Legends of Avantris - Icebound | Ep. 23 | Ice & Hate

Episode Date: February 7, 2025

Unknowable horrors test our heroes' bonds as they fight for freedom against a malevolent and relentless force. Time distorts. Allies become enemies. Can they find salvation, and at what cost?   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/Uam1thy0pKw?si=6H760AmloYKplt3G

Welcome to Legends of Aventress. I'm Derek Hudson and you're listening to Icebound. Here's what happened last time. You seem confused. You seem a little snowy. Gion's beckon. A tapestry. Weaving through a veil.

Can you hear the strands unraveling? Whispers of... Mr. Yornear, this is a cursed person. Please. This is not the sea. Why are we not seeing the food? Why is something, why do we feel to be unstuck in time?

And I flip the coin and I watch it vanish. And DM it is up to you. I need you to make a death saving throw. What? We have to get to the cave, get the boat, and try to return to the wizards, the willow trees on the coast. We have neither the time nor the resources to waste on spectres. Now take a walk, sir, Captain. I don't know if it's me.

I don't know if it's this place. I don't know if it's any of you, but I would not try to call on any sort of outside magic the weave. Whatever you call it, I have the feeling that if I try again, I will die. I never thought I'd say this, but we have to go back to Dracar. We can't stay here. Some sort of ritual or something that will bring apart our deaths is their plan. You continue to make your way down, down the path to the cave. You recognize a stable star, the apex, the zenith just above the lighthouse.

Be roving the star if it's the same. That's enough for me! I'm gonna grab my anchor and just try to just fucking... I was gonna say, I... But you are no longer in a cave with your friends. You've been lighthouse keeper of this space for so long. As long as you can remember, to turn and start to walk back up to make sure that the light is still sound. Lots of beautiful day to save ships. You all stand now in the cave of some island somewhere north of Striga.

Somehow on the other side of the world, far, far away from Dracar. Somehow transported across the world's expanse by a great malevolent forest. Only your near has seen amongst the stars. You have become ensnared and a grim tableau unfolds before you. You watch parts beating as the dead captain you once knew warps, malforms, and shifts. In the dark light it is difficult to tell form from shadow. The shape stirs and ripples and glides up and away from the cavern floor.

A simple wooden cloak. One might see hanging on a coat peg near the entrance of a well-traveled tavern rises up and bears down. Yournear's words confirm what you already knew in your heart. This is the same silhouette he saw in the light of a star. It's the same. You race forward, drawing your weapons, drawing your magics, stealing yourself for a fight with the unknown and hoping you will live to see the other side.

The cloak billows and the waves crash and they—and you clash! You clash and you... Taishin. The sea is calm. The sky is clear. The day is young. You think of your duty to tend the light and of the lives you will never know

but have sworn to protect each day. You watch them each day with solace as they pass. Delia's voice slices through the tranquility like a blade. Her tone, harsh and bitter, carries the weight of a thousand grievances. Those lives you so grandly claim to protect will all sink into the sea while you stand there dawdling like a fool.

Your shoulder slump. You feel the heavy burden of shame. Delia wasn't cruel and bitter all of the time, but when she wanted to be, there seemed to be no retort to match her stinging words. They cast light on failures she perceives in you. They weigh heavier than the same. the anchors of the ships that you safeguard.

Nothing to say, you're a disgrace. Delia's voice lashes out at you like an icy wind one last time before she turns back inside to the modest home you share together. Why fight, even? The glass panes of the lamp need polishing, supplies need to be checked,

fuel needs refreshing, there were logs to maintain, and maintenance to log. Maybe there would be time for fishing if the pleasant weather stayed true. What happens next is up to you. Oh, this is so bad. Thanks for plan, buddy.

Shouldn't fail you're saving their dumb house. I'm sorry, Derek, what time of day is it? It's just after sunset. You would have risen and had some breakfast, and you're now finally free of... Sunrise? Sorry, yes, sunrise. It's just after breakfast.

The sun is still hugging the horizon. It is a cloudless day, actually quite pleasant and almost warm. You can stare up at the lighthouse to one side, the house behind you, and of course that long, dark, shaggy rock that is your home day in and day out. Time to get to work. I can't let anything dim your shine. I gesture up at the lighthouse. I'd like to go up into it. into it the if I would want to am I am I am I you look at your dragon-born hands

golden scales got it but I'm but my mind I'm I'm this is what I meant to do you feel you feel the sacred duty on your shoulders you feel that this is what Fuzhou is placed upon you It is My discretion as a DM Do you get to be a little ambiguous in this way? It's probably Fuzhou's fire up there in that lighthouse, right? And I refuse to elaborate.

Just cast a few spells upon for a little, really rapid succession for me. I will go into, I'll go into the lighthouse and begin to, I think at first, I would go down to where the oil, I believe, is. and I would try and source any of the materials that I believe I would need to keep the light running just to get it prepared in the right position. I don't know that I would start running the lighthouse at sunrise,

but just to make sure that as the day wanes, everything is in position to be successful to get the light up and running. You go down into the storage room, it's musky, it's dank, almost humid, and you have to peer. Do you have dark vision? No. Be under features, right? It'd be under senses.

Maybe? You must. You must. You must. Additional senses. And I have tremor sense. Oh. This is a true sense.

I don't know if this is just a list of every other. No, that's the menu. It's dark. And you have to feel your way down into the storage room to find the cleaning supplies that you know you'll need, the maintenance toolkit, the box that you'll carry up on your back, and a few rags and things that you'll need for the purposes of polishing the lamp,

just to make extra double sure that it'll be ready for the evening when it has to be lit again. I would, if I would believe that this is fine in this moment, as I enter into the darkness of the basement, I would cast a combination of just fire, bullet, and control flames immediately to ignite my palm and cast light throughout the basement. You reach your hand out, and you focus on your sorcery, your bloodline, your draconic bloodline, and you start to sweat. You know that with just a snap of your fingers,

you would be able to create that flame, but your heart starts racing. You start feeling almost like you're suffocating, just thinking about the possibility of producing this flame. You want to, but you're afraid. You're afraid to create this flame in your hand. It seems like it would be easier to walk into a dark, scary basement such as this,

than it would be to look at that burning bright light. I'll just stumble. Bit of this, little. Seal that back up tight, no moisture gets in there. And collect whatever I can and turn it up. You carry the items that are part of your daily ritual, being the first thing you do every day. And having avoided the challenge of looking at flame,

you start to stomp one step above the other towards the spiraling surface of the tower. And that's where we're, will pick up with the rest of you in the cave mouth. Let me see if I can find some sort of combat me. It's like, I don't know. What do you think? Did we already roll for initiative? Yes, we did.

That's what I thought. I kept the numbers, and you are now in the correct order that you would be in. And Barnabos, you're up. I got last. You were in this dark cave. Waves are thrashing all around you. You can hear them coming through the mouth very loudly,

and you can see the surge dampen. very quickly as it enters into this cave. There is a boat just at the very tip here as you are looking down, but that is not where your eyes go, and you try to push out everything except for your primary focus. This strange

antagonist, this seeming manifestation of all that is weird and impossible and threatening in this space, this cloak. Yornyer, you hear the words come from his mouth. This is what I've seen before. This is the

the figure that I saw, the silhouette that I saw against the star, and pulling your anchor out, what do you do? I've been ready. I think I was gripping my anchor, like ready to fight at the end of last session. Exactly right. I see this happen, and I will... I knew it! Let's kill it, lads!

I'm tired of these cheat tricks! As covered in seawater as barnacles and starfish and other sea life explode out on top of me, as a large, slithering black and white tentacle like the bad CGI from the lighthouse will appear on the top of my back as I rush forward as I'm going to recklessly attack. Can I borrow two D-2s? I'm entirely underpaid. I'm going to get all my steps.

D-20s. Oh, D-20s? I'm going to recklessly attack twice. D-12s? That'll be a 21. That is it? And then I'll need D-12s, yeah. And then that will be a, yeah, higher than that. Okay. I will need 2D12s. Not terrible.

16 plus 14 is 30. 30. 30 points of bludgeoning, magical bludgeoning damage. As I smash in and smash in as I'm gonna attempt to go. You see this close without form. It still seems to be resting on something, but it's almost like your mind is, incapable of comprehending the figure within, and you slash in, and it jolps to one side

is doing significant damage. You pound in again, and it does even more. You feel that you are hitting this thing. And that'll be the end of your time. I know he can kill it, lads! Queenie, you're up. Do I see Tyshen? Make a reception check. Oh, great fucking question. Pardon goes, didn't even... Okay, well, I got her two, so... What is the actual... value. I would say that you glance around and you're, you glance around and with a 10, you're not

sure if it's the darkness of the cave within or if he's snuck around or perhaps he's jumped into the water. You do not see him, though he was standing right next to you moments ago. Would that seem unusual to me? I would say that a lot of unusual things have been happening. Yeah, why not? Why wouldn't it? Tishan's missing. You could say or do that information what Queenie would do. Queenie is going to ready her action. Notting arrow in the bow and get prepared, but then she's going to stand forward and just call out.

Kashen, you in here? You, in the cloak. Who are you? What are you doing here? Not ready to just fight someone she doesn't know or understand. Okay. you do that. What action are you readying and what is your trigger? If it attacks anything or any of us,

I will let loose my arrows. Okay. Scrim. I apologize. I'm going to throw you like a giga curveball here. We saw Barnabos strike this thing. He appeared to connect with it. Call it damage? Oh yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. It like got torn away and I'll say as an added detail, there was almost like a punch of frost or ice that came out of. Do we still have our spell focuses? Yes. You still have the disconnected from the wand, the small orbs that act as your material component. I am going to give you, I'm going to tell you what I'm going to do,

and then I'm going to give you full control to do whatever you think is right. Scrim is holding the brutal blade in one hand. His body is racked from his earlier attempt at casting magic. With everything that's happening and everything that's going on, and the words of encouragement that Queenie has continually given Scrim over and over and over again throughout the months of this adventure, he reaches in, a Scrim will reach into his pocket and pull out the coin and say, no more running.

It's time to embrace this. And I am going to attempt to cast summon greater demon and some aspect of greater demon, of Graveyard Jack and call to this thing that has been chasing Scrim for so many years and attempt to summon it or maybe some creature of its power and see if that works. I got swoose bombs.

I got swoose bombs. Scrim will think about this monster, this, this graveyard Jack that has been chasing him for all these years and dig as deep down as he possibly can. and try to call it forth. Copy break? No. Oh.

I may die in 60 years, or I may die today. But we've got to do something. No more running. You focus and channel your energies in this direction, and you feel a connection through the coin. A, like a heartbeat. almost, pulses in your palm. As you feel the quickening of what would be your fear,

typically, start to strengthen in the hand. And pretty soon they are both beating as one. And you stare deep behind the cloaked figure. You can see that there is a rock. It's almost impossible to see except for the brightness of the eyes that appear from behind the rock. As all of a sudden, the eyes you've become so familiar with, lurk out and hunt and starts to pray, staring first at you, and then up at the cloaked figure.

I see, I make connection with the eyes and trembling a little. I, like, raise my finger to it, and then I raise my finger to the cloak, and I say, kill it. And that's my whole turn. Now you control this thing, right? Does that one that can turn on us? Yes. So it says that you roll initiative for the demon, which has its own turns. and after I summon it, I can issue a verbal command. And from behind the rock.

And then... It's pretty banger. And then it just... Oh, and then... Well, it has a whole bunch of shit, and this is why I was leaving it up to you to determine what it is, right? I trust you to make the right choices for... It makes a charisma saving throw,

and if it has disadvantaged on the saving throw, if I say it's true name, on a failed save, the demon continues to obey me. on a successful save, the control of the demon ends for the duration of the spell, all this shit. So it's technically supposed to have it's on a stat block. I don't know how you want to handle all of that. What CR is something great to do you know?

So it's generally four, but because I have to cast at a level five, it's technically one level higher, so it's the CR6. And I looked up a short list of CR6 demons, but I don't know how Derek wants to flavor it. And I wanted to kind of say, like, ultimately, if he wants control of it, you know, he can take full control and do whatever he feels is right. Alright. But otherwise I want the dog to just tear this motherfucker to bits. Jeez.

And then hope it doesn't be else off. Typically when we've done familiars or helpers or something along those lines, we just let it happen on your... That's fine. And without going down a long list of me, like, reading a stat block and doing all of that, I'm going to just say you're empowered to take Graveyard Jack's turn right now. Oh, Jesus. All right. Hold on.

One second. Just so I can figure out, I apologize. No, take your time. Oh, that's perfect. Look at that. What a great little mini. Oh, no repeat. Fantastic.

So this, there's a, there's like a barlur, a barlurga and a Tanaruk. Oh, yeah, all these things that are real. They're just demons. Is it an idea, Mike? What do you think? Yeah, any idea. I know that like, we can, it's not really a demon, right? It's not a demon or a devil.

I've been in. CR5? Four six. Let's grab a six. Because it's technically upcast one level. Bear with us. This is the campaign where we do... A ton of the whole of them.

If Mike's got a good one, I'll just... You could send it to me and I'll look up the step lock. It's got to be a demon, right? Well, it's technically not a demon or a devil. Hold on. Oh, it's neither. Oh, well, a Ugal off. There's a demon tag in the advance search on D&D beyond.

So if I do that... That's fine. Let me see if I can find... We'll just flavor it. I think a fiend of any kind. Uh, well, I think a fiend of any kind. What about a Varac? That's like a flying vulture.

But as long as the stat block, well, why don't we, why don't we, let's take a break, or we can go to someone else's turn and then it's fine, that's fine. I just wanted to like get my turn out of the way. It's your turn. Find the stat block for you. Yeah. Because it's your nears turn. Yep.

Good. Oh God. Now I don't know what I'm gonna do. It's a difficult choice. It is a difficult choice. Do I notice that Taichin is going? that Taishen is gone. Do we all notice this? Barrow us didn't care of a little. Well, I yelled out, Tyshend, where are you? I would say that you hear Queenie.

I'll glance around and I'll realize that that Tyshen's not here. I'll say, Tai Shen, respond no! And I'll give it like half a second. You hear nothing, except the crashing waves and the sound of the chaos unfolding around you You even see, as you yell out for Taishen, something has come over, scrim. And because he's in front of you, he's hunched it down, and you see him point, and all of a sudden,

the creature that he's described as being the thing that scares him the most in the whole world is wrapping into the fray. Oh, I'm going to save that then. Knowing that this, I felt like a malevolent sense when I flew up into the sky and saw this thing, right? So I would, I think I would at least have an idea that that would be bad. So what I'm going to do instead is...

