Critical Role - C2E21 Stalker in the Swamp

Episode Date: June 1, 2018

A new ally joins the Mighty Nein as they head deep into the Labenda Swamp to investigate the Gentleman’s mysterious safe house…(guest Mark Hulmes)Watch Critical Role live Thursdays at 7pm PT on https://www.twitch.tv/criticalrole

Hello, bees! This is Laura Bailey, here to welcome you to the Critical Role podcast. If you'd like to tune into the show as it airs, you can watch Critical Role Thursdays at 7 p.m. Pacific on twitch.tv slash criticalrole and youtube.com slash criticalrole. Our lovely Twitch subscribers can view the episode on demand right away. Or you can find it on YouTube Mondays at 12pm Pacific. And of course, for all you fantastic podcast listeners, Critical Role episodes hit feeds on Thursday mornings, a week after the episode first airs. With all that said, let's get into another episode of Critical Role. Hello, everyone, and welcome to tonight's episode of Critical Role, where a bunch of

us nerdy-ass voice actors sit around and play Dungeons & Dragons. Nerdy-ass voice actors? Yes. Is that what you said? That is what I said. That's accurate. Yeah. So before we go into tonight's game, we have a couple quick announcements to go through,

one of which is kind of awesome. First and foremost, we have our fantastic friends and sponsors of this campaign thus far, and going on into infinity, D&D Beyond. Sam, if you want to talk a little bit about that, please. Hey, everybody. D&D Beyond wanted you guys to know that Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes is out. Big news here, guys. It's not Mordenkainen, and it's not a tomb of foes, as I've been saying it. It's Mordenkainen's tomb of foes. You can purchase it right now at D&D Beyond on their website. Also, if a player in your campaign has a Master Level subscription, any player, not just the DM that owns Mordenkainen's Tome of

Foes, can share content with everyone in the party. But the real announcement tonight is that D&D Beyond has gone beyond, and they've made a thing that I made, but then they took it and they made it, but it's even better than I made it. We're going to play it for you tonight, and you might enjoy it. Have you guys seen it yet? No. We're about to. It's so good! Okay, roll that tape! You got the perfect warlock, her weapons and supplies. But you need a place to track your stuff, cause you're so disorganized. You click, open a webpage, you heard about a critical role.

And now you're ready to kick some butt in that mineshaft full of gnolls. It's D&D, D&D, D&D D&D Beyond Yeah, D&D D&D Beyond You've got your stats, you've got your swords And you've got your invisible wand It's D&D D&D

D&D! D&D Beyond! It's so cool! It's so cool! It's so awesome! It's amazing. Holy shit! Yeah, yeah. They did it. They did it. It was so wonderful!

Right? They did it. We're in the 80s cartoon, guys! It's so good. We're the emotional. All our characters animated. We have to give some shout-outs. Massive props. Yes, to Camille and Kevin. I'm sure I'll say their last names wrong, but Camille and Kevin

Areopagita for working on this. Those are the animators. Such an incredible job. Go visit Twitter at K-A-R-E-K-A-R-E. We'll put it up on the thing. You can visit their Patreon, patreon.com slash kiframe. And it's really cool and it's really fast, so we thought we might just play it again. Again! One more time, one more time! You got the perfect warlock,

her weapons and supplies. But you need a place to track your stuff, cause you're so disorganized. You click open your webpage, you heard about a critical role. And now you're ready to kick some butt in that mineshaft full of gnolls. It's D&D! D&D Beyond! Yeah, D&D! D&D D&D Beyond Yeah D&D D&D Beyond D&D Beyond

You've got your stats, you've got your swords, and you've got your invisible wand It's D&D D&D D&D! D&D! D&D Beyond! That's some good stuff. How layered was that harmony at the end? I did like seven or 12 tracks of harmony. There's all kinds of stuff going on in the background. The synth gives me 80s life in the best way. It's so fantastic.

It's a real drum fill, but it's also me going. Seriously, Camille, Kevin, Aria, Petita, you guys are amazing. Such an incredible job on that. I'm going to plug that Patreon again, because they deserve it. That's patreon.com slash keyframe. K-I-F-R-A-M-E. Go check out their work. They're fantastic. I think we'll be watching that on repeat, Jell-Free. Yeah, I know. Can we all cry for the whole game tonight? I mean, it wouldn't be Critical Role if we didn't at some point. Thank you, D&D Beyond, for being

fantastic partners in this and for making that shit happen! Okay, moving on! Oh man! Emotion crack! I know! Vox Machina Origins, the hardcover physical copy, went on sale today and is available for purchase now through our friends at Dark Horse. You can find all the details at critrole.com. It includes the collection of the six-issue Vox Machina Origins comic arc, previously digital release only,

as well as a bunch of extras in the back about the art process and the designing of the characters, a whole map of Stillben, and a bunch of information about some of the characters, creatures, and items that you see throughout the story for possible use in your home game. But anyway, check it out, hope you enjoy it. We're real proud of it.

Stream of Many Eyes starts tomorrow. Where Ashley and me are going to be playing on a game tomorrow night for Force Grey, and then a bunch of us are going to be there Sunday throughout the day doing various games. You can check out dnd.wizards.com slash S-O-M-E for all the information for this weekend. If you can't be there in person, they are streaming it,

so at least you can check it all out there. It's going to be a lot of fun. Cool reveals and crazy times. It's so crazy. It's so crazy. So crazy. See, Talks Machina is every Tuesday evening at 7 p.m. Pacific, where our fantastic,

recently escaped from the far realm, Brian W. Foster will be hosting, to discuss next week the things that happened in this week's episode you're about to see. So check it out, should be fun. And I will be at ACON June 8th through the 10th. So in a couple weeks, I'll be out there at Dallas-Fort Worth with panels, signings,

and going to talk and hanging out with people as much as I can. So if you're in that area, come say hello. Hi, Art. I believe. Wait, I got one thing. Oh, what you got? What you got, Laura? Oh, well, I was just perusing our store recently because sometimes I do that.

Full of good stuff. It is full of good stuff, but something I noticed that we haven't announced is that the rings that we had forever ago. The D20 rings? The D20 rings? The D20 spinner rings. Oh, yeah. Those things are in the store right now.

I don't know if we found a stockpile of them, but there are some in the store right now. Just so you know. Were the 20s the CR logo, too? Oh, shit. I don't know, we just found some. There's a bunch of other stuff, too, t-shirts and stuff, but the spinner ring is there for maybe five more seconds. I do like that we have mystery caches of old items showing up.

It's a perpetual surprise, you never know what you'll see. And new items. New items on sale right now. It's so pretty, it's so pretty. Look at this, look at this, look at this. Also, Hydra singles feel better. I know. Don't even care.

Look at that, look at that! Look at it on paper, look at the color! You can hold it and taste it and smell it! Olivia and Samson are fantastic Critter artists, did such a great job on this series. If you haven't had a chance to check out her work, please do, she's amazing. That's it, no more.

All right, and on that note, let us all jump in to tonight's episode of Critical Role. Do-do, do-do, do-do, do-do. ДИНАМИЧНАЯ МУЗЫКА Thank you. ДИНАМИЧНАЯ МУЗЫКА LAURA and SAM and SAM and SAM and SAM And welcome back. That was pretty creative. Well done. You were totally good. That's a six-level spell. Anyway, welcome back. To catch up on what previously occurred,

the Mighty Nein had decided to leave Zadash in the wake of the now-declared war between the Dwendalian Empire and the Xhorhasian hordes to the east. You decided to side with the Gentleman, a purveyor of various darker and underhanded deeds throughout this side of the Empire, who offered you two possible contracted options.

You chose both and proceeded onto your first leg of this journey to the northeast, to the Labenda Swamp, and to the city of Berylben, where you were tasked to discover what had happened to a safe house of which various smuggled goods would be stored and then transported through that had gone dark for a number of weeks. You packed up, made your way in that direction,

traversed through the outskirts of the swamp, managed to save a tiny bird friend from being consumed by a few large crocodiles, and scoured the swamp city of Berylben in search of some means of information to find the individual that the gentleman says would be able to help you in this journey, Fabron. Fabron was found drunken, disorderly, in the Keystone Pub.

That's so sexy. Oh, so sexy. He's a right nice one. So you managed to interrogate him, made him an offer he couldn't refuse, and he agreed to lead you on to where this safe house exists within the swamp. You rented out the rooms in the subterranean chambers

of the old and almost collapsed pub. You separated yourselves for the evening, completed your rest, and we pick up as morning comes to greet you. Lightless, as there are no windows, and you just eventually come to on what you assume is an evening's full rest. But as you all independently come to shake your heads

and get yourself prepared for what the next day's journey arises, you gather your things and you glare at the rather awkward Fibron across the way, who as you wake up is just sitting there watching you sleep. You're so creepy. I'm going to pull the bed out from the door. Are you ready to get up?

Well, I'm ready to do whatever you are. Lead the way. Great. Well, I'm ready to do whatever you want. Lead the way. Right. Open the door. We'll head upstairs. You guys begin to... We wake up, though. Cuddled in a pile in our room. Just floofy with Ciri in between. Yeah, like a little cuddle pile.

It's sharp. You don't sleep with the daggers, Ciri. Yeah, like a little, a little cuddle pile. It's sharp. You don't sleep with the daggers, Ciarry. You have to remove them. We should have taught her that last night. Yeah, that's right. Good parenting. I'm gone real life. So you guys all begin to gather, make your way up the ladder through the hatch

on the floor of the Keystone Pub, which is not bustling by any means, but there are maybe three patrons in the process of having their morning ale. You glance over the side and you can see Dent bond swallows in the process of cleaning off a number of the glasses from the night before. He looks over in your direction and goes,

All right, right, bright morning to y'all. I've been brides up. Would you like breakfast of some kind, eh? That's a lot of fucking energy, this early in the morning direction, he goes, all right, right, bright morning to y'all. Rise up, would you like breakfast of some kind, eh? That's a lot of fucking energy, this early in the morning, god. I would like so much of whatever you have, please, thank you. Right, right, come and ride up.

Go ahead and find a place to sit, be with you in about an hour. An hour? Well, I'm going to make your food. Oh. Does he have to go and kill it first? Yeah. He's counting, he and kill it first? Yeah. He's counting, he's like,

about an hour. That's a long time. Yeah, what are we going to do until then? That's like an easy bake oven. I mean, should we explore the street that we're on? I mean, we've got a long wait time. Should we see if the, oh no, the horses would take the, they took the cart. To the stables.

Yeah, that's all situated there. There is, in the far corner of the chamber, the back wall opposite to the right of where the stage is being constructed, though right now it looks like there's no current construction going on at the moment, a hooded figure is slowly walking towards the table where you guys are deciding whether or not to sit.

We run forward and we get the table first. Okay. You manage to sit on one of the small benches on the side, scrapes the ground a bit as you push into the side. I take my staff and I lay it long ways over the entire bench on the other side. The old movie theater grab.

All right, the cloaked figure stops and takes in this physical display and then continues to approach. Frumpkin walks to the edge of the table and shows his butthole by lifting his tail up. Mark, if you want to step in. Oh! You're always so want to step in.

You're always so mean to the guests. Mark Humes, longtime friend, Dungeon Master of High Rollers. I just can't believe he got here. You tried, you tried. Not really, not really. So you, the first thing you see, the individuals you've been waiting throughout the evening to show up begin to step through, groggily complain about the space,

and then claim a table as you begin to try and approach, at which you are greeted with stairs and a cat butthole. This table is taken by the Mighty Nein, but you know, if you need anything, there's other tables. Oh, yeah, hi. Actually, I kind of... You see this, I guess, feminine-looking figure, long black hair that covers almost the entire side of her left face, wearing a hood up, dark green cloak, black and green clothes. You can occasionally see green ribbons in her long hair. She's like, I'm really sorry to bother you guys. I couldn't help but overhear some conversation you had last

. I'm sorry to be really forward. Are you heading into the swamp today? You're listening in to our conversations? Not on purpose. I'm really desperate to find a way into the swamp, and you were talking really loudly. That's Garrett. I'm not really that loud. Oh my, you're blue, and she's, and she looks up at you and, yeah.

You're not. No, no, but you're so cute, and looks around. If you don't mind us asking, why are you heading into the swamp yourself? Oh, well, it's a of a long story, just. Oh, we're having a bit of a time-lapse. Time has moved. It's kind of also a bit of a, well, I mean,

you guys haven't been hired by any creepy people in dragon masks, have you? You don't know anyone like that? I mean, not for several years, for a different reason. Definitely a long time since I've dealt with anyone in a dragon mask. I've never seen anyone in a dragon mask before. Wasn't that creepy? Definitely coming with that one.

We've been hired by creepy people, but not by... Oh, so I'm wearing a mask, but that is a different kind of mask. It's not a dragon mask. Same kind of creepy, though. And this is a bird. What is that? A bird.

Like, it walks around? A bird. She walks around. She walks around. Repeat stuff, yeah. Oh my god. She's kind of the best. She's adorable. Hello? Hello?

She's doing you. Oh my god. Ejubation. She pulls a dagger out. No, no, no, no, it does do it probably not so much right now with that. I've never seen a bird like that before. It can talk.

Is that your daughter? Yes, yep. Yes, he's my dad. Don't speak to the adults, honey. Just stay quiet. That's what I thought. Green ears and then like that. Anyway, sorry, I'm getting distracted from what you asked me. That happens sometimes. Just give me a nudge and I'll get back on track. There's something out in the swamp. There's somewhere like a smugguggler's holdout, or like a storehouse, I think, maybe. That's crazy. That's a weird thing to put in the middle of the swamp.

Yeah, well, anyway, what is it that you need with that, though? Well, there's, somebody was transporting an item I'm looking for, and I think it's there. And I need to get it before some other people get it, but I'm not stealing it, I'm just, well, I kind of am stealing it, but I'm taking it back for a good reason. Is it the people in the dragon masks that want it? Yeah, yeah, it is. You look trustworthy.

Are you getting paid for this item? Me? Retrieval? Yeah. No, it's more of a personal thing. I want to make sure it doesn't get into the wrong hands. Is it your underwear? What? Yeah, what's the item? I mean, I'm sure my father would want to know

what's the item. Your underwear? Well. It's a bowl? I know that sounds weird. I think it's part of a ritual, and I need to get it. Like a bowl or a bowl? I've never seen a bowl like that.

You couldn't get a lot of soup in a bowl like that big. I mean like a big bowl. It's a soup bowl then? What have you been doing after school, honey? After school activities. You have a very comfortable relationship. It's really nice to see you two. Very open, yeah. I tell him everything! You need to have that trust between family.

You want to have a big bowl. So you're searching for a bowl. Yeah, that's right. And used in rituals. I think so, yes. I need to, I just, I need to make sure it doesn't fall into the wrong hands, that's all. Our business might be headed out that way a little later today.

Does she have any weapons on her that are visible? Make a perception check. Not me. You're not groggy, but it's okay. That's okay, 17. Hey, glancing about. Yeah, so there's no obvious weapons that you can see on her, but she has this long green cloak

that's really covering her left side, and you would probably see that there's black scales all over her left side, and she's deliberately holding her arm completely hidden. Her arm's invisible underneath the cloak. I'm wondering if she seems straightforward. Is the nervousness an act? Make an insight check. Yeah, okay. Welcome to playing with Caleb. Insight check, insight check. I've seen the check.

It's a 15. 15? 15. Okay. It seems to be rather forthright. Yeah, seems to be on forthright. Not, yeah, seems to be on the level. Okay. Not a good answer. She's nervous. Yeah, she seems nervous.

She seems, you know, based on what you're asking. As far as the features, if I recall, they're, is it half elven? Yeah, so the human half looks half elven, so ever so slightly elven features, slightly pointed ear, but the left side covered. All right. All right, so you're looking for a bowl,

a dangerous bowl. A soup bowl used in rituals. Yeah, you don't want to get it in the wrong hands, because. Of people in dragon masks. Do you think they're sending people to get it there before you? I love your jewelry, by the way, it's really nice. Thank you, I've picked everything out myself. This is all put together.

Also, why do these people want the bowl that you're talking about? Do any of them have holy symbols or religious symbols anywhere on their person? I am literally covered in them. Of who? Everybody. Like, name, literally the code is made up of like seven different options.

Everybody who is legal within the Empire. Yes. Okay. Yeah, but there's also, yeah. Is the platinum dragon one of them? Yeah, I'm wearing a platinum dragon necklace. Yeah, but there's also, yeah. Is the platinum dragon one of those? Make a perception check, you do. I'm wearing a platinum dragon necklace. Okay, so when she notices the platinum dragon,

are you a worshiper of the platinum dragon by any chance? Sure. Okay, yeah. Well, if you're traveling with somebody who's a worshiper of the platinum dragon, I guess I can trust you. Oh, good for us. He's incredibly trustworthy, and he worships like crazy.

That's what everybody says. Oh, that's, well, by the gods, that's really. Remind me to show you my tapestries. Okay. Is that code for something? No, it's literally my tapestries. No, okay, fair enough. Just don't touch them.

Why? Because he's had them wrapped around his body. Like, oh my goodness, well. She's high on sugar, don't listen to her. Anyway. Have you ever heard of the Scaled Tyrant? No. Well, it's probably a good thing. They're not a very nice goddess, and the worshipers of her are after this bowl, and I need to stop them getting it. They're not good people.

And you have a reason to believe that they are expeditiously heading towards this bowl as well. They bought it, and I think that they're after it now, yes. This is a very tactless question, but you are talking about the scaled tyrant, and you also are sporting some scales. Is that a coincidence or are they related? I'm sorry, just a lot of people get really nervous when they see them. I'm not diseased or cursed or anything, just, yeah. We're pretty cool. And she brushes the hair to her side

and she adjusts the cloak and you can see the whole left side is black dragon scales and her hand is a draconic claw. A black dragon tail sweeps out from under the cloak. I'm like a tenth dragon, and some people get freaked out by that. You sure you're just a tenth? Yeah, I think so. All I know is that a great ancestor of mine was a black dragon, and I've inherited some of that. Like a full dragon?

Yeah, yeah, that's what I've been told. I think it's pretty sexy, to be honest. You see Vabran there as this creepier old man, balding, little liver spotted, missing most of his teeth, one eye wandering a bit. Is he with you? No. Well, he's going to take us where we need to go.

Oh, so. He's work for hire. Okay, all right. I'm just going to stand next to Caleb. Away from this guy. I've had shorter conversations with family members. What's your name? Oh, sorry, I'm Caliana.

You can call me Kelly. Kelly. Cali. Cali. Caliana. That's cool. Hi. Hi.

Nice to meet you, what are your names? Welcome to the Mighty Nein. The little bird creature begins to chirp in your direction. That's a really long name. She's Kiri. Oh, Kiri, oh, nice. Hello, Kiri. I am Kali.

I'm Kali. No, you're Kiri. Yep. You're Kiri. No, I'm Kali. Only 56 more minutes till breakfast is ready. For the sake of expediency. You share what information you choose to in that space of time, but food does come to you piecemeal

as your fine, dent-ponsoilo friend decides to deliver it plate by plate as it arrives. It's passable, most of it's little overcooked breakfast meats, bit of rubbery egg, and that's about it. Nice. Good swamp breakfast. Mm. It's good that you put the time in.

We need more sugar here. Well, listen, we are heading in that direction. I won't be a burden or anything, but if you don't mind me coming, I could just use the help of the swamps. I've tried to go out in it by myself, and there's something out there, something. Giant ones.

I've seen some of those, I avoided them, but there's also something else. I haven't quite seen it yet. You hear this deep, horrible growling sound that kind of echoes around you. That was it. I heard that noise. You see Ciri's feathers fluffing up as she does it.

Does something keep that up? Can you do it again, Ciri? Can you do it again? Have we ever heard this sound before? It's the sound of the crocodiles that were in the battle before, yeah. Creepy. Frumpkin travels over to Ciri and starts going, as he nestles against Ciri.

Ciri starts fluffing and loosely purring back. Is that cat with you? Cat is with me. Oh, cats don't like me, so they tend to really freak out. I understand that completely. You and I, we're going to be real close, I can feel. They can smell the dragon blood. I know, they can tell.

Yep, there's a fear. You're dragon as well. No, no, no. I take a step and a half away from Kallie. Kallie, did you hear any howling in this swamp? Because we heard there were howling monsters. Best to get through nothing that was howling-esque, necessarily, but you didn't travel too far into the swamp. No, I didn't really go that far deep in

with the gators and some shadows moving around. I know a little magic, but I've never fought before, so. You've never fought? No, I had a bit of a recluse upbringing. I learned magic, I know a few spells, and I learned how to control it a bit. The Draconic Blood gives me some magic, but I've never been in a real fight before. Caleb can teach you all about magic. He knows all the spells, and he's very, very wise.

Really? Yes. Oh, wow. Although I don't think we're going to have time for that. If you're going to join us, you're going to have to work for your food, you understand? I do, yeah. My name's Fjord, by the way.

Nice to meet you, Fjord. Beau. Beau? I am Caleb. Caleb? Yeah. Bren. Bren? Mm-hmm. Just their fancy pants. Oh, that's a brilliant name.

Thank you. Ah, Molly. Molly. Yasha. I haven't spoken to you. You're very big. Yeah, I mean, that's just me. I like your black and white hair, that's cool. Thanks.

You're very excitable. This is Kiri. Kili. So can you, you know, shoot out fire out your nose and all that? Um, well, kind of, yeah. Just one nostril? I could try, yeah. It mainly, if I breathe, it's more acid.

But I can control some fire as well. Do you have one little wing back there, too? No, no wings. Just the tail and the claw. That would've been cool, though. The claw's sharp. I learned to fight with it a little bit. Can I see it?

Yeah, is there anybody else around in the tavern? There's, at this point, two other patrons, but they're not really paying attention. I'll just put my back to them, and then I'll move up to Yasha, and she takes the cloak off and brings out this scale. Jesus Christ! That's fucking brilliant. That's your arm! Yeah, that's for Braum. Yeah, it is.

Don't get me wrong, I still think it's pretty foxy. Ugh. Somehow even creepier. You know what? It's amazing. I appreciate that you're so accepting of everything, for Bronn. It is quite nice. Been around as long as I have, you kind of just

live a life of beggars can't be choosers. I am right back in my pit. Anyway. Yeah, so, but yeah, no, I'm happy to help and work and do what you need me to. I just, I really need to get this item. I need to make sure it... I understand.

Unfortunately, my daughter is very particular about shiny and expensive things, so if this bowl has any worth, I'm afraid we might need to be compensated for our troubles. Did you happen to bring any coin with you? Only a little. I could maybe trade you something for it, but I'd like to keep that on me for now, if you don't mind. It's a small trinket, it's got a little bit of magic. Fair enough.

You can see on her human arm, it's a silver bracelet with a little charm token hanging off it with a green emerald. Ooh! I love trinkets. It's an arcane focus, I'm told, but it has a little magic to it. Trinkets are pretty great. They are. They always have been. We normally have a no stranger policy, but we'll keep a close eye on you, and if you get up to any tricksy business.

I promise, no tricksy business from me. I hear you talking still. Yeah, Yasha and Molly, they'll remove your head for you, you understand? Very gently and politely, but yeah. And you know what? I really like your scales, so I would probably just fashion a cool

Yasha! I'm not going to do it, I'm just saying it's really cool. Full transparency. I'll be good, I promise. We're not responsible for any injury or death that you may sustain while traveling with us, even if it is from a member of the Mighty Nein. Should we have them sign something?

Do we have a release? I'll write them a release form really fast. Oh, okay. Illustrate it? Yes. Illustrate all the things that could happen. Chopped off, an ax to the face. I will illustrate being burned by fire.

Castration. Pulled apart by gators. Probably something creepy and howling eating you as well. This is probably stating the obvious, but if you have not picked up on it yourself, we are kind of a pack of assholes. And I'm going to use the colored ink from my mom to make it really gory. Try to burn me, you're not threatening to kill me

because I'm cursed. Yeah, you all seem lovely, really. You're much better than most people I have to deal with, to be honest. Here you go, you can sign this. Okay. Sorry. All right, we have a deal.

Good, you're in. Welcome to the Mighty Nein. Welcome to the Mighty Nein. Welcome to the Mighty Nein! This dude is adorable! Oh shit, there's not, no, we're not ironic anymore! We'll see how we are at the end of the day. I bet that'll fix itself. Oh, that's true.

Yeah, we are, because when you write the name down, it is actually the Zimnian word for no, so even if there's nine people, then it's literally all right. Let's double on time. Let's go! Wait, we haven't eaten, or yes we have, sorry. Lots of pumpkin bacon. We ordered coffee, we're still waiting on coffee.

Is there going to be a dessert? Was there a dessert menu? I feel like there was supposed to be a dessert menu. Take it to the container. Eggs never keep anyway. All right, so you gather your things, finish off the remainder of your lackluster breakfast. At this point now, the morning air is chilled,

though there is still a humidity that permeates the swamp vicinity. You hear the bugs beginning to grow louder, the distant, almost like cicada and cricket sounds, and the distance echoing through the swamp. There is a low fog that is fairly prominent this early in the morning. You can see about maybe 15 or 20 feet

beyond the barrier of the outer swamp before the moisture begins to pick up, and you just see the shaded trunks of trees beyond that for another 60 or so feet before she becomes completely obscured by fog. Whoa. It's creepy. Yeah.

Does it always do that? Always. At this time of year, it does, eh? It's just getting close to winter. Do we have basically zero visibility? Well, zero visibility. You have about, say, traveling in the air, about 30 feet of general visibility,

and then it begins to get a little bit beyond that. At this point, Vabran chimes in and goes, Don't worry, it burns off a bit as the day goes on, so. Vabran, any suggestions whether to move through the muck, find land, or through the trees? I mean, you're going to go through all of it, really, but we're going to head for the outside of the Unterlock. The where?

