Legends of Avantris - Icebound | Ep. 40 | Seed of Sorrow

Episode Date: February 20, 2026

The party reunites with a long lost companion... 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/-eb-kG1Al24?si=F3p9DsRow-PaSdFx

Welcome to Legends of Aventress. I'm Scrimmed Stabaskatch, and you're listening to Icebound. You find yourself standing upon the tallest peak of the biting bastion. This tower embedded within the sheer rock of the island at the center of this frozen lake. Looking all about you, you can only see in the empty space, surrounded by the swirling, blizzard that has overtaken the city since he woke up this morning. It feels so long ago now, waking up and realizing that your friend Queenie may be in danger. Heading under the ice, under the frozen lake,

and infiltrating the biting bastion, finding your way into the depths of this fortress, meeting the mutilated body of Ket Rostean, your ally, for like a better term. You are, we fought your way, snuck your way up to a wizard's tower, the tower of Whisper Fang. And there you found Daisy, still alive. There was a tremendous fight against Whisper Fang. and the body of the poet, risen again by Whisper Fang's wizardly magic. It was a tough fight, but you were able to prevail,

and you were able to secure the hexature armament, the artifact that fate itself has rested upon your shoulders to deliver back to its home, the plane of logic. Moving quickly, you made your way down to part of the part of the way, with the Princess of Rath, and you have only barely been able to escape with your very lives. As negotiations broke down,

she chose death. Death for each of you. No more meddling, no more mischief, no more drama. Clean and cold and precise, the Princess of Wrath bared down upon you, you. And even though you were able to find a chamber that might have promised to escape, you were unable to open a portal to another world, and you found yourself trapped.

Only barely have you been able to make it up here, beaten on the edge of death in many ways. And it is here at the top of this peak, as you are just catching your breath, knowing that the princess must be just behind you, on your very heels. that you spy something at the top of this mountain. A large crystal shape exuding the snow that has caused this very blizzard, the epicenter of this snowy storm, this blizzard. And within that crystal, you can see the frozen body of Queenie, suspended a mere feet, foot above the surface of the rock,

suspended there, completely frozen, still. Scrim, you notice this crystal first, and the rest of you follow his gaze as he freezes, and you spy that same sight there before you. What happens next is up to you. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. What sort of devilry is this? Is that Queenie?

I think so. Is this a trick? I will take the brutal blade, which is in my hand, as we have just been through hell and back, and slowly kind of approach it and like, Tink, ding, ding, ding, ding. Attempt to, like, tap this crystalline structure to see if it is real.

That high-pitched crunching sound of real ice meets your ears as you are able to tap the very real physical ice that is before you. This ice is perfect. perfectly clear. There isn't a marbly vein of white casting through it. It is a little bit warped, but the perfect facets, almost like staring at a huge diamond.

And the tip of your blade leaves just a small notch in the surface of that ice. I'll walk a little closer and see how clear is it. Like, how well can I see her? You walk closer and I, I'll walk closer. I would say that you all start to gather around as you watch, scrim, observe, and sort of test out this strange thing.

And you observe your friend. She is plainly visible. Even though from the surface, there are flakes, flurries of snow that almost like cold steam, suddenly bursting out and shooting off, rocketing in all directions into the sky, you're able to get close enough and see Queenie within. She does not look well.

She is... Fuck! ...not the bright, warm friend that you remember from days ago. Three, four days, how long it's been? She looks gray, pale, as pale as a herringone can be, and a almost emaciated feature, like as though she is being sapped of strength. You said it's like crystal clear

and it's like these spurts of steamers shooting out of it as we approach it's pretty clear that it's just a block of ice? Yeah, I would say that it erupts from the ground itself. It's not floating in the air or anything like that. It is like a column of ice. When I say that it's clear, I'm talking about if you've ever had

like a fancy cocktail, the clear ice that they use for that sort of thing. The actual ice column that's before you is that same level of clearness. But just around it, there's an emanation of snow that flows in all directions and is clearly geysering and spouting off, covering Argentholm and the blanket of snow

that you've been enduring for what feels like days now also. She doesn't look good, guys. She doesn't look good. We can still get her out of here. Wait. Because I had another word, my eye will flash light blue. Apparently, I haven't used this since we last rest. I'm gonna cast detect magic.

And I'm going to approach the crystal and I'll touch it as well to see if I can kind of skid a sense of like is this natural ice that got dropped here? Is it like magical ice? Do I think we can free her in some way? Just trying to assess. And if I can, combine that with also separately

looking at her and getting a sense of how healthy she is. If it's actually cleaning knots in the warful trip. You invoke this magic within you and you look through your seeing eye, this eye that allows you to see beyond and into the weird. And for a moment, you are distressed because there's a huge shadow

that strikes out almost like a rays in all direction of what looks like a tall shadow-like figure. And then as you move, you realize it's merely your perception. The magic of the hexature armament on your back is so great that it is casting your own shadow forward and out into the horizon. You are actually looking at a silhouette of your own form as you stare out.

Oh yeah, I'm not an eagle anymore. Thank you. Oh, yeah, we're not flying. You guys landed when you guys got co-luster and watched scrim. The flies fell. GameState. Game thing.

Yornyer transforms into his Fearbug form, and you're taking it back for a moment before you realize that this is an illusion, a consequence of the unbelievable power of the object that's on your back, once you get used to that perception, you're able to step forward and closer to the ice. And it is, as you look at it, you realize this is no natural ice. This is clearly, not just by the very nature of the storm that it is producing at a rapid rate, filling the sky with clouds and falling snow.

But the very ice itself seems to be perhaps some kind of a ritual or a spell, a literal magic that's ice-like in nature, but it has encased Queenie within. You know, here's no way she's alive. I've seen good men freeze to death off the coast of Kaluak. It's looked a lot like that, Mr. Yorne here. This ice is not natural. If this is indeed Queenie, we must free her. Queen is strong. She could have survived this. We must free her now.

I can try and fall her out. And I'll just like a blast of a flamethrower almost from both my hands. And I'll try and heat through the ice. Though it's magical to see if I can kind of melt into it to start to get to her. You produce this warmth out of your palms, and very quickly, it grows boiling hot, the same heat that you would be able to use to quickly heat water for your tea, and you start to run your hand along the surface to see if it even begins to melt. And it does. There is a trickle of water, and pretty quickly you're able to push one hand in, and it curves and bends. you're careful to sort of like a sculpture,

almost smooth it around Queenie. I would be being very cognizant of not, like, blasting it straight into her, but trying to melt around her to pull her out of it as best I could. Using, as I get closer, like indirect heat to melt the layers that are directly on her. Hurry up, Mr. Fireblossom.

Does it look like it's, like, gonna take a while? Would I feel compelled to tie to, like, try to, like, smash it open with my anger? Or would that be, like, a bad time? Make an intelligence check. I'm not sure, because what Mikey thinks and what. Oh.

Yeah, yeah, that's a very reasonable question. Both sessions. No way. Both campaign returns a natural 20. Oh! Intelligence, that's 821. I would say that you feel very confident that you don't know what state queen is in and you don't know where how much the ice might break.

But if you were to break this, you could break a bone. you could shatter into just the bludgeoning damage alone. Given how quickly the warmth from Taishan's hand seems to be moving, you actually expect the block to be reduced to a point where you might be able to free Queenie without having to batter or shatter the ice. All right, hurry up, put your back and do it. Mind your fire, Mr. Fireblossom!

Catmessor, Mr. Fireblossom! Do you have any candles left? Oh, I absolutely do. I don't wordlessly, I go through my pack and I produce one of the bonfire candles. Yes, this is one of the fire candles that you were able to find on the ice sheet. More, more, all you have.

I think I have like three or four of them left. I have like a handful of them. And you remember they produce a bonfire-like heat despite being as small as a tea candle. And I would say that you have four left. I will use three, I will keep one. And I will grab three and almost like run over you as you're using your flame

and just attempt to like light the bonfire candles while you're doing what you're doing and like try to place them around the bottom of this icy structure to see if I can help. If I see you coming in with them, I would angle lower so we can ignite them all this time. This does great work. As you start to light the candles,

you immediately start to see a bend at the foot of this column of ice. Water is shedding and then moving its way farther down and into the cold and then refreezing 10, 15, 20 feet away from you as it slopes down the peak of this mountain. And another 10, 15, 20 seconds goes by. You're moving as quickly as you can where you get to a point where there's a very, very thin shield

of ice between you and Queenie's frozen form. With just another punch of your hand, no longer aflame. You're able to feel that ice break. and Queenie's body walls forward. You have to work her limbs a little bit and actually yank her free

and warm an ankle here and a thigh over here in order to rest her, but eventually you find yourself cradling the wet, icy, cold body that is Queenie. Is she a liar? Your Honor. Move aside.

Your Honor, take a look. Gather the candles around her. Keep up on the candles. Hurry the beast is coming! I want to inspect her and see if she is alive, and how she's looking. You get in close. I need you to roll a medicine check. 20.

Hot. Fur is matted. Her eyes almost seem frozen shut. She is ice cold, but you are able to sense that she is not dead. You have a sense that her breath moves very, very slowly. Like beyond even the deepest, slumber, but she is still amongst the mortal.

You'll see a look on my face that of surprise, that's very uncharacteristic for me. I don't know. She lives. Ah! She lives. Oh, God. Can you stabilize the gods?

By the gods. She needs help. She needs all the help she can get. And I'm going to place a hand on her, and the warmth of a small campfire in the winter will radiate from my hand. my hand joining this, all the heat from the campfire candles and Tyshen's flame. And I'm just going to pump all my level five spells are gone. All my four spells are gone.

All my level three spells are gone. We're pretty tat. I have two second level spells. I'm going to cast a second level cure wounds. Okay. While he does that, I am nervous. We just escaped to the princess of wrath. I want to look around to see.

I know we're in the middle of blizzard. I probably can't say anything. But I'm gonna see if I can see or hear through the raging snow if the sound of a massive dragon bursting up from this castle is coming. You remember that when you left the princess, she was still within that chamber.

And in her rage, much of the rock and ceiling came crashing down. As she tried to batter her way, almost feral, through the small opening that Yornear originally made in order to drop down there. She had hopped through it as a human, And she could have done that, but she was so infuriated and angered by your slippery ways that she chose not to do that. You all also remember a roar that came emanating up through the shaft that you all flew out in order to reach the peak of this mountain.

But you haven't heard anything since. Turning and looking around, you noticed two things. No, no dragon. That's the first thing that you noticed. I wouldn't even make you make a perception check. It's obvious there's nothing in the sky, and you notice the sky is clear. Not clouded with snow.

But immediately, as soon as Queenie's body fell free from this ice, you see that the emanation of snow that was rocketing out stopped almost immediately. The only thing that this winter storm is doing is has paused, and you almost are watching like a water level, this final remaining snow coming to watch. rest across all of Arjun Hohman. There is an eerie quiet.

Lord Devilary. I know she's coming. It'll be 26 points of healing. Okay. And as I healed her under my breath, I'll say. And for the first time since 2021, I will use my mammoth tusks feature. Yeah! What's it David?

Tuss are completely smooth. I can't even remember. They's tapered to ground a point. The other one's broken. It ruins. Anyway, twice per day, we turn to dawn. I can speck the name of an ally, if you can even ally, if they hear you,

they are granted temporary hit points equal to my wisdom modifier for one minute. Nice. I don't know what it's gonna do. No, it's good. But it's gonna be five temp hit points as she recovers, just in case anything happens. The runes, from the point all the way up to the root

on these mammoth tusks, the rooms slowly start to grow and glow and emanate light. And Queenie's, body is no longer as frozen cold. You pour this healing energy into her. And I would say that you're all sitting around cradling or keeping her as close to the fire candles as possible while Barnabos guards and watches. You see her fur doesn't brighten.

It doesn't come back to that same warm tan that you remember. Her clothes are the same color, but beneath them, her body almost. almost feels great, almost aged. And she... I would protect her. But her nose twitches. Her eyes move back and forth underneath her lid. And you hear a breath, an intake of air,

and her eyes suddenly, drowsily start to open. And she looks first into yours and then into your eyes, Tyshen. Nikki, would you please come to the table? Scruton on down. Slot on down. She's alive! Oh, is it mean? We're gonna need to move over it a little bit.

I'm gonna. Believe it or not, it's Nicky. You know, if Nikki works to. Screw on down, are you the, I'm gonna get a, um, I'm gonna get a, um, Oh, very good. Let's take it later.

Let's take a quick offer. Welcome, Nicky. Welcome, Nicky. Welcome back. Hello. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. Welcome, Kuma.

It feels like it's been three years. Kuma bear. It feels like it's been three years, but it's been three in-game days. That's right. Queenie. Where are we? By the God, you are alive.

What's happening? Why are we up here on the top of this mountain? It takes a moment for you to get your senses fully back. Your vision is blurry. You feel very different than you felt just moments ago. Wait a minute, how do I know it's you? Is this some kind of cruel joke? No, no, no, it's us.

It's us. You would have to trust us. We've been looking for you, Queenie. The princess, she took you. She imprisoned you in this ice to fuel some kind of magical ritual. What do you remember, Queenie? While I let them fill her in, I'm just going to be silent, and I'm going to be like, you know, while she's there talking,

I'm going to be like checking her pulse, making sure she's okay, checking for signs of frostbite. It's doing my, you know, shaman thing. I would say that you rolled a medicine check for 20, and you've been pouring this healing energy into her. You can tell, and for your mechanical awareness, that she has definitely been sapped of much of her strength. Mechanically, that's being expressed

by a number of levels of exhaustion. Oh, no. Four levels of exhaustion. Oh, geez. That makes sense. That makes sense. Okay. Keep her warm.

We must not get pretty close. Of course. Daisy. Where's Daisy? She's all right, right? All this, I try to save her. This all happened so she would be safe. She's all right, isn't she?

We know she's alive. That's about all we know. We don't know if she's living or dying. We cannot lie to you, Queenie. What do you mean? What happened to her? She got tossed from a tower window, but there were footprints walking away from the tower,

like her body wasn't broken at the bottom. She can survive anything. If anyone can get tossed out of her tower window, survive it's Daisy. That's, she's fine. And we met up with Kent, and he's who's Kent? Who's Kent? Kent Rossin. Look, I'm exhausted. All right, speak up.

Kent Rossin. Get down here. You're too tall. Kent Rossin. Oh, all right. You don't have to yell. Sorry. Well, the Daisy incident was while we were facing against Whisper Fang. We killed him. Okay, you just got to live. You killed Kit Rothstein? Whisper Fang. Oh. We killed Whisper Fang. He's dead.

I don't know. Fuck that guy. All right. So we're in a good place then. I mean, Daisy's most likely fine. You saw the footprints and she's Daisy and you killed Whisper Fang. No, no. We're not in good shape. But the Princess of Wrath is coming.

She's going to be here any minute. We're in bad shape. We cannot fight her. She is in no shape to fight her. Well, we got to get out of here. We can't stay here. I don't know. It's going to happen, but all I can say is we're going to do everything in our power to protect you.

There might be a fight coming, Yonair. We're cornered. There's definitely a fight coming. We have the hexager armament. She won't stop until she gets it back. You got the hex of your armament, too? What have you guys been doing for three days? Yorne has it right now. Can it help us? Can it do anything for us? I do not know it as unlikely. I tried to use it just an hour ago, and it was unsuccessful. While we're having this conversation, I still have the brutal blade in my hand.

I haven't dismissed it. I'm waiting. I'm anxious. My alertness is heightened. Now that I know that she's talking and she's okay and the candles are lit and Yorner's walking at her, I'm going to walk towards the lift and just see here. Listen, anything I can proceed to figure out, like, how imminently are we in danger? You take a few steps past Barnabot's and almost as though by command.

you suddenly notice that there are these capstones on either side that have these massive linked chains that actually pull the lift up and down and in this moment You take one step past Barnabos who's also watching and keeping guard and You suddenly notice the chains start to to pull as though the counterweight has started to rise the platform Okay We don't have my shot guys The lift is moving. It's doing something. She's coming.

