Legends of Avantris - Once Upon a Witchlight | Ep. 54 | Going Underground

Episode Date: December 2, 2024

The Krew makes a daring escape from an unexpected visitor...   Gain access to an exclusive campaign, Shroud Over Saltmarsh, over on Patreon: https://legendsofavantris.com/patreon The Crooked Moon, a folk horror supplement for 5e, is available for preorder! Get the Crooked Moon at: https://thecrookedmoon.com/ Watch more D&D adventures in the world of Avantris live on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/legendsofavantris Check out our merch store: https://shop.legendsofavantris.com  Join our community on Discord: https://legendsofavantris.com/discord Watch our many campaigns on YouTube: https://legendsofavantris.com/youtube  All other links: https://linktr.ee/legendsofavantris   Watch the full episode here: https://youtu.be/TK9b4MUVdlY?si=Wr6pJRIfguS7VEev

Welcome to Legends of Aventress. I'm Nikki, and you're listening to Once Upon a Witchlight. Here's what happened last time. You want to converse with the Oracle. Every single journey you go on will weaken you all as a unit. Is this like going to, you know, get us a little saucy? You know what I mean? Oh, yeah.

Okay, good, because I was going to say that I don't know if you caught that we're a bunch of middle-aged men. And so Broco dictates we can only open up if we're like at least 12 Bahama mamas in. Again, you see Will sitting by himself alone in his treetop room as he writes in a small journal, More children, I need more. Never enough. He's here. The Duke. Come in.

It's time for your appointment. Don't make a Duke? You don't do. Do you have any sort of noble titles that I should be aware of? No. You look so tired, Gideon. You should eat and get some rest. Let your Baba take care of you while you rest.

The tap, tap, tap of heels on the stage in a large black dress, you see Endeline Moongrave, the third sister, stands atop the stage looking out at the audience before her. Thank you for coming to the opening night of the young opera house. Every single one of the patrons burst into blood and viscera, a sacrifice for the opera house. This keep getting worse and worse. I understand I have the similar proclivities. Now you understand, you see, you have a problem, my friend. You slowly turn your head and look across the water.

Unicorn stands at the edge of the water, flapping its massive winds. No, not a unicorn. Pegasus. The creature shifts and changes its body replaced by that of a massive white barn owl. It flaps its wings once, twice, 13 times. The ringing returns to your ears. and the flapping of wings again, and then you fall unconscious. The unconsciousness fades from you.

As you try to hold on to the images that have just played in your collective mind, as you see this same almost duplicate island in the middle of the lake, with the unicorn that you knew to be elidon. But as you watch this play in your mind, you realize that with what you know now and where his location should be, if pincushion is correct, and all signs point to yes, how else would she know? That whatever's being held there in this makeshift prison has been glamored, hidden from you. But you imagined what you saw to be a unicorn was not that. But what was it? Who was it? As you're trying to hold onto these memories, just like all of the memories before, you begin to feel them pulled from your minds, bits and pieces of them slipping away until all you can remember is your initial vision.

That this seems a bit strange. You know that Elidon is in yawn, and you have to discover what is the secret behind this. rocking horse that pincushion has spoken about, but it can't possibly be the unicorn that you're looking for. Frost, I need you to roll an intelligence check to see how much of this memory that you can hold on to, and I'm going to have you roll at a disadvantage. We're only five little of exhaustion, so everything we do is no disadvantage. We also can't move. Oh, yeah, we give zero movement speed. 17. Perfect, wow. You are able to, um, even, Even despite the extreme exhaustion that you are undergoing right now, your limbs feel stiff,

your muscles are sore, your joints swollen, you're here in the middle of this warm and cozy living room, this home to the mushroom peddlers, and you are unable to move, but your mind functions all the same. And you are able to, though you cannot write down, you can't move, you cannot transcribe with pen and hand the information that you need to, you find yourself able to transcribe a significant amount to memory in the form of song, and that you imagine once you're able to,

like a jingle, the way a jingle would get stuck in your head. Could I endeavor to reach out with my unparalyzed mind hand and grab the quill? Your mage hand? Perfect. Your mind hand, yeah. And write down what I remember. I would say that's a perfect solution for this. You'll see the quill trembling pick up and start to make some hurried scratches of the jingle

as I put the way that I've captured this information in my mind to paper. And it is with that that you look down at this journal, at this notebook that you've been given, And you are able to see in clear detail all of the visions that you received from this oracle. The vision of the Oni, Will of the Faywild, and what his true intentions are his origin in this place. You are able to see what can only be deemed, what can only be described as a horrific opera. something that I will say, I didn't fully describe at the time, but you feel has not yet come to pass. A premonition more so than a vision of the past.

Oh, wow. You think to the streets of glass and a city that you have yet to experience, but with an entity that seems all too familiar, and yet like a stranger all the same. This final vision that you've received that at least informs you that not is all as it seems. And lastly, the vision of a dear friend mixed and worked and twisted in ways it's hard to discern truth from lies. Going into this, you'd expected to have all of your questions answered, though many of them may have been. It is, as the fay are want to be shrouded in mystery.

And you find yourselves here in this room, be mushroom peddlers by your side, but giving you space. You notice that Sibon makes her way over towards the hearth and begins to make a different sort of tea. She busies herself, does not attempt to communicate with you. Sybin is still sitting in her window nook, in the little book nook, looking out over the beneath, also giving you space in time to yourselves. And though you cannot move your bodies, you cannot get up off of these seats and walk around, your voices work, your mouths still work, your minds still work. My energy has been drained beyond the point of physical exertion I no longer can move.

Oh, what's happening? Dormac is stuck. Fraze, frals, my fucking legs. I don't fix it. All of our fucking legs, Grico. All of our fucking legs are so tired, frosty. Oh, this is one hell of a bad trip.

I still have the ability to shove things up to 10 pounds with my mom. to 10 pounds with my mind. I don't know. You see a pod of plant on a shelf and it just... He's just like doing this. Sivan huffs and goes over to clean up the math. What have you done to us?

What did we just see? A series of visions. The truth of the matter, I can't say for sure, but but I was able to capture many details in the journal. Well, what the heck does any of this all even mean, man? I mean, we came here before we met the, you know, for our dinner meeting or whatever. How's any of this help?

I feel like we have more mysteries than we came in with. Ugh. Oh, I'll feel like we need a good night. Can you remind me what the last vision was? the only god, but I don't remember what that was actually. I mean, what? The final vision that you saw was your vision. Right.

And that was the island that I described. It's the one that I went to the most detail about. It was the unicorn that sprouted wings. And then you would see it shift and it looked like it was essentially a unicorn, but it sprouted wings. So you thought it was a peccasus. But then you would see it shift into what looked like a gigantic barnaw. And so it's hard to know.

The wings were the owl's wings or a Pegasus wings. Yeah. Oh. I feel like this is all just some sick fucking trick by the king. Uh. If you're afraid to keep on this? I mean, we just saw him. Didn't we?

We saw the giant fucking owl. I mean, that's gotta be. Oh, did we, do we feel? No, you wrote down, he was in a jar now. His regular saw is owl. Wait one moment. You saw that he was a regular size. Oh, yeah, wait, keep going, keep going.

What else do we say? I didn't know you're paying so much attention. Huh? He was a regular sauce out. So we do this, you know, King. I mean, look, I think whatever we do, maybe we just try to find the fucking, the city, ASAP.

And if Torbeck either, Torbeck is like maybe unknowingly some fucking rich powerful guy or at least knows that rich powerful guy, maybe he can, wait, he can just take care of all this. What if we go to that cool city and join an awesome rock band

in the other city? Wait. Do I remember that? Yeah, you were missing. Yeah, it was a city iron and glass. That was so cool. What is the, what is, What does not Frost's vision was really late? Why does Tobek get the cool visions?

Dorman doesn't know why you think that's cool. Mr. Grimmie, why do you think Dorbeck is this person or has money? You've known Dorbeck forever. Those things are not the same. But we know there's somebody inside you or there's some sort of split going on, and we know that this guy looks kind of like you, but way fucking more dappling cleaned up. And he's not a bugbear, Narva.

He's like an elf fagar, probably. That is not what you saw. So you saw that he looked more humanoid than Torbeck, but you never saw his face. Oh, he was like a man. How I interpreted it was that he just was more like, he looked more regular. You know what I mean?

He looked more cleaned up. He didn't look disheveled. He was wearing an outfit. He looked more humanoid. you would have expected very tall, very thin. But he looked like Torbeck? You never saw his face? He didn't see his fans.

Because it was kind of like from his perspective, right? Oh, yeah, yeah. He was just like a guy. Torbick just doesn't understand. Torbick doesn't know how that could be possible. Torbick has spent almost his entire life on a ventress as far as he can remember. Minus the short stint that Torbeck was horrifically tortured for roughly five years.

Wasn't that in the city, man, didn't they? Torbeck doesn't know. Torbeck would guess probably. What you do remember, you've had some visions since you rejoined Carnabola Crew. And the one that you remember having where you were strapped to the table and you saw the men in the white jackets. you, it was very clearly subterranean. Well, I feel like we're not getting to get you about with this. Because, you can't buy a pupsicle anywhere.

Oh man, you think they have popsicles here? I would need a popsicle. I can spend. I could go for a popsicle too. I don't think I could lift my arms need a popsicle. of a popsicle if I wanted to. But that one of those little long freezer ones

that like they always cut the size of your mouth you know what I mean? It's like plastic. No, but the flavor's so good, Ricko. Yeah. It's nostalgic. Don't talk about that in front of him. She can ask for it and I'm going to say I already got two bunch of boxes

and she can come and robbing, rectangle trances, popsicles. Don't, don't get her talking about that nasty, masterbeats. Hey fellas, why the fuck are we even in the Faywild? Hmm?

Huh? Why are we here? Like, I mean, what's our main fucking goal? To get out of severe debt? To who? Well. Isn't Remigaroo? Isn't he the big bad Voody Man?

Would I still remember of Remigaroo or? Nope. Would we know Remigoo? All of you, all of you forgot those memories, collectively. Wait, so we don't remember that we was in debt to Remigoo. What? Let's get out of here. Probably remember that you're in debt.

You know that you came here via a deal with Madrick and that you had a severe, like a giant, basically a dragon's hoard worth of adventuring treasure that had been collected over Madrig's lifetime that awaits you when you return home and that your goal is to freeze Abilna, who is his patron. But you can't remember what the debt's for. Who it was to? That's a good point. I wouldn't even know what you were fucking talking about it except the guy in the vision with a fucking split voice, right? My whole story was about trying to figure out and get to the bottom of who tore my kids. Uh, I'll think Lily's gonna take stuff from an old guy, right?

Well, isn't there some kind of rule? Like if you don't remember who you owe your debt to, like they don't remember you? I don't think that's that. That's how it works out. I majored in Goblin Polysy not Goblin Economics, but that doesn't sound rock to me. Oh, man. To understand the extent of our loss, does Frost remember just that moment that he described,

or does he no longer remember all of his experiences with the Cyanic Order? You remember being with the Cyanic Order, but you don't remember how you got there. you got there. So just childhood, blankness, cyanic order. You remember being with your parents. Then there's this huge chunk of your memory that's gone.

Then you remember the things that happened afterwards. I'm not thinking of that. I don't even think that would occur to me in the same, but that will eventually matter, I'm sure. So Torbeck does not know that there are voices and he does not know. No? He does not know. And he-

What Torbeck remembers is being accosted and accused by these people. of having stolen Clementine. Yep. And having lied to and been disingenuous with the carnival. And then you remember being thrown into the Fay Wild, but nothing from the moment that you were tossed through the mirror. I'm just here because D'Orbeck is here because his friends are here. And then the only thing that you remember,

I would say you would remember not the fight with them in Twigs in, but you remember the moment that you were having bowed. put in your hair and you were being cleaned up and you were Torbeck again. Okay, all right. There's that. Torbeck is missing a lot of time. So we're in debt, right? Yeah, we know that there's some rich guy that's gonna fix it for us. Yeah, we're just gonna take Mr. Rosloff's all of his stuff. We're gonna take all the stuff when he does. Well, that doesn't sound so bad. And then Kreming was like, oh, what to do? There's ways to speed up an inheritance and he held up like a pillow.

