cover of episode Once Upon a Witchlight | Ep. 53 | Spill the Tea

Once Upon a Witchlight | Ep. 53 | Spill the Tea

2024/11/18
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Legends of Avantris

AI Deep Dive AI Chapters Transcript
People
F
Frost
G
Gricko Grimgrin
S
Saibin
T
Tormek
Topics
Gricko Grimgrin: 我参与了一次前往费伊野外的旅程,寻找可以与之交流的神谕。在旅途中,我们遇到了蘑菇人,他们帮助我们接近神谕。为了与神谕交流,我们需要讲述一个真实的故事。这个过程可能涉及某种精神旅程,也可能涉及某种药物。神谕会查看我们的灵魂,决定我们需要知道什么。我们获得的信息会随着时间而消退,所以要记下重要信息。每次与神谕交流都会使我们变得虚弱。 在与神谕交流的过程中,我们经历了各种奇幻的景象,例如与Granny Nightshade相关的事件,以及Will和一个蓝色的巨人,他们似乎是同一个人。我们还看到了Bavlorna和Will一起离开Loom Lurch,Will是一个Oni,他正在策划着什么。最后,我们失去了这段记忆,只记得南瓜派的味道。 Frost: 我讲述了一个对我来说非常重要的童年记忆,关于一个神秘组织的人来到我们的村庄,带走了我,我的父母再也没有回来。我的故事被神谕接受了,之后我们交换了身体。我忘记了我告诉了大家这个故事。 Mikey: 我在与神谕交流的过程中,经历了多次死亡和转世,最终变成了一个吸血鬼。 Torbjorn: 我讲述了我一直听到声音,并被强大的力量追逐的经历。我想要找到答案,并最终摆脱这一切。我失去了这段记忆,感觉非常疲惫。 Gideon: 我做了一个梦,梦见我在旅店休息,然后被一个噩梦惊醒。我再次睡着了,Twig照顾了我。我看到了Twig的住所里的各种物品,再次睡着了,做了一个噩梦。我失去了这段记忆,只记得南瓜派的味道。 Saibin: 我们只是帮助你们接近神谕,你们需要付出代价,那就是讲述一个真实的故事。故事的质量决定了神谕是否愿意提供信息。与神谕交流的过程可能涉及某种精神旅程,也可能涉及某种药物。神谕会查看你们的灵魂,决定你们需要知道什么。 Silo: (没有太多个人观点,主要协助Saibin引导过程)

Deep Dive

Chapters
MorningFrost recounts a pivotal moment in his childhood where a mysterious group visited his village. A man tested him with objects, culminating in a yarn ball that moved towards him. The next day, he left with the group, never to see his parents again, beginning his training as a Scion initiate.
  • MorningFrost's village visit by a mysterious group.
  • Testing with various objects, including a yarn ball.
  • Yarn ball incident leading to his departure and Scion initiation.
  • Parents never seen again after this event.

Shownotes Transcript

Translations:
中文

Hello everyone! Welcome to Legends of Avantris! I'm Gricko Grimgrin and you're listening to Once Upon a Witchlight. Here's what happened last time. I can see him inside of you. And you'll look to him and he'll look to me. He doesn't like that I can see him. What does he look like?

Mushroom peddlers are just outside, you're saying? Yes. And they might be able to help Torbeck? They could help all of you. How far is it? They are the ones that you seek. They are the ones with the properties. Though they're not like the witch-like mushroom. They're powerful in a similar way. The animals have gotten out recently.

when some rogue Eddercaps let the gate loose. So there's supposed to be animals here, but there aren't any animals here, so how are we gonna fucking find these animals, fellas? That's a great question. If you stand a little closer, you can see over here. Oh. Portobello, can you pull me up? The body of some kind of animal, probably a pig, has been Jumanji'd into the forest in that direction. I've made contact with the mushroom peddlers!

All we need to do is step inside and we'll be to them in a flash. Did you get the animals? We got an animal. A mushroom person. The cap on their head looks almost like a beret, but it's shaped, but is a mushroom cap.

"Oh my god! There are people here! Sibon, you are not gonna believe it!" And she slowly unbuttons her coat and you see that standing on... she's standing on the shoulders of almost an identical looking mushroom person. "This is great! They're exactly what I expected! This is gonna be a wild ride!" You made your way into Granny Nightshade's garden. It was a place unlike anything that you had ever seen before.

For the first time, really getting a glimpse of what the wilds of the Feywild would really be like. Outside of these domains that these hags have claimed for themselves and shaped into, um, shaped into areas that suit them the most. But this garden that you had found yourselves in, this was untamable. It was truly wild. And it is here

that you, with the help of a shambling compost mound and your newfound friend in Pincushion, you were able to rescue a small piglet named Oink and make your way through the mycelium network into the darkened cave that you now stand.

In front of you, stacked one on top of the other, are two fey creatures similar to the campestri that you've seen before, but not quite the same. They are much more humanoid in form. As one of them, who has announced herself to be Silo, steps down off of the shoulders of Sibon,

They remove the coat that had been wrapped around both of them as they had been stood in sentry, waiting for whoever might travel through the mycelium network to this cave that they potentially call home. Behind them, a large mushroom garden that seems to extend for miles down a darkened cavern, so deep into these tunnels that you cannot see where it ends. They...

move the coat to the side and you see that they are roughly about two and a half feet tall a piece, clearly twins, identical in face. The only difference is one has beautiful hazel eyes with specks of gold and the other are near emerald green eyes.

Their feet are wrapped in leaves that create these sort of slippers, the vines wrapping up around their legs that are clothed in red and white striped stockings. Their puffy beige bloomers are laced with what look like lace at first, but then you slowly realize that it is beautiful woven spider silk.

Their tops are a dark emerald green with billowing sleeves and more spider silk lace around the cuffs. Their torsos are covered in what appears to be a bark corset that is laced at the front with vines that are interspersed. The knotwork is interspersed with bits of silk

steppe mushrooms and moss. Their hair falls to about shoulder length. It's dark brown and ringletted. Interspersed in it, you see acorns and flowers and other mushrooms that seem to just grow wild. The only other difference, their cheeks are flushed, their nose is pink. They have white freckles that are reminiscent of the spots on a toadstool cat.

and atop their heads each of them does have a toadstool cap but it is not organic. It is clearly made of some sort of fabric. One of them, Silo, is fashioned a mushroom cap beret. The other one, Siben, is wearing a mushroom cap bonnet. They both

giggle to each other and chat a little bit as they've announced that they're about to have a fun time with you. You quickly see as Silo turns and rushes down and opposites end of this tunnel, completely disappearing into the dark as Saibin turns towards you. All right, well, I know what brought you here because, you know, Ewan told me, of course. Told us. It's gonna be a rough ride. Are you sure you're prepared for it?

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What do you mean you know what we came for? I know what you came for. You want the good stuff. She motions towards the jacket that they have thrown to the side. You don't want the standard issue mushrooms. You want the good stuff. You want to converse with the oracle directly. Hold on, I'm confused. Y'all aren't the oracle? Oh, no. We just facilitate access to the oracle. Oh, God. What do we have to do to get access to the oracle?

Well, we're not gonna do it here, that's for sure. So, Ewan's gonna watch the mycelium network to the caverns. Oh, welcome to the beneath, by the way. I'm assuming you haven't been here before?

No. I haven't. Have you guys? Have you, Gideon? No, we've never been here before. You coming? I mean, didn't-- Tollbeck maybe has. I mean, I don't know. He's sort of-- You may have, Tollbeck. You've kind of been underground. I mean, maybe that's where we are. What do you think? She walks over to you and she looks you up and down. "Oh yeah, I recognize that stuff. You were made in the beneath. That's pretty cool."

So was I. I mean, made as in born, not made as in made like you. Is it too late to go back? Upstairs?

- Like back to a ventress. - Oh, what's a ventress? - It's our home. - It's the plane of existence from where we are. - Oh, let's walk and talk. We've got a bit of a way until we get to my house, our house. - Lead the way. - And she begins to motion you through this cavern. This cavern is, the walls of it are lined with rock. It is

It is wet with moisture and you see that mushrooms of varying varieties line it. Mushrooms that you have never seen before in many different colors and the ones that

Or you notice that there are some that seem to be bioluminescent in nature, and those are ensconced in beautiful wooden lanterns. And almost as if they're being protected there. And they light this cavern as you begin to make your way. But aside from this, there's not much else to see.

The ground that you walk on is firm. It's not spongy like the earth had been upstairs, as she called it. And you walk through cavern after cavern after cavern as you have this conversation. So you must have something you really want to know if you're going to go down this path.

Yeah, of course. We've got some burning questions. Are each of you going to go on the journey or just one of you or a couple of you? Do we get more questions or more of us to go? I mean, each one of you that goes gets to visit the Oracle in one way or another. Is it like some sort of crazy spiritual journey where we learn about ourselves like spiritually? It's different for everyone. Whoa.

Does this involve some kind of like bad trip on some various drugs or are we gonna be physically-- I mean, it really depends on who you talk to. I wouldn't say it's bad at all.

But it is. It's on a trip on some sort of drugs. I'm not sure what you mean by drugs. What's drugs? Oh, you know exactly what he means. This isn't the first back alley shyster that's offered to introduce us to the Oracle. What do you mean by that? She looks over at you. And that's never stopped us before. So there you go. She looks over at you and she adjusts her.

her bonnet and she puts her hands under her chin. Her eyes get larger. She bats her eyelashes at you. I don't know what you mean. She clearly knows what you mean. Your trench coat's laced with mushrooms. You know exactly what I mean. Yeah, it's what we do. We help her. We make sure her garden is verdant.

And she looks upset a little bit and almost disappointed in herself. Wait, when you say her, are you speaking of...

Me? No, I'm not being rude. No, not you. I mean, I'm playing bad with guys who are like, oh, you gotta meet my friend. He should get backstage tickets. He's definitely an oracle and he just had mushrooms. You're playing it on you because you're usually the one who whispers in a harsh tone, Scabitha. Oh, Scabitha. Yes, exactly. What are you saying? Yeah, unfortunately. That's a lot in life.

Well, that's too bad. Anyway... Which way are the drugs? Is there any other way to commune with this oracle? Not that I know of. At least not any you're gonna find around here. I'm sure you could, maybe if you traveled to Yon and you found someone who could... What? I'm sorry? Huh?

You, um... Okay, we could go through Rion if we didn't want to ingest substances and go through some sort of nightmare scenario. No, we need to get that thing from here, bro. Yeah. The thing. I don't cherish the idea of putting ourselves through that. Oh, man, it's not that bad. You know, usually you're like, oh, okay, how much is it? And then they're like, oh, it's okay, bro. Just, you know, whatever. And, you know, you have a good time, you have a wild night.

At the very least, we can send Torbac through it, you know? I just Torbac! Because you have like a built-in immunity. I mean, look at all that shit. Torbac shouldn't be the first one to go. What if it loves... Torbac isn't immune to anything! I mean, I feel like whatever they give us is going to be like a drop in the fucking ocean for Torbac. We don't know that. No, it could potentiate the drug and be much worse for him than it is for any of us. What if it acts as a catalyzed?