The Unterlock. Unterlock. Under the lake? We're heading towards the lake. We're going to go ahead and try and make our way around the outskirts of it, but we're going to have to coast through the swamp to get there. So that way we're not trudging through the main central area too much.

Are we taking the cart or just going on foot? Oh, I would recommend taking that with us now. I know it's going to be stuck in the air. It's a garter. We've got to get to here. Sure, papa. All righty. Do I have my allowance now? No. You've been nodded.

Numb. Noddy. It's a very stern dad. He is, but fair, but fair. As you guys are preparing to try, as you guys are plotting a means out there, you can see Ki has the dagger out and is practicing little swings excitedly. Kill all of it, kill the fog, Kiri!

And then just charging towards the fog. Oh no! You have to charge after. Oh, damn it! Just the mist. Jester's regret. I have to live with this for the rest of my life. So Kiri has run past the barrier of the puddles

on the north side of the city, and is now just swinging wildly into the fog. Kiri, come back! Kiri. Kiri, come back! Kiri, come back! Kiri, Kiri, Kiri, Kiri, Kiri, Kiri. Runs back, feet leaving a trail behind her. She's stepping through the two to three inches of swamp water across this district.

You have to be careful. There's lots of creatures around that could hurt you. There's lots of creatures around that could hurt me. Yeah. You always want to stay together. You never want to split the party. Yeah, stay close. Stay close to us.

She gets right behind Yasha and sticks right to her back with the dagger out on the opposite side, just going. Yeah. We should really give her a sheath or something to put that knife away for. I think you tell kids to run with scissors. She'll be fine. Yeah.

Can we check and make sure nobody's following us as we're heading out? Make a perception check. By me, okay, that's a damn question. You guys are having these ideas. Ooh! Plus four. 16. 16.

You take a moment to scout the vicinity. At this point in the morning, it's maybe about nine o'clock or so, judging by where you can see the source of sunlight in the somewhat clouded sky. Glancing around the city, not a lot of folks are moving. It seems like the nature of the Swamp Town is a little bit of a slower pace of living,

just by the nature of location, and the few folks that are wandering around the streets are slowly getting to their daily chores and business. No one seems to be particularly interested. A few folks look over, because you are a gathered, motley crew on the edge of town, but there's no one who seems to be very focused in what's going on.

Yeah. We're the best looking people in this town. I think so, right? That's saying something. I know. So you know this group is very inclined, we're very skilled in arcane things. What is your specialty?

Oh, well, you know how some people learn magic from books and some people get magic from gods and stuff, right? Gods and stuff, yeah, okay. My magic kind of comes from just me. Like the draconic blood, I'm told, has magical essences to it. Yes. So. Cool, cool.

What can you do with it? Well, I don't know if I should, it's a lot of fire and acid, mainly. That seems to be related to the type of dragon I'm from. Yeah, effective. But I can conjure fire, I can make a lot of fire. Varying degrees of fire, really, and acid. Do you have maybe one B-side besides the fire?

Yeah. Besides fire and acid, a little bit of poi. I can drain life force and things like that and invigorate myself a little bit. Okay. Say fire one more time. Fire? Thank you.

Okay. Foyer, foyer, foyer? Oh. What kind of magic do you specialize in, Mr. Caleb? Wrapped around his weenie. Good pull! Good pull! With that? Is that like an implement or something?

That was 40 minutes ago. You said the crows are really smart, so I'm guessing she knows what? There's so much quicksand in this swamp. I'm feeling trapped. I feel like we have a little bit of overlap. I am able to, I know some. There's lots of fire.

Oh, really? You don't have any dragon blood in you, do you? Nine. Oh, that's good. Nine dragons. Nine dragons. Wait! I thought you meant the Ximenian nine, not the number. Step off, Tiamat.

Well done. It off to your mat. Well done. It's a good joke. So we good to go? Ready to move? Yeah. The longer we take, the more risk we run of getting there about nighttime, and I'm going to feel a bit nervous about that, to be honest.

Oh, please, lead on. We're quite anxious to get there. Okay, so who's leading? You are. You are. I'm pointing the direction, but I'm not standing at the front. For 100 gold, I think you will. What about second? 100 gold, I's leading? You are. I'm pointing the direction, but I'm not standing at the front. For 100 gold, I think you will. What about second? 100 gold, I'm leading,

I'm pointing the direction, but look at me, I'm not going to defend you, Will. Yeah, it's the one behind you. But if I die first, you're going to be lost in this swamp, aren't you? One eye. He can't possibly see what's going on. Fine, I'll take the lead. Who wants to join me? I'll join you.

Thank you, thank you, Beau. Don't fight, don't fight. If you want to like, look, I'm trying to wingman you here right now. I'll take the back. I'll ask you on the back. Yeah, I can shoot you in the back. Or close up, if need be.

If need be, but you know, wait for the need to be. Not for you. I'm going to use my Ring of Waterwalking and just, I'm going to be the same level as Beau, except 30 feet to the right. All right. Just as a flanking of like a rat. I'm going to carry Kiri on my shoulders.

Kiri on your shoulders? Yeah, so that she doesn't have to walk through them. Oh, right, so there's Kiri. She's up there with the two feather arms flopped over and looking around. Holding onto you like you're holding a kid. You're like, ah! Just feathers in your face.

I like where we are positioned. What do you think? I'll go wherever you need me to. Mr. Fjord said that I had to do whatever, so I'll go wherever. How does she know there's a J in your name, really? I honestly don't have an answer for that. I'm pretty sure he said Fjord.

Okay. We're all pretty sure about that. You said it right, it's Fjord. Thanks, Mr. Fjord. Yep, you got it. All right, so it's Mr. Fjord. Mr. Fjord. All right, so. Mr. Fjord. Yep, you got it. All right, all right. It's Mr. Fjord. It's Mr. Fjord. All right, so. Mr. Fjord.

Jesus, Ciaran. All right, let's go. So at this point, Febron's like, all right, so looking out in this direction, there's someone there. That way. Lead on, big boy. All right. You're actually going to be scouting, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, so as you guys begin to step past the outskirts of the puddles, your feet begin to sink thicker and thicker into the swamp floor as you further and further step away from this little bastion of civilization. With each progressive footstep, you can see the waves ripple past

and then hit patches of thick, elevated vegetation that's growing and rotting in small clusters simultaneously. The tree trunks that are faded shadows begin to come into view, and you begin to see these twisted, gnarled trees covered in vines that dangle down from these high boughs that barely cluster out sections of sunlight, and you pass out underneath those areas where bits of cloud begin to break through. It was a joke. Ah, gotcha.

I said, I said, high bows. Bows. I know, but I said high bows. You sound like high bows. Three of us. Yeah, that's fine. So in pushing this forward and guiding the path, I'm going to need to have Fibron and whoever is keeping watch on the exterior

to both make survival checks. On the exterior? What do you mean on the exterior? I'm keeping watch on the right. I'm keeping watch up front. All right. I can look on the exterior? I'm keeping watch on the right. I'm keeping watch up front. All right. I can look on the other back. The gators come from the left.

Right. Well, this isn't a perception check. This is to just make their way through the swamp and keep track of what's ahead. So, Meving, Fibron, and one of you take point on that. Both. All right. All right, so this is a survival check. Okay, okay. Oh, I thought it was actually higher

when I first looked at it. 17. 17, okay. Actually, you both rolled pretty high. So over the next two hours or so, you guys managed to keep, for the most part, above any of the deeper recesses of marsh water, kind of leaping a cluster of tree base and sections of ground that are mostly above the waterline.

It manages to go through without much of an issue. The fog does slowly begin to burn off as the hours progress, but it's still present. You gather probably about the time you arrived, the end of day, yesterday, to the exterior of the Lavenda Swamp, there was just a faint bit of fog at the ground. It'll be a number of hours before you even reach that point,

but it is progressing towards a more visible space. So these two hours, you guys continue forward, being mindful and watching around. Those who are keeping watch need both of you to make perception checks, or one of you make it with advantage, your choice. It's me and who? Whoever else is keeping a watch.

You want to make it or not? Yeah. Go for it. You want to make it with advantage, your choice. It's me and who? Whoever else is keeping a watch. You want to make it or not? Yeah. Go for it. You want to make it with advantage or separate? All right. One. I was almost gone, it's not great for me either. Six. Oh!

Okay. Clear on the right! Clear on the front! Bye-bye! No. Right front. All right. Claire on the left? Man, which way am I looking?

I don't know! It's really reassuring when there's a question mark on the end of your statement. Fibron. This is generally how it goes. Fibron at this point is looking and he's just, wait, wait, wait, hold on a second, hold on a second. Just doing a little circle in the area

and checking out some of the recent trees and looking at some of this kind of thing. Yeah, I think we're going the right way. Right, just to be clear, your job, your only job was to walk to a building and back for god knows how many years and you think we're going the right way. Your job, your only job, was to walk to a building and back for God knows how many years,

and you think we're going the right way. Yeah, we don't usually leave this early in the morning. Are you still drunk? Do you need to be drunk? Yeah. Not. Not. What? I mean, not a problem.

Bren, would you help our friend out? Yes, it's me, Bren. Yeah, I'll be right over. She's looking around like. I will... Fibron, do you have any cups? I don't want you to... He pulls out a half-filled wineskin, and that pours the water out.

Have some booze. I'll fill it to the brim. He looks curiously at the flask and the amount of liquid you poured in there. Cheers. Cheers, indeed. Tawny girl. He watches you drinking the alcohol and is confused,

gets a closer look at you at this point and goes, Now's not the time to start making judgments, sir. All right, all right. Does that clear your memory? Aye, aye, aye, it's this way. I'll go make another survival check. Okay. Mr. Fjord, you're very liberal with your parenting.

Don't fuck me, Sunny. It's just milk. Oh. Does that make sense? Yeah, that's really frustrating. Seven. Did you both roll? Huh? Yeah, it was for Bronn.

It's for Bronn and Beau. Not good. Okay. Keep coming so close. All right. Not doing that very much? Well, with this one, they're doing it individually, because you have somebody outside of them. All right. Do we not do advantage? With this one, they're doing it individually, because you have somebody outside of you. All right, so.

Along the path, as you guys are progressing for the next hour or so, Fibron and Beau are keeping pace on this, keeping watch, moving forward. You step through some of the more soggier areas of the swamp, and your foot gets stuck a bit, and it's starting to get a little more difficult to traverse. Vabon's like, it's just a few more hours

and we'll make our way to the outskirts of this. But it'll be a lot easier then, trust me. It'll be fine. Sorry. Sounds great. At this point, Fjord, as you are stepping to the front, you come around the corner and without notice, there's this strange sound, this

and there's a cloud of pollen-like pores just in the air right where you are. I need you to go ahead and make a wisdom saving throw. Oh no! Oh no. It's very long, so Jordy. No. Oh jeez.

That's always a good sign. 14. 14, okay. You manage to pull back, coughing a bit, and your head goes dazed for a moment, but you manage to shrug it off, and you guys look ahead, and beyond the area where Fjord was pushing around one of the trees, you can see this large,

almost like a 30-foot-wide cloud of yellowish pollen that went. It just slowly settles into the swamp area. Blimey. Can we see a source for that, where it came from? A plant or a? There's a whole mess of twisted vines and plant matter in the center of the space. Where it seemed to emit from in the center, though,

you do see what looks to be one large, almost like a fern-type plant that's left open in three or four large leaves that are spread outward. I think that doesn't look very hospitable. Vabran? Avoid those, huh? Yeah, is this a thing that happens, I'm assuming? Oh, I haven't actually seen this close to one of them. I usually avoid them.

So let's avoid it, eh? Hello, Mr. Fjord? Yeah. I don't know if this is, do you want me to burn it all away? Cali, that is a very good idea. Like that area, right? Like, is that where it came from?

I mean, just hoping the pollen's not flammable, but sure, try it. Is it flammable, Mr. Creepy Pervert? First off, I resent that. Do you? No. I thought the lint was pretty respectable, actually, all things considered.

I'll take that. I mean, I figured it's probably in the way, burn it if you can. I don't trust it. How wide radius is this area? This vicinity's about 30 feet around this particular plant in the center that's lying open-faced to the sky.

20-foot radius would kind of... It would encompass the plant, definitely. Fireball. So the dragon claw comes out, and you watch as this green flame magic coalesces, and she flicks out this green orb that flies down, and then when it hits, detonates. You watch as it emits this large blast of orangish-red fire that burns in the area. Go ahead and roll damage.

Okay. D6 of somebody. I need six more. There's three. Feel free to dive through the bag for anything you need. Dang it. I'm trying to get to my bag to help you. Oh, you got plenty? She's filled with the baby. Baby's in the way. Get used to it.

Look, baby. Whoa. I'm taking it, that's a six. Yes. Yeah. So. He's a high roamer. Oh! Ooh!

Plus very good. That's going to be 28 points. 28 points of fire damage. As this explosion immediately evaporates, the fog in the area and a large part of the ground now is dried off and you see this mist or the steam out of where the detonation happened. The plant in the center, which is now more visible, you can see snaps shut.

This giant, almost three, four-part maw closes in the space with these almost plant-like teeth and is still there writhing in pain from the explosion. It laxes, opens up a bit, and begins to slowly shift in your direction. It looks hurt, but it's still alive. Caleb. It moves. Sacred Flame. Firebolt.

All right, Firebolt, Sacred Flame. Sacred Flame, that's still alive. Caleb. It moves. Sacred Flame. Firebolt. All right, Firebolt, Sacred Flame. Sacred Flame, that's cocked. That's a 15. Dex 15. Yeah, so no Sacred Flame, but. 17 for Firebolt. 17 hits, roll damage. That is not that much, actually.

You're level five, right? That was a dex check. Two easy? Yes. Yes, I'm level five. Oh! Or no, yeah, for Sacred Flame, yeah. That is a dex check. Two esen? Yes. Yes, up to five. Yeah, for Sacred Flambia. That is a 12. 12? All right, 12 points of damage. As you slam it with the fireball,

and keeps moving forward, but it's hurt. Rolled another 15. Damn it. If you keep giving me six second increments, I'm just going to go. Yep. When it's in 60 feet, I can ask it. Yeah, if you keep giving me six second increments, I'm just going to go. Yep. When it's in 60 feet, I can ask you. Just for fun.

Stay down! Oh, Jesus. Yep. 16. Sorry. All right, so at least you can't get rid of a bomb. I'll give it a whirl. I'll reach up near my eye, and you see this little arc

of energy pop out from my eye towards my hand and I'll throw it forward and cast Witch Bolt. Witch Bolt? Okay. Pay it forward. I put my hand up. As you guys are all preparing your various cantrips and spells against it, it begins lurching forward. You can see the charred edges of this large vegetable plant and then four steps forward, sending this arc of darker

gray-green energy that strikes into it. Roll damage. Roll to hit first. Oh, thank you, yeah. 10 plus six, 16? 16 hits. Okay, great. This is overkill. It's 3d12. Oh shit. That's nice. Main overkill if you's 3d12. Oh shit. That's nice.

Oh my god. Good roll! 27 points of damage. As it strikes this large trap-like plant, it hits the center of it, you watch as it kind of bubbles up for a second, the green and red matter of the interior swells and it just pops like a horrible, flesh-filled water balloon and just spatters across various areas. You guys have to take a step back, and it glides against your

knee and thighs a bit. Can I use Shade Water to just keep it out of my way? Yeah, just to avoid you. But it lies now, decimated and sinking slowly into the swamp water. Oh, sorry, I thought I'd kill it the first time. Sorry you had to do that. Oh, it was really an encouraging display. I was not expecting it to be so durable. I thought it was just a plant.

You'll really avoid those in the future, huh? Well, that's one in an entire swamp of vegetation, so we should be good now. How's it going over there, guys? You know, there's going to be loads of plants, Mr. Caleb. Anything on the right? Nope, all clear. Anything on the left?

Right. No, I'm kind of asking. I'm asking for anything on the left. Make a perception check. Thank you. Is there something on the left? Not anymore with these rolls. Who wants to make a perception check?

I'm real bad. All right. We'll obnoxiously pop him. Yeah! Whoa. Woo-hoo! 13! 13?

I'm good. As a brief breeze blows through the swamp as you guys move on from this positioning, you hear a very faint hiss through the distant branches of trees singing in unison as bits of leaves and vines clatter against themselves from the shift. But you manage to catch a sound upon the wind

that is unfamiliar to the rest of the natural breeze. It's almost like a chime. What? Like a wooden chime. SAM and LAURA, LAURA and SAM go. I hear something. What do you hear? I hear a chime. GONG.

No, like little wind chimes like we had at home. Oh, that sounds nice. Yeah. Can't be anything bad. We used to hang them in our balconies. You listen up and you can hear it for a moment, too, as the breeze blows through a second time. Kiuri makes the same sound.

It sounds like that, cool. Oh yeah. The little bamboo ones, those are great. Looks like it's a little bit northward of where you're headed, a little north and eastern. Is that where the thing is that we're going? I mean, it could be. North is that way.

It's loosely on the way. I mean, if you trust it, we could avoid it, though. Oh, so it's not the safe house. It's another building for sure? I don't know what the hell that is. I haven't heard that out here before. Oh, we should find out what it is. I actually tend to agree. I don't want to that word is. I haven't heard that out here before. Oh, we should find out what it is. I actually tend to agree.

I don't want to leave things undiscovered. Are you sure about that? What did we pay you for? I'm helping you. Are you? It's questionable. It's honestly debatable. Seems to be doing his best.

We send Frumpkin. Don't thank me, you're weird. Frumpkin. I'm going to sit on a relatively dry spot if I can find one, and I am going to go blind and deaf and send Frumpkin in the direction, with Jester's help, towards the sound that she heard. Okay. Make it drier for Caleb,

using Shape Water, just dry out some of the area. Sure, and cause a bit of the swamp mass to pull back a bit. That's cool. Yeah. Surf pro. So Frumpkin, it takes a little bit, because this terrain is not very conducive

to prowling cats of Frumpkin's size, but Frumpkin heads on for a bit, coming across the source, coming across the source of this sound. You see about 100 or so feet ahead in the direction where you heard the sound hanging from one of the sound. You see about 100 or so feet ahead in the direction where you heard the sound hanging from one of the branches. There is indeed what looks to be a cluster of carved chimes that are dangling from a piece of twine there.

They're just banging into each other every now and then the breeze slowly comes through. Just in the tree? On a branch, yeah. Oh, that's creepy. And I will give the group a basic narration as I see these things. You can give a perception check for Frumpkin.

My basic perception check is not too bad. It is 16. 16, okay. From Frumpkin's view underneath, you get a close look at it, and the material of the chyme isn't wood. It appears to be yellowed, old, dried, hollowed bone. Oh my goodness.

And the twine itself is not twine. It appears to have been tanned or dried sinew. Oh, yeah! Sinew. Sinew, yeah. Super inviting. Just all the tendons. Our wind chymes were made of wood. How much of it are Frumpkin and I looking at?

It's one little ditty, or is it all, are we talking true detective here? Currently, it's just the one chime. Does Frumpkin see anything around, like any living things? I don't hear a shit. Does this sound like some sort of war against the undeadead or some sort of?

It doesn't catch your mind as anything that is a defensive mechanism to undead that you would recognize. It's hanging from a tree? It is, about seven feet above Frumpkin. I am going to send Frumpkin up the tree. Okay. I am going to send Frumpkin

That's true. toward the branch. Frumpkin toward the branch. Frumpkin manages to climb the tree using the outside of the somewhat twisted bark, getting to the top. From that viewing point, as Frumpkin gets out there, you can. Is he trying, I try to hold Caleb's hand.

What do you do? Okay. It's clammy. You do see from the top of the branch, beyond the edge of the fog, there looks to be a thick tree that has broken and fallen over about maybe 10 feet from the base. The heavy roots rise up into this trunk

that still stands about nine or 10 feet from the base of the swamp floor. But it appears like there is a hollow carved into it, circular, and what looks to be some sort of a curtain that is currently pressed, bolted, or nailed into it that is partially blocking what looks to be an opening into the tree. Like sealed or nailed in so that it's just hanging down?

It's just hanging down and every now and then a faint breeze comes through and you see it shift ever so slightly, but it's just hanging down. It's just hanging down and every now and then a faint breeze comes through and you see it shift ever so slightly, but it's a heavy material. Okay, what I would like to attempt to do is send Frumpkin up to and stick his head inside and as soon as I get a little peeky-poo, snap my fingers and bamf him out into the fade. Okay, as Frumpkin out into the fade. Okay.

As Frumpkin makes a stealth check. Come on, folks. Want a Frumpy? Let me Frumpy. A big 13. Okay. That's good. Good to know. So. Better than 12.

It's really good. It is better than 12. Fingers dust. I'm running a C of 45. So, as Frumpkin stalks up, through avoiding the slight depressed elements of the floor that fill with the thicker bog water, coming upon the outskirts, you can see the curtain that hangs is not cloth.

It appears to be a scaled, leather-like material, actually pretty similar to what you would carve from the crocodile the day before, but long, weathered, and it's dry towards the top, but the base of it seems to have been progressively moistened by the swamp around it. As such, it's slightly decomposing, and there's a bit of moss and algae that's grown on it, giving it almost a lighter green at the tip. Looking inside, there is a layer of bones that are all broken and chipped to the point where it's given a textured base to the floor.

From this view, you're not able to make out what the bone source is or what they're from, but there is a gentle layer of bones of varying degrees of age to them. Within there, you also see there is natural rot on the inside of this trunk that's let it easy to be carved away. There appears to be a matted pile of something in the corner.

Other than that, in the brief instant that Frumpkin's paying attention, it appears to be empty. Matted pile is definitely something sleeping. Frumpkin returns to his realm. Uh, yeah, like I was saying to you, there's a tree out there, and there is something sleeping in it. Did you hear anything, snoring, nothing?

No, no, but there are a lot of bones there. They looked like, they did not look like chicken. They are not chicken bones. Like gator bones, maybe, though? Well, they're probably smaller than that, yeah. He didn't get a good look. Didn't get a good look. He literally cut in quickly and went. Yeah.

Just your bones aren't normally a very good sign. It doesn't seem very good. And there was something in the corner, something that was not bones, but it wasn't moving. I bet it was a friendly person. It definitely wasn't the thing we're looking for. You didn't happen to see a bowl, did you? You didn't see the bowl.

I've made a perception check. In the brief instant you looked in there, you got a few details in the interior before pulling away. Just bone, not bow, just bones. Let's go to the safe house, and then we'll come back if we are not completely almost dead and see what we see there. Save it for a rainy day.

Very wise. And especially if there's no bowl in the safe house, then we know some other place to look for it. Yeah, this one's a gimme, a bonus, only if we feel up to it. Do you think we'll be able to find our way back here, or should we mark a tree or something like that? Let's mark a tree.

I've got that. Because Vibran doesn't seem to know which way his ass is, so. That's not true at all. Which way's your ass? It's right here. And north is... It's that way.

No, it is that way. That's what I said. You're pointing over there, I'm pointing over here. North is that way. I'm going to pull out my sword and carve into the side of the tree a big sign that says, Here lies Salty Pete, with an arrow down straight below. Who's Salty Pete? I don't know, but it sounds like something awful happened to him, doesn't it?

Oh, that's really sad. Yeah. Do you have a way of maybe magically marking this as well so we have a bit of a compass? A compass? Yeah, like can you do a thing where you can like, you know, put a pin in this tree? Can you do that? True.

Mr. Caleb? Drop a pin. Well, a couple things. One, this is a compass, but if you want to know if anything is happening. That's true! How right. If you want to know that anything is happening, that's not an issue. But if you want to know if something is happening here with Salty Pete, we can also do that, if you give me ten minutes. But it doesn't seem like that's what Shara is saying.

No, that's not fair. As long as we can make our way back here again one way or the other, and I suppose it's true. I do not know where the safe house is, but anywhere we have been, we can get to again. Fair enough. Remember that. Let's go to the safe house, then. All right have been, we can get to again. Fair enough. I don't remember that. Let's go to the safe house then. All right, so you continue moving on? Lead on. All right.

Fjormungandr goes, all right, that way, and he points in the direction and ushers you forward. We did a good job the first time, let's take it up again. All right. Are you guys moving, what pace are you moving at? Normal pace, slow pace, fast pace? We always move at a medium pace.

Medium pace. Okay, medium pace it is. Is there a way, hold on, let me look at what I have. I could cast Pass Without a Trace on anyone within 30 feet of me. You could, you have to move at a slow pace to move stealthily, though. You might think our speed is halved

in the conditions, right? For the most of it, yeah. It's super slow. Doing the slow-mo game. Okay, well, maybe not then. Maybe when we go back to the creepy tree. We can do that. You can.

Okay. All righty. So, as you continue on, Fabron and Beau, are you keeping, are you also the other one along with Fabron doing the survival checks? I think so. All righty, make one more.

Don't fuck me, Gil. We will. Natural 20! Gil! Gil! Gil! See me on the vibes. All righty, as you guys begin to watch the tree line slowly thin,

Fabron's like, oh, it's a good sign. We're getting very close to getting out of this fucking swamp and getting next to the ontoloc that'll lead us there. No issue, no more of this. Right as he's saying that, you watch him about to step into what looks to be another one of those open plants that begins to quake, and you watch as it's about to release this burst of pollen, Beau.

I just go, oh, you're about to, oh, oh, watch it, oh, oh! Okay, you don't stop him. You just point it out. You help him? He goes. Nice. And he goes. And he starts walking straight towards it.

No, no, no, no, no! I grab him! Can I reach out and grab him? All right, go ahead. Trying to cover my mouth? Go ahead and make an athletics check. It would be an athletics check for you to try and grapple him. Either that or we lose our shithole guide.

Which is really not losing much. No. Okay, we lose our 100 gold investment. What am I, athletics, right? Acrobatics, sorry, athletics for you to grapple him. Okay. Nope, nope, it's worse than I thought. It's real bad.

