Legends of Avantris - Icebound | Ep. 2 | Dire Straits

Episode Date: May 24, 2024

Before they can reach open water the ship is frozen fast in ice floes just south of the brutal lands of Drakkar, and the crew must figure out how to survive. Our heroes make frightening discoveries. �� 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/GB1rrDKvRKw?si=uidn-QLNX2UJNCBr

It is legends of Aventress. I am called your near, and you are listening to Icebound. Here is what happened last time. 5,287 days left to go. Serving your 16-year sentences for crimes you were unjustly framed for. This is the path I'm on in 16 years is just a simple drop of water. 89 days away from her or something all you don't even remember doing

89 days without a drop of rum we suppose there's a bit of a acquaintance there, probably not related, 16 years until I see her again. It's been not good, I do as little work as possible to get by every single day. I don't work, I don't work for anything. I've never worked for a single thing in my life and I don't intend to start now. So needless to say, I'm at the bottom of this hole, and I'm with whatever tools and implements I have,

instead of actually doing the work, I'm drawing more plans in the bottom of the hole, in the rock wall, trying to think of something, because I don't do well in captivity. Look, I've been in prison a few times, but there's never been a prison on non-aventress that's held to swim for very long. I'm just hanging in there like a hair and a biscuit.

Hair, I wonder if that spelled H-A-R-E or H-A-R. You know, I never did ask, Goldbeard Jenkins. I don't know how I'm going to get these seeds all over a vizket. If I'm stuck in this hole, and I tried to hop out of it at least five or six times. If we turn the slop counterclockwise, the slightly faster speed, I think we can make some of the best rock slop for the water that they've ever seen here. I really think we can increase the quality. You're thinking of ways to help. I am unfortunately running a bit of a skeleton crew, so I would need some insurance.

and I understand that you guys are capable of solving problems. I didn't tell you my name, did I? Captain Vermeigh. Oh, I thought it was Chuck. No, no, no, Captain Verme is what you may call me, and that is what you will call me for the remainder of our voyage. Is that fine? Whether nasty or not.

What is the nasty? I don't understand. I don't know. It was in a song I heard once in a tavern. Captain Verme wants to leave tonight, and he's gathering everyone around. I know three other vessels looking to depart. for this same hunt.

There will be more. We may be the first to unfurl our sails, but that is no guarantee. As I'm sure most of you know, the sea of fog between Yulong and shock is a misery. It's been 10 days now since you departed the Delta dock area of Luzay, the river city. Finally, you are out on the open sea.

It is getting cooler. There is a creature on board that we must destroy. Oh, you didn't say, acne, do you? I'm saying that none of that makes any sense and I choose not to believe it because I have a nice bottle of whiskey. Every life on this ship is at risk if we do not find this creature and destroy it. Do you understand?

Just behind the ear, you find a single puncture move. You feel this surprising, stinging sensation like a... What the fuck was that? And still you feel that there's something else in the room. It's on the ceiling. But what you see is an inscrippable aberration. It's like a spider had a baby with an octopus that has its own stinger like a wasp.

You only see the outline of this creature. It is somehow naturally invisible. Stop! He's awake! We were awake. We were paralyzed. It's not a, it's called a shadower, for one thing. I don't know about this Chubokov. business. At this stage that you see the horizon, landmass emerge. It is early morning on the first day of the ninth month of the year, and the day is clear. Salty, frigid, bracing air blows across the

upper decks of the moor abound and across your faces. In all directions, the deep dark as your sea stretches around you, a broad blue horizon that evenly meets the cloud. sky. Your voyage so far, with one very evident exception, has not been particularly remarkable. And surprisingly, it gets somewhat warmer. The cold front, you experienced, that which triggered the strange invisible monster that escaped and stalked the ship's crew a few fateful nights ago subsides. What are you all doing on this bright and clear early morning day? Did you say the date was? It was the first of the ninth month.

Am I on duty? You're in the bucket. How early is it? Early. Before some of this? No, I would say that it's a clear day now. So it's probably eight, nine in the morning. Okay.

Oh. I peek up over the bucket. I'm still not used to this. I wonder if it's too early to ask my good friend for some brandy. I wonder about Bonobos. I'm up in the bucket alone, but thank you. I'm thinking what Brutzcrib is saying.

You said I'm going to itch. Yeah, no, I'm itch. I'm chopping up some ham bone and throwing it into a pot of pea soup. I wonder what Bonobos is cooking right now. I probably won't see any until lunchtime. Oh, how did I get this job? I hate this when I sink back below the bucket. Would I have any patience?

you've seen and I have his name right here in front of me because I'm a prepared DM At least one of us is at this table Is it all L.S. Coons? You're looking on Coons about a different problem every morning As he leaves the surgery room

You Yes, occasionally you do run into Corlis because his foot's, his feet are quite tender from the, 10 days ago, they were, of course, surgically removed with the exception of these two guys right here. How do you spell?

Corlis. But he's healing well. Corlis? Yeah. Is spelled? Sorry, my God. His feet were surgically removed? Is that what you said?

Tose. He didn't pre-bad. Yeah, tris bite. So we chopped the in the heart. He took up all his toes. C-O-R-I-S-S-I-D-E. Gar-S-I-D-E. He would be called Mr. Garthide by Barnabost, but Corlis by anyone else on the ship.

Open your mouth, and I'll kind of like grab his jaw to open it, and I'll take the little dropper of the Lawtonum, and I'll give him his daily pain killers. You need to win off of this eventually. Thank you. Yes, thank you. Four more days, and that is it. I think it's getting warmer. Warm. And I'll sort of wave him out the door.

Um, he's gotten a little accustomed to your abrupt manner, and, uh, he turns and, and exits. Tyshen, uh, Queenie, where do you find yourselves this bread in early morning? Um, I would probably, I, I'd just be helping, uh, cook since that's my job. Yeah, I forgot about that. Yep. Um, you're, you're serving food, you take the captain, Captain Verme, his, uh, bald head, uh, occasionally, just peeking from underneath the blankets of his double wide bed in his nice captain's quarters, you might just leave a tray there and then exit whatever he wants he gets on this ship. And the rest of the crews have come to know any.

In fact, I would say for all of you, the crew has really warmed to you since you are able to handle so deftly this monster, this invisible creature that stalked everyone on the surface of this ship. So you're not feeling as much as an outsider as you might have otherwise. I would be at the helm, I think. Probably. Yeah, absolutely. You spend any time that you're not relieved for the purpose of sleeping, you're standing there, looking and making sure that you're going due south

as much as much as much. You know, I really am getting quite good at this. I'm like, play with the helm a little bit. I mean, everyone, as you do that, like, from what sounds like very far away, you're Scrim being like, ow, you can, like, hear me screaming. Oh, Scrim, did you say you want some tea? It's cold out here, coming up. Scrim, after two months of boredom, your listlessness as Topman is finally interrupted

when the horizon is sundered by a shape. The shape on the horizon just beginning to peak. What do you do? I think that's it. I think that's something there. I don't know if I'm supposed to... I mean, there's something there. I mean, but what if it's not the thing that I'm supposed to...

What am I supposed to do? Oh, my God. It's been so many months. I've forgotten what I'm supposed to do. I'm up here, and I'm looking for things. Oh, that's right. Land! Land! Land!

There's something up ahead! Fuck, I forgot. I'm supposed to yell. To complete this image, the entire time you've been talking, there's a giant bell. I see that like there are some people. They look like ants below us. They're like moving around. I'm like, you all hear the sound of this bell.

It's the first time it's been rung really seriously the entire voyage. Even during the night when the invisible creature attacked, it wasn't rung because it was such a sudden onset of chaos. But you all hear the ringing of the bell. Anyone who looks up would see a small shape like dancing in the bucket. Bodies start to merge from the lower decks. The majority of the crew gathers at the front of the ship, waiting on the horizon now that the Topman bell has been sounded. And there it is.

A thin line at first begins to rise up and over the ocean waves. Are you going to do it? What are you going to? Come up. Oh, this is great. I suppose that's just straight out. Ms. Marsh, did you send a little more brandy up earlier than you should have? Did you just call me Miss Marsh, because it's March with a CNA? I've been saying that every time.

I've been to many places with the word marsh in it. What? March. Yeah, that's better. It's got a C&H in it. Oh, I'm asking, do you think Scream is drunk? I don't know if you've been bringing him, if you've been bringing him liquor? Not that I've been doing this, I mean, last night I did.

Oh, I don't climb up that pole, because every time I get halfway up, he's screaming fuck. There it is. Look, on the horizon. A thin line at first. Gimms and rise up and over the ocean waves. An excited energy is shared between you and those viewing the site, knowing that though the coming days will be cold and hard, the journey is halfway over. Days pass as you float along the Keros Sea. Keeping a good distance to avoid any shallow waters,

you and the crew of the moor abound are afforded a grand view of the great continent of western Drakar on the ship's port side facing east. For the first couple of days, the coast is lined with a colossal forest. Like an emerald halo, the forest stretches across the back of Drakar, contouring to the land in wavy lines. On the third day, finding yourselves in your quarters, the bell sounds once again.

You can hear stomping of feet. You are all at that lower deck area. You can put yourself there if you want to simulate that, but you... We don't... Would it be unreasonable for a scrimmed to assume that this is chalk? You all are familiar enough with the voyage, having talked to the captain.

I mean, you guys have been together for 60-plus days at this point. So there's a... very clear throughline of what this voyage entails. It's this gambit that you're going on southward late. To avoid this foggy sea by going directly east, you know that you're going to be going around Dracar. And through this southward passage in order to arrive to chalk. I just wasn't sure if we knew the name of the landmass or...

Scrib's kind of dumb, so I didn't know. Maybe he just thought maybe it was chopped. I would say that anyone in... And Mike could correct me if I'm wrong here, but anyone would know any of the names of the major continents. Okay, okay, fair enough. That counts. That news travels.

There's enough sea maritime experience. And Barnabos also would confirm what the southward passage, how people talk about that. Sure. That it's a fair gamble, but because in the heat of summer, that particular stretch of ocean that people typically take from Yulong to chalk is surrounded by fog. Right, right.

And I know that I sort of fast-forwarded a little bit. How do you guys react to the initial site of Dracocon? I would whip up a special dinner probably of probably the salt beef and maybe some turtle soup and some like a plum raisin dessert situation and maybe an extra helping of grog as a celebration that we're halfway there. I'd also probably be interrupting people from cutting their nails and their hair because that's bad luck. You won't find many. If anyone's cutting their nails, it's probably the party.

Because they would be the ones, many of these other sailors share most of the same superstitions you do. You may have even gotten into a brawl with one of them on a drunken night when you disagreed about what was and wasn't lucky. I'm downstairs shaving just my legs and cutting my nails. I would. to spend my... I now have strangely hairless rabbit legs.

They have delicious to the rest of the crew. Both. I would spend my time in the bucket while looking at Dracar after, like, thinking about the riches and treasures and, like, you know, what must be there? You know, something about this, this territory being mostly,

what seems to be uninhabited from the boat, at least, you know, from what I could see. And over the few days that I, already just described. You were looking at this, where there might be ports, like obvious sites where there would be civilization. It's not desolate. It's just raw, wild, uninhabitive. Scrum would spend a lot of time date dreaming about what it must be like to take advantage of that raw untaps. Whatever could be there. And his imagination would run wild. He would also walk right to Barnabos, who I probably come up to about his knees, and I'd point at him and scold him

for the days that I didn't get my brandy because they forgot about me in the bucket. I'm responsible for the old ship here, Mr. Savascoch, and forgive me if I don't indulge in your habits. I'm just saying, I thought you and I were supposed to be good friends, and I'm that they're all alone, and sometimes you forget about me, and I need my brandy. Well, Nick, tomorrow night, depending on if, uh, if the sea, and the scoies are clear, then I'll give you an extra help. Fine. I accept your apology.

We don't recall apologizing, but here, here's some extra hard tack here, lad. I snatch it and I stop off. It crackles apart. As soon as we would see land, I would kind of go up on the deck, and I would love, and I would sort of kind of get a sense of

the colder nature of where we're going, coming from Mahmout, and seeing visions of an Arctic place that wasn't the moot that I'm going to. I want to sort of meditate, and I'd go back down to the surgery room, and I would kind of quietly take out my bag and I would do a room reading to see if I can commune with the weird, and just get some sense of, does this feel right? Does it feel similar?

And I'll leave it up to you whatever you decide, but I would take my, my, my, I'm going to cast to them. And I would, I would pull out three ruins. Do you want to pull out actual rooms? Hey. Oh. You have Kimm's. Yes, I have Kimmer's room. So the first one, I forgot she sent you room.

He's, the manas. It means man. The second one, oh, similar. If Derek managed, she's like, maybe. this like for. Awas, which means horse. Oh. Oh, is a half-man horse.

Oh, no! What no! Everyone watch out in Takarum! He's a half-man horse. We better run the other way. He's a half-man horse. He's Benklin, which means birch. It's a half-man wooden.

Oh, someone's going to birth Hecorum. I'm... I hope it's a house. Burch. My eye will blow. Do I get any sense? And again, I'll leave it up to you. And if I don't get anything, whatever.

I don't have all right. or anything like that. Derek's gonna be able to make this work. Kimmy. That's amazing. This is badass. I'm in love with that. This is not the like wheel and woe

ritual. It's not an actual stuff. Rich, you have to take away the birth because the first one you pulled out was the blank one and that does mean. Oh, it does. I'm sorry. It's silence and infinite possibility. Oh, Derek's gonna go crazy with this shit.

You gotta take out the birth. So it's silence, infinite possibility, half man horse. Hecker. Hecker. Which may or may not mean anything to you. That's okay. Roll with it.

The site of Dracar inspires you to read your runes. It looks very much like the Mahmoud you've traveled, but alien and different in so many ways. It feels like southern Mahmuth, where it's perhaps a warmer climb. Now that we're heading southwardly, the north of Dracar would be its boreal forest or north of even tundra or something along those lines.

So these signs and inspire you to read into, not the future and not in a divining way, but is there some clue that you might be able to align from nature of self? And you are meditating on this silence, this infinite possibility. And in your right eye, not your left. You can still see the ruins through that vision, but it doubles. And for a moment, you see a silhouette of a man riding a horse, but it doesn't, it feels too

structured to be just a man on a horse. There's something, there's something rigid about this body. There's something, um, uh, like a tool almost, like, um, something that, uh, and then the vision passes. And you are able to glimpse something with your vision sight that feels true to you, the way the ruins always feel true to you. I'd like to take one moment

just to say, while you note that vision down, that we have the best DMs, whether it's dealing with legend lore or dealing with runes out of a bag. And then there's Mike. We love our friends. That's right.

No, he doesn't lose that. You're right eating. I'm kidding. We have the best DMs, and I'm very excited to see how your ear, just pulling ruins out of a bag as we go is going to affect this story. So I love our DMs, is what I'm saying.

And I especially my mic. I love Mike. Thank you again for the rooms. That's the rooms. The rooms. The rooms. Ellis rooms, I believe so. And that's how we end is died.

Coward kill is always there. It's extremely early morning when you make this reading. You're early to rise, let's say. Yeah. But before the actual sun rises, and you can hear the sounds of footsteps and this alarming, and you're all awoken from your beds in the dark of morning. And you can hear a commotion.

You can even hear some yelling. You cock sucker! God damn, get back here, you fuck! What do you do? That's coming from upstairs. That's coming from upstairs. And you can hear it's very plainly the extremely easy to distinguish

from the other crewmate's voice of the captain. The captain's yelling. You can you hear the captain's screaming. I will quickly throw on my attire and rush upstairs. It's too early for this, and I would roll over and put my pillow over my head. Seems like a bit of commotion above. We should check it out.

Really, Tai Shen, why? Why? It's early. It's not that early. It's early. You were just up in the bucket. That's why I'm tired. Yeah, you just be getting to sleep

just as the bell went off. Do we have to? And I look to Barnabu. Are you there? Am I there? Don't we have separate rooms, right? We were all in each separate rooms. Would you accept him be your new girl was in the surgery room doing his room reading.

So this is at this point when you'd be awoken by the sound of the ringing bell and the sound of this voice screaming from a voice screaming from above. Mr. Fulier Blossom is right. Let's go see what it is. And it's nighttime now? Early morning.

I would say it's four or five. The sun has not yet crested to the horizon. So this is the day after we saw the land? It's actually on the third day. Since you've seen the land. All right. If you say south and I will grab my blade, attach it to my hip,

don my hat, and follow our good friend Fire Blossom. It could be fun. I don't even answer. I don't even answer. If looks could kill, I am grumpy, the bags under my eyes. After all these lads, mucked up,

one sneaky critter, I don't trust them, to not curse us all. Fine, leave the way. You find you're near top side, as you all scuttle up the stairs. The five of you are standing there, and it's hard to see over the mass of bodies. Almost all 13 crewmates are standing along with the captain against the port side,

right up against the railing, looking out. But it's only 12. There seems to be something missing. And when you finally are able to see over his shoulder, the shorter of you cramming your way up and pushing your way up over the railing, you're able to see Myelin. He's hundreds of feet out from where the boat is, not overboard.

It seems that he's rowing. He's pulling the jolly boat that was the one lone small ship that was usually on the top of the deck here. He's pulling this jolly boat, and he's clearly dead set on making his way to Drakhar. He's the silent man,

the very stirring-faced man, a hell of a sailor, but he's hundreds of feet out, and you can see the captain is furious about this. Get back here with my boat! Get back here! care you son of a bitch what are you doing we had a deal get out my way I'm small I'm grumpy back move yeah boy what the nine houses he doing Gavin what's going on here my island's taking my boat he's headed to the coast

DC why he's a mute he made no indication he's not even a note or a letter I'm gonna look to Barnabos say I don't know what we do in the situation I do What do we do? We let him go? I mean, is there anything we can do? How far? Do I get the sense that I'd be able to swim and catch the rowboat? Or is he, is he... It's been enough time.

He wasn't discovered right away. Got it. So 400, 500, 600, maybe even farther out. He's, he, you can see that it is him, but he's but a speck between this channel, this expanse between the actual ship that you are on and the side of the coast of your car. I'm going to tug on your pant leg pretty, pretty, pretty hard in motion for you to come closer. Oh, yeah, Mr. Saberskotch.

I, uh, I don't think this bodes well very well for our captain's, uh, authority. What do you, what do you think about that? Well, I think that being honest sailors that we follow our catten's orders, Mr. Savasgotch. I'm just saying this, this could cause a cascade, uh, some sort of a movement. I don't want to be around if everybody else starts jumping ship. The fate that he deserves is the Angman's jibankment. You know what? We'll leave it at that. All right. Ha ha. Ha ha.

As I looked over at their horizon, I was at their first. And while they were having that conversation, I would just silently turn, hearing that he didn't leave a note, and I would walk down, and I would just go into his room and see if I can kind of find anything that he may have left, notes or books or any kind of evidence of why he may have left. Make a investigation check. Not bad. Pretty good. I don't know. Not bad. Pretty good. I think that is a 14, I believe. With a 14. With a 14, you open the door and you walk into his quarters, and this is the largest of the quarters. He's the only one who didn't really sleep in any of the hanging. Hammocks. When you become a DM, do you become dumb about words?

I don't know. You have all on your mind. flying. The amount of work. The entire crew in the universe. You wear them on your feet, like when you go outside so your feet don't, the, the, the, shoes, shoes. And you cheat with your, with your looking balls.

You look down from your great height, and his room was always very Spartan. And he didn't interact with any of you very much. None of you approached him during the many weeks that you were all on board. He kept entirely to himself, but he could hold rope. He could take care of business. He knew exactly what to do with a sale. He knew how to repair things. He was one of the most experienced crewmates.

And this room is Spartan. It's just as pristine. Even the bed is made. And it seems that nothing's left behind, starting to go through the actual drawers and everything. It seems that whatever personal effects he might have had aren't left behind that they've been taken with him. very intentionally, and it seems that he had left the room for someone else almost. I always go back to Top Deck. You return to the Top Deck.

The captain is still screaming his head off, infuriated by this breach. He's screaming, we went together for years, and you see one glimpse of her car and he disappear on me? Damn you! Is this the only roadboat that we're aware of? It was the only jolly boat on the surface of the ship, yes. Okay. Was that for it? Which is also apparently called a cockboat,

and I decided to leave that out, otherwise you guys would make jokes about it. Look at that cock go. No, you think Coombs has the cock boat? Ellis, Ellis is like, Stop, come to do it! Go downstairs. O'y, Mr. Coombs, come back here.

Yeah, don't be alone for too long. We'll look at your right hand. Just leave my one alone. Wait. This is my question. was, was our plan to dock on Dracar again, or just to go around it? Just to go around it.

And if you'd like, I can draw a simple demonstration of sort of the idea of this voyage, if that would help. Yeah, I didn't know how to help. I'll lean in to everyone who's there and listening. I'll say, finally, the bad luck is coming to manifest. I'm actually just made some paper or something in order, oh, I can use this.

There's a no card. Is that what you think this is? Anything in the Batman is fair game. You think that this is the manifestation of the bad luck from the what, from the dock, all those nights ago, days, months, weeks? O'ye, that's right, Mr. Sabascoch. I think this is just the beginning. Once a group of untested, seasoned, unseasoned sailors

sees one of the most seasoned of them leaving. Shurking their responsibilities and their duties. Once it gets cold, once they get hungry, they'll follow suit, maybe even worse. Sorry, go ahead. Oh, I was just clearing my throat. I don't want to say what I'm thinking, but I'm a rabbit, so I'm going to be the first to be eating. Boy, that's... You stay behind myself, Mr. Yornear.

I guess my question is, why do we think you jump ship? Why leave? Maybe he was just looking for supplies. We're not even... No, I mean, based on the Captain Verme's response, it doesn't seem like he's coming back. I mean, why leave now? Do you...

What's even over there? Perhaps he is called to the land. Or, you know, if he's the most seasoned sailor and he's leaving, he might see something the rest of us don't. Maybe we should all be getting off this boat. I went to his cabin, and I looked for no signs of anything that he was doing, thinking he took

everything with him. He has no intentions of coming Zinn character. No intentions. Well, look, I would be lying if I said I didn't spend my days up in the bucket thinking about what could possibly be on that island. I mean, it looks beautiful. There must be all sorts of gold,

untaxed treasures, things, but it wouldn't make me leave. I wouldn't last a day out there. So what's this guy doing? What could possibly be his motivation? It's hard to say. You can see that you're passing the western side of the car there.

