Dice Shame - 118 | 'Pear-shaped'

Episode Date: January 13, 2022

After a terrible turn of events, the party confronts the true horrors of battle... 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.

We ain't out of this yet. Come on, boys. Not even a minute we got to hold out. I'm fine, I'm fine. Let's go. That beast stood right over top of them. Bullshit. Red pulls his arm away from Jack.

Yeah, I don't know that I'm feeling much of anything at the moment. We'll find another way. Two of us need to get up and over this hill. I'll be up in a second. Lithander can rub off on other people. That's fine. Here, you watch for rocks. Get to the front.

And secure this shortly. We're almost out of here. Take care of them. What are you doing? Something I should be doing more often. Watching out for all my friends. Welcome back to Dyshame. This is episode 118, Pear-shaped.

MVP this week is Badger the Hobo, who just joined the Discord and is making their way through the backlog. Nice to meet you, Badger. If you're enjoying Dice Shame, and you must be considering your 118 episodes deep in the show, unless this is your first time listening in which case stop go back to episode one please we had place to start friend but if you're in love with this show we would hugely appreciate it if you told some friends about it the best way for us to grow our numbers is by word of mouth so please mention us

whenever you're hanging out with like-minded nerdy folks or if you know someone who's searching for their new favorite podcast and thank you thank you all right should we play some d and d let's do it Jack, Doran, you're on the bank of this river. You watch as Kralov banishes the creature. Red, your perspective a little farther back in the trees. What do you do? Doran and Jack see an orange-red blur and the splashing of water as red bolts across the field

and through the forest towards his fallen friend. My intention originally was I can move him 20 feet in the air every turn. I was figuring we'd call down the ship and pick up Kralath in the air somewhere and haul him on the ship in Gtifo. But I guess we've got to get the boulder and shit. So that doesn't make sure. You got to get the boulder!

So I guess I'll have to... Yeah, and Red runs right past Krala to the bunt. I'm just kidding. Bye, buddy! Kralf has one hit point, though. He's conscious. Yeah, Red falls to his side. Kraloff.

He's like, buddy, buddy, are you okay? And he's like slapping your cheek in that kind of frustrating way. Come on, come on. No. I feel like we all kind of do that. We all kind of circle around Kralath, and we're like, come on. I think Jack's a step or two behind gently lowering Kralas' body back to the ground,

so it's there and ready for, you know, to land in your arms when you two arrive. True Neros. Red is going to cast Cure Wounds at a second level. Excellent. How many hit points does that give him? Where's Dena? Red lays his hands, and you regain 12 hit points. It actually does nothing.

Your spell does nothing. What? Do I notice that? You would recognize that Krayalath's condition fails to improve. What? Come on. And I cast it again. You fail.

You fail to cure Kraloth. I think Red looks up to Jack with, like, water in his eyes. He's like, it's not working. He almost steps back. Tell me what you were trying to do. I was trying to heal him. It's, look at him. It's not working.

Can I roll some more candidate? sort that out. Yeah, definitely roll arcana. Got a 21 arcana. The weave of the magic that Red cast was patent. There was no flaw with his spell casting, but something is wrong with Kralath. Jack, come on, what is it?

I think Jack takes two or three big steps back and tries to, like, grab Red and Doran and pull them away from Krayloth for a minute. Just to be like, like, step away, like, Oh, shit, that's a beehive or something. Like, pull them back from a danger. Yeah, and Red comes. What, what?

There are certain creatures for which that kind of healing magic you were doing doesn't work. Bullshit! Red pulls his arm away from Jack and runs over to Creelhoff's side and grabs a healing potion out of his bag and pours it down Creelof's gullet. Doren's sort of standing there watching the discussion go back and forth between Red and Jack.

