Icebound | Ep. 13 | Ignorance Is Bliss
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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. Daisy, uh, Daisy? Yes, Daisy. Oh, uh, she, uh, her name is Alcatra, of course. Uh, 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. And they named this place Ogerton? It's the town of Ogerton. It only...

You think you're smart? Did you say that your ancestors came from Ogre Heaven? 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. We are going to be receiving the governor of religion, Octavio Skrlicero, soon. We're going to need to make our way to the front of the house, and then we will perform the ritual in the courtyard. Oh, no, we haven't found anyone like yourselves. You've already done it on the two companions you found us with. Yes, yes.

I may perhaps have not received their memories. I do not think any sort of curse remains on the souls of reincarnated Ogre heroes to do more great things at sea, to captain the silver ship and guide us all back to Ogre heaven. I'm excited for the coming days, for the coming weeks, for the coming months, perhaps years we will spend together as a family

Darkness. Confusion. Uncertainty.

The last clear image in your mind is 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 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 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. Scrim. You feel warmth.

Fresh, pleasant, sweet air fills your lungs. The sensation of cool, oiled wood comes to you next beneath your hands, face, and body, and your bleary eyes open. The room isn't completely dark, but it takes a moment for your eyes to adjust to the dim light. The lone window in this room is blocked by thick fabric drapes, and the only light is what little daylight bleeds from behind its edges.

It is dead quiet, save for the subtle breathing sounds coming from a nearby human sitting and sleeping just at the door opposite you. A human wearing robes that you don't recognize. Sitting up, you discover the long and wide dinner table that supports you. Exquisitely crafted, indeed, the table and all of the furnishings that surround you are massive and ornate and gaudy.

Confusion still slowly fading from you, you realize your adventuring gear seems to be missing. Replaced by simple linen robes. Curiously, you also notice an odd bangle or pendant has been fitted around your neck. Reaching up, you can feel the band clutching tightly.

You look again at the only other humanoid in the room, and for a moment, you see a double image. Are his eyes open? Yes. And worse, they glow red. Blinking, you see the eyes of this robed human quickly fade back to closed. A trick of the light, perhaps. He appears to be softly napping. You wake up to the situation you now find yourself in. What happens next is up to you. Okay.

Oh, wait, why? The hot spring. Why am I on a dinner table? Oh, no. I will immediately notice, like you said, that my belongings are gone. Does the robe that I have have any pockets? You don't seem to have any immediate access to pockets. No, you don't have any pockets on you. I look for the coin. Oh. Oh.

Did I finally get rid of this accursed thing? Is it gone? And you feel...

underneath your butt. Between the fabric of the robes and the dinner table. Just the hard metal feeling of an impression. I should have known. Well, I guess, you know, I can't get rid of this thing, so I guess I'll wipe it off on my robe and I'll actually stick it in my cheek. Because there's nowhere else for me to put it. I know I can't get rid of it. I don't want to leave it around somewhere. Okay, well...

Where am I? I don't have any of my things. Okay. I'm gonna look towards where I saw what I thought were the red eyes, but is this humanoid person. And I'll get up, and I'll just very quietly creep over and like

Look up over to see if I can get a look at their face You walk up to the man and he's wearing dark robes. I'm very similar to what to what you're wearing as well Are you being especially quiet? Are you okay make a stealth check for me? I would love to oh boy nine proficient stealth with a nine your first step down off of the table

God damn it. Creaks, and he starts to disturb, and this human sits up on a human-sized chair, and he immediately locks eyes with you. Oh, hey, it's okay. Oh, just easy, easy. I wasn't doing anything nefarious. I'm just trying to figure out where I am. Who are you? Whoa, what are you? He starts to reach down. What are you reaching for? You see that he's got a large brass handbell just at his side. Easy. Oh, no.

There's no need for that. There's no need for that. There's no need for that. I just want to know where I am. I'm very confused. I just woke up here. You don't speak? You're just like the others. What?

Have you seen any of my friends? They're a lot taller than me. Well, except for one of them. She's just a little bit taller than me. She has ears. Furry? No, no. Anything? You can't tell me where... Um... Okay. I don't know what's going to happen when you ring that bell. I don't think you need to. We're friends, right? Good buddy Scrim? Come on, Scrim. We're old pals. ...

We have the same clothing. I have a gold coin. Do you value gold? And he starts to ring the bell. Ring the bell. Here we go. And it makes an extremely loud sound. And it's only moments later that you start to hear commotion outside of the bell. And he's sort of looking at you in like a, not a mean fashion, but he is...

- A professional fashion. - I very sullenly just drag my feet, climb back up onto the dinner table and resign myself to my fate. - He sets it back down and he sort of like stands up and has his arms crossed looking at you and the door swings wide open and in enter two ogres. The first one much taller than the second, 800 pounds, nine feet tall, gray robed,

bald and tire-late, both of them. And you don't recognize either of these ogres as the one that confronted you when you were in the hot springs with your friends, your allies, with Daisy and the rest of the group. You don't recognize him at all. His features are instead much more elongated, a little grimmer, sort of sallow pouches underneath his eyes, very calculating. He comes in smoothly and sees you immediately. Oh, sweet heavenly gods!

Oh, you're finally awake. Yeah? And you're suddenly very tall and large. Manius was right. I have your name right here, Tito. Manius said that he might be able to have a speech, the ability to talk. Isn't that fascinating? Why would that be fascinating? You're talking. The other ones were talking. Tito is standing there. He doesn't say anything. He's sort of like...

shrugs at the communication that what is apparently his father is making to him and he like sticks a finger up his nose and pulls out like a huge booger and flicks it like you can hear it hit the wall when given the size of this globule and

I'm trying to eat right away. No, no. No, no. No need to talk. It's simply an effect of the madness. Everything's going to be fine. The madness? Yes, you were beyond the limits of Ogerton for some time. You are...

Unfortunately, warped in your appearance, in your mind, your memories, if... Warped in my appearance? You know, I take issue with that. You're going to... See, he's already speaking back. It's very, very... When we decurse you, you'll have no voice at all. You'll be just like...

Allium here and it'll be all fine it'll just be another day and your nightmares will be over speaking of all of that food I'm starving here oh yes yes of course he gestures to Allium and Allium like bows quickly and leaves and it seems that food is on the way

Oh, that's weird. I mean, he goes from ringing the bell to going to get me food. You know, I can't figure out this place anyway. What's with this neck piece, huh? I didn't ask for this. When am I going to get this taken off? Your name is Mustard Seed now? What? No, my name is Scrim. Scrim. Mustard, that's a stupid name. You'll do your job. We'll get you counting in no time. It's going to be fine. What, I draw a straw for that? What did he come up with?

come up with his name. At least he has a normal name. I've mustard seed. Manny has had a name for the lot of you, I understand. But I, because he owed me great debt, have, uh, you had you returned to me.

Master C. Master C. There's always your proper name. There's always your proper name. Whatever this scrim business is, you can forget it. You'll be back to normal in no time. As a vassal of the House of Commerce, you'll be loved, part of our family, and when you can no longer do your job, you'll join your family and ours in the halls of our heaven where you'll be able to

Continue your service, of course. What did you do with my friends? Nothing. Good. He's very good at getting me to talk to him. Shush, shush, shush. It's not important. Just...

You need to get cleaned right away. We're going to feed you. And in the morning, you'll be able to become a true vassal of the house. We'll put a good value in your daily job offerings. It sounds like a lot of work. It's not really my thing, to be honest with you. Job? I don't know if I'm down with that. I...

Suppose you could refuse and we could send you back to heaven. What do you mean, back to heaven? Well, you come from heaven. You're one of the souls of the vassals, just like Allium is, just like any of the other vassals here and the House of Commerce. I came from heaven? From ogre heaven, yes. So what you're saying is...

is that I'm potentially an ogre god. - No, that's ridiculous. No, no, no, you're a vassal. Only ogres like myself who can speak with the god's tongue. You're here to serve the family, to be a part of it, certainly, but-- - I don't know, I mean, I'm speaking with the god's tongue. I could potentially just be an ogre god. - And he immediately starts speaking in a language you don't recognize. - Dammit.

Then he stops. And then he seems to wait for your response as if he's asked you a question or said something to you in what you can only assume...

is the ogre's tongue, the god's tongue. I look him dead in the eye and I do my best impression of what he just did with hacking, sputtering, and coughing. That's very funny. I see what you're doing there.

Soon you won't be able to make these sounds at all, so it's okay. And if you can't do your job, if you refuse to do your job, we'll happily make a meal of you. Turn you into a...

- Hmm, some sort of loaf, I think. You look very gangly, but I'm sure we could spice you up and then you'd be returned, returned by our right of consumption to consume our vassals and be able to return you to heaven in the only way we know how. You understand? - No, not even a little bit. What do you want me to do, just sit here? Just wait for the food, then clean me up and then come tomorrow, I accept the job or I die?

- He gets it. - Tito is a smart one. I think we'll have him in the counting house soon enough. - All right, I'll wait for the food.

I'm starving. And in, as soon as, uh, almost by magic, uh, Allium comes in and he's got a, um, a small bowl, uh, a, a, a, a, a small bowl compared to what you imagine the bowls, uh, of the household might look like in the hands of someone like, uh, this, this, um,

governor, uh, this chief ogre. And, uh, he hands it to you and you can, you, you look down and it's like a, a really delicious, like seafood, like clammy chowder. It's, uh, fatty and rich and creamy. And it's got all kinds of, uh, uh, meats in it and vegetables and, uh, corn even, uh, you, you,

It looks delicious. It smells amazing. And his name is, the one who couldn't speak is Allium? Allium is the name of the vassal who rang the bell. Allium. And you've gotten the name of Tito, but I don't believe I've actually said the name of the... As I take the bowl from Allium, I look at him and say, Allium. Yeah, of course. And I'm fucking mustard seed. Unbelievable. And I begin to just eat the... I just scowl and eat the chowder. Enjoy your chowder. Enjoy your bath.

You'll be able to join the rest of the vassals in their cloister. What word I'm looking for? Quarters. Quarters. Thank you. In their quarters. My name is Commodus Gorgustus. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

What is this? Well, thank you, I guess. I don't know whether to be grateful or angrier. But I'll just sit here for now. You'll get used to it as the madness fades. You'll become a valuable part of the family and you'll know love. You'll be well loved, I promise. Yeah, all right. Sure.

And Commodus takes Tito and gestures and sort of starts to continue to talk to him. And he's talking more in that God's tongue. But he leaves and leaves you alone with Allium for the time that it takes for you to eat. You know, this is your fault. You didn't have to ring that damn bell. No, don't mm-mm me. No.

I don't understand what you're saying. Don't hear me. You and I could have been friends. Now I don't know.

You finish your bowl of food and Alim leads you. He seemed to have been generally gesturing. He wasn't using the more sophisticated hand code that you've come to recognize in Daisy, but instead he's just sort of gesturing generally, not expecting you to pick up on the subtleties of that communication form. And instead he leads you to showers. Not baths, but there's no pool or anything like that.

But there are indeed, there's like hot water that flows from these faucets. And you are taken not just by Allium, but by several other vassals who...

take off your robes, wash you, actually very forcefully give you a whole bath bathing experience. You're not left alone to your own devices. You're instead sort of forced through this cleaning experience, however you feel about that. - Oh gosh, oh, thank God I put the coin in my mouth 'cause they'll look into the golden egg wallet.

- They tie you off and they re-rope you. You get a spritz in the face of the- - It smells like figs and chocolates and cedar, this very heady- - I'm alive, it's a fig! - Oh my God!

You're clean. The bath was warm and nice, but as embarrassing as that might have been for you, the heady smell of the cologne, you're then again led to the quarters of the vassals. And it's here that you can see that there's like a number of bunk beds almost, like a shared living quarters. And in the center, you finally do see someone that you recognize. You see Daisy. Ah!

And she's gesturing. And there's probably a good dozen and a half vassals all sitting and standing around from her. And she's gesturing. And she seems to be telling a story.

They're all enwrapped and some of them have, and it strikes me as strange that they would cover their mouth, but they seem to be holding their hand over their mouth in shock and surprise at whatever story moment they're being told by Daisy. It seems to be very gripping and they're on the edge of their seat in terms of...

Perhaps it's a little scary like some of them are like even like holding their robes up against their body like this and you're Joined by the three vassals who cleaned you and you're all now sharing these quarters. What do you do? I would look around to see that if it's just humanoids and not any of these ogres before I like the only two ogres you've seen since being left by Commodus and his son Tito

We're just them. You now are in a human-only room. Without being even worried about interrupting what she's doing, I run to her. Oh, Daisy, Daisy, Daisy, Daisy! I'm so glad to see you! She sees you and she grabs you, almost gives you a hug, and then turns and makes some quick gestures to the rest of the people who are taken aback by the fact that you have the power of speech. You can see the shock in their eyes, even though Daisy seemingly...

warns them and is attempting to calm them. Where are the others? Please tell me they're all right. Where are the others? Oh, God. Oh, no, no, no. I haven't seen anybody. I don't know how long I've been out. I don't know how long it's been since we were at the hot spring. We all got knocked out by the governor of education or knowledge. We...

We were caught by surprise and it was only through his magics that they were able to transport us here. This is where I was made captive, where I had thought I had escaped before I met you and the rest of the team. Oh no, we have to get you out of here again. You don't even look remotely scared to be back here. Are you all right? These people are horrible. It's terrifying here. Of course I'm scared, but you're here now.

And your friends are somewhere here. And I've seen what you can do. We're going to be able to start a revolution. We're going to be able to do amazing things. I've already told the others and they're going to spread the word. You're going to be able to be a hero. We're going to defeat these bad guys for good. And we won't be eaten and have a life of hard labor in front of us. It's going to be great.

I meant more like maybe just get you out. Didn't you see that they're like 10 feet tall?

and weigh like a thousand pounds. - I've seen you deal with ghosts. I've seen you deal with that monstrosity that attacked us on the river. - You wouldn't have told me I died. - If anyone can do this, you're our only hope. - Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, Daisy, this isn't gonna work. We have to find the others first. We can't start a revolution. I mean, you've seen what they can do, the magics that they have. We can't do anything about that.

She turns and looks over your shoulder, and her eyes seem to be tracking. And just as you turn, you are cheap shot, hit right in the face, smacked. And you take...

- Do I still have 12 hit points? - No, no, no, you would've enjoyed a long rest. - Oh, thank God. - You take four points of bludgeoning damage as you are struck on the chin by another human. - Son of a bitch! Ah, ah, what, what was that? - And you're picked up and grabbed by the shirt, and you realize you're staring in eyes that you've seen months and months and months and months ago.

This is the first mate of the ship of the Moorabound. This is Mylon, as you knew him, and he is fuming furious, and he's ready to hit you again, but Daisy is stopping and holding his hand back, and in the chaos, he's just looking at you with this grim face.

Oh, hey, buddy! It's been a while! How are you doing? I seem pretty mad. You want to send me down? He pushes you back.

- What? - And he's telling a story as quickly as his hands can tell. How could you? My daughter's back after everything that I did to try to get them out and free. One of my daughters is now dead. Who do you think that you are? After all of the energy that I put into this, I... - All right, all right, all right. Just hold on and I'll catch you up to speed. And I tell him basically everything that happened.

provided there's time from the last moment that we saw him you feel that you have limited time with him like you would need to just do it in very broad strokes he's like ready to walk away he's so like don't get in my way instead I say after we last saw you

We met your daughters and I give him a very quick overrun of the curses these this horrible elder creature that we faced the the other crew members what happened to them and That we did everything that we could to save his daughters And we were taken by surprise and I woke up here and just I tried to spear to be a persuasion check

I'm not proficient in that either. What the fuck is going on? Something's not right. That's impossible. I have a 12. A 12? Yeah. He hears you out, but... And he softens. He lowers his hands. And he... You can see another one. The band is also back on his throat. He's wearing the same robes. He looks at Daisy and he...

I swear to you, I swear to you, we had no ill intention. We did everything that we could. We were just taken by surprise. And I'm just worried about my friends too. But look, this is good. We're together now. And we can trust each other. And we can work together.

Stay out of my way for now. He turns and he makes his way over across the quarters and seems to sit in like on his own bunk. And these are top bunk, bottom bunk style like quarters. And he sits on that bunk and back to you. Yeah, I'm really trying here. At first I jackass with the bell and now mine went here. What did I do? I just woke up here. Unbelievable. Daisy, you can sleep now. Oh, okay.

It might sound grim, but you can have the bunk where my sister would have slept before we escaped. Thank you. I appreciate that. Oh, I wanted to tell you something, but you have to promise not to tell anybody. Look, the coin. This thing. I can't get rid of it. It's magic. I think, even though they have all of my other things, I might still be able to summon my weapon. Of course you can't get rid of it. You had it in your mouth.

No, no, you don't understand. And I throw it as far as I possibly can. And I hold out my hand. You hear the disappear into the shadows and blinking just once, it pops back in soundlessly. It just immediately like an illusion. Ta-da!

Why put it in your mouth then? Where else am I going to put it? I don't have pockets. Just walk around and it'll eventually look and... I can't potentially leave it somewhere. What if it reappears? I've been dealing with this a lot longer than you have. I don't need your suggestions. It just seems very silly. The point is, it's not the only thing that I can make it reappear. I might have access to a weapon.

Think that we can cut these off? Yeah, probably. I mean, they're really close to our skin. And I'm good with a knife, but I don't know if I'm that good. There might be some casualties, but we can certainly try. Well, in the morning, the governor of religion is going to come. He's going to attempt to decurse you. And we don't know if that's going to make you lose your voice like us. No. We don't know any of this.

So do you think it's a better idea to try to cut these off or stab him in the face? You wouldn't... You think that you can kill? I don't know! You were talking about revolution and now I'm all worked up! We need to get you all back together so that we can come up with a plan. Okay, I don't like your tone. Look...

Also, and she reaches down and she grabs your hand. We need to be together. Right, yeah. Safety in numbers. No. The ogres like to pair vassals up. They like to play dollhouse. What? It'll be easier if they just assume we're together. What the fuck does that mean? Together as in like...

Together, together? Oh, sweet hell. All right, fine, fine. Whatever we have to do to survive, right? Yeah. Mylon's gonna lose his shit. We have ways of communicating between the houses. We can get a letter out, okay? Oh, okay. All right, I'm trusting you. You know about this way better than I do. We just need to rest tonight, and we'll make a game plan.

Listen, I can't lose my voice. It's like one of the only things I have. Go on for me, all right? This beautiful voice that rings out from my vocal cords. If I lose this, it's over for me. I'm sure if you do, we'll figure that out too. All right, in the meantime, do you know what these neck things, they do? What do they do? We try to cut one off. Yes, yes. They have wands that they can use to make us fall asleep with the bands on.

All right. All right. They hide the mark that I found on my neck. We didn't know these marks existed. Okay. All right. And they tell the other ogres sort of who, what family or house you're from. All right. They also prevent us from escaping. We can't go beyond the city limits with these. We'll fall asleep. Okay.

Alright, alright. Give me some time to think. This is good. We'll stay together, safety in numbers. We'll... play dollhouse or whatever the hell that means. And we'll figure it out, alright? We'll figure it out. We'll get some sleep. Thank you. Thank you. I'm glad you're here with me. Oh, Daisy. You have no idea how much I feel the same. It's gonna be alright. Yeah, yeah. Let's get some rest. Alright. I have a story to finish.

Oh, yeah, of course. My apologies. Continue. And then we went over a waterfall. And...

You find your way to bed. You watch as long as you want to watch. There are the equivalent of gasps in this mute audience. It's very strange. And it makes for a very dreamlike experience to see something you lived that was so terrifying and ended so violently for you retold from the perspective of this friend. And your eyes close and you start to fall asleep.

I need you to make an intelligent saving throw. I'm very good at that. With my plus one, I got an 11. Oh. That was not enough. Yeah. Oh, you failed. I'm thinking these ogres are a bit smarter than me. Smarter. You find yourself dreaming. You dream. And in this dream, you are looking around a...

A small room. You're sitting on a red leather chair. You are looking at a campfire. Not a campfire. A fireplace. A roaring fire in the fireplace. And you seem to be in a reading room. A very elegant, tall reading room with no doors or exits.

There is a window on one side, a large, thick-paned window with slats on one side, and behind it seems to be almost a gray fog or smoke, impossible to see through. It affords no vision in any direction. And you realize...

that this is a room of your mind, that this is a place where if you were to pull a book off of one shelf, you'd turn to it and these were all of the cons you've ever run. You'd be able to pull another book off of another shelf and all of your haunting memories of the Hound would suddenly start to come to you in one spot. You would be able to pull your favorite recipes, your favorite colors, the prices of things. This is a room of knowledge.

and you also realize that you're being watched in this room. This very strange sensation on the back of your head. You feel that there are eyes on you, and you look around, but there doesn't seem to be anyone else in this room. Just the hanging lanterns, the shelved books. Where does your mind go in this dream? You feel like...

This choice will be an important choice. What book do you feel like pulling off of a shelf as you inhabit this dream space as Scrim? After describing the room, I would immediately kind of muse to myself. Like, ah, man, this is kind of nice. I wish I had some of Barnabosa's tobacco. I miss my friends. And I'll look around, and I will...

actually pull, well, I would try to avoid, do I get a, can I sense like what era of my life each book would be from where I could avoid certain memories and look for more recent ones? Absolutely. Uh, it's, it is a library of your mind. So it going to the right book or avoiding the wrong book is as easy as, as thinking is as easy as just going, Oh, right.

- Right up there. That's the shelf where my knowledge of cooking, what I know about any recipe might be. - I would say it would be very easy for Scrim to ignore basically everything that happened before. He wouldn't want to look at any of the memories from before the night that he met his friends in the tavern.

sitting at that table right before all hell broke loose. And we were forced to work together to get out of that tavern. In whatever fate put us in that position, he would want to reach for the book to remember how he met his new friends. You...

put this book in a very special place. You grab the ladder that's on rollers and you slide it around the room and then you climb up the ladder and you grab this top shelf, this first memory from the Wuzi, I believe it was called the Five Stories.

and it was a five-storied tavern. And you remember your initial meeting, the stranger who got you guys into trouble and started the adventure proper. And you are starting to read that and it's like, almost like the words are telling the story joyfully to you before they melt away. The ink disappears into the pages, fades, and you pull the pages apart.

the book itself almost seems to fade. And before you can even start to panic, this sharp piercing feeling, that same feeling of being watched dives into the back of your head, just underneath the little knob that you would have here where it connects to the spine. You feel tremendous pain and you bolt upward as the intensity of this pain shatters you into a wakeful alertness in the bunk bed of the quarters you've now come to rest in.

