Legends of Avantris - Edge of Midnight | Ep. 21 | The Ballad of William Van Brunt

Episode Date: September 24, 2024

Our heroes navigate a city in chaos. After a daring escape, they catch up to William Van Brunt and his witch hunting party...   Gain access to an exclusive campaign, Shroud Over Saltmarsh, over on Patreon: https://legendsofavantris.com/patreon The Crooked Moon, a folk horror supplement for 5e, is available for preorder! Get the Crooked Moon at: https://thecrookedmoon.com/ Watch more D&D adventures in the world of Avantris live on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/legendsofavantris Check out our merch store: https://shop.legendsofavantris.com  Join our community on Discord: https://legendsofavantris.com/discord Watch our many campaigns on YouTube: https://legendsofavantris.com/youtube  All other links: https://linktr.ee/legendsofavantris   Watch the full episode here: https://youtu.be/nhyl6hlG8yw?si=RUv6M15Lddt6YCaS

Howdy-do! Welcome to Legends of Adventress! I'm old Jericho Sticks and you're listening to Edge of Midnight. Here's what happened last time. You stare down at the bloated corpse of the Archbishop and you watch the mayhem of Cyril unfold before you. Your lips, grace, Lethika's neck, your fangs piercing into her flesh. No, no, no, no, no! It's almost like you can hear her voice in your head. Yorgie? Are we going to go outside and play a game? With a loud crack and pop, the cathedral levels itself.

What happened to those strange people that he was working with? Are you trying to say that they're evil? Yes, I'm trying to say that they're evil. With everything going on, I had forgotten about Van Brunt. He is still out there, and we need to make sure that he isn't harming innocent people. Citizens of Cyril, I'm William Van Brunt. Today, we're going to kill the last witch in full sense. Maggie McDuff will die.

William Van Brunt for mayor. William Van Brunt, our new leader. Billy, Billy, Billy, Billy. Something ain't quite right in the city of Cyril. With the demons dispelled, the archbishop dead, the wicked witch hunting turned the tail and flying away on her broomstick. The fine folk of this fine city should be filled with peace and positive intentions. Right?

Wrong. Maybe the lesson all along was that the true darkness comes from the hearts and minds of people pushed to the edge and thoroughly out of options. What do I know? I'm just a narrator. You are all standing in the middle of the town center of Cyril. You are silhouetted by these smoldering ruins of what once had been the cathedral. in this town center. The grisly visage of the former archbishop, Danton Alexander Renault, is strung up against the fountain

and desecrated. And you stand here in this place, almost in shock, as an army, well, 20 to 30 mounted men on horseback, but functioning like a small army, rides off to fell the witch, led by one William Van Brunt. You should have seen this coming. Where the archbishop had fallen, a power vacuum was left,

and the city of Cyril were going to need someone to look to, someone to lead them, someone to give them something to believe in. And who better than William Van Brunt? with his charisma and his good looks, it was obvious that he would rise to the occasion and seize this moment. But so soon is quite shocking. You watch as he leads the charge,

not noticing all of you as you make your way out of the alleyway and stand in the shadows of the smoldering cathedral. The only piece that you feel is that he is very clearly going in the wrong direction at least for now. But he knows the area well and will eventually lead these men to his mark.

So you know you don't have all the time in the world, but you at least have some. And as you look around Cyril in this moment, you realize that these people that are still chanting and still cheering for what William Van Brunt plans to bring to this city, they are not cursed. This is not the magics of the Knight of Sin

or the Archbishop swaying their thoughts and opinions. These are people easily swayed. And at first, that ignites in you a rage that they could be so quick to turn after realizing what had happened here, seeing directly in front of you desecrated on this fountain, the root of the evil in this city

that they could so quickly go back to their old ways. But as you watch them, almost in slow motion, you see that these people are haggard. They have dark circles under their eyes. Their skin is sallow. They're clearly many of them underweight, underfed. You see some of them are sickly. This is a city that has not been well taken care of.

The Archbishop had one goal and one plan in mind, and the citizens of Cyril were just puppets and pawns in his game, and they paid the price for that. And when people are at their weakest, and when people are desperate, they will do heinous things. And it's very clear as you look around that these people will do anything to survive. And you do begin to hear the stirrings of unrest whispers about the monsters that lurk in the city. And you were reminded as you stand here and you watch this from afar that you are those monsters. And that right now with William Van Brunt attempting to claim the seat of power that you

are not safe here. Well, Garsh, Miss McDuff has a child familiar? I thought Flora was a little rabbit. She seemed to be that middle age for a rabbit, according to my estimation. I've been actually the point. They're fucking bullshit. Are they all, have they all written away?

All of the mounted men, they immediately charged out. And you did see that they went out the main gate and made a right turn instead of a left. And you're familiar with where Maggie McDuff's cottage is. And they are not going in, the straightest direction to hit there. But you do imagine that they will eventually get there. They know the forests, they are hunters by nature.

You had been told your first night in the inn and shown a lot of the game that was brought in by Billy and his men. Once they find a mark, they will catch it. It's just a matter of time. So you know that you don't have to immediately leave the city, Time is of the essence. But you are left there without the horsemen.

It is just the citizens milling about. Some of them not at all interested in the scene that's happening. It is very clear that the city is in turmoil. And that there are many citizens that don't want to be a part of any more hatred or anger or death. They just want to heal. But there are many that are wounded and scared and angry, and they are easily swayed.

Those are the ones that you notice more in this center, milling about looking at this rotting corpse and commenting about you, not noticing that you are there. So what are we gonna do of them? He means the little one. No, I mean those. The horses? The people, the town's people.

You can see the lies that they've told and it's just gonna spread like a rot through all of them. Are we like within? You have left one of the alleyways coming from the house of the Mirabels, and you are in the shadows of a broken part of these smoldering ruins. You have cover, but you do imagine that eventually the townspeople will notice you.

They don't notice you right now. They're not looking in this direction. They're focused on where the men had written out, where Billy had been making his grand statements. and telling the city that he would be the change that they needed and the leader that they're looking for and giving them the hope that they had lost. And so they're all focused in the center,

but you do see that they begin to mill about and move, and you do hear that they are here and there talking about you, the monsters of the city. So you know that at some point, if you stay here, you will be noticed. But for now, you're saying. Well, I can't believe I. I'm going to say this,

even though one of the tenants is to always aid. I get the feeling we may have done as much aiding as we can possibly do. Right now, I feel it's most important that we find Maggie McDuff, make sure that she and the child are all right, and then we need to leave. It's possible we can strike two birds with one shovel. These people are like sheep. They need a shepherd. They've turned to William

because he's the only voice here. We can convince Maggie to take control. She might be able to rest this town into something respectable. As you say, strike two birds with one shovel. Virgil will look at you. Like, excuse me. You're going to hear it go,

The same piercing eyes stare back at me. I mean, gosh, you mean, hidden two birds with one shovel, that's quite a mighty, impressive feat. But hey, wasn't Miss McDuff also working on some sort of witch's brew? Good witches brew? Not the bad witch's brew. Witches? Oh, we don't know witches here. I'll step back as much as I can into the shadows. Witch, which, which, which, which. It echoes through the town. She had that magic the land What protected us against all of them spooky demons Except for Virgil

That didn't do nothing for Virgin I mean it's the goal in a brew to I mean help people Is it going to make people better Because they were I don't steal people that are sick I was like you remember that there was a sickness That had to overcome this entire province

That there were people falling ill And falling into a stupor And then never waking up And that is the brew That Maggie had been working on with the rest of her coven before they perished. And that she, with the help of the books that you found from the Coven of Hags, you were able to, or she was able to crack the coat on it and has been working to make a large volume of this potion. And it did have some positive

side effects. And you imagine that a lot of the things that ail these people, the sores and the sickness and even some of the hunger would be cured by this. Yorim's right. It's a very good suggestion. If perhaps we can deal with Van Brunt and Maggie's up for it, then perhaps she can at least install someone and maybe help oversee these people and protect them.

He leads them currently through fear if she can dispense this potion she's been working on. Maybe she can alleviate all the issues. this place has come to experience and somebody who cares can take control. And we can write songs about her and spread the word about how what a great person she is. We can create our own propaganda and we'll turn the tide. And then we'll have to abandon all these poor people to their horrible, filthy, miserable, hungry, sick existence.

You know what I don't fucking appreciate is we save the whole damn fucking city and they believe these lies about us. How close is the closest peasant? I would say probably about 20 feet or so. That really mash is my chunk. But they are messing with a large crate filled with blacksmithing material. They're clearly taking it to the local blacksmith. It's a scrawny younger male, probably an apprentice of some sort.

If there's anyone off to the side, I'm going to walk up Give me that. His sinister hallmark, the pamphlet. Like us. And presumably he's like all horns and like horrific. Marius is pretty accurate, but everybody else is like horrific. You're doing that? Yeah.

You walk up to what is clearly a young woman in her early 20s. And you rip the pamphlet out of her hands and you begin to look at it. You turn towards everyone else and you show them these. inaccurate depictions. Yorghum is significantly more hunched over, covered in warts and pustules. Marius, though looking similar, is much more vampiric with bat-like features

and longer fangs. Farron is covered in moss and detritus and blood and fungus and pungus and and then the rest. I guess it's kind of an improvement for me, actually. And you do, you look at this and you, this girl stands there and stares at you for a while, her eyes ever getting larger and larger and larger

until she lets out a blood-curdling scream. Everyone in the town center turns to look at what has happened over in this corner. as she calls and yells out. And everybody begins to, every one begins to run and scream. You notice that the women are rushing into the alleyways, grabbing their children and their loved ones.

Some of the men are stumbling after them. A couple of the drunker men who feel a little more emboldened pick up random things that they can find, loose stones that have fallen from the cathedrals. I need you all to roll a dexterity saving throw. As they begin to hurl these stones at you, and an angry mob begins to form and rush your way. You said, oh, plus four.

And if everybody's within 10 feet of me, plus four on saves. Oh, like 30. I got a 16. No, 27. 21. 18. 12.

No, no, no. 13. 15. Anyone tell me 15 below. That's what's important. Golden. You are going to take 11 points of bludgeoning damage. Yes.

As you are pelted by five or six large stones from the rubble of the destruction of this cathedral, and this angry mob is forming led by a drunkard, a very clearly intoxicated man who's stumbling and slurring his words. Kills, mothers. Good. And the town is incensed. They have already been suspicious of you.

Van Brunt mentioned that you were the monsters lurking in the shadows brought here by the Archbishop. And that was not untrue. The Archbishop announced your arrival and proclaimed you as a ward and under his protection. It is easy to believe that you are here under false pretenses and

they mobilize. After I see poor Jericho get hit with a brick, I will immediately raise my shield and pull your room with me and say, come with me, come with me, everyone behind us quickly. And I'm gonna grab Briggsie and like pull him back and try to get everybody behind us as we just kind of like walk back

and deflect garbage and rocks and shit. Things are being thrown at you. This one particular man is stumbling forward. You actually whack him. with your shovel and move him backwards. A large gash appears on his face. Oh, no. But he gets back up, he seems to not even be bothered by it.

A lot of the other people behind him. He spins around like Johnny Gordo. A lot of the people behind him see this, and you can tell they're hesitant. They don't want to be hurt. They're already weakened. So they advance, but not with as much gusto. However, this one singular drunk individual

has no sense of self-preservation, and he is continuing to rush at you. As soon as I see that everybody else kind of is backing off, and this drunkard is going to redouble at us, I will lower my shield just enough so that he can see my face and point at him and say, stop as I use command. Okay. It's a Wisdom 15 saving throw.

He is drunk, so he will roll at disadvantage, and he got a five. Yes! Yes. Even the pee stops. He immediately stops. Part of his face is lilted with alcohol as he looks at you. He begins to drool, but he is, you can see a look of panic behind his eyes where he clearly

knows what's going on, but he has no control over his limbs. The rest of the people that were following, though, actually. They were still willing to engage. They watch this and you immediately see as they start to slow down and back off. They continue to throw things, hurl things at you, and you're able to narrowly miss them. But they do slowly disperse, though you hear that the, what had been a whispering, an undercurrent of distrust for the monsters, has now turned into people running through the streets. The monsters are here.

They, um, did you see what they did, um, to old Jim Johnson? Um, and you, you are now, you are now, um, yeah, uh, you're now enemy number one. Awesome. You're pulling me back. Don't believe his lies! Don't believe the cutting of lips! I'm like, no! I could have teared me up, boasted.

