The Crooked Moon: Session 34 — Transcript

Get started. Quick recap this week. Izzy is home. Vanderbone has lost an arm. Laya and Adella are okay. Izzy's merciful. Boon stays the king. Proteius gets new toys. Everyone reflects both on the group's situation, also on their own situations. Laya puts on a feast. Adela's hand is getting better. The ring makes the healing even quicker. Marius hears a who. Swamp communion. Marius talks to God. Loses his heart, but he gets another one. A change has taken place. Finally, carrier pigeons at the door. Letters for Adella and Veil speak of a plague in Wicker Village. Spread by centipedes who seem to have come from the northwest of town somewhere called the Glitterdeep Mines. Vale shares the bad news. Philip says to stay out of the village until the mines are clear of pests. Adella shares the good news. Her hubby thinks she's still in Fox. That's where we called it last week. That's where we're going to pick up this time. Adella practically hops around, bouncing on the balls of her feet while she's holding her letter. Hot cheese, this is great with the ring back on my hand. Getting better. Philly doesn't ever really need to know about this silly crossroads business, right? I, I, I mean, sure. Yeah, I might eventually have to tell him, but there's no sense worrying about it right now with everything that's going on, especially if there's a plague. Gosh, Wikimmore Hollow sure is a messed up place. I guess Phil should have spent more time governing the outskirts of his lands, huh? Wait a minute. No, nobody better tell him that. Okay, you don't have to worry. I, I will not say a thing. And when I commit to not saying a thing, you can trust me. Yes. Yeah. No, we know that your lips are sealed like a bear trap. Yes. No information is going to be slipping out of that anytime soon. No, definitely not. Well, I find that hard to believe. I'd be more concerned. Were there two pigeons that showed up? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, the pig one pigeon knew where I was at. How did this other pigeon know where you were at? Oh, as far as the letter to me. Yeah, 'cause this is Fox Willow. But yeah, but it's seeking, it's seeking me. I know. Yeah. So, and I'm here to go back. I'm not in Fox. I know. It's just going to find her. That's why, that's why it came to me. Yeah, it'd be silly if they just sent it to Foxo and I was in there. That'd be... Why would they do that? She seems completely confused by your rationale that a pigeon should be going to a location rather than just the person. Magic mail doesn't work like the post office. I'm going to do detect magic on the pigeons. Yeah. Um, with detect magic on the pigeons, you absolutely get a magical aura coming from both of them. Um, I, I don't know how much time you guys spent in town with the postmaster, but you've met her before. Um, my arcana adept, folks. Roll me some arcana checks. Okay, 29's pretty freaking good. Oh, I am on GM roll stuff. 31's pretty freaking better. 22 is pretty good, too. All of you have a pretty good idea of how this works, but it seems like, um, I believe her name is Thomas Cena. I got to go back and look at the NPCs to be absolutely sure, but I'm pretty sure that's what it is. Uh, no, sorry. Theodora. Theodora Mayville. Post mistress. It's, uh, this chick. She uses a, uh, a spell very akin to scrying, um, basically to allow her pigeons to home in on people rather than locations. So you get the feeling that this is absolutely a spell related, um, to her specific industry that allows her pigeons to find people no matter where they are. That way she doesn't have to say, um, go to Dawn's Gate and find. It's just find [music] personally. Yeah. Oh, but to your point, both pigeons do have a magical aura. Uh, one letter came to Adella, one letter came to Vale. Um, but Philip Dresenvald absolutely thought his wife was still in Foxville on that pilgrimage with, uh, Sister Rain and trying to help out the people of Foxville. So, at the moment, he's none the wiser. How long that'll last, only Proteius can tell. The moment we walk in the door. Did you know? [laughter] Shut up. Laya is continuing to, to, um, whip up some breakfast for you guys and get some coffee going or tea or what have you. And Adella is still very excited about the fact that maybe she got away with this entire caper without ever letting Philip know. So, she might be able to get home without ever having to tell him that she gave away her, uh, gave away her wedding ring and then was cursed because of it. So hopefully, um, in her eyes that doesn't need to be shared. But to your point, Veil, you do have a letter describing this plague that seems to be going on. And it seems to, um, it seems to be linked to these centipedes. Centipedes that you guys have run into in the past with these egg sacks inside of the gobblegeist and, uh, also in images that you had seen before. Um, there you have it. And, and where did the notes say? There was a mine. What was the mine's name? Sorry. Glitter Deep. Glitter Deep. Mhm. It's northwest of the village. Um, which is about where you guys tracked down the Gobbleg origin from, where he had flown basically over the river down towards you guys. You, you had, you had tracked that point. Basically, you had keyed in on where that was from, but you didn't go to explore that area. Had you moved just a few hours north from where you were, uh, you probably would have hit the foothills where you'd have found the mines like across that, across the river. Mhm. Yeah. Very similar or very, uh, similar, uh, longitude. You just need to bump up your latitude a little bit. So, what are, what are the centipedes doing? What's the plague? Is it like people are sick and getting fevers and boils and dying or like... That's almost exactly, uh, correct, John. The letter is in your chapter 7 journal, uh, to Veil. Um, trying to find the exact thing in here, but I'm not seeing a whole lot. I don't recall letter to, don't recall if he gave you the exact stuff that was happening but it, it, um, basically the exact same thing, thing you were talking about. Uh, fevers, boils, blisters, that sort of thing. It doesn't seem like anybody, uh, yeah, fevers, boils, pustules, and the like. While it doesn't appear to be immediately lethal, precautions must be made. Uh, worse than the illness, however, is the vector. Particular malady seems to be a result of bites from an insect. One you will be interested in. Terrible centipede of unusual size and appetite. Um, this is unfortunate information that seems to track with what you guys had come across with the gobblegeist in the past. Uh, as a matter of fact, since you won't necessarily run into this art, unless you were to go back to Wickermore Village, uh, and Philip is saying for you not to do that, I will show you this cool piece of art. Nothing, nothing like your mom puking up blood while you're holding on to her skirt. Centipedes crawling at your feet. [clears throat] It's good stuff. Yeah, centipedes are everywhere. And the size die if one of those things crawled on me. I forgot you're not, not a bug guy. Um, the size and the scale versus these, these humans are very, very similar to the painting that you had seen in Day Manor of the Centipede coming up the side of the miner's boot. Um, it, it is definitely foreshadowed even way back then. He thinks this is a hag basically. That's his suspicion. What's the best, what's the best way from here to get to there? [clears throat] Uh, you would probably know this out of everyone here because everyone here doesn't necessarily have as much information about the local and recent going on, but you've been in Foxville for quite some time. Um, from where you are, let me move this to the world map. Change up some music a little bit. You guys are up there in the top right-hand corner, uh, by Murkwater Bend. And you believe the Skitterdeep mine to be, uh, sorry, the Glitterdeep mine to be to the northwest of Wickermore Village, directly north of where you guys were. So it would be somewhere in the vicinity over here. So from wher...

situations. Laya puts on a feast. Adela's hand is getting better. The ring makes the healing even quicker. Marius hears a who. Swamp communion. Marius talks to God. Loses his heart, but he gets another one. A change has taken

place. Finally, carrier pigeons at the door. Letters for Adella and Veil speak of a plague in Wicker Village. Spread by centipedes who seem to have come from the northwest of town somewhere called the Glitterdeep Mines. Vale shares the

bad news. Philip says to stay out of the village until the mines are clear of pests. Adella shares the good news. Her hubby thinks she's still in Fox. That's where we called it last week. That's where we're going to pick up this time.

Adella practically hops around, bouncing on the balls of her feet while she's holding her letter. Hot cheese, this is great with the ring back on my hand.

Getting better. Philly doesn't ever really need to know about this silly crossroads business, right? I I I mean, sure. Yeah, I might eventually have to tell him, but there's no sense worrying about it right now with everything that's going on, especially if there's a

plague. Gosh, Wikimmore Hollow sure is a messed up place. I guess Phil should have spent more time governing the outskirts of his lands, huh? Wait a minute. No, nobody better tell him that.

Okay, you don't have to worry. I I will not say a thing. And when I commit to not saying a thing, you can trust me.

Yes. Yeah. No, we know that your your lips are sealed like like a bear trap.

Yes. No information is going to be slipping out of that anytime soon. No, definitely not.

Well, I find that hard to believe. I'd be more concerned. Were there two pigeons that showed up?

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, the pig one pigeon knew where I was at. How did this other pigeon know where you were at?

Oh, as far as the letter to me. Yeah, cuz this is Fox Willow. But yeah, but it's seeking it's seeking me.

I know. Yeah. So, and I'm here to go back. I'm not in Fox. I know.

It's just going to find her. That's why That's why it came to me. Yeah, it'd be silly if they just sent it to Foxo and I was in there. That'd be Why would they do that?

She seems completely confused by your rationale that a pigeon should be going to a location rather than just the person.

Magic mail doesn't work like the post office. I'm going to do detect magic on the pigeons.

Yeah. Um, with detect magic on the pigeons, you absolutely get a magical aura coming from both of them. Um, I I don't know how much time you guys spent in town with the postmaster, but you've met her before. Um,

my arcana adept, folks. Roll me some arcana checks. Okay, 29's pretty freaking good. Oh, I am on GM roll stuff.

31's pretty freaking better. 22 is pretty good, too. All of you have a a pretty good idea of how this works, but it seems like um I believe her name is Thomas Cena. I got to go back and look

at the NPCs to be absolutely sure, but I'm pretty sure that's what it is.

Uh no, sorry. Theodora. Theodora Mayville. Post mistress. It's uh this chick. She uses a uh a spell very akin to scrying um basically to allow her pigeons to home in on people rather than locations. So you get the feeling that this is

absolutely a spell related um to her specific industry that allows her pigeons to find people no matter where they are. That way she doesn't have to say um go to Dawn's gate and find. It's just find [music] personally.

Yeah. Oh, but to your point, both pigeons do have a magical aura. Uh, one letter came to Adella, one letter came to Vale. Um, but Philip Dresenvald absolutely thought his wife was still in Foxville on that pilgrimage with uh, Sister Rain and

trying to help out the people of Foxville. So, at the moment, he's none the wiser. How long that'll last, only Proteius can tell.

The moment we walk in the door. Did you know? [laughter] Shut up. Laya is continuing to to um whip up some breakfast for you guys and get some coffee going or tea or what have you.

And Adella is still very excited about the fact that maybe she got away with this entire caper without ever letting Philip know. So, she might be able to get home without ever having to tell him that she gave her away her uh gave away

her wedding ring and then was cursed because of it. So hopefully um in her eyes that doesn't need to be shared.

But to your point, Veil, you do have a letter describing this plague that seems to be going on. And it seems to um it seems to be linked to these centipedes. Centipedes that you guys have run into in the past with these egg

sacks inside of the gobblegeist and uh also in images that you had seen before.

Um, there you have it. And And where did the notes say? There was a mine. What was the mine's name?

Sorry. Glitter Deep. Glitter Deep. Mhm. It's northwest of the village. Um, which is about where you guys tracked down the Gobbleg origin from, where he had flown basically over the river down towards you guys. You you had you had

tracked that point. Basically, you had keyed in on where that was from, but you didn't go to explore that area. Had you moved just a a few hours north from where you were, uh you probably would have hit the foothills where you'd have

found the mines like across that across the river. Mhm. Yeah. Very similar or very uh similar uh longitude. You just need to bump up your latitude a little bit.

So, what are what are the centipedes doing? What's the plague? Is it like people are sick and getting fevers and boils and dying or like That's almost exactly uh correct, John.

The letter is in your chapter 7 journal uh to Veil. Um trying to find the exact thing in here, but I'm not seeing a whole lot. I don't recall letter to don't recall if he gave you the exact

stuff that was happening but it it um basically the exact same thing thing you were talking about. Uh fevers, boils, blisters, that sort of thing. It doesn't seem like anybody uh yeah fevers, boils, pestules, and the like. While it doesn't

appear to be immediately lethal, precautions must be made. Uh worse than the illness, however, is the vector.

Particular malady seems to be a result of bites from an insect. One you will be interested in. Terrible centipede of unusual size and appetite. Um, this is unfortunate information that seems to track with what you guys had come across

with the gobblegeist in the past. Uh, as a matter of fact, since you won't necessarily run into this art, unless you were to go back to Wickermore Village, uh, and Philip is saying for you not to do that, I will

show you this cool piece of art. Nothing nothing like your mom puking up blood while you're holding on to her skirt.

Centipedes crawling at your feet. [clears throat] It's good stuff. Yeah, centipedes are everywhere. And the size die if one of those things crawled on me.

I forgot you're not not a bug guy. Um, the size and the scale versus these these humans are very very similar to the painting that you had seen in Day Manor of the Centipede coming up the side of the miner's boot. Um, it it is

definitely foreshadowed even way back then. He thinks this is a hag basically. That's his suspicion.

What's the best What's the best way from here to get to there? [clears throat] Uh you would probably know this out of everyone here because everyone here doesn't necessarily have as much information about the local and recent going on, but you've been in Foxville

for quite some time. Um from where you are, let me move this to the world map.

Change up some music a little bit. You guys are up there in the top right hand corner uh by Murkwater Bend. And you believe the Skitterdeep mine to be uh sorry the glitter deep mine to be to the

northwest of Wickermore village directly north of where you guys were. So it would be somewhere in the vicinity over here.

So from where you are straight line being what it is, cutting back across on foot across Rowenza Rise and then those hills just to the north of the village would probably be the the fastest, especially since even if you were to use

the boat, you'd be traveling against the current. So it might slow you down. [music] Um, and it's quite a bit longer by doing the whole roundabout thing in the boat.

Sure. Yeah. So from where you are directly across Rowan's Rise and then in through the hills should be the fastest route.

So Zeke, are you uh are you suggesting we don't take the boat back? Well, um did want to bring the boat back considering we kind of accidentally stole it, but this seems more important.

Yeah, we're going to I mean I feel a little guilty. We're going to we're going to owe a dude a boat.

Well, he'll get over it. We'll save the world of things. It'll be okay. You know what? I think Philip will owe a dude a boat. That's That's right.

That's This is just us doing things in his pull out the patton. We got the patton to show it.

Yeah. Roll them up. Put them back in. Wait a sec. Can I see that for a second, Cindra?

Sure. I I'd never seen Miss Payeyton before. She's taking a look at that and she's like, "No, there's no boat claws in this.

That's not gonna hold up." That's funny. We didn't come to the Drowned Crossroads on his behest. That was kind of our own thing.

It's true. Also, we did not steal a boat. We purchased it. The seller sold it technically. Yes. But we did know about it before we left. So, uh, but that's fine. Technical. I don't think we knew it was stolen until after

we were on board on the water already going. That's true. I don't have any intention of returning it to the person that Oh, I I don't think we're going to return it. I I like each idea. I just

think we're going to owe a dude for a boat that we definitely stole. I'm I stand by what I said. We didn't We definitely bought it.

We bought it. We definitely bought a boat. Thought we rented it. We only rent it.

Doesn't matter. Well, we paid for a boat. Would you rent out a boat to people that looked like us expecting to be returned?

[laughter] Uh, you got a point. Adilla says, "It's one boat. How much could it cost?" Like $10.

What's a dollar? Probably. Never mind. I'm I'm just gonna I'm just going to go ahead and say yes. That's probably right.

I mean, Philip can pay you back for I mean, a $10 boat. I mean, it'd be fine, right? He He can pay for the boat. I'm sure.

I'm not worried. Also, I I think maybe a little more disturbing is that there's some dude out there that completely just scammed us.

[laughter] No, no, you know, I think he got scammed cuz that was kind of cheap.

Yeah. Anyway, might be nice to have a conversation with that guy at some point. [laughter] Reckoning the old boat skin.

Well, either that or he should join our team. [laughter] Like we're supposedly good at what we do and that [ __ ] just took us.

You guys get a new face, man. And it's just boats McGee. Yeah. Oh jeez.

All right. You heard it here first. If any of you die, you're coming back as the boats.

Yeah. I was going to say the minute one of y'all decides to shoot Proteius with not a healing bullet, I might just come back. [laughter] Might just come back as boats McGee.

I'm sorry. I also shot Proteius in the face with a healing bullet from point blank range.

That is true. That [laughter] happened. And he was threatened at least 12 times while you were gone.

At least. It's probably low numbers. Laya has uh a relatively modest spread for you this morning compared to the large feast of Cajun type delights that she had made you the night before, but there's plenty of food here. um a little

bit more bland fair to to help settle your stomach after a night of uh rest and drinking and revalry. Um but there's plenty of food, plenty of coffee, and you guys can discuss what you're about.

Um we spoke about last time you've got a decent chunk of change. Uh, I think one of the things that might have been missed in the recap is the zombies were absolutely in the vault when you guys first listened and checked, but after

Crossroads was destroyed, all of the undead for the most part lost their way and you all were able to break into the vault and you ended up with a hefty chunk of change from the vault itself.

Um, so a good amount of money was added to the coffers. And we discussed Murkwater Bend is a level seven settlement. So anything level seven and under is available here for sale. So if you have something that you're

specifically looking for, you're looking for specific potions, armor, runes, what have you, they can sell it to you here.

Now, you're not going to have quite as uh colorful an experience as you would with old Balthazar or whatever his name is, but Baltus, that's what his name is.

Um, but they can at least make those make those items available to you should you decide to buy something. Um, and it would save you the unfortunate risk of going into Wicker and trying to buy stuff with a plate

going on. So, so should you decide to buy anything, you can handle that in post as it were and basically just add it to your inventory and talk to your accountant.

Make sure you can afford it. Yep. Would it make sense if we're going to go fight these centipede things that spread disease if there was some sort of I don't know antidote or like remedy for getting bitten by said disease carrying

centipedes? [snorts] Just a thought. [clears throat] Seems like a valid thought to me. seems like a if that's something you guys want to do.

Uh antivenenom is something we can buy. It's like an anti-toxin or Yeah, it should be uh you're going to have to look through the um compendium, not compendium like archives and eths your books or whatever to try to find specific things because I

can't offer those to you right off the bat. That's why I make it uh available to you to look through any of the stuff and just buy it from the level. Um, there is something called anti-plague and I think anti-plague

works against all diseases. It does. It gives you an item bonus to fortitude saving throws against disease for 24 hours. Um, there you go.

They're for three gold you can get a two bonus. For 35, you can get a three bonus. 160 for a four bonus, what have you. Um, they have the level six and the level ones here. So either three gold or

35 gold. That sounds worth it to me. And they would me too. They would give you that plus two bonus towards your fort saves on uh diseases for a full 24 hours. Pretty good idea.

So is the level six, this is in the competium. Is it the the moderate anti?

It would be moderate for the level six. Yeah, I think it's 35 gold for a plus three item bonus on saves.

Yep. Do we all want to hook ourselves up with at least one moderate anti-plague and reduce that from the coffers?