I do that thing where you do like the hip neck jerk where your sleeve is like. What the hell? And if you cry out, faces turn your way. For a community of mute people, it would be a shocking sound for anyone to cry out. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Shh, shh, shh, shh, shh. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. You see Daisy's upside down head from the top bunk look down. I know, I know, I had a nightmare. I had a nightmare.

It was really weird. It just seemed very real. I was in a library and I had the ability to kind of relive moments of my life. And I was just thinking about my friends because I miss them and I'm worried about them. And I was thinking about the night that we met and I was reading a book and this pain in the back of my head and you want to go back to sleep?

"Why, I guess it's not that important. I'll roll over and I'll go back to sleep. Daisy." She pulls back up. She seemed to be the kind of person who would be disinterested in anyone retelling their dream. She asked me what happened and I started to tell her about the dream. I started to tell her about the dream. She tells me she doesn't care about the dream. Unbelievable.

You eventually make your way back to sleep, pondering in your mind, going circuitously around thinking like, what was that experience? That pain, the nature of the room. Why was I presented this information? Was it perhaps just a dream? Not like more. And you eventually pass out. And when you wake up in the morning, you find yourself...

staring at two ogres. The quarters are clear, and you see... Oh, God, I don't want to be bred! You see Commodus on one side, Gorg Augustus, staring down at you, his hands sort of doing one of these, and you also see another ogre on his side, an ogre you don't recognize, also staring down. Oh, yes, we're going to have to... He starts to mumble more of this god's tongue, and the scroll that was in front of him vanishes, and you...

Whoa. I know this isn't gonna mean anything to you guys.

But I don't think I realized how hungry I was until I realized that I'm not that hungry right now.

"Very strange, you can still speak. Yes, yes, I see that you can still speak. I have to get back up to the House of Education, House of Knowledge in another couple hours. I've got a long journey in front of me. You be welcome." Yes, yes, you too as well, you too as well. And they walk out of the room. Seemingly the Remove Curse ritual is as easy as pulling a bandaid off. "Ha.

Well, how about that? All right, well, now what? You find yourself alone in the quarters for... Oh, they leave. They actually exit. Are the other humanoids, the other vessels still there? You don't see anyone else. They seem to all be doing work. They all seem to be... You're alone in this place. Great.

I choose to do no work, and I sit in my, well, actually, no, I just kind of like pull the covers back up over me, and I try to go back to sleep. As you start to pull the covers over you, Daisy walks into the room, and she pulls the covers. No, no, no, no, no, no! And she makes them off. She's got another gentleman wearing a different colored robe entirely, and this is, she makes a gesture, it's a name of some kind. This is, he's a letter carrier.

He just delivered a letter from the House of Knowledge from... She puts another name in there. It's hard to put all of that together with limited knowledge of hand code, such as you have. But you can write a letter to your friends.

He'll take it back. And he has to go back there anyway. He's part of the house, part of the family. Does she have parchment and a writing implement? She hands you parchment and a writing implement. Okay, good. Thank you. And I take the paper and I lay it down on the ground. I assume it's like stone. Yep, yep, yep, yep. And I take the quill and in horrific writing, I'm like, Scrim. Scrim. Scrim. Scrim. Scrim. Scrim.

Are you guys dead? What else? How are we going to meet? Are you okay? How do we get these bands off? Have you had any luck in doing any of that? Won't they read? Won't the ogres read what's in the parchment? No, no, no, no.

Vassals communicate privately, too. This is not going to an ogre mailman. That's silly. Oh, well, in that case, we have to kill all of the ogres. I don't like them.

She hands the letter to her friend and he darts off to take it. For however many hours, you have no idea how long it'll be by the time the letter will get back. And then she gestures to you and says, we've got some counting to do. No. You'll be eaten. That's a pretty good motivation. There's a hog farm just outside of this villa.

What does that mean? We have to count the number of hogs for the quarter. It's a weekly task. How long is it going to take? Well, there's usually between 800 and 1,000 hogs. And our numbers have to agree. What if I lose count? Then we start again. Dude, how?

- And this is the option over being eaten? - Come on, and she grabs you by the wrist and pulls you off the bed and starts to run you down the hallway. - Barnabas.

Yornir, Taishan, Queenie, you find yourself standing in the courtyard of the villa of the House of Knowledge, and you've just been left by Manius Laginius, the ogre who's taken you in. Queenie, you are holding a small pug for some reason. It's like Dune. And...

The four of you have just been shared some knowledge because Manius has received a letter from Gork Gustus that the, that they want to meet, that they want to, that his request not just to petition the ogre Sonas that you claim to have in your person, but also to perhaps make an exchange for Scrim has been accepted.

but it will be another day or two before he can make the arrangements to go out there and get Scrim. That you'll need to do your chores, that you'll need to make sure that you are still contributing as vassals until we sort out exactly what has happened. And then

Just a moment after he leaves, one of the vassals, who you've come to know as Barley, comes up to you and hands you a letter sort of on the down low, very, very quietly. And it's the letter that Scrim wrote.

And it has the words that he wrote in the letter. It says, from Scrim, are you guys dead? We must kill all of the ogres. I do not like them. The letter's R-U-D-E-D. It's very much like scratchy and like misspelling. And Barley hands you fresh parchment and

And says, we can get you another message if you write something back to Scrim. We can do that before the next few days when you have a chance to finally see him again, perhaps. I'll take the letter, and I'll hand it to Barnabas. I think this is for you. Tell you this? Well, at least Scrim is in good spirits.

Scrum is in good spirits. That's fantastic. How is he? Does he say? He's actually quite a strong wordsmith compared to a lot of the salty dogs all you sailed with. What does it say? Does he say which ogre he is? Surely his persona is awoken.

No, he hasn't mentioned which of the grand ogre gods reincarnated from ogre heaven he has selected. He's probably a good one. I'm going to look around to see if there are any ogres nearby. Make a perception check. Four. Ten.

You turn, and you're in the central courtyard, this inner cloister of the villa, and there's a number of different columns on all sides. There's this, like you might find in the center of a museum, a grassy patch gardening, these many topiaries, which all have been cut

cut and turned into the likenesses of the family. So there's one that looks like Manius, there's one that looks like Mariana. No, no, no, Gorkin, he wouldn't be part of the family. It's only the... Just this education. This is the house of education. It's just the Blaginius family.

And so Marianna Blaginius is there and you also notice that there are other ogres who you haven't seen before. There are two young daughters that you have not yet met. And there's a older daughter that seems to be rendered. And behind that topiary,

There's a very sort of coy, shy-looking woman ogre who is peeking out, and you take from the look of this topiary that this is the daughter. Oi, hello there! We're not talking about killing ogres or anything over here. We are gods, we are ogres ourselves, actually. Perhaps it is not best to speak. Why?

She's clearly spying on us, is she not? Are you spying on us, or are you just more of a curious ogre girl type? She ducks behind the topiary, behind the platform that it is, and then...

Turns and you can see her sort of waddle away and and disappear down down one of the hallways and back into the house Oh, yeah, the coast is clear. Scrim says we should kill all the ogres. Kill all ogres? Kill all ogres! Does that include ourselves? We know we our ogres have been slain or died heroically in some in the past Perhaps he does mean us but don't forget it. What is your name? Shaggoth of the Blackrock. Okay. I like to hear that Mr. of the black

Rock! What is your name? My name is Truthaxe Sharkpuncher. What is my name? Your name is Jotnar of the Frostguard. Or does Jotnar Frostguard? Queenie, what is yours? You know, my name is Fiona Smashmouth. I'm the swamp ogre.

Alright, our stories are straight. Yeah. Well, clearly Scrim is not on the same page. We need to write him back. Is the Vassal guy still there? Yeah. We need to give him his hero god. Give him something good.

I guess if Fiona is the princess of the swamp ogres, you're the king of the something... You're like the... You're the avatar of the gods, right? Frost. The frost ogres. You got the dragon ogres here. More of a volcanic range. I'm the sea ogres, made peace with the Sahuagin. Allied with their great shark gods, Saekala. And I spit on the ground. What does that leave for Scrim?

I don't care, maybe leave it up to him, but that sounds like a bad idea. Well, all of us have reincarnated as, uh, things that we became kind of aspects of the ogre gods that we once were. He's probably an ogre god of gambling or slacking off. This is good, maybe some kind of mountain ogres. Oh, is there an ogre god of partying? Or mines? Or drinking?

or birds or fanciful plays oh hey that's not a bad one or like handsome hats

Or sleeping on the ground. Or sleeping in graves. Oh, he did sleep in a... Oh, in the grave. He slept in a hole. Called to death. Yeah. Now you're onto something there, Mr. Fireblossom. Well, yeah. Perhaps he's the king of the Skalogers.

A great necromancer. Oh. Just skull ogres? Skele-ogres. Skele-ogres. Oh. Like skeleton ogres. Oy, you'll be Mr. Bones. Surely you've... You know, all my creativity I think has ran out into the chat.

Well, you don't have to create anything. You just have to play to this key aspect that would allow to spark his memory. Mr. Bones, they live underground in dirt and sludge and muck. And they all have very intense gambling habits.

So you've basically just created an ogre loa. Yeah, yeah! Just checking. Uh... Oh, is that good enough? I think it fits. I can perhaps describe our plan of blending in with these personas. Oh, and I'll like write down like, "Oh, I am, you know, Truthak the Shark Puncher and, you know, all of this and we're all of these. We're going to go to ogre heaven and we are all gods and reincarnated ogre heroes."

And we have ogre souls within us. But only our dear friend and leader, Jotnar Frostguard, can speak the god's tongue, because he is not as corrupted, and his memory hasn't been purged like ours as much. Mm-hmm. Should you make sure to add in that Daisy is our reincarnated vassal, and that she does by right belong to us? Oh, that's right. Mm-hmm. By rights...

Maybe you should say like she scrims personal Basil. Oh, that's right. That sounds right. Because we know she's in the same house, right? Yeah. And they should always do not let her out of your sight, Mr. Staviscotch. Oh, and Mr. Bones loves dogs. What do we think?

He's fine. I mean, I think that's him. If that doesn't spark his memory of his true ogre god soul, then I don't know what would. That's Scrim in a nutshell. All right. Anything else we should say? This might be our last chance. We miss you. Oh, yeah, that's right. We miss you. Especially Greeny. Hope you're okay. Hope they're feeding you. Okay, hold on here. Hold on. Here, turn around, Mr. Fireboss. Oh, sorry! Oh, you know me on straight, huh?

Sorry about that. Oh, that was a sharp article, wasn't it? Oh, gosh. What? It looks worse than it is. What happened? It looks worse than it is. What's he... No, it's fine. It's fine. It's fine. What's he done? Ooh. How bad is it? The vassal's just like...

Am I bleeding? Yes. It looks very painful. Beware the taper that eats our dreams. Huh? Oh, this is a long letter. Okay. Oh, it's covered in blood now. Ugh.

"Mighty, mighty kind of you to deliver that to our friend, Barley." "Oh no, Barnabos, did you write all that in brown ink? 'Cause you know once blood oxidizes it turns brown. There's gonna be a bunch of that Scrim can't read." "Wait, can Scrim read?" "Oh yeah, can Scrim even read?" "That's a good question." "Why would you offer me a brown ink quill?"

He can read liquor labels, presumably. Oh, that's true! Well, I think he just recognizes the pictures. The color? Well, hopefully he makes sense of it. I'm not writing that again. Goodbye. Hey, what was your name? Isn't that Barley? Our good friend Barley. Oh! I thought that was Snarly. Oh!

Is it barley? He walks away. He walks away and you have no idea what the idea of how you talked about your pro-ogre zonas in front of him, how he would perceive that. He just walks away. Gosh, I thought his name was Carl. Oh, I think you mean Kyle. Oh. Mr. Bones was the best you can do.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't know, just when it came to it, it just felt right, you know? I'm trying to think of Ogre and Scrim, and I think, you know, he'd be a little fella, and he'd say, "Oy, oy, Mr. Bones," and take a bath. You hear a whistle, and from one of the--

I'm sorry, Yankee. I didn't mean to scare you. You want me to get the death whistle out? Oh my god. From one of the second floor's windows, you can see Bacon.

is looking down and pointing at each of you, and he's pointing at the sun. It's clear that you need to get to work, that you've got a day's work ahead of you, and that you need to take care of the chores that you agreed to do with him, so that he can make a happy report to Manius that you are contributing. - All right. We will reconvene at the end of the day. - All right. - Good luck.

Stop gonna kill me. Snoring, like, really loud. I'm gonna turn and start heading towards the fields, I think, right? I think I said I was going to the fields. You agreed to... Or was it the animal garden? Yeah, yeah, garden. So you know where the garden is at this point. At the very least, you understand that there is an adjacent, like, large...

like thinking garden that has paths and many different types of flowers as much variety as possible and a huge number of shapes. Manius has told you that your job is to think like an ogre would and to...

Use your creativity to clean up the garden. It's been a little neglected because they've been a little under-vassaled, so to speak, and it would be great to have someone with any experience at all, really, to see what you can do. You start to make your way. Yeah, I'll head there.

I think I was requested in the kitchen, the butcher shop, wherever. You report to the kitchen and they ask you to make your way out to the stable. They need you to slaughter, clean, and cook a cow, at least to get it slaughtered so that it can be stored for the coming winter. It's a tremendous amount of meat, but you'll have to do the job of the killing. All right, I can do that. Taishan.

well I'll see y'all later I'm going to the ale house you make your way to the basement the wine cellar I'm in the basement it's not a whole ale house I thought it was a proper I thought it was a proper setup they had here but I guess it's just a dang dirty basement oh and one of the vassals who's also seemingly responsible for this um

walks you through the steps. You'll need to taste all of the wines, and you see that there's a long hallway of barrel after barrel after barrel, tall standing barrels with a complicated mechanism that allows you to open it, taste, and see if it needs to be topped off with fresh wine, if there are any off flavors, that sort of thing. And Queenie...

you're on babysitting duty. You make your way to the second floor and sitting there is Fraldina. One of the few vassals that you recognize right out of the gate because of how very, very pregnant she is. Heavily pregnant, she is watching the sleeping young twin ogre daughters who you've learned their name to be Fabia and Flavia Blaginius.

what in the hell and we'll start with you queenie what do you do all right it's story time young ladies all right so let's are you shuffling for aldina let them sleep as long as you can oh they're sleeping right now with their eyes open like that and she's like

Good luck. And she, like, as fast as she can, waddle bolts out the door. And you're left with Fabia and Flavia. And they are... Who are you? My name's Queenie.

I'm gonna be your babysitter. You wanna hear a story? Yeah! Alright, go ahead and sit down. We're gonna play a game. Can we have ice cream? Yeah, sure. You can listen to the whole story. We get ice cream all day, all the time. Yeah, I know. And you can have it the moment the story starts. Yeah, we get ice cream all the time. No, we want ice cream for the story. For the story. So we can listen and eat ice cream. You can't chew and listen at the same time. Oh, we can do the whole thing. Absolutely. We can do it. No problem.

You know what? It's interesting that you say that because I met two girls once that they could do that too. It wasn't really impressive. But you know what? I heard that there are girls that can't sit and just listen to a whole story. Make it a frustration. I bet you're not those girls. Can you give me dice? A detour. What did you like, man? Yeah, a detour, please.

It's a two. I fail. Those girls sound stupid, and they bolt out the door. All right, see you later. They disappear. You can hear their feet immediately evaporate down the hallway. I'm going to yell out really loudly.

Who's playing hide and go seek? I bet you can't find me. And then I'm gonna start running in the opposite direction. Very, very, very loudly. - You start running in the opposite direction? - Yeah. - Okay. Make one more persuasion check. - 18.

And I'm gonna assume there's a plus to that. I added the plus. Oh, terrific. Yeah. I reviewed the character sheet to co-play. Well played. We're co-piling between you right now. I'm gonna co-pile my character too. I'm gonna take it over for script.

You're in here. You find yourself in a garden that is not as poorly kept as they made it sound. It seems that their standards of what poorly kept would look like is like there's a little bit of weeds here. There's some debris over here. You find yourself in what is actually a pretty nice garden. There's some running water. There's a fountain or two. It does need upkeep, but not like a complete renovation. What do you do? Um...

Are there any topiaries in the garden or is it just sort of like nice plants? There do appear to be hedges that have been unshaped. Like a big square where somebody would be able to go to work and do sculpting if you were to want to design a shape. And then there's also choices to be made. If you wanted to move a plant from one section to the other to try and create a better contrast or introspective vision, you'd be able to...

give it a Yornir touch or think about what you're doing as a... - Yorknar Frostguard. - So what I would like to do is if there are any unripened fruit, I wanna instantly make them ripe. - You do go to a bush.

Do you want to have more suggestions? Yeah, so we'll start with that. Okay, you go to a bush, and you recognize this bush should not be producing berries in this season, but you do know how to coax the berries into ripeness that would normally be arriving perhaps much later in spring. And with a few hands of motions and with the coaxing,

process of your druid craft, where small sort of black bulbs immediately almost inflate and turn into these brilliant orange golf ball sized fruit on this bush. And as that happens, a small bird comes down and it has in one of its claws a silver coin. Oh, is this for me?

You want the berry? This is strange. Hold on one second. So, as my racial feature, I have Speech of Beast and Leaf. I can communicate with, though not understand, beasts and plants, and have advantage on charisma checks to influence them. Uh-huh.

is you want to leave the silver piece and take one of these berries if this is true leave the silver piece on my hand puts it right in your hand uh a squawk once if you are actually a bird or squawk twice if you are not a bird

That was less of a squawk. That was more of a bird call, but this is fine. Do I get a sense that this is strange? Do I know what kind of bird it is? And if so, does this seem like a strange level of intelligence for a bird to have? Make an insight check. And what is the... Nice. One moment. Look at that. One moment. Let me just make sure that I have...

I know what kinds of birds are in my cities. Who doesn't? The chief export is... This is a blue thrush. And it is waddling around and Insight is...

Wisdom. So, yes, you make an insight check. 28. With a 28. Oh, my God. This is very clearly unusual behavior for a blue thrush. You might expect some smarter birds to have a notion of...

doing a learned behavior for a reward. Like, if you've, in anachronistic terms, know of like crows who like pick up trash and like put it in for treats and stuff and they create those psychological boxes and stuff. But to an unprompted bird that seems so wild like this one to sit down and have gotten a coin and then immediately wanting to exchange it for food seems unusually intelligent.

My right eye will flash real quick and I'm gonna use detect magic to see if I get a sense of anything around the bird. Good play. Not even background radiation, aside from what's on your person. This is a non-magical garden and a non-magical bird. Do you have a name, young bird? Do you know the topic? One tweet for yes and two for no.

Oh! I give the bird the berry that it paid for. It puts the berry in its mouth and...

- Oh, oh, oh, okay. - And in that moment you hear the sound of giggling, laughter, very playful laughter, almost mischievous, and two young ogre twins sprint through the garden running past you and they disappear and evaporate. And moments later you see Queenie. - Oh my God, you run so fast.

How old are you? How much energy do you-- Is this your home? I don't have time to talk. They went into the woods. All right. I just hear like, "Bew!" Jump past. Is this true? As fast as you are, these twins seem to be especially good at hiding and seeking, so they are disappearing into the next phase. Barnabas.

You make your way out to the stable, and you understand the work that is to be done. There are a number of different cows, but you've been told to look for the one with a special pattern on its side. All right. Let's just kill the wrong one. Very recognizable. It's at age. It's time. It's mature. It's had a happy, free-range life, but it is time for this cow to... for the right of consumption that you will take. Stop.

What's the pattern look like? Afternoon, cows! You understand that it looks like... Better meet Ogre God!

I cast Hello, Cows, Meet God. Yeah, I cast Gun, Prepare to Meet Ogre God. You understand that this looks like the face of a dormouse, that it has two large ears, a small brown spot in the center with a nose, what would look like sort of eyes. And as you're walking through the stable, smelling the rich hay, rich...

experience of the barn, you eventually come across one that, oh yes, yeah, I can see a dormice there. Looking at the others, it doesn't seem to be a dormouse. It doesn't seem to be to match any of these other cows. You feel like you've spotted the one and judging by its age, you'd say that you've got the correct cow. This looks more like a field mouse, but...

I wouldn't put it past the ogres and mix them up. Do I have any implements? What do I have? What implements do I have? You have been told that you would be able to... We don't have to RP this. Yeah, we don't have to RP this.

It would be like from Forgetting Sarah Marshall when he's like killing the pig. I'm sorry! I'm sorry! You would have the usual killing instruments for this purpose. You would have a saw, knives, all

All the things you'd be able to use in this space. You have one of those like gas powered like... Anton Sugar. Yeah, yeah. He shoots it. What's the movie where that's used so famously? No Country for Old Men. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Sorry, stare into the implement. Well, are you there?

You'll probably notice I have a lot of killing implements. And you have a mouse on your eye. Woo!

Okay, no. I believe that, you know, you probably know what this means. You know, I'd say, you know, no hard feelings. The same thing will probably happen to me in a couple days. So we're all going to get turned into stew. And I probably will make quite, not quite nearly as delicious a brisket as you will. So I thank you, Ms. Cowell.

And I get to walk. I try to do it. You start to walk forward, and it walks forward to you and puts its chin up against your chest. And...

I'm just going to take your temperature really fast. You know, don't give me those eyes. Do you see how many killing implements I have? And it's in that moment that you hear Mischievous laughing. You hear the sound of two young twin ogre daughters laughing.

running through the barn and they immediately run from one opening to the other open gate and disappear out and into the field and moments later you see Queenie laughing

Oh my dear lord. I don't know why I picked babysitting. I am an idiot. Oh, by the way, before you kill that cow, you might want to milk it. Its udders are full. And then I'm going to keep running. I'll get... Hmm. Oh, like, look at the hammer that I have. And the knife. And the saw. And I'm back to the cow. Oh.