Everywhere I can't. No! Bruce will look out. They've got scared crew seeking brigs of his breath. We have to get out of here they left their deadliest marksmen to defend the town. I'll pull like a chunk of my flesh and throw it back

and the guy who would be a great. It hits Jim Johnson right in the face. Of course, we had to go find Ms. Lethika and Hugo before the town gets out of hand. We've got to find a way to pursue the angry mob. Little with the other angry mob. One of the angry

mobs. Yeah, and then I would just try to lead us back, keeping an eye on debris and whatnot. Roll a stealth check for me, please. A group stealth check. I roll that a disadvantage, but everyone has, oh no, stealth check. Oh, you said it disbandage.

Awesome. Oh, double 13s. Oh, double 13. He's in disadvantage because of his armor. You get a plus four because you're near him. Oh, I thought that was true. That's, yeah, yeah. I thought you said to roll disenfranchise.

No, no, no. No, I said that because I have a shitty. Played. Of course, I got a 21. How about that? So with double 13s, I got a 14. Should I twist this? Well, I got a 14 as well.

I would just like to make sure you're aware that this is your fault. Yeah. Oh, yeah. He knows. Well, he knows. I think we all know. 17. All right, so do we roll up with the 14s?

I roll 14. Oh, you're not there. I got a 23. Oh, you got a 21. That's pretty fine. I think we're all right. It makes sense. Bash bros.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. One at the front, one at the back. You make your way through the back streets of Cyril, retracing the steps that you had taken to get to the town center when you were awoken by the noises of William Van Brunt and the angry mob that he had gathered. And you have become accustomed to this city enough

that retracing your steps is easy. There are more people that have joined the streets, especially the back portions of these streets. None of them. them make any motion to move towards you, but it is very clear that they take note of you in the direction that you're going in. I need you, all to roll a perception check for me, please.

We tried. Oh, a natural one. Oh, natural two. I'm too if you can hit with bricks. Yes. Damn, okay, fair. Let's go. 19.

Oh, okay, 11. Yeah, I like this one. You, um, you feel like you are able to move through these streets, and though you're not able to completely avoid detection, that you go mostly unnoticed. Farron, however, you notice a young boy, no more than maybe eight or nine,

notice you and watch all of you a little bit longer than you would expect of someone that age, someone who would be afraid of the monsters in the streets, before he darts into a building and disappears. So Billy's payroll. You continue. Are you okay, Jericho? Oh, gosh, they keep breaking my F-sat.

I should restate that. My head keeps getting hit with bricks on the counter of the fallen cathedral and all of the townsfolk, mighty cross about our simple existence. Half of my face is, like, ripped open. It's just like glowing orange and void and like the bent metal.

That'll buff right out. I'll be fine, I appreciate it, Miss Farron. I got a parched dry mouth and I don't even got a tongue. I'm glad you're okay. What were you thinking? I couldn't know what should we just stand for that? The fact that all of those pamphlets are from being passed around, being hung up, spreading lies?

These people are ungrateful. How many times if we had to have this conversation, well, I've told you we don't do what we do for recognition or praise? So we're just going to, uh, just for the sake of it. Look, I only hope that help those who help themselves. And these people don't want to be helped. It's not for the sake of it, Briggsie. If we get back to Phil, I'm Ruskinvald.

All right. Then we get all that. Damn it. He spit out of breath. Oh, God. They're like an Olympic shot foot. Damn it. Where they get out of all these bricks from?

He promised us all those treasurters to deal with the things that haunt us. That's why we did it. That's why we were here. And that's exactly my point. Mission accomplished. Frankly, who gives you fuck? Let Billy fucking lead him for all I care. Well, we have to, in the very least, say, Miss McDow.

Yeah, you're on your case. We can't leave her in the little one undefended while a bunch of angry mob burns down the hut and puts them to the torch. That's... Or the pitchfork? That is not going to happen, Jennifer. Gosh, I hope not.

Well, and, and, you know, I feel bad for all these people. I said it. They're just, they're not thinking clearly. On account of the demons and also now account them just all of their sorrows. I don't want to leave them here just to suffer. And you, what Jericho says rings true to you as you think about this city in a whole and what it would be like to live here. If you didn't have your experience, if you didn't have your innate skills,

if you weren't fate touched in some way, what it would be like, you think of the girl that you think of the girl that you, you met yesterday, the baker's daughter, and what it must have been like to be born in this city, born afraid from the moment that you can open your eyes, the moment you can think you've been told that everything that you do is sinful and that there will be a price to pay for every choice that you make. And always having someone lording over you and telling you how to live and who to be and what's okay, and never being given the things that you need to survive. And yet she still found happiness and she still found a way to trust you.

It's clear that there are good people here. It's clear that fear is a powerful tool. And I mean, I know that you're feeling mighty cross on account of the evil genius mastermind, Percy Phipps and all. But I feel like we need a little bit of perspective where if you grow up your whole life saying everything's going to be fine, just trust the archbishop and he's going to be The archbishop, and he turns into a giant demon gargoy and flies to the moon and explodes. And then your only beacon of hope on which is an account of a giant cathedral where you've worshipped your whole life crumbles into the dirt.

I feel like you'd be mighty cross, too, wouldn't you? Brixie? I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Thank you, Jericho. You're the only one speaking clearly. Look, I've been run out of town like this before. And I've never known anything to change the collective opinion. on fucking anything besides madness. And look, I'm not saying we're not going to go save people. That's fine. That's fine.

All I'm saying is I feel like trying to change these people's minds. It says a tall fucking order. So you better get writing. Oh, I thought maybe Miss Leficka would write the propaganda instead. I'm more kind of a, I don't really write my music down. It's kind of more... Oh, well, I mean, you're presuming that she's going to be okay, you know? She took a nasty blood loss event.

No offense. Look at the same. Yeah, she jerks the other kid, man. There's murder. I took a nasty gargoyle claw with the body. And I'm right is right. I'm just fine. Look, I'm just saying,

I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna say no, we're not gonna do it. I'm just saying we should, we should watch out. I mean, these people, it's not gonna take, you know, you don't be no offense.

It's not gonna take that many of them to fucking overpower us and just, kill us. Did you see how they all lined up in single files? They're right out of the town. I mean, it's easy. And you woke up when you were clawed

by a monster, you woke up as a demon. We don't know if Lethika's going to wake up the same way. She might be in no condition to write down fancy lyrics. Oh, no, gosh, I thought I woke up and everyone was fine. They were all scared, feared, looking at me. That's pretty normal. I was just myself. Oh, do we know feeling, ma'am?

I thought we did. Not a nasty, nasty couple bricks to the head. Well, let me, can I see that? We're walking, obviously. No, I know. I'm just allowing you. I'll look at it. And Phipps had run out of space.

It's just like the corner of my head. It's just like the corner of my head. It'll look. No, it's actually mostly Virgil, the Crow. Oh, he's really virgin. He's very much. Look at that. You ever thought we'd ever amount too much?

We're genuine wanted by somebody finally. It might be Phipps, and on account of an angry posse, but guards, we're really moving up. Phipps has clearly spelled his name wrong. Oh! Well, the H, I suppose, is silent anyway. And I suppose you wouldn't know that there would be an H there.

Oh, there shouldn't be two O's than an M and a B at the M there. And it sticks with an ST. Well, you know, it's the thought that counts. This just says old Jerichoom Dix. And Virgil spelled perfectly. Well, anyways, I gosh, I hope Hugo and Miss Leveke are feeling more like themselves. And it is around this time that you find yourselves back at the house.

You wait for a moment and scout the area. There doesn't seem to be anyone around. And what you were told yesterday by the Baker's daughter seems to be true. People are avoiding this house. They're afraid of what happened in this house and that it might be a seat of evil. And they're not quite ready yet to explore it and risk peril to themselves. And so you find yourself in quiet, all except for the sounds of weeping. As you open the door, you see Hugo rocking in front of the fire, holding Lethaca to his chest.

Hugo, Miss Lothika. And he's just holding her tightly, almost too tightly. I'll take my hat off. Is everything okay, Hugo? We just had to go to the store. I'm going to rush forward and try to see how she's doing. in his arms? He recoils from you for a moment.

He is very protective of her as he cradles her. He pets her hair. His hand is gigantic. He could, he's being very gentle. But it is almost comical the way that he smooths her hair. It has fallen out of the tight bun that it's normally up in and it is now cascading down her back.

But he's being very careful not to move her mask in any way. You can tell that Hugo has a great reverence for her. But he sees you and he smiles. You're fair

and he wants to take care of you too and it was he's so afraid of what is happening to her that he is hesitant, but He knows the magic that you possess, and he slowly lowers Lethika down to the ground and places her gently on the rug in front of the fire as he moves the tendril of hair off of her mask. And he looks at you the dirt and soot that's been covering this mass of a man from the breaking of the cathedral, from the rubble that he was pinned beneath. He is still caked and dried blood, but they're not.

There are two rivers of clean flesh on his face where it's clear that from the moment that you laughed, he has been crying. And he points down to her, Fix Lusica for Hugo. Take it easy, it's all right. We're here now and let me take a look at her. And I'll just, is she in the same condition

we left her in or is there. She is still sleeping from what you can tell Rolla Medicine Check. As Hugo lays Lethika down on the ground, I will go to take a step forward and stop and take a step back. I got a seven. You got a seven?

I got a seven. We got a seven. Don't do it dirty, a little dice. Come on. That was worse. Fuck you, Kelsey. Brutal. You a six.

Derek's out of the campaign. This confused. chooses you. You are familiar with the cycle of life and death, but not this state of stasis that Lethaca appears to be in. This is something that is wholly unfamiliar to you. Her chest rises and falls with breath. She's clearly not dying or dead. She is, she seems peaceful, but she's not waking. The sounds of Hugo sobbing loud enough to be heard outside, even with the screams and yelling from the citizens all over Cyril, and yet you could hear the booming voice of Hugo, and it wasn't enough to wake her. It's strange, and not something you quite understand.

She seems the same to me. She's not dead, and she's not live. It's a place in between that I'm unfamiliar with. My gosh, if you can't rouser, Maybe Marius, you could? I could certainly try. Are we all right with that? Why wouldn't we be?

Yorgrim, will you assist me, please? Yes. No, no, come with me. And I will walk towards Lethaca, and with Yorgram next to me, I'll look to him and say, If anything happens, you pulled me away. If I see you lose yourself, I'll move. All right, and I begin to undo my gauntlets again

to get my bare hands out. And I think back to that moment in the broken cathedral. And I dig deep, and I say a prayer to the morning Lord. And I attempt to feel if I can lay hands hands on Lethika to see if there's a way for me to heal her. You immediately feel the heat begin to build in your palms. But once again, it is not the morning lord that answers. You smell the scent of roses.

But the heat begins to build, and that soft red glow begins to pulse and radiate from your hands, and you know that you could do this. But yet again, you would not be using his magic. He would be using someone else's. My face will be stoic, but your room is close enough to see that my hands are shaking ever so slightly. And I will kneel down next to Lethika

and put one arm underneath of her shoulders like I did before, and the other kind of on her face next to her mask on her bare skin and her neck where I bit her. And I will attempt to lay on hands and heal her. I would place her. my hand on Marius's shoulder as I see his hand start to shake. If I can, I'd like to actually use some of the pool

to restore hit points, and then if I feel like there's a disease or a poisoning effect, I can use five hit points to do that as well. I'm just going to use a shitload of HV. You, mm-hmm. I'll give Bartak inspiration to you as well. I'll say, oh, wake up this morning, please, Smith, Lathica, wake up this morning. Please, Smith, Lathica.

And I'm gonna keep doing that little bit and enjoy BARTIC inspiration. D-8? D-8, yeah. You barely hear the music that Jericho's making. You can feel your heartbeat pounding in your ears. And as you place your hand on Lethika's neck, you can feel those two pinpricks. pinpricks, pulsing, almost in unison with yours.

Thumb, thump, thump, thump, thump, Thum, Thum, Thum, Thum. Jericho feels miles away as he sings the song to you. You feel Yorgram's hand on your back, but even that feels like it's out of space, out of time, as you are surrounded by the smell of roses, and you think to yourself about the morning Lord, and you hope for the light of dawn.

But that is not the magic that emanates from you. It's more akin to the red of a blood moon as you channel everything that you have into waking this woman. Lethika, darkness surround you. But this is nothing new to you. You relish in the darkness, the true darkness of a night with a full moon

and not a star in the sky. Then a terrible sense Then a terrible scent fills your nostrils. The smell of smoke is suddenly a blazing inferno rages before you and you see a dark silhouette within. It is a strong masculine shape and a terrible dread fills you for a moment. Until the figure turns, a plume of smoke

drifts away as the firelight illuminates the face of Marius Renetheer. His crimson eyes bleeding and fangs longer than you've ever seen them. He steps forward and in an instant, his hand is around your throat, and suddenly you're jolted awake. Oh, oh, I'm so sorry.

