The Adventure Zone - The Adventure Zone Versus Dracula - Episode 16

Episode Date: April 25, 2024

Seeking out the Cult of the Buried Blood, the monster hunters face a series of tunnels that are dark and full of terrors like countless rats, giant bones, and . . .Toby? Mutt shoots wide. Phileaux takes flight. Godwin finishes a quest. Additional Music in this Episode: "J.S. Bach: Chromatic Fantasia" by Kevin MacLeod: https://incompetech.com/. Dice sounds by Tal M. Happy MaxFunDrive! Right now is the best time to start a membership to support your favorite shows. Learn more and join at https://maximumfun.org/jointaz

Dear diary, well, I had my first run in with one of those buried blood knock-off Dracula's, and let me just say, not super impressed. Sure, they're beefy enough. Got that whole gargoyles' aesthetic going for them, but that's about it. To think I was worried about these Sam's Club, we got Dracula at home as Gapronis. There's just no soul there. You know, just anger and muscles. I wonder, is that all I would have amounted to, if not for your intervention?

Ah, I remain in your death, my beloved, are you? You all are standing. What, Lord, wait, hold on, that's the introduction of lore. You didn't hear it. Yeah, get uncomfortable with that on episode 16 of Taz versus Dracula. You all are standing in a cavernous chamber in this system of tunnels from which the cult of the buried blood operate. You have seen a lot of unsettling stuff in here so far. The most unsettling is the bridge spine that Philo has just managed to cross from one sort of stone outcropping towards another.

You were heading towards the exit from this chamber, which leads deeper into this tunnel system. The other two members of your party, Lady Godwin and Mudd, were halfway across this bridge, holding onto a rope tethered to a massive hip bone at the far end of this bridge. Tethered. Tethered. Quote, unquote. Tied. Yeah, sure. With a six.

Pretty good tied. Thank you for reminding me that. I forgot about that boner of a roll. Yeah, don't you worry, bud. Thank you so much. However, before you could reach the other end, you all were interrupted by the arrival of several hundred rats. Let's get into initiative. Let's put on our initiative hat.

I also just wanted to say it for like the one person at home that's worried. Mutt left Aggie with the basketball woman. With the volleyball, with the sports? With the sports druid? Well, because she couldn't, she couldn't do the underwater thing. That's a good point. Aggie definitely did not come with you on this. That was a big ask. Yeah.

Okay, what are those rolls, friends? I got me a 13. I got me a 10. What? Yes, I got me the problem of I realized that I didn't have my character sheet open. I've been fervently trying to get the tab to load. A classic conundrum. Classic conundrum, but how will you solve this puzzle?

He'll wait, and he'll roll a 13. Okay. Then first in the order is mutt. Uh, mutt, you are halfway across this bridge. Uh, this bridge is 120 feet long, and so, uh, you are still a good distance, 60 feet away from, uh, either the, uh, the entrance side or the exit side. Uh, this bridge is, uh, is sprawling. Each vertebra is 10 feet in diameter. However, past that is a steep drop off, uh, over.

over a hundred feet down, you would guess, down into a sea of bones. And that's bad. That's bad. It's not great. It's not great. We hate it. Bones are cool. But bones are cool inside you, doing stuff for you, letting you play, you know, play sports and all that stuff.

Yeah. But outside of the body, they're not anything's that awesome. Interesting. Okay. Okay. Great, great, great. Um Now this is an important question

For the rest of this encounter, Griffin Okay, cool The swarm of rats Uh-huh Is it being treated as an individual Mob Or a bunch of little It is several groups of mobs

Several swarms of rats Um Yes Okay great I am going to cast Zephir strike on myself. Okay, cool. And I'm going to take a couple of things. First, it gives me advantage on an attack roll on my turn. It deals an extra 1D8 force damage on a hit. And whether I hit or miss,

my walking speed increases by 30 feet. Okay, cool. So I can get to the other side of the bridge. But so you would need to attack first in order to... Okay, cool. So I cast it on myself. Okay. And I'm going to attack one of the groups of rats. They're heading our way, right? Yes, they are storming across the, uh, towards, towards the bridge.

Yeah. They haven't quite made it out of the tunnel that they're coming out of yet. But when they do, it is going to be a, uh, a flood of rats. Okay. And they're exhibiting what one might call aggressive behavior. make a survival check for me. Because maybe they're just running away. Survival or animal handling.