It's an eight. An eight. You reach and grab him, but he shrugs off your arm and starts walking. As he's about to step, can I cast Levitate on him and lift him up into the air? You can. So he doesn't step on it, just literally with the claw,

the green magic comes out and up into the air. All right, yeah. You watch as he continues to walk towards it and glides up in the air and is floating. No! And he's reaching towards it, and you watch as the plant and is trying to reach for him, almost like.

I take my staff and bat him away like a helium balloon. Just start batting him back over. Away from it. He's floating and slowly rotating in the air like, . Can I come down, raising him up and down? Away from it? He's floating and slowly rotating in the air like,. Raising him up and down, shaking him in the air like, come on, shake out of it, come on! All right, so.

Maybe we try to outmaneuver this one now. Yeah, I think we've already had our fun with one. It was too fast, yeah. I open my journal and start throwing him as a balloon. Okay. We're not done. No, there's a lot happening over there. Okay, it takes you the better part of a minute

to finally shake him out of it before he goes, what is it? Shit! Shit, what's going on? Fuck you! All right, the plant's still below him going like. Miss Beau, can you nudge him off to the side? I'm getting kind of tired of this.

You poke him and you move against the glide over. I'll lower him down with some grammar. Oh! You watch the plants now turning towards him, slowly shifting in his direction. He's like,. Can I now grab him by the collar and try and just drag him away? Yeah, you move around the side and you pull him away.

Come on. You guys begin to pick up your pace. This plant is not very fast moving. Even moving at your slower pace, it can't keep up with you. You watch as it eventually gives up and disappears into the fog behind you. I love this plant. I love it. You roll a 20 to see it before him and went, sure. and eventually gives up and disappears into the fog behind you. I'm going to lose the plan. I love it, you roll a 20 to see it before him and went, sure.

Yeah. I love it, it's great. Watch your step, man. Yeah. All righty, so. Febron, you have been through this swamp once or many times? I've been through it a few times,

but usually it's with a group of other smugglers, and they take care of me and protect me, like you are. Thank you. It's a bit late in the game. You're welcome. But are you being completely forthright with us, Izzy? Make an insight check. Insight check. That is a natural one.

It's hard to read. Can I make a suggestion, Febron? And I cast Suggestion on Febron. Okay. I feel you should be completely honest with us from this point on, because you know, honesty, it's the easiest thing to remember. You know, I appreciate that. I don't appreciate you casting spells

to fuck with all my mind's shit. But I've been honest. I'm going to make some honest coin, and I'm doing my fucking best, all right? Now come on, it's this way. It's that way. Well, no, not north, where we're going. At this point, you guys can see the very edge

of the water is now starting to show through the fog, and you can see where bits of the lake are hitting the shoreline, and you have reached the Entrelac in the middle of the Labenda Swamp. Hey, there's a lake! With that, life delivers a pleasant surprise. All right, as you guys can. Yeah, yeah.

Are there monsters in this lake? I don't know, I don't go into it. I recommend not getting too close, just in case. We usually stay right on the coastal side of it, you know? Okay. Perfect. Splash splash. No, no, what are you doing? No, shit!

And then I go back out, oh, this is so dizzy. The whole time you're doing that, Kiri is like, . Who's keeping watch on this? A large pirate parrot. Keeping watch? Yes. What do you mean? All right, so I need you and probably Beau,

since you're working March 4, make a perception check, please. Ooh, 17 plus one, 18. It's almost a 20 again. 10. Okay. As you guys are trudging along on the bank of this lake, heading northward, Fjord, out of the corner of your eye, you see a shadow shift in the trees to the left of you.

You glance back and you see something just disappear behind a tree about 40, 50 feet off. Hold. I saw movement. Off to our side, 40 to 50 feet into the trees. Which side? The left side. Should we act like we see it?

There's nothing over here on my side! We should have seen it, we should just carry on as normal. No, no, no, no, that's not. Just no one move, okay. We just freeze? Just fan out a little bit. If we don't move, that's also a little weird.

Yeah, fan out. Who wants to move towards it with me? I'll move towards it with you. I'll come. I shouldn't take out my blade. Yeah, maybe not. I'll come with you. I'll walk in the opposite direction.

Fighters move forward, magic people hang back. Maybe I should have been to my photo. So you guys are heading towards the shadow you saw? Molly, Kaylie, and Benford. Fighters towards, castors backlie, and Ben for it. Fyter's towards, Caster's back. We'll move towards it. I stay right where I am.

But fan down, not together. Maybe 10, 15 feet in between them, like a fire line. Yeah, yeah. Let's go, I say as I walk backwards. Molly and Yasha like that? Yeah. And Kallie right there. Yeah, yeah.

See that mini. All right. But fan fire, Fireline, five wide. Look at you! Five wide. Ooh! All righty, that was like the real, I rushed all the way, I had to order a day before I flew out.

You're sexy. Yeah. Just pull over here for a second. So as you begin to turn and approach, and you guys form your line moving forward, you watch as something lumbering moves. It's still on the edge of the fog and it shifts from the tree where it was

to a tree further back and then ducks behind another tree. It's not very stealthy, though it thinks it might be. Is it moving fast, easily in this terrain? Seems to be moving fairly easily in the terrain. What is it? What is it? Get after it.

All right, I'm going to stealthily do some monk. Up to a little bit. Maybe it's something nice. See if I can get a better look. Make a stealth check. Make a stealth check. Come on. Oh my god check. Come on. Ooh. Oh my god.

Oh my god. 14. It's okay. It's okay. I forget this. Okay. As you tiptoe through the edges, leaping from cluster of root to cluster of the root,

being as quiet as you can, you come around the first tree where this figure had vanished, look around to where it's currently waiting, and you see two trees that grew together and a large rock that's wedged at the base of it and crouched below behind the rock. You see this bulbous humanoid creature

with a deep, deep green-blue skin tone with little pustules and boils on it at certain edges of the shoulder and arm. You see long, stringy black hair that goes past the front of the chest. The torso itself appears to be swollen, this belly protruding beyond it. You can see hanging around the neck

other pieces of hollowed bone, very similar to that chine that you saw being described by Caleb. It's a troll? It appears to be trollish in nature, but you watch through the pustules and part of its body, there's this thick green liquid that's just oozing out in places, and it's sitting there,

as it's clinging to the rock with its long fingers clutched in it, and it's just looking over in the direction of where you were, just breathing heavy. Hey. So does he see the Mighty Nein? It seems to be looking in the direction where you were. But he doesn't see me. He doesn't see you at the moment, no. Do not see me.

How far away am I from him? You're about 30, 35 feet from him. Could I theoretically throw something towards the direction behind him? You're about 30, 35 feet from him. Could I theoretically throw something towards the direction behind him? You could certainly try. Yeah. Yeah, sure. I'm going to take out a handful of ball bearings

and I'm going to try and toss them. Make a sleight of hand check to do so without making a very visible toss. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, right, no sound at all. Yeah, or drop. 24, 22, 22, 22. All right, you take the handful

and lob them quietly. As far as you can, you hear some very, very faint impacts of them about 25, 30 feet off, and you watch as the trollish creature goes, and pushes off the rock a bit, looking that direction. I'm going to take that as my. Looks over the rock,

looks back in that direction, and now looks like he's paranoid and being tabs on both sides. I'm going to stealth back. All right, got to make another stealth check. Fuck. All right, okay, okay, okay, okay. 19. 19.

You manage to pull back to the rest of the group as you guys are holding your line there, waiting for Beau to return. What'd you got? It's a troll, like a... A toucan? Like a, no, like a... With a belly? No, you know, you know, like a... Like a beak? No, he's like a troll, like a... A toucan? No, like a... With a belly? No, you know, like a...

Like a beak? No, he's like a troll. What are you saying, Beau? Shh, shut up. I think he knows we're here, but he's a slimy, undead, troll-like guy. That sounds really bad. Yeah. Let's not go near him.

I also think he might be who lives in that hut. How do you know that? Because he looked bony. That's a reasonable deduction. He looked bony or he had. Maybe there's lots of them around, too. Shut up, Jester. Dare to whisper.

I don't think we want to deal with them, though. We'll keep moving around the edge of the lake. Who wants to keep an eye on his area as we're moving? Because I think he's stalking us. Molly and Jester. Yeah, Jester and Molly. You keep an eye as we keep moving forward. You got it. Okay. We'll come back to where the castors are.

Are you going to stay behind? No, they're going to stay with us in a tight group, but they're just going to keep their eyes as we move forward. It's all right, little friend, they'll look after us. Who? Oh, me, yes, thank you. Got mine here, a slice of the pie. All right, you guys.

Got it. You're a fan of pie, so. Pie is good. You're a fan of pie. I am a fan of pie, cutie. Do you guys continue onward? Yeah. All right. Stealthy, though. Stealthy.

We're keeping an eye on this roll. Okay. You are out in the open at the edge of where the lake is beyond the tree line, so being stealthy here means being quiet, but you're still very much out in the open. Right. So you're saying there's a chance.

Yeah. I'm saying that if an entity knows you're there, if you're not trying to obscure your visual of you, you're going to have a hard time boarding it. Should we create a distraction for it first? Let's just pay attention, and if it starts getting close, then we'll deal with it. Yeah, it might just fall.

We're just not going to let it escape. We're just going to keep an eye out for it. It might be better if we just move quicker through here as well, instead of stealthily. I'm sure if you pray to the platinum dragon, we'll be all right. Mm-hmm. Mm.

All right. Good work. Voh-wah-ta-goo-sa-lam. As you guys push on, at this point, Fjordbron's looking extremely nervous, now that you've mentioned that this creature's there. He's like, wait, wait, you're saying you saw like, I got to look at this troll thing.

Yeah, you know. Over there. Heard something like that around here? I mean, if you've heard rumors, and they talk about various things that live out there, trolls definitely is one of them. There are multiple trolls. See? Through the ages,

there have been all sorts of stories, historically, of trolls. Swamp trolls, mountain trolls, all types. And this one, it wouldn't trolls that, I mean, swamp trolls, mountain trolls, all types, and this one, it wouldn't surprise me, I haven't seen one, but I'll stay relatively quiet, quieter than you usually do as a group. I'm just going to stay here and clings behind you, Fjord, like as a shield.

Yeah, I don't know if that's going to work for me. I don't know. All right, let's just get moving. Try and ignore this. So you guys move on, taking care to be quiet, but not out of sight. So if you want to be stealthy in that regard, make a stealth check.

The group, you mean? Yes. We'll give him a chance whether he engages or not. I thought he was going to try and move faster. Yeah, we wanted to move faster. So then no stealth. No stealth. All right, so you guys continue pushing forward at your regular pace. No sense.

Oh, Kaliana. Maybe a little faster than our regular two. That was really brave, by the way, you sneaking off like that and finding out. Thank you. You're so complimentary. It makes me a little nauseous. Well, it's just, I was kind of raised and people were really nice to me.

You know, they used to tell me I was special and how important I was, and it made me feel nice, so I try and do that for everyone else. Man, that's so sweet. Thank you. Where are you from? Well, technically I was born in Port Damali, but I didn't spend a lot of time there.

I kind of lived on the streets for my own, and then I was taken in by some people. Really? Some people. Yeah, I guess, I mean, you guys are being nice to me. You know I mentioned those folks in the dragon masks, the cult? Yeah. Yeah, they were kind of the ones that raised me. That's the first time you're introducing

the word cult into conversation. Oh, sorry, yeah. So. You're a cultist? No, no, I was raised by them. You're an ex-cultist. Cult adjacent. I guess, I mean. Son of a cult. You're cultish?

Cultish, maybe. Well, look, so. You're a cultist? You're a cultist? All right, stop, bird, stop. Stop saying that word. I don't like it. Did you have your own mask, or did they just wear masks?

I didn't get a mask because I wasn't allowed out. They kept me in a temple. But no, it's not, it's because they were bad, all right? I'm glad that I'm not with them anymore. They're bad people. So they did this to you? No, I've always been like this. I think they found me. They told me I was special. I've always been like this. I think they found me. You worshipped you? Yeah, they told me I was special.

I was important to them somehow. Yasha and Fjord, as they're having this conversation, you guys are watching at the flanks and you can see the shape of that troll creature is still moving from tree to tree, keeping pace with your movement. Yord? Are we going down to take care of this?

I saw it. What do you want to do? Well, I mean, there's one of him and however the fuck many of us, so. How far back is he? Not too far. It's not approaching you, but it's keeping pace. We're on rough terrain right now?

At the moment, you're not in the center of the swamp where it's just a lot of shifting topography and roots and vines and patches of deep water you have to come across. You're along the coast of this lake, so it's mainly just soggy dirt and sand, so it's not rough terrain where you are. But where he is, it would be

considered rough terrain. It would be, yes. But you also have no protection, you're literally out in the open, so. You can try and send someone ahead as bait, lure him out, fight him on steady ground. Or we could just keep letting him match. Yeah. Save time and change it.

Well, the thing is, is what if something bad comes in the front of us and then they trap us because he's just following us? Why is he not just attacking us? Like, I imagine a creature like that. Maybe he has friends ahead that he's just following us. Why is he not just attacking us? I imagine a creature like that. Maybe he has friends ahead that he's waiting. That's a good point. Or he smarges.

I tend to find things that live in trees filled with bones tend to not have necessarily many friends. This is, again, I'm just putting it out there. I have nothing else to base that off of, but that didn't look like a very social creature. So if we feel like we want to get into a scrap, I or probably our new friend here could kick it off from a ways away.

Could, or Jester, you're pretty friendly. You want to see if it... He's a friend? A troll? He had green, pussy ooze just pouring out of holes in his face. Just want to throw that out there. You could heal him and curry favor with him.

He had a collarbone. What if I made myself look like a little teeny troll and they would want to be friends with me? You get undead vibes from this guy. Also, you are very charming, but every book that I have ever read about trolls, they do not make friends, they are bitter, nasty things. Oh, really? Yeah.

I don't know much about trolls. If you're little, you know. Looks like he had a collarbone just hanging out. Just right there. Can I see him from here? Make a perception check. Seven. You do not.

Do I technically have advantage because this is trying to perceive an undead creature? No, because you don't know if this creature's undead or not. I don't know if this creature's undead or not. What if we set a trap or an ambush for him or her? That's what I literally just said. We could use, we could do a little circly poo and put Callie in the middle as bait, and then when it comes to attack, we spring the trap!

It's very close to what I just suggested. I don't know, I've been drinking a lot. What if we land rope between a couple trees and then we you know, we just kind of like dripped it? Yeah, it's watching us right now, isn't it? Yeah, he probably is hearing everything we're talking about. Well, debatable whether it can understand us, but perhaps it can.

Man, those trolls are so cool! Okay, how about this? Yasha, I'm sure you'll agree. We can make one move to see if it's interested in nonviolence, and then we have the advantage here now. I like that idea a lot. We press it. Yeah. I don't like being tailed in particular.

No. So someone walks up to it while the others flank around? All right. Do you want me to do it for it? Don't you? Here, you hold Kiri then, because I don't want her to get too close to it. What are you doing?

How are you holding her? Pulls the dagger out. I'll take Kiri. Give me Kiri. Okay, okay. Come here, little Kiri. My father won't hurt you anymore. I'm going to stand closer to Bren. I'm disappointed in you, Mr. Fjord. That means literally nothing to me. She's so formal in her admonishment.

I, man. That kind of makes me feel bad. Anyway, let's go. I'll fling to the north. Is the troll just watching all of you go away? Hopefully not. If you're doing this stealthily, then I need anyone who's trying to not be seen

to make a stealth check. Should I try to pass without the trace, you guys? I don't think we should stealth. What? Nope. It's not an ambush if he can see where we are. You want him to have one attention. One of him. But you know I'm.

I would, in fact, like to try to walk behind a tree so I'm obscured. Okay. I'm going to stealth to the north. I'll join you in a non-stealthing. Yeah, 15 for me. All right, so Beau's stealthing to the north, which would be here.

Fjord, you guys are heading inward. Molly, Yasha, and I will not be stealthing and heading inward, and we'll be just behind Jester's diplomatic efforts. You're hiding behind a tree? Yeah, in order to, I don't know if it can see me or not, but I would like to hold Magic Missile in case it attacks my friends. Okay, but I would like to hold Magic Missile

in case it attacks my friends. Okay, we'll come to that in a minute. Yeah. I want to be close enough to Jester in case anything happens. Jester, where are you standing? I guess I will be falling back because I'm going to talk to him.

You'll be going in front of us. You're in front, front line. Because you're going to talk to him. I thought the thing was behind that. While we're heading towards it. Northward this way, you guys have to go this way, because the lake's all this direction. Okay.

Yeah, I was stood next to Nott with Kiri. All right. So Nott and Kiri are back here. And that would be off to that side. For Braum's like, I'm going to go and stay back here with the people in the back back, because I want to stay in the back. Oh no, I was enjoying our closeness.

All right, so you guys begin to trudge in deeper into the swamp. Okay, I'm going to pull the last of my pastries, which I'm sure are really fucking gross by now. Yeah, they're pretty. But that's okay. Pretty stale. They're fine.

They're clunky. Yeah. As you begin to move into the swamp, you watch, you do see the shape, and it's about maybe 60 or so feet from where you are, 50 or so feet, and you watch it shift and then shift to the tree a little further away. He's moving away from us?

Moving away from you. I'm sure it's the same one. Make perception check. Oh god. That was good. 17. 17, you see one shape move. It's similar to the one you saw before. You can ascertain that it probably is the same creature.

Okay, we do not want to follow this bunny rabbit down a hole. I'm going to Invoke Duplicity. All right. And I'm going to send my duplicate towards Bithril. It's kind of skipping. Dib-dib-dib-dib-dib-dib. Yes. Yeah.

All righty. Go ahead and make a deception check. Actually, no, you won't need to do that, but this is just going to be a significant see-through the illusion. Okay. So it skips ahead. Uh-huh. So just keep walking in the direction.

Just towards the trees, looking like she's picking some vegetation. I thought there's flowers, but whatever, yeah. Whatever she can do. 50 feet? 60 feet. Gets relatively close to where you saw the shape vanish. I'm going to have her turn her back to the troll

and just act like she's digging around in the mud. Okay. You watch as, from behind the tree, one of the claws. You see the long, stringy hair dangling, somewhat stuck to the part of its neck, and some of it just shifting with the light breeze that blows through as it looks back

and watches the illusion turn and shift. Is it relatively close to the tree, the illusion? Pretty close. Fist there and just waits. Take a couple steps away from the tree. Shifts back into space a little bit. It's just going to step back towards the tree. As soon as it gets within about five or so feet,

the illusion, the troll creature switches out and swings out to grab the illusion, passes through and the claws into the tree, you got to and then vanishes behind the tree, and you watch a dark shadow of it vanish behind another tree, and it's a dark shadow of it vanish behind another tree, and it's moving further away from where you are.

Don't think it was friendly. Question answered. Yeah. Did it move away? Yeah. Do you want to chase it? I think maybe we should stick to the safe house. What do you guys think? I think that's a good call. For now. We'll stagger back towards the back line of our group.

Okay. Yeah, continue on. All right. I'll keep the Invoke Duplicity, the second me, skipping through the swamp at a distance to see what it is. How long does that last? Invoke Duplicity lasts, I think, a minute, yeah. Okay. So as you guys minute? I think a minute, yeah.

So as you guys cluster together outside of the swamp, alongside the curvature of the lake, keeping an eye into the side, you continue to travel forward. You can watch as the lake slowly begins to, as you guys are heading northward along its side, it begins to curve to a northeastern direction, and LeBron's like,

and LeBron's like, Fjord's like, All right, so we're, this is good, this is good, we're getting closer to the northern side of the lake, which means we're getting close to where we follow the pearl blades to the safe house. Good, okay. At this point, you look over to the side.

Who's keeping a watch on this? Okay, both you guys roll a perception check, please. Motherfucker. My perception is balls. 15. Nine. Balls need to stop looking out for things. It was a fast one.

Okay. Fucking shit. 15, you said? You do see the shape now, keeping pace with you. Again, same distance out there. It's stalking you, but it's definitely, you get the sense, based on the interaction you had earlier and the distance it's keeping,

it's not interested in fighting nine of you. It's waiting to pick one of you off and take it wherever it's going to take it. It's smart enough to know that it's not going to just jump into a fray in the open space, but it's definitely waiting to see what weaker one stays to the back. All right, can we put some of the little ones, Bren, get in the middle, and Kiri.

Yeah, on my way. I'm going to get in the back. You guys continue heading in a northeastern direction until eventually you watch the lake come to a northern peak and begin to curve back into a southern area. It looks like the top of the lake bends to a point northward and then begins to head southward and level out. At this point, Verbon goes,

All right, good, now, so from here, we head northward into the swamp. We're looking for daggers with pearl hilts in the trees. Those are the markers, there's six of them that lead us there. And he's going to make a perception check. He looks a bit lost. Does someone want to help him out with this?

Yeah, I'll help him out. Make a perception check as well. Do well, I think. Yeah. Okay. It takes you a moment, but you manage to catch the third or fourth tree into the tree line, and you see what is a gleaming pearl-hilted dagger that is jammed about five feet off the ground into one of the thicker pieces of tree bark on the exterior of one of these trees. It was just this little mark, it looks like somebody just jammed

a whittling knife of some kind into it and left it there, and he goes, I don't know why that's one, good. Okay, I guess we're going the wrong way. You see it? Show me. It's right here. It's like at eye level with me. Okay, good.

Okay, moving up, looking for the next one. Going to roll. Oh. The human gurnet. Ooh, that's better looking for the next one. Going to roll? Oh. The human garment. Ooh, that's better. That's a 23. Both of you go, there, at the same times.

Ah, ah. All right, second one, moving on, looking for the third. Oh, that was a one for me, I don't see it. This one takes a little longer to find. Two days. All right. But I don't want it too far from everyone else because there's a troll out there, you guys.

Yeah. You find the third. Vabran finds the fourth. I find that last one because it's 23. Because he did not find it, but you located it. Yeah. And find that last one because it's 23. Because he did not find it, but you locate it. Yeah. And with that point, he goes,

Teamwork. He goes, okay. I'm pretty sure we're almost there. And he points ahead and you can see where there's a cluster of trees. A new sight catches your attention. You see what looks to be, well, first, I guess, the first thing that hits you

is this faint scent of rotting flesh. It hits your nose a bit and your eyes sting in water for the moment as your vision focuses on the first corpse. You see a human man propped up on a spear, going up through the side of his torso and out his left pectoral. His stomach is bloated and his skin is dull gray and glistening. His jaw hangs open, his expression,

just this horrible, ghastly grimace. A few feet from him, stuck to one of the trees, you see what appears to be a halfling woman with two blades jammed through her shoulders, pinning her up, legs dangling, but one leg is partially torn off. Head is mounted down, hair in her face, so you can't make out any features. They're both placed up there, right against

what looks to be an opening to a small clearing ahead, and this Warford Bond goes, and that's what I'm talking about. That's the warning, whoever did this. Just want to keep us out. So you haven't actually gone past these? Fuck no! Shh, I could be around.

Hey, guys. So I could try this thing that I've been wanting to do for a while, which is where I can talk to maybe somebody that is not alive anymore. You can do that? Yeah, well, the Traveler's teaching me all about it, and I think I can do it.

Is the Traveler another wizard? Well, I mean, he kind of is, but he's really powerful and he's super cool. And he wears this really cool cloak, and he's got an amazing voice. And if, actually, hold on, and I pull out one of my pamphlets, and here, if you want to learn more,

you just let me know. Maybe we could get back to talking to the dead people? Yeah, do you want me to try it? That sounds like a great idea. Let's also, why don't we check for traps, too? Oh, that's my job! How long does it take you to talk to dead people? Well, it's instantaneous, but, you know,

I can talk to them for about 10 minutes or so. That's pretty awesome. Anyone who's dead or just one dead person? Just the one dead person that I cast it on, you know? Which body is fresher, Matthew? From what you're looking at, they're both about as fresh as the other. It looks like they were both killed.

Which one's got the better mouth? It doesn't have to be fresh. It could be really old. Really old. They were all thinking that. Well, there's the one, yeah, they both have their jaws intact, I would say. From what you can tell, the female halfling, you can't really make out the features of the face

because the hair is in the way and dangling. The other one is just open and cool. Which one looks friendlier? That depends on, they both look pretty dead. I mean. I'll go check for traps on the smaller one. All right, make an investigation check. Oh, a lot. 25.

25, all right. No traps, nothing like that. You do notice there are wounds across the body. Beyond just the leg missing, there are wounds across the body. Beyond just the leg missing, there are a number of wounds. You can make a medicine check to try and ascertain what they are. 10.

10, okay, okay. They seem to be a combination of bite and claw marks. Not super deep slashing, but definitely like, a gash across the shoulder, the neck. There is one large puncture wound about that wide, that's right around where the sternum is, but where you look, whatever punctured it, one of the edges is torn out,

almost like something hooked was placed in and then pulled through, dragging the flesh with it. Awesome. Does her face look like someone? Intact. Yeah, we don't know this person. No, you do not recognize this person, lifeless. You do see some rough elements of tattoos

that may have been along the neck, similar to some of the banded neck tattoos of members of the Gentleman's Crew that you had seen before. Not as thick and indense, but you can see there is a pattern to the acquisition of some of these tattoos for the ones who run the smuggling line.

You're starting to ascertain and put that together. But intact. Would you like to talk to this one? I mean, sure. Well, let me introduce you. Okay. This is my friend Jester. Hi.