Probably. I think that's worth it, man. I mean, yeah, that makes sense. Seven. 7 time 35 245.

I don't remember what we have. Is that a lot? Is that a lot of what we have?

We have enough. We have enough. [laughter] We have enough. I think you pulled almost a thousand gold just from the vault.

It was 500 gold, 1,500 silver, and 6,000 copper. I've already added to the spreadsheet. We've got full total all equipment sold and all that stuff, we have almost 1,400.

Oh, wow. Okay. Damn. Um, so but if you think about at this level it's 200 a piece and runes and stuff like it's it's it's not like an unlimited amount, but I mean we can definitely buy stuff.

U because I'm buying armor. Don't want my squishy chest eye to get hit. Yeah, I mean Oh, you bought the Yeah, go ahead.

Yeah, I was going to say you may want to explain that slightly more to John.

I was going to say you may want to give me some Yeah. [laughter] So, I I kind of forgot to uh Yeah, break that.

I don't normally say your chest blinking at me. Steve, yes. You if you can put the pictures back up for John. John needs to see the pictures.

I mean, oh, the [ __ ] minions. Oh, the the thraws. Yeah, I got new ones.

Because you're you're a you're a uh a necromancer now instead of a cleric. Is that my understanding?

Yeah. Yeah, they because I got the new book and the full necromancer classes in it and it actually has a decent amount of healing ability and it's I mean they're very close to each other anyways. It's fine. You don't have to I

mean you know it's [laughter] it's almost a cleric really. It you know he's a he's a he's a late cleric.

That's right. [laughter] I need you to die first and then we can do something.

Do do me a favor. Just die. I can work. He's like, "Don't give anybody anti-plague.

They'll be You're no use to me until you're dead." They're immune to plague after they're dead. Good lord.

Do Do I know what the terrain is like, where we're headed? If there are paths there, or if it's going to be all wooded area.

Uh, I don't know. Do What is history a stat? I thought history was a stat.

I think so. I mean, history, lore. If you had lore history, society, I think they say, is kind of history.

That is society doesn't count for geography in my opinion, though. Nature. Nature. Uh, yeah, let's go with nature. Roll me a nature check. History really should be a thing. In my opinion, uh, no, we can't. We can't. We can't

make these [ __ ] sheets do what we want them to do. Uh, that's true. Nature 30. I think from what you understand of the area, I don't know that you would know paths, but you do know that it's a

mine, which makes sense that it would have some kind of trail or path just to get the ore out of the mountains. As far as where they connect, where they link up, I doubt you would have ever been to

this area. You know that there are hills between Rowan Wise and these mines, um, but you're not entirely sure just how bad of a trek it is. There's there's no crazy mountains or anything. It's probably just hilly terrain. Um, but as

far as where they connect, um, you're not entirely sure, but you have a feeling that there are paths.

That makes sense. Yeah, we just have to maybe talk to a local and see if they know where the path starts.

That's right. Be I apologize. I uh got my I just put the link kicked today and did not get a chance to make your token, so I'm working now.

We can do placeholders. I didn't have to. That's I mean that's fine with me. I mean we don't have to have art in there tonight. You got enough to do.

Uh I'm going to make a couple. I'm just not going to make a ton.

Oh, look at that guy. These are awesome. Yeah. I put a link to the album of the thraws.

Those are your thraws. Yeah, those are like the the the necromancer part of everything's patchwork because remember he was working on patchwork stuff anyway and he was so all his thraws are just deepse patchwork [ __ ] They're so bad.

He's got a jellyfish for a brain. That's amazing. [laughter] I sent a couple to him that I chest. I'm like, what would they look like? Like photo realistic. Oh my god.

Yeah. And unfortunately, that's the link I just clicked. So, two of your thraws are the photorealistic versions. I'm just realizing that.

Well, that's fine. That's awful is what that is. Fantastic. They're so bad. The dude with the the three uh heads and the whole octopus as a leg is incredible.

Yeah, [laughter] I didn't like tweak these or anything. Like that looks good and creepy. Save.

[laughter] Choices were made. [ __ ] nuts. One looks like a baby zombie with like [ __ ] up legs.

Yep. All right. How many legs is too many? There's no such thing. Yes. More than four.

In the grand scheme of things, Mars doesn't have legs. That's true. Uh, okay. I've made you a few. That way, at least we have something to toss on there should you guys.

It's got like four like crab legs and one real foot. It's just for kicking things.

Yeah. [laughter] The scarier part about this is not so much that this is the the imagination of Marius coming to play like this is how he is building his thraws but some god out here thought that was a good idea to give him this

power. [laughter] He was laughing. He was like yeah I'd like to see that. This is perfectly normal.

More of this please. If you reload the album, I added the images for the photo realistic ones if you want to see those.

They don't fit the style, so I didn't keep them. But yeah, I've got a few.

I mean, I like him though, so it doesn't matter. Real bad. Oh god. [laughter] That one, that one dude looks like he's doing like a funky dance.

A funky. Yeah. Yeah. [laughter] It's like walk like an Egyptian funky thraw dance. All right, put all those in there. Okay, be I've got you I got you five. That's a That's a decent start. I feel eventually I'm just going to make you a um

multi-sided token. That way you can choose them as you'd like. Cool. Uh or you can also set up and so you can just hit the button, it'll randomly select the side for you.

That works. Yeah. Cool. We've got a few of those. Yeah. So, you guys are buying some anti-plague moderates is what I'm understanding. 35 gold a piece. So, seven of those. Uh, is anybody buying anything else?

Um, yeah. I need armor. That's right. So, and Izzy gives us a a healing potion every day, right?

Give you one uh elixir, right? Elixir. I might. Let me see. Let me see how many I can I can make now.

Yeah, you're getting to the point where you got a shitload of people to heal.

Uh, I can make 10 per day. Nice. That's pretty awesome. That's amazing. But I don't make 10.

What? You can make 10. You can make 10, but I don't. Do you make seven though? I make seven.

Okay. I've been making seven this whole time with one or two of the other things that I can make.

Makes sense. That's awesome. That's a great ability just to help the team. Absolutely. Saves a lot of cash.

Oh, uh John, note to self, too. [music] Uh, we tried to swap our cursed items from Crossroads after he was dead and it still doesn't work. We can't do that.

So, everybody, if you plan on using yours in the future, the thing you got, uh, you're stuck with it.

Curses are curses. You also learned a couple of interesting things from your two specific ones that you were trying to trade. There's a specific method to acquire the cursed item from Yeah.

whoever has it. Oh, you have to beat my ass and take it from me.

Yeah. So, I never I know. I had the uh I got the uh uh Devil Bone Button and I never invested it. I never sold it on anything.

Yeah. I never invested the Hypnolph token either. It does something. So, I did use my cursed chip, and my cursed chip doesn't really have a downside. Uh, other than just like I lose it if I lose it for the day if I roll a

certain number, but like some of those items we got are genuinely helpful. They just have a a weird quirk to them.

Yeah, mine would be helpful. So, you're saying I should invest in it because mine I'm looking it up right now. It's plus one to all savings throws, right?

Which is a lot. I will I will go ahead and like lift the veil a bit. Um, even without the cursed item invested, the curse persists to the owner. So whether you're getting the benefit or not, because you have that item and you were

the one that purchased it, it's yours. You get the curse no matter what. To Proteus's point, uh, he doesn't see a downside to his item. To Izzy's point yet, oh, I mean, these are cursed curios for a reason. I have this beautiful ribbon

around my neck and it's lovely until it's not. Unfortunately, I did not get a chance to really have much of a conversation with Crossroads to find out why he was so interested in that ribbon.

[clears throat and cough] I understand that removing it is not a good idea. It depends on your definition of good idea.

Time for another good idea, bad idea might be. If you want to fight Cinder, removing that ribbon is a great idea.

[laughter] Yeah, we don't talk about the ribbon. Pop goes the devil. I keep it under a scarf.

Yes. So, this is this is a Bruno situation. You're hiding my under a scarf.

Yes. No, the ribbon is under scarf. The scarf's under an ascot. Yes. I'm bundled up all year long. All year under his hood. He's a shawl away from just collecting all the Pokemon level neck wear and [laughter] then just

over the hood and the shawl and the hoodie and everything. He's also wearing a turtleneck.

And then I've got like a chain around that with a lock. [laughter] Cinder's getting topheavy.

So very goth. [laughter] Somebody put on some typo negative already. Hell yeah. [laughter] So, Marius is picking up some armor. You guys are free to peruse and and buy as long as you have money. Buyaways level seven and lower. Um,

go ahead. Can I get a rune for my knuckle dusters? It already has one.

It already has one. Okay, cool. I'm good though. I don't Yeah, it should be plus one striking already.

Yeah, it's already set up for for plus one striking. Sweet. Yeah, I think plus two is what, level 10? Yes, I think so.

Okay. I can't wear armor, right? It's not that you can't, it's just that you don't get your benefit from being unarmored.

I look better without it. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It's It's easier to stretch and and to punch without the armor.

That's I I do need financial assistance for it money to buy. What do you need? How much is it?

I need 220 gold is what I need. How much do you have? 120. What you getting?

I'm getting a rune for my axe. Nice. Are you using all group gold or your gold or what?

I'm using 120 of my gold. I'm asking the banker if I may have 220.

Yeah, you're fine. Is it what? Striking I guess at this level for that. No, this is a wounding wounding rune.

Wounding rune. Gotcha. That's cool. Is that going to give them a bleeding status or something?

It will. Nice. Yeah. It's a good rune. I want to be more dangerous. [snorts] More dangerous or need to ask the uh the mages the artist the gunslinger should put it on for me.

She's got a she's got a queue of things to do. I know. Good news. I'm a master in crafting now.

Nice. That's nice. That's nice. That's nice. I'm not as good as temper because I'm not as smart. Sorry, didn't I was gonna say I'm Marius is going to get a set of Do now. Do they have like since I'm

getting new armor, do they have armor with the rune already on it? Oh, good question. H, sure. If you wanted to double up the price and just act like it's combined.

Is that what you're talking about? Like the item plus the rune? Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Yeah, just save crafting time. I'm fine with that.

I'm fine with that. This is uh this is a settlement where firearms and things like that are are pretty common. So, crafting is actually kind of well yeah kind of secondhand here. So, I would imagine that they have plenty of stuff

for sale that's already been enchanted that way. Cool. Then he's going to get uh mantis shell armor.

That's with the somehow fitting and also terrifying. It I'm I'm thinking mantis shrimp, not preying mantis just because hell yeah.

Yeah, sounds neat. Is it the mantis shrimp or the pistol shrimp that has the crazy punch?

Mantis. Those things are nuts. Like there to the point where you can't have thinwalled aquariums with those.

Yeah, it's like supersonic or something. Like it's cra I can't remember the stats, but it's unbelievable. They'll crack blue crab shells wide open just with the flick of their wrist. It's ridiculous.

Yeah, it's it's it's pretty pretty dumb. And don't they have like a rainbow color? So, you're going to have like this rainbow colored armor.

Oh, not again. Rainbow colors that hit [snorts] hard. She's back. [laughter] Yeah, here she comes.

Uh, one of his personalities. That's one sliver. [laughter] You should play temperance with it.

There's your lock of multicolored hair. Um, no. Just just the the mess and the ooze of Marius would throw Temper's ADHD and OCD right into the dumpster and without without prestigitation either.

Yeah. Bad news bears. Bad news bears. Um, I'm going to get a battle medics baton.

It gives me plus one to medicine checks. It's only 60 gold. Cool. Cool. Well, I have I've already taken my gold away, so I've already added it's a cool little shopping episode.

Do you have thieves tools or lockpick needs? I actually have I have uh a master set, I believe.

[clears throat] I have infiltrator picks and infilt and infiltrator [music] thieves tools. Okay. Badass.

They basically give me a one a plus one bonus to checks for pick locks and disabled devices and I have not used them.

Okay. Not recently at least. You have. You just weren't here. Yeah. Oh, have I?

Yeah. You got into the vault. You got into the vault so quickly and so easily that everybody else is having this long- winded discussion and you'd had the vault open for several minutes and were just sitting there waiting on them

watching them. That drives not saying anything because I'm that guy. Yeah, I get it.

You might got bored, relocked it, unlocked it again. Reset the pins. Mhm. [laughter] Let's see.

So, yeah, walking around Murkwater, you can tell that the the town itself is going to every place you go to seems like it needs a little bit of rebuilding. And with the undead that had torn down a bunch of the walls and the

gate itself, you got folks out here actively working to put those things back together. Um, the p outside by one of the one one of the small dry islands is continuing to burn with the bodies of both Murkwater Bend residents and the

zombies alike. Um, and folks are largely just getting back to normal. Some of the people are going out fishing and providing food for the town and others are working towards uh getting some wood ready to actually repair some of these

walls and gates. Um, things are moving forward. Does anybody in this town need to buy a boat?

[laughter] You know, you have a boat for sale. You want to buy a watch? I got watches.

Is that what you're doing? It's pretty It's pretty walking around trying to hawk a boat.

I am trying to sell a boat. Excellent. Very well. Uh $10. Dollars. Is it dollars? [ __ ] dollars. [laughter] I certainly feel like maybe Izzy should have uh taken this on because I feel like this is going to be like a

No, no, no. A lot of these things that Proteus does other people should have done. But it's great. [laughter] I am a huge fan of the player just stepping right into the uh the role and doing it whether he's good at it or not.

Boat for sale. Just make sure you tell them that when you sell them the boat, they have to go get it.

Well, but it's close, right? No, no, it's a it's a few hours away. Boat for sale a few hours away.

Few hours away. [laughter] Trust us. Yes. This is a very I have a bridge to sell you situation.

This is an honest face. Do not let me stop you from selling a boat that's a couple hours away.

I can't. Just want to let you know. I forgot that the boat's not here.

You may not want to tell them it's a few hours away until they buy it.

I can't. I'm not opposed to you selling that boat to somebody. No. [laughter] If you can if you can pull it off, then yes, it's it it's decidedly not our problem once they buy it.

I will say I have rolled to tell you or to determine whether there is someone in town willing to buy a boat. And there is. It's just whether or not you can convince them that buying a boat several

hours away they haven't seen yet uh is a good idea or not. probably fine cuz Izzy, the woman that killed the last sheriff in town, is with you. You guys look like honorable people.

Oh, yeah. Mark water. We We have Vander's weapons on our hands. I don't know what you could trust more.

The truth. [laughter] There's I am telling the truth. There's a boat not too far from here. That is a perfectly good boat.

I I I got to I have a good test for this. Proteius, could you smile at me?

Yes. Yes. Very trustworthy. Yes. Very tr Yeah. See, I believe you have mountain lion teeth at the moment.

Mhm. Is that correct? No. I I I I had always intended on uh getting uh silvering them up.

Silver. That's what it is. Silver cuz you had your canines ripped out. So I think she replaced them with mountain lion teeth and then you had them silvered. I think that's what happened.

Yeah. Um so you do have longer fangs, like longer canines than a typical curse. And they're also silver. So you look trustworthy.

Yeah. Yeah. I would I would trust you. Yeah. We got a little something right there.

[laughter] It's a whole sunfish. Hold on. [laughter] Morius, can you do anything with this one? [laughter] We like that.

He animates it in your mouth. [laughter] So, freaking fresh to see me right there guys.

[laughter] So yeah, I I I I let it be known that we did come here from uh Fox Willow Wicker Village, Fox Willow Way.

Yeah. By a boat and the boat is in great condition. We parked it before the swamp.

Um but we're leaving if anybody's interested in a boat. Yeah. We're willing to let it go for a great [ __ ] price. I think you find a couple of people just couple of these normal labor laborers that kind of pine over

the fact that they have folks that are going out fishing and stuff like that and the only thing they're able to do is fish off the banks and you mention the fact that you have a boat and they have

a bunch of questions about the boat. You're able to tell them that it's got a small sail, it's got a couple of ores, it has a a rudder, it can probably seat eight to 10 people pretty comfortably.

It's a decent size vessel. Um, but they would have to portage that thing from where it is all the way to Murkwater or leave it where it is and then use it for the the Silver Bell River itself.

You have the conversation with three or four people and they absolutely just like, I'm not buying a boat. I can't see you, man. Sorry. And we're not going to travel three hours to go see your boat.

It's not going to happen. And eventually you get to a couple of these guys.

They're like, I mean, you're you're friends with Vander and Laya. you you probably mean well and even if we even if you screw us over, I mean, you'll probably be back in town or we'll just take it up with Laya.

So, I think you come up with a couple of people that are willing to at least have this conversation and now you're haggling as to price as far as what you're trying to do.

Mhm. Uh trying to sell a boat. Yes. Oh, the things while the imp stands next to him saying you can trust him.

[laughter] Yes. Another perfectly trustworthy man under 12 garments around his neck with with the devil and the outlaw.

[laughter] Yeah, my scarf is actually just buttoned with that little devil bone button. It's amazing how difficult it is to find certain things.

There we go. I believe we determined that this was a boat. What kind of boat?

Yeah. Yes. A bass boat. It only goes in about eight inches into the water.

It's got a some outboard rigging. It's nice. They have a sail and an ore like you could row it.

Yeah, we uh we we did several of both of those things. Got a trolling motor on the front end.

[laughter] Yes, but does it have the auto hold GPS feature because I love that thing.

[laughter] Uh wow, many of these are silly. And so we're going to dumb it down to reality.

Like I'm sorry, a sailing ship can carry more than 10 people. All I see is the folding boat on uh Yeah.

That's worth 6,000 gold. So, I think we should [laughter] that Yeah, that's a magical item. Uh and believe it or not, you had the option to get one of those from Mr. Crossroads in the toy river boat. It just had some

horrible things associated with it. Uh I think we're going to go with this. But we're going to scale up the number of people.

I think that makes the most sense. Unless there's a different No, I think you remember what we paid for it. What did we pay for it? It wasn't much.

Four gold. It was cheap as it for like four gold. It was four gold. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And that guy was happy as [ __ ] because it wasn't his boat and he just walked away with four gold.

Uh yeah, I think it's going to be somewhere below a cutter, but it's going to have uh the ability to have more than six people on board. Doesn't make sense. You can put more than six people on a decent

sized dinghy. So anyway, um I think when you're selling something in Pathfinder, it's half price. So, it's 750 gold is what you would have to pay normally for uh one of these boats.

However, this is a stolen item. He they have to travel a good distance to even find it.

Yep. Uh and because of that, they are very like leery about trying to buy this boat from you. And I will take nothing less than 500 gold.

It's a very nice boat. And they immediately walk away [laughter] like they're not buying you.

Okay, hold on. Hold on. Uh, let's I'll take six gold. I bet. [laughter] So, no. Um, so half of 750 is 375 and that's where you would be starting.

Yeah. Uh, that's that's the highest possible value you could get out of this boat.

The fact that it's 3 hours away, it's stolen. Whether or not you tell them it's stolen or not, they're not even sure it exists. And you're just like, "We have a boat. It's that way. We're leaving town that way.

