D&D is For Nerds - Zombie Plagued Chult I #18 Mercenaries

Episode Date: November 16, 2019

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Welcome to Season 1, Episode 18 of Zombie Plagued Chult. Alright, he's bringing out the big guns. Ardis reaches into his coat and pulls out a very large pistol. It's so very large. It fires an even bigger pistol out of its huge hole. And then when the fist comes back up, Flask of Wine starts dragging himself along, grabs Dragonbait and drags him back. As he does that, you see like a yellow, no, a white energy suffusing flask of wine.

You were the only one who looked dead dead. I feel dead dead. You're very bloonsy. Be honest, how bad? There's a fight happening to your left and Yelyark before you. What's the plan? Can we suss out what the fight is just so we can know how to... Not without getting a lot closer.

Okay, let's just go around. We're going to sneak away from the fight to ordeal. These goblins, or batari, are slightly different. While you can see there is obviously a relation, they are obviously of a different type or sort. Gleaming around her neck is a bronze and adamantine medallion that has the word Vorn etched into it. You're tussling with the goblin chief and her bodyguard.

Those two goblins attack Koopa Louie. Oh, my God. Two crits on Koopa Louie. Holy shit. I rolled two dice and got 20s on both of them. Are you about to kill a friend that we just fucking found again? That'd be so funny. Oh, would we say that?

I mean, we got the amulet. Oh, not yet. One of the goblins kicks Koopa Louie in the, cutting it off at the elbow, weakening his slash. He'll deal half damage on his melee attacks for the next two rounds until that arm regenerates. I think he can regenerate. He's like a troll, but not as gross. I love him. Was that a troll statue, Adam?

No. It just happened that there was a troll nearby. And the explosion drew it to us? Yeah, the explosion woke it up. The two goblins deal nine points of damage to Cooper Louie. Then the goblin wearing the headdress charges towards you, Tiffany. As she sprints, lowers a spear at you. So the first attack is a miss.

The second attack will also be a miss. As she charges in, she drives the spear towards you, Tiffany. And at the last minute, you back up and her spear misses you just short of you, kicking up dirt into your legs. She draws the spear backwards and jabs it forwards. Your heart skips a beat as she moves very quickly and you turn aside and the spear passes just perilously by your chest you feel it cutting through leather and then retract oh tiffany it's your turn then it'll be pops ripper okay well i'm gonna go for this very rude goblin who's got the goal to want to live. I think you still have the witch bolt if you want to just take a five foot step back and keep going.

Yeah, I'm going to do that. You miss. The electricity wraps around her but starts bouncing off her wooden armor. Oh, no, that sounds fake. I'll try again next time. Pop, it's your turn and you're there. Adam. Yes?

I would like to beat the shit out of this goblin, but in doing so, my main goal is to rip the amulet off her neck. Okay. You can make that as an action instead of attacking. That's what I want to do. I'm trying to rip the amulet off her neck. Pick her up, rip it off, throw her in the fire. Pick it, rip it off, chuck it in a stew.

What's goblins, eh? You grab the amulet around the goblin's neck, plant a foot squarely in her chest, and then with the strength that only someone twice this child's size could muster, you push her away. You kick her several feet away from you, and you have the amulet in your hand. All right.

I reckon we help him out, and then we rock and roll, eh? It's Koopa Louie's turn. More like kill for Louie. He kills a lot. Do you reckon he's okay? He takes a lot of lives. Koopa Louie. He's fine.

He's... Koopa Louie, on the second attack, when he loses an arm, he backs up, looks down at the arm and the green ichor leaking from it as vines and wood starts to regrow. He looks down at that, looks back at the goblins. he looks down at that looks back at the goblins then with his free hand his only remaining hand he reaches up grabs his chin and then crack crack cracks his neck in two sides and starts advancing on the goblins he slashes at one of them decapitating that goblin completely and scores a critical hit on the other one oh my god he's amazing i missed him so much he cuts off the second goblin's leg both goblins fall in rains of blood it's just the boss left uh it's the boss's turn she turns around, seeing the last of the two goblins cut down behind her.

She turns back to you, Pop and Tiffany, issues like a hiss, and then turns tail and sprints away. We gotta run now. We have to move. Let's just leg it back to- trying to get back to Vaughn. I mean, yes, but also. Vaughn is kind of where the fight's happening. Can we go really far around? Before we do that, is there anything good in that tent full of valuables, Adam?

You want to search the tent? I do. Okay. I love me some treasure. Searching through the tent, you find a pile of equipment, obviously stolen from adventurers such as yourselves. You find leather rolls of papers, quills, seals, sealing wax, bottles of ink, one of which is labeled in a different color

and sealed more carefully. You find basically the backpack of a diplomat. Clearly, these goblins had ransacked and attacked an envoy's carriage and have taken their equipment. You find, yeah, everything you would find in a diplomat's pack plus a vial of poison. Quite the diplomat. Would you like to know what's in a diplomat's pack plus a vial of poison. Quite the diplomat. Would you like to know what's in a diplomat's pack?