Jester, this is a dead body. I'm nervous, I've never done this before. This should be good, big V. Okay, I'm going to hold my symbol of the Traveler. I'm going to keep a lookout while she does this. You're going to be like, okay, I'm going to do this thing. Just be confident. Ciri pulls a blade and gets behind Callie

and just is like, I've never done this before. Okay, Ciri, be careful. Be careful. Okay, hey, you dead person. Hey, I would like if you would come to life again in a little bit and tell us some things that we want to know. Blurr-lurr-lurr. Blurr-lurr-lurr. Traveller of the World.

Oh no! You watch as a tiny dagger just goes into the tree next to it, and Ciri's around Callie going. Easy, Ciri, easy. Settle, settle, settle. Okay. Hey, Ci, easy, settle, settle, settle. Okay. Oh my god. Kiri, settle. As the chest breathes in, you can see some of the air

escape some of the wounds, and there's bits of matter . The head settles down and just looks right. Y'all can't forget. It's happening again. It just feels like it's happening again. Just feels like it's coming up. Fribon leaps back, he's like,

shit, backs up a little bit. He looks really uncomfortable with this whole thing. I don't think he was prepared for any sort of a dead raising circumstance. Is this fucking necromancy? Well, kind of. Yeah. He just keeps backing away.

You, all right, so now the corpse's face of this halfling woman turns towards you. We have to ask it some questions. What did this do you? I think you have to talk like you're dead. Really, are you sure, though? Have you ever talked to a dead person? I've never done it. You know more about this stuff.

Mm-hmm. Swamp fishmen from under the ground. What were you writing this down? Swamp fishmen from underground. That is incredibly specific and really useful. What? How many? How many swamp fish men? Many.

Many, there are lots of them. There are lots of them that attack. Where, when? How long ago did this happen to you? I get five of them. Oh wow. Weeks, two, maybe three. Whoa. Two or three. Wow. Two or three weeks ago.

Oh, did anything that you did to the fish man seem to hurt them more than other things? Ooh! We cut when we could. They bleed, but too many. They bleed, there's too many bleeds. If it bleeds, we can kill them. So when you cut it, it bleeds, got it.

One more question? I get one more question, what's that? Ciaran comes up and grabs the dagger and wedges it out of the tree and turns to Callie, goes, if it bleeds, we can kill it. He points it back to the corpse. Don't heal it again, it's okay, it's okay. We have another question.

Either where this happened, where she was killed, or where they were hiding. Where did it come from? Underground. But like, did it come from the house or from outside the safe house or inside? Would it in a way where you ask all of those in one question, like, did you come from this,

this, or this, maybe, and then we'll know where. Or we could ask if there's a secret entrance to the safe house. What if there isn't? Well, then we've wasted a question. That's fair. But we know there's not a secret entrance. Or we could ask it, like, what its childhood was like.

No, that would be an interesting story. Okay. I'm going to check behind us and see how far back. Who was your favorite restaurant? Don't make friends, they're going to go away. Fabron? Fabron? How far back has Fabron gone?

He's like 20 feet behind you. He's like keeping, he's coming back from the hole underneath. Hey, hey, Fabron, don't go too far. There's a troll back there. At which point you watch from behind one of the trees, the troll reaches out and grabs him by the torso, pulls him back, and you hear him scream as the troll

grabs and tucks him on her arm and begins leaping away from you. Okay, go for it, make an attack. I go running. You go running? I don't have to. Oh boy, I miss. I got a nine.

I almost made a bet if Vibran was going to make it. Oh no! I was one. Tally's going to throw out like, she spits like a glob of acid. All righty. So. Oh no, wait, can you not cast it second, Vibran?

Oh no, oh no. All right, hold on, let me go ahead and get the... Wait, did we already give him 100 gold? Yes. We're going to go back and roll the die out. No, we're going to get it at the end. No, no, we gave it to you. We gave him her after we got the call.

He gave it to him already. We know where that money's going. He did his job, though. He got us here. That's true. We're going to go find it in the tree later. It'll be fine. If he dies, we can just get the money back.

So he's got his girls, they've got to fight fishmats. It's practically just going to be find it in the tree later. It'll be fine. If he dies, we can just get the money back. Somebody's got to fight Fish Man. It's practically just going to be in a safety deposit box. He could've won. Just hold this for us. He's fucking huge. That is the troll. I thought he was like humanoid size. He is huge.

Look, he touched the bronze in his arm. Why did you go try to be friends with that? What were you thinking? I didn't know he was that big. Look, he touched the bronze in his arm. Why did you go try to be friends with that? What were you thinking? I didn't know he was that big. So this is the opening of the clearing here, where you guys were talking to the halfling that was stapled to the tree right there. Just stapled to the tree.

Essentially, yeah. So you guys all spin and watch this happening. There's Ciaris over by the edge of the tree with you. And Caleb, where were you? Towards the back of the group, never near the front. So you would've probably been over here, that's the next thing you're not. And this is north, towards here?

Technically, this would be north. Technically. Towards you, Liam. Yes, that area is north. So. I fired a shot but missed. Yes, what'd you roll? A nine. That did miss.

Magic missile, level two, four darts, total of 16 force damage. Nice. Reflex dexterity, reflux dexterity saving throw for the acid splash as well. Okay, so you guys watch this. As the troll spins and goes running, with one going and its grasp, she starts making these lumbering, almost like leaping from tree to tree. Its legs, while it has this bulbous swollen midsection, these thin frog-like legs are giving these fairly decent leaps from section to section, its other arm grasping onto the trees as it runs. You can see this is definitely its home terrain. As these magic missiles swarm out and slam into its body, with each impact, you watch as that green link ichor sprays across Vabran, and you watch it start to burn into his skin. He's like,

Zeno Morph blood. Oh no! I can't help but feel like this is win-win for us. Vabran goes limp. I can't help but feeling like this is win-win for us. Is that it? Vabran goes limp. Oh! Oh my god! Double, I rolled a 2d8, rolled 2d8.

I rolled an eight on each of them. Yeah, no! Okay, so that was the reaction there. I take 37 for the acid splash, just so I can't mind. That's a four. Seven. Seven points of acid. Got it.

Yeah, it was acid splash. As it slams, it begins Seven. Seven points of acid? Got it. As it slams, it begins to burn the back of the skin. You watch as a bit of steam rises off of its shoulder as it definitely is wounding the creature. This large, swollen troll is still making a break, so I need everyone to roll initiative now. Yes! Oh, dang it.

Oh, fuck. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. That's a natural one. I mean, to be fair. All right, 25 to 20. 23. Actually, I'm going to blow my d8. 20? All right.

Ooh, that's an eight. Jester and Kali. Yeah, Kali. All righty, 20 to 15? 18. 16. All right, Nott and Molly? Yep. 15 to 10?

14. 14 as well. All right, Nott and Molly. Yep. 15 to 10? 14. 14 as well. All right. Beau. Did you speak up yet? Of course you didn't. Oh my god. No! 10 to five?

Six. Yay! Eight? Time, time. It's magic. Ashley, it's incredible. It really is, I have a plus two in this campaign also. You're the blank one.

Like a priest. I don't know, man. All right, is that everybody? Thanks, Seth. Yes. All right, so top of the round, as it's bounding behind with an unconscious guide under its arm, Jester, you're up first. Okay, I'm going to toll the dead because he's been injured.

All righty. I'm going to toll the dead because he's been injured. All righty. I'm going to turn around and be like. How big damage is it? It is necrotic damage. But he has to roll a wisdom saving throw. Which he does not make, he rolled a 12. Yeah, so 2d12.

I can help search for those in a second. No, I got it. Six all points. Six points of damage. As the energy coalesces and the bell in the range of this creature, it impacts and it staggers for a second and you watch as the pustules in its body

emit more of that poison. And he has a lot of ringing in his ears, damn it. All righty, so that finishes your go. Cali, you're up. Okay, so seeing everything go on and the combat erupt, you see her twitch a little bit, and she snarls a little. I'm going to rush up 30 feet, move up as much as I can. Get back here now! I'm going to quicken spell False Life on myself. Actually, no, I'll just do it as a normal action. I won't quicken spell it.

So I'll do False Life on myself and gain some vigor as a first level spell. Go for it. I've never heard this. Same. So I get seven temporary hit points. Great. And then I'm just going to, well, that's it.

Like, yeah, yeah. All right, cool. So you just come up with this strange barrier of arcane energy formed around Kallie's body, giving this little essence figure and watch as the body swells a bit. All right, that finishes your turn. Nott, you're up.

Am I within, I'll get within 30 feet. Okay. Fire a crossbow shot towards its foot. Within 30 feet, you can stop about there. That's good. All right, go for it. It's like foot. Within 30 feet, you can stop about there. That's good. All right, go for it. It hits probably 24.

Yeah, that hits. Sneak attack? No. Technically no, because he's aware you were there and is not currently flanked by any allies. Not flanked by any allies. Ooh, terrible. Five points.

Five points of piercing damage. It strikes and sticks into the back, and you watch as more of that green stuff begins to spray out of the wound where it hits in the vicinity. It's creating these bursts of this toxic sludge that's oozing from its body around it each time you're hitting it. I'll shoot again with bonus action. Ooh, that's not as good, 13. 13? That does not hit. It manages to hit the tree that's near it and sticking to that one there. And I'll use the rest of my movement

to duck behind some sort of a tree or something while I scream. I wonder if Vabran is going to get covered in that pus that's coming out of him. There's quite a bit of it on Vabran, actually. Are we in difficult terrain, yeah? Yes, you are. Green stuff should sponsor us.

Well, I'd say you guys are currently, at this moment, in this clearing, you're not in terribly difficult terrain. I'm saying you're moving around okay, it's not too bad. Our normal speed? The further you get into it this way, it starts getting a little more, like in the cluster of trees in here, it starts getting harder to move in.

Yeah, okay, although you've got your shoes on, right? Sure. You do. All righty, that ends Nott's turn. Molly, you're up. I'm going to try and cast Enthrall. Yes! Okay. An A.

That is a 14. Wait, is it wisdom? I don't know. Yes, I believe it's wisdom. 13. Your DC on that is charisma-based, right? This is your racial? Yeah, it is racial. Yeah, so it exceeds his 10.

Unfortunately, that would have stopped in his tracks. Mm. That was Molly's? Yep. All right, is that your turn? You want to move closer? No, I'll move up to that tree. Okay, so move up to there?

Yeah, and as a bonus, I'll, no, hold off. Okay, that finishes Molly's go. Beau and Fjord, you guys are up. I think I'm 40 feet within him. If you do it. You're 40 feet within him? Wow, that's deep. 35, 40, you do, you get right up to its body. So deep, okay.

I'm going to pop pop. Troll's deep. My two strikes, oh wait, wait, that's a die damage. That's a die. First two strikes. First one is a 21, second one is a 16. They both hit. Okay, okay, okay, okay. I rolled a one. That sucks. 12 damage for the first one. All right. Seven damage for the second one. Great. Yeah?

Yeah, what else are you doing? I'm going to use a ki point to do Stunning Strike. Oh, nice. So Stunning Strike. All right. 21. Fuck. That's a plus five on his constitution saving throw. Trolls, man. Resist the

stunning strike. That's good to know. I sell my bonus. Watch out, I'll just punch him in the face. Don't waste all your stuff on this guy, because, you know. Because we might still fight all the things. We are definitely going to be fighting all the things. Nine damage this guy, because, you know. Because we might still fight all those things. We are definitely going to be fighting all those things. Nine damage. No, sorry, ten damage.

Ten damage, so a third strike? Yeah, that was it. Okay, cool. So as you rush forward, and slamming into it with your staff and your fists, just striking into its body with each impact, it takes you a moment to hit, or to realize what's happening,

but that spray is covering your face, and as it does, the venom is pushing into your flesh and burning upon contact. You guys, it makes your throat a little numb. You take nine points of poison damage. You take another nine points of poison damage. I can't reset any of my shots. You take 15 points of poison damage, so a total of 15, nine to nine, so that's 34 points of poison damage. That's a lot of damage.

33, sorry. Y'all, don't get close to this guy. For Brawn, by the way, fucking dead. You look over and see now, he's just coated in this toxin, the eyes are open and now it's pouring out of his mouth as foam at the edge with the tongues all hanging out. As it was fleeing, all those impacts just covered him with the same toxic stuff and sent him straight to his grave. Guys, our money's getting away! I think it's okay, because I'm going to have to use all my fucking spells healing you, Beau!

I'm okay! So Beau's turn, Fjord, what are you doing? Can I move 15 feet towards the troll? And I'll see the gore and poison just splattering all over Beau and little syphils coming up and shit. I'm like, nah, I'll just play it. I just turn around to you and I go.

All right, go ahead, two attacks on it. I just turn around to you and I go. All right, go ahead, two attacks on it. Okay, well that's 26 to hit. That hits. And 25 to hit. Those are monsters, jeez. 40, 10, plus four, that's eight points on the first one, and that's 14 points on the second one. Nice.

So both parts of its back, you watch where they impact, the flesh just tears open, revealing the muscle beneath, and as it does, more of it sprays. Beau. Oh shit, Rhett. You take five points of poison damage. Hang on, let me make sure I'm doing my math right, too. It was 33 points of damage is what you did before, right?

So I think that. 34 points of damage. 33. It was 15 plus 18 damage is what you did before, right? So I think that's it. 34 points of damage. 33. It's 15 plus 18, so it's 33. Okay. Okay. And you just took another 20 points of poison damage. And I am unconscious. What?!

Nobody did. Yeah, don't let anybody else hit it. Oh god, please don't pick up Beau. Beau just falls onto the ground, arms limp, just covered in this toxic substance. Does that end your turn, Fjord? Yeah, I cast Regret. All righty. I cast Major Regret

at fifth level. So it is now the troll's turn. The troll does not regenerate because you did acid damage to it with your last attack, which prevents it from regaining the hit points. That was what we meant to get for the chat. However, it's still currently clutching the body of Fribon under its arm.

It's going for a straight bolt. It looks down and sees Beau unconscious, uses its action to pick up Beau under the other arm. Oh! Fuck no! Does it have up Beau under the other arm. Oh! No! Does it have to move to do that? No! Fuck!

It doesn't have to move to do it, does it? Nope. And now it's going to go into full movement. Oh my god. It is right where the marker is right there. Without killing Beau, because we can't attack it. We have to stop it with magic. Okay. Or nets.

Anyone have a hold monster situation? I only have hold nurse and I don't have hold monster. This is a pickle, guys. You didn't really like that character that much, did you? You know! I got one thing I can say. All right, so that ends the troll's turn. Caleb, you're up.

I haven't even gotten her back story. I'll use my movement first. I want to get as close as I can. What, just 15 feet? No, you said the closer we get, so how? Right there is when you start getting rough terrain. All right, so how close am I? Which the troll is not affected by.

You've noticed it's the city's home turf. Yeah, you know, I went through a whole range of emotions because first I was going to try to hold it, but then the guy was dead, so I was like, fuck it, I'll switch to a firebolt, but then he grabbed Beau, so now I'm going to use the glove of blasting and cast Scorching Ray on it, because I can't reach for anything better. What if it makes the puzzle sting,

and then it hits Beau, and then she dies? She's unconscious, Deathsaving Throne. Every time it gets hit, you can buy spells. Don't damage it. Yeah. That's what happened to Fjord. We need a hold thing. I don't have that. I don't either.

I mean, I got something that holds, but it damages too. What are you doing, Caleb? I'm going to cast Magic Mistle on its head. Magic Mistle on its head? Yeah. Okay. So go ahead and roll for the damage on that. No.

Beau won't die. No, I'm going to cast... Fucksticks. I'm going to cast Haste on Nott. That's what I do. Okay, so with that, you are now holding concentration on Haste. Nott, you feel suddenly the world slows ever so slightly, and you feel this burst of adrenaline in your body.

Do you have healing potion? No. All right, so that's your turn? I do. Yasha, you're up. Okay. How close can I get? I was hoping to stun it, guys. 35, 30, 35, 40. It was a good plan.

Fuck, this is not going to work. Caleb? Yeah, AC is up. Extra action. All right, well, I would like to rage. Okay. I'm not close enough now, and I'm not able to. I'm just going to scream out in a super intimidating voice.

Don't forget, if you rage and don't attack or are attacked by the end of your next turn, you lose your rage. Oh shit. If you're not planning to attack it, or there's not something going to be attacking you, the raging, you're losing a rage for the day. So keep that in mind. So you have to take damage. Like when you get hit by something, like... It's either attack or be attacked. You don't have to take damage, necessarily.

Oh, okay. Your speed is absolutely full damage, though. When you did acid, still pus flew out of it? Um, I'm sweating. Oh my god, you're amazing. Sorry, audience. It's taking damage. It's you attacking or taking damage.

I don't like this. Okay, fuck, shit, okay. Well, I'm not going to take it back. So, okay. Can you just grapple it? Oh, never mind. That's as far as I can go. Yeah, unfortunately, you're starting to get through

some sledge. You can do double speed. You can bring your action. You can, yeah. Yeah, I'll do that, I'll do that, to get through some sludging. You can do double speed, yeah. You can burn your action. You can, yeah. Yeah, I'll do that, I'll do that, I'll do that. All right. You guys know where he's taking me, potentially. There's as close as you can get right there.

Am I within 10 feet of it? You are. Okay, so. Oh. I'm going to, I'm going to, can I use necrotic shroud then, if I use that as the action to run? You don't have an action to use it, unfortunately.

Okay, can I just yell at it? Yeah. What do you yell? I give you two bonus actions. Super intimidating. But then I've got to fucking attack something. All right, I'm just going to be super intimidating and say, drop it! Make an intimidation check. No! No! Roll a intimidation check. No!

No! I said no! Roll a 20. Roll a 20! Roll a 20! Oh, so close! Okay, intimidation. Intimidation is minus two!

But I look so mean because my charisma's so low. Well, it's charisma based, but intimidation, depending on the intimidation, you can use your strength modifier instead. 17. Okay. With your strength modifier? No, no, without the strength modifier.

You can use your strength modifier. Oh, I can use my strength, Arian? It makes sense, that's how we did it in the last campaign, too. It's one of the rules that they say you can use for your campaign, which is either charisma or strength for intimidation, because it makes sense for you. Yes, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay.

My favorite pike line, by the way, in Colors of Eternity. Oh yeah, it's just like that. Okay, okay, okay, okay. Okay, 22. 22, all right. I died when I heard that. Okay, you watch as it turns around and glances at you, and it looks shaken. I'll say, for the purposes of this, it's frightened of youances at you and it looks shaken. I'll say for the purposes of this,

it's frightened of you until the end of your next turn. Okay. That just means it's going to keep running away from you. Yeah. Sorry, this is all happening. It's not happening. Finish your turn, Yasha. Can I slap myself?

Unfortunately, no. Is that not working? Holy shit. Okay. All right. It's now Ciri's turn. Ciri, holding a dagger. Ciri! Ciri, be my savior!

It just holds the dagger. It's Ciri's turn. Yeah, Ciri! And it shouts, fuck! Jester, your turn. Can I get within 60 feet of it? Yeah, you're within 60 feet of it? Yeah, you're within 60 feet.

Yes. Awesome, I'm going to cast Healing Word on Moe. Oh shit, okay. Yes! That'll do. As my bonus action, Healing Word, so you regain 1d4 plus four hit points. Wow.

Seven points! So you are conscious. I'm conscious! Being grabbed by a troll. I'm thinking of time. Seven points. Play dead! Yeah, I'm...

Modern literature, modern literature! Lie down, play dead. We don't know what that is. Be dead! We don't know what that is. I'm going to wake up, see my situation, and just go... And just play dead. Okay, so when we come to your turn, we'll do that.

You just come to consciousness, and you're like, and your body hurts. There's all the stinging from the toxin burning your skin and flesh, and you're just feeling, you're chucked under, you can feel the claws digging into part of your thigh inside as you're being run along by this giant troll creature. It smells awful, this heavy scent of rotting citrus

and fungus that's permeating from its body. That finishes your turn, Jester. That was my bonus. It's your bonus, you still have your action. But I don't think I can do anything. I guess I'll hold an attack. I'll hold... A sacred flame?

Yeah, I'll hold a sacred flame until Beau is dropped and far enough away. You got it. All right, so hold the calendar up. How close can I get to it with the difficult terrain? Can I get next to Yasha? You can get that close right now, with a speed of 30 feet. Okay, no, it's fine. I will get there, and she twitches a little bit. Come on! Quickened, levitate on Beau. I'm going to try and lift Beau up. If there's a tree line above, I'm going to try and fling her up to the tree line. Interesting. I'll say for the purposes of this, go ahead and make an arcana check, and this is

going to be your attempt to break the grapple of the troll. Come on, Callie! Natural born ten, not very good at Arcana. He's rolling, he's rolling. Two! Fucking you are lucky, son of a bitch! It has a plus four in its strength roll. Okay, so ripping from the grip of the troll, Beau gets lifted into the air and is now hovering there. I can move 20 feet up. Is there a tree line that I can send her to so she can grab on? Yeah, yeah, we can do that.

Oh my god! Grape bomb! It's like in Willow with the sacred. I cast Sacred Splendor. For my action, I'm going to do another acidid Splash, because that was a bonus because of Quickened. Beau is now lifted up into the tree, and you're just within reach of branches when it comes to your turn. We'll get to that.

It's okay. Everything's fine now. She's half melted. I'm going to be honest, you almost killed her, man. Scorching Ray, if those all had hit, Beau's dead. I was like, oh fuck. You got to cut that dead weight, man. I got real nervous. All right, so, magic missile would have been the same, too, because it's a splash per minute.

I have blackmail material on you, motherfucker. All right, so go for it. So, dex save for you, natural 20. No tails! And then for you, dex save for you, natural 20. No tails! And then for you, dex save as well? That is a eight. Okay, so you get hit with 2d8.

Yes. Radiant damage. Nine points. Nine points of damage. All right, splashes out. No one's close enough to be impacted by the effects. That's where the radiant damage seem to? Vabraun's dead. Vabraun's like just.

Like a soggy KFC drumstick. Kind of. Just like. His arms and legs are just dangling behind as it's dragging him through. Three damage. It's pretty rough. Did the radiant damage seem to have a particular effect?

Not beyond anything else. Those eyes were looking even worse. We should just let him go, huh? Yeah. Yeah. All right, so, ending Callie's turn, Nott, you're up? I'm up. Yeah, you're up. Okay, is there anything in melee range with it?

No. Currently, no. Oh, great. Well. Yeah, great. I'll move within 30 feet. That's as close as you can get right there. It's not quite within 30 feet. That's as close as I can get? No, it's not. It's double speed.

Oh, that's right. And has a ring on for water walking. For water walking, right. I'll say for that purpose, that does give you the extra movement there. So now you're within, just within 30 feet. I don't know that we're letting you go, so I'm going to cast Tasha's Hideous Laughter on him.

Just throw out a little piece of pastry and I'll yell to it, what's a swamp frog's favorite drug? Crocaine! I love those guys. Wisdom save is a 13. It's a 14. 14, it fails.

Oh no, baby! Immediately falls prone, laughing, with the corpse of Hebron still being flailed about in the air as it's spinning and the legs and arms just. And I'll use my extra action to attack. Already. With the crossbow.

Technically, you can only do the bonus action attack if you use the attack action. This is an extra attack action. Oh, because you're hasted, that's right. Sorry, I was thinking of the bonus action. You were correct. I rolled a 16 plus seven, 23. 23, that hits. Because it's prone, do I get advantage or anything? No, you get disadvantage. Oh, because it's ranged. Yeah.

Natural 20, so it still hits 23. So, yeah, so. With a disadvantage. That's right. But do I get sneak attack? No, because it's prone? No. No, because you don't have advantage on the attack.

I will, oh look, it's a 10 to hit. Nice. I mean, 10 points of damage. All righty. And you, I don't get a bonus action off of that attack. You do, because it's an attack action. Okay, I points of damage. All righty. Sinks into it. I don't get a bonus action off of that attack. You do, because it's an attack action. Okay, I'll fire again. Natural 20.

Uh-uh. And then a 20, just a straight 20. Okay, that hits. Two, two? Oh man, that sucks. And another seven points of damage. Seven points of damage, all righty. That finishes your turn, Nott, well done.

It's like on the ground, you're just like firing both of them, just sticking it aside. You're watching the sprays of poison toxin out of its body as it's just laughing on the ground. For Tasha's Hideous Laughter, does it get a chance to break? Let me see. At the end of each of its turns, or each time it takes damage,

a target can make a wisdom saving throw. Yes. Nope, that was a two. Target has advantage on that save if it's triggered by that damage. Second roll was a 16, so yeah, it succeeds. So it fell prone, gave you disadvantage on the attacks, and then got out of your spell. Nice.

But lesson learned. It's enough. But it is prone. So that finishes your turn, Nott. Molly? Where's, oh, where's the little bird? Where's the little bird? Right there. Oh.

There's really not much I can do here, so I'm just going to, I'm just. Send it packing, Molly. Mm-hmm. Send it packing. I got nothing I can do. Oh, cool, then. Get the fuck out of here, then. Shut the fuck up. I'm going to can do. Oh, cool, then let go.

Get the fuck out of here! I'm going to, yeah, it's going to, it's going to, well, I can do that. I'm just going to give another, I'm actually going to, yeah, I'm just going to do one more attempt to Devil's Tongue. And what does it sell? Sure.

Scorch, scorch, scorch! I rolled a three minus one, so it succeeds. So it takes what type of psychic damage? Oh, wow, holy cow. It worked. I'm not used to it working. What check is that? It's true, it never.

For the laughter? Fifth level, so, oh, hey, look at that. It actually has gone up. 2d4 psychic damage. That's four points of psychic damage, and it has gone up. 2d4. 2d4 psychic damage. That's four points of psychic damage, and it has disadvantage on its next attack roll. Interesting, okay.

So psychic damage strikes it, it does not spray the venomous toxin upon her, it's taking the psychic damage. That's good. But it is, it's grabbing its head now, the laughter is subsided, it goes like. Brain freeze, brain freeze. It's trying to get back to its feet.

