Legends of Avantris - Once Upon a Witchlight | Ep. 29 | The Shopping Episode

Episode Date: July 8, 2024

A shopping trip leads the Krew to new revelations about Torbek's pursuers, and they come face to face with a long awaited enemy...   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/PkmBSS35NvY?si=OEwoirnVKHlwEpJs

Welcome to Legends of Adventress. Torbeck's name is Torback, and you're listening to Once Upon a Witchlight. Here's what happened last time. There's still one pawn in play, someone that you have yet to meet, the leader of the resistance, all culminating in one grand event that Kremi has been voluntled to participate in, Electrum Chef. And we're trying to free you from your fate by doing a room. to trick all of the guards and then let you win and kill us. You develop the ability to break the fourth ball.

You are now able to start addressing the DM directly. Angela, I gotta say, I think we've all had enough of more go. Chuckles rises again. Oh, I'm back so soon. What are we doing, fellas? Oh, water, why did you do that? Frost, what are you doing? Ah!

Whig! Yeah? How can you see me? What do you mean? You're standing right there. I'm missed. Why are you covered in blood? As you and chuckles stand face to face for the first time in life and death, able to truly fight?

Well, what are you waiting for, Gideon? What we do here will echo through oncturnity. I'll just pile drive them back into the earth with a seismic toss. That's right, Gideon. Gideon, entertain them. My clownsisters are smiling at me, Gideon. Can you say the same? And you blow the whistle a second before, notating the win of Gideon against Chuckles.

And she moves to step forward. And as she does, she slams into a magical force field and shoots backwards back into the cage. She looks up and she goes, did you make sure to mention my name in the tournament? upon a time in Prismere. Five heroes became members of the soggy court and set out to free Morgo, the former Knight of Warts from imprisonment. Though their hearts were in the right place, the Fay Wilde had other plans, and they succumbed to the concentrated witchlight in the air around

them. They were able to retrieve the key to the cell and perform a trial by combat, but to no avail as Morgau was not mentioned during the battle. And it is here that we find our heroes. covered in the blood of a clown from hell. You stand before Morgau, realizing that you are unable to pull her from this cell. She takes a step back and slumps against the wall. Her head falls back and she crosses her arms, shakes her head. She says no words, and she is clearly not frustrated, but disappointed.

She's not. not mad. She's disappointed. I'm just disappointed. What happened? I don't understand. You did? Uh. You didn't say my name.

You didn't say your name. Did you say the name in the circle or in the arena in the hippodrome? It was sort of implied. I mean, I just assumed that like, I mean, why else would we be doing it? Am I still, am I still beat up? Does anybody remember? You have some bananas. I would say you're capable of talking.

In my defense, the reason why I didn't help is that a clown possessed my flesh and mind and blood and soul. And I didn't even realize we were trying to save more. He just called me a bitch, and I thought that was just about enough. I'd add it, you know? He must have really gotten at you. It must have been really hard to convince you to jeopardize this whole mission and have a great gladiatorial fight. It must have, gosh, he must be a devious mastermind. Yeah, well, he's not bad.

You're definitely long just kind of being a little, you know, casual but callous by just saying that he called me a bitch. It had to him a lot deeper than that, right? It was the way that he had said it. You know, there's a certain tone to use that just really got under my skin. And then Torbeck laugh real loud, and it just really hurt in a different kind of way. Hey, Grico, call Gideon a bitch. Uh, a Gideon, you're a bitch. Oh, okay.

Let's go back to the arena. We're going to break more go out right now, right? You're coming with me, Grico. That could solve the problem immediately, couldn't it? Wait, every time I've tried to get punched by Gideon, which is actually quite a large number of times, now that I think about it, all I had to do is just call you a bitch.

You clown back up, you silly fuck, all right? We're getting right back in that arena, and I'm going to slap the pain off your face, Dan. No, it's just me. It's just me. It's Grincoe. It's okay. I'll do that, too. Stop him, crummy. Stop him, crummy. Stop him, crummy.

This is a test, see? That's all it takes. You should know that by now. Hey, guys. Ripple slash Torback feels like it might be pertinent to say that Ripple slash Torbeck was the announcer, and this may be Ripple slash Torbeck's fault. Ripple slash Torbeck's willing to take this one. Oh, yeah, it was his fault.

I'm partly to blame. If I'd been there, I would have either reminded you or done the announcements myself, but I had other business. No, no, no, no, it's just, you know, another thing. What business did you have, Frosty? I thought even though I was horribly possessed by a clown. I was horribly possessed by emotions.

At the very least, aren't you the brains of the operation? What were you doing? I was, uh, binding twig. Yeah, hi. I was able to retrieve her, and now she's here with us. Oh. I even found the key. Yes, we found a key.

Oh, that's quite nice. It didn't work, though, because you guys didn't do what you're supposed to with the arena, but still found it. Well, let's hold on to it for when we do do it right. We probably need to have... I have both of them. He did also murder two gods and cold blood,

but, uh, and hit the body. The blood was not cold. Yes, me. Guys, we have to have a serious. conversation about how this witch light is getting into us, but maybe that's for another day.

Well, I mean, I know for you, I mean, you know, I mean, it's like horribly pumped into your veins from strange magitect contractions. I mean, for the rest of us, we don't have an excuse. You mean like why we're special compared to everybody else? Yes.

I'm not sure that we are. Is it possible that that's what's happening in our mind? and that others are feeling these same sways and shifts, but we're not perceiving them the same way they may not be perceiving us. It seems like sometimes we do radical things. No, those gods are dead. No, that's just, there's no bringing them back. You know, it might be the work of Bofa.

Well, it's Bofa these nuts. Damn it! Back in the arena, you son of a bitch! God damn it! I'm sorry, I hate you! They're gone. Perhaps I want you to do the announcements before he kills Grico and we don't get anything out of it. No, fellas, come on, come on.

Come back in here. Come on. Come back. Are we good? Oh, we're good. Oh, we're fine, right? Just don't say anything hilarious and provoking again, right? You're stepping in a little bit of frog blood, Kibbion.

Well, that's fine. I mean, you know, it's all over the place thanks to this guy. And what the hell, guys? You're out there killing guards? And where the heck were you? You left me and Grico to our own devices? No wonder everything got squire. screwed up.

Well, if I were talking to Morgow, and then I had to go find witnesses, and I guess I just, it slipped my mind that we should probably, I know, it slipped Tolbeck's mind that we should probably mention the fact that we're trying to do it for the sake of Morggo's freedom. Yeah, Mr. Crimey's right. Can we please keep it down about not telling the two guards in prison? Oh, I'm looking at Morgle. Oh, no, in Minecraft. This is all of Morgat. This is all theoretical. You look to her and I won't make you roll a perception check to see that she is silently sobbing into her hands. We're going to have to do something.

Not to break the uncomfortable silence, but Morgnoa, we're real sorry. It's my own fault. I knew better than to trust that anyone would be able to break me out of this prison. Surely there must... Torbeck, Torbeck, man. Sometimes they just do this. You just gotta ignore until they're done, right? Surely there must be another way. I'm not sure.

Unless the entirety of the soggy court could be swayed in my favor, I don't see away. I mean, you could... I guess if we were going, I've already broken a few lulls. I want to be a night. on the run, you could try checking out the the Thunder Cloud balloon that came in from Yon, one of Enderlind's balloons. You could see if they have some tincture

or something that could get me out of here. Though in my heart of hearts, I really did want to be released on my own accord. I mean, the king seems to like us. SRIEN, Mr. Kramming. That's important. I'm pretty tired with the king. But the entirety of the soggy court,

it's just one wrong move on his part before he's... And on the bridge. His hands, Amogo already said that his hands are tied on account of a culture that has been propped up through regular bloodshed. If the more he acts against his culture, the higher risk of him being targeted and replaced by someone who's more blood-firsty.

becomes. He does something crazy to kill him. He does anything they don't like or really it's sure dissatisfied in any way and you want what you imagine to be a better life, you could stab the king in the back and become king of downfall. I don't know how you'd want to as there'd be an immediate target on your back, but I'm not sure of a way to change it. Well, then what's stopping us?

Why don't we convince the king, but I can do one of these, just have them said. let her out and then he gets stab in the back tomorrow I wouldn't want to see that he's a good man He is a good man In his position You know

At best he's got two days left He didn't want it It's not like he killed the previous king To become the king It fell to him because of the unlucky circumstances of his brother Has anyone ever just safely

resigned Not in my knowledge I don't know that he can there would have to be something extreme to convince the denizens of downfall that the king should remain it would be crime to kill him because as it stands right now

it's not even looked down upon all right Torbeck slash Ribble will take one for the team will become king and then Torbeck slash Ribble will embrace the sweet release of No, I don't think that's a good plan at all. No, that's a terrible flag.

I don't know. He's kind of like racking up, you know, the crowns, if you know what I mean. He's killed every game we've come across, kind of. Yeah. If you count Agnan. Allegedly! Yeah, I mean, you know, allegedly, of course. That's true.

What's one more? Well, no. If you don't kill this one, it won't be everyone. It will be 50% of the kings we have met. You have killed, D'Obeg. Silver line! There we go. Chin up, chin up.

Here's the thing. We'll put in a good word. We'll see what we can do. All right? Keep your hopes up. All right. Well, it's not as if my station's changed in the past 24 hours, so. It's no point in being disheartedly.

She turns and she looks through some of the roots of the mango trees out to the full moon that's shining over the swamp As long as somewhere out there Wiggle Wog is Going on Grand Adventures then I will keep my spirits up that one day we will meet again And he will continue to sing did I ever tell you that Wigglewog was quite the singer? I What a beautiful voice Oh Wow Always wanted to be a bard

It's too shy Too scared Wouldn't a guest Yeah We'd make some What you told us about Of course I mean it's

Oh gosh He really I bet he's singing Right now Next to the summer queen In the summer court Perhaps Singing for her

And she's like Oh Wrigoog You will be my night of summer. That's highly unlikely. Oh, because he's shy. They would completely clam up if he were in audience with the Summer Queen.

But regardless, I hope that wherever he's at were staring up at the same moon, both thinking about each other. I mean, there's always a chance that after he went off, he had a great journey where he learned about his character flaws and the things that were bothering him, and he managed to meet, like, perhaps, a wacky guide who helped him overcome his social anxiety.

And then now he's singing for the Queen of the Fame. Yeah, and there's like a 50-50 chance he's staring up in the air, you know? Up in the beauty of Tartagnia. Yeah, it's out of up and down. Smash cut to the bushes. Rigamortes he said him, he's like, who flies all over him. One crawling on the eye.

Jesus. And flash cut to heaven where you see the soul of them looking down, being, shut the fuck up. No! This is, no, stop lying. Teller, tell her, tell her. Jesus. What a nightmare.

We're not good. We're not good people. Look, we've killed a guy. That was out of character. Well, all right, so we were going to swing by the shop anyway. Maybe false flag those fellas, and we'll leave an eye out for, you know, I don't know, magical items or magical crowbar or magical key. Yeah, or a tinker thing you were looking for. Sure.

Well, I wish you luck. If we have to break you out, and the soggy court believes you to be no longer, noble, without your chivalry, without your honor. That will be another step in your quest for honor. Yes, I will have to go on a night's journey to reclaim my honor. And hopefully, one day, meet up with Wiggle Walker. Yes. From a certain point of view, keep your hopes up is all I'm saying.

In the great light of the summer queen or something like that Why is it always get awkward when Morgan brings him up? We wouldn't know. Torbeck, I think it's because Wigelwog and I had a very special relationship. But due to my knight's vow, we could never be more than friends. And sending him out on that. journey without me. I was always his strength was backbone.

And sending him out without me, I fear I may have sent him someday to his doom. But I hope that he's strong enough to face the journey ahead without me. And that when we do meet again, that we will both be better

for our time apart. That is why, Torbett. Very romantic. Torback slash Ribble has a special lady back home and to certain complications we're a bit star crossed too. I hope that the stars will align for the both of you and someday you'll make it work if that's what you both wish.

Oh, she's a real bute, Clementeis, is it, name? It's a lovely name. I don't know, she's a little small for more taste. I actually don't know what she looks like. Look at it this way. If he does happen to meet his end on his grand adventure, just try not to take too much responsibility. Don't feel too bad about it. You know, don't be too hard on yourself.

Just, you know, try at least like 80 or 90% responsibility. Definitely try to, like, lower it than 100%. But don't feel too bad. His fate is not my own. It is his. That's right. This is his path to walks. Yep, that's right.