I'm better at survival. That's an 11. You are no longer in your chosen terrain, right? Though you have to be sort of... Hold on. I don't think underground bone hell is part of forest. No, no, no. Just with Hunter's intuition, when I make a perception or survival check,

I can add a D4. roll to the ability check. No, that's just part of Hunter's intuition. Okay, cool. Then, okay. Do that. That's another three, so 14. With 14.

These rats seem to be kind of coordinated in a way that sort of defies their, what you know to be kind of their instinct. And so... Each individual mischief of rats is coordinated together. or the groups are working together? I mean, not working together, but it is almost as if they are marching in a line or running, a scampering in a line

in sort of a column coming at you. Okay, so they are going to have, I will tell you this, they are going to have resistance to this physical damage due to their sort of constituent nature, but their armor class is not great, so your odds of hitting are pretty good.

Okay, I'm so torn. I mean, you need to attack in order to do this. Yeah, but I could misintentionally, right? I guess so. So I don't want to kill rats? Well, I mean, I don't know that might as like an outdoorsy guy has issues with animals on site. I don't think he's like, what? In a tunnel, some rats.

Yeah. Die, die, die. If you want to delay your action, that is fine. Just to see where they're at. Just to see what kind of rats you're doing. We might have so convivial rats I've heard about. I'm going to intentionally miss. Okay.

Just so I can goading strike. Yes, I can get over there with Philo and off of the big spine. Okay, cool. Then that is for, firing wide on purpose. You can for sure do that. You fire and where are you firing? I'm firing wide to the left of like the opening of the tongue.

Oh, no. Okay, cool. So it just hits the wall. Yeah, easy. There's no way you could miss missing. So you do that. As you do so, this sort of like... I'm missing you.

This errant shot, you feel the wind at your back as your Zephyr-Strike activates. Okay, and then I hustle over with my good friend, brother Philo. Okay, you run towards the end of the bridge. You make it to the stone outcropping there. And are you still holding the rope or do you let go when you get off? I think now that I'm over there, I'm definitely still holding the row. Okay. Cool.

And you were able to make it across. As you reach the other side, you sort of end up right next to Philo. You can see these rats look scary. Red-eyed. I should have shot them. Damn it. More so than rats even usually are. And they all appear to be like asleep in their...

face, the face that they're making, but their bodies are. But fat in the base. Fat in the base. Just like you like it. A sleep in the face and fat in the base. A bunch of set of thick templetons over here. Lady Godwin, you are up next. You are still on this bridge, 60 feet from the exit or entrance side.

Holding onto this rope, what do you do? Okay, so is it, am I 60 feet from the exit or the entrance side? You're in the middle of the bridge. So you're 60 feet out of the way. What's blocking my path to the exit vis-à-vis mischiefs of rats? All of them. I mean, the rats are coming towards you from the exit.

So, like, we were headed west or whatever, and the rats are coming east. Out of the west. To the, yeah. I'm going to use Jennifer Myers to try to take a scoop of rats and dump them off the bridge. just to be like, you don't want to fuck around.

So what your speed is, your speed is 40 feet, which is enough to get pretty far down in there, towards the exit, but not all the way. You could spend your action to dash, but then you would not have an attack action. I'm going to run 30 feet up the bridge. Okay. Use up my move action. You can do 40. What?

You can do 40. Your Godwin is fast. Okay, will that get me across the bridge? No, but it'll get you closer. Yeah, that's true. I guess it's a great point graph. Then I'll take all 40 of those feet. And, hmm, I'm going to throw my javelin next to the wall.

I'm going to chuck it into the wall. Next to the crossbow bowl? Next to the rats. To try to, like, scare them off. Okay. Shot across the bow. Yeah, like, oh, wow. This person.

They got how many javelins they got it. They could have thrown that javelin at us if they wanted to. And what I think happens, Griff, is I throw it and the noise it makes from the javelin hitting the rock is specifically like poisonous. I guess you'd say to rats. Hitting at a frequency that they hate so much. Yeah, man, for sure. And that sounds like, what? What's that pitch?

Athletics. No, I mean the note that the rats hate so much. Like, what's the sound that rats hate? C sharp. Okay, great. Because it reminds me of claws and cats. They hate C stuff, so. I mean, if you are doing the same thing that Mutt just did,

which is sort of intentionally missing. You know what? Let's do this as an intimidation check. If that's what you're trying to do, if you're explicitly trying to scare away these rats, let's get that. I am. I'm trying not to exacerbate this. Okay, cool.

