Legends of Avantris - Uprooted | S3E2 | The Fire Rises

Episode Date: July 26, 2026

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Right last time on uprooted He's like oh no now I remember You were face to face with a mole home The entrance of moleholm Where there were suspiciously Boxes of plague grain

Oh, classic. Classic. I hate what that happens. And they all spoke, these moles, dozens and dozens of moles spoke with Wygore's voice. And he seemed to be able to fully sense you as he connected with these horrible, plagued, pestilent. You weren't sure if they were corpses or just deeply sick people.

You had a conversation with Wygore kind of talking about the end, that the end times are here, the end times are coming, and that he was going to awaken the rider of war. You remembered that Beauregard happened to be there, drinking some filthy blue toilet wine. And he made things decidedly, decidedly worse, as Wygore was kind of of drifting in and out of being remotely reasonable or there or present. And then there's a kind of a sinister turn

as his consciousness seemed to leave these moles. And you decided that the only way to get to your destination was going through mole home. Bitsy saw a little orphan mole jimmy or something. Got exploded. into play. They attacked the moles. It was really bad.

It was really, really bad. It was dire. They were exploding. It was disgusting. We used a very modified version of the deep Drek statbook from the Crooked Moon. Order now at the crookenedmoon.com. The crooked moon.com. The crooked moon.com.

The crooked moon. And it looks like it was all over for you until Peggy, in a last-ditch effort, called upon the homunculus of adult bell wax. Right. Adult bellwax that, yeah, your son, that she named Chad. He arrived and with his garish adult bell wax he read. He sent all of the mowls of the plagid moles of mole home

back underground and scared them away. And for whatever reason, because, conversation kind of got out of hand, and you're really not sure what his plans are now. He talked about the moon, about going to the moon, about ascending to some level as a deity, because he fears how quickly he's grown. He has a very limited time left. Well, at least comunculi, as far as he's concerned, only exists for a handful of weeks, or a handful of months. He believes he only has a handful of weeks. And so he wants to find some way to not face oblivion, and perhaps it is godhood.

with which he will achieve that. And he has some sort of belief of people not achieving what they need to because they're afraid to take the leap. And he does not fear to take the leap to do what must be done to have a cool mooncastle or something. I don't know. This is getting out of hand. It's all very, I was going to say. But it's a very relatable problem.

This is like, everybody knows what it's like to fear immortality and mooncastle. Upward in season two, season three. He left, and you all took your own leap off of a crate and were able to fly and Beauregard, given his training and connection to the Chartenstein Bears with whom he had found such a connection to guided you out of the tunnels. You found a crevoss to get yourself to the surface, to the forest. But you saw red, you thought it was sunset,

but it was not as you looked up and you saw a garish meteor, a bleeding star, a red comet that was, as foretold by Wygore, that seems to herald the, it was a different, it's not the kind of waxy baby bell red, the crimson of Chad, but a deep, fiery, almost warlike shade. As you all lost your flight powers, collapsed down, and whatever sort of strange powers in the underground you had are gone if you all tumbled to the forest floor.

I just want to make it clear. It's Chad Trojan fliler of the Hamilton line. Chad Trin Flitherto. Thank you. Thank you. Very important. Oh, it's Lannister Red. No, it's Tully Cruising.

Exactly right. Any questions before you're going? Well, many. None that I think you'll be able to answer at this point. Roger that. I'm presuming that Quasimodo looked at all of this and said, wait, what happened? Who knows?

He predicted this. Who knows? It was in the three days. You all tumble to the forest floor as the flight leaves you. The bleeding star radiating overhead. I think everyone to make a dexterity saving throw. Oh, my gosh. I need fucking nice.

We don't have a character sheet. Dax save, did you say? Zerjian D. I know, but I'm unprepared. Nailed it, 22. He's not so being. Hold on. I can't all these. 17. These are a nerds, guys. You can't see you, we do so do.

D.C.'s 15. Oh, nice. Grumwe. Crushed it. Dexterity, you say? Yeah. Are we level three? Yes. Okay, thank God. Oh, yeah. This is Sam Rameymy's root.

Who got below a 15? Did anyone get below a 15? I think I might have, but I'm loading. She's checking. Got it, got it. Loading. I'm loading, Sam Ramey's the dim one.

Sam Ramey's the dim one is loading. Oh, man. Wait, this was a, this was a sweat kind of check. Dux is. I miss Sam Ramey. Oh yeah, Booker almost died and gave in a night here. Oh yeah. That's very important.

He's emotionally okay right now. We definitely had some, we had a moment for sure. He seems fine. A 14. 14. 14, so you'll take 12 damage and the rest of you'll take six. Oh, god. Oh, holy shit. I am in bad shape. I look like I'm almost dead, everybody.

The rest of us take how much? Six. Six. Okay, I'm unconscious. Me too. Oh my god. Me too. What?

Okay, hold on. It's just like the ravine. We actually TPK. It's the ravine all over. No, no, I'm still up. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on.

You all y'all. Can I'm multi-field? There's three individual craters. As you all plummet to the earth and you all roll and spin, and you see a Beauregard T. Raccoon, he smacks his head on a rock. It's four, your father and three of your friends stumble down and roll and just collapse all out in this clearing as this horrid, radiating star appears overhead. I look at everything that just happened.

I look to Peggy. She's okay. You're alive, you're up, right? You're conscious. I look to, correct? You don't say anything. Are you conscious? Yeah.

Okay. I look at you. I'm the healthiest between the two of us, I feel. Yeah, I force me. I'm bleeding from everything. There's plague all over me. I quickly do an assessment of,

oh my God. Oh, no, probably. John Claw, Bincey! I look at my dad. Guys! And mechanically, I am going to very quickly cast Cure Wounds first level. Okay. Three times.

Okay, what order? Uh-oh. Ruth of Death Save it. Brom, before you do anything. Brumley first. Okay. Ben Fidtie. Then Fidtie.

Oh. And Fidzzi. Okay. Is the order that I'm going to need both of you to avert your eyes. So both you close your eyes. I would like to cast grease all over that. I'm gonna touch him, and he slides away.

I'm helping. I'm helping. I'm helping. She's super soaking. It's going into my mouth. Hold on. Let me move him up for you. Okay. Everyone make a death saving throw, please. We're all baby ducks on the cover of Oh my God.

Andy's got to feed us in our mouths again. A bunch of baby ducks. Oh, again, this is just over 10 under 10, right? Or is the constant? Just as a straight roll. Is it success? A natural 20. Oh.

Bring the bag. Any scrap paper, I just need any natural one gives you two death saving throws. Do we all know what's that? That natural one does do that. Oh, fuck. Hold on. Where do I go? My D20.

Oh, that's not. I got two. The wire is by the feet. I got it. I got it. I got to roll for my toes. Yeah, you got to roll for boat regard too. Fuck that guy.

Okay. Okay. Okay, okay, okay, yeah. Guys, I don't like that. Can I look yet? Okay, you guys are in love. Okay, so you run to ground. Yeah, you run to grab up.

Yeah, you run to grab back. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Which is gonna be a 1D8 plus my spell casting modifier. So he will heal. No, first level it says 2D8. Why does he get 1D8 here? That's so weird. They buffed it.

I know it's just weird that it's like, that it's happened. Well, maybe I'm still for, uh, four, uh, nine hit points. He'll heal nine. assuming that you didn't just outright die. I'm not revealing anything. I don't think any of them could have outright. But the Bitsy and Mace haters are eating well.

I wait to see if, if, and here's the thing, normally when I will have done my magic in the past, I'll have sung or done some sort of a melodic thing. This almost springs forth from me without a song. There's a coldness. darkness within me my hand feels cold to the touch as I bring you back with nine hit points the moment I see his eyes open

I rush for Jean-Claude What I'll say? Grumling As you come to In literal heaven I need to Conceaving throw Grumley

Something happened Chad has like be cool You guys were laughing and freaking out Something happened You guys have no poker face Nothing strange Conce did you said When Mace coughed suspiciously, I knew something was up.

You wake up. You come to, after falling again, after the whole thing with Ocelot. And Booker, you realize that Grumley's, the skin around his fur is actually surprisingly more sallow, almost like pale, as if he's been pulled out of the sea. and grumbly, you realize that you can't breathe. As with the 16, you cough, you sputter. And almost, and like, liters of water, you vomit up. I've already, run. Once I see these vomiters, yeah. He's seen he's breathing and, like, his, as there's light in his eyes.

You run a John, Claude. Okay, close your eyes. I'm not going to make it to Fitsy. There's no way. I'm closing my eyes now, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you got world-term. We're gonna roll-in-your-eye.

Yeah. What are you closing your eyes for? I'm scared. I got nothing bad can happen. So many bad things can happen. Mike's laughing. This is so bad. You get over your eyes.

You have to stop. You run over to talk long. I'm gonna pass out. So business is dead? Like that's... No. No. You have no poker face.

You guys have no fucking poker face. I heal. I attempt to heal. John Claude. Six, 12, 17 hit points to John Claude. And as I put my, oh God, why is he convulsing? I put my head on his chest, and if he's convulsing, I'm trying to like force him down. And again, I feel this, maybe there's even a

briny taste in my mouth as I begin to try to heal him for 17 hit points. Yeah. Make a constantly even throw, John Claude. Okay, that's a good sign, I hope. 12. 12. As you come to,

your wounds are healed, but you suddenly realize that you are choking and sputtering as you feel like your lungs are filled with water, as that would be a problem. What do you do as you see? As you see that he's... Do I have an innate sense? Do I know that his lungs are full with water?

You saw it happen with... with grumbling. Without a hesitation. What I have seen it too? Oh yeah, yeah. I'll cast a sage hand and just slam him on the back and try. Make a medicine check an advantage. 10 pounds.

10 pounds. Thank God it's good. It's just King George. Oh, this is just, this is un-good, some would say. Medicine. What's that bald fits? What are you doing over there? It's a six.

It's a six. Okay. So I'm going to heimlich him, but I don't really use my mage hand that often as actually my tongue. Okay. And so I just start slapping him in the face with my tongue. I don't see this happening simultaneously.

I shout, leave, damn it! And I punch him in the chest as hard as I can. Like I'm trying to resuscitate him, but I don't know how to do CPR. Make a medicine check out advantage. Oh, I got double 16s for an 18. Oh, okay.

You spit up the water, but you take, Sorry, you heal for 17. Four points of cold damage. As you feel a deep chill from this... The moment the water is expelled, I begin to run to Bitsy. You're not gonna die on my watch,

you psychotic rat! Close your eyes. Close your eyes. Derek Roll. Expand your resource. Oh, I rolled max. I got 21 points of healing. Double eight instead of five.

You feel... You place your hands. What does it look like as you run over it? Jean-Claude and Grummel, you're taking time of spitting of, and the water's briny. It almost, it's a combination of, like, murky, and you see there's actually bits of algae in the water.

It's almost like murky river water and also a little bit of brine. How does it have a bit of? though while I'm doing this. I don't a bitsy look. Like, I mean, besides the look on her face, like her skin. So she was falling, and as Bulling Champ, it looked like she

would have a nice cushion, and they immediately shoo-d, and you completely hit the ground in a horrible, horrible way. If I even get a sense that Bitsy is too far gone, then I would like to describe how I cast a spell a little differently. I would say that you, it is not obvious,

You don't know if the Biddy's gone one or another. We've not confirmed this. God. That's true. We haven't confirmed this. So, okay, well, then I attempted the exact same thing. I put my hand, like, on her heart. Yeah.

And my touch is cold. There's a, there's a chill there. As I think about, all I can see in my mind's eye is this creature that I, this unknowable creature that I was just confronted with, who knows how long ago, and has deeply touched my soul as I think about this. and try to bring Bitsy some healing hip ones. You do, and you reach that same power, and you feel that cold, and Bitsy's flesh is looking sallow.

There's a lot of blood actually pooling around your head. Yikes. It's actually quite bad. And you feel that this magic has washed over her. And it's not the kind of triage that you did as a vagabond. This is, you're calling on something and something is responding. And Bidsey, what do you look like when this happens? Is she sleeping?

I need some kind of confirmation or something here. It doesn't look like the healing. Would I have any idea that the spell didn't work? She doesn't come to. Make an Arcana check. Oh, okay. Oh, wow. Do you need me to toss some grease on you like shock therapy or whatever you doing?

