Legends of Avantris - Once Upon a Witchlight | Ep. 44 | Mushroom Samba

Episode Date: August 29, 2024

After waking up in an unfamiliar place, the Krew learns more about Thither and finds a group of campestri dancing in a faerie circle...   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/sozWUc7N0SA?si=0oRrelxIwVHgT6Mu

Welcome to Legends of Adventress. Torbeck's name is Torbeck, and you're listening to Once Upon a Witchlight. Here's what happened last time. Why have we all become turned into mushrooms? Hey guys, Torbeck's a big hairy mushroom. I'm happy to help you for a price. I'll do take whatever you want. Unfortunately, they're the move, so the directions that I gave you will change shortly.

You can have as much fire as you. You are. Here you are, just as promised. I can't guarantee the Pixies are still about, but this is where they were last. You watch as one, two, three Pixies spill out from behind it. Is this a singing episode? Yes.

Granny Nightshade's been messing with those fairy circles. I can go ahead and help you for a price. All of you return to your normal family. Yes. We got it. You are part of the deal, yeah? You're making the car for Stewart. Smells amazing.

All right, well, you need some information. We're in severe debt. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, you might want to go see Ned. What are you talking about? His name's not Ned, it's Nib. He's an old miser that lives in a cave off in the forest somewhere.

It might be kind of hard to find. Who's granny Noghite? Does it another hag we have to worry about? He's ignoring me. It's just what we call Scabatha. Nightsh. Scabatha. His cave is just filled with gold and magical items.

You know if he has any weaknesses or fears. He wears a blindfold so he can't see. There are fairy circles all over there. And it's done correctly. It will teleport you to the material plane that is connected to that particular fairy circle. This is not where you had fallen asleep the night before. And they are clearly not the trees or even the forest you had been in the night before. You've spent your first day in Thither, and it was not quite what you had expected.

You found yourself in a place unlike any you have ever been before. Your faithful companion twig has now completely reverted to her puppet form. You have experienced what it's like to live as the musical campestri folk that exist in this place. and you have met with a couple of bubbly pixies that helped you in your journey and gave you the information that you need. And it was here at the camp of these pixies over a nice piping hot bowl of coral fish stew

that you learned about two paths that lead you deeper into thither. You've learned about Nib, the gold spinner that lives in a cave somewhere within thither. As well as the fairy rings that dot the land, some of which have been twisted and warped by Granny Nightshade, but some that still apparently function

and could potentially get you back to the material plane should you choose to return home. And it was with these thoughts that you laid down for bed and the comfort of your new companionship. It is with this new knowledge that you laid down for bed knowledge that you lay down and find yourselves drifting off into a peaceful sleep. And as you awake, you are no longer in the same place that you had fallen asleep in. The pixies are nowhere to be found.

And something that had been said to you lingers at the edges of your mind. That this place moves, that it twists and it turns. How that happens, you're unsure, and where that place is. faces you in this gigantic ancient forest you're unsure of. But you find yourselves in a small grove atop a beautiful purple grass. The trees themselves, the wood, a dark plum with swirling etchings in the bark

as the trees reach up towards the sky to leaves of lilac and lavender that slowly drift down. and graze across your skin, almost like weeping willows. You look through this space and you can see the way that the light streaks in from the sun as it fills this glade with a soft warmth, a morning warmth. And you listen out, you can no longer hear

the sounds of the rushing water from the river. You are very clearly not in the same place that you had been in. But it's at least beautiful. for now. Well, we're clearly not in the same place where we went to sleep. Oh, geez. Are we sure? I mean, it's the possible it's just mourning. Do you see a river anywhere, Gideon? No. I don't believe that we are anywhere close to where we started off before we slumbered. Well, you think somebody picked us up and moved us here? No, I... My gut tells me that the forest shifted around us.

Forrest. Nothing here is ever easy. I mean, do we think the pixies are gone too? Pixies. The Pixies. We have more call for stew over here if you come up with us where to go. And you say that and you see that the rock that was at that very cool 45 degree angle.

And the campfire beneath it is gone. gone. That was part of the forest that you are no longer in. Cow slip. Cowslip specifically. I should not hear either. What are the other ones? Classic. Maypole. Maypole. Maypole also specifically, don't feel good. Don't feel lost out. And the other one. Spider Lily. Spider Lily. Spider Lily.

Spider Lily. Do you guys think that it's weird? than like the pixies aren't here too. Like, if everything else is moving, shouldn't they have still been here? Perhaps they, uh, have control over where they stay? Perhaps they chose to be taken or moved with the forest? What if it's because we're not from here? That's a good hypothesis. I think we should go with that, actually.

That's very smart, Torbeck. Oh, like an invasive species? Like, thither's fighting back against us being here? Yeah, and then we're probably going to get, like, a horrible disease. The disease? No, they would perceive us as the disease. Some large white blood cells would suddenly show up and start attacking us, and we would have no chance of survival.

Oh, no. Speak for yourself. The war of the worlds. No. Well, I mean, I guess we just gotta move on. We gotta find Nib! The guy who did that, like, created a housing cross with Mr. Guru, apparently. Yeah, I guess we do.

I mean, we have a couple leads. Can we steal all of his gold? I mean, they, that's a good point. Yeah, I think they were trying to tell us he had enough gold to pay off all our debt. You might not have to do anything else. Just, I mean, he's, like, you know, can't see it's coming, can't hear it's coming. It's there for the tape. You don't refer to someone as a gold biser

without them having a tremendous amount of gold. Well, didn't they say that they're using the gold to like torture him horribly? Gold's probably all cursed. I will say what you remember, because it was a week, is that they told you that what he had done was he had become very greedy and had utilized his connections with Guru

and the properties that he owned to swindle people out of their money and he ended up ruining a lot of lives. And when he came to the Fay Wild, he was overwhelmed with his own emotions, and the guilt that he felt was the one that came to the forefront. He went to Granny Nightshade and asked to have that guilt removed from him,

and she trapped him in a cave, and all of the money that he had, he has to spin into magical items and into gold pieces and give them away for free until every last bit of, wealth that he has is gone. In the meantime, the specters of those that he had destroyed

haunt him, so he wears a blindfold so as not to have to see them. So he can hear, and he can see just fine, he chooses not to. Well, depending on how long he's been there, he might have gone through most of the gold already.

Who's he given it away to? People in the Fayewild, they don't give a fuck about gold. Maybe it's the principle of the matter. It's like, nobody. He's like turning it into stuff. He's turning into magic items. He's spinning it into magic items. So he has a gigantic pile of gold

that he's spinning into magical items. It would be the magical effects they'd be interested in. They love that bartering stuff around here, you know, for like silver pieces, well, like silver chest pieces and spools or thread. Or a witty jaunt or something metaphorical. Perhaps he takes requests.

I imagine that any fake creature would delighted to be able to imbue some magical item with some fanciful or whimsical ability or impact. That would charm anyone I've met so far here, I imagine. Well we have no idea where he is besides being in a cave, right? I mean maybe a cave's generally like in like mountains or hills, right? So we can maybe, I don't know if we can over ridges get above the trees if anybody wants to volunteer and take a look. Here's... We need to figure out how to to navigate this place reliably and consistently.

That's going to be very difficult. I would spend hours, perhaps, coming up with instruments of measurement, thinking about how the sun position is, finding ways to perhaps create a compass. But I don't think that that would be a very worthwhile effort. Does anyone agree? I think Graco has spoken for everyone.

Tormax only real concern, is if we don't get somewhere, and before we fall asleep, we might be right back at square one. There is that. We could be returned to the same spot, or we could be put anywhere else within thither. Well, my concern is that even if you've got information, do we have enough reference points for you to triangulate where the fuck we are and where the fuck we're going?

That's exactly my point. If we can't measure using the mortal planes instrumentation, there has to be some way to navigate the space that eludes us. You're talking about measuring in cheeseburgers? Something like that. Something emotional.

Something whimsical will do the trick. Let's do cheeseburgers, though. Torbeck-law, cheeseburgers. Kid in? Did he say cheeseburgers? Oh. Twig?