I just want them to leave us alone. 19. 16 plus 3. 19. Okay. The Vanguard. of this swarm of rats splits as the sound of the javelin-hitting rock reverberates throughout the chamber. And it splits basically around where you and, or rather where mutt and Philo are standing at the end of the bridge,

runs on either side of them and just goes flying off the edge down into the bone pit. That gets rid of one of the mischiefs of rats. How many mischiefs are there? More than you can sort of eyeball freely, I will say. Okay, I have big eyeballs. Okay. Cool. Anything else?

No. Okay. Next. I'm out of, I'll go ahead and start raging. Okay, cool. In the hopes that maybe it'll make me more intimidating. Sure. Cool.

Next in the order is... Just out there skanking. I hate rats. Ah! Next in the order is Philo. Fylo is going to cast Flaming Spear Now they're coming out of the tunnel

Correct? Towards us Yeah, they are. Okay. Going to cast flaming sphere right at the mouth of the tunnel. Okay. Flaming sphere right at the mouth of the tunnel.

Yeah, a five-foot diameter sphere of fire. Fuck yeah. This is like a conjured thing, right? That will continue to, if my Baldersgate three knowledge is... Right. You are basically plopping down a five-five, sphere of fire at the end of this tunnel and any rats that try to go by it have to make this

deck save. Right. Okay, cool. Mean, kind of mean. Kind of effective, though, I will say. Are you doing anything else? Are you changing your position at all? No.

I think, no, I have, I can direct it where I want it, so I don't see any need to move. As a bonus action, yes. I tell you what, how close is Lady Godwin to the end of the spine? Lady Godwin is about 20 feet far away from you, still on the spine. Is Godwin using the rope to help in any way or just? I mean, the Godwin is holding onto the rope, I believe, as all, you know, the other two members of your party were, which is just kind of like as a backup in case something happens to the bridge. Okay, I'm going to, as a bonus action, after I cast this fear, I'm going to,

untie the rope from the hip bone and tie it back around my waist. Okay. I mean, that's a lot to do in a six-second long bonus action. I think you would have time to do one of those things, but I also can understand if you would not want to untie this rope without a sort of backup plan for that. No, I won't do it then. I'm just going to cast the sphere. Okay, cool.

Next in the order are the... Wait a minute. Wait a minute. It does damage. Which are going to move through the Flamiesphere, yes. They are all going to charge onward down the tunnel. Five groups of these rats are going to have to make decks saves, which I'm going to do. Now, what is the number they're trying to beat?

They have to beat 14. That's one fail. Two fails. Next time I will let no fail. Three fails. Four fails. Five fails. Okay.

Boogie-woogie. Yeah, man, they all fucking fail. So that's classic catchphrase. Yeah, no fucking, what was that, Clint? That's new catchphrase. That's new. That's new. That's new. I'm trying it out. Hey, we love it over here.

All right. We'll bounce it off the focus group. 2B6, that would be six damage. Okay. Okay. And I'm going to take a bonus action. It's not your turn. No, no, no.

It's a bonus action. On your turn, as a bonus action, you can move it. The only actions you can take not on your turn are reactions. Gotcha. Okay. Okay. They are singed and smoking, but they are still moving. After they took damage, did they change in any way?

No, they did not. I mean, they got singed and smoking. Okay, but they didn't like snap out of it or something. They looked like a ratatooie had a kitchen accident. Okay. Like they'd be in the kitchen? Did it scare any of them? I mean, I gave you a pretty great description of it.

I know. I know. I did a kitchen accident and I don't know what else you want from, like, I only have so much description in my body per episode. Discursion juice, yeah. And I don't want to use any more of it on these fucking dirty rats. Absolutely. Yeah, Sidney was telling me about it.

Okay, so this swarm, the giant swarm of rats, all of the rats coming at you like a tide. Some of them split off and jump right off the edge. However, they are all going to crash into you. I need all three of you to make dexterity saving throws, please. Okay. That's pretty good.

At 25? Oh, yeah. 16? Okay. And Philo, what was that for you? Seven. Okay. Mutt and Godwin, you all managed to keep.

your footing. A lot of the rats that were sort of diving towards you, crashing into you, also spill off the edge and go tumbling down into the bones below. I do get rid of two more groups. Philo, however, you are much smaller. You are much, much lighter. You are easily picked up by the swarm of rats who similarly go diving over the edge of the bone pit. Make another dexterity saving throw here to see if you are able to catch the side in some way, stop yourself from going over. I'm going to need at least a 10 or above for any kind of success here. Well, how about a 12? Wow.

