Root RPG | Ep. 7 | Bayou Boogie
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This is Mikey Gilder, and you're listening to Vagabond's Heart, A Dimwood Tale. Here's what happened last time. We went to the first ruin with Aramis. Do you intend to secure the rest? We're going to try. You are heading to Rye Bell Falls. I have an old friend there.

who may be able to help you. You may take off your blindfolds now. It's a good thing that you waited for me to enter the room. The Rook Roost Order of the Corvid Conspiracy. You will need to experience what the King of the Forest experienced. The four of you alone in front of these large ruins through this forest where the forest almost seems to have grown empty

Into and through, you arrive at this knotted maze. Oh, facey trees, oh, facey trees. How lovely are your branches. As you continue to sing, the branches part their ways. The amulet continues to glow. A knotted pedestal wrapping around it.

is a crown. Oh, you did it! I knew you'd go ahead and face the whole time. I believed you. Pick it up! You make your way to that first ring of trees and you, Hazel carrying the crown, all around you. After but a moment, you pause and you're in a huge clearing in the forest. ...

You are sitting in the office of President O'Donnell, the president of the Riverfolk Company. He is finishing up his sandwich as he wipes a few crumbs off of his otter paw. As he turns around, swivels in his large plush chair in his office, all of your chairs drag up to the window.

He turns and looks at you and says, "Thom, what do you think about that? Pretty impressive, huh?" I took one bite of my clam strip sandwich and left it on the plate, and then I'm just, uh, "Ha! Um, haha, well, that was, uh, quite the display, I'd say." I've seen better. Oh yeah, I've seen at least four or five times more birds killed in one fell swoop.

Literally? Horrific. They all swooped into a glass door. I didn't really know that it was going to happen, so it was surprising. Mr. O'Donnell, sir, please. As you know, I'm from this area, and I've always respected the artists very, very deeply. Um...

I hope you know we will always be on your good side. No matter what, you call on us anytime and you let us know what you need because we've seen you at your best. Well, are you saying that because you're truly a trustworthy raccoon or is it because you're terrified right now because you witnessed a ton of murder? Can we say a little column A, a little column B? Well, that means that you're smart.

and you care about your well-being which i can trust like i said i trust vagabond more so than most of these folks well you just know we'll help you out with anything you need

Well, I guess the Marquis de is going to be marching in here within the next day. I don't know if you're going to want him to be meeting the Viceroy when she comes in, or if you're just going to be heading out of town. But you're welcome to stay unimpeded, unimpaled by crossbow bolts. Thank you. No, actually...

I would like to very much stay until the Vostroid arrives so that we can get credit for making this all happen. Credit? Um, okay. But you know, I would like to help you out a little bit right now if I could. You eat a lot of clam sandwiches or whatever, so you must have got a lot of shells hanging around them and they've got to get in the way. So I'd like to take them off of your hands if you need someone to dispose of them.

Oh, then like what you do moonlight is the shell inspect them? No, I don't want to inspect them. I just want to take them off your hands because I'm sure you know they don't make your place clean and an uncleanly place makes a bad business practices. Well, you know what? Rhonda always just yelled at me for leaving clamshells all over the place. So I think that would be a huge help. Pull out a trash can, a bin from beneath his desk, and it's just completely piled with filthy clamshells.

I just open my bag. Wow, this is very unorthodox. Are you the help? What happened? Okay, this is fine. It's just the frog thing. Well, you know what? I know a lot of good frogs. Okay, and he pours the entire bin of clamshells into your bag. And it fills up. You have a large supply of clamshells. I tip my bonnet to him.

This has been lovely.

Very, very deeply touched by your hospitality. Is there anything else that you might need from us for the rest of the evening? Oh, was he asking me to make you some clamshells? Haunted when I'm posed. Okay, you know, you just wait a minute. I'm going to pull two out. I'm going to start making clamshell earrings. Loudly. You do that. And he said, oh, well, actually, oh, hold on, hold on. Hey, Booker, you loved it being from Mugbear.

Greek, look, I think one thoughty got away. Hold on, turn, turn, look, look, look. And you see that there is a wounded soldier flying away. And then an otter leaps down from the tree with a knife and there's a splash of feathers and blood. Hey, pretty good, huh, buddy? If a raccoon can look pale, Booker does.

No, great show. Great show. That's the whole regime of war out there, Booker. Yeah, yeah. I'm going to push myself. So as I was saying, if there's anything, and I just kind of like slide mine to Grumley as well. If there's anything that we can do for the rest of the evening, we'd be happy to. Otherwise, I think that we'd like to just have a nice relaxing evening enjoying the Muck Bed Creek.

Well, are you asking for permission to leave? Yes, absolutely, sir. Wow, that's an interesting smiling at there, friend. One might call it desperate. Are you feeling desperate right now? Are you feeling intimidated? One word for it. He leans forward, his jowls and his whiskers totally coated in bread and sauce and clam bits. As...

As he taps his fingers together and shrugs and nods, Okay, you can go. But just call on us anytime. It's been a very long time since I've been here. Any recommendations for an end? Well, I mean, it depends on your budget.

We've got the Briny Carpenter. They've got some good clams and oysters there. We do have a taste for the finer things, if it's available. No, we don't really need that, though. If there's low tide, that's not very nice. But, you know, you look like you might fit in. It might be appropriate. And if you want a house of gambling, there's the Voracious Gloom.