Comment check. I only got seven. Yeah, this is new. Immediately, I'm going to go into my pack and see if I can find a water skin. Anything that I might have had, like a canteen. Yeah. Something that I would have had for water, and I'm gonna, oh, no.

Oh, God, I think we might have lost that. And I'm like fumbling with it. And I try to open up the cap and like ceremoniously pour water under her forehead. And then as I pour the water on her forehead, I take a huge, like, drink from it, and I attempt to basically give her the kiss of life, only it's the kiss of drowning.

As I take the water from my mouth and try to, like, put it into Bitsy because I know that this unknowable creature that is of the depths themselves, Bitsy will be reborn anew from drowning. Okay. You do this, and I think that, It'll take you some time to kind of like parse it out.

So what I'm going to need from you is I'm going to need an archana check and a religion check. Arana first. So what are you all doing? He's preparing this ritual. 14 for Arana. I guess just like is he healing? Does it look like Bitsy's unconscious? How is, uh, I look around and I see.

Oh, I need to roll for Borgar. And it's 12 for religion. Yeah, I haven't gotten to Barger. That guy's fun. That guy's fucked. Borgar better be getting up on his own. He's getting. Okay. Is it clear that John Claude is awake and caught.

Oh, yeah. You're all spun around and slapping your lungs. It is awful. Yeah, I'm just, I'm slapping the both of them with my maid hand tongue. She looks as you do this, she almost, she looks colder and colder as as Booker has attempted this. And she, she looks like there's a deep chill that's washed over her. But she is not. Not moving. What are you all doing while this wall, while Booker's preparing? He's going into his wine skin. How does Beauregard look, if I may ask?

Uh, what do you do? He just, he just, he took a bad fall. He took a bad fall. Oh, is everybody okay? Oh, I'll, Booker, help them like you help me. But see? I'm like preparing. I can hear, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm trying.

I'm trying. I'm gonna, I can help and I'm gonna like get on, I'm gonna roll over and I'm gonna sort of crawl over to Bisi. And mechanically, I'd like to use lay on hands. And just one headpoint. And how I'm going to lay on hands is I'm going to put my hands

out. I'm like, get up, bitch. Come on, we did it. We lost our flying, and you lost your, you know, low-poly 1997 tits, but it's going to be okay. I like our regular forms, too. I didn't

need that weird, gross looking body horror suit of armor. Get up, Bitsy. And I use one point. You do one point as exactly what Derek is doing has happened. She just... Her head is lolling.

She's ragdolling on the ground. That's what I do. I'll say, I'll say, is Bitsy not getting up? I think I died and then I was drowning and it felt like. How's everybody else?

Romney, are you okay? Yeah, I'm okay, Booker help me out. I think through the power of whatever dark being now has a claim on his soul. No, no, no, it's fine. It's fine. Listen, there are things that are far beyond our comprehension that are out there in the universe. Gods that we can't even begin to wrap our brains around. This is going to be all right. I promise, I promise. I'll say, uh, I could ask.

Literal God, if Bitsy's already up there with him. Or maybe we could call the homunculus. Maybe Bitsy's on the moon. It couldn't hurt. Bitsy's right here. She's just tired. She just needs to rest a little bit before she gets up. No, definitely check in with literal God.

It definitely couldn't hurt. I say, literal God. She's right here. Is Bitsy with you? Or is she just tired? Or is she also in the process of drowning? Make a religion check? Six.

Make a charisma saving throw. Pretty good at that. At advantage, actually. Oh. 21. You call out. You expect to hear that familiar voice, and you cry out to your God,

and your God does not answer. Oh. I'll say, I'll say, I'll fear that the gods are dead, that hell is empty and the demons walk them up. us. Is that a thing that can happen? Oh, I don't know.

That was a thing that can happen. You should have tried to plan? Well, boy, this isn't good. This isn't looking good, guys. Literal God is dead. Oh, sir, that's the only explanation I can think of. Can't be that you're just not listening to me. It wasn't because I told him to go to heck.

Oh, my names, of course. I mean, you assured me that you ordained. I thought it was all okay. Speaking of which, is Bitsy redeemed? What do you mean? If she doesn't wake up, did she do any in the games, of course? Oh my gosh. I'll say.

I don't think so. Was she even baptized? Was the name of God? I'm not sure what happens in the Hutch. Oh, no. Was she blasphemer? I don't remember. I remember he said something about Buckela, assuming as though he was a skunk.

No, she wasn't blasphemer. She kept saying that Peggy was the creator of everything. Instead of Virogha. It was a best Fino's the truth. So. Her eternal soul is damn. Well, she better buckle up because she's about to get baptized.

Okay, you finished. And you hear, you look over at Beauregard. Probably did. I did.

And you saw that somehow this lucky son of a bitch he didn't actually hit his head. It looked like he his head, it was just the toilet line that he just passed out. There's vomit. There's vomit on his sweater already. On his sweater already.

He's like snoring over there. And he's like, yeah, he lets him a ripping snore that pierces the tension. Can I tell how many D4 hours it'll be before he wakes up? Oh, I just roll a D4 for me. Okay. Two hours. There you go. There's plenty of time.

What was your religion check? My religion check was a... Hold on, sorry, one second. I apologize. I had it, and I lost it. One second. My religion was plus four. I got a 12th religion and a 14-4 arcana.

Okay. Not my strong suits. Describe what you do as now you've done this ritual. I'm doing the ritual, and basically, he mentions the baptism thing, and I'm like, oh, you know, she's about to buckle up, she's about to get baptized.

I, as I, after I poured the water on her head, I hold up the canteen and I say, Bitsy, I'm not going to let you go. Take the kiss of the depths. And I take a huge slug of water and gargle it real nasty. And then I basically kiss Bitsy. And instead of like, it's like reverse CPR, I'm basically like drowning her to try to then bring her back, much like we saw happen to the other two members of our party. I'm hoping by expelling all of this seawater

that I'm going to essentially empower or again begin to channel this unknowable creature in the deaths. All right. I know this is a long shot. I'm just rolling with it. I'm making shit up as I go here. I need you to make a charisma check at advantage. That's your spellcasting ability.

Okay. And I need you to add your proficiency. So charisma? Plus five, plus proficiency, which is two. So plus seven. Plus seven. At advantage. Oh, I got a 24.

A 24. Thank God it was at advantage. Yeah. Been there. You feel as if, as you take your mouth, take the water in your mouth, and you switch it around and you are thinking back to the experience that you had not too long ago,

And as you think, you feel almost like your peripheral starts to go darker and darker and close, and as you feel cold, and you suddenly taste something really briny, and ice cold as you administer the sea water kiss. I love that. And it fills Bitsy's lungs. And I need the three of you,

three of you to roll a perception check. Oh. Perception, you say? 15. 13. Five. Grumly, you're the first one to smell. As you sniff and your strong pug-like nose. You sniff it out. Sniff it out.

And you realize that it's smoke. As the, as you look and you see, you think, you think, well, that's a little odd. It's someone cooking something. And then you look and you feel like, oh, wait, it's still night. There's a bleeding star, but you feel like, oh, my gosh. Finally morning has come.

finally dawn has arrived. You see the glow across the dim wood and you're so grateful. But then you realize, as you kind of look around, and you realize that the dawn is coming from the west. And not the east, and you realize that... Do I notice that? Yeah, absolutely, in this moment, as you look around.

Wait a second. And that the dimwood... and not east. And that the dim wood somewhere is burning. As you realize now that there's spalt embers drifting down from this horrible comet. Right, I almost like totally snap away from this. Because all of a sudden, this like the smell enters my nose.

And I'm gonna like, I'm still on all fours. I look up. And I'm gonna start kind of like walking. I'm gonna start walking on all fours crawling in that direction, sniffing. Wait a second. I'll sniff it out. And I'm gonna start crawling in that direction. Okay, that's what I'm doing? I'll say.

Bronglin, what are you going to sniff out? Do you not smell that? Something's burning. Oh, sniff it out. You do this, and as you administer this, you look and you see that Bitsy's unresponsive. You know that she's dead. And the bleeding star is still making its way across the sky.

Crumly, you seem to think that the dim wood is burning. Oh, no. I do. It's dire. As Bitsy, you are in darkness. You are in the void. You had wondered, had wondered what death might be like,

and you're not sure if this is what it is. But you look, and you see your hands, you're back to normal. You vaguely remember falling, but you can't recall what... You can't recall what put you here fully. And you feel like your home, the people that raised you,

We're supposed to prepare you for this, but doesn't feel anything like they described. Yet. As you see now that the darkness that surround you almost seems to be inching closer, as you see the fog roll in, you see gnarled branches, void of leaves. Are you in the dim wood?

You're not sure. What do you do? I call out. Really good, Derek. It's really good. You call out, and it echoes through this strange place. But now you start to see as the gloom almost slithers in a certain direction.

There's a path through the trees, through the dark forest. And you turn around and you could have sworn there was just emptiness behind you. But now it's just a gnarled thicket barring your path, twisted branches and roots.

Now look at that thicket. And for a moment, I see in the shapes of its twisting branches, I don't see my friends because for me, that memory is almost too distant. But the shape of them causes a flash, a smell of a memory. But I turn around and I start to follow the gloom into the woods. It must be another Thursday. and I start to feel confident that I'm on the right path. You feel confident. As you're drawn forward, wandering these woods,

and as you walk, you see something in the forest, you see something move. It's the glint, a shadow. you see a glint of red, or is it orange? It's almost like an ember. And you look, and for just a moment, you see what looks like the dark silhouette of an antlered shape, and it's gone just as soon as you witnessed it. Wee!

I pick up my pace. And I start to tread, even if it's off the beaten path towards the movement, I, I, I, I, I, I'm not one who's afraid to follow my heart or to leave the more common paths. And I, if I'm darting off into the brush, into the, into the woods itself, I, if, if, if, if I saw, If I saw movement, maybe it's a friend. And I go deeper. You do. And as you make your way through the woods,

it's not the, you don't stumble on a route. Your foot catches on something, and you stumble forward and you look down. And there's a stone. It's a brick, stone brick of a deep slate color. Pick it up and I look at it. And you see it seems to be ancient cracks. And then you look.

look and you see another and another. And as you continue into the forest, it's almost like the ruins of some sort of castle, fortress that had been here, who knows how long ago, before being swallowed by the forest itself. And as you go, you occasionally see glimpses up ahead. Flickr of light, is that a lantern? Is someone in the forest lost like you?

And the flickering leads you deeper into the forest off the path. As you suddenly become comfortable weaving through the stones that get larger and larger. And you realize now there are fragments of what may have been a foundation, a wall, a parapet throughout this forest. And then, And you are moving and suddenly you're shocked to see clearing almost open up before you. And suddenly the trees itself gnarrel and crack and break as they all slink away. As you hear a rushing of water, it's almost bursting up like a spring, seems to be a circular

pool of dark water. you look down and in the darkness, you see a hand reaching up. There's a bit of a faint glow. And you, it's a hand that's reaching out, it's reaching out and it's trying to reach up to the water. And it seems to be gray of fur. A hand that you almost recognize as Booker is almost reaching up through this. I look at that hand.

Yeah. and I look back at the forest, at the structures that I've passed. And it almost feels gray to me, not scary, not pleasant. And I struggle to know if this is the past. I struggle to comprehend if this is the present. I struggle to perceive if this is the future. I look at all of these things, and I want to help that. hand more than anything. It's not me that needs help. I try to pull it free from the lake.