That finishes your turn, Molly? That's all I got. All right, Beau, you're up in the trees. Fjord, you're on the ground. Okay. You're levitating. I am levitating? Held onto the branch?

Yeah, can I switch? Now you can try and reach for the branch, yeah. And perch up on the branch? Sure, yeah, you still have levitation spell on you, so if reach for the branch, yeah. And kind of perch up on the branch? Sure, yeah, you still have levitation spell on you, so if you were to leap, you just glide. Can I kind of grip the tree branch with my thighs? Okay.

Kind of force grip it. So you're on the branch there, yeah. Side saddle, and then I'm going to, I don't know why I'm acting like I'm drawing a bow, like I'm a bow user, because I've never been a bow user, but my name is Beau, I'm going to take two shurikens and do the good stars. First attack, don't fuck me, Gael. 15. 15 just hits. It is prone, you have disadvantage, so roll again to attack.

No! It's a ranged attack, yeah. Oh wow, that's 14. 14 just misses. Sinks into the swamp mud next to it. Bummer. Second one, natural 20. And one more time, because it has disadvantage.

14. Okay, so that does hit. Roll damage to the second one. So that hits, which is a d4, we've said, correct? That is correct. Oh, cock. Super cock. Four.

Sure, I'll take the act. That's a 10. 10? Yeah, damage. Four plus your? Four plus six, my attack bonus, right? Damage bonus. My damage bonus.

Oh, I'm sorry, sorry, sorry, so you're dexterity bonus. Eight, sorry, sorry. All right, so eight points of damage. So the shuriken sinks into its chest, and a spray of toxin, but nothing in the vicinity to take the damage. That finish your turn? I have a bonus, right?

You do. But I can't do a range. No, it's only unarmed. I think it's your turn. Yeah, I think that's all I got. Blood Glug. Blood Glug? I don't have a healing potion. She doesn't have a Blood Glug.

Fjord, you're up. I'll move five feet closer towards El Troll, and I'll say, get the fuck out of here, and I'll just blast twice. All right, go for it. Disadvantage on each strike, you're still prone. That's going to miss anyway, and the second one. That's going to miss, they both miss.

They both just go passing right over its bodies. It's trying to get up. It slips for a second. What would have hit, it ducks out of the way just in time and both of them arc off, hitting nothing. You can get your ass out of this. All right, that finishes your turn. It's now the troll's turn. It gets up half its movement,

and it's going to run 15 feet this way, and then a full action run from 30 feet. It's just darting off with the corpse of Verbon under its arm. It has its prize, and it's just running off into the swamp. It's hurting, but you're watching its flesh kind of stitch together a little more. It's starting to heal up from some of the wounds that it's in. Yeah, get the fuck on out.

Nobody wants you here anyway. Is anybody pursuing? Yeah, it's in my range. I will walk 15 feet forward and cast Firebolt from here. It's 120 foot range. All righty, go ahead and roll for that. Well, that's not the d20 for range, so hold on. This one. That's a natural one. for range, so hold on. This one.

That's a natural one. Nope. Firebolt vanishes beyond space there. Anybody else with a ranged attack that wants to try and make it? Sure, I'll take a shot. Go for it. At disadvantage?

No, actually, at this range it is, yes. 10. Oh, 12. 12 misses. It's starting to just hit the mist, and its form is starting to become a little harder to see, and it's just running with such an intense speed. Oh yeah, I got one more hasted action. You do. And a bonus action attack if you want to. This is terrible. 14.

14? No, just misses. And a bonus attack action. 16. All right, roll damage. That does strike. That's one. Bonus attack action. 16. All right, roll damage, that does strike. That's one. It sticks in his calf. Eight points of damage. Eight points of damage.

It manages to catch it, it's still running. Ah. All right, Fjord, you're the only one with a proper ranged attack here, if you want to try it again. I'll take two more Eldritch Blasts at it. Go for it. At disadvantage, right? Correct.

That's a natural one. Come on, buddy. 19. 18, that'll hit, that's 28. All right, go ahead and roll damage. That's nine plus four, 13 points of Eldritch Blasts. He's got our gold, he's got our gold. Pop it off.

It gets blasted. Still going. You fucking piece of shit! How far away is he right now? Well, now it takes his next turn to do a full 60-foot run. I couldn't jump one more and try and get another one. I don't think he's going down with it. I think at this point, the rate that it's healing, you're starting to think. Oh, he's healing?

Yeah. Don't you dare tell healing, you're starting to think. Oh, he's healing? Yeah. Don't you dare tell us what we're starting to think. I'm just saying, you can continue to pursue if you want to. He'll be idiots. He's healthier than he was. He went healthier when he was alive. You're really dumb.

Okay, okay. We know where he lives. Yeah, that's right, we know where his hovel is. So, lesson learned. Oh, there's a dead person I'm talking to. We have one more question. I turned around and went back to the dead person. But Beau's just like, you fucking shit.

Yeah, I'm doggy paddling through the air. You let my friend down? Oh, sorry, Mr. Beau. And we're still in the middle of the- I so fall to my- Yep, middle as well. And one more question. Matt, we're still in the middle of nowhere at this point,

or we're? You guys are right at the edge of where these bodies have been propped up as a warning, which is, from what Fibron told you, was placed up to prevent people from coming towards the safe house. We don't have our guide anymore. Ask this one which way to go.

Well, I mean, it's right. Safe house. This isn't the safe house right there? No, this is the gates of the safe house. This is like, you're starting to get close to it, as far as you know. As far as we know. If these are the paintings,

specific directions! All right. I guess that's what I'll ask it then, because that's all I can ask. As you approach, the head is tracking you the whole time. Sorry we got distracted. There's a troll that came and stole our guide. I think you might have known him.

Everybody, group up. Get a buddy. Which way is the actual safe house that we're trying to get to? The head curves off to the right between the tree that it's stapled to and the other body that's propped up. 100 feet?

That way. Oh shit, it's like we totally see it. You know what I can do, so I can see it twice. Well, you don't see any safe house. You don't see anything like that. Okay. At that point, the head kind of. Oh shit, he's stunned.

Oh. Well, we know at least it's 100 feet, so we can search for it. Are there actual knives stuck in? Looks to be like two short swords or some kind of jammed into it. Short swords or like daggers? Short swords.

Do they have anything in their pockets? Make an investigation check. Yeah, we're looting these bodies right now. They're very good. That's nice. Yes. Investigation, you say? 14?

Okay. Rummaging through the pockets and the various baubles you can find, you find four pieces of gold, a handful of about 12 silvers and a halfling. Looks to be some sort of a charm. Looks like it was made from a dried animal foot of some kind, like a dog or coyote.

Nobody's talking. Oh. She's first, hiccups. Mm-hmm. And what looks to be some sort of a note that was keeping track of locations, but it's mostly soaked now and the ink is all run, and you just make out bits of words here and there, but it makes no sense to you.

Take it, take it. I'm taking it! Give me the charm. Are you going to check if it's magic? Yes. Okay. Are you going to fix the note? I'm going to see if it's mending on the note. Oh wait, it doesn't make the words come back.

Remember, we already figured this part out. Yeah, the paper is now dry, and a full piece of paper, but the ink is still as smeared and lost as it was before. Can I look at the words to see? The few words you make out involve a time. One of them says two hours past the noon sun. That's the most you make out of one sentence. Part of it's smeared. It's like Steve Martin and the Jer sun. That's the most you can make out of one sentence. Part of it's smeared.

It's like Steve Martin and the Jerk trying to read the love letter. He's like,. The other things you can make out is four men required, and then another one saying something about Shady, and that's all you make out. Shady Grove. Ooh.

I bet that's Shady Grove. Shady is fucked. Shady Cree, Shady Cree. I'll say while Jester was doing all that, Caleb sat down, took out his spell book, and started ritual casting Detect Magic. Yeah, in fact, could we take a short rest while Caleb's doing that,

just since that was a little gnarlier than we anticipated? Or maybe after I do that, because I am. Sorry. My body hurts. I'm going to heal you. All right, so we'll say we'll take a short rest here, and while we're doing that, we'll also take a break. All right.

We'll head to the restroom here. We'll be back here in just a few minutes. Thank you for kicking with us. We have our Wyrmwood giveaway today. We have a fantastic Lacewood deck box. I say, Lacewood, it's got a really cool texture. It looks almost like a chainmail or some sort of a cool, it's one of the cool-looking woods, in my opinion.

But this is going to be a giveaway for one of you lucky winners in the chat in the U.S. or Canada, excluding Quebec. Head on over to the Twitch chat to enter the phrase tonight. Enter only once or you'll be disqualified. However, for tonight, the word is bird. Bird is the word. Bird, bird, bird.

Bird is the word. All right. We'll be back in a few minutes, guys. We'll see you then. Enjoy the break time. Enjoy the rewatch of our awesome D&D Beyond video. All right, back in a minute. Why, hello there. This is Critical Role's resident art dad also known as liam o'brien we are continuously amazed at the artwork this community creates that's why each thursday at 8 a.m pacific we share a curated gallery of submitted fan art over on critroll.com if you'd like to submit your art for consideration visit critrole.com slash submit. And thank you to all of the incredible artists who share their talents with us week after week. Hello, everyone, and welcome back.

I just dropped my note. I'll pick that up in a second. So before we get into it, we're going to announce the winner of our giveaway. The winner of our fantastic Wyrmwood giveaway is the Bowmeister. The underscore Bowmeister. The Bowmeister! Enjoy your Wyrmwood! So congratulations, we'll get that sent out to you ASAP. That's a very wild mount, the Bowmeister. The Bowmeister? Yeah. Of course it would be. All right, back into the game we go.

Just real quick, I wanted to give a quick shout out to my brother-in-law, Peter Habib of Mr. Fantastic Music. They did the track for the animated thing. So good. So good. Oh, so excited. I love it. I love it.

I love it. All love it! Indeed. I love it! All right, so bringing us back into the game, you guys have taken your short rest, healed up a bit, and kind of recovered from the chaos of the swamp. You've managed to trudge through. You've lost your guide, but you've survived this far. The rest of you, at least.

What would you like to do? You were casting? Scorching Ray on Beau. Yes. Finish them. Finish them. I trusted you, motherfucker. I told you everything, you have to die. Utilizing Detect Magic, you were saying. Yeah.

Well, it's like black saying. Yeah. On? Well, it's like blacklight. Yeah, all right. So on everything on what they were looking at? Nothing magical within what was found within the bodies, no. Is not glowing in any kind of way that I'm not used to?

Correct. How far did it extend? 30 feet, I believe. All right. It occurred to me from what your friend said that this location might not be entirely above ground any longer. Mm-hmm.

Yeah? My dead friend? Yeah. Yeah, I think it might be hidden or something. Yeah. And two hours past, what was it, noon? Two past noon. Maybe it only becomes visible at a certain time?

Four men required. You, my good friend, will you walk with me in the direction that the dead person said that this entrance is in before my magic runs out? Why do you feel the need to call me a good friend? You're right, person that I work with, would you walk over before my spell runs out so that I can use it to help the group?

Yeah. Why don't we all head in that direction, maybe? Yeah. In a large, well-knit group. Since there are things that'll be snagging, bitches, when we get separated. Is it dark, or is it? No, at this point, it's later afternoon, maybe.

It's like two or three o'clock. Just in case there is anything. Maybe like two past noon? Maybe. Maybe. Caleb knows exactly what time it is. Liam likes to burn his friends. Caleb also likes to burn his friends. You left early.

One thing, we've got it coming. You've left early enough in the day where you aren't threatened to dusk for another few hours, so. Okay. You guys continue on past the tree. Towards the 100-foot mark. Should you scan for traps?

Probably. All right, go make an investigation check. Caleb's detect magic would probably pick up traces on my bracelet. That's true. So outside of the space around you or the trinkets that were found within the corpses, nothing, but you do see the mild glow from the bracelet on Callie's arm.

Hey, Callie, can I ask you a question? Sure, Jester. No, no, go ahead. This ball that we're looking for? Yep. You said it was used in rituals? I think it is, yeah. It's more that I know that it's part of a set

that this cult were looking for, and I want to stop them getting it. Like a tea set? Were you ever used in rituals with these bowls? Kind of. Not ones involving this bowl, but other rituals. God, this sounds really horrible to say, but they weren't nice people. They killed people and I kind of helped them because I didn't know any better. You've got to remember Sarissa,

the priestess who raised me, she told me all this stuff about the tyrant, about the queen and I thought that that was just what the world was like. I thought that that was good and she told me that these other people were bad and thieves and that they were being killed for righteous purpose.

Who were the bad people? What queen? The scaled tyrant. They call her the Queen. She's the Queen of Dragons. Five draconic heads represent her and that kind of thing. So not a real queen? Maybe she's a real queen. I don't know. I just always heard her referred to as the Queen, you know? And yeah, just. She has five heads?

That's what the stories say. One for each color of dragon. Make a religion check. Yeah. Oh, I know about her. No, I don't know anything about her. You can make a religion check if you want to try and recall information. Yeah, 13. 13?

Yeah. You've heard of the Scaled Tyrant. You don't know a whole lot of information, but you know it's, through your research, that heard of the Scaled Tyrant. You don't know a whole lot of information, but you know it's through your research that one of the entities that partook in elements of the Calamity. And obviously not part of the okayed deities of the Empire. No, not at all.

Is definitely considered, was one of the Betrayer Gods in the Calamity, though very selfish, and is considered by many to be the patron, whether it be the mother of or the patron of Chromatic Dragons. Apparently Sarissa, the priestess who found me, she was nice to me, but she would torture and kill people in her name.

What kind of people? Merchants, people that had things the cult wanted and they wanted to take, and they said that it was rightfully theirs, but I kind of learned that it's not anymore. And yeah, I helped them do that. That's why I want to stop these bowls, you know? I want to stop them doing this to other people. They're super evil bowls. I don't think, though. I think they're magically minor, a little bit magic, but as long as they're not used by the wrong people, they should be fine.

What do you plan to do with the ball once you get it? Destroy it if I can. Take it and hide it somewhere that they can't find it. They raised me and I learned a lot, and I know what they're capable of, and I feel responsible for all the things I help them do. So I feel like it's my responsibility to stop them. How was the bowl used in the ritual? It's not one I was familiar with, but I just know that it's part of a set. There's six of them, I think, different things that they all use.

Are you trying to look for all six of them? If I can, but they're hard to find. The cult worked in shadows, you know? They keep themselves really secretive. I wasn't allowed outside of our temple where I was raised. You know, they gave me everything I wanted, but I just wasn't allowed outside, so I guess I can be a bit naive about a few things, you know, but.

I don't think being stuck inside makes you naive. I mean, I know some people that were stuck inside that know lots of things. Really? Mm-hmm. Oh, I hope that I can meet them. meet them. I feel like I need to learn a lot more, you know? So many people trick me. I ask if I can trust them, they say yes, and then they trick me, or they use me to do bad things. That's not okay. I know, right?

She's talking about herself. Callie, do you plan to go back to Port Damali after this, if you're successful? Maybe, yeah. I'll just try and get away, I guess. I've got a friend there, a legionnaire, he rescued me. He's a dwarf called Grim, and I'm sure he'd help me find a secure place for the artifact.

But I don't know. But if, yeah, I guess I'll just try and find somewhere to hide them and keep on trying to stop these guys, you know? Absolutely. Well, let's try our luck. It seems like a very large task for one person. At this point, Nott has completed quite a thorough sweep of the vicinity as you move forward.

No traps. But you do vicinity as you move forward. No traps. But you do notice as you head into this next open clearing, there's thick patches of vines and roots that descend into what looks to be almost like a circular space that is awash with swamp water and just general bog rot that is floating over the surface, almost like a moat has formed naturally

around this giant banyan tree, about 30 or 40 feet across from side to side. It is gargantuan, and the roots rise up and merge at different places where the tree itself seems to almost begin to expand about 10 feet up before it reaches out and curves and carves into the earth before disappearing beneath the water, the still, awful swamp water that surrounds it.

You also see, across the front of its trunk in the vicinity, at least the bits where the sunlight comes through from the rather choked boughs above that are shading the area quite heavily. Six more bodies tied to branches and roots with rope and vine. Their bodies covered with similar wounds

as the ones you inspected before. Some are just slumped against the base of the roots. Some are held up and vines are wrapped around them and they're stapled at an angle onto the sides of the tree. They're all just currently placed as a warning to either notify or fend off anyone who would wander too close.

I don't think the fish people like the safe house being here. Maybe they want the safe house for themselves? Maybe this tree is sacred and it was being used as a safe house and that's not okay. Certainly not welcome. It's been used as a safe house for a while, I imagine, though. The tree's not giving off anything, no?

Nope. Okay. Tally, can you make this water around the tree go away? Yeah, actually. I think I should be able to do something about that. I'll shape water, and I can push it around like in a five-foot cube so I can kind of par it a little bit. Or I can tell it clear as well. You can part areas of it, but it's about 15 feet across as far as the width of it. It changes in width depending on which place on the tree you head,

but it is essentially about a waist-deep area of water. So you can move with it. Can I shallow it and disperse it so it still has water, but shrink it down by five feet so it's not as deep to walk through? Yeah, you can bring it just past knee height within a very localized area to you. That's about the best I can do, Jester, I'm sorry. Oh no, that's really impressive! I feel like Caleb could have done it. Caleb, can you do that, too? Dude, Jester, I'm sorry. Oh no, that's really impressive. Hey.

I feel like Caleb could have done it. Caleb, can you do that, too? No, I do not know how to do it. Being modest, you could do it. Not I have limitations, I can do many things like you. Burn! Should we try to go towards the tree? Towards all the dead bodies?

Is the water around the tree in a circle, like it just pans out? Kind of, there's a bit clearing around this tree. It's natural for the most part, but it looks like this area is centered around the tree. Do I see anything, like landmarks or anything out of place surrounding the tree? Make a perception check.

We're up to our waist high. Well, no, you haven't submerged in the water yet, but it looks about waist high as you lower the water level. That's all right, 14. 14. Let's see here. You do glance up and see what looks to be

a band of teal fabric tied around one of the branches, or like the edges of the, where the roots at the top part, about 10 feet up that has been weathered and dirtied from just being there for a long time. A lot of the color has faded, but you just barely pick out its location. And it's just one little ribbon? Slight little, it looks like it might have been

a bandana of some kind that was wrapped and tied around a root above. I'm going to see if I can climb the tree and get to it. Okay. So you wade through the water. I'll go with her, just to accompany. Okay. Nott, do you want to walk on top of the water for a bit

and just keep an eye for anything underneath the surface? Well, what if something grabs me from under the surface? Well, what if something grabs you from the shore? Like a troll. Well, when if someone grabs you from the shore? All right, all right, all right. Is Nott a nickname for Bren? Yes.

Oh, that makes a lot more sense, because you keep calling her Nott, and I just didn't get it. Yeah, yeah. Sometimes we call her Nott Brynn. Yeah. Okay, I mean, sure. We were drunk at the time, it just sort of happened. It just sticks, yeah.

She's small as a tree, Nott, you know. Oh. Well, I can Nott, if I'm allowed to call you that. Sure. I can make the water clear, so you can see if there's anything that could grab you. What was that thing you said about honesty earlier? I can't remember.

You don't know any of the fact that I almost killed you, Marisha Ray. I'm talking about before you almost killed me, when you had a great quote about honesty earlier. Honesty is the only thing that's the most important thing. Make an athletics check to try and climb the tree. The guy was trying to dupe for us? The easiest to remember.

Yeah. What was that? Sorry, me and my wisdom of eight can't pick up on any of this. Athletics to climb the tree. Huh? Eight. Eight. It takes a while to even get close, but just the general moisture in the air makes it slick,

and you keep slipping down the side. Can I have Fjord give me a boost? If you want to try. All right, roll again. There's a piece of fabric that's tied up. A tiny piece of teal fabric tied up. How far up? About eight to ten feet up.

I'll just reach it with my mage hand. Do you untie it? Yes. Okay, you pull it and you bring it down. It's an old, starched, weathered bandana. Why don't you try pulling on the branch that it was tied to? All right. How deep is the water without the water being dispersed?

Near the base of the tree. About three feet. The water's now crystal clear, by the way. I can clear it. Oh yeah, so now the water's clear, and you can see below, there's thick sediment, muck, what looks to be maybe a few bones of some wayward creature that long has been just left to rot beneath the water, but there's nothing apparently living in there aside from toads, tadpoles,

other small, slithering natural creatures that call the swamp home. I will lower it now that I've seen it clear. I'll just say, well, I'm happy to step in first. You guys were kind enough to bring me. I'm happy to step through and make sure it's okay. Okay. And I'll stop.

Okay, so you make your way through, catching up to Beau and Fjord, who are at the base of the tree. You get up to the base of the tree now. The rest of you guys follow suit? Yes. All right, so you all cross past the water path. You're now at the base of the tree. You, Nott, have the strange, teal, faded scarf now in your grasp.

It's just a scarf? Yeah. Nothing else has happened. And you want me to pull on the branch? Pull on the branch that it was tied to. I'll just pull on that branch. Oh jeez. Vigorously pull on it! Maybe there's two branches. You make the exertions while you pull on it! Maybe there's two branches. The gift machine.

Sam Riegel. Oh! Oh god. The branch itself is pretty sturdy. The portions of the tree here do not bend very much, and it just doesn't seem to react to the strength of the tree here do not bend very much, and it just doesn't seem to react to the, the strength of the Mage Hand isn't very strong.

Are there any knots on the tree, like underneath where the ribbon was? Make an investigation check. Right, this one. Where did that even go? It's right here. 12. 12?

Yeah, you glance around, and as you're placing your hands against part of it, some of it shifts. What was that? It wobbles, and you look, and now getting a glance, there's a piece of weathered driftwood, or some sort of separate wood that has been pressed up and tucked behind some of the roots

to look like it's part of the tree, but it's a little bit of a different texture, a different type of wood, and as you press on it, it wiggles. You shift it. Traps. Check for traps, Nott. All right.

Oh, good call, yeah, yeah, yeah. I will check for traps. Make an investigation check. 16? 16. 16 does not appear to be trapped. So I'm going to move it, then. Great.

You wiggle it, pull it free, and now you can see what looks to be about a four-foot carved hollow in the tree that leads to a dark, lightless interior. You did it! Well, you and Beau and me did it. But you did it! So?

With my help. Right. Nicely done. Who's first? I almost died today, motherfuckers, I almost died. That was Caleb. That was Caleb, exactly. Who can't remember the thing he said about honesty and remembering.

This is all meta conversation. I had no idea that Liam almost used the wrong spell. Caleb was on point. I can go first and summon some light. You can do light? Yeah, and I'll brush. Caleb can do light, too. Wait, wait, wait.

It's not the greatest. Hold on. I'll go in with darkvision without setting off any lights that might herald. I have darkvision as well. Yeah, then I'll get hurt. Matt, behind you. Matt, I have darkvision as well. Yeah, then I'll get hurt. I'll go behind you. Matt, I'll cast Light still behind these guys,

but it comes out of her draconic eye, so she brushes her hair to the side and she has a yellow draconic eye on her left side. All right, she just glows like a torchlight in the vicinity. Allie, you're so cool. Thanks, Jista, you're so cute, I love you. I love you.

All right. Jista, you're so cute, I love you. I love you. Oh! All right. Jista. So, as you step inside Fjord, you notice a fairly well-cleared interior that smells of marsh water and lamp oil. Marsh water? Glancing about, you can see there are two hooks on the wall that have been jammed in

that carry the top part of some sort of an oil lantern that has two hooks on the wall that have been jammed in that carry the top part of some sort of an oil lantern that has been shattered against the wall. The glass itself is broken, the metal is bent, and you now can see there's some soaked lamp oil that has fallen from those impacts that has just hit the ground and the wall nearby and is offering that additional smell to the room.

The floor is somewhat soggy with moss and bits of sand and gravel, as well as the occasional heavy root that breaks through the surface of that soft floor. There are some pieces of broken wood slats. Besides that, the chamber appears to be empty. I don't see anything inside here. Looks like there was a broken lamp, so careful with fire.

There's got to be more here, right? This can't be it. Yeah, I'll push in a little bit more. Okay, you're now stepping into the chamber. The chamber's about 30 feet wide, and it's just round. Looking up? You look up, the ceiling's about 12 feet tall, and there's some hanging roots

that are dangling from the top. It looks like it's been carved away, maybe. Does it feel like it's bigger on the inside? No, it matches the size. It's probably about two feet to three feet of thickness of the actual tree trunk at this point and the interior's hollow at this point. Furniture, articles, clothing?

No, you make an investigation check, if you want to check. Are there any trap doors on the floor? 17. 17, okay. A couple things. Though you don't have a sense of color, are you the only one in the chamber right now? I believe. I was behind.

Yeah, I went in there as well. You went in there as well? Okay. Right, so as the rest of you guys step into the chamber and the light comes in, what you failed to see because it was a change of color becomes immediately apparent. There are scattered splashes of blood across areas of the walls and the side.

They're dried, but dried enough to the point where it's, you know, they haven't gone completely, the blood hasn't gone completely black and then disintegrated, so this is relatively recent, weeks maybe. As you guys are inspecting the space, you can see there are certain gashes against, looks like there was definitely a fight and scuffle.

The ground, the soft ground here, has signs of turbulent movement, as well as what looked to be a number of smeared grooves in the ground that snake and spiral about. Are there any immediate threats in there? Fjord? Not that I can see. Fjord, as you're glancing about, answering this question, you look down

on the far north corner of it, and where the roots have gathered and come down, there's one space where you don't see the wall of the tree behind it, and as you move the root out of the way, it looks like there is an actual hole about two and a half feet wide that descends below the tree. Not any danger in the chamber, but it looks like there's more to this room.

