Legends of Avantris - Icebound | Ep. 11 | Tree of Life

Episode Date: September 27, 2024

A year of winter and darkness and the life of a young boy are at risk. What else can our heroes do, but hope?   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/zww1P85-q7A?si=jIMhyBEENonpKvBx

Welcome to Legends of Aventris. I'm Derek Hudson and you're listening to Icebound. Here's what happened last time. This is perhaps a ritual stone as well, one where there might be sacrifices. Splat! All of you hear the cracking of bones as a young silver dragon-born child crashes from the cliff top of a thousand feet ahead, crushing the ruins in front of your neared. Oh my gosh, what happened? All five of you can hear very faintly. The sound is coming from a procession of robed silver dragon horn.

They just kill the child! I understand! But there's a lot more than they're of us! I suggest we accept our fate and we confront them. This is necessary. You have to understand, please. This is a dead child! It is our way. You believe that this is... You do not do this. That the Sunday will be gone forever.

It is a day of celebration. If this day goes by and that child... The child is not. Return to us, I'll smash your skull in with an anchor. How does that sound? It is a deal. Their ways killed this child. The wrong.

Just because you do not understand their ways, their practices, their rituals. It does not mean that it is inherently sinister what they do. You're supposed to eat. We're supposed to have fun, relax talk. See what he's doing. He's comparing the size of his thumb to the sun on the horizon. And looking at it, has it shrunk? It is because of the princess of wrath that we are so few.

This land has been taken from us. The white dragon, she hunts you? It was her will to see us erased. Checking this on and seeing if it's moving at all. It does indeed seem smaller, redder. It's almost at this stage the size of like a pinhead. She wants to speak to us alone. She is our leader, our seer.

For many winters, I have looked into the fire, felt that you'd be coming. I am the first of the circle of the woolly rhino for centuries. I was the first to learn to bind myself to the land and the way that the others have. To be able to return on holy days to celebrate midwinter, were it not for the five of you, this catastrophe can only be. be avoided because of some action that you take. Let each champion speak in turn in the order that answered the call. You must walk out to meet with her. And you are walking out onto a plane of almost nothingness. Five feet, ten feet. You're out beyond the edge of the

cliff. Dracar calls for aid and the goddess of the sea will answer. First to answer, we commit hunter Barnabos Dreadwake, our champion, to lend our support in fighting the coming catastrophe, in fighting the coming catastrophe, and defending Drakar. They are strong, experienced, determined. I pledge my anchor, my claws, my teeth and tail to prevent calamity. You're now level six. Ay! Drakar calls for aid and the gods of the land will answer. Second to answer, we commit, Shaman, you're near our champion to lend our support

in fighting the coming catastrophe and defending Dracar. They are devout, selfless, vigilant. Yes, this is my destiny. I will complete my pilgrimage. Your will is my. Dracar calls for aid. The valor of Avantress will answer. Third to answer, we commit Queenie of Foxbridge, our champion,

to lend our support in fighting the coming catastrophe and defending Dracar. They are brave, kind, wise. You have my bow. Dracar calls for aid, and the setting sun Fuzhou will answer. Fourth to answer, we commit Tyshen Fireblossom, our champion, to lend our support in fighting the coming catastrophe and defending Dracar. They are generous, flexible, mindful. I want to help you, and I'll pledge myself to that.

I feed the champion. Champion's a little strong, don't you think? Bastard man in that tavern. God's damn contract! Two clawed paws. Suspend your feet as you look down. You can see a terrifying hound's face looking up at you, grinning. Please, please.

I want to survive. I want to live through this. I want my friends to be okay. That's all I've got left is my friends. Please, I'm begging you. Whatever contract I signed, whatever I did, fine. But please just let me get through this. That's all I'm asking.

Speak the words. I pledge myself as champion to Dakar and all that jazz and all the good stuff, et cetera, et cetera. The fine print, whatever they may be. Please, please, I pledge myself, champion. I'll fix it. The five of you are standing, uh, transatlore. Thank you for what it is that you have to do. I have no idea. Not truly. I will continue to watch with great interest. But before we can discuss further, we must save the seasons. We must call the sun back to us. Let us first determine who is midwinter father and mother. They will be required for this final step. You stand now at the peak of a great mountain somewhere in the northwestern reaches of Dracar.

A place of power. From this vantage point you can see in all directions, even in the steadily dimming light. The day of winter solstice is almost over. The sun sits motionless and small on the horizon, and it is hard to ignore the beauty that can be seen. Forests, rivers, mountains, all glisten with texture and glimmering snow and shade and light. The five of you ascended to find this summit drawn by, destiny, fate. You've learned and now understand the very gods themselves have guided you here, and that you are Burdened with great purpose.

Champions. Though it is bitter-freezing cold, especially at this altitude, that is not the most pressing concern for you and the travelers you now call your friends and allies. Family. A young, silver dragon-born boy's future and of the seasons themselves seem to now depend on what happens in this final hour. Looking around, the five of you stare into the faces of the circle of the Woolly Wally rhino. Dozens of druids who has bound themselves to the land have journeyed here to perform this ancient ritual of life and death. A few dozen of them have reached this summit with you,

readying themselves to beckon the sun to begin its journey back to the world. Should the ritual fail, so they say, the boy will not be restored, and the sun will shrink from the heavens and a year of winter, and darkness will fall upon the lands of Dracar. The archdued of these dragon-born kin, an ancient woman who eschus a resolute wisdom owing to her many centuries in this brutal realm, speaks out to you and to her kindred. Though her voice seems barely a whisper, it carries well over the gusting winter winds that surround you. We must save the seasons.

We must save spring. We must call the sun back to us. What happens next is up to you. How can we assist you? First we must determine who the mother and father of Midwinter are. They will perform this final act. As she starts to speak, it gets darker and darker, and you can see that sun has shrunk.

No longer the sun is shrunk. size of a thumb certainly, but even smaller and smaller to the size of a head of a pin. Like the stars around it in the sky, which are now brilliant. You can see nebula and flows in all directions in this clear night sky. Never has it been so brilliant, even at night, it seems. It's shrinking away so cleanly. Do you have any tokens? Oh, my, uh, my friend, uh, you're near here, Mr. Yorne here has quite the lion's share.

And I'm going to attempt to very stealthily, um, pat his arm and, uh, exchange tokens. And like put it into like, you probably have pockets and shit on your seal biz, right? Or a rolled sleeve. You probably have a cuffed sleeve at the end. You got to just do the classic handshake. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll do that. To me? Yeah, yeah. It's your Mr. Midwinter.

He's, like, trusting you, yeah. They'll like... I'm gonna lean in. I'm not... I'm no shaman. And I'm going to attempt to do that as stealthily as possible. Make a slight of hand check. Also, there's six crab legs on that just suddenly grow out of my back. Ah!

Ah! Ah! I'm level six Wait, is that a permanent, like, form change? You can be, as a beast barbarian, you can decide how your body changes to grant you three different things and I chose climbing speed. So now I can just climb.

Horrible, disgusting guy, you are a... Is that actually going to be permanent? Are we all going to have to imagine you with... No, I was going to basically, whenever I wanted to climb, I would... That's somehow supposed to be better? Yeah. It looks like Wolverine, except

crab claw and crab legs. It's like an iron spider. It's Wolverine at the... This is a red lobster, bub. I'm picturing them like Akira. Like, they just like burst out and disgustingly morph in the shape and then suddenly... I'm not happy with this. I'm gonna turn into crab god.

I'm turning into shotgun maze. Okay, I'm sorry. Evolved to crab. Yeah. What is supposed to do? Slite of ham. Oh, sleight of ham. What is supposed to do?

Slite of ham. Oh, jeez, Louise. Well, we have 80,000. So thank you anonymous cheer, because if I fail, I'm just going to twist it. Yeah, we got you, fam. Oh, the first the die. This is heavy now. Oh, war.

Is it 21 enough? Probably. I would hope so. But you don't know. Oh, she's high wisdom. Oh. It is. She either notices and says nothing, or you are successful in passing what number of tokens to

all your year. I don't know if we kept track of our, I didn't tell you to keep track of your tokens. So everyone had an idea of how many times. I think you had eight. I had that number like. That's because I had eight and one more than like. I had seven. So I don't know, I had one.

So Barnabos had one more, had one less than Queenie. I didn't know that, yeah. So I had seven. I had like maybe four or five. Like, okay. I kept track of them. Because I was gonna give mine to Scrim so that Barnabose and Scrim could be the... Go fishing? Yeah.

Could go fishing? The mother and father of winter. The, um, Arch Druid seems to be distracted. She's actually going and verifying the number of tokens that have been won by many of the other druids. But she does turn and come back to you. Scrim, did you participate in the games?

Her looking at me, she can see that I'm extremely pale for being a cream goblin. You'll sweat, too, even though it's very cold. I participate. I didn't win me in tokens. No, no, no. I didn't win me anything. No, no.

Yorner, were you gaming on the side of the mountain? Do you have tokens to potentially win the role of father? I do have tokens, yes. You present them. And I'll hold out eight. I won one of these, and Barnabos gave me the other seven. A gift. A midwinter gift, that is very honorable.

Oh, yes. Every midwinter, I give gifts, yes. That is very honorable. Thank you for honoring our traditions. Aye. Thank you. Aye. And Taishen.

Good luck. Are you able to best eight? I think that may be our highest number. No, I certainly can't. I have four tokens. That is still a worthy number. Always half of Mr. Yorneers. Yeah, well.

Okay. And for you, Queenie. Yeah, I have eight too. You want me to give for you mine so that you have more than four, you seem really upset about it. No, I'm quite content with mine. I was only the comparison between mine and your nears, I thought was a little unnecessary,

but I'm completely fine with four. I think that... I think you did a great job. I think you did a great job. Thank you. I think four is a really, really nice number. Thank you. And Yornear wouldn't even...

have eight if it hadn't been for Barnvo. It's true. We had one going in. Yeah, so you would add more than him to begin with anyway. Yeah. Oh, sorry, it was the question. I was just trying to make Tyshan feel better. Eight tokens.

Yeah. Return them. I caught that cheese. It has been many years since I have been limber enough to catch the cheese. Yeah, well, I'm a bunny folk, so. Well done. Thank you.

Not only do we have champions brought here. And she's speaking to the rest of the Dracarian druids at this time. Champions who have been brought here to aid in the protection and the saving of our own land. But we are honored to say that these two, those who we would have called strangers this morning and are now great friends,

Queenie and Yorner as father and mother to bring back the child. Everyone erupts in excitement. Can I ask how we're supposed to? to do that? Yes. First we must return out of the circle

to the patch of earth here, just beyond. There we are going to lay down Zaboy and I will explain the rest as best I can while also speaking the words of our ritual.

I don't have to get nasty with Yorny or anything, right? No, that... All right, because where I come from our mid-summer festivals have a lot of we're buddies so I just wanted to make sure the that would have been if you'd been on the cliff that is a very common occurrence but not not in this final ritual no you mean that when that boy fell from the cliff

there were you know what I don't know the camps with the games people often go and find the private place do they get tokens for that and not the physical token then towards becoming for mother and father but sometimes other kinds of Worth to ask him. Please, return to your things here and ready your minds. We will be asking the son to return, the literal boy and also the son itself. Taishen, you can help, I think. As I speak, will you translate for Queenie and Yornear?

Because we don't speak to Connick. I'll do my best. Wow. But not if I do. Can you read? Oh, Tyshen can read, yes. No, Mace, can you? Oh, no.

Good thing I'm playing Tyshen. Well, we're mad at it. The champions will provide aid. With their strength, we will see the next dawn. Now, and she pulls out a small satchel. First, we must lay down the boy. And I don't know if you're actually, still carrying him. I think that you would have put him down before you would have crossed the threshold and stood out at the edge of the cliff.

You did. Correct. Yeah. Place him down, I think, in the clearing. She gestures for you to pick up Donus and bring this child to the center of this earthy mound. It's still covered with a thin layer of snow, but all of the footfalls and everything, you can see this rich, earthy soil underneath. And gently, you may place the body. the body. I'd pick him up careful to still treat him like very kindly, you know, carry him over to the patch of earth and lay him down. Next, we plant at his head, this seed, the annual seed of our tradition, one that we will water, one that we will ask the sun to bathe in light. We will use our craft all together to let it grow

and the merge, allowing the child to be reborn, signaling the sun to return to its full power. It's in this moment, Queenie, that you realize that you have your own seeds. Yeah, I do. She takes the seed and hands it to yornair. You must gift the seed to Queenie. Then you must pierce the soil. and allow the seed to be planted.

Your ear. I give to you all this, in summer's day, this seed. And she speaks in draconic, the first four lines. Sadly, weeps the mother. The tears that fall are bitter, flowing down her visage till they reach her garments order. Queenie, kneel beside the child. All right, I'll kneel beside the child.

As though you were truly his mother. Speak to him. Ask him to return. Right, my sweet boy. I've talked to you many times today. You know that what I want for you is to have the best life you possibly can. If there's a chance at this working, at all, you need to come back to us, all right? back to us, all right? There's so much more you have to live for. Bring the sun back with you, okay? We miss you. And I'll like place my hand on his, on his cheek. She continues to chant,

and the Druid circle gets a step closer in now, forming this larger circle. Then she speaks the next four lines. Then adown her silken stockings, till they touch. her shoes, and then beneath her shoes, flowing on and flowing ever. Yornear. Make a sight for the seed. I'll nod and I'll kneel down. And are we looking the center of the mound? Yeah. Dead center. So I try to like as centered as I could, all sort of, you know, all weigh my staff down. and I'll take both hands and sort of very gently spread the soil.

Does it sort of move or do I, would I need like a tool to? You are surprised by how gentle it is. It's almost like a wet, earthy summer soil, despite the freezing cold all around you. You're able to separate it with your earth. So I'll just make a nice deep well based on, you know, my verbalism experience, however deep that I think makes sense for a scene. Once I think it's appropriate, I'll grab my staff and I'll stand back. Okay.

Stay seated. Oh, never mind. I put my staff back down. Speak to the boy as if he were your own child. Ask him to return. Young dragon-born boy. Willingly ended your life for this purpose. But this does not have to be the end.

If you feel that your life ended too soon, please do. back to us. But if you feel that your time has come, we will accept your choice. She speaks the next four lines of the ritual. Part to Earth as its possession. Part to water as its portion. The teardrops fall and mingle. Form they streamlets three in number. It is tradition for us to then water the seed. But Barnabos, I wonder, given your matron, is there some way that you might be able to step in?

And in this moment, there's a bit of a discomfortable voice from behind her. One of the druids steps forward. We cannot break tradition of this kind. This is too much. We have already, quiet. traditions were broken from the start when these champions witnessed the death of this child unwillingly we must be capable of adapting Barnemoth

With all due respect My adaptation and Constant evolution and change is what I live for But you sure the salt won't kill the seed And the water that I can provide We are druids. We will be enriching the soil and causing this seed to grow by our primal magic. I am confident that you will not salt the earth. Well, no better place to draw precious water of life.

I'll reach down and I'll pull out my... What do you call it? The shell. The shell. No, what's the color? The prerlessent, the iridescent, the iridescent, iridescent. iridescent shell, and I'll step over the mound, and I will whisper something into the top of the shell with the intention of not being audible. And then I will turn it over, and a very small dripping of

sea water will just run out of it. And each of you, and in the Druid, some of the druid's eyes, they swell up. It looks just like a mother's tears, and this seems to have a great connection, a symbol of meaning to them. They take a step closer. Scrim, what we need is a chance. What we need is fortune.

Do you have a way of making a, I guess, a random idea or something along those lines? Sorry. Alright, look, I gotta be honest with you. I've been stuff in my face all day. And it's really starting to roll right now. I was tripping balls for like eight hours. And I'm really coming down right now.

And I just had one hell of an experience had on that cliff. But I think I might be able to help. I just need a minute, all right? I need a minute to think. That is fine. If you do not want to... I know the venom you speak of. And it is...

You are not required. This is not mandatory. But we are in this final hour working together. I'm inviting you to... Typically we flip a coin. It's very simple. Yeah, okay. It's a bit more mandatory than you probably realize for me. Okay, and visibly shaking, I will reach down into my coat, find my coiniepers, and pull out the gold horn. And I will still shaking and sweating and pretty pale.

I will focus on the coin, fear that I'm going to draw upon this magic and flip the coin in the air as I cast idea and why is it not here it's not on my it's not on my spell list I might have to fix it it might have gotten taken off my spell list but I have idea and I'm going to cast it okay so the gold as I flip the gold coin it reaches the apex of its flipping it will vanish you hear a few from the from the crowd of druids uh seeing a magic that they wouldn't be familiar with oh there it is I'm sorry no no I checked it off Okay. Now before we speak the final words, Queenie at the head in the sight that Yorne has made as mother, plant the seed, and we will begin the final moment. I will take the seed that's in my hand, and I will slowly place it down into the hole.

