Legends of Avantris - Once Upon a Witchlight | Ep. 47 | Plot of Greed

Episode Date: September 9, 2024

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Welcome to Legends of Adventress. Chuggled here and you're listening to Once Upon a Witchlight. Here's what happened last time. It's the elder beast of Hridian Skell. Not in front of us, fellas. Wait, that's what you saw. That's what I saw. Grandmother says it's not a good idea to tell people your name. She calls me Morgana. You become a clown, happy and filled with joy. I'm filled with joy in Farenthipity, little girl.

Oh, to be a cloud. My twin puppet, you may keep her, you must protect her. You don't belong here. Out of my hourglass. As you find yourself back in thither, it's clear that you are not alone. You see a jet of flame just narrowly miss your heads as you all turn to look as the Jabberwock lands

and I need you all to roll for initiative. It is. As you feel it swipe across your entire body and you watch as one of it, claws comes away and clutched in its fist is the chest piece that had been given to you by the King of Hearts. They collide with Gideon's chest.

You watch his body, bump, bump, bump, with every bit of healing that you pump into your friend, but his skin remains sallow. And as your body flies to the ground, you see those of you that are still conscious that there are now two pawns. Bits of you are scattered around the forest floor as eventually he has one, two, three, four,

five ponds in his hand. He stands atop the mound of your gnarled bodies and he breathes in for the last time, almost a look of triumph as he clutches on to the five chess pieces that he holds in his hand with the sound of flapping wings. He alights. into the Prismar sky.

You are all dead. Your bodies lay broken on the forest floor. The Jabberwock has committed a massacre and with five red pawn pieces clutched in its massive grabbing claws it rockets into the sky upon massive Viridian wings. Your life force slipped from you as reality shifts and around you there's only void. And then, through the darkness, you see white and then red. These colors fill your vision, and they are all that you can see. These colors appear to you as amorphous streaks of ivory and crimson until they form perfect squares, stacked side by side.

Is this eternity? Just blocks of ivory and crimson? Red, then white, then red, then white, and on and on and on, and on, until the epiphany that they form a checkered pattern, until you have the epiphany that they form a checkered pattern. Your consciousness moves closer and closer to what you realize now is an enormous chessboard. You don't know what you're what you expected in death, but it is not this, especially as the sound of a cacophonous battle erupts all around you. You're on the front lines of this battle as huge white ponds rush towards you and clash into you. Despite the shards of

red fragmenting all around you, you feel no pain. Your consciousness moves across this enormous chessboard that stretches into infinity, and you see two colossal pieces carved to perfection. An enormous red king with an ornate crown at its zenith. He stands proudly until a flash of white streaks across the scene. A colossal white queen moves with lightning speed as she crashes into the red king, sending him toppling over. The force of the massive piece crashing down, causes the entire chess board to crack and crash, and you, along with this enormous crimson chess piece, plummet into darkness, as the pieces of red and white continue,

their battle above, growing smaller and more distant as they disappear above you. You plummet deeper and deeper into darkness, and you realize now that you're falling deep underground. The Red King piece crashes onto the subterranean floor with an echoing boom, and darkness swallows all of you. you, and eternity passes. Then finally, light pours in from above you as an enormous hand reaches down and picks up the ancient chest piece, grabbing your consciousness along with the Red King.

You're pulled out from the darkness of the bottom of a chest and lifted into a child's room littered with toys and trinkets, and you realize the gigantic hand is actually quite small, belonging to a small elven boy with platinum blonde hair, and you realize now that the red chest piece has turned into a red wooden sword adorned in roses. The boy swings the sword towards the plush, stitched neck of the stuffed Jabberwock, his imagination running wild with delusions of victory against the beast. Then the sword is caught by a withered hand.

An impossibly ancient crone snatches the toy sword, staring venomous daggers at the boy, past an incredibly long, warded nose, and over a sneer of metal teeth. In an instant, the sword is broken, in three pieces as the boy tumbles backward. The child's room fading away into darkness around you as the hag looms over you,

crushing the three pieces of the wooden sword and sprinkling the splinters into three separate cauldrons, one new, one old, and one in between. The cauldrons bubble and pop as the brew spills over and fills three cradles. The hag lets out a horrific cackle as threads of fate shoot from her gnarled fingers, tethering the cradles to her yellowed nails,

and forcing these threads into her three daughters. The shimmering silver thread then shoots towards your consciousness and begins to wrap and weep around you. It spins and spins and spins until it spools around you and soon all you see is silver. And then you wake. Despite your perceptions and memories of death, all you hear is life.

The sounds of the life within an unfathomably primordial forest surround you, Like a symphony as you hear the sounds of your own life. Your heart's beat in your chest as you feel pricks of pain in your back and limbs. As you rise up, your lives somehow returned or never having left you at all. You see that all six of you, Hootsie included, are lying within a mushroom circle of thither upon a bed of thorny roses in the shape of a heart. Fellas, Guillain. Sound off.

Everybody okay? DORNAC is here. I think it's too soon to say okay, but what the hell? You're all alive? Oh, thank goodness Hoot-Sea. I'm gonna crawl over to Hootsie and just like hug her, and then she'll embrace me all and get smaller up in her feathers. And fur, was any of that real?

Or are we dead now? I don't know, I feel pretty alive. If we were dead, I think we'd be some of the dead, I think we'd be some of the dead. somewhere else. I agree. Could that have been some form of shared illusion or magic? Did you all experience, you all see the same shit that I did? You mean, uh, the sequence of events was we, we saw the girl in the tower.

Yeah? We left, uh, things shifted. Uh, we were in a very different space, uh, looking through glass, uh, faith. Uh, face, spoke to each of us, yes, all following. Yeah, the sand. And then we transitioned back to the forest and things got very violent. Does that sound familiar? Yeah, the fucking beast killed us all. It killed me.

I think someone was still alive. Now we all died. I... I... I tried to solve it like a puzzle and... I lost myself, I lost all of you. It was the realest thing as real as we're talking now. Last thing I remember is they throwing me through the air, getting impaled on a tree and watching everything fade away.

I thought the same was coming for you all. I saw that and I wondered what it felt like and soon after I learned my own pain. It was unpleasant. Was it an illusion? wasn't real. But then after that, you see the fucking chessboard and some

fucking war and... Oh, yes. This King of Hearts fella, he's at war with somebody or something. A white queen. You think he brought us back from being dead?

If we were dead, possibly. If we were not, Look at the roses around us. He's connected even now to what's happening to us, our role in larger, something larger. What if it was some kind of, do I notice what's underneath us? Yeah, it's easy to see that you're laying on a bed

of thorny roses. Ow! Fuck! What if it was some sort of warning? Maybe the King of Hots is trying to tell us, don't fuck with the Jabberwark. We didn't really have much of a choice. What if that wasn't real?

I mean, we're still alive, right? Well, hang on. I check my pockets for the chest piece. You find it easily. Thorpeg is confused. Do we all find her? I'll also check. Have my, am I still injured in any way?

Are my clothes hole? Do I still have my backpack? Do I feel like I have everything before we went through the circle? Looking at your bodies, one of the things you notice, I won't even make you roll for it. You do not have the sunburns and the tans that you acquired walking through the desert. Your skin looks just as it had when you stepped

through this mushroom circle and found yourself in a different place altogether. And as you look around the circle, the only thing about it that's changed is the lack of campestries that frequent it. There's no sign that they had ever been here. You don't see the little fire they had been dancing around or the bits of the bits of cutlery or pots that they were making food with. You look through the grass, or the grass looking beneath the rose bushes and you see that there are

no indentations where they had been creating their revelry. I will quickly stuff. the chess piece, I assume I find on my person into one of my pockets, and then I will rummage through my bag looking for two schmason jars to see if I can find the campestry that we're journeying with us through the desert. Now, you find them. Release them. They immediately hop out of the mason jars, and they look at each other and look at you, a little horrified, having been locked in jars for a while, before they dance around each other,

and then they... One moment. Wait, were you there? Compestry. One moment, please. They look up and quick as can be, they dart into the underbrush and disappear. Wait.

Wait, wait, where's twig? Strapped to Gideon's back. Strapped to my back, man. You can't see her right here. I want to look at her eyes. Are the roses there or no? They are not. She have normal eyes?

She has the doll eyes. She has the doll eyes. What the hell? Something did happen to us. Well, everyone check your person to make sure there aren't any like vestigial wounds. Testing, testing, testing. Can you guys hear me out of this thing?

Seems to be working as intended. Sure can. Roger Roger. Torbeck knows that when we all looked at the ring, it seemed to be normal and uncorrupted. But what if it was? We were warned about corrupted rings. What if we just didn't know? And it was some horrific fever dream. Torvix had many of those.

You get them from eating garbage. That's... That's right. This may have just been a corrupted ring and the experience we went through. There's no connection to anything, just a cruel trip. I don't know. I think... I think something happened. He was shown all that fooling. reason. I agree. And I think we're being fucked with by more than just him. Is that the grandmother? That's the big fucking is. Tap tap, tap. I will tap on the glass. Is the same one? I would say that you saw the image in the image of this entity, of this being,

in whatever this was, eternity, the afterlife, a dream, a vision. And though you didn't see the full face when you were inside of the hourglass, the eyes, and at least the bridge of the nose, were identical. Really? Right now. Why have so many of those? Get all fucking neck.

Are you gonna just, are you just gonna eat mallow cups? Don't you remember what I think of these mallowedups from our adventure at Hershey Bart? I've never even heard of a mallow cup. What's up? Torbeck, you weren't there for the adventure Hershey Park. He didn't have all the fun.

He didn't have all those mallow cubs going in. We know something happened. The score was 947 mallowed because they're screaming like the beast from fucking the thing. Oh, I don't know. Oh, man. Mallow cubs are a great tension breaker.

Doreback understand. and Mr. Kremi is saying, but Torbick is also not ruling out just Tetness. But I mean, shared hallucinations, it seems fucking unlikely. Yes, we all experience the same thing. I don't think that Tetanus does that. Well, I was having the second side.

Do I still have that? No. Thank God. Thank you, God. And a third eye closes. Finally rests. Okay. So we have, we have.

We were shown all that, or we witnessed all of that, and I think all of it is allegorical. So we've got to unpack the allegorgy. Mm-hmm. And then we know what to do next. What's that mean? Oh, you don't know what alligurgy is? No, D'orbeck isn't the most well read. Well, it means Frosty explained it to him.

I don't need to explain this. I, uh, Al-O-Georgical. It's, you're very close, it's allegory. Oh, that's just wrong. Torbeck knows what allegory is. Me where you come from.