And I feel in my heart of heart. hearts that I did all I could for him before he left, and I believe he is somewhere out there right now, growing and learning and being the best wiggle walk he can be. It's definitely growing. Oh, kind of like

the gases. Cut back to vines. Fungus. Mushrooms. Can we out of? It's the circle of long. and it moves Oh, sorry, when I get nervous, I'll break out into song

Oh, stupid idioms I'll bring out to show tunes Why? Um, that's it, maybe we should go now. Oh, yeah, yeah, this is all the middle of the sky. Let's see if we can find something at this shop, the Thunder Cloud, um, uh, Ooh, and a lot of conductor harshed.

And we'll, uh, in another heist, we'll see what they have on offer and we never know what's going to fall out of the sky. We might be able to find something that can help you get out of this prison. Yeah. Yeah, we can help her. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Are we not in a rush to get back to the king and our prior engagement? What time is? Torback slash Rimmel doesn't have a watch. What's a watch? Let me ask a watch. He's it all the time. It doesn't really work. It's just like the hand is spinning.

Your watch doesn't work. I could have fixed that like years ago. Well, I mean, it worked until we got into... Do you guys want to talk about this when we walk? Let's walk. Very quickly, Morgow, do you have enough food? I don't know when the next guards are going to be here to feed you. Oh, no, it's only those two guards.

They had some strange anti-sleep spell cast upon. They don't need to sleep, so they will go and fetch food when it's time. How do you get fed by the guards? Also, unrelated. How's the longest you've ever gone without eating? Well, they feed me three times a day, morning, noon and night. Three to be am, wow. Yeah, hungry, you know. Well, they want to make sure that the fighters are well-nourished for the battlefield.

They don't want a weak battle. They want to see a true battle to the battle to the, the death, so it would make sense. That being said, they should be turning up in half an hour to an hour. They make their way in here, and they'll use one of the keys to drop

the barrier, and if you notice on the door, there's a small opening to slide a plate through. Doorback slash Ribble read that intermittent fasting and autophagy is all the rage, so

maybe Morgoth should try that for the next time 40 an hour it's good for you I'm not sure why they wouldn't bring food but any off chance that they don't I'm sure that I'm strong enough to withstand a day or so

without food. Then it's settled. We'll move on. Yeah, she'll be fine. Yeah. Well, we don't have to worry about this. Everything's going to be okay. And who knows, maybe the gods of unionized in the past day

and there will be another pair to arrive at the previously negotiated shift time. Chin up. Oh, frogs don't have chins. Slimy, amphibious lower head up.

Oh, good bye to do. Smash got to the other guards where they're playing cards like, I can't believe they were willing to take 15 days in a row. That overtime is insane. This is great. We follow Twig out of the prison and make our way.

You see that Twig's already, like, jumping down the stairs out of the prison. She's, they are roots that kind of come up out of the muck and form these little steps down. And it leads on a pathway, and you can see off in the distance, there is that big storm cloud balloon. And you see Twig as she, like, jumps on one, sings a little song, spins a little song, spins, around jumps on the next one. She's not really paying attention to you but she's already on her way to the shop. She wants to I'm going to go shopping, I'm

going to go shopping, what do they have for twig today? And she's singing that as she makes her way down the bath. How much money do I have? Oh, nothing. They're a trade currency. They bought her and things.

No, we have a whole bunch of stuff that we pilfered from that guy what we don't like. I have a valuable piano king. Oh. That guy what is dead. The guy that Torbeck rightfully

usurped through a right of conquest. Can we stop bringing that up? It makes Tormex slash Ripple uncomfortable. There wasn't even a succession crisis. I mean, that's pretty good. Tormec slash Ribble

basically wasn't even there. I'm a certain point of view, maybe. But hey, what's done is done. You may as well embrace it. Doreback slash rebel's not sure. Perhaps it would make sense for us to buy a gift for Morgow, something to sots in the blow, and we finally tell her what's happened to wigglewog.

Yeah, and if we actually do a business there, they won't see it coming when we false flag them and blow them out of the sky. Let's see what they have an offer first. Well, obviously. I mean, if they have cool stuff, you know, we'll get that first, and then we'll be the second thing.

Okay. I'm up for anything at this point. My hands are no longer clean. Join the club. I'm saying. I'll bomb them out of the sky. I've already killed two people. No one tell Ootsie. We can't have her knowing that Frosty, you know,

killing people with his mind. She's like, used to that. That's old hair. That's just Frosty. But with his mouth, that's very unlike Frosty. And you do have a horrible scar on your body where Frost drank from Hill. Oh. Is that our clown flesh?

Oh. You know, just two puncture wounds. I'm sorry. It's more than that. He didn't have Dracula fangs. It's just a full cap's mouth. Just 14, 16 puncher wounds. Oh, that's like a...

You know, when I saw the other beast masters at the carnivals and they suffered horrible target attacks, kind of looked like this. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, is that one? My hands not working. Oh, I seem to have severed many of your tendons. Mm. And ligaments.

That's disgusting. Try to make a fist. Oh, no. Can you just like jump some bananas in there? Oh, good idea, Frosty. Chew my beloved. Oh, no.

I'm out of resources for the day. Finally, I'm not the only one. Tomorrow I would have some bananas. Okay, well. It's around this time that Twig runs up to you,

Gideon. Gideon, could ask you a question? Yeah, come on. If there's something super special there that I want, will you get it for me? If there's a super special,

what? If there's something super special at the shop, will you get it for me? Yeah, yeah, for sure. Because they don't have any monies. Well, they don't trade in currency to trade the things. You have a lot of things. But I don't want to give them away. Well, that's fair.

I want to keep it for me. For Twig. The Twigs things. Things for Twig. Well, if you see something you like, you just let us know. Yeah, but I want you to get it for me, though. Because Kramal just lie about getting it for me, and then we'll go to get it on my bag. It won't be there.

and then he'll try and tell me that I never even asked for in the first place. Hey, Twigsie, why would you say something like that about crime? He wouldn't lie about getting it for. He'd steal it from him. Yeah, but then he wouldn't give it to me until I made a deal with him and signed my blood oath into his book or something. Well, that's pretty fair. Okay, I see where you're coming from.

But, you know, I mean, at the end, you'd have it. You'd just hold my blood oath. Okay. And don't you owe him kind of a blood oath? Did I even know about that? Well, I mean, I'm kind of a servant now, but then he also said I wasn't. Oh, no. I was supposed to tell him that horrible.

Yeah, they have that out of the bag now. Okay. Yeah, I often beard-tuted bodies. Oh, my God. Well, I guess actually in retrospect, it's not surprising at all, considering what you've done, you've committed severe war crimes. Me? Nuh.

I'm sweet old twig. There was that. You didn't even boggered out yet. You were on the deck, and you were just firing from the hip. We thought you were dying. You killed like six people. I didn't even land a punch. Anyways, you started blasting.

You'll be a fine. I was protecting my friends. I'd do anything to protect my friends. It's not war crime. It's just cold-blooded murder. I'm glad you killed those two dudes. Their cronches were obliterated. I saw everything.

Oh, man, Torbeck slash Ribble misses all the cool stuff. Oh, no, you were there. You were there. No, at that time, he was Ribble slash Torbeck. Oh, is that who that was? I think so. Yeah. Oh, but anyway, look, we're so close to the balloon.

Let's go. Do you hold my hand and skip? Well, sure. I mean, you've got the height discrepancy here. You want to swing me by my arm, but not so hard that you pop my shoulder out of it. Socket and I'll just hold your hands in front of me and I'll swing you to and throw, if you were. Buppies. And that happens.

Stop and daring. And then around a man. interest and I swear it all through life. Oh, here we go. And you make your way forward. A big black balloon floats over the lake, tugging at its mornings. Beneath it hangs a basket made of black wicker and wood,

which serves as a merchant stall. A large pane of gray glass is drawn closed across an opening above the counter. A sign mounted above the window reads, wondrous wares and fair fairs. The balloon is not made of fabric, but rather appears to be a roiling dark rain cloud that has been contained somehow with lines and netting.

Standing within the basket and behind the glass pane, you see two what have been described to you as darklings. They look very similar, almost like they could be twins. And they look out at you in a way you wouldn't expect from merchants. They seem almost uninterested at your presence, as if your patronage is, is neither welcome, necessary, or wanted. One of them leans up against the glass and sides

and just looks between each of you as you make your way up, but neither one of them seems too happy to see you. Are we out of your shop? Yeah. All right, fellas, before we go in, let's taste the join. What do we think? Well, I mean, I think you can tell just from immediacy that out of these two idiots

paying attention pretty easy marks. That's what I mean. I'm thinking like maybe we just I mean the storm clap doesn't seem too tightly tethered. You could probably do something with that. Are we going to false flag them?

Are we just going to, you know? Oh, it seems to be the only way. You know, I wasn't going to pop a seal on war crimes. It was all I'm going to say. But now, you're going to say. You know, once you bar, you just can't stop. I feel like, you know, we've already crossed that bridge.

We've committed atrocities. I mean, what's a little plant, you know? You know, we've already crossed the rub icon, as they say. Well, if we're going to... The rub icon. I know, I know. It's a classic saying. I think he's talking about bullet jugs again.

Well, yeah. So to speak, there's no going back. From a certain point of view. you think back to the vision that you saw of bully jugs and something catches your eye that on the cover it said the newest issue of bully jugs now with scratch and sniff oh no to make it awful

and you see you see just the absolute like shredded but like sections where it's clearly been dramatically scratched into Like dust litters the ground around them Like a nightmare Yeah Like a lot of tea Yeah

I'll take my ocarinas My eyes stare off Like I've been fucking A million yards stare Bealoo Do do Do do Do do

Do do do do Do do do Do It ain't me Intensify in the background Well not my nose. Do you plan for how we're going to false flag these guys?

I did, but it seems to have evaporated into the scratch and sniffed bully jugs. What did you say scratch and sniffed bully jugs? No, I was just jesting. You know how I like to jape and joke, Gideon. I broke Greg. Your, your gentle virgin ears so not

be soured and corrupted by what I have smelled and witnessed. You keep saying balie jogs? What are bolly jogs? By the way, Torbeck slash Ribble is a visual learner.

I'm sure in due time, Torbeck, you will understand, as I do. Oh, gang. It was just you that saw that Yeah When we saw them, they were talking Bolly Jungs under the scene

Oh Oh, it must be crazy Yeah Shavings litter the ground around Hey, what's that? We was going to plant the great big book of Grudges

on the fellas would have the balloon. Yeah, yeah. You're gonna tuck it somewhere, taught. Could it be as simple as trading it for one of the items that they have? Then they would have it.

Well, they might recognize it. But they're not having a lebe. Yes, but if they're a word against anyone else... Than a levy. It's so dumb. It's so weird. What I mean?

Yeah. Damn it. And it's only in Aleb if they have multiple of them. You're thinking of an alibis. Oh. An alipis. That's pretty good actually. I just, I feel like we've got to be sneaky.

You can't say, oh dear, we traded with a fair and square. We have the receipt. See you go. I mean, here's the one thing that we got to keep in mind. It's plausible deniability. if we just give it to them, then they can say, yeah, we got it from them. We need to plant it on it all sneaky like. I see.

That's what I was trying to say. Okay. Go in there. We just, you know, I can do one of my little... Just distract them? Yeah, distract them, and I'll just drop it somewhere. Drop it, kicking under a table or something along those lines? That'll work.

It's creating minor diversion, you know, knock something over, say, ah, fuck. You're going to clean that up? I don't wait till they start cleaning it up, and then you just, you know, give me a little bit of that Agway shuffle. It's in this moment that, Tremi, you notice that, like, Torbeck is missing, and he's, like, uncomfortably close to you over your shoulder, like, looking down over you. But who's stealthy enough to get in there implanted? Oh, my God. Oh, you're right, Torebeck. None of us are very good at that.

I guess we should just go. home. That's a good boy. We tried. Torbeck. What if you were to plant the book? Torbeck? Yes. Torbeck doesn't know. I think that if you were to find the location that looked like it was being intentionally hidden,

and we knew where that was, that would be a great value ad, as they say. Torbeck begins to pace back and forth thinking about this proposition, and as he passes through the shadows, he disappeared. and reappears and the light disappears and the shadows rebutt just isn't sure that torment can do it. I believe in you. Of all of the people here,

I think that you might be the only one capable. Where does the book have to go? As I said, anywhere that looks like it was intentionally stuffed away or hidden by the two darklings, that way it'll be even more legitimate when we tell people that they had taken it because they would have

attempted to hide it themselves. Oh, Torbac supposes if Mr. Crimey is creating some sort of diversion, then maybe Torbeck can do it. Torbac trusts Mr. Crimy. Well, before we do anything, let's take a look around. Let's see what they got. All right. And, you know, if need be, we can bought a trade, maybe, you know, sneak a little something. And once we have everything we need, then we can do some kind of.