Okay. You nestle the seed down, and you start to hear the words of the chanting, ritual again. Last lines all the way to the end. Flowing in the silver sunlight from each rock upon the summit, grow hillocks clothed in verdure. On the summit of the tree, she sings. Love, oh love. the druids all start to step forward and they start to clasp their hands together like this towards the sky in the direction of the sun. They start to bring their hands together

and the arch druid starts to join and you all having contributed to this ritual, I need everyone who contributed to make a nature check. Oh, do I get to... Ooh, do I get to add my plus five bonus on the... Yeah, let's put it. Nice. Nature is where I'm sort of a Viking.

I'm not, I get plus one. And then I got another plus five. Come on. Scrim, don't fuck me. I got a 16. 18. 18. Queenie. I'm going to twist it, yeah.

One or two. Barnaboo. Oh, 14. It's fun. Uh, 19. Much better. Queenie, you push the soil over and you're watching on your knees here, staring at the body of the boy, looking at this disappearing light.

Yornear, you're seeing the same. You're hearing some chanting, but mostly just in draconic love, oh love. They're capturing this, trying to perhaps capture light almost, trying to beg. And this happens for five seconds, ten. Another minute starts to go by. And the druids start to slow some speed up. They're looking at each other a little bit more now, starting to pull at the sky.

What are you all doing as you're watching them start to lose momentum in these final moments? I get a sense, does any of this feel familiar to me? Like this ritual, like, if I joined in, do I feel like I can contribute? Or are they doing something beyond just the somatic component? Like, is there some sort of... It feels like their semantic... A kind of somatic gesture that is intended to focus their druid craft is what they're using.

And specifically attempting to focus on the sun. Like, if they were doing this for the Equinox ritual equivalent and it required druid craft, there might be like a gathering or a pushing away motion, but they're effectively using druid craft. So if you wanted to join them and also use yours, then you would be able to make that attempt. Yeah, absolutely.

I would lead my staff up on rock or familiar the horn, something. And then I would just sort of seeing what they're doing, I would just kind of join in and to the best of my ability, mimic what they're doing. I don't give the sense that I poison the sea with salinity, do I? Um, she told me to do it. Your fault! Make a, I think just straight intelligence check.

That's fine. 21. Oh, yeah. The, she was very confidently saying that, you know, this would be something where if there was salted earth, a druid with druid craft, I would judge in my, in my ruling as DM, that they would be able to desalunize Earth and be able to bring, uh, nature back to something that had been overly salted. And what you put in were but a few drops.

Yeah. I'm still nervous. Does it seem like this seed that we put in was some kind of special seed? Or that the seed itself matters at all? Or as long as a seed grows? It seemed to be a seed that they've used each time they do this ritual. So perhaps they go and they acquire it on a pilgrimage or on one of the other special holy days that they have and then they bring it here and they have to Replant it each year over and over and over it does seem special

It does seem special to These druid To these dragon board druids for very much But if you wanted to make an intelligence check you could do that And they start to stop I'll stop with me No time left There's just a few minutes left we must continue to try the

Arch Druid herself is starting to feel stressed, starting to feel, you can tell that she and her brethren all had this great confidence that there wouldn't be this year of true darkness and true winter approaching so darkly. And they're, some are trying as quickly as they can. Others are even openly weeping, not just because of the bad omen, but also because of the, loss of this young boy. Oh, shit, don't you have sun stuff you can do? You're fireman. I can only draw upon the sun's power.

I can't summon it. I'm not connected to these magics. They're pulling upon. I have a feeling if you aim it right there, right over their heads where it's scorch anyone. Might help there. You think if I draw upon the sun, sunlight. Perhaps it will be a little bit extra oomph, and I'll probably knock you several feet to the...

Well, I'll try anything if it can help. Is the sun still out? The sun is indistinguishable from the stars at the horizon at this point. It looks like it has... It looks like it has effectively vanished, for lack of a better term. Would you say that the material component of sunlight is present? No. Oh, we are a deep shit. Oh, boy. This is not good.

Aren't stars just sun? That's what I was. This is starlight? Not magic shit. Oh, he's vampires. Tell it to a vampire or sunlight sensitivity or fucking, yay. Yeah, yeah. I outstretched my claws towards the sunlight and attempt to draw, well, where I assume the,

wherever I had seen it ending at the midsummer point of the horizon. I attempt to harness its power. You're looking straight west, and you can see the broad crown of Dracar, this massive piney forest, and just above it, you're focusing on that area. make an Arcana check at disadvantage. Oh, bummer. The last raise it. Twist it.

Do you have to call it before the role? No? No. Can I twist just one? Yeah, it's basically just a new role, right? Okay. Yeah. Just one.

All two one. Thank you, anonymous here. Thank you, anonymous, cheer, and all the other shares. Everyone. He's supported. Absolutely. Better? It's better. All right.

Oh, shit. We like better. Eleven. Okay. You attempt to channel and you focus on all of your arcane magic. You even feel emboldened by the power that has been bestowed to you just moments ago. And still, you cannot pull sunlight from the sky. What's wrong?

It's no use. I can't. I can't feel the sun. I can't. What do you mean? I can't feel the sun. No, no, no, no, this is really bad. Oh, no, that's real. That's very bad. Oh, God, all the cookies and meat, it's all gonna come up.

Oh, oh, God, oh God, I feel sick. This is my fault. I, it is my fault for delaying the ritual. I must, she, she walks out out from the circle of people, away from the boy, away from the planted seed, away from the five of you, and she goes back into the center of the, um, uh, uh, the, monuments, the monolith circle at the top, just at the edge of the cliffs.

There on this dais, you can still see that same massive horn that is perhaps a holy relic for them. And she is whispering, you cannot make out what she says, but she's putting her hand out and looking down, shaking her head, attempting to consult something, trying desperately, hopelessly, hopelessly, hopelessly for some sign, some change, some, idea. Oh, God, I don't like this at all. Barnabot's be ready. They might turn on us in any minute. They're going to think this is our fault. We call something new with this.

They're going to hang up on us. I'm still looking down at the boy. You only did what you did because they said they could bring you back. And it's not working. So, I don't know if this can help. I don't know if it's going to ruin it all, but at this point nothing's happening.

And I'm going to reach towards yornear. Make that hole again, yornear, right next to where we planted that seed. I'll nod and I'll lean down and all. I don't want to uncover the seat, but next to it, I'll make another hole. And I'm going to take one of the seeds from my pack and I'm going to place it down into the earth and then I'm going to start crying. And I'm going to let my tears fall over the base seeds as I slowly start to cover them. You do this and you both, silently hear the wind blowing. You don't feel the eyes on you.

You lose sense of your friends. All you feel is this terrible, terrible sadness in the deepness of your heart. And a sprout emerges. You feel this sudden shining glow and you turn. And underneath the hand of the arch druid, this horn has an outline of faint blue,

magical energy glowing, starting to get brighter and brighter, and you can see this delicate, fragile, small little sprout start to pull up and up and up, and smaller, second leaf twists and winds its way around. You barely see the green, and not only because it is dark, but because your eyes have glassed over from the tears looking down, just staring at the boy and staring at this fay seat and it twists and starts to swell

and you hear a sound of a single druid behind you. You hear more start to join in. She may have done it. She may have the arch druid races forward over to where you're sitting. Its offshoots are starting

to grow. It becomes a slightly bigger almost like a a small fern almost. It starts to mature before your very eyes. You're forced to back up just a little bit away. And the trunk is not like a single stem. You start to see a chaotic and beautiful interwoven braid of roots forming a brilliant hole.

Richly brown bark dresses the trunk of this cold forged tree, looking hard enough to withstand even the coldest day of Dracar. And it continues to grow the sweet, smell of amber fills the air even in the blowing winds which begins to fill the pet with petals of every color behind it the sky erupts in light you are bathed in golden rays that shive through the intricate crown of branches as this massive tree arrives in mere moments magically produced thanks to your generosity and you Your eyes don't leave the boy. He doesn't heal right in front of you. Instead, this broken body lifts very gently off the surface of the soil.

The light itself from the side is blinding. So blinding, in fact, that for a moment you just lose sight of him and blink. And there, standing in those same brilliant golden rays, it is replaced by a standing, breathing, young, boy, completely alive. I have never met you. I just want you to know that I love you. All right?

The boy doesn't say a word, but... You don't have to say anything at all. You don't even get that far. Tears are just... You don't even get that far. His arms are around your neck and a great bear hug. And I just... A cum hug.

You sweet, sweet, precious thing, you better promise me. I don't even know if we speak the same language. I don't care. You better promise me you're going to do everything you've possibly can with every single day of your life for the rest of it. You live it to the fullest, my friend, okay? You can hear his chin shaking, yes, but also from the emotional experience that just occurred. And the crowd of Dragonborn around you who had felt such despair for so long suddenly erupts

in excitement. The song of the ritual complete begins to chant from their mouths. They are grabbing each other, waltzing, dancing, finding partners, singing and screaming, smiling and crying. You have done it. I'm going to move, I'm going to ignore them. I'm going to move back around, I'm going to grab his face. You did this.

Everything that happened here today, it was because of your sacrifice. Don't you ever forget how strong you are. Don't you ever forget what an amazing person you are? It was like my third or fourth time, actually. It's, it's all right. I'm gonna pretend it was your first, because you are crazy. Thanks. I'm Donis. Who are you?

I'm Queenie. It's nice to me, Donus. Pleasure to meet you. You're new, huh? Yeah, you're apparently not. She looks over at Yorner. Wow, two strangers, one? That's amazing. You guys must be real gamers. I believe what Queenie did back home, they call that a pro-gamer move. What did you do, Queenie? Well, I was afraid that your seed was not working, and I have seeds of my own.

You have seeds of your own? They are seeds from the Feywild. I do not recognize this tree. What? Do you know the name of it? Do you know what can you... I don't know anything about it, if I'm being honest with you. My best friend passed away many years back, and he left this pouch of seeds for me, and I don't have many of them. And so using them is very,

I use them very preciously, I will say. You have saved us from a terrible year, a year of darkness that feels survived centuries ago. When it happens, it is devastating. You indeed are a champion. It was the group effort. Scrim flipped the coin, and Barnabose probably said something gross into his shell

and got water out of it. You know, Tashen can read, so. Indraconic. Yeah. He translated in, like, real time. He wasn't, like, people are laughing and dancing. They're starting to spread back out now.

Amazingly, the sun is starting to set. Oh, Donis. Yeah. I caught the cheese. Wow, I've never caught that cheese. Well, you've been dead, apparently. Well, I mean, on the times that I don't do that,

and it's one of the other guys does it, then yeah, I try to catch the cheese every time. That's the trick. Jump. Jump. Then you'll face plant, you'll skid ahead of everyone else, and then you can get back up and catch the cheese. Hey, where's the milk?

Donis screams this, and you can see that at the top, They've brought what is clearly celebratory woolly rhino milk that is saved for the end of this ritual celebration and they're handing out flagons of this delicious grassy, milky, burl. When the DM twists the nuts. Not in my way! Your anchor is right there.

And all of your metal items that you left behind before you went into the circle are just adjacent to the neck of the mountain just before it starts to twist back down to the camp. But it's almost difficult to see them through the crown of people who are now you know, keep arm in arms, swimming around each other,

just having a relief of joy in addition to their celebration of nature and life and death in this way. I'm going to be grabbing, my hand is absolutely gargantuan. I'll be grabbing, as fitting as, many cookies as I possibly can into my hand, and then fitting as many I can fit until my mouth.

It's very cookie monster. Yeah, yeah. I'm spraying in all direction. I don't need actually any of it. It all just spurt his out because I'm the fucking puppet. Well, it has been some time since it has been so close. I am tired. Young child, do you mind if I ask you a question?

Sure. Does the horrible pain of death not deter you from volunteering year after year? The falling is really quite fun and honestly, I think it might be the ritual impact. I don't have any memory of anything once the wheel gets a certain size. It just all of a sudden I'm giving this, the wonderful lady, a hug, a queenie. I see. Glad that the sum is back, I suppose. I'll return looking like a really disgusting Godmill commercial. Oh.

Just go back to your trident mouth. We got a big mustache. We don't like you. The ball top of my head is like sweating with sea water. Oh, Jesus. You got your crab claws out and they're all holding. Oh yeah, no, my crab leg just sprouted out as involuntarily. It's like a bit of, yeah.

Ew, it's like those things in a... The plasmus. Yeah. You must. It's like a riffing trombone, pantomime there. One of the other Dragonborn comes up. Well done, you have succeeded in bringing back the child.

And people are like slapping you on the back. Just feeling the ebb and flow victory. I was on edge, but now that I've had some milk, I thank you. This is worthy of a celebration. Curiously, the sun is now setting. It seems to be back on its path,

where it had frozen in place and started getting dimmer and dimmer and dimmer. Now, instead of having a full rotation over the sky, it's darkening this beautiful red alpenglowe is being cast across all the mountains around you over the surfaces of the trees before it starts to purple and turn to night. The druids are starting to get a little quieter, and in this moment, the arch druid seems especially interested to stay with the five of you,

and hear where you're going next to talk through what it feels like to be champions. Tell me, it's... The great weight that is on your shoulders now to go and find this, or do whatever it is, this deed that you must do to save their car. What? How would you find your way?

It is unclear, but we will find a way. We always do. I believe it is our fate. The sun has said, we know that there is an artifact we need to find, and I think we know what the artifact is. We do. Aye.

Oh, what do we think it is? Can we say that here? You spoke it of the hermature... The exsature armament. It is a difficult word for me to say. And you do not know anything of this? Not in my long life or in my time with the circle of the woolly rhino, have I heard a term like that? But in the southern...

southern central Darcar area. That was where our capital was when our empire was strong. It was not for me. I was always drawn to nature and this was a place of arcane magics and civilization. A great stronghold there. But they had seeking magics, looking glasses. I understand they had ways of even traveling the stars. That may be the place where you could at least find some instrument

to seek out what you are looking for. In which direction is this place? You would be heading southeast. You would have to go around the spine of their car. Now that you are north, you... And she, in the snow, she draws sort of a shape. Is that an Easter egg? She draws an oval in the ground.

And she draws a smaller oval underneath it. And she points to the spine. This is a great mountain range. We are here just at its tip. Just in the crown of the great forest of the car. But central of the car, this is a plain, a great tundra, many great plains. will you line them you'll find there and here just just to the southeast of the other side of the spine is the capitalized beke of and we will be making our pilgrimage to the southern island there by the time we arrive we will be able to welcome spring it is all right well i'm coming to you if you're going an island like i should definitely go there i do not think you will be able to join us but thank you Okay.

Based on what I know about how far North Pee O'R versus going south and it being colder, do I feel like it'd be dangerous to go back south? You would expect that it will be like walking backwards from where you were coming from, that you were walking into winter. It would be a dangerous journey. be back into the cold. It doesn't sound like we have a choice, though, do we? I'm sorry.

I'm unfamiliar with the expressions of this land. This place we seek, these people. You said they have a way of traveling the stars? It was not something I was terribly knowledgeable about, but those who would have called themselves wizards in our people before before we were scattered by

the princess of wrath. They had ways of traveling to underworlds. Great magics. It was the princess that calls your empire to fall.

One dragon. Her and her clan, the clan of the Frosthammer, I believe. A great warlike creatures. But chiefly it was her great strength. She was able

to take us by surprise, ambush us. She killed all of us. Every one of our people. Out of curiosity, you don't mind Mr. Yorneir. You, your folks ever, these wizards or other fancy learning types,

build anything out of it was basalt, perhaps manipulating time, in space. Oh God, don't even mention it. Perhaps that had something to do with, Mr. Staviscoch. I'm really going to throw up now. No, you would not make a structure.

We would make perhaps trinkets if you think of there are fjords in the northeastern areas of Darcar. But these are small rocks not fit for settlements building. Aye.

All right. Well, one last thing to worry about, Mr. Stabascar? Is it one less thing to worry about because I still think it's a very big thing to worry about that we haven't got to the bottom of yet. What is it you speak of?

Oh, God, here we go. Hey, Mike, can I have one of your skiers? Try it. Sorry. I keep looking over it. You want skier? I did. I keep looking over and I'm like,

God, I want some skier. Oh, you really do like some skier. You can have some of my milk, fine. I tapped a little extra in my beard. Ew. No. You just got scared. When you hear some cookie crumbs?

Oh, God. Please, I'd be interested. What is this structure you speak of? We went to a terrible cursed tower. Was it a tower? Was it a statue? What was it? A structure. In the southwest.

It was cursed. It was in Mamaloo. terrible curse place. On an island as well, it was tainted. It did not look natural. It was placed there. When we approached, we lost weeks of our lives, as if for us no time had passed.

We didn't starve to death. We didn't freeze to death. No time had passed at all. And it's almost as if it singled out our captain and killed them. We came to and minutes later his thigh bone was snapped in half

A cursed place It has been I cannot say how long Many years since I have been Anywhere in the car That was not a holy sight like this I cannot Imagine how the world has changed

That is very curious You've never even heard of anything like this out in Drakar before. Only the southern island is a beautiful place, a place of almost pure ice. It's gorgeous, but it is just the one island. It is where we will welcome spring when the time comes. Sorry to interrupt, is this the same island you speak of? There is only one island to the south?

