Legends of Avantris - Once Upon a Witchlight | Ep. 37 | Dread, Bath, and Beyond

Episode Date: August 5, 2024

The Krew takes their first steps into Bavlorna's hut...   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/rt878dPfNh8?si=frkBXoo0S0ugzCWf

Oh, hello everyone. Welcome to Legends of Aventress. My name is Grico Grim Grim, and you're listening to Once Upon a Witch Life. Here's what happened last time. And yet you claim to be a Bonco buddy. I was in a Bonco den with my informant. And all I can think to myself is what the fuck is Bunko? When the negotiations are over,

and I feel that you are no longer a threat to me or my men, I will release your friend to have a deal. King Gallup, the 19th, takes Ilich's hand and he shakes it. And with the idea that someday Bavlornah would not lower them the way that she does, this idea of a brighter future that they could build together with no more resistance and no more death is one that both of them seemed to really enjoy. Illig and the King have found a comfortable peace between them. I mean, that worked out.

Like, usually when we try things, things go south real quick. You know what I mean? Like, yeah. Like, just everything goes wrong. And that was, like, shockingly effective. Yeah, and usually it's small stuff. Here we are, just a couple of strangers rolled into a kingdom and fixed all its political problems in like 12 hours.

I can't possibly go wrong. You're right, Gideon. That stands the logic. It can't go wrong at all. Indeed. All right. Well, I hope you have a great time. Make sure you don't go too quickly, or you'll fray the line,

and drop to your doom. Front of you is a large, Thatched hut. And there have been things that have been questionable morally, but nothing has felt like this. And as you open the door, you feel the warm air rush towards you and you can feel the stink of the fetid swamp. This must be a lorna link, a tiny version of Bavlona herself, as it looks at you and it smiles and giggles.

find yourselves in the hut of Bavlorn of Lightstraw. The first room you enter is not what you expect. It is not a room meant for living, but for one of bathing. A recessed pool lined with moldy clay tiles takes up most of this large square room. Stagnant water fills the depression with depth of about one foot, rising from the pool's center is the head of a stone well that gives off an an unpleasant, pungent odor. In one corner of the pool stands a tall, dirty, freestanding mirror in an oval frame and floating on the water as a large lily pad. Creeky wooden floorboards are arranged in a 10-foot-wide, raised walkway around the pool. This walkway is crowded with shelves, tables, and stools in all shapes and styles. Almost every available surface is littered with stacks

of dirty plates, scraps of food, and old junk. Dressing dummies are pushed together. in one corner and a wooden staircase spirals up from another corner five closed doors lead from the room and as you look in you are met with an array of sense all of them pungent but most of them coming from the fetted pool in front of you you can see the bottom portion is clearly lined with algae and a thick coating of what is more than likely the these left off bits of human skin. Looking at the pool, it is easy to see that

on a normal day, it would be full to about three feet, but only about one foot of stagnant water remains in it. Looking towards the well, you can see that water is very slowly pouring over the sides, but not in any motion that it would need to to fill up this space. You listen, but all is quiet aside from the creaking of the swollen, damp wood that this entire hut is made from. As you strain your ears, you imagine that you can hear voices

somewhere further up in the house, but it's hard to pinpoint where from, definitely more than one. And as you look to one of the doors, you see that it is slightly ajar, and creeping around the side is very clearly one of Bavlornah's lornellings, these tiny frog-like creatures that are made in her image.

It looks towards you and it smiles as it skitters across the creaking wooden boards splashes into the water. You see it wince in pain for but a second as it stands in front of the mirror. It looks towards you and with a wide, open grin. You see it begin to see, it begin to speak.

I want you all to roll a perception check for me. I hate these guys. Let me tell you. I need plus seven of that. That's a perception? Yep. Dormbeg rolled like Dorming. Dormick got an A, Torbeckable.

Grigo got a 10. I got a 20. 18. Oh. You're going to me too? No, just you. Only you can't see you. I got a natural 20.

It's faded. It's faded. Okay. It's fake. Holy shit. I'm just staring at the bath. I'm going to dread mace. I got to pray for you.

You can drive me again? No, it's okay. We'll dread. Double dread? Double deuce is. 17? Okay. Thank you.

The sound of the splashing is shockingly loud, but it is the hiss that emanates from this mournling as the water touches its skin that catches your attention. You watch as it mouths a word, but none of you are able to determine what word is said. As the mirror begins to swirl with a strange mist, and for a moment you see a hallway of mirrors. And at the very end, the two bits of a tailcoat as someone turns a corner,

someone you recognize, stripes of red and stripes of white, and the coat of Mr. Witch and Mr. Light, as quickly the lornelling darts through the mirror, the surface ripples and it solidifies. You stare into the mirror for a second, and you still feel like you can see the faint outline of the hall of mirrors and the two figures of the men that you knew what feels like so long ago as it turns to a to a pure pain of mirrored glass and all that's reflected back in it is the greenish murky water that it stands in

did anyone catch that that word what did it say that a little horrid awful i'll plug my ear as soon as it open it in Matt's mouth. Some kind of password. Also, what's that? Mr. Witch and Mr. Lord? I told you guys that they were no good. You should have stolen the watch, Grammy. Fuck those guys.

That's how they won't get in. They use a mirrors to travel through. Yeah, it just looked like that room we came out of. And you saw the stripes of white and stripes of red, just like the big top by his bed. What? Yes, I... What the fuck was that?

A way to say that. What is Mr. Grimmy saying? I was distracted by this bath. Is it the same one I saw in my dream? It is. In your dream, it felt much smaller. This is a large room, and it is taking up the majority of the room. It's almost as if there is a large pool inside of this room,

and there are these swollen wooden planks around it, almost like a deck around it. And in one corner, you see that there are stone steps that go down into it. You can clearly see around the rim of it where the algae is older and had been caked on, where the water line normally sits. But you can see that it is about two feet lower at this point. Flies and mosquitoes dip down onto the water and float back up. The lily pad is not attached to anything, but floats.

on one portion of it, the mirror on the opposite side from the steps. And all lining this room outside of the five doors, one of them being the one that you came in through are dirtied plates, bits of old food, rotting pieces of meat, moldy cupcakes and pies and things. Traditional hag fodder. As well as in one corner you see there is

there is in a rotting spiral staircase that's leading up to the floor above. And then in another, you see that there are about eight to ten mannequins and varying sizes that are all dressed in an array of what appear to be handmade garments. Bits of haphazard pieces of fabric stitched together roughly, making a shape of what you would imagine someone would wear. but unlike any garments you've seen before. So would you say that the bath is about the size of like an indoor pool at an airport gratis and kind of size?

Jesus. Is that a good? I was picturing you were like a bath house-sized bath. It's much more. So in the very center, you see one of the wells that you see one of the wells that you saw when you were your first day in Hither, when you met the Willowice. It is clearly one of those 10-foot diameter wells

and it is coming up out of the very center of the floor and it has been pumping swamp water into this bathtub in the prefects. When I pictured Bavlurna in the bath during the dream sequence, maybe I was just misperceiving so I want to adjust my mind memory for frost. I was picturing like Bavlona like almost like in a cloth

a cloth foot tub and very shrinked and like this while like many people. No, she, what you were seeing was her in a tub much larger. So it's still only about three feet tall. So she, if she were like, she could fully cover herself in it, but you saw her probably on one of the steps as the Lornellings were helping to pour water over her skin. So my deduction is not that that Lorna can grow to great size in her. to accommodate this large bathroom. That's just silly Derek. That's just silly, Derek.

That's just silly, Derek. Treats it for kids. All right, fellas. Keep an eye out. And keep your voices down. I propose that we attempt to steal. I mean stealth. Not actually Robbara,

but... We know we should do that, too. Remember that was the plan? Well, yes, but I don't... But stealing piece. Don't touch anything. That isn't something that we intend to steal for the purposes of our mission here.

All right. Oh, and while we're here with the mirror, I think we should keep an eye out from that little half-in's hell, remember him? Oh. Oh, the hornling. No, remember the little half-in guy? A little half-witch.

You saw the pig like beckoning through the men. No. Oh, no, you want to hear him. Yeah. I'm not talking to you. Remember that goes? Yes, I remember quite vividly, right? Oh, yes.

What I would say is you remember that the the sow pig is the minion of a different hack. Someone should make that point to me right. I was just about to say, Cremie, no doubt, as the sow pig, there wasn't that little nasty frog fella. So he's probably, they probably all got mirrors in their witch's hat.

That deduction is logical. Which means that all these fucking Mr. Witches, Mr. Light, the whole time have been bamboozling us. We should adjust for him. No, we knew that they were in league with the hags. But they're like, oh, we're not so bad, we promise. And we're like, okay, goodbye.

That might still be true, but it's not like just because we went to that carnival, they got out of whatever horrible deal that they had wrapped up in. I don't believe that either of them willingly work with the haggs. Well, I think the definition of will is maybe a debate. No, these... What? These hags are capable of deceit and of... turning people's minds.

I mean, think of the the Eladron that we met who's lost his heart. They may have gone with good intentions, but are now trapped by their deal that they made with the hags.

What I'm trying to say. I think it was selfish intentions, but maybe not level. That's a better decision. Or I think perhaps even not selfish to play doubles advocate. Wow.

Is perhaps they prey on people in times of desperation offering them a deal that sounds too good to be true, and therefore it is, and there's always some monkeys' paw, so to speak. So we have to make sure that none of us feel desperate. We have to make sure we don't make any deals, correct? Are we all in agreement about that? Well, I mean, depends on what we're giving.

Well, I mean, he's the... No, that's exactly my point, man. Tim Powers are strong here. I don't know. Torbeck doesn't know. Torbeck's kind of with Grico. Torbeck's kind of always desperate. Yeah.

Desperation would probably be Torbeck's last name if he had one. And middle name. Torbeck, desperation, desperation. He changed like desperado, and that's kind of cool. Oh, man. It's kind of cool. Well, I mean, here's the thing. I think we might have to make some kind of deal.

Yeah, do you mind doing a little jig for me? What kind of jig would you like? I don't know. Some kind of fashionable square dance or something. Okay, well, I'll do it. That's not. Oh, that's right. The, uh, the, the, uh, the darkling stole the jig.

You're not getting jiggy with it at all. What do you mean, man? That's not a jig at all. He doesn't even like recognize how bad it is. Oh, no. And it sounds like he can, The dancing used to be all I know. I know.

I know. It was a terrible deal. And so she could turn it But maybe we try to trick her Into, you know, making some kind of deal That's good for us and bad to her What do you think, fellas? I feel like I'm very well equipped for that

Oh, Torbeck agrees I mean, Gros pretty smart What are you, don't, man? You're well, though. Just let me do the talk We'll say, all I'll say is from a certain point of view And then we can get, oh, we won That does seem to be a magic phrase.

I don't know. We haven't gotten the best of any of these deals we've built with even just like the silly bandit hairs we ended up killing in the swamp. They stole portions of our soul. How are we going to outsmart this hag who's making deals with everybody? Oh, we should keep an eye out for the sole bag. So bag, okay, let's get a list. Toolback tables are down.

Okay. Filthy soul sack. I'm ready to. We need a clap of claws. head, which I believe is some sort of gourd. Oh, it wasn't a knot shape. A knot shade. It's an actual, like, scarecrow head. He has the gourd right now.