I should label it, but here we are. It is hard to say, but I would like to volunteer to go after him if that is what the captain wishes. How are you going to go after him? Do you have a boat? That's what I was going to say. It doesn't seem feasible. I do not have a boat, but I could turn into perhaps a moose and swim.

Can moose swim and something like that? Yes, moose can swim. Oh, you can swim faster than a moose. Well, I'm also- That sounds like a challenge. I'm feeling a little stronger I could try Scrim's suggestion from last time and polymorphing him into a dragon, like myself.

I don't want you to polymorph me into anything. Well, let me just try it. No, don't even, don't even think about it. Don't like the way you're looking at me. Stop it, I don't do it. No, no, don't do it. Do you feel draconic? He's looking a little green around the gills, maybe the green dragon-born.

I feel nothing. I look you dead in the eye and I say, you better think about what you do before. I figure, I did this. Is that a scale? You're looking a little, I mean, there are a green dragon-born, oh, you've met a few. The captain has started over here your conversation briefly. Watson.

Listen, we're not, this ship can't stop. Understand? We're not, we're not gonna, go after him. He's a son of a bitch. But we're just going to keep going. It would have been nice to have someone who knew Dracar as well as Milin, but he's made his choice. This ship has to keep going. We cannot waste time stopping again. Milan was the Ice Master, wasn't he? Yes, he was the only person who had been to Turcar. Is that somebody who navigates ice? He communicated, he communicated, he communicated, um,

very seriously through hand gestures. It was remarkable actually how quickly he could sort of show you what its intent was by pointing, making a quick symbol, something like that. It wasn't like sign language, but it was the closest thing a mute could have. I would post up on a barrel just nearby while the captain saw him just be flipping my coin

and I'm gonna look at him and say, well, you know, are you worried about the rest of the crew? Give a very dry smile. My crew is the most of the most. most loyal and great crew that ever was. Wouldn't you have said that about him 10 minutes ago? Ooh. He's from Dakar.

He's not a Uzayan like us. Everyone here knows how much coin we have on the line here. We're all going to work together on this, right? You see nodding and yeses. Of course. So do you think that he's just going home? I don't know what he's thinking, but he seems intent. It's just being a beeline.

Pardon my asking. But without an ice master, the further we're heading south, how do you expect us to get through the southward passage? We've got Ellis. We've got myself. We've got a hell of a helmsman. We're going to be able to thread that needle, no problem. And what happens if we need that boat for something?

Like, what if something happens to this ship? And we've got to get off under that little boat. We don't have it anymore. One of the first crew meets, Myelin, take the jolly boat, the only cock boat that was on board, and essentially steal it in order to cross the channel between the boat, the Moorbound, and the coaster to Carr. The captain isn't happy, and the party's challenging him a little bit

on whether or not he can maintain the loyalty of his crew. I hop off the barrel and I look at him. I give him another really ride, and I say, ah, it's fine, Captain, I'm just messing with you a little bit. And I'd nudge him in, like, the knee. I knew I could count on you, uh, scrim date. Thank you, thank you. I'm not going anyway.

That being said, I'm still concerned about what we're going to do if we need that little boat. What did you call it? The wiener boat? It's no problem. It's a cold boat there. There's more than enough resources on board. I'm confident that we'll be able to build another. We've got all the time of the world.

We can build a wiener boat right here on this ship. We've got fuel. We've got carpentry. That's what Ellis is here for. I'll help if I can. I can make arrows myself. I've never built a wiener boat before, but I'll try. Would you like to?

I would love to build a boat. Weiner Boat. All right, well, you'll be working with Ellis. Is that Mr. Coombs? He prefers Ellis. Well, I believe it to Mr. Coombs to be building coquoise. I can't wait to work with Coombs on that weiner boat. Queenie, Quini, I don't mean to interrupt. You keep saying that word.

What word? Weiner? Yeah. Why? Because that's what it's called, Weiner Boat. No, it's called a cockboat. Oh, it's like a chicken. Like a roost.

or a male chicken. Yeah, like a chicken. Thank you, Your Honor. All right. I'm less concerned about the jolly boat caton, with all due respect, but without an oistmaster, how do you expect us to get around Drakar? He's got a point. It wastes too much time if we go all the way south and around those two islands.

We've just got to go through. We just have to push through. It's the heat of summer. Look, look at those trees. They aren't some nice trees. I understand your concerns, Bonobos, but you have to trust your captain. We'll find our way.

As you wish, sir. Captain looks out again. The captain's confidence is instilling me with confidence. I think I can navigate the ice easily. No offense, you're Tyshen, but you've only been doing this for what? A couple of weeks, month, maybe? 90 days.

Oh, okay. That's a little bit more than I estimated. 65 days. 65 days. I've got two months. 65 days. And so you're confident that you're just going to dance us through the ice.

Dancin's all I know. Bonapost, I'm gonna need a lot of it. The captain looks at the horizon. I'm gonna need a lot more brandy. The speck that my island is now. Starting to get a little colder. That's out the blankets. And the captain goes into his quarters

slamming the door behind. That you were saying? Mr. Stabber Scotch. Yes. Well, you're up in the bucket. Mr. Bannabouse. I need you. Dredwick.

Oh, yes, of course. Mr. Dredwick. I would like you to keep an eye out for sun dogs. Yes, of course. I know exactly what that is, because you've told me many, many times. What are they? What's a sundown?

When you look at the sun and you see one on either side. You're not supposed to look at the sun. It can make you blonde. Oh, I have heard that. I think it's grim. It's been staring at the sun. Too long regardless. See?

Every time you look left, there's like huge floaters that just always look for the triple sun with the rings. The rings, right. And then ring the bell. Why do they call that a sundown? That's a great question, Queen. I don't know. I just know what they're called.

Oh. All right. So what I see it? What do I do? I let you know. I come down all the way from the bucket. You ring the bell. You tell the.

Captain, you tell... Wait, wait, wait, wait. You're telling me that I look at the sun, and the sun is enough to ring the bell. I've only run the bell one time. And there are three sons, lad. But why? Because that means it's getting cold enough

where we should consider turning back. Oh, well, I didn't realize that was an option. While I have all of you, if we could just kind of come a little bit closer together. Now, I'm not suggesting it. You're trying to plan a mutiny on the captain, aren't you, scrim? No, no, Queen I would never, but I'm saying if push comes to shove that I think that my first vote would be for Bonobos. That chuckle fuck doesn't know left from right.

And quite frankly, Bonobos is the only one keeping this whole ship together. So if it really push comes to sub, can't we just vote? I mean, we're very democratic people. You know, that guy, he's going to lose grip on things very quickly. And if it come, you know, if we have to, I'm behind Bonobos 110%. Mr. Dredwayke. I think that Captain Vernet is. skilled as a seaman as he might be, I think it's more of a tropical sailor.

I don't know if he's ever been wailing up in the... Boy, you're home there, Mr. Yorner. Well, it turns out that Barnabos is also not suggesting, suggesting. We all have our duty. I agree. I agree. I agree. It is not to say that I am held hard and fast to that duty of serving one man.

but let us not commit to violence or upheaval. Oh, I never said we were going to hurt him. I'm just saying when if we have to rally behind somebody. So what would we do with him? If we're going to commit mutiny or whatever, where are we going to put him? No, no, I'm just, don't even say the word. But am I not supposed to say that word? No, don't say it.

I'm saying if all of a sudden people... Can we have a code word for it then? Because I'm going to keep saying if I don't have another word said. One of the roommates walks by. Oh, yeah, yeah, he was a mute. Yeah, that's correct. And he can think it. Right.

All I'm saying. If mutton will be the word. If things begin to unravel and all of a sudden we find ourselves with less people. I'm not saying because of what we've done because they've left like that asshole. How's anyone going to leave if there aren't any

extra boats to go sailing off into the distance? I thought you were building boats with... I haven't started yet. I'm just saying it never hurts to have a backup plan because I'm not going back to the egg. You can't make me. We're long ways away from

the egg, Mr. Savasgotch, and I'm sure before this voyage is over, you'll be missing that place. I hope you're right, Bonnebus. It seems like, no matter how much distance I put between me and it, it always finds a way to find me. We are not going back there. I would sooner go there and point to the land, then go back to Yulong. Perfect. Then we're in agreement. When worse, if worse comes to worse and all of this absolutely goes to shit, we're following Bonabombo. Yes, dear. Yeah, sure, I just don't know why we're so worried about it. All we're doing is going through a little passage and then heading on to chalk.

Because it's always good to have a backup plan. I'd follow Barnabos, but I don't know how you'd convince the other 12 human crew members to Vout-Ferr-Vu-Fer. Vute. I didn't know you'd be giants. Vood is actually what we called the Sun Doms. No, it's fine. For a group of monsters, I was gonna say. I have been educated in that we are not voting

for a new captain. That's not a possibility. I'm just saying if we all of a sudden need a captain, who I would volunteer to become the captain. It's Bonapose if you have to pay attention. I would follow Barnabos. Okay. With that being said, I'm going to bed because I've been awake for a very, very long time.

You may wake me, but don't even think about waking me. Before you go to bed, can I ask a favor of you? Of course. Do you have any lucky gold coins where I could trade you my non-lucky gold coin? Or I'll even give you two unlucky coins for one lucky coin. Oh, yes, of course. I have a whole sack of lucky coins. Give me one second.

Two for one, right? Yeah, sure. Give me a second. I'm going to get an extra good one because those are really bad lucky ones. I dig around for digital. Oh, I make a show of it. Oh, this is not. No, you don't want that one.

I just pull out a plain old gold coin, and I say, Here we go. One lucky gold coin for two regular gold coins. Oh, here you go. I mean, unlucky gold coins. Thank you. And I put in my first. And I march off down to the... How can't... Oh.

I stop. No what? Yes, Queenie? How can you tell it's lucky versus the other ones? I don't want to get... I don't want to get it mixed up with all my unlucky coins. Well, I mean, put it between your fingers. Can you feel it?

Feel what? The luck just radiating from it. Good luck. And I walk downstairs. I'm not going to be able to tell the difference. I should probably put this somewhere safe. Make a wisdom check. Sure.

Just a raw wisdom or saving throw? No saving throw. Nate, you look at the surface of this lucky coin, and the image of some long-forgotten king or emperor or whatever on the surface has this small scratch right here. Almost looks like he's a little sad. Lucky indeed. Yes, this is a lucky coin.

You made a good trade. Perfect. Thank you. I have 212 old pieces now. It starts getting cooler again and Scrim's job gets a little more exciting. Blacial icebergs.

In the light of day, these icebergs look like rough and smooth gemstones silently drifting across the ocean's surface. Avoiding these rocks of ice is somewhat trivial, and Tyshen performs his job well and with honor. The days continue to float by, very much like the increasingly huge mountains of ice.

As the temperature again begins to drop, you begin to encounter stretches of open sea covered in pancake ice. Flat disks of frozen salt water that thump and bang and scratch the wooden hull of the moribald. It's cold, and getting used to the constant lashing, lapping sound makes for restless nights. fewer and fewer the tree line begins to thin The beach, if one could call it that, looks rocky and gray Occasionally, colonies of sea lions are spotted on these craggy shores

And you can hear the distant barking interspersed with the cries of small birds grubbing for leftovers A few times, scrim, you think you spy a pair of terrible red eyes amongst the throng But the moment you refocus your eyes on the spot, the feeling is gone Fog and cloud rolls in. Oh, we're just moving on from that? Small disks of pancake ice no longer, no larger than a dinner plate, grow larger, and soon enough become fully formed ice flows. Sheets of floating packed ice thumped loudly against the ship.

The wake of the Moribound becomes a cobalt blue tail cutting through the crowded, white, icy surface of the sea. Barely visible now, through the creeping haze surrounding Dracar. The coast begins rising up from where the land meets the water, up and up and up, into the broad face of a cliffside. As though the continent is leaning into the sea itself, this cliff's face grows taller and taller, concealing the realms beyond. It is here, finally, that your heading turns eastward. Keeping the coast of Dracar at a good distance as the landmass bends and curves,

you have reached the southern coast. The vigilance of the crew, seeing the ever-thickening ice flows, cramp up and push and crush against the sides of the Caravelle's ship, intensifying. When you and the crew of the Moorabound aren't sleeping, folks are topside

in spite of the cold, waiting and watching. Let's extinguish that candle if it isn't already out. No? It's not. It's enjoying a nice signet. until the entire thing ignites.

Oh. Oh, is it planned? New candles. New candles. Dungeon Master, I have a question. I have an answer. Wow. Was the ship outfitted with any metal reinforcements along the hole to the

against the ice? Not metal. It was reinforced. It's an old ship. And you can clearly see. It had been modified heavily. The captain indicated that this would be at Swan Song Voyage because he wanted to buy a new ship. I mean, all of the...

the riches being what they are. It's been modified as a caraville ship, which normally would stay very close to ships for the Oaken Sea. And it's been heavily bolstered on the front, but not wood metal. Interesting. Any other questions before we continue? No question, but a comment. I would be doing exactly as Barnabos has suggested and continually looking for sea dogs. Sun dogs. Sun dogs. What was the sun dog again? Seedoo. Sun dog is basically when it gets like so absolutely frigid cold that the sun is like reflecting through the ice crystals in the air and then creates the two basically the three like light fraction yeah yep and so i'm specifically looking for that even though the captain didn't tell me barnbo's to make a prescription

I would love to just me dropping tea how much a progress have I made working on the wiener boat um with coombs his arm is really tired. Yeah, he does last word than usual, because only one arm is. Ellis, and you have made decent progress.

Make a, God, I guess the straight decks. I think decks. 14. With a 14. It's not a saving throw, right? Straight decks.

Ellis is clearly knowledgeable, but his ability to convey what he needs you to do is hindered by his seeming inability to talk to you for whatever reason. And also just the fact that he is, he gets into the technical weeds right away. He starts referring to tools and techniques that a carpenter master would know without explaining exactly what that means and what have you.

So like, you find yourself mostly just going, here's the nails, here's your hammer. And then he's just building it while you're assisting, primarily because he rolled solo, not because the 14's bad. Perfect. I would say that you would guess at the end of the few days that have passed your 15, 20% into finishing this new jolly boat. Just as it begins to snow for the first time, large, soft snowflakes that gently wander down from the...

Oh, I didn't resolve your perception test. Check. 23. 23, thank you. With a 23, you keep looking for the sun, and for days now it has been overcast and getting colder. You need to roll a deception for the sun. One moment.

I am not... Which one should I use? More stealth check. More stealth. By the way, thank you, Steph and then Magin, Vood TV. So you're blinded by light. Wow! Thank you for the follow.

You lead dog. Thank you for the lead dog. Thank you for lead dog. Croom's the kind of guy that would look right into the eclipse. It's not a sun dog. It's a lead dog. It's a lead dog. It's a lead dog. Two will just say it.

Just as it begins to snow for the first time. Oh, my God, this smells like Christmas. Fuck. You didn't that's just me? I'm then restate what you just said for editing purposes. No, I'm going to make it all sexy. Just as it begins to snow for the first time. Large soft snowflakes that gently wander down from the overcast sky and land gently on the ship's surface,

the ice flows begin to smother the more abounds forward progress, more and more. Taisham, you stand now at the helm between Captain Vermeigh and Ellis. The sails are at half-masks, keeping your speed relatively low, and the wind is still behind you. From the front of the ship, you hear crewmates shouting, left, right, left, right, straight, straight on. These men are your eyes in such obscured weather, for you cannot see beyond the very, very bow of this ship. Where's everyone as we approach what is some serious ice flows? Large sheets of ice that are crashing, essentially, into the side of the ship at this point.

It's up to you, but if I'm on duty, I'm in the bucket. If I'm not, I'm below deck. Would there have been, like, on all hands? Okay. You might actually have been brought down for the purposes of safety at this point. Your ability to see and guide through this situation, I would say you're at the surface of the job. That is shockingly OSHA-related. Is there a, would there have been like an all hands to like get the crew up top or would it be like,

I would say that there would have been in all hands for the crew crew. You guys have been largely left independent with the exception of when you're given direct, direct orders. You've been brought on as almost like the mercenaries of the crew. He has his loyal tribe and true crew run the ship. But as you know, you were brought on because, you knew that you were magical in abilities and that you could solve problems and that trusted the story that he heard about your time in Wouzé. I would probably be up top then and just trying to lend any kind of advice I could

being from an Arctic climate. I'm not sure how, I don't have really any experience sailing through it like a sailing chair, but if I can offer any just general ice knowledge that would help, that's what I'd be doing. Okay. Thank you. I will keep that in mind. What are you doing, Bernabos?

Are you still cooking? working through that? I would be keeping the stove going to keep the ship as warm as possible, knowing it's not going to do a ton, but at the very least, whatever residual heat, and just making sure that the entire crew is well fed. I'd be muttering to myself about the terrible bad luck and the more of, you know, the more of the pancake ice is, is getting thicker. And I probably have experienced something, maybe not this bad, but something similar in my whaling experience and am just not super not. mystic. You're not feeling good.

Yeah. And Queenie, I would say you could be topside or a little warmer down there. At this point, all of you none of you had like fur armor or winter appropriate clothing or attire or anything like that, but you're double blanketed at this point. So you're trying

to stay as warm as possible. Where would you find yourself upside, down side? I'm still working on the weiner boat. Okay. Even though you are alone, Ellis has taken the moment to guide the ship through this difficult passage. Did he need to use that? I don't know.

Thingamajig to hit the naily head. Well, try it. And that's what I'm going to do. You're continuing to work through this increasingly difficult storm. And I'll say, like, I'm under the parts of the boat that we have, so I've got a little bit of shelter, and so I'm, like, under there working on it. Dyesha, and you're hearing these voices. I flow on the right, I flow on the right.

Head left. No! No, no, no, no, no. Stay straight. Stay straight. There's another one coming from the left side, from port side. Oh, I just have to trust my senses, I guess. The captain, you're hearing the words of wisdom of nature from your ear. You're hearing the words whispered in one ear from Ellis and from the captain the other. Ellis is saying, the ship isn't totally reinforced, all right? We can't hit one of these things dead on, all right? If we're going to hit, you have to lean into it. Don't go straight. through. Captain is encouraging

you the other direction. Don't listen to him. This is an important thing. We need to bust through these ice floes. We have to crush our way through this passage. If we slow down because we're hitting the side of some ice sheet, we're lost. We're never going to win this race. The race is inevitable.

We are no match for the brutal nature of winter. Well, that was cool. I don't know how to interpret that. I'm gonna interpret that. Boy, soul pork tonight, lads!

Soul pork! Yeah, you hope. I guess, with my old pal shouting the ice is inevitable, I would take that as some kind of sign to just like steer into the ice? Was that one of the options? Your options are to try to curve with the coming ice flow,

one that's being yelled about very seriously by a crewmate, or turn into it and hit a dead on to see if you can crack through and break through this ice flow. And the choice is yours. Dead on. Oh, sweet Jesus. Dead on. The ice is inevitable. I can't believe we left this decision to make. Crash! You hear the sound of the ice flow immediately smash into the front bow of this ship, the Moor Abound. I need you to make a dexterity check for me. And you can do it at advantage because of your nears fine words. You are clearly on it.

Oh, my God. My gosh. Take a deep breath, brother. Can I leap to the bound and shoot a fireball at the ice? Oh, nice. Oh, well, thank goodness. There was a natural one in there and 16. So for decks, it's a 19.

With a 19. You crash into this ice flow, and it rears up. The entire ship seems to suddenly lift what was a level playing field, for lack of a better word. You all are rocked back a few, a few crew. roommates land on their ass. You continue to push through. You can hear this cracking insane sound of the ice pulling apart, ripping and tearing, and you can hear the wood sound,

crunching against the flat of this ice, when all of a sudden, I need everyone to make a dexterity saving throw. Oh, boy. Oh, pretty good. Which room are we gonna use? I'm gonna do this one. That's pretty good. I'm not there, but how does the captain look

when he decides to ram this? Well, so the captain won me this. I know. I'm just curious. I'm not there. Meta knowledge. Does he look surprised? You're not there. I know. I am. The captain has adorned a cap.

He's also wrapped in a blanket. He's frigidly yelling into Titian's ears with a look of grim determination, as though his will get us through this passage. I got a 23. With a 23, you roll. No, no. 23. 16. 13 or higher.

It's six. 21. 21. Part of us, you were surprised to find yourself fall. I need everyone to roll a 1d4. You have how much bludgeoning damage you take. You'll take the full amount, but everyone else will take half that. Oh, rounded down?

Rounded down. Nine. I roll a 1. We take the total of everything? No. Just a 1D4. Oh, just what we rolled. Roll a 1d4 to give yourself damage.

If you take half, it's rounded down. I take 1 damage. I take 2. I take two damage. I took two damages a lot. The four. Four, four. When I want to romance.

Queenie, when you feel the walking, you're not watching, so it really takes you by surprise, and you lean forward and unfortunately a nail goes through the webbing of your left paw. Oh, no. What the absolute fringe! The rest of you all slam into the hard wood of the top of the ship and onto the floor.

The other crewmates are also reeling and falling. No one goes overboard, but it's very evident that the ship has come to a complete stop. It is now sitting on the top of this ice flow and moving along, but rotating, moving, shifting as it's being crushed and brought in by the rest of these very serious chunks of ice that make up this channel. What are you all doing? Oh, it seems that the ship is icebound. He said the thing. I was the ship is Superman The ship is Superman for Return of Lex Luther.

Even though I didn't take me damage, I would have tumbled on the top deck like, you know, and hit one of these corners, right? Like I would have ended up between a barrel and I'd be like wrapped up in blankets and I would survey myself and then I would like peek out of the blanket and be like, that's it. I live here now.

No one can ever move me at a desk. lodge me, I hate this, I want to die. I will rush to the deck. People are starting to get up. They're pushing off of the, you know, pulling up themselves up on the railing, dusting themselves off with the snow that is continuously coming down more and more. I'd push those. I'd push up just like off the ground and just do we do it? What's your, how's the ship? I would shout, Tyshen, what in the nine hells were you thinking? I did what the captain directed as was, your name said,

steer into the ice. I did not tell you to speak up as ice. You said something very compelling about ice. I said that the ice was inevitable. That was it. No matter what you chose. The ice is inevitable. There was no right answer.

