Icebound | Ep. 14 | Precipice of Uncertainty
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Welcome to Legends of Avantris. I'm Queenie, Miss March if you're nasty, and you're listening to Icebound. Here's what happened last time.

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. Who's Mr. Bones? I believe that we will show our divine power.

Taint. Uh, I mean, uh, not corruption. Uh... Our 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 vassals 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,

I don't like this. I don't like where this is going, guys. I don't like this at all.

If you wish us to fight them, then we will fight to the death if need be. I have 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. It's an ogre tradition. There's so much to do. So much to see. So what's wrong with taking the back seat?

You'll never know if you don't go. Go! Okay, let's go! I am Mr. Bone, and you will fear me and feel the pain of osteoporosis! That's why they call her Smash Road!

The crowd is screaming. They are destroying their throats in excitement for the display that's been put out. You can hear Fangaro from the top box yelling out, nearly like throwing up, burping, and shouting in victory at the same time. You can tell he's changed his route. This is when our final cry happens.

I was gonna just ask if the baby's crying. And the child begins to scream. It is the 21st day of the 12th month. Only a few days have passed since you first arrived in Ogerton, but already you feel your bodies being nourished by the warm air, rich regular meals, and the many comforts of this strangely lush and palatial settlement.

After many long months of hard travel, starvation, and living in the brutal conditions of Western Drakkar, this new strange place should feel like a restful sanctuary. But it is a prison.

What should be a welcome oasis and shelter from the harsh climate of this southern land is instead a perplexing dungeon. Indeed, you find yourselves wholly captive in this strange place. Any relief that might come from the temperate weather and food and conveniences is made bitter by the strange culture that you must now navigate.

The zealous ogres who built and inhabit the wondrous city that they call Ogerton are like a dangerous paradox. Somehow smart enough to harness the natural benefits of this rare land. Somehow too stupid to see past the vanities and hypocrisies of their culture. Somehow capable of wielding great magics and inventions.

Somehow incapable of seeing how thoughtless and small-minded their beliefs about the world and others truly are. And there is still the burdensome weight of the quests you have all bound yourselves to. Thrust upon you by the gods atop a great mountain on the first day of winter, to somehow expose and prevent some great prophesied catastrophe in defense of Drakkar.

But that sacred duty seems impossibly far away and distant, intercepted by the immediate perils confronting you now. It is only through the graceful deception that you now all share, the lie that you are all ogre gods made mortal returned to the material plane despite your strange behavior and appearance, that you are not already condemned to a lifetime of servitude and confinement."

Before you seemingly lies only one path to potential freedom. A series of challenges offer a slim chance to have your magical shackles undone so that you might escape or perhaps fight. The others here that you have come to know as vassals are not so lucky. These are the silenced humans, like your friend Daisy, who lack the power of verbal speech and who endure lives of labor only to be thanked by the warm embrace of a cooking pot.

Oh yeah. What happens next is up to you.

I don't think what happens to that baby is up to us. Taishen, what should we do? We all sit here. Taishen, shut the fuck up! Taishen attempts to answer you, but he shuts up as soon as you say that. I look around and see if they all seem surprised, or if they seem like this is just how it works. You won't even have to roll for it. You get a sense, looking around, that

Newborn is a magical event for the humans who reside here. Hearing this cry is something that is expected and cherished, but you also have the, not words, but the communication that Daisy just gave you. This is something like a final cry or an ultimate

It's hard to make out exactly what she's trying to convey, but there's a sense that it's understood to be a temporary phenomenon. This is a healthy child? Yes. Yes. A beautiful boy. From what I can tell, the labor went well, and he's crying and looking for food, so nothing seems amiss. The way that we experience life here is that

Is there something wrong? No. I'm going to sort of like just take a step back and kind of all cross my arms and just sort of observe. When will it become quiet? He will become quiet. Usually it happens quickly. The first or second night. Only at night then? Typically. Does anyone see what happens on the night where it happens? It is unknown to us, but...

Ever since I escaped, I've had my theories. I never realized what was... And listen, everyone, watch. And many of the vassals turn away from the baby. Underneath our pendants here, there's a mark. You can't ever see it, but I think the ogres may be taking the voices from us, from this child. She seems sad and frantic.

Does it have to happen? I mean, isn't there something that we can do? Surely, it's just a baby. Why does anything have to happen to this thing? It's not something that we've ever tried to stop. The baby just will have a pendant in another day or two. Maybe it's something that we could try to stop? Aye. If it's alright with the

Parents of the little one, I would suggest that we keep watch around the child. Perhaps if we can't stop it, we'll at least learn something. It's a fine idea. I'm happy to take a round and watch and make sure that we monitor this child 24/7. Let's just try anything, really. Aye. What do we do?

If we learn that it is an ogre coming into the room in the middle of the night with a knife, what then? Do we kill the ogre? Do we kill all the ogres? That was in my letter. Well written there, Mr. Sabascotch. Thank you. Or do we just accept that this is unfortunately part of our current reality? I don't think so.

These ogres are smart enough to have the precision to do what has happened to the young lady here without killing her. Poor these humans. The reason I bring it up is we do have a way, even despite our current lack of equipment, we are all capable of being quite violent. If we could... Aye? Stop whatever this is...

If it had just been me coming back, somehow returned here, I would be in despair. I'd be hopeless. I'd be uncertain what to do next. I wouldn't know how to do anything at all. With the five of you here, there's a chance. I feel hope for the first time.

Well, I mean, surely, uh, you know, our names now must throw a little weight behind them, right? We proved ourselves as reincarnated ogre gods. Surely we might be able to do something. Only to the House of Commerce, I believe. Well, I mean, I'm saying if we, you know, kill a few ogres, maybe they'll just look the other way. I mean, we're ogre gods, right? Surely the odds get- the gods get angry from time to time. Well, you sacrifice, perhaps.

Oh, I mean, that there stands to reason that they would, if they eat humanoids, that maybe we as gods would want to eat ogres.

Everyone is watching Daisy as she's conveying some of this information, explaining what happened during the day, telling them more details about her time beyond the city proper, the limits of the city and in the mountains and in the forest where she met you. She's moving very, very quickly. It's almost impossible to see the blur of her hands, but you're picking up these little details, getting more and more familiar with the hand code over time. They seem...

Doubtful. Uncertain. Like I said, look how small that infant is. You'd think one of those ogres is the size of the tip of its thumb. They could take a knife in the middle of the night without being seen. I think the chances of that are very slim. I agree with you, Barnabas, but then what's doing it then? That feeling in the dreams we all had. Where did it bite you? You guys had dreams too? Did we not talk about that?

No, I mean, I just, I had a weird dream. I was in a library and it was, you know, a small little library and I was looking through some books and I was thinking about, thinking about some things and I woke up. Yeah, there was a, there was a, there was a, there was a bite. I don't know, something weird, a sharp pain. I don't even know if I would describe it as a bite. In my neck.

What did you do in the dream? I felt compelled to look through the books. It was a very nice library. There was a fireplace, some plush furniture to sit on. A grand library like the Sea King's personal collection. And it felt well. I mean, it wasn't...

It was a small, relatively small personal chamber, if you will. Something I might have if, you know, I retire someday. Like a study. Yeah. In the captain's quarters. Yeah, absolutely. All right. It was a very personal, very, you know, nice, cozy, if you will. All right. Maybe it's the size of the library is about the size of our imagination, perhaps. What are you saying, Barnabus? I'm saying perhaps in your cynicism, you've abandoned your sense of imagination.

Okay, alright, alright. I'm not calling you stupid if that's what you think. I never said that, Barnabas. I stopped myself before I almost insinuated it. It's more important that we're all on the same page. You're saying that you all dreamt of libraries. What were the details of your library? How many halls? How tall? I don't recall how many. It was huge. You guys had halls? It was like in a sunken city. The Sea King's Library. In a forgotten...

The city of the Merlings. Queenie, what about you? Yeah, mine was pretty large, too. But to be honest, I'm not so worried about that library or that prick on my throat. I'm worried about that little baby. That's what I'm worried about. I bring it up because I don't believe it has anything to do with imagination, given that we all had a more or less shared dream.

There's something external planting it in our heads. It's what I'm saying. It felt real. It didn't feel like a dream. So you think all of this is connected? You think that something had the dream, the shared dream that we had has something to do with these people here stuck in this place? I felt when I woke up after feeling that bite, it was like a beastie got me. I felt the eyes on me like a deep sea predator as if it was, I knew I was dreaming and

But I felt that the thing that was watching me was real. Has Queenie told us about the aberration within one mile? I don't think so. Right before we went into the fight, you said the word aberration, but you said it amongst a bunch of stuff and you just kept right on going and then we charged into battle. Yeah.

So you did say the word aberration. That was it, but it was like mid-sentence. I said like, aberration, I think that's important. And then I just like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And we like turned it down. There's an aberration. You already made a note of that, Miss Hattie. We'll bring it up now. I think that's entirely reasonable. A month may have passed for us, but that was like a few hours ago for y'all. Queenie. Yep. A few hours ago, you said the word aberration. Oh yeah, I know what I said.

What do you know about rations? And everyone's listening to us, yeah? Yes, there are a few who are listening the way they might a podcast. They're making beds, they're getting a crib. Somebody's sweeping. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're tuning into us, they're a Strahd cast. They're not all sitting around like a campfire moment. There are those who are standing near Daisy and occasionally asking clarifying questions, that sort of thing.

But you know that you're within earshot and that probably they have a heightened sense of hearing. Yournir doesn't care that anyone can hear him, right? He's assuming that like, you know, this is a private place that they have tunnels underground where they're doing stuff. He sort of trusts these people that like, an over guard's not gonna walk in because they've been spying on us. What was your question? My question was, what do you know of aberrations? Nothing.

I don't even know what an aberration is. Yep, I'm kind of in the same place. Yikes, same here. I guess I should clarify with the DM. Would Yorneir know, based on the nature of his circle, I don't think he would know too much specifics. Would he know anything about aberrations? Tell me what Yorneir would know about aberrations at all. Make a history check advantage.

is an extra scare. Perfect. Isn't an aberration just a ghost? You know, one of those spooky little... I think you're thinking about the abominable Yeti. Can I use your twist? Please. I think you're thinking of an apparition. I always get those confused. There's a lot of ghost stories on the sea. There we go. Natty, 20 plus. I think it's 2. Let's go! With a natural 20 plus,

I believe it was plus two. 23, 24. You have no interest in this topic. You wouldn't have any interest in this topic. However, you've lived a long life, and for whatever reason, the spare details of the word aberration and the few times that you've heard it in your many years springs into your mind, and you...

Remember, these are unnatural monsters that are very rare in the Prime Material plane. Very unnatural to the mortal plane in the first place. From beyond. Sources of who knows where. But that they are twisted and... Did I say alien? I'm going to say that again, I think. I don't think you did say that. Very alien. And that they...

That there are monsters of this world, but that even amongst monsters they are somehow different, hence why they are referred to in a broad class of creatures as aberrations. This information comes instantly to you. Aberrations, they are... I have only heard the tale of these creatures existing, but they are wholly unmet, and even beyond the beasts that we slew in the river.

These are alien outside of this realm of existence. And one is here. Oh, I didn't say that. Oh, I guess I'm presuming based on your- All I did was say the word aberration. Why did you say that? I don't know. I look around nervously. Insight check. Can I tell if she's lying or not? Are you attempting to hide this piece of information at this time, Queenie? Um...

Yeah. I would say that you can make an insight if you want to attempt to deceive or you may draw a contest for this purpose. I don't think you beat me. But if you win, then you just get a sense, you don't know what is being hidden. You just get a sense that she's being coy with information at this point. I'm sure it's deception. Oh, there you are. How does a hot nine sound? 21. Hot nine is my statement. 21.

What are you not telling us, Queenie? This is not the time to withhold information. This is not the time to be talking about certain information either. Why? What are they going to do? What are they going to do? You don't think people can be bought off? Well, the ogres we talked to didn't know that they could even communicate. For what it's worth, when I first woke up, I did try to bribe one of them, and they weren't having any of it. Oh, that's true. Right.

Because their loyalty lies to someone else. They didn't seem to be interested in gold. I mean, maybe they could be bribed with something else. To be fair, I was lying about the gold. Are you talking about the ogres? No, I tried to bribe one of the vassals. Is that what you're called? Yeah. And he didn't want any of my gold. The threat of being eaten is greater in some houses than others. Well, I was trying to bribe him to avoid being eaten. I woke up on a dinner table. He had his orders. Fair enough.

I'm sure that was it. You can trust me, at least. I haven't gotten to really know the other vassals, but we've been speaking openly. It was more of just an observation. I'm with Yorna here. I trust all of you. I mean, you don't seem to want to be here, and a lot of your friends also don't seem to want to be here. I mean, that's the reason you talked about a rebellion. Yeah. Yeah. Something that we could plan together and...

try and make happen. In that moment, he wouldn't have known who we were. I won't hold it against him. I hope not. I think we'll only be able to survive this together. I'm over it. I would hope so, Mr. Stamaskotch. A lot's happened between now and when I woke up on that dinner table. I mean, I gave an ogre osteoporosis. I could have killed the guy from the inside. Wish you had. Me too, but that was against the rules of the competition. I've never seen an ogre dead.