[laughter] Good luck, everybody. So, I'm impressed we've gotten this far, to be honest. The fact that these guys are even like, "Oh, you got a boat. Cool." I love it.

Right. So, we're we're going to need some uh we're definitely going to need some diplomacy rules for you to have a conversation with them just to keep them interested.

100%. And I have no interest. Come on, boys. You know you're interested. I have no interest in doing deception or anything like that. If anybody wants to help here, it can intimidate them.

It's a great [laughter] It's a great deal. Just 200 gold. 200 gold is tempting for them.

I think with 200 gold. I think Izzy saying 200 gold and assisting. Uh, she would be giving you a bonus. I would give her a plus two bonus bringing that up to 20.

Um, I think they're going to counter, but I'll roll to see if they actually do. Oops. That's not You have a plus one in diplomacy.

[laughter] This is going great. Remember how he said that I should probably be the one to sell it? He's not wrong [laughter] but I want him to do it.

Great. So, this is amazing. You say 200 gold, they they're like I mean it sounds good, especially with the size that you're talking about and everything. I'm sure it'd be great. Problem is, it's going to be hard to get it back here in a swamp.

It's really going to be more of a river boat thing, I guess. Not so much sure how we're going to be using that all that, but at the same time, sure would be cool to have a boat. I mean, the nice

thing about having a river boat here is, yeah, you got to trek out there a little bit, but that's a big ass river back there. And you'd be pulling in stuff that people can't get here in the swamp.

Kind of pays for itself. You got a You got a good point. I don't know. Could you take 125?

Oh, 125. Uh, how does how's 175 sound? Roman. And [laughter] hold on though. Hold on. I'm going to use my cursed chip.

Okay. Oh no. Jesus. Oh no. When you fail a d20 test, you can use a reaction to flip the chip. Roll one d6.

One d6. You're going to add six to it. Oh, you can't use it again today.

On a four to six, you succeed. It doesn't work. So, it doesn't work, but it also doesn't go away, I don't believe. Right.

Uh, then I roll a d20 to see if it goes away. Oh, no. On a one through five, this property can't be used again. Uh oh. So it's on a six, the jin clo ability recharges immediately. On a seven and above, it I

I just still get to use it again. Yeah. So lucky lucky kind of. Yeah.

Um so I say 175 and they say uh with that. No. No. I mean that's close enough to 200 not to make much difference.

I don't know. 135 is about all the money that we're going to be able to scratch together for something like a imaginary boat three hours away.

[laughter] All right. What if What if I throw in 10 gold and you go up to 160?

What? That's that math doesn't [laughter] What? One guy just dies. One you're talking to two dudes. One of them had a stroke like that. That one guy doesn't understand.

I just had a stroke. What just happened? [laughter] No, that's I think everybody did. Nobody understood what the [ __ ] just happened.

[laughter] Uh, you know what? You know what? 135. 135 is good. Uh, yeah, Izzy, you wrote me a diplomacy check cuz you just killed one of his buddies. He's not so sure about the 135.

No, I can't. That's bad. Uh, no. You know what? You know what? I'm gonna reroll it. Okay, I'm going to reroll it.

That's better. 15's better. I am helping her. Okay, then roll me a diplomacy check.

[laughter] See if you actually help her or if you just if you [laughter] [ __ ] not helping at all.

Oh no, I like it. I am watching this whole [ __ ] This went exactly as I think it [laughter] should have gone. by the way.

So, I think as as Izzy takes over the negotiating, I just start doing the worm in the background. [laughter] I'm trying to evoke fishing.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. It It's way worse than that. Um I I think with a four in an attempt to help Izzy. Um the one guy is so confused he had to sit down on the whole I'll give you 10 gold

and charge you 160 thing. He doesn't quite understand that that just means you're bumping it up to 150. He doesn't understand. The other guy, you're in this conversation. She's like, "What?

135 sounds good." And she's doing it and then you slap Izzy on the back as if to like reinforce this deal. Unfortunately, you do it with the knuckles now that have bolstered your strength somewhat.

And you send her headlong towards the water. Izzy, roll me a reflex saving throw.

Perfect. If I fall in the water, you're getting shot. I 19. You catch yourself on one of the banisters and do the whole thing where you kind of spin out over the water and then back for a second and now you're

standing on the other side of the guy looking at Proteius and who's like deer in the headlights.

Whoops. Say we'll take it. Is that That's what you said. You're on their side now, right?

What are you doing? [laughter] It's It's the It's Vander's knuckle dusters. I'm I'm uh sorry. Sorry. I It I'm going to shut the [ __ ] up and step back.

[ __ ] That was worth 135 right there. Y'all [ __ ] got a deal. [laughter] That sounds good to me.

Shake on it. They will give you 135 gold for the boat that you stole for four gold from Wickermore.

Can I have Can I have the lurker's hand accept the gold from the bag?

Up to up to you group how you accept gold. That's Is Adella with us right now throughout?

Yeah, Adella's walking. She's just kind of giggling and laughing the entire time. [laughter] Um, Adella is Sorry. Go ahead.

No, I said she knows this enough. Yeah, she does. I think Adella is going to be going back to Foxville. She is not going to accompany you guys to Glitter Deep Mine. It's not going to happen. And she can't go back

to the village. So, she is going to get a couple of locals to take her back to Foxhole. As a matter of fact, these two guys with the boat may be even able to assist her to get to the to Foxville

itself. And it would make sense cuz she's going to have to or they're going to have to go pick up this boat anyway.

So, um, speaking with Laya a little bit, maybe Laya can help out with some of herbs and some of her tinctures and things like that to send to Fox for some of the people that are hurting. Um, and

she could absolutely hook up with these two random fishermen to take your stolen boat back to Fox and then they can do what with it what they will.

Um, we're adding that 135 to the party gold, right? Like that's going towards awesome cuz we just bought a bunch of stuff. This seems like that can help pay that down a little bit. Yeah.

Yeah. I I take the little bag of gold and toss it to to Marius knowing what's coming.

Yeah. Yeah. Within a couple feet of Marius's chest, who hasn't even raised his arms to do anything about it, the lurker's arm reaches out with its double elbows and grabs a hold of the gold and puts it in the bag,

starts updating his Google's sheet. [laughter] I hope the people that sold that [ __ ] saw that happen.

Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. They see [laughter] it happen. If they if they if they look up at Mars, he just kind of waves with a hand and a couple tentacles.

It's It's all right. He's He's good people. Don't worry about him. I ain't worried. It's just ain't every day fell's got a hand in a bag. I mean, a hand in a bag that moves.

Well, there's more than a hand in there. Yeah. There's more than one hand in here.

Don't Don't think too much about it. It's It's Do you have a loose hand that you can show them? No, don't do that.

M Miss Dresolve, we're gonna go get supplies. We'll catch up with you here in a second. Take you out of that boat here in just a minute. Uh nice. Plus, you're doing Thank you for taking care of her. Leave.

Oh, can't ever have a normal day with you people around. What is normal? What is normal? We do not.

Not this. Not this. [clears throat] Hey Proteius. Yes. Somewhere in your notes. Mhm. Write the number two.

Oh, no. Okay. Thanks. [laughter] Thanks, buddy. Pain notes do. What's everybody doing? I'm laughing.

[laughter] I should have just used my gray balance for that, huh? I think I think the game uh tells story depending on what you do.

Does. Well done, Cinder and Proteius. Yes, Crossroads did a number on you. Yeah, you weren't even really around to figure it all out, but he absolutely did a number on you. Something about you breaking into that area and uh cheating

has especially um brought some ill luck your way. Maybe he even made you second guessess your own ability to evade that highle magic that you were used to be so good at rolling out of. One thing's for sure,

you did not enjoy being bound in those neon colored chains while your friends fought a gator without you.

But imp napping aside, you did manage to leave the dead man's hand with a considerably heavier purse and that hexed deck of playing cards.

Yes, sir. May have cheated your way into winning them, but you still got them. And you're told that with those and a worthy enough prize to wager, you may be even able to convince Old Scratch to play for your

soul. What else was it that you needed, though? Something to ensure your success. Uh, a lucky charm.

Oh, yes. A wild joker. A card so powerful that it all but guarantees you'll win that hand. Or maybe even more. It's definitely something to look into. Perhaps purveyors of fine magical items or even fences for illicit materials may be able

to give you more information. Your shadow practically dances around you with the mere thought of recovering that with which both of you have lost.

Is there a purveyor of such items in the vicinity of where we are currently?

residing. I think you probably exhausted that source during your shopping trips already and realized that no one else is able to give you any more information here. Um, the first time you heard about that uh that Matt Wild Joker was from

the dealer that you won the prize from to begin with, it was quick and it was in passing because you guys were busy and you were headed elsewhere, but he did mention it to you. And now that you

had a little bit of time to kind of reflect on what's happened, um, and seeing somehow your friend Proteus turn all of that around with a bit of luck, it reminded you that you need a bit of luck your own. Um, and finding that Wild

Joker is the last piece uh that you need to put together with this magical deck to try to win your soul back from old scratch.

I am noting it. I gave everybody a little bit of insight into their own uh inner thinking or at least some uh inner strife for their story arcs last time and because you weren't here, I didn't get to share

yours. So, there is yours. I appreciate it. I would like my soul back very much.

It seems important. Seems like it's an important thing, I'd say. with shopping kind of out of the way um and [clears throat] selling a boat, which was not on my bingo, not on the agenda.

Um you guys have managed to basically make a little bit of money back that you've already spent. Um you've found a way for Adela to get back to Foxville and kind of cover her own story as she returns with Sister Rain

back to Wicker Village later on perhaps. But for you specifically, Veil, you've been given information about a plague that is going on in Wickermore Village, and it seems to be coming from this mine. Um, a plague based around entities

or or at least creatures that you guys have run into before and creatures that you have been hinted at all the way back in GB. Um, it's another one of those strange foreshadowing events that you're seeing more clearly now that you're on the

other side of it. Oh, I guess we got to go deal with a bug hack now.

Are we going back to Wickerore? Not Wickermore, per se, but mine's outside it. Go around it.

Mhm. Should be to the northwest, right? And does anybody need me to work on anything?

Just the stuff you're already working on. Um the armor uh runes. Uh me, Veil, and who else had armor runes? Oh, and Steve.

Um, despite Gabe assessing that I had uh silvered my teeth. I don't think I ever actually did silvered my teeth.

Didn't I know you wanted to? We hadn't gotten around to it yet. Wanted to. We hadn't gotten around to it.

Is that what it was? For some reason, I thought you had, but maybe I We wanted to. We spent a lot of time talking about it.

It's cuz we went over We went over to the blacksmith to see if he could do it, and then it turned out we were leaving sooner than we had originally anticipated. I That's right. That comes to mind now that you mentioned it.

So, cuz I think the only weapon you got silvered was Veil's axe. Exactly. Uh, so I don't know if if you is that something you could do, Izzy, on this on this trip.

I can't silver your teeth while they're in your mouth. Nope. I I need I also don't have any silver.

Didn't we get a ton of silver? Yeah, we had we had a source of silver, didn't we?

Silver coins. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I've got a [ __ ] ton of silver coins. I mean I mean, you just sold a boat to people who had never seen it. I'm sure you could convince somebody in town to

silver your teeth if you really wanted to. You seem really good at this type of stuff. Go for it. Let's see what happens. [laughter] I think one of the problems with the silvering of the teeth was uh time and they can't be in his mouth and

somebody's got to put them back into his mouth later. So might might be a wait for Wicker more village.

I'll pick you up later. Never mind then. [laughter] Yeah, that was that was the So Oh, no.

That's what that's what it was. He he he had already put the teeth in his mouth.

Yeah, that's why we didn't silver them or we would have done it that day.

Got it. Pour molten silver into his mouth. Yeah. Yeah. Pour molten [laughter] silver in your mouth.

Just put this wax plug in your throat so you don't swallow the molten silver and you'll be fine.

Should be fine. It's not going to melt everything else. Nah. Just keep healing it, Mario.

Breathe through your nose. Oh, no. Your sinus is melted. Nothing for me. Swallow. We can cut a hole in your throat if you want.

I got plus one root. Plus one armor for Zeke and Garrick and the wounding room for Veil.

E, I have a Q. I don't like that. It might have to wait anyway. Uh, depends on how long you want to wait here.

Yeah, because if we're walking, it's going to take significant time. But well, he didn't bring any horses and they don't have any horses in Murkwater bin. Um, so this is a walking or buy a boat from two random guys situation.

[laughter] My boat back. It's already sold, man. Just walk. Oh man, we fell in love with this boat.

We're going to need at least 375 gold. [laughter] Tell you what, I'll throw in 10 and we'll call it 385.

I love it. Yeah, I'm gonna go with it. I don't That first time it confused me, but now I get to double my money, I'm all right with it.

I was wrong. Proteius, stop negotiating. [laughter] It was funny the first time. Got to buy a muzzle. How much or one of those? M Hey, Proteius, I crafted you this ring.

I need you to put it on. [laughter] It's just a a localized silent spell.

[laughter] He responded. You just didn't hear him. [laughter] Oh, it's hilarious. So, with shopping uh complete and breakfast done, goodbye said to Adella, she makes her way off with two random strangers that bought a boat from you in the middle of

nowhere. Nothing can go wrong there. Uh Lyla basically wanders around to you to speak to you. Uh Izzy, are you coming back?

Once we finished everything that we got to take care of, I'll come back. Okay. Got quite a bit to do though.

Well, [clears throat] you know, you are always welcome here. So, whenever you come to town, make sure you stop in.

I between you and me, it was a good thing you did with Vander. Yeah, I figured taking out the pseudo leader of the town twice is a bad look.

Be that as it may, I I do think he means well. I think he has the best interests of Mark and at at heart.

Yeah. But if you had killed him, I wouldn't have blamed you. But I think I'm glad that you didn't.

Yeah, I didn't need to start any more trouble anyways. And I think he's already suffered enough.

Yes, things will not be the same, but he's still strong. He's far wiser than we expected him to be.

And the men listen to him. He's a more capable leader than I expected. I'm glad something good came out of it.

Time will tell. We've had a common enemy for a while. Now crossroads is gone.

The drowned crossroads returns to what it used to be. that you know as well as I that can be equally as dangerous.

It can be. But he's got the fear of me in the back of his mind.

Well, just [snorts] as long as you return often enough to remind him. I'll swing back by when we get a chance.

I'm sure we'll have some. Please do. She wraps her arms around you to give you a big hug and chick a kiss on the cheek. Hold you at arms length.

You'll be safe out there. Safe ain't what we do, but I'll make sure I come back.

That's all that matters. Goodbye everyone. It was good to meet you. You're always welcome in my shop and in my home.

Thank you for what you've done for our town and our land. Mario Marius waves and he's still got the extra hand in his hand. So Oh, yes.

Puts it away. She waves back. [sighs] I like him. So do I. He unnerves people. It helps.

[laughter] He does unnerve people. It nerves me and I like him very much. [laughter] She finishes the hug and then you can see that she's making her way back towards Vander's uh throne room, the saloon basically to tend to his wounds.

He, as you remember, he's only lost his arm a few days ago. So, it's uh kind of touch and go at this point. But she is, for all intents and purposes, the medicine woman of this town. So, she's

going to go check in on her patient, leaving you guys to mill about the place or continue shopping to have any discussions that you want or to hit the road as the case may be, whatever you decide to do.

Well, it's funny that you're heading back towards Vander's place cuz he asked to see us before we left. I don't know.

Just kind of like a goodbye kind of deal, I guess. Says, "Oh, well, let's go, I suppose.

as she begins to walk towards the the throne room. She opens up those saloon doors that swing and inside is a much more low-key, much more um quiet morning. There are a few of these bandits or thug-like people uh sitting

over bowls of porridge and maybe some cups of coffee. Uh Vander is not in his throne. um when you arrive and Lilo wanders off and then eventually wanders upstairs to where she finds a a bedroom uh where he is resting and after tending

to his immediate needs, she uh assists him in making his way back down towards the actual throne room itself, getting him comfortable on the throne and set up with his bandages and his blanket and that sort of thing. Um, he waves you

over with his one good hand remaining. He's trying to put on a half-hearted smile. You could tell that he is somewhat uh nervous about this meeting.

And he does seem to be wearing uh the pistol that Izzy has given him on his side.

As you approach, he says, "Well, suppose this is it. You guys are heading out of here. I understand.

Yeah, we got some more business to attend to. Very well. Well, as I said before, we are appreciative and some of us more than others. He kind of gives you a nod, Izzy.

You've done a great service to the crossroads. You've helped Merkwater Ben survive and that's all we could ever ask for.

So, I'm not I'm not too good at this, but thank you sincerely. Truly, all of you.

It's my home, too. Yeah. Yeah, it is. That that offer stands, by the way.

I'll come back and we'll talk about it. I ain't one for wearing a badge. And I say this part a little louder, but I think everybody knows how good I am.

You don't want any problems with me. Rel in the background. Just well, badge or no.

Don't necessarily need a sheriff, I don't suppose. But an enforcer might do just fine.

Something to talk about after I'm done with all this nonsense. Yeah. Ah, hell. You You might get a better job offer along the way, but you said it yourself. This is home.

Just as much yours as any of us. So, when you're ready, come on back.

I'll do just that. Fair winds, safe travels to all of you. Mario swaves before he leaves.

Your skin looks very thin today. Being careful around sharp corners and then turns and walks away.

[laughter] Oh, [ __ ] me. Uh you know, don't don't don't mind him. He likes to nerf people.

Laya, in the me middle of you saying this, Laya says, "No, no, no. He has a point.

And now he's even more off-put. Oh, well, if she said it, then I I'd hit the road. [laughter] Yeah, I'm going to avoid sharp corners corners. [ __ ] He's looking around and every single table and chair in here is

made out of 90° angles. And he's like, it's like [laughter] walking around like this.

No, he's walking around. No, I'm sorry. Like this. [laughter] doesn't know what to do.

Very upsetting. Very, very upsetting. Uh, Vander, I plan on putting these to good use. Uh, thank you.

We'll see you next time we're in town. He kind of chuckles. You know, [sighs] I only regret I didn't get to spar with you.

Uh, it would have been interesting. I uh tie a hand behind your back, Proteius.

Let's go now. You've got some size and reach on me, but uh I I [ __ ] love a good fight.

You Your buddy there's got a point. When all your all's business is said and done and we've got the town built back up, why don't you swing back through and we'll see what we can do.

Yeah. one. We'll each take one knuckle. You know, that'd be that'd be real interesting if we slammed them together by two different people.

Yeah. All right. That's a that's a an experiment to try out. Kind of like a fusion hawk kind of deal.

Yeah. Wonder Twins [laughter] activate. I don't know what the [ __ ] y'all are talking about, but all that sounds cool.