- I'm so angry! - And before the scene of Apocalypse Now ended. - I do have to say something really quickly. So someone says, "What, Nikki?

What happened in Edge of Midnight body horror? This is not bad. I don't know why, but like I can talk about like human death. Sorry, Steve, the FBI agent. I can talk about human death like it's no problem, but the moment it comes to animals, it becomes really difficult. Kill all humans! Oh, you circled in life and all

- There's always a bigger fish. - To use an anachronistic term, we cut to scrim. You are out on a field looking out at a, like a football field size pitch and it's muddy, it is gated and you're on a hill and next to you with her knees in her arms, Daisy is-- - 776, 777.

778. 700. Ah! Ah! Damn it. 700. Again? I'm sorry! I wasn't made for work!

She smacks the back of your head. Your hat, which doesn't exist anymore, doesn't actually fly off because you're not wearing a hat. Oh, I miss my hat. One. Two.

Three. It's hard. It's difficult for you to count these, not just because you're being distracted and you don't want to and you don't want to and you don't want to, but... That's pretty good. You're seeing all the hundreds of hogs occasionally, like,

get into like lined orders or form circles, start to swirl around and like play games with each other almost. These are our unusual activities for humans. And you are watching them be very strange in orchestration. Daisy seems undisturbed. She's just doing her best to pocket them and write down some numbers and then pocket them and write down some numbers. Before we get started again, and I apologize about that, but I have a question that...

Why are they doing that? Yeah, they're weirdly organized. This is how hogs behave. I'm not just seeing things, right? I haven't been out here for so long that my mind is fried. I mean, they're actually forming designs. They're weirdly organized. That is not normal behavior. That's how hogs... I don't understand. These are the only hogs that you've ever seen? Well, I've seen other hogs at other...

These are the house of... This is our house's hog farm. But you've never seen hogs outside of this? No, no, no. Are there hogs out in the forest? Yes, and they don't behave like this. I'm telling you something. How do they behave? Like hogs. That doesn't... Like a normal hog.

They don't form intricate patterns and designs. They just kind of sit there all day. Look, this is what they do all day. They love to play and muck around in the mud. Look. This isn't right. This isn't playing or mucking. This is something advanced. And as you're looking down, they're like,

It's synchronized hog. It's like one of those 1920s black and white like... There's a group of four of them once smoking a cigarette and playing cock. It turns into a hog rave. No, Daisy, you don't understand. I'm telling you that something isn't right here. And look, I know that none of this is right, but this is especially wrong.

What do you think is happening? This is wrong. I don't want to be right. Do I get, I mean, besides it just being weird, is that really the only feeling? Like, I mean, this is just out of the ordinary. Make an intelligence check in advantage. I will roll twice. Thank goodness. Oh no. That was worse. I got an eight. An eight? Yeah.

Hogs shouldn't act like that. Look, Daisy, I know that I probably wasn't your first choice out of the group to be stuck with, but I'm telling you that this isn't right. Okay. I believe you. One, two, three, four. Touch in. You've been shown how to do this once before, and this is the first time that you're doing it alone.

And you walk down the steps and you find yourself in a beautiful wine cellar. A wine cellar is not very... It doesn't quite do it justice. This is like a brewery room where huge casks, barrels, as tall, maybe taller than you are, round bulbous oak barrels are...

And it's not just for the coolness that they are able to ferment and age these wines, but each one of them has a small little step ladder that allows you to go up and undo this complex mechanism, pull it up, get a draft, and actually take a sip of wine and get a sense of how it's doing, and that you will need to do this for 40 or 50 barrels. Mm-hmm.

Oh, imagine all the tea you could brew in these maybe? Oh. Yeah.

Being back in a room of brewery, I think, would take me back very quickly for just a moment. - It does feel strangely familiar. Even in this alien place and this alien continent, with the experiences that are starting to show you so much wisdom about the world that you're starting to grow up to. You are taken back by this space. It's not tea.

but it does have those same parallels that make you almost homesick for a moment. Before I climb anything or I approach the barrels, I just, for a moment, I close my eyes and I just take a deep inhale of the room.

just to get a sense for all the, everything like the, the wood of the barrels, the, any, anything that's potentially like an ingredient in the room, anything to really like bring in every smell and trying to begin to, to piece it apart and really intake, uh,

every aspect of this space before I begin to visit the first barrel. You center yourself and you take in the smell. You get the wood, the oak smell, the oil that's been used to treat it, the musk of this basement being what it is, not unpleasantly so. It is rich and clean smelling. And you find that

balance inside of yourself that allows you to approach the task at hand. I climb up the first barrel. It's one of those, you know those mason jars where it has like

one like arm hook and then it hooks around in the other way and you need to like twist it in sort of a funky manner in order to get it to pop over the ridge and it's one of those style mechanisms and you're able to using just a bit of strength not that big but just a bit of strength pull it free and open up and

You get this heady, fortified wine smell. You know that there's gonna be a variety of wine smells in this space, but this seems to be almost like a dessert wine, port-like. - Mm. Mm.

Ooh, this smells delicious. Now, do I have a scooper or like a cup? You have a ladle. A ladle? Okay. You have a satchel of water so that you can clean the ladle between barrels. And you have a cup, which you can pour into just a small shot glass, let's say. Let's see the ladle.

notes of cherry. You're starting to feel the aged nature of the oak really add the vanilla dimension and additional other flavors to it. It doesn't taste like it's going in any wrong direction, but it's syrupy. At the back of the mouth, it lingers perhaps too long, in your opinion. We'll have to cut the lingering of the aftertaste. We'll add a little...

Something special. You go to the front, the storeroom, and you know that there's some fresh wine, there's some additional herbs, fruits, vegetables, things that you might be able to add just to kick it up for a week before scooping that back out. You grab what you feel is appropriate, and you make your way back up the stairs. Do I find any cranberries? No.

It is Christmas, Derek. So maybe some hazel toe? Oh, yes. There's what looks like sort of towards the end of life, but not molding, but not fresh cranberries, but cranberries that have been well stored. I take whatever I deem would be an appropriate amount, judging by the size of the cask, to add in there.

You do that, and you take another ladle, and you take another sip, and the tartness and the sweetness that the cranberries have added makes it a little drier and a little easier to swallow. You think that you've course-corrected just slightly this particular barrel. Another 49 barrels to go. You...

You're on your tent barrel as you're making your way through this task and you're realizing that you need to make a constitution saving throw. Uh oh. You're supposed to spit it out. You're supposed to swallow it. How am I going to know how the aftertaste... Dig deep. Find this constitution. Dragon sorcerer. 18. 18.

You are taking small sips and you're trying to be cautious. You know how many barrels you have to go through. Another 10, 20 barrels. Make that constitution saving throw at disadvantage. 12. Roll again. Oh, just another one. You're at disadvantage, yeah. Yeah, it was. Yeah, nine. Uh-oh.

The letter is getting a little precarious. The taste that you have in your mouth, they're all starting to taste the same. Does this white taste like that red that you just had? Was the...

Which, was it oranges that they wanted me to go in with this one? They said something, this one tastes a little off. Probably should add a lot more fresh wine. This is delicious. Wine will never best shag off of the black rock. Oh, I know exactly what, I know what this one means. Oh, no. The yogurt. Oh, the yogurt.

Oh, love. Would I have pepper, I think. Pepper. Pepper. Yes, pepper, exactly. Eight teen handfuls of it. Exactly correct. You put teen handfuls of black pepper into one wine. Exactly.

And then you move on to the next one, and as you make your way up the steps, you... Perfect! Your vision is doubling at this point, and it's strange to come to a single image, and you're looking and looking at the mechanism, and you're staring at what is a door mouse. A small little mouse. And it looks at you, and you're so taken aback that you almost stumble off your rear view mirror for a moment. Then you pull yourself forward and stare right at him, and he...

works the mechanism, opens the top of the barrel, and takes a thimble, scoops out a little tiny bit of this particular wine, and fills what is clearly a little satchel at its side, and then closes the mechanism before scampering down the backside of the barrel into the deep of the basement.

"Well, thank you, cadre of Dormais. I couldn't-- I just need the one, though. I couldn't possibly drink seven thimbles of this wine. Silly, to pour so much." The Dormouse is gone. "No! I-- Please, join me. Have some." "Are you-- are you there?" "Dormais!" The four of you finish your day's tasks. "Oh, Queenie."

You chase the hell out of these twins, and you make your way through a field, past the stables, past the garden, all the way up to a forest line. And you find the twins there, and they are standing there, and they are doing this like...

You can't catch us, you can't sneak us, you can't seek us, you can't hide from us, ha ha ha. They're taunting you as much as possible and trying to get you to chase them, full of energy as they are and full of mischief as they are. You are standing looking up at them, almost out of breath, but determined. - Are my bees innate?

Your honeypot is not at your side. You don't have your... But it's not my honeypot that calls the bees to me as a swarmkeeper ranger, though. That's true. So I would look towards the tree line.

And I'm like, I'm about to pass out at this point. Like, I'm seeing quadruple here. There are eight twins in front of me. I've sweat so much I can't sweat anymore. And I look towards the tree line and, all right, you might have bested me. But I think that's because one of you might be an ogre princess. We look at each other.

Now... Confused now. I know you probably weren't told this, but I was asked to babysit you because I am the reincarnation of Fiona Smashman, the Ogre Queen of the Swamp. And it is written in our lore that one twin will rise above the other to take her seat as Princess of the Swamp. And only the bees can choose the rightful heir.

Now, I need you both to come towards me and stare out into the forest with me and let's see if we can call those bees. You make a persuasion check. An outside advantage. And whoever the bees choose have to eat the loser. We're gonna get a keen enable. Do you say persuasion? 21. 21. Oh, jeez. They're looking at each other and it's like, who moves first?

Are you going to move? And then one of them turns and starts to scramble down the rock that they were standing on and make their way. And the other one huffs and jumps forward. Sibling rivalry has been kindled within them, and they immediately start to race forward. And they are standing there looking at you. What do we have to do? What do we have to do? Well, you know princesses are graceful, right? They're not rude. They're not bratty. They're not mean.

They're lovely, ladylike, kind, smart, intelligent, because those are different. Yeah, I'm the most loveliest and kindest and graceful. You are not. Ow, ow, ow. That's not the kind of attitude that's going to summon the bees. They're going to see right through that. A brawl explodes. See what you did? Who hit who first? They're less likely to be a princess. That's what I thought. All right. Say something kind to each other.

the kindest person is going to summon the bees. I like that you look like me. We're pretty. That's pretty good, actually. Yeah. You always give me more food than you eat, and I like that, and I thank you.

Alright, that's nice too. And I'm going to call on the bees. I'm going to make a buzzing sound in the back of my throat and call on just a few of my swarm to make their way out of the forest and have them dance around in beautiful patterns.

The bees that join you come not just from the forest, but from behind. You expect to be able to summon bees of this nature, these fey spirits that join you in your journey across the Vantress, and where you think

I think that it would emerge, but they also come from behind. Seemingly, having left wherever your honeypot may be, they immediately come to your beckoned call. You summon them. Look at them all around us. And I'm going to have them create the images of a beautiful towering castle. The image of a crown or a tiara.

- You're creating these images one after the other and you've clearly enthralled the twins. What was their plan of torturing you the way they might've tortured any other vassal, disappearing, melting away as you are enchanting them in this way. And as you create each one of these shapes, you turn and look back. There is no Ogerton from this vantage point for you.

You feel that dizzy passing out feeling. That's not fading. It wasn't just the heavy workout and sprinting and exercise that you had just done chasing the twins. Looking back, there's almost a mirage-like feeling. And what would be...

and villas and structures of the whole city and the waterfall looks mundane. Like a simple mountain face as if there was no city there whatsoever. I'm gonna make a note of that up here in the old nugget. Now, twins. Yeah. Girls. Yeah.

They are at their alert attention. These bees will leave if they sense any unkindness in your hearts. They're only drawn to the princess with the most pure of heart. You want to go play? Yeah. You want to have a tea party? Yeah. Let's do that. And walking gracefully, you make your way, having succeeded on your first day as babysitter, and you make your way back to the rest of the group. Thank you, bees. I love you, bees.

The four of you finally make your way, it's night, you have an opportunity to endure a shower, you eat a fatty delicious meal, and the four of you find yourselves speaking together in the room that you share, elevated from the quarters of the vassals, alone, the four of you, all by yourselves. I learned something today that seems suspicious. I learned something too.

Why don't you go first? Mr. Fireboss, are you alright? No, Shagoth of the Blackrock is totally fine. Oh, Shagoth of the Blackrock. Yes, right. We shouldn't be in character. You're drooling all over yourself. No, that's fine. No. No, I'm not.

I don't know. And why am I all wet? Listen. Did anyone else kill any kindly animals? No, but I got close to killing two child ogres. It's possible. Don't drink from the 79th wine barrel.

Why not? Oh, 'cause I thought it was a pool and the dormice that showed told me it was a pool. You were talking to dormice? Yes, many. Many dormice. Spoke to you? We went for a swim, said I was very handsome and I told her that Mr. Bones was gonna rise from his skeletal-colitorible tomb.

And we went for a quick backstroke in what I thought was a delicious pool, and it turns out it was the 79th barrel of wine.

And he's very charming. A Dormouse. A Dormouse, yes. Many Dormice. Did a Dormouse have kindly eyes? No. It's like he knew what it was... He knew what you were doing. And he tipped his bowler cap to me and said, you're a handsome gent. Don't put any... Did he give you eyes that was akin to someone saying, you don't have to do this? No.

No, no. He said, in fact, you do have to do this. He said, do it more, but don't put any more pepper in it, because that was probably not a good idea. Oh, yeah. That beef had plenty of pepper, didn't it? It was well-seasoned. Yeah. I'm convinced that the first barrel of wine is probably okay. The...

87th barrel of wine, I can forget that entirely. So I think that's when the wine took over and I'm pretty sure that's maybe the best one. I shake off from the Blackrock. You've never seen a Taishan like this. I brought wine skins with me if you'd like to do a sample. And I would suggest this one will pair very good with anything.

- As everything is in it. - Yeah, I'll go ahead and try that. - Oh, that's for you. - I love the taste of everything. - Goober Jr.'s asleep. - It compares best with itself. - You taste the wine. - I do, I taste the, what does it taste like, Mace?

Well, this one is a medley. A winter medley. I call it the four seasons because it has something for every season. It has flowers. Why do you call it the winter medley

if it had something from every season. No, I call it the four seasons. I don't call it the winter medley. I said that it is a medley. I said that it is a medley. I did not name it Mr. Dormouse with the handsome polar cap. It's red and white combined. It's red and white combined. It's a twist. You know, that were one of the port towns I used to work in. They love their port. They like cheap rum. Yeah.

They call that the Uncle Mose. Throw a couple of ice cubes in there and you'll be blacked out for an 8:00 PM bedtime. All right, so can you finish telling me what's in this? It's got flowers. It's got flowers, it's got floral notes.

This is a scooch of black pepper. A scooch? A scooch of black pepper. It might have a couple of shreds of hair of the Dormouse in it. I don't know if you got it in this one or not. But for sure, apricots and cranberries and...

and other berries, and then elderberries, and then cherriesberries. - That's a nice touch, Mr. Fuller. - French dressing, and then a jalapeno. - How did you make it with French dressing? - I think they're throwing it out to his friends. - I was gonna say,

- So Taishan explains what does it actually taste like, Derek? - It tastes like a nightmare sangria. It's a spicy, overburied, extra sweet, extremely tart, red and white combined impossibility. My goal in my- - That's pretty delicious actually, yeah.

It goes with everything because it tastes like everything. This is like an everything bagel in liquid form. You know how sometimes you can have leftover days and you combine stuff and you're like, this is really, really good. This is actually surprisingly good. It's like the day after Thanksgiving when you take your entire Thanksgiving dinner and you mash it up into one amalgamous Thanksgiving. Oh!

Mound. You like the four seasons, huh? You'll never be able to recreate that dish because you don't know exactly how the... The ratio? Not just the ratio, but certain foods had been seasoned previously and you'd have to season that food exactly the same way in order for it to work in the way that... It's never going to be the same. It's always different. You have a unique, a legendary artifact of a wine. This is...

Probably the greatest thing I've ever tasted. I fire off fire bolts into the air from my fingers. "Shanghau the Blackrock has done it again, "and will do it many more times, "and has done it for many lifetimes before." And you're near to sleep. Miss Smashmouth, I don't think I like Mister of the Blackrock. Oh, I think Tass is a good guy.

I think Shagoff is an amazing friend. I think the dragon ogres have gotten to his mind. Troll attack, Shark Muncher. You just haven't tried it. Did you just call him Shark Muncher? Does he not munch sharks? No, I punch sharks. You punch sharks? What do you do? And then I strap them to my hands and I punch people with sharks. Okay, well that's all well and good, but...

Yornir, wake up. What? Wake up, Yornir. What? Wake up. I was trying to share a story about my day and no one would let me talk. Well, I told you to go first, but then everyone wanted to enjoy the four seasons, so, and I don't-- Anyway, I-- I actually think you cut him off to talk, but anyway, I gotta tell you something important. I don't really care about your wine, I do, 'cause it's delicious, but I went to the edge of this place and-- How far did you go? Pretty dang far.

And when I looked down upon Ogerton, it wasn't Ogerton. It was like this... almost like a mirage of an Ogerton. And it was more just the side of a mountain than anything else. It's almost like it wasn't even here. Is this all an illusion? I'm not sure. Were the ogres there? Well, I was with the twins, and they didn't seem perplexed at all.

I mean, to be fair, they were being brats. There is a small, bestial creature that is whimpering and clawing at you. I think you need to address that so I can continue my story. I was at the dorm house, yeah. There is a very-- Tell them I said hi. Tell them I said hi.

You talk through the days that you shared, and Taishan, I'm not sure if you'll remember any of this information, but... My mind is still okay. ...you share your unusual experiences, and you have that knowledge as characters. Scrim, it's night now, having counted many hogs many times over, over and over again, and you did finally come to an agreement that there were 914 of those.

Daisy takes you to the shower and it's time to clean up. This is clearly a ritual that has been baked into vassals and there's a number of different folks who are all getting showered and she beckons you. Join me in the stall. I guess. I mean, how much weight I could this day get? Go ahead. She pulls you in and closes the, not door, but the door.

Curtain. Thank you. The shower curtain. And she doesn't turn the water on just yet. Instead, she points at the grate down at the floor. And looking down, you can see another vassal peeking up through the grate in the sewer system. What the hell? And a hand lifts up and clutched is what is clearly a blood-covered parchment letter. LAUGHTER

Oh my god. Do you think they're alright? She...

I will unroll it. And what does your letter say? Well, so I'll start to look at it, and at the top I'll see something about Mr. Bones, and then I can't make out, and then some other thing, and I'm reading through it, I'm skimming through it, and I'm reading all these titles and things that you put in there, and there's the random blurbs from Queenie about being okay, I hope they're feeding you, we miss you, and then something about me owning Daisy as a vassal, and I look at the letter, and I look at Daisy, and I... I... I... I...

I look at Daisy and I say, "One of us, what the fuck are you talking about?" "Doesn't make any sense! Doesn't make any fucking sense! There's blood all over this, I can't even read half of it!" "There's something about ogre titles and something about going to ogre heaven and..." "Why is there blood?" "You think that's their blood?" "I don't know." "Oh my god."

There's a chipped golden scale rolled up in the net. This is high shin skin. Who's Mr. Bone? I don't know. I don't know. I'm scared. I'm scared too. She comes in and she gives you a hug.

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The four of you wake the next morning and are prepared to do additional chores, but before you can be directed by Bacon or be guided to return to your duties, Manius shows up at the door. Hello, hello, hello. How's everything going? How are my vassals doing? Still trapped in stations beneath the great...

"Ogre gods of heroes old?" "Well, you'll be pleased, I've got progress. Progress that has been made. The governor of commerce, Gork Augustus, has agreed to meet with us today, this morning. First thing, we need to get into carriages and make our way down so that we can see if we can get your companion, the other one that we rescued from madness,

get him and make our way to see if we can petition the House of Military. Oh yes, Mr. Bones, I believe his name is. Mr. Bones you say? Yes, Mr. Bones, he's our companion. Is this another memory or talent that is emerging? It is, he is another reincarnated ogre deity, yes. Oh, he's the Necrogers, yes.

Can everyone maybe just stop shouting? What? All you need is a good pot of coffee, Mr. Fire Blossom. Put that tea down.

Coffee! Coffee! And he yells out and a vassal shows up and she's looking very expected. Yes, yes, yes, coffee. Can you get some of yourself, I mean, coffee. Can you get coffee for our four noble guests, let's call them. - How are your twin daughters behaving today?

I understand that they, uh, uh, uh, dramatically changed. You're welcome. Thank you. Thank you. They are starting to act like true ogres. Yes. Yes. Because I'm the reincarnation of Fiona Smash Mouth. Mariana is not able to give the attention that an ogre needs growing up. And so I, I feel it deep in my soul that you are, uh, what you say, you say you are. I believe in you.

I believe that we're going to be able to convince the others, convince the whole peoples of Ogerton, be able to convince them that you are who you say you are despite your appearance and that we have learned everything we need to learn about the world to grow and be taken back all together to Ogre Heaven.

Yeah. No, you well said. I believe that we will show our divine...

- Taint, I mean, not corruption, not touch, divine. - Spark. - Spark, yeah, exactly right, Mr. Maniers. - Thank you, Trothak. If you can follow me, the four of you, we'll make our way down to the carriages right away. - Let us go.

Oh, I should also explain this, I think, uh... Yes, Shaggoth. Yes, barrels 1 through 15 will be quite delicious. Barrels 16 through 78, I can't speak to. Barrel 79, you shouldn't try. And barrel 80, that I think is when my final drink, I pierced the veil, I peered...

and I saw everything that was of Shagoth of the Blackrock. Yes. And Beryl 80. Fascinating. I think.

