Legends of Avantris - Once Upon a Witchlight | Ep. 41 | Throwing Shade

Episode Date: August 19, 2024

The Krew investigates Bavlorna's attic and finds Kremy's hat, but reclaiming it has a steep price...   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/hLyDj-VzsvU?si=GYOLBpy6Hff8dlIg

Welcome to Legends of Adventress. I'm Twig, and you're listening to What's the Pod of Witchlight? Here's what happened last time. There are two mirrors in this place. One goes back home. One goes to mother. It is easy to see as you look around the room. This is some sort of distillery.

It looks like every single one of these jars of mushrooms was stolen by Scabatha from her sister's domain and from beneath her sister's nose. and she took great pride in the fact that she had outsmarted and thwarted her sister. We'll go to the room. Wait, quiet, we go. Let's sneak. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Most of the shadow boxes contain mummified pixies pinned to boards like a collection of butterflies.

It's a trophy room, the portrait room is trophies. You hear a soft click as the mirror swings forward, and a long hallway stretches out before you. It's dark, there are no sconces, and it's about 15-0 long. The hallway is getting longer. Wait, it's also getting taller and wider. You continue to move. You turn to look at your friends and you realize that you have shrunk about half your height.

You do eventually make your way to the end of the hallway. You are now about, let's say, 120th of your size. You are enshrouded by what appears to be the underside of a large bookshelf. You regain your height. You all stand, shielding yourself from Bavillorna's sight, trying to be incredibly quiet. And it is in this moment that you notice something. Your eyes dart back and forth as you see this shadow move.

This shadow is moving on its own. And it seems to notice you as it holds something in its hand. A small spool of silvery magical thread. As the head looks towards you, and then you quickly see it dart into the shaft. shadows. You have all found yourselves in the topmost room of Bavornas cottage. What is clearly a bedroom of sorts. And just like the rest of the house itself, this room is also cluttered and filled with the remnants of past eaten meals, rotting food, buzzing flies, mannequins in the corners,

bits of fabric and needles thrown all about the rooms. is the place where she sleeps and works. This is the place that she exists for the majority of her existence in this house. It is very clear that this room is well lived in. It is dark. And the smell of damp and decay is much more pungent here than it is throughout the rest of the house.

And that says a lot given the first layer of this house a soaking pool. And it is here that you begin your search for Kremi's hat. It is here that you made your way from the study, the sitting room that Buflona was having a meeting with one of the darklings when you were no more than maybe six inches tall. And it is here that you found your escape from all of that, not in any state to be bargaining or challenging Bavlona. And as your eyes begin to adjust to the darkness in this room,

the one flickering candle that is a light on her bedside table illuminating only a small portion of this space. It is Cremie, who notices first the movement in the back half of the room. But at first seems like a figure running across the candlelight. And as your eyes, crummy adjust, you eventually realize that the shadow that is inching across the walls not attached to anything at all, but a shadow that seems to move on its own. And as it realizes that you have sized it up, that you've noticed that it is not attached to anything, it motions towards you almost aggressively before darting into the darkness. completely melding with the shadows itself. Only occasionally do you see as the candlelight flickers and the light casts on a certain area, a bit of the shadow dart this way or that.

And eventually, you hear, as the only other door in this space is pushed open no more than an inch. And you see just the trailing hand of the shadow as it disappears into the other room. With another creak and a click, the door is shut behind it. You fellas, see that? Is that the thing we need to get full of the King of Hearts? No, that's the fuck that has my hat. You think that was the creature that took your hat? Yeah, I think that's the thing that has my hat.

And in its hand, you did notice that it was holding a spool of silvery thread that was thrumming with magic. It was silver. Didn't look like your head at all. That were you very small hat to have. How long have you been wearing a thinner hat? What the fuck are you talking about? Oh, hey, guys.

Torbeck's here in case you forgot. Oh, Torbeck. You got to... What do we talk about being more presents so that we don't forget that you're in the room? Dormac is sorry. Dormick is just... Why?

Sometimes. Oh, you're gonna make Hootchy an orphan off. I thought it was a big one. I remembered that you were here. You've been with us this entire time, Torbeck. Well, thanks for not forgetting Torbeck. You're welcome. What do you think about a time we grew real small in the hallway?

What do you think about that? Oh, that was so magic. Yeah, wasn't that? I think it was very magic. It's quite literally the definition of Lindsay. Yeah, yeah, exactly right. It was very, we're still, I think we're still very small, right? No, no, we're back home.

Oh, yes, I feel, am I still? Oh, that's proportional. Still. Cremie, when your hat was stolen, did you see a shadow or, I recalling you describing that there was nothing at all, perhaps an invisible creature? No, I think.

You saw a creature. Yeah, it was some kind of fucking umbrella looking for. Oh, yes, yes, it was a dark mansion. It was a dark man. Oh, yeah. Masquerading. Manteret or something? Squidlock.

My point is what makes you suspect that this shadow creature has your hat? Because he took my hat, Frost. He's the last one that had it. But it was a shadow man. It's a shadow man. It wasn't a shadow octopus, no more.

Well, I don't know. It was just all shadow. I'm thinking that the creature's in the shadow. What do you think? I think you might be projecting a little crummy. No, I'm just, what I'm trying to say is I think that fuck has my hat and we should go get it. Well, why don't we

rifle through Bavlona's personal effects. First. How's that going to help us? I mean, I'm into it, but... No, that's a good point. Maybe the creature hit it in like one of these drawers or something. Maybe a bag of hole in, or something else is in here.

That's where it is. Yeah, you're freaking with gas. At this point, we have nothing to lose. We've rifled through every other room in this entire cottage, huh? Let's begin. Oh, we can find one of those little fuckers. and we can kill the next one we find.

Perhaps. You look around the room, and I'll describe it again as one of you wasn't present at the time, and it's been a week. You look around the room, a ball of light, bobs above the rafters, casting shadows over this room, in which the owner's messy habits are on full display. Rumbled in moldering rugs, share floor space with food scraps, stacks of dirty dishes, and tipped over clay pots whose plants have long since died. A bed that occupies one corner of the room has a pile of straw in place of the mattress.

In the opposite corner stands a squat chest of drawers with a watering can resting atop it. The only other furnishing of note is a stocky wooden chest with a sturdy iron padlock. It sits in another corner between two closed doors. What is the padlock locking? The chest. The chest.

And I guess with the light here, I guess you can see the other door. I assumed it was hitting, but you can see there are two doors, not just one. Well, I can check out this mattress. There may be something inside. That's a very common hiding place. And you mean the pile of filthy straw? Is that a mattress from where you come from?

I assume this is where Bavlornet sleeps. I'm just using a term for it, for lack of any other. There's no, use your normal hands, man. Use your mind hand. You don't know what she gets up to. Blast the frost. That was my plan exactly. To Frost Point, that pile of straw looks like Egyptian con.

Can't get hurt a Torbeck's bed. When do you sleep on? Don't ask. Well, now I'm curious. We don't have time for this. You brought it up, man. To avoid conversation, like, look around the room to find something that he can go, like, investigate to just get away from the topic at hand. Roll an investigation check.

I will also mindhand the straw mattress. I got a nine. What will you find with a nine? Okay. You begin to look around, and I will let you know when you see something that interests you. What were you? I wanted to go to the mattress,

Brett's check and meet the rugs. That's weird. I'm leaving the chest alone, but I wanted to sort of give the general room of patting down with my mind pan. You move your, mine hand throughout the room and you pick up some of the straw and you see that straw is very light when dry but this is laden with water it's quite soggy

you can see the discoloration and all the bits of straw or places where algae has become adhered to it and as you shake your mind hand to try and get the straw it sticks and it no matter how much you flail the hand and there are just strands of straw that are plastered to it. It's like one of those gummy boogers that you can't get off. Oh! We'll work it for a little while, see if the friction gets there. You do that, you can watch as the water is being squeezed out of the straw

and it's dripping down onto the wooden floor. But eventually, you were able to get the straw off the hand. It looks exactly as you would expect, like a disgusting straw bed fit for a hack. you look under the mattress and you find nothing surprising. It's just the water-logged and swollen floorboards of this hat. Well, those are the only obvious spots. All right, get. Check the chest.

All right. I'll go over the chest and I'll unsheath my four mourns remorse. Oh yeah. They remember me Holy crap, what is there? Have you not seen his fancy knife? I don't think so. Oh, yeah, he's got a very ancient

heirloom of a kingdom. It's very important for religious. He uses it for picking locks and a charcutor he rolls. Well, technically I use it for picking locks. Grammy's used for charicotro. I'm the reason for Dormack to be jealous of getting in. Oh, well, yeah. I mean, it's a finesse tool, so you can borrow it sometime.

Can Dormac just see? No, no, I'm using it right now, man. It's still over there. No, no. Hey, get away with me with those things, man. Come on. Come on, we gotta open this up. You make your way towards the chest. And you notice that, you notice that

Though it is old, like most of the things in here, it seems to be significantly more well-kept than everything else. The padlock chest is clawed iron feet. You can see that the initials BB are carved directly into the lock itself in a very ornate scrawl. The chest itself seems to be quite heavy, and that would be without anything in it. But you imagine just, you don't, yeah,

Say you pick it up. You pick it up and feel it and you can hear that there are things in here. It is, um... Here my hat? Well... Any hat sounds in there? Not any hat sounds in here? Hey, hat! Are you in here? Oh, she can do much.

Oh! You think I'm wrinkling the... whatever your hat's made of, like silk or something? Rule of perception check. You can't wait a silk hat? I don't know, man. Probably like six... Six. Why would Bavlora have a chest that belongs to Buster Brown? We've, uh, B, B stand for her name.

Oh, I actually thought it was something big and beautiful was in here. No, it's Bavlornan. Oh, that's brilliant. Tour back to even think of that. I mean, if I was going to have something and it was big and beautiful, I'd put it in a chest and I'd carve B.B. on the outside. So I knew not to, you know, I put my big, beautiful thing here, not in the closet or in the dress. behind the mirror.

Torbenk will have to remember that. It's a good sorting technique. What did you give from perception? Oh, right. You forgot already. Ooh, eat. Lovely. You listen and you shake, you shake really hard,

and you do hear a crack. And you hear a crack. Oh, no, it cracked your hat, man. I think it's in here, I think it's crack. And to most people, it would sound like glass cracking, But to you, that is exactly it. It sounds like you have cracked Kemp Crummy's hat. I don't think my hat can crack.

You know that was my hat? I hate to break this to you, man. But your hat can crack. I'm like, it just did, I think. But I believe it very strongly. All right, well, I don't. So why don't you go ahead and open it up? I'm going to destroy this gentleman's hat to the box of rocks.

That was a shot. Joe. Hello, Calais! Is that to be ruining this day? Just a little bit of finesse. We'll get this right open. And as I go to just plunge the knife into the lock, I spin around my hand and pass the pats the pottle

into the eye and knock it straight open. Okay, I will have you roll a brute force. horse check. Athletics? Yes, an athletics check. And while this is happening, you have turned her attention away from what's

happening with Gideon. Maybe it's the envy that you feel for the blade that he has that you don't. Maybe it is something else. You decide that your attention is better used elsewhere,

and you begin to make your way towards the other side of the room where the orp of light is hanging, floating above Bavornas, the one flickering candle occasionally illuminating brightly and then softly, almost like it's breathing. And you make your way over to this space. and at first you notice nothing. Your tension lingers on the overturned watering cam for a bit, as you see that it is still filled with whatever water was in it,

and it's slowly leaking off the side of the bedside table. But then you look up towards the orb of light, and it's not what you'd expect. It's not similar to a lamp. The light that it gives off isn't the soft yellow, that you would expect from a flickering candle on the inside and you see it's not attached to anything it's hovering all on its own the soft blue and green light that's emanating from it remind you of something that you've seen before in the

swamps all over this place willow is and though this one doesn't seem to be making any attempt to communicate with you the more that you look at it The longer you stretch your body to get closer to it, you see that it is very clearly a willowwist. And then you hear the voices. Help us. Before I have to reach of it. I would say you could easily reach up and grab it. How can Torbeck help?