I do like to gamble. Oh, Louis runs that place? Runley, have you ever gambled? Um, I think I've played some darts a few times, nothing more than that. Well, I can certainly teach you a thing or two, you'll be a pro in no time. Well, isn't it just wasting money away? Not if you win. But the odds are against you, you never really win. That's what a loser would say. Will's got some hair.

What would you recommend for groups such as us? You choose for us, and we will go. I don't know. That's a lot of pressure. I mean, I don't like to endorse. I mean, I haven't made any endorsement deals. I don't want to have any conflict of interest. I'm a very powerful author. I hope you know this, that me giving a five-star recommendation for any one of these establishments is a conflict of interest with some of my contracts and deals that I have.

If you're looking to dance the night away, there's the shimmy and shank. You might not die there. Oh. We'll go to that first one you said. The briny carpenter? Yes, that's the one. Why's it got carpenter in it, if it's an inn? It's made of wood, maybe? Yeah, no, it's made of wood, yeah. Most of these buildings are made of wood, actually. Or we could go somewhere else. I'm open. No, that sounds lovely.

Shall we go take a look? I'd like to, yes. Me as well. Um, I'm currently sitting on the floor with my, in front of the door with my legs up on it. And I'm looking through a small glass tinkering with the, the, the shells trying to make earrings. Um, um, are y'all right? I,

Are you good to go to the end? We should finish. You know, I saw on a document once how they make jewelry. Really? Do you see a lot of documents? I can't say that I am. I don't do a lot of reading. I've never heard anyone refer to it as seeing a document. Wait, is that not how you say it? No, I think it's more like you look at a document or you read a document.

I saw on a document one. I think that's how Mr. O'Donnell can say it. You hear the door jiggle as Peggy reels out. And I would like to use Perfectionist: Clear your exhaustion track when you sacrifice others' interests to complete a project or craft. Yeah. Yeah, I think you could. And when you catch up, I hand you some earrings. Thank you! They're really ugly. Oh, and they smell like bed. They do. They smell like, yeah, they smell like low tide.

as he wins. And well, you know, I'm not going to debate about this. You know, this isn't a trivia game, although it could be. No, no debate. If you like games of chance, perhaps we could throw down. Maybe I'll take up on that sometime. What's that mean, throw down? That means to play a game. Have fun. See what you do.

Throw down. Throw the dice. See where they fall. Throw some guards. Hey, Zulma, get out of my office. And the rest of you, get out. All right. Join your friend. See ya. Okay, boy. Goodbye, Mr. Rodin. You all leave. The door closes behind you. You meet up with Peggy, who hands over the...

who hands over the earrings. They are shockingly pretty for being from the trash. Oh, no, they're gross. But they're also filthy. There's some, like, mother of pearl in there, right? Yeah, I mean, there's some pearlescent lining to the shells, right? And you all make your way. You are joined by Vinny and Benny, who escort you through the large headquarters of Beaver of a Folk Company.

down to the main storefront. And you see that there's a huge variety of items lying all the way down the street almost, waiting to trade in the goods of this company. As you see around, there's a large docks. As far as you can see, going out along the wide riverfront,

the river bed as the tide here is very low and there's a lot of exposed bank and it kind of smells mucky and scummy as

You see, however, on the woods on either side of this clearing, the large lake to the north. And you can see as you're making your way down that there seem to be boats that are heading to Wartwallow, potentially filled with otters doing who knows what to the eerie soldiers in Wartwallow. As...

The as you are now in the streets of Muckbeck Creek, you see a great number of I think it's a fox clearing a good number of foxes. You are in the streets of Muckbeck Creek. You see the sprawling wooden buildings all build up on top of each other.

little bit ramshackle, but there's a coziness to it. You see a great number of otters running around cleaning up the bodies of all of the dead eerie soldiers, just kind of kicking them into the river and watching them drift on down. And all of the denizens seem to just be looking at this like they're not super impressed and they just go about their business. What do you do? They got what they deserved. Okay, so that was...

That was really something to watch. So Vinny and Benny have escorted us. They've escorted you. And they're gone. And as he stops, as they stop and they're getting ready to leave, Benny has some of the leftover clam strip sandwich that he manages to sneak and he's just munching on it and Vinny turns and looks and all of a sudden he's like, if I catch any of you messing with our business, I'm gonna tell the boss.

Why would we do that? I live- You're looking real nervous, friend. No, I- we're happy to help. I'm unhinged! He turns and walks away. That's that guy's problem.

What a nutcase. Well, he kept saying he was in hinges. I'm guessing he's in hinges for some reason. Who does that? Who says that over and over and over again? It might be the mercury in all the seafood, don't you? I don't eat clams. That's what Mum always says. What the hell is mercury? I don't eat clams at all, but Mum said I only eat a lot because you get the clam crazy, and I think he's got it. Yeah, that's what they say. You'll be mad as a fisher. Yeah. Well... Is that what they say? Well, anyway, there's supposed to be ruins around here.

And we haven't heard of any kind of badness or craziness around. There is supposed to be some grill. Yes, there is. Had there been any kind of whisperings of stuff going on? You just arrived, so you don't know. You know that the otter doesn't mention anything. We've got to be careful. What if the clowns are crazy too because the relic's underneath and it's making all the water fall crazy? Oh, maybe that's why it acts so weird.

