Icebound | Ep. 12 | Host & Hostility
03:09:14 Share

Welcome to Legends of Avantris! I'm Scrimstabiscotch and you're listening to Icebound! Here's what happened last time! The champions will provide aid. With their strength, we will see the next dawn. Alright, my sweet boy. I've talked to you many times today and you know that all I want for you is to have the best life you possibly can. Bring the sun back with you, okay? You

You can see this delicate, fragile, small little sprout start to pull up and up and up. The sky erupts in light.

Standing in those same brilliant golden rays, it is replaced by a standing, breathing young boy, completely alive. I have never met you. I just want you to know that I love you. You have done it. Well done, you have succeeded in bringing back the child. We know that there is an artifact we need to find. That's a true armament. You start to realize as they wave that you are seeing...

through them. Yes, all of them begin to evaporate. They're fucking ghosts the entire time. Straight ghosts. And you are left, and you realize how hungry you feel. It's been an entire day, and you haven't had anything to eat as the food inside of your stomach fades. Oh, wow. I believe Daisy is right. Perhaps we should make our camp here.

So do we have any idea how long it's gonna take us to get back the direction that we came from to find this city? So we head southeast. A creature, a beast, very, very close, and all of a sudden two massive talons snatch...

Daisy up by the shoulders, picking her up and flying away this huge feathered beast with a massive wingspan. As I will just take my anchor and where Queenie had pierced it, I will aim in that to basically slam my anchor in and basically yank it down to rip its head off. You are able to pull its neck out and a few chains of spine come along with it and it immediately stops flapping.

and falls to the ground, slumping down. There might be warmth, like a hot spring. Like steam. Not far from here. You're able to approach what is very clearly a natural hot spring. We're good to just go in there and take a dip, right? You start to ease into the evening, but before the sun sets, there's a rustling sound. Out from the trees bursts a chimes.

giant ogre. It stops and looks at you with this confused look. Good lord! It can speak! Father! Father! The creature, the humanoid spoke! Oh my god, are they speaking? The father, uh, uh, he speaks something in giant. You understand. Ancestors give me strength.

and this purple swirling energy emanates from this wand with this orb at the top and you all feel yourself immediately grow sleepy and black out. Darkness, confusion, uncertainty.

The last clear image in your minds are of two strangely robed ogres confronting you and your companion Daisy while you were enjoying the comforts of a hot spring in the forested mountains of northwestern Drakkar. And beyond that point, only the muddled thoughts and visions flow through you like creeping fog.

You feel somehow weightless and heavy, both absent and present, awake and asleep. With these contrasting feelings comes neither panic nor calmness, but instead simple numb attentiveness as you watch the land move beneath you and the sky turn colors from brilliant blue to the dark blue-gray of night and back again.

A handful of days seemingly pass, and your weird voyage comes to an end. Awareness within you begins, slowly, to stir and re-emerge and your dulled senses start to come back to you. You feel warmth.

Fresh, pleasant, sweet air fills your lungs. The sensation of soft cushioning comes to you next beneath your hands, face, and body, and your bleary eyes open. Bright sunlight shines into the room you now find yourselves in, a blinding ray that pours into the space through a wide, arched, open window, and, looking up, a skylight in the high ceiling.

Thin purple linen drapes billow softly in the breeze. It's quiet, save for the subtle stirring of your allies and except for the bird song that can be heard from outside. The floor is a splendid pattern of colored ceramic tiles. Sitting up, you discover the furnishings that support you. Four finely crafted chaise lounge sofas, each big enough to be a king's bed.

Indeed, the space you now occupy is opulent, lavish, posh. Confusion still slowly fading from you, you realize by looking at each other that your adventuring gear seems to be missing. Replaced by simple linen robes. Curiously, you also each notice an odd bangle or pendant has been fitted around each of your necks. Reaching up, you can feel the band clutching tightly to your own.

There's no time to put these puzzle pieces together. It's in this moment before a word can be spoken. The wide door opposite the window swings open with a crash and in steps an 800 pound, 10 foot tall, pink robed, bald ogre that you recognize as the one who somehow has brought you all here.

The wand-wielding creature whose magics affected you so strongly at the hot springs. He comes in with a broad platter bearing steaming towels, which he nearly drops when he sees that everyone is now just sitting up. Loudly, he bellows, Oh! They're finally awake! What happens next is up to you. What have you done with us? Uh, done with you? My name's Queenie March.

All my stuff is gone. I'm gonna think the best, because I do like your robe. Why are we here, and why'd you take our stuff? Stealing ain't nice. We saved you. Of course. Of course. Just one moment. He goes and he sets the platform down and pulls one of the

uh, rags off of it. "Oh, we-we-we saved you! Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, we-we-we-we found you out in the madness, of course." "We were fine on our own. There was nothing mad about where we were or what we were doing." "I know you may feel that way. I know that that's what you think is really happening, but that is the nature of madness. All the things you think you've experienced out there, none of that ever happened." "Are you trying to tell me I never saw a ghost?"

He reaches over and he pulls out a piece of parchment, quite literally a set of scrolls. He starts to write down a ghost. Very interesting. Yes, a ghost. They have had it bad out there. Look, I'm sure I saw a ghost. I talked to it. I chased Will and Cheese.

A ghost cheese. I'm not making it up. Ghost cheese, even? I know it sounds ridiculous when I say it out loud, but it did happen. Just through... Yes. You had a shared experience then, all out there in the terrible madness? Well, we were all together for the entirety of it, so I think all of our experiences were shared for the most part. And you say you believe your name to be Queenie?

Oh, I don't believe it to be Queenie. I know it to be Queenie. Well, we'll see. It's only a matter of time. Perhaps the madness will fade from you soon. I'm not... What? Where is our feast? Oh! Feast? Of course you must be starving. Bacon! Bacon! No, the feast that I prepared, not strange pink man. It was, of course, corrupted. Corrupted terribly by the madness. We couldn't touch that meat. We had to leave it all there.

I spent four hours cleaning that thing. It may have felt like four hours, but it could have been minutes. I did a full ancient estuary dry rub on every inch of that beastie. You were just born. You couldn't just leave it. No, hold on. What do you mean I was just born? You just popped into existence just before my son found you. That is 100% not what happened. Is this what your son told you?

No, no, no, no, no. It's as a tale as old as time. People spring out into the madness, and very frequently ogres like myself will find them and then save them and restore them back to their natural life, their place. Have you ever thought that maybe you're just finding people that existed prior to you finding them? Believes ogres...

- I found real people. They're lucky to be saved. - I may have missed it, is Daisy here? - You do not see Daisy, nor do you see your companion Scrim. - Where are our other two companions?

Oh, yes, of course, of course, of course. Well, Daisy, uh, Daisy? Yes, Daisy. Oh, uh, she, uh, her name is Alcatra, of course. Alcatra, she is with her... How did you know what her name is? Well, we've seen her before. She's been with the House of Commons for forever. This is what she escaped from. Mm-hmm.

Oi, you little green fella. You didn't turn them into ogre stew, did you? No, of course not, of course not. They're unharmed. They're just with, uh... Uh, let me just make sure I can remember the name of the person who I've known my whole life. Oh, yes, Steve. Oh, yes. Was there something bad in that serpent, mate? Am I going mad, Mr. Yornear?

does not appear to be true. The Honorable Governor Gork Gustis has whoever you call this scrim to be, of course. All right, well, I'm not gonna lie, I really like that name, Gork Gustis. The Honorable as well. Yeah, there's something about that name I find incredibly amusing. However, I don't find any of what you're doing to us incredibly amusing. I don't like being gaslit. I know I ain't stupid. Gaslit?

Yes, and did you know that you're not stupid? You don't have the phenomenal intellect of an ogre, of course, but you're not stupid. You should never feel that way. You have powers of speech. We've never seen the madness turn a vassal like this before. It's fascinating. You are discovery beyond anything we've ever seen. Yeah. What's your IQ? How smart do you think you are?

I'm not sure what an IQ is, but whatever the top is, I'm probably the smartest one in Ogerton. That does not bode well for the rest of your people. Is that where we are? Are we in Ogerson? Who came up with that name? Ancestors. The founders, of course. Just after they traveled from Ogre Heaven. Were they as smart as you are?

Smarter. They designed all of this. They came here to pursue knowledge, to find and discover all things. And they named this place Ogerton? It's the town of ogres, Dunley. You think you're smart. Did you say that your ancestors came from ogre heaven? Yes, yes, yes. They were with our god for...

An eternity. But they knew that there was still knowledge. They could not have been with your god for an eternity. An eternity is forever. And if they are here now, they currently, or if they're gone now, they could not have stayed there for an eternity if they then left. That's a question for the House of Religion, really. That's really stupid, all right. I'm starting to get frustrated. My name is Manius Ogris Blaginius. So wait, you're trying to... Can you tell me what...

Can you tell me what that other ogre's name is? Gork Gustus? So you're telling me there's an ogre named Gork Gustus and your name is Manius Ogrius McGillicuddy McFarlane or something? There's no McGillicuddy. This is outrageous.

I think Gorgustus is the single word. A lot more syllables than most of the ogre brigands I've run into. Can you answer that question truthfully? Is it Gork-gustus or is it Gorgustus? It's Gork-gustus.

And you say you're intelligent. What are the five noble endeavors, really? For one, I said you're trying to make me feel stupid. I not once said, excuse me, ogre, I am intelligent. I am not. I come from the country, all right? I know my place. Two, is there a pause between the gork and the gustus? It's a simple question. There's a little bit of a pause, yes. Well, thank you, so it's not gorgustus. No, it's gorkgustus. Thank you. Commodus is a very good friend of mine. What?

And he's the governor of Ogerton. No, he's the governor of the House of Commerce. I'm the governor of the House of Education. Are all of you governors? Did all of you decide collectively that we're all going to be governors? No, these are the five great endeavors I just mentioned. We all have this station through merit and through our family lineage. You were asking someone.

Where is it? It's bacon. Why are you going to argue with this guy for like four hours? What exactly is the tax policy of locating? I need to ask you one more question. Hungry for knowledge. I love it. I'm hungry for something. Now, you think we were just born and that you discovered us just born out in your wild. You're crazy. I know that there's... And you expect me to understand your five pillars of...

Communism or whatever? Some do, yes, absolutely. Why? We've discovered those who have had these kinds of knowledge pieces before. You're the first four we've ever met who don't, who A, have the talent for speech, which is remarkable, and also that you have seemingly no understanding of where you are, who you are, what you are. I just told you who I was. My name's Queenie March. Yes, Queenie March. Yes, I have it written down here. Miss March if you're nasty.

Is that your last name, if you're nasty? I mean, it should be. All one word. Miss March, if you're nasty. I mean, look, I may be a little irritated, but that is a phenomenal name. That is a good name. Ah, of course. And in this moment, you see a human.

Walk in, wearing very similar robes to what you're wearing, and he carries a tray. And on the tray are five bowls of what appears to be steaming stew. That does not look like bacon. There's bread stuck in each one, and there's a larger bowl that's very clearly for manias. And Bacon walks forward and hands...

Oh, thank you, Bacon. Yes, of course. Thank you, thank you. Serve the rest of them and we'll continue our discourse. You have no idea what I'm learning. And sure enough, the silent vassal walks up and starts to hold out these bowls of what appears to be very delicious stews. I'm sorry he named you Bacon. Thank you, Bacon.

What's in this stew? What was your name again? Mr. Manius. Blaginius. Blaginius. You can call me Manius, though. That's fine. That's fine. Mr. Blaginius, what's in this stew, if I might ask? I call you Manny.

Mannyus is my preferred name and- Yeah, I know, but I asked if I could call you Manny. We haven't gotten to know each other well. We'll see if you keep your speech in due time. Okay, well, I'm gonna need you to rewind now. What's important is that- No, no, what's important is that you rewind that sentence. What do you mean by keep my speech? Are you trying to turn me into bacon? No, I'm concerned that the madness will fade and that eventually your powers of speech will fade with them. Does that happen before? It won't.

Well, no one's ever shown up with speech before. So these individuals show up without the ability to speak? Yes, yes, I've already written the House of Religion. He's going to be here tomorrow morning, post haste, and when he comes, he will attempt to wipe the madness from you, and in this moment, you will probably end up like bacon here. Have you not drawn a parallel between them all missing their tongues?

They don't missing their tongues. You remember that they have this scratch. And you can see... Their larynx? Their larynx. You can see that he, too, is equipped with one of these bangles around his neck. What is the process for this house of religions to clear the madness from us? What is that like?

I'm not the religious governor. He comes, he says a few words and performs some great powerful magics, a great cleric of Sopholiteus. And he will be the one to hopefully sap any of the corruption that may have imbued you or any of the objects you may have found in the mountains of madness. So you're saying we were at the mountains of madness?

I'm saying that you were in the madness and that they were the mountains. It is an endless, endless plain of mountains in all directions filled with terrible monsters. I'm amazed that we were able to save you. I know, he killed several of them. Now, I thought this was just a barren wasteland and we're apparently in some place called Ogerton. How do you all survive here in this absolute wasteland?

How do you get any of these ingredients? This is a paradise. It was made here by our gods so that we would be able to pursue the knowledge of the world so that we could complete our quest as ogres.

Does the weather feel warmer than, like, the Arctic? It's like 45 or 50 degrees. Oh my god! It is humid, the warm air is blowing in through the wind, and you realize that even in this robe you're extremely comfortable. The negative zero, negative 15, negative 45 is almost like a distant memory to you all of a sudden. You are realizing that even though he's taking these towels and sort of dotting his head as he's, uh,

flush with excitement speaking with you that it is mild. - Manius, are we still on Drakkar? - Drakkar? - Yeah, the continent of ice you found us on. We were in a hot spring on Drakkar. - Drakkar, it's a word I've never heard before. That's fascinating. - Do you believe that we sprung out of existence like this, wearing what we wore?

despite the signs of age and our faces, the weathering on our possessions? Yes? Can I ask you another question? I'm gonna go ahead and do it anyway. Why don't you think it's more important to study a subject in their natural form of being than to completely conform and change them into something else? Your natural form and being is as you would be here at Ogerton. No, no, what I'm saying is you took away all of our stuff.

and you're gonna give us to some strange person to take away our ability to speak.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, you're not understanding. This is just the madness speaking. Those artifacts, the things you came with will be studied. They will be examined. They will be cleansed of corruption. Don't you think we should be studied before you send us off to someone? Don't you think it makes more sense to keep us around and see how we progress over the course of a week or a month or a year before you send us off somewhere? As someone who's only been alive for perhaps...

