High Rollers DnD - High Rollers: Aerois #129 | Rock the Boat (Part 2)

Episode Date: November 11, 2021

It's time to craft a raft and cast a last look at the past! (We're making a boat to cross a swamp.) We're sponsored by D&D Beyond! The ultimate Dungeons and Dragons toolset. Clean up your dungeon delving life and speed up your games here: http://bit.ly/HRDNDBeyond2021 Grab some High Rollers merch: https://freshmerch.fm/collections/high-rollers Support the High Rollers and get early access to podcast episodes (and more) on our Patreon: www.patreon.com/HighRollers Music courtesy of Epidemic Sound Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Pickaxe. Shall we play some D&D? Let's play some D&D. So after being given some supplies and having a discussion with Rosemeadow, picking up a few minor magic items, you guys have begun the journey to try and assist Rosemeadow in reuniting with her family, what is left of it,

learning the truth, understanding this tragic tale, as well as perhaps freeing the Rosemeadow branch family from this captivity that they have been forced into by these evil spirits. You have traveled across the Everclear Lake, which is where you camped with the centaur families. A little bit of some mundane difficulty traveling across it, but overcome with people just a little bit wet and none worse to wear. You have now arrived at a swamp called Yon Fen,

which stretches out for some distance. That's where we left things off. And the quickest way, we think, would be to raft it, right? But no raft in sight. No raft in sight. No raft but tree. Many trees. Many, many trees.

Many, many trees. Are you trained in carpentry? Yes. We're not making carpets. yes we're not making carpets holy shit that lag we're not coming back from that clip it

which clip okay so you have a big swamp gotta get across it. Okay, now do we spend some time trying to make this tree and maybe that tree and maybe that tree over there into some kind of raft that would carry all of us, including a very heavy sentry and a very big cat and a... and Rosemeadow. No offense.

It's a big ask. Or, now Lucius, I know you won't like this one. The alternative is to... I don't like it. Okay, trudge through the swamp. Well, it may be our only option other than those that can fly.

It goes for a long time, remember, and flying is not necessarily... Actually, wait, can't you walk on... You can walk on water, right? I don't know what this count says, I'll be honest, and I'm worried about trying it. But I can give it a go. It's partially water. It's just heavy sticky water really like with trepidation sheer panicked trepidation i'm gonna dip a foot into the

swampy bit and see if i have purchase the foot has purchase on the water it is water it's still i can walk on it but that doesn't benefit us all but it does mean I won't get so stinky, which is nice. Very important matter. It offers no actual advantage other than Lucius will not be wet and stinky. Won't have stinky boots. But that's what's important. That's important. It is, yeah.

Absolutely. And morale is going to get us through this swamp. And my morale is just boosted. I guess he can also walk at a regular speed, right, rather than... He can, but the group obviously will still be slowed. So as a group, it's kind of more based on your group speed rather than an individual's. Now, Nova, I don't suppose you still have any scrolls of water walking? Wait, was it water walking that we had?

Way back when. Breathing, my love, breathing. Wait, was it water walking that we had? Way back when. Breathing, my love. Breathing. So if you end up in it, you could breathe in it, but I don't think you want me to press your face into it. No. No. No. If only I prepared water walk.

Clerics can do that, you know. Clerics can prepare spells. Now, Sentry, you have a whole belly of souls. Yeah. Can you speak to them?

I can speak to Rue. I'm wondering if you have a pool of knowledge here on how to fashion a raft. There's got to be one guardian out there that understands how to put wood together and make something that floats on water. Guardians did perform a variety of huge tasks. I'm sure there's probably someone in there that knows. And maybe Root can connect you to one and provide us a starting point at least

so that we can chop down some trees and fashion it together. Yeah. I don't know. I'm thinking off the top of my head. We're in the Fae as well. Why not use the knowledge that I have inside me? Yeah, I mean, they normally have names of jobs, so

try and find Raftmaker Swamp Crosser. There's probably a carpenter. All that. Shipbuilder. Yeah? Yeah. For your knowledge, Century, you'd basically be using your commune

charge of the matrix, but you would basically be asking Brute, can a guardian share knowledge with me? Yeah. And, yeah. We'll find out once you've used it you can do that find out when you've activated commune all right yeah sentry will uh go find a nice dry patch of grass next to a tree and like get all comfy on the ground back the way you came you can kind of step in where the ground's much firmer and solid and stuff like that and find like a little bit

Probably like some toadstools big toadstools to sit on Yeah Going to feel you feel your presence kind of drift once again And then you feel that amber river that kind of current of energy pick you up picks up pick up your soul that kind of current of energy pick you up uh picks up pick up your soul effectively um and drift you begin to hear the ambient noise the kind of wallah of a crowd of all these different guardian voices speaking at once but there is this one larger looming presence who kind of speaks to you sentinel prime how can i help? Hi, Root. Um, so I was wondering,

is it possible to ascertain knowledge from other guardians? Ah, it is. This is something I only attempted a few number of times when I was Prime, but it is possible. It will be a new experience for you, but it is something that I think I can help you with. It will drain some of the energy from the Prime Matrix, but it is possible.