Just the one. Then it must be the same. even one. Out of character, it was on an island, right? Yeah. Out of character, it was on an island, and I would say that you saw two. I would say that you would be, that when you were at the Bay Salts Tower, very far in the distance, you would have seen a secondary island that would have been unreachable because of the ocean. So, out of character, the druid, ancient, millennial old druid of the land, who knows the land, is saying there should not have been an island that we were at. That is what you are starting to infer as you are having this conversation

with the Arch Druid. All of you. Wait, what? As soon as we make this connection, Scrook vomits. Everything that he has been eaten all day, this royal eye, just he loses it. Oh, you better out than oil what you say. Oh, God, no, this can't be happening. Is that the cobra venom in there? I don't feel so good. I'm going to kneel down into the dirt, and I'm going to say... Oh, not in his... Oh. I'll kneel right in.

No, it was off the side. I turned away. You are saying this is the only island to the south, but no, there was another island and all sort of draw where I think the island was. It was on this island that there was the tower. There was not an island in sight from the southern aisle when I was their last year. How does a new island just form with an absolutely horrific thing like that on it?

There are stories that I've heard mad sailors tell. Sunkin cities and structures that are buried for millennia and when the stars are right, rise out of the sea. Perhaps we were on such a structure. It just keeps getting worse and worse. We're we sure it was even an island. Was it a black reef? Was it an ancient ziggurot built by creatures of the deep?

Is that a thing? No. Whispers of mad sailors have spoken of such things. Am I the only one that's absolutely terrified of all this? Shoggs! It's not right. This is for sure, but we knew this. It is not new to us that whatever was there was a... unnatural and should not have been there. If the fact that the entire island was also this way, does not surprise me.

The night grows long, the, uh, grows, what am I trying to say? Late? Late. There is not much time before we must go. You're near. Yes. We have bound ourselves to this land. I feel that we are of a very similar heart.

one with nature. As your attunement to the primal powers grows, I suspect one day you too may be able to do this with wherever you call home. I hope so greatly. I see it. I see it in your future, not through my sight, but in my heart. Thank you for including including me in this ritual and this experience. And to everyone, good midwinter. Scrim. I heard the words you spoke on the cliff. It was pledging, like everyone else.

It is important for you to hear that as much as you must protect your friends enter a car in the next chapter of your life, that you must also protect you From you. Yeah, okay, whatever. Queenie. You are indeed very brave.

Oh, thanks, sorry. I've been paying attention. I've been eating this, Mamushin provisions, peach apricot, and almonds, fruit and nuts scare. I've never had skewer a day in my life. This is the thickest yogurt I've ever had.

It's good, yes, isn't it? Filled with nuts. Yes. I think that there were some nuts that came off of your tree, actually. Well, I'm going to hang out under that tree with mouth wide open because this is delicious. It's dummy thinking filled with nuts.

There's actually an old saying, no, never mind. So you were saying, I'm sorry. That you are very brave, and I wanted to thank you for your generous gift on this midwinter day. Oh, that's fine. I know you came in with much skepticism about our ways. I mean, you killed a child.

so. Seems to enjoy it. I am, I have something very happy to tell you. This tree, it is for forever. Oh yeah, I could have told you that. It is going to be here. We will not have to do that the next year we are here. But you don't have to kill any more kids?

Not with this tree in place to call the sun to it. Look around for any kids. Hell fucking yeah. And you see all the kids and they're like, Oh, shit, sorry, I didn't think you there. No death? Shit. Oh, no ritual sagger in my eyes.

Oh, but no. We were so good. I wanted to jump this time. But you jumping hasn't been invented. I want to be splated across the center. Tai Shen. Yes. Why did you hesitate?

I thought you were going to follow up originally. Yes. You are a very strong magical person. I see the same kind of draconic magic that pulsed through our veins so long ago. I think with more experience, you would have been able to pull that sun back yourself. I only wish that...

I could have been stronger, but I'm glad that fate brought us here, and that, or whatever drove us here, and that Queenie's quick actions were able to save this ritual when it looked like hope was lost, and that now we will not have to go through such lengths again. Banabov. I don't know exactly what to say to you. You have a little something here. Oh, hold on there. Oh, no, hold on here. I carry a comb here. Carved it myself from a seashell

for the exact, this exact purpose. In a way, you are becoming one with nature as well, I understand. I want with the sea. Not much one for land, but I'm learning a lot here for Mr. Yorne here. Take care, Mr. Barnabos. I. I will. We'll take care of everyone here.

And good midwinter to you and to you, Mr. Yorneur, and to the rest of you thought. I can safely say the best midwinter we've enjoyed for many centuries. Good luck to you. And as midnight approaches, I say, if you see the princess of wrath, avoid her if you can she is deadly but

if you must fight her if you must fight her know that you will be doing us a great vengeance give her hell the other druids are walking away from the mound now some are going up and touching the holy relic and then

packing up their own things and starting to make their way down to the next camp making their way down the mountain. You get a final hug from Donus. You feel from behind you. Arms wrap corporellioli around your waist, and then hand in hand, the arch druid, and Donus.

Bye, it was nice to meet you. It was nice to meet you, too. You have fun on that island. I'm not allowed to come. No, come to the southern Iowa. For spring. We'll be there on the start of spring. Yeah, well.

Donus left. I'm not invited. What? Take it up with... I didn't say that they were not invited. Just that we could not join us on our pilgrimage. Oh, well, yeah, that makes sense. Bye.

Like that, before you go. And as they wave, you start to realize, as they wave, that you are seeing through them. That frosty color that covers their robes, the nature of their corp reality. begins to be disappeareded. And they fade. Yes, all of them begin to evaporate.

They're fucking ghosts the entire time. Straight ghosts. And you are left hearing the howling winds. Wait, are they actually ghosts? They were fucking ghosts. I have not been anywhere else in their car for centuries

only on holy sites. That's why I... No, I think so no offense. When you said they killed all... All of us. She killed everyone. I'm like, okay, Derek is fucking up his words. I'm waiting for him to be like,

except for a few of us to be built. I know, I was waiting. I'm like, what the fuck? I'm still trying to bowl. You've seen any settlements. We haven't seen any dragon born except for this where did you get the food from? Where's all this food for coming from? We ain't guys.

Oh, God. It's part of like a ghosty party. This podcast is brought to you by our Patreon. Become a patron today at patreon.com. slash Legends of Aventris and gain access to tons of exclusive perks, including a monthly movie night and a weekly Patreon exclusive campaign set on the high seas, shroud over salt marsh. You can also go to The Crooked Moon.com to pick up your own copy of our first published supplement, The Crooked Moon, a folk horror tome for Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition. And don't forget to snag all of the extra goodies like dice, miniatures, plushies, a tarot deck, and more. Thank you.

The five of you, the five of you stand now at the top of the mountain in shock. The figures all fade disappearing one after the other as they make their way down the side of the mountain. And you realize that the five of you are alone, that it is bitterly, bitterly cold. The blowing wind swirls all around you. The tree persists. But it is no longer covered and multi-colored petals and fruits and things. It looks like a wintered tree,

almost as if it's always been there. You know that it is forever, but it is now transformed back to the state that it will be in for the rest of this winter. The paint, that multicolored paint on the cairns, that had been adorning these monoliths, disappears, fades into dust, weathered stone only now. Scrim, you feel a brand that had been a sensation on your chest,

a cold brand, disappear from your chest. It's as if nothing has ever, ever happened there. The pine cone honey that had been sitting at your side, Queenie, fades. The skeer out of my hands. The skier, the milk. all of those evidence, just the few metal items that have been lying here in the snow that they ask you not to take into the circle to approach the zone. That circle and the cliff edge is still there.

And so is the dais with their holy relic, this horn, still sitting there in the middle of this circle. And you realize how hungry you feel. It's been an entire day and you haven't had anything to eat as the food inside of your stomach fades. Oh, wow. Barnabos. The gift of tobacco in your pouch That you said to say tobacco Disappeared

And you're near Your treasure twig of mistletoe Gone You bastard That's sick That's sick You look down with a smile on your face Squeenie and you realize

There's no blood to clean off of your frock off of your clothes Because I'm naked Because you just performed a crazy sex act No, no Because because of the nature of the magic of this place and this holy sight on this holy day.

But you do still have a few stitched patterns to remember this day by that you seemingly had done for yourself. The five of you look into each other's faces when you hear a snapping of a twig and you see Daisy standing. there. I don't know how to, how else to say this, young lady.

They were ghosts. Well, at least I'm here with the champions. You can feel the sarcasm in her hand gestures. Oh, you're just bitter you didn't catch the cheese. It was ghost cheese, so what does it matter anyway? Someone still caught it, and it wasn't Daisy. I'm starving. Yeah, so were the rest of it.

We gotta get off this fucking mountain. We're gonna die here. And I need everyone to make a Constitution saving throw. What is this for? Is it against cold? I got a natural one. We're advantage, right? No, we just don't roll.

I thought it was advantage. You roll, but you succeed in your role. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I blew double 90-20s. Oh, no. Oh, my. Oh. One in four hundred chance disappears into nothing like the girl.

I'm not cold. No, you're not, but it is meaningful whether or not you succeed or fail. I succeed. You succeed. 14. 24. The DC is 20. If you succeeded, you take half of seven cold damage.

Wait, what is it? What were we saving again? Is it a constitution saving throw? 20 or higher, then... Part of us and I will take half? You take half. We'll take quartered. But you... Because we'll take half of half. All right. So we take two.

And shivering now, freezing in this mountaintop, what are you all doing? I don't know how long it's longer I can do this. Are we out of food? Where are we still out of food? What happened? We just had a lovely day. I mean, a horrific day. But there were parts of it that were

lovely, and now here we are, and we're gonna die. I mean, how long is it going to take us to get back down to get to safety? There's no cover up here. We're going to freeze to death. But more importantly, I'm hungry, even though I just throw up everywhere. There's no throw up. It's like maybe a little bottle. What the fuck?

Nothing makes any sense anymore. But you're right, we need to get off the mountain. It will get worse, as the longer of the sun is down. Let us go. I'm gonna just, well, before we go though, I'm gonna, you'll see me, give me one moment. I wanna walk up to the horn

and just sort of inspect it to see if I get any sense of it being magical, is there anything carved on it? Leaving your metal items behind and quickly crossing the threshold into this circle, you walk up to it. Are you just doing it straight?

Are you using a feature or something? I think I'm just inspecting it. I'm not like casting magic, like to detect magic or anything. I would say an archa check would be warranted in this situation. Nice. To get a sense of its magic on this. 21. 21.

21. This was very clearly a holy relic for the woolly rhino circle. And as you get closer, not only do you feel the power of the stones around you, seemingly in tension with this artifact. As you approach it, it seems to enhance your emotion almost. You reach up to touch it, but it's almost fearful to put your hand on it because of the thrum that you get from it. Even with a 10, you would have been able to get that close

and start to realize that touching this artifact without knowing its true power, or how to ride that tiger would be a mistake. Do I get a sense of how I might ride the tiger? Touch it, lift it off the dais, do whatever you want. You can see his stripes, but you know he's clean, Rich. It's the fuck around and find out a portion of the evening. Yorne is gonna become the world shaman. Yorne is gonna become the world shaman.

Oh, that'd be so cool. I don't know what that means, but it sounds amazing. Tharl appears. Yornear, join me. I totally forgot this. Elephants guide me. My white eye will flash and glow blue, and I will cast detect magic, just to kind of get a sense of...

How does that look? Yeah, you can just cast to detect magic, but what does it manifest? I often like to think of it, like soft particles of magic show up, and then they sort of are attracted to things that are magical and gives you a school of magic kind of sense, but you can flavor it however you like. Yeah, I always sort of... see it as like, you know in video games when like you put on some sort of special like,

you know, like find all the hidden clues really easily and they like kind of glow like yellow or gold or something? Oh, the Speer Temple's spy glass from Ocarina of Time. Exactly. Okay, so you go into Predator Vision and all the time, 100% um. Oh no! Oh no!

I don't think that's wildshyne! What the hell are you? Um. You detect magic and this is a powerful artifact. This is a legendary artifact. This is ancient and very clearly something that is sacred almost to the, not just to the circle perhaps, but even to the land itself. Seeing that, I will set my staff on the ground or up against one of the stones,

and I will approach the horn and I with both hands, I will just touch it. Let's fucking go. Oh, my. What badass. Your arms are instantly disintegrated. I... I... In a car.

Oh, my God. Are we going to start farting and barking at each other? I almost didn't know what you were referencing, and I was very concerned. If you know, you know. Must be some porn thing. It's definitely a porn thing. You blow that up in 4K and no one else is around. Anything get me born?

What do they say, not my proudest fap? I don't know. Willem to fo? I don't think you know. That's not shameful. I definitely wouldn't call that shameful. It's about three and a half, four feet long, tapering to a very finite point. Oh, so it's sort of like down there for me then. Yeah, but it's on a dais.

Oh, okay. I would say that it's about... On a dais, on a dais. It's pretty good. That's pretty fun. One of my favorite songs. And so you... Indiana Jones, you pick it up and you lift it.

Holders. You immediately get a sense that this is a... This could be used as a weapon. That the fact that it is so pointed, there's a sense of power that you are... that feel immediate kinship with. This mechanically could be a plus three, maybe higher type spear if you were going to put it on top of something like that. But you are as quickly as this threshold of energy strikes you, so does the torrent of emotions that flood through you.

You go from extreme sadness when you connect your flesh with the object to tremendous anger. and then jealousy and then flooding through you happiness you almost want to laugh out loud and then bark at the sky and in victory and Fierro and then all of a sudden

drop back down into melancholy and depression can you please RP this roller post of emotions Oh oh you're going mad This is amazing lunatic of Matt! Even for you, someone who is tremendously centered

and who has the emotional qualities that Yornear has, this is like riding a roller coaster, for lack of a better term. You're left, right, up, down. It's hard to hold, and you're looking for some way out of that whirlwind of emotions, but it seems to be holding you. You feel like you could turn around, but you continue to

ha, ha, do. That's what's happening. I can't even put it down. Inside your heart. Oh, yeah, you could put it down just as easily. You're not paralyzed by this,

but you are, you are, you feel cursed by the emotion almost, just holding it, keeping it on your person. I put it down. Are you all right? Do you say anything?

from your magical oi, Mr. Yorneir. It is extremely powerful. It is an artifact of some kind. Not the one we are looking for, but very holy, extremely powerful and deeply tied to every emotion. I'm exhausted. Well, I know what's going to make you feel better.

Why do owls always get invited to bird parties? Because they're who? Why would you ruin the joke? Trying to help, yorneal your feel better and you just ruin the joke. Oh, I thought you were asking a serious question. To be fair, it didn't sound as though you were asking a question.

You asked it loud. That's because sometimes, you know what? We'll try another one. Why were the police suspicious of the blinds? Why? Because they were shady. Well, thank you, Scream. You know what?

I give up. Can we get the fuck out of here? When did you start thinking you ruled the show? You guys clearly need a leader. Okay, well, I can't argue with that one. This is true. Wait, wait, what about the horn? I'm just going to leave it here?

I mean, it's like, could it benefit us in our journey? Why don't you go pick it up, Scrim? No, no, no, no, no. Look, I saw what I did to him. I don't think I can trust it with that kind. Ryan, he's the strongest one of all of us, so if he can't wield it, who else is going to carry it? You want to give it to Barnabow?

Well, I mean, he's pretty strong, too. I, would this be... What about bees? What? Would this be... What? Disrespectful. Oh.

Mr. Yornier. The druid of the line said that we have to kill the Princess of Frost. There's certainly thousands of years old. Well, did she say we had to? I thought it was if you happened to, that would be kind of great. She is an arbiter of fate. You know, that is a task and a quest, if I've ever heard one. I wouldn't say she was an arbiter of fate.

She wasn't able to get that ritual to work. What she called us here, we saved the sun. We were meant to be here. We became champions. We easily could have not saved the sun. But we did. And that was our fate. What if the hexature armament, what if that thing is the antithesis of what the

artifact we're trying to destroy. It's impossible to handle. It will drive anyone mad. You think I could carve it into a harpoon? It will not carve it. I'm pretty good at Scrimshaw. No, it would be... Is your middle name Shaw?

No, it's not. I don't know what he's talking about. His middle name isn't even Shaw. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I know you're pretty good at Scrim. I knew it's... I know a Scrimm. I know it's... I know a Scrimshaw. I think I could widow that thing. I think I could whittle that thing down into a very mighty harpoon.

That's all I'm saying. You want to turn it into a weapon? Might be worth a try. Yeah, but how are you gonna carve it if you can't even hold it? Look, your nears the most even keel of all of us, and he had trouble holding it. The last person I want outside of you touching that thing is Barnabose. I just don't feel like we should be leaving it here. The Spirit said if we encountered the dragon to give her hell from them,

Maybe this is a tool of their own vengeance. Or maybe they made it literally and they want us to give her a piece of the nine hells. What if the extra armament comes from the nine hails? Certainly possible. Whatever we decided to do, I'd like to get off this mountain top as quickly as possible because I feel very uneasy standing up here. I'd say about ten minutes have passed. I need everyone to make a Constitution saving throw. DC20.

