Legends of Avantris - Edge of Midnight | Ep. 22 | Her Limbs Are Thrawn

Episode Date: October 8, 2024

The heroes face the horror of the woods and band together to banish it...   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/WbkpBnNeWp4?si=hRW-5kTSKf4tiC0s

Welcome to Legends of Evandris. I am Sir Marius Renathia, and you're listening to Edge of Midnight. Here's what happened last time. Well, we have to the very least say, Miss McDow. Yeah, the name's Betty. Betty. What's going to happen to the horses? You're going to ride out of here on them.

Hi-ho, wish-stopper! It is not mist or dew or water that soaks the soil here, but blood. You are surrounded by the darkness of the forest. Drunt. Tell me, you are too afraid to fight me. One thing I've come to realize is that you don't matter. Oh, God, don't be a coward. Kill him.

Something speaking to me. I feel something reaching out. I knew you were a coward. Fight caltrips dripping with a dark, sticky venom. You are poison and blinded for an hour. With a squelched yelp, Van Brunt is hoisted off the ground by a gnarled tree limb that tightens around his neck. In a moment, there is a sickening pop as his head is snapped to the side in a violent twist. Yorgrim, in the moment of stunned silence that follows, the same voice returns for just a single moment.

Crickly crack. Just when our heroes thought they had gotten out of the proverbial frying pan, it seems as if they've fallen into an equally proverbial fire. I guess it stands to reason that all your problems don't suddenly just end because you killed the big monster. and now the most hated antagonist is dead and not even at their own hands did he deserve it well that ain't my place to decide

is it yours you stand in this portion of the forest significantly different from the forest that you've been walking through that you've traveled through different than the forests that you walk through to get to the mines where you saw the horrific

course abominations that the guards had turned into. Different than the forest that you had traveled through when you were being stalked by a gigantic beast of the woods. Different than the forest that you had walked through to get to Maggie McDuff's cottage. This is tainted. It's crooked and it has been mere moments since you watched William Van Brunt.

pulled into the gnarled roots of this tree. It's been mere moments since your grim, you heard the voice whispered to you to do it, to not back down, to not be a coward. But you stayed your hand all the same. And you all stand in this place. The bloody soil is still seeping into your shoes,

into the bottoms of your pants, your fur. The gnarled roots are still inching ever close to you, the teeth clinging to them in haphazard ways. The moonlight is still piercing through the canopy of the trees, and it is quiet, eerily quiet, unnaturally quiet. It sounds like Billy was just brutally murdered by trees and blood. And your room, you are still suffering from the poison

that had coated the caltrips. Shit. You... The venom is extremely painful as it sears at your eyes. The stinging is causing your eyeballs to throb. You begin to feel the beginnings of a headache. Ugh. Question for DM.

And we had just heard the voice of... the voice of Kellynne, correct? Yes. Can you remind us what she said? I have to go to my note from last. Even a paraphrases. Was it? She just said crickly crack at the very end.

Okay, okay. I okay. Curlwell. Yeah, that if you're, what specifically she was asking Yorgram, she was basically just antagonizing him to do it. To do it. And do it.

What was that voice, Garsh? That didn't sound like fruitful at all. You don't remember. That voice you don't remember. No, I don't remember. Should I remember that voice? Sounded kind of, I mean, strangely dark.

Should I remember? Yeah. Yeah. We don't remember. I've got a lot of voices up in here, and it's mostly not so dulcet, Tony. I'm going to sheath my sword and my shield, and I am going to sheath my sword, and I am going to to walk closer to Jorgen and put one of his arms around my neck and shoulders and kind of hold you up and help guide you and say, Yorgren, I'm sorry, I don't have the strength to heal you

right now and I understand that you are in pain and it feels as though no good deed goes unpunished but you did the right thing and for that I am proud of you. I'm with you, I am with you. Thank you Marius. That's okay. I can carry on like this. There's no need. Bring him here. I will guide you over to Farron. I'll...

I'll... Fucking chair, man. I know. I was going to get into the raw last session. Churchchairs for less.com. Not sponsored. Oops. Use code of Mantras 10 for... If you do that and it works,

I don't know what that means. Uh-oh. Your D&T table can sound like the freshman dorm room. That's really good. That's really good. That's funny. That's like an upgrade. That was funny.

You're nailed down for me. Okay. Garsh. That looks mighty painful. I have nothing to contribute. I'm just saying Garsh. It must be real, really. be real, real bothersome to have eyeballs

and blood for venom to give in on account of it seeping into your blood vessel. Let them have that moment. Jeez. I'm going to let them have their moment. As as first, that was that was very Kanye West.

That is very Kanye West. But Beyonce had the venom. I'm going to lean in. I just want to get a sense of. what may be blinding your grim, like what his eyes look like at this time. I'm just staring, so I'm not saying anything. You're covering your eyes right now? They look like this.

They were just abnormally blinded. This was just for the effect. I don't think I'd be covering. I'm just taking a close look at the ritual that Farron is about to perform. That's all. You roll a medicine check. Oh. That's where I may build this character years ago and can't recall.

I'm an acceptable Viking. I can Viking if I want to, I can leave my natural 20. Ah! Can we want that? I'm like to 25 those eyeballs. No, not my eyeballs. I can Viking if I want to, I can leave my natural 20. That is pottery.

It's like pottery. It rhymes. Let's the key to all this. Thank you. You're gonna regret that 20. As you see with almost a natural precision, as you look into your Grimm's eyes. They are already incredibly swollen. The white parts of his eyes are now a sickly green.

You can see the bits of venom that had coated the caltrops have completely infiltrated his eyes themselves and a thick film, a milky, yellowish film, was beginning to coat his eyes. One of them has swollen so much, it's almost completely closed now, and there is a mucus beginning to form, almost sealing the eye shut.

Jesus. One of the chaltrops is still stuck into a part of the eye, and the blood and pus that's leaking from it is grotesque. The smell is horrible. Barron, please. Is the chaltrop in my eyes still? I can pull out my notebook and say, Tenant number nine.

Bad case of conjunctivitis, don't use cell phone while pooping. Is that one of the tenants of your fame? No, it's all. Okay. I look closely thinking about how terrible would be to get LASIC, and I don't say a word. I just like my parent to take me out.

I will also take a look at his eyes and, you know, turn his head in my hands from side to side. side. You imagine if you get too close to his eyeballs with your long fingers and fingernails that they're so swollen, there's a risk of popping them. I take that risk. Oh, I don't do it. I'm taking a wrist. Can you roll a side hand for me, please? Oh, my God. With untested dice.

Yes. Be kind of dyes. Wash your hands. 17 plus 4. That's a 21. That was so close. No, I'm just going. You just fall out. Yes, you move his head this way and that as you're inspecting him,

and I'm assuming you're going to rub a disgusting fold-ins into his face. Funny you should say that. So from my side bag, I will pull out a small hand-carved wooden bowl and a variety of different dried mushrooms, a little bit of like, was recently green plant matter. And I will grind it up using a tool from my pack into this bowl. I will take a flick of something from under one of my fingernails and sprinkle it in. And then I will spit in it.

Leave me blood! Yeah. And then... Yeah. And then. And then. Make sure you keep your eyes open for them. Keep your eyes open for this.

Grind this all in too with my fresh spit into a nice paste. And I will slap some on both of your eyes. You actually pry the eyelids open. The crust snaps. They leak pus out of the inner and outer corners. But you need direct contact with the tissue of the eyeballs. And you begin to smother this stuff all over his eyes and under both the upper and lower eyelids.

And he looks horrific. Yeah, so I will do that and just kind of smooth it into and over his eyelids, anywhere where they're swelling, anything like that. And I will cast lesser restoration on his... Nice. Oh, don't do that. Don't be touched in here. I don't know.

I'm probably bored. No, he really do. I was going to say he's going to show up next time in his eyeballs. It's going to be swollen. So I will cast lesser restoration to try to cure his... blindness. You are, you cast lesser restoration and immediately you feel the relief. Your eyeballs begin to, the sweatly immediately begins to, to reside, to reside. What's the word?

Your eyes resign. Did you give me this? I know what were you trying to think of like that and they give it either. They begin to restore, rejuvenating. But you know what it's fine is your eyes. Subside. Subside. That's what it is.

Yes, subside. It was the eye that was fucking yeah. I'm like, well, that's so not right. But yes, the swelling begins to subside, and you feel, you still have this disgusting paste in your eyeballs, but it's comforting, at least for this moment, and it's gonna take some time. You'll need to wash it out, but you feel that if your eyes were clean

right now, you would be able to see again. Thank you, Farron. It feels much better. Not to hear it. Can you see again? I think so. You can't. I don't know, I'm blind still.

Wait, what did you say? You can. I can, yes. I understand if it's a little fuzzy, that was quite some poison. It is. I still have the paste in my eye. Still. Just give you to go rinse with your, water skin.

Sky. I just remember so. Did you get the caltrop out? Skin. I can't get that. Yes, the caltrop is. Remember the water skin pronunciation debate? The water skin.

Skeen, skins, skin. Well, gosh, you're... I'm mighty sorry you had to experience that, but if it makes you feel any better, you should see the other guy. Why did he have such poisonous cowtrops on him? He was a liar, I cheat, a weak man. He needed those things to protect himself,

and he was right. I told you, Yogi, you should. should have been to want to snap his neck, not some random tree in the forest. The tree is still there. Oh, fuck! It stands behind you looming over. It's growling, but it's roots are occasionally

reaching out towards you lined with various teeth in random places, and it will get close to you, and as you look over and see it, the roots will recoil back. But the tree itself is still there, much larger than all of the other ones. You can still see a small twist in the bark where the base of the tree had opened up and where Percy Phipps had been pulled inside. The same ma that had opened up after snapping William Van Brun's neck with its tree-like noose where he was, his body was thrown into before it consumed him.

And to clarify, do I feel, does Legica feel, that That's this tree in particular or if we got off the beaten track any tree would be able to all of the trees look very similar This one looks larger this one looks older This one looks like it's the big daddy tree Are we completely lost or do we have any idea where we currently are? In this moment you feel completely lost you've never seen the forest look like this Are we on the right track? If that all happened to all of Van Brut's

man and Mr. Phipps, do we think that the same thing may have happened to Miss McDuff and the little one? I do not believe so. Maggie McDuff is strong. She wouldn't allow something like this to happen to her, even if she did accidentally wander in here like we did. Now, I can't say if we're on the right path, but I think we should get going. Well, I'm not trying to defend a guy, But, I mean, you know, Van Brunton was also pretty strong, and he, you know... Cop. Got done that by yonder tree. How the fuck could this happen?

I mean, it wasn't long days before. I think we've been for these woods. It's probably the creature from the house. We found the Bergamont, the teeth. We set something free in that basement. And now it is here. Working its dark magic in the forest. I still have the thing that I don't remember what it's called.