All right. Yeah, let's do that. you come back with Izzy someday and we'll have ourselves a scrap and we'll drink about it after.

The the cool thing that would happen would be both of us just got one big arm. What would actually happen in the weirdness is one of us would get really big legs and one of us would get really

big chest and shoulders [laughter] and that's how that fight would work. Yes. And what would suck is you would get the big chest and shoulders and he would get the legs and he can't kick and now you're off balance. [laughter]

He nods. All right. Well, as much as I'm looking forward to that sometime, you all be safe.

Thanks again. See you around. Sure you will. Tip my hat and walk away. He nods his head. He kind of grimaces a little bit as he gets himself in a position where his arm hurts.

Laya tends to his wounds and just kind of waves. Um, you guys are free to leave at your leisure.

Uh, before [gasps] before I leave, I'm buying three moderate healing potions. Cool. And, uh, we have rations.

I'm not too worried about rations. Anytime you guys hit a settlement, I'm not too worried about Chicago food. I we we started when you guys were trying to like explore the area, but now especially that you have Zeke where he

can forge and stuff. Rations are not as necessary. Okay. If we're walking through forest too, I get bonuses for that.

Yeah, there you go. You guys can certainly find stuff to hunt along the way.

Yeah. Yeah. Once you have a solution, it just becomes tedious. Yeah. In my opinion.

Up to y'all. What are y'all doing now? I guess we're ready to go. Guess ready to go. Did we ever figure out what the best way to go was where this trail starts?

Uh, I was kind of leaving the directions to You seem better at it. Yeah, I can get us around here in the crossroads. I I'm not so much good after that.

As you know, if you leave town to the southwest, you're going to cross some swampy water. Uh, but eventually it levels out into a plateau that turns into the low hills of Rowan's Rise just to the north of Wicker Village. And then

soon after that, you hit the hillside where uh Zeke is relatively familiar. Um, seems to be the mines on the other side of those hills. So, no shorter distance than through.

Yep. I think we know the general way we can get it between us. I think we can figure it out.

Yeah. And we're on foot. So, are we good? Do Do we're We're ready, right?

Yeah, I think so. Start walking. Do it. Yeah. group all together once again. Seven of you along with a couple of strange little critters that are following both Marius and uh Garrick. Um more weird critters popping up as Marius is

beginning to practice his magic and leaving them behind to die and be eaten by crows.

Yeah. Um for whatever it's worth, as we travel, I have swift sneak now, which means I can travel full speed and sneak at the same time. I do I do that constantly.

Oh yeah, that that tracks. While you're while you're in the swamp and while you're in um the edges of the forest line and things like that, makes perfect sense. Once you hit the plateaus, like the plains, it makes it

much more difficult to do so. But because you have bigger friends, you can literally hide in their wake. U finding like shadow or at least areas where you can hide behind them. So, it's not quite as good as having true shadow

or trees to hide behind behind stuff like that, but they they break line of sight with other people for you pretty well, especially as small as you are. Um, but it doesn't take very long before you guys are out into the wilderness of the

swamp once again, Izzy. Um, very homey feel as the smells and the sounds of the swamp are all around you again. And even with the bugs buzzing around you and the strange reptiles underneath your feet as you push by from time to time, this is

still home and leaving is somewhat bittersweet. You you hope to come back. You've said that you're going to come back, but you don't know what's ahead.

Um, so soaking in quite literally the last little vestigages of the drowned crossroads, you begin to leave um the place that you just reconnected with.

Group gathers together and heads out of workwater bend. Doesn't take too long as you guys discuss the things that have happened, things that you've seen, things that you've been feeling uh before you get out of the wetland area

into the lowlying plains. Um and you can see the standing stones of Rowan's rise far off into the distance towards your southwest. Um you know that it's probably the rest of the day or sorry the rest of the night to get there, but

it's a safe enough camping spot. you know, uh, several of you know that ruins your eyes are, uh, it's kind of a sacred area. Um, so sleeping or or resting in that vicinity should give you some some respit and also some safety because not

a whole lot of monsters or creatures wander into that area. Um, it's a good goal to try to hit for this first night.

Should you choose any human sacrifices there or something at one point in time? No.

Doesn't sound haunted at all. Everything's haunted here. What do you mean? [laughter] I guess I used to be a ghost. So, yeah, the one literally haunting a barrel.

Yeah. One of the guys that should be least worried about haunting. To be fair, I'm not very worried about haunting. So, that's good. It's good.

Full transition from ghost to werewolf. Anybody having any discussions, any conversations? Uh, I I will say on a personal level, many of you have uncovered a [ __ ] ton about your backstories that while we have talked above board on table level player-wise,

characters haven't discussed [ __ ] about each other. Um, so I for one would love to see your characters at least have some conversations as to what the [ __ ] is going on with a lot of you.

And from from the DM perspective, I know we've had a lot of conversation, a lot of like exposition about what might be happening with your individual backstories and your arcs and that sort of thing. Um, but one thing that we

don't seem to do a lot of is discuss it in group with each other. And uh I think that would be kind of nice.

Now, if this is a group of players that don't want to do that and you want to keep all your secrets to one another, that's perfectly fine. Um but I want to encourage discussion among the party just for

lore building purposes of nothing else. So if you want to all be edge lord secretive, we can play that way. But if you would rather play the game as an open party, then let's have some discussion amongst each other as well. I

don't want to force it. Uh but at the same time, a lot has happened and I think we fall back on the well the players heard it so all the characters heard it too. Uh rather than maybe having conversations in and amongst

ourselves as the characters that we're playing and as it's a roleplaying game, playing your role sometimes uh we take for granted. So, I am jumping off my soap box now and we'll continue our travel across Wicker more village or more hollow

as we as we leave the the swamp and walk into the the more like rolling hills or whatever Izzy size.

I didn't think that I would be sad about leaving. That was your home, right?

It was. Spent a lot of time there. Also, you uh was he was he your mentor, your boss? Uh who?

You kind of came face to face with uh the the ghost and zombie of uh your previous Employer, friend, employer would be a stretch, but it's the closest thing to accurate.

Okay. It was It was a purely financial relationship. Okay. Oh, wait. Are you talking about Elias?

Yeah. Oh. Oh, no. Yeah. He was I'm sorry. I I When you said ghost and zombie, it kind of clicked to me. I was like, "Wait a second. I have never had crossroads ghost." I I misunderstood what you said.

No, that Yeah, he was he was just he was just a friend. Hey, I I never worked for him.

Okay. He He was always pining after me, but that that weird pencil mustache that he that he sported was just kind just kind of a deal breaker. [laughter] He couldn't grow in the full thing.

Luckily, Adella is not here. Well, that's I mean Adella would be okay with it because it it means her man's safe for me. What's what she got to worry about?

No, she she would have [ __ ] to say about Philip's pencil mustache. I love his mustache.

That's safe for you, darling. I don't. In 1918 New Jersey, we we had a huge huge thing for the pencil mustaches.

I think you can take it from here, Zeke, because this this ain't my uh my area of expertise anymore.

Yeah, makes sense. As you guys begin to climb the hills towards Rowan's Rise, uh I would very much appreciate nature checks from both Zeke and um Marius.

Oh, this should be great. Better than I thought. Not terrible. Marius, I don't think you're getting as much from this because your specific um target, the things that you're looking for for the most part don't seem to be

present here. But one thing that you're noticing, Zeke, is there's not a blight. There's not a plague. There's not anything to to indicate the levels of fungal uh growth that Marius has come across in various situations. But what

you are seeing here on the outskirts of Rowan's Rise is that wilting failing crop line. Very similar to fox willow where the crops seem to be um failing and there seems to be some sort of insect infestation or mold or maybe

there's too much water or not enough water. You're not entirely sure exactly what's going on, but a lot of the plant life here seems to be failing. It's not as healthy as it normally is. It's browning out in a lot of places. It's

wilting. It's starting to turn black in areas and beginning to rot and wilt on the vine. Um, it gets worse as the further north you look.

It seems that's the case. More towards those woods, it's worse and worse and worse. Um, but as you look towards the southeast towards what you know to be foxow, it seems to be not necessarily a direct line, but there

is definitely an indication that this is spreading. It's creeping. Yeah. Well, uh, it's definitely coming from the north, I think, but it's definitely spreading across the land.

uh we have to do something about this. And I think between the two of you, you realize pretty quickly that the stuff that was happening in Foxville and the stuff that's happening right here is not necessarily the same as the stuff that

Marius has been investigating as far as the the strange fungus inside of the house in uh Wicker or um even some of the fungal masses that you found on some of the animals and things like that. It it seems to be a separate

symptom, but it could be the same disease. It's like Marius is just living and his is dying almost.

Yeah, it very much seems that whatever Zeke is kind of investigating, it is the failing of one set of lives. The the actual living plants and animals seem to be dying off. And for Marius, it seems like once those things are dead,

something else is taking over. So, we know about that now. Sorry. Very, very fitting if you think about it.

That's true. So, we have to stop what I think that if we stop what's killing it though, that would give it No, it would give your plague less fuel, right? Perhaps it does. Although it did come up through

the plumbing in Fox Willow when we were there or Wicker. Was that Wickermore? Was in Wickermore. Yeah. The crooked house.

Yeah. That's right. That was before me. Before Zeke, but I think you listened to it right Steve?

I did. Yeah. Steve knows Zeke doesn't do that. That's right. Yeah. Just making sure.

Yeah. Yeah. Because we picked him up. That's right. um just musings along the road if you will.

So all of the blight or plague that you call it is it dying things like things are dying or things are dying.

Things are growing. No, things are dying. It's just killing everything. It's just like it's a collapse of the system.

the one we are following the opposite. New things are growing. We had some mold grow up through the plumbing in Wicker more before we met you.

Um, we did not see anything dead, but lots of dead things get flushed down the plumbing.

So, they were already dead and they come back. We don't know. Was there anything that I mean it kind of came up through the plumbing, didn't it? So, we didn't really see like When you first got into the bathroom

itself, you noticed that there was um heavy swaths of mold and mushrooms all over the bathroom, but the primary source seemed to be coming out of the drain itself.

Right. Um, and once you made it into that room, I think at this point with your magical ability and your innate understanding of dead things, um, specifically haunting things, I think you realize that what was there naturally was then

exponentially multiplied because of the haunt. Gotcha. So even though the blight was uh present, I think the haunt itself basically made that explode to affect you in that haunting way.

I don't think it was necessarily jumping out of the drain just because I I think the haunt itself is what got caused that.

I can't remember for sure details of what you know where it came from. Um um it it there were mushrooms and things around so probably grew from that.

It's like poisonous mushrooms kind of. We do not know. We don't know things that grow above the ground as much as underwater.

But so you have not seen this uh before this? No, this place. No, assuming it has something to do with those centipedes. Keeps coming back to that.

Why would Why would the rot have anything to do with centipedes or is this just a It's a guess.

The witches are probably doing all sorts of [ __ ] up [ __ ] kind of thing.

I think the latter. Okay. Yeah, that's what it feels like to me. I mean, I don't know that there's correlation.

Find the hag. Stop the thing. Seems to kind of work in the past, right? Yeah. You guys, it's our MMO so far. Find the heck, kill the heck.

I mean, it's a good SOP. Yeah, [laughter] it's worked two out of three times.

Um Well, that's that's true. That's true. We attempted to kill that. Yeah. I mean, She didn't kill us though, so I guess that's a plus.

Got eaten by a house, right? The house did. Yeah. Doesn't change the validity of the SOP.

[laughter] Just because you failed doesn't mean it was the right thing to do. A 66% success rate. Still positive.

Yeah. If you're a baseball player, you'd be one of the Hall of Famers here.

That's what I'm saying. Um, y'all, this is this is sort of hag related. Uh, looking a little haggarded there, [laughter] Brody. Is he supposed to say that?

And like 12 hours ago, he haggled about that boat. [laughter] Uh there's uh there's these [sighs and gasps] I talked to you all about this on the boat a little bit, but there's these these creatures were taking out one by

one. Um, Cinder's vampire king Izzy's crocodile that my voice of Atlas keeps telling me we need to be decrementing these numbers. Uh, I I don't think that has anything to do with the hags.

Are we on like two as a group. It feels like maybe we're on two separate missions here because I don't think it's chance that we're all here together.

I don't think it's chance that we're some of us are hearing voices and they're they're taking us down these paths.

But the stuff with Philip and the hags and this whole land I don't think is on my list.

It's that doesn't make exclusive. They don't have to be. I mean, it it the only thing that makes me think that they maybe should be mutually exclusive is is the fate element, right? The the we all hung together and GB. We got on a

[ __ ] train. Like, we died, the hag killed us, we got on a train, we ended up here. like this is this all feels a little premeditated or something.

Something is pushing us towards this or or handpicking us to to do something. Well, all Jericho.

Uh yeah, Arius or how how was we supposed to say his name? Marius. Jericho. Marius and Crossroads. They're all in.

They were all a party. We've figured that out right now. Yeah. And how many are left?

I asked sender because he has the journal. He has Yeah. How many are left?

[clears throat] I don't know. I was say I'll give you a second to look at your notes and then I'll uh step in if I'm needed.

Marius, what were the three we had so far? Marius. Jericho. Marius. Jericho. Jericho. Crossroads.

Crossroads. Crossroads had a different name. Captain. I can't remember his name. Briggsy. Scratch. Cratch.

Brigy scratch. Scratch. I don't know why there's Ness in my notes. Because Old Scratch is the uh devil that Cinder wants his soul back from.

Yeah. Know Scratch. We're gonna find his ass and get my soul back. Yep. That's plotline 12.

[laughter] We're on three. 2.8. Close enough. [laughter] We're right. We're we're we're rounding up here.

I mean, I have notes about the Atlas rhyme we've had the journal itself is it was was mostly blood smeared.

There were bits and I'll fill in a little bit here because um this entire campaign is just rot with information and having seven players.

It's even more information because we have seven individual storylines on top of an already relatively complex story line. Um you'll know that there were six members of the entire uh adventuring party that Mary Jericho Briggsy Faren Yorgram Those are four, right?

Mhm. There two more. There's two more. There's one very that you've already handled. Tavia.

Nope. So, oh no. Marius, Jericho, Briggsy are your first three. Farah and Yorg would be two more. There is one in addition um which you would have recalled to be Marius's wife Letha.

Letha. Okay. She was an ugly [ __ ] right? I think Yeah, [laughter] you [ __ ] up her painting and pissed off. I punched I punched that ugly [ __ ] Yeah, that definitely that I think that's the

second time we've just immediately jumped into combat because of something. That's how you endure people toward yourself is take a lesson on charisma from old Proteius here.

Yeah. Insult her wife and then destroy the only painting they have remaining of her. Perfect. Um Cinder, I think this would jump into your mind as well. Um, and then we're going to take a break.

Proteus said something about not thinking that these members, this party or whatever that uh, Atlas has been making rhymes about uh, coincide with the hacks, saying that they feel like a separate plotline or separate thread. We're going in

different directions, that sort of thing. I think you would pull yourself back to the crooked house uh when you stood outside of Vesa Brown 2's lair while your friends friends were fighting and you were deciphering the runes and

the notes on the outside and I think you would remember that there were things there talking about the vermin toll coven which are the hags but there was also something called the fallen there was also something called the undying

all mixed together there. I think you would start putting two and two together that Vermin told Coven pretty obviously the hags, the undying, you guys had come to believe yourselves to be the undying.

Um, which leaves the fallen. And the three that you have, three adventurers, should you say, uh, that you have destroyed so far, Jericho and Marius and Briggsy were all adventurers in a party that were attempting to overthrow Mother

Matron or the Mother Midnight far in the back. They were once adventurers just like you. Something has happened. And all three of them were causing problems here in Wicker Village. Sorry, Vickermore Hollow. So far, aka they have fallen from whatever grace they had

before. I think even though Proteius doesn't see the line between the hags and these people that you're killing basically along the way, even in the first day in Wicker, you had indication of them having something to do something powerful to do with

everything that's going on here. While they might not be directly tied to one another, in other words, these adventurers may not necessarily be part of the Hags Coven. Obviously, they play an important role and you would have seen that from that first time that you

were in the crooked in the crooked house. It's just now you are realizing um I think names to put into each individual group.

Yeah. Yeah. So they all do. It is all part of the same thread. They are all tied together somehow.

That's what you're saying. Seems to be enough [clears throat] so that Vesa Brown Tooth wrote about it in bloody runes on the outside of her layer.

Atlas obviously thinks it's very important to do something about these fallen. He keeps making poems about them, but he doesn't seem to be popping up uh talking about hags too much. Atlas obviously didn't pop up when you guys

came into contact with Iron Tavia. He similarly he didn't say anything before Vesler Brown. The heroes, however, these adventurers, these fallen, um, he has had something to say in front of all three of them that you've faced so far.

So, this is like it's like hags corrupt heroes into fallen champions to serve as like dark patrons, right?

this idea feeding the eventual return of of um what's her name? Uh uh uh the queen. Um yeah, the crooked queen.

The crooked queen. Anybody remember her name? That's what I was trying to It popped up here recently.

Mooney McMoon face. That was very close. Kellen. Kellen. That's it. I was one letter off.

Yes. But in in the old Gaelic it was one letter off. Yeah. In Welsh. [laughter] No. In Welsh you were 17 letters off.

Yeah. Which is the equivalent of one. One. One. Yeah. One syllable. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. So So we're all agreed that these are completely unrelated, right? [laughter] No.

You have just explained this just as well as you sold that boat, my friend.

[laughter] Expertly. Expertly. Exactly. Mhm. Yep. Without you as the catalyst, we would not have sold the boat and without you as the catalyst, we would not be having this conversation. So, thank you, Produce.

Um, are we are we are we skipping the part where we all come to the same realization?

What's up? We just did a lot of above the board talk. Are we skipping the part where we all come to the same realization?

No, I am I am basically informing Cinder of stuff he would already know because Cinder is the one that has the journal from Marius. So, he has that information. Cinder is also the one that was outside of Vessel Brown's area to

read all the runes. So, it's basically Cinder's responsibility to put all that information together for the rest of you to digest.

Unfortunately, uh life is what it is and Cinder hasn't always been here and so he hasn't been able to inform you guys during But I just had a bunch of epiphies just now.

It just all [laughter] hit him at once. Just needed a walk in the woods. That's all. It's It's kind of like an occupational hazard when the rogue that finds all the [ __ ] is also kind of not

always there because he still has all the [ __ ] So, it's real hard for like Marius to to decipher this stuff if it's in Cinder's bag and Cinder's in Italy.

[laughter] So, that's not a not a a harsh on your vibe, John. I'm just I'm trying to help out with the story as as well.

No, it's all good. I'm not harsh. My vibe is still clean. Good. [laughter] This is Cinder.

Clean looking vibe today, man. Thanks, brother. I appreciate you. I Stop looking at my vibe.

Yeah. Way to avoid the harsh. You put it on display, my man. So So the rhymes vibes up here.