Klamperclaw told you what their head was. It was like a goat's head. It's a turn-up. It's a crab head. It was a stag skull. It's a stag skull. Oh, all you didn't know, we were going into a little focal room. This is going nice, actually.

That's actually pretty cool. I thought I don't want to hang out with grubble- gone out. Yeah. Five. So, okay. So it's not a gold. So can you stretch that out, Torbett?

Yeah. So take out Narchade. So redact, Nodade, redacted. Are you are tempting to be quiet in any way? Yes. No.

Gorn, redacted. Shh. Keep it down. Oh, sorry, sorry. Sorry. We need to be, we cannot, I feel like it's varying character for us to be like,

hey, we completed the dungeon. Oh, no. We forgot about all of those things. we were supposed to do. I want us to be, I want us to go into the dungeon planning to platinum it and get all of the trinkets that we need to get. There's gonna be so much stuff here.

It'll be easy to do. Yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, yeah. The platinum, man. And we need to be prepared so we don't squander this opportunity. At Tarbick, can. Yeah, Torbeck can. Okay, I'm not saying this is a bad idea. I'm just saying, chuck the fuck up and speak one.

Perfect, thank you. And so we also need to find that little half of the fellow, he's not gonna be here. We need to find, where that horse go? The horse head. Horse? Is it a horse question mark? I mean, who moves?

Well, that might just turn it. Horsehead? Burley's cousin. Oh, we need to find the goat so we can rip his heart out. Goh. Goat. Goat. And that's with two T's.

that missed me out for a bit. G. R. We need to put a sater in a cage. I'm sorry. I'm not going to let that go. Cage. I told you not to say it.

Well, I'm just saying he's probably here. Look. What else? The sater doesn't exist all right. I don't know fucking he about no sater and no cage. It doesn't exist. I'm swazard. Anyways, what else we got?

Man, I didn't have a lot of faith in you when this began, but you really run down the whole list. I mean, I'm sure we're forgetting something. We're definitely forgetting something. One else. Burley's cousin. Oh, Burley's cousin, Hurley. Hurley.

Hurley. Okay, okay. The nature of Mr. Witch and Mr. Light's deal. Okay, the nature. Or perhaps the terms. The fine print. Prank. Off it, that's it.

Well, we also have to get the item that we're here for. Oh. Fuck! Torbeck's running out of room. The only thing that matters. The momento of the present. Uh, pre-oh-oh-on, let Torbeck draw an arrow.

Present. The genusseco. How do you spell that? Is that that that correctly? Uh, the joie de vi, seriously. Swah, swan, swan. Wanda dem. Jee.

V. The Cirque de Soleil. The Cirque de Salé. Sir, 30. A croakumedom. Is that everything? It's not everything. They didn't kill the head.

Oh, no, no, no, no, no. That's plan Z. Yeah, that's plan Z. It's still plan. Oh, but it's the last one. Let's know what we added to the list, you know what I mean? In case you come up.

If anything, the ideal outcome is that Valorna doesn't trick us into some sort of horrible deal, like she's tricked so many others. Trance? No, no, no, no. and stop trying. Stop right. Okay.

The ideal outcome here is that we don't have to kill anyone and that we are able to convince Bavornah to give us the object for altruistic reasons, perhaps, or for her own selfish reasons. Perhaps we can change her heart. I don't know how we're going to do that, but it's... Every time we haven't fought somebody and we've dealt with them instead, it's been way worse than just five. Do you mean worse than just five?

boring for you? Yeah. Exactly. I'm glad I was starting to get it. What I mean? We got that freeze, mediocre spaghetti dinner.

Remember that? Well, you can't remember how they were making it? Oh, yeah. How are they mixing it up? You know, they didn't have any hands. Yeah, and they stored it in like a little Ziploc baggies.

Gosh, what didn't even sit well for the next day? How you had to even go over one set? There's one last thing that I want to remind everyone of before I ask the DM to make, let me make an intelligence check to see if we've remembered everything, which is to say, uh, we also have a ace up our sleeve. What's that? Well, it's a metaphor for having a, uh, some additional leverage on Bafflona. We know where her book of credches is. And if we make a deal with her to get a big book of bad blood.

The big book of bad blood. Huh! And... What? That's a nice reference I didn't get those, too? Oh, really? Yeah, it's a Taylor Swift reference. Oh.

The music video is actually quite entertaining. Salia, no. Anyways. Stronger the metal gear. If she asks us to retreat, that we know exactly where it is, and we might be able to go and face the Darklings down. So are we committing more false flags here,

or do we already... You were checking on the false flags? That's dumb. I don't think we're going to count on that. It works, works. But I'm worried she's going to be like, go find it. Bring it back two seconds later. She'd be like, oh, I tricked you. I just proved that you all hit it. It's not, can you just write this down what I'm thinking of it? Yeah.

On our way back, whenever we get back from the Palace of Hustersia, a wagon of riches. Wagon. Let's swing by Jingle Django and say, hey, every rabbit's beating you with sticks again. And if they haven't just killed the rest of them. Oh, Tormank thought Toramank killed. the rabbits. That's what you guys said.

Well, you killed many of the rabbits. You and Twig, you and Twig killed many of the rabbits. Twig killed four of them. Well, I just hope that they were I didn't kill, I just, I just was sure and protect my friend. I'm just hoping that you killed all of them

otherwise, they won't feel like whole people for the rest of their lives. It's just around the book, it starts coming out of me and they relate to Torbeck a lot more than I realized. Oh, that's unfortunate. But the Torbik is sorry to me. That's a good idea. Group therapy.

I mean, Torquy. Double five. Double D. Double D. No. Double D. D? Doreback is interesting.

No, your name's not Dorffick and I'm not Dwig. Ah, well, Doreback's easily convenient with the whole ribble thing. No. I mean, because door name starts with fatigue and my name starts with The realtorback's on the state of the beach now. Oh, and you both committed war crimes. That's unfortunate. That really depends.

We weren't currently in a state of war. Various unforgiveness. Is there anything else? Torbeck needs the right now. I don't play at war, right? Oh, that's true. Is that everything? Jingle-Jangle.

My name's Twig. No, no, no. We got jingle jangled. The rabbit stole it. And Pigtune you brought it back to her. Okay, just checking my own brain. If you're doing bulletin list, you can write down kill

the hag, but the bullet should be like a dotted line circle, like on the video games, like an optional... Oh, the smile of face next to it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. All right, hold on. No, no, no. Put on the smile to face.

Oh, darn it. Yeah. Yeah. Can you be okay if I, I don't know, put my feet in the water? Well, I mean, I don't think that anything bad could possibly come up. It just looks kind of gross, and that looks maybe like this human skin in there, so... Well, I think it's the stuff that's just stuff that. comes off when you bathe, but because

there's no drain, it just sits on the bottom. Oh, so tag-skid? Before we do that, I just, Torbik just wants to make sure we're done the list, and maybe we give it to Mr. Craddy for safekeeping. Are we all in agreement? The list is done. We have a question.

Let me consult my mind, Pallis. Can I roll intelligence? If you've forgotten anything. I wouldn't meditate. You forget stuff all the time. So you think what he's doing, and then I can put him up, beat in the water,

because I think there's frogs in there. No, look, I mean, didn't we see, like, a little guy going there and then and hiss and die or something? Oh, did he hiss and die? Yeah, I think I did have. He hissed a little bit, and then it went inside of the mirror.

Oh, he just left. Yeah. Maybe I... Uh, well, maybe you put your toe in. Like, if he's like, takes breaths in there, they're going to kill a twig. Well, I, you know, but it's also very likely,

You won't enjoy it. I know, but I can test it out. What if there's something interesting going on with it? You don't want to explore it? I want to explore it. Well, first let a mine palace, and then we can jump in water. Oh, fun. We gotta get it all in the west.

I think into my mind palace, and I remember the bullets. Why are you telling me this, Frost? I'm not talking as the Grico. Wow, as Frost right now. I'm talking as D-Risco. Angela! We had a deal. Yeah, it's scary.

I think of the soul sack. I think of Clapper Claw's head, a stag skull. I think of the goat's heart. I think of the sater in the cage. I think of Hurley. I think of the light witch deal. I think of the memento of the present.

Do I think there is an eight, nine, or ten on that list that we need to be looking out for? What did you roll? 23. Ooh. You imagine that there are other things that are happening in Prismere and things that are relevant

to what you need to be doing, but you don't think that any of them pertain to Babylonus HUD. Or to commitments that we, or to commitments that you've made that would be relevant to this moment in this place. There are other things that you imagine with a couple of days thought and really focusing on. There are some things in yawn and in thither

that you are probably mis-forgetting, but nothing, nothing here. You feel like you've nailed it. The horse head was also scabbaffa. So little half from fella and scabber, I'm pretty sure he was shorter than me. Unless, I guess there's one thing, would be you know that Babylona is the one that took Jingle Jingle's name.

But Jingle Jingle didn't, I don't believe she tasked you with trying to get her name back. Oh, she did have something else. Okay, I hide that inside. Oh, and bring Willa from her terrible fate. That was something you guys decided. All right, all right, Torbeck's added it. Are we good? Yes, we have a quest log.

I'm going to give this to Mr. Cremie. Everything's on the list. Torbent didn't know what Clapper Claus head looks like, so he drew it. And then for the optional quest with a smiley face, Torbeck Drew Gideon, because I thought that was appropriate. Oh, man, it's like looking into a mirror. Look that handsome guy. Can you read it?

Tobek, what language is this in? Oh, common. Oh, probably it's only goblin. No, no, it's common. Ah, yes, goblin. What is the thing? The script of the gods. Now, this is very nice in the ship.

Oh, thank you. It says, question number one find Man Kirk's wife Question number two kill Hogger I don't know who that is

Oh no I would really like to see So question number three Wait so I mean This is literally just chicken scratch With a donkey In Gideon's face Oh it's everything

You can see right there it says number three Disrupt the Defias brother of That's everything you guys said That's true. Oh, there's a little in parentheses, five next to it. Is that a dungeon quest? We've gone to the dead minds to do that one? Yeah.

We have to, we have to get, we have to make five Noggin' Fogger's elixas. I don't know how we're going to get all those ingredients. One of these literally just read bullet points. That was such a shit quest. It was an outsider of Edwin Van Clef? No. Stupid fucking. Don't we right?

Didn't write out? Oh, Edwin Van Clef. Isn't his whole thing that he's like a contractor with sour grapes? Yeah. No, he got fired. And like, when he was working on stormwind. Well, to be fair, he was, you know, falsely accused and pegged for a crime he didn't do. Like, really justice for Edwin Van Clee.

You got one of those Edwin Van Clee did nothing wrong because... Oh, God. ...was right. I think he're like, do I say they hear a loud splash? Hell yeah. I feel there's no better time for Twig to have done. There's no other thing that Twit would have done. You know what? Because I was thinking it and you solidified it, yes.

At this moment, you hear a loud splash. as twig not just sticks her feet into the pool, but she rears back, runs, and jumps into the pool. She's clearly seen a frog leaping about on the inside of the water, and she goes to reach for it. She's only about a foot and a half tall. And so the water extends up much further than you expect.

The bottom of this pool, though you can see bits and pieces of the stone, is covered in a mossy layer with bits of dead skin and frogs and insects and a plethora of things. You hear the sound of a plate as she clearly kicks a dish when she lands. And she reaches down to grab the frog as she lets out a loud yelp. And she just starts screaming and screaming as she's looking down at her skin. And you can see that her skin is turning red. Get her out of there.