I'll just chat them up. If that doesn't work, we'll do some sort of physical comedy, you know, and... The safety net of distraction would be to sever any of the lines connected to that thunderhead. That would cause danger to them. They don't want to lose that thing, and if it started to float away, as I imagine it might, if it were started to get separated from the cart, then we would have an easy distraction. Well, isn't the shop, like, isn't it... In the balloon. Yeah, it's... I was...

The balloon. I was... The ballroom is in the basket. bottom of the Ross has become a fucking nightmare, man. Makes the thing we'd play fight a little bit drawn away.

He wants to just crash the whole thing into the damn ground. Got a taste for blood and grico and now he's unstoppable. Just a little chaos. And maybe if Gideon,

if you could find without the carrying any CDs, we might be able to Frost can have little a chaos as a tree. Yeah.

We might be able to have that be the first place we start. The CDs? The CDs, nuts. I would like you to roll a D20 for a reason. That one was actually very natural.

That was incredible. That was good. That was a good. I was a good one. I was a second away from saying it before you guys. Oh, man. What the hell is that? That was well played.

That one was good. Yeah, that was good. Oh, God. Well done. Well done. I so badly wanted you to have any pun or acronym that was like mildly fantastical and the state you just threw a pie in my face. It's wonderful.

I tackle Grico when we roll into the shop. We literally turned into like a Looney Tune Tijuana. Roll a foot and I think. Roll a D4 for me. That will make my decision. And then there's also the moment where the cloud continues and the limbs are still flying out, but Grico just walks out of it. You become an automoblatron.

You become an autumn allandrine. See these nuts. Whoa. Oh, my God. Woo. I know a true member of the faith from the court of spirit, Halloween, when I see one.

Me? Oh, yes. What are you talking about? Count Sorv, brilliant. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's me. Countsorf.

Truly, the genius of an auto my dream. How did you... How did you know all of that? It is the powers of the spirit Halloween. I remember doing that,

feeling cool. I miss that so much. We enter the... As an Adam Elaghan, I'll go over and I'll say, They will not be expecting my cobweb guns. Why did you get that? From the spirit of Halloween, man. I pulled out of my laden flesh every time I change.

From there, I shall not tell. No one should know. All right, get in the fucking store. Hey, hold on. Give the book to talk that. Who has the book? Uh, probably count.

I remember, I remember Grico having it, but I'm not sure. Oh, one moment. I have some books here. Oh, sorry. That was the necronomicon. Now we're scratching.

Yeah. Oh, pull one out. Oh, no, sorry, sorry. Here we go. How big is this book? It's a large tone. Okay. For you, it's like a large reading book, but for Grico, it was monstrous.

Oh, right. Well, wrapping in cloth or something, man, wrap it up, so they don't just, like, see it sitting around. Oh, Torrumbach slash Rural has his egg in the bloody scarf. You've got to have some kind of filthy cloth in that filthy sack. Just the filthy sack. Here, here. He should never travel without a towel. Thank you, Frost.

You need a towel. I wrap it up nicely. Well, I just lent my towel at the doorbag. He's going to put it in a filthy cubbyhole. It's already covered in like muck and grime and stench. Oh, yeah. I mean, in the reality of this universe, all of the times that I went in with my backpack, everything should be soaked and covered and destroyed.

But it's a fantasy game, so it's all fine. Are we ready? I think so. As ready as dormant can be. To the thunderglum. I'll walk up to the story. You walk up the path and you find yourself standing in front of this pane of glass

and you see the two darklings there. One of them is sitting towards the back of the basket and just eyeing you suspiciously. The other one is leaning up against the pane of glass. She's looking out at you through a half-moon spectrable. moon spectacles. She is drumming her long pointed nails on the on the wicker part of the basket as she looks at you one hand under her chin and she doesn't say anything but as you approach she points down at a sign that's hanging at the very front of the of the basket.

And it says available for a limited time only, very good thimble, fingertip, not included. mug of bumble beer has a nice sting to it. Dusk mallow pie with decorative bite marks. Bundle of dry wood, great for starting fires. Ink portraits. If we have to look at you, so should you. Moonlight Monaco. No more fumbling in the dark.

Oh. Was your attention to tell me that this is a list of your wares? Oh yes, you shouldn't know what we have. Oh, welcome to Bobble and Charles. Hello. What a do? My name's Trinket. This is Bobble. Oh, wow.

It's nice to meet you, Trinket. Why don't you name the place Bobble and Trinket? Except Bobble Charm, you never like happy in names. I don't know. Trinket's kind of like a good. I'm out. I mean, I think it flows a little better. Charm is currently having an audience with Pavlona. Oh.

But you can ask her when she gets back if you're so curious. So drink, it is not one of the co-owners. You travel with an autumn, alladrine. Yes, what of it? Is that a problem? I can take care of it if it's a problem. He's very festive. I am from the court of autumn.

My blood is loved by basic girls wearing hugs and yoga pants around the world. What are you talking about? My only fans is pumpkin spines. Did you say only fangs? Only fangs, yes. That was very good, Danton mistress. It is now that's canon now. That's canon now.

Blur! Do you not have only fangs here in Prysmir? No. Oh, well. When Mikey is censoring himself, you know he should stop this line of thinking. Let's us move on. I'm going to browse, if you don't mind.

And I look around and see if there's anything that's not on that side. Roll a perception, Chuck. Have you already introduced yourself as Cremie? No. Oh, that's pretty good. Oh, I'm playing D&D. That's, uh...

That's pretty good. That's pretty good. 21. Ooh, that is pretty good. 21? 21. You look around and you do see the setup behind the glass that there are shelves and there are little places where knick-knacks are hidden here and there.

And there are a few things. There are some potions of healing. You do see some other potions in varying colors and in different types of vials and jars. you see some gems, a handful of magical items. But one thing catches your eye. Towards the very back, almost completely hidden by an empty leather tone that appears to be like a wizard spellbook, an unused wizard spellbook. You see a long glass container with a wooden base. and inside of it, shining in beautiful

opalescent colors, is a pure unicorns horn. That's pure. This for sale? This, I don't know, pink thing. It was like glittery glowing, magical thing. You mean the white opalescent unicorn horn that shines with

the radiance of a thousand rainbows. Oh, is that that is? Yes. Oh. I see. I start to sweat. That's what I'm trying to like, oh. Yes, it's for sale.

Oh, how much? The color of your eyes. Oh, wow. What's wet brace? You mean like, what part of my eyes? The color. from your eye. Remmy?

Don't do. Don't do this. This is madness. I will tell you that this is an authentic unicorn's horn. It was taken from a unicorn in Brisbane.

Like a live, like a real live unicorn, right? You're not fucking with me? It's incredibly rare. Very hard to find. One of a kind, really. Certificate of authenticity. or anything like that? Oh, you can look at it and tell,

but if you don't believe me, holding it would be more than enough for you to be able to determine its magical abilities. Can I hold it? No. For me, listen to me. You don't need that unicorn horn. We can work out

whatever, write down the function problems you may be having. But more importantly, more importantly, like these how do they why are they a unicorn horn? She moves over almost as if she's moving through shadows

she's very live and very quick and as she picks up the container she slides the glass off soundlessly and immediately prisms of rainbow shoot out from this thing and you're almost blinded and hypnotized by the beauty of this horn as you are looking at it

there is barely any light this is This is well into the evening. The sun has fully gone down over the horizon, and you are just surrounded by glorious, glowing white and rainbow light, as if you are standing inside of an opal itself. Oh, you've got things. Grammy, I'm in serious. Don't look at it. If you buy it, then they'll try to be your... You're endangering unicorns by buying it.

You see? How does that make any fucking sense? You're incentivizing them by making it more valuable, by letting them sell it. They'll want to go find more. How did they acquire it? So if you're saying, wait, can I respond to the... Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we're on a connector channel now. I'm just like...

They're staring at all right. And I'm... My hands are inside my room, and I'm just looking down, but I'm in my mind, we're having a telephone chat. I mean, but it just looks cool. I mean, what's your point? You, your eye color is your own, but I'm warning you. If you do this, you are hurting unicorns, not helping. Oh, so you think that, I mean, hey, I guess giving up my eye color sounds like some sort of weird faybogging, right?

Maybe, they mean like the blood in my eyes and like, oh, they're going to take the red and then my eyes explode or shrivel up and die, like that sort of thing? No, I think that they'll just make the pupils, the irises, black and white. No more pigment. Oh, it's like they won't be like yellow. Right. My eyes really need to be yellow. You know what I mean? That's pretty cool.

What are you going to do with the horn? Think of the other unicorn. I just want it, Frost, okay? I don't know what I'm going to do it. I put it on a shelf and look nice. It'll be display piece. I'm not going to stop you. I just wanted you to hear my words of warning.

Hold on. Hold on, talk with you this. If buying it would endanger unicorns, would stealing it, save the unicorns. Stealing it would not hurt the unicorns. You see Twig as she's climbing up, trying to look over the counter. She seems transfixed on this unicorn form.

And she looks towards, she looks towards Trinket. And she says, What? It's being so much pain right now. What it's doing now is none of our problem, little one. A unicorn horn is worth a lot. It has intense magic.

Oh. It's up to the buyer what they choose to do with it. And how we came by it. Well, we happened upon it. Twigsie, be cool, all right? It doesn't even look that real. It does definitely real unicorn on. Look at it.

It sparkles with maybe the light of like 500 rainbows. You know what I mean? Yeah. Come on, man. Come on, I'm never even seen a unicorn mobile light. I've always wanted to. So, Gail, are you saying that maybe based on the price, you think it should sparkle with more like 700?

Yeah, I'm thinking like, you know, maybe the color out of one of your eyes. You know what I mean? Like, it's like half value. At best. I mean, it's not like, I've seen at least 100 unicorns in my day. Every single horn I've seen is better than this. What could Mr. Grimmy possibly have used for your eye color? I'm worried it's going to be some sort of trick, you understand?

Or even if it isn't, like, who knows what the impact's going to be on my vision? Maybe, you know, I'll see in black and white or something. Oh, no, it's horrible. You can always come to the kingdom of Spirit Halloween and give the cheap discount. colored contacts. That actually seems like a very reasonable solution. We promise they don't have flesh-eating bacteria in them.

Torbeck. As this is conversation... As soon as you do that. If I'm in your mind, don't look around. Play cool. You may wonder. Stay cool. Toby's a look like looks up in at the corner. No, no, no, look forward. forward, look normal. I have casual. All right. I need to practice this with you. I'm sorry. I sprung this on you out of nowhere. Uh, you hear me. This is Frost. Do you see next to the unicorn horn that book?

Approximately the signs of the book? Without moving, he like, eyes just go to where he thinks you're talking about. Uh, if you did describe that there was something like a wizard's book on tone, and I, uh, do you see it? You can, you don't have to grunt out loud. Respond in your mind the way I'm speaking to you now. You see Torbeck's face like kind of like screw up and you hear in your mind,

how can I smell that? That is remarkable. No, no, no, you just, like you're thinking, like you're thinking a thought. Think a thought to me. It's not bad. Okay, I'm not going to do this again until we have a chance to practice in private. Ask for the book if you think you can exchange the book with the book of grudges and then return the book of grudges to them.

Hand it off, pass it off to them. If you feel you can make an exchange, great. If you feel you can steal your way behind this situation and get it in there, do that. But I'm offering you another option. That's all. All right, Torbeck hears this and you can see he's like starting to sweat like this fur is getting damp You can see that he's starting to sweat my question Torbeck's question to the DM would be What's the how well lit is this room and what are the light source you are not in a room

We're not so you are you are there is like a dock that goes out towards the swamp Okay, anchored at the edge of the dock is this balloon their shop is in the basket of the balloon It's like a huge bag. So you're standing outside in the middle. The basket is just over the water. Okay. Well, how well lit is it outside? I mean, at what time of day is it?

It's dark. It's nighttime. It's nighttime. Are there any candle light sources? There are tons of light because the unicorn horn has been open. And there's this beautiful, brilliant, prismatic light that's just shooting everywhere. Are there, like, if the horn wasn't radiating light. It would be very dark.

They have a few melting candles around. the rim of the wicker basket, but they seem to see very well in the dark. Is the storm cloud doing any? We're pretty close to it, right? It is rumbling. So far you've not seen any bits of lightning, though there have been, you have heard some thunder. And it is, it is very gently drizzling on you, but it seems to keep the complete inside of the basket dry. But around it, you feel a soft frame. Torbeck would take a step or two back away from this horn, just trying to get away from the light and waiting to see what happens. And it's kind of surveying the area.