It's been a month, folks. Yeah, it's been a month. Yeah, we're... I will... My hand will frost over, and I will cast... Oh, no, actually. I can do this now. I'll walk up.

You race up on the wet rocks of the cavern floor. I'll be looking for Taishan, and I will say one more time, Tai Shen, and I will sort of glance at the waters to sort of see if he had fallen in, but then my staff will glow this kind of icy blue, and almost this frost will appear around the upper end of it, almost turning into like a club, and I'm going to try to smash this figure with Shalali.

It's pronounced Shilag. Sorry, Shillag. You look down into the water, and it is surging up and down. The boat is rocking and sort of knocking against the rocks, even though it's tied quite firmly to a makeshift dock in this space. It's dark in the cave and hard to see through the water, but you do not see the form of Tishan anywhere. Are you dreading me?

Oh, I'm not. Oh, and do I have to roll anything for casting a spell? I miss. For casting spells? Nope. Awesome. Yes! I pass my turn.

Oh, wow. You what? Did you hit me? I can't. No. I'm assuming his... The shadow given then. His AC is higher than 10.

His AC is higher than 10. Then I miss. Okay. You swing in, but looking for Tishan and doing two things at once, you swing wine. It continues to, it has taken only the two hits from Barnabos, but as it does, you start to see what is very, very evidently snow. Big fluffy flakes of snow start to billow out from the face, start to billow out from the sleeves,

start to escape out from where its waist should be and where legs would be. It starts to blow out in all directions, and it almost flies back and points out at you, and from within the sleeves themselves, the sleeves themselves, you see a bright, like white light, the same light that you would say when pointing at a star, for example. And it blasts out in this massive cone of icy wind, lashes out, covering all of you. I need you each to make a dexterity savings.

Oh, shit. I sent you something really cool. Thank you. Why pass that? The DC is 16, I'm just going to say it so weak. Is a saving throw? Dex. Dex, you say. Yep.

Ooh, I did not pass. I crush it. I crush it. And I need dice for this. I didn't pass. Should I twist? My decks is pretty high. Yes. Yeah. Where's my guy?

Come on. Much better. 19. You each take 44 cold damage on a fail, or half as much on a successful save. Jeez, Louise. As you are blasted, blasted by this icy wind, it is frigidly cold. You are reminded of all of the worst times that you've been on Dracar, and you feel numbness strike

you. You feel almost dizzy from it, and it copes the entire interior of the cave, making everything that was wet from sea water suddenly crystallized before immediately starting to melt again, The magic of this creature drops. And that's where Will, it's midday, Tyshan. You've completed your morning chores, though Delia has been sure to herald some insults at your speed for completing them. And you're now enjoying lunch in silence,

sitting and looking across from her as she shovels food into her mouth, just staring you down. Oh? Yes? Well, uh, how was your morning? How do you think my morning was? Watching an oath like you. I got everything done, Delia.

Why must you speak to me that way? Isn't it obvious? Words are very hurtful. They're intended to be, Ilban. That's supposed to make me feel. Perhaps they will drive you to act. Perhaps they will get you to get up and actually take care of things. The front of the house remains unpainted.

We have duties to do, yes. But why can you not do more? Why can you not get to do what we need to do to turn meager survival and day-to-day monotony into something more? Suppose you're right. What am I, you think? You look down and... and there is no food on the plate in front of you.

But it tastes mediocre? You imagine that it probably would be the same kinds of meals over and over again. If you did find time to fish, then there would be some form of ocean fish on your plate. Or it would be something that stores for long, long periods of time that could be prepared, perhaps like a porridge or an oatmeal. meal or something along those lines. Just calories.

Suppose I'll go out the terrible storm is near the front of the house. I'm just going to pause the music. He works from Orgermar are attacking. And leave the food I've prepared? Delia, please. I just want to... What can I do to make you happy?

I've already told you. You're as thick as... You are lazy. Has this porridge? Sorry. It just was there. You feel an immediate regret. Oh yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yep. Because you are the essence of avoidance. You are timidity. You are caution and evasion. Why fight? It'll pass. Storms always pass. Better to wait them out.

Wait them out then to even try to fight when these when Delia is in a mood like this. I'm sorry I didn't mean it. I'll go paint the house. I don't even care about the storm. I'll go outside right now What else? I don't even need a list. I'll find it. I'll find it. I'll do it. I will just stop talking. There's nothing else you could need for me I'll go right now. Responding like this she loses the daggers in her eyes for a moment and gives you a strange look. What does one willow tree say to the other, Elban?

Oh no. I'm so happy to be here. How about you? Cold decoyne. Oh, suck a decent ounce. What? Obviously, let's make like a... leaf and gets out of here. It's a funny joke. Go and

paint the house. Of course. Thank you. I'll clean up inside. Would I think immediately that her thanking is being uncharacteristic? She seems to have changed her demeanor. There's a lack of confrontation that had been true all morning in her as you did your daily chores.

The moment you saw her, there was an attack. And this is the first time where you've gotten a breath in. No, thank you. She walks up and she gives you a kiss. And she starts to wash the dishes. And with a pep in my step, I walk outside, paintbrush in hand. You go and you find the paint materials in the same storage room.

And that's where we transitioned back to the battling hand. I didn't hear any, nothing, I didn't hear any, like, calls from the void is. No, no, no, no. Everything feels extremely calm. There are these oddities, these little moments. You're picking up on those details, but they're so fleeting that as soon as things come to rest,

you're just grateful to be able to go and do the painting that you're about to do. You hear they will all be. You. Top of the round, Barnabos. You have watched this creature explode ice in all directions, and it is continuing to

look like it is bolstering for another one of these attacks. The cloak that you've struck looks frayed, though. Your two attacks having done significant damage to it have already pulled some the cloth apart, and you wonder, maybe

is there some creature inside that you can smash, or is the fabric when it's torn, will that end this nuisance? Just to maintain game state, would Graveyard Jack have attacked and would Queenie have fired her arrow that she was holding? Thank you. Yes. To mainstain, mainstain. A little bit of homework on our side, is all I'm saying. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. A little bit of homework. Thanks, Mike.

Would Queenie in this moment be able to decide not to? It's your choice, but yeah, you just spend your reaction. Okay. Yeah. Jackie Boy. Yeah, he's coming for that ass. So as soon as he steps out from behind the rock and he eyes the target that he has been commanded to go after, he lets out a horrific piercing howl that everyone will hear, but only the cloaked figure needs to make a wisdom DC saving throw.

Okay. And this is a horrific bone-chilling howl from the deaths of hell. Baskerville style. Woo! Does an 18 pass? Yeah, the 18 passes. So having not... Having not seen that the howl does anything, he immediately bounds moving with an unnatural

grace and swiftness and smokiness and is going to make... Smoky trail behind it. Yes. It's going to be two bite attacks. 17 plus 9 is 26 to hit. And then 4 plus 9 is 13 to hit. Let's fucking go. We're going to twist it.

We're going to twist it. That's going to be a natural 20. So the first one is good. I'm need a shitload of D-6s. If you can just give me as many D-6s as you have. That's two. That's good. That's enough. I think. Give me one more. Give me one more. Perfect. So that's going to be all the D-6s for the attacks. Then I need three more D-8s. Perfect. Jesus, correct. It's for three attacks. Three total attacks, basically, with the crit. That's going to be two, five, ten, eighteen, twenty-three, two. 28. 28 plus 12 is 40, 43. 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49. 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55. 55 total points of damage.

As hands... Piercing a necrotic, right? Yes. Some of it is piercing. The necrotic is... If you need to split it out, I can split it out. How much? 56. 56 total damage? Yeah, he just... He came for that ass. I'm imagining the black version of the Bulldog from Tom and Jerry. That's what I can't work.

Do you know the piercing separate from the necrotic? Or doesn't it matter? No, they both do the same amount of damage. The clothes from bottom. Awesome. So that would be Graveyard Jack's turn. And then Scrim is going to move up. It's not Scrim's turn.

Yeah, you're right. This creature, this creature, oh, and it's my turn. The cloak facing the direction that it is has no concept is for a cloak surprised by the attack, and you watch as it takes apple bite after apple bite from the back of this thing. And you can see shards of ice spraying out and you imagine that it is doing the work

that you've so feared would be done to yourself. Scrum has a wry smile on his face, and then I have to, the demon has to make a wisdom saving throw, which it's not gonna pass, because it's only plus one, so it is still under my control for now. Oh, thank God. I'm gonna assume that that Scrim doesn't know its name.

Like, I don't think he knows the name Graveyard Jack. Well, he would know that, like, Taylor. He would try to think that the dog's name is Graveyard Jack and use that as its name. If it is its name, it would roll a disadvantage. If not, you know, that sucks to you. Oh, you know what I mean? It might not have a, you know, that might not be its true name.

So they don't know a contest? Does that what happened? No, no, no, it's just that if I know the demon's true name, the demon rolls a disadvantage of the standard of my control. Yes. Which I don't think, I don't personally think his real name is Graveyard Jack. Either way, it got a seven, so it's going to stay under my control. Okay. Thank you for simulating all of that. Yeah, yeah.

All of a sudden you just went from like a normal bike to like a Corvette, and I'm just like, oh my God, what's happening? So thank you for a point. Cool. Thank you. Okay. Now it's the top of the round. That was my turn. And Barnabos, you have seen all of this. I'm going to, like, I'm going to be shocked that the horrible Howl doesn't terrify me as I'll just look back at,

it's grim and I'll just, my eyes are like, wild with madness a little bit now and I'm just like, and I just tear, that's right, Mrs. Savage's God, and I'm just gonna tear in, just doing my barbarian thing, and that'll hit. That'll hit. Two net 18s, and then I just need 2D12s. Pretty easy for me.

Not bad. 20 plus 14 is 34 points of bludgeoning damage. Of the magical variety. Wow, one moment. I need a calculator. Because I just smash into it. Okay.

That's... You do all of those things. You guys are now... I mean, it's looking very, very weak at this point. You are now crashing into the cloak and spilling out a veritable tempest of snow is falling in all directions. Your hands are getting wet.

Your face is getting hit with... spiky ice and chunks of snow. You can feel the cold making you numb in all directions. In addition, you're also experiencing the strange smell of brimstone and from the attacks that are coming out of the mouth of graveyard deck, we'll call him. Queenie. Queenie will skirt around scrim and head straight towards the creature within melee range. Okay.

And use her action to pull the hood back. Okay. Who are you? You reach up. And she will just reach up and try to go back. Even though it's like up in the air and you're as short as you are, you are able to cup. I have 15-foot jump. And you have your bees who are ready to go now supporting you and lifting you up like this.

And you grab the hood. I need you to make a dexterity check just in the middle of this chaos. Twist it. I twist it. Altitude. Two twists. Just a regular dexterity check? 16.

That's more than enough. You reach up and you grab the top of the hood and you yank down. Ow, that hurt. Did I come myself? No idea. You yank it back. And perhaps what Queenie was suspecting, you see. And horror, the face of Tyshen within the cloak.

Tishen looks frozen-eyed, staring up. pale blue skin like ice. You take 120 damage all together that I've been adding up as we've been doing this combat, and the cloak falls to the ground, slumps into a pile, and collapses against the frozen cavern floor.

All of you see this happen but an instant with Queenie having deduced what may be happening in this strange and impossible place. If I take 120 damage, It triples my health pool. Is that instant character deletion? Well, it depends. Technically.

No, no, no. You would need to be... It needs to double your health. If it doubles my health pool, it's an instant character relation. But it has to be in one hit. So it depends on if it's delivered all at once when the hood comes back or not. It was not delivered all at once.

Oh, then you're not. You're just on... I'm just telling you how much damage I've been having. That's how much damage you've taken between everybody. You're just turbo-fucked. Man, I really blew my... my load to her over here. I think Barnabas and I are like, who else but Barnabos

and scream? It collapses, and there's this sickening smack, almost like meat on a butcher's table as Tyshan collapses and almost starts to roll and slide on the surface of this cavern floor towards the surging waves of the cave. What are you all doing? I've seen this. I'm gonna ergot, I'm gonna crab leg,

and I'm just gonna scuttle up. you know, along with slippery rocks and try to snatch up Taishen. You are able to grab him. Mr. Fire Blossom! Mr. Yornair, Mr. Yornair, Mr. Yornair. Yeah, I would immediately give commands of the demon to stop. You'll hear crackling of a warm campfire as I place my hand on his chest and try to breathe some of that heat and fire

back into him, casting cure wounds at a, at some level. Oh, no. So I'll roll it, but. but you'll have health. Okay. We'll see about that. Yeah, I don't think anything. No wonder combat was so easy.

Uh-oh. Oh, no. Was it my turn? Well, this is bad. Are we still in combat? Are we just, is it, is we stopped? You hear a low growl. Yeah.

Oh, everyone, calm down. This was a calculated thing. It just turned out I'm bad at math. Okay, this was calculated. I'm just terrible in math. I'm terrible in math. 12 healing. Derek, 12 healing to Yornear.

I'm not controlling Tichin anymore. Tyshen, you're there. Wait, so that begs the question. Is Tyshen dead? No, no, no, no. He took 120 damage. He would have... But per death rules, he would have taken enough

to go unconscious, then was hit after that, so would have failed death saves. Yes, he would have. But in this moment, I am saying that the healing power that Yornear puts into him push his breath back into his lungs. I understand the logic tree. You want me to have 12 health and get up.

I want you to have 12 health and get up. Or rather wake up because you are being cradled by Barnabos in his arms and you're no longer in a scene painting a house. Whatever time has passed very, very quickly for you has dilated and come back to this moment.

Suddenly it hits you. You were in this cave with your companions. You were facing the captain and watching him war and then you had this vignette, and now you hurt. You do not know what has happened over the last few minutes, but it seems minutes have passed. Oh, I feel like someone took a bite out of my ass. You'll get a giant face full of seawater.

Wake up Mr. Foller Blossom! And then another one. Wake up Mr. Foller Blossom. How this happened. One more. Wake up, Mr. Loh, okay. Ah, there you are. Good lad, good lad.

It couldn't have been you that I saw. What do you mean? What do you remember? You remember all of it. Oh, I was back. I was at the lighthouse. I was... I was... I was... I was... I was... Ilban, I think.

You're interrupted. You're endeavoring to tell this story, and you hear all of you, even over the sound of the crashing waves, the sound of this low, almost gurgling growl from the stalking beast that is five, ten feet from you. Oh, thank goodness, it's just your adorable dog.