I would love to know what's in a diplomat's pack. Can you give it to me in the diplomat's wrap? I can. This is what's in a diplomat's pack. It's 39GP a diplomat's pack. Includes two cases of maps. That's what's in this diplomat's pack.

Scrolls. A set of fine clothes. A bottle of ink. Got an ink pen and a lamp. Two flasks of oil. Five sheets of paper. A vial of perfume. Some sealing wax. And some soap.

That's what's in this diplomat's pack. He died without much hope. Thank you for... Get a good boy card. Fuck yes, the diplomat's rap. Thank you for also providing that in... Infernal. Yes.

Yeah, I just rapped at you in Infernal, people. I was like, what the fuck? I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I love this one. Something people don't know about Infernal is that it's a lot easier and more well-received. Just as, you know, if you're speaking to someone new, you want to speak to them, like, excitedly.

You're still trying to pronounce all your words properly. If you get really excited in Infernal, much better to wrap your feelings. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. How are you feeling? I'm feeling real good. Good, good. I'm good in a hood.

I'm fine now. I'm done. My exam is over. Good in a hood is relevant because a lot of infernal speakers are tieflings and we too tend to cover our hoods when we're in public. Cover our horns, sorry. I love the diplomats rap. Thank you.

No worries. Never to be repeated because I don't think I would know how. As you're searching through, is anyone standing outside or are you both just rifling through everything? I went in. It might be. I might just keep my head out. I don't care about the stuff in there.

I'm just going to keep a lookout. After a little bit, maybe two minutes, Tiffany, you can see that there are small, the fight seems to be breaking off into smaller groups. You can see little dotted fires throughout the woods. Then you start to notice that those fires are approaching you. You can see a band of maybe 20 goblins with their leader at the head. She obviously coming back with her entire cohort.

We need to go. We need to go. We need to go. They're coming back. Get out. Get out. Get out. Grab your diplomat pack.

Let's head out the back. Adam, as we're leaving. Yeah. I'd like to, we have to go past the fire, correct? You would want to flee east. So, no. Sorry. The answer is no.

Is there like, oh, I've got a torch. Adam, as we leave, I would like to request that my alchemy jug give me some oil. Exactly one quart of oil. I'm not sure how much a quart is. A quart of a gallon, right? But how much is that like? Is that like this Mount Franklin bottle a quart? Oh, yeah.

Actually, I don't know. I don't know how much a gallon is. Basically, as we leave, Adam, I'd like to set the camp on fire. How many quarts do you get? One quart. One quart? Yeah. Nearly a litre.

Oh, that is a lot of fucking oil. All right. As we're leaving, I want to use the jug to just burn everything behind me. All right. You are moving a bit slower because of that and you're already slowed because of your bum leg so the goblins are starting to kind of get close but you are setting fire to a lot of this place as you sprint you get why fucking eight little bataris fucking shit As you flee eastwards, you pass the bent over tree. And when you pass that, Koopa Louie stops, points to a very strained looking vine, which is the only thing keeping the launch mechanism from going.

Adam, I would like to finish setting things on fire, cork my jug, cut that vine. Their town's on fire. Cork my jug. Cut that vine. Their town's on fire. I imagine what happens is when it snaps, the town, like, bags up like this. Knapsack style. All of the fire just, like, gets put in a bag, watched into the sky. Oh, Adam, please, let's do this. Yeet the town. I want to yeet this burning goblin village.

With a... You slice through the vine. The vine snaps. The entire town... As I do that, can I make eye contact with the... Is the chief desk? Yeah, she's the closest. I want to make eye contact with her.

And just... See you later, love. The town... Is it on fire? Yes. You killed the entire town or a lot of the town. Mostly non-combatants because a lot of people were just cowering in their homes.

A lot of women and children were just killed. Adam. Adam. I fucking hate go just killed. Adam. No. Adam. Yeah? I fucking hate goblins. That's cool.

Oh, like canonically? Oh, no, I hate everybody canonically. Oh, right, of course. Canonically, I am, because I have favoured enemies. My favoured enemies are humanoids. At the edge of the camp, you can see that the fight has finally died down. There are goblins fleeing from the treeline now that their city has been flung away and most of their fighters are gone. Moving or running among the goblins are humans.

There's tribal warriors, locals, basically, who look like they've been hired for this work as guides or something like that. There are... I put the amulet, by the way, inside my shell. Oh, you see this. You're just like watching from the distance, basically. You see men.

Men and women are human, maybe some dwarves some elves maybe halflings as well running among the goblins cutting them down they're some of them are mounted on horseback as they ride among you can see moving among them is a flying snake as well. Just a regular sized snake, but with wings. The snake will dip down and strike, then fly back up, dip down and strike. After watching for a little while, you notice that there are some humans who do not look like they're part of this larger group. There's a couple of humans running about in just absolute terror and one of the one of the people on horseback rides up behind them and with a sword lays into him from behind cutting him down it looks like a three-way fight where one group has finally won right i suggest we just you don't need

to be involved in that absolutely whatsoever before you leave you see a bald tattooed red red robed wizard obviously a wizard of fey the red wizard fey is basically a mageocracy where those with magic have power and the red wizards of fey or just red wizards for short if you want, are an awful institution of very bad people who run kind of like a slave society. They're not anyone that you should be pitying, but maybe you feel a twinge of pity as one of them is dragged before, clearly, whoever the commander of this third faction is.