Well, that's great. It will last a period of time. It will not be permanent, this knowledge. It will drift from your mind slowly, but it is possible. What sort of knowledge do you require? We're a bit of a crossroads, so we need to cross a marshland or a swampy area, but we need the knowledge to build a raft to get everybody across.

There's quite a number of us. I believe that a number of carpenters and boatswains can be located that would be able to assist you in this. They will be able to grant you their knowledge, their expertise in building and crafting these things, as well as just general information that you require. That's amazing.

That would be a huge help. That would speed things up quite a lot. Very well. Then for this first period, for this first time, I will act as a conduit. You speaking with me will provide the necessary energy for us to transfer the knowledge. But in the

future, you should be able to make this sort of connection yourself it may take some time to learn but it is something that we can practice together in the future but for now allow me to act as a conduit for you okay you find this energy the essence of root prime kind of stretches out until it locates like maybe seven eight ten different guardian spirits. And then you almost feel like lines, like tethers kind of connecting you to them and rushes, flashes of information kind of way too quick for you to follow, kind of flash in your mind.

And then the communion ends and you find yourself back in the kind of forest near your allies. But until you finish another long rest, you basically have proficiency in carpentry tools like you have the you have proficiency in the tools you need to build this kind of stuff um to accomplish the task and then what i'll do is i'll upgrade the prime matrix so in the future there'll be an option to spend a charge to basically gain a tool proficiency or a skill proficiency for a period of time because it, that's so cool! Because it makes sense, right?

I really like the idea that you can dial in and find a guardian who had a certain skill or an area of expertise and you can draw in their memories and experience into yourself for a brief period of time. What a cool idea. Thanks, Tron. Very cool idea. That was a great idea, Tron.

Hey, it's all Root, not me. Oh, no, that was very much you um but yeah so like essentially you kind of come out of it and you there's a couple of things so like the knowledge that you've acquired is really how to build boats and like how to like cut wood and shape wood and things like that like carpentry skills and building boats and things like that the first thing you know is this will take a good chunk of time. Like even to build a pretty simple raft, even with yours and Ayla's immense strength

and like everybody kind of helping you, this is going to be good few hours of work. Like maybe even like half a day's work to like construct a stable supported raft. You have enough like generic supplies, like ropes in your inventories. You would all have to give that up and you'd basically be using that to tile the logs and stuff together.

You've got spells that can be used as functions to help bind the raft and stuff together, but you're going to be probably looking at six hours work here to build a raft. Okay. I mean, considering the travel time and i assume exhaustion um it's worth it right 30 miles of swamp trudging yes i think so we'll we'll provide all the the labor we can provide century you just tell us what to do okay yeah amazing Yeah. Amazing. I think what a sentry would do as well is she would cast create food and water. So everybody's got like a food and water station. So if they need to take breaks, they can go over there and like have a little break area.

Yeah. Very nice. I love it. Can we do like little min maxi things of like using acid splash to kind of corrode the tree that would be chopped to make it a little easier to chop down things like that yeah i mean the only reason that you can even accomplish this in the first place is i'm assuming you're going to basically use all of your skills and equipment and abilities to make this happen i think that like if yeah not just speed it up but even just make it possible, right. It's only because Ayla and Sentry are both not just enormously strong,

but you know, have boundless endurance that they can sit there and chop down trees. Cause again, this is the Feywild. These aren't like normal trees. These are like thick, huge, you know,

incredibly dense, tough trees. Then you're like using the acid to like weaken them and like I'm assuming like Nova's probably helping engineer like in like a system of ropes to like bind everything together and you know Like everybody's kind of working together right to do this. So Nova's doing all the buoyancy math. It's like surface area needs to be this wide to carry this much weight Blah blah blah. I've drawn an entire blueprint Zerah needs to be this wide to carry this much weight, blah, blah, blah.

I've drawn an entire blueprint. Here you go. Yeah, I think, like, with Sentry's knowledge that she's gained from these boat swains and carpet, like, the boat swains, especially, like, yeah, like, Nova can, like, do the math and be like, yeah, we need it to be approximately sort of, like, 10 foot by 10 foot, and it needs to have this, and we need, you know, we need a control system. You know, even if that's just Aayla or Sentry with a big stick, right,

that's, you know, something to push the raft along, but that's, you know, we can make it easier by tying these things on the side and we can do this and this and this and this and blah, blah, blah. But yeah, so if that's what you guys want to do, it takes you about six hours to like basically cut down the trees, put everything together. And I would say that the people doing the physical labor, so this would probably be ayla century um and rose

meadow um i need you guys to make a constitution saving throw just to see how tired you get does everybody get a plus three on that um so i know that your ability says that they get the bonus to all saving throws but because this is like a physical tiredness thing i'm gonna say that your aura doesn't necessarily help with this. This is just like the limits of their body, basically. This isn't like a foreign force trying to affect me. Okay. I rolled an 11, so 21 total. Jesus Christ.

We got a plus 10. Yeah. 15 for Sentry. Rosemeadow looks very tired. She is going to gain a level of exhaustion. I rolled a 4, and even with her plus uh two it's only going to be a six so rose meadow like she's been like carrying like the things on her back because she's like a horse right like so she can like load up the the planks and travel them to where you're building the raft and like she just looks knackered she looks really

tired a long rest will get rid of that but she's got one level of exhaustion for now oh my god that she's got one level of exhaustion for now. Oh my God. I just need a bit of time. I'm just really sweaty. It's just like dying. Grab a drink. Go to the food station.

