Critical Role & Sagas of Sundry - Vox Machina Ep. 62 - Uninviting Waters

Episode Date: January 10, 2022

With the Moonbrush behind them, Vox Machina presses on towards the rushing rivers of the Gilded Run that barricade the Shademirk Bog. Battling the enchanted currents, they stumble into a lurking foe whose hunger knows no bounds!   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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against Thorac the Cinder King and the rest of the Chroma Conclave. Defeating two of the members, three still remain, Thorac being the seeming powerhouse head of that troop. So now, deep in the Fay Wild, a crazy alternate dimension in which fay creatures rule landscape where up is down, everything's topsy-turvy and nothing is what it seems. They've made their way through the moonbrush. parlaid with a group of lichanthrope werewolf, where bears, wear tigers, and a group of

pixies and made a choice. The pixies now scattered and stapled to a number of trees within the forest. The leader of their troop, an extremely large, powerful werewolf lord named Ucrat, has pledged his aid to some degree in the near future should you need it as you travel duskward past the gilded run eventually to the source where apparently this bow Fenthrus exists in the shade Merk bog. And now we pick up where we last left off, the rest of you, after resting in the treetops on the outskirts of the duskward side of the moonbrush. You've come to consciousness, gathered your things,

escape the forest, and headed northward just beginning to see the cresting edge of the tangled river mass of the gilded run, and beyond that, the dark ominous shadow of the shade Merk bog. So, before you guys press anywhere forward, is there any preparation you want to take on your adventure? Preparation? Like straight up prep? Like you're about to travel for?

What do you want to do? First of all, are there any potion stores nearby? Roll an investigation check now. Okay. There are... Oh, 22. Oh. You strongly recall information that inform you that the

last bastion of true civilization has long past you south of where you originally came from. Well then I will just take a moment to just sort of blimber up for the day. Just stretch up. Just stretch up. Good, good. Actors squats.

Can I ask you a question? Since I was obviously out of commission for the whole last fight that happened. Your own fault, grog. It's not, I was being a politician. I was being like, has anybody hurt? Do we need to heal anybody before we go?

and these file flies mess with any of you. I think everyone's mostly fine. I think you were the only one who got the shitty into that deal. That's fucked up. And after a night's rest, sorry. I will say that Vax looks a little pierced. Vax looks a little bit of which of which Vax turns to you and goes,

yeah, I usually feel it that way. Shh, quiet. As you guys preparing for the morning, there is a strange sound like a simmering, high-pitched wine. And he goes, Two or three times you see these sudden bright flashes of light in your vicinity, and there's a burst of white light as outstepping from it, you see the somewhat corporeal, divine energy-based form of Pike-Trickfoot. Oh my God!

No, no, you are not supposed to trust anything in the Faye Wild. I swear it's me, I swear it's me. There's only one way to find out. I run up and I kiss her. It's her. It's her. Garmealy at this point, just kind of watching this whole circumstance, it's up to you and goes, it's good to see again. I don't know where you went away last time, but I hope you enjoyed the last sketched.

If you need any more, just let me know. I got plenty of paper. You look down and see the small fawn who you previously had commissioned to draw the fantastic spread of Pogsmokina. I really just love that piece that you did. It's amazing. Well, thank you kindly. You're so welcome. Let me know. Your forms closer to mine, so it's easy for me. to mine so it's easy for me to get a full view.

Snap. So are we going across the river then? Wait, there's a river? It's a pivot. Make a perception check. Yeah. Okay, the river, Keelein. First roll the night.

Ten. It's okay. Eighteen. Eighteen, okay. Glancing ahead of you, you see the hint of the peak of an ominous mountain range, slowly growing in the distance, at the base. of that you see a treacherous weave of powerful rivers rushing

past and around the exterior of the Shadenberg bog these large heavy trenches of water just kind of jamming and folding into each other you've heard of the gilded run and you've seen a few stationary rivers in the past but this is a cluster of perpetually rushing rapids that fill a rather sizable period of the land surrounding the actual Shadmirk bog and you can see just past at the edge of the bog itself these very very dark glistening almost like black oil caked tree canopies that kind of vanish into shadow beneath. That's a couple miles off.

But the rapids are like right there. You can see them maybe about a half mile in front of you, and you can see the spray occasionally kind of shooting off some of the rocks and the shore itself of the river just barely shows the speed of the water passing by. It's definitely not something we can just wade across, I'm assuming. We could fashion a crude canoe. go down. Lovely.

Can you part the... Or you could part the sea. Or I could just part the sea. That place. Can I, I'm going to take my staff and I kind of want to like, like feel how deep it is. Okay, so you decide to walk the half mile to make it to the river. I thought we were there. There's a lot going on.

Yeah, let's walk the half mile. It's a half mile. And it looks like a long river. Like there's no... It's a series of long rivers that completely wrap around the shade murk. One side it seems to be vanishing into the green sea, which you could just barely see to the far, far seaworth side of you. And it just curves around the outside of the shade murk and vanishes into the horizon. It's a river. It's a big river. It looks like a river,

at the very least. Don't trust a... Can I, can I a perception and see if there's any sort of creatures that are visible? Do you want to get closer to it first? Let's start walking. You know, let's walk. Sure, yeah, all right. You have a chaunty jog on your way towards the Gilded Run. A very short time passes before you begin to actually hear the waters in the distance. And as you begin to approach about 100 feet from the edge of the first stripe of river, and you can see some are tighter together, some of only a few feet between the rivers, some merge into even thicker roaring rapids.

They're all traveling from the seward side to the tangleword side. Laman's turns west east. How far in does it take to cross all of these little rivers? The rivers change in width. The smallest one you can see is maybe 10 feet across. Some of them swell to upwards 30, 40 feet, depending on which point you come across it. And what's the speed and roughness of the 10 foot? They're all pretty matching speed and they're pretty hefty.

You can see there are occasional rocks in the actual edges of the water form. They're just like spraying and causing the water to smash them to the side and split off around it. Any, there's nothing visible in the water, you know, drifting through, because most of it's destroyed in the process of crashing against the rocks on the sides of the bank. Let's find a nice mix of not too wide and not too rapidly and not too quick. And do what? And start thinking of a way across it and making sure that it's not magical or strange. Can we just fly? Vaxca.

I mean, I can. You can. Well, okay, and we know that. All right, do you want, brother, do you want to scout up ahead, maybe like fly up above the river and see down into the, into the oily? land. Both of us. Fine, I'll go ahead and give it a look, I suppose. Although you can fly any time you want if you wish.

Yes, I can. And I do. And I take my broom out. He seemingly ducks down into the actual grasses that you guys are standing in and vanishes and barely giving a small path as he disappears. I float above him on the broom. Occasionally see him glance up and kind of,

uh, loudly grumble. You are so hidden right now. I can't, I can barely even see you. So hidden. Appreciate the backup system. He keeps continuing forward. As you get to the edge of the water itself, he kind of looks into the side. And it's pretty clear the water, as you can see the bottom of it right there. And you can see kind of a deep set, blanket of greenish, brown algae-type plant life that kind of takes the bottom of the river floor.

The occasional stone protruding from it, and everything's kind of growing and pushed around it. He goes ahead and releases his Raven wings from his armor, which shoot out in a large, you know, 15-foot wingspan on each side. He jumps in the air and makes his way over the first short river and lands to the other side. Oh, I didn't, oh, okay, I fly up and I stay above him. I don't want to land on the ground. Okay, you glance over. His wings kind of fold behind him. He's like, was it so hard, sister? Really? You wasted your entire hour of flying for that? Oh, I got a backside. I like it.

As he scoots underneath your broom, as you're hovering on, and one of his wings catches the edge of it and flicks him to try and knock you off the broom. Go and make a quick strength check. A what check? Strength, my dear. Oh! I got a natural one. You just killed me.

As the edge of his wings smacks the back side of the broom, it spins out from under you, and for a moment you grasp the edge of the front of the broom. edge of the front of the broom and it slips from your fingers and you flick off, tumble to the ground, about ten feet, not too far. You take one point of damage from the impact, nothing huge. But as you roll to the side, your broom kind of scatters across the stones and dips partially into the river, which begins carrying it slowly. No, no, no, I pulled over and I grab it. You grab it and pull it out. As you turn back over, your brother's just sitting there with

his arms crossed, his wings still folded, smiling. I swing around and I hit him with the broom. Make an attack roll. Come on, come on. This is not with your bow, by the way. This is just adding your proficiency bonus. Oh. This is an improvised weapon.

Save disadvantage. Go ahead and roll again. Disadvantage? Yeah. Oh, come on. That was so much better than the first one. You're not provisioned really in attacking with brooms. 13.

13? Whosh. With a little. But an instant of reaction time, it passes a good solid foot and a half in front of his face. His wings furl a couple feathers kind of dangled down, and he just turns around and decides to go ahead and hop over the next bit of the river. I hate you sometimes. I know, sisters, he takes off. All right, I get on my broom again and I fly after him, like a loser.

Okay. As you coast up, any guys else, are anything, are you watching them scouting ahead? Mom, we're just watching them fly around. As you kind of scoot up to catch up to your brother, he's probably going 15 feet ahead of you. Bump, bum. There we're back. That was such a busy guest cop. Do not look behind the curtain. As you hop up after him, you notice his wings kind of go into a dive, and he ends up curving downward, at an alarming rate, diving

right into the river. I can't float down and try to grab him before we use the... I need you to make a wisdom safe? A wisdom saving throw? I knew it. Shit, balls, mother. Um, that's bad nine. Oh, shit.

As soon as you see your brother dive into the water, you begin to coast downward, and as you do, there's an impulse in your head that begins pushing and steering the broom lower, lower. And even in the back of your head, you sense, this is bad, and going far too steep. It's like you're outside of your physical body. The control is alleviated itself, and your body forces you

to splash into the river as well, both of you guys submerging yourself in the raging rapids. You guys see this from the distance with a splash of two impacts on the river side. Did we tell them to go fishing? I don't think they're trying to. Can we try to get out? Can we try to get out of the water? Okay.

We start running. Let's go save our front. There is a 10-foot river for you guys to traverse first before you get to them. Each of you are trying to leap across. Go ahead and make an athletics check. Trying to wait, wait, wait, wait. What if this river kills us all right now? I didn't say I was trying to leave across.

I said anyone who wants to try. Do you want to hop on the, in the, you want to, All right, Grog's got two gnomes on his back. Grog's got two gnomes on his back. Of course he does. That's perfect. Help! Rhyr-h! Oh, there's still like drowning, right?

Are we under water or are we like on top of the water? Are we just... All right, so... We're just dying. They're just gone. So, two gnomes on Grog's back, you grab both them, do a quick sprint and it'll leap. As heavy as you can, go ahead and make an athletics check.

I rolled a 25. Oh, that's good. That's way better. Much like how Hulk escapes a fray, foo-foo! Watch as Grog just bounds into the air at a large arc, slamming the other side, causing the stones on the outskirts of the riverbed to crack beneath him. You stand back up, proud of yourself. Pike and Scanlan, you're a little jostled from the impact.

That was so fun! I do, right. I think I landed on my keys. I made it. And I rolled a nine. You smile as you hear a spooosh behind you. Percival getting right up to the edge and leaping as his foot catches a stone and goes right into the smaller rapid being carried as well.

So the people who are in the water are they all being like dragged under? We can just not see them anymore? If you take a moment to watch, you begin... Percy? I think I'm fine. The three who've been pulled into the river, that includes you, Vixalia, Vaxvedan, and Percy. I need you guys to make a Constitution check. Constitution?

Yes. Why does everything here hate us? This is awesome. Oh, Jesus. All right. You're going to die live. Ten. Why am I wrong?

Fourteen. Okay. You managed to pull yourself up to the surface. Oh, you almost get to the point of actually. getting some air and a force pulls you back under. Percy, oh! Um... However, Percy, you do maintain the breath in your lungs.

You and your brother both... Can I... Oh, Jesus. Give away a bulk of the air and you can fill yourself in the beginning spasms of drowning. Can I cast grasping bind from the side of the river and try to pull, like, catch myself? You know what? Yes, you can. In the aspects of this sequence, though, it is a difficult job to cast this.

I will say, is it a concentration check or not? I don't know. I didn't write that. You're asking a bonus action, yo. It's a bonus action. But is it a concentration spell? Maybe. That is the difference.

I don't have my card because we're traveling. Matt, how far are they from me? From you, from you guys out there? There may be 25 feet from there. No, it's not? No, wait, wait, wait. No, it is. Sorry.

That's all right. So I need you to go ahead and roll another constitution check. Another one. Roll better. I'm scared of all my dice. That's because you have 100 of them. Oh, no, that's good. That's good! 19! Okay, so yes, as the rapids...

As the rapids are rushing by, you've opened your eyes and the sting of the very high-power water, hitting your eyeballs, causes you to have a hard time even seeing what's up and down, as you glance up to wear the little bit of light from the ever-y-y-brown. little bit of light from the ever-dust sky of the Faye Wild, pulls your attention. You put your hand out, and using that burst of ranger, magical energy, you watch as the undergrowth of the river itself stretch out and form this strange, slimy mass of vine that wraps around you and yanks you out of the water surface, slamming onto the ground just outside of the river.

That's my broom. That's my broom that I'm holding up in my hand. Hey! So the river doesn't hate magic? I don't know. All right. Where's my brother? Where's Vax? I'm going to go ahead and cast Control Water.

Where do I see Percy? Where was Percy? You see Percy? Is Percy and Vaxe together? No, no. Vax is in the next river over. Percy is about maybe 20 feet from you, but it's quickly being rushed down the river.