Ever? Oy, they for a mighty yard. The ogres here only ever move on to heaven. Have you seen this happen? Yes. Every couple weeks or month or so, the lottery happens, and Sophilith comes down and sloops him back up, back to heaven. Oh my god, we have so much to talk about. You've seen Sophilith...

Come down himself. No, it's the ritual. We go to the square. We all sit about. And when the bell rings, the person who's contributed the most knowledge, they vanish. Well, I got a flash of light. Poof, lots of dust, smoke. What? There's a little light. It happens almost instantly. Like, um... This is so fucked up.

We are way in over our heads here. There is no involvement from that silver ship out there. We don't face the ship. We face the bell that's at the end of the... Just at the edge of the cliff before you see the waterfall. Oy! Oh, the edge of the cliff. Could you point... I'm gonna... Do I have... Is there any paper down here? We were given a rag. Right? Right?

Oh, was I given a map? You weren't given a map. I was articulating a map to you so that you could get a sense of space, which is what I drew for you. But that's only because you were going through the city and it's like, oh, there's that landmark and there's this. And I understand. Yeah, it's in your brain. Well, we passed letters to Antoinette. If you ask for parchment, it could be produced easily.

I'm not even gonna do that. I'm gonna be like, so this is, well, here's the mountain face, and this is where the waterfall is, and this is where it goes down, and I'm gonna come to explain, describe that, and I want her to confirm that they face...

Towards the waterfall and the person goes to the waterfall so the person stands on the edge of where the waterfall goes down No, they don't where do they stand? No one stands. No one there's no it's called a lottery because no one knows who's going next Oh sweet gods above

It's a great honor for them. Manius has been working on his research, or Gustus would be working on his research. The idea is to make a contribution to the ogre, the reason they're here. Look, I don't want to keep changing the subject, but it's all related. When we were in that damn arena, one of those...

creatures looked at me and said that I was gonna go look at Ogre Heaven. I gotta tell you, I didn't go to Ogre Heaven. I went to Hell! Literally Hell! You- wait, you were physically in Hell? I mean, I was- it felt like Hell. I've never been to Hell before. It was some kind of Hell. My point is, if that guy sent me to Ogre Heaven, they're not going anyplace that's pleasant. They either don't know where they're going or they have a severe misconception of what Ogre Heaven looks like. If you went to Hell, how are you here? Standing before us.

You know, Barnabas, you raise a great point. Unscathed. We also died once, and we are here unscathed. I don't have the answers to these questions, Barnabas. I didn't experience anything when I died, did you? No. It was all black. The abyss, the locker. Right? Yes. Then why would you go to hell and not be torn apart by devils?

Well, because there weren't any devils, just a giant moving city with about 40 million legs. Scrooge, what the fuck are you talking about? I wish I knew, Bonobos! I wish I knew! Nothing makes any sense! A giant city... with legs. Yeah, like 40 million of them. And I was sliding down this horrible thing. Like a giant sand crab! There were people, like, folding blankets, who were just like... Yeah, yeah, yes, exactly like a sand crab, only the- the- the whole city was its shell!

I've never heard of any tall tale with that, and I've heard some pretty tall tales. I mean, maybe it was a hallucination, but it's pretty vivid if you ask me. It was probably some sort of mind trick. Look, I wouldn't even brought this up if the guy hadn't mentioned "Oh Good Heaven" right before I went to that hellscape! That is fair. We've seen some questionable things here, and we know that not all is what it seems.

Perhaps it was just a waking nightmare. A dream like the library. You guys didn't see me vanish? I was mighty keen on smashing some ogre skulls, I will admit. You did vanish, but so did I. I was still there, just invisible. Perhaps this is just part of whatever spell he used. I hope that is what ogre heaven is. I hope that you're right. Maybe they're all just suffering.

Did you see any ogres or anything like ogres there? No, just a giant, horrific, 40 million-legged moving city. A giant sand crab in hell. It was a city, Barnabas. The sand crab is just a simile or some sort of literary device. I've heard of cities on the backs of turtles. Oh, it was kind of like that, only just legs, a lot of legs. If we're going to keep chatting, it's...

Quiet time. Oh, sorry. We can go somewhere else, but I just want you to appreciate that we're starting to, you know, disturb the others. I'm pretty disturbed already. I know, I know. I agree with Queenie that we can look after the child, keep 24-hour watch. Should one of us be there at all times, or do we...

Ideally, that if the mother and father will allow us to take the child to a place where the ogres might not expect it to be. Well, you're going to run into a problem there, as none of us are capable of feeding this infant. If only I had some herring. Children love herring. That child doesn't have any teeth. Oh, you just mash it up a bit and...

It's not capable of swallowing something. Oh, you're right. You're right. Well, I mean, I thought that the whole family would join us was my intention. I don't believe it should be just us with the child. It's not our child. I am no guardian. I'm saying we need to at least have the mother there. The child will also be with the community here. There are a dozen more people sleeping here tonight.

It's all one just big room? You've been sleeping... You're the only one here who's had an experience with this, but this is like the hostel room for vassals, where there's like double bunk beds and it's much less in the form of amenities. You guys have been sleeping in effectively a guest room with like huge California king-size beds. Ooh. That was considerate. Oh, he's...

I think we bring the family to our guest room in our chambers. I don't see why not. Because if there is an ogre that's going to sneak in in the middle of the night with a tiny little scalpel,

to perform surgery, it'll go to where all of these vassals are. They won't expect the family and the child to be with us. All right, well, let's round them up. Let's make sure they're all right with it. And we'll get somewhere. We'll get one of these rooms, I guess. And then we got to keep talking about this stuff. We got a lot on our plates here. I'm very confused. I have a lot of questions and I want to keep asking questions.

Frawlina is the name that's been given to the mother of the child, and she's finishing nursing the baby as you've been talking. And she's looking very seriously at the five of you, having been listening intently with nothing but sitting to take care of in these moments. And with one hand, she's communicating with Daisy.

I feel safest here. These are my friends. I... Have you heard what these people have been talking about? Referring to the five of you. They speak crazy. If they want to stay, that's fine. But I don't want to leave where I go to bed, where I rest with my family.

And Daisy turns and conveys this to you in a matter of a few more minutes. All right, all right, all right. We won't make anybody do anything they don't want to do. I just want to double down and say I know that we're... I sound a little crazy, but, you know, I'm not violent or a danger to myself or others. I'm just a goblin. We're going to protect you to the best of our ability. Right, guys? Aye. She sort of nods, and she seems wary, but...

There's a motherly instinct in her that is also any amount of caution or protection or safety that might be beneficial to her child, she's willing to not risk, but welcome. So why don't we get you set up? You get comfortable with your child and we'll just kind of set up around you. We'll continue our conversation and keep an eye out. Does that sound reasonable? Aye. Yes. I'll see if I can do anything about that.

Alright, well if we're gonna stay here, we might as well talk about it. There's an apparition.

I'm still not entirely sure what that means. Is it one of these horrible alien creatures? Yeah, whatever Barnabo said it was. There's one of them here. The rolls are being put out for you. Mattresses are being slid out. You can speak normally, but I'm presuming that you would respectfully be keeping your voices down at this point. Scrim is doing the best he can. Your stage is great. How do you know? I mean, like...

Oh, I'm attuned with nature. I can put my ears to the ground and use my bees to scout out and see if there's anything alarming. And I felt the need to do that when we were traveling around with those ogres. And I sensed an aberration. And so I thought to myself, well, that's strange. I've never sensed one of those before. I wonder what that is. And I didn't really know how to get the information to you. So I just said it randomly in a sentence before we went out and

fought in that battle oh god just in case anything happened you know did you know where it was somewhere within five miles you come i didn't tell direction or number no i mean but to be fair i mean think about how many miles we've covered and how big this this god-forsaken land is five miles isn't that far that's not a lot of place to search it's not far at all i mean that could we could be doing a lot worse you could have said 360 miles yeah but i didn't i said five exactly

You know, if I could search up to 360 miles, I don't think that would actually be very helpful. No, no, it would actually be very detrimental. It would be horrible. I think the further

The further the range gets, actually, the worse that ability gets. Yeah, I agree with you. So it's interesting because the reason I could go five miles is because I'm so used to this kind of terrain. And I realized after doing it, it would have been much more beneficial if I had narrowed down to like a mile instead of five. Well, or you might have missed it. I mean, and then we wouldn't even know. But if it were further than a mile out, it would have been like, well, it's at least not here in the city. Fair enough.

I think you've done a fantastic job. I'm just saying it's a real strange thing, how this kind of magic works. The primal spirits work in mysterious ways. That's for sure. So I think... Yeah. I think that if one of us stays up, we're actually expecting something, that whatever is doing this isn't expecting us. So we'll get the drop on it and kill it. Or at least rough him up.

Right? I hope so. I mean, are we all prepared to just use deadly force, no questions asked? Or are we gonna, like, you know, cut some fingers off and get some answers? I mean, I don't really need my anchor to kill. Daisy snaps like she has an idea and then silently makes her way out. Oh. Well, hopefully she's coming back. Um, I mean, I can summon my blade at any moment. You know, I have the ability to arm myself, we have magics, we have everything that we need for the most part. We can...

Use deadly force if necessary. I just don't even know what we're gonna find because I'm with you. I don't think it's an ogre. Do you have any idea what the AC is on a baby?

The what? Probably very low. That's what I was thinking. I'm guessing 5 if I were to hazard the guess. From a meta sense, I mean, they don't even really move very much. I'd even say maybe a 0 automatic hit crit, you know, the whole 9 yards. Well, I think you... They wiggle a little. You'd think if they have, let's say, you can't have 0 dex because you would die instantly, but if you have 1 dex, then your modifier would be negative 5 from a baseline attack.

So you think a baby might have a negative five? I believe the AC of a baby is five. Oi, that's smart thinking, Mr. Yarnier! As written in ways. I don't know. Perhaps you could treat it as the AC. I think that it'd be very, especially with proficiency bonuses, it'd be very difficult to miss a baby. That's what I'm saying. I would have to be drunk six ways to Sunday and on that viper venom if I was going to try to hit a baby in Minecraft. That's what I'm saying.

Definitely in mind glass. Boy, I thought you meant roadblocks. You're exactly right. An AC of five for sure is what this baby has, but it does have the feature of having advantage on grappling attacks. Just the hand grip is, you know, get the beard. Your earrings. It is nearby and I think we know where it is.

Do we not? Well, I don't think we know, but I think we know. Like saying we have a hunch. I'd say it's down in that waterfall. I agree. Yeah. Did you get the sense of how deep that may go? Well, no more than five miles. That's a good point. That is very deep. That's also a good point. It is very deep. Well, Pythagoras is a dick, and based on where I am and where that waterfall is...

That's true. You know, you can't be five miles straight down at the very least. At this good news.

It is interesting. Did Queenie also tell us about the Mirage thing? Why are you talking to me like I'm not here? This is more of a meta statement. You can just ask, Queenie. Your near speaks in the third verse. I'm accessing the weird. I believe earlier today I looked through the eyes of that bird to test your theory about seeing the Ogre City vanishing. That was very depressing.

I'm wondering if... The bird has a rough home life. These mirages, when they win the lottery, just the mirage of their existence just vanishes. Perhaps none of these ogres are real. What do you mean, none of these ogres are real? When you walked to the edge of the woods, and you turned around, you didn't see anything. No buildings, no ogres. No. But what about the two children you were with? Did you still see them? Nah, they're still there.

There you go. I don't know the details of why that would be. Oh, and we saw the ogres at the hot springs when I was preparing that serpent for a great feast. Oh, man, I didn't have any clothes on. They really caught me with my pants down. They did. Yeah, they really... You were completely naked. Yeah. Do we have any sense of how far we were from here? None. Perhaps. And we would have seen some gigantic ogre city.

If Maniath was to be trusted, it was many days travel. Yeah, we were unconscious for many days. And we were told by the dragon-born spirit...

That there were ruins of a city here. Not here. Ruins? No, yes here. No, further south. Far, far south. Your rune said something else? On the other side of the mountains. No, we are on the other side. We are on the other side, but we're a bit more east than south. To be clear, you would have understood that this should have been hundreds of miles to get to the capital where their Dragonball city was. Got it.

before the Princess of Wrath. You would be perhaps dozens of miles from where you were captured with Daisy.

So it's nowhere close. So this is a mountain chain, and we first start, we did this, came to the mountain here, and then we started doing this on the other side of the mountain. And you had less than a day's travel before you found a hot spring. So we're like here, the city would be here, and Ogerton would be over here. We had been discussing that- If my entire arm is from the most southern point of Drakkar to the most northern point of Drakkar, and this side is where you came up,

You understood from your conversation with the Seeress, the head druid, that it would be like right in the middle, right here. I see. As a capitalist. I think that we entertained. You barely reached my thumb in terms of travel distance. Got it. I think we entertained if the weather was bad enough, it might take us all winter to get there. That's right. That's right. All right. So let's just one at a time here. A couple of things we have, right? The first thing is, what did the runes tell you? The runes. You said your runes said something about a city. Yeah.

My runes? Oh, I know the spirit. No, no, no. He was trying to pronounce the word ruins. Oh. The ruins. All of it is ruins. The words are similar. All right. So now that we've got that clear enough. The next thing. Did you know that some people pronounce the word ruin as room? Yes.