I'm going to stand there just to try to keep watch and just keep out. I'll look out for the gang. Sure. Knowing that there's probably not much personally I can do for Queenie. We have to get off this, we have to get off this tower. You're near, can you pick up Queenie? I can't, but where do we go? Can you...

Are you all out? Are you spent and tapped? Yes. Is your fire blossom, you two? Until I rest. I am also. Whisper Fang and her warriors that attacked us at the house.

I've got almost nothing left. I can't fly us again, not even myself. I don't think I have much any way to help. I'm not used to climbing on ice. I'm going to look to see, I know that I can't carry everyone, but I look to see, I do have a climb speech,

when I have my crab legs. But presumably, I'm not sure if the ice, I don't know how much, how thick the ice is, and even with the climb speed, I would just slide straight off. It does feel like there is this flat top where the lift has been built in. For who knows what purpose

the Silver Dragonborns had centuries ago, a millennia ago. The actual drop-off doesn't seem to be any sort of path or winding stairs or some other entrance that takes you into this embedded tower. It was a defensive fortress. And you're not sure, even if you carried all four

of your companions with your legs, if you would slide off and fall to your doom. We can't go. I can't do it. How much, is there rubble up here? Or I know that there was some cave-in from just the battle that we had had trying to escape. But is there any rubble up top of here?

Or is it pretty pristine and there really isn't There's no hiding spots, right? Sure. This is a flat. But what about loose rocks? Like, I mean rubble. Like actual, and it's okay if there isn't. Make a perception check.

Oh, shit. Ah, fuck. Not great. Perception is... Oh, okay. I got 13. With 13, I would say that perhaps underneath the blanket of snow,

there are stones, but not even a boulder big enough to make more than just a... a round, smooth bump in the surface of the snow that you're all walking on, packing on. I don't even think it's worth trying. I don't wanna waste one of my two fucking spell slots to. And I'm presuming that this is like a tower that's hundreds of feet tall.

Yes, you are hundreds of feet in the air. This is the tallest tower. This is the tallest tower. You can actually see from this vantage point now that the weather has cleared. You can see a few hundred feet down, the battlements of the wall. of the castle. You can see down into the inner ward. You can see there is a tower that you just

were at the top of, the wizard's tower, and you're taller even then now than you were then fighting Whisper Fang from where Daisy fell. There's not a perfectly placed cart filled with hay off the edges. No, we're fucked. We're fucked. Look, I'm gonna do everything in my power. This might be our final stand. But if it is, at least, at least we're going to, we're I got to see you one more time. At least we all get to die together, eh? A little facer, there's nowhere to go, but torres in the jaws of the beast. We get the jump on her, we stay quiet, we lunge forward, strip her apart.

We cannot afford to, we will all perish. All of us. There is no escape, Mr. Gornier. There's nowhere to run. There's nowhere to hide. What other option is there? This is not our fate. If there's anything I've learned in the time we've been together, it's...

There ain't nothing we can't do when we're together. I'll reach into my, under my cloak, and I will pull out Queenie's teapot. Or not teapot, you have the teapot. Queenie's honey honey pot. You turned it into a teapot? I was gone for three days. It just looked better that way.

It'd be easier to pour the honey out. We kept this safe. Oh, that was very sweet of you. Thank you. I did not find any bees. They'll come back to me when I need them. Queenie, you accept this. honeypot and feels so comfortable in your hands, almost nostalgic, as you feel the worn and smooth

surface of its ceramic exterior. And looking inside, you don't have much hope from Your Neer's words, but the connection that you have with the swarm, with your bees, with the spirits of the Faye Wild that have carried you through your journeys, your adventure, all of your travels from Yona, all the way to Dakar, to where you find yourself now, you find the bees within. Hello, hi there, darling. They are moving a little slow. They are just coming out of the mouth of the opening of the honeypot.

And as if to say hello, waving at you almost, the honeypot that was taken from you so rudely by whisperfang and by the princess as you stare in, they seem almost there to comfort you. Oh, good morning, sweetheart. Don't overwork yourselves. You stay warm. You are. And I'll strap my honeypot to my...

As you strap it in, you hear that same constant. The sound of these chains is not getting louder, but they've been going on now for five seconds, 10 seconds, 15 seconds, slowly moving up the platform, this lift. And you know that you have a mere moments before what you fear emerges. The platform rises up into the opening,

and there on top of the platform, amongst mounds of gold, and to one side, half of the broken vessel that once was the Moribound ship lifted up on this huge lift. Standing in the center is the princess of wrath, now in her human form.

She looks about, sees the sky for what it is, and then locks eyes with each of you, and cricks her neck back and forth, rolls her shoulder before stepping out onto the surface of the mountain. Well, it seems that we're all here. You've only delayed for but a moment, the inevitable,

and then I will have my prize. I will have my freedom. Are you prepared for the end? Are you? Turn back into your base form, I won't hit a woman. Perhaps. I could take you in this form if I chose to.

I kill beasties. Let's have it. You said yourself there's no more time for words. No, and I don't feel very patient. Not anymore. Not when I am so close. I will have everything that I want. My freedom.

I will take the Hexasiture armament back. I will have absolute rule of Dracar, finally free from the nagging, from the feeling of him scalding through my mind, the pull to serve the duty. No, I will banish it away. When I extinguish each one of your lives, I will be one step closer. I will warn you again if you do this. There will be no Dracar to run.

rule why can you not understand this do not believe in this vision of yours you're near you know that we are strong people we are dracar I am dracar and and I will make sure that the song loops because it's really quite cool it is quite cool I like the distortion on the guitar yes it's very That quite cool was giving Zoolander. Let them come and see what Dracar is made of. Hmm? Why?

Perhaps this curse of yours is clouding your judgment. Any true queen of wrath would see the truth, especially with the power that you've beheld, especially with what you've seen with your own eyes. your own eyes. Flattery is very appreciated and I do adore the name queen. When I ascend, when I am truly free, I think that will be the moniker I take for myself. A queen to rule. Yes, I like the sound of that very much. You can try, but like Bonnebo said, we're going to fight like hell. And even if you kill us, you'll never be the same.

I have killed many over the centuries. So many. I do not think that I will notice the additional blood on my hands. When I've extinguished your life, in a few years, perhaps I'll have forgotten each of you. You will be unremembered, forgotten. This is where your journey ends. Now, are you prepared to begin?

You've nowhere to go. Just us. Wait. Would you let us live? And would you let us take the artifact? If I can make you a queen, if I could end your pain, if I could break your curse. Did you do that?

It is very powerful. He may be able to. I've seen to do some crazy things. I have worked for centuries. Looking to find a path towards freedom. Look at... She picks up handfuls of gold, and she scatters them into the snow. Look at what all I have done,

just for this opportunity that is now presented to me by the Winter Queen and the life of your friend. If I could be freed of this curse, you are weak. There is no way you have this power. A weak. To what end, Mr. Yornear. It'll let in blood all the same.

This is our fate. We must survive. That it's all we have done and this is what we must do. To prevent the end. To make her a queen, is a price I will pay. I'm tired of surviving, Mr. Yorineer. I've been surviving of Nyon 40 years.

I want to live or die. This yonet. If anyone can do something like this, it's yawning. He'll turn. Do you not believe me? Make persuasion check. Oh, oh boy. I have some more tricks.

That's more tricks. I can ban my favorite for me again. Uh, 17. That's pretty good. That's really awesome break. That's pretty high. That's pretty high. Pretty good.

She puts a hand on the side of the Moorbound. You can see the ribs of the, of the, broken vessel. You can see into the floors, floors that you were familiar with for weeks traveling over the ocean, and she pushes it with one arm, sliding it a foot or so in one direction,

just to seemingly vent steam. And then she looks at you. I will give you a chance, shaman. I will grant you this. Your last wish. Show me. And she steps off the, platform and into the snow, but 15, 20 feet from you.

I will approach her. And if I have this role, I will attempt to use it. If I don't, I'm bullshitting. And I'm pretending to break the curse. Oh, you're never going to use the remove curse. If provided it exists. If you rule that I have this, it's only little forward. There's no way it's strong enough to break it.

I actually will remind you that you learn. how to break the bonds of the tribes from Elder Nightbloom. I thought that you were talking about your ability to sever the ways that she empowers herself through that ritual. And you can do whatever you want.

That's what I thought you were doing. I guess the way that Yourneur's thinking is that the bond that she has on others wouldn't break the bond that the woman of the hut in the woods has on her.

Sure. And so I would attempt whether I'm using the curse or I think for now if I have the scroll, I am going to approach her. Wow. And I think that's really exciting. Oh, man. You approach. And I will say that you have the scroll and that it is a remove curse scroll.

I learn this ability in the mountains of Mahmout. and I'll sort of walk around her a little bit. She doesn't turn as you walk behind her. She stands confident. You feel like even if you were to attack, she would just try to swat you away with her tremendous strength and abilities. From a woman in the mountains,

a small hut, and I will sort of a boy behind her, I'm going to, like, if I can sort of crack the scroll in away and, like, hold the power in my head. in my hands and I'll come back around to the front of her and I will reach out for her hands. And she'll see my hands kind of glowing with this magic of remove curse. I know what has done this to you. I may be your only hope.

And I'll grab her hands and cast to spell curse at a fourth level. As frigid as the air is around you, as cold as it is in all of her car, when you touch her hands, it's cold. and you invoke the magic of remove curse, and I have to look up the spell. Me too. It's been a while. It's been a while. Oh my God.

Damn. All curses affecting one creature or object ends. If the object is a cursed magic item, its curse remains, its curse remains, but the spell breaks its owner's attunement to the object so it can be removed or discarded. I see, okay. Oh, so it's not like a counter spell

where you're rolling if it's like bigger than the, Yeah, but there are some curses that are un-curses, the unremove curse. Unranks, of course. I think that's literally in the rules. The super curses. I still think that, given the nature of this, that a role is necessary. I would agree. I would say that.

I agree with that. Add your magic using... As a GM, I feel like I might make the same. My spellcast is a modifier. Which is a plus five. I'd let it happen. Should we twist this? We'll allow it.

Oh, yeah. Plus. How much you want to add? Plus five. Plus five. We got, you're trying to create. Wait, no, no, no, no. We only have, we only, we only, we have 20.

21. We got seven. We got 17. We got one. Plus four. Should be 21. Yeah. We should be 21.

I missed counted. One, two, three, four, five. This is six. Oh, that's why I miscounted. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just thought it was rose with five. 21, we have 21 twists. So we're using five here, I think it's very reasonable.

Let's use five. It's important. It seems important. Imagine this works. You've solved the game. What happens? I mean, he probably only needs a roll of 60, so we're saying that's a big box. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Plus four is armor. What are the plus? I was in the table on Wednesday. You kind of know what we're dealing with here. Twice in one week, folks. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 13. Oh, with a plus five?

I roll the three. Oh. And I don't have heroic inspiration. That probably doesn't. Does anybody have heroic inspiration? From what? Not in this campaign. I can't think of it.

I think I gave an inspiration once to you for. But I gave you to you. It wasn't heroic. I bet you was an old rules. It's been very rare, yeah. No, that's what we did. It's probably old rules, yeah. That's very funny.

You probably need 50. Yeah, I mean, I think you could have got a natural 20 and I still somehow think it was more. You didn't need a plus 40. You invoke the magic, and there's a moment of emanating light where you see what would, normally break an average curse, but this curse is very strong. You imagine that many magic users, Cobolds and wizards and travelers, have attempted this same trick over and over and over.

And when the magic fizzles, and you know that it is, that it has failed, the queen, I'm sorry, the princess, looks down and sees and knows the same. Is that it? This is a powerful Karts. More powerful than I have ever seen. If you give me some time,

I believe... There is no more time, and I have the path to victory right before me! She grabs you by the cuff of your collar and she rakes her hands against your chest, flinging you, 15, 20 feet into the air, punching you, effectively upper-cutting. you take 26 points of damage, 18 points of bludgeoning damage,

and 70 points of cold damage. As you see a flash of snow and brilliant blue light, like a spark, flash out from Yornear as he crumples down and rolls to the feet of all of you. She looks at all of you. This is not a game. This, there's no more time left. It is over.

is over. I am going to take that one's little life and free myself for good. It is the only way. I give you your chance. I've changed my mind. I just run in her with the anchor and try to fucking snap. I'm like dashed between a little bit. Stop! Stop! Stop! Stop! Stop!

Stop! All you stop it! I'll do it! You want, just don't hurt them. Promise me you won't hurt them. You'll let them do everything, and then you have a place to rule. One life for theirs. I'll do it.

No, no, no, you stop. No! You don't know what I've seen. You don't know. This is between me and her. The... Princess steps forward a few more steps, but her body relaxes. I need you to make a persuasion check.

Oh, geez. See, Christi? We don't need to. Oh. What a cold-blooded thing to say. Chee! Oh my God. 23.

Damn. Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry, 22. The princess was like your companions, about to throw down. She had taken a step forward, not just a walking step of confidence, but a battle step, ready to transform, But moments before she enabled her polymorph to transform into her dragon form, you yell out these words. And she looks at you and she sees the confidence and the sureness in your eyes. And she pauses for a moment.

What are the rest of you doing as you hear Queenie yell out these words? Protesting. Just because you didn't now, I do have to cut to say this. My first rollback is Queenie was a natural toy. I was going to see what the persuasion rule was because that would have determined whether or not I continued my swing. But because you had a natural 20 and rolled the 22

as part of that plea, I am going to stay my anchor as I hear the pleading and I am going to lower it. And I'll say, if it requires a sacrifice of death, let it be me. I'm not afraid to die. You have love. Lots of life to give. Lots of life to live. Your young, I am old. Let me die. Let her go.

I'm with Bonnebos. Yeah. My life is fucked. Who knows what waits for me afterwards? I'm doomed for all eternity. Let me go. We just got you back. You can't do this. We can stand against her together. You said it. There's nothing we can't overcome together. I would accept any of your lives. I would do anything to end what bonds me to, but the pact was made for her life. I cannot take yours or yours.

The Winter Queen will only accept the soul of this one. It has to be me. And there's someone waiting for me in the Summerlands. I won't be alone. I'll be getting off the ground. Turn to Queenie. And then I'll look at the princess. What do you intend to do to her?

We will complete the ritual that you so rudely interrupted. I do not know if you will feel any pain. Do you accept? Do you accept this? Do you accept my plea? No, no exception. We will pour language. Barnabot, do you let me make choices for myself.

You are not my boss. You are my friend. You are my family. The pact was from my life and not yours. I've made my choice if you will accept it. As soon as you say that, I immediately lower my anchor. I, the rage, I probably would have used it if I, I don't even know if I've rage laughs. The rage would have dropped that it would have cast,

and I just kind of become a little more sunken and hollow, and I will have a very grim kind of look and I will say your mind is made up and I of old people should not be the one to tell anyone else how to live or how to die it is not my choice

little one it is yours no no no Bonobos no I can't believe you're saying this listen to what you're saying we're with the rage we have to fight and she's free to die Scrim. I will hobble over to you, Scrim. Don't be scared.

Not for me. I'm brave. What is Diff but another adventure, buddy? I know you're brave, but I'm fucking terrified here. We just got you back. I know, but I ain't going anywhere, and I'll put my hand on your heart. I'm always going to be right there. No.

No, guys, come on. And who's going to protect you on the other side anyway? I'll be there waiting for all of you. And you, passion. Don't forget, strength. Strength to overcome your anger. It's what I need you to do. You, Barnabas, always letting people choose for themselves.

Always fighting against depression. And you always fighting for the little guys. And loving your heart is so big. And then you fighting for the world. This place needs you guys. This is something I can do to make sure you get that thing where it needs to go and you stop the end of all things from happening. I am but one life among millions.

I will approach you and I'll put my hand on your shoulder. This may be your faith. But what do you wish? to gain in this bargain. Will you let us leave with the artifact if Queenie goes with you and goes beyond to the Faye lands? That is what I asked.

You will let my friends go and you will let them return that thing and save this land, a land that you can rule if you accomplish it. I will give my life for theirs. Do you agree? She thinks about it for a moment, but only a moment, before she turns and nods at you, Queenie. Yes.