Get yourself a drink. Have a snack. Take a load off. And takes a load off and stuff. But yeah, and after about six hours, you have a thing. Tom Hazel, can you roll a D4 for me, please? Sure. What's the D4?

Two. About two hours into building this raft, Quill, you look back at the swamp and you realize the water level of this swamp fluctuates. The water level has dropped, and in two hours, it's dropped significantly to the point where a raft would get stuck. And then after about another four hours,

it goes back up to the high tide, but it seems to fluctuate. Okay, so towards the end of building this thing and ready to go, it's at the high point again. It's at the high point again, yeah. Okay, so do I know how long it would take to travel across this entire thing with a raft of some kind? Using the travel pace rules from the player's handbook. Yes.

So if you are moving at a normal pace, which we will assume the raft moves at a standard pace of 30 feet, it will approximately take, you can travel about three miles per hour on that. So if it's, you know, 20, 25 miles in like eight hours, you can do if it's 30, you'll obviously be a bit longer than that. If you can keep it moving at the standard movement pace.

If you are slowed, if you are like, you know, if you are like, if it becomes slower, like if you have to move at half speed for whatever reason, obviously that drops your per hour time to 1.5 as well. So it will slow down the travel. Right. But at certain points, every two, three hours or so, the water is significantly lower and the raft will get stuck.

Seems to be. I have a slight adjustment maybe for this raft. The water here is rising and lowering a lot more than I'd expect at certain points. Maybe if we leave now, we maybe get two, three hours of travel, but then we'd need to either

stop or You could try and drag the raft. Yes, that will be tiring work, and it will still slow you down, but you could bring it with you in the lower water, muddy. Because when you saw that the water got to its lowest point, it left behind a very sticky mud flat, basically.

The water almost completely drains away and it looked sticky and gross and, again, quite difficult to travel through. And I suppose there's no edge to this it's not like a river where we can just go to the side and find dry land this is just open swamp forever um i mean certainly for miles like and but the thing is is i'm assuming that 28 miles or 30 miles to travel is assuming you are just going straight ahead if you wanted to skirt the sides and try and stick where there might be land and stuff like that you could do that that could be double triple the amount of time to get across this one i'm assuming you're going the

shortest possible route uh which is direct forwards yeah um so uh i mean we will travel easier with the raft for a time, and then there's going to be a time where we're going to be, well, either trudging or resting for another couple of hours until we can carry on. It does mean it's going to take longer to cross, maybe, but it'll be, well, much less exhausting. Is there a way we could perhaps speed things up while the tide is high?

So maybe is there a way we could use rope to create some kind of pulley system where someone could go ahead, throw the rope over a tree, and we could pull it? I can walk on swamp. I can pull it. Okay. With the slippy slidiness of water it shouldn't be that heavy to pull as long as we've got momentum. You're still going to have

the weight of everybody on the raft though. Well, it'll make it easier. It will make it easier but it will still be pretty tough. It will still be a pretty, you'll need to be pretty strong to pull it off. Yeah, you'll be pulling a raft across well, it will still be a pretty you'll need to be pretty strong to pull it off yeah you'll be pulling a raft across well it will be stuck in what little water there is oh this is when it's

at high tide as in like high water to make it faster for those periods oh you pull it for the duration that we are floating yes yeah just to assist possibly uh i was thinking we try and find some way of making a sail uh but then we're you know we're getting into boat territory here um and yeah also keep in mind that because you know that you're

surrounded by trees there is wind there is breeze but it's not like you know out on the ocean yeah it's not open water you know, out on the ocean. Open waters, yeah. Yeah, it's not open water. I'm guessing just casting gust into it every five seconds is not the way. Gust isn't going to be strong enough. Gust is only a cantrip.

Something like gust of wind, which is like, it creates like a big column of wind for like a period of time. That could certainly help. I can't do that. I can't do that. I can't do that. So it's just a question of how much time do you want to spend traveling across this thing? I think floating for as long as we can, getting down river, down river, down swamp,

and then resting for a couple of hours until it's suitable enough again is probably the strategy. It would just take a while. It's far quicker than walking. We'll have to take maybe three or four rests. Yes. Yes. So that's our only option.

We can see the situation when we take our first rest I guess sure or we could whip a couple of wheels on this raft you could try and make some wheels do you know how to put wheels on this go on Kim what are you going to say no I just I a an idea of maybe casting lehman's tiny hut

on the raft so that when we're resting and stuff like that like it's kind of like a safe little just like a little safe it won't help in the movement of the raft or anything like that but just creating a little safe house like while we're resting on the raft. Stuff like, yeah, I mean, Leomund's Tiny Hut is a great whilst you're resting spell for sure. Hell yes. It lasts eight hours and it's a 10-foot radius immobile dome of force. Ah, immobile dome. So if you put it on the raft, it won't move with it.