I've never seen someone take so much damage and that beast stood right over top of him. I don't know anything for sure yet. Kralath, you regained six hit points with the help of Red's potion. What do you do? Kralath is confused. At one moment, he's looking up

and he's surrounded by his old squad mates, Captain Treneros, Denna, the others. The next moment, their faces meld into Doran and Red and Jack. Kralath, you're okay. I don't feel so good. You're here with us now. The ordaining.

That's right. Where's Marina? Doran kind of looks around scratching his head. Who's Marina? Sitting together. You idiot. The girl he had a crush on. She got a crush on.

She's not a lot. here buddy she's nowhere near here you're with us i i was with marina i we were fighting with terneros we were beyond the veil uh who jack red doran we're right here where have you been right here buddy the whole time you you were you were nearly killed there's only only a few moments really Let's get him back on the ship. I'll signal for it. Good thinking. Before you are able to signal the ship,

a boulder flies through the night sky and lands a hands breadth away from where you are standing. Everybody roll for initiative. Holy shit! Nice. Oh, my God. Natural 20. Listen to you. What is that?

23. Doran. That is a 17. Kraloth. 18. Hey. Jack? Eight.

All right, Red. What do you do? Red, without missing a beat, spins on his heels and looses an arrow in the direction of where the stone came from. Make a perception check. Sure. 16? Yeah.

You spot the giant that loosed the boulder at you just to the west of you. in the tree line on the other side of the stream. We ain't out of this death. Come on, boys. And again, the arrow just sings across as if a reaction. That's going to be a, I'm rolling better today, boys. Excellent. They need you.

It's going to be a 23 to hit. It does. 23 damage. Nice. And Red fires another one. Okay. 22 to hit. Yep.

Rolling rocks. 34 damage. Nicely done. Red is not having it. He's like, come on. signal for the ship jack let's get the fuck out of here trees follow us towards the boulder we're heading north and we'll use the tree for cover you hear the heavy footfalls of other stone giants approaching your location through the trees crayloth it's your turn crayloth is lying on the ground and still kind of

coming to his senses it's dark and he can sense his friends around him and he's starting to readjust he casts a spell where this beam of light descends on the group and only we can see it but I'm casting beacon of hope if anyone can heal now is the time yeah so basically that's going to give you maximum potential healing cool also I'm going to stay down on the ground um so that I have anybody attacking me ranged has disadvantage, right? Mm-hmm. Doran, it's your turn. Doran grabs Kralath's shoulders, who's lying on the ground,

and drags him to the other side of this ramp, giving us full cover from any of the boulders that are being thrown from the west there. And he grabs a health potion out of his backpack and chugs it down. So you're going to take 10. Nice. Automatically 10. Sweet.

Excellent. And then maybe I grab my other health potion and give it to Kralath as well. Yeah, you can't, like, administer it to him, but you can pass it to him for sure. Drink this way as soon as you can. We're going to get that boulder and we're going to get out of here. Jack, did you call that airship? Working on it. It's the Giants' turn.

Oh, oh, unless, no. Second wind or? My action would be dragging. Okay, but you could call it an attack. You could attack his mouth. from the forest around the northwestern side of the island more giants come out of the woods into the open we gotta get the fuck out of here yes we do jack how's that airship coming jack why don't you summon the airship boulders crash all around you as these giants throw

just massive pieces of rock in your direction but no one is hit Jack, it's your turn Jack kind of gets himself out of his his done moment assessing Kralath and starts running for cover trying to get on that east side of the sky pony you know raised piece of land

to get a bit of cover from the boulders that come tumbling off the edge of this cliff and sort of crash down into the water on the other side of it And he, you know, puts his hand up in the air and this illusion of the airship lowering down with ropes and grappling hooks to help us lift a boulder shows up. It's bright. It's given away our whole plan to anyone who can see it, but it's hopefully going to signal the ship to be here in time. And his eyes are scanning the sky to see if you can see any sign of it through the clouds and fog to see if there is rescue coming or not. Roll perception for me.