The ice is inevitable. Of course, the ice is inevitable. It was stuck. Your name is exactly right. The ship is still fee worthy. We're fine. It's just a cold front. Just like a week ago when that creature came out.

It was because the cold, the snowstorm. This will pass, and then the ice will melt, and we'll be able to push on forward. I'm sure we can even dig around it. So just so I understand, I'm shouting up to them. You expect us to sit here for a week or more. It might be just a few days. Or a whole season.

Seven of supplies to winter here. Off the coast of Dracar, capon. We've many provisions, we've, we've, we've, we've, we've, we've, we've, we've, we've, we've, we've, we've, we've, even with all that, even with the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the barrel's of red herring. We're we've got more than enough food. Do we have three seasons worth, are you prepared to winter here? Perhaps until the beginning of next summer? we're not going to do that we're gonna break our way

through this ice we'll wait we'll wait until the storm passes we'll set up the sails and we'll glide to cross the damn thing oh my god's if we're stuck here for a whole year we might as well have been to next year in the egg no

I told you Mr. Sabascoch careful what you wish for I didn't wish for anything I didn't wish for anything Bada boss I didn't wish for anything I just I can't be stale I can't be stuck here for too long I need to keep moving we can't be stuck here

Why don't we all just calm down? I could leap off the side of the boat and probably work a little bit of fire, see if I can't melt back some of that ice, and we can free ourselves, get back onto the water, and enjoy a nice cup of warming tea, and we'll be good as new. We get Coombs up here to work the wood on the outside? The... Oh, my apologies.

The storm rages. The storm is indeed starting to increase in severity. That's exactly right. We need to stay positive. Thank you. Thank you, Tijan. Yes. We're just going to go down under deck. We're going to go down. We're going to have ourselves a little party.

That's what we're all going to do. There's nothing to be done until this storm passes and then we will put on a show. That's what we're going to do. You don't need to tell me twice. and I like shuffle up my blankets and I'm basically a moving mass of blankets

with a hat. You see me like walk and I immediately go down deck. I'm usually when ET dresses up like the goats. Yes, yes, yes. I'm like a shuffling mass of blankets with snow collecting and a hat and I immediately disappeared below deck.

As soon as he mentions a party. You all start to see the crew start to make their way down and they're not the only ones you hear the same tone of murmurings that you guys are starting to express privately with each other. It's not a positive sound, and as you make your way down to the next lower deck,

to get away from the bombardment of sleet and snow, you all find yourselves in the ship core. Are we with the captain? The captain is the last person down, and he shakes off all the snow. Yes. Did you say a show? Oh, no, that was intended for Barnabos.

It's fine. I had something cut my throat. Did you see a show? This is how we will survive the ice? We'll survive the ice. But we stay, don't panic. Look, the ice will pass. We're fine.

We're fine. What we need to do is have some entertainment. We're going to warm up. We're going to warm up. We've got plenty of fuel. We can burn a few extra fires. We can get... I have costumes and scripts in my captain's quarters. For just such an occasion, don't give me that look. And I... We'll get a cask. We'll get a cask of the brown stuff. And we'll all have a little extra drink tonight.

You're adding me a cask. I'm ready. So you're saying that we get stuck in the ice, so you want us to put on a pantomime? Not a pantomime. a show. We can dress up as characters. We can, we can. Yeah, like in a Panama. It's just a way to while away the hours. You don't have to watch or perform,

but it's something we're all gonna do. And the crew is warming to the idea. They're sort of nodding like, you know, sure, let's maybe give it a go. Well, you know what? I'm gonna like lean towards you and I'm saying. You didn't mention the word of work once, so I'm in. I don't think there's any work to do

even there's nowhere to go. You validated me. Thank you. I pat you kind of like on the thigh and I like shuffle. I'm the shuffling mass of blankets. I've got some work for you. What did you just say? Oh, sweet Jesus.

I need you to go up and grab some of the costumes. You, Barnabos, Tai Shen. The three of you, I need you upside. You know where my private ales are and and liquors, grab a crate, fill it up, fill it up with all the costumes, fill it up with the masks, bring down a story of your choice,

we'll have a gas of it. You know what, Captain? I think that idea is fantastic. Do you mind if I take the lead on this one? Yes, I'm asking you to take the lead. Oh, Mr. Zamas, Coach, are you volunteering to do work yourself? And now I'm being ordered. I'm just going to say, Mr. Dreadwick,

you heard from the captain that I take the lead on this one, So gentlemen, follow me! And I begin to as this massive... As you say, gentlemen follow you, that you all hear... Hello. Crackling sound of thunder in this ice storm that is starting to get more and more serious.

It's increasing in intensity. It's faster than an ice storm perhaps should. You hear this boom. Everyone goes silent. You're near, Queenie. You find yourself on the next lowest floor, the first lower deck of the Marabai. helping the crewmates sort of move boxes, move things around,

getting into a place where perhaps there's going to be some kind of a show and a spontaneous and prompt idea from the captain, helping them create a few extra fires in safe places to let people warm their hands around and shovel around with their blankets, staying dry from the increasingly intense storm. Taishin, Scrim, Barnabose, you guys are making your way topside.

side to the captain's quarters, which is not a very far job, but as soon as you reach the surface of the ship, you find that it has, the temperature has dropped dramatically. The temperature band is now at extreme cold, which is like standing at the top of a very cold mountain, if you've ever been in that circumstance, in the context of B&D. I need everyone to make a constitution saving through. Barthos. You have cold resistance. You automatically succeed the saving throws. I'm really worried.

I probably can touch these with greasy fingers. Don't fuck me, Kimmo. Natural 20. Thank you, thank you, no, God. I also, I don't want to let the air out of balloon, but I did get a natural 20 first. I just didn't yell it out.

I did not ask you to make saving throws. You guys are still undersized. You can't borrow yours. I'm sorry, you can't have a natural 20. Unbelievable. Can I be upstairs? 13. If you want to be above, yeah.

I never went below. I never went below. I'm still in the weiner boat. For the party? Which is on the lower deck. Oh. You've been building up on top of the ship. And you're near. Still in the wiener boat. In the previous T-night, everyone come down to the boat.

Okay. I'm still the one. That's fine. That's fine. Taking our national. He's ordered, he's ordered Scrimmed Tysha and Barnamos to be the ones to go get the booths, the scripts, the masks, masks, and the costumes. But everyone knows that for now, a scrims in charge. You take a level of exhaust.

Fuck! Son of a P. 7 by chance? Yeah, you succeed. Nice. You take a level of week fast. Oh, my God. This is going to unravel very quickly. You guys ever read the exhaustion rules?

Yes. Once or twice. You are able to push through this intense, intense cold. You are freezing with nothing but your burlap sack and your blankets and a hat. It is nothing compared to the below zero freezing that we're talking about now. Between zero and negative 15 degrees Fahrenheit, to be very specific. Hold on to that hat, Mr. Sabascotsch. You do not want that going overboard.

You see a small green hand to reach up and hold the hat to its head. Terrible lot for a hat to go overboard. Yeah, of course. I'm not going to lose the hat. But you heard the captain, for now I'm in charge. Bonobos open the door. You see like a small mass of blanche that look like the child. This snow is matting you on one side and then being flung off.

The surface of the ship is just wet with cold and ice. It's not freezing because it's being blown off by such tremendous force of wind. But you were able to push open the door to the captain's quarters and make your way inside. and it's a huge relief when you're no longer being battered by these elements. As soon as it closed the door, I take my hat off and I shirt off the blankets a little bit and I say, well done.

Gentlemen, we completed our first successful mission. I'm pretty good at this. All right, we need to find the costumes. Something about scripts. Oh, oh, scrim. Can I pick the story? I love a good story. Oh, you do too, man.

Mr. Foote, awesome. Yes, I literally could not care any less. I will concern myself with the booze. you guys deal with the rest of whatever, and I go over to the private stock of the captain and begin to rifle through it. You're wearing a wall, very much like a wine cellar with a bunch of few of oils, and a tremendous line of rums and whiskeys and bourbons, and there are a few missing bottles. I believe he awarded a bottle of bourbon last session. There are few, and he's certainly taken a fair amount,

but there's a tremendous amount of very premium quality liquors, whatever you might desire. So while I'm milk crate, that's empty and waiting. Yes. So with the crate, I would begin to fill the crate with things that are very much low tier.

I'm going for the cheap stuff. I'm going for the cheap stuff for the crate. When there is one spot left in the crate, I find something that is need to hide here. And I grab it. And I put it in the crate.

You look for the dustiest bottle, let's say. Why do you make an investigation check? I would love to, because I am a feeling this will be relevant. There's a chest that the captain told you about, and you are able to find what appear to be costumes, and the two of you are sorting through those. You find a few rough pamphlets, literally scripts with parts and lines and dialogue, scenes,

the ability to actually tell a story from in a theatrical manner, if you want to leap through them. I get a 13 for investigation. You get a 13 for your investigation. Looking up, looking up, looking up, looking up, dusty, dusty. And then you see in the very bottom right corner peeking out from one of these cubicles,

Red Spider. Red Spider bourbon. And it's untouched. It looks like it's probably been here for years. And looking at the bottle, you can tell from the quality of the glasswork, and the nature of the label, this has probably got to be some pretty heavy stuff. So I find that, and again, because I don't want to take his best stuff. I want something, you know, I want a bunch of low-tier stuff and something that's mid to high-tier.

Do I find something another bottle that's equivalent to it, the same bottle, something? Yeah, I would say any of the top row of runs. I'm trying to remember if we, it's a thousand years in the past, never mind. I'm not going to fuck with the timeline in the chronological. worker. I was thinking of whatever. The point is, you grab a rum that's very evidently

like a mid-tier and you're able to find that. I take the spider and I pocket it and then that last space I put the one that is the last space, the one that's also mid to high tier. So there's a nice collection of low-tier stuff. Because I wanted to look

like to the captain that I didn't absolutely raid his shit but I had something nice there for the crow. Okay, okay, you do that, and shivering, you were able to clink the bottle down into the milk crate. What are you both finding? I flip through a script and go, hmm. Let's do this one. You've leafed through what appears to be about a friendly giant who makes friends with, in almost fairy tale-like manner,

friends with the local townspeople of some fantastical. That one's about Mr. Yorne. I'm gonna say. I'm gonna just grab the entire box and I'll just heave all of the costumes, like as many like chests as I need to and carry it down. You're able to pull up one of the chests and you have tremendous strengths,

but it does look like it's gonna require a second trip in order to get both of the chests, this one being as heavy as it is. Those are my orders. We would be able to take it together? You'd be able to. Yeah, you can absolutely help. And I would make it.

a strength check of advantage. I can do that. That's where I'm a liking. All right, well, you gentlemen are taking the scripts and the stuff back downstairs. I'll wait for you here while it's nice and warm, and then Tai Shen, make sure you come back and grab this liquor.

Yes, sir. You're in charge. 14. The sound of thunder once again emanates, and you can see the clouds, these swirling masses of It's dark and stormy.

Very literally, even through the snow, you can see the crashes of light, and the two of you are able to make your way back down to the ship interior, leaving scrimmed behind in the captain's quarter. You're got me part of those shutters. I think you put Mr. Stavis coach in charge, and I'm sure he's doing a bang-up job.

Thank you, thank you. Yes, this is exactly what I asked for. Are you able to go back upstairs and get the second chest? We'll need the full set if we're going to put on the friendly giant. Yes, Captain, right away. We'll go right back upstairs. We have to get scrimm anyway. Thank you, thank you.

And then would you be able to take the chest yourself, Barnabos, I think you need to get started on, actually, should it be... Barnabos, why don't you go upstairs? We need some tea for the liquor. We can make some hot toddies for everybody. I'll go upstairs. I'll eat captain. If this is what you think we should...

dew being ice bound, perhaps having to winter here. We're not wintering here. At the southernmost point in the entire world, perhaps. Just keep your comments to yourself, please. Everybody, don't listen to Barnabot says it's going to be fine. I was going to have an extra helping of salt beef tonight, but I suppose I'll just have mutton, And then we'll go, I'll leave.

I'll lean down to Queenie, and I'll say, I don't believe this voyage will come to completion. Nah, I had a feeling when that guy took off with the wiener boat. We were fucked. It's going to make a perception attack for me. Love to. Come on. Oh, natural one.

So I got a perception? I got a five. There's another strike of lightning. The shadows are moving all around in the small quarter where there's effectively almost no light without a lantern or anything. You're only able to see the shadows bounce back and forth through the open doorway out into the exterior of this terrible storm. Barnabas, as you start to make your way up, you are able to push through your natural Triton resistance being able to very heartily. handle this situation, and you were able to make your way up

and you find scrimm there, waiting and shivering for you. I'm in the captain's chair behind his desk, playing with his instruments. You can... Yeah, I like to play with his instrument. You can only see his head. I'm fucking with a sexton.

I'm looking through the looking glass, the whatever you call, the spyglass. And I'm just waiting, enjoying the warmth, not being outside. The door's floor. slams open and immediately a flurry of snow comes in, it slams behind it, and you can see the Barnabas now is not with you.

Bonapest, you scared me. Come on in. No, well, actually, well, no, yeah, don't comment in, but grab that and I will follow you back downstairs. Can you bring all of the bowls on your own? I mean, I was put in charge. I don't feel like I should have to. Only a third trip.

I'll drive on the second chest. Very good, Bonobos, and I go back to live. and the spy glass and I like wave at him. You both need to make a perception check. As you are outside Barnabos and you would advantage using a look glass. Oh, okay. I wasn't really looking at anything in particular,

but you're looking at the window, I would have seen. Yeah, I'm just messing with shit. Oh, much better. Perception? 18. 18. 19. 19.

19. For the sound of thunder against once again roll. As you're looking through the looking glass, you see the same thing that Barnabon does, you're just glancing up and happen to be looking as you approach the stairwell, what appears to be backlit by a single beam of lightning, some sort of curved creature, some sort of massive winged creature with a huge long tail stretching out and a huge crested thorny head, and then it disappears into the storm.

As soon as the lightning strikes, you see that shape for but a moment before, you see only again darkness. storm, snow. Bonobos. Bonobus. Bono us. Come back. Bonobus.

And I'm gonna go, I'm gonna drop the chest. It's like, we need to get down below jet right now. No, no, no, no. Don't leave me. I don't know. What was that? Did you see it? Oh, you don't know.

It was a big B. C. Let's go now, Mr. Stammoscotch. Oh, God. And I grab the, uh, the crate of liquor, which is almost as big as me. And I'm waddling. And I'll grab the chest. After I get scrim and I see that he's coming. I'm going to all pick up the chest. I am terrified.

And I'm... Monster! Sea Monster! You, you, all of you, hear this sound from all directions. You can hear the screaming of Barnabos and Scrim from the top side of the deck. It's hard to hear them over the storm,

but you hear Sea Monster. You hear the waddling of steps as soon as they both make their way down to the stairs and you're all underneath. What are you guys doing? As the play already started? I would like, I don't know, I would cower. I would find a place to hide.

Make a quick nextarity check for me. Not good. I think it's only like a seven or an eight. Eight. I would say at the bottom rung, the wetness, the slickness gets to you and you actually fall forward and the crate lands with a cratch. Number of the bottles inside survive, but some of them crack, and bourbon immediately splashes out in all direction.

How about the one that I stashed? Does roll a V-20 for me. No, no. Oh, God. If this breaks, I'm going to be so mad. I mean, Scrim's going to be so mad at five. Five, it breaks, yeah. I'm so true of Bourbon.

But nobody knows because the King Perlian side. You're covered in very premium. 25-year-old, whatever. How does being wet affect him in this frozen country? He's in trouble. being as wet as he is. He goes into the bone, but you can feel that starting to get

in through your clothing. I only have fire spells. Your father. The captain runs up. What, what is it? You don't have panicked. There's a B.C. up there. Out in the storm. We need to get a battle station.

Are you putting me on? There's a joke. No, no. It had wings and a tail, and it was horrific looking. I don't know. I'm not seen anything like it. Do I recognize, do I know what it would have been? Make a nature check.

That dye has not been helping. Oh, nature, actually, that's not too bad. 18. With an 18, you know that this land is called Trachar, and you know that for a continent with its reputation, that sea monsters might not be the most applicable thing. A waning creature, it's hard to judge the size in just a flash of just an instant,

but this could be a wyvern. This could be a dragon. This could be a great worm of some kind. There's no way of saying, but it is unusual that it is coming with the storm. I'll think back to what I saw, and I'll look at the captain and I'll say, You're be dragons.

You brought us to our doom. That's not how it's supposed to go. I... We're dragons, you say. We saw it. You saw it, didn't you, Mr. Sabascot? I don't know what I saw, but wings in a tail, and it was frightening. And I even had a drop. We know what I seen in the storm.

I haven't had a drop either. Don't look to me like that. It was broken. I broke the bottles. I slipped. Damn it. All right, everybody just wait here. I'm going up. Captain stomps up the stairs, leaving you to your devices for a moment. Are we there too? Yeah. I don't know. I would be like kind of emptying out my blankets of broken bottle like shards and

then I would like try to count how many were broken and then like pocket another one. You know how when you have pockets on a bathing suit and you get out of the water and there's like literally those bolts and you like squeeze them I would like try to empty myself out and steal another bottle and be absolutely cursing myself under my breath that I broke the good shit. Make a fight of a hand check. I don't think we should be letting the caton go alone into the storm with a dragon flying around. Are you sure it was a dragon? I'd not entirely. Describe it to me in detail, please.

24. You see the end of Corliss try to reach for the bottle, but you're able to squeeze it away at the last second. You fucked it, dude. And I stashed the bottle, and then I'm like, what do you mean go for the captain? No, we should stay below decade. You saw the signs of that thing. We don't care. I have seen sea servants in all sorts of stuff.

see bases. This was flowing. It was, and I describe in detail to Yornear, what I saw. And I presume it looks somewhat draconic. I probably not seen this exact type. I may have seen perhaps a bronze dragon at some point, you know, decades ago, perhaps, the most. There's the silhouette that he described, this shape. It being bat-clim by the lightning strike as it was. A massive winged creature with a long, barbed tail, a thorny head, this very specific chin lined with what looks like spines almost. He describes it with surprising accuracy. Does it look like any kind, like presumably I probably at least seen even far off some type of white dragon or dragon type thing, given

where I'm from. Does it sound like that or does it sound like anything else I might think of? Does it resemble like a penguin? Make a nature check both of you and you an advantage. Would you a disadvantage? Would anything, would his description spark anything for me? You have a tremendous amount of experience with Dragonborn and with Dragon. So when you hear this description, some of the features sound off, but you know that there are varieties and there are parts of his description that feel right to you.

But you also have great trust in Barnabon's both. The Six, it sounds kind of like a penguin. With a 20? I would say that if you haven't experienced in your long life a white dragon, that you are aware that these dragons exist, and you have heard from other people, perhaps in your circle or perhaps in your travels, in lengthy descriptions, that is exactly what it sounds like Barnabon's describing.

This is a white dragon. You know, I'm not so sure that I heard that there were some real fierce, penguins down here in your car? You must be kidding. I'm not kidding. I promise you that is not a penguin. Well, penguins have wings? It was flying.

Penguins can fly? No, they cannot. Well, see, he doesn't know shit about penguins. Mr. Feuerblossom, is this a friend of yours? That's very possible. I've got a great track record with dragons. So far, I'm one for one. Wait, wait, wait.

So knowing that this might possibly be an actual real dragon, you're still suggesting that we do something, because all I have is a knife. What are we going to do icebound here? That's my question. Had to land on the deck and just tear us open like a can of sardines? I don't even think penguins eat humanoid creatures

so we're probably fine. Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. The captain comes back down pale white. He somehow sweating from the cold water, from the cold outside. He, he, I was afraid of that.

He falls back against the stairs. There's something out there. I know. We can be. beast. You say it was a dragon? No, to penguin. This is a white dragon.

There's a car and penguin. Do I know the dragons are, that chromatic dragons are evil? That's a setting question that I would actually turn to Mikey for input on. Chromatic versus metallic dragons. Is that a known thing? People who would know of dragons would probably know that. So I would say probably Taishen and if you were near his experience with white dragons, would probably know that.

You've also heard. of what terrific hunters they make and how territorial they are. So very much, you would probably guess that chromatic dragon being what it is, probably is at best and neutral. But this thing intends us harm, I have no doubt. I don't know. Penguins really aren't quite so vicious as people think. Oh, oh my goodness.

Captain, at the end of the ship, somebody needs your help if you want to go check. There's a thing that's happening. Go captain. Please. No, look, quick. Clark, quirk. Har? No, no, I'm saying with the crew,

they need your help down there, it's fine. Make a deception check. The thing! Oh, natural 20, my deception is 26. You gotta give it up. Confused and alarmed. The captain turns and just like sprints in the other direction away from the stair,

getting as far away from the opening of this surface as possible. and in runs to the crew. They're all immediately starting to engage with him in questions. You're like, what's needed? What's happening? You can hear that voice. Oh, no, Scram. What's happening?

Should we go out of? No, absolutely not. Listen to me very closely. We don't have much time. If this is really what you say that it is, then we don't have a shot. But if we can somehow traverse the ice flows and get to land, we can get out of here.

The egg will be gone. Our sentences will be gone. We don't have to worry about anything. And we can take refuge on the island. And this whole boat will be out. Absolutely obliterated, but some horrible dragon bud won't be our problem any longer. So, wait, you're saying that you think that penguin's more likely to attack the ship than the five of us walking around on ice flows in the same rough general area?

I do. After being around up top on deck, it was much, much, much too dark. There's no way. I mean, we could escape. We could slip away. It wouldn't be that hot. But I don't want to sit here like a sitting duck. It hasn't attacked us yet.

What's to send? What's that? You hear for the first time this terrifying, deep, gutteral roar explode out into the sky, echo through the atmosphere and almost shake the very ship itself. No, no, we can't stay here.

Please, I trust your honor. We have to go. I'm going to get my arpoons. No, but I think it's every man for himself at this point. We could try to talk to it. Maybe it just wants directions or something. Maybe. What?

We tow us out of the ice-bound situation. We could hoax a situation up to him, and the dragon could take us out of the ice. Oh, sweet gods, and I ditch my absolutely bourbon, liquor-soaked blankets, and I try to peek up on deck to see if there is a way out of this ship. Okay, make a prescription check. Because I'm fuck this. I'm out. I will be back.