He's sitting astride a horse where wearing light leather armor blazoned with a symbol that you just can't see at this range it's night time he says something to the wizard of fey who responds with something else but this is at such a range that you can't tell and then with a wave of his hand he gestures for the red wizard to be executed these warriors mercenaries whoever they are summarily execute the red wizard they gather up a bunch of the red wizards well not friends but presumably slave guards and other hangers-on in total there's maybe like six people left working for the red wizard all of them are beheaded summarily right here, just executed straight up. Any goblins they catch as well, they just kill as well.

They don't even bother dragging the goblins before the person in charge. They just kill them. Right. So I thought they were going to be the wizards. They're killing the baddies, but they're all baddies. Horns This I don't do people Let's go

That's a good line Adam Now that we have Do we have to be near Fawn to use the amulet Or can we just Can I just use it now I believe having the amulet

Just innately Allows you to know Oh who's holding the amulet By the way Who do you think's got the amulet just innately allows you to know Oh, who's holding the amulet by the way? Who do you think's got the amulet? Alright, alright, alright, alright. Holding the amulet just innately allows you to know that you do not need to be next

to Vaughn to use the amulet. You can already sense the connection to Vaughn from where you are. You can call to him and he'll start coming to you. Do we want to do that, though? Are these people still fighting near us? No, no, no.

The fight has long since ended. The Red Wizards of Thay, their little party, has been completely destroyed. Whoever the other group are summarily executed anyone they captured. And you see whoever, presumably the person in charge, sitting on a horse,

gestures for the flying snake to come over. It slithers through the air. Just to give you a description again, just imagine a snake, give that snake some wings, you're good. You're good. Where?

What? Where are the wings? That confused me last time. Oh my God. Okay. Now that you've said that, I'm only imagining they're at the tail and nowhere else. Tail? Yeah.

So it's, like, flying, like, horizontal. Its face is, like, smackin' treetops. And just the back of it's in the air. The- That's sick beats, Flying Snake. If you're counting the head as the front and the tail as the back or the tip of the tail as the back, the wings would be one quarter down its body. Okay. Okay.

So, like, on its, where its shoulders would be. Yeah. Yeah, roughly. So, if a snake were a lizard, it would be where the lizard's arm legs were. Yes. Sure. Yes. Front legs. Okay. Front were. Yes. Sure. Yes. Front legs.

Okay. Front legs. Four legs. Is four legs something? I think four legs also works. Is it? Yeah. I think.

Yeah, because lizards have four legs. Good. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And those are the ones that are added because by default you're two legs. Yes. True, true. Fuck, imagine if that's how they came up with the term four legs. Imagine if it came up as an insulting term first,

but then it just stuck. Four legs, four legs. Yep. People with glasses hundreds of years into the future. Cringing. No. These are the four eyes, the wisest of us all. Anyway, the person in charge gestures for the flying snake to come over.

And when it nears him, he rolls up a piece of paper, attaches it to the snake, and then the snake zooms off northwards. This is just for me, but is it one of the snakes with a small head or a giant head? Neither. Oh, no, I know what Cass means. So is it one of those snakes where the head's kind of, like, narrow in proportion to its body or, like, an adder's head or, like... It's got that wide flare. Yeah, yeah.

I know what you meant. Like a rattlesnake head. It's neither. It's got something in between. Oh, okay, okay. Okay. In between. Is it a cobra?

No. It's a snake that's native Oh, okay. Okay. In between. Is it a cobra? No. It's a snake that's native to Chult. Possibly. That is a flying snake. Do I know what it's called? I don't know if there is a picture of flying snakes. Oh. Oh, no.

What? No, no, no, no. That's not what you imagined, is it? No, it's not. That's fucking what you imagined, is it? No, it's not. That's fucking hideous. I hate it so much. Okay, okay, okay. Imagine a cobra, but its neck flaps go to the tail,

and that's the wings. It looks like a nudie branch. See, that's kind of more what you're imagining, right? It looked like someone tried to make a sexy leaf. Yeah, see, I think this is more accurate. Yeah, that's what I was imagining. Something with, like, dragon wings

but a snake. I was imagining bird wings. Well, that's also here. I did think feathers to start with, and then I went, no, no, Tom, it's got scales. Although this flying snake has, if you'll look, has a bird's legs. Yeah.

Out of those three, which one is it? Is it the cobra? Let's call it the first one. Oh, no. It's yucky. Deeply unpleasant. It's so much skin. The flying snake coils around that man's arm.

