Icebound | Ep. 23 | Ice & Hate
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Welcome to Legends of Avantris. I'm Derek Hudson and you're listening to Icebound. Here's what happened last time. You seem, uh, confused. Uh, you seem a little, uh, snowy. Eons beckon. A tapestry weaving through a veil. Can you hear the strands unraveling? Whispers of... Mr. Yorneir, this is a cursed place. This is not the sea.

Why are we not seeing the food? Why is something... Why do we feel to be unstuck in time? And I flip the coin, and I watch it vanish, and DM, it is up to you. I need you to make a death saving throw. What?! We have to get to the cave, get the boat, and try to return to the wizards, the willow trees.

on the coast. We have neither the time nor the resources to waste on spectres. Now take a walk, sir.

Captain, I don't know if it's me. I don't know if it's this place. I don't know if it's any of you, but I would not try to call on any sort of outside magic that we've, whatever you call it. I have the feeling that if I try again, I will die. I never thought I'd say this, but we have to go back to Drakkar. We can't stay here. Some sort of ritual or something that will bring apart our deaths is their plan. You continue to make your way down, down the path to the cave.

You recognize a stable star, the apex, the zenith just above the lighthouse. We rove in the star if it's the same. That's enough for me! I'm gonna grab my anchor and just try to just fucking... I was gonna say, I... But you are no longer in a cave with your friends. You've been lighthouse keeper of this space for so long, as long as you can remember.

to turn and start to walk back up to make sure that the light is still sound. Lots of beautiful day to save ships. You all stand now in the cave of some island somewhere north of Striga. Somehow on the other side of the world, far, far away from Drakkar. Somehow transported across the world's expanse by a great malevolent force. Only Yornir has seen amongst the stars.

You have become ensnared and a grim tableau unfolds before you. You watch, hearts beating, as the dead captain you once knew warps, malforms, and shifts

In the dark light it is difficult to tell form from shadow. The shape stirs and ripples and glides up and away from the cavern floor. A simple wooden, woolen cloak one might see hanging on a coat peg near the entrance of a well-traveled tavern rises up and bears down.

Yornir's words confirm what you already knew in your heart. This is the same silhouette he saw in the light of a star. It's the same! You race forward, drawing your weapons, drawing your magics, steeling yourself for a fight with the unknown and hoping you will live to see the other side. The cloak billows and the waves crash and they- and you clash! And you- Taishan. It's gonna be a fan-tro. The sea is calm. The sky is clear.

The day is young. You think of your duty to tend the light and of the lives you will never know but have sworn to protect each day. You watch them each day with solace as they pass. "Ilvan!" Delia's voice slices through the tranquility like a blade. Her tone, harsh and bitter, carries the weight of a thousand grievances.

Those lives you so grandly claim to protect will all sink into the sea while you stand there dawdling like a fool. Your shoulders slump. You feel the heavy burden of shame. Delia wasn't cruel and bitter all of the time, but when she wanted to be, there seemed to be no retort to match her stinging words. They cast light on failures she perceives in you. They weigh heavier than the anchors of the ships that you safeguard. Nothing to say? You're a disgrace.

Delia's voice lashes out at you like an icy wind one last time before she turns back inside to the modest home you share together. Why fight, even? The glass panes of the lamp need polishing, supplies need to be checked, fuel needs refreshing, there were logs to maintain, and maintenance to log. Maybe there would be time for fishing if the pleasant weather stayed true. What happens next is up to you.

Oh, this is so bad. That's your plan, buddy. You should have paid for saving that dumbass.

I'm sorry, Derek, what time of day is it? It's just after sunset. You would have risen and had some breakfast, and you're now finally free of... Sunrise? Sorry, yes, sunrise. It's just after breakfast. The sun is still hugging the horizon. It is a cloudless day, actually quite pleasant, and almost warm.

You can stare up at the lighthouse to one side, the house behind you, and of course that long, dark, shaggy rock that is your home day in and day out. Well, time to get to work. I can't let anything dim your shine. I gesture up at the lighthouse. I'd like to go up into it. Um...

The... If I would want to... Am I... Am I... You look at your dragonborn hands. Golden scales. Got it. Um... Let's see. Thank you. But I'm... But my mind, I'm... This is what I'm meant to do. I don't know. You feel the sacred duty on your shoulders. You feel that this is what Fu Zhao has placed upon you. Uh... It is...

My discretion as a DM to get to be a little ambiguous in this way. There's probably Fu Xiao's fire up there in that lighthouse, right? And I refuse to elaborate. Just cast a few spells upon Frodo, really rapid succession forming. I will go into the lighthouse and begin to, I think, at first...

I would go down to where the oil, I believe, is. Yes. And I would try and source any of the materials that I believe I would need to keep the light running just to get it prepared in the right position. I don't know that I would start running the lighthouse at sunrise. Mm-hmm.

But just to make sure that as the day wanes, everything is in position to be successful to get the light up and running. You go down into the storage room. It's musky. It's dank, almost humid. And you have to peer. Do you have darkvision? No. Do they? Be under features, right? Senses. Really? Maybe? Maybe?

You must. It's under additional senses. And I have tremor sense. This is a true sense. I don't know if this is just a list of every other thing. No, that's the menu.

It's dark. And you have to feel your way down into the storage room to find the cleaning supplies that you know you'll need, the maintenance tool kit, the box that you'll carry up on your back, and a few rags and things that you'll need for the purposes of polishing the lamp, just to make extra double sure that it'll be ready for the evening when it has to be lit again. I would...

If I would believe that this is fine in this moment, as I enter into the darkness of the basement, I would cast a combination of just firebolt and control flames immediately to ignite my palm and cast light throughout the basement. You reach your hand out, and you focus on your...

sorcery, your bloodline, your draconic bloodline, and you start to sweat.

You know that with just a snap of your fingers you would be able to create that flame, but your heart starts racing. You start feeling almost like you're suffocating, just thinking about the possibility of producing this flame. You want to, but you're afraid. You're afraid to create this flame in your hand. It seems like it would be easier to walk into a dark

scary basement such as this, then it would be to look at that burning bright light. I'll just stumble. Um, here, a little bit of this. Ooh, a little bit of this. Seal that back up tight. No moisture gets in there. Yes, yes. Here we are. Ugh!

And collect whatever I can and turn it up. You carry the items that are part of your daily ritual, being the first thing you do every day. And having avoided the challenge of looking at flame, you start to stomp one step above the other towards the spiraling surface of the tower. And that's where we'll pick up with the rest of you in the cave mouth. Ah!

Let me see if I can find some sort of combat music. I don't know, what do you think? Did we already roll for initiative? Yes, we did. That's what I thought. I kept the numbers and you are now in the correct order that you would be in. And Barnabas, you're up. I got last.

You are in this dark cave. Waves are thrashing all around you. You can hear them coming through the mouth very loudly, and you can see the surge dampen very quickly as it enters into this cave. There is a boat just at the very tip here as you are looking down, but that is not where your eyes go, and you try to push out everything except for your primary focus. This strange antagonist, this seeming manifestation of all that is weird

and impossible and threatening in this space, this cloak. You hear the words come from his mouth, "This is what I've seen before. "This is the figure that I saw, "the silhouette that I saw against the star." And pulling your anchor out, what do you do?

I've been ready. I think I was gripping my anchor, like ready to fight at the end of last session. Exactly right. I see this happen, and I will... I knew it! Let's kill it, lads! I'm tired of these cheap tricks! Covered in seawater as Barnacles and Starfish and their sea life explode out on top of me as...

a large, slithering black and white tentacle, like the bad CGI from The Lighthouse, will appear on the top of my back as I rush forward, as I'm going to recklessly attack. Can I borrow two d20s? I'm entirely underpaid. I'm gonna get all my stuff. D20s. Oh, d20s. I'm gonna recklessly attack twice. You need d20s? That'll be a 21. That it? And then I'll need d20s, yeah.

And then that will be a, yeah, higher than that. Okay. I will need 2d12s, not terrible. 16 plus 14 is 30. 30. 30 points of magical bludgeoning damage as I smash in and smash in as I'm gonna attempt to go. You see this cloak without form. It still seems to be resting on something, but it's almost like your mind is...

incapable of comprehending the figure within, and you slash in, and it jumps to one side, doing significant damage. You pound in again, and it does even more. You feel that you are hitting this thing. And that'll be the end of your turn. I know we can kill it, lads! Queenie, you're up. Do I see Taishan? Make a reception check. Oh, great fucking question. And I'll use it with the dread.

Okay, well I got a two, so. What is the actual value? I would say that you glance around and you're... You glance around and with a ten, you're not sure if it's the darkness of the cave within or if he's snuck around or perhaps he's jumped into the water. You do not see him, though he was standing right next to you moments ago. Would that seem unusual to me? I would say that a lot of unusual things have been happening. It's

Yeah, why not? Why wouldn't it? Tyshen's missing. You could say or do without information what Queenie would do. Queenie is going to ready her action, notch an arrow in the bow and get prepared, but then she's going to stand forward and just call out, Tyshen, you in here? You, in the cloak. Who are you? What are you doing here?

Not ready to just fight someone she doesn't know or understand. Okay. You do that. What action are you readying, and what is your trigger? If it attacks anything or any of us, I will let loose my arrows. Okay. Scrim. I apologize. I'm going to throw you a giga curveball here. We saw Barnabas strike this thing. He appeared to connect with it.

Call it damage? Oh yeah, oh yeah yeah yeah. It like got torn away and I'll say as an added detail there was almost like a punch of frost or ice that came out of it. Do we still have our spell focuses? Yes, you still have the disconnected from the wand these small orbs that act as your material components. I am going to give you, I'm going to tell you what I'm going to do and then I'm going to give you full control to do whatever you think is right.

Scrim is holding the Brutal Blade in one hand. His body is racked from his earlier attempt at casting magic. With everything that's happening and everything that's going on, and the words of encouragement that Queenie has continually given Scrim over and over and over again throughout the months of this adventure, Scrim will reach into his pocket and pull out the coin and say, "No more running. It's time to embrace this."

and I am going to attempt to cast Summon Greater Demon and summon some aspect of Graveyard Jack and call to this thing that has been chasing Scrim for so many years and attempt to summon it or maybe some creature of its power

and see if that works. I got swoosh bombs. I got swoosh bombs! Scrim will think about this monster, this graveyard jack that has been chasing him for all these years and dig as deep down as he possibly can and try to call it forth. Can you take a coffee break? No.

I may die in 60 years, or I may die today, but we've got to do something! No more running! You focus and channel your energies in this direction, and you feel a connection through the coin. A, um...

like a heartbeat almost, pulses in your palm as you feel the quickening of what would be your fear, typically, start to strengthen in the hand and pretty soon they are both beating as one and you stare deep behind the cloaked figure. You can see that there is a rock. It's almost impossible to see except for the brightness of the eyes that appear from behind the rock as all of a sudden,

The eyes you've become so familiar with lurk out and hunt and start to pray, staring first at you and then up at the cloaked figure. I see, I make connection with the eyes and trembling a little, I raise my finger to it and then I raise my finger to the cloak and I say, "Kill it." And that's my whole turn.

Now you control this thing, right? Does it want to make a turn on us? Yes. So it says that you roll initiative for the demon, which has its own turns, and after I summon it, I can issue a verbal command. And... From behind the rock. And then... God.

It's pretty banger. And then, at the... it just... it... Oh, and then... well, it has a whole bunch of shit, and this is why I was leaving it up to you to determine what it is, right? I trust you to make the right choices for me. It makes a Charisma saving throw, and if it has disadvantage on the saving throw if I say its true name, on a failed save, the demon continues to obey me. On a successful save, the control of the demon ends for the duration of the spell.

all this shit. So it's technically supposed to have its own stat block, I don't know how you want to handle all of that. What CR is something greater than Demon? So it's generally four, but because I have to cast at a level five, it's technically one level higher, so it's CR six. And I looked up a short list of CR six Demons, but I don't know how Derek wants to flavor it, and I wanted to kind of say, like, ultimately if he wants control of it, you know, he can take full control and do whatever he feels is right.

Alright. But otherwise I want the dog to just tear this motherfucker to bits. Jeeeeeeez. And then hope it doesn't get us all. Now typically when we've done- So cool. Typically when we've done familiars or helpers or something along those lines, we just let it happen on your- That's fine. Um, and without going down a long list of me like reading a stat block and doing all of that, Yep. Um, I'm gonna just say you're empowered to take Graveyard Jack's turn right now. Oh, Jesus. Alright, uh, hold on. One second, I have a list up.

Just so I can figure out, uh... I apologize. No, take your time. Oh, that's perfect. Look at that. What a great little mini. Oh! Uh, so this... Uh...

There's a there's there's like Barley a bar Lurga and a ton to Noruk. Oh, yeah, all these things that are real They're just about DM like what do you think? Yeah, any idea? I know that like we can it's not really a demon right? It's it's not a demon or a devil. I've been in CR 5 is it or 6? It's let's grab a stick because it's technically upcast one level bear with us. Yeah, the campaign where we do a ton of ton of the more sex you want to make me

If Mike's got a good one, I'll just- you can send it to me and I'll look up the stat block. It's gotta be a demon, right? Well, it's technically not a demon or a devil. Hold on. Oh, it's neither? Well- Oh, well, you go off. 'Cause we're- There is a demon tag in the advanced search on D&D Beyond. So if I do that- That's fine. Let me see if I can find- And we'll just flavor it. I think a fiend of any kind. Uh, what about a Varrock?

That's like a flying vulture. But as long as the stat block... Well... Why don't we... Let's take a break. Let's take a break, or we can go to someone else's turn and then... Yeah, that's fine. That's fine. I just wanted to, like, get my turn out of the way. Why don't you turn your near? Find the stat block for you. Yeah. Because it's your near's turn. Yep. Good. Thank you. I'm sorry. Oh, God. Now I don't know what I'm gonna do. It's a difficult choice. It is a difficult choice. Do I notice that Taishen is gone? Do we all notice this?

Barna was in, Karen was in. Well, I yelled out, "Taishen, where are you?" I would say that you hear Queenie. I'll glance around and I'll realize that, um, that Taishen's not here. I'll say, "Taishen? Respond, no!" And I'll give it like half a second. You hear nothing, except the crashing waves and the sound of the chaos unfolding around you. You even see, as you yell out for Taishen,

something has come over Scrim and because he's in front of you he's like hunched down and you see him point and all of a sudden the creature that he's described as being the thing that scares him the most in the whole world is wrapping into the fray. I'm gonna save that then. Knowing that this, I felt like a malevolent sense when I flew up into the sky and saw this thing, right? So I think I would at least have an idea

That that would be bad. So what I'm going to do instead is... I don't have anything good. It's been a month, folks. Yeah, it's been a month. Yeah, we're... I will... My hand will frost over and I will cast... Oh no, actually! I can do this now.