15. You guys making your way to lower deck to do whatever you need. go with you if I want to live. You peak up and the absolute torrent of ice makes it impossible to see anything beyond the railings of the surface. It is almost a

white out where you can barely see five feet in front of you because of the tremendous amount of ice and snow that is now blasting down. Get to the winner boat. I go into the surgery room and I grab, I

harness myself with the mammoth tus and I grab my walking stick and I will come back out and I will say, I believe we either need to run or kill it. Kill it seems hasty. Well, I don't think we can. And then I think running is the only way and I took a peek and I couldn't see anything. So if the jolly boat is ready, we have to take it. We only got like 25% finished on that way to row.

And then I nailed it straight through my hand. Wait, Mr. Yornear. Speaking of which, that nail's steel in my hand. Yornear, can you get this out? It will hurt. That smarts like the dickens, fuck. The captain, having settled his crew somewhat, though, you can hear some shouts of, no coin is worth him.

This amount of, you can hear that they're upset too. They're panicked. He runs up to you. All right. A dragon. Penguin. I think I have a plan. Okay, tell me the plan.

if what I saw is true and you all saw two. No? Two of you. Oh, yeah. Of course. Yes, Kathleen. We need an offering. We need to give it something.

Something that is to send it away. It's probably the reason for this whole storm. It's probably the reason why we're stuck on the ice the way that we are. All it needs to do is go away. Right. And then we'll be free. Okay. So your plan is for us to gather an offering.

So you're telling me that a penguin, for the sake of this argument, a dragon, unlikely, caught us in this storm, trapped us here. We're supposed to give it some kind of, like, treasure or something, and it's just going to leave. It's not going to then see that as I can just keep trapping them in storms and getting special treasures. Dragons, dragons have hordes. They care about gold. Just like me. Right.

Just like me. So Queenie makes a very good point, and I think that if you like us, we, we, we, here's help you, right? That's why you hired us, right? We are, we are your champions. Yes, you're going to solve problems. Exactly. So if you continue to, to work the men and work the men for money, you know what I mean, gather as much gold as you can, we'll do the same. We'll see if there's any treasure above deck and see what we can do and split up divide and conquer. Does that sound good? You, no, where, wait, were there the trinkets? Yes, of course. I mean, it's, it's, have you not seen what's in the fucking?

barrel? Fish? Fish. Red heron? Are you hiding more gold than those barrels that you didn't tell us about, Captain? Burrows had 50,000 gold pieces in them. Then let us give these barrels upstairs. So then, yes, work with the crew to get the barrels. At least some of them. You don't have to give them all. The dragon doesn't know. I mean, at this point, you ain't winning that race, so you might as well get rid of it anyway. It's not my goal to give. It's all loan. It's all for trade goods. It's all for, but we have to. Would you rather be debt? If you're dead, you can't pay back that loan anyway, so you might as well put the gold upstairs. Right.

So work with the crew, grab the barrels. We'll go upstairs and see what we can gather and work with and do what we can. Does that sound reasonable? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What do you think? Two barrels, one for each claw? Yeah? Maybe a couple more, maybe two for each claw, just to be safe.

Two barrels, though? Yes, I think so. Two, two. Two. Go get them. Go get them. We are running out of time. We need to get the fuck out of here.

I am stalling the best that I can. have to go. Do I have a sense of, based on what I know about dragons and what they describe and what I'm hearing, that it's anything that we could possibly kill or stop, or do I feel like its power be so unstoppable that we have no chance of light defeat? Make an intelligence check. That's going to be wisdom. Straight wisdom? Yeah. 12. 12. With a 12, you know that the The size of the dragon will indicate its abilities, not just in its attitude, intelligence, and mental capacity, but certainly its powers. Magical power increases like a hockey stick when it comes to the age of a given dragon.

If it's a small dragon or a medium-sized dragon, then maybe you got a chance. You guys are magic users. Why not? You've taken the invisible cat monsters and whatnot. If it's a larger dragon, something that is truly gargantuan or colossal on scale, then there would be no chance they would be able to tear this place apart like Piper Mache. I need to see the beast. And I'm gonna just start hobbling up the stairs.

No, no, Your Honor, please. I mean, we have to go up there anyway. We have to get out of here. Please follow your owner. This captain is an utter fool, and we have to escape. There's no, there's no hope. I don't know. I don't feel right leaving all these kind folk to just die with you.

without our help. Please, please, follow me. And I'm gonna try to pull you towards Gornier's. You don't have to pull me, I can walk with my own two legs. Shaved legs. Oh, the hair's grown back. I'm right. It's like Homer's beard.

It just, like, it pops into existence. You shaved your legs. No wonder we're in this. Bad up to kill a sea bird! And I'm gonna grab all my harpoons and my anchor and fall and go up. Yes, and if you, So if you had left anything in your quarters and you feel the need to go and grab that stuff,

then you go do that. I leave my leather armor. Yornear, the weight of the two mammoths tusks on your back feels familiar and comfortable. And confidently you start to stride up to the top of the stick with your walking stick and toe. You're immediately smashed by the elements. I need you to make a constitution saving throw. I'm right behind you. Oh, yeah, no.

That's why. Kahn, you say? Yep. That is an 18. With an 18. You were a hearty. And I would say that with your attire, if you would put on all of your things,

you probably would have pretty climate-appropriate gear. And so even though you're hit by the chill, it takes you a moment for you to remember what it's like in Mammut and you are able to continue forward. What are you doing? I'm just going to go sort of in the middle of the top deck. of the top deck, and I'm just gonna start looking through the snow and the storm

and see if I can get any sight of this dragon. Make a perception check. Oh, that's pretty fucking good. Let's go. He, he, he, he, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. I see. That spells, not skills.

They both start with this. I see, we. I'll see. That's words to reckon. Skills? 25. 25. Five.

You look and getting closer now, seemingly circling just above you, you see the bottom of this colossal dragon. This huge thing. It is a mere 150 feet, 200 feet above you, and you know that it would be able to swoop down easily if it so chose. This is huge barbed claws. A chin lined with spines, as I said, a high crest atop its skull. Huge musculature, and it's swimming through the air like it's nothing in the context of this storm, lightning and thunder storming all around, and a great cyclone seemingly centered on this very ship. And it looks like a white dragon?

It looks like it is a white dragon. Okay, it's a white dragon. Seeing the size, you're with a 25 yet. I will go back below deck. No one's following me yet. There is no hope of defeating such a thing. to try the captain's gambit, but if it does not work, I believe

I will scream. Please. We make it to the mainland, and we escape. Thank you. Thank you. Please. The captain is a fool. He doesn't know what he's talking about. We have to run. I mean this. It's for our lives. Queenie, how much have you picked up of carpentry in the past several days? I don't know, about 25%. If we can fashion that boat into a sled. Then can you turn into a moose and fasten it?

Use it for travel, overline travel. Very easily. I'm pretty good at leather working. So you got some hide. I can make the belts and traps and stuff. I can't believe I'm gonna say this, but you can put me to work. The captain rolls up and you can see that they're now rolling

these barrels. Just in the back, there's a pile of red herring fish which were layered on top of the mountains of gold that is in these barrels. that's thrown out. And they're rolling them in with their great strength, heaving them up and starting to make their way towards the ladder

to get them top side. I give them like a thumbs up and a very big smile like you're doing the right thing. Grab one. Yes, of course. We're right behind you. Queenie, what are we having to do to dreshing this into a sled? Well, we're going to have to work that wood. We're going to have

to make some straps and hopefully the guy of the world sees fit to allow me to do with my hands. And so I'm going to attempt to start turning what was our weiner boat into a sled. Oh, okay. And one of my background things is that I'm a leather worker, so. Okay. And what is very similar to leather working?

Well, I just mean for the strap purposes. What you come downstairs to, and I would say that it wasn't on this particular floor, the one just underneath the top deck, you would have to go a deck lower to where the actual construction was taking place. Yeah, the we're going to come down to that and you think of that. and you think about what you and Ellis have been working on. This is a frame. It would require additional boards and additional pieces to actually make even a floor

of this shape that looks like a jolly boat, but the outline or wireframe of one. Okay. Okay. The men are starting to make their way up. You hear this great roar. You hear this sound getting louder and closer, and there's this sickening,

jolt as you're all pushed up from the floor as you can feel that something has landed on the surface of this ship and the crunching, splintering sound even exceeds the howling wind that surrounds you. What are you all doing?

I don't have shit my pants. Do we get the sense that we could like quickly fastens like the shit, the any wood into some kind of overland sled? A couple pieces of wood. I don't know if that anything that we can do with this amount of time. At this point, you're reacting minute to minute.

In a panic, your direction is trying to come up with a plan. You can see other crewmates, their own clicks, are talking hurriedly, having the same kinds of conversations. I try to think about how to judge what it would look like to turn this frame into a sled. So help me out a little bit. So, I mean, I guess we don't need that much as far as, like, just getting basically two. I see. There's like, if 25% of the boat is done and it's just the hull, we can, like, sit in an unfinished

hull. So as long as there's something underneath of it to ride against the snow. Yeah. So what I'm thinking is, like, almost just like two, basically, if there's, if there's curve like wood, basically two of them, and then just some across the top. And, like, just, it's some kind of very. fashion that could be then strapped to a moose. So if you've seen the TV series

on AMC, The Terror, they have these big sledges, is what they're called, where it's basically, they're more or less these sort of big rowboats or jerry boats or whatever else, with these two long skis, sort of. And they, you know, and they pull them in the show. Yeah, so what would be...

You'd be building the boat on top of, like, wooden horses, right? Wouldn't just be on the freaking, like, ground. It'd be, like, elevated on, like, wooden holds. be on top of something I mean, I had very good at making boats so it's the first time I ever did it.

It's on the ground. You see that the materials are there and you have an image of the idea in your mind of what it would take, but the unfinished nature of the boat being what it is you need time. I think the answer to this question is no, we got to go kill that dragon.

There's no way we're going to kill it. Well, then I guess we're going to die. No, we need to offer it barrels of gold like the captain suggested. Well, then let's do that. I thought we were going to do that anyway. Well, I mean, that's a distraction tactic so that we could jump overboard and make a run for it.

To be honest with you. I suggest we have the captain make the offer and we stay below deck. Oh, sweet. You turn and you can see that there are four crewmates, and they've both got two barrels between them, carrying as hard as they can trying to lift. Okay, lads, I'll help you.

He put your backs into it, and I will help them move the barrels. You run up and you basically like underarm one of the barrels and nearly carry all three up in one direction. I need to make a strength check for me. God, that's terrible. A straight, that'll be a 12. 12 is enough. You are able to get the barrel up much faster than they would have about you, shoving it from the bottom and pulling yourself up top side.

You can see at the bow. Immediately as soon as you press the surface, the broad, of this ice dragon, flapping, seemingly directing this typhoon of ice and snow in all directions. It's glowing white eyes, looking down at you through the dark, cold blue air like smoke, screaming out of its mouth, ready to perhaps use its great terrible roar again,

and it is watching and waiting like some sort of terrible predator. I'll just throw the barrel up there, hopefully it'll crash and scatter the gold, I guess I'm fish across the deck. You can push it, and because the dragon is standing on the pound, the actual angle is just right in order for it to start rolling forward and it smashes into the other side of the ship

but does not break against the railing. The second barrel is just up behind you. You need to get out of the way and up onto the top side of this deck in order to get out of the way. I guess I'll do that. You scamper down and you see the other barrel and it also rolls forward and crashes against the railing.

What are the four of you guys doing? Oh, I mean, I'm hiding below deck and still trying to convince the rest of the gang to jump ship and bail. I mean, that would be all I would be trying to hide. I'm not going up. Okay. Um, I would...

Are you still topside? No, you came down. I came down to look and know that there's no chance of killing it. Um, I guess I would try to... And there's no... Like, we wouldn't need more than like a few minutes to finish the boat, right? We would need an hour. We would need an hour.

Yeah, I would just be waiting... You'd turn the frame of a boat into a flight. Right. I would be waiting to see what the result of the offer might be. I would just be sort of sitting there quietly. Like, you're all on your, nothing. I think I'd be like, the similar kind of thing, I'd wanna see like how it's going,

but I think I'd try and be like on, like if there's steps up to the opening of the deck, I'd try and be poised to like, you know, just look out at the situation. You see the second barrel go up and these crewmates terrified out of their minds, drop down and immediately race away. So you're free to look up the ladder

and kind of peek at the deck, knowing Barnabose is up there as well. Do you do that? Yeah. Sure. Okay. You peek up and you can see the rolling barrel land directly next to the other one. And in this swirling typhoon of ice and snow, you see the dragon lift off of the surface of this ship. And it rolls and trembles and writes itself just a little bit on the ice that you find yourself on now. And it puts down a claw and grabs one barrel, puts down a second claw, grabs the second barrel.

and seems to take a great deep intake of breath before pushing and pushing and flapping and finding its way back into the current of the storm and disappearing almost instantaneously as if it were nothing. It's the speed like you've never seen before. Barnabot, you witness all of this. And you still see and hear lightning and thunder all around,

but you do not hear a roar. You do not hear anything for a moment. The only thing around you is this, cold Arctic storm. I think that works. Captain! It does seem to mean

that we can't stay here now, though. It knows we're here. We can't just weather on the ice. Get back down here. Bonobus, get down. I'll head back down, blow it down. We don't know if it's gone. Did you see it fly away?

Did you see it down? I did. It took two barrels and flew off with his joint fucking wings. Took the barrels. Its layer could be miles from here. Miles. We could have all the time in the world. Of course. Well, of course. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine. We need to abandon ship,

Captain. I mean, we were all thinking it. He just said it. We can't leave the ship. We're in the middle of a channel in the middle of nowhere. We don't have the tire. Where are we going to go? Well, if we stay here,

we're a sitting duck on this ice. And then once it comes back and we're out of gold, then what? Sacrifice the crew, and then once all the crew's gone, then what happens to you? We have time to think. We have time to think about this now. We have time to come up with another plan. You have more barrels of gold if it is needed, yes? There are eight total. There's six now.

All right, well, we do have time to wait out this storm and wait for favorable conditions. If the dragon comes back, we still have more barrels of gold to give. And I would say that you do not hear another roar. I would say that the evening starts to progress and tension starts to reduce. Your heart starts pumping a little slower. There, storm still rages, rages outside, but a calm for lack of a better word,

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There are many who grab what bottles didn't break and share them amongst themselves. The fires keep you warm, and the shelter that you find yourself in prevents the extreme hold from cold from truly creeping in, and you all enjoy a long rest. Oh, wow. Yay. I would make the extra salt beef, like I said. Because it refreshed my mind of the rules, at least in D&D beyond, it says to recover from a level of exhaustion and eat food drink. That is correct.

So are we good? Yeah, you recover. There's plenty. Beautiful. I would have definitely made a little bit extra food and, you know, and given out extra portions. in the morning there's a great amount of trepidation

about leaving this slower deck leaving the comfort of the quarters that are there and leaving the shelter that is there but starting to peek out and up the five of you, the captain the crewmates start to make your way to the surface of the ship to see what there is to be seen

and the it's still relatively, hazy, but it's actually quite clear. The storm seems to have passed with the ice dragon, this white dragon, presence having gone, perhaps accepting the offering as per the captain's idea. And you're able to see farther than you've seen since, well, it's been days, actually. You can see that you're in the center of this great channel, this flat ice in all direction.

Now perfectly smooth, except for a few wrinkles here and there where ice flows may have crashed into each other. It's now very still. The surface of the ship is covered in many inches of snow, and you can see that there's damage at the bow where the two great claws had dug into the railing. But all is quiet. All is actually almost peaceful and serene. To the north, you can see the southwest edge of Dracar, this great cliff face.

And there's almost like a glacier flow coming down to where the water would be if it were not frozen in the way that it is. And you can see, very far off, a small island to the south of Draccair. are, not that far away from what you can tell and you can see that there's a structure there. Some small tower, for lack of a better word, some sort of a tall shape jutting out from the white curvature of what appears to be a hill or a mound or a mountain or something along those lines. It's hard to quite see it at the very horizon, but you're able to perceive all of these things quite clearly the visibility having been restored overnight during your long rest.

Yorner, I wouldn't be rabbit folk if I weren't one to admit when I was wrong. I don't think that was a penguin. I think you might have been right and it was dragon. I appreciate your understanding of reality. That sounded a little condescending

for someone who's telling you they were wrong. I'm just letting you know that for the future. Well, I am just saying that I insisted last night that it wasn't dragon and indeed it was, as is evident of the Dragon Claw damages. You know, I don't think I'm ever going to tell you I was wrong ever again. I think there was, in that sentence there was falling. I'm not sure I understand your meaning.

Well, if I say it enough, it must be true, I guess. That is not what I implied or stated at all. Anyways. I'll be holding my shell and I'll be staring into it and I will hold my ear up to it and maybe I'll be alone or maybe off to the side

and I'll just say my lover is this ship doomed is our fate away from the sea away from you what should I do? I keep asking you to stop calling me your lover I'm pretty sure this ship is doomed.

Are we going to talk about it? The ship is clearly doomed. Is there any sign of the ice melting at all? It is actually a bit warmer. You're not feeling the absolute extreme cold that you felt before. It's still extremely cold. Those of you with blankets are pulling them as tight as you as can be, and all of the blankets are surrounding the crew members at this point.

but it's not nearly warm enough for snow to melt or for ice to melt without some sort of additional crushing you know like if another ice flow were to slam into this perhaps it would break up but it's not going to be out of natural warmth that the Europe ship is free this could be a long wait for the ship to become free Perhaps the island with the structure is the direction we are sailing anyways. Perhaps we propose to the captain that we set that on foot, on the ice, investigate the tower, and use that as an excuse perhaps to abandon the ship. Thank you! That's what I've been saying for however long I've been saying. this for we can get the hell out of here we don't have to stay we don't want to

abandon all these good men yeah I'm with Barnabuse on this one I don't feel like it's right to travel with them and feed them and clean up after them well there might be resources in that outpost can we not take them with us that far well that's what I was thinking is maybe there's a way we can make a ascendant or something from that place What? Ascendant. A what?

Ascendin. What? Ascendin. Oh. Wait, oh, what? You know how some magical folks can do that thing where they talk with their brains? Uh-huh. It's called ascending.

No, I've never heard that. A space, sendin. Is that an apostrophe after the M? No, why. It's a G there. Ascendant. I see. I see.

I believe It can be in communication tower is what I'm saying There may be a way to do ascending I think that I agree with Queenie I don't If I get the order to abandon ship If the cat and perhaps sees reason

I don't think we're going to survive The entire winter Perhaps the entire autumn The entire winter Perhaps most of the spring to Right I ain't know I ain't know much about the seas Or sailing or whatnot

but I know that they put lighthouse things on islands. So that's what it could be, you know, and if it's at least like a stone structure or a thicker wooden structure or covered moss or something, it might be warmer than this ship. Can't be less safe. I don't mean to interrupt,

but I have to ask Bonnebos' question. Just so I understand you correctly, you're telling me that you would rather sit here and die until the captain gives you the orders to abandon ship. I'm going to yell out of the top of my lungs. Hey, Captain! Captain, we got a question for you. He's close to the bow,

and you can see that he's comforting Ellis, who's evaluating the damage to the rails and to the hull of the top deck of the ship. And he hears you and gives you a one moment, and then walks... I nod and then wait for Barnabox to answer true. Down from the bow, starts to make his way down to the ship.

there's passing Fenton who's, you know, cradling his cat. Keeping, keeping her calm. Much calmer circled. Is that Mr. Stonebridge? Or Mr. Garside? That's Mr. Or neither. That's Fenton.

In a moment. I have three names written down. Fenton's the sous chef, right? Armstead, the Bosen. In charge of able men when the captain isn't around. He's been unbelievably quiet, given his particular nature. and the cabin boy, who you know as Roland Stonebridge,

has been almost non-existent, hiding, certainly from the fear of last night, but is still sitting there with his journal writing from what you can tell in all directions, and the captain is approaching. I'll turn to Scrim as he asked me that question. I'll say, I think that the captain made a little,

out of his depth, but I will not abandon 12 men to die when I haven't been given the order. I'm not going to be a mutineer. I'm not going to abandon ship until I am ordered by my captain. Understood.

I have fed all these men for weeks now. I feel like we all are responsible for them. The captain finally reaches to the party and Captain, can I ask you a question? Yes.

Good, the five of us leave this ship and head on over to that island and check it out, see if there's a way to do sending? I'm coming with you. You want to leave the crew here to fend for themselves so that they start hating you? This is my responsibility. I've talked to the crew for gained a bit of my composure, and I think that it is the best plan. So Barnabos has permission to go over to that island there? We're all going. I want the five of us, the six of us, to.

five of you to join me. There's six of us to make that day-long journey, walk those many miles, and talk to whoever is there, and see if we can get provisions for a long winter, or some tool or some knowledge that may, I've asked the men to stay here and offer additional offerings should the creature return. All right, I'll, if you don't mind, making this call, Captain. I'd like to make Mr. Stonebridge cook while I'm gone.

I think that's a fair idea. Yes, absolutely. We can trust Stonebridge. I would trust him with my own life, absolutely. All right, he spent enough time in the gallery to learn a thing or two. Well, if we're going to be appointing people, I would like to make Mr. Coombs

head of this boat-making, whatever. That's the same role that he had before, but yes, yes, absolutely. Debate, but it's fine. You can see that the captain is already ready to go, and if the five of you have no more business on the ship, the overland travel game will begin. I'm ready to get the fuck out.

I'm ready. Am I misremembering, or can somebody tell the weather for the next, like, 24 hours? Not me. Not this couple. I think that only... I think I can. If you're gonna your cab... I think no.

We don't... I have a big anchor and I hit things with that anchor, Mr. Follier Blossop. I think it do... I feel like at the very beginning of voyage, somebody... Oh, that's right. Like, like... Oh, you think we were to do recall that. Mr. Flair Blossom.

There's been a lot of storms. There's been a lot of storms... There's been a lot of storms about us, assailing us. Yonair, can you... predict what the weather will be like as we make our way to that journey if it's a day's trek to that tower. So I see that my walking stick doesn't have that ability. I believe Druid craft as one of its features.