Oh my God. Did I say that? Yeah. I mean, it sounds like me. I don't remember. You don't remember that? You know, like, ha, ha, that's my special move.

Don't you remember it? That's my special move. Yeah, what a hair, what a hair. Half of us were into it. Half of us weren't. We lost that coin flip. We did. It was a cute pillow, though.

You know. So then I wouldn't, do I remember the vision? Because that was one of the main visions of Torbeck's other. I remember that one. What do you mean? So we only don't remember the stories. Yes. We remember every vision except one,

which was the Twig Babayaga one, which was removed. So we remember all other visions. That we could try to find this mysterious guy in the vision, but we would have no idea that he's any connection to me. that he's, that we think that he's potentially the other. Oh, shit. Because we don't know about the owner. Same thing with Agden.

Torbeck just went crazy. But we remember Agden. You remember Agden, you remember that Torbeck killed him, but there was no transformation into something else. I see. And we just had a pleasant evening at Twigs Inn, and Torbeck didn't attack us horribly. No.

You just showed up out of, out of the swamp. That's dirty and messy and you have to clean him up. So basically, there's just, you know, and also there was Dormack for this whole event. Oh yeah. Nothing to be guilty about either. Oh, right? D'Orbeck certainly doesn't feel any guilt. Dormick's just happy to be along for the ride.

Yeah, I've always on an adventure, you know. Like there's nothing. So how do we get moving again and how do we solve this debt problem? I don't even remember why we came here. What do we want these mushroom guys for again? Well, we're on some sort of a clock. Silla makes her way around and starts filling up mugs with tea, realizing very quickly that you won't be able to drink from them.

You watch as vines come down from the tree that's growing up to the second floor. And the vines are, they lift up the mugs and begin to allow you to drink. It is warm. It's refreshing. It gives you a boost of energy. It doesn't remove any of your exhaustion, but you don't feel mentally foggy anymore. You feel like you are capable of forming thoughts. You're capable of talking about this.

You're capable of dealing with the situation at hand. And as she does this, yeah, I'm really sorry about that. It's just kind of how this stuff works. You're going to have to get a good night's rest. And even then, it's only gonna help a little, it's gonna take about five days to a week before your rider's rain. That seems like a problem. It's the feeling that we have to do something. And that just seems like a lot of time to sit around and do nothing.

Are we gonna be able to fucking move tomorrow? Are you going to bed right now? Um, I mean, you could go to bed right now. We're here to talk to the Oracle. You did? Oh. Well, more so the Oracle talked to you. Wait a minute.

Was the Oracle in this room? No. Were the visions that we saw her way of communicating with us? Yeah. What does she look like? Oh, I have no idea. I've never seen them. Guys, I feel like all we can do is try to worry about the king and then killing scapuffer. And then we kill you.

And then. Well, and Will. Oh, we gotta kill Will too. Oh, we gotta kill the kid. We gotta kill the kid, man. Yeah, we gotta kill the kid first. He's up there with Oatsy. Well, no, we know we remember the plan because Will left Littleville.

Right, right. And so he was going to cause a distraction of all the tour soldiers, and we was going to pounce when the distraction happened. And so Little Oak is with Hootsie. Hopefully, hopefully it's not coke. I'm thinking that Hootzee is fine for now, but we gotta kill Will. Because is Will even possible of eating any children without being turned back? I'm not going to be supposed with any kind of attitude.

Do I remember the deadline, the timeline that the King of Hearts gave us? 13 days. So I remember that information, and do I have a guesstimation of how many days have gone by? Roll an intelligence check. I don't think actually that many days you gave it best. Well, there was, like, right afterwards, we skipped like four. Oh, wait, it'll be a disadvantage. towards it. Oh, wow.

219, it's 24. You imagine that there have been about six days or so that have passed. That's more than I thought. Yeah. Five or six days, is what I was thinking. Five days to recover is too much. We're not going to be able to accomplish all these things and then also what we need

to do for the gang of hearts. That's what Torbic was saying. We're in trouble. Or we just got to find some uppers to balance. out all these downers. Now you fucking think it's classic drug balancing. I look at Torbeck. Alright buddy, I think, I think you, your time to shine has come. Okay. What kind of shine? I think you know what kind of shine I'm talking about. No, I don't. The fucking mushroom shine sloshing around on this fucking...

Whoa! Whoa! The last time we took a little head of that, man. We were even more We're exhausted than we are now. Oh yeah, but I mean, at least in the fucking interim, we'd get fucking pumped up. We turn into celebrity frog chefs and a ram. We can't keep siphoning off which line just because for the next week, for the next week we'd have to stay up on and up, or eventually we'd crash and burn.

Are she- Seibin, did you hear that? Why? You see that Sibon looks over and nods. All right, just listen in, all right? And they both. You notice that both of their faces go placid. And it's almost, you see that their eyes don't close,

but they start to dart back and forth up and down all over the place, round and round, almost as if they're taking in visions or information, and neither one of them speaks. Well, if I want to get the witch right now, you guys are going to have to suck on my fingers. They refuse to do it. I'll be gross. I mean, Kane just fucking like stab me in the neck with one of those things.

I take that. Can't pick up his arms right now. You're gonna have to do it. What if I like just roll over up to you like this and you just like, and just, you know, right in there. Just sound you make tool bag? Hold out your finger so that you can poke him wherever he might land. You can't. You can't move. I will push you with my mind hand so that you.

you fall onto his finger hand. No, no, Torbeck's 99% sure that that won't do anything because of puncture will. You're gonna have to suck the wigs right out. Fraus, look, if you can, if you, I mean, his arms are like 30 feet long, just fucking pick up one of his wrists, bring his hand over here, hold on, I'm just gonna, just fucking try, all right?

Yeah, float his hand, float his wrist on over, and then shake his hand a little bit and let the drop. It's gonna be a little weird, Torbeck. And you feel a hand, grab your wrist. my arm ladies continues to stretch all right this is the weirdest thing

I've ever facilitated are you sure guys I'm ready to fucking party Torbick just fucking let a rip and Torbett focuses all his might like he did behind the bushes

with those stories all the time ago and is attempting to like push the witch light out through a hollow needle like finger tip from his index finger But it's very certain won't work unless crummy sucks on spanker.

Roll a constitution saving. Well, just a constitution check. And disadvantage. No, maybe it'd actually be, I'm trying to think. Yeah, I'm going to go with Constitution. Saving throw, or just check? Check. It'll be a disadvantage.

So whatever I get plus my con, which is going to be plus four, so that's a fine. Okay, Frost is able to manipulate your arm, and it does stretch. It elongates far longer than you would expect, almost like a slinky. What are you doing? He's working the finger. He's working the finger. He's John Milton.

Frost, you watch as the hand itself is invisible. It's a mental hand that exists for Frost to manipulate. late. But you do notice that the flesh and fur does seem to move about as the finger, the long extended fingernail is slowly shoved into the throbbing vein on Cremies neck. You, you are, but the hand is it. The nail itself abeds deep into your vein. Very, very, Slowly, almost excruciatingly slowly, as this hand is trying to manipulate doing this mentally, and you wait.

But the machinery on Torbeck's back does not bubble. It does not activate. You see nothing to insinuate that the witchlight is pumping into your veins at all as blood begins to drip down the side of your neck. Ah, the word. Ah! Torbeck told you not the vein.

I mean, it's a suck on it. I didn't try to hold you. Frost, you keep working the finger. No, no, it's not gonna work. Keep it the fuck away from my mouth. Put it in his mouth, Frost. We have to try every possibility. Wait, hold on, what happens?

This gives me an extra level of exhaustion. Oh, nobody knows. We don't know. I had died. Here comes the airplane. Well, I'll think this. This campaign turned into edge of which life. That's funny. It's not working.

Torbeck and feel it's not working. I don't have any other way to help you other than to hold this here. All right. Enough. Enough. It was a nice stuff. We can't solve all of our problems with drugs.

Since you. How do we tell? You're always such a downer, man. We need to set a good example for Hootsey. Even if we are sleepy, we have to what is it? Don't do sleep and get eight hours of drugs. That's what Jeremy's trying to say.

Oh, that's exactly right. That's exactly right. Stop and reverse it. We need to don't do drugs and get eight hours of sleep. That's what we would tell Hootsie to do. Let's sleep it off, lads. We've gotten our visions. We know that we have, wait, 13.

Six days of past, you said Frosty. I don't think it's about six. It could be five. It could be seven. So that means we have... On the standard deviation. What the hell kind of count is that? Hold on.

Hold on. He means give a take a day again. Oh, man. That means that we have two weeks to deal with the King of Hearts plan. No. So we have two.

No, that means that. Oh. That was real Mikey, Matt. That was not in getting. That's very funny. That's very funny. 13 days. Uh-huh.

And then five are passed. One, two weeks. It still is my view. Technically, you can't do this, but I'm like it. No, no, no, no, I like this. one two weeks two weeks

two weeks this is giving Sylvie two weeks to go seven to nine days huh we have seven to nine days let's assume we have one week well you said it was five to seven

wouldn't that be like eight to six no he said five to seven to past yeah yes so 30 minus five is eight right eight and then 13 minus 7 is 13 6

like I said We can't get this Every again It's become unlawfully clear Who's done the drugs around here None Look much of people Please don't you got some kind of tea

That'll just like make this all better We can get on with our fucking day What are you? No no we got a sleep We can't just result to drugs Cunning Oh come on Please why would you tell us that now?

We just did five hours of shrooms In a deep dark air It is in this moment that both of the mushroom peddlers immediately begin to move around. Well, we get it with it right now. This is absolutely horrible. How did she find out?

Well, I don't know. We've got to figure out what to do with them. Pincushion, can you help? Pincushion immediately jumps to attention. And you realize that she too also looks incredibly horrified. I don't know how she found out. It wasn't me. I didn't tell her.

Well, it doesn't really matter, does it? Because she's on her way right now. In case you didn't get this, we were talking with the other mushrooms through the mycelium network and Granny Nightshade's on her way right now looking for you guys. Oh, my God.

What do you mean? What do you mean? She's like, round the mushrooms here right now? Don't, don't tell her we're not here. There's nothing I can do about that. Just throw us like a blanket over us or something. I don't think that's going to hide you. Oh, no.

You can't even move. Dig a hole. Dig a hole. We're in awful, we're in all the, we're not, no, no, no, no. I don't know what we're gonna do. Simon, do you know what we're gonna do? Gentlemen, I think I have enough mental energy

to break my own neck, but not the floor of you. No, no, no, do me, please, you're on your own. No, you're gonna have to pick up torments, just pick up torments and not even stab her with it. It's our only line of defense. All right, all right, all right. Get my pink flow.

Clearmorpe's history. Clear my brows and history. Clare my brows and history. He's dead. He's gone. He stabbed his own neck, Greg. I'll hold up the wrist of Torbeck in a defensive posture. The may hand is trying.

It can only hold about 10 pounds and Torbeck has a long but very dense arm. And it is struggling. The hand is jolting. The fingers are limp. The fingers are limp. No! Frost your hands is straight and Dorex Fendix finger. You can't do all listen once and also remove the hand.

I lie is to depend on it. Frost, you gotta do what he says. You gotta get the finger excited, man. You can't feel it. Hold on. Just don't make him sneeze. Does anybody have a dagger? Oh, what are you, dude?

I'll make him sneeze. Surely one of us has a dagger on them that I could possibly pick up and wield with my mind-made. Yeah, well, I got the remorse. You think you're gonna be able to take out Granny Nightsheet with a dagger in your She's not going to see it coming. She's going to walk in through the doorway and I'll just slip it into her ear. Oh, Kitty has a knife.