When we first met, you pronounced it allegory. There's no winning, Rick know. You can't be held. Allegory? Allegory. Allergory. How was that? The pills that my mom used to take.

Yeah. Why does the word keep shifting? like the climate. It's very strange. Well, obviously there's symbology involved. I thought you're gonna call it symbagely. Symbology. And very clearly, the red king piece, I think, represents jingle jingle.

What? No! That's my uptake. That's me I'll take, that's. I totally think screaming is right. Oh, he's not right? He's dumber than a thick bowl of grits. That's pretty dumb. He's a thick up here. He just can't think straight.

You're gonna prefer a thick down there. It's usually my preference. Yes. It's the king of hearts, man. He's a king. And he's red like hearts. I'm not jumped to conclusion. And we saw him as a kid, the same fucking guy.

That was probably a coincidence. Did we ever see his face? Did we ever see his face? No. Oh, we were probably in, like, in his perspective. Yeah, you were looking down at the hand, and then you were looking at. You could see the hair.

It's like bio-shot. Out of the corners of your eyes, out of the corners of your eyes, you could see the tips of his long pointed elf ears. Hmm. Look, I don't know what the fuck that was but when we were in the hourglass presumably I think that's exactly where we were I was seeing the glints I didn't know what it was but I think it was the

the the glass of the thing we were inside of and clearly I mean twigs eyes are fixed so some of that was real I still had the capacitor with me and yet we still keep our chest pieces well so some of is real some of it wasn't I think it's all a la georgical. But I think this means that we need to beware the Jabberwark. Oh yes. Yeah. If we're fortunate, we'll never see that beast again.

I have a feeling like it's... It has a role to play in all this. If it was allegorogical, then we will. We will. And it will be part of some larger meaning or play its own role in all of this as we seemingly are. I do not believe it's a coincidence the King of Hearts gave us pawns. I think it was him telling us that we need that fucking sword to kill that beast. And that it was broken apart and free and used to create those fucking vile bags. You think they're the sword?

Man, if I hadn't cut the head off that stupid Jabberwalk statue or if I'd glumped properly and then turned this stupid blade key, maybe we could have killed him that and there. I think Mr. Crumbe is on to something. I think the stone was allegorical, right? I think that was a representation. We have another problem, though. If we're just supposed to be collecting trinkets from these hangs and in reality, They're parts of a sword. We're gonna have to do something about that.

Hmm. Well, who knows what it looks like now, at least in the vision. Who knows how fucking literal it was. But she threw them all in separate cauldrons. Yeah. And wait, didn't we see Fred? Yes. And we saw Fred.

Silver, huh? She breathed live... Wait, do we saw that silver Fred? Do we? Let's take a look. I go to see if I still have the silver thread. You do still have the silver thread. D'na da da da, da, da.

Dormick managed to grab it when all everything was going to hell. Does it look like the silver thread that wrapped around us at the end of the dream? Yeah, it looks very similar, yeah. I don't have any ideas. Neither did it. Well, it can be some kind of coincidence that we all silver thread wrapping all around us and one of the hags had that up in their

attic. All right, here's my theory. You ready? Yeah. This is why I think we're on the same fucking side as this guy. I think this guy, I think he wants to help Zabedna and this elder witch, this elder hag, whatever the fuck she is, mental teeth. Oh, god, this got the hebi-jibis. Oh, imagine parting into an ice cream coat. Oh, imagine.

Oh, I did. Just yesterday, Mike. That was so unnecessary. Oh, imagine if you fed her a sea cucumber, Robert, rectangle, trousers, popsicle. For some reason, that's so visceral in my mind right now. I can really imagine it. And for some reason, she is, I don't know,

the grandmother of Zabilna, right? And for some reason, she doesn't like the King of Hearts. And they're trying to keep them separated. And maybe the Jabber Walk is some sort of barrier or something. Maybe they're Star-crossed lovers. Yeah, something like that, right? Oh, that's so sad. And he needs the fucking sword to kill the beast.

And the reason why he needs the three pieces, the three trinkets, is that that's like the representation, the metaphorical some shit, so that he can get his sword back and wake up some billion us so that we can get 100,000 gold pieces and pay off miss the group. You know, when you lay it out like that, it sounds so grandiose and the ending is just so... I can't wait till we're out of death. It's all about the bottom line, Tobegg, you know this.

The tormenting guesses that Mr. Kremi is right. I think you might be right. So that means that he needs to re-forge that sword that was in the poem. And in the stone. And take his place as the rightful king of Gondor. I mean, I mean, become the king of hearts. Well, he's not rightful, he calls himself a king.

I don't know what he's king of. Is there a heart kingdom? Kingdom hearts? With Carlo Bastian in the middle, oh my God. What if, what if, is his realm. But it was taking over by the evil Hanks.

Oh, man. And they're always playing chess in Kingdom Hearts. It's exactly that. It's exactly that. I mean, I've been playing chess in like Final Fantasy 15 and 16 and 14.

I don't know. Every intro cut scene to King Hearts is two kids sitting on a window still playing chess. And then everybody dies. Oh, my God. No that actually happened. Look, either way, I think we're alive.

So we stay away from the fucking Jabberwark. It feels like we got the right trinket from the right hag. We just get two more. Okay. Hand it over to him. And he does the rest. You know, wake him up. We tell Madrick, hey, look, she's fine.

It's going to be really unfortunate when the king's like, oh, it was three. Red, but not that thread. Oh. Oh. Oh. Let's talk about color fearing. All right.

Why would you say all right together? Now's as good a time as any. One of my... I want to get off of the thorns. Oh, yeah. We all should immediately. Torbeth can't feel them through as mad at first. One of me old bandmates wrote a song about this.

Bon, his name was Bon Jovi. was Bob Jovi. I mean John Bovi. I was going to correct you. His name was John Bovie. You know what? He kind of luck. He was the fellow that the King of Hart reminded me of who broke up the band. He had the ego. He wasn't as hard as he thought he was.

I hate that guy. Actually, I don't like the King of Hearts anymore. Fuck that guy. Really? I thought he reminded me of Bavid Joey. I never knew a Bavid Joey. I knew a David Joey. I knew a John Bovie.

Oh, okay. Anyway, color theory. Mm-hmm. Red? Pretty obviously, for the King of Hearts. Purple was a little girl, who we're presuming Isabella, right? What? Purple.

The purple rose, we had to paint the door purple to get into the little girl's room. Oh, you're right. Red and then blue. Blue was fog. was farting over red in the road. You didn't paint the door purple. You painted the rose on the hill in purple. We painted the rose purple.

Oh, maybe it's like, maybe the old, old iron teeth. Maybe she's blue and the King of Hearts is red and the bill is like drawn between both. This is so sad. Yeah, it is kind of depressing. Yeah. Think of about it. Oh gosh, we're getting in the,

in the middle of like gang warfare in between two factions. That's a gang activity. Oh, is anybody white? Who's white though? Yeah, because the check, there were white chess pieces. And a white queen. And a white queen. Is there a foreign?

And all the flowers were white. A challenge. Oh, we're a grown shoes. Well, no, we saw, wait, it was like a fucking war. It was like an infinite. Oh, my God. When we've gotten visions of some sort of war from a long time ago. Maybe it's something else entirely. It felt like a long time ago at the time,

but... I can't tell you. All those soldiers in the fucking armor? Like, bowels? Well, now that we moved off of these roses, we can talk plainly. Ouch, out, out, ouch. Ouch. Ouch, out. Well, we did a lot of theorizing. John Bovich. So, we're about two hours into the session. Maybe we just like, you know. Any final thoughts, let's say. Oh, do we have any kind of physical wounds? I check myself and I'm into my mind. I feel like I got a long rest.

Yeah, nothing physical, just emotional and mental. So I'm still dead mechanically on my sheet. Yeah, been a line. Okay. Oh, we didn't finish the color theory. Go ahead and take a long rest. It just makes it easier if you just take a long rest. I will take a long rest, thank you.

The color theory thing. We were talking about who's going to be the white queen. Who's the white queen? Well, hell if I. though. Who are the other major players? We got some kind of crazy old witch grandmother holding around hourglasses shaking us up. She's strong as hell. You got the King of Hearts may or may not have just resurrected us from the Great Beyond. He's probably strong as hell. So he's red. Grandmother's blue. Zabilden is purple. I don't

think we're gonna know until we know who was, you know, who were the two sides of that war that happened a long time ago. That's what you think it is. I mean, clearly he was on one side. Oh. And he thinks that we have palms in that war, whatever the fuck it is. It's a little presumptuous.

And it went underground. Didn't we have much of visions about underground and that's what the witchlight comes from? And that's what Toomey went. With the doctor. Yep, yep. Oh, man. Can everyone stop looking at Torbanks?

Yes, right away. So at some point in the war, he was forced to underground. Around. What is it all me? Crack me up, Derek. Me, me. I don't know what any of it fucking means.

Divination, premonition. These are all things. Is it possible that the King of Hearts is choosing us merely because they know what role we are going to play in some more elaborate plot? I mean, all I'm saying is this feels bigger and Prismere and is it. There's a bill, though. I agree. There has to be an easier way to make a hundred thousand. No way.

It's absolutely sure we can just get honest. No, Frosty already did the matter. Describe them. It's like, uh, 5,000 gold pieces each. Frosty crunched numbers and going on an elaborate magical adventure for fate of the Faye Waters. The only way.

It was the opposite of what I said. I said all the magic items that we've gotten so far would almost certainly add up to $100,000. We could leave right now. Oh, man, he did say, wait, give me 20 minutes, and I can just win it in poker. No, he's not that lucky. Yeah.

Especially if Mr. Garou has plants at the table slow playing. We don't have a little way. We can go to another table. There are other tables. Oh, it's fine. It's fine. Torbeck understands. Well, we could always check in with that guy

that's handing out gold. see if we can't just beat him up, and then we get out of all of this. Did he, and you just get us back on track with him? Let's go rough up nid and kill him and take all of his stuff. It's not, we've made promises here, and these aren't just agreements. They go even beyond contracts like we would find on our world. Yeah, that's a good point.

We have made packs, and we've made promises in the thing wild. We're in deeper than 100,000 gold pieces. The debt we have to pay as to do with how we've behaved up until this moment since we arrived in the pale wild. Do we think that Mr. Rosloff is going to be alive by the time we get back? He was looking rough. Hopefully he wrote down his intentions regarding his belongings. Well, you keep forgetting, man. Tom's passing in like, you know, I mean, it's like seconds over there. We've been here for days. I mean, he's going to be like eating pumpkin pie or something and probably killing Tom. Yeah, we also theorize that perhaps it's moving.