Oh, what? I'm catalyzed. Don't worry. We're part mushroom ourselves. We don't carry lice. He means catalyst. Oh, what? Why would he say catalyzed? No, I don't want to be catalyzed. Oh, deja vu. What is a catalyst? That's something else. That has nothing to do with knowing cats. Many pronounce the word that you just said as catalyst, Gregor.

Well, that's neither here nor there with your weird pronunciations. We are glad to go on a spiritual journey, fueled by some strange substances, as long as we don't have to get put away in goblin jail for most of our lives. You're not going to find any jails in this part of the Underneath. That's good, because I ain't going back. Wait, hold on. Why?

Meaning like, they don't have jails because they don't need jails because of how they take care of you. Alright. So more like it's kind of like a lawless town. So you don't need a jail because there ain't no laws. What happens to criminals here?

They don't come around these parts, but we have our own security systems if need be. We would dispose of them and their bodies as we saw fit. Oh, God. Really, you're not... It's not going to be unless you get closer towards the Court of Twilight where you would see something fancy like jails, and even then you're only going to find it in the beneath. Well, the ones that are really bad are going to be in the beneath. The ones that are up top...

That are upstairs, those ones seem to be fine as far as I know. Are we close to the Court of Twilight where we are? Oh, no, not even close. It would take you a long, long time to get there. Especially us. But really, the City of Iron and Glass isn't a place you want to visit unless you're prepared for it. The City of what? The City of Iron and Glass.

Iron and glass. That sounds really cool. I was going to say, it sounds like a really good band name. That place sounds metal as fuck. It really does. It sounds like a band named so much as this one guy with a really good guitar, you know? Yeah, I should have told my

my cousin Grimbo to name his band that instead of Brain Krieg. So I told him he should have named it Iron and Glass. That was really freaking cool. Gosh, Brain Krieg. The reason behind this, we should start a band called the City of Iron and Glass. You're not going

I don't really know if upstairs in the City of Iron and Glassaband like that would work, but in the beneath, absolutely. What can you tell us about this trip that we're going to go on, this journey? It sounds dangerous and possibly mentally damaging. Well, speaking of, it looks like we've made it to that...

So let me go ahead and invite you in and we'll deal with it inside. And as she says this, you realize that you have finally made it into a small opening in what has been a very straight, slightly

winding but mostly a straight shot through these tunnels and this entire area is illuminated in beautiful pinks and yellow lights you can see that where there had been these wooden uh these wooden lanterns that housed bioluminescent mushrooms this area

Right in front of the house, you see that there is a landscaping that's been done here. You see that there are flowers in one single windowsill that has curtains of spider silk lace hanging within it. The door is a round knotwork designed doorway with a handle that is shaped like a toadstool. Another small window embedded in the front of it. You see that there are beautiful...

pieces of wisteria in all colors that are hanging from the roof and vines and moss that creep up and down the face of it. And all along the walls, you see these beautiful lily lanterns in pinks and yellow that illuminate this space. As she gets close to, there's small cobblestones that make their way up to the door. As she opens the door, you're immediately met with the smell of soil and

and verdant, and vegetation. Peeking inside, you can immediately see that there is no wood floor or stone or carpet, but the floor is a spongy, soft grass littered with flowers of varying colors here and there. As you walk in, this place is split into two floors.

The first floor off to one side you see what appears to be a small library with a reading nook that looks out into what appears to be a gigantic cavern that looks deep into the beneath that they've been talking about. You can see light coming from this window where clearly this area is illuminated by more bioluminescent fungi.

Fungi? Fungi. There is a small seating area that is... The couch is clearly a piece of downed oak that has soft cushions set upon it. There are toadstool chairs next to a...

next to a table by the window. A large hearth made of stone is roaring. A small cauldron in it is bubbling with some kind of mushroom stew or vegetable stew or whatever they eat, because they're not mushroom cannibals.

Maybe they are. And then in the corner, you see what is very clearly another large oak tree that extends to the top floor. You can't see what resides on this top floor, but a spiral staircase made of step mushrooms encircles this tree trunk and makes its way. What are you laughing at? I know what you're laughing at. What is it? No, no, no. You'll find the joke eventually. It's coming. Yeah.

The step mushrooms ring the trunk of this tree and make their way up to the second floor of this room. And it is quite beautiful. As she ushers you in, you can see that Silo is already inside. She is seated at this little nook in the reading area. She has a book open on her lap, and she is just looking out longingly at the beneath as it spreads out before her.

- Saibon makes no motion to include her in this. She ushers you over to these seats and allows you to sit down before slowly making you some kind of tea and soup, and she begins to pass out food and drink to you. - So you asked what you were gonna need to do to go on these trips. Well, everything comes with a cost. - Oh, no. - I think you've learned that by now, I would hope. Silo and I, well,

We don't get out much. We're stuck here in these tunnels and in this house, and all we can do is look out longingly over the beneath below us. What we crave, what we love, are stories. So anyone that wants to go on this journey is going to need to provide a story, one that is true, one that rings through your hearts, and you must provide it to us.

Do you accept any other kind of currency? That's the cost that we're asking. Well, all right. If one of us were to give five stories, would that be accommodating for the whole group, or do we each have to give our own story? It should be yours and yours alone. You can't give away something that belongs to someone else. That's so wise! Actually, yeah, it really is.

Oh, that should be easy. We got plenty of those. We don't got no coin, really, so... That's why we're on this quest. The important thing to remember is the quality of... You're going to get what you pay for. Oh. The quality of the story you tell is going to determine how willing the Oracle is going to be to give up the information that you seek. Oh. I couldn't, uh...

entice you with a handsome sycamore seed. I sort of wave it around. I told you the price. Oh, not even a fake three-dragon anti-car depicted a fairy dragon? No, I'm sorry. Wait. Well, you can just tell them the story of how you got the sycamore seed. That'll clear it right up. How did I? Oh, is it the squirrel? Heck of a hundred.

You got a tickle more seeds in every single pocket it feels like. Oh, I also got teeth and fingernails too. Well, that's me. Wait, hold on, what's this? And I pull out and I unfold a piece of parchment and on it is a large blue ogre with like fangs and horns and I turn it around as I apparently have a piece of parchment with a drawing of an oni on it. Great.

This guy look familiar, I feel like I heard his description somewhere. Yeah, it actually looks quite interesting. That's scary! Where did you get that? I don't know, where did I get this? Wait, hold on, I'll pull out the poster, the one that goes with Will the Feywild and I'll look. It's kind of a similar... Oh my god. I wonder if it's just a coincidence. I mean, I guess it could be a different Oni.

But what are the fucking odds? That's what an Oni looks like?! What?! Oh no! Wait, that's... Oh, this is so bad! I somehow know that that's an Oni, because that's what I wrote down in my inventory, so... No, hold on. The "no, no, no" and the "no" shape is pretty much the same. Well, he's probably got the... oh no, the teeth pattern besides like the tusks is basically... Oh, this is not good!

Yeah. Yeah. We can talk about this later. All right. Who's going to entice them with a teddy bear junction to your story? I don't even know what that means. I don't know the meaning. I feel like all of us should do it because we need the information in order to pass the challenge. I do want to make sure you're aware of what this is going to look like for you.

I'll have one of you offer up a story. You'll all drink together, and she points to the tea that she has passed out to you. My tea. Now, the special ingredient hasn't been added to it yet, so drinking it now is not going to do you any favors. It functions more like a laxative at this point. Now...

It'll kick in when you're asleep. You'll tell your story. You'll drink the tea. You'll all enjoy some of the effects. And then the oracle will speak to you, to the one whose story was accepted. You do not get to choose what the oracle decides to tell you. The oracle will look into your soul and decide what you need to know.

Oh, so we don't have to sit around here talking for hours about what information we're going to collect from the Oracle? We're just gonna be... Afterwards, I'll give you the opportunity to...

here and she reaches on one of the low bookshelves and she pulls out a bark bound grimoire and she tosses it towards you Torback and you see that there's a small wooden chiseled writing utensil, essentially a pencil and she tosses this towards you. You might want to write down any pertinent information afterwards because

What you're going to learn here will fade in time. You will not be able to retain the memories of the visions that the Oracle will present you. So anything that's important for you to know, you'll want to keep. So you'll have some time to talk about it, figure out what you feel is important to remember. And then the next journey will begin. Until we get to the end and you've decided you're done, we'll let you sleep here for the night so you don't have to travel afterwards. You'll be weakened.

Every single journey you go on will weaken you all as a unit. You're tied together, kind of like mushrooms. Wait, wait, wait, hold on. Don't we have a meeting tonight? Or at some point? Hey, Pincushion, are you still on my leg? Pincushion looks up at you with wide eyes. Um...

If we get mixed up in this, I mean, I guess we're already fucking him, but if we get mixed up in this-- You're already mixed up in it, yes. I mean, are we going to miss our meeting? Oh, didn't I tell you? Oh, maybe you did. Granny Nightshade's not coming home tonight. She's staying in Yorn with her sister. She's not happy about it, so she's going to be right cranky tomorrow. Ain't that just the way. What about that other lady? Wasn't she in line to meet her? Is that just not happening?

Oh no, she was, and I've made sure to communicate with who needs to be communicated with. She's been taken. No, not to death, anyway. She ain't making it. She's heading off to one of those beneath prisons. Just to say not prison at all. Why are you talking about this like that? Greg isn't going to hear about that. Don't make us hate your job. Why did you say it so ominously?

Dorbeck just said it and Dorbeck says it! Say it again! That's just how he talks! Dorbeck said that you took him! No, you don't say it like that! It's always a goblin dialect thing. That's a killing thing, Dorbeck! No! Who taught you that? No, who taught you that? No, it is most certainly not a killing thing. It's the way that you translate that specific phrase, take care of it, and goblin, it's usually guttural.

And so it just is easy. You're going to frighten people. You know, it's a little tough. It's a little bit of a translation. Tormek does frighten people. That's just a day that ends in wine. Okay, are you sure you don't mean killing her? Yes, Tormek is very sure. I didn't think you looked like a murderer.

Well... For a certain point of view. All right, anyway... Which raises Torbeck's two questions. One, someone else should take the barred book because Torbeck doesn't know how to ride. And two, if this vision goes awry, do you two have any way to restrain Torbeck because Torbeck might freak out? Oh.

A little bit. I'll fight it between the four of us, that way you can very easily restrain your Torbjorn. Yeah, I don't think we're gonna have a problem with that. We've got control over some very powerful, verdant allies, I should say. Torbjorn hopes so.

I really hope so. It didn't go very well last time, fellas, if you fucking remember that. Yeah, I think that we should restrain Torbek before he drinks the altered tea. Because if he becomes a rage monster, he will kill all of us. It's not going to be something you have to worry about. Why don't you go first, Frost? You're good at writing. You're good at drinking tea as well. I'm happy to drink the tea, and I'm happy to be our writer to capture a record.