Sure. Summon the airship, Jack. Come on. What is it? Fucking red. 19. As you scan the horizon, the gathering evening, you see a light aboard the deck of the ship coming from the south. You estimate they'll be here probably in half a minute.

30 seconds. Not even a minute we got to hold out. Let's go. 30 seconds. Holy. By the light of Lathander. Morative. I think you like Moritz.

And Morden's your guy. No, I know, but I was saying it for Jack. That's a good. Lathander can rub off on other people. That's fine. Do you say you're thinking of changing it? Me? No, I was saying it because of Jack.

Oh. A born again, Lathander. Yeah. Come on. With the light of Lathander. 30 seconds. Jack's trying to channel his best like Doren Kralath soldier drill sergeant energy that he's never ever used in his life to be like, all right, we can do this.

We just need to get here. Extraction is coming. You know, we'll... Extraction. Get on your feet. Let's go. Red, what do you do? It's your turn.

I think we just need to make it clear in the audio that, Jack, you're also going to, when you summon the airship, that you're also going to give them the heads up to have the grappling hook prepared. He did do that. Did he? He literally had an image with the grappling hooks hanging on. So, Rob, if you could please just summon the airship. Come on, Jack. It's coming, Doran.

Don't worry. I know it's confusing this battle. We want people to know that we're going to eat. all of the deer. Just the whole deer, please. All right. He's got weird morals. Red looks towards the north and sees the

boulder and seeing Jack finally summoning this ship, he realizes that's where it's going to go. So he turns and he bolts using feline agility to move his entire move plus dash to the large wall that is just southeast of the boulder, hopefully getting in

full cover from the giants. Yeah, you're like at the pony's neck looking from a bird's eye view. And the giants are approaching from the back butt wing area. And that's it for me. Crayloth, it's your turn. Krayloth feels Doren pulling him and he kind of

shakes him off and says, oh, it's okay, I'm fine, I'm fine. Let's go. And he's going to pull back the health potion and get another 10 HP. Nice. And Kralov is going to begin ducking along the wall.

here. And then as a bonus action, I've got to cast Healing Word as a level two. Oh, wow. So you're going to heal another 12 hit points. Awesome. Thank you. And Kralov just barely registers as he's running and dodging and weaving these exploding boulders that something has changed, that he's not quite right. Mm-hmm. Lots happened in the past five minutes. Doran, what do you do? Doran begins to dash and follow Red. We need to get up and get cover and get in position for when that airship comes so that we can rig up that boulder. And Doran in his mind is already planning and scheming out how the grappling hooks and the ropes are going to work to sort of cradle this boulder as the, as soon as the, airship comes so all right the giants are on the move however you can't really see them now from

your place in full cover from this enemy you just hear their massive footsteps and occasionally the ground shutters above you as this second tier is peppered with stones that they're throwing it's clear that right now you've gained a little bit of safety but that's going to be short-lived as soon as you ascend up to the second tier. Jack, it's your turn. Jack continues to flash the signal in the air, just to make sure that the ship is clear on the plan as he, you know, runs behind catching up to Kralong.

Come on, Jack, give him some sort of signal. I'm working on it. Red. Red finishes his movement, so he's just south of the border. South of the boulder. South of the border. Red hugs his back against the earthen wall of the hill breathing heavily, he knocks an arrow waiting to pop out in fire, but he's sort of

holding his breath, hoping that the ship arrives any moment. Red, as you spend your turn with your back against this wall of earth, you start to see shapes emerging from the fog all around you. The mist coming off this icy river is being churned by. footsteps, by invisible limbs, and you hear whispers in your ear. Does anyone else saying that? Seeing what? And Red sort of just pushes himself against the wall,

scared, frightened of what seems to be moving around us. Kralath, it's your turn. Kralath continues to run forward, getting up pretty close to Doren. So so far, Red is the closest to the boulder, then Doran is about 30 feet behind him. Kralov's right on his heels, and Jack is 30 feet back from that, isish. Kralov turns his head to look to where his friend Red is pointing.