Killing Tom and eating pumpkin pie. I'm gonna be. I don't know for you. Oh, I'm not a good upro! No, dear, no, dear! That's what we're saying. It's okay. So, you're right, we've made promises.

We've made pats, and that's probably magical, unbreakable. And I guess we are between all of the deals, and we are afraid of all of these people that we've made deals with. In all those, back to Mr. Garveyors, So I'll feel like the next step. So hey, we gotta find all the pieces so that the king can reforge the sword from the poem. What was that sort called?

Do you remember what it was called? Sniggle Fritz. I look back in my memory and remember the name. Brucher, absolutely. The baller is that? Where was that? Yeah, what is it? I remember.

Yeah, sure. What is it? I don't remember. What do you mean? The vorble blade. The verbal blade. The word. Oh, it was close.

I didn't read the damn book? What are you talking about? The verbal blame. The verbal blame. If we get the free pieces, we've got one of them, presumably, if all of the allegory is correct. I don't know how that thing that told me,

that Fred is going to turn into it, but it's all witch magic, right? So then he does it, and then we have to, he has to use it on the Jabber Walk for us to kill it, and everything is fine.

And then he can maybe free or wake up as a Billner. And then we're good. If what we just experienced was allegorical, we'll need to face the Jabber Walk as well. Don't forget what we saw the young girl playing with when we first arrived in that strange tower. Fuck, no, no, no, no. Hey, look, I don't think we have to do it. I think he's going to do it, right? He may be the one to deliver the killing blow, but our presence is clearly inferred and implied by...

I wouldn't mind another shot at that ugly son of a bitch. But we can't go seek it out and try to fight it now for revenge. Fuck no. No. Who the hell would want to do that besides maybe good? No, we're going to do that. We're going to do that.

No, we want to do that a little bit. It had laser eyes. It had cheap shots, all right? Fault like a damn man. We would have been fine. Don't say it. It would be so funny, though. Look, look, I'm telling you, you better not.

You best not. What should I not say, Cremie? You know what you shouldn't say. Wait, I don't know what you shouldn't say. I know what he shouldn't say, and he's not going to say it. No. No, you, no, absolutely not. What?

How! Let's find the Jabba Walk! What are fucking now, okay? Oh, no. Weaklings are afraid of the jabber walk. It's eyeballs. I'm sorry. On fire in one show. I was a little tired when we were fighting that alright. Kremmy was freaking out. He had crazy eyes. Frosty was doing something else. He was looking at his pack. You hadn't unlocked the thing yet, you know? Wait, give me that.

Do you want to die for real again? No, I don't want to die for real. I want the jabber walk to die for real. Well, we need to get the fucking King of Harts, his sword, and then he'll take care of it. It's not our fucking job to kill it. Kid him. Doesn't that sound like something a bitch with Shut! Would you tell me shut the fuck off? No, I'm sorry! Do I have to roll some? Yeah, yeah.

Natural to a day. I'm gonna dread it. Oh, wow. That's that. Oh, wow. I'm sorry, Krammy. That's worse? It is just in my nature.

Frog meet scorpion and such things. Mm-hmm. Oh, you're awfully wise when you can't say stupid shit. shit. This is gonna be for a whole hour? Well, as long as I decide to keep it on. Or an hour, whichever one comes first. If we are going to face the Jabber Walk again, I have much introspection to do. I clearly was not prepared to face a foe of that kind. Perhaps none of us were. We must start hardening ourselves to this place. We must start thinking about how we're going to survive, even.

Not just our bodies and spirits, but our minds. Torback doesn't want to. I'll drop. You may not want to, but we have to. We have to keep the promises we've made, and we have to protect Twig. I think like a train and montage of Ozark through the month of October would be pretty much.

We're just in the forest, doing fucking cool things, and we're come back, we're real strong. Wait a minute. Are we just ignoring the fact that the little girl said that Twig was her doll, and it was created Bard Grandmother from the Rosebush sticks, twigs? Oh!

That was pretty concerning. I was still don't know if any of that was all just a fucking fever dream, man. We don't know what the hell is right about anything. What if that scary old? Which ladies fucking listen to her through Twig? If she married it, and if Twig was originally a toy, how did she get life?

Oh! The question I have is if she was originally a toy and all of that was true, how did she get where she was when she met us? Maybe it's Al-Ological, too. Oh, no. Was she placed there? Is Twigs marrying that form or real form? That's what I'm saying.

What if that's all allegurgical? And that was literal. Or maybe it's all allegorical. And that's where he found us was in her fucking end. Tormec doesn't like the way you're playing in Torbac, Mr. Gramey. Well, what's the significance of that? How else would he have known to find us there? Someone knew we were there.

Maybe Tolbeck is a master tracker and knows how to expertly track down certain individuals with like a bloodhound nose. No. Torbeck has no recollection of finding any of you at the end. This is why I keep going back to divination, premonition, rumors, legends. There's almost a feeling of, as we've been progressing through the Faye Wild, like our reputation precedes us, not just the King of Hearts knowing more than we could possibly know

and what role we're having to play, but perhaps others are vying for our attention, our loyalty or our power. It's... We're blinded. Yeah. Okay. Let's go beat up, Ned.

Yeah, let me beat somebody out there. I kind of miss, you know, I used to say, oh, Hootsey, never grow up to be like Uncle Cremie or Uncle Gideon. Or even us, like, doing a bunch of simple, you know, low-level crime. But now I'm sorry to say, think if I mean it's awful awful charming now that I've that it's in perspective right like low-level schemes and rackets like you know roughing up someone like nib like

oh that sounds quite nice now yeah it's kind of fun though don't you think it puts things in perspective it really does it grounds you yes it feels ground when you ground somebody else yeah like you know scamming people out of like you know cruise tickets Oh, fellas, I miss the carnival. Yeah. Yeah. Simple times, you know.

Me too. I never thought I'd say that. I'm Mr. Carnival. Yeah, that's actually quite surreal. Isn't it? It's trying to calm grooves out of the pennies, you know. Copper pieces, I guess. Man.

Those are the good days. Those are, yeah. You never, I guess it's true what they say. You never know that they're the good days until they're over. When all this is said it and done, and we have our lives and perhaps our freedom, would we be interested in starting a carnival back up? I mean, as far as I'm concerned, it depends how Rich Madrick makes us. I see. I mean, maybe we could invest in one.

Well, you got to do something. I kind of like having my name on a carnival, even if we're not. you know, told in the world putting it on. As long as there are no other gangsters that you were supposed to be giving kick-ups to, that you just have failed to mention. No, just the ones.

And maybe no more Ferris wheel. They're definitely having one of those. Farris wheels is critical, man. Everybody loves a broken Ferris wheel. Yeah, I mean, you know. How else are you going to get a thousand feet off the ground? I just have this image in my mind.

That's all that was. I just have this image in my mind of us coming back from the Faye Wilde, adorned in magical, valuable trinkets, and richer than we could possibly imagine, riding a horse down a path, ready to start our own carnival, an old man who hates his wife's skulls at us. I think that that would be a beautiful image, wouldn't you? That really does sound beautiful. I'm going to need to save up a lot of gold for Hootzie's therapy fund after what we just witnessed. How are you doing, Utsi, and I'm going to scratch behind her ears? Her eyes are even wider than no more. It's going to be okay. It's going to be okay. You're all right, Hootsey.

I would say it doesn't seem like Hootsey experienced a similar thing that you experienced. Oh, never mind. She does not seem to be bothered. It's almost as if she never experienced her own death. Is that my fly pad? Yeah, she's still on her fly bat. Oh, my goodness. Because I got you that flypam.

Oh, Uji, I love you so much. Let's go rough up, Mib. And you can take some pointers from Uncle Gideon on how to collect from someone who doesn't want to pay up. I feel surprisingly refreshed that for that experience. I'm ready to go if you are. All right. Let's find this guy's cave. So, maybe on the waffles, or...

Do we have time for waffles? I think there's always times. I mean, I won't say no to waffles. Creamy. Oh, I can make waffles. Whaffles make it right here. I mean, really, I'm back on the menu, boys.

Ooh, yay! We make waffles. And you do. We eat waffles. You spend about an hour, so it's early. It is, you know, it was going to be afternoon when you arrived. But for waffles. It's still, it's late morning.

It's between, it's around 10 to 11. This is more like a brunch. But you're making some delicious waffles. And you, you enjoy your time in the fairy circle. Hold on, I'm playing Zoldazar music. Pretty good. I mean, I love Zoltzzar, but that's not the plan. It's not the play here.

Can you pull some mimoses out of that unlimited food pouch that you have? I don't think it works that way. It's more like raw ingredients I can summon. How do you make a mimosa? Can't just pull a whole damn cocktail out of this thing. That would be pretty cool. Don't reach down and say cocktail over again. This flask is filled a whiskey if you just want to knock that back.

Do you have orange juice? That's raw. Yeah, you know what? I can probably... I don't put orange juice in my place. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's fine.

I mean, can I'll take, I'd like a nice breakfast beer if we have it. Can you pull that out? I don't know how it works. I love a good breakfast stat would be real nice right now. He'd eat out of the eggs and burl. Little cakes and eggs. Oh, yeah, a little cake and egg. Yeah, a little cake and egg.

I love how do I try to, like, speed you through the waffles and y'all still try an arpeat. I mean, I'm really excited about waffles. You literally look at me. and you're like, we, so we do the waffle thing. And I try and then you still are here. We don't have to repeat this, but what shape are the waffle? But it is, it is the rough approximation. What?

Yeah, we all eat it. I forgot I have this feature. Hand over fist. I have the chef feature. Yeah. Oh. I did this on purpose, guys. We all have four plus my proficiency bonus in temp H.P.

Oh, hey, let's go. How much, four? Four plus three, yeah. How do you attempt HP? There's a box for it? Yeah, there's a box for it. There you go. Says temp HP.

Yeah, right there. And then you type in the number seven. Wow. When you can enter, D&DB on, folks. T and D&DB on, folks. I don't have an enter on my eye. Okay, well, you have a arrow. You didn't return like a fucking heath.

Yeah. But hey, you feel really cool while you do. Hey, how about it? Thank you, Matt Long. Is that his thing? Kevin Long. Kevin Long. Matt Kevin.

Say things, George. Kevin's brother, Matt. Like, oh, yeah. Not you. Not you. You weren't in the hit film Dodgeball. Back to your cover. You got my Justin Long?

Oh, Justin. What are talking about? I kept thinking Jake, I kept making Jake Lound from the American Dragon. I was thinking of Iron the American Dragon. We were Justin, we were full of times to get to who we were actually fucking talking about. Let's the same thing. Come on, Justin, give your brother thanks because he's your famous Sam Ramey and we suck me at all.