Oh, not good. 20 exactly. Nice? Oh, advantaged. That passes? Yeah, 20. Can you, uh, please me? I got a 13. I will take one at twist out from Nik. I neglected to say it out loud, but it's obviously the same, like, against the climate thing. So if you failed last time, in addition to the damage, you had a, you took a level of exhaustion. If you failed this time, it's a level of exhaustion again, level two. Holy fuck. And it's three points of cold damage. All right, well, I'm taking three points and I got one level. So I just, it's because it's, it's because it's a level of exhaustion. is a minimum of one. I take one. You're still resistant, so you should only take one, because you have three.

I still take the exhaustion? Is it still seven? No, no, you're immune to the exhaustion forever. Okay, sorry, I don't have my thing on me. That's fine, that's fine. Is it still seven? Do you succeed? I succeeded, but is the damage still seven?

He said it was three. No, if you succeeded, you're not exhausted and you take one damage. Oh, okay, okay. Even though I'm resistant, you can never, it's minimum. You all take it. And I actually am just realizing, okay, so she fails twice, and she took 7, 10 points of damage.

I mean, 7 plus 3 is 10, so she's exhausted level 2 as well. She turns around and she just like hand gestures at you, and she starts to make her way down the side of the mountain because you've got a long trek ahead of you. It took you half a day to... Let's make a decision quick. If you think you can carve that thing, maybe wrap it up and something and take it with you. Maybe not touching it directly, you'll fix the problem. I mean, I see Queenie's point.

What is the sea, if not just raw emotion, made in natural watery form? This isn't in time to be waxing poetic. I don't know. I don't want to be cursed. I don't want this thing to be our down for. Why don't you just try and put a cloth on it and touch it? You've survived already, see if that helps. And then if you can touch it, one of us can take it.

We feel like we should take it at all. It doesn't belong to us. It's not ours. Hold on. I will... If we can have one more minute, we'll commune with Mahmuth. I'm so hungry.

I want cookies and milk. One of my kind of bone tags that has a room wristed into it. I will cast augury. I will say... Um, the moot.

Holden. Amen, amen, the triad. If we take this in our quest, in our faithful journey, what will come of us? You channel the magic directly and the response, turning the tag, this wristed ruin in your fingers, comes into your mind a feeling of both wheel and woe. It is will and well the triad has spoken, which means there could be some good that comes from it, but also...

We wrap it in a pelt or something. Perhaps I can be like Mr. Yornear here and have my own... Tustabar, so to speak. With Queenie's tree here now serving the purpose, I believe that maybe the horn would be do better in our own possession. And I would only use it against the Princess of Frost. I don't think that we should give it to Barnabose, period.

You would have to be the one to carry it. If it's an emotional thing, you're the only one of us that can handle it. He starts screaming about eggshells. You gotta avoid wishes. I would kill somebody for some eggshells right now. I already have my own burden to bear. Well, then we need to leave it. We can't...

I'm gonna put it this way. it was a neutral reading both wheel and woe. Right now, we're in full-blown woe. We're adding a little bit of woe for just a tiny bit of wheel. That's not great. We can't handle any more woe. And if he were to go off the deep end carrying that thing around, it would kill us all.

If we could wrap it, maybe you would be safe. Yes, Marge is not wrong. It's not worth the risk. We've got a treacherous journey ahead of us. I have the power of the sea in my veins and my person, and all of the beasties within. And there is wheel and woe in that. If my emotion makes me lose control,

you might have to put me down, especially after what Scrim and I went through. And I don't know if we could If that thing gives him some kind of magical abilities And knocks him off the deep end Why are we trying to take something that doesn't belong to us So we don't know how to use it, we don't know what it does? It is a great artifact of the land

And it's not ours We're not grave robbers This is a place for ghosts And I agree If it would be disrespectful to take I would advise against it. You were encouraged, though, by the keeper of this horn. Not to take the horn?

To slay the dragon. Yeah, because we're capable. We all have our strengths. If she wanted us to take that thing, she would have said it. She would have given it to us. She would have told us how to use it. I'm going to turn, walk back to the horn, and take my cloak, and just sort of put it between my hand

and place my hand on it with the seal skit between you. You sort of and wrap it like this at one of its middle points where it's a little easier to get a grip around it and through the pelt you don't feel any

what's the word I'm looking for? Emotional spike? Draw. Surge? Muting of the emotional charge that goes through you. Fuck that. Wow, why don't you pay?

We're out. No, I still felt it. I believe we could wrap it dozens of times if we would still feel it. It belongs here on this mountain. Oh, well, that's settled. We can make a way down. That's enough for me. We know it is here, and if we need to come back for it, for whatever reason we can. I suppose if we find the hexature armament, and this is the only thing that can break it,

we can just bring it all the way back and smash it on the horn. Yeah, I mean, it's been here for thousands of years. Surely it'll be fine for a few more. Oh, certainly there's no bad omen in your words, Mr. Stabaskelch. Never. There's never been a bad omen. And certainly, hopefully that us bringing the hexature armament. We gotta get off the mount up. Let us go and I'll start hobbling down.

It won't flatten the mountain like Mr. Yorny saw in his visions. You start to walk all five of you together, leaving the horn behind. And it takes you some time to catch up with Daisy, who had left. almost 10, 15 minutes before you made the decision to turn around. But as you are walking down the camps, you see that they are barren and empty. The camps where you had been playing these games, there's no cheese wheels,

there's no wooden structures, there's no trinkets or marks, except for the ones that you seemingly made as the only real creatures on the side of this mountain in the former day during midwinter. there is evidence of footfalls. There's evidence of people running down a sloped pass attempting to chase an imaginary wheel of cheese.

You can see where at the second camp, you can see where Yorner built a fire. You can see where you guys would have been taking dips in saunas, frozen, completely closed. And right next to it, you find five gold pieces, almost right in the so. Five gold pieces that you had gifted to a dragon boar who is no longer clearly a part of this plane of reality.

Finally, you make it to the bottom where this adventure began. You find yourself at the wheel of years with all of the small stones encircling this great, tall area. Looking at the center, it's impossible to tell if it looks more stained from what happened so freshly in your minds and your memory in the former day, the previous day, or if it had, if it's still just stained from centuries ago when the last real ritual sacrifice would have happened here. Can we stop for just a second? I would like to kind of just poke around with the rustiest and oldest of my harpoons that I wouldn't really care that much about.

And I would want to look for like ancient bones. Okay. And like see if there's... You start, like, dragging it through sort of, uh, uh, what is the word that they use when you, like, drag up the bottom of a, yeah, yeah, you start dredging through the snow. I've done some dredging. Well dredged. And, uh, make an investigation.

Oysters, clans. Investigation. That's not a rhyme of hiking. Um, oh, investigation of the 17. I've ruled pretty well the night. You all watched Yorne are doing this, and Daisy seemingly has picked this location, having gotten away from the true coldest peak, to start making her own camp as a stopping point before continuing back further down the mountain, and it's the middle of the night.

So you've plenty of time, Barnabos, to feel satisfied that there aren't bones in this space. Is that because they always picked up after themselves for the ritual sacrifice, picking up whatever hit the stone and then making their way up to the top of the mountain, or because so much time has passed that that is lost to the ages, you can't say. All right, nothing to bury. Thank you. Perhaps Honey is right. We should make camp.

It is late. Her name's Daisy. Honey was her sister. Well, it wasn't the other way around, no. No, Honey was the other girl. Oh. Oh, not again. I believe Daisy is right. Perhaps we should make our camp here.

I just don't see any creatures to hunt. Any rivers for fishing. I know I am so hungry. Me too. We don't need to go to bed, hungry. You can call me whatever you like. Honey, Daisy, it's better than what they called me. I've got the fire going.

Come warm up and you can see that Daisy has been able to produce a small campfire with what limited kindling there is. I will run to the fire while looking over my shoulder and plop myself next to it. Yeah, I'll join her. And then the five of you find yourself finally starting to feel a little warmth and thinking about how to rest, what to do with the next day? So do we have any idea how long it's going to take us to get back the direction that we came from to find this city? That is a good question. Uh, Dungeon Master, do I get a sense of based on what she drew?

Very rough estimate of how far I think it might be, and based on how we sort of came off one side of the mountain range. And then going back down, do I have a sense of how long on the take? That's a really good question. Make a survival check. That's a huge, bad though. Roman sevens on this guy. Twist up. You think? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We need this answer. Timing of how long it takes to get places is very important in icebound. It's better. It is better.

You think it's about two days. Nice. Okay. 1919. Okay. 1919. 19. 1990.

One moment. Try that. Looking at, or thinking back in your mind, I have the abstract map that the archdued drew for you. It felt like a shorter journey than it would be from the tip of the coast to the southernmost coast. So not perhaps the full two and a half months that it took you to walk from that very southern aisle that apparently didn't exist, that second island, all the way to the crown.

Now, you didn't make it to the northern coast, so who knows how far that distance is, but you would guesstimate it could be as short as a month and a half for close to two months, or it could be as long as three months. My guess was a month and a half. It will be at least a month and a half. Are we even sure that this city exists? There was a bunch of spirits that told us to go here. Which would make sense as to why they didn't know about that other island.

Clearly it wasn't there when they passed. Oh, he didn't consider that, Miss March. Just because the city was there when they were alive doesn't mean it's there now. The Arch Druid had indicated when they celebrated at their previous Holy Day the last spring that they celebrated on the Southern Isle and that they hadn't seen an island. But you could see the second island. from the Basalt Tower when you guys were on that smaller second island. So the inference that basically the island appeared within the...

Sometime in the last year. Yeah. Sometime in the last year. Roger that. Okay. That's the inference that you can make. Could they see the city they're talking about from the island? No, that would be hundreds of miles. Oh, okay. All right. Well, there certainly won't be a city there, Miss March,

but where there was an empire, certainly there is. certainly there are ruins. I can't imagine a bunch of barbarians and a dragon queen would have been able to thoroughly annihilate what was there. Even if the city is our destination at best of a month and a half into the into winter back towards the cold with I mean, just to get here, we crossed wastelands with nothing to hunt, no cover. And that was when we were moving away from it. How could we possibly head into the cold? Well, remember, Mr. Fireblossom, where we were was called, what did those little dragon folk, the cobalts, call it?

The great was the wasteland of the continent. She said it's a great tundra, huge herds of beasts. They must be eating something. We can take down something that has a horn the size of what was on the mountain top, even half the size of that. I'm thinking of all the meat. We could eat for a week, two weeks. Maybe even longer.

And longer than that. It may take us three months then to get there if we can't for a week. But if we need to regain our strength. and cap for a week after Raquel. As long as Mr. Yorneer deems it lies. It will not be as brutal a journey. I have traveled across countless tundra. It is cold. It can be dangerous, but it is not like the wastes that we traversed. What side of the mountain are we on? You are right at the threshold where the mountain range that has been referred to, both

both by the Cobold and by the Dragonborn as the spine. And so you imagine that the range gets shorter and shorter and shorter and flattens out as you reach the northern coast. And that's effectively where you are. If you wanted to head east, you'd be able to slowly make your way around to the other side. Rather than enjoying the transportation that was offered to you by the Cobold, you could make it by foot and not have to go through the mountain pass, which you so greatly avoided during your northern escape

from the winter and from the ice sheets of the withered lands. The withered lands? So I guess what I'm asking is if we're at the tip of a mountain range, can I see to the southeast and like, or it's dark now, but like think back to while I was on the mountain, did I notice that like looking southwest was horrible ways, but southeast was tundra?

Yes, you can remember that, yes. From what I remember, when it was daylight, They did appear to be more traditional tantra. I mean, if there's a river that has pike or any fish the size of the ones that we feasted upon in that village, we smoke that all lasts us weeks on the sledge. I guess we know a lot more skills. We've developed a lot. I mean, we crossed with almost no resources and made it here, so if we can do that. I guess we can do this.

Or we agreed. We need those bring up a good point that may be fruitless. As long as we don't have any other leads, I don't see why not. We have to at least try, right? If it's all right, I'd stick with you guys. I don't have anywhere else to go. I can't go home. I don't want to.

Yeah, you're family now. Thank you. Even if you can be a pain in my ass, but I'll smile at her. As long as you promise all of us that if we get beset upon by a terrible beastie and we start falling, you run as fast as you can. You do not try to save a single one of us. And then you scavenge and survive, get to the coast, do whatever you have to do to survive and get off this

God's forsaken rob. Just to be clear, you can save me. I'm getting better with my axe. I need to practice with my bow. sister's bow. She was always a better shot. Maybe you can help me with that. Yeah, anytime you want. I also want to know how you channel the things that you, how do you make fire with your hand? Is that something that can be learned? How do you create a protective barrier and stop things from getting at you? How do you

change your form in the way that you do. I want, if I could, learn to try. And we have weeks, it seems, to have a go at it. Well, I'd be happy to teach you anything that I could possibly pass along. I don't know if you can learn what I can do. A great spirit awakened something deep within me. And that's when I, that's when I, began to be able to do this. I don't know if you would need an experience like that of your own, but I would be more than happy to

show you what I can. I would love that. From any of you. Days walking and eating what we kill and that doesn't, that sounds like a great life to me. Do you understand?

I believe that what Queenie does is the most in line with the current experience. Perhaps she could expand your knowledge and ability with the primal

magics of this plane. Primal magics here seem strong. They are. Yeah, I'm happy to teach you whatever anything that I know. I was taught by a friend, so you should be too.

I'm exhausted, so I'm going to get some rest, but maybe tomorrow night absolutely we're gonna need two bows firing upon those giant rhinos

just for us to be able to catch up so I can smash its head in with my anchor you won't need to I'll shoot it between the eyes it'll be dead before you'd even get there well now I'm gonna run extra fast miss Marsh all winged in barn of us I'll ride I'm counting on it

I'm 10 feet faster than I was I got crab legs does that mean you just get on your back You'd be really good at changing the oil in cars. My lower head is turns into an e-on. Well, you knew that. With that, it's not snow, so she just pulls as much material over herself as possible in her makeshift bed and rolls over close to the fire, saying, trying to recover from the exhaustion of the day's activities and the loss of the caloric intake that happened.

I would want to wait until I feel like she's sleeping before turned to the rest of the group. Five minutes and you hear that patterned breathing. Kid me, young lady. Okay, listen, I didn't want to scare the girl, but I have really bad news. All right. ever since I've been here things have been relatively okay considering you know

the position that we're in and all of the things that we've done and we're alive right right well earlier we had to walk out onto the open air it found me the one you were crying about

while you were sleeping in the egg like weeping openly like a child finally got away I hadn't seen it the whole time since we've been here and I thought maybe Maybe I'd finally found a place where it couldn't follow me. Look down, staring up at me.

And it commanded me, say the words, and pledge myself, like the rest of you. To it. To all of this? Whatever we're doing. Oh. Faith already pledged you, Scrim. It was just a formality. Could it be that it's a...

It's a positive beast. You haven't seen this thing. Well, no, I guess you did. You saw it in my vision. Oh, you're the great black hound. You watched as the, when the memory of his departed from his original experience, this beast jumped out of nowhere out of a mausoleum, slobbering and almost attempting to perhaps consume scrim

before the woolly rhino came in and smashed it away from his body before the memory ended. Why would it, why would it force me to, pledge myself to J'Car. I don't believe a hound that size could survive in the climate like this. I was going to say... No! You don't understand.

When I stepped out, there weren't any colors. I didn't see anything. There wasn't anything there. And underneath of my feet, looking up at me, from the air from nothing, it was as if my footsteps were over its paws, and it threatened me. What did it say?

Speak the words. So I did. How did you know what words to speak? Was it some sort of innate knowledge? That's a good question. I... It was just... it was the whole pledge thing. It was just... I don't know. I don't know. It was just... I mean, how did everyone else know what to say? Or do? In that moment. I'm just smart. I... I heard her song in my head. And I repeated after her.

Fujiao appeared to me. Asked me if I would pledge myself to the healing of this land. And a voice I'd never heard before told me to do it, so I said, all right. We also heard our own voices tell us. No, we were saying it. So when the triad spoke through you, you heard only the triad. But an audible yornear spoke the words out loud

because they essentially were channeling through you in that moment. and then you were able to respond. It wasn't very formal. I mean, you all heard me. I was just trying to agree. I just wanted to get back away from the creature. You were already frightened, and I don't want to scare you more than you already scared. But there's a folk tale where I come from of Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice. Oh shit, you're not supposed to say the name three times.

Sam! Hey, nice fucking model! The big game completely changes. Who are you? Dun dun dun dun dun dun do Duh That would be fucking incredible

Can you imagine? All of a sudden you teleported to the witch like carnival dear Let's put it out of When those video games Have a really bizarre crossover Like smite time slip-knup You know?