And Torbeck will attempt to grab it. And you'll hear the words, no, not that. As you grab on to the willow wisp, immediately you'll feel. feel a pulse of lightning shoot through your body. Oh, Dorebeck, don't. What's your AC? 17. That's pretty good.

I was just instantly vaporized. There's nothing left except for the stench of burn hair. You take nine points of necrotic damage as two blasts of necrotic energy shoot throughout your body. You all immediately smell the scent of burning hair. And as you turn towards him, you can see little pops of what look like lightning that are popping all over his hair as the necrotic electricity is just transferred throughout his body.

You instinctively let go of this willow-wisp and it floats back up towards the ceiling. it says nothing to you and it makes no motion to come towards you but you can still see that it is thrumming and charged with this necrotic energy. Dormick, are you okay? Oh my gosh. Sweet baloney! You smell even worse than normal.

Oh, man. The lion was asking for help. Dormick was just trying to help. You just touched it? They said hammers. How do you need help? Roll a perception check.

That's where I'm normal. Oh, 18. Oh, dread. Oh, got him. I mean, you can still roll well. 13. You listen and hear nothing. Torbeck, however, you hear.

First, and this time, Dormick just immediately sticks his hand inside of it to see if it does anything different. Dormick, don't. Oh, that's all 20. Oh, Jesus. This time I get launched across it, I'm going to get home. You take 23 points. It is you thrust your hand into the light of this willowice. You can feel it's small.

body, cupped in the palm of your hand for just a split second before, and it just radiates this necrotic energy. It crackles. You can hear this entire room is buzzing with the hum of necrotic energy. As you see these bolts of necrotic magic just dart all over the room, you see a couple of pieces of straw catch this strange blue flame for just a moment before it snuffed back out by the liquid that is inside of every strand of it. And Torbeck is just shaking and shaking

as his entire body. Think of those cartoons on someone's electrician. You see, you could see their skill. That is exactly what this looks like, is you watch as Torbeck pulse after pulse after pulse is shocked by necrotic magic. Oh, hey, what the fuck did I say about critical thinking skills? He did.

He just make sure he's not. Oh, he'd be, um, Torbeck would like recoil and basically crumble down to the ground and be like, A perception check and advantage. Sounds dead. A perception check and advantage. Okay.

19. You slam into the ground. The thud of your body echoes throughout this room as Cremi shouts at you for your poor critical thinking skill. Frost continues to listen, not understanding what you're responding to, is he's listening closely but can hear nothing. And as your head lands with a thud on the wood. floorboards, you see.

When the Torbeck has ever suffered has reopened. Emotionally. It's like scurvy. It's like scurvy. Meanwhile, downstairs, look what the fuck? You see on the ground, at the foot of the, nestled between the foot of the bed

and the bedside table, a flower pot turned over on its side. The dirt spilling out on the side, the ground and embedded in it are two small stick-like creatures that look dried up and almost desiccated. But now that you're this close and you look at them, they're clearly not the dying remains of a plant, but some sort of plant-like fey creature. And as you continue to stare, you wonder for a moment if you were losing your mind as one of them blinks at you. It's bark-like eyes cracking as the eyelids open. You can see that whatever moisture had been in this entity

is long gone, and it struggles with every move that it makes. It slowly raises up. It's long, bark-like arms. It's fingernails, twisted and gnarled, reaching out towards you as it says... Spend up some black hicker. And now I like, Torbeck reaches out his head, he points over to where he is, oh, it's coming from over there. Do I see the plant moving now? I would say you're not close enough to see it moving, but you do you see that Torbeck is pointing towards an overturned flower.

I will start to deduce that that's where the voices he's hearing is coming from and start to go over towards the plant. Hello? Is there any water left? There is about a quarter of the murky algae-filled swamp water. Good thinking. Are you guys fine with this?

We all have water. She couldn't get Fiji water. Okay, oh, we do have water on our packs. See our adventurous. See our adventures. See my invader. I have this helpful dagger. Me too. Me too.

That's weird. Okay, little fellas, drink up, drink up. I will pour what water I have. You turn the plant, the flower pot, right side up, and place it onto the bedside table. They attempt to right themselves. One of them is clearly too dried out to even move its lips.

The other one is trying to hold it up in the flower pot as best she can as you pour the water into the pot you immediately watch as the soil starts to turn into a murky sludge as the water is filling it and filling it and you you see there the mouth of the one that's speaking to you begin to lap up any water that's that's spilling over them and eventually her movement starts to become more accurate and seems to come more easily to her as she begins to fill water up in her in her hand and try and feed it to her her flower pop friend. And over the course of about 10 minutes or so, you watch as they go from being these

twig-like entities that look brittle and barely alive to seeing bits of green leaves begin to sprout on parts of them. And on her at the top of her head, a large pink and yellow flower begins to start to bloom. And they continue to drink down the water too excited to say anything to you as you just watch in surprise at this thing. And as she finishes, she holds the other one in her arms and it's clear that this one is still very weak as it rests its head and the crook of her arm and it looks up at her with loving eyes, and she pets the leaves on its hair. It's going to be okay.

I promise, we're going to be all right. Our new friends helped us. I. Thank you. He's going to be okay. Oh, he's fine. He's fun. Don't worry about him.

Don't worry about him. I'll have a tear coming down my face. If I get the sense that these are plant creatures and like druid craft can make like a flower bloom. So I will basically try to use druid craft to try to help the one. You channel the monstrous primal spirits and kind of channel it into the one that's really struggling in order to help it bloom and wake up a little bit. I would say you are, it's not a healing spell, but the nature of your magics, you channel your druidic abilities into, into the source. soil at their feet. And you immediately see the color returning to the bark. What had been a pale

beige is now turning into a nice, oaky brown. Leaves are sprouting all over, all over these small twig-like creatures. And where had just been these almost insect-like fey creatures now are lush and beautiful plant-like fay. And they both look healthy, though the one is still clearly exhausted. And I will say you imagine he will be fine. But for now, he's not gonna speak to you, okay? So, stop trying to talk. Oh, no, rest, rest.

Don't say it. Don't say a word. Shh, shh. Oh, here's some lip balm. They're cute and all, but what's in the fucking chest, kid. I'm trying to open a 15. It ought to get open the chest.

Well, damn it. I mean, this is one hell of an iron lock! Trusting is the blade between the lid and the actual base of the chest and twist. What the hell is that gonna do, man? It's lock show, this stupid big bad lock. Perhaps you could leverage it in, you know, basic lever action. While the three of you are assisting these plant-like entities, the two of you are trying to get into the chest. What did you roll? 23. Oh, uh, got them.

That's a one. That's a one. Nice. It's a natural one. Plus one. Plus one. Yeah. You break the lock,

but not in a way that helps you in any way. This is so glass. Oh my god. Damn it, I just chipped the bottom off the line, stupid thing. You place the knife in and it's very clear that when you twist this metal was much softer than you had expected it to be.

This is a high quality ornate metal. It has been refined. It is thin. It is filigreed. And because of that, the twist that you do causes it all to smash up together. And you see that bits of the metal are actually

piercing into the wood and keeping it closed even more than the lock hat on its own. Well, damn it, it's filigreed. I don't think we're getting into it. What does that have been to do with anything? I don't know. I think she's put all the stuff in here that she didn't want to share with anyone. It's filled with grade.

And now we can't even pick the lock. You imagine now you would have to actually pry the top off of this lockbox. What we need to do? Just keep trying to break it harder, I guess. I'll try that. Okay. Don't you know like crow boss? Somebody's got to have a crowball.

Hey, cross. You got a crowbar? Frost. The United Adventures back. You get out, man. Oh, Torbett. Are you okay? Oh.

Oh. Oh, how long has he been here? Oh, wait, wait. Torback is dying. Torbeck's final wish is to see Pidian's fancy night. I'm trying to speak with, I'm trying to speak with Cremian idiot. We're in the middle of something right now, man. Not kidding, please.

No, that's what. like, you're like barely a scratch over here. You see how thirsty these flowers are, man? Don't try and detract from the problem. Hey, look. If he's died, you've used it, what, twice in 41 episodes? I'm very close. I do have a white hammer.

You've seen what he does with his hands, man. He was doing it all downstairs. Once he dies, just take it back. They're not going back at that time. A legend. Okay, here. Torbeck just tucks it in his spot. Look, he's on the way now.

Look at him. He's got maybe 10 minutes. He's getting open the chest. Yeah, all right. Well, he took the thing and I was going to use a trial for all to hammer the damn crowbar. I don't have a crowbar. You have a crumbed back.

You want this bald-been hammer? Oh, wow. Yeah, give me the ball-beat hammer. All right. Let me, I'll knock around on the chest a little bit and see if I get any kind of some. if I get any kind of sense that there's like a weak joint spot that I could just smash with a ball bean hammer.

All right. You roll at advantage. Oh. Oh. I got a bald-pim. Oh, that's pretty good. What is this? Is this athletic? Yeah. 26.

All right, that's not enough. Holy shit. No, I'm kidding. Of course it. You know, I remember about somebody. Shattered by the horse. Yikes. This is true.

You take the hammer and you tap around for a spot that seems to be weaker. And you hear a couple. But you're not all that calculated. Who are you kidding? And so you take the hammer and you just smash. And you smash a huge, whole. in the top of the lid, large enough than anything that's inside you would be able to pull out. Though the two pieces have not separated from each other, you now have access to the contents inside.

Well, let's see what big beautiful's had, mate. I'm God, I can't look. Cracker open just as easy as, never mind, is you're adding here? I'm also curious. If I look inside the chat. You reach inside and you pull out a 12-inch tall marionette. net. Oh.

It has faces on opposite sides of his head. I don't care about that. One faces a moon and the other is a sun. Oh, shit. You find an unpunished ticket from the Witchlight Carnet. The ticket looks older than the ones that you had before. This can't be relevant. And where are you expected to see the names, the signatures of Mr. Witch and Mr. Light,

you see the signature of a woman named a soul. black and roll out three spell scrolls all tied together. I don't care about that. You continue to reach in and you pat around at the velvet line box. There is nothing else. What was that sound? What cracked? Where's Cremie's hat?

It's clearly not in here. Well, I got good news and bad news, man. all right the good news is that's not broken that's good news yeah you know I thought you'd appreciate that the bad news is it's still nowhere to be found there's nothing else in this chest what about like a secret compartment or something like uh check the walls maybe sure well I just blasted a hole straight through the top I can't really get the proper leverage to check for secret compartments but I'll try uh roll a protective check that's pretty good 22?

You feel around for, what did you say? I think I'm so sorry. Please don't hang. No, I'm sorry. Please don't have to drive me. He's not a jazz size, babe. You should say cripple me. It is in trouble.

No, I would have a garment over me right on in front of this one. I'm not my difference. Oh, big, little bits. Bigs. Yes, mine. You reach around inside and there is a trap. But it's not a trap door. It's a poison trap.

And you die. Oh, I think you may leave the table. You feel around in there and there's- Get my knife back from Torbett. And there's, boom. There are no hidden traps. It is simply just a chest. Tobeck, how are you feet?

Are you okay? Oh, you need to drink something. Oh, I'm out of water. I'm drinking it. I'm thinking it. Oh, you know what's happening? Yeah. Begin to drink it down.

The water is chunky and pungent. It is... It is... It's... I spring back up and foil. Just like mama used to paint you. I used to make this. It is salty and the algae causes it to slide down your throat

and almost like amorphous globules. Oh. But you like it enough that you feel no longer parched. Oh, mild plazin, that's it not. Truly, you have some sort of way to wrap yourself up with some like bandages and stand up is. up is. You have banished goose lightning before, Franz. You know, I have some bandages, if you want.

