Legends of Avantris - Uprooted | S3E6 | A Pale Dawn

Episode Date: September 27, 2026

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This is not correct. I got really excited, though. A jaunty tune for the brink of death. Might as well just play whatever. The King of Lordoron. When he gives a speech to all this time. I'll wrap this up. I got a lot of them to work.

The winds of Lodon. Whispers your name. Last time. on uprooted. You arrived at what you can only imagine was the seat of this long-dead mythic king, The Blazing Heart.

As you saw the gardener, strange member leader of the lizard cult that worshiped the Lord of Flame and Shadow, be consumed in flame in a strange sacrifice that seemed to welcome you forward. You entered this strange

place and the entire thing was consumed in flame, the great hall, not just threatening you with fire, but also the strange specter of the gardener who seemed to favor

Jean-Claude and Booker. For strange reasons you couldn't piece together, but grumly, led by the strange figure that he had kneeled for, has, was driven forward into this castle, a doorway deeper into the heart of this castle.

And this heart was a strange chamber of flame, a lake of fire beneath the castle. A flame. With a beating heart, if you will. And Bitsy cast it into the fire, the ring. He did what, she did what a fire. sealed or could not do. What Frodo couldn't.

And what Frodo couldn't even do. I mean, Gall want to bite off his fucking finger. Holy shit, can you believe that? The weakness of- Andy. Spoilers. Spoilers for return of the Jedi. It was after-seating. That's why you asked me, like, are you that

kid? I'm like, what king? You know better than I do? Tell me. No, you're that guy that's like this. I have no power here. Says that, right? Basically. Okay. I don't know. That's a line.

I have no power. And use all the various bullshit relics that you had. In order to have this great statue, great dragon. And through the dagger that she had and Grumwey's blazing sword, seemingly awoken a dragon from stone, the statue burst forth this great draconic figure, which is a creature you thought was only, only existed in myth, erupted forth and with it was this dragon's rider. and this blazing heart, this stag king, who burst forth out of the castle and you just barely escaped,

but along the way, Jean-Claude didn't make it. Sean Clawed died. It's so casual. It could have been. It was unavoidable somehow. Nothing that we could do to prevent that. He was extremely unavoidable.

His friend has you escape the castle and saw this massive mythical creature and its blazing rider rise into the sky and you're not sure if what you saw was, was it a god?

Was it something more than a god? But you saw very clearly the first writer heralded by the bleeding star, the comet that almost turned into a It was the comet itself as it took, rode off and through the sky and disappeared. And who wonder, was this Lord of Flame and Shadow, was that truly a God that they worshipped? Or just the loyal steed of war?

You don't have time to think about that as you realize Jean-Claude is dead before you. And as you all debated what was to happen, happen. You realized that John Claude had opened his eyes and John Claude in death encountered a literal God, or at least whom he thought was literal God. And ended up was all a clever ploy, the great voice acting of- It was a ploy of Jean-Luc Chant-Aclare, who had experienced a very good fellas ask death. at the hands of the Riverfoe Company. And it was haunting John Claude.

This haunted one that the Gardner had had branded him as. Oh, that's right. Forge. And I'm pretty good at this guys. I don't know what to tell you. And this strange realm of death was not this glorious, heavenly light. It was this frozen, frigid wasteland.

where Jean-Luc was in chains and tied to tax coffers. And then he was ripped and frozen in place in this icy wasteland. When he saw a beautiful sight, a woman, an owl and robes, that with piercing blue eyes who called him forward, and he was frozen, tired, cold, exhausted, and weak. She sent it a hand and Sean Claude took it. And he opened his eyes alive once more, but strange piercing blue eyes and he has risen. Any questions?

I think the answer is yes from last session, but it's clear to me that this was the aspect of death. An avatar of sorts of? I think at the very least. Jean-Claude, you, or Mace would know that. I think that John Claude also knew, as you said, Lady Death, it is very clear to you that this was death itself. What that means you don't necessarily have the full picture,

although maybe, you know, say some bullshit and we'll work it out. Yeah, we'll improvise. Say some bullshit. I plan to say some bullshit. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But you saw that Grumley, It was very clear to you.

Not stupid. The Grumley had kneeled before war itself. And this long dead king has returned. Yeah. Or was it a king? Was he real? Was it a historical figure? Was it more of a mythic concept?

Was it a god? You have no idea. But I think that you've seen Wygore. You saw what happened after the banishment of Cirqueul. You saw what he had kneeled before. And you know that this is a similar force. Any other questions? none for me

other than while he's having this crazy fever dream we're just all staying there and his corpse is just laying there right like he's very clearly just dead oh yeah okay so he's just dead I just have a stick and for the whole time I'm just like John Claude

John Claude No he's gonna be okay John Claude and his his fever dream lasts like three hours and it's just me three hours of me poking you with a stick He hasn't shit him said yeah he's not dead Well that's why I'm hoping the stick will roused him

John Claude Sean Claude You got to do the sound. John Claude. You gotta do the sound like. At two hours and 45 minutes. At two hours and 45 minutes. There it is.

There it is. Okay, he's officially dead grown and he's passed on. I'm going to miss him. I love when he called me for dead. With that, we'll rewind a little bit. As you all have, the corpse of John Claude is there before you. Oh, we just repeat all of that.

Well, I guess we'll keep doing it. You're poking him. I poked him for a stick for like a minute. Okay. Nothing's happened. And you were mournful. Guys, I say all those things. Guys, I'm worried.

I'm worried he's not coming around. And I'm gonna put my ear to his chest to see if I can hear a heartbeat. He's like the conversation that you were waiting for, the horrible realization. There it is. There it is.

All right, he's definitely dead. You know, I was sad, but now I'm not. Wait, are you sure? Are you, like, really, really sure? I just points all the shitness face. Maybe it was wet denim ripping. Yeah, but yes, wet denim ripping is, yes, the sound effect I referenced regularly for someone who has horrific diarrhea.

I'll just kind of, like, motion with the stick, like at his pants area. And be like, oh, no, yeah, he's dead. He voided his bow. He's dead. I didn't even have to check his heart. when I went to that's what I touched him a little too right. But you couldn't even hear his heart over the shit. Exactly right. It doesn't matter that. That was the sign.

That's good Lord. Maybe this has bad diarrhea. You don't know. No, he's dead. Just check. Just check where your head had you said, when you're here and it's just again. Bitsy, I think you should do it. And in that moment, in that moment,

rock paper says for it. Jean-Claude. You feel, you felt the chill. Lady Death herself, has reached out and extended a hand and you took it. And you had felt nothing but cold. And then as soon as you took it, you don't feel warmth. You feel nothing.

And you feel movement through this place, the strange frozen wasteland. And you're not sure if this is actually happening or is it in your mind, but you feel like you begin a dance, almost a strange waltz or a strange dance in this place as you are taken into the arms of death. And you are no longer cold,

and you realize you are the cold. And in that brief moment, you feel like through all the failure, through all of the embarrassments and the humiliations you've experienced. He's also not aware he should have passed. He's a little aware.

Just a little bit. That wasn't where... Hold on. That wasn't where you were supposed to be. And you had always been in the wrong place, but you realize now that this has all been going here towards this dance and you know that you're not special

that this waltz, this dance comes for everyone in time and you have embraced this dance and you have followed these steps

and suddenly you stare at the sky of the dimwood as the bleeding star, no, not the bleeding star no not the bleeding star the writer of war the lord of flame of shadow the herald the true herald of the end disappears and there's no red it's the blue of cold and of death was touching the beautiful mike i'm i'm back in the dimwood yeah you're there you see that your

eyes are open oh oh god he's alive wait oh he's a lot now was he told you it's diarrhea you're right you're right i'm I'm sorry, Bidsey, you were right? Sean Collier, are you all right? No, look at him. We thought we lost you. Your eyes are all blue, and your limbs are all scraggly, and your pants are full of shit. Mr. Sean Declan, is that you?

Talk to us. Can you hear us? Can you hear us? Oh, uh, I'll say. I'll say. Pizzi? Booker? Grumley? Sharon? It's us! It's your friends! I...

I saw... I saw something. Never have I danced with her before, but somehow also... A thousand times and a thousand lifetimes and... The steps so familiar. And I know... a thousand more and should all the fire of all the stars burn out and total darkness falls I would I would recognize her that's some cold-ass shit to say man whoa you you were dancing as if in a in a field grumly a cold field

shadows dance back and forth and I saw I thought I was there meaning literal God but it was it was a just a regular ploy not a good one simply a regular ploy from Jean-Luc all along he was he was sane and literal God he was literal God he was literal God the whole time the whole time grumman Demme said now I said all of those in the games of course and not a single one matter and not a single one they were all in his name that foul name John Luke. The implications of this are truly concerning.

But he's gone now. He's dragged somewhere else torn twain. He was been dead this whole time then? From some event in Muthbed Creek. He spoke to you from his ancient tomb? Yes, in fact, it would be shackled in the lands of the dead. I mean, and wherever his ancient tomb lie, beneath the ocean waves and whole the whole like the lake or pond waves I don't know what

Mugbert Creek exactly I mean I guess it's a creek probably so beneath the creeks on the river on the edge of the lake I know the waves I don't know the weather maybe a strong current maybe a medium strength current like a wake you could have a you could have great waves on a lake a lapping against the shore is the only sound he has and his great beyond but now not even there grum that he was torn away You're from the lands of death into then yonder oblivion, I think, is all that's left for... John Luke. Oh, what is that mean?

He was dragged deep beneath the waves of the lake? I think that's how he died. Maybe, oh, they did something to him. They did some kind of gangster shit to him, I guess. I don't know he was chained, and he was maddened and he chained the whole time, and I... They gave me all cement shoes! I just assumed he was hauling way too many tons of taconite oil. I mean, well, I say, he didn't mention anything about attacking out of all.

He just had chains around his wrists and ankles, and he was tied to the spot. I think some terrible gangster shit occurred in Muckback Creek before all of, you know, the other stuff. Oh, did he mention anything about the instrumental section of Layla playing? He was an accountant for the mob, so I mean, that's kind of the most likely outcome. It's an instrumental section of Layla. When the piano comes in? No, he mentioned nothing of it, simply that he was trying to drag me in his own fate. I know, that no good two-time and flim-flamming, no good double-crossing bastard, brother to mine, Jean-Luc, dragging me to my own death.

You did die, Mr. Chanticleer? Can't you see and smell and feel? We don't want to alarm you, but your pants are in really bad shape. Oh, I was going to finish my story first, but then I was going to ask which one of you shit in my pants. Nope, that was you. No, I know that one of you shit in my pants while I was that. I regret to inform you that you did this. Well, it could be you're also a little bit of a freak and your memory's gone.

We're all kind of wild cards, but I wouldn't lie to you about this. Shit aside and Jean-Luc dead in an oblivion. Oh, then what happened? Thank you for asking for me. You got me back on track. Exactly right. His rattling chains drew me to him, but then something else, a new force, drew me deeper, deeper into the cold. Cold that was so deep, no matter how hard I rubbed, how tightly I pulled a jacket around myself, nothing can keep it away.

Sliced into my bones like swords. And then, that's when I saw her. Ah, I say, I say, I saw a lady death herself. She beckoned me towards her. She bade me kneel in front of her, though she never spoke a word. She stretched out her hand, and I looked up, and I took it. And here I am. Did this entity say anything to you?

In part, any otherworldly knowledge? Not a thing, Booker. That's how I know that one of you shit in my pants. Because late in death bade me return, and I know she would never do that to me. Look, John Cohn. I know that she would never cause me to shit my pants. John Codd, look, it sounds like you died, you came back. This is like a moment of rebirth for you.

We should not get off on the wrong foot. None of us are lying to you. You shit in your own pants. I'm sorry. I wish it wasn't this way. Oh, no. We might be dead? He's a fall of dead to show.

Hey, wait, let's put it back. Shut! No, it's like, it's a good question. Have you looked in a mirror? Do we have any kind of reflective? Surely one of us has some sort of a pocket mirror. I've got this. I pull out the hexature arm of it.

It's mirror. What does this sound like? Derek? We attempt to find some sort of reflective surface to show. John Claus has a pocket mirror. Sure. Probably John Claude himself. John Claude finds a pocket mirror. Yeah, you seem vain enough for that.