Yeah, 12 is not amazing, but it is enough that you are able to get a few of your puppet fingers wedged on the top of the cliff before fully falling into the darkness like the many, many rats that have just smashed into you. Next in the order, a crossbow bolt is going to come flying from the bridge. You all turn to see two guards are standing now in the middle of the bridge. And you see a third figure with them. And this man has been stripped down and looted. It is the guard that you incapacitated earlier. Come back to. Three guards stand on the bridge.

See, this is much problem. Should it kill the rats? Should it kill the guard? Ugh. The first crossbow bolt is going to come flying at you. Lady Godwin, which is the biggest target, 19 versus AC. Oh, yeah. Just it.

It stabs into your shoulder for four points of piercing damage, which would be halved since you are raging, so two points of piercing damage. The other bolt is going to go towards mutt. Mut a 20 Not that Dirty 20

Just hits Yeah Just hits This one Just scratches across your Just scratches across your side I mean I got 15 AC So it definitely hits

I was being sarcastic Well it does it for four points Of damage The third guard does not have a weapon So he is just going to dash Wait a minute Justin. Yes.

Toby's sword will do extra damage against that one. Oh! Okay, well, next in the order is mutt. Mut. The situation is still a lot of rats. Maybe a third of the rats have now mostly jumped to their deaths. They have all sort of been burned, all the ones that have come through the tunnel. And beyond the flaming sphere, you can see yet of a few rats still.

The crowd is definitely thinning out, though. Are they squeaking and stuff? No, they're completely, completely silent. No, it would be cool, but is it maybe even cooler that they're completely silent? Okay, I see. Well, I'm not going to make the same mistake again, now that the guards are trying to kill us. So I'm going to take a shot at one of them, their guards. Okay, closer to you is the guard you know is Toby.

And the ones behind him are within range weapon distance. They just took a shot at you, but they are a bit further back. Um, I'm going to take a shot at one of the ones who took a shot at us. Okay, cool. And I'm going to do ensnaring strike on him. Uh, okay. Uh, so let's shoot at him first. Action.

Crossbow. Does a 17 hits. 17 hits, yes. Excellent. That's great. to here. So he's going to take six points of damage. Okay.

As well as, yes, he's ensnared. So a writhing masts of thorny vines appears at the point of impact and the target must succeed on a strength saving throw or be restrained by the magical vines until the spell ends. Does a 12 save? It does not. Okay.

It needs to be a 15. He's going to take an extra 1D6. Oh, at the start of each turn, takes an extra 1D6 piercing damage. Okay. Let's see, he'll be here. Okay, and then I'm going to use my second attack on the other guard.

Okay. No one's staring strike on this one. Just a regular, just a regular old attack. So 19 hit. Yes, it does. And he's going to take 11. Seven points of damage. Oh, that one goes just right on top of the head.

Off the bridge, dead. That is an instant chaos on that gentleman. That's a season wrap. That is a season wrap on that one. Toby is enraged. Not mechanically, but he is. He is emotionally enraged. Next in the order is Lady Godwin.

Still some rats on the The precipice here with you Some in the tunnel beyond the flaming sphere You have one guard halfway down the bridge That just shot at you And then a dead guard currently falling down To join the bones below and one day become bones You also have Toby charging at you

He's about 10 feet away I look at Toby I'm terribly sorry about this But at the same time extremely excited. And then I pull out my blade, the Toby Slayer. And I think

in the, here's what I imagine, Griffin. In the presence of a Toby, everyone hears music. And flames emerge from the Toby Slayer. And shafts of light come in from walls. And you hear like chanting like,

Toby, Toby, Toby, Toby. Yeah, yeah. Tobey. And then I, swing the toby slayer down on toby. Okay, make an attack roll plus one versus topies. No, no, I thought you said it had the flaming, ranging, poisoning sort of... Oh, yeah, you're right.

Yeah, but it only affects damage. It's not a bonus to my hit die. That's not more... That's true, that's true. We still need to hit with the Toby Slayer. It doesn't, it's not automatic. You know what I mean? No, but if it bites, it bites deep.

14. Is that 14 hit? A 14 just hits, Toby. He is snuff from existence. Flames leap into and out of his skull. Poison boils around his skin. And then out of one of the boils, his lung gooshes. He just collat.

He just loses his form underneath this mighty way. But somewhere another Toby becomes more powerful. So the damage is seven plus. 20. Yeah. And then 3D10 fire damage? Does that seem fair? It's unnecessary, but please go, I mean, please roll

these dice. I just don't know what we used to do. He just, the picture you have painted is true to life. He just falls apart and then explodes and then is on fire for a little bit. And then a breeze comes and blows his ashes away and a bird eats the ashes and

dies. And you could swear through the flames for just a moment, Godwin. You see an apparition. A figure. It's an old man with a cane.