Twigsie. Is that you? Hi. I thought you were inanimate and lost all your puppet magic. Something doesn't feel right here, Gideon. Well, what do you mean? What's going on?

I feel more puppet than I feel twig. Well, we've moved into thither here, and you haven't been responding ever since we crossed it. I could hear everything you were saying, but it was like I was inside of a puppet, Kiddian. Well, that doesn't make any sense. What?

It doesn't make any sense. That sounds like locked-in syndrome, don't it? That's a fucking nightmare. What about it doesn't make sense? I'm feeling really dizzy. Me too, actually. That's weird. Are you saying that you were lucidly aware,

but unable to control your body the entire time we were traveling yesterday? No, my name's not Lucy. I'm twig. I've been gone for 24 hours, nor I forgot who I am. He's not very good at remembering things. You can't hold her to get. That's so sad, getting names wrong.

It's the opposite of that. That hurts my feelings. No, no, he just doesn't think you're important as all. That's not what, lucidly is the word I'm using. Lucidly, as in lucid. Yeah, we gotta go, we gotta go save Zendaya from the palace. What are you talking about? The palace of hearts and desiring.

Oh, you mean the Palace of Hearts Zendaya? The palettes of hearts and dia. The palettes. At where the world ends. The palettes of heart. Oh, boy. Do you feel like you are fading in and out of your puppet state? Didn't I just say that, Gideon?

He hates me so much. He doesn't know my name. He's not even listening to the words. I'm saying. I'm trying to get a sense of why you think this might be happening. Frost, don't listen, okay? No bitch. Hey, hey, come on.

Don't say things that are funny. Don't say anything about Frost? Don't worry, he can't hear me. I told him not to listen. No, but he doesn't listen to people directing him to do things very well. You know how many times I've tried to tell him to go to bed and he just doesn't do it?

I heard everything, Twig. You are such a bitch. I told you not to listen. I tried to be nice to you. When am I been mean to you? You turned me, I do. She got a boy in there, bro. And you can't even remember my name.

That was a different frost. That wasn't my fault. I was under the sway of the favor. You sort of manipulate her into a cult and, you know, convinced her to kill at least two to five bullywugs. And bear them in the muck. Oh, you did feast upon her blood with your tiger fangs. Yeah, and you told me you were gonna turn me into a Dracula

and you can't be held to respond to all for when I'm under the influence of the fate. Really? Yes. Okay, well, that's actually a- No, no, that's a pretty fair argument. Well, my hold up in goblin court, you know, depends on the legal system at play. Yeah.

Anyone else feeling really stiff this more? Yeah, Judge Kangaroo Jack is. I got a Woody. Yeah. What? I'm all Woody. Did she still have the roses in her eyes? Yeah.

That's concerning. Well, look, why don't you just rest up? Seems like there's nothing we can do about your predicament. And Torbeck, get up the tree. I'm feeling... Oh, Mr. Crabby, please. It's only at least three or four thousand cheeseburgers tall. Oh, okay.

You imagine if we're just... We had three or four thousand cheeseburgers around there. Do you want to try something? Uh, Tormack will try anything once. Come over here, let me touch you. Okay. Torbick hasn't had that happen for a long time. Tormec is touch star.

Here comes Tormick. Torbeck, keep your pants on. I just need it's at your face. No, no, it's just Torbeck's loose bell. I have a turmake's on a pervert. I promise. Interfect will reach out of hand. No, ma'am, let me see your face.

Oh, my perfect face, okay. Twig puts both of her hands on either side of your face. You can feel the coldness of the wood pressed up against your face as she gets very, very close to you. And where her eyes should be, you see these two painted blue roses. And as she gets close to you, she blows into your face and she goes, fly! and do I feel like you can fly? And you immediately feel yourself

lift off the ground a little bit. This is not the first time that Torbeck has flown. So hopefully he can start to get the hang of it a little bit better, a little bit more stable. Oh, whoa! Torbeck will be right back. Woo-sh! Just maybe he takes off, like,

oh, no, it begins. You hear like, hitting trees. Crass, crack. There's like, I need everyone to roll a dexterity saving throw for me, please. He hit every ugly branch on the way up. That's pretty money.

That's pretty good. Oh, that's quite good. 21. Seven. I should roll for twig, too. How long does this flight spell last? An hour. Oh, thank goodness.

Oh, 16. 16. If Tor magazine's back in an hour, he will be. You watch as Torbeck rockets through the canopy of trees. And as he does, branches break and snap and begin just showering the glade with broken branches and leaves and birds nests and veritable things. Everyone is able to dodge out of the way except for Gideon,

who is smacked on the back of the head by a large, Doing six points of damage. I was hoping that the Jeep from Jurassic Park was gonna fall out. I'm gonna understand that reference. And Torbeck, you are able to pierce through the canopy of trees. And as you do, you find yourself looking over

a large sprawling ancient forest in front of you. You can see small groves that dot the land for miles and miles. And in these are circles of giant multicolored mushrooms, which are clearly the fairy circles that you had, you had, that had been mentioned to you. And as you're up here, you look from one to the next, trying to, trying to determine the difference between those that have been corrupted by Granny Nightshade and those that haven't, but they all look exactly the same. All of them are beautiful and vibrant and large. In some of them, you do see what appears to be movement, as if they're occupied in some way. Others seem to be completely vacant. But you continue to look out over this land. You see

snaking rivers that pierced through the trees. You do see mountains that dot the land, and all the while a thick fog encircles this entire place. You realize that you are at the very beginning, the very edge, the most northern part of thither, looking north through all of this. And so you look to the west in an attempt to see back into hither and to see how things are going there, but the entire place is shrouded in fog.

All you can see is this land that you're in now. You notice towards the middle there is a large, what appears to be a lake with a small island in the very center. Stretching even further north, you see what appears to be a giant oak tree, absolutely massive, stretching hundreds of feet into the sky, towering far above everything else.

And almost halfway through thither, you see a similar tree, much larger, Probably the largest tree that's ever been in thither ever. But instead of reaching towards the sky, it is fallen to the side. Oh, shit. It's been felt? It has been felt.

Completely surrounded by what appears to be gardens and ramshackle buildings. There are lights. You can see even at this time of day, light shining inside of carved and hollowed. hollowed out windows. And it is immediately clear to you that this is loom-lurch.

This is the place that you have been told is the lair of Granny Nightshade, this hollowed-out oak that she lives in. But from this vantage point, you can see that this is not simply a house. This isn't like what you encountered with, or in hither. This is a city that has built up around this tree.

And there are clearly other that live here, at least outside and around it. And for the most part, that is what you see. So I would assume that Torbeck would be able to relay the information that you've given him back to the gang. But Torbeck would like to attempt to... Yeah, you have your sending chess pieces, sending pawns. But Torbeck would like to try his best to basically orient this mental, image and commit it to memory.

And in an attempt to, like, he's aware that the forest moves or something, right? Torbeck's not very smart. But he wants to do his best to try to help the gang by like when he gets back to the ground, have an understanding of where things are, to the best of his ability. Roll an intelligence check to see how well you can commit

this to memory. Ooh, with a plus zero. I got a 15. That's good enough. You feel like you will be able to give them a really nice approximation of where everything is. It won't be as detailed as you saw it, but you'll be able to describe all of the landmarks

and their rough approximation in this place. Okay, then I would feel like, Thorbeck feeling like he's done what he can do, would return, fly back down to the forest floor more gently then he flew up and relay all of this information to his friends and with the approximation to the best of his ability of kind of where things are and headings and which direction would be going.

He'd explain it badly and probably be drawing in the dirt with a horrific law, but like he would be trying to convey that the best of his ability. I'll draw what he draws, like actually on paper so that it's not stuck in the ground. And just for my own. Roll a performance check. Mental knowledge.

We're at the north? Furnthest south. Here? South. Furthest south. Oh, furthest south? Oh, thank you. Oh, we're down here?

Yes, you're at the very, you're at the very bottom portion of the mountain. Oh, okay. So he was looking north, not so. Yes. Okay. I understood. I did not understand.

I thought, I thought, yeah. Formals? Mm-hmm. Have four mules. Be' foremost. Have four mons. Paffa mons. Paffa mons.