Where's your eyes? I'll say, I'll say. They're even bluer than usual. They're like glowing blue. Glowing blue eyes, of course. Almost like ice. Like the chill, the frosted chill of death. What's interesting is when I took her hand,

it went beyond the cold. like a cold so deep the numb sets in and it's almost not warm in but it takes away all pain and I feel it now as I gazed into my own blue eyes generally that's hypothermia but we don't have to go down that route

so now what I mean you feel any different you look different I'm a little worried about you how do I? But how worried can I be at the end of the world here aside from maybe the the sensation of maybe I've lost all sense of touch, numbness, I've got

shit in my pants. We'll get you cleaned up, totally. I've been reborn with a rune blade at my side. Oh, they give you a run blade? That's so much cooler than grumly slaming slots, everyone gets, oh, maybe I have a run axe. So you can be the sword wielder.

You feel, sensation is starting to return, but it is very dulled. And it's almost you're not sure if you're actually sensing the things, or it's the memory filling in the blanks for what you're feeling right now. It's this, the warmth that is around you, and you all realize now that the night has become shockingly cool,

despite the wildfire that you just experienced now, the ruin that's behind you, and right now, this, the wind whips through the dim wood and it gets colder and colder and you all do you start to feel a little bit of a chill and it's at the back of Jean-Claude. I'll say I can feel the warmth all around me but it's almost as if it's scared to approach I can't quite feel my own hands almost but as if if it's a phantom sensation,

am I really grasping and unfurling, or is that just a memory of a time in which I knew what that was? Anyway, what did you guys been up to? Well, you died. We were worried you were dead, so I poked you with a stick for a couple of minutes, trying to rouse with you, make sure you're all right.

And we talked to each other, and we said, oh God, we think John Claude might be dead. And so I was like, hold on, everyone, I'll check this heartbeat, make sure that he's all right. I leaned over you up with my ear to your chest, And then you promptly shit yourself. I knew you had something to do with it. But the shitting walk you up.

All of a sudden, you came online. Yeah, it's almost like a jumpstart of your heart. You were only dead for like a second or two. But you said that you did a whole dance. What kind of dance was it? It was a beautiful dance, Grummer. I swayed like the cold wind across the open fjords. What's a fjord?

Well, it's like a big ice thing. Wow. It's like a general, just big open planks. of us, I think. Maybe there's like also a vision. I think he's thinking of a glacier. What a floor is, is a deep groove cut by an ancient glacier moving

across the land. How do you know this? This is a smart, Grumley. Good boy, Cromley. Good boy. I read it in a book once. I thought he was an automobile manufacturer. What's an automobile? What? Right?

Anyways, the howling winds crossed almost a fjord. I swayed back and forth in her arms and dance sometimes alone and sometimes I knew I was within her presence. But really, I mean, many who would have seen it would have said I was an incredible dancer. What was the time signature of the music you danced? Oh, it was a waltz, obviously. Oh, what's the time signature on the waltz?

Well, I'll repeat myself, Buck. I'm not going to explain to you the time signature of the waltz. If you don't know that going in, then simply, then, Book, you seem as much of the sort that would not know the difference between Velvet and Velvet team, okay? I'm not going to explain to you the time signature of the walls. See, I know, but I don't think of those. But you don't know the time signature of the waltz. I fold up, I put in my back pocket. What a video.

Neanderthal, of course. Obviously, it's a six over an eight. The time signature of waltz. How long did you waltz for? Felt like an eternity. Felt like a lifetime. And in certain moments, it felt like just six over eights, you know? Wow.

That's... like I've been waltzing all my afterlife, Grumman. And for us, it was just being moments. Like a couple minutes. Stick poking. I'll say, it's only been several minutes since you threw me down the stairs, because that's when I died. Give it a take.

Yeah, a little bit. No, no, you did. Wait, you died going down the stairs? No. I died going down the stairs. He must have been gone for a while. I was beset upon by the gardener, and then, you know, I distinctly remember some of my body sliding around.

I had that kind of stuff. You just drag your corpse out of. It was almost like, you know. Oh, wait. Did he die? I think he did. Yeah, he died. He was dead for a lot longer than I realized. Yeah, it was a long time.

There was a lot going on. It wasn't anything personal. Some of said on camera, it was over an hour. He was a long time. It was all crazy. It's hard to tell. Nobody checked your pulse for a very long time. I have no idea what happened at the bottom of the stairs.

In fact, the garden stabbed me from behind, and then somebody threw me down the stairs, and that was it. Then I woke up here. My leg is still an absolutely disgusting twisted mess. But your legs and arms were broken. I couldn't have sworn. Or maybe I'm getting it. My leg is just shattered bone and super-broth.

Oh, I'm sorry, Buck. We'll take this moment to be entirely about you. I'm sorry, you had a tough time with your one leg. Well, you came back to life and you seem okay. They're probably going to have to cut my leg off. Actually, that's a good point, Booker. I mean, Bincey's now the chosen one. He's the herald of war, and it seems as though I'm an aspect of death.

You are once more just the only one who has nothing cool about it. I don't even have my banjo anymore. And all I've got is his leg that's going to have to be amputated. I'm pretty sure starting to necortize. Oh, you're wrong. be my specialty now. I might be able to freeze it off. Freeze it off. Who knows? I got these icy blue eyes.

What are we going to do? Well, where do we go from here? Well, what did you guys do when I died going down the stairs? I told you, we poked with a stick for two minutes. There was nothing that happened between the stairs in this moment. The castle is incinerated. We saw the statue transformed and then grumbly teleported

and then everything got all crazy. Oh, I arose the Lord of War from this ancient tomb. I must have missed all that. I threw a bunch of my shit out. How did I miss that? Into the lava? I was really focused on not getting my other leg broken again. Yeah, I would be focused on that too if I were in your shoes or shoe.

I don't know what's right now. I got to be honest with you guys, my leg's starting to swell. It's pressing up against the pant leg like an overly large blood sausage. Oh, yeah. It really hurts. It actually looks a bit like vein death, like blood death in the leg. Oh, yeah. This leg is like three times the size of my other leg.

Oh. What I think across all of the time periods of this anachronistic? setting, that means almost certain death. Oh, no. Well, I mean, how certain is certain? Well, like, we could probably amputate it and just hope for the best. Okay.

But I think you're looking at, you know, 10% and, you know, chances of survival? That's, as far as I know. Pretty generous. I feel like it's a lot lower than that. Well, it's the end of the world. I mean, how concerned should I be? Well, she's the

herbalist. Too-say. I can't do anything. And also, now that we know there's an afterlife, you know it. I mean, that didn't sound so bad. Will I just go there? Well, I'll say Jean-Lupe went into oblivion, I think.

I mean, you went to the afterlife and then that- And there are still worms in my guts. And he was chained to the ground. He couldn't move in fact, though. So maybe Night Here still has a claim on my soul. His afterlife seemed pretty bad. So wait, just so I understand, our whole goal was to convert to this awesome god

of the gardener and the shadow and flame, and you didn't do that. Oh, no, I say, I'm on my hard-blocked. on Lady Death. No. Did you feel like you had a choice, like an option, or it just happened? She stuck out her hand. Of course, I, of course, I bet.

I didn't understand. No, not even a little bit. Lady Dead stresses out of her hand. You don't say, yes, ma'am? Yes, of course. Here's my hand taken. I've never been in that scenario before. You never will, Booker.

I don't know. Based on his leg, I might be out of here real quick. Wait. I may be joining you in the pants shitting world. Wait, was John? Luke, was he in oblivion or was he there chained to his desk with the cold iron chains? I'll say he was there in the lands of death, chained to, I think just the ground. Or maybe it was his desk, he's rattling chains around.

Oh, like tax collecting boxes? It's possible there were boxes around. It was really a fast moment. I was a little distracted by the fact that I was then dead. Well, I know you were dead, but did he, like, not try to convince you to join him being chained to your career in life and maybe sing like a musical number that when something like, where John Luke and John Claude

John Luke and John would have been really cool. Oh, he didn't want like a, he didn't want like a partnership. He didn't want me to, oh, well, I mean, he did want me to be changed. I mean, he wanted me to suffer his same fate. He didn't mention the musical number,

but, you know, it's very possible was a part of his deep-seated plan. Well, he's an oblivion. That sucks for that kind of. I mean, kind of deserved it. Well, I say, I mean, that was an asshole. So he was at first there, but then once I confronted him, and of course, I, you know, being the better brother,

I turned away from him and said, you know, how dare you? I'll never be you. Even in death, I'm better than you, and you really suck. And then he got kind of like, you know, he got sucked into oblivion, I think, from that. Oh, God. Oh, oh, oh, fuck. Oh, I think it's happening.

I think my lens's going to. Okay. All right. Oh, book, are you worried me. Well, I felt it from a minute and it started to creep up. We're good. False a lot. Oh, my God. Legs not taking me yet.

This isn't going to be like that really anticlimactic ending to that one book that everyone had to read in high school where like that one kid breaks his leg and that like the bone marrow goes to his heart and he just dies. In like the epilogue. You know what I'm talking about? Is it the wolf racing one? Wait, you know, one where he falls out of a tree? He pushes his girlfriend out of the tree. Something, yeah, or like out of a window or something. Yeah, he was jealous of his friend and he pushed him out of the tree.

It was kind of like all quiet in the Western front where like anyway the main character died. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I think he pushed his friend out of a tree. Oh, was it? Think so. Oh. If we're talking about the same book, I'm not after Google. Anyway.

What's Google? Yeah, that was more of, that was an handy coming through a book ahead. I think you have to Quora at a quote. So here's the problem. Yeah, that's right. I forgot we had we established Quora in this one. Exactly right. We have to go somewhere, but I can't really walk.

So we gotta figure out how we're getting there, right? Where we go? Also, if any of your higher-level beings can fix this leg, I'm all in. I'm not asking for much here. I just want to fix leg. Oh! You're right, Booker. I'm blessed by the Lord of War.

I feel like I should be able to patch up any kind of battlefield wound, don't you think? Well, here's the only small caveat to that. We watched as the Garner imulated himself and turned to some horrible shadow and started snapping our limbs. Why would he do that? And then also, why would you then suddenly be able to fix that? I just don't get it. Why would he snap like that? He didn't snap my limbs or bitsy's limbs.

You guys weren't protected by some sort of supernatural bullshit. I'll say he did have a strange pension for just walking up and snapping limbs. That was pissed off at us, man. And he was cool dad. And we were there to join his legend. You think he'd be like more of, uh, uh, uh, a stabbing kind of thing, but he just rolled up and just snapped on.

I don't think it was the gardener. I don't think that was him. I think that was just like a shadow beast thing. That came from his being? It just happened to be in the temple like a challenge. Like a, like I... He looked just like him.

I think it was the gardener. In fact, I think he came upon me and said, I'm the gardener. Fuck you. And then snap my arms. I don't think I heard exactly that. I think he said exactly that. I think he wasn't shot.

You can snap my life. That doesn't sound well. I think he was just awfully mad that, you know, your immortal souls were claimed by other beings. Well, I'm mad about it, too, but I don't go around snapping people's limbs. My legs like a bag of loose meat. Well, you also don't go around sacrificing your flesh and bone to, you know, an ancient god of war. But I was, uh, well, I was thinking I was gonna. I was open to the idea we were talking about it.

He didn't know that. We didn't get to tell him. He didn't ask. He's just immolent. And then he attacked us. We should have. We went up. Jeez.

Louise, probably I'm trying to head to Trump to convert to the Trondon new religion thing. Oh, you think like maybe he thought we were not there to convert and so he emulated itself. That's pretty presumptuous. Oh, man.

He could at least give us the opportunity. We were asking for literature and he got a handout a pestle. And he just set himself ablaze. And then he went to labor. Oh, maybe he knew that dying would lead to this like amazing transformation that you've gone through.

Well, I would assume that he went to, oh, maybe he engaged with the Lord of War, and that's why he came back to some sort of shadows, Specter, that loves snapping arms. Maybe that's a Lord of War thing. Do you like snapping arms, Grumley? No, I think

that was more just the fact that the GM used the crooked man's stat blot available in the crooked moon. The crooked moon.com. Oh, okay. And his whole thing is like breaking limbs, you know what I mean? Look, I gotta be honest, guys. This has been like the worst 72 hours of life.