Kralov, you see figures in the mist. These are distinct images of humanoids. Wandering. There are maybe 20 of them that you can see, stepping through the fog, through the darkness, at different places. along the edge of the tree line. It looks like they're wandering. It doesn't look like they're converging on us?

One of them looks at you and starts walking towards you. And you hear their voice come to you from across the river. My house, it is not far, but I don't know the way. Kraloth has this moment of confusion by this undead creature before him. Doran, it's your turn. Does Doran see these apparitions, whatever there? No, not really. You can make a perception check, if you like.

No, that's fine. I don't want to get involved in that. Not my problem. I just think Doran's got other things on his minds and he wouldn't. Yeah, no, it's great. Except he does, he dashes up. next to Red and now standing at the base of this shallow cliff's edge, what is it, 20 feet to this plateau where the boulder is sitting.

Red, pass me that block and tackle. What? Of course. And Red reaches in the bag and pulls out a potion of invisibility. This? No, no, the rope and, you know, there's some pightons in there. Oh, oh, right. And Red reaches in the bag and he pulls out a hammer. This?

No, I don't need that, just the ropes. Yeah, Red reaches into the bag and pulls out the block and tackle and hands her to door. And he says, I sure hope you know what you're doing with that. We're not fishing here, bud. And he kind of gives you a look. Boulders continue to rain down around you. One of the stone giants begins to move clockwise around this island. Jack, your turn.

Jack gets his head out of the clouds for a couple of minutes just to run sort of full tilt dashing to catch up with his friends. You know, the mental clock ticking down in his head just telling himself, it's almost here. We just need a few more seconds. Red, it's your turn. Red looks towards these creatures that are approaching. Krayloff, are you okay? Kralov!

Huh? Snap out of it. I think they're the same things we saw back at the Griffin tribe. That's right. Red summons Screven to the sky. I come in through a misty shroud. Screevin, keep eyes on the ship. Let us know when it's overhead.

And Red peaks over the hill to see if the trees are in position near the boulder to use his cover so Doren can fashion his little art project around the boulder. They are. No respect. They are. They're starting to take some fire from the stone giants, though. Fire or boulders? They're taking fire. They're flaming boulders.

now. Thank you, Doren. Yes. Thank you, Alex. They're now on fire. You're welcome. Kralath, what happens next? Kralov is going to run forward and get next to Doren, place his hands on him, and cast cure wounds. 28 hit points you're going to get back. That's brilliant. It's good to have Krayloth back in non-T-Rex form. Wow, Kralath. I'm so glad that you're here with us still. Krayloth doesn't acknowledge that. Kraloth's eyes, you can see in the dim night light are almost completely black, it looks like, from this angle. And he doesn't acknowledge you. But Doren doesn't really notice that either because he's kind of preoccupied with fashioning this harness out of the block and tackle somehow. Doren, it's your turn. Doren scrambles as he's pulling these ropes

through the blocks and tying knots and you see this thing kind of coming together that this is going to become an easily adjustable and solidly tight harness for this boulder. He looks at Red. Well, I guess two of us need to get up and over this hill. Let's do it. Together. And Red helps Dorn up. And then we'll climb up behind him. Come on, buddy. I'll be up in a second. And Red helps 300-pound dwarf. So Doran does get up and begins to lay out the ropes

around the bottom of this boulder so that they can just be tightened. And the way it's going to work is that once the airship grappling hooks grab onto the loops that I've made, it's going to tighten around the bottom of the boulder and we'll create it sort of a cradle for it. Yeah.

Sounds good. I've thought about it a lot. As he previously mentioned. As an individual, as an individual like Alex has, a little bit too much. Now that you are atop this second tier, you have become a target for the stone giants. And one of them throws a boulder at you. 18 to hit. That does hit.