I will spare the lives of these, and I will get what I am looking for. That is... I'll walk towards her a little bit on my shaky legs, and then I would like to say goodbye to my family. Can I have that? waited for some time, you may say goodbye. I will turn to the four of you. Don't be afraid for me. If I'm not afraid, you shouldn't be.

We all got across this bridge someday. It just looks like today's that day for me. Now what I ask you is not to give up, because that's not what I'm doing today. I'm giving us a shot. If we thought her, we would die here today, all of us. but with this choice you move forward and you do

what must be done. Don't forget, I'm just going to go to the Summerlands. You'll see that I'm rustling around in my pack. I'm just going to the Summerlands. I'm going to see Eldred again. It's what I wanted

for a long time. I have my bees and I'll be waiting for you. But I hope that I don't see you for a long. Then I'll reach out my hand and kind of position myself so the queen of wrath can't see. And I'll open my hand and you'll see one face-ed.

I'll put it up, I'll put my hand to my chin. Yeah, I hope I don't see you for a long, long time. And then I'll toss it into my mouth and swallow it. Well friends, I'll see you on the other side. I, yeah. The gods put you on this path, on this pilgrimage. on this pilgrimage for this reason. Oh, I know it.

And your sacrifice will never be forgotten. And we will never stop. We will save the world. I have all the faith in the world, you guess. I'll miss you. And then I'm gonna turn around and the bees will block me off from them. Like not so they can't see, but so that they can't approach me. And then I'm gonna walk towards the princes of wrath.

Good boy. I'm ready. This isn't fair. This isn't fair. This isn't right. I love you guys. There's a curtain made by these bees. Your protectors, your guardians, and your fighters.

And you know to trust them to put a degree of separation between you and what might happen next. The princess looks at you with cold determination, waiting, patiently, having less. having let you say your goodbyes. For each of you, as she turns, Queenie, as she turns and you watch her be sort of obscure the vision before you, you no longer see that emaciated, gaunt face, sapped of the strength that has been caused to her by this ritual. No, you see the bright golden smile of her face.

The tears aren't even freezing. She looks almost like the day you first met her. Queenie, you walk forward and present yourself to the princess. Any final words? Have my life. You may break your pact. You may work towards the things that you want, but you'll never win because you will never know love.

And I'll get down on my knees. Before you can drop, you feel, a hand grasp around your neck. She lifts you up, and she whispers to you. I'm sorry. Her eyes go white. Shit. And around you, this shell of ice

starts to emerge. It starts to grow and thicken. That same block of ice starts to crest and crust around your body as you feel what you thought might be cold or pain. You don't feel that at all. In fact, you look just behind the princess and you see a, B, this small face spirit, your very best and closest companions, best friends. And as it zips around, you're distracted by it.

It almost seems playful. Hey, over here, darting behind Princess's head and then almost waving at you in this way, you realize that there's a a different vision before you. This is not the city of Argentholm. You don't see the mountains of Dracar, but you see what feels very familiar, glade, filled with otherworldly light,

and you're no longer being held up. You're standing on ground. You feel spry. You feel like you are in the summerlands. And behind you, you hear a voice. You're doing here, so you're not supposed to be sneaking up in here already? What are you doing? And you feel like you can respond.

I don't think when you would respond. I think she would just rush up and just give him a big old bear hug. Bear hug is what you receive. As Eldred grasps you and pulls you into the air and you spin around, he starts to yammer on. How glad he is to see you. And so proud of you, so brave, he stuffs you onto his shoulder and starts to walk you down into the forest, telling you that there's carrot stew on a warm fire.

The rest of you, Hyshen, Barnabos, Yornear, scrimm, ease start to drop one by one, falling down to the ground before fading into nothingness. and looking all around you, that storm has happened again. This emanation, this geyser of snow, blanketing the city of Arjun home, blanketing all of you, casting down onto your shoulders and onto your head. This time, much more gentle than the blizzard

that you arrived to when you first came to the top of this peak, and beyond the princess closing her fist, there appears to be no more Queenie before her. Nikki, thank you. I'm going to ask you to step away from the table for now. Bye, Nikki. Goodbye. Thanks for fun.

Save the world. We're going to need it. We're going to need it. We're going to need it. This podcast is brought to you by our Patreon. Become a patron today at patreon.com slash legends of Avantress and gain access to tons of exclusive perks, including a monthly movie night and a weekly Patreon exclusive campaign set on the high seas, Shroud over 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 tome for Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition. And don't forget to snag all the extra goodies like dice, miniatures, plushies, a tarot deck, and more. Thank you. You all stand in stunned silence. It isn't until your vision clears and you're able to see just the princess standing there alone, seeing the snow all about you, that your heart drops. And you feel that sting of sadness as you realize that Queenie truly is, really is gone.

I need you to make a perception check, each of you. This is not a group check. This is four individual perception checks. I think I had the exact same thing again. 13. That's pretty good. It's okay. 17.

I miss the old twist rules, guys. Yeah, me too. I miss them real much. We're so cooked, I'm missing real, but. 10. 8. 10. Tishan, your vision is blurry,

but anyone who got a 10 or higher, so the other three of you are able to see something that the princess doesn't seemingly notice. As her fists clasped, and she starts to raise it up to the sky to await the breaking of the curse, This feeling of connection to her old husband that has driven her insane, a nod at her for all of these many years.

As she looks up into the clouds, you three of you see a small seed drop to her feet, makes a small hole in the soft snow beneath and digs its way down, drills its way down to the surface of this mountain. And you realize that the Faye Wild Seed that Queenie had sworee, followed, didn't evaporate, and has planted itself directly at her feet. She runs her fingers through her hair and smiles. There's a gasp. She has a moment of what looks like sheer bliss on her face, and you hear a low chuckle coming out of her throat as she, finally, finally, free to make decisions for myself.

free of that burdensome man. Free. And it is your turn. Grant us passage. And we will leave. We will leave now. She turns and looks at you. And you don't get a nod.

She just looks away. Scanning the horizon of Argentholm as the remaining blanket of snow continues to come to rest. Yes, free. And she looks at each of you. Or I could get everything I want. I have my freedom. You swore on oath.

I didn't make a pact. I still want my hexature armament back. That's pretty little thing on your back. It'll be much more valuable in my hands. You gave your word as a princess. Do you have no honor at all? Even free from your curse? You got everything you want.

You got her. You're free. Queenie gave her life for this. It's time you set us free. Then her life was worth something. Unlike your lives, which can do nothing for me, make more mischief. Perhaps signal to our enemies,

some war that needs. to come taking something that we can use to defend ourselves? No, no, no, no. I am a princess. I'm a queen now. I am ruler of Aldrichard. Who needs honor when you have power, your dear? You frozen scumbag!

You can suck on my entire ass! This is unbelievable! I will make it quick. Don't need to chase you about anymore. You are slippery, but I think I will show you the true extent of my power. Before you, she lifts up and you watch as her hair shifts to scales. Her body grows and grows and grows. Her tail lashes out from behind her body.

Her wings extend out 15, 20, 30 feet wide. all around you and she looks down at you. You hear that same voice of the princess emanating from this much, much larger maw. You remember, don't you, Barnabos? The embrace of the Colossus. In the hippodrome, when you nearly fought to the death against the chieftain of the Goliath,

I have the power of granting this boon myself, and I will gladly use it, and I will tell you. I feel you squish beneath my talons like jelly. You watch as more magic races and courses across her scales, not like electricity, but like racing cold wind. She grows twice as big, three times the size, four times the size, towering over you. Dozens and dozens and dozens of feet.

Fuck, screw you! White dragons are historically known to be a smaller variety of the chromatic kind. But this must be the largest dragon on all of the ventras as you look up at what feels like a creature as tall as the tower you stand on. Damn you through all nine hells and then some. Damn it! Wait! Wait! Do you wish to be close again?

I told you where I learned my spells, who I learned them from. You do not wish to play with me. I know her. I've seen her and I can beckon her. I'm going to start to shift and change. Did I, did I see her in our visions in the hut? What, what, what, what, uh, oh yeah, we saw her. Oh yeah, we saw her. We met her in the hut.

She was sitting in there. She talked to us. She made eye contact me. We saw the hag in the hut. She pierced through the van. She saw us in the dream, the vision passed, wherever the fuck was. She was meeting the princess and then looked at us.

And basically like, oh, you want to hear. Yeah. I can see you. I will say that you wouldn't have a complete recollection of her form. There was, it was a voice, and I would say that the best that you would have is being able to recreate is like a,

a shattered hooded figure, a very hag-like. I'm going to look at my memory of what she looked like and what we witnessed Sigdis C. And you'll see me shrink and shrink and shrink and shrink. As I use, I think I still have a cat. Yeah, I use disguise self. Because I'm a fear bowl that can appear three feet shorter. Oh.

As my fear bowl magic. So they extend the spell for your species straight. And I'm going to shrink down. I am going to appear as the gnarled a crone that we saw in the vision. And I'll still be using my voice, because I'm not really one for voices, right? But I'll say, I know her.

I know what you know. Do you want to risk being cursed again? After all you've done to finally be free, let us leave with the artifact, and you will never see us again. Never see us again. Make a, I think another person, deception check.

It's very good, so definitely deception check. Oh. And I'm gonna use a twist of dread. I don't think you need to, but let's try. Let's see if you can't think it get worse. That's not great. A two. Yeah.

Trickery, shaman. Oh, I think I will kill you last so that you can see your friends perish. She walks forward and you watch as one of her massive talons now, the size of the ship, rumbles forward, creating huge trenches in the snow. After seeing, do we see what Queenie saw or now? No, no.

As far as you were concerned, she was grabbed, transformed into ice, and by the time the snow finished emanating, her form was completely gone. You didn't see the bees that led her into the summer lands. You didn't see the bridge or the vision or any of those things. Ever since, kind of that all happened. And even since Queenie basically kind of shouted out, Barnabos has kind of looked haunted.

And at this point, I'm holding my anchor just like resting it. I'll let it drop. And I'll pull out my shell and I'll look at it. And I'll like peer into it. And I'll kind of hear it. And I'll hear like the singing and the voice in it very briefly and I'll say, is Tommy, my lover, hopefully I get to go to the fiddler's green. Hopefully I will see you there.

I always kind of walk forward and I'll just like say, hello Beastie, make it quick. She continues to look back at your shrunken form and she rakes her talent forward and you all start to prepare. for your fate, whatever it may be. This could be your last stand. Where's the seed? The seed would still be just underneath now, this dragon, the size of a tower. In her moving her claw up as this old,

narled woman, I'm going to act like I fall, and I'm gonna fall over and knock over. And as if the snow pushes me down and knocks me over to play into her power right now. Oh. You hear laughter, but you also hear something else. Carried on the wind, a voice that is now familiar to all of you.

As she rumbles with laughter and she looks down, you can see her lifting her talent up, she freezes. And you hear a voice. Foolish child. A howling wind spraying all about it. spraying all about... Do you hear this dude? You all hear this sound of this voice.

What? The massive dragon, the Princess of Wrath, turns looking for the true source of this voice. But there is no voice to be sound, to be, uh, uh, there is no source that you can find. Princess.

Strange thing that you think you are doing. So foolish. Meddling with powers. you cannot possibly understand. You have petitioned the queen. Inside, you are still the shaking, trembling mortal that visited my hut so long ago. You are nothing. You think you have power, but you have nothing that has not been granted to you.

I myself. Damn. The embrace you used. This is not yours. It was part of your connection to my deathless one. To cost Kachee. I'm rid of you.

I'm rid of you, woman. Just show yourself, show yourself so I can crush you between my hands. Think not. No foolish one. You think yourself a goddess. I will show you what a true god is like. You are to be punished.

Punished. I've been punished enough by your ways. What could you possibly do to me that I haven't endured for centuries? I think perhaps a visit. A visit from the one you called Kastan. My Kostkichi. Yes. I welcome it. That is no punishment. Just give me the chance. You have all the gold here, a thousand, thousand,

thousand gold pieces, bring him to me. A challenge? You claim not to be afraid? The voice starts to fade and echo all around you. All of you are in stunned silence as you witness this back and forth between the princess. She turns her tail. You all have to duck as her massive tail wings around you as you look in every direction. You have to pull yourself to the ground.

and you feel it before you hear anything, and then you hear this massive rumbling. The earth shakes beneath you, wide and strong. You do have to find a purchase on the ground. On your knees, as the very fortress begins to shake. You can even see some of the ice and rock from the towers that are all about you, crumbling down as below you, you hear a massive scream. The voice emanates up through the shaft,

and you know that Koskichi has arrived in the vault below. Without hesitation, the princess reaches down and with one massive hand, starts to pull at the platform, lifting it up. She pushes it. The entire huge wood frame that chains themselves lifting off. The more abound tumbles and rockets and rolls down

the side of the cliff faces, the entire thing is separated. But she is diminishing. You watch before your very eyes as the Colossus' embrace no longer makes her into an impossibly oversized dragon. She is still an ancient dragon, but you have a sense that she has been broken from not just her connection to Kostan, to her husband, to Kaskatchee, but perhaps all of the bonds that have been empowering her in all the time that she has been gathering the tribes of her car. She doesn't hesitate. She swan dives and disappears down into the shaft, leaving you,

completely ignoring you, and you are left alone. Saved. It was a miracle. The triad must have seen my deception and made it through. I'm still on the ground. I'm going to kind of like crawl over to where the seat is. You start to make your way over to where you saw the seed drop. Taishen, you're the only one who doesn't know the focus, the target of Yornear's attention. But Barnabot, Scrim, you see them going after Queenie's seed like a beeline of source. Just as you make it to the seed, Yornear, you hear again, Oh, crash, boom.

There is a fight happening hundreds of feet below you, but it sounds like it is just between a thin wall as this epic clash of, is emanating through the shaft. Yonik, Yonin, can you do something? Can you do something to fix it, reverse it? She can't be gone. I'm sort of crawling over there and I get to where she died, presumably.

And I'm like going through the snow and the ice and I'm looking for any sense of a body or anything. Make an investigation check. Do I say Barnabot's statement off decide just like in a daze like like yeah I mean are you so are you still coming so I was like oh over like facing and as soon as that happened now I'm just kind of like like I I would have done this I would have I would have kind of like like let out a tired rat you're ready as I and I'm just staring into my shell now I'm just staring into the shell and I'm rubbing my thumb along it

I don't you guys do your thing but I would I would run towards barnabos and just I would run towards Barnabos while they're doing their thing. I will be rummaging through the snow to look for the seed and to look for any remains that I might be able to maybe one day resurrect, reincarnate, whatever it is. Obviously, even though I have the diamond, I'm out of third-level spell slot, so...

Shit. It don't matter, numb. Oh. I know I really tapped you guys out. I'm on absolute fumes. I'm down to cantrip. This is real D&D, folks. I'm down to can trips.

What was your role? Ten. Ten. I would say with a ten, it's actually quite obvious. As soon as you part the snow, you do find the Faye Wild Seed. It is almost

shimmering with a light, sort of ethereal golden light. You've seen these seeds before, and some of them have had different colors. This one immediately reminds you of the yellow that Queenie March would so often wear or the color of the fur of her bees. And you know this to be the one that she put trust into somehow.

It is just an inch of snow between it and the actual earth that makes up the top of this mountain sitting there. But you don't find a bone, a nail, a patch of fur. She seemed to have been completely dissolved into snow by whatever this ritual was that the Princess of Rass was taught. I'll pick it up and expect it.

And see, does this one seem different or special, or is it just one of those seeds? Make an Arcona check. See, now that, I think I'm pretty decent. 25. Yes. Bingo. I would say that you

you don't know the exact chaotic nature of say magic. You have your own ways, and there's certainly some overlap. But you do remember everything that you learn from, Queenie, about these seeds. You remember the story experiencing the gift that Eldred gave under her, the idea of her going to different continents and places throughout her car, places of power and planting these seeds. And you yourself witnessed and grew one of them. these seeds.