Yeah, you do. Or if something was ruined, they say ruined. We literally just heard you do that. No, I believe I made a distinction, even with my dialect. Well, you did just now to make your point. Well, I did, yes, but as an example of how other people can ask me about it. Why are we arguing about this? We have more important things to talk about right now. Oh, we do. You don't hear a whisper, but you hear like a...

Yeah, yeah. They can do that. You hear shushes. But just as that happens, you see Daisy appear in the doorway, and she has clearly been to the kitchen and has a number of butcher's knives and cleavers in her arms. And she starts asking folks to, you know, just holding it out, and people are like, and some others more enthusiastically put a cleaver under them. Should we give one of those to the child first?

Oy. That might be a good idea. I mean, it's only got an AC of five. And the whole grapple check thing, that's for the-- I mean, it could grab it and just completely slice somebody's throat open if it was a capable child. I don't think there'd be enough leverage.

to really pierce the flesh of an ogre, do you think? I'm not necessarily concerned about an ogre. It could be anything. We should not arm the child. I mean, it can barely hold its head up, so I guess that's fair. It actually can't hold its head at all. That's true. Oh, he didn't get a knife until I was two and a half. We should wait. The point is that I think we know where we need to explore, and I don't know how we'll do it, but we need to know what's down there. Do I need a... I've seen visions of things deep below the earth.

Part of me wonders if this is somehow connected. Why don't you ask your runes? Doesn't work that way. Okay, how does it work then? I can't ask "Hello, rune. What is down there?" And what's even the point of having runes? I mean, come on. Yeah, why can't you tape her? Oh, it's a taper! Why didn't I do that earlier? What the hell's a taper? I don't know what to do with this information. It is a, uh... So what can you ask your runes then?

I can... Perhaps if we were to sneak down there, would that be a good idea? Can your runes and triumvirate or whatever it's called tell you that? I mean, the only thing we have to keep-- I mean, it's worth-- Is it just like yes or no questions? That's what I thought. It's worth asking, but I mean, we got to think about a journey like that could take

days. If it's five miles of spelunking in some horrible waterfall cavern. It's up to five miles. Honestly, this thing could be in your shoe right now. Well, that would be horrifying. I don't know how big an astral location is. The vassal closest to you points at you and he's like, he's doing this with his finger first, but he's like, Daisy's

There's the sewer system. The sewer system connects the manors to the city. That's how hot water gets up here. This one's been to the crevice on the other side of the sewer system. You can look out. It empties out to the waterfall. It just stops, but you can look down and out. How far is it? How long would it take to get there and back? Communicating. The same amount of walking travel that it would take you to walk a...

couple hours to get down to the city so you could walk it in the sewer. It's not bad. Why don't we leave Taishen here and we just go travel through that sewer system by ourselves? Great idea. Taishen! Taishen has been remarkably quiet. Taishen, shut up! He is holding the end of the crib and sort of like standing, looking down and he seems to have a

having a meditative moment, looking at, feeling perhaps some affinity for the youth. He spills the water on the baby.

No. Everyone goes, hmm, something cryptic about Fuzhao. He does say that he would like to protect the child if you felt like you needed to leave, that he and Daisy would be happy to stay here and make sure that everything remained safe. You could find your way into the sewer from here.

"I'm Mr. Fireblossom, and Daisy. If you find two other people that you trust very deeply to keep watch, then we can go explore the crevice and what might lurk beneath. And if worse comes to worse, I could always crab us down there."

Crab us down there. And then the crab legs just shoot out like that. It's so Bob! Everyone is like horrified. You're not gaining the trust of the other vassals, even Dan's like... I told you, when I don't have my arms, I'm not disarmed! If you guys think you'll be alright, I mean we can be there and back before anybody even knows we're missing.

We've never kept watch like this, and with Taishen here, the baby will be fine. We'll make sure that it's monitored 24/7. It might not even happen until tomorrow night or the night after, right? I mean, you said you don't even know. Right. For sure. All right. What do you think? I mean, I want to go. Aye. We'll let this go. I think that as long as we know that there is something down there, we're not safe regardless. Whether we're here or there.

If there isn't a gooblamation down there, we gotta find it. You already forgot the word? Yeah, I don't know what it is. A gooblamation that works for me. I think she's saying there's that dangder alien in them hills. Yeah, there's that. And aliens! There's an alien. Like onions? What? Aliens, like onions? No, an alien.

That's what I said. I had an aunt named Agublamation. Look, I'm telling you there was an Agublamation within five miles of this place and we need to go find it. I actually did know a few goblins named Agublamation. Yeah, good old Aunt Agubi. She was great. Oh, yeah. All right. We had a bit of a...

tussle the day. Do we feel appropriately rested? Yeah, I'm alright. Well, we would've had short rests over this time. A carriage ride would've afforded you a short rest. I have to see what I get for a short rest. I think I get some sort of a... Oh, I get my Hexblade Curse back. You get all of your spells back. I get all my spells back. Every single one. Well, then I'm definitely ready to give another motherfucker osteoporosis.

Oh, I have Bonitis! That's right, Bonitis of all the bones. And I guess I could use some hit dice. What are my stats? Plus four to constitution. Short rest. That's eight more. I'm fully healed. 2d8 plus eight. I did no damage during that kerpuffle. I got the shit beaten out of me. Those okras just walloped me.

We could take a punch though. You look fine. Oh, I'm fine. Do Triton bruises look any different, like green, purple? Like, it would probably just mostly look the same. I'm imagining like a really super dark blue, right? Instead of like the teal, the cyan, and make it really dark. Almost like a violet purple. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the purpley-bluish, yeah.

I've wrestled with a few ogres in my time. These were definitely smarter than any of those ogres, but they went down just as hard. Taishan tells you to not put yourself in too much danger, to return for him if anything should happen so that he can be at your side, should there be a true confrontation, whatever this agglomeration is.

Alright, Taishan, we don't have to RP this, but see ya. Goodbye. Goodbye. This is my Taishan impression. Oh god. Alright, anyways. You, uh, no, or...

We fast forward to the moment where you understand that the showers that you've already enjoyed, you not so much because you had your House of Commerce experience being what it was, but you're led to the stall and one of the greats can lift up, allowing you to lower yourself. Okay, that's horrifying that I was in here completely bare-ass naked and people could be on the floors. There is no privacy here. I could look up the greats.

You walk over that grate with your nudie bits out and they're seen up inside your bowels. Well, you have to throw out the sort of obscure things. I was talking about him. Oh, no, no, no. Yeah, no, it all hangs out there. Oh, no. Now we know. Now you'd have to shave me first and that's not happening. It's a lot of shaving. It's like a bell on a buoy.

I don't know what that means. Not a pleasant mental image, no. Sea cucumbers aside, you all make your way down through the grate and you now see yourself in the slaughter. I'll put it down very quietly. Let's get back to Taishen. Taishen. Yes.

Why don't we all have some tea? And Taishen walks over, he trips and spills hot tea all over the baby. Oh no, I'm so sorry. That doesn't happen. Instead...

He commits himself to watching for hours. I thought you were going to say something else. He commits murder. He takes a few breaks, has a few naps, trading back and forth the rest of his evening. Seems to be going by swimmingly, but it's in the second or third hour that he spies the mother, pick up the child, and start to walk towards the same showers where the restrooms would be, making sure and cautious to make sure that there is no...

reason for concern. Uh, he leaves the room and 30 feet, 50 feet behind follows. She turns and he just sort of wants to peek in, not invade her privacy, but wants to make sure that she's just doing her business. So aside from that fast forward event that happened with Kaishen, uh, you guys have just dropped down into the, uh,

Sewer. Sewer. Thank you. And what I'll say is we need to resolve something, which is to say that the sewer is pitch black. It's dark. There aren't RPG-style crystals on the fucking wall. And if you have night vision, good for you. But for those of you who don't have that benefit, does everyone have night vision? I'd be shocked if I did. I think that perhaps Queenie does not.

I do not. I believe they don't, and we do. Thank you, Wizards of the Coast. You can easily crawl through this space, but no, I bet you would be... I think we should have some light. Do you magic-y types have something easier? Do we gotta use a torch? I can hop. Queenly, come here, please.

Are you going to do something to me that's going to hurt me? No, it will make your life much easier. Do you think you could start these things off with, hey, Queenie, can you come over here so I can do this thing? Yeah. As opposed to this strange, ominous... I'm with Queenie. That was a little threatening. I did think ahead and I had Daisy bring me some dried carrot.

Okay. It's good for your eyes. What? Do you get it? No.

I grab your head. What are you doing? Over your eyes. And I snap your neck. Like stinko. My hand will sort of glow in the dark. It's this like light blue. And I will cast dark vision on you. And then I will take some as well. And I'll rub my eyes. And I will cast dark vision on myself. It lasts for eight hours and it's not concentration. You know you're in a grim survival campaign when people are like, I need to take dark vision. So that...

Wait, hold on, can I even do that? I think I can. You know, I'm used to living in the depths where it's pitch black, but for some reason up in the surface I can't see anything. It's two second long, I suppose. Nice. Just kidding, they changed it. Did they really? Yeah, they gave it to me. They finally gave me darkvision! And for my own knowledge, to what...

How far out? 60 feet for us. 60 feet for us. 60, so no 120s? No. Just checking. Okay. I think that's, well, me, but I didn't take double-sighted. That's fucking lame. Queenie, Yornir, the light coming through the grate that is now closed securely is brightened a little bit. It's a little harder to look at because it's

The dark vision takes hold and looking down you can see 60 feet of black and white

textured walls made of some sort of a masonry. And you can see that a channel runs down and through that would take the collective water coming in from the showers and route it through a couple different grades. There's enough room to stand in here. Perhaps not enough for your near. You're short. But there's enough room for what would be a human to walk comfortably. A medium-sized creature. And you're certainly fine. You're certainly fine, Queenie. The...

Additional feature that I will describe, and this will be true throughout your journeys throughout the sewer system, is that hugging the walls are the cross sections of what are very clearly a pipe system. What is clearly a metal pipe that is actually running up, and you can see a network of plumbing almost. Does the pipe feel warm? Putting your hand against it, it feels actually very warm. Almost, not super heated, but...

I would say it feels like 120, 150 degrees. It is beyond sauna, but having experienced the showers here, you immediately recognize a mix of cold and water this hot allows you to control a great degree of finesse when it comes to the water power.

Has it been mentioned if they get their water from a hot spring or if they're heating it themselves? That has not been a question that's come up and neither has that been articulated to me. You are starting to deduce with your great intellect that these would be going down and through the sewers as you continue to make your way through these tunnels. If you have questions, then let me know, but I would also ask for a marching order and then you can continue to progress down the system. Are we going uphill or downhill?

You were going downhill. It seems to follow the downhill that you've taken from the manor to the flatter crevice side where the Ogre City exists. Okay, so that's the shape of the valley that you expect. Exactly. We're up on the hill and we're going down to the valley. Exactly, and it seems to match the same grade, let's say. I vote Barnabas in the front, Yorn here in the back, and Queenie and I safely in between.

Oh, I think that stands to reason. Works for me. If you can see over all of us, Mr. Yornear, with your magic eye... I will be fine. So, Yornear, Queenie, Scrim...

If you're going back to front, yes. Yeah. It's-- Oh, back-- You're in-- Barnamos, then Scrimm. Queenie and I will be next to each other. Then Queenie. I guess, yeah, you can walk next to each other. Or walk side by side. So we have three-- we're three people. We're very tight. Like a cute little couple. We're gonna be a Tortuga formation. That's right. We are in Ogerton. We went in Ogerton. All roads lead to Ogerton. Ogerton was a building today. You can do this all day.

You continue to make your way, knowing that you have actually a bit of a trek. For the first hour, two hours of your trek, all you hear is the occasional...

occasional dripping of dropping of, uh, water. You hear the flowing of water occasionally, and there does seem to be something of a network. Occasionally a tunnel, a smaller tunnel or a smaller inlet will, uh, collide with the tunnel that you're, that you're traveling down. And you'll start to, uh, uh, you'll see the water, um,

brush further, or perhaps there will be no water at all. It seems to come in flows, not always running like a river might, but let's say someone is taking a shower in this manner, and that's the gray water that's coming down and through, let's say. You are, yeah, it smells pungent, and it is reasonably warm underground like this. I would like to, if I feel like there is a pretty consistent drip or a leak where I get a sense where it wouldn't be

shit water.

Just to be frank, I would like to kind of take my thumb and see if I can taste the water and see if I can get any information. He said when it's not shit water. The only gray water is the water running down the channel or canal that's in the center of this great sewer system. That was my understanding, but I wanted to... When you do hear that drip, perhaps there's a pipe up here that happens to be padding against the stone floor. You put your hand there, get a little bit of collection, and then...

tastes um uh a pure mineral uh water almost uh a very very um uh flavorful without any um toxicity or foulness or or bacteria flavor even it seems pure and it's not salty you're a nicer dm than i am because i would have made it shit

I didn't find out what happened to my Shad and then you'll see. When I play Marius. How do they get it this clean and pure? What do you mean? The water here, it's crystal clear. It's

It's pristine. Is it not just fresh water from somewhere deeper in the... I know, if you taste water out of a creek, it's minerally, it's earthy, but it still feels clean. This is... This is probably from melted snow in the mountains. It's about as clean as you can get. It's not been running through muddy creeks. I mean, they certainly have access to magics or magic items. Maybe they have a way to purify it. I suppose so. I was hoping for a little salt water.