Oh, you are. You are. You're speaking crazy madness. Of course you're going to. I'm speaking crazy madness. You're going to be. Your name's something McGillicuddy von Boomafoo. It's Mannius Ogris Blaginius. All right. And understand. And are you sure that's your real name? You need to be protected. Are you sure that's not your real name? Are you sure that's your real name? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm getting a little overwhelmed here.

Isn't it ironic that you are a man ogre and your name is Manius Ogrius? They're in a place called Ogerton. Oh, is that spelled T-O-N or T-O-W-N, but just pronounced? I wrote it down with just T-O-N. How do you spell Ogerton? O-G-R-E-T. You can spell? It's unmarkable. I have been alive probably longer than you have. Hundreds of years. Hundreds of years? Yes.

Where are my manners? Would you like a hot towel? Does it have some kind of poison on it? It's just hot water and towel. I don't trust it. You know, I will say... I'll give you a towel. And he reaches up and he leans down and hands you a face towel. It's nice and refreshing. I've broken the bones of...

of well-dressed merchants and nobles for less than that condescending laugh of yours. But seeing how there's-- What's your name? My name is Barnabas. Barnabas. Some call me the Dreadwake. Mm-hmm. Oh, goodness, that's very threatening. He's very ferocious.

I can see that. He looks it. You all look quite peculiar. Warped even from, I think, perhaps another effect of... Did you just say I look warped? Well, you have to understand... Oh, he's gone. Well, most vassals, they look like the one you would call a daisy. Yes, and the one that you just saw in here, Bacon, my head, the principal of our house.

Was Bacon a human? Yep. Those are humans. Oh, yes. We agree. You call them humans as well. Oh, yes. And did he come from human heaven? It's already starting. No, no, no. He came from ogre heaven.

And you are all reborn vassals, just like me. Hold on. Are you trying to say that we are ogre souls in reborn bodies? Or how do we come from ogre heaven if we're not ogres? In ogre heaven, there are similar vassals like bacon, and they go back and forth. Our vassal population is very stable. Where do you get them from?

Where do we get them from? Well, we find them in the mountains, though I will say it's been centuries. Centuries! Primarily, they just live here with us. No, no, I'm talking about how do you find, where do the vassals in heaven come from? I'm not sure I understand your question. You're very confusing. And I'm not confusing, sir. You're confusing. What I'm trying to say is if you come from ogre heaven, that's a heaven for ogres.

How are you getting humans into Ogre Heaven? Where are they coming from? Are you stealing them from human heaven? Are you stealing them from not heaven? Where are you getting the vessels in Ogre Heaven, sir? No, Queen, what he is saying is that in his religion, everything comes from Ogre Heaven. I understand that.

I am called YorNir. YorNir, the smart one.

I'm just picking up complex clues. And your name, sir? My name's Tai Shen. Tai Shen, wow. Mr. Fire Blossom. Usually vassals have names like Clove and Honey. It's very strange. My last name's Fire Blossom. That's kind of similar. It's kind of like Clove, but with a little more flair to it. Vassals don't usually have last names. They can't marry, after all.

Wasn't really on my agenda. I hadn't thought about it before. Do ogres have the sacrament of marriage? Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Actually, I haven't introduced you to my wife yet, but I understand that she'll be here any minute. I would like to send my condolences to your wife. Would you like a hot towel? I'll get you a hot towel. I think I'm good. I'd take a hot towel. I...

That's fucking brilliant. It's a little hot. It's a little big. I get it. Seeing the towels and the suit that I haven't touched yet and the bands on our necks, my right eye will flash blue and I will use Detect Magic and see...

If I'm picking up anything magical, knowing that he had the wand. What are the components of Detect Magic? It is inherent in my fear-bold blood. Oh, so you're blood magic-ing. Very exciting. Mr., uh...

Did I steal all my blood too near? Cool! I'm gonna just tie him up and you realize you don't have any blood! You realize you're a prune! You've been squeezed! We just gotta squeeze! We're getting out the ticks! Tickus Maximus! Come feast! And for the leeches!

This podcast is brought to you by our Patreon. Become a patron today at patreon.com slash legends of Avantris and gain access to tons of exclusive perks, including a monthly movie night and a weekly Patreon exclusive campaign set on the high seas. Shroud over salt marsh.

You can also go to thecrookedmoon.com to pick up your own copy of our first published supplement, The Crooked Moon, a folk horror tome for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition. And don't forget to snag all the extra goodies like dice, miniatures, plushies, a tarot deck, and more. Thank you. You're all still sitting on these enormous Shea Lounge chairs.

for lack of a better word, benches or beds, looking up at Manius. And he's still standing there, occasionally grabbing a new hot towel, occasionally taking a drink of soup. And in this moment, I don't think with any of your awareness, but you're near, you use your blood magic to cast...

Detect magic. And you do not get any magic from the room or around you, aside from the faint background magic that you would get from your magical allies. But you do experience a tremendous amount of magic at the hip of Manius. And looking down, you get the sense that there is a very powerful magical item just underneath his robe. Oh, God, is his penis a magical item? Yes, and he's nine and a half inches soft. LAUGHTER

My intended chance to engage. Fucking nasty. So unhappy with myself. This is to secure me. To save you. Oh!

And suddenly another ogre appears at the door, this open door. A shorter ogre, a younger ogre, wearing the same sort of bright but light pink robes. Father, are they awake? Oh.

Oh yes, of course, of course, of course. Come in, I need you to meet Taishen, Yornir, Queenie, and Barnamos Dreadwick. They are just fascinating, fascinating. They still speak, you know. They do? Oh wow, that's amazing. It's nice to see you again, Julian. I'm sorry, I tried to scare you. I was trying to do a little bit of a prank. Oh, it was just a prank, bro? You're lucky that you didn't get a harpoon to the throat.

Sneaking up on us like that. Well, normally that sort of thing doesn't happen. It doesn't. We scare you and then make you... From what I understand, am I messing it up, Father? No, no, no. It's quite fine. It's quite fine. Yes, he doesn't understand the ways of the world. I had been taking him out into the mountains to show him the ways to perhaps slay a foul monster or...

Discover some... Well, we discovered you, and so everything's fine. Have you been doing your homework? Yeah. Have you been doing your homework? I've been memorizing all the names I just... I just... I... Not... If you get all of your work done before sunset, let's say, we'll play ball. Ball? Ball, yes, of course. We go out to the courtyard and have a throw of it. Ha ha ha!

"Oh, right!" And he turns around and he trips and he sort of, "Oh, fuck!" And he like, slams into the frame of the door before, "Oh!" And then it like, gets up and just like, skitters out into the hallway and disappears. And then you hear another set of footsteps.

"Oh, that must be my wife. Everyone, everyone, be calm, be calm. Yo, yo, great surprise. Be calm. I'll be right back. I'll be right back." And he turns and he closes the door, leaving the four of you alone for the first time since you were woken for what seems to be perhaps a very brief period of time. Mr. Yorneir. Yes. Did I pick up the bottle?

and just black out. This is a shared moment between all of us. This is... Oh, I'm sober right now. You are. This definitely seems to be happening. Sorry, I dropped one of their ancient artifacts.

Is there a window? Yeah, there's the large open window with the purple drapes that seems to be open. I would like to stand up and walk to the window and try to look out to see if I can look over at the city. You hop down and you seem to be staring into the interior of what is a large villa.

A square courtyard is what it confronts you when you look down, and you can see that it is palatial. There's green grass. There's a beautiful fountain in the center with some statue adorning it, water spraying out in different directions. Very, very...

Well-fashioned. Looks brand new, even. And then you have topiaries. These large hedges that have been shaped, and you can see that they've been built to, or carved, to look like Manius, and what you can only assume is the rest of his family, a large, tall woman, what you think is Julianus.

two other young girls, and perhaps a teenage woman. You see two vassals out there, down there as well, similarly draped in robes. These are actually light pink, or light purple. And they are...

clipping and trimming and silently working the garden. That is what confronts you, and staring at the sky, beautiful bright blue sky, it seems still to be quite warm, you enjoy the fresh warmth against your skin. It's almost like summer in Mammut when you stare out into the space, but as if it was a wealthy manor owner.

Do I get any sense of like which way it's north, where the, like based on where the sun is, or can I see like some of the mountain, like the tips of the mountains where I think we would be? Make a perception check. What I'm trying to sort of get a sense of is do I feel like I'm in some weird portal, planar dimension, like totally gone, or do we feel like we're here in Drakkar, it's just they don't have the concept. Can I twist this?

Yeah. Use two twists. Use two twists. Yeah, two twists. I want to find out where the fuck we are. Oh no. Even with two? You know what I rolled before this? Yeah.

- Six, six, six. No fucking joke. - What an 8,000 chance, everybody. What an 8,000 chance for a beast. - I think it's gonna be pretty reasonable, given that you're wisdom, baby. - So it's plus eight. - Pretty good. Six plus eight, whatever that is. - 14. - 14. - 14, with a 14, I'll say that you do spy. Just over the roof, you can see the ridges of what appears to be mountains.

and it feels like a real place that you are in. It feels like you're not in a... Again, the tech magic is still going. You don't get a sense that there's any portal or dome or anything along those lines. This feels all natural. I believe we are in Dracar, the abandoned kingdom that the dragonborn told us about.

It's clearly been inhabited in the perhaps in the meantime since they've been there. Is it possible we're in Ogre Heaven? No, we are... you can see the mountains there. You can see we are still in Dakar. Those are the mountains that we were following on the way south. How does it come to be so nice here? We were just in frigid bitter winter. If I were to guess

Perhaps this Hexature armament is some side effect of making the climate warm or pleasant, or they're harnessing it in some way, or

If it's not here, whatever magical artifacts that we know are here, perhaps that is a secret. Boy, the scepter, that old mani-a-splainer over here is... He's waving around. Make a nature check of advantage. That's better. Nature, you say?

I'm not in phase, but it's a 20. With a dirty 20, you are aware, just like the hot springs that you were found in, that there are places in even the coldest of climates that have unusually...

warm weather. These are usually geothermal events that there are places where just because of the nature of perhaps some sort of underground magma or water flow that it's possible that this feature could be found in Drakkar, but it seems amazing that you would find yourself in a place like this.

It is possible that it is natural due to... think of the hot spring that we found. Just think of that, but at the large scale, perhaps that is what's happening. Wow. Is there any chance we wait out the winter here? Do we believe them to be the... Mania seems kind of nice, except for knocking us out, dragging us here, stripping off all our clothes and stealing all our stuff.

These robes are kind of nice. And I like this soup. Is the soup good? It's delicious. And I didn't answer Barnabas's question, but it is a beef and vegetable stew. It's a...

like country style. It's warming, it's bright, it is savory, very flavorful. - I would hesitate, but given the fact that I'm Wendikhurst, I'm gonna not hesitate to that utterly annihilate it. - Tashi, I hate to be a downer on your hopeful mood, but you know how Daisy has that mark on her neck.

Yes? I think if we stay here too long, we're all going to have one of those marks. And then we won't be able to hear the beautiful dulcet tones of your voice anymore. Oh. But didn't they say they didn't hear anyone speak beforehand? And people who can speak is something they've never encountered before. It seems like... He thinks we were born yesterday. Well, he's, you know, he's got some... They named that poor man Bacon. Bacon?

I actually thought those were pretty good, man. They changed Daisy's name from Daisy to like, "Bull-ass-fer-ato" or something. El Catra. I was close. Oh, you like, uh... Is she cat-like? Is she cat-like? El Catra sounds a lot more name-like than bacon. Oh, wait a minute. We know that Daisy and Honey

They were escaping something dangerous. A precarious position. Bad place. This place. If you want to remind me, she... I'm trying to think back to when we started to head on this path. Was she concerned as like, hey, that's where I escaped from or anything? Did she try to warn us at all about that? I kind of... Yeah, she like spit on the ground. She...

She was- well, no, I'm sorry. That's what I mean. She spit on the ground and she's like, that was an awful place, fuck them. Any name is better. No, you mean like, in like last session, how did she react? When we were here, we decided to go down the other side to go to the ruins. She did not react to like the region we were in. I think she was just like in a hot spring hanging out. But when they showed up, she started freaking out.

And she was doing like the belly thing and pointing and like pointing her throat and she was like going nuts. But he said that she's from the House of Commons. Commons or Commerce? Commerce. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Gork Augustus. So what color robes did Bacon have?

He would have had a light primary color robe. Okay. I wasn't sure if the colors meant different houses. Well, my only concern is that the vibe of this sort of town feels sort of like Pompeii and Herculaneum, and given that it's sort of volcanic events...

Maybe there's going to be a horrible volcanic explosion that kills them all. Like the doom of Ogerton is coming this way. But I don't know. That's just what it makes me think of. Mariana! Mariana! I've got a surprise for you, dear. Oh! You're back! Oh, good boy!

Oh, my sweet husband! Oh, a surprise! What have you got in me? Have you got in me another cat? No. Have you got in me a bear? It's in this next room. I'm not going to bring a bear in the house, Mariana. Have you... What have you got in me? What?

What could it possibly be? You're going to have to find out. Open the door, open the door. And all of a sudden the door slams open and you see a bald woman wearing a similarly pink robed hat, carrying a cat, a huge gray cat who's hanging there just. Oh, babies! You found four more vassals to join our family. I'm so pleased.

And she starts to run forward and she immediately picks you up Taishan and gives you a huge hug like a bear hug I need you to roll a dexterity saving throw. Oh Oh my god, a six! This tray is cursed I think. It really is. A dexterity save? Nine. With a nine the cat

Hits you, you take one point of slashing damage. Oh, and she turns and she just drops you back into your seat. She turns, oh, what are your names? She grabs you, Yornir, and you just find yourself suddenly stuck by this 10-foot-tall giant balding woman. Hideous, of course. I'm called Yornir. And I'm Taishan.