I'm into it, let's do it Or what is it, Bioshock Infinite and Return of the Jedi Yeah, return to the Jedi's in BioFi talking about it. Yeah. What the fuck? Okay. Oh, I'm sorry. I wasn't supposed to say that three times. Anyway, it's not real. The idea is there's this entity and he wants you to say his name three times because then it summons

him and it gives him power and you can do all this fun stuff for you. It actually really wasn't a child story. Why did my mom tell me about this? Anyway, the entire point of it is that Beetlejuice needs you. Beetlejuice is nothing without you. And I think this thing, this Pupperdago that's been following you around, it needs you clearly. Because like, no offense, you're not running from anything. It knows where you are. Clearly at this point. So if it knows where you are and it's super powerful and it could just kill you in your sleep, why isn't it doing it? That's a good question. I don't know. Because it needs you. I mean, maybe. You're You could be onto something.

I just... So that should give you some power. It's your Beetlejuice. I certainly don't have a name. I don't know what it's called. I couldn't even read the contract that I signed. And I don't know the guy who I scammed for that coin. That cursed coin.

But you might be onto something. Do you think the hound is serving perhaps the same thing that you are now? You mean the guy that I conned? Or if perhaps you all serve the same master. Well, I've always suspected that this entity or whatever this creature was was not just acting on its own accord. But I certainly don't have any confirmation of that. Has it compelled you to do anything?

Well, no. I mean, that doesn't really even talk to me until now. I mean, this is the first time it's gotten that close to me, other than the incident in the graveyard, of course. Are those the only times you've seen it? Oh, no, I've seen it a few, many times, and I could hear it. I could even smell it. But I would run, and I kept running and running and running and moving,

and I never stayed in the same place for too long. Well, it sounds like, aside from it being present, it's done nothing to harm you. Well, that's because I haven't given it the chance. I won't become a statistic. You think that the reason it hasn't harmed you yet is because you have run from it so fast and hid from it so well that it has not been able to find you. Uh, yes. And yet when you come to the farthest reaches of a ventras,

it appears and lifts you above a crevasse. Yes. All right. I stand by my original theory, but it did manage to find me again. That was the only upside of this place until now. Scrim, do you know does the word grim, Grimm, mean anything to you.

Yeah, that's spooky. I don't know what he's asking for. I mean, nothing other than the word. Just like when he said, it's an adjective to describe other words, things. It rhymes with his name. That's true. There's also that?

Yes, grim and grim. That's the thing. There was a time when I was weathering a storm and small little fishing village in Vargas. which I believe is where you're from. That's right. And there was an old man who had constant pot of coffee

in front of him. Looks like he had and slept in weeks. And he was shaking and speaking nonsense. He was at the corner of the tavern. It looked like he'd seen a ghost or a demon. And he kept saying, The grim, the eyes, the grim, the eyes.

I don't know if he survived the night. storm clear and I was out of there before sunrise, but I don't know if it's the same phenomenon. It makes sense. Why else would something stalk something else? If not, I don't know. I just don't have any of the answers and I'm just worried. Or it's only stalking you because you keep running. I just don't want to find out what happens when it finally catches me, but here we are. What I can say is it's only prey if it ruins. Oh, that's a very good point. Are you suggesting I try to fight this thing? No, I'm suggesting you stay and talk to it.

I think you're very strong, Grimm. You've clearly been eating your scare. Well, thank you. You're welcome. I don't, however, think that you have outsmarted or outrun this thing. That remains to be seen. It was here today. Right.

So what I think is that it clearly needs... It chose you for a reason. I have a question for you. Sure. Did you have your magical abilities before this thing came in your life? Oh, absolutely not. It has everything to do with that your cursing contract I signed. Why would it have given you those abilities?

You don't know. If it just wanted to kill you. Especially because the guy seemed pretty mad that I had condom out of that coin. Just food for thought. Whole lot of mysteries. Yeah. I believe the point of all of this is that fate has put you on this bad. You are supposed to be right here, right at this moment.

And the hound being able to physically touch you at any given moment, and yet it has not brought you harm. So what I would say about all of this is that you continue on your path, Scrim. You continue. And if this beast pounces from the shadows, we will do our best to defend you. And if you get dragged to hell... That might happen! That is your faith. We would never let that happen.

Well, there's a price for everything, and you got magical abilities, so you must have paid something. We'll try to defend you, is what I'm saying. But without knowing the nature of the contract that you signed... it is unfortunately impossible to guarantee survival. Scrimm, there, do you ever pay attention to the stories that people will tell in all the taverns that you spend in your entire life? Oh, of course. I've listened to hundreds of different stories. Every single culture and every single continent across the Ventress has stories of beings, entities, creatures, demons, ghosts that will entice you with great power, and you'll live a great life for a great life for.

Perhaps with riches, perhaps, with lust. But at the end, the beast always devours that poor soul. I always chose not to listen to the end part. I'd like to dip out early on those stories. Well, you didn't read the contract. I appreciate your words of encouragement. And, you know, the offer of protection. I just certainly don't want you going out on a limb for me.

It's the Studebaker. It's the Haldon. Oh, no. The Hald knows how to drive a car. What the fuck is that? It's Christine N. Cujo. Do you remember that really creepy, like, Sesame Street movie where there's the really horribly looking,

like, evil, female, Big Bird that drives the car? No. Yeah. No. No. Oh, my God, no. And as a kid, I remember being scared. shitless. Absolutely fucking terror.

And it's like literally, it's almost like a, it's almost like a freaking noun. That's like driving and like chasing after that. All I'm thinking of is the wear car from Futurama. Ah, yes. Oh yeah. You were saying? Oh yeah, I was just saying a positive to all this is

Beetlejuice is pretty stupid. So maybe your thing, whatever it is, is also pretty stupid. Ah, well, all right. I will take all of this advice to heart. and if one morning you stumble upon my body torn to shreds and viscera everywhere, then you'll know what happened to me. I just didn't want that to be any secrets or surprise.

All right, well, thanks. I mean, surely we'd at least hear your ribs crunching. That's just it. Who knows? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe by the time you hear that, it'll be too late. Or perhaps we'll just wake up and you'll be gone. That's right. That's very possible. Taken into the shadows to hell. I wish we had some food.

I am assuming that if you have rations, spend them, because there are consequences to not eating. I don't think we have that. I think we're all out. Unfortunately, Derek. Good to know. We're going to start to starve. Yeah, well, that is unfortunately the nature of a survival hard-court campaign. I do have a question, though, regarding Barnagos and the scrum's condition. It specifically said that it takes twice as much food for us to feel full. Three times.

How long have made time? that does not mean we will starve three times as quickly. That's correct. Because they're very different. You will not starve three times as quickly, but it's just three times for you to prevent starvation. So if we only eat like one third of what we need to in a day, we just don't, we just continue to starve.

It's like you ate one third of one ration if you were normal. So it just doesn't really do anything. Yeah, right. Okay, so we're making sure. Rabbit starvation. Yep. All right, rather hot. I appreciate all of you listening to my tails of whoa.

I suppose I should try to get some sleep. Scrim, look at it this way. It can't be as bad as the BC we killed on the ice. I don't know. I don't know, Barnabos. This thing is the most horrific. And it's weird because you think it's just a hound, right? But there's something about it.

There's something off. Something more sinister. I just can't explain it. Together, everything we have faced we've brought down. If it comes for you, you and we stand strong. I don't think there'd be anything to worry about. I think we can take it together. As always, your optimism is stunning. I just want to remind you that the Wendigo literally killed me. Go ahead and me. But otherwise, I appreciated Tyshen, thank you very much.

I will just hope it doesn't show up. Here we are. We've suddenly reached an impact. Oh, yet we were brought back, Scrim, and I don't think it was for no reason. Is anyone else tired? Let's get some sleep. Good night. I would like to know about whatever important rituals we should be observing in the presence of our shaman on his holiest day, so that we may be respectful to his faith and culture. I've already done room breathing. I've already celebrated the festival,

and I've already communed with the Triad. I believe what we have done today is enough. It's also about three in the morning on the day of the 15th. It is no longer midwinter. Good night. Good night. And with that, you all start to make your way into your own pelts and coverings and blankets and...

huddling for warmth as close to the campfire as best as you can make it, and you start to drift off into sleep. Scream you're awake for a little while longer than your companions. Thoughts, swimming in your mind, thinking about fate or lack thereof. Why wasn't there a voice for you when you stood out there on the cliff, but were forced to agree by this mysterious creature that strikes such terror in your heart whenever you see its eyes. Rolling over, thinking these thoughts, you're staring at the now horizontal wheel of years. Each one of these stones from the back in this light looks like a gravestone.

And you see the eyes from the shadows start to emerge. and you see that same hound stalking through and across the circle. It stops at the center. In circles before lying down itself, it seems to look down for the first time not giving you this long stare at the bloodstained surface of this ritual place, puts its nose down, licks the surface of the stone, And for the first time, you see its eyes close, frozen in place as you are, staring at a mound that you can only assume is this hound takes a very long time for you to get to sleep. But eventually, it takes you.

You wake into the morning light, and curiously, the five of you stand, uh, sit up. waking up to a very cold day, a winter's day, but staring at a blue sky that has a sun in it. And you wonder if it would, if things had not gone the way that they went yesterday. Hungry as you are, cold as you are, putting your things away, your fingers are chilly and cold. You're shivering a little bit. It's a quiet morning, but with a little bit of what left of your resources you have, your fuel for a campfire, you're able to get a little bit of warm and stare at a non-breakfast before you decide what you'd want to do with your day. That's where you find yourself. What are you doing?

We should have out early travel as far as we can. The sooner we get farther down south, the sooner we might start seeing some, Game we can hunt. Should keep our eyes open for anything that could be provisions for us. You know, you're a frozen river. I would kill the sea. I'm sure we'll find many rivers. I remember from the top of the mountain looking. It looked like there may have even been lakes and a waterway.

It's not very far from here. Is there any chance that we come across something that you wouldn't be able to break through? Like it's too frozen. with Mr. Fireblossom and his unlimited supply of fire. It is winter, though, and perhaps it'll freeze as fast as he can melt it. Oh, we got through that ice flow at the... The... Like a fishing village.

We pierced through that. That was pretty thick. I'm just worried about the temperatures coming up from the south that we were running away from. That could be a problem. But we'll cross it when it comes. Right. No sense in worrying about it now.

Maybe if we can, if we end up coming across one of those woolly mammoths, if it's not disrespectful, if we can kill it for food, we could use that for enhanced, just better protection against the cold. I'll help as best I can for my hiding spot. I can still shoot arrows from the distance. So if you guys need help hunting today, I'm definitely interested in a meal tonight. Let us begin. So we head southeast. You start to make your way, and you make yourself from the wheel of years. You're relieved when you wake up, by the way, to notice that the wheel of years is clear. I assume.

No, it happens. Did you see that shit? Oh, my God! Oh, there it is. Yeah, oh, hey. Sit, roll over. You start to walk down the same path that you came up, compelled to find out what was at the top of this mountain

as you were earlier the former day. This, let me just the music, is a familiar path. Talking as you might on and off, walking in silence for some time, an hour or two of the morning goes by, when you all need to make a perception check. Does it involve smelling food?

No. Okay. Natural 20. Nice. Congrats. Got to give it up. 14 from Aramos. 14 from Aramose.

19, but not even close to 28. 22. 22. Tysha, you noticed a little after Yornear notices this, but you guys have gotten accustomed to traveling together. and there's a pair of footsteps that are missing. You turn around, and Daisy, who'd been taking up the rear of your line, she's 60 feet back, and she's standing in the path,

not following anymore along with your party, just looking like this. Night young lady, keep up. You got to find that lake or river for some food. Is she looking at, like, towards us? Is she looking like off to the? She seems to be looking southeast and not at the horizon even, not at the mountains, but just like up into the sky at like almost a 35, 40 degree angle. She's gone slack.

She isn't responding to any of your calls or cries. This is interesting. I'm going to flip around and just approach her and see if I can. You start to walk up and you get to within about 15. 10 feet of her when you hear the sound of a creature, a beast, very, very close. It must be very silent for it as a flying creature, a feathered creature, a creature that you know to be attracted to a specific type of herb, and all of a sudden two massive talons snatch Daisy up by the shoulders, picking her up and flying away this huge feathered beast

with a massive wingspan. She disappears almost instantly. I'd say in just the 15 feet that you were walking, she's suddenly 150 feet away at least before you're able to make a response. So I can't do anything as I... I don't think I can throw my harpoon that far. You can make a dexterity check

to see how quickly you can react, and if you get it, if you get it, you take an action. What are the rules on a harpoon? Did you give us a distance? Yeah, and I'm freezing time. It's 150 feet away, and it's carrying her.

She's now, uh, 60 feet up from the ground and climbing. I'll just blast this 120. Yep, my harpoon's 120. You can still, is it max 120? Max 120? Oh, yeah. Is it disadvantage?

No, no, no. Disadvantage up. So it's disadvantage after 30. And then the max range is 120. Okay, so just out of the range. Yeah, so what does that mean? So it just doesn't. You can't go beyond that.

It just doesn't even go past one. Just out of reach. Queenie. Can I, so, can I, a deck check? You can make a dex check to see if you can take an action. And I will roll a shot from Queenie because I'm going to assume she's going to take out her bone to do some shit. Yes. Yeah.

She'd probably rabbit leap forward and, well, she aims. At disadvantage because it's, oh, it's at 150 feet. So she would actually be just enough to be all right. Holy shit. So are we assuming that this creature like basically did some sort of like hypnosis thing? You remember that the cobalds would, uh, uh, told you that it had been flying in, picking off the cobales and then flying back to the mountains in order to feed on them. But horrifyingly that it had a glare that would allow you to, that would make you give up

like an animal being eaten. Okay. That's right. I thought it had some sort of ability. Basically it was an ability to like your survival instinct was turned off. Yeah. It was literally, yeah. Your survival and things is survive and fight is turned off.

You're like placated. Yep. You're placid or whatever. I got a 21, Derek. Nice. A 21 is enough. I will allow you to take an action. And Queenie, oh, hell no.

She releases from her long bow, and you see the arrow sail, and you can hear this as it sticks into this creature's wing and continues to start to flap away just as your near makes this choice. And I'll roll her damage. Nice. While Yornear, or rather, while Rix looks through D&D beyond, I don't let you do your map first. I would throw a harpoon with a rope on it,

and it would just, that's what I did, I fired off. I absolutely would have fired off a fire bolt, and it would have just not even come close. She knows that she struck true. Queenie is notching another arrow, and yeah, it would have been really fun to fucking rope. Yeah, that's, yeah, yeah.

I am pissed that it is 30 feet. And so it would, And so I'm running, I will run after it as I'm pulling my rope and coiling it as I sprint. But I would like to ask while Richie's looking at his abilities, do we get any sense of what it looks like beyond being feathered and winged? Is it bird-like? Is it avian in its construction? Is it more griffin-like in its, or hippogriff or... Oh, shit. It has red and white, red and white feathers, almost drake-like and bird-like face.

It's like a snake-glowning red eyes that match its feathered body. And huge yellow talons like chicken feet. Holy fuck. It messes me up. I imagine it like the final boss from Sly Cooper. You know, I never played Fly Cooper. Oh, is he like a robotic album? He's a clockwork.

Yeah, clockworked. Yeah, that's pretty cool. He's a clockwork. It is serpentine. And Hanska's right. Yeah, serpentine. It's like a wind serpent from all the warcraft. Yeah, yeah, it's a giant wind serpent.

Well, what's that has a giant, like, thing on its head that goes back? Isn't there a... Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know exactly. The Dura Ruperper, yeah. Yeah, it's got like a crazy, almost like a... Who else does that? Like, fucking second-form freezer. Are you thinking of a TeraGy?

A giant? A giant? Like, some kind of raptor? No, no, he's thinking about... I know what you're talking about. I think they're herbivores. Yeah, maybe. Well, it just, yeah, it kind of looks like that.

Are they, like, Taranodon type things? I don't ask you. Anyway, here it is. So I have two questions. One, is there snow on the ground? We're in Draccar. Yeah, it's not fresh snow, but it's not a snow that you could bunch up if you needed to. There was snowfall two days ago, and it wouldn't have melted, certainly.

Two, would it be reasonable to say that I have a drop of molasses off me? From the provisions on the ship. in my re-eague. I will say that molasses was a very common ships. So a matter of if you would have the molasses with you. I think it's a question of if you had the foresight to keep molasses on you with all of your herbalism items. So I hate to continue to stack checks in order for you to take this action. But if you want a drop of molasses, I would set a low DC for an intelligence check.

Not a wisdom, to have the wisdom to keep it. I'll give you wisdom, and we'll make the DC 10. I do have a whole herbalism kick with the Lerblos and stuff, right? Yeah, you especially wanted to enjoy the herbalism test. I'm going to lower it to 8 because I remember you enjoy herbalism. Really pushing the limits here, Rich. We're saying it's a wisdom check? Yeah.

And the DC's 8? Yep. I got a 10. Oh, there's no. Would have been me an interview, even a 10. You know that this, you're now starting to make use of the magical essence of this molasses in what you're choosing to do here in this moment, which I have no idea why you're fucking doing.

I will shout out a warden giant, and I will reach my handout, and you will see this creature, like ice start to form all over it, and I'm casting slow on it. Oh, shit. Wisdom 16 saving throw. Oh, fuck. That's huge. He's icing the fucking creatures wings. Wisdom 16 saving throw?