Get out of there. Chain her, chain over here. She had been for her draft. I would say she is focused on the fact that she dropped the frog as she looks down at her hands. And they're turning red with whatever is in this liquid. But you were able to wrap the chain around her and yank her out of the water. As she comes flying towards you, you're sprayed with bits of the water. And you feel a...

a sizzle and a pop as it hits you. It is not as bad as she made it out to be. She's quite a dramatic little thing, but there is clearly some sort of acidity to this thing. Are you okay? How? Does she look like if she needs to get washed off? She looks like she could use with a dowsing of fresh water, yeah.

As a storm cloud will appear as you'll see a silhouette of like a spectral thunderbird, and she'll get doused in rain. As I cast create water. You almost turned into the grandmother from Dante's Peak there for a moment. I don't know what that means, but I dropped the frog. Why did you dive in there? Because you guys were talking about Sam, so I just thought, well, you know what? There's a frog right there, so I'll just go get him and then I'll get out before he even notices.

Twig. Yeah. We're in the house of Bavlona, a very powerful person, and pretty much an evil person. Yeah. And we need to be quiet. We need to not be impulsive. Well, what am I supposed to do? Your skin wouldn't have been burning off if you didn't jump into the bath in the first place.

But something's wrong with that water, though. It can't be, it can't be. It can't start eating through the wood and just don't wrong with it. It must have gotten to a hotter spot than splash from me. I don't run the fingers. Okay, well, then you get in and try. Well, I don't want to get in. It's gross.

Get in, get in. I'm not getting into the poison. Why, because you're no bitch. That's what you're going to. Okay. Oh, yeah. You know, I'm standing in. My, acid, proof.

linen. I don't know. We're pants made out of cotton. What are cotton? The oil. Polyester. You jump in and at first you're like, this is nothing. Yeah, this is nothing, Twigs. Until you feel the water fully hit your legs. You can feel the sizzling and the popping as the hairs on your legs

start to melt away. And it is definitely painful. It's the equivalent to if you've ever taken a handful of salt, put an ice cube on it and held on to it. I don't feel good. Um, have you ever done that? It causes a chemical reaction that like burns. It hurts like hell.

It hurts like hell. Why did you've done that to yourself? Oh, I don't know. We just did it to work fun. Great. Oh, it's just to feel something. I just to feel anything. I don't feel anything. I don't feel salt and ice today.

Just remember something funny it works. And you look over to Twig and you see that the bottom part of her dress is actually has eaten away, that there are parts of it that have been almost melted by whatever acidity is in this. And you feel that happening to your shoes and the bottom parts of your pants. It doesn't even hurt at all. Get out of the mess. Doesn't even hurt a little bit. You're making a faith that it probably does hurt, did you?

No, this is just home. but it's just how my face is sometimes. That's my face of a little bitch. No, no, okay, it doesn't hurt at all. No, no. I'm just, I'm gonna get out there. So it's totally fun. It was just a twig thing?

No, I can tell. No, he's in pain. You know, I just know. One of your Tony is floated to the tongue. Oh, that's my favorite toe. Oh, yeah. Can we tell that his hair on his legs is being melted away?

It would be hard to tell. Stepping into it, he definitely stirred up some of the stuff that had been. settled at the bottom of the pool. So you can't see it, but you can tell that he is in pain. No matter how he tries to mask it, beads of sweat begin dripping down your forehead. The embers in your hair are glowing even brighter

as you try and hold off the pain. Occasionally a whip of flame will jut out from your beard as you are just stealing yourself against this. Do I, just in the brief moment that I'm in this pool, do I feel anything significant about the pool? that would occur to me, like being in it? Being in it. It just feels like it's acidic.

It just feels like it's acidic. And you notice that it is the organic material that's melting away. You notice the buckles on your shoes. Any metal parts that are on your shoes seem to be completely unaffected. But the organic bits are what is affected by this. Get your organic bits out of the pool right away. Whoa! What happened? Your ankles.

Your ankles are completely inflamed. It looks like you've had a very aggressive wax. All of the hair on the bottom parts of your legs have been completely seared away, and the bottom portion of your trousers are completely missing. Torrex got a couple problem areas on his bag sign. Maybe I didn't do it. It really wasn't.

Okay. A few luck of this. You'd seek four points of assets. and damage, and you definitely, you have some welts and some blisters that started to form. Wait a minute. All your hair's missing. It's amazing.

Do we think that frogs are immune? I went in. A frog's immune, seemingly? That frog seems okay. Was it worth again? Well, I just had to make point to twiggy. What, and answer your question? No.

So what's it? I do like these, I feel like I'm wearing very sharp jorts now, though, you know, I feel like this is a pretty cool look. Very fashion. You have incredibly muscular calves for someone that's kind of a bitch. Maybe we should bottle this. Okay, Twazy. I'm just right.

I'm just right in to a whole acid pool. You were in there crying to get out. I walk right in and only cried a little bit, okay? Yeah, because you respected it. If you had just jumped in there unknowing that you were going to start frying your bits off, you would have screamed too. That's not cool to make fun of me.

I thought we're friends. I never made fun of you. Yeah, you did. I said, I saved you from the pool. I pulled you out and he called me a bitch. Because you said it probably wasn't even that bad. Well, because it's flashed, man. It didn't feel quite as bad.

Okay, well, it was quite as bad, wasn't it? Okay. I'm going to try one more thing. I don't want to fight anymore, okay? I don't want to fight anymore. There's a lot of tension. Mm-hmm. And I feel like we need to get to the bottom of this pool.

No, put it in turn there. Okay. I feel like we can't leave this alone. This probably isn't a red herring. We can because there are five doors in this place. I don't know if you saw it, but there's one over there. Yeah. Then there's a staircase that goes up.

All right, yep. There are no doors on the back wall. No. And then there are three doors on this sidewall over here. Are we counting the mirror as a... Nope, I'm not, but that's a sixth door for counting. That's what I'm about to say, technically speaking. There's one behind us for what's the same.

Should we check the back wall for doors? Perhaps there's a pattern. Or we could bottle this stuff in the bath and sell it. We could call it neer. Why would you call it neer? Because it leaves you no air. I'll think it's a pormantot of no and ham. Oh, go be Torbett to it.

Torbettone. Torbett wanted to say portmanteau. Is it a pormento? No, it's not how you pronounce that. No, it's not? Pomerantor. Oh, a poor man's toe? Yes, that's how you can think of it.

Okay, I'm going to turn into a frog, a bubble gloat frog. Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa. You got to jump in there. And I jump in there. All right, well, when you jump in, Torbeck will put his butt cheek close to the water. No, no, no, no. No, no, no.

Frogs are immune, okay? Torbeck just needs to take a little off the bottom. Why don't we have once? Like, go to a barbershop or something. They don't take Torbett. Oh, that made me so. Wait, uh, burr, burr. And I'm gonna turn into a frog with like a tail.

I look like froggy from Sonic Adventure One. And I'm going to leap in. How many hit points is a frog house? One. You leap in and immediately you watch as the flesh of this frog sizzles and pops. As Fricko burst out of his frog. I reached out with my mind hand. I had it off the whole time, I'm sorry.

Torbex's butt cheeks were right there. Okay. Now for this pool, right? Looking towards the frog that Twig was going after, you clearly see that it is not the type of frog that you normally see here and there. The colors of it are more like a neon green with bits of bright red and oranges,

and you would imagine. imagine being a druid that there are different types of frogs, especially in the Faywild, some that might be more acclimated to acidic conditions or to hotter conditions. And your standard run-of-the-mill frog is going to suffer the same ill effects as any bit of organic material might in this. Are you all right, Brigham? I suddenly need to meet this frog. And so I'm going to pull out of my pack a large glass bottle, and I'm going to sneak up by very

slowly pressing on. It's in the middle close to the well. We'll come back to it. I'll put the cord back on there. Do you want me to grab it? Oh yeah, can you grab it? I can try. Yeah.

I will endeavor to grab the, with my mind hand. Sure. Okay. And I roll a, what would you do for a slippery frog that doesn't want to be held by an invisible hand? Well, it depends on whether my mind hand. is a dexterity or intelligence-fueled thing. I'm saying it would be dexterous for the hand to hold on to a slippery fog frog trying to get out of it.

Then probably a dexterity check? Yeah, let's do that. Okay, I'm going to do that. And let's hope that I don't slip on it like soap in the shower. 16. Okay, I rolled 14. So you are able to grab onto this frog. Your hand holds it as tight as possible

without crushing its insides, and you're able to pull it out of the water. And you watch as the frog flies towards you on this invisible mind hand. Drop it into the jar. You cork it? Well, cork it, but then I'm going to, I'll take my nails and poke in some holes. Okay. There you go. Oh, no, this entire time, well, all of those are happening.

I was looking at all the bookshel. I was trying to get something. You look around, and it is exactly as was described. There are bits of food and debris, mold place, mold. One thing that does catch your eyes. You make your way towards one of the corners of the room where all the mannequins are stacked. And you see that the outfits that are put together

are made from varying pieces of cloth, cloth from what appear to be different outfits that are pulled apart and sewn together, and the silhouettes that they form are unlike anything that you'd ever seen. All but one, which looks meticulously made. It's not an outfit, but on the head of one of the mannequins is a beautiful black witch's hat. It comes to a pristine piece. the ribbing up the side it almost looks like it's constructed inside out where you can see the the sewn channels up the side but looking at it from the distance that you're at you don't

see stitches it's just almost perfect you're picking it up yeah hey fellas look at this you reach forward didn't I say we shouldn't you reach forward to pick up the hat but it is not a hat that you are met with. As the creature springs to life, it opens like a hideous octopus. Its thin, hook-line tentacles connected by a fleshy web. You have never seen one of these before, but you've heard of a dark mantle. And as it springs to life in front of you, you expect your fate for it to attach to your head. But it doesn't.

It angles itself towards you. and snatches the hat from your head. And in an instant, pops out of existence, disappearing with your hat and all. Oh, huh. Where could you? Got a frog. What was there?

You okay, man? He took a hat. What? What happened to your hand? Fucking bang. What? I thought it was a really nice witch's hat. I was trying to find some sort of stitching or something.

I thought it was like a really high thread count. It was really nice fabric. And I wanted to see if it was a maker's mark on the inside. Like 2,000 or 3,000, yeah. Yeah, at least. And it wasn't a witch's had at all. What was it? It was a...

Dark mantle. Oh, yeah, no, that was a mistake. It wants a dark mantle. It's a beastie. It's a beastie that disguises itself. Uh-huh. Would I know what a dark mantle was like, oh? Okay.

It is a beastly but discards itself very well as a variety of different objects. In this time, it was a hat. They can often be found attached to the ceilings of caves. I'm adding Cremies hat to the list. Like a Lever-Craftian bat. So is like a creature? It's the appearance of an octopus. Or like a squid-ed octopus kind of thing.

Much of a lot of it. You know, Roger Moore always blows my favorite. Really? That doesn't surprise me. That surprises me. I really have for Grevy? Is that really surprised you? There's always a Pierce Brosnan, man.

Man, same, yeah. Just because we got to start around that time. I mean, they weren't as good as Roger Moore. Anyway, we don't even get that right now. Have you ever seen The Shining? Have you seen Living Let Die? Okay, I feel like we were not off to a great start. No, no.