Oh, is it true? Oh, you know what? Has the ability to reproduce weather and look for 24 hours into the future. Oh, you're right. I played a Druid for many years and I did not know that. Did not know that. I just made it flowers grow. So.

You're right. Thank you for reminding me. I will turn my hand over, and then... Oh, I do not have mistletoe. I am sorry. A tiny harmless censoring effect that predicts the weather. But the weather will be at my location for the next 24 hours. In fact, my manifest is a golden orb of clear skies, a cloud for rain,

falling snowflakes for snow, and so on. This effect persists for one round. Or it might just be like a giant middle finger. A dragon abuse in your bum. Save for some extreme magical consequence, I would say that that is an extremely accurate prediction. You are able to produce this, almost like an orb that floats above your hand

and like a mini, again with the forgetting of words when you're in a year. Sun, eyes? No, no, no. Sun dog. Feet. What is the, that's terrible. Sphere. Snow, egg, ducks. No, what is a contained ecosystem?

system, like a microcosm? A Dyson sphere. A Dyson sphere. Thank you. So you create a small Dyson sphere. It's far by the sun that reduces unlimited energy. Biodome. Looking into this dome, Stur and it's going to be cloudy, spotted,

and it's going to remain the same amount of chill. The surface of the globe remains something icy, but not the same extreme cold or storm that you experienced in the last 24-hour circle. last 24 hours, certainly. That is what happens for a round, it persists. The weather seems fair here at this location. The island is not that far, so I believe the weather will hold. We should go as quickly as possible to use as much daylight as we can. I agree. I've got set off. I've had the men put down some planks here, and we can make our way off the ship. It's going to be a little weird. It's been almost

two months, but we're going to walk on land again. Well, ice flow. Yes, but you are here to help me solve problems. We're going to do this. All right? Yes, lead the way. Welcome. And with cheerful optimism and confidence, he makes his way down these makeshift, this ramp that's off the side of the ship and gingerly steps on to the ice. And for a moment, it's a little slippery, but mechanical. I wouldn't consider it difficult to rain. The five of you make it to the surface of this icy channel,

and you start to make your way across this great space towards this tower. Time passes. Hours go by. You're walking sometimes in silent, sometimes in conversation, sometimes talking to each other. The captain is unusually quiet.

You remember being extremely talkative throughout the entire journey. He seems to understand the seriousness of the situation. He's feeling the weight of captain's responsibility on his shoulders, leaving him alone. The entire day passes when you are able to travel at a pretty fast pace set by the

captain. A full 18 miles you walk, getting much closer. But only 60% of the way there. And as you're getting closer, you can see that this structure is surrounded by like a mound of

Earth, it's hard to tell. There's gray matter that's sort of shooting up in these tall spires just around the base of this tall column. And you can see very geometric shape in the earth. It's perfectly flat

seemingly at the top, unlike any tower you've ever seen. And both sides seem to curve down. Not out like one might expect if it were something like a light tower, but vertical in the extreme. You make camp. How do you go about the purposes of making camp?

I will say also, for the purposes of this, if you wanted to take food with you, you could fill up your inventory. The captain would have had a bag of firewood and those kinds of things with him. He's carrying his own weapons. You reach a point where there's not enough daylight to progress safely, and you're all exhausted.

Not in the exhaustion sense. but tired from the day's walk. I personally would have filled up. I would keep what I normally have from the beginning of the campaign, but would fill up the extra space from ditching my leather armor with rations. I do not know how much that would be. I'll have to figure that out. But yeah, I mean, I would keep all the things that I have.

Okay. And I would, you know, just load up on rations. Our armor when we... Three slots, so you could do three more slots of rations. Is it one to one? I trust you. I just do I didn't... Yeah, each ration is one slot.

Each day of rations. So then I would be up to five days of rations, total. Then I'm going to do that. I'm going to add that. I appreciate it. Thank you, Nikki. I don't know that because I just had to deal with it. I would approach Tyshan as we're setting up camp.

Yes. And I will say, Mr. Fireblossom, How long do you think it would take you to get a hole in the ice? Oh. How thick does the ice look? You have no way of knowing how thick the ice is. I think probably ten minutes. Easy.

I will lift a harpoon that will have a rope fastened around it, and I'll say, well, I'm not feeling very tired. Maybe I can rustle us up some supper. Well, let's see what I can do about. making you some space here. I mean, I suppose I would just repeatedly shoot firebolts into the ice ground and see if I can...

It'll be like Zucco and Agnacod. You can do that as much to what? I definitely want like, you know, a northern chowling stance. I stomp into the ground. My talons hook into the ice. Sure, sure. six times every minute.

Ten times every minute. 10 times every minute. Really really striking into that. Firebolt doesn't do much to this ice. This is slower ice than the ice that you are initially ice bound. So you can tell that it's going to be perhaps more than 10 minutes in order to even start to make your weight through this ice,

six inches, 12 inches, two feet deep. You're still making your way in, and it's sloshing now with melted water at the bottom of this hole, this gap that you're starting to create and shape into the ice. You're still pushing to the extremes of your magical abilities. Even though you can do this almost in your sleep,

it's getting tiresome at 30 minutes, 40 minutes. You're starting to work your way. You can see that this is actually three, four feet deep now, and we're still not through the ice flow. continue. I may have overestimated my ability to get through this. Mr. Fireblossom, why don't you take a wrestle? I'm sorry for wasting your time. It's not a waste of time at all. Happy to... Then your energy. What are you three of you doing during this time? The captain is

making a fire and doing its very best to try and start it, but failing miserably silently in the corner. Excuse me. Excuse me. And I'll take some, some Tinder, and I'll blow into it. And you'll see I'll cast druid craft to land a small campfire. I'll see it just light, and I'll place it into the campfire. Thank you, yes. Yes, we need some warmth now. It's getting chillier now.

I would have ventured out, not too far, but with the brutal blade and cut down Tinder, kindling, and fuel. Different size amounts of wood. I'd be using my, what is to me, a machete. Yeah. To hack down kindling, Tinder, and good size you know, he brought some good

size logs to you, they're almost like tree bouts. You were able to chop them down. It would take a long time, but I wouldn't do nothing. Help get the light that the owner here started going, and then pretty soon you guys have a roaring fire. Basically, anytime I got back to camp, I would go back

out and continue to hack down. We're just on the ocean. On the ice. There's no tree. There's no trees. Oh, I'm sorry. You're using the fuel that you brought with you. I actually don't think I brought any of that. The captain brought enough for a night. Well, if that's the case, then so be it. I would be tending to the fire.

And just trying to help your fingers as much as I can. Yeah, yeah. Just chopping it down, cutting it up. Thank you. Thank you, yes. I would be, because there's an island and we're close to a landmass, I would be looking at the skies for birds. Oh, make a perception check. Kimboids.

Oh, Kim is nicest. Let me down. Oh. No. They can't all be winner. I can't all be winner. What did you say it was? It kills you. Perception?

Yeah. C. 11. Oh, it's not bad. It's actually not bad. It's terrible. Especially at level two. You take in the night sky, and it is a glitter with stars in all directions. Even though most nights in any place in adventurers would be a bright flow of stars in all directions,

of astrological map of majesty. It's very bright, brilliant down here in the southward area. And a few spotted clouds. It's amazing how quiet and silent it is here out in the middle of this frozen channel. There doesn't seem the sound of a scrock or a scream. Perhaps the birds come out more during the day. You don't see anything on the horizon,

even where it's still a little bit bright from the sunset. set, there doesn't seem to be a bird in any direction. Okay. And the campfire being what it is, let's put out the campfire. Ooh. Not put out as in like extinguished, but you understand that meaning. Place it out, show it. Reveal it.

So that we have that light on our faces. I like that. Yeah, right on the candle. You all gather up closer to the warmth and you immediately feel the temperature rise. rise. When you're this close to a warm campfire it's almost as if the temperature bends are irrelevant. It doesn't

matter that it's close to zero degrees Fahrenheit. It is warm to you because you're so close to the burning fuel of this campfire. Captain shivers a bit, but warms himself and you all start to enjoy what food

you prepare. I know the captain is that it would be a couple days to then reach, I guess, the actual land mass. So is it just nothing but a solid sheet of ice for as far as we can see either direction?

Exactly right. Okay. I mean, you can see the island. The island? Oh, sure. You can see the island in this direction more... But it's not an ice flow. It is a solid... The cliff face of Drakar to the north at this point. And it's just solid ice. What you're on is a

great expanse of flat ice. because it is a frozen, what would be water during warmer climbs. Right, right. Okay. Um, I would just take a day of rations out of my pack, and I would just kind of quietly eat it around the fire. I did the same. And I will remove that from my...

I'm gonna choose not to eat it. From inventory. He's saving her. Intermittent fasting style. Mm-hmm. I'll do the same. I will also begin to eat rations. And either prepared by Bernbos or what you find in your pack and enjoy in this way,

you're able to enjoy a full meal. I'm staying warm. You drink what's left in your water skin. Still water, unfrozen, because of the heat of your body being where it is on your person. You get close to finding yourself in a tent, the captain. and I'll take first watch. I'm a bit of an eye-dowl myself, so I'm happy to do it,

and just wake me up in the morning, and we can continue our trek. I think it's still a bit of a trek, but it's less than a day away from what I can see. I think maybe we should have two people on watch at a time. If this place is a little bit treacherous, make sure that whoever's on watch doesn't come to the cold. Well, you think it's a good idea,

March. I could start watch with you. I can easily keep the fire going. If you make more about tea, I'd be a happy partner. There's plenty more where this came from. You start to make another teapot of... Can I use the water that melted from the ice? Is that even like reasonable? It would actually be extremely easy for you to scoop up snow and trip it in and immediately expect fresh water, uh, fallen snow being what it is soon. Thank you, for your bountiful gifts. I will take snow and fill up my water skiing with it

because I've drank the last of my water so that way the heat of my body will melt it. That's smart. You've pushed down the snow until you can push no more and knowing that it'll be water the following morning, you hug it close to your body and find yourself into your knapsack.

You're really smart. I try. All right, though. I'm just really thirsty. There's any sign of creature, dragon, anything. You wake us up right away. I might try and just talk to him first, but you will wake us all

up the second you see anything. Do you understand? Okay. All right, well, I will take second watch. I'll wake you up in two hours? Four hours? I think six hours of sleep would be enough. Three hours each.

Let me find me. wait me up, what do you need me? I'll take my... I'll roll over and I'll just stare into my shell and just mutter. You feel it is whispering the truths of the universe as you enter deep slumber.

Scrim, you sleep as well. Queenie, you're near. Eventually, rest comes to you. You and the captain spend relatively quiet time. You talk perhaps a little bit about where you're from. You share a few stories.

Perhaps you've had this conversation a few times, and you're now following up after having spent two months with the man. But soon enough hours have passed that you're ready for bed, and you wake up whom? How do you make up? Your name. And who else? And Queenie.

You're near. All right. And I'll just sort of sit straight up. And I'll just kind of warm myself by the fire. Let me get Queenie to join you. Queenie. Queenie, hello? Queenie.

Now you get off me. Don't be barmin. Oh, sorry. Hey, Yornear. Oh, no, the other one. Oh, yes. You're both quite big compared to a rabbit. I thought you were a hornetode.

Get out of them. That would have been great. I had to say that. Fuck. Such as life. We're gonna cut that. It's my turn. Yes, you and your dear.

Can you make some tea for us before you go to bed? Absolutely, if you wouldn't mind cleaning my pot as you enjoy it. Sure, I'll spit, shine it. Oh. Oh. Well, maybe I'll clean it when the more. in the morning. That's okay. You just enjoy

the tea. And one last burst of warmth for you to ease your watch. Ain't you just a sweetheart? I use just like control flames to make the fire like

really, really strong. You do that. Really strong. It consumes more fuel, but it certainly makes it considerably warmer. and you are, then you make your way to your own knapsack, and as soon as your head hits the pillow, you're out. Captain was asleep almost instantly,

well before you even had that conversation. We wake and cleaning. Dornier, can I ask you a question? You may? I'm looking at you right now, but you're real tall. Do you haven't have any feathers on you anywhere? I do. Do you have one that's in good condition?

Near perfect condition. sure some of these are. Could I have one? You'll see some owl feathers kind of on my co. How many do you need? Oh, just the one. Just one. Yeah. Thank you. It makes that sound as it comes up. You don't need anything in payment like scrim dust? No, it is the least I can do.

I have many feathers. Oh, well, that's so nice of you, thanks. And I'm going to put it in my pack, right next to my lucky coin. Hopefully you have some yeast for it. Oh, heck, yes, I do. All right. I ain't going to let nothing go to waste. I've been trapped out in the forest, and I know how things go. Help me keep watch.

We should try to stay quiet. Yeah, I just, I need you to make me a promise. All right, what is the promise? I'm going to have to pee at some point, and you'll turn the other way. Yes, I will turn the other way, just do not go far from here. I promise you do not want to see a rabbit piss in the snow. I've seen it many times. Have you really?

Yes, there are many rabbits from where I come from and they pace in the snow, as you say. It is what they do, it is in their nature. I mean, it's a natural thing to do. I'll turn it away when you direct me to do. That's all I ask. Just respect me and my bodily functions.

Not far from camp, there's about a three and a half to four foot deep hole that Tyshen had just recently produced. So it actually, if you, should find the need for a restroom, make a very satisfactory one. I have a very warm urine. I was useful. Is that going to complete the hole in all falling in the eye?

As soon as you start peeing, you realize that Taishan gave up centimeters away. Really? Dude, are there any birds under there? A penguin. You look down and there's a bird floating. It's cooked. Completely cooked. And I would sit there in silence and just pissing on penguins.

My sense is to listen, smell, and just scan my eyes. And I would keep my eyes on the sky looking for birds or dragons or penguins. Why don't you both make a perception check, given how I-e-e-el-lare you are? 21. Big money. 22. Wow. 21 and 22.

You both feel extremely confident that you see nothing. It is a totally uneventful watch, and after another three hours, you're ready for. for your second half of your sleep. It's early, early morning. Still quite dark. The sky is full of stars. Who do you wake? You want scrim or you want Barnabose?

I will take Barnabos. Oh, damn it, good night. Good luck. Good night. I'm gonna walk over. Scram, scrim. Scream. I'm gonna shake him.

Scream, I know you're. You're not fucking sleeping. Ah, I'm sorry. Queenie, yes. It's your turn to take watch with Barnabos. Are you sure? Pretty damn sure. I mean, we could just, you know, I could just go back to bed and then you could take over for me.

You sure? Yeah, I mean, if you wanted to. Do I have to? No, of course you don't have to. It was just a suggestion. You're falling asleep while you're driving me against room. What? No, I mean, I'm up.

I'm up. I'm up. No. Okay, and I stand up and I do a couple like toe touches. And I like, oh, reach up to the ceiling. Okay, no, I'm good. I'm good. I'm awake. All right. Here we go. All right.

I'll sleep in the morning. Yep, yep. Night here, Haney. Good night. Who's my watch partner? I'll just, I'll be leaning back to Barnabos, and I'll just like shake your shoulder a little bit. I'll shake harder. I'm here, Mr. Yonnier. It is your turn.

On the ventful watch, Lee, that's good news. None of that, B.C. Nothing's sighted. Good night. Good night. Good night. Good morning. And I will turn over and go to sleep. And the two of you find yourselves alone and awake. Well, well, well, Barnabas, we have quite the day ahead of us if this is the final watch.

Well, that's right. We're not going back to sleep, are we? I mean, getting... I didn't really bring too much. Do we have anything for coffee? Anything. I mean, we might as well get started, right? Breakfast to the cook? Please tell me you brought something.

Oh, you have a little something. It's nothing much. No, thank the gods. And I'll heat up. If we brought some coffee and just some dried meat, I'd just heat it up in a... I guess I have a frying pan with me. Yeah.

You have a perfectly seasoned cast iron pan. I would throw that. I would start cooking. I'd put the pot. It's like a percolator. If you had an egg, you'd be able to do one of those flip moves, and it would, like, perfectly slide off and fry on the other

time. Well, if there's one thing that Mr. Stonebridge did really, it's that he was smashed all those eggshells. No witches out here. Just dragons. I'll be frying up. I look at Barnabas very quizzically. I don't understand what the

fuck he's talking about. I just want breakfast. I just want coffee. I silent and look at him like, witches, what the fuck? You don't want to be, they're worse than eggs. What? Ah, okay.

Oh. Oh. Bonobos, can I help you with cooking, or should I continue to cut some of our, our fuel? All right. Just keep the fire going, Mr. Foyer, or not Mr. Foyer Blossom.

He's leaving, Mr. Sabahscotch. All right. whatever you say. And I take the brutal blade and I continue to just cut and trim and shave whatever fuel we brought to fuel fire. It actually is a harder job because of the brutality of this blade. Because it's so jacked, it's not like a clean knife where you don't. No, it would be. It's like getting caught on the nooks and cramies. It's a fucked up machete. It's like what's his name? It's a fucked up.

It's a double swords. You like breaks up the blade. It's all fucked, man. It's all Maybe it doesn't occur to you, but you're just hacking away at this wood and throwing it into the fire and staying warm. And looking at your environs, as you finish your meal, have your coffee, thinking about the morning and the coming trek. I need you both to make perception shows. Wow. 22. My perception wasn't inside. I fail, whatever it is, but a perception, that will be a six.

With a sixth. And as the sun is cresting, if I try to see, if the sky, I will try to see what color the sky is. Maybe a sea dog. Oh. So you are focused on the cooking. And it's starting to transition from cooking for the two of you for the purpose of staying alert and that watch, but into a hearty breakfast. A hearty breakfast for the six of us, something that could really kick ass. You are chewing.

Looking at the island, looking back at Tricar. Absorbing. Looking back where the ship is, knowing that it's beyond the horizon at that stage this far out. Looking at, and you see a pair of eyes start to move, almost transparent against the white snow, start to make its way. These are not red eyes. These are a pair of brilliant, bright blue eyes. and they start to continue to creep towards you,

getting larger and larger. And you realize there's a set. There are three sets of eyes starting to move very slowly in the general direction of your camp. Bonobos. Bonobos.

Do you see this? Bonobus, and I immediately point to them. We might be being hunted. Barnabos, you look, and sure enough, scrim tells true, you see, in the clear visibility of the early morning, just before the sun starts to rise,

that there are indeed some beast or creature with blue eyes not 60 feet away. I will look at Scram and look out, and I will just try to yell as loud as I can. Actually, what I'm going to do, is, no, I'm just gonna yell as out as I can. I'm gonna yell as I can. And grab my harpoon and just boom that out

as everyone is awaking. Jump, shout out, I want you to make a persuasion, performance check for me. Low DC because you're all- Intimidation? That's interesting. I'm gonna go with performance. No, performance.

You succeeded in making me improve my pants. 13. 13 is enough. All of you hear the sound of Barnabos' booming voice. And you are alerted to the fact underneath your sleeping pack, you're alerted to the fact that something's going on. I need you all to roll for initiative.

Let's go, baby. Did he say haunted? I would like to use first strike. Okay. We are all advantaged on our initials. That's huge, because I rolled four. Oh, hold on the And you just got the feather.

I did. And I would have absolutely ruled that mechanically that satisfies the need for that material component. Well done. Thank you. Well played. So here's the campfire. This is just the general camp,

and then here's the waste hole over here. I would have already had the brutal blade drawn just from doing what I was doing, I guess. Yeah, yeah, you're right. That's it. I mean, free object interaction would have done that for you. I'm just saying I was ready. And you see these wolves.

suddenly noticing and hearing Oh shit, they're wolves. Immediately start to race forward these huge hulking beasts perfect white fur screaming forward and you can hear them growling as we do the initiative game.

Let's turn on some battle eggs. I think our new... I think Barnabose would probably be closest to the wolves. Pretty tight. It looks pretty good. Wow. Big fan.

That's really cool. Aha! Let's do a... Oh! 20 to 25. 22. Oh, 25. Damn.

Shit. All right. Rangers, man. All you shouldn't die, I guess. Sorry. Let's do it. And then, then 22 for you. 22, good sir.

And then let's do 15 to 20. 16. 16. Frimwell. It's a good old scrimbo. What do we got for 10 to 15? 14. Oh, 14.

Yeah. For Barnabose. That means that you go chak. And you're near? What do you got here? Oh, eight. Eight.

That's right at the butt. Right at the butt. All right, this is our order. And we're at the top of the round. You've been woken by Barnabos' loud scream and plea for help. You are able to pull yourself up, but you're not standing. You're still from the pack prone, effectively. I'm sorry to tell you.

Surprised, no. but it's your turn. I'll stand up. You have your movement. I will stand up and I will fire an arrow. I'll pull an arrow in my long bow off of my shoulder and I will fire an arrow at number three. Number three.

Roll two hits. Probably not with a 12. A 12. You shoot the arrow forward and it continues to race forward and it just sails over here. You see the arrow land in the ice behind. Is that your turn?

Yep. Tyshen, you're up. All right. I also stand up, and I kind of like twirl my legs in like a bicycle. It just looks really cool. Has that stand up? You know the hip-ups, martial art style? Yeah, he's got, and I get up.

And then I will also shoot a elemental blast of fire out at the, just the first wolf. Is that a can trip? No, it's a spell. Oh, elemental blast. I don't know the spell. I would ask you to very briefly... Well, you wrote it, so you better know it. That's all I'm saying.

You said it to me. It's 30 feet. I don't know I should know where I am. You're good. They're within 25 feet of us, so... You might as you move up. Yeah, I mean, yeah. But I mean, yeah, you probably have to get like here.

Okay, so you race forward using the other half of your movement, and you're able to make an elemental blast attack. What does that look like? Uh, so I'd run up and kind of like jump over. over, but kind of like, skirt Barnabos. And then elemental burst hits twice. So I throw two quick jabs, and one will kind of fly out

this piercing, slimmer pointed blast of flame at the wolf, and the other slower will trail behind it in two separate arcs. The other will shoot out kind of like a larger, more visceral smoking blasts, of fire as the first like quickly, well, I mean, if I do they have to save or are you throwing? No, I got to attack them. Let's do it. Let's do it. You know what I'm in? Fifteen, if I'm correct. Who are you going for? Just the first wolf. The first wolf. The one that's up front of three. Okay, you hit. Immediately the flame slams into its icy face and it.