I do have a knife. It's like a fancy Elvis knife or something. Oh, yeah. So her back trying to steal it once. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's way less than 10 pounds, man. All right, where is it? Well, it's in down my pants.

I'm kidding. It's in my jacket. I just wanted to see how I felt. I'm told that I'm talking neck pants. The Phantom Stranger. Here, here, here, people who goes back, now. Okay, okay, hold on.

Hold on. Oh, my God, it's making you. Oh, my God. Oh, no. Oh. Oh. You can meet him somewhat. Oh, no.

Oh, good. Oh. Oh. Oh. Never to find the knife. Roll a investigation check at disadvantage. I'm fired. A natural 20 and an 18, what the fuck?

I'm gonna dread you. I'm gonna dread you. Yeah, that makes sense. I'll use the dread die. Oh, this has to work. You have boost dies. You're a dagger's gonna work. That's a natural one in the air.

You, you... I think I found it. Wait, the daggers get harder. No, I'm not to strive. Maybe now. We have to use the power of cornered animals. You are all unable to move. You are panicking.

You are loud. Saibin is running around, not sure what to do. Both of the mushroom peddlers are panicking. They are far too small to move any of you. And you see, you, you just, take stock of everything that's happening, listening outside, you can hear the faint, what almost sounds like creaking, slow, like almost metal on metal. And it is, it sounds like it's echoing throughout the tunnels. It seems to be quite a ways away from now, but it is, it is clear

that whatever it is, whoever it is, is moving closer towards this place. And you all notice pincushion. She's standing there. She looks horrified and shaking, possibly realizing that caught here with you, she would be in incredible trouble. She looks up at you and though pin cushions, dolls of this nature can't cry, she looks like she's on the brink of tears. She pulls the long heart pin out of her patch. I could poke you with this and alter your forms. If it's gonna give us another level of an exhaustion, then we can't do it. No, no, it wouldn't.

Just poke crummy first. Yeah, poke crummy first. We're all in agreement, Mr. Grimmy! What are the ads that just fucking freak you'll do anything? What are the ads that just fucking kills me out, Rye? It won't, I promise. Damn it.

All right, do it anyway. She rushes over to you and she begins to climb up your pant leg and then climb up your lapels. As she sits on your shoulder, this is going to hurt a moment, I'm so sorry, and she takes the heartpin and shoves it directly into your neck. Immediately you feel this strange magic's overcome you

as you begin to shrink and shrink and shrink. Your body changing where there had been crummy. You all watch as there is now an out alligator of bone. Your body is figurine-like. Your joints are pinned together. They would be able to move if you weren't undergoing points of exhaustion. And your eyeballs, instead of being eyeballs, have been replaced with dye. And as you move your head, the dice roll. Oh, that's really cool. It's like a fucking demon scrabble. Pin cushion easily has at one point in your shrinking, removed herself from your shoulders. You are smaller than even she is. She's about two feet, well, no, I think I described her

being about one feet tall, so you're about the same size as pin cushion. Oh, I'm pretty big, and, I'm pretty big, and one of a foot tall. No, I guess, no, you'd be about an action figure size, so probably about six inches. Like six to eight inches. Yeah, six to eight inches.

Small enough for the mushroom peddlers to be able to pick you up. You immediately see Saibon rush over to you, grab you, and you're, you have no control of your limbs, So your joints flop this way and that, your head lulls to the side, but she's able to pick you up and place you neatly on one of the bookshelves.

You're all able to turn your heads enough to see. As long as Cremie remains motionless, in this form, he looks like a knick-knack on a bookshelf and nothing more. You could if you wanted to, yeah. Oh, my God! Oh, how'd I look? You look like a doll.

Oh, my God, I feel like a doll. Can you see? You'll buy a dice for eyeball. Yeah, I mean, it's so a big of my vision. You can see. Right now, yes, you imagine if you weren't five levels of exhaustion, you can have control over all of your. I tell you not to throw up, but I don't think you have a stomach that you can throw up.

No, I mean, I don't know, I feel like kind of weirdly constitution. You know what I mean? The creaking of metal is loud. Oh, fuck, just do it, do it, do it, do it, do it. Stammer. Do you do a joke back next. Do you tollback next. She leaps down off of, what did you say?

Just stab us. You can't, I was going to you. Act quickly, just put the pin in my neck. Torbick are you. Oh, this is about a thing of matters. She leaps over to Torbeck and shoves the pin into your neck. Torbeck. Torbeck.

Your body begins to shrink and change, as where had once been this. this bug bear is now what looks to be a hairy doll, almost like a stuffed animal, but the body inside beneath the matted fur is a base made of clay, brittle, but with one single crack that runs all along the length of you, almost as if this toy had been broken in two

and pieced back together at some point. Put the door back on the Chanel, click! Both the mushroom peddlers grab you and put you on a different shelf. They lean you up against some of the books and you, for anyone looking on, you look like yet another knick-knack. Pincushion moves from Grico to Frost to a Gideon,

and all of you undergo this same transformation, Frost transforming into the statuette of a crystal cat, a glass statuette that reflects the light in this place, holding up a ball of yarn, its tail looking like it's mid-twitch. As you, no, not the lucky cat. That's incredible. As they grab you and also place you on the shelf. Grico, you are turning into.

Oh, she's my mind. You say this as you are turned into what appears to be a wooden puppet, almost like a ventriloquist puppet. your mouth painted on looking like it could be manipulated and moved by someone else as you are picked up and moved over and placed on on the shelf. And finally, you, Gideon, as you shift and change, your form turns into a metal man. All of your, all of your seams held together with metal pins, the paint chipping off of your metal facade. but you are small enough, they're able to pick you up and also place you on the shelf. And in this way, you watch as all, are you, you look around and to anyone looking,

this would seem completely normal, especially in a home like this. Pincushion runs around in circles panicking as she's not sure what to do before she makes her way and jumps on top of the small seat in the book nook that overlooks the beneath. She spins around a couple of times, and then you watch as her head lulls to the side and she flops down a rag doll hoping not to be recognized did twig transform with Gideon or she's still there

She is a small wooden doll affixed to Gideon's back Part of the action thing yeah, but not made out of the same material that he's made of Two for one can I still speak into the minds of any of the creatures? Yeah, you still have the your abilities your powers your powers your power The coolest one. Dumbing! Who's the dummy? You're the dummy. That's very funny. You can be quiet now. You know, I don't think it's going to be long before she's here.

We're going to pretend like we've never seen you. Don't say a word. Don't make any movements. Don't get involved. And no matter what happens, all right? It's for the best she never knows you are here. Got it? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm also contractually obligated to just say, I've got a woody. That was all right. They chuckle a little bit, and you watch as Saibin rushes over to the booknook and adjusts one of the pillows so that it blocks pin cushion from view of the door, and then takes the book she'd been reading and leans it up against the wall, further shrouding her from view, hoping that this is. This will be enough that Granny Knight Shade upon looking around this place will not either notice her or recognize her. And then they take their cups of, they remove your cups of tea.

They quickly try to remove any remnants that you had been in this domicile. And in the very last moments you can hear the sound of shuffling feet and that same grinding of metal on metal moments before the door itself bursts open. And a gush of cold subterranean air blasts through this place. They quickly jump onto the downed log that they have fashioned into a couch and begin to sip tea so quickly that if you hadn't been here to watch it, it would have seemed like they had been in this position for hours.

The figure that lurks in the doorway shrouded in shadow, the lily lamps, that lined the subterranean cavern that you had traveled to get to this place, have hushed, their light dimmed, almost as if by magic, maybe from this person. And the form is squat, hunched over, clearly old. A shawl pulled over her shoulders.

That grinding sound, almost a clicking sound now, as she turns slightly to move her large body through this tiny door, you're able to see what is making that noise. On her back is a key embedded into her back, turning very, very, very slowly. You remember having talked about scabatha and some of the things that are innate to her. And what you had been told is this key. This key indicates her emotions.

When it is moving quickly, she is clearly. happy and jubilant, but the slower it gets, the more angry she clearly is, lest anyone bring that key to a full stop who knows what horrible things could happen if you were in a room with her at the time. The key moves slowly and slowly as she makes her way into the room. Both the mushroom peddlers completely silenced themselves, their teacups shaking in their hands as they look towards Scabbatha Nightshade. They're a silence. It lingers a little too long,

long enough that you all begin to feel unnerved before one of the mushroom peddler speaks. Oh, Scabatha, what brings you to the beneath? Would you like a cup of tea? Go ahead and sit down. You hear the sound of her feet dragging against, the earthen floor. I am not here to drink with you.

You are harboring fugitives in Cesar. I have heard from the goblin merchant that they are here. You let them into the house. You let them into room lurch when I was not home. That is what I've been told. My little pin cushion. Where is she?

Both of them shake. Oh, we don't know what you're talking about. Oh, Granny, like, we were just down here, you know, doing what we're told, harvesting all that witchlight for your crops. We definitely are not harboring any fugitives. You could smell them with your great big bobbous nose. She... Inhales.

I smell lingering fungus in here. You two are brewing something you should not be. If you are telling Granny... All no, Granny, we definitely both promise. You know, we would never try to pull one over on you because we know we'd never get our sister back if we did something like that. And at this rate, you will not ever see your sister again.

No, no, no, little liars get nothing from Granny. I will look around, and if I see anything strange, you will both pay the price. Oh yeah, of course. Go ahead and look around. I mean, our home is your home. If you want tea, we'll give it to you. I am not going to be fooled by you and your drinks. Not put me to sleep this time, you little tricksters. Oh, we would never, that was an accident, we just grabbed the wrong. Hush, you will be quiet. Or I will take you now and let them rot here in the beneath. Without you, they have no chance of reaching upstairs.

And you watch as she shambles, her key is slowing even more. As she makes her way around the room, she looks all along the tree trunk that extends to the bedroom. You actually watch as she slowly hobbles her way up the stepstone mushrooms. And you can hear her walking around upstairs as she looks. No, nothing unturned. As she's up there for a good 20, 30 minutes as you sit in silence. You can watch both the mushroom peddlers absolutely shaking and fear,

looking back and forth between each other, horrified. You glance over to pincushion and you can see that she is completely still. Whatever magic she has for anyone looking on, she appears as nothing more than an inanimate object. Before Granny Nightshade makes her way back downstairs and begins to make her way towards the bookshelves that you're on. She moves from spine to spine, book to book. looking. At one point she sees Frost. She picks up the small crystal cat. This is very pretty. I don't remember seeing it the last time. You know, we have really good friends with your compost heap and it looks like one of the kids might have thrown it out and got stuck in all of his garbage and we know how much you don't like things like that, right? You like things to be a little more lifting, and it was too pristine.

So he let us have it if that's all right. I mean, we can give it back if you want it, but we just, we didn't think that you would, I would like you to shut up. No, this would not fit in with my collection. It is too glass like wood. She puts it down. She continues to look around. she eventually makes her way to the puppet

and she pushes Grico to one side. You slam against the other side of the bookshelf. She seems completely disinterested in you as she continues to move on, eventually coming to the metal man. She picks you up, Gideon, and she looks at you. This one looks like something more you would have found. It's like a miniature less interesting and less valuable,

less useful version of one of my toy soldiers. You may keep this one as well, and she puts him back on the shelf. She continues to look from book to book. You see that she grabs a couple of books and puts them in her satchew, both of the mushroom peddlers, reach out like they're going to tell her to stop,

but they recoil, clearly not wanting to lose these stories that they've collected before they eventually get to you, Kremi. Oh, God. They look at you and... This one is interesting. He's born, this one. And with her long fingernails, she flicks at one of your eyeballs and watches it roll and roll and roll until eventually it lands on a one. She flicks the other one and watches as it rolls and rolls and rolls until it eventually lands on a one.