However, we are not vast enough. I believe your husband is confused. No, you're part of the family!

And she goes and she tries to grab both of you at the same time. Dexterity saving throw. Okay. It's for the cat. If you want to avoid the cat. 21. Oh, no, I'm advantage, yeah. You do not get, you're able to do this. Oh, yeah, face. And the claw just barely dodges your head. Oh!

I love you. Oi, madam. She turns to Manny. I love you. Oh, yes, of course. I was able to heroically. And they suddenly start to basically make out in front of you. I'm like right under their chin. He grabs her ass and they make a long kiss. My heart lies heavy for you, dear. I haven't been back in a week. I know.

I'm so glad you're back. It's like you've replaced my heart with the sun and then it exploded. Anyways, we're just onboarding them. They're going to be visited by the House of Religion soon and then they'll be full-on members, vassals, members of the family. Could you please reunite us with our companions? I'm sure you'll see them around, but they're part of another family.

Oh, so they are... we've been like separated permanently. Oh yes, it only made sense after all that was a terrible business that the one you call... I'm sorry, you never mentioned the other name, so he would refer to her as... Clove! Clove never returned, so it only made sense to make their family whole again. When did they leave first?

We got them, as soon as we came back, we sent them on their way in a carriage all the way down to the villa of House Avertier. This one moment. I've known them my whole life. I'm not used to jungling so many NPCs. I have only onset dementia. It's actually quite sad. LAUGHTER

Uh, the Gorgugustus house, yes, of course. Oh, Gorgugustus! We know Gorgugustus! Yeah, yeah, Gorgugustus, that's a good one. I feel like Dobro needs to be here. He really does. Oh, yes, Gorgugustus! What I mean is that when Clove and Elkhart are the first left here... Yes.

When was this? How did they get away? Oh, it was a month and a half, two months ago, however long, three months. One of their old vassals had escaped years ago, years ago, and he came back and then Clove and Alcatra made their way out. I have no idea what deal they made with Commodus. However, they...

Whatever they said, he stayed and they left. Into the madness. It's crazy. There's quite a scandal really. Were you or your people the ones that conducted the surgery on their throats?

No, no, no, we've never done surgery on their throats. No, it's not surgery. They're born this way. It's not something that we do to a vassal. This is why your nature of speech is so unusual. We've never had a non-ogre be able to use the common tongue in this manner. Is it all just humans, then, that are your vassals, or are there other...

species about? Well, they're small humanoids like yourself, humans, and whatever you are, and then... Well, you have other tritons. Triton? No, I don't know what a triton is. Dragonborn. Any more perhaps silver in scale? Dracarborn?

I'll be a dragonborn. Are you sure it's not Drakkar? You said Drakkar earlier. I have it here. I did say Drakkar earlier, but I was actually born in Yulong, on the Jade Shell Isles. We brew a mean cup of tea. That madness is just fascinating. What an imagination you have. It's remarkable what you've... I wish to record it all before you forget. It is truly remarkable.

I have to go, honey. I'm going to get his apparel done today. The weavers are almost complete. I must make my way. I want to get that bitch Cassie at the cat costume contest later. Thank you for the gift. I will be seeing you at dinner. Of course, of course, of course. Yes, yes, yes. And she turns and walks out.

I mean, I kind of want to stay here forever. I'm sort of the one that's saying that. Nick, you want to stay here forever? Queen has had enough. Manius, what are these necklaces that we have?

after we've woken up. Oh, the pendants, yes, yes, yes. This will indicate what family you are a part of. It is also a protective ward or charm. Makes sure that you don't get affected by the madness again. What symbols are for each of the houses? So we may know as we travel about your fair ogre town.

It's not a matter of symbols really, it is connected to our wands. You saw me use it when we found you at the hot springs, do you recall? Is that what sits on your hip now as we speak? Oh yes, oh yes, ogres are equipped with them, they're very important. It allows us to use powerful magics. I know that that might seem strange to you, but it's how I was able to safely transport you in your sleeping states. All ogres have these wands?

Not children. They've not yet been educated. That's part of my responsibility as governor of education. I make sure that they all are equipped to deal with the realities of the world. So there's education. And knowledge. Oh, yes. Commerce. Yes. Religion. Oh, yes. What were the other two? Three of the five. Do you know any of them? Can anyone guess? Uh, idiocy. No. Oh. Um...

You're very rude, Queenie. I do hope that you find that you will be well fed and well kept here, part of the family. She's from the country, you know, it's- It's very bracing, and also very tiny. I'm sorry, what? Very bracing, and also very tiny. You have such big ears, I'm not sure what I'm speaking of. I'm sorry, I can't hear you. I think I'm losing my ability for human speech.

Oh my goodness. Oh, is there a house of ships? Ooh. A house of ships. A house of ships. If there's a house of ships, then you've assigned me to the wrong house. No, no, no, no, not ships. Oh, wow. I bet there's a house of law or militant or some sort of enforcement. Oh, you're right on it. You're right on it. Military. Oh, yes. If you go to House Fangaro, Lucius will introduce you to the house of the military. He's governor. Ah. Oh, he does always.

The law. What is left? The man. So we have education, which is like the... indoctrination. Perhaps some sort of... Religion. Artistic endeavor, maybe creative. The arts. The owner, you are the smart one. That is fantastic. Of course, if you went to House Grotenica, you'd meet Lucilla, governess of the House of Art. I just realized something. I was born yesterday.

I remember who I was before I was born yesterday, and it was not Queen March. My name was Fiona, and I was a beautiful ogre princess. An ogre, you say? I was. Make a deception check. Oh my God.

I mean if you're from ogre heaven, I don't know. Oh you don't. Deception. 12. Should we twist it? I'm gonna twist it. One or two. Let's do two. Let's twist it. 12.

- I'm going eight to six. - Gotta warm up in here. - Weather's gotten better, weather's gotten better. - I'm actually quite hot myself, I'm gonna take my sweater off. - Yeah, I dropped it at 64, I guess I'm wearing a lot. - Of layers.

I'm feeling Legends of the Mantra-C too. Ooh, nice. The purple rose. I can't promise that my memory is 100% airtight, so I'm just getting little snippets here, you see. What kind of snippets are you getting? I can see myself...

as a bald ogre, beautiful, not quite as beautiful as your wife. - Thank you. - She is a little-- - She is a catch, let me tell you. - Absolutely. - I thought you said you were a redheaded ogre princess. - I was until my hair fell out. - Oh, had hair that was red and then fell out. - It was, yes. - Very confused. - Yes. Green skin. - Mm-hmm. - Yeah.

and just absolutely just built like a shithouse. A brick house? A shith-brick house. A shith-brick house. I can't tell you, Queenie, how... That must be why I thought my name was Queenie! Because I was a princess in my last life, and I was probably... Oh my god. It's all coming back to me. No wonder I came here from Ogre Heaven. Oh my gosh, Ogre Heaven really is real?

I believe it is, yes. Then perhaps she had a companion rabbit in gloves. Which is why... I bet I did. Which is why you turn into a rabbit and miss life. No wonder I immediately felt myself drawn to your wife.

I had a friend, a puss, in boots. Ah, puss in... I like ribbon gloves. It's a stretch.

And I just feel, I don't know, I feel there's something there. And, you know, I apologize for the rude things I said to you, because clearly being here is bringing my memory back to what it needs to be. No wonder I have speech. I was an ogre. It's an interesting theory. I should dismiss it immediately, but that's...

"I have a bittersweet feeling. "Tomorrow, in some ways, I want to learn everything "that you imagine you know and write it all down, "perhaps turn it into a book. "And on the other hand, I feel terrible pain. "I want to cure your, make sure that you are,

restored to your proper selves. I'm turning into s-- - That is something cryptic about him. - It is something very cryptic. You know I had it for a long time. - What's the next skeleton key? Of course, of course, of course, yes, yes. That's a bit of weakness, of course. - This is, now that you say this, Queenie, and I'll sort of like kind of knowingly like look.

It's coming back to me as well. Perhaps this is why we have speech. Perhaps we are just reincarnated ogres from Ogre Heaven. In fact, it's coming back to me, the language of Ogre Heaven. And then I will speak in giant. Yes, my native tongue. This is it. Make a deception check at advantage.

18. Loneguard says one insta story and Mikey has railroaded the whole session. 18. Did you speak the language of Ogre Heaven? No.

I'm guessing you do based on the look on your face? Question mark? Sotholith tests us indeed. This is beyond anything. I cannot. My heart sings. Yes, we are not merely vassals. Perhaps the five of us

including our small, great friend. Perhaps we are all prophets of the great ogre gods. It would make complete sense why we were delivered here with a vassal of our own.

We had Daisy in tow. This is a mystery beyond mysteries. This is unbelievable. You were found in the madness, you see. I have it written down all here. Such impossible, crazy things, and yet you speak the language of our god, Sopholith. This is... Yes. Sopholith. Perhaps you're right. We will need to consult with the other houses. I've had dreams before.

of where I was a great ogre brigand that led the Black Sail crew. Trothak the Shark Puncher. I had a great shark on each arm. Sounds jossum. Oy, and jossum it was, Mannius. And jossum it was.

We will need you. I need a new weapon beyond my fist and the chomping jaws of the sharks tied to them. Of course, sis. Oh, I just dunk them in some seawater occasionally. I need another hot towel. Would you like my hot towel? There have been tales of great... You throw it to him. Of great bands of heroes of all species and cultures who come from different backgrounds.

and perhaps we're reincarnated in a new life for our next adventure. Perhaps we were all ogre companions. We died, we went to ogre heaven, and were reincarnated instantly. You may call me Trothak now, Barnabas was merely a ruse from the perhaps the cruel trickster gods of this terrible land. Man, I've gotta go to sleep. I haven't had any of these dreams. What? You okay?

Are you covered in ancient estuary again? Realizing your true past is difficult. I'm not surprised that Barnabas has an itch in his throat. It will come to you, Tyshan, or whoever you are supposed to be. Wow. I believe perhaps maybe in your past life, instead of the fire blossom, you were fire belly and maybe a great brewer of ale or something. Fire ale. Wow.

There is, there is a Bullianus in town, I... A Bullianus? Bullianius. Oh, that was very close to being an unfortunate name. There are no unfortunate ogre names, except for that Organicus.

- I'm dying from a war canicus. - I'm sorry, kids, last one. - This is unbelievable. We have to have a hypothesis. We have to experiment. We have to understand. Now on the one hand, you are unusual in appearance. That could explain why you do not appear as the others who serve us. On the other hand, you are affected by some kind of madness, saying things that simply cannot be true. And on the other hand, you have the power of speech.

Do you have tales, fables, historical texts that speak of a coming of powerful beings?

We have, of course, many religious texts. I keep them all in the library. I govern. Have you read every single one of them, front to back? I am happy to say that I have. I am the most learned man in Ogerton. I will happily report to you anything you want to know from the library. Have you heard of anything about a great coming of ogres from Ogre Heaven?

Nothing, nothing like that. But once we compile all the knowledge there is to learn about the mortal world, we will be returned to heaven on our silver ship, the Dominant Mind, and we will make our way back to Ogre Heaven. Heroes! Heroes in the owls of our ancestors! Did you say the silver ship? Oh yes. Did you know that Barnabas is a captain? Oi, Trusak the Shark Puncher. Is it possible?

Is it possible you've already found all the information there is to have and we were sent here to ferry you back to Ogrehaven? With a captain in tow, a vassal of our own, a princess, a god, and whatever Tyshan is meant to be? A fire brewer! I need to make a group deception check. And, uh, Tyshan, yours is at advantage. Er, disadvantage. Oh! Deception? Not bad, actually. Can I twist?

Yes. 19. 21. Can I twist? Yep. Yeah. Everyone twist that needs to. If I roll at disadvantage, do I just roll one? Just roll one. Yeah, you roll one. Roll the loan. Yeah, you're getting a reroll. 21. 21, 19. Thank you, chat. Oh, 16. 16? 15. 15. Wow.

We're your holy crew of ogres and pirates. I think perhaps in a former life, Mr. Fireblossom, we were perhaps companions. It all makes sense now. Or should I say, Shaggoth the Black, the greatest, the father of all of the dragon ogres. The dragons that worshipped great dark dragon gods.

Ooh, Dread Lake. *laughs*

"Father, father!" You can hear a voice cry out through the art open window and Manius waltzes forward, distracted immediately from his studies and writing of your behavior and the things that you say. And he walks over, he looks down. "What is it, Julianus? "I finished, I'm ready to play ball."

"Very good, son! I would love to be spending more time with you, but I think that you'd be in better ha--" "Bacon! Bacon! Better hand in the hands of Principal Bacon. We will talk again, I think, very soon, but I have a date with my son.

And he turns and he's... Phrasing. Oi, that's quite... You enjoy your time. We reborn ogre heroes of old. We need to reclaim our memories. Now that the process has begun, thanks to your great magic. If you are what you say you are, we must be so close to the end. I think you were the one that discovered us and helped us reclaim our memories.

They might call you the Silver Admiral. Perhaps a fleet of silver ships will join us.

Head of the library. All of these titles sound very good. Yes, and he starts to leave and he doesn't close the door behind him. He waltzes out and starts to make his way through his villa to see his son. And it isn't moments later that Bacon will appear, but you have a second. I can't believe we're all ogres. Oh, you are so cute, Tashanna. No, no, yes, we are all ogres, yes. Yes, we're all ogres. Yes, what was your name, Mr. Yorneir?

Did you not-- - I have not given one. Perhaps given the fact that I speak their language, should I appear as maybe like the avatar of the reincarnation of their god so far? - Yeah, I think that should be you. I am a princess.

It then explains why I can speak giant and the rest of you don't. Well, does it make sense for a god to be reborn? I don't know. I think it totally does, or he's like the avatar of a god. There are many legends and religions where their god takes human form.

We're going to road to Eldorado this then. It's tough to be an ogre god. I like a meat chica. Well, I am your dread captain. The black sail. Oh, that's what I was thinking of. The black dread is, I was just too much on my own. You don't have to be Shaggoth. I could have just misspoke.