Does it look like they were dragging bodies down there? The blood streaks and stuff. Could have been. Do they lead there? Yeah, do the tracks lead to the hole? It looks like there are some spatters of blood and there are some things that give the sign of being pulled on, as well as pieces and shards of wood,

including bits of porcelain, some object that had shattered or broken. Looks like whatever may have been within this chamber at some point, a lot of it's been brought down there. Nott and Bren. You're up. I got to go down there? Yep, by yourself. That's where the fish people live.

Are there fish scales on the ground? Do you need light? Make an investigation check. That would help. I'll help with this. I'm smelling the air for fishy. Oh, it doesn't matter anyway. 17.

17. You do manage to pull through. You do see what looks to be a small piece of thick scaled hide of some kind that was carved off, probably as part of the scuffle. Fish skin! It's pretty tough. It's tough.

Is it like a halibut? It's kind of salty. Tuna? Salmon? It's like fish. It's brackish flesh. I'm going to put it in my bag. Okay. Gross. Before we go down, or as these guys go down, can I take a lap and look at the bodies on the outside

and see if I recognize any of them? Recognize any of the bodies? The six bodies. Outside. Okay. Glancing past and taking a look, there's nobody that you've seen before that is amongst this crew. Okay.

They all appear to be darkly dressed, generally to keep out of sight. You do see two other members there that have an accumulation of neck tattoos. You've seen ones back in Zadash that are almost full bands of designs. These individuals have only sections of it. You start getting the idea that the more they've worked

with whatever organization network this is, the more completion they've had of certain jobs, depending on what their job is, a certain type of individual acquires tattoos as a sign of how long they've been there and how successful they've been. That's cool. Okay.

So they all seem like smugglers. At one point, possibly. Countdown, quick round of the pockets. Investigation check. Okay, okay, just real quick, real quick. Caleb is out there and puts light up in the tree with him. What's up? I'm outside with her and I'm casting Dancing Lights into the tree so that she can see better.

13. 13, you manage to scrape away about, I'll say 17 gold pieces and five silver pieces. Nice. Before, as you pull off of it, you watch as the lower half of the body slaws off the torso and you back away. Sorry, sorry.

The smell is awful, as a lot of the interior gas of the bloated corpse escapes in this terrible rotted sulfurous stench. Oh, God. Please, we have been around death plenty of times. Caleb throws up quietly for the one minute. Okay, let's work. Do you do a back and forth?

Only one place to go, and that's down. Wait, I'm just going to take a quick minute to just stare into the eternal abyss of the dodecahedron. Yeah, sure. I just open up the bag so you can see. Oh my god, what is in there? All right, so as. We don't let Kali see it, sorry, Kali.

Okay, so as you take a moment and focus and place your hand on this lightly thrumming device, your vision is pulled into this universal space of stars and gas and distant existences you've never contemplated, and there you see before it the pulsing light of possibility. You reach out your hand and grasp it and feel it enter your body,

and you've acquired your Fragment of Possibility. It doesn't take much to distract Kallie. You just point over there. All right, I'll take a swig and then just go down the hole. Okay, so the hole has chunks of rock and dirt, as well as a very, very interwoven network of roots coming down from the tree, so it's fairly easy to climb down.

There is a little bit of that damp water and moisture that has seeped into the chamber previously from just being near the swamp. It wasn't a thick layer of water, maybe like half an inch or so in the actual portions of the chamber, and some of it is now heading down. So as you're climbing down carefully through this hole,

you can feel it running down your back, and it's this cold swamp water. I need you to go ahead and make an athletics check as you make your way down your back. It's this cold swamp water. I need you to make an athletics check as you make your way down this chamber. Not great. Just a check? Yep, just add your athletics. Seven. Seven, okay.

You begin to slip. You lose your grip and you slide down like a slide. Screech! No, no. Um. Screech! Screech! You get about maybe 15 or so feet

before the back of the slide leaves you. You have darkvision, so you see, looks at the interior of some sort of chamber and the ground rocketing towards you. I will throw out a feather and cast Feather Fall. Okay. Yes! And you gingerly land on your feet, no damage taken.

No noise made, either. Looking around you, you see what looks to be the inside of a natural rock chamber. You can hear in the distance a rummaging sound, some shifting from around the corner. It seems like from where you're landing, the back is around you and then it curves to the left. You see what looks to be a faint puddle of some kind before you lose vision. Beyond that, you don't see anything, but you hear like. Coming towards me or just moving?

Just echoing around the side. Cool. You hear like a, you hear a . Oh god. Something clattered to the ground. What are the rest of you guys doing? What?

Do we hear the slip and the whoosh? I don't think you heard anything, no. Should you send a message to Nott and see what she sees? Not brain. Yeah, I can't do that. Not brain. Are you down there? Hello? Are you sending a message?

Yeah, I am, yeah. I have just joined the group. How are you doing down there, what do you see? I will reply to that message. When you admit, it just goes back and forth. There's a creature down here. I don't want to make any noise. If you're going to come down to join me, use a rope.

All right, we can do that. Just stay put, don't go rushing in without us. Is it one or more than one? I don't know. I'll go rushing in and find out. That's the opposite of what I said. I'm just going to gingerly creep around the corner. Make a stealth check for me, please.

Rogues, man. It's hard to resist sneaking in. Let's climb down the rope. 15. 15? Yeah, it's hard to resist. Okay. As you slowly make your way around the side,

this chamber appears to be almost like kidney-shaped. It curves around the bend, and as you make your way around the chamber, at the outskirts of your darkvision, you begin to make out three shapes. Humanoid torsos with long fins that extend from where the elbows are. Looks to be patchwork leather and bronze armor pieces,

as well as looks to be hints of shell jewelry and bone. Where the face is, you can see one face as you peek around the edge, and you can see this large, toothy underbite of the square jaw where these four tendrils dangle from the tip of its chin, and a single fin curves over the top of its head. No nose, but two gleaming eyes that almost refract and a little bit of light seems to be coming

into the chamber from what looks something out of the visual range, giving off a faint glow. The lower half of its body is a long, like a fishtail. It looks like what a nightmarish merman would look like. It sits there clutching what looks to be some sort of a long harpoon-like pike with a hook on the end of it.

Are they waiting? Are they talking? What are they doing? They're talking amongst themselves, and you hear some sort of tearing sound. You peek around a little further, and you can see what looks to be some sort of a creature has been dragged down here. A familiar one.

A thick, leathery, scaled body of what looks to have been once a crocodile of some kind. Not a large one, but a regular-sized crocodile has been dragged down here, and all three of them now in the process of feasting on its body. They're tearing into it flesh and talking amongst themselves in a language you don't understand. Around the base of them, you see broken crates,

and a few odds and ends are just resting on the ground, loosely discarded. Any other entrances or exits? From what you can see, you're peeping around the corner, you cannot see the opposite end of where this curvature is without possibly revealing yourself. It has been a while, what would you like us to do?

Anywhere else to hide, or something to hide behind? Around that way, not terribly. There are a few outcropping walls, and a few, at this point, I say I can probably give you a visual. Oh! Ready, I'm ready. I like what I'm hearing. Shark fans and shit?

Why am I happy, Cameron? While you're setting the stage, I'll message back up to them. Oh, what is that? What are they riding? Water. They're riding watery penises. Nott, you're right there, curving around the side.

Did I come down right where I am? You landed right here and made your way around. This is where it drops you into the middle of the chamber. Got it. I'll radio back up to the top and just say, There are three mermen down here with dangerous weapons. I am very outnumbered. Please come, please come quickly. You can reply to this message.

Yes, we've established that. Stay put, stay put, don't move. I'll cast Mage Hand and just take a ball bearing across the way, but not drop it, just holding it in place, just in case. Okay, so who's going down? I drop Frumpkin down the chute. Oh, Jesus.

He's going to die. No, he's not. That's a long fall for a cat. Cats can run and have eat. We're going to find out how far. Oh, not within 50 feet. Yes, they can. Yeah, they can.

Yes, they can. Most of them. Make an acrobatics check for me. Can we start tying a rope off upstairs and drop it down? Sure. For my acrobatics or the cat? Cat's acrobatics. Oh, great, hold on, I got that pulled up right here.

Hold on, hold on, hold on. Are you going to land on the cat on your feet? In the meantime, Jester and I are going to double knot in our ropes to make 100 feet of rope. Yep. Pumping my hands. We've tied our ropes together and we're going to go down. Okay.

Double knotting. Yeah. Double knotting? Here, I can go down first to make sure it's secured on the other end. Say you're not. All right. So you make your way down the rope. Eventually, you get to the bottom.

It does dangle and the edge of the rope does basically end about a foot or two above where the ground is, so you just manage to catch the bottom and you get sent. So you put how many ropes together? Two 50-foot ropes. The 50-foot rope? Oh, so is, so you just manage to catch the bottom. You get the scent. So you put how many ropes together? Two 50-foot ropes. The 50-foot rope? Oh, so no, it's actually coiled on the bottom. Total, it's about a 60-foot way down.

So you manage to make your way down without an issue? Yeah, I help anyone else down. Okay, the rest of you give some. So with the rope and everything aiding you down here, it's easy enough for you all to make your way into this area, so. Oh, that's weird. All crammed into this little space.

I'm also going to point out, we can't retreat. Why? Kiri's going to get with you? No, wait, we're not bringing Kiri down, are we? One at a time. Are you guys bringing Kiri down? We got to go.

Oh my god. We can't leave Kiri up there. We can guys bringing Kiri down? We got to go. Oh my god. We can't leave Kiri up there. We can't leave Kiri up there. I was taking a seat back here, but. You guys having this conversation? No. We had it upstairs. Kiri, Kiri.

Shh. Shh, shh, shh. Sit in this corner. We're cute people. Shh, shh, shh. Sit in the corner, Kiri, right here. Don't move unless something chases you. Unless something chases you.

Right. Right. Mm. Holds the dagger in front of she's up there. She's down here with us. She's down here with us in the corner. Kiri's going to duck into this corner here. I do not die. Oh wait, Kiri's down here with us in the corner?

Oh. All right. What are you guys doing? Let's kill the fish people. Okay, we're going to go about doing this. So, do you want me to start this explosively? Yeah. I mean. I mean, I'm asking.

It is kind of enclosed. Well, I think it would be good. That's a great idea, but we should also set Bren with you. And if you guys could go, you know, simultaneous, like maybe if Bren hits one of them and then you follow right away. Ooh. Yeah. I just, it might damage the goods that Bren told us about

that are around the corner, like all the crates and stuff. Is that, I mean, my bowl should be okay, but are you here for something? You know, sometimes I'm able to sort of focus just shy of what I'm trying to target. Oh, it's a pretty tight space around there, I'm not sure. I can try. I mean, if your bowls are magical, though,

they should survive, right? Yeah, I know, it should be fun, but I meant for you guys. What do you want? What if we all just jump out at the same time and scream and attack at the same time? I kind of like that idea. Yeah, let's ambush. Like three, two, one.

Yeah! Yeah, yeah, yeah. I still think that these two would be good to lead. It is, but these two should lead that charge. Give the explosive things to the first? Well, we shouldn't do the explosive things to the first. Well, we shouldn't do explosive because it might burn. You watching? It's all right. Uh-oh, something's happening.

Yeah, that was. You hear the splashing of water. Out from the side, another one emerges. Ah! There's four of them. A side pool, and. That's right. The other one goes. Yeah. He turns around and then splashes back into this little pool and finishes below the surface.

Oh. Is there any way to freeze the water? Get rid of the water? This is your entrance and exit. Are they still talking? Briefly chatting, but in the process of eating more than anything. I think I can freeze about five foot, though. That's the amount I can do.

There's a pool in the back there. That's where they entered and exited from. It's about 10 square feet of water. I can freeze half of it. It's oddly specific how much I can freeze. Does anyone want to try to talk to these things, or are we just? They look like murderous fishmen, but we could try.

Good to fuck them up, I think. Good to fuck them up. We could try. No, I don't think that's good. Just love the way that sounds. Murderous fishmen. Murderous fishmen. Love it. Have any of you seen Thor Ragnarok? Yeah, I'm so excited! We're so excited!

I swear to god. Are we at risk? I could blind him. Don't you speak fish? What? You're half fish! You're half fish? Ocean water. I'm half fish, I'm half orc. He was born underwater.

That is actually not true at all. Not, not at all. What is the other half? You're half-water, but what's the other half? I'm human, I assume. You assume. We're glossing over it, but we have seen you vomit seawater twice.

Once. Is this really the moment to talk about this? Not really. Your gist is really small. No, right now is the moment. Right now? Maybe you know how under pressure, This is really small. No, right now's the moment. Right now. Quick, tell us your backstory! Maybe you know how under pressure

you can discover hidden talent? Maybe if you do this, you'll be like, oh, I never knew this fishman's side of me. Everyone make a stealth check. I know. Jeez. I'm losing our teamwork, y'all. Yeah, we are.

Fishman! Who's going to create a distraction? We'll pop out and kill it. You have a bullet rolling. I rolled a six. Is it a, what was the number you rolled? It was a four. Four, okay, so that's six.

15. Just loudly. I've activated a sword monster. What's the other half? Don't feel bad. 14. Dry. 18. 13. Don't feel bad. 14. D'right. 18. 13.

Okay, average, average. Oh no. Well, we're going to know we're here at some point. Let's just jump out. Let's go, let's go, let's do our answers. As they're all eating and Nott, you're paying attention, one goes, All right.

Yes, I'm going to do this. Three, two, one, go! And they all turn. All right. I'm going to one, go! And they all turn. All right. I'm going to Mage Hand Throw the Ball Bearing first. Well. As sort of like a signal to go. On the one?

On the three, two, one. All right. And then we jump up. All right, so you throw the ball bearings and then everyone rolls initiative. You lost the surprise round, unfortunately. Oh shit. You were spending too much time talking.

Too much time talking. We're trying to get backstory. All righty. Half carp, half orc. Yeah, orc carp. Carp orc? Carp orc. Mother. All righty, so 25 to 20, anybody?

Triton. Oh, I'm, wait, 25 to 20? Yeah. Nobody, nobody, nobody, huh? 20 to 15. 18. 19. Okay, so we have Beau.

What'd you get? 18. 18, Fjord. And then Molly at 16. 15 to 10? 10. 10. 13. Woo! 10? 10. 10. 13. Woo!

All righty. Wow, Ash. Not into Frag. So what'd you get? 13. Yasha and then Nott and Caleb. I don't know that shit. And then was it Nott and Caleb?

Caleb and Nott got 10-10. This is rubber cheekle. 10-10 wins. 10 to five. No, he's on PR. Oh, on PR. Oh, yes. Six points No, he's on PR. Ooh, yes. Six wins.

Jester and Callie. I think she can shitter. Wait, did Kiri get a turn? No, Kiri's taking it back. She's taking it back. All right, that's everybody. Top of the round, as all three of them have spun around, apparently aware

that something is lurking in this area of it. Still doesn't see us, right? No. For six seconds. But it's not an ambush round. Yeah. So, the throw of the round is Beau, you're up. Can you calm us down? Can I hold my turn until Fjord goes?

You can hold your turn, you can hold an action. Why are we dumb? Um. Do what you can hold an action. Why are we dumb? Um. Do what you can. Because we're us! All the bad stealth checks were? Big three. Big three.

Big six. Big six, and? I get 10. 10, right, okay, got it. Um. We die first. Shazam. Shazam.

I am going, can I move into place and then hold my action until Fjord goes? Depending on what your action trigger is, yeah. I want to attack after he attacks, if that's after he casts a spell. Can I move in this corner as far as I can? Over here, next to Nott? Yeah, so I'm going to stealth, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, you can do that. Stealthing is fuck. Okay, and you're holding your action in case Fjord attacks him. Yeah, I'm going to hold my shurikens. Okay, so as you're pulling back with that, Fjord? I'm going to run around the corner. Give me that right over here. Right over here?

Yeah, so I can see all three of them at least. All right, well, you're going to be out in the open, just so you're aware. Yeah. All right, so you move over here, you can now see all three right there. Sup, fish fucks? Yeah, that's as far as you can move there.

So you turn, they all turn, yeah! You see some of them holding what looks to be these large harpoon trident things that have the hook on the end, and they have some sort of, looks like a, like some sort of thick cabling of some kind attached at the end of it. Aren't y'all pretty? I look, and in the space in between them,

I see this ripple start to form, and I reach out with my hand, and I'll grasp at the space and tear a rip in reality, and I'll cast Hunger of Hadar. Oh shit. Ripping. Ripping this 20-foot dome on the ground. Oh my god. 20-foot radius?

20-foot radius. Where do you want to put it? Whoa! I'll put it right here so it's like. Actually, no, I'll stick it right here. All righty. So when he comes out. Yeah, because it haves there

and it makes it difficult terrain, so let's put it right there. All righty. Levels-ish. You's big. Yeah, because it haves there, it makes it difficult terrain, so let's put it right there. All righty. You got it. Yep. So you watch suddenly as the back end of that chamber, which is, well, for those who can see, which Caleb currently, like it's mostly dark here,

that faint, faint glow around the corner that you don't see the source, there's no light in here. That light goes out, you are blind at the moment, because what little bit of light there has been consumed by this sphere of darkness that Fjord has summoned on the opposite side of the chamber. You watch as reality tears open in that space, and you see these strange black, purple,

unworldly tentacles whip out from the outside of it, and you hear this horrible slithering sound within the center of that chamber with this faint underlying of whispers and chanting. Oh shit. So does that do immediate damage or only on their turn? Only if they start in it or if they end their turn in it. Got it. Two different types of damage.

Cool, all right, so that ends your turn there. Yep. Molly, you're up. No, it was me. Oh, no, because you were holding. That's true. Can I pop around the corner? Let me see here real fast about the hunger to feather our spell.

Oh my god. I have my goggles on, by the by. All right, so you cannot see anything. You have your goggles on. But I still can't see. Well, actually it says the void is filled with the cacophony of soft whispers. No light magical otherwise can illuminate the area

of the 20-foot sphere. Correct. It's fully within the area. But you have darkvision. I do, yeah. But it's just within the sphere they're blind. And I have my goggles of night vision, darkvision. Correct. So I'll say you can see where they are, but it's a little obscured, so.

Okay, I'm going to pop out. Can I pop out? Yep. Am I able to do that? You are. Beep. I'm going to throw. Oh no, sorry, you cannot move. You do your move, so you have to have an action, so you only attack that one that you can see there.

Okay, I will throw a two. Okay, they're at disadvantage, because it's beyond your 20-foot initial range. First one, man. I'll take that 12, though, for an 18. That's a hit? 18? Yeah, that's my disadvantage. That does hit, yep. And that's, sorry.

Seven damage. Seven damage? On that one. All righty. And then second one. Ooh, those are double fours, which I don't believe hit. Nope, disappears into the darkness. And then I'm going to take a ki point and cast, you almost called it Uncanny Dodge.

You had to do it on your turn. You only got an action you were holding. Sorry. Okay. Okay. How high is the ceiling you were holding. Sorry. Okay. Okay. How high is the ceiling here? I guess that's it. It's about 10, 11 feet.

It's not very high. I have to, I would have had to have said it earlier, which I didn't know. So that ends Fjord and Beau's turn. Molly? Where am I? Let's see, I'm over there. I'm going to run

as far as I can go towards Fjord. That's as far as you can get right there. And then I'm going to spend the rest of my action running across and get into that little alcove. This over here? Mm-hmm. No, no, no, the other side of it, I'm so sorry. There you go. In over? This way. No, like behind that little.

Oh, I see, I see. Yeah. Okay, there we go. So positioning and ready for things to come out. So action, action, you still have a bonus if you want to. Nothing for my bonus. That's all right. Did you activate one of your scimitars?

One is activated, the other is not. Got it, cool, that ends your turn. It is now their turn, so top of the round, they're both in the space, so they take how much damage? They take 2d6. 2d6 cold damage. That's right. Wow. Wow.

Each of them. Do I roll that? You do, so roll it once. Five, four, nine points of damage each. Cold. Nice. Yes. Tentacle beating! You hear this strange slamming and slithering sound and hissing noises on the inside.

All righty, so this one's going to go ahead and move just to the edge there. These are both going to, oh. Whoa, he's dead, he's dead. Too late. That's how it works. Look. Oh! Well, well, well. Well's how it works. Look.

This guy only gets about there, actually, before he can move into the waters. Right now, because they don't have a huge movement on land. And they're difficult to ransom. Exactly, so those guys are clustered there. That guy does manage to move. Sweet, then they end their time. You just send whatever you got in the sphere. That's fucking awesome.

Trying to keep them in one spot. He's going to go ahead and continue slithering the rest of the way, because he gets, I think it's 10, I think it's four, is it four? I'll say it gets him to about there. At the end of their turns, they must succeed on a dexterity saving throw. It's not the end of their turn yet.

Oh, sorry. Oh shit. My fault. The two, while still blinded, saw you emerge. The one over on this end is going to go ahead and attempt to throw one of its harpoons in your direction. It's blinded, so it's disadvantage on the attack. Do it. At disadvantage, it's a 16.

What's your armor class? 17. Oh, slick. 17. So it shoots through and you just deflect it with the shield and watch it spark off. The one behind it's going to go ahead and throw as well. Natural one, yeah. It chucks the harpoon. Both of them land on the ground and you hear them

scrape as they're pulled back to where they are. The one that's right there in front of you is going to go ahead and throw another harpoon. Yeah, it's going to go throw a harpoon at you. It does not have disadvantage. That is a 20 to hit. That hits. Fuck. All right, so you suffer as it jams and pierces

into your abdomen, right past the armor, sticking a couple inches into your chest. You take 11 points of piercing damage. Okay. I need you to make a strength check. Don't get dragged. I have to make a constitution saving throw to keep this spell up. You do, to maintain the spell.

Okay, strength set. Nine. Natural 20. You get dragged right up into its space right there. Nice. Make a constitution saving throw to see if you can maintain concentration on your spell. What do I have to make, if I forget?. Make a constitution saving throw to see if you can maintain concentration on your spell. What do I have to make, if I forget?

Just make a constitution saving throw. You have to roll under the spell damage. Oh, 23. Or 10. Sorry, over the spell damage. You succeed that one. Now it's pulled you in, it's going to make a bite attack against you as it pulls you in. Its jaw opens up to strike you.

That is 18 to hit. Oh, that hits. That's the X17 armor. All right, you take seven points of piercing damage as it digs its jaws right into the front of your chest and shoulder area, biting down. Make another constitution saving throw.

Oh god. Natural 20. Yeah! Maintain concentration of the spell. All right, so now all three of you have to make a dexterity saving throw or receive the damage again. That is a fail.

A fail. And a fail. Yes. Two, ten, and a three. That is a six and a one, so seven points of acid damage. Nice. All righty.

So that ends their turn. That brings us to Yasha. All right. All right, how close can I get to this guy? 540, you can't quite get up into his space. You're 10 feet away. Shit. You can use an action to dash

if you want to make the rest of the movement, but you won't have an action on the turn. I don't want an action. Do you have anything good on the bonus? I can. I mean, I could do the Rage, but then it could go away. If you don't take damage before the end of the next turn, yeah.

Which is possible that I could. Unless you move into the tentacle range. Ooh. Tentacle range? That's what he's spelling. Oh boy. It's just a sphere of darkness with stars and milky tentacles whipping around.

That's what it says. Can I hold my action? I like it. You can. What are you going to hold him for what? To, you know, if he comes and if he tries to bite or attack forward again, I can, no, that's not going to work.

Oh god. Jester's in range until he gets in range? Yeah, until he gets in range. Okay, holding an attack just in case he comes in range. That ends your turn, Yasha. Nott and Caleb, you're up. With Jester and Callie on deck. You want me to go? Yeah, sure.

I'm going to move forward until I can see... No, Frumpkin's going to go first. I'm going to pull a Shakasta and use Frumpkin to help me see in here. Okay. And I have to ask you as a DM, can my cat see in the dark? Does your cat have darkvision?

I don't know, it doesn't say. No, remember, you looked at this before. I do not remember, but I know that my cats could see in the dark growing up. Yeah, but in the book it doesn't have darkvision. We did this last week. Yep, it does not. Okay.

I'm going to stumble forward in the dark. Okay. And I'm going to say, Beau! And I cast Enlarge on Beauregard. Oh shit. Beau! Beau! Ten and a half feet tall.

Is it an hour, by the way? Because my light spell would still be going, so Caleb might be able to see in that first area. In that first area, but nothing beyond that space. That's fine. So then, if that's the case, then I wouldn't go that first area. In that first area, but nothing beyond that space. That's fine. So then if that's the case, then I wouldn't go that far forward. I would stay as far away from danger as I can.

As soon as I see Beauregard, you cast Enlarge. You got it. So Beau has swollen to an enlarged state. I'm so swole. Tabs on, there's like Amazon women singing right now. So now Beau, Beau takes up this entire space now. It's a big...

Damn, Beau's big. And at a 10-foot ceiling, Beau, you suddenly crouch, and you're now hunched forward with the top of it grinding against the top of your head and shoulders. Yep. Boom. You got to pull a Vega position here.

Yep. I'll fire at the one near good old Fjord, Mr. Fjord. Oh fuck. Oh no. Oh no. Don't you have advantage? Why would I have advantage? Aren't they in combo?

Would that be a sneak attack? Well, no, if he hits a sneak attack. He doesn't get advantage. So yeah, that misses, unfortunately. I'll shoot again. Slightly better, 14. 14 does hit. Oh, that's good.

Does this one get sneak attack? It does, yes, because he stole it. It's once a turn. What do I get because it's actually a turn? Terrible right now. It's kind of bold. Nine. 13 plus I'll take Fury of the Small, so that's 18.

18 points of damage. Weapon. All righty. Weapon also grows so much. That ends your turn. And then can I get all the way to Mollymauk on my movement? Yeah, you can. Right over there.