There's a snake eyes in my snoot. Oh, it even talks. Maybe I should keep this one. She smells it. This one smells like a scent that was new to my parlor when I got home from my sister's house. How interesting and shaped like an alligator. Did you know that one of the trespassers is

an alligator himself. No, we definitely didn't know that, Granny, because we haven't met them, you see. That one is actually something, and what kind of picked up a new hobby? I carved myself. Oh, you're saying you curve, I can't do it, I'm trying to,

I'm switching between ways it's hard. You're saying that you carved this yourself with those tiny little mushroom hands. You work for me. You make the witchlight and you steal stories for Granny. You don't do things in your time off. You have no time off. You belong to me.

Do you covet this? You want to keep it? No, actually, I don't even like it at all. I thought it was kind of, the snouts a little too small, and I drew a fake mustache on it. Like, why? That's just stupid. Why would I ever do that?

And I showed it to Saibin, and she thought it was silly. And we would, I mean, the thing is we were, I, she holds up her finger. You will be quiet. You talk too much. She tosses it onto the ground, and you see as a bit of cremmy flakes off, a bit of bone chips away. To update something.

As she slowly begins to move on. Finally, rounding the corner, she passes where pin cushion is nestled. And she passes the spot and then quickly turns and looks, staring at the window itself that looks out at the beneath. But it's easy to tell from where all of you are except for Cremie, who is looking from the ground. You're all able to see she's not looking through the glass into the beneath. She's looking at the reflection on the glass. The lamps in here shining their light, causing reflection of a pin cushion on the settee there.

She walks over, I thought you didn't have my little pin cushion. And she picks her up by the collar of her dress, and she begins to shake her. This is mine. What is your explanation for this? I see I see

our way there She raises her finger one more time That is going to be enough No no no This will not do Reach for the die She looks over towards you And she kicks you up against the wall

You feel yourself You feel yourself weakened far more than you had expected yourself to be. I'm trying to distract her a little bit from the, you know. Yeah, and it does seem to be working. You begin to notice that the key in her back has nearly come to a full stop. It is still moving, but it is barely moving at all. I would like the two of you to stand directly in front of me, my little mushroom peddlers.

And you watch as they both shakily, their glasses clinking against the, the glasses clinking against the saucer that they're on as they set them down and hop off of the stump and begin to make their way over. They're both adjusting their little outfits, moving the moss this way and that, flicking at some of the leaves in their hair. They both look incredibly horrified. She looks down and she pokes them each individually on the face. I do not need you anymore, you see. These trespassers brought with them something very special. A creature that makes witchlight within his veins. An unending thorn of witchlight for Granny is now in her realm.

And I will find him. You do not want to help. But I don't need you. to feed the bones to the soil to create the witchlight for me. And I do not. Once I find this creature, you are worthless. So you will come with me. And you see as they both begin to squeal,

but as she looks out towards them, you watch as this dark necrotic energy begins to swirl around her fingers. They both are around their hands. They both begin to yelp and run, and just as quickly as they begin to turn, you watch as their body stiffen, and they both slam against the ground.

You should not have lied to Granny. But no, I don't think the wretches are here. They're back upstairs sneaking around my home, untrustworthy maggots. I will find you. Yes, I will. She reaches down and she picks up the lifeless bodies of the mushroom peddlers and she throws them into her satchel. She turns back towards the part of the bookshelf that you are nestled on and you see her eyes glance over you for a second tour back.

But it's very clear that at this point she firmly believes she knows what the truth is. She looks around one more time, sniffs the air one final time. No, I will be taking what belongs to me. Hmm. Tonight. I will find them tonight. No. Tomorrow.

I must get my beauty sleep. And she turns and she stands in the door, looking out over the tunnel that lays out before her, before she turns her head and she looks down at you, Krami. I do like this little toy that my mushroom pet. horse of May. But it's broken now. What a shame. She slams the door behind her. You can hear the grinding of her key as it slowly speeds up. She's clearly very happy with herself as she makes her way down the cavern and away from this place. Grammy! Grammy, are you okay, man?

How do I feel? You feel wounded. You feel like a significant chunk of your health has been his depleted. And I don't have any eyeballs. You can see. You can see. She was just, they're on like a pin and they just spin. So she didn't take them.

She didn't take your eyeballs. She was just spinning them and got snake eyes. I, uh, I toy soldiers this bitch. I run to the edge of the, to the thing. You'll find a piece of thread that runs to the ground. I throw my chain over and go. Do you have the ability to move? You can't move.

I don't do any of that. I don't have toy soldiers this bitch. I would love to toy soldiers this bitch so badly. Hey something, man. I'm okay. I'm okay. Let me see if I can... Being a chip like that, it actually hurts.

It's possible that the mind end is relative to my size, but if not, then I may be able to pick up and manipulate us, and I'll reach out with my mind to see if I can pick up and manipulate for me. You attempt to, but your abilities that you had before don't seem to be working. Oh, I don't have any access. Not that you can tell. You're not sure if it's the exhaustion or the effects of this transformation that you've undergone. It's really difficult to tell, but you reach out for that hand and nothing comes. I don't think I can help. I've gone beyond the capacity for rational thought.

Guys, if any termites find me, please don't let them meet me. We can't move, Gregor. Or use any of our powers. I feel like it would be... What did they call that? Like, poetic justice? Poetic justice. Oh, because I used to turn into a monstrous, termite,

like monsters or like bad guys or whatever. And so if termites ate me... Oh, no. You got those people killed. Doreg is scared. and doesn't know what to do. We're all alone, and we're stuck. She said we could, even if we get out of these forms,

she said we couldn't get back up to the surface without those two guys. She just killed. Stuff in her silly old bag. I don't know if we'll ever be able to move again. It could be the exhaustion, but after eight hours, if we awake in, and part of our transformation is that we are in a

lifeless, limp, doll form now with just our minds. to keep us company and the voices that we can emanate out of these toy boxes. Can we even sleep? Are we doomed to never fall asleep? Well, I don't think any of us have eyelids, so... Do you think toys dream of toy sheep? Whoa. Oh, God, you don't ask these deep questions. I'm just not crying.

Foistie? Fusty? Yes, Griko. Will I dream? I don't know. It could just be oblivion. It could just be oblivion. Ah!

Does anyone see, like, lying around on the ground the pin? The pin cushion used? I mean, she took it out of her. You watched that she'd put it back into her. Well, fuck. Her heart patch. That didn't happen at all! We don't have the pin.

We don't have the help of Silla or Sybin. We don't have our bodies, our powers. We're running out of time. Unable to sleep. Debt to some. Some dreadful Something. Unable to die.

Well, it's not. It's not. And they shorted us on the visions. We told five stories and got four freaking visions. Oh, yeah. They did mention that there was going to be a cost for sharing our stories, and

perhaps it was their very lives. But we have to save Hootzy. You each got a vision. Yeah, we don't remember. They don't remember them. Oh, you're right. Oh, you're right, you're right, you're right. I work for you, Dian.

Thank you. Well, maybe Juniper will help Hootsie, even if we all died down here. I doubt it. Hoochie's a smart girl, though. She probably can sniff out that kid is a terrible only. Yeah. I'm gonna spend the rest of eternity staring out this wall.

We have no way of knowing even if there will be visitors any time in the near future. If we can't move, we could be staring where we're staring without being able to move for an eternity. an eternity. Dust, mites. We'll outlive everyone we've ever known. Okay everybody. Alright. Rose is freaking out in here, alright?

I'm actually like able to run away and degrade. You guys are fives. Grigo just shouted loud as you can, and the loudest shouter. Ah! I get big, uh, uh, the cowardly dog down with the hole in my teeth. passing the room outside was like a doll-sized Yeah, it would literally be nothing. Oh, wow. What, you think that

the shower that trash guy, you think he's like in the vicinity? He teleported this here. There's no fucking money. In my hour of need, my wooden melt unhinges and the entirety of Pink Floyd's, the Great England's I attempt to go to scream as loud as I can and encourage the cowardly dog type fashion. And you are easily able to do that.

It's exhausting, but you do it. Nobody shows up. Do you guys want to play 20 questions for the next 30 quadrillion years? Tormaine doesn't think we have to wait 30 quadrillion years because in about a week, everything we know will be gone. Frost, you start. 20 questions? Yeah. Is it larger than we are now? I'm looking good silhouette. Well, it was. Is it a vegetable? No. Is it an eminol? Yep. It was. It was. And it shrank.

Is it a, what animal shrinks? What over time? What amyno shrinks? Oh, is it a worm? No. A buffer fish. Oh, that's nice. They shrink over time.

Or like a dandelion. Nope, no. A dandelion is not an animal, Gideon. Oh man, 20 questions always so hard. It really is. How many questions do you have to have? Oh, 12. That can.

That was so bad. Oh, no! Oh, no! I love him. Oh! So, are yelled as loud as I could? I have to hope that Hootie's a smart girl, she'll be able to sniff out

that Will isn't only and need to die, and she will tailor his throat out, which is very capable of. She's a very capable young lady. Here's what I'm telling myself as I rot away and up by termites and I'm on wood and all my joints are going to swell. Who's going to rub her tummy, man? Juniper will. She'll find juniper and they will be able to live our bear happy lives forever and ever and leave the Fay Wild behind.

Why doesn't matter? It's all just going to end in maternity anyway. Oh, I have an idea. Grico, do you have some way to, like, you know, call a badger to dig in from the walls and maybe you can, like, smash us up so that we, you know, put us out of our fucking misery. What the hell?

You know, you can chomp on us or slash us up with his clothes? Hey, wait, if Graco can't summon a badger to do that, why can't the badger just take us home? That seems a little more difficult. Let me try. What are we going to do is toys that can't? I'll try to use my badger call. You then used to work on this with some of the other kids in my town. I have a very good badger call I want in a wall.

Badger! Badger get over here! Badger are you good chicken! There's hot lady badgers over here. Hot local badgers in your area! They want you. I wish I was a badger. What I'm looking for you? You stop calling you. You're gonna watch this video alone? Why? We need a hot local batches in your area.

We sit in silence for four hours. You do. You're just like, any minute now. Bill's a need. No. A rhyming word game that's very enjoyable. It really works to the mind. We can do that.

Alright How's the word I'll give you two words And Oh not this fucking The solution to the two words That I give you Are two rhyming words that are synonymous

In the first and second word that I give you So as an example If I said goofy goat What rhyming words Silly Billy Where'd that voice I'm here? There's somebody else here

Silly Billy I'll see you One of the books opens and speaks. No, Badger does it. No, no, no, no, no. Oh, guys. Do you think the mushroom peddlers are okay? No, Bricko, I don't, I don't think they are.

Why do you don't think they're okay? What happened to them? I think we saw them get instantly killed in front of our own eyes. How did they get instantly killed? I don't know, horrible hag magic. And then it got shoved into a bag. I was facing the wall. I'm in the corner here. She kicked me really hard.

Oh, yeah, she kicked me too. Wait, they died? Yes, they were lifeless when they were taken out. I suspect that they were killed instantly and that she was going to use their mushroom bodies for some nefarious ritual. This is a nice. Well, let's look at the broadside.

Let's look at the broadside. Uncle Gulo always said, fine, fine, you can be that cat. You are that cat. But you're still made him glad. class, okay? Uncle Blobba always said to look at the bright side. Maybe she's gonna make a nice autumnal suit

instead of using you terrible ritual. Rodent dwelling. Mouse house. Yes, see, griming. And you do this. God! Oh, magic! Go kill us!

Magic! Magic! You do this? We're falling barn down here. The whole line. trying to inch towards the edge and like aim for something to show. Falsifying pork, Gideon.

Faddle. No. That's a rhyme at all of it. That is a rhyme at all? Fulsifying pork. Oh. I want to know how staggy cheese is coming to mind right now. That's what doesn't rhyme.

Come on, Gideon. You can get it. I believe in you. Come on, you can get it. You can do it. And you try to get Gideon to get Gideon to get it. get this one for a couple of hours and eventually you all fall asleep.