Spahmolm. Speaking of bad French, accents. I was watching, and bad singing. I was watching the Beauty and the Beast live action the other night and yeah. That's all. Never seen it. I really like it. There are just some things I change. Break a break, Torback. This is Little Green. Collin Ann. Major Tor. Major Tor. Do we have columns open? What did you get there?

Torback is standing right here. No, when you hear the response that's coming from the pawn piece, it's Torbeck screaming and the sound of branches and crashing as I'm descending back to the forest park. Oh! It's pure calamity coming out of the speaker. Oh, Big Brown has landed. Oh, big brown coming high!

Ah! And then when I land, I would relay all of that information to frost, to the best of my ability, and hopefully see how it's going to be. we see how his performance. A 15 for the map making copy-ing. So yeah, you were able to land. You explain everything that you saw, and Frost is able to make a rough approximation of the map.

It looks pretty good. The only problem was that Frost got a little bit too caught up in the details. And so as you were describing things, his attempt to do the math made it so that the first quarter of the map looks pristine. And then as he was trying to catch up with everything else that you were saying, it starts to get increasingly worse.

Happy birthday. That's really fine. Well, I think we have at least what we can go on for another day or two. If Twig, you can do that, and we can continue to check in on a regular basis, the same way. I can do it a couple of times, but I can't do a lot, a lot.

I feel really tired. Do you think you would be able to do it once day in the morning? Huh. What about the lily pad? If I'm awake in the morning, for sure. Is there anything that you feel like you need in order to maintain your twigness?

The blood of the innocent. Oh, we could probably find that. Yeah, I'm kidding. Oh, well. I don't drink blood. I'm not a vampire. I don't think we knew you're gonna drink yet. I mean, I just assumed kind of you'd maybe want to smear it around yourself.

Like the reagent of something. Not like a nice wood polish. Yeah. Have you ever seen the red violet? Do you think I need to polish myself? Well, no one needs to polish the wood every now and again. No, I think you'll just cry, Rick. How don't think you need to at all?

Okay. Tell me no. Wouldn't that make me very red capy? What if I'm not a brownie anymore? What if I'm a red cap? Then we'll go from Tollbeck's nickname to Gideon's code name. Little red. Little red.

Oh, you could be Little Red, too. Can I be Little Red? You can be Little Red. I like that. We got the blue roses, I mean. Little Red Riding Good. I don't like that. I don't know.

Maybe something else. Maybe something else. Probably. But I'm brightened on your shoulders. Well, but, you know, it's not just, you know, maybe just maybe something else. That name is so good we should just keep it to ourselves. What about Twigs, see? You like that one, right?

Yeah. Hey, should we like mark the trees or something? I mean, what if we go to bed and everything flips us all around again? Do you think that maybe, hmm, no, no, no man. I'm hesitant to scar the forest in any way. It might actually act upon us. What if we just stay awake?

They're just fucking trees, right? Well, do you think that? There was a living mound of like a hill that we talked to in Hither. Yeah, but he immediately was like, oh, hey, I'm here. Don't fuck with me. That's true. I have wacky little feet.

Can you think that there's, there's a reason that we're here right now? Yeah, it's to find a hag and steal some paintings. Oh, do you see any caves while you was up there? Oh, no. We ought to go far and nib and steal all of his stuff. No caves were laid to torment. Rivers.

Rivers. I had Torbeck has rivers for days, but no caves. So we were along one of these, and now looking at the map that you did. Look along one of these rivers. That must be where we started, maybe we were here, because it's closest, and then we got moved down here somewhere. That's incredibly insightful and seems to check out. I am going to do some calculations and see if there's a relationship between the places we wake up each morning. I also think that it makes sense for us to think about the relationship we have with these

milestones and see they themselves are moving each morning, if we can. There may be a pattern, but we won't know until we've been here for some time. And we don't have much time to spend. Don't forget that we have a time limit in a number of days. Oh, Grico, are you okay? You're growing an awful lot at frost today. Is everything... Patterns and like, go, let's study it. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. I'm going. I was like, oh. Tourbag things.

Who has time for that? Who has time for that? Let's look for a cave. I'm done now. Nib! We're the ghosts of all those kids and women and children whose lives you've ruined with your housing crisis.

You better tell us or else we're going to haunt you even double extra. Let's go, let's go, let's go. Well, hold on. Instead of moving blindly, based on frost and torbeness, Matt. To the northeast, there's a fairy circle there, and we know that that's where some of those mushroom people live. It was really hard to tell if any of them were corrupted. They all looked exactly the same to doorback. Well, don't we now know how we just, we just need to walk through them, and as long as they're not corrupted,

there's not like a word you can say, drive back to last week. You don't remember, and they didn't tell you what the corrupted meant outside of the fact that it was more difficult to travel through. them. It seemed like the fairy circles could still be used potentially, even if they were corrupted. And what that meant, you're not sure. If they're uncorrupted, however, you do know that it means that you could travel back to the material plane. And the Pixies even gave you the tools to maneuver it. Now they... Oh, that's right. She wins and the Calcutta Caldums from Andrew Dewey. That's exactly right. Three turns Witter Shins and off you go.

You would walk in a circle three times, Witter Shins say the words within the circle. But there was, and you needed to hold a wand or a rod or something high into the air. And that there was one other thing about it that they couldn't quite remember, but they didn't think it was that important. Certainly won't play us the ass.

Torbek is very concerned that if we accidentally use a corrupted circle, we'll explode into blood and viscera. What I will say is they did tell you that once you got there, it would be easy to tell whether they were corrupted or uncorrupted. That's right. This is a square. This isn't a circle at all.

But from a distance, it was very difficult for you to tell. Well, why don't we just, like, walk forward until we find, you know, some of the bunch of magical items? This guy's just giving stuff away. I'm with Cremie. I think we should pick a cardinal direction. North. No, I think, look at all these mountains.

The cave could be in any of these mountains, but we know that there's a fairy crossing not too far from here. To the north east. So I'd rather have some kind of head besides just wandering. They did tell you that the fairy circles worked both ways. Then let's go to the first fairy circle. What are we doing? All right.

Now everyone just remember, keep the sun on your right until noon, and then slightly more left. Yeah, what he said. I'll leave the way. Before we go, do we maybe wanna look around the place we woke up? Oh, we didn't do that already?

Oh, God. You guys are slacking. We've all just been staring here, looking at our feet. Look around! You look around. My toes looking a little green. I was distracted by torment flying into the air and hitting all the branches. Oh, I found the Jeep from Jurassic Park.

I don't get this reference. I don't understand. You can't throw it, trustee. You can keep you. You can keep making jeep sounds, but I don't get it. There's the scene in Jurassic Park. I've not seen Jurassic Park since I was like three. Oh, let's rewatch it now.

All right. Oh, bye. You're right. Put it on screen. Come out. We gotta go see a movie. Say yes. Don't worry about it.

So you're not going to explain it now? In Jurassic Park, one of the jeeps falls through tree braids. So you are going to explain it now. It's knocked off the thing. It tumbles down the thing. falls into a tree and Sam Neal has to repel down and he's like, come on, come on, just give me your hand, I know you're scared, come on, come on, come on, he sees the tree, he sees the other Jeep coming, he's like, okay, come on, come on, come, come, I know, come you're scared,

he's just like, yeah, I can't, hear you know, and Samuel's like, come on, he pulled down, and then he moves, he goes, propels this way, and the Jeep falls down, and they hits the other Jeep, and they both go crashing all the way down, and they look at the, oh, what a great, we're okay, and then the end, and then the end, and then you can see all that gasosaurus in the trees, and it's like, oh, oh, oh, oh, it's so gentle and nice. because it's an armoor. And they pet it, I think. Really bad prosthetic Samuel Jackson arm.

He's like, oh, it's you. Oh, the prop we had to save money on. That was a super last minute. Wasn't Chris Bratt in that movie? No. Jimmy Buffett was also in that movie. Confined me again and I'll keep mentioning Chris Brat. In the first Jurassic.

No, no, in the remake. No, I was like, Jurassic World. I was like bullshit. I've never heard that in my life. Are you trying to calm the velociraptors? You don't talk about that. See, I get that one.