Torbeck made note of how lively Trinket moves, and it makes him nervous. But he's going to wait for his moment and try to wait to see what happens when this unicorn light dies down. Okay. I get in Yeah I want that You know I had my eye on something in here for you I bet you never guess in a million years what it is

A unicornhorn No it wasn't that that's for crummy What do you mean that's for crummy? No it's for crummy there's something in here that's obviously you It just shouts your name Is he gonna get it? What? Well probably that's a very crummy thing to do

You know get what he wants Is he gonna take you back to you? unicorn and make sure that they're whole? Yeah. Okay. Then I can support that. The unicorn must be in a whole lot of pain having its horn taken away. Well, I think that he would think, you know, I won't speak for him, but if he returns this horn, he makes a laugh-long friend with a unicorn, and that's pretty bad ass.

For sure, I bet that unicorn would feel and did it a crimp forever. Am I? Do I hear this conversation? Yeah. Uh, no, I, the rest of all, talking about. Well, tiny twig, twig field. Nice. Stop.

Do you what again? The unicorn is certainly not in pain. It is dead, most certainly. No, removing a unicornsorn doesn't kill it. Well, it would have been easier to kill it first and then remove it. So logically, it is very likely dead, the thing that removes all pain. That doesn't make sense, though, because if you remove a unicorn sworn, they lose so many of its powers

and so it can't get away anymore so it's easily trapped and then you can do things like shaving off bits of its hooves to use the magical potions you can steal bits of its tail and hair and mane which have magical properties

unicorn blood is also very valuable it'd be stupid to kill a unicorn Twazzy I'm a little worried by how much you know about poaching unicorns no it's not just unicorns I know about poaching lots of things I know about lots of stuff just in general because I've run the inn for countless years

and I've met lots and lots of travels and new all kinds of stuff getting, you wouldn't know the horrors I've seen. How many of your patrons have been poachers? A few. They are Molly's favorite ones and most of the time I didn't let them stay. Who knew the poaching industry

and Hither was so booming? No, it's not hither, though. There's not much here. It's thither where all the stuff is. Because here it's so small, being gross, like all the pretty things don't stay here. They leave. So they get it all in thither and then bring it here to trade for, like, what? I mean, what are these guys?

The Darkling said they're from yon. That's Enderlund's place. And I guess it makes sense because of all the storm clouds and endlands all stormy and stuff. That makes me wonder where they tell me. the truth about the unicorn horn and it just happened upon them? Or is the unicorn and yawn? Well, I mean, if there's a unicorn out there that's still alive that's missing its horn and Cremie can possibly bring not said coupling and then gain a unicorn companion forever that'll rush to his aid in combat, I mean, that's pretty incredible.

It's possible the unicorn's dead. I just can't imagine some more harvesting a unicorn horn and then wasting the rest of the unicorn. I don't know why about unicorn poaching, but that tracks. It actually has me convinced. I think you should buy the horn. So while this is all happening. But what are you going to get me? Oh, here we go. I would have been trying to ask

as many questions as I can to trinket or bobble or whoever. I'm speaking to. And I guess Torbeck will be there too. And while I'm talking, and once I get a sense that like the chatter has stopped. I'll say,

um, brangin. Bannan. Sorry about that. Blu, Benangios. So anyway, do you know what you hear the... I'm allergic to those.

No, I don't. We just happened upon it. We confirmed its authenticity. And it is available for sale. If you are not interested in its purchase. And she closes

the lid over it and the prismatic light almost in like a quick I can't make the Derek noises but like you're kind of like that but you never like it's super bright and all of a sudden like in an instant

it disperses and it is almost shocking the way that it rocks you when you are thrown into darkness your eyes have all of the spots as they begin to try and adjust to the darkness that surrounds you. And you watch as she takes it

and she places it into a chest, closes it, and locks it. I look to see if Gideon and the vampire have started like tussling or doing physical. I'd like to, who are you talking to? Tranket.

The only one that's talking to you is Trinket. I'm talking Trinket. Hey, Bobble, Bobble. Hey, come over here. I want to get this bundle of sticks. She looks at you Okay You want a bundle of sticks

Yep, yep Perfect for my friend Just shouts her name All right That will be the rhythm in your step No, no, how about A toy of Spider Climb No, that will be

That would be the jig In your walk Well, shit Uh Well, you take any other kind of currency No You only take like Not for this bundle of sticks

It's a very Rare bundle of sticks Well, how is that the case? What does it do? How is it so rare? You want it Well, yeah, but I mean I could go outside and get a whole bunch of bundles of sticks Then do that Well, I don't want to do that I'm here with you

You have wares, I have a pseudo currency And I'd like to spend it here if you would accept it like a proprietor of a shop, probably. And as a customer, I expect you to pay the price of the rhythm in your walk. Well, damn. Well, to be fair, there's less of a jig in your walk and more of a holddown. Perhaps it will not be such a loss. Oh, well, I was going to, I was going to, you know, the classic, like, you know,

chain shifting. I was going to try and be like, hey, you know, can you break a, can you break a toy of spider climb? And then like, ah, man, well, here you go. And I'm like, ah, no, I think you gave me the wrong one. No, you need this. And just, you know, like, scramble them with a bunch of chains. I can hear everything. No, no, no. I mean, you know, well, except that anyway.

So, you know, oh, damn. Would you like to make the purchase or not? Oh. I don't know. This place is always sucking stuff out of us, you know? Like, memories. Not the fun way. While this is happening, I'm going to slowly try to like lean up to Dracula's cousin.

My name is Gregor Grim. My name is Griko Grim. Don't you recognize me, Krami? Buh. Gideon a bitch. He's going to say the same thing. Bo! Gideon.

How do you feel about this? great seasonal beverage blah blast well i don't know i can't say they've ever had it but i mean it sounds pretty good you know it doesn't surprise me that you haven't had it do you know why i mean well i don't know is it commonplace why would it i mean no i don't know why they don't serve it to bidsies oh fuck i'm so sick to you my cow his cattle i just show him into a wall damn it count grim grand i ain't you So damn much. The moment this happens, the moment this happens, and Torbeck realizes that he has a chance. He's done this before.

This is not his first time slinking in the shadows for God's knows what reasons. He takes a few steps back and begins to silently try to blend with the shadows. Only this time, something different happens, something that he doesn't really realize that he has no control over. the you feel the witchlight begin to let course through his veins as a mutagen

is used to increase my dexterity to 23 Torbeck will get longer and thinner and longer and thinner and longer and thinner until he's almost just a crack

in the door and then gone and I would like to attempt to go completely stealthy as possible in the shadows of this basket shop you get the sound of a plunger dropping

You dropping or landing? I don't know what to drop out. Like it needs to like It's like putting witchlight in his bits Oh, that kind of plunger Yeah. Like that kind of a drop? Yeah. Or you

Because when I think of a flunger dropping, I can think of a plunge. So I would say in this instance It's less like Gearing up in the last time. It's more, it's more because it's a slow drip. Oh, it's a drip. Because it's almost a, he doesn't really that his flesh is undulating.

He doesn't know that it's happening. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm just gonna roll for stealth. Is that all right? I like that. I like that. And because of how this is working, I had them roll at disadvantage.

I rolled a natural 20 for a 28. Oh. Yeah, you are easily able to make your way into the basket and make the swap if you so choose. Yeah, as soon as Torbeck thinks that he's done what he needs to do, he would very, you know, like, wisp through the shadows, attempt to swap the books.

And I will say you're easily able to do that with that stealth. I would have you do a slight of hand, but I'll have you do it at advantage, given the fact that they are easy, they're very clearly distracted and your self is so high. But in this moment, while all of this is happening, I need you to make a wisdom saving throw. Oh, give me the advice, yeah.

You look like you'd come to the kingdom of spirit, and pick out the daisy dudes. I'm so sick of you, man. But there's budget stretchy pants with the terrible denim paint that will very strike effort for one night. I'll take solace in the fact

you got no resources left, so I'm going to put you right in the damn arm and your whole thing's going to fall off. Stupid tendons. What is it? Kind of save? Wisdom. Rolled 11.

So 13. Nice. You hear the loud crack of thunder as lightning shoots out of the rain cloud. And you watch as Trinket raises her hand, you will be silent. And you immediately feel your body lock up as you are paralyzed as she casts whole person on you. I was choking Count Graham-Bron. I was doing this. Do not make us use more.

that we have at our disposal to deal with unruly customers. Don't how they go, man! I will give you one more chance to make your purchase quietly or leave. She snaps her fingers and drops the whole person. Do you understand what I'm saying? It's very welcome an establishment. Geez, a couple of guys can't even scuffle around, break a whole bunch of stuff.

We have some very important. important objects here with high price tags. We can't have them broken when two imbeciles can't control themselves and their animalistic urges. So you're saying that the business is good. Whatever is happening here, I don't like it. You should come to the autumn gold. She reaches into our pocket and she pulls out this black powder that glitters that in the moonlight and she looks towards you

and she blows it into your face and you immediately feel the witchlight fading from you as Grico begins to return. Well, they feel a bl bl bl bl bl bath form. She takes a red, not even a red, a dark purple velvet bag with an embroidered crescent moon on the front and sets it down on the counter. Should you choose to purchase anything today?

I think you will need this, so we'll offer this free, dispelling dust, to forgo whatever that was in the future. First one is free, I guess. Only three charges, though, so use it wisely. Thank you. If you choose to make a purchase today. Oh, my apologies. I would be interested in perhaps your most powerful item. and what you'd be willing to trade for.

I understand, based on the suggested trades that you've given my companions, that it's not going to be something physical. I have trinkets that I've found across the land, but that you're interested in something more. So, please, I'd be curious. What do you have to offer? I'm Count Grumple, and I... I'm sorry, what?

I'm Count Grumple. It's a pleasure to meet you. Oh, yes. And I seek only the most powerful artifacts. I'd be curious to know what I'd be trading for before putting anything on the table. Well, let us see what we have. Roll a D10 for me, please. Gimme.

Oh, that's weird. Is the unicorn horn box opaque? But you can't see the horn through the box. It's entirely closed. So it has a box of its own, which has a wooden, base and then a glass casing that goes over it. She took that and put it into a chest

and locked it. How much do you think the chest weighs, roughly? More than your mage hand can carry. I don't have mait-hand. Probably around 250 pounds. Jesus. We only need 25 mage-hands. It's a big fucking chest.

Oh, God, it's like a safe. A knife. imagine that there's more in it than just the unicorn horn? This is like their treasure bolt. You got a nine? This is the hand of Vickna. I'll pick it. That's the one.

I'll trade my penis for it. My left testicle. I wasn't using it anyway. Roll a D-100 for me, please. A D-100? I've only had my D-100 machino. It's fucking good.

Where is it? Here is this. Give me that 14 action. 14 on D-100. Okay. My left testicle suddenly disappears. Well, we did acquire this

recently. And she goes over to that same chest, and she pulls the key from around her neck, unlocks it, and she pulls out a beautiful blade that glows with a dark purple light. This is a luck blade.

Oh, wow. Does it cut does it kill luck? Or does it do you stab into? I'm not quite sure. I just know that it's priced very highly. Well, I appreciate the physical, certainly. I'm looking for something more to benefit my mind.

To expand. Oh, right. And she puts it back in. Roll another D-10. A D-10? I'm just hoping that no one has noticed that fucking Torbex is missing. Oh, I think this will probably do the trick.

A three. No, D-100 for me, please? I'm feeling very jiggly. 43. Okay, okay. Well, oh, I don't think this will help you. It's a potion of frost giant strength. We'll just toss that back.

Oh yeah Roll another D-10 And then a D-100 This time five This time 15 So luck blade plus one Well

A learned man I have a spell scroll here etched with the letter or with a number eight you're drawn to threes and eights, aren't you? How do you know this about, Count Grumple? I can see it in your eyes. This would not have come to me

in such a random way if it weren't drawn to you. Well, what are its contents? Perhaps I am interested in a trade and you're dispelling dust as a headed benefit. Well, you can find out when you unrule the scroll. It came to you by chance. I believe you should take a chance on it.

And in exchange, I want an ounce of your fear. Just one ounce. And she pulls from her robe of tiny bile. Just enough to fill this vial. Vile. What say you, Count Crumple? I don't see why there would be any harm in having less fear, aren't me? I'm gonna know the chest. I'm eyeball when I've seen how many of it is. Grego?

What are your thoughts? All mean, that sounds pretty good. You know, some fear doesn't sound too bad. Could be that you lose. You're losing some of the fear you got. Could be that they can use it against you. I mean, imagine a better weapon. You're on fears. bottled up, thrown back at you, whatever they plays. If that's their game. We could sell the bomb. They could do whatever they want with it.