Vax is or Percy? Percy. Okay, so first I'm going to control water and I'm going to just stop the flow of current. Okay. and see if I can get it to like, like burp out Percy. Okay. Just pat it in the back.

I'm going to burp the river. It's okay, Guildebron. It's okay. All right, perfect. So, as you see this in the influx, you see a vex to get kind of thrown out of the river. You see Percy's hang get pulled back under as the river pulls them along at a very fast speed. You concentrate. And as you put your fingers forward, you see the rapid river begin to slow down at a certain point. And it's almost like an invisible dam gets held up

as the waters continue to full out and carry him a little bit further, and it slowly descends to leave him on an empty bank of water, as the rest of it slowly seeps to a much lower level. You catch your breath, Percy. However, I need you to go ahead and make a wisdom check as this is a very, very powerful, magically enforced river, and it's currently combating

the straight-in-thrope- No, this is keyless, so just make a wisdom. Oh! Never mind. No, okay, yeah. Wait, what? Just a straight-wis- Just a wisdom check.

Oh, no, oh no! On these dice today! Wait, hold on! Hold on, I've got this. I've got this. Quick, everyone. Oh, what's that over there? Oh, shrimp tea. Oh, that's...

What was it? Was it a one? No? No. You did? Wow. All right. Feeling confident in your juitic ways,

but unfortunately not yet undergone the formal training of the Water Ashari. the actual forceful wave of the river begins to push back your control over that beam and then Cascades down picking Percy once again back up Oh no 30 feet down the stream you are at the surface at the moment though you are not considered drowning you're not drowning your brother Not doing so hot as he's gonna hear I can I send the vine to him Uh well before you get to that the three of you guys now get to act so grog I'm gonna step forward and inspire myself because

I sing to myself, Scanlan Short Holt, I'm a gnome. My name is Scanlan Short-Hort-I'm a gnome. I'm a gnome. Chicks I haven't boned. But just you wait. Just you wait. You can go and take your inspiration guy. And then I will cast Bigby's hand.

Yes. Bigby's hand! Because we're in the symphony. And I'm going to grab Vax and just sort of toss them out of the river. Okay, okay. So taking Bigby's hand, I need you to go ahead and make a strength check for Bigby's hand. If you could. Oh, what does he get?

What does Bigby get? Wait, I'm going, I'm going. It's a different guy. He's like a whole guy who's not quite his hands. Whenever you rolled, you rolled out of plus eight to it. Okay, 25. 25. You watch his Bigby's hand,

plunges into the river itself, vanishes for a few moments, and then like a reverse cannonball, out of the water, coming, curving around, and at an incredible speed, looks like it's about to spike vacs onto the water side, before slowing down and... Limply dropping them on the surface, or on the edge of the bankfront.

I just give him a little pat on the head. Which is good, because the pat actually forces the water out his lungs oh no flight no flight no flight no flight for one grog grab percy yes me grab percy I take the uh the alchemy jug oh go and I turn it upside down like a diving bell and I put it over my head I take the I take the chain of returning and I wrap it around my waist and I hand the other end to pipe because she's got the ogre Gotlets? And I'll wade into the river to go get Percy.

Okay. I'll say it is your turn to actually, because he moved quite a bit down the river, but you have a pretty high movement rate as a barbarian. So you grab it, you tie the chain around yourself at your full movement speed, and you get to the very edge of the bank and begin to wait in just as you pull the jar over your head, and that's going to be the end of your action there. Okay. Pike, you're holding him at the edge.

You need you to go ahead and make a strength check if you could. I got you, buddy. Come on, monster. Oh. Wait, hold on. Where did it go? Sorry, I forgot out of play. I believe it's a plus four.

Oh, 18. 18. Without an issue, you watch as this giant anchor of a man is being held solid by this tiny rock of a no-ish player. Yes! Thank you. You see your teeth... Watches her teeth bite down and her tongue kind of sticks out the edge. She kind of digs her feet into the bottom of the river rock.

Percy, you see a dark form in the river as you're rushing past. They need you to go ahead and make a perception check with disadvantage as you're being drawn. Perception check with disadvantage? This is a perception check? Yeah. I want to try the new guy. That's a, ah, it's not that bad.

That's a, where's my perception? There is 14. 14. Okay, just as you see this strange dark form appear out of the way, you instinctively sweep your hand out and you smack and catch the edge of Grog's pants. Pants. He has pants? Pants? He doesn't wear pants.

He doesn't wear pants. And you just catch it, Grog, you see the hand emerge and you catch the edge of it and you pull him just up out of the river and he's now, now caught his breath, he's no longer beneath the surface. You guys are still kind of being pulled now by the water. Your feet are beginning to kind of fall out from under you as the rocks that are actually holding you up are being kind of pulled along by the force of the river. And it seems the longer you're in the river, the stronger it's getting. Cross the river. Oh shit. Oh, Pike!

Oh, God him! All right. I need you to roll another strength check, Pike, as you pull them in. There is a little more weight on there, so the DC is going to be a little higher. Go ahead and roll. 21. Can I quickly inspire her? If you want to, yeah. I turn to her and I sing,

Repairing up your heart when she heals you. And when you are a bard, you feel it too. And no matter what you do, she heals the pain, and she's pretty too. Tin cider, tin cider. 10 cider. She did. She did a 10-siter. Oh, I thought that was an 8-sider. She's digging out, so go ahead and add your... Oh, good.

Oh, it's the same. Or is that this way? That's good. That's better. 15? 15. Yeah. I rolled, originally rolled a two. Oh. Even with the fantastic rhymes of Scanlon's voice,

when you're in your ears, and you're holding tight, you feel your heels, heels begin to scrape as the river rush is pulling you now towards the river. Rog and Percy you feel yourself actually being brought deeper into the center of the river. Cross the river. Cross the river. Can I try again with the current? It's a concentration spell of 10 minutes. Yeah you do so coming back to Keelith at this point. Oh my God. Who has the rock? Even the water's angry. Ah, Keele if I'd like you to go ahead and make another wisdom check if you could.

Come on then, come on. Roll good. I'm gonna try to dig in and pull. Oh, okay, that's better, that's better. Just straight wisdom? Oh, what was that? Shit. A saving throw, or just a check? Just a check.

16. 16, that's better. As you guys are being swept away, you feel the current begin to subside slowly, and Pike, once again, you get your ankles dug in. You begin to pull on this, between the two of you and the concentration of Keylift. You managed to wrestle Grog and Percy's forms

out of the river, onto the bank. Now you guys are between the terrain. We defeated a creek. It's not a big. We didn't actually even defeat it. No, we haven't started. There's like 50 more creeks in front of us. Me and backs are on one side, and everyone else is on the other then?

Yes. Hmm. Fuck. There are a couple of small trees that are kind of planted, you know, or grown up between the river banks, and you can still hear the rapids rushing past. How many more rivers would we have to cross? Looking ahead of you, there's probably 12. Let's just go home. Let's just go home.

Let's just go home. Go home. Okay. That was very clever with the pot, by the way. Yeah, well. It was very clever. I figured if anything was going to hit me in the head, it would the jug first. That was a good idea.

That was less clever, but still very good. What if you were to throw your chain or if we could throw the rope across the river to... But actually, I'm just going to use my earrings, I'd have to shout, you know. Oh yeah, no, that's better. You're welcome. I just feel like when I was crossing the river, I wanted to kill myself, sort of. And I'm afraid that anybody else crossing the river is going to feel the same thing. Oh, no, Max has already crossed. We're not going to feel the eggs coming out.

Yeah, it's super depressed. Sorry. That makes sense, really. The experience when you were trying to cross over was reminiscent of that urge to jump whenever you're near the edge, that weird, sort of very, very base impulse, whenever you get to a point of danger that she says, what, do it, do it, do it. It's like that being triggered and preyed upon. It's a river of impulses.

Let's... Such an allegory for so many things. I know. Here's a thought. We take the rope. We tie ourselves to it. Yes. We toss it over to the two of you.

Yes. We start using it to wade. You help pull us over. Everybody would have to be terrible for everything to go. Everybody will be fighting together to get across. We could attach the rope to the immovable rod, like just put it in the ground. We give them the immovable rod. We give them the immovable rod.

I think I have it. I thought Grog had it, but I think I might have picked it up after... As long as we're tied together, we can only go so far. It'll be like mountain climbing. But that just gets across one, right? I think they're across total. How wide is this second river between... There are two rivers, so. How wide's the second river between us and back? Go ahead and you guys about 20 feet across.

20 feet. Oh, man. No, there's 10 more rivers. There's so many rivers. Okay. Are we just become mist form? Are our minds affected when we're missed form? Yeah.

Oh, well, I'm sure it can... Is it? Are we? I didn't learn mist form today. Fuck it. What if we just made a boat? Oh yeah, a boat. And they just floated down the river?

They're rapids. Terrible idea. The rapids... That sounds like a terrible idea by the look of his face. He's already looked like all the rivers are connected? It looks like some of them swell between each other and then split off again. Some are solitary from your current position that you can see, but you only have what's immediately needed. have what's immediately near you to really see.

And since some of these are hills, and it kind of carves in the part of these hills, you don't have a complete view of how they intertwined and merge beyond the immediate hillsides. Hey, Gamaliy. Yeah, where's he? He's back on the other side. Like, um.

Hi. Agamili. Now, please. Have you heard any stories about how people crossed these damn rivers before? I told you I've heard about this land. I haven't actually. been here. I know, so tell me what you've heard. Whoa. It's dangerous and it keeps the

shade mark from spreading. Cool. Garmilie, hop in the river. Do you still no? Has my minute of hand worn off yet? I'd say it's getting towards the end of All right, I'm gonna take Garmenele and throw him across as many rivers. Go ahead and make a strength check. 25 again. Being a small and relatively lightweight fake reacher, but also smug in his standing position after proclaiming his negative approach to Grog's idea, he doesn't quite notice the spiraling purple hand that swings up from behind,

grasping him and lifting him into the air with an incredible speed. All you hear is the distant... As the hand then, like full on fastball special, just chucks him. Arking overhead, a little plume of dust. Did he make it? Did he make it? How far did he get? He made it past five of them. And also suffer 22 points of damage. Is he alive?

There's a long awkward pause as you see no movement. movement. Oh God, I think I just killed him. Scandem, you're such a dick! That was a little harm. Which gets more and more awkward the longer it goes by. Oh, God. Until eventually you see a shift, and this small form rise up,

raises a thumb, which quickly transitions into a middle finger. Yeah. He's fine. He's fine. He's fine. He's doing great. Standing, Keyleth, if I had magic, I would just freeze all the water. So go ahead and do that.

If Biggs' hand had about a minute or, you know, 10 seconds left, I've got about nine minutes left on this control water spell. So why don't we try and move as fast as possible? All right, then do it. The chain and maybe the immovable rod. Let's go. You guys go first, and I'm going to try and halt the flow of as many rumors. Mega wisdom check if could.

Oh, geez. Come on. Come on, you stupid opal dice. Ah! Is that a natural 20? Is it a natural 20 or...? No, it's another fucking one! Useless!

Hold on, hold on. Put it away, Keylet, put it away for the rest of the night. I spent so much money on it. It's got to reset. You gotta reset. You gotta retire that, bitch. It's not problem. It's not.

Vanish it. Put it in that box. Put it in its dice jail. You, you, you, Percy! I do. Don't touch my dice, Percy! So, as you guys begin to prepare your attempt across the river, Heelith concentrates, the river stalls for a moment,

and then just pushes past. So we have affected. Mind you, the spell does seem to have an effect when you're having a better time concentrating, but it is an actual, it is a magical force versus a magical force. And you can see it actually angrily swells against the resistance, and that's where the actual tension comes from. There is something living, like an entity,

that these rivers seem to almost mingle as. Are there a bunch of trees? Are there a bunch of trees? There are a few sporadic trees scattered around. How tall are they? They're not that tall. Some are maybe 15, 20 feet up. Fuck.

They're, you know, this area, these trees specifically are a little more kind of marsh-based and they're, they're not quite swamp-based trees, but that's as tall as they get. They're not like a crazy big forest. No, these are like maybe five feet wide. Oh. My feet, we could jump across them?

Oh, the rivers, sorry. The trees are five feet wide. I misunderstood. Yeah. Uh, yes. The actual rivers are between 10 to 20 feet. Do you have trees stride? I do, but I can only cast that on myself.

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We can use the transport via, sorry. Transport via plants. Teleport via plants, which I did not bring today. Okay, cool. What did you bring today? You know, I brought control water, grog. And the funk, apparently. The total distance from us, too.

the end of the 12th River is how far? Probably close to 250 feet. We can do that in five minutes. So I can make it with pike super fast. How? Dimension door. Oh! But the rest of you are fucked.

No, no, no. No, no, this is really good. This is good because with the immovable rod... I can set it. You can set it. And forget it. You set it and forget it. Can you set it?

And then tie maybe the... And tie the endless rope... ...to it. And then I'm not sure how... And then you teleport back to your side. No? How's that going to work? I don't know.

You're... Wait, if we dimension door, what if you turn into an animal to fly? And then you have a broom and someone can ride your door? Yeah, but it made me... I can't swim. It wanted... I could potentially turn us into animals that can swim,

which is why I was wondering if the rivers were connected. Maybe we can jump, like salmon going up street, you know? It's a try. Don't tell Trinket. Oh. Trinket is safe in this necklace right now. Can you like, can you raise Earth?

Can you make like a dam? I can, and I did bring move Earth as well as well of stone. To be totally honest, I am terrified of messing with the grounds. I'm afraid if I move the Earth, it will eat me. It will split open and just, I mean, I could try it. So wait, did I hear right that these rivers are alive? What did I hear?