Ashley's shaking and sweating and as pale as Skrimk has ever been. I'd still just be pointing out to me like, stay. Back up. Move. Don't. No attacking. Stop. Go away. Go away. Go away. And like trying to like command it to back up and maybe try to dismiss it. It's pace. I technically have to make saving throws every six seconds. you know, DM

discretion aside. I would say make an intimidation check. And I'm going to use a twist of threat. Okay. That's fair. Intimidation, you say? That's where... Oh, I am a Viking at that. At disadvantage. Okay, here we go. Big money. That's a big one. The first one is a 23.

Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on. 16. 16's the lower. It back and forth. continues to stay there until it takes one step backwards and then stands and looks sizing you all up. I need to make a group intimidation check. Again, me as well or just get my and I'm spending five of my dreads. Okay. Well, one was a natural 20, but a 19 and one was a I got a dirty 20 has my low number. Damn, you're intimidating as far plus eight plus eight charisma.

How do you do it? 12. Five. Four. I think I have a 18. Seeing it back up, one step. I will point the brutal blade at it and step forward and say, that's right. Back!

Go away! Be gone! An attempt to redouble my efforts and hope that everyone sees a burst of confidence. A paw backwards. A paw backwards. And it makes its way back, not to this rock, but all the way to the back of the cave where it is the darkest.

Skulk, skulk, skulk, skulk, skulk, skunk. And soon it's fur, it's matted fur, the darkness of its skin, its huge town-like claws, and its eyes are all that's left. You don't see it blink. They just aren't there. After a moment.

I didn't think that was going to work. But you did mean to do that, yes? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'm strong. I certainly didn't mean to harm Tyshed. I didn't know. I couldn't have known. The last thing I remember,

we were all in the cavern together, lunging at the cloak, and then I was back at the lighthouse. And I was Ilban, and Ilban was me. And I was there with Delia. And I started to tend it like it was my job. I felt like I was living his life. And that feeling of avoidance

remains within you. I'm still holding you, right? Gently. Wait a minute. I'm going to drop you on the ground. And I'll stand over you. Tell me something Mr. Fireblossom would only know. Oh. I love tea.

And Meili. I come from the Jade Shell Village. Well, um, I think it's all disgusting hot leaf. cheese. Well, that is the opinion of

a dullard. Okay, Mr. Boyer, awesome. That avoidance changes. As soon as you call him a dullard, you've become confrontation. You become like Delia, and all you want to do is hurl

insults. All you want to do is be aggression. Reveal your grievances. It annoys you when people insult. T. or your tea especially. That was a stupid thing to say, Barnabos. You ugly, fat, stupid, mediocre fisherman. He's also kind of bald. You could throw that in there. You bald, dumb, stupid... Now Mr. Firebussum! You're right on all of those points except for one! I have the monsters.

Most of them get away. I haven't seen you kill a single monster since we've been together. I've killed several monsters. I've been together. I've killed several monsters. And I've been together. I may be fat, I may be bald, I may be irritable, I may not be that smart, but no one insults my fishing or my cooking. And you know what, that was my next point. Your cooking is a little tasteless. You use one seasoning. Ancient estuary doesn't work on everything.

Oh, you're doesn't. You're saying you, sir, firebler. No, it doesn't. I've seen you. You like me, lobster. No, you like me lobster. I'm going to grab on my left. But I won't say!

I'm gonna finish him in the face! This isn't the Taishen we know, are we sure? It's not him. How much damage were I taking from getting punished in the face? At least fucking six. Six points of damage. Yeah, you take half of you.

Oh no, I'm still resistant. Eight points of damage. Jesus. What, only? A 12? Yeah, okay. Oh, I hate it. You need to choose someone else that isn't Barnabose. As this is happening, I'm gonna step up.

step up. Both you need to shut up. You really think that your lobster and your tea is worth fighting about right now. You almost died. You shut up! You dumb Queenie! Tea is the only thing worth fighting about! I'm going to choose for you. You are avoidance. You are avoidance. You are a fair thing to say. You are timidity. You are caution and evasion. Whenever the situation turns perilous, you retreat, hesitant to engage. Uncertainty clouds your thoughts. Avoid confrontation whenever possible, even when it might be necessary. and you may continue. I'm going to pretend like you did not just say that to me

because I know you've been through a traumatic situation right now. Your near back me up on this. Get in there, big guy. Come on, we need you. It is, I mean. Yorner, please. Bordobos is fuming. I can't give it to him on my own.

Why are you stumbling so much? I don't. By the word to say. You usually have anything of importance to say. And what was this with this healing? You call yourself a medicine man and bury back up? That's not not.

I was just trying to tell, do you need more? With his light touch and I'm almost back down. Not right. Tyshen goes unconscious. And he watches his body falls backwards into the drink. Oh, I should have healed you more. I'm so sorry. I'm going to go up and I'm going to...

You like the yourself? He's sinking. Fish him out. Fish him out. Fish him out. Fish him out. He's sinking. Oh, fine. Oh, fine.

I'll drag him up and I'll prop him up against the the side of the cave wall. I will use more powerful magic this time, and I'll at a second level, I'll catch your wounds. We are so fucked, ladies gentlemen. What's going on here? I don't know. Nobody's acting right.

My Barbos is kind of normal. You fucking me right now. I will never, ever dispose of eggs properly. I will kill seabirds. I'll do all the things you hate if you'll knock it the fuck off right now. Do you understand me? As long as you don't insult me cooking, we're good. Tashin's been through

something awful. You almost killed him with your recklessness. You did not know what you were fighting before you rushed into kill. That's not bravery, that stupidity. No, you don't insult a man's lobster. 14 points of human. Please, I need you to take this seriously for just a second. All right. Hey, you're all right. All right. We're all a little on edge. Is that we're all better than you did last time? Of course he does, Your Honor. You did a great job. What's that? Same thing. Good.

Am I still? You take the healing. I don't know what you're asking. Am I still? Am I still? Am I still? If I still do. Oh, that feeling does not fade.

However, in the role that you play, you don't have to be attacking 100% of the time all of the time. You can come down to a low simmer and try to drive action forward. Should someone ever cross the line, then maybe you throw the insults at them. But the initials. surge of, let's call it hatred in you, can be tampered by compliance with things going your way. Goodness gracious. Can we all just take a deep breath here for a second and listen to Yorne? He's got to have a game plan. Come on. What next big guy? Come on.

That was better healing, Yona. Thank you. Oh, I don't have a... Why would I, no? I mean, whatever you want to do. What? What do you feel like we should do at this point, Scrim? Me? Scrim. You're asking Scrim for Scrim. No, I'm, I just, I figure if I say something... When you get off this fucking rock. Maybe bar on the boast might disagree. Somebody's body snatched you on here.

He's definitely not you in you. All right, I need everybody to calm down. We are not doing anything rash. We tried that, and we almost killed Tashen. Yes, we need to get off of this rock, but we're not running out of here right now. I need you to lower your blood pressure. Why don't you make...

Why don't you make some sense of tea? Why don't you just boil some water? Put some ancient estuary in it and just gulp it down like you do sometimes for the morning when you think no one's watching. So, the life. The moment that you produce flame, I need everybody to make a charisma saving throw.

Oh, shit. Oh, no. They're just waiting. This is not good. Okay, I'm a Viking at this. Oh, don't bother twisting this. Yes. Oh, I need a twist, for sure.

I also need a twist. On the Viking. We'll twist once. I'll take one twist just because 26. I'll take one twist just because 26. Look at the show off. I'm pretty charismatic. Nine.

I got a 15. I am on the edge. Lucky them. Eight? 13. Oh, my God. Oh, no. I also got an eat.

Wait, hold on. Eat. Tishan, you produce this flame, and it's with that 26 that you are able to create it, and you are going in to light the embers of Barnabos's pipe, and so that his tobacco can catch, and all of you look at it, And you feel this, it's like all of you jumps into your throat,

this terrible fear, raw, frightening fear, as though you've never been more scared of anything your entire life. You are mechanically frightened. You want to run. You are horrified. And it only lasts for a moment. You produce the flame because you know you have that. But the 26th only bought you seconds before that same fear,

also collides with you like a bucket of ice water hitting you, and all of a sudden you want to get it off, get away, and you start to feel yourself wanting to flee, flee the space, flee it because it has had flame in it. Nope, no, no, no. Flames, I don't do water, I jump into the water and moth tape into a seal.

Into the boat, into the boat! Barnabos jumps into the boat and literally almost rams into Barnabot as you are starting to swim. The three of you are running on what is wet, Almost icy cavern floor. I jump onto my bees and I'm walking like those, like, the escalator walkways. And I'm just...

You speak screaming out of the cavern. What are you doing? We're doing. We're born five minutes. Okay. When you finally make it to the outside, you can see that the side of the island is being hit with more and more violent waves of water. Barnabos is the last to come out, having to row like he does. But you're near, the surge, the undertow is very, very strong against...

Oh, you're a seal. You're doing okay, but it is still quite violent. As a storm is very literally still crashing and coming in, pushing up against the island, and looking up and around, finally freeing yourself from the fear that you just experienced, having gotten away from the terrible fire that was in the... the cavern. You look up, and there is no turning light that you would expect to see hitting the clowns, especially

in a tempest that looks like it's going to come. What the fuck was that? How'd you do? Why I'm in fire? Then go wrong with the cave without fire no longer. We didn't get out of here. We should get in the boat and just, and just heading for the island. Where's Mr. Yorny? Mr. Yorny! My head will pop up. Oh! Is that Mr. Yorini or a seal?

I'm like, you see me, I look pretty horrified, and I'm looking for fire, like any sense of it. Is there, there's no nothing illit? Make a perception check. If I feel like I'm close enough to the boat, I'd probably try to hop in with with Barnabas. If I feel like I can jump in.

18. I thought we were on the boat. No. The three of them ran up the cavern floor. you rode out by your lonesome and you were near became a feel. So yeah, I'm out here. Yeah, I mean, given the frightened condition, I just went away from Tyshen. Right?

Like I was trying to do, you know, you know. There's like a beach along the side of it. Yeah, so if you were like close enough, I would try to jump in. I would then once the fear of the flame is kind of dull, I'll cowl out. All right, I'm taking her back. And I'll take the dingy closer to the shore to collect everyone if they would care to get into the boat. You look with your seal eyes. One of your seal eyes does, see.

You don't see any glowing on the island that would indicate a light source of any kind that would be resembling fire, let alone light in general. It's dark looking up. It's almost impossible to tell the rock from the sky. And you do not see the telltale signs of a beam of light that should be coming from the lighthouse,

house, especially at night, especially on a stormy night like this. But you look out also just to verify. And on the horizon, no ships, no lights, even the coast that's in the distance seems a thin gray line. I'll sigh a seal, five, are I a timid seal? Are you a what seal? A timid seal? A timid seal? Yeah, you still feel the timidity of your problem.

I'll start to look around for like any orcas in the area. Oh no. So I'm gonna be like those seal, if anyone's seen those videos or the seals like desperately clamber up onto the boat to escape the orcas. So I'm literally like trying to clamor up onto the, onto the rowboat. And once I'm on there, I just like sort of flop there.

And I stop. Very timidly. Do you do that? And it sounds like while I'm trying to manage 14 things at the same time, you all jumped into the boat? I'm flying next to us. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, if we had the ability to, as soon as it got close enough,

Scrim would have tried to jump in the boat with Barnabas. You hop in. No more flames. We need to take a minute here, right? The whole point that we even came down here in the first place is because we ever heard that conversation, right? And we're expecting the two of those bastards to show up at any minute. And we have to be ready for it.

And then the cloak thing happened, and then Tynne was in the cloak, and now here we are, and I don't know what's happening anymore. He wanted us to take their place, treach on this rock. We are getting away. Wait, you mean we're just gonna, you're just gonna row us out into the storm, away from the island? We're going to the mainland. There's willows and wizards there.

I'll take that better than being trapped for eternity on that rock. What if it's weeks or months, so we get lost and we don't have any supplies or anything? We're gonna die. We're gonna die at sea. We're gonna capsize. Scrim, you can't be so afraid of everything. We gotta get out of here.

We gotta head towards the witches and the willows. That's where they are going to go. I'm agreeing with Scram. We don't have all the information. We should make any choices unless we know everything that could possibly happen. Thank you.

Why do it today when we could do it tomorrow a week from now or never? The only thing I know is Scrim couldn't plan his way out of a wet paper bag with the brutal blade in both hands twice.

All I'm saying is if at least one of us doesn't think we should do it then we shouldn't. That's just what I've been saying for months. Queenie, thank you for listening to me. You're welcome,

after I saw that fire, I'm a change woman. So it's settled. We just wait here until we die. You don't want to have any regrets. I have so many. Well, you don't want any more. You make a choice like that, and you'll regret it.

I'm ruining the mainland. You're welcome to jump in the water scrim. Ah, no. You want to come on. Say something. Give us a piece of wisdom, anything. We need direction. There anybody to catch that.

Anybody's big seal. I'll do a seal shrug. I speak bee, but not seal. We're doomed. I'm booking it to the mainland. I don't give a fuck about what anyone's saying. I am rowing. Okay?

And an experienced seasoned sailors such as yourself, it is difficult work. Even for someone as strong as you and someone with an unlimited, unfathomable amount of the sea experience, would not, wow, I lost my train of thought because I made the pun unfathomable. That's really good. That's really good. Can we just got to go to Fratera?

Wow, that was some clever. Thank you, thank you. We're clapping for the session. We're clapping for the pun. Yeah, that was somewhat clever. Don't misunderstand. You are having to row over these massive swells in the ocean. You are all being hit.

with salty, wet air. It's crashing up against the boat. And you're doing your best to make sure that you don't capsize. You are looking behind you every once in a while and then giving it one, two, three, maybe four, and then looking behind, if you make the wrong turn up one of these swells, you might capsize and turn over.

And it's really impeding your ability to get farther away from the rock. I'm trying to go over all the waves. trying to aim the bow. I will, go into the ways. How is, piloting a water vehicle in Dungeons and Drag? I've never simulated this. I am proficient in water vehicles.

I assume that you would be. You could choose, it's a tool. You can choose a stat that would be associated with this tool. So maybe strength because he's running. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it would be a, you could do strength plus proficiency. So you would basically add effectively what you would for for athletics.

I think I heard a whisper in my good year at athletics. Well, yeah, that's the equivalent. Or just a strength check plus proficiency. I don't know if I could double proficiency. Because if you're doing athletics and running the two-year-old. Oh, that's fair. Right? How about that?