Your voices echo in this space. Anytime you stop to have a conversation or pause, your footsteps reverberate loud in your ears. Your voices travel up and down these long, straight tunnels and then come back at you very faintly. It is only because of the pureness of this dark vision. Now, remind me, dark vision lasts for an hour. Eight hours. Eight hours. Holy shit! Okay, so you're going to be going.

Do we take a break and get coffee? I feel like something exciting is coming up. Let's take a quick break. Then I have one question before the break. What was the name of the alleged god or thing that... Poodieballs. Poodieballs is his middle name. Can you spell that for me? S-O-P-H-A-L-I-T-H.

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And you continue to make your way down the grade of this long, long hill till you reach what is clearly Ogerton, the city of the ogres. Of the yogurts. The...

city sewers split. They go in each and every direction. This is a complex network. There are pipes going up. There are channels going left, going right. It is almost like a catacombs. So frequently, would each of these arched sewers stop underneath a given property or underneath a given...

You reach this complex network. No longer are you on the straight and narrow, but you are beneath what would be a full sewer system for a city that can support thousands of ogre lives. Does this system look like these tunnels are dug or are they stone cut?

They look fashioned. They look well built. They're not just caverns. There's like masonry in some places, chunks of stone in others. The ground is smooth and walkable. Roger. Thank you. And do we get the sense that we are always underground or are there any like raised pipes at any point?

that we may have even seen like on I'm thinking of like Roman aqueducts that like came down from the mountains and were on like supports I'm gonna sneeze in a moment but I'll answer your question in a moment okay

- Bless you, bless you. - Thank you. So to answer your question, there are pipes that run up that are clearly pressuring, leading into perhaps a tavern or perhaps a bath house or something along those lines. And there are occasionally, not ladders, but you can see how easy it would be for you to go up and push a grate up and make your way into some of the open,

of some of these structures. Some of them are, it would be easy to sneak and inhabit. And you can see this is how the new system for the vassals works is if the house has perhaps only one vassal, they would still be able to sneak to the bathroom, drop a letter down and know that it could be delivered to its destination. - And just for kind of context for all of us, this is probably the most advanced

plumbing system that any of us have ever seen. Yeah, I mean even the showers that you had would have been a marvel of invention for the times that you live in. The fact that you could turn two knobs and decide exactly what the right temperature is for you would be a miracle. Does anybody else find it a little odd that these ogres that are keeping all these people

captive, I guess, are able to just freely walk through these sewer systems, deliver letters to each other. It's like they're completely oblivious. This is why it feels like this does not add up. I hope that Taishan is doing okay in case anything is going wrong. It feels more like to me that the humans that we've encountered have been the most real thing that we've seen. What do you mean by real?

It's just so much of this defies reason, defies logic. The fact that ogres built this, accomplished this extreme technology. This is unlike anything I've ever seen in my long life. Given that we know that there are illusions, we know that things are being planted in our minds, but we know that violin is real. We know that honey is real. That daisy was real. Or

That Daisy is real, that Honey was real. So I'm wondering if this isn't real right now, where are we? Is that a fair question? It's a fair question. I mean, assuming that all of this is an illusion, we could still just be underground, right? I mean, if what Queenie saw is what she saw, then there is still just landscape, right? Either means that this place is covered in some sort of illusion magic to protect it from outsiders, or it doesn't exist at all.

I think that there's no way we could have a shared illusion and understanding and senses. I mean, whatever creature this is might be very powerful, but... I think it's much more likely that this... I was just seeing this place shrouded from... I agree. ...onlookers than that I was...

Not seeing the illusion that was being created. I think it's far-fetched. I mean, it's a fair thought I just don't think we have any reason to believe that's happening. Schmockum's toothbrush. Some sort of protective magic. Is that an ogre? It actually might be. That's a huge toothbrush. There was actually an ogre that told me that. He was a big fella. He's a great philosopher though for as simple minded as he was.

- You all hear the trickling of water as it rushes past you and continues to turn right, turn left, just following the channels down and down and down, seemingly passing by you as though perhaps coming from a matter of a mile or two away or from somewhere nearby, but just the normal functioning of a sewer system. - Dungeon Master. - The pipes. - Why did you do that? - The pipes that we are walking around.

Do we get a sense if I'm really on this creature from the ship? It fit in two barrels. Do we get the sense of the width of the pipes? - Oh. - I thought it was tiny, the creature. - It was like this big. - I didn't think the creature was very big. - It was in a bucket.

Oh, it was in a bucket? It was in a bucket. Yeah, you were here through the body and it's like one of these little... I would have guessed it was anywhere from like this to like, not even basketball size. I'm thinking like... It fit in one of those barrels that like, is like a quarter size of a normal size barrel. Oh, it was a small, okay. Remember when WoW was a cask? The little head, octopus guy. I'm imagining that as well, but I remember... I would say it's slightly bigger than a face hugger to use an anachronism from Alien and Alien.

Okay. So do we get the sense that these would be able, like these pipes are big enough or they're not really like little pipes? Not all of them. Okay. Not all of them. The main channel pipes, especially the ones that would lead up to the manors, certainly would be able to accommodate a creature of that size, but you do not know enough about that creature. I won't even make you do the history or intelligence. Yeah. You don't remember enough about that creature to know if it could survive submerged underwater or if it could take heat. Oh.

Oh yeah. But it would fit. In the bigger pipes. If the pipe were empty, it would be easy for any of you to deduce that it could crawl up a pipe that size. Andy thinks it's mine. It was octa- Octopodal. Anyway. We have in character talked about that creature. Yes, I brought it up.

And I also think you were gone for this, but when you brought it up, you asked me the question of what happened to the body. And I reminded you that your near checked the container when you were on the sinking moorabound and that its rotting remains were still inside. But also still invisible. Yes, because it is a creature that is naturally translucent. Jesus. I'm going to keep my ears out for any strange noises just in case one of those...

face-hugging creatures is about. Just going to ask you. Those little neck suckers. Can you use any sort of... Like a chupacabra. What is that? Oh, it's...

When we have more time, I'll tell you the tale of Chewbacca. It's like a delicious taco. It's not at all like that. Sort of like a fried dough almost, but it's got chicken and like a sauce topping. No, no, you're thinking of a chalupa. Oh, shit. That's an ocelot, I think you were thinking of. Yeah, it's a chalupa. Can you use some sort of your connection to the Feywild and nature to perhaps supernaturally get a sense of what's around you? I can let you know whether there's a...

a mora magugli hanging out within a five mile radius of us. Well, you already know that. Yeah, I know. Oh, that's all you got? I don't know what to tell you. I'm a locate creature. I'm really worthless in a lot of situations. Locate object. Play a ranger. I shoot bows good. I personally feel like you would be able to have a much better chance of discovering these kind of things with like a sorcerer.

or just a regular human farmer. Or maybe Taishan, who would have had... No, he just shoots fire from his hands. Queenie, you might... You are an expert tracker, perhaps, right? No. Oh. Okay. Let's keep flying. Never mind. You've witnessed Queenie do a tremendous amount of tracking over the months that you've known her, finding care

other boo and other kills, other small animals. The smallest attracts do not escape her eye. - Perhaps, can you see if there's any tracks of creatures? - Absolutely, that's hardship. - I love how offended Derek is. - Maybe you can see if there's any kind of beasts sneaking around. - I did quite literally say I was gonna keep my eyes and ears out for one of those creatures.

I was just checking if you had some sort of secret magic. I don't have an additional ability to do it. I'm just very good at perceiving. Good, then I guess we've been walking this whole time. We gotta be getting close. Let's continue in silence. So I would, Dan, like to be good at perceiving, please. Oh. I will say make a perception check. Ooh. Perception. Perception. Perception.

21. 21. You perceive through your magically enhanced eyes the pipes I've described, the walls I've described, all share the same characteristics going as far back as the manor, as the villa, and here under the city. The unusual nature of newness strikes you. The lack of...

mold or decay or any kind of... A tile hasn't fallen out of place, even. This feels fresh. And you also perceive the sound of water

He said he wanted me to do it.

We have been walking for a while. I mean, we have to be getting close, right? We know which direction we're going, right? Nah. I know that the grade of the slope was roughly about the grade that we're walking at now, so I'm not concerned. We're going in the right direction. Right, we're trusting you. That's right, you're a walker, Mr. Yorneer. That is right. I've been away from the sea for a long time. Do you sense anything?

Weenie? No, just what I said. Oh. But the new- do you say something about the new? It is like super new in here. Like water has not even eroded anything at all. There's no lime scale, there's no moss. It's just strange. There's no algae. Oh yeah, that's strange. They act as if they're an ancient civilization. As if it was a fabricated perception. No, just as if it's really clean. You're really stuck on this fabricated thing. I am, yes.

Why, Mr. Yardier, don't you have a special magic eye that can see through all that? I don't know how it works. Well, that is what is strange, that I do not pick up magic here. I'm wondering if this is something beyond the normal magics that I'm in tune with. Like, maybe it's real. Or it's just real, and maybe the city's new. But no, we know that they've been here for generations, have they not? This whole system is spotless and clean and new, as if...

It was snapped into existence yesterday? No, I don't know. Let's make it to the cavern and perhaps we'll get more answers there. Alright. Let us go. Same marching order, just keep an ear out. Or two.

Another hour of travel passes. And I would have everyone make a group intelligence check at advantage. Oh no. Well, at advantage, I've got maybe a little bit of a chance. Just straight up, just straight up in check. My first time using my dispel dice that I got. Uh oh, you weren't here. It's an int check. Not saving throw. No, no saving throw. I want everyone to know. Oh!

- Oh! - I'm doing a picture of this. - Your deer and I got three ones! - And you rolled two ones. - I got two ones! - Two ones. - My first roll with my Barnaboast Dispel Dice. Natural 20, folks. - Beautiful. - Natural 20. - You gotta give it up. - Gotta give it up. - They were the last ones from Gen Con.

What was that? Yeah, we rolled a one, a one, a one, and a three. So I got a four, you got a whatever you got. I feel like I'm forgetting something. 21! 21. 21. 21. Your ranger skills are still not weak and not atrophied. You're feeling strong, and your perception allows you to be naturally attuned to the water that flows.

You are also especially attuned to the water. Even though this is not the sea, the ocean, any time water rushes past, it's like a guide. Like something that is something to follow. If you come to a cross section and it goes left and right, you know that you should go right because you wait a moment and you see the water turn.

You're near. Scrim, I don't know what you guys are doing, but you don't notice. We're discussing the finer points of ogre economics and have no fucking idea what we're actually talking about. You're just following. We're making shit up. Between Barnabas in front who seems confident

Confidently, anyway. You are like little baby. The smoke goes up a grate and you hear an ogre, what's that smell? But an hour does pass. Not two hours, because you succeeded, but an hour passes and you are confronted with a...

Not a doorway, but an opening. It seems that all sewer system roads lead to this space. A wide open canal almost that itself is a small waterfall that leads into the crevasse, this fissure. And you are 30, 60 feet perhaps away from what is clearly the edge of the sewer system as it

reaches the cliff face, and you can see through this opening all the way on the other side by the moonlight that is out so brightly tonight, given the time of month that it is actually, you see the other side some 200 feet

across this fissure, and you can almost see a few glints of water. You're not looking directly at the waterfall, you seem to be looking adjacent to the waterfall. And if you're having trouble picturing, I can just, I can draw out if you, if needed, what to draw. I'm gonna ask for a drawing anyway, anytime you offer it. Should we get the mapping map down? Yeah, yeah. Or is it visible here?

So let's say, hypothetically, that all of these different mini sewer systems, all crissing and crossing underneath the great ogre city, would lead and lead and lead and drain and drain and drain and drain until finally, finally, finally reaching a wide opening. 200 feet, you can see the other side of this fissure. And you can imagine that you are perhaps...

many hundreds of feet down from where the actual Ogre City would be in three-dimensional space. But this is a small opening that seems to be the terminal point. So it's a fugitive situation.

It is exactly a fugitive situation. Yeah. I'm imagining the fugitive. So we're standing on the edge of this opening. Yes. And what do we see when we look down? Looking down, you actually see the surface of water from this height. You can see that there is what appears to be like a pool almost. And looking left and looking right, it's not a flowing river, but the...

Waterfall seems to be filling it. It's not going down or up or anything. It's moving because of the violence of the water, certainly, but it seems to be just a deep pool. Are we at a lethal height if we were to jump into this pool? Trying to remember the math here one moment. Is it a fugitive situation? It is. Mr. Yornear, how confident are your climbing abilities if you turn into a beastie?

I could get down, yes. I can carry probably both of you down. The question is... There's six crab legs that are out of my back. That will never not disgust me. And I eat garbage. Is it a good idea to go down there with health knowing what lies beneath? Well, I mean, we don't have to go into the water, but getting a closer look might be a good idea, right? Just to see, you know, what's down there, get a better closer look.

I can't believe I'm the one suggesting this out of all of you. We came all this way to get some answers, right? We need to find some sort of answers of why we're here. At least, you know, a hint or something. Anything. This is already one answer. In fact, everything, everything connects to this one point. Well, I mean, for all... Right above this, presumably...