They're magical rivers. I'm gonna chop down a tree. You're gonna chop down a tree. Wrong. It's picked a flower and the entire world and everything. Wait, wait, wait. We are getting nowhere super fast. Easy plan, easy pizeezy.

Teleport immovable rock with the movable rock. Sure. Yeah. You shoot one under the air on the head. Oh, what I'm looking for that? Everything's easy, easy. All right. I'm so stupid.

Why did we think about that? I don't know. You're so smart person. You take the eternal string or whatever it's called. I have the eternal string and I have the rod. Okay. Can I walk over to a tree just in case their plan fails? I want to start chopping.

No, just wait. Let him. You come to one nearby trees at the edge. You can see across the way. It looks like there's part of a crumpled stone kind of corner, some long, glavinated ruin. You can see what looks to be one dry. tree log that has fallen over and just kind of rot on the other side. But there's one tree

right at the edge of the bank that you guys are on that leads across this next third river that is pretty solid looking, maybe, you know, four feet and thickness there. Don't do it yet, Grog. Don't do it, Grog. Don't do it, Grog! I hope your stupid plan works. Hey, Grog. We almost died because I picked a flower.

Just throwing it out there. I'm just super bored, so do your plan. All right. I'm just starting the rope to... I'm tying the rope to an arrow. I'm tying the rope to an arrow. Tying the rope to an arrow? Yeah.

Okay. You have at this point probably a good seven minutes left. Of the control water? Correct. All right, let's do this and oh, wait. Are you going to teleport and then we're going to try to do that? Sure, let's do it. I'll try.

So you teleport first, I'll shoot the arrow, see if I can actually get it to stick over there and then, and then you can do that. Okay. Mike, you with me? Yep. Hand in hand. Hand and hand.

Here we go. Good luck. I dimensioned us across the river. Okay. As you guys grasp hands, both of them vanish in a swirl of purplish pink smoke. You see at simultaneously across all the banks right at the edge of the Shadmark, this little burst of energy. You guys land on the ground immediately your feet sinking about three inches into this black sludge-like tar material.

Already you can smell the outskirts of the Shade, this very like, like, sulfurous kind of this decay smell that just kind of permeates the ground by, and you can see it seeping into the river like a slow-moving morass syrup and the water just carries it away upstream like a like an angry force of cleaning It's a little sludgy where you stand but you guys are across all right I shoot an arrow at me all right I shoot an arrow Oh wait wait wait a door Pretty close to him long shot I'm really I have a really long roll and attack

I'm just going to shoot a couple arrows just to be sure. A couple of them. I instinctively cover my neck. 17. 17. 17. Yeah. What did you roll? Five.

Okay. It's making sure. Yeah. Because ones are always fun for situations. Oh, no, no. I didn't roll away. No. All right.

So you fire the arrow. It goes a little wide while you're kind of aiming in the proximity of scandal. It's the rope. It just is a little weighted. Kind of arc off. staples to one of the outside trees sticking in. The rope goes laxom, being in the water. And you can see the tension, as the river itself

seems to be trying to pull the rope underneath the rapids. I hold the other side of the rope. OK, you begin pulling it up, and it's hard to pull up. The actual river is almost pulling the rope under its surface. I grab it too. All right, so you guys, I need both of you guys to go ahead and make strength checks together. Can I try and stop the currents once we've been?

Suppressed it. What's the range of control water? 300 feet. Yeah, you can do that. Okay. Calm water's cool. And hook it to the immovable rod there. Oh, yeah.

Oh, I forgot that whole part of the plane. Oh, oh. What the hell? Oh my God. What are you doing? What are you doing? No. No.

You can't use it anymore. You're not allowed to use that dice anymore. Just throw it offstage. Just throw it. No. Not giving you all that dice. What the hell? Say it.

Say it. One one. Come on. It was a one. Yeah. It's a fucking one. I figure. All right, so what did you guys roll for your strength checks? Oh, for strength checks.

I rolled, um... As there has been no druidigate, unfortunately, in this particular moment. Four, oh. Oh, Pipe. Do you know any sailors' notes? Percy, what'd you roll for strength? I sure do. Can you tie a sailor knot around this? I sure can.

Which one? The swirly-whorley. Oh. So as the two of you rush over, the 30 feet of the tree. It's my personal favorite. The tree with the rope is stapled to right now. It's kind of taught you can see it starting to kind of break the arrow as the actual strength

of the rope being pulled into the river. Percy, what's your role for strength? Oh, that's good. I rolled a 10. I'm not that strong. We are so weak. That's fine. It's fine.

It's okay. Between the two of you guys, you managed to slowly pull it out of most of the rapids. It's still kind of being dragged by one. It takes you about another minute or so, but you managed to do. to get the rope entirely taught against the edge of the arrow. Pike, you catching the actual rope on the other side before that arrow snaps and carries it back by the strength of their pool.

So you take it, you go ahead and make a little knot. I think it's really worley. That's strong. From your experience as a sailor to the movable rod, and it is solid and in place. Yes. So I tie the rope to myself. Yeah, we should each tie the rope, yeah.

I'll tie the rope off. I'll tie the rope off. Grog. You're on the end there with the rope. No, I'm gonna cut down this fucking rope. No! No! Do it!

All right, fine, fine, fine, I'll help. But we're gonna tie a rope to you. Oh, around me. Yeah, around all of us. Yeah, so Keelith too, you get a rope as well. You get a rope, you get a rope. We all get ropes. You should be in front, and then the rest of us.

Oh, okay, sure. Don't forget that. And Vax, of course, obviously, my brother, who is standing right here very stealthily. Being so helpful. Yeah. He kind of looks to you and his wings, he lets them dissipate as I'm not going to be much of help in this moment. No, enough.

You want to be tied to the rope. I want to be tied close to you at least. He goes ahead and shimmy's over as you guys all kind of, so you guys are all tying yourselves like a, like a daisy chain at the back of the road. Yeah, yeah, you know, like you do. All right. And once you've all fixed it, what is the order in which you guys are fixed? Oh, geez. I'm just curious.

He's just curious. I'll be in the front. I'll be in the front. I think, I think it's, it's solid. Then Percy. Then Percy. Vax, Vax. He lives.

And then leave a little slack for Gormili at the end. Oh, right, because we've got to pick him up on the way through. He's in between the two of you guys right now. We're on the way to you, Garmilie. Don't worry. Good. Yeah. He looks over the shoulder, Scanlan, it goes, good.

So you guys all begin to pull yourselves forward on the rope, taking your time to make sure if anything bad happens, you take a moment to pause and help out your friends. I need all, everyone is on the edge of that rope, just go ahead and make a general athletics check. Everybody holding on the rope? Just a general aphoth. Everybody who's currently tied onto the rope,

so not the noes. Athletics? Yes. 20. Yes. That's acceptable. Athletics. Athletics.

13. Are we in any kind of favorite terrain right now? Only for Aquaman is this different terrain? No. I'm going to say no. Rivers are. Okay, cool. 11 there.

11 there are at the with a dice in the ad. Adam right there. So that's 20, what did you? 22. 22, okay. So. Nice. Nice.

Nice. Make it a comeback. You guys being to pull yourself forward, the two half-off twins in their physical waiflike state. Begin to find themselves being carried hard down the first, second, and third progressive rivers as you guys pull through, but you end up the slack and get them back on the land each time. It slowed down your progress. You only have three more minutes on your spell for preparation.

And Keyless just got like angry tears of frustration in the back as she's trying to control the water. I'm trying to just runny eyeliner like it's 2001. You just hold on. So you managed to make it across the next six or so rivers. You get to where Garmili is sitting there just tapping his little hoof impatiently. Tie yourself on there, Gaumeeley. Just tie it on. He looks up at the rope, which is like basically head level.

And just not, give me some slack. Thanks. He kind of wraps it around his midsection, ties it up, and it's uncomfortably tight, because as soon as you guys start moving, it kind of pulls it on his midsection. And he's actually, when it's pulled Todd, because of his size, he's actually lifted up between you guys. So his feet dangling, he kind of like, he's kind of top-heavy, and how it ties you kind of, you kind of, eh, kind of rotate.

His feet are kind of in the air. You bring yourself over to the eighth, the ninth river, finally traversed. A few of the scary moments. Kiel, I want you to go ahead and make a wisdom check again to see if you can aid this next length. Is this one? Fuck you, no. It's a 19. 19, total 19.

Harding the inspiration of frustration of frustration. of frustration at your recent failures to control the elements that you've been so hoping to learn to bring to your beck and call. You look forward at what would be the third to last river and your guys progress forward and angrily just do this with your hands. You guys watch as the river like a paper

is just torn asunder the water held at bay. Oh no. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Run.

Let's run. Let's run. Let's go. You guys run down the bank stepping over as you start to reach the other side of the bank Grog your heavy foot hit something that seems to react to the impact of your weight Like a thing like a what like a thing like a you guys make your way up the edge of the river as you Glance over the side you see something in the mud just kind of No

I stepped on a catfish Let's get it. Get up and out. Up and out. As you guys all get across the water, slams back, continuing to flow with the river. Angrily, it roars and seems to almost swell up over the banquet once was before it slowly descends back to its natural rushing rapid. Oh, that's a really big catfish. There are two more rivers now. Oh, geez.

There's this one right before you and then the one that separates you from Scanlon and Pinet. Are they multiplying? No, you've got 12 ahead of you before. Oh, no, it's because we got them wet. There were roughly 12 ahead of you when you asked. You guys have now traversed nine of them, ten of them, and so there's only really two more left at this point. So, uh, Kyelh.

I believe in you. There's still time? Oh, geez. I didn't mean to do that. I didn't mean you, I was really nervous. Oh, wow. So 25. 25, great.

Well, do you know what, Percy? No, I'm just going to stop. I'm just going to kind of talk. I'm going to be like, look, River. You know, I'm your friend. I don't want any tension between us. Just trying to make it across you, you know? The actual near growl of the rapids

begins to slowly subside in the river before you as the water just sinks down into a slower, more gentle pace. You could see it kind of building up and backing up behind you as the river here comes to a soft, cool dip that you guys begin to walk through as well. It's a good river. Good boy. Good boy.

Can I keep an eye out for whatever I stepped on in the river? Yeah, make perception check. Six. Zero. And so, Groh, being in the front of the troop, as the river is slowly separated for this, you step down into the mud and you don't notice a similar shift kind of curl up behind you as suddenly a rapid...

A set of gargantuan long tooth-filled jaws come pouring out of the mud underneath the bank snapping towards your large half-giant form. That is a... That is a 22 to hit. I believe that hits are overclass. That'll hit. All righty. Oh no.

First real attack damage of the night's episode. How can we never notice the battle map has a river on it? Oh, no. I said two more rivers. You suffer 27 points of piercing damage. Yikes. Oh, geez. As you, Grog, are suddenly grappled.

The jaws have actually latched onto your midsection and hold you. You guys look ahead as you see this form, this spray of dark, grimy mud, and a river bottom muck gets just flung into the air. And looking, you see what looks to be a far larger than you've ever seen before, for crocodile-like entity has come bursting out from another river. Oh God, we're in Florida.

As you see, the sheer force of the impact pushes him forward and actually carries him onto the other side of the river in doing so, dragging all of you behind him in a rapid pace. We're across! Most of you go flying at an arc at the sheer force of this impact. I need you guys to make acrobatics checks to try and stop yourself. Stop yourself. It's not a catfish!

It's not a catfish! That's good. Acrobatics? Acrobatics. Oh. That's my jam. 27. 15.

All right. 28. All right. 21. All right. And your brother does well. Of course he does. You guys homage to catch yourselves right now,

still attached by the rope, as you now see this heaping probably 15 to 20 foot long, giant barrel of mum. green scaled skin, but what looks to be hundreds of tiny roots that spread from the center of its midsection reaching into the ground, like as it begins to move forward, it's actually rooting and uprooting itself as it moves. You can see the actual moisture and the life force of the land is like pulsing into its form as it holds grog and its jaws. I need you all to roll initiative. Oh

Shmikes. Wait, where are we? Where are the gnomes? You guys are way over here on the edge. Oh no! Where are they? Where are they? Where are they?

I wrote really poorly. No, we have to go back. So we had to go back. To the future. We have to go back. So please remind me the marching order again if I would call it was Grog. Me. Groghawg, Percy, thank you.

Gormealy was in the middle somewhere. Yeah, I think he was between me and Vax. Garmeli was between maybe Vax. Garmeli was on the end. Right? Yeah. No. It was Vax Gramele.

Vax, Gremeli. Okay. Perfect. Don't say that. It's not cool. Good to see a little behind the, behind the field. Wow. This is...

I haven't seen that river in like two years. It's so nice. Pikey pants, what should we do? Oh. We should go help them, right? Oh, no. Oh, no. I mean, this mud is sort of nice.

But I did roll shit initiative as usual. As per you. There he is. There's Garmie. Good. Great. So, I put all these back in here. I forgot the Garmile mini in the bad.

I'm embarrassed by my initiative. Fixed. My initiative is really bad as well. This is crazy. All righty. So, top of the round, we have initiative of, perfect. 25 to 20.

Percy? 20. What? Go, Kee-Lead. Really? Go Keyleth. Go Keyleth. Go Keyleth. I don't think that's ever happened before. That's never happened. That's never happened. All right, so.

Keyleth, the 20, 20 to 15, anyone? 18. All right. 15 to 10. 13? 14. All right. This is our first live initiative.

Yeah. That's true. Yeah, because it didn't happen last one. Scanlon and Pike, what did you guys get? Gonna go out like Mr. Smith. I rolled a big fat six. I got a four. Oh.