I walk up and-- You race up on the wet rocks of the cavern floor. I'll be looking for Taishan and I will say one more time, "Taishan!" And I'll sort of glance at the waters and sort of see if he had fallen in, but then my staff will glow this kind of icy blue and almost this frost will appear around the upper end of it, almost turning into a club, and I'm going to try to smash

this figure with Shillelagh. Oh. It's pronounced Shillelagh. Yeah, sorry, Shillelagh. You look down into the water and it is surging up and down the boat, is rocking and sort of knocking against the rocks even though it's tied quite firmly to a makeshift dock in this space. It's dark in the cave and hard to see through the water, but you do not see the form of Taishen anywhere. Are you dreading me?

Oh, I'm not. Oh. And do I have to roll anything for casting a spell? I miss. For casting spells? Nope. Awesome. Yes! I pass my turn. Oh wow. You what? I pass my turn. Did you send me something? Oh no, no, I can't. I can't. I missed. I can't find it. Well, I'm assuming his AC is higher than 10. His AC is higher than 10. Okay. Then I miss. Okay. You swing in, but looking for Tyshan and doing two things at once, you swing wide.

It continues to, it has taken only the two hits from Barnabas, but as it does, you start to see what is very, very evidently snow. Big, fluffy flakes of snow start to billow out from the face, start to billow out from the sleeves, start to escape out from where its waist should be and where its legs would be. It starts to blow out in all directions, and it

almost flies back and points out at you, and from within the sleeves themselves, you see a bright white light, the same light that you would see when pointing at a star, for example. And it blasts out in this massive cone of icy wind, lashes out, covering all of you. I need you each to make a dexterity saving throw. Oh, shit. I sent you something really cool. Thank you.

I passed that. The dfee is 16, I'm just gonna say it. 16 saves. What kind of saving throw? Dex. Dex you say. Yep. Ooh, I did not pass. I crush him. And I need dice for this. I didn't pass. Should I twist? My dex is pretty high. Yes. Yeah. Where's my guy? Come on. Much better. 19. Oh.

You each take 44 cold damage on a fail, or half as much on a successful save. 22? Jeez Louise. As you are blasted, blasted by this icy wind, it is frigidly cold. You are reminded of all of the worst times that you've been on Drakkar, and

You feel numbness strike you. You feel almost dizzy from it, and it coats the entire interior of the cave, making everything that was wet from sea water suddenly crystallize before immediately starting to melt again as the magic of this creature drops. And that's where we'll...

It's midday, Taishan. You've completed your morning chores, though Delia has been sure to herald some insults at your speed for completing them. And you're now enjoying lunch in silence, sitting and looking across from her as she shovels food into her mouth, just staring you down. So? Yes? Well, how was your morning?

How do you think my morning was? Watching an oaf like you. I got everything done, Delia. Why must you speak to me that way? Isn't it obvious? No, your words are very hurtful. They're intended to be, Ilbon. Well, how is that supposed to make me feel? Perhaps they will drive you to action. Perhaps they will get you to get up and actually take care of things. The front of the house remains unpainted.

We have duties to do, yes, but why can you not do more? Why can you not get what we need to do to turn meager survival and day-to-day monotony into something more? Suppose you're... suppose you're right. What am I eating? You look down and there is no food on the plate in front of you. But it tastes mediocre? Um...

You imagine that it probably would be the same kinds of meals over and over again. If you did find time to fish, then there would be some form of ocean fish on your plate. Or it would be something that stores for long, long periods of time that could be prepared. Perhaps like a porridge or an oatmeal or something along those lines. Just calories. Well, I suppose I'll...

Suppose I'll go out in a terrible storm and take the front of the house. I'm just gonna pause the music. The orcs from Orgrimmar are attacking the front. And leave the food I prepared? Delia, please, I just want to... What can I do to make you happy? I've already told you. You're as thick as... You are lazy. Is this porridge? Sorry. It just was there.

You feel an immediate regret. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because you are the essence of avoidance. You are timidity. You are caution and evasion. Why fight? It'll pass. Storms always pass. Better to wait them out than to even try to fight when Delia's in a mood like this. I'm sorry. I didn't mean it.

I'll go paint the house. I don't even care about the storm. I'll go outside right now. What else? I don't even need a list. I'll find it. I'll find it, I'll do it. I will-- I'll just stop talking. There's nothing else you could need from me. I'll go right now. Responding like this, she loses the daggers in her eyes for a moment and gives you a strange look. What does one willow tree say to the other, Elbon? Oh no!

I'm so happy to be here, how about you? Cold coin. Cold. Suck on these nuts. Obviously it's... let's make like a leaf and get out of here. It's a funny joke. Go and paint the house. Of course. Thank you. I'll clean up inside.

Would I think immediately that her thanking is a young characteristic? She seems to have changed her demeanor. There's a lack of confrontation that had been true all morning in her as you did your daily chores. The moment you saw her, there was an attack. And this is the first time where you've gotten a breath in. No, thank you. My love. She walks up and she gives you a kiss. What?

And she starts to wash the dishes. And with a pep in my step, I walk outside, paintbrush in hand. You go and you find the paint materials in the same storage room, and... That's where... We transition back to the battle in hand. I didn't hear any... Nothing...

I don't hear any calls from the void. No, no, no, no. Everything feels extremely calm. There are these oddities, these little moments. You're picking up on those details, but they're so fleeting that as soon as things come to rest, you're just grateful to be able to go and do the painting that you're about to do. You hear, they will all betray you. LAUGHTER

Top of the round, Barnabas. You have watched this creature explode ice in all directions, and it is continuing to look like it is bolstering for another one of these attacks. The cloak that you've struck looks frayed, though, your two attacks having done significant damage.

Do it. I have already pulled some of the cloth apart and you wonder maybe is there some creature inside that you can smash or is the fabric, when it's torn, will that end this nuisance? Just to maintain game state, would Graveyard Jack have attacked and would Queenie have fired her arrow that she was holding? Thank you. Yes. To mainstain, mainstain? A little bit of homework on our side is all I'm saying. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A little bit of homework. Thanks, Mike. Would Queenie in this moment be able to decide not to?

It's your choice, but you just spend your reaction. Okay. Yeah. Um... Jacky-boy. Yeah, he's coming for that ass. Jacky-boy! So as soon as he steps out from behind the rock and he eyes the target that he has been commanded to go after, he lets out a horrific piercing howl that everyone will hear, but only the cloaked figure needs to make a wisdom DC saving throw. Okay.

And this is a horrific bone-chilling howl from the depths of hell. Baskerville style. Does an 18 pass? Yeah, the 18 passes. I grab it. Having not seen that the howl does anything, he immediately bounds, moving with an unnatural grace and swiftness and smokiness, and is gonna make-- There's a smoky trail behind it. Yes. There's gonna be two bite attacks.

17 plus 9 is 26 to hit? Yeah, that hits. And then 4 plus 9 is 13 to hit. Let's fucking go. We're gonna twist it? That's gonna be a natural 20. So the first one is gonna-- I'm gonna need a shitload of d6s, if you can just give me as many d6s as you have. That's two, that's good, that's enough. Oh, it's enough? Give me one more, give me one more. Perfect. So that's gonna be all the d6s for the attacks. Then I need three more d8s.

Perfect. Jesus Christ. Yep. It's for three attacks. I mean... Three total attacks, basically, with the crit. That's gonna be two, five, ten, eighteen, twenty-three, twenty-eight. Twenty-eight plus twelve is forty. Forty-three. Forty-three, forty-four, forty-five, forty-six, forty-seven, forty-eight, forty-nine. Fifty, fifty-one, fifty-two, fifty-three, fifty-four, fifty-five. Fifty-five total points of damage.

Piercing and necrotic, right? Yes. Some of it is piercing. The necrotic is... If you need to split it out, I can split it out. How much? 56. 56 total damage? Yeah, he just... He came for that ass.

I'm imagining the bulldog, a black version of the bulldog from Tom and Jerry. Do you usually have the piercing separate from the necrotic? Or does it not matter? No, they both do the same amount of damage. The cloak from behind. Awesome, so that would be Graveyard Jack's turn.

And then Scrim is gonna move up. It's not Scrim's turn yet. Sorry, I lied. Yeah, you're right. This creature-- Oh, and it's my turn. The cloak facing the direction that it is has no concept. It is, for a cloak, surprised by the attack, and you watch as it takes apple bite after apple bite from the back of this thing, and you can see shards of ice spraying out, and you imagine that it is doing the work that you so feared would be done to yourself.

Scrim has a wry smile on his face, and then I have to, the demon has to make a wisdom saving throw, which it's not gonna pass, 'cause it's only plus one, so it is still under my control for now. Oh, thank god.

I'm gonna assume that Scrim doesn't know its name. Like, I don't think he knows the name Graveyard Jack. Well, he would know that, like, Tail... He would try to think that the dog's name is Graveyard Jack and use that as its name. If it is its name, it would roll at disadvantage. If not, you know...

That sucks you. You know what I mean? It might not have a, you know, that might not be its true name. So you don't want to be in a contest? Is that what's happening? No, no, no. It's just that if I know the demon's true name, the demon rolls a disadvantage to stay under my control. It's true name? Yes. Which I don't think, I don't personally think its real name is Graveyard Jack. Either way, it got a seven. So it's going to stay under my control. Okay.

Thank you for simulating all of that. Yeah, yeah! All of a sudden you just went from like a normal bike to like a Corvette and I'm just like "Oh my god, what's happening?" So thank you for explaining. Cool, thank you. Okay. Now it's the time for Brandon and Barnaboas. You have seen all of this. I'm gonna like, I'm gonna be shocked that the horrible howl doesn't terrify me as I'll just look back at Scrim and I'll just... My eyes are like wild with madness a little bit now and I'm just like

And I just tear... That's right, Mrs. Saviscotch! And I'm just gonna tear in, just do my barbarian thing, and that'll hit. That'll hit. Two nat 18s, and then I just need two d12s. Pretty easy for me. Not bad. 20 plus 14 is 34 points of bludgeoning damage of the magical variety. Wow, one moment. I need a calculator. I need a calculator. As I just smash into it.

Okay, that's, you do all of those things. You guys are now, I mean, it's looking very, very weak at this point. You are now crashing into the cloak and spilling out

a veritable tempest of snow is falling in all directions. Your hands are getting wet. Your face is getting hit with spiky ice and chunks of snow. You can feel the cold making you numb in all directions. In addition, you're also experiencing the strange smell of brimstone from the attacks that are coming out of the mouth of Graveyard Jack, we'll call him. Queenie.

Queenie will skirt around Scrim and head straight towards the creature within melee range. Okay. And use her action to pull the hood back. Okay.

Who are you? You reach up. And she will just reach up and try to pull back. And I think even though it's like up in the air and you're as short as you are, you are able to hop. I have 15 foot jump. And you have your bees all, who are ready to go, now supporting you and like lifting you up like this. And you grab the hood. I need you to make a dexterity check just in the middle of this chaos. Twist it. I'll twist it. I'll do two. Two twists. Just a regular dexterity check? Mm-hmm.

16. Oh, that's more than enough. You reach up and you grab the top of the hood and you yank down. Ow, that hurt. Did I cut myself? No, I didn't. You yank it back and perhaps what Queenie was suspecting, you see in horror the face of Taishen within the cloak.

Taishen looks frozen-eyed, staring up, pale blue skin like ice. You take 120 damage altogether that I've been adding up as we've been doing this combat, and the cloak falls to the ground, slumps into a pile, and collapses against the frozen cavern floor.

All of you see this happen in but an instant, with Queenie having deduced what may be happening in this strange and impossible place. If I take 120 damage, it triples my health pool? Is that instant character deletion? Well, it depends. Technically. No, no, no, you would need to be...

It needs to double your health. If it doubles my health, well, it's an instant. But it has to be in one hit. So it depends on if it's delivered all at once when the hood comes back or not. It was not delivered all at once. Oh, then you're not. I'm just telling you how much damage I've been having. That's how much damage you've taken between everybody. You're just turbo fucked. Man, I really blew my load too early here. I think Barnabas and I are like, who else but Barnabas and Scream?

It collapses, and there's this sickening smack, almost like meat on a butcher's table, as Taishen collapses and almost starts to roll and slide on the surface of this cavern floor towards the surging waves of the cave. What are you all doing? I'm gonna... I'm gonna... I should have seen this. I'm gonna erg out, I'm gonna crab leg, and I'm just gonna scuttle along the slippery rocks and try to snatch up Taishen.

You are able to grab him. Mr. Fire Blossom! Mr. Yornir, Mr. Yornir, Mr. Yornir! Fix him, fix him, fix him! I would immediately give command to the demon to stop. You'll hear crackling of a warm campfire as I place my hand on his chest and try to breathe some of that heat and fire back into him, casting Cure Wounds at some level.

So I'll roll it, but you'll have health. Okay. We'll see about that. No wonder combat was so easy. Uh-oh. Oh no, is it my turn? Well, this is bad. Are we still in combat? Are we... Have we stopped? You hear a low growl. Yeah. Oh!

Okay, all right, hold on, everybody, calm down. This was a calculated thing, it just turned out I'm bad at math. Okay, this was calculated, I'm just terrible at math. Terrible at math. 12 healing. Derek, 12 healing to your near, to Tyshen. I'm not controlling Tyshen anymore. Tyshen, you're there. Wait, so that begs the question, is Tyshen dead?

No, no, no, no, no. He took 120 damage. He would have...

But per death rules, he would have taken enough to go unconscious, then was hit after that, so would have failed death saves. Yes, he would have. But in this moment, I am saying that the healing power that Yornir puts into him pushes breath back into his lungs. I understand the logic here. You want me to have 12 health and get up. I want you to have 12 health and get up, or rather, wake up, because you are being cradled by Barnabas in his arms, and...

You are no longer in a scene painting a house. Whatever time has passed very, very quickly for you has dilated and come back to this moment. Suddenly it hits you. You were in this cave with your companions. You were facing the captain and watching him warp, and then you had this vignette, and now you hurt. You do not know what has happened over the last few minutes, but it seems minutes have passed.