And you're subtracting the twist of dread that I'm using. Then everything's a hunky-dorf. I'm desperately just trying to be dead center in the middle of the boat as a CR. It's certainly pretty good. 10. You're going to add like 11. 10 plus. Oh.

Even with the dread, it. is, wait a minute, is that actually true? Eight would be your athletics, and then if he's doubling proficiency, it'd be 11, right? It would be eight, so it would be plus eight plus another five on top of that, but he plus 13, so 23. 23. Damn, you make progress. It is slow, hard work, and you are staring at the island the entire time

whenever you're not checking for, the waves. You are staring at the island, and it is dark. It is that same wedge shape that I described earlier. You can see the small silhouette of this unlit lighthouse there on the top, and even the flat of the house, and you wonder about your experience there, how you arrived here, and how in a pretty short amount of time, You are now fleeing, fleeing, fleeing hoping to reach the coast. These thoughts occur to all of you. Tyshen, you are feeling that same drive of action and pain.

You are still wounded. You can remember, yeah, you feel the hit to your jaw. You feel injuries that you don't remember taking bites against your back. You're near, you're just hoping that there won't be anything too emotional. You were just hoping that this is the last of the storm and that by the time you make it to the, perhaps there will be some peace and quiet for a moment and no one gets upset. Scrim, you're thinking about those eyes. Yeah. And Queenie, how are you feeling?

Queenie's feeling hesitant. She's looking back towards the rock and thinking that she should go back that this feels a lot like attacking the masked figure, just making a rash decision and going for it, knowing that how we got here was inexplainable, how we're going to leave isn't going to be something as simple as rowing away from the island, but not wanting to leave her friends, but also feeling like we're making their own choice

and just a multitude of not knowing what to do. You are feeling this and you're feeling the waves. These thoughts are swimming through all of the... swimming through all of you. Thank you for telling me. And as the wave comes down and you take another dip, Barnabos is seemingly focused on piloting this thing. All of a sudden, you cracked into rock. The bottom of the boat scrapes against the reason the lighthouse is here in the first place.

And you watch as wood tears away underneath you. And what was a simple ship, a simple rowboat, splinters and shatters, and you find yourself crashed against the surface of one of these flat rocks that is the reason why this lighthouse is here? The boat is almost completely destroyed, halved by the immediate impact, and you see the waves surging all around you. You think that for a moment you only are going to have another minute before one of these large waves, perhaps is tall enough to pull you off of the slick surface of this rock. What are you doing?

So you're a seal, not a walrus? Queenie's flying with bees. Yeah, I could get both scrim and... Tai Shan? And you're near. No, not Tai Shan. Tai Shan's way too heavy, but I could get the two of you with my bees. I'm a pretty big seal. Okay, well, then I'm a pretty big seal.

I can get screwed with my bees. I'm a big seal. So even though we crash on a rock, they're still surf, like crashing all over us, right? Exactly right. It's when the waves are at their very tallest that you think that, it'll be taller than even you are, you're near. Where it'll literally collapse

over the entire rock and then continue on its way. It'll be hard to hold on to the top of this rock in those moments. But you are watching smaller waves crash up and around and everything is spraying down against you. It feels like it's raining, even though it isn't, just because of the surge

that is spraying all around you. Oh, fuck! How deep is it here? deep? Yeah, between all of the rocks. Is there depth, or is it like really, are we basically over like shallows? Make a

check of some kind? That's tricky. I think you might have to go into the water to answer. Well, if I get knocked out of the water, since I'm a seal, I would immediately jump in. If in this moment I can just jump down and check to see

how like how deep it is, and if I feel any of it's navigable underwater, that's when I want to check for it. While that's happening, as I would get, we all get tumbled into the surf, I imagine. I would look at Queenie and say, get Mr. Savasconch, I got Mr. Fireblossom,

as I'm going to attempt to grab Tishen because I know that I'm strong enough to carry Tichin while swimming. And I don't know how strong the bees or the seal is. The bees can carry them. Can they carry scrim? Okay, yes. So the two of you are on the air, I think.

Yeah. Okay. So the breeze... You're holding on together. You're holding on together. You watch... You like jazz? You watch the short hopper to those cute seal hops and all of a sudden, yorn ear disappears into the wave, and you are underwater, and you start to swim

as quickly away from the rock as possible, feeling the currents pushing and pulsing back and forth like this. But being able to swim, him, as gracefully as a seal, you pull away from the rock and start to descend, 10, 15, 20 feet. What do you do is you get under the water? You're looking for a floor? No, I'm just looking to see, like, if there's depth to the ocean, and I feel like it's, we're in actual ocean, and that it can be... You're attempting to perceive that, is this an illusion?

Well, yes, I'm trying to see, A, like, do I feel like this is, like, just actual, natural ocean? but also you know, just trying to see if it's like endless rocky shores or did we sort of get unlucky there's one rock here but like a channel or something. There's either a channel or if we can like get into some sort of like safer water. It's dark and difficult to see very far out but

you go a little bit deeper and you start to To spy, yes, there do seem to be these arms, just like that wedge shape that happens to be above the water most of the time that has a lighthouse on it. There are these same similar shapes all throughout the floor of this. You can see massive ones like this, and some of them are close enough to the surface where you can see them rise above the water as the waves continue to move with the wind and to the coming storm. So it looks like there's jagged rocks in all directions. It's treacherous. rock. It is treacherous. Okay. Okay.

What are you guys doing? I just need to... That's not all you see. Oh. Okay. You peer down and you turn perhaps to glance back at the rock that you know your friends are on and you can see creatures.

Humanoid likes creatures. Scaled and strange, covered in seaweed, start to pull themselves up the rock and there seem to be dozens of them starting to make their way up almost like ants going up an anthill. Oh, thank gosh I'm on these bees. Thank you, Queenie. You saved my life.

Get again. Anything breathe, Graham. How many times is this, 40, 50? I don't know what I owe you at this point. More than that, probably. I will quickly swim to Barnabos, and I will, I have Tishan with me and all to say, only breathe with it safe, lad.

Err! Trying to point down to the ocean with my head, like, I'll look down. Hold your bread, lad, and I'll dive, I'll dive with, uh, with, uh, Yornear as a seal. I hate that. I got some giant calves and fins on them, so I'm just, I'm fucking seeing in, I'm aquamanning my way down. No, not understanding, uh, what Yorneur is describing in full. You, uh, grab onto Taishen and the two of you watch as they dip into, uh, the drink, pulling themselves underwater, and you start to

use your Triton abilities to swim, and you can see Yornears just alongside you, and you follow his gaze, and you see now just the exact same thing that your seal sees. You turn, and they're these strange creatures. They seem to be pushing off the rock now, and it feels like they are 15, 20 feet away. They're strange black eyes, uh, covered in sea what they seem to have been crawling from the ocean floor. Being the salty sea dog that I am, when I recognize these creatures. You have heard tales.

These creatures seem to be an amalgamation of the things that you remember. A resemblance of what stories you've heard of skeletons that exist on the, in crash ships, around lighthouses, stories of them coming back to life and returning to the shore for whatever. unknowable purpose they happen to shamble up for. But also sea creatures. Some of them seem to have scales and fins across the top of their head. Gills, these sorts of features. Strange jaws and teeth, razor sharp like a piranha almost.

They all have slightly different characteristics. They are not shifting. They are still present, but they don't seem to match any of the templates, and yet they match all of them from your experience. I look at Yornear. Does it feel like we would be totally outmatched trying to, like, fight or kill these things? It almost feels like looking down at an army.

You read as a short story, Day Gone. Are you all relatively together? We're above the ways. You throw her together, and we're flying above the ocean. So I look at the army, I look at that, and I'm saying, I will sort of like, I will sort of like, like, Try to kind of like point my head at where they are to try to like get you to sort of be altogether.

Else. Unless I have a booming Aquaman voice. We need to get out of the air. I'm going to the surface. Atlantis. And I'll swim. And I'll tell you to, you're hanging out of my netting. And the time that's taken you to communicate,

these creatures have closed the distance. And you can feel them starting to grab at your seal body, starting to pull at your feet. Taishian are emerging as you're struggling to hold your breath in. Barnabot, you can feel this creature tugging, tugging, dugging. And even with your great strength, the weight of Taishen being what it is, you do not know if you're going to be able to surface. You can still breathe, but it's only a matter of time before the tearing, the pinching,

the ripping, the clawing. And all of a sudden, all of you are not where you were moments ago. This podcast is brought to you by our Patreon. Become a patron today at patreon.com slash legends of Aventris and gain access to tons of exclusive perks, including a monthly movie night and a weekly Patreon exclusive camp and set on the high seas, Shroud over Saltmarsh. You can also go to The Crooked Moon.com to pick up your own copy

of our first published supplement, The Crooked Moon, a folk horror tone for Dungeons and Dragons fifth edition. And don't forget to snag all the extra goodies like dice, miniatures, plushies, a tarot deck, and more. Thank you. Moments ago, you were just above the middle of an ocean, a straight that existed between a lighthouse island and a coast. Blinking, there's a moment of confusion, and you find yourselves all staring at each other,

looking at your feet. You're sitting up, but you are sitting, and you seem to be in a room. You're all assembled, almost as though, placed there. And you look up, you can see ceiling, you can see windows all around, and it's not difficult a few seconds later to deduce that you are in the top of the lighthouse. Oh no. But there's no lantern here, or lamp. There's what you saw when you investigated the first time.

A empty space where a lamp should be. You can feel the metal under your feet or under your hands and starting to sit up and come to your senses. You realize your body's feeling stiff, numb. There's a bit of a shiver to it before you very slowly start to come to your senses. Do you remember where we just were being an arm? Oh my God. Is your inner still a seal?

No. Am I still timid? You do feel that timidity. There's a almost like a muting or a numbing of what would normally be the typical direct yorenear. There's still that avoidance that seems to be cursing you at this. time. Ooh. You have the experience of when you're in seal form

as a druid and wow, and you're lagging, and you go all the way at the top of the lighthouse, and then the internet comes up, boof, and you're back. And you're back in your human form. That's what you've just experienced. Yeah. Incredible. I'm going to look down and see if on my really sweet calves,

if there's any like fishy handmarks or skeletal of handprints, like cursing or poisoning me. If I can look, if I even have like the, I'm a lot stiffer. Yeah. That's the world I was gonna use. Fuck. I couldn't think of it.

It bros. It's bros. Vocabulary bros. Fuck! You lean forward as quickly as you can and it almost like creak forward and you look at your magnificent calves. And... They're really are nice. It takes you a minute to get the blood and the sensation back into them.

But they appear to be uninjured. A moment ago you could have felt that there was a hand pulling. pulling the flesh off. What do we do? Nothing makes any sense. Nothing is going the way we need it to. Everything is all messed up in topsy-turvy. Ah ha ha.

How does this place keep moving us around? Ridiculous. It wasn't... it's not the real sea out there. It's not even a real lighthouse. Are we all just thousands of miles away? freezing to death in the snow. Trapped in the blizzard. What a way to go.

It is likely that this is what was happening, maybe, during those two weeks. Must we pass two weeks before we can leave. We don't even know how much time is passing between these, these, these, these images, these things are experiencing. We're all over the place. We don't know where or when we are. What's going on? I'm going to, like, peek over the edge. If I can, look down into the house to see if I can see any lights on or any movement. You'd have to walk through the door and step out onto the balcony. There's a word for it.

I can't remember it. But you'd have to effectively, like, go out and lean over the railing in order to see. I'll do that. You do that. And you lean over and shrink for a moment. No, there is indeed a house. There aren't any lights on. Do I see any lights at all?

No. All you hear is the howling wind. You see the crashing waves far, far below you. It's dizzying how tall up you are when you are at the height of this lighthouse. It's not a small or a medium, let's say. But you can't see any, any source of light. I want to think about flame. And how does that make me feel emotionally? You shrink from the thought. from the thought. Ugh. Just your mind going there thinking,

well, surely there's a fireplace. Surely there's a lantern. Surely there's some form of, just those thoughts are pulled from your mind as they come in, almost like they are themselves being scared away by it. I'll come back in. I do not see any sign of,

the life housekeepers. I am still very afraid of flame. Did they make you switch? Are we doomed here, trapped down this rock forever? How could we be? We survived this once, right?

I mean, it begs the question. What happened the first time we were here? We went up to the obelisk and then all of a sudden we lost two weeks and we came out the other side. We have to do it again. Is it the same as last time? and we don't know.

What are we doing wrong? Do we have to go back? Did we not see them? Did we beat them there? They weren't in the cave. And they couldn't have swapped with us. We haven't seen them at all. And we took the only boat that they were going to use.

It's now crashed along the rocks. They have no other way off. Is there like the, is it like a, pool of mercury or like quicksilver or whatever. When you stand, it is like a moat. Would be a better way of putting it. There's a hole in the center where the actual... A flat metal bottom or...

Exactly right. But there is this moat of quicksilver. And that is what would... The majority of the weight would sit on. So that if it were properly greased and properly handled, the mechanism would have to spend very, very, very little fuel. in order to turn it and keep it moving and gliding perfectly smoothly. I think you'd know enough about lighthouses to have an understanding of that technology,

but it's very strange to see the naked bath of quicksilver like this without the lamp on it. All we can do is go look for the wiki and his wife. See if they're still here. But what if they know what our plan was? We chop them up in a little bits. They're powerful. What if they reset us back to this position again? And what hope is there anyway, Mr. Yorne here?

We either cave their... They either do what we want, we cave their skulls then, or we're all dead and trapped here for an eternity. What if we're supposed to go back to the cave again? And try again somehow. Maybe we did something wrong. Even if we are, there's... the boats gone. I'm with Bonobos. We have to find the wiki and Delia and see if they have any other way off this... this...

his stupid island. The hesitation you're feeling from your ear is making that blood rise into you again. Feeling frustration, feeling like an outburst is just behind the surface.

You're not there yet, but it is difficult. Difficult to hear his meandering when the choice is clear. I will deal with that who do you think is best? All of you.

Well, just as a counterpoint to what Yoni is saying, if for some reason the timeline is all messed up. But if the boat's back in one piece? I mean, I would say we kind of didn't mess up. We almost killed Daishen. Ah, I'm still sorry about that, buddy. Like, to be fair, you did cast a massive blast of coal in the form of a cone. I did? Hey. He's right.

As far as I understand, I can't use them. I've never used ice magic before. That's why none of us presumed that you were Mr. Firebossom. Except the Queenie. How did you know? I don't think with Tashin, I think it was the cloak using. What happened to the cloak? We lift it in the cave.