And something occurs to you. It was just about three months ago, midwinter, on the top of the mountain peak with the ghosts, the druidic ghosts of the land, those who had bound themselves to Dhar

to perform a ritual of renewal. You realize it's very close to another one of your holidays. Just four or five days till winter's end. And as this revelation hits you, you look down at the seed and you remember to renew life, perhaps. Perhaps there could be something in this seed that might be connected to Queenie,

that if you could draw that same power out, you might have a chance. Feeling very connected to my own Faye ancestry as a Fearbol, and being, you know, being able to disguise myself and go invisible and you detect magic, that's all from the Faye Wild. I'm sort of feeling this connection and like maybe this is why I was here and I'm peace of this puzzle I'll pick it up and I'll say I can not bring her body back but the seed We've seen it act as an agent of renewal before Perhaps something something can be done. I Perhaps this was all part of her plan swallowing the seed

She wanted us to find this She wanted us to use this Okay, so how? What are you thinking? Tell us Anything? We must We must plant it if it's almost winter's end I can feel it It's been so long and just wild

That I've lost track of these holidays Because I've been so You know, the whole end of the world Anybody would That's an easy mistake to make It's your calendar It's been an insane three months, and a huge chunk of it was lost to your time in the lighthouse. The emotional roller coaster of getting back onto track, traveling underneath the mountains and meeting the strange trolls there, reaching Argent home, and all of the drama and difficulty, friction, challenge that has existed, trying to navigate the politics of a continent that is alien and foreign to you.

Yes, it has been off of your mind, but suddenly you feel this. Sense. Remind me, your would probably remember this with that archonarole. What, was there a specific, like, ritual? How did we grow the, I remember there'd be kind of this thing that we did with the Dragonborn?

You were guided by the, and I was using the, you hear the voice of Lethika in your mind, as you recall of, the voice of the elder druid. Yeah, there was a ritual. It was a simple ritual. Break the soil with your finger, destroy the to make a hole, obviously cover it, delivering water, delivering warmth, effectively drew it craft in order to try to unleash this. It demanded the attention of Queenie, both of you being winners of the games of the day. And that was what sort of allowed you to take the mantle of being this sort of an avatar of life and death and growing it. But it was the combined

effort that allowed you to produce the tree that probably still sits wintered there on the top of the mountain today. Do I feel like there's any, this is like a stone tower? Do I feel like I can make this thing grow in stone? I want to be clear that beneath the snow at the top of this mountain is some soil. Oh, great. This is, this is not the top of like a battlement tower. This is, this is a tower that's been built into, this one particular tower

is, and I'm sorry if I've not been doing a great job describing it, but there's a literal, like, spike of stone that was where they decided to build the actual fortress out of. Like, Minishtira. Yeah, oh, yeah, of course, of course. I didn't understand that reference. I have seen the White City.

I'm not. Because I thought that was badass. That is very badass. So you are pleased to see that, as you separate the... Okay. We have some decent space. I guess you were standing. If it were summer and Raqar,

you imagine that there would probably be still cold, but lichen and small flowers and mosses and stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Beautiful. Thank you, Andy. It's gorgeous and badass at the same time. We can plant this.

Just like we did at midwinter. Okay, all right, great. Great. There's still several days yet till winter's end, but I hope we are close enough. At these holidays, the veil between here and the winterlands is the narrowest. We must pray, all of you. Pray. Pray to the triad.

And I still haven't gotten up. I'm feeling the weight of my tusks. And if I feel, if there's ground beneath me, I will stay right where I am. If there's ground, like if I need to crawl further to find ground, I will get to where there's ground, and I will remind myself what Druidcraft does. Not much time has passed since you unleashed Queenie from her icy prison and the events that have unfolded since the princess arrived and rapidly descended to act down to the shaft to confront her once husband. It's only been perhaps, what, 10, 20, 30 minutes? It feels like so long, but the actual passage of time, looking behind you, there is also still where the original block of ice was found.

The fire candles are still sitting and emanating warmth. A good amount of... Less eight hours. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I know. I would want to say relatively nearby where Queenie died, because I just feel in my bones that that's relevant to maybe renewing Queenie in some way.

Okay. Or bringing her back. You stay at this point where she perhaps is... still connected. Right. And as I've done many times before, probably, I will take out my knife, and I will stab it into the ground, and I will sort of make a hole deep enough

where I think a seed like this would grow. And I'm going to press the golden seed deep into the earth, cover it. And in my hands, I will, there'll be like, campfire embers that start to form. And I will, thinking of renewal and warmth and the heat of the summerlands if I can, and I will blow them onto the ground as I sort of scatter on the cleared ground and the hole that's now covered up.

As I cast Druidcraft. I just had it. I can instantly make a flower blossom, a seed pod open, or a leaf bud blue. Oh shit. Oh. I love Druidcraft. It's fine reasons to use. It's amazing.

You do this and there's a bit of ash. You watch, as it, almost in surprise, Tyshen, as a few embers emanate from Yornear's palms as he starts to channel his connection to the land, this innate primal magic that he's practiced for so long and believes with religious zealous fur. And you see his folks, He asked each of you to join him.

And as you gather around, you watch as the soil almost immediately separates. And just the smallest green chute starts to peek its way out from the top soil already. Oh my, my God, it's working. You know, this is you working? What are you doing? It's just like midwinter, yes. What do you think is going to happen?

The tree will grow. We will gain renewal, perhaps. gain renewal, perhaps Queenie will come back. We must try. All of you. You must give what you can to help this tree grow. It cannot just be me. Okay. And I'll just, I'll start to look through my belongings to see if I can think of anything to offer. I'm digging. You start to look through. I would, thinking about the ritual, I have really the one thing to offer. Um, heat and warmth and the light of fire, almost potentially attempting to emulate like sunlight, igniting fire and trying to direct the warmth, but also trying to cast, I mean, presumably,

it's this gray, blankety, overcast nature around, so trying to shine some form, using the flame to kind of cast light on, I mean, you know, it's not sunlight, but, you know, something that mimics it almost. It is frigid cold and even on the warmest days, the clearest days when the sun is most in the sky during a winter under car it sheds almost no heat whatsoever.

You can feel none on your skin. You are attempting to recreate radiance, not burn but instead to produce this almost beam of sunlight as you attempt to are you using something or you just

emanating your hands and trying to sort of mimic what you or nears doing as you contribute. It's kind of just my classic like, you know, firebolt mixed with controlling flames to ignite and control and... You control, like, the hue of the flame. You have such command over fire now that you make sure that it burns the most brilliant yellow. Again, that same yellow of the bees emanates from your palms as you close in as... as close as you can to try and make sure that the soil is warm, a bed of life, the spark of life that could help release the magic within this Fay Wild Seed.

It shoots up a little farther. It splits at the top, and you see two small leaves suddenly emerge from both sides. They look verdant, green, brilliant, and they almost have a magical quality to them, even in this very, very delicate, fragile, small state. Listen, I don't want to fuck this up. I think the only thing that I really truly have to offer of any worth is my power. It comes from me, from my blood. Yes, blood, yes.

They say they love blood. Make a blood sacrifice if you can. Do I feel like I could use the brutal blade to try to, like, prick my things, enough to get a good amount of, you know, not like a ton of blood, but a good three or four drops of it to try to soak the... Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I wouldn't even take a hit point away. What you're doing is just being able to produce and squeeze a little bit of blood.

You remember the dramatic impact that your blood had on the Bordle just hours ago. Yeah, it still scares me a little. I will do that. I will attempt to just, you know, enough to get a little bit of blood flow going from the tip of my finger and, ah, the tree will drink. And kind of kneel down over this tree and squeeze my fingertip and try to get enough blood around the war to see if it'll soak the ground. You are able to, one or two drops hit the petals as it continues to grow, but the

majority of it hits the soil. And all of you are, you visibly perceive that this sprout, immediately sort of twists and starts to react to this life essence, this anima that you're able to put into the plant. Tell me now, how. You can almost hear the stretching sound over the sound of this booming crash, another slam of some kind that's happening just below you.

I'll take a few steps back and just attempts to pray, because I hear you're imploring that we, prey and I will do my best to work. Four or five, six inches tall now. Three drinks. It's having small branches. It's twisting around and those branches are themselves producing leaves, which drop and and evaporate and then regrow and bigger, stronger undulations.

Barnabos. Barnabos, we need you. We're growing what was left by Queen. If I look around, is he, is he? I don't know what Barnabos is doing. He seems to be staring at his shell, but Barnabos, what are you? I've been just staring at my shell this whole time. You've, I've been just kind of staring into it. I'm not processing.

From the moment where you accepted your fate, you've been lost to the shell. Yeah, I've been, I've been locked. I've been just peering into it. Taichan, you turn and you see, you see Barnabos has been present. He's physically here, but he is in another world staring at the iridescent. Sheen of the His lover the the voice that he claims lives within this shell that he listens to I'll turn and start moving towards him and let the what the flame drop if that impacts the radiance of the Of the seed at all it seems to sort of plateau the growth, but you are you feel comfortable walk away that things won't be lost All walk towards him and every step I take

I'm feeling these these heavy my legs feel extremely heavy when When the princess was growing and turning into this colossus dragon, the words, Queenie's final words to me specifically, the words of Fujiao, the strength to overcome fear, a mantra. I was shouting in my head again and again and again as she was approaching, begging my body to move forward, begging myself to act, to fight. but with all my power I couldn't move my legs in any direction at any time

until she was gone and then even in the moment of quiet in the moment of silence seconds minutes went by there was an intimidation of fear it was paralyzing before like truly like the prey

in front of the predator stunned knowing that my time had come and I'll feel that in my legs almost like the sensation coming back as I approach Barnabas. Barnabos! Come to step to it! What are you doing?

Queenie made the same choice she did when I begged her not to. She said the same thing. She gave me the same look. What are you talking about? She wouldn't have had to her death without fear. The courage, bravery, certainty. Mr. Fireblossom. Were you talking about the woman in the shell?

And when I looked up into the jaws of that beastie, I felt fear. As much as I wished to be on the fiddler's green, with her in her eyes as green as a summer sea. And here I stand. And when Queenie died, it was for nothing. When she died, what was it all for? I've asked myself that for nigh on 40 years.

was it for anything at all, Mr. Fireblossom? What was it all for? I don't know, Barnabos. Why is it the ones who live the most? Die the youngest. Die the easiest. I won't pretend to be the one that knows the most about this world, but one thing has become incredibly apparent

and that it's not fair. We don't get to choose who lives and dies, but we get to fight. We get to move forward because we're the ones that are here. Do you believe that she loved you, the woman in the shell? No, I know she did. What do you think she loved about you? You asked the boy, as he got married, the same thing of the woman that he was going to marry.

What did he love about her? But what did she love about you? Because the Barnabos I know, born on the sea, at home on the ships, leaping into the mouths of beasts a man of salt and water but fire in your heart that would never give up you rush back to see her

on the fiddler's green but you drop your anchor I don't care if this was it if that was the end if this was our final stand then we give her something to remember us by so that you're proud when you see her next and Queenie would be proud too

Mr. Fire Lawson I don't know why she did love me, why she saw past all of the hate, the anger, the vengeance, the bitterness that I was. But she saw something that let me put that to bed and make me a better man. Both of us raged like the sea itself, and I think you're right. she would want me to fight as much as I wish to no longer be cold how much I wish

to see those eyes again upon the fiddler's grain and sail into the flash with her she would only want that to happen when it's time and I'll turn to yore near if it's true that you saw my fate then there is a time and a place

she would want me to fight and she would want me to rage and rage I shall she needs water she needs salt let her be reborn in salt and sea as I will

pick up my anchor again as I place my shell in the safest place I can and I will burst out into sea water as I will extend my hand and with the rage of the raging sea around me

I'll extend a hand and there's still a gentleness As I'll just let out a few drops Each we all shall, lads Once more Into the maelstrom Until the very end There he is Gosh, you're scaring me that Bonobos

This is your faith And this is why you are here And we'll look down At the tree At the tree, see the legal raid You push and harness each of your energies. You squeeze out a few more drops of blood scrim, also renewed into vigor by the rallying cry of Tishan.

Barnabos seems to crash with water, as he extends his arms, as gentle as a wave that has just come into tide before pulling back onto the sandy beach. The warmth from Tishen hands feels as radiant as the sun on the mountains of Yonah, you imagine. And Yornear, you try to focus these energies, pour them in through your druid craft, into the plant, into the land, into the soil itself. And you all watch as the twisting branches wrap around multicolored bark darkens and forms a rough skin as it grows to a foot tall.

two feet, you all have to sort of start to step back just a little bit as it advances faster and faster and faster, growing and growing, until it seems to come to a plateau and you continue to push, and you continue to push. The same light, that unbelievable, colorful, fay-like light that you remember from the top of the mountain in midwinter, it doesn't turn into a full, glorious tree, there are no fruit. The branches seem to, no taller than scrim, seem to sort of come to rest and then twist back on themselves,

spiraling unnaturally. The leaves start to fall and drop down to the snow. What's happening? Almost like hands, the branches at the end curl into fists before, spiraling back on themselves. The feeling that you were going to have, have perhaps some return immediately fades from your heart. But catch a whiff on the wind.

Just before it starts to come to rest, wintered and shrunk as it is. There's a momentary breath where you breathe in and breathe out. And as you breathe out, there's a subtle taste of honey, a taste of almost a garden harvest. And what surely is the sweet mountain air of Yona, and you feel renewed yourself, you do not see Queenie emerge before you. The tree doesn't reach the full height of what happened on the day of midwinter. Perhaps it was premature. But as you finally pause and stop your ritual, you realize there's an interesting. energy within you now. Your hands, your body, you no longer feel as achy, as bruised, as cut.

All of the injuries and the wearing tiredness of the day lifts off of your shoulders. You all experience the benefits of a long rest. Oh, what? Oh, my God, I can't tell you. We can't stop winning. Oh, God, yeah. In statistic for that. Not only can you not stop winning in statistic format,

the breath as it leaves your lungs charges you not just renewed energy, but advanced energy. You evolve, and you are now level 11. Oh, level up! The wind blows, and you take in this breath of what feels like fresh air from Yona and exhale it from your lungs. And even though the tree seems to have stopped growing entirely,

It has imparted some magic into you and you feel energized, renewed. Even if Queenie is still gone and you feel that pain and that pang in your heart, there's a chance now, a whole new day in front of you, another opportunity to see through. And just as these thoughts of optimism and hope and positivity flood through you, you hear smaller crashes. These are not the sounds of booming below you. You can still hear the shrieks and voices shouting and screaming up from the shaft echoing. No.

You look around you and you realize that on the horizon, Arjohnholm's clearly visible in all directions around you. A small fireball emerges from one neighborhood. Another flash of light and a plume of smoke. fire and then six, seven, eight seconds later, the report. You look around and there's movement. You can see torches moving through the streets. You can see that there's all sorts of activity and movement. The city has come to life. I won't even make you make the intelligence role necessary to deduce what is happening. More than just Koskichi and the Princess of Wrath are battling. The people seem to have taken to the street. The citizens of Dracar seem to be engaged in their own warfare.

That is what confronts you as you rise and stand to look at each other. What happened? Did we do it wrong? No, it's part of cycle of life and death and rebirth and life and death. No, it didn't work. I feel renewed, but it is not winter's end yet. Maybe in a couple more days, it's clearly pulsing energies of life. I too feel my power restored. I don't know much about trees, but isn't this a tree of summer?

This is Queenie, whether it's the same form and ears and all that we remember. Perhaps is Queenie all the same. Didn't it kind of shrivel up or the leaves fall off? It looks now to you, unlike the tree that winterized on the mountain peak on Minwinter. This one seems cruelly bent, for lack of a better term. It reminds you, actually, of trees that you saw through the portal as Queenie was dragged by the ears, by the Princess of Wrath, into another plane, into presumably the Faywild. You remember seeing the trees before a creature approached them.

You remember seeing through those trees, and those branches had this same arcing, twisted feature. This is not Queenie. This is a tree of winter. I told you, I don't know much about trees. That's very funny. Very funny, bono. It's very funny.

Except for palm trees, that is. It smells like summer and it tastes of honey. Or it did. Or it did. I do not know how much time we have. We've been like going non-stop since we started climbing the tower, right? Yeah.