Get off of me. What do I remember from the church? I would say you remember all of it. You were lucid for those moments before you passed out. In those moments, you saw the light change in his eyes, and that Marius wasn't Marius anymore. He was wholly overtaken by him. something else. You remember feeling the pressure on your neck, the two pricks of pain as his fangs

pierced into your flesh, and then that feeling of your heart slowing with every gulp of blood that he stole from you, and the way that your heart felt like it was slowly being squeezed and emptied before you found darkness. Off, off, off. And I'll scurry back and just slip out of your arms as quickly as I can. You'll feel me push away with as much strength as I have to muster.

Yeah, you would have no problem escaping my grasp as I would fall backwards as well and land. Lethaca, okay, Hugo, Hugo, love Lethaca. Lethika, are you all right? Where are, where are we? What is, what is happening? You're safe for now. Just take your breath.

He quickly reaches over and he fumbles with his gigantic hands, but he has been keeping a tea kettle boiling this entire time. As he, it looks minuscule in his hands. As he pours the tea kettle into a mug and shakily, he hands it to you. He is very overwhelmed.

Drink. Thank you, Hugo. Thank you. I'm opening a cupboard, like leaning down. Breathing your cup. Excuse me. Just turn. It's not mid-jew.

Oh. Oh. One of my, my drink, one of my drinks. As I realized that Lethika has done this and she's drinking tea, I will blink a few times and regain my composure as the stoicness kind of returns to my face. and I'll slowly and smoothly stand up, pick up my gauntlets off the floor,

just begin to redone them as I take three or four, five steps backwards, past Yorgrim, back past Briggs-Z, and kind of with my back up against the door where we came in, and I won't say anything, and I'll just observe what's happening, and I still kind of look. A little shocked, but stoic,

It'll look, just a tinge of surprise. How much time has passed? About her night, we're back in the Mirabelle house. You fell in the battle against Renalte. I remember. What happened after I fell? How did we get back here? The cathedral started to collapse.

We climbed down to Hugo in its depths. We all ran out together. We carried you back here. Thank you. I need a moment. Good, it'll take me a moment to restring this. I don't know him. I'm glad if it makes you feel better, Ms. Lethika. I also fell in battle too.

And apparently, Virgil came to say hello anyways. Not this Virgil, the other version of the real. Anyways, I'll like reach into my packet. It'll pull out of his chair. You want a snack? I found some cured turkey. What? It says gobbled goo.

I'm assuming it's turkey. No. I can't really taste it. You sure? All right, I'll just, it'll be in the eyes box. I'll have some brigsie. Oh, here you go. And I'll hand her a few slices of turkey.

I'm beginning to get my strength back. What do you mean, the real Virgil? Well, the Virgil that talks to me when he's feeling not quite so sick. And when we have thoughts that aren't quite as cacophonist, so to speak, that's a nice fancy word that he uses. He always calls it lucidity be. I don't know what that means. And let me tune this,

and I'll just start tuning my banjo after I've reached wrong up. It seems that much has happened since I fell in battle. You gotta miss a lot. And nobody's at fault. It's nobody's fault, all right? We're doing the best we can. We've been through a lot, haven't we?

I narrow my eyes. I think everybody can use a snack. I mean, there's nuts if you're not into the turkey. I'll take a little, I'll take a little bit of a snack. Briggsie. It was someone's fault. It was mine. Well, I mean from a certain point of view, I guess you could say that, but on the other hand, I mean, you know, it's part and parcel with the curse, you know, right? So, I mean, I guess it was your fault that you got curse in the first place. Many things happened on top of that tower. We don't know what drove us to do them.

I'll finally stand and sort of brush myself off and put the teacup down and I'll look at Marius and seeing that everybody is discussing this topic, I'll walk directly through the room and reach up, slapping Marius in the face. You hear as Briggs Ewe-up. I'm getting like a scoopful. We do not need to speak of it.

What else has happened? Is everyone okay? We'd love to give... Go ahead. Sorry. We'd love to give you the time you need to recover, but you should also know that Van Brunt has rounded up a posse of riders, and he hunts Maggie McDuff currently.

That's right. We've just come from the town center. Yeah, so when you say you need a moment, we don't have a whole lot of moments. Van Brunt rode in the wrong direction, but he'll find his way of it. The townspeople are quite riled. What is our next move?

I can travel. Are you sure, Miss Lethika? How do you feel? At least have some gobble goo. Don't say gobble goo. It says we're all here on a page. I'm not making that shit, though. It's like a go-gurt.

I'm not to get a shot. It's just a turkey girt. It's actually just a turkey girt. I'm calling it. I hate you for it. Goodyurt, my favorite. It's really just the slimy stuff on spam. Oh, god.

I just need a moment to sew up the OLAF sack. One moment, and I'll pull out my, along with, next of my string, there's like a spool of thread and a needle. It's like super rusty and old, and I'll try to like pull together my burlap. And I'll start stitching myself back up. I mean, other way, if we're gonna, I mean, beat them to the punch, you really expect me to waddle all the way out into the fucking woods and beat them there?

They got like fucking war horses. Well, considering the direction they were going. And the fact that Brunt isn't necessarily the sharpest, I still think that we could beat them. We just have to be careful as we moved there. It's the dumbest human I've ever met, but. You hear a soft knocking at the door. But what? But even he could follow our trail.

I would just turn around and not. Like just enough for me to stick an eye wall. You open it just enough to stick, to look out as the door immediately swings in. And a small girl, about 15, covered in flower, spins into the room. I raise my shovel. And you see that she is very quickly trailed by an even smaller boy. Ferran, you immediately recognize this boy as the boy that you saw watch you for too long and then dart into the building.

Looking at them both, it's very clear that they are siblings. The resemblance between the two of them is uncanny. He, you notice, is covered in straw and dirt while she is covered in flaskered. and cooking detritus. And she swings her basket in and slams the door shut. You have made a mess of this town. What were you thinking? Where are your parents?

Working. Oh, sit there alive? Yeah? You're not orphans? No. Okay, good. Anyway, come in. And I should be at the bakery.

I have four dozen cookies that I have to make. I shouldn't be here worried about you fools. When did I warn you yesterday? The town wants you dead. Why are you being stupid? Do I recognize this girl? No, you've never seen her before. My apologies.

Oh. My name is Lethika. What is your name? She's like looking at you, staring at the mask, and looking away, and staring back at the mask. I'm just catching up. Oh, my name's Betty. Betty. Betty.

Bailey, Bailey, Bailey, from Bailey's Bountiful bakery. Yeah, my parents, I'm sorry. Literation is awesome. Awesome. Well, that's Essent. This is my young brother, Ben Bailey. Betty and Ben, it is a pleasure to meet you. Bailey's blacksmithing and livery.

I mean, fortunately, livery doesn't start with a B. And you can't say borses because horses starts with an H. This is all very funny. Are we in any danger? Yeah. Then we should move quickly. Yes, you should. Do you say livery?

Yes, and that's why I'm here. Oh, thank you. Ben came by the bakery to tell me that he saw you running through the streets after somebody made a scene in the town center. Yeah, all those cross townsfolk really made a scene. Yeah, gosh. I stuck my neck out for you. They were mighty cross, right?

Oh, they were mighty cross indeed doing all that to the poor archbishop. If any of these people found out that I was having a lot of, helping you? Do you know what they would do to my family? Think about that stuff. We're trying to help. And I'm trying to help you. You know, look, in my defense, we're kind of from here. Can you please put that weird gelatinous

meat down and she throws you a, she throws you a croissant? Oh, that's not bad. For like the 2% I could taste. I made it myself. I was in a bit of a mood. We just went. through horrible conflict, and they were ringing bells.

It was a fucking nightmare, all right? And I'm a little upset. You know, all of you, you know, townsfolk friends are, you know, trying to kill us and, you know, drawing really poorly illustrated pictures of us. And I can see your skeleton. I mean, a bit of me skeleton. You are a decaying crocodile.

That had I not be a, you know, you know, a mighty fine shot with the old voodoo gun. You know, who doesn't happen? Do you have any idea how horrifying you are? Look, it's not a whole lot I can do about that, okay? Do you think anyone in this town has seen anything like you before? You don't trust us because you don't know us. We don't trust you because we don't know you.

I'm taking a risk here, buddy. Well, as old Mary always says, we're trying to aid. Are you? Put that gelatinous meat down. She walks over and slaps it out of your hand. And she hands you. And it's my hand detaching. She looks down at your hand as it kind of like jolts a little bit.

And she goes, really? Virgil and hand are eating the gala gauble. She reaches into her basket and she pulls out a red chain. checkered cloth that is wrapped up and bundled. And she opens it up and you see a variety of cheeses and some cured meats. And she takes it and she lays it out on the table and she starts pulling more things out of her basket.

She lays out some more croissants, a large baguette, some morning muffins. You immediately smell Bergamont. You're familiar with this scent. But you also, you also, You also see some blueberry and raspberry and Sherry's berries and cherries berries and cherries berries and berries, berries, berries, berries.

And she has laid out a breakfast feast for all of you. Betty, this is very kind and you are taking a risk. How can we repay you? Stop making a scene and save Maggie McDuff. She took care of me when I was a little girl. You know, she used to run the school, when there was a school. She taught me a lot. She's sweet.

They have the wrong idea about her. She never would have heard any of those kids, and she's definitely not behind any of this. She loved us. She also saved our lives, and we are going to repair the favor. And she's a weird. She's not a witch. I mean, no, no, I mean a good, uh.

Sorry, we just had a little bit of inter-party tension. And I'm just feeling a little off as all. She's a good witch who's going to save the town with her good magic. We may need to rebrand witch, though. We may need to think of a new... She's a woman of the woods, yeah. A woods woman. Yeah.

She's innate earth magic. It's really cool. A woods wizard. A woods woman is better. I don't like that. Workshop. It'll be fun. We'll workshop it. Well, thank you very much for this spread of breakfast.

We're gonna regain our strength, and you said there's a livery? She reaches down and she ruffles her younger brother's hair. He looks up at her with wide eyes and smiles. You can tell that he adores his older sister. As she looks towards him, she sees that he is, you can tell by looking at them, even though they run a bakery, they still are very hungry.

And she looks over to him, She looks at all of you, and she reaches out, and she grabs a croissant, a couple of slices of cured meat and a few cheeses, and she hands them to him. And she says, Ben, you know what to do. Carlton, Buttercup, Chester, daffodil, Frank, and witch stomper. And as she says the name witch stomper, you see he smiles and hops a little bit. But make haste. They're going to eat, and then I'm going to get them there, so you hurry. and he squeezes her hand, looks at all of you,

squeaks in a little bit of fear, and then darts out of the door, and you hear the patter of his feet as he begins running through the streets of Cyril. You need to eat, get together, whatever plan you need to get together, and then you'll follow me through these streets. We're going to be going through houses, mostly abandoned.

But you have to do what I say, okay? If I tell you to duck, you duck. If I tell you to shut up, shut up. If I tell you not to draw attention to yourself, don't draw attention to yourself. Understood. We're going to get you to the livery. My dad has a delivery today, and so he's not going to be around, at least not for the next couple of hours. It's not going to be happy when he sees his best horses gone, so make sure you return them.

What's going to happen to the horses? You're going to ride out of here on them. Oh, I understand. Wait, you thought you were going to chase a group of mounted competitors? Baton's on foot? Oh, well, I wasn't going to do that. You know what? Oh, me.

You see me legs? No. Horses and I don't usually get along. They can usually sense when there's Eve on the foot. If we're going to be riding horses, I'll probably need a change of clothes. Can't help you with that. Maybe check upstairs. This family had a lot of money.

Wouldn't be surprised if they had riding attire or who knows what else in here. Wow, this place is a feritable mansion compared to where I live. Would have been nice to be the sister of the Archbishop? I guess not now, considering anyway. I'll actually get down on my knees so that I'm sort of like the same height and hold Betty's hands. Betty, you have shown us great kindness today. Yes. It's no problem. Is there anything we can do before you leave us to our task? Please try not to draw any more attention to yourself. If anyone finds out that my brother and I helped you,

if my parents find out that my brother and I helped you, we would have a target on our backs too. The only thing that keeps us safe is, you're a pretty good baker. You tried the Bergamont cupcakes yet? They're my specialty. I've been working on them really hard lately. No, I have not. I have been out for a little while,

but I will attempt to keep the boys under control. Okay. Anyway, I'm really proud of them. And we do good work, my family. So as long as people don't get wins that I've helped you, will be safe. They're not going to do anything to the Bayleys. Let me just speak a short prayer, a blessing.