To be fair, I really think it's just that one guy. You know, the other one, they all seem perfectly normal. I don't know. I mean, Gino, like, just killed everybody in this town. Like, it was nothing. That seems kind of unhinged to me as well. You know, and I'm not quite sure either because that round girl, she looks kind of used up. That's true. That's not very nice to say. I wasn't going to say it. It doesn't make it any less true. But to be fair, we were all thinking it. You guys need to learn some manners.

I should take you all to New Felicia and take you to Cotillion. I'll enrol all of you. We could have gone, but instead we just witnessed the bloodiest thing I've ever seen in my whole life. It was awful. Oh, that's nothing compared to war. Imagine that happening to both sides at the same time. Well, that would be twice as bad. Why would I want to imagine that? Well, I'm just saying, that's what war's like. What have we gotten ourselves into? This was a lot cleaner.

It wasn't very honorable, I guess, but I'm a vagabond for Pete's sake. Well, all right. Can we just secure ourselves some sort of lodging so I can just take a rest for just a little bit? And let's keep an eye out or an ear out for any kind of news of living trees or living reeds or living fish or crazy clams. You know that fish is alive all the time.

What do you mean? You said keep an eye out for living fish, but they're born alive. No they aren't. Fish aren't alive, they're just like, they just blub around in the water. They can't talk or anything. Yeah, you think they swim. Well, 'cause they're like, they're foods. Are you trying to tell me that you eat fish because you think that they're not alive? Well, they're not like, they're not like people. Next time you eat one, I want you to think of it screaming. They can't scream, they just blub around in the water.

I'm going inside and I'm going inside. I just gotta follow Grumman. You make your way through. There's a piece of narrow, winding streets that open up into open into a long...

wide thoroughfares, all of these wooden boardwalks with a great number of bridges, rope wooden bridges across the second and third stories of buildings crossing these channels and rivers and large bridges, draw bridges going up when a larger barge needs to make its way through. You see... Oh, it's a large barge. As you see down towards the...

towards the southernmost edge of the clearing, towards where the forest, where the clearing ends and the forest kind of starts to give way towards the swamp of the mouth of this forest, the mouth of the river.

You see a large structure that seems to be built out of the remains of an old riverboat that has a large gaudy side and lights are shooting from it and it's called the Voracious Gloom. As you see, there seems to be a casino. As you make your way away from it towards the briny carpenter. And

And it seems to be a modest, uh, a modest joint that, uh, is not quite as low as the low tide or sketchy as the shimmy and shank. But, um, you, it's, it's relatively nice. You kind of get away towards like the sketchier areas that you're familiar with Booker. And you are met with a, uh, a single story, uh,

room in this large, large, large tavern hall that has several bars. There seem to be three walls that are totally lined with bars and many tables in the middle with several stairways going up to the various rooms above. You see a number of otters and probably otters and foxes walking around with drinks and food. What do you do?

Oh, right, you're from here. Yeah, I guess that's the truth, yeah. Why don't you just start, like, asking around for any kind of goings-on? Can we just please secure a room first, and then we can discuss all we'd like? Booker, are you okay? I'll be fine. Are you sick because of the clowns? I might be. Or is it because of all the vicious murder?

I wasn't gonna say it, but it's the vicious murder. Okay. You could have given me your clams. I did. You stopped them down before you even blinked. You didn't even chew, did you? Why would I have to chew? Because then you choke and then you throw it up on the floor and then you eat the game. Then I'm not wasting it. As long as I'm wasted, that's not throwing it up. That's just saving it for later. Anyway, can I have a room, please?

You see an otter walk up, an old otter, as he walks up to you and he says, Otter, how many rooms will you be needing? Just one, please. Just one? All of you going to fit? We got some very small rooms here. Nah, if we won't fit in one, we'll take two. Well, you can get into me if you want. I just didn't want to presume. We'll take two.

Uh, you, uh, we'll probably just give up one decay in order to get two rooms. And, uh, you, he hands you the key. One decay total? Yeah, one decay total. I'll put a coin on the desk. He swipes it up and he hands you two keys. He tells you the room number. Thank you, good sir. And you're free to mill about here or head up to the room and discuss. What do you do? Quick, quick, let's just meet in one room and then we can do whatever the hell we want.

Alright, let's go. You alright? I've got your room. We'll just pick one of them. Alright. I'm worried. I've always liked the Otters. They're good people. They're hard workers. I'm just worried that this guy, if he finds out about this ruin, we might be on our own here.

He's a very powerful man. How's he gonna find out about it? Well, we can't just go ask it around and have an information slip into the wrong hands. If he finds out that there's some sort of relic that could sway the tide of this battle, I mean, he already owns this clearing. The Otters are very ambitious. Let's not ask around. Let's just find it on our own. I'm just worried. That's all. I'm concerned.

Well, don't you know the whole CD underbelly, this place? Unfortunately. So why don't you must have a contact or two? Well, I might, but I have to ask the Game Master. Well, go on and ask the Game Master then. I don't want to be so presumptuous. Wasn't there someone in your backstory? I haven't talked to Benny in a very, very long time. Benny might kill me if he sees me.