Oh my shit, man. It's all over for us. Oh my god. Gosh, we're actually pretty close. We're 38 VIPs around from our goal. Bruins.com. If you want to hear chuckles still. I know we're losing daylight, but these waffles really...

Thank you, Derek. Thank you. Oh, Hootie, I made it in the shape of your favorite character. The Rats on the Child Casino. They never get out of here. All right, let's move on. Okay, let's move on. It is rough, it is a rough approximation of 11 a.m. As you finish cleaning up your cast iron pan and putting away all of your raw ingredients,

and you pack up and you begin to make your way into this ancient forest. You believe. that this was the same fairy circle that you had left thither if you left thither at all. But with how overgrown this place is, it's hard to tell. As you make your way towards where you believe Nib's cave to be, travel for a while through the trees. They twist and spiral. The leaves are shades of many colors.

You pass trees of pink, trees of green, trees of purple. You see flowers unlike any flowers you've ever seen in your entire life. And this place is beautiful. The sounds of life erupt all around you and the experience that you've just had, the feeling of dying, still lingers at the back of your mind, but there is a comfort to how lively this forest is, how alive everything feels. And as time passes, it becomes easier to stop thinking about death.

And it is the path ahead that begins to overtake your mind. As you think about, you hear, or you hear the flapping of wings, and at first you startle and you jump, immediately thinking of the creature that you had fought. But as time passes, even that too seems further away. And you're able to enjoy the forest around you. Until eventually you hear a noise that catches you off guard, a noise that is familiar to you.

The noise of a wounded owl bear, a mix between a roar and a hoot, calling out in the distance. It sounds older than the noises that Hootsie makes, but clearly in pain and clearly coming from deeper into the forest. Now, you know Hootsie well. Hootzee has been with Grico since she was a wee cub, but a full-grown owl bear is something quite different,

and it is a choice. which direction you'd like to go in. That's a mod, don't owlbear in distress, let's go! And I turn around, I just bolt. Whoa! Geez. He would be easy to stop. He would be easy to stop.

I don't think I'd stop him. I don't think I'd stop him. I agree. I'm just following. I'm giving Grico this. Okay. You rush forward, and you eventually spill out into an opening. You see that there,

is a road here, a winding, well-trodden road. And the howling, hooting sounds of this owl bear stop immediately as you enter this clearing, and you see it immediately. What appears to be a, how would you call an old, a middle-aged owl bear? Yeah, I guess. An adult owlbear. You see that there's this adult owlbear strapped to what appears to be a chariot, a harness around her chest, and you see a large thorn stuck in her paw. As she paws at it, just digging it deeper in.

You see the blood staining her paws, tears leak out of the corners of her eyes as she hoots and winds and cries as she tries to remove this thing. She looks towards all of you, and you see as she rears back in fear, getting closer and closer to the carriage of this thing, which is toppled over to the side, one of the wheels, fallen off but not broken.

And you can see that she has just been left here. Whatever had been driving this, whatever it had been carrying, they left it here and her in pain. And she looks towards you, horrified, unnerved by your presence. She lets out a warning hoot slash. growl and watches you very carefully. Grico, if you can calm her, I can breath remove the thorn with my mind.

And I'll pull out my ocarina and I'll play a very calming tune. As I'll walk forward as I'll just keep playing and I'll try to like look a very soothing dulcet tone and that would make me, you know, what I would think would hopefully calm, you know, music calming the beast. As I've probably done this plenty of times as a monster tamer. As I'll attempt to just basically walk closer very slowly as I'm playing this music.

I will have you roll an animal handling check at disadvantage because she is wounded. And very scared. That hurts. Can I twist? I got a 20 and 2. Okay, animal handling, that will be 21 plus 3, 24.

The sound that you play, at first, you see the Al Bear inch back closer and closer to the chariot. But as the music plays and you begin to move closer, she watches as Hootsie dances along beside you in tune and in rhythm with the music. And it's almost as if she can sense the bond between the two of you.

You watch as her eyes widen, they fill with tears as she reaches out her paw shaking and in pain towards you, as if asking for help. And I'll look at Frosty. Like a Band-Aid, I'm just going to reach out with my mind and attempt to grab it and give it a quick pull and let it fly off into the forest. You're doing this with a mage hand?

Yes. I won't need you to roll for a mage hand. I would say it's easy enough to do. It's within the realm of what a mage hand can do. I am going to roll to see if she will make the connection that it is you helping since it's not something she can see. Unlike when I might normally do it where I'm doing this just using my mind, I am attempting to show that I am doing it. I'm like, I'm getting like, I'm basically walking closer. I'm just keeping the music. I'm just keeping the music going so that's why I'm not pulling it out.

Yeah, I'm, hmm, how would she feel about a disembodied hand appearing out? of nowhere in front of her, not understanding how magic works. Well, she can't see it. But he just said she can see it. No, no, no, no. She can see him. I'm, I'm, as Frost, literally doing this with my body and arms. I'm showing that I am like doing this as if I'm levitating.

Roll an animal handling. I will let you roll it straight because of what Grico is doing. It's basically just telekinesis, but it's the rules of a mage hand. It's not a hedge hand. Yes, it's not a head. Which is fine. It's like a water bend for me away. I'm just saying specifically,

I'm not sure how an owl bear would perceive this situation, having a thorn pulled out of her hand by unseen circumstances. It's my mind hand. 12. 12 is enough. She is focused solely on Grico and on Hootzee. She doesn't even notice what you're doing. And whether it is the,

the gentle lulling of the music that's calming this owlbear, she watches the movements of Grico as the thorn is pulled from her palm with a loud, audible yelp and then a sigh of relief. You see as she holds up her paw and then slowly begins to lick it clean. She looks towards Grico, keeping her eyes firmly on him, occasionally looking at the rest of you, skittish and afraid, but eventually falling back on Griko and seeing the relationship between Hootsie and Griko

and finding comfort in that and in the music. And she does not attempt to make any other movements as she watches and licks the wound clean. I will play a little tune as I will then stop. It's okay, it's okay, as I place my hand on it, as I will channel the primal spirits to cast cure wounds on the paw, as Hootsie will probably have helped me in the past, and so she'll be kind of like therapy-dogging at,

and she'll walk up and then kind of look up very sweetly, and I just put her paw, like, a very soft but, but, like, still and stable paw on the owl bear's leg or something. There you go, you're okay? You're okay. You heal the owl bear, and as Hootsie moves in to do you. you watch as the owl bear very quickly, reaches down and nips at Hootsie, but in a motherly way, picking her up by the scruff of her neck and putting her on top of the chariot as she begins

to clean her. And clearly trying to take care of Hootsie, you notice wounds on Hootzee that you hadn't seen beneath the feathers and a type of care that only a mother of her kind would be able to care for. And Hootsey seems to appreciate this as eventually they nuzzle into each other and begin to hoot and chirp and growl in what is clearly a language that none of you

but the two of them speak before Hootsie eventually hops down and sits next to this owlbear matron and they both look at you and just watch you. Rico can we get her out of the harness?

Do you feel a safe? Grigo. Oh, no, she's fine. She's a sweet house. She wouldn't have her to flower. Look, she's looking at her will. She's taking care of Hootsie. Now, Hootsie, you'll never get caught this big, but yeah, this is what a full-size owl bear looks like. Look at that. You're like spinning image. She moves towards you quickly, much quicker than you had expected. Have you, I can't remember, have you ever been around full-sized owl bears before? I feel maybe at some point I might have. Like, this close and in this capacity. Maybe not this big,

perhaps like a smaller, you know, owl bear I might have. I would say that this, it's shocking to you how quickly she moves at this point. And there is a moment where you feel fear for a second before she nuzzles into you and gives you a very affectionate, similar to what Hootsie does to you, a quick nip with her beak, not enough to break skin,

not enough to hurt you, but enough to show you that she's grateful and she's thankful. Oh, thank you. It's nice to meet you too. My name is Grico Grimgrimgrin. This little adorable girl is Hootsie. And I know she's a bit of a smaller owlbe. Probably not used to sing,

but she's got to wash the heart to make up for it, as I'm sure you can sniff out. As I will attempt to like, I will use create water, create and destroy water, which I still have prepared, in order to give her some water, as I am going to then, if she's going to then lean in and drink it, I'll just take the time while she's kind of hunched over drinking the water.

I'll just basically try to untire. She does drink the water. As you go to remove the harness, she nips at you in an aggressive way and shakes her head at you as if she does not want to be removed from this thing. You love, you're being in a chair. She reaches up one of her paws

and she pats her chest, and you see that there's emblazoned on this leather harness. There is the symbol of the juniper bush. Oh, are you like a noble royal owl bear that might be used from the fair wild? I've heard of such things on account of owl bears being native to the fair wild, I think I would know. She looks at you with wide eyes,

but doesn't seem to understand anything what you're saying. Well, she doesn't want to be cut free, then maybe we just get this wheel back on attached and get this thing back up and running. Why don't we, if she's good, why don't we take a look to see what happened to the rider? Well, come on, she's not gonna hurt nobody. Look at her, she's just harmless.

And it's a very clearly a gigantic predator. Very clearly, a gigantic predator monster. Just the silhouette and dark red eyes and behind you. She is, I would say, I would say, I mean, obviously we show Hootsie's being this tiny thing. Hootzee's bigger than Grico. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She's big.

And she's like a pygmy owl bear. But this owl bear is probably four times bigger than Hootsie. Hootie's a teacup alber. She is gigantic. That's odd. That's adorable. She's a teacup albert. Yeah, she's a teacup albert. She very clearly is a...

Have I ever seen you talk to animals? Like, use the spellings? I don't think I would have the doctor Doolittle. As a character choice, I would not pull a Dr. Doolittle. I'm more of a, I'm Steve Irwinning and then, and, and, uh. You speak through nature. Yeah, and music. Basically, the trope that Grico is based on is music soothe the Savage Beast. And then Steve, a little bit of

Steve Irwin. So that's my. Mm-hmm. All right, well, yeah, Guy, why don't you fix up the wagon and I'll just take a look around? I want to sort of like just sort of see where the, the chariot had turned over. and just investigate the area a little bit to see if I can see any evidence of someone being here or leaving or being dead in the bushes. Roll an investigation check for.

All like in the chariot and see, like, at a roll at an advantage with Gideon. Oh, those are, you were in your dice. Oh. That is a twist it. Yeah, twist it. Yeah, twist it. We got a nine with a.