The gnomes bringing up the rear. You guys were like rubber necking. You're just going, huh. We were caught off guard by the swirley. We rolled little. She was teaching me the swirley-whirley while this is all going on. That's exactly what was happening. That is perfect.

Perfect. All right, so, Kielith, you're up first. You watch this giant mass of a creature is now clutching, you know, grog in his jaws and then see its tail is like going to whip up, and it's now like kind of guarding itself on all sides as the roots are like dragging themselves into the earth around. So it has roots, it appears to be plant-based? Elements of it is you get a closer looking out. You can see parts of its scaly hide almost emerge into like leaf-like protrusions.

It is a strange mixture of both giant crock and some sort of a plant-based. entity okay I'm gonna I'm gonna go a little risky here I'm gonna cast speak with plants ooh oh that's good that's good I like it like a mercer's face yeah he's thinking an alligator voice is gonna hurt a lot this is a perfect deal of moment so what So, speak of plants generally works with... Plants. Plants.

Plants. Sure. Well, you never know. He appears to be kind of... He's got roots, yo. He does. He does. However, in the purposes of this type of circumstance,

it's usually meant for, like, smaller plants that have no sentience that you can normally interact with. And, like, roses and, you know, petunias. I've done this before. We're talking to the tree. You can probably communicate with it, yes. Well. I'm saying issuing commands on this

might be a little more difficult for the rest of the spell. What if I cast at a higher level? Would that help? This is not a spell. It can be cast at a higher level, unfortunately. So what do you want to do? To your casting, speak with plants. Well, I can't do it, so I'm going to say,

Hey! You spit that out of your mouth right now, Mr. You don't know where that's been. And trust me, I do. Make an intimidation check. Yes. Yes, do it. Do it.

I think. There's no fucking one. One? Is it two? Out with it. In a way, in a way, it's double in its level. Not touch that dice anymore. As you shout this out.

No. Seven. As you shout this out, pointing at the large crocodile-like entity, you look deep into its beady black and purple-like eye that darts around in the sunken socket of its crocodile skull. And you can see it kind of just re-initiates its clutch on Grog, kind of readjusting, pulling him even further into the jaw. Rog, you suffer another nine points of piercing damage. You do, Grog. I take what? Another nine points of piercing damage.

Oh, nine points! You're still grappling. Yeah, you haven't ranged yet. Are you going to stay where you are? Oh, God, we have a map. I didn't even notice me. Where am I? You're right there? Oh, that's so convenient.

You know, let me just, can I, can I move kind of towards that tree away from the river that also wants to eat us? Sure. Yeah. You get that far before the rope in your midsection, oh, stops you. Yeah, we're all together. Okay. Oh, shit, we're all tied together. Yeah, we're all tied together. Oh, fuck.

Oh my god, that's a good idea. It's a good idea. Okay, yeah, yeah. All right, cool. Done, go. What are you gonna do? What are you gonna do? Brog, your turn.

Yeah, okay. Where did he bite me, by the way? Like, is he hanging off? He has you, like, in his jaws by the midsection, and he's trying to turn you, so you actually lose your footing, and you're getting pretty close right now. So he has you, like, clamped right around your hip and chest right now. Like the nostrils right here and the other half of the jaws,

almost completely wrapped around the side. I don't give a fuck! I don't give a fuck! I go into a rage. And can I go into a frenzied rage? Yes, you may. And could I use my blood axe, and I'm going to start whacking him in a stupid plant monster face?

All right, so you use your bonus action to go in the rage, and you have two attacks, so go for it. Yeah. Kill him. Yeah. Kill him, bro. Kill him. That's, uh, 30. That'll hit.

Okay. The second one is, uh, 21. That also does it, yes. Yeah, shit, dog. Roll damage, both those strikes. So the first one is 19 plus five points

of necrotic damage for 24. Perfect. All right, 24 points of damage in the front. And the second one. Oh, shit. That's 15 plus another five points of necrotic damage for 20. 20 points.

Fantastic. So you're slamming it as hard as you came with the axe on the side, you're jamming it to the side. You can see part of its jaw kind of split open from the impact, and you can see a gleaming of white slick bone beneath that begins to expose from where you slam the sharp end of the accent, it twice in a row. And it's kind of shaking you in its grasp once more as the pain manages to... I've always wanted to be a dog toy. Have you told many people that? All right. So, the new turn, Yes. All right.

Next is the Frock's turn. At the beginning of its turn, you watch as the wound you just left begins to slowly seal shut. You watch the roots protruding on its body, begin to just suck the water, moisture, and life force from the land around it and begins to heal itself slowly. So some of that damage goes away. What? It begins to heal itself from just like healing from the ground it's rooted into.

I probably should have tried to break the gravel. I haven't hit me thinking forever. Or like cut the rope that isn't touching. Rock. 24, your armor class, I believe that hits. Yeah, it is. You guys watch as the crocodile backs this way slightly, which allows Vax and Garmeli to get a type of opportunity.

Vax does hits, however it isn't all known. Well, no, he actually could be a sneak attack, because he's currently, although Grog technically right now is not threatening it. But Garmili is standing next to him too. Technically, I'll let it turn. Yeah. The timing is pretty close on this,

and you'll hear why in a second. I'm going to get hurt more. Seven more crops up here. I'm about to get jacked up. We'll see. What do we do, pipe cats? All right, so 31. points of damage from Fax.

Garmeli misses. Awesome. So as it pulls away, you guys watch as the crocodile spins around kind of in the direction of you guys, grabs and tugs Grog, throwing them up into the air. Oh no. In doing so, all of you guys get pulled this way. And Kiela dragged behind in that point.

And the jaws open and Grog vanishes down the creatures going. down the creature's skullets. Oh! We're all still tied to him. We're all... We're attached to him, though! Yeah, you all got dragged right to the edge of its mouth,

so right now, Percy, you have the rope right at the edge of its giant snapping jaws. A big set of anal beads. Oh, my God. Can you roll for gag reflex? There's a rope coming out of his... This creature's pretty profound at swallowing larger entities, so it's fine. Wow. Brog.

Anyway, Grog, you're currently blinded and restrained. Blinded and restrained? Yeah. Things go darkness as you feel the entirety. You now have a general idea of what Scanlan and Vax went through open a few days ago. Hello, darkness, my old friend. All right.

Okay, cool. Yeah, you are completely locked inside of it right there. It also spins around as a different. spins around as it does so and its tail whips out and you see at the very to the very tip of its tail it looks to be some sort of strange jagged stinger this is going to whip around in the direction of you vex me what? Yes. Oh that is going to be a only a 14 oh good it misses yeah you duck under it as it just scrapes across the ground causing this huge

section of the the dirt to kind of grind past and leaving a small trough behind that's gonna end its turn it is now your turn VEme? Uh-huh. Yeah, you. Okay. Um, okay, I am gonna send Shrink it out and attack it with beastial fury. Ooh.

It appears at the side of it suddenly just spawning out of the strange burst of shadow energy from the center of your necklace. Shrink it, attack the thing! Shrika happily does so, so, uh, has advantage on both of these strikes. Yes. Um, yeah. Can I use my dagger that's on me to try to cut the rope that is attached to my front? You have to pull a dagger out and I'll be able to be a little action. Oh, that's a thing.

That's a whole thing. But you wouldn't be able to cut until next turn. Okay. Well, I'll attack with Trinket and I'll try to cut, I'll pull my dagger out. Okay. Okay. Okay, that's a way, oh, okay, that's good. Wow, I never attack with him.

How about that? Um, 26. Hits? It does. Yes. So. Glad we confirm. So does he just do the bite attack or does he do the claw attack?

Oh, this is whichever one you... We'll say the first one be the bite into the claw. Okay, so now he's rolling for claws. Go for it. Okay, so that's um, 25 or the second. Both hit, roll damage for each. Yeah. Okay.

Um, oh, Jesus, I'm so stupid. Okay, that's a... No, why not? There's some pressure here. Eight? Eight. Yeah. Eight damage.

All righty. And then for the next one. he gets two claws and he's gonna use his fours. Um, geez Louise, five plus, no, yeah, five plus seven is 13, no 12. 12. 12. I don't know what you pointed to me. Total 20 points of damage as Trinket just tears into the side of this giant game.

That's good. And then I cast a Hunter's Mert. As you pull your dagger, like, Hunter, damn it's. Ugh. But yeah, so if we get your next turn, trying to hack away that road, that's fine. That ends your turn, Vex, unless you want to try and move? Well, there's not, I mean, can I try to fly up in the air?

It won't do anything. I'm stuck on the ground. Currently, yes. And you don't have your broom with already. No, so I'll just stay where I am, I guess. All right, good enough. I'll continue to be flung around like in... Perfect. Well done. Percy, you're up. I'm... Oh, boy. A lot of my plans kind of got swallowed.

Oh, me! Okay. I'm going to pull out the retort pistol because bad news will not be happy at this range. First thing I'm going to do is I'm going to take a head shot. I'm going to try and blind him for the round. Okay. This is going to go great. She's going to pee.

Laura just quit the shot. She just couldn't do it anymore. She quit. See, I'm not even going to, I'm too nervous to even take sharpshooter, so we're just going to do this clean. And I roll a natural turn. Yeah, I don't know what... Hey Percy, hey Percy, you are in melee with the creature, you have disadvantage on your range attack. Go ahead.

Stick! Don't even try it. The trick is not to care. No, but it's good enough. 26. Okay, that does hit. Go ahead. 26. 26 hits. Oh, fuck, I forgot to cast hex. God damn it.

Can I throw my bonus in there really quick or no? There's some children in the audience. Oh, budge it. They watch it. the show they've heard me say worse. Can I sneak hex in there? Is it okay? I would say, given the fact that you said specifically

that you return too nervous to do a That's fire, that's absolutely fair. That's absolutely fair. You can finish your turn with that if you'd like. Well, I can get it in between attacks, so I can go, Ugh. And then technically all of your... Technically not.

Well, no, that's true. You can do it. It's fine. I'll do whatever you say. I'm not going to fight you. No, that's not. Uh, I'm trying to find my D-10s. Okay, here we are.

So that's... That's 11 points of piercing damage. Alright, marking that down. Plus. Save DC on that. The save DC is a 19 on the Constitution save. That is a 12, so yes, it is currently blinded. So it has, it's not blinded, it has disadvantage on attacks until my next turn.

There we go. So that's cool. And you are hexing it? Uh-huh. And you are hexing it, you said? And now I'm hexing. I'm going to give him a disadvantage on strength checks. Okay, good enough.

Strength or consultation? I'm not asking. Why am I asking people? Asking us for clitters. Still at disadvantage because of the close proximity? Correct. Is his mouth open? The mouth is currently kind of slightly open.

It just snapped down and it swallowed. Am I enough to start just laying in a few shots inside? Maybe. You can certainly try. Go for it. I'll lay in a couple shots inside. Two more shots inside with hex advantage. Oh, with hex attacks.

So that's a D6 neck row. Hide behind his UVOG. I'm going to try and go for the sides and knock for the, if I hit grog, I don't care. You can take it. With disadvantage, that's a jam on the retort pistol. Don't over, bitch. Wait.

No, that's a savory roll. Fuck, I want. Okay, so that's a jam. And then one to try and fix it really quickly, just try and just give it a clear. with not disadvantage, because it doesn't matter. What did you roll as the jam? One.

You roll the natural one? Yeah. Okay. Roll damage anyway. Roll damage anyway? Yeah. Oh, no. Oh, no.

Yeah, yeah, isn't it? Without the hex damage bonus. Without, uh, that's 10 points of damage. How many? 10. Grog, you take 10 points of piercing damage. So I don't have a jam. But it does.

Jam. Okay, so I'm going to do a clear. All right, so as you go to fire, it sh-s, splinters off, and there's a burst of smoke and the heat kind of hurts your finger, and you hear this dull, on the inside, and oh, sorry? It's halved, right? It's halved, yes. One more, one more shot.

What is to try and clear it, though? This, what? You still have to clear it, isn't. I tried to clear, clear is clear. I hit 16 plus, yeah, that's a clear. Okay, I should make it clear it and get it back, there you go. So, I don't have a third shot, but now I'm at least reloaded. Do I need another round of reload or does that count as a reload clear?

I can never remember. We're doing an attack as a reload, so. Oh, okay, so I'll have to, next turn. Okay, I'll just call that clear. Okay, I'm actually, the last thing I'm going to do is I'm going to move away from the crocodile with all my strength, and I'm going to say, everybody pull, and I'm just backing up. Make a strength check. This is going to be so sad.

Can we assist? Can we assist? If you want to use an action on your next turn to assist with this, then yes, it'll be your action. It might be fun. We'll see if this, oh God. Come on, Percy. I have the worst strength. Eight. As you say, everyone, push away!

Your feet feebly glide against the muddy surface of the river bank. As the actual use, the jaws open slightly, and you hear the low, but it'll all, the breath comes pouring out into you this strange combination of like muddy swamp low tide and compost. It's delightful. Technically, by the way, we technically have our hands free and are tied to the rope. So in theory we could still use our hands and just try and all shift backwards like stupid people. But you're all mostly taught on the rope now, so you can. That's what you tried to do.

And it failed miserably. Okay, that's cool. That's your turn, Percy. Vax is up now. Now Vax tries to push inward because he isn't quite, actually, no, he's going to stay where he is out of range. He's going to go ahead and try and throw his daggers from where he is. Come on, brother. He's going to go, he's not going to use the...

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 dark. darkness always wins. This is old school adventuring at its most cruel. Your torch ticks down in real time

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Two attacks, both hits. That's with the first strike and with the offhand throw, both hit for the first one with sneak attack, because it is currently next to Percy. You are threatening at the moment. I hope I have its attention. 28 points of damage. And second strike for a total of nine. Bless you.