Give me a minute. He was so stupid. But he was just the dumbest. No, but seriously, you play this game for hours. This is all you really have to do. The lily lamps eventually begin to dim on their own. And you are shrouded in darkness. The fire that was roaring in the hearth slowly fades away into just burning embers

before nothing at all. The temperature in here begins to cool. This is subterranean, and without the heat of the hearth, this place becomes frigid. Eternal darkness. But you do eventually fall asleep. Your sleep. That's a relief.

You do fall asleep. Your sleep is peaceful. and uninterrupted. You all roughly wake up around the same time. The lights, the lily lamps have begun to glow a little bit more. Some of the bioluminescence from the beneath shines in through the window. The lily lamps in the outside towards the front of the house shine in through those windows. And there is light in here, though it is still cold, the fireplace, nothing but ash at this point.

but you all wake up to find yourself that you, to find that you do not have any levels of exhaustion. You can still taste the remnants of that final tea on your tongue, the tea that Silla made for you right after you had finished your visions. And you wonder if maybe that had something to do with this, but you feel invigorated. You begin to move your bodies. You hear the clack of bone.

The clink of glass, the creek of wood, all of you are still in the forms that you had fallen asleep in. And you feel different from the way that you had before. Frost, you attempt to once again summon your mind hand, and you can't. Those innate powers to yourself are gone. Grico, you continue to call for the badger that never came, and the badger continues to not come. Did we enjoy a long wrap? You enjoyed a long wrap? But...

Oh, no. No, no. It's a long wrap. It's a long restaurant. Conditions. Conditions. All of you. all of you find yourselves in these new forms, unsure of how long you will remain this way.

You are able to move. And so you climb down the bookshelves and you make your way over towards the fire. And though it is ash, there's still some heat that remains in the stones. And because you're small enough, it's warm enough here that you're able to reinvigorate yourselves. as you begin to get used to your new forms. And all of you realize that the magics that you have had before have been replaced. You are all poised now for all intents and purposes. Gideon, the man of metal. You have a new ability.

You have five hit points. You can be hit five times before you die. Anytime you take damage, it will take one of your hit points. and you, the only way to regain them is to come into contact with a toy maker that can repair your body. Oh, fuck. Sleep does nothing for you, but you also don't need it in any way. You can stay up as long as you would like. And you can use your ability.

You are different than the rest. You can use your ability five times in one day. But your ability is different. Oh, something gets nine. This is called end of the line. Your metal body shifts and changes as you transform into a steel locomotive. You now function as a land vehicle.

You can hold up to 10 creatures. Your size are smaller. You can reduce that number by two instead of one to accommodate a creature one size larger than you. While in this form, your speed is 120 feet. While stationary, you are indistinguishable from a toy train and any writers are also indistinguishable alongside you.

Whoa. While in motion, creatures roll at disadvantage to determine your true nature. However, once transformed in this way, you remain transformed until you either come to a full stop and then move again. You can come to a full stop, and then the moment you try to move,

you revert back to your toy engineer form. Or you come into contact with water. For this train is powered by coal and steam. And water is its nemesis. Carnival a crew con. You only have one way to damage anything, and that is your punch ability, which is five foot of range plus five to hit,

and one D4 plus five bludgeoning damage. Wow. Oh, you will see that you have, you can ignore the two-a-day abilities, because obviously yours is five, that's why I colored them in. And then you have your HP. Grico, you are the wooden wonder,

and you have an ability called, okay. Okay. You choose a creature within range, which is 60 feet, and you may speak through their mouth for them for the duration, which is one minute. Their voice remains their voice, but is replaced by words of your choosing. They have no idea that their voice is being manipulated

in this way. There is no save for this ability. It automatically succeeds. Wow. You have the claw ability, plus five to hit, 1D4 plus four slashing, and five feet of range. You can use this ability two times. I've seen the entirety of Pink Floyd's Green gig in this guy.

And then I do that. And that's two. Torbeck, you are the creature of clay. And your ability is doom and gloom. Yes. You can also use the rest of you are two times. You can use these abilities. You cause every creature within a 20-foot radius sphere

within range, which is 60 feet, to be overcome with feelings of their own mortality and impending doom. This overwhelming sense of existential dread causes every creature within the sphere to become stunned by gloom for the duration, which is 10 minutes. There is no save against this ability.

It automatically succeeds. You also have claw. Let's go. These are really nice, fucking cool. These are beautiful. Thank you. Thank you.

Frost, the Crystal Cat. Finale's Funkong. No. Did Grito just make me say words? Because you're in time. Light hits your body and creates a beam of light 10 foot wide and 120,

and 120 feet. long. Any creature caught in the beam of light becomes blinded for the duration, which is one minute. There is no save against this ability, and it automatically succeeds. You also have a claw attack. You'll notice that every single one of the names of these is related in some way to that one. To which one? So his is, I mean, I'm just going to pull back the veil. His is the name of Lux's old alt. Every single one of your abilities, except for Grickos, is the name of a League of Legend characters alt that I thought represented your character well. So yours is Graves.

Oh. Yeah, it's one of his abilities, yours is vexes. Cremies is obviously gonna be Tom Kench. And there was not one for Grico, but Ramos always says okay, so I just say it. That's pretty good. That's very good. Cremies is called devour.

You devour the bad luck of everyone within a 10 foot by 10 foot cube that you can see within range, which is 10 feet from you. turning their luck into good luck for you and your allies. For every creature whose luck is devoured in this way, you gain one natural 20 for you or your allies. One natural 20 of this type can be held.

Only one natural 20 can be held by any creature at any given time. There's no save for this ability. It automatically succeeds. However, Cremie, you will notice that you are missing two points of health. The damage that was done to the previous day does pass from day to day. Right, we've got to find a toy maker. Oh, no. But as you will notice, there is nothing on your sheets that tells you when these abilities refreshed, that you have two uses of them.

Can I also have the spell knock? No, but see, you were not supposed to be this. You get the spell creak? Yeah, we need creak. Well, we need greater creak. Greater Creek is more. Greater. This podcast is brought to you by our Patreon.

Become a patron today at Patreon. slash Legends of Aventrys and gain access to tons of exclusive perks, including a monthly movie night and a weekly Patreon exclusive campaign set on the high seas, shroud over salt marsh. You can also go to the crooked moon.com to pick up your own copy of our first published supplement, The Crooked Moon, a folk horror tome for Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition. And don't forget to snag all of the extra goodies like dice, miniatures, plushies, a tarot deck, and more. You've all mobilized and you are up for the day, you are by the hearth, you are enjoying the remnants of warmth left over by the coals that still smolder within the ash.

And you are getting used to these new forms and coming to terms with these innate abilities that you understand yourselves to have. You know that what lies ahead of you is making your way out of this place. And what you do now is up to you. I'm a crystal cat. I'm a wonder. I'm a wooden. The wooden wonder is what they call me. I was going to name you the wooden weirdo, but I was like, I'm changing to wonder.

I'm the bookie of bone, fellas. So. Optimus Gideon. I made the man a middle. Are you going to transform and roll out? Yeah, exactly right. That's not even a joke. Okay.

So we can move now. We've rested. So we have learned that miraculously, we can sleep as toys. We know that scavify kill those poor little mushroom folks. We know that we have to find a way, to perhaps...

Oh! I have a great idea. I think we have to deal with scapefowl by using our toy powers so she's none the wiser, eh? Hey? But we're so small. And she's so big. Well, that never stopped me before.

Damn, she's way more powerful than we are as toys. That it stopped. How many times? She, like, pulling it? She, like, pointed at the mushrooms and killed them instantly. Yeah. Are you fucking getting me? What if that was just like an anti-mushrum spell?

I was just got mushroom-seeking rockets. Perhaps she just has blight. Yeah. That's exactly right for me. Look, as far as I'm concerned, now that we can move, we can go find the badger and have the badger fucking kill us. No! No, we can't give up on life.

Now that we can move and it's, like, not being torn apart by a badgerer, was just slowly, you know, living on until the universe ends. Oh my God, the badger's here now! We run from the Badger. Torbeck immediately charges the Badger with all his mighty swipes it, and it's just like, and then the Badger's Richmond just drives him. The rest of you run, though, as Torbeck is being torn, play from the line.

When you're trying, just like there's play from Lange everywhere. The rest of you run, and it's this epic anime chase scene where you're running down the, it's like in Galavans, when they're running from those weird, wormy creatures. I actually know what you're talking about. Can we get on to the Gideon train and have a quick Jurassic Park scene?

You could, yeah, if he wants to use one charge. Oh, the bitch is it's time to overthrow the eggs. Don't use, don't use, don't use, there's plenty of uses. Oh, the train? Yeah, five uses. We don't even know we can open the mushroom door yet. I turn to the train.

All right. Sweet, Jesus. I stop to roll the hat. No, Bob. Choo-choo-choo-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-oh. Oh, wow. You can do better than LaCrucann. No, I can't.

I couldn't even figure out the rhyming pig thing. Think about all the headlines they used to write about us. Con-of-L-L-A-Crew. Roll out. Con. Unnerval of Crewe. It has to end in con. Otherwise, it doesn't sound like Decepticon.

What are like Karnikon? Oh. Carnies. Damn that's, that's good. Maximal didn't end in a con. Maximal con. Roll out Maximal Kahn. possible cons.

Could be the maximals? The maximal. Those are the coolest. No, no. We've got to have con because you're a con artist and I guess by proxy we're all kind of con artists. Yeah, I'm going to have a carnival. You know what I'm saying?

It's the bookie's box car. As you all get into the train and you begin to propel forward away from Torbeck being eaten by this rogue badger that I hadn't intended to be there. It's an absolute massacre. Very strange experience to ride you, Gideon.

I've heard that before. Oh, yeah. You are able to grab four back and make your way. All of you climb into this train. I'm on, everybody. It's time to go for a ride. The inside is plush and comfortable. It's warm as the steam engine begins to propel forward,

going 120 feet. Oh, shit. Yeah, it's, you're literally like a plight. as you're going through. You've done this before. You do eventually, very quickly, get to, it takes you about half the amount of time to get to the mushroom circle

that you had traveled here for. Do you stop, or do you continue propelling through the beneath? Oh, what? There's no brakes on this train, get you, keep going, keep going. Contrary to what he says, there are breaks on this train. No brakes on this train, Donable becones.

Let's keep going. There's a dining train. It's the last one in the bunch. Very, very odd. All served with whiskey. This is whiskey and salads, oh.

There's nothing on table. You need to do it straight to hell. Go straight to hell. Leave this table and go to hell. You guys have some nasty things, but that's the nasty thing. I can't say it. I can't. It's appropriate.

I understand that we're a mature stream, but that was a bridge too far. That was a little bit on the pale, but I apologize. That's weird funny. It was very funny. So you are choosing not to stop at the, at the teleportation circle. Somebody tell me what to do. I don't like thinking. Does it feel like we could explore this crazy, like underground cavern?

I mean, you feel like you're going to be a train as long as you don't stop, so you feel like you could make your way in. I will say you do understand that subterranean caverns can be maze-like, and you have never been down here. You're going at incredible speed. The likelihood of getting lost is significantly higher than it would be if you were even on foot. You're also six inches tall. You're in a basically toy train.

So you have to weigh your odds. You also don't know what else lurks deeper in this cavern. Look, fellas, those pigs didn't stay in a fucking chance on the other side of that mushroom circle. So maybe we try to fucking figure out some kind of cure-woboed down here. What happened to oink? Oh, oink is a stuffed pig hanging on your back back. Oh.

A snail number two. I forgot he's here. I did too. He's dead. No, no, dude His saddle! No! No, he's just a magical item. He's just a saddle with him. He's just a saddle.

Okay, so you just have the saddle like hanging off of you. Oh, your belt. God, that's incredible. Well, to the mushroom circle, then. Okay. Wait, hold on.