The witch's, the witch's eye. Oh, shit. Yeah. I'm going to, I believe I had tied it onto my spooky skull staff. You did. Wow. I'm going to untie that from the antlers of my decrepit staff and peer through it into the woods at the tree

just in our general vicinity and see if anything is illuminated. with my witch's eye. Roll an Arcona check. That's pretty cool. You can twist it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, twist. Yeah, yeah, twist. Yeah, yeah, that's a lot of way and roll for yeah, roll it bad. Roll the weight right. Yeah, perfect. That's a little bit bad. There's 16. Oh yeah. You, you reach towards your staff and you grab onto the witch's eye that, um, that you had used to look for hidden things among Keziah Jenkins' home, as well as throughout the forest.

And you are inspired to use it here. And as you put it up to your eye, you begin to scan the tree line, and at first you notice nothing. And then you begin to notice something deep within the heart of some of these trees. Small, stick-like creatures with gossamer wings that look almost moth-eaten. and their long fingers curling into the bark, almost one with it. Their faces, almost like curled pieces of wood with facial features etched into them

and long spindly noses. And being who you are and what you are with the people that you lived with, you have heard of unseely fay before. There have been times in the forest that you're convinced that you had seen them. And they are definitely here in this space. How would the Fay get here?

What would bring them to this place? They're almost one with the trees, not as you would expect them to be entities that are given movement and abilities to do what they want here, they're almost as if they're molded and melded to the trees and the trees have become of them. Which is why looking at this large tree, seems so strange.

You see something similar, deep within it, the face, but it must be a face. But even this witch's eye that you're attempting to use can't seem to see through its glamour or its tricks. You see for a second what very clearly appears to look like a face before it's no, that must just be the bark. But all the while you see that strange, undulating dark magic. seeing deep within the amber beneath the cricket house. And as you try and look at it,

you try to discern the features, you try to imprint them on your memory, but it's just so ever shifting and ever changing that it's hard to truly tell what is real and what isn't. Before you're distracted by two, four, six, eight, ten large eyes blinking into existence and then disappearing in the tree line behind it. Before all of you hear a crack, as if wood has broken, something is lurking.

You hear Percy Phipps in your mind calling out about the thing that lurks in the woods and that Van Brunt needed to run, he needed to make a choice because it still lurks in the wood and then another branch snaps, but not on the ground this time high up in the tree, the canopy of the trees, whatever this thing is, it's large and it's moving. And then all of you hear in your heads. You can be crooked too. All of you, you could all be crooked with me.

And it is in this moment that you hear a strange, guttural roar of an animal, but it sounds howlish. It sounds boorish. It sounds bear-like. as the trees around you begin to shake and quake, and then into this area where you're all standing, this large, bestial abomination, bursts forward from the tree line, multiple heads,

all gnarled and twisted and crooked together, boar, wolf, pig, all this strange amalgamation. And you watch as all of the roots from this tree are moving towards it and helping to propel it forward towards you. I need you all to roll for initiative. Oh, my God. Holy hell. But why?

What if they don't mean any harm? Would this have happened if I hadn't looked? Bad, not bad. It was happening. Not bad at all. Can you put this on the table? Oh, guys, fair and poles. Fair and polled.

Wife it, reset. Ferry and reset. Fair and polls. That's really fine. Hey, Andy. Can you give me one of my cider booms? Throw to the top. I have, how are I have plus six, is?

Is this in my bart? You're a bar? Yeah, you're a barred, baby. You're not proficient in it, and it's a skill check, so you add half your proficiency to it. I got so much soup on my pants. What the hell? Why? There's so much soup on my pants?

So, let's try to, like, arrange ourselves, like, so... Oh, and your room close to each other. Yeah, I would be kind of... Kind of like... ...there, you're like, there, maybe, to the side. And she was, like, looking at the tree while you were like... Oh, fuck my eyes. Oh, what are you, oh, you lot, why don't you give him a little bit?

Oh, and something cryptic about the dark lady. Oh, garsh. And they're all garch here. That's the brave Sir Marius. Oh, Gars, brave Sir Marius. And I am Marius. You will die. Maybe he'll sound like palpiduette.

You will die. Pity. It's ironic. Do it. Do it. Do it. Do it. 15 to, I'm putting Monsters 1 as just something special.

So the monster will be Monsters 2. 15 or 20 to 25. Briggs is first. Oops, can you grab that for me? Briggs is first. Okay, what did you get? 24. 24.

Anyone else in that range? No, I got 15. I thought something was on fire and it was. What? That's right. I thought that was true over here, but it turned out just be a coffee. 15 to 20.

15. Samarius. What'd you got, Jorgram? Somervis. 10 to 15. 12. 12. You go first.

Okay. And then Farren and Yorghum. Nine. Aye. That's clever. We did that. A good weather or Coke. At the same time, so it can't cancel that one.

Yeah. If you can choose between a cleriker or barred. Actually, no what, you're gonna take a minute to each your eyes, de-gooped. I'll go last. You're gonna last. You're in the cleric. You know, you're gonna wanna be.

Sorry, yeah. Because I use my spit. It's quite sticky. When you see some of those spells on living up. It's disgusting. This entity bursts into the tree line. All the while, you continue to hear this voice, telling you you can be crooked too.

And you all feel muddled. Your heads feel overcome by magics. And you're doing everything that you can to keep yourself in focus. But there's something about that voice and the way it keeps speaking to you. You almost want to give in. Briggs, it's your turn.

Oh my God's, where is the beast Fitz is talking about? I'm going to, um, Bonus action, hex blames cursus. Let's fucking go. Just as quickly as I can. I'll just do a quick, quick cross with my hand. And then I will pull out my blunderbuss

and fire two shots. Okay. Oh, boy, both suck. These are rat dies. That's probably why. That's correct. 12 and a 16. Oh yeah. That's correct.

How much? 12 and a 16. To hit? To hit. 16 hits, 12 does not. Oh, I'll think it is much. That's true, man. I...

9, 10, 11, 4th damage, I think. Does this creature seem familiar to me? No. Okay. Good question, though. This creature looks like an amalgamation of a few creatures. twisted and melded together. Was there something you were thinking of specifically?

So in my inventory I have ceramic shards of like a monster statue, and I wasn't sure if it was similar to this monster statue or not. For some reason I remember being bore-like, sort of similar. The guest on DeRay at Sculptan. Yes. And there was the, you remember broke and I was like, oh, fuck, I got there much of pieces.

Okay, so that's different than if it's a creature you've seen. If it's a statue that you remember, then yes, this looks very similar. You're a smart cookie, man. You do a statue that you've seen to fail. You never failed to. You mentioned the bore thing and I remember it was like hunting anyway. It was a hunter. Oh, that's right. That's right. That's right. Like one of those super, like, highly detailed sculpted, like where they're doing like curbs and marble and shit. Yeah. What kind of curse you? Oh, it's marble. I should fix that.

The most surprise of rustling. I wrote ceramic in the animal. He got packs. Is that your... All right. That's it. That's it. You move forward and you let loose both of the blasts.

One of them missing as you once again hear that voice in your head, you can be crooked, too. I need you to roll wisdom saving throw for me, please. Oh, no. These are red dice. Oh, they're unlucky. Sorry, sorry. I need to find a new one.

That's close enough. Save, you say. I think warlocks are proficient. Pretty sure. That is a 14. 14. You immediately turn your head and look towards the tree. You watch, almost in slow motion, as one of the gnarled branches reaches up and begins to twist the vines spiraling and nodding until where there had been a branch is now a noose, made of tree itself and you feel compelled to move towards this thing. Oh my God. You too would love to be crooked. Oh my God. Crooked is perfection. Not some of me old mate send it up crooked. I suppose I could be too.

And I'll start, I guess, do I feel compelled to use my movement to walk towards it? You feel compelled to use the rest of your movement to make the truth. Where's the tree? Can you mark the tree on the mountain? We should mark the tree. The tree should be on the edges. It'll be on the edges. I would say this is a, it's probably like 60 feet wide. The area that you're, no, no, no, no, the area that you're in.

Oh, geez. So how far behind the creature is the tree? The, so if the tree were here, the creature would have come from over here, and made it towards the middle, so probably about 30 feet from the creature. So the tree could be like out here in the middle. That's perfect. So just these four squares, should come out four squares. Force bars. It's a big old tree, right? Oh, yeah.

Nice. Yeah, so one, two, three, and a half. Yeah, give it some roots. Yep. I like that. That's good. And I put another slightly smaller tree right next to it. And then there's going to be a fallen tree that's just... We still have a wildness.

It is now the monster's turn. It doesn't look at a farm. And is there anyone next to it just... Briggs. I'm like right in its face almost. He's not so worried about Briggsie right now. Oh. Fair. He is going to rush

towards everybody else. And there are, oh, he's got more than enough. You just want to like get right up in there. Yeah, get right up in there. That puts three of you in his... You push Mary's closer.

I saw that. Get that finger out of there. He is going to, with one of the many heads, is going to lunge forward at Farron and attempt to bite and grapple Farron. With a 25, it is going to bite you. I need you to make a strength saving throw, please. That's probably where you're a Viking, right? Oh. No, maybe. You're going to take 24 points of piercing damage.

Okay. Okay. Wow. Well, I've changed the course of the direction of my time. And then what did you get for your grapple? Was that the strength? 15. Uh-huh. And you are held in the jaws of this creature as it snaps down at you. When he comes into symbiotic entity,

No, what the hell? I keep losing this thing. You can reaction sporum, right? That's what I'm doing. Oh, Halo of Spores. There is. I keep clicking on it. So when he comes within 10 feet of me,

um, do, do, do, do? Comes within space, 10 feet of me, or starts to turn there. Um, I will deal one D4 necrotic damage to that creature, and this succeeds a constitution's aiming through. Uh, yeah, and it'll take the damage, so. I'll take the damage.

You ready for this. D4? I'm ready for your hot decals. Take some. Not bad. Not bad. Three. Acceptable money.

Of necrotic damage. So when it rushes at me, a cloud of, it looks like dust at first, but you see it lightly floating on the wind towards him and up his nostrils and darkening him slightly. You see it some of the heads begin to and sneeze all over the place, but the head that has you trapped seems completely unbothered as you feel its teeth sink deep into your flesh. It has you by the waist trapped between its hungry and fearsome jaws. It's hungry woods. That is its first attack.

It is then going to reach forward, and it is going to make a claw attack on who is the person. Yeah, thank you. If it has like 10 feet range, then it can reach basically all of us. Yeah, I know. Except you're right up. in its face, then it's your room and Marius and then Jericho. So it is going to reach out and make a clock attack against Lethaca.

I'll be unconscious before I get to take my first turn. 20 to hit? Yeah. Barely misses. Yeah, I hit. That hits. The tree's over here. I'm fine.

17 points of damage. It is then going to, you notice that one of the heads has antlers on it. It is very stag-like, and its neck is long, and it has 10 feet reach. Can it hit your rim or does it need to go to Mariam? Okay, perfect. As it is going to take its antlers and ram them into you.