Bless you. So after Vax throws those daggers both kind of sink into the sides of the giant crocodile. It moves ever so slightly with the first impact. The second one seemingly no effect. Both daggers grip here to puff a smoke. and a puff of the smoke at the side of his belt, and he looks to you, and says, Sister, what are we gonna do?

I don't know. He can't really move at that point. It's now Garmili's turn. Oh. Oh, Garmili. Come on, Garmele, who can't turn invisible, who can't do any normal tactics, just kind of, um. Sing a song, Garmili, charm him, do something.

He pulls up a small pan flute aside, and there's an awkward pause, and he goes, He then tries to scoot away as far as he can, but is once again caught between the very taut side to the rope, unable to shift. That brings us to pike. Okay, okay. How far are we from the disgusting thing?

You guys are over here, so I'd say you're from what you can gauge here. You're approximately 40 feet from it. 40 feet? Great. Okay, so I'm going to get a little bit closer. You go right up to the edge of the water. toes dipping in. Okay. I'm going to use my trusty old friend guiding bolt.

Um, I'm going to guiding bolt his face. And I'm going to do it at fifth level. Whoa. Because my best friend is in his belly. And that's grown. Hi, I'm standing right next to you. I know. So that is 8d6 damage if you hit. So that is 8d6 damage if you hit, go ahead and roll your radiant attack against it. So spell attack bonus.

Roll D20. Roll a D20. Oh, you roll a D20, I just spell attack bonus, yeah. Oh, no. That's terrible. That's okay, that's okay? 15. 15 just...

Oh! D6s. How many D6s? How many D6s? I have two more D6. I have two more. Here we go. 8D6 points of radiant damage.

And it is currently marked for advantage in the next attack against it. As a giant bright light now burst across the front of its head, causing its eyes to kind of retract and close and pay. Come on, big money, no whammies. There's math happening. It's really hard to count them here. So excited.

So excited. 24. Hey. 24, not so shabby. Well, you know, you know. ...of radiant damage. And the glowing divine beacon now flashing in the center of its face, causing to close its eyes. The next person who wants to make an attack is going to have a mess little bonus.

Is that the end of your turn? I'm going to stay right there at the edge of the river? Uh, yes. Okay, I've seen your turn. Pike. Scanlan, you're up. Okay, uh... Help me. Ah, because we keep over there. I can't.

Oh, you're all the way over. Yeah, I'm across the river. Yeah. I'm going to help everyone else but you. Can I inspire anyone over there? They were too far. There were than 60 feet. Okay, so yeah, I'll inspire Kila.

And I'll sing to her, believe it or not, you're killing a crock. You never thought you could feel so free. Slashing away on a giant fucking crock. How can it be? Believe it or not, it's because of me. And I will take out my, oh, I will take out my wand of magic missiles. And fire many of them. I think with, if I use six charges, that's, one, two, three, four, five, six, eight darts.

That's a lot of missiles. It's not very powerful, though. and I would not like to shoot at the crock. I would like to shoot at every segment of rope between every single person. After the flash of the guiding bolt, the rest of the party, you look across the ways. You see Scanlan, after singing this delightful song,

Turn around, Rambo style, and release. These arcane darts come firing straight towards the crock, and in a moment of excitement, expecting each of these impacts to blast in the sight of this creature, they suddenly swore into the sky, and, arc down towards each of you. Before you have a moment to really react,

is the word of your voice, what? They streak back down, slamming to each side of the rope, causing the sides to just burst into a frayed, burnt rope chunks and pieces of twine, all hanging loosely at your sides. All of you guys are now free to move out as you wish. All right.

And for my movement, I will grab, hike around the waist and just kind of pull us back five feet off the Off the edge of the pond. There you go. Thanks. Well done. Top of the round again. Kieliff, you're up. Okay.

I still have, you have advantage on the next hit on it? Anybody, whoever has the next attack roll against it has advantage. I am going to cast fifth level blight on him. Ooh. Ooh. And it is a plant creature. He is a plant creature. Oh, I get how much extra?

Well, it makes the saving through with disadvantage, and the spell deals maximum damage to it. I can't hear that part. What's the spell DC of this? 19. Here's the big roll, guys. 19. No!

Come look at it if you want to. Doesn't work on spell, though. Disadvantage? I understand. 15. So... The power. Suck. So that is 64 points of necrotic damage.

Oh! Said spit him out! That is caca! Spit it out! As you clench your hand like this, you guys watch as the roots that connect to its body suddenly begin to wither and dry out. You watch as the outside bark of them cracks and turn to ash and dust at its side, and its once kind of verdant greed hide begins to to curl into this dull, gray, lifeless husk.

The creature's eyes spring open, and this low, guttural growl, turns to this like, this horrible, shrieking pain sound. From the inside, you feel everything tense around you as its form all of a sudden is being drained of life essence and water that keeps it going. It manages to recover, and the life kind of pumps back into parts of it, but it's, that sucked.

Oh, that was fun to build attention on that one. All right, Kila, that's your action. What else would like to do for your turn? I want to kind of move and flink him a little bit if I can. Kind of get on his six. The other way, other way. Oh, this way? All right, so you move past to the side?

That's good. Closer a little bit to him one more? Sure, closer's great. I mean, no, back one. Back, not, it's fine. All right. Grog, you're up. You're currently still constrained inside its body.

The tautness of the rope around your waist has gone slack, so a moment you realize either your friends are dead or they managed to break the rope. Or you would think that if you weren't so full of anger and rage of being shot and squeezed and devoured by a giant crocodile, what are you doing? Can I reach the jug at all? We'll say you can take your action to reach into your bag

out holding and pull it out, yes. He had it out already. It was on his head, right? That's true. Well, he had it had earlier. Have you had it on your head this whole time? I kind of had it like tilted up so I could see you. I don't know if I could be like, D-E-E-H.

If that was the case, the sheer force of the creature biting you initially and throwing you on in the bank would have tossed that jug quite a ways away from you. Oh no, no. Then it wasn't there. Yeah, we'll retcon that shit and it was in my pocket. That's what I thought. So, you want to spend your action to go ahead and rummage through the bag of holding and pull out the jar. And that's my action, huh? That would be your action, yes.

Son of a dicklet bitch. You saw a bonus action to attack because you're in a frenzied range. Can I take, uh, no, fuck it, because I would, I don't. Oh, that's true. Yeah, but I can't hit anything. I'm like this. You have, you have disadvantage on your attacks. You can still attack them from the inside. Can I take the Titanstone knuckles, smash them together, and use...

Can I cast enlarge on myself? You can certainly try. Oh. Is that what you want to do? Yeah. Yeah, I'll try that. As your mind is suddenly clouded with the thought of the jug, I need to get the jug. No.

You feel your body, your physical forming into ripple and swell. You guys watch as the crocodile now currently recovering from the blight-like withering of its form, suddenly its eyes go wide once more. As its gullet begins to swell wider and wider, you hear this low kind of... Like a cat coughing up a hairball slowed down. As you watch an enlarged grog and immediately vomited up and out of the creature to its side. His favorite terrain is vomit.

Yes, yes, you do have benefits to that. So yes, you manage to do that, sir. So I get puked out. Yes. Can I use whatever movement speed I have left to drag the daisy chain with me away from the crocodile? Okay, as you rush away, it gets an attack of opportunity on you. Oh, I got it.

Yeah, I got separated. That's right. Right. It does have disadvantage because you're starting to last turn, which is good because the second role is a natural 20. That's a total of 20 to hit. What's your armor class? 20. Okay, so it just hits you with the bite.

Oh, can I cutting words him? You do have a reaction, so yes, you may. Okay. I will cutting words him. Yeah, I'll just, I'll say, M grog, but de-p-p-don-bong-do grog Borgbe-da-da-dong. Yeah, yeah.

It's supposed to distract his Hanson. Yeah, Hanson is a good insight. It's not inspiring somebody. It is intended to distract the opponent. And this Krogna, probably having a rather rough time in the early 2000s. Manages to provide even more bile from its stomach at the sound of a rehashed Hanson song.

Go ahead and make your roll. Oh, what do I roll? All your usual dice, your inspiration die. Eight? Eight. No. Ten. Ten.

Eight. You're intent on that happening. As it reaches out to try and bite towards Grog, it hears the sound in his head quarks. Buh. Bommets a little. Grog, you managed to get away at that point. We'll say about that far. If you turn around, the daisy chain has not followed you,

glancing down. The rope that was once around your waist has snapped by the growth in size. and all the rest of the ropes have also been snapped. Right. Sorry. Hey. Hey. Hey, you're out.

Hey. Perfect. That ends your turn. It is now the Krocks turn. Oh. All right. It's going to go ahead and make a bite attack right now. This is going to be at Percy, since you're right there in front of it.

No. No, Percy. All right. Don't worry. I won't sing handsome again. Don't you there. With disadvantage, that is say, 23.

That hits. That hits you. All right, as the strike, as the head turns back towards you, it opens to the side and tries to clamp on you. There, that is a... I'm using my new fancy counter. Yeah, you can't agree. I'm so excited to take damage.

So nice. I'm not that excited to take damage. 34? 34? 34. 34. Okay, 34. And you are currently...

Yeah, I'm breaking that counter. You're grappled. and restrained. Yeah? Whopold and restrained? So wait, he's in the crocodile's mouth now? Chalkal is now snapped. His jaws, moved it to Percy.

And Percy, you're currently now held tight in its jaws. He's trying to lift you up now, possibly there. Phil, it's now terribly empty stomach. It lost more than it originally started this battle with. And as it swings around its tail in doing so, it, Stinger sweeps overhead. It has a reach of 10 at this point. We'll say in the back arc. There, this is going to be towards Vex.

Yeah. So, towards you Vex with disadvantage. Still, that's a 21. What's your armor? Fuck! I mean, 20. 20? Okay, so it still hits you. All right, so the Stinger, grinds itself in your flesh. It kind of tears through the armor separation there. You could feel kind of pulsing.

I need you to go ahead and make a constitution saving throw. Oh, no. Good, because that's my strength. Do I? Yeah, you do. Um... 10! Okay.

Well, you take 16 points of piercing damage from the actual stinger itself, striking you. Oh, no. You now feel that kind of pulse of venom through your body, and as it begins to swell through you, you feel all the colors and all the images of the landscape around you begin to shift and bubble and move. I'm so high.

You're tripping, man. I'm tripping balls. You suddenly, you are tripping balls. right now. We're going to learn so much about herself. We're going to learn so much about herself. We're going to find an expression becomes suddenly this giant feral wolf

hits is at you. Look to your right and you see the giant clockout holding Percy suddenly merge into one strange giant Medusa creature. You don't know which way's up and down and you are extremely frightened and confused. You're frightened? Oh, no, it's a bad trip.

Oh no. It is. Does that mean I lose my turn? Well, that ends the crocodile's turn, and it is now your turn. Yes. So, currently you cannot take reactions, and I need to roll a V8 to see what you do. Oh! Wait, it could be anything?

It could be eight. You're so stunned by this moment and your brain being completely turned around... Would you roll? I rolled a five. Roll a five, okay. Oh, yay. Oh god. You take no action and you use all your movement to move in a random direction. You go on the...

But you know, it comes in. Just begin to flee. Looking ahead of you, you see what seems to be a moving sea of grass. And all of a sudden you feel your feet splash, splash, splash, and never begins to pull you away in the turn. Oh, son of a bitch. Oh shit. Bad-cock-e-e-h-h-h-h-h. Don't make another constant. Oh, good. Okay.

Oh, natural 20! Oh! Turns back time. As soon as your vision comes back to you and the breath of relief hits your form and suddenly you have control and perform, as it begins to be sucked under the water. And of your turn, Percy, you're up. Great. So I'm grappled and there's like nothing.

You're restrained. You can attack, you can't move, and all your attacks are disadvantage. And everything I have, at least at the moment, anything with the gun is at disadvantage. Oh, but I've got the hacks on him, so even if I hit him with the sword, it's an extra D6. Technically, yeah. I'm going to just try and start hacking him to let me go. Ooh, weird question. So, if he's got me, if I use the drop-it, the drop-it effect, the grit drop an item,

can I get him to drop me as an item? I don't think you count as an item, I'm sorry. It's like sticking him in the jaw. I can't make a roll and drop. I don't think that's how it works. It's not like you hit a couple fingers and they drop a cup. This is a massive muscle currently clamped on you trying to swallow you. I was hoping.

I know, I'm sorry. So, uh, okay. In that case, I'm just going to, in that case, I'm just going to take out, like, grab my sword and just start hacking at him. Okay, so use your bonus action, go ahead and draw the weapon. It's right there by your side. You pull it out. Go ahead and make your attacks against the crocodile. Okay.

That's a... Uh... Fifteen? Except you have... 15 just barely hits. Oh, okay. You had advantage on them. Oh, did I?

No, I don't have advantage for these. Well, actually, technically it would have been the very, very first attack since Pike's guiding bolt, which, thank you for the reminder of that. So you would have a good inch of a role. That was the first attack since her guiding bolt? No, I thought I attacked. You're going to have a spell attack. It just instantly hit and it's safe. Oh, shit.

Oh, shit! Yeah. So technically, what was your first roll? Uh, 15. So yeah, you hit. Okay, so... Alright, it doesn't... And the next roll wasn't a 20, so it doesn't matter anyway, so...

Yeah, so... Okay, so regarding bolt wears off, however, that did manage to give rid of the disadvantage on that one strike. So as you're seeing the bright side of its face, you take your blade out and hack downward for the first tip, which does strike true across the side of its face. You can make your next two attacks. This is 28. Those do have disadvantage, so. Oh, that was, okay, in that case, natural 20.