That was your pitch, no, my pitch was staying in the beneath and try to find some crazy-ass fucking mushroom that'll turn us back. Can you just do this? I think we should look for supplies. I can't imagine we're going to find the solution to our doll problem. I mean, how are we even transformed with a pin from pin cushion?

Yeah. That could be the only mechanism that allows us to transform back. Well, maybe we should just leave then. I don't know. I don't really care what we do. You guys decide. Why are you so down in the dumps? Is it because half of you got broken off?

Yeah. I just don't feel like myself these days. How come you keep wanting a badger to kill you? Yeah, what? Why death my badger revolve? It doesn't have to be a badger. It could be really anything. They're just really a fish.

Yeah. They're just big enough that, you know, it would know that it was killing me, but it wouldn't take much for it to do so. You know, there was like a band would step on me. It wouldn't know that it ended me. All in the feelings of tent. Remian, as dark as that is,

it does bring up the point that we may need to find some sort of allies. And it's hard to imagine what kind of creature we could trust in our current forms. Well, that's, yeah, that's exactly right. I mean, we would show up in that fucking disgusting, smelly Tiffany guy. Oh, even that guy could fucking destroy us in about two seconds. Gideon. Do you know how long you can sustain this form as a train? Perfect.

How long as it was? I think so. We don't have to do this for like an hour, and then all of a sudden you're going to transform back into yourself, crushing all of us inside you instantly. I'm not used to standing on these legs. I don't think I could... I think my legs will get tired if I ride Gideon that long.

All right I'm a feet The feet are very blunt We're gonna explore the underground Gia You guys Have you been listening Through the door

You were there The Ferry Hospital Was that the one No we had our own The Pixie Hospital We had a whole grand adventure Those were direct quotes It was Fixie, the doctor

Oh I wonder how Busty's doing. Anyway, yeah, let's explore the up, deep beneath. All right, whatever you guys think. You rush straight past the teleportation circle that you know will get you if you can figure out how to work it up to the upstairs.

And you continue deep into the winding tunnels going down, down, down, down. The tunnels are, they loop this way and that. You come to forks in the road, you come to crosses in the road, You come to areas where things split, and you eventually, it just seems to be subterranean tunnels that are, some of them seem to be lit, some are not, with the bioluminescent mushrooms that line the walls. Sometimes you're just traveling through pure darkness and just taking a shot in the dark. You imagine to get back, it's going to be difficult to find your way, but you continue ever onward until you eventually spill out in. to the giant cavern

that the mushroom peddlers had looked out into from the side of their window, but you are significantly closer to the floor of this place. You see a beautiful, glittering gemstones embedded in the sides

of the rocks with pulsing with a strange blue light, very similar to the light that was in the the tea that you had drank. This entire place is slick with moisture. You see that there is an underground pool and a waterfall

that is off to the east side, splashing about coating the rocks in liquid. The walls here are smooth with moisture. You can see that this is a prime area for fungus to grow. And off in the distance, you see a faint glimmer. of magenta light. Oh, shit. I see my Okina. Oh, but...

Oh, boop-bo-bo-poo-poo-poo-poo-poo-poo-oh. Oh. This continues onward. Oh. Oh, that's it. You don't have an ocarina, do you? Oh. I'm just going...

It's made of wood here. It's like spitting a little like that's an o'-o-o- I have an o'-rear-. It's not. Exactly. It's not. it out. It has the holes painted on it. Yeah, I hollow out my hands. You take four points advantage. When Buzz Lightyear tries to work his cut home, so why can't I radio back?

Okay, start guys. I miss Torbeck. What do you mean? Well, when he was killed by that badger hours ago. We had every reason to, we could have stopped it. There's nothing you could have done. The Badger has natural armor. Holy shit, is that the cure? Magenta light. Oh, I didn't even say. I mean, at least that's what I would say if I could see.

I'm a train. I have no eyes. No, you got eyes on the front of you playing. Oh, I'm with a bullet bill. Yeah, you can see where you're driving. Yeah, like a bullet bill. You're like a Thomas the Dangman. You know, that's just a bullet bill.

You hear a deep rumbling as, um, you hear a deep rumbling as, um, you're continuing to move in circles right at the entrance to this subterranean camera. This is gigantic. The magenta light is all the way across on the other side of the cavern. Even moving at the speed that you're moving at, the winding pathways, the cliff faces, the nature of this cavern itself, and all the water areas that you would have to avoid lest you drop your... Because remember, it's if you stop or if you get wet. that your movement stops.

So all of these areas that you have to avoid to get there, you imagine it would take at least an hour to get there. This cavern is gigantic, and the tunnels, there are hundreds of tunnels that lead deeper and deeper into this place. And as you're spinning in circles and you're all looking out the windows at this place, that even in your normal forms would be gargantuan.

It would dwarf you. Why? I was not actually something funny but I thought of it. No, it's not anything to do it. No, it's not needed to do with you said. I'm sorry. It's doesn't happen to work. Making himself laugh over here.

Yeah. It was just good, right, good. Dormick will sacrifice and tell. I was told never single peters. Okay. That's pretty funny. That's inappropriate. inappropriate.

You are looking at this place, understanding that it's... Okay, anyway. No, Torbeck's one, he's right here. He's with us. He is, yes. He made it onto the train. Everything's okay. Looking at this place, that is the scope of what you realize.

And you notice that the tunnels lead in varying directions. And they seem to have been traveled. You do notice, even at a cursory glance, you can see the way that the earth is worn that there are clearly path here that have been walked over the courses of potentially hundreds of years. The other thing that you notice is far larger than even these exits are these almost perfectly cylindrical tunnels. The markings on them as if something large has moved through them. And you do hear a strange rumbling as if something is moving. moving within the earth. Is it about the circumference of the jelly worm

from the last hag dungeon? Well, that was essentially a worm made out of gelatinous cube material. You imagine this is more like a subterranean, like, have you seen tremors? Oh. I have some of it. Then it's more something akin to a tremor.

Or like a badger mole? No. Oh. Badger moles, taking the tunnels. Badger moles. coming this way To 11 Hurry guys

Help me out Guys, what are we I think there's some sort of giant monster down here Do you think this will be like Disney's Atlantis' Lost Empire Starring Jim Vani Where we'll find some magical civilization With power beyond our comprehension

That resists in it first They'll learn to sort of love our ways from the upside and turn us back to how we were. Perhaps we'll get even luckier, and they'll worship us as gods. Oh. Toy gods. I'd like to look at the hole a little closer and get a sense of like, do I have any idea of what could create this, or if it is a totally a fay creature that I would have no idea about.

Roll an investigation check. You will be rolling at a disadvantage because you're not able to walk out. up to it and inspect it. You are currently on a train that is spinning in circles so it's not to stop. And so you're only able to look at it as the train whips around and gives you view. So go ahead and roll it just a game. I like to be train driving in a figure eight. Okay, perfect. I love that. Yeah.

11. With an 11, you look at this thing and I will say that's enough for you to discern that it is clearly hewn from the stone by some kind of creature, some kind of burrowing creature. You can see from the striations on the rock that it's, body clearly fits to or at least forces itself into this space. It could potentially be larger than this space, but its body is made in such a way that it's at least able to squeeze through these tunnels and travel. You can see that there are scratch marks on the outsides of them. You can also, you also notice that there are a few of them along the walls where it looks like whatever this entity is or these entities are have burst forth from the rock in like one large motion.

And so aside from that, any, you're not able to determine body type or anything like that. This idea of a large number of these burrow holes, I feel like that would frighten me. Like a hive of fucking animals. You, you, this would be, this would be scary to you. if you were at your regular size. Oh, God. The size that you're at now, these things would be absolutely horrible.

I don't think we can stop here. I think that we have to turn around and find some other way. We haven't stopped here. I'm driving in a figure eight. I don't mean, I don't think we should be figurating here. Can we go to the pink light? Do we think we can make it? Do you think we're gonna kill?

There would be a risk. If the creature emerges and it can see, then I might be able to blind it for a brief period of time. period of time. And Gideon is really fast. We're moving so fast. Yes, we're moving as fast as we are at the size that we are. It only feels fast relative to us to normal scale.

No, I'm pretty sure mechanically we move 120 feet. 120 actual feet or our feet? Actual feet. So his feet, feet is his feet. Even his toy feet versus regular feet? I'm a bullet mill train. I'm fucking flying. He's almost like a bullet.

That's kind of what it looks like. kind of what it looks like or you're not crashing this is remarkable giddion's very skewed yeah i've been on a train for a little while it's a sad memory frosty why always ask me about this jeez you always avoid conversations about your parents gideon we should unpack that it's kind of weird being inside you gideon nothing about it's usually the other way around we've already been through this at least twice i don't think there was a magic school bushel anyway.

It's just really interesting. I don't know how we're talking to you, even you're our chum, our mate, and we're inside of you traveling very quickly. Are we hearing your voices over the speakers? Over the train. Yeah, you're hearing them. You could not talk about.

Well, everybody, just buckle on up. It's gonna be a bumpy ride at that particular life. You're essentially sending stones just placed throughout the departments. We're little magic mouths. I'll know you can get to the pink lot before we get at a barred worms. You can do it.

All right, I'll head on over there. We're serving my favorite meal of jerky and whiskey, so just buckle up. You're served salad and whiskey. I've met jerk salad, jerk salad and whiskey. It was made by a jerk in the kitchen. Yeah. Chocolate pie for dessert.

I got mug pudding. I hate it. We got it on the trade. I know I sacrifice myself to the bachelor. This, there's in travel entertainment. Oh, it's all Adam Sandler. Oh, man. This is the worst.

Begin to... You must be in a car four. Little Mickey comes on me immediately. Head to car three. It's all Pixie's going wild. Let's move over in the... No, I actually stay vigilant and I keep my eyes out for danger as we make our way towards the magenthalate. He's watching Pixies going wild to sink up.

It's being cool. That's right, my. It's four in the morning. It's all green. It's all green. Warning, warning. Is your parapetal paper synodized? If spring court break is fucking

That's actually very good Is that good? It's a credit card I'm just saying If spring court break isn't the name of our one shot That we do in March We're leaving a lot of money on the table That's when we announced

Your only fans That's very fond of it. or your only phase. Anyway, you propel forward and you are doing your best. At this speed, it's a little more difficult to maneuver through things. Straight shots are best for you, but this, unlike the rest of the areas, there is a natural source of water here, and there is mist that is spraying about. There are puddles that have created some of the areas.

the rock is slick and you have to make sure that you keep this train completely dry. You cannot come into contact with any water whatsoever, lest you lose your train form. And you, knowing this, do your best to maneuver through it. But I'm going to need you to make a, we'll do a dexterity saving throw to see how well you're able to maneuver through this. Oh, strength saving throws possible? No. Oh, okay.

You're good. Well done. 21. You are, this is the first time you've ever been in this form, but you are not yourself. You are the man of metal, and you are easily able to maneuver this train through the subterranean tunnels.

Frost, you keep your eye out on these, on the cavern and the way that it's shaking. There is definitely something moving beneath the earth, earth, but it does not seem to, you do not seem to draw attention to it. Maybe it's your size, maybe it's the fact that your toys and you lack that humanoid scent that maybe a predator would be looking for. Something is shrouding you from its notice and you're able to, um, darts to the other side. It does take you a while as you move through the, uh, twist and turns of the subterranean cabin. It takes you about an hour to get the other, to the other

side, but you do eventually find yourself spilling out into what is very clearly a dead end. However, what you see is something that's incredibly beautiful, something you've only ever heard about. A large mushroom. This would be large in comparison to your standard size. If you were your regular forms now, it would be larger than Grico. It would be almost from base to... God, I can't wait what I see these are. Base to tip as tall as crummy. You have to. There's a mushroom.

But this mushroom... There are other ways. Is there is not. Yeah, you could have said shaft. If you just run your eyes all the way up the shaft straight to the tip, and realize it's bigger than crummy. Sweet Jesus. You know, I think if they're

Than a trimmy stippin's trouble being You know, I think if they'd trim the grass around that It'd look a little bit better You should see what happens When they shave to our legs Let's be a daddy long legs That's a nightmare Kill it!