What do you mean? But I thought it was Shaggoth the Black, father of our black dragon ogres. You are. That's what we've seen in our memories, Tasha. Oh, the Black Rook.

Make a perception check, everyone. Shag off Blackrock. I like that. I like that. And this makes sense, how I came up with that cinnamon tea that had a kick with jalapeno. Where did that come from? It was probably Shag off. It was probably Shag off. The father of the dragon ogres. It just came to me out of nowhere. Perception. Suddenly everyone was breathing fire. 16. 16, 29? 21. 21, 16. 19. 19. 19.

Perception? Five. Five. You're talking and you're looking out the window, and you can see Manius has made his way out into this courtyard, onto the grass next to this fountain to meet with his son. And his son has this large bowl, for lack of a better term. And they both go to the corner. What is it? Does it just look like a normal ball? It looks like a softball football.

Like, it's football-colored and skinned, but it is softball-sized in a hand of an ogre. And they throw it, and it lands on the grass, and then one of them goes and picks it up and then makes their way back to the other one, and then the other one takes the ball and throws it, and then they go and get it. And they're not playing catch. They're just throwing the ball and then retrieving it.

And then coming back, and they seem to be talking, but... They're playing fetch. That is so cute. It seems sad, cute, and stupid all at once. We're the 21 year old here. You're the first to notice that the silent hand or principal of this house, Bacon, is standing in the doorway. Listening to all of you have this conversation. Bacon, welcome to our...

Council Rune. Ah, aye. As we regain our memories of heroes of Ogre Past. Oh, what were we called? The Ogre... The Heroes of Highmaul, perhaps. I think that's a great name. Perhaps I was... Where are you leaving us? All right, we shall follow. Perhaps we will.

He takes you down. And you realize that this villa is beautiful. Enormous. It is at least three stories on the side that you're on. And there are many adjacent rooms, some circular, some square. There are columns in all directions. There's drapes. There's art plaster on the wall. There's ceramic tiles in the same way that your...

room that you woke up in was adorned by. There are skylights occasionally peeking out from time to time. Beautiful chairs and furnishings in all directions. This is a wealthy home. And he makes his way eventually down to a landing area where you can see two great

staircases guide you down to the first floor. And that is where you turn back into the innards of this villa, making your way through these many hallways, passing through some open entryways, other doors that are closed, other doors that are opened. Everything is ogre-scaled.

So even for your medium-sized humanoids, and even for you, Jorn, here, everything is spacious. The ceilings are high and tall. The rooms are wide. The seating, for every single chair that you could possibly find yourself sitting on, Queenie, none of your feet would ever, ever touch the floor. And he makes his way with you past the kitchen, past...

all kinds of additional servants of the house, vassals. You see them all working and some weaving. You pass past Mariana.

She's dressed up the cat in a little top hat with a little bow tie, and it's looking extremely grumpy and already done with the day, but you think that that's probably always its mood. So is this like a Maine Coon? This is gigantic. Yes, yes, yes, yes. And huge tufts of gray hair in all directions just matted in. In the size of a giant mastiff, but a cat. Yes, exactly right. It's just a tiger.

Yeah. That's new. I've heard it. And he takes you and he goes, and he's pointing to a room that seems to be near the branch of this villa where the vassals sleep. You're passing now what look more like hostel rooms with bunk beds and these sorts of features. And he points through and you can see that this is the baths.

This is the showers. This is, and he looks at you all and he points. Are you saying we stink and we should take a shower? That's fine, I agree with you. I do have a question while we bathe. Could our possessions, our belongings that were removed from us, could we have those returned to us, please? At least a shell, sir. A pearlescent spiral, not a Lachelle.

Everyone make an intelligence check at advantage. It's not a weapon. It's just very precious to me. Oh, advantage? Advantage. Oh, wow. 19. 13. 18. 19. Every one of you suddenly realizes that this is not Daisy.

This is another similarly hand-coding vassal in his town of Ogreton, in his station. And he may have the highest station of the vassals here, but he's not signing to you the way that Daisy or Honey did. He is gesturing. And in this moment, he goes...

Like you'll ever get that back. And you all understand him because you've spent enough time with Daisy, but he doesn't realize that you see and understand what he's saying. What do you mean we're never gonna get that back? You can understand me? Yeah, of course you can. We're literally reborn ogres. The ogres don't understand this. Well, they're just not paying attention. They don't see what we say. They've never understood us. We've tried everything.

That's just unfortunate. You can read my hands? This is only just how we communicate with each other. You are like a bridge between worlds. That's why we're here. Oh, you're the bridge between worlds. Well, hey, say true. We have a friend who speaks like you do. We learned it from her. Yeah, Daisy. She's going by... Encantra. Yeah.

- Yeah. - El Catra. - El Catra. - El Catra. - El Catra. - They name us the stupidest thing. - Famous wrestler. - Your name's Bacon. - What may we call you if you can perhaps? - They give us all food names. - What's El Catra? - It's a stewed beef dish. I understand that it's been an ancient dish in Ogerton for millennia. - Oh, so we ate upstairs.

No, no, no, that was just stew. This is a braised dish. It probably isn't worth cooking if I even heard of it. I sailed across all of the vantress. I do like a braised meat, though. Anyway, we're getting sidetracked. I've been to 11 of the 12 continents. Wow, really? I have, yeah, and this was my 11th. Is there a name you would prefer that we refer to you as that is not bacon? We don't really give each other names.

It's too hard without the ability to talk, to do anything but stay in the present and make sure that you're doing all the work that you can do, pulling your weight as part of the house. And perhaps we will continue with Bacon to maintain our heroic, divine ogre-tude. Well, Bacon, why do you think we won't get our stuff back? Don't they give it back when they cleanse us of the madness?

When Julianus and Manius arrived, they immediately sent all of your things as though they were toxic or poison to be inspected. They believe it's infected by the madness. I may be right.

It may be the safest choice for it to go into the city and be observed by those there who do that sort of thing. I don't know the full process, but then they sent your friend and Alcatra away. Now you're just here, part of the family. How long have you been in this position? My whole life. Well, I mean, not as principal. I've been principal for close to 10 years.

but you were born here yes we we all have been the the the relationship of vassal and and house and family and ogre this has been true for centuries so what have you been told to do with us once we bathe uh you'll be able to rest you'll be able to learn a little bit about what work needs to be done here i was hoping to have a

an evaluation of you to understand what you're good at, but now I can just ask. We need to find a way to understand what's going on here. A Trothak Sharkpuncher needs a good bath. Right, Shaggoth Blackrock? Shaggoth of the Blackrock could use a clean up as well. It is understandable that you would want a bath. Can you please refer to me as Fiona going forward? That is my true name.

The only way I can refer to you is like this. That's exactly what I meant. Can you point real hard? If that's what you feel in your heart, then that's fine. Please enjoy the amenities. Take all the time you need. We'll talk about how you're going to serve the house. It's the most important thing. And we'll take it one day at a time. Before we get in, can you help me with my pendant? I don't want to get it wet.

Those don't come off. Oh, well. And he has one too? Yeah. In fact, all of the vassals you've seen so far have the same strap, for lack of a better word. A flexible, almost cloth-like material, but not exactly like that. And then like a little indicating gem or just some sort of like a locket almost. May I see your pendant?

Make sure you clean under these regularly. They get a little dirty. I want to move it to see if I can see some kind of scar. As soon as you start to put your fingers underneath it, he pulls away. Did I get any kind of glimpse of an edge of a scar or anything? What are you doing? I'm curious what is underneath the gem. My neck? Do you have a scar there? I don't know what you're talking about. He asks because our friends that we knew that taught us your language had scars on their necks.

- Giant scars, like from here to here. - And a bit of a star pattern. - You realize that if he had a scar, the pendant would cover it. It would have been just the right size. I am not sure what you mean, but perhaps you have been touched a little bit by the madness. - I can't bud it. - Let us bathe. - We will bathe, thank you very much. - Please enjoy your shower. Thank you. If you need more food,

There's plenty. If you need really anything at all, that's why I'm here. To make sure that you're protected from yourselves and from the ogres and that you do a full day's work. And, uh...

Bring a few more bowls of that stew, perhaps, of the size that you gave to Mr. Ogress. Manny. Manny, to Manicus. Of course. And if you have, do you all know what an ancient estuary is? Just season it how you would. Of course. We are fine cooks. And he turns and he makes his way down the hall and you can hear the sound of his feet.

Thank you. In this quiet space. Thank you, Bacon. And you realize that going into the bath that there's functionality, for lack of a better word, handles, and turning them hot water.

not cold water or even like the hot spring. You have the ability to regulate this through a marvel of engineering. And it takes a few minutes for all of you to talk through and work out exactly how this works. And there's a division for different stalls that allows you to enjoy some privacy. And for the first time,

before arriving in Drakkar, before your voyage, before your time in the labor camp in Wuzei in that humid, terrible jungle, before your travels, perhaps. Who knows how long it's been when you've been truly able to privately submerge yourself in such luxury.

And that is where the four of you find yourself. You will be able to enjoy a moment of privacy together at this place. In the bathhouse of the villa of House Blaginius.

You are, for the first time, alone and enjoying almost like a hot rain. The perfect temperature. You're able to make it a little hotter if you want to, a little cooler if you want to. And even over the sound of the showering water, you can speak to each other and feel for a moment that after your strange experience in Drakkar, after all of the survival that you've had to confront,

You are able to decompress the kind of luxury that you were hoping to enjoy in the hot spring. Even in this strange place, this feels like a respite. What happens next? It's up to you. It's up to you. I get completely naked and get in the shower. You do that.

- And I just start singing "Cottontail Joe." - Are there individual, like a bath I can get in? - It's like a communal shower. - I will immediately, if Queenie starts undressing, I'm gonna immediately turn my head. - It's semi-communal, but there are large enough walls that a person would be able to enjoy

privacy. Okay. Because of her height, you would just see the water crack coming down into her style and like two, uh, like maybe just the top of her head in two years. Okay. Exactly right. Um...

But is there like a big central bath where we can soak and commune with each other? It's not like a full bath house in that way. There isn't one of those like low pools of water. I'm picking up Roman vibes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's great that you are. But you're wrong. But you're wrong. What a gosh darn bath.

This is more like the gym style stalls that you would have in a high school, but a little bit more luxurious. So I immediately, if I know that Queenie's not going to see me, I immediately come an old guy, just a completely butt-ass naked, and just walk around, just like, you know, just... Shake her out a little bit. Yeah, let it air out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll bathe myself. You look in whatever direction you choose.

What is that supposed to mean, DM?

I don't know, I wanted you to internally make the choices of whether you glance or not. Are you one of those like eye lockers? Or are you gonna be like, or are you gonna, you know, just one of those. Yeah, what do you do? I'm not asking, we're skipping that part. You guys are all talking. Barnabus walks up and puts his leg on the bench right next to us. How's everybody doing? That was a good workout, wasn't it? Yeah.

Good stretch! After playing some racquetball! After playing fetch? No, it was ball. Oh, right. No, after playing a game of ball. Oh, right. Okay. It was ball. I don't look. I don't glance. Instead, I will bathe myself as well. I'll probably be like here over the stall.

But I'll not join Queenie, but if there's another partition. As a reminder, you all feel perhaps more naked than you might. Not just because you are actually getting nude and showering yourself and using the amenities herein to cologne yourself and to wash yourself with rags or linens, these sorts of things. But you had to take off not your adventuring gear. You still don't have your tusks.

your walking stick, you don't have Meiling's teapot, you don't have the shell of the sea, you don't have your honeypot at your side. There is a missing puzzle piece here that hits you especially strongly when you enter this sauna-like place.

Isn't it funny that no matter how smart you are, you can never figure out somebody else's shower? Wait, why don't they mark it? It goes around in a full circle. It's like, oh, it's cold. Oh, no, it's hot. Okay. Oh, it's hot. Oh, no, it's cold. How the fuck does this work? This is a circle my levers pull directly towards me. And there are three of them. Oh, you have no idea. That is fresh water.

It is fresh water. You do notice that it is... It is indeed. It is tasteful, meaning that it doesn't taste bitter or algae-like or anything like that. This is mineral-esque. Very nice when it hits you in the face, as it washes over your body. It's not hard water. Soft, terrific water. Really, really warm. Oh, yeah, this is pretty terrific water, actually. I love terrific water. Now, you know...

There's a little shrimp. Save that for later. You know, I heard tales that there was a small island in the Delphinus chain where there were cyclopes that would all eat this pink lily and it was a paradise.

but anyone that would be welcomed into their community would lose years at a time. It's like a terrible, horrible mind cult. Wait, what was the name of that silver ship called? Oh, the Andromeda? The Dominant Mind? Dominant Mind, yes. Oh, that was it. That was it. That's not ominous at all, is it? Well, I mean, do you think that that is referencing something? I don't know. Something is obviously not right here with their minds.

Mania seems to favor intellect. Maybe he just thinks that the mind is dominant. Maybe that's their belief, that's their understanding, is that over physicality, the mind is important beyond all else. That checks. And there's a silver ship. I mean, I've heard of a silver ship, and it's more of a metaphorical thing. Could be a sort of bridge that they take to Ogre Heaven.

It appears as like a silver light. How did, when uh... I saw the green light, perhaps. When Secundus appeared to us, how did he come down? He was on a horse. He didn't descend? But didn't he descend? No, he was just on a hill. He just showed up somewhere? Yeah, he was just... Descended the hill for some of us. Yeah. On a silver horse. There was more of like a brassy...

It's just like a robot horse. A what? A robot. I know a newer Robert once, but not a... No, it's a warden giant. His metal steed. Atop his metal steed. Hmm. I think we need to meet this person that...

cleanses these... I think we need all of our alibis ironclad. You hear a few footsteps. Barnabas. Is that you? A vassal you've not yet met walks up to the division, this almost like concrete barrier between you and the exterior where you can see through an entryway that would lead to

- To the hallway. - Ah, my stew! - And two bowls are slid up by hands. - Oh wait, you can come around, I ain't gonna bite. - And then you see the back of a head, a female head turn and-- - Ah, get out of here! - And they're gone. But you have next to your shower-- - Why are they sending young ladies in the men's room? - This is not the men's room, thank you.