Hi. Hi. Hi. Want some booze? All right. Hi. Hi. Hi. Want some booze? All right. After. So, Jester and Cali. Okay, I'm going to run over behind Frumpkin in that little alcove.

There you go. And I'm going to, actually, that's a lie, I'm going to get next to Caleb. All lie, I'm going to get next to Caleb. All right, there? Yeah, back a little bit. There you go. Even more. And then I'm going to cast Invoke Duplicity. I'm going to Invoke Duplicity!

Yep. To where? And she's going to run forward and stand next to Fjord. There you go. All righty. Hey, Jester. That's your turn, Jester?

Yeah, because that's my action. This fucking fish keeps biting me. How far can Callie get into full 30-foot movement? Close to 30, about there. About there, she can't get any further. All right, so I'll move there, You watch as she, with the draconic eye, brushes the hair out of the way. She focuses on the one fighting Fjord, and a sickly green beam will just shoot out of the eye, and I'm going to cast Ray of Sickness.

All righty. So this is an attack roll. Spell attack roll. Sicker than a ray of light. 15? 15? Oh. With Madonna, Ray of Light, circle like 2002? Jesus! All righty. Six. That is a failure. So it's a failure. It takes nine poison damage and is poisoned until the end of my next turn.

So it's poisoned until the end of your next turn. As the bolt hits it, she watches the veins all of a sudden go dark on its torso where it impacts. And then as she starts, the combat's going, it's just going to be like, come on, let's kill these things. And you start seeing a little bit of, comes a bit more draconic.

All right, ending Callie's turn. Beau, you're up. Jester, oh wait, after Jester? Oh no, Jester went, she evoked simplicity. Oh, oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, so me. So I'm bitten. Enlarged Beau is crouching now. Come on, gigantic woman.

Am I, can I get to the doucher? You can as you scoop by and shove those guys out of the way. Sorry, my voice is even deeper now, sorry. Bing Rames comes running through. Sorry, sorry, sorry, my voice is even deeper now, sorry. Bing Rames comes running through. This giant foot right next to you, Nott, as Beau's large form almost stomps on you, you're like, oh god. Stomping off around.

All right, first attack. Okay, 16. Crush. 16, that hits. Second attack. Not good, 11. Fresh. 16, that hits. Second attack. Not good, 11. 11 misses. Okay, so first attack.

That's okay. All right. That's four. Okay, 10 damage for the first attack. 10 damage with your staff as you rush up, crouching low, you take the staff and just jam it down into it. It looks back at you as it sees you looming by,

and as it pulls up its harpoon to try and defend, you jam the staff into its chest, shove it to the ground under the water, and hear a crunch as you collapse its ribcage with the impact. Is it dead? Is it dead? What?

Fuck yeah. It's taking the brunt of your damage. What happens to the harpoon and the cord sticking out of me? Huh? The harpoon fellunt of your damage. What happens to the harpoon and the cords sticking out of me? Huh? Well, the harpoon fell out of the wound. It's loose on the ground. There's a pretty nice puncture wound

through your armor and your body right there. Fursuit! You good? Yeah. Okay, can I take the staff and I pick it up with a fishtool on it? Oh god. And I'm like, it's fish kabobs! And then I

cannot... It is today! That's what's on the menu! Oh, Mrs. Paul! 20 feet behind you, you hear, this is all I wanted! Too many one-liners! Can I do something creative? Remake that trick, come on. Can I do something creative and take my staff with my fish on it and fling it and try and throw the fish cadaver at the other fish dudes?

You're casting, they see. I want to. With bait? Yes, I just want to throw. So you take cadaver at the other fish dude. You're casting, they see. With bait? Yes, I'm just going to throw. You take it and you fling it into the darkness and it just. Oh, come on, man. I can't try to aim to attack some other dude. You've already used your action to do your attacks.

You get the unarmed. Bonus action. Bonus action is an unarmed strike, so this is a flavor as you throw it into the darkness that they can't see. You hear his body. You said I could use flavor or unarm shit. You were, but there's nothing to hit that's unarmed in your face.

So you do fling it in there, and you hear this horrible slurping sound as whatever. He told me to be flavorful. And whatever Terran reality that was opened by Fjord's patron devours the corpse. It's plucked out of the air and just sucked through whatever small rip in reality had opened. Still pretty cool, though.

Still pretty cool. Okay, can I then take my actual bonus action to do patient defense? She's lucky to be alive. Sure, yeah, patron. So you two. All right, then I'm going to turn. Fjord, you're up.

I'm going to move along this. I'm going to hug this wall if I can, back up a little bit. All righty. I'm going to hold Eldritch Blast if I see them emerge from the darkness. Okay, yep, That ends your turn. Did I have any more movement by the by? You did have a little bit more, yeah.

Could I have scooched up a bit? You could have, yeah. Just a bit, just a scooch. I'm scooching. Excuse me. Five, 10, 15. You could scoot all the way up to here if you want. 20, I've got very long legs right now.

You're like squat moving your way through the cavern. Horse stance is very good for your abs. Molly, what you got? Ain't nothing for me to hit, so I'm just going to slightly peek out around the corner so that I can keep an eye on things. All righty. And I'm going to hold my attack

for anything that comes in with the range. You got it. All right, it's now their turn. Top of the turn, they take 2d6 damage. Go ahead and roll that. Damn. Two, three, five points of cold damage. Got it.

All righty. Sound on the inside of this darkened sphere. This guy manages to get into the water and poke his way through, but just barely get his vision out. This guy's going to come out as well and encounter Beau on that element. They're both still inside.

Are you going to go, Beau? They're still inside the tent, I guess? Yeah, actually, the circle should be a little further forward, so yeah. Yeah, they're both inside. They're still inside. tent, I guess? Actually, yeah, the circle should be a little further forward, so yeah. Yeah, they're both inside, they're still inside. And another one arrives here. Oh no!

And can only move there. We don't know that. Since he's going to end his turn there. That's good. He will, yes. So this one here is technically right in range of Fjord, and it's going to unleash two strikes on you with its claws and its melee bite. Actually, oh no, it can be melee with its harpoon,

so it's going to attempt to harpoon you and bite you. Okay. So for its natural 20 on the harpoon, and then for the bite attack, that's going to be a 23. Yeah, they both. Goddamn it. All right, so the harpoon is going to be a 23. Yeah, they both. Goddamn it. All right, so the harpoon. Damn.

It's going to be 24 points of piercing damage. As it just jams right into your chest, pushing you against the wall. Go ahead and make a concentration check, if you don't mind. Yeah, not a problem. You have to beat 12. Fucking damn it. Just a 21.

21, all righty. It's going to go attempt to bite you in the face, or the bite did actually hit. Bite me in the face, yep. That's going to be a d8. Four plus five, that's eight points of piercing. How many do you have, Fjord? I don't know, I can't add this fast.

My app's breaking. There it is. You're so lost. No, the snitch fell away, I need to keep it. Oh, the snitch. It's touched the ground then. You're turning them against me, man. to keep it. Oh, the snitch. It's touched the ground. You're turning them against me, man. It's cursed it out.

You got to do that. It tried to run. It did. It wants to go home. It does want to come home, yeah. Some treasures abandon their masters. All righty. Great.

So make a second concentration check. Okay, one check. 13. 13. 13 is fine, you maintain concentration. The other one that's right next to Beau is going to attempt to also throw its harpoon at you, since it saw that you were the source of this. They're trying to break the spell.

Go back to your room. I'm going to go ahead and cast. I'm casting some fucking bullshit on that. You're holding an attack. This is a reaction. Oh, what are you? I'm doing a blood maledict. A blood maledict, okay. So you have the next two attacks are disengaged.

You're amplifying it? Yeah. Okay, go for it. Roll the damage. So it's disadvantage on that. One point of damage. That's a 17 to hit. What's your armor class?

17. 17, it still hits the first strike. Ah, motherfucker! With a harpoon into you. That's going to be... 12 points of piercing damage. I go unconscious. Oh!

I use my relentless endurance. Yay! You pop back up to one. Upon seeing Fjord get super daisy, can I use my sentinel feat to crack this guy who just tried to attack? You can. While this is happening, roll a concentration check. Yeah.

19 plus that'll do. Make a strength check for me, please. Okay. Which I'm super strong, where the fuck was I at? 19 on its side. 13, 14. 14, you get dragged 20 feet through the water. Oh no!

Into range with it. That's the wrong way. Beau, you go ahead and make your sentinel strike on it. Oh! Natural 20, nice. That was awesome! I heard the whirlwind. All right, so go ahead and steal.

It did! Oh, that was awesome. Okay, doubling the dice, that's eight plus four, which is 12, plus another dice, that's two. The dice of the enlarged is also doubled, too. Right, so two plus another four, so, sorry, two doubled, which is four, so that's 16 damage. 16 points of damage?

Crack! As he grabs the chain, I want to, like, which is four, so that's 16 damage. 16 points of damage? Crack! As he grabs the chain, I want to like, big Beau steps on the chain and just cracks him right in the face. As it gets cracked, you watch one of the teeth go flying from the impact of your giant elbow hammer into its jaw.

Using that momentum, it looks back, its eyes clench down on Fjord now, almost prostrate before holding onto the harpoon, and goes for the face. This is with disadvantage, though. Oh, that'll save you. It was a 17 and a two. Ooh, doggies!

So it goes to bite you, and you manage to pull up your sword in the way and block it, and it's like. It's azzur-jazzur, opens this horrible, terrible fishing breath smell, just cascades over your face it and it's like. Oswald draws up and this horrible, terrible fishing breath smell just cascades over your face and you're like. Oh yeah, it's like a dock on a Tuesday morning.

The one on the other end. What happens on Monday nights? It's blind, it hears all this noise happening. It's going to go ahead and make a wide shot with its harpoon in the direction of where it's hearing all this conflict. Hit one of its brothers. Disadvantage.

A 16 and an 18, that still hits. Sorry, Fjord. You take... A disadvantage? A 16 doesn't hit. Huh? No, those are the dice rolls I was making. It was a 16 and a 19.

So that's nine points of piercing damage. He's throwing in the dark in the direction where two guys and he's threatening them and hitting me? Yeah. Yeah. You guys have done it before. Fair enough. Unconscious, I go. Fuck!

Oh shit. Fuck! So that Fjord goes down, the spell fades. Oh no! It closes off, they now have visual. But that's all of their turns, right? This guy's going to move five, ten. Fucking hell.

Fucking hell, Joden. Wait, didn't he burn his whole turn just getting to where he was? His whole movement? That was his movement. That's right, so he wouldn't move. He went top of the round, thank you for reminding me of that. But he used his action to throw that. So that's all he has.

That ends their go. Yasha, you're up. Okay. I'm going to move to the guy who's been attacking my boy Fjord. This one here? All right. In the water or on the side? On the side. You got it. I would like to rage. Yeah! The full Yasha angry.

Dying Fury, all the bits. Not Caleb, you're up next. Rigorous. Okay. Yeah, that hits. Uh, Dying Fury, all the bits. Knock Caleb, you're up next. Reckless. Mm-hmm-hmm. Okay, yeah, that hits. 19. 19 hits. Okay. So the first strike with the divine.

It's 3d6. Yep, 3d6 plus seven. Ooh. 11, 13, 14, 15. Good boy. 20. 20 points of damage on the first strike as you carve across its torso and it hisses back.

Still standing, though. Another. All right, so that's 2d6 plus five. Oh, 2d6 plus five, okay. All right. 10. No, no. 2d6 plus five?

That was, what'd you roll? Oh wait, six. Oh, six plus what? Five. 11, 11, 11. 11 points of damage? Yeah. The brain was working in there.

As the first blade strike carves down its body, it pulls back, hissing, forwards, unconscious, sinking underwater with the harpoon still sticking out of its chest as it's leaning back at an angle as he vanishes into the dark liquid. As it pulls back, it yanks the harpoon from his body and you see his body slightly lurch up out of the water

before sinking again. It pulls it back to strike at you with it and you pull the blade back and just thrust it right into its chest and the lightning strikes. Are you close enough to the bonus action? Well, can someone grab Fjord or is that not happening? I know, can I?

Is he sinking? Can I, as a bonus action? That's an action. Yeah. All right, sorry. Don't worry if I sink. I'll be able to fix him in a second. I have that armor.

All right. That's true, you have the armor on, so he starts to sink and the body just buoys itself back to the top. Is it like a life vest? It's a life vest! Yep. It's the mariner's armor that he had the champion put over.

That's great! That's the first time it worked. Throw me a blood light! All right, it ends Yasha's turn, not Caleb. You guys are up. Caleb is going to walk behind Callie so he's got good view of Merman over Fjord. I'm going to use the Glove of Blasting. First one is a natural one, so that does not hit. The second one is a natural 20. All right, against which one? Against the one right over Fjord. All right.

So that is a . Hey Marisha. Yeah? Are you in melee with that thing? Yeah. Oh, okay. A six, 12 total since it was a crit.

All righty. Is this still up? It is still up. As it bursts into it, the flames burn across its system, but you see its body itself is damp and slick anyway, so you see the dark black scorch marks, but nothing more than that. And the third ray is not good, just a 10. 10 misses, unfortunately. Hits the ground behind it, or hits a wall. Burns across and vanishes across the rock. That finishes your go. Nott, you're up. I will leave out, and is someone engaged with this one,

where I would get sneak attack? Beau is. My unconscious feet are big Beau. I will attack with a crossbow bolt! 24. That hits. Okay. Ooh, it's all terrible.

Come on, aw. Not at all. Yeah. 15. Hey. 15. All righty. As you fire this one, it manages to pierce right under its throat, and it turns back towards you,

and it grabs the harpoon off the ground, and as it pulls it back, you watch as the blood just gouting out of what seems to be a major vein or artery in its throat, and it grabs the harpoon off the ground. As it pulls it back, you watch as the blood just gouting out of what seems to be a major vein or artery in its throat. It tries to get the strength and as it does, it pulls back and gets woozy, throws it and it lands maybe two feet from where it grabs it. With a horrible gurgle, falls to the ground

and begins to slip and sink into the water. Nice. Let's back up. Shit. Can I use my bonus action to fire the other one? Why not? Yeah, disadvantage on this one, though. 15. 15 hits. That's six points of damage!

Nice! All right. That ends Nott's turn. Are you going to move? No, I will stay there and huddle closer to Mollymaw. Perfect. Did you step out? I did step out. No, I'm huddling away from Mollymaw.

All right, Cally and Jester. I'm going to send Duplicity me towards Fjord, and she's in her illusion going to hug him and cast Cure Wounds and say, I will call from a distance going, Don't worry, Fjord, you'll be okay. I'll cast it at level T. Aw, because Oscar?

So 11 points. But you are conscious. You look up and see the faintly illusory image of Jester holding you. Thanks, thanks, Jester. Then big me over top of her. Oh god! Right! You gotta show your love!

What's wrong with Beau? Then I'm going to use my bonus action to cast Spiritual Weapon right over top of the other fishmen in the back there. All right. Boom. Lollipop, lollipop, oh lollipop. Roll that attack, roll.

Nerds! 14 plus something, so I think that hits. That hits, and Summer Class is 13. Yass. Yass. So that is 1d8 plus four. Four damage, so eight force damage. All righty, that ends Jester's go.

Kelly. Yes. Kelly is going to run up past Yasha, and you see she's just like, and she almost shoves Yasha out of the way. And I want to get as close as I possibly can. Am I within 15 foot there? You are.

Okay, so she stops for a moment, and you see this green magic flow around. I'm going to cast Dragon Breath at third level on myself, and then she kind of inhales. What? Acid breath, 15-foot cone over the creature acid breath, 15-foot cone, over the creature. Yeah, 15-foot cone. I don't know what you just did, but I'm so into it.

As the acid just sprays out towards it, it covers the area. Dex saving three. Dex saving three for the Marrow as it tries to avoid it. That is a natural three plus zero. That is a failure. This is 46 damage, but I was going to reroll some of this, but I'm not now. So that's going to be, that's 19 acid damage. Oh, nice! As you finish spraying it down, you see like,

all the flesh on the outside of its body is going to melt away and burn and bubble, and it kind of. It's pretty scarred, just from that immediate spray across the front part of its torso. Come and get me. You see the eye gleaming still with the light spell. All right, that finishes your turn.

Beau, top of the round, you. Okay, I'm going to just stride forward. Boof, goo, doo. Careful of your head. And just, ow, fuck! Oh, this is what Travis deals with all the time. Ow! And through Kallie's acid mist, I'm just going to split the air and cut down

and just do a big slap right on its face. All right. As you go for the big sweep, your staff goes. Yeah, I get a little bit of. A bunch of rock. A bunch of rock and shale is just being ground and falling all around you. Sparks, sparks, sparks.

Yeah, the pressure, I get stuck a little bit, but then it just gives me a nice little snap. Exactly, a little snap at the end. Roll for the attack. Okay, I'll take that. Pencil breaks. That's enough. Yep.

19. That hits, roll damage. 22, 19, I don't know, it's enough. 19, 19, add that d4, motherfucker. Okay, that's nine plus... Cocked. Yeah. 13.

13 points of damage. It's the first strike. The second one, knowing I'm going to get stuck on the ceiling, I'm just going to paddle back and come up and crack with the other end. Okay, as you spin it this way, it almost wedges itself on the floor to the ceiling, I'm just going to paddle back and come up and crack with the other end. Okay, as you spin it this way, it almost wedges itself on the floor to the ceiling and you have to like, boom!

Damn it! Mike Myers, two points, sir. Okay, 15? 15? 15 hits. Plus seven, plus 10 total. All right, 10 points of damage. Whack, you crack into it, and it fits in its torso. It looks like it's bleeding out of its mouth,

onto its stomach, it looks really, really painfully hurt. Its eyes are dashing around each way. It looks like it's starting to turn its head towards the area where it's hurt. I'm going to do Flurry of Blows. Okay, my key point. Flurry of Bows? Flurry of Blows!

Flurry of Bows. That's not great. 12 for the first one. 12 misses. Second one is even fucking worse as a two. This time, as you try to punch, it manages to dodge the first one, and the second time you go to swing, one of the pieces of stone that had dislodged slightly from when you impacted it falls

and catches your fist in the middle of the air. It just shatters and causes this cloud of dust across the creature, but your hand fucking hurts. Ah, good show, good show. Give it one more hit. That's it. That was it. Nabo's turn, Fjord, you're up. I'll use half my speed to stand up, right?

Back in there, yeah. And I'll unleash two Eldritch Blasts at that. Eldritch Blasts. Go for it. That's a 26. That hits. And that's Cox. Reach for the sky, and 18. Yeah!

That'll do, roll damage. Eww. Six points of damage on the first one and 14 points of damage on the second one. How do you want to do this? It's turning around and slithering its way. It's about to dive back into the water and probably disappear into what looks to be

some sort of a subterranean tunnel that is just filled. I stand up, I get to my feet, I touch the wound area, and I fire it across the way. As you release your hand, both bolts arc outward and slam into it from the back. From the front perspective, it would look almost like Giver. He tears the chest and the beams come out,

but instead it's internal organs being shoved out into the wall, and where you see now there's two open holes, tombstone style, before it hits the water and then slithers and sinks down into the small tunnel. Oh, I got friends in Eldritch Places. Wait, did you say it fell into the hole? It slithered, an impact hit it and it hit and again. Don't let it go into the hole,

don't let it get into the hole! Don't let it get into the hole! Can Callie rush up? We're out of initiative, or are we? We're out of initiative at this point. Okay, can I run up with the clawed hand, she dives it in to try and grab this thing out of the pool? Sure, go ahead and make a dexterity saving throw to see if you can react quick enough.

Can I assist? For advantage? You die. Yeah, I'm dead. Sure, that's less of a skill check. It's more of a reactionary thing, so I wouldn't be able to help with it. Five. Okay.

You can't quite reach it. It's sunk too low into it. I'm going to take my staff and try the same thing. You're hitting stone and nothing, just water below. When Beau's doing that, she turns around and snaps at Beau. Get away from my stuff! That's my kill! Sorry, sorry, I didn't mean to yell. Sorry about that.

Hey, hey, hey, we're all friends here. Yeah, no, we are. We are. Cast friends. Yeah, of course we are. Yeah, sorry. No, sometimes I just get really aggressive sometimes. I'm sorry. No, no, it was intense. There's a lot in that. You're going to be all right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I just, I get really possessive about certain things sometimes. What? Dragon blood and.

Oh, I, I. Oh, but thank you for looking out for me. You're right, you're going to feel a little weird in a few minutes, I apologize for that, it's a thing. Okay. Let's clear this water. And let's take a breather, let's sit down. Let's get this guy out of the tunnel

in case somebody comes through the tunnel. I don't want anyone to see him right away. Is he gone? All right, so do you clear the water? You do, and you see the tunnel curves below and evens out. It seems like it sunk, hit the bottom sediment, and just dragged a little bit and come to rest about maybe 15 feet below the surface.

So you take a moment to go ahead and dive under, grab it, and either through a chain of hands or whatever, because it's pretty heavy, it's a large body, probably weighs close to maybe 800 pounds. You guys have to all together pull it up, and it takes a few moments to do so. Got it, we can do it. But Jester's pretty beefy.

Yeah. Me and Yasha basically got it. Between the two of you, you eventually get it up back into the chamber. So. Roughly a minute later, I say, so you have been somewhat charmed by a circus carny. It's going to be okay.

At which point, the friend spell ends and you can feel an influence that was previously there over your personality. You seem a little angry. He didn't mean anything by it. It's fine, it's fine. Just trying to keep everything copacetic, you know. No, I know, thank you, Mr. Caleb, thank you.

No, it's fine. I do understand why it's fine. Thank you. You needed a minute of clarity? It's fine. People normally react really worse when I go like that, so it's fine, you guys didn't beat me up, you didn't try and kill me.

It's great, you guys are nice, thank you. I mean, you know, you have a lot of scales on your face, but look at this one. Yeah. Look at this one. Look at this one. Look at this one. This one less so. You know, we're kind of gullible.

We can deal with our tempers, it's just. You all look fantastic. that one as well. She's so cute as well. You're really lucky. Kiri! Kiri! I am keeping an eye on these pools, looking for any movement, by the way.

Kiri comes around the corner with the dagger, sees you all standing there. You did it, you did it, you killed them. Runs up to the body there and goes. Oh, I killed people. It's like Chappy, I can't. Chappy did good. Stabs the body a few more times.

Yeah. That's good, that's enough. Somebody help me check these crates. Yeah, I'm going to start looking through. All right, who's helming the investigation? I'll investigate on my own. Okay, someone, an individual has to helm the investigation. I'm going to investigate. All right, so Caleb being aided,

so go ahead and make an advantage. Yeah. I get high HP from on fire. I'm going to step in it, so. You do? Yeah. Hey, Kelly. Cocked.

That wasn't cocked, technically. Well, it was on a magnet, so it was stuck to a magnet. Oh, did it? Okay. Yes. Metal dice. An advantage? Well, if it's at it, we'll call the first one, which was a three to a magnet. Oh, did it? Okay. Yes. Metal dice. At advantage, well, if it's at advantage, we'll call the first one, which was a three on a magnet, and the second roll was a 17 plus my eight is a 25. Okay.

And it's a light die, it's not like a heavy one that wouldn't be affected by the magnet. It's a magnet. Oh, it does magnet. It does actually magnet. I can do this for the future. Have you not played with your gildai yet? Yeah, it totally suits you. So 25.

All right, so as you guys are rummaging through with Caleb helming this section, you're going through a bunch of empty crates, partially destroyed crates, pushing aside the mostly torn apart corpse of this crocodile and ignoring that. You manage to find a number of gold and silver pieces that have been scattered and lost

and fallen into the sand. You're digging through the natural gravel and sand floor of this chamber and finding that a lot of it has been buried. They weren't interested in gold pieces. They weren't interested in money. A lot of that was left behind and scattered and has been covered.

So you take a moment to pull through, and you manage to acquire 185 gold, and 210 silver pieces, and 65 copper pieces. 210 silver, you said? Correct. Distribute that equally, however you would do that. That's weird. Okay, we'll do some math. You find a bunch of jewelry,

necklace and rings that are are thrown about and lost. Do you see any diamonds? Do you see 300 gold worth of diamonds? I put a bunch of jewelry into Jester's hands. Okay. All the jewelry together would come to about, just for your purposes of resale, about 250 gold worth of jewelry.

There are no diamonds in there worth 300 gold, sorry. There are four sets of manacles. Manacles? Manacles in the show. People are going to suspect things of us trading in manacles all the time. These didn't work. Nice manacles. The manacles are empty, though they are bloody.

You said four sets of manacles? Yes, four sets of bloody manacles. And that's the extent of it? Yes, four sets of bloody manticles. And that's the extent of it? Do they have any reddish markings on them or anything like that? No, these do not, these are plain manacles. And they're humanoid-sized?

Roughly, yeah. All right. There are a number of broken vials of some thick purple liquid, but two of them are not broken. You rolled really high on your investigation. So two vials of a thick purple liquid, roughly about that big.

It's like a thick, oily substance. I'm going to take these for a moment, or maybe ten moments. Then Nott, you see one thing helping Caleb out, and you pull it out, and it looks to be a well-crafted marble bowl of gold inlay of a curious design. The edges of the bowl shift into,

it looks like, five multiple dragon heads, equally separated, and then each dragon, the eyes are tiny gemstones, but one sets rubies, one sets emerald, one sets sapphire, one sets diamond. I know tribes who conceal this from Cali. All right, go ahead and make a sleight of hand check. Cali, go ahead and make a sleight of hand check. Callie, go ahead and make a perception check.

I will use my luck point. Oh! You have luck? Oh, it was a fake. Oh my god. 28. Eight. Oh!

We trick-assed so well! That's what Nott would do, absolutely what Nott would do. All righty. You're so mean. So she's just looking through the crates. Looking through frantically, you don't see anything there. I'm sure it was here.