He attaches a note to it and then lets it fly off. I fucking hate it. Oh, yucky. I fucking hate everything about it. Fucking flying fucking snakes. So are they still there? Hello, friends. You hear from behind you.

You turn around in shock and, uh, not horror. I swing my hammer at the voice. Alright, it's Quasha. Okay, no. I swing my hammer at the, no. Well, fuck me. Hello. How are you? Are you okay?

Quasha, uh, embraces Tiffany. Oh, I'll hug him back. It is good to see you, friend. It's so good to see you. Are you safe? Are you okay? Are you hurt?

No, I'm not. Are you? I've looked better. Has he seen what I fucking... Can we just look at each other? You're not damaged, Tiffany. Pop is hurt. Oh, but my face is missing.

Yeah, but, like but it's not... If you've made the prosthetic, it happened a little while ago and you're over it. I'll never be over it. Where have you been? I've been following Quasha.

Sorry, Cooper Louie. I'm Quasha. You're an imposter. You got your name fucking wrong. I hammer it. No. You're absolutely correct, though. It is a shape-changing creature, a doppelganger. You cleave its head successfully into.

Yay! But no. Then the real Quasha steps forward. Yes, yes. And then the weird. Thank you for Quashing that. And then the credits roll. So, yeah, Quasha was here now as well.

So you just, what you're telling me is that you follow your friend to this miserable spit of the world and you let him languish in a cage for days. Well, there were significantly more goblins when I had to deal, when I would have had to have gone and dealt with it. I'll burn the whole town. So, you know. Yes, you did a good job. You are a better fighter than me.

That's true. I forgot how maraphatic this fucker was. Thank you. And so does Koopa Louie. Koopa Louie nods his head. I give a bit of one of those deep nods to Koopa Louie. Koopa Louie nods his head. I give like a bit of like one of those deep nods to Koopa Louie like yeah.

I would happily continue our engagement if you wanted to. I mean if you want to come with us you're more than welcome to. Now we're as safe here as we are anywhere. What happened to Flask of Wine and River Mist? Was he there?

Wait, when did River Mist die? I can't remember if it was the same night. Oh, gosh. Neither can I. You spend time catching up. Yeah, we do. We do. So now it is joint knowledge.

Cooper Louie. So are the guys, are the people who sent the snake still just chilling or have they fucked off? They're, they're slowly packing up. Oh, actually, you know what? They're setting up camp. It's nighttime. We should see who the fuck. Hey, Quasha, you know who the fuck they are.

No, I don't know who they are. He squints through the darkness at them. We should find out. I think it's, it's odd if we don't know someone here, right? It can't be good. I mean, it's odd if we don't know someone here, right? It can't be good. It's not a big place. Do you mean to go talk to them or do you mean to go talk at them? No, I'm not talking to no one.

I mean to go spy on them. Oh, okay. Oh, I can sneak. I can sneak up. You're a good sneaker. I can sneak up. Yeah, she's very good at sneaking. I am beaming.

This and leather work. That's my two things. Leather work's very good at sneaking. I am beaming. This and leather work. That's my two things. Leather work's my one. True. I've got another heal for the day. I might second level heal myself again, just to get my hit points back up, and then heal myself tomorrow morning.

Yes. I'll do that, Adam. You. You recover a mighty seven hit points. It's not mighty at all. It's not mighty at all. It seems fairly basic, actually. Is the opposite of mighty slightly? Sorry, you also cast it first level?

Can I also? I think you have first level spells left. You know, I haven't used any first level today. I've just used two second level versions of Cure Wounds. Can I do a whole bunch of Cure Wounds as the first level to get myself back up? All right. You might need to use all four of them, and that might not be enough, but we'll find out. I don't need it all the way, but better than where it is would be good.

I'm just looking at my max HP, and I know it's never going to be that again. I'm sorry. Hello, darkness. My name's Tom. You recovered 26 hit points. Yay! Well, do you want to go in and do some reconnaissance of that camp? We'll make camp here

because we're not great at... I'm pretty good at sneaking, but I don't know if they rely on the darkvision. Cooper Louie's also quite good at stealth. I'm actually good at stealth, but just Tiffany's really good. That's right, isn't it? I got paranoid until all of a sudden I was terrible.

You're both good at sneaking. Like your bonus pop is four. So that's positive. You're still doing all right. But Tiffany's bonus is ten. Holy shit. You're outstanding. But where?

In a field. But we can't see you. Cooper Louie is only plus four, but because of the vegetation, he gets advantage on his role. Well, how about... Because he just looks like another plant. Baby, precious. Oh, precious. Well, how about Koopa Louie and I go scout it out?

Do you want to go Koopa Louie? Or do you want to spend time with Quasha? Koopa Louie nods. He's not that sort of a guy, Quasha says. He's not very sentimental. He's all about action. Koopa Louie nods. Oh, my gosh.

Little man. Little man. Little man. All right, I guess I'll hang out with old boring pants. Please, my name is Quasha. Did I ever come up with a nickname for Quasha? I feel like I hate him, too. Maybe not as much as I hate artists. No, no, no, no, no.

