his body, but nothing like Battleworn, more just a person who's existed in this harsh landscape for a while. And you guys are asking around and talking about dragons mentioning dragons, and somebody, points in his direction and says, oh, dragon, you're going to want to talk to Dagan about that. He's the one who sees dragons. Seize them. Let's go. Oh, that's nice.

Yeah, I walk over to Dagan. You're not with us, I'm not with us, aren't? No. You know, with me, we're still wandering about. You guys are wandering about that. Are we outside? You guys are in the process of kind of asking around. You'll meet up with them in just a moment.

So this team of them. You're very attractive. You show Wiles. Oh, thank you. Okay. A wild kill. Dagan. Is that your name?

That's my name. Oh. I've heard spinning in class. Many things about your knowledge of dragons. Dragons? Yes.

You've seen it. You've seen the dragon. I have seen dragons, and they suck. You hear a couple snickers down the bar and you know, shut the hell up. Unless you like them. Do you like them? No, no one around here likes a dragon.

At least none that I've come across. No, I swear is it. I swear is it, I saw this one. All right. I was up north. About two days travel northwest of here via the Glasswalk road. That's two days travel horseback, mind you. The Glasswalk road? Yes, of course. I was heading to Mold Eye here to visit my brother.

Some of my family more lives up in that northern area. It's freezing cold, too chilly for my tastes. But I was going to visit, and there more than two days up there, nasty blizzard blows in out of nowhere. It just starts wrecking the entire roadside. Slick with eyes, we decided to go ahead and make camp me and a couple of the others who were journeying with me. We head off the road, set up a small camp,

throw up some tents, and thankfully, at least within the canopy of the forest, it's easy enough for us to escape the barrage of the elements. But it was a very, very cold night. Our fire began to go out, and we were a little worried. And then there was a dragon. Yeah, get to the dragon. I'm sorry. Hold on. Let me tell my story.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I don't know him that well. It's all right, I'm used to. And a voice over there says, hey, it's like, you, I will kick you out. I believe that you saw a dragon, and I believe that it was white because you were in a blizzard, right? Am I right? I'll get to there. Patience. Now, we're sitting there, and you get to the feeling around you. There's like eight of the people on this tavern who are all, like,

facing their hands, like, the story has probably been told dozens of times over and over again. So part way into the night. We're trying to keep warm through this. Suddenly we hear this terrifying roar that just strikes across the sky. We could hear it over the blistering sound of the snow and sleet battered against our tent. I rush house had to take a look. Not sure what to find, but instead I see what looks to be a pack of four dire wolves converging on our camp.

Large, nasty beasts. Very much like a warg, if you will. Warg-like, a little larger, yes. Okay. How large, you want to tell? How large proportionally would you say that it was, uh... No? Okay, keep going. Well, no, I mean, if you're long into, if I'm war versus a dire wolf, a war, is still pretty large about, you know, a good...

I know, I've seen one. Do you know what happened with me? I got into the guild. Oh, God, there is so. It's dragon's name on the orgway. So, this pack of dire wolves are converging on that. I myself am fearful, but I know that if I'm going to make a stand, now's the time to do it. So I reach over and I draw my dagger and prepare myself to the fence. That is a giant dagger if I've ever seen one.

Thank you. He resheeds it. He has a little blush to his cheeks. And I prepared myself to accept possible defeat these terrifying beasts. Then a secondary war breaks out this time, not from around, but above. Incoming, streaking out of the clouds above. I see, believe me, a dragon wingspan, huge claws and teeth gnashy. I would never have guessed that's where that was going.

White dragon? White is the snow that encased the skyline. It streaks down and snatch! Takes one of the wargs in its jaws. Listen, the warg, screeching about angrily. It throws it into the air, and from its mouth cascades, a blistering, freezing cascade of ice and sleet. The warg itself freezes in midair.

Before it could plummet, the creature then closes its jaws, snatching down on that warg and biting it in two. In one fell stroke, as the pieces of ice clattered the ground, the rest of the work scatter. I believe that dragon saved our life that night. Well, that's great. How did you make it back without dying? Well, apparently the dragon had it fiddle, and the dire wolves went off, so we packed up and went right on back. Never made it to moldy.

Did the dragon keep flying in the direction of the glass walk road, or did it go east or west or which way? I have no idea, actually. We just ran, we turned tail and got the hell out of theirs as fast as we could. That was quite a story. You believe it. You believe me on this. We believe me. Not only do we believe you, but we want to tell others of this. In fact, I'm a bit of a performer. I may write a song about your exploits. Could you?

Actually, could I roll for perception or insight to see if he's telling the truth on everything? Go ahead and the inside. Oh, oh, two, no. Uh, 17. 17. No, that is a 17. No, is that a 17? 11. 17. 17.

All right, he seems not the most complicated man. So reading his intent is easier than a lot of individuals you've had to keep an eye on. 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.

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Quince.com slash critical role. Previously, he is eager to tell the story and is in full belief. The frustration and the only things that detract from his childlike excitement in telling this tale is his moments of side-looking frustration to the other members of the tavern that do not take him seriously, it seems. But Dagan does seem to be truthful, at least believing in what he's sent to you. Thank you so much.

for your information. And I take a gold coin. I'm just like, is this enough? Yes, that's good. Thank you. So we'll be going. Can I just perception and see how heavy that bag of gold actually looks? I just want to know. Make a perception check. I want to roll the gold with that. Oh. 24. As she reaches into a pouch, There is a rather large, visibly bulging pouch to her side that is in no way, shape, or form even attempting to be covertly hidden. She's got a screwed to make a duck bag? Seemingly. Does it make her limp?

I'm so sorry. Oh, goodness, guys, we are going to have to get some warm clothing, it seems like that. So let's go shopping. I love this plan. Dagan. It is Dagan. Remember the name Dagan for your show? I will definitely write a song.

I can write it down for you. No, I can remember that. But will we have any trouble finding this place? Would we need a guide someone who's possibly been there before? Would that make the journey? Oh, I ain't going back. You all is crazy if you're going back there. I would say just look for where the blizzard's coming from.

That seemed to be the arbinger or the beast. Go to the blizzard. Two days on horseback or two days walk? Two days on horseback. Oh, god. Oh, my gosh. We'll have to get horses, too. Yes.

Well, let's go. Does the guild give you five? We've only got three days. As far as you know, horses are provided to full-fudge hunting members. You got the feeling in your very, very brief preparation for this that part of the test was to secure your own transportation. Lovely.

So I think we're on our own. Okay. I think it's just part of our perseverance to prove that we are worthy of being. I mean, I'm in the world, just to be clear, but. You're a member. We're just going to have, yes, I am a member. Did you hear how I got in? It's really a story.

No, I heard it was sort of a technicality. Oh, it was, but... I can't wait to you. Okay, great. Maybe around the campfire. Yes. You could sing about it. I could, if you told me the details, yes.

You know what? See, I do forget a lot. Maybe you could just write them down quietly to yourself and just give me a note later. Okay, as long as it's a note about it. a love story between me and Al Dor. I'll tell you how to spell it. Okay, well let's go meet the rest of the group. Thank you, Dagan. As we're leaving, I walk up behind Lyra

and I put my hands on her shoulder, and then I reach down and grab her bag of gold, and I look down to it, and I say, you might want to keep a better eye on this, darling. There are very, very nasty people around. Oh, my goodness. You're traveling with some of them. I didn't take anything. I'm simply letting

you know. That is so nice of you. I'm going to buy you the prettiest cloak, Thanks. Thank you so much. Okay. You have lovely eyes. Thank you. I've never had a friend before.

This is so great. Maybe when we show up you can tell me all about Aldo. Oh my gosh, he is so handsome. What are you doing? As you guys step out of the tavern, you walk up to the other members of your party, Zara, Grog, and Perci. What have you discovered? Northwest, Cold, Dragon, Blizzard. Two days, we need horses.

We'll definitely need some sort of protection. against ice attacks. I have a question, I'm not good with numbers, but it's a two days journey there and a two days journey back. We do have an ass ship. Is that full and we have three days to do this in? Don't we have an airship? How are we gonna do that exactly?

I mean, I'm not the brightest in the- You do know that contracts complete upon the quarry being slain? Oh, no. We have three days to get home. It's hard. You are two days to get there. Two days to get there and one day to slay it. Thereabouts, is that about it?

Once the creature is actually slain and the pieces are harvested, then the contract is completed, then you can take your time returning. They're going. Right, we can ride it down the mountain. Really? No. Well, I can get some horses up in this. We need horses.

We need warm things. We need warm things. We need some fur. Actually, I have worn cloaks for the parties and half of our parties. It is, so we can have them. Will you need some cold weather clothes? I believe so. I believe it would be nice.

And Lyra, did you bring anything? Well, I can go by my uncle's house and get pretty much anything. Oh, wait, would he have enough for us? Oh, well goodness, he's a trade ambassador to here. It's funny. We have a lot of warehouses. It's so fun to go. Let's go do that. Yes.

Wait, wait, so does he give discounts to family members? Oh, I can just, you know, I can, I, I can persuade him to... Lira, I think we're going to be best friends. We to bury the lead. Does he have access to horses? I don't... You haven't ever had any sort of discussions with them in regards to horses? You know there are a few liveries throughout town,

but you don't think you have any family ties to them directly. It's not, you know, not directly. I mean, it's trade more than that. This is your Uncle Randy? Uncle Randy, yes, you know about it? He's a trade ambassador. His legend has been so far in line. Oh, it's so fantastic.