It's impropriety is what I'm saying. I'm in this room currently. I mean, you're Queenie though. You know, you're kind of like one of the guys. Well, I'm just going to keep washing under my breasts. You know, it's a little fur. You know, it's kind of like, you know,

Guys night. I think the Queenie can hang on a guys night. Anyway. I've hung on many a guys night. I think that we need our ogre souls. We need to remember our ogre souls quite well so we can be convincing. Should I be soulful as the reborn?

Or is that too much? Oh, you think that's a little much? Then won't they say, "Oh, of course, you're great tenants! Tell us all about what we worship!" I don't remember. Or at least can I be some kind of overking? Well, you can be a king, we have a- And perhaps you were all my... Wait, wait, do you get to choose? Haven't you just remembered it? What? Why are you talking about choosing your... Don't you just remember it?

Has there just been an ogre soul in your body? Tyshen, I think... I would say that you've been in the hot water a little too long, but maybe you've been in the cold for too long. Are dragons worm-blooded? That's a...

I think so. Technically. Damn it Barnabus, I'm not a scientist. I'm a sorcerer. Fucking metamagic, how does it work? Twin? What? And even then! Then choose a name for me. I came up with two really great personas.

I've dealt mostly with... I mean, obviously there's Fiona Allstar. Oh, is that my new last name? I feel like that's a queenly name. Yeah, I like it. Perhaps your whole theme can be celestial of sorts. Hey now, I'm an Allstar. It's your game on, go play. Sounds great to me. I will think on it.

What name do you choose for yourself, Barnabas? I am Trotha- Trothak. Let me just double check to make sure I get it right. I think it was Trothak, but hold on. Trothak, yeah, Trothak, the Shark Puncher. Trothak, Shark Puncher. And for you, Taishan? Shagoth of the Blackrock!

Shag off. Leader of the dragon ogres. Blackrock. Brewer of the finest. Oh, I should probably be the leader of the sea ogres then. I think that makes sense. I should probably be leader of the land ogres. Swamp ogres? Oh, star ogres, if you're all star. Are there space ogres? I don't know, I'm feeling I should be the leader of the swamp ogres. Barnabas. Yorneir, what determinations have you come to?

You don't have to, obviously, right now, because you haven't, but... Oh, you're Gulcho. Good old Gulcho. No, that is horrible. Good old Gulcho. Gulcho Marx. I will be Jotnar. Jotnar. Jotnar, yes.

King of the Frost Ogres. Ooh, nice. I love the Frost Ogres. They're great. Okay. You guys are chatting and you are given a limited amount of time and it isn't until you really finish your stew and feel like you are spent with the shower. It's to the point where you're pruning that you turn things off, towel yourselves, re-adorn your

Robes and find yourselves confronted by bacon who is standing Standing outside the door I mean who doesn't want to be confronted by bacon a little bit He's standing there, and he has a tray out He can't gesture to you, but he pushes it forward and

And you can see that on this tray there are a variety of small, what look like perfume or cologne spritzes, bottles, that you can choose for yourself. Some of them are in crystal, others in small ceramic spaces. They've got little puffer devices that allow you to spritz yourself. He's gesturing, sort of smiling, looking at you expectantly like this is the last step so that you can...

Stop being dirty, Fox. Be appropriate. I'll take one. What are the scents? You came up with 40 names for ogres, so I'm assuming you have scents for each of these perfumed ones. This is Mary Billington. One moment, one moment. This is so vague. There are eight available colognes. Anyone can decide on what is available, but up to four only. Oh. Yeah.

Dew drop starshine? Why does it smell like cotton candy? There is a cotton candy one, for sure. What do I do with these? You just spritz the ball at the end. I'll take these. You find that.

This one says "O-denism" I think it says "O-denism" That's pretty fucking funny That's really fucking funny That's really... I actually think that's funny That's a good enough pun, you get an inspiration It was news that thought of it Oh shit You lost yours You lost yours "O-denism"

And Pax Unplugged knows you get a whole calzone. I didn't read that from those. I just thought of that. It's fine.

You are watching the rest. It's obvious that you push the puffer and then you get hit with some sort of a scent thing. It's something musky. There's sort of like a leathery thing going on, perhaps a tobacco almost smell, not in an unpleasant ashy way, but in a sandalwood, like woody way.

The sea star sandcastle? That sounds about right. Do they even know what a sea star is? Where do they get this? I guess I've plundered. He sets the tray down. Tomorrow, first thing, the gentleman from House of Religion will be here, the governor. We'll need to be on our best behavior.

And I'm guessing that they will still want to go through with the process of removing your curses, for whatever reason. Who removes the curses?

The governor of the House of Religion, his name is Octavio Scrolocero. Octavio Scrolocero. And he will, I believe, read from some paper, and it shouldn't be painful. It shouldn't be anything, really. It should be... If you are ogre souls, you should be safe and fine. Well, good. In the meantime...

I have to treat you as though you are one of the families, like myself. What kind of work can you do that we can make sure is something that adds value to the house? What kind of work would break the back of even the strongest ogres here? Hard labor? Oy. Hmm.

I'll put these lads to shame. Cleaning, working the farm, butchery. There are sewers that need... I'm mighty fine at butchering. I'm good with a cleaver. If you need to clean your kills as well. Okay. Well, I am a cook. If you have need in the kitchen, that's perhaps my best skill set.

Butchery and cooking. Very good, very good. I'll keep you on butchery for now. We'll see how you do. That's fine. Fiona. Yeah? How can you contribute to the house? Well, I know how to change a nappy. So if there are any babies about, I can do that. If you want to give me my bow and my arrows back, I can hunt game for food.

Other than that, I can tell stories. So I guess really I would function as a glorified ogre babysitter. Well, there are the two young daughters. Yeah, I can hang out with them. Babysitting. Very brave. I can't recall your name. I'm sorry. It is fine.

If you need healing of any kind, I could heal. If you need help with livestock, if you need help with crops, if you need help with anything related to the land, I can probably assist. There's farming. There's, of course, the very important work in the garden. We have many, many hedges and topiaries and plants that need tending to. Which one is more critical? We have good...

Gardeners, just before winter takes on its fullest breath here in Ogerton, I would ask that you make sure that we've done our work. Farmer. I'll stop. Great newt nor brings great blessings to crops. It is.

Blessing of the frost? Yeah, to protect it from the cold. From the cold, yeah. And we all know that the blessing of the stars, the great fertility goddess, as worshipped by the stars who lived in stars. Well, I think it's more like, you know... All stars. I'm the princess of the swamp, so I tend to swamp critters.

I say true. And you? Shaggoth of the Blackrock could brew, has innovated the Firebelly Brew. I could brew a grog so strong that, forget the house...

We could spread it to the entire city, and if a wayward adventurer had to collect 15 MacGuffins, the ogres drinking this would be knocked out for at least 10 minutes. They'd be able to walk into every hut and go, "Ah!" Complete all of the quests! That's a strong grog. We're not trying to put them out, but we could use a brewer.

We have a tremendously sized wine cellar, and if you would be able to maintain it, keep it up to date, that would free up two of my vassals to go do important work. Not only am I going to keep it up to date, I'll keep it up to date. Thanks.

Thank you. I mean, Ogre? Shoggoth! Why is he going to keep it up to date? He's going to keep it up to snuff. Thank you. Yes. I may even keep it ahead of date. Thank you, Shoggoth. Well, you're welcome. Although Shoggoth is public domain. We're being a little different here. Any goth is fine with me. He bows and...

Um, he leads you, he leads you not to the quarters of the, um, uh,

the hostel-like quarters of the vassals. Apparently, guest rooms have been made out for you. A single guest room, surely, but with your linen robes reapplied and your cologne wafting into your own faces, your bellies full, you make your way back up to the second floor and into what are clearly accommodations for guests.

and they have made out the bed for you. The four beds that you find in this space. Ogre-sized, all of them. So they would be luxuriously sized mattresses, even for you, you're near. You could lie out in this space and your head nor your feet would touch the bed frame in a space this size. Nice.

And left there by one or two other vassals checking in on you, you realize that night has come, and it's time for bed. What do you do? We all sleep in the same room? Yep. Okay. And there's no one else in the room? Mm-hmm. I hop into bed. It's been quite a while since we've had proper rest. Oh, I know. I'm trying not to get too used to this, but it's getting a little hard not to. I believe we should still keep watch in case...

Someone comes in the middle of the night. I'm a little concerned for Mr. Staviskosch. Oh, he doesn't like being left alone. He doesn't do well on his own. As soon as they said that we'd have to do work, I don't think he'll make it a single day. We will find him. We will find our possessions. We will get out of here, I have no doubt. Oh, you know Scrim? He's gonna say something like...

Well, I'm really good at watching doors. I'll sit here and watch this door for the whole day. No one will come in or out that I haven't seen. That's a pretty good script. You would say, I'll guard the liquor cabinet. Yeah. That is something you would say. Professional testers do. Where is the brandy? Hey, hey, hey.

"I'm a Dupman, hey!" "I'm a lovely Dupman, hey!" Yeah, or he'll say like, "Don't put me back in the egg!" "Oh, there's a big scary dog!" "Oh, you oughta call me Pussycat!" "I'm afraid of a dog!" And he's not here to defend himself. "Oh, you're right, it'll be fine!"

I can take first watch, and I will wake up. We're gonna have to take watch in this place. Oh, you haven't even tried the bed yet? I'm stretched so hard, it's like one of those times where your muscles are almost out of your body, and then your soul escapes. It does look very pleasant. I have one suggestion before we go to bed. I have given up the bottle, but I am still a gambling man. I say we take bets on what happens to Scrimm.

My bet is that he will be the pet of one of these high ogre ladies. You think? I exactly think that that's going to happen. He will be dressed up. Exactly right. He's going to be entered. We are going to go to the cat dress-up competition and Mr. Staff of Scotch is going to be there.

- Looking like this. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. And a little bow. Yeah, that is my bet. - Oh! - I'll bet 15 doubloons. - If that is not what happens, I will be incredibly disappointed. I'm not betting against that. I want that to happen. - You can add to the pot. - I'll take that bet. - I will bet, what are doubloons? - Oh, you go gold pieces. - I will bet 15 gold pieces.

- I'll bet 15 gold pieces. - With Barnaboats. - Not that he ends up as a cat, though I would spend the 15 gold pieces to see it myself. I think that Scrim bamboozles him and ends up organizing the show somehow.

That would take, I believe, too much initiative and organization for Scrim to pull off. Well, he'll say that he'll organize it, but then-- I think he's just gonna try and win the prize as a weird green cat. I think he'll say that he'll organize it, but then he'll demand a team of people to help him accomplish it. He'll give them all tasks, all of which will fulfill every possible rule. You think a lot of Scrim, don't you? And then he'll just say, "Well, he's kind of an idea guy."

- No, he does have good plans. - He came up with all the plans. - Just because he has a spell called Idea does not make him the Idea Guy. - Is that true? - It's not true. - That's not what- - That it doesn't make him the Idea Guy. - Yes, that that doesn't make him the Idea Guy. - So the reason I'm betting with Barnabas on this one is I think you are partially right, but I think he's going to use being in that competition as a way to escape.

Because he's gonna have to strut his stuff on a stage more than likely, he can then escape out of the back. That's my thought. With all eyes on him? Well, I'm sure they have a backstage, Taiji. That's true. Either way, we should get some sleep. What if there's a talent contest for these animals? Why does it matter? I'm just wondering what Scrim's talent would be. Can't he, like, flip a coin real good?

He's not winning this contest. Oh, he can do the thing with a knife! Can you imagine seeing a green cat wield a knife? There were crab knife fights that I used to bet on. I've seen those. Yeah, they're real. Crabs are shockingly good with knives. I don't know if you've seen them wield. And they're, I mean, so if it's anything like that, it's gonna get bloody. Well...

If they took all of our stuff, they more than likely took all of Scrim's stuff, which means he won't have his coin. He's not going to have... Well, he can't get rid of the coin. It'll get back to him. Oh, that's fair. And he can't be separated from his blade either. Oh! He's the most armed of all of us, really. Why is he always missing when we need him? Let us get some sleep. I will take first watch. Do we really need to take first watch? I don't want to do it. I want to sleep all night long.

What's the worst thing that can happen? They've already stolen all of our stuff, kidnapped us, made us take a shower in a room that probably had some kind of camera or something in it. The worst thing that could happen is- Like an Airbnb. An AirDnB. Our throats could be caught in the middle of the night. Yeah, but what are we gonna do about it? We could be violent.

I still have all of my magic. I can turn into a vicious animal and probably slaughter anyone who would try. So why don't you stay up all night and watch us, because I can't do shit. Well, I just...

You need to get at least six hours of sleep mechanically. I could hop over them ferociously and make rabbit noises. You could wake me up. You could wake us up. But then you're not getting six hours of sleep. Well, if... If we're getting our throats cut, it's better. I'll be a little tired until you cut through this, Marge. Is what I'll say.

I'll take whatever watch you suggest, Mr. Yornir. You just tell me what to do. First, second, third, fourth. Can I take first so I can get... First. Thanks. Second, third, fourth. Okay. All right. All right. Good night. See you in the morning. God damn, I'm cranky today. I pass out immediately.

You all pass out immediately, except for you, sitting and watching, looking out at the stars. Why do they always get erections the moment they fall asleep? It's just so weird. I don't have any more towels. I just stole all three of them. The moment they fall asleep, it's like...

Oh, you didn't miss me. Outrageous, outrageous. You're thinking about this and other things as... Pondering the questions that need to be answered. I need Yornir, Taishen, and Barnabas to make an intelligence saving throw. Intelligence? You say? Wait, so who's making intelligence? Everyone except for you, because you're awake. Intelligence...

Oh, I forgot it's on my phone. I need to get the internet on. Wait, am I proficient? Oh, actually, I'm going to turn this iPad off. Why can't you get the internet? I don't know. I can connect, but... I'll twist once. I'll twist once as well. I mean, we have some twists. We have some twists. Do you want a chunk, too? I'm not profi... I mean, I don't have any. I'm proficient, so I would like to burn two, please. Okay, so we'll burn four. I'm using one.