So iron man of you. It's cold weather fly. lying a Northrend. He got a natural 16. Oh. His wisdom is negative one. What the hell? I'm not fucking around.

Wow. What is it down? And I'm, it has a minus 2 AC is disadvantaged on deck saving throws. It can lose an action or a bonus action, not both. It can only make one attack on a CERN. So does that mean it's a different? in range then? Can we move anywhere near to it? It moves it moves into a gliding pattern and at this point now it's uh it's still 150 feet away it's about to take its next thing

I think we need to roll for a fucking. Yeah we had to roll furnition. Oh my my my sprint is 80 feet. Holy shit. I'm gonna get a hundred shoulders. Yeah I actually was like is there a way to it's gonna be that TikTok with me feeding you slim jims you run into the bus. No I no action Actually, can I pick up Scram? Yeah, I weigh like, I probably weigh 40 pounds. No, it, 50 pounds. It is 150 feet away and its speed is halved. Okay.

So it's actually still probably faster than you guys. Well, so I would have, if I passed the decks check, I get a chance to slow it, I don't know if that would affect how far away it is as it like turns and as I'm slowing it, right? Yeah, it's going into almost like a glide now and it's doing, it's trying to move its limbs as it's, quickly as possible, but it's not being fell by the snow. Of course. By the slow. But yeah, roll for initiative and we need to clear up a little battle space, I think.

I got a 21. Queenie is already running, and she's trying not to hit Daisy, but shooting into the air. I'll roll for her as well. Wow, she's fucking a huge initiative bonus. What the fuck? Yeah. We're gonna need it. Let's do this.

And I need to roll it. Do I have? Amazing. There is no way. Oh, there's no. All right. No, I'm, I'm probably, I'm probably, all right.

All right, 25 to 30 for initiatives. No. No. 20 to 25. That's me. 21. 21. You'll go first and then Queenie.

15 to 20. 17. 17. 10 to 15. That's an 8. That's a 5. So this is the correct initiative order. Scrim, this creature is 150 feet away.

You see it slow down. It's also about 60 feet in the air. And so you have your entire turn to do what you want in order to catch up. I see this happening. I see that my first two Eldridge Blasts missed. My hand is glowing with fiendish magic. Oh, sorry.

No, it's all good. It's all good. This is combat music, right? My hand is still glowing with fiendish magic, and as I see this happening, I will look to Barnabos and I will say, come on, come on, we gotta get a move on! And I'm gonna climb up his back and straddle, like, his neck and ride him into combat. Okay. And I'm holding my action until I get close enough to blast this thing with the-

You've been made stead, Bernabose. You feel the lightweight frame of, it's almost no weight to you at all, with your strength and with your size. And I do have netting that would be perfect handholds in like places, yeah. You just, look at it out, come on. You just speed run Barnabose, and you're on him in an instant. And are you doing anything else with your turn? I am just holding my Eldridge Blast, and that's my turn.

So when I'm in range, I'll fire off to do Elders Blast. Queenie's up, she's gonna take another shot. And this one misses, and it narrowly misses Daisy, fortunately. And she's going to use the rest of her movement to move 30 feet closer. Barnabas, you're up. I am going to have to down. have to dash. So I'm going to just sprint 80 feet.

I love that you have 40 feet of movement. You close the distance. Oh, and while I'm doing that, I will say, okay, Scrim, I'm gonna give you a walkway to this Basty as I pull a, and I finish pulling my rope and grab my harpoon and just hold onto it while I'm sprinting. As Scrim, you will get probably sea water in your mouth or get away.

And you want to get poked like a short barnacle? Ah, son of my God. As a, not my sweet meet, a stingray tail will shoot out from behind me. Nice. And kind of extend right past you, as I will take the tail action here. You do that, Taichin.

So I'm just really confused about what the battle situation looks like. Well, let's put some battle pieces on a battle board. And would that get scripted, right? probably get scrimmon range. Yeah, so if I'm able to get to 120 feet, then I would throw the harpoon as well. Because my understanding is that we're on a slope and it's here. Yeah. So if we continue to run at it, we're running down a slope and it's still like above us?

It's 60 feet above the ground where it is. So even though you're running down a slope, it's not 60 feet above where you are, if that makes sense. 60 feet off the ground. But if we're running down a slope, it will continue to be above us as we descend to approach you. Yes. To approach it. Yes. So if it were above you right now, it would be 30 feet above you.

But by the time you reach where it is right now, it's 60 feet above the ground. Ice guy. Let's put it here. Pythaggers is a dick, man. Yeah. Classic. And can you map out how far away like 80 feet would be? I have no idea how many squares that would be.

16. Right here. I'm putting you in there. That's where Barnabos is. Because, right. So he's at the head of the pact because he just ran 80 feet, like a fucking lightning lord, like a maniac. Now, you dash, so you wouldn't have been able to throw your anger.

Correct. Yes, obviously, I'm getting it as a scrimmon, and then the next time, so obviously, I'm bonus action, a rage, and then sprinting. But your distance is 120 feet. So at some point, riding Barnabose, you would have been able to. If I have to do this advantage, I will.

I'm gonna fire off two blasts. Why would you have disadvantage? I don't know, because she's running, really gonna absolutely move. I'm gonna armicle in my testicles. Okay, but subtract one from what you roll for barnacle. There's actually a muscle that just slices your calf. Ah, fuck!

That's that muscle right in the thigh. Or the artery. Um, 80s 13. I don't get that. Well, I got a natural one, so that's the one from the barnacle that got me in my testes. And then I got a 23. Yeah, one of them hits. Roll for damage.

It's just 1D10, actually. Oh gosh, we're an Orgrammar now. Eight points of Eldridge Blast damage. Eight points. If feed his magic fires from my hand and I'm aiming for it. You can twist the natural one, too. Oh, yeah, let's have said. Do you want to?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is it worth it for, okay? Yes. I was just to do a bunch of them. Yeah, we were like, if Daisy's life wasn't on the line. Yeah. That'll be a 20 to hit. That hits. So then in addition to the eight, it will be another nine damage. Nice! So 17 points of Eldridge blast damage. That's outstanding. That is some force.

It gets blasted in the back and it manages to hold on to Daisy. The... Tyshin, now it's your turn. Thanks for the trust. Okay, so you're you're technically twice as far back as where Barnabos is Okay, because it's he I'm gonna say it's he he's 80 feet away from it right now 80 feet away from yeah and scrub it's a hundred and six hundred and sixty feet away Yeah, okay so almost I'm gonna walk 30 feet and say there yeah coma out of what I'll walk 30 feet to get there which would bring me that's to a hundred and twenty foot distance that's right yeah okay um it's his lice comb so you just test oh no it's for

lice eggs um remember kindergarten never go on bastard unfortunately uh and i will fire off a fire bolt uh out of his fire bulb goes 120 feet yeah that's like standard cancer blank yeah doesn't mess around oh i shouldn't have been a barred for too long i should have taken poison spray It like jerkles out. It's like 15 feet. It's 10. It's 10 feet. I think it's awful. I think it's 10 feet.

What did you roll? 21. Nice. Okay. 62D10. I've covered all my dice. Do some like deck saving through stuff. You know what I mean?

Well, I got some of that stuff, but it's all so far away from me. I can never get the material components for fireball. So, um. But he also don't want to cook D. Oh, yeah. I didn't think about that. Because you can't spell shape. Can you? No.

What is that? Oh, uh. Felix and fireballs teammates and not hit them. Oh, no, I can't do that. You like, Sarnax basically had to drop fireballs on, Sheppern was like, you have devil blood. I'm sorry, Shepherd. Why for the first like seven episodes of Straud,

you use the sacred flame and it's always one damage? Oh yeah. Outrageous. Awful. Well, almost minimum, but three damage. Three damage. One and a two. Every little point down.

Yeah. You flame it and a few of its feathers go up in smoke. And you can actually see them spiral off into almost the tree line, actually. That's the end of your turn? Yeah, it'd be all I can do. Joiner. Did you put our new features in here? They should be.

If you go to inventory. Oh, it's an inventory. That's right. You have to equip the crystal and then attuned to it. That's only true for you because of the way that yours mechanically works. And you're not technically attuned. I couldn't figure out how to fucking get it to do the shit. Because yours is the one.

Yeah, all right, all right, all right. All right, I read it. Um, yeah, if you go, you can click on shamanic verb if you want to look at that ability. Uh, okay. Manage. This is an noxious. So. Welcome horror becomes them.

Good to see you. Hey, good. Welcome back. Welcome back. We're doing some combat. which I understand is pretty frequent and common in a game of Dungeons and Dragons. I was about to say I'm so pissed we didn't fight that feathered bees. I'm so glad we get to kill it. I've been wanting to kill this thing for a fucking far away.

No, we are killing this foe. I thought you were gonna shed the herbs when you guys were like, maybe we shouldn't go back and see if we could get the cobalds and see if we could meet up at the gate and do the kind of alchemical or herbalist properties. I will take my stone out. I just forgot about them. And I will, as I start to run, I will throw it down under me. And I'm using a bonus action to transform the stone into a large caribou. And I basically, will, it, slide it into battle. It, like, pops me up on top of that. All of a sudden, a galloping, trampling caribou emerges under Yornear, perfectly saddled.

Ready to go. And then I am going to have the caribou dash. I can speed of 60 feet. Let's go! So I can go 120 feet. So 85, 90, 95, 100. Your Neer is literally cold hands. 10, 15, 120.

Yeah. Woo, woo, woo, woo, woo. Yeah. Um, so I guess my question is, would that also take my action to make the beast dash? Does that say here? No, it's acting on your turn and it's taking the dash action. Amazing. So if you use your wild shape feature

to bonus action, create the caribou. You still have your action. Okay, perfect. Amazing. So I am now on a caribou, and now I have my action. So then what I would like to do is cast. Oh, is it, oh, God. Three foot radius. Oh, of me.

We're like booking it and we just see your name. Like a ride by on the camera. Everyone's super fast. You're like, well, that guy's kind of slow. Sorry, sorry, sorry. No problem. We don't do combat very frequently, and this is a month to month,

so I'm not going to be like the hurry up and go DM, but hurry up and go. Okay, I will then, that's concentration, and I need to keep slow on it, so I can't do that. That's a whole person. a person, right?

Horrible, ice dinosaur. Then I am just going to am I 60 feet? I'm probably so close. You're so close. You're within 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, and then 20 feet up? You're good. You're good. He's 60 feet in air, right? 30 feet. No, 60 feet, yes. 60 feet, yeah. Okay, so yeah, I need it.

Derek, I'm not within 60 feet of them here, right? Because Pythagoras is a dick. Yes. Um, he's at 40. 60. It's 40, 60. So what's 40? So what's, uh, I'm gonna, you know, listen, you try and hold on.

40 plus 60 squared. What's the, what's the math on this? And then square root. 60 times 60, 3,600 plus 1,600. This is what we thought would be doing on that? Squabridor it. No. Haven't it?

Man, I'm getting... My brain hurts all right. Take me in the eighth grade. What is the answer? Oh, that's somebody can't, but not us. It's 72 feet away. Jam. Just enough.

Just enough. That's fine. That I think what I will do is... Thanks for making me do algebra. I will ready a spell if it gets within 30 feet of me. for whatever reason. Okay.

I'm going to ready to spell. Okay, you ready to spell. It's its turn, and it screams, this horrible, like, almost like a rooster crow, but monstrous. Yeah, exactly. Thank you. That's good. It's got an arrow in one side. It's a little burned, and it's experiencing this strange, magical sensation.

It starts to turn and face. each of you, but as it does, it releases Daisy. It is clearly knows that it is in for a fight and is carrying less about the fact that it's carrying her than about the thing. She plummets and hits the ground with a smack. Let's find out what happens. She's, her spine is shattered.

You know, she took damage from the cold. Yeah, yeah. She took like a fuck. She said, she had a long rest. She's gonna be like a bag of loose meat. Ground. How many stories is that? Three stories?

She takes a tremendous amount of damage and lands and you do not have her current status. However, on top of a slope rolling down. It turns and it's going to use... It's going to land. I would say that at this point it's going to land and let's put a token down. Let's put a token down to represent that Daisy is just underneath it essentially. Do you have a strong crossbones token? It'll use its action and it will look at you, Yornear.

Is it within 30 feet of you? Does this- Landed, yes. No. No, it's like 40. It's like 40. And it's still slow. It's 40, it's 40.

It's still slow, so. It can take an action. It just fully 60 feet, but it can't take a bonus action. Right. Or we can choose one or the other. It chooses to take an action in addition to having used its 45 feet of movement. Well, it wouldn't have landed, so it's 15 feet in the air. Okay.

So it's 15 feet in the air, and it stares at you, and its eyes start to flash and spiral around in this fashion, and you have to make a wisdom-saving throw. Well, at least that's where I'm a Viking. This dive's been treating me well. Oh, well, you spoke a little too soon. Would you like to twist this? Oh, yeah.

Can I use two twists on this? You may. I'm just going them both out. I'm just calling it now. Because I need to pass this. If I lose concentrate, I guess at this point. That is a 18. Passes.

You are able to look away at just the right moment, and even though you know you aren't quite in range in order to attack it, you look away and you're now focusing on its body, almost like a Medusa. The eyes fade, and you can then look in her eyes again. It seems to be a charge and not a permanent passive effect, but it having used this ability,

and seeing that you didn't do anything, it screeches again in a horrifying manner. That'll be its turn. Scrum your up. I am shouting from Barnabos's shoulders while firing off two more Elvis' blasts at it. One is a 17. One is a 13.

It has an aces of 13. Because of slow. Oh, I'm good. Nice. Both of them. My manor eight tails like slapping your leg like a Dalmatian. 10 total points of damage.

10 total points of damage. Not great. I rolled one high, one low. Okay. What does it look like getting hit by an elder blast of this grim variety? I would say that the magic itself is very like smoky and like, you know, almost like a smoldering fire kind of. Okay. So this crackling energy, even though it is described that way, it would make some sort of like a

crackling sound when it hits, but it would definitely smoke and smolder and be like thrashes into the beast. Feathers go up, a few sparks spiral and you can hear that crackling sound. Is that your turn? Yeah. Queenie, you're up. She... Well, she... She's an archer, so she doesn't need to move. She'll walk the 30 feet that she needs to walk, get as close as she can. She does hit, and she does six points of damage. Guy has Zoothe. Is he or near? Um, yeah, she says Gadsogs. That's hilarious.

Why can't I do math right now? Because it's late. Yeah. It's a Friday. Yeah. We don't want to be just be pizza. Okay, there it is. Okay.

I can use some pizza at me. And that will be... I'll kill for some dollars. Her turn. Barnabost. You're up. Okay. I would like to know jump rules, Rich. And am I is even though it's 15 feet here, I want to know when I am at the level of where it's at.

I know I'm running down. Yes. So I'm attempting to long jump on top of it. You're probably level to it right now. Because what is it? How many 15 feet in there? Is that what it is? How many feet?

Checking. If you've gotten a 10 foot running start, it's like five times your strength score. Am I able to move? if I jump, am I able to move more than my movement or no? I still just have 40 feet. So your only your strength score, so it's only 20 feet. And you have to move at least 10 feet before. I'm thinking of your carrying capacity.

It's like five times. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But am I able to move my distance and then jump? Maybe. Each foot you clear on the jump costs a foot of movement. So I can still only go 40 no matter what. The reason I know the answer is no is because the spell jump wouldn't make any sense because the spell jump is supposed to be a magical way to exceed your movement speed

with a jump. However, if you say that you move 30 feet and are prepping a jump, I will let you start the next turn with a jump if you feel that that's justified in that on your next turn. Meaning you can give yourself momentum and you won't have to take the 10 feet on that turn. You know what? I'm just going to do the thing because it's really fucking cool. And I'm just going to be sprinting and you're going to see as the the, the, the, the, the, the, the, you know, the black manoray tail is kind of my skin is starting to turn leathery. And you'll learn now why I don't wear a shirt. As my back starts to bulge out and two massive leathery manoray wings,

a sprout out of my back. And I am going to beat them both down and just leap into the air. And I am going to use the jump feature from my. beastial soul. And so I can roll an athletics check and add that to my jump total. Oh yes. Oh yes. Disgusting and majestic. Yeah. So what's your total speed? My total is 40. Okay. So move the 40, right? One, two, three, four. That's 20. 20. Now you jump. Okay. So it's one, two, three, four. You're above your ear. Yeah. And then now we're making athletics check. Okay.

Do I do that advantage? I'm raging, right? If it's just an athletics check. Yeah. Are you sprinting too? No, no, no. You want to keep an action. I'm just going to jump because I want to basically fucking hook my anchor into its fucking back.

Well, even if you roll 20, it's only four more squares. Like, this is the furthest you can get. No, no, that's 20 plus. I get, because my strength is 20. So I immediately can just jump 20 and then add on whatever my rules up. No, no. So this is your full 40 movement. Yeah.