I feel like someone took a bite out of my ass. Gilby will get a giant face full of sea water. Wake up, Mr. Fireblossom! And then another one. Wake up, Mr. Fireblossom! How's that this happen? Come away! One more. Wake up, Mr. Fireblossom! Okay, there you are, good lad, good lad. It couldn't have been you that I saw. What do you mean? What do you remember? You remember all of it. Oh, okay.

"Oh, I was back, I was at the lighthouse! I was... I was... Ilbon, I think..." You're interrupted. You're endeavoring to tell this story, and you hear all of you, even over the sound of the crashing waves, the sound of this low, almost gurgling growl from the stalking beast that is five, ten feet from you.

Oh, thank goodness, it's just your adorable dog. Ashley's shaking and sweating and as pale as Scrim has ever been. I'd still just be pointing at him and being like, stay, back up, move, don't, no attacking, stop, go away, go away, go away! And trying to command it to back up and maybe try to dismiss it. It's pacing back and forth. I technically have to make saving throws every six seconds.

Uh, you know, DM discretion aside. I would say make an intimidation check. And I'm gonna use a twist of threat. Okay, that's fair. Intimidation, you say? That's where- Oh, I am a viking at that! Uh, at disadvantage. Okay, here we go. Big money. That's a big one. The first one is a 23. Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on. 16. 16's the lower. It...

back and forth, continues to stay there until it takes one step backwards and then stands and looks, sizing you all up. I need to make a group intimidation check. Again, me as well, or just get mine? Okay. And I'm spending five of my dreads. Okay.

Well, one was a natural 20. One was a 19 and one was a 30. I got a dirty 20 as my low number. Damn, you're intimidating as fuck. Plus eight charisma. How you doing? 12. Five. Four. I think I have a 18. Seeing it back up one step, I will point the brutal blade at it and step forward and say, "That's right! Go away! Be gone!" And attempt to redouble my efforts and hope that everyone sees a burst of confidence.

paw backwards, a paw backwards, and it makes its way back, not to this rock, but all the way to the back of the cave, where it is the darkest. Skulk, skulk, skulk, skulk. And soon its fur, its matted fur, the darkness of its skin, its huge talon-like claws, and its eyes are all that's left. You don't see it blink. They just aren't there. After a moment.

I didn't think that was gonna work! But you did mean to do that, yes? Yeah, yeah, yeah! I was trying! I certainly didn't mean to harm Taishen! I didn't know! I couldn't have known! The last thing I remember, we were all in the cavern together, lunging at the cloak, and then... And then I was back at the lighthouse! And I was Ilbon, and Ilbon was me! And I was there with Delia!

And I started to tend it like it was my job. I felt like I was living his life. And that feeling of avoidance remains within you. I'm still holding you, right? Gently. Wait a minute, I'm gonna drop you on the ground. And I'll stand over you. Tell me something Mr. Fireblossom would only know. Oh.

I love tea and mele. I come from the Jade Shell Village. Hold on. I think it's all disgusting hot leaf juice. Well, that is the opinion of a dullard. Okay, Mr. Firebrow somehow. That avoidance changes. As soon as you call him a dullard, you become confrontation. You become like Delia, and all you want to do is hurl

All you want to do is be aggression. Reveal your grievances. It annoys you when people insult tea, or your tea especially. That was a stupid thing to say, Barnabas. You ugly, fat, stupid, mediocre fisherman. He's also kind of bald. You could throw that in there. You bald, dumb, stupid... Now, Mr. Fireblossom! You're right on!

those points except for one. I am not good. You're not even good at hunting monsters. Most of them get away. I haven't seen you kill a single monster since we've been together. I've killed several monsters since we've been together. I may be fat. I may be bald. I may be irritable. I may not be that smart. But no one insults my fishing or my cooking. And you know what? That was my next point. Your cooking is a little tasteless. Oh.

You use one seasoning! Ancient estuary doesn't work on everything! Oh, it doesn't, you sir fireblaster! No, it doesn't! I've seen you! You light me up, sir! I've seen it! No, I'm not lighting you up, sir! I'm gonna grab him by the neck and pick him up! Say you light me up, sir!

I won't! I won't, sir! No, I won't! It's mediocre! I'm gonna punch him in the face! What's happening? This isn't the Taishen we know! Are we sure it's not him? How much damage would I take from getting punched in the face? At least fucking six. Six points of damage. Yeah, you take half of your damage. Oh no, I'm still resisting! Eight points of damage. Jesus. What do we... Twelve? Yeah, okay.

I hate it! You need to choose someone else that isn't Barnabas. As this is happening, I'm going to step up. Bogey, you need to shut up!

You really think that your lobster and your tea is worth fighting about right now? You almost died. You shut up! You dumb queenie! Tea is the only thing worth fighting about! I'm gonna choose for you. You're near. I don't think that's a fair thing to say. You are avoidance. You are timidity. You are caution and evasion. Whenever the situation turns perilous, you retreat, hesitant to engage. Uncertainty clouds your thoughts. Avoid confrontation whenever possible, even when it might be necessary.

And you may continue. I'm going to pretend like you did not just say that to me because I know you've been through a traumatic situation right now. Yorner, back me up on this. Get in there, big guy. Come on. We need you. Yorner, please. Barnabas is fuming. I can't give a twing to him on my own. Why are you stumbling so much? What am I to say? You usually have anything on your mind.

to say. And what was this with this healing? You call yourself a medicine man and barely back up? That's not nice. I was just trying to help. Do you need more? With his light touch and I'm almost back down. All right.

Tyshen goes unconscious, and he watches his body falls backwards into the drink. Oh, I should've healed you more, I'm so sorry. I'm going to go up and I'm going to-- You like me, Lannister? He's sinking, fish him out! Fish him out, fish him out, he's sinking! I'll fly, I'll fly, I'll fly. I'll drag him up, and I'll prop him up against the side of the cave wall.

I will use more powerful magic this time, and at a second level, I'll cast your wounds. We are so fucked, ladies and gentlemen. Cleen, what's going on here? I don't know. Nobody's acting right! Barbos is kind of normal. You look at me right now.

14 points of healing.

Please, I need you to take this seriously for just a second. All right. Hey, you're all right. All right. We're all a little on edge. Is that... Do you feel better than you did last time? Of course he does, Mjolnir. You did a great job. What's that? Same thing. Good. Am I still... You take the healing. I don't know what you're asking. Am I still an asshole? Oh, that feeling does not fade. However...

In the role that you play, you don't have to be attacking 100% of the time all of the time. You can come down to a low simmer and try to drive action forward. Should someone ever cross the line, then maybe you throw the insults at them. But the initial surge of, let's call it hatred in you, can be tampered by compliance with things going your way.

Goodness gracious. Can we all just take a deep breath here for a second and listen to Yone? He's gotta have a game plan. Come on. What next, big guy? Come on. That was better healing, Yone. Thank you. Oh, I don't have a... Why would I? No. I mean, whatever you want to do. What?!

What do you feel like we should do at this point, Scrim? Me? Scrim? You're asking Scrim for Scrim's opinion? No, I'm sorry! No, I'm-- I just-- I figured if I say something-- We need to get off this fucking rock! Maybe Bar on the Boat might disagree. Somebody's body snatched you on here. He's definitely not you on here. All right, I need everybody to calm down.

We are not doing anything rash. We tried that and we almost killed Tashen. Yes, we need to get off of this rock, but we're not running out of here right now. I need you to lower your blood pressure. Why don't you make some tea? Why don't you just boil some water, put some ancient estuary in it, and just gulp it down like you do sometimes in the morning when you think no one's watching. So. I thank you, Mr. Fire Blossom. The moment that you produce flame, I need everybody to make a charisma saving throw. Oh, shit.

Oh no. They're just waiting. This is not good. Okay, I'm a Viking at this. Oh, don't bother twisting this. Yes. Oh, I need a twist, for sure. I also need a twist. I'm a Viking. I'll twist once. I'll take one twist just because-- 26. Look at this show off. I'm pretty serious, man.

Nine. I got a 15. I am on the edge. Lucky number? Eight. Thirteen. Oh my god. Oh no, I also got an eight. Wait, hold on. Eight. Taishan, you produce this flame, and it's with that 26 that you are able to create it. And you are going in to light the embers of Barnabas's pipe, so that his tobacco can catch, and all of you look at it, and

You feel this, it's like all of you jumped into your throat, this terrible fear, raw, frightening fear, as though you've never been more scared of anything in your entire life. You are mechanically frightened. You want to run. Oh no, no, no, no. You are horrified.

It only lasts for a moment. You produce the flame because you know you have that, but the 26 only bought you seconds before that same fear also collides with you like a bucket of ice water hitting you, and all of a sudden, you want to get it off, get away, and you start to feel yourself wanting to flee, flee this space, flee it because it has had flame in it. Nope, nope, nope. No! No!

I jump into the water and ballshape into a seal. Into the boat, into the boat! Barnabas jumps into the boat and literally almost rams into Barnabas as you are starting to swim. The three of you are running on what is wet, almost icy cavern floor. I jump onto my bees and I'm walking like those like

the escalator walkways. You just keep screaming out of the cavern.

What are you doing? We've been bored for ten minutes! Okay. When you finally make it to the outside, you can see that the side of the island is being hit with more and more violent waves of water. Barnabas is the last to come out, having to row like he does, but Yornir, the surge, the undertow is very, very strong against... Oh, you're...

You're a seal. You're doing okay, but it is still quite violent as a storm is very literally still crashing and coming in, pushing up against the island and looking up and around, finally freeing yourself from the fear that you just experienced having gotten away from the terrible fire that was in the cavern. You look up and there is no turning light that you would expect to see hitting the clouds, especially in a tempest that looks like it's going to come.

What the fuck was that? What did you do? Why am I in fire? Then go where you came from. We're not in fire no more. We need to get out of here. We should get in the boat and just head for the island. Where's Mr. Yornear? Mr. Yornear! My head will pop up. Is that Mr. Yornear or a seal? I'm like, you see me, I look pretty horrified. And I'm looking for fire, like any sense of it.

Is there, there's no, nothing to let? Make a perception check. If I feel like I'm close enough to the boat, I'd probably try to hop in with Barnabus. If I feel like I can jump in. 18. I thought we were on the boat. No, the three of them ran up the cavern floor. You rode out by your lonesome and you or near became a seal.

So yeah, I'm out here. Yeah, I mean, given the frightened condition, I just went away from Taishan. Right? Like I was trying to do, you know what I mean? There's like a beach along the side of him. Yeah, so if you were like close enough, I would try to jump in. I would then, once the fear of the flame is kind of dull, I'll cowl out, all right, I'm taking her back, and

And I'll take the dinghy closer to the shore to collect everyone if they would care to get into the boat. You look with your seal eyes. What are your seal eyes? See? You don't see any glowing on the island.

that would indicate a light source of any kind that would be resembling fire, let alone light in general. It's dark looking up. It's almost impossible to tell the rock from the sky. And you do not see the telltale signs of a beam of light that should be coming from the lighthouse, especially at night, especially on a stormy night like this. But you look out also just to verify. And on the horizon...

No ships, no lights. Even the coast that's in the distance seems a thin gray line. I'll scythe a seal, scythe a relief. My Intendant Seal!

Are you a what seal? A timid seal. A timid seal? Yeah, you still feel the timidity of your prompt. I'll start looking around for any orcas in the area. Oh no! So I'm gonna be like those seals, if anyone's seen those videos where the seals desperately clamber up onto the boat to escape the orcas. So I'm literally trying to clamber up onto the rowboat, and once I'm on there, I just sort of flop there, and I stop. Very timidly. You do that.

And it sounds like while I'm trying to manage 14 things at the same time, you all jumped into the boat? I'm flying next to it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, if we had the ability to, as soon as it got close enough, Scrim would have tried to jump in the boat with Barnabus. You hop in. No more flames! We need to take a minute here, right? The whole point that we even came down here in the first place is because we overheard that conversation, right? And we're expecting the...

the two of those bastards to show up at any minute. And we have to be ready for it. And then the cloak thing happened and then Taijin was in the cloak and now here we are and I don't know what's happening anymore. They wanted us to take their place, trudge on this rock. We are getting away.

Wait, you mean you're just going to row us out into the storm away from the island? We're going to the mainland. There's willows and wizards there. I'll take that. Better than being trapped for eternity on that rock. What if it's weeks or months and we get lost and we don't have any supplies or anything? We're going to die. We're going to die at sea. We're going to capsize. Scram, you can't be so afraid of everything. We've got to get out of here. We've got to head towards the witches and the willows. That's where they're going to go. I'm agreeing with Scram.

We don't have all the information. We shouldn't make any choices unless we know everything that could possibly happen. Thank you! Why do it today when we could do it tomorrow, a week from now, or never? The only thing I know is Scream couldn't plan his way out of a wet paper bag with the brutal blade in both hands twice. All I'm saying is if at least one of us doesn't think we should do it, then we shouldn't. That's just what I've been saying for months, Queenie. Thank you for listening to me. You're welcome, Scream. After I saw that fire, I'm a changed woman. Ah,

So it's settled. We just wait here until we die. Yeah, you don't want to have any regrets. I have so many. Well, you don't want any more. You make a choice like that, and you'll regret it. I'm Rowan of the mainland. You're welcome to jump in the water, Scrim. No. No. Eona, come on. Say something. Give us a piece of wisdom. Anything. We need direction. Okay.

Tell anybody to catch that name. They speak seal. I'll do a seal shrug. I speak bee, but not seal. We're doomed. I'm booking it to the mainland. I don't give a fuck about what anyone's saying. I am Rowan. Okay? And an experienced, seasoned sailor such as yourself, it is difficult work.

even for someone as strong as you, and someone with an unlimited, unfathomable amount of experience, would not... Wow, I lost my train of thought because I made the pun unfathomable. That's really good. That's really good. Can we just-- got to go to Fratera. Wow, that was somewhat clever. Thank you, thank you. We're clapping for the session. We're clapping for the pun. Yeah, that was somewhat clever. Don't misunderstand. You...

are having to row over these massive swells in the...

You are all being hit with salty, wet air. It's crashing up against the boat, and you're doing your best to make sure that you don't capsize. You are looking behind you every once in a while, and then giving it a one, two, three, maybe four, and then looking behind. If you make the wrong turn up one of these swells, you might capsize and turn over. And it's really impeding your ability to get farther away from the...