And it's been a rough. And it's felt like a month. And I don't know what to do next. I'm lost here, guys. I got no answers. I got no, no path forward. All right. I'm, I'm scared.

But quite frankly, I'm scared. I feel like Jean-Claude's got like a whole cool new rebirth. He does. He does. I'm a little jealous. And he's got that. I don't like that. Roon blade, you know, which is really kidding

to win out of my sales. Holy shit, is that flying the drop on us? Acherish the Evan Holmes? Allow me to open a death gate home momentarily. There's a simple answer to all of this. We have to find the unfindable mountain.

We have to climb it. That's simple. And then slide down the other side. Slide down the unslidable slide. To our destiny. After we find the man who can make nothing into a sled. Wait. Right, we needed to find that amazing artisan that can make a toboggan rotating device.

John Claude, you asked me, why we couldn't just walk, walk back to my hometown? Well, I'll say, because you established that there were two routes, one that seemed very hard and ludicrous, and the other, the seem to go straight there. Yeah, my favorite part was when Zon Claude said, uh, Bitsie, uh, what the hell? The trick, the trick up the mountain will be hard, but it won't involve snapping limbs. It won't involve all the dangers that will confront. to stop us, prevent us, blockers? But it will require four toboggans.

I also don't think I can walk up a mountain right now, Betsy. I'll say we could try and use the runex to amputate the leg and see if it's sacrificing blood and flagging bone. You don't have a run axe. No, he has to stop me yes. I have a good soul. I have a

tool. No, I have an ex. I have an grummel. As soon as he said that, grumbull. Oh, boy, here we go. You hear a loud cracking of stone. And you realize now that although you had run out and the castle had collapsed, what was still standing was the grand statue of the Blazing Heart, this king that was behind you.

And you look and you see the statue and you realize now that just like with this draconic mount, cracks start to split, all down the statue, including the flaming sword, and suddenly it collapses into a loud dust cloud in this dry area. And as the dust clears, you see that there is a bit of glinting red, that sheen, that shines,

and has shades, has shades, of gold and red and black through the dust cloud. And you also notice one more thing. You realize Peggy hasn't been yapping that. Oh shit. What happened with Peggy? You also notice another bit of glinting red. But where Peggy had been,

you now notice that there is a strange pile of red wax that seems to sheen with the moon light above. Oh shit, we forgot about Peggy. They can't get any worse. She's a pile of wax. Oh, gosh. She melted or transmogrified. She's transformed again. She's gone on. She'll be

there. Be where? There. Where? I'll say where. If you had said there again, we were going to three of us beat you to a bloody pole. I'd like to see you try one leg, Booker. It'll be the last thing I ever do. I'll say it'd be pretty easy with this here Rulex.

I definitely don't. You don't approve act. You don't. I told you. I'll take the stick. Axes isn't an alphematic for what we're building here. I'll take the stick that I was poking John Claude with and I'll hobble over on my busted up leg to this pile of wax

and just kind of gingerly poke at it to see if it's hardened or... It's actually... It's not liquid. Yeah. But it does have a bit of give. It's that kind of wobbly stage. Yeah. Okay.

It's fresh freshish wax It's not quite solidified yet Maybe she just uh Is that like her flesh? I don't know It's freaking me out, though Peggy I'm worried Peggy Peggy Peggy

Is this your new form Peggy we're worried about you Come back to us She's not here I say she was not Is it moving like Is it a little bit Yeah it's a little bit

It's not moving on its own It's just fucking I'm gonna keep this stick as like a cane to help me with my busted up leg but I don't know what this means but Peggy's not here right now as you said

I agree with Bitsy well I did not sense when the lens beyond though I may not have the power I'm excited I'm excited I'm saying I don't have a little room laid X I don't have either

it doesn't come with a guide of like what you can do I don't know maybe I have last powers Maybe I don't know who knows any more. How does it see you any kind of guy for the recently deceased? No, I say that she didn't even speak to me. I just took her hand.

Oh. I took that as a sign, of course, that I would know in the moment what to do. And like since any frogs that happened to also be dead. No, I'll say exactly right. Since other things would be dead or like, you know, maybe I have like a, like I can smell the dead. Or, you know, I'd raise a dead myself or like use their forms to do stuff. that's cool but uh yeah anyway I didn't sense on the lands beyond take that for what it's worth which isn't much we are you sure that they didn't make you into a necroman sir

what is that what is it what is you just said what's that word you don't know what a necroman sir is I have never had that what my life still hasn't established that you knew what the waltz diamond was it's three over four you jackass no oh okay oh yes I love Grumley. Oh man, you make you laugh. I love YouTube book. Yeah, you're a good boy, Grunley. It's very nice.

Good boy. I'm surprised you don't know what a necromancer is. Not when you pronounce it like that. You're pronounced it like what? Necromancer? Wait, is that how it's pronounced? Oh, have you only ever read the word? I've only ever read the word.

It's not necromancer. No, it's necromancer. Necromancer. Oh, I was just assumed you was speaking with an accent. Oh. This whole time, my whole life. All of my story. and books about great heroes in the badlands,

fighting and killing dark sorcerers and necromancer. I guess necromancer. That's correct. I guess if necro is the root word, that would make sense, wouldn't it? Wow. This whole time. Glad we cleared that up.

Well, anyway, Booker, I mean, maybe if we kill you, I could raise you as a necromancer, and then you'll be healed. I'm going to be honest with you. And you'd have the cool blue eyes and, you know, maybe a hunger for... I'm not really interested in being a thrall. right? I'm trying to get the worms out of my guts. I don't really want to just go from one thrall to the nymph.

I mean, it might do that, in fact. It might get the worms out of you. Yeah, but I don't want to just be like a mindless thrall. Well, there's nothing to say that you'd be mindless. I'm not really willing to take that risk yet. Oh. What's it happening? Most of the one.

It's okay. I knew it wasn't. I didn't sense him moving into the lands beyond. We don't know if you can do that yet. I don't know yet if I can do that. But I didn't sense it, so I would have. It's fine. It's not bad. Hold still. What do you mean? Hold still. Perhaps the Lord of Light has granted me powers to heal simple battle wounds.

Simple. Have you seen this thing? My leg is leaking. Some sort of mysterious substance. It's throbbing. Yeah, I don't got any herbs for that. I'm going to lay my hands on you. I'm going to lay my hands. I like a starting to stink, probably. It's not good.

Oh, God. It really is a, it really is a, I'm waiting. It's not good. I'm sure that's not Mr. Chanticleer's over there. No, no. This is its own problem. We're going to give this a try. Oh, I've thrown my pants out. I couldn't wear it anymore. Present your leg. He's winning

the booing. I'm winning the booing right now. I don't think I got rid of my pants. Oh. The smell was unbearable. So you're kind of like Donald Ducking, really, is what you, because you're all the bird. It's both. It's both. Yeah, I said Donald Doug is a fair comparison, of course. Well, Donald Duck also has the hat.

If I'm wearing a hat currently? You had that little red hat. You always wear it. I think this isn't a hat. This is my handsome ground. It's like his flesh. It's like flesh. Yeah, it's just part of the head.

I'm sorry, dear. You thought when I slipped into my tender pedomas, I kept my hat on and I never took it all? I just thought you've been in the shower. I left my hat on. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. When I sat down to die to die on the table, I did not yet remove my hat.

I thought I touch it right now. It's like, no, you can't touch it. You gotta clear everything out. That's just what he's like, it's like, oh, yes, this is just when I look out. Let him feel it. I thought it, oh. Seriously, let him feel it.

Some fleshy looking hat. Yeah, Grumley, caresses crown while he's ducking, dunky, dunking. Dead, do it, grumley, do it. I guess I'm gonna lay my hands on both of you, man. Okay, I'm still waiting. I'm getting ready.

I hope I don't die while we're waiting. Massage oil between my hands as I get ready to lay my hands on them. All right. Mr. Sean Declay, are you ready? I'm only doing this so you can clear this up. No, I believe you. I don't know why I'm doing this. I don't know why you oil your hands up before you're going to rub my crown.

Because I'm a paladin, and when I lay on hands, the ideas I'm like anointing you. Yeah. Because of, you know, Judeo-Christian tradition. What does that have to do with solving the mystery of the fact that this is not a damn hat? No, I, I don't know, Booker told me to. It'll clear up the confusion real quick. Well, no, it's clear it up. Quickly, Gromley, quickly.

Please, let's get this over with it. Oh, no. Let's go through it. Don't run your oil and fingers through it. You should tell you. It's surprisingly cold. No. Oh.

Is there a strange reaction between us? Uh, for just a touch now. No sort of strange magical reaction. Just the touch, but, okay. Fucker up. This is going to get real freaky real quick. Oh, it's cold. It's very cold.

It's unnatural. No, that's weird. Why you're looking like that out. Why you suddenly also grab up? You touch my leg. Don't jostle it. If you like dislodge a clot and tell me instantly. Oh, that can happen in that one bloom for my school?

Yeah. Well, I think that was like a very long. Shod. Not really blood clots. That can also happen? I don't know. That won't happen. I don't sense it impending.

I lay my hands on Booker. I scream. It hurts like assy. And I just try to channel the Lord of Light with healing powers. I don't know. Mechanically, I'll heal him one headpoint, but I'm just seeing what happens.

It's not even close to enough. What is your total lay on hands full? Are we level three? It's five times whatever our level. It's 15. Then you already used lay on hands, I thought. I've used lay on hands before, but this is like a Lord of War lay on hands. I'm just trying to see if it's different.

What is the... What are you thinking right now as you attempt to lay on hands? I'm dwelling on my liege lord and my oath. and in the distance I hear endless battle almost like a violent dance, a waltz you could say. A waltz for eternity. Because war never changes.

It war never ends. And this violent, deadly dance for eternity as I get my grubby mitts on Booker's leg. You call upon this. and... I strap ass out. That would be the end of the end.

You hear this battle. This is great. And you feel a heat rising within you. You think about the oath that you made, the words that you said, the meaning that you did, your duty that you now have. You feel like...

It's hard for you to understand. This whole time. time as you saw that right or right off into the sky that the level of accomplishment you felt you brought that about you fulfilled your duty

the marquisotte serving the marquisade never brought you this sort of feeling before and you feel like as you've something has changed this is the beginning of something the seal is broken the inevitability

of this. And you hear the war and nothing happens as you try to attempt this. But then you feel the heat and you hear the drums of battle and you realize that it's behind you as a vast as soon. Block Microsoft. The vast and Microsoft have been having a fight. A wall of fire. And undead pirates siege from... You realize now that you hear a crackling flame. And it's behind you as this dust cloud from the crumbling statue has cleared more. And you realize now that there is a,

well, the rest of the fire has gone out. There is a crackling fire. And you realize now the sticking up sort of like Poseidon's Fury in Islands of Adventure, the hand of this, with the lobster male and the glove of this stag king,

holding a broken hilt. But in this hilt, there is a crackling flame. And you realize now that there's a glint of metal, and there seems to be an actual sword that's sticking up out of the statue.

That seems to be crackling with this dull flame. Well, did that... Nothing happened in my life. Nothing to his leg. Well, probably thank you, but that didn't do anything. My leg is completely fucked. Hey, I'll say what's going on with you.

All right? Oh, sorry. It's distracting, but it's cool. Can you focus on my leg? No. Are there any runes on the sword? What? Are there any runes on the sword?

It's hard for me for you to tell. It's hard for you to tell. I look in John Klogg's eyes just to kind of get a sense of if he saw it too. And I rush. I raise John Klod. How do it? What do you know? No, no, no, no, it's just my mother.

No, that's what you're relaxed. No, no, no, no, no, no. You can't have all the soul. You can't have all the soul. You can't have an athletic condes style. Oh, my God. There's simply no way. Yeah, I miss Peggy too.

And I'm going to use this stick like a crutch to help you. Athletics? They race for the source. Is his leg still broken? Oh. Bookers. No, no, John Clix. I had all my limbs were broken.