Oh, what God do you worship, Fultus? I worship a goddess of... Mercy, loss. Why loss? To help those who need comfort when they are grieving. Oh, that's kind. A lot of people in Cyril right now are dealing with loss. We've lost everything.

A lot of us have. And perhaps I can return one day and help show them the ways of my goddess to allow them to find relief. All right. Don't tell my mom she'd freak. And she squeezes your hands. And I'll bend down. And I'll start to whisper.

But as I'm whispering, because of the experiences we've just had over the last 48 hours, I'm going to cast to detect thoughts and get a sense of what's happening inside of the mind of Betty to make sure that we're not being tricked and that we're not about to eat. eat anything that we wouldn't want to eat. Okay.

And so how does this work? Oh, I guess I have to look at, detect thoughts. That's a smart thing. That's a good figure. That's using your noodle. One moment. Fool us once. Shame on your grim.

Fool us twice. Shame on the rest of us. I don't have, you don't have to make a wisdom saving throw unless I go deeper into your state. By casting the same. spell using the blessing of the Lady of Lost that I have, I initially just learn the surface thoughts of the creature, what's going on in its mind at that moment. So without probing any further, I just want to get a sense of, is there good, is there earnestness, is there sincerity in there?

It doesn't work if her intelligence is three or lower. She's smart, okay. I think you're fine. You're immediately overwhelmed with you're with good vibes. The first thing that you read from her is, I wonder what she looks like under that mask. I bet she's pretty. Her hands are really soft. Better not get yourself caught.

Please be safe. It's going to be all right. It's dangerous, Betty. Why are you doing this? You got to make sure that Miss McDuff is safe. Like a second mom to you. It's going to be okay. People are nice.

Even the one that's missing pieces of himself. Doesn't seem like he's going to hurt you or anything. Anyway, what was that about loss? God, Mom, would be so mad as she found it that I was standing with someone who worshiped somebody else and we're talking about other gods and stuff. And may the cloak of darkness protect you under the night sky. And I'll stand up.

Thank you, Betty. That was for sharing that with me. I apologize for my appearance. No, no, I mean, you're not missing part of your stomach, no offense. I haven't had time to clean up. All right, well, I'm deep in thought. I'll try one of those burger mint muffins. You know what they say, down the...

I'll have the same. Garsh, that is delicious. That is perfectly baked and bread season. It is less like a muffin and more like a cupcake. It is clearly her attempt at making a breakfast food that is akin to dessert so that she can have dessert all day, every day. It has a cream cheese glaze with a hint of lavender. And there are candied chunks of burgomot in it.

And it's very clear that it was made with a steeped tea versus water as the moisture agent. And it is, you can see how something like this could have been dry or too pungent with some of those more sour notes that come along with Bergamut. But she's clearly been working on this recipe. And she watches in anticipation as you both eat them. You can see that she occasionally looks away, not wanting to seem too. eager for your feedback on her creation. Well, that's mighty fine, young lady. You've got a great career as a baker yourself.

Well, I'm probably going to take over for mom when she's ready to retire, so I really want to make her proud. You are already very skilled, a baker. Shucks, thanks. But if I don't get you to delivery soon, mom's going to know I'm gone, and dad's going to return from his deliveries, and you're not going to be able to catch that mob of men and save Maggie, so...

Maybe you hurry. We would move. What about Hugo? You look over and you see that now that Hugo, you see that he is looking between all of you. He is leaning up against the fireplace. He's even more covered in soot now that he's so close to the flames. But he is very clearly exhausted and wounded and tired. and he is occasionally he struggles to sit up,

but then he slowly sinks back down against the stone, and he is struggling to keep his eyes open, but he is almost afraid to look away from you. What about shaman? I don't know anyone named shaman. What? I know a Seamus. For the rebrand.

Like instead of Woodwich. Yeah, instead of a good wizard. Wood wizard. Gosh, I'm getting mightily attached to Wood wizard. Anyways, we can workshop it after we save her life and the life of the little one. Pretty good, only two syllables, anyway. You need to stick with what you're good at,

voodoo, not propaganda. You need the propaganda to the experts. You think that propaganda is something that when you take a really good look at something. That's really funny, Miss Lepika. Anyways, is Hugo going to be all right? I will... I will...

I can trouble with us in this condition. and he's exhausted. As they're discussing, I'll walk up and take Hugo's massive hand. He reaches out and he puts his large hand on your face. Let the cop, okay? I am fine, Hugo. You took very good care of me. Thank you.

Hugo's sleep now. Yes, sleep and when you wake, your wounds will be mended. And let the cop be here with Hugo? I cannot say for sure. We may need to go and save Maggie. Hugo, alone. We will figure something out, but even if you are alone,

you will have me in your heart, just as I have you. He looks down at his hands. They're caked in blood and dirt and tears. And he puts his hand over his heart. Let's occur here. And the knowledge that you help Thieve all of us through your strength. What you did

was so brave. Family. Yes. Hugo has family. Hugo sleep. Hugo tired. Rest now, and I'll put my hand sort of on his forehead, and I can

probably feel that it's quite hot. He's definitely fever. I'm trying to cool him off, and I may even take a little bit of cloth and just sort of like, probably unknowingly rhyme with the fact that he was petting me, but just wipe his wounds, wipe away some of the dirt on his face, and as gently as I can to lull him in to sleep.

And it doesn't take long at all. As he relaxes into your care, you quickly hear the rise and fall, or you quickly see the rise and fall of his chest and the soft sounds of him sleeping. He does not snore. but his breathing is loud, but it is even. A good night's sleep will do him well.

And then I cast inflict wounds at third level. No, I'm sorry. No, no, no, no, no, I cast cure wounds. Cure wounds. That's right, that's what I'm right. That's what I'm sorry. Shit. Cure is so important.

Oh, that's awful sweet. He's sleeping like a little babe in the woods. It's a nice thing you did for him. It was a nice thing that you saved me all of you. And how much healing are? Oh, yes, I will roll. Oh, Max, healing tower for 13 points of help. Oh, fantastic.

Wow, 13. Thank you. Buddy, can you keep an eye on this house? Make sure that none of the townspeople. I can do my best, but it would be a little suspicious if the Bailey girl was seen around the Maribel house a lot. I'll see what I can do. My brother has some friends that are a little more rapscallion

in nature. As long as they're nice, Hugo's very sensitive, and if they made fun of him, I'd gosh, we'd just feel terrible. He needs a great deal to us. She looks over at the sleeping giant. and seems nervous. Her experience with this is this entity

would fall from the sky and turn the people of Cyril into paste for even the smallest of crimes. But she seems to trust you. And it is... Couple goose people pick. Oh, no! No!

That's a nice. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, he did use to carry human-sized cages on his back and bring him to the jail. But it was, it's clear to her that he, just like the townsfolk that she speaks so highly of and is so understanding of, that he was in a situation he couldn't control. And she's willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and trust you. I'll make sure he's all right. Make sure he's fed.

And I won't let anyone come to the house that would harm him. Keep yourself more than anything, but just keep an eye out if you can. Could you leave him a note or something so that he knows that Betty is friend, not food? I don't, could you go read? You don't know. We'll certainly try. Yes, young lady. That would make me feel a lot better.

I didn't get a chance to talk to him, but, yeah, I don't want him waking up and, you know. I will leave a note for him. explaining the situation. Maybe we could make a little drawing to go with it. That is not a bad idea. A muffin girl. Oh, Betty the muffin girl. I like that.

I start looking for crafts. Like, literally like, are there cupboards? Is there paper? You knew that a child lived here, and as you're going through the cupboards, you do find what is the equivalent to a booster seat and some maps and some crayons. But one of the things that you notice that really, yeah, crowns, one of the things that you notice that really actually causes an irrational sense of frustration is you notice that there's a connect the dots in the shape of a triangle. And it is just one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. It's just.

This makes me irrational way I said. Why would you do it? It's obvious. There's nothing here. This world is due. Just make it obvious that, like, she brings and bakes and sells muffins and that she, like, isn't a muffin. You know what I mean? If I had more time, I would make a diorama, but I will write it out.

We are running out of time. There's an angry posse searching in the woods. Tyroko's right. She got to move on. I will attempt to make a few illustrations of Betty. performance check to see how well you do creating. I don't know how good luck like that is at this. Is she an artistic person or not? Let's find out. Oh, I think she is.

She's feeling pretty 21 about them crafts. Big one. You flip this horrible connect the dots over and you begin creating this, almost like a comic strip where you show you know, Betty coming to the house and feeding you, and Hugo falling asleep, and Lethika are you, like shaking her hand and thumbs-uping, she's like, she's cool,

and her coming back to the house and feeding Hugo and taking care of him. And even though you're not sure if Hugo can read, you end this, you end this, what is that thing that you drew for the Kirkland? What's that thing called? Storyboard. You end this storyboard with the words,

Betty Friend. Oh. Nice. I don't think that's too bad. Garchs, that looks great. You're a genuine artist, Miss Lefigha. Hugo, save this and we will put it on the larder later. Hold on.

Shall we? I am going to check upstairs if there is any clothes that I might wear and tidy a bit. But is there any things that I might wear. else we need to do in the city before we go. I'm not sticking around for me longer. Let's get the fuck out of here. Thank you, Betty. Thank you again.

I'll say my goodbye now and be upstairs. I'm leading you to delivery. Goodbye. You can... Just like mid-sentence as you walk up the stairs. Oh, God. All right. I'll just wait right here then.

She leans up against the wall and cross. crosses her arms. And you rush upstairs. You quickly look through the cupboards and the drawers and the armoire. And you do eventually see what is Zephyrine Marabelle's writing outfit. And it looks to be a very similar size to you.

You're able to don it very quickly. And as you are now in these leather, you're prepared to ride. Is bag still by my side? Bag is still by your side. Okay, I'll finish putting on the really, really tall boots that come with writing and talking to bag. You could have protected me, you know. I was all by myself, and I had no one to defend myself.

You watch as the hand creeps out, not one, but two, and it goes, yes, yes. And I'll come back downstairs, and I've got like the writing stick and the little cap and everything, everything else is in my side. Well, shall we? It's Garsh. All right. Remember what I said.

Listen to everything, I say. All right? Let's not get ourselves killed today. Let's go save Maggie McDuff. And she quickly darts out of the house. And I need you all to make a stealth roll. Oh, gosh. I'm going to twist it.

Oh, that's pretty good. Do we get the things for you or no? No, she's just a saving check. I have to twist those. I absolutely have to. Come on. 23. 24. 22.

You know, I rolled like hot fire last week. It was bound to happen. I got a five. Oh. 20. 25. Can't win them all. Oh.

Can't win them all. So everyone got 20 or buff except for. Yeah. I'm just clang, clang, clang. Oh, I don't. Clang, clang, clang. I think about help. helping you, but then I don't.

Bigh, bang, bang. Bette is smart. She has walked these streets her entire life. She knows the movements of the town people. Who's going to be where? Who's making a delivery when? When this house is open, when old Bill Jones has gone on his lunch break,

or Susan Warner is out, is out having her morning tea with her mister, and you are able to make your way through these houses and through these streets. And it's almost as if, even though Marius is a little louder than the rest, and he's a little more disruptive, it takes a bit, but Betty accounts for it. And she stops you.

And you listen. You do what you're told for the first time in this entire campaign. And she stops you and you stop moving. And as a cart begins to roll down the cobblestone street, making significantly more noise, you dart through the shadows, completely masking any sound your armor would have made. And it takes you about 30 minutes to make your way to the livery.

It's nothing special. It is a moderately sized stables, fairly well, kept and you see that there are horses lined up here for you that Ben had done what he was told by his sister and he had lined up these horses Carlton Buttercup Chester daffodil Frank and witch stomper which is a very small pony badass I love that you look towards all of them and they are and they are they have their saddles and their gear and you see that each of them has an emblem strapped at their chest, stamped in leather

that has their name on it, as well as what is clearly the symbol for the bakery and the livery, which is a horseshoe with two muffins on either end. Oh, of course. And they are ready for you. Most of them are just average horses, but Buttercup is a large and impressive Clydesdale. Yes!

