Legends of Avantris - Uprooted | Ep. 3 | We Need a Montage

Episode Date: November 28, 2024

With two members captured the remaining vagabond's cook up a crazy plan...   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/WheJEOQz9WI?si=_IN_RQ7ouBpMM1Wh

Welcome to Legends of Aventris. I'm Booker and you're listening to Upprooted. Here's what happened last time. We've just shown up. We know there's going to be public executions tomorrow. We're going to be careful. Maybe if you can get close to the viceroy, convince them not to off all those poor friends.

Let's maybe just have like a little rest. We'll die just a little. Maybe we should explore town a bit and see what we can find out about these prisoners. Often we can kill a bear. I mean, we're really good at killing stuff. I think everybody thinks that something unknown and scary is a monster, but maybe it's just not really. Maybe it's just a misunderstood.

I don't want to alarm anyone. I see people in the trees. Dark shaggy brown fur. This is a big pile of rotting something, of almost a rotting sludge of some kind. Wait, wait, wait, you didn't answer if you can understand me. You compel him and you say, that he eats grass, he just looks at you very doperly, and he smiles and he says, I love vegetables. Something that had been causing some sort of rage has subsided.

What's your name? My name's Benji. What kind of ghosts? They got them horns. My bad. Who did you say, said that they're just... Because I am my best friend. She's got a crossbow. That's what she said it was.

Where does she live? She lives in the village where she gets the vegetables and honey. And your attention is immediately drawn towards a figure that's standing on top of the temple aiming a crossbow at you as she reloads and then points it in Hazel. You all are in the overgrown ruins surrounded by strange statues in a strange dark forest, a part of the woodland that seems even more treacherous than the rest of the woodland is, perhaps even untravelled by vagabonds, strange statues of creatures who can only be what you've heard whispers of as deer.

you see the massive bear more than twice your size holding an axe, but now very dopily chomping on, I think for the next eight hours, if you can choose to, vines and shrubs and grass. No, I dropped it. To test what would happen. Oh, that's right, you did that. And then I immediately just started playing a tune non-mat. And that's right.

And so you've soothed the beast. with your banjo tune. And we often as food as well, and that seemed to be a truck. And so he was talking to you, you were getting some answers, and then that's when the, there is stew everywhere. The bag, the leaky bag of stew ruptured. And it is, it is cold.

It's not even lukewarm. It is cold stew. There's chunks of bug meat and, and bits of vegetable all over you. Yeah. And it coats everything and it kind of smells. And the crossbow bolt, you hear the as this bird who's, you see the shock of red feathers

before you see you take in this this hooded bird who's standing at the top of the ruins, reloading her crossbow bolt as she aims at the rest of you. And she says, don't take another step closer. Fur. Oh my goodness. This is never going to come out of my fur. What's the, what's the big idea? Benji! And, uh, and you see. Benji, that's right. Benji the bear. I knew that. You didn't say it. You have the fucking restaurant, but you don't know the bear's name. The Inkeeper's name with foe. Take away an

inspiration. Oh, that's good. Take an inspiration. Yeah. Okay. Now this is just horses. Everyone but Andy. I have one from last session, huh? Yeah, that's what I mean. What do I actually? I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. And you see as Benji is, that's right,

he had taken the dollops of honey from Hazel. And Hazel leaps back and scampers away and scurries away for convenience of the storytelling. Bye. And as terrified as Peggy hops after her, as Kaziah and as Kaziah you presume, levies her crossbow bolts at you. And Benji looks up in her and says,

I'm eating honey. Don't shoot, I don't wanna die covered in stew. I'm with Bitsy here. There's absolutely no need for violence. I'll turn and I'll look at Hazel and Peggy. I'll say, wait, where are they going? Anyway. Who are you?

As you see as you see as, As Benji looks up at her very lazily and dopily, as she glowers at you, her bright plumage poking up in front of her hood. As she says, who are you, are you with the Mike? Is that? No, no, absolutely not. We're not with anybody.

Assassins? No, no, more like vagabonds. We just kind of travel. Please. Oh, you're vagabonds, or your mercenaries for the reward. You shait? I mean, we saw the poster for the reward, but we just figured we'd come check it out.

We weren't interested in harming anyone. Yeah, oh, man, he killed all those people. Look at the trees! And I'll point to all the fucking dead animals in the trees. I mean, to be fair, yeah, yeah, that is pretty alarming. I don't really have an answer for that one. And she looks at you and narrows her eyes,

glowering at you. You think this poor precious little creature could harden the fly. Actually, yes. I mean, at least until... I started playing my trusty banjo. He looked like he was about to rip my throat out. Immediately you feel...

You look as Benji lunges towards you. As... To attack? Lunders toward you as you feel on your throat. His tongue as he laps up stew out of your fur. Oh, my... Oh, I lack coat. All right, Benji, no, no.

You are immediately knocked back, and you get the sense that he could probably very effortlessly kill, fly. No, no, no, no. Okay, we're time to learn about personal space and boundaries. No, no, no, no, no. I haven't dropped my arm, my halberd. I'm still holding it.

She points it at you. It wasn't Benji who killed all those Marquisat soldiers. That was me. Ha ha! Oh, sweet heavens. Why would you do that? Because they were, you're getting like a coat. Well, I mean,

all the way to dead, couldn't you just like, explain the situation and like left. Oh no, they're on orders of the viceroy. Is that why you're here there also after the reward? Do you know how much gold they're offering? Yes, actually, we know exactly how much gold they're offering. Oh, so you admit that you're here for the reward? No, I admit that we saw the poster and we figured we come check things out.

Please, look at me, I'm just a simple traveling musician. Oh, no! Uh, make a persuasion check at advantage because you're helped with your friends. with your friends, help buy your friends. Persuasion, you say. I'm pretty good at that one. I think, oh, I'm not as good as I'd hoped. Good Lord.

What kind of barred am I? It's a 16. 16? Yep. Okay. You see her, she tenses up a little bit, but she lowers the crossbow slightly. And I need a perception check booker.

I'm too, I'm sorry. I was just confused by Tim Talk. I don't even know what that is. A perception check, say. This is, I'm terrible perception. I'm the worst barred on the planet. Oh, it doesn't matter.

I rolled like a god, 19. 19, as Benji happily finishes, cleaning off the stew from your fur, and it seems to be gone, you kind of, you see a flash, almost a flash of red in his eyes. As you hear a low growl, uh-huh, uh, rumble in his throat that is very close to you. As you hear,

uh, Cause I wasn't, I think your friend Benji is getting a little hungry. Please do something. See? See? Kind, sweet Benji, he's about to go into murderous rage.

And, I'm gonna jump between Booker and Benji. Okay, Shane down. Uh, make, uh, you know that tough. Maybe I'm like eight million times bigger than my. Make an athletics recordatics contest. Oh no.

Good. It's not bad, I think, given my proficiency. 15? Yep. Got a 14. Oh. As you, as you see as Benji's eyes start to get bloodshot again, as that primal rage overcomes him once more,

you are able, despite him being much bigger, you are very stout and squat. You were able to knock him back a little bit as he stumbles. As it seems like as if you've given Booker a great chance of life, as it's been just enough time. As he stumbles back, you see him reach down to grab the axe at his side, and he lets out a roar. As soon as you save my life,

and I realize that he is back in murderous rampage mode, I will grab my banjo and begin to vamp just a little bit. And as soon as he reaches to pick up his axe, he lifts it up. And as soon as you start playing the banjo, his eyes become clear again as he looks at the axe. And just effortless thing that's taller than each of you. And he just is weaving it around effortlessly. Oh, I like that. And as soon as you start playing a few notes,

you actually hear another bit of note whistle and soar over. As you see now, as Kazaya has pulled out some sort of flute and has played seemingly having getting ready, but you were able to act faster than she was. And you get the sense that you could have been in grave danger had Grumly not helped and you acted so quickly, as she was not able to pull out her flute. And you see her take her satchel and from off of her back.

And it's absolutely bulging. It's bigger than she is actually. And she throws it into the ruin. And as it hits the ground, it erupts into, it ruptures and a large pile of cabbages and carrots and cauliflower and potatoes. Croutons? It's actually just a Caesar salad in a bag. There's no crudons.

And there's actually a few sweet pastries that land on the ground and spill out. And she says, that's all the whole I could get, Benji. And he looks down and his eyes go wide, but they're all white. And you actually see that there's a shimmering bright blue to his irises. And the red is gone. He says, I like vegetables as he immediately starts just tearing into it. Oh yeah, real nice, Benji. Look at Gazzia.

Look, sweet, harmless Benji. Yeah, no big deal. He almost just ripped Grunley's arms off. Look how sweet he is. He could have hurt to fly. I don't think he had a chance of ripping me arms off. I mean, that wouldn't have been close. I would have chopped him right in the face.

All right, well, let's not find out, all right? I mean, I think, you know, regardless, could you like help us get the reward, you know? Like, can we to pretend that we killed him? How are you going to pretend that you killed Benji? it would get the soldiers off your back. If we can maybe get some fur and, you know, fashion some kind of fake evidence,

then he'll stop coming in the woods and looking for him and then he can stay on his own peacefully and quietly. It is kind of a win-win situation. That's a pretty good idea. I never super a significant jack at advantage. I'm going to give you Bart Conspiration as well. Okay. You know, it's some really nice playing.

You have a real nice. reading voice. What was it? It was a persuasion? Persuasion, yeah. Oh, so I'm a pal of it and I forgot. I guess I'm just a cute dog, 18. Yeah, being cute, like actually by the brawl increases your charisma score. And with that, she finally relaxes. She looks at how, actually, you're covered in stew. You're looking up at her dopol. You're very clearly not. a Marquisot soldier. I would say that you would have put away your tabard, just for the sake and the ease of this.

Yeah. And she relaxes and she puts away her flute. And she flaps down and she looks at you, Booker, and she says, Are you going to keep playing? Well, I guess once he runs out of food, somebody's got to keep playing. Okay, it's probably best for all of you. Oh, all right, then. I guess I'm playing. Booker's going to keep playing as big. as soon as old Benji eats all the vegetation in sight. And finishes off the stool. Look at I'm so dirty.

I don't like the way you said that, Bitsy. I'm going to be honest with you. What? You're a little off key. I'm a little off-tale. Excuse me. Yeah, and who did you look at under the play the banjo? I taught myself, obviously. Because I'm the greatest banjo player on the planet, obviously. Have you seen a better banjo? player, I haven't,

or ever before. That's exactly right. Seen a banjo player. One of a kind. Nobody liked me. The one and only banjo playing booker is what they call me. Benji seems to like it. I like vegetables and this is a nice tune.

Well, I mean, Bixie, the point is that it kind of sounds like you're implying that Benji should like, you know, lick you clean. Well, he looked a little, uh, Hank off. Oh, excuse me, Monk. You let Guy in go? There are so many things wrong with that sentence that I don't even know where to begin.

Is there a relationship between banjos and Benjys? Not to my knowledge, except for one likes the other, I suppose. They kind of sound the same. What I both? They both have B's, ends and J's, but the vowels are different. All right, Kaziah. So what's the deal with this guy? Why, what is it?

Food and music seemed to calm him down for a bit, but what's going on with him? Oh, no, he's a sweet, sweet little bear who's came from all the way up north by Grizzlepaw. He got banished by his tribe of barbarians. Is it because of his murderous bloodlust as soon as he doesn't get what he wants? No, he wasn't murderous or bloodlusty enough,

and he's a tiny wee bear. Not enough, and he's tiny? Ooh, aye, aye, aye, aye. What are we gonna do? Um, here's your thing. If we just take back proof that he's dead, will you just like leave and go to an have a clearing? Maybe one its rule, body, uh, you know, body, uh, and erie.

Well, and definitely a clearing that we're not headed you next. Like, far away. Like, maybe we coordinate. I'll tell you where we're thinking about going next. And you're just setting Benji the opposite direction. Well, I mean, these creepy ruins seem to keep a lot of the... the Marquis Ats soldiers away and the ones that are more brave die very easily. They don't see my bolts coming. Where are we going next anyway?

Well, to be fair, we hadn't really gotten that fire. What are you supposed to be, by the way? What do you mean? I mean, look at you. Are you supposed to be a dog? I mean, what am you supposed to be a dog? I am a dog. You never seen a dog before?

I've seen lots of dogs that are usually bootlickers of the Marquis at. Is that you? Oh, uh, no. Well, I mean, not really anymore. I mean, I've licked a few boots in my day, but it's sort of, you know, it's kind of what we do. I mean, look how short your snoutes. What you're trying to say? You're saying you don't look much like the big strapping dogs that I've seen before.

Look, all I'm saying is that yes, it hurts my endurance. but I'm more of a, you know, powerful explosion sort of athlete, you know what I'm saying? He's very stout. I'm stout, and I can really just chop through everything. I don't really see you as much of an athlete. I'm a soldier maybe. Or athlete. Oh, so you're good at looking boots.