Oh, it has disadvantaged, so it was 28. Oh, Matt, if I can be a stickler. What's your stickler? If I can be a stickler. You fight for me. What's your stickler? I also cutting words, Tim, so that puts him at disadvantage on a save. On his next saving throw, but he's not making a saving throw.

Not making a save throw. This is a kangaroo court. If I'm going to be a stickler here, Sam, the next time he has a saving throw, I'll keep the disadvantage. I appreciate it. Oh, you're in trouble, Samuel. All right, so that hit, and then for my last one, um, Ah, that's not bad. That's, that's, uh, uh, uh, 21. Yeah, so all three strikes hit all those.

Let me get my new D8. That's super, oh, I can get all my D8s. So that's, uh, and then three D6s, extra some necrotic damage. Right. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Ooh. So that's, uh, 13 points of necrotic damage.

Great. And, uh, eight, nine, ten, 13, 14,000. 13, 14, 15, 15, 17, 17, 18, 19, 20. Math. 37 points of slashing damage. Kill it! Kill it! Slaming inside its face.

Began splitting open a section of its head. You can see its cracked with it's formed from the blight spell earlier has become a little more brittle, and each impact is cutting deeper than any of the previous hits had. Tramp it! We're going to take a quick break here. Oh! All right. Is it just for you?

So, on Vax's turn. on Vax's turn. Vax's going to go ahead and dart around. This way, behind Garmealy, getting to where Trinket is flanking along the river bend. Oh, is right back in? As he does pull out of the range of the tail, let's see, yeah, the croc can go ahead and make a tag of opportunity with the Stinger out towards him behind. That is not going to hit, that is a natural four, it's going to be like a 16, so yeah. As it swings with his tail wide to Vax, backs,

He ducks beneath, arms out at the side, leaps in the air, and catches himself right on the edge of the bank, and looks over and notices you running off the side. Me, me, help me. Immediately he decides to put his daggers back away, and then uses a dash action to dart over to the edge of the river where you are, and it's gonna reach out and try and grab your arms.

That's, you guys are greeting for you, each other right now, that is how it's gonna go for this moment. That brings us to Garmili, who now free of the rope circumstance and the chaos around, looks and sees you out in the river. Scoots around, goes out with, grabs your brother's arm and then reaches out towards your arm and then chains his way towards you. God, Mimi, he's helping. Carmilly!

Grab me! Okay! It's the sign he's going to turn on us at any moment. I know. So you guys grab and link arms at that point he's going to go ahead and take a strength check to pull you out of the roaring rapids. Okay. He manages to hold you in the moment but doesn't actually get any ground on pulling you out of the river. So now it's him and Vax just holding you at the edge.

the edge. The river's like pulling you as harder and harder and you can feel the actual swell getting stronger. But you're still mentioned to keep you in place. That ends his turn. Pike, you're up. Oh shit. Okay. How is the monster crocodile plant doing? Like is he looking rough? Uh, he's looking hurts. Is he regenerating himself? You've noticed with each time it's had a moment to itself, its roots have dug in and it's pulled back into its forms. You need to get him off the ground. It has been still regenerating every round. Yes. It's bullshit.

It really is. You know what? I'm going to hold off on that then. Hold off on that then. I'm going to, uh... No, you know what? I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to flame strike it. Yep.

Just a, just, just the old, uh, the old flame strike. Sure. All righty. Where do you want that flame strike to land? Just on his whole body. Just wherever you see it, onto the middle of its body. Oh, where do I want to see it?

Yeah. Just like maybe his torso area. Where he won't hurt anybody else. Okay. As you look over in the distance, unable to really see beyond the form of the creature, you bring the flame strike down onto its form. It's going to go and make a saving throw with disadvantage because of your cutting words. Oh, geez, oh geez.

Geez. She's good because they rolled 17 for the first one. And a 15 for the second one with the Dexia. No Dex bonus for, because it's not very fast. Your DC is 18. 18. Yes. 8D6, radiance.

Go ahead and roll that. Wait, here's some more. Do you say, stake them? Okay, we have, how many do we have here? It's a 10-foot radius, all safe, all safe. For the sake of knowledge in the area to and seeing Trinket attack, you managed to just pull it out of the range of the bear. not wanting to ignite it.

Okay. So go ahead. GER. That's weird. Okay. So we've got 12. Yeah, I know. 17.

20. How much fire and divine damage? 28. 28. 28 points of damage. As you guys see, this gathering of small, reddish, and white divine particles kind of circle in the air faster and faster than A column of divine flame just strikes from the heavens blasting in the side of this creature.

It rears back in pain as you see what once now it's slightly withered, blight-impacted, grayish-green back is now burnt to a black crisp smoke begins to rise on this form. Yeah it does. It's very pissed off. Monster. Ah. So at the end of your turn, Pike, you can stay where you are? Uh, I'm gonna, can I do, uh, well, how's everybody? doing? I'm great. I'm a little if you're a little if you're a little if you.

Yeah let me let me I want a healing word Percy let's go ahead and do that what's the range on it 60 feet 60 feet yeah you can get to him from there okay okay I don't know so you're healing all right so I'll heal him so you're casting healing word healing word at second level Okay, go for it. So, roll the dice. Now what is that? She's, she's, she's only, yes. Two, D, four, plus.

Yeah. 19. 19. That's nice. Okay. Okay. That's nice. All righty, Scalland, you're up.

Okay. I don't know, man. I can't do much over here. Well fast, Pike, that was 2D4 plus five. 2D4 plus, oh, isn't it? my spell casting modifier. No, no, you just add plus five. Okay, so then it would be 13.

So 13. Okay. Still good. All right, skin, what are you doing? Is it a large creature? It would be classified as a huge creature. Okay, well, then, forget that. Oh, huge.

Okay, so I'll just, I'm gonna eye bite him with my eyes of craziness. Sounds like a sample. Put up the hand cone. And I'm going to try to make him sick. Yeah. Yeah. Wait.

All right. So it's going ahead and take its wisdom saving throw against your DC. That is a six with no modifier. It is certainly sicken. Okay. Those disadvantage has worn off on the force. And then, what? There's so many rings on it.

No, it's great. So much. Covering is now also. And I won't really move, but I will inspire Grog, because he needs to hit something, man. I'm turning you. Smash, smash. I'll inspire him with a limerick. Oh.

A warning from your favorite bard. In the Fay Wild, you should be on guard. I went off to take a shitter and saw like a thousand critters. And they kind of made me hard. Take your inspiration, Daggeraw. All right, staying where you are, Scanlon? I'm staying where I am. Kila, you're up.

Oh, oh, it's me. Oh, dear God. Okay. Um, I am gonna do what worked really well last time, and I'm gonna do a fourth level of light. And what I want to do is I'm gonna take my... Because I'm kind of near him, right? You are. Okay, I want to take my staff and kind of wear Pike, put that nice little,

crispy donut hole in the middle of them. I'll take my staff right in the middle and bring it down and cast blight. All righty. Saving throw against DC with disadvantage. Ah, uh, six and an eight. Um, uh, uh, uh, how do you want to do this? Oh! Keylet, Keylet, Keylet, Keylet, Keylet, Keylet. You hear the phantom chanting in the back of your head as well.

Yes, my ego loves this. Is Percy still in his mouth? Percy is still in his mouth. Okay, I'm gonna say, Stop putting foreign objects in your mouth! As you slam your staff into the ground with a giant ripple, all of a sudden you watch as the various plant growth in the ground begins to turn to a dark black gray at the base of the staff,

it curls across the ground like the actual a line of... of blighted death and decay seems to spear out across. It manages to catch the bottom and sink up the roots of the creature. As it begins to swell up into its body, you see it taking form. How do you want the blight spell to take hold in its body? Uh, uh, it takes hold. Okay, um, okay, how about this? You know like the petrified forests in Arizona?

Can I like petrify him? All right, so as the blight spell spirals across its body like a spider web just crackling and it spins to... It rears up with its arms out in front of it, Todd. The muscles locking up like this giant arching statues, jaws up in the air, holding Percy a lot. As you watch... Wow.

You hear the scraping and cracking of bark and dried plant matter. Its entire form slightly squeaking as it becomes a solid, petrified piece of plant matter. The life force now drained from it, the roots at its sides. crack and turn to ash. Part of its form tends to sink one side of the mud, and now this once, very dangerous-looking creature is now solid, dead plant matter, holding a wiggling and very unhappy human. Percy, how's the weather up there? I would be cheering for you if I wasn't drowning at this very moment.

On that note, too, I need you to go ahead and make a strength check. Oh. Oh. Okay. Well, yes. I forgot you were drowning. Yeah. 15 there.

15. Oh, that's just a straight check. That's not a saving throw. Right, just the check. 13. All right. Oh, jeez. You and Vax and Garmili still hold your ground, but unfortunately not a whole lot of physical strength in this daisy chain right now.

Can I ask Trinket to come up and help? You can, yes, and Trinket rushes over. Oh, whoa, whoa. Comes up behind the back and bites and bites the back of this cloak. against tugging on him, I was like, oh, now being slightly strangled by the bear, pulled backward, Trinket, adding strength to that. What's Trinket's Strength, Morris? Oh, uh, yeah. Uh, uh, four, he's stronger than me.

The roll of a 17 that brings to a 21. Whereas you began to pull them in towards the river, Trinket, makes up the back end of it, and grabs and manages to drag all of you out of the wake. As you kind of get up and cough out the wire, Trinck, it comes up to you and... ...andus you with the side of your face. Thanks, buddy. I could have been hug Garmini. You saved me. You're wonderful. What was I supposed to do? Watch each round? No.

You could. We're almost to the end of our agreement. Oh, I chapsed his hair. Good job, Keyleth. Fake sakesh. How you doing, Percy? Could you help with this? Do I get to chop down the tree finally?

I really wanted alligator boots, but I suppose that will do. Please help. Do I get to chopping down the petrified alligator tree. Trinket, catch him when he falls. Trinket... What? Trinket rushes up and looks up at you underneath with open jaws. No. No.

No. No. Large grog comes lumbering up. Snow. What? With one clean hit, the blood ax carved straight through its body, causing the upper part of the torso to... Slamming to the ground with great speed. Upon the impact, it rolls a few feet, taking person and his jaws.

Oh! Ow! You do suffer two points of damage. Yes, I do. But eventually you hit a point of the bank where a heavy stone where the judge kind of cracks into a hundred pieces and you tumble up to the ground catch your breath strains so long. I stand up and kick one of them. I, Keelith wants to just to just get down on the grass that she hurt and I just want to cast Druidcraft and kind of like heal it and talk to the grass and be like, it wasn't personal.

I hope you know you were not the intended target. You just happen to be caught in the prey. It's okay. It's okay. Don't be mad. As you extend your fingers about you, you see small strands of green go, boop, bo, beep, boop. And you hear a hundred soft voices go.

Like your enthusiasm grass. All right. How you doing over that, Nomsies? Come on. You should get over here. I don't just, no rush, but... All right, there's a river. Hey, don't forget to loot the party.

Is there nothing to moon on the petrified alligator, is there? There's nothing to... Actually, there's an empty stomach, isn't there? It's made a petrified wood. I'm just going to stick my head and see if there's anything in that. Okay. The very, very tiny pressed stomach interior of this creature, petrified as it is,

It's like staring into one of those weird high school science room, like half-man organ presentation statues. So you can kind of see where the folds of the stomach lining are. There appear to be some remnants of bone, some entities that were partially digested, but nothing that catches your eye to be something worth pulling out of it. Just for fun, grab, smash this. It's all good. And with that, the pieces of it go scatter. all across the ground, elements of it kind of tumble into the water and get washed away. It is no more.

How is it? Anything exciting come out? Many, many small, petrified crocodile pieces. I'm going to pick one up and bring it to Keyliff. For you. Well done. I get a souvenir from the Faywild. Yes.

That's all I wanted. We got two more rivers. All right. I am... One more time. One more river. One more river. I want to keep perception check up to make sure we don't want into another one of those fuck else

go ahead and make perception check listen hey is anybody like near death no I'm super big right now how about I just throw everybody across the river yeah you're gonna I'm in I'm in can I throw pike across the river he's already crossed 22 for perception okay Wait, wait, wait. I need you to smack me in the face first. Psh! I would not to rage! Okay. Natural 20.

Which you have disadvantage on... Hold on, because you took a point of exhaustion from frenzy raging in the battle. However, you do get advantage on strength checks while raging, so it's just a singular role so the natural 20 stands. Yes. So, as you pick pike up, she smacks you in the face, the grin crawls across the That's what I said it. And you just, whoosh, whoop. What?

She lands into the top of a tree. Oh, shit. You just see, in the bushes as a few, you know, leaves kind of dangled down. You can see some, like, gloppy black stuff just out of the side, and you hear this muffled voice in the distance. voice in the distance. Spike landed okay. She's laughing.

Ah, ah, ah. Should I try and skip Vax across the river? Yeah, do it. Sure. Vax says, I'd rather run. And he goes running forward and attempt to make a leap across the river. He leaps, makes it most of the way, catches his ankle on the edge, and begins to flutter backwards. to flutter backwards.

Oh, geez. Come on. That's what you get, stupid. Liam. Can you save him, aren't you on the other side? I'm like looking at the trees and... I'm just hanging out. Yeah.

However, he does manage to kind of write himself and, you know, he only got partially into the river and managed to pull his way out, so he's fine. Okay, okay. Rod, who are you throwing next? Who's next? I'll go. Oh, okay.

Yeah, I'll go. Yeah, pussy's next. All right. Can I like granny shot this one? Yeah. Go for it. strength back. 19.