I'm not very much a storyteller is my issue. I don't know. I don't have no poetry. I don't know. The first I'm hearing you don't have no poetry.

I don't know what kind of story would be interesting to you. Just restate facts about your life. That's all a story is. We fucking love facts, don't you? Are we not making up a story like a grand fantasy story? No, it needs to be true. Guys, we done been through like 57 stories since we've been here. Tell them about the time we

- Why don't we unclog that hag's pipes? Tell 'em about the time we can't-- - You can't accept me like that! - No, I'm gonna tell 'em about that time, all right? - No, no, no, no, no, no. - You do have to remember, this is a story that is all your own. You cannot give away a story that belongs to anyone else. A shared story will not do. It is something special only to you.

And the more powerful the story, the more powerful the magic. So the Oracle shrouds truth, but the more honest you are, the more honest the Oracle will be. The more information you'll receive.

Well shit, I was gonna tell him by the time I found out I look great in jorts. But I guess I was then, so... I found out too.

Everybody was there, it was in the hag hut. Wait, you went down in the ass hut! I thought you were in the hen too! You were saving the bee chad! I'll take you! Bail just reopened the carnival. Yeah. Guys, I know

that we're a bunch of middle-aged men past our prime, and as a bunch of lads, we are not good at opening up with each other, much less total strangers. Brooke, you're a game. Too real, are we? Ouch. But...

with a little bit of secret ingredient. It might loosen us up a little bit. And we have to do it to save the Feywild or whatever it is. Oh, here, I've already forgotten. We have to do it. What are you suggesting? Well... Well, we try to just, you know, with a little bit of mushrooms, right? We're going to get a little bit of limbo. Well, and Jormak is realizing...

That for how much time Torbek has spent with all of you, Torbek doesn't actually know very much about you. This is a chance for us all to learn a bit more. Yeah, but why? It's a shame that they want to learn something that they forgot already. Yeah.

Hold on, Frost, you go first. Yeah, Frosty, I feel like it's crummy set up that puts the spotlight off of me. I mean, what? I've known you for a fucking decade, Frost, and I feel like you haven't said a single fucking thing about who you were or what you've done before we fucking crossed paths. Um...

I'll start, I guess. Yoki, that sounds good. Like, it really doesn't matter which one of you goes first. Um, go ahead. You notice that the lights begin to dim. All of the lily lanterns that line the walls begin to flicker for a moment. That soft pink and yellow light becomes a little bit shrouded. It becomes cozy. You're illuminated by the fire in front of you. As once again, she...

refills your glasses just a little bit to warm them back up as she slowly begins to, as she takes a blue radiant powder, luminescent powder out of her, out of the satchel at her hip and she begins to sprinkle it in each one of your drinks. - Is this like gonna, you know, get us a little saucy, you know what I mean?

Oh yeah. Okay good, because I was gonna say that I don't know if you caught that we're a bunch of middle-aged men and so bro code dictates we can only open up if we're like at least 12 Bahama Mamas in.

Or equivalent. I don't know what that means. Or it could be like 2:00 a.m., and we're just very slightly buzzed, but at one point early in the night, we will really-- Yes! That also counts. That counts. That counts as a bro code. Okay, that's really wonderful, but if you could go ahead and just shut up a little bit so that Frost could tell his story, that'd be great. I'm just trying to help Frosty. No, no, no, I get it, I get it. And I promise you, it's all gonna work out just fine, okay? Okay, good.

You guys don't have to hold hands, though. Wait, who's holding hands? I'm not here. I've got me cup here. I mean, if it makes you feel better about it, you can, for sure. I was just scratching the... Stop looking at me. Frost? Convey to you the details of a memory that was very important to me, something that happened to me in my youth. Yeah.

Well, this was a very pivotal day for Morning Frost. This was a day like any other. I was very young, perhaps seven or eight. I remember that a person with an enclave of mysterious folks came to our village. See, I was in a small sort of farming village and grew up with my parents' only child.

And the leader of this group had been going house to house for what purpose I didn't know, nor do I really remember caring. I had my games and my friends, but at a certain point found my way home, or perhaps I was brought there by my parents calling me for food or dinner. I remember them sitting me down with this gentleman and leaving me alone.

and he pulled out this sort of box or satchel and he started putting objects on the table where dinner would normally be served. He put down some sort of a tinker contraption and with a few wines it started to play a soft melody. He put a pair of dice down, I remember, a gaming set. He put

a fancy pair of gloves was one of the objects I recall. He started setting down these objects and it didn't make any sense to me what he was saying, what he was having me look at. But I do remember when he pulled out a ball of yarn because, of course, this was something that I could play with. It felt like a toy to me. And I reached forward to grab it and he hit my hand.

Oh no. I had to pull back and I remember the tears welling up in my eyes and he told me to reach again and I attempted to reach again. This happened two, three times before I remember reaching out and the ball pulled into my hand without me actually grabbing it. It came to me and this time the man did not hit me. Uh...

That was the last time that I saw my parents alive. After I performed that task, I left with them the next morning and as an initiate, a Scion initiate who was to start my training to hone the mind.

You notice as Frost is telling the story, Frost, you don't notice this. You are trapped in your own mind. You are visualizing this memory. It's playing out like a mirror. It's playing out like a major image for you. You can smell the, um,

the place that you grow up, you can feel the yarn ball as it collides with your hand for the first time. You feel, you can feel again that electricity you felt the first time you used these powers for this purpose and you feel the sting of loss as you think about the parents that you never saw again. You don't notice like the rest of you do.

that the liquid in your cup begins to glow and glow and glow and as the story progresses, Frost opens up his heart and gives this tale to the mushroom peddlers that the more heart that he puts into this, the stronger this glows until finally it's so bright it's almost blinding and as the story finishes it settles into a soft glow but you feel

It's not necessarily something you know or something that's spoken, but you feel like the story was accepted by the Oracle. All right, it's time to drink up. Drink up, me hotties, yo ho. I read that in a book once. It is very, um, it is very earthy.

almost a little bit pungent and it stings your mouth a little bit on the way down. It's warm. It is not unlike alcohols that you've tasted before, grain alcohols that had maybe fermented a little bit too long. And it is, it's not easy to drink, but you are able to get it down. You can feel the warmth in your belly. Frost, you sit with these memories for a while and then

They fade. And that memory that you had is gone. You try to hold onto it. Try to think about the smell. Try to think about the feeling of that ball hitting your hand, but it's gone. And just as you're about to open your mouth to say... to verbalize that your memory is slipping away, you forget you ever had that memory to begin with. Alright, uh, well, that's, uh, that was heavy. What was I saying?

- What? - I need you all to roll a d20 for me, please. - What do you mean? That was, what? Crazy brain power aura? - Spike to natural 20. - Oh yeah. - Frost, you look up at everyone. I'm gonna just all go around the table. Frost, you look up.

And you hear them gasp for a second, but they're always talking nonsense. You're not so worried about it. But your attention is drawn to someone. Who is your attention drawn to? I think Gricko would be the first person my attention would go to. You turn and look to Gricko, and immediately you feel a pull behind your belly button as your consciousnesses are swapped.

Gricko, you find yourself in Frost's body. Frost, you find yourself in Gricko's body. God damn it. He gets to do it. He gets to do it on my dime. Is this seriously the greatest Valentine's Day present I've ever received? What day? I love you, Gricko. Frosty, I never knew that about you. I can't believe you never told us the origin of your strange order.

As this happens, as you're feeling, Gricko, it's important. This is important. As you were feeling these effects, come on. Your memory of him asking what he was just saying completely fades. And to you, all of you, to you, he told you the story. He knew he told you the story. And there's nothing strange about that at all.

- Wait, what were you saying? Wait, so we all forgot it. - You didn't necessarily forget his story, but you don't remember him saying anything like, "What was I telling you about?" You remember him telling the story and moving on as if this is all normal. - We have no sense that he's lost it. - So you have your characters that have no reason to believe anything weird had happened to Frost. - Gotcha. - Oh. - I think I've still suddenly gotten taller again. - Mikey, yours is going to stack. What did you get?

Oh, mine? I got an 18. I remember my roll, even though I had moved my die. You... This is actually very funny that these two stack. You are obviously in Frost's body. Yeah, he is. And you look down, seeing Frost's body, remembering the story that he just told you, and you realize he missed out on a key part. The stuff he told you wasn't important. It's what happened a couple of years later, when he became the world's greatest bard. Ha ha ha!

and now that you are living in his flesh you too are the world's greatest part why is my talent being wasted wait frosty i'm i'm not i can't forget you don't want to swap a great cup you're not frost

What are you talking about? I am false. I'm very clearly Griggo right now. Stop doing that. I've always been Graggo. I'm actually the greatest bard in the world. I'm still me, right? Why are you trying to stifle my greatness? Wait, wait, we swapped bodies, I swear! What did you get, Torbjorn? A natural one.

This is turning out just like that other time. You all turn to Torbek as he begins to speak. I don't know what you're going to say, but I'm putting you on the spot. And as he speaks, you realize that he speaks words, but they also appear over his head in a speech bubble. However, the speech bubble is inaccurate.

- So it will be up to everybody who's talking to him to decide what you read in the speech bubble. - Oh, that's actually interesting. - Should I reroll? I also got a natural one. - Yes, yes you should. - Oh, okay. - 15.

You die and immediately reincarnated. I'm okay, right? Oh, thank God. Krimit! Krimit, what's happening, man? Quick! Oh, he's dead! Oh, no, this is terrible! I've never been happier in my life. Please tell me that he's got total race. Give me arms, I want...

Are those your internal thoughts? What do you mean? What do you mean? You've never been happier. He's dead. Why is Gideon talking about that? He's dead, Torbjorn. I can see it painted all over your head. Gideon is too dumb to understand anything that's ever happened. I'll kill you! What did you roll with D100? Oh, fuck. Should I pull up the table? I'm pulling up. You'll turn into a fear of annihilation. I get a fear of annihilation.

Fly me to the space moon. I can lay beyond the space stars. A damp ear.

Yeah, 11 to 12 is a dampier. Yeah, 11 to 12 is a dampier. That's a lineage, isn't it? Yes. It is. So I'm still a lizard phone. Sure. Your teeth get a little dark. If you would like, you can roll again to see what kind of dampier you would be, or you can just be a lizard phone. Well, if I'm just being reborn as a vampire. It's up to you. Unless you want me to roll, it's up to you. Let me see what I would have gotten. Okay, okay. Ah!

- Oh God. - When is the Clint Eastwood okay? - Yeah, exactly right. - In era Cobra Dam here. - You double bitch! I knew you'd never forget me for the carnival. What the heck's going on over there? - Sorry, I have no idea what Gideon is talking about. - Shut the fuck up. - I'll kill you! Your internal blood love-- - I really was not sure how that one was gonna work out, but I kinda love it. - Silo, Simon, what's happening?

What's going on? Oh yeah, well it's a shroom, it's a psychedelic. I mean, I don't know what to tell you. You're gonna have to deal with this for a little bit, but don't slipside. This seems a little middle, much more than psychedelic. I need my guitar. Do you have a guitar around here? I'm the greatest bard in the world. Oh no, but if you're the greatest bard in the world, you should be able to make music with your own body. What did you get? A three. The world around you moves in slow motion. Ah!