Yeah, okay. But it's like if you, because also because also i mean even like if you travel for eight hours like of walking that's even if on the raft like even if you travel for eight hours like you're probably still going to want to rest somewhere something something like lehman's tiny hut is going to be a great boon for just when you want to take a long rest like at the end of our travel we do that yeah to prepare ourselves for the traumatic next step. Also, what time is it now? We spent an hour getting across the lake,

and then six hours building it. It's about six hours, so it's seven hours from when you woke up. So if we say about... I wake up at 3 a.m.? It's about 3 p.m. Here in the fate world like i'm gonna i'm gonna give quill that and say that like being a messenger and you're very high you know perception and stuff like that you realize oh okay i can't really track the sun and the moon here because when you moved into this swamp it's almost like it became like nighttime,

but you know it's not nighttime. It's like the light changes, like the ambient level of light completely changes depending on which province you're in, and tracking time is very difficult here, but you can count the number of hours since you've been awake, and if this were to be normal daytime, it'd be about 3 p.m.

There is still night and day cycles, but it's just that the ambient level of lights and there's no sun to really track and stuff like that. It's just miserable here. It's pretty miserable. It's pretty miserable. Okay. But about, we're looking at about maybe 12 hours of travelling

with stopping and going again and stopping and going again. Is the raft 10 foot? It's about 10 feet by 10 feet. And that's like, I'm sure that somebody's going to be like, a raft 10 foot by 10 foot could never possibly hold all that many people. I'm sure that that's going to be the case. This is magic fey trees. So a 10 foot by 10 foot raft is enough for everyone to sit on it and to float.

Because I'm just floating the idea of maybe doing Arcanegate at least once, which is a 10 foot in diameter portal. Circular 10 foot in diameter portal. So we can go up to 500 feet. 500 feet. So that could at least give us a little bit of a... Kim, I'm going to tell you this. Like 500 feet in terms of mileage, not very big.

It's like it's not... I'm going to shave off a lot of time. But it might be a good, if you get into a sticky situation, I would say maybe Arcane Gate's a good one to like save for that. Because it's not going to help you in cutting the travel time. Yeah. The travel time is like nothing. It's going to do like, you know,

10 minutes instead. Okay, we'll get it. One 316,000th away. Also, we can do a whole... I think it's just the... I was just going to say, I think it's when I run 500 feet, it feels

like miles. I get that. yeah also keep in mind like dnd travel rules and stuff it's all a bit wank so don't don't you know i've told you how long it will take uh yeah it's pretty wishy-washy but those are the rules that's what we will work with so because i don't know how long it takes to travel three miles, so I wouldn't know. Yeah, we'll have to see where we stop when the tide lowers, rises, or whatever else, and figure out what to do on each stop. So, with that in mind,

and, you know, to progress things forward, if you were travelling by foot, I was going to have you guys basically establish who is going to be leading you, basically trying to navigate hazards and find a path through this one, which you don't know. None of you are familiar enough. You're going to need to try and navigate this. And then you need to also have somebody act as a lookout. Now, the way I was going to do this in terms of travel rules is you need somebody to be the pathfinder

who is basically going to, you know, navigate for hazards, keep an eye out on what's in front of front of you and then you're gonna have a lookout who is somebody at the back of the party who's basically watching out for enemies and ambushes and all that kind of stuff um a single character can do those roles for up to four hours and then they need to break for four hours so you can't just have one person do it the whole journey right somebody does it for four hours they have to swap with somebody until they can do it again. And I was going to have you do that. If you're all on the raft, you're not really going to have one person out ahead. You're not really going to have one person behind.

You're all going to be clumped together. You're still going to need to make these checks, but you're going to all be more clustered together, really. Unless you want to have somebody like Lucius who can walk ahead and try and pull the raft or like walk up ahead and try and scout and things like that yeah i might try and do that too just to make sure that we have a clear path ahead of us we're not going to bump into any branches sticking at the ground so you want to take that for the first uh the first four hours you want to be the pathfinder as i've called it i'll walk on, all right. Lucius is going to be your first four-hour Pathfinder. And then who do you want to have as your lookout

for the first section? I will take the second watch. I think as we get deeper into the swamp, it might get more dangerous in there. So I'll happily take the second watch. Well, I'll ask you to swap because it will need to be a rotating thing. Yeah.

All right. Thalia's happy. Don't forget you've got the npcs as well um thalia's quite happy to keep a lookout she's also happy to try and help navigate um rose meadow is happy to help either you know push the raft you're also that's another point actually now that you guys have got raft you're gonna need somebody basically pushing the raft along, which I think we all know who the two candidates for that are. But Rose Meadow is also happy to help do that. She's stronger than she looks. Though she is exhausted at the moment. She has one level of exhaustion at the moment, yes. Okay.

So Lucius is the Pathfinder. I need a lookout for the first four hours, and then who's going to push the raft Thalia can work for oh okay yeah Thalia's got Thalia's got plus four perception so

just don't look at Nova though she's dumb yeah Thalia and I see plus four above her head yeah so if Ayla's pushing then I can swap with Ayla. Sure. All right.

In that case, then, I need a survival check from Lucius as the Pathfinder. I need a perception check from Thalia as the Lookout. And I need an athletics check from Ayla for the... In fact, no, con save. Con save from Ayla. 18 plus 10. You are fine.