You've been bandaged regular lighting before? And that's usually what we do for an hour in order to heal up. I'll try to like slowly get up. I'll take my time. No, you're good, you're good. And like prop myself up and try to get up, but I'm still very clearly extremely wooden. Thank you for helping us. Of course, Dormack's here to help. Torbick, you did it. You helped them.

Yeah, it wasn't until the second time that Dormick realized the voices weren't coming from the light. But over there, Dormac's a little slow on the update sometimes. Oh, man, if you had it. It looks like you feel so good. Here. And you see as she, she concentrates really, really hard. And in her, in her two bark-like hands, you immediately see two beautiful magenta-like berries appear in either.

I'll, like, quickly, like, hobble over, and my one foot is all fucked up, and I'm, like, dragging it. And I'll very gently pick up one berry in each hand between my gross, long fingers. You rip them off of her hand. They're part of her. You eat both of them, and they function like good berries, but it double the strength.

Oh. Oh. What is that? How much is that? Four is that. Four healing points. So, wait, total? Yes.

One of your wounds. Yeah. You really? A. Portually close is a little bit. Oh, that one stopped seeping. Wrap Wrap yourself up

If you have some more rags I don't know where you would have them But You're rags everywhere Oh, you can use some of these water-longed rags Oh, okay Oh, she uses

that one to wipe I don't know too late Torbeck gases This day's gone from back Gang kills Torbeck with 70 Surely this won't come back to my Thorpe. You've died of dysentery.

Very generous of you. Do you have a name, perhaps, a little plant one? Yes, my name's Wistie. Wistie? And your child, I? Oh. You're a... My plantmate.

You're plantmate, yes, yes. You must see everything that happens in this space Since Bavorna brought you up here and put you in this enclosed, what do you know, we would benefit from your knowledge. Okay. Well, do you know the significance of any of the objects in this room? Have you seen Bavona hide anything that is meaningful? And, Crami, have you seen a dark mantle with a hat pass through this? Oh, and ask her if she snores in her sleep.

Do you snore into your sleep? No, extra of Bavlorn has snores her sleep. I know. You gotta be more specific. I don't. Oh, well, shit. Here. And she reaches down into the soil, and she reaches around.

And she pulls out a black iron key. The thing she puts in the room over there. She points to the room that you saw the shadow go into. She uses one of these keys to get to it, but I've never seen inside. She just hid it in our soil once. Is that a beer? three two. No, no, no.

Doorback, no. I will mind hand into one of your wounds. You just watch it. Oh, my. Oh, fussy. I'm sorry, I. What were the other question? Did you see a very fine purple top hat

with a nice silk ribbon around it? He's got three houses. About, shit. You said that's probably a bit. Oh, yeah. We were really taking our time. Yeah. And they go through there?

Yeah, man. You went into that room. All right, sailors, let's go. Well, what the hat look like? That's it. I mean, what else? That's the one. I've never heard to describe us more accurately in all

my days. That sums it up. Do you want to be here? Should we should we? Should we free you? Yeah, is there a way that we can free you so you're no longer dependent on this flop water? I think we empty can. And just tossed us over the edge. You'd be fine with that?

Well, yeah. We could swim through the we could swim through the water. and eventually find soil on land and grow. And once we have our feet grown, we can then walk into the woods all on our own. And you don't grow anything nightmarish we want to unleash some sort of horror into the world? We'll get really big.

We're young right now, but eventually we're being too big for a pot this size. Do you promise not to do evil? Yes. All right, that's good enough for me. You'll be very skilled at fighting zombies in your future. Gideon, go chuck them out. What? What? Fides omies?

All right, come here, a little pot, guys. Thank you. And what? Just throw them out the window? Is that the idea? All right. All right. That's what you want. Wait, is Babelorrawera snores?

Oh, fuck. Well, the only one that could answer any of our questions developed the plaz, threw them right out of the window. That was awesome. I wonder if we should have taken them out of the pot before we threw them. No, they said that's what they wanted. They couldn't spend a single moment more in this hut.

And so Gideon was the only one who was going to be on frome, frown up. Well, they asked you to take them to the balcony and drop them off of it, but throw them on the window. Oh, no, I threw them as hard as a plastic oven. Are you sure they won't hit land? No, let's remain. They don't know where we are. There's a, like, cut scene, don't know,

bollywog. Dang, take! He's not a punt-ed. Did I do that? It's the classic meatball situation all over again, fucking allergies. You had another clown. It's a bowling-horn flower.

Poor gesture. Actually, 15 minutes later. This flower pot is going terminal hole off. 15 minutes later. The, through the air down by the tilted gazebo. The court jester is dancing and jig for everyone watching. The orchestra or the harp player is playing a lulling tune as the gentry of downfall are enjoying

a nice summer afternoon. When all of a sudden, the sound of louder and louder and louder and everyone starts to look up and look around. As the pot spins through the air, the plant-like fay creatures are thrown from the pot and luckily land with a soft splash into the pond next to the gazebo. However, the pot is curling through the air. Everybody looks and they begin to call out.

Quickly, the guards grab the king and move him out of the gazebo. The court jester He's standing there Miming and not sure what to do He doesn't want to incur the ire of the king Should he stop performing in front of everybody As someone lets out a loud screen He turns to see what's happening

As the ceramic Pot hits him square in the face With a loud crack And screams from the gentry as blood pours down his face. The curtain closes and the scene fades to black. There is a mournful tune

coming from the harp as the gentry watch on in horror. As the court gesture. As he succumbs to his allergy to ceramics. His head went like an overwrite Melon. Listen, the gentry

below have noticed our noble act and are celebrating with the junkie too. We've done very well today, lads. We don't positive thing we did, where no harm came well then. Well, it's pretty great I do. Things are working hard. See, this is the way I prefer requests.

We help immediately, and we don't have to revisit it 40 episodes later. Yeah, we don't backtrack. Yeah, yeah, we just solved the problem right away. That's the way to do. Yeah, it's definitely not going to have any repercussion. No haunting whatsoever. Let me see that ticket. Oh, yes.

Oh, I just kind of... You're fine. Whoever was catching. I don't have it. This ticket is a different... It looks similar, but different. And rather than being signed by Mr. Witch and Mr. Lard, it just has...

It just tells us that this is an old ticket. What? Give me that. See, yeah. It's an old ticket. It must be... It's expired. Where you see...

Man, it's old. Right there, where the signature is. I think what he's saying is that he can deduce that it's old because of the signature that's on it. Yes, he says, he's old. Take me some minute. He got it. I didn't get it.

What? The name is he sold. Nope. Oh, my black and broken horn. We were beautiful ones. I also found this marionette doll. This is a name, Cricko. What?

And on our tickets, it's a lot. said Mr. Witch and Mr. Lott. You know what this means? Torback has his ticket to compare. What does it mean? This is ammo for blackmail. We got to find his old and see what kind of dirty deal they did to her. Maybe we can get her on our side.

And we can get it one up on those fellas. Oh, wait, isn't she from the, uh, the spooky, spooky place? No, she's from the Faywild and she, they swapped. Oh, that's right. But isn't she trapped in, in the spooky place now, though? I think she is. That doesn't mean we can't find.

I'm going to hold on to this. Good find. Her name is, he's old? He's old. That's a very unflattering name. It's like an old timing name. What do you say? Oh, my name is he's young.

You must have been a very ugly baby. Hey! Oh, we're doing a lot of good. This is much harder to do than it looks. Oh, do you. Oh, does that color look? You guys didn't see. Do you guys see what the little fucker?

There was another fucker. Does it look similar to the little fucker that took who you? See, the moon mask? Oh, it doesn't. Okay. Never mind. There's a similar moon motif and I'm projecting. It occurs to me that these were locked into a chest.

I mean, these seem pretty common items. A few spell scrolls, I assume. A ticket. Perhaps these have some significance or part of a larger plot. What if that little guy was in the box? Because you could get up and run away. That would be horrifying. Nice.

That is horrifying. Oh. Well, let me take a look at these while you figure that out. I'm going to open the three spells. You look at the spell scrolls, and they are three scrolls of Identify. Oh. All the same spell. Frost, can you use Identify?

That's a good question. I don't think I have that on my spell is. The good Baron has a blessing. Well, let's see where it's from. It's giving me a reminder of someone, I think, was Scapefah or Endelin. One was a little fucker in the pig. Can I doy?

I'm going to look at it to see if I can see anywhere. The marionette. Oh. to see if it's like, if it's, there's anything that, like, I can tell where it's from. Is there, like, a tag? Is no fun? The body itself is wooden. And there are, there is a, the symbol of a crescent moon carved into the bum of the doll.

Oh. What you do see are the initials E.M. That are written on the tags on the inside of the-em. E.M. It does remind me. of that. What? Extramidic. Angeline Moongrae. Oh, man.

I think that that was the one of the little fuckers that came in Sto Hootsie, because she had a moon mask. Oh, he had a moon mask. Oh, he had a moon mask. Is it perhaps some sort of a doll that represents the sister of Babylona to her? Does it look like one of these two dolls that I have

from downstairs? No, it doesn't. Well, maybe it was, so it's, I guess, property of hers. I mean, that might come in handy. Oh, what if we think it's a spy? Wow, she put something like a spy in here and then itch extra money into it. The E.M, I believe, stands for her name. Well, you can't prove that.

No, but neither can you prove that. Yeah, well, mine's just as likely as yours, is all I'm saying. I find that unlikely. Well, as it is hurtful. Also, to answer your question, Grammy, uh, no. I'd have to be a bard, a wizard, and a wizard and artificer or two very specific subclasses of cleric in order to understand what's on those scrolls. Knowledge domain and false domain, huh? Yeah.

While we're on the topic of identifying, Torback has recently come into possession of a new knife and would like to know what it does. Hey, get it back, right? I want to let you hold it while you were dying, all right? Hold on what? He's too. All right, you got him. You got him there, told him. Yeah, yeah.

What are you talking about? You didn't die, so give it back. Give one back. It was your dying wish to get that knife. You ain't dead. What? Nine. And I've been giving you.

I didn't give it to him. I just let him hold it because he said it was dying, and you told me I shouldn't let him die without him holding at once. Now he's got in his pants and knows I'm not going to go for it. To her back? You don't even know what's down there. Oh, Twink. Yes, Twink.

Torbeck, what were the exact words he said to you when he handed to you? Torbank doesn't remember. Oh, okay. But Torbeck was very close, and is still close to death and can't really remember. And what were the exact words that?

I don't know. I think I said, well, you're probably gonna die, so here, try and hold it once from a certain point of you. I don't know. I don't think I don't think I said that. I think I said that. I don't think it was.

Wait, Gideon, did you say from a certain point of view? I think maybe that's exactly what I said. Oh, no. By decree of the rule of no takes these Baxies, Gideon, Torebeck is rightful owner of the knife. That's not how that works. That's not a thing. It is a thing.

No, it is the rightful. Rule number two is no takes his backsees and right of conquest. That's what Torbeck has the scarf of the rabbit. What he killed? I thought rule number two was like, be hospitable, and that's why you must not steal from a friend and enemy or a stranger. Oh. Nope. Torbag didn't steal anything from... Torbeck doesn't even know what we're talking about.

You're forgetting rule number three. When a friend and enemy or a stranger offers you a gift, you are obliged to accept it and offer something of comparable value. No, I didn't offer a gift. It's not a gift. I just let them hold it. No, you got another comparable value. It was never stated that it was a gift. He just said here, take it.

To be fair, it exchanged hands. What the hell does that, man? According to Gobblinoid law, as soon as it changes hands, the property, the right of ownership transfers. Man, man, man. In the first rule in Goblin laws that all Gobble Law is relevant and made up.