I'm trying to go over all the waves. I'm trying to aim the bow. Go into the waves. How does...

piloting a water vehicle in Dungeons & Dragons. I've never simulated this. I am proficient in water vehicles. I assume that you would be. You could choose, it's a tool, you could choose a stat that would be associated with this tool, so maybe strength, because he's rolling? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it would be a, you could do strength plus proficiency, so you would basically add effectively what you would for athletics. Or, I think I heard a whisper in my Goodyear athletics,

Well, yeah, athletics or just a strength check plus proficiency. I don't know if I get double proficiency because... I think you get double because if you're doing athletics and you're adding the twist of dread that I'm using, then everything's hunky-dory. I'm desperately just trying to be dead center in the middle of the boat as a CR. That's still gonna be pretty good. You're gonna add like 11. 10 plus... Oh.

Even with the dread, it is... wait a minute. Is that actually true? Plus eight? Eight would be your athletics, and then if he's doubling proficiency, it'd be 11, right? It would be eight, so it'd be plus eight, plus another five on top of that, plus 13, so 23. Wow.

23. Damn! You make progress. It is slow, hard work. And you are staring at the island the entire time. Whenever you're not checking for the waves, you are staring at the island. And it is dark. It is that same wedge shape that I described earlier. You can see the small silhouette of...

of this unlit lighthouse there on the top and even the flat of the house and you wonder about your experience there, how you arrived here and how in a pretty short amount of time you are now fleeing, fleeing hoping to reach the coast. These thoughts occur to all of you. Taishen, you are feeling that same

drive of action and pain. You are still wounded. You can remember, yeah, you feel the hit to your jaw. You feel injuries that you don't remember taking bites against your back. Jornir, you're just hoping that there won't be anything too emotional. You are just hoping that

This is the last of the storm, and that by the time you make it to the... Perhaps there will be some peace and quiet for a moment, and no one gets upset. Scrim, you're thinking about those eyes. Yeah. And Queenie, how are you feeling?

Queenie's feeling hesitant. She's looking back towards the rock and thinking that she should go back. That this feels a lot like attacking the masked figure, just making a rash decision and going for it. Knowing that how we got here was inexplainable. How we're going to leave isn't going to be something as simple as rowing away from the island. But not wanting to leave her friends, but also feeling like we're making the wrong choice and just to...

multitude of not knowing what to do. You are feeling this and you're feeling the waves. These thoughts are swimming through all of you. Thank you for telling me. And as the wave comes down and you take another dip, Barnabas is seemingly focused on piloting this thing. All of a sudden, you crash into rock.

The bottom of the boat scrapes against the reason the lighthouse is here in the first place. And you watch as wood tears away underneath you. And what was a simple ship, a simple rowboat, splinters and shatters and you find yourself crashed against the surface of one of these flat rocks that is the reason why this lighthouse is here.

The boat is almost completely destroyed, halved by the immediate impact, and you see the waves surging all around you. You think that for a moment you only are going to have another minute before one of these large waves perhaps is tall enough to pull you off of the slick surface of this rock. What are you doing? So you're a seal, not a walrus.

Yes, I'm kind of with you. Queenie's flying with these. Yeah, I could get both Scrim and... Tyshen? And Yornir. No, not Tyshen.

Gai Shin's way too heavy, but I could get the two of you with my bees. I'm a pretty big seal. Okay, well then I can get Scrip. I can get Scrip with my bees. I'm a big seal! I'm a big seal! So even though we crash on a rock, there's still surf crashing all over us, right? Exactly right. It's when the waves are at their very tallest that you think that it'll be taller than even you are, your near-

where it'll literally collapse over the entire rock and then continue on its way. It'll be hard to hold on to the top of this rock in those moments, but you are watching smaller waves crash up and around and everything is spraying down against you. It feels like it's raining, even though it isn't, just because of the surge that is spraying all around you. Ah, fuck! How deep is it here? Deep?

Yeah, between all of the rocks. Is there depth, or is it, like, really... Are we basically over, like, shallows? Make a check of some kind? That's tricky. I think you might have to go into the water to answer that question, right? If I get, like, knocked out of the water... I mean, since I'm a seal, I would immediately, like, jump in. If in this moment I can just jump down and check to see how...

like how deep it is, and if I feel any of it's navigable underwater. That's what I want to check for. While that's happening, we all get tumbled into the surf, I imagine. I would look at Queenie and say, get Mr. Samuskotch, I got Mr. Fireblossom! As I'm going to attempt to grab Taishen. Because I know that I'm strong enough to carry Taishen while swimming. And I don't know how strong the bees or the seal is. The bees can carry it.

Can they carry a scrub? Mm-hmm. Okay, yeah. So the two of you are on the air, essentially. Yeah. Okay. So the breeze... You're holding on together. They form a hand and grab you. You watch... You like jazz? You watch the short hop or two, those cute seal hops, and all of a sudden, your ear disappears into the wave, and you are underwater, and you start to...

swim as quickly away from the rock as possible, feeling the currents pushing and pulsing back and forth like this, but being able to swim as gracefully as a seal, you pull away from the rock and start to descend 10, 15, 20 feet. What do you do as you get under the water? You're looking for a floor? No, I'm just looking to see if there's depth to the ocean.

and I feel like we're in actual ocean and that it can be... You're attempting to perceive that this is an illusion. Well, yes, I'm trying to see, A, do I feel like this is just actual natural ocean? But also...

you know, just trying to see if it's like endless rocky shores or did we sort of get unlucky? There's one rock here, but like we could get out, there's either a channel or if we can like get into some sort of like safer water. It's dark and

difficult to see very far out, but you go a little bit deeper and you start to spy. Yes, there do seem to be these arms, just like that wedge shape that happens to be above the water most of the time that has a lighthouse on it. There are these same similar shapes all throughout the floor of this. You can see massive ones like this, and some of them are close enough to the surface where you can see them

Rise above the water as as the the waves continue to move with the wind into the coming storm So it looks like there's jagged rocks in all directions treacherous rock it is treacherous, okay? Okay, well we didn't That's not all you see oh, oh Okay, you peer down and you turn perhaps to glance back at the rock that you know your friends are on and you can see creatures

humanoid-like creatures, scaled and strange, covered in seaweed, start to pull themselves up the rock. And there seem to be dozens of them starting to make their way up, almost like ants going up an anthill. Ah, thank gosh I'm on these bees. Thank you, Queenie, you saved my life. Yet again. Anything for you, Scram. How many times is this? 40? 50?

I don't know what I owe you at this point. More than that, probably. I will quickly swim to Barnabas, and I will... I have Taishen with me, and I'll just say, Only breathe when it's safe, lad! Trying to point down to the ocean with my head, like, and I'll look down. Hold your breath, lad! And I'll dive with Yornir as a seal. I got some giant calves and fins on them, so I'm just... I'm fucking...

seeing in... I'm Aquaman-ing my way down. Not understanding what Jorner is describing in full, you grab onto Taishen, and the two of you watch as they dip into the drink, pulling themselves underwater, and you start to

use your triton abilities to swim and you can see Yornir's just alongside you and you follow his gaze and you see now just the exact same thing that Yornir, your seal sees. You turn and there are these strange creatures. They seem to be pushing off the rock now and it feels like they are 15, 20 feet away. They're strange black eyes covered in seaweed. They seem to have been crawling from the ocean floor.

Being the salty sea dog that I am, when I recognize these creatures. Or have heard tales. These creatures seem to be an amalgamation of the things that you remember. A resemblance of what stories you've heard of skeletons that exist on the, in crashed ships.

around lighthouses, stories of them coming back to life and returning to the shore for whatever unknowable purpose they happen to shamble up for. But also sea creatures. Some of them seem to have scales and fins across the top of their head. Gills, these sorts of features. Strange jaws and teeth.

razor sharp, like a piranha almost. They all have slightly different characteristics. They are not shifting. They are still present, but they don't seem to match any of the templates, and yet they match all of them, from your experience. I look at your ear. Does it feel like we would be totally outmatched trying to fight or kill these things? It almost feels like looking down at an army. Have you read the short story Dagon? Are you...

Are you all relatively together? We're above the waves. You three are together and we're flying above the ocean. So I look at the army, I look at that and say, I will sort of like, I will sort of like, try to kind of like, point my head at where they are to try to like get you to sort of be all together. I'll say I have a booming Aquaman voice. LAUGHTER

We need to get out of here! I'm going to the surface! Atlantis. And I'll swim, and I'll tell you to--you're hanging onto my netting as I'm swimming. In the time it's taken you to communicate, these creatures have closed the distance. And you can feel them starting to grab at your sealed body, starting to pull at your feet. Tyshan's balls are emerging as you're struggling to hold your breath in.

Barnaboats, you can feel this creature tugging, tugging, tugging, and even with your great strength, the weight of Taishen being what it is, you do not know if you're going to be able to surface. You can still breathe, but it's only a matter of time before the tearing, the pinching, the ripping, the clawing, and all of a sudden, all of you are not where you were moments ago.

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Horror Tome for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition. And don't forget to snag all the extra goodies like dice, miniatures, plushies, a tarot deck, and more. Thank you. Moments ago, you were just above the middle of an ocean, a strait that existed between a lighthouse island and a coast. Blinking. There's a moment of confusion, and you find yourselves all...

staring at each other, looking at your feet. You're sitting up, but you are sitting, and you seem to be in a room. You're all assembled, almost as though placed there. And you look up, you can see a ceiling, you can see windows all around, and it's not difficult a few seconds later to deduce that you are in the top of the lighthouse.

Oh no. But there is no lantern here, or lamp. There's what you saw when you investigated the first time, a empty space where a lamp should be. You can feel the metal under your feet, or under your hands, and starting to sit up and come to your senses, you realize your body's feeling stiff, numb. There's a bit of a shiver to it before you

very slowly start to come to your senses. Um... Do we remember where we just were? Being all armed? Oh my god. Is your inner still a seal? No. Am I still timid? You do feel that timidity. There's a, uh...

Almost like a muting or a numbing of what would normally be the typical direct yournir. There's still that avoidance that seems to be cursing you at this time. Ooh.

You have experience of when you're in seal form as a druid in WoW and you're lagging and you go all the way to the top of the lighthouse and then the internet comes up and you're back in your human form. That's what you've just experienced. Yeah. Incredible. I'm going to look down and see if on my really sweet calves, if there's any like fishy hand marks or skeletal like hand prints like

cursing or poisoning me. If I can look, if I even have like the... I'm a lot stiffer. Wherewithal. Yeah. That's a word I was gonna use! Fuck! I couldn't think of it! It bros! It bros. Vocabulary bros. Fuck! You lean forward as quickly as you can and you almost like creak forward and you look at your magnificent calves and... Ah, they really are nice! It takes you a minute to get the blood and the sensation back into them, but they appear to be uninjured.

A moment ago, you could have felt that there was a hand pulling the flesh off of him. What do we do? Nothing makes any sense! Nothing is going the way we need it to! Everything is all messed up and topsy-turvy! How does this place keep moving us around? Ridiculous! It wasn't... it's not the real sea out there. It's not even a real lighthouse.

Are we all just thousands of miles away, freezing to death in the snow, trapped in the blizzard? What a way to go. It is likely that this is what was happening, maybe, during those two weeks. Must we pass two weeks before we can leave? We don't even know how much time is passing between these, these, these, these...

images, these things we're experiencing. We're all over the place. We don't know where or when we are. What's going on? Do we know... I'm gonna, like, peek over the edge if I can, look down into the house to see if I can see any lights on or any movement. You'd have to walk through the door and step out onto the balcony. There's a word for it. I can't remember it. But you'd have to effectively, like, go out and lean over the railing in order to see... I'll do that. You do that. And you lean over and...

I shrink for a moment and... No, there is indeed a house. There aren't any lights on. Do I see any lights at all? No. All you hear is the howling wind. You see the crashing waves far, far below you. It's dizzying how tall up you are when you are at the height of this lighthouse. It's not a small or a medium, let's say. But you can't see any, any source of light.

I want to think about flame, and how does that make me feel emotionally? You shrink from the thought. Just your mind going there, thinking, well, surely there's a fireplace. Surely there's a lantern. Surely there's some form of flame. Just those thoughts are pulled from your mind as they come in, almost like they are themselves being scared away by it.

I'll come back in. I do not see any sign of the lighthouse keepers. I am still very afraid of flame. Did they make the switch? Are we doomed here, trapped on this rock forever? How could we be? We survived this once, right? I mean, it begs the question. What happened the first time we were here? We went up to the obelisk and then all of a sudden we lost two weeks and we came out the other side.

We have to do it again! Is it the same as last time? We don't know! What are we doing wrong? Do we have to go back? Did... Did we not see them? Did we... We beat them there. They weren't in the cave. And they couldn't have swapped with us. We haven't seen them at all. And we took the only boat that they were going to use. It's now crashed along the... Along the rocks. They have no other way off.

Is there like the... is it like a pool of mercury? Or like Quicksilver or whatever? When you stand, it is like a moat.

would be a better way of putting it. There's a hole in the center where the actual... The flat metal bottom or... Exactly, right. But there is this mode of quicksilver and that is what would the majority of the weight would sit on so that if it were properly greased and properly handled, the mechanism would have to spend very, very, very little fuel in order to turn it and keep it moving and gliding perfectly smoothly.

I think you'd know enough about lighthouses to have an understanding of that technology, but it's very strange to see the naked bath of quicksilver like this without the lamp on. All we can do is go look for the wiki and his wife. See if they're still here. But what if they know what our plan was? We chop them up into little bits! They're powerful. What if they reset us back to this position again? Then what hope is there anyway, Mr. Yorneir?

We either cave their... They either do what we want, we cave their skulls in, or we're all dead and trapped here for an eternity. What if we're supposed to go back to the cave again? And try again somehow. Maybe we did something wrong. Even if we are, the boat's gone. I'm with Barnabus. We have to find the wiki and Delia and see if they have any other way off this stupid island. The hesitation you're feeling from Yornir is...

making that blood rise in you again. Feeling frustration, feeling like an outburst is just behind the surface. You're not there yet, but it is difficult, difficult to hear his meandering when the choice is clear. I will do whatever you think is best, all of you.

Well, just as a counterpoint to what Yoni is saying, if for some reason the timeline is all messed up, what if the boat's back in one piece? I mean, I would say we kind of did mess up. We almost killed Daishen. I'm still sorry about that, buddy. To be fair, you did cast a massive blast of coal in the form of a cone. I did? He's right. As far as I understand, I can't use... I've never used...

Ice magic before? That's why none of us presumed that you were Mr. Fire Blossom. Except Queenie. How did you know? I don't think what cast that magic was Tashen. I think it was the cloak he was in. What happened to the cloak? We left it in the cave. Maybe we need to burn the cloak. Or use its power. Oh yeah, I could have put that thing on and have some really bitchin' ice powers. Or you could have gone the same way as Tashen. Ah. And then we would have been left with your hand.

