Dice Shame - 108 | 'On the Ropes'

Episode Date: November 4, 2021

On their way to the next spirit mound, the party runs into a little problem... Comedy, action and a whole lot of shaming come together in Dice Shame, an Actual Play Podcast of Storm King's Thunder by Wizards of the Coast! Join our GM Jo; her partner Harlan, his brother Alex & their best friends Justin and Rob as they tackle the daunting world of Faerun in this legendary adventure module! Dice Shame is a podcast that welcomes its audience to the gaming table. Like the games they play at home, they try not to take themselves too seriously. The show aims to be entertaining, inclusive, and irreverent, while still taking the rules (somewhat) seriously. Join us every Thursday morning for brand new episodes available on all major platforms including; Spotify, iTunes, Google Play and more! If you haven't checked it out yet... what are you waiting for?!? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Big bugs! Big bugs! Yeah, no, I get there big... Doran, you tie yourself off like last night, too, and hand your end to Jack. It's a shield of faith, faith, faith, faith. It's a shield of faith, faith, faith. You want to hold on to me? I'm pretty heavy. Kralath, you've got to look at your face. What are you seeing?

There's some blobby material. Yeah. How's shit, how's it? I think we lost red. But I don't want to. Doesn't taste all that bad, actually. And I point DeZan's wand at it, and I try to turn it into a salmon. Oh.

Wow. Looks like your flight just became a fillet. Welcome back to Dice Shame, episode 108 on the ropes. MVP this week is A.J. Reardon, who came to us by way of ye old Apple podcast shop. Hey, AJ, this one's for you. This Saturday, November 6th, is Extra Life, a yearly charity event we do in some support of Sick Kids Hospitals. At midnight at the start of the 6th, Joe and myself

will tuck in for the long haul, 24 straight hours of gaming. We'll be doing a ton of PC games, RPGs, and even a live hot ones challenge with the cast and crew of Dishame and Invictus. If you want to join along, visit our Discord for the live link, and of course, please donate if you can. You can find out how at

www.extralife.org slash participant slash Invictus. Don't miss it. All right, shall we do this? Yeah. Yes. So do you guys think that people listen to the beginning of our show? What?

No. Sorry, I wasn't listening. I don't want to start a bad precedent. Are you talking about listeners or us? Because I definitely don't. No, no, no. Alex just adds quips here and there. No, but I mean, I feel like some people probably just like skip, skip, skip, skip,

100%. Oh, yeah. 100%. I think some people hear it. They hear the intro, and then they skip, skip, skip, skip, skip. And then when, like, sort of music comes in. That's interesting. Because some people on our Discord are like,

oh, I love the intro this week. So funny. And they'll, like, chat with us about, you know, their recipes for fucking sushi or whatever it is. Right. And I feel like that's confirmation bias, right? The people who care about the intros are the people who post about the intros. Yeah.

But then the people who don't listen to the intros aren't hearing this right now. They're not. So we can trash talk them. You suck. Yeah, no. It's good. You're talking about skipping? Like, because I think it's a great form of exercise, personally.

Yeah, see, this is where Alex wasn't paying attention. And now he's trying to, he's like, he's like, I heard a word in this. What? I like to keep it short in the summer. Yeah, I think we should, we should help them out. For anybody who wants to skip the intro, you can jump to 45 minutes into this episode. Yeah, 45 minutes. And get the outro.

There was an episode a time or two ago where there really wasn't an intro. It just sort of went right into the show. And I missed it. a few of those lately. Do the people who skip ahead, do you think they skip ahead a couple of minutes too far? Like, how do they... You know what? That's right.

We're pulling an old pranky-wanky on them. You know what? I'm going to... I'm sorry, a pranky-wanky? That's right. Pranky-wanky? It's a technical term. Listen, you know what it is.

I got... Nirvana kid knows what it is. It's where we prank them. So they skip 15 minutes in and they're like, what on? They've got to go back. Oh, should we drop some fucking relevant shit right here in the... middle of an introduction? I want to bury some important shit in the middle of an introduction.

So what's Red's secret all about anyways? Ah, I'm glad you asked. Finally, a straight answer from Harley. Red is actually a changeling. Oh, that makes so much sense. He's never been a... I thought you were going to say chimpanzee. That too?