Abomination. For all we know, this is where they're getting their water, though. I mean, right? Again, just the logical initial conclusion would be this is the source of their water. It's all downhill, didn't you say? It's the lowest point of elevation. You're draining into a subterranean cavern. It'd be a great way to get rid of your waste. Or that's where they're getting rid of it, right. I don't know anything about aqueducts. Ignore me. I'm just throwing things out there. It is curious. You think they're drinking their own ship water?

Oh, I... Oh, it tastes unclean. You think it's going to the same place it's coming from? You would think that they would build perhaps many outlets across this whole ravine on our side, but it is almost as if they're funneling everything. Well, that is a good point. Isn't that the most energy efficient, to only have one thing you have to worry about? Perhaps, but we know that Ogerton crosses this entire span of this valley.

I believe that's correct. I think so. But I suppose we could go in if you think... We don't have to go in. We just have to get closer. I know I keep trying to rely on your magic eye. I don't know how it works. Is there a way you can...

Farcy? Or is that more of a Warcraft 3 Shaman ability? I believe I could, if you don't mind waiting. I think we should rather wait and if we can see anything down there. I find what looks like a nice smooth section of the ground and I just like sit and prop my back up against the wall of this opening. You find what looks to be the driest spot and you... I whistle a little, I flip the coin.

And I just look around and I watch Joran. While Mr. Joran here does that, Miss March, would you like to help me try to find a little fishy or frog? Some kind? Any kind of critter, crawfish? Yeah. Perhaps I'll assist you. Sure, I'll look around for any kind of aquatic creatures that look like they would be native to this kind of area.

I will be assisting. To answer your question, it's four or five hundred feet down to the water. That wouldn't feel good. That would not feel good. It probably wouldn't kill you because of the level you're at. But you'll wish it did. But you'll wish it did. That's...

40 or 50 stories. Yeah, and so the way I've decided, I think, is that if you were jumping onto ground, right, that would be 40 or 50 D6 damage, because I don't like to cap at 20 D6. And so 40 or 50 D6, but I would cut it in half because it's water, which, however you want to simulate it, it's still a nasty fucking smack.

while you are doing this. What, does it take 10 minutes? I need to find it, but yes. Take your time. I need to prepare it. There's gonna be some time. Yeah. You guys are discussing finding a creature. Scrim very quickly gets bored. Okay. And I will turn to whoever's listening and just kind of exclaim out, like, hey guys, you wanna see a trick? And whether anybody is even paying any attention.

And I take the coin and I throw it into the water. You take the coin that you've been keeping in your cheek. Yeah. The coin that follows you seemingly everywhere. And you toss it almost like making a wish. Listen, listen, listen. Out and down into the water. Yeah, I am listening. I hold my hand and I just wait for the coin to come back. You throw it and you expect to hear the sound of the water, but it does not travel more than 10 feet.

before you hear a clink, and it hits the invisible surface of nothing. It hits something right in front of you, and then bounces and rolls off of nothingness, and then disappears into the dark. And you feel it emerge in your hand before it even hits the water. Oh, holy hell. You want to try that again? I don't know. And I'm going to cast Faerie Fire on the coin. Okay.

Is that allowed on objects? Yeah. It is? Right? I believe so, yeah. Tell me how a fairy fire works. Sure.

I'll grab scram by the scruff. Each object in a 20 foot cube within range is outlined in blue, green, or violet light. I'm going to actually change. Nah, I'll do blue. It'd be like a beautiful cornflower blue. Um, any creature in the area when the spell is cast is also outlined in light if they fail a dexterity saving throw. So we do have to do that for the duration objects and affected creatures should dim light in a 10 foot radius. Um,

Any attack roll against an affected creature or object has advantage if the attacker can see it. And the affected creature or object can't benefit from being invisible. So the four of you and the object that you are targeting...

suddenly grow an aura of blue, this beautiful cornflower blue, and become so much brighter, more visible. That happens. You do that. I'll grab Scram and I'll say, Food of the Stabiscous! I'm still completely stunned. Hey!

- This time with great force, I spike the coin down towards the thing. - And you give it enough hit, it actually lands and starts to roll as though it's rolling, and it rolls straight across some seeming platform that you cannot see before finally finding its edge and then dropping down. And it does not have enough time to make it down to the water before you feel it pop back into your hand.

Did it do anything when the Faerie Fire coin hit the creature? It's not a creature. Sorry, the object. The object? No, no, no. It just is easier to see, like a burning wheel in the Dead of Night rolling down a highway. All of a sudden it hits some seeming path that is right before you, but invisible in the naked eye. What? There's... It's invisible like that creature? Or something? Truly, this is...

The Last Crusade. I mean, it's gotta be some sort of illusion. You gotta make your homages suck your love. You know, if you're a good DM, just steal the fuck out of it. There has to be, it's gotta be an illusion. It's gotta be some sort of illusion, right? It has to be. Or it is naturally invisible like the creature. Or it's like hallucinatory terrain. What?

Keep throwing it on, is it the entire chasm? Just throw it at all of the points to see if it falls and hits something. You have unlimited of these. Yeah! Yeah!

And for the next ten minutes, it's just every ten seconds, it's... I'm writing that down. My spell takes ten minutes to cast, and I'm like, taking a little bowl out. I'm putting the incense in the bowl. I'm getting sweatier and more frantic and anxious. Well, while he does that, let's keep looking for some crawfish. You do this. You are in the process of putting the incense in the bowl. Incense that you could have...

easily within the manner of... I had Honey get some at the market for me. I had forgotten. I couldn't remember, but I am thinking about your material components. You do that. So yeah, that's what I was asking for last session. And you are doing this, and it becomes very obvious very quickly. There is only one true path. There is a path that seems to be something of a bridge going all the way to the other side, 200 feet long, that's as narrow as the entrance is. So no...

handles, no, no, uh, nothing else to stand on, but a thin pathway everywhere else that you throw the, uh, the, the coin, left, right, even, even at a slight degree, hits nothing but air, uh, but does not fall a full 500 feet before popping back into your hand. Right. It's a bridge. I'm pretty sure. Okay, now truly, this is the last crusade. Uh,

It's an invisible bridge to the waterfall? I suppose. And to be clear, the waterfall... And it's less than 10 feet down. Over here. So you're only getting a little bit of spray here, and the direction of wind would be going in this direction. You can hear the rushing torrent, but from this vantage point, you would be free and clear to walk if you wanted to risk it.

And that, I will say, is when the ten minutes concludes for whatever you're doing, Yorneir. Do you feel confident? Or would you like me to use my mind's eye? I think you should still use your mind's eye if you're repairing it, because we still need to look for fish. It's all been happening simultaneously. Yeah, just give me a moment. So, Yorneir! I light the bowl of incense, and I set it down, and I sit down, and I cross my legs, and I put my hands together, and I'll close my eyes. Okay.

And I will say, "Doden, Amon, Mammut, the triumvirate, the three together, you are the Allfather. Grant me sight beyond sight. Grant me passage beyond this mortal body. Let me ascend into your realm so that I may see beyond."

And then you'll sort of notice you are in your fall sleep. It gets very quiet. And if you were to investigate him, literally for the next hour or however long this goes, he will appear asleep. And I will cast... Are you like astral projecting? This is a custom spell for the campaign advice. What the fuck? So I would like you to read it in full. I will. Okay.

Holy shit. Uh, this spell is a third level spell. Let me use it. Uh, and it's called dream site. Oh, let's go. Oh, you're going to, your brain's going to get just instantly. I'm going to visit the beard. Uh, for those of you who just watching who, uh, weren't aware of when I, uh, uh,

that started the campaign or haven't gotten this information because it's been a while since I've said this. All casters in Icebound have gotten a selection of additional custom spells. Everyone except for me. You're going to get other stuff. You got cool stuff. Anyways. You said casters. You're not a caster. You're not a caster. You can never go fishing, unfortunately. He did say caster. So...

I have a, for every level of spell that they're going to get in the campaign, they will have an additional selection of possibilities that aren't just cool for them, but spells that I think are really juicy and flavorful. And it appears that Rich has selected Dream Sight. I have. So, Dream Sight. Third level divination. Casting time, 10 minutes. Range slash area is self. Components are somatic and material, being incense. Duration is one hour.

And the spell reads, you fall into a deep sleep and your spirit leaves your body and travels ethereally and invisibly. Incredible. You gain a flying speed of 90 feet. Holy shit. You can pass through solid objects and creatures as if they were difficult terrain.

You take 1d10 force damage if you end your turn inside an object. So you're a ghost. You have the same principles as a ghost. You are blocked by any spell or effect that blocks ethereal creatures and can be seen by creatures with true sight. So I don't know how well that's going to work. You're so fucked. Or that are using true seeing.

You are immune to all non-magical damage. You cannot speak, attack, cast spells, or perform any action while in this form other than moving and observing. You can only run. If you took damage in any way while in spirit form, you retain that damage upon awakening. Oh, wow. And at higher levels, your speed goes faster. Incredible. If I die in dream state, do I die in real life? Yes. Yes. Yes, you do. So my...

basically leave my body ethereally. Yeah, I imagine that your spirit is exactly where it would normally be. But there's like a doubling almost where all of a sudden your ethereal form. And I step up. But my form is invisible on the mortal plane, on the pre-ethereal plane. And it would take someone, it would take a monster or true sight in order to see you. She's under the effects of fairy fires.

Yes, his sleeping frame will be, I guess it would expire at the end of ten minutes. It's one minute. One minute? Okay. So it's gone now. It would have been cool if it was sleeping blue or something like that. You stand and there is no gravity. You feel like you could go up, down, around. You could go into the floor if you wanted to. You could fly just by the mere thought.

at a much faster speed than you would have otherwise. This sight that has been granted to you by the triad by Odin has allowed you to this supernatural ability and you are alive with awareness. That ass. I will...

Step out first onto what I think is the invisible platform. In the ethereal plane, what was an invisible illusion is an obvious bridge. You look out and connecting to this side and going to the other side, it glows brightly with ethereal magic. It is as if this bridge is right there in front of you, as easy to walk across as any bridge or path, or almost like walking across a log that's felled across a river.

And does it go this way, or it goes... It goes straight across to the other side of the castle. I want to first... And if my flying speed is 90, could I be using my action to dash and go 180 feet every six seconds? Your mind's eye could absolutely turn and go... First, I'm basically going to turn here and fly behind the waterfall and see if I see anything.

Oh. You turn and you go at a diagonal, leaving your feet off of the bridge and you disappear into that side of the waterfall. You start to pierce through. You're moving at a tremendous speed.

Oh, my nose. You push through, and even in this ethereal state, there's a tremendous amount of darkness. It seems that behind this thick wall of water, there appears to be a huge cavernous cave open. I will, realizing that, I want to sort of look around...

Anywhere else, like basically before I go all the way in, I wanna like look around and see if I see any other structures and if I can see what's at the end over here. If it looks like, can I see like a door or is it just that far away where? - There does appear to be an illusory door on the other side. What would normally appear to be solid rock to any observer looking down casually from what you can only assume are the beautiful views looking down. You start to peek and there does appear to be a, almost a square frame.

As simple as walking through it, should one know it's there. Knowing that the bridge is physical to us, and we could potentially all together walk this way, I want to prioritize going places that a flying ghost would be able to get, but my friends couldn't. Make a perception check. So then I'm going to go into, yeah, I will go behind the waterfall. That's the wrong guy. Oh, I got these yoramir dice.

It's okay. You can twist it. Twist it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Pull it out. I'm used to. You're ghost mode. This is very important. All right. My perception's pretty good. There's going to be like a silver eye. I see you. Oh no! It's a little bit of a jailer reference. 15.

15. In Tent, you start to speed forward 5, 10 feet, and you are looking in this dark, dark cave. Even with your ethereal vision, your dark vision that is still enhancing your sight, you feel that you would have to travel in hundreds of feet, perhaps, to find the back

of the mouth of this cave that sits behind the waterfall, but you move 90 feet a second and you start to dash forward using your action only to be caught about 30 feet in and looking down you see a hand holding onto the foot of your ethereal form. The hand is connected to an arm connected to an ogre's body and a

gnarling rat roaring, slobbering ogre holds on and to your horror behind him, dozens of additional ghastly apparitions, not aberrations, but ghostly spirits are coming up, moving almost as quickly as you are. And you seem to be caught. You take from this withering grass. - Oh no! - Five,

Oh my god, withering grasp. You take 21 points of necrotic damage as suddenly you are sapped of a tremendous amount of energy from just this one touch. Does his body, like his physical form do anything? Are you completely like, do you not? Coming back to the three of you. It's up to you. Coming back to the three of you.

Silence, sleep, emotion. I wouldn't even really notice. Oh, you couldn't get any luck on these crawfish.

Help me understand the crawfish thing. What are you guys doing? We're looking for any aquatic creature, any fish, any crawfish, anything with the swimming speed. Oh. Is what I'm looking for. I'm asking Queenie to help me seek out. This is a shallow, I mean, even at this mouth where everything is leading, there doesn't appear to be any life life. There's nothing to feed on for a crawdad. It's not like a river bed or anything along those lines. Okay.

This is more like, to use an anachronism, in Ghostbusters when they go down, in Ghostbusters 2 when they go down into the subway and there's like the river of ooze. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is like a subway clean style. Okay, okay, okay. Yeah, yeah. This shit went from 0 to 120 in like a minute. Yeah, I know. In the instant that happens, I want to perceive...