Wait, Benny? The Arna that we just met? No, it's a different Benny, believe it or not. Not the same Benny. But also an Arna. I hadn't decided that far. It'll be up to the Game Master, to be honest. I didn't really picture him as an Arna, but I suppose that's totally possible. You know, with a name like Benny, it sounds like he'd be more like a beaver. He might be. That would make more sense than an Arna, frankly. All I'm saying is, you know, I don't even know if he might be in this clearing anymore.

Well, I mean, maybe we don't go looking for someone you know. Why don't you show us around some of the places you know? Maybe this has been under your nose a long time and you didn't know it. Well, I imagine you're probably right.

Now that we know what to kind of look for, that things are getting all wonky around the relics, maybe it would stand out to you more. Good note. At least what we can do is now that we've had a minute to rest, we can just go around the clearing and take a look at things and show you around and see some of the sights and some of the entertainment and keep our ears out for whatever whisperings might be happening. But we shouldn't mention it to anyone is all I'm saying. I just don't want us to get...

You know, like the eerie. You look over and see Peggy making a sign that says, has anyone seen a relic site? So you don't think this is a good idea? I would burn that immediately. I'm just going to put it on and wear it on my front end again. Hey, it's your funeral. Well, maybe save it in case we do need it.

So I change relic to relish. You know, I shouldn't waste anything. That's true. They won't sell hot dogs around here, so relish might come in handy. What's a hot dog? It's like a... It's a new Felicia thing. Oh, we could have gone. We could have gone to New Felicia.

We could have gone, but we didn't have time. This is far more important. We just helped the Marquis Zane take back two clearance. That's pretty big stuff. Gotta wonder if that's going to tip the scales a little too much for the old crows we met. Well, I think that they just want balance. Either way, they should be happy. They don't seem very ambitious in a power or control kind of sense. I agree.

Well, why don't we go take a look around, maybe check out, maybe around the gambling tables we can nonchalantly ask around and see if there's been any word. At the very least, it would be a lot of fun. Maybe take our minds off of the dark recent events. Let's go. Peggy, what are you going to do with all those clamshells?

You know, I got some plans for them, but it's going to take a little bit of work. You know what would be really neat? If you took a couple of those and you made them into like a little clamshell purse. Wouldn't that be neat?

What would you do with a clamshell purse? It's not like it's going to fit very much in it. No, but you could put like, say if you had a bunch of berries rolling around in your bag and they were stained and everything awful because they kept getting crushed, it would be a really nice thing to have a clamshell purse. Yeah, but I've never put berries in my bag before ever because there's no point. Like, why would you do that? Just eat the berries and you get it. Why would you ever take more berries than you needed to eat at one time? That seems like a waste. Why would you ever need backup berries? Why would you ever need backup berries?

This is a very specific conversation. Wait a minute, do you want me to make you a purse? Oh, I mean, that would be so kind of you. You know, I bet there's a store in town that sells a purse. I'll bet you could sell a purse in town. Oh, so you want me to make a purse that you would want, but I'll sell it to someone in town? Yeah. All right. No. Oh, now you've confused me. These berries. Oh.

To the voracious gloom! I was going to work on making a little purse. As you make your way, you leave the inn, you leave the briny carpenter, and

You exit, you see that across a large rope bridge is the kind of the seedy underbelly that you're familiar with, Booker. And you head away from that area to this edge of the clearing. And you see that there is a large stand with a variety of fruits and you see a fox standing

behind it, and you see that there are these crates and crates of berries. And it says, Cherries, berries! Do you want some berries? No, no, why not buy it? But I would like a simple one.

We don't give free samples. What kind of business marketing is it? How do I know if your berries are any good? Because they're Sherry's berries. You want some berries or not? You keep spitting on the face when you say Sherry's berries. I know. Nothing I can tell from your spit that the berries are no good. It's sour. I can taste it when you speak. Well...

I could be swayed. Perhaps I was wrong, but I'm going to try to persuade an NPC. I would really like your berries, please. What are you trying to persuade? I'm trying to persuade them to give me a sample to change my mind. Okay, persuade an NPC. It's five plus one. Charm. That's a six. Wow.

Well, you know... What do you have to get to be successful? These berries don't look very good, I'm telling you. The only way would be to have to taste one for sure. Otherwise, we'd have to tell everyone in town that Sherry's berries suck. Oh, no. And I'm going to give her plus one. And that's a success, right? Yeah. It's, uh... Oh, they aren't sure. Why do you give the information to know what you need to say? Well, I guess if we go into...

An arrangement where every establishment you go, you mention Sherry's Berries and how big and delicious and juicy they are. I'll give you a free sample of Sherry's Berry. Oh, alright.

Well, what kind of berries do you have? Sherry's berries. Don't ask questions. Um, all right. I guess that doesn't seem too imposing for our journey, does it? Just try a damn berry. All right. One Sherry's berries, please. Okay, here. She reaches in. Do you get the chocolate? Oh, shit.

Pulls out a plump purple berry with one hand and then reaches down and pulls out this large bit of wood with a rope attached to it. And as she hands it to you, or before she hands it to you, she shoves it on and you realize it's a sign on either side. The sandwich board? The sandwich board. Oh no! Oh, my acorn. This is so great because you know it's...

look exactly the same. I have. Has anyone seen the relish? And you have something about berries. Yeah, this is great. Um, because now maybe we could just walk around and get all sorts of places under the premise of advertising for Sherry's berries and red Spanish. We're gonna get mugged. Alright. Um, I will spread the news of your berries.