I think we should do an intro where we really reward the people who take the intro seriously so that if they play the intro backwards, it tells them... some secret messages. Race car doesn't sound the same back. It's a palindrum. Yeah, spell, not sound. Race car. It doesn't sound the same backwards.

Rasker. Rasker. There's a word for auditory palindrums, and I forget what it is. How many minutes of this do you think before nobody listens to any intras ever again. Oh, about negative two minutes. Really punishing the people who stick this out, aren't we? Would be one of those

spoken palindromes. Level. Level. No, because Lel. Lep. I mean, it's slightly different. Level. This is some Black Lodge shit over here. Oh, my goodness. And that's the secret message, everyone. Everyone has to know what their name is backwards, though. I feel like every kid

figured it out. Yeah. Right? Nalra. Trebore. Nadrodge. I really want to Jack or Rob to nervously be like, Johannes.

Like it comes out and you're like, oh, that's why. It's like, oh yeah, my name backwards is Kieran. I didn't realize it's going to be that old school a game. That brings me to an actual topic that I kind of am excited about. Henry, when he comes back from school, has been talking about the secrets. that he and the other kids have been finding on the school grounds. Yeah, because they have recess,

and sometimes they go to the park, and sometimes they go to the field. And the field is a mysterious place. And the kids are like, there's a group of kids that are investigating these secrets, and they find clues. So he's like, there are three things in the field that we don't know. It says there are signs without signs. So I'm assuming, like, polls.

He's like, there's a spooky path that, goes into the woods. But there's a pylon that says, don't go. And then my personal favorite, there's a hole. How did it get there? Just picturing like four, four-year-old kids standing around hands in pockets looking down at like a one-by-one foot hole that maybe goes down half an inch. Well, it's nothing unsafe, obviously. So it's just a little pothole, right?

I just love the image of him being like, it's a hole. And then being like, what is it? Maybe it's not even one by one foot. I remember being little and thinking the playground was mysterious. You can't consider the hole in isolation, no. You've got to look at the hole. The sum was greater than the holes, right? We're all a piece of the hole.

This is the point of the episode where Alex compares himself to a four-year-old. And realizes how many similarities. On my lawn, it's only this big. It's better than a dollar or a to-a-dollar. Okay, so maybe an inch or two wide. Americans don't know what a tuni is. Diameter. It's like a big quarter.

Oh, yeah, like a, oh, yeah, like a toony. And my point is, though, when it rains, like, water doesn't just, like, you know, flow. It, like, goes down this hole. I don't, I have no idea what's going on with this little hole. We're bringing Henry over. Deep enough. He is the hole, man. He is going to figure this shit out.

How deep is the hole? How deep is your hole? I really need to love. Because we're living in a world of holes. Filling those holes I suddenly feel really good about myself when you guys say that you don't recognize a song that I'm singing because I have no idea

what you guys are singing. You don't know that song? I do, but it sounds nothing like what it does. The Bee Gees? How deep is your love? I know. Sounds exactly, sounds nothing like that. Yes, it does. Harlan's going to splice in a bit of the Bee Gees right here

and we'll let the audience decide for themselves. How's that happening? How deep is your love? How deep is your love? How deep is your love? No, that's not how it goes, Alex. I believe to know, because we're living in a world of the

da-da-da-da. But that permissible words. That's exactly that. Right, Justin? Yes, that is exactly that. Note for a note. I think the truth is Alex just isn't in the song. I do.

I love who you guys make fun. of me for not knowing how songs go. We were talking about a hole, guys. Can we please get back to business? Yeah, it's talking about the two inch diameter hole. So where do you think the hole goes, Alex?

Underground. To an alternate dimension. I think it's a snake house. Is that like not day, but a night dimension? Snakehouse sounds like a leather bar. An alternate dimension? Let's pick up my nose hairs, okay? An alternate dimension.

What? He's picking his nose hairs so violently alternate dimension. And he's just flicking them onto the floor.