The rhymes about Renithier's old party, right? This is Cinder talking to produce. Yeah. The rhymes about I thought they were about us.

But it's about Renier's old party, right? Five of them went after Mother Midnight at some point or six, sorry. Thank you.

Didn't win clean, right? Uh Reier was one that fell and that's how I kind of got into all of this, I think.

So, there's still more out there falling the same way that he did. No, I think the point is is they were us, right? like adventurers trying to do the right thing.

Oh [ __ ] And something got its hooks into them regardless of what they were trying to do.

Like I I don't think that they were all trying to do I think they were trying to do the right thing cuz Renier was Was he good at some point?

He was a paladin of Lethander. He was a paladin [music] of Exactly. I I was like that's that's about as good as you can get. Alladins are like the super squeaky uh youth youth instructor guys.

Right. Right. I mean, do you know anything about anything? [laughter] No. I'm a [ __ ] orphan that grew up in an alley, [laughter] dude.

Think about anything. Oh, that was so brutal. Oh god. Do [laughter] you know anything about anything?

Yeah, that's definitely a title. [laughter] Nap, the cheerleaders just shut your [ __ ] down.

I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to be super harsh. That came out really hard. I I think that in character that was a perfect thing to say. [laughter] That was fantastic.

Yeah. Oh god. And I think Proteius is largely unfazed. I think he would be largely unfaced by that. [laughter] Ignorance is bliss.

That's funny, man. I think I think all of this answers back to Kellen, the crooked queen locked in the moon.

Every nature god we've heard about it whispers about her down here and they're in pieces.

Okay. And the coven is trying to bring her back. I think the coven is trying to bring her back.

That's a connection. And so these are and I think we're part of how they bring her back.

Something about the undying, which is you guys. Oh, we're Oh, gross. We're uh I feel like a [ __ ] puppet. I don't like this.

Well, dude, you've been hearing Atlas's voice all longer than any of us have known what any of this means. So, [music] I mean, yeah, I don't know.

I I I wasn't I mean, to to Izzy's point, I wasn't interpreting him correctly.

He's just a voice of my old dead friend popping up in my head that I didn't exactly want to tell everyone about.

They have pills for that. Yeah, I I don't. But I I do know that, you know, they put other people in special houses for that with special jackets. So, well, maybe instead of going into a special with me when he says that.

Mars looks around nervously like [laughter] Oh, well, we're both Oh, we were both [ __ ] up with that, weren't we?

Oh, Mars has just heard voices ever since GB, too. So, and Garrick was literally in an asylum.

Maybe instead of thinking that there's something wrong with you, though, that you start writing down the voices that Atlas, whatever Atlas tells you, write it down so that we can verbatim pull that [ __ ] apart and start

Yeah. No, it's it's I'm glad we all started talking about this [ __ ] I feel a little less uh crazy. It seems like a couple of us have this [ __ ] going on. Which, by the way,

I still think you're crazy, man. There's no Don't like Don't sell yourself. You're nice. [laughter] I mean, the sixth voice of the day to tell you it's okay to be crazy. [laughter] I think I think it takes someone crazy

to face tank a vampire. [clears throat] [ __ ] yeah, dude. Yeah. It's just like I'm finding all this stuff about strangers.

Why was a piece of my old pendant in one of their reactors? Why? Why am I drawn to them? And then Crossroads mentioned I had an old soul older than I don't remember. Did he give me years? Did he say like He just said

very old. Didn't say a word. He just said you're far older than you realize.

Oh, just He said I was far older than I realized. And I mean what [sighs] between getting my memories back sort of there's still that gap into how I ended up in an asylum.

Well, if we continue on the path that we're on, I'm sure you'll remember. We all have so far.

And some of us as we've remembered have connections to these fallen. If you're far older than you realize though, yours might be a different connection cuz like I don't know.

I mean, there's a lot of players happening through here that we need to start kind [music] of piecing these things together. And I think you're right, Pice. We need to start talking about this, right?

Because there's Mother Midnight, right? And I think is she a separate entity then I guess from Kellen and the Crimson [music] Rose.

I I think you would know that right off the hand cuz you guys had that conversation with Philip.

Yeah. A couple of months ago now in game. Um but he had mentioned that the Mother Midnight was a a witch and she had a bunch of daughters, but Kellen was a fa spirit that basically Yeah. existed here far before anyone

else. And then Mother Midnight had an oldest daughter, right? That was uh Sister Malignance.

I'm looking through my old notes right now. Um, imagine naming your daughter Malignance. You got to meet the others.

No [ __ ] So go off. This is Shelly. This is Jenny. This is Malignance.

But she's the blonde one. The other two are the goth emo. Williams is definitely the hot one.

[laughter] You've got the vermin tool coven, right? Originally for and sinestra and goblet. Is that right?

Nope. I don't know either [laughter] one of those things. I was like, what does Green Lantern have to do with this? That doesn't make any the names of the coven. I think I have got those.

Got a few. Stanogga black stinger and gol great gullet. Those are the two left, right?

Appear to be the two left. You've killed Vesa Brown Tooth and Iron Tavia. For it's worth, you also killed Iron Tabia's daughter.

You killed Iron Tabia like twice. Technically, she killed her daughter. Technically, yes. [clears throat] With all of these things rushing through all's heads, you crest the hill towards Rowan's Rise. You see standing stones, massive standing stones. Allah uh

Stonehenge at the top of this hill. In the center of the standing stones, the grass and the weeds and and that sort of thing do not grow on the outskirts of the ring. They continue to grow and seem

like a lush uh pasture, for lack of a better term. But in the center, it appears that something is um affecting the growth of anything living with inside of that ring. It is dirt. It's clean dirt. Um there's no

no weird discoloration or uh stone or anything like that. It seems like fertile soil there in between the stones, but no sprouts or shoots of any type of green plant life uh pop up within.

As you get to the top, you realize that it is getting very late. It's closing in on the midnight hour and it is likely time to to camp for your first part of this trip. This is likely a two full

night journey to get to the mine. Um it's up to you to decide where you would like to camp and then once you do so we'll take a break.

Is there with the tech [clears throat] magic? Is there magic coming from Rowan's Rise?

Yes. Yeah. It's it is old magic. Um, and it is of a school that doesn't necessarily exist anymore, or at least not one that you would be familiar with. Um, this seems like some kind of primordial magic that

Wow. just emanates from the stones and the circle itself. Gotcha. All right. You're looking a little twitchy there. You uh you see something we don't?

Probably. Oh, you mean about this? No, [laughter] it's old magic. No magic here, huh?

Lots of magic. It's very very old. And anybody using their detect magic would would notice the same thing. And similarly, it would be almost impossible to get a hold of what school it is. Um, it seems to predate such mundane things

as magical school. Imagine calling magical schools mundane, right? [laughter] Ah, fantasy. Uh, for those of you that uh see the magic, uh, should we camp in it, close to it, away from it? What's the play? We wouldn't recommend in that.

Nothing grows in there. We might die. And he gets a thr like he summons a th actually just summon all three of them.

Mhm. And then he can actually move them like one at a time. One action. He'll move walk them in and see if anything happens to them.

Yeah. Yeah. You summon the thraws and and they eventually make their way into the center and they just stand there on the dirt. The dirt is is disturbed as they walk through or however they move through. Um and they just stand there in

the center of the the ring. There doesn't seem to be any effect towards them whatsoever. You're not noticing any lights or sounds or or anything of that nature. U the magic doesn't change. They're not affected.

um doesn't seem like much of anything. I think after a minute they all they dissolve.

So yeah, and as they do um I I think the first like truly magical or at least interesting thing occurs when they cease to be and begin to dissolve. They immediately turn into the rich dirt that is in the center.

Okay. That's interesting. I don't think I'll be going in there anyways. We don't think it's camp outside of it.

Outside is probably a good idea. There you go. So, set up the tent outside of it.

Like a lean, too. Don't we have like a tent? Yeah. The helter shelter. Yeah.

[laughter] Forgot about that. I heard Scott sigh. 10. The pavilion size shelter is put up in the field outside of Rowan's Rise. You guys are able to set up whatever centuries and um watches you would like.

You can set up whatever food stuffs you would like and you can continue to have conversations into the night however long you would like. Tomorrow's another day and the mine awaits. um for every 24-hour period that you guys take to uh

rid this world of this whatever plague um you know it is affecting the villagers of Wicker Village at least. So expedience is recommended, put it that way.

But with that 15 after 10, let's grab a quick break. Drinks, bathroom, all that fun stuff.

Jump back in and see what happens next. Sounds good. I'll see you guys in a second. See you in a second.

So, I realized I never selected what I wanted for specialty crafting. Oh, yeah. I think ammo's one of Well, no.

No. I I think that would just fall under alchemy. Ammo alchemy. Ammunition would be alchemical. Yeah, there's a I had looked in ammunition, so yeah, that's interesting. It's kind of wild.

Well, I mean, that gives you a just gives you an easier DC, right? Plus two, I think, when you're making some in that category, if I remember.

Yeah, I I would assume that it would be alchemical because I got I have for being a gunslinger, I have munitions crafter which gives you alchemical ammunition which is what that is.

I guess alchemical ammunition is a different thing. Yeah, it's a different thing. There's magical ammunition, too.

Yeah, I was looking at the magical ammunition, but there's a ton of there's a ton of alchemical stuff, which is what I have. I have a bunch of that.

I don't think there's one specifically for ammunition, though. Yeah, I don't see it. But I mean, you could always look and see.

You could say, I'm certain that I could do like weapons or gunsmithing. Oh, black powder is u alchemical.

Yeah, aromatic ammun. Yeah, there's definitely some. So, like I have I have I have some of them. I have I have life shot and uh elemental ammunition.

I think No, no, I have I have elemental and bane. Yeah, because you have magical crafting too, right?

Yeah, I have magical crafting as well. I have the stuff we need for us to not have to pay other people to do the job.

Yeah, I ain't going to sit there and build a cool ass set of armor for somebody, but I can make your armor better.

I I don't have the intelligence for that. Only plus three. I don't know if this was a good idea or not, but it's here.

Hey, good idea to me. Me, [clears throat] too. Well, sort of. There we go. Somewhere.

There you go. Somewhere. There it is. Yeah, I don't have any kimpari. Um, no, I have kari. I'm sorry. I don't have any vermouth.

B vermouth. Um, that's cool. So, I don't have the stuff to make a bowl of Vardier.

I don't really care for gin all that much. Negroni is one of the only drinks I will drink with gin in it. As a matter of fact, I like I like good gin, but there's not a lot of good gin that

had. I think maybe I still got I still got like five of those Medelas.

Oh, yeah. Drink them up, man. Yeah. Yeah. I uh maybe that's my issue. I haven't really had good gin, but I've had good Negronis at like legit Italianowned Italian restaurants and I've liked them.

Yeah. But at the same time, I'm like, man, this would be better with a spirit that didn't taste like licking pine trees.

Yeah. And that's I think I think Jyn's one of those that's probably a bit divisive. Like you like it or you don't.

like just flat out because it's the best I had was at I think it was Copper Fox Distillery up near LA Caverns.

Oh, cool. They made a gin because they do the floor molting for the scotch. Well, they can't call scotch, but for the whiskey.

Yeah. But they did gin, too. And it was actually pretty good. But this is um this is Tangare with with the Rossy sweet vermouth.

Yeah. And compar. That's that's how I've had it where I like it with the sweet vermouth. When you go too dry, uh, like the martini dry, it's doesn't taste.

I think you need the sweet permouth. I think that's what's that's Yeah, that's But it needs that. I think as many cool like bartender accommodations I' as I've tried, I've never had a Boulevard and [music] I need to fix that. So,

you've you've given me a reason to go back to the liquor store. Thanks, John.

You're welcome. Did you need [laughter] a reason or go? I mean, this week I need a reason.

Give me another week and I won't need a reason. I already have a reason. But it'll need a reason in another week.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. However, I I just learned I I don't know the quality of it. I'm going to have to try it out and see. Costco now has like a truly sixyear plus aged bourbon under their own label.

And it's a Kirkland's bourbon. is like 1.75 or whatever. It's uh but it's like $26, $28, something like that. Um but if I'm understanding correctly, it either comes from a Buffalo Trace distillery or another distillery I can't recall

outside of DC. Uh and it's just labeled as a Kirkland's brand. So for 26, right? That's what that's what Kirkland does though, right?

I mean, they find a good product and then they just put their name on Dude, their vodka is, in my opinion, the same as Titos. Like, there is no no difference to me whatsoever between a shot of Titos and a shot of Kirkland's

vodka. I've had I've heard all their stuff's good, but I've only lived in ABC states, so I can't try.

Well, I have tried I I will say their tequila is garbage. Their tequila is hot cactus juice. It is not good. Um, [laughter] but their vodka is quite good. Uh, I have not tried their bourbon, so that'll be up next.

So, we'll see. Vodka is really the easiest spirit to be completely honest, but they do it well.

Hot cactus juice. I had not heard that. Is it normal? Like, cuz uh fireball has the tradition for primal and arcade and whatnot, but it does.

I thought you were talking about fireball. I thought you were talking about right there. Like we're talking about good alcohol and he brings up fireball like yeah that's good alcohol.

Well not only that you also said tradition after fireball and the only thing I can think of is one that tradition is not worth following.

[laughter] So let's go back infantryman. I can say that fireball is not worth it at all ever.

I historically should have rolled you know 8d6 every time I had a shot of it.

Oh Jesus. [laughter] Ju just for uh heartburn if nothing else. Oh my goodness. That that's the problem when you go to places like Sugarlands beef and you try their cinnamon moonshine. It is so much better than fireball.

So much better. And then you taste something like a fireball and you're like, "Oh my god, no wonder." Anyway, what what what tradition would you like to speak of when it comes to the spell fireball?

It just it [laughter] god damn it. Uh it has it can be primal and arcane and for the tradition, but it doesn't have a school. You would think it would be evocation.

It's evocation. Yeah, it should be evocation, but it's not on it's not tagged as evocation.

Yeah, it's not tagged as in anything. I even checked uh well, if I'm not mistaken, Pathfinder 2e got heavily away from arcane school or actual schools um compared to Yeah.

Uh Pathfinder one, you'd be considered primal. Yeah, that they don't do they don't do the So, it falls under arcane and primal.

They don't have the schools, they do traditions. So, one of the things that we kind of got confused with, not not got confused, I confused you likely, we ran a Pathfinder one campaign in Rise of the Rune Lords, which heavily dealt with

arcane schools because they were literally the wizards that created them. Um, so schools in P in Pathfinder 1 were absolutely a thing. Pathfinder 2 seems to have gone away from that. Yeah, they more to the traditions and some things

can have an evocation school, but they're not all set up that way. And and my brain still thinks in the evocation divination [ __ ] like that.

Um, so I will call it out from time to time, especially if you guys are doing your detect magic. I try to at least give you an idea of what you're seeing without having to spend too much time or

more energy trying to figure it out. That's why I was just like, wait, shouldn't this be evocation because 100% fireballs evocation.

Oh, well, I will mark it as that then. But it says it on here actually. If you scroll all the way to the bottom uh on archives.

No, within in the just do it within the roll 20. Yeah, if you just go roll 20, search for fireball at the very bottom.

Uh it says school evocation. If you go to the legacy version of fireball on Nethus, it shows you evocation. It's when they did their remaster that they got away from the schools.

So, just go with just what you would you say most like damaging spells like that would be evocation then because uh if you have a question, you can always check the the legacy version rather than the remastered version.

Because the legacy is probably going to have the school associated. I think they did that in the remaster to get away from D and D because D and D is the one that started all the schools.

Yeah, that's what they did. Yeah, I think when I look at the legacy version of Fireball, I see teenagers in a hot tub.

[snorts] [laughter] So, the legacy version of Fireball is like 2013. So, it wasn't really all that long ago if we really think about it.

Like, I didn't in the 90s, dude. I was a teenager. I do not remember Fireball in high school [laughter] at all. I absolutely do.

Do you remember high school? Yes, I remember José Corvo Gold and bad things happening in high school.

I do not remember fireball of high school. I was not sober for most of it.

I don't remember. We're back to talking about the alcohol. [laughter] Yes. Cuz no one would play D and D with me in [laughter] high school.

Yeah. Oh god. Yes. Yeah. This would have I would have had much more problems in college uh if we Made in 1984 in Canada. Holy crap.

That's cuz you're a New Yorker. No wonder it's so close to you. We didn't get that [ __ ] in West Virginia.

We We just drank golder. That's what we drank. Oh boy. We had that, too. That's terrible.

I I'll be honest with you. We [laughter] We were beer and moonshine kids growing up. That's really all we drank.

Mad Dog 2020 stuff. Boons Farm. Boons Farm. God. Uh, no. No name. No name Mason Jar.

Yes. Yeah. Name Mason Jar. Had a bit of that. I did not learn about that until I moved to Radford, Virginia, and I went on my first I went on my first southern drug deal. I was told to go pick up Moonshine from

somebody at a physical therapy parking lot. They're like, "Just go into the physical therapy, ask for Mark, and he's just going to take you to the back of his car. Give him the money." And I was like, "Okay." It was the most

surreal experience, dude. That's awesome. It's like looking back, looking around, opening his trunk. I one time, a few years ago, I bought Moonshine off of a waitress at the barbecue restaurant I used to go to.

Nice. And it was really, really good. [laughter] It always is. Yeah. It was Blackberry Moonshine if I remember correctly. Cherry was always my favorite.

This was generic berry. Generic berry. That's my favorite. Yeah. System agnostic berry. Where does the generic berry grow?

[laughter] In a generic field, of course. Walmart. Walmart. Walmart parking lot. All right, gentlemen. We're tucking in for a long rest outside of Rowan's Rise inside of the Helter shelter. If I recall correctly, um, we have some watches set up. I'm sure Cinder and Zeke

are heading those two up as they need the least sleep out of everybody. But is there anything anyone's doing before you tuck in for the night? Uh or we just trying to rush through the rest to get to the next day, next night, I suppose.

Good answers. Okay, it's super late. I I don't I can't really work on anything because it's late as [ __ ] Working on the road as a walking person is pretty difficult. So, um, camp he might get an hour or two, but after that

it's probably gonna be crashing out. So, for like 15 20 minutes, uh, Izzy's just sketching in a little notebook that she picked up in Merk water.

Nice. It's cool. Uh, I hold up two of the moderate healing potions. Do Does anybody want one of these?

Uh, yeah. I find myself getting my ass kicked quite frequently. So, I'll toss one to Proteius.

If you're giving them away, I will take one. That's That's This is [ __ ] awesome.

It's a 3d8 plus 3d8 plus 10. Yeah, I've got I've got three of them as well.

I'll give them out if people need them. I'll hold on to them for now.

I'll give one to send her moderate healing potion. Yep. All right. That's nice. I don't have one of those.