Oh, okay. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. That's one-made mushroom. Oh.

Okay. This mushroom is unlike any mushroom that you've ever seen. And you realize immediately why it has the name that it has. The, um, the, bottom portion of this mushroom is a very, well, it's hard to tell it's actual, the color of its actual flesh, because as you get up to the cap of the mushroom, it is clearly shaped like a witch's hat. As it comes to a point, it's twisted and crooked, but it looks very much like a hat that you could take off and wear yourself. However, the entire underside of it,

the gill portion of the mushroom glows with a very strong magenta light. You watch, you look at this thing and you see how the light completely obscures the color of the base. You see that spores

drift off of it, these beautiful, almost fluffy, you are going to be fine. These fluffy orbs that that drop from the gills of this mushroom and float in the air around you, and as they hit things,

they burst into, I swear to guide you horny fox. Can we please get through this description? You can continue. We're gonna, we're gonna suffer through it. We're gonna suffer through it. I was doing so well. Were you? Yeah, and then Richie started smiling, asshole.

You fuck. Mikey started to smile got me. I have become a rock. No, you're actually glass. Oh, well, it's kind of like a rock. Kind of. Well, Sam. If you think about it.

Well, kind of. Yeah. It's just tiny rocks. Really? Yeah. Like a rock. Like a rock. Oh, like a rock.

Hmm. This is the first. This is the first time you've ever actually seen a witch-light mushroom. Is it, we've heard it called like a witch's cat or a witch's cat? You've heard it called a witch's cat. And we know that they make, presumably, they make witch-light, or that is witch-light or whatever. You, looking at this in the way the spores, the way the spores are drifting out from beneath the cap,

you see that they kind of hang in the air. Think Totoro and this little strides. And as they drift around, when they come into contact with something, they burst into this beautiful, glittery magenta powder. And you imagine that it is that powder itself that has gotten the name witchlight. You watch as one of the spores collides with part

of the rock face. And as the pieces of score powder collect to the rock, it all begins to pulse and glow with this bright light until it eventually simmers down to just a soft pulsing magenta light. We also heard scabbitha say something about making witchlight by using bones, correct? Yes, so what she had said was that she was utilizing the mushroom peddlers to grow witch light.

And she was doing that by feeding bones into the soil. That's what, okay. And so you can guess what you, I will say, just because it was a very quick scene, and I think you guys would have put all of this together, and I didn't do a great job of explaining it. Plus it was over two weeks. You know that the ground that you were walking on in the garden was very, very waterlogged. Much more so than you had expected.

This is also, there is a subterranean river and lake down here. What you can guess is whatever the mushroom peddlers were doing with the soil up top. The water helped to carry that down to this place, which allows the witchlight mushrooms to grow in this space. So far, you are looking at one, but you imagine that somewhere in this subterranean place, there are probably more. This one is large. You don't know the varying sizes. This could be a large mushroom. This could be small.

It is hard to know. But so far in your travels, and you've traveled through a lot of this at this point with the speed of this trend. This is the only one that you've seen. So they are very rare. Got it. Oh my god. This is it. In the fucking flesh.

This must be the mushroom that produces the witch light. We've traveled perhaps 12 miles underground and we- That's probably a good estimate. Thank you. That's probably accurate. 120 feet divided by 10. We're deep underground and we're deep underground and we're We've only seen one of these mushrooms.

It must be extremely difficult to grow, or perhaps most have been harvested from this area. You heard what she said. I mean, the fact that he's walking around and just fucking can produce it is like a fucking miracle. It has implications for what she would do with Thorbeck if she caught him, but it also tells me nothing about how much witch slate she really needs. Is this one mushroom a large quantity of her supply, or is it but one of thousands of and a farm and she's using a tremendous amount all across the Faywild. Well, also, WitchLight is just like power down here?

I mean, is that going to be once people start realizing what Torbeck is? They're just, everyone's going to want the unending battery that he is. Well. And be trying to snatch them up. Does it give you power or just drugs? I don't remember. I... You don't know the full extent of what Witchlight does.

You know that it is traded by the elite. It is worth lots and lots and lots of currency. You have only experienced the currency in this place, which has been bartering with trinkets and things. But you, I believe you have been told that deeper into the Faywell, when you get to the actual courts, they do have currencies of some kind, and which light itself is a currency. And it is not something that most people can get a hold of,

that obviously it has medicinal purposes, you know that it has psychedelic purposes, and you know that it has purposes unknown, and that it is still currently being studied. Morbec is like a money printing machine. That's even worse than a battery. Torbeck is no economist, but that can't be good. You fucking kidding me? That's way better. I mean, think about how the fuck

We're gonna be filthy rich. Understand? I mean, look, if you can just produce that and this thing is this fucking rare where, you know, it took us 12 miles, and we don't even know if she even knows about this one. Tournament can't get it out. It's just stuck inside him.

And I already tried. Squeezes and squeezes and squeezes and squeezes and nothing happens. And think about it, Creming. The only reason why it's as valuable as it is, is because there's an inherent scarcity and value to it. If Torvett can just endlessly produce it

and suddenly it floods the market, it's going to completely devalue WitchLod, and you can't just simply just make more of it to save the Witchlight economy. It'll be way worse. Someone will take Torvick and stick it in a cell somewhere and only make him produce just enough Witchlight to make that person crazy rich.

Artificial scarcity! You think there are people who are... would really do that? Don't be so bad. Yeah, that would be terrible. It's not the kind of attention Dormick wants. Look, either way, it's not all about scarcity, right?

You're forgetting a big piece of the equation. Marketing. You make people think it's worth a lot of money. It doesn't matter how much there is. We don't know enough about the application, of which line to know if it's used as fuel down here, if it's used as medicinal qualities, if it adds all of these different applications,

there'd be no amount that you could flood the market with that would debalue it. You see me, I'm already out of the train, and I'm like, reaching from one of the spores, I'm like trying to grab it. But I do know that it affects us terribly. Are you fine to? I'm trying to grab one of the spores, yeah. The spores that drift down, they don't No, there are quite a few of them.

Roll a acrobatics or athletics. Your choice. Natural 20. Wow. First daughter of the night. Plus four, 24. You, I don't think I was gonna need this tonight. You vault up onto the wall and propel yourself

as you reach out and you grab a spore of this mushroom, and you expect to be able to hold onto it, but it is just a small puff of little tiny specks of spore. And even at your size, these are minuscule to you. They're tiny to you. And as you reach onto it, it immediately collapses and puffs out. Think about a, or are they, the dead?

dandelions that you blow, and it's almost exactly like that as you collapse onto it, and it begins to billow out. You breathe in a huge mouthful of these spores. I need you to roll two D-20s for me. D-20s for me. Actually, that is not accurate. Two Tens. Yes.

It's not accurate. I just said to four D-20s for me, actually. The hail. Jesus. 10, 10, 6-9. Rewol the 10. 18. You are immediately overcome

with this need to feed. You are incredibly hungry and you will eat anything. As you think about this, you are essentially flying through the air. You've leapt off the side of this wall or the stone face to be able to grab this thing. And as you turn, you look towards the mushroom

and you are hungry. As your knees fused together, you slam into the ground. What were the other two numbers? Six and nine. 18 and 19 and... Oh, nine. 6, 9, 18, 10.

18. As you hit the ground, your knees, this is actually quite funny. Your knees have fused together. You land into a small puddle of water, but at this size, it feels almost like a pond. almost like a pool.

As you look down, you believe yourself to be a merman. And you must return to the water or you will lose your merman form forever. And luckily to you, you have found the water here. But you're not just a merman. A very hungry merman. You also are the world's greatest bard merman.

Everyone's day back. He's been hit. You watch. Cremmy. You watch his. from me is just floundering around in the water. I need you, Gideon, to make a dexterity saving throw as he is splashing water out.

Oh, no. We're about to get stranded here. He has five uses. Yeah, only for a little bit. You kind of twist it. Yeah. I'll twist it. There's one twist or more.

We've got a million. I rolled the exact same thing. Roll a long, one more. One more, one more. It's kind of fainted. One more, one more, one more. One more, one more. Yeah, no, you got to roll it.

Don't just drop it in me. All right, all right. One more, one more. Oh, okay. Well, make sure you're taking the twists out. This is four twists. This is four twists? Okay, yeah.

It's fate. It's bad. Four twists. Four twists. Take out four twists. You, not only do you get splashed by a wave of waters. As crummy flounders in this puddle. Shit.

It's completely extinguishing the coal, the coal-burning stove inside of this locomotive that's keeping it running, you all immediately spill out of the train as Gideon, you return to your metalman form. But you watch, as Kremi attempts to swim through this thing, I'm a merman, pop, I'm a merman, as he chomps his teeth hungry for anything. I grab it, explodes in my face.

Guys, I don't think I can hold it. And I fall in my on the ground. I look at the pool. I look at the mushroom. Look at this stuff. Isn't it neat? Wouldn't you think my collection's complete? Wouldn't you think I'm a gator who has?

And I look at the train. I guess I look at kid. Everything. But then I look back to the mushroom when I lick my lips. And I have to brush the thought out of my mind as I, so I don't have to sing the whole fucking thing. I am singing at basically leaving my life behind

as I approach this watery mushroom to eat the mushroom and swim with my new fish fused legs. You look down, the rest of you look at him and you see that his legs are just clearly pressed together. You can see. the muscles pressing them together. He's clearly doing this himself, but Crummy, when you look at your legs, you see no

legs, but a beautiful purple fish tail. I'm sorry, guys. I'm sorry, I have to. You should want. You get to go out of drugs, Kremmy. No one approached Grimmy. I would have been in the mermaids of. I don't want to see them swimming. He can't go in the water. He's going to

fucking die. Chomping around on that mushroom stamp. Are we allergic to water? Waterless toys or something? Perhaps you are. I'm in of crystal. I'm in a glass. I can't go out there and get them.

You can all have to get water logged. Frosty, you're made a glass and you're lucky. I don't want to approach him. He's gonna touch me and perhaps get some of the witchlight on me and then I'll be rolling around saying, oh, my fucking legs. I'm slobbering all over the shaft. Just chopping.

I'm just so hungry I have to eat the mushroom. The mushroom is attached to the wall about halfway up. Oh, there's just. And so you, luckily, your legs are fused together, because you cannot actually get to the mushroom. Oh, start at the bids. You can, however, get to your friends who also look delicious. Are you in the water?

Is he swimming or is he drowning? So it is, it is like, if you were normal size, it would be as if there was just a little tiny divot that some rainwater had gotten. So he's not going to drown. No, he's like in a bathtub, essentially right now. I'm just flocking around. Above ground like pools.

Yeah, yeah, kind of like that. Um, what do we do? We'll have to wait for this effect to wear off. It could be hours. Gramey, you gotta step out of it. I know you just took a little bunch of drugs. Oh, gosh, he must be extant being a toy.

I thought we might be immune. I'm hungry, fellas. And I can't get to the mushroom. Okay. We're all hungry, Mr. Crammy. Hey, Ricker, why don't you come, Why don't you come swim with me? It'll be fun.

Don't trust him. Why? I'm famous, Grico. You, what? I'm famous. What? You want to be part of my entourage, don't you? I'm the greatest bar in the world.

You are? Have that ever been through, Grico? No. What? When did you grab me? I can make you something, Grico. He's on drugs. You want to be a star, Grico?

What? Just get in the pool with me. Dormick doesn't know. Uncle Globo always said when someone's on drugs they speak the truth. Tormec is also kind of convinced. I mean, for me, doesn't usually lie. Tobeck, come on in.

The water's nice. Do you want to get famous, Tollbeck? Kind of. I'm the greatest bar in the world. Could you say no to for such fame? I love when you guys call for your own roles. I love them.