He's so kind-hearted. He took me in when I was... Anyway, we'll talk about it over fire camps. Come on, everybody. So can we find horses in the area? A brief look about you find a livery not too far from the outskirts of this district. And as you enter, the gentleman who runs up there is eager. If you go ahead and buy some horses, well, certainly.

Well, don't we rent them. Let's rent them for a week. The thing about renting is this area. If you're riding out with horses, don't make the way back. Well, how about we rent them, and then if they don't make their way back, way back, we'll pay you the difference. We'll leave you a hefty deposit. Uh, may I?

That could possibly work, okay. I... I... Oh, try it, do it. How do I'm telling you. Are you all right? Am I alright? Go for it. Do you go for? I cast suggestion.

Okay, so why goes in this conversation, you go ahead and stay back and you make a few symbols with your fingers whispering under your breath. You complete the suggestion spell. What's the DC of your spells? This should be on the top of your spell page. The top of your actual sheet that has all things listed. D-17. D-17. All right, what do you want to suggest?

Nice. You shall lend us the horses, knowing that we shall take very good care of them. You may keep them for as long as we are. As you're having this conversation, he kind of looks up with the group and goes, No, you know what? You all look like a very trustworthy group. group and I wouldn't want to, you know, breed in sort of ill will for future business. Right. I mean, Uncle Randy, after all.

Tell you what, I'll give you the horses, rental half price. I trust you bring them back. Don't worry about any sort of deposit. I believe you're trustworthy folk. Wow. Thank you, sir. So for six horses, we're looking for a rental price of around, say, 50 gold for the lot, rental. Done. We can save a little if I, uh... little if I shared a horse with you. Oh, what? No, no, I'd rather have my own horse.

Thank you. Okay. Thank you. You can ride the knescan. Nothing. But Trinke... Shut down. Is he...

Shut down. Is he right? Is he as fast as a horse? Trinket would probably have be struggling to keep up with you guys. Well, how... Should we leave Trinket? No.

I always want to leave Trinket. Why you always want to leave for us? He only almost dies every time. I know he almost dies every time I put him in battle. I think he's adorable and it would be really nice to grab him and you guys, it's so beautiful to see the friendship that you have. If I had that with another person say Aldor, it would be... Oh God.

Do you have any Clodsdale's a giant horses for me, begging? It's not getting a cat by any chance. Just a suggestion. I think we could probably facilitate. I can't say it'll have much of a shelf life, depending on how much you're right. you ride it, but... That's what people say about me, that's fine. He pulls out a very, very nice-looking war horse that looks like it's designed to carry very heavy soldiers.

Still unprovenous to whether or not it'll be able to carry you, but we shall see. And once again, the horse travel wasn't like two days of straight gallop. It was, you know, a casual trot in which Trinket could probably keep up, but you guys might have to pick a break every now and then, because it's still... Well, that's stupid. We'll make him earn it.

Don't you want to ride Shoehens again? I've got like five more. I've been saving them up for this entire game. What? For every bear pun. Nothing. Just nothing. No pun that happens. The angel loses its way.

So may we give you our gold? Yes, yes. Here's our gold. Certainly, certainly. I'll give you to your horses. The party is. But have our parties. Here's so.

I'll just do it. There you go. Thank you. Oh. Bye-bye. Thank you. You know. That's excellent.

Laira. You are. You are. One of the first. Lyra. Well done, Lyra. Very good. Now, I need to talk with you.

And when we go out, are we leaving yet? Yes. The stable voice is bringing horses over the rest of you, begin putting all your materials up and kind of strapping them to the saddles. And what did you want to do? Listen, Missy, I am the leader of this, and the fact that you pulled out a spell and did not say,

and it's just not even the way I want to conduct my team. So you, if you are going to use underhanded tactics, you need to clear them with me first because I'm the leader. My spell casting is actually overhand. but I understand and I shall keep that in mind and I do apologize. Really? I think she... Yes, I apologize very deeply, very sincere.

Who's just a leader? I did it. Well done. Yeah, you've got a great journey. That was impressive. You put her in her place, asserted yourself, but you were... I was polite, right? You were firm but fair. Firm but fair.

I am very, very nervous that somebody's going to die when we find this. I hope it's me. So horses ready, mounted up. You guys gather all those materials. You ride up back through the braving grounds to the northwestern exit to the outside wall. Anyone else? So protection against ice magic.

Does anybody have stuff that works for that? We needed to go to Uncle Mandis. Oh, yes. Well, we were going to go get some. That's right. Yeah, we're going to go to the warehouse that's on the out edge of the district where we're going. We could get some, you know, furs and all this sort out.

Easy enough. You guys follow Lyra down to the outside of the quad roads. There is one way how she goes to, she knocks on the door. And as it opens up, you could see a rather calmly looking gentleman with a nice soft, almost like a purple blue beret, a little bit of a heavy set, a neck bulge that kind of rests over the top of his little doublet. And he opens it, he looks out, yeah, what can I? Oh, Lyra. Hi. Oh my gosh.

How are you? Oh, what do you want this time? Well, it's funny because I finally got an assignment with the guild. Can you believe it? It's like, whoa. No, I can't believe her. Oh, really? But good for you.

Thank you. So anyway, me and my friends, because are my friends now. You know what? She's sort of our leader. I guess. You must know, Randy. Right? He gives a very, very long.

judgmental, mistrusting look across all five of you. Should we call you uncle? Please, don't. You know what, Mr. Randy, we had our doubts. No, no, no, no, no. My uncle is not here. This is one of his managers. Yeah, very important.

Uncle Randy is going to eat his hat, isn't he? I got a leadership position. Anyway, can you help us up? What do you need, Lyra? We're going into the cold. We're going to the blizzard. Can you believe that? And you know how much I hate the cold,

but we do need to be provisioned. So what do we have in the crates that we can help? He closes the door. A minute goes by. Did you? I thought, two minutes go by. He's gonna hook us up, really. Really?

I cost. What? I use mask of many faces. And I disguise myself. Oh, Sarah. As Uncle Frank. Uncle Randy. Frankly, my dear.

I am Uncle Randy. You have not seen Uncle Randy? Oh, balls. Which is the only downside of that? Balls enough. There's no pictures of the wall anywhere I can look at outside. Just great big, beautiful. This is where he sells things.

Unfortunately, no, but if there's any other form you would like to take your word. Oh, God of the hell. I'm going to knock loudly. Well, this is just very, this is egg-on-face situation. He's looking for stuff right. The door opens at this point, kind of almost pushing you back on your heels. You catch yourself as he comes out carrying a large pile

of what looked like relatively well-kept furs and thick leather cloaks and just kind of shoves them into your arms. Be safe, little one. Bye. Try and get you back in one piece. That's great. You are you?

I came through, guys. I came through. You did? Just remember it. I came through. We'll write a good comment card when we get back. Definitely. Can I get the one that slit up the back?

Can we let me tell you? That's to whip a bat. All right, we'll load it up. We've got horses, we've got healing potions. We've got loaded for bear, as it were. Great. Drink it's wonderful. Yes, he can't like knuzzles up alongside.

Shall we, uh, go off? Yes. Let's head off. Let's do. Do you want to go one more time to the braving grounds, Grog, and just try your hand against, uh. No? Why don't we slay the drive in first?

All right. He can punch things. Since we're on, you know, a time crunch. You're right, you're right. Everyone's good on weapons. I haven't finished my training montage yet. I've got to run through the snow. I've got to do pull-ups on trees.

Inverted sit-ups. Even feel the pair of montes-oge. Along the glass pan road. Glasswalk road. Glasswalk. You embark upon the glasswalk road, which forms right in the outside. right in the outskirts, the raving grounds,

you are let through the front gates to the outside, to the Vassar Timberland. And this is the first time you've actually seen a formal road that is carved and at least traversed enough that the Timberland has completely consumed it. You can still see various tree roots and branches are progressively, you know, almost angrily pushing in towards the escape, but you get the feeling

based on the cuts that whoever goes through here, or at least some people go through here, they keep it relatively well kept for travel up north. You ride out into it in the canopy, almost completely encloses it. So it's like a tunnel of very dense tree, vine, and kind of leaf structure. You push forward out into the cold air

and begin to ride for the remainder of the day. A good eight or nine hours hit before the chill begins to grow. The sun begins to find itself setting across the far mountains. And the forest around you, grows darker and darker still. I think we should make camp.

Should we make camp? Yes, we should make camp? I shall take first watch. I have a firewood bundle that we can make a fire with. There's also lots of wood around, Brock. And I have an axe. Let's do that instead. Can I find a really tiny tree and start hacking away at it? Tiny?

Yeah, tiny. We don't need to kill like grandpa tree. We'll kill baby tree. Keeleith would be proud. How about don't tell key? Let's. Okay. You guys get off of the main road,

as that's probably not a very good area to be out in the open. You find, after about a five, 10 minute walk, a small opening, and along the way you find a tree that looks viable. There's a small slope of hill that heads up to an upper platform area, maybe about five, ten feet up, and a small opening that you think would be a fitting place to put a fire that wouldn't be in danger of setting any of the nearby vegetation aflame.

You go ahead and start looking for firewood. You should go to make an athletics roll. 16. All right. After a good 15, 20 minute period, relatively breathe for most folk, you come back with a nice hefty stack of firewood from the driest small tree you could find. Good job, Roy! Well, good done.