It's like this. Do people do it? Or is it just Alex? Only people with long nose hairs pull them. I get long nose hairs

sometimes. Do you pull that? It depends. Do you do them on camera around your friends? With sound effects. To be fair, you're not my friends.

To be to be fair, I hate you all. To be fair? Fuck you guys. All right. Should we play some D&D? Yeah. You know what, though?

I got to say, I appreciate when Alex does stuff like that, because it brings me right into role playing with Doren. Because I 100% could see Doren doing the exact same thing. There's a lot that's different between these two people. It's very in character. But Doren definitely would be someone who's like, let me just get this nose hair. Oh, I don't hurt. And then be like, why didn't I get the attentions of this lady of the house? Yeah.

the sound of mopey dragging footsteps descending the stairs towards your breakfast conversation interrupts you Damien how's it going it's time for burping shale no more complaining and Damien's got all these like deep scars all over his back Dalcifene says the ship is dragging we're not traveling as fast as we should be something about how it's not handling well or whatever She asked me to take a look at the hall But A second shift is about to come on I could really use a nap I can hardly keep my eyes open

Red, you owe me one man I don't know you shit But I like you and I'll do it for you Because I want to on my own volition Not because I owe you anything All right easy buddy You know You getting to spend time with shale

Is the best gift I can give you really He looks at shale With just a hint of fear in his eyes Can you just climb down there please and see what's going on underneath. You know, I could use a break from all this sitting. I'll come to. Cool.

Dwarves known for their climbing speed. Maybe I'll hold the rope. So Damien finds his way to his bunk and just like puts a big blanket over himself and curls up and is dead to the world within 35 seconds. Oh, sounds good. That was exactly 35 seconds, Jack. You guys go up on deck? Yeah, I think Red climbs up on deck.

And I think as he does, he touch. a little bit of wine dripping out of a wine skin Dorn left on the floor and casts icy mantle over himself just in case he should fall, assuming that he's going to have to... Thousands of meters to climb somewhere. Yeah, so the idea is that there's something on the underside of the ship that needs to be investigated. So you can climb your way down there with the assistance of some of the ladders, if you like.

Oh, here, Kralath, tie this off to something. and red ties a rope around his waist. Hmm. All right. Doran, you tie yourself off like last night too and hand your end to Jack. Yeah, of course. Well, Jack, I think you might want to tie this end off.

I don't... You want to hold on to me? I'm pretty heavy. I'm like 300 pounds. Yeah, I think that's what these moorings are for on the side. If you wrap the rope around a couple of times and then you can hold on to this end, you get... Oh.

It's simple machines. Wee! Red jumpsaw. hoping that incredible is like frankly trying to tie it quickly and like it goes taut just as red like hits the apex of the rope and just starts swinging off and like snaps back underneath oh yeah dorn did you say you're 300 pounds i'm just kidding okay i was going to say aren't you like four foot five he's thick he's chunky oh yeah no no i'm 150 pounds yeah plus armor of course that's like i have jack's weight is more than doris yeah but he's taller man so we got

Redd's over. Who else is going? Doran's going down. Yeah, Doran climbs over. And with knowing that there's a mission, the height is not an issue. In fact, he climbs down the ladder. He's tied off. All right. So Doran's on a ladder dangling and tied off. Red is just tied off to a rope around his middle. Yeah. And he's dangling. You're using like your claws to kind of... No, Red jumped off the side and like Krayla tied it and it snapped. straight and he kind of swung to the underside and he just like grabbed the underside of the hole with his claws and now he's actually backtracking a little bit the whole ship would have kind of done like a little bit of like a just a little it leans a little bit with my weight yeah a little wobble from the dorin and red you see some strange blob like

shapes clinging to the aft of the ship on its exterior clustered on one side around the rudder oh here i thought it was going to be ice or something but it's some blobby material. Hey, Jack, there's some blobby material. Hold on, don't touch it red. It's blueish and greenish and it's sticky. What is it? It's just blue, red. I'm colorblind. Stop rubbing it in. Now be careful, don't touch it. That might be one of those living ooze things. Where? It's not a bear. Did he say bear? It's not a bear. No, blue. Poking your head over the side of the ship, you cannot see these formations, Jack.