Well, who said in front of you in? Is that column's degree coming back in? Well, Dormack just feels guilty now. Here you go, Giddy. Oh, you look sad and gross now. Now it's uncomfortable. I kick the door that's locked. I forget about the key.

I kick the door that's locked as hard as I humanly can. And by humanly, I mean a free. What door that's locked? The door that's locked. Maybe it was locked by the key that Frost has, but I just kick it as hard. There was no locked door. Oh.

You used to bring to the shadow door or the shadow door. Oh. You kick it and it flies off the hinges. The hinges are rusty and all, and there's no lock on this door. And you watch as the door flies directly into the room and smash against the wall opposite. Doorback, sorry.

It was a misunderstanding. Rossi, can you clean those? Tobit, why don't you enjoy a new friend? Oh, big job at your bed. Oh, that's creepy. I'm Mr. Mooney. Oh, I kind of scares Torbeck, when Torbeck got a whineson.

If you get on my bedside, I'll moon you. Torbeck. Brush into the other room. The Willowliff was like, Yeah, that would kill me. This musty room looks like a miser's attic. Lying in tall heaps are discarded blankets, quilts, cushions, and clothing of all shapes and sizes. Not to mention musical instruments, toys, dolls, jewelry boxes, flower vases, child-sized caskets, and broken furniture.

Among the heaps of junk are a few oddities, including a stag skull hanging under the wall, a white porcelain jar with chicken legs standing on a table. The fancy helmet placed on the faceless head of a wooden mannequette. in a five-foot-long bronze statue of a giant frog squatting in a corner, its mouth agape and filled with impenetrable darkness. A weak, breaking sound calls your attention to a tiny, shriveled figure lying on the floor. It lets out one final gasp before dying. One of the lornelings is laying here. Its arms outstretched as you watch as its eyes roll back in its head, and it takes its final breath.

Is it in its last moments tried to reach out to you for help? But you were just a little too late as this thing lies here now slowly getting cold. Oh, God, kid, you killed him with the door. Oh, geez. Well, there you go, Grico. There's a dead one for you. You sure that's why it's done. It did? Well, I mean, he knocked the door off the hinges and then there's a dead thing in the room. It's just fucking bad. It's possible that it was dying for an extent.

period of time listening to us bicker on about all the garbage that we talked about for the last 30 minutes. The dorm probably didn't help. That's so true. Oh, my. Okay. Go. In there, as they try and climb out of this cot as the lit up. This is your future.

Their dead friends. Sounds of them banging on the inside. Oh, that's barbaric. I mean, banging on the... I'm not going to be banging on the... I'm not sure why we decided to do that. Well, he shouldn't thought about that one before he decided to be little fuckers. Guys kidnapped Hootsie.

Never forget. Oh, that's fair. Torben hasn't forgotten. Who's one of them, right? Some of them, all of them, you know. They're all the same. Maybe it could be tribute to old bloody toes. That's what I mean, that's what I'm saying.

Her ass was specifically to kill one. I don't think that a dead will do. Well, maybe what we can do is we'll just put it on the end of, like, Torbeck's fingers, and then he can kind of like... Oh, no, your man, Chad. I'll do the... I'm a great ventress. I'll throw my voice, and you just go,

I'll go... Oh, I want them, little fuckers! All right, that's our safety net. We can just let Bloody Tooth kick it, and then it'll be dead, and then perhaps the deception won't be true. Oh, that'll work perfect. You hear that? See?

See it's what I'm saying? I don't know if they can hear it. They're just stuck in silence with their dead friend. They're definitely processing what's happening. Everything's going through the hands. Oh, nothing. I think their minds are fucking shattered. They're probably forging weapons from its bones.

You don't think they are. They may be in debt. That's about a time. I was a traditional relationship of the ring. All right, we're going to find this tommy Hattie or what? Well, we said it was in the frog, and there's the frog. But I think the shadow thing's in there, too. So we got to be careful, all right?

So we got to sneak up on it and trim it so that it doesn't hurt my hat, all right? Want me to light it up? No, don't light it up and keep my hat's in there. Oh. There's another outcome we need to be prepared for, which is just that the darkness is some form of trap. We should probe it and be ready for shadow attack or danger. Torbex arm is ready. No, no, no.

I'm talking about some inanimate object we don't care about in case it's consumed by, I don't know, evil. So, Thorpex ar is ready? You heard him the first time. If you want to, I feel that you are very near death based on your smell. alone. It's more than this is usually the time Mr. Kremi makes me. I mean, you do look like shit. I mean, I wouldn't mind if you just sat this one out and... Why don't you take a rest? Yeah, just go... Let's just go sit... Some sort of long, like, rock or something that I could prop with.

That's a deep cut. That's a deep cut. That's really good. Hey, boomers. Hey, run back to mine. Give me some of that 16 action. You find a pile of, a pile of junk, and you begin to rifle through it. And you do eventually find the broken off handle of a broom. Yeah, it's a broomstick.

But in the process, you also disturb something else. Oh, no. A shape moves in the gloom, a dark humanoid figure lurking amongst the junk. It clutches a large spool of thread in red as it presses itself up against the wall and attempts to head for the door. It's not there. Big lion! Grab him up! If he doesn't respond to my stop there,

he does not. Then I'll do something. It does not. I will very quickly thinking, I will... And you're attempting to grab it? I'll like dive at it. Let's see if I can get my hands on it. Whatever he's doing isn't way better. And a spirit of a giant of monstrous anglerfish will appear as I cast fairy fire. Oh, for the entire room.

Cool. Because it's like a 20-foot cube. I'm like a normal room. Yeah. So it's dexterity saving throw. For anyone, all objects. So if there's a hat, it might be, I think so. Touch us too? Yeah, I guess so, yeah. We gotta dodge it too. Oh, get down! A roll in natural 19.

I will literally with the broom handle in my hands, see if I can actually trip a shadow. That would be something, I'm either learning something or I'm tripping a shadow. Okay, I will say all of these things happen at once. You reach out with the broom handle and you attempt to trip it, and you are successful. It stumbles over the, over the broom handle, and collide.

into you, Gideon, you attempt to wrap your arms around it, to hold it in place, but this shadow is exactly that, a shadow, and it's easily able to move out of your grasp. You're unable to grapple it or hold it in any way. As Grico essentially conjures up out of nothing, this spectral anglerfish, The illuminated ball protruding from its head lets out a burst of magical light throughout this space. And for a second, you are able to see the form of this shadow. This is a person that you have seen before. Sitting downstairs with Babylon a bright light straw as you speak is the eldest darkling sister of the darklings that had arrived here in the in the storm cloud balloon.

And for a moment, the shadow is an exact replica of her visage. As it shrugs off the magics of the spell, it becomes once again just a shadow on the wall. The only thing illuminated is this magical bit of silver-threaded spool.

As it looks at you, and in a fit of panic, it lunges toward Joanne Gould to roll for initial. Oh! Oh! Oh! Illusion! What are you hiding?

That was really good thing. That's my role for initiative, though. Oh boy, that's bad. Does it illuminate a dark mantle in the room? Yes. On the head of the wooden mannequin, you see that a dark mantle is attached around the head of it. There is a new helmet on top of the dark mantle, though. You do not see Crummies had anywhere.

I will say because of the spell, the helmet appears to be magical in nature as well. Oh. Oh. And we will leave it at that. That was my penelum tate spell slot. Yeah, I was going to be a real person, but uh. This podcast is brought to you by our Patreon. Become a patron today at patreon.com slash legends of avatrous and gain access to tons of exclusive perks

including a monthly movie night and a weekly Patreon exclusive campaign set on the high seas, Shroud over Salt Marsh. You can also go to The Crooked Moon.com to pick up your own copy of our first published supplement, The Crooked Moon, a folk horror tome for Dungeons and Dragons Fifth Edition. And don't forget to snag all of the extra goodies like dice, miniatures, plushies, a tarot deck, and more. Thank you. Oh, I never wrote for this one. 21. a nine. That was not when I am. Sorry. Oh, what did you ask? I rescinded. I didn't get a nine. 21.

15 to 20. 17. This is a jelly bean? Yeah, jelly worm. Oh. And that's going to be the shadow. That's going to be Torb. Oh. Jelly word. I forgot. Jelly word. 10 to 15. 11. Okay. And then Torpec and Gideon. Would you get? Six. I got a nine. Yay!

Yeah! Together we form! Yes! Not nearly as interesting as it could have been. What? You missed it when I missed. He missed it. You missed it, me.

You missed it, me. The shadow enlarges and almost looms and towers over you for just a moment before it shrinks back down into its humanoid form. And it is, are you gonna put on the battle map? Oh, I can. It'll just make it easy for me to see what's going on. Perfect. And it is, it is, it attempts to fear you into submission with its horrific visage.

But you have, at this point, engage, you've seen things far more perfect than a wandering shadow. And you ready yourselves for battle as it shrinks back against the wall, but it is prepared to fight. Grico. I am going to use my bonus action to a da-bo-p-p-b-b-b-b-dhap-d-b-d-d-d as a big froggy mess. I don't know how that became my froggy miss. Does this replace your anglerfish? Oh, that was me casting a spell.

Oh, okay. So I already used that, and so... Oh, is the dark mantle here too? Yes, there's a dark mantle underneath the helmet. Should we get a man attacking a hat? It is not. engaged in battle. It does not seem like it has any interest in fighting. It just wants, it just wants to hang out with the hat that it has.

Is the Froggy Myth, this spectral three-eyed tentacled frog monster, lashes out its tongue. I'm gonna, I can, I'll just stand right, I'm gonna stand right here. And it was gonna lash, I'm going to make a spell attack. Oh yeah, I'm Tishan after that. Oh, would you care for some mind tea? That's pretty good. I get a 13. The hit? Yeah.

That hits. Oh, shit. I love coffee. I even like sent it away because I just thought there's no way that would work. Bacy is 13. That'll do nine points of radiant damage. Radiant damage, okay. And then for spells, I think I get three guide.

I get three free guiding bolts. Is that one action? Yes. You summon this froggy myth and it lets out its, it was its lashing tongue. Yeah, the giant, wow. A glowing radiant tongue lashes out towards the shadow. And you see that the shadow doesn't make any noise.

The image on its face is one of intense pain as it seems to take significantly more damage than expected. Oh, and then one of its tentacles is going to whip around and then strike as I cast Thorn Whip. That's gonna be even more, that'll be a 21. No, 20, 20. And then this will just be piercing damage, and I'm gonna choose not to pull it.

Actually, I will, I'm gonna whip it around and I'm gonna pull it closer. Is this considered magical piercing? Yes. It's magical piercing, and it takes five points of damage. and I'm gonna put 10 feet close to me. So hopefully Gideon can get it. And that's it.

That's what turn. All right. You're not going nowhere. Get over here. You aren't able to grapple it in any way, but I will say that you're allowed to whip it forward. You just can't hold on to it. Wow, wow, wow.

Yeah. Frost. I look around, do I see any, other exits besides the one door that we came through? You see the door that went towards the bedroom, and from this space, there are no other exits. This is solely just a storage closet. A very large storage closet, essentially an attic.

I'll say to the shadow, back up and stop attacking us. Move, bitch, get out the way. Move, bitch, get out the way. I'm a rapper now. We have you. Your only option is to surrender, and I will telekinetically shove the shadow, and with my action, I will close the door

and use hold the portal to slam it shut and lock it with my mind to prevent the shadow from escaping. So, Grico just moved it forward, and you're pushing it back. Okay, great. You, uh... It has to see... If it doesn't want to move back, it obviously can...

fail, but it can succeed a strength-saving throw. No, it doesn't. Okay, and so it does move back that amount. 10 feet? It's actually five, hilariously. Actually, it might be more, depending on how, anyways, leave it say five. And hold portal slams the door shut.