Oh. That was a portion of how. I died. I don't know if I'm healed, actually. No, they are not broken. They are not. They seem to have been reset. I got a nine. Oh my God, please, please, please, please. I rolled two.

21. 21? 21. I'm not even particularly athletic. It's the lack of pants, the free. No! He's right. That I still rebarns him. No, he's born.

It's totally marred! I'm just kidding. John Claude, You are, you have been returned to full hit points. I'm sorry, what? You have been returned to full hit points. Is it fair to just long rest or? Good shot, just return to hit points.

Oh, good question. Take a long rest, actually. Nice. Take a long rest. The longest rest. Longest. And surprisingly swift, with an agility that you've never seen John Claude to have.

Oh, gosh. He dashed forward. You know, right. That's impossible. And. And Jean-Claude, you are racing towards this blade. And you see now that the pommel of this blade is still buried into the stone. But you see now that this blade, it's a long sword. It is not of this similar steel, shining silvery steel, but the blade is dark.

almost shadowy, as mixed in with it are streaks of red, almost like splint, like antlers, antler shapes throughout the blade. And the crossguard arcs off into this, into these gilded golden decorations that splinter out like antlers, as the flame licks up the side of this blade. And you go forward and as you're reaching, what do you do is you get the grumbling.

You're huffing and puffing. You're way behind. Brutal. It's not possible. I look down, hands in my waist, I look down at this dark blade forged into the stone in front of me. And I see its red antlers and it's burning flame. And I think, oh, death could have endless. I don't know.

I don't see. And I'll all wrap my hands around it and try and. You take $4,000 million in damage Please Please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please The Constitution saving throne Oh

When I touch it I'm committing to the bit Yeah when I touch it Is it very immediately obvious This is not a blade sent from Lady Death to Yeah I mean it would take a fool to think such a thing Oh no. That's good.

Nowhere, in fact, am I a Viking. My con saving throw is an eight. Okay. All of your limbs break again. How many of your boys do you have? Oh, 27. Okay. That's a terrible question to ask.

Oh, no. Svigley. Lady dance. This is from later death. I'm big. You see 21 points of fire damage. As you feel not just the flame erupted,

you attempt to grab onto the crossguard of this. And it's not just that this thing is hot. It feels anathema to your very being. As you are blasted back in as you almost hear the drums of war, the heat, the blazes, the sword ignites into this blazing pyre. As you are burst back, you take 21 points of fire damage. You are blasted back 15 feet and you're prone.

Dang. I told you, I told you that's a me thing. Did you think this was it? You think it's like all red and anteries. I bet it had a black blade. Rumley, all right, I think it's, Marston, now. You know, I...

And Bitsy's thing. You don't know. Antlers could be a part of death. You know, could be... She had kind of a vaguely forest-like theme. She was an owl kind of mask. It could be antlers involved.

Forest theme. John Clark? John Plott, are you all right? Are you all right? That looked painful. Oh, it was a bit of an explosion of flame and war and, I don't know, anger,

and it was a lot of red. And certainly some antlers. And I caught distance. I caught distance there. You flew. I'm singed a little bit. My beautiful crown. Wow.

The cinders. I tried to warn you. I couldn't hear you over all the pants in Grumley. If you tried hard enough, I would have got the warning. Obviously, you didn't do very good. You could have just let me have this. So Grumny, you could have some far behind me. I didn't realize you were also moving to it.

I thought the soul was a me thing. Is this for you, Grumley? Are you going to pull that out? I don't know. Can you please be careful. We can't afford anybody else getting cooked here, all right? We're all on the edge of death. It's almost more than others.

I feel deeply in my soul that this was meant for me. There is no edge, Booker. It's no edge of death. There's only the end of the hallway. What's that mean? You always walk and it comes for you eventually. For all of us? But she doesn't look in the shadows.

She simply waits. I thought she told me no matter what I did, I'd never meet her. Now you're flip-flopping. Oh, no, no. You never work for it. I mean, you'll meet everybody meet. Oh, okay. You never were.

Even he was claimed by this war. You'd never be empowered. I would buy her. Oh, yeah. You're gonna be so pissed when I show up. No, I can't have a sword, you can't have Lady Death. Okay, I mean, that's just the rule. I'm gonna pay out GM 50 bucks.

I say, no, I'll pay 51. I don't care when there's no amount of money. They're gonna be so mad when I come back with icy little eyes and look just as cool as you. No, that would be, that wouldn't, but whatever he said about not thematic than the setting we're building up. Booker, you're getting your own thing, okay? Oh, boy. Stop trying to steal mine. Oh, and Boca's totally gonna come back with the Roonax, too.

No, no, you come back with a run-ax? Then I'm the... If you come back with a run-ax, I'm coming back with the helm of domination, and you're going to become a thrall. Of mine. Okay, whatever you say, Jean-Claude. You sound angry. I'm going to merge with an ancient, ancient angry litch.

You sound real angry. I'm going to become a new creature, okay? Jean-Claude will cease to exist. I think Lady Death would be embarrassed by how mad you are right now. Tobogging. I'm not mad, okay. I'm not mad. I'm just sitting the state and fakes.

You sound mad. I'm not, no, I don't sound mad. I'm just exploded. You'll get that sword, Grumley. Yeah,

it's just kind of my moment. Go get that sword, Grumman. You know, I just want us all to align that, like, this is my thing, right? Like, can we all just finally align?

Grumley, there's no flying necropolis in the sky. There's no room blades. You just have the blue eyes. Okay, Gromley, I'm sorry. Right after I return from the dead with blue eyes,

I'd like to apologize to you for taking a little, little bit of the moment of whatever the heck is going on with you and all these swords you keep getting, all right? I didn't know you're going to send the dual-wheeled swords, all right? Your sword, right? But please, take up another sword while I've returned straight from dead. Brumley. Have your moment.

I want to genuinely apologize because we all heard the sarcasm bullshit that apology was, so I'm sorry. Well, this is your moment. You don't have to apologize, guys. I probably have me in moments left before I die. Oh, see, no, see this is it. No, that's not genuine. I just want to let you know. You see how it said it and then immediately turn it and ran back to him?

To have spent my final moments watching you pull this sword on the stove. Now, I'm sorry for raising my voice. I've just been feeling the anger of war lately. It's understandable. 20 minutes or whatever since all of that happened and it feel like I've been changed in some way. And so even though I do believe this is kind of my thing in my moment, you know, I just want to let you know that you don't have to apologize and it's okay.

No, I'm happy to. And, you know, I'm happy for you. and if the last thing I see is you pulling that sword from the stone, I can die happy. You're not going to join. I just want to point out that every time he apologized, the end of the sentence is about him dying. He's drawing,

he apologizing, drawing back to him. Oh, you're trying to like guilt me. I think, no, yeah, in fact,

I don't know what he's doing, but. I'm cheering you up. Well, he's just thinking, if you were really going to die in the next moment, I would rather be with you in your last moments than pulling this. No,

no, you have to become the hero. And I'm going to put my hand on. your shoulder and I'm gonna give you inspiration as you because I do truly believe in you you're inspiring me bardically of course of course there's nothing you always had away with words well I just you know you're my guy oh my guy grumly oh I feel like I could add at least a a d6 or whatever oh yeah 20 test I make in the next 10 minutes good luck go get him tiger all right I finally feel ready my hands feel sufficiently warmed just

I'm laying hands, you know what I'm saying? Alright, here it goes. This is more destiny. What happened to my other, so do I still have the other sword? Or did it, did it go away in the last? Uncleared. I know I gave it fire. Do I still have it?

Oh, this is a second sword. Well, this one's got to be like epic. It's gonna be like legendary. That was just a sword that lit on fire. This is gonna be like the real deal. It's just like a green uncommon. And this might be like purple. Probably.

For sure. At least. Definitely a B-O-E. Oh, a B-O-E? Yeah. You could sell it. No, I would never sell it. I grabbed this one.

And I attempt to pull it out of the stone. You do that. That was anti-climatic. Congratulations, you did it. Hold on. You. As you reach forward, the rest of the, a bit of the statue crumbles away and you see the pommel and the grit. And it almost seems to be the leather that it's wrapped in seems almost be like dragon scale of a bright red as you effortlessly grab onto it.

The blade ignites into flame and just like the pyre that had blasted back Jean-Claude. it consumes you. And it washes over you. Oh my God! You feel the blame. Tears begin to... I begin to... No, I begin to let me

to crutch over and try to get into the flames. But you feel no pain from my. Oh, God. Thank God. As the... I don't see. The fire consumes you. As you...

As you... You hear a voice in your head, cry havoc, and let's lift the dogs of war. As you feel this warmth of the blaze of the radiation that as you grip it, that the sword that had been given to you by the standard issue from the Marquisotte. Oh yeah, my old sword. Yeah, your old sword does not feel,

as right as this, and the blade as you lift it, the statue crumbles away, and it is shockingly light. And you see that each side of this long sword seems impossibly sharp, as the fire can start to, once again, that has consumed grumly, diminishes, and as you are consumed in this blaze, you hold the blade up high,

and you feel like this was the, weapon you were always meant to have, that this is the reward for honoring your oath, honoring your vow, and doing your duty. As you realize now that the warmth that you feel inside of you had, and this fear that you've had your whole life, is not necessarily who you were meant to be as you suddenly don't feel afraid you feel powerful you feel confident you feel like you are where you are meant to be as this great brazier this great bonfire gets smaller and smaller until grumly's armor is just licking with flame but his fur does not burn and it diminishes until just the blade itself is on fire,

and then it flickers out, and there's still a great glowing and a smoldering to this blade, but he wields this great, clearly an artifact of the Blazing Heart, the writer of war. Damn! And you realize now that Grumley, Grumley, you don't feel this, but,

you feel change and you feel different as you all see grumly with this his eyes are of glowing embers as he looks at you oh my god I've never been better ah you scared me oh I didn't feel the flames at all oh see that was a torn at fire huh I'm glad you're all right and you worried me that for a minute wow careful I'm swishing this big old sword around like it weighs nothing. Oh, goodness. An artifact gifted by the Lord himself.

Now this is a room blade. So, John, man, it's a room blade. Ah, guys. Like an antler blade. Oh, my God. I don't think my heart can take much more of this. I know it's the end of the world and everything, but this is like one horrible thing after another.

I'm worried I'm going to lose all of you. Things to keep happening where it looks like you're all going to die, and then it just doesn't happen. It's really, I'm getting a little light ahead. You guys are weird. Yeah, we're weird? Yeah. It's been kind of a weird.

I mean, it's been sort of like a weird few days. It's unusual. Last couple. Ever since I mentioned you, it's just been one thing after the next. Well, you're the chosen one. You're still like way cooler than the rest of us. I don't know what that means. Nobody knows what it means. Bincey, but it's provocative.

Guess the people going. Anyway, what it does. I want to know, and I mean, that cool lizard guy who, like, worship sort of the same dude that I worship now. You know, like, he's the one who said it. Well, I say, did she not fulfill already her prophecy? Was there more to it? Because she kind of awoke the, from, I wasn't there, of course,

through your great explanation of what happened. She awoke the dragons of stone, right? Oh, yeah. No, we totally forgot to mention it. Oh, literal dragon showed up. And awoke from stone. Oh, it's, folks. Oh, yeah.

Wow, thanks were telling me. And the little bull rose and flew off on the dragon towards the moon. It was truly one of the most insane things I've ever seen in my life, and somehow it's just another thing. I can't believe I missed it. Let's see what this thing can do. And I, like, hover my mouse over it. Plus one sort of bear slide.

That's weird. Maybe it does some cool extra effects. Oh, plus one agility, plus one spirit. and does 5% more damage to bears. Well, 5%'s a lot when you think about it, right? It's pretty compounding. I mean, it adds up. Well, I mean, I guess if I stack bear slaying,

I mean, I think just in general, it's just, you know. Does that really on theme, though? Evers will feel, fear, no. There's definitely not on theme now. There's a load of war. I hate bears. No, I don't know. That's just a little bizarre.

Maybe, like, the stats were randomized when I pulled it down. Oh, other. because they want you to like form the same content over and over again until it's like optimal and I just didn't get an optimal pool. Maybe you can run this whole. I can't we have to do it again. You'll have to right click on WordPress and reset the desert. Yeah, can we reset the instance?