Let me see if I can describe it. I'll figure it out myself. I'll roll a nature check. Sure. How far away are you for them? I'm climbing closer, like, you know, like... 30 feet. 20 feet.

I feel like I'm like now on Doran's side and we're approaching together just with my long, long rope. So the runners, the skis underneath the ship, Doran's standing on the runners. 10. So Red, there's at least a dozen of these things stuck to the exterior of the ship. They're all like a little bigger than Kieran. in their recent golden retrieval form. So, like, medium size, small to medium sized. Small to medium sized, blueish, apparently.

They're black. Black blue. And ovoid shot through with veins of thick blue. And as you stand there, one of them wiggles. I don't know if that's normal, but wiggling. Red, they're living. They're living. They seem to be stuck to the ship with some kind of stringy adhesive.

And then you hear an angelo. An angry thrumming noise, and a big, dark, insectoid face appears from around the other side of the ship. Its mandibles open and close rhythmically, and it crawls along the underside of the ship towards you, revealing sharp, segmented legs, a swollen abdomen covered in dark bristles, crusted over with frost, and two pairs of glossy, purplish winds agitated, buzzing and pulsing. Another crawls around from the other side, and a third hums through the air straight at you. Oh, shit, how's shit?

Oh, what? Big bugs. Big bugs. Everyone roll for initiative. All right, Red, what'd you get? 11. Doren? Eight.

Jack, would you roll? 13. Kraloff, what'd you get? 11. Great. Did you want to go before or after Red? I'll go after. All right.

Jack, you go first. Ah. Mommy and daddy. I'm angry. What? We got bugs, Jack. We got bugs. Jack can see the one that's flying, but everyone else, and these blobs and the other two are

all in full cover. I think the first thing I want to do is just try and study it, figure it what the heck kind of big insect. Are those eggs that's laid at the back? What's going on? Are these a hive? Are they what, you know? Yeah, roll nature.

It would be a nature for show. What am I looking at? That's a natural 20 for 31. Oh, nice. Yeah, you've seen an illustration of one of these in a book, and you remember the article alongside it pretty much exactly. It didn't go into great depth, but you know that these are some kind of intelligent wasp

based on their coloration. This is probably their egg-laying season, and you imagine they are probably going to protect these eggs with everything they got. Additionally, you would expect them to have some kind of elemental resistance and vulnerability. Those are wasps and I guess it's the middle of the winter that they're laying eggs. I know other wasps start losing their ability to eat, go crazy with hunger. It's not a wasp, Jack. I'm looking at it. It's not a wasp. They're huge. Yeah, no, I get their big people name things down. Maybe just attack this one. You don't have any

bug spray, do you? Yeah, Jack sees this giant wasp with its kind of icy colored wings and take a shot in the dark and thinks fire's either going to work or it's not and points a finger and draws the ill-d-roon and a bolt of fire shoots out towards this critter. Having already wasted my natural 20 on the... Holy shit, it is a natural 20. Oh! Does it two in a row? Does it 28 hit? Oh, I suppose it does.

Well, let's see how they feel about fire. damage. Twenty-two. Yeah, I mean, from your perception of this firebolt, it certainly seems to be extra effective. Oh, beautiful. Nice. The fire just kind of roils over its body the way that paper catches on fire, you know, that like line of smoldering ash and the creature whirls in the air looking for its attacker. Yeah, they don't like the heat, guys. Yeah, they're wasps. Don't, don't piss them off. Well, I use spicy language, because I don't get any. Yeah. Jack's going to sort of run down the stairs or try and get somewhere a little bit of cover along the side of the ship and sort of send Kieran ducking back down the stairs into the galley, just so he's a little out of the way.

Okay, so Kieran runs below decks, and Jack, you do kind of a similar maneuver? Yeah, not quite out of the way, but just moving enough to get a little cover from these things, so maybe it's not going immediately stab me with, I'm sure, is an icy spike. You hear the buzzing approach of its dual set of wings, and you watch as the creature hoves up above the deck and flies at you with its stinger extended. It's going to try to sting you with the stinger. Not loving that.

There's a wasper on my head. 10 to hit. A 10 will miss. And then one of its arms just, curls around the staircase and tries to spike you on its little talon. Mm-mm.