And outside of the small pony witch stomper, the others are average. You can betty motions you pick the horse you want. I'll look for the horse with the darkest shade of horse fur? Mainerbair is. What in the hell? I think you also could have just said darkest shade.

This is Frank. Thank you. Frank is off. to the side and he is, his mane and tail are a deep blue black, almost resemblance of a midnight sky. And it is exactly what you were looking for. You even notice that his bridle, instead of the golds that the others are in, are in beautiful silvers.

I know about riding horses. I walk up and I'll pet the main and offer some gobble goo and make friends with Frank. Roll an animal handling. Oh, okay. Why is, that's very absurd. Easy B. Yum. Oh, my goodness, it's a natural point.

Well done. Immediately. Immediately, Frank begins to puff out his chest and stomp too. He recognizes the gear that you're wearing. He sees this established, I was at Horses Street. Could be equestrianism? Yes.

Yeah. I am an equine aficionado. And he senses your familiarity with steeds, and he taters to you and immediately responds to your gentle cliques, and the orders essentially you're giving him as he feeds or he eats the gull, The guava goo.

I put a foot in one stirrup, and I mount the horse. In an instance, I have it, like, walking backwards and doing, like, circles and tricks. Well, I'm ready to go. We got... I go on witch stopper. We got Frank, witch stopper, buttercup. What are the other friends?

I go from witch stopper. I don't know the fuck. Someone's going to go to order. You're so cruel. I need you to rule animal handling check for me, please. At disadvantage. Come on. Animal handling? Oh, that's pretty good.

That's not bad. Lucky number 13 plus. Uh, da da da, da, da, da. Uh, animal handling. Oh, that's 15. Nice. Dread. Oh, no.

Please don't break witch stopper. 17. Okay. You rush towards witch jumper. And at first, this small pony rears back in horror as you shambled towards him. You are bigger than this whole. This is, this was, witch stompher, you now understand Ben's reaction. This is clearly Ben's horse.

This is a pony that is designed for an eight-year-old boy to learn how to ride. Which stumper permanently versus two inches. Witch dumpers sinks into the ground as you, as you, as you, as you, get atop his back. You look ridiculous. But this horse,

this horse is young and determined. It looks towards Frank that is gallantly carrying Lefaca stride his back, and he attempts to puff out his chest and wheezes out a winnie as he tries to move forward on his shaky legs, but he starts to get it. You imagine it's going to be a bit of a struggle, but witch stumper is relentless. And he moves forward

and stands next to Frank completely overshadowed by this massive horse. Every vessel needs a badass name. Ride atop with witch stomper. Stomper of witches. Yes, you and the five-year-old child are very similar.

You see Ben looks horrified as he stands by the stable. He's clearly cleaning up for the rest of the horses. You see him muttering to himself, and you hear in his breath, oh, man, he shouldn't have let them take witch stompers. They're going to hurt him. This is more pony. Then he continues to do his business.

He occasionally looks back and it's just like, ugh. We got Frank Buttercup and Witch Stomper. Wait, so who's taking Buttercup? Nobody has yet. I'm just, I can remember. Carlton, Chester, and Daffodil. Which one's the biggest? Watercup.

Yeah, Buttercup is the biggest. I'll take Buttercup. That's what I'll say. It might be the only one they can take that tombstone. Can you roll a... All 800 pounds. Can you roll an animal handling check for me, please? This horse is the flight.

I can take on all the other horses as long as they line up. You make your way towards Buttercup. She is clearly the largest of the horses. horses. And she is very well kept. She's clearly a prize steed in this place. And as you look around the rest of the livery, you take note of some of the other horses. There were clearly options better than witch stomper here for Briggs. But they are still stable as you reach out to lay your hand on Buttercup. And she's apprehensive about you at first. But as you begin to, as you begin to say these kind words to her,

she flicks her head back and forth and looks towards you. She nips at you for a moment cheekily. And then kind of nozzles you, almost asking you for more praise. Horse is flirting with you. It's mad. I know. Listen, you worry about your hoes, right?

You're the chosen one yet. Not like buttercup. Beautiful. She immediately whitties and writes her stance as she looks forward. Her head tilted up, almost like she's looking down at the rest of the horses, and she waits for you to mount her. And I will climb a pond. I think you should ride daffodil.

Is that one of the options? Yeah, so Carlton and daffodil. Oh, I immediately try to find daffodil. Daffodil's there. She is clearly distracted by a butterfly that is flitting around by the wooden fence. She's not looking at any of what's going on. Occasionally her head kind of lulls this way or that.

It's very clear she doesn't have full control of her tongue as it lulls out of one side of her mouth. And she occasionally realizes that her mouth is open. She's breathing heavily and her tongue's just dangling and she'll slurp it back into her mouth. She almost looks like she's smiling, just a goofy grin. I've been riding horses forever. So it doesn't really matter to marry a switch horse,

just one that can ride, and he would treat this horse with the utmost respect. A role and animal handling. Don't worry, I'll get a one. Watch that confidence. The only one is. Yeah, that's not very good. I would like to twist it.

You made twist it. I'm unfortunate. You're a horse, you're a tight. I know, but it's like it's a wisdom thing. I don't have proficiency. It would be very RP if I did, but I didn't think this was gonna happen. We're gonna go with a hot seven.

We're gonna go with a hot seven. It's the horse. It's not you know. It's all good. You walk up, you walk up to daffodil. You are familiar with horses. You are a knight. You've ridden them a million times.

You watched Briggs'y Mount witch stomper, the small pony. You watched your grim charm, this monster of a Clydesdale with attitude to boot, and you watched Frank immediately latch himself on to Lethaca. As you saunter over to daffodil, and you make the noises you're supposed to make. You pull on her reins,

and her head just lulls from one side to the next as she's following this butterfly completely just nonplussed. You know, that's okay. We're going to let it happen. It's okay. It's all right. It's okay. She's not paying any attention to you.

I'm so naive. It's okay. It's all right. It's okay. Edd is having a crisis. Nobody asks Andy what's happening. Somebody asks Andy what's happening. This is like that Tom Carl interrupted his big speed.

I can't swap my spells out at any time, can I? Beginning of every day? You can swap your spell out now. I don't care. I thought this was a higher level spell, but I would cast fine steed. And I would summon my horse that I didn't fucking forget on the battlefield. I would summon my own horse. You see that daffodil. I thought it was like a third or fourth level spell.

You see the daffodil isn't paying any attention to you. You pet her and you see that she is. She is clearly an untrained horse and probably not the best pick. to be riding out against a mob of angry men. But Ben is a young boy. He doesn't know any better, and this is probably one of his favorite horses, because she's clearly very silly. You decide to leave daffodil to her own devices,

and you take her reins, and you tie him around the hitching post, and you leave her to herself pulling a bucket over that is filled with a slop and allow her to eat happily, while you then cast and summon your own steed. A steed that previously had been the epitome of morning light, beautiful, golden in color. Shining with the rays of the bright rays of dawn. But when you call your steed forth this time, it is a large, even larger than your Grimm's horse, this steed. a large black horse eyes of flame with ruby red,

tendrils of red streaking through its hair. You see that the bridle is emblazoned with the symbol of the rose. I see this coming. The horse looks at you and as it snorts, you see smoke. Do I feel that it's the same horse but transformed or do I feel like this is a different horse?

You look towards the horse, and at first this feels, wholly unfamiliar to you, but the facial features are the same. This is the horse that you remember. This is your buddy. I would be relieved to see the horse, and I would embrace it just like I normally would, perhaps maybe give it a treat or something, but I would endeavor not to show that something is wrong. The horse immediately recognizes you and begins to nuzzle it.

and you, very happy to see you. Though the look of this steed has changed, the countenance has not. And this is clearly your old friend. And I wasn't prepared to cast a spell, so I haven't come up with a name yet. And I will be very happy to be reunited with my magically invincible horse

that is basically roach from the witcher. Oh, cool. Wow, an invincible horse. Maybe you can name him invincible. So when you summon him, he just is on the side of a roof, right? That's right. Yeah, you just take a few, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click. As he comes down the horse, I am.

Thank you for allowing me to take that back and cast mine's deep. Yeah, no, of course. And you... Do you, I hope, like, to get some space to do it? Yeah, yeah. Like, when you call upon it. I definitely, I'm definitely completely blindsided by this, and I was not prepared because I wanted to be

the way that this is played out in my head. But, yeah, I would go, I would assume that there's space that I could maybe step out in the... There's a large, there's a large, why can't I remember what it's called? Circular enclosure where they do training with the horses and you are able to find a large open area to cast the steed.

I would draw my sword and shield and kneel and put my sword point down into the dirt with both hands and in prayer say a prayer to the morning lord like I normally do to summon the steed and then everything would happen as thus stated. You smell soul. as the spell takes root, and then you hear the galloping

before you see the horse, as it breaks through a fine red mist. And then I embrace and everything happens as normal. You should name the horse Dawn. It's kind of badass. Okay, oh. Oh, we got to work. We'll work shop it. We'll workshop it.

We can also change what the horse looks like. That's the hard for. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. We have to lock in the cannon right now. No, it's not. We can't. This is forever decision.

It's a horse of the morning, dawn. But you did describe it perfectly. Okay, cool, go, go, go, go. Okay, something else's turn. Cool. You, yeah, you, you cast, you summon your steed, and once you have mounted, you make your way back around as your Grim is sitting tall,

a stride buttercup, as you, sidle in beside him towering over him on this monstrous summons deed. Well, Farron, it's just you and me, Chester Carlton. Two regular horses. You look over at Carlton. Two regular, normal horses. I'm feeling a little less feared,

a little less feared about Chester on account of his pretty main and the cute little diamond on his forehead. But they seem to be like twins, perhaps they're brothers, Justin Carlton. They do actually look very similar. And they seem to be paying a lot of attention

to each other. They seem to like to be close to each other as one does something, the other will kind of mimic it. You don't have to be afraid of them. They're just very large. Just hold out your hand and give it a quick nuzzle. I know you can sense evil. Technically you can sense evil.

Technically, you probably smell a lot of evil on and in me. You know, it really doesn't put people at ease when you say that in like it. Oh, God. Have I been saying that out loud? Uh, well, I'll ride through the forest on a horse with the name. My friend's Chester's got a pretty mane. And I'll reach up and I'll try to like stroke its main. Uh, bu, uh, uh, uh,

go, uh, uh, uh, uh, go through the forest on a horse with the very nice name, Chester, Chester friend. And I'll like very timidly try to like pet it. Frick, stay away. Get away from Chester. Can you roll an animal handling check for me, please? Okay. That's good school.

I liked that. Garch. Oh, do that again. I'll twist. I'll twist it. All right through the forest on a garch. That's not bad. And I'm also a ball.

There's a B with a B, a B with a B. Sorry, that's a stupid lyric. I'm just, I'll account of me being so nervous. Thank you, America. Oh gosh, why don't I keep losing old Jericho stick? Animal, handle. Gards, that's of 17. These horses are very clearly used to train younger people.

Not in the same way that witch stomper is for children. for children, but for younger boys as they are truly learning how to ride. And these horses, these two, Carleton and Chester, clearly have to have the disposition for anybody to be able to handle that kind of training. And they are non-blossed by you as you are able to mount them. Jericho or Virgil lands on one of the ears, and the ear wiggles trying to knock him off. so he goes to the other one. He's just trying to irritate the shit out of this horse.

But luckily, for you, this horse is steadfast and resilient and does not let Virgil get the best of him. Well, gosh, how about that? I'm a real live eminal handler, Farron. How about that? I interfere no more. And yes, witch stompra is more like a Shetland pony. It's like Bill the pony.

It's like Bill the pony who literally levels up. Okay, all like shakily. I'll step into the, step on the saddle and I'll slide off. Okay, Garch, no, I'm fine, I'm fine. I'm fine, I'll scuttle up on top of it. Okay, this feels good, Farron. You and Carlton, I'm sure, are the best of buds now.

I'll walk up to Carlton and kind of take his face between my hands and stroke the front of it, his nose and his muzzle. Bad friend, between you and I, I'll look down at my hoes and look at his. This feels a little awkward. If it's all right with you, it's all right with me. I'll give them a scratch and roll an animal handling check.

It's gonna be like that video of the deer that walks over a children slide. That is so funny. I got a 16. Nice. You see that you're on Chester. Or Bobhampton. Oh, you see that Carlton looks towards your hooves,

looks towards his hooves, looks towards your hooves, and then if horses could shrug, he would. And he allows you to mount him. And you all find yourselves now atop these steeds, this strange band of characters, your varying horse sizes. and Betty looks on and just kind of shakes her head. So these are the people that are going to save Maggie McDuff and potentially Cyril.