No exhaustive rate. It does get harder the more consecutive you do it, but with plus 10, I'm pretty sure Ayla could paddle this for a week. Yeah. And it'd be fine. So we have an eight on the survival for Lucius. Marvellous.

He goes out with just that optimism of like, and he's looking like this and like putting his hand over his eyes, hands on hips. I'll go look for danger. What history? Sure. And then what did Thalia get on perception? 19.

19. Okay. So can you roll a D8 for me, Chris Trott, please? I certainly can. And Tom Hazel, can you roll a D4 for me, please? Yeah. Okay. Thank you.

Two for the D8. One for the D4. One for the D4. So, after about an hour, the water level drops down and the raft basically comes to a complete stop in the mud. Ayla's just like, no, I can still keep going. I can still do it. Ayla's probably like, you basically, Ayla, you're pushing this raft up until the moment where the raft basically just wedges into mud

and it's just like... And then just comes to a standstill. You don't know how long it's going to take for this water to come back up. You can wait or you can press on. Okay, that was a lot sooner than I expected. And I was hoping to get a lot more distance than we did. I mean, what sort of, like, the area around us, is it still just miserable swamp forever?

Swamp? Yeah. Like, with the water drained, you can see... With the water drained, you can see that all of these trees have these, like, spider-leg-like roots that kind of stretch out, like, hundreds of them, creating these, like, little... almost like little cages beneath them um and you do see like some strange looking creatures kind of rustle away as soon as the

water's low enough um but otherwise than that yeah it's thick mud uh trying to move through it is difficult terrain so if you try and like move through this mud you are literally like pulling your boots up trying to like slug along do we want to rest here or find a way to carry on I could I could cast levitate on it but it's only gonna last for 10 minutes I'm trying to think if there's anything else we could if I was to useless create a of ice, put it all sideways and make it like a big slide, it could either destroy the raft at the end of it or get us further a bit. I mean, how much of a wall can you make?

I think it's like a hundred foot. Ten feet. Ten, ten feet cube. So it's a hundred feet long, the slide. It would certainly gain some momentum and then slam into mud at the end of it. Yes, it would. Yeah. If we need to get somewhere fast

in a hurry, that's definitely a possibility. I prefer Nova's idea of just levitating the raft. But I can only slip and slide. It's only ten minutes. So I don't see this last...

The tide doesn't look like it's going to come back in ten minutes. One hour. That was barely any time. I guess we'll have to wait. Could I cast enlarge and try and... Now, my next question is going to dramatically change this. Are you trying to carry the raft with everyone else on it, or are you just going to carry the raft

and everybody else trudges through swamp? You know what she wants to do i don't want to make them trudge i ain't gonna make them judge you can certainly carpet ride you can absolutely try sentry the your size would be enough that the raft would be out of the mud and everyone can stay out of that but yeah you're going to need to make strength and constitution check how long does enlarge last? That's another great question. It says up to a minute.

A minute? A minute. Just throw us. Yeah, just... If it's a minute, it's a minute. Okay, it's a minute. Okay, never mind then. You could help place us onto a wall of ice slide. Off you go.

Whee! I mean, I can try and pull the raft in the mud. Yeah, that's the thing. You can move with it through the mud. It's just hard. I have a strength of 25. I could at least do it for a while. So we'll get our ropes out and pull.

Okay. Group effort, everybody. Honestly, with Ayla's... So as long as nobody else is on the raft, if Ayla is just dragging the raft itself, Ayla doesn't need, like Ayla can do it. Like it weighs enough that like with her strengths, she can just carry it. It is going to make a, uh, it's you're going to basically, it's going to exhaust you like traveling with this thing for any amount of time, even as high as your constitution is, it it will tie you out but that's the thing is it it depends on how long you have to do it for

if you have to carry this thing for an hour you'll probably be okay if you have to carry this thing for four hours that's probably gonna at least give you one level of exhaustion but you don't know but you can carry it without carry it for like an hour or so and then see when the tide comes back i basically i don't want to give myself levels of exhaustion and hinder myself but i will carry it as far as i can yeah you could absolutely just carry it for an hour see if anything happens you could also swap with century like century your strength's what 20 uh 18 18 you're at the very upper limit but you can carry it but again you're gonna tire a lot quicker than ayla will but you could carry it without any without any issues without needing to make a check or anything like that yeah do you shift mark my strength is seven could i carry it

no absolutely not um absolutely not i think the only other person who could like Rosemidow could try she would need to make a check and she would probably get tired after an hour but she could try Lucius could try it would be a hard DC for him but again and he'd tire very quickly but he could do it Quill what's your strength

12 apparently 12 again same like Lucius you could do it it would just be yeah you'd get tired very quickly I think your strength went up when you got the mechanical wing back I think could we reduce our DC if me and Quill pull it at the same time

yep you could you'd be able to carry it for longer with a less exhaust with lower DC but you would still need to make a check can't we just make big cat carry it the whole way big cat is only just about as strong as some as Rosemary. So okay. Well still It's too strong, but let's take shifts then I'm pulling it make sure no one gets exhausted. We can go an hour and see Well, because I can if that's the case for longer

If that's case if a la is gonna start pulling it and then see when the tide comes back and when she starts getting tired majority of it. Because I can pull it for longer. If that's the case, if Ayla's going to start pulling it and then see when the tide comes back and when she starts getting tired, she stops it or whatever. Tom Hazel, can you roll a d4 for me, please? Yes, indeed. Oh my god, it's a 4. So

an hour goes by. Water still hasn't come back up. I rolled a 1 for our benefit and a four for a negative. Thank you, Gwyl. Yeah, you guys trudging through. Ayla, like you're carrying this thing for an hour. You could probably go another hour before you need to make a con save or anything like that.