Okay, okay. What's your deal? I'm bitty. Hi. Okay. Well, I'm here because, well, they left, but... We're with the creator of the universe. We're going to get 5,000 gold pieces.

Do you ever accidentally shoot your flute instead of one of them bolts? No. I think I'd do that all the time. I've only just met you, and I agree. So what's your plan? Monkeys are bounty hunters? I don't know. And hanging in the trees by impaling them on branches that I've sharpened.

I mean, surely he might be able to spare like a, you know, like a claw or a tooth or something that we can bring back. as proof and maybe we rough drumming up a little bit to make it look like he tussled with the bear. Oh yeah, I couldn't take it. And then, you know, it was just saying, look what we got. Vice Roy, we can make a bear necklace tooth for you. He'll be defenseless without all of his claws and teeth. I don't know, all of them.

I just want one. Can we just have one tooth? I've lost a tooth before. Doesn't Benji lose teeth? I'm not saying we've got to pull it out of him. I don't want to hurt the guy. Maybe we can find some teeth and some fur underneath this fur. That's convenient.

All right, Bissy get to work. Is there fur? There's some shagging. Yeah. There's some shagging. Yeah. But it's not a lot. It's not a lot.

You get a sense that it would be a very compelling coat. Fortunately, investigation is where I'm a Viking. Eight. Eight. You move aside all of the fur and you don't find any fur beneath it. It's just floor this ruin. There's nothing here. What are we going to do?

Oh, goodness. Well, we could cut someone to fur off of him. He didn't need a fur to defend himself. You got any shears? Are you looking at shears? Do I think I need shears? I was just asking. I don't have shears.

She likes ruffles or feathers. I figured one of us would have shears. Are you suggesting to shave Benji? I mean, again, just a little bit. I mean, it's not like winter's even close to around the corner. We just need a little bit of fur. It'll grow back in no time. Benji won't even know it's missing.

Do you think that will appease the viceroy? Oh, absolutely. I mean, look, the other day, what I saw Peggy do to some people. I mean, there was nothing left. And if we didn't just take a little bit of fur and maybe a claw or a tooth or something, we can just convince them that Peggy completely dissolved him into a bottle of goo. And this is all that was left. Oh, and we could also say maybe if there are any grapes in there,

we could get some grapes and peel them and then put them in a bowl in them when the vice-rose shows it for, we'll blindfold them and say, hey, look, feeling this bowl. Those are the bears eyes. Oh, grumly, that's disgusting. Wow, that's so smart, Bobbred. Also, pretty brilliant, yeah, I was going to say. But it does really gross me out.

I mean, it did scrapes. How are we going to blindfold the vice room? I didn't really think about that. Um, I mean, we could say it's very horrible to look at, but you could feel it for proof. I don't know. Keep that in our back pocket. That's definitely somewhere. I like great. Keep up the last one. I like great juice.

Um, so anyway, could we, um, can we like spare a two for two, a bit of your fur? And then maybe we could, you know, be on your way. You'll stop being in date. danger, then you won't have to keep killing people. And most importantly, we get our reward. He looks at you and blinks as he's taking a large bite of cabbage. You see that there's greens all in his teeth. And he says, and he looks at you with these big eyes, is it gonna hurt?

Oh, the losing of the fur? No, no, nothing at all. No, a tooth. I was hoping that maybe- Oh, Clow. Yeah. Now, we don't take a claw. Yeah, that's awfully inhumane.

He's probably got some teeth lying around. That's what I was hoping. I'm gonna begin, like, shuffling through the underbrush, even though I know that Bitsy did such a fine job, the other investigating. You can an imagination, Jack, too. Can I help him? Yeah. Because I would also start, like, looking around. Yeah, you can't be all right.

It won't hurt at all. We're going to shave you. And we can put into a shape like a grape. We can put a grape shape on you. 17. Great shape? Yeah. 20.

Oh. I would say that you look around and with a 20, you are losing hope, but you actually see that in the very corner of the room that's very dark, just past the rotting vegetable rind husk pile, that there is a bit of a bit of a crumbled bread. that looks shockingly like a head of cauliflower, and there's a few gnarled marks, and there actually is a tube that is laying beside it. Oh, look at that. What's I'm out of you, Big Lug? You try to eat a rock?

I'd like cauliflower. All right, well, that and answers that. We got one of these. This is pretty good. We can have this, right? No big deal. You don't need this no more? No, I guess not.

Considering it's not in your head, yeah, I'm gonna keep this, all right? Oh, I don't want it to be a little. my head. Hey, that's exactly right. I got plenty of teeth in my head when my brothers attacked me. Oh, your brothers attacked you. Oh yeah, no, they didn't like me. Why not? I was too small and weak and harmless. That is truly the most horrifying thing I've ever heard in my entire life. Yeah, and I didn't want to do raiding and pillaging. So you're saying there are a lot more of you? And devour and raccoons limb from the land.

Yeah, no, we don't want to do that, no. Have you had a lot of raccoons before? We don't need to get into that. I really think that's just a question that we should best leave to the unknown. I'm kind of morbidly curious, you know. Yeah, what does it taste like? I wonder.

You know, sort of like memento mori. Just kind of remind us of our own mortality. It doesn't taste as good as vegetables. I'll tell you that. Huh. Well, there you go. See no need. And you never have to need another raccoon ever again.

Oh, that would be nice. It makes me feel sad. Me too. That makes two of us. Pugsley, who's my mental moor? It's more like a saying that they used to say back in old Felicia. Oh.

Okay. They are those fancy accents. They talk her that way that I don't understand. They're like cat language. I've never been. You've never been to... Old Felicia or new Felicia?

I don't think I've been to either Felicia. Oh, well, I mean, even though you're from the clearing, like one clearing over? I just mostly stayed in pots now. Oh, garden your hutch, that's right. My hutch. I miss my hutch. You can't leave that hutch. What do you think is going to happen to the huts now that you're gone? I don't know. I left the oven on.

You, you what? Well, there's a small furnace in the corner of my huts. Don't you think that someone might just go in there and take care of it for you? Or is the whole thing just going to... You're going to have to gas on? How, we got to go back? I don't think that's an option anymore, Grumley. I mean, no, this is horrible.

You can't just leave the gas on. What's going to happen? Your gas wheel's going to be through the roof. Or, you know, in a much more immediate and horrible thing, is you'll blow up a Botsville. We need that gold right away. To cover your gas bill, yeah. Yeah.

What's all going on? I'm just going to try to like, you know, while he's sort of talking to Booker, I'm going to try to shave off as much fur as I can. Okay. Take a slight of hand check. I'll be keeping him busy. Talking to,

uh, D8. Oh, let's fucking go. But you grow well, so, that's all that matters. You got used out of it.

Plus zero. So, 16. Okay. He doesn't notice. And you're very, he doesn't seem to mind at all. And you begin to start shearing him, and you see that he's got very rough skin beneath his fur. And as you shave off, it's coming in huge clumps.

You get the sense that this is fur that is built to resist the colds in the north side of the dim wood. You've heard tales of barbarians, particularly around Bristlepaw and how some of the out, the, what is the word I'm looking for? Outposts or small townships up there have been wiped out or decimated by allegedly Bervarians and that they are able to resist the harshest of winters and is just coming off in clumps. And you actually see that his skin is high, especially on his back, which is completely turned away, facing a booker.

You see that there's some deep scarring in his high that look like claw marks and axe marks and teeth marks as you do that. And I would say that you're able to do that as long as you'd care to. And Keziah rolls her eyes and says, well, I suppose

if there's any hope, why not? You all seem very stupid and you can't play the banjo, but... Well, now that's just hurtful. Yeah, you take your back. He can play a great banjo.

I'd like to see you try and play better. Well, I'm not a banjo player. I'm a flea player. Well, that's one thing he can do to you can. Yeah, I suppose that's true. Thank you, Grumley. Thank you. And...

You're not very good at the flute either. Well, you know, you don't can't be good in anything, everything. I'm pretty good in murdering bounty hunters. How do you get him up there? I just fly. We'll kill them. With them? I take all of their possessions,

especially their personal effects, their family mementos, upon all of those for money. Oh, that's actually a good idea. If you have any, maybe some thing you don't care about, about some of these bounty hunters, we can bring them back and say, look, we've also retrieved, you know,

some poor slubs personal effects. That's proof. Oh no, I pond all of those Idiotus. Literally all of it. That's horribly unfortunate. Do you think any of the bodies would help if we took those?

I do not want to walk into the clearing with a dead body on our hands. No, that's a great idea. Oh, you want me to fetch one? Why don't we figure it out? No, we should try to get like a bunch of them and be like we recovered their remains.

Oh, it's terrible. But the beast is dead. Here's proof. And we have all this fur. We're gonna have that tooth. We're gonna have to put on quite the shit. show if we're walking into the clearing with a half a dozen dead mercenaries. Well, we just got to the clearing. It definitely wasn't us. If that's what you're

imploring. Well, you never know. That's all I'm just saying. We're going to have to put on one heck of a show. Well, that's when you come in. I mean, you're great of that kind of stuff. I suppose. But in the meanwhile, you and Benji got to figure out where you're going to go, because you can't stay here. You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here. And, hey, that's right. That's a great line. You should probably work there in a new song. Ah, you know, what do they say about poetry becoming music,

something along those lines? I don't worry about it. Well, where should we go? The Marquis Arch won't Benji dead? The Erie one Benji dead. I mean, you know, again, with the whole murderous rampage thing, if he could just lay low for a while, he might be all right, but I'm worried, you know,

he's gonna fly into a rage and just, I don't know what he's gonna do. I don't know what he's going to do. I don't know how you keep him soothed for the rest of your life and his life. Are you thinking what I'm thinking? I couldn't even begin to guess what you're thinking, Rumley. You should be. Did you hear what she just said?

The Markey's Ock's trying to kill him. And Eerie's trying to kill him. You know who's not trying to kill him? Oh. The Woodland Alliance. I was going to say, I think I'm picking up what you're putting down. I was going to say parts of you. I mean, there are a lot of cats there.

Officer Fuzz, may he rest of peace? Yeah. I mean, you might have survived. It's very unclear. Unclear. Yep. Unclear. Well, I don't hate that idea. I mean, like, we just don't know much about the Woodland Alliance. Like, what if they turn him into some horrible murder weapon?

Oh, Benji, would you want to be a murder weapon against the Marquis-Az? Oh, I could be a weapon of war. No, no, there's not, we're not encouraging this. We're trying to make some of the benchy is safe. What is wrong with you people? I mean, at least you wouldn't have to live out in the woods. Sure, I suppose. I mean...

Are there spooky ghosts out in the Woodland Alliance like here? Because these ghosts are scaring me. Well, you know, I don't know anything about ghosts, honestly. I couldn't tell you. Do I know about sticker brush at all? Because I know you know of it, right? I've heard of it. I don't know if I've ever been there.

I would say both of you would know about it, sure. So as far as I know, there's one clearing as I click over and hopefully they don't break this extreme. There's one clearing in the whole dimwood. It's not controlled by either the Marquisade or the Erie. For now. For now, I mean, it's very unclear, but I mean, the Woodland Line has been around for a long time

and I haven't, you know, taken over yet. So I'm not too worried about it. And at least it would get. have a clearing for them to live. Look, how do you feel about the Woodland Alliance? I mean, does that seem thing that you'd be interested in, Benji and Gauzaia? Huh? Oh, I've seen that the mark his heart and the vice where I are trying to hang them and execute

them constantly, so they can't be doing something very wrong. Fair enough. Do you suppose that they're going to need some sort of, you know, a little bit of marking to know that they're going to be okay to just waltz right in there? Or, you know, are they going to attack and pull Benji on sight? Well, I mean, should we give him this? That's kind of what I was suggesting. The acorn out.

I mean, I think this might be useful for us at some point. I know. I just feel bad. I don't want to send them to into trouble. If you think that you can convince the Woodland Alliance to take both of you in, then so be it. Do you think that they'll murder us on site if we don't have some special password? Hey. Who am I to say? I don't want to be murdered outside.

How are they going to murder you? You're a great fighter and you're a great baby. Oh, I like compliments. Madly. Stu, I like stew. I finally, fuck! You get you very thorough. This is getting very uncomfortable.

I mean, if you think you can handle yourselves, we'll hang on to the amulet. I mean, I'd certainly, like Romley said, may come in handy for us later. So based on my understanding, that's like, you know, two clearings away if you just stick to the woods. I mean, you have to get across the river somehow, river somehow, but I'm sure you'll figure it out.

What about that foxy lady? If we got her out of town, she could tell them all about them being allies and whatnot. That's true. Oh, it's a great idea. What is? What is? What you just said? I just kind of blacked out for a thing.

No, you just had a great, do you don't remember your great idea? Is it Thursday? No, it's not Thursday. I mean, at the very least, it's not last Thursday, which I think is much more important to you. But, you know, we're talking about springing it from the clink. I mean, this isn't going to be an easy job. There's a whole bunch of them, and that prison was pretty... Did you mention the prison?