All right, all right. So what you're saying is we do find the Jeep from Jurassic Park. Well, yeah, now that I know where it came from, of the waters. In half, I get it. Spare, dogs, bends. What is this?

No, can roll a group investigation check? Yeah. What dye should I use? Oh, doesn't really matter. The Torbeck's bag. Oh. Oh. Gamsie's back.

I will enjoy a 22. Oh, I have advantage. Oh. Why have I have advantage? On what? On investigation checks. Oh, probably because Blood Honor stuff.

You're setting it out. Oh, I got a 14 instead of a three. Let's go. 15. Beautiful. What do you say? 12. Investigation.

Oh, investigation. It's like a 15. Oh, group investigation check is easy. I need one of you to roll a D8. I got you. Thank you. A four. A four, perfect.

You need some of these characters in the DNA? You, at Twig's suggestion, you begin to investigate this glade that you've found yourself awaking in. And the question that you had, why aren't the pixies here with us? Why is it just us? is not answered.

However, you do find a little note with thanks, Spider-Lilly, Maple, Couslip. And tied to it is a small whistle. And it looks about twig-sized, to be honest. It's much larger than a Pixie's whistle ever could be, and much smaller than a whistle for anyone else. Maybe Grico could play it, actually. It wouldn't be so out of, it wouldn't be so out of size for Grico.

It is a beautiful reed whistle with intricate carvings all over it, and it thrums with a sense of magic. There's a note here and a thrumming whistle. The Torbeck pulls out the small brass whistle he had from the epic arena fight between Chuckles and Giddings. He's like, oh man, that's so much. It's cooler than Torbeck's Whistle. You're sad on that whistle?

It's actually bent now. No! It's okay, Toolback. I'll think it's still looks pretty cool. I try to play it, it's just like, boom. I'm going to read this note. Here you go, Gregor.

No, it just says, essentially says thank you. Essentially it says thank you. For what? Just says thank you. Just says thank you. Oh, if we need these context clues. There's a lipstick marker right here. I assume that's cows with.

That's what I figured it was. Yeah. Would you like the known? No. Oh, are those sending stone ruins underneath the lipstick? Oh, yeah. There's sending stone ruins. Yeah.

Been there, you know what I mean? Brutle. That's cold. Get in, that's cold. That's cold. Poo-da-poo-pup-pah-pah. Yeah. We're all instant.

Are you playing the whistle? Because I'm nice, I'm not going to make the one-time use happen right now. You play it and you feel the magical thrum of this what is very clearly a magic item. And you have not attuned to it yet. So the magical effect does not happen. But with your druidic nature, you can feel

a similar magic to something almost a druidic magic. And you imagine that with some time you would be able to understand how this works, but that it is very clearly a gift from the Pixies to you. And whether it was for the food that you gave or just your experience with Pixies being what it is, knowing that they enjoy a good time and the companionship might have been enough for them to want to reward you. Or it could have been for the information that you gave them about the mundane doorstop and how you ended their squabble over what its purpose was. It is unclear as pixies are whimsical creatures and do what they will.

But this is a gift from them to you. Well, I'm going to hold on to this and study it while we walk. And as that's happening, Frost, you are inspecting these trees, looking at how different they are in comparison to the others. and you move around this one and that one, and you eventually find yourself face to face with a poster. This podcast is brought to you by our Patreon. Become a patron today at patreon.com slash legends of Aventress

and gain access to tons of exclusive perks, including a monthly movie night and a weekly Patreon exclusive campaign set on the high seas. Shroud over Saltmarsh. You can also go to the crooked moon.com to pick up your... own copy of our first published supplement, The Crooked Moon, a folk horror tome for Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition. And don't forget to snag all of the extra goodies like dice, miniatures, plushies, a tarot deck, and more. Thank you.

Mmm, a poster. You make your way around the tree and you find a poster nailed to the side of the bark. You can see the sap that is leaking and hardened from the wound that this nail has left. It's trails of rust running down the sap. It's clear that this poster has been here for a long, a long time. It is wrinkled and waterlogged, and yet it still stands.

It still exists. What you see is the image of a young boy, a wanted poster. Bring this wisp of a thief to me alive and unharmed, and I'll ensure that no sort of, can ever break your skin. Signed, Granny Nightshade. Does the boy look familiar?

No. Human boy? Elf boy? Fairy boy? Human boy. And at the very bottom, or looks human at least from this drawing that you see here. And at the very bottom, an Elvish script, which I'm assuming some of you can read.

I believe that I read Elvish. Perfect. You see Wanted, Will of the the Faywild. Will of the Faywild. And that's the name I deduce? Will, I get it. Yes. Like Willa and well? Who's Willa? Willa. Willa was the little girl. The little Willa the Whist. Is that true? What are you saying true? Yeah, Willa. Willa? This is Willa? Where do we know Willa? Well, she was the Willa wisp. From the well. From the wells. When you first entered.

I was just double checking. Willow the Willow and Will of the Faywild? If I say that seven times fast. Of the Faywild, this is definitely a lost boy situation. Uh-oh. Like a Rufio. A hundred percent long-low, you think? Does he look like a Rufio?

He looks Rufio if. Can I check for Don't let him get in your drink. Yeah, what's the role to check for Dante? Oh, I roll the name. No, no. You get nothing. I will remove the poster from the tree. You rip the poster from the tree.

the tree, the nail does not pull out. And I'm gonna pull out the nail. I'm gonna pull the nail out. You, I'll just let you do it. You pull the nail out of the tree and you see burbles of sap spill out of the bark and quickly harden in the air. I hope that feels better.

Hey everyone, there's a poster of this Rufio-esque boy. He looks like an incorrigible prankster. He does look quite incorrigible. What's all that stuff say? What's he convicted of? What's a Rufio? The Elvish here, it says Will of the Feywild, which I deduced to be his name. Not William.

Just Will. I'm assuming Will's a nickname. How common is the surname of the Faywild? I wouldn't have an answer for you. I've only been here for less than a week. My guess is that he might be the the vivir equivalent of that rabbit folk you brutally murdered. What was that call's name? Agedin long scarf. Oh yeah, you would never forget.

And I just pull out this long scarf that's blue and purple with blood. It's dried now, so it's like a deep, dark, dark, brown stains on this blue scarf. Perhaps you should clean that. It looks quite dirty. The stains set many days ago. It's getting a little crazy. The next time we find a river,

I'm gonna make you wash that. Good luck with that frost. But I believe that Will is probably an inversion of the trope, where rather than being in league with the hag, this guy, he might be a bit of a freedom fighter-esque type fellow. Despite his young age. Do we think there's any kind of relation between Will and then Willa? Both kids?

Oh. One's dead, one's presumably not. Oh, do you think the haggs killed his sister or something? Mm-hmm. Maybe there's like Willla, Will and like Willum. And remember that, umarage was named Remy William? What? Mimi William was the armorrhage that we met at the carnival.

There's a lot of wheels. Wait, Mimi, are you fucking with me right now? Or was the Omrodge acting in the Amaraj? Was he no Amiraj? Was he no, Mr. William? I thought you're talking about that one person that was like, it's no mirage, it's Ammarriage. No, no, not the charming, the charmingly dry and sarcastic, no.

It was the Almaraj was named Mimi William. Or Meem, Meem, William, wasn't it? Am I crazy? What the fuck are you talking? Yeah, so many years ago, Torbett can't remember. Well, there's also, oh, yeah, yeah. There's also a willy. There could be a willy somewhere.

Willy? I imagine we might run into a willy. You hear the sound of snapping twigs and rustling leaves as out from the forest. You see this long, not long actually. It's only about three feet long. Oh my gosh, what is that? It's a giant round.

A golden ring stretched around his middle. It's like a little It's like a living piano sausage. It's tiny face smiles at you from the very center of the... Torvegis to try to climb a tree to get away from it. It just... It just dies and it disappears into the forest. It just dies and doesn't move.

Who wants pot roast? That's not kidding. None of that. Okay. Oh, none of this is happening. So, why don't we keep an eye out for young William? And then we can ask him about what kind of operation he's running. He's really riled up Granny Nightshade quite a bit.