Well, here's to open, all right. Good luck. Thank you, little girl. And now we ride. None of your horses move. We're just bouncing. Is this not who you're doing? My horse starts to go and I realize that one's coming.

And it's because there are noises that are getting much louder than Jericho's banjo. Oh, no. Shouts and yells, clanking and stomping. Sounds like a stampede, a herd of elephants barreling this way. And then you see it. A mob of angry people rounds the corner. Leading the charge as someone you have never seen before.

A short woman, mousy brown hair, cute face, bright brown eyes, but a look of anger and hatred just affixed on her face. She has an apron that is covered in soot and dirt. She's clearly been cleaning. And she rounds the corner first, and you see a wicked smile on her face as she takes in the sight of you on all of these horses. And then you hear her call out, I found him. I found the fuckers that killed my Carl. Oh, whoops.

You know, we all make mistakes. That's true. That's true. This podcast is brought to you by our Patreon. Become a patron today at patreon.com slash legends of avatris and gain access to tons of exclusive perks including a monthly movie night and a weekly Patreon exclusive campaign set on the high seas shroud over salt marsh.

You can also go to The Crookedmoon.com to pick up your own copy of our first published supplement, The Crooked Moon, a folk horror tome for Dungeons and Dragon 5th edition. And don't forget to snag all the extra goodies like dice, miniatures, plushies, a tarot deck, and more. Thank you. The woman yells out, and you immediately think back to the asshole that interrupted your speech, and how sweet that death was.

And you look at these townspeople rushing towards you, and they are clearly just townspeople with pitchforks and rage and a vendetta. As Betty calls out at you and tells you to Ron you don't have time for this. Get out of here. Will you be okay? Yeah.

I'll make sure Ben's all right. I'll make sure Hugo's all right. We'll just go back to the house. And you see that they're gaining ground as you begin to hear behind them, the clopping of hooves, as what appeared to be six mounted riders. These are men, as you see them turned the corner.

These are men you've seen with William Van Brunt before. They were clearly men that he had left behind to keep the town in check or to hunt for you. Or who knows what nefarious deeds he had them up to. But as they round the corner, you notice that they all have wicked grins. As one of them calls out, good job, Philomena. We'll take it from here. And the crowd of people parts, they're all looking at it. at you, they're all still barreling down on you.

They're walking quickly and with purpose, torches and pitchforks held high as they make a pathway for these mounted riders to rush towards you. It is clear that you could have the upper hand should you choose to make your escape now or deal with them and the mob at the same time. What do you choose to do? I don't want to speak for anybody else,

but what I think Marius would do is he would hear Betty's plight. And Marius would remember what she said about, do what I say, listen to me, and he's a good soldier, he's a good knight. He would know that that's the right thing to do. And I think Marius would issue the attempt to logic and reason and admit to the act that he did to this woman,

and instead shout to his friends and say, you know, she's right. We need to ride on. and I would attempt to urge my horse forward and draw these riders after us and draw this crowd with us if the rest of the gang were to go with us, to draw them away from Betty's. Betty reaches up for a second before you have a moment to speak

and she says, knock me over. Do it now. And then in that moment, I would understand and I would raise my hand, my gauntleted hand up, and pretend to come down and smack her away. She flings herself backwards and yells out and she says, get them! They're stealing my father's horses, help me!

And as she says this, I will look to the woman whose son, perhaps, I killed, and I will grin and bear my fangs in full view of this rousting crowd to attempt to spur their anger and their hatred. They scream and yell, you hear people. Did you see what they did to this? to, oh, Bailey's daughter, did you see that?

And they rush forward. They begin to grab things and start to throw things. The mounted riders begin to rush forward as Marius calls out for you to make haste. And all of you begin to rush forward. You begin what is essentially a horse chase as you navigate the streets of Cyril. Now we ride. Seeing what Marius has done, I'm assuming some of them have torches. I'll snap a few times and put out each one with each snapdo.

You hear gas and shrieks. This only incenses these people as they watch your magic. And you hear the words witch, occultist, devil worshiper. Rai-ho, wish-stopper! I'll kick my spirits and I'll whisper into my horse's ear. Ride, ride like the wind, shadow Frank. Amazing. Shadowfrey.

Shadow frying. And you all begin to ride. You are well ahead of these armed riders, but their steeds are all similar sizes. These steeds were built for hunting. They were built to carry men. And you are riding witch stompher and have steeds that were built for training.

And as children's pony ride bodies, you are children's pony ride bodies. And even though you are us, you are, these steeds are responding to you, they can only go so quickly. And as you exit Cyril and begin to dart into the woods, heading in the direction that you imagine William Van Brunt was heading in, they begin to gain ground on you

as they make chase. If you could all put your minis on the board and then put these five riders there, I need you all to roll for a niche. Five, yeah. Oh, sorry, six riders. Shit. Man.

So we're going this way. Bad ass. I'd probably be blinded. I feel like Marius would be probably in the lead. Sure. I'm Arias for Lepa. Yeah, I'm riding.

Maybe not voluntarily next to each other. No, Rayfam. We'd probably be pretty close together with the twin horses. Yeah. Oh, can we get some camera? And I would say put them about 30 feet behind you. Good.

Move us forward then a little bit. So that way we can get about 30. 10, 15, 20, 25, 30. Okay, yeah, that's good. That's good. About 30 feet. Especially poor, pretty pretty.

Witch stomper is like 10 feet behind. Gosh, isn't it a nice fair in our horse is our friends. They even run the same, just like us. You're best to be holding on. Oh, God, should I not give us a nice chase tune? I'm holding his reigns while he's like that. No, no, no, no, no.

Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Oh, I got a roll for initiative. Initiative. Initiative. What six to initiative? Oh, shit.

Nice, dude. Classic board. Yeah, I had no idea. Do you want to swing that around here so that we're looking more. Oh, yeah, dynamic shot. Well, you know, somebody's gonna do it. I was doing it.

Yeah, but that angle was just too. It's a very epic thing is the shot, right, with the Nazgoul and the end. And also a giant bird was there. 20 to 25. That angle was just not it. 20 to 25. That was much better.

20 to 25. No one. 15 to 20. 15, 16, 16, 16. 16. 15. 15. Okay, so. All, everyone's just hitting the deck.

My initiative is bad. It's not us. That's pretty good. 10 to 15. I got an 11. 13. 12. 10.

Okay, hold on. Oh. So, your groom. Jorgrim, Farren, Marius, Jericho. That's what plus six? Damn. I like the way you're doing that. Feren Marius?

Yes. That's correct. That sounds nefarious. That's true. What do you like? It sounds nefarious. What did you say you like? Oh, it sounded like nefarine.

because it's fair. You like the carts. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's really, I'm going to do that instead of having the weird wine. Oh, oh, you mean sticking them in the notch? Yeah, I've been, yeah, that's way cool. Fix. It doesn't cover up my stuff on the back, which is why I like it.

And it keeps the magnetic strip. It also looks bad ass from this angle. It keeps the magnetic strip usable. Mignatost. I'm learning. I'm learning how to DM while I watch. Yeah, seriously. I'm like to watch.

Lethaca. You have now broken into the tree line. You are rushing through this forest. And you are doing your best to stay to the path that was clearly recently trodden by 20-plus men on horseback. It's easy to see where they had ridden. And you were following the trail, knowing that you were going to have to, one, find Van Brunton, his men,

before they get to Maggie McDuff, but also find some way to either destroy or evade these men on horseback as they're gaining speed. You all break through the tree line, and you turn and look back, and you see that they are gaining ground on you very quickly. What do you do? I will continue to focus on the path ahead of me

and then quickly looking back, know that all of my companions are in danger if they manage to overtake us. So I will endeavor to aid them by turning and whispering a few magic words and with a push of my hand, the outline of these men and their horses will start to flicker and become darker

and give them almost like a drop shadow in Photoshop to make something look a little bit bolder. I'm going to cast fairy fire on that. a lot of them, and each of them needs to make a dexterity saving throw. My DC, I haven't looked at in some time. It's, what the fuck is my DC? Oh, it's 16. Okay.

One got a six, two got a five, five got a two, six got a three, three got a 19, and four got a 14. So which ones fail? So three passes. Three passes. So everyone, all the other? What, 14 wasn't good enough either? 16 was the DC.

Oh shit, okay. I should have listened to that, that would have made it easier. Yeah, so, oh, nice. So all of them have fairy fire except for a 19, or except for number three. Yep. And what does that do besides being invisible?

You have advantage on them. Oh, you all, yes, thank you. Just advantage from attacks? Yeah. Attack rolls against the effective creatures have advantage and the affected creature object cannot benefit from being invisible. Right.

Because I'm sure they were about to cast invisibility. Quick, the invisibility, gentlemen. I don't trust these tricksy peasants. And I guess I'll just continue to ride. Do I see left or right? Like, do I need to do anything with movement? I guess for the sake, we'll explain in a little bit.

You, if you want to, obviously, it works like regular movement. You're moving at 60 feet per turn. I'm not going to have you actually move the minis unless something affects your movement. there are things that will affect your movement. Otherwise, we're assuming that you're all moving in sync at this point. You can use your full action to dash and double your speed. And otherwise,

like in a head or like, okay. Otherwise combat works as usual. I'm still and unless I say otherwise. I will forego my bonus action. That is a conclusion of my turn. Thank you. Briggs-y. Oh God.

Dash. Oh, you'll go at 60. I was gonna put you at 40, but that's too much for me to track. We're also going to get killed immediately. They run at 80. We've got one of them. Everyone stop and beat it up.

The scene from office space with the printer. It cast spells. Yeah. I am going to... You just watch Leth, I got cast a spell. Okay. Let me just make sure... Do do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do...

But I'm an experienced horsewoman, so... You might fall off. if you turn and try to pass anything. Come on, which trouble? You can do it. We got this. I've always caught what to do this.

I'm going to hold onto the rain with my right hand. Hell yeah. I'm going to, with my hand open, my left hand, I'm going to look behind myself, and I'm going to make a cross with my fingers and cast hacks just in the first guy I see. This guy here, number two. And then I'm going to pull out

my flip lock, and I'm gonna turn around and aim and close one eye and shoot, I'll just blast at him. Okay. And I'm advantaged. Okay. So they are hexed. Yeah, they are glowing with a silvery moonlight that halos around all of them, and it makes them a lot easier to pick out

in the darkness. It's a 20-something for the first one. Ooh, that might not actually miss, depending. That is a 16 for the first. That hits. Nice. Yoinck, yoinck. 20 points of damage to number two.

You reach behind you and you let out one blast. It hits him in the shoulder and you see that he rears backwards, almost falling off of his steed, but he is able to hold on the reins wrapped around. his wrist, keeping him astride as you let out the second blast. And this completely severs the joint at his elbow. And he flies off of the steed into the path of the other horses, and you watch as he is just trampled to death. Oh, wow.

Vire. Gone. Oh my God. Smoked him. Yeah. Named. The horse trips and stumbles over over his body. The other writers begin to yell.

This incenses them. And you watch as number one reaches into one of the saddlebags and pulls out a what is clearly a whiskey bottle with a piece of mottled cloth hanging out of the top. He quickly, all of them have torches and things. He quickly moves his arms over, lights it, and throws it towards you. It's really hard for me to see.

Sorry, I got you. but he is going to attempt to get as many of you as possible. It is a 10 foot radius. A sphere. Yeah. You hit your room. Yeah, it would probably hit all of them. Okay.

So it is going to attack all of you. I need you all to make dexterity saving throws for me, please. Oh gosh, can I get one twist please? Pretty please. You guys do not have my bonus. Correct. Oh. One more twist, one more twist.

And another dive. Okay, it was faded. Three of three and a two. 15. 13. Oh, no, I don't know. 18. The smell of burning horse.

Chester, no. Oh, wow. Really? Still 11. Three, plus eight. Briggs and Jericho, you're the only two that got below a 15? Yeah. Yeah.

It was meant to be. Briggs, Jericho, you're going to take 10 points of fire damage as this bottle explode. You feel bits of glass embedded in your flesh as bits of your hair is singed off. The horses all rear back. The rest of you take half that, so you'll take five points of damage.

And I need all of you to roll an acrobatics or an athletic saving throw. As you take this damage, these horses are not used to mounted combat. They don't know what to do, and it takes all of your control in this moment to keep these horses under control. Everyone?