Okay, I want to say, can we all just say, ourselves for a second. Hootsey, you've been very nice and very polite and well-behaved. Let's all breathe in and I'll breathe out. We have a frog, we lost a hat. Hello, frog. Are you alive still? Oh, well, we'll be, we'll get acquainted. I will study you later. It's nice to meet you. Can you speak to the frog? Perhaps the frog has pertinent information. Oh my goodness. I think I get it. I mean, I don't want to hear what it's seen, but perhaps it will help us in this

quest? The things I've seen. Oh, I've seen things you can't imagine. Skin flakes. Ignore me. The skin flakes beyond my dreams. Anyway, it took my hat, and then, I mean, I don't think it destroyed it. It looks like I just took it, but then it's just disple.

Did it go invisible, perhaps, with taking the hat with it? You imagine that is probably the case. It could still be in this room. So I did not prepare. I could normally speak with it, but I'm not ready. However, I'm not really. I'm very spent. Well, perhaps we'll just sleep in this room for eight hours and then we'll lose all our clothes if we stay in this room any longer.

Torbeck's the only one immune. He's wearing anything at all. And you look over at Torbeck whose ass cheeks had been submerged in the one inch thick of water. you see that he looks like he's wearing furry ass with chaps. Because there have been hair covering his butt cheeks. There's hair no longer. There's just a circle of hair. The flesh is super red, right?

He's super red. It looks like a bad boot ass. And he's got quite a few, he's got quite a few pimples. How do you sit? Weirdly enough, the bumps and the boils and pimples were all already there. It looks like a star chart That is a remarkable The pool might have geared

Turbeck's hemorrhoids though Turbeck doesn't really feel the No, they're still there That's a nightmare I don't think there's a hemorrhoids Tobeck, really? Torbeck can't afford a real talker Somewhere someone

has been predicting that you will be the chosen one And they're going to look at your ass and go Ah yes, the legend foretold First, The brilliant prince And now the legend For a toll This is too much for Torbeck

Can we talk about my fucking hat for a second? Oh yes, I'm invisible So let's kill the fucking thing Get my hat back Cremie? Yeah, you brought me what? I believe they can go invisible Or make it dark, I can't remember which

I didn't really study that that closely Magical darkness Yes, exactly right so I could find your hat potentially the direction of it but it is a lot of resource

it's a lot of power you're the fucking do you think we will not need it later before you do I have one quick attempt that I can Oh yeah well with you to attempt it I use my mage hand once again my mind hand

And I It has a movement speed of 30 feet On its turn And so I'm going to endeavor to try to very quickly just sort of circle the current corners of the room and feel the ceiling, feel the water. I'm doing a mass very fast, just to see if I can hit into anything that shouldn't be there.

And I will endeavor to do that. But you can't see the hand either. Touch me. It's an invisible tag. Oh, yeah. It's a good point. If it's invisible. Natural 20. Oh! 23.

Dread. Wow. Got them. Well, that sucks. I think you go with the big one. No, no. Not that one, not. Should you go with a big one.

All right. Give me some 12 action. You are unable to find anything as you skirt the edges of this room. You imagine that with how quickly this thing moved, it would be near impossible. I would have taken a natural 20 to be able to find this.

So you are... But you endeavor too. An endeavor too. You endeavor. It's fine. But what the fuck are you waiting for? I mean, maybe we'll find it in another way. No, you said you can find my hat, find my hat.

You got to get his hat back, man. I mean, I don't know. Okay. Find the hat, find a hat, find a hat, find the hat, find a hat, find a hat, find a hat, find the hat, find the hat, find the hat, find the hat. Fonda hat, Fonda hat, Crummies Hat, and I guess Locate Object. Okay, how does it work?

It's a second fucking second level. No, I describe it. I describe an object. If I've seen it up close with 30 feet, I've seen it many times, seen it a lot closer than that. And if the objects is within a thousand feet of me, I know the direction, or I know the direction to the object's location for 10 minutes. I basically have an arrow pops up on my mini map

towards Crumme's Hot, and if the object is in motion, I know the direction of, I know which direction is moving. As long as you're within a thousand feet. Oh, and, but it cannot look at an object in any thickness of lead, even if there's lead. Okay. Well, lucky for you, this hut is made of wood and not lead. And you were able to sense that the object is traveling up,

not one floor, but two. Oh, I said, I called it a day. It was a three floor dungeon. I had a door back, but. I'll pay off. One for us A minute.

Okay, pay up, pay up. I can finally pay back my bookie. I owe you. Sorry. I'm going to give your information to my book. No! I hate to be the

the beerer of bad news. But your hat is moving upwards to the top of the hut. I can feel it now in my magical frog brain. How far up? Up the stairs? Right up the stairs, yes.

It's going up there. So that's the good news is that it's probably not leaving this place. So as long as we don't leave without the hat, it just added to... And for ten minutes, you can sense it. Okay, was that for ten minutes? For ten minutes I can. Yep. Surely one of these doors must go up.

Well, I mean, there's a stairway right here, right? There's a spiral. A staircase. Torbeck is trying. It's also possible the doors go up. I mean, there's just a staircase. Torbiz, there have been on an adventure before. So this is your first adventure.

We've been on a lot of them, are from levels one to three. And you need to clear out each level. You need 100% each level before you go up. That's the rules. I don't make the rules. Everyone pick a door. It just seems like,

If the tour bag, if the staircase is right there, then like, why are their doors? Look, look. It's okay, Torbeck. You're trying your best, all right? We all understand when I'm judging you. A single silent squirrels down Torbeck's cheek as he smiles. Oh, he's got the thing on the horse. You guys are so fucking me.

We're not going to be. Okay. It happens to everybody, all right? Yeah. All right. You understand. Okay. Torbeck, you get to pick the first adore, because this is your first adventure.

Just two get to pick a door? Well, what I was going to say is that pick one. And then you can pick one. We're not splitting up, all right? The last time we split up, I lost my hat. All right, so let's stay together. You want to 10 feet away from us. Yeah, I split up from you guys, and I lost my fucking hat.

All right, well, let's not split up. We'll do it one door at a time. And whoever opens the door, they need to have this word in their mind. Pineapple. Why? If you say pineapple, I will use my mind to close the door as quickly as possible to shield you from danger. Oh. Oh.

What pineapple? What pineapple? Why? Why? Just because it would be something that you wouldn't say in shock or surprise. Normally, it's like a safety word. I'll say whenever I stub my toe. You do?

Yeah, I step my toe. Puttable! Well, perhaps we should pick up a different word. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, let's choose a different word. What would you suggest? Fuck! No, no, that's what all of us would say if we saw danger.

What about shit? No, any square word doesn't work. It needs to be something mundane. Poopie butthole. That's not mundane. We wouldn't have to say, man. We wouldn't say poopie butthole? Would you say that?

How many times have we said Pooke's not even ever said that once, Gideon? I mean. After his dip problem, you know? Yeah. He should. It's like an anime store. So, so.

To be butthole is. We must consider, though. We should consider that. We should consider that maybe now. that maybe now we can actually split up effectively. I know that every time we... I don't think it's a good idea to split up. Well, I mean, so, yeah, that's true.

August, every time we have investigated, before you guys joined the party, it was, we split up, and he would be me and Hootsey, Cremie and Gideon, and then Frost would go off on his own. Frost would always lose his glasses. Cremian and Gideon, we lose track of them for hours.

Tell me that you'd hear a lot of weird noises coming. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's what all was the monsters we were open. And then you'd come back all sweaty and shovel. Yeah, and I said a spooky ghost. Magalasm, and then Hootsie and I would discover a fully stocked fridge filled with cheese, meat, and bread, and we would shuffle a sandwich together. Oh, that's amazing!

It wasn't an abandoned, no, but it was the thing. It's a trick, it's a ghost, and it's abandoned for 50 years, and there's a working fridge, and we ate the food every time. We ate the food every time. Grico, how were you able to balance that sandwich? It was remarkable that it didn't top. Oh, no, there was a little too big with an olive on it. Oh, that makes it.

Well, um... So it never worked out for us, as I'm going to say, but now that there's two more members, we can flim flam and Vincent van Goulders. Oh, you don't know flimflam? You don't know Vincent? Yeah. And this guys are we mad.

Come in change the formula to our adventuring party. It didn't work. No, no, they were very lame. I didn't like the name Flam, no. Yeah, anyway. Anyway, we did all the hard work while you were stumbling on the ground and you eating snacks.

I don't wear glasses. I don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Well, you know, we're gonna, because you always lost them. Why are me? Paul, that's your fucking catcher? Look at my face right now. I'm not wearing a fucking glass.

No, then why'd you catchphrase? My glasses, my glasses. I can't see what? What? What? What? What? None.

Um. Uh. Now I want to see if I still got it. Well, hold on. Shuffling sandwiches. Let's slip a coin. I don't think we should split up. I just have a feeling.

No. No, who chooses the doors? It's going to be Twig and Tollbeck. Well. I feel like Tollbeck, it's his first adventure. I feel like Torbeck misses everything up, though. No, but that's not nice. We're only going to do it, but we're going to go with Torbeck because you jumped so

spontaneously into the pool. But don't get in? No. Well, yeah, but you put. your hands and feet in there. She got horrible ones. Which is why both of you are not going to choose the door. No!

That's not fair. You can choose the second door. And I only did it because she called me a bitch. You don't get to choose the door. You said specifically I was a bitch if I didn't go in. Yeah. I can't go back through this with you. I feel like we should let Toulbeck choose because she's having a rough day and

then we let Twig because she got burning acid and then she gets to choose because she's precious. Doe go. As you said. that you guys look over your shoulder. I'm standing by door number four. It's already open. The big one.

Which one is door number four? Moving below. That you came in, which would be stupid to me. Right, not that one. There's a door off to the left hand side. Okay. We'll call that door number one. That is where the corner with the spiral staircase is.

There's nothing around the back wall. And then there are three doors in line against the right wall. Oh, then in that case, if we don't, If you don't count the door we came in, we'll call it door one, two, three, and four. I will have opened door number three. The rightmost door. Oh, so.

No, the middle of the three doors. The penultimate door. The middle of the three doors. You open the middle of the three doors. Which doorbeck is calling door number three. You open the door and immediately you are, you are hit with a wave of wind and fog. As this is clearly a door to the outside.

What you find yourself looking at is that this side of the Hags hut is clearly hanging over the precipice of land that it's built on. And there is a rickety wooden staircase that is heading up towards the second floor. And as you look out towards it, you see that this staircase has been clearly unattended for a long time. It looks precarious. And you're unsure of its ability to carry weight. And you see that beneath it, there is no landing. It drops straight to the lake below. Um, okay.

You also immediately hear, z-z-z-z, and as you look up, you see that there is a door going to the second floor and a giant wasp nest that is clearly attached to the, uh... Fucking resident, even, um, okay. Uh, I, Torbek would have, like, hitting,

Being hit with like the wind and the fog, he would have grabbed onto the door and like, kind of poked his head out. What? Let me be... Torbeck, going on with the... ...their back on the second... What? And then I'll pull...

You see my hat? Torbeck pulls his head back in. His fur is all like... ...from the wind. And... Torbeck said there's a staircase that goes right to the second. and floor and it looks very safe. Well done, Torbeck.