As much as I can. Do I see the walls of the cavern? Do I just see ogre ghosts? Do I see any other creatures? The ogre ghosts all seem to be coming up from the... from where the water was. And it's very much like the undead army in Lord of the Rings. Where there's just this swimming wave of ogres. What appear to be dozens and dozens of these spirits all mindlessly...

and looking at you with a combination of sadness and fear and rage and hate. And you are distracted by that, but you attempt to focus your mind. You look out, and I'll have you make an additional perception check. At disadvantage given the pain of what is happening to your spirit in this time. Not bad. Okay, okay, yeah. Plus eight, so that's 17. With a 17, you...

You look into the darkness and you can see the 60 feet, black and white. You feel like if you could make it another 100 feet, you might be able to perhaps see the back of this exit. But you look at the cave walls. They appear to be totally natural. You look at the ceiling. There are stalactites.

You look at the ground, you can see that there is a pooling water, and there are still ghosts and they are clamming up on you. The one that had grabbed your ankle has now like, pulling itself up onto your waist. A second one grabs and latches onto you. You take an additional 10 points of necrotic damage. - Please don't die. - I...

I would like to attempt to ghost my way out. Okay. And turn on evasive maneuvers and basically fly as fast as I can further back in the cave, but avoiding ghosts. I can't shake them! Okay. Do a barrel roll! Let's make this a contest. Do a barrel roll! What did you get? Oh, uh... A contest. Any kind of skill, or... Yes. Um, sorry. I was rolling a contest. Uh...

Oh, 'cause I'm not physical. Right. So what would be my... Your spellcasting? How do you, how do you, I mean, it would be movement, right? But your, your, your, your... It's mind movement. But it's mind movement. Is it will? Yeah, like a will check, like a wisdom check. Wisdom check, yeah. I always listen to whatever the DM says.

Well, you've rolled your number at least. Yeah, I rolled my number. We'll just deal with the modifier. But I'm gonna have to think about what modifier we're both gonna use. I completely agree. It's the difference between wisdom and charisma, because charisma is usually the willy ability score. I should have thought about this. We're gonna do wisdom, because you're your near, and wisdom is your chief deal. Let me ask my party members. I rolled a 12. Should I twist? Do two twists. What's your wiz? Five.

- I would use two twists. - With a plus five, I feel like it's worth. - We just got six twists from Sloths of ADHD. - It's worth, I feel like it's worth. - Sloths is trying to help. We have so many Sloths. - Much better. That's huge. I mean, not much, but three more is good. That's huge. - 23. - Yeah.

With a dirty 20, I'll say that you dash away and you're able to pull free from the necrotic energy. You get an additional dash. You make it a full 180 feet into the cave mouth and you are confronted by an impossible sight. Something that doesn't seem real to you for a moment. It looks like a giant head or a... What's the word I'm looking for? A...

Like, if you could look at the back of a helmet, some reflective, impossible, large structure that is smooth and alien and you are caught up with. Suddenly you turn around and you are being attacked by not just one, but two, but three different ogres, and they collide with you like a wave and overwhelm behind you as you are paused in this moment. Ten. Ten.

This is so fucked. You take 27 points of necrotic damage as they are attempting to consume you, to grab onto you. They are just on your heels. You can push forward if you want to, but it is a losing battle. These creatures haven't

seen anything like you perhaps for however long they've been in this space. And they seem obsessed, possessed, focused on somehow getting you and bringing you down with them. - You will see the tidal wave of ogre go smash into Yornir. And in that moment, Yornir's form just blips out. And his physical form, you return to his physical form,

- Unconscious. - So you would like fall over? - Would you scream or anything? - Yeah, like is there anything? - You drop and you peel over and the meditating, sleeping Yornir just splashes into the pool of running water just in front of him into the sewer system. You all see and hear this. - My question is, would you be able to draw, if possible,

Exactly what I saw in terms of my vision in that final moment, seeing this head, helmet, back of the helmet structure thing. Is it like a paneled helmet? Is it a... I would say that I will give you a rough sketch. Ooh. But...

And I will say that details could be emerged by Yornir dwelling on this immediate vision because right now it's clouded by the panic. Even for someone like Yornir, the sudden...

violence that occurred would make it very difficult to even think of those details. But you did see with your eyes, and going back and revisiting the memory might further additional details. However, let me see if I can do something. Okay, perfect. You can just do it in the river. Right here is fine. The chasm. The chasm. Looking in, there was...

the bottom of the of the cavern there was the steep sides of the cavern and the many uh open uh stalactites and everything pushing down right and you started to get a suggestion of something large and lodged in the deep recesses of this cave mouth when you say lodged you mean like like physically stone felt it felt like there were

That it was almost as much a part of the cavern. So it was fastened into it. Perhaps fastened or lodged in some way. Got it. And there was a very round reflective material, almost like a helmet, like this, let's say. And perhaps you got a few details of...

some dashes here, some lines or something like this, but you would have been a dot in comparison to the size of this. This is a building-sized thing that existed in this space. And as your darkvision only being 60 feet, and even in that ethereal space being what it was, you were only very confronted by the very front of this

thing before you were consumed by the hand of the ogre's spirits, or whatever they were. Only question I'll ask for Rich, and then I'll give up. I'm sorry. Did Jornyr get a sense of what kind of material it was? Reflective. Is it metal? When you are ready to read into that question, I would have him roll for it. Same with the ethereal question.

What's the ethereal question? Did it appear to him as it was in our plane or in the ethereal plane? Oh, it did not appear like the bridge, as though it was shielded by any kind of illusory magic. If you had been flying, you would have felt like you'd see the same sight. It is just there, but obscured behind the thick walls of the waterfall. So I could have been a bat in there, flying around, and I would have seen the same thing. Yeah, yeah. Fortunately, you can't wild shape into flying. Not yet.

That's probably for the best. Mr. Yornear! Yeah, so do we notice that something is wrong? He slums and fell into the sludge. Yeah, I mean, that can't be normal. That doesn't seem normal to you at all, and anyone of you who chooses to jump on that fact would be able to immediately attend to Yornear. He doesn't seem to be in his meditative state. His breathing is hurried. His complexion has changed. He's perhaps going a little pale. Even in your dark vision, black and white sight, and the...

a minimal, not minimal, but the moonlight that pours into this space, you can see there's something wrong going on with Yorneir. Oh, God. It's only been a minute. Something's wrong. Something's wrong. I rush over to him. I place my hand on him. I'm going to cast Cure Wounds. You do that.

- I will have been far in looking for crawfish, like looking for any sign of life, crabs. - I'll rush over with Queenie, but I don't have any way to help. I'm just kind of like freaking out. - You're watching as she- - 11 points of healing. - 11 points of healing. - Well done.

Thank you. Thank goodness we have two people to heal. You speak the words, you make the necessary somatic gestures, and your magic, your innate ability to heal things, rushes into you, and you're near, you spring back into consciousness, taking the full amount of healing. Are you alright? I'm alive. I found Ogre Heaven. What?!

What does that mean? Did he go to hell like Mr. Sabascotch? No. Well, they are... This is a bridge, and the bridge goes across to a door. I believe we could go there in our physical forms. Are we in any danger, Mr. Yorneir? Not that I'm aware of. I don't know. I don't know. But I went... I left my body. I flew behind the waterfall, and I entered the cavern. The great...

hundreds of feet tall. And all of a sudden, I was attacked by spirits, by ogres. Ogre spirits that were apparitions. Like Mr. Sabascook said. Sunk in the eyes and looked horrified and pained and necrotic. And they filled me with these dark, deathly energies and inflicted harm on my material form.

So they must not be able to get us right now then, right? I mean, otherwise we'd be swamped by the tortured ghosts of the dead. Those that can see sight beyond, that have the sight beyond sight like I did, that could see the ethereal plane, they were able to see me. I'm hoping that they're at least trapped in that plane, but I don't know. I believe that is where these ogres that are going to ogre heaven...

This is what is happening. Your spirit was there. You were a ghost as well. I was in so many worlds, yes. But then I escaped the ogres the first and I was able to fly to the back of the cave and I saw something massive in the cave. It was... It was... It was reflective. It was... It was... Reflective? It was a structure. It was... Was it...

I want to ask a medic question, but I won't. Make an intelligence check at advantage. What do you mean? Reflective like armor? Like a... Like my shell? Straight intelligence? 15. 15. Details are starting to bubble up from the surface of your subconscious. And it...

The reflective quality was unnatural. It didn't feel like metal. It didn't feel like smooth stone. It felt like a material that shouldn't be present in a cave. You're starting to get other features, sort of almost like ribs and perhaps a platform that it sits upon. You're starting to get a sense of

in your panic, as you were being consumed by the ogre spirits, was there a hint of a thin choir of voices, almost? Something just faint, something that you could hear over the waterfall, just barely, just as you lost consciousness. I'm remembering now, it was sitting on some kind of platform, and

There were ribs. Were the ribs, like, on the outside of the... Wrapping around, perhaps, the top of the helmet, let's say. Ribs, sort of rib shapes wrapping around the top of the helmet. For an instant, I could hear voices. A choir of... Tortured ogre spirits? I don't know. It didn't sound like giant to me.

Okay, so you saw this thing, and it's also just a ghostly apparition, and it's all just over there, and it's not in our area? No, no. The structure was there. I could have been in that cavern as a bat. What? And it would have been there. It's over there right now. It is over there right now as we speak.

And the ghosts are there one way or another. Whether they're in the ethereal plane or the material, doesn't matter. They are there as well. Well, we can't stay here. We can't stay here. Are they coming here? Those bastards took me pipe. I don't believe they have any way to know what I was, who I was, if my body was here. I don't think so.

You've never felt the crave of the grow pouch stronger than this moment. It is true. It's been now days since you've had a puff. I know, just my spice box. A little bit of salt to throw over our shoulders for some good luck. Did the reflective material feel like a shell of any kind? Even like an unnatural, some sort of chitin, crab...

crustacean anything you could make a parallel it was like you said it was reflective it wasn't metal it wasn't quite natural shell like my lady of the sea like an unnatural shell yes

Oh, this can't be happening. No, no, no, no, no, no. It is as if it was wedged there or intentionally positioned there. I don't know. I don't care for spirits, Mr. Yorneir. Them dragon folk were fine because I didn't know they were ghosts until afterwards. They are very deadly. Believe me. Well, is that Ogre Heaven is a cave with a bunch of ghosts?

Is that true? I don't know if they're ghosts. Would Queenie have been able to sense if they were undead, I'm not sure. I don't know. But if they're not in the prime material plane. Oh, that's a good point. That means... I want to know that. Well, that means they can get us. Unless they can phase in and out. I don't have any spell slots to do it again anyway.

No, I mean, could you read the spell and check to see if undead is one of the options? Yeah, it's one of the options, yeah. It's like Shepard using it in Barovia. Undead. Does it require the same flame? Well, damn. It doesn't say. As an action, you can expend one ranger spell slot.

To sense whether any aberrations, celestials, dragons, elementals, phase fiends, or undeads are present within one mile of you, or within up to six miles if you're in your favorite terrain. This feature doesn't reveal the creature's location or number. I feel like Shepard could tell you that if the undead were on the mortal plane, you would have sensed them.

But if they were trapped in the ethereal, that they may just be trapped there. They're not the natural world. Not something where they would be able to touch you in an adjacent plane, even as neighboring as the ethereal. The specter would show up and like, slash us. They're not like spilling in like there's an undead taint. Oy, they're trapped. So now what? Now what the fuck do we do?

I dance around. I start doing its circles. Is this because I ate all those eggshells? This could be it, Mr. Stabaskulch. No, these aren't witches. These are apparitions. I really messed up, Barnabas. I'm sorry. Oh, no, these aren't witches. These are worse. Yornir, you're hurting. You are all...

feeling the trek of the many hours of the walk and the adrenaline of Fjornir's experience in his tale is taking its toll. You know that you are in the dead midnight, or perhaps closer to 1:00 in the morning at this point, just giving you a little context of the time. Look, we're down at Taishen. We're very far away from where we left.

We have other pressing matters we need to worry about, and even if we do get our Taishin, what are we gonna do about all this? We have to figure out what... We can walk across this bridge and open that door and see what's on the other side, but I cannot do it until I rest. Let's take a rest. We had that gigantic gladiator battle like this morning. I know. Like a few hours ago. I know. About six or seven hours ago at this point.

Let's take a little rest. There's no immediate pressing danger. I agree. I think we should go back and make sure that Pyshan is okay. Oh, you know, let's slow it. We should see the door now. You've alerted something to our presence. If there's anything in that structure, like you said, if it's a structure, that means that it has inhabitants. Oh, Barnabas is right. Whatever it is, it's going to know that we're here. And if the ogre spirits knew you were there, Mr. Yornear...

Whatever put them there, we'll know as well. I suppose that's true. So all of those ogres that win the lottery and ascend to heaven, a pile of tortured ghosts, is that what you're telling us? Yes. I don't know. I didn't see any physical bodies, so I don't know what's happening to them. But what I do know is that...

That structure's on this side of the ravine, and there's something else on the other side of the ravine. If that's a door that you have seen, then we can open it. At the very least, we can sprint back and scuttle our way up. So you think we should go now? I do. Aye. We may not get another chance.