What are we looking at? Oh, my God. With a, oh, fuck. A 25. That's funny. What? And it hits with a 25. I use double shield.

With 18 points of damage, and you are gonna be pushed 10 feet from it. Backwards? Mm-hmm. Oh, that's nice. And that is its turn. You watch as it reach out and bites and snaps up Farron. As one of its clawed arms reaches out and attacks Lethica, and simultaneously it shoves, tusks deep into Yorgram's belly

and flings him 10 feet. behind and you're all watching this as many of the moths, or the maus and mouths on this thing are slavering and chomping, they are hungry. And that is its turn. 18 points of damage. It was six and a five, which is 11 plus six, 17 points of damage.

You wutz. Clink, can you clack. Marius. I raised my sword high in the air. upon seeing what is happening. And I bow my head, and I say a soft prayer to the more Lord, and I say, Morning Lord please, I am losing faith.

I am worried for my king's safety. Hear me, hear my plea, and help me, as I use one of my dark gift abilities called the Martyr of Lathander. As a bonus action, I can mark a creature that I can see within 30 feet of me until the end of my term whenever I deal damage to that target with my sword. I roll an additional 1D4 radiant damage. I can amplify the damage by taking 1D4 damage, which I'm going to do to make the next attack rolls

against the target with advantage. I am praying that I said that this light is a golden radiant light, but I know otherwise. I will take 1D4 damage, taking 2 to charge my attacks. And I'm basically just going to try to go nova on this bitch. And where is the light coming from? My sword.

From your sword. Yes. However I'm going to fly right. But then I'm going to use 35 feet of movement to get behind it, even if I have to use 10 to get through Briggsie, and I'll get on the side of him. And I will make two attacks on this creature at advantage. 18 plus 8 to hit.

That hits. 80 is 16. That's the first attack. 18 plus 8 to hit. So close. So I'm going to roll, and the first one I'm going to divine smite by spending a second level spell slot. lot so the first attack will be so all in all it's gonna be five D eight two D four

and that's a gallon yeah I'm going ham here all right big money that's gonna be eight 10 18 and 19 2020 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 30 13 131 32 30 131 32 33 34 35 36 37 plus 14 is 40 41 51 51 51 51 51 points of damage nice soon for two attacks a level two divine smite, everything I fucking got, damage on myself. And it is just, more and more horrific

rose blood red light is pouring from my sword as I am in the back of my head just begging for Lathander's help, and I do not see him answering. You do at first. And when you make these slashes, your blade is glowing golden,

this beautiful sunlight. And as you slam in, you are slicing into this thing with all the power that the morning lord has given you. And your faith restored, you are incensed by this as you become the warrior, the champion that you were born to be. And as your blade hangs at your side

as you take a deep breath and you breathe in, the scent of roses. And as you look down at yourself, you see your armor completely covered in blood, that hazy mist of red in front of you. That sword is no longer golden. It's beautiful sunset red. No! No! That's what you're? That's your turn. Monsters, too. Lethaca. I will see everything that is happening around me. I'm especially staring at the display, the tension, the tug of war that's happening within Marius, but I have been injured. It's hard to keep track of everything all at once.

I am seeing Briggsie just walk away. I'm not facing that. You heard what he said about he's seen his friends become crooked. My gun is in my sack. No other weapon drawn. Briggsie. I totally, totally agree. I mean, you can hear. You can hear. but you don't care. Okay. First, I will say, sort of just like wave my hand. I'll say a quick prayer to my goddess.

Lady of loss, protect me, protect those of who I would protect, protect us under your dark shadow. And I will raise my hand and from almost nothingness, a chakram made of dark shadows will appear above me as I cast a spiritual weapon. And it looks something like this. And I will grab my own actual weapon from the side of my hip,

and I will run forward just to the adjacent square towards me, towards Briggsie. And I have summoned the... And I will say, Briggs-y, wake up! And I will use that as my word of radiance. Each creature of my choice within range must succeed on a Constitution saving throw or take 1D6 radiant damage.

That is true for the creature, and that is true for Briggsie as I attempt to wake him up. The clever! I rolled the natural 18. That passes. DC 16. Where should we get tried? Does the tree need to do it too?

I'm sorry? Does the tree need to do it too? Oh, no, it's no, no, no, it's only within five feet of me. I almost certainly fail. Oh, wake him up, wake him up. And I will roll for the spiritual weapon in the meantime. That's going to be 15 plus five. That's 20 to hit.

That hits the creature that we're attacking. And so it's going to take minimum damage. Six points of spiritual weapon damage. Magical. Force damage? I think it's force. Force damage. So it takes six and how much do I take?

Three points of damage. Is it not 2D6? Make sure. It might be. because I'm a higher level. In fact, it is. You're right. So you're going to take three plus one, four points of rating.

Do you do additional damage than two to the tree or no? No, because it passed the Constitution saving. So it only took the sixth that I forced damage that came from a spiritual weapon. I damaged Briggs E to see if I could wake him up. How do I feel about that in this moment? It doesn't matter. You're about to be crooked. Briggs me, wake up!

And that'll be the end of my turn. I need you to roll Wisdom Saving throw. Mm-hmm. Uh-oh. But wisdom's what I'm worst at as a cleric. You call out to Briggsie and tell him to wake up, and you still feel that strange feeling in your head, almost a muggyness, a sluggishness,

as you hear the words that you can be crooked to, just like your friend. And you look to the tree for a split moment, and it had looked just as it had previously, but now you see that two of its branches have twisted and changed and now look like two nooses right next to each other. One perfect size for Briggsie, the other perfect size for you. Join me left, okay, let's go.

I get a 16 on my saving throw. You are able to shake this feeling. As you look towards this thing, and for a moment, you can see the outline of an eclipse. in this news. It looks alluring to you. The eclipse is quite beautiful really. And it's almost enough to convince you before you shake your head and you realize that this is trickery. This is trickery from whatever that entity was inside of the amber beneath that house and you do not want to be crooked. You know what your path is and you are able to shake off this feeling and that

strange fogginess that was perpetually assaulting your mind has completely dissipated. Briggsie, ignore it. It is an illusion. You do not want to be crooked, too. Everyone, do not listen to the voice.

And that'll be the conclusion. I'm hopefully saving myself for the duration. And that is your turn. Jericho. Apparently someone's breathing heavily into the mic. What can't be me? Is it me?

The Pugs found the mics. Thanks for coming to your haircut. Anyway, I will look up and I'll how I banjo and I will say, Uh, yo, ho. Come on, Briggsie. Don't get strong a boy. Oh, shit. And I give you Bartik inspiration. Maybe repeat saves?

And I say, Normally I wouldn't want to do this, but Virgil, can you, can you try to, can you try, can you try to do something? And Virgil, I'll take up off of my shoulder and fly over to you and land. As suddenly I'll just kind of like snap my neck back and forth as Virgil will start to kind of call

and then you'll hear in your head, and you will hear, submit, and I cast a gesture on you. to turn to fight that creature in an attempt to see if this, basically using mind bending powers, will potentially I'll be able to fight for Briggs's mind or soul. Mm-hmm. Oh. You want to fail, right?

We're hoping, right? Yeah, I... Well, I mean, from a meta perspective, we're hoping. From the meta perspective, we're hoping that brings you a one. V-C-16. A nine. Good first sign. Let's see if it works.

You hear this voice and this click in the back of your mind, but all the while you still hear Kellyn speaking to you. You can be crooked. You will submit, but you'll submit to me. I would like you to roll wisdom saving throw, and you may roll it in. at advantage. And you have a barric inspiration.

Go, I thought about this. One D-E-8? I guess I'll save it. I guess I'll save it. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, don't. Let's see if you have an advantage. Well, good thing it was at advantage. Okay, okay.

One's all, man. Twelve. Oh, no! You look towards the tree and you remember what it was like seeing Jericho at the top of the cathedral. It was horrific. I would never submit to that.

How could that be better than being crooked? Look at what Callan has to offer. Look at the noose made for you. What has Jericho ever done for you? And you continue to move towards the tree. And I'm back. Uh-oh. Well, you tried, Virgil.

Smash cut to 45 minutes from now in this session. Well, it's a pleasure to meet you, Twigsie. Will I? That's it. I would like you to roll with some saving throw. That is a neat. You look towards Briggsie and you see that he is, he is firm in his choice to be, to be crooked. And you want to be part of something.

Maybe being crooked's better than being Jericho. If Briggsie wants to do it, Briggs is your friend. You don't want to lose your friend. You should be crooked too. Do I- And then maybe Virgil can't get to you. Virgil can't get to you if you're crooked, because Virgil's not invited to be crooked,

but you are. Do I get a sense that he's joining me? Yeah. I'll turn over my shoulder. Oh, no, that one. Heave ho, thieves and beggars, never shall we die. And then I'll start.

And I'll say, you're right. Virgil's always telling everyone to submit and do this and do that. This, he's not, he's only a handsome fellow type, not a handsome, mysterious ancient lady in a crystal or something. And I will, I will

walk forward. How do you use any movement? I've used all my movement. Okay, so you backed out. You, you, that was smart. If you look towards the tree, both of you, and the nooses are there, made just for you. Fair.

Um, okay. So I am grappled by this beast, and seeing its disgusted form, it's going to remind me of the horrible night with Gwenna and the way that she looked when she was risen. Oh my God. Um. Yeah, yeah. But I will look at it and you perverse, being of nature. Gorthos, help me return your soul to the earth.

And I will reach across some of my like barky, woodsy clothing armor and pull a shard of wood off in my hand and you will see it glow green slightly as I stab it down into the beast that's holding me. Okay. And I will cast ice knife on it. Okay. Which I kind of read for me. Wicker knife.

You forgot to roll away from me. I did forget. I did. It's got it. It's got a lot. towards Derek. Yeah, that's really cool. You know, it's a good bad assing.

That's a good bad thing. I never see anything cool so like I feel like. I don't want to. Yeah. That was better. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Good track.

22 to hit. That hits. Okay. So. You might be, are you, did you do something to make it? Just for my turn. It was just funny. Oh, oh.

Oh. Eight piercing damage and 10 cold damage. I'm sorry. They have to do. No. So eight piercing damage. and you have to do target. A deck saving there, thank you.

I got ahead of myself. Well, I got an natural one, so. Okay, well then you get 10 cold damage as well. It will take the 10 cold damage. Please enjoy. It, um, you, you take this wicker dagger and you plunge it into the flesh of this thing. Between, yeah, it is, it is.

It's like an enlarged wicker splinter. and you find it snarling and growling, even with you in its mong, you find a piece of bloodied gum, and you wedge the dagger deep into the soft flesh there. It lets out a howl. It opens up his mouth just enough for you to attempt to wiggle out, and you start to as it slams down

and continues to keep you in its mouth. And I need you to roll wisdom saving throw. I don't have to do that. This is bad. It's not me. She's not rolling the way from me properly. Check your racial features. Because aren't you like Faye?