And you could have just fed me to it. We wouldn't have. Not like we would be able to stop it if it didn't.

was really reckoning on killing you. But we would have tried. We would have tried, at least, yes. We all came together and we were able to chew it away. That was good, right? You think that'll happen again next time, now that it's tasted Mr. Firebosom's blood? No, no, no, no, no. It's gotten a taste of one of us. Now, let me be very clear. The grass... It'll definitely come back to life. The control...

that I had over that thing was tenuous at best. I want to be very, very explicit. I was not in control of that situation at all. Why would you call upon a demon like that if you had no control over it? What were you thinking? Because we've had lots of conversations about this and you know what? Queenie's right. She's one of the bravest people that I know. And I'm tired of being such a coward. If that thing wanted to kill me, it'd have done it by now. So why not embrace it?

Why not harness the strength? What could go wrong? Well, you don't have all the information. I thought you'd be in my corner! What the hell, Queenie? Look, just because I think that you shouldn't be afraid of it all the time doesn't mean I think that you should be reckless with your life either. I think there's a happy medium somewhere in there, Scrim, and you just gotta take the time to think on it. I can't win! I agree with Queenie. That's because you make all your choices on a whim.

I'm passionate! What do you want from me? I'm impulsive! I know it! Face that goblin temper. I'm-- Yornir. Choose somebody other than Tyshan. Based on what? Is this a Yornir thing or a Ritchie thing? This is a Ritchie thing, because when Yornir agreed, he felt certainty for a moment.

And you feel Yornir would feel this leave. But at a meta level, you can't choose someone who's already had the prompt. That's all. Both Yornir and Richie were both leaning towards, because Scrim is very much, you know, emoting right now, his attention would be towards Scrim. Okay. So that's where his focus would be. Scrim...

You become avoidance. I'm emotional! I'm passionate! I know you are. And Taishen... I said I know you are! You feel this confrontation leave you, and you become Taishen again, free and clear. It is you, Yorneir, who takes on the role of confrontation as the...

As the light shifts. I thought I had a moment of, I thought I was, never mind. Hey, I'm not trying to tell you you shouldn't be a dog. Scream, I'm sorry. I do think you can do it, I really do. No, it's not a big deal. Don't worry about it. It's just another day that ends in Y. Look, I got my bees, you got your dog. Oh no, your bees are beautiful, the dog is just awful. I mean, it was cute in its own way, kind of.

I don't want to talk about this anymore. If we ever do sail again, we're not bringing that on board, bad luck. What? If you had a cat, that would have been one thing. Cats are awful. On a ship, though. Why wouldn't you want a dog on a ship? Dogs don't catch rats. Because dogs are busy cuddling you and making you feel better. Hey, bad luck on a ship. That's what your mates are for on a ship. I don't want to cuddle with any of y'all. The reason why you always lose...

Scrim, it's because you always make the wrong decision. Why? Do you understand this? You say you cannot win, but you always lose. I mean, I know, but-- Well, that's not true, though. Yes, it is. He's kinda true. He does sometimes. He bases his decision on whim and gut and his emotion. I did just say that, but I didn't mean it in a, like, all the time insult. Well, I do. Okay, well, I--

This is why we should never listen to him for anything. His opinion is worthless. Hey! He's having a hard time. He's feeling a lot of regret for sticking that dog on his friend. Well, that was a stupid idea, too. Ah, Jorna's right. I can't do anything right. No, you can't. Don't listen to him. No, Mr. Staviscos, that was the right decision.

You're going to whip that dog into shape and teach it who's boss. You're going to show that you are the alpha male. Oh, you're right. It's not a cat. It's worthless. I'm worthless. We're just not going to bring it on a ship. We'll leave it on the shore and that will be fine. Everyone get up right now. Okay. You don't get to order me around. We're going to go confront the lighthouse. I know that's the right thinking. Are you sure? We should. What?

I don't know. I don't know. It seems dangerous. I'm having a change of heart. I don't like the fact that you're ordering me around, but I do agree with what you would like. I think that, honestly, despite his strange, salty attitude... He's acting more like you than he is himself. I know. Finally, someone can give me some backup. One of him is enough. I'm like, this whole time, I'm just, like, chewing. I would take ten a scrim before I take another one of him. I'm not smoking because I'm afraid of fire, but, like, I'm anxiously, like, just kind of, like, biting and chewing on my pipe.

Have I raised my voice like a mindless beast as he does? You know what? I don't like the tone you're using, but I am agreeing with things that you're saying. It's kind of hard to argue with him when he's like this. I mean, he's not--

He's not entirely wrong. He's being real. You know why this is true? I'm the only one with the wisdom to properly vocalize the world around me. He's right. That right there is false in many ways. I don't think so. He's right. No, Scrim, he's not right. I don't want to do it, but I... Everyone get up right now. Okay. I think everyone already is up. Please stop yelling. I'm not yelling. I'm speaking formally so that you will listen to me. You could say, please.

You will catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, all right? May we please go now? I mean, not with my garlic vinegar, but... Well, we don't need to debate that. I'm already...

I mean, even then, it's just sugar that attracts him. You're not going to get him with vinegar, whether it's got garlic in it or not. And I would like to apologize for that, Barnabas. I don't know what came over me. I do quite enjoy your lobster. I will thank you very much for that. And what do you say back to Tash and Barnabas? I quite enjoy your tea.

And I'm sorry for punching you in the face, class, until you died, all right? I'm sorry for punching you in the face. I think that I kind of deserved it in the moment. All right, thank you. I'm sorry I also smashed you with my anchor no fewer than four times.

Friend Barnabas, I hold no grudge against you. I hold no grudge until you insult my fishing or my cooking again. Well, that's fair. That's fair. And I just didn't mean it. I don't know what was going on with me. Isn't this a beautiful moment that just transpired here? I almost went full Hark Triton on you. Anyway. We're going to leave. We're going to leave. Okay, all right. That's fine. I think that we should find the wiki.

I start heading down the stairs. I'll be right there. I'll timidly follow. You make your way down the spiral staircase, occasionally glancing through the window as it is definitely starting to rain. The wind that has pushed all of the waves that you've experienced so far now patter against the thick panes of glass that make the exterior of leaden glass, even.

make the exterior of this lighthouse. You make your way all the way down to the bottom as safely as you can, given the dim light, and then you exit. You have to walk the path from the front of the lighthouse through the rain, and then make your way to the front entrance of the house where you knock. As we're walking towards the house, Taishen will feel a light tug on the back of his coat. Taishen. Taishen.

Are you mad at me? I feel like you're mad at me. No, Scrooge, why? I just feel like you're mad and I'm... Are you mad at me? No, something... I said some things I didn't mean. Something came over me.

Are you guys like hanging back?

I'm not with you right now. I was right behind you. I didn't pull him away, I just tugged on him to get his attention. Well, to answer that question, what do you think of my lobster, Mr. Stab-a-Scotch? It's really good. No, then I ain't mad at you. Oh, thank you.

Is Yornir mad at me? Something's going on with Yornir. I feel like Yornir's mad at me. Yornir pounds on the door and it opens almost immediately and standing at the entrance you are staring in the face of the Lightkeeper, Ilbon. Where have you been? We've been worried sick.

I will grab him by his collar and I'm gonna throw him to Barnabus. Take him. Oh, now that I can agree with Mister. You will face your fate and you will tell us what is going on, what your plan is, what this storm has to do with India, this is how we leave. Barnabus, please be careful with him. He's gonna be mad at me.

As he says that, I'll grab him by the throat and seawater will splash on me as my hand is a giant claw. And I mean not like a sharp claw, like a fucking big fat giant stone grab claw. I can see it. It's like choking him. Mara! I'll release a little bit. Delia!

I'm gonna walk into the house and look for Delia. Delia is already on her way, and she's looking panicked. She can see her husband just behind you through the doorway as you are all standing out in the rain. He's being obviously choked, threatened, held, and-- I'm gonna grab her as soon as I can. As soon as she's in reach. She's definitely gonna be mad at me! She grabs your wrist, and she looks at you. What? What?

"is this, and how do we leave?" If we told you, then we couldn't. "Why are you stuck here?" Because we're here. "What if we were to kill you right now, what would happen?" We would die, and maybe some of you would live. "I'll pull her out of the house, "let the rest of everyone."

The rain is starting to come down just a little bit harder now. I'm gonna release. Okay, how about you? Are you any more helpful than she is? Speak plainly. I'm lifting him up the ground now. Off the ground. He's holding on as best he can to the insides of the claw. We don't mean you any harm. We don't. Please let me down. Oh, you can just tell us how to get out of here and I'll put you right down, Mr. Wickie.

We can't! Do I ascertain that he's telling the truth? Make an insight check. And I'll use a crystal threat. Oh, God! Oh, bummer. It's still very good. Yeah, of course, I got two natural 20s, and both of them were dreads. Insight, you say? Still good luck. 14. Okay, not bad. You get a sense with a 14 that he is trying to hide something from you.

But whether or not he is telling the truth as to whether it's in your best interest, that's what you do not get with a 14. Yornia, can I ask a question? Is it a stupid question? Probably. Ask it anyway. Excuse me, are you not telling us because you're mad at us? Can we fix it? No. No.

Oh. We're not mad at you. Oh! We're not mad at you. We're- we're not. Why are we afraid of fire? We all are. Why? We knew the answer. I would tell you. What is the robed figure? Who is it? What is it? Something... else. Who are the willows? Who are the wizards? What the fuck is going on here? As I'm going to take my other claw and put Le'ej

put his, like, his finger, his, like, little finger, and pinch it and start to, like, make it hurt. Bonobos, don't do it. No, no, no, no. No, don't do it, Bonobos, please. That'll be up to him, Mr. Seviscus. We can't. We can't. We can't tell you. Why? We'll be doomed. Will we be doomed? I know this is very strange. I know this is hard to understand, and I know you're scared, but Delia and I...

Can't tell you some things we couldn't before and we can't tell you this time either Can I recall their real names? They had real names! That was not very long ago. I believe that I only gave you the name that she referred you to. Yes. And that was George. George! I was gonna say Harold. He looks like a Harold. He does look like a Harold. Yeah, you're right, he does, huh?

And I'll say to Delia, what is your real name? Can you tell me this? Martha. And his? George. Why deceive us? We couldn't help ourselves. Did you know we were coming? Is this the second time we've been here? Is the captain alive as we speak? He was alive when you last left. You said that Ilbon and Delia can't answer, can't tell us what's going on. Can George and Martha...

How about it, Georgie boy? I'm gonna, I'm going to, uh, squeeze hold of Rama's pinky. No, no, no! And on his throat. No! I know that I was a little confused and timid before, Barnabas. But if I have to leave, lose this finger, I will. Ay, there's the real Georgie boy. You're gonna lose a lot more than your finger if you don't start giving us some answers. Tell us why this sea...

This putrid, foul, and strange... What are those things that live inside of it? Phantoms. If phantoms could be made real. The other doomed souls that found their place here? Are you doomed to the depths in horrible, abominable states for all eternity? I'm like... I'm... I keep Titan. I don't think so, actually. I think they were made for you. If you saw something under the ocean, you're a Triton.

I... What did you think you would see there? That's as close as an answer as I can give you without being trapped here with you forever. We heard your plan. We know that you were going to trap us here in your stead so that you could escape. Yes. How? You do not remember this plan? How did you find out? Illusion. What are you hiding? I failed. George, I'm sorry. It's fine.

You cannot lie to us. We must. We must. We must. Why must? You. Let us. You must give us the freedom to go. The plan is not changed. Please, just let us. I know it sounds crazy, but if you don't, we're doomed. As soon as she says the word freedom, I'm going to blink a little bit.

and my crab claw will shift back to a triton hand, and I'm just gonna throw him down in the direction of Martha. It's not reason that I'm appealing to, I know. It isn't. It is unthinkable what you're experiencing, what we are sharing together, but if you knew why the willows weep, you would understand that we're the only hope that you have.

Why do the willows... What do the willows say to each other? Because you told us that they said that, right? Mm-hmm. Why so sappy is what we would tell anyone. If I told you the real answer, we'd risk more than our lives and our sanity. We're dealing with something that can tear you from all the way around the world. This is no small thing. Can I ask you a question? Do you think you win this game with lies?

If this thing is playing with our minds, then it gains advantage by us not knowing what's going on. Lying, cheating, hiding in the shadows. You give it the benefit. Our only hope is the mission. Surprise! What is the mission? If it sees what is in our minds and our hearts, then it will not let us go. Is that why you tend the lighthouse? That is why we all tend it. How do you tend it? You've only been here for a short time.

And you do not remember the first? Remember the first what? You attend the lighthouse. You would. You will. And experience horror. Dread. Terror. Hate. We only have this one moment, I think. When does the storm arrive? It's raining more and more now. I'm no lighthouse keeper. I'm not particularly knowledgeable about the weather. What are you, then?

I'm a skilled magic user. I'm very knowledgeable about these things, really. How did you get here? The lighthouse went out. There was a crash. I was sent with my... with Martha. So you're the wizards, then? Yes. And why don't you use your fancy magics to make this all go away? Fix it. Snap your fingers, wave your magic wand. Isn't that what you do? I'm trying. You're not succeeding, are you? What have you tried?

We tried rolling off this rock. I'm gonna try cutting throats pretty soon here. I... I tried to cast a spell. I think it almost killed me. But did you succeed? Nothing happened. I did. I succeeded, but they too tried to kill me. The same phenomenon did not happen in the cave, though. I succeeded to produce fire. It was terrifying in the moment. So what now, wizards?

We've come to an impasse. You feel your passivity leave you. You feel the confrontation leave you. You become confrontation. You become cruelty, bitterness. Ask the hostile questions. Accuse with paranoid fervor. Hurl insults. Hate flows through your veins. You know what needs to be doing, it just needs to be done.

Bonobos is right! What are you doing? I'm sorry. I, uh... What? I'm sorry. What do you mean, what? Pay attention! Focus! Listen to him when he's talking! I didn't mean anything. I'm sorry. George? Martha? What is it?

I-I-I really am quite sorry. I-I-I promise. I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I

It isn't. The one you know now is Martha. Comes up to you. We are here on an island in Striga, I assure you. But we may be doomed here. So how do we leave? It won't let you. What's it? What's it? What's it? How do we help you, wizards? We're talking in circles here. I've had enough! Let me go. Let you go where? Let me go to the coast. Let me find the aid that we need. Help from without.