I think you might have mentioned the prison. Oh, did mention the prison. Oh, thank God, because I thought for a second, it was going really meta here for it. But, you know, it's probably pretty heavily guarded. I've never really done any kind of a, you know, getting the prisoners out thing. The clink? Isn't that what they called that big ram guy? I think there was like clunk, a crunk?

Again, very much like Benji and Banjo. Close, different vowels, different letters, similar sounds. I know that English language comment is very difficult for your mind to grasp. Lemonade easy. I like lemonade. Lemonade, how often do you get lemonade out here?

Not very much. Well, maybe if we... Do you have lemonade? Not on me, no. Maybe we can bring you some back. Oh. No promises, though, don't get you hope so. I've got a lemon right.

It's like white and green in patches. Is that lemonade? Well, if you just like... I do this and like green sludge drips out. Oh, sweet heavens. It's a little old, but it's kind of lemony. I guess it's better than nothing. I don't like better than nothing.

All right, how about this? I think we have enough evidence to go convince the viceroy that we have enough for the money because we need the money. The money is the most important thing. And then after that, we case the jail and maybe see if we can get at least that young fox girl out of the prison, and then she can speak on their behalf.

And maybe we'll bring back some lemonade for Benji. I mean, and if we can get them all out and then bring them here, then they'll have some protection, you know, with Benji and Keziahe and going south. Well, as many of them, as possible for sure but we have to focus on getting the young fox girl out because she knows who we are at the very least but I mean if they're all if you know

they're all relatively good people they shouldn't hang for having different beliefs so I'll like to try to save as many as we can I guess I guess so I you know I just don't want to end up like them either you know yeah no I know well I have some experience I mean I've been posted at jails before and so I I sort of know, you know, not that particular jail, but I've, you know, thrown some poor rabbits, some mice in jail for quite some time. And I've guarded a jail before. And that's about it.

I mean, it's not that exciting. If this jail was, do you know if it was built by the Marquis-is-out? Oh, yeah, for sure, right? Yeah, absolutely. Is there any chance that they build the prisons all the same, or very similar, you could already know the lab. I mean, maybe if it's anything like, you know, prisons in New Felicia. Well, that might be a bonus for us.

All right, so do we have everything we need? We got on this food. Is he going to buy this? Should I try to glue it to, like, a hide of some kind? I don't know. I don't know. I was going to, like I said, just try to tell him that Peggy went Peggy mode and just absolutely destroyed any evidence that there was left.

And this is all I got away with. What if we found, like, could we get covered in blood somehow? You know, like, or are they any tomatoes left? Eddie has eaten? I'm good at crafts. I could try something. All right. Because, I, could you get down one of them bodies for me?

Oh, sure, how fresh you wanted. Let's try slightly fresh and then not fresh at all. All right. She flies up. I don't know. We're going with gradients. And you will watch as, once you bring the bodies back. You find the body of the Not So Fresh is the body of a cat.

And then the fresher one seems to be an opossum. Both very clearly mercenary is working for the Marquisotte. I'll take the Not So Fresh one and make this attempt. I need some of that fur. I'm going to start to like gently tuck it in to like extend out from what cat fur there already is there. And then once that's done, I'm gonna scoop out this mysterious sap liquid that's been in my purse

for the entire adventure so far. And I'm gonna start to smooth it down over, over. Now what we should do is cut the skin off. And we got, we gotta hide. Oh, do you even hear yourself sometimes? Work, I swear. It's not a bad or deal with the actual skin. Oh, I'm gonna turn it around.

I can't watch this. Go ahead, do it, get it over with. Oh, you wanna do it or you need me to do it? You are more twisted than I thought. I like it. I'm gonna be sick. She's looking at you very enthusiastically now. I don't have a knife.

Can you use your axe? Oh, I have a knife. Oh, okay. I see often because I don't know. It's like a game-tick fucking machete. That's not a knife. This is a knife. And I'll start to work my way around,

essentially like cleaning a body, but it is a cat and it moves around and eventually. Ah! Oh! Make a deception check advantage because you're being assisted. That's pretty good. I don't remember what I'm proficient in. Or maybe, not deception.

Add your dexterity, modifier plus proficiency. Oh, oh, wow. That's huge. So yeah, not deception, I guess, but... 19. Yeah. Okay. You laugh in the wind.

Oh, my God. It even looks bloody because that. It looks bloody because of that ambery sap color. No, stop. Don't wiggle it around like that. PIN five's nice and dry. It's fine. It looks like a scrap of hide.

It's definitely hide that has a bear fur now, glute duet. All right, we need to collect some of these mercenaries bodies. Not that one, the one with a missing chunk that matches the chunk. We're bringing back. Good Lord. Just a few of them, maybe, and I don't know, maybe we could get some blood on the way back.

on the way back if we just, you know, hunt something or something. I don't really want to use any of these mercenary bloods on me. I wish Peggy was here. She could create blood, no problem. Well, I mean, I could probably, you know, carry two bodies on each shoulder. I can put me halber on me back and four could be enough. I suppose that's the case. If you're saying that I have to drag one of these poor souls back to the clearing,

Well, I mean... Oh, it's not so bad. It's just a corpse. Can you start getting some more down? You're unfresh? Not so fresh. Very unfresh. Why don't we get like a selection?

Oh, a pooperie! And she flies off. Oh, my... Kach-ch-ch. Like a seasonal mix. Kach-ch-ch. Ah. I like seasonal mixes.

It's like when peasants fall asleep. Fizzants. Oh, k-chonk. Kachung. And soon there's a smattering of six corpses. You see a finch. You see a rabbit, two cats. And a finch, rabbit, two cats.

We'll say a skunk and a squirrel. All right. Give me a minute, and I'm gonna like set my belongings down, the banjo off to the side, and just basically like throw myself into the dirt and start like rolling around to make it look like I'm dirtied up. And then I got a scrap, you know. Very easy in these ruins. And then pick my things up and say, all right, I guess I'll carry that one. We want to try to get some, you know, fake, I guess there's no such thing as fake blood. I don't know how we're gonna.

No, he should we do? Um, you have a tooth? Yeah, I got the tooth. Stab me. What? And like a couple places, you know, like I got bit. Uh, you know, like, like, have it right here. It's gonna really hurt.

That's okay. I can take it. Bitsy's volunteering very aggressively. I'm not really sure how to handle this. Are you sure you can do this? Oh, good, yeah, she'll do a real good job. Oh, God, no, I can't look. Here's your knife bag.

Oh, thank you. You ready? I'm ready. Where do you want? Well, why don't you give me, like, maybe like, Oh, no! No, you're the misdeliver. Just damage, just damage?

You roll dagger attack. Yeah, because Grumley's like taking... Oh, Crumley, are you all right? I'm on the door now. I don't know what a dagger does. It's a 1d4. 24 plus whatever your monk shit is. Plus Degs.

Oh, God. So I don't know if I'm rolling damage the way I would if I were actually hitting you like a monk. But I'll just roll 1D4 and we'll do that. One D4 plus Dax, yeah. Oh, 1D4 plus Dax? Oh, no. Oh, sweet heavens is bleeding profusely. Nine points of piercing damage.

I think I got your liver. No, Prince. You overdid it. Don't know. Superficial wounds. Hurry, hurry, get into my wound. Get bloody, everybody. Come on.

Come on. Come on. Oh, no. Gremont, stop touching me. Smearing blood over, over everybody. Okay, now, slash my face. What? Just a couple places to make you.

Didn't you learn from the left? He's never in him. But I'm innocent enough. We fully killed a bear. No. They probably need like three because it's like a claw action. So. You just is alright.

Nine points of slashing damage. Two max damages. Why are we not? That's fine. That's fine. All right. That had a lot more than I was expected. It won't stop.

The blood is everywhere. Is it on my eyes still there? I can't see out of that one. It's the greatest day. You quiet, you, this is a nightmare. Okay, we all think. He, he, a little more, a little. We need some blood on the, on, on, on, on the hard.

He can I have the, the, the bear hide? And I'm just gonna like, kind of smear our fake bear hide with some blood. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'll give it back to, yeah. Are we ready to go now? I don't think I can handle much more to this. I think we could go now. I might pass out on the way back, but just, you know.

She might have some kind of like smelling salts or something. Just, yeah. I just got more of this sap. I can use it on your wound and it'll harden right up, just like this bear hide. Oh, well, you should do it on this one at the very least. I might bleed out if you don't do that. Gets in there like a turkey.

And you take, let's see if I can roll max. Nope. Minimum healing. It's four of the healing. It's at least it feels common. It's like combat glue, that's all. All right, well now at least, I physically did get attacked by clothes. All right, let's just get back as quick as we can and we'll get your patched up, all right, and we'll get our money, most importantly, of course.

But then we'll get your patched up. Okay, so I'll get these two and these two. Yeah, I'll get this one, I guess. And I'm just like dragging it through the dirt. I'd essentially be doing the same thing. It was a pleasure to meet you, bye. What are we supposed to do? What do you mean?

You got to head down to the clearance. Just take a brush. You wait right here and then we're going to free other people in jail. Are you going to die? I mean, we might die. If you don't hear from us in like a couple days, we definitely did. Yeah, I don't think you're going to pull this off, but it'll be a nice surprise. I'm sorry, with all of the everything that's been going on, I missed a step in the plan.

That's right. We're going to go get the rest of the Woodland Alliance that we know is in that prison out. So if they can escort you down, just tick a brush. And you protect them with, you know, the bear. A mutually beneficial situation. A win-win, as we say. Oh, could you have them bring like peaches for Benji? They're hard to steal.

Yeah, we'll see what we can do. No promises. You can just ask them if they know us, and then you'll know that they're trustworthy so that you don't get taken advantage of by more of these marquee guys. You can tell them Betsy and Hank and Pugsley sent them. It's Bucca and Brumley, but, you know, same idea. Okay, well, right, wait, right here, and I'll wait, and if not, I'll go back into town and pawn the rest of the valuables and steal more cabbages and continue. All right, wish us luck. We're gonna need it.

Goodbye. You are. You're going to die. Goodbye. I like my new friends. Goodbye. Bring back lemonade. We'll try.

We'll try. Oh. So we stumbled through the woods. Yeah. As quick as you're marching order. Oh, God. I'll be in the back probably. Okay.

All right. I'll be in the front. Yeah, I'll be in the middle. Um, make a perception check for my grandma. Oh, sweet heavens. Oh, good perception. The brothers show up.

Tem. Ten. You make your way through as you're heaving these dead bodies. You're so focused. You leave Klazai and Benji behind, and it's slow going. You realize that Hazel and Peggy are nowhere to be seen.

As you look around and you spend some time looking for them, they seem to have absolutely booked it. However, you do. find a trail of crumbs that seems to be leading back in the direction of the clearing. As you continue to haul these corpses, Grumley, you feel a cold, almost like breath on the back of your neck. Rather than being hot, it's cold. And your entire body is filled with shivers. and you hear a voice say, you think you know the true meaning of regret.

And just I hear that? Yeah. Do you know what? Come on. Keep moving, Brumley. A creepy voice saying, only I know the truth or I won't know. What is it?

What did I just hear? You will learn the true meaning of regret. I'm going to learn the true meaning of regret. I think you might just be losing a little bit of too much blood back, Romney. It must be my liver wound. I turn around. turn around and you see a skeleton. It is an elongated skull, tall and looming, shimmering, with a strange, horrible color. And you see massive antlers extending from its skull. As you turn,

as you see its eyes are blaring with a horrible, fiery light. And then an instant you blink and it's gone. I'm gonna, like, throw all the corpses at it. They tumble, and they tumble and get clothe up at all of the dust. Plumpley, what's the matter? What are you doing? Did anyone see that? No, no, no. There's a big skeleton ghost, dear antler thing.

Okay, all right, calm down. You're clearly under extreme duress because of the wounds that Bitsy inflicted on you, that I have no idea why she went that hard on you. I mean, Benji mentioned ghosts. Maybe it was a real ghost. I think you're just, you're getting inside your own head. We just got to get back to the clearing as quickly as possible. Can you, can you make it?

Can you hang in there? Yeah, I'll be fine. I'll just, hopefully it's the liver wound, not an actual ghost. You need some more of my sap? I mean, you have more sap? That's pretty much endless. That's convenient. Oh, I want to ask where you're getting all that.

Yeah, sure. Maybe a little of my face. But not too much, though. We need him to look pretty roughed up before we get to the... Oh, no, you're wrong. No, I don't need to look... Just a little. Just a touch, maybe, you know?

Yes, another minimum heel. From a good heel of Bitsy. How much for? Unbelievable. Here, take 18. He'll eight, I guess. I was made for murder. A murdering weapon of war.

That's outrageous. How can the dice? say this. I'll try to collect the corpses and they're probably like someone snapped in half. Oh yeah, there's a femur bone. There's a femur bone completely just ripped out.