Much safer than the Ferris wheel that Torbrack climbed all the time. Congratulations. You're really good at climbing. That's wonderful, Tolbeck. Did say it then be a... The door went up. Well done, Tollbeck, you're a natural.

Actually, you're the scrappy-doo of the group, not flimflat. That sounds a fancy. It's a flimflip-flict. Torbeck doesn't sound, that doesn't sound like a compliment. D-di-de-de-de-de-d-o. Torbts willing to put that aside,

we do have to be careful of the breeze. It's a little windy outside. He's not the cat's teeth, man. Scrappy dude. He has something like thing he does. Scrappy do to the rescue! And he like runs real fast in his legs and the only thing that's animating

shit can save on animation costs. Oh, yeah. Oh, ah. Anyways. Well, that's great. Good to know, but what did we say to platinum? We have to clear the first. We got to clear.

So, okay. That's the way we'll take. They'll never see it coming. Doorbag will just shut the door and with one like horrific sharp claw, just like mark it. Or the number three if I can like carve it. You do, but you, you carve it backwards.

Yes, I do. It would look like a three in a mirror, but to everybody else. Oh, for the bees. Door number three. Okay. Okay, Twig, it's your turn to choose a door. Okay.

Well, do we want to stay on the same wall then? It's up to you. Up to you. Just walk to the door and I'll be there to protect you. Remember, what's the safety word? Pineapple. No, no, no, no. We agreed that it's poopy butthole.

You're right, poopy bulls. That's the one. What's everyone laughing about? Nothing. Just a phrase. This is very serious. for serious adventures. Okay, I'm gonna go to door number four.

Well done. Oh, wow. This is the height of epitome of comedy. Yeah, I don't think we've had a better session than this. This is not- Here. I don't know. I don't understand.

I don't understand. I don't. Literally. Oh, God, okay. I'm good. Okay. Uh-huh. She said the poop.

Burr? She, you watch as Twixmops over and she jumps up and tries to reach the knob and she's not able to reach it. She jumps up again and tries to reach the knob and is not able to reach it. She jumps up a third time and looks over to Gideon.

I'll walk over. Grab the knob and turn it. Okay. Damn, me. Yes. They burned off. And she, she, the door swings open and at first you're met with darkness.

And Twig steps into the room before you get a chance to fully look in. Oh, I know. This is boring. This is poopy bubbles. Closing the door requires a strength ability check. D.C. equal to my... Spell save D.C. 15. This is a nightmare.

Oh, you crushed it. Yeah. What about? It's a strength save? It's a ability check. So you add five. Athletics. Not athletics.

Oh, just track. Just track. All right. Athletics is right. 18 if it's five. Strength 20 if it's athletic. 18. So it's not.

It beats it either way. You are able to best my mind holding the door closed and you are able to Oh, my rain. You wrench the door open and you look inside and for a moment. Twig, are you okay in there? You do not see twig. You cannot see twig anywhere. Twigs and you see Creamy's hat.

And as you look through this small room, it is a very small, it looks like almost like a linen closet, but you can see that this is clearly Bavlornas fabric storage room. And you immediately look towards the mannequins where the dark mantle was that stole Crumie's hat and the haphazard garments that had been created.

And you can see that this is where that fabric is made, rolled up on bolts are pieces of fabric that are clearly bits of garments that have been ripped apart and re-sown together to create her own textiles. These are hideous and awful and all of the scraps are piled on the floor in a heap. And then you see twigs glasses poke out from beneath the scraps of fabric as she looks up at you smiling. Get into a look at where I'm found! And she holds up to in comparison to her very large pin cushions. These pin cushions are about a foot

tall each. Each of them is humanoid in shape. One of them is an elderly humanoid mounted atop a tiny wooden rocking horse. The other is a far younger humanoid shape

that has affixed to its back a pair of wooden wings. And Twig is looking at them and pulling pins in and out of them. Who puts it out? Oh, why? They're dolls.

No, they're not just dolls. Uh-huh, they're pin cushions. I understand that. Right there, right? Yeah, see? She pulls it out. No, no, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. Why?

Hand them over, please. But I want them. No. Because you might be doing something real bad right now that you don't understand. No, Twigsiezee. Come on. Can I put it back in the hole? I got it from?

Nope. Well, give me the pen. Fine. Give me the dolls. Which one? Both of them. I can't keep the one with the rocking horse. I might give them back.

Let me take a look. Okay. She hands you the first one with the wings, and then she hands you the one with the rocking horse. I look at the pins, and I look at the dolls. Do they look like voodoo dolls? They look like pin cushions. They are clearly stuffed with sawdust,

maybe bits of walnut or acorn shells. sure how familiar you would be with textiles, I imagine at least a little bit. But it seems up to code for what a pin cushion would be made from. And the pins are sticking in them in places you would imagine that pins from a voodoo doll would be stuck into. But they're also stuck all over the dolls. I would like you to roll a perception check for me, please. Somewhere else in the downfall, there's a... Oh, thank God. 17.

You turn over the one with the rocking. Holy shit. And you see carved into the bottom of it, Sister Scabatha. You then take the other one, and you turn it around and you see the bottom portion of what you had thought was just a dress. appears to be some sort of tent, almost.

And as you turn it around, you look at the wooden wings and you see carved in with the same scrawl, Sister Scabatha. Scabatha, or sorry, Sister Endelen. Endoline. She's just gonna holl. All right, Twig, I understand these look fun. Yeah.

But I'm gonna hold on to these. Okay, but are you sure? Have you thought about it for a long time? I mean, they start on what I know. giving it a lot of consideration and stuff and thought about Twix's feelings in the matter first. Rees could come in real handy, you understand? And what if you accidentally drop them in the acid pool?

They might just disintegrate. I was thinking about it. Well, that's why I have it. You don't. The relief is so real. I hope I don't get dropped in acid. Okay, Quimmy, you know better than me. There's reason Gideon loves you like he does,

you know, while romantically and such. Like a brother. Yeah, exactly right. I mean, there's nothing weird about that or anything. No, I don't think, you know. Yeah, robrose. Yeah, like romantic bros. Oh, I thought you meant like a certain point of view, I guess.

Yeah, you know, like. Anyway, that's not a point right now. Look, platonic romance. Yeah, like romance, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Be romance bros. Yeah, romance bros. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Be as in best. Yeah. Okay. Ah, best romance, bros. We don't need to continue these conversations. I'm gonna put these in my bag. That just really kind of sucks, though. That I picked this dumb old room

with just fabric and dolls all I'm gonna get to keep. Are you sure there's nothing else inside the room? Did you check thoroughly? Oh, I looked through all of it when I was hiding inside that fabric. Why don't you just take all the fabric? I don't want it. It's ugly. Oh, well, it is kind of tangy.

Yeah, man, I wasn't gonna say it, but I'm smelling like mad at Rosloops. Yeah, it's like different weights and stuff, and some are knits and some are woven. And, like, you don't put knits and woven together like that. That's just silly. The structure of the garment's going to be unpredictable. It kind of looks like me Graham's house. I feel like this tiger print leotard, it's kind of fetching.

And it's all lofty. Yeah, but the crotch on that one's been eaten now. Say that one more time? I'm sorry, I didn't, I didn't quite catch it. You were on my back. Yeah, I was talking about the boss. I said the crotch on that one. It's been eaten out.

I should call her. It reminds me of Busty. I wonder how she's doing. I wonder how Busty's doing these days. I noticed that the crotch had been eaten out. Yeah, it's completely gone. It's soured. Consumed.

Yeah. It's crockless. Oh, by weevils or moffs. Or boasts. We should probably do just a quick check to make sure that there's nothing else. Sure. They don't trust me. No, I mean, I trust you, but... I gave you the dolls.

I'm gonna make a middle note of this. Babylon may need moth balls. Anyway, can somebody light it up? I can't fucking see the dog. Don't... Well, I can... Well, I can... Well, how flammable. Yeah, I mean...

You create an orb of light in your hand, and you see inside this tiny fabric closet, that even without an investigation check, that it is simply what Twig told you, it appears to be a fabric storage room and nothing more. There's a lot of tacky fabric in here. All right. Well, good work, Twig.

I think we use a little coming handy. I really should write me Graham, though, I'm curious. Oh, I've been. Oh, I thought I'd play you make this a little ear turn. Gidim! I should write both Busty and Graham, actually. Everything binds me and everything.

He said, I gotta wrap my gram, man. It was a separate conversation. I was referring to the first thing I mentioned. You're a sick fuck, you're a sick fuck, man. You're in time. Get your mind out of the gutter. Why don't you talk about your grandma in a time like this? Because this looks exactly like a closet. It's exactly like a closet.

I've been written her in months. I'm a bad grandson. Anyways. Who's next? Oh, hoot-see. Are you excited? No, no, pay attention. Get off your flypad.

Okay, pay attention. We're having an adventure right now. Okay, oh, no, I'll give it back. Oh, she's screaming. Okay. I don't know. Pick the fucking no. Okay, oh, fuck, hootie.

Okay, oh, okay, we better now. Okay, I'll buy you some Z-box. Okay. Okay. Okay. Pick one of the remaining doors, Hoosci. This is your chance. How many doors are left?

Two. Two. This is your chase. She'll sit down and she'll go. One and four have not been picked. Where's my D2? Do I have a D2? I'll just do.

Oh, yeah, I do. Just roll a D20 and divide it by 20. One. She'll go up and she'll put her paw on. She's like fiddling with the handle. So Hootzie turns from where you guys are standing. and traces all the way across the room to the opposite side, to the wall with only one door on it.

And she rears up to it and jiggles the handle and is eventually able to push the door open. It is dark, but it looks like there are an array of things in this room. Goody, nice choice. You're so smart. You're an expert adventurer. See, when you pay attention and exert yourself anyway, We're talking about it later.

Let's take a look around. This podcast is brought to you by our Patreon. Become a patron today at patreon.com slash legends of Aventris and gain access to tons of exclusive perks, including a monthly movie night and a weekly Patreon exclusive campaign set on the high seas, shroud over saltmarsh. You can also go to The Crookedmoon.com

to pick up your own copy of our first published supplement, The Crooked Moon, a folk horror tome for Dungeons and Dragons fifth edition. And don't forget to snag all of the extra goodies like dice, miniatures, plushies, a tarot deck, and more. Thank you. Walking into the room, a horse's head leers at you with glossy eyes. Its lips drawn back from pointed yellow teeth. The head is affixed to a large, eight-limbed armature made of wicker and wire, situated so

that it faces the doorway where you entered. Near it is a wooden crate. Flies, buzz about this disordered room, landing occasionally on animal. carcasses that lie strown in small piles. On a low table rests an assortment of tools, saws, knives, scrapers, a hand-cranked drill, sewing thread, needles, and awls. Around several taxidermic subjects in various stages of completion, a shelf that looks on the verge of collapse, leans against the wall between two windows and bears the weight of dozens of stuffed whores. Each one is an artless combination of two or more animals.

This is clearly where Bavlornah stuffs dead creatures and stitches them together to create chimeric horrors. You see that a lot of these creatures that she's sewn together are wearing outfits.

Hair of overalls, some bloomers and a bow tie, all of them made out of the haphazard fabrics that she is stitched together in her fabric closet. And all of them, at least multiple animals stitched together. Oh, good job, Hootie.