We can swap at any time, Ayla. I'll go. She's not listening. I at any time, Ayla. I'll go. She's not listening. I got it. I got it. You carry it for another hour, trudging through the swamps, and you kind of see, like, things.

Like, you can see, like, you know, trees and bushes and then, like, little... There are, like, mounds where, like, it's still muddy earth, but it does kind of seem to give you, like, a small piece of of terrain to like stand on but for the most part it's mainly just like empty trees and sort of like uh troughs troughs of uh of like where maybe rivers once flew or flowed and stuff like that um you do however

uh you rolled a two on the d8 didn't you chris trot and you failed on your survival check um lucius you very quickly realize, like, leading the party, like, Aayla, you can hear Aayla, like, heaving and dragging this, like, raft in the background. Thalia's, like, looking around, trying to keep an eye out. All of you, by the way, are moving at half speed as you're, like, trudging

through this mud, so it slows you down immensely. Lucius, like, you've definitely lost track of, like, you think you were moving straight ahead but you've definitely like veered off a little bit you're worried that you're now traveling like at an angle um you're gonna lose two hours of time and eventually you you come to a part where there is just this solid there is this like solid group of um like trees that have grown into like a tangled mess and they've almost formed like a barricade wall of thick roots um you're gonna have to double back

if you want to or you have to go through these these wall of trees so if you have a way of getting through them or you have to double back and And Lucius just comes back to the group. He falls to his knees in the swamp. In the mud. I pray for forgiveness. I am so sorry. I've failed you. Hassan is going to die on my hands.

Wait, what? What? What? That last bit. What was that last bit? You can't. I've wasted all our time. I saw we were going this way and I just hit a wall of trees.

I think we've veered off course. Lucius, you saw where we were and you saw where we needed to get to. It's just... Stay looking in that direction. What happened? Well, no, because it's not like it's all open terrain. It's not like there's a road going north.

We had to go around this tree and then that tree. I don't think we went back on course after a few trees. I lost track. It's very tiring with my booties getting stuck in the swamp. Aayla's gonna just drop the heavy raft. It's very tiring, Lucius. I know, I understand.

Please, unleash all your torrent of hatred and I deserve it. Please, unleash all your torrent of hatred and anger. I deserve it. Okay, okay. Well, where do we go now? Do you have any idea of where we can go now? Rosemallow just pats you on the shoulder. It's okay, Lucius.

You tried your best. It's all right. You can help it. And she's just like kind of like wipe. Let's wipe those tears. And she's like wiping your face like a handkerchief and stuff. I failed you, Rosemary. I was trying to be a hero,

guiding us. It's okay. Maybe Quill should look. Well, do you have any idea of where to go now? Not the way we're going. Unless we can get through that

thick wall. You're gonna need you're gonna need another survival check to get back on course here well that's yeah that's the thing where do we need to go do we need to go through the trees or you either double back you can you can see because ayla's been dragging this raft it has left a thick trail like you could you could double back and then get to where lu Lucius thinks he got lost and then try and reorientate yourself or you can just try and find a way to break through this

fence of roots and just then figure out from the other side of this tree wall. Okay, I will try and find out if going through these trees is the option. It does mean we have to go through the trees but i'll see which way is quicker either doubling back or heading through well if we double back i i think it's only two hours ago what excuse me what was that i think it was only

preparing the raft you're carrying the raft that's it you can you can mutter under your breath all you want i can hear the words you're saying. It's two hours. Two hours of raft time for you. That's what I heard. Two hours! Two hours of raft time. Now, wait, hang on, because remember, I would have to help Lucius.

I don't want to get pulled into that. That's punishment for me. There must be a way through, surely. We can't go back for two hours. Let me find out. Let me find out if... Let me come with you. I'll see if I can find a way through.

I was going to go up. I'm going to go... Up is a good idea. I was going to go where Lucius went. Back to out? The way Lucius was going is literally like... You can't go the way Lucius wanted to go. That's where these tree roots have gotten you. Can try and like scope it out and see if there's

make a perception check yeah yeah nature or nature or perception i would say either one's fine let's do minus one to nature why not let's do it 17. nature why not let's do it 17 wow you think for a moment century and and um you remember like strategy meetings and things like that of like you know fighting in different types of terrain and kind of like meetings like that you haven't really traveled too much to places like this like swamps but um it looks like these trees have uh they've kind of like grown together and their roots have intertwined into this fence if you if you break through these trees um either by like smashing them or cutting them or whatever it happens to be whichever way you manage to find