You want to buy the berries now that you sampled it, or are you just going to walk around after having one of Sherry's berries? I'll take a little nibble. I'll just need a little bit more time to decide, but I'll be back. It's a pretty big berry.

You can't finish it all in one bite. That's my new slogan. Write it on there. I'll take some of the berry juice and like throw it onto the sign. Sherry's Beers and Backwards. I'll try it now. It says you can't finish it all in one bite. Hazel, I think you might have, you know what, never mind. And if you want some relish, go to O'Donnell's Deli down on 42nd Street. Where?

Wait, the- the O'Donnell? How else do you think he started his empire? His relish? Well, another sandwich accoutrement, yeah. So he's running a deli. Well, that's how he started it, his family's deli. Interesting. Thank you, that's enlightening. That explains all of the sandwiches. Yep, yep. That explains it. Were they any good? They were fine.

To the voracious gloom. Thank you. And don't forget to eat Sherry's berries. They're delicious.

I mean, if you're not even buying... Goodbye, now! Don't walk out. You walk out with a big sandwich board sign that says, eat it, share it as berries. You can't finish it in one bite. And the relish and the berry signs all walk out. Walk down the street.

You've seen any relish. You make your way and you see an old fox kind of say, Oh, I think I saw some relish. What was it? Oh, God, I can't remember anything. Oh, God.

And then they just walk off. As you make your way through the streets of Muck Bend Creek, you eventually arrive. You hear music, jazz music, blaring from this large casino that is three full levels built into the remnants of this riverboat.

And you step inside and there is plush purple velvet carpet and upholstery as far as you can see. All built in. Table games.

a variety of, of machines, roulette wheels, uh, cards. And, uh, there's a number of, you actually see that there is a, a small little, uh, dugout in the center where there are these, uh, these large, uh, swamp, uh, what do you call those? Water, water striders. Uh,

skating across and they're racing and people betting money on betting on these things. I mean, they're small, not a giant, but they're about like yay big. And they're betting. And you see the whole this place is packed compared to the rest of the town that you've seen. What do you do? This place is crazy. Have you been here before, Booker? I would say probably, yeah. Absolutely, my friend. And it's always happened. No offense.

Wait a minute, was that some kind of frog joke? It wasn't a joke, it was just a turn of phrase, but I was worried every time I used a turn of phrase you'd tell me that I'm doing something wrong, so I was just trying to be preemptively apologetic. I don't know what you're talking about. Perfect. Take a look around. There's plenty of things to do, drink, eat, play games. But just be aware it costs money and you'll probably lose it. How do you gamble? Well, generally it depends on the game that you're playing, but you make a wager, you're wagering on something to happen, you want that thing to happen in your favor, and then you get free money.

What? You just get free money. Well, if the thing that you're wagering on happens, otherwise they take your money. So I'm hearing free money.

If you wish. The first table that I see. You walk up to a card table. This seems to be an equivalent of blackjack. And you see that there is a foxy young lady who's a fox. And she's very well dressed and she deals out a hand of cards. And it'll be one to K to play. I'll play one game.

So, you are dealt a number of cards and please make a, what is it called? Trust fake roll, please. That's my worst one. As long as you can get a minus, if you get a plus one, that's great. It's a minus one. Oh, damn. Well, you got it, yeah. Okay.

Okay, with that, you manage to get two decay back as you actually win the hand. As you win, you win the pot of this game.

And however, there is a sly look on this fox lady's face as she kind of narrows her eyes and she whispers to a frog that's walking by. And it's not long until you're sitting there playing the game and you see a large figure heading towards you.

This is a reptilian in look, dark green scales, a purple suit with a top hat. As he almost waddles up to you, he's almost bursting out of this thing. As he steps alongside, like, well, well, well, I don't recognize any of you. You look like you're from New Money. Yeah.

I do? What is that? Welcome to the voracious doom, friend. Gloom. Gloom. See, I miss the Pinkertons. Yeah, work! You miss Pinkertons? You see as an alligator in a top hat leans forward and extends his hand and says, Name is Louie Ruger. Pleasure to meet you.

I'll take my hat off and be like, the name's Booker, so I'm from around here, but my friends aren't. I'm just trying to show them a good time. Put the hat back on. I think you confused the name of the clearing. I'm from New Felicia, not New Money. I've never heard of the New Money clearing. I can see how that'd be confusing. He smiles and he shoots you away. I can see I was right.

Now, what brings you around these parts? Y'all don't look very native, aside from you with the patchy clothes. Yeah, I'm really dirty and my name's Peggy. Do you know where I can find some swamp water that might have some grass in it?

There's a swamp right behind the casino. Okay, I'm gonna go out there. It was nice meeting you. Please don't steal all of his money. He's really stupid. We have baths if you're filthy as well. No, I like it this way. I think better and I want to hop outside. Okay. You hop outside.

Well, that's down to three. The rest of you got money to spend, right? Well, absolutely. Of course. We're just, again, we're here for some entertainment and this is a lovely, lovely establishment. But like I said before, we're just a bunch of vagabonds. We've been called that quite often. We're just passing through looking for work, you know, whatever we can do.