Okay. Unless I've got partial cover from this boulder. You know what? I'll entertain that. Yeah. And there are also trees around trying to obscure. Yes. Um, the sight lines from the stone giant to you.

So, okay. And two shrubs. Yeah. Which, I mean, admittedly, it's hard to see through a shop. I think Doran named one of them, Scragly Bush. Pretty sure. That's right. Okay, I'll give you a plus two to your AC while you're up there and the trees are still alive.

So then what did you roll? I rolled an 18. Well, then that plus two just barely allows me to get a 19 in armor class. So thank you. Nice. I succeed. Excellent. But 18 plus 2 is 20.

I hear the boulder flying at me and it lands near me. Jack, it's your turn. The airship is closing in on you now, a mere 100 feet from your position and coming in fast. I think Jack looks around at Kralath and Red, who are still at the bottom of this cliff and says, everybody up, it's almost here. If we can get up there and secure this shortly, we're almost out of here. Got it. And Jack starts to like scramble up this edge of this cliff.

help him up. Yeah. Come on, bud. Reds being that human ladder for everybody. Hey, how about as long as there's someone down at the bottom being a human ladder, you don't have to use double movement to get up.

Perfect. Because I can climb up after by myself anyway. It's no issue. Don't worry, guys. I got this. Oh, God. Jack, your foot's right.

My face. Jack scrabbles to the top of the cliff and sort of ducks down to take cover behind this boulder. Sort of seeing what Doran's doing with the ropes. Checks a couple of them. make sure everything's going to be snug and secure when we eventually get that chance to lift this up. We're only going to get one shot at this. Yep. Go over there. Watch out for flying boulders. We only got one shot at this guys. Jack, have you summoned the ship yet? Can we start over?

The airship flies overhead into position. It is directly above the boulder. Red, it's your turn. I'm going to defer until Kralath climbs up. Okay. Kralath, it's your turn. Krayloff is going to climb up. Start wandering towards the water. Kralov is still confused. Nah. So Kralov climbs up.

I grab onto Red's hand and pull myself up and he helps me. And once I'm up, I say, where's the hook, Doren? Doreen, it's your time. Let's wait. Dorn. Doreen points to the four corners

of this rig here. he's set up and says when the grappling hook comes down, just loop it through there and we'll be good. As soon as it starts to lift, it should tighten around the bottom of this boulder. It's coming down right now. You see the ropes begin to descend from the airship. It'll just take a moment.

All right. Well, might as well speed up the process. And Krayloff pulls the cord on his balloon pack. And with the hook in hand, And closes the distance between the descending line and the rock hooks it on. And as a bonus action, I cast sanctuary on myself while I'm still in the air a bit exposed. Okay. Red, it's your turn now.

Red as an action will cast icy mantle on himself. And it will cover him in that blooming frost to negate any damage that happens to him. And then he will climb up the side and latch onto the side of the boulder. Doran, what do you do? Doran actually now takes the opportunity to run around exposing himself because the last and final loop that needs to be hooked up on this boulder rig is totally exposed to the giants and begins to scramble onto the boulder.

Everybody get onto the boulder. Make sure your grappling hook is hooked into that loop. Over there, red, over there, Jack. Just like that, Kralath. Let's go. Tell them to take off. It's like the boulder lifts off and the artifact is like underneath the boulder. oh no that would be so good well that's the artifact with the concerted effort of the team the

nightstone four this boulder is now rigged up to the airship and it begins to just barely get lifted off of the ground maybe two inches right now it looks like this might work the stone giants Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the bank, cross the river and heft rocks in their throwing hands. They begin to take aim at the airship. Oh, no. Hold on, everyone. You see two huge rocks plunge into the side of the airship. And raining down pieces of timber splinters, and you hear screams from the occupants at the airship.

as it is rocked by these boulders. Oh, fuck. Right, it's your turn. Red scrambles up the length of rope to try to get to the airship and looks around at the scene. It's chaos. Cultists are running here and there. You hear a terrible roaring sound. Oh, God.