It does. Which I will read out loud. I hold a gate door or hat shut as if it has been closed, tightly, and barred, or maps. or magically wedged shut, opening or closing the door requires a strengthability check. That's my turn. I'll stay where I am.

It is Twig's turn. You all immediately hear a strange sound. The sound of clanking on metal. Twig is actually not here to fight. Twig seems to have found exactly what she was looking for. as you watch as half of her body is submerged in darkness. As she is climbing into the mouth of the giant frog. Twig, no.

With a loud clank, you hear her yell out and tumbled down into the mouth completely disappeared. A secret shoot. Or something much worse. It is the shadow's turn. Oh, Twig! The shadow looks towards all of you. The door slams, and if a shadow,

shadow could hiss, you imagine you would hear that noise reverberate from its mouth, but it can make no noise as it looks towards all of you, and it is going to, Gideon's the closest one, yeah? Yes. Well, I'm going to be closer. I'm closer, yep. All right, it's going to rush towards Grico. And it is going to make its attack on you.

Oh, Gideon is closer. It's two, it's two movements, two or three. It's fine, I picked Giddy, I picked Crepe. 15. Oh, fuck. Cremmo, I believe his name is. That's right. I did just give her a bit of a.

So it is, that is definitely going together. Don't lash and give her. I like a red red rose and I am viewing in his old four. It does eight points of necrotic damage. And. I hope I remember to heal. I did. I took the shorerest.

Can you lower your strength. score by four. Oh, don't we... Oh, yeah. Dirty me! Go, get him inside. Get it.

You watch as this shadow moves towards Bricko's it reaches out its long shadowy hand and grabs him by the throat and begins to open its mouth and suck the strength out of Bricko's body. Oh, yeah, it's suck to help. I'm sorry.

Why can't I see the word suck around you fools? Well, I was like grab him by the throat and then open his mouth and then- suck him to hell. He just demented, dendor's in my... Yes, very demeanor. And that is the, that's the shadow's turn.

And that's a jelly worm? Yeah. Okay. Cremont. Cernie. I'm gonna turn around to see where Twig win. Oh my God, Twing, Twing, I'm gonna stick my head into the frogs. As deep as possible, we're trying to yell out.

Do you see my hat? I just wait for a second to respond. You call out and you hear a soft whimpering sound for a quick sound, and then you nothing but silence. Oh, my God. Does it sound distant? It sounded very distant. Oh, a secret shoot.

But I don't know that. Oh. It's a secret shoot! Oh, how'd you know it? I will. Hmm, hold on. I, is this, does this person seem like a person?

Ooh. It seems like a shadow. You know what a shadow is. You have familiarity. It is clearly a detached shadow. How this happened. You're not sure. I will say you remember walking through the room,

and I will say, just for the sake of ease, you noticed as you were walking, and you found it to be strange with the way the light was filtering in through the windows. that the darkling that was there with Bev Lorna did not appear to have a shadow. Whereas you could see Bablorn is on the floor. You could not see the dark ones.

The plot thickens. Just like cremary. All right, you're holding this up. I'm going to point my keen at her and shoot out for the last out of her. Okay. Oh, that's pretty good. That's 20-something. That hits.

11 points of damage. You let out a burst. of magic from your cane, and it slams into the shadow, and you watch as it goes straight through doing significantly less damage than you'd expect it. Oh, man. What was the damage that went? Radiant.

Oh, yeah, that makes sense. It probably is resistant to many other types. I look around the room for any radiators. We're back. Joe, I feel like I could hide. I would like to use my turn to attempt to hide. How did you fare on the ferry fire? That's right.

What's the roll? I believe it's a 15. Oh. Dex? Yes. You know, Torbeck got a 20. I do. So I'm...

Quist a dread. Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum... Tor meg got an 11. Not knowing that I am fairy fired, Torbeck was still attempt to hide. You attempt to hide. hide Torbeck. But the magic from this spell that Grico had cast is almost like glitter in the way that it coats your body and every single one of the hairs on your body is just covered

in this illuminated glitter. As you shrink back into the shadows and you hunch down, you do not realize that you are the equivalent of a bioluminescent mushroom in the middle of a dark forest. And also unknowingly, like being, like, Torret doesn't realize how loud he's being as he's slinking back in the shadow. He's saying, please on our torment, please on our torment, and he's trying to hide. That's my whole turn. Beamed. Gibbon.

I'll run over to the shadow. Grumby is twigs. He just running the mouth of that thing? Yeah, something like that. Just kill this thing and let's move on. Well, hey, quit sucking the soul out of my friend, you freaking shadow. I'll just like shadow box it. Oh. Very good. 17.

That's nice. Is it an advantage? No, I just roll one. Oh. Because she passed, right? That's what? The darkly passed the 35. Uh-huh.

Oh. One of these is the eight. Nice. Thirteen points of damage. What type of damage? I don't think it's magical, right? It's just bludgeoning. It's just bludgeoning, yeah.

Yeah, bludgeoning damage. Okay. You punch into the form of this shadow, and it almost feels like you're punching into the wind. There is no resistance as your fist punched through, and you feel like the damage that you're doing is significantly less than you'd expect it. And how much was it supposed to be?

Would it be? Seven plus five. Four, five, twelve, twelve. Twelve points of damage. And then one other, yeah, and then six. Six types of one damage? It's all bludgeoning. Oh, so it's 12 plus six.

Yes. Oh. All right, you punch into it and it seems not be doing much at all. Grico. I think I got it on the ropes. You feel the strength sapped from your body as the shadow looms over you. It's sole focus being on you.

He's got a lot more strength for you to eat up. And I am going to just use my bonus action to do another tongue lashing. I believe it's disadvantaged because it's a range spell attack and there's somewhat in my face. Actually, no, I'm going to disengage. I'm gonna see a chocolate glow glowing.

Go the other way. And I'm hiding behind Grimming. That's Frost. Oh, Frost. Frosty. Yes. And then I'm gonna, my froggy myth will attempt to make a tongue lashing. And you know, because I can be radiant damage.

I'm gonna twist up. You can use your action to disengage and still attack. Bonus action. It's the, my, my, my, form, that'll be a 17. Yeah. If AC is 13. And then radiant damage will be,

that'll be 13 radiant damage. Wow. You do a significant amount of damage to this thing. And it rears back at you. Its eyes are focused on you. You seem to be its main target. target at this point. Frost. Am I range?

If I were to run away, it wouldn't be having it. No, if she's a range of 10, yes. But right, right. I thought that I was on the square closer. That's all right. He actually knocked you forward and I'm back. Oh, okay. Yeah, you're there.

I will, just for funzies, give it another telekinetic show. It means make a spring saving throw. I want to see if I can shove the thing it's holding. Natural 18. It holds onto it. And this time I will reach into its shadow mind and attempt to find anything there that I can crush. That might work.

Make an intelligent saving throw, please. My mind is that's big. Natural 15. Uh-huh. At least a little, for it. Frost helps those you help themselves. No! No, no, I'll move over here and get sort of like,

usually behind me. It's like I eat the opposite of spinach. Candy? Yeah. That's okay. That'll be the end of my turn. It's jelly jelly one-thouse to salmon. It is its turn.

It is going to rush towards Rico. And it is going to barrel straight towards it. Oh, that's not good. Can you opportunity attack? If you get like zero strength, he dies, what it happens? You get it like it. Yeah, don't let that happen. Straight up.

Yeah, you can take an opportunity. Just kill, yeah. Can I only just melee attack for opportunity attack? You could grapple as you're at melee attack. If you wanted to grapple instead. Wow. And then you get to say, how do you like them grapples? Every time.

I don't know if you could grapple shat out, but it's probably, We've already established the answer to know. I would like to try and grapple it as an opportunity attack and if I could try and target my grappling towards the thread. Ooh. That's pretty cute. Oh, that's good.

Like, is it athletics? Oh, it's a contest. 24? Is it contest, yeah. You are able to grapple onto the shadow. You grab hold of the thread, and as you hold onto it, the shadow slips from your your arms, but you have the threat.

Oh! Your shadow barely towards Gricko. And if you find yourself in the same spot with the shadow as it looks down at you. You made me wondering how I ended up here. Oh, I'm doomed, man, but I got the thread, I got the thread. Good luck, buddy. Is this a, is this an attack?

Chugs outy. 17 points of necrotic damage. Oh my God. 17. 17 points of necrotic damage and your strength reduces by six. Dude. Is that an attack? It's part of the attack, yeah.

When he takes the damage. Just to make everyone aware, when any of your ability scores drop, This is a real you got us. Outright, out. Wait, what is your strength score normally? Is it minus four, minus four and minus six? Oh, you're toast, brother.

So it's minus 10 right now. I have two. Oh my God. You're lucky at and roll two boys. Oh. It's like little baby. If I can, I'd like to engage my heat gauge two and redirect that attack.

Oh. Can you do that if you just use your reaction to your opportunity to hack? I actually don't have any idea of what this is. It's probably a reaction. I thought this is a cool thing to do. I would say it would use your reaction. Is that a grapple?

I got the thread, man. I take it all back. You're fucked. My flesh is literally crickling. Back in the freezer. That. This reminds me of the party in Dean. Nope.

The shadows like, how many times we have to teach you a lesson, old man? Oh, God. Well, good thing we have a cleric who can res. This is going to be fine. Cremont. Oh, God. Oh, here's the thing, fellas.

Yeah. I don't know what else to do besides maybe just reduce a chance to hit. But maybe just, no, I mean, it's not going to do much damage. You're all shadowy. Don't you have, like, explode shadow? I just like you. I can suggest something to somebody. Suggests it.

I can't help somebody. I can myself go invisible. Well, that might work. If there's nothing to cast shadows, then it may die. I am going to spit my cane around and this sort of haunting glow will emit from it as some sort of neon glyphs

will appear on the shadow and I will pass Bain. I love that. I love that. To hopefully make her mission needs to make a Christmas saving for him. Bales. Okay, she's banned for Bain. And what is Bain? She subtracts one D4 from everything.

Saving throws and attack those. And Billy checks? And a bill. And a blue. The shadow right. No, it's attacks and It's just attacks and damage. And saves.

Attacks and safety. I have literally made of shadow. You can see how that would work with her negative to a strength. Bricko, get the fuck away from that thing. You're not looking. So good. You fleeing. A moth. Get in the frog. Whatever you do. Get in the frog's mouth. Yes, you look like a stretch Armstrong that's been putting a microwave.

Hey, anyone who remember a stretch armstrong? Jesus. A sweater? The snowman's turn. I will see the danger that is unfolding before me. And, uh, attempt to rush to Grico's aid. I will move within 10 feet of this shadow. And I would like to attempt to use my living needles feature and blood curse the shadow. Okay.

So if I'm able to do so, it will need to make a strength saving throw, DC 14. And if it fails, The cursed creature becomes reduced. The creature's speed is reduced to zero, and it cannot take reactions until the next turn. But I'm going to inflict damage on myself to make it last for a full minute.

Which is great timing because you're full health. I'm doing this from my buddy, you're my goblin buddy. You feel like you are at Death Store as you look towards Brinot. And you make a choice. You look towards this entity that's charging at your friend, and you think of the one that resides within.

And in a moment of panic, you hurt yourself to save someone that you love. And you are able to do this thing that you were unsure of. Okay. Then Torbeck's arm will do this gross undulation thing, and the fingers become these hollow needles, and he attempts to stab this shadow. I'm gonna take damage regardless, but the shadow needs to make a DC strength-saving throw of 14.

I got a natural 18. Minus a D4. You guys roll it. Wait, what's your DC? It's 14, so it's meter B. Do you wanna roll this badass? It has no strength. There is no plus to its strength.

Well, is that impossible, right? I take it more. Yeah, it would be that. Yeah. I take some damage. And the needles go into this creature, but no witch light is pumped out. And it doesn't work. But you do damage.