And fighting the hexager armament and killing... Before even that, you woke up. You woke up and you were making a determination to go find... Queenie and there was a curfew. You had been blocked into your district by a wall. Oh, and that's right. And somebody threw a rock. It certainly wasn't

and for some reason. Who would do that? That's how the day started. We woke up and there were like, her guards were at the... It has been... It has been... So it's been violent... Counter after violent counter into violent... Into like, getting through the tower. Getting there.

Into whisper phone. Then to... Then we like cast a bunch of shit just to get away from the princess. Yeah, then we tried to escape and then we... Oh my God. Well, this is what Queenie died for. We have the armament. Let's return it to the metalmen

and be done with this. While we have the time, this is the first chance. I will heave it off my back. Yeah. And I will put it down and I will unwrap it from whatever cloth I wrapped it in. And I wanted to try to like

attune to this thing if I can. Okay. This is like the first, I won't call it downtime, but hopefully we have enough time. I want to try to like magically connect with it if I can. You sit down and all of you witness, yorne ornir settle before this large object.

And it still is remaining relentlessly turning, always turning its faces occasionally, the facets overlapping and forming a perfect prism before returning to its shifted state. And it doesn't make any sound, but you can feel, that it thrums with power. I need you to make an Arcana check for me.

Please. Eleven. I would say that with an Arcona check, you... No, it's worse. Sorry, it's worse. Eight. I just like to take a little more time. Minute passes.

Another minute. You feel the pressure of... distracting pressure of the shaking below you, these occasional booms and slammed. You occasionally hear what sounds almost like a scream on the wind, perhaps from a mile away.

These echoes that are coming for all around you as what is clearly warfare is beginning to escalate. The tension of curfew and the frost hammers and all of the tribes of Dracar clearly overtaking the city somehow. And you realize this is not a 10-minute affair, as it might be with another magic item or an hour. You realize that if you were to truly come. connect with this thing, you might need an entire day or an entire evening to overnight,

perhaps longer than eight hours. That's all you learned. I would have given you more, but I can't with a lower than federal. Do we hear the sounds of battle beneath us still? Do we hear roaring and yelling and shouting and grunting? I would say every once in a while through the shaft, you do hear, it's hard to make out voices and pin that sort of thing. But you you can imagine the, you've seen the Princess of Wrath latch onto a flying ship and withstand blows from huge tentacles the size of tree trunks and survive. And you know that from your vision of her watching him into his transformed giant state, that he was able to batter his way through legions of armies. The amount of strength and power that must be unleashed underneath you is immense. And occasionally, the entire surface of the mountain that you are on shakes with what must be a crash into a wall or a slam into a floor.

That is persistent, and that punctuation happens often, frequently. The clashes, the other smaller blasts that are happening around you are the strings to that orchestra. All of this is happening while you're looking at the item and Barnabos is listening or whatever. I'll have taken one of the bonfire candles and just brought it closer to us so that we can stay warm. And while everybody's doing their thing, I will just kind of sit by this tree and take my hat off and just sit there and try to bask in the warmth and solemnly think about things while you're doing this thing. You take a private moment. So much has happened. And even though you've been healed magically, you are still in the delicate emotional place of the day's events.

And as you let the warmth wash over you and you are able to take a breath, you look at this tree and as much disappointment as you feel for how much hope you had with Yornear's ritual, it does allow you to reflect on your friendship with Queenie, a friendship that lasted just under a year. And I'll just sit there until we're forced to move. There is no use. This will take hours, if not a day at least. I do not believe we have time. We must hide, we must run, we must find a way out. So I can have an evening with the artifact. I'd be standing at the edge of the tower just looking out over the...

the, uh, watching these like blasts go off and watching, uh, as you've described, war erupt. Uh, and perhaps feeling the, the trembling of the biting bastion uh, beneath our feet as these titans are, are raging within it.

Um, I don't think you're gonna get a nice, you're near. Uh, we have to get off this tower. I, I fear that they might take the place apart. And if you look down there, war is erupting. This may very well be first blood in the battle for the fate of Dracara ahead of us. What will become of the humans of Ogerton?

The ogres of Ogerton. Our clan, our tribe. Will this whole tower come down? This whole castle, this fortress? None of that matters now. We have the artifact. If we can give it away, We can use it and finally end our pilgrimage.

But do we know what that crone unleashed? You're the one who invoked her? Do you know the nature of it? Does she know the nature of it? She says it's her pet. Do I know anything about this beyond just what everyone else has gathered? Like, you know, anything of the nature of what this dude is or the impet? or any of it, any of it feel familiar?

Is it still totally strange to me? Did he tell us anything when he, like, exploded in flame and the chiefings? Oh, yeah, they killed poor rhinos. He, like, showed up, and I think he was shouting maybe his, Oh, that is correct. The rifle of the poor rhinos. The ryanos sacrificed to evoke him,

and then I think he was, like, shouting out of him. He might have just been shouting, but I thought he was, yeah, I think he was, yeah, I think he's shouting, fuck you, fuck you. He might have, however, been exposing about the grand narrative of the plot here. They've told us everything. Let me go and refer. And...

I just remember him being there at the chieftain's mood. When you guys had your name, naming ceremony. Yeah, would there be a witch's folklore that you know? Make a history check just to give me a sense of where to take this. Witch's folklore? Because you're basically as a witch. Finally. This is my quab dice.

Finally. clab dice have been fucking I've been rolling hot. I have quab dice. The fact that both of my first roles of the year per campaign or natural 20s thank you Karen thank you to spell. Oh yeah.

For these quads. Thank you, Karen. Thank you to spell. 17. Should post our schedule on Twitch. Nah. Same. Boom. Boom.

We could have someone else to manage it, man. Yeah. I see that we cancel so much, we would forget to update it. Yeah. Someone would have to, like, literally be in charge of it. Yeah. Someone besides us. No, 100% cannot.

There's simply no choice. The speech... There's no. There's no. When he became his sort of a summon spirit form, which they were able to produce using the hexager armament. Oh, shit. She breathed into it and a massive bonfire erupted,

transforming into ice and unleashing this chained man who was malformed even before he was made into a giant, as you know from the vision of the Cigdis' history. He told everyone who was gonna unite the world under his banner of strength and wrath. He bestowed his blessing upon you, and, Um, like me,

you two will know the burden of responsibility of power and of sacrifice. Remember these words or feel my wrath. And he, uh, he, uh, asked Signaz how, how much longer until I can finally emerge and, and, uh, sit beside you and,

and, and, and, uh, become, the, the, the, the, the person who will unite all of Dracar. Uh,

these were the, amongst the things that you remember from that speech. I guess also in the legend lore, we know from when before he was changed that he was like, he was just a brutal conqueror. Yeah. He wanted to like, like he was, you know, a brutal warlord. He was a warlord who united tribes, right? And then, of course, the clash with the Silver Dominion started to encroach on their lands. And it became very territorial very quickly and very violent.

Yeah. When the tide turned, that was when he turned to the woman in the mountains. Yes, Mikey? Yeah, go ahead, bro. It's just like how, you know, the wildlings were all of different tribes until Mancerade or King Beyond the Wall united all of them in a campaign to go south as they are trying to escape the... You imagine a solar campaign. It was like all the tribes of man in the old world until Sigma held in hammer united all of the tribes of the empire. Before actually founded the empire with the help of the dwarves.

Hell yet. There were many parallels, and you have seen the fruit. of, you've seen the fruit of the princess's attempts. Centries of trying to get these tribes to unite and instead just living neighbors, but not truly under one banner. Much like the orcs after being unified by Thrall's father, brother, the war.

There you go. That's right. That's what I was thinking of. Hell yeah. That's exactly what I was thinking of. I know that reference, and I know... Orrin, doom, him. Orgram, doom, his mentor.

His mentor. Yeah. Yes, of course. I would say that the chaos that ranges around you seems unusual, right? You knew that there was tension, and you knew that people were being asked to stay in their districts. The war chiefs were being pulled into the biting bastion. You remember seeing the very young orc chieftain, the one who was thrust into the role of spirit collar after the spirit collar you discovered was put to death for his crime. against their beliefs by keeping his wife alive as a Wendigo.

I'm sorry, as a herald of fear underneath the tree underneath his home. You remember revealing all of that and him being pulled into one of these large halls just adjacent to the inner ward there below you. These are the state of things as you come to grips with the fact that this city seems to be tearing itself apart for almost no reason at all. This seems like a very unusual escalation in conflict for the fact that this seems like a very unusual escalation in conflict. from where we were just hours ago. Exactly correct. Can I deduce that this is the effects of Koshche

all of a sudden, like, showing up on the plane? Manifesting. And I guess contemplating like, well, okay, they're fighting down there. Like, what happens if he wins and kills, you know, and kills her? Like, do we- We're cooked, Chad.

You know. Chad, we're cooked. And are we maybe feeling anything kind of like, not to interrupt, but like permeating aura influence? I would say make a insight check. This is not a group check, but all of you look in words. Look in words. And deduce your insight.

Look into your feelings. Seven. 16. The big 12. 13. 16. I would say anyone who got higher than 10, you feel a, a, Your blood is boiling, a little bit hotter than it should.

Yes, you just witnessed this unfairness. She took back her word and was prepared to destroy you moments ago. All of these pieces, there's no reason why you wouldn't be suppressing anger. But this feels more than that. To your point, there is almost a anger to the air itself now. And you wonder if, to your point, if Kaskatchee's very presence is creating a almost wrathful emanation, something that might be influencing things and spilling over the tension that was already rife throughout the city. So they both gotta die. Yeah. You're gonna say that.

You're just super excited. Yeah. Yeah. No, we must leave. We must run. We must hide. We must get out of this power off of this mountain even if it isn't a cave far away this could be the opportunity we've waited for you you want to hide after what she did to Queenie and to us? None of that matters anymore no no Tashin's right

this is our chance she's diminished she's distracted we can strike if one of them wins if they prevail now he finished the other one off And there's an opportunity to finish the other off if we give them time to recover. He might not even come that far. If we take care of her, then the woman in the hut might call him off. And you can taste it, Yornair, on the air.

They're exuding some kind of dark magic. It's driving people crazy beneath us. We can't let this continue. There won't be anywhere safe to go. Queenie died for that. We will turn it to the metal men. But let us kill at least one, Beastie. Let us get some sort of fucking vengeance.

We are so close. The artifact is here. It is right here, but you are right. I mean, you are right. Do you believe in the woman in the hut or not? She's given us this chance. The miracle from the triad, the woman in the hut. Perhaps this, the choice the triad presented me.

All those moons ago, This was not one of them. No path led away from the princess. They all led through her. There's only one option. It was always going dead in blood. We must fight. Aye!

Mr. Yornier! We must rage! We must rage! That's right, Mr. Yornear! I will start wrapping up the extra armor. You re-bundle the artifact and fix it into the pack on your back, the sling that you were able to make,

and it feels heavy. It is already an extremely heavy object, and you are already wearing your tusks to boot. There's another crackling of magic, and you look out over to the district where the Shadow Vale could ball, the elves would normally be, and what appears to be a tremendous dark orb

has umbrellaed the entire district, and you can see, crackling energy, splitting through it as some strange spell or some compatible boon has been cast, and fire lances out in arcs in all directions. All right, this is it. We're going to do it. We're going to butcher her. This is it. She's given us opportunity to kill two beastsies at once. You never get an opportunity like this in the seas. It's time.

Now is the time to strike. We have to get down. We have to get down there first. We can't fight them from here. She tore the lift out. She cast it aside. Let's get the humans out of here. Make sure the ogre's all right.

Let them tear each other down, tear each other's throats out. And then we'll be the ones to deal the final blows. Yes! Yes! Let's go! Yes! Wait! And then I will real quick, run over to each of the bonfire candles and fire safety.

I want to leave these burning. Bring the way with you. Okay, all right, all right, all right, all right, we gotta go. Come on, this is it, we gotta find a way down. For you my love, I will rage until the very end. Guess down, find the way down. I will run over to where the lift has been absolutely

eviscerated and just like peek over to see what we can see. It's dizzying, looking down into that darkness and there doesn't appear to be light at the end of that tunnel. It would require more flight in order to descend, or you could endeavor to repair the platform, try to drag that over and see if you could re-sync it. It's not the inside's not icy though, right? This is more of a left surface with so I'm gonna be able to scuttle down that. No, it is it is not a flat wall, right? This isn't like a made, yeah, it was it was carved right through the center of this mountain

And so there are a ton of rocks and exposed. Maybe I took movers. It was never worked like plastered over or anything like that. This is still just what they were able to chip away at in order to make something that the platform could fall into. For those of you who have played the 2018 God of War, you can picture the chasm that they go up on the platform during that very exciting dragon encounter in that game.

Oh Yes I thought you're talking about with now what he fought? It was above the mines in that Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah So I need to basically go down and then climb on across the ceiling It's still sheer and hundreds of feet, but you would be able to climb Climbing speed down the side at a reasonable speed Because climbing speed does not apply to surfaces

You gotta have spider climb for that. Oh, interesting. Yeah, that's not cool But the ceiling's not like, you know, no, no, so I can skittle down then. All right, well, okay The only solution for me is to ride down with Barnabos. I have no answer to this. Can you take the both of us, Bonobos? Yeah, I mean, the anchor weighs more than you and Scrim combined. I would say with a strength score of...

A bazillion? A bazillion? Yeah, you're golden. All right, you're on you. Let's hear your best. Absolutely, Mr. Fireblossum. Let's hear your best eagle screech, you on here. Come on. Can you shift without exerting yourself for the battle? Before the battle. I'm hesitant to use my eyes. energy, but I do not see another way as I look at just my size and the tusks and everything.

Yeah, that's tough. Mr. Yornear, let me try to carry all of us. Oh, my God. He is level 11. Maybe he can do it. Do you believe you can? I believe I can. We will avenge Queenie, and we will all rage into this good night.

We will rage into this battle. We'll get our vengeance. We will slay these beasties. We'll save your car. And if he slips and you fall, then you can just turn into a bird. I said that I swamper. You fly and I just slutter across the phone.

Scrim will hit the ground like a burlap sack full of vegetable soup, but everyone will be fine. No, it'll be like the scene when Sora joined Super Smash brothers. And I go, Woo. I got you, Scrim. Oh, God. I hop on one. I help him on Barhamus' back.

This is the scene from the original Final Fantasy 7 where everyone gets on Barrett's back just before he jumps onto the hoist and escapes the reaction. You have to like sort of figure out who's gonna curl on first and in what order, but a few moments later you are able to get on and your legs shift and transform.

Mr. Fireblossum get on this shoulder. Okay, Mr. Yornear. Part of the indignity. We don't need dignity where we're going. As you all get drenched in seawater, as it smells like high tide, not low tide, as the barnacles and starfish and all sorts of sea life. As I am using it, I'm expending a rage.

I am raging in order to get advantage on all athletic checks and strength. All straight, and you can you boost the straight check. That makes the other sense. I love that. You're a great player. And I will, yeah, you will grant that to it. What I will also say is, There's still, even with this renewed energy

in Barnabos and his tremendous strength, there's still this horrifying roller coaster moment where you actually go over the edge. You realize that you are hundreds of feet in the air. Your stomach's dropped. As I hulk out and you hear the gross snapping and the kite-ness crab legs as I then try to ergot my way down the side of this holding.

with tie shit on my back, scoop on my back, and holding your ear. As I try to basically... Let's... Have you make an athletics check. As you start to make your way down the... Got a bunch of them. Yeah. Can I have five twist this?

Well, we're about to... I guess we don't know... Yes, it is... Well... It's got to be pretty good at you have advantage, right? Well, you can use some. Yeah, let's use two. The two or three. I think two is enough to like help. Is it too?

I think, push it over. With two, you have a plus, you have a plus, a lot of stuff. Yeah. Well, let me just see, I get a lot of stuff. I'm advantaged. I'm advantaged. Yep.

And I get a plus to it, right? I don't think so. I think that's strength. Basic athletics, right? It's not a saving drug. Disadvantage? Yes. Unless there's something you like,

add your rage bonus or something. Do you have expertise? I might. Hold on, hold on. I was going to double-truck. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is an important. This is an important.