a way to like break down enough of these roots that you can pass through them um you think that you could get people back on track and in the direction you want to go. Lucius is basically like Veerd, you know, probably only ever so slightly when he started off at a diagonal, but that's very quickly just curved off and you're now heading more to the west. You need to kind of reorientate,

get past these trees and then reorientate yourself so you're heading north. North, okay. Nice. yourself so you're heading north um north okay nice uh quill i don't know what you think i've just had a look there might be a way we could smash our way through break our way through the routes i think it's doable but if you yeah over is is it 500 feet worth of trees oh yeah you could easily use arcane gate to get through it easy yay how does the raft get through the raft is just big enough yeah the portal of arcane gate is 10 feet yeah oh it's just big enough just just squeaky bum but you know it'll be fine just you know grease up a little bit now i will say there

is some benefit because of lucius's two hour delay as you're having this conversation the water level you feel is rising it is beginning to lift the raft up we argue for three hours no no it was it was the travel time of when you kind of set out and then the two hours that lucius got lost basically okay it's equaled the four hours. So the water level is like blah, blah, blah. You've got like a little bit of time before it's fully up. If this is the worst of what we'll face, then you can use the arcane gate to get through

and we'll figure out later. Now we need to get back on this raft. We can float for the rest. Hopefully, we'll get some better luck with the water, Tom. And we can use the arcane gate to get through this. I would pull it through the arcane gate. Okay, I'd really like to actually watch that happen. That would be fun.

I can only keep the gate up for ten minutes, so if you could pull it through in 5 minutes, that would be great. I'm grabbing the rope. Can I watch him do that for 9 minutes? Like you have a rope harness. Yeah, you've got a World's Strongest Man harness around your shoulders and neck, you know. Lucius takes off his cloak of billowing

and folds it up neatly but it's still billowing so he struggles with that a little bit he's trying to look like strong and macho but it's like a strange cloak it's just like so yeah

this is an athletics check for you Lucius this is just athletics oh god make a this is this is an athletics check for you lucius all right this is just athletics oh god that just hit one for a second there it's a 15. so initially when the tide is low you're like you can't find purchase in like the mud you're like boots are sinking in and there's not enough strength but as the water does begin to lift the raft out of the mud and it kind of takes off some of that

weight of it being stuck and trying to pull it out of the thick slick mud with the water taking off the lift you manage and it's slow it's slow going but you're like one foot after the other like you're having to like and you are completely drenched by the way

Lucius like mud is like splattered all up your chest blood vessels like bursting in my eyes Lucius has never looked dirtier, sweatier or anything however five minutes to go as the gate kind of comes in on one side

he does manage to pull the raft through the arcane gate. Just maybe some of the edges of the arcane gate are kind of like shaved off by the spell. But it eventually comes out the other side, back into the open swamp. And you will manage to follow through a very tired looking... Aayla will just pat him on the shoulder and take the raft off of him and put it down. Well done. You did good. Thank you. Okay, now everyone on the raft, we need to make best use of this time before it disappears again, please.

So, I'm gonna need... So yeah, you can get back on the raft. I'm gonna need a new Pathfinder and a new Scout and somebody to push the raft. I'm gonna stay on the raft! I'm literally like minus one in all these skills. Minus one, minus two in all these skills! You're a book nerd. This ain't your field. Someone carry me! Carry me! I am happy to guide the route this time. Okay.

Who wants to be the lookout? Or I could do that. Either or. I'm apparently amazing at both. I think you're better at guiding. At least, yeah. I don't know. Sentry, do you want to push the boat or do you want me to? I can be a pusher. I can look out if you want.

There you go. I'm not that great, but I could try. Okay. All right, so Quill look out. Quill palm finder, so survival check for Quill. Perception check for Ayla is the lookout. And then constitution save for Sentry. 31 with a natural 20.

Holy crap. We are there. Holy crap. We're not seeing anything, though, because I rolled a 4, so I got a 10 total. That's fine. Okay, so, Tom, I'd like you to roll a d8 for the positive random events.

Okay. Positive is a strong word. That means that if you encounter anything dangerous, you have advanced warning of it. Seven? Seven. Interesting. Okay.

All right. So for at least four hours, the tide stays high. You travel solidly on the raft. The tide doesn't go down. You manage to make some success. Sentry pushing the boat doesn't affect you at all. Don't get tired. Easily happy to push it with a long pole,

kind of steering the boat along. And Quill, you are scouting up ahead. You manage to get the crew back on track um you don't regain any time but you are pretty confident that you're going in the right direction that you're not getting lost and up ahead uh you begin to see um a lot of the trees seem to grow uh thinner and you see quite an open space of just water basically um but you can see initially you thought that maybe it was like um like mud piles or maybe it was sort of like little columns or something but as the raft gets closer with your keen eyesight you can see that this large open part of open bit of water is full of bubbles

and they have the consistency like they have these brown mucousy kind of membranes and there's hundreds of them from here until this kind of like opening ends and you're going to have to go through this this space but you've got plenty of warning you can you've got time to go and investigate or think of something before the raft is going to encounter them counts of them. Yeah. They're like bubbles. Bubbles in the muddy water basically. I've no idea what they are. Hey guys,

just ahead of us there is bubbles. Okay. Do they... I mean, I don't know what that could mean. Maybe there's something under the water. I don't know what that could mean. Maybe there's something under the water. I don't know, but we might... I mean, it's like hundreds of them, and they're quite large.