Maybe we need to burn the cloak. Or use its power. Oh, yeah, I could have put that thing on and have some really bitching ice powers. Or he could have gone the same way as Tashin. And then we would have been left with your hand. And you could have just fed me to it. We wouldn't have. Not like we would be able to stop it if it didn't.

It was really reckoning on killing you. But we would have tried. We would have tried at least, yes. We all came together and we were able to chew it away. That was good, right? You didn't have it happen again next time now that it's tasted Mr. Firebossum's blood? No, no, no, no, no.

It's gotten the taste of one of us. Let me be very clear. It'll definitely come back to more. The control that I had over that thing was tenuous at best. I want to be very, very explicit. I was not in control of that situation at all. Why would you call upon a demon like that if you had no control over it? Well, what were you thinking?

Because we've had lots of conversations about this, and you know what? Queenie's right. She's one of the bravest people that I know. And I'm tired of being such a coward. If that thing wanted to kill me, it'd have done it by now. So why not embrace it? Why not harness the strength? What could go wrong?

Well, you don't have all the information. I thought you'd be in my corner. Look, just because I think that you shouldn't be afraid of it all the time, doesn't mean I think that you should be reckless with your life either. I think there's a happy medium somewhere in there, Srim, and you just got to take the time to think on it. I can't win! I agree with Queenie.

That's because you make all of your choices on a whim. I'm passionate. What do you want from me? I'm impulsive. I know it. He's that goblin temper. I'm... Yorneur.

Choose somebody other than Tyshen. Based on what? Is this a Yornear thing or a Ritchie thing? This is a... Ritchie thing. Because when Yornear agreed, he felt certain. for a moment. And you feel, Yornear would feel, this leave. But at a metal level, you can't choose someone who's already had the prompt. That's all.

What? Both Yornear and Ritchie were both leaning towards, because Scrim is very much, you know, emoting right now, his attention would be towards Scrim. So that's where his focus would be. Scrim, you become avoidance. I'm emotional. I'm passionate. I know you are. What? And Taishan, you feel this confrontation leave you, and you become Taishen again, free and clear. It is you, Yornear, who takes on the role of confrontation

as the light shift. I thought I had a moment of, I thought I was, never mind. Hey, I'm not trying to tell you you shouldn't be no, scream, I'm sorry. I do think you can do it. I really do. No, it's not a big deal. I don't worry about it. Just another day that ends in why.

Look, I got my bees. You got your dog. Oh, no, your bees are beautiful. The dog is just awful. I mean, he was cute and some way, kind of. No, I don't want to talk about this anymore. If we ever do sail again, we're not bringing that on board, bad luck. If you had a cat, that would have been one thing.

Cats are awful. On a ship. though. Why wouldn't you want a dog on a ship? Dogs don't catch rats. Ah. Because dogs are busy cuddling you and making you feel better. Aye.

Bad luck on a ship. Ah, I'm sorry, bottom of us. That's what you're for on a ship. I don't want to cuddle with any of y'all. The reason why you always lose Scream is because you always made the wrong decision. Why? Do you understand this? You say you cannot win that you always lose.

always loose. I mean, I know, but... Well, that's not true though. He didn't say no. Yes, it is. He's kind of true. He bases his decision on whim and gut and his emotion. I did just say that, but I didn't mean it in a, like, all the time in self. Well, I do. Okay, well, I... This is why we should never listen to him for anything.

His opinion is worthless. He's been a little hard on a scrim. Hey, he's having a hard time. He's feeling a lot of regret for sticking that dog on his friend. Well, that was a certain. stupid idea too. Yorne is right. I can't do anything right. No, you can.

Don't listen to him. Mr. Staviscoach, that was the right decision. You're going to whip that dog in his shape and teach it who's boss. You're going to show that you are the alpha male. Oh, you're right. It's not a cat. It's worthless. I'm worth it. We're just not going to bring it on a ship. We'll leave it on the shore

and that will be fine. Everyone get up right now. Okay. You don't get to order me a ram. We're going to go confront the Lighthouse office. Oh, you know, that's the right thinking, are you sure? I think. I don't know. I don't know. It seems dangerous. I'm having a change.

I don't think the fact that you're ordering me around, but I do agree with what you would like to do. I think that we honestly, despite his strange, salty attitude. You've acted more like you than he used to himself. Finally, someone who can give me some backup. One of him is enough. I'm like this whole time, I'm just like chewing.

I would take 10 a scrimp before I'd take another one of him. I'm not smoking because I'm afraid of fire, but I'm anxiously like just kind of like biting and chewing on my pipe. Have I raised my voice like a mindless beast as he does? You know what? I don't like the tone you're using,

but I am agreeing with things that are saying. It's kind of hard to argue with him when he's like this. I mean, he's not entirely wrong. He's being real. You know why this is true? I'm the only one with the wisdom to properly vocalize the world around me. He's right.

That right there is false in many ways. I don't think so. He's right. No, Scrim, he's not right. I don't want to do it, but I have to have it. Everyone get up right now. Okay. I think everyone already is up. Please stop yelling.

I'm not yelling. I'm speaking formally so that you will listen to me. You could say, please. You will catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, all right? May we please go now? I mean, not with my garlic vinegar, but. Well, we don't need to debate that. I'm already...

I mean, even that's the sugar. lobster conversation. You're not going to get him with vinegar, whether it's got garlic in it or not. And I would like to apologize for that, Barnabose. I don't know what came over me. I do quite enjoy your lobster. I will thank you very much for that. It's a delicate...

And what do you say back to Tashan, Barnabose? I quite enjoy your tea. And I'm sorry for punching you in the face twice until you died on us. I think that I kind of deserved it in the moment. All right, thank you. I'm sorry I also smash you with my anchor. no fewer than four times. Friend Barnabos, I hold

no grudge against you. I hold no grudge until you insult my fishing or my cooking again. Well, that's fair. That's fair. I just didn't mean it. I don't know what was come on me. Isn't this a beautiful moment that just transpired here? I almost went full hark-trighton on you. Anyway.

We're going to leave. We're going to leave. Okay, all right. That's fine. I think that we should find the wiki. I started heading. down the stairs. I'll be right there. Ultimately follow. You make your way down the spiral staircase, occasionally glanced into the window as

it is definitely starting to rain. The wind that has pushed all of the waves that you've experienced so far now patter against the thick panes of glass that make the exterior of... Leaden glass, even, make the exterior of this lighthouse. You make your way all the way down to the as safely as you can, given the dim light, and then you exit.

You have to walk the path from the front of the lighthouse through the rain, and then make your way to the front entrance of the house where you knock. As we're walking towards the house, Tyshen will feel a light tug on the back of his coat. Ah, Tishin. Tishen. Are you mad at me? I feel like you mad at me.

No, scrimm. What? I just feel like you're mad and I'm... Are you mad at me? No, something... I said some things I didn't mean. Something came over me. I didn't need to say anything about that.

You can tell me if you're mad at me. I just feel like you're mad at me. Scrim, I'm not mad at you. I think that the demon... The demon summoning was a daring choice. Is Barnabos mad at me? No, but well, not for that. He's mad at me?

What did I do? Were you asking what I did? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know about the other thing? Are you guys like hanging back? I'm not like, I was right behind you. I didn't like pull him away.

I just like tugged on him to get his attention. Well, answer that question. What do you think of my lobstere, Mr. Stabascoch? It's really good. No, that I ate mad at you. Oh, good. Oh, there you have it. Is you when you're mad at me? Something's going on.

I feel like yonio is mad at me. It doesn't. Did I do, oh. The urinary pounds on the door. It opens almost immediately, and standing at the entrance, you are staring in the face of the lightkeeper. Ilbon. You, where have you been? We've been already sick. I will grab him by his, like, collar, and I'm going to throw him to Barnabas.

Take him. Oh, now that I can agree with, Mr. You are going to agree. You will face your fate, and you will tell us what is going on, what your plan is, what your plan is, this storm has to do within the other, how we leave. Bonobos, please be careful with him. He's gotta be mad at me. As he says that, I'll grab him by the throat and seawater will splash on me.

As my hand is a giant claw. And I mean not like a like a sharp claw, like a fucking big fat giant, let's do a grab claw. I can see it. Yeah, is like choking him. Uh-huh. I'll release a little bit. Delia!

I'm gonna walk into the house and look for Delia. Delia is already on her way, and she's looking panicked. She can see her husband just behind you through the doorway as you are all standing out in the rain. He's being obviously choked, threatened, held. I'm gonna grab her as soon as I can. I still she's in reach. Oh, she's definitely gonna be mad at me.

She grabs your wrist, and she looks at you. What? What? is this and how do we leave? If we told you then we couldn't. Why are you stuck here?

Because we're here. What if we were to kill you right now? What would happen? We would die and maybe some of you would live. I'll pour out of the house with the rest of everyone. The rain is starting to come down just a little bit harder now and the five of you are handing there.

Okay, how about you? Are you any more helpful than she is? Speak plainly. I'm lifting him up the ground now. Off the ground. He's holding on as best as he can, too, the insides of the claw. We don't mean you any harm. We don't. Please, let me down. You can just tell us how to get out of here, and I'll put you right down, Mr. Wickie. We can't.

Do I ascertain that he's telling the truth? Make an insight check. And I'll use a twist of threat. Oh, what? Oh, bummer. It's still very good. Yeah, of course, I got in two natural 20s, and both of them were board dreads.

Insight, you say? Still good at all. 14. Okay. Not bad. You get a sense with a 14 that he is trying to hide something. from you. But whether or not he is telling the truth as to whether it's in your best interest, that's what you do not get with a 14.

Ah, uh, you, you, you, you, you're, you, you're on here, can I ask a question? Is this stupid question? Probably. Ask it in any way. Oh, uh, excuse me, are you not telling us because you're mad at us? Can we fix it? We're not mad at you. We're not. Why are we afraid of fire? We all are.

We knew the answer. I would tell you. What is the robed figure? Who is it? What is it? Something. Who are the willows? Who are the wizards?

What the fuck is going on here? I'm going to take my other claw and put the edge, put his, like, his finger. His little finger. And pinch it and start. you like, make it hurt. Don't do it.

No, Bonobos, don't do it. Bonapose, please. That'll be up to him, Mr. Sevis, Scots. We can't. We can't. We can't. We can't tell you. Why?

We'll be doomed. Will we be doomed? I know this is very strange. I know this is hard to understand, and I know you're scared. But Delia and I can't tell you some things. We couldn't before. And we can't tell you this time either.

Can I recall their real names? They had real names. That was not very long ago. I believe that I only gave you the name that she referred you to. And that was George. George. I was going to say Harold.

He looks like a Harold. He does look like a Harold. But you know, yeah, you're right, he does, huh? And I'll say to Delia, what is your real name? Can you tell me this? Martha. And his? George.

Why deceive us? We couldn't help ourselves. Did you know we were coming? Is this the second time? Is the captain alive as we speak? He was alive when you last left. You said that Ilbon and Delia can't answer. Can't tell us what's going.

on? Can George and Martha? About it, Georgie boy? I'm going to squeeze hold her on his pinky and on his throat. No! No! I know that I was a little confused and timid before, Baudibos. But if I have to leave, lose this finger, I will.

Oh, there's the real, Georgie boy. You're going to lose a lot more than your finger. if you don't start giving us some answers. Tell us why this sea is putrid, foul and strange. What are those things that live inside of it? Phantoms. If phantoms could be made real. The other doomed souls that found their place here,

are you doomed to the depths in horrible, abominable states for all eternity? I'm like, I keep... Titan. I don't think so, actually. I think they were made for you. If you saw something under the ocean, you're a Triton. What did you think you would see there? That's as close as an answer as I can give you without being trapped here with you forever.

We heard your plan. We know that you were going to trap us here in your stead so that you could escape. Yes. How? You do not remember this plan? How did you find out? Illusion. I failed. George, I'm sorry.

It's fine. You cannot lie to us. We must. We must. We must. Why? Must. You.

Let us... You must give us the freedom to go. The plan is not changed. Please. Just let let us... I know it sounds crazy, but if you don't... We're doomed. As soon as she says the word freedom,

I'm gonna blink a little bit. And my crab claw will shift back to a triton hand, and I'm just gonna throw them down. It tore in the direction of Martha. It's not reason that I'm appealing to. I know. It isn't. It is unthinkable what you're experiencing, what we are sharing together. But if you knew why the willows weep, you would understand that we're the only hope that you have.

What do the willows, what do the willows say to each other? Because you told us that they said that, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Why so sappy is what we would tell anyone. If I told you the real answer, We'd risk more than our lives and our sanity. We're dealing with something that can tear you from all the way around the world. This is no small thing. Can I ask you a question? Do you think you win this game with lies? If this thing is playing with our minds, then it gains advantage by us not knowing what's going on.

In the shadows, you give it the benefit. You give it the benefit. Our only hope is the mission. Surprise. If it sees what is in our minds and our hearts, then it will not let us go. Is that why you tend the lighthouse? That is why we all tend it.

How do you tend it? You've only been here for a short time. And you do not remember the first? Remember the first what? You would tend it to the lighthouse. You would. You will. And... ...experience horror.

Dread. Terror. Hate. We... ...only have this one moment, I think. When does the storm arrive? It's raining more and more now. I'm no lighthouse keeper.

I'm not particularly knowledgeable about the weather. What are you then? A skilled magic you. I'm very knowledgeable about these things, really. How did you get here? The lighthouse went out. There was a crash. I was sent with my...

With Martha. So you're the wizards then? Yes. And why don't you use your fancy magics to make this all go away? Fix it. Snap your fingers, wave your magic wands. Isn't that what you do? I'm trying.

You're not. succeeding are you what have you tried we tried rolling off this rock I'm gonna try cutting throats pretty soon here hmm I I tried to cast a spell I think it almost killed me but did you succeed nothing happened I did I succeeded but they too tried to kill me the same phenomenon did not happen in the cave though I succeeded to produce fire, terrifying in the moment. So what now, wizards? We've come to you an impasse.

You feel your passivity leave you. You feel the confrontation leave you. You become confrontation. You become cruelty, bitterness, ask the hostile questions accuse with paranoid fervor hurl insults hate flows through your veins

you know what needs to be doing it just needs to be done ha ha ha ha I'm sorry I uh... I'm what I'm sorry what do you mean what pay attention focus listen to him when he's talking I didn't mean anything I'm sorry

George Martha what is it I really am quite sorry. I promise. It's nothing. We will, whatever you want, whatever you want. You can go. You can all go. It's fine. We'll stay here. Are we sure we're not beyond cutting off fingers again? We're never beyond that, Mr. Stamaskatch.