This is, are we gonna plummet? And I'm definitely not gonna make you do it more than once. I was gonna say this could be in a, uh, a repeatable one. Yeah. Oh, extended test, yeah. God, my love Woffrop. Dan, hell. What a sexy game.

It was such a pleasure to play that and have you guide us through that, Andy. Thank you. Those are our Patreon. We'll get back to this someday. Yes, we will. I could have made myself a little. a little stout to be easier to carry, but then I just turn into a giant legal.

Well, then you just turn to and carry everyone myself. Does it, is there no, like, mechanically, is there no, like, you don't get to turn it to, like, a mouse for free or whatever? Wow. So it's just, like, a really good animals. There's a certain thing of our stuff, but, like, I'm a wizard druid, not like an animal tree.

Yeah. So you're really, so any animal just, like, cost the same resource. You turn into an animal, whether it's a whale or an insect All animals In fact I know that for sure That's right

You did Yeah Turned into a whale once You got a Was that? Oh that was in That was in this For some

No it was in It was in Was that a ring chaos? Yeah Okay I didn't remember If you played scrim I didn't

Because I thought it was Ring a chaos I got a 25 Nice You rolled the 25 25 The first few hundred feet Go well

Rolling it And they are They are challenging, perhaps the most challenging portion of this, because as close to the scent to the top as it was, it was somewhat coated with ice. But as you come down more and more, there's less and less of the cold that's sticking to the rock and more certainty. You're able to wedge each one of your crab legs into different spots that allow you to, almost like one of those goats, they can go up those unbelievably sheer mountain cliffs. You're able to work your way down.

It is not fast going, but Barnabos' footing seems sure. You get about halfway down. I need to make another athletics checkpoints. Oh, okay. Let's save these twists. Please don't kill us. I'd like to survive. I can shift into an ego if we need it.

I'm cooked. I'm cooked. If I fall, I'm cooked. If we fell, if I even had like six, Six seconds, I could fly everybody. 23? 23. You are making your way down to the second stretch

of this massive, massive shaft. And you can hear some of the battling still happening underneath you. There's a precarious moment where when the platform was shifted, gold must have tumbled down. And you put your crab foot on an actual gold piece sitting just on a ledge where it looks secure. and it slips out, and you all,

ooh! You're able to very definitely hold on to keep your footing and your hands where they were and reposition your foot, get it back onto that ledge, and then continue making your way down. I defecate my pants. This is like that time we were on that sled and Tai Chen was a really good source.

You reach near the bottom. I remember that. Near the bottom. Like this one that happened. I need to make one more athletics check for me. as you approach the mouth at the ceiling of the vault chamber. With a natural 20. Oh!

Huge. Easy. You come to rest at the bottom. There is one final problem. You don't have ceiling spider climb, but the opening where you would normally, the platform would normally lower itself down into the chamber itself is where the ceiling is,

I'd say 30 feet from, What below you looks like a mountain of gold. It's still there. I will basically, as soon as it gets low enough, I'm basically going to try to like hop off and land in the gold. Okay. Like Scrooge McDuck. Yeah.

The rules work. Without informing your companions, you all look down. And both makes the command decision to release and drop down. I need everyone to make a quick dexterity saving throw. Does this? Even if he's holding me? Because of your natural 20, the DC is much lower. Hell yeah.

If he's whole, like, physically holding me, like, and he's jumping. Okay, I got a 17. Reasonable. Okay. I'm gonna try. I'm gonna try. Pretty good.

What is the test? Dixter is a favorite. Oh, I roll a natural one. Okay. Well, you break your deck. What else are you fly off? You break both your legs? I don't know, man.

like, ugh. Do I have any way to like an advantage of this? Eight. Eight. You aim for a side of one of these gold hills hoping to slide down it, and that's what happens for you. You land and you are able to essentially surf down the gold and come to rest. Scrim, you're also due just fine.

Yorner, even you, are able to land without taking any damage. Tyshen, you had endeavored to do the same thing, but underneath one of the mounds that you are attempting to slide down, like your companions, there was a chest that was concealed by the gold, and you crash into it. Your foot bends painfully back, and you take two bludgeoning damage as you rolled and slide to a stop at the base of this man.

Your finger actually kind of goes up against the wall, and you get a little chip on your finger and break it. Just remember in a future fight when Mace says, you got me exacts. Yeah, and that's gonna be a difference. That's it. No, 100% that's gonna be exactly that. But you are able to land, and quickly getting your eyes

acclimated, looking around in this vault chamber, you realize that one entire wall has been crashed through. Oh my God. This place is anarchy. What was a relatively well-collected hoard into large mounds of gold has been scattered in all directions. The floor has crushed tile

that has been bent up as though someone has been shoved again and again and again. The walls themselves are cracking and crumbling. It appears that the fight has left this area and through the portal, you realize that on the other side of this vault's chamber, Must be the inner ward itself, because you can see straight out into what appears to be daylight.

It's still late afternoon, despite the number of events that have occurred today. You realize that there's almost an arc, an entire wall, the side of this tower, has been burst through, and that the fight must be ongoing outside in the ward. We feel like we need to go out of our way pretty far to like check on the humans from Ogerton. You remember that the ward connects you to all of the battlements and walls and the towers that make up the lower half of the fortress.

Just across the way, presuming that everything is where it was, is the same tower that you ascended when you were on your way to meet Whisper Fang, which had the chambers where the humans... Cross the courtyard. You'd have to cross the courtyard. Exactly correct. All right. Let's see if we can find the humans. You get them free before this whole fortress comes down. You race forward. Basically just on-start. You make it 50, 100 feet beginning to exit through the unstable wall that is still crumbling around in front of you.

When a figure intercepts your path, you realize it's two figures. Three, these appear to be Goliaths. And instead of looking at you, they're dragging. bodies. They're holding bodies behind them and you realize that these are frost hammers. These are, these are white cobalts, typically allies, but they're pulling them around and bickering with each other, arguing, and then they turn and they see you. Their eyes are bulging, red, filled with fury, and they drop the bodies and look at each of you and pull out what weapons they have still on them.

One of them only has his fists, but they look bloody and you can even see specks of bone on the surface, as though they went well beyond just a traditional killing in their rage as they start to approach you. What do you do? I'll step forward. Six, six, six, six. So little giant, kin, you are free from her curse.

You must leave this tower will come down. Save yourselves. Do not throw away. your lives like this. Angry! Angry! Angry! They're pulling at their skin, and you realize that in addition to what is very clearly a wrathful place that they have found themselves in,

so close to the demon prince of wrath, Koshchee, their muscles are twisting and warping underneath their skin. Their muscles bulge and then shrink and then bulge again. Their height already tremendous for Goliath's. You hear cracking as they begin to grow just a little bit, seeming to embrace the wrath that they are filled with. There is only one remedy for rabid beasts, and all nodded part of those.

This is just what I've been wanting, Mr. Yon, your last race! I'm just going to run forward and just try to fucking... They annihilate them. They race forward to meet you. And you can see that what was their Goliath features are themselves seeming to malform, almost in the image of Kaskatchee. An eye shrinks and pulls back.

Another eye bulges forward, their brow cracks, and as they race forward, undergoing this disgusting transformation, I need you all to roll for initiative. Oh, holy. Watch me roll another sub-five roll. What is going on? No, it's a natural 20. Oh!

Now's the time. I did roll two. I've rolled two or one and a two. I'm rolling my last three. I'm gonna start to solve. There was a section where I rolled tons of dice. I think I was read. Yeah.

Where I ruled sub six the whole line. Oh my God. I got a 16 dungeon master. Total and notebooking? Yeah. 17 total. 23. I've advantaged two.

What the way? Initiate. Uh, six. I think you need to burn all those dice. What was the last time you've run? roll above an 11. I'm in. Yeah, we're, we're gonna get these nice.

Diggum Tashen can't. No, yeah, no. Tashen don't Dishin can't roll any of these Dibn Deg Deng Deng. We're just gonna very quickly race through this theater of the mind style. I'm not gonna set up a met. Oh yeah, okay.

If you're comfortable with a little bit of imagination. We're gonna body these fools and stall. Are you serious? Are you kidding me? They drop the bodies of the Colbold, race forward, and at the top of the round, you're near. You see these, they're perhaps.

I'm just 40, 45 feet away from you at this point, dashing towards you. Oh, shit. I will, let me just make sure that I have. Oh, God. Oh, God, oh, man, oh, God. Oh, yeah. I'll see the one that's at the lead,

and my left hand will, I'll turn it over, and you'll see Frost and snow. kind of coating it as I point at them, and this ray of frost leaps from my hand and fires off and kind of hits them and starts to cover them. He said the thing. I did, I did.

Is it an attack roll? It's an attack roll, so we'll see how I do here. And for the record, there are four of these gentlemen are tortures. Sure, sure, sure. It's a 20 to hit. That hits. And miraculously, that's like, that's 3D8.

That's not bad. That's not bad. One, two. Oh, you know what? Why don't we play some calm back? That's eight damage to the guy in the lead, and his speed is reduced by 10 until the start of my next turn.

Oh, okay. And so I'm gonna take a few steps back and get behind Barnabot's to let him just go clobber like a bowling ball through these things. How much health was that? That was, what did I say? Eight. Eight? Eight, okay, thank you.

I did him not roll well. Okay. This, Ray hits him, and, And unlike his friends who are still running towards you, he slows down just a little bit, and a chunk of flesh comes off of his shoulder. Scrim, you're up. I am not going to just rush into combat,

because we're level 11, I get three beams on my Elders blast. So I actually, I'm wielding the brutal blade in one hand, and my arm and my hand, the blade itself, because smoke with this dark, sulfurous smoke, and I hold out my left hand as I fire three Eldridge blasts from my hand. Hoping to maybe hit, how many are there?

Four. There's the one that Your Honor just hit, obviously, and then the other three are still racing forward at Max Spears. I will not shoot the one that you're gonna hit. I'll try to hit one of beam on each of the others. Okay. So the first one to hit will be a 15 to hit. That hits.

The second one will be much higher. And for the sake of brevity, 15 to CAC, you nailed it. Okay, all three hit. The first damage is gonna be a five damage. Mm-hmm. One damage, and five damage. To one, two, three, and four?

Yeah. Because I don't think I add anything to it. It's just one D10 force damage. Almost you took the invocation. No, I did not. Shmoop, shmooop, and shmoop, yes. So I'm moving forward with the group, but I'm not trying to lead just so that I can blast

these guys and continue to close distance. What does it look like when you use your old Spots, I forget how we... Smoky, dark tendrils. Yeah, yeah. Sulfry. You know, hellish. They are so consumed with rage.

You know you've hurt them. They're wounds, there's injuries, but they are still racing forward, mindless. They almost don't look like they're looking at you. To make an an acronym, they look like the giants from attack on Titan, as they sort of like... Mindless. Got it. That's my sure? scary running. Barnboats, you're up.

I'm gonna... I already killed your chieftain. Time to kill the rest of you. As I'm going to just go to one that looks uninjured. And I am going to spend another rage. So it's two of my rages. As I am going to go for it. How many rages do you now?

Four. Okay. He's got a bunch. Yeah, yeah. That is going to be... I'm forgoing. My reckless, I'm not doing a reckless swing. I'm doing going to do a brutal strike. That is going to be a 22 to hit. Okay. So that will be a... Shoot, what is my plus two damage from rage at level 11? I always have to... I never... Every time I had to look it up. Yeah, it's probably three. I can check where you... Thank you. Thank you. So I get an extra... A six.

Eight. And then I get a D-10. Eight. 16. Still three. 16 plus 4 is 20 from my strength plus another 4, 24 from my great weapon master, damn, my feet, plus number 4, and then 24 and then 27 with my rage. I think it's 28. You said plus 4 for your strength. You should have a plus 5, shouldn't you? No, plus 4. I have foreign con and foreign strength. Wow. So I wanted to get, I wanted to be beefier. Do you have any weapon masteries on Barnabas? I'm just, oh, so technically, yeah, so basically And then he'll need to make a constant,

constant saving throw, DC 16. If he's alive. He gets a 15, unbelievable. It's a C-16. So he's harmful. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's alive. And so that he's, I knock him over.

And so now I'm advantaged without having any address this attack. I'm now going to try to graw that coup gra that coup. Coup de grace. That's definitely going to hit still. And so let me just, that's a, dungeon and legion.

Black Rechold. Black Rookhold? Where the guards had the coup de grot move, where if they charge it and gets it off and just kill somebody. That's fucked. That's fucked. 14, 18.

Fuck! 22. 25. 25 points of bludgeoning damage. You race forward and you engage the front Goliath running forward. And with two quick smacks, you were able to knock him prone and smash into him again and again,

doing massive amounts of damage. He's clearly stunned and shocked, but already starting to lift himself up, seemingly too angry to feel pain. Cheers. Do I have two or three attacks at level 11? You don't have three. Oh, that's right, two.

That is my turn. I'm just gonna try to keep him down. Okay. I will say that he stands and picks up his weapon and immediately runs into it, hit you, That's going to miss. Is it going to be two attacks? Yes, it is.

The next one is going to be a 19 to hit? Oh, that'll hit, I think. Yes. Okay, you get smashed, and the damage is surprisingly hard. You get hit in the arm, and your arm goes numb as you take 19 bludgeoning damage. 19, half of that would nine. Exactly, correct.

Yeah, no, no. And the two. and four race forward to engage Tyshen and Yornear. The, they were able to close the distance and they make two attacks. That's going to be a 15 to hit and a 20 to hit. 20 hits.

20 hits. Oh, were those both on me? That was two attacks from the one that has closed the distance with you. He swings in. Oh, oh, yeah, those are both on me. Oh, sorry, I thought you pointed at me when you No, no, no, no.

get to you one moment. Okay, go ahead. That's going to be 13 points of bludgeoning damage. And as he smashes into you with his weapon, he's not even trying to like slash at you with a sophisticated weapon. These are bats or malls or clubs. And then the one closes distance on you, your near very quickly, that's going to be absolutely that hits 27. A17 to hit? Yeah. Both of them. That's going to be 27 points of bludgeoning damage as he smashed. and smashes into you and smashes into you, filled with rage. The one that you hit with the ray of frost

is lagging behind. He's not able to close the distance, but he is tearing at his face in insane rage. And you hear him murmur, Kaskasie, kaskaschee, lend me your might, lend me your rage. He can destroy these imbedeathea! And he starts to rip and tear and grow. He goes way past large and into huge as he becomes.

comes of giant and he huge I need everyone Shooter! Shooter! The rage fills him and he grows like the demon prince. The cry itself fills your ears and you feel your blood begin to boil. I need everyone to make a charisma saving. Oh, I'm good at that. Oh, I'm good at that. Plus nine.

Chobros. Chaw bros. Chaw bros. Curismas save, he said. 16 I did. Oh, baby! I got a 28. I was brought out 19 with my plus nine. 11. I should have twisted it. I rolled a four with my plus nine. That was a different night. Rats. I'm good. I'm golden. There's the 18. Is it really? Yeah. So, bitch, I shouldn't have a... You got a nine? I shouldn't have...

I shouldn't have nine. Rage. Yes. Tyshen, you got a 13? Something bad. 13. What did you get Barnabos? Oh yeah, 16. 16. 13 is just enough. Oh, so close. Oh, never mind. But you're near. Something good. The calmest man in the universe is suddenly overcome with rage. And...

This magical rage infuses you and you realize what must be affecting the city. You realize what must be affecting these Goliath. You realize why ally and ally might turn on each other. But, you realize, But it doesn't matter. You're too wrathful to see any of that now. Your vision goes red. You are affected as though you are affected by the enemies of bound spell.

You can no longer distinguish friend from foe. At the start of your turn, you can make a repeated of the save. Otherwise, you will have to randomly select targets to make your attacks. All right. All right. This happens and Tyshen, the turn passes to you.