It's like cordwood. And I'll collect them and throw them over my shoulders. All right. Okay, what are I and you guys keep an eye on our back? That sounds good, but like when we get right to the edge of the clearing, right before we burst in, we got to make sure

Let me take the lead, all right? All right, I just don't want to be followed by, you know, horrible ghost. I'll watch you back. Don't worry. I got to drag this guy backwards anyway. I'll stay in the back. It takes you all night, many hours, to get through the forest. You hear the snapping of branches, you see the strange dangers, you see a flickering campfire far off in the distance that's very likely bandits.

Or perhaps other vagabonds, or a single vagabond. such as yourselves, but you do not want to mess with any of that. You see that whatever Keziah had been intending by hanging the corpses in the trees had done the job and scared off most denizens. Even the massive insects that are very common inhabitants of the woodland, they avoid you on this evening. Eventually, you arrive back.

It's close to dawn. I'll say at this point. As you see the sky turns from that deep midnight to a, it starts to become more violet and starts to get a little bit more purple. As you see the clearing of Click Clock Crossing appear before you, and you hear that buzzing of bees, some massive, some small, all making that honey

that surprised and shipped all around the dimwood. You see some smoke coming up from the chimneys from many of the burrows and other houses. Some of the early birds, the treetop houses seem to be a bit more awake than the mammalian folk below. And you are out on this side of the clearing, you're in more of the, there are few small villages or communities through the hills where it's a lot of

apiaries and farmland not as heavily patrolled because this side is closer to New Felicia which is lessable front obviously not a front and let me adjust the meatballs so wait what side are we on so yeah you're we still here roughly yeah okay so you're on that side so which is pretty heavily fortified far less patrolled than the the eastern side of the clearing and is you see, however, that you hear, you see far off some sleepy watchmen and soldiers patrolling the streets as you enter the clear. What do you all do?

All right, and I'll stay close to me and follow my lead, all right? I'm gonna get the attention that we need to get the help that we need and get to the Viceroy and then we'll convince them that we did what we did. All right? Should we have a contingency plan in case they doubt us and throw us

in jail? Well, I can't believe I'm going to say this, but I think our contingency plan, if things really start to go pear-shaped, we unleash Bitsy. Yeah, we got the tooth. I can also run real fast. You're going to have to use the tooth. Should I have the tooth now? No, no, we need the tooth for now for evidence that, you know. If you toss me the tooth, I'll know to attack. That's exactly right. Are we all on board with the plan? I'm on board. All right. And Basically, what I want to do is position us in a way where we can basically like hobble out, burst out into the clearing and hobble out with these corpses and then created a large, yeah. You know. I will say that there is a, actually make a perception check for me.

Gladly. Uh-oh. Nine. Nine. You look around and I'll say that you see a pair, of soldiers, Marquis-out soldiers, both rabbits, as they are stationed towards the side of the woodland that you're coming out of, protecting, rather guarding, one of the smaller apiaries of this clearing. And you were able to do that. All right, on the count of three. Are you ready?

All right. Three, two, one. Oh, my sky! Oh, my lands, help, help, we need help. Oh, Oliver. I'm just standing there in complete silence, stunned not understanding what the deception is happening, but I am still holding like the two feet of a body.

You see the both rabbits, their ears perk up, and they turn as they look at you with tired eyes. You see that there is an empty percolator of coffee or a root T hanging at the side of one of them, and they turn and point their spears at you and levy. And they say, hold there, who goes there? Oh, good men, please, my friend Grumbly needs help.

He did battle with the beast, but he won. Please help us. I killed DeBear, and I've got the wounds to prove it. Make a deception check advantage, Booker. Not gonna lie, that's gonna be a 26 from the young raccoon. 26. No, you can't beat that. Literally, literally. I love it.

Can't beat that. He's a fucking... He's probably mistaking my, like, idiot face with, like, the thousand-yard stare. I'm just... You PTSD. And they stop and look around, and he says, Officer Cupson, she looks like she's seen a ghost. It must be true.

As they lower, or rather, they raise back up their spears and begin to approach you. Please, we have proof. We brought back hide of the beast, and we recovered these poor brave Marquisat mercenaries that the beast so savagely slew. They look, and they are absolutely just disgusted. One of them you see is a tawny rabbit,

definitely younger than the other one, which seems to be middle-aged. And he actually vomits on the ground. Me too, brother. And he says, hold it together. As he smacks him on the back, and he turns and looks at you and says, I've heard the screaming in the night. I didn't think anyone would ever come back.

There were five of us. There were five. He's true. I'm trying to save them and I couldn't. Look at my... Fyce wounds. Look at my... Fyce wounds.

They're gone. Ripped to shreds, I say. Two more... Sympathizers of the Woodland Alliance had just emerged from this side of the clearing and had been arrested. Were they with you? No, no, they were brave soldiers that fell in combat with the bear, of course, that we slayed. Oh! Oh, these ones.

Yes, we recovered our... No, no, we couldn't recover our friends. friends corpses, there was nothing left. No, they definitely weren't, weren't a frog and a chipmong. No, no, no, no. Completely disricked to guts, visceral everywhere. That's exactly what they were. It's very shocking that you just even guessed on.

I just had a feeling. We'll mourn them later, broadly. Please get the viceroy and tell him to bring all the gold that he has. Mine out frog and not chipmunk companions. We have orders if anyone is to attempt to collect the reward, they should be brought to the town square and make sure that they've fulfilled every single piece of the request. Of course, yes, no, right away, right away.

Come with me. Okay. Can you carry somebody's bodies? I have four of them. You left a lot of money. No, of course, of course. And they scramble forward and help you. They very much are struggling, and the younger one is covering his mouth.

Well, thanks. We'll follow them. Yeah. And they, I would say that they are looking at each other, and they'll say, I think we'll get promotions for being the ones to escort these guys back, and they killed the bear. And the other one looks and says, I'm going to shoot for it. As they continue to walk ahead, leading you into the main town, you hear the gong of the large clock tower as you see now, as the town square is the town square is filled with large gallows.

And there's a great number of soldiers and guards as they're preparing for the evening's executions. There's a town crier that says public executions of traders at sunset don't miss it to be catered looking for caterer for the event still. This podcast is brought

to you by our Legends of Adventress Patreon. Become a patron today at patreon.com slash Legends of Aventrists and gain access to tons of exclusive Legends of Aventress perks including a monthly movie night with Legends of Aventrists and a

weekly Patreon exclusive campaign by Legends of Adventurers set on the high seas shroud over saltmarsh presented by Legends of Evandris. 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 tone for Dungeons and Dragons fifth edition. And don't forget to snack all them extra goodies like dice and miniatures and plushes in a tarot deck and more. Thank you from Legends of Evantris. You enter the town square of the main town of Click-Clock crossing, and you hear the cry are saying, public executions of traders, bring your children, balloon animals. That's a strange thing in a world of root.

Balloon humans. Balloon mysterious creatures, carnival games, sweets of all varieties. I do like carnival games. They're focused on the prize, you all right? Don't get distracted. Kind of being devil. It's gonna be like a fair. Like, you know, it's really messed up.

I'm gonna go get a drink. No, no. It's being set up to the evening. Ah, a beverage. There is a vendor selling beverages, getting set up and sells you on. We have dead bodies. We have dead bodies.

Holding the up foot. Can I get a shanty? Yeah, ha. Pizzi, no, get back here, quick gone. We're all time for this. Oh, wow is me, my friends are dead. Bring the viceroy and gold. And with that, these two rabbit guards

take you towards in the direction of the, towards the jail in that military quarter, but that you see that there is, that you hear loud stomping as they say, oh, well, good, it's execution of a clock. He will process him. Oh, sweet heavens, he's huge. And they both look at each other nervously.

And they'll pass by the job board or the message board and grab the paper off with the message board and grab the paper off with the bounty paper and walk forward and you see as they turn the corner, you see this massive hulking ram in very heavy leathers. And on his back you see a massive axe. But it's not quite, it's not like the barbarian axe

that Benji had. This is very clearly an executioner's axe as he looks at you with the, these string sheep eyes that are very unsettling. As his underbite is so profound, he lets out a low of bleat as you approach and you see this, the guard extends the bounty page

and the executioner takes it and both soldiers salute him and turn to you and say, this is executioner clunk. He is the right hand of the Viceroy, and he is the one that will process all bounties, and he speaks for the Viceroy. Congratulations.

Thank you for your service. To the Marcus out. No, thank you. Oh, I'm just, I'm not shocked. I'm overcome with three full. Okay, thank you. They scurry away, and you,

you feel the hot breath that is absolutely putrid as this massive ram looks at you. And he looks down at the bounty and looks back up. You kill Bear. Yes, yes, it was a horrific battle. Look at my poor friend. You need medical attention, ASAP. I'm bleeding profusely. Weiss-ruin-kote. Oh, we have that.

We've got that, Pitsy. Oh, yeah, we got. Please, please show him the horrible, horrible piece of hide that we've been able to snatch from his corpse. Oh, it makes me sick to even look at it. Oh, the smell, it brings back to memory. I'm going to need years of therapy. It's so haunted. It's still wet.

That's a small hide. It was all we could salvage after our companion used horrible inventions to basically liquefied a bear in its final moment. That's exactly right. We lost two of our companions. We went out. There was five. We only returned as three, just as Grumley said. One of them so valiantly sacrificed her own life to reduce the bear to a puddle bubbling goo. deception check, advantage. T and I have plus 11. Ah! I like fall into Romley's arms.

Very over dramatically. He looks and he looks at the hide and he reaches forward to grab it from you. And we have this tooth, this tooth. Tooth. Bear fur. He seems very convinced. with that as he steps forward and guides you towards what looks to be a, some sort of government

building, a very classic baseline Marquisotte government building in the town square, as he leads you through hallways lumbering. All of the workers, the cats and the rabbits, mice, foxes, are all skittering and trying to get out of his way as they very very very, very, very, very, very clearly are whispering about how you cannot upset this beast of a ram, or else you'll upset the viceroy. And he goes to a large, to a desk with a large box, and he pulls out a large ring of keys, and there's dozens of keys on this ring as he fumbles through them with his huge hoof-like fingers as he grabs one and unlocks it. And you see this just a glittering treasure trove

of gold pieces. And he looks at the fur, and he looks at, he looks at the wanted poster. And he says, you see Aster? You see asterisk? Yes, I guess so. Full hide for full reward. What?

You gotta be kidding me. I mean, oh no, we did our best, please. The bear is gone. That looked like 10% of bear. He reaches into the chest, and he pulls out a handful of coins. And a fistful to him, it's still a lot, and he starts to count it out. And he pulls out a scale, and he starts weighing the gold coins.

I mean, book could tell him that it was 100% of what was left. As soon as I realized that we're basically getting shiasted here, the fake tears that are in my eyes are instantly gone. And I'm looking at him like, seriously, that's it? We're only going to get 10% of what was listed on the poster. Before taxes. before taxes? And he pulls out

500 gold pieces and stacks them on the scale and he says taft their taxes and he pulls off half of a 250 gold pieces to Vagabar Listen here, you're lucky that I'm just

absolutely distraught over the death of my two friends. 250 gold pieces while I never and I'm gonna put it in in Drumley's hands. I want to speak to the viceroy. I want to speak to the vice roy right now. Vice Roy has lunch then dinner with prisoners. She's busy. This is really unfair after we lost our companion. You can't do any better than this. Look at Grumley's face. He was already ugly before and how do you think he's gonna recover from this? You know what my medical bills are gonna be? Make a persuasion check.

I'm gonna need past surgery. Double 14s, it was faded. Persuasion is plus eight, so that will be a 22. 22. You see him look over you, and he looks, and he says, you bring back six soldiers. Five gold pieces each.

What do I look like to you a gopher? 30 gold after taxes. 15 gold pieces for vagabonds. Grumly? Bittsie? I think it's time for us to go. Our business here is done. We got 53 gold pieces each.

Do you mind leading the way? Yeah, we should go. All right, we'll find you. Thank you to be. The vice roy thanks you for your service to the Marquisade. Yeah, I bet. You will be seeing you around. Goodbye.

And he lumberes away as you're escorted out into the town square. I'll lead us to the inn. As soon as we're like out of the, this building and far enough away from your shot, heading back to the, the, the, I will drop to my knees and scream in the sky. You have to be kidding me for 250 gold pieces? Well, I mean, it could be worse, I guess. I mean, you know.

We could have died! Yeah, we could have died. We could have died. But I mean, it's, well, I guess we should have expected it just to get, you know, nickel and dime by the Marquis-up. The key ring. ring. We need that ring of

keys. And then we're going to bust everybody out of the prison and we're going to burn this entire clearing to the ground. And I'm going to get my gold pieces. Oh, you know, what? He probably keeps all the tithing, you know, in a box somewhere and we can just take the whole box

and we sneak in there after dark. We can also take his still beating heart directly from his chest. Well, we don't have the tooth anymore. How are we going to do that? We'll find a way, Bitsy. We'll find a way. Booker, I said, no, I don't do it.

Look at the crazy man, mommy. You see a little rabbit child pointing at you? I like, turn slowly the rabbit. Crazy. And then we like drool out of my mouth, and I was not like flail wildly at the child, but I don't like go after it. Just enough to like starve of them.