Please. Why, the one thing we've all tried is to leave on our own. We tried and we failed. You, I'm sure, have tried already and failed. Why don't we try together? You've never had that before. You fear a creature you've never faced with us. We were only two. With you, we were able to solve it. Then shall we all go together? Stay. Please. I'm begging you. It will not let us all go. We will not stay. This is not our fate.

We'll be stuck here for eternity. Why are you here again? We're pulled here. Summoned. Did we let you go the last time? No. The last time we tried something else. Now we are... What did we try last time? If you answer that question for me, I will cast my vote to let you go. But that's just one of five. But it's still one more than you got now. We used the last of our magics to send you back. We...

understood your quest and we became friends for a short time. There's nothing to eat here. There's nothing to do here except the routine of it and the terrors. So we agreed to stay here and let you go back. You and the captain. Sending you via our ability to teleport to create a circle that can do that.

When we saw you again, we were not ourselves. But we had to try to deceive you to see if we could make it out on our own. What was the language you were chanting in your room? I think we're beginning to be a little confused by it all. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. We're not gonna start changing things up now. You listen here, and you listen good, all right? When I'm confused, I get angry.

All right, and you're not gonna like that. You think I'm angry now? You haven't seen anything yet. He's always confused. That's right. Hey, watch your mouth. Delia, Ilban, I believe you, really. We mean no harm. What would happen if we were to end your lives right now and free you from this eternal torment? Would you die forever? Would you come back?

Do you know? I have no idea. I don't know what options we have. Maybe we go back to the coast, maybe we just tie them up and take them with us back to the coast. See if there's anything in the cave. The cloak, however they're planning to leave. Let me just get this straight. You used the last of your magics to send us back and we're back here now. So what are you saying, you're useless now? Nothing left? Done? That's why we need to get to the coast.

That's why we need to escape. Have you replenished any of your magic since you've been here? You won't. I still think he's a jackass. Why don't we all take a walk to the cave? Find the boat, see if the dinghy's still there. See if the cloak is still there. See if the body of the captain is still there. Let us go. Aye. Aye.

Rain is splashing down, crashing against the surface of this rock that you find yourselves on. The...

waves are hitting the side of even the tallest parts of this island so hard that you can look over and see scattering of the mist before it disappears back down the side. And you remember how treacherous it felt coming down the side of this mountain, this island the first time, looking down to where the cave would be. This could be

a very treacherous and difficult journey, but it seems that you are all determined. And following George and Martha, between the five of you, start to make your way. I need you to make a acrobatics or athletics check to see how well you do. Oh. Dreads? One, two, three, four, five. Okay.

18. Okay, I rolled a 19 first. Let's see if I get better. Oh, that's gonna be a total of a 17 after the dread. Ooh, also a 17. Nice. I rolled two dice preemptively. 14. Three. Okay, three? 17. 17. A total of 17. Another natural 20, but an 18. And you got? Yeah. 14. 14.

You are all making your way and starting to follow the same path. Yeah, you two better be extra careful! We don't need anybody breaking your old bird bones! Dumbasses! You can see there's fear in their eyes.

They are seeming to try to thread a needle, but there's panic now. They're not acting the same way as you met them, but they are sort of shifting back and forth, especially now. The one you've known as George has become extremely...

very much like the Ilben that you initially knew. Unsurprising. You continue to make your way down, and it's as you're making, you're sure-footed. You've climbed many treacherous rocks. It is not in a slip or a misjudged step that makes you fall, but instead the crash of a massive, as all of a sudden, kooosh!

you all see where Yornir was, and then as the water comes down, there is no more Yornir, and it takes you a moment to look down and see that he is caught in the surge, plunging down and disappearing into the drink.

You're near. You are underwater. Holy shit! All of a sudden, your stinging eyes with salt water, you are being pulled and you can feel yourself immediately slam into one of the harsh rocks there at the bottom. You take ten points of bludgeoning damage as you slam into the water as the swell continues to push you back and forth in this way. What are the rest of you doing?

If I would have time, and I would notice that Yorneir has gone over, I would grab the harpoon with the rope tied to it from my back and basically try to throw it

give it a good harpoon throw in his direction, past where I think he is, so that he'd then be able to just grab onto and I could pull him back in. Mr. Yornear! The rope sails and disappears into the water, into the deep water, and you hope, going fishing for Yornear, that he will be able to hear you, see the rope, grab it, and then you can start to be able to pull him up. Yornear, you are...

What do you do for this flash second, just after you immediately get scraped against the rocks? You can even see the dark pools of your own blood moving around back and forth as the swelling water continues to surge against the side of this island. Do I hear or see, like, the rope or anything? Do I get any sense in that moment that you're describing right now that I was either A, noticed, or B, like, being helped in some way? Perception check.

You might also hear Scrim yelling, "Grab the rope, numbnuts! "Grab the rope!" Two sevens plus eight is what? Dumbass! 15. 15. Jennifer Coolidge? I would say that you do not see the rope, but you do hear the booming voice of Barnabas. You know to look for a rope. Numbnuts. I will try to tread water and try to stay away from the rocks if I can and have my arms out as I'm sort of

Knowing Barnabas, I would probably expect him to do what he's about to do. Yeah. So I'm going to basically just wait for it and then swim over and try to grab it if I can. You wait for it and you look and you see it there and you start to swim forward and you make it 10, 15 feet and you're about to grab, hold on, when another surge slashes and pushes into you, you take an additional...

Six points of bludgeoning damage as you are again raked across by your undertow against the thing. And the rope just gets out of your reach and all of a sudden is being pulled in the other direction. You are underwater and even though you can, according to the Dungeons and Dragons rules, fucking hold your breath for goddamn forever no matter what happens to you underwater, you feel like you're going to suffocate if you're under here much longer. You may also hear Screm Yella. Oh, come on!

Butterfingers, grab the damn rope! What are you doing?! And knowing that I could wild shape, but that I want to at least save my resources if I can, based on the experience we just had.

I'm just trying to just, as you're near a fear bowl, like try to get to, I have two giant mammoth tusks on my back, right? So I don't know how well this is going to go. But I'm going to try to grab it and if I start to feel like I'm sinking and it's hopeless, then I will shift. Make an athletics or acrobatics check to see if you can get to the rope this time given the amount of chaotic water that is surging around you. Am I dreaded?

Yeah. Dread! What's dreadful is your attempt to grab the rope! You're in it, you stupid idiot! Uh, yeah, that is... You're just being heckled now. That is a athletics, you say? That's a six.

It's the same sensation of feeling your skin and muscle actually get pierced and torn as you scrape against. You imagine that there's a significant amount of damage happening back there. You don't even want to look, but it

stings, the salt water, especially exacerbating the feeling, and you take an additional eight points of bludgeoning damage as you are raked against the rock, and pull again away. You would have to have a successful check to get to the rope at this speed. With that, I will... I think I have a use left, don't I? Yeah, I think you only used one. I don't think you used it, I just think you used the wand. I don't think...

I can't recall. I can't think of another time. No, I'm good. On the island. I will use another as an action. I will turn into a...

Harbor Seal, and I will try to, you know, nimbly dodge. This time, you transform, and you feel strongly that you're going to be able to dart forward. You do that, but just before you are able to take advantage of your new form, there's this tug, this pull, this terrible sensation, and I need you to make a death saving throw. Everyone close your eyes. Oh no! Oh no!

Roll hot, roll hot. You gotta roll hot. Oh my god. We're back to it! My god, he's moving so much stuff. Natural 20. Oh, fuck. He was excited! He was excited! It's okay! It's okay! Let's go! Let's go!

It's okay, it's okay. Switch with the aquatic agility of a seal. It's a natural one. No, that's okay. He was excited, he was excited. This giant pawed my arms out of a seal body. Oh, I was so scared. That's okay. That's all right, that's all right. I shouldn't bring you to see Davis. That's a compliment. I'm doing a good job. Holy shit. Holy shit. That was fun. Well done, brother. Nice fucking job. Good roll. We weren't supposed to know that.

That's true. That's okay. Maybe if you're affinity with seals, you are able to push that out of your mind and you are able to rocket forward. You are able to grab onto the rope and very quickly continue to swim with it in your teeth. You pull and all of a sudden you feel the rope go taut. And you are able to pull with one...

a great strong pull. You actually pull what does not surprise you to be a seal from the surge, and you're able to very quickly, one arm over the other, hand over hand as the phrase is sometimes said, pull the seal up, up, up, and you find yourselves again holding onto the back of this cliffside, looking at Sealmir.

Oh! Yoroi, Mr. Yornir! Good gods, can we get on with it? No more mistakes, no more slip-ups, please! Whoa, Scrim, he was yanked from the cliff face! Look at him, he's cut up! He's ragged! Yornir, are you okay? Rub some dirt in it, come on, stop being a wuss! How's that for fishing skill, Mr. Fireblossom? It was pretty good! Pretty good!

Why don't you stay like that for a while, Mr. Yorneir? I will nod deeply, and I'll catch my breath for a second, but then I will sort of, carefully as I can, you know, in seal form, I'll stay in this form as long as I can. Just like a druid. It's in this moment that you see Illbond's posture, demeanor, look, his expression, the way that he holds himself fade. He is George again.

and Barnabas, you feel this sensation of passiveness. Passivity. You become the essence of avoidance. Alright, well, I'm glad you're okay, Mr. Yornir.

Are we all good? Can we hurry up, please? We're wasting precious time. Sure, sure, yeah. Aye, aye, aye, aye, aye, Captain. Aye, aye, Captain. Carry him if you have to. I mean, come on. This is ridiculous. Aye, aye, Captain. It takes time, but you eventually make your way back down to that cave mouth. Hee hee hee!

Giant fluffy... I'm imagining it was the meme of the seal that literally has no neck and then it's just this adorable face with a giant gold blubber. That's exactly what it is. Those seal pillows that gets advertised, that's basically it.

and you are looking just around the curve of the mouth of the cave. It is dark. There is water literally like gulping into the mouth of this cave. It looks like sometimes when the wave is just right, it nearly touches the top lip of the mouth of it. It's probably being filled ongoingly with this huge surge of salty sea water.

And you each get a chill on your back as you remember that flame for a moment. And you remember the fear that you had.

think that you can perhaps still yourselves and make your way in but it looks dangerous dark and impossible to tell whether the boat is inside from this angle well you sure oh there aren't no spooky cloaks or flames in there no we're not sure but we're going in anyway so what's the plan now George come on what's the plan let's go you were the ones who made the plan to offer us all to go oh don't talk back to me don't you dare talk back to me I

I see you. I hear you. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Okay, what's the plan? Well, I think we just go in. I mean, I don't like it, but we came all this way. The original plan was to get the boat and sail out of here and check. All right, fine. Behind me. Here we go. Okay, Captain. And I would proceed to move on.

into the cave. Not particularly with any kind of carefulness, just as I normally walk. Okay. You drive the action, being the leader of this group. Sometimes you have to scurry up against the wall, but you are like a crab making your way, and eventually you squeeze in, and it opens up. There are times where the water...

pushes you because it's waist high. There are times where it licks at your feet and you march forward very, very confidently. The rest of us, the rest of you and George and Martha close behind. There is no way to see without some form of light, but...

You can already tell, looking into the darkness, there's no sound of what you heard before, no sound of wood, no sound of the boat rocking against the side. This whole space, didn't you just take that boat? Well, well, well. Nice job. Thank you. Where is it? Thanks.

Well, it's like we had taken the boat. We had sailed out. It was crashed along the rocky shores out in the water. That's where we saw those creatures. I was rowing. I'm sorry. It's all my fault. I'm a terrible seaman. Oh, it certainly wasn't his best moment. Let's be realistic here. Oh, you're right, Mr. Staviscus. No, he's not. What is going on? All right, George, you elephant-eared bastard. What now?

Martha, you little bitch! I'm getting there. I haven't had a chance to talk to old Martha yet. I'm still working this one up and down. I don't know Scrim. Is that attitude that I hear?

I... Yeah. I'm saying we're fucked. I'm gonna slap you, silly. Fine. I... We're out of solutions here. You wanted to come to the water's edge by yourself? We've come into the cave. We've found some old information. We're near the water's edge. Now what, George? What are you and your ugly wife gonna do? Ha ha ha!

Come on! A wisp of Bobby Flay. Oh no. And I just want to be clear here, George, okay? Not ugly stick, not ugly branch, ugly tree. Whatever it is you want to do, we'll go upstairs, we'll...

We'll have nothing to eat, we'll go to sleep, we'll wake up, we'll have another day, we'll have another day, we'll have another day, and we'll just hope that we don't slip over the edge of our lives or our sanity. We're simply at the mouth of the cave. Maybe we go in deeper, we look for the cloak, we see if there's a source of power. Where did you draw the circle of teleportation that we left from last time?

It was on the surface of the rocks just down in front of the lighthouse. Shit. It's really far from here. I think Mr. Fireblossom is right. Perhaps we go deeper into this cave. Have we tried that before? I mean, just because he said so, I mean, if anyone else wants to do it, it's fine. I don't care what we do.

I don't think we've been... That's so cute. I don't think we've been... Gosh, he's adorable. I don't think we've been any deeper in the... Oh, I can't even look at him. I can't look at him and talk. I don't think we've been any deeper in the cave. I think we dashed across the rocks. I mean, we're only just about halfway in. All right, come on, stop lollygagging, let's go. Come on, God. And I would try to lead us deeper.

You do. Don't slip and break a hip! Refusing to give up on hope. Refusing... Ah, this is pure spite. This isn't hope. You walk blindly, with the exception of those of you who have dark vision. One hand on the side of the wall, trying to keep your footing, knowing that there is a gash in the middle of this cave where the boat should be, but feeling again pushes from the water, feeling again the...

water rise up, it's rising up again, almost up to your chins, and occasionally, your feet, yeah, your feet leave the rock, and you hope that you have rock to land back down again, and you are happy, satisfied, sated when you land down, and you're continuing deeper and deeper. You make it 30 feet, 40.

50 feet into the cave, and it is pitch black. And the water is surging against the interior of this cave. I need everyone to make a group perception check, and I'm going to dread all of you. Perception. Finally.

Oh, that could be worse. 17. Come on, you need a good roll here. The perception is high. And a one. I was so high, I was due. I was so due. 23. Six, four, 16. 13. Those of you who got 15 or lower are uncertain if the boat is there. Those of you who got higher are certain the boat is not. Wait, what?