So there's one directly in front of me. and then there's one, Barnabos hit a bunch. That's not the same one, right? There's the one that hit you in front of you. There's the one that's at Barnabos' feet who just raised up and tried to hit him, NIST. There's one right in front of Scrim, and there's one that has just transformed

into this larger creature. I am going to, just the one that's directly in front of me. I'm going to pull my fist back, and a red orb is going to form right at the end of it, and I'm going to attempt to just slug a fire chromatic orb at a second level right into his body Your hand turns red

like the end of a red hot poker as you start to shove forward Am I a disadvantage to hit him? You should not be Why would you be? No one is right from me? Is it a range spell attack? I think it's a range spell attack.

Yes, then you either back up or be Go back up, go back up. You'll get crossed. I'd just be disadvantaged. There we go, here we go. This is the moment you're going to just go. Bonkers. Double 20s, double swan.

I believe in you, I believe in you, Tyshen. Oh, that's a 4. Is that a 14? That's a 4. Well, I have to roll a disadvantage. I hit it 12 and a 4. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

It's 13 to hit him. That's 15. The AC is 15, and it's not enough. No. You do strike him, but the, it dashes off and a spray of sparks. Dang. Dang.

Anything else with your turn? No, that's it. You're in a year up. You're like to make your scarlet rage. It proves like poison in my soul. If I'm only near this one guy in my face, do I still need to randomly, like, choose? Even if, like, they're all kind of over there.

I would say that there are, your companions are neighbors to you. Like, you all were racing forward. So, on my first turn, I use all my movement to back all the way up. Oh. And so the one guy that came to me, I guess, ran past. The other than what else. The one who got to you shouldn't have been able to get to you, I guess.

Okay, that's fine. That's fine. For the sake of, this is why we use math. Yeah, I mean, they game's sake. For the sake of this, you start your turn, you still get to make the saving throw to see if you can avoid it. Oh, yes, let's see. So you are P'd. Now you can make your say.

I RPed. I need new dice. That's outrageous. I fail. I almost certainly. One right here. Um, I need you to roll. There are four of them, there are three, uh, one D8.

Uh, Let's say that scrim is one, Taichin is two, Barnabos is three, and the rest are Goliaths of your choice. Four, five, six, seven. So you roll a D-8, just drop the eight. Okay, drop the eight, so do it again. Oh, fuck.

Four. Not us. That's a Goliath. You are targeting the one that Barnabos is not very difficult. Oh, then I guess I will run up to him and trigger an opportunity attack, presumably. You are filled with rage. One of these does hit you and you take 12 points of bludgeon

damages. You feel this. You barely acknowledge the crack against your back as he smacks in you. But you rage. Die! Die, giant can die! I'm gonna run up and I'm just gonna take my staff and I am going to cast Shaleli on this motherfucker. I love this. This is incredible. You've never heard Yorineer's voice like this. Yeah, this is terrifying. It is extremely like, you Even when you experienced his rage during the scrimm as the worst moment, he was still Yornear. This doesn't sound like Yornear. It sounds like a demon is screaming through Yornear's throat.

I'm advantaged. Well, I'm going to change my turn. 12 plus a gazillion. I believe at some point you gave me a plus two or a plus three quarterstaff as my walking stick. I can't remember. What in the hell? Where do I get my plus four sword? Maybe I invented it.

You've had it this whole time. What are you talking about? Yeah. Would I get me very generous to the blue blue blood? What don't get my plus three to all my spells? The Bruttle blade is awesome because of the it's 3d4? It's 3d4. Yeah, that's so sexy.

I love a 3D4 blade. And if I could I can re-roll anything that's low. Oh. I have to keep the new roll. Gosh, it's gross. It's brutal. It's brutal. I mean, you should see the fucking anchor I gave Barnabost.

That thing is nasty as hell. I rolled the one on a D12. True. Oh, gross. Just have an off night. It's okay. You're gonna come back. Six damage. Six damage. Six damage. You do that. I would say that the one that Barnabose is hit and that you've now just damaged is bloodied. There's clearly streaking blood flowing from the exposed skin of this Goliath, and yet he rages on. That's my turn. Scream you're up. I was going to rush to Barnabas to Yornear's 8.

But he's screaming like a maniac. Like a man. I am unsettled and terrified. Instead, I rush to Tai Shenz. Okay. And I attempt to strike this Goliath with the Brutal Blade twice. Okay. Because I do have two attacks with my pack weapon.

Do it. From Thirsty Blade or Blade of Thirst or some shit. So first attack is going to be a, 21 to hit. That is? The second attack will be a much higher to hit. So it's going to be... Uh, three, uh, 64. 64. 64. Six D, four.

Seven. Eight. 11. 11, thank you. Oh, fuck, I'm gonna stab you. 11. Another force 15. And then two is 17 points of damage over two attacks with the brutal blade. Okay. Nice, nice, nice.

Um, and I am yelling. I'm gonna die shit, hang in there! And I start hacking at this guy. And I'm trying to use as a little resources I possibly can. Sure. So that's going to be my whole turn, except if I have any movement left, I would use a bonus action to disengage and step, you know, I do a little shimmy away.

You do a shimmy away. Because I'm nimble. You do a shimmy, yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I'm not right there. A little shimmy shimboes. You're back on the line. Okay, I'm just going to keep going. Will. Hell yeah.

Hell yeah. That is going to be a 20. Hold on, I got 20. Sorry, 16, 16, apparently. Yeah, 16 hits. Shoot. U-Biddy, um, Shub-de-d-do, six.

Oof, not rolling well. You think batch, bad. Nine, nine, 13, 17, 20 points of bludgeoning damage. He's gonna make the constant using a saving throw, DC-16. You knock them over again, unbelievably. Yeah, even has a plus son, it's a saving throws for Khan.

I'm just rolling like garbage. Um, that's gonna be a 17 net, and then I'm just gonna basically, you know, ooh, there we go. Uh, seven, oh, 14. Mm-hmm. 14, 20, 28 points of pledging damage. Nice.

28 points of damage. Yeah! You are able to smash into him, and this time his jaw nearly dislodges. Yeah. his eyes roll up and he falls to his knees and slams down unconscious before you. The rest.

Unconscious, eh? Is it dead? Oh my God. He said unconscious. I said unconscious. Well, that's my turn. That's all you can do. It's their turn.

The monster of the group races forward and you shimmied You're in a rage. Might be you. I'm going to roll. Yeah. It's going to be your ear. For game state? Yeah. It's enemies abound.

Obviously, you can rule how you want. But just so we're aware, that enemies abound, it's only when you target a creature, then you must choose at random, and you're not forced to move. I'm already bloodied, so. Okay, fair enough, fair enough. Next time I'll read the spell.

This spell explains this. It races forward. That's true. It makes two attacks against you. 17 is the lowest. Oh, God. You're just getting clobbered. It's down right here.

I can't do anything to help you, man. How old is your health pool? I was terrified you eat me if I can't. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. What do you say? What did you say? Wait, he's one AC away. So that might be your time.

I must, how many times can you do that? How close are we? Are we right next to each other? Yeah. I would say you were within 30 feet. Would you say it within five feet? No. No, I had to run.

We just had that argument. The spell sucks. Well, no, I ran back up. I don't know where you are. Scrim's within five feet of you. I had to run to him. I didn't make a choice. I ran to you instead of him.

Screams? It was fun. Yeah, I'm not worried about it. I'm just letting you know where I am. It's probably what you say is within like seven and a half rounding down is fall. Is that what we got close? He was.

Good job. Wait, wait, wait, let me see. Let me just read something real quick, real quick. Real quick. We have. Hello, Dan. Good to see you. Oh, each time we take damage, I'm gonna do this.

Each time we take damage, I can repeat the same. Oh, I meant to mention this, yes. You get to repeat the sage on. You took like a bazzoa damage, well? You took two hits. I took two hits, yeah. Five, five. Outrageous. Yeah, I just, this entire session,

I've rolled once over. It's one of those nights, man. You had one, you had a natural 20 for initial. I had a natural 20, but I think that's the first, that's the only time I've rolled overtime. Yeah. 90-20s on a night. Would you say that my protective wings thing,

I mean, probably not. Is this kind of a spell? No, it's a feature. It's probably a feature. Nothing's good here. Nothing's good over here. All right. You think, 23 more bludgeoning damage

as the large creature wallops you with its massive fist. That's two more attacks, right? Or one? Those were the two ones that we just great. Yeah, you were doing the damage. Oh, we were rolling for the previous match. Two more hits. I took.

It's every time you take damage. And he hit me. This one was two smacks with the hands. 10. Can I roll above a tab? The DC's 12. 13. Oh, that's fucking God.

There we go. We got it. You are smashed back into reality, Your Honor, as you suddenly realize that you are not acting yourself. The next one will run up to Tyshen. It'll make two attacks. Both of them are 15s. Nope. Wow.

You were able to dodge. nimbly out of the way and the other one runs up to Barnabos and the lowest is a 20 oh yeah that'll hit 32 points of bludgeoning damage damn I rolled very high these are swinging dice we gotta stop holding back I'm just trying to like a lot of my shit I have very little resources so I'm just trying to attack and I'll just blast and save my shit um oh I had them all attacked one of them should have turned into a monster fuck it Oh, no, you've all saved at this point.

You... I see. You'll be okay for 24 hours from the war cries of rape. Oh, I cross. I got 28. Nice. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In fact, I think Ben is scared of us.

Tichen, you're up. I'm going to... So, someone right in front of me, I am going to... How's your inner looking? Is he looking... I'm... I'm...

I'm about a third HP, roughly. That's painful. Like, down to a third? Like, two thirds is gone? Looks really rough. Oh, my, my, go. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay.

I'm going to, I'm gonna, you hear the chirping of birds as my hand, as my hand, as my hand, oh. We might even know it's a kits, you know, do you get, do you, dhut. As my hand alights with. In sunset, it's the setting sun and birds are coming back to roost. As my, my hand lights with with crackling lightning.

as I will attempt to reach out with a shocking grasp against this creature in front of me. I will, oh God, oh God, oh, God, oh man, oh God. Okay, that's gotta be enough. That's a 19. Shocking grasp, get fluffed. I don't plus anything. It's lightning, not fire.

So 13 points of lightning, damage, I believe, yeah, lightning damage. And it may not make attacks of opportunity. So it does indeed get fluffed. I will now race towards Yornear. Let's go. And say, take care of him, Scrim, I'm going for Yornear. Oh.

Well, I'll try to stand roughly in between the two of you. If this was any going to be longer than five years. You race to Yornear side, and Yornear's side, and you're near, it's your turn. Give me, I fell to the rage. Is the guy in the ground, is he toast? Is he dead? Yeah, I mean, he's unconscious.

Because that's, felt right at the time. Oh, well, we don't know if he's dead. We don't know if he's dead, but. He's unresponsive. He's definitely, like, his head smacked into the ground. His orifice is leaking blood. I'm gonna. He's dead.

All of the orphans. Feeling wounded, I'm going to say, remote, I need your protection, and I'm going to raise another one of those kind of standing stone modelists that are spectral with the mammoth skull kind of lash to it that radiates this like, this like cold warmth in a way. And that's just feeling, that's your healing spirit second level. Is it like a care? Yeah, basically. It's a lonely care of souls. I need to heal. This is, this is cuckoo bananas. I entered for the first time. I gained one

D6 it points plus my oh no just one D6 it points never it's like every turn right it's there is once a turn I think it was pumping out healing nice pretty good nice Here's what we'll do we'll just we'll kill three of them and then we'll just keep like hindering one of them So you can't heal forever yeah yeah yeah he can all kind of you'll kind of until we heal six times so you can only do that heal six times so Ah shit well we'll make at least drag this out for eight for six rounds Um, and then it's a bonus actually.

Ooh! Can it heal everyone six times? No, only pulses six. They can only trigger six times. Got, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I'm gonna back the fuck out and not stand near any Goliaths. Yep.

And then I'm going to, again, Ray of Frost at the weakest looking guy. Um, right now the two that are not, uh, giants are looking about the same. And the giant is unarmed. Doesn't matter, I miss. Oh. Well, that was fun while last.

Shut. Shut. Show you about. Screw me up. I continue to hack at the Glymouth. I also missed 10 damage last time. The first one's gonna hit. Because I forgot to add my plus 5D attack.

The second one's gonna hit. One, two, three, you do out here. Four, eight, nine, ten. 20 points of damage over two attacks. Oh, wow, okay. So the first one should have been 27, and now this is 20. He's not looking great.

He's not looking great. If you want to move away from him, he can't attack you. Yeah, so basically what I'm doing is I jump in again. I'm like hacking at his legs. I am just like, he's like a bloody mess from the waist down. And then I use my bonus action to basically disengage and jump back out of combat. I'm like taunting him. Like trying to keep his attention on because I dance around him.

And that's my turn. All right. Barnabas. You said the big, the huge giant fucker's looking rough? No, he's the one who's looking unhurt. Oh. We've touched him. Okay.

And the other one's looking rough. The one that Scrim just danced around is looking rough. The one... The other one is looking a hair above bloody. I'm going to basically clothe this between the one that Scrim was at, and I'm going to make an attack room.

You might kill him. For action economy, definitely, yes. Prioritize the weak ones. You're next! He's pristine from the waist up, but waist out is a nightmare. Hey, here it is. Natural 20?

No, I think it's gonna be good. I think I just atomize this guy. I don't know what this worth bro. If we're doing max damage, you just know the right out of the game is gonna do. What's your first max damage to join your time? Oh my God.

Plus your raise, four. Five, six, seven. You take the max on the dice that you can roll. So 12 for my mall. 10 for the brutal strike. 12. 22. 20, 20.

20. Yes. Oh, brutal strike. Yeah, yeah. And then 30. So just the dice. Plus a rage. Plus a rage.

Do I get brutal critical? That's the other thing anymore, right? No, stop. No, no, no. No, no. That is, and so then, then it's plus four for my strength, plus four for my great weapon, whatever. And then plus three from my rage.

It's 33, now just roll your dice. Well, I mean. Oh, that's right. And so then I just roll my, oh. I will tell you that he also is unconscious. Then that's plus eight. Ramos has beheaded him. Plus, another 16.

His head flies off into the knife. Holy shit, Badamos! I didn't trigger this. I believe because I have Hugh immediately after I score critical hit with a middle weapon or a creature to zero hit points, both, I can make one weapon attack with the same weapon as a bonus action. Nice!

So I'm gonna run to the other one and I have two more attacks. Yeah. And I should have triggered on the last one, but I didn't. So I'm gonna close the distance. Oh my God. Goliath, Goliath? Yeah, the last one. Okay.

Your buddies, you're next. As I'm going to then, once again, go in. I love that. That's such a good way to answer, right? That's so good. That's a good one. That is going to be a, it's a good one.

That's gonna hit. It's a gondum. Oh my god. Six. Six plus, 14, right, yeah, 14, 17. 17, 17 puts bloodshot damage, needs to be a con saving throw at DC16,

and I have one more attack. It's a bonus action. All right, this time I get a natural 20, so he doesn't fall. So he's up. He's up, but he's bloody. Yeah. Other two guys left?

There's one guy left. One Goliath and one giant. Oh, okay. I'm gonna knock him away. I mean, he's my weapon assury, to, or actually, no, that's topple. Oh, can I? Oh, no, no, no, no, mind.

This is a different thing. Barbarious, folks. I'm then going to, uh. That was my bonus action from the crept. And so I'm gonna use my final attack action to go in with my claw and attempt to basically get him twice. You say, how do you like them grapples? And then you roll.

Yep, yep, yep, yep. That'll be a 19 to hit. It's. I'm just gonna roll it all at once. Wait, so is that four attacks you have? Because I'm a crab claw. So basically. But you've only done three, it's on your third attack, isn't it?

I hit one. You want, a crit? A crit. I then go. I use my bonus action to use them all again. Don't you still have one just from weapon attacks? Yeah, I won. I won. So then I can crab claw twice. Yeah, yes, yes, yes, yes. Two more attacks is what I'm trying to make.

Crab clawing. Barbarians are, those with 16. They're complicated. So I'm just gonna roll, I'm gonna roll all my damage. They're very hard to play. Barbarians, probably the highest you've ever seen. You guys, you doubted me. They point the ill-rigger to shame. 11? 11. You read the barbarians and he said. 17.