He's wearing a little grandpa hat. He looks at you and he says Thank you. You have freed me. As the ghost of Toby's grandpa. Fuck, I knew you were going to do this. Flock you, man.

I had big plans. I was gonna wait until we got to the final boss and the whole stupid show and be like, I'm gonna call you Toby from now on and just fucking end it. It would be so cool. Oh, the sword still kills Toby's. It's just the quest for this particular sword

was to kill this guy's shithead grandson, Toby. Okay. So like, you've gone... Do you think Toby knew? We didn't cover if Toby had a moment of recognition when he saw it singing through, the air, slicing his fate as it cuts the air. No, I mean, he did, he's not going to give you anything like that because he sucks so bad.

Like he's just so fucking, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's just a jackass who didn't pay attention to anything. And everyone's pretty glad he's gone. You don't see Toby's ghost. Whatever ghost, whatever resided inside of this, the physical object of Toby's body that made him who he was has also been destroyed. by this, Blaine. So complete has been his destruction. I think I speak for the listeners here,

and I know I'm speaking for myself. I'm so glad we made Taz kill again. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. This used to be a show that people died on and a lot. And for a while, I think we lost that a little bit, but I'm just so happy that Taz is killing people again. Back in our groove. Just back in a comfortable murderer.

Yeah. Sometimes just for having... For their name. A bad job with the wrong. name coming in the wrong direction. Cold sword, bad name on it? Dead. Have to be. You don't know.

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Oh, who are we kidding? We're just going to talk about Zelda. Whether you play games or you just like hearing about them, we've got you covered. Find us at maximum fun.org or wherever you get your podcasts. Bye. Philo, you are up next. You are hanging off the edge of the cliff with your little wall. wooden fingers.

Rats continue to pour over you. What do you do? God, that is so gross. It's a nasty, it is a really nasty scene down here. Okay. I'm going to drink my flying elixir. Okay. Pops open the vial, drinks the flying elixir.

Why wouldn't you? Yeah, why not? Um, no time like the president, they say. And gently, fly up emerging triumphant through the stream of rats. Bad ass. It's like bursting out. Yeah.

You, you, as you, to reach this potion, you have to let go of the wall. Right. I think that the exciting version of this is. Oh, I got it. I think it's, well, no, no, no, hold on. I think it's, I want a slight of hand check because you're trying to do something very badass that I want to happen very, very much, but I feel like it will be. a lot sicker if it is, if it is mechanical.

Okay. So I think a slight of hand check to retrieve this potion and consume it while falling, I think is pretty sick. Well, then can I push away from the... Yes, absolutely. So like, I'll give you advantage. I will give you advantage on the slide of handcheck. You buy yourself some time by sort of like throwing yourself away from the not quite sheer edge of this. Swan-like, you're springing back.

Okay, here we go. Here's the first one. Oh, I'm going to need that advantage. That's a six. We're going to need better than that. Yeah, well, here we go. Five is not better. It's worse. Okay.

Then, okay. You are, you fall fully. You are, you try to reach into your pouch to retrieve this, to retrieve the potion that will save your, save your life and your wooden form here. But it is hard to wrestle with a clasp of an alchemist's toolkit while it is rattling around in the breeze of freefall. You manage to retrieve this potion and dump it into your puppet potion hole. I haven't considered. I have to imagine at this point you've just bored a little hole into the front of your face. Well, it has a mouth?

Yeah, I guess that's true. Okay, you chug down this potion. You do it pretty far into your free fall. I think the result of this is your momentum is going to slow as you crash down into the bones. This effect will continue to work. You'll be able to fly, but first you are going to hit these bones. But you will have resistance from this 2D10 damage. because of the slowed momentum.

So a constitution check? No constitution check required, my friend. You sure? Yes. Okay. A total of 13 damage halved. So you take seven points of bludgeoning damage as you crash down into the bones.

Drinking a potion. Yes, okay, so drinking a potion is an action. That's fine. You, but however, you, you, all that you have used at this point is your action. I'm not going to count falling down a pit as your, as your movement, because it was somewhat against your will. So, fair enough to say that with the flying elixir, I take the damage, but I fly up? Well, I mean, you are now standing on the bone pile below and you feel weightless. So you feel like you can now fly, you know, back, back up.

You have to tell me where you want to fly, what you want to do. It's not sort of an automatic. I just want to fly straight up. I just want to fly. Straight up, straight up, straight up. Okay. You, what's it look like? How do you, what does flight look like for you?