I am Faye, yes. Against Char. Well. You should be advantaged. Yeah. Your creature type is fed. Imagine of sense. Yep, you're advantaged.

Okay. So. So let's say. Do you give it a good rule to me? Don't forget. Morthose is also Faye, ain't you? Oh, that's true. He's basically unseely, Faye.

You, um, um. You hear the voice in your head and you listen to Jericho Briggsie as they sing this haunting melody as they both begin to walk towards this tree. And you look for a second and you also see the noose form there for you. And for a moment, you think about what it would be like to be crooked. But a different type of crooked. Crooked and twisted with the one that you love. And that is enough for you to snap out of it and realize Gwenna would never want this. for you and you are able to pull your mind back from the brink and shake off this

this magic that's infiltrating this entire area as you steal yourself against this power and that same nagging presence that keeps trying to get into your mind it's just gone. Wisdom sisters. Your groom. Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, I was a. Uh, uh, uh, tea off, bro. I wipe the paste from my eyes.

And I blink for a moment and I look around. And I just kind of narrow in as I see maybe Briggs going off the side. Jericho's way behind me. But Farron in the mouth of this creature. And I'll start to lumber forwards and just say, Maiden guide my hunt. As I crash forward past to my shovel that I'd planted into the ground next to where Van Brunt was, and I'll grab

it quickly as the mists will start to form around me. And I leave a trail as I race towards this creature, and I fucking attack wildly and recklessly even. And all attack is a great weapon master, taking a minus five penalty to hopefully still hit. You're an okay weapon. You got this. You got this. You got this. Twist it with the first one on the end. Twit-twist it. Oh, I'll twist it with this one. Give it a...

You roll towards me too much. Man, the fates want us to actually TPK. That's the exact same rule. Okay, well, you got to... Okay, okay. No, it's a plus, one. Oh, it's a minus five. But it's still plus some...

It's plus three. Okay. So it's a net plus three. I don't know. So I'll tag a second time. It's okay. Double ones. One out of two.

Oh. One more. One more twist. One more twist. One more twist. Okay. The fate's give it and they take you, I mean, They take you the way that you and they give it.

And they give it. It's a natural d-20! All right, but I'll only take the plus 10 damage one time. However, I'll roll 2D12. The fates takeeth, and they takeeth, and they take- What was the thing you were singing before the stream, where you just repeat the same thing over and over? Oh, brother! Let's fucking dump fucking 10.

Max damage. Alright. Here's a little sign I wrote. Oh, just kidding. He's totally good damage. Very good damage. Except to Al-Ali. Wow, I think this does extra damage too, maybe.

Plus two melee damage. So that's 30 to 37 points of ghost damage. Oh. That's with one hit. That's with one hit. The mod's gonna have to do some cocaine about it. Yeah, you got that right. But it's like crash down on a

it with my shovel cutting into it. If I can cut a section of the bark, you'll see mist and specters start to swarm out of its wound as they dance around it. You do watch that as the shovel slices through this entity. You watch his wailing souls erupt from the wounds. This beast lets out a howl as it does a significant amount of damage.

It is looking bloodied. It is looking weakened, but it is still firm in its endeavor to destroy you. And you should roll wisdom saving for him. Oh, and you are disadvantaged. Because I'm done? What? No. Because you didn't kill Van Brunt on your own.

Oh. Holy shit. I knew it's made the right choice, marriage. No, no, you did the right. I told you, sir. Never take the arrow, damn it. You do the right thing. I'm cursed by witches or something.

I'm blind. That's what they want you to think. Ooh. You know what they always say. No good deed goes and punished. No good deed goes up. Is I just saying now? I don't think I can carry this a lot.

I'm worried. So is Lethika. I'm just putting it out there. We're good. No, the three of you are going to have to like. Just go ahead. If it comes down to just me, I'm going to run. I think we're going to drop.

this beast and then the trees in combat. I think you're gonna have to like burn the tree. Burn the tree. You have my plans I got in my back pocket? I got a four or something. Sanctite. I mean, age of Sanctet. Is various pants canonically have back pockets?

Yep. You hear the songs that Briggs E and Jericho are singing. And you once again hear that you could be crooked too. When you think about your past, what led you here, and that you did. do something good, but what good was it really? Van Brunt died all the same, and you didn't even get the glory of being the one to kill him. He fell to this entity instead, and all of those people that he's harmed, they will have no champion. You could have been that champion, and if you're crooked,

you still can be. Fighter for the people. You just need to be a little bit crooked first. And it feels right. Feels like exactly what you should do. Because you turn and begin to look towards this tree and where there had been two nooses. There are now three. An eternal pilgrimage. A little bit more. Yeah, you probably use, what, 15? You can definitely get around this guy.

15? You probably do boot. How much you total guy? Probably, yeah, can probably get past Marys. Yeah, you can get past Marys. Yeah, you probably like right. No, no. I'm in the dream. He's gonna be like, before he's moved.

He was there. He moved here, he came around. He's like, there, that's reasonable. Ferran's technically like, throw him in the news somewhere breaks here. You and your brother both being like, oh, okay, we'll just get everybody dead. Welcome to Nick Frid.

Hey, you, I know that's strong. Do I say an attack? I want to pretend. You do not. The beast actually looks towards you, and it's almost as if you can see one of the heads look, smile crookedly at you, as if it is pleased by your choice. Briggsie. I am being compelled.

So I'll look over at Farron and Lepica and I hear, Wisdom sisters, and I see a fist bump. And I look over at Morgan Murrenumarius, and I hear, Bash Brothers, and they fist bump. I'm feeling a little left out. When I look at Jericho, I'm crooked cousins. I don't know. Incorradical.

Take off our hands and they're all getting to act for one hand. They just fly to the end. It's like, a body hand and like mechanical hand, physical. Well done. And then they skid her away. And I guess I will just use all of my movement to get to the tree and dash.

Let me try to get so that we get the tree on hand. Are you just going to insta die? Like, what's got to have? I don't know. I don't know. How much of total movement do you have? I mean, I'm sure to order them out. You don't have to dash.

You can just use your regular movement. Okay. That probably just shot. So you don't feel like you have to, you have to speed forward. It's not like you're going to go out of your way to run towards this thing. You're just feeling like this is what I need to do

and you move slowly or normal speed to get there. Okay, that's what I do. Do I feel compelled to use my action for anything? Or do I touch piece, move piece? You don't feel compelled to use your action towards anything. You don't feel hostile towards your friends, they just don't understand yet. They don't understand what it means to be crooked, what kind of, what it offers to you.

You don't even fully understand, but you can feel it. And as you get closer to this tree, you feel like for a moment you can hear the wailing screams and cries of William Van Brunt somewhere deep inside of this thing. And it sounds like he is having the time of his life. Oh, what being crooked must be, you look up longingly towards the noose that is your own. You reach out towards it soon. You will be crooked soon.

I think of all of my previous crewmates and friends and adversaries that have met the hangman's noose and done the hangman's jig when they've been caught, and I hear them all seeing various shanties in my head, calling me to join them. And I'll just, yeah, I pass my turn. The monster is going to bite down on Farron, is going to attempt to swallow her hole.

Does he get to re-roll the safe? Oh, yeah, do I get to rerow my save? Yes, the end of your turn, you get to re-roll your safe. Oh, come on, you really gotta put a lot into it, eh? Brig-Z, we... Gillige and rifle and plunder and loot. Drink up me hearties yo-ho. This is fate, man.

This is... Fate. What did you get? Natural one. This is just the dice right to snore, baby. And that is the way it is. With a natural 20, the beast is going to bite down on Farron. Anyone standing in front, Marius, your grim, Lethaca, you are all smattered by blood.

So Farin's insides are pierced by these fang and claw, and you are completely sprayed by this. I don't know if this would affect this, but it's technically a disadvantage if it doesn't hit me. It does affect it. Oh. That's true. Thank you.

Yeah. With a 23, it's still going to do this. It is going to, though this happens for the sake of it being like super spoopy and scary, it does not do initial damage to you, it swallows you. You are now in a pit of acid inside of its stomach, and at the start of all of your turns,

you're going to take damage. You just love your pits of acid. I do. I think I have been swallowed canonically. I'm wearing jorts now. Yeah. Every campaign. He said.

Are we still covered blood? No. You're still, she's not going to take initial damage. He's foregoing the initial damage. But it's still, I'm still saying, ouchy for the folks. You're still being pierced. It still hurts. You're, you know, you just swallowed.

She got crunch. Yeah, your swallow. It's then going to take it, you are crooked, so it doesn't give a shit about you, it's going to take a claw and attack Lethaca. No, I'm good. With a 20. Damn.

No, I'm good. It's disadvantaged. 15 points of damage. It's disadvantage. Jesus. Why doesn't it have to hit so hard? It's disadvantaged just in case. That's relevant.

And it is going to get a lot of it. 15 to hit on Marius? No, I raise my shield in defense. Okay. As if she did coming. I don't think it gets hit and she sounds like Serrida Williams serving a tennis ball. That's pretty funny.

That was pretty funny. Oh my gosh. And that's its turn. I love it when you talk. It hit, it swallowed and it missed. Marius. I have just been doused in Ferran's blood, and I breathe deeply. And everybody on the battlefield is used to Marius whispering prayers to himself

as he's doing things on the battlefield, but what comes out of his mouth next is not a silent prayer. It is very much frustration, and Marius is looking at this creature. Why? Why? Why do you not answer my prayer? Morning Lord! Victor, why do you forsake me? Why do you not help me? And you see Marius ditch his shield on the ground as he takes his sword in two hands, white knuckled. He's gripping this sword with all of his strength,

shaking with rage and frustration, as the sword alights in rose fire, using my bonus action to light the sword on fire as I then go in to make two attacks. Marius is bizarrely focused on killing this creature. and doesn't really pay attention to what's happening around him. So I'm going to make two attacks. Let's go, let's go, let's go.

Both are going to hit, I think. 18. They hit? Is the lowest, so both will hit. 16 is easy. Yes, 16. One of these I'm going to use a level one divine smite. So it's going to be a 10, 2 8s, and 2 6es for the first attack,

which is going to be a 9, 10, 16, 22, 22, 23. 23 plus 7 is 30 for the first attack and the next one is going to be 1 D10 plus 2 D6s 5 plus 7 is 12 plus 7 is 19 so 30 plus 19 is 49 points of damage over two attacks wait okay so what was the second hit it was so I already did the 30 30 and then it was another 17 another 19, 19. 19. And the Farron's blood is spurring Marius on

as I'm just hacking into this creature, delivering as much wrathful attacking as I possibly can to kill this creature. Focus on nothing else. It takes the hits. You're doing a significant amount of damage to it. Let me just double check here. Yeah.

You have done so much damage you watch as this entity begins to heave and wretch. It's stomach convulsing, a fair, and you feel the stomach muscles squeeze around you, feel like you can barely breathe, and then they release for a moment, but it keeps happening faster and faster and faster and eventually you feel yourself propelling out of this thing.