Impressed? Yes. Accord strength to you, sir. Yes. Throwing the wood down, you begin to set up small stones into a fire pit establishment and begin building a fire just as the entirety of the sun disappears behind the distant mountain range. At this point, the temperature has gotten extremely cold, and most of you begin to pull up your winter cloaks and kind of get your bed rolls ready for an evening's bit of rest. Is there anything in particular that you guys want to do before the night and sleep take you? I would like to go out.

What has the moon risen? About two hours into nightfall, you can see a gentle bit of moonlight begin to appear off the distant horizon to the kind of northeast you can gather from your position. It's hard to see because the trees are so thick, but you kind of take a moment to walk through and you can see little bits of the moonlight peeking. Just bask in what little rays I can for 10, 15 minutes before retirement. Anything else you guys wish to do? I'm going to change my time. My stone, my transmuter stone, to be resisting ice.

That's really good. I need something like that. All righty. Can we have any magic stuff that makes us resistant? I have a ring of protection. I do that around the count. The ring protection is an actual ring you wear. Oh, I have a ring.

And it protects me. You see, I'm learning everything. Oh, you do? Oh, you're always known. Very helpful. Yeah, we don't know any like ice-wisting things outside of... Or fire spells, fire spells will be very... Oh, I have a fire spell.

Excellent. That's how I took down the warp. So anyway, we were in the forest and... How powerful is it? Is it? Because I can conjure somebody that it would be very... Too large for this particular? I mean, I think a fireball would not help here. I can do fireball.

fire bolt, but there's really no use into that. Oh, starting a fire? I could start the fire. Do we not have a fire go? No, we have a fire. We have a fire. You guys look over and Grog is sitting there like, rubbing wood together.

Grog, one second. No, I'm hoping getting so close. I take all the joy out of everything. As the ranger, who is very well experienced in surviving in woodland areas, starts the fire that had taken you a good five, six minutes of aggressively fighting against the water-soaked wood of this woodland. She lights the flames.

I warmed it up first. Thank you, Grog. You did. You really did. All right, is anyone keeping watch? I'll keep watch. All right, so you're taking first watch. Zara had volunteered for first watch.

You can take second watch. All right, so Zara takes first watch. Percy take second watch. Can I watch with Zara? If you'd like to. Third watch. Third watch, all right. No watch.

I would take watch just for the record, but I just... You just sleep. You need your beauty rest. I'm sleeping, yes, thank you. You're going to be clear for leading tomorrow. I really need my head clear, and I just cannot function without sleep. There was one time when I... Oh, man, no, no, yeah. I think, shall we?

Yes. First watch, person. No. Oh, is it you and I? I'm second. I'm second, sorry. Vex and Zara are left awake. You need help carrying your purse, your bag.

Oh no, it's quite comfortable against my side, actually. Could I feel how happy it is? It's not happy at all, we don't have anything in it, darling. Where do you come from? Ah! Um, I come. We just don't have to see very many teethlings around here. No, I come from very far away. It took quite a long time for me to get here.

I come from very far away. the land of Ferrin. Ferrin? Yes. Very far off, mountainous, dark, very dark. And you left because my father was killed and I was left to my own in the woods. So I left. Well that sounds familiar. Oh it does? Yes actually. Why is that? Why is that? My mother was killed. She was. Yes. By whom?

A dragon. I wonder if it was white. I wonder if it was. Shit. I mean... What about your father? My father's alive. And what is he?

An asshole, actually. Really? Mine was an asshole too. Really? He was. He was a dark wizard. He was awful. Mine's just a jerk. He kept me in a cage.

She's horror. I know. I'm a bit personal here on fire. Sorry. I thought we were bonding. Here, have some food. Thank you. God, what is this? Disgusting. Grog found it, I don't know.

It's wood. Is it wood? All right. At least it's Elm. As you guys munch and awkwardly make your way through conversation through the evening, eventually your watch comes to a close. Listen, you guys are hit.

To go. Percy, you take up second watch. I do. About three, four hours go by. Oh, relax. Without incident. Eventually, your watch comes to a close. You found yourself just past the middle of the night

period of the evening. Who has the third watch? Was that? Oh, do. All right. Make up, Grod. Oh, mums. Sorry.

Oh. Is he always this now? Yes. All right, keep sleeping. I mean, keep sleeping. You're safe when I'm out. Alder, what, huh? As the rest of you maintain or continue your sleep,

Rod keeps a very watchful lie in the darkened woods around. Rob, go make perception check. Shit. Me? Oh, he's the worst. I'll see everything minus. Sixteen. Sixteen.

That's good. All right. As you're keeping your eyes around you for any sort of dangerous or encroaching villainy, the fire itself is slightly mesmerizing in its pattern, and you kind of look, you hear a slight snapping of a twig about 15, 20 feet off from the camp. I'll go to check.

out by myself. What? Okay. You stand up, lifting your axe, and we're going to take a few steps away from the camp. As you turn around one of the nearby tree trunks, the first thing you greeted by in the darkness, do you have dark vision? I have loads... Wait, the Dwarven Belt of Beard Power gives me... I have dark vision out to a range of 60 feet.

Wow! So as you turn the corner, you get about a step before you notice about 15 feet away from here. Beard tingles. It is a very large, fur covered wolf-like creature that is snarling at you with bony protrusions from parts of its body. It stands from ground to the top of its shoulder, almost up to your entire height. And it is currently snarling. And behind it, you can see there are two very gingerly stepping humanoid figures in the darkness. I yell out, playtime!

As you all wake up! We're gonna go to our... So, first and foremost, I would like everyone to roll initiative. Yay! How would I just immediately forget that for what we were doing? Okay. I don't know how that's possible, but yeah. There should be a laser in there somewhere.

Oh yeah. So that way you can... Oh, my glasses on the play. Yeah, it's far away. You mean your magic glasses. My magic glasses are seen. Your spectacles. They're so excited.

All right. 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. The Glass Canon with the podcast version dropping the next day. See what everybody's talking about and join us in the dark. You know that feeling when you hear one interesting thing and suddenly you want to know more?

Well, that's the idea behind my podcast, something you should know. Every episode starts with a question you've probably never thought to ask. Like why people do or don't like you? Why certain habits stick? Or what everyday advice is actually wrong? I'm Mike Carruthers, and I talk with scientists, authors, and experts, and I keep it practical, surprising, and fun to listen to. If you've got a curious brain, come try one episode of something you should know on the podcast app you're listening to right now. So, this is fun. Come on.

Thank you. It's okay. It's okay. It's okay. Cool. So, initiative rules for everyone. There will be a mild surprise round here except for Grog. But we have initiatives from here. Percy, what you got? 16. 16 for Percy. Blyche. Four!

Whoa! Thank you. Eight. Okay, Laverine Scanlan. Eight. Holy crap. Yeah. Five.

Oh, God. Why did you all roll terribly? Rolled dead. We'd be dead before we lay. Oh, this is wonderful. You're all gonna die. Too happy. I'm all gonna feel like. You're all gonna die, man.

Never a good sign. I should have grabbed some of that dessert that's here. 16. It's not a couple. They're great. And I'm sure Liam's 16. Maybe you'll... Alright, so, in this regard,

Grog, you are actually going first. Everyone else, you're currently in the process of waking up. And so it's gonna be around before it gets the best. Wake up. Drink it wakes up. Dr. Grog. You see the big dire wolf-flight creature is currently staring at you across the way, and you see other entities, humanoid coming towards you, as your dark vision allows you to take

out their features. You can see. These are very heavily fur-covered, dense leather armor-protected, roving band of straight-up orcs that are currently converging on the campsite from the center of the woods. What are you going to do? You look like someone I just saw recently. I would like to rage, and I will charge the Dyerwolf puppy thing and swing in its head with my great axe.

All right, so you immediately go into a Grog-style charge. You guys can hear Grog yelling in furious anger echoing through the nearby wood in the direction you heard as an initial shout that woke you up. Grog, you rush forward towards the Dyerwolf. Go ahead and make your two attacks. 26? That hits.

Ah, 285. Both hit? That was really good. Nice. Go ahead and roll some damage. Thank you. 10 and 18, it's 28. Great, okay. So as you rush forward, your axe smack hits into the side of the dire wall, slamming into its shoulder.

You can see as you pull the draw out, draw the axe out of the wound, you've left a nice hearty gash into the muscle tissue that holds its arm to its shoulder. The other one is you bring the ax around the other side. It slams into the upper part of its back. It sinks a good three or four inches into it, And the Dyerwolf just reacts to the pain with the gutter will screech and then looks up at you

releasing its lips apart for these nasty looking sharp long Dyer Wolf fangs revealed as it prepares itself to pounce back. That ends your turn. And as part of this round, the Dyer Wolf is going to return as the two nearest orcs charge in to flank. Oh no. This guy's going to move to six.

Can't quite get there. is going to use his action to just dash in here. And as you're waking up, you see this orc come limer around from one of the trees with this giant club and just gets in front of you. As you're freaking out, another one flanks around and comes up towards Percy. Another one rushes up behind Scanlan there.

And you see behind another growl and a series of heavy footfalls as not quite an ogre, not quite an orc. Like some sort of an ogre-ork crossbreed comes walking behind one of the nearby trees. Oh, my grog. To go up behind. Oh, no. Percy on that side.