And perhaps in so doing, get pulled in myself, but I give it all my strength. And I cry out, trying to yank that hand into this world, the world in which I tread. You reached down into the water. And it is almost ice- Colt as you reach into it, and it is frigid. And as you look, you see Booker's hand reaching up, but you don't see him. And as you peer into this water, you see down in the deeps, there's something massive

and huge swimming around in this bottomless abyss. And you reach in to grab the hand, but then fire fills the, the sky above you a bleeding star, but it's not far off into the night sky. It is several dozen feet above you as the entire woodland around you turns from gnarled branches into a forest ablaze. and the smoke rises into the air, almost choking out the sky until you cannot see the meteor,

the comet as it streaks across the sky. And then you can still track it. You're holding onto this hand. But then you finally see it crests down into the woods, and it crashes into the force and explodes. As you see what looks at the look. like this fireball that bursts up and suddenly the fireball it makes almost looks like the shape

of a heart. As when the flame clears, you see an enormous looming fortress. It is larger than any structure you've ever seen. You didn't think that they could build anything this large, especially not in the dim wood. And the flame licks around it. And as you grab on to this hand. You see that off in the darkness, were there been just dark forest? You see in the flames, the silhouette,

wreathed in flames, the shape of an antler being a crown atop its head, blazing eyes. And it looks at you, and there was a hand reaching up to you from the water, and you see the figure's arm reach up and extend a hand towards you. What do you do in this moment? In this moment, what in the hail? I'm gripping the hand that I think I need to hold on to

because it's the one that needs help. And as much as I want to reach out and grasp that hand, now's not the time I'll pull either the hand and whatever it's connected to free if I can from the lake or in so doing

my own body weight will pull me into the water and perhaps the safety of the depths will protect me as the fire burns all about and collapses around and the shockwave of that massive explosion

reaches me you do this and the world turns to flame as you see this shape in the blaze reach down and unsheath a sword

and the burst of flame that ignites from it snuffs everything else out until there's nothing but a glow blowing, blazing sword raised to the sky. And it's the last thing you see before you are ripped down into the dark water.

You plunge in and you look now as the surface of the water is above you. You're pulled deeper and deeper and deeper. And you see the surface of the water thrashing and just the glow as you sink deeper and deeper. And in that moment, there's something that you see reflected back at you. And it's heavily locked, chains covering it, a door that rattles and shakes. It's your hutch.

And you see it reflected in the blaze of this blazing antlered king with a sword of fire. And it's the last thing you see before you look into Booker's eyes as he has filled your lungs with seawater. And you see Bitsy come forth sputtering. Yes! Yes! I'll say, Bucke, you did. Oh, I mean, I'm just a conduit, man. I'm just like the hand of Night Here, buddy, I owe you one.

Listen, Bissia, I'm really sorry if I just, like, you know, gave Knight Here a claim on your soul for the rest of time, but you're back! You're not dead! Yes! It really wasn't looking good there for a minute, but Bukkah kissed you with a bunch of water on his mouth and brought you back. Don't get any ideas. It was just a ceremony thing. What this has taught me is that literal God does nothing for us, but Knight Here will.

Exactly right. I'll say I think he's either dead or gone now. Hey, yeah. All the gods are dead. Maybe. Well, God's not dead. He's surely alive. No, I don't think so.

I don't think he'd be ignoring me. It's roaring like a lion. No, I, I didn't hear him do that. I thought you were one of his, like, right-hand men's. Well, I think I am one of the dead. You can't hear the lion roar? No, I, I mean, I beseeched him, and it was quiet. quite as a mouse.

Well, he's not dead. He's roaring like a lion. Oh. Well, maybe I'll just falling out of... Maybe I was just falling out of favor. I'll sniff it out. You're like...

I'm just trying to like... I'm still sniffing, crawling towards the fire. Yeah, the smoke is starting to get denser. As you look and you're not really sure where you are, but you are heading west. And you realize

now that there's a glow far off in distance and a good number of miles away that there is very clearly a forest fire in your vicinity. The forest is on fire. I've figured it out. And I look behind me there's like to say away. Yeah. Oh, go call. Nice job, Gromley. And I'm going to hold my hand out to you and help you up if you'll take it. Come on. Get up. My name's Bitsy. What's your name? What? No, I'm Booker. You know who I am. You're Bitsy. I'm Booker. from Pottsville. Hi, everybody. How's it going on? No, no, no. We've already done this. We're not doing it again.

Huh? Oh, hi, Bitsy. My name's Peggy. I created the universe and magic. That makes sense. I'll believe that for the rest of time. Oh, I'll say if you're believing things, it's a good time to tell you. My name is Jean-Claude. Sean Declare, not John Luke. Jean-Claude. There you go. Yeah, you got it this time. All right.

When this over here is grumly, he just found out we're on fire. We seem to be in a fire. Oh, no. look we gotta get moving this is a disaster absolute nightmare uh and that's booker's drunk father over there lying on the floor is he breathing yeah sounds like he's all right his name's bea regard in case you were wondering well i just got kicked out of my village so i'm looking for you know a group to be with if it's all right i'd come hang with you guys no of course what did you get kicked out of your village for well they didn't understand the difference with lemon and lemon juice ah god i'll say well that doesn't make any sense i mean with those

Wait, what did you say? What do you mean? Lemons and lemon juice, that's nonsense, dog. That's what I kept telling. But they didn't understand. Obviously, one is the lemons, and the other one is the juice, the lemon juice that comes from the lemons.

Well, yeah, that's the difference. The juice comes from the lemon. I don't have time to go into it. Well, wait, do you not know how lemons work? Guys, the dim wood is burning. It's burning. Oh, yeah. Hey, guys, the dimwood is burning.

It's burning. Thank you, brother. Thank you. Where are we going to go? What's up? What's up there? Like you said. And your dad's okay too.

Everything is fine. He seems to be breathing. Booker, I need to make a perception to get advantage because you were the one to administer this. Perception?

Yeah. Oh God, not good. I got an eight. I roll a five and a four. That's brutal. Okay. You are thrilled that Bidsey is back. I am.

That's true. And as much is true. You feel like, you feel as if there's no difference between what happened here and what happened with John Claude and... Yeah, I'm too ecstatic. I wouldn't notice the dark claim on her soul at this point. I look around. I know that the dimwood has changed drastically. Things are on fire. Things don't look good. Do I recognize where we might be in the dimwood?

Do I have any idea if I've ever seen the dimwood? before am I completely fucking lost. Make your survival check a disadvantage. Oh, oh. That's actually not terrible. My low roll was a 12. Not great, but like not a 4. I'd say one.

You look around and you have no idea. I would say given your kind of vagabond history, you would know that you are somewhere in the seven western quadrant, the southwestern quadrant of the dimwood. Yeah. And I would say beyond that, you know. Sure. Let me pull up a map of the dimwood. Yeah, I'm on like picturing you in my brain here. Which is pretty good.

On the Wikipedia, I'm just Googling it. Everybody at home, Google. Map of the dimwood. Uprooted. You all are kind of processing what just happened. just happened. I think now it's setting in that it wasn't like John Claude and Grumman, who just got knocked out. Bitsy had died. She was gone. And something brought her back. Something perhaps was it what Booker did? You're not quite sure. But the comet is making

its way across the sky, it's no longer directly above you and seeming so large as it's continuing its journey as it seems to be heading to the west through the sky. And so we're able to kind of triangulate that we're somewhere in the southwest quadrant of the dim wood. Yep. I know that we had a destination, which we're was also in the southwest, but on the shoreline. That was originally our goal.

That is out the fucking window. What is the... Is it very clear that this is like a raging forest fire that is like spreading and moving towards us? Imminently dangerous. Yeah, I mean, is it like, are we getting a sense of danger than we have to like run? It's not an immediate, like, it is, it's basically off to the west. from what you can see.

And it's just this dull glow that seems to get brighter and you're not sure how massive it is. You're not sure if it's just this rip-roaring thing that's an inferno. It doesn't look like it's something that's completely consumed the entirety of the dim wood,

but it definitely looks, you can kind of look following Grumley's direction. It almost looks like it's dawn with the glow, the orange glow of the distant, um, burning, uh, forest. I'm assuming we also see Bambi's

dad at the top of an incline, staring down at us in a somber manner. That doesn't happen. What I would say is that in... It doesn't happen. If you name of the one creature, I don't think that can just randomly appear. As you realize that the embers that are falling down are not actually being cast by this comet, but are just embers, the wind is whipping up from the west.

These embers being floating down and they're starting to draw. drop down and you look around and you're not sure if it's dry enough here, perhaps, to go up, but the occasional ember starts to give you a little pause. So is the plan to go to the southwest then or what it was, is that what you said? I mean, that was our original plan, but I mean, what's even the point now? We could always go get drunk in one of the saloons down in Gravemacher. Well, I'll say the forest is on fire thanks to Grumley figuring that out. I'll figure it out.

God, we should help. Great detective work. What if the help's in trouble? No, I don't think we're really the helping type. We're more of the fuck it up and then leave type. All right. I mean, what are we some sort of fire forest fighters? I don't know.

I mean, we could try. No, I'm really good at starting fires. I'm not great at putting them out. Well, I mean, not a booker can, you know, make us all cough up a bunch of, like, gross cold seawater. Maybe you just do that again over and over again. and it'll just puke all the cold sea water all over the fire. Do you have water powers now or something?

I'm going to be honest with you, Brumley, I'm not trying to shoot you down here because I think you were thinking outside the box is great. I love that plan. I don't think that's something that I can just do, all right? That was a very special moment, because you don't even know what I witnessed, like 30 minutes ago, man. It was crazy.

I mean, like, we're talking unknowable shit, all right? And I think that whatever that was gave me a temporary ability to make sure that you weren't pulled into the beyond. I don't know if I can just do that again. See? Do I? Wait, hold on. Does any sea water come out? Make Conquest, saving throw. Oh!

16 or 17? 17. With the 17, as you kind of do a bit of a cough, you spit up, there's a bit of seawater, and then suddenly there's something wriggling as a strange shape wriggles out with a burst of seawater and lands onto the ground.

As you see this grotesque little minnow almost like deformed as it wriggles. What are you doing? As then it stills. No, you might have. that table, come. I'll say, booger. Don't panic.

This is fantastic. We've got dinner and I'll take a stick and I'll stab it and then I'll walk over where it's getting warm and try and roast the little minnow. All right, nobody panicked. That might just be a temporary side effect of me saving your life. Grumley, can you, can you do more of that?

Because we haven't eaten in a while. No, I mean, you now have like seawater powers. Well, maybe we can help. I don't know if I have seawater powers. Did you bring Bitsy back from beyond the grave or not, Booker? I mean, look at her. She seems to be all in one piece. You did.

I can help. I can get some herbs. That can help. Is Bitsy like, how does Bitsy look? John Claude, I need you to make, to determine, how would you, other GMs, how would you rule a role of we're basically trying to determine how she, maybe a medicine check. We'll say medicine check at advantage.

And medicine or insight would be the two that I would... Actually, give me an insight. Insight is actually what I want, is what I think is appropriate. Hot dogs. And because you've experienced this, your personal experience that you just had, you can roll at advantage. Oh my gosh.

Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, it could be worse. It could really be worse. Okay. What could have been worse? It's hard to tell. I was going to say, it's hard to tell.

She's alive. She's alive. She's sitting around. She seems to not, she's acting as if she's just met you all for the first time. When you resuscitated, did you cough out water? I believe I coughed out a little, but it wasn't like the regurgitating torrent of seawater that came out of both your mouths. Correct me if I'm wrong. Like, like some of it necessarily was pushed into my lungs by Booker, and I coughed up some, but it wasn't like a magically induced amount of water, is my understanding.

Yes, I would like. Jean-Claude for you to make if you are going to go up to Bitsy and kind of like just take a better look at her. Make a medicine check at advantage. You're tall. Why don't we ever see below your waist in the shorts? It's weird. It's like he doesn't want to animate shit.

That's very funny. Okay. 20. You look, and you look at Bitsy and you look kind of look down at your You look at Grumley. Both of you are alive and well, and it's almost odd. It's almost odd because you look at Grumling, you look at his fur, and it's sallow, you realize he's kind of damp. He's like, he's, he's damp, and you look down and you feel cold and damp.

The cold of death, the cold of the deep. And there's salt water, you remember just coughing of leaders of seawater, that there's no way, and that Booker had not put there. But Bitsy looks not at all the same. She's not sallow. She doesn't look like she was pulled out of the river, the sea. There's almost a, where there's kind of this pale sallowness to you as you all are kind of recovering. It's almost like there's a glow to her. I would say with a 20, you look and you see that there's almost like a flick that the ember light

or the firelight of the fire, seems to glint on her eyes, looking almost a little bit red or orange, before the ember drifts away, catching into a little bundle of twigs or tinder that Peggy has made to start roasting a fish, perhaps. And I have a nice campfire to keep you all warm.