Now I do. Thank you. Nice. Balls. I think you guys are settling down after having this conversation about healing potions and also these conversations about what you've learned over um the past few weeks or months. Um some good

[ __ ] there in the last hour or so of RP. as you do finally get to the point where you can rest and it doesn't necessarily matter whose watch is on or anything of that matter. Um, Garrick, I would like

you to roll me a luck check. It's a D100 roll please. I don't know if this is a before, during, or after, but I sneak off when people start to fall asleep. I want to sleep in the center of this

Oh, Stonehenge ring. Oh, very cool. Love it. Love I don't think he sneaks off. I think I see him.

I love that. I'm not convinced that bad things will happen. I I think it's pretty cool, but I have no concept of magic.

Very cool. Very cool. I love both of these things. Garrick, uh nothing happens. Um with a 14 luck roll, I think you are able to drift off to sleep and rest. So you can reflect on that second piece of

your pendant that you have around your neck. You can think about the face of that redheaded girl that you know from before and try to just roll over all of the memories that you have come back into here recently. Um trying to

remember more about not only your first tribe but the second tribe that you were with and her specifically.

Proteius. Mhm. You sneak off to sleep in the middle of Rowan's Rise. Um, are you I say that he doesn't sneak off very well and I see him.

Well, that we're going to find that out. [laughter] You're You're literally sneaking. So, I'm going to need a stealth roll.

Yes, I am. I'm literally tiptoeing like this. So, let me ask you this question.

[laughter] I'll ask you this question. Do you sneak off during Zeke's watch or Cinder's watch?

I who who has first watch? That's a good question because I don't know. I don't expect too many people to try to stop me. So like I'm not [laughter] I mean I'm a night owl more than an early riser. So I would prefer first

watch but I'll take second watch if you can take first watch. That's fine. Okay. So stealth it would be sender's watch and I have watchful rest and I always watch outside so beat that I need perception checks uh but for Zeke I need uh I need a 1d2

1d2 yes oh my god well [laughter] that tracks I like that beat [laughter] that Okay.

Okay. Uh, now for Zeke, I need a perception check. Okay. Um, he rolled a 15. He rolled a 17. In my opinion, 17's a higher number. Um, [laughter] shared by many of us.

Yeah. I'm just saying mathematically, you're right. Yeah. [laughter] Well, I heard Zeke go, "Uh, and I'm like, well, math says you're bigger." I didn't even pay attention.

Um the two was whether you're facing where he was sneaking or not and you got a two. So yeah, you were um both Zeke and Cinder see you sneaking away because you're literally going I don't get I don't wake up at all. I'm

not waking up for this. Uh, sender notices you doing something shady before you even leave the tent and then watches your ass walk all the way to the edge of Rowan's rise. Now, whether he intervenes or not, entirely

up to the characters. Do you turn around? No. I I suddenly get very still.

[laughter] Maybe his Maybe his vision is based on movement. Vision [laughter] just like a dinosaur. A T-Rex.

Cinder's a [ __ ] T-Rex. [laughter] Jesus Christ. Rodius, I say in a calm voice, not shouting.

H Yeah, buddy. What's up? Where are you headed, man? I was I was just going to sleep under the stars, in the ring of uh magic over there.

I mean, you know, I I don't I don't know if it's really magic. It just kind of looks like a a cozy place to look at the stars.

You're just rolling the dice. I am. I I'm I am. I just I just want to see what'll happen.

Last words. Do I get like a second tail or something cool? This is literally a listen moment.

Listen, listen. Listen. It really is. I'm not going to stop you. I just want you to know you're dumb.

I mean, I want I want to I want it to be known as god of the world.

Cinder is absolutely eating popcorn just like John is while you were walking through. [laughter] Yeah.

It's like, listen, I'm not gonna stop you, but man, you're dumb. You do you. I'll let them know how you died.

You really think people that sleep in that hang out in between a bunch of rocks die?

I don't know. I mean, let's find out. Tell me. You let me know after you do it.

I'll watch. Well, I'll let them know. One of us will know. Yeah. I'll watch.

I'll be like I say, well, I'll know, too. I It's I'm just here to be the the conscience on your shoulder.

I'll watch you. If I see you get in trouble, I'll intervene. Well, now I feel even better. Yeah. I continue on.

Sure. Absolutely. You make your way through the exterior ring of Rowan's Rise. You see these standing stones with all of these strange runes, runes that don't make any sense. They seem more like pictographs than actual language. Um, many of them

depict what you would imagine to be fa spirits or fa entities dancing and celebrating.

There seems to be each stone uh represents a different sort of celebration, maybe a different holiday or sacred time for uh whomever was using this place as a place of worship or or what have you. Um but as you walk over

the edge and put your feet onto the dirt, you feel your Do you wear shoes? I didn't even ask that. I didn't think so.

You you feel your bare paws just kind of sink down into like a dog. So web.

He's got tow beans. Yeah, definitely tow beans situation, I would imagine. Yeah, useless daw curiosity.

Useless due claw three feet up the back of your leg that we're going to have to fix later on.

I have real fingies and and real thumbs, but my feet are are Yeah. to you walk into it and you feel yourself sinking down into some of the richest darkest soil that you could possibly imagine. And it is very

soft. And because your old factory sense is so far advanced compared to your friends, you smell not only the richness of the dirt, but you can smell each individual um decay piece of decaying matter that has led to this dirt. One of the things that

absolutely jumps out at you is the smell of smoke, of charcoal, of um old fire.

One of the reasons that this soil seems to be so rich is there must have been fire here at one point in time that burned a lot of that carbon into the soil and allowed it to dissipate a bunch

of the nutrients here. It's very interesting, but it's also just the softest softest ground that you could think of to lie down and just a nap.

I back away slowly. Okay. The the smoke smell is uh not that's not something I'll [ __ ] with.

Sure. You step out of Rowan's Rise. I'm watching all of this. Did I see all of that? like you you see him walk in and he's like 3 feet in and he's you can see his nose hit the air and you can tell that he is

scenting. He is just drawing all of those scents into his face and then as he bends over and gets his head closer to the ground, he picks up something.

You can see him kind of jump back like a dog that's a little too close to a fire hose that thinks it's a snake. Um it Yeah, he smelled something he didn't like. Um, and then he starts I'm smoking to myself as I watch it eat

my popcorn. He's backing away [laughter] slowly. He steps over the edge of the ring. And as soon as you have one foot in the soil and one foot on the grass outside of the ring, I need a will saving throw.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah, you do. Uh, this was a thing that I just did a thing with.

Cool. 27's great. Yes, it is. Unfortunately, it's not enough. When When you step over the edge, you cease to be Proteus.

As a matter of fact, we'll change venues slightly. Oh, no. Proteius, you're not entirely sure who you are, but looking down at your clothing, you're not supposed to be seeing anything right?

That is correct. Okay. You're not entirely sure who you are, but looking down at your clothing, you can see you're a man. Unfortunately, you're a human man.

Gross. You have normal skin, five fingers. Grosser still. Five toes on legs that bend the entire wrong direction in your opinion and your fur is gone outside of some skimpy hairike growth on the limbs and chest and nether.

Why is it all in my butt? Yeah, a lot of lot of butt hair.

Strange. Um, as you stand here, you realize you aren't alone. You are surrounded by probably two dozen, three dozen maybe other people in similar rough spun clothing. Very simple uh leather cords that actually keep the the shirts closed

and similar um uh leather corded like belts that keep their breaches up. Some of them have shoes on, some of them do not. Um, but none of them, from what you can tell, wear anything close to the type of garments that you and your

friends wear. This seems to be very, very rough clothing. U, simple peasant type wear.

Looking towards the center of Rowan's rise, you see an unfortunate situation occurring. As in the center of Rowan's Rise, there is a probably 12 maybe 15 foot tall man made out of thatch and twigs and branches. Um, it's literally a wicker

man that has been placed in the center of this set of standing stones. And bound to the legs and lower body of this man is a woman. Only this one is human.

She's wearing a simple white skiff of a dress. Um, she is crying and screaming out and her wrists are bound to the wicker man at the top and her ankles are bound at the feet u towards the the legs of this wicker man

and you can hear the voice of someone chanting speaking a language you don't as produce recognize but it feels old to you. It feels like a language that's been lost to time.

And he's carrying a torch. And it doesn't take very long before he finishes whatever he is saying.

He walks over and he drops the torch at the feet of this wicker man, which immediately catches on fire.

And the woman bound to it is soon consumed in the flame as well. and I can't move or you're stuck in the situation. It seems like you are a passenger here.

Okay. You're just seeing these things occur rather than actually able to interact. And one of the things that was really disheartening and disconcerting for you is as the fire starts catching, you begin to cheer.

And you are part of the group that is very excited about what appears to you as Proteius uh to be a sacrifice, a ritual sacrifice of some sort. The woman is crying. She's screaming out. And I would like a

perception check from you if you don't mind. Yeah. and proceed with a 19. I think you realize that this woman calls out, but you can't quite tell what she is saying. She's shouting out towards the crowd somewhere and

looking around, you don't see who she is shouting to or anything of that nature.

But with a 19, I think you would recognize pretty quickly um that she has a shock of beautiful red hair.

Okay, that's about it. The time goes by a little while. Her screams cease and soon the fire consumes her and the wicker man entirely. And as the ashes fall to the ground, the soil in the area is enriched, the ritual continues, and the

sacrifice seems to be successful as these people wander off to wherever they're supposed to be. And you find yourself shaken out of whatever stuper you're in at the moment. And you are back outside of sorry, outside of Rowan's Rise.

No matter how well you sleep tonight, you do not rest. You do not recover hit points. And if you require rest to uh recover any of your abilities, it does not occur.

Fair. Wonder if her name was Rowan if you could rest. [snorts] possible um like the burning of the wicker man back in uh um in the beginning several sessions ago way back then. I I assume I step out. Cinder sees me step

out. Yeah. And for Cinder watching this, nothing happened. You stepped over the edge and you kept on walking. But all of this occurred. What felt like many minutes if not hours uh in your mind uh happened in a footstep to

Cinder. Yeah. Okay. Um, as I approach Cinder, I'm shaking. Uh, my advice got the better of you, huh?

Uh, yeah. You you uh uh uh you were still eating. You were right. Um 100 times over. Um you're right there, buddy.

No, no, no. I just uh I just lived through a human sacrifice ritual. That's that is where I've been the last two hours.

So that my friend, you've been there for about 10 seconds. Yeah. Um I'm going to go lay down and try to sleep in our tent far away from that.

And you're able to lay down. You're able to rest. Um but sleep will not come.

Yeah. Rest easy, my friend. Yep. I'm sleeping. This is me sleeping. This is me sleeping.

The time comes and [laughter] nice. I saw that. Time comes and goes for Cinder to swap out with Zeke for actively uh watching and [clears throat] nothing seems to want anything to do with this area. Uh there are no insects that you can hear. There

are no bats eating insects obviously. Um but there's also no animals wandering around. There's not a single threat. But similarly, there's not also there's also not a single there's nothing bit of life in this area. Everything seems to avoid Rowan's rise.

Zeke, this place is [ __ ] up. It's your watch man. I will. You [snorts] can sleep well knowing that I will watch over you.

Yeah, I don't know if Proteius is sleeping well over there. I'm sleeping. [laughter] Sleeping. just sleeping.

This is me just sleeping away. And he went up to try to sleep in Rowan's rise, but he came right back down.

I watched him. Yeah. Yeah. Probably not the wisest move. But now he knows. We make our own choices.

Exactly. DC was 30, please. Yeah. I wasn't going to hit that. What was your will? You rolled a 27.

Well, you could have hit that. I could have. Yeah. Natural 20. Maybe 20. I I have mastered plus 14.

He has a plus 14. He just need 14. Need a 16 or better. Okay.

Well, damn. You could have made it. Way to [ __ ] it up. Lucky.

Yeah. I think it was better that you didn't make it cuz that was cool. Yeah. Gave us some more information.

Yeah. Thanks for sacrificing yourself on our behalf. We appreciate it. We the living is salute you.

We [laughter] living. So good. Okay. [laughter] I've been making the joke about the A team being our our group name, but uh I would like to put the livingish as a strong contender there, too. I mean it is kind of the

polar opposite of the undying livingish undying pretty pretty similar. We have died so you know lots of times but we don't see dead I know Proteius didn't talk to me about somebody burned on on Rowan's rise but like we've seen several burnings now.

I told you a human sacrifice I said those words. I mean I watched Renier sacrifice somebody. We watched somebody We didn't watch. We watched a an effigy sacrificed at in Wickermore village that first night we got there.

Yeah. The goat. Yeah. So, I mean, a lot of sacrifice happening. Burning sacrifice at that.

Very folky. [ __ ] I wanted to go to Burning Man and now I don't.

I I don't want to go to Burning Man. I've seen I've seen images, videos. I don't want to go to Burning Man. None of that sounds fun.

I'm good. I can do drugs and alcohol in the woods with my friends that I actually like. I have no interest in teaching people how to survive dehydration in the middle of the freaking desert while they're on MDMA. No, I'm good.

Yeah, [laughter] I can listen to crunchy music and set things on fire elsewhere. I've already done that. I don't I don't need to do it again.

Watching a bunch of uh tech bros do IKa in the desert is not appealing to you.

No, I don't need to see their fluids come out of both ends. I'm good. I'm fine.

I don't like large groups of people. If you add large groups of people into the desert with like minimal facilities and lots of illicit drugs, no, I'm good.

That that sounds like a nightmare. The opposite direction. That's a nightmare. That's an absolute nightmare.

Me and a dog in the woods sounds way more fun. That does sound pretty nice.

It's way better than Dead Man or Dead Man. Burning Man. Dead Man is what I would be if Dead Man is the same thing. It's all the same. [laughter] You guys go to Dead Man this year.

I might go to that one. I mean, yeah. [laughter] Oh, uh, completely off topic, something that Bee would probably be interested in. Maybe, uh, Jay as well. I'm not entirely sure.

Propon is coming to Daytona. Propcon is a convention about builders and makers specifically for things like escape rooms and sets for movies and things of that nature. And they're coming to town here soon. And apparently there is going to be like a

tabletop like experience room like setup where they do I don't know displays for people that set up tabletop or sorry tabletop role playing game like rooms um to for decor and all that [ __ ] Apparently that's going to happen. So I

I may actually have to go to that one and check it out. That's when is it?

October. October 3rd and 4th. Yeah, I might I might need to make a trip.

Yeah, you need to come down anyway. You're not you're not too far. You should come down.

We also have like Galaxy Con and Super Con and there's a [ __ ] ton of cons in Orlando.

[ __ ] Galaxy Con is this weekend in Raleigh. There's so many in Orlando. I've never been to a single one. Uh I probably need to check it out, but someday.

See, the only problem that I have with Propcon is that there's probably going to be somebody there that I don't like.

Who's that? There's one specific person. It's just a person from that I that I grew up with that I really don't like at all.

Well, the good news is the o the ocean center is freaking massive. The chances of running into them are probably pretty pretty slim.

No, no, he he's uh he works Where's he works at? I think he works at Universal.

Oh, okay. Yeah, he's he's one of the the prop guys at Universal. Oh, nice.

Cool. How does he hate you or does he like He's a douche. He's a douche.

Oh, we know who this is. So, it's just multiple. Yes. Yes. Oh, we should all go down here.

I was going to say, why why don't make this a thing and make it really [laughter] uncomfortable for the douche?

I I'll digress for minutes. It's a story for later. But [laughter] hey, just so you know ahead of time, I am nothing if not vengeful. Let's make it happen, man. Come on down. [laughter] I I already I already uh I he he ruined

the friendship and I I I hammered the last nail in. Nice. What was her name? Sorry. That was that was [laughter] Jeez, that was rude.

Technically, it was my wife, but you know whatever. OH, THAT WAS WAY worse than I expected.

Damn. Yeah, he was. So, I know Jensen, so I already know you hammered her.

Sorry. Sorry. [laughter] Sorry. So, I I I can actually make this I can make the story short. Um when I met when I met Sarah, uh we were we were paintballing for his birthday. He was dating her at the time. He never got he

never got anywhere with her cuz he was a [ __ ] [ __ ] But he was he was being an [ __ ] to her the whole time.

And I didn't think anything of like dating her because my my boy was dating her.

Yeah. Yeah. But I'm not about you treating a girl like [ __ ] to try to show off for your friends. So I made his life hell that day. It was great.

Yeah, I'm That was the first time I met Sarah. And then they broke up like a week later and then we started dating like seven months later.

Gross. I hate that for him. Fantastic. Not at all. [ __ ] that guy.

[ __ ] that dude. Yeah, he's immedi. Yeah, we'll make his life hell. Come on down. I live here, man. I can make his life just because I live here.

What's your hotel room? Cool. We'll shut your water off. Give him [laughter] the bad water if you want.

No, dude. I will [ __ ] put a boil water notice on a hotel out of spite.

Don't start [ __ ] [laughter] I know a guy. I know a guy. Damn. It's weird. We had to flush that mane water entire building. Uh where were we? Uh, Proteius has has [laughter] done some stupid [ __ ] and

I'm sleeping. He is attempting to sleep. The night goes by without a hitch. There's not a single thing that interacts with any of you, Zeke or Cinder. And the rest of you are able to rest entirely. Wake up the

next morning to find Proteus in the uh the blury eyed Ren from Ren and Stimpy image. For those of you that remind [laughter] that that is what he looks like at the moment.

Oh my god. Do I am I living the day with a condition or did I just I'm I'm still on old hit points specifically if you did not have full hit points. Rest would not give you any unless when we bump up to seven. Do we

get all the hit points that I'm okay with that. When you level up you immediately go up to the top. I'm fine with that. Um, but if you had less for any reason, you wouldn't heal. Um, if you had to get spell slots back or

anything like that, you also wouldn't get it. For the most part, this is the perfect time to have tried that because one, you don't have a class that necessarily requires rest for getting anything back. And also, you were

already starting with full hit points. So, yeah, if there was going to be uh a sacrifice for this, this is the best one you could have made.

Cool. At least. So, it's more of a flavor uncomfortability rather than anything else. And she got a little information like Jason said, "What's next?" That's cool.

Wake up the next morning. You're able to grab some rations. Maybe somebody warms up some water for some coffee and you can hit the old dusty trail heading to the mines. I I tell the group what dumb thing I did last night. Um and I

I already told them that [laughter] tells us let me add some detail to it. Uh just because I I don't know if this is important. We're in the the land of witches and hags and we made some connections yesterday, but there was a I

was a participant in a large group of people all wearing very simple like simple clothing and we were burning a huge wooden effigy of a man. We were all humans and tied to the man's the the effiges leg was a a a woman with

a shock of red hair and this group that I was a part of that I I could not control. But uh we were all cheering as we burned her alive along with this effigy.

That's what I experienced when I walked in there like a dumbass last night. That's what this place, I'm guessing, used to be about.