I think I don't mind Quasha. Quasha is, it seems like you just don't care about him to the point where it disadvantages instead of being like, oh, whatever, do whatever you like. Yeah. Whereas artists, I'm like, if you died tomorrow, I'd loot your corpse. I mean, I'd loot everyone's corpse if they died tomorrow. If you, if you you if you died tomorrow maybe it was me you you tiffany and cooper louis start stealthing your way across the clearing towards

the camp they're setting up two tents and a campfire is being uh well yeah they're also making a campfire there's about 10 of them in total you're just trying to slowly like count them without being spotted and without revealing yourself it's hard because they've started moving in between in between the two tents and you're still at a little bit of a range and it's dark so it's hard to make out their exact numbers. You think about 10, give or take. Okay. So where exactly would you like to approach from? You're coming from the east, but if you want, you can move around, try to go northwards, try to go southwards,

or just try to keep coming in from the east. Look, I'd go for whatever I'm closest to, so retreating quick could be an option. Okay. But is there another vantage point that would get me a lot better sort of vantage point? To make Yel Yark, the Batari had to clear a large swathe of area of trees, so there's not a lot of ground to hide behind.

There's a slight sloping hill coming down from the south that ends in the flat plain and then trees beyond the clearing. But there's not a lot of other cover anywhere. There's a lot of light grass around here that you have been hiding yourself in so far and that you could continue to hide yourself in. that you could continue to hide yourself in. The grass thins out the closer or the further west you go until finally there's a river that was on the other side of Yalyark. Okay. So people going back and forth between the tents, can I sort of gather from what they're doing whether one tent is for,

you know, medic or something. Do they both look like just setting up camp or does one look like it's being dedicated to something else? It looks like both the tents are for sleeping. Okay. This isn't a very, it's not a complicated camp. It's just presumably they're staying here for the night, like what you guys would do, but with tents.

How many horses? There's just the one horse. The guy has dismounted off the horse and he's now among the other people you're at such a range that you can't make out individuals you could try getting closer if you wanted to that would also let you count easier i might sneak a bit closer okay slowly cooper louis comes with or maybe no we're probably... Are we probably about even with our sneaking ability in grass? Like I said, you're better at hiding,

but Koopa Louie has that natural edge that he already looks like a plant. Especially if he's standing still, he just looks like a weed. Or maybe in that case, I send Koopa Louie a bit further forward if he has less of a chance of being seen. Are you still moving forward? A little bit, but then Cooper Louie goes further. So I'll move like a couple. All right, all right, all right.

So as you get closer, they've lit the fire and it's burning quite happily, sending a little trail of smoke up into the sky. At a closer range, you've got a better look now. There's 11 total people in the camp there's four locals you presume tribals a mix of probably local cheltians some tabaxi maybe actually it might be a tabaxi and three cheltians four tribals total. Then there's five people who look like maybe low-level thugs or low-level enforcers, something like that. They're wandering around the camp. They would be... So the tribals are, like, wearing maybe leather armor, if not probably, like, hide armor made out of animal skins and such but those five that look

like they're actually part of the part of the group not just guides they'd be wearing leather armor as well but their leather armor is like properly worked like like what you would do rather than just a tanned hide it looks like well there's no such thing as mass production in a medieval society but it looks as close to mass production as you can get. All of their armor as well has a symbol blazoned upon it. It's pressed into the leather work, so there's no color to it, but you can still make it out quite clearly. It's a diving snake-like shape with wings. And now, a quick word from our sponsor.

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no uh it has more feathery type wings yeah the one we just saw is a big uh horrible hideous a big leaf of flesh yeah then there's a a priest presumably you see another person walking around with a tabard, like a priest's vestments. Yeah. You can't place the god. So you can see the sigil. The sigil is like several different circular shapes around the sigil of a flame. And then finally, there's one other person also wearing leather armor with the snake sigil stamped into it, who looks to be the person in charge, the person that was mounted on the horse. He's bald or balding, and he has a scar running down one side of his face.

He's an elf. Well, I might sort of call Cooper Louie back and just be like, let's go back and sort of sneak back to camp and share what I saw. Quasha and I have been making small talk. Very small talk. Ten minutes ago, you and Quasha sitting in perfect silence. I'm content. This is great.

Perfect silence. I'm content. This is great. Quasha maybe has been knitting something. I like Quasha more than I like artists, because you know what? Artists would have tried to have a fucking conversation with me. Although I miss the fucker. All right.