I don't like this idea, Barnabas. Neither do I, Mr. Stabiscotch, but what chance do we have? No, I don't know. We are cattle. We are livestock in this place. I would rather die trying to claw my way to freedom than just bide my time as a calf waiting to be turned into veal. I just keep moving forward, Mr. Stabiscotch.

always like to see in the sky if we if you could let me finish my rest I could go but I believe if we face another threat even close to the magnitude that I witnessed in that cavern we need to run boy we will I don't want to go home I just want to go home there's no going home now wait Mr. Staviskov's home is long gone there is no home

Right where you are is your home. We're wayward vagabonds, Mr. Stabberscotch. And I refuse to call this prison my home. I refuse. Fine. Fine. You're in here. Rest up. And then we sprint across the bridge, we check the door, and we get right out of here. Aye. All right. And then it's freedom. Thank you for saving me. Oh, you're welcome.

You calm yourselves and you take a short rest. You sit for an hour and ponder the strangeness of this place, trying to put the puzzle pieces together. Fitting it here doesn't work. Fitting it here, fitting it here. Perhaps some pieces are yet missing. But with the hour that you have, Jornir, you patch yourself up.

You take a moment, you give yourself the rest that you need to recharge some of your energy before choosing to push on deeper and deeper. And that hour passes very quietly with only the sound of trickling water. Amazingly, reaching the edge and flowing down, there is no bridge, though you all know that should you put a foot out,

You would be standing on nothing again, very similar to your time atop the mountain at the beginning of winter. What happens next is up to you. Huh. All right. I'm ready. I mean, you saw the door. I hate to make you go first, but God knows I'm not going first. I will try to get my bearings. I am going to make sure that we, if there's any risk of falling, I'll reach out and grab you. And I'm going to...

and like crab my leg and attempt to, as we scale down, attempt to grab the bridge and move my way with my crab claws. And in case anyone falls, I want to try to grab them. Okay. For what it's worth, and perhaps your near can verify this, but as I was throwing the coin, it looked like it's just a straight shot. Straight ahead. It paws. Bees, could you just line the bridge for me, please? And I want to have the bees just fly around the bridge and make a straight line.

path on either side. Like a movie theater? Yeah. The island airport? Very, very literally. They can turn every few seconds and you get yellow and black. And you... It makes it extremely easy to see where the boundaries of this is thanks to your swarm. You...

remain secure and you are keenly aware of your companions as you cross this bridge. And the only thing to overcome is the uncertainty of would you slip? Would you just lose yourself and your balance from the fear of walking across a bridge like this? However...

I will not make you roll for anything. You are level six heroic adventurers in a fantasy role-playing game. You are able to cross the distance, and soon enough, 200 feet later of walking steadily and confidently, you make your way across the chasm, looking down into a deep pool of moonlit water and against the face. To your right,

a massive waterfall crashes down into the fathoms and you can see even behind you what appears to be the thin railing of the city of Ogerton where their boundary of their city would overlook this crevasse. Like way up ahead. Way 150, 200 feet up in that direction on the other side now that you have this vantage point. Joran, you're taking the lead. You stare at what should be rocky cliff face, slippery rock,

impossible to pass through, and I won't even make you roleplay it. You push your hand out with confidence, and it passes through the rock, just as you would expect it to with the ethereal sight that you'd had of this space. You know that you can take another step forward and enter whatever lies beyond. Just a peek. Just a peek, and we're out of here. We're not sticking around. Just so we can get some kind of information about whatever this is.

I'll absentmindedly pat my chest where I would have the loop that I made for my pipe in my netting and let's clutch the horrible robe and I'll curse and spit on the ground.

It's like when someone's quit smoking and they usually had their pack in the... Exactly. I'm definitely clutching it. I'm very clearly nervous and on edge. The just-in-mention of spirits puts Barnabas on his toenails, it seems. But you see Yornir disappear through the rock face, and the three of you follow. And it's only thanks to your complete dark vision that you're able to see the inside of what is now a cavern.

the sandy path of rough rock and gravel making its way up, up and to the right, almost leading towards the structure that you saw in the cave mouth.

Okay, look, it's just a bunch of dirt. We gotta go back. We gotta go back. It's just dirt and rock. It appears to be not clean stone cut manufactured. No longer are we in... This appears to be perhaps a natural formation or it appears to be

Chiseled, yes. It does appear to be one or the other, but it is not masonry, it is not architected, it is not clean the way the sewer system looks. There we go. Dirt and rock. Nothing there. Time to go back. Let's go. No, we are not going back now. Oh, come on. No, no, no, no, no, no, no!

And I'm gonna basically treat him like a lantern. Like a complaining lantern. Come down, come down! You're holding him out. I'm flailing wildly. And I will lead the group for the rest of us. Are you with me? Hi. Queenie? I'm here, aren't I? I'm not complaining like Scrim. All right. I will continue.

Man, where the sidewalk ends. So, you turn and you make your way up and you continue only able to see 60 feet but it only takes you a few minutes of walking before the path

curves to the right and you're confronted 60 feet ahead of you just as it fades from pure fog of war into vision what appears to be a very strange door. This door is inset looking like a craft you've never seen before. It doesn't have a dwarven feel to it or any door that you would naturally see but it is a

angled and pushed in. There's like three or four different borders all around it before you finally find the flat face of what appears to be like a dark metallic door. 60 feet and there doesn't appear to be a doorknob, a keyhole, any kind of markings on it. It's plain and smooth, but it is impossibly here.

Natural cavern, eh, Mr. Savascotch? Well, it was, all right. You can't argue with that. Does this door appear to remind us of the obelisk? Oh. Oh. No. Not the same kind of one? No, absolutely not. Okay. Absolutely not. It has this... The same kind of general reflectiveness that you vaguely recall from your last moments before being pulled into unconsciousness. This material...

What is the 1800s classic gun make, like cold iron? There's a type of iron that has that black, almost, what's the word for it? Gunmetal, right? Like gunmetal. Yeah, it sounds like a bluish. This has a bluish gunmetal feel to it. Well, if only the ogres hadn't stolen my lockpick set, we could get right through those doors, but I guess we have to go back.

Is there even a lock on this? I don't know. Don't ask me questions like that, Yorner. Rot iron. Oh, rot iron. We should take a closer look. Does it... I guess not rest it. I will flash my eye and use detect magic to see if I sense anything on...

You push out with detect magic and you get the background auras of your companions. And, uh, looking at the door, you have a sense that it has some magical properties. How far is, uh, the distance? What is the range of 30 feet? So you've gotten closer to the door in order to trigger this ability. And, uh, walk easy. You're in, you're walking 30 feet forward and he's, um,

within detect magic distance. I'll be with him. You are right behind him. I'm unwillingly with him. One clawed arm over his shoulder. And you're right behind him. Still being carried. The four of you, almost like in the Wizard of Oz as they approach the wizard in that hall for the first time, the four of you are...

- Oh yeah! - Cautiously waiting for a word. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Only I'm stuck on Toto. - I'm Toto. - And you are, you have a sense that there is magical properties, but it does not give you a school or any additional information. - There was something magical about this door. Not getting anything specific. - Do we even know it's locked? - We won't know unless we check.

I want to at least learn what kind of beings are doing all of this. We still don't know. We still know nothing. Oi, that's true. I care less about the knowing than just finding a way out of this mess. I will approach the door. I wouldn't ask anyone else to. I'll do it. Well, you should probably do it.

You'll do it? Yeah, I'll do it. I don't have any spells left, so if anything happens to you, I can't help you. I'm all tapped out magically. And I could help you. Yeah, and I'm brave. And when we were fighting all those ogres, they didn't touch me at all because I was too busy trying to kill you. I will be right next to you. Use your rabbit legs to vault off if anything bad happens. Oh yeah, I will. And use your rabbit ears. Listen to see if you hear...

Chorus of voices. All right. Yornia, could you just put me down first, please? Oh, yes, of course. You want to come with me, Scream? Nope, and as soon as my feet hit the ground, I immediately scurry away behind one of us. Queenie, you approach the door. Yeah, come on, bees.

I'll be like 10 feet back in case there's like, so I can decide to jump in and help her. Scrim is holding onto my lower crab legs and he's like peering over the other side. Wait, so I'm picturing that Barnaboost is like Urgot mode? Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, I don't think, I mean, if I could do that, that's exactly what I would do. I don't know. It's up to the DM. It's very, it's very vague. If I can Urgot mode for that, I would million percent. I don't know what that means. Oh,

basically my, the lower half, I don't have any legs anymore. I just have crab legs. Um, uh, what's his name? Uh, Kenneth Brauna from, uh, Wild West. Wild West.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was like Gary Oldman. No, it was kind of fun. Man, that movie is underappreciated. I like that movie. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was made by a stupid man, but let's move on. I'll tell the story of John Peters later. The point is that if you wanted to, I would be happy to let you theme the crab legs underneath your torso as opposed to stretching out. Yeah, yeah, I think that would be way cool. You are...

Basically looking like a boss fight from Diablo 3. I know, shotgun. Oh yeah, literally that. Asmodan. Asmodan. Asmodan. Exactly. And Queenie marches forward. Queenie March marches forward. And you do, and you get 15 feet, 14, 12, 10, and it's just as you are feeling confident that there's no trap, no issue. Yeah.

Your pendant pushes against your neck, choking and it actually takes you a moment. You pull back and testing the waters, you can feel, you can't get 10 feet closer to this door without the necklace against your throat pushing as though some invisible stiff arm is holding you there. Well, it looks like I can't get closer. I'm gonna choke to death. Well, let's cut these damn things off. It was the first thing I wanted to do when I woke up.

You have the blade, Mr. Stab-a-Scotch! What are they actually made of? Some sort of flexible strap. It's surprisingly easy to forget that it's on your person. Even when you do this, a pendant that hides a scar like what you saw on Daisy's throat should tuck into the bottom of your... It should be a constant reminder, but it's easy to forget. There's

It feels like a thin leather almost, but it's flexible. You can't get your finger underneath it terribly much, but if you move your head, it moves with you. It seems magically affixed to your neck in this way, and the simple round nature of the crystal at the forefront of your neck, at the Adam's apple, is always facing forward.

I'm gonna try. What's the worst that could happen, right? I want to get this damn thing off. Or perhaps... Do you want to try removing mine first? I was gonna try it on myself first. I feel good with my blade. It's not unlike shaving. I think that perhaps I can tighten up my neck a little bit and see if I can get it open before I die. What? I'll just get covered in a little bit of seawater, get a little bit of crab in me, and hope maybe I'll be able to resist...

passing out long enough to at least try to open the door. Well, I mean, even if you open the door, it doesn't mean that the force will prevent, will go away. I mean, we might not be able to get in past the threshold.

It feels like there's something stopping you physically. Yeah, I mean, I think at the end of the day, these necklaces are really screwing with us anyway. We shouldn't have them on. They're not part of us. All right, I'm trying it. Here we go. I'm going to summon the Brutal Blade. Don't cut her head off. I'm going to do it on myself. What does that look like? What does that smell like?

Well, there's, so I would hold my hand up and there would definitely be an element of like smoke, but it's, it's, it's almost instant. Like it pops into existence and there would be almost like a brimstone. You normally, what? Yeah, exactly. Sulfur, brimstone and sulfur and fire. And yeah.

You would normally hear something accompanied with my magic, but it's too much rushing water and whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Being as good as I am with my knife, I...

have shaved with it before, even though it's a giant, brutal blade. And I'm just gonna very quickly attempt to... You said I could get a finger in there? You could get a blade underneath it, perhaps. I will not even hesitate to just very, very deftly attempt to slice this. Again, like shaving. It's something I've done hundreds of times. You...

Put the blade up against the side of your neck and push through and underneath the strap. And you are smelling the brimstone that has accompanied your ability to summon this. And you realize it has this very familiar odor, something that you just experienced, Ogre Heaven, that smells very almost identical.

pushing that thought out of your mind. You take the blade side of it and you turn it outwards and you start to attempt

to cut through it. You pull down, you work the blade back up and underneath. You continue to saw at it. You know that this is sawed through bone and flesh. Ah, you bastard! Stretching it out, you can barely get it an inch away from your neck before it snaps back and you have to pull the blade free. It seems that it cannot be cut, even by the magical blade that is brutal, that is Scrims. Damn it!

"Ah, it didn't work! It doesn't work! It won't cut!" "How did Myelin get it off? He made a deal, didn't he say that?" "Ah!" "He said he made a deal to get out. He's alive, isn't he?" "Myelin?" "Yes." "Well, last time I saw him, he punched me in the face, so yeah, he's very much alive as of a couple days ago." "Just one day. Uh, two days." "We need to get Taisha and then we need to find Myelin."

Well, now we know how to get to him being undetected. We'll go into the sewers of the House of Commerce. He's not going to be very happy to see us, but we'll do the best that we can. Should I try to just crab it? I know I've tried to solve every, uh, every, every problem by evolving to crab. I know. I'm just worried that you might cause permanent damage to your throat or your neck.

Or you'll unleash something. You'll be out of commission because you'll be unconscious. And the rest of us will have to watch it consume your body. Without being able to get closer to you. You could try, maybe just try to give it a little shove. Just a smidge past what Queenie did. And see what happens. But don't push yourself. It's not like the choke-in made it so I didn't want to move forward. I couldn't move forward.