No. Torbeck did damage. That sucks. That sucks. There you go, Torbeck is scone. Torbeck is coming. You did this thing, and you think of the entity with this. You think of the witchlight on your back, and you imagine,

you imagine these cylinders pumping the witchlight through the hollow needles of your fingers, and everybody shouting your name, Torbeck, Torbeck, you saved, Greco. You did this thing, you hero. Thrust your needles into the shadow, and you feel nothing. It's just a shadow. And you imagine the witchlight pumping, but nothing happens and nothing comes back. Torbex firing blanks!

As you feel the pain in your own body, as you harm yourself to do absolutely nothing. You got nothing out. No, I'm still up. He's still on. No, Torbeck stumbles forward onto one knee, but he's still up. You did it, big brown.

I'm hungry. Oh, it didn't work. Oh. Shit. My God. Holy shit. Holy shit. Well, that's all I can do.

I... Do I have a second to shout something out? Of course. You gotta chug Gricko into the frog. Chug him in the rogue. Do I have the sense that if I wanted to, like, get to Grico and throw them into the frog? Could I occupy the same space as the shadow for a moment? I think...

Well, the shadow's occupying his space. Oh. So you could- Is it attached to him? No. Oh. Just the same way of shadow. Like.

It's all up in my biz. Yeah, it's all up in his biz. But it's just like you can't, just like you can't grapple a shadow, a shadow can't grapple you. So it's not like it can hold on to Grico and keep it from moving. Got it.

If you want to, I mean, it's only a few, but this might die otherwise. I just punch it, just bunch of it. Oh. We literally can't do anything. I'll run up. I'll run up to Graco and pick him up and chuck him as hard as I possibly can at the frog's mouth with very limited accuracy.

I'm just like, geez, chutes little green, we'll take it from here. I have a slight of hand. Because you're... I don't want to do sleight of hand. Because you were trying, you were trying to get a... large, you know, you're trying to throw a grico into the open mouth of a bronze frog.

I wouldn't think he can do it. Like, the good news is? Well, no, I guess not sleight of hand. No, do you have Lettics? That does make more sense. Athletics makes more sense. I have advantage on slight a hand. Well, not anymore.

It all twists. Just one time, just one time, unless it's bad again. Then twice. Much better. It looks. 19. Nice. You pick Grico up.

Grab onto the back of his vest. And without thinking you towards the fog with seeming... Literally without things. Your neck snatched in the mouth of the fog. Basically over your shoulders, you toss them into the mouth of a fog.

Tell Gwen Stacy, I said, who let him. Jesus. Grasco's lifeless curse. Boom, bum, bum, boom, boom, boom. Um, the,

the, See, FRO was very well positioned. And Grico, you do not hit the edge of the frog's bronze lips. We could have done a significant amount of damage to you being thrown at that velocity. Instead, you were tossed directly into the darkness. Thank you, Spider-Man. And that's...

I can't do that. Come full circle, that's the book end. Booking. And that's where you find yourself in a swirling pit of darkness before you eventually hit what feels to be a ground, taking... My fucking pinball. One point of damage. Wow.

You should have plenty of HP. Just a strength of a word about it. You look around for a second, Rico. And you feel like you're in some... sort of closed off space. There is barely any light here. The only light is coming from a small glowing orb that is covered in the detritus of a ton of things. There is a wagon here. There are vests and pieces of armor and gold coins, silver, electron, platinum. There's a veritable treasure trove of things down here, wooden wheels,

and sigils, and off to the corner, a tall top hat nestled next to it is Twig, completely blue in the face as she's struggling to breathe. And as you move towards her, you begin to feel your throat clench up. There is no air in here in this space. No, no, no, no. As you try to breathe, nothing comes.

Unfortunately for you, your lungs are like paper machined. It's over. It's over. So to maintain game state, my froggy form does radiate 10 feet of bright light. So I can observe the room. Thank you, Giddy. I can swear. Gideon, I feel I can breathe a thigh over the line.

Grico. Can I still tell? Oh, Grigo. Sorry, Mike. One point of damage as you begin to choke. I, oh, Jesus Christ. I'm losing the damage. You're in trouble, brother.

There's no, nobody's coming to save you. Do I look like this, does it look who's any way out of here? Oh, that's bad. There are no ladders, there are no doors. Very bad. You see no entrance. You fell for. from the sky, from all you can tell,

but there's no. What would you get into? Babba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba. As I turn in. I believe you only had two hit points. No, I had six. Oh, I thought you said you had two. Two strength.

Two strength. Okay, okay. I just wanted to make sure maintaining game state. As I will attempt to, as I turn into this monster looking spider, uh, as I will attempt to go grab twig with my proboscow guy and my mandibles, my mandibles, my man, my man, I per about some mandibles. If she has the hat and is, try, the hat's like sitting next. It was clear that she kind of went, crawled towards it as she was smothering to death.

A boy hair and lends. Oh, there's that burrito. I was just saying exactly. I can only save you if you say I wish to be safe. I'm going to attempt to grab, use my full action. I don't know if it takes me a full action to grab Twig, but basically I will attempt to grab Twig and grab the hat. And then with my mandibles, like football carry with one of my legs, there's the other seven, arcs start to climb back up the shoot.

There is no shoot to climb. It's probably infinitely at every direction. You continue to move out trying to find walls or any way to move around in this space at all. But it is just every step you take deeper in through the darkness. Your body's no longer radiating light anymore, right? He's dead. Oh, that's right, yeah. As you step away from the light radiating order,

you eventually find yourself shrouded in darkness. you occasionally trip over things here and there, is there are countless items in this place. As you slowly... Can you use the power of your spider ass to, like, shoot some webbing back where you came from? As soon as I realize that there's no shoot, I would just go back to where I found Twig

and just basically go, and that's all I can do. I think that's my action. All I can do is dumb. Where is the? It's the frog. It's like over here, I think. You can just mark the place on the floor.

It's easy enough to get to. And there, Gregor's gone, and the shadow's there. Well, that's, hey man, it's been fun. Frost. This is taking a turn. Frost, it's your turn. I've done it for the purposes of like sizzle and flavor and R.P. Sort of in combat.

If I reach out with my mind to get a sense, the Grigo is okay or where Twink is inside of the frog. If I sort of am like, Grigo, that was very violent. I know you were very hurt. Are you okay? Can you communicate with people are in different planes of its existence as far? I don't believe so. Roll an intelligence check.

I'm not very good at those. I know. That didn't roll very well. It just sort of thudded, you know? Yeah, it's got to be a roll. roll. One more. One more. Four, six. Oh.

One more. One more. One more. One more. One more. Okay, there we're good. Eighteen. I mean, that's... Thank you, Chad. That's actually a 23, because I have to have my... You know that your magic can't reach further than what's in this room. And you think back to what Gricko was saying about the hat popping out of existence. And you question whether you were magic of work if the hat truly is in that frog.

I was right. But you feel a warmth at your side in one of your smaller pouches. And you reach down and you wrap your fingers around the shape of a horn. I'm fumbling with mine as is right there. With the heart at the top. And you remember what the king's,

of hearts told you that you could use this to communicate to your friends no matter where they were. And you imagine there's a chance that if anything, you can get in contact with Grico would be this object. Grigo, are you all right? You immediately hear Frost

voice in your head. In my rules, my rules, supply as their own. Yes, you hear, ah! Can't breathe! We'll take it, dying. Oh, so found grab his head. It's okay. I'm out of your teeth and you're dying.

All right, all right, all right. I'll jump into action and, Jesus. You know what? I'm just gonna, I have to do it. I'm going to run through the shadow. Oh boy. And I'm going to unfurl my bobbing lily pad

and I'm going to put it underneath my feet and hop into the into the frog to see if I can get into this other dimension or whatever it is. and fly down to see if I can. You will run past the shadow, which will lash out at you and attempt to make an opportunity attack.

I'm going to twist of dread it because I rolled a natural too. Okay, it's gonna miss. On five. Oh, no, hold on five. Does I really say that? No, no. No, no.

Oh, no. So you are able to move past it. It tries to find you in all, of the hullabaloo, but it is unable to suck from you the strength that it requires. As you jump upon the lily pad and you curl yourself deep into the frog, you feel the darkness swirl around you, and you find yourself hovering here in complete pitch-black magical darkness. You listen for a moment, you look behind you and there is no more opening. There's no more maw of the frog.

There is nothing all around you. What sounds like maybe 30, 40 feet below you is the choking sounds of Brick O'Dine. I can't remember how fast this fucking thing you go. Pretty quick. I believe it's 60. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I will fly down as quickly as possible. And I imagine I come on the scene of a spider room.

As you propel yourself down. And though you are in darkness, you see no light, you focus on down, down, down, and you eventually begin to see a glow as you get closer and closer to this illuminating orb. And the scene before you is exactly as Grickow can see piles and piles of magical items and gold and wonders beyond your imagining. And laying next to Twig, who's blue in the face, who hasn't been breathing for a while now, you see Grico as he's struggling. to breathe in any air available in this atmosphere. Kremi's hat pristine next to them both. And you get to him, as you reach out to talk to him, you realize you also are unable to suck in any air

as you begin to suck it. I quickly destroy Kremi's hat. I'm holding under the Krami's hat. Gideon, Gideon, Dormick, Grimmie, there's no air in here, no exit. Unsure what to do. Well, do you see the hat? I ignore, Gideon.

Do you see the head, Frost? I will push out with my- A spider with a mullet, you say. What the fuck? As my action, I will push out with my mind powers and I will picture the room. I have to see, according to the spell, where I'm teleporting-

There is light, so you can see this. area of the room. Okay. Then I'm going to pour a lot of juice into this and see what I can do. But if you're trying to teleport out, I will tell you right now it will become very clear that you probably do. I can't teleport them out using vortex warp. How does vortex warp work? I have to be able to see where I'm teleported. You cannot see where you're teleporting them to. You are in a different plane of, you're on a different dimension. Oh, burn. Plain of existence.

Then I will reach out and I will cast rid of it. billions on Graco, and that's the end of my term. This is gone from bad to worse. That was Frost's turn. The jellyworm is going to turn towards Gideon. And it is going to make an attack on Gideon. He got strength to spare. Does a 19 hit?

Mine is a D4? I did. It was negative. Oof-da. Dread. You're dreading me? You're going to dread me? You're going to dread me? That was a good try.

Is that a hit? Turn and 50 twists. What's the conversion? We have to have 666 twists. Jeez, that is a rough conversion rate. It's going to do eight points of necrotic damage. Oh, my God. And your strength is reduced by one.

Oh. Well, I wasn't so bad. I don't know what Gregor was complaining about. Your left bicepice. Literally picturing the left bicep that. That's wild. That's his turn. It just reaches towards you and begins to suck the strength out of your body.

Oh my God, Frost is dying. Oh my God. I've doomed everyone. Do I have a rope? I think I have a rope. I've been used to check. Equipment. I don't see a rope here. Yeah, you make fun of that adventure. back all this down. What would he do for a fire? Why would I defeat it have been rog?

I threw away the rope because it was heavy and I was annoyed. Oh, jeez. I'm a sycamore seed. Oh, there you go. I'm attached to my jar. I'm going to die with mysterious scroll. Um, oh God. I, you know what?

what I do. Oh God. Frost, if you can see the light, just fly towards it. And I'm going to walk over to the frog, take my cane and stick it down as far as I can into the darkness and cast dancing lights. And these like floating or... Do attempt to do that. But as you put this magical item inside the mouth of the frog, you immediately feel it disappear from your hand. And you you reach for it in the darkness, but there is nothing in your hand any longer. As you are standing over Grico Frost, you are canicking trying to figure out what to do. You've just communicated with Kremi and Gideon,

and you are imagining that they will come to your aid. They will figure out some way to get you out of the situation as you are hit in the back. It does not reach terrible velocity. It does see you. like it falls slower than you would expect, but you are hit in the back with something, and you look, you hear the clattering

as it hits the ground and begins to roll, it rolls up against twigs, unmoving body, and you see Cremie's cane on the floor in front of you. Would I still have my action? Did I cast it or? You didn't cast it. Okay. I would say you, I mean, you could still do that

if you so wish, but I would imagine that the disappearance of your cane would alarm you enough that maybe you would change your next. Change your plans. I'm gonna just reach my arm in as deep as I can and cast as I can press a digitation. Just make it smell real good.