Everyone. Anyone who took damage? Anyone who took damage? Sorry. So the four of us here. Everyone took damage from it, though, right? Well, no, no, no. I did not.

Yeah. We were out of rank. But you did. Yes. Acrobatics, check. Aborbatics or athletics. Yeah. No, you, if you didn't get hit by the Molotov cocktail,

you don't take any damage. Oh, okay. If you passed the deck save? No, no, no. You got hit, but passed. So you take half damage, you take five ones a dance. Yes, be the only people who didn't get hit, period. It's too dilettable damage.

If you two take half, and the four, Four of us all make acrobatics or athletic. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry, I should have explained further. Movian. 23. Nice. 24.

15? Probably good enough. 16? You are all able to keep control of your seeds. For the sake of this, the DC's 10. So it's a generous DC. Holding off your horse and this would be bad. And you watch as numbers three, four, five, and six,

all rush forward. An additional trying to get within range of you guys. You want us to leave them where they are, though? Are they moving at the same pace? No, they are using their dash, so you will actually move them closer to you. And they're trying to surround you. 30?

5, 10. Or 40. Are they 40? 60. 60. Oh. Uh-oh. 20.

Well, they're going to way overtake us. Yeah, they don't want to pass you. They just want to surround you. So as best they can get around you. I mean, they can be all the way fucking 40, 45, 50, 50, 50, 60. Yeah, that's good enough. And you said that was 3, 5. It was 3, 4, 5, and 6.

3, 4, 5, oh. Perfect. So we'll just do this. Yeah, perfect. Huh. With, oh, there we ride. And that is their turn. Your grim.

Seeing them ride up and catch up to us very easily, I would, you'll see the mists kind of start pour from my lantern, this greenish smoky glow begins to overtake me as it shrouds over my form, overtaking buttercup as well. And the mists start to leave a trail behind us as it pours under the hoove beats. And I would move, seeing Briggsie and witch stomper struggling a little bit, I would attempt to like slow up a little and try and get in between him and horse number four or whatever horse Sure, you could do that actually the die is their number so oh Wow Derek was a very thoughtful yeah I thought that was just you were just mindlessly doing there

Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, that was very nice right up here and I'll I'll strike out with my shovel and say you seek your death in the mists Oh badass that's pretty cool that's a cool blend thing that say to the motherfucker, before you. You bumped a shovel on his ass. Is that right? The grave digger is in.

26? That hits. That's it. Natural 20! He turns to pace. You're in advantage, by the way. Yeah, you're in a good, but it's a natural 20. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Oh, well, so I had to hit, I guess I would attack twice. Yes, you could attack twice, and see if you fished for another natural 20. Well, I'm going to see if I just... Oh, that's probably true, yeah. To move up and kill the other guy. Oh, Gars. Alright, you know.

That is true. Let's just see, let's just see. Sue. That is very true. Oh, I'm more. So 19, and I only had the plus once, right? Plus five. That's true.

24. If you're raging, it's plus seven. Oh, shit. Oh, man. God. Barbarians! Zero Parvarian! 26.

However, I also have a great weapon master. We score critical. Have the melee weapon or reduced creatures, you have one melee weapon attack as a bonus. I use my bonus actually to mess up. That's okay. That's right. Which one?

26 damage on number four. You raise your shovel and as you bring it down, he spurs his horse forward and it presents the perfect angle as you slice directly through him with the shovel and you watch as he falls off of the, off of the horse. Oh, I'm doing. Seeing him fall off the horse and ride out,

I moved towards horse six. Wait, you said that was four? That was four, yes. Okay, thank you. And now you have to make another attack at advantage. Good hit. Oh, 26 to hit. Good hit, good hit.

That hits. And oh, you're on fire, brother. 17, 17 points of damage. Number six. Number six. You reach up or you bring your shovel down onto this one and you you slam the back of it into the back of his head. He slumps forward, nearly unconscious as he is almost sliding off of this horse. He is alive barely within an inch of his life.

Farron. I am going to, I'll be riding with my staff in hand, which is adored with like a, Spooky skull. I'm going to swing it down, almost like a polar player, polo player and strike the ground with it. And from that point, you'll see, like, kind of black, like moldy wicker vines coursing up and down through the ground,

shooting at these other two. And I'm going to, you'll see it explode into a patch around them, and I'm going to cast entangle. Yeah. Oh, you fun. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah, badass.

So weeds will shoot up there and they will need to. Deck save, maybe? Strength check against my spell save DC. And it numbers what? That's five and three. Your spell safe you see it's hidden, but it's behind. You know what, no, I'm gonna let it happen. They got a one and a three.

Amazing. Okay, so. Get Eddie. They are restrained. the spell ends. Yes. Okay. Cool. You watch as the vines whip up, or not the vines, the wicker and the moss begins to sprout out of the ground,

almost like a thicket of this, as it ensnars the legs of these horses. One of the mounted combatants hold on tightly to his horse, as both of them are affixed firmly in place in almost an instant. The other one was not able to react quickly enough. The horse is ensnared, but he flies backwards off, slamming into a tree doing a significant amount of damage.

He is not dead, but he is very clearly dazed. As he is shaking his head, he clearly concussed, as he is struggling. to understand what's happening. Is he effectively removed from combat, or is he still? Which one was that, five or three? Three is still alive. Both of them are still alive.

Five is firmly fixed on its force, and three has been knocked off, and we can just take him off the boy. He's going. Get him out of you. Okay. So five's restrained. Marius. You know what, Derek, I'm locking it in.

With my left hand holding Dawn's reins. Oh, yeah! my right hand drawing my sword. I've done this more times than I can count. And I pull Dawn to the right and swing wide out around number six and actually slow down to ride down next to six using my movement. I have, again, just with the actual, natural fluidity, I make two attacks against this creature.

Is he still affected from the fairy fire or has it been used up? Which one? I don't think you give you. Number six. I didn't know if it was a one time. No, no, I have concentration on for like a minute. As I make the first strike, I whisper a prayer to the morning Lord, hoping in my heart of hearts that the light from my sword will glow with the radiance,

but a sickening knowledge that it's going to come out rose color as I ambune the weapon with extra damage. You watch as the bright golden light appears for a second before it snuffed out by red. and you make your tap. Seeing this, I'll look back behind my shoulder, and Lefica will whisper, let the darkness guide you. Oh, jeez. No, no, just being bad. You're just being honest, yeah.

You're just cut me. 16 for the first hit. And this is number six? Yeah. Oh, yeah, this one was the one that had already been attacked by Yorgram, and he was barely hanging on. He had blood dripping out of his ears with three hit points left. you absolutely turned him to paste.

Yeah, I just want to stop off. I love that. One swift motion. And I will not use my... He becomes a duel a hand. And then I will not use my second action. I'll just kind of, as his source falls away, I will use the remainder of my movement

to kind of close up the pack and continue to ride with my companions. That's my turn. Jericho. I don't think it would have been lost on me. There are two riders left. Only one in pursuit. They are... Maybe there is something to think about William Van Brunt that seeing what has happened to the rest of his friends, his pursuit of you takes precedence over that.

He is more afraid of William Van Brunt than he is of you, and he continues to pursue. Wow. Damn it, Billy. So can I presume that he basically, we're going to be able to, with the wicker in, you know, basically outrun this guy. Yes. and he's the only one. So I'm gonna be. One is in play.

Yes. One is in play. All right. Chester, do you trust me? Chester, do you trust me? I'm gonna take that as a use. And I'm gonna slow down my horse to let him come up until he's within 30 feet. Okay.

Are you like holding your action? So I'm basically slowing, using my movement to slow down basically. It's basically moving backwards, but yes. It says yes. And I'm gonna go. Oh yeah, you're... I'll be plucked by major. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

You might as well jump. Ding, ding, ding, ding. Go ahead and joke. Ding, ding, ding, ding. It's like, a suggestion on him. Incredible. Okay. Damn.

Well done. Oh, man. Go ahead and jump. And so he needs to make a... I don't know how that works, actually. wisdom saving throw against my DC of 16. He rolled a 15. And he has no plus to wisdom.

So it pursues the course of action you described to the best of its ability. You watch as all of a sudden this anger that is on his face and this determination to fulfill Billy's will is completely shifts as this expression becomes neutral. And without he has, even thinking about it, he just immediately drops the reins

and begins climbing up onto the back of the horse. He teeters there precariously. As he looks around at you, it almost looks as as there's nothing going on in his eyes as he quickly just leaps into the air and jumps you. The horse continues to propel forward. And the motion of this, he jumps out and he slams into a tree.

You hear the cracking of bones. as you round a bend, you have no clue the fate of horse rider number one. Just tuck and roll on the ground. Oh, we didn't hear that part. Frigil, why are you laughing? Oh, well, thank you very much. I didn't know how to, how to, that you were an equestrian. And I'll just, I'll try to catch up for my friends.

And with that, you continue to speed through the, forest for a while until you get to a point where you feel like you have made enough headway that even the writer number five that was held in place would no longer be able to find you that if they decided to continue their pursuit, it would be a fool's errand as you make your way through the forest itself. You were finally able to catch your breath. You're finally able to slow down, finally able to think for a moment. That was a close call. There are so many things that could have happened there if you hadn't gained the upper hand on them so quickly. Good job, Chester. Why, we really are a great swell team, ain't we?

Well done, Shadow Frank. And you, Buttercup. I mean, I think we all know that which Stompel really performed the best. You know? He's got gumption. But Stomper is wheezing. He is like a heart of his leg. He's an Adamantian spoiler now. It's like my favorite major image video game,

the smelden ring. Well, is this the right way to Miss McDuff's cottage cabin? And it is now that you look around. As you ride through the dark woods, pursuing your quarry, William Van Brunt, you're grateful that you've made such good time despite the pursuit. However, as you ride through the wooded path,

it becomes more winding, twisted, and choked with trees that have less and less foliage with each passing minute. As you wind your way through the path, certain that this is the way to proceed, the gnarled dead branches scrape and scratch at you as you ride past, almost as if they're trying to snatch you off of your horses. You begin to notice a foul stench in the air. Get stronger and stronger the more you delve into this wood

to the point that you feel like you might be sick. The smell of rotting flesh and putrid blood surrounds you as you delve deeper into a wood that suddenly loses the familiarity of the Fulcense Forest you've previously traversed. The available light is blocked out by the knotted canopy and your horses must slow to a trot. Everything about this woodland seems off, twisted, crooked.

Are you sure this is the right? way, Marius. It doesn't seem very familiar. To be quite frank with you, and I don't recognize any of this. We haven't seen anything like this before. I would still have my sword out, and I would be, if we're going slower, almost trying to, like, hack a path, right? If I feel like the trees are almost reaching out, I would be, like, trying to cut through a little bit and keep clearing the way as we're going You do that, and on occasion it almost feels like the branches slither out of the way for a second. You have to do a double take as you wonder if there was movement there that shouldn't be. You begin to notice that as you make your way through this forest, that there are fruits that dot the trees or some semblance of fruit.

You, Yorghum, recognize Bergamont. I don't like the look of this forest. Lurie. Maybe, Miss McDuff, redecorated with their cabin? We were riding erratically escaping those attackers for some time. Did we take a wrong turn, perhaps? Marius, do you still see in the hoop front? Ah, that's a good question.

Um, roll a perception check. I think we're following. You were following the tracks of the angry horse ridden mob. All right, we'll start with the perception. I think they like went a different direction. They did. Yeah, you were following them because you wanted to head them off before they got to Maggie.

Oh, okay. We were trying to. I see what you're saying. Okay. 14. You look towards the ground. You have slowed to a, to a crawl as you are using your sword to break these branches and keep yourself safe from the gnarled grasp of these trees. And you scan the ground looking for the hoof prints that you

had been following. And the ground looks wet. It looks darkly wet. And as you pass through a section of trees, the moonlight shines through and casts a ray of light, a soft milk light over the forest floor. And you see that it is not mist or dew or water that soaks the soil here, but blood. Freeze in the forest that have the Bergamont remind me of the tree from the crooked house.

Roll perception check. Oh, no. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, let's go, baby. I can see it from here. Those are beautiful. Those are magic dyes. You look.

Your nostrils go rolling hot fire. The canopy of the trees hangs down low over you, and you are hesitant at first, but you, your curiosity gets the better of you as you blindly reach up and grab one of these burgomts burgom from a branch. And as you pull it towards you, you pierce into it with your fingers,

your large, orcish fingers, and you feel the tooth as it hits your nail before you see it. And as you split the fruit open, you see that there are rows and rows of small, childlike teeth inside the fruit. A yak. Everyone stop.