Looking for work, huh? Well, if we want to have coin to spend at this lovely establishment, we've got to make some. You know what just happened earlier? There's a change in management coming to this clearing. Yes, that was quite the display. Is that favorable for your casino? Well, if you're a dog and the cats are coming marching in, I see that there's a bit of a...

Bit of an arrangement I'm sure we can make. If y'all got contacts, and I don't see many dogs around here, and whenever there's a dog, they are licking the boots of a cat. Well, I don't think that that's necessarily fair. It's not the boots per se, it's more the paws, or, um, you know, scratching behind their ears, or... It's just being loyal servants, of course.

You're never wrong with having honor. Well, why don't you put in a good word for old Louie when they arrive, and maybe I'll give you drinks on the house for the evening. No, we'd be happy to, right? Of course. Three drinks. We'd be happy to. We'd be happy to.

I suppose I could. What kind of word should we give? Well, we're going to give them a good one. We're going to talk up how awesome this place is. It's a fantastic... Yes. A good time. The best time. You can't go wrong. It's a gracious... Glue. Brew? Glue. Don't worry, I'll do the talking. Don't worry about it. Have you tried Sherry's Berries?

Oh, no. As you can see, we've already found somewhere. Darling, if you got hoodwinked by Sherry, I don't even feel like there's any sport of taking money from you.

Well, that's just very kind. They are delicious, though. If at some time you stop by, tell them that Hazel sent you. Come on, darling. You can do better than that. Let's try one more time from the top. I'll try really hard to wink and then trust Faye to get me through. Roll to trust Faye. Roll to see how well I winked like an idiot.

Not very well. It goes about as well or slightly worse than Lifetime. Actually, six isn't terrible, but... No, okay. I was going to say, how do you even help someone trust fate, right? He pauses a moment and shakes his head. Now I suppose there's two I can talk to.

Well, I'm just saying, if you don't mind putting in a good word, and if there's any kind of special favor, I'm very well connected with the denizens here. Oh, well, yeah. I mean, like I said, of course we would be happy to put in a good word, and I'm sure when the time arises, we will be able to call on you for information or a favor.

Information, that is something I have in spades, my friend. I knew it. You look like the kind of person who knows what's going on. Well, maybe if you give us information, we'll put in a good word. No, no, um, um...

Are you trying to make a deal with me, Fran? See, now I like the sound of that. Especially with a dog who looks as intelligent and sharp as you, Fran. Are you that idiot? It is shiny indeed. Almost as shiny as my toothy grin. And what a curly tail you have, I must say. A wonderful fashion sense.

Well, how do you know? What information do you seek from him? I look at the book of Herod.

The bottom line is that we don't know yet. We're here looking for work. We're happy to put in a good word for you. Do we have any idea when the cats of New Felicia will be here? Do we have a sense of... I think he said tomorrow morning. Well, would you look at that. Tonight, we're just trying to have a good time, look for some work, and like we said, when we uphold our end of the bargain, we'd be happy to trade you for, you know, whatever might come along. Well...

I suppose that depends on the nature of the word that you put in. Oh, it will be the best. Very good word. The best word that I can possibly think of. Would I have to come back in from now? I would say we're going to cut away to you now. I'm just collecting grass. Yeah, so yeah, you would have come back in at this point. As you hop in, you see... I'm covered in swamp water and swamp grass, and I sit down on, like, the plushest couch. Completely soaks. Uh...

in there because of algae staining the full screen there's mud clopping and you see his eyes just dart over to you and then he just darts back he's like thinks for a moment like he can see that he's weighing in his option he's like

That's fine. That's fine. Fine. Fine. I know I have a lot of frogs in my employ. They are fine folk. Are there lots of frogs? There's a good number of frogs. Yeah. There's a good number of frogs down here. What might that set they sound like? It's a dialect we can't quite pick up on.

Anyway, my friend, as I was saying, a lowly wandering patchwalker drunk as myself, you know, just wants to show his friends a good time for once. We've been traveling far, far. And as soon as we put in that good word for you, I'm sure if there's information regarding work, we will come and ask you for it. And I'm going to use...

Desperate smile by like abasing myself, calling myself, you know, this like patchwork drunk to try to like convince him. Yes, you D&D do look like a patchwork drunk. I just like take the hat off and I do a little like, you know. Look at what the dog dragged in. You know, in a literal sense, it happens quite often.

He's very drunk and I do have to drag him physically. Okay, easy now, Grubly. I rock with it. You can roll whatever dice you want. Roll my dice! Roll my dice! Uh-oh. I shouldn't have done it. I shouldn't have done it. I got a six. I will give you help. Um...

No, it's just trust fates, but I get to use charm instead of luck. Oh, okay. I can help you. I mean, it's... What? I can help you with two. I only need one to, like, sort of pass, but... What are you attempting to do? I was trying to just abase myself and trust luck that he would see it our way and basically, like, let us leave for the night. Are you going to help him? Yeah. How are you going to do that? Um...