Let's go take a look at it. Hootie, get her, get out, get her. No, Hootie, Hootie, Hootie, hootie, hootie, hootie. Okay, we're going to do group therapy later. Oh, my gosh. The room smells pungent, as there is clearly no rhyme or reason for how she cures these carcasses.

and there are piles where they are just left in various states of decay. And the moment you open this door, the moment you step into the door frame, you can smell the death of decay. This is not a question that Torbeck would think to ask you, but I'm curious. Does it appear like any of these creatures

would not be native to Prismere? Or do they all just seem to be like swamp wildlife? I would roll a perception check at advantage. Because you have, I would say, at this point gotten very familiar with the types of creatures you see in Prismar. Oh, at a man. Or at least in.

Oh, son of a bitch. I mean, perception. I got a 13. Okay. Let's worth it. All right, one more roll. Yeah, yeah, this is important. That's better.

A 14. Okay. There we go. Looking around, And you can't tell whether these wouldn't be native to Prismere, but you can definitely tell that there are creatures that look like they don't necessarily belong in hither. Okay. Interesting.

Again, Torbeck wouldn't care, but I'm curious. Torbeck doesn't like this. I guess she has hobbies. I'm going to step forward. Does the horse head that was leering at me, look. like it has the same hair color as the horse portion of the... It doesn't. It doesn't. Okay.

Oh, wow. Well, let's... Frosty, why don't you take it around here? How about it? Yeah, somebody... Might be happy to. See what's going on in there. Yeah, thank you.

I'll give you a hand. I just don't want to look through all of this myself. No, no, no, no. I understand. And this is not your, this is not your preference. Yeah, I'll assist you as I investigate as well, yeah. I'll go through methodically and with as little emotion as possible, I will look behind everything.

I'll peek, I'll do a full survey of the room. Roll an investigation check for me. Please add advantage because you're going slowly and methodically. Those are spells, not skills. That's just so. Oh, man. Herbert Vantage. So we'll go these two.

Let's go with a 27. Natural 21. Unfortunately. Unfortunately, you don't really see much in here. I'll pick up one. Daddy hurt. That's none. No, that's just, yeah.

Every time from all right, something I just get. You're helping. Oh, look at it. I'll help me. Please. Get out of the way. You make your way.

through the room and the majority of this is exactly what you saw when you first made your way in. It is shells filled with these chimeric horrors, parts strown haphazardly about, you can tell that though she may do this, this may be a hobby of some sort and she may create these with some sort of passion. The way that she navigates this room is clearly, um, thoughtless. All aside from two things that eventually catch your eye. One of them being the crate. You make your way towards the crate.

You take a dish that has a piece of rotting steak on it and you move it to the side. I'll use my mind here. The smell of it massed by the rest of the horrors and atrocities in this room. And I will say you use your mind. hand to lift the lid as hundreds of flies spill out of this box. You look in and see curled up on the inside as the carcass of an eight-legged reptile with spikes running down its

back. It looks like it's in this box almost as if it was delivered this way, as if it was maybe precious in some way, or looking around, I will say, you notice that there are other boxes that look similar that have been open, almost as if this was a delivery of sorts. Does it look whole? It does.

So it looks like this is a free, ramshackle beast that was delivered to her. I would say with Gricko's help and his familiarity with nature, you might be able to determine what kind of creature it is. If it looks more, I'm strasaurus, I will try to determine if I recognize what this creature might be. A nature check for me, please.

Nature check. Don't let any of the flies bite you or it's a sex thing. What? Never mind. Oh my God, when the flies bite you, it's a sex thing. Yeah. 17. Thanks.

17. That was a thing I didn't need to know. I've had such a lot of flies. I'll just feel like she and that. Oh, this could be. look into, you look into the box, and you can see that this is clearly the carcass of a baby basilisk. Oh.

Baselisk. Oh. Gosh, I haven't seen one of these in years, and it's a little young and look how it small is. A basilisk. Do they have any special abilities or magical powers they should be aware of? Well, you know, I actually never killed a basilisk, but if you look at their eyes, it'll turn you to stone, similar meducerules. So we should definitely not.

toy with this, does its powers of paralyzation and stone making work even in death? Well, it worked for Perseus, so... Who? And never mind. Does it still have eyeballs? I'm going to look very carefully and try to see if I... I'll back up.

Can see if it has eyeballs. You reach in and you slowly move back the eyelids, the basilisk. Though this creature has been dead for you, imagine quite a while, it is beginning to decay. So it can't have been here that long. You are able to move back the flesh around its eyes and with a sickening, a sickening pops, you feel the skin move around the eyeballs and they are firmly there. a hazy white film has begun to cling to the irises.

And you imagine that if in death, basilisks could turn you to stone, that whatever hazy film is accumulating there would, at the very least, prevent it from happening. And you are able to look into its eyes and see that they are still intact. Are you feeling like you're turning into stone, Greg, though? I'm going back immediately.

I'm sorry. I shouldn't make love. This poor little fella, I will try to gently grab the basilisk, kind of ignoring how disgusting it is that it's rotting and pull it out of the crate. If I feel like I'm, I don't know if I'm strong enough, and try to like get it to where I can see how it was killed. Oh, this poor little fella. Full an archa chick. That's awful. I'm gonna do one twist. Yeah. Oh, that's better. Ocana, one.

50% increase. Oh, pose zero. 12. You are not able to determine the spell that killed it, but I will say with that you are able to determine it was a spell that killed it. It is difficult to really be able to tell because as you slide your hands beneath it, you can feel that the underside is much more liquefied. And as you attempt to pull it up, the inside spill out.

stomach and splash against the bottom of the one-tiered. I'm sorry, little fella. I told you that which light was going to get dark. This is amazing. Torbeck really doesn't like this. I've never said this before, but I'm so glad we didn't eat dinner here. Grigo. Oh, that's good.

What is poor? He didn't do nothing. He had his whole life ahead of him. Right. It is sad. I don't know what to say. I know how much you care. for monsters like this. This is a tragedy.

How valuable you think the eyes are? I feel like we just need to let it rest, let it be. Can't it rest without its eyes? Why are you thinking of something like that at a time like this? Well, I mean, you know, it may come in handy if we need a bottle or something. Perhaps something, but it is not our place. I say that only because we are in terms of our place. We are intruders here.

If we are poking around, I'd still like to leave most things in its place. Technically, we were invited. Three days ago. You've already taken dolls. I want to join Grigo in this and pay respect. I'll feel like we should do what Gideon does best. Punch it. Light it on fire.

In a wooden hut? The fuck are you doing? It's all filled with swamp water. Yeah, everything. It's just long with water. In the Faywild. You can't burn a house down even if you try real hard. We'll keep it in the box.

We'll keep it contained. And if we need to, we'll get ready with the water and we'll put it out. But I don't want this poor little precious basilist to be a play thing. How come this? To Bavlona. How about a middle ground? A compromise. We take one eye and leave the other.

It still has one eye, but we have the other one. Oh, that still makes Dormann feel icky. But you're the boss. We're all bosses in this. I propose that we put it to rest fully. We're not at all. All right, let them have this one. Roll in our Connichick, Kremi.

Oh, boy. Don't let me do that. Yeah, I will. How come you think this is the only one? that showed up in the box. How's everything else out of it? Is it say, like, who it's from? Well, I feel like

this is kind of, I mean, this is kind of like Maroon back home where you buy, you get all these cool stuff and you want to build, and it wasn't, it wasn't aminous, but like, it's wood, you know, I like to whittle. And so I would buy a bunch of supplies for a bunch of miniatures. I like to sew descend among the parties.

And so your hobbies pile up, and it's called the pile of shame. I feel like this is part of Bevalon's pile of shame that she hadn't gotten to. Some people call it the whip, the work in progress. Yeah, yeah, that's what I feel she hasn't gotten into it yet. You stared down at this basilisk, at these eyes specifically, and it takes a moment for you to remember a conversation that you overheard Guru having, where he was paying a very pretty penny for basilisk eyes, and that they can be used in some incredibly potent hex, hexes and spells.

I'd be willing to pay 100,000 gold pieces of the evening. Well, you drive a hard bargain, my friend. How does 20,000 swear? A piece of the skies. One second. Well, wouldn't you shake a porous in his hand? We got a deal. Bum, bum, bum, bum.

I start like a ghost skiing myself. Now you're ready. I would like to, if we're looking at the box, I want to kind of be up, like, my back against the table where the all was. And I'd like to just sort of very subtly behind my back grab the all off the table. Okay. Roll a slide of hand. Rickles pretty perceptive. Oh, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, it's an 18. What's your passive perception might be?

beats, oh, actually, it might be 18. 13. How do I see? Oh, 17. Oh. You're easily able to. I'll slide it up my sleeve. We can say goodbye. Do you mind if I ease it along the way, though?

Make sure that it takes fire. I have some cooking oil that'll help. I think that's very nice of you, crem me. You're also closer to the spirit world than I. Make a piece with it. Perhaps you can help it all in its way, wherever it is, makes sure it doesn't go to a scary place. I would say, you are leaning up against the workbench.

You don't even need to take an all. There is an eyeball scoop. It's designed specifically for the rubberer eyes. It's even one of those thumb mechanisms that uses the little blade on the internet. It's basically like an ice cream scoop. Meland baller. Yeah. I want to use the all.

Okay. You sick bastard. I think I'll be more subtle. That's very nice of you, Kremi. Oh, thank you for seeing, you know, where I'm coming from. This is my spirituality, you understand. So I appreciate you, Kremi. I will lean down and I'll say,

all like beings under my breath, like really low, kind of like chant some of the things that maybe I heard on the swamp, basically making stuff up. And I'll take a bottle. From the apron that I have, I'll take a bottle of the apron that I have. I'll take a bottle of oil and I'll pour it over the body with one hand. And then sort of use my torso to kind of cover the rest and I'll flip the all out of my sleeve and I'll take an eye and I'll all kind of roll it down my other.

sleeve, and then I'll open the other eye. I'll hopefully get both down my sleeve, and then finish sort of pouring the bottle of oil out. I'll throw it in the corner.

And I will, as subtly as I can, try to cast mirror image over it where the eyelids are seen. Minor illusion, thank you. Where the eyelids are still a little open and you can like, oh, my God. It's the I'm still in there. I'm good.

I'll say with that level of care, you were easily able to do this. I'll keep your sleight of hand. All right, good. Let a rip. Start with the head. I have respect. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Your incantation, I assume. Yes, exactly right. I'm passing it to the other side. Oh, faking, Cuddy. That's so nice of you. I sit my hand down into the crate, and I find a section. that he's covered in oil close to the head.

And I... And the de basalus burns. You hear the sounds of hissing and pops as the remaining liquid inside of the body takes to the fire. And the wooden crate around it, having come recently to this place from somewhere else,

was not nearly as waterlogs as everything else, and you were able to burn it. It creates a bit of smoke, but the window off to the side of the room is actually open, and with the breeze that whips around this high up, it swirls through the room, and the smoke is funneled out of the window. I'll take it by cane and sort of do some motions,

and the presiditation. I'll, like, turn some of the smoke, like, purple and green. Which is more bullshit. Can you make sure that Bavlorna or anyone else can't smell the smoke? Oh, good idea. And I'll make it smell like swamp water. Oh. His soul will pass on to Giddy now.