It's a risk. But I also must find out what's in that scroll. If it's threes and eights, it could be everything that we needed to be here. It's all these problems to help us work our way through this adventure and find ourselves whole on the other side. I'm no math magician, but I feel like there ain't no way numbers

is going to help us in the situation, Frosty? I will. Go on. Oh, that was it. No, that was it? So, I mean, is it worth the price, but the price don't sound too bad. Seems like a weird price to spend

for Adam's sight unseen. Would you like me to pay, can I pay the price too? If we're all a unit. Oh, we're all some fellows. No. Oh. If you want this scroll,

scroll of eight that came to you, you will pay the price for it. I do believe we have a deal. Lovely. And she takes the vial, and she leans towards you, and she takes her, her fingers are very long, and her nails are long and pointed.

And she slowly runs her fingernail up under your chin. And as she gets to the tip of her chin, your mouth voluntarily opens, and you all notice a small wist pulled out of him, and as she swirls it around and places it on the rim of the glass, you watch as it fills the glass with a strange, greenish,

um, luminance. She corks it and places it into her pouch. She reaches forward. She grabs the, the purple velvet sack of the, of the dispelling dust and the scroll, and she places them in your hands. It was a pleasure doing business with you. Great. Thank you. Um, yes. Do I feel any different? You feel a tiny bit lighter, but you're not quite sure why. A fair trade, thank you. And did you want the sticks? Thank, man.

It seemed like weird trades. And you, the unicorn horn. I will offer a final time. It's almost the hour of closing, so we're about to set up shop. Nice, uh, nice chest this. Who made it? Unsured. It's mighty, sturdy.

You got a good block on? very much so. Is it like a magical lock? I kind of magic a lock. Yes. What kind of magical lock you're not going to be able to break into? No, I wouldn't. What do you take me for? You think I'm going to break any of your chest? No, I'm not that kind of person.

All wisdom saving from. She cares to turn inside out. That's probably pretty good. Are both of my characters proficient? Wisdom? Mm-hmm. Oh, they are. 17.

Wow. Um, uh, Twister Dread. Oh. Thank you, Chad, for that. Thank you, Chad. You got him. I'm gonna use the big fucker for this.

I love that. I feel close. Yeah, that'll be. It bounced off of the 18, like, so hard. Those monster dice, they do not. They're harsh mistresses. Man. I fail.

Almost certainly. Nine. You just made it The DC was eight Hold on, I have to Yeah You will not Break into it

You cannot steal the unicorn Horn within If you want it You will have to pay the price Just like all the rest Before you And don't try to Weasel your way out of it

I know what's on the surface of your mind. Do I have a sense of what was cast on me? That's what I was looking. You technically don't know. I don't think she's hiding it, though. I think it's very clear if she's cast, detect thoughts on you. Okay. Not suggestion.

That was worded in a specific way, though. Yeah. You'd probably have a recognizing feeling from when I get flippy. It's a nice porn, all right? I mean, it's beautiful and cute. Look at it. I do want it. Are you willing to meet me halfway with anything?

Like maybe... No. The color of my left toe. Big toe. Big toe. Left big toe. The color of your eyes and not a pigment less. What color are coming's eyes?

Yellow. There yellow. Okay. And I promise you, this will be the only unicorn worn you ever come cross. So this is a once in a lifetime opportunity for something so useless as a color. I think this is some kind of trick. I think you're saying color, it's super vague and mysterious and all Fay Wildlike and then I'm going to agree to it. And then all of a sudden my eyeballs

are going to melt out of my fucking skull. I've seen it happen. Not with Fay magic, but with shadow magic, I've seen it done. Well, you have a decision to me. make then, don't you? To decide if it's worth the risk. It's a terrible side. Guys, like, turn in acclamation and they're just like, who's out? That doesn't sound pleasant. But we will be closing soon. Oh, I didn't get to look at things. I was kind of possessed by some creepy guy who's alluded to bananas. Which is the opposite of what my whole thing is.

I will give you a moment to look around. Make up your minds, please. Yeah. And I'll be back with you, Shookely. Do you have anything bespoke after you stare into my eyes and this is exactly what you want? She looks towards you. She leans over the basket.

She looks down at you and stares into your eyes. There is nothing inside that head. Oh, damn. And she creeps back into the shadows and sits down. That being sad, please roll a D10. Well, thank you. I like to consider myself very neat entirety. You know what they say?

If it doesn't bring you joy, you should part with it. An eight. So you put it with that sweet thing. I read the whole brain. A D100. I blink it too. My eyes blink. Uh, not insane.

He's very open-minded. Oh, yeah, Frank you. I'm very open-minded. wanted to give a fool. Wow. You've got your divine intervention. I got a good divine intervention. In the meantime, as you are amongst yourselves,

she is looking through the chest trying to find something for you, Grico, and is leaving the rest of you to your devices. Bobble is once again in her seat. You see that she is wrapping up the bundle of twigs almost. convinced that you will be buying them as she smiles over at you and her eyes move between you and Twig

who you now notice is staring up at you Kittian did I hear you're going to get twigs for Twig? I'm trying Twigsie but they want they want my what do they want to you? They want

The whimsical way you walk They want the rhythm in your step. They want the rhythm in my step Twigsie and if I'm honest with you dancing's all I know it's incredible oh

that's okay I don't need anything from this once in a lifetime shop Oh This opportunity Oh man I will make you give up anything

For me kid Oh get it's It's just a bunch of sticks We can go, you know, walk three feet and collect that. Oh, but she's doing the eyes, crummy. She's doing the eyes, man. Look at her. You see her eyes welling up.

They're filling with tears as she's choking back her sobs. Oh, never ask too much of you, idiot. It's like the rain falling out of two damn moons sitting side by side, man. I'm going to break. Look, let me put it this way. All right, kid. I got voodoo. I got hoodoo.

I got things I ain't even tried. But you, the way you walk that santa, that's the voodoo and hoodoo that you do. Oh, man. It's a cool thing to say. Don't give that up for the world, kid. You wouldn't be good. Well, God, I'm really torn to tweet what's happening on the side of me.

Oh, God. kidding if you are going to make a friend why bundle of sticks get something nicer oh man you're supposed to be the smart one frosty i am being the smart one it's because her name's twig that's my name frost i know you forgot it

but that's okay it's like a collection of twigs man it's calling her name it's like little me's but in wood form i hadn't thought about it that way you're right, I just thought of the value of one wolf's six. Frost, I hate to tell you this, but gifts aren't about how much they cost or what they are.

It's about the intention behind them, you know? And this was thoughtful. It was a thoughtful gift for Dwig. I retract my statement. And so it's okay if you don't want to give up your swagger for that special thing you wanted to get me unpromised. I see that you're very much. really struggling, Kittian, and it's very difficult for you to make a decision. Both, it's a very hard decision to make. But in times like these, what I'll do and what you should

do is think about the time that we learned the decision-making framework when we met the Sugandis. Who were the Sugondees, man? The Sugondies, nuts. God! I would like for you to roll a D-20, please. I'm... I'm all... Way too obvious. The wonderful people's of Sudania. They're Sudanese.

I will let you know what happens to you soon. I wrote a four of my D100. Have you decided whether you're going to make your purchases or not, and as for you? You are, what are you? The goblin, of course. Thank you, I'm saying. I felt like this is my people are from the farewell, I think.

I feel a sense of magical ability about you. I get my powers from primal spirits. You're a druid, of course. And I'm met, and they helped get my life around. Yes, okay, whatever, druid. you use a weapon My weapon Are the spirits

I call upon Druids And me friends And do you have an actual weapon you use I Are you just Oh grass do my bidding No it's not grass

It's more like the spirits of monsters And other friendly people that I'll make friends with I don't know I don't like Yeah Yeah yeah yeah You mostly with like Animals and Beasties

And monsters and gross things And these guys But I repeat myself Hmm If you don't use weapons at all I mean I could I mean I have this cobweb gun This won't work for you at all

I mean I could use a weapon though I mean depending on what it is No that's fine thing. We will... That's like your weapon, man. I mean, I'll have me al-Qarina. Roll a D-10. Your weapon's the spoken word, man. Five.

And a D-100. Oh, we're going to decide. 51. All right. No, I'm knocking through this chest, and I'm not finding anything for you. I wanted to have a mysterious bargain. Unfortunately. I mean, I could provide you

with a potion of storm giant's stress. but... It broke. You should look in the back. That's like giving it. Fine. You know, I will look one more time for you if she agrees to buy the unicorn horn. Torviggins has had 57 minutes to make this swap.

No, I already told me he did. Oh, nice. Oh, I forgot to tell you what my roll was for the sleight of hand. Oh, I thought you did. Nope. Oh, what is it? I rolled an 18 in another natural. Oh.

Duh, easy. You are easily able to... And you are so liable that she's moving around this basket, constantly getting into this safe and pulling out magical items. On occasion, she should have bumped into you. But you are so melded into the shadows that she notices nothing at all as you're able to just move behind her as she darts around. It is impressive.

Once the deed is done, I would like to return to standing right beside Cremie as if I never left. And Torbeck is so stealthy because he is very easy to forget about it. Oh, it's as if he was never gone. Fair. And Torbeck was here at a whole time. So are you going to buy the unicorn horn or not? Wait, so just for him to buy something, I got to buy something? You're all wasting my time.

Come on, Greby. Don't do this to me. You don't even know what it is. I know, but I guess. It's a gangster game. It could be something really good. I can get a platinum each star wifu. I might be able to get my wife with the USS John McCain.

It could be the keys to a speed mode. I wish that will speak. The what? No, those are pens. Also, Bricko with a potion of false giant strength is like giving a chimpanzee a machine gun. All right, so... All right, so what's the deal, then?

If I buy this thing, you take the color of my eyes... And you get a unicorn on. And I have the unicorn on. And then we will take the balance in your steps and you will get these twigs. And what can he buy? I'd like to see what he will be able to purchase and then maybe I'll be considered it.

literally just explained the situation. Do you? I'm trying to... Yes, you have tried and you have failed. That's failed. That's fair. That's fair. Well, uh, I have one more question. I have set prices. May I ask my last question?

Sure. What's your return policy? We have no return policy. I think that's illegal in Brisbane. I think you're legally required. I think you're legally required to have a 14-day return policy. I guess that was like the carnival. No reason.

Damn, man. These guys probably charged for eyes. They didn't all for us water when we came in here. Ridiculous. If I'm going to take one for the team, fellas? I think we go for it, man. I mean, you want that unicorn on. Imagine.

You could have a unicorn compadre. If you ever reunited with it. Yeah, I really do want to. Damn, that'd be cool. It would be really cool. I'm in support of this now also. I have a feeling that if we do this, we're in our hour of nils.

that unicorn's gonna come out and save us. Has anybody seen my whore? I want to steal. All right, damn it, I'll fucking do it. I love this. We have a deal. She does not extend her hand in the way that you would have hoped. She reaches out and she swirls her hand

and she pulls from your eyes two wisps of yellow and you watch as they turn to gold and begin to spin. Oh, this is so bad. She looks towards you and she says, Hugh, be mine. And as she does this, two replica crummy eyeballs appear in her hand. Does he do have his eyes? Are his eyes wax?

You look into his eyes, his eyes look exactly as they had been before. But now, where the yellow had been, it is just a slate gray. Oh. some of my compact mirror that's kind of cool it actually looks a little badass she takes the eyes and places them into her pocket all right

within a sink yeah I actually agree there's a quality about them gives you sort of a smoky look more mysterious more mature a little bit of salt and pepper yeah exactly

a touch of gray yeah yeah yeah almost like I'm shadow touched you know like the shadow Oh, wow. Oh, let me get you. Yeah, I was gonna say, please. Roll a D-10 for me, Grico.

Oh, D-10? A five. Okay, roll a D-100. There's always at the back, you know. They always got a whole bunch of stuff back there. A 41, almost 42. Oh. Oh, it looks like for you, we have a potion of storm giant's strength.

Go get your unicorn horn And she goes and she gets the unicorn worn She wraps it up And she stops for a moment And reaches back inside of the Inside of the chest And she looks towards you Though your head is empty

Your heart is not You have a daughter, don't you? Or do She holds up a cute little She holds up a cute little ugly Christmas sweater, ugly Yule Tide sweater that has owl bears and Santa hats all over it. A sweater for your daughter. That is the best thing I've ever seen.

That is so fresh and forward. She's a little fashion Easter. She's going to love it. It is not just simply a sweater. It will provide her additional protection in battle. to keep those closest to you safe. All I require is your greatest joke. Oh, man. Tell her the handbush one.

What? Tell her the handbush one. That's the best one. And she walks over and hands you the unicorn horn. Or, oh wait. She walks over to you with unicorn horn. She hasn't handed it over yet. I need some time to think. I got a lot of really good jokes. You don't get to choose. I already have a joke in mine.