Roll for damage. So it would take a D8 of piercing. And then a D8 of fire would be just so if the, if it's relevant. Roll it up. Roll it up. Oh, that's true. The damage rates will be treated the same. The animal seems particularly hardy. You take eight total points of damage for a piercing, four of fire, but if it's all the same.

Thank you. This wolf gets hit in the face with piercing fire. And it's, it growls and, and barks at the, at the hit, but it keeps coming. It's sculted, but it looks like it doesn't, not that it doesn't do as much damage, but it doesn't seem as affected or its intent is still very real. Going after, who knows what? Number two.

Number two, that's number two. Number two's going to run up. Where's number two for me? Oh, like the physically numbered number two. Yeah, exactly. Okay, yeah, this guy. It's going to run up to, it looks like Queenie's, the closest meal.

And it is going to attempt to bite in. I'm taking this new battle map, Derek, It's pretty tight. Yeah. 17 to hit? That hits. That hits. Let us know how you like it.

No. Can't jump and bone and spell. That's going to be 10 points of piercing damage as it jumps in one where it bites into your rabbit folk arm. Okay. Make 80s a spring savings reforming. Oh, does that have a weird texture that I am used? 10.

Is it? Yeah. We'll fix it. 10. Okay, the bite is so harsh that you are actually thrown back to the ground. As you got up, if you were able to fire a dark, you are not prone. All right, scrimmed, you're up. Is there one wolf denoted by the tokens that looks like it's more fearsome than the others?

You would say that, you could say, that number one appears to be the alpha. They're all actually a little thin as you're starting to see them in the morning light as it's starting to get a little brighter and brighter. You are able to see that this one probably is the pack leader, if you had to guess him for three. As Barnabos was my watch partner, I'm going to look at him as I grip the brutal blade in two hands, and I'm going to look at him and say, I'm going in, and I'm going to run at this wolf.

30, and I am going to use a, as I'm running at him, I'm going to use my bonus action to hex blades curse him. Or heist. And then I'm going to be. make an attack. Okay. That would be an opportunity attack against the wolf

that you ran by. The one that you passed would have to be a good. I would have run past, yeah. Which was number three? Yes. No, no, no. So you're attacking number three.

You're going to pass number one. Number two. Number two. Thank you. It's going to be, I assume it 21 hits. Yes, it does. That's going to be

seven points of piercing damage. That's more than I was hoping for. Okay. And then I will attack That is a 23 to hit. And hits. So it is going to be, let me double check the old hexplades curse. Oh, it's a plus two bonus.

No, no crit. So I'm just going to roll a bunch of D4s here. It's one, two, three, four, five, five plus. Five plus four is nine points of damage. And I don't think the Hex Blades curse. adds any damage? It does. It should add two.

Oh, so it'll be 11 points of damage with the brutal blade. All right, you jump up, and these creatures are as large as the thing that you fear the most. But with great bravery and courage, you jump up and slashed down, and you're able to dig into the... I can't do that with the neck and shoulder of this creature. And you see blood, but Arnabos, you're up. After seeing it pounce on Queenie, I'm going to just run right for it with my anchor and just bring it down on top of it.

As I say, help me, mowloy, as I get them completely drenched in seawater and I get covered in barnacle, start growing out of my skin. Oh shit. And I am going to be able to be. going to just savagely bring my anchor in, I'm gonna recklessly attack. Nice.

This, that should hit, that'll be a 20 to hit. Yep, I'm going to roll damage, damage, I believe, as they say. That was terrible, but five plus nine plus two is 11 points of bludgeoning damage. You are able to slam down with your anchor, Almost as if you had just jumped out of a surf or the sea itself, you are drenched in sea water,

and it seems to make you more powerful than ever you slam down into the wolves. And it yelps, but it seems unfazed by the attack and the wound that you deliver unto it. That's it. That brings us to number one. Number one. Show me one.

Right here. Yep. Bring it forward and have it attack Barnabose. It's advantaged. Of course it is. That's charming. If it had packed tactics, I guess it would be. Yeah, thank you.

That's going to be a 21 to hit. That will hit. And so it will do, that's going to be 14 points of piercing damage. And I'm resistant to that, right? It is non-magical piercing damage. So you do enjoy some resistance, but you do have to make a strength saving throw.

All right, sir, I'm a bit of a Viking. Well, that's not too bad. That is a 19. 19. You are able to stand as it grips onto you. It holds onto you with its jaw for a brief moment, but you're able to pull away. That's going to be the conclusion of his turn. The captain, who we're not representing on this before.

He's his penny. Oh, he's the penny. The captain pulls out what appears to be a short scimitar, and he... A limp noodle. ...races forward, and he tries to slash down. Number two right there. It's a natural 20.

No! The captain is what you'd like to dread yourself. Carry me, Captain, carry me. I attack, I attack three. Oh, two. That's fucking funny. Unbelievable. I can do math fast in my head.

And that'll be the conclusion of his term. You're near, you're up. I'm still laying down, right? Presumably, because I just woke up. That's right. Okay. So I'll use half. my movement to get up and I will look around kind of surveyed the scene I will see

that you know number two's right here I will reach down and I will you know take some snows and fresh snow that's right next to me I'll pick it up and kind of form it into a ball I will throw and I will chuck this ball and in my hand you'll see this kind of bright blue magic turn it into this this like magical ice as I cast hail which is another cousin's smell. Nice. Damn.

Hell yeah. It's going to be 18 months to make that joke. And the material component is a handful of snow, so we're there. 15 foot range, which is one, two, oh, I would have been moved on. I think that's my favorite material component in history, by the way, because... The sponge ball episode. You can't just, like, have it in a pouch. No.

It's only like in the moment. And so I'm like, might as well use it now. A natural one. one. Oh no. Twist it. Twist it. Twist it. Oh, yes. Why not?

It's hail. It's a spell. You could roll better, like, keep it in the tray. You know, that'd be tight. If you're gonna waste our 12, I'm getting it. Twist of hate is now the name of. 12. 12.

As we know from the arrow of yours, you fashion a curveball special and you whip it forward. and you whip it forward and it just barely missed. Both are close, close, close. This very dexterous wolf as it dodges and continues to race forward for its prey. So we'll use the remaining movement to walk up to it.

And did I, who looks in better condition, Queenie or Scrim? I'm okay. You both look attacks, right? Or no. I mean, I'm sucking. I'm very clearly fond. No, I'm not bleeding.

I will lean down and I will say, hang in, but Queenie. And the, the room on my mammoth tusks will glow. And so I don't think that there's any requirement besides speaking the name unless we want to adjust that. But you will gain five temporary hit points for one minute.

Oh, nice. Twice per day, you can speak the name of an ally if they hear you, so can I just sort of speak it as part of my turn? When you do, you reach out with druidic intent and knowing where you're from, your full will comes to fruition, the mammoth tusk, one of them behind you,

immediately the runes begin to a light. And that light flows into Queenie, and you feel your wounds close. Perfect. This is a gross feeling if you think about it, but probably a row. Oh, wait, this is fine. We're at the top of the round.

Queenie, you've just been, I assume you're done. Queenie, you're up. I am going to use rabbit hop, and I'm going to hop 10 feet back. so I don't take an opportunity attack. So good. That's right. And that's my bonus, actually.

I like to think that it's a backflip over the campfire. And then I am going to let loose an arrow into while she's flying back. Oh, yeah, while you're upside down. It's a double. Literally disengue. That will probably hit. So I rolled a natural 16.

Now that we're in the second round, AC is 13. Okay. Natural armor. That's what I figured. So does a 25 hit. It's 13 up to 24 and then 25 misses and then 26 of it. Shit! 25 is a magicness number.

Magic miss numbers. You've heard it here first. You want to have Patreon. You want to spell magic miss numbers. If you want to understand magic miss. 13 of the damages to which number? Number two. Number two. Oh, wow. Okay.

13. Number two is looking hurt. You hit it with. this arrow and it goes deep into its chest. It's looking to its brothers to see what they're doing next. Which one was that? Number two. Which one? Number two is here.

That was the one that attacked me. That's number one, that's number three. Okay. I'll move back just one section and get a clear shot on number two. Okay. And then I'll just, shoot it with a fire bolt and kind of like just move my hand to my mouth and kind of just like Like almost like a blowdark kind of like straight fire blast straight at it. Okay And roll to

Oh yeah Damn, that's in the rain That's another magic Mismuth No or shit You hit you're fired against number two? Yes Okay, number two and then that's a D-10, which is this guy? Four damage.

Four damages. The firebolt launches forward like a laser beam and slams into a, and creates a small smoldering hole that burns deep into the shoulder. Very close to where it's been injured already. This wolf is not looking okay. You do quite a magic, don't you? At this point?

I mean, it's just that all it does is... I believe it's called Facebook magic. Oh, so you can't like twin spells yet or not. No, no, no, I can't, no. Oh, we're sure. Monster Chisle. I've achieved my final fall. Knowing that it is now in a fight for its life is going to go for the jugular.

It's right next to the captain. It's right next to Yornear, Barnabos, and Captain. Captain Barnabos is a ring good. Barnabos, you're the one that attacked it, and so it sees you as the biggest friends. Oh, yeah, he's advantage, too, on me. Oh, I love it. It knows. Does. 20 to hit.

That'll hit. Make a strength saving throw. Yep. Nine points of piercing damage. So that'll be four. Strength saving throw, you say? Barbarians, I love it. That'll be a 14. 14. You are, it goes for the neck,

and you're able to put up your arm. It digs its teeth and fangs deep, deep into your musculature, but you're able to throw it back and it skids across. Way of me, B.C. That'll be it's turned, scrim. I redouble on this, this creature as I'm swinging the brutal blade at it and I say, no, no, you can't have found me here. There's no way. And I, uh, a Shrike. And I miss, unfortunately, because it's only a plus six. We could twist it. Twist that. If I may,

you guys have a jillion. Oh, then I might as well. If we got a bunch of them. You have a good amount of twist. Natural 20. Oh! That was a good news of twist. That was a good twist. I was like, you, Thank you, Rich, for suggesting that. So, the brutal, hold on before, so before we do that, you did Hex Blades Curse last round. Are you going to cast Hex this round, or?

I don't think that's a thing. If you could explain that to me, I thought the Hex Blades Curse was that, because if I look at my spells, I do not have Hex as a spell. Then you need to choose it as one of your spells. Okay, so I may, I, either when I made the character, it wasn't an option,

or because I leveled of it may now be an option. But it wasn't a standard spell, I think. Okay. And I think you would have it. So for now I don't have it. Sorry, I'm not going to do that. Next session, we can talk about it. Perfect.

But the nice thing of the Bruttle Blade is that because it's 3D4, I roll 64. And then because when I crit, I can choose to re-roll any of them, any of the damage lights, but I must take the second roll. I love that. So I'm going to write down the results. Is that just a Brutal Blade kind of deal?

Yes. So it's gonna be a one and a three. Do you six? That's fine, I'm just gonna roll them all. Four and a one, so I already know what I'm re-rolling here. But I must take the second result. The fun part when it gets the two's. So I'm gonna re-roll two of the ones.

And that will be one in a one. So it was faded. It was fated. You twisted. Yeah, I wish. Is that six? Maybe a two, five, four. And double X plays curse, right?

I'm sorry, so. No, you don't know. No, you'll just be plus two, plus whatever, I think plus six. I will double check, but it's gonna be 10, 15, plus two is 17. Which creature is this? The big boss guy.

Number one? No, no, it's number three. Number three. So it'll be, sorry, I apologize. 15, 16, 17, 10 points of damage. Could correct. I rolled pretty well. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, you did. I only fucked up those two rolls. You slice down with your brutal blade and completely miss the neck, but you are very short, and you step up and dig directly into the jugular, and you begin to saw with your brutal blade. Blood sprays out against the beautiful white snow and covers the ground.

This wolf is not looking well. It gives off this gurgling howl as you dig down. Dig in. I would have healed six hit points. I died to you, I tees. That brings us two at the end of your time. I'm like screaming as the blood. It disgusts you that you enjoy how warm it is.

Barnabos. I'm just going to, after smashing once, I want to kind of smash it again. Blacklist light. That is gonna be an 18 and a 19. So yeah, that'll hit. Then I'm going to roll. 26.

It's the exact same amount of damage, so that is eight, nine, 14, or no, oh my gosh, 11 points of damage, bludging damage. 14 against two? 11 points, 11 points. 11 points. 11 points.

Against the one that's super weak. And you, it's already cowering and you can see it just start to turn and run when you crush into its ribs and with a sickening, crack, It falls to the ground and it doesn't look like it's gonna get up again That brings us the two left is dead? What's that two number two number two is dead? I wanted to finish them off and number one Oh number two is dead. So that's number two right here Just your finger. Number one is going to be

It's next to Barnabas number one is next to Barnabas. Yep seeing his brother go down in such a quick motion. It's going to recklessly go in and it doesn't have reckless, but it will do that and it hits with a 19, or 1917, sorry. It'll hit. Make a string saving throw. Your advantage, because you're raging.

Oh, I crush it. It's a 22. 12 points of additional piercing damage. As it digs in with its enormous fangs, its blue eyes, furious, furious rage. However, that is the conclusion of this turn. Now number three, it's gonna go after- Bloody.

Scrim. It's hurting. It's really hurting. That's not advantage trial though. And it's gonna get a natural one. It's so distracted. It pulls away, and if a wolf could hold its neck, it would, but it can't.

It's just standing on two legs looking at you with really surprised even your size, and suddenly you see fear in a wolf's size. You're near, you're up. Uh, I will sing the wolf in front of me fall, I will say. Wait, let's throw this one again. I'll lean down and I'll grab another pile of snow and I'll crystallize it into a ball of ice and I'll cast hail and throw it at him. Fuck yeah.

Uh, for a ranged spell attack. There we go. That looks real good. Uh, so. Oh. 16 plus a million. Oh. Uh, two points of cold damage and it needs to make a,

Um, that's fraud, hold on. Against what number? That's the wrong die, actually. No, sorry, it's one D.A. Sorry, I rolled the wrong guy, sorry. Oh, three points of damage. Oh, there you go. And he's a convenient.

A con saving throw. It gets a 15. Oh, it's been rough, crap. It barely passes. Okay. Oh, what? You throw this snowball, this actual, like, form of ice, perfectly transparent.

You whip it forward, and it hardened and it hits like a baseball or even worse a softball right on the... Oh! You whip it real, good. Breaking apart into ice and it... Is it dawn yet? I would say that you... Ha, Sivinya da viva.

It's just starting to crest the heart. So for the magical purposes of things that reset at dawn, do I feel like it's about to happen? Or like it hasn't happened yet? It hasn't happened yet. Okay. I will say scream! Be careful out there, and you will see the other tusk glow, blue,

and you'll feel a protective magic overuse you gain five hit. Five temporary points. Let's go, baby. The other tusk, the first tusks, ruins having now faded from their magical ability, the other tusks fills with the magical light, the lights of the northern lights, so to speak, and you feel your wounds closed. Done.

Queenie, you're up. I am going to move to the side, and I'm going to let loose an arrow into number one. So to the side, closer to Rich, but not. Rich, can you move, Queenie? To you, not your character. There you go. Just one, just one.

Okay. Yep, just so I can shoot through that little line easily, and I'm going to shoot it. Twist it. Okay, I will. I did it and it was a 20. Do it. No.

Oh, that's okay. No, 12 doesn't hit. That's all right. Man, you and you're 12. I rolled a two and then a three. That's brutal. Oh, goodness. Okay.

Um, Taishan. All right. Uh, I will, uh, how they, how are they looking again? What's, um, he, number one, number one is looking, the pack leader is looking, uh, acceptably fine. Uh, he's, he's, he's hurt, but not terribly hurt. I don't like you accept number, number, number three is bleeding out. Like it, it, it, it, who's, who's, who's three?

This is number one. This is the pack leader. Who's this over here? Three. Three. No, no, no. Who's the ally? Scrim.

Okay. I'm gonna move. Who's me? This one? That one. I'm gonna move here. Pay for the follow if you're the Cracket. Would you say that I hit both of these if I was shooting something that was relatively a 15-foot cone?

Oh, it's close. It's close. That's tough. Uh, no, because he's 20-3 way. You can probably hit scrim. You can hit scrim or, or what you do is you could try to angle out here and go this way. You have to like, move.

You wouldn't be able to do 15, because they're more than 15 feet apart. That's right. Right back to where I was, then. And I'll just shoot this old boy. Were you arranged when you moved away? Was that? He's just, I was trying to decide.

Yeah, I wouldn't have moved there. Yeah. If I couldn't do my thing. You see number, which one's closest to you that you're attacking? One. That one. Okay, scene number one is right in front of you.

It's looking hungry. Also scared, given what's happened to his brothers? What do you do? I roll to attack it. Firebolt style? Yeah, firebolt style. You already know, get on my head, DM. Just kidding, set up 10.

All right, 23. And then, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, six points. And I just hit it six points a day. But, like, you know, it's cooler. Like, you know, it explodes or something. No, a little too. The fire hits it, and it gives out another yelp of pain.

It's bloody if you're going to use that terminology. And then dies from the bloodlines. It's not feeling well anymore. That brings us to scrim. So having drawn blood against this creature, I will redouble and continue to yell. I know you sent them, I know! And I will strike. 13.

That's 30. They're AC. Abby, you fly it down. Oh boy. One, two, three. Here you go more D4. 45, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen. Four number three. Yes.

Solidly. You slam down with your brutal blade, and this time it hits the top of the wolf's skull, just as it was about to bite at you. Comes to a complete stop. You feel it hit the bone of the skull, and the creature literally falls off of your blade. Gosh. That's my turn.

Because I'm Drenzis. I'm just, I'm just, it's still that creature's dead. Oh, it's dead. I am just smashing it. This will hit again. I'll roll damage.

It's advantage. That'll be a seven plus a nine plus 13 points of bludgeoning damage as I'm just smashing it with my anchor. How do you want to do this? Oh. I would just, as I just finish attacking, the one wolf, I'd just spin around and try to smack it like 10 feet away.

Like a golf club. You just keep the momentum going of my anchor and covered in barnacles and sea water and seaweed. I just want to smash it away from my friends. You bait Ruth this wolf and it goes all the way out to the stands. The wolf tumbled and slides across the icy surface of the channel you find yourself in. It leaves a trail of blood that finally it slides to a stop, and all is quiet. I'm going to immediately start scavenging them for parts. So I'd like to use my blade to remove their pelts.

I'm going to cut them open, and I want to cut up the meat to pass to Barnabos. And then I want to take leg bones to eventually whittle down for arrowheads. That's all very specific and violent. You're icebound, Derek. Okay. We're sure to survive out of here, all right? And encourage this action. It's going to take some time.

That's fine. I'm going to need you to make a nature role for each creature, and we'll see what happens in terms of what consumables and loot you might find on a wolven body. Nature or survival? Nature. Oh. The role will change depending on the type of creature you are.

fighting. So as a beast, this wolf will be a nature role. What were you using them for? What? Like arrows and So I wanted to carve off meat so that Barnabos could cook. I wanted to take off the pelt so that we could fashion things for heat or whatever. So, well, which role did you want me to use? The first roll

was the 15 plus. Okay. And then, so yes, I skinned them. You skinned The first wolf, let's see how you're doing the second one, and you know that you'd be able to get me from it. The second one was a 10 plus, I gotta go to my stuff. You said nature. So 14. That succeeds.

You're able to end. This is going to take quite some time, so we'll have a scene as this happens. But you're all watching Queenie immediately jump on these animals, turning them over, starting to work the actual fur off of these creatures and pull away from the musculature. these full fine pelts for a beautiful white pelts aside from the blood. 12 plus 4, so 16 for the last time. All three pelts, or even though you guys have been piercing it with bows and arrows, you are able to work around these things.

And as in perfect condition as they could be, you are able to pull away the fur, the hearty winter fur of these three creatures without issue. And if you want to create rations, you know that, I mean, this is the fur. a 180 pound wolf, each one of them. I mean, there's a tremendous amount of meat here more than you probably could carry yourself or even across the entire party. I'm just planning on cutting it apart,

and then Barnabos can take whatever he wants, just so I can get down to the bones so I can try to make arrows. Do they look relatively like healthy wolves? I mean, I would assume it 180 pounds. They're pretty stocky. They don't look like star. You're surprised that 180 pounds

seems light for the wolves that you just attacked. They came here probably, I wouldn't even make you roll for it, you could deduce from the smell of frying food and and

the smell of delicious humanoid. Call an ambulance to them. Not knowing that they were rolling into a bad neighborhood. Wrong alley, motherfucker. Exactly. So they look like like hungry, they look like maybe they hadn't quite eaten in a bit.

But even at the scale of these creatures being what they are, these were the large wolves even at their starving capacity. Do you want to know my rolls for their meat? Oh, no, no, no. I just needed to succeed on those checks in order to see if you got the consumables. You passed all three, which means that you get the pelts, you get the ration. Oh, I thought I had to roll for each. No, no, just each creature.

Right, gotcha. Because I got a natural 20 and natural 19. Oh, okay. So it would have been really great for the meat. Well, I'm sorry to tell you. That's a waste of that 20. There's probably more wolves in our future. Given how full your inventories all are, it's almost a waste to harvest these creatures for meat. You certainly may, and we can RP that for this purpose, but each creature creates 5D10 plus 10 rations.

Oh, I just need one. Yeah, as you say, I can hold one one thousandth of what you just know. Probably somewhere between 60 and 100 pounds of meat. If you are talking about eating the liver, talking about eating the musculature, talking about all the different things that you could possibly carve out of a creature like this. It's a huge animal. All three of them are here.

I mean, I'm talking about it, but I can only hold one. You pull out the very best pieces of meat, Barnabot, I assume. Yeah, yeah, no, I'll just take whatever. And at this time that dawn arrives. Oh. Oh, that's nice. Mechanically, my tusks regenerate their men. I'm torn apart by wolves. And I'm going to collect two of my four spent arrows.

I just like Sierra Eka's comment of, take the wolf bacon. Because I agree, I would love some wolf bacon. Is anyone feeling like some wolf bacon? I'm going to keep what I was frying and put that away. I mean, it feels like it would be a waste to have not have breakfast after we've gone through all the trouble. I agree. Well done, everyone.