So, okay. So we found a few things. It looks like they've got some Choltians with them. One of them was a Tavaxi. They had some just thuggy-looking people around. They all had that snake on there, like a snake symbol on there, but it wasn't like the one we saw. It was just a simple description of the snake sigil or symbol and you and both quasha at the same time both of you under your breath you hiss zentarum zentarum what the zentarum

are i say what adam is now saying yeah the zentarum are mercenaries they're not nice people they're so some people know them as the black network those people who know them as the black network understand that this to call the zentara mercenaries is kind of an understatement they sell themselves both figuratively and literally as swords for hire people who will work for coin as basically an army that you can pay for if you want to but actually underneath all of it there are very highly sophisticated and organized group that is attempting to cede its own power throughout the world for kind of unknown aims and goals. Their objective has shifted a few times across history, but it's never been particularly good. They're often under the command of some high Primarch who has basically aims of domination, both of people and the world.

aims of domination both of uh people and the world you're not exactly sure why the zentaram are working for these goals right now it's typically only until after the primarch is dead that you find out what their goals were but it's to it's to be very easily assumed that the zentarim are not here for uh for anything other than the acquisition of power for power's sake you know that the zentarim are employed as mercenaries very regularly and commonly in port nayanzaru they're basically the town guard there they're not good fucking people you sure know a lot about the Zen Tarim. Yes. If you spend enough time in a particular place in which a particular group of people are prevalent, you learn a lot about that particular group of people, don't you?

Yeah, I've learned a lot about you. I roll my eyes so hard my eye falls out. Well, there was also a priest. I couldn't tell which god they worship though there were all these circular shapes around a flame do you know that cirric the circular shapes would be skulls and the flame would be the darkness it is exactly as morbid and fucking douchey as it sounds oh what fucking group puts skulls and fucking, we get it, you're hard, mate. Wankers.

There was also, I think, the person we saw before, I think they're in charge. They're bold. They're an elf. I fucking hate elves. I fucking hate elves. Sanctimonious pricks. Well, I guess this group isn't... They're not our friends.

No. No, they are not. Do we leave them? We do. We absolutely do. Well, Koopa Louie, did you see anything else? Koopa Louie shakes his head. Kwasher says, what's the play here?

Are we doing something about this or are we just walking away? I mean, it sounds really bad for everyone, but we can already have so much to do, you know? They outnumber us. I don't know how math works. If they're trained killers, we probably don't have much of a chance. Well, how about we move on a bit so that we're not anywhere near them and then we summon.

I was about to say, we have something they don't. The thing we have that they don't. We don't. We've never used it before and we need it. We can't destroy it. We're trying to fight. I mean, you're saying this army is massive. They're pretty much the town guard of Port Nyanzaru.

There's only 10 of them over there. Is that how many there were, 10? 11 in total. Right. There's only 11 of them over there. I'd take out a couple. You'd take out a couple. Koopa Louie would take out about half a dozen.

Quasha, I've no idea what your fighting capabilities are like. I assume at least one. I'm a fair fighter, but I'll probably stand behind and provide support. That's what I'm better at. I can do a little bit of magic. I mean, my gut tells me we should get as far away from these fuckers as possible, because odds are they want what we just got. Well, then I think we should get far away from them.

Yeah. We'll keep wary of them, but I think we should get far away from them. Yeah. We'll keep wary of them. But I think fuck off. Although I do just want to summon a stone golem, steel guardian, iron. Shield guardian. Thank you. It'll take days to get there, though. If it was coming right now, it's like, oh, maybe fight them a bit,

see what the guardian can do. How long does it take? How far away are we from Vaughn? We're a couple of days away, aren't we? Yeah, you're several days away from Vaughn we're a couple of days away now yeah you're several days away from it'll take it days on the bright side vaughn can just move like vaughn doesn't need to sleep or eat so now that you you've summoned him no i haven't yet no well when you summon him he will just keep moving towards you at his maximum speed until he gets to you my worry is these guys are gonna fuck fuck us. If we come upon them

in the dark and with the aid of surprise, we might be able to take them. I used all the oil. Is it once a day? Next dawn. Ah, damn it. It's going to be like, we could set one of their tents on fire. I have a flask of oil. I have two flasks of oil.

I have some miscellaneous equipment. I think oil is among it. Well, I'm thinking it is. We set their tents on fire, and when they come out, we present ourselves as a dangerous legion of bastards. Well, we could even, I mean, we could summon Vaughn. What do you want to do to them? I don't like them, and I want't like them and I want to fight them

You want to fight them? But I also Because my gut's like They're here for Vaughn They're near where he was They were just fighting the wizards Who want Oh no the wizards want artists because they want his magic ring

So I imagine maybe Also they're working for someone. My money's going to be on the other merchant prince guy whose name I always forget who we were supposed to get a map from but didn't. Oh, yes. Grug. Yeah, we were meant to register with them. Jabal.

I have a feeling they're working for Jabal. Well, if we want to take them out, it might be better if we just took them out. So avoid fighting while they're sleeping douse their tents in oil make a little oil trail set a flame and run i mean i don't hate that idea so what's the plan here well if we wait until they're asleep cooper louie and i can sneak up oil their tents connect trail. We'll start a blaze. Start a blaze and run. Why?

Is this Adam asking us or is this Quasha asking us? What will that accomplish? Well, they're bad people. You just said they were bad people. So we set their tents on fire? With them in them. I don't know if that'll trap them. I don't think you're going to kill many people doing that.