And create a shower of sparks. So it's like a burst of, yeah, almost like a flare if I can, as bright as I can with the cant trip. Yeah, you do that and you see pitch black magical darkness. Frost, you hear, oh, a change of plans as you see fireworks overhead. They look beautiful. Go towards the line, like I said. We're fucked.

Make an in-check. It's on my turn. I can't do shit. An in-check for what? No, that's fine. I mean, I gave me instructions, and I did the thing. I'm happy with my turn. I am the lawyer. Okay, Torbeck is yours.

I am satisfied. Just throw the lornelings down with us. So Torbeck has watched three of his friends disappear. Mr. Kremi is now reaching into the... He's now, like, bicep deep. Yeah, he's elbow deep, shoulder deep in this frog mouth. Torbeck realizes that it now comes down to him and Gideon to defeat this creature. And I'll make two Kualatats.

Oh, okay. 15 and 20. Both is it? Ooh. And you have 10 foot, right? Yeah, so I'm probably 10 feet away. I think I can move one square. That's gonna be 19 total damage over two hits.

Okay. You claw into this thing, and it does seem like it's taking significantly less damage than you expected. But it does, it's starting, you notice the shadow is is not as dark and billowy as it had been before. It's almost as if it is becoming more wispy. That's my turn. That's all I got. But I stand my ground, and I'm between cremmy and I'm between cremie and I'm between cremmy in the shadow,

and Gideon and I are kind of boxing it in, so that's what we're going to try to do. That's it. Yeah. What's the frog thing made of? Bronze. Bronze. This bronze is a pretty tough metal. I think so.

Not like aluminum foil where you just be able to like... Don't put a hole. I know, because I'll look this up. I know that something important happens if you destroy a bag of wool light. You, puncture it, we're in trouble. Don't do it, please. I'll focus on the shadow. If you put it in your head, then we have to start us

Star-Dustrabsidy now. You've already told. Prismier ceases two years. Oh, God. Cremie, get them out of there, man. Torbeck and I'll hold the shadow back. I'm trying. Huh?

And I will all produce flame in my palm, casting light in front of the shadow to briefly see if anything that will impact it at all just by summoning the flame in front of it. It seems to shrink back from the light. I'll then, instead of just normally punching it, use the produced flame to hit it with like a flame punch.

Flame fist? Flame fist. Perfect. And fire punch it. Okay, fire punch it. I like that. Fire punch. Two points of damage. Just roll. Oh, no.

Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. That doesn't count. You get it. So is this. Okay, that'll end. 18 to hit. Yeah, that means. All right, I'll roll two points.

No, you have to roll again. Let him count. Wait, two plus what? I don't think there's a plus on it. Oh, are you just one? Are you? Oh. I'm hoping that it just does normal damage.

Wait, so what is produced flame? And so how are you doing produce flame? Is that like a bonus action? No, it's just, it's an action. It's a normal cast of action. It's like a spell. Oh, it's a cantrip spell. Yeah. It does damage.

You can use it to attack and it does 1D8. Oh, dumb. Yeah, and it's fire. And you did two damage. Two damage. Yeah, and so the flame sheds bright light in a 10 foot radius. You can use it to attack.

It seems to do the exact. exact amount of damage you would expect it to do. Oh, two damage. You take one point of damage as you continue to choke. It's a bad day to be a shadow. Oh my god. How far is Kremi is the light? It's like 40, 50 feet above you.

I'm like looking at you now. I chipped down like right. Yeah, I sit down a spider for him and I'll say, and I'll ready my action to if we get close enough and I feel like we need extra distance to grab the grimmies. And I'm going to attempt to vine wept or thorn wept to basically pull ourselves up. Just try to find purchase. Just find purchase. Yeah.

And that is all I'm going to do. Okay. Bras, it's your turn. What does that effect do? Well, he wants you to fly up. Oh. Yeah, you need to fly. You're the one controlling it. I'm going to.

Pond five. Pond five. Are you saying pond? Pond five. What is that? It's like a Sees-Sach photo. Yeah. Um,

Grimey your hat and your cane are down here with Twig, myself, and Grico. No oxygen. we are attempting to fly out, and I will grab twig in addition to Grico, in addition to Grico, and I will endeavor to hold them and command my nimbus pod to fly up as quickly as I'll dash. You use your entire action to move as quickly as you can

with your friends in tow up towards the fireworks that are happening, and you are able to make your way into them. But there is no hand. There is no crem, there is no opening. Inside of this space is completely cut off from the outside.

Yeah, we're fucked. As we... I gotta find it friends. Oh, God. This is on my phone. Oh, boy. Yeah, this isn't good. This is not good. I'm out of ideas.

Torbeck never has any ideas anyone. All right. It is, and that's not saying. I'm working on this problem. Remember, some of the best stories come from desperation. That's my turn. It is the worm's turn. Or not the worm. It is the shadow's turn.

The shadow. It is going to, it is going, its focus is solely on you get in. And it is going to roll a 15. 15 doesn't hit. Cool, I'm going to dread. 20. Nice. 20.

Yeah, a little bit. but thanks Chad. Nine points of damage, necrotic damage? Oh wait. Is it still, it's still bained? Yes. Minus three. 17.

17. 17. Okay. Bain's not concentration. It's just like said it for getting. Correct. Your other bison. Okay, and you are going to take,

you are going to lose two strength. You watch as your muscles begin to deflate. Oh no, I've got noodle arms. Oh no, no, not my calves, I'm working on those. Only one calf, like one calf looks really great. The other one is shrunken. Stay on those. It looks like it's been in a cast for six months.

Nobody look at the left of me. With my hand in here, do I get a sense that this is like a bag? Roll on intelligence check. Oh, pretty good. That's a 15. Hey-oh. I would say you don't get a sense that it's a bag.

You can sense that there is some kind of magical property to it and there is maybe some similarity to a bag that you have in your possession that's hanging very close to this frog's mouth, which is a bag of holding. But you do not believe that they are one and the same. As you as you touch the bag of holding at your side and think about this, you feel the three scrolls of identifying that are on your person and though you know that it's not a spell you can cast. The Fay Wilde is a weird, an interesting place, and you wonder for a moment if these could help you in any way. All right, somebody, I haven't asked you for much. Help me out here, and I'm going to rip it up and just sort of like it'll start to kind of, I'll read it quickly, and I'll say

the incantation, it'll start to disintegrate in my hands. It's sort of like, almost like you turn to ash. Ah. Yeah. You know that this magic's is not of your own, but the guiding hand of your patron, you can feel rest on yours as the scroll tears. And for a minute, you can smell cigar smoke in your nose.

Oh, sorry. And you hear the clank of ice in a whiskey glass. Or of liquor in a whiskey glass. Rum in a whiskey. Rum in a whiskey. And you, this room that is darkness and shadow now is hazy with smoke for but a mere moment. Before you look at this thing and it glows with the strange magics and all of a sudden you begin to feel like you understand how this thing works a little bit more than you had before. You look into this thing and you see that this.

This does not lead to an extra-dimensional portal like that of a bag of holding, but that it is linked directly to the astral plane. Oh. That the pocket that it's in, should your friends travel too far outside of it, would throw them out into the astral plane itself. But that where they are at currently, though there is no oxygen and there is no exit, is almost a magical bubble that protects them. at least for a while and that it is almost a vessel for lost things and that if you know what you're looking for you can reach your hand in and say the name of the thing and it will be provided to you and that is the only exit from this space Barron provides thank you sir all right I guess how much that is your

turn do I feel I have a second to relay any information to the gang, or if not, that's fine. I would say you could use a reaction on somebody else's turn to do that. That's my turn. I'll say, yes, it's your full turn for that to happen. And I will say you do imagine from that

that the other two scrolls would work exactly the same. And that you imagine that now you, whether it was Somity's help or whether it was the nature of the Baywild, you do imagine, should you need to use those again, you would be able to do so. I inspect the other two scrolls, and there's now a wax seal that's like a dark,

kind of like purple, and there's a skull with a top hat and a cigar. Beautiful. That's pretty good. Torbeck. I'm gonna go for Broek. I'm gonna go for Broome. Try to end this.

Okay. Torbeck attempts to draw witchlight into his claws, and I will be casting essentially my crimson which will, as a bonus action, I will be able to deal an additional 1D4 damage. You can decide what type of damage it is for the sake of this.

My attacks become magical, and the damage, the 1D4 damage cannot be reduced in any way. Okay. But for each attack, I will take 1D4. Okay. I'm gonna make two attacks. Yes. That it looks like.

The one is gonna be a 10 and the other is going to be a much higher. The one's going to be a 24. The 10 misses? We're twisting. I'll twist the 10. That's a 19, so that's going to be a 26. So if it works, if it works, the claws become longer and more knife-like and vicious and horrific as this magenta witchlight begins to kind of drip and gather at the tips before Torbeck will make two attacks. Um, it's just let me make sure when activated, I take the damage. Oh, God.

So technically, I have to roll low enough. Oh, no. To not go unconscious. Can we all listen to what the number ratio is? What are we? I want to know on the map here. Okay, okay. Well, it's per attack.

So you'll have to roll once for the first attack. That's right. If it's low enough, one attack will hit. If it's low enough. So the first attack will hit. Because I can't, first attack can't kill me. Beautiful. We're alive. Oh, God.

Okay. So the first one, we'll hit. Which is going to do, I'll roll this guy. We'll do, we'll keep it together. 11 points of damage on the first attack. It's magical now. You, your elongated fingers sliced through the shadow and where before this had done nothing to an entity like this.

like this, a creature of lack of light, a creature that exists as an entity normally attached to something else. But as your finger sliced through, the witchlight spreads out in the shadowy body, almost like blood through its veins. And you can watch as it branches out throughout this entire thing and pulses and throves.

And this creature appears to take more damage than you would expect it. Torbeck is, his wounds are actively bleeding. He's looking pretty rough. I rolled a two and I hit zero exactly. Oh, no! The second attack does not land. The other hand, you raise your other hand

to move in and slice through this entity. And as you do, the witch light in the containers on your back begin to bubble, almost as if you can't control this type of magic, though it is built into you, you don't know how this works, and it begins to, you watch as blisters appear on your skin and pop little slivers of magenta puffs of spores burst out of the wounds that are there and you feel the pain overtake you as your eyes flashed magenta for a second, then roll back in a milky white as you fall in conscious.

That's my turn. I tried. I tried. Oh, me actually. Oh, fuck, we're dropping like five. Get him. Oh, man, you're gonna take them down, Torbett. This shadow is still pumping with the witchlight

that was sliced into it through Torbeck, and it looks like it is really struggling. It is barely hanging on here. And we'll straighten this out. We'll get you back up. 18. That hits. I'll just, I mean, just punch it.

Yeah. Try fire, should I produce flame or punch it twice. I would punch it twice. because I thought it's halved. That's right. And you have a better chance of credit. What happens if I lose one strength? Oh, no, no, no, I lost three strength, right?

No, you lost one. No, I lost, I got hit again. Yeah, you got hit twice. Oh, shit. Yeah, I think you've lost three. That impacts my two plus a hit, right? It does. It's plus three to hit.

You'll probably lose one. Go here. It's what's three plus proficiency. Oh, what's the app. What I'm saying is like you have to, I mean you have to lose four to lose two. Okay, can I twist this one? Can I twist this one?