Say this on my peanut brain, can I understand? Yeah, one more time? Those of you who got 15 or lower are uncertain whether the boat is there or not. Uncertain, okay. One way or the other, maybe it is, you're not sure one way or the other. But if you got higher, you are certain it is not there. So, even though it's pitch black, we don't feel like it's magic. Like, if we have darkvision, we can still see. Mm-hmm.

I would be looking around for the cloak to see if it's on the floor, to see if it's where it may have been when we first saw it. I know it kind of sprung out of nowhere, but I would be keeping my eyes open. I'm less concerned about the boat. So looking at where we fought, this area is all flooded.

Right. So the cloak would have been in this general section. Oh, I got whipped out to sea. The water would have risen. It's risen. Like this. But you do go over into this general area. Yeah, that's right. And you have to feel around. I do. Make an investigation check. Yeah, don't do it at a disadvantage. You don't have to say it. That's exactly fucking right. That's right. Let's go. Wait, wasn't George and Martha the name of those two charming hippos? 16...

And a 19, which gives me a total of 17. Because I had plus one. 16 was the low one. Scrim's back, baby! You are determined. If there's a man of action, his name is Scrim. That's right. And you walk forward, and you reach into the water. You're starting to feel around. There's no way it could have left. There has to be something. There has to be something here. I'm going to pull a fucking boat out right now. And you grab...

fabric. It touches your hand for just a moment and then you latch out and you pull and you are able to lift up the soaking wet cloak. I need you all to roll for initiative. No. I would hoist it up in the air. This is how it's done! I found a cloak! The cloak! You find the cloak. Great work, Scrim! Do something! It's not doing anything!

Well, might have to put it on. Great idea! You pull it down. It's cold. The rest of you are all almost treading at this point in the sea water. And you get situated. You feel it around your body. Ice powers! Ice powers don't work. Fortify your mind! It might try and overcome you! Well...

You pull the hood over the top of your head. Be careful! Mr. Staviscotch! Aha! I've solved it! The moment you do, you blink, and it is... Oh, whoops. White and blues and grays all around you, and you are looking at the bodies of your friends in...

snow, howling winds all around you, you realize immediately you are on the top of the tower. Still under a car, looking down, you realize how numb your hands feel, shivering cold. There's no cloak on your body, but you wish that there was another layer for you. You've never been as cold as you are now. You are

terrified to find that everyone seems to be stiff, frozen, unspeaking. There are no eyes looking at you. They all stare up and around. You are at this great height. There are no tools. There are no tools to perhaps some sort of magic. What do you do in this moment? So if I feel like, do I feel like I am back where we left? And do I still feel super aggressive?

That is fated. You do not feel super aggressive. You feel like scrim, and you feel like you're exactly where you were. When we slooped from the campfire where we were with Daisy, did I bring any of my effects with me? You still feel like you have all of your effects with you. I...

numb fingers, I go into my pack and I try to find one of my remaining eight bonfire candles. And I'm trying, I can barely feel my fingers, but I know that I have to light this and try to get my friends around it for survivability. And the whole time I'm saying, "I'm back, I'm back, I don't know how, "but I'm back, I have to try to do this." And I will attempt to try to light one of these bonfire candles, of which I believe I have eight

8 left from the original, like 36. Yes. 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 26, 27, 28.

28, 36. I can't believe that you still have them. Well fucking done. And I will go down to seven left. And I will attempt to light this and then try the best I can. Like, I'd probably be able to move Taishen and Queenie and not be able to move the two of them. So I would try to put the candle where it's closest to the two big guys, pull the other two closer. You have to start clearing snow.

There was two or three feet of snow on the top of this tower when you were teleported here initially. You were almost like chest height. And it's slippery. You're on top of smooth... Underneath your feet, and once you cleared away, you realize this is polished. This is like a wrong move, and all of a sudden you just start moonwalking off hundreds of feet in any direction. And so very slowly you are starting to assemble. You know you have that bonfire candle, and you know that your friend... You start to...

push and you slide against the surface of the tower and you start to push and pull your friends and starting to get them as close to the proximity of what you think the warmth will provide and it's so cold. My goal is no matter what, even if it kills me, to try to get this candle lit so that there is some sort of warmth for my friends. And that's my sole directive. Whatever it takes. You pull out your flint and steel.

any way of doing this, and you're tapping it, and there are no sparks coming out. Please, please, please! Your hands feel like frozen sausages at this point. It is almost impossible for you to grasp the items and to work the bindings of your pack or to pull your hand inside. It hurts the fabric of your skin to just get in there when you hear a voice.

Uh-huh. Kin of mine, let me bring you warmth. Let me warm your friends to the frigid cold. Come closer. You should not have to die here in the ice. Ah! Ah! What? What? Help? Do I get a sense that this sounds familiar to me at all? No, but as soon as you hear the voice, you have an association with...

everything that you've experienced so far. This cloaked figure, it feels like there's a connection to be made. - Kenneth, fight, fight, whatever you are, whether I know you or not, give me the warmth, save my friends, fight! - Closer. - And you turn, billowing the cloak is there out in the air.

20 feet from the edge of the circle of the tower, flying, waiting there, billowing not with the wind, but from its own phantasmal force. Remembering the experience that we had where we all stepped out with faith, I will attempt the same thing, and hope, with all hope,

that Graveyard Jack will be there to allow me to walk towards this thing. I'm doing this solely to try to save my friends. Your friends pulled together the bonfire candle there. Don't want to die. Want to save friends. You're feeling slow, sluggish. You're almost tunnel visioning at this point, starting to blink, and you look up at this cloaked figure, and to take its embrace, you would need to walk on air.

One step, you slide a little bit on the slick surface of this polished marble. You walk forward and you get to the edge and you look down. It is insane how flat this column is and how deep these ripples of ice seem to be, these strange spots. You remember the captain broke his leg in one a long time ago. It feels a lifetime ago. And you walk forward and you fall.

You do not step on anything. All of a sudden, you feel your heart lurch up into your throat, and you realize you've made a mistake. You are falling, you are plummeting, and you can't

can't get to the side of the tower. You look down and you are not going to fall into one of the cracks. You are instead going to fall and crush yourself against the ice. You are surely dead. When it opens and you slide into one of these tunnels, you slip in and it starts to angle down, down, down. You are sliding faster and faster, faster, face first, arms back, faster and faster and faster and faster before it slowly comes to a crawl tighter and tighter and tighter and tighter. You are

Can't breathe. Can't breathe. You are stuck. You are in an ice coffin, unable to do anything, and you feel the ice start to clench around your body. You are near. Taishan. Queenie.

You find yourselves in the humble, modest home of the Lightkeeper's house. Motherfucker. You stare at the windows across the deck to a calm sea, a gray sky, and you know that there's much work to be done to keep the light, to tend the light. But you also remember much of what's happened.

Has it been a few days or were you put here in an instant? It feels like it's been a few days. It feels like it's been that you're starting to get gaps. No longer do you have this linear feeling of I remember I was here and then here and then things transitioned. Now there's a sense of loss and dread. What are you all doing? Instagram gone.

Do you, as Barnaboats, think of Scrim? Do I not? You can. I do think of Scrim, yeah. Yeah, you think of Scrim. And you know that Scrim has been... has a high fever. He's in the bedroom. He's been sick, unconscious, for many days. Would I think of this, too? I think any of you would have this knowledge.

I will, uh, seal hop over here. I think you've been hopped out of seal form again. Oh my god. Dr. Seal, I have a little letter to send to you. We need to sell that plush. Because very quickly you, like, do this with a ball and I'm like... Knowing that,

Or I guess, do I-- so now as you're in here, do I also think of Scrim as being sick for the last few days? As soon as you think of him, you do. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. He's been quiet. You've left him primarily alone, aside from having to feed him what rations you can turn into, perhaps with some sea water.

mash down and work into him to make sure that he stays as healthy and calorically filled as possible, given that when you open the shelves, what appear to be full Shmashin jars of what should be food, crates of rations, liquids, broths, liquors. It's always empty. And there hasn't been a scrap of food since you've gotten here, except what you've eaten on in your person. We have gaps

and we've lost time, what is... what is our... or maybe it's different, but what... if we think about it, or just passively, what is our most recent memory? There's a doubling. And you think of the cave, and you think of the...

work that you've all shared. Four of you. It still is, uh, there still is lots to do during the day. Polishing lamps, making sure that the fuel is where it needs to be, making sure that there is, um, uh, food on the table, going through the motions of cooking nothing. Are George and Martha there? No. They don't seem to be there. Are Ilban and Delia there? No.

They don't seem to be anything. And Queenie, you reach over and find something that you hadn't noticed for the last few days. What appears to be parchment, a letter. I'll just probably go over to the corner and sit down and read it. It's a letter of apology signed by George and Martha. And it has many words on it, but it all comes to the same meaning and message. We're not here.

anymore. We had to go and we're very sorry. I hold the letter up and just put it in one of my pouches. Queenie seems quiet and the three of you stare at each other. The four of you know that today is an important day, making sure that ships do not crash on this jagged coast. Do we remember Scrim putting the hood on? Yeah.

Would it be fair to assume that maybe him putting the hood on made him sick? That's one of the theories that you've shared in your quiet nights looking, watching.

There's never been an opportunity for you to light the lamp and actually cast light as a beacon from this space, but fortunately there's never been a ship. It's something that you have made sure to log in the journal, of course. But gosh, it would make sense since he put on that cloak. Where that cloak is now is elusive.

I go to check the lobster or crab traps, if there were any, or if I had built any. You start to make your way down, and as you start to exit the house, you hear this... You can hear it coming from the bedroom.

Oh my god. Someone's getting off at the house? Yes. Damn! Martha's getting it! All four of you burst in to find Scrim Galofe. All four of you? I'm pumping it. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's pumping his fist. Pump? No, it's easy to deduce that this voice of strain is coming from Scrim. Is that Scrim? I will go check on him. I should get in there.

I'll stand up immediately and I'll walk into the bedroom. I'll come back in and I'll say, let me know if you need me to hold him down. And I'll just kind of wait outside. And I will look at him and inspect him. You start to. When you walk in, you can see his body is not malformed, but just as though he's having a terrible dream.

And you are turning away from it and shrinking almost like a dog or a cat would when chasing after something. But clearly it is a terror. I want to just make sure that it's all just like a dream and nothing physically is happening. He's not having like an episode of anything. You make a medicine check. I'm not using any magic. It's just

That's pretty good. 23. You don't think that he's in any danger, just that he's experiencing something horrific, and as you start to make this conclusion, his eyes pop open, and Scrim, you awaken. You awaken alert. You feel it right on your brow. It's as though you've woken up from a terrible nightmare, but you remember all of the details of what you experienced at the top of the tower. Yeah, I'll fix that for you.

How do you feel? Is he awake? He's awake. Oh my god. I'll grab your face and I'll check in your eyes and I'll feel your pulse, check your forehead, your temperature. I made it back.

And I'm back here now. What do you mean you made it back? You've been sick since you put the cloak on. No! No! No! Quick, drink this cup of tea! I hand him just an empty cup of tea. I will immediately just set it down. I put the cloak on, and immediately I was back on top of the tower. It was feet of feet of snow, and we were all freezing to death.

We might be freezing to death right now. And I tried to clear the snow away and light one of the bonfire candles, but I couldn't do it. My fingers wouldn't work. And then, there was a voice. There was a voice in a billowing cloak floating out beyond the reach of the tower. And I thought, I thought if I could just walk. It offered me help. It offered to save us all.

but i had to come closer and i thought that if i just walked like we did before and if i had faith that that i'd be able to walk over the air towards it

But I didn't. And I fell. I fell off the tower and I fell deep, deep under the ice. I was trapped. I couldn't move. It was the most claustrophobic thing I've ever experienced in my life. I don't even know how long I was down there for. If this was all just a bad dream, no, you've been sick in bed. You've not been conscious this whole time. This isn't the real side! This isn't the real one!

How are you telling me that that's what happened? None of this is real! That was real! I was back in your car! Does that kind of snap us out of our kind of our routine and like pull us back to like the fact that we're trapped in some horrible Eldritch Hellscape? I wouldn't say that it like snaps you out of it. I would say that you don't have

enough evidence to justify either conclusion one way or the other, and that both seem equally likely. As he's speaking, you realize he could be 100% correct or 100% wrong. And I remember me threatening to fucking cut off the fingers of George, and like thinking that, you know, that we're trapped here by it. Yes. Please. I'll stop as I'm entering the room, as I hear Scrim. You're right. That's why this sea...

isn't the sea of my love, nor the sea of my dreams. I think I know what we have to do. Good, good, let's hold on to that. Listen to Barnabas, listen to me, don't forget yourself, we're getting confused, we're losing our minds, this is not real! But you have had symptoms that are in line with hallucinations, it's very possible that it is all in your head. It was dreams, it was all just things you saw when you got sick. It happened to me, too.

You forget I wore the cloak once. And it sent me somewhere, but it sent me to just another part of the island. You had to strike me down. When Scrim put it on, it's possible it did something similar to him and we're being snapped around, we're moving around, it's taking things from us. It's giving us something else. You're right. We gotta act quick, we might be dying.

What do you think we do, Barnabus? Let's check the lamp of the lighthouse. Let's see if it's still gone. We've been turning into a lighthouse that doesn't even work. No lamp, no light, and I would like to go, and I'll just, whoever wants to join me can. I wanna go check the top of the lighthouse, just to make sure it's still gone. Yeah, we'll join you. Barnabus, you make your way out, and you feel your companions behind you as you start to wake, walk across the gravel path.

through the wooden door, looking up the spiral staircase, one floor, the next, many floors up, until you finally stare, stare again at that mote of quicksilver. No light-producing lenses, be it by some magical means or through burning fuel. There is nothing here that could warn a ship. Hey, let's bring all the fuel up here.

And light what? Light the fuel. Light the lighthouse. At the mention of lighting fuel on fire, do we... You struggle to make this suggestion. The lighthouse! And all of you are terrified of this possibility. But what he's saying sounds... If you could confront your fear, or perhaps not look, or perhaps it's something that hasn't been tried. If this thing that's dreaming all of this...

and has put us here, has made us fear fire. Okay. And it's that icy cold and rhyme that it harnessed and channeled through Mr. Fireblossom. Well played. That's pretty good. Perhaps it wants to make us like it. That's what the mind flayers, those abominations did to the ogres, to keep them imprisoned.

And docile! They made them like themselves. The ogres like them. So this lighthouse doesn't work, let's finally make it shed some fucking light! It makes me afraid. Aye. To think that you are right. That's how the ancient fire-- the lighthouses were. It was all... braziers. There is no food. There is nothing on the island left except for fuel. Aye. Are we either gonna die here,

While we're actively dying back in Drakkar. It's made us... It's made us fear the fire, so... It... It must be the one thing it doesn't want us to... To turn to, whatever it is. And it's like Fu Zhao said, fear... Fear can't defeat death. But it can stop us from living. We... We...