Uh, 19. You lob him. Uh, it's enough to get you across. The landing is not very great. Can I acrobatics check this to try and make the landing? You can, you may. All right.

Three point, three point landing. Come on, posy. Come up. That'll be at 21. 21. You managed to use the actual momentum to go into a shoulder roll, stumble forward, and you come to a standing point. However, when you do, you do, you, you do.

You realize you rolled through a bunch of kind of slick, tar-like muck, and the side of your jacket is now kind of seeping with it. I was already covered in crocodile vile, so I figured. There you go. You feel balanced. It's just another layer of sadness. Who's next? I'll go next.

In the spirit of the Olympic... I want to bring out my broom and hold it in my hand. In the spirit of the Olympic Games, can I like shot put her? I'm a discis. That's a discus. That's a discus. You see, Trinic. come up, you're like, oh, in the, in the, come on.

Oh, I'll run. Oh shit. That'd be good. Oh, shit. It's a 23. I'm strong as fuck. You're such an egg. I would say the lighter half of the twins, but I think that they're an equal weight class.

You grab her by the side of, whoo, whoo, who. I'm going to throw up. Yeah, you catch your stomach in, uh, contents, making acrobatics check. Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh. That's okay, that's a 28, man. Whoa! You actually catch yourself on the side of the tree,

landing and then leap off of it with the last momentum, stepping gingerly on the tips of your feet. I clap from however far away I am. Thank you. You're muffled clapping in the tree vows ahead of it. I fly up and I grab Pike down from the tree. Can I do this? Yeah, yeah.

She's about 15 feet up. Oh, I fly 15 feet up. 15 feet up and grab pipe. All right. Take it a ticket. Thanks, I didn't know how I was going to get down. Are you left? I'm left.

You want to like go with me as I jump across or should I throw you? Uh. I can like softball pitch. Take you back that shit, Ki-Len. I wave my hands. I wave my hands and say, I'll catch you Kiki. Yeah. Okay.

You want to like shot put this one clearly a shot? No, it's going to be like fast pitch softball. pitch softball. I'm gonna be like, no, no, no, wait. I'm gonna be like a long snapper in football and like turn around. I will receive that. Set.

19. Put! With a big long toss, you make it most of the way over the water, begin to descend very close on the opposite side of the bank. Make a necrobatics check. Oh no. Use your new dice. No, fuck that new dice.

Nine. Not great. The good news is you missed the river. The bad news is you want to bring this cartoon face plank into the actual ground down the inside. Suffering 11 points of damage. And as as Percy pulls you up, your entire front of your face and the little bit of hair in the crown is just caked with this tar-like substance. You're not.

Hostels are filled with it. You can't open your eyes. It tastes kind of like IHOP. It's terrible. Tonight's episode of Critical Role, not brought to you by IHOP. And probably never will be. There goes our I hopped. I gag a little, try and keep it down, try to wash my face. Who's left? Gormile? Oh, Garmile. Oh, right.

Gormiz on the side, he goes, don't worry. You first. No, he's gonna leave. Yeah, no. I mean, he can. I guess you got us all the way here, didn't you? Once he's across, our accord is complete. Oh yeah, no, totally. Come here, bitch. No, no, no.

No, no! Well, technically it's a grapple, so it's an athletics check. A 20. Athletics? Totally, total. You're still in his spy. You reach out and his eyes go wide, and he darts around, and your fingers just barely catch the edge of a spur,

and you get just enough of a hole to live. Lift them off the ground. He's now dangling from your giant, half-giant-ass hand. No, look, I don't have to go there. I'm just going back the other way. Oh, no, yeah. I totally hear what you're saying. We're going for a ride, bitch. Now, back up. 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 Rothers, 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. The world of Sonic the Hedgehog has been thrust into a not-so-dark, not-so-stormy, hard-boiled detective story that probably nobody saw coming. Follow Sonic and the Intrepid Chaotic's Detective Agency,

as they take on their biggest case yet. This high-flying action-packed adventure will take them across the world, fighting for every quill they can fight. It's one heck of a tale, which is good. because this story might be the only thing that can save their lives. Well, if that's all, I can just dispose of you. Wait, what? All will be revealed in.

Sonic the Hedgehog presents The Chaotic's Case Files. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. 20 again. 12 plus 8. Your large bounding farm. You hit the other side. The actual bank ships. You guys feel the impact on the other side beneath your feet.

And there's a small crater on the ground from where you land in the river. Banks kind of slowly fills it in as it kind of lowers it just below river water level. Your Amelia is now clutching your arm. His hands and legs wrapped around your foot. His head was on the other side. He eventually loosens his grip, plops to the ground and kind of dusts them off off.

Welcome to the Shade Merck. Good luck. We made it. Well, you don't want to like see what happens at the end of the journey. You want to come with this, right? He looks just past you, and at this point you all turn and look into the Shade Merck, which at this point you all turn and look into the Shade Merck, which at this point you've been, point you can see the bog itself is an endless dumping form of sludge into the gilded run the water itself is just barely tearing it away what you guys noticed before the black oily material is itself thick icker like tar the

smell that you're very familiar with that horrible kind of acrid sulfurous scent is just very thick in the area mixed with with a terrible rotting leaf and decay we see bubble who are churning up in certain parts of it. And there are elements where you see knotted and gnarled roots that kind of tangle up above the surface. It is the most uninviting place in nature you've ever seen and experienced.

And you can see in the distance these swamp trees with high root section of overhead so you can walk underneath kind of are scattered throughout ahead of you. Uh, gnarbony, slowly turns his head back and he goes, you know I'm all right. But I appreciate that. Um, be careful.

Don't stay in one place too long. The longer you stand still, the harder it gets to escape the place you stood. And there's a lot of things that tend to live here from what I've heard that wait for stillness as a means of attack. So keep moving. Keep moving. Like what kinds of things?

I don't know. It's time for me to go. Thank you guys so much. I appreciate this. It's been something. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Before it goes, I just want to give him a kiss on his, on his head. Aw. A little kiss in the head, he goes like, I don't know, I'm doing. Well, at least it's been a pleasure traveling with you, my lady.

He takes your hand, kind of just a little bow on the edge. As I was kissing him, can I give him a little pat down and make sure he didn't steal anything? Make an investigation check. Oh, oh, ha-ha-ha-ha. 23 is... What was it? 23? 23.

Rolls. As you feel down, you've... this slight little bump inside of his fur, and you're afraid to touch it for fear if it's maybe just... On the outside of his body. Not that you understand the physicality of the Sater, but still... It's... It's hard and smooth and...

Fulbus? ...appears to wiggle loosely when you... you touch it. I'm saying I reached for it and try to see what it is, but... You reach for it? All right. You're committed now. Crasping onto it, you tug and pull forth the small onyx mastiff that you had found earlier in the campground.

Oh, shit. The dog. I take it back. He goes, oh, that's right. I'm just holding this for you. Thank you so much. You're so kind. The little black dog statue.

Yeah. Oh, I like that thing. Fantastic. Well, wish you all the best of luck. Stay alive. Wait a minute. How do you plan on getting back across the rivers? I have my way.

And he turns invisible. You see little sludgy footprints go off down the shore and around the bend. Cast hunter's mark really quick. Oh, on him? Yes. Can I cast hunter's mark on him really quick? Can I cast hunter's mark on him?

Can I cast hunter's mark on him? That's hunter's mug. You cannot currently see him now. He's already been in. Sorry. That's okay. I should have done it when I was kissing him, but I was distracted by feeling him up. I know.

It happens. All right, so what do you guys are going to do? Awesome. So we're across the rivers. Everything gets worse now and we can't stop moving. We should move until it's time to camp. And when we camp, we should camp in your place. In the trees.

Oh, in the mansion. In the mansion. I've got the mansion. Oh, thank God. Does it look like, are we in the bog now? You're right on the, this would be the tangle word tip of it, the southern tip of the bog, yes. I want to kind of like test and see if we sink when we step like on the bog. Okay, you step onto it and your foot descends about three inches before it comes to a stop.

Good to know. So there is some, as you go to remove your foot, it's very, very sticky. Effectively you guys are at half movement moving to the bog. Half movement, yeah. I cast pass without a trace on us. Okay. So that we can be stealthy. She doesn't have misform, not until we rest.

I could rest in learnings. And we can miss the cross. That was what I was going to say. So like... Is it like a tree line? Are we entering trees or is it... Yeah, it is a very thickly wooded swamp now that is just the ground floor and really the base of most of the trees. trees and occasionally dripping from the top of the canopy itself is that black sluggers-like

material. It's dripping from the trees? It's seemingly seeping from everything. So I have Land Stride. Does that mean that this doesn't affect me? Or am I still slowed down? Read out Land Stride? Land Stride isn't on any of my piece.

Arrangeability. Oh wait, wait, here it is. Here it is here. It's here. It's here. non-magical, difficult terrain, cost you no movement. No extra. So technically, yes, you can move at your normal page.

The rest of the party still has to. Awesome. Then I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to pull out my broom and I'm going to let the nose ride on it since you guys will sink down a little bit more than the rest of us. Do you want to ride on the broom while we're going through here? How can we do that? You sit on it and then you fly.

Do you have to say a magical word? I'll say it for you. I don't think it was something like you have to tell them and then they have to say it. Oh, really? You can try, it's it to do. Sit on it. Okay. Whenever a woman tells me to sit on something, I do.

Uh, front or back. I'll sit front and so you can have your arms around. Okay. That's sweet. That's sweet. Ha-ed-da. Okay. As you guys get up onto the broom, you release it from your grasp, and it goes, shpf,

on the ground. Both of you guys sink about three, four inches into the ground. to the ground. Say haktu. Haktu. It lifts up and pulls you guys slowly out of the sludge. Finally freeing yourself and you're now hovering a very short distance above the ground. All right, so at least you guys and me aren't slowed down so that's good. Bye guys!

See ya! By the way, now that we're out of all this shit, can we look around and see if Ukkara has been like peeping us this entire time? Can we see him? Make a perception check. The wolf guy. We're not in the forest anymore. This is bulk. 15. Right right now, you are, technically it's swamp. Yeah, so not considered forest.

16. 20? 20. 20? Oh, my God, I just rolled in that. It's a, uh, 31. As you guys take a moment to look out in the distance, you're unable to really make any idea of a form or movement. Kila, if you do see on the tree on the other.

It looks a little thicker towards the top as you expect. And as you take a moment at a glance, you can see a creature, a rather large creature, drop down from the canopy, onto the ground, and then kind of slink behind it. So he's just checking us out. He's following you. So he's going to be able to get across all these rivers?

Apparently, he's fine. He's pretty bad ass. He's pretty cool. He can jump really far. All right. I just kind of give him like a, from the distance. He shrinks sideways against the tree and is now barely visible. Oh, then like his furry chest that's now peaking out one side of the width of the tree. I just give him a...

No reaction. Back to this point, it's like, so we're going to move on then? Yes, but stealthily. Let's do it. Make stealth check, guys. I cast path out of trays on us, so we all got plus ten. Oh, love. Loverly. Loverly.

Shit. I did. I fucked it all. 32. I rolled a natural spot. Percy? 33. 33.

I did not roll an apple 20. Keloos. 24. All right. Lex. 32 as well. Pike. I rolled a 30.

And over here we have 12 foot tall grog. What did you roll? I rolled a 14. You guys begin trudging forward into the Shadymer. Everyone's being kind of... And he's just lumbering through it like a mammoth. We're being sneaky guys! You all kind of shush him and you find ways to go ahead and cushion his footfalls.

And so... As unstealthy as you may be in the moment, the rest of the party helps try and keep you going forward the best they can being unheard. You guys continue forward forward for... continue forward for about 30 minutes, not really understanding the direction. You know that heavy mountain that you saw on the way in is kind of central into the right of your direction and you're not entirely certain where the tree is here in the shade mark. But you're keeping your eyes peeled and you continue to move forward further and further in. And it is difficult, it's hot, it is muggy. There are heavy insects, large winged

bugs through the air and you're kind of knock them away. The bubbling of the ground itself is releasing sulfurous gas and various. and various other chemicals into the air that are probably not healthy to breathe extensively. Many of you are having to kind of cover your mouth to keep from coughing to break up your stealth capabilities. I'm gonna mask it. Put your mask on, okay. Can I keep an eye out for any kind of movement ahead of us or around us? Yeah, make a perception check. Yes. I only stay in large for 10 minutes.

So at this point, at this point it has now died down in your form has shifted to its normal form. Do I get to re-roll my stealth check? No. 29. Oh. Good. As you guys move forward and Vex is keeping watch, Vex, you see ahead of you about 80 yards

a large, stalky tree in the distance that has a gentle glow emanating from the trunk. Burn it down. Does it look like the tree we're looking for? It's hard to see this distance, you have to get closer and have a better look. How far opposite? 80 yards.

80 yards. Fuck, I'm so scared of everything here. Well, what's between us and it? A series of trees and a few like low areas of open sludge. How long does it take to... And it's just a tree with a glowing bottom? It looks thicker than a lot of other trees that you've seen in the area and there is like a dull glow at the base of it. I've got a great idea.

Let's send Trinket to go check out the tree. What? What the fuck? Why? What? I mean he's like a bear and this is the woods. You know what? It's not the woods. This is a bob. If he goes unconscious, he does automatically come back.