You've only been in here for mere seconds before you are, before you are wretched, up into a pile of a mixture of your friend's blood and whatever blood has been seeping into the soil. The scent of metal is strong down here as you face plant into the muck. But you are free from the confines of being inside this beast. It is using its reaction, however,

as its feral instincts draw it towards you, Marius, and it's going to make a bite attack on you. My AC has dropped. It's a 20 to hit. Ah, it's the old day. And it's going to do. Shields are worthless. They're quite good, mechanically.

14. Worthless, I say. You're gonna take 20 points of piercing damage. As it bites into you and I need you to make a strength saving throw, please. So 22? Mm-hmm. No, 20. I said 20, right? 20.

20. Yeah, I think it was 20 to hit and also 20 damage. damage. A strength saving throw, you say. Yeah, that's what I say. I'm good at this. 28. That's pretty good. You feel its teeth sink into you, but some of them break off as it hits your armor and you take your sword and you slice into its gums, prying its teeth from you, and it is unable to latch onto you, and it rears back and lets out a how it is looking very weak. I give a malicious snarl smile. You see that some of the crooked heads, appear to have died on its body.

They hang their, with their tongues out, their eyes completely vacant. This thing is it's been taking damage. It's been killing bits and parts of its body, and it is barely hanging on. And you passed your save, which is why you're not crooked, yes? That's correct.

Okay, so the three of you, I don't need to worry about it anymore. Unless I need to make another one on this time. No, no, no. Once you save against it, you're good for 24 hours. Oh, oh. So that was Monsters One. Let's see. We're done, phone.

Nope. I can probably take that away. I don't think it'll be important anymore. Lethaca. Your turn. Medius, Fed in. Just a guess. Our friends, they are going through the tree.

I do not know how to help them. We must defeat this thing quickly. The chakram that is guarding me and my friends will swing in with a, 16 to hit. 16 hits? That does three plus five, force damage, eight force damage. And it'll leave this huge gash opening.

And I will attempt to reach inside with one of my hands and being that the wound inside is quite dark. I will unleash a massive charge of the Lady of Loss's energy inside. What fuels me, my thing. I will explode and let's find out if I hit in the first place. It's a boon bomb. It's a darkness bomb.

Twist it. Twist it. Twist it. It's cool. It's cool. It's too cool. When you say some cool bloody shit to say to a motherfucker motherfucker after his ass, you get to twist it. 16 hips.

Oh, oh. 16 not's hips. I was really hoping for a 20 because this is 5D 10 damage. Oh. That's good money. That's 11, 13, 20, 27 points of radiant damage all up in its gut. You're up in its gut.

How do you want to do this? How do you want to do this? How do you want to do this? Yes! Nice job. Well done. I never thought this is going to happen. I will reach inside and again, because there is shadow there,

because it is the dark, I will charge. And you'll see almost for a moment this thin flash or flare of purple before a balloon or almost like a grenade. All of these cracks and rips and tears occur around the creature, and it simply explodes into almost falling leaves coming apart. I would want to almost disintegrate from the inflict wounds that I'm able to deliver

in this moment. It is, all of you feel blinded for a second by the dark, that expands from this. There is that beautiful pinpoint of purple blackness that expands out and a thin ring of pure white light that envelops this entire place and it is that light that you see the trees begin to shrink away. Even that incredibly large tree with the three nooses hanging for the three of you appears almost as if it moves backwards in fear from the power of your goddess. As this thing with no sound, completely perfectly silent, as this thing

explodes into bits of stardust that rain down over all of you. And you stand there for a moment looking at this thing, waiting to see if it moves. The vines and roots that were creeping from the tree have completely recoiled and gone back to the tree itself. You begin to look around you and see, you see that the trees behind you that were all crooked too have begin to uncroquidify themselves. Watch as one begins to stand upright and the roots recoil back inside of it and all of the knotted, twisted woodwork on its foreface begins to rectify itself. And then you're standing in this glade and it feels like hours have passed. and seconds all at the same time. As those of you that aren't overcome by whatever madness,

Kellyn is inflicting on this glade, you stare around nervously. It's too quiet. This is too normal. This should not. How is this happening? And then you hear the voice yet again. If you don't want to be crooked,

the little girl will, and that witch who's got her, I'm sure they'd like to be crooked with me. If you won't play my games, I know who will. And then, just as quickly as it had been there, the tree that's in front of you, that crooked tree that took William Van Brunt and Percy Phipps, it's no longer a crooked tree any longer. Just a normal ancient oak standing in front of you. as you hear the sounds of snapping branches, cracking leaves, roots, traveling through the earth, in a direction that now that you're looking at this forest you can clearly tell, is the exact path you need to take to Maggie McDuff's house.

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to be crooked, realize the folly and that want as you stumble back from what is now just a large oak tree in front of you. You pat yourselves down and feel your limbs and your arms confirming to yourself that you are, in fact, not crooked, your whole. As you look around this space, you remember these trees in this forest.

It's dark, it's eternal night in the land of Droskenwald. And at this point, you've been here long enough, it's begun to feel familiar. As you listen to the sounds of whatever was in that tree, whatever was in all of these trees, it begins to move deeper into the forest and closer and closer to Maggie McDuff and Little Collette. And you imagine you can outrun it. Now that you look at this place and it's no longer under the glamour of whatever had been done to it, you realize you're not that far off from Maggie McDuff's house and that you should be able to get there fairly quickly.

She's a capable witch. She should at least be able to handle herself for a while. You're exhausted. It was a brutal battle. You look to where there should be a corpse of this entity, anything that you could look at to gain some additional knowledge or to learn more about this creature and how it became what it was it was and how this crookedness works, but there is nothing left of this creature for you to look at.

It has been nearly vaporized by the light of the Lady of Loss, for the darkness of the Lady of Loss. You are wholly alone here. Breathing heavily. I will sheath my sword, and without even thinking, I wipe some of the blood of Ferrin's blood off of my face,

and I lick my thumb to clean it off my face. Damn it! Damn that creature straight to the hells. And then I will kick my shield. Damn shield! You do kick your shield and it doesn't budge. And for a second you wonder why until you realize that growing up out of the very earth,

you see tendrils. And at first your mind goes back to that tree and the roots with the teeth, but this is not that. The thorny vines of a rose, rose bush as one large rose begins to unfurl and blossom right near the sigil of the Morning Lord holding on to the shield claiming this shield damn damn it find I don't need it I don't need the damn shield I don't need

protection I keep asking for help and it doesn't come I don't need it I'll be the protection I'll protect myself and I'll protect all of you. That was awfully close. The rose bush begins to strangle the shield, and you watch as a large crack appears down the very center. The sound of the cracking echoes out throughout this space. Frustrated, it almost looks like I'm going to spit on it.

But I stop. We have to hurry. He's right. She's going for them. We're close. We can make it. Why? Ah, ah, ah!

As, uh, Virgil is pecking at my head. I'm sorry, Virgil, I'm sorry, Virgil, I'm not gonna listen to you. I'm not gonna listen to that spooky lady no more. I'm sorry for everything I said and thought. Oh, are you sure about that? Well, I don't know why Briggs you didn't listen to you. Maybe you need to be a little bit more persuasive. Well, I don't, I don't know, we gotta go find Chester.

Chester! Chester! Are you there, Chester? I just had a near hanged experience. I've just did the hangman's cheek. did a hangman's jig. You didn't protect me from an hat. Not that your shield would have done much either, but...

I did protect you. I helped slay this beast. Oh, I guess from a certain point of view, you did. Whatever this entity was, it had complete control over you. I did everything that I could to stop you from doing this jig. She's very powerful. She got to the three of us In a matter of moments

Virgil's mighty cross about that I'm sorry Virgil I'll listen better next time Her voice Reminds me of you Do you know anything about What the fuck this is? I don't know her if that's what you're asking

But there were creatures Familiar creatures. Sealy fie. Unsealy fay. Unsealifai, excuse me. Thing of sealing mattresses. Funny. I saw them.

They were different. Grown into the trees, or the trees grown into them? Hard to say. I'll look through the witch's eye again, briefly, and just not expecting to see anything left, but do I see anything else? else remaining now that the woods have kind of cleared back to a normal state. Ooh, like a trail?

You look around and you look around and you see no remnants of the unseely Faye or whatever that entity was in the crooked tree. You don't see the swirling black mist that you remember being in the heart of the amber, the amber shard beneath the crooked house. You see nothing, no remnants of the beast. But you do see something interesting. And Marius's shield. Where the rose chokes the shield and is snapped it into,

there's the faint glow of sunlight trying to break through. I just got chills. Oh, my. Garius, it seems the dark one was gone, but I do see something else. else. Perhaps you shouldn't be given up on that shield just yet. And I'll give him a nod.

Miss Lethika, are you all right? Hurt. But I can heal myself and if anyone else needs healing, I am happy to provide. Well, let's all patch ourselves up as we find our ponies. I gosh, I hope that

nothing bad happened to Chester or Carlton or or Buttercup. Oh, Buttercup. Or... Nothing's gonna take to have witch stover. Or witchstomber or the one that Lethick was riding. Shadowfrey.

Shadow fray. No guy from it's shadow fray. I'm sure Don is just fun. That's a pretty badass horse. Corlton. As I'm going to call out, I'm going to look to see if her horses got spooked and fled or are they still there? They did. They had left long before all of this happened.

Well, Gars, they should know the way back to the stables, right? We think they'll be fine. It's not them we should be worrying of right now. Is anyone else concerned that Marius manifested a demon horse from hell? What are you talking about? I don't know. I mean, like, they were just a bunch of regular horses. And then you go out into the yard and all of a sudden

and I'm smelling the sulphur. That was my steed. Don. Yeah, you fucking house steed, Dawn. I mean, what crazy? You're only one that sees this? No, there's something going on. Well, I did give a look of Don.

Right before we first met, I looked out the window, and it's looking a little different. Different shade of coat, you might say. A horse of a different color. A horse of a different color would say one another. All right But it may not have not Not from hell necessarily

It's not like from the hills Not Briggs isn't calling you a devil or nothing I didn't think That it needed to be said out loud But it's very clear That my God Does not hear me here

In this forsaken land Something Something is wrong And I am quite concerned That my king is dead Um, how do you know that? Because I made an oath. I made an oath to my king.

That, that faith, that knowledge, that oath, that is where I've always gotten my power from. The morning Lord is great. But it is my brother, King Victor Donathria, that gives me the faith that I need to carry on. Suddenly, it's all gone. It is all gone. And what remains? Roses. Red light, something is wrong.

Marys, just as in the winter, when the trees go bare, and they seem at their weakest, dead even. Growth comes again in the spring. As with you, light has dimmed, but it hasn't gone out. Don't give off your face yet. How long do you expect this winter to last? I have been alive for nearly a century. I have done good.