I am tired of the lies. I'm tired of the tricks. I don't know what's real anymore. I'm finally back at the sea, and it's all smoke and mirrors. It isn't. The one you know now is Martha. It comes up to you. We are here on an island in Striga. I assure you, but we may be doomed here.

So how do we leave? It won't let you. What's it? What's it? How do we help you, wizards? We're talking in circles here. I've had enough. Let me go. Let you go where?

Let me go to the coast. Let me find the aid that we need. Help from without. Please. Why, the one thing we've all tried is to leave on our own. We tried and we failed. You, I'm sure, have tried already and failed. Why don't we try together?

You've never had that before. You fear a creature you've never faced with us. We were only two. With you, we were able to solve it. Then shall we all go together? Stay, please. I'm begging you. It will not let us all go. We will not stay. This is not our fate.

We stuck here for eternity. Why are you here again? We're pulled here. Summined. Did we let you go the last time? The last time we tried something else. Now we are... What did we try last time?

If you answer that question for me, I will cast my vote to let you go. But that's just one of five. But it's still one more than you got now. We used the last of our magics to send you back. We understood your quest, and we became friends for a short time. There's nothing to eat here.

There's nothing to... do here, except the routine of it and the terrors. So we agreed to stay here and let you go back. You and the captain, sending you via our ability to teleport to create a circle that can do that. When we saw you again, we were not ourselves. But we had to try to deceive you to see if we could make it out our... What was the language you were chanting in your room?

I think we're beginning to be a little confused by it all. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. We're not gonna start changing things up now. You listen here and you listen good. All right, when I'm confused, I get angry. All right, and you're not gonna like that. You think I'm angry now? Oh, ho, you haven't seen anything yet.

I mean, he's always confused. That's right. Hey, watch your mouth. Delia, Ilban. I believe you, really. We mean no harm. What would happen if we were to end your lives right now and free you from this eternal torment?

Would you die forever? Would you come back? Do you know? I have no idea. I don't know what options we have. Maybe we go back to the... Maybe we just tie them up and take them with us back to the coast. See if there's anything in the cave, the cloak, however they're planning to leave.

Let me just get this straight. You used the last of your magics to send us back and we're back here now. So what are you saying? You're useless now? Nothing left? Done? That's why we need to get to the coast. That's why we need to escape.

Have you replenished? any of your magic since you've been here? You won't. I still think he's a jackass. Why don't we all take a walk to the cave? Find the boat. See if the dinghy's still there.

See if the cloak is still there. See if the body of the captain is still there. Let us go. Aye. Rain is splashing down, crashing against the surface of this rock that you find yourselves on. The waves are hitting the side of even the tallest parts of this island so hard that you can look over and see scattering of the mist before it disappears back down the side.

And you remember how treacherous it felt coming down the side of this mountain, this island the first time, Looking down to where the cave would be, this could be a very treacherous and difficult journey. But it seems that you are all determined. And following George and Martha, between the five of you start to make your way. I need you to make an acrobatics or athletics check to see how you do. Dreads? One, two, three, four, five. Okay.

18. Okay, I rolled a 19 first. Let's see if I get better. Oh, that's going to be a total of a 17 after the dread. Also a 17. Nice. I rolled two dice preemptively. 14. Okay, three. 17. 17. A total of 17. Another natural 20, but an 18. And you got, yeah. 14. 14.

You were all making your way and starting to follow the same pattern. Yeah, you two better be extra careful. We don't need anybody breaking your old bird bones. Dumbasses. You can see there's fear in their eyes. They are seeming trying to thread a needle, but there's panic now. They're not acting the same way as you met them, but they are sort of shifting back and forth, especially now. The one you've known as George has become extremely very much like, the Ilbin that you initially knew.

Unsurprising. You continue to make your way down, and it's as you're making, you're sure-footed. You've climbed many treacherous rocks. It is not in a slip or a misjudged step that makes you fall, but instead the crash of a massive wave. As all of a sudden, you all see where Yornear was, and then as it falls, the water comes down,

there is no more yornear, and it takes you a moment to look down and see that he is caught in the surge, plunging down and disappearing into the drink. Yornair. You are underwater. Holy shit. All of a sudden, you're stinging eyes with salt water.

You are being pulled, and you can feel yourself immediately slam into one of the harsh rocks there at the bottom. You take 10 points of bludgeoning damage. as you slam into the water as the swell continues to push you back and forth in this way. What are the rest of you doing? If I would have time, and I would notice that Yornear has gone over, I would grab the harpoon with the rope, tied to it from my back,

and basically try to throw it, give it a good harpoon throw in his direction, past where I think he is, so that he then be able to just grab onto, and I can pull him back in. Okay. Mr. Yarnier! The rope sails and disappears into the water, into the deep water, and you hope going fishing for Yornear, that he will be able to hear you, see the rope, grab it, and then you can start to be able to pull him up.

Yornear, you are, what do you do for this flash second just after you immediately get, scrape against the rocks? You can even see the dark pools of your own blood, moving around back and forth as the swelling water continues to surge against the side of this island. Do I hear or see the rope or anything? Do I get any sense in that moment that you're describing right now that I was either A noticed or B, like, being helped in some way. Perception check.

You might also hear scrimm yelling, grab the rope, numb nuts, grab the rope. Two-sevins plus eight is what? Dumbass! Fifteen. Fifteen. Jennifer Cool. I would say that you do not see the rope.

see the rope, but you do hear the booming voice of Barnabos. You know if you look for a rope. I will try to sort of tread water and try to stay away from the rocks as I can and have my arms out as I'm sort of... Knowing Barnabos, I would probably expect him to do what he's about to do. So I'm going to basically just wait for it and then swim over and try to grab it if I can. You wait for it and you look and you see it there and you start to swim forward. and you make it 10, 15 feet, and you're about to grab hold on it

when another surge slashes and pushes into you, you take an additional six points of bludgeoning damage as you are again raped across by your under tow against the thing. And the rope just gets out of your reach, and all of a sudden is being pulled in the other direction. You are underwater, and even though you can, according to the Dungeons and Dragons Rules, fucking hold your breath of God damn forever no matter.

What happens you underwater? water, you feel like you're going to suffocate if you're under here much longer. You may also hear Screamiella. Oh, come on, butterfingers grab the damn rope! What are you doing? And knowing that I could wildshade, but that I want to at least save my resources if I can, based on the experience we just had, I'm just trying to just, as you were near a fear bulge, like try to get to, I have two giant mammothed on my back, right?

So I don't know how well this is going to go. But I'm gonna try to grab it, and if I start to feel like I'm sinking and it's hopeless, then I will shift. Make an athletics or acrobatics check to see if you can get to the rope this time, given the amount of chaotic water that is surging around you. Am I dreaded? Yeah. Oh, dread. What's dreadful as you attempt to grab the rope?

Yorna, you stupid idiot! Yeah, that is... You're just being heckled now. Yeah. That is a... athletics, you say? That's a six. It's the same

sensation of feeling your skin and muscle actually get pierced and torn as you scrape against. You imagine that there's a significant amount of damage happening back there. You don't even want to look, but it stings. This salt

water, especially exacerbating the feeling. And you take an additional eight points of bludgeoning damage as you are raped against the rock and pull again away. You would have to have a successful check to get to the rope at this speed. With that, I will...

I think I have a use left, don't I? Yeah, I think you only have it. I just think you use the one. I don't think... I can't recall. I can't think of another time. No, I'm good. On the island. I will use another as an action.

I will turn into a harbor seal, and I will try to nimbly... This time. You transform and you feel strongly that you're going to be able to dart forward. You do that, but just before you are able to take advantage of your new form, there's this tug, this pull, this terrible sensation. And I need you to make a death-saving throw.

Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Yeah. Roll hot, roll hot. You gotta roll hot. Oh my God. We're back to it. That is moving so much stuff.

Natural 20. It's a natural one. No, that's okay. He was excited. This giant paw my arms out of his heel body. Oh, I was so scared. That's okay. That's all right. That's all right. I'm sorry for you see D-D. That's a compliment. I'm doing that job.

break, holy shit. Oh, my God, that was fine. Well done, brother. Nice fucking job. Good roll. We're supposed to know that. That's true. That's okay. Maybe if you're affinity with seals,

you are able to push that out of your mind and you are able to rock it forward. You are able to grab onto the rope and very quickly continue to swim with it in your teeth. You pull and all of a sudden you feel the rope go top. and you are able to pull with one, a great strong pull. You actually pull, what does not surprise you,

could be a seal from the surge, and you were able to very quickly, one arm over the other, hand over hand, as the phrase is sometimes said, pull the seal up, up, up, and you find yourselves, again, holding onto the back of this cliff side, looking at seal near.

Oh, you're really, Mr. Yorneir. Good gods, can we get on with it? No more mistakes, no more slip-ups, please. Whoa, scrimm, he was yanked from the cliff face. Look at him, he's cut up. He's ragged. Yonair, are you okay? Rub some dirt in it.

Come on, stop being a wuss. How's that for fishing skill, Mr. Fireblossum? Oh, it was pretty good. Pretty good. Why don't you say like that for a while, Mr. Fireblossum? Sir, you are near. I will nod deeply, and I'll catch my breath for a second, but then I will sort of carefully as I can, you know, in seal form. I'll stay in this form as long as I can. Just like a druid. It's in this mode that you see Il-Bahn's posture, demeanor, look his expression the way that he holds himself fade. He is George again. and Barnabas, you feel this sensation of passiveness, passivity.

You become the essence of avoidance. All right, well. I'm glad you're okay, mister. You're in here. Are we all good? Can we hurry up, please? We're wasting precious time. Sure, sure, yeah. I, aye, aye, Captain. I, Captain.

Carry him if you have to. I mean, come on. This is ridiculous. I, I like, Captain. It takes time, but you eventually make your way back down on that campaign. down on that cave mouth. Like a giant fluffy, and it's like going to retreat.

I'm imagining, it was the meme of the seal literally has no knack, and it's like, it's just the adorable face with giant full lover. That's exactly what it is. Those seal pillows that gets advertised, that's basically that. And you are looking just around the curve of the mouth of the the cave, it is dark. There is water literally like gulping into the mouth.

of this cave. It looks like sometimes when the wave is just right, it nearly touches the top lip of the mouth of it. It's probably being filled ongoingly with this huge surge of salty sea water. And you will each get a chill on your back as you remember that flame for a moment. And you remember the fear that you had.

Think that you can perhaps steal yourselves and make your way in, but it looks dangerous, dark, and impossible to tell whether the boat is inside from this angle. Well, you sure, there aren't no spooky cloaks or flames in there. No, we're not sure, but we're going in anyway. So what's the plan now, George, huh? Come on, what's the plan? Let's go. You were the ones who made the plan. It's going for us all to go.

Oh, don't talk back to me. Don't you dare talk back to me. I see you. I hear you. That's right. That's right. Okay, what's the plan? Well, I think we just go in.

I mean, I don't like it, but we came all this way. The original plan was to get the boat and sail out of here, and we check. All right, fine, behind me. Here we go. I like, Kevin. And I would proceed to move into the cave, not particularly with any kind of carefulness, just as I normally walk. Okay. You drive the action, making the leader of this group. Sometimes you have to scurry up against the...

wall, but you are like a crab making your way, and eventually you squeeze in and it opens up. There are times where the water pushes you because it's waist high. There are times where it licks at your feet and you march forward very, very confidently. The rest of you and George and Martha close behind. There is no way to see without some form of light, but you can already tell, looking into the the darkness. There's no sound of

what you heard before, no sound of wood, no sound of the boat rocking against the side. This whole space, didn't you just take that boat? Well, well, well. Nice job. Where is it?

Thanks. It's like we had taken the boat. We had sailed out. It was crashed along the rocky shores out in the water. I saw those creatures. I was rowing. I'm sorry, it's all my fault.

I'm a terrible semen. It certainly wasn't his best moment. Let's be realistic here. Oh, you're right, Mr. Stabasgosh. No, he's not. What is going on? All right, George, you elephineered, bastard. What now?

Well, that's scrimmishes. Just fucking cool. Martha, yell, bitch. Oh, just wait. I'm not getting there. I haven't had a chance to talk to all. Martha. I'm still working this one up and down.

I don't know. Scrim. Is that... Is that attitude that I hear? I... Yeah. I'm saying we're fucked. I'm gonna slap you, silly.

Fine. I... We're out of solutions here. You wanted to come to the water's edge by yourself? We've come into the cave. We've found some old information. We're near the water's edge. Now what, George?

What are you and your ugly wife going to do? Come on. A whisper of Bobby Flea. Oh, no. And I just want to be clear here, George. Okay? Not ugly stick. Not ugly branch.

Ugly tree. Whatever it is you want to do, we'll go upstairs. We'll have no. nothing to eat, we'll go to sleep, we'll wake up, we'll have another day, we'll have another day, we'll have another day, and we'll just hope that we don't slip over the edge of our lives or our sanity. We're simply at the mouth of the cave. Maybe we go in deeper, we look for the cloak, we see if there's a source of power. Where did you draw the circle of teleportation that we left from last time? It was on the surface of the rocks, just down in front of the lighthouse. Shit.

It's really far from here. I think Mr. Fireblossom is right. Perhaps we go deeper into this cave. Have we tried that before? I mean, just because he said so, I mean, if anyone else wants to do it, it's fine. I don't care what we do. I don't think we... So cute. I don't think we've been...

Gosh, she's adorable. I don't think we've been any deeper in the... Oh, I can't even look at them. I can't look at them and talk. I don't think we've been any deeper in the cave. I think we dashed across the rocks. I mean, we're only just about halfway in. All right, come on, stop lollygagging.

Let's go. Come on, God. And I would try to lead us deeper. You do. Don't slip and break a hip. Refusing to give up on hope. Refusing... This is pissed. Bind, this isn't help.

You walk blindly, with the exception of those of you who have dark vision, one hand on the side of the wall, trying to keep your footing, knowing that there is a gash in the middle of this cave where the boat should be. But feeling again, pushes from the water, feeling again the water, rise up. It's rising up again, almost up to your chin. Occasionally, your feet, yeah, your feet leave the rock

and you hope that you have, rock to land back down again and you are happy, satisfied, sated when you land down and you're continuing deeper and deeper. You make it 30 feet, 40, 50 feet into the cave and it is pitch black and the water is surging against the interior of this cave. I need everyone to make a group perception check and I'm going to dread all of you. Seption. Finally. Oh, that could be worth. 17. Come on, and you good roll here. The perception is that.

And a one. I was so hot. I was due. I was so due. I was so due. 6. 4. 16.