Err, right? Yeah. Which will be normal jump. So you can't go any additional movement from your Yeah, because I'm on his back. Feeding him slimmed jims. So this is your full movement of 40 feet. And then you can add, let's say you hit, I guess you could, you have plus eight, right?

You could add, you get like 28. I'm gonna twist. Okay. That's not great. but I am going to If you sprint, you could just get there. Oh, I can? Yeah.

I would say you have to sprint. But I can't attack it. You can't attack him. He's 15 feet in here anywhere. He screams on. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm just going to run up. I still have the way.

He's on the ground. He's 15 feet in the air. So you still need a jump. Okay, so I'm just going to leap and we're going to basically fly over yornier and his quikero bow. We're falling with style. Yeah.

And so my total jump. I just watched Kung Fu Panda and I'm getting a lot of Kung Fu Panda of vibes right now. Is my total jumbo roll the 10, so 18 plus 20, so 38 feet. Right? Yeah. Sorry about that guys.

So that gives you about two on top of this, right? It would be mechanically, we do things mechanically. So he's also bashing down. So 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. It would be 38. Uh, once I reach. Yeah, yeah. You can get there.

Yeah. Yeah, you're there. So I, the, the Mantrae wings are flying out and I have my anchor ready. to try to just us smash down its wing. Okay. Okay. You do that. That means it's Tai Shan.

Let's just, let me just get over here. Go, 5, 10, 15. I'm just holding on for your life. We'll say. Well, I told you the whole bomb, yeah. And all, let's see. Look at these guys back here. Yeah.

I'm just chilling, you know. The map I drew weirdly worked for this encounter as well as the next one. Oh, hey, Queenie. Well, hi. I've got some sort of funny proverb to say or something, I don't know. Maybe I'll insult you. Maybe I'll be

kind to you. You don't know. God, Zook. Knee high on a grasshopper. Um, all right, I'm going to fire out of scorching Ray. Oh, yeah. Um, I love scorching rain. Yeah, I'm into it. I run

up, charge up uh, like three moats of flame in front of me and then just like boom boom like punch him really quick and they fly out um and uh okay i try to roll on each one yeah yeah yeah he sees 13 when you play your grimer you're like this is fine but i don't have fire yeah yeah basically every other character i've played including i've noticed me g fire plume was fire bays see yeah i don't know am i telling myself something probably probably oh what happened there what may see 13 let's twist all yeah okay uh can i twist each once using two twists yeah is that fun yeah

so i'll twist one on you chat yeah thank you chat well spend two two to two balloons for your troubles that's the exact same roll okay yes faded well okay okay all right So like you just need a five, right? Yeah, you got a five so that hits. It's not, I don't think I have plus eight. I have plus seven. Do you not have five charisma? Oh, because we roll, oh yeah, maybe.

I took the metallic dragon thing. Okay, never mind. Okay, okay, so. Dude-da-da-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-. Yeah. You tried. It's okay. It flies past and into the forest.

A little cold enough. Not to start a forest fire, certainly, but fate said nay. Um, the horizon in my eyes. No bonus action? Uh, no. No, I don't really have anything. All right. Not you are far away, but you're near.

Oh. God. I will. You're far versus your near. That's terrible. It's like that meme, it's you're near when your far walks into the room. Hello. Hello.

I'm going to ride up here and if I can can I grab her Would that cost an action to do? And I put her on onto the caribou? It's like a grapple, right? Like if you were trying to drag a dead body away

or an ally, then you'd have to use an action to pick it up and like half your movement and love that. I will run up alongside her and then sort of lean down, use my action to get her up on the caribou. She is conscious. Okay.

Oh my God. Are we supposed to do this? She's just hurting. Then I am going to put her, like, you know, get her steady on this caribou with me. And I am going to use my bonus action

to cast Healing Word. Oh. Nice. Spells. I just imagine you like ride this camera. Your Wrenschnarferglard. And then you like stoop her up and you just like keep riding the anger around this creature being like, come on, we have to go.

Okay, so I will, so what is that? That's the first level, right? Yonk. And that is healing word. And so I will heal her for. Mechanically just so everyone knows, she has 27 hit points. And she took 6D6 damage falling 60 feet. And I rolled bad.

I rolled bad. She has two hit points left. Oh, get on the clumpur! That's incredible! Get on the capoo! That's incredible. She's in a heel for eight. Outstanding. And I will say, her name's Daisy, right?

Yeah, that's correct. It's very yornier for you to be like, honey, Daisy. Steady yourself. We can do this, and I'm going to speak her name, and then use one of my tusks will sort of blow it on me. And she'll get some temp HP. Oh.

She coughs and she's not using her hands to communicate. So all she's doing is looking up, but like clearly with a grateful expression. So yeah, so now she has, so I healed her eight or no, eight, and then she has five. Tempe HPE. So she's bolstered now. I move my max movement. That's my turn. Awesome.

That's the conclusion of Sparnabr. Nor you're near. It's its turn. It's flying, flapping 15 feet in the air, and it lands and seems to look at each of you trying to determine exactly what to do next, and it pulls in, and it shakes like this, and this cloud of ice sprays out in all directions. Oh, shit. Are we over it? We're like flying towards it. Each creature, it's now on the ground.

Each creature within 20 feet of it must make a DC-15 Constitution saving throw. Is the cone going above it or just spraying? out. I think I got a man. It is a cloud. Oh, God, I got it. It is a cloud of ice and cold. It's an oral. So she needs to make a saving term as well. I got a natural one. I feel like I should twist this. Oh, yeah. She got natural 19. Thank you. What do you say? I don't know if he said. Could you pull out a twist for me? I'd also got a natural one. He said the DC was 15, I believe. Natural 20. Let's go. Congrats.

I got 19 on my re-roll. Okay. Sweet. If you succeed, if you succeed, if you succeed, you you take half of 21 points of cold damage as this ice rinds coats everything in all directions shaking from its crazy Dracarian feathers did Daisy pass well she got a national 19 which means which means she takes half which means she takes ten which means her five hit points are gone and from her ten hit points she's down to five HP after this still fucking alive and everyone else succeeded oh I I need to do, no.

I'm not, you guys are too far away. Just the three of you. This is now difficult to rain. We're still flying to the air. Yep. That's true, but know that. And everyone succeeded. Well done, everyone.

All right, so it's now on the ground and looking mean and crazy scream you're up. I'm holding on to Barnaboz for your life. As we're soaring through the air, hoping to land on this thing. So I'm going to hold and attack with a brutal blade until we land. on this creature's back or I'm close enough to try to stab it.

That's why I'm holding my action. Okay, so as soon as you're within five feet, you're gonna try to dig in with your knife. I'm just gonna throw all that it's worth. Queenie's gonna let loose another arrow. That's a natural three. She's gonna miss, and she's gonna move up 30 feet. And Barnabos, you're up.

You are hurling through the air in slow motion. And I will be just like laughing maniacally as the cold like burst and I'll say, I'll say, I'm taking worse from weaker serpents than you! And I'm going to attempt to smash into it with my anchor on top of it and land on top of it. I'm going to recklessly attack it twice. A one and a two. You know what?

No way. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Some your room luck. A two and a three. Can we twist a couple of words? That's some tie shablock.

Yeah, we can pull that too. Let's twist each one. Okay. I mean, you got them. I'll twist the two. We got a shitload of a twist. A natural one. What?

Just feed. And a natural four. Oh my God. What's your, what's your, what? Oh my God. That's close. Rushing down is you're doing the cheese wheel thing. You underestimate how it feels to land and try to go into this beast and you lose your flipping, you lose your footing a little bit.

Not even chat. Can't save my action. All right. You are within five feet. again. AC 13. I'll wait so many. I don't want to like his reaction triggered so so I'll yeah I'll miss and I'll like all like I'll stumble forward and you're like right in front of its face that I got a 24 to hit so then I will roll some de-force here that's gonna be six seven eight nine 10 11 12 points

of damage from the brutal blade. Because I didn't really have time to set up any of my hex shit, so I'm just... That's pretty good. Yeah, that's pretty fucking huge. Oh, and I'm going to use Fury of the Small. Yeah, so that will be, what I say, it was 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 18 points of damage. As I, with all the fury of the small goblin

that I am, I stash into this creature with the Brul Blade. It lets out a screech and you dig into it and it's very beast-like. You push in and there's a smattering of blood. there's no magical whatever or anything. This is a creature. That's my turn.

There's a date hanging on. Yeah, I'm going to try to. After I stumble that, oh, I have nice shot scrimmer. Okay. Okay. I fire out a fireball at it at a fireball at it again. I move up 30 feet.

Fire on firebolt. Yeah. Natural one. Yeah. You guys are rolling like ship. Yeah. This is going well. But I will, I will spend two sorcery points to change a spell from an action to a bonus action.

Nice. That's like quicken. And yeah, yeah. Let's see this one, I think. We do a twist. We want to burn up their mall. Yeah, we're going to twist. No, we're gonna twist. We're twisted. We're twisted. Everybody gets one.

I twisted the last, I twisted three on the last one. No, you twist two on the last one. Alright, five. So I can't roll over five. She still misses. Um, so anyway, I'll spend the two sorcery points. Creating, I have two attacks. Oh shit, I forgot I have two attacks. Yeah. You can't, as a reaction, you can only do one.

Oh, that's right. All right. So I haven't broken any more. Yes, thank you. All right. Um, I'll cast elemental burst at a first level. There we go. Oh, thank God.

I almost rolled to a one. I know. I hit this one. I hit. A successful hit, target takes 1d8 piercing and 1d8, we'll say fire damage, obviously. Um. Mason is fire.

Listen, what would a flame dragon be shooting out? Ascent. What would Fugge? What would Fugam fire, magic? Yeah, for not sakes. So if Gideon's fame subclass is going to be called Fire Puncher, given that Tyshen, cast spells by doing this, his subclass can also be Firebusters. It's actually Fire Weaver.

Thank you very much. Yeah, thank you. How much Demage? Five. Okay, it now is looking bloodied. Okay, we got this. Imagine if I had hit. When all of a sudden, flapping down, no, I'm not going to go back.

Bring it. Bring it. It's fucking 1148. We're going to finish telling this story. It sounds good. The, you're in here. You're up. Seeing that she just took a big hit,

I would like to put my hand on her. Put my hand on her, and I will cast cure wounds at a second level. Two, eight. Are you re-positioning the caribou? Yeah, so we can do that. She's on the caribou, isn't she? Yeah, no, no. Is he basically riding the caribou round out of?

17 points of him. Nice. Nice. Holy shit. Yeah. That was a really high role. The DM can kill this NPC. That's almost full.

Amazing. And I will lead down. I say, I will protect you. Using my other tusk. It will glow, give her another. 5 temp HP. I think I can do the same target as long as it's just twice a day. They're both used. And then, what I would like to do

is ride my caribou if I can sort of like come around, sort of do a loop around and charge, do like a charge attack with the caribou. Oh, the caribou is capable of trampling a giant huge bird like this. No, it goes in and it's going to try to like battering that fucker, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay, so it needs to move at least 20 feet. trade towards the creature. So I was like here. You don't need a method. I think that you can figure out how to do that and just get up in there. So I'm going to get up in there and basically charge from the back here. And so I'm going to charge it this way. And then I need to make a... So actually, so I need to roll to hit first. Okay. Only plus six to hit, but it's still slowed. Can I twist it?

Yes. Yeah. You gotta kill those things fast. There we go. That hits. Nice. It needs to make a DC-14 strength-saving throw, or we not prone.

Oh. Oh. Does that do anything for spell hits? DC-14? Yeah. So it keeps its footing. It's flying. Really?

It's awful. And I... It sucks. Yeah. Will do 2D6 plus 4. Damage. Ooh, not great. two, three, seven points of blood jam damage.

Seven points of bludging damage, okay. It's its turn and it is feeling surrounded. It is horrified at the position it's put itself in. Not very smart is this creature it seems, but it does know how to use its natural abilities. And looking around, it uses its action to grab the nearest thing and attempt to flee. Scrim.

I never use grapple, but it is going to attempt to grapple. I'm losing to a burn! I'm asking this thing. Augusta, what kind of contest is? I attempt to seize you using an attack roll, so I'm going to do a strength check against your strength or dexterity check. It's athletics versus athletics or acrobatics, if you're proficient. So if it's proficient in anything too, you can...

I am not. My acrobatics is better than my athletics, but I'm not proficient in either. Then it's just, yeah, then it's dexter strength. Okay. Wherever you choose, eh? Um, you got a 19. So I'm just, I'm rolling, just rolling... You're just a straight dextrotts.

Yeah. No. Okay. Yes. So acrobatics, which is a straight deck track, yeah. Because you're not proficient. And you got a 19. Yeah.

Incredible. Please get grappled. I lose. I lose. Yeah. What the fuck? Mattis, just the town

and grabs you around the body, the torso. And while it does this with its legs, its arms flap up. And using flyby, it flies straight up 45 feet. Oh. Holy. Is that half its movement?

That is half its movement and flying. It's got Pegasus's speed, 90 feet of 90 feet. That makes sense. If it's, if it's. If a war horse right is 60, yeah. I guess that should give me 90. Oh, there we go.

We knew him well. We saved the important person. But great news. It's your turn. I am, if I can, I'm gonna try to hack at it. Well, you're grappled, so I think you're disadvantaged. No. Oh, really?

No, no. Unless he has a special restrained. No, yeah. You can attack your grapple. Five point. 5.5.5, it'll be different. 5.5. 5.5. 5. As I'm screaming, I'm just using the brutal blade to, like, hack at its, it's, like, talent. Do your thing. I'm gonna attack twice.

Great. In my horrific, startled state, I miss both attacks. By one. How does that look? How does that look? I can't quite get leverage. Yeah. Can't quite get the arms or ass. Yeah, it's not working.

Your little fucking snack. I love it. I love it. I love it. And we appreciate the follow if you like D&D. We play a lot of that here. It's basically all we play. Come on. Yeah, we play. Join our Discord, if you like, D&D.

Yeah, welcome, everybody. Welcome. I missed, that's my turn. Queenie is gonna take another shot and you realize that there's an arrow flying in your direction. It hits, and she does. Man, her D8 is just really doing very poorly.

Can I move her up 30? You may? Her base, do wanna do it? Yep. You've done so. well at it. It's against wool and I should have really appreciated it. Nice.

Yeah, she's rolled a one on her 1D8 three times in a row. That's her turn. Movement and attack, Barnaboth. 45 feet in the air. Yeah. Mantrae Wings. Manter Ray Wings. So if I can high jump

five plus my strength modifier, which is eight, so eight, then if I get a 20, if I roll like a That'd be plus 26. That should be 28. 28. We've already established also that you have rope attached to a...

I'm just throwing up. But if you spike it, you will have rope attached to it. You can either climb and go with it or you can try to pull it back. I will pull out my harpoon and I'll say, Oh yeah, scrim, try to dodge! And I'm going to eat my harpoon. You will hit Scream on a one. Okay.

Oh my god. Only recklessly attacking. Okay, the odds are extremely low. He said confidently. Can I twist one? Yes. You were gonna get hit between the legs by the harp. Wait, you gotta have this guy.

It's been. It hits, it hits. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. So no twist. I'm going to throw it and it is going to pierce in and I need to roll my damage here. It is going to do 12 points of piercing damage. Good damage.

And the harpoon will lodge itself and I have a rope. So what can I do to try to just yank it down? I would say strength or what's the, yeah, athletics. You can- Come here, big stay! Athletics contest. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I love all to this. Let's go. The best part is you didn't harpoon your friend.

Okay. Athletics contest. Yeah, it's going to be huge. 24. 17. You're ready to go. You give it a lot. And I will, just like your Manta ray ability, I would say you can roll to see how many feet you drag it down. Okay. Oh, that's fun. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Athletics check. Playing a little loosey-goosey, but that's fun. I'm real cool. Oh, that's right. You're raging. Oh, yeah.

So 15 plus eight is 23 feet. 23 feet. You pull it down 23 feet. And the pain of the harpoon and being pulled down in this manner, it releases scrim. That's only 23 feet. You take eight points of bludgeon damage when you hit the ground screen. And maintaining game state if you'll move the scrim token down to the ground floor.

That's going to be Barnabos Taichens. It's so Gaia, oh no. You've got it. I've got it. You're trapped in here with me. Tai Shan, you're on. I catch up to Quinty once again. Um, and...

Two people here on the screen now, yay. Yeah. Finally. Um, I'll fireball to it. Hopefully this just rolls over five. What is it? Twelve. All right.

It hits, it hits. So it'll take 2D 10 damage. 2D 10? 2D. 2D. I'm saying, am I wrong? Um, we'll see if you can get more than 3 damage on this time.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I just actually check something if I hit it with fire, I automatically do an additional plus 4. I was gonna say. Yeah, I thought you would have had a... Ooh, big money. Um, 13. Nice.

13, does a lot of good work. Very good work. Elemental affinity. I had no idea. It's looking hurt. It's starting to, it's starting to, feathers are flying off in all directions. They're swimming down. Scrim is prone on the ground adjacent to the party that is gathering and it's now 23 feet

above the air. You're near. Um, we're gonna bring this down. So it's 23 feet in the air. In the air, thank you. I can't fly yet, I don't think. I fly now. He flies.