16. I got a 15. Whoa! I do want to be famous! I always wanted to be in a rock band. Oh, we can be, finally be barreds and that cool city, tallback of I have a glass and electric... Come out, fellas, I'm saying! ...shunds who don't need it, but then they're still wearing it anyway, and they're like really huge and tall.

The man! Yeah, let's go! We run. We run to the pool. And don't forget, I'm the fucking front man. When we get there, when we get close enough, I would stretch out my... toy clay hand to help Mr. Kremi either out of the pool or to join him in the pool, depending on, you know, I'm just trying to offer my hand.

I did it again, and I'm going to pull Grego and Torpach to the pool and start to devour them. You do, and as you do. Cremi. He starts alligator death man. Let's make me use it together. They're having fun. Let's make sweet hominy. You are pulled in.

The water here is infused now with witchlight and it glows with a beautiful purple, or a beautiful magenta hue. As you watch, as they all are almost covered in this liquid witch light. But because it is in this liquid form, it's not something you can breathe in. You're not affected by the same magics that Kremi was,

but he pulls you under and begins to completely attempt to devour both of you. All dogs go to heaven, though. He is chomping into the both of you, and that is what's currently happening right now. Are we gonna take any damage? That depends on what crime he's doing. Hop-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-bh.

Well, you said I'm very hungry. I'm going to try to physically eat them. If I'm very hungry, and you said that my friends were what I would want to eat. Now, I'm just saying you want to eat anything. You'd eat rocks. Yeah, so I'm gonna try to eat them. Okay, go ahead.

Roll to attack each one of them. Okay. Well, I have the hungry jaws features. I know, so we'll just use that. I can bite and bonus action bite. Okay, perfect. Thank God I saw it. Get a natural toy.

This is for Torbeck. Okay. This one almost certainly misses, because Torbeck is a slippery fella. Where did my character she go now. It was on Bricklew. It was on Brickle-Row. Oh, Bight is plus three, so it's a six on Torbeck,

and it was a 15 on Griton. I think that still misses. You think or you know. Oh, you have your normal AC. Okay. You definitely miss on me. I'll miss. It looks horrible. There's all this water splashing, they're screaming.

And it's magenta, and so it's hard to tell whether there's blood infused with this. It's flashing this man. If he's missed and I now realize that he's trying to consume me, I would attempt to remove myself from this horrific death pool. Get back up here. And swim back out. I would say both actually.

acrobatics or athletics to get out of it. Acrobatics, for sure. For sure. 14 with a 5. I have plus 9. 23. Only 14. 23 and 14. That is easy enough for both of you

to get out of this small pool of water. Kremi cannot follow you because he is a mermaid and he is bound to this pool. But you are able to, with the help of the water itself, you're able to your skin is slick, well,

Grickos is, you're kind of madden and smelled like a wet dog. But you're able to get out of the water. As soon as we get out of the water I'll like crawl back to Gideon and Frost, they're going to be like guys, you're never going to believe it. We made a terrible mistake.

You never believe it. Mr. Grubby was lying. He was lying. He was lying. He was lying. He was lying. No, he was lying. I demand that I'm playing. He almost bit of us. He was so. convincing.

Come back, boys. Watch the entire thing happened. Listen to those horrific yells that he's doing. I mean, there was a party of water

in Florida that should have been safe to swim in. Let us eat voraciously and indulge. Oh. Frosty,

you never believe he's lying right now. You watch them panic for a good five minutes. And then

Kremi. you begin to come to. It seems that in its organic state, though very powerful, the effects do not last as long as in its inorganic state. Whatever is being done to these witch-light spores, it has the effect of elongating the quote-unquote trip. And so though it is incredibly potent and powerful, it is much shorter.

And it only takes about five minutes or so before you, realize that you're not hungry at all, or a merman or a bard. Once we crawl out of the pond, we all just kind of quietly sit on the end of the water, like, wait and watch to see what happens. Drugs and swamp water, tastes like Florida.

I spin on the ground. How are you feeling, Remy? Oh, my God. You ready to come on out of there? Did I try to seduce y'all into a swampy pool with a musical number? I don't know. You were really stucing.

I mean, making a very strong point. You were very convincing. Yeah. You were very, you were a masterclass. Masterclass is. Usually. I guess I still got it, fellows. What do you think?

Yeah. Well, you know, I'll say anything to get what I want, I guess. I'm not a merman, am I? No, but just bones. Not the greatest ball in the world. You are still in the area where the pollen is dropping, and you could be hit with additional which level. Oh, fuck!

Then I scramble out of the pool. I'll get back on the train, realizing there's nothing that we can do at our current state. There's no train. We've crashed off the train. Oh, that's right. He's not the train anymore. I've been knocked out.

So you know you have four more charges. Should we even try to harvest some of this? No, no, look, that's exactly what I tried. I thought, you know what? I just grab one spoor and take it with us, but that's not a spore. And I didn't know that. I was going to do it. You leapt straight at it.

You jumped off the train. I just wanted to do this. You upbeat right into it. I did. I put on a little backpack and a little copter. That's incredible. I meant in some form of vessel, but I suppose we don't have a vial. Do we have a vessel?

Can we just sit, we just shove something inside Gideon? He's a train. You don't really. You don't have any... Oh, this is Mason jar. You don't have any equipment. In this form, you're just... Yeah.

Toy. But now we know where this is, so when we get turned back into our normal states, we can come back here and hopefully avoid the giant eating, flushing worm. And you feel like you've learned something about which flight you didn't know before. Okay. Should we try...

Is there any reason to try and destroy it? So she can't harvest it? Whoa. No, she doesn't have a train. She has nowhere to do it. She's just an idiot. She's so fucking stupid. She walks up behind you and hearts.

She walks up behind and and s'm gulp. She's standing right behind me, isn't she? Yes, she is. Oh. Oh. What are you talking about? She's so fucking stupid.

She's daft, is what I'm saying. I said maybe we should destroy it, and then Grico just started saying that scabato was fucking stupid. Because he can't use it, that's what I'm saying. I mean, it's all the way to say. How the fuck are we going to destroy it or even get to it? I mean, we just go back to the mushroom circle and have a silly little, little big planet adventure kind of deal. We were small, and, you know, we fight like... A lovely little big woman.

Yeah, yeah. It's a lot of fun. You know. Oh, yes. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can hold up to 10 people on this thing. Oh, yeah, we could definitely have a thing.

Did you get the train whistle? We have it? Oh, my God. If you have some way to chuck us at, like, giant, like, bird-looking things? Oh, man. Oh, no, that's very scary, actually. If a giant herring head bursts out of the ground, I give up. Better take me.

Let it take me. Anyways, we should go back and find a toy maker to repair Kremi. He's not feeling himself, obviously. Where are we going to find a toy maker? We're going to have to go back to the house. We go into that mushroom circle, get back up there. I'm sure she's got toy makers in there. She's always kidnapping kids.

Yeah, she's turning them into toys. She's got a million toys. There ain't no toy maker. Toys. Toys. Toys. Toys. Toys.

Toys. Why are you saying toys like that, Ricko? Because it's toys up there. Why? Toys in it. Just saying. normally. Hey, you've got your toys up there, I'd it?

Just say toys. Fucking scabber for, Edith. Get back at your fucking train. I need to take the trolley over back to the mushroom circle. Going it leeks away. Let's come over you. Oh, it is part of Paz Teton.

A swim by a chippy on the way. Get a chippy on the way. You know the rules. The swing by a chippy. The crew con bots, it's roll out. You shift into a train. And for them again. You shift into a train. And for the sake of brevity, I won't make you roll to see if you can make it through the subterranean moisture caverns. I'll say you are just able to.

You follow the same path that you followed in. And it takes a while, but you do eventually make your way back to the mushroom service. And that is where you find yourselves now. Do you just propel straight into it, or are you going to disembark? Straight into it. During our journey, yeah, sorry. During our journey, I'll start.

In my improvised ocarina, I will have been playing the theme of EastEnders. And I will be trying to explain how formidable a foe Scabatha is and how we should be very concerned about her cunning and what plans she has for the witchlight that she almost certainly knows about and how to use.

And I'm drowned out entirely by Grico. Nobody hears this. How is he dumb? It's a banger. Oh, yeah. I can't recreate it. Otherwise, I would. Yeah.

Does anyone else do anything as you travel through the subterranean moisture caverns? Do we remember that we had to go clockwise to take the last one, right? I will say for the sake of brevity, you, well, that's not what you had to, that was the original ones. You had been told by you and you in that you were allowed

use of these, that the mushroom peddlers had given your use. Well, you and who? Yeah, and so you, Anyway. I'm going to take from the ring. So you imagine or you hope that you will be able to just utilize this naturally, even with the mushroom peddlers, gone from this place. And it is with that hope that you, in this locomotive,

propel yourself forward and rush straight into the center. of this mushroom circle. And the moment you hit the center of it, you all feel yourself propelled through space and time, traveling through the mycelium network, the same way that you had made your way here, as you find yourself once again spilling out into Scabatha's garden.

However, not in the same place that you had entered. You find yourself in a completely different portion of the garden, significantly less overgrown, far more tended. You find yourself in a giant pumpkin patch. You've seen pumpkins like this before. What? Outside of Madrick Roslough's house.

Pumpkins of this size, this coloration. Even the viny tendrils coming off of them almost look exactly the same. If you, looking at it, you'd be hard-pressed to find a single difference between them. It's almost as if those pumpkins came from seeds. that these pumpkins would rear. And it is here that you find yourself spilling out into.

This pumpkin patch is directly next to the side of loom lurch itself. You can see the giant towering oak that has fallen on its side here. You see the windows carved into the side spilling light out into the garden. You see off to one side down a small cobbled path a doorway that leads directly into loom lurch itself. and the three giant oak trees that are growing up through loom lurch and seem to house the top floors of this home that belongs to scabatha. And all is quiet and peaceful. You listen and you can hear far off in the distance,

the sound of the tin soldiers as they're marching about on their patrols. You look up to the three trees that are growing straight out of the base of Lume Lurch itself, and you see the varied balconies that encircle them, and you see that there are toy soldiers that are pacing along those balconies, looking out and scanning the tree line for intruders or other things. You're far too small to be noticed. And all of that is easy for you to see from this place as you continue to go in circles just outside of the mushroom circle.

and then you hear it. It is the sound of a soft whimpering. You look around expecting to see where it's coming from before you look up and see that sitting on the ground, they're back up against one of these pumpkins is what is very clearly, to you in this state seems gigantic, but is very clearly a small female child, human in nature,

soft brown curls, her cheeks flushed as tears streamed down her face, a snake coiled around her abdomen as is prepared to strike. And that is where we'll end the session. Whoa! What? Holy smokes.

What? Wow. There's a lot of fucks that are eating kids around here. Oh, you? Give it. Childie, minute. I don't care for you. I need to turn and tea every time I'm around.

I'm the snake killer. I'm a proper fucking fun. Oh, the godler. Well, hello? I'm the toy. Can't you. You should do that for a 12 hours. Yeah, and you're like, single thing you can think of.

Fuck your face. Oh, I'm the cobbler. I'm the cobbler. It's beautiful. It's a hatmaker. Just sitting around. I'm a habadish. That's a little.

I'm a habadish. I'm the habadish. You know, I, uh, it's interesting that I don't have my backpack. You know, I'm just a crystal cat like this. Where do you think that is? Nature of magic is always so strange, unusual. I had a sandwich in that backpack. When we transform, will the sandwich be fresh or will it have molded inside of me?

E. The whole time, all the baghack. The whole time, all we hear is the song to East Enders. Isn't that how it goes? Yeah. I feel like that was... Off the play. Every time my mind is trying to go to it, it goes to the top of the day.

But I'm pretty sure. It's actually not that far off. Maybe not. Let me know. Thank you so much for listening to the Legends of Aventrys podcast. We hope you enjoyed the session. If you want even more campaigns to listen to, become a member of our Patreon at the Pearl Dolphin Tier or Hire to unlock Shroud over Saltmarsh,

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