Well, does it say what he's wanted for? Like thieving or, you know, murdering? It's not specific. Just feebing, I think. Well, what do you think the... You think there's some kind of like Thayer hag trick when it comes to the reward? Like,

oh, the sword will never pierce you because it'll like smash you instead. You turned into a statue. Yeah. I'm just going to keep this and we should keep it in mind, but it was a very old poster. This will may already have been caught in the sword procured by

some bounty hunter. The sword? Yes, a... Oh, no, not a sword in a... A boon. A boon that will prevent... Yes, yes. Yes, yes. That's what I meant.

So, I feel like we've been playing for about two hours. We don't really know what we're doing. We're going to this... We know exactly what. We're going to the fairy circle. We're going to the... No, not the magical flu! No, the magical foot!

No, put that away! Tiny tornado picks up Grico. I'm sorry, I'm saving this for later. You haven't a tuned to it. That's right, that's right. And then you can play a tune on it. But you have a... Keep that up, then.

That helps. That makes me travel faster. We're actually just standing in place. You're all just dancing around the body of the dead willy worm. We dance like the key art of where the wild things are. We just dance like this as you make our way through the valley. I need you all to roll a survival check first. Ooh.

We even made a survival check in Kewa doggs. What is this ice bound? Torbeck's advantage for some bizarre reason. Except for Gideon because Gideon can't dance. What? No, you make your survival check. You just don't dance with everyone else. You can't dance like where the wild things are.

You are trying to dance, but you're dancing like a lame. from fucking Seinfeld, so you're just kicking the air at random intervals. Oh, you just stop. Can I twist this? I want to use one twist. Pull out one twist. It's like a full body he.

I got you. Survival, you say. I'm feeling very 13 on my survival. Yeah. I got six. 18. Oh. Oh.

I'm a . I need you as a group. Are you? I need someone from the group to roll AD8 for me. Torek will do it because he's the winner. Tobeck is the winner. Don't get it for him. Watch the pepperoni.

What? Hey, what's the prosciutto? What are you? He's a good mozzarella. Watch the word. Watch the wurt. Hey, what the proshoot. Here comes Big Brown to the hot floor.

No, you're not allowed to. Okay. I said you weren't allowed. Allowed to what? Roll a four. And then I need all of your, all of your survivals. 27. 13.

18. Wow, Torbeck. Thankfully, it was a group perception, or a group survival. Yeah, thankfully. And though. Is the machete Torbeck's just using his, like, bleed fingers? Did he come through the underbrush? He leaps up.

Yeah. Torbeck leads the way, and with his unnaturally, his natural abilities, actually, he is able to carve a path through this ancient forest in these towering trees and help you to maneuver through this land a lot quicker than you had expected to. Though creme and twig do not make it easy, the rest of you are able to help guide them in the rough direction of where you imagine this very circle to be. It takes a couple hours of travel and it is getting close to midday as you eventually find a path that begins to wind

through these trees. The trees start to thin as the underbrush gets a little thicker and thicker until eventually you spill out into yet another grove. And in this case, what you see are towering mushrooms of varying colors. Ten feet between 10 to 12 feet into the air, towering above you, almost like a fungal stonehenge. And you... I need you to roll another D8 for me, please. Torrek would be honored. Five.

You immediately hear the sounds of singing and music and dance. And as you step closer and peer around one of these large mushrooms with a beautiful periwinkle blue cap, you see that inside of this circle is an entire group of Campestries, the same creatures that you had been the day before. As they dance and sing and hop about this way or that, none of them seem to take any notice to you at all as they are enjoying their early morning of music. Get them!

We beat the shit out of that. Yeah? No, no, no. No, no. No, no. I'm kidding. I started to be funny. I hate them all.

The time is coming, the Walters said. That's what I go. Real ones will understand and appreciate. Remi, you're usually good at talking with most anyone. I would recommend you engage them first if it's going to be any of us. Well, hell, man. This one's probably corrupted. Look at all these guys.

This is what we turned into when we fucking walked through the last one. And I'm not doing this again. How corrupted does it look? I would say it doesn't look corrupted at all. Is he any good at determining that? Hey, it looks fine. The Pixies let you know that upon closer, upon coming to one you would be able to tell

if they were corrupted. There is nothing about this as far as you can tell that seems like there is any sort of nefarious magic here. All the mushrooms are the bloody teeth variety. Oh, those ones are really cool. They're really cool. Yeah. Well, do you think you should go in with the, I don't know, like the stick and do the shit wins?

I'm already through. What I want to do there, little mushroom people. Hello. As you step into the fairy circle, immediately the sounds of music stop for just a second. You notice that in the very center, there is a small campfire that they've been dancing around. There are little wooden stools and small buckets filled with honeysuckles and bits of honeycomb. And this is quite clearly almost a home for these campestries. And as you step into this circle, they immediately stop and look up towards you.

And they all seem incredibly interested as they begin to surround you and look up at you. start to hum almost in unison as they sway back and forth and just hum this, this faint melody. It's almost hard to pick out. But they don't seem aggressive in any way. This is nice. We're being serenated. Would you mind providing any respite to five weary travelers on a long journey? We're new to this land and we're looking for guys. Five weary travelers New to this land, they all start singing. Oh. Should we join in?

New to this land. You guys all start singing? They all start clapping and dancing. They seem very excited. Yay! This is great! Well, what can you tell us about this wonderful circle of y'all? Tell us about the circle. Tell us about the circle.

Near to this land, do-to-da-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-. That's not very- That's not super helpful. We're just trying to understand when we are and maybe where this goes. I don't know if you happen to know a guy in a cave. Let us know. Guy in a cave.

No, no, no. I would say it becomes very clear to you that they are almost similar to the bird fuckers. What are they called? Ah, the bird fuckers. Those fake bastards. I always did a band called that once. You can play them.

They're very similar. That's the most colorful description of Kanku. I never heard of the bird. It's like, who fuck this bird? You should be playing them. They're playable. Look, that's a game. Can't you want things given?

Why? What the fuck? What the fuck? That's very funny. I'll base that, Cancou. Jesus Christ. That's very funny. Oh, the turkey's been doing.

If you haven't gotten there yet, so you're in for the right of your life. I am for stuffing, but that's not what I meant. This is absurd. Birch idea, I swear to fucking know. Kenku's on Thanksgiving that. Oh, God. That shit is fucking.

Oh, shit. Also three T-shirts. You realize very quickly that they are similar in nature to Kenku, and that they seem to be attempting to communicate with you the best that they can, but they really seem to be solely interested in you singing and dancing.

Their shallow attempts at mimicking these things that you say to give you information is only sporadically effective, but you have joined in their reverie. And you notice that there is one that's a little taller than the others, a bright white beard, clearly older than the rest. And this campestry makes its way towards you, Kremi, as you were the first to join the group. and begins to dance with you individually. Do you join in? I do. Roll a performance check for me, please. You gotta be good at those, right?

That's a natural 20 plus eight. Oh! 20! Well done, yes. The, as you begin to dance, and it's almost as if you've taken on Gideon's dancing abilities on top of your own. As you, you've,

as Kremi gets his, groove back. And you are able to do some of the dances that you learned in Agway, and these Compestries are incredibly inspired by you. Gosh, he's good. And this leader, Campestry looks up at you with his eternal smile, but it reaches much further towards his eyes than any smile you've seen on any of the other Campestries. As he looks towards you and blows spores in your face. Frankly, he spores all over you.

You're not going to say this. He got homeless man. He spores all over you. Oh, it's my mouth. Chunky. Chunky! Yeah, I got chew on them. Oh, Jesus.

I feel like you're drinking a bottle of orbits. It's stuck in your teeth. Cremie, you gain the benefit of the true seeing spell for the next 24 hours. What the fuck? Citar plays. What do I see? And what does that spell?

Which spell? True seeing. What do I see? This spell gives the willing creature the ability to see things as they actually are. For the duration, the creature has true sight, notices secret doors hidden by magic, and can see into the ethereal plane all out to a range of 120 feet.