And from the far end over here, another orc moves forward. Oh, no. Six. And he's going to use his action to finish his movement here on Percy as well. Oh, God! Are they attacking Percy? Yes.

Currently, there are only two attacks on you from this ogre-like creature here and this orc. Oh, that's like I'm going to do very good. Very good. That would be a nine. No. What's your AC? Yeah, I'm 18. 18, yeah, it's not going to hit. Then we also have, oh, that'll be a 22. Yeah, it's going to hit.

All right, so the giant kind of ogre-ish-type creature comes rushing towards you, swings with this giant club and slams the ground next to you as you manage to roll out of the way, get up to your feet as you do the orc to the other side, swings with a, it looks like a heavy axe, and it nicks to the ground. you see you on the side of the shoulder blade dealing 12 points of slashing damage. We have this guy just barely gets up a Scanlan. As you're standing up, one of the orcs rushes up behind you and you see it's holding another large, double-handed great axe and sing.

No, I don't want to get hurt by you do, do, do. All right, go ahead and roll the detail. to reduce your seat attack modifier on that one. Where's the 10? Where does it come from? This is a 10. This is a 10. Roll the 24 about the 1. OK, so I reduced that by 2.

22. Yeah, so he's still hit. But he got a song out of it. Lucky master. Well, there you go. All right, that'll come to. Actually, another 12 points of slashing damage is the axe swings down. You manage to just pull out of the way so it hits the armor and deflects, but it leaves a huge gash in the front of the armor.

And just the sheer weight of it kind of shook you for a second. That'll bring us to Grog, who is currently being heavily flanked. First, the dire wolf is going to snatch out you because it's not happy with your series of attacks. And with PAC tactics, it has advantage. Because it's within five feet of their allies, so it's bite attack against you. With advantage is out to natural 20. Oh, no. No, no.

Using my new critical roll dice. We're all gonna die. Thanks, Chabrum. Thank you. Yeah, it's good Chapman. There's 21 points of piercing damage from the jaws, which is reduced by half because of your age. Yes, so to 11. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

That's the finish is the Dyer Wolf's turn. The two other orcs are also going to swing at you from the sides. They have advantage because they're flanking you. you. That's going to be a 17. Misses. And then, let the advantage on that one. 16, also misses. They were just swinging at you, no effect.

That completes the surprise round. The orcs have pounced onto your campsite. Back at the top of the order, we have Percy. What are you doing first? Oh my God. Going to cry a little. So I have three orcs, basically. There are two orcs and a God knows what.

God knows what. Yeah, it's too small to be an ogre, but it's too big to be an orc. A very unholy union of the two probably created this spawn. The first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to take a fire shot to the right to that giant monstrosity and spend a grit point to hit him in, I'm going to try and shoot him in the foot. Okay. So that makes a constitution say it and throw.

Okay. These rules are new, so pardon me if I'm a little iffy. So shot with a pepper box is, wow, what's wrong with me? 28 to hit. 28 definitely hits. That's. He has to make a saving throw or be knocked from? Yeah, well, yeah, and there's damage plus the saving throw.

Yeah. It's a, he has to make a Constitution saving throw. All righty. 8 plus my provisives the modifier plus my dex. Four plus six. So it would be 18? It's actually 10. Yeah, 18, you're right.

18, yeah. All right, he does not make that. So you shoot, he gets not prone. As you shoot his foot out from under him, he stumbles to one knee, and then you just kick up and push him onto his back. That's the first shot. And it does six points of damage, I'm sorry,

it does 12 points of damage plus three points of fire damage. Nice. And now my other shot, I'm going to shoot him while he's down. Okay. So does that, do I get a bonus to hit there? You have advantage because he's put on me. Okay, I get advantage, so I'm actually using my shirt.

Right there in front of you and he's not able to really dodge effectively, so I'm going to give you advantage. Okay, so I'm using sharpshooter then. Game pussy. Thank God. Ah, natural 20! Yeah! So this is gonna suck for him. Which regenerates your grip point you just used, by the way.

Does it? Oh, I'm back to three. You get a grip point whenever you crit. Every time I crit. That's right. Math. Okay. So I get double points, right? That's how this double dice. Roll the dice and then double the number you get. Okay. That kind of sucks. 714, 24, 5, 6, 7, 27, 29, 30 points of damage.

Ooh, damn! On the ground, it looks up at you and snarls, you remove your boot from where you kicked it down. You bring the gun down, aim it, and kind of give it a glare as you'll fire with the pepper box. As you do, you blast part of its jaw off and you see it, you see blood's starting to trickle and pour down in front of its chest and it's trying to get up angrily. Reaching for its club, which is currently in kind of the half snow floor of this forest interior. It's looking pretty rough, but it's looking very intense on getting vengeance on you.

Out of curiosity, if I try to make a break for it, they would get two attacks of opportunity again. You're right? Yeah, they are harrowing you pretty heavily right now. It doesn't make my life any better, doesn't? No, never mind, then. Are we passing? Actually, you know what? I'm pulling an accident search, two more shots. Go for it.

I'm shooting him and get two more time until he's on the ground. All right. Same thing with a plus 10 to hit with a sharpshooter. Yep, he still has a disadvantage. Advantage to your shot because he's still on the ground. Okay, so 16, 17, 19, 9, 20, 23 to hit. 23 hits?

Do you have more damage on that? Let's see. Sorry, trying to do this name, right? Five plus 16, so 21 points of damage. 3.0 points of damage? 16. All right. With that shot, as it's getting.

up and it reaches for its club, it gets hold of it and starts bringing it in an arc towards you. You lower the gun again, this time shooting for the other side of its face. With an echoing, blasting sound, you see the remainder of its lower jaw and head just blown out the back of it. Its eyes rolled back. Yeah! Yeah! Insta-killed! Insta-killed!

Oh, my turn! And now I'm going to take that last shot and just swing up and shoot at the one who's right to the right of the right. Okay. Go ahead and roll. for 10. Oh, God. Natural 20. What? What? What? What? The heck? This is the best night for person ever. I'm just sitting in the corner going,

ah. You were sleeping, right? Are you doing all this naked since you were woken up so quickly? Yes, definitely. I'm in the pajamas with a butt flap and the butt flap is down. Yes. The butt flap is down. I applaud. Okay.

And. Good to know, because that'll thank you. 8, 16, 26, 27, 29, 3.1. That's 32 points of damage. Wow. That's insane. It's a crit. Can we all get inspiration from seeing Percy just massacre?

Like a John Woodhill right now. You are a little distracted by the other ones that are currently pushing in. You hear the explosions and you see off the corner, but you have too many things around you right now. Okay, so as you pull back the gun, The orcs that's in front of you that's currently holding its one-handed axe with two hands. As you're going back, you fire right towards its face.

It tries to duck out of the way and you smack into its shoulder. With an explosion, you can see its leather armor splinters and fur kind of burns and curls back from the flame of the blast. And beneath you can see, there's actually most of the muscle tissue are now exposed bone is visible as you've blown a giant crater in its shoulder. That was brilliant! I'm done. All right, you're all right. I would like to go into a frenzy rage now that I've got all my playmates around. me. And I'd like to take one giant swing and a half circle just trying to get all three at one time.

All right, so attack for each one. Go for it. That's 22. That hits the orc, Dyerwolf. That's 23. Hits, and for the last org. Hell yeah. 26. 25, 25, 25.

Okay, roll damage three times in any order. This orc over here. 15. 12. All right. And 17. All right. As you swing the axe around, it clips across the chest of the orp, which is almost pushed off of his feet from the sheer force. The axe swings, slams into the front throat chest area of the dire wolf with so much force that it cuts clean through, leaving this kind of open wound

where its main veins just beginning to pour its life. The dire wolf just gurgles for a second before slumping into the ground motion with it. The inertia carrying through its body slams into the other orc who actually has a small buckler shield that manages to catch. It shatters most of the leather and metal that encompasses the piece, getting stuck into his forearm, and he just yells in your face with this kind of guttural shout and pulls his own arm off the blade of the axe as you withdraw it. Do I conclude your turn? It's now their tune. All you low initiative role motherfucker's got to wait.

Awesome. So this orc's going to step to the side. Right there. Let's see. Okay. So first and foremost, the two guys that are, since we're in that motion, the two orcs you just slammed, rear back and then retaliate very heavily against you. They both have advantage because you have you flanked. That'll be 22.

It's. And a 14. Misses. Yes. All right. So the one with the buckler and what looks like a long sword, she strikes you for eight points of size. damage, we should take four. Great. That ends their turn. The one orc that's over the top of you. Loudor, it goes, swings in a wide arc down towards you. No.

Oh, I don't. That's going to be a 14. Yeah. I have a 13. Oh. Okay. So as it's two-handed axe swings down on top of you, you take six points of slashing damage. Ouch! You instinctively freak out and back up out of the way, and it actually doesn't hit it.

hit you, it slams into your bed roll, but the sheer impact kind of shakes you and you can feel the sweat beginning to pour from your forehead. That's going to bring us to this guy here is attacking Scanlan. Right. That's going to be a 12. Miss! Swings towards your head. Thankfully, he's not used to attacking things so small and duck quickly out of the way. Fuck you! And that's, on the two on Percy, who are now looking for retribution. They're looking a little shaken by the whole experience, one that you shot in the shoulder, too.

I'm just screaming in their face like a manic pixie. Yeah. With a . Pixie, drink, gunslinger. Thank you. Thank you. It's going to be a 20. Yeah, I walked into that.