Oh my god. Did I just pass out? I've sort of got some palpitations. You know when you get sort of anxious and you feel like you're about to pass out? You look really pale.

Oh yeah, whew. Are you an air cocoa or a lizard funk? I'm just a lizard funk. We'll stick to damp here. Are you okay? Why are you talking so slow? Spit it out, man. Spit it out! Spit what out? Your words! You're talking so slow! And you're moving slow! I'm like, and all of a sudden my eyes unfocus a little bit, and I see the vein on the side of your neck. Oh no!

I'm sorry, what? Well, I didn't think I'd have to do this, but my name is Gricko Grimgrin. I have big fuzzy paws, and I'm going to prove that I'm the greatest bard in the world the only way I know how, like all of my parties at Goblin College. Oh, Gricko. Today is gonna be the day that they're gonna throw it back to you.

By now, you should have somehow realized what you gotta do. I don't believe that anybody feels the way I do about you now. No, this is certified the best way to get chicks and show that you're a bard. Rico slash Frost, you have a love

Probably same voice, but maybe this isn't what you should be doing. Dear God, make it stop. I can't believe you'd be so cruel, Gregel. Do you know how many hot hot chicks I've gotten to that song? Proves the greatest, I'm the greatest bard in the world. How many?

I think that bard should start with an A, because that was an A+ song. Frost it now. Grimmy, you do look a little pale. This is Frost, by the way. What are you talking about? Of course you're Frost. Oh man. I think you died. What do you mean I died? Your heart palpitations, you fell over. No, I mean, it's a little chilly in here. Gideon, check your pulse and you are all gone.

Hold on, hold on. I don't feel my paw. Gid, Gid. Why don't you feel for my paw? You feel anything?

It's very, like, the world is in slow motion. It would be slow and you feel nothing. It's clearly, there's no pulse. Yeah, I don't know why you're doing it like that, but... No, I'm not getting anything. Just, just, just... Do you feel anything? No, nothing at all. Am I alive? Well, I mean, you're talking. I think. It's hard to understand you. You're talking so slow, man, but... No, I'm not getting any pulse. Just go with it. Ah!

And I leap on. You do. You sink your teeth into Gideon's neck. What, is he doing it in terribly slow motion? Yeah, you watch and you attempt to move out of it. But you two are also moving in slow motion as if you're moving through sand. You try to move away, but you can't. As his teeth latch onto your neck, you feel your pulse. Boom. Well. Boom.

And then all of you fall unconscious. Oh. Okay. I'm the greatest burden. How do you get that? This is a nightmare! I am coming. I am coming. Soon I will be free. I need to use the mush bathroom. Do you actually need to use the bathroom? That's very funny. Okay.

You are all Frost. You all look through Frost's eyes. Wow. As you wander through Loom Lurch, it is different, new. The tree, the ancient oak, has just recently fallen. The earth around it is still soft from where it...

from where it was blown apart to make way for this tree to fall here and nestle into. The garden has not yet become overgrown. You watch Frost almost as if

collective frost, almost as if you are watching from above, not actually part of this endeavor. You look out over the land of Thither and you can see that so much more of it looks more like the garden that you had traveled through than the forest that you had been traveling through recently.

The landscape completely changed, still wild, still new, still fresh. You watch as the knights, or as the toy soldier guards are building, not guarding, but building the areas of Loom Lurch that you have already seen. The goblin market is only about halfway built. The bridges that you crossed over are still in construction.

you see a large rocking horse wagon being pulled down the road and at the back of it, you see cages, wooden cages filled with children, all of them being pulled towards Loom Lurch. And sitting at the very head of the wagon atop this large rocking horse, you see an entity that you

have only seen in picture a large blue ogre-like creature with horns atop his head and large fangs protruding from the top and bottom of his jaw. His hair is wild and flows down his back. He's got a long beard at the front of his face and the look, you can tell by just looking at him that he is incredibly smart. And as you stare at him,

you, where this ogre had been, you immediately see a small child. A child you know, Will of the Feywild, sitting there. Once again, looking out quizzically, intelligently. You blink and you see the ogre appear again. You blink, you see the child and the ogre and the child and the ogre, all the while the children being pulled towards this place. It is easy to see

that this entity, the pincushion had not been wrong, this entity is one and the same. Your vision blurs and all of a sudden you're looking down into what is very clearly the bedroom of Granny Nightshade. You see her angry and frustrated as she paces about. Looking about you can see that Loom Lurch is clearly much older now. These parts of the bark have started to petrify. Time has passed here.

She's angry, and you can see that the key wedged into her back is spinning very quickly with her emotions as she tosses paintings and sewing notions and books and things all about the room as she silently rages. She calls out, but you can hear no words that she says as she looks towards the wall where you see two photos.

One of a woman you've never seen before, her dress elaborate, almost looking like some sort of tent at the base of it. The other one is very clearly Bavlorna as she takes a small wooden doll and she throws it against the portrait, shattering the glass as she curses her sister. You hear for the first time sound, children crying downstairs.

There is sadness at Loom Lurch, but why you're not quite sure. Your vision shifts and changes and you see yourself right outside of Loom Lurch itself. You can hear that same crying. Time hasn't passed. It's just a different glimpse of time, but a different place.

in, in thither. And you see a hunched over shape moving through the underbrush, darting between tree and bush and tree and bush. You see a much larger shape hulking over this other shape. And then the shape begins to shrink and shrink and shrink and shrink. You see the bush shake a little more and out from it walks, clearly, Bavlorna.

hand in hand with a small boy, Will of the Feywild. As she pushes him off into the distance, you hear her voice for the first time as she tells him to run. And he does. Your vision shifts, and you see Will making his way towards the treant.

and convincing him with quick words and very clear lies that he needs to help rescue all these children. But as you're looking into his eyes on this day, the day that he became a boy and not an oni, you can see that it is all lies. He clearly knows what he's doing and what he's saying. This boy is still an oni.

And he's very intelligent. Your vision shifts and you see Little Oak now filled with laughter and joy. Children hanging from the treetops, swinging from vines, sword fighting in the courtyard. All of it in the hopes of rescuing more and more and more children. As your vision shifts and once again you see Will sitting by himself alone in his treetop room.

as he writes in a small journal all of his innermost thoughts. "More children. I need more. Never enough. I grow hungry. I will regain my form and then I will feast. More children. There are whispers of them in the wild. They will come to me. They will free me. And I will feast." Your vision darkens and you find yourself once again sitting in this room right next to Saibin

Your mind feels muddled, a slight headache just right at the back of your mind. You push it away. You drink a little bit more of your tea. You feel it subside. Did you learn anything interesting? Okay. No, those are gone. Those are gone.

Oh no. You just, oh, you all have one level of exhaustion. That's not good. They should call them oh noes. Oh, I already said that. Oh god, Gid! What have I done? What happened? I'll take my thumb claw and I'll cut my vein and I'll say, join me in eternal damnation, Gid. Drink, drink. I don't think that's gonna work anymore.

Gideon. Oh, God. You feel your skin closing up. There's medicinal property to this tea as you drink it to let go of your headache. The moment you come back to consciousness, you no longer are suffering from any of the previous fakers. Wait a minute! Do Oni...

eat little owlbear children? Well, she's kind of more adolescent. Adolescent owlbears? I've read about Oni before. They'll eat anything, really. It's not like just children. Anything that they can possibly get their hands on, they'll eat. What? What?

Owlbear children, owlbear matrons, owlbear patrons. This is a nightmare. Guys, remind me. Hootsie is back at the tree and Will left, right? So Hootsie's with Lilo, who's not a bad bloke. From what we saw, right? Tree is donning little kids, right? Or little owlbears? Presumably. Okay, guys, I gotta say we gotta kill the kid.

All we gotta do is say "We don't know you're an oni, come out here Will, okay it's quiet" and then Kremi does his own trick and he whips out the pillow. He's a kid! I mean how strong can he be? How strong can he be? And if he dies in child form he probably dies in oni form. How do you know about my old trick? Well you remember the time you got drunk and you said "Oh, you know how I got so rich initially?"

Oh my god. Torbek originally agreed with Gricko on this plan. Torbek now doubly agrees with Gricko on this plan. We gotta kill the kid! We have to take care of Will. We have to kill the kid! Take care of Will. In that time, Torbek means death! Just one moment. I finish transcribing as much as I can in the tome of what we saw. Roll a... Hmm.

- Roll an intelligence check to see how well and how much you can transcribe. - Twist. - Twist. - Oh, twist. - Twist! - I'm gonna twist! I'm gonna twist! - 21. - Oh! - You are able to transcribe almost in perfect-- - Recall. - Perfect recall exactly what you saw. - Now I don't--

I will only allow one twist per the writing. I don't disagree that the kid is now a threat and something that we have to think about. However... We gotta think about killing him. Yeah, exactly right! Killing that kid-eating son of a kid. He's planning on eating Hootsie!

Do we have to know how fucking powerful an oni is? He's a kid! He's not like an old man. He literally got changed into a kid. So all I gotta do is...

You know. He weighs like 70 pounds, so he can wear a door that can snap him in two. There is a lot of thrashing when he does it. That's what I mean. If you're not strong enough anymore, Gideon will do it. I gotta stop drinking. I don't think I've ever seen this. That's ridiculous. That's a nightmare. Look.

Look, but what happens if it works like Polymorph and we fuckin' kill the kid and then all of a sudden he reverts back? Then we'll just kill him again, duh! Yeah, duh! And what if he picks us up and breaks us in half and gobbles us up? Well, that's why Gideon's the first thing you really hardly use a really big gun.

Big guy. Yeah, he can never gobble me up in one go. I mean, this guy looks pretty fucking big. Look, there's a little stick figure for a scale. Every only thinks they're powerful until they get punched in the face, all right? You know, that's a fair point. They go down like a sack of potatoes. So, okay. Plan's off. We gotta go kill... I mean, we'll sort of... You do the oracle thing. Because we need to get blessed and find out all these treasures.

We gotta reprioritize and kill him. We are with me. Tormek's with me. Tormek is with Graco! Goblin solidarity! Well, I mean, if he's had this plan this whole time and he still hasn't, like, figured it out, maybe he's never gonna figure it out, right? And maybe the kids are fine. Tormek doesn't want to take that risk! No, but does Graco. What we saw would frosted deduce that Granny Nightshade

wanted the only to eat and that that that was a like part of their whole relationship almost I would say what what you had learned you had learned a little bit I believe But yes, I will give you that further information It was very clear they had a relationship where he would go out and find kids and bring them to work and the ones that were punished Were given to him to consume. Okay, that was part of his reward for going out and

supplying her with all of these children. You saw the initial arrival of when the children were brought there. And in this form, he clearly cannot do that, and so he is amassing an army of children. He is planning to somehow return to his only form, and upon returning to his original form, he will be able to consume a massive amount.