Mm. Got a place in this. Oh, well, thank you, Crammy. That's very nice. Yeah, it's my kind, do you? And I go to take my hat off. Oh. And then I'll reach down in my bag and let the eyes roll in the bag.

With two soft plops, the eyes. the eyes land at the bottom of your bag, but nobody else hears the sound. As Frost, you continue to make your way around the room. I was this going to say? I saw two fucking things. With this done, you do not pay as much attention as everyone else does to what's happening here.

You do feel sympathy for the creature, but if death had already come long before this moment, in your eyes... It makes me glad that Griko is getting what he needs. And your eyes are on a small wooden box with drawers that sits on the work table. Whereas most of the things on this work table are tossed about haphazardly and nothing really has its place. It's quite a mess. This table, or this cabinet of drawers, is in pristine condition.

There are about 20 small square pull-out drawers lodged within it. Perfectly squared drawers. Perfectly squared drawers. None of them seem to be labeled all but one that has an hourglass symbol etched into it. And as you look at the drawer itself, you notice the handles specifically. There are these elaborate brass handles. And they all have the rough amount of wear, all but the one with the hourglass symbol, which clearly has seen more use.

you look towards it and you pick one of the random drawers and you pull it open. I choose the third drawer if I... Perfect. You choose the third drawer. And looking into it, you see that what is inside this drawer is at first what appears to be a pair of glass eyeballs.

But upon further inspection, you realize that they are petrified eyeballs. Oh. What creature they came from, it's impossible to tell. You open up drawer six, another pair of petrified eyeballs, smaller than the others, clearly from a different creature. You begin to pull drawers and drawers and drawers until you get to drawer eight, the drawer with the hourglass symbol on it. And as you pull it open, you see nestled on a velvet cushion. It's not a pair of petrified eyeballs, but one wooden eyeball.

Scrawled across the back is the word scabatha. What they think? Scavif. Are they covered, this is out of question. Are they covered in like Lornaish at all? Mm-hmm. Okay. I had probably nothing.

And it appears to be the size of a human eyeball. Do I get the feeling that it has any arcane or otherwise magic? I will say it is difficult to tell what, but it does thrum with some sort of magics. Thank you for that word, by the way. Fuck you, dearly. I'm going to thrum, I'm throbbing as we speak. Interesting. Maybe it's the mood of the room and everything that surrounds me, but very impulsive.

Very impulsively, I look back and I see the ritual and I feel that this is something that could come in handy. But for whatever reason, I don't feel like selling... You said thrum in handy within my... I mean, if you're going to have handy, they're going to be... I put it into my rope. It has been, at this point, it feels like it's been longer. But in real time, it's been about 10 minutes since Kremi's hat was taking. and you know, Grico, that the time has not completely spent

as you feel Kremie's hat, at the very, very top of the house, it's not moving. It stayed in the same place for the last four or five minutes. And then in this moment, you feel it pop out of existence. Oh, the hat disappears out of his sense. Oh, shit. Because my spell ended or no? I'm imagining your spell. not... It no longer senses it.

It no longer senses it. As in something has taken it away from a thousand feet or however. It's not spent. It just got planified. I don't tell cremuthus. The secrets are mounting. Well, uh, shall we? I think there's one door remaining.

If we're gonna... Wait, what was all that stuff? Should we take it with us? Oh, uh, this is a very strange... Look, here, all these drawers filled with glass eyes, and I open a few and close a few. Well, Cremie, these are probably humanoid eyes, so who cares? So because you were such a wonderful friend and didn't take the basilisk, I was, why don't you just have your helping at ease? There are some nice colors in there. I don't think they're magical or anything.

Yeah, scabify. A scapified of some kind. I don't know what kind of animal. Yeah, they're varnished. I could probably make some kind of potion or something. The only one that's varnished is the wooden wood. The deduction I make is that perhaps she uses these to complete the eyes of the taxidermide monsters

that you see randomly assembled around. I would say that's a very good deduction, and you imagine, you don't want to say it outright, but you feel very confident that you were correct. I did say it outright. getting in here to the back of his head. A woman after my own heart. Oh, tag for Jeremy.

We got to get out of this room. We got to get that next door, right? There's nothing in here for us, just information. I think that we've learned a little bit about Babylon. Let's move on. You got the wooden eyeball. I got the wooden eyeball. I got the wood of my own.

Oh, Frost's, I think he was taking at you. No, no, no, no. pocketed it, didn't see it. None of you know it. Nobody knows it. And we don't know anything about the organic eyeballs either. Oh, that Warner's tearing us apart.

You're tearing me apart, Lisa. Right. Let's quickly take another look around and then we'll take our way up the stairs, perhaps, one of them. We've one more door. We're not going to look in the fourth door, man. We have one more door.

That's what I was just saying. Let's take another, let's take the rest of the look around that we need to do, and then we can go up one of these two staircases. I'm sorry who'd see that that was the door that you picked. Here's your fly pad back. All right, let's give this over. Okay, let's go.

Open the last. You make your way across the room and head towards the door that you have not opened. As you turn the knob and wrench the door open, it makes a loud creaking noise. It echoes throughout the bottom portion of this house. you jump at the sound of it. It's unexpected.

The other doors had not been like this. This is a room that is clearly not open often. You look inside and what you see is a large cupboard. It stands alone in this dark room. Fine scrollwork frames the cupboard's two doors, which are bridged by a circular panel of dark wood. Panel is inlaid with a silver hourglass sigil. There is nothing else in this room.

room. Frosty, what are you, oh, tiger eyes, say? I'm sorry, I was distracted by the sound of the

squeaking door. It felt like someone just logged on to AOL instant messenger. Oh, shit. Wow.

It's transported back to fucking 2000. Ease. 80% of our audience won't understand that. I don't

have forgotten it did. Yeah. Oh, God, I'm so awa right now. I'll walk in, and I'll just give it another quick go-around of investigation. I'll see if I can. You walk into the room and you stand in front of this cabinet. You can see the ornate scroll work that decorates it,

and that oval-shaped placard in the very center with the hourglass signal on it, and as your eyes scan the rest of the room, There is nothing in here. Bar two things. Manacles attached to the walls. No, no. Dormick really doesn't like this. And he takes a step back.

I'm going to say, well, I'm starting to get a little nervous because this also reminds me of me Graham's house. I'm going to start knocking. Well, she used to have a special, like, a special drawer that was hidden to keep the good plates, Sim. You say, oh, Greg, go, get out to good lights.

And I would have to knock around and figure out how to do it every time. So I try to, like, not to see if there's any, like, special compartment. You imagine that maybe on the inside of it there would be, but currently it's shut. Oh. So it is a cabinet that is closed and has a sigil of an hourglass. Okay. Well, I will open it up. I guess...

Go ahead. I'll open it up. You attempt to, but it appears to be locked. I will say you do easily notice that the oval-shaped hourglass sigil encompasses both doors. Manipulatable in some way? Like I could turn the hourglass? As you look closer at it, you do see that it appears to be manipulative. I will manipulate a bullet. In which way?

I'll turn it counterclockwise if I can twist it in this way. How many degrees? do a 360 and walk away no no no no if I did a 30060 it'd be right back where we started from what that's not how that works 360 is turning away no no no you're thinking of 180 you're thinking of a 180 we're reenacting a scene from film last action hero right 360 is more than 180 though for all it's a full turn it's a full turn away it's more

dramatic yeah thank you thank you to me but it's an hour glass. You want to turn it upside down. Let's see what that did. You put your hands on the sigil, and you do see the way that this is recessed in, and at first glance, it looks like it covers both of the doors,

almost blocking them from opening, but now that you are looking at the sigil, you see that it is recessed in a way that you can push on it and turn it. And as you do, you can hear the mechanics on the inside clicking. And as it clicks, as it clicks,

into place. You see that it clicks at all different angles, but you have it in your mind that you would turn an hourglass to let the sand begin to drain, and so you turn it to that 180 position. It clicks into place, and you hear nothing

else. You slowly press your hand in, and with a soft click, the doors pop open. Oh, shit. I'm finally smart. Frosty, you're a genius. I know. It only took you thirty-sad me.

That's a son. Inside the cupboard, it's divided into two rows of small compartments, each one stuffed with pouches and other tiny containers. You begin to look around, and something catches your eye immediately. Finally, a small cast iron cauldron. Oh, still hot. Mm. No.

Look, it's a small cast iron guldron. Oh. It's well seasoned. Ugh. Is there a lid on it? Yeah. I love you, Mike. You hear nothing

That's what that's what the part of me Grand's house used to sound like You hear nothing As you open the cul-in But it does seem to be An exact miniature version Of what you, the type of culture you would imagine Bablornah would have.

And inside is a piece of parchment with the same script on it that you've seen on so many things. The pin cushions that say scabbatha and endelive, as well as the etching on the back of the wooden eyeball. It will take it. In a strange curling script. It says the world.

script on this. It says the word spittlespew. Spittlespew. Some kind of magical cohort or something? Perhaps it could be our new safety word. I look at the cauldron. See, the did anything. I will say the cauldron, just like in Lord of the Rings, the spectacular film from 2003. That's when it came out, right?

That's when the King came out. Oh. Was Spellation with the Ring earlier than that? 2001, yeah. Oh my God. The acclaimed film Fellowship of the Ring, the way the ring reacted to the flame, you see a similar thing.

As you say the word spittle-spew, you, Grico, you feel the cauldron heat up in your hands for a second as you see a dark red ember glow on the bottom of it as if the cauldron itself is being heated up. But outside of that, it does nothing else. Frusty, look, I assure you it's not, It looks like it's warm by seeing this word it must be a power or like an active...

Does it hurt or is this warm like a hot cup of tune? And it quickly goes away. It seems like it reacts but this tiny cauldron is not what the word is intended for. Oh, oh, Frost, Leite Dormexe. Why? I just, D'ermbeck just wants to look! Let them include you. Yeah, come on.

Why are you trying to exclude Tobeck, Frosty? Torbeck's one of our best mates. Thanks, Frost. Very nicely done, Torbeck. All right. Here, do you want to hold the cauldron? Yeah! There you go.

What if there's with that little thing sitting from the mirror? I'll put the lid on you like a little hat. Idiot, it's very smart. Well, I just assumed you were going to say it, so I just, you know, I thought I'm getting from it. You see more things that you assume I would say. Do you think you have to stand inside the water to say it? Oh, God, I hope not.

No, look, we're not going to try that. Why don't we try it in front of the via first before we get the water? Well, the mirror's in the water. Can we, like, look at it? It's facing into the water. You know, we got Torbeck could do it. He's like 10 feet long. He can just kind of like slink around it,

stare into his reflection. Torbeck does that very long. Can you imagine what Torbeck would look like if he waited through the water and it discerated all the hairs on his legs from knees down? Trust Torbeck twig. Torbeck tried. I'll have a little hat now. Spittlespew.

It warms up. As you listen, you can hear Embers crackling far off in the distance. It's almost as if you're, like, it's almost as if it's radio-transpewereens. submitting the sound from somewhere else. So we hear it, and then it's... Oh, we gotta hurry! Oh, in the time. I...

I wonder what happens when you say it a third time. Spaddles View. Beetlejuice pops down to say. Ah! Hey, baby! Nice fucking model! Her back has an idea. Coolback.

Very nice. What's your idea? You have some tips. What did you say? Oh. Wham salt tips. Nothing happened. That's really small, Tobac.