Oh, damn. And as this happens, you do watch as the forest around you changes. And though it looks mostly the same, it is the ground beneath your feet that looks different. You look at it for a second and you see these strange lines, that shoot out from an epicenter somewhere further away. It is very clear that there is something embedded in the ground itself, but at this vantage point being so close to it, you can't quite see the full picture.

You imagine with the ability to fly, twigs help, something of that nature, a bird's eye view could grant you a more insight as to what you're seeing. You can easily tell the compestries are just as compestries are just as compestries are are meant to be and that this fairy ring is clearly uncorrupted. Remy, are you all right, right, right? Right, right. Oh, what is this? You're gonna roll you, and I see it like,

sort of, yeah. It's like a trace of time. If I'm like a fourth-dimensional being. Your hand is like Donnie Darko vectors. They all clap and sing. They seem to be very, happy with your performance in the music. Mine eyes have pierced the veil, fellas.

Well, Crumby have gone. The grand elder has granted me a great gift. Fellas, fellas. I have second side. Uh. Second sides, it's just the second side. What are you saying, man? Cremie, is this a bit to scam these mushroom folk?

I don't think they got any gold. Please me it's just an illusion. What? For reality exists in four dimensions. Torbeck knew this was actually just the ninth layer of hell. Oh man, he's gonna start solving crimes in black and white now. Eldridge lay lines. What? They're buried beneath the soil.

I see them go far off, Twig. Can you permit me to soar? Or is it going to the lily pad? You know that you're not supposed to fly under the influence. Yes. Oh, no, I'm so far above. the influence. I'm not under anything, quick. I'm very much above the influence. Okay, I will cast fly on you, but I'm gonna need you to hop on one foot.

Like step on, I mean your foot's like that big. No, hop on my foot, hop on one of your feet. Oh, one foot. Touch your nose, hop on one foot, and spin around in circles at the same time. Oh, God, I use my cane to sort of balance. No, you can't use your cane, that's cheating. Oh, all right. And I try to do that with a pukees. you're falling over. You were able to.

Oh, wow. That was easy than I expected. Okay, fine. Come here, let me judge your face. This will last time I could do this, though. How long is this gonna last? One hour. No, I don't mean you.

I mean him. And I look at pop a smirk or a guy. His little tiny eyes are huge. All the best thing are about the dance. I know. I accept. He's giving you the Jack Nicholsett. I would like to live deliciously.

And Twig reaches out from Gideon's back, places her hands on your face, and she blows into your face and says, fly. And I'm not going to be like Supermaning it. I'm going to just like zero and G and you begin to float and just like float away from Earth. You see the way.

the way the Faywild kind of warps. And it's not the magic of the Faywild, it's just your ability to see past the Faywild itself and into the ethereal plane that is in tandem with the Faywild and the potential creatures that could walk through it. And you float up above the canopy of trees and directly into the sky.

And you begin to look out and you see that though from this vantage point it's difficult to determine and you weren't with Torbeck when he flew up into the sky. It's to determine it's difficult to determine what he saw that is different to what you are seeing all except for one thing. One thing that is something Torbeck never mentioned. The entire surface of thither is a clock face. the lines that stretch out lead towards numbers. But instead of 12, there are 13. Whoa.

You even see the minute an hour hand as they move and move, and then you begin to notice that as it gets closer towards the 11 on the clock, or the rough approximation of 11 on the clock, the entirety of thither shift. just a little bit. Like, rotates? Mm-hmm.

That's why you should. Well, that makes sense as a player to Derek. Yes. Wave goodbye, Gideon, gang. This may be the last time we see Grimmie alive. I don't say that, man. I will say, as you're looking up, you notice that there are the numbers that seem embedded.

There's almost like stone features that orienting that, orientate themselves around some of these places. And two of the numbers stand out to you is almost glowing with a magical light. The number's three and the numbers eight. I will grab the chest upon out of my coat. Time.

Time is a flat circle. I see it all. I see it so clearly now, fellas. Do you see it too? Oh, Torbeck is worried for Mr. Cranny. Crummy, what the hell are you talking about, man? You're flying up in the air. We're not saying what you're saying.

What is it? Fiver, it's time. It's the beginning and the end. It's all to nothing. It's alpha and omega. It's all one big clock. Okay. But instead of 12, it's 13.

Okay, over. 13 angels, 13 demons. They battle for my souls. Well, that's, uh, break a breaker. That's a bit of a stretch. Skin green. Three and eight. Three and eight of the answer.

I don't know what it means. Big Brown is terrified. It spins, it spins, it doesn't stop. Okay, over. It doesn't spot. Did it spin shitterwins or whittershins? It's spinning, it's spinning clockwise. It's spinning, not Witter's shins, but the opposite of that, whatever that is.

It's spinning shitterwins. It's spitting shitterwins. What do you mean, man? You think the whole lands? turn or something? Is that what you're saying? It's all a goddamn clock. And then there's a shadow coming behind me, my shadow,

with a gun. It always has, Joe. Who knew God? It's actually Briggs. That's so good. I also need you to roll a perception check for me, please. What is it me?

As I roll a perception check. Oh, 18. I mean? Yeah, that looks good from here. 18 plus, it's a 20. Medium green, can you be a little bit more specific of what you mean? For those of us who aren't intelligent listening in,

like Gideon and told me that. As you have all stopped dancing and Cremney has flown into the sky, all of the compestries have settled down onto their rocks and their stools around the fire, and they're all looking at you quizzically. They don't seem upset or frustrated. maybe a little sad that the music stopped,

but they're all curious as they watch what's happening here. And Cremie, you hear this message come in from Grico, but the sound of rushing wind catches your attention, and whatever Grico is saying, it completely slips your mind, as you turn your head towards the west, as you see green gigantic flapping wings,

wings. But it's not the kind of green that you would see in the Fay Wild. It's almost a translucent ethereal green. As you see a creature in the ethereal plane, four-limbed, spindly, spindly body. It's incredibly long neck, ending in a head with razor sharp teeth and gigantic bulbous eyes, as it lets out a burst of what looks like fire from its maws, it screeches into the ethereal plane and dives into the ancient forests. You hear the sounds of breaking branches and cracking rocks as this gigantic monstrosity, this gigantic beast destroys whatever it has landed upon the sounds of screaming for all, and I don't know how else to say this,

but animalistic screaming can be heard from the forest as this creature has found its prey and then silence. Time to make another Jurassic Park. Is Cremie the only one that you can hear this? Yeah. The elder beast of rooting scale. It comes to me. I've seen too much.

I don't know how long I'll have. Torbeck is crying now. Turn around, Cremie. Look at what you see. Lay lines. of ancient fay power that courses through this land. It is time itself. Okay. Over.

And can I get anything better than medium green? Like something, I don't know, like slim or fox trot or something? I don't know. Over. Medium green, we can read the skies when you touch back down the earth and you officially landed and we're not worried about your safety or your bones. Just come back!

The land itself rumbles beneath our feet. It turns. Evil owns the sky. Grubby, just get back down here, man. You're losing it up there. I'm a flea. And I want to just rock it down to the ground. I've been writing down everything he says. Like word for word.

You rock it down and land in the middle of the circle. All of the Kempestries are watching you all with bated breath as you rejoin your friends. Oh, am I on the ground? No, I'm not on the ground. This isn't actually the ground. There's something below us. The ground.

Time. Time is below us. The hands. The hands, they're reaching for me. Uh. Oh, must have just been spores in my nose. I feel okay, but I still have that second side. What the fuck was that?

Do you guys see that too? Was that just me? That was just you, man. You were flying up in the sky talking crazy stuff. Orridian scales or some shit, monstrous things coming for you. The lambs of clock, everything's turning. Upon saying the words, Oridian scales, all of the campestries let out a collective gasp.

And then they begin to sing. Hum, hum, hum, one, two, one, two, and through, and through the verbal blade when snick or snack, he let. Left it dead and with its head he went, Galumphing back! And they continue to repeat this rhyme over and over and over and over again as they look around and up into the sky as if they're horrified that something is coming.

Did y'all see it too? Galumphing? No, we weren't affected by Papa Smurf's stories. The Elden Beast of Raleen scale? I saw it. The Jabber Walk with eyes of flame came wiffling through the Tollgy Wood and burbled as it came. What are they saying?