Fucking nine. Misses again. Ha-ha. That's some bullshit. All right, but the other two underneath crawl towards Doran and Red.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. One each. All right, Red. The one crawls down the sleigh runner at you and tries to skewer you on its stinger. 18 to hit?

It jabs at me and I go flying off the runner as the rope goes taut and spins me around to stand back up. That would hit, but my icy mantle shatters because I cast it before I went down. So rather than go through my flesh, it pushes me off, I spin around and I'm standing back on the rudder for a second, but the mantle has fallen. And I just looked to a door and I'm like,

don't get stung! Oh, that was good luck. And the creature's limb stabs at the place in the air where you were, and it misses you with one of its limb attacks. Cool. And now are you, are you, like, wrapped around the runner? Is that sort of how I was to do? Just once. Yeah.

Just once. I'm like just more anchored to it. That's awesome. The other wasp crawls towards you, Doran. That's a natural one. Oh, nice. But with the limb, that's 22 to hit. Oh, that hits.

That hits you? Yeah. So it hits me with the limb. and I kind of lose my balance a bit, and maybe I fall dangling by the rope for just a moment below the runner. You take 11 piercing damage. Ow!

Red is your turn. Dorin is dangling below you. I see Doran falling. He's just like hanging from this rope over like hundreds of feet below. And I'm like, Doran! And I try to move, but the rope that I'm tied to is like wrapped around this thing.

So I'm like, I grab my dagger. I just cut it free and I go without a rope. I'm like I'm walking along the runner sort of balancing, trying to keep straight. And I'm like trying to balance as I'm walking. Don, I take my hand. And I lean forward and I like try to pull him. But he's like swinging back and forth

between the runners. And I realize I can't grab him. So I just push him with the end of my bow so that he like is penduluming farther to the other runner. And these wasps, they're like stabbing at you. So you're like dodging in between their attacks. And as I give him a good. I push, I bring my bow back just as I knock an arrow and I fire at the one closest to me.

All right. Nice. That'll be a 16 to hit. Miss. Wow, they got good AC. Mm-hmm. All right, we'll try again. 22 to hit.

Yeah, that one hits. Nice. 11 damage. Excellent. Kralath, it's your turn. Kralath, you see the rope go slack that was attached to red. Kralov sees this happening. It's saying, no, no, no, no, no, no.

And sees it's fray at the end. Mm-hmm. I think we lost red. I go into kill mode. Ooh. I've had party members go down before in the past. So I'm going to run up to this wasp. Try to get its attention.

As a bonus action, he's going to cast shield of faith on Jack, which is going to give him a plus two bonus to AC. It's a shield of faith, faith, faith. It's a shield of faith, faith, faith. Well, I guess it would be nice. If this wafts has your body. And he's going to pull out his mace of deception, and he's going to try and smash this bug in a wing or something.

Because you've got to have mace, mace, mace. That's good. That's very good. Baby. All right, let's see. 16 to hit. No, sir. Nope.

All right. Then that's my turn. All right. Doren, you are dangling from that. this rope. Red is trying to help you desperately. With a single arm, he reaches up half the length of the rope and pulls himself up so he's then able to grab onto the runner. And then with his other arm, one arm on the runner lifts his entire body back up onto the runner so that he's now strailing it. Nice. With that other arm, he retrieves Ork Splitter from his back and he swings as a little bit of

The Wasp thingy. I'm going to use a bit of luck here. Does an 18 hit? No. Oh, my God. These things ACs are crazy. The creature just dodges out of your way, lightning fast. Then I swing again.

All right. Does a 22 hit. Oh, yeah, that hits. Nice. Doing 13 damage. Nice. Teamwork, Doren. Yeah, it was because of the...

I know. Oh, thank you. You lodge Ork Splitter into the chiton behind this creature's wing and just a spurt of insect blood squirts out. Goose. Ew. Jack, it's your turn. You are being menaced by one of these giant wasps and Kralath is right there with you. Yeah, I don't like this wasp in my face one bit.