He flies now. He flies now. They fly now. Winnie and I make that joke all the fucking care about all sorts of stupid shit. Somehow this feathered serpent has returned. What I will say, it's more stupid that he returned, but it's not stupid for Po to say that. He wouldn't have any fucking idea about like Palpatine or Sith or magic or anything. Like he would say...

No, that was Oscar Hypey. sighing at the stupidity of the line. Yeah. That was Oscar. Pose character also would say it exactly like that. Even if there was a really, really good justification for why Emperor Palpatine came back. But how would he not know that it is canonical that Palpatine came back in Fortnite? That's not a joke.

Yeah, how are they doing that? His coming back happened in Fortnite. I know that. Anyway, you are. Okay. All right. Cid and cul-de-sac. I leap off the...

off the caribou, and I say keep her safe. And the caribou will gallop away with her. Sure. Further back. You got it, Mr. Jay. I want to steal. You got it, Mr. Jay. I'm going to steal.

I will walk under the beast, 23 feet in the air. Let's go. And I will look at Barnabos, and I will look at Scrim. And I will say, cover your ears. I'm gonna raise my staff

up in the sky. I'm holding under the rope. And I'm going to cast rolling thunder. Oh shit. So as I say, Olden, bring this beast down and you're gonna hear

a huge clap of thunder blast from me 30 feet radius sphere. So we do get hit. Yes. Everyone needs to make a con saving friend. Jesus. We're chill. We're chill.

I'm a Viking at that. that. 16 or good. It's gonna be on the cusp there. I crush it. Yeah, 17 for me. Actually, don't crush it, but I succeed. I do, in fact, beat.

Ooh. 20. It passes. Uh, so no one's not prone, but everyone will take half of this. And regardless, everyone's deafened. To one round. Go for your, y, the beginning of yours, and... Until the start of copy your views.

It's next turn. Boy will not help. Taking American Airlines with Ed Cold. Only 15 points of damage, so half of that is... Half of that is what? So seven. So you guys take seven. I'm trying to knock it from.

Oh my gosh. It would have been really cool, okay. It would have been cool if he failed. Triton's Dikon boy. I rolled up 13. I feel like it's a Triton. I should be. It's a triton. I should be now. Austin Mills says you all got some amazing energy.

Oh, thank you. Thank you. Stick around. There's a lot of that. There's a lot of energy. And ranch dressing. It's going to, it has recharged this ability and meant to project this last round. I roll a five or six just like a dragon's breath. And so it's going to shake and this cloud of cold

is going to explode outward. I need everyone to make a DC-15 Constitution saving throw if you're within 20 feet of it. Crush it. High pass. I got a 20. Scroom's hanging in there. Wait, if we're within 20 feet?

Yeah. It's 23 feet in the air. I don't use this movement to come down. 25 points of cold damage if you fail. Oh my God. Did anyone fail? No. DC's what?

Sorry. DC is 15. 12, so we take six. So everyone, yeah. And you are... You take six. Okay. What was the total damage?

25. and half that if you, yeah. So 12 if you succeeded. And that'll be its action and movement. It is now 10 feet above the ground flopping. Oh, have you been its slowest concentration, right? Yeah, yeah. Okay, great, great, great.

It's now in a fight for its life, but that's the conclusion of its turn. Scream, you're up. I will have just gotten absolutely rocked by thunder and ice crystals. I can't hear shit. I can't. I hear anything.

I will stay. I'll like, I'll use half my movement to stand up, shakily. Raise my hand up to it. I'm just going to yell. God, die, you bastard. And I'm going to shoot two Eldridge Blasts at it. Let's go. I believe both will hit.

That's going to be a 17 and a 21. 13. Let's go. So that's going to be two D10s. Nine points of damage. Nine points of damage. Nine points of damage. Easy.

money it's still looking weak but it's not quite at the end that's Queenie's turn she's gonna continue to she's gonna stay where she is now that she's in no longer disadvantaged town she's gonna get a natural 20 oh oh she's a little higher than a 1 on her d8 a 2 and an 8 15 points of damage how do I want to do this no I'm not I'm not gonna do that she she doesn't kill it but she it's hitting, she's been even closer, she's just been, walking, walking. Just machine like for sea.

She's hitting, but she's been missing all the weak spots. This time she hits it like right through the side of the neck. It's pointing out the Game of Thrones. No, not even walking, she's just riding on our bees. The bees are scared. The bees have turned into a nimbus cloud. What's the name of the Terminator from T2? The T-1,000.

The T-1000 is just, Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, no, she's T-100,000 right now. Barnaboth, you're up. I am going to look up and I'm going to say, okay, now you're coming to me, Beastie, and my Manta ray wings will just leap. And I'm just going to jump up to it with letting go of the rope as I pull my anchor off. And this is my athletics, I see how high high high, pretty fucking high. Uh, yeah, pretty fucking big.

So I'm going to take my anchor. Above it first and now. Above her and now I'm going to have it in piercing mode and not bludgeoning mode is I'm going to bring it down recklessly. Love it. Natural 20. Oh my God.

He's done. Natural 20. Who needs twists? I do not have brutal critical yet. What is brutal critical then? Roll an extra dye on top of that. Oh, that's crazy. That'll be 4D12.

Wow. Yeah. How are you gonna hit it twice? You're just gonna hit it so hard once. Gonna feel like twice. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's basically just like, I am like, this is the kill shot.

I have killed so many sea serpents. Yeah. It's like, oh, he's got some feathers, but it's the same. Same principle, basically. And I'm going to roll, amazing. This.

Okay, well, two ones, not great. Oh, no. But then a 10 and a 12. So, uh, 22, 23, 23, 24, 34, 34, 38 points of piercing damage. How do you wanna do this? I will leap violently, I will leap into the air and I will soar up with my Manta ray wings

and I will look at it and will feel like I'm, and especially with the thunder cracking overhead, it's like diving into a sea serpent with a storm raging around me. And there'll be a bloodlust in my a very bestial bloodlust, as I will just take my anchor and where Queenie had pierced it, I will aim in that to basically slam my anchor in

and basically yank it down to rip its head off, potentially, if I can. Do you get the anchor just behind the knob of the skull? And I would say with the amount of damage that you did and how weak it was in that moment and how many injuries that had taken previously, you are able to pull its neck out and a few chants of spine come along with it,

and it immediately stops flapping and falls to the ground, slumping down, blood pooling in the ice and snow of this... And I wonder would have mounted the back of it and, like, basically, hook it under the skull, the yank its skull off, rip its head off, and then, like, kind of basically ride it as it falls down, covered in fucking serpent blood. Feathers plume out in all directions,

and do you realize that the beast has, been filled. I just like the old days, lads. Chuck, chuck, chuc, chuc, chuc, chuc, chuc, chuc, chuc, chuc, chuc, chuc, chuc, chuc, chuk, chuk, chuk, chuk, chuk, chuk, chuk. Nice of you to, uh, join the fight here, Tyshen. Oh my gosh, are you okay? Oh, yeah, nope, I'm all right, just covered in serpent blood and barnabot and bonobos spit.

But other than that, we're good. I was shocked. You survived that fall. Looks so high. Don't worry about me. Just let's worry about Daisy. Oh, I scry. Hardy, lad. Nice firing there, Mr. Yorne. I didn't even know you had a mounted companion. Nice shots there, Miss March. She says thank you, and in that moment you hear the clopping of the Caribou's feet, and it's being guided by Daisy.

Thank you. That really sucked. It was close. The old gods, they saw you through you. You saw me through. I wouldn't be alive if it hadn't been for your healing magics. And you're icy slow. It's the only reason we even got here. And your magic, Habibu, let's not forget that. The power of the Arctic is strong, as we can see. I'll sort of look around at the tundra. Seriously, you have to teach me how to do these things. We can do this. Between myself and Queenie, we can show you how to harm the

the primal energies. I'm ready. Can we eat that thing? I am going to cook up quite a celebratory feast. I'll sort of like kneel down and just get a sense. If I feel like it's just a beast or like a monster, yeah, I think we...

If you want to figure out how heavy it is and how much could be harvestable for rations, then you can make that check. But you could also look to see if you can find anything special about it. Yeah, I'd like to do either or both, whatever. Let's pack both of them into an arcana

check. Oh, Arcura. While he's doing this, I would also like to, regardless of what the outcome is, when we are harvesting it, try to get some small bones, maybe from its wings. It would be extremely easy

to find its bones. Now, its bones you find are hollow. Very lightweight, but you're able to find a few that are, you know. Just a handful of That I'm a stick in my bag. You do that. Thank you.

21. With a 21, you are able to find that its feathers are especially unusual. There aren't very many left after its experience in combat. But just like that cloud of frost that it was able to produce, you could collect some of them. And if you brushed this with one of these feathers, it would consume the feather. but that would become difficult to rain, basically an icing feather. And with a 21, I would say that you were able to get both of its eyes. These special eyes, if you wanted to harvest them, they do seem to have a quality of charismatic magic in them.

And if you wanted to crush one, it would give you a plus five bonus any charisma check made within six seconds. Oh, here you go, Mr. Yornear. What could I What would I call this beast? Do I know what this is? A year falcon. A year falcon. J-Y-R?

G-Y-R. A-G-R. Yep. Falcon. And you probably haven't heard of anything like this in my mood, but it just seems natural to call it this. Do I feel like the feathers could be used for Queenie to make like barting for arrows,

to turn them in like frost arrows. You can roll at D20 to see how many you collect, and if you want to roll play that with her in future campfire settings, then do that. Nine. You collect nine feathers, and you collect 1D2 eyes. Queenie, I thought you like this.

And with the arcana that you're able to make, and with Barnabos's help, you can collect 300 pounds of meat from its body, which is basically like two huge chicken breasts. It is actually a hearty beast, and there's more than enough meat to go around. I would help harvest in any way that I can. Yeah, I would say, shall we all harvest the beast?

Queenie jumps right into a cyst, and very quickly you're lifting wings, you're cutting, you're pulling skin back, you're having my pairing knife. I'll just create a bonfire right near us. Yeah. It's presumably... Cantrip style or... Yeah. Cantrip style.

Yeah. I'll just ignite a bonfire right in our area, assuming that we'll stay, even if it's like, you know, 15 minutes, just around like fucking freezing. It's still morning, Taishan. When I was up there before I fell, I was still alive in my mind. I can't imagine what would have happened if I'd been taken to the nest. would have been horrifying, but there was a, not like a waterfall, but like a vapor. I think there might be warmth, like a hot spring.

Like steam. Not far from here. You think you saw steam? Exactly. You think we can fit this beastie on the sledge with your caribou? We don't have the sledge. Oh, we don't. They get destroyed? They left it at the house.

Oh, yeah, that's right. We were in a little bit of a hurry back there at the house. We went over a waterfall. Oh, boy, that's right. Yeah, it was almost certainly burnt. It was left at the, like, welcome map. Right, yeah, around the front of the floor. I hit my...

He is dead to grab the sledge. I hit my head when I took a tumble there. Oh, it's been so long since I killed. kill the beastie like that. I mean, if we can cook, at least for now, we can try to prepare as much as we possibly can, pack that up, and just carry what we can. It's something I can think of.

I think that before we finish harvesting it, maybe we keep the carcass intact, tie it to my caribou, and it drags the cords to the spring, and we deal with it there. That would work too, That would work too. Boy, I can clean it, especially if there's a sprang and it gets...

I can't wait that long for food, though. There's a bonfire, and perhaps you sizzle up a few morsels. Yeah, let's have a close to the quick breakfast air. Just a little sample, maybe. You have a brush, and there's water, there isn't anything to down it with, aside from, you know, for melted snow, but the meat is delicious. It is somewhere in between chicken and duck. And with a little salt and a little of barnabush's

estuary, you're able to have a very satisfying meal. It's actually very difficult. You almost have to make a wisdom-saving throat to stop cooking the meat and make your way to the hot spring. But you find a way. And just as Daisy said, you three, four hours walk, you hear the sound of rushing water, and the change in temperature is real. The change in vegetation is real.

No longer are you surrounded by trees of just pure winter, but lichen and moss and ferns seem to adorn the rocks. Drakhan Furns. All of them, you're able to approach what is very clearly a natural hot spring. This water in such cool climate such as this is billowing hot air. You can see that this is not a very cold place, but a beautifully warm water just underneath. Some volcanic movement or something is keeping it extremely warm. And it almost feels humid for the first time in months.

It's not just the sauna. It's a place of warm. And that's where you find yourself in, I'd say, two, three in the afternoon. This is a very good eye. I'll turn to her and sort of nod. Well done, young lady. Especially being captured by a massive bird of prey. We're good to just like go in there and take a dip, right?

This isn't a ghost tree, is it? And she starts to undress and immediately sometimes into a hot spring. I'm ripping off all my clothes down on my skivies and I'm like, I'm going ready. Well, I'm not going to dive in. because I'll boil alive. I'm gonna like ease my way in and like dip the foot in a toe and make sure it's not like crazy hot. And like, it's just a hair over 100 degrees.

I get right, I slip all the way. You're careful not to hit any like stones or anything that we're like where you'd actually have danger, right? You're still watching out for fire. By the time you get five feet in, you do not feel like that is an issue. It just feels warm under your feet like heated flooring. Yeah, I'm, my poor battered body is healing in the hot tub.

Instantly. Oh, yeah, this is like a combination of a sea serpent and a griffin. Interesting to process. I suppose we'll clean up after you finish processing the Beastie. Yes, we could perhaps take care of this, and then we can enjoy nice. All be covered in guts once I clean up, if I clean up now. All right. Okay.

Cover your nose. Oh, you know, those are them good eats. Ooh, a gizzard. If you have the stomach and you go through it, you find parts of what are clearly very digested cobalt. Oh. Well, I don't remember any of their names, but... Egrin.

Eagrin. Sorry, I don't... We'll dig a hole for your bones. But for now, oh, look at this liver. Oh, yes, this. Yeah, it looks like it could be a raspberry for how red and rich it looks. Oh, yes, it's beautiful. Especially when you've ripped the head of the thing off yourself.

Barnabos clearly being in his element, the five of you, the six of you, including Daisy, start to enjoy the evening. Starting to feel like you've taken the first step on your journey. remembering that Strikhunger can be a brutal and dangerous place. It's for just this evening, a contrast, a bittersweet feeling to know that danger lies around every corner, but that if you stick together and show teamwork, you'll be able to survive. And you start to ease into the evening. But before the sun sets, there's a rustling sound, a sound just in the tree lines, because you have to get through sort of a dense thicket, I would say, in order to find this hot spring.

You're surrounded by trees in all directions. You hear a, and before any of you can react, maybe some of you are in the pool, some of you are eating, some of you are sitting enjoying your leisure time. out from the tree's bursts a giant ogre. It lands down in front of you. It is bizarrely wearing a, for lack of a better word, a pastel pink robe. And it is bald and hideous, hugely muscular hands, and it is slobbering and screaming in all directions

as it jives into the space, very clearly looking to, to fight, to trying to intimidate. What do you all do? I mean, I don't know, I shit in the hot tub. I poop my pants? No, I don't know. I mean, I would try to climb up and out

and, like, get to my clothing and, like, prepare to defend myself. You start to make your way up, and it immediately swings down with its arm and crashes through some of the camps site that you've made. Ra! I'm kind of slow. Wait, can I get a slow on it?

Get out of my... I swat my hot spring. My last spell slot. I'll reach up and try to coat him in ice and have him slowed out a little bit. What are the components of slow? Melasses. It's my molasses draw. Verbal or somatic?

Oh. Verbal, somatic, and material. Okay. As soon as you do this, it makes it, what is it, wisdom saving throw? Wisdom saving throw. Yeah. D.C. 16. Rules Natural 18.

But it stops as soon as you make this attempt to slow it via your magics. It stops and looks at you with this confused look. Good Lord! It can speak! Father! Father! And you hear a second sound crashing through the trees, and another much older-looking ogre bursts through the tree line.

What's that, Julian? I'm sorry? Father! I'm naked, dripping from the hot tub, like reaching from my clothes and stunts silence when I look up at these creatures. It spoke! With the creature, the humanoid spoke!

Oh my God, are they speaking? I will have been... I don't know if Tysian is with me at the fire. We would have built... I would have built a smoking hut or whatever out of like the ferns leaves and we would have built... It would be like a cartoonish, giant, like, turkey on a split.

Spinestone style. Yeah, on a spin on a Flintstone style. And I would be, like, holding the spit, like, from turning it like. Yeah. Wait, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, your Falcon. Uh, the, they, they, they're, they're clearly looking at each other be, befuddled and, uh, the, the, the father, uh, yes, yes, yes, yes, of course, of course, uh, he reaches down and you all hear splashing sounds.

That's what I figure. Yeah. And the father, he speaks something in Giant. You understand. Ancestors give me strength. And this unbelievable humming sound, this purple swirling energy emanates from this wand with this orb at the top. And you all feel yourself immediately grow sleepy and black out. Don't take my school.

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