It's maybe the greatest thing you will ever try. He writes some of these notes down. Thank you, thank you. Caraway will be back at his old duty taking care of the wine. I'm sure it'll be fine, and through your guidance, we will eventually get it back up to stock. Is Caraway an ogre? No, one of our vassals. He definitely shouldn't drink it, then. He'll probably explode. Ha ha ha ha.

I will make it known before we... Don't let him taste it. He'll definitely die. I will see you down in the courtyard in 15 minutes. That's the nightmare sangria, I believe, is what Mr. Shagov here had been calling it. He turns and he makes his way, and the four of you find yourselves at the front. And sure enough, at the front there are two great carriages pulled by massive arctic boats.

polar bears, white furred, and they are sort of looking around, waiting, getting ready, and Manius comes down with two vassals himself, makes his way into the first carriage, and then the four of you enter that carriage and...

You're pulled away. You're drawn by a bear-pulled carriage down this long path past fields and farms being worked, not just by vassals, but by ogres too. Fields of all shapes and sizes. Fields of all makes. You can see this is a bountiful land with a variety of different foods. It explains why you were able to have such rich stews. This is a fertile land.

And pretty quickly, you start to approach the city proper. There's a beautiful mishmash, a myriad of white stone and houses, but you do not enter. Instead, you turn and you make your way up another one of these legs and walk

I told myself I'd be prepared with a map today so that I could slap it down so that you could see what I'm fucking talking about and I can create a quick draft for you if you want to on the surface here, but trust me that you are able to

dip down very, very close to the actual center of the city where it's buildings and buildings, roof after roof. You can see even some really large maps and structures, but

back up and into the sort of villa land that you've come to know Manius enjoys. That is clearly the case also for Gorg Prestus, that he has one of these long, extended villas and fields to work. And making your way, you eventually come to the front of another very similarly fashioned and beautiful space.

The carriages come to rest and you come to a stop and the four of you are allowed out by one of the vassals. And there, standing at the front, is this ogre that you've not yet met. His gaunt face, his elongated features. This is very clearly Commodus Gorgustus. And standing next to him is a person that you recognize, Scrimm.

Hello, old fellow! Yes, old fellow, how are you doing? Oh, it's good to see you, it's good to see you. I'm glad you received my letter well. Yes, all is well, all is well. I understand that we're going to be talking about an exchange, even though you gifted this one to me just a few days ago, that you'd like to trade for him back.

Yes, yes, yes, yes, we've made an amazing, amazing discovery. I believe that these four here, Jotnar of the Frostguard Ogres, Trothak, Shark Puncher, Fiona Smashmouth, and Shagoth of the Black Rock, that these souls not of vassals, not to be part of our family, but instead perhaps even of the gods of

members of the family of Sophilus himself, perhaps. And we have much to learn. There's only one way to know for sure, and it's to test them, to see if they know our ways, to know our experiences, that they can guide us, guide us to

uh, ogre heaven, that we are the last generation, that there will no longer be needed for a lottery, but instead, uh, that we, all of us, would be able to, the thousands of us, walk across that bridge, jump on the silver ship, and cross back into heaven, having learned what there is to learn about the mortal world. Yes, yes, yes, you explained all of this in your letter, Manius. You explained all of it in your letter.

How do you know for sure? There's no way to know for sure, but I need the set. I need, what did you call him? Mr. Bones. Mr. Bones. We need Mr. Bones to know for sure. Of the dirt ogres. We found these fives, and though Alcatra, the one that has been returned to you, we're not sure about. We know that she grew up here.

But this one, look at his appearance. - Oh, I hate to interrupt you, but I am Queen Fiona Smash Mouth. - Yes, Fiona, yes. - Yes, we do know about Catra. She may have grown up here, but she was the one that foretold our coming. If it were not, is it coming? Anyway, if she had not brought us here, returned us here,

You never would have been reunited with the five of us. She makes an excellent point. She is the key to all of this. You see, Fiona makes an excellent point. Yes, yes, she does. But she also is part of the House of Commerce. She is part of our family. As governor of commerce, I couldn't possibly part with...

two, let alone perhaps one of the ogre gods without appropriate compensation. I think you are mistaken. Mr. Bones and Daisy, which is her name, as she belongs to us. She's our vassal. We'll see in good time. I have not yet made a judgment as to how I might see the four or five of you as perhaps...

what you claim to be, I haven't given it enough thought. However, I would agree to parting with Mr. Bones if... Manius? Yes, yes, yes, yes, of course, of course, of course. Would you be willing to trade perhaps two of your vassals? It is worth it. It is worth it for my research. I think it is absolutely... Of course, of course, yes, yes, yes, yes. I...

You can have these two vassals, and Mr. Bones, you'll come with us, and the five of us can prove that you are who you say you are. Oh, yes. It would be worth it to me if I could win the lottery, perhaps, and join my family, and... Yes. Yes, yes, yes. I would raise the dead in Mr. Bones' hand. I have a question. Could you accomplish your day-to-day tasks as you are without your vassal?

Without your vassals, your many vassals. You're speaking to Manius now? It is a shame to lose them. They are part of the family. I don't take this decision lightly. They're part of what makes you who you are, yes? Very much, yes, of course. Well, Daisy is part of what makes us who we are. If we're going to pass your test, we need our vassals. Is there any way that we could, as a friend, Commodus, could you...

Part with both Mr. Bones and the one they know as Daisy? For two vassals, I suppose I could part with Mr. Bones. But for both, I think a bit more. You'd have to agree to promise your daughter's hand in marriage to my son Tito. A marriage agreement?

You have two daughters and one on the way. I mean, what's one? Make a persuasion check. Um... 19. Ooh! Well done. Damn. She will be of... matrimonious age soon enough. When that time comes, I think the answer is that we can join our houses, Commodus.

Manius, I think that you are correct. I agree to your terms. You are a fair negotiator, despite not being of the House of Gamas. Very good, it is an agreement! Go along, go along! And he pushes the two other vassals forward, who look downtrodden, let's say. And Scrim, you are...

by Commodus. Go on, go on, Mr. Bones, whoever you are. Should you turn out to be a vassal, this will have been a very profitable day for me, I'd say. Thank you for counting the hogs.

I just kind of grimace at him and I reach out to grab Daisy's hand and like take her with me. You pull her hand and she is right behind you and she turns and she waves and you can see that through some of the windows there are other people are very intent like this is an event this is drama this is gossip. Are we the drama? You are the drama and

- There are faces in the windows looking down. People have come to see exactly how this might happen. And looking up, you see the face of Myelin and he's looking down at you and at the party and his arms are crossed in anger and he hits the window and turns and disappears into the darkness. And the five of you are reunited. - As soon as I get

Over to the four of you with Daisy and Tom like guys what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck's going on? You read my letter? Mr. Stavis, go to Mr. Bones? Your letter didn't make any fucking sense. It was covered in blood. Oh. Wait, covered? How much blood? How is your back feeling? I don't know what's going on. I lift up his shirt.

And it is clearly infected. It's buzzing. It's gross. Definitely don't drink barrel 79 then.

That's really... You guys have to stop talking nonsense. Something is seriously wrong here. Mr. Bones, what do you mean? First off, I tried to tell them that I was a god as soon as I got here and they didn't believe me. They started talking in some crazy tongue and I tried to fake it and they knew I was faking. So how the hell did you convince them you were gods? You're not as convincing as we are, I suppose. Bullshit! Second of all,

I fucking found Mylon. He's alive. And he's in there. And he's being held captive like everybody else. I thought they said that Mylon died. Yeah, he punched me in the face. He's not dead. So he gave up himself for his daughters. All right. What if we're all dead? At this point, anything is possible. But he is pissed. He is pissed that his daughters ended up back here and one of them didn't make it.

Let's get into the fucking carriage. Oh, yes. It's good to see you, lad. Manius and Commodus exchange a few more words. They shake on it. You can see they even grab each other by the forearms and give each other a great big bear hug. And then Manius turns around and realizes that his carriage is vassal-less.

gets into it alone. And the, uh, six of you with Daisy included are being pulled in one carriage and Manius in the front carriage as you're being carried to your, your, uh, next destination. It seems. So we're like relatively alone. You seem to be alone for the first time again in however many days. Uh, and you are, um,

able to have a private conversation I am so glad to see you guys I thought you guys were dead I didn't know what you're calling me fucking mustard seed who is this Mr. Bones oh yeah that's you you're Mr. Bones yeah you didn't get that from the part of the letter where it says you're Mr. Bones wait have you been to sleep yet yeah I got some sleep did you have the mind library dream

Well, I mean, that's oddly specific, but yes. Well, we all had the same dream. Did you, were you in a lot of pain when you woke up? Oh, yeah, very much so. In the back of the neck? Yep, yep, like right about here. Oh, yeah, the same for us. Something strange is going on. Is there any window to this carriage? Many. It's your classic Cinderella-style carriage. And there's no ogre in our compartment. There are no ogres in our compartment.

- We're totally alone. - You're totally alone. Manius is in the first carriage. Originally he was just being served by his two vassals, but now he's alone. And he didn't say a word to you. He just jumped into his side and now you're being carried, drawn to wherever he is drawing you. And you can see out as you are passing the same farms and fields that you would see on the perimeter of the town, but you're clearly heading back to the city at this point. - I know that the dream thing is weird, but have you guys seen the pigs?

Oh, I saw the cows. They were, there was like, well first off there were like 900 of them and they were like synchronized dancing. I don't mean like dancing like but they were like making patterns and shapes and moving and weird. They weren't moving like hogs. Wait, I saw some dormice and they were doing the and there were probably at least 900 of them. I saw a cow and seemed to understand its own mortality.

Oh my god. I had a dream once about a frog that was wearing a bow tie and he had a top hat and a cane and he was saying, "Hello my honey, hello my baby, hello my ragtime gal." Did that happen like while we were here? Oh no, this is back when I was a kid. Oh. Oh. Well, clearly you saw a boar mouse, you saw a cow, you saw a pig, and you saw a bird. 914 of them to be exact.

And they were all intelligent. Or more intelligent than they should be. Well, I don't know if the Dormouse was intelligent, but he was a fantastic dancer. Daisy said that that was just how the pigs act. That that's how they all work. While we're sitting here, if I can be next to a window, I want to take out one of the berries that I didn't, that I still have, hopefully still have on me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're very persimmon-esque, is what I'll say. And I want to just sort of hold my hand out.

out the window while we're riding and just see if any birds will come down as we're riding. Make a nature or animal handling check. May I twist this? Yes, please. Twice? Yes, please. Sure, why not? Did you make a nature or an animal handling? I did a, let me tell you, nature is four, animal handling is five, so I made an animal handling check. Okay.

Oh wow. It was faded. It was faded, yeah. 14. It's not bad. It's not bad. Not enough. You hold out your hand and you do this with the fruit and I think you're expecting to attract a bird and... Any creature that would show up. Hopefully silver coin. You do...

But it does not offer you a coin. Instead, it seems like a gesture of generosity, and you just have a bird go and disappear with one of the fruits. Oh, oh. All right. Bye. Enjoy!

And then, yeah, all righty, I'll just take out another one. I'll just hold my hand out while we're talking. As you're talking, yeah, you're feeding these birds. It seems that every few minutes one will have finished its meal and grab one out of your hand, and pretty soon you're through the lot of them. Do any land on my hand?

I will try to hold it to my thumb. Oh, okay. I want to get one to land on my hand. This time you very smartly trap one of the fruits, and this time a bird does land on your fingers. The second it lands, I'm going to cast Speak With Animals. Hello! Please don't do that weird neck thing. I am called Bjornir. What is your name? Theodore.

It's nice to meet you, Theodore. It's a pleasure to meet you. How are you, sir? I'm doing all right. Is he talking to a bird or am I still extremely drunk? I think he's talking to that bird. Can I have that fruit? We've gotten the others for free and they're very delicious and we need fruit to live. I would like it if you just answer a few questions. Ask him what kind of bird he is. I will give you this fruit.

Oh. What kind of bird are you? Uh, I'm a blue thrush. How would you know that? You've activated my trap card! Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck! What are you? I'm a fearborn. How do you know that? Because I'm an intelligent creature. I'm a blue thrush. And you've identified yourself as such? Sure. Have you always been a blue thrush? Absolutely. You were born here? Yes.

And your family's from here? Yes! Many generations of proud blue thrush. Ask him how long a generation is. How long is a generation forger species? He's really googling. Ask him what the prime export of the thrush community is. Ask him how to determine the value of material components. I was born here six years ago. I'm getting up there, but every five to ten years or so, what is it to you?

I'm just curious. It seems like the animal life in this area is very intelligent. As are you. Well, thank you. Can you ask him about the cows and if they're a forgiving species? Oh, and ask him why that one thrush paid for the fruit. What was that all about? Any other questions I should ask? No, I don't particularly care for birds. I think that they're a conspiracy theory set up by the government.

Oh, ask him if he knows how to kill off the ogres. Do you see the large ogre city that we are traveling towards right now? Yes. What kind of question is this? You're very strange. You seem nice, and I like your fruit. All right, here we go. And as I let go and let him take the fruit, I want to cast B sense on him.

Ooh. Okay. He reaches down with his talons and he hooks into the top husk of this large berry and he starts to flap away. In slow motion, what happens when you cast Beast Sense? So for the next hour, I can see through his sight. Oh. See through his eyes and hear what he hears. Oh.

And I can flip back and forth between my senses and his. Okay. Wow. So... That is clever. So I'm just like, you just see me, I'm like... My eyes are just glowing and I'm just totally...

- This is good, this is good. I suspected that whatever we're wearing didn't suppress our magical abilities. And I've been holding that close to my chest, so to speak, because I think if we really need to, I still have a weapon.

Because of your horrible curse. Yes. Nicely done, Mr. Bones. Are you talking about your blade? Yes. Oh, I still have all of my magic. Yes, that's right. That's what I'm saying. And I still have my mutations. I just didn't want to try it. I can jump real high. That's great. Yeah. I'm sure that will come in handy. I have a bunch of bees. What? I know. I just don't want to show our hand too early, if you know what I mean.

The point is, when we want out of these things, we can get out. I just don't know what's going on. Oh, you've removed one already? Yeah, but these things are going to be cut through. Wow. Daisy seems to think so. So what I'm thinking is, why don't we, you know, I can sew. So why don't we cut them?

and then fasten them back together in a way we could easily rip them off. So that way, if we get into trouble down the line, we're not scrambling to try and remove them when we're in a hurry. - Wait, Mr. Bones, you're brilliant. I saw Mylon when we were leaving that place you were with him. You asked him how he got the collars off of his daughters and how he broke them out. You have a plan. - Oh yes. - You spent all that time you had with the one guy who's escaped and gotten many people

I

Have a plan. Oh, I knew it. But Mylon wouldn't talk to me. Well, he can't talk, so that makes sense. No, no, no, he was furious. He refused to even entertain anything that I had to say. I was mad at you. What did you do? Well, he thinks that we're responsible for getting his only remaining daughter back in...

to captivity. I mean, not wrong. I tried to explain to him that we did everything in our power to protect them, but... I mean, we were in a sauna, so... Well, even before that, I told him about the encounters that we had with the horrible creatures and what happened to the rest of the crew, and he really wasn't interested in hearing any of it. He's very, very angry with us. Yeah, but to be fair, if we'd never engaged with his daughters at all, they probably...

I don't think honey would have dad well, but surely when you told him we were happy to break out his daughter again He was he was all too happy to put forth the information on how to do it No, he punched me in the face and stormed off. It was very abrupt I wasn't really ready for it. Oh, that is fair Is that we're the ones that got them mixed up in the nefarious deeds of our crew, but for what it's worth Daisy thinks that we could lead some sort of revolution. Haha

That's the plan. The whole plan. You guys have done amazing things. And, you know, Mylon, he, my father, didn't, you know, cut or break the pendants. He convinced Gorgustus to let us free. We, he just took the pendants off. We don't know any other way. Gorgustus did. Yes. But it was Daisy who suggested we try to cut through them. Oh, well. He traded with Gorgustus.

Do you know what he gave him? I understand it took him many years. 10, 11 years to make happen.

Well, so if we don't have a decade to spend around here trying to trade for our own freedom, perhaps the revolution might be a good start. At least if we kick something off in the chaos, we might be able to slip out of here. Well, I think that the real plan here is to get all of the ogres to ogre heaven, if you know what I mean. I like that idea. The true goal of all of our ogre souls, to achieve ogre heaven. Oy. Oy.

And then there won't be any ogres left and we can just walk out of here. And we won't be eaten. And they'll all be happy because it'll be an ogre heaven. How much time do we have until we reach wherever we're going? I presume that we've, you've been where we're going, right? I'm going back to wherever you guys came from? No, I don't think so. Oh no. Where are we going? I think we're going to prove ourselves to all of Ogre-tim. To Gork Gustis. We are the ogre gods that we say we are. So?

And that we said that you are. How are we gonna prove that? Who knows? Well, I mean, you got your old backstory, right? I wrote everything down for you. It just said something about bones and dirt and muck. Oh, and mines, you're underground, undead zombies, gambling habits. Do I just have free will to make up whatever I want? Oh, that's what we've been doing. No, what? No.

No, you remember your life from before you make up anything that comes to you. I'm getting very conflicting messages here. No, you were an ogre necromancer god. Chirp, chirp.

As this conversation's been happening year and year, part of you has been soaring over the scattered fields and vistas of this space, eventually coming to land in a beautiful cypress, fingerling cypress tree, and a small nest. Is that the type of tree that creates fingerling potatoes?

It is now. And you see a bushel of fingerling potatoes. Why does he need all this fruit when he has a tree that grows fingerling potatoes?

Peter lands on a tree branch and hangs up his coat and puts his hat on the coat hanger and says hello to his wife and two children and is able to deliver a fruit to them. Watches the newest episode of I Love Lucy. He puts himself in a real tall drink of bourbon and gets way too drunk for a Tuesday. Billy got an F on his report card! That's great, that's great.

honey, let me watch my episodes. Let me watch the news! All you do is come home and drink. Again with the nagging! Oh, poor Teddy. Oh,

- Oh, Teddy B, Teddy Bird. - Teddy Bird. - Oh, damn. - Teddy B can't catch a break. - So whenever he like turns his head, he sees what I see. He sees the city. - At no point does he cross whatever threshold Queenie describes where you would see the city mirage, where all of a sudden it goes from, oh, there's a thriving, bustling city of ogres to,

Are there no ogres? Or is this actually just a flat land? Or is that the illusion and vice versa, either way that you could play it. He doesn't get that high. He goes immediately home and starts eating. - I'll snap back. - You snap back. - He's just a bird. - You guys are like deep into Mr. Bones lore at this point. - Oh. - Mr. Bones deep lore. - I wanna get off of Mr. Bones deep lore.

And that is how you rose from the dirt, from the graves that you command your hordes of undead and you joined the great dragon ogres and the great mutant sea fish ogres. The shark ogres. Now this should be perfectly easy to prove that I can do.

And then there's the king of the Frostguard, the closest to, uh, what was the name of that girl that we were supposed to be friends with or something? The god was Sophilus. Sophilus. And then, of course, the swamp ogres. I'm not gonna remember any of this. Well, it'll come back to you. The memories will come back. You'll realize that you were Mr. Bones all along.

Oh, Tyshen, I wish I understood what the hell you were talking about. The rocking under the carriage changes as Hardpak transforms into Cobblestone, and the full breadth and scope of the sprawling city of Ogerton reveals itself.

towers and shingled roofs, columns, cloisters, galleries, arcades, to use the ancient Romanesque term where there's a tremendous number of columns instead of classic joystick action. LAUGHTER

Some buildings are two, three, four stories high with wide open arched windows built with cut stone, with brick, with terracotta. Colorful flags and fabrics hang from most buildings, many of which feature iconography of a silver ship.

You pass through a lively, bustling marketplace filled with tents where ogres and humans alike are trading and exchanging their many wares. For every ten ogres that you see, there is a vassal. They're outnumbered. There are much fewer of these vassals. It seems that it's unusual that you had such a contingency in the villas of the governors being what it is. However, there are hundreds.

No. Thousands of ogres inhabiting this settlement. You deduce this easily. Everything looks brand new.

or at least built very recently. You can see some squares and streets are undergoing fresh construction. Frequently, you pass by these construction spaces. There are shops and houses and gardens and broad sidewalks with heavy ogre foot traffic in every direction you look. You reach the center of the city as you pass through these streets and pull in to what appears to be the center of the city. So there's massive mountains

That you've been facing here. There's a great waterfall right here. Okay, and This would be the center of town there's The obvious like network of what is a town there are large structures in different directions here here here This is the market and then there are these long paths that lead out to

the five houses of governorship.

So we're on one of these roads. And so there's a village, a villa, I should say, at the end of each one of these. And you would see, you know, farmland, farmland, farmland, farmland, farmland, farmland, farmland. Are we in like a big valley? Like a giant hand. A giant valley. And this slopes down before it hits the mountain range. I see the hand of dreams. And then this starts to come back up to...

to a larger, taller mountain. This is the forest line where Queenie, this would have been the house of knowledge, as an example. This would have been the house of commerce that you experienced. So you guys had to come down here in your carriages and then scoop back up

Come back here, experience the thing. There's nothing, they don't connect. There are no connections that go from one to the other. Instead, you have to go down one leg and then back up another leg and then down one leg if you wanted to go from house to house to house. And this is the dream-eating taper under the ice. And that's the dream-eating taper under the ice right there. Look at this little guy. Oh.

But this area is a very urban experience with many, many different streets and residences and shops and towns and that sort of thing. But still urban in the sense of ancient Rome. So basically, this is Rome, and then these were the country villas where the senators lived. Exactly. And all of the farms that would basically support their... And that's what I am picturing when I'm describing all of these spaces. So...

In last episode, you guys looked out from the top of the town. You could even see the waterfall all the way down. This is a massive Niagara style. So this is downhill and this is downhill? Yes. Okay, so this is like the bottom of the valley. Oh, so this all feeds straight to here. This is a sheer cliff. Oh, I see. It's a crater. You guys imagine that this is the other side. Like if you were to go through these mountains, that on the other side would be the ice shelves and stuff that you guys would have experienced. This is Shoals Arbate. So basically,

Polar Bear caves are right over here. But miles and miles and miles between, right? Oh. But you've been taken to this little pocket, and Queenie would have had her confrontation with the twins when she turned around and saw nothing here, right past the tree line. Question, dumb question, or sorry, no, good question, dumb Andy for not asking it immediately. What the fuck is the weather like here?