But it does not feel to be the same thing that you experienced or that, and you also remember, or you also say, is that both of you had coughed up this, there was algae, it was brackish, of where it looked like what Bitsy had to spit out was just what Booker could fit in his mouth and transfer her. Which was a lot. A lot. I'll say, Grumley, come stand over here. Come stand right next to us real quick. All right.

How do I look? Oh, you look terrible, but that's the point I'm drawing, too. Oh, all right, all right, Bitsy, stand next to me. All right. Okay. You too. Yeah, look at us. You see how we kind of look like we were pulled out of the river, like maybe the slap water zombies, and Bitsy kind of looks like it has a strange,

ember flickering this to her eye, and she doesn't seem to remember anything. Wow. And she doesn't remember anything. No, I mean, that's a really good point. You guys kind of look like waterlogged bloated corpses, and Bixie's absolutely glowing. I mean, definitely something happened.

She's radiant. She didn't spit out the water quite like we did. You're spitting out water. That was before I came to. Why do you think I would look like you guys? I don't understand. My eyes go in two different directions, as one of them looks at Grumley and the other one

looks at Jean-Claude. You look exactly like I remember you looking. You're both fresh and virile, full of sperm. Oh, well, that much is true. I'm full of that too. What else are my fullest? You have whale, power's too?

No whale powers as far as I know. But, you know, this is uncharted territory for me. Well, you mentioned a fish, though, and a giant, more. Some sort of horrific, I mean, infinite, infinite rows of teeth. Just utter darkness and hunger for infinite. I'm cooking this fish, this tummy fish that came up out of Booker. So I think, what?

Grumly, came out of grudley. Well, to be fair, you put it into him. I'm not sure I did. Look, I feel like, I'm going to be honest, I feel like I may have. damned both of you to some sort of eternal depths of hell. Awesome. Well, that kind of feels a little bit and I'm a little, I'm a little teed off. But I gotta say, because you brought

you brought Betsy back maybe all the way from dead. But how come she looks like a gleam golden angel or whatever? You know what? I'm putting four and five together. Do you think that the reason your God has abandoned you is not because he's dead, he's surely alive

is because Booker did whatever he did to you and now you have fish in your belly. Ungodly satanic fish. Almost certainly. I mean, we already knew that night here was way more powerful

than literal God. Oh, Booger, Bucker, Bucker. You put your dirty satanic fish in my belly and literal God abandoned me. Well, and think about that. A simple, tiny fish has already blocked out your God.

Take it back. I can't. Take it back, Bougar. I don't know how. Boker, kiss me on the mouth and take this fish back. You wish, brother. Yeah, like you did at Bincey.

And now Pins is a great angel. And I'm a waterlog zombie. You are so right about that because the only one that he kissed is the one that's not full of fish. So he clearly, with his voluminous mouth, sucked the fish from Bitsy's stomach. I feel great. I'm just gonna be honest with you guys.

I've never felt better. Well, how come what you did to her Bitsy doesn't remember stuff? Like who we are? Or lemons. I'm gonna be honest, just by, you know, context clues. Whatever happened to Bitsy was something that probably I may not have had much to do with. Maybe I just jump start of the process and somewhere along the line, something else happened. I think he wants to make you work for the kiss.

Oh, I'm certainly not going to just give it away for free. You don't remember what happened? What happened? What happened today? What do we do today? Well, I just ran into you into the woods just now. We were, we were, I was running southeast and I, and I, I was running through the woods and everybody was yelling to me about lemons and, and then I,

then all of a sudden you woke me up and then, then I was here and now I'm, I'm here with, With you Cloud and you, the creator of the universe, who I think is named Peggy? You got it. What's my name? I have no fucking idea. If this isn't just a bit from young Bitsy here, then she's lost like months and months and months of time.

Do you think that's why she was born? That's why she was created? Wait, wait, wait, please elaborate. You just said, yourself what if she was created all for some bit her name is Bitsy well i i'm okay maybe i meant more like in less than a meta sense but you know instead of you know more like this she's just kind of a goofball sense wait hold on are you a mouse herbalist I mean I can find stuff in the forest and I can make like salves and poultices sounds like an herbalist to me different

creams and healing herbs and stuff. That is more an alarm of what it's said on the overlay. How are you breaking the poor ball on us? He says it right here. He was talking about animators. What have you done to us, bug-off? I don't know. I'm gonna be honest with you.

Something has happened. Wait, do you remember a chipmunk? I mean, I know that there are chim monks. Ah, she doesn't remember Hazel. She's in a time when this story was about political freaking warring factions. Yeah, we got a lot of catch-it-up to do here. Okay, you know, I've got a question for you.

How do you spell chick-fil-A? Is it with a K or just a C? The hell's a chick-f-l-A? C-H-I-C-F-L-E-T. Hey. Like, oh, like fil-A. I see. I fell in a threat.

I'm a very good spelling. I started to do that at the beginning of season two, but no one grabbed onto it, so we just sort of dropped it. Done. Wait, you did? Now I can't keep track of what you do remember and don't remember. I'll say you all this is. I remember two episodes.

I spelled things real good. And then everyone was like, fuck that. I don't even recall that. Way too much meta, miss. I don't know where. Now I don't know how to go where to go with this. Wait, who are you being chased by? I was running away because they asked me to leave and I didn't want to leave.

And I told them that I wanted to stay. But then they were like, you got to go. Because we don't believe about the lemon juice. And I was like, you're wrong. Hmm. Do you remember a cat? So much progress. A cat? An orange cat.

I don't even remember an orange cat. In your memory, was he alive? I remember a cat in Pottsfield, but he wasn't orange. Talking about Sergeant Fuzzy or whatever. Wasn't she being chased by Officer Fluff? Fluff? Fuzzy? Fuzz. Oh, we've been. Fuzz.

Won't we be? Yeah, no, we were all. He, Officer Fuzz was, oh boy. His head was the real. I think, I think he's, really important we don't ever speak of Officer Fuzz. Ever once? We met his father or his grandfather, Officer Fuzz's father.

Oh, Bidt. No, you weren't here for any of us. Oh, yeah, exactly right. We played two old cat and that was sad. Oh, yeah. Well, that was just back in the castle. Yeah, well, you didn't meet Officer Fuzz. He was a war crime.

Bitsy, do you remember biting someone's penis off? That sounds like something I do, I know. Ha ha ha ha ha. Well, something has happened. I don't know how to resolve this. Well, I think we just do what we do best and just avoid it, pretend like it's not happening and continue on our journey. I think we need to go help with this fire now that we have grown seawater fish powers.

I'm going to be honest with you. I have zero desire to become a firefighter. This, we have to survive. This thing's going to spread and we're going to be in trouble. My honest opinion on that is I wasn't planning on putting out this fire. that I'm using to roast this minnow. Wait, you built a campfire? Yeah.

And you aren't going to put it out? Didn't you listen to the GM? He described that I built a campfire to keep us warm and to roast your stomach minnow. And no, I was not intending to put it out. I was hoping it would fuel the fire of the forest. That's definitely going to happen. Yeah, it's going to spread real quick.

But haven't you heard? I'm going to throw grease on it when we're done. That only you can prevent. and forest fires. You ought to start a grease fire on the spinole. Well, because I don't, John Claud to answer your question is because I don't have any sand to throw on it, but I do have this nice jar of grease.

It does make sense that only she would be able to prevent forest fires. She created the universe. She can do anything. Make a recruit reception check. Oh, Jesus. Man, this die hasn't rolled high five all night. I've bombed.

I bombed. I bombed. Seven. Presception. Perception. Oh, grumble advantage. Oh. Because you are a pug.

I'm gonna be sniffing it out. I wrote a net for 20. Oh. I failed. 20. Totally's taking the lead here. As you... Hold on.

As you talk to Peggy, you look into the woods and you see a huge shape. As it's a dark shape. It reminds you of a shape that you've seen before of Benji. But even larger with shaggy black fur, is you see an enormous looking bear. And it's almost, you smell the scent of bear, and you recognize it. And you see that it's just standing there in the woods.

It's not the shirt and stained bears. It's not Benji. As there seems to be an aura of menace. Grab me, all right? What is it, boy? What are you trying to say? You're okay. What is it?

In the woods. I like look where he's pointing. What is it? I can't see. Do I still see it? I slav-I-catically close my eyes and slapped my eyes like they do in the cartoons and I open them? Do I still see the bear? You close your eyes and when you open them, it's still unmoving, but somehow it's moved

like 15 feet closer. Does anybody else see that? Can anybody else see it? I try to look closer, yeah. I also look in the direction. I got a four, I got a five, by the way. I got a four. It's all right there with you. I don't eat.

You look, and it just seems to be kind of the dark that it's forced at night. Are you scared of the, are you scared of the dark? Grumbley, just come over here close. No, no, no, no, just comes to next to the grease fire and we'll keep you warm. You can eat your stomach men up. He said, it looks just like 10 foot pillar.

Benji and all those bears what love shit. Wait, a bear? Like, is it Benji? No, it can't. No, he can be. Benji. No, who's Benji? Benji, are you there?

No, no, no, no. It's your friend, Booker. Benji. No, no, it's on him. It's on it. Remember we sang the song about eating leaves? Benji, eat the leaves off the ground. They're very dangerous.

No, it's Benji. Benji's not like the shitting bears. If you were a bear, you would be able to see it. They're huge. That's true. That's a good point. And you can't see it. I can't see it.

Jean-Claude definitely can't see it. I mean, to be fair, he doesn't have anything below his waist. So you might not. No, that, well. The only thing. Are you okay? Oh, I bet it's because of the thing that you do. I wonder if he's hallucinating now that he doesn't have

that minnow in his stomach. I think it's an American black bear being the looks of it. Wait, hold on. Earth is Americannis. Are the American black bears the ones would climb? I think so. It seems like he's trying to tell us that we're in for a hard winter. Hard winter, the whole forest is on fires now. never gonna cool down. I see, why would a bear

be standing at the edge of the woods just looking at you? That's foolishness. I think he's, he might be cross about this grease fire right here. Well, why would it,

why would a bear care about my grease fire? Oh. I get it now. Oh, I think, I think John Clyde had a netter out of, out of character realization. It finally clicked. I think because it's off,

smoky here. All right. Well, anyway, are we going to talk to this thing or not? Let me just go see if there's a bear. I mean, like, the bears are friendly. No one else can see it? All right. If we're going to go talk to this bear, let me pour some grease on this fire and we can move on out. I think maybe he wants to go us to go help with like the actual big forest fire. What say you? Bear of the woods. You just yelled at me for talking to the bear. Make a persuasion or animal handling charge, your choice. What? What, what?

Do you have for us? I wish I could help you with that. Bear of the woods? Oh, no. In my advantage, maybe? Sure, why not? Oh, very kind. Very kind, 14.

You wait, and it just looks at you. And then and then looks to the fire that's crackling. I'm not taking dirt all over the fire. Did you throw grease on her already? If he's doing, I'm gonna throw my grease on it. I don't know. It goes on like a ball. All right, well, I guess we're moving on

and I'm gonna toss grease on there. We all can throw back like 40 feet. See how putting it out. If he's responsible, spirit of the woods. Oh my God. Hey, bye. You all, you all blink. And suddenly there's an enormous shaggy black bear

in the senator camp. As he, uh, he, uh, as he steps in between the grease and the fire, and you completely coat his massive torso in Greece, this dripping down. As he leans over, and he says, are you going to put that out? Yeah, I was trying to,

but you stood in the line of my grease. You know that grease fires are like a really easy way to get horrible burns and you're going to die. Uh-huh. I don't have any sand, so it's the best I can do. Do you know that it's been like a hard summer and it's a very dry season right now?

Well, no, I don't have a subscription to the news channels. You're being very irresponsible for being woods travelers. Well, yeah, that's, yeah. We'll put it out. Bear, you're completely covered in Greece. Get away from the fire! Get away from the .

I'll tell you a bear spirit that means to know us all. We watch a heat hereditary death. Someone? I need someone. Can I do it? I need a persuasion chicken disadvantage. Okay.

Roll two natural 20s. I swear to fucking God. I swear to God. I'm good at persuasion. And I need someone. I crushed it. I got a 26. Amazing.

My low was the 17. I'm backing up, but I'm screaming at the barrier away from the fire. He says, as he is, covering grace. And he's very shaggy.