Intelligence... Oh, I thought that was an 18. Oh, so that'll be a 10. 10? A 10 for me. Well, it went up a little. 16. 16. 8. 8? I said what I said. Taishen. Yeah, your erection explodes. Taishen, you dream. Oh, nice.

You are in a library. You wake up to the dream space of many shelves in all directions, not just left, right, forward and backwards, but seemingly spread out in five directions all around you. You can see tome after tome after tome stretching out into almost infinity in all directions and an ambient glow of light

seems to be coming from nothingness and everywhere all at once. You look up and you can see a tiny speck because there is floor after floor after floor after floor after floor after floor after floor after floor of this giant library space that you suddenly find yourself in. Where does your mind go in this dream as Taishen? You feel as you make this choice

Back of your neck, this strange sensation as though you were being watched. You know you're being watched in this moment. And you feel that this is the library of your mind. What? What?

You feel if you were to walk into the first shelf, you could pull it up and there would be your knowledge of tea. You feel like you could walk over to this shelf over here. You could pull a book off the shelf and know what the flavor of a certain food could feel like. Library of memories and considerations, feelings, emotions, all the things that make Taishen in all directions.

You can stay where you are or you can be compelled to walk down or up any of these strange shelves and look at one book in particular. All That I Am collected in a vast library. I never would have left. You could tell my story and

Eight books? I would have thought. Collector's set. Illustrated. Wait, an autology. But, is someone else here? You glance and you, for just a moment, you feel like you see a figure pass, but perhaps a trick of the light.

Am I drawn? I'm drawn to a specific book? You may choose whatever book that you want to choose, or you may choose no book at all. As Taishen, you have full agency in this moment, and you know that you are being watched. Um...

I would like to, if, unless I think that every book in here is just about me and my past history, I would like to see if anything, like look for a book that might showcase to me a journey forward or help me, anything that would help me learn, expand upon myself or learn the lessons of a man. Make an investigation check at Advantage.

Could be worse. 15? 15. Feeling this inspiration, this idea, you start to walk down a specific hallway. It's like you know which hallway to go down, you know which book you're looking for, and you reach up and you pull a book off the shelf and you flip through its pages. You see the information there and it's

memories, the past, the present, how you're feeling now, and it's also what you've experienced, but this is not what you're looking for. You put it back, and you continue to make your way down, looking down at... Oh, the bottom shelf, of course, of course, of course. You pull a tome out, and you start to flip your pages. You flip...

there seems to be some notion of curiosity. This isn't a memory, this is something about who you are. This is your curiosity almost. This is a tome that is an expression of your excitement to learn about the world even. And it's in this moment that you have this terrible sensation

draining feeling and you feel like the pages are falling away from you. The words on the pages themselves are starting to disappear to be... to melt away almost. And before you can...

decide what is exactly happening to you, you feel tremendous pain about it. It stings, it hurts, it hurts your mind, it's almost like psychic damage, you have like a headache, you have a concussion, you're exploding, and you wake up in a scream.

Everyone here, all of you, including Yornir and Barnabos, you wake up hearing Taishen burst free from this nightmare. And I'll reach for my anchor, which it obviously isn't there. Are you okay, Taishi, honey? Are you having a nightmare over there? I don't know. My head. What happened? He clearly had a nightmare. You lower your voice. You don't need to yell. I was dreaming. I was in...

A library, a vast library. I've never encountered something like it. Something I've only heard in stories. Buried in far off deserts. But every book was about me. And what I've been through. And potentially I came across one that was about my journey. And how I can find the answers I seek. And the words started to...

to fall away from me like i almost had them and i almost it was there and then it wasn't and then this this pain and can you remember what was in that book i started with my own curiosity and then like like when you're in a dream and you you're reading a page but it's not it's not really words it's something else and then it

just kind of poured away like... It's like when you have ADHD and you're trying to read a story and you keep reading the same paragraph over and over again but you're not actually realizing what you're reading. Yes! What I'm asking you is do you still have the memory? Is it still there in your mind? Or is it gone? Think back... Of the... of what memory? Of the dream? Of whatever you were looking for in the dream of your journey. Can you think through your journey? Are there any holes missing? Make an intelligence check at advantage.

I'm picking up what the dungeon master's laying down. Dream eater. How much? Thirteen. Thirteen. You think back, uh...

And you remember the tomes that you did pull off the shelf, and those words feel clean and clear to you. You feel like you were able to look at them and perceive them in their entirety. Even the book that melted away, for whatever reason, it feels more like the choice of that book was what was melting away, not that the memory was stolen of what you were attempting to achieve when you found that book.

No, I mean, it's fresh from start to finish. I'm in the library. I'm going through. I grab a book. I grab the next and I can almost see the words, but I didn't get through them originally. But why that book? It felt clear in the moment that I wanted that one. That was the right one. And now, I don't know. It feels like it could have been any book.

Like it's irrelevant. I don't know, but... Perhaps it was... I see it clearly. Just a bad dream. It's my head sore. The pain stopped as abruptly as your awakening. Well, perhaps it was a bad dream. I have nightmares all the time. It's not real. It's new for me, but I don't know. I guess we've been through so much. Maybe as I slept...

You're only just seeing the real world, Tysha. Your valley of the setting sun and jade shell village was not how the rest of the Vantress works. You just need a processor. It must be it. And with these calming words, maybe a little more conversation occurs. You eventually find yourselves back to...

Tyshan, it takes a little mortal time for you to get to sleep, but you do, and Queenie, you continue to enjoy your first watch. I need either of you to make an intelligent saving throw. Both of you. Four. Wow. Oh, it's a seven. Higher than him. Barnabas. You find yourself

in a library. You're looking up at many shelves, all in directions, five paths to go down, and an infinity in all directions, tome after tome after tome after tome, and it feels like you, it feels not just like you, but like there is another.

feel as though you are being observed in this space and that it is waiting for you to make a choice to find whatever it is that you want to look for. Where does your mind go, Barnabas, as you consider what Taishen told you after his awakening and as you consider all of the things that make Barnabas Barnabas? I think if this...

I think that Barnum, but that I wouldn't care necessarily about feeling watched. As I look around. I'm gonna look now. I'm into that, at least. I would, when it comes to memories and dreams, I would want to go to the deepest, darkest, heavily guarded and locked away parts of my memory that would have been suppressed

perhaps, except when I dream. And that's where I would head. And you make an active choice to go to the dark place. You walk up to one of, you know exactly which of these five paths to choose. You turn and you

And you walk and you walk and you walk. You know it's a far distance down this particular hall. Past many tomes. Tomes that if you open them might make you smile. Or be a memory of a recipe. The taste of ancient estuary. And then you turn and you stare at one particular section. Ah. Pulling one of the tomes, it slides out of view and pulls away. And you see that there's a dark, deep staircase. Deep into the basement of this hall.

Perhaps like a sunken ship or something, I would just go down those stairs. The walls are sweating with sea water. And you make your way down, click, click, click, you can hear your own feet, and it's in this space that you see the tallest and oldest tomes rotting, many of them covered in barnacles, soaked as though they had been plunged into the sea, not once, not twice, but as though they've spent their entire, that they were written, that they were printed there.

And you can pull whichever one off of the shelf that you want to pull off. I would look for a tome that would perhaps just have a symbol of a wooden carving of a sperm whale with sorts of tribal designs in them, which is a position that has been taken from me.

and it seems to be like a wooden flask of some kind or a wooden vessel of some kind. And it would be on a tome that would have that symbol on it. Opening the pages, you flip that open, seeing the symbols there, seeing such recognizable features, and...

It's like the tome is upside down. You turn it and flip it and you pull it the other direction and it's not front to back, it's back to front. It's upside down. The words themselves seem to be right to left instead of up and down. You are confused. You look and you feel this piercing sensation just behind your neck. You scream out and all of a sudden you wake and the three of you all scream. Another nightmare.

Barnabas, are you okay? Tatashi, psych you out. What did you dream? Lower your voice, your nearest. Just a nightmare. I dreamed that I was in the sunken libraries of the great sea kings of old. You dreamed of a library too. I sunk in and lost, but not to me. I went into the dark place, the abyss, to look for...

Something I can't recall now what it was. And I felt the pain. Back of my neck. Like a stinging sea creature. Like that invisible monstrosity that was stowed away on the moorabound.

I don't believe this is coincidence. Almost the same thing happened to me. I mean, that makes sense. You told him about your dream, and he was thinking about it as he was falling asleep. That happens all the time. May I inspect you both? Of course. Of course, Mr. Yorner. You don't have to ask that. You're a medicine man.

First, I'm going to go to Barnabas and check the back of his neck. Sure. You don't have to roll. It's evidently clear that he is quite clean back there. Cleaner than you've ever seen. Uninjured.

I want to sort of like grab his head and kind of look at his eyes. I pull up my green hair. You pull up the green hair, you look even in the sides of the back of the gills and the end of the beard. You examine. Aside from the fact that there is the band of the pendant around his neck, there's no unusual mark, even nothing that you can see.

And do his eyes look normal? Everything looks healthy and fine? Yep. If I thought that you could fail at this, you would make a medicine check. I'll inspect Taishan to do the same, and presumably... You feel the same. ...the same result. You seem...fine. On the outside, at least. I wish I had my flask. I would consult the runes, but I do not have them on me.

It's not strange. We've had shared dreams or experiences at night before. With first the lights and the passage of time, it's not something that hasn't happened to us. It's just suspicious that this civilization is obsessed with knowledge and with our memories and our experiences and then all of a sudden we are dreaming the same thing about our memories and experiences.

Perhaps it is coincidence or influence, but they're presumably very magical, at least their artifacts are. It's concerning. That's two of us now. Do we think... Go ahead. Do we think if... Do we see if we go to sleep if you have the same dream? Do we try and stay awake? Queenie, why don't I take my watch now? Yeah, sure, if you want. I'm tired. Tuck it out. Three of you get some sleep. All right.

I'll take fourth watch. Four is more lucky than three. And I can... I'm used to getting up to cook breakfast, but I guess we'll be served breakfast. Good night. Good night. Good night. I wish I had my flask. Once I feel like they've all fallen asleep...

My right eye will glow blue and I will try to peer into the weird and detect magic. When I get a sense of like, okay, they're asleep, I just want to see if there's anything fucking going on magically while they're asleep. You look around and aside from that same background magic of your allies, the knight is dead. Did you go to sleep? Mm-hmm.

And you both also go to sleep? All three of you make an intelligent saving throw. Both of you automatically succeed. It's just you. Oh. I fail. Queenie, you're dreaming one of your typical usual dreams when suddenly you are snapped into a library. Oh, you come back here, you little varmint. You come immediately...

aware of your... lucid. Aware of your surroundings, aware of the conversation that you just had. How much time have you spent in the dream space doesn't seem to matter, but you recognize the shelves described by Taishan and Barnabas. You recognize... Oh yes. You feel that same feeling. As though you could turn your head this way and whatever is watching you would be here. And if you turned yourself this way,

It would move just behind your sight. And you see the shelves and the tomes all in all directions. And you have a choice. Where does Queenie's mind go in this space? Hmm. Hmm. Well, I could just sit down and say I'm not playing your game, you weird little voyeurist. Or I could play your game and prove to that ogre I ain't so stupid. Now am I?

and I want to go find a... I want to try and find the memory of when I learned how to tie my shoes. It's a few floors up. You find the spiral staircase. You make your way up and uh... Sure enough. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh... Childhood memories, childhood memories. Oh, holding a spoon like this and not like this. You find the tome and you pull it open and...

you recognize what's on the page. For just a brief moment, you see bunny ears and you can see the cord being pulled. And there's a moment where you actually feel like, I'm looking at this information. I can perceive that idea on this page when you're struck by a terrible pain and you wake up screaming. Ow! Ow!

Fuck, fuck, fuck, ow! Hi, good morning. Do you notice anything, Mr. Yornear? Nothing magical. Oh, thanks. Queenie, how are you doing? That sounded painful, Queenie. Did you have a nightmare? Are you okay, honey? Was that scary? No. Yornear, did you see anything? You dreamed of a library. You picked a book off a shelf. Mm-hmm.

You read it. You felt a horrible pain in the back of your neck. And how are you feeling, Queenie? Was it scary? Do you want to talk about it? I will not sleep tonight. The rest of you can continue to sleep. Well, I want to try something, all right? All right. And I want to attempt to tie my shoes. I'm going to go grab my shoes, slide them on, and attempt to lace them up. The funny thing is there are no shoelaces in Adventress, so...

You run, yeah, the universe is ruined. We had a good run for five years, but now we have to start something else. We're quitting. Yep, it's over. Yep, on to the hot tub stream. Shit. I'd do it. Fine. Fuck. I'd do it. You reach over to the shoes, and sure enough, there are laces there, and you are able to complete the knot. Okay, so...

Do you want to hear what I have to say or don't you? I would love to. Mister I refuse to dream. We are listening. Thanks. Continue. So I had a dream. But thanks to our good friends experiencing the woes of this library before I had, I went in with a little more information.

And so I got in and I knew immediately I could find what I wanted. I wanted to know if this place was going to destroy my memories. So I thought, what memory could I lose but also regain at a future date? Well, learning how to tie my shoes. It took my mom like almost a month and a half to teach me how to tie my shoes because she kept talking about bunny ears and I kept laughing.

So anyway, I went to this book. I found it. The same thing happened. But lo and behold, Queenie March still knows how to tie her shoes. So these dreams mean nothing? Nothing's happening? We're not losing memories? We're just... I don't know if that's the case. I'm going to have to experiment a little bit more. I mean, maybe the first time you read about...

a memory, it doesn't fade from you completely. Maybe it's gonna take a couple more goes. I'm not quite sure. I don't know what memory it was after. I didn't feel like it was after anything. I felt like I had control. That I got to choose what memory I wanted. Perhaps that was your way of giving them access to your dreams and memories. I do not know. Yeah, I'm not sure, but I still know how to tie my shoes, so... I have a confession to make. Oh, God.