And so I like, there's an instinctive want to push it away. But while I push outward with my hand, I push out mentally with all. all of my telekinetic strength and try and push this thing back away from me towards the flame that's keeping the balloon full of hot air? Sure, yeah. Strength saving throw. I rolled a dirty 20. Oh, it don't move.

It's staying right there. It's staying right there, huh? What else? What else do you do? Not cool. Surely there must be something else. It's true. I will then pull out the spell guard sphere and grip it tightly.

in my hand as it fills with Lathander's holy sunlight and tries to evaporate the soul out of this creature and I toll the dead as this clear bell-like sound rings out. That's a wisdom saving throw of 16.

Two. Hey, that's the number I'm looking for. Two is smaller than 16. Is it? Wonderful. Wonderful what they're doing with numbers nowadays, isn't it? Wonderful stuff. Twelve necrotic damage. Yeah, the creature's mandibles just slow, they're clicking,

and then its eyes sink deep within its little titan its carapace, and the wings just break, and his body collapses on the deck. You've killed it. Wow. Good job, Jack. All right, the other two bugs are still alive. Doran, are you good? There's two more of these waspy things.

The wasp that you are attacking with orchids. Slitter tries to stab you with its stinger, like puncturing the runner, I imagine. Kind of like, what's the name of that spider in Lord of the Rings? Shiloh. Shelab. Shelab? Yeah. Oh, Tony Shalub.

It's so like Tony Shalub in that it's puncturing the runner with its long stinger, and like Doren's trying to get out of the way. Does it get you with a 19? Yes. The sting lances into your front. Flesh, Doran. Ow! You take

fucking five piercing damage. I hope I don't swell. Eight cold damage. And you must succeed on a Constitution's saving throw against being poisoned. Do you have advantage on those? No.

Resistance to poison saving throws against poison. There you go. So what did you get? 15. All right. You're fine. Doren, no!

Ow! I mean, you just got stabbed so you're not like, Fine. And then the creature again swipes out one of its long spindly legs with its sharp talon and tries to stick you

with another 19. Oof. Oh, that one hits as well. 13 piercing damage. It's got you cornered now. I feel like you're on the very end of the Slay Runner and the creature is menacing you

and you're trying to keep your balance while this creature is also attacking. And then the other one attacked you red with a 14 with its stinger. No! Uh, yeah, so it misses you with its little sword talon. Red, what do you do? Oh, thank goodness.

Red sees Doran take two juicy hits from the wasp, and he says, No, Doran! He turns his bow towards the creature that's engaged with him, and he says, Get out of here! And I fire with a 22. That hits? Six damage. Then he runs along the runner to Doran, and since he has fleet of foot, he does not take an attack of opportunity.

And as he's running, he's firing his bow. at the one engaged with Doren with a 22 to hit. Stay away from him. Excellent. 20 damage. Kralath, your turn. Kralov is going to do something crazy. He's going to grab onto the frayed rope.

I'm going to tie it around himself. I'll be praying to Kullim for, Jack, but please say a prayer to Lathander as well. And he's going to jump over the side. and pull his rip cord on his balloon pack and push himself out so that he has more of a view of the side of the airship. Cool thinking. Yeah, that's awesome. I like that. Cool.

So, yeah, the length of the cord is about 40 feet that you're attached to and you float 40 feet away horizontally from this airship. Yeah, yeah. And I think eventually if the airship's moving forward, I'm going to be kind of behind it. So I'll be able to see the rudder. And you see Red and Doran fighting these two wasps. You see the one wasp has cornered Doran on the end of the runner. It's trying to pick him up almost. As a bonus action, I'm going to cast a spiritual weapon.

Of course. Of course. The slow-moving stalker weapon. And I'll do it as a level, just a level two. Great. And my scythe appears next to the. Wasp. Is there a way that I can attach it to the boat somehow so it's not sticking on the ride?

Sticking on the ride. It's just like flies past it one round. Yeah, absolutely. As I get out, I cast spiritual weapon and create my scythe right next to the wasp that's attacking Doran. And it swings with a 20 to hit. Yep, that hits. All right. And it's going to deal.

What's to go, Scyth? Let's go. Woof, hoof. Ten points of damage. Excellent, yeah, this ghostly luminous Scyth. Whishing! Comes down. And Kralath, your vantage point gives you an excellent view of the side of the boat as these eggs begin to shudder and burst open.