I really, I really wanted to fail. He's covering me. I really wanted to fail. As he looks and he turns and he says, you know, people who start fires only are responsible for putting them out. I mean, it's just called being a good camper

and being a good steward as he turns. I need, someone needs to roll a dexterity saving throw for this bear. I would love to. Peggy does. Well, six.

Okay, rolling up. A single ember is going to touch his flesh. A seven. Okay. Oh, no, it would have just been straight because Booker told him to get away. Yeah, yeah. He just got cooked, literally.

And he says, like, you should be, there's serious consequences to starting fires. You know how rapid and wildfire. I'm going to, Terey's... Another thing of grease and try and put him out with another... And it's like the fire's going everywhere. No!

I'm like trying to get it. I don't want to get too close. We kick him to death as he burns alive. It's the only outcome that's available to us at this time. There's no other way to say this. Stop out his life. There's no other way to say this. Jesus.

I just like kicking dirt on him. Yeah, I'm trying. Too much grease. I'm trying. I'm trying. Comey. I'll say, make a group survival check to see how well you put out the fires. Realize the blaze and the trees is starting to go towards the woods around you.

This guy is rolling like absolutely garbage. I thought crazy. I got a seven, dirty, ten. What did you say it was? Survival. Survival. 19. 20.

That's pretty good. This guy's been reduced to ash. What did you get, Peggy? Six. The dirty seven, yeah. I roll like butt cheeks. I mean, look, my survival is a plus four, but I rolled it two. You are reduced as your screams of panic go on longer than it.

Go on longer than that. than his do. The only thing that is more horrifying than the sound of this massive bear screaming is the silence that follows. As by the time the fire on this huge shaggy mound starts to go down. You're kicking sand, you're kicking dirt, but there's grease everywhere. And Bitsy, as you're kicking, you realize that the, what you're stomping on is the blazes going down and down and down.

You see the clumps of hair. And you see looking up at you are the empty eye sockets of a bear skull. As your final kick almost caves it in and crumbles. As it's almost like this brittle flame. As you, What have we done? As you don't know...

It's called murder, Booker. It's called murder. This is about as clear-cut of cases I've ever seen. He's got to be manslaughter at worst. How did you think it was manslaughter, Book? We didn't mean to do this. She threw grease on him, and we lit him on fire. He was screaming.

I shouted for him to get away from the fly. He was saying words up until Betsy put her foot through his skull. He said, hey, put out the foot. the fire or someone will get urged. This is screams. This wasn't intentional. He screams. I know, I know, Grapp, I'm sorry.

I didn't throw grease on him. He stepped in the path of my traveling grease. And then he lit on fire and you threw more grease on him to try and put him out. That's debatable. And Bitsy, all of your friends, or actually all these strangers, are arguing about this.

But as you see that this, This bear almost looks like a pile of colts at this point, until whatever it was was unrecognizable. As you get your final kick in and it crumbles away to ash, you see that there is almost like an ember that seems to fill both eye sockets of the skull as it crumbles in and then drifts off into all the smoke that fills the air. It drifts off towards the eastern side of this clearing that you're on. And because only two of you rolled well and the rest of you rolled very terrible, bringing the average down.

I tried. You see Bitsy another shape in the forest. It's not a bear, but you see the kind of embers drift over until they stop in midair in the forest and the darkness of the woods, almost like two eyes looking at you, and you. You see shadow cast by these embers, you see broad antlers and a crown atop its head, and a sword ignites. You see a flaming sword in a moment,

and then you realize that the entire eastern side of this forest has arisen in flame covered in grace. As you realize there's a wildfire is whipping up directly around you. On the eastern, almost kind of to the northeastern side. I don't think that my stranger friends would be able to hear me as I whisper under my breath looking at those burning coal eyes,

those burning antlers, and that sword. Shh, shh, shh. You're not supposed to be out here. I'll reach down and I'll take the front of my apron and I'll scoop up the head, the skull pulling it free from the carcass that once was

Bernie the bear we never knew his name but he didn't no he was gone too quickly nothing good can stay grumly and I pull it free and

pulled it up guys we gotta get out of here the forest fire is going to consume us if we stay where are we gonna go bidsie we have nowhere to go we have nowhere to return to The dim ones on fire. We just murdered a bear. This isn't looking good. I turned the head and I have its face, not Bitsy's north, but northwest towards my hometown.

Yeah. And you turn the skull as you all feel the heat, as the fire starts to, consume the trees in another to another, streaking across the Greeks that's been spilled, all the way across, as you now feel like you've stepped into an oven. This seems like a truly impossible, is this like any animated forest fire scene

where it's so massive and raging we have to run? Is that kind of like the sense that we're giving? I would say at this point, I would say at this point, in this instance, yes. We had an hour and a half of salt, but... Now it's weird way. Guys, this is a new fire, caused by the campfire with the grace. There's a fire to our east, and the other was to the west.

That's off to the far away from the west. This is now immediately right in front of you. Maybe we can... We can put us our kinked turn out of it. Guys, maybe we can... We can stop this. We can prevent further. the death. Help.

We're gonna need it to destroy this scene of murder. Let me ask. Let me ask Bernie. In the game, of course. Hey, Hugman, we should run. The forest is on fire. We're all gonna die. We can stop it. Do I notice you point the skull in a particular direction? Do I, like, do I have any kind of perception of you?

I think it would be extremely odd for Bitsy, as you know her. Even from her. The first time, end this, and up until now, for her to point an object like this skull in a direction and be like, we should go in that direction. That is much more proactive than you've ever seen her. I'm going to pick up on this, and I'm going to look to the rest of the group and say,

Grumley, it's too late. Don't worry about this. We have to go. In the game of course. We're going this way. And I'm going to run and even grab, I'll grab Brumley to start pulling you with me. I will start following.

But as soon as you start moving, I'm going to grab it. grab Bitsy and like push you, pull you in the direction that you're pulling the skull. Peggy. I'm right behind you. Come on, guys. The other two. Jean-Claude, Peggy, Booker, and Grumley.

How come you remember my name is Cloud? What? Not that I'm waiting. I think it's a giant bust of sword on your back. Holy shit, maybe we can't put out this fire, Grumble. Are we all heading in the same direction? If I'm not currently using the Buster store to obviously lash down the forest fire, then... We get about 30 feet.

And I shout, oh fuck! Dad! And I moved back to see my fine Beauregard. I need to make a perception take a disadvantage. Oh, no! It's smoke everywhere. Yeah, it smokes everywhere. Dad!

Dad is Booker! Can Beauregard be Dante speaking into the lake? I got a natural 20 and a thousand. Natural 20 and a 12. So my perception's of 15. Oh. The smoke is now all around you. As you realize you run the other way,

and you realize now that in this place in the funeral, you see a big clump. It is hard to tell if it's Beauregard or the remains of Bernie the bear. I will take three more steps to see if I can get close up to determine if this is the bear or not. I would say, What have we done? I need an acrobatics or athletics, Jack, to see how quickly you can do this.

Acrobatics, for sure. Dice rolls. 19. Okay. I would say with 19, you are able to dash, leap over logs, and you are able to see

that this very much is Beauregard as you hear a coughing. The moment that I lay eyes on, I realize it's not the dead bear, and I say, son of a bitch. If I had to run the death there, I was going to just the bolt.

Now I have to try to save him. So I'll run to him and see if I can put his arm over my shoulder and just start to like limp back towards the rest of the group. I would say you can keep that. Actually, come on, you drug, bum! Make an athletics check.

With the seven, you hear him coughing as you go down and you scoop him up. And as you're going, he's a lot heavier than you are, Booker. As he kind of starts to go, Oh, Booker, is that you? What the fuck? What's happening?

As he's like starting to come to, as you realize that he's very heavy and he's kind of stumbling, it's a lot, as the fire is moving a lot faster than you are. Get your legs under yourself. Come on. Walk. Walk. Go on.

Dad, just move your legs. I'm only slowing you down. No, no. It's what I deserve. I would have if I'd. I found the dead bear first, but I found you, so now I have to save you. Get up!

And you all see now, you hear shouting of Booker and you hear Beauregard's voice, but now it's consumed in the smoke. As you see now, the fire is whipping around to the north, is whipping out to the east, almost fanning out in an arc. As you see that Booker, I would say, make, He, I will say with that, he will try his best, but he's wounded, he's groggy, he's drunk.

And he's gonna try his best. I would say make an athletics check straight. 19. I would say that you feel yourself coughing and choking as the smoke is starting to fill your lungs, as there is suddenly a realization, that comes over you as the weight gets lighter and lighter. And Beauregard said next to you,

you know what? I'm not going to be the bum that got my son killed. Come on! That's right, Dad. You can do it. Come on, Dad. And I still got to see those freaky, absolute. Yeah, come on. And you see that you both Beauregard and Booker stumble out of the smoke and the fire. I'll rush up and I'll go on the other side of Beauregard. Oh, my God, I'm booking!

And I'm going to reach my arm under and help him so that we can all move as fast as possible. Bitsi, lead the way. We're right behind you. Come on. I'm booking it. And you, I would say, you realize. I'm a poker name. With poker staff and boca. That was ridiculous.

You are rushing. And all you can do now, we're the fire. has splayed you can either head southwest, directly west, or directly south. Basically, the fire had just whipped across the east and is just arcing to the north. And it's almost kind of cutting you off, like, it almost feels deliberate.

As you do that, which way do you go? I don't know who's at the lead. Bixie's leading, you're a magical skull, I will follow whatever Bernie's skull tells me to follow. And you know that north, southeast, southwest, this isn't meaningful cardinal directions to somebody with a rational mind. No.

No, I start to trace a wide circle, and it almost feels intentional. We end up wherever the skull leads Bitsy if they're following Bitsy. Ooh. Here's a blank check of creative authority. Which way do we go to you? You can guess it's wherever you would at your finest storytelling. Embers of the skull. I need you to make a wisdom check.

Add your proficiency. Oh. What is fucking wrong with this dice? A wisdom check? Yep. It's a six. I do not wisely make this choice. I follow.

My spirit. And I would say that you feel as if the way that you were immediately running was heading directly west. But you see now that there's that glow off in the distance. And I need everyone to make a survival check form. Oh, boy. Finally. Finally.

Oh, God. Another seven. Finally. Five. I'm not, my survival is not peggy in my strong suit here. 21. 10. Shocked to you. Oh.

21, 20, 10, 7, 5. I said the same thing the last time. Yeah. Same time. I rolled the exact number. And the bear died. You, poor bird. You did the sense. Maybe our savior for all this.

You think, wait a minute, isn't, where are we? Isn't there the river? And I would say that both of you start to kind of get a sense of where you're at. And I think that there's something. innate that you feel Bitsy and I think you sniff it out grumly of where you now have a sense of where you're at given that the kinds of trees that you're around and you're a lot more South than you hoped you would be you had fallen into the crevasse into the depths below south of Nookington but you realize now that you are in the woodlet north of the river that runs through the entire dim wood.

And now you realize, impossibly, that you've gone under the river, and you are in the woodlands north of sticker brush, the clearing where the, what are they called? The Woodland Alliance had her treated too. And you realize now that any attempt to go to the river in order to find water has been cut off by the forest. As I would say Bitsy, you are just continuing to run.

You feel like you need to go north, because the way that you're facing is the way that the bear skull is pointing, and it doesn't change. So you feel like you are compelled to head directly west, which is towards the clearing of Drake Smith. I wouldn't be thinking these things,

but I'd be feeling those instincts. And Bernie, uh almost speaks to me uh i can hear his screams of encouragement as we as we continue to race forward godd speaks for trust to me with the responsibility of oh god encourages me i can't hear that i start to raise what i think is north and is actually west um and i would say that you You run. Actually, let me get one group athletics or acrobatics check.

We'll see if you can. Oh my god, I got an actual twin. Hell yeah. I finally rolled above a seven. I got a 15. 23. Also 15. Hold. Hold. 10. Oh my God. Okay. Oh, let me roll. Roll. Boer-Wergaard. Five.

You're running. As Beauregard is slowing you down, it takes all of your effort to basically carry Beauregard with you. To the point that you're not able to help your friend Grumley, as Grumley in heavy armor that you have, in the, and you're not much of a long-distance runner. As Grumley continues to fall behind

until you trip and you see now that the smoke is starting to billow and catch him. What do you all do as you all hear this, as you hear his blakelid. No, Crombley! Oh! I'll flap over to where he is. I'll catch you! And I'll start flapping my wings super hard and cast gust of wind. Oh.