What if we made a ring to fire around the camp? Well, they can just jump through fire. I don't think you're gonna kill many people doing that what if we made a ring a fire around the camp well they can just jump through fire i don't think you have enough oil to do that i think our options are fight them talk to them leave those are our options as i see it what do you think washer you know about them um the tribals i don know, but I don't think in a fight, if the fight goes, they're just hired probably as guides. If a fight goes poorly, they're not going to. Quasha starts laughing. Cooper Louie starts chuckling as well. They're just hired as guides. They're probably not going to die for the people who hired them.

Ha ha, laughing up no um uh but yeah i i think if we don't focus on the tribals if we focus on the low-level enforcers or the boss i think we'll stand a better chance additionally if you wanted, we could get them to surrender, maybe. Well, the guides in a different tent. Could I see that? The guides? No, you couldn't. Well, if they're not going to die for the cause, we could just say to the guides we're going to attack and that they should leave and come back when the fight's finished. Why come back at all? Well, that's up to them, isn't it?

Yeah, I really want to fight these fuckers. Why do they want Ardis? No, I don't assume they want Ardis. I'm assuming the Wizards of Thay want Ardis because he said they're looking for his ring. Okay. Did you tell Quasha and Koopa Louie about the ring? Would you have furnished them with that information? I probably wouldn't have.

No. Did you? I would. See, I wouldn't have because it's Artis' secret, but it's Artis' secret, so you might. Yeah, but I'm also not, like, I hate him, but I'm not an idiot. Okay, yeah. I think.

No, no, that's fair enough. I wouldn't have because it was his secret. Yeah. I would have thought about it and then been like, nah, because I don't want them betraying me to go after the ring. Yeah. Okay. So we just don't mention that part.

Okay. You skip over that part. But you did tell them about Artis, Simba and Dragonbane. We told them about our new friends. Well, people who won't leave us alone. All right. They are gone. Yeah, they're all missing.

Where are we all meeting up? They knew to come. We should wait here because the idea was to get to here. Yo-Yark. Or, because we could always meet at Vaughan. They don't know how to get back to Vaughan, though. The plan was we couldn't get Vaughan to work, so we're going to head over to Yo-Yark.

River Mist does. Yeah, but they don't know. They don't know we've been to Yeliyark. Yeah, we need to stay at Yeliyark. We need to stay here. No, we moved Yeliyark. Yes, but they don't know we've moved Yeliyark. Right.

You had the magic power, not them. Yep. Which makes me think we shouldn't attack, because if we're waiting near where Yeliyark is and we attack these guys and reinforcements come we're in trouble we're in big trouble we could scare them off that's what i was thinking could we batman them make them think there is something well what i think we could do is instead of this batman whoever that is what we could batman fucking weird guy lives in town has lots of

money runs around dressed like a bat on the weekend all right two ways that i think we could scare them we could do your way which might work but and i forgive me please because i heard this in a story once but i quite like this idea what we do is we set a lot of fires campfires then we as a group go and approach them and we say that the campfires are our army and that they need to clear off i like that idea i like that idea a lot actually it has a certain how do you say it genesee qua brilliant i don't understand that language is that gnomid. Actually, it's halfling. Halflings speak French. The halflings speak French?

I speak in the halfling. You go into a halfling butcher, you're like, ah. Un baguette. Bouffe. Uh, monsieur, uh, de boeuf. What other language did I come up with? I have Infernal. What was...

Oh, Draconic. I'm begging Draconic. Aquan was Aquaman, but I'm not doing that. I have the idea of Aquan being French. Pardon. Buff. How you say Big Turtle? Light the fires?

Let's do that. All right. Split up lots of fires. You split up and you light as many fires as you can as quickly as you can. Then you reconvene. By the time that you've reconvened, you can see that the figures in the Azantarum camp, they're all standing up and looking in your direction. Who wants to be our negotiator?

Well, I think it should go to the person who is the most harsh, and I nudge you forward. I think we should all go out as a group, though. If things go south, we'll at least be there to back you up. And if we have our weapons out, we're ready. Let's go. Scare some fuckers. I'm excited.

Give them a bit of the old boo. You start strolling out towards them. As you're doing that, the person in charge gets remounted on their horse and slowly rides out to meet you with the priest and two of the low-level looking enforcer types. Know what they say about a bloke gets on a horse to come to a meeting? What do they say? He's compensating for something.

Legs? Dick. Well, I think with your leg injury, it might be wise for us to get you a horse. Never mind, Tiffany. Never mind. I give Kavala what he look like. See what I'm fucking dealing with here? He gets it. He gets it.

He gets me. When you look away, he looks at you, Tiffany, and shrugs. I shrug back like, I don't know. You pull up about 30 feet away from each other. Maybe further than that, actually. We'll call it 50 feet away from each other. Or at least when you get to 50 feet away from each other, the person on the horse puts up a gloved hand and says,

Halt! Who goes there? I'm asking the questions. Who the fuck are you? I am Quinkle, the blind. I'm sorry, come again? My name is Quinkle, the blind. You say Quinkle like Quinkle, Quinkle, little star. I do not understand that reference, Quinkle says.