You see a mother in a very like drab peasant dress. She covers her a hoax. Pover. Yeah. That's right. That's right. Keep running. Ignore him. Don't ever end up like the duel in school, little Johnny. I can't believe this. We have to get the key ring. It's okay. It's okay. We got some gold.

And we're going to get the rest. But we need to save Peggy and Hazel. Yeah, that's right. The gold, whatever. Whatever. It's just gold. We can make more. You can always calm more people. There are always more peasants for you to steal from. Always keep that at mine. Okay, fine, fine. Never forget.

We'll get our friends. We'll get the key ring. We'll get our friends. We'll free the Woodland Alliance and we'll steal every gold piece that was in that damn box. All right, well, first we should probably get some, you know, at least take a braver until it's dark absent. Oh, I don't know about that. I, we went into the woods.

We sacrificed life and limb. You know, I was okay. I was okay with going to look after a murderer bear. And I was all right when our friends were. got stolen from us, and I was even okay with having to face down that horrific beast of a creature. But the moment that they robbed us, that's when they went too far. I took a bad tooth with a kidney face. Oh, you're going to be fine. Stop it.

And I passed out. You made him pass out. Damn it. He's got like no blood. Can you fix him up, and we get him back to the inn? I'll try. And I'll pull some of the blood that's coming out of his wound and using my unbelievably powerful strike attack,

I will push it back into his wound real fast. And I will give you an additional... I'm going to use the same dice that's been so successful previously. Oh, okay. There we go. Eight points of healing. You got to be okay, wake up. Get up, gruddley, your big luck.

I'll be fine. Come on, come on. Hey, hey, do not miss the public hangings. Sure to be a spectacle. No splash, no zone needed now that we're not beheadings. All right, we'll just get a short rest. We'll figure out what we're gonna do, and we have to stop all this public execution talk.

Wait, so what time is it? This evening, following the Viceroy's pleasant dinner with the prisoners as their last meal. We've got lunch, we've got dinner, we've got some time. Let's get you. Oh, don't get brunch before that. Oh, and brunch. And breakfast.

And did someone say tea? Hey, you take that back that's hours. We've got plenty of time to rest. We'll go take a short rest. We'll talk about what we're gonna do and we'll go from there, all right? You see that it's a very short turtle as he's, uh, he's, uh, looks at you and he says,

uh, sure to be plenty of mice hanged in the execution. I'll turn you into suit! Oh no! I run around him really, really fast to try and make his head like, make him fall over onto his back. Make him an acrobatics check. That's great. I love that. Oh, wow.

14. 14. He spins around and he says, You should have signed up with the Marquis 8. It's a great job. It's a living. And he called over and he starts spinning around on his shell. I'll just put one foot and just, like, slide him as far down the street and away from me as possible in anger.

How rude. You do, as you step on a cup a shell. He's like crossfire style. Yeah, yeah, super shell. He actually, he's a blue shell turtle. Oh, yeah. And they hear, burp, just like a nuclear explosion go off. This just in.

The vice boy has been murdered. The old woman, no. Poor Johnny. No, an orphan. All right, to the end. But get to the end. You get to the end. You, uh, you see.

You see as the, once again, it's another breakfast, as there is the same type of breakfast buffet. You see that Bo, the innkeeper, is very busy. There's been, there are actually people, visitors from New Felicia that have come in to witness the executions, perhaps to dine with the viceroy in one of her many meals today. And he's really desperately trying to impress

these well-dressed people. However, he's seemingly not been able to get rid of Nestor. As you see the drunk mallard in the corner. Oh, the tail, beware the tale of Nestor. A cautionary yard. I can't believe that let the guard just take up a seat. Yeah, it's kind of messed up, I'm really going to get into the, you know, the reeds of it all.

All right, let's maybe get a bite to eat and discuss our plant. We don't have a whole lot of time. That's fair. We have today. All right. Well, you know, it's buffet style, so I guess we'll just meet the first table we can find. Oh, it's awfully crowded in here. I don't know, you know, I say, oh, there's two seats.

Oh, no, they just got taken. You know what? Just go get your food and we'll reconvene, and hopefully by then a seat will open up. Oh, man. Hey, you can't save that. Nope, nope. If you're not getting a weight in line, you can't save that.

I'll walk up and grab a plate and I'll scoop some eggs and some sausage and we're all standing there with the plates and all the tables are still taking and we're all that's kind of like... All right, spread out. I don't see any...

All right, I'm gonna go over this way. You check that way. Okay. I don't know. I think everything's taken. Bitsy, do you see anything over there? I think they're just wrapping up over here. No?

The seconds? Seconds, seconds, though. Seconds. You're pumping up seconds. Seconds then. Seconds. Seconds. Seconds.

You've had enough. They enjoy seconds. Stop. Fuck. These all already have to build. I only took sausages, and they all rolled off the plate. They're dropping your sausages everywhere.

Open notice table, they're all kind of like leaning back over. their chairs and they've taken their jackets off, like they're gonna sit around and talk for like 20 minutes. I found a table over here, but it's very dirty. It's gross. It's kind of like, take it. No, it's, it's, I'm telling you it's gross.

There's like food everywhere. They're probably gonna clean it off. I don't know, I don't really wanna sit down and grosses me out. Where's Bo? What's the ship is in right? Bo! Can you clean this table off for us? We're all holding our plates.

Also, your sausages are all rolling. He apologizes profusely, and he's a lot of it. I'm sorry, it's a big day today. Just very busy, and he cleans it off. No, it's fine. There's no need to apologize. We're just a little tense.

As he wipes it off, and immediately goes back to certain customers. Oh, no, no, let me get that. I'll go on this side. Oh, you got to get over there. Okay, I'll back up. All right, here we go. Oh, I think the chair's a little sticky. Oh, you know what?

I don't have any time for this. I'm hungry. It's cold. Damn it! I'm gonna go get more sausages. Okay, but hurry back. We have a lot to talk about. They look a little dusty.

There's hair all over them. They're fine. All right, well, now that we're here, our two friends are rotting away in a monkeys at jail. And we can't wait till it's dark because, I mean, the sun just came up. They're being hanged today. That's right.

We've got to save Peggy especially. I mean, Hazel too, but what happens when you kill the creator of the universe? What happens when you kill God? Kill death. Oh, do we live forever? I don't want to do that. That sounds like a nightmare. Just never-ending, trapped in our own bodies forever.

But then we'll have an eternity to do whatever we want. The killing Peggy could lead to the end of destined death itself. All right, we're not going to find out if that's actually in the casing run, all right? Everybody just looked. We've been through a lot this evening, all right? I'm glad we're on the same page, Hank. That was too much for me. Yeah, all right.

So how do we get the key right? You know, if we can't wait till dark, I was hoping that horrible beast of a creature would go to sleep and we just take the keys. But that's certainly not going to be the case. I don't think you can take him in a fight. I mean, probably not. And even if I could, we'd still be killed immediately. Right.

We have to be a little sneaky, a little sly. Or we try to somehow maybe take the catering job, but without Hazel here, I don't feel capable enough to, you know, submit an application. No, no, I'm certain that if I tried to boil water, I'd burn it. Does it appear as though the executioner keeps the key ring. on his person at all time. He seemed to pull it out of something, yeah, out of something.

Damn. Well, just like the hope and dreams of old Nestor crash. Shut up, yes, Jeff. Nobody cares. We've heard your story already. We're going through a lot over here. We're very stressed out. Oh, life is a stress.

Have a sausage. Oh, thank you. I have eaten three days. I'm having a liquid. with lunch. It's early morning. I can't believe we can hear him over all these people.

He's very loud. He's like honking with his duck. He's the equivalent of the piano at a nice restaurant. Instead, it's incredibly depressing. Jesus. Well, I mean, do we have any ideas? We certainly can't leave them in there to rot.

We gotta get the keys somehow. Maybe we take a catering job. Oh, sweet heavens. And even if we burn the water on me, at that point we'll have access to the Varsroy. And maybe we can make our case of, you know, we just did a great deed by saving this entire clearing from the bear. I don't know. Are they going to be okay if we cater? I mean, I can't cook.

Sometimes I just make more sap and I kill people. I can't do that. I mean, I'm with you. I can't cook for anything, but if the plan is just to get closer to the viceway and speak to them, then maybe that's enough. Well, so she's going to have dinner with the people

that are going to be like, yeah, that seems to be the situation. You can't cook at all, Pugsley? My name's not Pugsley, first of all. I've let it slid the last three times. Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know. I thought you said it was Pugsley. No, he said it was Bugsley.

Why'd you say that? I said it was Brumley. For what it's worth, we made up a bunch of names when we first got to this clearing and I've already forgotten exactly what all of them were. Well, that's very confusing. I don't disagree with you, Bitsy,

and I'm sorry. Oh, there in this sausage. Oh, Nester would have never made sausage with hair. Shut up, Nester. We don't care. Eat your hair, say. sausage. Leave us alone. If only we knew somebody who knew

how to cook sausage without hair. Oh, no, you're not suggesting. Oh, my God, you are suggesting. What? That's the greatest idea I've ever heard, Bitsy. He's a drunk. A drunk that can cook. Maybe he forgot

a special recipe. Who cares? You just have to make one special recipe. He can make anything else. He just won't make that one recipe. It's brilliant. You have to admit. All right, so what do we do? We go over to poor old Nestor and we see if we can get him to cook for us. You've got to convince him.

We can make these dreams come true. And then we just, like, hope that that's enough, and then we get ready for this dinner, and then what? Let's say we convince Nestor and we get him sober enough to be able to stand on his own two wet feet for long enough to cook something. God knows what? Then we get to this dinner, then what? All the prisoners are going to be sitting around this table with the viceroy? Do we just spring in action and murder them all Because that's one way ticket to jail

Or the Woodland Alliance or both or death We could play it by ear And I mean once we're in the same room as everybody We can find a way to make a distraction And we can let them all out And we'll just be like Oh we're just cooking lunch or dinner Oops

They all got away I'm real fast I could go out and get the fields Or maybe even back to the forest And I could grab some herbs that are Make them real sleepy Then we could serve them up and they'd all just, we could just pick whatever we wanted.

Now that's an idea. You want to poison the viceroy? That's a fantastic idea. It's not poison. I put it into my normal sap. It's like numbed. Well, we certainly don't have to argue over the philosophy of whether or not slipping something into somebody's meal is poisoning or not. But either way, I like where you're thinking.

I can do some stuff. All right. So we convince Nestor, we create some horrific horrible concoction for the viceroy and hopefully the goat guy. Out they go, we swipe the keys, we let everybody out, and we steal back the gold that is ours. I think it's either that plan

or we commit a bunch of crimes and get in with the prisoners and try to escape chicken run style. I don't know what a chicken run is, but I certainly don't want to go into the prison. Oh, I knew it chicken once and she ran away with my heart when I lost my diploma.

Oh, You've never heard of the chicken run? I can't say that I have. It was the greatest escape of all time. It was a horrible top security prison. And there was a chicken gang leader named Gell Mibson. That sounds horrific. And he broke out all of his chicken chums,

and they flew to cope. And I think they were all caught again and cooked and eaten or something. I don't really remember the whole story. Yeah, when he says chicken chum, He means like friends, not like, shark bait. Oh, all right. So we're in agreement then. We're going to go talk to Nestor.

Yeah. All right. That's the plan. I guess on our way over. Bo, can I get the double large, the biggest cup you have of the strongest coffee that you probably have? Oh, I got the good stuff in the bag.

Yeah, yeah. Something so strong that it'll knock your socks off. You know that. And some hot sauce. I got both of those things. Be right with you. And he goes off and probably five minutes later he comes back out with a very, very dark pot of coffee and a very red bottle of hot sauce.

All right. I'll charge it to your rooms. Yep, yep, that's fine. That's perfectly fine. We appreciate it. We'll be back. We'll be back. Glad you decided not to go into the woods

to fight that bay. I'm glad to see y'all alive. Yep, yep, that's exactly right. Yep, yep. That's what we did. He's got like three claw marks by his face. He's very instructive. We'll go over to Nestor.

Okay. All right. He looks at you and he blinks as he, you see that there's like sausage grease all over his shirt and there's like hair sticking out of his bill. I grabbed you the last sausage. This one doesn't roll around because it's cut in half. Oh, yes, I've butterfied my sausages.

Oh, what a beautiful looking morsel. Oh, there's a little bit. Here, hold on. He shoves his hand in his mouth. Five more. Oh, I can't get it. Oh, all right, Nestor. Oh, hold on.

He want me to get in? He want me to get it out? Oh, you wouldn't mind. Just open up. There is. Oh, thank you so much. All right, Nest. Young lady.

I need you to listen out. Start by drinking this, and I'm going to slide him the large cup of coffee. Oh, great. What did you spike it with? Nothing. Here's the thing. We need you to sober up just a little bit. And now I know that that sounds scary and horrifying,

but you're going to have a chance. chance to live your dream. Oh, my dream flew the coop, along with the chicken who ran out of my life. You're going to get to cook for the vice, Roy. That's what you wanted, right?