I never learned how to tie my shoes. Do shoes fit you? I'm a master with a rope. You don't even wear shoes. That's why I don't wear shoes.

What on earth would you wear shoes for underwater? I didn't grow up low. I didn't grow up. And once I came on land, everyone was like, oh, you didn't grow up on land. Oh, yeah, I know. But once I came to the surface, everyone's saying, oh, you should wear boots. And I'm like, they're uncomfortable. They would be. And you still go back in the water all the time. There is nothing worse than a waterlogged shoe. I can tie dozens of sailors' knots. And every time I tried to put on a boot, I would just fumble.

Do you want to learn how to tie your shoes? I would. You know what, one of these days I'll teach you. It's the last knot I've yet to learn. I'll teach you how to do it. I'll teach you the tale of the bunny ears. The elusive shoe. I'd like that, Miss March. I got you. I got you, Barnabas. I'd like that, Miss March. I will make sure one of these days you don't have to wear boots, but if you wanted to, nothing's going to stop you. I think it's because the cord, the threads are so... I've got big sausage-y fingers. We should get you larger threads. And maybe, you know, I can tie...

Ships ropes and cords. I don't know who told you that shoelaces had to be one size. They are not one size fits all. If you need thicker cords, we'll get you thicker cords. Maybe that's the trick. Did you both feel as though you had the option to not pick a look? Well, I considered just sitting on the floor, but then I had this idea where I could find out if I'm going to lose my memory. So I chose that.

But Yorneir, if he wants to go to sleep, could just see if he could not pick a book and see what happens. Well, maybe if we feel- Unless you're scared, of course. Did you feel watched as well? Oh yeah, for sure. Maybe if we feel as though it's searching for something, whatever it is, if there is anything at all, maybe we can fall asleep without issue if we just decide to not explore our memories.

I could mutate my hands into spindly fingers of some kind. It might be easier to tie them then. What? Like crab legs. Not crab claws, but I- I- Like the legs. Those usually sprout out of my back. Oh.

They make crab legs shoot out from my back and... I'm picturing them like face-hugging the mattress. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's disgusting. That will never stop being horrific. Here and here, what do you do? I mean, I could try it, but I'm worried that I might be compelled in my dreams to choose a book. All right, so why don't you pick a memory?

That would not be terrible if someone were to experience it with you. I'm wondering if this is just the gateway, that as soon as we choose one book, they're into everything. They have access to our entire minds. Well, it's possible. Aye. But it's not like you can't... like you can keep yourself from sleeping forever. That is fair. If anyone has a steel mind, Mr. Yornear, of all of us, it's you.

Perhaps the weird or the triad or whatever. The land itself will shield your library as it did in ours. The sunken halls of the great sea kings. All right, we have no idea how long we'll be here and trying to do this without any sleep will be a challenge. I will try your idea, Queen Inky.

Just to have a memory. Stay awake when I inevitably wake up and scream. Shortly. Okay, sure. I'll take another watch. I'm not tired. You're all going to be woken up by my scream anyway. Yeah, but it took at least a good hour before you all woke up. It's fine. I don't want to sleep tonight anyway. Get some sleep and then I'll wake you up with a horrible scream. Sure. I've got last watch. Yeah, why don't you stay up? Goodnight. Goodnight. Goodnight. Goodnight.

Before we go to sleep, who thinks that he's going to scream really softly? And it's just going to be like a, ah. It's going to be, oh, no. Yeah, that sounds accurate. Good night.

And I'll do my best knowing what will inevitably happen trying to go to sleep. That takes some time, actually. It's not an easy thing to just be like, okay. It's like going to sleep on Christmas Eve. Oh yeah, it's impossible. But instead of presents, it's nightmares. And eventually, you find yourself in a dream space. And you...

recognize this library as the library of your own mind. You look at the shelves and you realize that you could walk through these halls and pull any tome off of any of these shelves and know what was inside its contents. This is not an experience you've ever had before in all your long life, but it just makes sense because that is the nature of dreams. You have a context and

You feel like you're being watched. There's a very strange sensation of something just around the corner, just down the hallway, maybe on this next floor? No. You know you're being observed, but you have a choice. What happens next is up to you. - Who goes there? I know you're watching me. I will not make a choice. And also like look around, hear no response.

I will sit exactly where I am. I'll sit down. I'll cross my legs and I will just close my eyes and meditate and attempt to not choose and just try to sit there and meditate until I wake up. You sit at the center of this five-spoked library. You don't look at the books. You ignore the rest of your mind. You focus on the lucidity of the experience. Stay in the present.

Sometimes your mind darts to your feelings about the land, about your companions, your allies. You still feel this pressure, this feeling of being watched. It's not quiet, not totally, but you maintain this concentration and no pain comes. Who's next on watch? Barnabas. Yornir doesn't wake up screaming. Oh wait, what is it? Hysha?

Who was third? I was fourth. So Taishan's awake. Yeah, so I took it. That's one, two, three, four. So we swapped. So technically Taishan, when we go to sleep, Taishan would be awake, and then he'd eventually wake me up, so. Yornir does not wake up screaming, whoever wakes him up next.

for the purposes of the watch. That would be May. My watch has already passed, though. Yeah. So it would be May. Basically, I will wake everyone up. You shuffle him and Queenie and Tyshen up, and you waken, having been successful in your attempt to do nothing. Wow, you really do scream very softly. Oh, I didn't scream? Yeah, you didn't even wake us up. I had the dream.

You dropped it at the library. Did I... Was it like one of those dreams where you feel like you were awake all night long? Yeah. And I felt like I was sitting there all night long for eight hours. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I fucking hate those. Those are a fucking nightmare. And it's especially bad when your brain puts a drill to the speedometer of your mind and is like, you're going to spend a century in this dream. But that wasn't how it felt. It felt real time.

So you if you were just asleep for six hours, then six hours is what you felt passed while you were And you've meditated for six hours You just sat and quietly contemplated yourself and ignored Whatever minuscule sounds and minuscule sensations happened around you you let your mind go where you wanted to go But you did not pick up the tone so

So did I physically do I feel like I've slept? Yeah, yeah, and anyone else who hasn't been on watch the the these these dreams would start and stop almost Instantaneously you you had very little time that dream space I would say that you feel even with these watches in this experience that in the morning you'll experience a long rest your idea

I meditated all night long and I never felt the pain. I felt watched, but I just ignored it. I meditated on my goal, on my faith. And it never came. Well, that's good to hear. Yeah, at least for me, I felt like I had a choice. So I'm glad you did too. So I believe if anyone experiences the dream again,

Do the same. Let it in my deepest and darkest secrets. No, no. Don't do that. Do the opposite of that. Alright. Meditate all night long. Okay. So what are you going to do if you have to dream again? I'm going to read those books about my childhood traumas that I've stuffed really deep down inside of me. No, no, no. That's not what you should do. I know. I'm fucking with you. Alright. Let us do our duties.

You still have a little more time before morning and you spend it either sleeping or talking. You feel rested and you do enjoy the benefits of a long rest. You...

Find yourself seeing the sun come up and the window brightens and the four of you are-- Very Gary. It's 6:30 in the morning and you can smell food arrive at the door and a nameless vassal walks in.

Very briefly, you think that this is the same woman that you recognize. I'll blush very deeply. It's like a coral pink. That's pretty fucking good. That's cute. That's pretty fucking good. She walks in and she offers you what are clearly four plates of...

Sausage biscuits. With gravy? Thick, buttery gravy. Oh, my sausage gravy? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Smelling delicious. I'm sorry, do you have any home fries?

Silver diner? She offers you a milkshake with one of those big fucking straws. She reaches down and you can all see without perception check required that this woman is extremely pregnant.

She is ready to burst. And she sets down the table and then she starts to waddle out for whatever else you have requested in this moment. Thank you very much. This smells unbelievably delicious. It's my pleasure. It's nice to meet you. Would you like to take some for yourself and your little one now since you're eating for two? I've already eaten. I'm fine.

you sure oh yes i i've had the same as you this is this is what we're all we know how to talk to you uh uh no no uh uh bacon uh uh told us the whole of the whole deal that you you are are split between worlds we don't know what to make of you but uh ogres of uh of of the dire maul

- The Dire Maul Heroes. - The High Maul Heroes, yeah. - Oh, the Ogres of the High Maul. - Oh yeah, High Maul, yeah, I forgot about that. There's a lot of Mauls. - It has to have the H to make sense. - Oh, you're right. - My name is, and it takes you a while for her, like she basically has to like spell out the vowels charade style before you arrive at Frawldina.

That was a long one, but it was worth it. I don't think we could get that. That was pretty good. She's exhausted and frustrated, like rhymes with fall. Well, we're going to eat our biscuits now. Goodbye. Goodbye for old Nina. She makes her way out, and you are left in the room for just a moment before Bacon shows back up. We are going to be receiving the...

Governor of religion Octavio a squirrel isoro soon We're gonna need to make our way to the front of the house and then we will perform the ritual in the corridor the courtyard I am so surprised it did not take as long for you to tell us his name was Octavio's Lissero Octavio yes crow Scrooge's arrow. Yeah, all right Octavio's girl is sir. How did you just spell that? Oh?

You're getting very good at reading hand code. And in fact, I will add, if you want to add to your language on D&D Beyond. Oh, yeah. Ogerton? No, this is not ASL. We are way off. Ogerton hand code. You may do that. I am going to do that. Because I feel...

- Right. - Understand but not speak. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And yes, for the viewers at home, this is not American Sign Language. I am not trying to do that. This is what they have created as their own language for the purposes of understanding each other as vassals within this strange community. - Roger that. - As I was meditating during my dream, I was implanted in my idea in my brain by the gods, the triad.

We've not tried to remove this. Is she gone? You're by yourself. You're enjoying sausage, biscuit, gravy. We've not tried to remove these. Delicious. I would like to maybe inspect one of yours and try to remove it and see if there's a scar underneath. Yeah, sure. Go ahead and play with my neck. You reach down and you... It is impossible to get a finger underneath this band. It is physically...

It seems even like tense when you attempt to try whatever you try.

It never comes to an uncomfortable place for you. It is not choking. The sensation of having something around your neck only affected you when you first woke up in the room for about a moment, but now it just feels like part of you, and you are not able to pull the pendant aside or move it in any direction. It is affixed as if it were, like, can I see what's underneath your nose? Can I see what's underneath your ear? Oh!

- This is fixed. I can't move it. And I'll test it on mine and presumably they're all the same. - Oh, that's not ominous. - And you pull it your own and it would be like trying to remove your own finger. - I heard that pop. - Oh, this is surprisingly unpopular. I'm usually

I'm usually so poppy, this is weird. When I wake up in the morning, I sound like a tree falling over in the forest. It's the end of the night, I don't know what to tell you. Um... Well, we need to be ready for a potential encounter with this governor. Religious type. Do we have our perhaps reincarnated demigods from a different era of...

Ogres. Jotnar of the Frost Trolls. Frost Ogres. We have Shaggoth. Of the Blackrock. Of the Blackrock. And then I'm Trothak of the Sharkpunchers. And then we have Fiona of the Allstars. Jotnar of the... You need something? Frost Ogres? Or the...

The Fjord Clan? The Frost Guard. Yeah, Frost Guard's really nice. Frost Guard. Yeah. All right. And to briefly answer chat, no, Queenie was not able to get hers off at any point. None of them have yet, nor have they removed them or attempted to do so before now. What were you going to say? Um...

- Oh, I think they're asking, wait, Daisy got hers off though, right? Because Daisy wasn't wearing one when we saw her. - That's correct. That's correct. My apologies. - Mylon did something. - Daisy did not have one when you encountered her. - Neither did Honey. - That's right. - Mylon did something. - Yeah. - 100%.

I just want to say, I don't appreciate that you all sound really badass and I sound like I am the mom coach of a child soccer team. - Well, why didn't you pick something else? I mean, I'm the shark puncher. It's kind of, you know. - I'm the one that started it. I didn't know we were going to be like cool badasses. I thought a princess was neat. - A Fiona of the All Stars is quite cool.

you're all stars maybe it's a famous you're famous uh bards perhaps or like you're a celestial if you want something a bit yeah about harder uh perhaps uh fiona the smash mouth

- Actually, I really like that one. So I think that's the way to go. That sounds way cooler. - That sounds more swamp troll. - It really does. - Of the smash mouth. - You smashed him out. - Of the smash mouth. - Yeah. - And I'm Shark Punch. So yeah, I'm, yeah. Roger that. - Thank you. That is way better than the-- - Or no, perhaps just Fiona.

Smash Mouth. Yeah. That sounds, because you're, yes. Princess Fiona Smash Mouth. A huge figure appears at the door, and you recognize this to be Manius himself, Blaglinius standing in front of you, and he, uh, Hello, yes, good morning, good morning, good morning. How was my four new vessels? How was your sleep? How was everything? How was the food? How are you doing? We slept quite well.

We've been slowly regaining the memories from our past lives, and although our grasp on our true tongue has not returned quite as much as Jotnar here, but Jotnar of the Frostguard. But I believe that it will return. I've gotten glimpses.

of my past life. Interesting. Well, I have my tablet here and I have the four of you. I understand that we are to expect the house, the governor of religion to be here in just another 20 minutes. So we are to make our way to the front of the house and receive him.

Let those go. Governor Scoliosis? No, uh, Scrolycero. Oh, Psoriasis. No, Scrolycero. Scrolycero, sounds like a scroll in Cicero. Still perhaps suffering from the madness. Got it. It's here in the vault now, the treasure chest. Okay. Right here. He takes his leave and it's understood that you follow Scrolycero.

You make your way and you walk through the hall to the staircase. You make your way to the first floor. You continue all the way down and then eventually out the front. And this is the first time you've actually been out the front of the manor and you realize it faces Ogerton. Standing here, you are standing...

At the top of a long, stretching series of hills and farmland, you can see a path that leads straight down and at the very, very distance, perhaps a two or three hour walk from here, you can see

a multitude of structures, a huge variety of different large structures, column structures, what appears to be a coliseum or a hippodrome on one side. You can see behind this tableau, the mountains spray up in

sanity. Verticality that you've not yet seen in Drakkar. Like the Cliffs of Dover. Like the Cliffs of Dover. I love Guitar Hero. I love Guitar Hero. Everybody give it up for Guitar Hero. My favorite video game is Slash from Guns N' Roses! Um... I used to be... Brief aside, I used to be pretty fucking good at Guitar Hero. That's what I'm gonna say. Um...