At the smoke. Yeah. Try and like blast the smoke away from him. In the direction back from where we were running, not obviously, like, towards us. So that I'd create a torrent. of air, 10 feet wide, 60 feet long to basically try and push back anything that's encroaching upon. I would say that you do this, and because you've expended a resource in order to do this,

the gust of wind ignites the flame but pushes it back in a different direction, and the smoke is blown out of your face. As Grummelie, you feel like with that bit of help, although the wind is kind of pushing against you that you've been bought enough time to pull yourself up and catch up with the group. I see the light behind John Claude. It's a silhouette. Dear God,

you didn't abandon us. And I get up, and I realize it's just Jean-Claude. Oh my gosh. Mr. Short Declare, thank you for saving me. I say Grumly pick it up. We've got to get out of here. The fire's chasing us. I think you're right. That God is dead.

and I catch up. And I... Oh, gosh. God is not truly alive. He's not living on the inside, roaring like a lion. I was afraid of that. And I catch up and I start running with my friends. You finally catch up, and you run and you run and you make your way.

And it's strange, the fire that you had seen off in the distance, as if that was your main threat. in the West, starts to dissipate. The glow and the ember of that red and orange, the colors of dawn remain and they increase. But you realize that's actually the dawn. What the heck? That the sky behind you as the smoke

is behind you and the fire dissipates up ahead, that the smoke as it billows up from the fire that has seemed to go out to the west, has now revealed that it's morning and patches of smoke as the sky is cast with these colors of orange and purple and pink. This morning has come to the dim wood and it almost feels like

it's still night with how much smoke is in the air but you see in pockets as it billows the wind shifts as a hot wind from the west pushes back the flame and the blaze but you see that

the burning ahead of you seems to have subsided and you realize now that the land is not as dry and brittle as it was and the dirt turns to mud as you smell the stench of rotten decay of marshyness as you realize now that you must be arriving

or at least approaching the clearing of Drake Smith as you kind of smell the salt in your nostrils of the wind that blows in that you realize how close to the sea you must be Does this smell taste anything like the experience that the three of us had with salt water moments ago?

What may feel like a long time ago in our hearts, but may not have actually been that much time ago. You, I would say it's easy to tell that this is just the faint smell of a natural sea breeze coming in from the coast, whipping through, and you know that Drake Smith is built in a delta on a swamp, but it's a coastal, mostly a coastal town

with people all throughout the swamp and the marshes that are all around it. This is the most southwest point in the dimwood. But yet it smells, but what you are, you're not sure if this is a message from the thing that you had seen Booker commune with, or if it just happens to be that you're getting closer to the coast. I'll, I'll lower Bernie's massive bear skull down to my hip

and sort of hug it against me, and look at the dawn of this seaport city. Civilization. We might be able to Find some place to stay there or make our way Yeah, it's better than the Flaming Woods. We've got to get near the Water Line at least for safety and

Hopefully the raging forest file will be kept at bay I don't think it could ignite this wet and swollen wood I think you're right I think you're 100% right We can always try We always try, but it always fails. That's true. Oh, did anyone get to eat that minnow?

But was burning that guy to a crisp or not? Everything happens so fast, Peggy. I don't even know what happened to it. No, he died for nothing. The minnow or the bear? Nothing matters. I wouldn't go there for it. Maybe everything is ending.

Oh, nothing matters. You're right, Brumley. I was too weak To carry my son out of the burning woods Give it a rest, Dad It's fine, it doesn't matter He had to save me Like I'm some over-the-hill Geriatric burden on his back

I mean a little bit yeah but that's okay It's what happens, okay? Eventually, you know, look, you got me through my adolescence I grew up, I became a man and you know now it's my turn to look after you all right I feel like I feel like I fail you booker but thank you son

for not giving up on me you know dad I just I just can't are you guys related yeah yes yeah doesn't he look like a spinning image of his old man Ooh.

No. No, no, you look very different. Are you gonna look like that in 40 or 50 years? He's lucky. You know what I mean? Certainly, because this world is a cruel, cruel blaze. Don't feel too bad, Mr. T-Raccoon. I tripped and almost died.

I would have been a goner for sure if Mr. Schont declared hadn't cast a first level just a wind creating a 60 foot long, 10 foot wide glass of strong wind. Oh, have you know it was second level, grumly? Oh, it was second

level? Yes. Thank God you use your verbal, semantic, and material components. Oh, yeah. I don't know where you found a lagoon seed, but thank the gods. Probably this briefcase. Thank the gods you did truly

the system were 12 for this. I'm paying. He loves the legume. He does love the legume. And you shouldn't feel bad about yourself, Grumma, you just accidentally tripped. I don't think it's pronounced legumi. It's possible for sure.

Mr. T. Raccoon has done several things that jeopardized to the son's hell since the very beginning. Especially that macaroni and cheese. Making dysentery macaroni and cheese. Yeah. Getting going under the ground, getting involved with bears who love shit. All that gambling that put him into this severe debt that got him in trouble with the mob that led us to running through that

force to begin with. Oh, yeah. I mean, everything he does is jeopardized as well. I would honestly go as far as to say everything that's happened to us that has been negative in any way is really Booker's father's fault. It's hard to deny. Whoa.

I thought we were having a moment here. We're all going to say how much we appreciate each other. Whoa. We kind of all, but we do. We do appreciate each other. No, we really love. We love each other. Yeah.

We're like a family. Yeah, we're like a family. Yeah, we all love each other. Well, we do. There's us. And then there's you. Well, I mean, we can't speak for Bitsy. She doesn't remember any of us.

You guys are really welcoming. I like that. Wait a second. Where would you have gotten a legume seed? Perhaps you use the musicians instrument of this. I think it's spelt-gusting. I think it's a song. briefcase or his magic lawyer

lawyer of business cards. I don't think it's an instrument. Yeah, I think we've established that he has a magic briefcase. I don't know to tell you, Grumman, I've never once had to think about this before. It's always just worked. So I didn't, I didn't understand the rules too well and I just thought I could do it.

I didn't really consider it either. Once everybody starts casting second level spells. Once everyone starts blasting, it just happens. I don't, you know, I just read the spell on my sheet here and I feel as though I resurrected, I get to also break the fourth wall in the meta way.

Yeah, of course. So, yeah. Of course you can't. Well, how many of those legumi seeds do you have? There's no legume seeds. Or maybe I'm or maybe I'm damn lousy with him. You know, whatever.

Oh my gosh, look at all these legume seeds. They start spilling out of your pockets. They're still there. We're just falling out of your pockets. We'll never go hungry again. Where are you pulling those from? You see your lower half. You see as Gorgard kind of like stumbles over and he sits on a log.

And he says, yeah, you know, I think there's some pretty good, uh, good crowd dads in this Marsh. I think that now this morning, I think I need a, your old man needs a little bit of a rest, huh? I couldn't hurt. We all could probably use arrest. I have a proverbial four hit points left. Yeah, I mean, we're probably what? I don't know, another hour so out of town.

That's exhausting. That's far, but we're getting there. I mean, we're making progress. We just, we can't, I don't know how big bad this fire is going to get. We just can't be caught in the woods, all right? But the dimwood's really in trouble, Dad. This is not a joking matter. I don't know what's going on here, but look, look at this crazy, bleeding comet.

Oh, hell yeah. The doom of red stuff, man. The woods are burning. How do you know? What did that happen? Holy shit. Do you think those two things are related? Yeah.

I'm starting to think that this is like, this might have to do with the homunculus showing up and literal God. His name is Chad. Chad. Thank you. My son. Chad. Chad, your son showing up.

Literal God being powerless. Nike is showing up. The Hamlettoed line. This flaming basco that Bitsy's just toting around. It's got embers and its eyeballs. You use a lot of languages. I don't know any of these words in this order. All I got is Bernie in this small ring in my pocket.

It seems extremely precious to me. What? You don't ring in your pocket? You haven't mentioned that. No, no, no, now. Leave, leave, leave, leave, leave. Look, it's just, I'm worried. I'm really worried here, Dad.

This is not a joke anymore. The whole dimwood could be Ash by tomorrow. And you know whose fault it would be? Who's... The damn, the damn marquisade. The damn marquisade. They're always causing trouble. You think they're behind this?

They were behind everything. They're all a bunch of invaders. They don't know our customs. They don't know us. They all come in. They lack like they own the place. They cause war. A bunch of degenerates.

Aww. I think... Do you think I'm a degenerate, Booker? No, no. You're like the opposite of a degenerate. I'm from where they're from. No, you look, you're kind, you're thoughtful. It's a little bit different.

You look out for people. You care about your friends. You have a code of conduct that you follow because you're an upstanding person with morals. And I came from across the sea. And I invaded. Oh. I don't think all in the games, of course,

are going to help my immortal soul Grumly, you're a good person. Grumly, you can't listen to anything this foul-mouthed, pathetic old man asked to say. Alcoholic bomb. Alcoholic bomb. Terrible father. Whoa.

Gambling at it. Gambling. Gambling. A complete waste of air. Whoa. Divorce. Oh my God, divorcee. Yeah.

That went in there. I'm right here. I didn't die back there. Complete menace to society. I mean, if anybody's opinion who you shouldn't take, it's him and mine, but him first. I guess his apartment was a very pleasant, was it? No. Hey, you all doubted me once before when I warned you about the Oscelot.

And I was proven right. Yeah, but like even a broken clock is right twice a day. You faced an Hosselot? Allegedly, it was a horrible creature. It was pretty terrible. You were there. I thought an Aescelot was a cat, but then we faced one. And it's, I had a severe misunderstanding of what an Aeslaught was.

Oh yeah, it had these little hands. Yeah, had these little hands. It was more like, it was similar to a monkey than it was. Was it just one Oscelot or were there a bunch of oscillolittles that accompanied this? Just the one Oscelot, I think. No, well, he had, did he have a bunch of like scorpion allies? They were like flying bugs or something. Yeah, they cling to a shaggy hide.

it's like his parasites. They eat his dead skin. That sounds terrifying. And they feast on the prey he brings down. I'm so glad I wasn't there. That sounds dangerous. You were there. You were there.

You were there when that was happening. I don't believe you. What are you talking about? Well, you know, come tomorrow, I'll suggest that you remember. And then things, you'll probably do that. Yes, ma'am. See, look, it works every time. Well, just don't forget to prepare suggestions.

from your spellbook in the morning. Oh, I don't. You finish your long rest. Well, I don't, I don't change those things because I'm, I'm incredibly lazy and that would require me to work harder. Oh. So I, you always have the spell prepared. Yeah.

In Greece. That's excellent news. And then. And then. And invisibility. Well. So if you've ever wondered why all of a sudden I'm not there to be seen anymore, that's why. I just feel like.

The end might be nigh, friends. Grumley, do, am I supposed to, Grumley, am I supposed to have components for my magical abilities? Unless you have a spell casting focus. Oh, or unless it's a racial feature, I just read mine, I didn't actually need legume seeds. Or beans.

I could cast it with just a bad thing. Well, let me read it. No, no, no, it's right here. Yeah, see. No, you're right. You're right. You're right. You're right.

Once per long rest, you can cast guns to win without requiring a material component. I wasn't sure. it was a species ability or like a class style. Oh, I'm an aeroco-cote. You got that from bottom, page six. Oh, exactly, right. Thank you, Betsy.

We're also reading- Well, I don't have yet. So am I supposed to be collecting all kinds of random bullshit? Because I just, especially when I'm invisible, I have nowhere to keep it. Well, I have a couple places to keep it. You know, it's not very clear, Peggy.

Yeah, at this point. Do whatever you want. No, I tend to do that on a regular basis. So I'll keep you. to do as I was. Let's keep going. This feels familiar. Do you remember that time we went to the lighthouse? Are we? Yeah.

Sort of. It's like a distant memory. Yeah, it's kind of foggy. It's kind of like when you wake up from a dream and you can't quite remember the dream. Wait a minute. We haven't been to a lighthouse together. Yeah, did you just say fucking lighthouse? Are you saying that you lost time at a lot house? We didn't lose any time. There was an owl there.