I just wanted to make sure that Derek understood before saying, yes, I think that we're going to have to kill the kid. All right. Add it to the list. Well, we'll do that one on the way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or no, kill Will. Burr, burr, burr. Ch-ch-ch-ch. Ch-ch-ch-ch. Burr, burr, burr. Ch-ch-ch-ch.

Okay. Thank you for sharing. Oh. We don't remember that he shared it. And now that you've woke up, you don't even remember a story. Oh, shit. Oh, no. And he still doesn't remember. He's lost that memory for good. I believe I'm first in telling the story. So if we were going to have to do that, then we'd be able to experience it. You remember telling a story? Oh, I remember telling a story. You remember telling a story? I thought you were going to get more stories out of me. Too fucking bad. It is almost... It is...

It is a strange sensation. You remember telling a story and every time you think about it, there's a moment you're like, what did I tell? And you're like, oh yeah, yeah, I told my story.

And you just don't think twice about it. Do we think it's weird that we can't remember what he told the story about? No, the same thing happens to you. Every time you think about a story, you're like, wait, what was his, oh yeah, yeah, he told a story. Whose turn is it next? So I don't even think to go, Silo, Sibon, what story did I tell you? As soon as I start to get down the cul-de-sac towards that thought. You're like, oh yeah, yeah, they know it. Yeah, they know it. You just see mission complete. Mission complete in the quest log. Mission complete. Well, I'm sure it's my story. Mission complete.

I'm surprised that it was so effective. It seems like we saw some powerful sights. Damn fine story, Frosty. Yeah, it was. It was memorable. All right, I'll go ahead and pour some more drinks. And she pours some more drink. She keeps the powder close to her. Who's next? Well, when you're in a subterranean cavern being gaslit by mushrooms, they don't call it gaslight, they call it solid dark.

Griggo is forced to then run before him. I just don't like being fired at.

Mikey's just gonna play a vote soon. I show up and I'm like, "Oi! Oi! It's me, innit?" "What's all this then? Woo? Rock Casino, innit? What's all this? Okay." Well, I told my story. I don't really feel like telling more, but does anyone else have any stories that we can share?

Yeah. I mean, that's not a good one. And you say the more powerful a story, the more effective it will be. Not necessarily the more powerful, as much as the more truth to it, the more heart you put into it. Oh, so we could tell a story of our... The time we...

banged our shin on a stair and as long as we told it with emotional gravity then it would be ineffective. I mean, I can imagine it's really up to the Oracle whether they accept it or not. Oh, so we could waste time talking about shin injuries. Or shinjuries. Oh, there he goes. Aww.

There he goes. Okay. I can't really think of any good stories. It's tough. I don't know what to talk about myself. I'm very humble. I feel like I've told at least everything that I could tell. Oh, wow.

That raises a good question. Doorbeck wants to know if the story can be previously heard by other people. Oh yeah, of course. It just doesn't involve them. There we go. If that's the case, then one of my favorite stories of yours, Gricko, is the story you tell-- Wait, wait, you can't tell someone else's story! Oh yeah, I think you might die. It's a bedtime story.

A bedtime story? When Ootsy's a little uppity, she... What do you just call my daughter? Yeah, she can't get to bed. She's not uppity. Yeah, exactly right. What's wrong with her not being able to get to bed? Just restless is sort of where I was going with that.

That should be true. I usually embellish and tell all sorts of "Oh, and then the longest month to serve a..." That's my favorite part. I speak inside Grigoro's mind. When you first met Hutsi? When you found her? I feel like that's a little person. Suit yourself. I feel like that's a little person.

We just start going back and forth. Instead of Loch Ness, they should call it Key Lucas.

That's very good. Wow, the silence is getting awkward. Wow. That's devastating. I'm getting beat at my own fucking games. This is a nightmare. You don't understand. Every, like, between sessions, all he does is spend the next week thinking of ways that he can... Oh, my God. I want to hurt my brain. Oh, God. Kill Lucas. That's devastating. Dormek isn't telling Graco what to do. But we are aware...

That the more emotionally impactful, the more information or better we'll get. Torbjorn has one in mind. Okay. Go ahead, man. I want you to figure something off. Never tote nobody. Not even Frosty. Me best mate. I got a story, too, but it's not emotional. Okay. I don't know. Yeah, you guys go. Go ahead, man. It's all on you. Torbjorn.

You guys probably know most of this story, but Torbek feels that Torbek should tell them and the Oracle the reason that Torbek is doing all of this. As you say this, Saibin begins to sprinkle the blue powder into all of your drinks. Oh, let's take a drink every time he says Torbek. Every time he says Torbek. Oh man, we will get so drunk.

You remember that you're not supposed to drink until after the story's told, because it glows and determines how much the oracle accepts it. You put squand in there? Yeah, right through my fingers. Oh man, one night we should drink every time Gringo says okay. Oh yeah, that'll be a good time. Wake up ten days later.

Torbjorn, you can do it. I believe in you. Listen, Torbjorn is nervous, but we all have the same questions about Torbjorn. So Torbjorn feels like he has to tell the story to maybe get some answers, right? I mean, this is as good a place as any. Probably the best fucking place. Okay.

As far back as Torbec can ever remember, Torbec has always heard voices. Well, one voice really. That's why Torbec drinks so much. It helps. But over time, the voice has gotten stronger. Especially towards the last time that Torbec saw you guys at the carnival.

Things were getting worse and worse! That's why Torbek was looking for gainful employment! To try and turn Torbek's life around! And we all know what happened. Torbek was accused of stealing, and the details are fuzzy. It was all alleged! And the next span of years is more or less lost to time.

Torbek remembers some things. Okay. The poor thing. Torbek wishes he didn't remember others. The tubes, the experiments, the pain. Okay. But that voice, it gets worse and worse until Torbek learns that there's always been some other entity inside. So...

After Torbek came to and attacked all of his friends, Torbek decided that Torbek needed to learn answers. There are powerful people after Torbek, and Torbek doesn't know why. Torbek has even murdered people, but Torbek thinks it's the other's fault. Torbek is scared. This is Torbek's

story for continuing the journey and going on Torbek's first adventure! Torbek just wants answers and to maybe one day be free of all this! The blinding blue light is incredibly powerful as it blasts out from your cups and you feel yourselves almost swallowed and bathed in this light as Torbek, you forget.

Everything, every word you've just said, every memory you just had, every bit of inspiration for going on this journey just completely disappears. The other completely disappears. There are no voices in your head. You've only ever been Torbek. I'll drink to that. All right. Okay. There you go.

And all of you, once again, remember that Torbek told a story and as you think about it, you're like, what was that? Oh yeah, he told a story. That's all that matters. And you knock back the liquid in this cup and you all begin to feel that same twinge of heat in your stomach as you become overpowered by hallucinations. I need you all to roll a d20 for me. - Oh God, not again.

Give me some 14. Jesus. You are a proud nudist. That warm heat is incredibly warm. The fire is raging in here. It is hot. I got a 10. Your knees fuse together.

You're sitting. You're fucking legs, right? My fucking legs. 19. You believe you are the luckiest person in the world. You are in fact the unluckiest person in the world. 15. You die and are reincarnated. Please roll a d100 for me. Why do you keep dying?

Look, kid, I'm real sorry about earlier, you know, when I bit. No, it's, listen, it's totally fine, man. You didn't hit anything. You didn't hit anything. You didn't hit anything important. It was a major injury. I got real lucky there. Are you feeling okay? He looks pale. Oh, gee, I mean, mechanically, I got some hit points for that, but... No, mechanically, I'm really fine. This is all wrong. If there's anything I can do...

- Oh fuck! - Ah, Krabby would never die on me, I'm too lucky for that. - 43, you say? Roll a d4 for me. - Oh no. - Oh gosh. - Walrus related form. - You arise as a beautiful, lithe wood elf. - Oh. - What the fuck? - Did I die again?

Cremmy? Is that Cremmy? Hey. I like it. You, uh... Yep. You're gonna keep it. You look very different. Is that you, Cremmy? Oh, no. This is not what's happened to me. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Look at me. Do I look beautiful? Well, you turn into some kind of fancy. Hell. He does look beautiful.

Mr. Kremi, why do you keep dying? You can't keep me at the recesses of your mind forever. Oh, you fuse together legs. Wait, I understand that Kremi died and turned everyone out, but look at me fucking legs! Yes, that seems very familiar for some reason. Fucking legs! Look at them! And I'm so glad that I can do this.

I'm free at last. Oh, no. Frosty. Can you put some clothes on? Can you please? No, it's fine. It's fine. I think we're all going to make it out of this totally okay, all right? Things just have a way of going totally according to plan. And I turn and trip over my chin and land in Frosty's lap. Excuse me. It's so cold.

Oh, it's so furry! Stop, stop, get off me, get off. Oh, gosh, that was unexpected. The second I look like this and this is what you do? What, it's not what I did? I mean, you... You think that's bad? Look at my fucking legs! Jeez.

Remember the time that my legs became fused? You're acting like Torbjörn! Torbjörn has gotten in trouble for that so many times! I love seeing Gideon in pain. It's my choice, and it's time for me to be who I truly am. No robe, no shoes, just all frost all the time.

Well, I mean, I guess technically that's your choice. But, I mean... Was it because of your emotional story you told us about something or other? Perhaps. Put some fucking clothes on! You disgust me! No, I'm keeping them here in my pack. Wait! I'm totally confused!

As you say, I can finally grow up and feel your face, all of you fall unconscious. I whip out my compact mirror and I'm drawing on a pencil-thin mustache. You look like Philip Prescott. The floor is completely smooth around me and as I pass out, I happen to fall on the only collection of rocks. And then my crotch hits your face.

Now this is where we keep our jagged, sharp rock collection. My final words will be, maybe better luck next time, Mr. Crammy. I'm going to garnish flesh instead of wages. Oh my gosh.

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

You can also go to thecrookedmoon.com to pick up your own copy of our first published supplement, The Crooked Moon, a folk horror tome for Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition. And don't forget to snag all of the extra goodies like dice, miniatures, plushies, a tarot deck, and more. Thank you! You all fall unconscious. You are all Torbek. Or are you?

You shake, your entire bodies are shaking, but you feel secure as you sit on what is clearly a mushroom seat in this long,

train underground as it travels faster and faster and faster. Occasionally, lights flicker against the cave walls. Clearly, more bioluminescent mushrooms that line these walls as a magic mouth spell goes off and you hear, City of Iron and Glass, next stop, the train. Train that you're in?

You look around out of these eyes and you see that this is fungal in nature, almost like tendrils that are carrying you through the earth, through these tunnels. As you, as the train stops, shakes a little, you stand up, you shake some of the dust off of your pristine suit, perfectly cut for your tall, lithe body.

your fingers adorned in beautiful jeweled rings. You adjust your cravat and you check to make sure that your kerchief is still where it's supposed to be in the pocket at your breast. And you reach down and grab a leather briefcase, pick it up, and you begin to disembark.