Oh! Which one? The one that DM eats the mother. But I was saving for the grand finale. Oh, it was going to be the rule of free, and no one was going to be expecting the last one as a cherry on a Sunday. Oh! a deal.

Oh, you try of a hard bargain bubble or trinkets. Trinket. Trinket. Our new was Trinket. That's why I said it's second. More recent that way. Yeah, it's more on your head.

The art of negotiation, you may have one deal with me right now, presently. I don't trade very often. she reaches forward and she tickles your stomach with her mouth. And as you chuckle, you watch as the laugh bubbles up into an actual bubble and it floats through the air.

And as it gets to her, she swirls it around on her finger and pops it. And you hear in Grico's voice the words, deez nuts. Grico can never again make a dees nuts joke. Amazing. We can make Derek for that. He slipped me a note. He said, Oh, Grego.

A nice sweater for Hootsie in exchange for all his D's nuts jokes. That's pretty well. That's really good. Well done. I can't dig round for that. That was Derek. But for the sake of it, she does hand you over a plus one to armor. Oh, shit.

Nice. Jokes on her that only ran its cool. She's going to love it That's the end of the deal Oh, Jay D. Master negotiator Oh, God Well, thank you very much

You're just going to love it Thank you very much, drink it I'm so glad you found that in the back See, oh, there's always a back Man, you were right, I thought you're going to be so wrong Do you like this bundle of sticks? Everybody's doing it, Gideon. That is what convinced me in this moment.

It's not to be left out in the deals. I look down at Twig whose eyes are like, you know, Pousin boots and when he wants it. All right, just take it. Take it and give me the sticks. Lovely, bubble, will you do the on earth? Just don't do the chin thing to me, all right? Just do it some other way.

Bobble actually reaches to the side to a shelf to the left and she pulls out a wooden marionette and as she begins to move it you feel your body dance along with it and as you dance you will watch as ropes strands move from Gideon's limbs to the marionette and the marionette captures his swagger and his walk exactly as he had had it Oh, Jesus. Bobble begins to chant. One, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three. It is done. Deprived of your rhythm, you lose all talent for dancing. But she hands you the bundle of sticks.

Does it do anything cool? What is the bundle of sticks? It's what you want to. Great, no, that's it. Great. Thank you. It's a plus one. It's up for me?

Wigsy, I knew you would love it, all right? Here you go. A bundle of sticks. She looks at all the sticks and, Don't like that one. Don't like that one. This one's too short. She breaks one.

Oh, I'm that cute. I'll be cute, I guess. Oh, yeah. But this one's so cool. And she starts waving it around and you realize that she's not holding a stick. She's holding a wand. The elder wand. Bo!

A woman, she's looking at a wood! She's been looking at this beautifully gnarled piece of wood that has been shaped and molded into what is clearly a wand. And at the very tip of it, you see that it is covered in step mushrooms and other bits of algae and fungi.

And at the very tip of it, there is a beautiful black or part of a beautiful black diamond. Well, damn, that's pretty cool. Wow. Well, I'm not very powerful now. Thanks for much. Boo. Boom. Oh, sorry.

Everyone dies. Well, twigs for a twig. I'm glad you're happy, Twigsie. Thank you, me too. Sorry that you walk like that now. Nobody look at it. Was it worth it? Well, I don't know.

It doesn't know what the wand could do, man. Honestly, I mean, it's like, you know, it kills witching the ass probably. Let me see that, Twit. You're just going to have to put me in a wheelchair, wheel me around the swamp, right? It's a wand of walking properly. Oh, my God.

Yeah, incredible, listen, I didn't know. Oh, fantastic. Well, I'm glad it wasn't too bad a price. For me, I thought that she was going to, I was going to have to become a mind goblin. What's a mind goblin? Brickle, what's a mind goblin, man? Hell of me out. I haven't ever heard of it.

I don't understand, man, but I'd like finish the dog. Why would you ask me, what's a mind goblin? If you can't articulate, what's a mind goblin? You run into that, like, is that what Glorbo was? Is Glorbo mind goblin? A single tear will run down my cheek. I don't understand. Is he just not talking?

Is something happened to him? No, I don't know. A psionic... A psionic practitioner after learning the art of the mind from Frosty. That is exactly correct. That's one of my goblinists. A goblin that mines, like, with his brain. No, mind, mind goblin.

Something about brain. Yeah. Yeah. That's what a mind goblin is. this. Okay. Yep. I thought that's what I was going to have to do to use psionics on him.

And another tear old going on my cheek. And as you are saying this, you begin to feel the magics of the witch light overcome you. As I thought you forgot about that. I did not. I just have to remember which one. As you realize you weren't unable to

control your own volume, speaking either too quietly or too loudly. You know, it was... What to shut! You just give me the fucking either going home and get the hell out of here. Oh, yeah. Please.

I've loved doing business with all of you. And now, with this final exchange, bubble and charms is closed. This podcast is brought to you by our Patreon. Become a patron today at patreon.com slash legends of avatrous and gain access to tons of exclusive perks, including a monthly movie night, and a weekly Patreon exclusive campaign set on the high seeds, shroud over salt marsh. You can also go to The Crooked Moon.com

to pick up your own copy of our first published supplement, The Crooked Moon, a folk horror tome for Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition. And don't forget to snag all of the extra goodies, like dice, miniatures, plushies, a tarot deck, and more. Thank you. She puts up the closed sign and hands you the unicorn one. How does it feel when I hold it? It's vibrating with a magical energy,

but you imagine that this case that it's in buffers that, and you wouldn't really get a true understanding of what it's capable of unless you physically held the unicorn horn, which she would not allow you to do. But now I'm bowling it, right? It's mine now. You're holding the case. You would have to open the case and hold the unicorn,

but yes, it is yours now. It's in a display case. Yes, it's in a display case. case. All right. Pleasure doing business with you, I guess. Was it? Was it?

I'm glad of Hank the chip. Um, the box. Do you have dark vision? Not anymore. I don't think so. Did they lizard folk and not believe have dark vision? Wow, that really looks

amazing up close. No, you can see it says a Hattachi on the side. The Oval collection. Do you already see that? Oh, no one of these same senses. Hold on. I have dark vision. You still don't have that much,

all right. Hey, Hey, Torbeck. You successfully false flag! No! Everybody right. What to do? Enjoy the color and whatever else he traded,

his walk and his joke. I'm trying to walk away, man I just don't look at me You don't normally look your knees so high That's very weird It's just I don't know how else to do it anymore Just walk like natural It's like, yeah, I'm trying

I'm just, let me No, no no no Just because he lost rhythm It can't, no no no Surely you haven't lost that much rhythm Just one, two, one, two, right? You look like you're trying to walk across the desert And not attract the attention of the shy of the lured

Can you please normally? Yes, that's much better than that I was about to make it. What was that? We're never going to get away from me. What was it? Huh? All right. We carry on.

So you make your way down the path from Bobble and Charms and you turn to look back and you see that the lightning that the storm cloud is roiling. But it doesn't look like Bobble and Charm are running the shop any

longer where they've gone, who knows. But there is a big closed sign at the front of the shop and all is quiet. The sounds of cicadas singing off in the distance can be heard. And there is a lot of

noise and revelry coming from the soggy palace that is just up the path and around the corner. I did it, guys. I was going to say, we all got something. Did you make an exchange? You could say that, yeah.

So you have the other book with you. I totally forgot about that. What's the other book? Torbeck didn't look. It's wrapped in a similarly disgusting gloss. It's yours now, if you want it. Perhaps it'll be of some value to you. Da-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-da-da.

Duh! Head out the book. You do? Oh, that's great. It's a leather-bound tome, and what had looked like an empty wizard spellbook you see is clearly a tome of something,

but it is written in runic languages and languages all across the plains, and it is far beyond your comprehension of understanding. Oh, Torba can't read this. Oh well Torbeck will wrap it back up and stick it back in the filthy sack All right, that's cool, though, but...

Yeah! You didn't need to yell back. Rusty! Oh, are you feeling the influence of Wicholite? No! No! All right, he's under the influence of the influence. Oh, again.

This happened to me earlier. No! Yes. It just... I feel hard. It doesn't really feel that different. It is a little hard to tell that it's not just him being him. Yeah.

Nice sweater! Just think about the sweater while we make our way in the castle. All right! I do not communicate with him with my mind. I do not even start to go there. I can't believe we committed a false flag. Toop-toot passers by. What do you do?

What did they say? I open the universe box and I touch it. You open the box and the radiant light shoots out everywhere. And you are all encircled by this light. and it is brilliant and it is warm and it is beautiful and it feels good. Not in the normal sense, but in the benevolent sense. There is an aura of kindness and joy while you're standing in this shroud of prismatic light. And as you reach forward and touch the horn, it vibrates in your hand, this thrumming of magic and power.

as your eyes go white. Oh. It is a vibrator. You perverse. That's pretty fucking good. Oh, it's the frotha that comes with that shitty mushroom tea. There's definitely a bad dragon joking somewhere. It's mainly that glows in the dark, you know.

It doesn't do that. You know what? It doesn't do anything. It's a fake. It's just a shock. No, I'm kidding. That's how I know Tiffany's going when it's that ringtone. You, your eyes go pure white, and you all watch.

His cremese body goes completely rigid, and his eyes turn this strange, pearlescent light. And you see that his face. face is moving like he's taking in tons of information all at once and cremie. You see a beautiful glade, green grass, an emerald river with a beautiful grassy knoll in the very center. The river rings around it. And lying in the sun beneath a tree is a beautiful white unicorn, young and happy and joyful. And you realize that you are looking through the eyes of a child, the eyes of a young boy. As he's on the banks hand in hand with a beautiful young girl, they're staring out at this unicorn, he points and she laughs and smiles.

They rummage around in a sack together. You see that it's filled with toy soldiers and dolls and different beasts and wild things of the Fay Wild. And they sit on the banks. they build a house out of sticks and leaves and other fauna that they find flora

flora that they find on animals I'm imagining this will be the roof you make one mistake man he's burnt and it ruins the scene good morning Can I please tell you what you're seeing without joke?

And they build a house together, and they giggle and they laugh, and their friendship is beautiful, as they stare out at this unicorn that doesn't even seem to notice them. But it is definitely clear that the light from this horn, a horn that you now feel incredibly attuned to as you hold on to it, are one and the same. The light from that horn casts a powerful glow over this glow. that makes everything look just as you would expect, more prismatic, more beautiful, more happy. And it is a glorious memory as all of a sudden it begins to shift and crack. And you're looking out at this glade and it is still beautiful, though the light has dimmed a bit as you see the unicorn laying there. It's gotten older. It's not as young. The light from the horn is not as strong.

as you're looking out of the eyes of no longer a young boy, but a young man, as he stares alone at the unicorn. And in his hand is a broken toy. The light shifts and changes. And you find yourself back in that glade. It's no longer beautiful. It's no longer green. Lightning crackles overhead as storm clouds roll in. And the unicorn weeps, as its horn no longer present.

It causes no light to shine in this area. And you see that all around it in circles, the edges of the glade are these large metal towers, almost like lightning conductors. And you watch as the sky roils with storm clouds. And as the lightning shoots off, it connects with one of these rods. And you see the lightning bounce from one to the next, creating almost like a cell, a prison for this unicorn. its horn no longer attached. You realize that you are looking through not the eyes of a young boy,

but the eyes of a man. And as you look down, you see boots. Boots you have seen before. Boots you recognize. But wasn't that only a dream? As the image cracks, and you find yourself back and hither with your friends holding onto this unicorn horn,

wondering what this vision is that you saw before you. I have like tears in my eyes. Well, was it worth it? I made a terrible mistake. You okay, Miff? The unicorn's missing his horn, and he's probably a lot of pain. Mr. Crammy, are you all right?

So, we gotta get to my private, all right? We don't know who's fucking listening. You can't fucking owls anywhere? I'm sure looking for owls. Like you see that. Owls? No else? No? Let's get to the castle and perhaps we can find a private quarter to where, uh...

Keep your voice down, Frosty! Ah! You're scared to scare, Dormack! I'm endeavoring to do so. It's important. Can you see, cramins, what? Say that again in my mind. They couldn't quite hear you and when you whisper like that.

Can you see, Grimmish distresses very much. We need to keep it down. And for the sake of your voice, Mike, and your sinus infection that I forgot about, you feel the magic's thing. It feels like clutching his heart. I thought that was the big one, fellas.

Oh, great cooking, Torbeck A, fam. Wait, what are you looking for? Let's go to a quiet place. Yeah. Surely we'll be able to find a quiet place when we have the King's Grace and our titles. All right. I mean, I just, as long as we get somewhere private,

and then maybe y'all can touch it as well and see what you see. The horn. The horn. Yeah, the fucking horn What the fuck you think I mean? Just making sure Wait, what?