But no, there's only within 100 feet. There's not 80 yards. No No Matt Take the broom black back and fly a hundred feet behind him Huh? It's kind of an idea

But we're only 80 yards out Wait your feet 80 feet I guess I'm not slowed down so you know what I'm not slowed down I'm just gonna sneak behind Trink I'll send Trink it out and I'll sneak behind him a hundred feet behind it Okay, I'm never going to stop walking Trink it emerges In the sludge I'm sorry buddy

Okay, don't get too far ahead of me. We're gonna sneak ahead and check out this glowy tree. You see it? Mm-hmm. Yeah. All right. Sneaky, sneaky, sneaky. And Trinke means of stock four. Make a stealth check for Trinket.

Oh, geez. Come on, Trink. Oh. Without the plus send, because Trinket was not around for when you cast the spell. Aw, just mean. Uh, what do I add? Is dexterity modifier?

Yeah, okay, six. Total? Yeah. Really? Oh. It was a six? No. Good draw.

Is that a thing? No. It's not very stealthy that bear. It's a bear. He's a bear in armor, no. Yeah. What is it? Six.

Oh, it was a six. Yeah. It's a cool. All right. You can hear this impact coming as each footfall hits the sludge. As you get closer towards it, kind of keeping at bay as best out of sight as possible, you can You see the tree, while it is thicker, is not as high as the other trees. In fact, where there would be atop of a tree,

it looks to be instead a tangled mass of branches that have been matted over and tied down to the top of where this tree ends. I tell him to stop. Drink it stops. You get a glance, and the small glow actually is apparently a porthole of some kind or a window that is carved circular out from one side of the trunk of this tree, and the glow is a dull reddish orange and it's flickering. like firelight.

It's the Keebla elves. Kill them all! I call him back. I call him back. I feel like that's animals. That's not the tree we're looking for. This is not the tree we're looking for. Trink it backs up towards you. Dives into the necklace. The whole time, us who are waiting have just been kind of doce-doing around each other. I do a, I do a, hmm, hmm.

We don't stop moving, so we're dancing. We're just spinning around in circles. It's like you're lagging. It's like you're lagging. Yeah. All right, what are you doing, Beck? So it's just, it's a tree that looks like there's, there's actually like people living in it, it's a window looking at.

It seems to have like an interior and some sort of warm firelight from the inside. That's definitely a fairy tree. I'm gonna stick there. I'm gonna go back. I'm gonna go back to the part. Okay. and tell what I see. All right, Vex returns from out of the shadows of the forest, no Trinket in tow.

Trinket died. Oh my... You're a dick, I'm joking. I think it's fairies. I think we should probably stay clear. It looked like there were things living in the tree. It doesn't look like the cancer tree. They may know where we want to go, though.

The pixies and fairies haven't been that nice. I feel like the love to be nice. I'm saying that maybe we need some new guidance. Yeah, look. Maybe if you let me talk to them. How about no diplomacy for you? Maybe Scanlon should go talk to them. I could talk to them, but I want to know what they are first.

We should do some recon and at least see what kind of creature they are. I can't just knock on a door. What if it's a crazy monster that pops his head at? Then it eats you. We'll shoot you first. You won't fit anything. I'll go up and talk, but don't, aren't you curious? No, no. Not really.

Oh. I got you back. I'll go with you. No. Why? We'll send it, too, so either way, you feel like you've accomplished something. Ha ha. Okay.

You both die, and then you'll know that the bear goes with you. It's a bonding trip. Yeah. Do you want me to stay with you on the broom or something? Yes! Oh, okay. You're taking the broom? You care more about the broom than me.

Yes! Don't answer that. You've known me for years. You just met the broom. We can land there and then. land there and then we can send the broom back to you? No, we're the groom to get away. We need the broom to get away, okay. That's a fair point.

In order to stay alive, you need to be near the broom. We'll keep an eye up, Vax. The two gnomes go, they're not very intimidating. I do not like this plan at all. You are charming. You're both very charming. Yeah, go for it. I'm not that charming.

You're extremely charming. I think you find her charming. You know what? You're charming. I mean, I find her charming too. Let's go do it. But it doesn't mean that other people can I go with, can I go? What should go? What could possibly go on?

Can I go on the broom with you, Scanman? No. Let the little bits go. You can watch. You're fine. We're still doing a dosy dough, by the way, while we're having this conversation. Little bits go. Little bits.

All right, Pikey. Let's go knock on the door and get killed. If you fucking get my room lost because you told me not to go, I'm going to murder you. And this is not in character. This is mentality. This is me tell you. I just want to say that was a death threat.

in front of a thousand people. I think with this many witnesses, it's not a threat, it's a promise. So. Is there a nearby tree that I can climb into? There are a number of trees in the vicinity, yes. I might get a little climbing. Where this thing is, though, there is

about a 30-foot distance between it and any other trees. It's like in the center of this small clearing. I just want a good vantage. Yeah, I get into advantage. I get up into a tree, and while they go do their recon, I want, I want to cast Commune with Nature. Okay.

That's smart. All right. So as you ascend the side of the nearest tree, and it resembles Atreou climbing up the tree in the swamp of sadness, as it's just these large and old branches and bits of muck and dust kind of falling off the sides, and the oil slick that is surrounding the base makes it difficult to find your handholds, but you do eventually get your way up into the tree over the next five, ten minutes. Let me up, tree. So, you're going to cast communion with nature?

Huh? the nature you said yes all right so what do you want to ask hmm do I sense a cancerous tree in the area so you're asking this to the tree or is this the land around you right yeah I'm not asking the tree you you know you concentrate for a second you feel yourself linked with the land and it's it's a very jarring sensation you used to connect with nature being the serene wonderful experience this is like plugging into a nightmare Suddenly, your thought process is filled with this ever-drawn sense of dread.

You feel this cold sensation, fill your form, and you're managed to get this information across, but it leaves this very hollow feeling in the center of your being. Feeling out, you do not sense a cancerous tree, but you do sense the strengthening presence of the source of this entire swaps, perpetual destitution and slow decay further, further to the northwest of this. Northwest. Yes. Okay. So I can safely assume that the tree that they are heading towards is not cancerous.

Correct. Okay. We should call them back. I'm meditating. Ugh. Then can I just get like a general lay of the land and... sense running water and rivers so we can avoid those. Okay.

In feeling any sorts of bodies of water, you're too far from the Gilded Run to sense any of that, and there is no running water within this actual shade murder. Everything is a very slow rolling sludge from the direction that you initially sensed. It's just this perpetual billowing, slow crawling death. and what little bit of running water you would sense is deep, deep, deep underground and probably still in danger of the next 50 years or so of being corrupted itself. Oh, okay. For my last question, can I just get a sense on any big evil things that might want to kill us?

You need to be a little more specific than that. Everything. Living things are you. Um, uh, more specific that I won't screw it up. Come on. That's Sullivan. Um, are there Twinkies? Are there any, um, more like large crocodile dudes living under the, the, the,

I don't know. There are more large things living under the swan? So you do a sense for large, like, dangerous plant, entities like that crocodile? Yes, under the swamp. Under the swamp. Well, you know, just wherever, just blink at it. Yeah.

As you extend your presence, you get no images or any sense of creatures like that crocodile. However, you do sense a rather intense presence throughout this bog at certain places of other corrupted plant life entities. Okay. Is the tree in. front of us count as a corrupted plant life infinity.

And none of the, you know, pixies that live in there are showing up on my radar bad. Okay. That's a pretty far question. That's it. The spell fades. Climb your way back down out of the branches of the tree. This place sucks.

What'd you see? It's so sad. The trees are so sad. Anything useful? Oh, yeah, yeah. They're angry also. Well, you know, a little bit of both. Should we call the nose back?

You know, they're fine. Wait, wait. But we do, the presence of the distortion and the corruption is getting stronger northeast. And we should all go. We should just send the middle bits in there we should all go. This is kind of... We get to whatever it is.

We're getting to. Have the gnomes already been set on their path at this time? We're already cruising. Yep. So as you guys having this discussion, the broom slowly glides up to the outside of the street. As you get close to it, you notice too from immediate position that mass of dried roots and branches that are up top are threaded together with rope. There is definitely construction to this, almost like a wooden, thatched roof.

The side porthole you see does have wooden cross beam in the center. It is definitely a functional and pretty well-crafted. you know, window for this rather rough exterior. The roots of the tree, though it is not very tall, it is thick, it is round, it's probably a good 25, 30 feet wide this tree's trunk, and the roots are large and sink deep into the ground and the vicinity.

Do you see the glow from the window? What do you want to do? Don't do it! Oh, what? Who said that? Why? Attack the tree. I'm getting mixed messages. What if they're trying to catch us or something? How many windows are there?

One for what you can see. Just one window. Don't. Do it. You're not there. You don't see anything. Guys, I think Vex might be right. Come back.

Come back. Should we do a fly by the window to see what's inside? Don't even fly close to the tree. I have really bad feelings about this. Fly by the window. Just fucking shit, mother bitch. Fly by and burn you. We're going to, using our expert flying skills.

We're going to fly by the window and just do one of these and just check. Check out the Baron Steep Bears and then run. Okay. Go to make perception check. Not good. You too. You too.

Okay. Oh, God. That's terrible. I think I just have so much mud in my eye. I don't see anything. Okay. Okay. You don't pick up a lot of detail, but as you come up over the top,

looking on the inside, it looks to be rather comfortable, surprisingly. Surprisingly, it's a small home. There's a table and there's a small hearth. There appears to be, it looks to be a shelf of some kind, ramshackle maybe, but still functional with books pressed into it. You can see a number of small baskets hanging from the ceiling containing various roots and other pieces of plant matter that just kind of gathered and bundled together.

You can see there's a, you know, that fireplace by the hearth, there is also a series of drying animal carcasses hung in the corner. that are all just kind of stripped and they're being aired out in that space. You also see what looks to be a large chair that is facing the hearth, slightly away from you, and a small in table next to it that contains a little teacup and a little teacet. They look nice. What size person is the chair for? Small?

Actually, the chair is pretty large. It's tall. As you said a small, as you're making a look, you see one large crooked hand reach out from behind the chair with impossibly long fingers with hooked nails, kind of just reach over. You can see what looks like dried wrappings, just hanging from parts of its wrist and elbow as it reaches over and wraps its gnarled fingers around this tiny teacup and pull it back behind the chair. Do you describe this? I don't. I see it and I turn around and I say, Like, let's get out of here.

Yeah, let's get it. At this point, you hear a snap sound. God damn it! And next to you, you hear this... As a little bit of light peeks out to your left, a door has slowly opened on the side of the tree trunk. Guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys. Please fly fucking back right now.

What do is, Kenlan? Oh, God. Ah, we just, we just bolt. We just bolt for it. PUT and start flying. Flying where? Back to our friend. Okay.

Oh no, why do you say it like that? You guys turn and begin making your way back towards the party and the broom slows. God! Oh no. How far away is it? How far away? It comes to a stop and then drops out from money, you both into the sludge. Can, okay, that's okay.

I grab Pike and I... I... I grab Pike and we both go away. I pick... I pick up the broom before we go invisible. All right. And you're casting invisibility? Invisibility, I guess, at one level higher, right? Is that what I do? I believe that's what you do to go ahead and get more of that.

Oh, guys. Conceded away, making sure real fast, we don't miss the soap. I know. Level three, invisibility. There you go. Your house is going to have chicken feet. So yeah. Number three.

You both turn invisible. her clutching the broom. What? We're both invisible now, and you're touching the broom. We're invisible and the broom is invisible? Yeah. I go, can we start? We start tipping out, I suppose.

Running back to that. You just watch them vanish ahead of you. What? A few moments pass, and you guys end up making your way back to the rest of the group, and you see the footfalls of both of your tiny-known friends. Watching that hag through my scope with everything I've got. From your perspective, you can't really see anything through the window.

you're just going off of what they've told you, which has been very little. So you're just looking into the side of the window, and all you see is a little bit of flicker of firelight. All right, nothing. I don't have X, and I give her her brim. What's your... What'd you find? There's a woman.

She was... It looked like it was really nice, and then there was this really cute T-set, and then just like this crazy hand came out. She was like, that sounds terrible. She looks really scary. Was she really tall? Do you know if she was tall?

The chair was really big. I mean, anybody's tall to us. That's true. That's true. Yeah. She was very large. Superbond question. Did they see you? Yes.

Oh, I think. Probably. Well, the broom stopped flying. Yes. What do you mean? Hide? Hide? What?

What are you saying we should hide, pussy? We should go. Like when? Clutching the broom in your hands. Oh, fuck. As you emit the phrase that you've known to bring it to vibrant magical life. Oh, no. The broom jumps to life.

For saving a marriage. Oh my God. And there, backing up from this abode in the center of the ship, trademark bog. Your room retrieved, your party members gathered, looking towards that glowing window, and now the ajar door inviting you in to some degree. We'll pick this up next session. Welcome to Mick Unplugged, the number one podcast for self-improvement and modern leadership. I'm Mick Hunt, your host, and I'm here to challenge your why and fuel your because. This is where leaders, entrepreneurs, and go-getters come to level up. Each week,

I bring you unfiltered conversations, game-changing strategies, and the kind of motivation that transforms lives and legacies. I've learned from legends like Les Brown, Damon John, and Robert Irvine. And now, I'm bringing their lessons, along with mine, straight to you. From modern leadership tips to creating unstoppable momentum, this is the podcast that redefines what's possible. Hit play, subscribe, and join the millions who've made Mick Unplugue their goals. go-to source for growth and greatness, because your next breakthrough is just one episode away. This is Mick Unplug, the voice and face of modern leadership entrepreneur and self-improvement. Let's get started.

Oh, please, not that music. That music gives me nightmares from my childhood. Could we get something a little bit lighter? Some lighter music here. Are you a fan of true crime TV shows? And what about Unsolved Mysteries, the show that jumped started all of our love of true crime? I'm Ellen Marsh And I'm Joey Taranto

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