These little things are freaking out. I'm sorry to freak out now. Is it coming? Is it coming around here right now? What that fuck is a Jabberwark? It is probably not a jambuque name. It's probably not very scary or nothing, right? Well, that's probably what you saw, Kremi.

What was it, man? I mean, is it like something that we can take? It was a great beast of horrible claws and fiery eyes, allegedly. And it absolutely eviscerated some sort of giant creature of the woods. We didn't hear any of that. I saw it all.

Oh, if it finds us, I don't think it's anything we can do. Well. What fuck is a jabalawk? I have not heard this phrase, but we do have a solution right here in front of us. It was like a dragon, but worse. We have a solution? Yes.

And for the sake of just visuals, this is what you saw. So just the javer wall. The jabberwark. Just the jabber walk. Oh my. Yeah, I want to see that. Damn. So awesome.

That is so awesome. That is so fucking cool. Guys. That beaver teeth. Oh my gosh. Fruit of looking glass is public domain. So I might actually be the jamalawk. Oh, fuck!

Ah! Pohr! I hold a glass of a cup of water. Now, get, look, if I just take a little bit of water and I'd rather, oh, fuck! Oh, it's got it. Oh, no! We have a way out of here. We know that this circle can teleport. If we each find a wand, we can repeat the words, and we may be able to journey far from here.

Do we think it's upon us? I listen. Well, I'm sorry, I don't know what he said. Do we think it's upon us? No, what you saw, it was, you are. Just based on the map, you can see that you are very, very much towards the east. At that, more getting towards the east at that fairy circle. It was, sorry, I've got to look at my map.

It was just south of Loon Lurch in that area between Lomlurch and the river heading towards Thither. That's where it dove down, and you did not see it emerge. It's far, and I would say with your true sight, you could tell that it did not see you. I strolled the mini map over and I didn't zoom in. As the branches are snapping. Oh, you know what else just got public domain? Oh, Bob. Honey, quit.

Anyone have a smackeroy? I mean, I did tell you they had honeycombs. Oh, we're two for tests. What else is a wand for us? Well, anything straight and hard. Dwistle! Wait, wait, wait, wait. Bermi doesn't think it's upon us.

It's not, no, it was way far away. My vision sort of zoomed in and I could see and hear it clearly. You imagine that it flies incredibly fast, faster than anything you could possibly imagine. And being able to move through the ethereal plane, it does not suffer from the same issues other things would by having to do. with the floor or fauna of the Faye Wile.

They could probably get you very quickly. The Jabber Walk is upon us. I just started immediately going Shitterwinds. You're doing it, not Grico. We all are, right? Wait, up. Wait, up. What's the Jabal walk?

What's the Jabal walk? You made it sound very scary. The Jabbarok with eyes of flame came whiffling through the Tolky Wood and burbled as it came. Does it have any weaknesses that you can sing about? No, weaknesses. Oh, God.

That's not very encouraging. What rhymes of weakness? Grunkah, Lunker, Dunkin, and eat weaknesses. One, two, one, two, and through and through the forple blade would snick or snack. He left it dead, and with its head he went galumphing back. What's a vorple blade? What's a galophin?

Oh. So, do you think we need to tell us? to the airport right now, and perhaps risk wherever this circle turns us down. How do we get the Vorpal Sword? How? Is that what we need to defeat it? The Vopalusod, how do we get it? Colomphal glay,

calucalyic, I mean, that hasn't been revealed yet. Oh, Tarmac just huge. It's a frugal dumpal. They look panicked, and they look like they want to give you information, but they don't know how to communicate it. You see that they're attempting to interpretive dance things to you. But I would say it's very clear that though they know of this creature, they're not Jabberwock historians. Jabberwock biologists.

They're not Jabberwock biologists. I'm a musteram. I'm not a Jabberwock scientist. I don't know you well enough to tell you that. Do I deduce that they just need the words? Like if I see a bunch of adjectives. that they can sing songs, they can dance with you, but they cannot answer complex questions.

Well, shit. I propose we kill them. Tom is Cough, my mushroom friends. Shoes are ships of sealing wax with cabbages and kings. Torbeck, go ahead. Torbeck is sorry. I pull out the most delicious loaf of cubs, just looking loaf of bread and start cutting it.

Turbic's trying as he's showing like the tempestrian in his mouth. You know this? They all scream as you eat them. Ah, ah. You don't actually eat them, right? No, no, no. But I do want to know what they would sing if we did.

This is the end. No, we don't have to go anywhere. I mean, it sounds like It sounds like even if we were to teleport, it might still also be a great threat, regardless of where we are and thither. It travels to the ethereal plane. I can see that now.

Oh, it's so clear. I don't even know how we escape it. Does that mean it be brought next to us so we wouldn't even know it? I mean, as long as I can see through the veil, I can see it coming, but if I lose this ability in maybe 24 hours, then that's exactly right. Mr. Crammy?

Yes. Dorebeck has a question. All right, go ahead, Torbeck. What does it mean that it's on the ethereal plane? No, it's not very clear, but what I know is that it's, if you think of three dimensions that we... If you think of the three dimensions that we exist on, right? There's one dimension, there's two dimensions.

Do I know what the ethereal plane is? The third dimension. right? That's 3D space that we're in. Okay, the ethereal plane is the fourth dimension that lives on top of everything. Whoa. Oh, no, you'll just explain.

That's on the atherial plane. That's the etherial plane. That's just when you huff ether. Oh, is that how you pronounce that? Yeah, obviously. And then when he take his shit afterwards, it's called Etheria. You're describing the Etherial plane.

So in the... My daughter's name. Yes, the ethereal plane is parallel to our own world. This beast is a fourth dimensional creature. And so is the clock. It all exists in the fourth dimension. So how do we get there? It's like moving in and out of existence or something? It's like a veil that sits over our reality.

And some creatures can cross through it. I can't cross through it. I can't cross through it. see through it. Oh, but it can come here? That's what it looked like, yes. Two things. One, it's fascinating that the ethereal plane is parallel to the Faye Wild and the way that it is the prime

material. And two, I think I need to explain in the fourth dimension to you sometime. What a fucking nerd. God, shut up. That's all right, Frost, he's just got second side. He's all worked up. Is it seeing in the people's whole mind? They publish room.

As if he knows what the fucking four dimension is. He's not even if you say so. Oh, that's disgusting. Good job, Rich. Well done. I'm proud of you. I'm proud of you. Okay, so do we, do we stay? How do we get? Bur, bar, bar, bha, bha.

I look at Papa Shroom. They all begin to dance around you. I need you all to make a performance check. Oh. Yep. Allow me to open my dice vault. Torbeck will shimmy in acceptance. Performance.

15. Thank God. It feels good to roll normal dice again. You don't want to try your caboche? Did anybody, did. Lebusch? And I can't remember this. Did anyone sing with Palasha in the carnival?

Oh, that's the name that is familiar to. Sing to Palasha? Anyone sing with her? Yeah, we had like a whole weird bunch of pervers. No. When we met Palasha, I was the summer of Labyrinth. And I was too on my Faywild curse to sing. I remember that I didn't sing about it.

But did anybody? You were Dracula, I was Santa Claus, and you were really. Yeah, we were totally fucked on full. We were begging for taping. Did we do the monster mash with Velasca, if you know what I mean? The regular and his son. I can't remember. I can't remember either.

I can't remember either. It was a great yon smash. Was Torvack there? No. No, it was not. Oh, I was, wasn't I goblinette? That was with the web gun. That was part of it.

Well, you have, but then there was an imp, and then I was goblinette. Can you remind us? Somebody's got to check the tapes. Can you remind us what happened 11 months? Yes. No, we had an 80s musical number with Palasha in her cave. You 100% had an 80s musical montage. I was Goblinette.

Then you will all roll at advantage. Thank gosh. That's what I left the cave and took all the way back to take the tap because I took, I did like 20 twists and I had like 20 curses stacked on top of myself. Yeah. You were totally crippled. I'm going to do, I think I did. the whole top gun thing.

16. I think I was shooting T-shirt with guns, I think. You rolled at advantage. No, I know. Oh, I'm not. Oh, it was that bad. Oh, we can advantage? Yeah, you get advantage.