13. Those of you got 15 or lower are uncertain if the book the boat is there. Those of you who got higher are certain the boat is not. Wait, what? Let's say that's what my peanut brain can understand.

Yeah, one more time. Those of you got 15. or lower. Be 15 or you know the uncertain whether the boat is there. Uncertain. One way of the other, maybe it is.

You're not, you aren't sure one way of the other. But if you got higher, you are certain it is not there. So even though it's pitch black, it's not, we don't feel like it's magic. Like if we have dark vision, we can still see. I would be looking around for the cloak to see if it's on the floor, to see if it's, you know,

where it may have been when we first saw it. I know it kind of sprung out of nowhere, but I would be keeping my eyes of, I'm less concerned about the boat. So looking at where we fought, Yes. This area is all flooded. Right?

The cloak would have been in this general section, right? Oh, my God, it's up to see. The water would have... It's risen. Like this. But you do go over into this general area, and you have to feel around. I do.

Make an investigation check. Yeah, I'll do it a disadvantage. You don't even say it. That's right. That's right. Let's go. Well, it wasn't George and Martha the name of those two charming hippos? 16.

And a 19, which gives me a total of 17. Because I had plus one. 16 was the low one. Strim's back, baby. You are determined. If there's a man of action, his name is Scrim. That's right. And you walk forward, and you reach into the water.

Certain to feel around, there's no way it could have left. There has to be something. There has to be something here. I'm going to pull a fucking boat out right now. and you grab a fabric. It touches your hand for just a moment, and then you latch out and you pull, and you are able to lift up the soaking wet cloak.

I need you all the roll for initiative. No. I would waste it up in the air. This is how it's done. I found a cloak. The cloak. You find the cloak. Great words, scrim.

Do something. It's not doing anything. Well, we might have to put it on. Great idea. You pull it down, you think it's cold, the rest of you are all almost treading at this point in the in the sea water, and you get situated, you feel it around your body. Ice powers! Ice powers don't work. Fortify your mind.

And might try and overcome you. Well, you pull the hood over at the top of your head. Mr. Stavisguts! The moment you do, The moment you do blink and it is white and blues and gray is all around you. And you are looking at the bodies of your friends in snow, the howling winds all around you, you realize immediately you are on the top of the tower. Still under car looking down, you realize how numb your hands feel.

shivering cold. There's no cloak on your body, but you wish that there was another layer for you. Never been as cold as you are now. You are terrified to find that everyone seems to be stiff, frozen, unspeaking, there are no eyes looking at you. They all stare up and around. You are at this great height.

There are no tools. There are no tools to perhaps some sort of magic. What are you doing this moment? So if I feel like, do I feel like I am back where we left? And do I still feel super aggressive. That is faded. You do not feel super aggressive. You feel like scrim and you feel like you're exactly where you were.

When we slooped from the campfire where we were with Daisy, did I bring any of my effects with me? You still feel like you have all of your effects with you? Numb fingers, I go into my pack and I try to find one of my remaining. meaning eight bonfire candles. And I'm trying, I can barely feel my fingers, but I know that I have to light this and try to get my friends around it for survivability.

And the whole time I'm saying, I'm back, I'm back, I don't know how, but I'm back, I have to try to do this. And I will attempt to try to light one of these bonfire candles, of which I believe I have eight, eight left, from the original like 36. Yes, 510, 15, 20, 25, 26, 27, 28. 28, 36. I can't believe that you still have them.

Well fucking done. And I will go down to seven left. And I will attempt to light this and then try the best I can. Like, I'd probably be able to move Tyshin and Queenie and not be able to move the two of them. So I would try to put the candle where it's closest to the two big guys. Pull the other two closer. You have to start clearing snow.

There was two or three feet of snow on the top of this tower when you were teleported here initially. You were almost like chest height, and it's slippery. You're on top of smooth underneath your feet, and once you cleared away, you realize this is polished. This is like a wrong move, and all of a sudden you just start moonwalking off hundreds of feet in any direction. And so very slowly, you were starting to assemble. You know you have that bonfire candle, and you know that your friend, you start to push, and you slide against the surface of the tower, and you start to push and pull your friends,

and starting to get them as close to the proximity of what you think the warmth will provide. And it's so cold. My goal is no matter what, even if it kills me, to try to get this candle lit so that there is some sort of warmth for my friends. And that's my sole directive, whatever it takes. You pull out your flint and steel.

Any way of doing this, and you're tapping it. And there are no sparks coming out. Please. Please. Your hands feel like frozen sausages at this point. It is almost impossible for you to grasp the items and to work the bindings of your pack or to pull your hand inside. It hurts the fabric of your skin to just get in there

when you hear a voice. To the frigid. Help. Do I get a sense that this sounds familiar to me at all? No, but as soon as you hear the voice, you have an association with everything that you've experienced so far. This cloaked figure, it feels like there's a connection to be made. Whatever you are, whether I know you or not, give me the warmth, save my friends. Fine.

And you turn, billowing the cloak, if they're out in... The air, 20 feet, from the edge of the circle of the tower, flying, waiting there, billowing not with the wind, but from its own phantasmal force. Remembering the experience that we had where we all stepped out with faith, I will attempt the same thing and hope, with all hope, that Graveyard Jack will be there to allow me to walk towards this thing. I'm doing this solely to try to save my friends. Your friends pulled together the bonfire candle there.

Don't want to die. I want to save friends. You're feeling slow, sluggish. You're almost tunnel visioning at this point, starting to blink, and you look up at this cloaked figure. And to take its embrace, you would need to walk on air. One step, you slide a little bit on the slick surface of this polished marble. You walk forward and you get to the edge and you look down.

It is insane how flat this column is. And how deep these ripples of ice seem to be these strange spots. You remember the captain broke his leg in one a long time ago. It feels a lifetime ago. And you walk forward and you fall. You do not step on anything. All of a sudden, you feel your heart lurch up into your throat, and you realize you've made a mistake.

You are falling. You are plummeting, and you can't get to the side of the tower. You look down, and you are not going to fall into one of the cracks. You are instead going to fall and crush yourself against the ice. You are surely dead. When it opens, and you fly it into one of these tunnels, you slip in, and it starts to angle that. Down, down, down.

You are sliding faster and faster, faster, faster, faster. Face first, arms back. Faster and faster and faster and faster before it slowly comes to a crawl tighter and tighter and tighter. You are... Can't breathe. Can't breathe. You are stuck. You are in an ice coffin,

unable to do anything, and you feel the ice start to clench around your body. You are near? Taichan. Queenie. You find yourselves in the humble, modest home of the lightkeeper's house. Mothers fucker.

You stare at the windows across the deck to a calm sea, a gray sky, and you know that there's much work to be done to, hmm, to keep the light, to tend the light. But you also remember much of what's happened. Has it been a few days or were you put here in an instant?

It feels like it's been a few days. It feels like it's been that you're starting to get gaps. No longer do you have this linear feeling of, I remember I was here and then here and then things transitioned. Now there's a sense of loss and dread. What are you all doing? Is scrim gone? Do you, as Barnabot's, think of scrim?

Do I not? You can. I do think of scrim, yeah. Yeah, you think of scrim. And you know that scrim has been, has a high fever. He's in the bedroom. He's been sick, unconscious for many days. Would I think of this, too?

I think any of you would have this knowledge. I will seal hop over here. I think you've been hopped out of seal for him again. Oh my God. Dr. C. O. I have a little less spent a lot. We need to sell that flush. Very quickly you like do this with a ball.

Oh yeah. Knowing that, or I guess do I, so now as you're in here, do I also think of Scrib as being sick for the last few days? As soon as you think of him, you do. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. He's been quiet. You've left him primarily alone, aside from having to feed. having to feed him what rations you can turn into perhaps with some seawater mash

down and work into him to make sure that he stays as healthy and colorically filled as possible given that when you open the shelves would appear to be full schmation jars of what should be food crates of rations on liquids broths liquors it's always empty and there hasn't been a scrap of foods and you've gotten here except what you've eaten on in your person. We have gaps and we've lost time. What is, what is our, or maybe it's different, but if we think about it, or just passively, what is our most recent memory?

There's a doubling, and do you think of the cave, and you think of the work that you've all shared, four of you. It still is, there still is lots to do during the day. Polishing lamps, making sure the fuel is where it needs to be, making sure that there is food on the table, going through the motions of cooking nothing. Are George and Martha there? No. They don't seem to be there. Are Ilban and Delia there? No.

They don't seem to be anything. And Queenie, you reach over. and find something that you hadn't noticed for the last few days. What appears to be parchment, a letter? Probably go over to the corner and sit down and read it. It's a letter of apology, signed by George and Martha. And it has many words on it, but it all comes to the same meaning and message. We're not here anymore.

We had to go, and we're very sorry. Hold the letter up and just put it in one of my pouches. Queenie seems quiet. And the three of you share at each other, the four of you, know that today is an important day, making sure that ships do not crash on this jagged coast. Do we remember Scrim putting the hood on? Yeah.

Would it be fair to assume that maybe him putting the hood on made him sick? That's one of the theories that you've shared. in your quiet nights looking, watching. There's never been an opportunity for you to light the lamp and actually cast light as a beacon from this space. But fortunately, there's never been a ship. It's something that you have made sure to log in the journal, of course.

But gosh, it would make sense since he put on that cloak. Where that cloak is now is elusive. I go to check the lobster or crab traps if there were any or if I had built any You start to make your way down And as you start to exit the house You hear this

You can hear it coming from the bedroom Oh my God Someone's getting off at that house? Yes Damn! Martha is getting it! All four of you burst in to find Scrimgolomboleming.

All four in is going to go I'm pumping it. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's pumping his fist. Pump? No, it's easy to deduce that this voice of strain is coming from scrim. Is that scrim?

I will go check on him. You should get in there? I'll stand up immediately and I'll walk into the bedroom. I'll come back in and I'll say, let me know if you need to hold me to hold them down. And I'll just kind of wait outside. And I will look at him and inspect him. You start to, when you walk in, you can see his body is not malformed, but just as though he's

having a terrible dream. And you are turning away from it and shrinking almost like a dog or a cat would when it's chasing after something, but clearly it is a terror. I want to just make sure that he's, that it's all just like a just like a jerk. dream and nothing physically is happening. He's not having like an episode of anything. You make a medicine check. I'm not using any magic. That's pretty good.

That's pretty good. 23. You don't think that he's in any danger, just that he's experiencing something horrific. And as you start to make this conclusion, his eyes pop open, and Scrim, you awaken, you awaken alert. You feel that on your brow. It's as though you've woken up from a terrible nightmare, but you remember all the details of what you experienced at the top of the tower.

Yeah, I'll fix that for you. How do you feel? Is you awake? He's awake. You're on you. Oh my God. I'll grab your face and I'll like checking your eyes and I'll feel your pulse, check your forehead, your temperature. I was... I made it back.

And I'm back here now. What do you mean you made it back? You've been sick since you put the car car. No! No! No! Quick, drink this cup of tea. I hand him just an empty cup of tea. I will immediately just set it down. I... I put the cloak on.

And immediately, I was back on top of the towel. It was feet of feet of snow. And we were all freezing to death. We might be freezing to death right now. And I tried to clear the snow away and light one of the bonfire candles, but I couldn't do it. My fingers wouldn't work. And then, there was a voice.

There was a voice at a billowing cloak floating. Ouch. Beyond the reach of the tower. And I thought if I could just want it offered me help. It offered to save us all. But I had to come close. And I thought that if I just walked like we did before, and if I had faith, that I'd be able to walk over the air towards it. But I didn't.

And I fell, I fell off the tower, and I fell deep, deep under the ice. I was trapped. I couldn't move. It was the most claustrophobic thing I've ever experienced in my life. I don't even know how long I was down there for. If this was all just a bad dream, though you've been sick in bed, you've not been conscious, this was. whole time. This isn't the real side. This isn't the real one. How are you telling me that that's what happened? None of this is real. That was real. I was back in your car. Does that kind of snap us out of our kind of our routine and like pull us back to like the fact that we're trapped in some horrible Eldridge hellscape?

I wouldn't say that it like snaps you around. I would say that you don't have enough evidence to justify a either conclusion one way or the other, and that both seem equally likely. As he's speaking, you realize he could be 100% correct or 100% wrong. And I remember me threatened and fucking cut off the fingers of George and like thinking that, you know,

that we're trapped here by it. Yes. I'll stop as I'm entering the room. As I hear scrim, you're right. That's why this sea isn't the sea of my love. We're the sea of my dreams.

I think I knew what we have to do. Good, good. Listen, hold on to that. Listen to Bonobos. Listen to me. Don't forget yourself. We're getting confused. We're losing our minds.

This is not real. But you have had symptoms that are in line with hallucinations. It's very possible that it is all in your head. It was dreams. It is all just things you saw when you got sick. It happened to me, too. You forget I wore the cloak once. And it sent me somewhere, but it sent me to just another part of the island.

You had to strike me down. When Scrim put it on, it's possible. It did something similar to him, and we're being snapped around. We're moving around. It's taking things from us. It's giving us something else. You're right. We've got to act quick.

We might be dying. What do you think we do, Barnabos? Let's check the lamp of the lighthouse. Let's see if it's still gone. We've been turning to a lighthouse that doesn't even work. No lamp. No light. And I would like to go... And I'll just...

Whoever wants to join me can. I want to go check the top of the lighthouse just to make sure it's still gone. Yeah, we'll join you. Barber if you make your way out and you feel your companions behind you as you start to wake, walk across the gravel path, through the wooden door, looking up the spiral staircase, one floor the next.

Many floors up until you finally stare again at that mode of quicksilver. No light-producing lenses, be it by some magical means or through burning fuel. There is nothing here that could warn a shone. Yep. Let's bring all the fuel up here. And light what? Light the fuel. Light the lighthouse.

At the mention of lighting fuel on fire, do we... You struggle to make this suggestion. The lighthouse. And all of you are terrified of this possibility. But what he's saying sounds if you could confront your fear, or perhaps not look or perhaps something that hasn't been tried. If this thing that's dreaming all of this has put us here has made us fear buyer.

And it's this that icy, cold and rhyme that it harness and channeled through Mr. Fireblossom. It wants to make us like it. That's what the mind flares, those abominations did to the ogres. To keep them imprisoned and docile. They made them like themselves. The ogres like them. So this lighthouse doesn't work.

Let's finally make it shed some fucking light. It makes me afraid to think, but you are right. So the ancient fire, the lighthouses were, whose whole braziers. There is no food. There is nothing on the island left except for fuel. Aye. We're either gonna die here, or we're actively dying back in Dracar. It's made us, it's made us fear. The fire, so...