Yeah. Oh, someone is first. Look at that. I think I might have a rat snack. Oh. 13. 13? That's good enough. You look around and you clearly see that there is a gnarled root jutting out of the middle of this road and that you see a piece of broken wood, which had clearly been the thorn that was stuck in the owlbear's paw. So it becomes very clear to see that

as the chariot was moving along, the owl bear stepped on this thing and the thorn embedded in the paw, which more than likely caused her to panic overturning the chariot. and knocking the wheel askew. As you look around, you are able to see that there are three foot-print, three sets of footprints, and you also see some drag marks, which look as if there were containers inside of this thing, and the people, or the people who were inside of this chariot who utilized this didn't bother to try and fix it or help the owlbear,

but instead just abandoned it here, because they made their way deeper into the forest. Rather rude of them. Yeah, no signs of anybody. We find anything like in the chariot? Is it like if it, I'm thinking like it's like a 13? Are you looking for anything specific? No, just clues.

Is this a chariot where it's like? It's an elaborate, oh, so I guess, yes. I will, I will, there is actually a photo. Oh, oh wow. That is what you see. Oh, okay. I thought it was like a Cinderella carriage kind of deal. That is what you see.

And it is, it is ornate and it is beautiful. It is clearly something that came from a wealthy, wealthy family or for maybe some kind of royal business. I will say it did appear that there was some sort of standard or banner on the back, but that has been removed. Well, maybe if we just get this up and running again, she'll just like head on home. Would you mind putting that up to the camera? Chat wants to see what it looks like. And I just can't.

Are we forgetting how beautiful the cover of that book is? Isn't it great? It's a little blurry, but you can get the idea of the... It's a little, yeah, it's simple chariot. It's nice though. It's like a goldmines sort of focuses on her. It's not auto focuses off. Anyway.

Yeah, just because it's so close. Oh, yeah. I'll just make sure that I'm feeding her. And then I think Hootsie would like see how big she is. Oh, I was using that to keep the page. Kind of raise her paws and kind of puff herself up. I kind of like imitate how big this owl bear is. So like when a red panda is trying to be in.

Yeah. Oh my God, that's so cute. Yeah, that's exactly what she does. It's not intimidating at all. It's just adorable. But she does it and the adult owl bear seems to look on in amusement. I'm trying to put the story together here. You're running along in a chariot.

You get overturned because your owl bear gets upset because it got injured and perhaps overturns the chariot, you all tumble out. You don't help? You immediately leave, dragging whatever you have with you? Oh, if Torbeck has learned anything from Mr. Crammy, we're talking illegal contraband. I mean, they may have needed to get somewhere in a hurry and didn't even want to fucking deal with fixing it, I guess,

or didn't have the ability to. Maybe they were being hunted, man. Maybe they ran into the old... viridian scales. If that were the case, would this owl bear still be alive? Well, who knows? They wanted something from us. Maybe it doesn't care about this owl bear. That's fair.

Either way, they just left it here to die, chained to the ground. No way to get away from it. That's not very nice. Let's take a round, let's take a look for tracks, or any kind of evidence of where they might have gone. And does anyone recognize this juniper? As you say the word juniper, the owl bear stands to attention in hoots. Well, Juniper.

She paused at the ground, stands to attention in hoots again, and looks to you for orders. Live a very fulfilling life and go wherever you want you. You are either free or you may return to a place that you very much care for. She looks at you very confused. Tost her a sock, man. Oh. Juniper is a free owlbear. I don't wear socks.

I don't have socks. Oh, damn. I don't have the one pair. I didn't realize we were going to spend this much time in the Faywild. You packed for one night in the Fay Wild? Oh, I have all this other stuff in my pack. There wasn't any room.

Uh, Juniper, do whatever your owlbell heart tells you to do. You have the freedom and the chores. choice you she once again looks at you very confused I think that juniper perhaps is a command word or don't think it's her name it's possible that that's that she doesn't understand common well maybe it's maybe it's like snail number two man you know you say like the house words snail number two is so fast it's the best it's the best you know and then you know it kind of snail number two kind of comes online. Maybe that's what's happening here.

Perhaps other words work, too. We don't know that. Bush. Beaselberry. What did you say? Bush. Oh, no. It does nothing. I think her name is Juniper, fellow. Every time you say Juniper, she stands to attention and looks towards. No, yeah, I've seen. I would say it would be very clear that she is responding to her name.

I don't think that's her name, man. No, it's on the chess plate. It's probably an insignia of the house she's from. Well, I think we can split up, gang, and let's just kind of, let's do a quick perimeter check and see if we have any knowledge of where her riders have gotten off to. I haven't seen anything, but I guess I'll have. I'm not sure I want to follow the tracks of someone

who'd leave a creature like this alone in the woods and injured. Well, you'd be the one to say, Grico, but I mean, if Hootsie was separated from you, Don't you think she track you down? She did it back in the hag hut. That's how we knew you were in there dancing with barnacle pants. I'm saying that she could go with his old pants. Well, what I'm saying is, why don't we just...

Rectangle trousers and barnacle panes. So we, you know, oh, God. Okay. Okay. Anyway, what I'm saying is let's just fix the wheel on this carriage and she'll just follow after them. You got a fixed it yet? No. I thought we were looking around for stuff.

Been hanging on this growling glue. You just give me just 10 minutes I'll slap this thing together. It fixes everything. I mean, don't take this the wrong way. I felt like fixing fingers and punching was all you do. Yeah, I hadn't started yet because we were still saying Juniper. Ironically, I think... She jumped to attention.

A whole lot, and we were exploring with that. Okay, I'm going to fix the wheel right now. All you have to do is put it on the peg and then punch it. Well, I've got to actually let the glue settle first. Your hand is just like a redid dog. Like, hmm. It's the, it's the, the Kung Pow parking scene. I'll attempt to fix the wheel with my growling glue.

Yeah. You fail. It just doesn't work. He's never let me down before. You suck at everything. It's just unfortunate. It's going to my attention, Phil. I just suck at everything.

You didn't realize the wheel goes on like this and not like this, right? We're sorry that you had to find out this. I'm a trachet. I'm a train engineer. All I can do is engines. You're very handsome, but very stupid. And this is difficult for you. It really just kind of attached to tracks

and then have wheels at the time. This alludes me. No, you are, I don't need to make you roll for it. The wheel isn't broken. It just needs to be reattached. It just fell off in the kerfuffle. Watch out for the juniperbarbarodus. Watch out for the juniper barbary-dus.

Yeah. Wait, wait, what is that? Why do I have to watch out for the juniper barry this? Do you know what that is, crummy? Yeah, I see what he's doing. What do you mean? It's not that's funny. So don't look out for it.

It's not something I've got to be aware of. The Dormack's with Gideon. Dormack doesn't get it either. Well, his blood pressure sure is spiking, so that's kind of funny. And why is he crying? Why is a single tear coming to his eye? It's going to poke the vein in your forehead. It's going to be all right, Greg.

Think about the fact they were still alive. He's still fine. Well, look at this, now the chariot's fixed. It's a berry disk. It's a feow-wild thing. All right, look around. Look for tracks. That's kind of your thing. Who is looking? I'm fixing the chariot.

I'm monitoring the fixing. Every test needs a supervisor. Just like Paa used to say. Torbeck's helping. Torbeck just wants to give Rick on advantage. Roll with advantage. Yes. Is survival for tracks?

What was that? Sure. Oh, so you're looking for tracks. That's the two of you were looking for. Nothing else. Dorma's just looking. I'll have you roll separately. Okay.

You can roll a survival, roll an investigation check. You can roll at advantage because you're helping each other. This is not a D'rbex plan. 24. Yeah, just like what Krebe and Gideon saw, there are what clearly appear to be the tracks of of three people. They appear to be boots. I'll say with the 24, however, you're able to tell

that there is large boots that appear to belong to a large man. You imagine someone tall. And then two pairs of boots that are, what? Not 15 feet tall. I'm gonna do that. Wow. You really try. You're really trying to even if.

Oh, my shit. I'm gonna see you over the . I'm sorry. Fucking tapped the bag. I was looking at you describing you. When you said tall, I was like, that's pretty funny. I swept my bishop back over at Mike. He was like, I just thought, I lost it.

Oh. I'm sorry. I'm trying to figure out how to describe this. We have fun, everybody. We do have. We do have fun. We do have . Look at me, correct, someone literally carved the word

tall man. If he hadn't gotten a 24, man. Anyway, it appears to be, it appears to be boots that belong to what you would imagine to be a tall man, not 15 feet tall, but very large shoes, as well as two sets of healed boots. I got a 16.

Much more petite in stature. 16. You got a 16? Yeah. You, because it's you, it's enough. What does that mean? Greco finds tracks and begins to inspect them and follow them along. As a glint of magenta light catches your eye.

you move off to the side and beneath a bush next to one of the tall oak trees that reaches towards the sky, you see the markings of where a box or something had a wooden crate had been drugged through the underbrush, and clearly had hit a rock or something as what you see was something that must have spilled out of whatever it was they were dragging. is a long, it is a syringe with an incredibly long needle. The syringe is filled to the brim with witch length. I'll just pick it up and return back to the group without saying anything. Tomlin, that's wild. Fuck off, man.

Mr. Tolman. Can we just leave me and talk guys alone? You can tell by the game of this undercentive, that they have enormous back problems. I really all. The back problems too? So there's free people in this chariot and they are going off into the woods.

Wow. What do you find, Tom Beck? Oh, nothing. Just this. Sweet. That's a colloid. Oh my God. How did I miss that? It's like me.

I grab it. Whoa, careful, man. That looks like, is that that witchlight stuff? Yeah, this is a lot of wishlight too. And one fucking syringe, God. Be careful with it! Oh, they all move in contraband! The needle is incredibly long and very thick. It looks like it would be painful to be stuck by this. Oh. Some sort of fucking masochistic junkie. I don't know. Maybe they were using it to power the... power the... You see that there's a label on it.

It looks, it looks. Tallinnitus prize. That's it, I'm going, never mind, there's no label. There's, the label must have fallen off. That was this Tallman Corporation. The label fell off. It's not on there. More Faye than Faye.

The Tallman Corporation. Oh, my God's good. This is what you get for letting us live. letting us live. I have a lot of regrets right now. Oh my God. I have a mallow cup in these trying people. Oh, my God.

I will. I will enjoy this mallow cup. I read the label. No, there's no label on. No, I don't say that. No, there's no label on it. Please, Nicky. Don't do this to Torbank. This is all Torbank is.