It's like 45, 55 degrees. It's pleasant. It's nice and warm. And you remember from your showers that you experienced warm water. There's actually like hot and cold water. It's like Shangri-La. It's fertile. There's all of the lush foliage that I've described, all of the food. He had access to unlimited berries, whatever he wanted. This is bullshit.

This is horse shit. This is something about lotus eaters. Yep. Well, you know, that's the thing that really made me think that they were humans was because of the lotus eaters from Odysseus. And so what if it was combining the lotus eaters and Cersei, the witch who turned his crew into animals? This is not good. I want to go home. Stop the ride. I want to get off. Or the cyclops, because they're all like, ooh. You are Mr. Bones. You are the wild ride. Speedy of a spelljammer odyssey.

Oh, yeah. The Odyssey. The Odyssey. Yeah. Oh, my God. So you pass through that lively, bustling marketplace. You make your way deeper, deeper, deeper into the city. You're passing ogres. You're passing vassals. Everything looks brand new, as I mentioned before. Coming to a stop, you reach the center of the city. This large, flat...

for lack of a better word, stage. This large open space. And directly across from it. Sorry, I'm going to do this one more time. No worries. Directly across from it, there is what is clearly a forum building with huge columns all on the circumference of it, the perimeter of it, I should say. And at the top right here, there is a ship.

There's a huge ship that appears to be made of pure silver. What does this ship look like? A ship. It looks like a classic sailing ship. Very much like the Moorabound. Three giant masts. Like a space galleon. It's like a galleon. And at the front, right where the... What's the word I'm looking for? Like the Cyclops. Uh...

I'm going to find the word because I have it written down right here. The figurehead attached to the bow. There's a curvaceous ogre woman carved into the wood or silver and she's holding a giant globe what appears to be an orb made of glass or crystal or something like that and she's facing the waterfall. It glimmers and reflects in the light and

uh, the, the whole thing does appear to be made of pure silver, at least coated with it, uh, entirely. Uh, you can spy, uh, through the, um, terror, uh, through the, the, the huge columns, this terrorist interior where there are people, rogue figures, ogres, all having some tremendous debate or discourse or dialogue, uh, uh,

where they're yelling at each other and screaming. There's a huge crowd of people passing across the open plain, that square that I have drawn out there, just before the drop that goes down at the bottom of this waterfall, where the edge of the waterfall turns over and dips down and down and down into this crevasse.

Right at the edge of... Exactly. Right at the edge of the city where this Ogerton has been clearly built. And let me see if I can capture all of the information that I want to convey to you right now. No, no, just that. The carriages come to a stop and you can hear the...

So am I hearing this correctly, that the waterfall is not empty until it's a river that runs through it? It empties just deep into the earth. Exactly. Oh. And you can hear the sound of it crashing hundreds of feet, perhaps, below the... into the crevasse. Does it crash taperly? It crashes very taperly. What does that mean? Oh, oh!

I mean, he's like a taper. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you come to a stop. Stoppy! And Manius steps out from his carriage and he walks over and opens the door to yours. We have work to do here before we continue on. Are you ready to see the people, the people of Ogerton?

Yep. Yes, we are, of course! They need to meet their great heroes of old. And I think you'll get some strange, some people will react to you a bit strangely. Don't speak too much, I don't want to shock them, but we have important work to do here before we make our way to the House of Military. Can I ask you a question? You just did, my dear. Can I ask you two more questions? You just did, my dear.

Okay, so time for the second one. Ask your question. Please go ahead. All right. We have much to do today. All right. Well, you're just making this take longer than it needs you. Go ahead. You can speak any time you want. Well, I do. Anyway, are the only things that reside in this place animals, humanoids, and ogres? Just ogres, vassals, and the beasts that we keep, yes. And your vassals, are they all human? No.

every single one. You're the only who have shown up looking the way that you do. Oh, that's lovely. Thank you for that. I'm going to use primeval awareness. Oh, that's a good one. That's pretty clever.

He's like, oh, fuck, how close to the waterfall am I? We're on that mile. That's pretty clever. The pathway to the dream eater is open. Read that shit. Give me the types. I sense whether any aberrations, celestials, dragons, elementals, fays, fiends, or undead are present within one mile. I'm a dragon-ish. You're not a dragon. I'm a dragon-ish. No. No.

I'm Dragonite! Yeah. Why would the search not... Taishan is basically Dragonite. It's a Pokemon. Same color. I used to look a lot better and got ruined in the final evolution. That's crazy to me. I do have... In level 20, I get Hyper Beam. Weren't they totally different lines? Like the Dratini line? Eh, there's theories. Okay. Give me that list again.

Within a mile? Aberration. Well, what terrain are we in right now? Ooh. The plot thickens.

Mountains? I'd say mountain is appropriate. So six miles. Yeah, not six miles. Six miles. You sense a dream-eating tapir beneath the ice. Oh, this list weirdly. Dragons, dream-eating tapirs. Aberrations, celestials, dragons, dream-eating tapirs, elementals, faes, fiends, or undeads. Dream-eating tapirs, get the

In the back of your mind, you hear, Drowzee. You reach out with your sense, the ability that you have magically through your connection to your swarm, to the experiences that you had growing up, becoming a ranger. And though you don't know the location, the distance, the number, you do...

Sense aberrations. Oh, let's fucking go. What's an aberration? Let's fucking go. Give him, come on up top. That was brilliant. Well done. Amazing. Oh my god! Well fucking done! Molder, Mind Flayer, Slotty. Something's gone wrong. The important thing of note is that it's not-- It is not just ogres and humans. Exactly, exactly.

- Oh shit. - It's a mind biz creature. - There's some kind of mind biz creature. - After you ask your question, you hone in on this ability and you have the sensation. What would that look like to Manius and what would that look like to your crew? - It really wouldn't look like anything. The way I envisioned it is like my bees are just kind of

not even just my bees, but like a connection to just nature in itself. And I kind of like hear and feel the vibration, like the buzzing of bumblebees. - It's a network of buzz. - And so like, I'm hearing it in my head, this- - Oh, a hive. - Like almost like the hive mind. And then at one point I eventually hear like, it kind of hones in and I can just feel that it's- - You get a dance. You get an invisible connection. - And it just looks different for each type. And I'm like, oh,

Thank you, bees. You speak this special language and you have this special connection and that is the data point that you receive. And as you are processing the information, you, all of you, Mania certainly and Daisy hear a voice over the crowd. You can hear the crowd all around you. They're just talking and being pedestrian. However, you hear, Citizens of Oakerton!

A fine reward is being offered by House Fragilarious for the return of their cat, Abra Catdabra, a striped brown and tan cat with a distinctive M on its forehead, 100 gold pieces to the family of the house that safely returns their dear Abra Catdabra.

Come on, come on, come on. We have to make our way. All right, all right, fine. We're going to follow you, but I swear to gods if a single person calls me Mustardseed, I'm going to freak the fuck out. Oh, Mustardseed, that was the name I gave you when we were transporting you back to Ogerton. No more. No more. Yeah, it's before you knew you were Mr. Bones. I'm Mr. Bones. Mr. Bones now, yes. It was just a mispronunciation. Mustardseed, Mr. Bones. You know, it could happen. I had a name for each of you because I thought you were vassals, but...

What was my name? What was my name? I'm curious. Your name? He needs to check his ASUS laptop. Take me home?

Do you hear that that family has a Majin cat? That's clearly Majin Boo's around here somewhere. That's the every-- I don't know that. The head of that family is a portly pink ogre with a stem that comes out. Julianus and I discussed it for days as we brought you back to Ogerton. I was going to call you Mackerel. That's not bad. Spilt for you, sir.

I hope I'm not offending you. Oh, that is fine. Anyways, let's go! Let's go! What was my name going to be? Rabbit. Wow! What the hell? That's a little apropos. Thank you, and you are going to be Daikon.

- Wow, that's pretty cool. - I thought so too. - Like a radish? - Yes, yes, yes, yes, of course, of course, of course. - So hold on, why does he get to be a radish and not lizard? - Hey, that's what I wanna know. And I would have much preferred goblin over mustard seed. - Well, I don't know what a goblin is.

What is a goblin? Well, they were named after foods. Well, yeah. So they eat rabbits. They don't know what a goblin is. In Dragon Ball Ogre, all of the heroes are named after vegetables. Besides, have you ever watched Evangelion? It's an unbelievable animation. I love Daikon. Da-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na

He leads you out and you can see you're getting some very strange stares from the people of Ogerton. No one's ever seen a non-human, non-ogre before. Just your very shapes, you immediately feel all eyes on you as you make your way through this crowd, through this square.

It is a flat square, and as you are approaching, you spy on the side just before the crevasse falls. An enormous belt.

that is sitting there, and a hammer that seems to be attached to a central cog. It is motionless, but it's not something that anyone is doing anything with. It seems to perhaps be related to some ceremony or ritual, perhaps, you deduce. And you hear the voice again, Citizens of Ogerton, please note that the announcement of Marcus Dracaracia, his death a few days ago was made in error.

He was found drunk in his basement yesterday, having accidentally locked himself in his own storeroom. Citizens of Ogerton, it is my honor to announce the matrimonious betrothal of Valentina Blitzarencius and Maximus Gruduscus. Their engagement is to last five weeks until their wedding day.

And Manius walks directly up to this person, leading the five of you through this crowd, Daisy staying inside of the carriage, just keeping to herself. And he hands a scroll, parchment, to the newsreader. And the newsreader in the square, he unfurls it and gives it a look over and nods to Manius, understanding his power and authority as governor of the House of Knowledge. And...

Ah, citizens of Ogerton, heed this message and spread the good word of Manius Ogurus Blaginius, governor of the House of Knowledge.

He has made a startling discovery he wishes to share with the people. That of five new vessels found beyond the limits of our great city of Ogerton. It was there in the madness that Manius and his son, Julianus, found these five souls and saved them. Know also that they are unusual in form and appearance, and even more exciting, they share our own power of speech,

Huh.

"I don't like this. I don't like where this is going, guys. "I don't like this at all." Oh, you were gods, remember? Yeah. That's going to be the determination, Mr. Bones. Need to play the part. Okay, okay. I'm confident. All right, stop putting this pressure on me. I don't do well under pressure. Oi, don't fuck it up, Mr. Bones. Stop it, I'm sweating. So much is riding on this!

I know you're not supposed to say this to someone having a panic attack right now, but you need to move quickly. You need to calm down.

It's not working! Calm down. Have you tried not being depressed? Nebius' chest is out. He looks proud. He is strutting. He is looking like he is showing you off and looking around like almost a don't challenge me. Look what I found. Oh my goodness. What a discovery. He's gesturing to the five of you and then he starts to

strut back to the carriage and gestures for you to follow along the way. He wants people to see you with him, see all of you, and make this great display, this announcement. And as you are making your way, the newsreader continues.

And then he farts loudly.

Does this guy have a million chins? Yeah, he's elderly. If he could have gray hair, he would. He is just there to read the news every day, and he starts to repeat himself, going all the way back to the fine reward regarding Abracadabra. Uh...

Slow news day perhaps, but he has now the job and gifts of the message that he is conveying to the people of Ogerton. How far are we from the Agora?

Or the whatever. It's pronounced "aggro". Aggro. I would say you're about 15 feet away. There's supposed to be a convention here. He's in this weird... He's standing in front of the bell, he's on like a soapbox for lack of a better word. Are we able to like... Does it feel like we could go shopping?

It does feel like this square is a social space. People come to see the waterfall. People come to gather and then go into the city proper, make their way down one street or another and perhaps go shopping. Manius is making his way back to the carriage, but you are a character of free agency.

Mannyus, do you mind if I purchase something very briefly? I will not hold you up. What are you looking to purchase? I was hoping that there might be incense. The quarters that you have us in does not smell the best and I would like to, if possible, light something in the evenings for us to sleep easier and mask the smell of the other vassals.

Oh, that is fine.

We may be able to get incense for you here in the shop. I don't have my vassals with me, but I'm sure I would be able to talk to Fangaro about procuring anything that you might need. That would be fine. Whatever you can do, thank you. Very, very, very good. Yes, yes, yes. I want to make sure you're feeling comfortable. That your mind is clear so that your full soul can be restored.

And so that I might continue my research. I appreciate it. And are we back to the carriage? Let us make our way. We have only so much daylight. And he guides you five, unless anyone else has anything else to say or do.

to the opening of the carriage and you continue your way down the path and it is not another hour. It is not another 30 minutes before you suddenly see this giant structure emerge in front of you. What is very clearly a coliseum of sorts. A hippodrome, which is, I'm just going to say that over and over and over because it's my favorite fucking word in the goddamn universe. Hippodrome. Hippodrome.

I'm gonna be waving to people to show off my webbed hands just like as an interesting...

Because it says they do not look... He's crying that they do not look like standard. Gossip and word is spreading quickly. And my fin, the fin on my arm. The webbed fingers. Shocked by your trident appearance. Shark punchers! I punch with sharks! And they're peeking and immediately going into conversation mode. It is very evident that just the appearance that you have is causing quite a scandal.

If I have a moment to lean over to you or Nero, as an aside, just as long as you're not here, what do they use as currency? Are you going to give them the silver coin for the incense? No, this is all I have. I just need a little bit.

Alright, well if you need, uh, if they- I tried to bribe somebody with gold earlier, I still have that one coin. Oh! It's currently deep in my mouth at the moment. If you need it, you let me know. I can give ten times as much, yes. Well, presumably. They don't seem to care about money, or at least the vassals didn't care about money. Maybe it's because they're not allowed to spend anything. I was just curious how you knew about the- You know, it doesn't matter. Either way, I mean, if they can provide it, that's all I need. Fair enough.

Where do they get all their imports from? They don't import anything. It seems to be a very self-sufficient valley. So they just have an incense maker? They probably grow it in their great gardens in this strangely temperate climate. In their vast forests, they might be able to just get what they need from there. I actually don't know what comprises incense. Well, it's normally gum arabic. It has a base.

And if you need material components, gum arabic is for some reason a component of the invisibility spell. It's true. I wonder if that's because it's incense and it's so like...

Like misty? Aligned to smoke and mist. Most material components are jokes. The fact that I'm enforcing them is fucking hilarious. You make your way to the entrance of the Coliseum. You are led by Manius and guided to a top, top, top, top floor of many stairs. And you can hear the sound of a crowd.

You can hear roars and cheers and boos and hisses. You can hear clanging of metal. And as you make your way higher and higher and higher, you are eventually brought to a room. A room isn't actually the best way to describe it. It really is a...

What's the word in sports when you have one of those special boxes where you can view... It's a box. A box. It's a box. Yeah. You're making your way to an ancient D&D-style box in the stadium. And looking down at the games, you see a very old but musculatured ogre standing and staring down with a goblet in one hand and a sharp, bold red...

I want to say toga, but I'm trying to avoid saying it. Robes. The same classic robes, sandaled feet. And he turns and he greets Manius. Manius! Old fellow! You're looking as good as ever, old fellow. How's it going?

Yes, yes, of course. I have five people outside in the hall that I need to introduce you to. Do you remember getting my letter? Lucian, do you remember? Do you remember getting my letter? Lucian! Lucian! Lucian, remember! Remember! Yes! Yes! Yes! Oh, God. You got five vessels you wanted me to see.

Yes, yes, yes. Yes, that's exactly right. As Governor Fangaro of the House of the Military, I wanted to bring them to you first so that we could petition you in another week, however long it takes. We want these five to be named as ogres. Their appearance is very unusual. They're not humans. They're not vassals. They're filled with the

Spirit of Ogres, I believe it in my heart and in order for me to continue my research and to prove this, I need your agreement. We need a ubiquitous vote when we take it to the forum. Ring them in and you hear the sound of Manius. Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on. And the five of you approach and see this character, Lucian Fangaro, governor of the House of the Military.

He's extremely intoxicated. Oh, he looks like he's been into Barrel 79. Oi, Solveig! Governor? Your name? Solveig.

Your name is Solway? No, that's, I believe, a traditional ogre greeting. No, it's either or not ogres at all. You're supposed to say hello, old fellow. Hello, old fellow. I am Trothak the Shirt Puncher. Trothak? Trothak. That's just a name.

The Shark Puncher. That's a mighty thing that you could punch. I, Admiral of the Sea Ogres, the Deep Sea Ogres, made peace with the Sahuag and allied with the great shark god, Saekala. Gained their powers of eldritch mutation. And your name? My name is Shagoth of the Blackrock, brewer of the Firebelly Brew, a wine known to...

Well, put a fire in your belly. Give you the power of a dragon yourself. I would like to try this wine. I would like to try it very much. I'd be happy to brew it for you. You have to be strong to survive it. You're very small and furry.

That is incredibly rude of you to say. I am sorry. House of the Military has never been known for their grace. You might be confused in your drunken state, which I admire, by the way. I am Fiona Smashmouth, Queen of the Swamp Ogres. Smashmouth? Yeah. I may look like I am small, but I am mighty, and I will smash your mouth.

With my fist. I'd like to see that. You? I'll say in giant. You're very tall. I am Yorn... Yornar... Frostguard. Oh, fuck. Yornar... Sorry, I stuttered a little bit. Yornar Frostguard. I was a High King of the Frost Ogres in a previous life. A God King, if you will.

And in giant he repeats a god king. Yes. It was... We had a long bloody war with the frost giants. Due to our intelligence and cunning, we persevered. Are you sure about this, Manius? Seems like they might be pulling your leg so they can get out of...

Life of a vassal, all the hard labor, the... You know what I'm saying. I'm trying to... No, no, no, no, no. It only seems that way because you've had so much to drink, Lucien. So much to drink. We want to convince... This is Mr. Bones. Yeah.

That's right, I'm Mr. Bones. I'm the ogre god of death, gambling, and dirt and shit. And don't be fooled by my small mortal statue. When I was an ogre god, I was at least 16 feet tall and I weighed 2,000 pounds. And I could rip your puny arms off. I, uh...

Honestly, a god of death and shit looks more like you would look now than a 2,000 pound ogre in my mind. Don't you forget it! What was this guy's name again? Lucien Fangaro.

Lucian Fangaro, sir. Smash Mouth. Why don't you have another Mork's Hard Lemonade so you can make these hard choices and realize that we are who we say we are. I don't mind if I do. And he walks over and he starts pouring here and the pouring of the wine...

crosses over the top of the glass, making a huge mess, but he gets enough into the goblet that he seems satisfied, and he turns back to you. I'm not convinced. You're not convinced? Do not push the calcium danger of Mr. Bones! You must have fight in you. You must have

the ability to defeat one's opponents. Have your blood pumping like those men down there. And he almost trips and falls over the edge of the box and tumbles into the stadium crowd, but he manages to hold onto himself and you see that there are indeed a handful of ogres who are being cheered on by some and booed by others and having this combat experience.

Aye. If you wish us to fight them, then we will fight to the death if need be. I've never been more prepared for anything. And you will know why they call me Shark Puncher. You see? You see? Look how willing they are to engage in combat. Oh, good tradition.

Yes. We'll take your strongest warriors and beasties. All you got. We'll defeat any opponent, especially Mr. Bones. He's the heart of death within him, eh? It's been a while since I've had such an exciting proposition of combat. To see the five of you tested. Vassals never fight ogres.

They would be crushed instantly. We are not vassals. We are ogres. We are ogre gods. Those are puny mortals in our eyes. We can arrange the game today, can't we, Lucius? Lucian. Yes, yes, thanks for correcting my own name. We'll go down. We'll go down to prepare and to the armory to ready ourselves. You'll be able to

Set up a fight for this afternoon, for this evening? Wait, we all have to fight? Oi. I'm going to be an ogre. You'd relish the opportunity. Yes, we'll fight. Not all ogres are fighters. Yeah, well, you are one of them. You're smashing mouths left and right. No, no, no. You're a smashed mouth. Layers. Onions have layers. Ogres have layers. Onions have layers. You get it? We both have layers.

And some of those layers are not battle-ready layers. Yes, not every ogre wants to fight all the time. Do you want to fight right now, Lucius? Or would you rather drink? It's Lucian. Huh? Lotion? Lotion. You can call me Governor Fangaro.

That is gonna be very difficult. If you are truly yoga king, you'd relish the opportunity to fight in a hippodrome. I like that word very much. Why? It's a good word. It's like a hippocampus.

Great majestic creature. We would be happy to fight in the Hippodrome, but I worry that tonight won't give your caretaker enough time to prepare the coffins for our opponents. We won't have a fight to the death. Oh, that will be less as their bones! Ha ha ha!

When Mr. Bones is done with them, your orc gladiators will be begging to get off his wild ride. We won't have a fight to the death. We can't be killing each other. That's madness. I thought you said you were ogres. Yes, yes, yes. We like to compete. We like to fight. We like to do damage and bloody ourselves. But of course that's not

We're not gonna kill each other. That's not the way of things. We fight until we yield. Mr. Bones has never heard the term yield. Yeah, I don't know how to yield. Oh, he's crazy. I'll keep an eye on you. And don't tell the gladiators as much that they should watch out for you. End. Lucian.

I want you to remember as you watch what's about to happen, there are two kinds of ogres in this world. There are those who shark punch and those who are shark punched. I want you to think about what kind of ogre you want to be. Choose wisely. I like the cut of your jib. What was his name again? He was called, um...

I have it written right in front of me. Truth hack the shark puncher! You will learn why they call me shark puncher. Do we all have some kind of specific fighting style? If you're a shark puncher, what do the rest of us do? That's what I do. I punch with my sharks. You'll have full access to armory. You can take any weapons you need. You can have any accommodations you might require. You can have armor and...

You're going to have all kinds of whatever you need. You just puked on yourself a little bit there, buddy. Yes, I'll need a new robe. And he strips the robe off. And naked walks over to what is clearly an assortment of hanging robes for the purposes of having thrown up on them and immediately starts to redress.