20 to hit. 20 to spend a grip point at, wait, if my armor class is 20, does that mean they still hit? I thought you were wearing your pajamas with the butt flap. Oh, dear. Details. That's so mean. Details. One day, far in the future, I'll figure out a way to make you pay for that.

For now, fine. That hits. And sometimes you, this is what I heard. Damn it. The visualization was worth it alone. Yeah. And 22 for the second attack. So both of them strike at once.

You don't quite know which way to dodge you under the side. And as you try and duck out of the way, both blades hit you simultaneously on the side. Oh, no. He's fine. You take four points of damage from one, really low, one really high. You take 12. 12 total?

Total be 16. 16 points of flashing damage from the two of those orcs. Now we come to Scanlan. Oh, okay, I turn to the orc who just missed me and I cast Dominate Person. Yes! Yes! Through my hand clone of clarity, of course.

All right. All right. So, as you finish your casting of the spell, the spell, you can see the anger in its face suddenly drop and subside. And it kind of gives you this expected look. I command him to protect our Goliath with his life if he needs to. All right. And retreat from me instantly. Okay. It kind of nods and looks over towards where Grog is and with this kind of slack-jaw expression turns and it looks like it's ready to make its way towards

Brog next round. Do you want to move it all or do you? I will move a step towards Lyra. All right, he's not currently threatening you because he is controlled by you. So you step back to the fire to your back now. You can feel the heat kind of flickering behind you. And I will just be in just back up for her and I also will inspire her. All right. With a little, I turn to her and I start seeing, I raise my hand to Lyra and say,

that you could use some Scanlan today. Tonight I give you a D10. You're not true. So with that, you have a D10 inspiration dice that you can add to any D20 roll that you need to make. It could be an attack. Oh, three. Oh, great.

So you just roll, and if that might not be enough, you can add a D10 to that. Okay, great. That's amazing. So all right, that ends Scalvin's turn. Vex, you're up. Okay. I'm gonna cast, how many people are on Percy?

Two currently, flanking him right there. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna do Hunter's Mark on the damaged D1. Okay, so. Should I do, yeah, the one is damaged. The only is damaged. The most is gonna be this one. Yeah, that's the one, yeah. Yeah.

And I am going to shoot him through my, I'm gonna shoot him through my, I'm going to shoot it through my flaming bow. All right. And I also am going to have Trinket attack him twice. How about that? You can do that. All right.

All right, so Trinket attack runs around the tree. Never happened before. Unexed to you. It's never happened. So as you turn around, you go ahead and you point at the orc to the side with a flicker of kind of slightly shimmering white energy. You can see your attention, focus and the clarity

Chris flies on this one or. who kind of glances over at you returning the gaze. 19 attack. 19 attack does hit? Yes. And as the arrow is released from your bow, go ahead and roll damage. Plus the D-10 for the flame. Mm-hmm.

17. All ready. To hit. And then, um, yeah, 17 to hit and then Trinkets attacks. Yep. Roll twice for Trinket. As the arrow hits them on the chest area and burst into flames, like a knife. biting part of his shoulder.

As he looks down, you hear this guttural growl from around the corner as he glances over. Triggett comes jumping out of the shadows from behind the tree. Okay, Trinit. I never know what to look at because I never attacked with Trinquet. Okay. Attack bonus. That's 22 for one. 22 hits.

Roll for the second attack. The second one is 16. 16 just barely hits. Okay. Yes. Good. Really? Oh my goodness.

Trinckin's doing something. I know, you guys. Not just out in the wild. Does that mean can you bite twice? Can he bite twice? Yeah. Okay. He's going to do that.

Oh, wait. No one is going to be bite and one is going to be claws. Okay, go for it. And he done. Oh, and I did do Hunter's Mark on the previous one. Sure. Order slimmish, Hunter's Mark. There you go.

13, no, 12 for one attack. All right. And then. What did I just do? I did it wrong. That was wrong. What? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It's 11 for the first one.

11 for the first one. And then the second one. This is so new and exciting. And 12 for the second. All right. So as Trinket rushes around the corner with one claw, rocks hits him in the back of the shoulder, sending him onto the ground. The orc now its shoulder and flames is on its back.

Trinket leaps on top, reaches down, and with its jaws around its head, head just bites the head. Oh! As you see, the head kind of flip into the air, it pushes it in the claw and its jaws and crunches down on it. Yes, have a meal, buddy. Oh yeah, you want to cut on the cat?

Hell yeah, I do. Zara, it's your gully. All right, is that an orc right behind me? This is Vex right there. That's me. No, I can't see where I am because I'm... You're right here. Okay.

the three strongest orcs right now in terms? This one and these two here all look pretty untouched. All right. This one actually looks untouched four. There's one, two, three, four. And I can only hex one creature, is that correct? All right. I'm going to hex the one by in the back, sorry.

I'm going to hex him. Him, all right. Yes. And I'm going to encant agonizing blast and cast Eldridge Blast on. on those three. Oh, I've heard of any of these. Can I do, because there's three blasts that come from, yeah?

Well, Eldish Blatch is three different beams. Yeah. And that's just Eldish Blast for your turn. Or you can do Agonizing Blast. You choose one of you. Oh, I thought Agonizing Blast was a... Cantrip? Oh, it was one of your abilities?

Yeah. Oh, yeah. You can totally do that, yeah. I won't do that. I'd like to do that with my staff of dragon. You hold the staff forward, and for a second in your eyes, which normally vibrant, bright white, suddenly close with this,

like dark mist and then reveal, almost like a pale blue, like the moon of the sky. As you do, this hue of light blue energy begins to emanate from this orc right there. It kind of looks down confused as you pull your staff up and slam the ground with it as you do these three streaks of kind of pale, bluish, green, sickly energy. The world of Sonic the Hedgehog has been thrust into a not-so-dark, not-so-stormy, hard-boiled detective story that probably no one. Nobody saw coming. Follow Sonic and the Intrepid Chaotic's detective agency as they take on their biggest case yet.

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So come and join us wherever you listen to your podcast. You streak out towards it. Go ahead and roll three attacks. Oh my God, this is it. This is everything. Adding your spell bonus to each one. 13 and explicit iron. Yeah.

So 24. 24. That hits. What was a good one? Yeah. 30. Oh, okay. What?

And 21. You're adding the plus a plus a plus two to each of those. What should be, it should be, that hex? That's damage on the. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. So it's Aldrich Placic, it's plus 11. Right, okay, so what was the last one?

Uh, 21. They all hit. So go ahead and roll damage for each, and each does additional Heggs damage because it's three different hits. Yes, and the damage is one D10 plus seven times three. Uh, yes. Go ahead and roll that three times. I know it's too much more. So 1d10 plus seven, 1d10 plus seven.

Time to 10 plus seven. Okay. Oh, help me. That's a 12. Sorry. Sorry. It's all right, it's all right. Is that a 10?

She's a guest. I'm a guest. Oh, you know what? That's a. Oh, too late now. Next time. Two plus seven. Two plus seven is 10.

All right. Two plus seven is nine, thank you. Oh. 10. 10. 10 plus seven is 17. All righty. And five plus seven is that.

12. 12. And then add, roll a D6 three times, because each time you blast them, you do the additional hex damage. Two. All right, two. Six.

Eight total. Five. Whoa! Thirteen. It's like a hunter's mark all on your own. All right. So after the beam streak out, all three blasts simultaneously

into the torso area of the orc that's standing by Percy. It's kind of glaring out you with this look of surprise and fury and frustration, and before it could even try and mount any sort of attack, the three beams strike it in the chest. You can see this scattering of brackish liquid as the back of its torso is blown out. Yes! Shotgun blasts and it falls to the ground with this kind of gurgle in its throat, and for a second you swear you see the kind of glistening moonlight-colored energy that you had hexed upon it almost sucks the soul from its body, and then it dissipates into the

air above it. And thromatergy makes my eyes go fire. Wow. Big blast of flame. Great. So that will end your turn there. Yeah, you do really well. How was she so cool?

How was she so cool? She just changed the game. That'll bring us to Lyra. Are those, is that 30 feet? I'm going to die. As 5, 10, 15, 20, 20, 30. 30 foot is right there.

Okay. So who are the bad guys? This one, this one, and this one? This one, and this one, and these two there. Okay. So I'm like, ah! And then I'm like, oh, that was cool. Okay.

And I use my chain lightning. Not a chest explosion? And that, you have to do a save on that. That just automatically hits them like you said. Okay, so it's 10D8. To whom? Two. One guy, and then it's going to hit up to three people with three people with that.

than 30 feet. Oh, yeah. Are they within 30 feet? These two are not, but this guy is. So 10 plus 5 is 21 plus 24. 21 plus 24 is 45 points of damage to that guy and then it goes to the other people. Oh, this guy there. Yeah.

These guys are a little too far away, unfortunately. Look about that other. This guy is not. Okay, get that guy. So as you freak out, you back up and as an instinctual maneuver, you put it your fingers out, and there is a loud crackling sound as a condensed thunderstorm blasts forth from Lyra's hands. The orc that's threatening her and actually managed to try and strike you gives you this look of sudden pity before its entire upper body is fried instantly from

the rippling electricity that just destroys. You see all of its flesh is now curled back and cracking from the sheer amount of energy that's flowing through it. The bolt then streaks off and slams the one that you've dominated that was currently running the other direction, all of a sudden gets hit in the side. Oh, crap. However, maintains the domination. It did take half damage to that one, but this one is blown off the map. The other one over here is looking pretty rough.