You can see waterfalls. Did we drop acid at some point? You can see that behind where the city proper is,

you are far away and that there are other smaller villas on the left and the right, perhaps other wealthier houses in this community of ogres. And you can see a great waterfall just over that seems to stretch down

behind the city itself almost, a huge waterfall. And it's confronted with this vision that you can also see a carriage, a carriage being drawn by a single beast, a polar bear, a white furred bear happily trudging along up the sandy graveled path that leads to the circular opening of this manor.

And waiting just five, ten minutes longer, it comes to a stop right in front of you and out swings another huge ogre wearing a very minimal, not decorated, but sort of a medium gray robe.

Toga, for lack of a better term. And he walks out and he's got a white hat, very tall, on his head. He pulls it off, puts it underneath his arm. Hello! It's good to see you. Pleasure to meet you, Manius. Good to be here. I understand that

You're supposed to have four new vessels that I'm... to decurse. I'm sorry I'm very tired. I've been already out at the House of Commerce, decursing the other two that you brought so surprisingly to our community.

Yes, yes, yes, yes, of course, of course, of course. It's a pleasure to see you. And they walk up to each other and immediately start to sort of bow. And they start to go back and forth. In these moments while they were privately, not privately, but publicly experiencing this welcome, do you whisper anything to each other? Do you have a moment to communicate? Ah, it is the high septon of Goblin Topia. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha, ha.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I don't say that. Well, it looks like we lost Scram. May he rest in peace. Stick to your, stick to our stories. Yes. Improvise. Is he drunk? It's about the attempt to speak giant. No. I don't know it.

And if things turn, we will fight. Although Forgos did say that his ancestor lay with a storm giant woman. So our line is as big as we are. I never learned how to speak it.

Let me introduce you to the four individuals that you'll be decursing, so to speak. This is Barnabas, I believe? No, I have received my memories of my past life before I was reincarnated into this form. I am a reincarnated sea ogre, Trothak the Shark Puncher.

And this one, this is Queenie, I believe. No, you're wrong. I also have received my memories from Ogre Heaven. I am Fiona of the Smash Mouth. And I am a princess of the Swamp Ogres. Saying these words in this order. You see, you see, I'm

I told you they may very well be not reincarnated vessels, but actual ogre souls. Can you believe it? And you? In giant, purely in giant, I'll say, the memories of my mother tongue have come back to me. I am Jotnar of the Frostgarde.

High king of all the frost ogres. Quite convincing, isn't he? Yes, yes, that's what I'm saying! They seem to be... They know the language, they know the old speak, they know the language of Sothlith. Yes, yes, and you are? I am Shagoth of the Black... Is that how you... Shagoth of the Black Rock Ogres. And you...

I bow. You're welcome. Let's get this over with, I suppose. Please, is there anything we can do for you? Some wine, perhaps? Some refreshment of any kind? They immediately turn and they start to make their way in, and you can see the other vassals, they're all like, None for me, thanks. No, they seem to be indicating to follow. Oh, yeah.

- Let those go. - And you guys walk in and behind you, the rest of the house, all of them are here except for what appears to be the majority of the Blaginius family. And you make your way into the courtyard. The four of you are lined up just in front of the fountain and there you stand. In this moment, you have a choice.

receive this decursification, whatever that might look like, whatever Skrlicero is going to do, or do not that. And he starts to walk forward. No, my dear, soon as this hasn't been done in perhaps 200 years. Yes, yes, yes, yes. What hasn't been done...

Oh no, we haven't found anyone like yourselves, uh, like... You've already done it on the two companions you found us with. Yes, yes. I... They perhaps have not received their memories. I do not think any sort of curse remains on the souls of reincarnated ogre heroes. The, uh...

The young lady was fine, and the other one was very strange. Very strange. I do not know which of the ogre souls, perhaps a pantheon of great heroes of eons past. I do not know who they were. But I know. I am Trophak, the Shark Puncher. I united my people with the Sahuagin and the Marrow.

I rode the Great Maul of Sekola. I wielded the power of sharks on my fists. This elderly ogre. And with that, I am going to attempt to use my mutation powers. And I will allow you to shut this down. But instead of claws, I would hope to have shark heads for hands. I might be pushing it.

- Or something that would resemble shark heads. - No, I'm gonna go with it. Enjoy. - So I will have like a sawfish head, with like a really razor sharp nose and sharp maw and then a hammer head. - You're level six now. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Let's go. - And they'll both be like gnashing.

- Whoa, I told you this place was-- - And then the sea water will splash around me and barnacles and all sorts of sea creatures will grow, almost appear magically. - You're lost. This elderly ogre backs up and, "You see what I mean? "You see what I mean?" And Manius is scribbling a description of everything that you've said and everything that he's seeing, just watching you in chaos.

You see what I mean? You see what I mean? They've got abilities, strange abilities. This is not the madness. This is something far different. Well, we'll see. We'll see. We're still yet to learn if anything has affected the small green one. He was had to put to sleep before his crucifixion. Oh, put to sleep, you say? Well...

We'll see what happens, I agree. Well, you were perhaps, you made him a grave mistake. Perhaps if he was with us, he was another reincarnated hero. Reborn perhaps in the great silver flash, like the falling silver stars of the great ogre heroes of old, the greatest warriors of ogre kind fallen from ogre heaven.

I got all of that. Do you think that it is best that we put them to sleep now as well? No, no, if they're willing, they may enjoy the spell either way. And Shagoth of the Blackrock, I know comes from the dragon ogres of the great volcanic ranges of his people, the father of the dragon ogres, and he can even breathe flay. Manius's dragon

captured by your information and he's writing down every word. - As he says it, I plant two feets in the ground, pat my thighs look up in the air and just blast dragon fire above me. - Oh, you use your dragon breath to create flame? - I use my dragon breath to blast dragon's fire. And I shout out, I have a fire in my belly. Hence the fire belly. - Good God, oh.

Thothless be praised. They were not this uppity yesterday. They seem to be even more strange and magical, I assure you. Well, this will either all be over in a moment, or they are true sons of ogres. I will have to try my magics, passed down for generations from...

Suzzleeth himself. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And you're sure we shouldn't put them to sleep as well? It's fine. Who would like to go first? And he looks blearily at the four of you. I'll do it. This is Princess Fiona Smash Mouth. Queenie, Fiona, Queen Fiona? Yeah, we've already determined that I will one day be queen. Yes, she's...

First choice. I'm bravest of all swamp ogres. Watch as I hop ferociously towards you because rangers suck. Step forward, young furry lady. And he pulls out from his toga a parchment. He unravels it very slowly with his... Janine's mouth.

his withered hands. I'm fine, I'm fine. He looks down at you. This is a short ogre only because he's so decrepit and he opens up a scroll and he starts to read and it's in giant. You don't understand the words, but you understand it to mean

Madness out! And he pulls the script apart and it bursts into arcane magic, flittering in all directions. And you experience the effects of Remove Curse. Oi, this is Princess Queenie of... Princess Fiona, actually. Princess Fiona of the Swamp Ogres.

She was betrothed to Glorbo, first of his name, from Goblin-topia to unite the swamp kingdoms. That is actually not true. That's not true. You see? You see? No, we are a matriarchal society. Look at her appearance. She's not transformed into a human. She's been... She looks as she was. Oh, yes. It's just like the green one. This is the form that...

Ogre Heaven chose for me to take upon my reincarnation so that we could ferry you with the help of our captain back to Ogre Heaven now that you have fully discovered all there is to know about the mortal world. I don't know. Who's next? I will be next. Captain Admiral, perhaps. Trothak Sharkpuncher. He pulls out another scroll.

He looks at you and he holds out one hand and perceives what is on the scroll and speaks in giant, "Madness out!" And it explodes in energy and you experience Remove Curse. And you do experience a removal of a curse. Oh, so suddenly I'm feeling a bit sluggish.

Are you alright? Are you alright? I just feel like I had a big bowl of ogre stew earlier. You see? You've done something. Look at him. He's pale. He's nearly passing out. Are you well?

It's probably stuffed full of sausage gravy. Oh, yeah, sausage. I guess my eyes were bigger than my stomach. And just this old hitting me, you're like, no, you know, like biscuits and gravy just sit in your gut. Oh, when it hits you. Yeah, I think it's just more of a delayed... That's my favorite part about biscuits and gravy. You feel great. Every time you burp, it's like you're having second thoughts. You feel like the...

appetite that you once knew is your own again. You feel like the thing that has been pushing you or driving your appetite on your back is lifted. For so long since you've encountered that insane creature on the waters that's

literally killed you. I feel like curse is Wendigon. It's Wendigon. It's Wendigon. Well, like I'll say, we are not cursed. This is the form. This form is suited to do more great things at sea, to captain the silver ship and guide us all back to ogre heaven.

You see this? And punch with sharks, of course. Punching with sharks? Look at his hands! I'll do it again. And, uh, you, sir, are you ready to be cast? Oh, Scrooge, Scrooge Lisseroe, I'll go second. Go through your motions. Just know that we won't hold this against you.

When we sail aboard the dominant mind together. I just hope not. I don't give a name for religion. Twinkle in your eye and fire belly brew in your stomach. Madness up! You experience a removed curse. You feel no change. Fucking boat!

And you stand there. Yes, he can still speak. He can still look. He's unchanged. His scaled body. It's unreal. This is not the madness. Let's make sure. Let's make sure. You there. Come forward. Yes. Final scroll.

- Madness out! And you feel the magical energy wave over you, but there is no removal of curse in this moment. You have not been cursed and- - I'm still the openar of the Frost Guard and I will open my mouth and roar. It sounds exactly like a polar bear territorial

roar that might scare another polar bear if one was near in the vicinity to back off a little bit and maybe add some legitimacy to the roar. You would hear vassals dealing with that situation if they could scream. And so...

So, this is at the Polar Bear Herd, I mean. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It would not be that far. Okay. Like, absolutely. Second roaring polar bear. And perhaps in the stable that the actual house of... Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. There's a bunch of polar bears. Yeah. It's like fireworks on Fourth of July. And the dogs. And all of a sudden, all the polar bears. Yeah. Oh!

You do that unknowingly, and while that chaos happens, you see, you see, look at them. There's something more going on here. This is a mystery, a mystery to be discovered, to be uncovered. Are you with me? Do you see that these are not just our vassals, but perhaps our kin?

Well, they've been decocted, that's for sure. I'm not sure one way or the other. Looking at them, I'm not sure anything that they've said is parallel or in line with our religion. They'll need to be tested. They'll need to be thoroughly tested. But I'm going back to my villa to rest. Are you well?

He's surprised. He always has been. And you can tell that he's like fucking on the edge of death. Do I feel like it's a kind of disease that I might be able to help with? Or do I feel like it is a... He just seems like an old man. Like he's just an ancient guy. And he looks at you like, I've spent more magical energy than I've spent in the last decade. We'll get back to my...

which I'm sure is in exactly the same place that it was before. I'm sure you wanted to walk very far away as an old booger man. He turns and the, the two vessels that have accompanied him, like actually like take his arms and start to like waddle him back. Uh,

out and away he seems to have been very clearly explicitly here just to take care of business get a brief assessment of you and is now on his way towards the exit and we would like to be reunited with the remaining heroes of high maul the greatest of all the ogre heroes high maul yes high all of course of course i lost ogre continent of course the

Manny stays with you and he's looking at the four of you in

excitement and confusion. He seems taken by your story. He seems taken by the idea that he may have made such a wonderful and great discovery, that this is some fantastical new chapter in the history of Ogerton, of his people, of the world, literally the cosmos. Everything that there is could pivot on the decisions that he makes right now. And knowing that this isn't madness,

for the test of the house of religion has come true that he's been able to perform great powerful curse removing magics upon you and you are still able to breathe fire or transform or to speak giant to speak in the first place. I've had a brilliant idea. We will take you to the five houses. We will

Prove your worth as Zogers. Prove that you are capable in the ways of art, of military, religion, education, that's of course my house, and in commerce. We will prove these things and I think we will take those pendants off your necks.

We won't have to eat you, and we will be able to move on to grant you land and marriage. You'll be able to stay here as lord, lord, lord and lady. It will be a magical day. Perhaps we are close, truly close, to finding all the knowledge of the world.

I am excited for the coming days, for the coming weeks, for the coming months, perhaps years we will spend together as a family and beyond. Perhaps at least till the end of winter. Yes. Seems like no time at all. Well, we are the reincarnation of great ogre heroes. We go where the great ogre spirits take us. We sail on those ogre-ithyctides. As do I.

Good show. We will look forward to being reunited with our remaining companion, who has not been tainted by humanity, unfortunately. And it would be great if we could have our ancient relics that we...

arrived with as well. Yeah, the relics that were gifted to us upon leaving the gates of Ogre Heaven. Yes. Our heavenly relics. They're very important to us. I have many letters to write, not just to the houses, but on that point exactly. I agree. If you are uncorrupted, perhaps so also are your things. We will work on that together.

- At the very least, my shell and my flask, please. - And that's where we'll end tonight's session. - Oh! - Gotta give it up. - Great job, Darren. - Great job. Holy shit. - I do not trust them.

Thank you so much for listening to the Legends of Avantris podcast. We hope you enjoyed the session. If you want even more campaigns to listen to, become a member of our Patreon at the Pearl Dolphin tier or higher to unlock Shroud Over Saltmarsh, a patron-exclusive campaign set on the high seas. You can find that at patreon.com slash legendsofavantris. If you want to chat about the episode with the Avantris community, join us on Discord at legendsofavantris.com slash discord. We'll see you next time.

We also post content nearly every day on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram. So make sure you follow our socials at legendsofavantress.com slash social. And make sure you check out The Crooked Moon so you can terrify your friends with a folk horror 5th edition supplement published by us. Get your own copy at thecrookedmoon.com. Thanks again and we'll see you next time.