You step out into a beautiful stone and glass enclosure. You see all sorts of people, creatures milling about. A beautiful moth couple is making their way down these mosaic glass stairs that head up to the above, to the upstairs.

and they are dressed in, the woman is wearing a beautiful black bustle gown, her moth wings laying softly at her back, her hair piled atop her head in beautiful ringlets, her antennae pointing towards the sky. She has a soft black veil of spider silk draped over her face as her lace gloves are being pulled

climb the length of her arm as she holds tight to the man next to her in a beautifully tailored suit, both of them in black, and you can see her eyes are puffy. She's been crying as she slowly retracts the parasol that she's had at her shoulder, and he takes it from her and places it at his side as they embark in the same cart that you had exited. As Torbek had exited. Or maybe not.

As you ascend these stairs, it feels like your body. You feel like yourself.

You make your way up these beautiful stairs, all of them encrusted in shards of beautiful glass that have been fused together to create beautiful scenes, floral arrangements, a very art nouveau style. Looking up, you see that the entranceway that's well above you up the stairs is completely gilded and decorated with a mosaic of the moon and stars.

And as you climb these stairs, more and more people pass you. You see a wolf-like man in a suit and top hat as he twirls his cane and whistles as he walks down the stairs. You see entities that are almost insect-like, and none of them look twice at you. None of them... You don't seem to incur any of their attention as you make your way up and up and up. You pass a...

flyer that is attached to the wall. The city never sleeps in the beneath, and it shows what appears to be a rock band and neon lights and beautiful bioluminescence. It looks like it's been attempted to be pulled down, as if the people heading up don't want to see this kind of thing. You continue up and up and up until you find yourself beneath a veil of stars. The sky, beautiful blues and purples and pinks.

Thousands of stars sparkling overhead. The air is crisp and cool. Beautiful night air. Off in the distance, you see what looks to be a large manor house up on the hill. Looking down over this city, you see the beautiful Art Nouveau style of every single building, and all of them perfect, pristine, beautiful. Very similar. Your clean, fresh new boots clack against the cobblestone as you walk forward.

You begin to whistle a tune, a tune that is familiar to you for a second, and then fades from your memory, and then familiar again, fades. You've heard it somewhere, but you can't quite remember where. Your breath comes out in a puff of smoke as you continue to walk. The city sparkles in starlight, and it is bustling.

People mill about here and there as you continue to walk, taking one street and then the next. You know exactly where you're going. Eventually, you make your way to an incredibly large, incredibly wide row house. Clearly the centerpiece of the street that you find yourself on. And you walk up glass steps until you reach the door, and with a soft knock, you wait. One moment, and then two.

The door opens and a small creature, looking almost mosquito-like, opens the door and looks up at you. "The doctor will see you shortly, my lord." "He's here. The duke." "Come in. It's time for your appointment." You follow this thing as it turns around. It's Proboscis pointing the way deep into this beautiful row house. And you feel comfortable.

What in the hell? That wasn't fucking you, was it? No, there was no fucking way that was Torbeck. There's no way!

Torbjörn, you don't have any noble titles that I should be aware of? No, not since the one you gave Torbjörn back and then took away from Torbjörn back. Yeah, I miss King Smebulek. I was a lot smarter.

If you've been holding out on us that you were a fucking duke and you could have ended this whole mission like that just by fucking a small loan of 100,000 gold pieces. Torbjorn is not a small loan! That has never happened to Torbjorn in his entire life. Well, hell, didn't Pencushion say that whatever she was looking at within you didn't look like you? Looked like a guy?

then that's even worse because the guy living in Torbeck had a much better life than Torbeck ever had. Yeah, why would some fella want to be inside of like a dirty trash bin

Person. No offense. None taken. No offense. I mean, you've got to think about the logistics. If you're in some cool city, I mean, that was exactly the kind of band that I wanted to be in when I was a kid. Yeah, and one night's getting so cool. That was amazing. I was like, gosh, I want to go there. I can finally be meself. Man. Man. I will get dressed in a moment. Dressed with a bow.

My legs are falling, I hate me legs. Oh yeah. I hate me legs, I'm falling in. I'm writing what I remember in the book. Okay, roll an intelligence check for me. None of this makes any sense. One twist. None of that happened to Torbeck. Wait, that was... 22. Hold on. You are able to write down everything exactly as you witnessed it. I think there's some kind of confusion. You even draw pictures. Oh.

- That's nice. - You recreate the flyer, the city never sleeps in the beneath with the band beneath it. You recreate the beautiful stained glass star mosaic that was coming out of the underground. And you recreate a perfect image of the

the facing of the house that you entered. That looks just like my favorite Soul Eater character, Mosquito. Yeah, yes, it does look like Mosquito, doesn't it? Holy shit. A little bit of a different Soul Eater. And then I reach into my pack and I put on my undies and start to reassemble myself. Oh my god. Well...

Look, if this Duke exists and he's connected to Torbeck somehow, maybe we can, I don't know, ask for a favor. Get a small loan! Yeah, hell, did you hear what the train said? City in iron and glass! That was so cool! It was so cool! That was so cool! That was so cool! Gosh, can we just, after this, we should go there and start a rock band! Yeah, we gotta find them. Finally! That's all I've ever wanted! Well, aren't they looking for him?

I mean if we go there we're gonna be walking right into where the people are looking for him! Now we'll solve the problem! Now we'll solve the problem! It's a risk we have to take! To start a metal band in an underground city?!

Oh, we can't call it the city of Ironclads because that's where we'd be. It'd be so lame. We can't call it Brain Krieg either. No, definitely not. No, definitely. That's taken. Ketchum laser beam. That's pretty good. Okay. All right. Who's next? We got to fix all that problem. What do you think, Gid? Me or you? I mean, I got something, but it's not very emotional. I got something that's pretty emotional. Yeah, mine's not emotional either.

If you're ready for it. We should probably go with the one that's least emotional. Oh. Yeah. Well, I guess that should do it. The heavier it gets... By the way, you all have another level of exhaustion. Oh, shit. I forgot about that the first time. The heavier it gets, the harder it becomes. Should we flip for her? Or do you want to go? I'll go. Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. She refills your drinks. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. And she...

She sits down, she holds the, um, oh, she sprinkles the packet, um, her little pouch of blue powder in each one of your, each one of your drinks. Alright, let's go again. Well, see, it ain't emotional at all, you know, but it's just about the only story I can think of under the circumstances. Uh, and it's, uh, it's about the time I made my first, uh, made my first motorbike, you know.

Paul used to have one back home, but he never rode it, you know? And that used to drive me crazy, man, that he have a cool looking hog bear. And I always wanted to ride it, you know, but he never let me. "You're too young, it's my prized possession, you're gonna destroy it." Well, that was crazy talk! And so, you know, I did like any kid would do it, I hopped right on it, and I gave it a little ride, you know, took it around.

Uh, and then it wasn't too long after that that I destroyed it. Uh, crashed it straight into a tree, flew out, almost damn near snapped my neck, but uh, got away with just a broken leg. Uh, the bike? Destroyed. Man, when my pa found out, damn did he tan my hide so fast I didn't think I'd sit down for three straight weeks!

But then the next day, he sat down with me, pulled up all the parts together, pulled me into the shed and...

We started to put it back together. They asked me for a wrench. I handed them a screwdriver, and he said, damn, son, when they were giving out common sense, they were shy the day you were born. Hey, a couple ones like that. Oh, man, Paul. I mean, we were in that shed probably damn near, I don't know, over a month. We spent...

day and night, well really night, we were still working during the day but we spent most nights just kinda putting it back together you know and it was uh, I don't know, we didn't have a lot of moments like that you know it was all work he was uh, he was a good man Paul but he was tough you know he was focused he was uh, he was always working you know there weren't a lot of moments together just like that and that was uh, you know one of the last times I felt

close to him. We just put that thing back together for six weeks and man the sound it made when it uh when it whirred back home the first time

Well, I misaligned the engine coil, you see, and so the sound wasn't good at all. So we had to get back to the drawing board on that one. But then eventually we got it there, you know, hooked up the regulator to the rat sprocket. And, you know, it purred back to life eventually. Anyway, like I said, I mean, it's not emotional. It's just the only happy memory I have of my Paul. So...

That's it. You think about this memory and you can hear that whirring sound. And even though you could hear in that moment that it was not right, you see the face of your Pa and that smile of pride. Even though he knew that you were installing it incorrectly, he didn't stop you. He wanted you to make your own mistake. He knew you'd figure it out. He had faith in you. And as you stare at that smile, it slowly fades.

You can no longer remember that face or that smile or that sound. And then you think to yourself for a minute, I told a story. Yeah, I told a story. I don't need to worry about it. I would have loved to share a drink with that man. Yeah. Who? We always, I always had peanut butter pie in case Paul Cooke showed up. Who? And you... Wait, who? Who?

- Who? - And you all think about this and then collectively you're, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - Good story. - Yeah, good story. - Well, like I said, you know what I mean? - Pretty cool, yeah. - Twisted turns. - Frosty or Torbix. - And for the sake of brevity, you've had

multiple trips on this stuff now and it seems like your constitution has risen and though you still feel that fire in the pit of your belly you wait for the hallucinations to come you feel a little uh you feel a little um dizzy at some point you feel a little nauseous at others

But the hallucinations never come. And you begin to relax. Are you sure about that? And you feel comfortable as you watch as though the light doesn't increase the way that it did for Torback. It does pulse and blink. It seems as if it was it accepted. But there's almost a hesitation about taking this memory. And you wait. Wait.

And eventually, mid-conversation, you all fall asleep. You all become Gideon. You're welcome. Your visions begin to shift. Get out of the fanfiction. Sorry, continue. I'm fine. Okay.

I'm good. Yeah, I'm gonna wait. Your visions begin to shift. You can smell fresh bread baking in the oven. The hearth crackles and the warmth of this cozy space sinks deep into your bones. You realize in an instant just how tired you are. How little sleep you have gotten.

The small couch that faces the hearth is a glow in the light of the fire. The patchwork quilt clearly sewn lovingly by hand, strewn across the warm arm of the couch looks incredibly inviting. Your stomach rumbles as new scents assail your nostrils. The scent of stew, roast meats, fresh bread, and a cooling pumpkin tart all intermingle and your hunger grows.

Overcome with exhaustion and hunger, you snuggle beneath the quilt, far too inviting to decline its allure, and you close your eyes, listening for the sound of tiny feet traipsing about this place, the inn at the end of the road. Twigg's home, your home away from home, is the epitome of comfort, and there is no better place to rest your weary head and wait anxiously for your next meal. Time slips away from you as you are wrapped in a comfort only a home can provide. Seconds turn to minutes.

Minutes to hours. Hours to days. Sleep takes you for far too long and then you wake abruptly. Your eyes try to adjust the darkness that surrounds you. What was that sound that woke you from your dreamless sleep? Was it the pattering of tiny feet on a rough hewn floor? The sounds of pots and pans being shuffled about the kitchen? Your breath comes out in puffs of smoke as you shiver in the cold. The couch beneath you is hard.

the fabric scratching against your skin, the fire in the hearth long extinguished. She must be around here somewhere. You close your eyes again and listen, hoping for the familiar sound of your friend, the newest member of your found family. But the only sound that assails your ears is a soft scratching of a branch against glass. The scratching gets louder and louder until you can feel it in your very bones, and then a silence so loud your breath catches in your throat.