This is how he contributes. Please. This podcast is brought to you by our Patreon. Become a patron today at patreon.com slash legends of Evantris and gain access to tons of exclusive perks, including a monthly movie night and a weekly Patreon exclusive campaign set on the high seas. Shrout 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 fifth edition. And don't forget to snag all of the extra goodies like dice, miniatures, plushies, a tarot deck and more. Thank you. I was reading the label on the sir. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We found the label and we reapplied it. No, there's that I twist to make it come back. No, there will be a label, but.

Torbeck was really advocating. You bring up those tall fucking guys. No, no, no, we're done with the Tommin Corporation. Doork right never said anything. You're, you're complicit. My association. You, what languages do you speak? Me?

Yeah. Common and, uh, iconic. You look at the, you look at the label and it is very clearly a, it seems to be how best to, essentially mass manufactured, you can tell that it's not hand done, that it is, this label is made similarly to labels that you would see in Agway on, um, you would see. on medicine bottles in the apothecary. And you can see that there is clearly a signature. And that, well, yeah, you're from Agway.

It very clearly looks to be the signature of a physician or a doctor of some sort. It's looking at the symbols, it's really hard to tell, but because you are able to discern that this looks like a medicinal label, you can see where it shows the quantity and potentially even the dosage to be used and other information, but you not being able to understand whatever language it's written in. You don't know how this is used, but I would say looking over the label, it becomes very clear to you that this is used in some sort of medicinal way. Yeah, I can't fucking read this, but yeah, it's.

Seems to be prescribed by a doc of some kind. What languages is it in? I don't fucking know. I don't fucking know. You don't fucking know. I don't think any of us speak, Sylvan. No. Oh, no.

You're just talking about this Torvite. You fucking put it in his brain. Only if Nikki says I can't, but it's on my list. It's right here. It's not Sylvan. Oh. Hmm. Everyone pull up your care.

Is it in any language that we might be able to speak? Elvish or Celestial. I speak common, goblin and sultan. Giant and goblin. Ignan and primordial. It's very clear glancing at it that it is not a language any of you have encountered before. However, Torbeck, as you look at the label,

you immediately see a sterile room flash before your eyes for a second. for a second, you see the flash of a white lab coat. You hear a, you hear the drip, drip, drip of something in the background, and you feel the cold metal of a table against your back for just a second. As you hear the click, click, click of a finger on a syringe. and you see the drip, drip, drip of purple witchlight out of the long tip as it is moved towards you

and you see those same markings. As for a second you feel the pinch of a needle being embedded into your skin before you shake and the vision's gone from you. And I'll like skitter around Gideon and like, whoa. Hey buddy, you all right? Torbeck is okay. Doorbeck is okay, nobody panning, everybody just calm them down.

Doorbeck had a vision. Just a flashback. What did you see? Oh, there wasn't much there, just a white room, some coats, one of those, cold table. Doorbeck's 99% sure he's been injected before. Yeah, that doesn't surprise me, but can I see that again? I'll float it over you. I mean, this looks mass produced.

This isn't just like some one-off someone did. I mean, you know, there's a label and everything. This is sort of... Like they're selling this stuff. So they're... That's the drugs. That all the fancy rich FIFO use. Yeah, but it's not like under the table,

sort of like in the baggy kind of deal. This is like, this is legit shit. No, we don't know what the... What of the drug laws are in the Faywild are. It might not be fun. You know what? I mean, he's not. He took a drop out of him and it fucked everything up.

Yeah! That's a whole fucking filled syringe! That's enough to kill an extraordinarily large animal! Like at least a thousand growl. Oh, that's... I don't think it's a tough, kiddie. I don't know how strong I mean, a lot tougher than you. What? Oh, okay.

No, no, let's not get into that. Let's not a growling right now. I don't think you think you can pick a growling? I don't know. Hey, Garland. Everyone thinks they're... They can take it around. They don't realize that they have forearms

and they're extremely strong. I feel like we can't. You're not gonna want to leave Juniper here, are you? Well, Juniper should go wherever she, her heart sets. I think she wants to be told what to do. I was gonna propose rather than following the tracks that we sit down and let Juniper finish her trip. That's what I've been saying this whole time.

Juniper, do you want us to get into the chariot? She leans down, picks up Hootzie by the Scruff, by the scruff of her neck and sets her into the chariot. Hootie. Hussie will stand up and she'll like grab, oh they're like, reins? Yeah. She'll like, oh, Hootie, you're a little gladiator.

Oh, are you not entertained? Ah, that's very cute. She's like Ben Hoot. Oh, she is, Beth. Benjamin Hout. Oh. That was my favorite moment. You don't have a hoot.

You only have nine days left to get your own hoot seat. If you are just going to nine days left to get your very own hoot seat. Oh. There's any room left for the br- I guess we just walk alongside. There is. It's very... Let's all get in. You have to... This owl bear is just.

This owl bear is just. gigantic. The picture doesn't do it justice. There's more than enough room for all of you inside of that chair. We get it. It's like the size of job of sandbags. Look at that. Oh, the sail barge you do. Yeah, it is. Look at this.

Let's go. We all get it. I'm concerned as we start to, I assume, make our way. Juniper, proceed. Do the saw like pet. B'b-b-b-b-b-b-h. Is one of you taking the reins? Hootie has the reins. Hootie has the reins. Yeah, Hootie has the reins.

Hootie? Houthi has the ring. Bring us home, Hootie. You're in charge. You got this. Benjamin and Hood. I'll pick her up. I'm not actually thinking, but I'm like trying to get,

because I just presumed that she, even standing up, he probably is like just barely looking over. The chair. Hootzee holds on to the reins, but is just an owlbear. and is unable to steer a chariot. And so attempts to steer juniper into the thicket of trees and woods. Oh, come on, hoaggy. Come on, here you go.

It's like this, you gotta look out for that kind of stuff. You stand behind her and hold onto the rains with her, so that she feels like she's still doing it, but you are able to guide the chariot back onto the pathway, and you begin to make your way forward. In the same direction that you were traveling, hoping, to eventually find where Nib's cave is. Oh, is Uncle Giddy in helping you get your learners permit?

Oh, that is so sweet. She's doing great. She grew up so fast. We only crashed once. Is this the direction of the tracks, too? No, the tracks are going off. So let's say this is heading north, the tracks were heading off east.

Yeah. Grigo is, my intention, Griko's intention is to not give a fuck about where they went. to go wherever she's having. Frost is with you. Yeah. I have concerns, and the concerns are, we know what the wish light does to Doreback.

Could this be a weapon? Do we? Well, we know some of what it does to you, and what we know is very violent, very powerful. Very spooky. Is this a weapon? We know the rich folk use it for drugs. Maybe in small, small, small quantities, and perhaps not at the purity level of what Torbeck experiences.

I mean, this doesn't look like drugs, man. Look at that syringe. There's nobody's putting that in them for fun. This is, you know, some kind of other application. Look, I don't think you're going to just be able to inject this into somebody, and then it's going to do what it does in Torback. They clearly did something to him for five fucking years. I think that's what they were doing.

They wanted this to do that. It took them five years to figure out how to do that. Presumably. Huh? I'm very... That stands the reason, right? I mean, you got to think that it's not like if I took this and stuck it in the gear. It's not like all of a sudden the same thing that we saw happen to the fucking rabbit.

I don't mean the difference in personality. I mean the power. The abilities and the surge of strength. Yeah, that's... I feel like that's kind of more like tapping into what's already into. pullback and enhancing it. Because right now, because there was Wichlight in the air of the carnival,

and that's where you're like, oh, I have a cowboy of God, blood, the mania, blah, blah, blah, Blah. Torbeck, when you have your experience with witched light, does it feel like the strength is coming from the other, or does it feel like it's coming from the witch light? I think really hard. I think really hard to try to see if I can pull up anything

from the moments before. before the end to see if I can answer Frost's question. Thinking is not your strong suit. I need you to roll an intelligence check at disadvantage. Dormack is unsurprised. Just straight in. Mm-hmm. Oh.

Wait, did you say disadvantage? Mm-hmm. Dormick got a 14 and a 20, so we're gonna go out the natural 20 is going for. You think back before the inn, and you have no memories at all before the inn. You think, however, to moments after the inn. Like your experience at, oh, this is Dragonfly.

This music's pretty good. Grigo's not playing. I'm trying to listen to Torbett. You know, we'll leave it. We'll leave it, this spring on. But you think back to when you were fighting, why can't I remember his name. His name is Aged.

Aged and Longscarf, thank you. Blue Scarf McGillicuddy. Yes, Blue Scarf McGillicuddy. And you think about when you felt that moment, when you begin to feel the moment of the other overcoming you. And you try to imagine, or you try and discern whether it's him or you where the strength comes from.

And it is very clearly from you. That he may overtake your mind, but it is your body that's doing all of the work. And the body is yours. Oh, Frost. Mm-hmm. There's good news and bad news. It's not the other, but it's just Dormack. Dormack's body is Dormack's body.

Meaning the strength that the wishlight is giving you is you. Could be. At least that's what Torbeck thinks. That makes sense. You do something weird to Tormex flash, and there's like a weird, like, unjulating a ripple. That's what I'm saying. It's unlocking something that's inherent in,

and it was tapping into different parts of us that the wishlock was doing at a carnival, right? And so I feel like these, all these, all these rich folk are a bunch of sick fucks. Every rich person you've ever met who's that wealthy, who's like a fairy lord, there's some sick fucks and there's some sick, sorry, hootsey. There's some sick, nasty people into some sick nasty stuff. And this is how to get the kicks, probably. Earmuffs, who'd see?

Oh, yeah, earmuffs. You think they're shooting it up or they're injecting in into others? Probably, yes, and all of the above? I mean, if there anything like the aristocrats from Agway, that stands to fucking reason. They'll go through some dark-ass shit and do some cruel stuff for the sake of some pact. Pact? Oh, yeah, packed. You think, Garoo and I, you think we're the only ones making deals out on the swamp?

They don't know. How does it work out for them? Do they also 100,000 gold pieces? Depends on how well they make their deals and if they make good on them. Look, either way, let's fucking put this somewhere safe. Wait, I think I'm a bad holding, right? There it goes.

He stabs himself in the leg and injects himself with the fore. Oh, yeah? Right into the thigh. Oh, I also forgot about, I have this very stylish hip hat that's also a hat of holding. Thanks to the powers of Chuck. apparently. Faced whatever horrible curse that you unlocked by killing him.

It's somehow affecting me now. One time you hit a clown. Well, all the way, I'm going to put it in my inventory. I'm D&D. Beyond. And that's where it's going to live. It's fine. I think it's fine that you hold onto it. It doesn't feel right now.