And then... It broke open the stove. You smell smoke. Fuck. Screaming comes from below deck. Red frantically looks around and then bolts downstairs to scoop up Shail and Jackson and runs back up to the top and is it so now we're going down or what's the... It's hard to say right now. It could go either way. Is there anything I can see that I can do to give it lift? Like, is there any leveraging tools to help?

Is there eating kilts off the side? Too much weight, buddy. Jack, can you cast levitate on a boulder? I got nothing left. I got no... I got no... I got no... I got no juice. Red holding the two animals looks over the bow of the boat at what's below and prays that we get lift. Kralath, it's your turn. Kralath is going to push himself up onto the ship and pull himself over. It's pandemonium on the ship.

Yeah. Coltists are running back and forth. You see smoke just billowing out of the furnace room and you see red on the bow of the ship. pets in his arms. Kralath looking around and seeing the carnage and hearing the damage of this, this fire elemental, seeing the boulders flying. He turns to Red and says, we can't do this. We have to flee.

But, Kralov, we have to get back to the spine of the world. We'll find another way. We need to stay alive. So Kralov runs towards Red and wraps an arm around his friend with the two pets. Pulls on his balloon pack and guides them back down to the ground. You leap off of the back of the ship together, maybe. Yeah. Meanwhile, down on the ground, Doran, you've just finished securing this boulder.

It's beginning to be raised up into the sky. It's maybe 15 feet in the air. You're clinging to it. Jack's there on the ropes. But these stone giants seem intent on bringing down the airship. What do you do? Doran watches as the airship takes a boulder to the side of it and shards of wood come crashing down

and he sees smoke billowing out of the side of the airship and he's feeling as though the boulder is really bringing this airship down and in an effort to distract the giants and alleviate the airship from some of this weight Doren looks at Jack across the other side of the boulder and he says Take care of them

What are you doing? Something I should be doing more often Watching out for all my friends No! He jumps off of the boulder landing on the ground And as he hits the ground And does a tumble roll

He pulls out his crossbow And lets off a couple of crossbow shots at the giants Very very brave of you Dorn And yeah, you leap off this boulder And you fire a few volleys At the advancing stone giants Trying to give your friends

An opportunity to escape Maybe resenting the fact That you left Kraloth to die on the hill Yeah The stone giants aim a few more boulders In the direction of the airship And you watch in horror As one of them punctures the balloon

Leaking air out into the sky and the ship veers suddenly off to one side and begins to plummet to the ground. The boulder that you were holding onto, Jack, hits the ground and spills you from the side of it with the impact. The ship begins to nosedive, and it happens faster than you could have imagined. It plummets directly down,

being influenced very minimally by the air current around it and it lands almost on top of one of the stone giants an explosion of timber and fire with a terrible roar a fire elemental appears from the wreckage and flies in a fury at the closest target which is the other stone giant Jack it's your turn

There is a lot going through Jack's mind as his heart is frantically trying to beat out of his chest. He's looking around to try and see, I guess he saw Red and Kralath leap off moments before the ship itself started to tumble down. Yeah, they're still in the air. Yeah, he saw Doran leap off the rock right before Jack kind of got flat-footed as it all landed. He's trying to rack his mind to remember where the rest of the stone giant artifacts are that we've collected. One of them is in the bag of holding, and one of them is on the ship. Jack, out of breath, panicky, slides down the hill to try and take cover in sort of the neck of the sky pony, really unsure what to do next, just trying to catch his breath and be safe

from falling boulders or flaming skyship. Red, it's your turn. You were being carried lovingly by your friend, Krayloth. Red looks down at his friends below and reaches into the bag of holding, and he shouts, Meena's at the riverbank! And he throws the folding boat into the river below him in Kralov, and he says, Stephen One! And the smallest boat, the one that can hold four medium creatures comfortably, unfolds below him in the river, and Red turns to Kralov, and he says,

Paul I called! And Kralov nods, and gets ready to tug the cord. dexterously, the balloon pack dies, and we fall 10, 15 feet right into the boat as it splashes around us and immediately Red grabs the oars. He's like, we've got to meet them on the bank. Help me! And he starts paddling very weakly and then hands the oars to Krayloff. It's your turn, Krayla.