You shiver against the cold as you feel a fear that reaches the very pit of your soul. You pull the quilt up around your body. Gathering all of the courage you can muster, you open your eyes and you are once again looking at the roaring fire, bathed in its warm light. The couch beneath you is soft and fluffy. The smells of fresh-baked goods surround you, and then you hear it. The sound of feet shuffling across the floorboards. Glasses tinkling with the movement. The smells of fresh food getting closer and closer.

You lay back and snuggle deeper into the blankets, the strange nightmare having passed. You relax into the comfort of this place, the inn at the end of the road. With your eyes closed, you can feel her presence now. The tiny form of twig places a tray of food on your lap and wipes the sweat from your brow. "You look so tired, Gideon. You should eat and get some rest," she says to you in her sing-song voice you've found yourself missing more and more each day.

Don't worry, she says as you feel her sink onto the couch next to you, the weight of her tiny body making quite the wave on this fluffy couch. She takes in a rattled breath and says, let your baba take care of you while you rest. Drink up and sleep. She holds the cup to your lips as you drink down a warm broth.

The room around you chills again as the broth warms your bones from the inside. You thank Twig for her hospitality. You feel her gnarled hand caress your cheek as your mind is clouded by sleep. You feel the heavy weight of her form rise from the couch and the sounds of her shambling towards you, the clinking of glasses ringing in your ears. You open your eyes to see Twig's sweet face staring down at you beneath a tattered brown shawl. Her eyes enlarged by her glasses, her cheeks rosy in the firelight.

You smile up at her and she smiles down at you even more broadly, her iron teeth shining in the firelight. The cauldron behind her bubbles with a vivid magenta light. The entire room of her hut is shrouded in magenta light. That's probably fine. I should have been doing it.

Mm-hmm.

A broom of silver birch leans up against one of the shelves. What looks like a large stone basin is pushed to the corner, and leaned against it is a long wooden pole with a bulbous stone head. And all throughout, countless knickknacks and strange artifacts are placed about. A wooden totem carved in the shape of a pelican, its bill filled with wriggling fish and seashells.

A set of bagpipes made from the multicolored digestive organs of strange creatures. The skull of a huge crocodilian creature with gems encrusted throughout. A wooden cage with a gaunt-looking sprite with chicken bone wings. A set of three unnecessarily spiraling hunting horns of increasing length. A spool of thread, shimmering silver, that seems to glow in this space. A rounded green bottle filled with plump red toadstools. A cluster of feathers that seem to be alight with varying shades of teal and yellow.

A set of nesting dolls that seem to be the same woman but older with each larger doll. Ajar with a live toad, its back covered in human-sized eyeballs. A ticking cuckoo clock on the wall that actually seems to be quite normal, but when it strikes the hour the cuckoo comes out and shrieks for its child.

The scratching sounds continue as you look around this cozy cottage. The plush couch is soft, the fireplace is roaring with a well-tended fire, fresh bread baking in the oven. Wait, no. It's cold. The hearth isn't letting off much warmth. The sprite with the chicken bone wings is scratching at the window. No, there is no sprite.

It's the sound of dried herbs hanging from the well-lit ceiling of the inn at the end of the road. A cottage, not a hut. Warmth and not cool fire. You hear her in front of you again, your eyes heavy with sleep. You feel the cool porcelain glass pressed against your lips. You hear her speak. "Twig, take care of you while you rest. Drink up and sleep."

You pull the quilt up around you, unable to fight against the sleep as it overtakes you. You hear that scratching sound again. The quilt tightens around you, almost uncomfortably. You pry your eyes open one last time. The sprite with the chicken bone wings points and laughs at you, but you hear no sound. The room is hazy. The couch is hard and scratchy. No, the scratching is coming from the vines that wind around your body. One blue rose blooming against your chest as the thorns cut into your skin. And then you all wake up.

What in the fuck? Question. Did Torbeck recognize the silver spool of thread? Roll a perception check. A disadvantage. No twist may be used. Ten. No. Damn. Torbeck says nothing. Oh!

What was that? What does it mean? Build a clock like that! Frost, you attempt to put pen to paper and every time you attempt to write, you feel as if something is keeping your hand from moving. You start to write a word.

But you can't quite bring the tip of this carved writing utensil down to the page. Something stops you, prevents you, holds your hand at bay no matter how hard you try. I need you to roll an intelligent saving throw at disadvantage. - Do we also take a level of exhaustion? - And you also take a level of exhaustion. - Oh, God. - Frost's brain is about to implode upon itself. - Intelligent saving throw? - Mm-hmm. - At disadvantage. - And no twists may be used.

- Every time you attempt to write something, you start thinking about something else that needs to be written down and your mind starts to struggle as you're not sure where to start, how to begin, what to say. And then as you begin to think even more, you start to forget thing after thing after thing. - Holy shit, he's developing ADHD. - Until all of a sudden you're sitting there.

And all you can smell, or all you can remember is the smell of a delicious pumpkin tart. Wait, Frost, what was that vision about? What'd you write down? I don't know, nothing. Torbek loves pumpkin. Oh, I remember that too. You wrote nothing down. What if they gave us the recipe to that pumpkin tart? Silo, uh, Sivan. The vision that we just experienced, was it not a good enough story?

Oh, I don't get to see what you see. I'm just here to facilitate and make sure you're safe. Though it was strange, that green haze that came about you emanating from that doll on your back. What? You talking about Twigsy? Green haze? It was almost like she was protecting you or something. I don't know. I'm not big on dolls myself, though I've read a few books about them. Ha. The memory...

All I can remember being shown is this

is the experience of smelling a pumpkin tart. - Oh, I would love a pumpkin tart right about now. - It was real. - Oh, Silo, can you put that on the shopping list? - Your grandma maybe used to make pumpkin tarts back in the day, or? - Oh, we didn't have any pumpkins out that way. I mean, maybe sweet potato. I don't know, it kinda smelled like sweet potato. - Oh, sweet potato pie. - Can I rate-- - That's very yummy. - The smell of pumpkin tart? - Yeah. - I'll rate that.

Well, I'm awful tired since mine isn't very emotional and I'll feel like it's related to well, I don't remember Gideon's story so it's not related. As you go to say that word you can't get the words out I don't remember his story. You start to say it and you're like I just I feel like it would be appropriate for mine next. I feel like it's appropriate for some reason that's right I do remember here that's right sorry. Yes.

- Oh, should I go now? - Oh, that would be lovely. All right, let's do this. Gosh, you guys are looking tired. We better get through this as fast as we can. - It's good that we'll be here. - Okay. - She fills up your cups. - I feel very tired. - Sprinkles the blue powder on top of them and waits patiently for you to tell your story. - Um, I mean, you guys know that I've never told this to anyone, not even Hootsie. So this should be appropriate for the prompt.

I've always really liked music and you know growing up it was just me and my mum and obviously my uncles and cousins but you know just at home it was just me and my mum and we were very poor. My mum you know she didn't have, she didn't make a lot of money but I always, I went down you know when I was very young when I was just a lad we went down into the city in the salt marsh and saw a great concert and I knew right then that I wanted to be a musician.

And so I was so excited I wanted to do hardcore, epic, cool rock music. I wanted to be a rock star, you know? I like every young lad and I love music and I kept saying how much I want that. And my mum, she spent a full year working two jobs and she spent every single copper piece that we had, I didn't know this at the time, I was a kid, I don't remember this, to import a piano all the way from Brigg. Piano!

and to pay to bring in a music teacher a tutor hated it but i did it because my mum told me that i had to and i was very good at it i was great i was amazing the the teacher um she said that i was the greatest you know student she'd ever had and you know i just more and more and more

you know, was I got better and I did practice, I did my lessons, I did as she said. And then one time I just got made fun of for playing a lame instrument. And so I came home and I yelled at the teacher. I said, get out of here. And she left and settled the lesson. And then I took the piano and I rolled it out of the house. I rolled it to the edge of the street and I shoved it into the swamp and I smashed it to pieces.

And when my mum came back, I thought she was going to be so mad when she found out I was going to be defiant and I'm a real musician, I don't play no lame piano. And she wasn't angry. And I think that was the worst part. She just said, "Okay, Cricko, you don't have to take your piano lessons anymore. It's over." That night, and for many nights afterwards, I'd hear her crying in her room. She had told me that I was so good that

If I got good enough, I could be playing in the courts of nobles and for fancy people, I could finally have a little bit of money. And we never have spoken about it. I'll still, you know, when I get a chance to write my mum, we never talked about it again. Not once have we mentioned it. But, you know, I'll never forget the sound of her crying and sniffling in her room. You say this as you hear the sound of her sniffling and crying in her room. And then nothing, just silence. The letters that never spoke of it again wouldn't.

Because in your mind, it never happened. Hmm. Oh. I told you it wasn't an emotional story, it was just, you know, something that happened earlier, you know? You watch as all of the glasses illuminate. Once again, in a very similar fashion to what happened with Gideon, where it almost seems as if there's a sadness about taking this memory. And it glows. You all drink up, and you wait. The headache doesn't come this time.

You're a little shaky, your heart's race a little bit. Occasionally you feel a twinge of upset in your stomach, but it's not as bad as the last time. You're acclimating to this and you know that you only have one more to get through. As you think about what's happened and you realize that so much of it feels shrouded and missing and just as you think that you're like, "Oh no, that's not true. I remember the night perfectly. I don't need to get into the specifics. I remember everything."

is all of you, all asleep. - Turn the music up a little bit. - Yeah, I will when I change it. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Come on. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Sunset. - The opera house is all aglow. The lights in the sconces.

are as bright as they could be as they flash once, twice, three times signaling to the patrons in this place that the show is about to start. Folks that are out getting concessions begin milling, are making their way back in. The boxes begin to fill. There is uproarious sounds as all of you are gripped. All of you are seated in one of the best boxes in the Opera House.

You look down at the beautiful stage. The woodwork around it is gilded, gold and shimmering, jewels encrusted in different pieces. The painting along the ceiling is fresh. You can almost still smell the paint. The chandelier hanging there shines with the illumination of thousands of stars.

The lights slowly begin to dim. A hush falls over the crowd. You look out and you see that every single seat is filled. People and creatures of every variety. Everyone has come out tonight for the show. The doors lock loudly. And people look, you hear some whispering. Why would they lock the doors? It's strange, what if...

What if I get a notification on my sending stone? Yes, why would they lock the doors? That seems strange. You see a couple people get up and attempt to open the door, and they're ushered back by these strange bat-winged creatures, their faces covered in masks of full moon.

as they usher them back to their seats. You hear the soft voices. Everything's gonna be all right, miss. Take your seat. The show's about to start. Yes, yes, everything's all right. The first show opening night.

The people calm and quiet returns as the curtains open and you hear the tap, tap, tap of heels on the stage. It's out on the stage in a large black dress. You see a woman you've only ever seen in images. She's tall and lithe and her dress is voluminous around her. Endelyn Moongrave, the third sister, stands atop the stage looking out at the audience before her.