Is it clean Peter Pan flight or is it more fizzy lifting drink? Or is it like, are you flapping your arms? Yeah, are you a bird? No, I think he would, it's Peter Pan stuff. Peter Pan, 10 feet straight up. Almost like a Kianu Reeves Matrix in the dojo move. Bad ass. Arms akimbo, one leg bent, straight up.

Okay, you do so. Make a perception check for me. Not getting the rolls today. That's an eight. Okay. Your flight speed with this. potion is just your move speed, right? It's just you can fly with it. Yes, and 10 feet. Okay, so 40 feet. You fly 40 feet straight up, about halfway back up from where you fell. You notice only sort of at the last

second as you are approaching the end of your move here that it's a little bit harder than you expected it to be. It feels like it is getting harder and harder as you go up. You worry for a moment that Maybe there's something wrong with the potion. But as you look down, you realize that your ankle is being held by a skeletal hand connected to a skeletal arm. Just a skeleton. Keep going. And then what's the arm bone connect to? The clav-clav-clav-clav-o.

The clavibbon. The clavulus. A skeleton wearing a crown is holding onto your ankle as you fly up. And this skeleton is similarly being held up by what looks like almost like a cheerleader's pyramid of skeletons. The bone pile or something in it is trying to keep you from escaping here. Whoa. Next in the order. Oh, do you have a bonus action?

Oh, you can move your sphere, yeah. Here goes. I move my sphere into another mischief of rats. Okay. Are you, and this is a trick question, moving it down the tunnel, toward the rats deeper in the tunnel, or are you moving it out onto the cliffside outcropping where a couple mischief of rats are standing, but also your friends? Two directions you can do. I think it's farther up the tunnel. Okay.

Well, you hesitated a long time there before deciding if you wanted to set me and Justin on fire, huh? I was trying to visualize because he said they were in like a rough line of misfishes. Okay, you are going to be able to ram this sphere into a creature, one of these mischiefs of rats counts as a creature. It will have to make the saving throw against the sphere's damage and the sphere stops moving this turn. So you can do this. It's only going to nail one of these rat swarms. Right. You get the impression that there are not that many remaining.

So, decks save. 14. Dex save 14. We got a crit fail. So nope. And they take 2D6 fire damage. You want to roll that for me. Five and a two.

That's seven. Seven. Okay. Godwin and Mutt, you see the ball roll deeper into the tunnel. And you see the rats that are continuing to swarm out. They look actually quite a bit worse off than the rats that were burned originally. This got a little bit more, a little bit more mustard on it. They are, however, up next.

So, I think looking at you, the two of these swarms of rats are going to try the same maneuver, try to knock you off into the bone pile below. I need you to make a dexterity saving throw for me. Okay. Let me do that. Okay, my deck save throw, 22. Yeah, wow, okay. I mean, I have a plus seven to a deckstating throws.

22 is fucking great. You just hot step through these rats, like you're playing fucking DDR around them. And they go diving off the edge of the platform. You see a flaming swarm of rats. One more. Actually, let me roll that deck save. The last swarm of rats come pouring out of the tunnel.

That is a four. No, so 2D6 fire damage, please, Clint on these rats here. Eight, wow. Okay, yeah. The flow of rats has stopped as the last group of rats come swarming out. They, like all the other rats that have come through this flaming ball, look pretty bad off. Two of these swarms of rats are going to just attack you, Lady Goblin.

Oh, man. That is a 15 versus AC. Oh, yeah, that hits. Okay. You are going to take seven points piercing damage halved down to four. And the second group of rats. No, that is a four versus AC is not going to hit. Their teeth can't penetrate the thick flesh of the body you are riding on, Crang style.

And that is it for the rats I think the only guard left is entangled He's going to try and escape that Yeah, and sneer that Well first he takes one D6 damage Oh does he? Okay, roll one D6 Three Okay

You see him fight against the vines And then you see the vines Quickly and violently hug him In towards the spinal bridge And you see him crumple unnaturally and die. Okay.

Okay, so that's it for him. But, you are up. Okay, so currently, have all the rats, there's like only... There's only two swarms of rats left, and the two swarms are both engaging

Lady Godwin in combat. Okay, so I can see this pep squad of skeletons grabbing Philo's ankle, right? Yes, exactly. And there's a crown, on one of them? The one at the top, the one that is actually holding on to him.