Oh, but it got a little foggy. Well, there was a guy who also thought that he was a different animal than he was. was. He thought he was a lizard, didn't he? Or he was a lizard and thought he was a bird. I couldn't remember. What are you guys talking about? That's what it was. He was a cat that thought he was a bird. Yeah, some kind, yeah. Do you guys remember that really fucked up bat when we were in jail?

I do. I hope that. I hope that motherfucker is dead. I don't remember that all. What was so fucked up about him? I don't know. It's just the way he was. He's just listening to our conversation. Yeah, like a freak. Just hanging from the ceiling, jotting down everything we said. Do you see the way that he was looking at busy when she was drinking a toilet sangria.

It was his job, but he did have kind of a certain glee to execute in his crew. You know about sangria? Yeah, you taught us about it. But that's the thing. Like, how is he hanging from the ceiling with one hand on a pencil and the other hand in his pants? The

world may never know. It's one of the world's greatest mysteries. I don't think we'll ever get to the bottom of it. Let's get to this clearing, I think. Hold on. No, no, no, no. No. No. No. I want some crawded for a nice boy. Oh, baby. Can we just leave your dad out here to die?

Swallow water makes for good seasoning. If I hadn't found him in the smoke, we'd have plausible deniability. I was hoping to stumble upon the corpse of the bear, but I'd stumbled upon my dad, and now here we are. What didn't he plausible deniability for? We just murdered a guy.

No, he, no, no. I was throwing grease on a fire, and he stepped into the grease. It would be like if, no, it was my fault. Are we going to go to this town? Yes, we're going. We're going to go in a moment, but I got to talk to Gummy. I got to be able to sleep at night, Jean Pard, okay?

And if I just left my dad for dead, I'd never be able to sleep again. I'm with you, Booker. We could fix that. Patricide is a terrible thing, in fact. Yeah, Kinslaying is not good. Kinslaying is not something you want on your conscience. I have a solution for this. For what?

For Patricide. Oh. I could kill your father. You could, but I'd please. I'm asking you not to. I think it still counts if he allows it to happen. Yeah. But if I don't ask you.

permission well it's more if he doesn't intercede at all then I just I don't cross that bridge right now okay I'm you sure yeah there's a lot going on I just I just think that let's not kill each other yet I wasn't gonna kill you I just I think that we might need everybody we can get I don't want to seem useless I don't want to it's dad I just feel like he I just I just know of course you don't want to the great that you say that because that's the determinant factor between murder and manslaughter so you're a great lawyer I really feel like no matter what we get into,

you could always get me off. I think that might be true. The courts around here are really just a shame. Where is it, Bitsy? Oh, you had something to say? Do you have some wisdom to offer me to give me hope for the future? You seem really down, dummy.

Are you okay? What did you just call me? Dummy. Oh, dummy? Look, I heard dummy. I heard a dummy. I know about you. I heard it spell with the sea.

Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Comey, are you okay? Oh, so you didn't say gummy? I said gummy the first time, but then, then this one's father corrected me and said it was filled with a C. We shouldn't. And I assume that it's not guppy. No, we really can't have a Brab Zanagan situation.

No. Let's know. We should end this, Lauren thinking. I agree. Well, you seem like there's... Gummy's fine. Gummy's fine. Well, you feel...

It's like it's really bad. Like, there's going to be some horrible thing that happens and that existence is going to end. You seem really down. Well... I mean, did you see all that stuff that happened like the last...

I don't know, day or two? Mostly just the last few hours. Oh. Oh, you don't remember any of that stuff. Anyway, there's just a whole lot of stuff that made me believe, like, that the world was ending, but then I was blessed,

by literal God and we flew. Exactly right. But then he abandoned us and died. Well, that's also true. No, God's not dead. He's surely alive. No, he's dead. And demons walk amongst us. Didn't you hear Mr. Chanticleer?

Hell is empty. Demons walk amongst us. He's dead. It's true, gruel. No, no, no. I thought your God was alive. He'd just abandon you because you were filled with the devilfish from Booker's weird satanic. Oh, it's hard to keep track, Peggy.

I mean, literal God himself. even spoke to me from above and told me. What could you try to ask? John Claude, I'll only be here as long as I think it's funny. And then I'll give up on you. Nothing. And, uh, yeah.

I mean, sounds like a smart god. He was smart. You know, he was a little worried about, uh, Chad showing up on the moon. Okay, excuse me what? Mayor, no, he got a little worried. I mean, even you knows the, Buckley. Yeah, well, I take it back.

Anyone who's worried about Chad. Chad is a stand-up gentleman. Well, I, Hold him, Chad's coming to the moon, Chad. Well, Chad deserves the moon. Chad works really hard for the moon. I think Chad would fly into the moon. To be clear, the concern from literal God doesn't sound like he's concerned for your son.

It sounds like he's going to be dethroned. Oh, yeah. I think it was a little bit of us. Look, all I can say is if God's being a little bitch and you can't even take on a wax a monkey. That's what I'm trying to say. Who deserves to be dethroned? If we're talking about the power scaling of these new gods that have emerged, literal gods like

down here. And then we got like Chad and Nightyear, like up in the upper realms of the Estia. Yeah, no, I actually- The demons walk amongst us exactly right, Booker, yeah, God is right, okay, got to say, what I'm saying. Okay, but if the demons walk amongst us, okay, I'm listening, how do we know who's demon and who's not?

Well, does anybody walk around amongst us? That bear, demon? What, you know? Okay. What about us? No, no, no, no, no, no. You're a little questionable. To be honest, you're bringing people back in the dead.

Ah, that's fair. Sean Quad? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. What about Bitsy? Bitsy's questionable as well. She's got eyes of amber. She's kind of glowing like an angel.

She doesn't remember anything. Did you just say amber? I'm sure of amber. Exactly right. Oh, yeah. She got eyes like amber. Amber. You just bet a fucking hope.

She's got amber eyes. You just better fucking hope that the GM does not start playing death waltz. That's all I'm saying. What if there's amber? Is that a lighthouse? Is that a lighthouse? Oh, well, you got to start talking about a lighthouse, of course, losing time and meeting cats.

It was a long time ago. And again, it was almost as if it was a dream. I'm not sure it really happened. Well, isn't that just a lighthouse for you? Isn't that just a lighthouse? I don't think I've ever been to a lighthouse before. No, why. No way, piggy.

But anyway, I think maybe Chad killed literal God on the moon. Do you think my son killed God? It's possible. It's exactly a possibility. I mean, he seemed pretty powerful and handsome. I mean, to be fair, he is a fliler of the Hamilton line. Well, and he was flying up to the moon and literal God said. wings of wax. He's coming to the moon?

And I said, well, yes, literal God, he's coming to the moon. He said, oh, no. And well, I, something like that, it's hard to recall. What God knows fear? I think many guys know. Yeah, I didn't even know. Would he not know everything, Booker? What a silly question.

Well, that in and of itself raises several questions. If he's as powerful as he is, he shouldn't have any fear. I didn't even know you could tickle a god. I think maybe Chad could tickle literal God. I think maybe Chad's up there on the moon. Take a little god. Stop, I'm going to throw up.

This is getting weird. Stop, I'm going to pee myself. Is that what literal God says? I don't know. He's just started doing it, and I'm hardly to copy him. We've never heard what little God sounds like. No, no, that's not. You know what he's a prophet.

It's kind of like to, for me to use the voice of God, I have to use a form of mimicry, because when it hits me, it just washes over me. Of course, it doesn't beat me in words. Oh, you just feel it. I feel it. I feel the presence, bro. I'm the exactly right.

I just had a realization. If God speaks to you, then you're the messier. The messier? Yeah. Mm. Messier, you said. Yeah, I do. That means you have to write your own bibl.

Oh. Well, I've been known to turn a fancy phrase with a pen or two. I suppose I could write a little bibl. Will you write the gospel according to Peggy? Well, when you're not in planning, I have to write the gospel according to literal God that speaks to me. Well, no, I mean, like, the entire Bible is the gospel according to God, but each chapter is supposed to be like somebody's story. Oh, I can work in the chapter for you.

You have to have the gospel according to Booker and the gospel according to... Well, he's a demon I'm kind of convinced. We're not sure you. Well, the jury's out. Give me the benefit of the doubt. What happened to innocent, don't prove it guilty? Well, the evidence is stacking up against your circumstantial as though it may be, Booker. Don't make me regret.

saving you. What? No, that's fine. I don't want to incur your rat. That's fair. Especially if he's a demon, yeah. Well, exactly, right. You gotta play your cards, right? How are we feeling about Clymley? He's just sad.

I'm trying to help him, but you guys talk about crazy shit that's not real. He's a little us like, we do keep interrupting. They were having a moment. What was that? I mean, John Cloud, somebody asked me about Pitchie. Can we have a picture?

second sure you have you have uninterrupted time where the three of us will not say anything I can't make that promise I will I'll try I think that's true go ahead bidsie hold on to this oh geez you worried about me so I hear the screams of Bernie as I hold the skull maybe a Christmas savings girl 10 um you stare into it and just a ashen skull at this

point. The flesh having burned away rapidly fast, remarkably fast. And you hear the very faint shrieks that seemed to echo. But it doesn't

sound like someone burning. It sounds like crying, wailing, people crying for their mothers, people in pain groaning, as they experience a slow death, the sound of fear and death, and death, and you hear it. And it's almost like in an instant you hear the sound of a horn that then drifts off as the what you hear fades. And you can't even, you're not even sure if you, if you heard it at all. You're humming too loud for Bitsy to talk. We just promised we were gonna stop talking.

That's right, that's right. Uh, yeah. Go ahead, go ahead, Bitsy. Come here, are you all right? Didn't she just ask him? I'm sorry, sorry. Come, come with me. Yeah, I guess.

Well, can we all come with you? Like, are you just going to go off with him? I mean, it's weird. I'm just asking him. Yeah, it's a little rude. Oh, baby. Hey. Oh, God.

A little more roasted than Bernie. I start to lead growingly. away from the rest of the gang. Towards the horizon where we're looking out over the seaport, sea city. You guys are far away from the clear.

You're in like the marsh and the swan. It's off. Yeah. You're not looking down. No, no. Yeah, yeah. But in that same direction, I start to walk with Grumling, and I... Yeah, Pitsy.

I sense that you're kind of in a lost place. like you got no hope. I mean, how could you have hope? Literal God literally died. I don't know what that means. I don't think that's true. I think the world's ending in a few days.

I don't know what that means. I don't think that's true. I mean, how do you explain the comet and the omens? It makes sense. Look, it's a big rock. In the sky, of course, it's going to fall, and it's going to fall with such tremendous force that it's on fire. That makes more sense than the moon.

And I like point in the other direction of the moon. The moon is just hanging out up there. Big rock like that don't fall down. That's crazy. What do you say? I'm saying that this purpose to all of this. And we're with the one person who created the universe. We're going to be all right. What's the purpose? Why am I here, Bitsy? There's secrets that I have to show you. There's secrets that you need to be. to know. Well, well, show me. I'm ready, I think.

I'm not sure if you're ready. How can... I am sure that you need to pick me up. And so I'm here to give you a special hug. A special, what? A special hug, gummy. Did you hear her hung? I don't know what I heard. I'm here to give you a special hug.

I would love a special hug, Pitsy. I think that it'll pick you up and we'll go to Drake's mouth. then we'll do whatever we have to do there and then we'll return home and even though they kicked me out we'll show them the difference between lemons and lemon juice all right all right I can do that I if you think that that's a way we can stop all of this and and have hope and find meaning a purpose in life I want to know what secrets you can reveal Bidsey I will show you but first you have to Start thinking positively again. Believe in yourself. Now I'm gonna give you a special hug.

Something I can only give somebody once every now and again, all right? I don't know if I'm ready, but I'm willing to accept that. Hold out your pinky. I'm gonna reach forward. The words change freak me. Grumly's finger just a little squeeze. The specialist. Specialist most special hugs.

Oh, thank you, Bitsy. I was very kind. You feel better? I think so. Can I give you a special hug, too? Sure. Can I have you a pinky? Like this? Yeah. Thank you.

All right, no, I think maybe the end is it nigh. And that we shouldn't abandon all hope. We shouldn't abandon all hope, even if the end is nigh. That's the point of the hug, and that's the first lesson. That's the first lesson. Come on. Let's go find out what's around the corner. We'll go find out what Bernie's screaming about, all right?