I have done so much good. And this is what I'm rewarded with. And I smile in my fangs are large. As this discussion has been happening, Lethika has approached the shield. I'm gonna lean down. Does it look like I could free the shield from the bush of... It looks like the roses at this point is what had been just a thorny vine that had curled around it.

It has now blossomed into a full rose bush. The shield is held deep within it, and where there had been a crack, the roses have now pulled both halves apart. I will... reach in and endeavor to find the root, the base of the bush, and attempt to rip it so that I can free the two halves from the bush. Okay. Hmm.

How would we do this? Flight of hand? Sure. Mm. Strike. You see how dexterous you are to get your hand through all. all of the thorns, et cetera. Mm-hmm.

That cares. Oh, shit. Let's go. You stare at this thing, the roses that are turning from buds into full bloom, and you watch is the bush is still growing in front of you. The smell of roses is almost overpowering here. It's a beautiful scent, but you know the, you know the matter. from whence it comes, and you reach down into the bush, and you wind your hand along the base of this rose bush.

Occasionally, yes, pricking your finger on a rogue thorn, until you're able to grab on to the very base of this thing, and you pull and you wrench. I need you to make a strength saving throw, or a strength check, I guess, not a saving throw, to see if you're able to pull the roots out. Oh, flat 15. Oh.

That is enough for a rose bush. You grab onto this thing with all of your might, you wrench the roots out. You hear in the back of your mind a almost hissing, angry sound, as if a woman is displeased with the choice that you have made. It'll hear back. Thanks, Derek.

We normally say when we're upset. We sometimes change. I do. I do. I will blink at that hoe. You do. You blink at that hoe. As you wrench the rose bush free, you watch as the root

and the bush itself begins to wither and die almost instantaneously. And as it does, as it turns to almost soil in your hand, a decomposition, the scent of sulfur fills your nostrils as you breathe this in, but both halves of the shield are free. I'll pick up the two halves and I will turn to Marius. I still seem to be engaged. with Farrin at this moment, and I don't seem to notice.

There's no time for squabbling. We have to go. We have a tree to kill. I won't fight you on that. Seeing that you didn't notice, I will slip the sides of the shield into bag. Oh, bag is happy about this. Oh.

Not bag. Bag. Holy shit. Bag reaches up hungrily, happily, and helps you to ease the pieces of the shield down inside of his compartment. And as bag finishes putting the pieces of the shield in, both of the arms come up and they wrap around your neck

for just a moment before up to your cheeks and they pat you there almost lovingly before they suck themselves back down into bag itself. We need to do something about those nails. Gosh, I try to forget that it murdered a little girl. Oh, yeah. Oh, anyway. Yeah, why do I love Baxter?

If there's a little girl waiting for the, like, tea time to come back, and they're like, the arms come back, and they are continuing. Oh. Everyone loves bagg. I'll look up at the tree and sort of seeing some of the visions of what I had seen, kind of come to pass and then stop, and I'll turn to Marius and say, look, he's nothing to be upset about, all right. I'm not saying it's just you. Look at us.

And I'll take a rum bottle out of my coat, and I'll pop the cork out, and I'll take a swig. And I look at like, the ghost still, like, swirling around your grim and leaving, and the darkness from Lethaca and like the creepy blighted wicker, There's a little little demon crow clucking at us. As me mates'eafs to say, with devils and black sheep, we're really bad eggs. So drink up, me, Artie.

Yo-ho. And I'll pass you the rum bottle. I will take it from you. I'll take a deep swig. I'll pass it back to you. And I will give you this sort of wry smile. Again, it's impossible now for me to hide my fangs. and I look at you and I say,

you're right. It's about time we make use of what's been given to us. You're exactly right. May I? We'll reach forward and I'll grab the rub bottle and I'll, with a cloth,

take care of a few wounds. And then have a more ginger sip and then pass it back. Anyone else? And what I think Briggs is trying to say is it ain't so bad to have an unfathomably ancient fiendish power inside of you, as long as you use it for good, like saving the little one in Miss McDuff, which we should probably get on our way on account that we got to go on foot. It's not the thunder that stood tall shoulder to shoulder with us as we've run into the darkness time and time again.

It's you. Doesn't matter where you draw strength. Thank you. Those are very nice words of solace. Shall we? Yeah, I think that we'd be like walking in the car. Yeah, yeah, that's wonderful. Now you are, yeah.

Casually striving. Oh, we'll chase this horrible tree monster. No, you have been having this conversation, or a lot of this conversation you have been able to have as you walk. Everything after Lethika placed the two pieces of the shield in the bag, you were able to make, begin your journey towards Maggie McDuff's house.

And it takes a while. Though you know that you were closer, that you were closer than you expected and on the right track, this is still a forest in the dark of night. And you have to be on your guard because there are things that lurk in the trees. Maybe not as horrifying as that beast or the crooked tree,

but there are still dangerous things here. There was still that. large monster that was lurking in the darkness just days ago last you were in here. And you have to be wary as you slowly make your way towards Maggie McDuff's house. And eventually, you feel yourself nearing the place. And you already begin to notice that the trees look a little more crooked than you would expect. they lean differently and not work on them

causing them to look almost like hanged man as they encircle this entire place you can hear once again the slithering of the roots and you smell the metallic scent of blood in the soil and you know that though you made haste that whatever this entity is crookedness has already reached

Maggie McDuff's house. And so you rush forward as fast as you can at this point, no longer worried about the noises that you're making or what else might lurk in these woods because the darkest thing in these woods now is already here. You rush forward and you see that the cottage in a circle around it is completely devoid of crookedness. You see candles everywhere burning brightly in a circle.

brightly in a circle around this place. And then you see the beautiful silvery blue light of one flora, a spectral rabbit familiar that darts this way and that constantly keeping the candles burning. She looks exhausted. She looks weakened as she jumps from one candle to the next, continually relighting them with spectral flame.

She looks towards all of you excited for a moment, realizing that you're here. You're here. Hi. Flora, is there anything we can do to help? Go inside. Help her, help her. I've got to keep the candles going.

Can we help with the candles? No. Oh my gosh, you're not as fast as me. Go inside, please. But many hands make light work. She stops for a moment, and some of the candles go out. She squeals loudly and continues to rush even faster to get them going again. Thank you, Flora.

I look around as it looks like the trees are like trying to encroach to the cottage. It looks very much like this ring of candles that Flora is tending to is what is keeping the crookedness out. It is very clear. You can smell that Maggie McDuff and you can see the smoke coming from her chimney that she has something brewing. You can hear her chat.

to herself and potentially even Colette as it is it becomes clear that she's working on something that they're trying to protect this they're trying to protect her home but as you as you notice the trees encroaching and you also see that the candles are about half spent the wicks are low and that there is not much time before there will be nothing to illuminate the darkness Hurry. And so you don't love us. My house will him?

Yep. Don't look at that rabbit, Virgil. We got business to attend you. Ha! You rush inside. The door opens easily as you find yourself in the quaint cottage that you are familiar with. You've been here before.

You see a very. vials of that mushroom elixir that Maggie McDonough had concocted to get rid of the sickness in the village. You see that she has crates and crates and bottles and bottles of this stuff pre-made and ready to go. And it is in this moment that you hear the sounds of whinnying. You rush to one of the side windows and you see that all of your horses are stabled outside.

They had somehow known to run in this direction and they had been, they had already been tied up given water, and they have buckets of what looks to be the scraps of whatever Maggie has been cooking recently, eggshells and bits of carrot and things. Horses eat that kind of stuff. It's crazy.

Shadow Frank is showing us the meaning of compost waste. Exactly, yeah. It's a lot of calcium and eggshells. You can't help a big actor. You can't help with a big actor. You think there was this eggshells. It's like the Shadow Frank and there's Witch Stomper on all the loving horses.

Duh. Duh. Duh. Which Dumpur? Dune music starts flying. Which Dumpur? Whizmper is Isabelle and D. Dundt is a doom guy.

So all of the horses have these buckets of compost in front of them. Witch Domper has a plate with a beautiful steak. I don't even have horses don't eat. I don't think they do. This one does. Duh. It's got to be chicken piccotta. Witch stomper does eat steak.

So which stomper's gonna eat this? Two hooves, just. Oh, and which stomper is human teeth. Oh, fabulous. I hate it. I really hate of nightmares. He's like a white dinner napkin tucked into his bridle or whatever as he eats the... A wine just...

But the fact of the matter is, the horses have made their way here. They ran through the forest, and they were safe. They found the house, and they were given refuge here. Maggie seems to notice you, but she puts her hands up as if she's busy with something. As you watch, as she is going through shelf after shelf after shelf, pulling out satchels and vials of different herbs and different things. She has a large jar of salt next to her. She has a drawer that is just piled full of candles.

She has a... all sorts of things around her. And she pulls all of these things out, and then she stops for a minute, almost looking down nervously. She turns and she looks at each of you. So I guess you know it's coming then. You've seen it, you've been in the forest.

I have. We have heard a voice. It's already here. The crooked tree. And so is Colette. And she looks over to a small cot against the wall, and you see Colette sitting there in a pink night dress, and she's just sitting there staring up at the moon. She won't talk, not right now. I think she's listening to the voice, but nothing I can, nothing I can say, nothing I can do is getting her attention. She hasn't tried to leave the room, but we've got to do the best that we can to stop this thing from encroaching further in the house. Should we bind the child in case she runs or tries to leave?

I don't think that's something we need to do. She's all right now. She starts doing anything strange. We'll worry about it then. She's just a child. I think she's just... I think she's scared. She's been through a lot.

Even before all of this happened, she... After seeing what happened to her parents, she's not been the same. Well, how can we help cleanse the forest? Right now, I have Flora. outside, she's got a warden circle going on with all the candles, but all of the white candles have got, I've got nothing left. Once those burn down, if we don't do something, it's going to overtake us. Do you have a plan? We just met her in battle, and all we did was drive her here.

Oh, you put it like that. Sorry about that. Also, there's all this like yellow puss running down in your face. Oh, don't look at me. Common edge of midnight part at all. So do you have any vice-ed? The only thing I think we can do is similar to what we did the last time you're here. I know that you don't like these powers that reside in you,

but you've got power all of you. We're going to have to do some kind of ritual if we're going to banish this thing. And it's not something I can do on my own. I've already tried. And you see that she wear her. her cauldron had been, it is now atop the fire, and it's bubbling and boiling,

but there's clearly the remnants of some ritual she'd tried to perform. It was unsuccessful, I can't do it on my own. I'm not, I'm not capable enough. We'll help you. Yes, we will do whatever we can. I don't have a ritual for something like this. We're gonna have to write this one on our own.

I've got some things. for us to use. Is there any chance? And we don't have much time. Is there any chance that the voice can interfere in any kind of way? Not as long as those candles are burning. Yeah, all right.