Is everyone okay? This is why you're mine. This is why we're here. Well done. You solved this problem brilliantly. How long do those 10 hit points last just for a minute? So all of the barnacles fall off of me, and I am torn apart, and I sit down in the snow, and I'm breathing heavily, and I'll say, oh, you think, oh, you need a little rest before we get going? Great.

I'm with you. And I don't look bad, but I'm sucking wind like I've been working. hard. Did you see my hit? I made a good one. I'm not usually much for combat, but I went in there. That was mighty impressive. I looked at the captain, and I looked at Barnabas, like, be you fucking kidding me.

And then I just kind of lean back on what I had laid out for a bed. Oh, well, that smells great, Barnabos. I have been touched your whole. Yeah, fantastic. Can I get some of that delicious meat you cooking up? Or you're old enough to cook? It'll be fine. It'll be fine.

I've experienced worse. We just need to rest. I'd like to just take an hour. Like an hour to eat and cook and rest. I would say the captain would absolutely be comfortable with that. I mean, it's only the very first peak of the sun morning time. And you guys would all be hungry. Those of you who hadn't had the last watch meal that you enjoy that snack.

And so you guys enjoy a hearty breakfast and you probably cook up stuff that you wouldn't take with you, stuff that you'll leave with these wolves and you're still full up on rations, your inventory being what it is. Captain needs his share, you can enjoy short rest,

his fair share, and you continue. What I would like to do is essentially go to, no, I'm not going to do that area because we're pissing there. Just kind of wipe away snow. What in the hail? To get down to the ice.

And then I'm going to start putting the meat that we can't take with us directly on the ice and then covering it with snow. And I'm going to take the remnants of my broken arrow that I can't use and mark it. So that way, if we go back to the ship, we know where to come back to find the meat to load it onto the ship later. And also to pee. Or to find later. If you pee on the meat. No, no, I'm saying you've marked where to pee and where not to pee is all I'm saying.

Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's all I was saying. It was a pee arrow. To Pio and not Piero. Not to Piero. That's the question. I do that. Yeah.

And then I had to come on. That's a smart spot. Please. So in this time while he's cooking, I want to start using my dagger, whittle away at the bone, one of the pieces of bone, and I want to make a needle. And I want to scavenge some of the maybe like sinew or tendon or whatever and start to dry it on the fire. And then I want to use that. to sew all three pieces of the pelt together to make a blanket. Oh, these blankets, given the size of these wolves,

are probably enough for three people to wear. I would say that you don't need to stitch it together to make a full blanket. I would say that you just need to clean it and make sure that it's free of blood or cartilage or anything like that. But with enough drying and a little bit of craftsmanship, ship, you'd be able to turn using three cloak-like pieces of clothing. Alright. I'll do that, then.

Yeah, yeah, you get more than that. We'll make three cloaks. You do that. Maybe I'll whittle down the bone a little bit to make little clasps around the back. Okay. And I would say that you have three climate-appropriate pieces of clothing that will help endure things like the extreme cold. Who do you give them to? Hey, can I have one of those?

You know, I really appreciate you and everything next time. I'm your captain. And so you should take one for the team. Make a persuasion check. Oh, John. Uh-oh. I'm not persuasive. Uh-oh.

I ain't got no persuasion in me. Welcome Brent. Eight. Does he feel like eight is sufficient? Let me remind you in my captain's quarters. I have a document. and until I sign that document, you're still technically

in that whole I found you in. I would have that cloak. Let me remind you. I'll trade you back with these blankets. Let me remind you, though, before you try and take this, we're out in the middle of nowhere, and if we decide we're not going to keep you safe,

you're dying out here. While she says the Scrib's eyes narrowed to beady, if looks could kill, he's looking at the captain like, you son of a bitch. It would have been at disadvantage, but because of Scrim, make another persuasion rule. He's mad. No, no fucking way.

19? No way in hell you're hanging over some unsigned documents. I got a ber blade for your plug-me. Right for your e-ness. Oh, make a fine point. It's better that you are all kept warm and are able to defend your captain. Keep the pelts. Thank you.

I'm keeping one for myself, obviously. No offense, but you're scrawny. I'm going to throw him one. I'm going to look between the two of you. Well, you can make fire, so here you go. I'm going to toss one to Barnabobos. No, I'm, you need it more than I do, Mr. Fireblosson, thank you. Your nipples are quite literally out in the snow.

They're meant to be a little bit colder. The crushing depths of the ocean are quite killed. Those are some impressive nipples. Like slimmed hips. Like slimmed. I'm carving out of the... Can you cut ice at them? That's so vividly in my mind right now.

No! No! No! God! Oh, God! It's like a photo. You like some ice cubes? So yeah, then I'll give it to... Because obviously, Your Honor doesn't eat it.

I'll give it to this guy. Don't mind if I do. Right, Queenie, his name is Mr. Feuerblossum. He might also call him Taichshan. I class. The bone clasp around my neck. This is a handsome cloak, thank you. But I promise you, Captain,

if we are beset pawned by more wolves, I will make you a cloak. Don't you worry. Captain, if you stick close. Looks like a flying cloak, I wish that would happen. If there are no more dragons. If you stick close to me and I'm warm,

I will keep you warm. That's exactly how it works. Let's continue on. Yes, I agree. And so you start your morning walk. I'm really much better. From the, uh... His nips always point north.

Yeah. That was so fucking weird. No, they hurt if your face is out there. Slim gym, it's like real... What a visceral sensation. Oh, golly. I just pulls a cigarette out. of his inverted nipples.

Before we enjoy this, I'm a shirtless anime character and censored full kids. I don't have nipples. I'm Zach's Marquis and Gundam Wing. You're just blue. Let me tell you about losing battles, Hero, you know.

Battles and winning battles and losing battles. I'm like, man, I forgot how much they talked about losing battle. I fight wars to show people how bad wars are, Hero, U.A. Yeah, battles and battles. Like, oh, God, you're gonna lose this battle. It is now the bright of day, and you are beginning to trek.

And what is starting to occur as you are walking and starting to approach this column that is on this island is the channel that you are walking on. These ice flows are beginning to sink and rise and waves like ripples and water, frozen in place. and they're getting deeper and deeper. Not just rippling in long swaths and long deep channels like this, but little pockets here and there start to dip in six inches deep, one foot deep, two feet deep over here. It's starting to get a little bit more treacherous, and even though you're able to keep your footing pretty well,

it becomes very clear very quickly towards the tail end of your day that this is beginning to feel like really, really difficult to rain. It's slowing you down, having to move around whole swathes that are these pockets, literally dipping down and out like ripples, almost like sound waves, to use a modern anachronism. It requires you to hop over occasionally and keep your footing. And all of you are making your way through this terrible space. when you finally arrive and looking up, see this basalt column with these hard, angular, almost hexagonal shapes

that emerges out of the ground of this island. It's a big island, but this tower is featureless aside from the dark rock that it appears to be made from. What are you all doing as you approach? Definitely basalt. This does not... Does it look natural at all? It looks extremely unnatural. Well, it's hard to say. In Mamut, there are occasionally fjords

where there are these smaller rock structures that you can walk through and rivers carve their way through them. That's a natural formation. The fact that one would be here so tall and so crisp and clean is what makes it feel unnatural, even if it's a shape

that you may have seen before in your travels. This feels unnatural. This was created or placed here, but it is not a building or structure. So we came all the way out here for help or assistance, and there's no one here.

We don't know that. I mean, it doesn't know it to check, right? I mean, we're how we went all this way. At the very least, it provides cover, maybe warmth, We should go up onto the rock and see if there's an entrance. I don't see any windows or anything, but perhaps there's some inhabitants inside.

May have shelter and supplies. Thank you. That's why we're here, yes. Let us go. Pausing as you might, you start to make your way over these ripples of ice and keeping your foot as careful as possible. I need everyone to make a wisdom saving. Oh, my God. That's literally terrifying.

We didn't feel from the fight, right? Because it happened in the morning. You did not feel, but you had a short rest if you wanted to use that. At 15. 20. 19. 14. 17. Not bad, everyone.

I'm wise. There's a threshold that you cross where there's a threshold that you cross where there. of the great amount of confusion. You're looking up. It's midday, late afternoon. The sun is still above the horizon, still shining down bright. And the next thing you know, you're blinking and you're walking away. You're walking away.

You feel a little disheveled as though something has happened. Not entirely sure what. Has it been a day? Has it been an hour? Has it been 15 minutes? What's exactly happened? The sun's no longer where it was in the sky. In fact, it's the dead of night.

You are staring up at a starry sky. You're looking at each other. The captain looks just as confused as you are. There's no explanation for what's just happened. The sudden fast forward into the darkest of nights. The moon is in the middle of the sky, maybe midnight even. But it's very clear. that time, a large amount of time is gone.

The sudden chunk of time is missing from all of you. What in the ha'am? We scrim? What, but, uh, uh, I, uh, I, I'm bonnabas, but, what? Tell me, how long have we been on this rock? Five weeks? Two days? Help me to recollect. I, I, I look around and I, I, I, I don't know, maybe, maybe a few hours.

But, but who's to say? Oh, God. I reach into my purse, and I pull out a coin, and I begin to flip it. And the bags under my eyes are deep, and I look frantic. And on the third flip, as the coin flips into the air, it vanishes. And I cast idea, and I spend a single gold coin to do so. Hmm. And I, so the spell says that to help me solve a problem.

The problem is that I am horrifically terrified that we don't understand what's going on and why can we not enter this monolith. So if that is the case, I gain a plus five bonus to Arcana History Insight Investigation medicine, nature, performance, religion, or survival. If the problem is one that does not require a skill check, solve the DM will give you a hint to its solution. Make a Arcana check. 18.

18. Oh, plus whatever I have, sorry. So actually, it might be a buttload. 19. That's a lot of butt. I think so. I think so. With a 19, you rack your mind and you focus your,

your magical energy on this problem. Why this may have happened? You don't come up with a solution right away, but you come up with a number of ideas of how to solve the solution. Do you have everything on your person? Do you have all of the rations? How would you be able to track time?

Maybe you've eaten since then. You actually still feel full, even though a full day has passed. We moved through time, but does that mean that the time didn't happen or that you were magically transported forward? Perhaps your memory has been adjusted, or something has happened in that sense.

Checking your pack, you reach down, and you do see that you, and probably the rest of the party, are down two additional rations. Oh, shit. I would basically like, you know, either use the brutal blade or stick and be like drawing these things out

in the snow or the dirt to try to explain it and asking people these questions to say, hey, I'm down this amount of food. How about that? You know, and trying to corroborate based on what you've given me the information. I would share it with the group. And it's with, as you're describing these ideas to the rest of the party, everyone's huddling in.

The captain is close. Barnabos, the rest of the party. It's the smell of his tobacco that is the skeleton key into this mystery. It no longer has that rummy, delicious taste. It's malty, vanilla. There's a hint of maple on the air. Why, I would point that out. I would point out that it's not, it doesn't smell the same.

You're not tasting your tobacco, you realize this is not summer anymore. Time has indeed passed. We're in fall somewhere. He knows what day, what month. It's more leaf lake. That means it's autumn. But, but, but this, I only have several rations missing. I mean, I would have thought it was a few days.

How could it be weeks a month? How have we survived? Can I look at the stars to see, do the stars look like where they usually are in fall versus... Make an answer check. We are so fucked. We are so fun. Can I twist this?

Of course. Oh, yeah, that's a hundred fucking percent. There's a fucking Eldridge God in this time. You better be 20. Don't fuck me, Kimmer. Don't you? You know what? I'm sorry, Kimmer, that we blame me for.

I can't know. All over a dice from Kim. I'm like bummed that I don't have my scrim dice because last session I was ready proposed to her because I was rolling D20s left away. Oh yeah, you were rolling, yeah, shit ton of 20s. I just, I have them in the move. We need to make, we need to make t-shirts

and say, don't fuck me, Kim. Yeah. With the 13, you see where the star line is just on the horizon and you know which milestones to point out to see what month you're in. It's something that you're intimately familiar with. And with a 13, you can't say exactly what day it is, but you can say that it's closer to the end of the ninth month,

that perhaps two weeks have suddenly flown by in a couple of steps and that you are now unable to explain where the time went. with two weeks have passed the most careful mood. Two weeks. I mean, how do you explain the food? We haven't lost that much. And I am, like, backing away from the tower.

I'm, like, terrified of this thing. I would say that you're backing away from the tower. You feel antipathy looking at the tower. A magical fear of this tower. Something that says to you, you cannot move closer. in than you already are. All you can do is back away or turn and run. I don't understand.

None of this makes any sense. Two weeks. How can we survive for two weeks? Yeah. This feels right. Do I, so summer's end, as far as I know it, being the full equinoch, or basically the last day of summer. I don't like equinole equinox would have come and gone. Someone's had this come and gone. This is... This is nothing.

It's a holy place. We should leave. Yes. Wait. I don't want to get a step closer to that thing. What's happened to the crew? Oh no. Oh, God, Snow.

Bonobos is right. What about the people on the ship? the ship. We have to make our way back quickly. There was enough plenty of supplies for two weeks. They should be fine as long as that dragon didn't come back. The dragon fell upon us almost

instantly when we were icebound. We were sailing for a few days before it came on us. Who knows how long it was tracking us? We can only hope. We got only hope. We can't follow me. We're going to make our way. We can't turn back. Now we come this far.

It's going to take us days to get back. Then what? Then we'll pick up where we left off. Provisions, make our way to the mainland, and see if we can find anyone there. I look to Barnabos. My eyes are like, I'm scared and pleading, but I'm not saying anything. There's nothing for us here, Scrim.

Our minds are betraying us. The time is betraying us. More Leaf Lake! No more capsitter! Every son of them. We should go. We should I am going and you'll see me twist and in the flash of light blue where once was yore near

is a very large caribou. Big, almost kind of fuzzy you might think of him as reindeer. I do like reindeer. And with sort of big fuzzy antlers and I'll start basically I'll stop my hoof

and I'll just start to I'll look to see if anyone starts to come. I will quickly hop over and jump onto your back. Well, I'm riding on the elk or whatever. Does it really like we get all fit or only some of us? I mean, definitely, like it would be a big caribou, but like not a giant caribou. Well, I secure my spot. I think easily the two.

I think easily scrim and old to be up to the, up to the DM. Yeah, I would say, I would say two small creatures, such as yourself. would easily be able to sit on a caribou with perhaps room for one more, and the captain jumps forward. I hate this guy. He steps forward, and in his panic and fear of the Base Alt Tower, and in the excitement to jump onto the caribou, his footing slips, and one of his legs goes immediately deep down into the pole,

and he bends forward in an awkward manner. His at the thigh, his leg breaks. and he folds forward in a nightmare position. He twists around. Ah, God. Oh, ah. And he reaches up looking for help. Barnabos, Tyshan, you're standing there next to this caribou.

Help! Oh, oh, oh, you're all going to your own royals. Gosh, are you okay? No! Oh, it doesn't seem. It doesn't seem like it. That was a... No, no, he goes to get him.

You already hope. He can't help you. Scrimmit like... Oh, no. And he's like, I don't want any part of this shit. You can forget. Strim is like, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, no!

He's going into shock now. He's just moaning and groaning the captain, twisting on the floor, holding what is left of his leg, which is, oh. You've broken chat, by the way. What are you all doing? Oh, no, we, we, we, I mean, can we get them back? Is there, is there any way?

I, I, I don't understand what, what do we do? We don't have a sled, there's no way. Magic, magic, you can heal, you can heal us, you can heal us, right? Would I have encountered things like, you know, living in the wilderness, potentially broken legs and things like that? Yeah, I would say so. I mean, it's something that happens from time to time. So I will hop down and rummage in my bag knowing that Yornear is now a moose, and I will take out one of the, from my pack, one of the femur bones that I'd collected from the wolf.

and some of the sinew. And I'll basically, this is gonna, this is really gonna hurt. General, please. What? Gentle. Oh, it ain't gonna be gentle. And then I'm going to snap his leg back into place.

Oh, no. Put the bone behind it and start wrapping it. You bite down on this. Oh, I don't even give him anything. I hand him like, I don't know, something to bite down on it. Your hand? No, no, no, no. No, no.

No, no, I'm gonna be fine. It was metal really bad to bite down on it? Yeah, you don't want to break your teeth. All right. I agree with you. You could probably take your leg, yeah. To them that'll break and not break their teeth.

I'd probably have like a torch, like a torch handle. I think I can get a cut up a thing around. Yeah, that works too. Give them something to bite the. Bight down on this. This is really gonna hurt, but I gotta do it fast, all right?

So just bite down on this. and scream. And I'm going to try and set his leg and then splint it. You splint the... Do you want me to medicine check it? Oh, shit the game. That's not so bad.

Well, I don't know what my medicine is. Oh, no, that's not so bad, 17. Oh, yeah. 17, you were actually able to set the bone. It's not easy to find the exact right positioning, but it was a clean break. You don't think that it was a spiral fracture or anything along those lines.

It's not shattered on the inside from what you can feel as you make this move. And you're able to put things right. And I would afford some, I guess, I don't know if we have alcohol or anything on us. Magic honey. Or maybe I would have had you help me like maybe singe the skin and try and cauterize it.

The bone did not break the skin. Then never mind. I shoot him fire. Oh no, I've killed him. There's some barbecue. Are you sure? Not yet. That's the opposite of what sperm would say.

That's true. I can't take this opportunity to barbecue him. We should eat him. Okay, I will. And I will. I will take my pelt off. Well, yeah, it's before, but I guess you get it now, and I'm going to sling it over his shoulders

and tied around his neck. Captain, you can't be, you can't be capable of walking. You've just broken your leg. Can you put me up on your owner there? I want to, before he gets on me, I want to look at him. Do I get a sense that he gets like,

survive an hour while I'm in this care before. Make a medicine check. Well, you're gonna be faster to get him anywhere safe on a caravail. That is a medicine. That's where I'm a Viking. Does that were a caribou's a Viking though? I felt that snapping my teeth.

Oh yeah. I feel everything in my teeth after I've jimina. I'm not biting this anymore. 18, yeah. Yeah, he clearly just went through a painful break and he will have a long recovery of mending that bone, but he is not in any danger of dying. Queenie didn't work.

And I'll look at Scrim and I'll look at Queenie and I'll like motion behind me. Mr. Floresham and I will catch up. You get the captain to safety. All right, I mean we can keep him on your owner's back. Are you sure it's worth us splitting up? I don't want to leave you behind. We'll be fine.

We also have, think, is it a good idea? to put him on back of that moose, that moose is going to wrong real fast. When he does, that leg's going to shake. That's going to hurt like a bitch. Well, we can strap him down, probably. We strap the leg together. You just has to be careful. We just have to get him back quickly. We have to be gentle. That's all we can do. All right, let's go. He's getting impatient.

Your Honor, you begin to trot along and being as very careful as you can to avoid the icy gas. You start to make your way very quickly as a caribou across this icy surface. But you fall into four holes and all of those. When I would get off Greener, I'd cut his head off. Because there's no way you're coming back to that. I would just, I'm sorry you're reading it. The Warner breaks four legs and the stock of pencils goes up. I wanted to do that so badly, thank you.

So I would basically navigate as carefully as I need to. Yes. But as soon as we're on the air, open ice, I would just sprint. And so I would have 50 speeds, I would go 100. Oh yeah. 100 feet, you guys are gonna be gone. Okay, so you tripling the distance that you would normally make if you were,

yeah, over tripling. Oh, fuck his leg if it hurts, fuck that shit. You can hear the grunts of pain, but the captain is a man of will. I'm assuming that Scrim would help me to like hold him still as much possible. Of course, he's still a big wiener. Yeah, we try to keep him in place.

I could do that two times. So basically for two hours, we could, I could just run. You guys could book it. And my goal is to at least try to it to the point where we can see the ship on the horizon or left up the ship. And we would also pass the rations that I stored

under the snow. We pick up some of those. Yeah, and it depends how far we could go in two hours. I would say in two hours times three, you can make it back to that camp, but you would not be able to make it the two days journey of land travel there. But it's back to campus.

The camp, and it's six hours later after you transform back into Yorne, waiting there, enjoying the same campfire. There are differences, which we'll talk about because of the time jump that you guys have experienced, but you guys eventually make it back to the same camp after a full overnight eight-hour trek. I've been attempting to cook some of these rations. They're older. The rations that you left are long gone. Damn it. The arrow is gone. Everything seems to be disheveled.

In fact, it's almost as if nothing has been, what was there in the first place. The only reason you're able to find it is because you recognize a few of the markings of where Tyshen made his deep hole. So yeah, the piss hole. The piss hole. So as soon as I would basically make sure he was laid down,

and I would transform back into a Fear Bowl, and I would lean down and I would cast cure wounds and see if that would do anything, and I would cast it again if it does. Yes, actually, I would have taken damage, and even though he's a hearty gentleman, he would not have been at full health. So a single cure wounds would probably get him

into at least a numbed state. I don't know if we think that cure wounds helps with pain, but I'm gonna end my judgment in this time. Totally, you're the nightmare. That's mending the wound a little faster than it would, and he seems to soothe from your healing magic. Okay. I'm worried about the others.

What are we going to do? we can't leave them out there. I know we have to get the captain back, but I can't leave them alone. They know this place. They'll find it like we did. And this is the best place to wait, and he can rest now for longer, and I'm sure, Barnabost and Taishan will be fine.

And that's it. We just wait for the other two. And then together we make it back to the ship. Yes. All right. As you're talking, it is now, because it had been midnight and you've trekked for eight hours. It's well into the morning at this point, and large, fluffy snowflakes

are starting to drift down onto the ice flow, this channel, this broad, flat space that you all find yourself in. Did we join them? Are we still back at the... Oh, yeah, you've all caught. That's why... Before we're able to have a conversation.

Before I, as... Before we leave, it'll, I guess we watch a fucking caribou run off with everybody and I'll look at Ty Shabla and I'll say, well, I'm certain that our Captain never had his surgeon indisposed because he turned into a caribou. It's very, it's very probable that's this situation. He's never been in before. I've never seen it happen. At least, we don't even know if he knew that Mr. Yorner could do that. Let's be on our way. And I'm going to, as we're leaving, I'd like to obviously make sure to see if the

shell is still there. And as I pull it up and I'm backing away and seeing this thing as I'm Like, what do I feel? Do I get a sense as I pull out the shell and stare into its color and listen to it? Any sense. Make a perception check. Oh, shit. Oh, boy.