Thinking about your inventory, you realize that there are a bunch of letters that Madrick Roslough gave you. Get the fuck out of my way. The fuck out of my way. Get-ass, though. Yeah, get-ass, though. Not in his inventory. No, I'm also.

No. We have some time. Well, Juniper, is this far in, are you far in pulling a chariot of people? I know you're a wild animal. You watch her and she is strutting forward. Like this is her element. She is looking beautiful.

As she, as she, almost as if she's clenching her muscles to show how strong she is as she pulls this character. along, she seems to be very proud of herself. I'm like observing and making a note. This is very strange. I mean, normal, at least an adventurist, our bays don't act like this. They're not beasts of burden.

They're ruthless predators, except for him. Of course, because she has good parenting. She seems to be very happy as she pulls up outside of a cave. It is here. that you find yourself. You have traveled a significant amount of this day.

Very far from where you had your waffles this morning after your near-death experience. And as you pull up to this space, you see that the trees part as a sheer cliff face juts up straight towards the sky. And instead of sunlight, cresting down. You begin to see, or you look up and you see that the sky has already begun to turn to night as the stars slowly peek out of the sky. The sun hasn't fully set in thither, but it's close.

Cozy torchlight radiates from a cave in this wooded hillside. 20 feet from the cave is a tree with a weathered sheet of parchment nailed to its trunk, and it is here that juniper pulls up and parks the chariot. She rests herself down into the ground, curls up in a similar way to how Hootsie curls up at the end of the day. As if knowing that this was your destination, as if sensing where you were meant to go

or where you needed to be, her job for this day is done. Oh, this is your home and nice little cave? Let's go read the parchment. I'll hop off and I'll walk up and I'll try to read it if not I'll rip it off. I'm going to look around the forest floor very quickly and see if I can sense the mind of any small beast or animal. Yes.

I crush its mind, and then I may hand it over. Thank you, Juniper. That's it for you. You search for a... I curse its mind. What? There's a chipmunk with a big, like, a horde of nuts. Finally, I can bring this back to my... Narm! Narm! Can you please repeat the exact words you said?

I look around the forest floor for some sort of small beast or animal. No, you said you sense for the mind. Yeah, I sense for the mind of a small what? Small beast or animal. Okay. Um, yes. If I'm looking for like a rat-ard chip monk that I can feed to juniper as a tip, because it's only right. She took her job very seriously.

Such a dutiful owl bear deserves for going above and beyond. A squirrel snack. You stop at the first tiny mind that you find, and you, with your mind alone, you crush its brain. Oh! That's funny. That's really funny. Like a little walnut.

And then I will. You do. And if you watch as floating towards you is a chubby chipmunk, its cheeks filled with acorns. It was clearly, no, this is canon now. It had clearly been on its way up a tree, potentially to feed a family. It's hard to tell. Thank you, Juniper. A little bit of something extra for me. You got to do the cheeks. Oh no, what have we done? You throw it down on the ground in front of her. It flops there dead as she eviscerates it.

She like shakes it back and forth as far, you know, and stuff with chestnuts is perfectly good. It's very flavorful. Jeez. I put my apron on and I like pull out like a big flank steak. It's like a slap of a meme. Oh, that's, I didn't know. I don't know why I didn't think about that.

This was a little less violent at least. She nips at it and swallows it whole. Anyways, I'm gonna try not to think about that. Uh, and Cricko, you make your way to the, uh, to the, to the tree. Yeah. You see a similar parchment to one that you had seen before. but the message on this one is different.

It's a wanted ad, wanted will of the Faywild. Bring this whist, or deliver this rascal alive and unharmed. As payment, I offer you the power to bring the dead back to life. Whoa. Oh, it's that same will fella. Gosh, he really gets around. He's really wanted by scarecife. And it is signed by Granny Nightshade.

That's a pretty big reward. You think it's literal? I mean, this is gonna be the same shit the other one did. She just turned twig into a marionette. No, she's gonna probably invite him over and poison him. The first poster we saw was very old. Like, weathered, right? No, I mean, he means like to bring the dead back to life.

Is that literal? Yeah, I mean, like, are you dead? She just brings you back, or does she turn you into a puppet? She's gonna turn you into some. A stupid marionette. Yeah. She offers you the power to bring the dead back to life. Oh, so we could corrupt others.

Allegedly. Allegedly. I'm sure it's not some monkey's paw. That's a ridiculous. Look. It's going to be you can bring the dead back to life for like three seconds before they die again. Well, thanks.

Now I'm traumatized twice. All I've got to do is just bring this wheel fella in. Yeah, it's like it's gonna be some horrible abominent. We should also not forget October 3rd because of the horrible abominable powers, that nightmares that it will actually bring back to life. It's bring back to life. Do we really want to be wrangling criminals

and turning them into the hags? Was it October 3rd also the day that Aaron Samuels asked Katie Herring what day it was? Yeah. Heron. I'm pretty sure that's correct. Who? Was that mean girls?

That's not mean girls. Dorbich's favorite. Well, then a-pros-pros. There was one screen in the doctor's office playing mean girls on repeat as you are horribly tortured. Oh, hey and oh, hey, Do you recognize this fella right here? She, let's see if she does, right.

Oh. Do you recognize this little fella that's Rufio in the, I don't know, it's not really bad when you say it like that. She looks up at the poster. Camping me don't have to say it. We gotta stop this guy, we gotta stop this guy. Rufi! Yeah!

Yeah, I'm gonna drop at that. We gotta call us. We're cutting you. Well, there is my dream of us being Dante Balls. Never said never. Never say never. You probably have to be in court now. So you're not.

True. Oh, man. Does she recognize? If anyone has seen the great film hook, it's actually probably an hour too long, but still a great wall. No, it's not. It's perfect.

It's a perfect light. What? It's not. That's crazy. That's bullshit. on the length of hook. We don't have to get into that right now. In the odd nights.

Yeah, in the odd nights. I'm sorry. What do you think, Judith? Do you recognize that guy? She looks up at the poster and turns her head this way or that. She sniffs at it, and then she stands up and she moves this way or that,

and then she stands to attention and points her paw out in one direction, as if to say, that way. Whoa. Whoa, we can find wheel in that direction. Well, let's go find, let's go investigate this cave first. And if it's Nib's cave, we'll rough him up. We'll get a fat envelope from him. And we'll get our kickups to Mr. Garo from him.

Well, remember, he can't see, right? He's blindfold. So let's approach. Also, doesn't he have to give away the gold? He's like the easiest rob we've ever made. Well, he needs to turn it into stuff and then get it away. And it's useless. So we got to steal the gold.

He's using to do it. Oh, yeah. We got to beat him. up and then steal the gold. Is it using like alchemy to like trangent? Speaking of October 3rd, you know, with a great taboo and all that. Oh.

I think he's just using one of the free taboos. Yeah. But the one and only, well like the 1.5 and only immutable law of alchemy is that you can't turn gold into stuff. I don't think we're governed by the same laws. Oh, in the Faywild. You think you can do whatever the

thing. The Faywild, you can do whatever you want. As opposed to the golden and no stuff. Let's all sneak. in. Should we? Hopefully the horrid shrieks and death flows of that chipmunk. I made Jermaine nose down. I'm on my as the night. Yeah, I'm not put it. I actually have two names. Oh my God.

Jesus. Frost has ice water. It's a logical thing to do. It's just the nature of life. Yeah, it made perfect sense of the dying, maybe. Also, I'm just getting some energy out. I had a very rough day.

Sometimes we see a snap of you next down the line from being resurrected. That's funny. Let's make our way in a cave. We go into the cave. And we stealth. Stealth. We still.

We steal. We steal. Roll a stealth check for me, please. She will protect you. Well, this is where I'm a hinky. I'm pretty good. And you may roll at advantage. Oh.

That's even better. Good mess. It's still a 15. Well, Torbeck got a 20. I'm feeling very 18. Yeah, that Chuck's scared me. 15. 12. If you're not drinking tea out of a giant,

you're not drinking tea. Love that. Sorry, can you go through all of your numbers? 15. 15. 12. 24. 12 was the lowest? 12. 12.

You make a little disappears. You make your way into the cave, and at this point night has firmly fallen on thither. The cave is dark at first. in ascends upward, high into the mountain. You climb and climb and here and there, a torch dots the wall and lights the path, but they're spread out far enough

that you have areas where you're shrouded in darkness. And it feels like you're climbing forever, but it's more the angle at which you're climbing than anything else. Before you finally know, us up ahead to sconces illuminating and flickering in an open arched doorway that leads deep into a cavern. The cavern itself, even from this angle, you can see the walls are lined with sconces.

And they are all flickering and alight. You can hear the sounds of spinning. I can't do Derek's things, but it's like the sound of a spinning wheel. That's not what a spinning wheel sounds like. I tried to do the thwop, thwop, thwop, but it just didn't work, so. It wouldn't sound like that.

And they're outside of the door. Outside of the door, there are two 15 foot guards. Oh, huge! Halt. One of us speaks only lies, the other also lies. You're fucked. You're not going to hurt you. Okay, anyway.

The room is lined with sconces, illuminating the entire space. And though you can't see if there's anyone inside of it, you can hear the sound of a spinning wheel as it spins on its track. And you can see that the light that illuminates this room is amplified by piles and piles. piles of gold coin that are littered all around this space.

And you make the truck forward. You continue to the entranceway. As you look inside, you see a wizened old man wearing a blindfold sitting at a spinning wheel surrounded by piles and piles of gold. As he spins, he reaches down and grasps handfuls of coin, which instantly transform at his touch into gleaming gold fibers that he feeds into the spinning wheel.

And as it spins and threads the fiber into the basket, what would normally be a yarn, a golden yarn, if this were any kind of actual spinning wheel. But in his case, you see that it is filled to the brim with magical items, wands, rings, boots, bracelets, cloaks, gems, hourglasses, a veritable trove, a veritable hoard of magical items. And behind him, lurking in the shadows,

you see the undulating shapes of what appear to be humanoid figures as they call out to him. And he remains focused solely looking at the spinning wheel as he spins and spins and spins. He makes no noise and he doesn't seem to hear you. The undulating shapes are his punishment. Mm-hmm. Right. Oh. Are they real? Are they like...

They look like spectres. Okay. Like shadows. Okay. And they pay no mind to you. It's very clear that they're there for him and him alone. I'll whisper in Kremmy's mind. Grimmie, look at all that gold. I'll like nod, and I'll look at everybody.

And I'll point at the pile of gold. I'll put in the hat. And I'll say, You can respond to me in your mind. Let's get 100,000 gold pieces in the fucking hat. Yes, I think that a small bucket would fit 100,000 gold pieces. It would be trivial. The volume of a gold piece is so small. In a chest, it would probably be like 500 to 750,000 gold pieces.