You really, people don't like it when you do these things, Sam. I just have to confer with Caleb. So, Kelly. I started a conversation earlier. Which might be why you got so distracted. Go ahead. You seem to have such an affinity for cute things.

Is there a reason why you like cute things? I'm not saying that not all of us like cute things. We all love cute things, but. Well, yeah. You seem to really like cute things. I just... I guess it's, you know, one of those things where... And she's doing this as she's going through the crates.

I guess, like, I used to... You know, I was a kid, and I used to ask for, like, dolls and pets and stuff when I was growing up. And the cult used to give them to me. Cerise used to give them to me. I don't know. Just, there's a lot of bad stuff in the world, you know? And it's nice to appreciate nice things sometimes. You know, I just... nice to appreciate nice things sometimes.

You know, I just, I like having and finding cute stuff. Do you not like that? I, I, I just, I might appreciate some other things. Your outfit's cute, though. Man, thank you. That's all right. You're welcome. I thought this, I was sure it was here. I traced it, I followed them.

I knew that it was coming through this. Maybe I missed it, maybe I've messed up. How deep is that? Maybe it's further in the water. It gets about five or six feet deep. I'm going to search the bottom of it. Make an investigation check with disadvantage. Are there any people dropped?

Like the hook or the spears, or were they tridents or anything? There was one of them that was a three-pronged trident and two that were just long harpoons. They were all hooked at the tips, and they had these thick rope cable on the edge they were using to pull them back in. Could I pick up one of the tridents?

Does it just seem like an average? Just a trident. I mean, you should ask. I would propose, I just rolled a 17 on perception to see if Caleb noticed, not even do that. I'm going to come tell you anyway, so. Well, but you rolled a 28, so it would be super hard for anyone at the table to have seen you do that.

No one noticed. Nobody noticed. I'm still keeping watch at the, I'm watching the hole. I wanted to look in the pools, too, so I would have. Can she give me advantage on that, or? Sure. I mean, I was literally saying you should look. Usually you get something

before you roll. I know. I know. We were just, we didn't want to interrupt the thing. That's fine, that's fine. And it doesn't matter anyway, it's eight. Okay, I mean, it's brackish and thick and you don't really find much of interest. All right.

Check that other one, too, in a moment. You do find what looks to be some bones. I can clear the water as well. Okay, yep, and looking through, you find what appear to be a number of discarded humanoid skeletons. Four of them, to be exact. Maybe the other one, then.

Maybe. Maybe it's one, then. Maybe. Maybe it's in the next room. There's still another room. There is? Yeah. They were coming from somewhere. I mean, who knows, there could be 20 of them on the other side of this.

That's true. Could be a whole network of caverns. Should we fill in the hole? I think we're going to have to. I mean, until we find... Oh! We have thunder sticks. We do? We do have boom boom sticks.

Is this the end of our task here? And we're supposed to secure the safe house. As we're having this conversation, you feel this strange crawling sensation in the back of your head, as you're looking past this pool down into the darkness below. Even though it's clear, you can see the ripples,

and there's something gently tugging you that direction, and a familiar voice creeps in, sourceless within your brain that says, SAM and LAURA, So anyway. We just killed Fjord's family. It's super cold in there, you know? Yeah. So I mean, I feel like we should check and see if there's like 20 of them on the other side of this thing.

Or like you said, we just destroy the entrance to where they can't come through. Don't we have a cat that can become a fish? It takes a long time. It takes time. And equipment. Plus some of us can swim. We could pop down real quick and see what's down there. I'm taking those two purple vials

and walking around the corner over this way to set them down and start doing my thing. In a moment, I'm going to start pulling out my book. Okay. I will join him. Anyone else feel like going for a swim? Yeah? I want to join you for a swim.

I need to check it and make sure it's not, yeah, if there is a room back there, I need to make sure it's not here. We don't know if there's going to be air on the other side of that house, we need people to see. Yeah, one person that can read really well. Fjord, you are familiar with the sea, can you hold your breath for a long time?

Yeah, pretty decent. All right,. Can you hold your breath for a long time? Yeah, pretty decent. All right, how about you go? Like forever? No. As long as you don't mind dying, sure. What if we tie a rope to you? Sure, we have an extra 50 feet.

We didn't really need to rest. Can we take a short rest again? Just, oh, it's another hour. Yeah, we're going to do this. Oh, you can only do it once a day. What, the short rest? Short rest? No, short rest you can do as many times as you want, yeah.

You can only do once every day. Yeah. Ooh! I mean, because you're low on health still, aren't you? Yeah, but I mean, we're fine. I mean, if you want to just swim and back? You're just going to swim and come back? Yeah, I'm just going to go down,

and if I start running short on air, I'll just come back. Yeah, and we'll have a rope tied. I'm just going to cast Cure Wounds on you if we're not going to take a short rest. If we're not going to take a short rest. No, no, you don't need to do that. There's no need, Jester.

We'll take a short rest afterwards. Just a quick little recon. Here, tie it around. Yep, and I'll drop the rope and jump in. Okay. I'm going to talk to Caleb and just tap him on the shoulder. Son of a bitch. And say, Caleb, Caleb, look what I found. I think this is the bowl that Callie was talking about.

And I just instantly cast Identify. It takes one minute on the two vials and the bowl. Okay, make a perception check. I'm over here. On the other side. and I just instantly cast Identify, takes one minute on the two vials and the bow. Okay, make a perception check. I'm over here. Yeah. On the other side. You went all the way around the other side? I have a minus one, it's like a 13.

She's pretty oblivious to stuff. Yeah, no, there's no way. All right. We're the worst people. We don't know that yet. As if I didn't know that coming in. Might be the third from the worst people. As if I didn't know that coming here. That be the third from the worst people. As if I didn't know that coming here.

That's the worst thing anyone has said about us. I don't have a Mighty Neinwax. The bowl is magical. Yeah. It is used as a communion device. When granted with enough blood and given the proper ritual, it's used to acquire

Augry's various bits of divination and communication across the Divine Gate with whatever this Scaled tyrant may be. But it needs a lot of blood. It needs enough to fill the bowl. And I can tell from my identify spell that its purpose is to speak with this thing on the other side, this day.

Some sort of communion. That's all you can make out from it. What about the vials? The vials are not magically enchanted. That sucks. Okay, so nothing to be told, okay. Do you think we should? I don't want this.

Let's see, oh hold on, identify. You don't want the bowl? No. Magically enchanted. Okay. Do you think it's bad to give it to her? I'm not there, but I'm just in your head. Do you think it's bad to give it to her? I'm not there, but I'm just in your head. Do you think it's bad to give it to her?

I don't know. It is not of any use to us, I don't think. Okay. Well then, let's give it to her. I stick it into my satchel for the time being. Okay. All right, so what are you guys doing? You're under water, so Fjord, you're swimming down,

going through the darkness. Keeping your way there, it goes under for about 30 feet, 40 feet, you're pulling your way across the ceiling as it levels out, kind of curves a bit, straightens. Lungs start to hurt curves a bit, straightens. Lungs start to hurt a little bit, but you're still holding your breath okay, pulling your way through this darkness. I feel so uncomfortable.

I'm not okay with this. This is just college. You pull under it, and your uncertainness as to where it'll end, and there's just that brief little peeking fear in the back of your mind flashes the memories of your mind, flashes of memories of being under the ocean of the shipwreck, of looking up and not knowing which direction was up. That gives you this brief surge of vertigo.

You stop for a second and a couple bubbles of escape. Go make a constitution saving throw. 21. 21. But you push through, continue, swimming across, swim, swim. You come up and all of a sudden you can see now, it begins to rise up once more. And you begin to swim up, pull across the front,

and then suddenly your fingers break water. But you do so carefully. now begins to rise up once more. You begin to swim up, pull across the front, and then suddenly your fingers break water, but you do so carefully. Make a seal entrance. Take a breath slowly as your head emerges from the dark water in what is a large, darkened chamber. You can only see, make a perception check with disadvantage.

Six. The first one was 19. You see where this about 15, 20-foot pool that you've emerged from opens up into this chamber that is filled with low water and a number of divots and pools within the bars of land are pretty limited and thin. And you see, from the peripheral of your vision

before it ends at that point, roughly five or six more of these creatures, you see a very, very faint glow in the distance, what looks to be a number of objects that are just piled and shoved into a central place. You see elements, what looks to be some sort of an old pieces of stone structures that have fallen in.

This chamber inside here had some sort of a built or constructed purpose long ago, and has since crumbled as the earth has shifted. That's as much as you can make out. I'll take a big breath, blow it all the way out. Go back under, push back. Okay, cool. Just making your way through. Now you know the path is there, the confidence,

because you know there is air, eventually helps you push through. You make it halfway through. What's the depth like as I'm going through? It's about 15, 20 feet. I can see the bottom. You can see the bottom, yeah. That's not so bad.

You do manage to come out the other side, emerge, and take your breath. Now that you've been through once and managed to go through a little more confidently, you didn't side, emerge and take your breath. Now that you've been through once and managed to go through a little more confidently, you didn't have to worry about holding your breath. Oh my god, are you okay? Yeah, yeah, now there's another room. There's five more of them, if I remember.

There's things? Yeah, there's a whole other cavern. There's ruins and objects and all sorts of stuff. We're not done with this by a damn second. I mean, look, our job was to secure the safe house. We can collapse this and say job done. There were so many things. There were crates and objects.

Well, I mean, that changes things. What if the safe house is that other tunnel? What if this whole thing is the safe house? Or it could be underneath it. What if it's beyond even what F house? Or it could be underneath it. What if it's beyond even what Fjord has just seen? We do not know what we are talking about yet. We could guard this entrance and rest up for a bit

and get ourselves together and carry through. It's not that far. I think everybody could make it. I certainly could tell somebody if they're not a very good swimmer, but. Maybe run a line, have the rope in case. Yeah, you know, we could rest up here on the back corner of this chamber.

I could cast my silver thread across this pool here on the other side. If anything comes through, it wakes us up. We'll be ready. We get ready for going further in. We could even sleep upstairs, cast the thread and sleep upstairs. Good, and I know there are five,

but I think we use this funnel point as like a fatal funnel, right? We make them come through one at a time, so send some bait and bring them back through, but only when we're ready. What do you think? I'm okay with that. Sure.

Yeah, I agree with that. Gally? I want to help you guys, I really do, but if what I'm looking for is not here, I've got to try and find it, and I've got to stop these people getting it. The longer I spend here, if it's not here, the better chance they have of finding it, and I can't let that happen. What if you spend one more night with us here? I really want to, Mr. Caleb. Like, you all seem so nice,

and you're the first people I could even say that I've made friends with, but this is too important. I just can't believe we didn't find out the bowl for you. Tell me now. Maybe I messed up. Like I said, I'm not very good in the outside world, and I thought I found it here, but it's fine. Tell us again. What do you need it for?

What are your intentions with it? Honestly, look me in the eye. What do you mean to do with this thing when you find it? Mr. Caleb, I want to destroy it. I mean. How will you destroy it? To be honest with you, I don't know. But I know...

I'll find a way if I have to, but I just... The biggest thing I'm afraid of is that the cult and Ceres, they'll find somebody like me. They'll find somebody descended from an ancient dragon like I was, and then they can do this all again. I got away once, I can't let that happen to someone else. Yasha, will you come here, please? Yeah. I need your help.

Mollymauk, will you come here, please? Yeah, sure. Beauregard Fjord, will you come here, please? What? Sure. I start to move away from Callie. Once these- Well, if you want me to come here, please. He I start to move away from Callie. Once these- What if you want me to come here, please? He wants us to be together

because we're an awesome detective duo. Could you come back with me, Jester, please? Whatever. Good. I'm just getting warm. Who are you supposed to take care of? Once there is a defensive wall between me and Callie, I pull the bowl out of my bag.

Where did you find it? He's had it all along. Caleb, you found the bowl! I'm so proud of you! I'm so proud of you! Yeah, Kiri's proud of you, too. No, Kiri, Bren found the bowl. Callie, I would like to help you,

but this thing is... powerful. Yes. And I met you 10 hours ago? Mr. Caleb, all I can tell you is that the whole reason I came here is to find that, let me put it this way. Do you care about these people?

You care about this group? Yeah, I do. Then don't keep that thing. The cult will find you. I know more about them than you. I can hide, I can stay away from them. Well, I have a wonderful compromise, you know. We can all camp down here, as I suggested, you included.

And in the morning, my good friend Jester can get to the bottom of your intentions for good. For real. Caleb's still pulling the bull? Mm-hmm. Can I snatch it out of his hand real good. For real. Caleb's still pulling the bull. Can I snatch it out of his hand real quick? Oh shit. Go ahead and make a naked dexterity check, opposed. Never know.

Straight dex check. Yep. What do I do, dex? Dex check. Oh, it's going to be so good. Disadvantage for you because you weren't expecting it. Sure. That's not great.

That's a two, so I think this story is over. Oh, the second one was an 18. Aw, three. 10, no, 11, 11. 11? No, 10. The bolt leaves your hand, and now Beau's holding it. Playing Game of Kikboi? Are you natural Beau or big-ass Beau?

Big? I think I'm still natural. No, it's fainted, it's fainted. It's one minute. it's one minute. It's one minute. Oh my god. But she still talks like this. Caleb. Why would you not want to wait 12 hours

to see if this woman's intentions are true or not? What difference does it make? What difference does it make? This bowl can- You don't have it in your hand anymore, Caleb. I still feel it. This bowl that I am talking about can be used to speak to one of the most evil entities in the history of creation,

so I think it warrants another 12 hours of waiting to get to the bottom of things. I don't think you should stop someone from talking to a god if they want to talk to a god. Caleb, you. I don't want to talk to her, just I want to make that clear. If you want to destroy it, why don't we just destroy it right here? I don't want to talk to her, I want to make that clear. If you want to destroy it, why don't we just destroy it right here?

I don't think it can. I always thought that, well, you'd need something more impressive to do that, but if we can destroy it here, then so be it. I think it is going to be a little bit beyond your capabilities to destroy this bowl, Yasha. Mr. Caleb. No, I don't mean me. I think.

Well, you've got chocolate on your arm. Oh yes, I do. Well, you've got chocolate on your arm. Caleb, I respect you. You. Caleb, I respect you and all of your intentions, but your caution does not get to control other people's destinies. That bowl is used for communicating with

the Mother of Dragons. You are trying to control this. Are we doing anything else? Are you resting now? Do you wish to take this time now? Jester, I have- You had no intentions of wanting this bowl or needing this bowl or caring about this bowl until Kali came around. Beauregard, you needing this bowl, or caring about this bowl until Callie came around.

Beauregard, you keep the bowl all night so that Jester can use the spells used in the past for truth. And then we ask Callie, and I would love to hear that Callie's intentions are true and good. And if they're not, we'll find out. I don't need you, Callie. I don't think I need to cast it on you.

But you need to trust each other. Actually, here's an insane thing that occurred to me, is that technically speaking, Charm Person lasts a really long time. Friends or Charm Person? I cast Friends. One minute. You cast Charm Person. I have it as well.

Well, I can cast Charm for that. Oh, I have it as well. Well, I can cast Charm in person. You could, you tried to cast something on your friend, the guide, right? To make him tell the truth. Yeah. Do that on me. I won't resist it, I promise. That's fair. That's a good offer. I'm into that.

Yeah, okay. I suggest you tell us the absolute truth of your intentions with this bow. I don't want to resist it, so... I intend to either destroy it or find somewhere secure that the cult of the Caustic Heart, servants of the Scaled Tyrant, can't find it. The cult of the Caustic Heart. They knew my power. They knew that I'm descended from an ancient black dragon from far away, and if they find another one like me, they could do terrible things.

I promise you, Mr. Caleb, I promise you that all I want is to right some of the wrongs that I once did as part of that group. I helped kill people, I helped torture people. I've got to make this right, and that's the only way I can do this. I don't know much, but I know that the only person that can take that thing and make sure it's not used to ill is me. Mr. Caleb.

You have the helm. There's only so many burdens we're expected to bear before we're just asking for failure. I don't want you to have to bear this one. I'm glad for you to take it. I am a little surprised at the rest of you for me being cautious, but I'm glad for you to take it. Thank you. Oh no, I'm with you. I grab Caleb, drag him aside, hand Cali the bowl,

drag Caleb over to a private corner, and I say, look, we all have our fucking trauma, you understand that? We all have our fucking garbage and our dirt and our shit, but you don't get to use your skeletons in your closet, your PTSD, to be shitty and control other people in what they want. It does not make you the authority on what's right and what's wrong. Just because you think that you're a shitty person,

guess what, we're all fucking shitty people. Not all of us are shitty people. Are we separate or are we not separate? She's yelling at me. She's not being subtle. I get feeling like a shitty people. I don't speak for the rest of these guys, but I get feeling shitty.

But it doesn't mean that you get to impress that on other people and make them feel like shitheads just because you are. Beauregard, what if she had been lying to us? Then she fucking lied to us. And we take that and we learn that as a lesson for later on. Miss Beauregard, if I can? Yes, Callie?

I think out of everyone here, from what I've seen, Mr. Caleb's the only one who really understands how powerful this thing is. Even I didn't know as much. Mr. Caleb's the only one who really understands how powerful this thing is. Even I didn't know as much. I appreciate everything that you've just said, and it's the nicest thing that anyone's ever done for me. Please don't blame him.

He was doing the right thing. I'm not blaming him. It's just that this isn't the first occurrence of something like this with him either. I think he's trying to do the right thing. I think he is, too. Okay. It's just that this isn't the first occurrence of something like this with him, either. I think he's trying to do the right thing. I think he is, too. Okay. You were right, Caleb, you're just a shitty communicator. That's kind of what Molly said.

Yep! I told you exactly what I wanted to do and why. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, my friend. I don't know what you're talking about and I walk away from her without saying another word. That's fair. I walk away. I'm going to look at everybody.

I really wish I could help you with the rest of this, but I've got to get this thing away from you. People will be after this as soon as I can. Kalli, be careful. There's trolls out there and gators. I'll be careful. Kali, I'm just curious, you don't want to try and smash it on the ground real fast just for shits and giggles?

I can try. Yeah, I mean, just while we're all here. I've never played with a magical item before. Smash. You throw it on the ground, ping, boom, boom, boom, rolls off untouched. I'll try acid splash as well.

All the acid runs off of it, unscathed. Yasha, chuck that shit on the side of the wall, will you? Is it magical? Mm-ed. Yasha, chuck that shit inside of the wall, will you? Is it magical? Mm-hmm. Super duper. Highly. I'm going to try to take out my Magician's Judge sword. It's a Satan walkie-talkie.

This is a good idea, then. I can try to dispel magic. Yeah, try to do it, try to do it. Try to do it, might not work. So you're going to strike it as you're dispelling it, is that what you're doing? Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

So you hold your Magician's Judge up, you lift it over your head, and swing it down with all your might. Go ahead and make the check for the Dispel Magic on the sword. Oh shit. Oh shit, that Dispelled Magic! What's that? It's under the description of the sword on your sword. Oh shit. Oh shit, that dispelled magic! What's that?

It's under the description of the sword on your app. You're good, you're good. It's a d20 plus. The sword, a plus, it's good. None of that. It's not the attack roll, it's under the ability. Go all the way. Especially the way I do it.

Attention, Bells. The spell's cast at a third level and the ability check bonus for this spell is plus three. Yeah, so roll an ed three. That's a 20! 13. 13. As you strike downward, there's a brief moment

where you see a flash of energy as if the field is temporarily dissipating whatever magical connection this object holds. In that brief, ever so subtle instance of time in which this marble bowl is left in just a brief blip in history that is exposed to the elements, the blade carves through and shatters. Whoa!

You watch as the glow. For that instance, you watch as there is a brief burst of bright green, blue, red, white, black energy emanates in this low growling rumble. With that, the bowl and whatever enchantment it held is gone. You did it. You did it. Sorry.

No, Yasha, you destroyed it. That's exactly what I wanted to do. I didn't think it would be possible. I really didn't either, I just... I owe you the biggest drink. Oh my god! Miss Yasha, though, you need to be careful. I don't know if, I mean, that thing was connected

to the Scaled Tyrant, and the cultists, if they find out what you've done, they'll come after you. But I want you to know, I'll do whatever I can to stop them. This shit's got nuts in it. I'll do whatever I can to stop them. Well, hey, I just didn't think that was going to happen so fast, to be honest. I don't think any of us did.

It's interesting. As it shattered, and while you're having this conversation, there's just this kind of static electricity around Yasha. Occasionally, as she brings her hand closer, you watch as these little bolts of energy are arcing through here. She's marked? As it slowly fades, you can see there's a slight faint glow of the symbol that she holds at her belt that eventually goes mundane as well.

Can I just rush over and hug Yasha for what she's done? I just throw my arms around you, draconic claw piercing in a little bit. I keep my arms down, but I give her a pat. A real pat. Thank you so much. You don't understand what this means. You're welcome. I hope... I hope, I'm glad it was me and not you, so you don't get in trouble or get, you know, you're not marked.

I mean, I'm sure that the scale tyrant is looking for me in other ways, but thank you. You guys... I've never had people look after me and help me like this before, you know? You guys are probably the first friends I've ever had. Where do you guys normally stay if I need to come and find you? We're actually traveling all around. I was going to ask, where do you go now, since you've achieved your objective? I'll head back to Port Damali. There's other artifacts I need to find and destroy,

but now I know that they can be. That's what I'm going to focus on. We might find our way down to the Menagerie Coast at some point, and if we do, we'll give you a look. I'd really like that, please. Can I write to you if I leave letters? Can we be pen pals, Jester? Oh, yes! You're so happy! I could write you letters all the time. I could write you letters all the time, okay?

Turn off the hugs. Hugs, hugs, hugs. I do this all the time. I do this all the time, okay? Turn off the hooks. Turn off the hooks. I do have a question. Mm-hmm? So the jewels in the bowl, are they still there? What jewels?

In the eyeballs. Oh. You go ahead and make an investigation check to search for where the shards all landed. I'm going to stop putting some of my stuff together to get ready to leave, but I'm going to head over to Nott, because Caleb's walked off. Six. Nott, Brynn.

You can just go with Nott. Okay, you seem to know Mr. Caleb really well. I do. Can you give him something for me? Sure. I'm going to give Nott the scroll of invisibility that I never used. This is for your help, for Mr. Caleb's help,

and all of you, it's not much, but it's something. This is very nice of you. You don't know what you've done for me, so this is the least I can do. And I really do understand what he did. He had, yes. Yeah. Thank you.

You're welcome. Thanks for the paper. Thank you, it was lovely to meet you, and he really does have the best of intentions. I know, I know he does. And I'm sure he's going to be a really powerful wizard one day. I know he will be.

I know he will. Yes, he will. Why are you saying it like that? Because he will. I don't know, because you are. Okay. And I'll just say my goodbyes, and you can come up and shake Fjord's hand.

Strong grip. I won't use the dragon one. Go up to Mollymauk, shake hands. I'll use the dragon one. That's nice. That's very nice. Thank you. I wouldn't have skinned you. That was just a joke in the beginning. Oh, good. Don't do that, please. I won't have skinned you, that was just a joke in the beginning. Oh, good. Don't do that, please.

I won't. Redact the Twitter statement. I would have, but I just. Good luck with clearing this out, but I've got to go. Be careful, okay? I will, I promise. I will write letters.

Yes, of course. Remember, follow the daggers on the way out. They mark your way. Yeah, I've got to keep out for that troll, right? Yeah. Troll, and also really big alligators. You got my scroll. What the shit?

Yeah, and I'll make my way out. Okay, you watch as Callie climbs the rope with a brief glimmer of her feet vanishing into the tunnel above. You all settle in to rest and decide what you're going to do with the rest of this chamber, if anything. And that's what we're doing tonight's game. Oh, drama.

Good drama, it's fun, it's fun. I love you! Dramo memes. Oh man. Good game, Mark, thank you for coming on. Thank you guys so much. No, thank you guys so much. I've said this to Matt, but I've been hearing stories of Vox Machina since before you guys started streaming from Matt. I've watched the whole show, so this was super awesome to get to

be here and play with you guys. And tell more to find you on High Rollers. Yeah, so if you'd like to see me GM, I do a show called High Rollers every Sunday at 5 p.m. UK time. I think it's like 9 a.m. PST. That's on twitch.tv forward slash Yogscast. We just finished our first two and a half year campaign. July 1st, we're starting our brand new campaign. Please come and watch that. I can't believe that's already been that long. When you guys started, we were inspired by CritRoll, and so we started our show, and now

we've got to the next part of our adventure. Yogg's cast is great. You guys are great. The cast is great. Hyrola's is great. I'm not going to talk about the rest of the cast. Hyrola's is great! You can watch that, and then you can also see me on stream on Many Eyes. I'm going to be DMing a game for Ashley, Taliesin, and Sam on, so they can play with some other people as well. I can't wait. Thank you guys all so much. That was awesome. a game for Ashley, Taliesin, and Sam on. So they'll be playing with some other people as well. That's awesome.

I can't wait. But thank you guys all so much, that was awesome. That was so much fun. Thank you for coming. Yeah, Cali! And thank you guys for hanging along, and thank you for D&D Beyond for being amazing. We love you guys so much.

We'll see you soon, and is it Thursday yet? Good night. Oh hey, Ashley Johnson here, and I sure do hope you're enjoying the adventure. Remember when you first found out about Critical Role? Was it through a friend or a family member or maybe even through the words of a stranger in the review section of our podcast? Many listeners find our show through word of mouth and recommendations. So please consider rating and reviewing our podcast,

because each review makes an impression that may just inspire someone new to give our show a try. And that, more than anything, helps to support us. Thank you for joining us on this adventure. And until next time, let us try to leave the world a little better than we found it.