I was gonna go anything. Perception. That is gonna be an 11. In 11, you hold up the shimmering perlessence form of your lover and you look deep into the shell surface you have so many times before, you feel compelled to bring it up to your ear as if this could be delivered a message.

This boy lover. Yes. Anyone else with the same ear in that shell would say that there's no voice at all. But you do hear a whisper. You think you hear a whisper. Right. We need to go right now, Mr. Fireblossom.

And I put my anchor on my back and I just grab his arm and just yank him and lay. Make a dexterity check for me. Yeah. Oh, my God. I'm going to twist this if I fail. Okay, that's copped.

Dexterity check? I think the 14 is enough. Even in your shock of hearing this voice or perceiving that you hear this voice, you are lucid enough to avoid the holes. Thinking of what happened to the captain so freshly just moments ago, you sprint away,

and once things stop becoming holy and just become waves again, You are free and clear of the basalt column, this strange tower that you've escaped, and you keep a brisk pace, but you make it back to the camp where you're able to join the rest of the gang. I'd just as we're running away, if you grab me, we start, like, running, I'd take one ration and kind of, like, toss it behind us, and just as I'd toss it behind us, and just as I'd shoot a firebolt at it and try and just, like, instant sear it to create, like, a smell of, meat to keep, assuming, you know, I would guess that the travel back could be treacherous,

just the two of us, assuming we could maybe create like a smell to throw any creatures, like wolves that might. You toss a smell screen down. Yeah. Yeah. Basically. And you're able to, without encountering any other creatures or beasts, perhaps very much because of your rations, you're able to return to the campsite and join the captain.

you're near, and the rest of the party. How's the captain doing? He made it. He's not doing well, he'll live, but it'll be very travel. It would be very difficult for him to travel, not on my back. How's the campsite? We were able to set up.

All our rations are gone, and basically the only way we knew it was his place is because we found the pisshole. It's actually totally different in the following ways. I said it earlier. You probably guess, based on the way that the marks are, I'm not going to make your role for it, where the rations were, that they were consumed by some animal. The arrow is not there, but that could be for any number of reasons.

So the question is, do we try to travel on foot with him? Can you do it? If we get a good night's sleep here, at least, the very least you do. I don't know if I'm going to sleep much. Do you think you can turn back into that creature and bring him back to the ship? I would need a night of rest, but...

Then I could do it again, yes. And the three of you will go out in the morning with the captain. Tyshin and I will be fine. It's still a little alien, and I'll reiterate. It is actually like eight or nine in the morning when you arrive at campsite. So talking about having an overnight rest,

We can rest for the day, but it's not going to be sleep under a night sky. It's going to be daytime rest. And you have walked the night in order to get here. Can we see the ship from where we are? No. I mean, you know where it is and in what general direction. It's all the way on the other side of this channel. But you've traveled 18 miles.

The curvature of Adventras being what it is, it's just out of view over the horizon. If I look towards the ship, I don't see anything like that, even in the vast distance. I don't see anything that would look like, maybe like a bill of smoke or anything. Perception style. I think it's a wild shape twice per short rest, not long rest. We can take a, we can just do that over and over again.

Let's fucking go. I don't use natural recovery to restore money. 12. You feel pretty confident you don't see anything like a smoke fire or anything along those lines. lines on the horizon. I just glanced towards the ship and then not even think about it again. It sounds like we can continue on.

I just, I hate to leave Tyshin and Bonobos alone. I appreciate your concern, Mr. Stavis Scotch, but I think we need to worry about the crew. We've been gone for two weeks. I care for them, but who knows? I don't know if they had the guts or the courage to keep it together for that long without us coming back. You're a good, kind, trustworthy goblin scrim. But I agree with Barnabos. I think that I think we have to get back as quickly as we can.

Make an intelligence check, Tylon, Tyshan. Tylan, that's a good name. Oh, well, okay. That's fine. My name's Taryn. I'm not very intelligent. I'm not very intelligent at all. Hey, are you making fun of my accent?

Uh, six. You continue if you would. I may be stupid, but I ain't dumb. I certainly am not dumb. I don't know where this accent came from. If you're good to travel as that beast, the three of you should continue onward. If we are fine splitting up, I can't do that.

But I'm wondering if he'll live, we get back early. Then if there's danger, there to deal with. I'd rather wait for you anyway. Oh, yeah, that's smart. I can stay transformed to help his travel, but I think at this point, I don't know. Perhaps we can go ahead until we can see the ship on the horizon and get the sense of the

condition, but then from there we'll wait for you. I think that may... Well, I was just going to say, we're going to eventually have to sleep anyway. We're not going to get there. I mean, we might, but they're not going to get there before within a day right it's like two days travel from here is what you said you've just

spent one of those days so it's another day of overland travel to get 18 miles and you know that it's a flat straight shot to get to the ship so it's another day of travel and they're going to need to sleep we're going to need to sleep if anything comes upon us well we're making that

trip especially if we have the captain in this condition we are at a disadvantage It would be better if we just walk a little bit and then try and sleep. All right. I think that's the right idea, Miss March. Sounds good to me. Then I will transform again, put him on my back,

but if we'll go with the taste we can all keep up with. If it takes us two days to get back, it's two days after two weeks of lost time. It's getting colder, and the snow is starting to fall harder and harder. These large fluffy snowflakes that were initially falling down are beginning to turn with wind and start to become something of a storm. It is beginning to darken in the clowns just above you as you're making this conversation happen. You realize, yeah, two weeks have passed. It's gotten colder, but the temperature is dropping fast. Looks like a dark sky. Should we... Is it possible? Is it

possible a storm is coming. Should we make shelter to wait it out? I cast through crafting the game and fur to check the weather. What do I see? You check the weather and it's obscured. It's hard to see. Not because normally it would reveal the natural weather, but because what is happening is unnatural. Oh, no. Well, you know, we tried. It is the dragon. We should go quickly.

What do you mean? It's back? Yes, it is the dragon. It brings the storm with us. That is not a natural storm. Sure enough, as soon as he says that, this gust hits you, and you feel the cold blast, and you're immediately reminded of that fateful night.

Only a few days ago, it seems. Well, what we should do is we should set up a camp and cover it in snow. Obscure ourselves from the dragon. If we're wandering around on the ice like this, it's gonna see us. But if we can find a way to blend into the natural terrain, it won't know we're here.

That's how hunting works back in the forest. Based on the direction the storm's traveling, is it looking at us or towards the ship? It looks like it's coming from the continent of Ricard. It looks like it's coming south from that north range, that cliff face. Very much, you can see that there's, like, very light gray cloud is just above you,

and then, like, rolling. See, again, use a modern anachronism. You know when the Independence Day ship shows up and it's got a fucking bill-wings smell thing. I have never seen that. Thank you for the spoiler morning. Wow. This is Billy.

I don't like this, but maybe if you think that it's the dragon, and maybe we can maybe we can hunker down and see if it flies over us, if it's heading somewhere, and then in its wake we could possibly follow. Right, we're not going to out front it. And you know what this means?

It's heading to the ship. I think we lay low until we know where it's going and it doesn't catch sight of us. I think that's why everyone bundle up get gathered together for body warmth, then those swelps will come in, Andy. How could things go back? so quickly. We could use

the captain's tent, set that up, and cover it with snow and all hide inside of it. But we got to put out this fire. They all immediately snap out the fire, throw snow on it. That's easy to do with the conditions being what they are. They were already starting to smolder in the downpour of snow

that is starting to happen. It's almost blizzard-like as soon as it comes, it hits like a wave. And you have only what feels like minutes before or the intensity of the storm that you experienced when you were on the ship. Everyone get in. I'll make sure it's covered in snow. I'll take our pelts and attach them

to the top of the tent. So when we put the snow over it, the pelts can shield the tent from getting wet so that we'll stay warmer on the inside. Okay. Make a stealth check. Just me or everybody? I think everyone.

Oh, no. I would like to twist this. I'd like to twist mine too. Oh, how much do we have? not very good. I rolled a natural one, which is why I'm twisting. I got an eight. What are you going to say? Twist yours two. I roll a four. All right. I roll a three. Everyone's twisting you so I mean my, my bonus is pretty good. So I should be okay. Thank you, chap. I just fucked up. Mine's, yeah. It's not too bad now. Oh, yeah, 22. That was a, that was a twist well spent for me. 22. 12. 12. 17. 19 19. 19. 17. Good twist. Good twist, everybody. What do you get? 12. 12. And, and And let me just do something.

I cough loudly as the dragon flies over past. Does anyone want some tea? Well, hang on, I do ask that. Okay. Okay. You all huddle into the same tent, packed like sardines, tight, unable to see in any direction. You are hearing the sound of the lone waves,

and the tent itself is shaking from the end amount of force that the gust level wind is bringing to this space, worried that it might even be pulled out of the ice as securely as you may have made it. You all huddle down and though there's no lightning this time, you do hear an immediate crunch, a slam, a crash immediately near where your campsite is, not 40, 30 feet away. The sound of this same ice dragon. crunching claws moving across the surface of this ice

this ice channel circling waiting what are you doing I mean we knew roughly what time it was when we set up camp I mean oh yes it would have it's not as dark as it was in the middle of the night when the storm hit it would be at this point

midday but it is still a white out blizzard level storm I mean I wouldn't move a fucking muscles. I would be bunkered down. I would be just like I'd maybe like what was that? I don't know who'd be closest to the flap. I mean we're all like really like

choked in. As soon as Tychinova's mouth that cut his throat over. Hey everybody, what was that? Tai Shana don't look outside. Silence, silence. Five minutes, 10 minutes. Your muscles are nearly frozen from the extreme cold. the only thing preventing you from totally succumbing to it,

being the single layer of this pelt-covered shelter that you've made shift for yourself. Silence until you hear a voice, Tomo Tomo, Motos. You hear this booming sound of this dragon's voice emanate across the icy plains as this storm wails and screams around you in all directions. I would look like to the rest of the group, and then I would very like,

a hush whisper be like, I will stand up and I will walk out of the tent. Would we recognize it as a dragon's voice? You hear it in common. It sounds like it's being produced by massive dragon lungs and through a dragon's mouth in a guttural, animalistic way. But it is very clearly a female voice screaming out and booming in all directions.

Yeah, I will, I will, I'll look to everyone, and I'll say, I'm going to go see what it wants. and I'm going to immediately just open the flap and walk out. And then I'll say, look, I'm going to die in there if I don't do what you say. So really, I could die either way. Is there something I can do to prevent my death and the death of my friends? I'll do it. By the way, names Queenie March.

Nice to meet you. You see this rabbit hop up, say a few last words to you, and jump out through the slap of the tent flap. I am freaking desperate. And disappear as it slaps wildly in the wind. She disappears almost instantly. obscured by the snow being almost horizontal by this white out

blizzard and you hear those words muffled by the howling wind Yona would be proud. What are you doing? He knows we're here and we can't let her go alone and I would stand up. Do I know about dragon, do I know about dragon born stuff?

Maybe not. Well, well, you're not going to let her face a beastie alone. I've killed plenty of you see monsters and I will get up and I will... We don't have to kill it, maybe. Maybe we can just... I'm still going to hold a harpoon. What it wants.

I don't really have weapons, so... You both? I would look at Scrim. Scrum is also looking at you or you're like, Hey, man, you're a lot bigger than me. No, if we would look at each other expectantly, I would look at you and say, I don't know what to do here.

I mean, it seems absolutely foolish to leave the tent. But if we stay in here, what's going to happen? I mean, we're stuck here. The captain can't walk. It's addressing us as mortals. I don't even know what's what's happening. I point in my hand and I motion outside the door as I pick up the captain. Shut up.

And then I walk towards the door. I'm gonna open to let you and you're gonna get out. I am so sick of the cat. I'm like trying to, you're like holding up like four feet over. It doesn't help at all. And then I follow you and you're in the cat in the cat. You feel alone. You feel this is something that you're doing yourself,

and yet you stand proud, tall, confident. Make a persuasion check at advantage. Thank you. 20. massive dragon in front of you. Oh, can I see it now? Through the haze of this, it's 15, 20 feet away. It is right in your face, standing 18, 19 feet tall,

stretching down with its huge broad arms, this insanely broad, but sleek wings with these frayed edges and horns on the edge of each long finger of the wing. It stretches down and it looks at you and... Boy, happy, you're a beautiful little lady, aren't you? You hear the sound of packed snow crunching behind you and you realize that the rest of the gang,

the captain included, shutting up as he might, has joined the crew. Well, we came out. It scans you and the rest of the party. I would bow to the dragon, I would punch my right face. into an open left palm and just give it a deep bow. I'll stand there tapping my foot.

I would just be totally silent. Yeah, I'd be kind of hiding behind you or near. Holding the captain in one arm and my walking stick in the other. It makes this spitting sound. And in an instant, you see this rocket of blue magical energy transform and smash into the captain. It hits his head, holding on to him. You immediately, instinctively let go almost.

He stumbles backwards and fails a saving throw. He's hit directly in the face, and where his head was is a bulb of ice. A perfect sphere of transparent, perfect ice surrounds him, and his face is not frozen. You can see it for a moment screaming, even in this impossible storm. You see it moving, screaming. It's muted completely. His hands reach up and attempt to, but he's suffocating.

He's drowning in the sphere. He's trying to, you can hear his hands slip. There's no, there's nothing to do. How do you act? Do you do anything? Hey, excuse me, I did exactly what you said. I'm too scared to do anything. I make no motion.

I hide behind you or near. Yeah, I'm going to yell out at her. I don't know what game you're playing at, but I'm going to tell you right now, Miss March, that's a, well, shit. Queenie, Miss March, if you're nasty. I've had a tough time over the past two weeks slash one day slash couple of days and I did what you said I don't know why you're trying to hurt our friend but I've wasted a lot of stuff on that kid trying to keep him safe

what do you want from us we'll do it just let him go agree to what this one was weak if you wish to dwell in my realm you must be strong. If you wish to join my legion, perhaps we will see each other again. It begins to lift off and with a tremendous roar, screams into the horizon, and spiral flies up into the surface of the clouds, disappearing into the sky. You can hear its wings flaps gets quieter and quieter and quieter. as it leaves the five of you.

Captain's struggling. And it's ice, you said? I'm going to rush towards the captain with my dagger out, and I'm going to start stabbing the ice and trying to chip it away. I'll help with my house. Yeah, I'd try and get a, if I have a spare torch, I'd try and light it with a firebolt

and then use like a controlled flame to melt down the ice. All three of you immediately raised to this bulb of ice and do what you can. You start picking at it. It's hard as hell. You start melting it. It starts to pool away. Make a dexterity check of advantage.

Uh, 26. 26. You are able to work your way around a ridge, fashioning some sort of a crease, a seam, anything, and pulling apart from the melting of the firebolt, you're able to pull it apart, only to reveal the dead face of the captain, shocked and frozen, collapsed.

I'm able to continue. Oh, my gosh. What? I mean, now what? What do we do? We go back to the ship and we don't bring a captain, or we do bring a captain in this state? Oh, God.

Well, I guess we know what happened to the rest of the crew. You think there's nothing to return to? We don't know that's the case, but I believe... No, I think she only did it because he was weak. That's what she said, you know. And the dragon was right. I just don't understand. Well, he would have been the strongest member of the crew.

If he was weak, there's no chance any of them survived. Well, I don't know much about the wilderness, but maybe because he had a broken leg. survival of the fittest. But what does she care? In the wild, the broken leg is usually a death sentence. The dragon,

evil or not, did not mean us harm. I believe this is a sign. She has granted us passage in her lands. We should take advantage of

that offer in head inland. If you want to check on the ship. I'm not going to leave that shit without checking on the crew. I will join you. Well, I guess we'll see you later. Oh. I will join you. We'll join you. I don't know. I wouldn't

be so hasty. I mean, why go back? This is our chance. We've been given it a second chance of freedom. Fuck the papers. Fuck signatures. Fuck whatever we owe. We can just get out of here. And we can be on our own. Being granted, passage like you said. There's still 12 good sailors on that ship potentially we don't know what we

came of them. And if let's just say we're able to procure them from the ship, I'd like you to look around us. We don't have rations and it doesn't look like there are many things out here to fight. How are we going to feed them?

If there are strong able men on the ship, like Barnabos is saying, they can join us and they can survive as well. But if we all start going hungry, then all of a sudden they're 12 plus us. I'm not good to count. One of us gets kind of sickly. We're going to start eating each other.

I just want to go on record and saying that. I've got no good meat. I'm nothing with skin and bones. So whatever you do, don't look this way. It may be difficult. But Barnabos is right. There are 12 innocents on that shit. I don't know how innocent they were.

I heard about a lot of things they were talking about at night. Well, that's true. Here's what I believe. The ship has men alive or not. The ship has rations. If they haven't eaten them all. If they ate all of that red herring, we had supplies for at least, not for the whole year,

but for a few months, I believe. More than two weeks. There's no way they could have eaten through all of it. More than two weeks. I just worry that. That dragon did to the rest of the crew what they did to the captain, but I don't want to leave the ship without confirming that with my own eyes. All right.

And then we go back to the ship. We resupply. We used the shelter to finish the sled. Right. The queen he was working on. That's a great help. It was only about 25% done. We can take the time to finish it.

Unless Coombs was, you know, finishing all over, finishing that sled. I can. It's probably still only 25% done. I mean, he only had one. and good arm. I can pick the form of a catamins a strong arm. Again.

And, it's why I'm like a pot-bye. A fetterer, a fetter on the that's a fetterer syndrome. You're trying so hard to be caramoo. I'm going to come all over. I won't start.

Now you have attention. Welcome to I. Yeah. Did you say cooos? You, uh, as you're talking, you realize it's getting easier and easier to speak. You don't have to yell as much. The dragon being what it is, the snowfall has turned into big fluffy snowflakes once again and has almost departed.

It's mid-afternoon on, well, I'm not going to tell you exactly what day, because you don't know just yet. Perhaps you'll find out in a future episode. However, you are alone, the five of you, in the middle of this great ice channel, trying to decide what to do next. Are you going to the ship? Are you going to the mainland? What are you doing? I think we've decided to go back to the ship and recollect ourselves.

And bring the captain's body with us. Oh, we decided that. Okay, shit. We probably shouldn't do that. We should probably leave it because they're not going to believe that we're not the ones that did it. Let him.

I agree, but, you know, whatever bottom bus decides, I'm with... Let him be food for the wolves. It's honestly a hindrance to carry it. Thank you. Maybe we should be. I'm glad you're gonna say it because I was thinking it, but I didn't want to say it. Check his belongings, see if the papers you care so much about.

I go, I immediately, before you finish this sentence, I'm dating through. There's his skin, his pocket, his clothing. It seems that he brought food and wood and nothing else. He had one of the wolf felt, right? There would be a little pouch. Anything that salvageable I take. Literally. If you take the gold, you take the gold.

There's a sword. Do I take the gold? I am. Got a gold tooth. You just... I'm fine leaving him here. 311 gold pieces. But you were still our cat...

Is there any wood left? Yes. There's still a night's fire. I'll take those. I'll take what. I would still like to find a way that we could give him a burial sea at the very least. Find a thin part of the ice.

Well, we can try and carve through the pithole. If you would like to bring him back to the ship, you may carry him. I just don't know how the man if they're still alive would take it. Oh, you don't want to leave them out here for the carrion beasts. Then you can take him. All right. It's a bad luck to leave a captain.

This is for the wolves. Is there anywhere in the ice that, like, is, like, split? Like, you can see water, or is it just a massive, like, solid island? It is close to the island. It seems that the ice is much thicker. than where it was when you were initially icebound. What was ice flows of a foot or two foot feet deep crashing into the side of the ship when you were initially caught?

These are perhaps even permafrost. They could be packed for these 10, 15, 20 feet deep. That's why you weren't able to initially cut through using even your extended firebolt time. I'll carry him if I have to. I just don't want to leave them for the beasts. All right. The papers weren't on him.

I imagine he either keeps him in his quarters or somewhere back where we were going to go back when we finished the mission. Well, we should head back if the Great Dragon's proclamation is to be believed. Our travel will possibly be uninhibited, except by any other natural beasts in the area. But I don't think that the dragon will cause us any more issue. For the sake of brevity, I will say that you take the captain. You make your way over two days.

Everyone subtracts two rations from your inventory. Oh, boy. So I haven't eaten in four days now. Okay. Because I had no, I only had one ration on me. I didn't eat the night that we didn't get rest. And then the next night, all of our rations, or we lost two rations. Oh, yeah.

Zero. So I haven't had any rations. I know. I ate one, but then we got wolf meat. But then we were two down. So I still had one. So how much would we be down from stocky upon wolfmeat? If you filled your inventory, then it's one ration for every,

or it's one slot for every day's worth of ration. So I only have three slots for rations. If you had five inventory slots left, you would have five rations now to fill up all the way, assuming that you would take on as much as possible before you feel over and cumbers. So I'm at negative one, technically right now. I'm at zero.

I have, I've used all my rations, but that, that space is for rations. So it's been a day since I've eaten. It's been four days since I've eaten. Okay. I would give my, uh, rations to whomever else. So I'm going to be out. I have, I have, uh, I had eight when we stopped up. Oh, wow. Well, I'm good. I covered myself.

So I, I had ate when we stocks upon the wolf meat. And so we lost two at the tower. You've lost two, so you have six. So you need to take two more. Two more. So I have four hand out. So I have four. So I would hand one to Queenie at the very least.

I'd hand one to Yorne. You haven't been... I'm good. I've covered my side. You guys have rations for the journey. Good? So you've got two extra then. Yeah, so I have two extra. I take one and give three to Queenie. So I'm just one day. Okay. So I have zero rations though, but we make it back. And we're all fed.

And for the sake of brevity, that time passes. You enjoy a few campfires. You spend the time solemnly thinking about the last few eventful days from your perspective. And when you, on the morning of the third day, finally arrive at where the ship is. There it is. It is now pointed at almost 45 degree angle. It's now pointed straight up from this subtle shifting and changing the ice flows. You can see something else, even from a distance,

what looks like a dark red color, some body, a shape. And you can see all around the evidence of what appears to be a makeshift camp, having spread out from the interior of the ship. Clearly, a lot has happened since you've left. Start to make your way towards the ship. And that's where we'll end tonight's session. Oh, no! All right. All right.

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