I'll do one more twist. One more twist. Take a twist. You sang with her. 17. Thank you, chat. 17. 17.

At advantage? You got two ones? Technically, I got, well, I just kind of feel like it's what would be happening, you know? Yeah, you can't dance. I just kind of feel like I can't dance. Oh, that's true. What a twist.

Oh yeah, you is A.F. Kennedy. 17. Mm-hmm. Mike? Oh, 17, 17, 15. 21. 1 and. 1776.

Okay. That's a hell of a roll. The Kempestries continue to dance around you singing the tale of the Jabber Walk. Though they seem scared, there's something about your company here, the music that you provided them, the entertainment that you've given them, that seems to make them very happy.

And though they don't seem to be able to answer the questions that Gricot is asking of them, they do feel as if they can do one thing for you. And as they all dance around you, they begin to sing a different song in a language none of you understand, the language of the Kempestries. And they begin to sing and their voices reverberate around you as you all,

as you all are bestowed a gift, a charm of heroism. What is that? La blue, glory, la blue, glory. La bu bu da da da da da. Oh, I thought you'd do the post-Avatar. I'm a bububu non-denominational holiday celebration. I was doing, I thought you were just. Yeah, for a non-denominational holiday celebration.

Celebration. Yeah, that was the Grinchstool Corth? Yeah. I thought you're doing the outro of Avatar of the Last Airbus. Is it a physical charm? My inventory? I think you could put it if it shows up

as a magical item, you could, but it's essentially a boon. I started to go into the Caboob. And it's only a one use. So you all have it on you, but it's a one use. So you have to determine who would use it. Oh. We only have one to share in the group.

You only have one to share with the group. You have a shared usage of war. Yeah, you guys have to share. Hold on. Wait, wait, wait. What does it do? So you have it in your inventory. I'll add it to your inventory.

Add item. It's essentially the potion of heroism. That's what you can add. Oh. Potion of heroism? Oh, that's not so bad. You gain 10 temporary hit points that last for an hour. Heroism.

And you are under the effect of the blessed spell. That's heroine. That's totally different. Oh, we had those for Golden Lotus Fight. That's right. I'm beneath their wings. I give you a shit ton of that. for some reason. It didn't help me. No, it didn't.

It didn't help anybody. I had fire resistance and I still almost got one shot. For one hour. She was an ancient gold dragon. She's a ancient gold dragon, so. Smoked me like a brisket. Which is definitely a lot higher. That's about as smoked as you get. Okay. And you are under the effect of the bless spell, no concentration. For one hour. And the charm bubbles and steams as if boiling. Oh, okay. Thank you very kindly. little mushrooms.

So should we go through the mushrooms? Mushrooms, would you recommend that we go through? Do you know where this is going? Are we still singing? Can we just talk normal? You can talk normally? They just get really excited when you sing, but they don't expect it of you. Do you know where this circle takes

people? No. No. Do we just roll the dice? No. I mean, there's no reason not to try. Let's just map it all out. Come back. What do you think? No, I mean, I can't imagine. Fafewild, you go one place. No, no. Someone told us it was explicitly like the color-coded

cauldron from Banjo-Tui. Oh, right. They said it went both ways, and it went. It just goes both ways, and we can do that, but then we have to find different parents, but they always connect, was what, bustia, lusty or... Was that also from Benjoo-Zo-2? Was that Banjo-Kazoo? Yeah, it was. I think it was maybe both. Anyways.

Is it Banjo-Kazoo-Zui-2? Just Banjo-Tooey? We'll have a long conversation about this. That makes sense. You know what? I could go either way. On the one hand, we actually have our bearings, and I feel like I'm starting to pick on the patterns of the forest.

We now know that it's a clock face, I think, based on your insane rambling. And if we go through, we might ruin that. But at the same time, why not roll the dice? I think that that map there, we gotta flesh out, we gotta map this whole fucking place. And we know at the end of this, we can get all over, we can get you know way fast and just walking through the woods so I think just

learning more while we can are you saying we platinum thither that's exactly right let's find some wands you've got your cane so I need a I need a wand I pick twig up shit who wins shit wins shit oh I just hold twig here's my 10 foot pole It's the only thing that I didn't keep from last campaign, thank you. I have a bell, a blanket, a fishing tackle, a cumulus spectacles. I look for a wand. I look for a straight stick that I can use for a wand. Torbeck finds her roofing gnarled in the words. Roll an investigation check.

Oh. Investigation. Not that one. Can't we get wands at some point from somewhere we did? The Torefect does not have that written down. 12. I may not have a swore we got some wands of something. Got like wands of, I should write things down in my inventory as soon as we got. That's about the only thing I keep track of anyway in my inventory.

Especially like when it matters. I don't know. Nope, I don't have one. It was mentioned that it could be a stick. Oh. Do I find a twist? Stick with a twig. With a 12, yeah, you're in a forest.

You could have found it with a two. Torbeck finds the most horrifically gnarled, piece of shit stick you can find. Oh, Torbeck's got one. It's like all fucked up. It needs to be, that looks like a hashtag. You need to get one that's straight. It's good enough.

We gotta get out of here. Well, it might not work. You might show up on the other side of terrifying inside-out abomination. You one of those like penis-looking mushrooms. The really long ones with like a tiny, They're too floppy. Why don't you get your penis?

It'll be fine. I got my cane. You all find whatever sticks that it is that you're looking to find, whatever wands you're looking to use, and you hold the wands or sticks above your head and you begin to dance in a circle one-time wittershins.

Immediately as if knowing what you're doing, the campestries all begin to panic and scatter. And they begin, it looks like they're almost counting. And then every single one of them leaves the circle, except for two, leaving exactly eight creatures inside the circle. As these two Kempestries join you in your dance.

And as you go once, you begin to sing, or you begin to say the words, three times Wittershins and off we go. Twice. three times, and then you feel a pull at the back of your stomach as you were ripped out of the fairy circle, and you all tumble to the ground as dust and sand billows up around you.

You feel the stinging, blinding heat of the summer sun. As you look up towards the sky and you try and wipe the sand from your eyes, as you see that you are in the middle, middle of a stone circle. These giant obelists with imagery of mushrooms and fay things etched in pictographs all around you. As you look out at an expanding desert

for miles and miles all around you in every direction. There is nothing but sand and sun. As you dust yourself off, you feel the heat pressing in around you, and you see that your two mushroom friends are here, but they can't handle this kind of heat as you watch as their bodies start to wither and die in front of you.

Oh, no, no, no, God, why did you join it? Help them, help them, Bricka, fix it. Is it too late to do anything? You can try and do something, but they are already clearly. Oh, just letting you. You're clearly dehydrating.

I'm trying to definitely spit on them. Any moisture. I'm going to cast create or destroy water as I'm going to attempt to. I'll say easily you're able to infuse them with the water. And you watch as their bodies expand again, they look a little dazed. They are, they're small.

These are little tiny things. You imagine that you could put them in a, in a water skein and keep them with you, but they're going to require some maintenance. As you look up towards the blazing sun, and you begin to look out as the sands shift in the wind, and you see very far off in the distance, what appears to be a large stone obelisk jutting out of the sand,

not one, but two. And as you look and squint, you can see that it seems to be attached to some sort of gate, maybe some sort of stronghold or city or something. And that is where we'll end the session. Oh. Oh. We have to go back.

We have to go back, Kate. We have to go back. Will they fit in a large schmason jar? Yeah. Okay. I'll remember that for the man. For the sake of not killing the Campesriessure, oh, thank God.

And I will say for, because all of you have traveled, you have seen a place like this before. This looks very much like. neck bet. I knew it. I knew it. I fucking knew it. What the hell? You were a neckbet? Yeah. This is shocking. Where else are you going to find deserts in Aventras? Haven't you ever seen Lawrence of Aventriss? Thank you so much for listening to the Legends of Aventus podcast. We hope you enjoyed the session. If you want even more campaigns to listen to, become a member of our Patreon at the Pearl Dolphin Tier or higher to unlock Shroud over Saltmarsh, a patron exclusive campaign set on the high seas.

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