I should have stuck with these. Yeah, you threw me off of those main switch days. I suck all of that luck out of everyone. Yeah, now they're never going to roll up a three. Oh, jeez. Oh, I just feel so heavy in this sandwich board. Oh, I just wish I could have some fun maybe playing a game. We'd get some wind flowing under the board, make me feel better. I just feel really stuffy around here. There's just so many people.

standing so close to me with the top pets blocking the wind and such. What is she saying? I think she's just trying to... I think I'm having a sandwich flash. She wants to play some games and she needs to learn how and I'd be happy to teach her how to do it. You feel a long snout against your ear that says,

Friend, I do not know what she is saying. I'm going to take my leave. Please take her far away from me as quickly as you can. When you have a chance to put in a good word with the Marquis, come back and I will give you whatever information I am able to provide. Consider it done. And he tips his top hat to you and he pulls out his cane and he spins it as he walks away. What do you think he's got under that hat? It's a hat. Scales?

Yeah, his head. His head is under the hatch, Ed. You think his head goes all the way up there? Have you never seen... He's an alligator? Have you never seen an alligator before? I guess not. I don't know.

It just seems an awful big hat to not have anything in it. Oh, my acorns. Um, okay. Let's just try to lay low for the rest of the evening. Let's discuss our options. And then tomorrow, we can see what the situation looks like when the Marquis 8 rolls up into the clearing, and we'll go from there. Does that sound all right? Oh, God! Peggy, what have you done to the couch?!

- Did you do that? - Oh, I didn't. The water was on there when I sat down. - Oh, that makes sense. - I don't believe you even wanted that. - Yeah, I don't really know. I didn't look at it.

What happened? How was the swim? Oh, you know, it stunk. Were there any bloody bird corpses in there? Oh, yeah, tons of them. Oh, no. Were you moving their corpses? No, I wouldn't do that. That was horrible. I made sure that all the ones that got caught inside of the, you know, the weeds, the seaweeds, I just took the seaweeds and let them float back out to the water. Oh. I wish you'd said something.

There's bloody factors all on the whole street. What an absolute disaster. Oh, hey, I could use that. Pick them up and put them right back. Yeah, no, you can look a number of good quills. Yeah.

Well, I think we should go. We haven't even played any games yet. I'll play the game. I'll make my money back and more. I didn't get any money. You got money. Did you try to play any games? Well, no. What's the first step? Do you want to play too? I'll bet I'd win. Oh, well...

You want to play a game, Hazel? What are you talking about? I wasn't. No, no. I had a little bit of phlegm in the back of my throat. Was that the tear? No, no. It's fine. It's like your face is full of shadows. I'm allergic to myself. I'm terrible. If you'd like to play a game, I'd be more than happy to oblige. Oh.

I want to play one of their games though, not one of yours. Oh, oh, uh, yeah, sure. Uh, yeah, whatever you say. Okay. What should we play?

You're making me make shit up here. I don't fucking know anything else. There was a casino. There was a card game and then... Something really, really crazy. Yeah. Go for it. You're from here. You know what games they got. I'll bet you my new earrings. One of my new earrings. You know what? You know what? What?

They have poker? Yeah. We could sit down and play some poker. Okay. But here are the rules to poker. Okay. Anytime, well, what's going to happen is there's a dealer. I mean, they're going to shuffle up some cards and deal them out to everyone at the table. All right. What you need to do is, but you can't tell anyone. It's a secret. We're working together. Anytime I put a lot of money into the middle of the table and I give you a signal,

And the signal's gonna look like this. All you have to do is push your cards to the middle of the table and say "I fold." Oh. What's that do? Well, that's how you win the game. Oh. Well, that doesn't sound like much of a game. Oh, no, it's a blast. Absolute blast. Alright. We'll just play a couple hands. Okay. We proceed to do so. I'll just... Okay. Maybe just the one to start?

Sure, we can just play one hand. Alright.

So you are all dealt a hand. There is a frog working this as a dealer. It's a dialect. Peggy can understand. It's a very thick frog accent. No one else here can understand them. He deals out the cards. Why don't we just do a trust fake to see how good your hands are. It's going to be better this time.

You're all too in a war. Pass!

I got an eight. My hand is terrible. You... You get like a seven and a four and all suit. You have two cards of the same one in your hand and they're both really pretty ladies on it. And they both have a Q on it. Oh.

And Booker probably puts in... Um, well, you know, basically I'll just, uh... Oh, okay, well, there's a betting phase, so I'll put in two coins. How many coins should I put in? Well, you have to put in at least two, but if you're very confident in your hand, you can put in more. I don't know if I'm confident. How do you feel right now? Do you feel pretty?

I feel pretty good. You can put in four whole coins then. Four? Yeah. Alright. Four coins? That's a lot of coins. Only if you want to. It just depends on how confident you feel. You seem pretty confident. I mean, I like my cards. Do I still have to get rid of them though? No, not until I give the signal. Oh, okay.

All right. Okay. As soon as she puts the four points, I go like this. No, it's iPhone.

Oh, I fall. Oh, unbelievable. Well, I just put my card in place out on the table. And then there's one other person. He's an old honor. His whiskers are great. He's like, ah, that's too rich for my blood. You take it, young man. Oh, well, thank you, sir. Great hand. Great hand. And I just, like, pull all the clams, like, in, you know. How?

How did you feel about playing your first game of poker? Your first game? What did we win? Oh, well, no. I mean, I won. No, because you said that it was a team sport. Oh, oh, right. Well, here's one. You win one. Well, no. I think that we split the pot evenly. Well, four divided by two is what?