Oh, that was a dream a whole lifetime ago. Well, it can be your dream again today. How about that? How does that sound? That sounds like I'm passed out and I'm having one of those lucid dreams. Well, you're not dreaming with

Very real. This is very real. We need you to drink up this very strong coffee. And there's even a silver piece in it for you. If you can maybe come with us and cook for the Viceroy. And some hot sauce in the coffee. That's very avant-garde cooking. I could buy some booze to spike the coffee with that silver piece. You could, but you won't get the silver piece until after you've cooked for the Viceroy.

Oh. It's your dream. You should be excited to do this. Make a persuasion check. Acceptable money. That's a silver piece of a roll. 20. 20.

He looks at you and he looks at the coffee and he looks back up at you and he looks at the hot sauce and he looks back and he looks at the hair that you're holding. I put it in my jacket. He's blinking at you. Each eye is blinking in a different rate.

You know, is this one of those things where you promise me that I'm going to achieve my dreams and then you stab me in an alley? Well, one, I'm not promising any of the sort. That sort of thing happens around here sometimes. Two, we're not going to stab you. This is a chance for you to just get back on your feet, so to speak. You know, it doesn't even, you don't even have to be the best cook. You're just wanting, we're going to get your back out there, build your confidence up.

Okay, I'll do it for that silver piece. Yeah, it's a second chance. Think of it as another opportunity to get back out there. And I know that once you do a little bit of cooking, you're just going to light that fire back up in your heart, and you're going to get back out in there like nothing ever happened. And you'll have, you'll be one silver piece richer. If I'm going to cook for a whole feat for the Viceroy,

I'll need a crew. Where are we going to find that? Tadda, you've got the three of us. No, I need three people who can hold utensils and follow my every order. Oh, no problem. That's exactly what we're good for. You should see Bitsy with a tooth, I mean a knife.

There's too many of you. There's six. There'll be a way crowded kitchen. I promise you there's only three of us. We'll send the other three home. Oh, good. I'm not paying them for their time. You don't have to pay. You can pay us for our time, yes.

Oh, I don't have any money. Who's bought the shit? But if I get paid by the Viceroy, then I will. Perfect. When can we get started? Well, let me drink this coffee. And he... Oh, it's coldly hot.

Not only is it temperature like McDonald's hot. It's got like two tablespoons of Franks in there. That would be awful. He's not going to be able to taste anything. He immediately starts crying. You over did it. It wake up. Lifetime.

What about three decades of hangovers are going to hit him all in once? He's just going to die. That can happen? I don't know. What I'm about to find out? I think I burned my tongue. He was supposed to sip it.

Oh. I don't know why I'm doing that. I was told I drinking immediately. Yeah, I did say that. I guess I wasn't really thinking. That's okay. How are you feeling? Are you ready?

I feel very burned in my lip, My duck lift, heart very badly. Well, we're going to have to work through that pain. My dog is numb, though. You know, nothing but a little, nothing. You gotta work for your dreams, you know. You gotta push through the hard stuff. I'm gonna roll,

constitution saving throw for him. He actually does sober up a little bit. It's a miracle. It's a dim wood miracle. That's gonna be our Christmas special. It's almost I'm in the Diamond. here. But I mean, there's only one so you. We can hardly wait till. Because it's only

a dim wood critter, Chris. So, should we, like, go buy chef clothes or something, like little hats? Oh, that would look very professional. Where can I get that on this short notice?

They probably have, like, a chef store around here, right? You mean just, like, a general store or something? Oh, big cluckers, general store. Big what? Cluckers. Oh, I guess we go check that out then. Oh, it's better than Big Paco's skin. Why would you even think that that's a thing?

I just thought that's what he's going to say. You really lost a lot of blood back there. You know, he said there were six of us, and I believed him. Tusha. What are you going to do in the meantime? Are you going to get the supplies, the food? What? Oh, no, are we all going together? Oh, all right. He needs to tell us what to get.

All right. And then perhaps you should lead the way to this lovely general store, whose name I will not mention. Why, everybody knows big cluckos. You know, after you. I'm worried that even with my unbelievable speed, I'm not going to be able to get out of town and find the herbs I need for the special ingredient.

Why is that? Well, we only got this afternoon, really, and then the dinner happens. We've got to be ready. I don't know. Do you have a backup plan? or something else that we can use to... Could we just buy it from, like, you know, the local herbology store?

If there's an herbology store, that might be the trick, yeah. Or like an apothecary, you know? I don't know that word, but maybe. You don't know. I mean, it's what you do. You're basically an apothecary. You don't know that word? Why do they teach you a mouse school? What was that?

What do you say? in this restaurant. I couldn't quite hear. I couldn't quite hear. I didn't want to hear. What? Why these mites quiet in the mouth? I just squeak and then sort of like curl into myself a little bit like this.

Alright. Okay, do we need to bring our plates back or do we just leave them on the table? Just leave them. Bo knows we're busy and then me you just... We'll give them plenty of money. Yeah, you're terribly understaffed. I'll take one of my... 53 gold pieces and leave a tip for bow and then I'll turn and start to make my way following

the mallor. His last way was the accused of being with the Wooslin Alliance. You know we're gonna put a pen in that for now. We'll circle back around and talk about it later. And was subsequently executed. Oh wow that got dark. Lead the way to the general store my good man. Oh he was so young and full of anyways. Let's go. The big cluckers general store. Yes, that one. Do you know if they sell herbs? Herbs or herbs. And spices?

Maybe. And a general store? Yeah. Are you seriously asking the question if herbs and spices are in a general store? Well, of course they have it. It's a general store. They got generally everything. All right.

We're going to be able to get everything we need. This is great. Sounds like we're in business. Nestor, please lead the way. Don't delay a moment longer. Okay, let me just stand up real. Oh, gosh. Steve, so horrible.

Oh, God. I'm trying to grab of them. Oh, come on. Both of you make an acrobatics job. Oh, my sweet gods, his legs have completely atrophied. 17. 14. You see a group of others, two cat nobles from New Felicia that are eating.

directly next to Nestor. As he stumbles towards getting ready to crash into their breakfast. You catch him just in time. Oh, come on. You need that Danish? Nope, nope, nope. I'm gonna like kind of throw one of his arms

over my shoulder and hold very tightly onto his wrist so that he can't leave. And I'm gonna sort of like walk with him and steady him as we go to the general. So wait, wait, wait, so which way? You just point and I'll make sure we get there. Bouncer style. Yeah. Exactly right.

You do that. And he leads you out. You see Bo looks at you and he blinks, having no idea what the hell's going on. But he breathes a sigh of relief seeing that Nestor is left. Someone standing there with a plate sees that the empty chair is finally empty. Oh, thank God. No, there's been like two mice that have been like hovering with their plates. And they're like, I think they're going to leave.

I mean, they have a duck. They're dragging it. I mean, oh, no, they're dragging it. I don't know if he's going to go on. Oh, no. They go slip in behind you. And with that, he guides you through the town. Oh, I think it's this way, and you'll go down five minutes.

Oh, no, gosh, it was the other way. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. It's been a long time since I've left the inn this way. And eventually you find Big Cluckers General Store. It's actually built into a tree. It's built into a tree, like you know, that there are many tree top dwellings, because there are birds in this clearing.

And you look and you see that there is a large sign that has all sorts of lanterns hanging around it with all sorts of different colored glass to have it light up and flash with all sorts of colors of colors and you see a large sign that's very heavily painted and looks like a very plump cuckoo bird grinning with his thumbs up next to the sign this is Big Cluckers General Store and you make your way up the ladder into the building and you see a very large sprawling store that has all sorts of knick-knacks, there's souvenirs, there's souvenirs, there

are, you see that there is like a little, little mini gallows for like children to play with. It's a combination, it's basically a combination. It's, it's, it's, it's a combination of, like the classic, uh, kitschy, like tourist beach store that is, that it's basically just about anything you could ask for for people who just come into town. And, um, but it's like just enough. The selection isn't great, but it has everything. But it's the, like, the, The selection is bad for everything that it has. It looks like that. Right, right.

And you see that same plump cuckoo bird behind the counter as you enter and look around. All right, Nestle, we don't have a lot of time, so we gotta start buying the things that we need. We know about the uniforms, what kind of food and things do we need to buy? You know, bits of you handle the herbs, all right? You know what you're looking for.

God. Nestle, lead the way for the rest. Tell us what we're cooking. Oh, what should we cook? I mean, how do you feel about making your world famous duck sauce? Oh, the duck sauce. Are you feeling like maybe that's a chance for you to come back swinging? Oh, but the recipe, I just, I don't know if I remember.

Well, you could just get close. Again, we're just trying to, just trying to get your foot in the door, you know? Get yourself back out there. Get your back in fighting shape. Like a copycat recipe. Yeah, exactly. Just do the best you can do. Tell us what you need and we'll buy it.

Oh. Well, I guess I could figure it out. What should our menu be? I'm so nervous. I don't even know. You're my crew. What should I cook? I don't know what you like.

Oh, I'm not a chef. Hold on. I'm a failure. What recipes do you know? Oh, I bet if you just told me anything, I can probably figure it. You already mentioned sausages with no hair in them. That's a good start.

Oh, we could do like a very deconstructed bangers and mash. That's a great idea. Classic pub food, but with a very pretentious spin. What else do they eat back in old Felicia? Maybe you have an idea. Snails. They love snails. Oh, you cook snails.

Oh, yeah, I love snail. But we got a few items already. Can you do the snail? Like an appetizer. Oh, even better. That's a whole course. Great. I love snare Wellington.

Okay, we'll do Thnail Wellington. Okay. Some kind of like, it would be like a nice dessert, like a souffle. Oh, maybe. Or some kind of tart. Or maybe like a trifle.

Something we can maybe use the honey here. From this town, we can put the honey in it. It'll be a nice little homage to the clearing. Oh, perhaps. have the bumbleberry honey trifle. Oh, Hazel is not gonna be happy. She's missing this one.

I actually make the greatest bumbleberry trifle in the entire dim wood, at least I used to. Well, maybe she can have leftovers once she's escaped. Well, let's hope. Well, she's gonna be really a nightmare to deal with, honestly. Oh, we could keep maybe like a sack of,

you know how we kept a sack of stew? We'll file that under, we'll deal with it when it, when it, rises, you know? I think we do go with tarantula thawthage. What do you think? Is that a thing? That doesn't sound like a thing. That sounds horrible. No, with the dim wood, we eat bugs.

How old do you think we get me eating shit? I am... I am sorely mistaken. We got attention cows that we like deeply keep in secret and kill for our food. I have a few songs I have to rewrite. I'll go find the tarantula. Great. Give them spiced tarantula. tarantula.

Oh, yep, on it. On it. Yeah, I would say we would just, like, you know, split up and try to find these items. What about appetizers? We don't have that for its course, maybe a soup, maybe a... Wait, so what course is the snail? The snail's a wellington.

That's going to be a... I guess we could do the deconstructed the tarantula banger that's more of an appetizer. How do you deconstruct two items? I'm certainly no expert. I'm just curious if you have the bangers and you have the mash, how do you deconstruct that?

No, we mass the tarantula and we take the bangers and put them in a skim. Oh, that's a great idea. You're welcome? Very avant-garde. Well, I can get the snail. I know what that looks like. Bixie is already like vanished.

As soon as she got into the store, her eyes went wide, and she just like, like a little cloud outline of her mouse and body would have been left. We probably need like chefs clothes to. Now, pick that up if we see it, I guess. Take a look around for that. And you have full reign of a general store to grab basically whatever you want, I will say. We'll grab like cooking supplies, whatever, whatever nest or,

tells us to that. Do I find someone who looks like an herbalist or an apothecary that I can... Maybe you see the big cuckoo behind the counter. Oh. I'll go up. Hi. Hi. Welcome to Big Cluckers. I'm looking for some roots and herbs.

I'm Big Clucker. Nice to meet you. You're Mr. Bigger? Mr. Big is what they call me back home. My name is Bitsy. Hi. Hi, Bidsey. Welcome to Big Cluckers General Snob. I'm looking for some herbs and some... medicinal ingredients and herbs and some roots

and we got a bunch of that shit take a look well I don't know if you call them by the same name here as opposed to in Pottsville where I'm from but if you have any nutmeg passion flower camamil valerian root

Valium lavender ginseng hydroxotophan ginkobeloba or St. John What do you have any of those things? I understood Valium. How much is it? It's gonna be a lot.

I think I can find a bunch of that. I gotta read the labels on what I ship in. I don't know how to sell them, but you got something to write on? There's some souvenir, stationary. You can find your name. There's all sorts of, what's your name, Bitsy? Yeah. And they got, I got, Mitzie, is that good enough?

I think Betsy might be closer. It's fine. I also got a very humorous one that just says, it says, they didn't have my name. That's perfect. That'll be five gold pieces. I put five gold on the table. Oh, in the pan, that's a souvenir.