I really think that would have worked. Torbeck doesn't want to hold this anymore. Oh, no. Mood. Mad. Mad. Mad. S salt.

Wait. Wait. You're a genius. Mad, salt. Tids. I thought these were if. Mad sulfids. Jizz.

Jizz. Jiz. The first I was to say jizz, Frosty. That does look. Mad salt jiz. Mad salt jiz. Mad salt jiz. Mad salt jiz.

Mad salt jes. Mad salt jes. Mad salt jes. Man salt jes. Sorry. Sorry, Torbenas, sorry. A bunch of pests, bro. Mad, salt.

Or is that salt? It's kind of like an A, right? It could be a D. Oh. Distilled. Is it jazz? I love jazz. Stitz.

Stiz. It's devil. He says a tent. What if it does what it says on the tent? Cramee, Cramme and Gideon, why don't you give it a try? That says spit and spute. No, turn it up, check down.

Spittled. Oh, definitely says spittle. You. Every time, it's getting hotter every time I can say this, right? Mad. Is that an A or, I guess these are A's? Mad salt. Mm-hmm.

See? Mad salt is. No, J's. It's not J's, man. There's no G. Because there's a D and a G. You see the D and the G? There's no G.

The G and G, they're connected. It's like an eye, but it's upside down. And that's the P, but it's a... The P, but... but it's upside down. That's a, yes, but it's upside down. Well, let's take it to the mirror. Well, I think it's very obviously

that this is how Bavlona heat up her bath water. That's obvious. But there you go, you figured it out. I feel like we still gotta knock around in case it's the good plates. Oh, Greg, I'll get to good plates. I'm having children over for supper. What are you doing, Dorbeck?

Is there something in there? Do you taste anything? It's well seasoned. Torbeck is not sure. What does it taste like? I can't imagine when she cooks in this tiny pond. A tongue is looking like getting a full, like, it's a near clean cheese. 10 foot wreaths.

Okay. Rock, too, my out. We're mixed out of ideas. I'm gonna just try to see if there's anything else besides this. I'm gonna knock around to see there's any secret compartments. You knock around, you don't find any secret compartments, but you do find some loose buttons of various shapes, colors, and materials. Straight cutlery, all from different sets. Unopened love letters, not written or addressed to Vavlornah,

but to long-dead people with whom Vavlora has had dealings. Old frayed, coiled up belts, pressed flowers and loose dried petals, a horseshoe, feathers from various birds, and lastly, in the most decorative of drawers, one chipped teacup. Oh. Oh, well, a chipped teacup. This looks, I mean, this is kind of like the good cups that Grand had. I loved how excited Rich God.

There's going to be a live, I guess not human. You know what was he? He was a girl. Well, the only thing that's really important, we're never going to see buttons again, so I don't care about these. There's some letters that could be important. Get any money, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Everybody's go put it back, quick back.

Put it back, no, no, but these are her personal effect. And then, and then this, this, this, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, stuck her up, what's the word I'm looking for? We, um, when you, stuck her up, frosty, you what the fuck has got his tongue 10 feet into her pot? I want us to put everything back. These are her personal effect. We stood her up. We stood her up. We stood her up for the, original meeting that we were going to make. We stood her up and then we're going through all of her things. We have to return all these. Where we found We're just trying to gather information, not her things.

This pod doesn't taste that great. You notice that he has licked clean some of the cast iron from inside of the pot. Your mouth starts to go numb. Spit out some rust. This is made of land. Don't do it. That doesn't be out of the house.

I like chat suggestion. It's a chamber pot. Why does it get warm? It's the Lornelly Street. It's like a heat cedar. Like Japanese toilets. We finally say the word backwards the correct way in a bidet. A little fantastic magic item.

Well, there's a little cup here. It's interesting. Oh. Mad, salt, tids. Spittlesbue. look, I think it just heats up. I'm going to see if anything is engraved and what the pattern ought to be.

Look, I feel like in a past life, we put a lot of effort and getting a much bigger version of that all the way through some doors, up a trap door, into a bedroom, and found out that it did that exact same fucking thing reading some sort of goofy magic word. I think this is the exact same fucking thing.

You have a hunch? That was so cute Yeah, I mean that's my presumption Doorbeck just thinks there's something more to all this Well, what if we tried to scoop up some of the bathwater And eat it up in the... Oh, right, I guess Let's go.

Perhaps there's a puzzle of it. Does it have a handle like this? Frashton, you lock tea. Thank you. Just before we leave the room, I want to take a quick look at the manacles the actual mannacle portion to see if they look like, like if there's any like torn skin, dried blood,

I get the sense that they've been... Roll and investigation chip. One set of manacles seems to have been used a long while ago. Any remnants of skin or blood or anything like that would have been long melded into the iron by now. But one set of them, you do at first glance see nothing. But as you're putting them down, the light that's coming in through the open doorway from the, from the, the bathing room catches on what very clearly appears to be a scale.

And as you look closer at it, you recognize the scale. You recognize the color to be that of Sir Talavar. Oh, shit. I picked out the scale out. of the manacle. Looks like she was keeping Taliban here. Wow. And we go and Warg and Morga, we're able to bust him out?

I guess maybe. How many managed to do that? That's pretty impressive, frankly. A good reminder of what we're up against. Could he have escaped? Oh, you missed that. Oh, you mentioned. This is before your time.

Yeah, yeah. You were stalking us saying, I don't care of my friends at the time. Torbeck doesn't think Tormak said that. I thought I envisioned up. He said a ride to us. Yeah. Yeah, you said, I'm gonna kill you.

Yeah, you were like, I love Godin, you know what I mean? I said that you ain't gonna live in it. You were like that doesn't sound like Torbeck at all. Who is Torbeck in it? Uh, Torbeck's not sure that happened. Yeah, and then you walked in and he said, who ordered the fishing chips? Oh yeah.

You said, hey, bro. Torbeck does. like fish and chips. I mean, who doesn't like fish and chips? I mean, I don't want to give fish and chips. You know, I don't like fish and chips is in Pennsylvania.

Where? It's where all the sperm trees are. What? Wow. The sweet. Burm trees. It's Pennsylvania? Huh?

Pennsylvania is how you pronounce it. Oh, Pennsylvania. Is that the adventure in Hershey Park? Oh, yeah. You remember the answer to Hershey Pond? Firm trees here? With the white-down chocolate bars? I call sperm trees because when they're given off their odor, they smell their sperm-y.

Let's unpack that at another time. We'll discuss that in group therapy after this. I've talked about it before. I don't know why you're seeming so weird. That's pretty good. That's very funny. Come on, you guys. Let's go out of here and find out of the bathwalk.

We're going to worm the bathwalk. Yeah, we're going to worm the bathtub. I will walk to the tub, and with my 10-foot reach, I will dip the cauldron into the bathwater, trying to do my best and not touch the water using the handle, and then I will set it down next to the tub with all of us around it and say, Spadil Spadil Spittle. The bottom of the cauldron seems to heat up, and you see the bath water begin to boil, and then it simmers, and Go school. That's it! I'm telling you.

You don't have these visions of a past life. You were there, and you were there, and... What? No, you weren't there. You weren't there either. Yeah. Tweed was there, that's sort of weird. Is this old past live thing?

Oh, you should date a girl who's in the dad. Oh, in your past life, you said this to me. You said, if I didn't do a room, you wouldn't love me. Like, oh, here we go again. no no none of this is I don't subscribe for some reason I'm I don't subscribe to none of that

no that's ridiculous well what are you saying does none of this matters at all we found this weird pot that's just totally irrelevant yeah I think it's a bit of them like oh look it has a magical stroll with the magical word

and all it does is heat up a little bit should we return it now does anyone even want to try and say the word in front of the mirror yeah that should you do it why did you do it hold that

Just don't... Maybe pour the bathwater out. Torbeck's not interested in that anymore. You can have it. You can have the lid. Oh, thanks. Yeah, that's better than that. The lid's...

I look like I'm asking for... Yeah. Oh, we're driving. Win a race... Drink or treat. Drink or treat, I guess. Fucking eggs. Oh.

Is it close to Sowing yet? I'd like to try and get... I guess close to them here. The mirror's like right on the corner of the pool, though, right? It's not in the pool? It is in the pool. So you do have to get into the water to face the mirror properly.

You better Dante's peak biz, bitch. You keep saying that. I don't know what that means. You guys don't know enough about my backstory. I should have a shaft, Frosty. You never talk about yourself. All right, let's just see what happens. I'll try and,

jump into the bath very quick with the intention of shouting the word and then jumping back out. And I jump in and... The water splashes up all over you. Oh! I don't know. Wittersheds, Witter shins. What's the word? Oh, hold on.

Spittles spew. Spittles spew. Spittles spew. Spittles spew. And if that's not it, maybe mad gist it. Don't forget about... Man's old giz, man's old giz. Jizz.

Jiz tins. Oh, God. We're sure. I'm sucking tips. Jizz. Oh, no. Three minutes. The water is unchanged.

Oh. After I've spent three minutes in the poison bath, uh, shouting and screaming, I just stepped casually out. It's just skeletons down. It makes silo phyllopo. That's all.

Oh, God. Well, that didn't fucking work. It was a good idea, though, Gideon. I'm glad you lost all of the flesh below your weight. What was before? Just below the knees, man. I never risked the flesh just below my weight. Let's continue.

Wasn't there a hallway with mirrors? Did we, was his... What? Let's go to the safe staircase that you said, Torbeck. Not the one with bees? No, the safe door. I never mentioned any bees. What do you talk about bees?

Well, he wrote a B on the door. That's a three. It's door number three. That's a three? No, it's an E. Oh, yeah, that's shit. Nice. You know, you know.

I'm not, I'll tell you. You know, kids out, dude. You didn't need a bad. No, Frosty. It's my best. Frosty, no, you... No, no, it's fine. No, you found that...

You found some strange-looking things in the chest and didn't tell us about. That's Quartonov. You found a basilisk. You found a basilisk. No, no. Well, this thing fucking sucks. I throw it over my shoulder.

And if it accidentally arcs through the air and lands in the... The Super Mario tube in the center of the pool... Is that... Is that what you're trying to do? Well, I'm just trying to get rid of it, but if it ends up happening, I mean, I won't be upset about it. You, you know what? Sure. You are having this conversation as you look at this cauldron,

frustrated as you feel one of the blisters pop on your shin. Oh! I mean, oh! You take the cauldron and you toss it over your shoulder. You hear it thwack against the stone of the, of the, of the, of the, of, you take the cauldron, you toss it over your shoulder. stone of the well. And then you hear it plop down to the inside. And you would expect to hear a splash, but you don't.

You hear a strange suctioning thwop. As all of a sudden, you see and hear the rumbling of the well. And out from the inside, you begin to see this long, gelatinous substance begin to spill out and over a jelly worm of some sort with its maw completely agate

rings of circular teeth spiraling deep down into its throat. It's about 10 feet diameter as it begins to pry itself up out of the well its teeth rotating in circles almost like

like chainsaw blades as it moves its head this way and that trying to figure out where this thing came from. You can see the cauldron wedged into a side of its gelatinous form begin to sizzle and melt as this entity is this worm for all intents and purposes, as the book would call it, very much gelatinous cube-like as this cauldron begins to to sizzle and pop, it seems to sense your presence and your sound as it begins to barrel towards you, and that is where we'll end the sound. Driz in the deep. They are coming.

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