Oh, I should have gone up to the eggs. If you hear this repulsive, wet, cracking sound, And these wasps young crawl forth, hungry, looking for a blood meal. With gossamer wings, they stretch and launch unsteadily into the air, unwinding a curled probing mouth part. Ah, shit. And they fly towards you. We got babies. Here, look at their curled probing mouth parts.

Kralith, you got to look at your face. What are you seeing? Uh, a lot of bugs. There's about a dozen of them. It's Doren's turn. Doran's going to take a big hard swing at the adult wasp that's in front of him. And hopefully that's not going to hit with a 19. It does.

It does. Nice. Well done. You got it. We found the AC, everyone. We did it. And that's going to do 18 damage. Excellent.

And again, he's going to. attack? Nah, this is 16, which misses. Yep, you miss. All right, top of the round. Jack Page. Jack runs up the stairs up to the poop deck and tries to peer over to see if the extra height sort of gives him a bit of an angle to see what's going on down below.

No, you can't see anything. You see Kralov stretched out on his tether and you see his lovely balloon pack and you see the panic on his face, but you don't see any of the combat. I ready a spell for as soon as I can see some critter. And I... Kieran, no! And I sit there, Desan's wand, ready, half a spell cast, ready to tie the knot in it and pull the tree. All right.

The big bug next to Doran tries to get one last little fight in. Don't let it, Doran. 20 to hit you. Dang it. I'm trying here, Red. It hits you again with his stinger. Is there anything I could do? Can I, like, leap out of the way? No. That's not how AC works.

No, that's right. You can't just be like, but I run away. But I don't want to. Can't hit me. Can't hit me. I know, for some reason, it feels different because I'm standing on this, like, balance beam. You know what I mean? But, no, yeah, you're right.

So that hits. What sort of damage we're looking at here? You take seven piercing damage. It's pierced me. You take eight cold damage. Oh, hey, eight cold damage. And you must succeed on a constitution saving throw again as this creature injects you with some kind of poison.

Kill that thing, Doran. Don't like that one bit. That's going to be another 15. Nice. Yeah, you're fine. But then it tries to stab you with its arms. Arm stabs. What?

Arms stabbers. Fifteen. you're fine. No, I say as he misses me with his arms. No, no, no, no, no. This final wasp launches itself up at the tantalizing, dangling cleric. Uh-huh. Flies all the way over to you, and in doing so, activates Jacks.

I finish the spell, and I point Desan's wand at it, and I try to turn it into a salmon. Oh. Can it make me a wisdom? Saving throw, please. I can't wait to see this fish flop out of the air. That's the three. Polymorphed into a salmon.

Goodbye. I said good day. That's great. Some farmer. Yeah, some farmer. I feel like it happens in like a really comical way where it's like. It's like a needle is coming right for Krayloff's head and then it just, and this fish just and he slapsed into the face.

It wiggles in the air. for three seconds and then... Yeah. Now some clever quip, Krayloff. Oh, shit. I never tried fly fishing, but I think I like it. You know what? We waited for it, but it was really good.

I liked it. Red, it's your turn. How clustered together are all these little waspies? They're fairly clustered together right now. I would say they make up about a 10-foot cube. and they're all flying at you. Red pulls out a special arrow and he pulls back ready to fire.

I'm going to use my advantage on this attack, but first, I'm going to use a bonus action to cast hail of thorns. Hail of thorns will hit any... Welcome to show, Hail of thorns. Yeah, I've had the spell for a long time, and I've never used it because it works in very specific circumstances.

The next time I hit a creature with a ranged attack before the spell ends, it creates a rain of thorns that sprouts from my ranged weapons. or ammunition. In addition to the normal effect, it targets each creature within five feet. They must make a dex saving throw, and they take some damage or half as much and all that kind of stuff.

And I'm also going to cast it at a level two. Okay. So I'm going to use my inspiration to see if this hits. Yeah, yeah. That would be a 21 to hit. Oh, yes. So all of them must make a dexterity saving throw. All of them?