Mhm. I don't know if that's something we'll be able to use at some point in our journeys or adventures here in this weird dead land, but now you all know.

If nothing else, it gives us a good understanding of what this place was. Mhm.

Uh Garrick definitely has paws when he says shock a red hair and Oh, I have paws, too.

I'm a I'm a fireball the [ __ ] tent. [laughter] We're moving. Don't worry.

The tent's already put away. What do you What do you mean? Oh, well then I'm just dropping it at my feet.

Pause. [laughter] I've got them. You can't win. You can't win against him. It just doesn't work.

The only way to fix it is just kill him. [laughter] I have the only way.

He's unstoppable. Unless you kill him. Even [laughter] if you kill him, I feel like somebody else might join our party with similar personality traits.

[laughter] I had that feeling. Oh god. It gets worse before it gets worse. [laughter] That's awesome.

My name is Broius [laughter] guy stand and Proteius combined into one. Brodius, he's he's a ghost werewolf. [laughter] That's what I was thinking.

It's just a werewolf with a sheet over it. Absolutely. That's [laughter] 100%. That's canon. [music] It's just a dog shaped sheet.

[laughter] It's not nearly long enough with a [ __ ] tail underneath that wags.

Perfect. Perfect. Oh my god. Oh, somebody kill him. I want to see it so bad. [laughter] Y'all shut up. Forest was being serious for a second. Y'all shut the reaction to I know I know you can't see him, but

Force is speaking. Oh, he probably looks as about as disappointed as I usually do sometimes.

Don't you take my disappointed dad. God damn it. Oh, so what what gives you pause?

No, I just like I just stop. Like if we were helping put the tent away, I just completely stop what I'm doing and freeze and then look at Rowan's white rise and I just I probably put beat feet up to

the circle. Are you going up there? Yes. Okay. Everybody let him. I mean, I'm not going to stop him.

I Because he's he's told us about the the the woman, right? I mean, I would have mentioned like, yeah, I had somebody special and she had red hair. But I I would I think I would make the connection as you were running up there.

I would not try to stop you. I'm I'm running into the circle and let chips fall where they may.

Sure. You um rush into the center of Rowan's rise and your feet booted uh hit the soil.

As you walk around, you can smell the rich earth underneath your feet. Um, but you also get that hint of charcoal smoke, old burnt wood.

As you walk around, you're scouring your memory for anything that even remotely uh would spark.

Unfortunately, nothing does. How long do you spend in the [music] circle? Uh I'll I mean, if nobody stops me, I'm I'm staying for as long as I can.

Okay. And then uh I'll actually just um trying this out of pure whatnot. I'm going to cast rejuvenating flames and my [ __ ] roll 20 crashed.

Perfect. I was recovering from the uh horrible string of jokes that we had. Did he say he was going or did he just go?

He just ran. [music] I just I just ran. Red hair up the hill. What? What are you What are you doing?

I cast Rejuvenating Flames. So, you rush into the center and you begin to cast this.

Yes. Um, what's your target? Just the ground. You begin to burn the ground itself. And as you do, a lot of the soil in the area begins to darken. Uh, you're you're charring whatever organic matter might be there. So, it it's becoming even

blacker. Of course, you're also destroying whatever living microbes might be in that soil, kind of semi- ruining it, but that's neither here nor there.

The magic takes place. Um, if you require any healing, it would wash back over you, but it doesn't seem like it has any effect in this place.

Whatever whatever occurred here, whatever this place is used for is long past healing. Um, I just I stand there just waiting and see if anything happens or if anybody comes over to As long as you stand inside the circle,

nothing occurs. Whether your friends come to you or not is up to them. Um, if if I see him just standing in the circle just trying to like wait for something to happen, I will point out while staying outside. I do not want to

step in there again. You sure? We could do this twice. Positive. Okay. [laughter] He's positive.

Positive. If you hadn't already burned your hero point, I take it away. Um, Veil, shoot him.

I can't shoot him. I could kill I could kill him. Take his gun. Shoot him. I it [laughter] it happened to me when I tried to step out of the circle. Um I was trying to back out cuz I smelled

burning when I was in there. Uh and I I assumed I assumed I was going to get burned, but it was it was when I was walking out that I was transported for a long time.

He paused for a second. Mhm. [laughter] [ __ ] hate all of you. I've been told that uh playing a tabletop role playing game RPG by yourself is just called writing a novel.

Maybe I need to try that sometime. [laughter] Oh god. Uh I hear him say that. I'll I'll go to step out of it.

Garrick, you walk towards the edge of Ruins's Rise after casting your spell and spending a significant amount of time in here trying to get back to whatever it was Proteius encountered.

And you step outside of the edge of this circle where there is dark earth meeting luscious green grass. And as soon as one foot touches the grass, I need a will saving throw.

Gotcha. Same roll, am I not mistaken? Or was he a 26? It was 27.

Same roll. 27. Same roll. Same dice. Same roll. Garrick, you put your foot on the outside of this and you see the exact same thing that Proteius did. This massive wicker man formed in the center of Rowan's rise.

Looking out and about, you can see that the constellations on the outside look far older than they do now. But the moon still hangs above and it scowls down at all of you.

When I say all of you, I mean you and all of your tribes members that are surrounding the outskirts of Rowan's Rise.

Why is it called that? You look towards the center and you see the wicker man.

You see the man with the torch. You see the woman bound to the wicker man in the center of this area. You realize very quickly that the person that you are inhabiting right now seems to be an older woman in some sort of

dress, a skiff of some sort, rough spun. very very um meager. If she has shoes, they're more like sandals. Um but that is who you are right now. And you are chanting along with the rest of the group.

When the fire touches the outskirts of the wicker man's leg and begins to take off, you chant all the harder. As a matter of fact, you begin to sing some sort of sacrificial song that is associated with whatever is happening

here. Obviously, the person that you are right now understands, but you, Garrick, do not.

What you do understand is the woman that is lashed to the wicker man and is currently burning and screaming.

She's screaming out your name and it is absolutely the woman from your visions. Yeah.

This occurs and then washes away just like it did from Proteus. And as you step on the outside of Rowan's rise tonight, you will not recover from rest.

Your spell slots will not recover. And anything a long rest would normally give you will not as you are stuck in this moment for the next 24 hours.

I would say in just pure rage, I throw a fireball in the middle of that circle.

It explodes. A pillar of flame erupts in the center of Rowan's rise, blackening the ground and begins to push heat towards the outside. Several of you that are close to him probably feel the heat and have to step aside just to avoid

whatever pain may wash over you. The stones themselves are unblenmished, unmarked. The carbon does not score them.

One thing I will say you recognized while you were there as that old woman watching this young woman with red hair burn in the center.

You did not see you. If you catch my mia I wasn't there. seems to be the case.

What are you doing? It was her and I just like my f my fists are clenched and I just I I mean I probably scream.

Carrick, I will take another look roll from you. Nothing happens. I'll if if it matters, I'll use a hero point.

Whether it matters or not is up to you. But you're absolutely I'll let you use a hero point if you'd like to try again.

[ __ ] me. Dice are telling a story. Damn. Lowe's. Lowe's. Yeah. No. No. [laughter] Oh, a wellestablished setup at this point.

Yeah, it's too late now. That was a fourth level fireball, too, by the way.

Nice. [laughter] Well, I didn't do it. Do it right. Yeah. Um, no, he just I just looked.

What? I mean, it was her. When I when I left my my tribe, I found I wandered for years alone.

And then I wanted to find a new tribe, a new family. She's the first person I found and I'm still piecing memories together, but I know she was important.

But I'm I'm glad you were. I can't say I'm glad about it. That was kind of foolish because we don't know what's going to happen. Even even though nothing happened to Proteius crazy other than the vision that you should know better.

Uh I just I mean when's the last time they did a sacrifice at this place?

And then it just dawns on me because it was the stars were so much older.

How old are you? I don't know how. The stars weren't right. They weren't the same as they are now.

Steve, you're muted. I think I see your mouth moving. Sorry. Um, do I know the answer to that question? When the last person maybe with Duskinval war maybe you have that I will say like how long it's been since the last

time someone was this was actually used. How old seek? Uh, not very. He's probably like 30.

Never seen it happen. So within my lifetime? Never. Never happened in your lifetime. Can I try and point out different stars to Zeke and like, "Hey, this star wasn't here. This one was there." And see if he can

I mean, uh, I don't know if it's a survival or a nature role. I don't know that any of you would have studied the stars to know the different origins or the eras. If either of you are um astronomers of some sort, then we

could work that out. But if you don't have a specific astronomy lore, I don't think any of you would be able to determine that.

Garrick is gras grasping at straws right now trying He is mildly panicking. Sure. Mildly.

Yeah. No, mildly. No, it seems a little bit more than that. Yeah, you did just fireball the air, the ground, but same concept.

Yeah. You going to be all right? I don't know. I mean, it's better than nothing, I guess.

I know. I need to kill a [ __ ] asylum if an asylum [ __ ] called.

Had to have been a long time ago. It may not even be there anymore.

Then I'll burn it down. Hey, how many asylums are in Well, in Wicker Hollow. Anyways, I was going to say, do I know of any asylums in Wicker or me or Zeke?

H I don't know that either the two of you would have any information regarding that. Maybe. Um, do you have Duskin lore of any sort? I think Zeke may Zeke does.

Seek roll me lore where not aware. Um, it's kind of one of those things.

How many H how many quilting centers do you have in your town? Two. And beef has crafting lore.

[laughter] So it makes sense. I can tell you how many gun stores are in Columbia.

Exactly. That's what I'm saying. If [laughter] if if we were to ask questions about something that none of us were into, it'd be difficult to give that information. If we're into it, it would be okay to give that information. But

unfortunately, in this case, none of you have been. I'm not going to say you don't need a sanatorium.

[laughter] Listen, I didn't have my memories back. That would have been that wouldn't have even been a question I asked if I didn't have my memories back.

Right. Right. I don't think either of you uh have any idea as far as asylums and sanatoriums or anything like that.

If we see something something akin to what you're talking about, we can check it out. But I don't know of any asylums in Wickermore either.

Might be in a different province. It might be. And we're stuck here. Figure this out.

With all of this running through your heads, you're also hyper aware of the fact that you are currently on a mission.

Finish this. And then the longer it takes, the longer the poor people wicker more suffering.

If if fate is anything to be judged here, I think we'll end up running into into your asylum one way or another.

I have a feeling we will, too. Pieces of our past keep popping up all over the place.

Yes, they do. Do you mean as patients or maybe for you? Maybe. I don't know that they'd want to keep you though. I think I think the tentacles would kind of cause problems for their straight jackets.

Let's say is there a tentacle jacket? It's called a barrel. [laughter] But maybe in this case it wouldn't be a straight jacket. Could it be a curve jacket?

Hey, I don't know. Interesting question. They just put all of his tentacles in Chinese finger traps.

Yeah. [laughter] Try getting out of this one, nerd. It's well, I mean, man, we seem to be where we need to be eventually. So, maybe we just continue with our quest and we'll find yoursum at some point and we'll see that maybe you'll find a

new base of operations to operate on. I don't know. Unless you wanted to add a pool.

Pool in a senatorium. That's a great idea. What? What? It'd be for Marius to take over.

Oh, you're talking to Marius. I thought you were talking to Garrick. I was like, that doesn't make any sense. What do you mean?

The pool thing like completely. No, you said we'll fight we'll fight the sanatorium. I was like, well, then you could just take it over.

All right, old man. Can you imagine? It'd be it'd be all full of sane people, though.

Like, you need more treatment. Well, you're a necromancer. You just kill them all and then they're treated.

So, this girl that you This girl that you saw in the vision is the same girl that you saw in your dreams before.

Did she look older in Oh, good question. That's a great question. Um, wow me a perception check.

I'll see how much that you recognize. Okay. 26. I think that's plenty. Uh, I think you recognize that she did seem older.

Um, not by a crazy amount, but enough. enough where Garrick wouldn't necessarily recognize her as ever hitting that age. Does that make sense?

Yes. It's kind of like seeing I don't know, seeing a a chick from high school while you're just getting ready to graduate college. That sort of situation. Something of that nature.

Yeah. Same same but different. Same same different. Well, if we find that tribe, too. I I thought if it was so far long ago, I Oh, let's just keep going. I have there's just a lot of the name of the campaign.

[laughter] So like there's a lot going on. Oh, go on. I said it seems to be a lot of that going around.

Yeah. You know, if if you need to talk to anybody about whatever is going on with you, you can talk to us, right? You don't have to just take it in silence.

I will. I just It's I'm trying to figure out it's just too much dumped on me at once because I I feel like Now that I figure out that I'm older than I guess possibly all of you, I don't

understand. I don't know how. It's just nothing makes sense. Story of our lives or lives.

I think the point is is that nothing really makes sense. But the only time any of this has started to make sense is when we started talking about it. And this is coming from somebody who didn't trust any of y'all when we started this

whole thing. Yeah. Do you trust us now? I was going to ask that. I think I've made it clear. I do trust y'all. If he didn't trust you, he wouldn't talk to you about anything.

I've opened up to you all more than I've opened up to anybody. We are appreciative.

We've never had people that hang around this long. You mean friends? I guess we do.

Friends have historically been a liability. Oh, I mean, he's not wrong. I was a solo act before. He's he No, I don't I this is a little self-deprecating, but uh I I think friends being a strength and us being

greater than the sum of our parts and us also being a liability uh don't have to be mutually exclusive.

I mean, you're you're living proof of that. I said historically a liability. Yeah, I have made the decision that it is worth having friends like you.

Well, that does mean a lot. That's good. They say there are strength in numbers.

Well, my death can prove you can prove that wrong. It was quite a few of us. But the numbers overwhelmed us.

See, I think that proves his point though. Yeah. [laughter] Well, doesn't matter, brother. For it's an analogy.

It is. There's strength in numbers, but more strength than more numbers. That's perfect. Sorry. is a guy with multiple personalities.

It is with your friends uh folks that you've decided to call friends and actually accept as friends that the seven of you along with your various different entities that you drag along um begin to move away from Rowan's rise

with this new information about Garrick uh being far older than you expected but also having some sort of connection with this place, moving towards the mines and trying to eliminate this threat, this plague, these centipedes, and potentially this

hag. You guys move away from camp. Continue to talk as much as you want or as little as you want. It's completely up to you. But I am going to move you further along and you guys can talk

along the way just so you're not stuck in one place if that's okay with you.

works. Yep. You guys find yourselves cresting the foothills uh just to the northwest of Wicker Village. And this place is among the prime hunting grounds that Hill Dem enjoys uh venturing off to. You imagine that these are probably the woods and

the hills that she eliminated that creature that you'd seen in the letter there. Um, you're not too far from your destination. You feel what do you do next?

Can we see anything? Not yet. I I'm basically just giving you an option if you have any other decisions. If you want to move away from this area instead of going towards it, you're welcome to. Or if you want to try to camp ahead of

time, or if you want to have any more of these long discussions, you're absolutely welcome to. I just don't want to force you into situations uh before you're done roleplaying or discussing amongst yourselves.

Bottom line, everything's [ __ ] I mean, that's Yeah, let's check them out. Is it starting to look even worse now?

Like the the decay and is it getting worse getting over close to this? It is looking rough. The woods uh on the outskirts of these hills, most of the trees are either dead or dying. Um many of them have the telltale signs of

fungus beginning to grow on them, Marius. Um, but even worse, it seems like the grasslands are slick with almost like a slime mold that begins to take uh take root here. And as you get closer and closer in, you realize that

many of the animals, many of the the forest creatures or even the woodland creatures that would be ranging among these hills, um are either missing entirely or they have some sort of horrible infection, these parasites, these lumps like boils on the outside of

the squirrels and rabbits and deer. Um you can tell that there are are some issues going on here. there's some infection that is spread not just to people but to also the the mammals that you're coming across.

So there's wildlife that's just infected. It seems to be the case once you get into this area. There was no wildlife on the plains but once you're into the woods and the hills you're still spotting stuff from time to time.

Nowhere near as much as you were in some of the other areas. Um, but the stuff you do see, the mammals specifically are having some trouble um with whatever this parasite may be.

Something tells me we're on the right track. This looks awful. Definitely awful. I'm buy new boots after this.

[laughter] That sounds like temperance. H no, she just pressed digitation and make her own boots.

Kaya would just clean her boots for her. Yeah. Yeah. [laughter] I think that's how we introduced ourselves. Like we're running into town.

We did. And we stepped in mud and she was like, "Oh my god." You're like, "That's fine." Yes. [laughter] I think that I think that is the case. Heading into uh into town.

Yep. Same. I clean the guard. I cleaned I cleaned the guard's armor. That's what I did.

You did that as well. Yeah. and you bitched about the state of their armor and weapons. [laughter] Yeah, that's Yeah, she did.

Good time. Yep. Sorry. [laughter] Well, shall we? Uh yeah, we should be coming across a [laughter] I missed something. What did you say?

I said, shall we uh turn back? Oh, yeah. I feel like I feel like it's over there that that away on the other side of those hills.

Are you pointing south? Yeah. [laughter] You guys crest a couple of these hills just in the outskirts of the woods here.

And you can see that there are a fair number of trees that have been cut down. Um almost like a clear cutting there. There are some saplings that are growing back, but there is a large section that has been laid low on the

way to what appears to be a path leading into a small I'm not going to call it a settlement, but it's absolutely some sort of established location. A couple of small buildings um far off into the distance.

And you imagine that's probably a mining camp of some sort. Um, as far as the entrance to the mine itself, it's difficult to see from where you are. Um, but you're close, as you said. I'll give you a little bit of insight.

Some of the rivullets that you guys would have been able to see from the top of the hills.

I think that is what you see. Oh, that looks like it. Found it. Is that what mines look like?

It's a town. The mining town there. I wouldn't even call it a town. Yeah. From here, the only thing you can see is two maybe three buildings um and some of the lowerlying hills before they enter into the forest itself.

Is there a does anybody have a way to get a message back to Philillip that we're here and about to venture in this?

Sorry, what? What was that? He said we're about to and he said die. [laughter] I mean I guess that is his forte in this land. So that would be one way to get him a message.

Just die. I mean possibly. I don't I don't have any plans to do that.

I don't know that anybody has access to message or sending or anything like that at the moment. I don't Pathfinder is a little different with availability of certain levels of magic and messaging is one thing we came across as being problematic.

It's it's a fifth level spell. Yeah. And there's a third level dream. The the dream one is useful. You don't get access to sending until until fifth level.

Yeah. Maybe it might have been fourth, but it's not as early as it's not as early as as D and D.

Yeah. that and travel I think like teleportation and stuff a bit very much like nerfed teleportation.

Yeah. Okay. Now, when we were told about the mod, were we told it was called Skitter Deep?

Nope. Okay. Has a very correct. Okay. I was like, quite literally a player level uh information. And unfortunately, this map already has [ __ ] written all over it, so I can't hide that. Okay. I I just I

thought I heard wrong and Nope. It is glitter deep minds, but you will eventually understand.