As the curtains open to reveal her, you notice that the curtains of her skirt begin to open too, and a beautiful play, a puppet show, begins to appear on a makeshift puppet cabinet at the base of her dress. As she begins to speak, "Thank you for coming to the opening night of the Yon Opera House."

"Invitations from all around the Feywild have been sent to only those most deserving, and it is wonderful to see you here. We're so happy to have you. Please, enjoy the show. It will be a night you will never forget." She bows before all of them and everyone claps, their gloved hands muffling the sound, even though it erupts throughout this theater.

your vision shifts, bits of the play unfold. You see a, uh, you see a large, um, bugbear type man that looks very similar to someone you had met at the carnival as he performs as a lead in this, in this opera, in this play, his voice echoing throughout this place, rivaling many that you'd ever heard. You see, um,

a group of gnomes that perform on the stage, singing in a choir. And then lastly, you see two beautiful elves, one with a sun mask, the other with a moon.

as they do acrobatics and sing hanging from the ceiling. The audience is enchanted and thralled as they watch this. And as the elves move together, creating a solar eclipse as their masks pass the sun over the moon, you hear a shriek from the audience. The entire place begins to rumble.

And then, looking down at all of this from your seat in the box, you watch as one person after the next bursts apart, completely exploded into viscera, as a burst of sunlight erupts out of them, one person after another, after another, after another, after another. You watch as Endelin walks out onto the stage, her arms and legs

spindly and lithe begin to grow larger and larger, almost spider-like as she moves, a smile across her face as she watches the two elves hanging from the ceiling look horrified and pained at what's happening.

but they can't stop themselves. She almost controls them like puppets, and you notice that she does, in fact, attach to her rings, have strings that make them move at her command as every single one of the patrons bursts into blood and viscera, a sacrifice for the opera house, a sacrifice to the opening. As you feel that warmth grow in your stomach, you feel the pain as you, too, explode, and you all wake up. - Jesus!

These are some bad mushrooms, man. These keep getting worse and worse. Oh my god. It's hitting like a ton of bricks. That was terrible. Fucking evil. Four levels of exhaustion. Four levels of exhaustion. What the hell are we getting ourselves into? Fuck. And that's the next one. Ugh.

Oh, God. Well, at least we can feel good about killing her when the time comes. You're not looking very good. No. Are you sure you can complete this? If we had any more, I'm not sure we would survive. I feel half my normal self, at least.

Should we continue? We're almost done, right? We only got a crammy left, but I am spent. I don't know if we can fucking survive it. What do you think, fellas? If we do this, there's a chance that we may die, or we will be unable to leave this place of our own accord for however long it takes to recover. I've never felt like this before.

Oh my god. Roll an intelligence check to see if you're able to retain that memory. I'm so tired. Disadvantage, 10. No, not a disadvantage. Not this one. This one's not a disadvantage. Oh, really? This is regular, yeah. We're just exhausted, though. Exhausted. Oh, you're exhausted, yeah. Yeah, you can use a twist on this one. It was just Gideon's. You couldn't. Can I use a twist? Use one twist. Oh.

- 11 plus five is 16. - You are able to write this one down. There are some aspects of it that you miss, specifically some of the play actors in the performance. But one thing that you do recollect after the fact is that every single one of the actors, no matter how good they were at performing their part, all of them,

To you, in this recollection, you could see the sorrow behind their eyes. The shame and the guilt. - I write that down? - Mm-hmm. - I think I've captured everything. - What do we think? - Can we get like a hot Jones or? - Once it's begun, it can only, we either finish it or we stop. There's no going back. - No, we gotta finish. We need to finish. All right. - I think we gotta do it.

I know all of you have been desperate to learn about us. Not really. She refills your drinks and sprinkles the powder on them. You've been begging for a meet-cute. I get it. I get it. A meet-cute. The hell are you talking about? How? It's just when two people meet in a fake...

It's a kissed way. It's called a meet cute. Never heard of that? Why'd you call it a meet cute? I don't know. I didn't fucking invent it. Two people meet. Maybe it's a cute way to meet. Oh my gosh, I read a lot of books with meet cutes. It's my favorite part. I personally really like enemies to lovers.

That's my favorite, but you know Friends to Lovers is also really good. It was a turning point. I'm not sure I understand what you were talking about. Well, it was an important part of my life, a turning part of my life, and I think I'm gonna fucking tell it. It was an important part of Torbeck's life too! What do you think, Yidd? You ready? What? Are you talking about meeting me? Let me set the scene. Can you even tell that story? Aren't I in it? I'll allow it. I was, uh...

younger lizard folk back then and I had left my homestead in the Whippoorwallow Swamp to move to the big city and It's all I wanted. I was I was fucking sick and tired of being poor being broke catching frogs eating frogs But I could cook and I knew I

that if I put my talents to use in Agwe, that maybe I could make something of myself. And so I went and I moved to the city and I found odd jobs and finally I got a job as a cook down in the crawdad quarter. I would make all sorts of gumbos and etouffees and po'boys and anything else.

The low class of Agwe like to eat. You know, a lot of gnomes. But all sorts of folk would come in to my establishment. And worked with a couple of Bullywugs who I knew did some moonlighting and would sometimes, you know, they'd have sort of remnants of weird face paint on their fucking faces. I didn't really get it. But it was late one night, I was cleaning up, and one of the Bullywugs I worked with gave me a tip.

He said that there was a drifter coming into town. Drifter that, you know, probably didn't have any family, probably had no connections. And he was robbed and disappeared. No one would notice. And despite my employment, I needed the money because my tastes were on the rise.

From the clothes I was trying to wear to the liquor I was trying to drink, it got fucking expensive. And I spent every fucking copper piece I had. So I decided, why not? Let's do it. So he told me that he knew this drifter was going to be in Old Agwe Cemetery when the moon was at its zenith. And so I closed up shop. He went on ahead. I locked up.

and I went to the edge of the crawdad quarter to where it basically ruined shacks, ruined huts, and there were the rusty iron gates of the cemetery, old Agwe Cemetery. I started to slink through and eventually I made my way to a crypt and there were flames, pillars of fire. Didn't make any sense all the way out here in the fucking Agwe Cemetery.

And I saw shadows dancing on the wall. And then I rounded the corner. And there he was. Mountain of a man. Six and a half feet tall. Big fat cigar in his hand with a broad grin on his face. Slick back hair. I smiled at the sight of it. And then he opened his mouth and I heard him speak. And I cast my cane and used minor illusion. Now a real gambling man.

I understand I have the similar proclivities. Now you understand, you see, you have a problem, my friend. You just gave up before your luck finally came in. When in that big hand, you can give up now and you came to the right place.

All you need to do is be introduced to my good friend, the Baron, and he will turn your luck around, not just in coin. What is it you desire? What does your heart desire, even its darkest, deepest recesses?

Oh no, I assure you my friend, I am a humble fisherman that's found his own bit of luck and now I own this town, you understand boy? All you need to do to get that desire is to shake my hand. Oh, what it'll cost you? Nothing much. How about- What do you got on you? One gold coin, what do you say boy? I thank you kindly. And now,

How about you shake my hand and we will both be good acquaintances of the Baron and your luck will turn around. What's the hesitation? Won't you please shake a poor sinner's hand? And that's when I heard the ominous jazz as he twisted and contorted into some terrible monster of the night. He shambled off into the swamp, but that was the first time I laid eyes on Mr. Remigaroo.

Oh, I knew my fate had turned around. My luck was on the up and up. I threw myself down on the ground and introduced myself as Kremi LaCrue. And I begged for a job. I had admired this man for so much of my life and I knew now the power he was capable of. And in that moment, he welcomed me into his circle. Gave me a job at the Hungry Catfish. And, uh...

The rest, they say, is history. And it was. As you think back on all of this, it feels to you almost as if it was written by and for someone else. And just like any boring book that you've read in the past, you quickly forget it. There's somebody else's story now, no longer yours. As the pages of this history book are blank. You think to yourself, wait a minute, what was that tune? What was that jazz song you liked so much?

Oh, it doesn't matter. You'll remember it again later. Told a story, right? Yeah, you did. And you all feel that way as you think about Crummy's story for a moment and then realize, oh yeah, yeah, he told a story just like the rest. Yeah, it was a good one, right, Phil? But we're so exhausted. There's no time to really think about it. As the light this time glows brighter and brighter and brighter.

You wait for that sick feeling in your stomach to come, but the warmth doesn't even come this time. You have imbibed so much of this now that it is almost coursing through your veins. And you all fall unconscious, significantly faster than before. You are all crummy. Lightning crackles overhead. A fine misting of rain dusts your coat as you look out across the water.

The unicorn lays on the grassy embankment, its head hanging low in sorrow. You call out to it. "Mr. Unicorn, can you hear me?" But whether it can hear you or not, it does not lift its head. You step toward the water's edge and immediately you see nothing but a pure white light. Your vision gone as you stare at nothing but this blinding light.

Your head begins to pound. You can feel the blood pumping in your veins, rushing to your head. Streaks of red shoot across your vision like tendrils, like vines. Red lines reminiscent of the lightning overhead mere moments ago. Split the blinding white light that clouds your vision. Veins like the red lines throb and pulse. All you can see is red and white, red and white, red and white.

The red lines begin to move, to snake, to change. They form a circular pattern, ever chasing each other from bigger to smaller to smaller still until they begin to fall like petals against the blinding white light. You blink your eyes, trying to clear away the red and the white, but all you can hear is a ringing in your ears. You smell smoke and the faint scent of fresh rain. The ringing softens as the white turns to red and you hear something.

The falling of rain, or the flapping of wings. In your blindness, you pat at your body and it is no more damp than it had been minutes before. There is that sound again. The sound begins to roar in your ears as the ringing returns. Your head is pounding, your blood is pumping, your skin is tingling. The red that clouds your vision slowly begins to melt away and the ringing in your head is once again replaced with the sound of flapping wings. You blink away the tears that are now forming along your lash line. Red.

Tears or blood. Your vision slowly returns to you as you realize that you are laying prone on the ground. Your coat smells of smoke and the edges are singed and smoldering. A large hole has been ripped as if by electricity through the very length of your top hat. That sound again. The flapping of wings. You slowly turn your head and look across the water. The world shrouded in a haze of red.

The unicorn stands at the edge of the water, flapping its massive wings. No, not a unicorn. Pegasus. And then, but for an instant, the creature shifts and changes, its body replaced by that of a massive white barn owl. It flaps its wings once, twice, thirteen times, and then you blink and you see the unicorn forlornly staring into the crystal water as your eyes flutter, the ringing returns to your ears, then the flapping of wings again, and then you fall unconscious.

And that is where we'll end the session. Oh my god. What? Ton, ton, ton. Thanks for running the session. Thank you. You're welcome. Holy cow. I have two more questions. Oh, that's fun. That is one superb owl. That is a superb owl. That's pretty funny. The greatest of all the owls. The greatest of all the owls.

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