We can still be afraid of it, but it doesn't have to control our actions. We shouldn't be inside of the lighthouse if we're gonna put that much fuel in there, so I think we fill up the main area with fuel. We open one of those windows there. You light one of my arrows on fire, and I send it flying in. I tried you. Sorry, hairball. Not a cat, but...

You are very rabid. That's a much better idea. I was going to suggest one of us sacrifice ourselves heroicly. I like your idea much better. I look at Tyson and kill to leave. I like to hit my forehead. Woo!

I started, like, planning. I said, like, you should probably just, you know, blow yourself up. Wouldn't have been obvious who that would have been. Could have been any one of us. I don't say that. I just look very guilty. That's it. If he were to do things to himself, he totally would have done it, too. Mm, Turkars, you're nasty. LAUGHTER

Torgar, you must do it, the flame is good. Come on with the flame. Oh, your destiny. It is the fame. The fire is inevitable. Why, truly, this adventure was a sign of ice and fire. Yay! Yay!

Who are you? The proud monster! Let's get the fuel and light this candle! Alright lads, are you ready lads? Aye, captain! I can't hear you! Aye, aye, captain! Woo! Woo!

I got a 10 total. 13 total.

24. Holy shit. 20 and 16. Who lives in a coconut under a tree? Everyone is racing down the stairs to grab as much fucking fuel as they can carry up and down the stairs.

All of it, if Barnabas's enthusiasm is to be believed. I use my fearbolt feature. Oh! It's a powerful build. Oh. Well, you... I use crab legs. But as you are winding down the stairs to consider using it, you look out the window facing down the angled rock of this island, and you can see from the ocean a cloaked figure starting to walk up.

Do I recognize this cloaked figure? Right now, only your near shit. Fuck! I take it back. Is this in the direction of where they drew the teleportation circle? I'm just very excited, I'm gonna apologize. Would we have any-- hold on. You know what? I feel like I really need to make maps more frequently. That's so your thing, too. Just to give you-- let's do sort of like this. There's a fucking lighthouse, a house.

Not yet. And then this is where it's highest, there's a huge cliff face on this side, and this is where it's shallow and actually gets into the water. You know, I actually pictured it exactly like that, Derek, so you did a good job. I tried, I thought it was... I would admit it's slightly more limelight-y. Right now, this creature... This is the whole island we're on? Yeah. This cloak is starting to walk up the path.

I kind of more, it's jagged, but it's not flat. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Jagged path down. I imagine exactly like that. I drew a foot. It looks like a mitocondrial. And so is the hooded figures coming up out of the ocean at the far end of the island? What Yorneir perceives is a small figure cloaked walking up the path. Wait! No! Look. Then we must be doing something right. We shouldn't stop. What do we see? You all look.

Oh. Oh, I need more hands to help! And I'm just going like this stumbling figure. Limping?

Slowly lurching forward. I... Is the cloak the same that we saw in the cave? Is it the cloak that I saw floating? Are they different? It feels very reminiscent. It's so far away, it's hard to tell, but if you had to put your best coin on it, you would probably guess it's the same cloak. So the cloak that I saw floating back in Drakkar was the same cloak that I had put on? Yep.

and that emerged when the captain transformed, and that would seemingly appear on the figure that is now lumbering up the jagged rock. Ah, fuck. Making its way-- Ah, fuck. I think-- Queenie's right. I think you may be right. Let us-- Double time. Double time! She's right!

I'm grabbing as many as I can and just crab crawling up to give more people room to walk. I'm crab crawling my way up and just throwing cans into the pit, into the center pit with all the mercury, or the Quicksilver. I imagine that it's

requires coordination. You could just step back and watch as Barnabas uses his ability to dash with his feet going all the way up and his great strength and all of that, but it would actually be faster if you each went down, grabbed an item of...

fuel, put it against your chest, and then went up all together, walking, walking, walking, walking, walking, and then dumping it, dumping it. Are you actually splashing the fuel everywhere, or are you pooling it somewhere? What is your intent when you get the fuel up to the top of the lighthouse? And also, peeking back, if I feel like

I would probably start, like, barking orders if I was, like, a bosun. Right? Because I've had experience as a bosun on a ship. And I would start to kind of get in that mentality. And if I feel like that would be, like, the... I'd maybe, like, start singing, like, a shanty to kind of, like, help us keep the pace to go up. And if I feel like it's not going to spill out, I would absolutely want to fill the basin and basically just dump it and then just yeet the fucking cans out of the...

Out of the window or the door. There's fuel enough for you to fill this inner circle. There's a pool almost that you could fill within the mode itself. And every time you do, occasionally a drop will hit the surface of that brilliant liquid metal and reverberate around and then splash back and then sort of reflect. You'll look at it and...

Continue to make your way. I hate to sail on this rotten tub. Lever, Johnny, lever! And I'm just like, I'm just singing out as I'm just telling people, like, barking our orders. If I feel like that is the fastest way, and anyone who is welcome to, you know, to join in, trying to dump as much of this shit is and just yeeting it off into the sea. This is fuel enough for a light keeper to keep a lamp lit.

night after night after night for however long they would need to survive on this island before being replaced or getting relief. This will be three, four, maybe five trips, even with all of you working in concert. And on the second trip, you realize there's

you've filled that center basin, that it's going to start leaking over into the Quicksilver, or that you need to find additional ways, or perhaps just leave the containers there. Yeah, I think that would be, we basically start stacking it and opening them. Just stacking it and opening them. Opening them. Again, looking down,

It's now three quarters of the way up the island. As slow as it's moving, you wonder if it's going to reach you by the time you go down for the fourth or the fifth installment of fuel. Should you meet it, or should you continue doing what you're doing, ignoring it entirely? What do you do? I would look to Barnabas to see if he feels like we've done enough, or if we have another trip. We have to be prepared to face it. Light this on fire now.

Every time we've encountered the cloak, it's reset everything. It's put us back in the house. It's attempted to wipe our memories. It's shifted some of us elsewhere. I think we have to just light it without engaging it. You're right. The fire will get down to the basement. It's all going to go. Okay, Miss March, Mr. Fireblossom. It's all up to you now. I am so afraid. But it's a good fear. That's how you know you're alive, lads.

That's how you know! And you can feel that fear. It is rising and rising inside of you. It is pulsing. With every one of your heartbeats, you feel that it could stop, and it's almost lurching in this moment. It's not speeding up. It's...

slowing down, but getting louder with intensity, drowning out your ears as you are continuing to move these containers in. And there isn't enough time. You have to make this choice now.

Are you going to light the... from outside? We're gonna go outside of the lighthouse, and then she's gonna... Okay. You go outside. The beakers are on the door. You kick the door open, the five of you, knowing that this bomb is about to go off, and feeling the terror, knowing the fear that you will see when you actually experience fire, looking at it. You know...

This must be some terrible effect of whatever this creature, this space is. You just have to overcome it. Queenie. All right. I'm going to dip the head of one of my arrows in my honey, which is flammable. And I'm going to-- You hear the crunching sound of footsteps. I'm going to knock it into the bow. I know you're scared.

On your count, Queenie! I'm just as scared as you are. You can do this, all right? I'm ready! One, two, let it on fire go. You hear this voice start to cry out. I need you both to make wisdom saving throws to see if you can release your Nocturne. Yeah, thank you. Come on.

I got four. Four? Fifteen. Fifteen. You know you need to light your arrow and you don't even get that far. You drop the bow and then are frustrated with yourself knowing that you need to do it, but you're horrified. All you want to do is run and again you hear that same voice and you sort of glance backwards and the figure now-- there is a person inside of this.

Toyshell!

Miss Marge! And Queenie, you are able to ignite the flame of the arrow and trembling attempt to attack and to make purchase at the top of the lighthouse. You'll need to roll to attack. I keep thinking this is a touchscreen computer. This is not a touchscreen computer. 23. Boom. Big money. You all watch in horror.

as the arrow flies. A stream of flame as it sails up and up and up and you can barely look as it lands inside. Nothing for a moment and you feel relief. No fire when...

This ignition occurs and you watch as the flames start to shake against the top of the ceiling. You watch as windows are blasted out and you can see that glass is starting to fall and you can also hear more closely this lurching cloaked figure. Melt, melt, melt.

"Ilbon, no." And you turn and look at this impossible face. A merged face, a face of fear and of confusion. Two different colored pupils split and pushed together. What you think perhaps may have been Delia and Ilbon.

And this flame ignites, and you can all feel the heat, you feel the glass raining down, and as soon as that happens, there's this slow shift. The creature in front of you melts.

You, underneath you, start to get pulled down, swimming almost, into the rock surface as it gels under your feet.

Your reality, your hands start to pool and glop. Everything seems to swim together, almost like molten glass. The sea around you turns from its brilliant greens and blues to a magnificent, beautiful sunset orange, and you marvel at it. You look up at the fire and you no longer feel the fear of it. You instead feel relief and hope.

But... time... shifts for you. And for a long time, that's all you know is this strange glow of deep, deep orange. Mm-hmm. I'm gonna get another beer. I'll be right back. What a guy. AHHHHH! WILL YOU MOTHERFUCKER GET BACK HERE?! Hurry up! You piece of shit! Oh, that was really good. It's all but confirmed.

I agree. Oh my god, it's bug-proof, alright. I wrote it down. I have no idea what's going on in there. It took me a hot minute. It's very cool! It is very cool! It took Mikey being like, for me to figure it out, so I don't know, yeah, it was tough. I was not with it. I'm too stupid for this game. It's not, it doesn't have any, you're not stupid. No, no, no. It doesn't have anything to do with intelligence. Oh man. There's also just a fuckload going on, and I was so wrapped up in the RP and shit that I didn't catch it for a very long time.

Time seems to stretch for a long time for you. It seems to go backwards and forwards. There are moments when you feel like you can see the construction of the lighthouse as it was first made and built. There are moments when you feel like you can see Delia and Ilban's first arrival. There are moments when you can see your own arrival for the first time, and you feel like you witnessed the entire

first chapter and experience what you experienced that first time. And there are other times where there are whispers, where you almost feel like you are one with this strange being or entity, this thing that wasn't making conscious choices at all about what was happening in these moments or was it intentionally manipulating you because you happened to get close to it?

These questions swim in your mind and are fleeting and it's hard to tell where you start and where the questions begin and where it begins because very clearly there is a melding happening. All of you together, you feel like bubbles suspended in space, trapped in some thick liquid and you wonder what

What will happen next? Is this the end? Is this all there ever will be? And there are whispers. There are whispers that you can hear. Whispers sliding. Occasionally you hear what sounds almost like the ocean. And then what sounds like what it would feel like to sit in the back of a carriage as you are being drawn by horses to some strange new destination. You feel like there are

hushed whispers around you and you're not sure if the whispers are coming from you asking in a voice that Scrim is only familiar with, asking to accept, to step closer, to be protected. Other times the hushed whispers are perhaps speaking about you or perhaps about this creature. There's this echoing back and back and forth. Hello?

Hello? Hello. They are still in there. Hello? Uh, hello? Who is this? Ilvan, are you George? No, no, no, no. Alright, well, I don't know who you are. I, I, that is not my name. They call me Stacy. They call you Stacy? They call me her. That's not my name. They call you what? Never mind. Name's Queenie. Miss Marge, if you're nasty. That was the name I was expecting. Are you, are you hearing me?

Yeah, I'm responding, buddy. I... across the strange eons we hear the whispers of your dulcet tones drifting through the ether on membranous wings. That will take some time for you to recover from, but I just need you to answer me one question and you can go. What is it? Oh. Have you accepted anything from IT during your time there?

No. No? No. I tried. I tried. Stupid, stupid scrim. But I don't know if I got anything. I did it for my friends. We were dying. I would have done anything to save them. For your friends, this will be painless. This will not...

Be easy for you. Wait, wait, wait, hold on, hold on, hold on. Wait, wait, wait, let's take a step back. Okay, hold on. There's a very good chance that something else already has very, very, very strong claim on my soul. So what's to say that anything happened? Nothing happened. You will need to be separated so that you are not infected by it. What kind of separation? Like emotional distance? Like we just gotta take a break?

The wound will be with you for your whole life. I just can't win. What are you gonna do to me? Where are we? You're in a temple. Where we heal and protect. But you wouldn't last forever in there. We are hoping to seal this away for centuries. Please. Do you want to be free? I guess.

Bonobos would tell me I have to be free. You don't have a choice, Mr. Staviscotch. But then again, do any of us. And you are all shapped.

from where you are, pulled through, stretched, you feel extruded. For most of you, this is an experience that is very strange. And you hear those whispers. All of a sudden, time dilates and compresses, and you hear voices in all directions. And you land where you're going to land. But for Scrim, this is agony. You'd think I'd learn. This is...

the feeling of being torn apart and reassembled again. You are unable to scream about it. You endure it. And when eternity and no time at all happen in the blink of an eye, you all find yourselves back in Drakkar, landed on an ice sheet. You settle down and for a moment you're all blinking and it seems impossible. It's very cold. But the night sky is above you.

The ice sheet is underneath you. You're not standing on a tower. You are whole. Am I? You will be reduced one death saving throw for the remainder of the campaign. Oh! As you feel slightly diminished. But I already have two. Oh, no, those are gone. I just mean instead of three. Oh, no, no, I got you. I'm just making sure I didn't, like... Oh, uh-oh. Oh, no.

There's no physical mark on me, though? Like, I'm like, I feel... I'm like checking myself to see if I'm like... You have two noses now. You check. You feel. You feel around. And you feel like Scrim. You feel like Scrim. It's just when you look for it, there's a hole. Something that had to be taken out of you so that it didn't spread. Do I get a sense, looking up at the sky, where in Jakar we might be?

You look up in the sky and you actually... it's full moon. And you are very familiar with the stars. You don't see the star anymore. You look around, it's cloudless. You're where the tower should be. This is exactly where the tower should be. But more disturbing to you isn't that information. More disturbing to you is that you're somewhere towards the end of the second month of the next year.

42 days have gone by and that is where we will end tonight's session. Ho-o-o-o-ly shit. We got so many answers and so many more questions. I don't know what answers you got. What in the hell? I can't wait to hear what you guys have to say because I'm definitely too stupid for this. I got it right. I got it right too. I got it right. Well done. But it took Mike basically being like, "Mmmmm."

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