Now it's hobbling forward currently with one of its legs ruined. You can see. You don't want to... It's pretty rough. It's having a rough day for him. Do you want to stay where you are? Do you want to move? Yeah, I'll stay with him. Wow, that worked.

Wow, that was amazing. That was amazing. I turned around and sort of barf because I just saw a guy's upper half that incinerated. So good incinerated. So good. I don't know. All right, top of the round. Percy, Grog.

You first are I, I'm going to start running towards Grog. How far can I get? About that far. And while I'm running, I'm just going to take, yeah, hello. Where are we? There we are. I was going to take two pot shots at. him as I'm running by. My dominated guy.

He's not going to live to see you. Oh no. And just because I don't really care, I'm going to take the negative, the sharpshooter plus damage negative to that. Okay. 16. 16 does hit. And I'll just do both right now.

All right. And... Oh my God. Did you need another 20 years? Yes. That's a very good dice. That is a very shot. You could spread them out over several games.

You don't have to... Thank you. A dragon soon, you know. No, this is phenomenal. I know, I've got such terrible things that are gonna happen to me because of all this good luck. So that's, I'll do the first one really quickly.

That's, that's 20 points of damage for the first shot. Leave none alive, my boy. The first shot smacks into its thigh and you can see where once there was a A leg. An actual functional thigh area is now a splintered femur that is exposed to one side of its leg, and you see it's barely keeping it stops standing. It roars out in pain as you fire again.

32 points. With the final bullet in your pepperbox's chamber, the six bullet, you fire the last round. You're going to make me change the sharpshooter thing by the end of this round. No, no, no, the sharpshooter works well as very easy. That's kind of spectacular. I keep rolling 20s. I keep rolling 20s. Okay, that's. That's what the dice does, man. It's worked poorly in your favor before. It's really poorly normal.

It's great when it works awesomely. Yeah, so with this kind of look of confusion as this orc that's trying to do the bidding of this gnome that- Protect our Goliath. It's trying desperately to go and protect Grog, but on the way there, it gets its leg blown out, and then suddenly it turns and the shot enters one side of its temple out the other, and there's just a very quick

sound as it falls to the ground motionless, motionless. and is no longer a living or... Good job, Percy. I sort of had that guy covered, but it's all good. It's all good. I'm coming, Grog! Grogh. Right, so for the gentleman that I'm facing right now,

I would like to take my first swing. All right. Well, all right. 24. 24, that hits. And that is... 19 points of damage. All right.

I'll take my second swing at him. Same guy? Same guy. All right. Go ahead and roll for that. 26. It's also 19 points of damage. So the first strike, you slam into his upper torso area and actually digs about four or five inches in.

He reaches up and grabs, like drops his weapon and grabs the axon tries to pull it out of his body. You however, reach up with your fist. and slam it down onto the axe, shoving it about five or six more inches. As you can see, his actual shoulder and arm kind of pull away from this and the pulse. As his eyes just roll back and he falls limp against the blade. With my third attack, I'd like to turn to his friend, grab him by the throat and go, it's death or target practice for my friends? Talk. Go ahead and make an intimidation roll.

Okay. And one. Yay! Uh, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, uh, the, the orc, looking at its current fate and the rather rapid destruction of his entire band. Toist, come. Anyone here speak orchish?

I speak orcish. Oh! So, my friend. What did you say? What did you say? You, you, you hear him say, uh, death may come. but the rest will find you. You come in before you are eaten.

Where do they live? We are. We had, we are simply passing through. We are in search of something. If you choose to help us, we may let you live. It may. And it is not one of yours. Do I make a persuasion rule?

What do I roll? 20. What do I have? What do I have to? Your persuasion. Nothing? Fuck yeah. What?

24. Okay. As you're speaking to him in his own language, is horrible. You guys hear these horrible guttural sounds. Almost as good as Keelis Giant. Almost. Almost. Oh, hello.

You can see a look of fear in his eyes start about the rest of the party. As they all begin stepping out of the firelight into the darkness surrounding him, he can kind of engage his scenario, looks down at the dead dire wolf, gives you another look and you still have the kind of the flaring blaze of your angry thaumaturgy eyes. It says in common, very broken common. Very well. I live. Whoa. You get this blood knox looking out the corner of his mouth. Is he going to like no one?

Can we see? She's truthful? Make an inside check. Oh, that's not my strengths. You can certainly try that. Oh, good. I rolled a four. Just two. He looks constipated? The best way you can read it?

Can I try as well? You're welcome to you. Consubes. You can serve briefly for the diet he usually eats. Yeah, what do you? Oh, okay. Next, you want to go ahead? 16 is what I wrote. 16.

I'm just regular. There was definitely intent for self-preservation, but but there is that fire-flight look in the eyes as well. Let me kill him. Well, let's find out about a dragon first. Oh, I can cast friend on him. What's that? No, because he'll know you're casting magic,

and then he'll come back at you. Will he? Will he do it too. Oh. Is that way it never worked on Outdoor? Yes. Well, he'll come back and attack you afterwards. How do you know?

I'm sure that's what it was. Friends, I can cast friends. With friends, however, friends has to be something that's not hostile. And you get the feeling that even though he's currently docile, it's probably a little hostile category. Okay, so I guess we'll just go with that. Suggestion only works, but mass suggestion.

Why don't we just ask him? Yeah, we got him. We got him. We can kill him in a second if we ask up. You know we can kill you. There's a dragon. Where is it? So we are looking for a dragon,

specifically a white dragon, and we know it is to the north. What? This beast, it's not bad. This beast, I see. in the sky takes those who do not hide. Look for the tallest mountain that way. And points up kind of the north area, a little ways off the road

and kind of the direction you're traveling. It takes refuge top of the mountain. There is no path, just hiding. How tall is the mountain, I'm sorry. I'm... I. of a secret passageway to get up to it? Only fools would try to scare our dragon's mountain.

Yeah, well, we're pretty stupid. Do you know of a path? It gives you a look of momentary indifference and kind of, no. He's given me fast. He is giving me sense. Yes, can we, what do we rule to? Well, he's, well, they're talking,

I'm gonna loop the other bodies. Okay, okay. As you glance around the corpses, you find not too much on them. They look like they've gathered from raiding other people that are passing on the road or just gathering about. You find 274 gold. Hey. Hey. Can you do your detect dragon here?

I can actually. Because I'm not quite there. I can most definitely detect the dragon. So you're saying that we need to not be out in the open? be out in the open because the dragon is attracted to things that are not hidden. Yes. I'm hungry and we'll take you. But that's your choice.

Have you ever seen it up close? No. Would you like to? You want to come with us? No. Then stop giving us sass. You say you keep me alive, but you walk towards death. Only the other way I end up at the

bottom. We walk towards glory. Did you see how fast we killed your friends? We're pretty amazing. Then go. Go and see your dragon. Do you know of any any more information on this dragon? At all, any weaknesses, anything. I'm gonna give you a look like I, he's unempty. He's giving you everything he's gonna give you. Well now you're on empty. I take my great axe and I chop off Oh, Grog! Oh, oh, right.

As you guys get, he looks so, he... No, wait, stop. Oh, now this is just not right. As the whole group gas, Grog just kind of shoves him back and whoosh! Okay. The head rolls, Hips a patch of snow and stops.

The body falls back and you see kind of dark blood begin to pour out of the rest of the body into the snow. Grog, you should have checked with our leader before you did that. Yes, most definitely. Okay, I think we're going to have to have a talk circle right now. Okay. Before then, does the orc, do any of the orc have any iron on them at all? Looking at them, there are bits and pieces of, whether it be iron weapons.

Like you can see a scavenged, if you, like some of the axes that were being used, have like an iron or a similar type metal that is scrapped out of those. Usually pretty beaten and not very well maintained. It doesn't matter. I just want the iron. If I can, whatever I can. I can. I say you can harvest the iron blades from three axes. Thank you.

They're in relatively poor condition, so you can mark that. All right. Sorry, Laura. Are we doing a talk, sir? I think we need to discuss the fact that that was just very inappropriate. I am here as a leader, and I think that that was just not right. We are better than that. We are. You did kill one of them too.

Lira, we are going to kill. We are on our way to kill something. Well, we had a deal. Well, you probably would have led his friends to us to kill us. As a leader, I choose not to pursue this anymore. but I will register my disapproval and I think we should just proceed I'm very I'm very Scallon can't you sing a song to make her very fast I could sing a song to make her feel better what she did want to at least she's not talking about Aldor so I don't care with this

you know I'll go over and I'll pick up the orchard and I walk it over to Lyra and I go I'm sorry you can keep this it won't happen without me asking again That's quite alright. No, really. Look, it's still got stuff in it. As you shakes it, you know, is you spattering across the I think we should just proceed. We should proceed everyone.

I'm gonna just cut out the tongue. I'm gonna try to see if there's a dragon within. That's a good idea. I want the tongue out of the head. Do we need the pelt of the dial-war? I put the old tongue in the bag of holding. All right. And the orchid.

With the lip. Now you're slowly... The lip is in my belt, baby. And I would like to extract the canines from the die-wool. The Dyer Wharf. All right, I'd like you to go ahead and make a nature check. What's that?

That's two attempts to harvest your creatures canals. Three. What do I do? Rolady 20 and add your nature check bonus. Oh, that sucks. Can I primeval awareness? Twelve. Okay.