You know, they're probably the size of a... Oh, I don't know, a big thing. Sort of a beach ball? Like slightly bigger than a beach ball. Bouncy space balls. Space hopper. They're about space hopper sized. Over there.

And there's hundreds of them. It's like a bouncy thing that you sit in. Do they smell of anything? There was a strong smell in that region Quill like with your perception yeah there was definitely a strong smell smells like old cheese mmm

good cheese I just said old cheese it doesn't smell gouda I don't think that's good it doesn't smell gouda I don't think that's good it doesn't smell gouda strong are we gonna be damned if we go near them

oh boy well you know what it's better to be prepared anyway guys I think we should mozzarella no wait hang on pre-prepared. Pre-prepared? Anyway, guys, I think we should mozzarella? No, wait, hang on. Come on, my three wasn't that bad. It was

pretty on point. It doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean anything. What the hell? But either way, what do you guys think? There's bubbles and a smell. I don't know what that means. Is there any kind of check? Is it a good smell?

That's just my joke. Make a nature check. Nature check. Okay, I'll try. Anyone proficient in nature can make a check. If you're not proficient. Oh, I'm not. I got a plus four.

23. Yeah, it's more if you're proficient than your bonus. 23 for Nova. 16. 16. I would say, Ayla, you've traveled through swamps before, and you would know that things like gases can get trapped under there, sort of like natural gases that emanate from different things.

Nova with a 23, I mean, you know the same thing. Yeah, like gases can get trapped in swamps and can form like bubbles, basically. They can create like bubbles from like mucusy material. In the Feywild, you would suspect that these gases are probably not going to be mundane gases they are probably going to have some sort of magical or unusual nature to them what what it could be you have no idea it could be harmless it could blow up like a fireball spell. It could turn you all into frogs. Who fucking knows? That could be useful for going through the swamp.

Quill, did the bubble, did they smell like, you know when you pass wind from your bottom? I'm going to gust towards her, the smell. Yeah, you will get a strong wind. Oh, jeez. towards her the smell oh that's like that night that lucius ate gone off cheese oh that's terrible my eyes are burning my eyes are burning i would never i have never passed gas in all my life elves don't have single times that's what you're that's what daddy Elves don't pass gas, Lucius. That's what Daddy told you. Elves don't pass gas at all. Oh, that's not what it was like in that tent that night. Oh, gosh.

So, they're probably explosive bubbles. Swamps tend to build up a lot of gas and explode. Definitely. With a smell like that. Yes. Evil bubbles. up a lot of gas and explode. Definitely. With a smell like that, yes.

Okay. Evil bubbles? How do we ignite? Possibly, yes. I would say let's not go anywhere near them. It's going to be a big detour. If you want to go around this field of gas bubbles, it's going to be a big old detour.

There's a lot there. What do we do to avoid blowing up a swamp? I have an idea. Okay. I could cone of cold a whole group of them, freezing them, or

popping them from a distance. Oh yeah, maybe we could pop them from a distance. And you could gust the bad stuff away. Yeah. And what are we popping them with, though? The Kern of Cold. I could Eldritch Blast them. Oh, the Kern of Cold. Got some arrows.

Eldritch. Shoot a few. Now does Eldritch energy explode? Uh, it's first. Because you guys are having a think on what you would like to do because I wasn't sure if we were going to just go into it we're going to have to end the episode there because it's like literally nearly 8 o'clock

and I think we've got people after us on yogis so we're going to have to pick it up next week but have a think how you would want to deal with the field of gas bubbles next week we're going to blow up a swamp. It's going to be so sad when we pop a bubble.

I want to pop a bubble. We can do 20 more minutes if you want to pop a bubble, but you've got to convince everyone else that you want to stick around for that. I can wait. Let's bubble wrap. We'll just tie ourselves over for the week. Entire week of bubble pop

next week with a very important announcement right Mark? very important announcement next week I'm not even being facetious you definitely want to be here for next week we've got something very exciting to share and a very cool thing coming up that we want to share with all of you

something you can be a part of in a way as well and it's Kate, oh my god it's Katie's birthday weekend, it's a double mega weekend I thought that was the announcement with that we will pick this up next week as you travel through Yonfen

also because I like being transparent I don't want people to think that I've come up with this war mode a lot of this stuff I have taken from the new D&D adventure Wild Beyond the Witch light it was really useful for coming up with cool fey wild stuff cool it gave me a lot of cool ideas including this little swamp to travel through um that's what they're there for yeah still changed up i've not i've i've done the classic mark and changed a lot of things up but it was a really good source of inspiration. So if you want more cool play while stuff, yeah, it is. It is there to be used.

Amazing. Well, thank you all for joining us for another episode of High Rollers. We will be back next week with a super cool announcement and all of that good stuff and Katie's birthday. There'll be all sorts of things coming up soon that I'm sure we'll tell you about. But yeah, that's it for us. Take care.

Have a lovely Sunday evening. We'll see you next week bye everybody bye