Dumb fucking name. Who are you? Doesn't matter who I am. I am the one now asking the question. Who are you? What can you see? He leans over and says, a bunch of fires. How many fires?

Many fires. For I to tell you that every one of those fires are a group of men sitting there warming themselves, and they make up the entirety of our army, and we outnumber you drastically, and there is a lot more of them surrounding you than us, that I don't think it matters who's giving the orders, do you? Quinkle the blinds. He, like, to look at the fires he lent a little he didn't need to he's just i don't know for pageantry maybe he lent a little

on one side leaning around as if he's trying to look around you at the fires in the distance he straightens up looking at you and he says you you know, I do remember, must have been at least a year ago at this point, a story a friend of mine told that was very remarkably similar. Quasha is like pulling on your, oh, you don't have a tunic. Belt. Quasha pulls on your belt a little bit and says, I think he knows this story as well.

Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. Adam, what do I need to do to activate the amulet? You just need to- Think about it? Click your heels three times and say, there's no place like home, buddy. No, you just- Well, you need to hold the amulet, but then just mentally you concentrate and summon it. Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool.

Then what's in my body you know i say about stories though friend though is that stories are always based a little bit on the truth oh get a good boy card that fucking rocked the story was about someone pulling a prank so uh i you had to make a deception and then an intimidation check. I'm going to make you. It's another deception check and another intimidation check. Ooh, get a good boy card again. Yes. Perfect 20 on your deception check. You're the best boy.

And you did quite well. All right. You do quite well this time. Good. Quinkle the blind goes a little pale, even in the darkness with just torchlight. You can see that the blood is leaving his face. What do you want? What the fuck are you doing in my jungle?

We've merely set up camp. I'm sorry, did you have this place marked? What's the river you named? Yeah. In fact, to get here, you would have had to cross a stream named after me. Oh? Yeah.

Mandarin River. So your name is something Mandarin? No, my name's Mandarin something. That's also a deception. Is that a skill check? It's skill, yeah. You didn't do very well. Would you like to help yourself out?

I would like to succeed on this skill check. Just for the fact, it would just be so embarrassing to be like, nah, that's my name. And someone would be like, oh, fuck off. Fuck off, that's your name. Yeah, he seems to believe that. So I ask you again, what are you doing in my jungle? We're here on official business, he says.

You can tell, he's just trying to deflect the question, basically. He doesn't want to answer. My dear friend, Horns. I'm not going to use any real names because, you know. Did that sound like an answer to the question that I just asked the good man? I really don't think it did. I just love it if you just take your mask off.

Oh, yes. Yes. Get your scary face out uh quinkle quinkle puts up both of his hands and says okay okay you could put that thing away i um i've been sent here i'm we're searching for a person by the name of artist simber we've been told he's i don't know somewhere in this Artus Simber. We've been told he's, I don't know, somewhere in this jungle with a lizard creature. Fucking what? I don't know.

A lizard creature. A lizard creature. Oh, wait. He doesn't name me. That's my internal thought process. What do you want with this Simber? He has something that we're looking for. Who's we?

The Zhentarim. I understand how you fuckers work. Who's paying you to be here? I'm paying me to be here. I heard about it and I came out and searched myself. Oh, so you're rogue agents just doing your own thing on the will of your organization rather than in the employ of anyone something like that yes right well i haven't seen an art of simba around these parts here where we're camping that's not a lie adam that's not a lie no so i guess you can toddle along it looks like he's taking him every ounce of his own willpower to do this,

but he nods stiffly and says, Very well, then. He turns around on his horse. Oh, just... Horns? What you're saying just a moment ago would be fortuitous to say, Obtain a horse. Well, I think it's only fair.

I mean, you have two working legs and you can see. I've got a sore one. I can't lead an army with a bung leg, can I? Give us your horse. Think wisely, because I also need a new face. Get another good boy card. Get a horse.

Quinkle the Blind is spluttering with anger, but he looks down at the priest next to him. The priest shrugs, and Quinkle gets off the horse, leaving it behind as he walks away. Fuck yes. Good job, guys. Well done. Quasha, that was quite a good idea.

Thank you. Good work, Horns, on the face stuff. That was real good. Thanks. The Zhentarimorns, on the face stuff. That was real good. Thanks. The Zhentarim pack up their camp and leave. We set up camp where they were. Yeah. Oh, man, that was great fun.

When we find out a Simba again, I've got a lot of questions to ask him. What answers does Ardis have for our heroes? Find out next time on Once Upon a Time in Zombie Plagued Chult. on Once Upon a Time in Zombie Plagued Chult. of bonus shows and content. Once again, available to Sants Pants Plus members, the further adventures of the Greyhill Free Company if you want shorter campaigns with beautiful guests, and D&D is for Nerds, not Ognot, where all our non-canon D&D adventures go to rest.

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