As you begin taking a small dagger out from the inside of your book of useful things, you break one of the tubes in the process, unfortunately. You manage to a little. You could get one of them at least. So you do have one dire wolf canine. You can add to your items. That's good. And I would like to put my hands on the dire wolf and just thank it.

No other reason than I respect its life. Very well. I don't think he's going to answer. You know, it's not for you because of the dragon then. Time to be helpful. I understand. You take a moment in concentrate and concentrate and... And a six mile radius.

Currently, no dragon. It's still, oh, right. We've got another day's travel. Another day's travel. It's got to be 20 miles away. Should we keep sleeping or should we just pack it up now and go? It's still, it's probably like a good two or three in the morning.

Oh, let's go back to bed. Would you say a new day has passed? So I try for my beard again. We will once you get a full on rest. Shit. Let's fully rest. I'm going to make a leadership decision that hopefully everybody agrees with that we

We need more sleepy time. Is it okay to keep sleeping right here, or are they going to come search for us? Probably not more than what search for us. Probably not. I'm in my pajamas from going back to bed. I think that's a good call that I agree with as the leader of this group.

What's she saying? Are we always going to call it Sleepy Time? I'm just asking. I like to put labels on things. It's an OCD thing. Whatever you would like to call it. No, you're the leader. I shall accept whatever label you do.

Yes, Sleepy Time is the official name for it. Sleepy time it is. Thank you so much. Is it still my watch? It is still. You did your job. I'll take the next one. It's going to get us. And we can heal up, right?

So the rest of you guys, you go ahead and take your full evening's rest, at which point your hit points and spells are restored. Yeah. I'll go ahead and make a percentage roll. Come on, you big bearded bastard. 58. Nope. Bad, unfortunately.

But you still got that nice scruff. You did like half an inch to an inch of whatever that is. The dire blood all over my feet didn't stimulate the growth at all. Unfortunately, no. But blood looks black. Eventually you all complete your evening's rest. The rest of the watch us go about incident. The morning you wake up, and the cold air was pretty rough for a lot of you.

Thankfully, the fire was there to help. But you get the feeling that the further north you try the weather is going to become an issue, even with the warm clothing you currently have on. All right, so you guys step back to where your horses are currently... Oh, our horses are okay? Oh shit, we forgot about those. Thankfully, your horses were far enough away from the area where you were,

and the focus was not to make any noise when they came upon you, so the orcish party knew better than to attack the horses first. Oh, that's good. Or just do it a little spooked from the evening's events, But nevertheless, you get back on your horses, you continue up the glasswalk road. You had a question? I use beast speech to calm them.

Tell them everything shall be fine. You had just got all sorts of shit. And thank you for leading us where we need to go. We shall try and make sure that no harm comes to you. And immediately with that, the horses who are currently rattled and some of them are kind of being unresponsive to your attempts to mount them, settle down, come to a calm point and allow you all to

to get a top them without an issue. Being fully asleep, our cast, fought. All right. The irony is I was going to recommend dust of tracelessness, but that works too. They would never follow what that's meant. Doud of deterrents. Firm, thank you.

What do you want to do, man? Here. Does he sleep? Can we sleep? We can. No, we slept. We sleep. We sleep.

We're on. The next day. Next time. We ride. We ride. We ride. And I take the dust of tracelessness and are in the back. Do we have to run out of that stuff?

Never. No, it's an infinite supply. Wow. That is very convenient. Yeah, it is. It's really nice. And so as you're on your war horse, which as you can tell, the more and more you ride on it, the more it's starting to slow. And thankfully, you're keeping pace with the trinket.

It's having a hard time keeping the Goliath on its back for extensive writing. Can I give it a help? Let's just say it's probably going to be a little sway back by the end of this adventure. It's something that they need to ride you. It's okay for now. At some point you should give a break with the carpet. Yeah. I can't ride the carpet.

We don't have the carpet. Why did we have the carpet? Do we have the carpet? We gave the carpet. The other team has the carpet? I don't know them, but at its very stacked. That is upsetting. Yep, it is.

You guys continue traveling for your second day. Can fly. Why the hell did we give him the carpet? Sorry. Oh. It's all right. We don't need the crutch. Second day.

We're fine. Day two. And so anyway, so when I first met out there, he was he was talking my bodyguard, and it was so obvious that he was so capable when he walked in the room. How did he react when you first told him of your feelings?

I mean, it was not a good evening, but he was paid to be there, so he couldn't leave. That was what was good for me, because I was like. It's not. It's not. Did we make an agreement? I kill you, you kill me.

Yes. And suddenly he disappears and it's so funny that. Well, you're complicated. A few hours of travel and... No see, any extra guns. What? Learning the ins and outs of the extremely tumultuous history of Lyra and Aldor, you eventually come to a point where the clouds are beginning to darken.

And in the distance, you can see what looks like. You can see what looks like a very heavily obscured curtain of snowfall to the north, northwest. You get to a point of the glass walk road where a snow storm is starting to pour over into this vicinity. You guys kind of stop for a second and repackage yourself with your fur in heavy winter clothing. And even still, it's very, very chilly.

Like everybody, make a constitution, say? Are we still in the forest? You are nearing forest, yes. Or see, yeah, you'd consider it in forest area. Aren't I good, like, above 20,000 feet in really, really cold environments? Yes, you have a pan of terms. No, 20!

Sorry. They're so warm. So warm. We're coming with you for warm, apparently. You were like an oven. Let's drink it. 15. All right.

20. 4. 24. That's weird. Hey. Is it the Constitution saving throw or just the modifier? It's a constitution saving throw, so you roll twice and take the higher. 23?

I think it pretty sure that's how it works. I'll check here with the Goliath as the Mountain Born. Oh, you're just naturally depped to it, so you're fine. I've got my chest out, my nipples aren't even getting hard, it's amazing. Oddly, your face is a big cold because it's so bare and... You're a stick. That was a low blow. It was a low blow.

All right. If you managed to cut, Scanlan, mark yourself you have one level of fatigue. Oh, no. What's that mean? What's that mean? Fatigue. You go ahead and make sure. It's too much listening to, oh, sorry. Does he look cold?

I'm going to give him my stone. That was bullshit person. I'm going to give him my stone of resisting cold. What about you? It's okay. I'm a leader and a leader's out of justice. I can't let you do that. No, really.

Just take it. You listen to me so good. It's like my besties. I feel, I feel a connection. I do. You know, when you were telling me about. sexual at all, I'm not attracted to you. Like, literally, if it happened, I would be ill.

But it's really true. Believe me. You sexually, you repulse me. Thank you. Yeah, no, really. Oh my God, it's so busy right there. But really, as a friend, you were so nice. I feel like I'm like, I'm like some dishes. I've had some outdoors in my life, too. I wouldn't hear all about them.

Yes. Mainly, mainly they were whores who kicked me out early. Oh. But they, in a similar way, they disrespected me. I would see the truth scandal. Listen, the one time we were together, it was after I gave him armor, but he was not servicing me. Yes. You've been with him?

Of course. I told you all. Oh, look, we seem to be coming to something interesting in the room. I thought you went that as a metaphor. No, it was his birthday, and I bought him some very expensive custom armor that he, you said we had him on, which is, he obviously has feelings for him. He wouldn't wear that armor. It was 10,000 gold, and he just, he was very attracted to me that night, and we had intercourse, so my uncle is very... Intercourse.

right. Somehow you made it less sexual than I could have ever imagine. Is there a... Grom, what do you tell... What's the term for when your penis is inverted the opposite of the boner?

Belly buttons. Yeah, that's what I've got to have. Anyway, I was really certain after that moment that we would be together forever and I know if I saw him again. You know, men are fickle and when I... I'll have a talk to him. He kept the armor, so he has feelings. Let's move on.

Let's do it. Let's take the stone, your fatigue fades. You find yourself adjusting well to the cold climate. Thanks to your gift from your new leader and Conradice. Lead us not love her. All right, so as you guys pull off the side of the road and kind of use the cover of the forest to help from the snow that's beginning to hit even harder,

you gather there is in this vicinity an ever, like, kind of waxing and waning blizzard, that pours through. And you can see kind of a localized area that it's not really moving. You wait a good 20, 30 minutes to see if there's any movement, but the blizzard is not shifting from his location. Should we try to do the spell, locate dragon again? Just make sure it's at this top of the .

Sure. I will try it again. All right, you sit and concentrate for a moment, and nothing. Nothing. Wait. Oh, oh. Do it, it, hit the bridge? You sense a very, very small blip at the edge.

It's moving quickly. Oh, it's a dragon. It's a way. Where is it, which one? It's fast. You can sense it's not, you can sense its energy kind of up in the air. It's up in the air. At that point, you hear this distant, guttural howl.

We should hide. Just in case. How can we hide? It comes bursting out over the air. The wind begins to pick up, and, the snowfall begins to come ice. Oh. The rest of you guys have to duck yourself out of the way.

Everyone make a reflex, or sorry, a dexterity saving throw. Okay. I'm very good at that. What is this? What is that? 12. Okay. Eight?

13. 11. 16. 24. All right. All of you guys managed to find cover under the nearest tree and kind of the, where the bow of the force is at its strongest. You avoid most of the impact, Grog unfortunately, takes a good portion of slamming ice stone

damage, negligible for most damage you're used to, but you still take four points of bludgeoning damage from the falling ice. All right. As you guys are currently in this position, you can see barely through the very, very heavy snowfall a shape that moves over in the distance that circles around and then heads back. back, kind of a Western direction. Can I say, where do you? I'm kidding.