The target of the attack and each creature within five feet. Yeah, you said they're all within a 10 foot square. So every little guy makes a deck saving throw. All right, here you go. So the DC was 14. So half of them fail the save. Nice. Well done.

Where to go, Red. So first off, the one that I'm attacking, let's say that's one that failed. It's going to take 27 damage. Oh, wow. That's the one that gets hit by the arrow? Correct. Oh, yeah. Your arrow flies, lands in this baby wasp creature, and it just explodes.

It showers little pieces of baby wasp everywhere. And then every other one that failed, the other five, take 15 damage. They all also explode. And then all the remaining take seven damage. They all also explode. So everything explodes. All of them explode in a hail of thorns. That's six seconds and 15 arrows take out 15 wasps.

That's pretty slick. That's awesome. What baby wasps? Red, bug zapper. I only see a salmon. Nice. Are the other ones hatched, or that was only one that hatched? No, that was all 12 of them are hatched.

Amazing. They all hatched and they were like, what's this bright world all about? Oh, look, our first meal. Deal with it. Wasps suck. Our first meal. And then I'm going to attack again.

That would be a 15 hit. No, you miss. Kralath, you're up. Good use of AEOE, friend. Thank you. All right, let's use my spiritual weapon to attack the remaining fly. Mm-hmm.

My scyth swings valiantly and fails miserably. And I'm going to cast Sacred Flame on the last fly, and it has to make a dexterity saving throw for me, please. Eight. Oh, it's going to take some D. It's going to take some D. All right. Right in the butt.

All right, we got the B. Seven. Oh, that's good. That's four. So 11 points of damage. Yeah. What does it look like when you kill the last wasp?

Oh, my God. Its stinger is throbbing and pulsing and still has a little bit of Doran's blood on it. I think it's the one attacking Doran, right? Mm-hmm. And it's going in for another round. This one seems to be very effective at its tactic. And right as it is going for Doran's left eye,

white light begins to emanate from its thorax. and its wings hesitate for a moment before it explodes in a shower of guts and I-Corps all over Doren that kind of freezes and cools the skin. It's actually kind of nice. So Kralath, you are tethered to this ship floating along behind it.

Yeah, I guess Kralov just kind of hanging out behind and the moment kind of settles over him, and he feels for the first time a sense of peace being up high. And then Red starts reeling them back in. I think Reds climb back up and he's like pulling you back in. Come on. Hey, buddy. And once he gets back on deck, Kralov gives Red a big hug.

What's that for? I thought I lost you there. When the rope was frayed, I feared the worst. Hey, you couldn't get rid of me even if you tried, bud. I'm here for the long haul. Good that you're still around. We thought I'd lost you. I feel like Doran one arm muscles up onto the deck of the boat,

just to show that he'd be in the hands still. Just covered in guts. Sorry about that, Doran. I killed a lot of baby wasps all over you. Yeah, that's okay. You know what? I'm not really that upset because it doesn't taste all that. bad, actually.

Oh, ew. Was it not? And Krayloff takes a finger and just wipes it down your cheek. Oh, don't do it, Kralov. That's terrible. Don't, oh, God. See, it's not bad, not too bad, is it?

Maybe I could include this in some sort of flambay. All right, what the hell? When in Rome, let's try it, Jack. You guys are disgusting. I feel like we all try it. Then we just turn to Jack, and Jack's like, I think it would be allergic. Just like face is just like three times this big.

He's allergic. to ice wasp. The days continue to pass, turning into night, turning into days, and you re-enter the valley of Cadroo covered in ice.

It's nearing the end of nightdall when you find your location on the horizon. There's a close call there for a minute. Thank you once again to our wonderful Patreon supporters, Christopher Ryan Evans, Merlin, Mitchell Cadwell, Ashley and J.B., Michael and Gryana Weber, Colin Burkart, Daniel, Doug, Jessica Orrett, Jonah Goldman, and Mari Kineski. See you soon.

I never tried fly fishing, but I think I like it. I like that. That's good. I just want the end of episode of the compilation of all the fishings. jokes that's yeah all the different take it's official not very efficient looks like your flight just became a fillet salmon salmon you got smoked thanks for taking the opportunity jack