Look. I show up the burgomot. The fruit from the crooked house. Teeth in the burgomont. What the fuck? Didn't we deal with that? We shattered that crystal

in the basement. Something escaped. Oh, Garsh, yeah. I mean, Marius, I know that you're kind of going through a rough time right now, but didn't you break that over? and let that lady with the spooky voice out? I believe it was an inevitability. And for clarification, not like the orphans, it's clear that these teeth are growing inside of these fruit.

They're organic to them. They didn't come from somewhere else. At least that you can tell. They appear to be like human teeth. But it's almost as if they're growing inside of the fruit itself. It is also in this moment that you, you begin to see that it's not just in the fruit, but along the roots and the branches,

you see teeth poking out here and there, and as you get deeper and deeper in, the ground beneath you gets sogier with blood, and you notice more and more teeth protruding from the roots and the bark of these trees. Do we all notice that it's blood? Yes. We think it's possible that maybe we don't have to chase anybody anymore,

because they don't, you know, basically exist anymore. If anyone is going to have survived through this, it's Maggie McDuff. It's then that you realize you're on the right path. As you see distant torchlight in several directions all around you through the wood. You see no shapes of humans or horses, but you certainly hear their screams.

As the torchlight moves about violently, the panic shouts of men and the terrified whinnies of horses echo all around you as one by one, each distant glowing ember blinks out until you are surrounded by the darkness of the forest once more. Then you hear the sounds of shouts, scared and pleading,

almost turning to squeaks, Drackley up ahead, just around a bend in the path, past a dark thicket. The voice is unmistakable. The voice can only belong to Percy Phipps. Phipps. I'm looking at the,

back and I'm just all of a sudden, I try to like get Witch Stomper to sort of just trot a little. Which Stomper sinks down into the bloody soil. It's trying very hard to make it through. No one rush ahead. We must stick together. Visibility is low and the path is treacherous. This is our chance. We can cut the head off the snake to mastermind.

Put an end of this. We should approach, but with caution, we have clearly come to an evil place. What's killing all those men in the woods? It has to be a creature most powerful. We have to approach carefully. All right, Marius and Don. Pretty cool. Either way.

Should we remain on our horses? I'm not fucking walking through the blood. Yes, for now. We should. And I will attempt to just kind of narrow my eyes to make sure that I can still see relatively well in this darkness to see if it's not magical. It doesn't appear to be magical, at least at this juncture.

Then I will slowly continue leading the way carefully, watching for pointing out potentially treacherous terrain as we go. Roll a group stealth check, and I would like you to roll a survival check. Okay. Let me take a look here. Stealth you say?

Oh man, I'm not good at any of these things. I was helping you. Could I help you? Roll in advantage for the survival. The survival. Oh, geez, I can. I crushed it in that one. That's fine.

I got a 21 for survival. And I got a real stealth at disadvantage. 18 for stealth. You know, I'm talking about. You can. Oh, man. Everyone has to do stealth. I'm gonna twist the few is rolling through.

Yeah, everyone has to do stealth. My stealth is trash. I got a five. The survival is good, though. It's disadvantaged. Yeah, it's just pretty little. Plus one, so it's like, it's just not going to ward on us. Dirty 20.

19. 14. You are, this forest is no longer quiet. And you are able to keep yourselves hidden within the toothy branches of these strange trees. As you make your way slowly forward, Marius, your horse is unlike any steed that anyone has ever seen.

Its ability is far above and beyond what horse is capable of, and it is even with the sound of your clanking armor, it is able to carry you quietly through this forest. And its perception is unmatched, as it is able to suss out any gnarled root that juts from the soggy, bloody soil, and you are able to safely make your way to the edges of the tree line. and you all ride onward. And as you turn the bend, you see a dark clearing with two men at its center.

To the sides of the clearing, you see the corpses of two stallions, seemingly torn apart by a regularly jagged tooth and claw, as if some unspeakable beast had butchered them both. The source of the voice was indeed Percy Phipps as he stands, sweating and covered in blood with panic in his eyes, as he screams, pleads and begs, shaking the vest. of William Van Brunt, who rests on his knees, his back to you. Despite the jittery movements of his companion, Van Brunt is motionless. Facing forward at the distant screams of the remaining fourth of his men is snuffed out into silence by some unseen horror, which with each shriek, Phipps jumps in his skin and looks over his shoulder. Come on, Billy, we need to go.

The beast will be back at any moment. Get up. Please! Can you hear me? What do we do? A quiet falls for a moment before William Van Brunt finally speaks. There's nothing we can do. The chick is up, Phipps.

I had nightmares of this. I had whispers of it. I thought it was just witch tricks. Come on, Billy! We can still find the witch in her familiar and kill them. Save all the fulsants ourselves. We don't need those wackies. Phipps gasps as he finally notices you entering the clearing

and his eyes grow even wide with terror. You! You did this! I knew it. I'm sorry, Billy. I'm sorry. I'm getting out of here. Phipps immediately bolts away from the catatonic Van Brunt

and sprints as fast as he can away from you into the forest. He makes it a single step out of the clearing until he passes an enormous bent tree with twisted limbs, its gnarled branches dotted with round green fruit. Then he trips, and you quickly see why. With a loud creak, the tree's roots move on their own out of the ground, but slick and dripping with putrid. dark blood. One such bloody root wraps itself around Phipp's foot and yanks him to the ground,

dragging him across the forest floor as the gnarled trunk of the tree opens. You see a gaping wooden hollow filled with slimy blood and you realize horrifyingly that it is lined with rows of rotted crooked teeth. Fips is dragged screaming into the tree's newly formed mall and in a single slam he is swallowed whole. Van Brunt makes no motion. He continues to stare off into the distance where the screams of his men have died out, nothing but pure darkness. You cannot see his face,

but he seems to not care that you're here. He just stares and waits. Van Brunt. You see his shoulders sag as you address him, but he makes no move to speak to you. William, can you hear me. Oh, shall we say bitter a bitch?

He started to respond, and then as Briggsie cuts in, he quiets himself and continues to stare on. I move over to him. I get right in front of him, wherever he's, like, kneeling in the ground, or if he's looking down, and I grab him by the front of his shirt, and I pick him up until he's eye to eye with me.

And they say, what happens? out here? He doesn't look at you at first. He looks over your shoulder, beyond you. At the tree line, the carnage, and then he turns, and he looks towards the tree where Phipps had been dragged and then consumed. I had a dream.

I knew it would. There's nothing anyone can do. It's over. I'm outmatched. It will get hold of us. He seems shaken and scared. My men are slain. Why did you come here?

Why did you come into this forest? To kill the witch. Just stop it, stop all of it. You were hunting Maggie. He was hunting a witch. And he looks at you and you see that same hatred, that same spark of William Bix. Van Brunt returned to his eyes,

and he pushes off from you and attempts to wrench himself out of your grass. I'll let him go. He spits at your feet. What am I talking about? I'm William Van Brunt. I'm the strongest man in Fulcense. I wouldn't be, I don't need these men.

I don't need Percy Phipps. Pathetic weakling. I could take you with my bare hands right here on the forest floor. before you can respond, poison knife. Wow. You see as he wipes the spittle off of his face. Yes, that's exactly what I need. I need a challenge.

To prove to myself, I could do this on my own. I don't need them and I don't need you. And I could take you. You think you're so strong. He takes the knife that he had stabbed you with, the poison knife and he throws it off into the underbrush. a fair fight, a fair fight this time. I challenge you.

Will you take it, or are you a coward? I sigh very loudly. He saunteres over and he grabs his axe, which has been splattered with the blood of his men. And you see for a moment that he stops and the realization of what happens, what it happened hits him again before he tamperes down his true emotions

and regains that, vibrato that he had before and he slings his huntsman to axe over his shoulder. Well, are you a coward? Are you going to fight me? In this forest of evil, surrounded by the blood of your men,

you are interested in proving that you are stronger than me. And all you've succeeded in doing is proving that you are the weak. Survivor! You must. monster. Look at me! Am I dead? No, I'm not. I was spared by that thing, because clearly I have something special. What do you have? Your latties. I have friends. Tell me you are too

afraid to fight me. Say it plainly, coward. Through everything we've been through here, One thing I've come to realize is that you don't matter. Says the man who was tricked by a little girl The girl who fed me your locations And told me your weaknesses and talked to me about How Yorgie cared for her so much. I'm the one that doesn't matter.

You can't even get the affection of children and they love everyone, especially monsters. I take my shovel off my back. I spin it in my hands and I plant it in the ground. I let go of it. We came here to save Maggie. You came here to hunt witches. You led 30 men to their death in an evil forest.

Your punishment has come. I have no interest in you. Need your role of wisdom saving throw for me, please. As Yorgram says this, though, anybody who would be paying attention, Marius would smile and give a solemn nod at the growth that Yorgram has shown today. Marius is beaming with pride. Four. What is them saving throw?

You got a four? Yeah. Just know I'm proud of you. You ignite into flames. You get plus four if you're near me. If you're too far away, you don't. You hear in the back of your mind, don't be. Be a coward. Kill him. You know he'll find a way to get your friend.

What is that? Does that compel me? Fuck. No. You just hear the voice. You're nothing. Uh, Fulson's is allowed to make its own choices. We came here to expunge evil. And that's been done. We only, we only seek to save Maggie. Come on, Yogi! Let's put a fucking end in this! Let's get a rematch!

Jorgram. Faring Square! I swear! Are you all right? Please, do not listen to Briggs. You're being the bigger man. You're doing the right thing. Something speaking to me.

I feel... I feel something reaching out from beyond the... the woods. I would dismount Dawn and just quickly walk up to Jorgram and put my hand on the shoulder. Ignore it. Expell it. Do not listen. Do not give in.

You are stronger than this. You are better. Yes. Yes. It's in this moment that you hear these words. I knew you are a coward. And before you can act, William Van Brunt moves with lightning speed. With a flick of his wrist, a handful of spiked caltrips dripping with a dark sticky venom are careening towards your face.

I need you to make a dexterity saving. Throw it disadvantaged, please. I'm an advantage, if I can see it coming, though. You're a disadvantage. So it's just straight? No, you're a disadvantage. Yeah. Oh, boy.

All right, all right. And you are unfortunately turned to Swiss cheese, standing right next to Paris. I got a plus four, though, now for sure. That's true. That is true. Oh, boy. Twelve. That's so bad.

Not good. But there you go. It can be worse. It could be worse. You are going to take two piercing damage and you are going to take four poison damage and you are poisoned and blinded for an hour. William Van Brunt has lied once more.

The moment the Inventum caltrops leave his grip, he bolt away from you, sprinting as fast as he can out of the clearing, perhaps not realizing that this is the same escape route that Percy Phipps had taken. Once, the cacophonous creaking of trunk and branch roars around you, all at once, but the tree's bloody roots do not move. With a squelched yelp, Van Brunt is hoisted off the ground

by a gnarled tree limb that tightens around his neck as his legs and arms impotently flail in midair. In a moment, there is a sickening pop as his head is snapped to the side in a violent twist. Another putrid hollow when the tree opens up with even more rotting crooked teeth than you had seen before. In a swift creaking movement,

the hanging corpse of William Van Brunt disappears into the crooked tree and the writhing moth slammed shut. Silence erupts all around you. Loud, pulsing silence. Yorgrim, in the moment of stunned silence that follows, the same voice returns for just a single moment. Crickly crack, and the moment.

and that's where we'll end the session. Oh, son of a gun! You know, we're just, we're never rewarded for doing the right thing. I'm proud of you. Not in this session, or not in this campaign. No good thing, but you did the right thing. Oh.

I was all prepared and held on. You know, if I hadn't wasted all of my lay on hand pool, I could fix your eyeballs, give sight to the blind. Damn it! All I can do is darken them further. Thank you run the session. Yeah, welcome. Good session.

Thank you so much for listening to the Legends of Aventry's podcast. We hope you enjoyed the session. If you want even more campaigns to listen to, become a member of our Patreon at the Pearl Dolphin Tier or higher to unlock Shroud of Her Salt Marsh, a patron exclusive campaign set on the high seas. You can find that at patreon.com forward slash Legends of Aventras. If you want to chat about the episode with the Aventrists community,

join us on Discord at Legends ofavantris.com forward slash Discord. We also post content nearly every day on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram, so make sure you follow our socials at Legendsofaventris.com forward slash social. And make sure you check out The Crooked Moon so you can terrify your friends with a folk horror 5E supplement published by us. Get your own copy at the crooked moon.com.

Thanks again, and we'll see you next time.