I'm kidding. Like, oh really? Thank you for that addendum. Not really. All of us are like, huh. I'm a sick sense of human. Can I see which direction it's going back towards the mountain? Yeah. Well, you look over in that direction and you can barely make it through bits of this,

as the storm kind of intensified and subside a little bit. You can see what looks to be. the gentle outline of a mountain range, maybe about 10 miles off from the road to the west of the road, into the forest itself. Great. We got to go in the forest. Okay, let's go.

It should provide us with some cover from the snow as well. But who knows what lurks in those woods? Well, I can also, you know, see what kind of greets are around. All right. Oh, yes. No, I can't. I can't see animals. Just kidding. Well, we don't really have a choice.

We have to get the dragon, and we have a time limit. You're the team leader. We need, now, there's really no other way to go. We have to go to the forest. Currently. Currently. Unless you guys have any of the plan, right now there is about 10 miles of forest

between you near the roadway and this mountain range where apparently the dragon has returned to. Great. Okay. Well, there's nothing else to be done. You just have to go as fast as we can. All right. I don't really have any other.

We can't fly us all of us, can you? I think I can fly up to nine, I don't. You can fly up to nine people. What? What kind of devil are you? Should we fly? Should we fly? Can you fly?

I can't fly, no, but maybe a Zarq. If we're flying, though I'm just going to put this out there, there's nowhere to hide if the dragon comes back out. I understand that I can also cast invisibility. Well, that's awesome. Well, that doesn't last as long. I can target one additional creature for each slug. creature for each slot level above third.

What does that mean? That means everything you cast as maximum level. It would be a fifth level, which means you could target three creatures with invisibility. Three creatures with invisibility and three creatures with fly. But is it at the same time or is it a concentration? It's a concentration either way. I will say as soon as you start thinking about flying and getting there,

you look up past where the trees are, flying in this weather would be a terrible idea. That's a terrible idea. You know what I was thinking, it might not be good. It might not be good. Let's just ride. We have the horses. We can't leave the horses behind. Ride? Okay. We still don't want it. We could. We just rented them for 50 bucks. Well, don't remind me of that. That was just a thing. All right, onward.

I'm still in the back doing the dust of . Dasty viny-no. Dastive-bye. As the flower girl picks up the back end, you guys treach on horseback into the heart of this section of the Vats for Timberlands. It is a very dense forest, and you find that any straight road path is not going to function as you're constantly having to weave in and out from thick tree trunks and heavy foliage that has kind of taken over the floor, plus a layer of snow that tends to encapsate the area,

and your movement is relatively restrained than this patient normally used to going. What bonuses do you have because of the forest terrain? I have. To the group's movement, if any? Yes, the movement is fine for all of the group. Thankfully, though, you have Vex guiding you on this path, and where it would be a very difficult experience pushing through this forest, especially with the time limit you have,

she is able to find the quickest paths to dodge any of the heavy areas that are dense with dangerous snowfall. I would also like to perception ahead and make sure that nothing is, you know, going to... Understood, understood. You can attack us again. Very good, very good call. All right.

In that regard, I would like you go ahead and make a perception check. Oh. There's something out there. That is lower than my passive perception, though, which is 21. Your passive perception? It's 21. And plus five, no, that's it, just 21.

But it's a 12 for right now. Okay. You keep an eye out as you continue to move forward. Oh, but I get to roll twice, though, because it's my favorite terrain. That's true, you do. You're managing that. When the cameraman laughs.

You know it's a good role. It's, no, that's not that bad. It was 15. Yeah. That's an improvement. It's a slight better than 12. That's right. 15 is indeed better than 12.

Things you learn watching critical roll ladies. Oh, you know. Blurning. Ding, ding, ding. So in following Vex through the forest, we've met up forth, about an hour of travel in, you, I know you gotta get going soon. How soon do you have to go?

We're calling a car. It's however soon it gets here. All right. Pushing forward, you eventually manage to avoid, it looks like a long frozen lake in the center of the forest with a series of heavily iced over stone ruins. Don't walk on this lake.

Okay, go. You move around and in the distance, you swear you see the glimmer of some sort of glowing entity in the midst of these ruins. And you manage to keep enough of a distance. Everyone make a stealth check on this. So roll at you 20 to add your stealth on fire. Add or take away.

Well, for you, for you would be taking away from your stealth roll. Great, that's great. Kung, kung, 11. 13. 13. 16. Grug? Stealth is 14.

14. 14. 13. 24. 11. All right. So, though clumsy in form, the group's able to pull you far enough away where they cover your bases on this. And this glowing entity doesn't seem to take notice of your passage, as it slowly fades into the stone ruins once again. You press on towards that.

Should we go check the glowing entity? What was it? Do I know? I know in Arcana or would be nature? For this, I'd say go ahead and make a religion check, actually. Oh, good, three. I don't know. It's 11. It's spooky, and you don't like it. I don't like that.

So let's keep going. Okay. You insist. Pushing forward, about another hour and a half, two hours, you eventually make it through the forest, dodging a few other areas where clustered vines and almost like thick brambles begin to close off portions of passage. Without Vex's help on this, it would be a very difficult element to traverse, but you manage to find areas you can cut through where the weak points and these various kind of interwoven nets of vine work are. You push through until the forest comes

to an end at the base of a giant tree-covered mountain that is currently coated in snow and ice. Looking about, you can see the highest spire is obscured by the very blizzard clouds ahead. There is heavy snowfall in this vicinity and your vision is semi-obscured past a certain area, only because of Vex's keen sight, are you able to even make up the details of that mountain disappearing into the blizzard? This is very much like calm for me. Anything along the bottom, the edge of the mountain that looks like it could open into a cavern.

There are a number of large rocks and boulders that seem to have tumbled off the mountain and kind of embedded themselves in the ground in sections. You do see what looks to be a cavern of some kind that is in the base of this mountain. It's about 20, 25 feet high and about 35 feet wide. Does it look like we can climb the mountain or the she? It's just too sheer.

Go ahead, make a perception check. check. Oh, good. This is my best. Oh, no, it's a nine. You, you've read about mountains. And you've seen many pictures of them. See one up close? They're a lot bigger than you thought they'd be. Very large mountain, guys. I'm not sure. I'd look, as a leader, I'd like to invite you guys to evaluate whether we could possibly climb this mountain. I would like to evaluate with a mountain. You're delegating. That's good thing.

So I'm proficient here, right? Do you check? You, I'd say for this, since you know mountain ranges pretty well, go ahead and make a wisdom check on this. Just add your wisdom modifier to the roll. Which is zero. 15. 15.

As you're kind of taking a moment to inspect it, you, your people, your actual race, being a mountain-born people, you look at it, and it could be scaled. it would be a dangerous climb, and you would need some semblance of simple climbing tools to do so. So we've got to make it come to us. Well, you could. Oh, that's smart.

We have the more. That's very smart. Or one of us could climb it and bring it down his bait. I don't think that sounds like a good idea. There's a cavern over there. Should we inspect it? Maybe there's some inner workings to get to the top. I think this conversation would be greatly improved

by some sort of cover. So give us to cover. I vote on going to investigate the cavern. Well, it's not a democracy, but that's okay. I'm totally up. You hear this heavy sound of wind rushing suddenly. Oh, God, get in the cavern, give in the cavern. Give it a cavern now.

Give the cavern! Let's see. Okay. Vex, on horseback, you look over and the snow that's kind of hitting your face, you see a dark shape begin to form in the snow. It gets larger and larger and larger. And you realize it's not something that's swelling or growing, it's something that's coming at you very fast and it's very large. You immediately try and turn your horse around, but it's too fast and it slams into the side of you, sending you off the horse and tumbling to the ground. You feel a heated pain in your side.

You haven't felt a long time in the impact. You guys watch as a... A boulder about that big of rock and ice just smacks into the side of you. Oh shit. You're kidding me, right? That sucked. Maybe it was just a random meteor. 30 points of bludgeoning damage. You're kidding me!

You're not knocked onto the ground. Oh my god, thanks. The rest of you who are currently on horseback see this, and from the direction of the forest, you see a large, very large, humanoid figure begin to step out of the forest. It's a giant. Oh, no. The slow voice kind of bellows out.

You can see on it thick, kind of snow-covered fur, patchwork hide armor. The skin itself is a dull bluish-gray in color. White eyes, a giant metallic horn would look like some sort of creature horns that are affixed inside of this helmet. A giant axe in its hand. This is indeed, and you recognize it immediately, this is a frost giant. You see it reached down and grab another boulder and begin to like kind of kind of to toss in its hand. As the rest of you see this, you hear another bellow.

Look, yeah. You speak giant, right? I do. You hear a voice coming from the cavern behind you saying, Intruder, taken down. No, no, no, no. Don't know! Out of the cavern behind you.

Shit. And that's where we're going to go ahead and end the session. We have to need two giants and a dragon? Aguwaga. Without, I'm damaged. I want one. Yes. She's damaged.

On the ground, you marked your damage because that carries over. I did. All right guys. Well, I know because you've got to leave soon and that'd be a good place to stop it for this point. This episode is brought to you by Netflix's remarkably bright creatures. What if a Pacific octopus held the key to a mystery that could heal your heart? Well, that's Tova's reality. An elderly widow working at an aquarium.

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