Just thinking about a small chest, not let alone like a barrel of gold. What? I'm not taking attention. I'm just like looking at all the gold. and I'll walk over and I'll take the first gold piece off the stack, and I'm going to try to put it in the Croix's hat. You are easily able to pick it up. The sounds of the spinning wheel drown out these simple noises.

You imagine if you wanted to pick up handfuls, you'd have to wait until Nib himself picked up a handful of coins to try and mask the sound. And I will say you will all need to roll a sleight of hand to see how well you do masking the sounds. Oh, Dormick's also really good at that! was born a criminal. Hot damn! That's a national 20 for 29. Wow. Damn.

All right, let's give this guy a try. I'm gonna twist it. Like giant mountains of gold pieces just moved out of the shadows and don't make a single sound. He's shuffling like... He's defying physics and it's just falling in entire just waves of gold pieces. With an 18. 25. 16.

I hope this doesn't curse us into in depth. Megalil. We have to be pirates in a very... 15. Okay. 15 is the lowest of everything that you got? 25. You are...

You are accustomed to cons. You're accustomed to stealing. And this is the easiest job that you've ever had to do. It is like a well-oiled machine the way you move in here. Even with Torbeck, whose sole job was to fall

off of the Ferris wheel, you fix the Ferris wheel. You were just trying to, he were just hoping he would die. But he is here nonetheless and is, it seems to be capable. As you

as you take piles and piles of gold coins, it takes I would say about an hour of work. But you imagine with the counting that you've done, if it's correct, that you have at least

100,000 gold pieces. That's a gentleman. Based on the volume of all of our hands I've calculated, then we're at 101,000 gold pieces. Give or take, 2025. Why don't we get just a little bit more? I'm hungry. I don't want to be greedy.

Why not? Let's keep going. I reached into my coat pocket and I double-checked to make sure that the life insurance policy I took out on Duremberg 300,000 old pieces is still there and in that moment I think to myself

man, this is going to be a lot easier It is still there It's making sure it's still there That's outrageous I will, I'll sort of, yeah, I mean, why not? We're going to open up a carnival when we get back. We need a little bit of that seed fund. Can we all hear you talking?

I'll say for the sake of ease, yes. I would spend a little time going back and forth. I thought you just networked us. No, that's, no, no. It's this and then back and forth, and then this and then back and forth. So I kind of have to, like, play operator with each of you and, like, be like, hold on, I'll be right back at. I didn't sit this. I think, I think, I think, I think about that.

I think, I think about that. Okay, I think, Cremi is trying to reach out to me. Yes, yes, Cremi? Okay, well, hold on, hold on. Grico's over here. Yes, just a moment. I don't, we don't need more than 100,000. We can, we can make our own way when we get back. A hundred thousand is a lot of gold.

I'm starting to feel a little guilty. What's that like? I don't want to make my own way, Frosty. I want to live life deliciously. Stubby pockets. Stop your pockets. Let's continue to fill the hat. Stalky pockets.

Roll another side of hand. Yeah. Let's fucking go. 19. Ooh. 13. The second doubles I've rolled back to back. What are the odds to that?

28. 1 and 400 every time. No, but to do them back to back. I rolled double fours and the double sixtines. Oh. Um, one in 160,000. I don't think that's right. What did you get? 19.

It's not. 400 times the word? Derek? 10. 19.13. Because it's group. One of 400. No.

It's not. It's higher than that. You continue to fill your pockets. Another, I'd say you're, even though you have bags of holding, you are doing your best to, you know that they can only hold up to a certain amount of weight and you are reaching your limit. You feel you're able to get another 75,000 gold pieces into your veritable coffers. That's surely enough. We can still talk to the old man.

You won't notice it missing. There's plenty of gold still left here. I look around. There's still so much fucking gold. Why stop? I'll be here all day. Grandma, I gotta tell you, buddy, my pants are lined with gold, my pockets are stuffed with gold, the bags are full.

I'm not sure where else we put it, man. I don't know, let's figure something out. I mean, like buckets around. Should we kidnap? nib. I'm sorry, what the fuck? Should we nib-napp him? Should we nib-napp him? No, I just crush his mind and then we move out. Oh, he doesn't. There's no witnesses. Won't Mr. Garou reward us handsomely if we bring back nib? He's on the run. We can say, oh, we found him.

He was hiding out of the Fawar. Then we can just keep all the gold pieces instead of having him saying. That's what I'm saying. Oh, Mr. Guru, we found the rat. If we pay him back and we have 75,000 gold pieces, we don't need any, that's more than enough to start a carnival and buy a villa and perhaps more. I think it double. Just 200,000 gold pieces. Half of Mr. Guru, half for us. It's 25,000 more gold pieces. Just 25,000 more gold pieces. And we'll stop there. And then I promise we can stop.

Wait, what about the contract? Don't we owe it then a percentage of a kick-up to Mr. Guru on everything that we take here? Plus interest? That's a good point. So we would owe them $125. Rough that out, Grimmie. Why don't we just make it triple just to be safe? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn't know there was interest on our contract.

Is that true? Look, just in case there is. We might as well, right? Well, accounting for interest, and the amount of time we've been gone? Triple makes sense. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's all right. That's right. That's right.

Roll another flight of hand. The long-ontorbit space is going more and more than a new. Oh, National 20. 24. 24. We're stealing, boys. I got a 25. 21. 23.

Straight 20. No, 22. You are able to. You are hardened criminals. At this point, you have figured out the cadence and the rhythm that Nib, that Nib performs the creation of this magical items, you are in sync with him. The moment he dips his hand down for more gold, you all pull piles of gold and put it into your packs. As he's spinning, you are slowly taking coins and dropping them softly onto the other

coins in a way that all of the sound is mass. It is rhythmic. It is almost like a dance. and very quickly, much quicker than all the rest, you're able to acquire another 125,000 gold pieces. At this point, you are, your clothing, the linings of your clothing, your shoes, your packs, twig, are all laden with gold. Did we run out of a room in the hat? Both the hat and the bag are...

Holy see what we're... It's all right. If we need it, we still got Twigs purse. hold damn in. Okay, let's get out of here and leave this guard to be tortured forever. By the souls that he scammed out in the HOA scam. Yeah, I mean, I don't feel bad for this guy, right? Yeah, no, I mean, he kind of sucks. Well, we wanted to talk to him, right? Yeah, we don't need him for anything, we needed him for the gold, and we just took that out from

under him, seeing as how he's blind. Wait! That's a good point, Frost. If we talk to him, this guy might have some dirt on Mr. Guru. I also wondered if he might perform his task and produce magic items for us. We know the threats that exist in this plane of existence. Let's go back down to the bottom of the tunnel, like far enough down and make a bunch of noise

coming back on. You're right? I would say you would imagine that the best course of action would be to deposit the gold at the chariot. And have the owl bears protect it. I suppose that we deposit the gold to the chariot and then make our way back. That's a great idea. That's a great point. And who the fuck's going to protect it? Protect the gold?

Hutsi and Juniper. Hootsie's not, I mean, listen, man, somebody comes by and turns that fly pad on and Hootie's not protecting the damn thing. Hootie's protecting her scorer and fruit schminja. Fruit pirate, excuse me. Vegetable pirate. That's Canada. Now! Let's get it now!

Vegetable pirate! She does love vegetable pirate. I propose that we go and we find a tree, we bury the gold just to make sure that it's totally safe or not as of Hootsie, and then we can tie a scarf around it. And when we get back, that same scarf will tell us exactly where the gold was buried, and there won't be any fable-like moral tales.

Well, maybe we can at least keep the bags of holding on us and we'll bury off the gold on a person. Yeah, we'll just make sure we keep 100,000. thousand gold pieces on us exactly. Yeah. Maybe we just leave Tollbeck there too, you know, just to be safe. I don't. The Torbeck deserves to

have a magic item procured or two at least. It's also just as likely he finds a cardboard tube and it's just as useless as Hootsie. Yeah. That's a good point. Let's talk when we get outside and we can make a plan there. I'm tired of repeating everything that you say

very, very slowly as each one of you as we go back and forth in this way. We're talking for eight hours in this game. I'm very tired. Yeah, let's go back. Let's go back. Let's go. Let's go.

You make your way out of the room, and you are, I need you all to make a stealth check. It is going to be straight because you are now laden with gold. Yeah, that totally makes sense. Oh, I'm just on fire. 23. Can't be stopped. 11 plus 7 is 18.

18. Did we think 12 is enough? If it's a group check or if we're doing a contest, 12. Well, I got a 21. 8. 23. Do we twist it?

Just let it ride. It's a group check. We're fine. Oh, yeah. It's a group check. Let's let a ride. You make your way out of the room, and there's a moment where a Gideon's I almost said sack

but that was and then I said it Man my sake is so heavy I'm a boss why I put all this waffle batter now oh man it's hard to walk

my sack is filled waffle butter oh stop say waffle batter fowper butter It's getting to tell them out. This is all through Frosty's mind. Rossi has to deliver the joke back and forth to everybody.

We're going to eat this Waffle matter. You go to get this Waffle Matter. Go to Cheerio. You make your way out. And as you were leaving, one of Gideon's pouches, and jingles, why? That's a coin first. And for a moment, for a moment, you hear the spinning wheel stop.

And you all look back to watch as Nib moves his head this way or that and sniffs at the air to see if there's anything different. Why are you so? She makes you just doing something like that. Something happened with a little. Big pasta salad. Yeah. He seems to, he seems suspicious for a moment before slowly going back to spinning at the wheel

and then quicker and quicker and quicker. And you're able to rush down the descending slope. What is wrong with you? Rush down the descending slope. You don't get to. You don't get to. You don't get to. You don't get to.

No, stop it. We gotta get through this session. Shut up. You all rush down the slope, and you are moving as quickly as you possibly can, but you are encumbered by the amount of gold that you are carrying, and it is significantly slower than you would normally move, but you are descending, and so you're making a fair pace before you eventually spill out into the night air. You breathe, and heave as you've been carrying all of this gold, your body is laden. As all of you see something

move behind you, you quickly look and there's nothing there. When you move again, there's nothing there. And Gideon, you turn and look one more time and you see the silhouette, the moving shadow of a clown. And that is where we will end the session. No, no. What have you done? Oh, God. I will say for the sake of it, every single one of you has one attached to you.

It's just, his was the easiest one to describe in this moment. So you will all find out what horrible specter is going to haunt you for the foreseeable future. We've made a terrible mistake. Oh no. Oh, and you all have one level of exhaustion. Thank you so much.

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