Second time that's happened today. Well, why don't we should we talk about it Maybe before we get to the castle, though? Yeah, there's a whole big shindig happening over there. This is like a way everybody's at the castle right now. It's not going to be any private moments over there.

Everyone will be distracted, especially if we have some sort of quarters or something. I assume we would have a place to be just ourselves for a moment at least before we have to join in the festivities maybe what if they have like an event

coordinator that's always talking to us and it's coming in every 20 seconds to say like hey you ready hey you ready for an electric chef then we'll stab them through the heart with the unicorn horn and we'll continue on our way damn I like this new frosty all right to the castle

no no no it's not the ace thing no okay no I mean yeah no that's crazy we've already come from here no fear we've already come from my I've compromised our morals, it's got a bit. And you know if we go, if we have private quarters,

criminal will be like, hey, what I do, what I do. Well, what I saw was, oh, you're up in five minutes. And I said, okay, what I was saying was, oh, do you need anything? And then we'd be forced to get them.

That's the same thing. So we can't. That's a good point. No. Vince me. Say no more, Grego. What are you like a lot? Tower.

You know it's going to happen. That's exactly what would happen to us. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking, man. I mean, it's just every time we're in the event, there's always a coordinator, and they're always asking about towels. There's nowhere else to go. Why don't we just go right there? That's a totally private cave.

Oh, yes. Let's go inside the dark, scary cave that suddenly emerged in the house right here. Is there a scary swamp cave? Did I miss that? Sure. In my... All right. Oh, let's go into the fucking cave.

And we'll have a confusing experience with our father. We'll see our father. the reverse from a mask, and then we'll leave shakingly, and it'll be a little straight. What, you say, more dad's in there? I never met him. Torbeck doesn't want any of that. We had to cut his head off first, and then you can see it.

Oh, no, I don't want to cut me dad's head off. Then your dad's gonna be you. Yes. What? And he was the Skellington all along. Thank you. Uncle Globo used to sing a song about something like that. Anyway, let's go.

For you, I imagine it might be your uncle, actually. We go into the dark spooky cave that emerged. Oh, do you? We do. Yeah, you make your way towards a rocky outcropping. You do find a cave. It is covered in moss, and it is damp and dank. And as you get inside, there are these strange glowing mushrooms that puff and let off spores.

The air is filled with fungal spores. all right look when I touched the horn you begin to hallucinate I saw the color of schmoppel and

then the unicorn was there and it was like all the clocks it was what I love I love unicorns okay we know we've established that

quite a bit already but you're intensely hallucinating because of these mushrooms was that canon dungeon mistress of oh man I mean just the walls are peeling rainbows

but that seems normal for around here I mean I guess it was this unicorn horn anything's possible how can we be in a cave right now this is a swamp wouldn't it have flooded long ago this is impossible we're in I'm a king of the swamp I'm the swamp master you're just swamp you're a swamp

you're Mr. Swarmmeister You're Mr. Stake Oh, that's nice I can't tell if I'm just Oh thank you too much I've somehow managed to moisturize Even in our adventure Twig

Your eyes are like Big pools Thanks I'm eating juice out of the bottom of this Toadstool over here Oh class of twid Licking mushrooms and drinking right out of, you know, drugs. Drugs.

Drinking right out of drugs. Drinking right out of drugs. An elder angered evil polar bear spirit just mulled my left arm off. He said, nice, nice. He tore it off. He did? And he kicked me down a fire hole. He did?

And now he's swimming away with my arm. Come back. Evil polar base. Spirit. Torbeck is just on the ground of mouth, on the cave floor, just like doing a brush drug. I wonder what's on the scroll that I secured with my fear. That won't be relevant at all. Oh.

Did you feel fear? Fasting. I need you all to roll a wisdom saving throw for me, please. And disadvantage because you're hallucinating. Fucking twig. Uh-oh. Oh. She's mis-sand-dry.

Drinking out of drugs. Can't let them all hot. I got a 12. I got an 11. Five. Disadvantage? I don't even know what I'm going on. Disadvantage.

Whizance. Whiz. That's a plus. Five. It's nine. I know. Dorming got 12. Eight.

15. 15. You all feel your, your, you all feel yourselves coming. Sorry, I'm eating egg drop.

You all feel yourself. Excuse me, excuse me, oh, excuse me. Oh, excuse me. I punched you 20 times, you would die. Just to make sure I'm on the side on the right page. Come from a long, proud line of murderers. We all feel ourselves coming, is what you say. I'm like an eyeball or maybe a tooth.

Will anyone else feel that? For a whole week? Yeah. You just get it? I just can't stop. Okay. No matter what you do, you can't stop coming. Oh, man.

I think this is the answer to ghost stream. Ghost, we're going to go to the ghost stream. I think we have to go deeper into this cave. No, that's not what happened. Remember the state, Ross wants to borrow that Hitachi, man. You are all hallucinating wildly, and you have spun yourself around and walk so deep into this cave, you can no longer find the way out. As you, as you feel a lightheadedness overtake you, and you notice as you walk deeper in,

you see a mushroom that you have only heard about before. If you go deeper and deeper in, you see that it takes the shape of a witch's hat. And its underside is pulsing with a magenta light, as magenta spores fly up into the air around it and circle around all of you. And you feel yourselves begin to lose consciousness. You wake up. You are lying in the swamp. There is no rocky outcropping in no cave. It doesn't feel like much time is past at all.

And as you look off to the side, you see that very clearly, Boblin Charms is just close. You actually notice that Bobble walks back up towards the basket and takes something out, put something back, and walks back down the dock heading somewhere off in the opposite direction. But the moon seems to be at the same point in the sky, and the sounds of jubilation are still present at the soggy castle. That cave you had just been in. That's not here. or it never was. Or it was, but it's not here now. And you all have benefited from a long rest.

Oh, wow. My resource, my very precious, precious Duned and Dragons resources. So precious. Sometimes we have to remember that we are playing a game. Wow, that's huge. Okay, back into the session. I feel refreshed after the strange cave mushrooms. You wake up on the ground. It is soft and wet beneath your backs, and the cave is nowhere to be found.

We just did the mushroom samba from... Yeah. Mushroom hunting. Mushroom hunting. It feels surprisingly refreshed. Does everyone else feel okay? What the fuck was that? What was that? I knew it.

Oh, accidentally. Hi. Wait, wait, I knew it. This is all connected. I saw that mushroom before. What must run? You're the only one that's seen it? That short fella. The dwarf-y-looking guy. Yeah.

The dwarf-esque fellow. Yeah, he was dwarf-esque. But not full dwarf, you know? It just reminded me. Like a fade dwarf. I don't even know. I don't know. You tell me.

I don't know. He was very hairy. Anyways, we saw it and then you said that you had the unicorn or almost. You had a dream or a vision? Is anybody around? I don't think so. No fucking owls, no owls. Okay, I saw a vision

I was looking through the guy's eyes. You know? And I'll like gesture to tour back and I'll be like, you know what I mean? The guy in the throne. What did we see of his? We only see his boots or do we see his whole person? You only saw his boots.

We have not seen him. Didn't we see the doctor's boots? Or we saw that guy? We saw the doctor's boots too, but we saw. You saw these boots when you saw the dwarf-esque entity walk into the throne room, and you saw his legs crossed one. He was sitting on the throne.

You saw one leg crossed over the other. You saw his very tight pants and his boots. And his huge bulge. And his huge bulge. I was clearly inspired by something. Torbeck doesn't like this. Does that mean that they're closer to finding us? No, no, no, it can't be.

No, I think that's exactly what this means. No. I saw he was a boy and he was an adolescent. And then he was an adult. And he was with another friend. Was it like a playmate in the beginning? In the very first image you saw he was holding hands with a young girl roughly his age. Yeah, he was with the girl his age.

They were probably like maybe 12. What did he look like? Yeah. You were looking through his eyes. Oh, duh. I saw his feet. What did she look like? What did she look like?

She was rosy cheek, bright-eyed, happy. There was nothing. I would say there were no defining features about her that caught your life. What about species? You human? Roll a perception check. Tun, tongue, tongue. Surely you also saw the sort of transparent nose just in front of the eyeballs.

Twist it. Twist it, twist it. Twist it. It's a little late for the curse. We don't do that anymore. We don't do that anymore. Oh, it's too late for a curse. Okay, it's one better.

Yeah. A terrible night to have a curse. Oh, what a terrible night. 14. 14. She appeared to be at least humanoid. She, to you, she appeared to be a human. Yeah, I mean, I think she was a human, but, like, humans are living the fair wild, right?

I mean, she was human-or-ed-s. But I didn't notice any pointy ears. I didn't notice the crazy pointy ears. of the Eladrine, I didn't notice any kind of elf stuff. I mean, she was just human. Everybody we've seen here's had pointy top ears, right? Unless they were a frog-lock. But then... Or rabbit-lock. They were in this glade, and that's where the unicorn was. You're saying this guy that had Torbeck is tied up with the unicorn somehow?

Yeah, I think it's... He took a horn from that unicorn. Oh, this is so bad! He took it? He did. He cut it off the unit. Wait. I want to look at the end of the horn

and see if anything about where the horn was cut or removed, and maybe it's been polished in sand and it's beautiful. But if it hasn't, does it remind me of anything about Lexi's wounds from episode one when her wings were removed? And I hate to be a Dungeons a Dragons player like this, but can I use my woodworking and like bone carving expertise to help to assist grimace.

You can roll an advantage to roll a perception check to see what you see. Can I use one of Gids dies and one of Cremuse dies? Yeah. At the same time. This is it. After 20, here it comes. That is so pretty good.

What was the skill? Sorry. A perception. Is that my knife? Yeah. Oh, is it used? No one never gets so bad. Yeah, it sucks.

I gave it to him. You were the one who... When you begin to inspect the base of the unicorn horn, and you notice that there is a dark ring around the edge, where there was clearly some sort of slice or some sort of tool that was used to pry it from the head of the unicorn. And your mind immediately goes back to the carnival.

And you remember your first... inclination was that the wings that had been removed from the fairy had been cauterized because of the dark markings but now that you look at it up close like this now that you're not confronted with the sadness and the horror that that creature felt in those moments you realize that it is not ash in the sense that you would expect but it is it is sulfur And you think back and you remember the faint smell of eggs that had lingered in the air. And you hadn't noticed.

It is very clear that whatever severed those wings also severed this one. Oh, fellas. This is bad. That's what Torbanks said. This fucking guy. He's the one that killed Lexi. Fucking look. These pups?

Yeah. I'm going to cut off of wings. It does kind of look like the same cut. What the hell is he doing? Like collecting, like, creature parts, magical wings and horns? Like, what the hell is that all about? He's got some way to somehow maim these supposedly immoral, you know, magical, powerful creatures. I mean, whatever the fuck it is, it's leaving this sofa behind.

What does it have to do with Torback? Why would this guy who's... Did he cut anything off of you, Torbeck? No, not that Torbeck knows. And once where Torbeck's penis had been. No, I've already got close long by that. It's still half as long as it's wrong. Torbeck used to step on it.

No, I can only drape it over my shoulder. Torbeck. Yes, Grego. Can you do us a big, big favor? for your best friends and mates. Torbeck can try. Can you try to remember anything about this guy?

Anything about the guy with the boots and the and the pants? Torbeck. Torbeck has tried. Torbeck can try again, but no. Torbick is tried. I don't think there's anything left. Torbeck.

I think whatever the fuck we know of him he's given us why would he want Toolback of all people why would he do all this to you I mean

who would do this to anybody there's no way that the contents of those containers are like ground up creature parts ah

no it's okay it's okay it's okay it's okay that's very unlucky that he's an idiot. He doesn't know nothing about face now.

It's a silly thing. Frost is thinking about what everyone's saying, and what Gideon said just now, and the mushroom that we saw in the cave, the witch had mushroom. The witch-light. Yeah. The witch-light mushroom. Well, it creates witch-life, but yeah.

That is my question. It seems unreasonable that it would be grounded in parts. It would be mushroom that would have produced the juice? Is that deduction fair? I would say with Frost intellect that deduction would be

fair, that the colors are the same, but not necessarily that which light is only the spores of that. It is clearly the main ingredient. Did you describe the mushroom mass after? Oh, in elaborate detail.

I thought that we all saw the mushroom. You did in the cave, yeah. You all saw it. Oh, we all saw it. When I saw from Dr. Mario's eyes, I mean, the strange dwarf fellow's eyes, I saw the mushroom, and I would have relayed that previous. Okay. Didn't we all to put together that, like, the mushroom is basically like... Yeah, but we don't know a kind of strange, fey alchemy.