That's a click-clock crossing pan. See how it looks like there's a bee on top of it? I love it. That's three gold pieces. All right. Okay, thank you very much. much, Betsy. And I will hand him the pad

and then I will repeat the entire list of things that I know and have him write out what he hears in phonetical order or whatever and go into the back and then if Valium's on the menu. Oh yeah, absolutely. Welcome back to me. Thanks for hanging.

Welcome. And you grab whatever you want to you. Yeah, we would just get all the ingredients. We worked together to get all the list of ingredients that we need for the food and things like you said, cooking utensils. And like white chef's jackets with the white chef. Semi-professional.

Uh, and, uh, big clucker looks at you. And he says, oh, that's quite a hole. I can tell y'all not from around here. Because you're very clearly tourists, we would have loved to us. Would you care for some stationary like your friend Betsy here? No, no, no. We are not tourists, we're professionals and we're here to cater a very fancy event. Souverneer.

I got a wrist. watch that is actually like the clock face, seeing it's like a, there's a leather band, and it's just a massive, like, clock tower. Oh, you can tell the time. I don't want that. I haven't ever wanted that. In fact, when you showed it to me, I wanted it even less than I did before I knew it existed. Well, I like the look of you, the rest of your whole. I'm just trying to enhance the experience of coming to click clock crossing. All right. Well, we'll take these things and we'll be all along away. How about that? Okay. Well, let me just calculate.

and everything you got here. Okay, you got, uh, oh, uh, extra special refined spatulas. Oh, and that's all silk. Silk hats you got there.

I'm, my eyes are just narrowing as these asses. And we got to remember to remove taxes. Oh, don't forget the viceroy's cut. Sales tax. VAT tax. Salis.

Value aid. Oh, Val. That's gonna be extra tax that's heavily regulated. This is getting weird. Uh, now let me, uh, that'll be a 250 gold piece. Oh, you have to be shitting me. Probably give the man his money. Um, I mean, it's everything we just go.

I know. Don't remind me. Alright, he you are. He's all the gold. Oh, sorry I miscounted. 265. Where did the extra 15 come from? I forgot the herb tax. The herb tax? Who makes these rules?

Here you are. The Marquis are. Don't don't. I'm just a humble businessman. I'm just trying to make my way in the world. You know, somehow I feel like this is your fault. And I just haven't forgotten our way to blame you yet. What are they say? Don't hate the player, hate the game.

Fine. Fine, here, the extra 15. Thank you, Grumley. Oh, thank you for your money, money, mighty, mighty kind of you to stop by Big Cluckers General store. Come back soon. Yeah, we won't. Next time you're in the clearing. I promise you we will not be back.

We're very unsatisfied. Come on, come on. I don't leave a review. There's a complaint box. As you leave. So I should remove all my gold. We'd have spent everything. That's awesome.

I don't even know if I had any on my person. I just spent five minutes adding it. Yeah, now fuck that. I reach and start to scramble through the bag to find the herb, and I pull out the little apothecary bottle with the tiny cork and a little neck. This isn't Valium at all. This is diazepam.

Is that going to be a problem? I've taken a suggestion from beside the box, and I begin to write on it. I'm looking over as I'm speaking to Bitsy. Is that going to be a problem? It's close enough. It looked like what kind of looked like what I think you were saying.

We have no way of knowing if this is going to do the trick. How are we going to test it? Oh, hello. Do you find everything? And you seem like, oh, I was going to pay for all of that. Thank you got it before I did. Oh, he opens up a coin purse of a fly. I'm off.

Flies out. Well, Bitsy, we really don't have time to test it. At least not on any of us. us, and I seal up my review, and my eyes really get beating. Oh, much appreciated, Fram. Yes, much appreciated. We should be as the box shakes

around, like, through full of clock or country actions, you hear like multiple saws. Sounds very similar to the construction from the workshops. That's convenient. We should get going. Thank you for your feedback of Big Pluckers General Store. I appreciate the business.

Want some drinks? No. We'll be selling snow cones at the execution. Good to know. I got a snow cone car. That was my, my dream as a boy. What kind of flavors of a snow cone you like? Snow cones sounds kind of nice.

I mean, I'm not going to say no to a snow cone. You want a snow cone? That'll be a gold piece. Wait, are you serving it right now, too? Oh, he's got a nice chest in the back. I also got a snow cone cart, though. That was my dream as a boy. I mean,

how could I say no to a snow cone? I don't know a snow cone. Oh, I wouldn't mind a snow cone, too. Yeah, I bet that'll help with your mouth. That's a whole gold piece. We really don't have the time, nor do I think we have any of the money. No, I mean, no, we just spent our entire reward.

I don't think we spent anything else. I won't get a snow cone until the festivities tonight. Thank you. We have a lot of preparation we have to do. All right. All right, let's get going. Okay, come on back. I started to do the netherboard. It's gone back with Big Lug and Don't forget to pay a visit to Big Cluckus Snow Cone Cod at the execution. Bye, big fucker.

I'm already at the door. That's also what they call me back home. Uh, all right, so how do... So we need to, we need to fulfill out an application for Nestor. Do we need to go back to the ram? Wait, we need to fill out an application for him to... To be eligible, to take the job, right? Well, no, was it the turtle that was looking for...

It was a turtle, right? That was... The turtle was a town corya, but you get the sense that for the sake of this story, because why not? Well, we are looking for applications to, uh, craft the finest meal for the prisoners for the last... meal. Yeah, we're just gonna, we're just gonna go right up to him, tell them that we're here to apply for the job. And you know what? We're gonna have to roll the dice on those drugs you bought. What? The bottle, the thing you weren't show, what you wanted to test it? Yeah. We're just gonna have to try it and see how it goes. Well, you shouldn't try it. You'll be asleep all day. No, not us. I mean, we're gonna try it in the food and just let it go. We're not gonna, like, test it beforehand. If one of us falls asleep now, we're doomed. We can't let the food go. We have to serve it to the people. I'm trying to get to... Oh, Bitsy, you're killing me here.

It's so fun playing an idiot. Well, let's get in line and fill out the application. So we... Do we go to the turtle? Yeah, sure. Okay. I walk up to the turtle. Yeah.

Could we get an application if you have one, or is it on, like, the main message board? No, it's on the message board right here. Here you? Oh. Oh, it's the mouse that physically assaulted me. Hey. He's a bruised high.

I'm sorry about that. Violent criminal. Bro. Chils the town crier. You know all about it right now. I'm sorry about that. I didn't mean to do you any harm. I just got so angry.

I lost the capability for anger a long time ago. You should try transcendental meditation. I have tried that. It was very scary. Anyways, there's an apology here. I got you this candy. Oh, candy. Says diazepam on the side.

Make a persuasion check. Fun Time Temi says, Booker's voice actually very much sounds like John Mullaney. Dirty 20. A local town cry I eat suspicious looking candy. What does it do? Oh, Diazepam is in small dose. is what snipers take in order to stay steady for hours and hours at a time. And it is the

like raw material that's been renamed and remarketed as Valium. So if it affects him, which it would, then in however long Valium takes to kick in, he will drift into a dreamless sleep. I feel even more at peace into my meditation. I pulled down the flyer or the application. I look at it. It's looking for credentialed chefs with full crews capable of catering from a respected restaurant or food business to report to the palace. Booker, we got a problem. What? They need to be credentialed.

Well, I mean, we've got Nestor here who basically went all the way through the old, you know, rammed. uh, a cooking school, uh, we just gotta maybe, uh, fake a document for them. Well, that's the point. We got a fake a document. Do you know how to do that? Well, I, you know, I may have caught a glimpse of the one that, uh, Hazel stole. I might be able to recreate it. I got some paper in a pen right here. Sure. Let's, um, let me work on that for a little bit and, uh, where do we have to go? We gotta go to the palace, that's it?

Does it say? Yeah, reports to the palace, like, entrance you know all right well let me see if I can remember this from memory of course and I don't know I'll see if I can recreate it how about that is that reasonable yeah it'll be good enough I promise well I mean should we go back to big cluckers he might sell like fake diplomas I really hate that guy oh yeah I saw the fake diplomas I looked longingly as if only if I had my real diploma oh what is he having can I have some Maybe the for a drill will be later.

He's gonna charge us an arm and a leg for a fake. No, you're right. You know, often, if you remember it well enough, I didn't really look at it very good. I think I do. I mean, you know, let me just take a stab at it. It'll only take me like 15 minutes. All right.

What is a forgery check? There's an actual, like, check for that, right? Vandrus could do it or well in one time. Deception or some DMs like to go in the slight of hand direction because it's sort of like half. I would say, because you're a con artist, I would say, just, add either your charisma or your decks and add proficiency. And we'll see how well you, uh,

how well you forge it. Charisma for sure plus proficiency. Yep. Uh, where is your proficiency? So how we're gonna go up? Uh, it's plus three. Yeah. Ah, okay, so I'll be adding eight. Love you. Oh, I didn't like that. Not good. Uh, 14. We can twist it. 14. Yeah. It's a lot of pressure. You got this. I did get this.

26. 26. You take the paper as you do, you scrape out the top part that says they didn't have my name in the big picture of big clunker. You have a thumbs up. You screep it out. I use my night to like... Yeah. That would have been if I got a two.

I would have just flipped it in the back. And you finish it and you see Nestor the duck. He's now sobering up quite a bit as he looks and his tear sheds. And he says, oh my goodness, it looks exactly like the diploma that I rightfully earned. Well, and that's just it, is that this is yours. You did earn this. And it was wrongfully taken from you by, I can't even imagine who could have possibly done that. Yeah, probably a chipmunk of some kind.

Oh, chipmunk. But this is yours now. Do you think someone could have stolen my diploma? I just thought I lost it because I'm so apt-in-minded. It's most definitely the fact that you lost it, but you have this now. Even before I failed a drink. Exactly. Here you go.

Take this. It's yours. He holds it and his eyes are wide. See? Remember, remember that feeling. Dig deep and remember why you got into this profession in the first place. I think I can do it. That's what I like to hear.

I think I can do it. So, we're gonna do it? Yeah, we're gonna create the best meal that the Weithroyd ever had. Oh. I'm feeling pretty good about this, guys. It's coming together. Oh, come here, come here, Nestor. Just don't stumble, don't fall over.

Oh, no. Throw him. Throw it. My bad deceit are very clumsy. So I'm gonna take him and then lead everybody up to the side entrance of the Palace. Oh, I don't know if you saw in there. I actually swiped or I added to the hall. There's a few big cluckers brand travel bottles of booth. But you see, they were

10 gold each, so could I get my first one? Ten go. No, no, not until we're done. This can be celebratory. How about that? Celebratory after we're done. For a job well done and you getting back in the field. Yeah, that's all they had. That's all they had. What do you mean? You bought them out? Or they only had the little ones? Oh, they'll have the little one. Okay, well, that's perfect. We'll save it. Yeah, I think that was most of what was so expensive.

How many did you get? Oh, do you see in the hall, it's all wrapped up secretly in the apron that you're holding. Ha, ha. It's like three cases of airplane bottles. It's 52 of these things. It's one forever week in the year. That was a very strange way to count those out. But you know what? You got your point across.

We should absolutely put on our costumes. our uniforms, and go get this job, right? All right, let's do this. And I'm going to pull it like over my armor. It's going to be like, it's like tight fitting and bulky. My arm's bulging out of the... It's huge on me. I look like I'm wearing a priestess's robe.

The hat's like right down over my eyes almost, but my ears are still poking out. Wow. If like I'm a real show. You are a real chef. You have to have confidence. And that's what you've got. We're getting your back on your feet. Okay. I think I can do it now that I have a crew. That's right. You have us. And we'll back you up every step of the way. All right. Let's go to the Weiss Roy's pallet.

Come on, Grummelet. Let's get him along. Come on, Esther. Let's go. Oh, thank you. You're such a good boy. You pass you on the head. Oh, oh, thank you. Oh, am I, I'm a good boy, thank you. And you make your way up. You know that this is the grand palace of Click-Clock Crossing.

You know that this was once, this massive tree was a remnant of the ancient, ancient, ancient dimwood, where there was a grand palace of a noble of the Erie that after the great defeat of the Erie was taken over, by the Marquisotte. And to be the viceroy of ClickCluck Crossing is a great honor and a sought after privilege. And you make your way up the winding ramp, the various ladders,

and you see off to the side as the guards that are patrolling this place, a good number of them birds just being appropriately equipped to patrol this area and be able to fly up between the various levels, they see you and you see a Finch and a Robin land, and they guide you towards the side entrance. As they knock, rather than they knock, they open the door and march and you hear the clattering of pots and pans and the shouting of voices,

as they open the door and you just hear absolute chaos, as the guards shout in to this kitchen. And you see that there is a, that despite all of the shouting voices, a cat appears. And it's a gray cat that has very short hair and very perfectly maintained whisked. in a holding a clipboard and seems to be very well dressed, almost like a butler,

as he takes one look at you, and he looks down at his clipboard and says, Yes, what are you interrupting? Oh, my goodness, sorry. Everything is a lot going on right now, but we're here because we are ready to cater for you. you. T'an.