So I don't think you having a hardened neck or whatever is going to stop, is going to allow you to get closer to that thing. What if I try just to brute force my way? Just a stupid hand, right? Your hand's not ten feet long. You may certainly try. I started doing this. There might be ghosts in there. Huh!

I scuttle around. I'd like to think that you just, like, did the entire thing. Do you want to be alone with ghosts? I know, but I'm just gonna try to push a little bit. All right.

You rage. You transform. You change. I get crab claws. I will try to get, you know, there'll be a little bit of crab, you know, shell on me. Jules Verne would be so proud. And I am just going to try to force my way claw.

climbing along the bottom effectively to pull my way through as much as I have. But if I feel like I'm resisting through my barbarian strength, I'm going to back off. You give a good sprint. You are racing four times as fast as the bad guy from Monsters Incorporated. And...

Reynold? No, the boss guy. Spoilers, the evil boss guy. The monster's ink. And you sprint forward and it seems that there's a very clear thing that happened.

The necklace stops here. Whatever momentum your body had, booshes forward and hits. And then it brings you, and you get clotheslined. And you fall back and all of your limbs and all of your crab limbs are permit crabbing up into the air in this fashion. Okay. I try to tell him. Okay, you were right, Queenie. I try to tell you. I have it.

Oh, well, okay. Okay, you were right. I'll reach my hand down. Anyone notice that this drawing here kind of looks like a baboon when you look at it upside down? Nice. A baboon? I was trying to draw an ocelot. I was thinking more of your honeypot, the sort of honeypot-esque. Yeah, but that's if you're looking at it right side up. I don't see it. I'll grab Yornir's hand. I thank you, Mr. Yornir. Let us go back.

Yeah. Yeah. Having reached a impasse, an N impasse to grammatical, you turn and you safely make your way back down the interior of this strange cave, cross the illusory door to a bridge over a 500 foot drop down to water. You cross the bridge, you make it back into the sewer system.

And you make your way up following the water, following the sound and getting a renewed sense of how easy it could be lost in this space. Takes you a little time for you to... Was it this branch or was it this branch? Maybe we should have left some sort of sign. No, I think it was to the left. This is the one that leads to the House of Knowledge. Is that the House of Military?

No, it's the House of Knowledge. And working your way through, collaborating, talking through your options and making your way, hours, hours pass. And you were well, you were halfway through the forest in terms of the eight hours of dark vision. And when you feel your vision start to fade, Queenie and Yorneir,

You are still making your way up the straight shot that is this long grade back up to what you think is going to be the House of Knowledge altogether now, when your vision turns off. And you are now, the two of you find yourselves in true pitch black, having to pause for just a moment in this space. Let me see if I can fix that. That's the spell phase. Oh, wait, next time, Miss March. Do you think one of your bees could be like at every turning point?

Nah, can't get that far away from them. They'll get lonely, I suppose. I'd get lonely too, if I were a-- The last thing you want are a bunch of sad bees. Ah, yeah, that's true. If I had thought of it, I could have used my druidcraft to mark our path, but I didn't think of it, so... Hey, well, next time. Now we know. Darkvision is second level. I have a feeling we'll be using these sewers quite a lot.

I have one more use, so I'll give it to you. Why don't you take it and you can just carry me around? That's a good idea.

I will use it on myself, and I will-- do you want to-- I guess it's pretty narrow, I'll just carry you like this. Yeah, that's fine. Can you ride on my shoulders? It might be more comfortable. No, you are a disgusting crab. Can you pick me up? I do smell a bit like low tide. I look over at him, he's like-- Now I'm going to pit. Yeah, there's a little bit of mandible.

What do you call that that a crab has? Like licking the underside of a ship. It's that cute crab on TikTok that likes the grilled cheese or the peanut butter sandwiches. No, I don't think I will do that.

You're being carried by Yulianir. I'll carry you through like this. Kind of like a pug. Yeah, exactly like this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Easy, easy money. And another 30, 45 minutes, and you feel like you've got to be 30 or 45 minutes more, and you'll be able to reach the underside of the manor, the villa of the House of Knowledge of the Genius, and be able to push your way back up through the grate and find out how things have been going for the...

nine hours that you've been gone, it would be morning almost. And I will also add an additional detail, which is to say that you've noticed water increasing. There's additional water coming down and through. It's no longer just what seems to be

occurring because of showering you deduce with your great intellect the fact that it's probably raining that there's water coming through the sewer system because of natural weather and Queenie you're up front with your ear and you are the first one to spy with your magical ranger eye with my bunny eye

warm light because you have gotten used to the fact that you are unable to see anything in the pitch black and you're not the one doing the trekking and so you're just keeping your eyes open and there seems to be a flickering warm light very much in the distance just up the grade there's a flickering warm light up there like a torch? I mean just look at it beautiful is it past where we're going? it seems to be in the direction that you're headed

Must be a vassal with some sort of anthem or torch. Sure.

You continue on and you can hear footsteps. And sure enough, it does appear to be a vassal with a lantern or torch. A lantern, in fact. And illuminated in the light, you are confronted by the face of someone that you knew on the Moorbound. Confronted by the lantern-carrying Mylon, you stare at each other for just a moment and he sees the four of you. And illuminated by his lantern, you can see a scowl.

He... Hey, hey, hey, you can't punch me this time. There's four of us. Only one of you. There's no need for violence. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. No. Fuck you. No, you don't get to do that. He starts to walk and he's trying to... I'm gonna jump in front of him. Don't you dare.

I will, I will yell at you. I did my very best to save your daughter and I'm doing my very best to save your second daughter when you left them. So you have no right, you have no right right now, Mylon, to try and give me any sass about what we've done for them girls. You left them out in the middle of nowhere with nothing. Daisy doesn't even know how, that's your youngest daughter, by the way, doesn't even know how you got that damn thing off of her neck for us to try and help her further. So don't you dare.

You have any fucking idea what I had to go through? It was my only option was to get them out of here so that I could be here. You brought her back here. We didn't bring her back here at all. You think we wanted to be here? You think this was our intention? If we didn't give a shit about that girl, we wouldn't be trying so hard to get her back out of here. And she's not the only one. If we can do something to free everybody, we're going to do it. Oh, drop the attitude. I tried to tell him we were ambushed. He didn't want to hear it. He just punched me.

You think being a dick's gonna get you very far, Mylon, 'cause it ain't. Now, I understand. Okay, he's a horrible crab monster right now. And I just wanna say I apologize for that. There is nothing I can do about it. It just smells horrible. It smells horrible. It's the captain's feast at Red Lobster. And I'm gonna let him speak, 'cause I'm sure he has something whimsical and strange to say. We just need to know, Mylon,

How you got these off, and what that fucking thing in the barrel was. Also, abandoning the crew is hanging. I knew it. But we don't have any authority on account of Captain Vermeer's death. So we don't have any authority to hang you right now.

Why are you threatening? I'm not threatening. You're the one threatening him. I'm just saying, I'm reminding him that we are very gracious by not hanging him. We're not going to hang anybody. Who cares about that crew? The captain was a joke. Well, until the crew abandoned Shep, it was our duty to not abandon him or fellow crewmen. I admit I was curious about what happened to you, but I'd thought that...

I'd saved my daughters. You have to understand how confused and angry I was when I saw that Daisy Alcatra had returned. That I'd learned that my other daughter, Clove, who you called Honey, had passed away. We found her in the woods. She was struggling to hunt, to bring home food for Daisy. I know that it doesn't make any difference, but it was... They were doomed.

As soon as our crew set off on their own, they turned cannibal, turned into beasties, and they would have devoured both of them instead of just one. It was through your daughter's incredible bravery, love of her family, and valiant efforts that Daisy's even alive today. Make a perception persuasion check at advantage. You raised an amazing girl. You raised two amazing girls. Advantage. Oh.

Same number, so, uh, 18. What's going on with that? Let's say that I believe you. What good does it do? It doesn't matter. We're all here forever. I did everything in my power I could to try and see them safely, free in a way, to give them a chance, kind of like what I had, to make their way away from this terrible place.

"Nay. Mylon, you did do everything you can. Everything in your power, you did. And I do think that you are a good father and you made the right decision, despite that being a hangin'. Your power, don't take this the wrong way, does not come close to matching the power of the five of us." "And for what it's worth, your daughter thinks that we could start a rebellion." "Mr. Yorneir can turn into a ghost." "I have.

I just gesture to most of me. Mr. Scrimm goes to hell. I have a knife! And he goes to hell and comes back to tell the tale of a giant turtle sand crab or something. But mostly I have the knife. Miss March has bees! You think that you can undo this place? You were able to get your collar off, were you not? I got very lucky.

I've always said it's better to be lucky than good. What did you do? How did you get lucky? When I was a younger man, two infant daughters, toddlers, 15, 16 winters ago, we went hunting. Me and Commodus, the governor of the House of Commerce, go to the woods, go out into the mountains, find our way, and they were hunting and just...

out of curiosity or some notion. Not compelled, but I just pulled it free because I was not here in this city. Pulled it free, snapped off like a twig, and I ran. I ran from the life that I had known my entire existence. I ran into the woods, and I survived on what I could.

found my way to it's actually quite impressive the northern coast and i got lucky again there was a ship a small ship just out on the coast and i made a bonfire they came to get me group of dwarves sailors they took me in and i spent the next 10 years working as a part of their crew traveling up

the archipelago up north, eventually found my way to Wuzei. And I started to form a plan. For five years, I worked on different ships of all sizes, but it was the Wuzeians and their fascination with capital and profit and trade and contracts that I remembered Gorgussus

in the House of Commerce. I took the time to assemble what knowledge I could and found myself on a ship headed to Dakar, the Moorabound. I met you there. I kept to myself as I'd done for a decade and a half. And when I found, when I saw land, I couldn't help myself anymore. I knew, I knew that the city was close. I let myself be found

Probably in the same way that you found your captors. Probably near a hot spring. And I traded. I traded my life, my servitude as vassal, and the knowledge that I could give Gork Augustus so that he might win the lottery in exchange for the two daughters' freedom. I had never seen it before, but I think all ogres know that with their wands and the right word, they can release...

the pendants on your neck. Yeah, of course. And he did. And even trade. They left. I stayed behind. That's why I couldn't protect them in the woods. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'd like to get back home before chores. I'd like to get home to make sure that I'm not cooked alive having delivered a letter to my daughter. Do you know what that thing on the ship was? Is it totally unrelated to this? I...

never experienced a creature like that. I didn't even know it was on board. This was Captain Verme' in his dealings. He was shuttling that thing over to Chalk. If we'd ever made it, it would have gone to its recipient and done whatever damage it was intended to do there. It's just a strange coincidence. Before you go, I just want to say that if you

harbor any more resentment towards us. I want to ask you, have you considered if perhaps you failed? What the fuck does that mean? I don't believe in Barnabas's superstitions, but you did abandon your crew. You went alone. Do you know who killed Clove? He was a member of the crew. Do you know who almost killed Alcatra?

Mr. Stonebridge. It was a member of the crew. Mr. Clemens. Your plan to trade for their lives without bringing anyone that could help them survive the wilderness. You could have feigned ignorance if you had not lived in the Arctic, in the tundra, but you lived it. You knew how harsh it was. And to free them with no plan to assist them. And you cursed us? I believe all of this was fate.

I believe it is us, it is us, because of us, the reason that your one daughter is alive. And I believe fate has led us here to make sure that she is freed and you are freed. I'm not asking you to be grateful, but I would request that you banish any resentment you have towards us. Thank you, Jorna. That's exactly what I said to him, just as eloquently as you did. Oh, I'm sure.

Perhaps having someone who knew about survival in such frigid climes perhaps could have saved the whole crew. Perhaps we could have figured out a plan. Dozens of us. 25 of us were there on that crew. Two dozen strong. Now that would have been a force to be reckoned with. Alan reaches up and touches the pendant on his neck and reaches down and picks up the lantern. Barely gives you a glance before...

sidestepping the four of you. I'll get out of the way. And silently, without another gesture, walking down the sewer system. As he starts to walk away, I'll say to him, "Mylan, just so you know, we will do what you weren't able to. Have a good night." And like a dying ember, his lantern disappears down, down into the sewer system.

And the four of you find yourselves left alone with the now trickling sound of rushing water. Now that we're close to the vassals, I should probably do this. And my crab legs disgustingly turn back into my triton legs. Let this go. And I'll just start to walk.

Guys, I think we... 30 more minutes. I think we destroyed that man's whole career. Oh, yeah, no, he's not coming back. He's going to throw himself over the waterfall. 30 more minutes. You just... He would hit the bridge.

30 more minutes and you are staring up at a familiar grate and pulling yourselves up. You are pleased to see that your sense of direction has not failed you. You pull yourself into the very early morning hours of the House of Knowledge, the House of Blaginius, the showers of the villa that you temporarily are calling home.

- Taishen, what did you see in the shower? - Hey buddy, how's it going? What's going on? - You don't see Taishen in the shower. You need to walk down and you make your way over to the hostel. And it seems that everyone is asleep.

It seems that everyone is passed out. Not even Daisy is awake. Not even Taishan is awake. He seems to be lying down and walking over to him before you can even make a gesture to wake Taishan or make a sound. You look into the crib and there in that crib lies a child, a newborn baby, but two years old with a pendant around its neck. And that is where we'll call tonight's session.

Ogre magic. I can't believe that baby is two years old already. Two days old. Super ogre time magic! Oh my god.

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