Okay. Well, I mean, yeah. Very crittery. A little a little a little caterpilly. Well, does there appear to be anybody in the village? Are there people moving around?

Way too far away to understand that you're still hours outside. Okay. How long did it take us to get to there?

Like what time of day is it? Huh? Took X amount of time. It took a time to get where we are.

Got it. A single time. Mhm. A single. If you were to close on the mine today, this evening, tonight, whatever, [music] um you will still be there under moonlight.

Well, always, right? [laughter] Exactly. It's it's my point. Like, you're not going to lose any daylight or anything like that. It's going to be night no matter what when you get there. It is um roughly midday by the time you leave Rowan's

Rise and arrive where you are. And it's going to take you several hours to get from here to Skitter Mine. Um it's up to you what you guys want to do.

I guess we I guess we move on. Like I don't see ahead. We came all this way.

I don't see a point in us hanging out in the woods. It's kind of It's kind of gross over here. Maybe it's less gross over there.

Uh somehow I doubt it. It's probably going to get worse. Listen. Listen. Let a girl dream. All right.

All right. Well, I I can hope you guys getting closer. Yeah. Yeah. As you get into some of the areas where they've quite clearly clearcut some of the forest, um you will begin to run into some some sites that don't quite make a whole

lot of sense. Um, you you'll start seeing some some left behind materials, things like saws and wagons and tools that have been left out in the middle of the forest to rust or rot and uh decay here. Things

that would have been useful would have been expensive at some point in time, just left here in the middle of this area. Um, you pass some of those and you will start seeing every once in a while signs of animals, sometimes even

humanoid remains that have been completely consumed and left to decay or or um be eaten um to disintegrate into the dirt [music] dirt itself.

Some minutes pass. You're probably 20, 30 minutes outside of the mine area itself when you come across something that doesn't make any sense at all.

You stumble upon the body of a horse. And as you get closer to it, you realize that this horse is unlike anything you've ever seen before. Because the horse itself instead of hooves has what appear to be fanges

uh toes and feet like a humanoid creature on the back legs and hands with long intricate fingers on the four legs.

And the face of the horse has what appears to be very human characteristics. It is also wearing um barding that resembles the armor and clothing of a messenger or a knight.

This horse has multiple arrows penetrating its flanks and its torso. Um, and Veil, you will recall in the letter that Philip sent you that Hilda was able to dispatch some terrible beasts with uh her arrow fire before she

were was able to return to Wickermore Village. You believe this creature is probably what Philip was describing.

Unfortunately, whatever the hag is doing, it seems to include the flesh warping of humanoid creatures with animals.

Um, this disturbing entity that lies on the ground is a an unfortunate hint towards what you have to look forward to.

Oh boy, that was it. um just like kind of magically flesh fleshw warped, not like Mario's flesh warp like like patchwork.

It is not patchwork. There are no stitching, anything like that. This looks like um a creature that was either melted through magic or it was born this way. Um got impossible to tell in this state. Sure.

It's already decaying. Things have been eating at its intrails. the the torso, the central cavity is largely empty as the rodents and things of the forest have completely emptied it, but the framework is still there, so you're able

to see what it was. Um, and Hild de Braum's arrows are still stuck in it.

Gotcha. She got this one. Let's get ready to say I guess this is what she was firing at before she ran away. I had to run away anyways.

Great. Something else to look forward to. [laughter] Yes. Let's all going to a mine to hunt a hag that combines humans with creatures.

Why not? We're going to burn the whole mine. Just letting you know. Everything in it will die.

So, this has to be the flesh crafter, right? I would assume this would probably Well, I mean, that's pretty clear indication.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that's right. That one would be No, that would be uh gray gullet, I believe.

I think it was flesh teruga black stinger. Flesh terror. I don't remember which one was which.

Either way, we're definitely dealing with problems. You look beyond this body and you can see that there are two larger buildings um off in the vicinity. One of these buildings has what appears to be like a a boom, like a long wooden uh crane boom

that has a chain hanging from it that descends into the earth directly in front of it. That's what you can see from where you are.

Is it too late to go back? No, it it is not too late to go back. But I am not going back.

I'm not going back. This has to be stopped. Scout ahead. I was joking. [laughter] Izzy, I'm not going back.

Good. Good. I'm glad. I was just test I was just testing you. I was just I'm happy to scout ahead if you guys want me to.

Yes. Would you? Not a bad Asp very dangerous. [laughter] You go first. Yeah, center. You can absolutely go forth. When you get a little closer to this area, you recognize that there are old weathered buildings. These two old

buildings, they're sitting beside a large hole that seems to be dug or at least carved into the ground uh here.

And there is darkness within. It's inky black from where you can see. Uh, a wooden beam extends from one of the structures which holds a heavy chain lowered into that dark abyss.

Not far from the shaft, broken iron mine carts, uh, sorry, minecart rails lead to a lumber reinforced tunnel um that is built into the side of a wooden plinth on a mountain ridge. Um, the stench of rotting meat and sweat hangs

in the air all about you. And you will recognize that that set of minecart tracks that heads off into the mountain um ends in what looks to be a pile of earth and rock and stone as the mine itself has been um caved in.

It's been collapsed. So, these rails lead to the side of a mountain, unfortunately, with what looks to have been an opening at one point in time that is now entirely collapsed. But you do still see these two buildings and one

of which has this chain boom that the chain itself lowers into the middle of the earth right in front of the building from your distance. That that is what you see. You don't see any movement or anything like that, but you do smell

that rot and sweat, body odor, heavy smell coming from here. Um, roll me a perception check as well. We'll see if you notice anything else while you're there.

Absolutely. Low. I rolled a three. 18. I think I think the 18 is what gives you that smell. Um, that is what allows you to pick up just those those scents that don't necessarily fit.

Um, but from this distance, from the scouting, you're not seeing any movement. You're not seeing any people.

You're not seeing any monsters. Um, and it appears that there are two buildings, what looks to be a hole or a mine shaft of some sort right in the middle of the vicinity in front of one of these

buildings. And then the actual entrance to the mine appears to be collapsed. What about the mine shaft? That that that hole. I mean, it's a hole and there's a chain through the center of it. From your distance, unless you want to actually move into

the area and like go and investigate without your friends. Um, that's about all I can give you from this.

I'm going to scout ahead a little bit until I feel like I'm in danger.

Okay. And where are your friends staying? I need I need specifics because Cinder being in the vicinity of danger and you guys being outside, I need like distance to get an idea of how far is going.

So, let's do this. I I come back. I let them know what I see and then I'm going to go look down the hole.

Okay. Yeah. I wouldn't be super I would be within within 60 ft of him.

Okay. Yeah, that's fine. Um, follow I'd follow him probably within 15 30 feet. Oh, very close. Okay, that's really close. Yeah, you're right behind you.

They see you. They don't see me. Yeah. [laughter] Cinder is a ghost and produce.

That's exactly We've gone through this before. [laughter] Produce is in between two ghosts. Ghost.

You're able to backtrack, tell your friends what you see, and then you go forth. I think moving forward and peering down the hole, you see nothing but blackness. But what you will will realize is this is what appears to be a

lift. It's a an elevator shaft. The hole has approximately a uh maybe an 8 foot by 8 foot square um shaft that has been not only dug but reinforced with timbers. There is a chain that is two stories above you

attached to some sort of um uh some sort of boom with a bunch of pulleys and that sort of thing. heavy chain that descends through the center of this area and it immediately drops well below the 60 ft

range of your dark vision into the depths well below and you can't see anything beyond that.

From here, if you're looking down the shaft, you will immediately recognize the scent is far heavier right here at the shaft. And you're also seeing greenish, it isn't smoke, but it appears to be vapor, like chemical vapor rising and

just mixing with the air here, giving it this noxious decaying smell um that mixes with the sweaty area in the in the outskirts.

You're not hearing anything. You're not seeing any people. It's just the smell. And these are the scents you see or smell. Um, I'm going to move you guys to the map just to give you a better idea of what you see and then I'll move you

specifically regarding where you are. I have two questions. I will happily answer both. One is um the structure of this hole that has the lift going down. M is there any sense of this being newer construction than what the original mine

shaft looked like? No. Okay. And then the other is the smell and the the noxious almost like fumes coming out. Is this related or does it remind me anything of some of the blight that we saw way back

when we went into that building and it was coming out of the faucets and everything else?

Great question. Also, no. Okay. I would say this is far closer to the smell when you all gutted the gobblegeist.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Oh, Gabe, I think this token is linked to my old character sheet.

It probably is. I have not adjusted [ __ ] It absolutely is. Yeah, cuz I can control it.

Yep. There you go. I was like, wait, should be changed. Um, cool. Is it changed?

I think so. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Just check. [clears throat] That is what you smell. I will say you guys move into the area. You see there are two larger buildings. The one to the right is the one that is multiple

stories. The one to the north is a single story, but it's longer. Um, and then there are tracks on the ground, one of which leads directly to the building to the north and to this mine shaft that Cinder is investigating. Another that

leads to the west towards what looks to be an entirely collapsed entrance to a mine.

Just for what it's worth, just your initial inspection, it looks pretty blocked. You could probably spend some time to beginning to begin to remove stone and earth and try to make your way through there. Um, but you're not

entirely sure how far back it's blocked. It could just be at the entrance. It might take you a couple hours and you're in. Or it could be the entire shaft there is collapsed and it's completely useless trying to dig through it. Um, up

to you to decide. All of that said, we lost Proteius. Didn't recognize that. He just texted. He said, "Laptop ran out of juice. Didn't even notice I was low." Got it.

We'll pick him up here in a second. Yeah, that is what you see. You know, I'm going to go over here and I'm not sneaky. Well, I'm kind of I'm trained, but uh I'm going to cast light on a like a rock or something.

That's not sneaky. [laughter] And [music] do you want to look down the shaft? We can drop drop it down. Uh drop drop a lit up rock.

Yeah. Lit up rock. So have some sunlight, guys. Yeah. So you cast light on this rock.

You toss it into the open uh air here in front of you. And what you're seeing here, this is the the main mine shaft that leads down into wherever this leads. The the chain itself is rusted and it extends from

that ramshackle building to a scaffold over the square mineshaft and it descends into the darkness. The hole in the earth belches that foul smelling gas. And you can actually see the small greenish hue as it begins to like billow

out from time to time, especially as it's reflected by this light on the stone. When it drops down, you watch it drop to 60 ft and then 120 and then 180 and then somewhere around 200 plus it connects with a wooden or

some sort of platform at the bottom. And on that platform itself, from this distance, it's too difficult to tell, but you can see that there are entities.

There are moving humanoid bodies far far down twineshaft on what looks to be an elevator platform just kind of moving around. They're shambling at the moment. And when your stone hits with the light, they immediately fall all over whatever this

light source is. And very quickly, your light is extinguished because it's smothered by their bodies.

Well, there's stuff down there that's sort of alive at least. See this? Why? Is there a is there a lever or anything to like pull like an elevator up?

Not outside, but you can see above you that there is a boom, a massive boom some 20 30 ft above you that leads to the building towards your east. So any controls must be inside that building.

Let's make our way. There's also building to the north and um there's plenty of stuff to look around in. So it's up to you.

Something about fish in a barrel. I don't know. But let's go see if we can pull the chain up.

Seems like the only way down. I'm going with you. You guys coming? [ __ ] God damn it.

[laughter] Same. I'll move Proteius along with you in case Todd makes it back. Uh, he's in roll 20. I guess he's just not in Not on uh Zoom yet or whatever this is.

This is Zoom, right? Yeah, this is Zoom. Can never remember, guys. Flashy Cat. Yeah, Flashy Cat. Exactly.

Oh my god. Oh, Jesus, dude. Dude, [laughter] Jesus, didn't I have to write a script for that or something?

You wrote a script for me to remove all the shitty borders that were everywhere so I could shrink down my video.

That's right. I and I much appreciated it. You get to the edge of this building and the buildings themselves are simple wood and iron construction. There's no glass for the most part. It just seems to be open air windows where there are

windows, but there are a few. Um, it smells of sweat, body odor, heavy hard work. Um, and the door itself is just kind of hanging on its hinge here as you get close to it. Inside completely pitch black. There are no light sources in any

of this. So, if you want light sources or if you need them, you're going to have to provide them yourself. But, Cinder, if I'm not mistaken, you can see in the dark vision. I have dark vision.

Some of you do, some of you do not. I do. I am Am I the only one that doesn't? I don't know. I don't pay attention.

I I don't have it. They don't have it. I don't know that Curt uh Curtis does either. I'm not entirely sure. I can't recall what you do see.

Sorry. Okay. What you do see um the room that you're just peeking into center contains dozens of old mining implements and scattered refues. Most of the visible floor is covered in smudged, filthy handprints which have disrupted the dust

and dirt that cling to every inch of this area. Hand prints. Walking around on all four hands.

[snorts] Well, I don't want you to be in there by yourself. No, you know, it's never a good idea.

But I'm going to go open this door and I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to cast light so I can see.

Does anybody want to prepare? Uh my armor sidearm. Not to lead the witness or anything, but does anybody want to look around in this room before you open the door?

I mean, look around. You know what? I think I want to look around in this room.

I just thought that might be a thing. Hey, you know, it's a good idea.

[ __ ] So roll me some perception [laughter] checks. Swear to God. I'm gonna cast.

Wow. There's some some rough perception checks there. Boy, Todd came back and he left again. Am I wrong?

He doesn't like us anymore. You know, I don't blame him. Uh, did we have multiples by somebody?

Cinder. Cinder, did you roll twice? Oh, that was your first one. That was one.

That was my other one. Gotcha. Gotcha. Gotcha. Both of them were shitty. So, they were not fantastic. I was just checking. Um I think Izzy, if no Yeah, Izzy. If no one else catches all of this, um you're looking around this area

and I believe that you see that these hand prints mostly lead to the door that Cinder is standing beside. But the other thing that you notice as you look through some of the debris and the discarded tools and and that sort of

thing, um I think you notice that there appears to be some worthwhile material, some some actual equipment over in a corner that could be used. Um, there you find what to you seems like a mall, a large two-handed hammer.

And there are also sitting right beside it, a pack that seems to have some magical aura coming off of it for your detect magic folk.

I thought you were saying that for me. I was like, I don't do that this time.

Yeah. Yeah, I know a couple of them do though. and most of them are using it all the time. This magical pack is an every need pack.

Um, that's a Pathfinder 2 item that basically allows you to pull forth mundane materials and necessities that you may not otherwise have. Um, you just kind of pull them out of the pack and there are two small bottles strapped to

the either side of this every needs pack. On one side there is a moderate alchemist fire bottle and on the other side is an oil of mending bottle.

So you have an oil of mending, an alchemist fire moderate and an every need pack along with a mundane maul, a two-handed uh maul if anybody needs it.

Huh, check this out. pick up the backpack. And that's kind of cool. Well, what's in it?

It's got a It's got a alchem looks like an alchemist fire. Looks like the the little ones that I had slightly bigger than the ones that I used before. And uh I think that's a mending I think. Yeah,

I think that's a mending thing. It brings out your eyes. Everything does. [laughter] So, a few items you can add to the list.

And then, sender, you are standing by this door now after having folks look around.

Uh, before he opens it, I'm casting this. It'll give me a little bit of light.

Flame with cast some light corner. They only last a minute. Uh, he cast light on something, didn't he? Uh, cast light. Yeah.

Oh, I thought you threw it down the shaft. No, no. I said I recast it so I could see.

I never heard that. I apologize. So, you have uh light cast on what? Uh, this usually veil shield.

Veil shield. Cool. Perfect. Unless you unless you object. No, I just meant like the shield's pretty decently sized, so it's just going to be this giant [ __ ] [laughter] moon beam on your arm.

Yeah, man. Yes, it and it's fine. It's a [ __ ] you rigid light bar on the front of every [laughter] Chevy Silverado known to man.

It is. Just imagine just how poor Cinder feels. He's getting oppressed by this giant [ __ ] mag light.

It is hard to hide in shadows with the light bar behind you. I Why don't you just cast it on this and I hand him like a a piece of this broken box?

Sure. I I would say why not do a rock in your hand and then you can close your hand.

Sure. Okay. So if it's copper, whatever. Yeah. If it's too bright, close your hand.

I open the door. Okay. [laughter] I open the door. Yes. Thinder, you open the door. Allow me to reveal the door to you.

Uh, gobble guys. Did you say gobble guys? Yes. Yeah, [laughter] you're wrong. It's seven gobble guys.

It's so much worse. So much worse. Close the door. You see inside. Oh, don't me. It's fine. This filthy room stinks of mold and stale sweat.

Four piles of rubbish are draped in rotten blankets and old cloth. You hear a squelching winnie of a sound as two large abominable creatures begin to stir. They have the silhouette of horses but seem to have the flesh and loose

anatomy of humans. They hobble about the room on four limbs, all ending in human hands, drooling large droops of putrid saliva onto the stained floor, turning towards you once they notice you. This is what you see.

I close the door. [laughter] I will show you your enemies which are the flesh dobbins.

Oh Jesus, that is horrific. You know zombie. Go ahead. I was going to say if zombie Marios had a mount.

Yeah, it probably would be a m a mount named Steve. Um, [laughter] these fleshcrafted half horse half humanoid creatures notice you. The light coming from the other side, smelling your living flesh, and they begin to winnie and move

towards you. We will begin next time in initiative because that is what we're going to call it for the evening.

Guys, thanks for playing. Next time you get to jump into combat with flesh dobbins tells me not to uh the room and then proceeds to make me uh the room.

He wants to wait to get an authentic. Yeah, that was Yeah, you got to wait till you get the full not just the token.

Yeah, that was Guys, thanks for playing. We're back uh at game night. We've had a full table this evening. That was fantastic.

Yep. Yep. Nice. Yeah, it's good to see all you. Yeah, same. Got some RP in, got some story stuff out there. Um, more trauma for Garrick, which is always my favorite thing to do.

More trauma. And uh, unfortunately, we lost a Perteus a little bit in there, but he can pick up the last little bits next time.

Yeah, you guys are at um, the Glitter Deep Mines. There is something, and I should say it to you. Unfortunately, you just went to the wrong building, so I couldn't really tell you. Uh, the building to the north has a sign on it.

The broken sign hangs on the door to the warehouse. Faded letters once read glitter deep mine. But the first two letters have been painted over by a vandal. So now it reads the skitter deep mine in weathered writing.

Nice. Excellent. Excellent. There it is. We will pick it up next time as you guys continue to explore the Skitter Deep Mine trying to find whatever hag is uh responsible for this terrible plague that's infecting Wicker Village. As always, thanks for playing.

Hope you guys have fun. Yep. See you, boys. You guys have a good rest of the weekend. Good night.

Have a good night. You as well. See you guys. See you.