He's missing four. There are four empty oaks. Just from today. A vassal runs in and is just like, Oh, just another oopsy. We have a deal then. If you see that they are proven ogres in combat, that you will vote yay when the time comes.

Yes, and it'll be entertaining either way. Thank you for bringing this wonderful show, Manius. Goodbye, old fellow. Goodbye, old fellow. Thank you, yes. The five of you follow Manius as he makes his way down, down, down to the armory where you can equip yourselves with whatever...

Literally anything you want. - I immediately look for anything that is made of bone. I feel as though I am Mr. Bone. I need something like, I've seen your near wear bones. I feel like I need something to like hang around my neck or just anything. Even if it's like the, the shrimpiest little bone I can find just to represent that I am Mr. Bone. - Make an investigation check.

- Were the powers that we got at the end of the Herald of Fear boss fight, is that technically an item? Or is that inherently a-- - I thought that was an item. - Yeah, I assumed I didn't have my stone on me anymore. - So the fun thing about the stone is that as long as you have that on your person is the first thing that I wrote in the, because I was anticipating this hard. - Oh, okay. We do not have access to that. - No, no, I'm sorry to say. - I got a 15. - You got a 15? - For investigation.

Yeah, I would say that with a 15 you were able to find what is clearly a bone carved dagger, but it was a dagger made for a ogre. So in your hands, it's basically a short sword. Okay. All right. Does it... Hold on one second. I'm the bone man. I start throwing bones everywhere. That'll work. You're a booger.

That's right. A bone order. I'm a bone order. I mean, bone order. Mr. Bone's bone order. I have the bone dagger. I've got the bone dagger. You've got the bone dagger. And it looks a little ridiculous, maybe a little beat up, maybe not so in great shape. Mm-hmm.

But I have a... Okay! I found it! I found it, I'm good! I'm ready! I can do this! I can do this! I'm doing okay, right guys? Am I doing alright? I buy it, Mr. Bones! Mr. Bones is never scared, though. A lot of you, a lot of you. I need to... I've asked Daisy here. Daisy is what you call her? Yeah, that's her name.

Okay. I've asked Daisy here to fetch anything else that you might need. Anything at all. Really, I want to make sure that you have the best chance to... Cool, could I have my pack of stuff you guys took when we first arrived? You mean those tattered robes we found you in? Oh yeah, everything that I had.

I don't see any reason why those... You said that you would provide me with anything that I need to have the best chance. And all of the things that I had with me were the things that I need to have the best chance at proving to this guy that I am who I stand. Do you want to win or don't you? It was just a bunch of fabric. There was nothing else that was of interest when we found you. Well, that's not true at all.

She had a bow and arrow. Did you see that? I don't recall you guys having anything that was like weapons when we found you. There was a honeypot and a sack of seeds. A honeypot, sack of seeds? Yeah. Madness. Seeds? No, no, no, no, no. You misplaced my flask and my shell. When we found you in those hot springs, you were basically floating, nearly drowning. I remember it as vividly as if it was yesterday. There's...

You didn't have seeds or bows and arrows or anything. I don't like where this train of thought is going. We have to focus on the fight. I agree. That's why I'm asking. What do you need? They're going to come at you with everything they have, and they've got their wands. They're not allowed to use them to activate your necklaces, thank God. But it is, thanks, Sophilus. But they will be able to use magics. They will be able to hit you with their flails and their swords. What they're going to need is

This is a violent endeavor. They can't kill you, but it's... They're gonna need it because I'm Mr. Bones and we all have bones. You frighten me very much, little one. I frighten myself sometimes. I mean, this guy's nine feet tall, so, like, he's three times your height. He's like...

Okay, yes, Mr. Bones. Don't you forget it. What would happen if they deactivate our necklaces? Oh, you'd fall asleep. You'd wake up a little confused a few hours later. I mean, sometimes vassals get upset and we have to give them a bit of a cool down. Yeah. Do you have an anchor I could use? An anchor? Yeah. Uh...

I can't imagine where we would find an anchor. How about that big silver ship? It would be sacrilegious for us to disturb the ship until it's time for us to return home on it, even if it had an anchor on it. Fair enough. But if you want something big and heavy, we can provide. Oh, yeah. Certainly. Yeah.

you would find the largest, biggest metal club that you could possibly find. Yeah, I'll take a nether club. Yeah, this will do. It's one of those ones where like...

It's like a cross-section of metal if you understand my meaning like there's four points of Like a morning star. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a big thick fucker though. It's like a baseball bat twice as thick. It's just I'm a man who's the club that the ogre mage had and in Warcraft 3. Dota. Manus, I just need the...

I just need a hot pepper. I don't know how else to say this. I don't know how else to tell you this, but I need you to fetch me a hot pepper. A hot pepper, you say? A hot pepper. Well, we have those. I can send Daisy to the nearest restaurant and I'm sure we can find you a hot pepper. Yeah. Bistro. Send Daisy to the closest bistro. Have her fetch me. Bistro.

"Have her fetch me the hottest, "ruttest pepper she can find." Bones? Ridiculous! To the beachfront! Alon says he brings a vassal named Hot Pepper.

Oh, I'm so sorry! He brings a vassal named Pepper who's extremely attractive. The vassal goes to a little place on the corner called Taste Devotor. That shit's canon. They have the option of Lenatilus and Scratchy Dicks being slugged out of check.

They only have the big sloppy daddy burger. I believe you're thinking of Scratchy Biggest Dickest. Of course, how can I be so foolish? Scratchy Biggie Dickest. Biggest Dickest. So Biggest Dickest. How can we be so foolish?

And you don't have to RP the whole thing. Genuinely speaking, he is offering Daisy will go get you material components and any non-magical weapon that you need to have. So could I get, like, leather armor? Yeah. So I'll take leather armor and a staff and a shield. There you go. And, I don't know, material components. I'll take studded leather. You just take whatever the fuck you want. Mistletoe. What the fuck is mistletoe? LAUGHTER

"I can grow in this land!" Oh god, why? I guess I- You're thinking of bargers! I don't know where the things are. I need a drop of molasses from the bistro. Yep.

I need a pinch of dust. No more, I'm gonna drop! I need a longbow. I need a small straight piece of iron. I just want some decorative bone as well. I basically-- They didn't leave it at the bistro. At the butcher shop. I don't care if she brings back like chicken, like used up chicken bones. I don't care if it looks ridiculous. I want to like be-- I'm trying to like imitate Yorneir in like the worst way possible and like wear some little bit of bones around my neck and stuff.

I made it clear that we're not RPing all of the choices that you make for everything, but that you genuinely can have any non-magical equipment or material component that you should make. I just need that hot pepper. Yeah, the hot pepper is on its way. And if you need armor or other choices, then you can have that. I need studded leather, a long bow with a quiver and 20 arrows, a spider web, a piece of stone, and a feather.

All three of those are provided. He brings out the cobweb gun. From which, like... I am going to need a cobweb gun. And, uh, nothing else for you? Uh...

I don't need a weapon. This club is nice, but I think I need... You ogres must have giant gauntlets for punching real hard. Just over here, and you can see hanging from the walls of this armory room where there's an assortment of weapons and things, armor. You pull down and they...

are a little big for your hands, so they're wide around the wrist, even with your thick, meaty hands being what they are. These are made for ogres, so they're a size too big, but when you grip them and hold them down, you think that you could punch the fuck out of somebody with these. - Yeah, I'm thinking like giant version of Vandor's gauntlets in Arcane or something like that. - Yeah. - And that's what they look like. - Like ogre size, yeah. - Even on Barnabas's body. - Trothak, the shark puncher, thinks these will do.

Daisy returns from the bistro and she throws down bones and hot peppers and all the shit that you add. There's even a cobweb in like a little like satchel that she puts down. Thank you. And I'll fashion together like some shitty necklace and like put some bones in my like behind my ear. This better be worth it. Yeah, okay. What the fuck? Are you gonna kill all these guys or what? Yes. Okay.

Let us do this. And you start to make your way out to... Before we do, I know that we are out of our element, but I would like to say something in the hopes to boost our morale. I know that Scrim here is a little bit nervous. Oh, yeah. I know we've been through a lot. The first thing I'm going to say is aberration. But after that, what I would like to say is...

If we could all get in a circle and join hands. Sure. Yeah, that sounds good. We'll do that. Just in case we don't make it. Oh, wow. You've crushed me. We're like holding Scream off. It's like when two parents have like a little kid. Yeah.

Somebody once told me the world was gonna roll me. Now I ain't the sharpest tool in the shed. That's a shed. And I was looking kind of dumb with my finger and my thumb in the shape of an L on my forehead.

But the years start coming and they don't stop coming. We're fed to the rules and we hit the ground running. I don't know what that means. It doesn't make sense to live for fun. Your brain gets smart, but your head gets dumb. There's so much to do. So much to see. So what's wrong with taking the backseat?

- You'll never know if you don't go. - Go! - Okay, let's go! - I'm filled with fire! - Let's go! - Fire in my soul! - You can see this great portcullis start to raise up as you sprint down this tunnel from the armory and into the actual circle arena itself.

You race out the four cars lifting up, allowing you into the field of combat. And you are staring at a huge crowd, a nearly full stadium in this hippodrome. And you... What was that, Derek? Oh, hippodrome? Oh!

Oh, God. Now I know. And you're confronted. Oh, do you do that? Oh, yeah. Can you play the music? Have you ever beaten before? As a bonus action while we're running out, I do cast first strike. Oh, yes. I believe it's a reaction. And you...

are on your way to meeting the field of battle, but as you stop and skid to a stop on the hard pack, you see the columns in the space and you see that there's already been quite a bit of combat here. There are some patches of dirt that are slick with darkened blood drying from previous battles just in this previous day. And five gladiators confront you. One of them...

Uh, you hear the voice of, uh, Fangaro, uh, crawl, uh, cry out. Uh, the, the, the crowd goes quite quiet, uh, just to hear him, uh, uh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

is between Manius, these five creatures here. They are perhaps reborn ogre gods or vassals. We are here to test their strength, to test their abilities in combat, to see if they're true ogres. And they face some of our mightiest champions. You all know them. Agrippia...

Flavio, Totalus, Antony, and Cecilio! And the crowd erupts in applause and excitement for what they clearly perceive to be experienced and wizened champions of the field of combat, of the Colosseum. Agrippa is muscular, wears sandals, has a cape of red, he has a buckler, a

bat. He looks very grim. Flavio, squat, wearing sandals, a full red robe accentuating his huge belly and a giant flail that he swings around, around, and around. Totalus, he's got an arm guard, a helmet. He doesn't have a weapon and shield. He seems to have just his mitts in front of him. Antony, a cape of red and he carries a trident. Cecilio, a leather band crosses his chest like a

and he wears one of those metal...

military masks or face plates and he carries a gladius short sword and they all look like they're ready to fight even though they seem to have sustained some injuries those injuries are closing as you are watching them and the five of you are standing where you're standing do you do anything before yes

What do you do? So we can, like, prepare things and do things. You have a moment before combat initiates. I would like to do two things. I would like to use my Fae Bolts and my Archer's Redoubt. Oh. Yeah, I think that you would have the time to have done that in the armory or to have prepared it in this time, so you do that. Perfect. I'll let me... You see as...

as vines kind of spring up out of the ether and attach to the end of it. It creates like a long arrow and attached to the end of it is a very fat bumblebee stinger out that is the tip of the arrow. Nice. So I made some bolts for myself.

And I'm creating, yeah, get it girl. Oh yeah. Seven fey arrows. Feys. Seven of them. Was there anything else in the artwork that you would have wanted to do? Yep. And then a swarm of bees in

in cases around me for my archer's redoubt, creating almost like a tower of bees around me. Like you would see in a castle where they've got the little slit where you can put the arrow out. Yeah, parapet. They create this around me so that I'm going to be very, very difficult to hit. But I've got great aim on everyone I'm looking at. Okay, you do that. Anyone else? I just major. I always have major armor. Major armor? Yeah.

On my shopping list to Daisy was a handful, like a sort of bundle of hay. And so I hold the hay out, and over a minute I will cast Corticate Armor.

And I will sort of, the hay will disappear, and over my body you'll see this sort of like hard ice start to appear over my form, almost in like a suit of like icy armor. And my AC will increase to be 14 plus dex. - Nice. - Oh wow, nice, okay.

I would grab a couple of whatever delicious treats, nice berries, fruits, and I would take a water skin and the hot pepper and in my... I would take it all in my palms and kind of like...

Breathe into it, mush it together, create... Like, boil it, basically, in my hands, create a liquid, and pour it into the water skin. And then...

That's it. Okay. And then that's it. And then you feel primal. And then... I'm going to put it on my hip. I'm going to run forward and I'll whisper to myself, be with me, my lover, as I get completely coated in seawater and barnacles.

and around my gauntlets, my hands will shift into two large shark heads as the shark fin grows out of my back as do six large crab legs as I just mutate terribly. Uh,

They almost kind of look like a shark-like girl, like a green saguagin. What a nightmare, but I love it. The five of you are prepared, primed, and you realize that perhaps your very freedom is on the line. I need everyone to roll for it. That's my game!

What do we get with first strike? We're at advantage. Oh, we're at advantage. Oh! I might even roll better then. Yeah. Oh. Please. Oh, one better. Let's go. God. Rolling tens of arrows. Oh! I'm so ready! Let's fucking go. Oh, where's...

Where would initiative be? Oh, wait, let me see. It's in skills. Okay, okay. Let's all have to be at the top, too. Can I use two twists? I really want to go early. Is that crazy? Yeah, let's use it. Over there. Yeah, alright.

You guys are-- Oh, come on! Why does everybody hate scrims so much? I'm not gonna get touched. Ah, horrible. It's all horrible. I'm not getting touched. I hate that feeling when you use twists and you're like, "I didn't get what I wanted." Oh, you just rolled-- I rolled four dice. I rolled four dice. And I had my highest with a six. It's okay. Sometimes it happens. You're gonna have a better roll when it matters. Yeah, I just really wanted to go early.

I am ready. Who will sustain? Does that mean who's going to take the most damage? They think Scrim's going to die right out of the gate here, which could happen. How do we define damage? We don't know. I think we're all going to get one shot. I don't know who's going to do the most damage probably, but we'll see. 20 to 30? 20. 26. I'm voting Scrim.

You suck. 26. 15 to 20. 16. 10 to 15? 13. 9. I rolled four dice. So where do I go? Buddy, buddy. They never said that the dragon numbers were fast. They were powerful. Where do I go? Scream? Scream?

We're gonna go... Barnabos. We're gonna go... Show 'em your bones! Oh, I'm about to. Agrippa. We're gonna go... Holy shit, they're gonna have their own initiatives? Yornir. Jesus. We're gonna go... Slavio. We're gonna go... Tutalis. We're gonna go... Taishin. Wow. We're gonna go... Antony.

and we're gonna go, Cecilio, let the combat begin. - I am going to charge in. I'm gonna charge in, and by charge in, I mean I'm just gonna jump to the front.

and stay back this far. Lay in front of you on your-- No, actually, I'll go up three spaces. Does Archer's Redoubt move with you? Yes. Okay. Yeah, it stays around me for 10 minutes. Cool. And you'll watch as the bees swarm around me and form a slit right in front of me as I take my arrow and I load it with two of my fey bolts. The big fat bumblebees are buzzing angrily as I shoot the fey bolts out at

- At Cranky McCrace, Crankerson over here. - Their names are written on their, oh, you're right. - Oh, Agrippa. - Agrippa. And I am going to fire the two bolts at Agrippa. And that is going to be, be 21 and 23 to hit. - Oh, I suppose I should have their stat block in front of me. One moment.

20 and 21. 21 and 23. Both of those heads. Perfecto. And so I'm going to do some damage. Wow, I have not attacked. Okay, that sucks. Wow. 10. So 10 plus 10. 20 points.

- Hell yeah. - 20 points of force damage. - Strong open. - Because it is my fey arrow, so it's 20 points of force damage. - You fire these and they stick into him. And you can tell he's shocked by the amount of damage that you were able to deal. - And you watch as they hit,

and they immediately burst into sunflowers. - Oh, that's awesome. - Oh, that's badass. - Okay, and he immediately starts to push away, pull out the arrows, and that's the conclusion of your turn? - That is the conclusion of my turn. - Scream, you're up. - I push my way forward, and I move up a little bit. As I see a bunch of people,

Queenie, do this amazing thing. And you can hear the bones that I'm wearing shaking because I'm nervous. And I'm sweating profusely and I'm very scared. But I'm amped with adrenaline and I get to the front and I shout, Flavio, I am Mr. Bone and you will fear me and feel the pain of osteoporosis! And I snap the bone dagger over my knee as I cast Throbbing Bones on him. Yeah!

There is a deep gray smoke that emanates from the bone of this dagger. You hear the howl of a hound off in the distance. And he is suddenly wracked with pain. How does that work? So the pain the creature suffers due to this spell

So, sorry. I choose a target you can see within range. That creature's bones begin to throb and pulsate. It affects creatures, it only affects creatures that have bones. The owners have bones. Okay. The pain this creature suffers due to this spell causes it to be a disadvantage for all attack rolls and ability checks, and its speed is reduced by 10 feet. In addition, the target must make a constitution saving throw at the start of each of its turns. The creature takes 2d10 bludgeoning damage on a failed save or throw, or half as much on a successful one.

- Right, right. - So it will be affected. It's taken in smoke, his bones are throbbing, he feels the osteoporosis. And at the same time, I will use my bonus action to Hex Blades Curse him. - Okay. - And that's my whole turn. - So you're going for Flavio? - Yeah. - All right. - I have locked eyes with him and he now has osteoporosis.

- Negative 10 feet and he's gonna take damage at the beginning of his turn. Was there anything else I forgot? - Disadvantage on attack throws and saving throws, I believe. Wait, let me double check. Might be skill checks. Disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks and its speed is reduced by 10. And then if he fails the constitution saving throw, it's 2d10 bludgeoning damage or half as much. - Yikes, Barnabus. - I can't get to any of them, can I?

Which one has the gauntlet, the punching? Uh, you're speaking of Totalus. He's in the middle. Sprint at his ass. You gotta have some crazy sprint distance, right? I can just do 8A. You can move and then hold your action. Um, yeah. I am going to run up. Oh, I didn't get harpoons. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Uh...

I am going to just start running out and I'm gonna point at Tatalis and I'm just gonna point at him with my shark head arms and I'll say, "You're mine!" He punches back both his hands and he doesn't seem particularly intimidated. Despite your insane magic and the display that's happened so far, these are seasoned veterans of the combat field. They've seen it all. I'm gonna ready my action. If anyone gets within range of my

I'm going to make my attack. Okay. It's a water-based marker. Which one is a gripper? So it could wash off. In the back. Oh wait, that's Antonia, this is a gripper. A gripper's been hit by Queenie. It's a water-based marker. You can just wipe it off with water. Yeah, the only one that's been hit was the one that Queenie got. Well, you broke this guy's bones, right? He isn't taking any damage yet, though. No damage, he's just been cursed to hell. He's been cursed to hell. Hell yeah.

Agrippa, he's getting hit with these arrows and shuffling off the sunflower petals off of his form. He pulls them out and he breaks them with two hands and he throws them down and he looks at you and he starts to mutter something in giant, you can only assume because it's so similar to when Jornir speaks and he pulls his wand out and he starts to do a gesture. He starts to speak and you feel something intruding inside of your mind. I need you to make an intelligent saving throw.

I'm gonna twist it twice. Okay. Let's go. Oh, I apologize. Don't spend those twists. In fact, you're gonna get a twist of dread. Oh. Jesus. I thought we couldn't twist the dread twists. No, it's a matter of like, who says what first, so I'm just gonna start twisting a dread saving throws for combat because that makes it scarier. Okay, I fail.

What do you get? I got a two. Oh, you got a two? Okay, so you do fail. Oh yeah, no, you are dead, sorry. Are you immune to being frightened? I do not believe so, no. On a failed save, you lose the ability to distinguish friend from foe regarding all creatures that you can see until the spell ends as foes, as such. Each time you take damage, you can repeat the saving throw, ending the effect on success. Uh,

Whenever you target another creature you must choose at random from among all the creatures that you can see within range of the attack spell or other ability that you are using if an enemy provokes an opportunity attack from the affected creature the creature must make that attack if it is able to So you treat all creatures as though they are foes you are looking around and you no longer can easily distinguish because of this intrusive nature of this spell hitting your mind from

the ogres in front of you and the ogresonas around you. And he's gonna back up 10 feet. - Afraid to get wet! - And you can see he pulled those arrows out and one of the wounds actually closes as he regenerates. - Are you like troll blooded? - And that's the conclusion of his turn. Yornir, you're up. - Some people have a bonus action, goblins, rogues.

Sorry. Cunning action. I should have done it beforehand. I don't think I get any kind of movement. I'll probably... I'll come up here, just to sort of be with my friends. And I can, you know, I'm a little beefier, so I'll stand here. Um... Maybe not that close. I'll stand back here. Go on, fur! And then I will say... Um... I don't want to fuck you. Yeah, that's fucking you. I'm going further. Um...

There it is. Oh yeah. So, I am going to raise my staff and I'll cry out something in giant, and this cold winter wind will sort of blow in, and at 120 feet above, basically this entire area, you'll see these like

these clouds sort of billow through the arena and you'll hear kind of galloping in the clouds. You can't really see anything, but you see these lightning cracking and a sort of a six-legged horse just for a second silhouette appear and disappear. And then from the clouds, a massive lightning bolt will come down and hit all five of them. Let's go! Nice. Okay.

Odin. Yeah. What is it? Is that Sleipnir? Is that the, yeah. Oh, fuck. That's cool. Uh, call it. So they need to make a, uh, 60, they're in a 60 foot radius, right? Yeah. Oh, for sure. Uh,

- It'd be incredible if when you cast this and you roll the d20, if you landed on a 20, Odin came down and just went and just beheaded everybody. - That was quick. - Yasuo, Barosus didn't even have time to have Becta. - These two guys, I'm gonna call it here, and these two guys need to make a-- - That's Agrippa and Totalus. - Deck saving throw, DC 16. - Deck saving throw for all of them? - No, just for these two guys. - Agrippa and Totalus.