Is it a nice crown? It was at some point. Okay. Then I don't want it. I'm going to take aim for the elbow joint on the arm holding. Okay. I was going to go for risk, but then I feel like that's a bigger risk of hitting Philo. So, okay.

Yeah, I'm struggling. Because if this is just an attack roll, that is, a very specific, you can't just shoot someone's arm off because, I mean, it would have to be like a dexterity check or athletics check or something like that. Yeah, it's got to be an all or nothing situation and not a, not an attack role where even if you hit, you get some damage. Like it's either, right, right, right. This works or you miss. This is a fucking hard shot, though. This is a very, very hard shot. You are 60 feet above this, this situation. And so, like, I'm not even sure what kind of a beat you would be able to get on this joint.

So if you want to make just a straight dexterity, check on this, I would need a 20, DC20. Ooh, tempting. Um, okay. There's another wilder thing I'm going to do, because I don't think I can make that. I'm going to untie the rope. from where I was tied.

Okay. And tie it around myself. And jump off to swing down and try to grab my friend. So it's, just so we know, I'm doing it so it's like over that joint, right? So it's not just Godwin to me. It's Godwin to joint to me. So Godwin is just holding the rope. Yeah.

Hold on tight. Why would you not just jump off with it still tied to the hip bone? Okay, yeah, then I'll do that, Griffin. Okay, I'm trying to pick this. Well, it's just Godwin, Gobwin's not, the physics of the Gobwin would have to spend her turn holding this rope. I'm not, I don't have a PhD in physics, Griffin. Okay. Yeah, Griffin.

Not like you, Griffin, we hear about it. All that. MIT this, MIT that. We fucking get it. We get it, Griffin. If you want to play some doctor the dragons with my family and have a Good fucking time. Every time I mentioned Bill and I, Griffin says, oh, that bitch.

It's so weird. I get really, really messy about Bill. It is science, the science drama. Science communicator drama is messy. Yeah. That's why they wear lab coats. Okay. Let's do it.

I fucked Mr. Wizard. Thank you for saying it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, so you just jump off. No, I tie you. On.

To yourself? Yeah, I'm tying on myself. I'm jumping down, swan diving. Give me a survival check. Okay. To see how good I tie it? Uh-huh. That's a Nat 20, baby.

27. You tie it. You tied the shit out of that. You tied the shit. What kind of knot is it? Hey, Trave, you did a bad job. Not. I do, can I say?

It's, um, here's the thing. It's a cube. knot. Like, people have done square knots before. No one's done a three-dimensional cube knot. It's only been prophesied. Oh, to this way. There have been legends that once Merlin was able to do it, but then he immediately died

from the string. The knot is so good, mutt, that the other shitty knot that Vilo made, you, like, shoot that knot a dirty look, and it gets its shit together. That knot becomes better being in the presence of your incredible tesseract of a knot that you've made. Okay, and you just go swan diving off the end. Are you jumping towards? Yeah, my attention is to create like an arc, you know, so that I'm swinging through to grab him. Oh, you're swinging like on the other end of the bridge to like still do that sort of fulcrum swinging maneuver.

Yeah, yeah. This is not so good that you tie just enough slack off that you like work the math of this maneuver out. perfectly cool i well might has been doing um like rope swings into rivers since he was a kid yes he's got experience of this great uh cool you swan dive gracefully over the last uh you know few dozen remaining rats over the edge uh and fall just beautifully towards the bone pile uh you reach the edge of the rope's length and it snaps and you begin to

cutting me in half. It snaps and your body is instantly bisected. Now I'm bisexual. That's not what that means. Bissectional. Bisexual is better. And you swing towards

Philo who is being grappled by these by this pyramid of skeletons. I'm gonna, I mean, I think just let's complete the sort of like arc here, no pun intended. What are you trying to do as you reach them? Traveling quite fast, I will say. Yeah, no, basically, I'm hoping that I am coming at him like a spider monkey, right?

And I'm just, whoo, wrapping and going. You're just trying to grab him. Yeah, with the force to like break the grasp. Okay. So I want a This is going to be an attack role on Philo to grapple him Okay This is to grab him

Then I will then if this succeeds we will make a strength contest To see if you can pull out of this skeleton's grasp You will have advantage on that track just with the sheer momentum of your Pindulous force right now That is a 23 to hit Yep okay You grab him easily and firmly, you feel like a weird weightlessness.

Come with me. As he is flying, you actually feel a bit of buoyance that is like adjusting the arc of your swing here. And... I plan for that. We are going to make a just straight up strength role to see if you can pull out of the scales and his grasp, you have advantage. Ooh, okay.