Probably not. Probably not, probably not fay parts and unicorn parts. There's certainly not. Oh, geez, what if it is. But we don't know a kind of crazy. I mean, I don't know nothing about no alchemy. Whatever is a man's, at least some. more different than the shit that we've been

hyped up on. Yeah, but think about what it does to him, man. Like, we just go kind of fucking cuckoo bananas for a little bit. He goes fucking ripple Torbeck, man. Oh, no, no, Torbeck, no. Torbeck is Torbeck. That was a legend.

Look, this other fella that shows up when Torbeck goes away, right? Uh-huh. Whatever his name is, we haven't gotten his name, all right? maybe there's browned-up unicorn horns and fairy wings or something in it too. I don't know. I don't think that's unreasonable.

There are strange material components in any, the bone of some creature. We heard Trinket say it herself just now when we went to the shop. And there are sometimes consumable parts of animals that are as valuable as any plant or mushroom. well so anyway there was this unicorn beautiful blade wonderful bright in summertime i don't know you're having a good old time and then it fast forward and there was kids and they were kids and then he was older and the girl was gone and he seemed i felt sadness i felt like i was feeling his sadness and then it fast-forwarded again i think if i'm remembering correctly and and it was like storming it was dark and cloudy and the unicorn was in some sort of prison and

the horn was gone. It's alive, though. I mean, that's the good news. The unicorn's alive, but but he was, he was an older, you know, man and I saw his boots. It's the same fucking boots. Thundercloud, like the Thundercloud they got over there. Would anything like that? I'm not sure if it's exactly the same. It looked very similar to a storm that's roiling above the basket. Pretty damn similar, good. I would say it would be an easy to die. to say that the image you were saying was somewhere in yon. Yeah, the image I was seeing, I think, might be from where those fellas are from, which is around the yon.

Torbeck doesn't like this. Can we just go back to the carnival? That was fun. That was fun. Carnival's not coming back for eight years, Torbeck. But it's already been so long. But it was only fun. because those fucks Mr. Witch and Mr. Lodd was in league with the hacks and maybe this guy do what if they were totally fun what if there's a guy who's cutting off everything and they're like oh it's fine we have a carnival here he cut the horn man and then and then these jokers got the horn and they came from yon how the hell did they get it they had to have gotten it from him and if you're saying their storm cloud or storm cloud just like it was was in this vision then I mean they're all in fucking cohoots

Yeah, I agree you. I think you're right. Whatever that means, we need to figure out why the fuck he wants you. Why he cares about what the fuck's going on up there? Dormick just wants to go home. Do you? Well, hey, you are at home. You have us. We're at home, right? Yeah, well said.

Yeah, well, say, like, hey, you know, when Kirby's like, oh, he was born in Hague, do you think that's home now? It's scary, Mr. Garrier? There's not a place. Yeah. Homers wherever your best people are, your best folks, your lad, your mates. And there's nowhere we can run to, where this fella probably can't find you. So we gotta figure out what his game is, what his angle is, and how smarten.

How tough can he be, huh? No, I mean, he can easily imprison a unicorn, cut. prison of unicorn, cut up its own, and just fucking toss it like it's nothing. Maybe it was stolen, or maybe it was traded away, given maybe they had something that he needed. That's probably what it is. Maybe he traded something that's

part of whatever the fucking Tourbeck has going on. Listen, man, there's no way he's tougher than all five of us together, right? And it's like Grico's saying, he's got to be coming after Torbeck, all right? There's nowhere, there's no home, there's no carnival, there's nowhere we can go, he won't stop looking for

you. That much is clear. It's going to come a time. We're all going to have to face him, and he's going to be coming for you, but you won't have to stand against him alone, right? We're going to do it together, and we're going to see it coming. Gideon is going to punch him so hard in the body. He's going to laugh until he dies. Yeah, and he's probably going to shit his pants first.

And after it. It'll probably be both. I think it happens twice. Okay. It's a horrible smell, but you won't notice. It's going to be okay, chocolate. We're not going to let him take you, no matter. what I do worry and I mean I'm not as paranoid as others but I do have a little bit of a

fault in the back of my head what if Torbeck you didn't escape per se and instead you was released an account of you tracked us down exactly where we was Well Torbeck supposes that your logic checks out but Torbeck isn't really sure Torbeck woke up in the end

Very confused Man that's a little suspicious ain't it But Torbeck promises that Torbeck is telling the truth I trust you Torbeck I know you wouldn't lie to us Me too. And we know that you would never

be spying on or doing anything at the behest of the guy with the boots. Torbrack doesn't even know who that guy is. But what about the other guy? What if he knows who he is? Do you think he ever go to ask us

answer questions? I'm not suggesting anything. I was going to, and we haven't had a moment to rest, probe his mind and perhaps see if I could meet the other Wait, what other guy? Oh, Ribble Torbet

No, this is Mr. Ribble, I'm talking about Corbeck. Mr. No, you know how he always says, Light or Hine? Torbeck slash Rube. No, he named him himself, yeah. What was it?

What, he named him? Yeah, it was Torbeck slash Rimbled. Oh, and I've just been saying Rebel slash Torbeck for the other. one. It's just like the reverse, you know? Like his reverse self. Oh, like Count

Soff. Exactly, like Countsauph, man. Yeah. Yeah. I don't care for that name in convention either. Anyways, I was just more thinking about the Bullywugs. They're not in the swamp

that I'd have, but at least 37. It's a blood for a se culture. Yeah, that is dedication. Yeah, the Count Miss Bullywag that you buried. So. Frosty, that's not a bad idea.

I just don't want you to go too far and do anything to hurt Turerbeck. No, I wouldn't ever hurt your turtbeck. And honestly, taking such an action might put me at the most risk. But I think it's worth that risk if we learn something from the experience. Now is not the time, however.

I was just going to say... No. We need to get back to the castle. I feel somehow, charged by our experience in the cave. And you need to be at full fucking strength for whatever we're about to fucking face going to that castle.

What do you mean? Who knows what we're going to be up against? These people, you know, like Cricko said, they're bloodthirsty and violent. They like a good show, and who knows if we have to deal with the hag. Well, oh yeah, if Babylon is there, things would take a turn real quick.

Exactly right. I'm going to be as conservative as I can. with my energies. We can do the cooking thing and that's nothing.

And there's a show dinner and a show. Oh yes, there was a show, right? Oh, I forgot about that. Oh,

we get to watch a show? It in. And then we'll... That can be fun. They're putting on an opera? Oh, no, we're putting on an opera? Oh, no.

Oh, man. Don't worry. Um, Cremie, maybe the world's great. is Sherman. But I, they've called me the P-Hantam of the opera before. Oh, this is going to be the poetry contest all over again.

Oh, man. I don't know why they would want to see us perform an opera. An opera? I've been noodling in monogam. Look, Tobik, you let Grico handle the Pee-hoetry. Behoes? what is that a hem job

or like you know I heard it as soon as I said it yeah Grigo you been holding out on the pee-hose what what

I don't know what you're referring to you get in lot of Kermik just said you got pee-hoes all over the place no pee-hoatry

P-oatry what's that man it's like like the study of romantic relations with other goblins again keep in mind I don't know what you're talking about.

Torbeck is a visual, er. We should probably move on. Yeah. Then we'll demonstrate. You can take notes. They're all pretty pictures. Someone's already done the opera, and then we can just avoid it entirely.

I don't have much of a thing in voice. You frost your finger. They're trying to tap into their inner ligma. What's the ligma? They're in her what? The fuck. I don't get it. What is that, like the spirit of song?

How does it help them at the opera? It's a frog thing, you wouldn't understand. Oh, well, I don't know why you'd even fucking say it, but... Is that a lot of dancing in operas? I've seen a few, but it was a long time. My understanding, giving on what a kangaroo court this place seems to be, they probably don't know what an opera is. So as long as we just put on a nice pleasant play that makes them feel nice,

and we can use it as political propaganda. I've been noodling. I've got to ask you, Ricko, how the fuck do you know so much about politics? What do you mean? I just feel like you're like, oh, I'm super dumb. I don't know anything. But I like animals and somehow I know about constitutional republics and my monarchy.

The king and the troll and the snails. That was a good time. And also weirdly informatic. I mean, I did take political science in Dublin College. That was my major. But I took it off a lot. I took a lot of classes. Political science major.

All right. No, they didn't have a major for rock and roll. And I'm like cool bands. I mean, you know, you're going to make your way to the castle anytime soon.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're already on our way. We're walking. No, you're not. We're walking. No, you're not. You didn't say that.

And what I'm just saying, I mean, you know, if there is going to be a government, you know, it may as well be, you know, the representative. of the people may as well have the interests of the people in mind.

You have to RP it. I'm using my legs to... Your legs fuse together. Let's use our fucking legs to ambulate towards the castle. It was even at a geology. It was just an easy eye.

It's the only way I graduated. It's kind of shocking that Goblin College has a political science major, but not one for like rock, you know? No, there was one for rock Oh It was just around

hitting each other with rocks Oh You didn't take that up No I'm not very physically Adept like you are giddy I would have got my ass kicked I would have had much fewer teeth than I have now

It's just like giving the choice between rock And political science Like I just can't imagine you opting for political science You know what I mean You know, Neil convinced me in our first year Oh, that makes more sense Welcome class I want you to forget everything you know

about hitting things with the rocks. Oh, Captain, my Captain. Anyway, the point of all this is, is that keep an eye out, all the boots we all saw, and fucking owls

and anything else that we think is tied to whatever the hell's going on, beyond all this. All right? Hmm. Okay. And it is at this time that you make your way to the entrance of the castle. The castle itself is very clearly tilting to one side as the foundation is submerged in the muck and the mire of the swamp.

You notice that the first layer of this castle is actually partially underwater. And you see that where you are walking up to, it is a bullywug made bridge and causeway to a stairwell that wraps around the castle and would have gone down to the first layer. But you're meeting it about halfway as it goes up just a little bit to an entrance on the second layer of the castle. You do see down beneath you at the water line that there are many pairs of bullywugs in gondolas, or boats and gondolas, similar to the ones that you saw when you made your

way in as they are sailing around the swamps and romantic boat rides or just enjoying the night air with their friends or their family. And some of them do seem to notice you and they point and whisper amongst themselves, but none of them try to get your attention. As you make your way up the stairwell towards the castle itself, And the noise here is loud. It is filled to the brim with the courtiers of the soggy court. And the energy seems to be quite high. The idea of an opera, a play,

and the promise of some kind of cook-off, this new competition coming to the soggy court called Electrum Chef has really piqued the interest of those that are here. And you do make your way up the stairs. And as you enter, the guards that are at the door immediately stand to attention and jump to the side. They raise their lances and allow you entrance without saying a word, their eyes lingering on the brooch that you still wear on your tailcoat that shows that you are a friend of the king. and as you enter in you see that this place is bed decked with gold and valances valances

how do you pronounce that valances uh they're like the hanging curtains no no no the meaning of the word fuck off valances valances valances i don't care but there are there are those everywhere there are um this is a beautifully decorated rococo palace and you're stepping out into the ballroom and you see that there are countless members of the soggy court, these Bullywugs, that are in beautiful, beautiful garb as they dance to a multiple piece orchestra at one end. And they move this way and that, their outfits far more elaborate than they had been before. And as you enter in, you immediately hear, and we present to you The guests of King Galap the 19th.

That is the current king, right? Yes. Yes, King Galup the 19th. The newly inducted members of the soggy court, the heroes of downfall and the champions of the arena. And everyone stops dancing and they all clap quietly. A few people raise their glasses of champagne and drink to you. make way, make way, as this caller who has a long trumpet-like instrument begins to play a sound,

notifying the music to completely stop. And everybody parts as you begin to walk through this ballroom and up towards the very end. And you see that there is a large dais and atop it are two seats. One is large and regal and atop it sits Kingoll up the 19th. He smiles down at you. His outfit is far more gregarious than it had been the last time that you saw him with puffs and frills and ribbons. He's now wearing a powdered white wig atop his head as snoodle in a very similar outfit rests on a plush velvet cushion to his side. And sitting next to him is a creature that looks like it comes from your very nightmares.

a toad-like woman hunched over atop a lily pad. Her mouth completely agape as her tongue licks out and pulls flies into her open maw. Her eyes not able to stay synchronized as they dart this way and that

looking all over the room at first, almost haphazardly, before you realize that she is moving them individually for the sole purpose of being able to know every little thing that goes on at the room at any given time.

you are gazing upon that Lourne of Lightstraw. And that is where we'll end the session. Oh my gosh. Wow. Smash cut two, more go. I'm so hungry. That's the sting after. Yeah, yeah.

So good. Anybody, where's my gruel? Where are they? God? Smashed. Thank you so much for listening to the Legends of Aventras podcast. We hope you enjoyed the session. If you want even more campaigns to listen to,

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