So that's the 60 feet is the storm, I guess. - All right, the first one's 15 for Agrippa. - Fails. - And a natural 18 for the other. - Okay, that passes. - Okay. - So they are going to take-- - But that's Agrippa and Flavio, you say? - Totalus, Agrippa and Totalus was the second. - So, jeez. - 14 points of lightning damage or seven if he passed.

And the storm clouds will sort of just stay over the arena. Oh, holy shit. That's so cool. Okay. You do this, and lightning strikes the ground, and everybody in the crowd shushes.

screams in horror and excitement. They've not seen a fight like this in much time. This is new magics to them, but they are thrilled and excited by it. They all are cheering and booing for whomever they so choose. Grippa and Totalus are obviously struck terribly. Grippa especially seems quite hurt. Oh, wow. Okay, great.

That's my turn. Flavio. Flavio. Concentrate your saving throw. DC 16. Osteoporosis strikes. His bones are brittle and throbbing. A 15. He fails! He takes 2d10. Do I roll the damage? You need to roll the damage. Sick. 2d10 bludgeoning? That's a 10. Oh my god! At 13 total points of damage. 13 points of damage. As he's wracked with pain and he can move 10 feet less than he normally would. Are you concentrating? Yes, I am. Okay, good to know.

Come and get me! You brittle boned bitch! My bones! Have I told you about the... The bones?! They fucking hurt! The omega-3 oils that I need to survive! I drain the calcium from his bones. But that's the start of his turn, it's Flavio's turn. I give you bonitis! This guy right here. He can move ten feet less than normal.

Can he make it to... What's his movement? Yornir or Barnaboth with 35 feet of movement? It's probably pretty close. For sure, for sure. So he can move 25. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, that's 15 feet of movement, I think. He wanted to get to Yornir, but... Well, he can make it... That's 15, 20, 25 would be there. He can make it to Yornir, then... He can get to both. He can get to both. He can get to both? Yeah. That's like 25 feet of movement right there. Okay.

I mean, he could almost get the scrim. How would that osteoporosis again? Oh, wait, how much movement does he have? He has 35. He's 25. So that's his max movement. My bonitis. My only regret. Put him back where he was.

Oh. He was like right there. Yeah, he was right there. Yeah. Yep. Yep. No, no, yep. Right there. That's where he was. Instead of rushing forward and doing what I had in mind, I need to get a little creative here. Yeah, well, you better. Um...

He's gonna also dig down into his own magics, and pulling out the wand, and he's going to start to speak and do the necessary verbal and somatic components required. He starts to cast another spell. - And spell, I cast Borg Borg Borg Borg! - I cast Borg Borg Borg Borg. - Is your water bowl empty? - No.

Did she eat dinner? Flavio. Did she need to go out, maybe? Did you feed her before D&D? I know how you get before D&D where you, like, hyper-focus. Oh, really? Because she could just be hungry. She was over here chewing on a fork. Oh, no. And she keeps trying to eat Andy's meat stick. I gave her some ground beef. Uh-oh. Oh, no. Barpo stealing herself. He points at you, and you...

I have to succeed on a constitution saving throw. That's where you gotta be a Viking. I am a Viking. Yeah, they should. I'm going to Twisted Rises. Oh, jeez. So I roll with disadvantage. Yeah. Right? Yep. I just take the loss. What is it? They don't look good. No, it's not good. I'm dying of onism. You're dying of onism. That's what you said? Yeah. Uh...

11 does not succeed. All of a sudden, you're racing forward. You've got your target in sight. You feel like you're on top of the world when your feet lift off of the ground. Oh, no. All of a sudden, you feel weightless. You're being pulled up into the air 10, 15, 20 feet into the air, and we'll simulate that with the blocks that we have. Put Barnaboats up on...

Do you want me to use a pillar? Two blocks. Is this an anti-magic feeler? Not anti-gravity feeler. Two blocks to represent 20 feet. Holy shit. I love these blocks. Yeah, this is pretty cool.

Oh, this is a doll. Down here. Oh, this is a doll. It clearly is requiring a great amount of concentration from Flavio in order to hold you there, but he puts his wand back and he's getting ready to engage the rest of the battle as he seems to feel that he's neutralized you, Barnabot, because there you are, 20 feet up. Nothing to grab onto. You're just floating in space. You're levitating. Coward!

That'll be the conclusion of his turn. It's Totalus' turn. Totalus, he is going to... Where is Totalus? Is he the center? He's this guy, yeah. He's center, bro. Totalus, seeing what has happened to Flavio, is going to also reach down. He also is going to use his magic, and he whips out...

a number of beans that spray out from the wand. - I guess beans. - He loves beans. In one moment. - This is beans, this is food. - This is beans. - This is food.

- Okay, three darts shoot out from Totalus's wand and hit you, Scrim. They just hit you. - What? - Each one does 1d4 plus one damage. - Oh, magic missile. - However, you're gonna need to make three concentration saving throws for each. - So I'm normally at advantage because of my abilities.

Great. So you could dread me to make it straight. Oh, very interesting. But I am at advantage for my concentration saving throws. Where is that coming from? It's one of my eldritch, like, I don't even know if I took eldritch. Eldritch is fortitude. Yeah, I took, so I have advantage on concentration saving throws. I'll hold onto them to see how we do. But it's only for maintaining spell concentration. So not advantage on all concentration. Not all constitution saving throws. Just to maintain my spells.

Okay, that's good to know. So three constitutions saving throws? Yes, exactly right. And I just have to get higher than a 10? I'm not gonna twist any of them. Okay. That's a 10 plus what, five? Plus my constitution, right? Yeah, what's your count? Oh, that's probably not five. That's a good point. Sorry, I will check. It's probably like plus four. Plus four. It is plus four. So yeah, so that was a 14. So that one's good. That's a 20. One more.

Can I twist to feed this? Yeah. I'm gonna do it. What are the odds of that? A one and a three. Can I use two twists just to be sure? Yes. Okay. Do I just reroll? Both of them. Because you're at advantage.

- Or no, you just, this is an add to add another die. - That's a 16. - And then. - Yeah, so, okay, so then I pass the last one. Thank you for the twist. - So you hold on to your concentration. - I do, I do. - But you take 12 points of force damage as the three guards fight. - Well, that's right so far. - I know, fight, fight, fight. - I just stab into you and that's the end of Totalus's turn. He's gonna walk forward 10 feet and then Taishan, you're up. - I move closer a little bit.

Just right right next my old pal scrim and Actually, no I will shoot a fire bolt at Flavio mm-hmm Flavio often that's a 19 that hits Six points of fire damage six points of fire damage to Flavio Flavio hot man, okay, okay

And that means he needs to make a concentration check. And he gets a natural 17. Very good. Anything else? That's it. Antony sees you. He is looking dead at you. And he steps forward, getting into the center of the arena, trying to group together and stand in solidarity with his brothers. Yep. You can get him right next to the other...

Yep. Group them all together. Absolutely. And he sees you. He was watching you with those hot peppers. He saw you make that poultice, and he knows what perhaps you have in store. And he pulls out his own wand, and he does his own little dance. Unique from the ones that you've seen some of the others doing in this mad chaos that's suddenly broken out. He points at you and casts a spell. You need to make a wisdom saving throw.

And anyone within 10 feet radius of him needs to make the same wisdom saving throw. Ooh, that's me. I mean, there'd probably be three of them. Everyone except Barnabus. So everyone needs to make a wisdom saving throw? Wisdom saving throw, okay. I'm only going to dread you, Taishan. Ooh. Okay, okay. Oh boy, I failed. I got a seven. The defeat is 16. I got a nine. 28. Shit. Yikes. Did you do your wisdom? You have to roll a wisdom save.

Natural 20. Nice rolls, nice rolls. The two of you feel this fog enter your mind. You feel confusion. You feel delusions, uncontrolled actions. You feel that until you can clear this, that you might not have complete control over your own body. You are ensorcelled. You are confused. Oh, shit. I love that word. Ensorcelled is the hippodrome of...

Of words. Yeah. Of descriptions. Of words that aren't Hippodrome. Anthony does that. And Cecilio. What does Cecilio do? Right here. Is this one? Yeah. He's going to dash to your left.

He has 35 speed, so you can get him 70 feet. I'm sure he can make it. That's difficult terrain through them. Yeah, he shoves himself through them. Okay. Well, that's probably... Where do you start? Watch Rich. He's the movement master. I am the movement master. Yeah, he's there. So, 1, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 55, 60. What's his movement speed?

70. Yeah, so he can get here. He uses his full action to get up and close and personal with you, Yornir, and you feel his hot, disgusting breath in your face as he is... I'm older. Oh, no, you don't, because he's wearing that military mask. Instead, you just see his insane metal face. My god. And that'll be the conclusion of his turn. Queenie, top of the round. You're up. All right. I am going to...

I see Yorneir move in front of me and start screaming in this horrible language that I don't understand. I believe that he is just as much a danger to me as these orcs, and now is immediately in front of me, so I'm going to attack him with both of my fables. You may choose to do what you're doing. Yeah, I know, I am. Or you can say...

I will choose randomly and roll to see who I attack. Oh no, he moved in front of me and called forth a six-legged horse that rained lightning down. You see the silhouette. No, I think that's justified. I just wanted to let you know that that option was available. That's horrifying. That is horrifying. And you're now in front of me. Yeah, that's fine. And you are all my enemies. So 27 to hit and 18 to hit. Barely misses. The second one misses. Action.

Doing 18 points of damage.

Ouch! That's huge. Why did you do that? Force damage. Yikes. You big ogre fuck, you think you can move in front of me and you're gonna deter me from winning this battle? I don't know what you did with my friends, I don't know where you put them, but I'm gonna kill every last one of you and I start aiming my crossbow at all of you. Oh no. You ogre fucks are going down. And that's what I do.

You do that, and everyone cheers. There's a confused screaming in all directions, to be completely honest. Aren't they all on the same side? What's happening? You can hear the sound of Fangaro. He's screaming and sloshing wine down onto the spectators, and that's the conclusion of your turn. Scream, you're up. I'm ensorcelled.

Yeah, you are. What do I have to do? Oh, so you get to roll a d10. A d10. Yep. I can do that. 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10. One. I jinxed it. Roll a d8. Oh my gosh. Three. I'm north. I would be one, two, three. So three is this direction. Yeah.

You use all of your movement to move in that direction. Okay, I will hit the Colosseum wall. And you cannot take an action this turn. So you run all the way into the column. Yeah, and I assume that the d10 was an attempt to break the Sorcel. No, at the end of the turn, you may now make an additional wisdom saving throw. Perfect. Since that's my whole turn, right, I can't take any other action. Nope. So this is just straight-up wisdom.

Jesus. It was not fated. I am still unsourced. Okay, the DC was 16. Yeah, not even close. Okay, you run into the column, and this just seems to make sense to you. Nice column. Done. Barnabas. I... How tall are those pillars, the columns? 20 feet. 10 feet each block, so 20 feet. Yeah, each one of them is 10 feet tall, so you're 20 feet up, and you can see the tops of the columns. I...

I'm going to look around and I'm going to be floating in the air. It's going to take more than that to stop Barnaboose. I mean...

Trozak the Shark Puncher! And I'm gonna breathe deeply and let out a bellow, like a wail, and I'm going to cast Gust of Wind, and my attempt is to blast the wind this way. Yeah. So I'm then able to push myself 15 feet this way, because if you fail, you move 15 feet in a direction. Okay. So, and then when I get to the column, use my crab legs to climb onto it, and then skitterdip.

- I think that's a totally acceptable-- - I love that. - So you don't have your pipe, you don't have your tobacco, but you are still able to give out this great burst of wind energy, just like a whale geyser that comes out of its back and you push yourself 15 feet. - And then, so yeah, I'm going to go 15 feet this way. And so then that's just part of the gust of wind and I still have 40 feet of movement.

So I'm going to skitter down. With levitate, you would just be hanging in air. So you need to make a check to see if you can grab onto it. Okay, yeah. So I would like to try to use my crab legs to grab onto the column. Okay, do that. That's going to be athletics or acrobatics. And I'm advantaged because I'm raging. Okay.

- Oh, this is gonna be a lot. - 20. - Nice. - 22. - You're barely able, one of your crab claws is barely able to hitch into the top of this and you're able to get purchase. And even though you still remain weightless and floatless and you're not sure how easy it's gonna be for you to crab down, you are able to grab onto that column and you can get rid of the two columns we were using to simulate Barnabas. - So do I have any movement now that I've grabbed onto it?

I don't know how levitate works once I- The target can only move by pushing or pulling against a fixed object. That sounds good to me. You now have a fixed object which allows you to move it as if you were climbing. Yeah. So as long as you maintain grip, you are going to be able to- And my climbing speed is my movement speed. So you have your movement speed. You can try to grip the ground, you know what I mean? Yeah. So I'm actually literally just going to crab wall. Literally, that is so sexy. That's so sexy.

That is so fucking true. In a horrible nightmare scenario, I no longer use my legs and I fucking Doc Ock down. You're Kenneth Brahma from Wild Wild West. Yes! Oh my god, yeah. I've been taking 20 and then I can move another 20. Yep. So wait, how? 15. And then you can get five and you can get that guy. And then I can go right here.

to old, uh... And I would be on the ground with my crab legs and I'll say, Oh, you thought you could neutralize a shark puncher, did ya? And I am going to just...

I don't have a bonus action to do anything, so that's my turn. The ogre screams at you in return. It's ready for fight, and it's excited by the clear urgency that you brought to the equation. Agrippa, you're up. That's me. Oh, God. Agrippa.

Where is Agrippa? Right here, right next to Barnabas. Agrippa's the one that Barnabas is now engaged with. Oh, he's gonna make fucking attacks. That's what he's gonna do. He's gonna slam down. It's your funeral. Agrippa has a giant bat, a huge medals club, basically the same club that you're carrying, and he goes, bam, bam! The first one is going to be the 23 to hit. That'll hit.

and a 24 to hit. That'll hit as well. Oh no. You got me, you got me. That'll do it. I'm gonna just roll one. Crap people, crap people.

You take 19 points of bludgeoning damage as he comes down. You're still holding on. It's not easy to dodge, so you just have to take it. Smack into the side of your belly. You can feel a rib, not quite crack, but bruise horribly, and then smash down into the shoulder. You see right into the collarbone. It is a painful experience, and you can feel it reverberate through your body. That's the end of Agrippa's turn. Yornir, you're up.

I'll keep waving my staff in the air, and then you'll hear the hooves sort of pass through again, another silhouette and a crash of lightning as a huge bolt of lightning lands here, and all three of them need to make a... Antony, Agrippa, and Totalus need to make dex saving throws. You angry lightning-wheeled fuck! I'm coming for you! Natural 20.

A 7. That's a fail. And a 14. Fail. So two fail, one fail. Come on, please, high. Pretty good. Pretty good. Oh, way good. 22 points of damage. Yeah, let's go. Two that failed. Who were the three that we were talking about? We did Totalus, Antony, and Agrippa. Okay. Agrippa succeeded. Totalus and Antony take 22. Yeah. But 11 to Agrippa? Correct. Okay, I got it.

And then from the clouds, you'll see sort of this snow start to come down, particularly above me. And snow will start to sort of obscure me and it'll get so thick that I disappear and I become invisible. Oh, I love that. Until the start of my next turn. Where the hell did you go? And I'm going to try to sneak away and I'm invisible. As long as I don't do damage or make an attack or cast a spell, I'm invisible until the start of my next turn. Oh.

It's like, what is it? Snowy Vale in Pokemon? Snow Vale? Oh, that's cool. That's really sexy. Make a persuasion check. Oh. Oh. And he could still theoretically, like, if he thinks I'm moving away, if he can perceive that I'm moving away. And I would have you do the same thing, Barnabas. Me? Big roll. Big roll. Persuasion? Yeah.

Do you have enough juice to get through the... Oh! Yeah. Oh! Persuasion, you don't say! 16. For Barnabas. I mean, Kothak the Shark Puncher. 13 for me. Not great. Could be worse. Okay. That's the conclusion of Yornir's turn. Flavio is up. DC Constitution saving throw. 16. That's a 9. It's a...

14. That's going to fail. 17 points of throbbing bone damage. Oh my god! I roll almost max. This guy is just absolutely crippled with bones. I have no bones! But Spoon's too busy walking forward straight into a pillar and I'm going with

It's like in WoW when you leave your character on auto-run and you just walk into a wall. You run into a mountain. I forgot, I was too busy being an ogre and I forgot to cure my bonitis. That's not the end of his turn, that's the start of his turn. What a nightmare. Where is Flavio? In hell. There.

Let me just double check that this is a concentration spell. Scrim's over here if you're just joining us. I'm just chilling. I'm just vibing. You are vibing. If it wasn't clear, I dropped the Gust of Wind as soon as I made it to the pillar and attached to it. He's going to be forced to make a concentration saving throw. For 17 points of damage, that exceeds...

The DC is gonna be increased, isn't it? Slightly. No, it's half the 17. It needs to be 22 points of damage to increase the DC. Yeah, that's a good point. Because it has to be more than half. He maintains concentration, I'm sorry to tell you. That's okay. That's going to be... Where is he again? Flavio is this one. Yeah.

He's gonna race up and he's gonna get into Barnabus' business. Seeing the threat. This one? Yep. Yep. He's gonna be able to use his full 35 points of speed and he's gonna make two attacks on Barnabus. Oh, Barnabus. The first one is going to be a... We need some misses here. Oh, you come at me! You gotta have a good amount of health, bud. 17 to hit. Oh, that does hit. That does hit. And higher than that...

17 is exactly my same. 7... 13... 19 points of damage again with the bludgeoning. Oh, so that's... That's not good. Well, it's halving it. Oh, okay. It's halving it, so... Okay, I say that is a shitload of damage. Yeah, I mean, he's... Holy shit. Where's Tetalos? Right next to Barnabas. Oh, he come at me! No, he's this one, this one. He's in the middle still. He could get to Barnabas, though. Well, he could get to... Squeezing rules.

Is that a thing? Yeah, it technically is. I just hate it. Well, technically you can't like occupy other, you know, like... Right, you can't. If you can overlap this slight square, I think that's probably fine. They're huge. I mean... Yeah, I think they could get there. Yeah. Well, it's up to you. I feel like... Yeah, because this guy's only really halfway here. Yeah. Damn. Okay, we're going there.

We're just fucking going there. That hits. That misses. You're going to take 11 points of bludgeoning damage as Totalus gets in on the business. Taishan, you're up. What do I have to do? Oh, roll a d10 for me. Oh, no. Do you know what the 10 does? Or are you just hoping for a good output? Four. Nine and ten, you're going to take it. I'm guessing you make no movement. And you take no action. You're fucked.

like, shocked away out of the combat. The sound of the crowd fades, the adrenaline pumping through you, you feel dormant, almost sleeping. But you can try to break the ensorciled at the end of your turn. But you may now make a wisdom saving throw to see if you can break through that sleepy feeling. Godspeed, Taishen. Godspeed with your ensorciled. Twist it. Twist it. Make him dread you if he wants to.

All right, I'll double twist it. Yeah, double twist that shit. We have it. Oh, that was a natural 20. Oh! All right. We need it. We need it. Sorry, not Taishan. Shagoth of the Blackrock. Of the Blackrock. So that's the end of your turn, Antony. Where's Antony?

- And he's in the back there. - He's in the back there. He is also gonna advance. Let's see if he can get just behind the ogre that's closest to Taishan right now. - Yeah. - What's his movement? You sure you don't wanna get on the other side of me, big fella? - I mean, definitely. - There's plenty of room over here. - He gets there and seeing that these other creatures have been largely ignored, he's going to...

Use magic missile on Taishan. Are you concentrating on anything? - Nope. - All right, two damage, four damage and five damage. - 11. - 11 points of force damage to you, sir. - The ensorcell break if we take damage? - Yes.

You're free, but you were already free. I was already free. One of those mysterious bolts slips out of the way and hits Scrim for a single point of damage. Where's Cecilia? Didn't you take, like, 12 points of damage? It was right before I got in Sorceress. This one. The front guy. The hill giant. The vanguard. And you're invisible, Jornir? Yes. Yep. I have Snow Veil and the runes. He...

pulls out his wand, makes a few gestures, and his biceps double in size. He races forward to you, Taishan, and he swings down, and he attempts to grapple you.

Uh-oh. Little bitch. She's gonna mountain you and crush your skull. Like an overripe melon. One moment. Whoa, man, at the strength contest, him? Uh-oh. This isn't good. The runes are giving you woe in your favor. First you need to make an arm strike against you. Okay. And he does that, does a 22 hit. Oh, fuck.

The runes say you're going to have a bad day. You are now dead. Star runes. Star runes. I love your name. Yoni. Yoni.

Man. Yeah, does anyone know if you cast Shield at a higher spell level? Does it do anything? No. Alright, it hits. It hits. He pulls his huge, massive, crazy, insane tree trunks of arms around you. It's like super low. And you are...

crushed and you realize that it's his goal. It's his goal to start to get tighter and crush tighter and crush tighter. You are now in a bear hug of pain and torment. Do you have Mage Armor on? Or Misty's Den? I don't know how I... I don't think I have that. You should get it. Queenie, you're up.

You're going to see me at like 19 as a dragon sorcerer. I'm going to look forward and I see the two ogres hugging each other. I don't care. I'm looking for the sneaky, icy fuck that is escaping my grasp. I can't find him. So I am going to lock eyes with the only other ogre that I've engaged with, Agrippa, and I'm going to let loose two more bolts on Agrippa. Mace, can you tell me what those numbers are, please?

Uh, 18 and a 10. Big money, big money? So 20 and 28. Their AC is 15. Oh, Jesus.

Can you add those up for me and then add ten to that? Okay. Three, five, nine, nineteen total. Nice. And that's including the ten? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You rolled one, two, two, four. Nineteen points of force damage to Agrippa. Nineteen points of force damage. He gets stuck by another two arrows and you see the sunflowers burst out from his chest and he falters.

For a moment, not only does your mind clear and the enemy abound spells evaporate from your mind because his concentration is broken, but he falls down to one knee and he taps. He taps out. Yeah, what a bitch. They're gonna tap out. It's like in WoW where they kneel and they become untargetable. Oh.