The only times I hear it's sinking is if Laura gets too tired and some of those candles go out. But the moment she gets them lit again, we're fine. We probably don't have a lot of time then. They don't. We don't. So I've got things for us to use. I'm not sure if any of you're a poet,

but I'm sure Hope and Jericho is. Because we're going to need some kind of rhyme or something to say, to cleanse the space, but one of you is strong, strong enough to grind some things? Yes. Can I count on one of you to tend a flame? Yes. Not me. Then who? I mean, he's all about fire.

Sir Marius is quite fire. in temper and demeanor and all right then spirit and sword and one of you can handle ringing a bell on cue Lephic is really great at that sorry I keep

volunteering everyone there's no time my bell ringing skills are sung about across the lens If you want to take the bell right over there That'll be yours Oh shit Well let you know when we need to use it

Which one of you is strong enough to grind the herbs that we need. I can grind. All right, if you can... Hibus, there, herbs, there, I can't just like on the danceware. Wic-Wi-Wi-Wi-Wik-a-Wi. You've got me, the Batman.

Stop me, you permer. Oh, you're a perver. God! Do you want a pen and paper? Oh, yeah, I'll take that. Just take the bucket. Yeah, pass it up. It's half the fun.

All right. Is one of you of the earth, Farron? There's a bowl there, please, if you could take it, and it's got some gemstones in it for this purpose. Oh, I was water last time. Is there ever a water roll in this ritual? If you want to go ahead and grab that cauldron in front of you, a small one.

Oh, this one? There's all these de blooms in it. It's perfect. There should be another cauldron. Oh. This one's got candles. Oh, yeah, yeah, that one. Well, this one's got part of the candles.

Candles are fine in it. Oh, okay. Here you go. Well, eventually I'll need those candles. You can hold them safe right now. Marius, you're gonna tend to the flame. That is the plan, I suppose. You want to go ahead and take this for me?

And you're gonna need this to light it. Oh, hell yeah. Ooh, key stuff. Mare says that. Keep it away from our. Hydrogen microphones. We've got the bell, we've got the gems, we've got the candles, we've got the incense,

and you're gonna handle the herbs. If you can go ahead and just pass me that apothecary's chest down there, I'll begin dull enough which we need. Oh, God. Oh, drop it with my hooves. Oh, my hooves. My hooves. There is I did.

She pulled off what, the deer. Oh, that's a little bit of adventure time. God, I haven't thought about that in so long. Doesn't it feel like smack and snack at snack really grossly? It's really terrifying. It's like a really dark episode. Nothing all would be better than Frank the Human Law. I'm going to get a recording about it.

You almost know my name. You can just put it right in front here. It'll make it easiest. What are you doing? All right. Or regular non-fly. some were the ones that you brought over to Endless Nights, but I have to light it and then kind of like let it.

Yeah, so you light it and then you just blow on it a little bit until you get it to. If you want to take this one, just in case that one burns all the way. Thank you. All the way down, I got a second one for you. Oh shit. All right.

So this is how this is, this is going to work. Going through to the zone. You know, like I was crazy. We need to crush the herbs one at a time. the while. Jericho, I need you to write me a ritual. You can all help. It should be a rhyme. What we're looking for is something for healing, protection, chasing away the shadows and banishing. Oh gosh. How soon do you need it? Minutes. Should we take an IRL coffee break? Chasing your way goes just like an orange.

You'll have more than enough time to do it while the rest of us work on this ritual. Oh gosh, I'll noodle, I'll noodle. Well, this is happening. I'm going to be handing your herbs one at a time. You need to take a small pinch of them, crush them together, and with the next one, add another small pinch and crush that together too. Do you understand what I'm saying?

Say it again. Really quick. I'm going to hand you the mugwort. You'll take a small pinch. You place it into the pestle. You'll crush it down. Then, when I hand you the lavender, they'll take a small pinch, put it into the mugwort,

and crush them together. And you'll do this until you get through every single one of these herbs. Can you handle that? Yes, I can handle that. All right then. All the while, I want you to make sure that you're keeping the incense burning. Yes.

Lethaca, after every single herb that he puts into the pestle once it's crushed, I want you to ring that bell once for me. Do you understand? I understand. All right. Farin. I want you to take those crystals and I want you to put them on each one of the cardinal directions. Doesn't matter.

Okay. Just you can use the table. You can use the table. I believe the table's in Cardinaldress. Which is that way you want it to be. Scooby-Doo Monster Game. Briggsie. Well, Yorghum, once you're finished crushing everything,

I want you to put all of that directly into that bowl there that Farron is holding right now. Okay. And then I want you to pass it to Briggs. Oh. Pass the empty, passed on to Briggs? No. Oh.

The bowl of Faran's holding right now that has all of the crush up herbs. She's gonna give the bowl to you. and you put the herbs in and then you hand the boat of me. Got it. Briggsie, once that's done, I want you to take all the herbs and dump them there into that cauldron. This one? Not the pirate the blue one. That one.

Then what I want you to do is you'll light each one of those candles and pass them out to everyone here. Oh, fuck. Can I have Marius help you with it out? Yes. Marys can help you with it. I would be honored, Briggsie. And then once they're all lit, you'll drop one bit of wax from each of you

into that cauldron on top of those herbs. And then I need each of you to write down what needs to happen here, what your hope is for this place, for its protection, for its healing, for the banishment of this crooked, whatever it is, not just for my home, but for Cyril, for fulsants.

And we're all going to put those inside of that cauldron. And then we'll light it flame. While we repeat the words Jericho writes. We have an understanding that here are the places. Names have power. We're calling upon them. You're doing whatever you feel like you need to do to muster up the power to make this work.

It is too strong a magics for someone like myself. It's too strong for me to even protect my home, let alone to protect this entire place. So if you need to call on something on someone, then you do it. Understood. Are we in? Do we have an understanding,

do we have an agreement of what needs to happen? Mugwort for cleansing. I will begin the lighting of the incense. Place one stone to the north. To clarify, there are five crystals in this bowl.

The large one with, the large one, the one, much larger than the others should go in the middle. And it should go last. Perfect. Marius, you were the right choice to tend to the flame. I wonder what the mortar and pestle sounds like on stream. Hopefully AMR are not yet.

It doesn't have to be perfect either. Are you ready for your haircut? Y'all, it smells witchy as fuck. Mm-hmm. Do you actually want us to write all these? Yes. Okay. Clinks and grinding, nice, eh?

Mm, crunchy. Yeah, crunch. Mm. Crunch. Oh, it smells so good. So good. The mugwort is grinded. I'll give it a little,

and hearing that initial weak sound, I will channel the Lady of Loss and use Thalmothurgy to... I wonder how that sounded in the microphone. That's pretty cool. And it emanates through the house and well beyond and into the forest. And with that, we'll do the blue cornflower

are next. This will enhance the magic utilizing the moon. And she looks to you with a smile. Crystal placed to the east. With but bell duty to do, I will keep an eye on the herbs that your grim is grinding and peek out the window, keeping an eye on Flora. You see that Flora is very, very tired. Her movements are not as sprightly. Her um, She occasionally misses candles and has to jump back and relight them. They are slowly dwindling. The light that illuminates from them is not as bright as it had been. And you can see that the trees now are on the very, very edge,

and they're even looming over it where the light doesn't touch. You can see their crooked limbs reaching towards the house. Periodically, I'm going to try and keep an eye on Flora as we go through this ritual. Still, as much of my attention as I give this, I'm drawn in. But I want to keep an eye on her. And for the first time in perhaps hundreds of years, I wish I could make a candle illuminate

instead of extinguishing it. Very sweet. Oh, yeah, you can see the smoke on the stream. Whoa. That looks really cool. That's really cool. The cornflower is grinding. And with that, we'll add in the clove for banishing.

I have my little, like, flip, songbook that looks like a ratchety version of a Steve's notebook from what he's quiz. There's literally an armchair on the front of it. Gosh, Mikey also miss what these note cards are for. You are supposed to write what we hope to accomplish. What you hope to accomplish, not just for the house, but for Cyril, for full sense as a whole. She's trying to extend this banishing spell, this cleansing spell, and this protection spell to the entirety of this province. I'm going metaphorical. Gosh.

You finish the clove. The clove is grinded. The next, La Pasha the lavender. Start to the south. For calm. For soothing. To ease the weird. buried hearts of everyone in Fulson's.

Oh, gosh, it's dark. Okay, keep running. Oh, I got it, no, I've got it. I got it down. It's a bit of a tune. Are we allowed to use a tune? I'm more of a tune smith rather than a poet. That's perfectly fine.

Does it rhyme? Yes, well, yes. It does. There is some rhyming. This is not the music I want. Lavender is grinded. Looking out at Flora. Oh, yes, thank you.

Next, we'll add in a little bit of orange pail for healing. All right, she's gonna smell good. Can I get a little bit of that? You know, scovry, scurvy and all. Thanks. I'm so pleased with the amount of dequeal in my system at this time. Wait till icebound, I'm bringing squand.

Squand. It's dry underwater and out of the water. It's squand. Good night, Derek. It's time to go home. It's squand, it's quained. It's wet and dry and wet. It's squand, it's quain, it's quain.

It's underwater, it's still dry. No, it's where I'm wet. You were making this ritual so not cool, Derek. I didn't do anything. He started singing it's squand. The orange peel is grinded. Thank you, your grim. Ground.

Ground. Ground. I just went to school for Orcs and read, you've really got grind on the mine. I just ground. I just can't believe we waited to the fifth one to tell me it was ground instead of grinded. And next, we have a lemon peel to chase away the shadows. Please, another. She's just, she'll tell you. Keeping an eye, watching your grim, keeping an eye. I'll pause and think of everything we've

experienced so far and start to ruminate on my wish on what is going to to be my dream, my desire, if I could snap my fingers, what would I want for Foulson? And I think I have something in mind right away. I'll keep it quiet and secret in my heart until it's time to pass it into words. The lemon peel is ground. And lastly, the final herb.

Rose petals, for love, for happiness, for compassion. For Cyril is broken, and they need to find a way to trust and to love again. It's times like these, we learn to love again. Oh gosh, you're doing great, Jorgon. You're doing great, Marys? Oh. You're doing great, Briggs. Oh, thank you.

Appreciate it. You're doing great, Laphica. Thank you. You're doing great, Farron. Jericho, have you completed your work? The lemon peel is ground. Great, Miss McDuff. Thank you, Jericho.

I hand him the bowl, Perrin. Me? Oh, Briggs in. My time has come. He's gonna miss. The king has returned. Sorry, it's a little bit of a Rafiki journal. Lips in you.

All right, and now you all need to light the candles and allow one drop of wax to land into that Children. Yeah, it's going to drip a little. These wicks are very long. This is the night the studio burned down. Not all right, right. Just make sure you have blow power in the case.

Blow power? I have always got the blow power. Oh, gosh. Is there music going? Mm-hmm. Oh. It's very quiet. Yeah, crank that shit.