We try and get Kabel Loot. We try to find the instance portal so we can also reset and do the whole last session. We love for that and unfortunately in real life there are no do over. as you realize. No, this is really cool. This is way cool, and plus one sort of best, like, that was oligal.

No. Just joking, of course. And I feel, I feel brave. And do my odds look any different? I was mentioned in my eyes. I looked deeply in the Gromley's eyes. They seem to be smoldering a color of an ember.

Of coals. Gromley. Yes, Muku. I say this with the most sincere I've ever been in my whole life your eyes

are beautiful it's like the first time I heard the Beatles what whoa wait wait are you just like sing that out of the blue like all the kind of different like Mr. Schartheclays smoldering embers it's breathtaking

it wasn't the first Beatles song you ever heard like love me too You know, we don't have to focus on that right now. Let's just, just fucking like you on your eyes. Look at his eyes. I can't be song to- Guys, look at his eyes.

Yeah, no, I see. You've changed. What? Oh, you think I've like fully ascended now? I don't feel scared anymore. You don't feel scared anymore? No. Didn't you have a phobia of that?

Biffy doesn't say that. I did once have a phobia of not a, having phobias, but now I don't have a phobia there. Wow. Everything's changing, guys. Everything's changing and I just, I don't know what to do about it. You're going to have to pick an element before someone who gives you something. Get left behind. You know, we got fire, we got ice. You're going to have to pick, you got Earth. All I have is bloated, is leaking necrotic leg. Maybe I'm in a lot. I'm in trouble here, Bitsy. I'm in real trouble. Yeah, I know. I can feel deaf creeping up my leg.

into my heart, my very being. Are you sure that to have to have marrow shards? Oh, God, I said marrow shards. It might be marrow shards. Maybe you could pick tungsten, isn't that? God beats the hell out of me. Oh, I remember the name of that book, by the way, Grumby. It's called a separate piece.

Oh, that's exactly what the book was. I remember. I remembered. Oh, don't get it. I'm getting a separate piece did right now. Yeah. It's a slow and painful death. Oh, no. So about that, impossible to find mountain. Yeah. Where is it? Well, it's hard to find.

Not anyone can just find it. Otherwise, it'd be the possible to find mountain. That's just ridiculous. Oh, well, maybe that's your destiny being the chosen one. Is that, you know, that you're gonna find it? Yeah, do you have like a sensation of you'd like to walk in some direction right now? Religion says that it can only be found by going north. North? North? I really hope that like whatever you saw in your vision wasn't the same wood wizard that we met like ages ago. You met the wood wizard?

Well, yeah, but so did you, but you just forgot about it. We all met, well, not Mr. Chanticleer, but the rest of us met the wood wizard. You don't remember that? He built that. Did he fashion impossible crafts that could travel down mountains? They weren't impossible. They were just crafts. Yeah, he had vehicles.

He made the impossible possible then. It didn't really seem impossible. possible. He just did. He just made toboggons. He's just the guy who crafts wood. I thought he just made a display that circle that displayed toboggins. He actually built a toboggins. He also had toboggans.

At the time, we just weren't looking for toboggans. We were looking for the toboggan display. Why were you looking for a toboggan display? Because we needed a giant thing that could rotate and hold like a 120 person ensemble to sing the big ending songs of the play that we were

going to put. It was the whole thing, John Clark. You guys are. I'll get you caught up with it. You know how many people are on stage during at the end of the day? You gotta fit like at least 50 woodland critters. It was a disaster. The whole thing about orphans, it was a nightmare.

Many deaths. There were no safety checks. Anyway, we don't need to get in all that. Basically turned into a meat grinder. That sounds terrible. It wasn't good. But also a little comical. In a way.

In a way, Bidsey, in a way. Silver linings and all that. Very nice. I appreciate it. Well, wait, we have to go north. I will trust you, Bixie. I trust that you know the way. Well, are we up for walking?

I mean, it's the middle of the night. Should we set camp and get up for a thing? Up for walking. I hope the Booker isn't dead. I'll listen to me. I'm how to make it through the night. I think you've got to get going. We're playing.

a game of heroic fantasy Dungeons and Dragons you're gonna be fine this is nothing it is like twisted and like pulsing and like you keep describing how gross it is soaked in

like just just do it's float sit on a rock for eight hours and you'll be right as rain Booker I'm not so sure totally cleared up you enjoy the benefits of a long rest as well oh oh

look at me Booker I'm at full hit points now I hear what you're saying but I really I really think we gotta go And your lay on hands are replenished. I mean, even if I don't die, and I do survive or, or I heal up from magically, just from sitting on a rock for eight hours. That's right. The world is ending.

We don't have a lot of time. Maybe the best thing is for you to die. Then you'll have some sort of supernatural experience, and you'll come back. Your eyes will be the color of dirt, and you'll be the earth man. I'm gonna be the earth guy. Well, I don't know, it's that or air. I don't want your eyes to be filled with air.

Pop out of my skull. acquainting the coldness of death with like the element of water is a bit of a stretch, don't you think that's he? Yeah. He's gonna be the water guy? Listen to what you said? No, no, we've got ice and we've got, we've got fire. Can he be water then? Is that like an open element?

Yeah, I don't really have anything to do with water. Because he was, wasn't he like spitting, wasn't he spitting all over us? Oh, yeah. Yes, he water. He's the water guy. He's the water guy. He's the water guy. He might be the water guy.

He's the water guy. Okay. Ilyaster's cool, though. sure you don't want Ilyaster? I mean, I would if you could define it. I don't know what that is. It's the fifth element. Whoa. Illiaster. Unless it's... Fuck is an a lot. No, fuck it. Fuck it.

Fuck it. Fuck it. Okay. But still, at the end of the day, I mean, like, the world is coming to an end, right? We don't even how much time we have left. I think we got to find this impossible fine mountain. Yeah. To bargain down it. And get on with our lives. Because otherwise, the world's going to end and we're cut. I'll say, it begs the question if the world is in fact coming to an end, what are they

what are the powers that be gearing us up for? And by us, I mean, just grumly of course because he's got two swords. Oh, please. You're going to pretend like you didn't just meet lady death and come back with some awesome eyes and and yet to be determined the powers of death? Yes, Booker, I do have

unknowable powers of death. Yeah, so let's you know, calm down over there, all right? The point is, I think they're trying to show us something. I think they've only got a limited amount of time to show us something. The truth, the way of things, what comes Next, I don't know.

But if the world ends before we see it all through, it could be bad. Hmm. No, we're definitely like, we have some role in all of this, like, for sure. So maybe we're helping bring about the end. Maybe. But we'll be reborn, like, in the new order as, like, you know, champions of the gods. It's very possible. But I want to let you guys know that whatever happens, right now, at this point,

I'm basically just like lower than the dirt right now. If the rest of my life is going to be like just me like living with this necrotic leg. If my purpose in all of this is to die, to have all of you ascend and do what's right, then just, we'll just sacrifice me when the time comes. All right? Can we all just be aligned with that? I can't go on with this foul, pushtial leg like for very much life. like for very much longer.

It's probably gonna kill me. If late of death wants to claim your book, I'm happy to sacrifice you to her, but I think in your current state, you're more like spoiled me. Just do me a favor and make it quick. Just don't prolong it, all right? No.

Like when the time comes, can you just make it clean? Well. You're gonna find your purpose and all of this. My purpose might be just to be a sacrifice, to be like some sort of a lame guide, you know? And then I've served my purpose and I'll die, and you'll all ascend.

You would die in a way cooler way. I don't know about that. I don't know about that. It's like it's really starting to stink. Justin. It's weird. It's only been like an hour. And that is alarming.

Look, have you seen my toes? They're like, they're like, pomegranates. Each toe is like an individual pomegranate. They look like black owls. It's way bigger. This is bad. This is real bad. Are we sure it's not just Mr. Sean to play his pants over there?

We look over. I wish. Yeah. There's about lies. Come on. And I'm going to like stick the crutch under my arm. And I'm going to start to like crutch my way and say, come on.

We got to, we got to figure this out. All right. We got to get moving. But if you feel like dying, then let us know, okay? I trust me, I will. That's part of the bit. You lead us north. Bitsy, you lead us north

and I will light your way. All right, follow. Well, go, go that way. That's the way. The sword's on our fires. Oh, do you wish it to be? Well, I guess in the moment I'm imagining how would you do, if there was a command word for this thing,

what do you think it is? He's swinging around. The command word Grumley would want would be like making cool fire sound effects with his mouth. But the actual command word would be something more like thematic to like war. You heard something. Oh, yeah. You did hear something. Dogs.

What the fuck. We all just like stop and looking at you for a moment. It is dead quiet now. What the hell was that? That's the coolest thing you could think to say. Wait, hold on. No, no, no. I got this.

I heard something. In the flames. Of. No. No. War? Wow, that's a little pretty good guess. What was the whole thing again?

Lide. Something, something talks of war. Arise ye. Lord of light and flame and shadow. Could you just remind me of that cool thing you said? Try a flame on. Flame on. Flamio, hotbed.

As you... Flamio, you feel like it's gonna work. And it almost does. As you realize that the word that you had heard was the phrase that you'd heard was cry, havoc. Whoa. Averick. Soon you say the word havoc is nights.

Wake! Oh! And the heat, you realize that just what you used to kill Big Ned was a paltry ember. glow compared to this. It's almost like this, this blazing forest fire in the palm of your, in the palm of your paw. And I must cry. Oh.

Oh. Oh, God. I'm going to figure eight. Right your name. Right your knee. Right your name. Oh, no. It doesn't work like that.

Anyway, here, I'm lighting your path. All right. This way. This way. We begin to follow, bitch. Which are you going? The direction that I'm facing. Roll.

Oh, Booker. Hold on. Can you walk? I have like, I've fashioned the stick in a crutch for me. Yeah, I, my, my leg is worth it. I turn left, I turn right. In fact, it's the dead. And then I center myself.

North. And then I go, whatever direction you judge one to be. Oh. Oh, wow. You may have spiked it. That would be very funny. Bitsy. Yeah.

I mean, yeah. You think about North. You know that the way that you're facing needs to be correct if it's going to be North. Because you determine what North is. I need to make a wisdom saving throw for me.

As you dwell and dwell on this. Or dwell. And I get a 22. Dang. You think North

the mountain, this hidden mountain, and he who shaves the wood, or the timber. The timber, excuse me. He who shaves the timber. And suddenly

you get a flound. a vision and your body immediately flips in a direction. And you know that this is where you're going to go and suddenly your vision leaves you and you see snow. You see snow falling and a cozy window of a cabin. And as your vision, as your vision in this strange, wintry place starts to become clear.

You realize the snow is falling past a remote cabin in a mountain pass. And a shadow passes the window. And looking out at the window, almost peering back at you. With a little bit of nervousness, there's a glowing flame,

it's not Grumley's Flammley's, just a candle held in a candle holder as you see a beaver looking at you. And you can almost, there's a hint of suspicion, fear, as if this beaver almost can see you. And he's looking back at you, but then he looks past you. And he's searching through the snow

as if something was outside of this cabin that made him investigate. And then you see him reach up and grab the curtain and close it. As you see that this, the vision almost kind of zooms out and zooms out as you see what's very clearly a huge towering mountain covered in snow and ice. and you're not sure if you've been to this clearing, but you know that this mountain range, this is grizzlepaw.

This is across the entire dim wood. And there is suddenly a sense of dreaming that you have, and you almost feel that. like you've had these thoughts these visions before she who would wake dragons from stone you had already dreamed that you were already even have a vision of that when the strange lizard had told you that that would happen you were confused you're always confused but you had a feeling that it would come to pass and when it did you still weren't surprised.

And here now in this vision, you feel loosen, like a lucid dream, like your spirit flying over Grizzlepaw as the snow whips through these northern peaks. And you think about what's transpired and you fly through the snow higher up in the mountain, you see that mountain peak. Something's up there. You see a flash of blue. And a shadow passes over the moon, almost like a pair of dark wings.