Yeah. It must be the one thing it doesn't want us to turn to whatever it is. And like Fujao said, fear can't defeat death, but it can stop us from living. We can still be afraid of it, but it doesn't have to control our actions. We shouldn't be inside of the light higher, so I think we fill up with fuel. We open one of those windows there on fire. I send it flying in.

I dried you. I'm a hairball. Not a cat. You are a rabid. That's a much better idea. All he was going to suggest one of us sacrifice ourselves. Like, oh, I like your idea much better. It ties you and killed to me. I like damn

I like that I'm planning He said like You should probably You know Blow yourself off Wouldn't have been obvious You that would have been

It could have been any one of it I don't say that I just look very guilty That's it You want to hear things to himself He totally would have done it too Mm hmm Tarkar is your destiny

Fire is Gorg You must do it The fame is good You come up with the flame Oh, your destiny It is the fame The fire is inevitable

Why truly this adventure Was a sigh of ice and fire You're off here The Brown Ones Okay Let's get the fuel And light this candle

All right I am I kept in there! I don't fucking ban it! Holy shit! Roll what? You're the way who did this to us! Perception. You put us in SpongeBob.

Perception of disadvantage. Yeah, yeah. Oh, that's funny. Oh, wow. I fail. Whatever is I fail. I got a 10 total. 10 total.

12. 13, 13 total. 24. Holy shit. 20 and 16 million. Who lives in a coconut under a tree? 11. grab the stairs.

Everyone is racing down the stairs to grab as much fucking fuel as they can carry up and down the stairs. All of it, if Barnabos' enthusiasm is to be believed. I use my Fearbolt feature. Just a powerful build. Oh. Well, you're... I use crab legs.

But as you are wanting down the stairs to... Consider using it, you look out the window facing down the angled rock of this island, and you can see from the ocean a cloaked figure starting to walk up. Do I recognize this cloaked figure? Right now only your shirt. Fuck! I take it back. Oh yeah, yeah.

Is this in the direction of where they drew the teleportation circle? very excited. I'm gonna buy, I'm gonna have any, hold on. You know what? I feel like I really need to make maps more very quickly. That's so your thing too. Just to give you, let's just do sort of like this. There's a fucking lighthouse, that's house, and then and then this is where it's highest. There's a huge cliff face on this side and this is where it's shallow and actually gets into the water, right? You know, I actually pictured

exactly like that, Derek, so you did a good job. I tried, I thought it I would have made it slowly more limelike being shaped. Right now, this creature. This is the whole island we're on? This cloak. This cloak is starting to walk up the path towards the work. I kind of more, it's jagged, but it's not flat. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jagged path down. I imagine exactly like that. I drew a foot. It looks like a mitochondria. And so is the, the hooded figures coming up out of the ocean at the far end of the island? What Yornear perceives is a small figure cloaked walking up the path. up the path. Wait. No.

No. Look. Ha? That we must be doing something right. We shouldn't stop. What do we see? You all look. Our hands to help.

And I'm just going like this stumbling figure. Limping? Slowly. Lurching forward. I. Is the cloak the scene that we saw in the cave? Is it the cloak that I saw floating? Are they different?

It feels. very reminiscent. It's so far away. It's hard to tell. But if you had to put your best coin on it, you would probably guess it's the same cloak. So the cloak that I saw floating back in your car was the same cloak that I had put on. Yep. And that emerged when the captain transformed, and that would seemingly appear on the figure that is now lumbering up the jagged rock. Ah, fuck. Making its way. I think... Queenie's right. I think you may be right. Let us... All right. All right.

I'm grabbing as many as I can and just crab crawling up. So to give more people room to walk, I'm crab crawling my way up and just throwing cans into the pit, into the center pit of all the mercury or the quicksilver. I imagine that it requires coordination. You could just step back and watch as Barnabos uses his ability to dash with his feet going all the way up and is great strength and all of that, but it would actually be faster if you each went down, grabbed an item of fuel, put it against your chest, and then went up all together, walking, walking, walking, walking, and then dumping it, dumping it. Are you actually

splashing the fuel everywhere, or are you pooling it somewhere? What is your intent when you get the fuel up to the top of the lighthouse. And also, peeking back, if I feel like I would probably start, like, barking orders as if I was, like, a bosun, right? Because I had an experience as a boson on a ship. And I would start to kind of get in that mentality.

And if I feel like that would be, like, the, I'd maybe, like, start singing, like, a shanty to kind of, like, help us keep the pace to go out. And then if I feel like it's not going to spill out, I would absolutely want to fill the basin, basically just dump it, and then just yeat the fucking cans out of the window or the door. There's fuel enough for you to fill this inner circle.

There's a pool almost that you could fill within the mode itself. And every time you do, occasionally a drop will hit the surface of that brilliant liquid metal and reverberate around and then splash back and then sort of reflect. You'll look at it and continue to make your way. I hate to sail on this rotten tub.

Johnny Lieber. And I'm just singing out as I'm just telling people, like, barking our orders. If I feel like that is the fastest way, anyone who is welcome to, you know, to join Anne, trying to dump as much of this shit is and just yeeding it off into the safe. This is fuel enough for a light keeper

to keep a lamp lit night after night after night for however long they would need to survive on this island before being replaced or getting relief. This will be three, four, maybe five trips, even with all of you working in concert. And on the second trip, you realize there's, you've filled that center basin, that it's going to start leaking over into the Quicksilver or that you need to find additional ways

or perhaps just leave the containers there. Yeah, I think that would be, we basically start stacking it. And opening them. Just stacking it and opening them. Opening them. Again, looking down, it's now three quarters of the way up the island. As slow as it's moving, you wonder if it's going to reach you by the time you go down for the fourth or the fifth installment of fuel, should you meet it? Or should you continue doing what you're doing, ignoring it entirely?

What do you do? I would look to Barnabos to see if he feels like we've done enough. or if we have another trip. We have to be prepared to face it. Well, I light us on fire now. Every time we've encountered the cloak, it's reset everything. It's put us back in the house. It's attempted to wipe our memories.

It's shifted some of us elsewhere. I think we have to just light it without engaging. You're right. The fire will get down to the basement. It's all going to go. Okay, Miss March, Mr. Fulke. Fire blow some. It's all up to you now.

I am so afraid. But it's a good fear. That's how you know you're alive, lads. That's how you know! And you can feel that fear. It is rising and rising inside of you. It is pulsing. With every one of your heartbeats,

you feel that it could stop, and it's almost lurching in this moment. It's not speeding up. It's... slowing down, but getting louder with intensity, drowning out your ears as you are continuing to move these containers in. And there isn't enough time. You have to make this choice now. Are you going to light the, from outside? We're going to go outside of the White House, and then she's going to... Okay. You go outside. You kick the door open, the five of you,

knowing that this bomb is about to go off and feeling the terror, knowing the feeling the fear, knowing the fear that you will see when you actually experience fire looking at it. You know this must be some terrible effect of whatever this creature, this space is. You just have to overcome it. Queenie. I'm going to dip the head of one of my arrows in my honey, which is flammable. And I'm going to you hear the crunching sound of footsteps. to knock it into the bow. I know you're scared.

On your count, Queenie? I'm just as scared as you are. You can do this, all right? I'm ready. One, two, let it on fire go. You hear this voice start to cry out. I need you both to make wisdom-saving throws to see if you can release your knocktair.

This advantage? Um, yeah, thank you, huh? Come on. Oh! Four? Four? Fifteen. Fifteen. You know you need to light your arrow and you don't even get that far.

You drop the bow and then are frustrated with yourself knowing that you need to do it, but you're horrified. All you want to do is run and again, you hear that same voice and you sort of glance backwards and the figure. Now, there is a person inside of this cloak. This is not an empty cloak. Your mind isn't being shielded. You see a face with two eyes, a human-like face, a face you've never seen before, two faces you've never seen before actually.

A warped and strange monstrosity is it... Toy Shen! Miss March! And Queenie, you are able to ignite the flame of the arrow and trembling attempt to attack and to make purchase at the top of the lighthouse, you'll need to roll to attack. That is a... Keep thinking this is a touchscreen computer.

Yeah. This is a on a touchscreen computer. Uh, 23. Boom. Big money. You all watch in horror as the arrow flies. A stream of flame as it sails up and up and up, and you can barely look as it lands inside. nothing for a moment

and you feel relief no fire when this ignition occurs and you watch as the flames start to shake against the top of the ceiling you watch as

windows are blasted out and you can see that glass is starting to fall and you can also hear more closely this lurching cloaked figure melt melt Delia, Milbon, El. And you turn and look at this impossible face.

A merged face, a face of fear and of confusion, two different colored pupils, split and pushed together. What you think perhaps may have been Delia and Ilban. And this flame ignites. And you can all feel the heat, you feel the glass raining down. And as soon as that happens, there's this slow shift. The creature in front of you melts. You, underneath you, start to get pulled down, swimming almost, into the rock surface as it gels under your.

your feet, your reality, your hands start to pool and glop. Everything seems to swim together, almost like molten glass. The sea around you turns from its brilliant greens and blues to a magnificent, beautiful sunset orange, and you marvel at it. You look up at the fire and you no longer feel the fear of it. You instead feel relief and hope. But time shifts for you. And for a long time, that's all you know is this strange glow of deep, deep orange. I'm going to get another beer. I'll be right back.

What a God. Will you motherfucking up back here? You beat a guy. You beat a jet! Oh, that was really good. It's all but confirmed. I agree. It's but confirmed, all right.

I wrote it down. I have no idea. You have no clue? It took me a hop in it. It's very cool. It is very cool. It took Mikey being like, hmm, for me to like figure it out. So I don't know.

Yeah, it was tough. I was not with it. I'm too stupid for this campaign. It's not, it doesn't have any, you're not stupid. No, no, no. It doesn't have any do with intelligence. Oh, man. There's also just a fuckload going on, and I was so wrapped up in the RP and shit that I didn't catch it for a very long time.

Time seems to stretch for a long time for you. It seems to go backwards and forwards. There are moments when you feel like you can see the construction of the lighthouse as it was first made and built. There are moments when you feel like you can see Delia and Ilban's first arrival. There are moments when you can see your own arrival. for the first time and you feel like you witness the entire first chapter and experience what you experienced that first time. And there are other times where there are whispers where you almost feel like you are

one with this strange being or entity, this thing that was it making conscious choices at all about what was happening in these moments or was it intentionally manipulating you because you happen to get close to it. These questions swim in your mind and are fleeting, and it's hard to tell where you start and where the questions begin and where it begins, because very clearly there's a melding happening. All of you together, you feel like bubbles,

suspended in space, trapped in some thick liquid, and you wonder, what will happen next? Is this the end? Is this all there ever will be? And there are whispers. There are whispers that you can hear. Whispers sliding, occasionally you hear what sounds almost like the ocean, and then what sounds like what it would feel like to sit in the back of a carriage as you are being drawn by horses to some strange new destination. You feel like there are hushed whispers around you, and you're not sure if the whispers are coming from you, asking in a voice that Scrim is only familiar with, asking to accept, to step closer, to be protected. Other times the hushed whispers are perhaps speaking about you or perhaps about this creature.

there's this echoing back and back and forth. They are still in there. Hello. Oh, who is this? Ilvon, that are you, George? No, no, no, no. All right, well, I don't know anymore. I, I, it's not my name.

They call me Stacy. They call you Stacy? They call me Hart. That's not my name. They call you what? Never mind. Name's Queenie, Miss Marge if you're nasty. That was the name I was expecting.

Are you... Are you hearing me? Yeah, it's fine, buddy. I, across the strange eons, we hear the whispers of your dulcet tones, drifting through the ether on membranous wings. That will take some time for you to recover from, but I just need you to ask you to ask. Answer me one question and you can go.

Have you accepted anything from it during your time there? No. No? No. I tried. I tried. Stupid, stupid scrim. But I don't know if I got anything. I did it for my friends.

We were dying. I would have done anything to save them. For your friends, this will be painless. This will not be easy for you. Wait, wait, wait, wait, hold on. Hold on, hold on. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Let's take a step back. Okay, hold on. There's a very good chance that something else already has very, very, very strong claim on my soul.

So what's to say that anything happened? Nothing happened. You will need to be separated so that you are not necessary. infected by it. Well, what kind of separation? Like, emotional distance? Like, we just got to take a break. Wound will be with you for your whole life.

Oh, I can't, I just can't win. Oh, what are you going to do to me? Where are we? You're in a temple. Where we heal and protect, you wouldn't last forever in there. We are hoping to seal this. way for centuries. Please. Do you want to be free? I guess. Bonnebus would tell me I have to be free. No, I, you don't have a choice, Mr. Stavis Scotch. But then again, do any of us? And you are all

sapped from where you are, pulled through, stretched, you feel extruded. For most, you of you, this is an experience that is very strange, and you hear those whispers. All of a sudden time dilates and compresses, and you hear voices in all directions, and you land where you're going to land. But for Scrim. Yeah. This is agony. You'd think I'd learn.

This is the feeling of being torn apart and... reassembled again. You are unable to scream about it. You endure it. And when eternity and no time at all happen in the blink of an eye, you all find yourselves back into a car. Landed on an ice sheet. You settle down and for a moment you're all blinking and it seems impossible. It's very cold. But the sky's night sky above you the ice sheet is underneath you you're not standing on a tower you are whole am I will be reduced one death-saving throw for the remainder of the campaign oh as you feel slightly diminished I already have too oh no those are

gone oh I just mean instead of three oh no I got you I'm just I'm just making sure I didn't like oh oh oh And... There's no physical mark on me, though? Like, I'm like... I feel... I'm like checking myself to see if I'm like... You have two noses now.

You check. You feel. You feel around. And you feel like scrim. You feel like scrim. It's just... When you look for it, there's a hole. Something that had to be taken out of you so that it didn't spread.

Do I get a sense looking up at the sky where in Jakar we might be. You look up in the sky and you actually, it's full moon, and you are very familiar with the stars. You don't see the star anymore. You look around, it's cloudless. You're where the tower should be. This is exactly where the tower should be.

But more disturbing to you isn't that information. more disturbing to you is that you're somewhere towards the end of the second month of the next year 42 days have gone by

and that is where we will end tonight session. Holy shit. We got so many answers and so many more questions. I don't know what answers you got. What in the hell? I can't wait to hear what you guys have to say,

because I'm definitely too stupid for this. I got it right. I got it right too. I got it right. All done. But it took Mike basically being like... Thank you so much for listening to the Legends of Aventras podcast. We hope you enjoyed the session.

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