Okay. Before we go, though, ever since you started calling me gummy, I've been wondering, do you think I'm dashing and daring? Does that matter to you to be dashing and daring? I don't know. Do you think I'm courageous and caring? Do you think I'm faithful and friendly with stories to share? Because I think I am and I feel like my friends don't see me that way. I'm digging it right now. That's my favorite round of possession. I'm taking it.

All through this forest, I feel like many people would sing out in chorus. You think so, bidsie. That you are dashing and daring. Courageous and caring. Yeah. All right, well, it means a lot. I don't know how much it means since you don't remember the, you know, like months or years we've been adventuring together

through these woods, but at least in the... I look at my watch. Two hours and 23 minutes we've known each other. It's a digital, it's a digital romance. Yeah, yeah. It's a, it's a Cassio. Yeah, it's a Cassio. It's that shot one that had a little fin on it,

whatever that one was. That still means something, Bixie. Thank you. I'll feel better now. We should go to Drake Smith or have a crawfish boil or whichever thing anybody else wants to do. I think that sounds lovely.

Let's go Little Lou. Come on. All right, let's go. And I join... We join hands and we sing the theme song to gummy bears as we skip back to the rest of the group. You do that. Meanwhile, Beauregard says, Well, I couldn't find any crawfish for a boil,

but I found plenty of slugs and these weird swamp pods and got some mash worms with swamp pumpkins. And so I basically made us a nice dinner from the beginning of the first Shrek movie. Dad, I swear to the gods, we are not doing this again. Somebody once told me the world We are not... I'm not gonna let you poison us.

I ain't the sharpest tool in the shed. If you thought that the ducy mac and cheese was bad, if you eat that, you're gonna die. Hey, why don't you come to the table, put your napkin in your lap, and say grace or else they're gonna be calling you smash mouth after I'm done with you. I'm not eating that, dad. Those slugs are poisonous. No, they're not.

So why would you think they're poisonous? They did they're green with a bright-colored stripe. Like poisoned? dart frogs. I'm not doing it. I'm not doing it. Don't eat it. Do not eat this. You will die. Well, what if he just squeezes it really hard and we brush our teeth

with it? Is that fine? No, no. Don't put the slugs anywhere near your eyes, nose, mouth, nothing. Don't do it. The poisonous. You'll die. But what if the years start coming and they don't stop coming? Then you'll die. They don't stop coming. That's also fair. That's the thing about getting all

the, you know, every year goes buy faster and faster and then you wake up. And you know what they say, Bo regard. They say that a minute now only has 45 seconds instead of 60. Holy shit. Is that true? Yeah. Wow. Well, I guess not for much longer

if these really are the end times. I guess all my gambling debts are, that's one way to get him to go away, huh? Yeah. Look, I'm not eating this. I'm not eating it. It can't make me. Well, I have a nice tray. I, you know, I do something while you're all having existential crisis

about your friends just because we might be in the middle of a little bit of an apocalypse. Oh, boo-hoo! I thought I raise you better than that. That's cry over spilled milk. Oh, a little bit of a strange comet heralding the end of days. Yeah, whatever. I've seen worse things at the foxhole. I'm not crying.

I didn't give up. Dad, you were collapsing in a heap, and you're all like, oh, just leave me, son. Oh, leave me to die. Who was ready to give up then, Dad? Well, you didn't, and now I'm ready to give up because you won't eat this nice Shrek-themed dinner that I made you. I swear to the gods, Dad, you say Shrek-themed-Deme dinner one more time. I swear to the gods. What are you going to do? What are you going to do? Don't do it. Don't you say it. What are you going to do?

I'm like, I'm shaking with rage at this point. Who do you think is going to throw the first punch? I didn't realize he hated Shred so much. Yeah, well, I've never seen the movie, so I don't really have an opinion. one way or the other. Clearly, Booker has, and his opinion is not very good. Yeah, but who do you think is going to throw the first punch? Well, I think about me, Booker's coiled like a rattlesnake. Except he has claimed that he will not commit the sin of Patricide, so it's really hard to place the bed. I can't really, I mean,

Beauregard, T. Raccoon, was very saddened by the thought that he couldn't save his son from the fire, so I feel like it's not quite him, but goodness, Peggy, who's your money on? My money's on Booker. I literally think he's about to throw down with his father. Say Shrek thing dinner one more time, I dare you. Here it goes. He does seem prone to explosive births of rage. I've suddenly lost my appetite. I'm going to go fashion some sort of strange foxy instrument out of all the swap debris

and learn how to play accidentally in love by the Great Erie band Counting Crows on account of the Shrek theme. Beauregard. I wrap my furry, like, hand paws around his throat. And we just go, we go down. Tustling. I'm going to beat you harder than your cousin, Jim, if he did.

I'm going to take your burnout, Dad. And they start rolling around in a big comical cloud that occasionally a puncher of fish. John Claude and I roast these slugs and eat them like popcorn while we watch. I don't get involved in family matters. You really die of Slug Boys. Um, Booker, I'd like you to make an attack roll advantage. No, I'm lethal. I'm not trying to kill him.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm just angry. I know you said a cloud of fists, so I'm imagining the fantastic Mr. Fox scene with a snarlingly jumping. I guess. Yeah, and they're like circling each other. It's actually a 16 to hit.

A 16 to hit. Um, I would say that you're expecting this, you know, you remember, You remember kind of tussling with your dad and when he was, you know, when you were just a kid and all of this, and as you lunge forward and you all fight, you go and you spent this big epic confrontation and you go and as soon as he kind of stumbles forward and you all take a tumble, you do one punch,

it hits his cheek, his eyes immediately rolled back. One point of damage is mine strength. One point of damage, you immediately, and he just stumbles and falls off with one single punch. It is pathetic. a sickening crack. As he kind of stumbles, he crashes into the plate, the worm mash-filled pumpkins go flying,

and a kind of splatter on the trees, and he just... I am immediately filled with an immense sense of sadness. And I run over to him. Dad! Dad! No! Dad! But I'm sorry it didn't work out with your... No, now's not the time for this, Dad. Now not the time! Oh!

I'm sorry for failing you. You didn't fail me, Dad. Look, I'm here. I'm good. I'm all right. I turned out all right. Oh, you know, it's... I thought that love was only true in fairy tales.

I think that might be true. That's true. For someone else, but not for me. It's okay. I love you, Dad. We've got each other. You know, What, and if this is the end times and everything's gonna end, and this is it, then we've got each other.

Make it persuade your check advantage. She won. No. Believe it still, my pride persuasion is insane. This is a disaster. I can't believe he just killed his father and now his dad's quoting Shrek again. Booker, son, you know, I just made this Trek themed dinner for you. for you. I know. I grip my teeth a little. I know.

I know. I thought that, I don't know, maybe if it really truly was the end of days, that it might bring us closer together, shared by rustic swamp life. Like, I'm not gonna eat the slugs. Maybe it is, ah, damn. But I still have you. But you know, Booker, I may have mixed feelings about love, but you know, after all this, I'm a believer. Good. Good, Dad. I'm glad.

You sound very optimistic. I don't know where you're getting all this from. But you're saying a lot of, you're saying a lot of good things. I like it. Yeah. Yeah, it is true that, you know, what really matters is not what you look like on the outside.

Yeah. What matters is what you've got on the inside. Yeah. Unless, of course, you're very short. That's a little hateful. That's the lesson to take out of this, book? That's the lesson to take out of this? I think I may have hit my head on the pumpkin.

Yeah, it sounded like you hit yourself pretty odd. Can I take a look at your head? Are you all right? Yeah, no, I'm fine. No, I think I should check because this is one of those things where you'll go to sleep and then you won't wake back up and it'll be a whole thing. Don't let him do it, Mr. T-racoon.

He's going to kiss you on the mouth. to spit water into you. Oh, my God, I'm doing, Mr. T. Don't let them look at your head. It's all employed. That moment is over. You gotta be careful next thing you know, you're filled with minnows.

And then a bear is caught on fire. And if I may be so bold, I just love how you don't seem to care about the reputation you have. I got a 20. And if you'd like to reframe that in any way. Can I have Bernie back? He looks roughed up,

but nothing very serious are egregious. He looks like he's going to need a, that he's pretty wounded. He doesn't need a long, to rest to really fully recover, to be able to make any kind of journey. I will cast cure wounds. I'm using my last spell slots.

It's very low on hit points. But again, I'm not, this time it's not, it's not what I did to my friends. This is more like what I'm used to, where maybe I'm humming a tune as I'm like dressing the wound and checking on and to make sure that he's okay. And he will heal four, five, nine. 17, 23, 7, 23, 22, hit points.

It's like my last spell slot, a second level cure wounds. Okay, you do that. And he starts to tip her up a bit. Well, you know, no use crying over spilled pumpkins and worm mash. And he looks at you if he said that he doesn't care about his reputation, he's like, you know what? Thank you. I appreciate that.

Finally, someone was nice to me. nice. I mean, he's eating it's muddy. It's horrible. Eating dirt and worms and pumpkins. And well, should we go to

Drake Smith? Yeah. If you can manage the journey, yeah, we got to get to a clearing. What's Drake Smith? Are you ready to go right now? Your son just caved your head in. It was a bump. It was a minor bar. You punched him so hard in the face,

he rolled around the ground. I can make it another hour, too. Drake Smith is the most southwestern area of all the dim wood. I think we should go down to that town there. The one on the water. That's the one. No, that's Dracas Mahuta.

Oh, that's Dracus Mahuta. Look it, it's on the sign right there, Dracchus Mahuta. I didn't ever realize, yeah, you're right. What would you do without me? We'd be going to the wrong town. Peggy's right, Bernie. Also, is it forest fires or wildfires?

There's never clear. You look at it. It bites your head off, yeah, Jesus. Oh. Jesus. So fire managers can reintroduce fire into fire-dependent ecosystems with prescribed fire under specific controlled conditions,

the beneficial effects of natural fire can be recreated, fuel buildup can be reduced, and we can prevent the catastrophic losses of uncontrolled onto unwanted wildfire? Yes, actually. I mean, oh, what do you say?

Yeah, let me. Okay. I'm ready. Oh, no, hold on. I just need it back. Oh, damn it, Dad, I told you. With that, once Beauregard is ready, you make your way through the marsh that turns swampier as the trees, as the trees start to get denser, and it's no longer the sort of pine forest

that you've been surrounded by. But instead, it's the, it turns more swampier, and then the trees start to thin out about more and more, and you see the smoke in the air up ahead. And you're not sure what to expect because you're expected of blazing the remnants of a wildfire. You know, this is a wet swamp and it's difficult to tell and then you see just through the marsh you see finally the gloomy coast and the great sea beyond and you see smoke rising up from the town of drakesmith itself there were would have been a great manner of fortification erected by the Khizat after they had claimed it from the Eri a while back. But all you see now are blackened husks.

You see an entire fort that had been erected is now nothing more than a charred foundation. You see watchtowers burned and a great number of buildings, but the village by the sea sides seems to be untouched. And you see now that they're approaching mid-morning, and there's movement. As you see what looks like towards the western side of town, what looks like a large pile, what looks like a number of figures that are mulling about. As you approach, you see that they are all hooded, many of them having scaly tails that peek out from under their robes.

As you approach and you now see the burned banners of the Marquisotte atop a veritable mountain of corpses. You see melted, chain mail, warped plate, charred weapons, hullbirds, and pikes, you see even remnants of wagons and supplies that have the hallmark of the Marquisade. As you make your way through the town,

you see that there are shadows darting back and forth and eyes watching you. As the, you see a figure that's at this great pile of charred bones of Marquis-Az soldiers, turn. You see the face of a lizard, a pendant around its neck, strange markings in the pendant that appear like a great winged lizard breathing fire. And this person had just been helping another similarly robed partner piling another corpse onto this pile.

And then as soon as you got towards the center of town, it turned, and you see eyes match yours, Bitsy. And they're reptilian eyes that seem to, almost smolder with fire as this, for lack of a better term, cultist, walks towards you and extends a hand. Welcome, she reborn amid smoke and salt beneath a red bleeding star welcome she who will wake dragons from stone

and that is where we'll end the session. Hey! That was it! Thanks for the session, my God. I can't wait for you that.