Oh, God. We're floating in the midnight. And you hear some sort of new age Christmasy song as you're drawn higher and higher and you see at the peak of this. mountain. It's almost full white out of snow. As you see what almost looks like a huge block of ice and pulsing blue within. And you think to yourself, to your friends, well, obviously, the herald of war, the dog of war. The

loyal, dutiful servant of great king that would charge into battle like a hound of war. This is very obvious to you. And then you get closer and closer to this glowing blue and you see glowing blue ruins within the ice all along. Not an axe, no sword. it's a bow frozen and ice of course he who dances with death

would be able to fire death's arrow and just as death is an owl to usher in the last night who but a rooster, a timekeeper, the bringer of dawn to herald the last morning the last dawn you know this

to be true what better partner for death herself. And you see this great mountain as you stand at the top. My God, you were right. You know where you need to go and may take some sort of wooden device

to be able to slide down. An unknowable wooden device. And a knowable wooden device. Oh, my God. And suddenly you snap back to where you are. You forget this entire thing. You have no idea what just transpired.

You don't know how to articulate what you saw. But what you are able to do is point in the direction towards Grizzlepaw and start leading your friends. And that's we'll take a break. Yes! Dude! Mike! That's crazy! Us are in the final morning?

That is some... That's some... Clare Death's Arrow? Bitsy points and guys from laying in a bit of a double entendre with morning. Come on guys, let's bow. I mean, go. Yeah, that's very cool. Bissy, you start walking in the direction. Let's bow. I mean, I mean, let's go.

All right. I'm like hobbling along behind Bitsy and Rye. I mean, are you certain it's this way? Good certain. Hmm. Strange choice of words you keep using. Probably means nothing. All right, I'll follow it. What other choice do we have?

She's our guide. Yeah, I mean, in the end, I suppose you are just the chosen one, so perhaps just your footsteps lead to where we need to go. Simply follow them, and we'll end up where we're needed. Now is the time to have faith, John Claude. Oh, I have faith, Grumly. I have faith that... She will bring me where I need to be.

Me too. I wish I had faith. I just have this festering, stinking leg. Well, you have sepsis. You got something. It will most certainly devolve into sepsis in a matter of hours. Jean-Claude, I'm sure. Maybe there'll be some healing on the way.

You gotta have hope. You might not have faith, but you gotta have, you know, a positive outlook. Well, if you're asking me if I'm at peace with everything, then yeah, sort of. That's about as much hope as I've got. I've come to terms with what's happening, and whatever happens will happen, and that's fine. And if it means that I no longer resist and there's nothing but the abyss and oblivion waiting for me, then so be it. If I've helped do a good thing, I've helped all of you do a good thing, then what more can I really ask for in this life or the next?

Yeah. But my leg is definitely rotting. Yeah, I know. It smells terrible. We'll get you some healing and we'll get you some pants and eventually maybe we'll run back into Peggy and she can help us. It does kind of smell like low tide, doesn't it? Or almonds.

Maybe a little bit of both. Hmm. Wait, that's a good point. If we leave now, how will Peggy know where we are? Doesn't she always just seem to know where we are? Yeah. I mean, last time she ascended to the moon, and then she just awoke in the same tavern we were in.

I guess she is the frog mother. Isn't that what he said? I can't keep track for all this anymore, Grubly. My brain hurts. She just has a sense as to sitting in, seeping in. She has a way to be where she is needed, grumly. I think that she'll find us just fine. Well, maybe we should just leave a note real quick.

Bitsy, where are we headed? North. Oh, all right. Are you sure it's like directly north? Positive. Okay. I'm going to write that down in this note here, this letter. Good.

That's what I said. She's also like the creative of everything. Like she has to know what we are. She's like ignition, right? She might be watching us right now and having a conversation with her wax son. Does Peggy know North? Like, if you write down North, and she knows, like, go with directions? She know where North is?

She knows everything. She knows it all. Or as well as any other creator of the dimwood and also potentially the creator of the universe. Well, I'm just the creator of the universe. Well, I'm just. same maybe maybe also draw the handy visual guide maybe point narrow dear peggy this is grumly jean claude bittsey and booker are also here if you come back here we have gone i ascended to a really cool badass avatar of war and the god of war and the lord of war and the lord of war and the activation

of my new sword is really cool, too. To find us, head directly north. No other direction. Good. Love, Grumly. And I'll draw like a little paw, too. Okay. And I'll fold it up, and I'll stick the corner

into the heap of wax. All right, let's go. Directly northeast. Directly northeast. You make your way through the woods. It's eerily quiet,

especially after what's transpired. I need all of you to make a group survival check. We're playing a game here. Oh yeah, we don't have to RP this. We're just going to fast forward here. Oh, I got a 19. These dice are letting me down today.

Mine have been hot fire since you gifted them to me. Five. Three. Oh, boy. Three. Come on. Dirty 20. Okay, two high rolls, two low rolls. That's okay. It's pretty good.

Too pretty high, too pretty low. We're okay. Three. Three. Extremes. Five. 19 and 20. So we're averaging.

You take, you go through the woods and all of the great insectoid beasts that are in the woods, apparently they forgot we had established, and that's a whole thing of a setting. but you manage to avoid any major conflict. There's no great Osolot that attacks you. The Boers? I don't even remember which campaign that was in. Oh, that was in Sam Ramies route. That was in Sam Ramies route, yeah, exactly. And so you think about Boers,

and you make your way, and I think you walk for at least, several days is there anything you'd like to do as you make your make your way through the woods well are we literally walking to isn't it quite literally the opposite end of the dim wood yeah

I mean it could take a while yeah but yeah I mean we even know the choice we have to walk yeah but you're going through the woods you're gonna hit other clearings first potentially that's right oh yeah there's clearings on the way yeah so you go through I would just be, you know, being unafraid.

And I would be, you know, if anything attacked us, I would kill it. But if we're, you know. Is the DIM would even recognizable to us at this point? I mean, like, you're just in the forest now. So it's, a lot of it has been burned out in certain areas. Some of it's so plaguy. Because we, it wasn't there like. Funny you should say that.

Yeah. Funny you should say that. It was kind of plagued. I'm getting to that. Okay. I'm getting to that. You don't notice any plague right now. That's what I'll say.

While we are walking and presumably occasionally stopping, I guess. Yeah, camping. You're stopping a camping, and all of that. Bitsy continues to lead the charge confident in her navigation and direction. Following a vision that she doesn't remember, following a hope that she doesn't recall, following a belief that she'll see the creator of the universe again and one day perhaps understand what this all means.

And she goes back to her roots, very literally, in some cases, roots, as an herbalist. And so as the scenery changes and as we spend days and nights through the woods, she'll be looking out for rare plants. if they still are familiar to her, mushrooms, roots, berries, anything that she might find that would be something she'd put into her pouch to make her healing salves or any of the other concoctions that she's capable of making. Okay. Booker, your leg starts to really start stinking at that.

I mean, it's already pretty bad here. It's pretty bad. It's pretty bad. And keeping up with, and Booker, you're able to keep up the best that you can. You know, you've, you were probably the most nimble and agile going through the woods. But now you feel like you've been brought to everyone else's level. It doesn't feel great. Far below you.

Yeah, exactly. Even below. Yeah. Every time I bump my leg on a rock, it's like some splotch and like a nasty, seeping liquid. Yeah, exactly. But then you feel like this stink

that's in the air, you feel like it's you, but then suddenly it's, when you feel like you're getting towards, you feel like you gotta be hitting another clearing. You start to smell on the air this stench. And it starts to get worse the further that you travel

is the woods start to get less dense and thick. As it almost smells like rotting fruit something else mixed in as the air starts to

get hazier. It's almost like you're having to squint to see through, almost like there's static in the air. It's twinged and green. And you realize now as you start to make your way through the wood,

you realize that there's been, you've actually traveled these woods before, that you are on the outskirts of the clearing of Nookington. Oh. You know, known for great orchards and where hazel's from in the Nut family is from. And there is a haze in the air. The air is still and stagnant. This wind that you've been used to once burning hot and then icy cold. cold, it is still.

It is stagnant. And as you breach the tree line, you see, it's difficult to even see the buildings through this clearing of this town that it's all spread out. But

where you had seen beautiful orchards, bright with pups of color of all of the various fruits that have fed much of the dim wood. It's all just withered, rotten. But you see no movement in this town that was usually bustling farmers and other workers

going about their business throughout the orchards, going back to town to make their trades. There's a huge residential clearing. Tons and tons and tons and tons of people lived here. But now it's still and stagnant as you smell the stink as you stand looking out into this clearing. What do you all do? Wait a minute. Something has changed.

I became nose blind to my leg. That's not my leg. Something here is foul. You've been here before? Yes, we all have. We have? Yes. We have?

We have? Well, not you. Not you, but you know that you joined our adventures later. I'm just... No, he counts. It's just that he wasn't there for a lot of the previous adventures. That's all. Oh, no, you count, Mr. Johnson.

He's a valued member of this team. I'm sorry. You say we all have quite a bit with just the, you know, the unspoken presumption that you just excluded me, you know? I'm sorry, my leg hurts a lot. It's really distracting and I can't think right. I'm sorry, just the fury and havoc of war just got into me. Well, that's very cool.

cool, grumly. I mean, his thing is well, it's fine. All right, it does smell here wherever we are that everyone else has been. I haven't been here. I think that they're, they're messing up. Well, guys, I think all of this hazy green means that the plague has reached this clearing. You think it's clearing? Not getting worse. No, it's reached this clearing. As in the place that we are Deceptus has reached my ears

Speaking of reaching No, it's not clearing at all It's opposite of that This is like This is like the thickest I've seen it Does this presence, like what we're looking at Is this evocative of Moulville? I would say you don't need to make an insight check

To make it Very clear to you It's extremely obvious to you This is very similar We've seen something like this before when we left Wago and we encountered the moles there's a pestilent

haze falling upon this town if you're pretty chime in that's as far as I've got with my deduction you're on roll I was just wanted to see what you had to say next you did nothing else to add no I mean I was just you know I was stating that there's a pestilent haze

upon this town are you ordering me to purge this town Mr. Chanticleer is that what I'm hearing I'm not sure anybody's here grumly The paladin of The lord of flaming shout Are you saying we must purge the plague

From this clearing? Wickedness. Pistulant wickedness Has fallen upon this clearing, Grumlin. They are lost souls. I'm sniffing out there. Plague reigns here. We must return them to her bosom. They are lost already.

There's simply no way to There's simply no way to cleanse them. It's impossible. unavoidable that we must purge this entire clear. What if there's nobody here? What if it's just if they're all dead? Boca, I'm afraid that

you're not emotionally prepared for the culling of Nookington. I'm not emotionally prepared for anything that's going on here, Jean-Claude. I'm doing my best. I'm not really so much could shock me at this point. You look around and you're starting to realize that as the tree, as you've been going, the trees have been getting more and more sparse, brittle, covered with strange growths and a high presence of a strange fungus.

These strange mushrooms or this fungus seem to be growing up the trees. You realize you've been stepping through it and even the plant life seems to be plagued and sick. And I need to make a group reception check. I am not great at that. Great at that. My dice rolls are just new. Oh boy. I have fun.

I'm extremely distracted by like six. Another dirty 20. Does this rely on my nose? Yeah. 30 20? Yep. Better. 18.

18. Both you, both of you start to smell strong presence. You start to hear the snapping of brand. as you had been able to avoid the creatures of this woodland pretty well, but then suddenly hear something large and lumbering coming towards you in your direction. And you all then kind of hear this clicking as a huge shape emerges through the woods beyond the ridge. And you see a huge stag beetle.

Oh, cool. As it lumberes, usually a powerful, brutal creature. But its movements are strained and agonized. And you see now that there are horrible cracks in its shell, there's strange green Icor pouring from its various wounds. And it's covered in these strange growth as it turns and you feel like it might see you. But you see now it's where its eyes are. It's totally covered in this greenish, almost mossy mold-like film. It doesn't even seem to notice you as it lumbers agonizingly. Back over the rich. Even the wildlife here seems to be affected by this sickness.

Oh, this is bad. This is really bad. Oh, boy. I don't think there's going to be anyone here to fix your leg. I, you know, I don't think so either. I'm sorry. Me too. I thought maybe it would be on the path.