Because it's very clear that red is like noodle arm. Yep. Actually, red starts to go a bit in a circle. Yeah, yeah. Krayloff, what do you do? You watch for rocks. Get to the front. And Kraloth grabs onto the oars and with big heaves, he begins to pull the boat forward down the river as it picks up the current.

Rowing mightily with the current. Absolutely. Doran, what do you do? You're standing off against this wreckage now. Doren hears Red scream to meet us on the shore. So running as fast as his little feet will take him. He starts dashing towards the boat. Invigorated by these change in orders, the awakened tree pulls itself up by the roots

and begins to move forward towards the threat in order to give you a chance to escape in this boat. How cool is that? A fire elemental, a stone giant, and a tree all like beating each other. Battling it out on the bank of this river in the background of an ancient, spiritual mound, a burial site, and then there's just this smoking wreckage of an airship. So many cultists' dead bodies just like lying around on the ground. Real. Jack, what do you do?

He lurches and dashes towards the edge of the stream. Doran and Jack, as you move to meet your companions on the bank of this river, you're moving through this mist that's being churned up by invisible limbs. passing through creatures that you can't fully perceive, hearing whispered longing in your ears, just barely able to understand this sentiment of longing and loss as you see cresting around the river bend, Red, and Kraloth, captaining this little rowboat. They're coming at quite a speed too. They're rowing with the current of the river. So Kraloth's strong, are propelling this rowboat at like a decent clip.

Red and Kralath you come around the corner and you see Doren and Jack standing there on the water's edge. But I mean, you guys are going to have to swim out to them maybe. Yeah. I was just like in movies, we go way deep into water without thinking about how cold it might be. Let's just walk through this water with our shoes on. Well, you're not exactly going to be like, ooh, too cold. I'll stay on the island with the stone giants.

Yeah, I don't know that I'm feeling much of anything at the moment. We wade out and jump into the boat, I guess. Doran immediately starts to paddle as well. Come on, guys. Quickly. Red looks back, seeing the fire elemental absorb the stone giant and the tree smashing its limbs against them both as we are pouring down this river. Kralov, Kralath, right, right!

Red's like calling out rocks from the bow as he's like pointing. But Kralath, you're pulling your boat through this tangle of body. and you see them clearly and no one else does these figures these not undead ghostly beings that seem to be looking

for something a dozen of them some of them swimming through the water even you travel south to the left I think there's a moment where Kralath says Doren take over and passes his oar over to Dore

Turn turn Doren turn! And Kralov kind of reaches down at this apparition that's kind of keeping speed with us. And just in a whisper, not really asking the question, he says, what are you looking for? And the only thing you hear in response is, I never should have left. Doran, make a dexterity saving throw as a particularly jagged piece of rock threatens the boat's travel. It's going to be an 11? The boat is caught on the rock, and you are all upended and dumped into this icy cold stream. Damn it!

Now, this is maybe a kilometer downstream from this island. Red is panicked. He's holding on the shale, and immediately, I think he's going to say, Stephen Fall, to grab the folding boat, because I do not want to lose that fucking thing. And if we're all in the water, I can do a deck save if you want me to do that. Please. Oh, yeah, 19. yeah so you call out the name of the boat it collapses into the size of a jewelry box or whatever

and you are all swimming to shore you haul yourselves out of this icy river soaking wet nights come on feeling lower than you ever have before the exhaustion of battle from the adrenaline from running sets deep into your bones and as you look around you on the shore of this riverbank, you realize you have no idea

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