Give him a tap out token and he'll use his next turn to exit the battle. Am I free? But it's understood that... No, no, no, he's here. It's understood that he is no longer inbounds for the purposes of this combat. So if you kill him, it will be done. Unless you were to, yeah. God does not fear. We're true ogres, we follow the code.

Oh, Dewey, I was gonna say, gods don't fear mere mortal ogres. No, we're the ones who established the code, Mr. Bones. I'm gonna brush my teeth with his bones. Very good. Mr. Bones has fucked the code! Do you do anything else? No, I look around and I'm like, oh my god, I almost killed, oh, my poor friend.

And that's it. Scram, you're up. I'm still on Sorcelt, Ben. I was confused on which one lifted the spell. Come on, come on! Two! Yeah, I think you might be... I'm doing the same thing. No, no, no, you just look at that. Boy, that's a nice column. It's just so nice. You do not take any actions, nor do you move. Come on, come on! Wisdom saving throw. You got this. DC 16. I think we twist this to help. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Fuck, that's an 11. I'll twist. Twist twice. Two twists. I have plus five. That's pretty crazy. Two and a three. There we go, 21. There you go. Mr. Bones! That's my turn. In front of us. Which one looks rougher? I don't know if any of them have taken damage. Who are the two that are-- Flavio and Totalis. Two have all taken damage.

I don't think Antony. Oh, wait a minute. I think you're right. I also don't think Cecil has. They're rougher than Flavio, but they both look just on the edge of bloody. Oh, Tautos is the one without the... He had his fist, right? Yes. I said I'd find you as I lunge forward with my gauntlet. Punch him in the throat. Collapse his trachea. That'll be a natural 20. Let's go!

I was like, you know why they call me the shark puncher? And I'm going with my gauntlet first. And to try to smash into him, to hopefully get a natural 20 and activate my crusher feat. He looks down, we're gonna need a bigger boat. I'm going to roll for this purpose. Oh no, wait, it's a d8. Wait, do I have a brutal critical?

Uh, not, no. I didn't have seven. Seven or eight? I got seven.

- Okay. That is nine plus five, which is 14 plus two, 16 points of bludgeoning damage. - Ouch. - And all attacks on him as his armor, whatever he has is smashed and cracked. Everything's advantage on him until the end of my next turn. - Nice. - And then they'll say, "There's the punch, now here's the shark!" And then that's when Shark Head is going to be going in to attack him twice.

And you're advantaged. Yep. Oh my god, that's so good! I'm advantaged anyway. The first one is... 21. That hits. Ooh, that is cocked. And then 18. That hits. Do both of those hit? 15 is the right save. Uh, yeah. Major armor, by the way, is the exact same thing as your common bloodline.

Oh. It says 13 plus dex, which is what Draconic Bloodline is. So, 7 plus 10 is 17, plus 4, wait, 17 plus 4, 21 points of piercing damage.

- Wow. - As the other hand will go in and the shark will tear into his flesh, Twashtop. - You tear into his flesh. - His helmet flies off. He's struggling to get his hands out from your shark mouth to hands. And you can tell that he is on the edge of tapping out, but he's trying to stick with it. He thinks that perhaps he can turn the tide. - And I'm not gonna push him forward. Oh wait, do I have to knock him forward? I might have to.

No, if you choose, you may. It's your choice. I don't want to knock him away. I'm going to keep him right in front of me. So that's my turn. A grip of dashes for me. Just off the field of play? I let him go and not take an attack of opportunity. That's right. Do you want the bean bag? You're in here.

Storms are still going. The snow will sort of dissipate, and you'll see Yornir appear out of nowhere as he's spinning a staff, and a bolt of lightning will come right here. God, what is this spell? I need to reread these spells. Call Lightning! Call Lightning! Call Lightning is fucking outrageous. It's insane. It's very good. Totalus. That's why you got Crummy killed, remember? Antony and Flavio need to make dex saving throws. It's not quite as good as Osteoporosis. Ha ha ha ha ha!

Totale succeeds. Anthony... Oh my god. It's a dexterity saving throw. Deck safe. 16. That's right. Okay, so natural 16. 9 doesn't succeed. And then an 8 doesn't succeed. So Anthony and Flavio are going to take the full brunt of this. So 19. Huge. Or...

Eight. Nine. Or nine. Nine. Stop, I hear you! 19 or nine. Flavio fails his concentration check, so you no longer earn the effects of... Levitate. Levitate. How much is this? It's either 19 points of damage if they failed, or a nine if they passed. Wow. Okay, you and I just roll like hot fire. Yeah. Okay, so Tertullus taps out.

He thought he could hold on, but he can't endure the sudden pain as quickly as possible. Yeah, yeah, you guys are doing very well. How's everyone looking? I told you. Me? I look fine. I look confused. Andy and Flavio are looking at their brethren. Agrippa has turned and run, and they are shocked to find themselves in the position that they find themselves in. Good turn.

Oh yeah, I'm done. Flavio feels as though his bones are about to be exposed through his flesh. This is really funny. He takes half damage if he fails? Yeah.

All right. He has one hit point. I'm not going to read the Constitution. I'm not going to even roll the Constitution saving throw because I could get a natural 20. Well, he won't die. He'll just fall unconscious. He dies of osteoporosis. He has one hit point to the threshold that I'm using for tap out.

So then he's just, he's just sat. Yeah. Ow, my bones! How do you want to do that? I want him to basically, like, this whole time he's been in pain, he's been trying to, he'll, like, reach for somebody, he winces, he, like, does something, he's like, ah! And he's like, ah, he grabs his hand. And it's getting worse and worse, and he just falls to the ground and, like, crunches up in the fetal position, like, yelling as the air is, like, gasping from his lungs. It just hurts. Everything hurts. I need to go get some fish oil! Ha ha ha!

Does anyone have any milk? Now you know why they call him Mr. Bones! I thought this was a coliseum, not a calcium. And he falls to his knees and he's like, that's pretty good! Have a meatball, son! Flavio is out. Flavio is out, motherfuckers. Well, if that's the start of his turn, will he just immediately run away? He'll dash. So both of them are dashing.

- See you losers. - See you losers, exactly right. - Do I have to use like a bonus action or something to drop concentration? Like I just spend? - No, at any point. - On my turn, I will turn it off. So if he doesn't die, I'm off the over-o. Is this like off screen? - Anthony.

- It's Ty's turn. - No, it's Ty's turn. - Oh, well I'm grappled by this. - You're being crushed to death. - I'm being crushed to death. - What do you want me to do about that? - Who's crushing you to death? It's Cecilio? - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Cecilio, you're breaking my bones. - So you can attack hands or you can do spells and shit, I think. - Yeah. - Whatever.

Normal spell? I don't know. Yeah, you can do plenty of spells. Your grapple is zero. Your movement is zero. And he's in melee range, so you'd be disadvantaged. On a ranged attack. But if it's the same throw, yeah, it doesn't matter. You're crushing my blade. My blade.

I would be disadvantaged on a spell? On a spell attack. Range spell attack. If it's a ranged touch attack, or if it's a touch spell attack, it's fine. Crush my bones in the afternoon with Cecilia. Damn it. Damn it. Okay. Up in my...

I will attempt to hit him with a spell attack. Oh, yeah disadvantaged

Okay, we're out to Nashland. Alright, yeah. I'm gonna twist it. I'm gonna use two. I'm gonna use two. I don't know why I listened to you. I don't know why I listened to you. Is every roll a disadvantage? It's not my fault! No, no, no. It's not my fault you guys fucking suck. No, that hits him. It was a ten. Yeah, you do. So it's 17. Yeah, that was 18. Yep. Okay. Alright.

Okay. So it hits. I'm going to take this opportunity. Yeah, I've been letting this happen. I'm going to take this opportunity where the only thing I've ever done has happened successfully. Let's go. Yeah, use your... Oh, fuck. All your sorcerer points. Is it... What time of day is it?

It's day. It's the middle of the afternoon. Okay. And it's a beautiful, it's like a beautiful sky out. Yeah, yeah. It's a sunny day, so fire, so fire attacks. Yeah. So I'm being instantly charged. Yeah, yeah. Well, that's exactly what I was asking. The material component for the spell that I customized for him has a very cool condition. Oh, I need sunny day to use my spells. So I'm, uh...

I'm getting crushed by Cecile. Classic. I'm in his burly grip, and I look up, and I see the sun shining down on me. And I bask in its glow, and I open both my palms. I open the left, and it starts to glow with the white hot light of the sun. And I open the right as I twin spell Sunscorch. Oh!

There's a fire in your belly and I'm just course and this sun Glows with an awesome power. Yeah, it's righteous might is begging me to defeat you. That's what I was thinking. Yeah Is he wearing any metal Cecilio yeah, oh, he has a leather band. He's

This is Cecilio, right? Yes. Yeah. He's wearing a military mask made of metal. Ah!

Alright, okay, okay. Alright, so he's gonna take... So for one sun scorch, he's gonna take 3d10 fire damage and then 1d10 radiant. You're actually just gonna kill him outright. So he's gonna take 8d10 damage, 6d10 will be fire, 2d10 will be radiant. You're literally gonna cook his brain. Plus 4 damage. Oh, if you have it, I only have the 1d10. He's gonna cook his entire brain. He's gonna dragon so much.

Oh, these are all detailed. It's going to be like season three of Korra. Yes! With the combustion moment. Yes! Oh, yeah! His head is literally just going to explode. Is that ten? Yeah. Zeroes is ten. Nine. Geez. You actually just murdered a man.

Would love for this guy to get one shot wait. Oh wait wait wait wait okay? These are all the details you roll six six, so that's 19 That so this would be the fire damage if this is six yeah, this is 15 Oh man, I need to get back to playing Chocoballs with us. Yeah, 10, 19, oh 25. Yep. Yep. Oh 25 34 38 42

And then... That's just the fire damage. 42 for the fire damage. Oh, plus 4? I think it's plus 4 for my... Oh, I wrote it here. Yeah, plus 4. So 46. 46. Plus... I said 44. 46. Well, I almost said plus 81. Plus 9. 50... 55? 55. Yeah, 55. Yeah, total. You gotta do it like a dragon ogre. Yeah. Make a persuasion check.

Oh. Actually, a persuasion or an intimidation check. I wonder what those are for. I think we're persuading...

The crowd. Military Jones. Persuasion. Fabian. Fabian, right? Fangirl. Fangirl. Lucian. Lucian. Can I twist this? Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm going to use two. You're charismatic. I am very charismatic. I just might die still. Oh, I am Taishen. You're not rolling hot tonight. I roll very terribly. Oh, okay. There we go. 18 plus 725 persuasion and 56 damage. Straight to this.

I blast, I turn my palms upward and aim straight at his metal helmet. And I blast two twin beams of sun scorch. Scorch its fill. You gotta open your mouth. Put the token of tap out on Cecilio. Done. Get wrecked. Was that just one shot? Yeah. He went, yeah. For the threshold that I had in mind...

Oh my god. And the quality of your persuasion check. I mean, you just did fucking like 55 points of damage at least. 56. 56 points of damage. That's some Ogre God level stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You charge into him. Blasting radiant flaming beams up into the air. His face turns into a fucking grill. Like that. He falls to his knees. He releases you from the hug. He drops down. You are feeling, yeah, good.

That's why they call him the Black Kruk of the Dragon Ogres! Cecilio falling apart, he is crawling towards the portcullis on his side of the arena. And that brings us to Antony's turn.

Do you know this guy, Moovie? Yeah, he'll go, he'll go, but... Yell, yell, yell, yell, yell! Yeah, everyone is yelling that, for sure, for sure, but there are those who believe in Antony, and he... Mr. Bones is coming! ...pulls out his wand, and in a panic, he seems to... You're all... You're all... You all need a taste of what it means to...

Be in Helga heaven! Oh shit. It's kinda threatening. Scrim. No. He points his wand at you. Ah, Jesus. And he casts a spell. I'm gonna use a Dread on this. So I'm gonna get disadvantage?

- Yes. - He casts a gong. - Prepare, prepare, prepare. - I need to make a charisma saving throw. - Oh! - That's where you're invited. - I am at disadvantage though, but so I will-- - That's a rare saving throw. - Scrim will be like feeling like he's in a position of power because we're ganging up five V one. I will, you know, Scrim will be like, "Aah!" And then as soon as he sees the one point, he's gonna be like, "Uh-oh."

You're good. I got a 17. You're good. I rolled a nine as my lowest, plus eight. One more quest, that's the same. Oh! But hey, it's straight now. It's straight. Yeah. I rolled a four. Oh! So I got a 12. Oh! Oh! Uh-oh. Amazing. You all watch as Scrim...

Out of existence. And scrim. Use this dive move. One moment. You're facing down a group of menacing gladiator ogres in a hippodrome with hundreds of spectators. The next, you're falling and you land hard on a rocky surface. The smell of ash and smoke and sulfur fills your lungs. Oh no. One moment.

- Oh no. - Oh no. - Oh no. - You crash into the ground and find that it is a sheer slope. I need to make a dexterity saving throw.

Uh, okay. Oh, he's gonna be fucking face to face with it. 20, dirty 20. Dirty 20? Yeah. Nice. You take half. Jesus. Is this? Of five damage. Okay. And you start to tumble down this slope of this seemingly infinite incline, but you slide to a stop.

- Rocks and pebbles roll and shift all around you. Every surface seems to glow red like the interior of a volcano. - What the fuck, what the fuck? - You see massive plumes and explosions erupting from this strange sloped place at varying distances. There is no sky above you, just a pitch black void. And then you see an impossible sight. It's hard to judge how far away it is because of its sheer scale.

A mile? Five miles? Fifty miles? The colossal scale makes it unbelievable and unknowable. You see a spired city of warped buildings, grays and blacks and reds, twisting towers and turrets and domes entangled by a myriad of bridges and spans and gangways.

Thousands of smokestacks belch toxic smoke into this bizarre and tilted harrowing realm that you now find yourself in. The dark city moves, is moving. The fumes that rise from the city tell this tale and you have a horrible realization. Somehow, even on this treacherous, slanted, slopey hill that you find yourself on, the city is creeping.

Moving quickly, even. You see what can only be described as thousands of fiendish legs grafted under the massive lower deck of this city, racing and working the city up and up and up. Ten, twenty minutes and the city could very well be right on top of you. You have been banished.

I begin to scream. And that'll be the conclusion of Antony's turn. I actually know what's happening. I call that as my favorite moment. Fuck! Holy shit. I will, um... Where the hell did Scrim go? Bees?

And then I will shoot two arrows at this guy. Can you roll my dice for me? Can you roll two? That's the coolest fucking one that's ever happened in this campaign. This is like the most heavy metal riffs are playing. It was a slow death battle in the distance. You're the blind guy from the Fury Road. Yeah!

17 and 28 to hit for Queenie. Both hit. So roll two d8s, two d6s, and add two. I love that you've just been Dagny babying this entire time. I got sucked to hell, guys. You literally got sucked to hell. 20 damage. 20 damage on Antony. How would you like to do this, Queenie?

As he taps out. One in each eye. Pierce his brain. Only one of those was a fey bolt. That was my last fey bolt. The first arrow sinks into him. The second one with the large bee, it's a queen bee. It's the last one of them. And as it hits him and it stings into him, you watch as his face begins to swell up. He's allergic to bees. Epi-Pen, go! You see Anthony cry.

And he falls to the floor and he immediately undones his concentration. You see Scrim back into existence and drop down next to the column where he was and he lands with a thud, looking very different. - Hey Scrim! - The little time that he's been gone. And Antony and the rest of the ogres are crawling back and...

the crowd goes wild that's why they call her smash road i'm screaming oh goodness uh that's not what i want one moment there there it is the crowd is screaming they are uh destroying their throats uh in excitement for the uh display that's uh that's been put out you can hear fangaro from the uh top box uh yelling out

nearly like throwing up, burping and shouting in victory at the same time. - You can tell he's changed his room three times since combat. - He's four shades down the hook. He's screaming out, you can't hear him though over the sound of the eruption of the stadium all around you. What are you guys doing?

He gets struck by lightning, actually. What are the odds? I dispel the clouds. I am gonna step towards the middle, and my voice is gonna boom out, and I'm gonna say, Hey now, we're the all-stars! We got our game on, and we played! Yeah. Ah!

I would leap up behind her and just explode dragon's fire breath into the air. Yeah. And as the snow bank finally, from the snowy storm, fades away, I'll say, that's why they call him Frosko!

And I'm going to use all of my charges of rage to shift into different sharks. I'm going to grow a massive spiked shark tail. And I'm just going to be mutating, tearing my mouth full of sand. Spur.

And I'll get a horrible shark-like face. And I'm just going to be mutating like crazy. Megalodon. You do that. You've truly started to embrace the bestial change that is within you and what you are being empowered to do. And Hammerhead, Basking Shark, Great White. All of these shapes are coming out of your body as you guys start to mutate.

make your way off the arena can i make a point you may make one point you know that a puppy trusts you completely when you can scream all star and she doesn't even flinch give that doggo a kiss before maybe i can't she's a collapse

There we go, there we go. After celebrating with the crowd and seeing Fangaro clearly delighted, you make your way back off of the hard pack, past the columns, through the tunnel, back into the armory that you were equipping yourself in, and Manius is there.

Well done, well done. You proved your worth. You swept them aside with your hand like nothing. You were unbelievable. What magics you are capable of. What finesse. I can't believe. Elgar spirits. I knew it from the very start. I said it.

Are you now convinced that we are who we say we are? I've been convinced since yesterday. All right, well, what about lotion? Fangaro will be...

"Very agreeable, I'm sure. "Not just because you showed the true spirit "of what it means to be an ogre, "but you entertained the crowd as well. "Without question, without question. "I would have us go up and talk to him, "but I understand that he is fast asleep. "So, I propose that we make our way into our carriage "and make our way back home.

It's been a successful day. We have tomorrow our meeting with Seneca, the house of drama, of art, of theater. We're going to kill that one. We're going to be able to do this one after the other, day after day.

Forever. And soon you'll be free, and we will be able to talk about what messages you have from Heaven as soon as we've proved it to the world of Ogerton. Each one individually?

Oh, yes. Yeah, it wasn't even a challenge. Hopefully the next house will be a little bit deadlier. Just four to go? We'll handle it. I told you ogres had layers. And I have my own challenge that I must administer. The House of Knowledge. We must make sure that you understand that education and knowledge is important. I hope we're on a really shitty game show.

Like the kind you would find on Game Show Network. Leopardy? Yeah. Why does it smell like Lucian is here with his pants full of shit? Oh, that's just scram. Are you doing a rattle, Bones? Did you shoot yourself when they sent you to Ogre Heaven? Mr. Bones, you seem like... You look like the other ogres that you sent back to their side of the arena there.

- No, he's just doing his rattle bones. After a great fight, he needs to just rattle his bones. You know how Mr. Bones is. - Return your weapons. I assume you can keep what we took from the bistro. Daisy, make sure that you have everything that we need and let's all make our way to the carriage. - I'm just gonna walk out and as my shark arms retract into my arms, I just drop the gauntlets onto the ground. I don't like putting them back.

Yeah, I'll drop my staff and my shield. I'll keep my pepper. You keep your pepper? Yeah. I'll keep the staff, actually. You keep the staff? Might we be able to celebrate at said bistro with a nice, maybe, half-sandwich soup and salad? I'll say that you do that. But for the safety

I don't know, you guys have a delicious meal and you make your way back to... Do they have caprizz? You make your way back to... I call that as my favorite moment. The house of the, um...

Do they have fried pickles? Of Blaginius. They have everything that they could ever give you that will make you fat as someone that they are going to eat. Of course they're going to give you all the food in the world. I want fried pickles. You got all of it. And they're not just fried pickles. They have like a slab of butter on top. I also want fried mushrooms. Can I have some of those? Yeah.

You got it. Do you have mozzarella, sir? Yeah, delicious. Like, extra fried. Oh no, they're fancy, they're mozzarella squares. Do they have little side wings? Triangles! It's fancy, you can charge them.

Yeah, the cheesiest cake. They're like tall cheesecake too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. With like strawberries and the whole thing. Kuda. Kuda. Kuda. Kuda. Kuda. Late night. Full of wine and food and victory. The five of you, the six of you, make your way back, back, back to the House of Knowledge where Blaginius calls his home, calls his family.

And as soon as the two carriages stop and the polar bears start to themselves, because they're quite intelligent, make their way to their own stable, something is a little amiss. A vassal runs out and immediately starts communicating with Daisy. She turns and she says, there's been some commotion since we've been gone. What happens is

I understand that there was someone who was pregnant here? Oh. Yes. They've given birth. Oh. That's great. Congratulations. Well, not me, but... Well, I know that. Don't you want to go? Well, yeah. Sure. Godly blessings to the new ogre child. Can you tell Manius? Yo, Manius, your wife had the baby.

Congratulations. My wife wasn't pregnant. Do you mean Faldina? The vassal? Oh, shit. I thought your wife was pregnant. I thought that was going to happen last week. It's been a little overdue, to be honest. She looks like a whale. That is a horrible thing to say. I'm going to go check on the new mom. And I'm an ogre. I'm going to go express...

I'm gonna go and have a good night's rest myself. Thank you, thank you, thank you. You're more than I could possibly have imagined.

And he makes his way and the five of you, the six of you, the seven of you, all make your way down to the quarters. Not the space where you have a private room, but to the same bunk bed like commons room that you actually came to understand and know, Scrim. And it's here that you see Frawdina holding a small baby child. - Hi Frawdina, congratulations on your new baby. - Now Scrim.

She, I mean, as long as I'm playing DJ. The thing about hell. She holds up her baby and you can see the surrounding, you know, two dozen vassals of the House of Education, the House of Knowledge. And holding out her baby, she's... You want me to hold it? Look, look. Just see the child and they're all smiling. Daisy, this is...

This is when our final cry happens. I was going to just ask if the baby's crying. And the child... ...begins to scream. And that's where we'll call the night siren. Oh, no. What? Oh, no. We're going to find out how or why they're not able to speak. Final cries. That's awful. That's a terrible line. Oh, my God.

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