Should we make sure that Hazel's okay? And see how the nuts are doing? Who's Hazel in the Nuts? I'd say, yeah, who's Hazel in the Nuts? I think, with any luck, you just won't find anything. And maybe she'll have moved on and gotten a family out of here. You don't know who Hazel and the Nuts are? Was she in jail? I don't remember.

Oh, I don't. Oh, no, she... She was not in jail with us. No. I never met Hazel. She was a part of our group, and she had to go home for a funeral. And she was from me from. Newkington. Yeah. So, presumably the funeral was here. You should

still know about it, though, because, I mean, Boko would sing about it all the time. It was part of his, like, Baudruz. There hasn't been a song in my heart for a long time, Grumley. Remember those days, though? I do remember those days. He would just say, Hazel, Hazel,

Hazel. Wasn't a very good song. Hazel. It wasn't. It was ha, ha, ha, hazele and the nuts. I was workshopping it. I couldn't really come up with any more lyrics. Yeah, I guess just, yeah, they weren't very many. I'm going to do it. Anyway, I haven't known Booker to have a song in his heart for some time.

Except, of course, you all recounted to me that after I had passed and was dead at the ground, Booker found that song that was in his heart and sung to you, Gromley, here, with your paper cards. Well, you know, Grumley's my main dude. Yes. He protects me. Well, and he's quite good at it now. Yeah. Hell of

Rada. I'm hoping that we find nothing here. No sign of them. Maybe they've escaped. That's what I'm hoping. But if we do find survivors, what should we do, Boker?

Well, I don't really want you to like cull hazel to do that would be pretty upsetting. I don't want to at all. Well, listen, Grumme, I'm going to be honest with you. If the three of you want to do anything, I cannot say,

stop you. My leg is like a meat balloon full of slushy. And I'm going to continue to just kind of hobble around and exist. Like someone who's only slightly, or stationed his life is slightly above that of a worm. I couldn't stop any of you from doing anything you wanted. So really, I'm just kind of here. And if you feel that you have to call the nuts, then you call them. I'll cry. It'll be awful and then sad, but I certainly will not be able to stop you. Where would they be if they were still here? Do we know where in Nookington Hazel was from? You have been, you visited Grandma Nut before.

You know we're in Grandma Nutt's house, and although she lives alone, she always would, the house was big enough that she could have family come and visit. So there's always a place for you at Grandma Nuts house. Next episode is going to be weird. I lead everyone to Grandma Nuts house. Okay. You follow me. We'll get to the bottom of this. I'll sniff it out.

Once again, you leave the plagued stag beetle behind you. You make your way into Nookington and you go past, you go into the orchards, and now you've seen through the haze, it's difficult to see huge, or many black shapes overhead. In our world, it'd be like circling vultures,

but you look up now and there's hundreds, thousands of huge flies, just buzzing overhead as you see, as you see the orchards. that you had to normally had to walk through in order to do that in order to make your way into the various residential areas especially get to grandma nuts house and there's no one here there's a strange thick film and growth seems slimy and you remember kind of the fleshy hive-like material that had grown in the underground there's a bit of that growing all over these barren trees And the flies are overhead, and you hear now the buzzing that gets louder and louder as you get to the town.

And you've heard that buzzing before. Countmore lost castle after you defeated Sir Kuhl and the strange plague father, whatever the hell Weiger was talking about, had grown in power. And you see, are you keeping an eye out for anything as you make your way through these orchards? Not me. My leg is too distracting. I have five. Large, low-poly crates of, who knows what. You don't even need to roll for it. With clouds of green with very low pixel flies kind of buzzing all about them. You see exactly the same kind of crates that you had seen on the docks.

But they're empty. stacks where they had been opened, their lids kind of tilted over to the side, the large red stamp of the wheat. It seemed as if this was the first place that had been in. Okay. All right, locked the fuck in. Here we're locked in. I'll, uh... Something funny happened at school earlier. I'll be shocked that hours ago before we exited the tree line that I was finding, you know, fresh herbs. And now I'm...

Every time you had gone, basically, once you started getting close to the area around Nookington, you realize it was a little bit less fresh. And like, wait a minute, these herbs are dead. And it wasn't quite, you weren't sure why. And then it became very apparent that there was a sickness. I didn't put three and one together. And I... Yeah. But now I'm just like a gog.

I'm not looking out for anything, but I am observing this air got as it's creeping a lot. along all of the surfaces and I'm looking at the flies. I'm just looking around as sort of wonder, a horrid wonder. And you see this, you see these crates grumbling. Do you do anything or you just push past them? You see them at various points. You know that there's orchards. There's dozens of orchards in this place.

And at each one there seemed to have been a shipment. I will approach one of these boxes. Yeah. I'll hover my mouse cursor. over it. It's everyone's least favorite episode of... And I do this on it.

And I try to investigate it. I want to see if I can learn anything beyond... Make an investigation check. Where they came from. Who could be behind this? To see if I can learn anything about, like, is there some kind of nefarious plot? Is there a return to sender

stamp on all these boxes? Exactly, right. Investigation. Ooh, a four. Unless someone was helping. It's hard. It's hard to denote where these came from. But the same fate

that had befallen Mulholm. The same fate, will this happen to Drake Smith now? What does this mean? It's hard to tell. But it's very clearly that these were infected. Hearing a whatever bizarre strutely strange, magical plague.

This is the pestilent tase that's in the air. The flies. And you now, I think that when the one thing that you would get with the four is you'd look over and you see football-sized maggots, wriggling around in putre remnants of whatever grain was in here. And you all know that Nookington is renowned for its baked goods, that wheat was a huge part of it, a huge, huge, huge part of their entire economy.

And perhaps if there's a new special wheat or a great supply that could be brought in, that this would be, that this was spread very quickly. I'll raise my sword up at all. Look at the blade with the spreading kind of antler shapes. in the name of my liege lord I cry havoc

and I will light at least this stack of crates as you hear the scream of these maggots as they start to shrivel up and burn and the entire crate goes up and the whole stack of them goes up and burns

as almost as like to Kindling and it burns down very quickly as this remnant of these crates has turned to nothing but ash. And as we walk through this clearing, if we pass any, I won't like go out of my way too far, but if there are things that I can burn and purge,

you feel like at this point, the time for purging to prevent the spread was who knows how long ago. Yeah. Dang. I think more just out of like duty, I would just burn what I can, knowing that this is not. Maybe I'm just pissing in the ocean. You occasionally stop, but you don't take,

you get the sense that you need to continue to push past all of this, and you'll purge what you can. But this charming fruit, then you see rotting fruit on the tree. With once again these maggots that are crawling through these and the flies that are buzzing overhead, And they don't stop you. They don't descend. They just kind of buzz in this strange cloud swarming above.

And then you reach the town. It's quiet. Many of the doors are grown over with that strange film. Is it the mushrooms that are starting to grow now? And you start to start as you get through the orchard, you start to see, oh, wait, no, is that a full tree that has all of its leaves? And you look closer through the haze and you realize. it is a massive mushroom stalk.

Almost in the shape of a tree. Oh, no. With a huge cap that's growing and certain parts of the certain orchards that may have been hit first, the entire trees have been overgrown or these huge toadstools are now growing in its place

and you finally have arrived at the town. The doors are covered in the strange film. Certain houses, they're huge, flies that are skittering atop almost like birds roosting. Ugh! That all seem to be crawling out of the windows and or certain holes

in the tops of them as this haze is very thick and dense. You see the various residential areas throughout the center of this town, but you know that it's not much longer until you get to Grandma Nutshouse.

How's Booker looking? I feel confident that I'm protected by my lord and I you know Jean-Claude has you know he's a death night over there he's not going to get he's not going to fall to poison or disease

Bitsy's the chosen one but poor Booker has a terrible wound how do you feel Booker an open flesh wound how do you feel well here's what I'll say and correct me if I'm wrong here but as far as I understand it like me me playing up my leg injury is not

a plague thing it's just I know. It is just simply the fact that my leg is broken, twisted, gnarled, and... Bloated. Bad. I don't think I'm sick. I don't feel sick. I am just severely wounded and hobbled.

All the insects are looking at your leg, like... Yeah, yeah. I don't want to... I want to make sure I'm not underselling this. Like, imagine you take, like, a rotten hot dog and hollow it out and then, like, suck up a bunch of jello into it. Like, that's kind of what my leg is like right now. I just want to make sure we're all this. I'll say he really is a poet.

We're bringing your infected leg into this horribly diseased place. Critically important, the hot dog was cooked and then let to rot. Yeah, yeah, that's very important. If I felt like the world wasn't going to end

and I wasn't going to die and there was any chance of me like saving my leg and my body, I would not bring my leg into a clearing like this. I would certainly be worried about infection. I think book is a little resigned at this point that there's nothing that can be done to save him. You're almost embracing the pestilence.

Well, or just the end, right? And the goal is to stay, stay. Pestrelin, he definitely doesn't want to become pestilent. He doesn't want that to happen. He wants to see this through to the end and make sure that his friends are, achieve their end. Booker is, I don't want to become some, some pestilence. Hobbling, you might say. Yeah.

kind of hobbling forward, scuff. It's kind of his leg scuffling around. Oh, God, please don't need my leg. Occasionally, Boker, especially once he gets to this point where he made it to the town, hits up a root or a stone and kind of falls on his face and then kind of stams, pulls himself back up.

Oh, God, my leg is leaking. Oh, okay, steady, Steady, Booker. You can do this. Curiouser and curiouser. Until you arrive at a humble bumbleberry orchard on the other side of town. You see all these wonderful shops and all not, I guess some had been boarded up.

It looks as if there had been attempts to make it out of town. It's not sure. The local doctor's office has all sorts of you go down to one side, great number of tents all around it. And you have a sinking feeling as you see all those tents. And you can press onward. You find the bumbleberry orchard and the cute little house with the large word on the mailbox that says,

nut. And you see that this. that the bumbleberry trees have been consumed by rot and fungus pestilence, disease and but there's the door

the house isn't covered in fully covered in the strange film that much of the others had but the orchard is gone the farm is gone flies buzz above it Are we ready to do this?

Or we find beyond that door may be... Horrific and unmentionable. I know that you've seemed to have forgotten everything Bitsy and you didn't know her very well, but she was a good friend and... Or at all. I'm worried. Yes, Gubley? Sorry, I was just reminded of that Futurama joke.

I've never seen him so damn. I've never seen Hazelso pestilent or ever before. That's very true. John Clark, very true. Very astute. Favorite joke from Futurama.

Very astute. Sorry. No, I'm good. I'm good. I'm with you, Booker. All right? She means a lot to you and I.

No matter what. I plan to do the right thing. Well, if she was a friend of yours, I do hope that they made it out of here before this pestilence took root. But if they didn't, Grummel set them on fire. Maybe they left a note.

He is hoping. And I will take a few steps towards the door. And as I do, I'll stop for a say, I'll look down and say, wait a minute. I didn't know

they grew tomatoes here. This one looked pretty rotten. Oh, that's one of my toes. I'll keep walking over to the door and reach out for the handle. Oh, it's a black cracker. You hear the buzzing. Overhead. And you hear a loud buzz

as you open the door, almost kind of startling a cloud of flies, that then descends back onto the roof. and you open the door and lets out this loud creaking sound and you see what looks like the you see the foyer that you recognize the stairs going up to the second level

the various doors going into different rooms you hear you see a crocheted note that says bless this mess and a couple of nuts live here and being nutty and you see all of the live laugh at

yeah, live that's just a Tuesday worst to live by that's just a Tuesday man you see actually a more recently completed that says shows our guardian angels and you see dis and tease as angels

and they're Rood. Remerance. Yeah. There's clouds clad motifs all around them and the photos are like low Paul.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That's so sad. It's really terrible. Yeah. And this is what's in this entrance room and you see, you know, the decoration of, there's

all sorts of shelves, all sorts of crazy ass old lady knickknacks. from her impossibly long life, uh, and it's very cluttered. One wall is just tiny spoons. There's a lot of tiny spoons. There's a lot of tiny spoons.

Hazel? Are you here? Bigger perception check. 21. Nice. Oh, that was the time. You hear and you listen and you're, hello?