I got an 18. Oh, boy. I have plus the zero. Is this a saving throw or check? Just a strength check. Oh, boy. Okay. A six.

Can I need better than that. Yeah. And then 18. All right. You know, I, yeah, all right. So what happens is you swing with a tie here. What happens is that you feel yourself grab Philo and start swinging upward a little bit faster than you swing. wung downwards thanks to the flying puppet that you are now holding onto. However, as you look

down, you realize that the crowned skeleton is still hanging onto you, rather onto puppet Philo, and two of the arms of the skeleton that were holding him up have come off with him, holding him up by the feet. Okay, progress. So progress. Yes, you are now swinging back upwards. we will call your turn there and move on to Lady Godwin. Godwin, you are still being challenged by two more swarms of rats as this, frankly, outrageous, undead Cirque de Soleil act is happening, you know, a good 60 feet below you. Can I assist? Do they need to be retrieved? Does it look like? Is it something I can assist with with a sharp tug? Yeah, I mean, you could for sure grab the rope as they are swinging up.

and if you try to, you know, hand over hand, like, pull it in pretty fast. Yeah, I'm going to try, I'm going to try to reel them in. Okay. Because I don't know. I was going to make a run for it. I'll be honest. But I'll go ahead. I think that's Justin talking, frankly.

Yeah. Well, it's just I hate the dang rats. I know you do, bud. We had to fiddly fart around with these guys. All right. I'm going to try to bring them in, try to retrieve them. Okay. This is going to be...

We're getting pretty good at reeling things in. Yeah. A lot of fishing. This is going to be a... This is going to be a strength check. It is... I mean, you're going to have to move this rope pretty fast to, like, pull them in at an appropriate angle to their swing.

22. Yeah. All right, man. For sure. You, uh, you manage to grab the rope as rapidly. that's continue to bite at your ankles. You pull hand over hand, reeling in yard after yard of rope,

until finally from over the surface of the cliff's edge, you see this wild scene approaching you. You see Philo holding onto the rope, flying, holding onto, being held onto, rather, by mutt, and you see a crowned skeleton with a couple other skeletons in arms holding onto him, holding onto Puppet Filo.

You see them all as you yank them up with a 22. You pull them down just as the rats peel off of you and bring them crashing down onto the heads of the remaining swarm of rats, killing them. The rats. Killing who? The rats. Griven.

Killing your rats. Killing everyone, unfortunately. I look at the skeleton with the crown and I say, welcome to bridge. And I punch it in the face

with my bonus action. Okay. Make a, make an attack roll. Oh, wait, I wrote my great axe, right? I shouldn't do that.

No. It just so happens it was a crit fail. It's funny how that happens. That's why. Because D&D Beyond was like, that's not what we. You're supposed to roll.

That's all right. This is the roll? 13. Is it hit? Yeah, 13 hits. You punch this prone skeleton. For four damage. Okay.

You punch it and the head rolls off of the skeletal body. The crown stays on. You see that it is like fused with the bone. Oh, no. I wanted a free crown. It rolls towards the edge. It stops just shy of the edge. It rocks precariously towards it

before tilting backwards. and coming to a halt, laying on its side, looking back at you with a frozen look. I mean, of course it's frozen. It's a skeleton of surprise on its face. And then you hear a voice from inside of this hollow skull. And it says, How dare you, peasant?

Peasant you have struck me. What a terrible accident you have made. What is your, what's your problem, fellow? Peasant? The peasant who has struck me. Oh, she. She's actually a lady. She's the lady, lady, lady, lady, lady, lady, galwin.

My name is Lady Godwin. Lady, I apologize, I did not know I was in the presence of fellow royalty. What is the year, madam? The year? What is the year? Well, as you know, it's 1842. Ah! I've been...

I've been... It's that time, I said. I've been burned for so long. And what of Britannia? Oh, it's fallen. No, it's just a Dracula country now. It's not very sad. No more Britannia, there's only Luminon.

You must... Oh. You see, this skull looks just despondent. It rolls to be face down. in the dirt. Hey, hey man. Hey, bud. Do you want to come with us?

I can't leave my boys. Who are you? Sorry, who are your boys? My boys? My boys. You mean my, my, my crew, my squad?

Oh, okay. My fam? My fam? Oh. They are the mightiest knights in all the realm, in all the no-de- realms of this world.

They are the knights of the round table before you see, I am King Arthur Pindragon. Oh my. Way, are you? Sovereign. And ruler of Britannia. I sucker punched King Arthur. Maximum fun.

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