For what it's worth, they don't expect the barbarians to be able to read. That's true. That ain't of itself. It's a challenge. Man, folks. The barbarian. 33 points of slashing damage.

As I take my crab claw and I snip him. I give him the snips. He's hanging on by a threat. But he's not unconscious, as they say. And that's the conclusion of their turn. I'm sorry. Oh, yeah, you can do. As I do.

my last crab claw. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, the barnacles and the sea water will seep into his flesh. Poison. He yells out. He's full of rage, but the pain of the salty water and his open wounds is too much. And, uh, you see it pulsing under his skin disgustingly. And I would like him to make a wisdom saving from. Oh my God, you did poison. What is this? This is raging rage or whatever. Poisoned him. Wisdom's raging. It's raising clap crap. He gets a 13. A 13. A 13. He fared. He Whap. So he is filled, his fury is even more intensified as he gets infectious fury.

And he's gonna take 18 points of psychic damage. As his, as in his, there's like horrible, there's sea creatures swimming around behind his eyeballs, like little sea worms, barnacles are like pulsing all over him. He, he, who, ah,

and I'm pop out of his sockets and he falls to the ground, Dead. Not unconscious. Fucking. We rage! From like 10 feet away from where you ran, you just hear me being like, Bonapus, what the fuck? Is that the double 10 beast feature? Where'd you get that?

Dan Dylan, thank you for the beast barbarian, Dan Dillon. God give it up. God give it up. That's messed up. Hell yeah. Only the giant remains. And you're darting around, you're darting around. You're darting around.

I like, I dropped my thing near everybody, got healed, and I fucking booked it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm still mixed for the guy that was funny, he's dead. You came to, it was just a giant. I got, like, next to you. He's gonna race up. He watches this display and he races over

to Barnabose and attempts to pummel him into the earth. He's going to get his lowest as a 20. Thank God, I didn't get hit once. 30 points of bludgeoning damage as he's. Mashes into you. Die! Die! Die! Die!

To meet you. Yeah. So good to you. And that's the conclusion of his turn. You all feel that hole every time he yells, die, of the rage overcoming you, but you have figured out how to navigate that. You feel fine.

You started your turn in my spirit. And you're able to resist his wrathful words. Tyshaen, you're up. Like, don't kill him. Four. Don't kill him. We got three more charges. We gotta heal up our shaman.

Die! Don't hear it, don't hear it. Somebody just hold person, hold monster. Um, I think I will also just fire out three quick arcing blasts of fire blast, as I now will also roll 3D10, and hopefully it hits. Three D-time. 16.

That hits? Okay. The giant is also 16. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn't change the A-shape. No, no, no, I'm not scorching right. Oh. I just said three hits because it's now 3D10. Oh!

So just like for flavor. Oh, okay. Oh, it's one real big blast. I hear a lot of birds. I hear a lot of birds. Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-choo-choo-choo-choo-choo-choo-choo-choo-chchchchch. No, the idea is it supposed to be a thousand birds' at once and it's this crackling lightning.

It sounds like, yeah. Oh no, in the anime I get it, but Taishan, I'm like, No, no, Tyshen, he's off his rocker. It's not very on-deep, Dachshed. Dached's off his rocker. I don't remember why I took Shocking Grass, I'm sure it was simply because of the Chedorea at the time. He's in, you know, the spell, he's like,

this is my first character. I'm evolved now, but I won't change it. I think when you level, you can swap a cantrip? I did, I did 18, I did 18 points of fire damage. Oh, plus. I'm finally hit with a fire spell. Oh, shocking grass, you can change a fire. Shocking grass, you asked you.

It's just like that. You're able to finally damage the giant who has caught into the battle. Shocking grass. That's why I did last time. No, this is, this has been, this is fire, fireblowers. We're all just trolling each other.

And he was just, you're up, you're near. You're just, we're trolling each other. You got the 23. Heal. You healed, too. Oh my. I healed. I healed.

Great. I hit with Ray of Frost. Hell yeah. Free age. And I'm gonna step up, I think it's like a 30 foot. Let me just see. Uh, you're in it. What's its radius?

What the hell? The range is 60. I need to move it in space. I'm gonna move back to its space and just snap there because I'm not out of movement at that point. I heal the D-Sex. Three. And then the damage that I'm gonna deal is

Oh, there we go. 16 points of goal. Oh, damage. Very nice. You get him down. Oh, yeah. He's raging. All of his energy is focused on Barnabose, but Scream, you're up.

I don't get any closer to this giant hulking beast. I'd like to have this, there'll still be a flawless game, so I fire off three Eldridge blasts. That's very smart. From my left hand. I'm going to see what I can do here. Three blasts. Very smart. 15 plus nine is a bunch.

That's going to be a miss, because I finally rolled three plus nine as a 12. I roll playing the three is. 18 plus 9 is 27, so at least two of these will hit. Oh, I'm old friends with three. I'm old friends with three. Oh, but that's 16 points over two rays of the Elders Blast. He's not looking great, but he is still standing on.

And then I move my full movement away from him so he can't get to me. Great. Like I run away. Yeah, well, he's focused on Barnabas. Barnabas, you're up. Good. Stay away from looking at the other. Yeah. Okay, I'm just, and I'm going in,

Shupiti. Is there treasure all around us? Yeah. Okay, then I'm running close to treasures going, I'm screaming the goblin. What does they see again? I think that has a second. I'm calling him every dirty word in the goblin language.

Yeah, yeah. I'm just cursing a blue shrieking goblin. 20, 28, 30, 31 points of bludging damage. Yeah. How do you want to do this? He's the big guy? The big tall guy, yeah. He grew from what was already an eight-foot-tall-tall-goliath

into an 18-foot giant before your eyes. If I could use, basically I'm doing this in three strikes to the rest of my turn, because I'm getting him a zero. I like to smash one kneecap and then smash another. He falls. And he falls. And as he stumbles forward, I want to bring the anchor up and just

right between his fucking, like, in his skull. Gallagher's ass. The anchor pierces and crushes into it. You make a hole where a unicorn's horn would be and then pull free the the anchor, a massive amount of dark red blood pours down his face and he spits bubbling as he attempts to scream, but he's gone.

He falls forward with a loud crunch and you realize that at least the immediate threat is over. You heal. Right? Oh, I'm telling everyone to get away. Oh yeah. They get away from my God!

Give it to yorne. This is my healing. I will kill you. Yeah. This is my man, I need this, I need this, I need this, I need this. I'm doing something, I'm doing something. Please, I'm doing this, please. I need this.

Just at the arch entrance. You see a cobald running from two other frost hammers. They race forward, chasing him with spears, and they're able to catch up with him. They stabbed their spears into the cobald, expiring his life before. and racing back out into the court yet. It is pure wrathful anarchy in all directions. People have like descent into madness. It is.

It is. Lord of the wrathful flies out there. Wow. So now that we've seen this, presumably the humans have turned into brutal murderous people and are murdering each other. Yes. Probably ogres too.

If the guard ogres didn't just kill them, right? Everybody. Because then they have guards? Yes. Yeah. Unless the humans are like somehow immune. Right, we don't know if anybody's immune. Make an intelligence check. And don't roll a one.

Oh my fucking God, he did. Why would you see that? Wait, I also would have been, we would have been, this like a group of television. Why would you see that, Darren? You roll a one as you said it, as he said it. As you said it. And don't roll a, oh.

Based. This is my favorite Mikey question. What? There's no way to do. There's no way to know. What are you doing? Humans could possibly happen. Why?

Does die? It's done. That is so crazy. You're not. It's crazy. It's crazy. Because we don't know. Oh my God.

I don't know. They have, but they had like, they had guards. You're, you're still struggling with the fact that this guy was able to distract you so much, Yornear. The rest of you, you're,

you're, combing your minds trying to, uh, figure out what to do next. They've all turned them on this. The only reason we aren't afflicted is because of squeaning sacrifice. There's nothing we can do for them now until we kill those beasts. And if they do not have the good sense to leave this place, they have chosen their fate.

Aye. Lead the way. We have to follow them. To the city. And I think we're going to basically, or are we looking for them? I guess, I don't know. There's a giant hole they crack. Oh, yeah.

So we're going to the whole. The rescue masses. Oh, yeah. Into the courtyard. into the inner ward of this fortress. So the archie game ramping. As you enter the clear cold air, you can see on the battlements that there are

Colombs fighting each other. And you can see into the hall, the great hall of this space, where the war chiefs were being assembled, captured, held by the princes of wrath, by her orders, by her contingents of Goliath, And inside, you can see that it's every man for himself.

There is no battle lines. Everyone is fighting and screaming. You do glimpse for a brief moment. The young orc chieftain, the spirit caller, whose name, as I recall, is Kittoral. Greywind, one of the relatives of the chiefdom that you doomed. He's huddling underneath a chair when you see. One of the other chieftains, Udo. One of the chieftains that you haven't interacted with,

a chief of the Minotars, the horned wayfarers, pick up the lad, clearly struggling to fight his own rage, but has overcome it. He picks up the scared child, and he produces a rift in the air, able to split the ground and quickly yank him through disappearing. The escape?

You realize that this, from the minotars, from the horned wayfarers is perhaps where the princess got her ability to warp through space and time and be able to shift from one direction to the other as they disappear perhaps to their own district or away from the city entirely. They vanish.

And moments later, where they were, collisions of fists and weapons and blood and violence in this hall. As you stare out and witness as all of these events happening in every direction, a loud boom occurs. And you can see on the other side of the courtyard, there is Koskechee and there is the Princess of Wrath.

She is in her dragon form, and you can tell that she has been pummeled, but so has he. They are both wailing on each other, yelling at each other, screaming. She is able to bite down and clench onto one of his arms, and he lifts up a warhammer. the likes of which you've never seen. It looks unbelievably brutal.

He winds back and he swings it and is able to clobber the princess underneath the chin. She flies back through the arch and lands on the bridge just over the frozen lake. A good 50, 75 feet back. And immediately this massive,

malformed giant, the demon prince of wrath, races forward, goosh, gush, gush, chasing after her in their endless battle. What do you all do? doing. So we are just watching as these Titans clash. Yes. Are they taking their fight into the city or into the Bastion?

It looks like they are not trying to take their fight anywhere. They are purely trying to kill one another. And the princess is using all of the tricks that she has. She no longer seemingly has the ability to warp, the ability to use many of the features that you're familiar with. But she is still using her frock. breath. And it doesn't seem to have any effect. She screamed. And it hits Koskechi. He waltzes into it, strides forward, seemingly completely immune to the cold blast of air and wallops her again with the, with the warhammer. It seems that in a combat of pure strength, Koskachi may be getting the edge. Boy, you might be a drum with him. So what we'll do is like in Sea of Fees where you see two ships fighting. And he's kind of kind of hang out and you go back. Are you like for an hour all they fight?

I'm serious. The second you're not, it's not going to take an hour. And the ship sinks, then you sail, and you say, we're going to third party these guys like Fort Worth or third party. Yeah, does my knowledge of combat, do I think that they have the stamina to fight for an hour with these giant monsters? I feel like I've seen like sea monsters at least like rage against harpoon.

You suspect that this fight could take even longer. It is, it is a, it is a, it is a massive battle and they, massive battle and they are, they are not slowing. This is going to, this is the deathless one. This is a man empowered by the magic of the woman in the mountains. And this is an ancient dragon infused with the cold, with the magic of an ancient dragon, two sides clashing and facing off.

As you witness this, the timer is not when one of them will relent. the timer and the choice before you is, should you intervene on behalf of all those consumed by rage around you? You know that innocent lives are being destroyed, not by the fight that is in front of you, but by the merit of the fact that cobalds, Goliath, humans, orcs, everyone, elves, are turning against each other, brother and sister, in addition to allies and battle lines.

And in the reality of the world, we don't know if she's going to, like, fucking take off. And then we lose our chance. She just fucking flies away. Yeah. We're fucked. Yeah.

Like, this is our chance. Okay. Hey, the price, but we will not count the cost. I sit down. I've always liked that needle beard. Start making some... No, I don't do that. Oh, my God.

Oh, man. I think that Scrim would just be staring on in like, aw. and looking to the group to see if we're moving, or like, he knows this as his chance. He's heard Barnabos' rallying cry to rage, to fight, to strike, and he's ready. And he waits to see what Yorneur does.

I mean, that's what he would do in this, what Yorne and Barnabos are gonna do. It is a strange tension that you feel within you scrim as you witness the events that are happening before you. These powers, this fight in front of you feels so far away, yet it is also, you remember the words of the voice, the meddling in powers that you do not understand, but that doesn't mean that rallying cry, that bravery, that strength that you could show in this moment to defeat anger isn't very real.

As raging bucks during the mating season, they will fight and fight until they both die, needlessly but it is their nature I believe we let them we should put an end to both of them people will die this entire city will tear itself apart they're both distracted

this is the one shot we've got it's already falling to madness they're slaughtering their own people in the streets perhaps this is their faith perhaps this is their pilgrimage to die here in the streets. Their sacrifice? I do not know

what fate has in store for us, but we risk fighting both at once. We're going to say. No, no, I... I'm laying the moment... I just look to you and I say... I would say...

But you told us all those days ago, months ago, that she has to die. That's the path. Right? And what happens if when one dies, the other one will instantly disappear? What if it, with the princess killed, he'll gain power and turn us into raging monsters? How long will this boon from Queenie last? From this vile crone you invoked yourself?

Shouldn't we use this power while we have it? Can we restore our wounds? Charge in! Put an end to all of this. It will be a fierce battle, but it's not just us against the two of them. They will still fight each other. We have to fight smart and wait for the opening, but we cannot sit idly by. We have to charge now.

This is our opportunity. It will not show itself like this again. Isn't this the moment your triad told you of all those weeks ago? We've never seen you hesitate, not even once. Why now? You know the way. If I needed food, I've encountered fighting animals before. I've never intervened. They're not animals.

I've let them tire themselves out, killed themselves, and then I've finished the one that survived. Those are helpless beasts trying to survive. Neither is good, neither is evil. They're acting in their nature, desperate to fight against the cold, the winter, and their death. like every one of us. These are abominations. He's not just a giant like your God, Adam.

He's a demon. He's a creature from the abyss. She is a vile, corrupted fain herself. I don't care if she's lost some of her power. She's still an abomination than must die like the other. These are not simple animals. Mr. Yornear. We must ensure that neither gains the upper hand.

unless we cannot fight the other. We fight smart. We fight when we need to. We strike as we need to. We use their hatred toward each other as our advantage. They may not even know that we're there. Have you ever gotten in between a signer and his spurn lover in the middle of a tavern?

They don't even know you're there. You're right. Aye, Mr. Yorn here. You're all right. This is our fate. To intervene now at this moment. I've never killed a dragon, and I've never killed a demon. It's about time I had two more notches to the anchor.

Before we go, this shaman needs healing badly. I'll cast a little have you got some, Mr. Yarnier. I will cast cure wounds at a first level. I can assist as well. How about it? I can just take one. I think this one would be good. I never felt better in my life.

Also, flawless. Victory. Perfect. That was in first level. That's so rare for you. I know. Always can speed up.

No. Nine. Nine points of healing. You take a moment to gather yourself, letting the war, this combat, this wrathful, rage, work around you.

No one comes to attack you. You are able to stride through the courtyard and towards the arcway after readying yourself for who knows what to come. You are unsure when to strike. You are unsure when to intervene. The battle between Kaskatchee and the Princess of Wrath

rages in front of you on the surface of this bridge, and you can still see smoke and and magic and movement all along the districts at the edge of the frozen lake. Ready yourself to strike when the time is right. Are you all ready, lads? I'm ready. I'm ready. I am.

Let us bring an end of this, an end of the madness, and end of the bloodshed, an end of the wrath. An end to the hate. let us avenge Queenie and I just scream as I just thunder forward as I head towards that the four of you

racing forward ready to change the destiny of this city and that is where we'll call tonight's session damn good shit Derek thanks for on the session man

thank you unbelievable thank you all I did Jackie thank you so much for listening to the Legends of Aventra's podcast We hope you enjoyed the session. If you want even more campaigns to listen to, become a member of our Patreon at the Pearl Dolphin Tier or Hire

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