It's just minus one. Then what would normally be if one less? Yes. Well, but a minus three strength. It might be, but it only, that only converts. You should have 20 strength. So you have 17 17 now. Which is minus two.

Which is minus. It is minus two? It's plus three instead of plus five. Seven, yeah. Oh, let me twist one more time. It's one more time. It's one more time. It's a plus four.

And then 20 is five. You're right. You're right. Okay, I was wrong. 21 to hit, 21 to hit, so I hit twice. That's okay, that's all right. Better to go. Okay.

And that's plus three. Instead of for each one. Plus three for each eight, nine, ten. 16. 16. 16 points of punch damage. Exactly 16. As you punch into this, you feel resistance this time.

The wish light that's. pumping through the shadow is doing something to it. It is causing it to be almost corporeal. And the resistances that it harbored before seem to no longer be in effect. As you slam into it, it rears back. The look of shock on its face is, it registers with you. And it seems just as shocked as you are to take that much damage from your fist as you rear back and completely dislocate its shadowy jaw. You watch as your

fist slams into it and the witchlight rockets throughout it and then in a huge burst the shadow explodes in front of you and all you see are wisps of darkness and the shining specks of witch light as it falls to the ground and slowly goes down. Stupid fucking ugly dumb shadow sucking boss Zip stealing monster, ugh! You hear a loud commotion from downstairs, but it's hard to tell exactly what has happened in this moment, but your friends are in imminent danger.

I move over to Torbeck and pull his arm up around my shoulders and kind of see if I can shift him up a little bit and start hobbling over to crammy. Oh, what's going on, man? Can you get him out of there? Yeah, you see to him. I think he might be okay. Please, please, please work.

Ricko, Frost, Twig, and I'm gonna try to pull them out. As you were doing that, we are going to go in the order. Yeah, I was gonna say. Because it was Gideon's turn, Bricko. Oh boy. We're not done combat yet. Still on the initiative. That's right.

Three points of damage. One hit point left. Oh my God. Frost. you are going to take two points of damage. Cremie, you reach in, and on your first turn, or as your action, you call out whose name? What did I say?

You say, Grico. You call out for the name of Grico, and you immediately feel leather in the palm of your hand in a ring of fur. Grico's best, as you rip him out of the frogs. Nice. Grico, you feel yourself all of a sudden just wrenched off of the lily pad as you're circling the air with frost. Frost, the lily pad gets lighter and drops down for just, or jumps up for just a second as it adjusts to the weight differences.

Grico, pops out of existence. Grico, you feel the air to get your lungs as you breathe in deeply. One breath and then two. Get here. Do I know what you're doing? Can I call out? Or you called all the names, right? I did, but if I realized it's gonna take time,

I say, you gotta get Twig out of there. Stick your hand in and call for Twig. I'd still keep Torback with me, but I'd get over there and join Cremie and say, Twigs in, and go in and try and grab for Twig and pour out. Were you before after? I'm after Cremie. You're after Cremie.

He's before me. I need you to roll a death savings broker, please. Yeah. Please not a one, please not at one. Please not at one. 18. Successes. The frogs kind of animates. Twigsie is not her name.

Please try again. You don't know her, stupid frog. So you want to reach in and you say what? I say Twigsie! Damn it, Twigsie! Get up here! You immediately feel the, you immediately feel the cotton dress and the apron straps of Twigs apron. As you wrench her out and... and you pull her out and are immediately shocked to see that she is completely blue.

Oh, I think I'm going to say dead. Her body is limp and she is not breathing. Oh, God. You hold her by the straps of her apron at the back and her body is just slumped forward. Her eyes are open, but there is no movement to them. There is no change in the size of the retina as it adjusts to the light. I dropped Torbeck immediately. Torbett takes damage and dies.

Ah! No, no, no, no. It's an act of a war. Oh, no, no, no! No, no! I'm gonna drop on that, hurry, I'll drop him up. I gently, like, sleeping beauty lay him dressed. You do drop Torbeck, but he's not that far from the ground

as you cradle twig in your arms. Turn the twig, slab around the face real quick. Crammy, get Grigua out of there, man. I don't think she's breathing. He's on the floor! Burn him for! She is, her skin is cold and slightly clammy. As you slap at her face,

you get no reaction. Grico, you are no longer taking damage because you, um. Bananas. And if I can, I probably would be too weak to be able to use a bonus action to feed it to twig. I will attempt, if I can give one to twig as of my bonus action or whatever, I'll do that.

If not, I'll hand a handful to Gideon. I would say you can hand a handful to Gideon. It would take a full action to feed something to see who's unconscious. And I'll get ready to eat one myself. Frost. You take five points of damage as you begin to choke. Twig is no longer with you. Grico is no longer with you.

It's now just you and a top hat and a cape. As you float through the air here, slowly running out of air. Do I see any other items in the space other than the top hat? You see the globe that is glowing, the orb that has been glowing. You see piles of gold, platinum, silver, electromagn. You see a wagon and a couple of wheels. You see a handful of swords.

You see a small, strange geometric cube. and you see a cloak that looks lighter than it should. Can I take my turn to pick up Kremie's hat and cane? Yeah, they're on your, they're on your lily pad, but I'd say you can put the hat on and put the cane to your side. I'll do that, I do that, and if I have time, I'll grab the strange, mysterious cube. Yes, you have time. time, you grab the cube and you place that I'm moving slowly. I'm calming myself.

Trying to reserve your breath. I'm reserving my breath. Slow your life. I know that everyone else was in a much worse state and we're in here for much longer. My veins are only but burning. I send her myself and sit hoping for rescue. Love that. Let's go. Cramming. Can I free object interaction and grab a banana? Yeah. If I look at How dead does she look? As I have described, she looks blue. Her skin is, her skin is clammy. She's cold, and her eyes are open, but they are not trained on anything.

In the reality of the world, do I feel like, you know, outside of combat, if I'm going to rush over instead of Gideon feeding their banana, Would I be able to do before Gideon or would it make more sense just logically to pull Frost out? Or would I be wasting? Would Cremie think that he was wasting time in case Twig is on the verge of bed? Roll a medicine check. Can I twist them? Just do one.

That is a 15. A 15? You quickly glance at 20. You quickly glance at Twig and look up to Gideon's pained face, and you don't want to be the one to tell them what you see. As you turn towards the frog and decide it is best to pull Frost from the Obis. The son of my God. Morning Frost.

Good morning. Good morning. I'll pull out. Now do I have my head. Do I have my cane? Do I have my cute? Everything that you'd put on your person as a personal possession is on your person when you're pulled out.

You feel the cube at your side, the hat on your head and the cane attached to your... Oh my God, what have we done? Thank you for me. Can you roll a death saving throw for you, please? 10 good or bad? Yes! Yeah, it's always a 55% chance.

You are lying on the floor, surrounded by bananas. Gideon, you are on your knees, holding twigig in your arms. You are rushing to unpeel a banana as you try to feed it to her. As you try to, you cock her head back and open her small brownie mouth, and you attempt to shove small pieces of banana into our mouth, but there is no response. You do everything that you can to force the banana into her throat, but there is no swallowing.

There is nothing. Her body is slowly, the color is modeling, and you see that she is, there is no breath, and she has not breathed once, since you pulled her from this space. You see that her hands are clutched tight, and you can see that beneath her fingernails are just a little bit of remnants of fabric,

what looks like she tried desperately to get Crummy's hat back, but she is moving less. Just compressions. Don't break her rib cage, but just compressions I take the first thing I do is I take the banana out of her mouth and I chew it up and like a baby bird

and I put the chewed up banana in her mouth and see if she'll like you know see if it'll do anything and I'll start oh Grico get over here man let's see if you can get her up she's cold man oh

I will are we out of initiative yeah Uh, well, give Tobek, give Tobek a banana. Torbeck's fine, man, no, with bananas on them. Look at them. It's a little scratch, man. I've never seen Torbeck so fine before.

Uh, I'm gonna say, well, you keep showing to, you, oh, this is to break my wrists. And I'm gonna try to use any kind of medical knowledge that I have to resuscitate someone who has, uh, in whatever kind of parenting courses I stole from the Ratman Child Casino. know about how to resuscitate a child. I know Twig is probably is definitely old than Grick-O but anything I would have learned when trying to be a better parent for Hootsie I will attempt to try on on Twig. They bring up shuffle and a mortal coil off. One more twist. Oh my god. And it might be fate here brother. You

got it you got to break the fate. I'll take it. I'll take it. That's the extras tab. that'll be a 21. You are, you're hurt. You have, you are on your very last legs as well. As you make your way towards Grico and Twig, your strength is sapped. As you attempt to administer

your chest compressions on Twig's frail body. And you press as a hard as you can to no avail. Get the bonnet down. You can stop. You can stop. What do you mean, man?

She's gone, kid. What do you mean she's gone? She's dead. This is her only first adventure. She can't be dead, man. She made it like 7,000 years or something in that hut, the end of the road. Can't give up on her. You'll do one last chest compression.

You'll actually hear a snap. I'll reach into my pack and she may be beyond. I can't anymore. She may be beyond magical healing, but if anything could do it, I'd pull out. I saved powder of fake curse removal. What was given out in lieu of I believe, Kathy back in the carnival.

If anything can remove the horrors, perhaps it's Faced us. Perhaps it's faced us. What can we do with this? Mix it into the banana, I guess. See if you don't see if you eat it. I'll try sprinkling some on her. I'll try to get closer to mouth or nose into the banana.

Anything I can do. You mix the Faye stuff with the magical healing banana that Gricko's provided. It shimmers with a beautiful pastel yellow. The magic's intermingling. the scent of the banana is heightened a little bit, and you attempt to administer it to Twig, but she cannot swallow in this state.

And this is not a curse. Death comes for everyone at some point in their life. I will just, I'll look away, and I'm going to say, Do it, I think you need, and I'm going to give you, I'm going to, I'm just like, please don't put my hand off, please don't put my hand off,

As I'm going to feed him three bananas. I am going to have him roll a death saving throw before you feed that, just because all of this other stuff happened. Natural one. You're going to beat that banana. I'm going to hurry up. Don't, don't, don't, don't. Don't buy my head off.

And I'm going to shove three bananas down your throat. Why don't have space chuckles pulled up? Before that happens. You feel the life slip from you for a moment. And your mind begins to wander. Is this death or is this madness? As you begin to see what looks to be an underground metropolis shining in magenta light,

a tall, slender man walking down a cobbled street, what looks to be beneath the earth itself, subterranean. wearing a suit with a tailcoat. In one hand, he has what appears to be some sort of medicine bag, the doctor's bag. Is this a memory? Is this a vision?

His height is roughly the same height as yours. His stature is similar. His arms long. But he is far more put together than you are. But standing side. side by side, side by side, you two, in a similar outfit, could pass for brothers as darkness takes you. And then, life back into your lungs as for the refugeal banana. There goes.

Okay, it's right. It's okay. Don't hang on. I will time to sit up. I will time to sit up. And the moment's gone. I'll walk up to him. to Gid and just put my head on his shoulder.

It's okay. You know, she had fun. I'll pick up the closest, but yeah, and just chuck it as hard as I can around, and cross the room. Fuck, man! This hag! She fucking dies! Ew!

Not everybody survives their first adventure. And that is where we'll end the session. Oh! My God! You can remember this. State. We'll be fucking plain next week. Start taking pictures.

I want every dice and every little thing exactly where it is right fucking now. God, we're not done. I hope Hoochie's okay with anti-bloody toast. Three points I get? Three. One per banana? Yep.

Okay. Let's not get it. I gave Gideon five. So that leaves me... I could stop. That leaves you. So both Torbeck and I are at... three hit points. I'm entirely

out of spell slots. We're not finding the hand. Sorry, you're in. Yes, but wasn't it funny when we put the ornaling body inside of us? Ah, karma comes for us all. Thank you so much for listening to the Legends of Aventra's podcast. We hope you

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