And submit this application. We are finishing up lunch at the moment. Are you credential? Yes, we are. What restaurant do you come from? Oh, Bitsy has it right here. Have you heard of

to dinner and did someone say breakfast? But what about lunch and tea? And which clearing is you from? The par-va-pa-pottsville. That's exactly right. Let me get a sapsion, Jack. She's a mouse. And I give you botic inspiration.

What's from Potsville? Which is a 1d8. And if for some reason this would have failed, you get to keep it. You might as well use it. Yeah, I'm gonna use it. Hot damn. 26. 26.

He looks and you see that you would see that there are, There's a panicked rabbit that seems to be very young, running with a tray of burnt puffs of some kind. As you hear the kitchen staff freaking out behind this cat, as he very slowly turns to the chaos behind him and he looks at you and he says, and who is the head chef? Well, it's our good friend Nestor here.

Oh, yes, Nestor, there, but I am the head chef. I have graduated from the prestigious Gordon. Ramsey Culinary Academy. Show them the paperwork. Oh, and I have my diploma right here. I know it probably seems very just normal to carry around your diploma that you got from your school, just do a professional job that just should be normal.

Why would I be nervous about presenting my diploma to you? I mean, why am I over explaining who's All I know is that I would have... I like, punch him in the cuttide. Oh, here it is. Holy shit. The butler takes it, and he says, well, this is better than what is going on now.

You have three hours to prepare whatever you deem what's while for the viceroy, and he hands it back. And Nestor says, Oh, God, can't perfect. Goodness, oh, we have the job. I didn't think we were going to get the job. Oh, punch him again.

Oh, there's the last sausage here. It's been in there for a while. Oh, it has been. Oh, that was bothering me all day. I hate that when you got fuzz. And with that, you see the Butler, go in and he shouts at all of the kitchen staff to basically finish up what they're doing,

serve the prisoner, or rather serve the nobles, and that the final meal of the evening, the dinner course for the prisoners and the viceroy are to be prepared by the, what the fucking restaurant was called. How dare you forget our restaurant name. It's so easy to remember. We just call it to dinner for short. And he turns to you once they all clear out, and you have a full kitchen that is spotless once it's cleaned down.

And he says, if there's anything out you need, let me know. The viceroy does not want dinner served a moment late. We'll do. This will be the last meal of the prisoners as well, and if this can get them to confess and tell the viceroy, all of the secrets of the Wooden Alliance, you will be given a bonus. Oh, well, no problem. Like I said, we're here to save the day.

Of course, because it looked like things were going little crazy here. How many total plates are you gonna be needing? Oh, we will be needing that you want to read the job? Well, I'm just an underling, all right? I'm doing the reconnaissance. 30, exactly.

All right. Five portions for the Vice Roy. Say no more. you and then leaves. This rabbit's gonna look like Bender in that episode where he becomes a human. Woo! That's just air escaping from her fur.

All right, Nestor. This is it. This is your opportunity. Now I know, I know deep down you can feel the fire burning inside you and all that creativity is going to express itself in the artwork of your cooking.

Make a persuasion, Jake. Big money. It's definitely not the copper or electrum of rolls. Persuasion, you said. 15. 15, okay. Oh, that's not bad. I forget about bars.

Yeah. He looks at you and as he looks around the kitchen, he's walking and he says, the fire. Oh, yes, I feel the fire. Oh, it's heating up. It's heating up in my... Oh, no, my tail just got in the stove. Oh, I'm on fire.

I'm on fire. worse than the hot sauce. I may, I move as quickly as I can to be down the fire. Uh, uh, roll damage for an unarmed strike. Oh, we are not off to a good start. Yes, minimum damage. It's only six points of bludgeoning damage.

Oh! You play out the fire very quickly. You're gonna be all right, you gotta be careful. Oh, I'm bruised. I have hollow bird bones. Oh! Do we need to clean up, are we all set? What's next?

What do we have to do? Nest to get yourself together. We need you to take command. You need to tell us what to do. We were done this before. We haven't done this before. No, you have. We haven't done this before.

Oh, I have. And you see a strange calmness wash over him. As he finally soberes up, the last last little bit and he says let's make the greatest last meal that all of these doomed prisoner that are ever going to eat and they'll die horribly and painfully thinking about the food the nest are cooked and you know what I've remembered the recipe for my secret duck thought that's great I mean what are the chances we already bought the ingredients Oh no, we didn't get any of the right ingredients.

Well, maybe the ingredients are already here. This is the whole kitchen. I'll show these. There's probably food around here somewhere. Oh, wait. The secret ingredient. We do have the ingredients. It was booze.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, you mean like? It was a bourbon glaze. That was my duck sauce. Oh, thank God we have 50. We got 52 secrets right. here. Oh, and all of the earth, we have everything we need. How serendipitous, one might say. Can I like chop up some food?

Yes, can I do. Please, instruct us. Oh, Grumly, you have to deshell the snails. Booker, you're on tarantial duty. Oh, lovely. You know that's all I need to tell you to know what to do. Come back here! Hwark!

Hwww! Hold still! Is it your banjo Bruckers? You need to mash them live in the carapace and how that's the most delicious. Let's cook. Okay, I think for this I need to get my...

I need to pull out something I never thought I'd wear for the rest of my life. What is it? I really hope it's work appropriate. I pull my hat down over my eyes. I'm not going to make the joke that I thought. You see him reach into his coat, and he pulls out this box that despite the shabby look of what he had seen, it's perfectly maintained. And he opens it.

And it's almost shimmering within, and you see what looks like a red headband. And he takes it and he puts it on. And he says, let's cook. And he starts barking orders. What are you all doing to cook this meal as you enjoy an 80s montage of cooking? I am chasing these tarangulas down to the best of my ability and flacking them so that I can stun them. Okay. To collect them in a pot to mash them like you said in their carapaces.

Okay. Okay. So yeah, you got a big old, it looks like like a crab pot. Yeah. But instead of crabs, they're just a giant. I mean, their giant tarant is like this big. Yeah. As you do that.

So during the montage, I'm just like randomly chasing around. Tarangeles. I'm taking orders from Nestor and making the snail Wellington as much as I can from start to finish. So I'm going to start, you know, like shucking the snails. And they're probably big snails. Oh, yeah, they're big snails, yeah. I'm shucking them out and I'm, you know, doing whatever else he tells me to do, preparing all the ingredients and cooking or, you know, basically getting them ready for Nestor to finish it.

I was looking up a list of drugs while we were talking about what dishes were being served. So I know that there's Snail Wellington, I know there's tarantula sausage for band and mash. Okay, so I could pursue the mash. Was there a third? There was a dessert, right? There's a dessert. The bumbleberry trifle.

And then Nestor has to make his world famous secret duck sauce. I will assist with the trifle. Seeing that we have a large amount of berries and various fruits that are going to go into this thing, I confirm with Nestor that that, is going to be similarly crunched up and then eventually cooked down into some sort of a trifle. So I will get out a big barrel,

dump all the ingredients in per his instructions, and stand and effectively make wine as fast as my little feet will go. She's a maniac. Maniac on my floor. Okay, crew, let's cook. And he's barking out orders. He's telling him how to make.

He's coming up with these recipes on the fly as he's shouting out at you of how to properly wrangle these tarantulas, how to shuck the snails, how to make the individualized beef Wellington's, making the dough, the sides, the salad to go with the Wellington. I also want to very clearly lay out the plates, like prepare the plating for who's going where, specifically pointing out the five plates,

for the Viceroy, and whatever other plate might go to the people of the Marquis-Zont and not the prisoners. Okay. We've got to make sure that they stay awake, all right? We're putting the drugs only in the plates that the Viceroy and any of the Marquis eight soldiers that might be in there, 80. Do you want me to do it or do you want to do it? Maybe I should do it.

Okay. And I'll tuck the drugs in my pocket. Okay, you do that. And so, and you see as Nestor is. sweating from his red headband as he takes this large vat and throwing an ingredient and he's looking at the herbs and he's, and he's looking,

is incredibly, bam, bam, he takes up what looks like this strange looking creature. It looks insectoid, but it has almost a big snout and he squeezes it and a big pet. A big puff of Spice Weasel. It's a living. Blass out of that. And he's grabbing it as he's throwing it.

And he has a, there's various stages where he simmers it down. Okay, no, this is going to be a 12 pop roo here. I mean, a 12 travel-thied bourbon bottle of Rew. Why don't you hook me up here? I need to get out of my bedroom. You sure you can't get it yourself? I need a thing for the sauce. Netsu, this is what you were born to do.

As he starts, and he's getting very intricate. As he, and the smell, the aroma starts to fill the room. As you see that the exhausted-looking help of this pallet, just looking at you with wide eyes, some have their fur singed off from the accent and mishaps. You see the one has a paw. that's been bandaged. It's been quite a day,

but you have mastery over this kitchen. You work like the true professionals from the name of that restaurant that I can't remember. How about dinner? To dinner. To dinner. To dinner and more.

To dinner and the rest. As you then see, as there's this beautiful, this pot of sauce that is thick and rich and smells so fragrant. and he stops and looks at all of you. There's exactly 30 plates, a perfectly presented and perfectly prepared dishes,

a full-course meal, is a big personal trifles of the bumbleberries. There's actually, you see the final ingredient of dessert, and you see the royal honey in the royal kitchen as he goes to it, and he does the final dollops of the honey on each of the trifles. And then he, everything is ready to get plated. And then he says,

now for the secret final ingredient. And he's tucked all the bourbon in the sauce. Mr. Dapper's famous duckthoff completed. And he ladders everything with it. As he's like going through the, the platings, I'm going to like go behind him and like, on the plates that I know.

that we have designated for the Viceroy. And again, I don't know if there are any, if that's the only Marquisat representation that will be in there. But if there are any other people that are going to be eating, like, I don't know how many prisoners are all that shit is, but you know what I'm saying.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Basically, the ones I know that are going to the Viceroy, I'm going to poison. Okay. I'm going to, I'm going to spike them. Okay. I'll say that let's get a,

How would you do for cooking? What's the cooking roll? Is there a cooking roll? What's the fuck out of me? Is constitution? It depends. So if any of us were proficient in cooking tools, we would add a proficiency,

but you can decide which skill would be relevant. I would say each of you roll, and you can choose either constitution or dexterity, and you add efficiency, because you're inspired by Nestor and proficiency. Oh boy, baby, let's go. I got a 206. 26.

And we're gonna include how secret you are about adding the poison. Love that. Constitution is probably better. I think it's plus three. 14. 14, 26? 11.

11. All I've been doing is mashing bumbleberries. And seeing that the trifles are now complete, I don't know why I'm mashing additional fruit at this point. I will hop out and slip. My footing will disappear, but I'll, oh shit! I can't... Wittishy, are you all right?

Oh, Missy, no, we have, we have mouse down, mouse down. I got the wind, I got the wind. I got the wind. Mm. Mm. It's all right, she'll come around, just give her a minute. Are you okay? I'll be fine, thanks.

You have all been the best sous chef that I ever could have asked for. Wow, that's quite the compliment. And it's thanks to you that I remembered the recipe to my duck sauce and the secret ingredient all along was inside of me. The booze. It's funny how that works, a little bit of irony. I know. And after this great montage, I feel like we made a fabulous final meal for all of those doomed prisoners. Well, we're going to find out, aren't we? We are. Let's serve. Just before we start, I want to take a tiny little bit of the duck sauce and taste it. What does it taste like?

Is it good? It is absolutely angelic. Oh, wow. Okay, so it's actually great. It's absolutely angelic, and you make a constant saving throw at his advantage. He did graduate. Yeah, I mean, he, like, was legit. Fail.

You're tipsy. Oh, good. That's good for everyone. Don't draw to self. What do you mean? Is it? Is it bad? No,

just don't do it. Don't do it, okay? Oh, boy. Look, I'm telling you, you would like too much and you'll be all worried about, you know, your sugar intake and just don't do it, okay?

All right, well, now's the time, like you said, let's serve, all right? Let's serve as the butler opens and waiters come in and you see as you enter a fabulous dining hall, feeling victorious with Nestor at the lead, still with his red headband on his forehead beneath his chef's hat. And you see at the head of this grand dining hall with art that

seems to be from old Felicity from all over the dimwood and ancient art pieces from the old eerie aristocracy that has been reclaimed or that has been repossessed by the vice roy. You see bound and gagged, but dressed very godly. You see 25 prisoners of all varieties, of all sorts of creatures and species. And you see sitting at the head a very large, incredibly well-dressed, pomp rabbit that with ears poking through a very gaudy, broad-brimmed hat, with a great, with her fork and her knife, as she turns to look at you,

and she's this dark brownish black, a very dark furred rabbit, as she looks at you with these bright green eyes and sitting on either side of her. Bound and gagged similarly dressed are Hazel and Peggy. And that's all on the session. Oh, man. Oh, no.

Damn. Damn, tant, tum. I knew this coming. Thank you so much for, listening to the Legends of Aventure's 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 higher

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