It's the kindred music. Yeah. It's perfect. Miss Trice. Oh. I can't even say character. Do we be saying anything when we do this? My hand will lift from my wrist and start to float the cauldron around.

I'm extremely flammable. Careful of your arm, Briggsie. I know it's attached, but just careful. You can't go with my coffee cup? I'm a lot of hay in. For all intents and purposes, it was one. Burlap. All incents and purposes.

All in sense and purposes. Wow. Oh, I love the inside. I did it. And I didn't land on fire. All right. And now with that, With that, Jericho, if you can go ahead

and do the ritual for us. Yeah, it was in short notice, so. It's all right, it'll do. And then once you're done, we will all blow out the candles. You have your written notes, yes? Yes, I do, yes. Once it's done, we should do this now. We should do this now.

I want you to, for the sake of the ritual, you wouldn't say what's on these, but I think you can say what's on it, then I want you to, to light it on fire and put it in a... So this was animated, it would cut to each of our faces, and you would hear our internal monologue read what it says on the car. And we light it on fire and put it in?

Put it in the golden, yeah. And we'll do them one at a time because we don't want the... Are we actually letting these on fire? We've done it before. Just make sure the cauldron is nearby when we do it. Don't light your shit on fire. Don't light it on fire now. It needs to go into the cauldron.

We'll do them one at a time. Yes, you'll do it one at a time. Well, just do we read ours before Jericho goes? after. Jericho will go after. So Briggs, you'll start, read what it says, light it on fire, put it in the cauldron, and then blow out your candle. Freedom to take control of our fate's little sketch of crossbones. Put it in the cauldron. I'm just going to give mine to Briggsie to light on fire. I hope it's okay. I bought my index card from asbestos Incorporated.

You want to go next? It's your turn. Duchess of Sin. you in my time of need. Give me the power to protect this place in these people. The morning Lord and King Danathria are gone. My oath is one of crown, and you are my queen, Lilith. It did good work. It did good work. Just leave it. It'll be fine. The duchess was like, no problem, bro. The fire marshaling me right now is screaming. I'm like, oh God. I'm thinking about... You just let it go, boys go. Just let it go. We're okay.

Just don't put it towards anything else. Let's wait first to die down until. See? A lot of smoke going up in there. Yeah, we got some real fire coming up on that screen. And there's a lot of electronics in this room, and what I can see are potentially sprinklers. Sprinklers actually activated from heat, not smoke.

Oh. That's true. It's good they're not in my bedroom. How do you know that? Some of the smart guy. I guess they activate from putting hangars on them in hotels rooms. I gotz-go-rooms.

Here we go. Gotcha. Maiden, banish the darkness in Druskenwald, and enable my friends to find what they seek. Just the one is good enough, because you don't want it to get to. Freedom from grief, to be healed of their sins, and to live good lives.

Make sure it is not close to anything. Green to black, flesh to bone. I bring Gorthos through my being to these crows. to these crooked lands. Let the rod of the earth consume the evil here, and let what grows return to the natural order of things. Pleaded one hear me. That's really cool.

Why don't you go away? You can go? A little song will kind of play in my head. No one's coming to save you. No one's coming to save you. Swing that sword that you made with the pain that they gave you. gave you that pain is gonna save you I'll just wait and make sure if it's burning okay we're good yeah that's fine I'm not gonna reach over there no just yet just let it

be yeah let it be we want to keep it away from everything so okay it's perfect it's all right at this point Jericho if you want to say your ritual and when he's done you'll all blow out the candles and then I'll have you ring that bell just one more time. Help us purge the tree. It wants to turn us crooked but we bid it now to flee. Strange powers let us hear we call them two times three. On the edge of midnight we purge the crooked tree. As a sound of the bell escapes out from you, it's not just that same ringing that you'd heard before, but it almost room, boom, boom, and it shoots out from the very center of this place,

from the crystals that Farron had placed on the floor, from the cauldron that is burning, releasing into smoke, your hopes and your wishes and your will for this place. As all of it is carried out by the ringing of the bell, you feel this whoosh of power spread out from you as it contracts. And then in like a beautiful bright light, it just booms over this land. You hear the sound of cracking limb and breaking tree as all of the light that was outside is completely snuffed out for a second before all of a sudden the flames roar to a height, to their

height and that circle of candles that Flora was keeping in control of outside are now roaring with a magical fire. You rush towards the windows and you look out and you can see as the crooked trees are being repelled backwards. It looks as if they've almost ripped root from ground and are running from this place. You hear in the back of your mind that same voice screaming a pained and gnarled and crooked scream as it is repelled further from this place. And you listen to this for what feels like an hour, but it is mere moments. As everything quiets? And then you hear, the voice is gone.

It's not talking to me anymore. Thank you. Maybe I can sleep now. What did it say to you? The voice that you heard. Is my mom okay? It told me that I could be crooked like my dad. That I could be crooked like my mom.

But my mom's okay, right? It was just my dad that that thing hurt. You listen to Oscar, no matter what happened to your parents. No matter what happens to anyone. You're not crooked. I loved you. I love you always. She looks at you with a knowing nod as tears begin to spill out, spill out of her eyes and down her cheeks.

Okay, it's going to be okay. I told it no over and over and over again. I told it no. Good good. My mom and my dad, they would want me to be strong. They would want me to be the cullet that they raised. No matter what happened. Miss McDuff, would you like me to help you clean up? I need to... I need to occupy my mind for a little bit. Maggie walks over to her and puts her hand on her shoulder and gives it a squeeze. You can do whatever you like, call that as long as you don't leave the house, all right?

If cleaning will make you feel better, then you go right ahead and do it. If you want to lay down, if you want me to call in Flora, I know you two have been snuggling all night long, and I've given you, I've ribbed you about it a few times, but you can sleep side by side tonight if it will make you happy. I would like that tonight, but for now, I'll help clean up this mess. And she hops down off of the bed and wipes the tears from her face. She looks out the window one more time up the moon

and steals herself for what she knows is her reality as she gets to helping to clean, putting away the herbs, You hear her muttering under her breath. Lemon peel for chasing away the shadows. Orange peel for healing. Lavender for calming and soothing. She's taking a mental note of everything that was done here. I'll peek out the window.

Are there candles still lit? They are. They're roaring. Much more flame than you would expect from candles this small, but it does look like they're slowly going back down to what would be normal. It's in that moment that you hear the sound of something slamming against the stoop. And you see the small body of Flora. Flora curls up into the house.

That's horse stuff right there. Give it here. Easy Flora. She hops in and you see her ears like dancing this way or that. I'm so excited. I'm not exhausted. I'm so exhausted. But you're in a good time when something nice has happened.

And you watches her ears just kind of. to dance this way or that. Did she see? So we're like totally good. There's no more spooky stuff outside anymore. Oh. She just starts to dancing. She's exhausted.

You can see that occasionally she like bends over and is like heaving. But then she can just. Yeah. And she's doing this as she's slowly making her way over to the bed. She climbs up into it and pulls Colette's blankets up over herself. She passes out. I catch her. As soon as, uh,

I finished my last note and the magic triggered and the ritual worked. My head would have kind of thrust back a little bit and it would have snapped forward. And this entire time, my eyes are just focused intently on the smoke coming off of the candle. The candles outside appear to be stable. Nothing is putting them out. We have at least bought time. But how much? We don't know if we cast her back from this house or if we banished.

her from Cyril itself. I mean, if we showed up and she came here, and now we'd just scare her away from here somewhere else, it doesn't feel like this is the sort of thing that would stop or kill, a being that needed to be imprisoned in some sort of amber monolith. But at the very least, it's a start. I want to thank you, Briggsie. for your wonderful advice earlier.

Oh, I'm glad. You know, it's about time we started embracing our true natures. I think things are going to turn around for us. You know what? It's very optimistic. I agree. I agree. I think, you know what? We're slowly putting out every little fire, and this was the next one. And who knows what the fuck the next one's gonna be. But hopefully we'll do some really cool,

pretty spooky ritual there too. Great work, by the way, Jericho. You can put the candle down, though. Did we do it? Did it work? Jericho, they're your words. They were beautiful. Oh, Garch, well, thank you. I know it was on real short notice,

so it was not my best work, but I'm glad that it seemingly did the trick. Gosh, you all did so well. You work well under pressure, Jericho. You should be proud. Well, thank you. I mean, I just, the first thing that comes to mind, so to speak, I just shut it off and, and let, just let whatever comes to my head, guide my hand. That's what Virgil always says to do, and it hasn't steered me wrong yet.

For one moment, be thankful. Can we join hands just for a moment and have a moment of peace? Peace, Maggie, please. I think that's a great idea. I think the final inclusion of the roses I put in there for love. That is what this place needs. That's what all of us need. It's love.

The love of our friends, the love of our family, the love of our kin, the love of our home. And I think that right now, a lot of the people that have loved have been taken from me. But you all have come, you all have come into. my life. And I have a soft spot in my heart for each and every one of you. Tomorrow, I'm hoping that you'll help me take all of these tonics down to Cyril so we can start to addition them out to the townspeople and start figuring out what needs to be done to put this place right. For tonight, let us love each other. Agreed. Amen. Amen. I hold my hands out. I hold my hands out. I hold my hands out. but you can see that my, I'm kind of looking off in my mind as elsewhere, thinking about ones that I've lost.

Are you going to delete this then? No, no. I stand there and I, and you would feel just the silent smile behind my mask. I'm not putting words into it. I'm looking and savoring. I don't want to start because I don't want to finish. Beach same.

Well, I just want to say how awful gracious I am that I finally, after all these long, long, long, many long years of just being me and old Virgil, that I have some genuine friends that ain't a weird gross crow. Here, here, Jericho. Damn straight. Well, I'm thankful, as I've already said, for each and every one of you, and for the fact that you haven't let what's happened here, stop you from being willing. to help those in need. That's a love, and I'm thankful for it. You have my word that I will do everything in my power to protect all of you and anyone that needs help moving forward.

Always aid. That's a tenant, isn't it? Yes. Yes, it is. We have aided this evening, not just ourselves to protect us, but to protect the people of this land. That is important.

I'm thankful for this lot of really bad eggs. We've become a bit of a crew we have, and we're going to do some pretty great things. I didn't think that I would ever call anyone a friend again, but I'm glad to have found all of you here in this land together. With me at the beginning of this journey, if I thought things could change. I would have told you that my heart was dead. What I loved had died. I had no use for it, but I'm seeing now that it can grow, it can live again.

It's a tiny heartbeat, but I can feel it. Thank you all. Why is it when you start this thing? That's immediately when you need to scratch your nose. I think... Cheers to love, then. Cheers to doing what's right. Cheers to the future.

And that's we're all in the session. Oh, great session. I had so much fun. Give luck it. Good morning. Good soon session. And we can get the light back on. I love that to midnight.

Me too. I love Dungeons and Dragons. You know what I love most about this session on the session before you. Oh, so sorry. Oh, shit. I love that anybody, if you have to do, shooting in tonight was absolutely like,

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