Hazel, is anyone here? Kind of echoes through this place. and you listen, no response, and then you hear, I don't want to go in. I don't want to go in. Is that Grandma Nuts' iconic rocking chair? In her room where she would knit and crochet? Sounds like a rocking chair.

I think it's Grandma Nuts' iconic rocking chair where she would sit and knit. It sounds iconic. It's exactly what it sounds like. I'm scared to proceed. Perhaps it's the wind. Grunley, you're far more sooner for this now than I ever will be. You have to take the lead. I have the phobia of this.

You don't have the courage? No, no, I'm completely courageless. Besides, it could be a terrible monster and you can't run on that leg. John Claude, how do you feel about this? Well, I hope it's not your friend, but I think we do have to try and forth, Grum, and see what's in there. Maybe it is this grandma nut, rocking back and forth. Maybe we have to bring her to rest. If she is in a suspended state of pestilent animation, we have to give her to death.

If none of you will do it, then I'll do it. Ooh. And I reach over, I pull up Mason jar off of a shelf. I can't believe it's nut butter. You find that. And you'd gone up the, there was a whole wraparound balcony. It's what you're used to, the double story house, the wraparound balcony, where this is Grandma Nutt's house where she had raised generations of nuts.

Now just one little old chipmunk living there. Do you want to lead? Or must I? I don't have a flaming sword, but I'm not afraid of a rocking chair. Oh, hell, I'll do it. I think it would be funny if you do it. I don't hear grumly as he mumbles

that evilly to himself and said, I'd set down the nut butter, unable to open the jar. I walk constantly over to the door, and I peek. You realize that the, as you step into the main entrance, stair going up to the left of the upper floor, and you step further in, you hear,

you know it's upstairs, where it's coming from. Hello? This is horrific. Hi, my name is Bitsy, and I think, that you're supposed to be grandma nut. I'm, we're here to check on you and Hazel and what's going on with... No, no, no, no, nokiya. What is it?

Nockington. Nokington. What? Hello? I'll continue my way up the stairs as I say these words. Call out. And you listen. As a cuckoo clock goes, uh, goes crazy.

As the hour strikes, as the various clocks that line this wall as what looks like a friendly cuckoo minstrel kind of pops out of this clock and goes back in. As it echoes all around it. And then you suddenly hear all throughout the various rooms, bong, bong, cuckoo, coo, as all of the clocks of novelties in all sorts of various rooms that fill this cluttered knick-knack-filled old lady's house go crazy. One of those cats. Yep, exactly.

As the hour has struck, as this fills it, as you then hear this cacophony and you'll stop. And then it's quiet again. Don't worry everybody. It's just the progression of time. I will start to follow Bitsy up the stairs. Okay. With my sword drawn, but not a lid. Do you all just follow?

Yeah, but it's gonna take me some time to get upstairs. Booker, you got almost tripped a little bit. Your foot is in a lot of pain. And you are afraid to look as your, your thigh is starting to hurt, and your hip is starting to hurt. And you start to kind of cough a little bit. As you fall a bit, see,

you make your way to the second story landing, and then you hear it, oh, down the hallway, as you see more cabinets and little nooks and crannies along this hallway filled with things. There's pictures of various generations of nuts. There's all sorts, there's more, um,

silly phrases. You see an embroidered doily that says, to be or nut to be and various such things. You see all the way down at the end of the hall, the master bedroom, the door to the master bedroom. And you sure, they look behind me.

I see that Grimley is not very far. and I rub my hands together, my paws, and I take the remaining steps down the hallway to reach the door. If I have to open it, I'll only crack at a sliver just sort of peek through. You find the door closed. You grab the handle. It's unlocked.

You turn it and you open a crack. Make a perception check for me. Disadvantage because it's dim light. Despite the windows, it's, it's midday. But Mikey, I thought that was the wood that was dim. At disadvantage, we say. Yes, I'll accept the cookies. Thank you.

Just one moment. Perception you say? Okay, that's one. That's an eight. An eight. You peer, you open the crack, and you, the door goes, as you peek in, and you see that on the, there's a window on the left side of this room.

You don't open it enough to see the bed presumably at the, at the end of this master bedroom. And then you see a shape by the window. It's a rocking chair. And seems like an old woman sitting in there. She's larger than you expected. And but it's nothing but a shadow. It's a dark shape, a silhouette of this woman. You see what almost looks like big, puffy cheeks,

and a bonnet and little tail going up out between the slats in this rocking chair. And it's so dark. The window, despite it not being night, the sun trying to get through this haze. through this haze, it all cast an eerie green shade through this place as you see just this dark shape, no features.

And then you see it slightly move. Push the door the rest of the way. Look around the room one last time before I approach the rocking chair to try and jostle the napping woman or be loud enough to pierce her aged hearing or get into her vision so that she realizes she has company. What are the rest of you as Bitsy starts to go into the room?

By Brumley. Like I'm not even close to this door. I'm staying behind him because he's got the flaming so. Yeah, I'm probably right, if not shoulder to shoulder, a half step behind Grumlight. I will, if we're moving in. As Bitsy walks in, you'll see my shadow take the door frame.

Oh God. Behind Bitsy as I look into the room holding my sword in front of me. It's still not a lid. And I will be ready to follow Bitsy. As you lead in, you see this dark shape. and the light coming in towards you almost cast this shadow of what could only be grandma nut as she seems to be moving forward rocking back and forth her arm is positioned as if she's knitting or crocheting and you hear as you step

closer and just once again this dark silhouette and you see one more time and stops midrock and you see those large cheeks the head turns as the head faces you well hi greg grandma and you take another step forward doesn't move so it doesn't move as she just seems to wash you in the darkness We were sorry to burst in like this. We tried to say hello, we knocked and everything. You take another step forward, and then your eyes adjust as you see Grandma Nut.

She looks at you with milky, moldy, whitish green eyes. Her sallow, skin hatches of it coming through from where fur has sloughed off. You can see the boils where the nightgown that she's wearing, the skin that is visible. Hatches of her tail have fallen off. And there's signs of infection all throughout this. elderly chipmunk. And she seems to stare at you.

No pupils, no irises. Just that strange, milky, moldy green. You okay? Can you come to get up? Can you get crumly? As you see her purplish bruise lower lip start to open as her cheeks start to move as if she is attempting to speak. Step back, bitching. I'd step to the side, a little closer to the edge of the bed.

I make room for you to approach Cremley. Are you approaching her? I mean, I'm behind you. Right. So if you're walking into the room, I'm still in the doorway, and I've now said this. Yeah, I would be behind you.

If I can hear it great, I'm not stepping into the, I'm not stepping into the doorframe until you're in the room. There's no way I'm going ahead of you. No, no, I know. Not a fucking chance. So it depends on whether I can hear it.

Wait? Is that what you're saying, wait? I didn't hear that. I didn't hear that. I got to, I think someone's calling me from outside. Booker, she said Booker. No. Say Booker, she's calling for you.

He's just in the hallway, Booker. Come here, come here. I think you misunderstood. There's somebody calling me outside. I gotta go. I thought I was. Glad you could make it, Booker. Ah, God, damn it.

Son of a bitch. I'm going to start to. She's calling for you. I'm going to start to like hobble into the room. But I'm still behind, I'm still behind grumly. You stop at Grumley's bitty grumly. Uh, uh, hey, hey there. Hi, Grandma, Nut.

How you doing? It's just she said my name. It could be anybody. It could be anybody's name. What was that? Tees. Couldn't quite make out what she said. Anybody else catch that?

I thought it was Deer Booker or? Tear Booker? Here. What do you want, Grandma Nut? Oh, God. Oh, me. Not, son of a bitch. Why does all it

terrible stuff happened to me. She may want to speak with you, Buckley, why did I do to deserve this? Poor leg. Oh, no, she wants to see my leg. Booker, if we could understand what happened here, it would greatly have our chances. I could not have to talk to it. Okay, Grandma not get to harm my leg.

What about it? It's nice. It has pockets now. She probably wants to help. Listen, Booker, before you go in, there's something about the plague you shouldn't know. Can you come with me? Why don't I have to go there?

Why don't I have to get them within range? These chipmunks fall in, in fact. They may look fine now, but... It's a matter of time before they turn into the undead. Okay, then come with me. Light up your flaming sword, and if she makes a grab for me, cut a fucking head off. Are you ordering me to purge his entire clear-air?

If she goes for me, yes! Yes! Okay, okay, Grandma, I'm coming. I'm coming over, but I'm not getting within 10 feet of you. I'm behind you, Booker. And I will walk and make sure that I'm like a crutched. away from her as I kind of circle the room and like get to the side of her. What do you want, Bremen?

That I don't like this. My poor Hazel. Oh no, what happened to Hazel? You changed. I mean, the last time I ate, I had some slippery stew or whatever they call it down in Drake's, but it was pretty good. Okay, come on, get all with you, Grandma, Matt.

As you look and around and you see, you're not getting as close as Bitsy. Oh, fuck, no. So you just see this dark silhouette. And you see his Booker, you see these, the four poster framed bed with the, what do you call that, like the sheets around it?

The canopy around that. And you go around the room, there's once again all a bunch of shells with a bunch of shit all over, right? Full-blown lady. Whatever the equivalent of, like, pet cats are, right? Just a bunch of little statue X and other. Yeah, yeah, and family photos. And all you see is the silhouette of the shape.

And as you move around the room, you just see the head follow you. Yeah, I'm dying. I'm not stupid. Okay, grandma, nut. Yeah, what's what happened to Hazel? Tell me, tell me, I need you to know. You need to eat, Booker. No, no, no.

I'm pretty good. I've been hungry lately. To be honest, me, he's been weird 72 hours. I've got to tell you, things have been getting weird. Are you cold, pogger? I mean, not particularly, no. I think I'm coming down with a fever, actually, so, you know, things have been a little loopy.

A feast? A feast? Okay. Poor Hazel, you need to eat pie. Pie? She says something about pie? Wait, is there, is there pie here? Not that I want any, I'm just curious.

Can I? And you see that, I guess only you would see this, Bincey, as her throat is starting to kind of bulge and shift as her cheeks start to shift. As the swift dessert is what we need. I think we should leave. Just gonna say, guys, I don't think we should be here right now.

She seems like she really cares about you, she wants to bake you some pie. I don't think that's a good idea. I mean, did you see those grain things out there? She may be asking you to bake the pies. Did you cook? No, not really. I've never been very good at it.

Didn't we establish that all of the wheat was tainted? Yeah, we can't use ingredients from around here, Grandma, Nut. Also, your neck squirming something fierce. She wants to bake you a pie, all right. She wants to bake you disease pie with the side of plague pudding. So can't we just go? Can we just go? Can we leave?

Do we have to be here right now? No, not to buy, not pies, sweet spies. As you see her kind of like shift, as she then blinks and blinks again, as you all start to kind of see these, as her body starts to almost snap violently back. Okay, okay, I take a step back. Guys, guys. I'm like, I'm like, I'm like trying to hobble backwards towards the wall. I'll step in front of you.

Please. I'll sit in front of Bitsy. No, not sin. Havoc. I'm going to light my sword and try to get a better look at her. Yeah, what do we see? The flame ignites, and you see this place, not the dust of an old lady's house,

but there's just this film of spores. and just grotesque rot. Even the wood and the floor is rotting, and the air itself is green with this sickness. As you start to see what the cheeks are, you see now the full state of Grandma Nut, so much of her fur has fallen off, and her skin is sallow, covered in boils and postules.

as the eyes, as you have seen now, almost that her neck is snapping back and forth and she's starting to move. As she now looks at you, and she has said, sin, sin. As you almost notice that her snout, her chipmunk snout has almost started to elongate just a little bit.

As her ears start to almost kind of snap forward and wiggle and start to grow and almost become a bit more rounded, as the tail starts to almost kind of stretch out a little bit, as her hands now holding either these knitting needles or crocheting hooks as it starts to snap forward, and her fingers are almost snapping back and forth, and they twist so violently that both of the needles snap.

And she's saying, And her voice is starting to Sitter, see the swine a twister. As a deep inhale. As you hear someone else's voice. Yeah. From Grandma Nuts form. I told you.

Play grades here. And that is we will end the session. Oh, no.