Yes. In this moment, I'm going to walk over. Hazel, I just wanted to say that I made that purse that you wanted. You see this clam and on the inside I even stitched in the cute little berry for you so you always have a place to put your berries. That's the nicest thing in the house. I know. I'm going to hand it to her and I'm going to wink at Booker. I love it. I'm like shuffling money. Where's the money? What money? Oh, you're going to pay me

pay me for that price? Okay, it's four coins. Pay the woman. Here's your coin. You win. Here's your one winnings. No. I put in four and you put in two and that guy put in probably two as well. Peggy, how much for the first? That's eight. So I'll get four and you'll get four. Four coins. All right. Where do you want me to pay her?

I'll give you C. All right. And I give Peggy all four of Hazel's coins. That's pretty good. I'm going to put all the rest of my berries in here. I can't sit back to you as she's putting berries in her bag. Oh, so Peggy, at this point, you were so focused on...

on collecting the pond scum or whatever you were doing. Yeah. And untangling the bird corpses. You had almost forgotten.

But as you were in the water beneath, you swam around, and as a frog it's very easy for you to swim around. You're towards the edge of this clearing in the marshy water as it opens into the swamp in the forest. And you're just remembering in this moment, as you had been collecting around, something caught the corner of your eye. And you looked up, and you had seen what looked like a shadow

It was the silhouette of a person or something. Very tall and slender, and then it just moved and disappeared as soon as you looked. But it seemed very suspicious. And you're just recalling this in this situation, having dove in the water behind the riverboat. All right, well, if you're all done losing your money to con artists, then I think that we should head up to our room. All right, when we get back, drinks are on me. And then we can relax for the evening and have some nice conversation.

All right, well, let's go. You lead the way. All right. Dinner's on me as well. Yeah, because you're the big winner and I helped. Yes, you did. You're a very good card player. That's right. I'm a good friend. But for the record, just don't play cards with anyone else if I'm not around. Just...

You can't.

Stop the voices in my head! I don't have guilt! As you're walking back, you see Sherry lean over and say, Hey, no one's using your affiliate link for Sherry's berries! Oh, I don't need one! What am I, Free Sam? You better buy a box of berries! Oh, no, I'll just keep trying. We only hit the one place that just went out. Go, go, go!

Sherry's berries! I'll just scream it out in further. It's over there! It's a disaster! I'm gonna reach over with one of my quills and change the Sherry's on the back to Harry's. So it says Harry's berries. Oh my gosh.

So you do that. And it's very clear Harry's Berry's now on it. Just on the back. On the back. And you draw a little squiggly. And it's spelled like hair. Oh, not like Harry Potter, but like hair.

Hairy ball drop to you, too. I'm sorry, Magpie. Sorry for what we've done to your game. I'm so sorry. Tis a silly place. You arrive back. Booker buys you drinks and dinner at the Briny Carpenter restaurant.

And you see that there's, along with the beaver, along with the otter, there's also an old beaver that seems to kind of co-own the place. And there's a little carpenter, carpentry bench in the back and some little woodworking things along with the oysters and clams and the like. And it's hearty seafood stew and that sort of biz. And you're enjoying a meal. What do you do? I'm...

Can we find a, I don't want to say like secluded and quiet, but like if we can find a portion of the bar area or this dining area where we're like kind of more alone? Yeah.

it's not it's not that busy uh it's you know after the kind of like a horrible events from earlier like there's blood being mopped up right outside uh by a few otters but so people have lost their appetite but however the casino is still good but we haven't you haven't you know this stuff she's delicious the dinner suits uh your taste then i

Oh, yeah. Just some. That's wonderful. Yeah, but you know, I have something important to say. Oh. So I was swimming around in the waterfall of blood and beaks and feathers. Oh, oh, God. And I was looking for some seaweed for things, of course. And I think I might have found a lead towards the relish.

Wait, this little thing relish? I don't really know. It just made me think about relish. Maybe I was just hungry at the time. Relish? Oh, but the relish. The relish that we're looking for.

Right, so I was in the water and there was like a tall, thin figure that was like out of place. And just to me that said, like, well, you're on the right path, Peggy. There's obviously relish in here. So it was just something weird. I mean, like, what kind of weird? Well, I just told you it was like a tall, thin figure in the water. It wasn't a frog. Yeah, but what does that mean? Well, that means that there was something in the water that shouldn't have been, Booker. Was it like a person? Well, I don't know. You'd have to ask the...

The Game Master. Was it moving around? Yeah, it was definitely moving. It was like there and then it wasn't. But it wasn't a frog and it wasn't an otter, that's for sure, I think. But you'd have to ask the Game Master. It was a very vague description of what I saw. Should we go back and see it? It was a tall, dark figure. Yeah, it was a tall, dark figure that didn't look like a tall, dark otter. It was a figure.

Yeah, so it could have been like a person moving or it could have been like a figurine, like what you would see on a relish. Could it be like one of them fish? No. I feel like we've gotten slightly off topic. You know, I'm just going to say it right out. No. Well, maybe that's the direction of the next relish. How deep were you?

I would say that you were collecting a lot of, like, swamp biz, and so you were pretty far off into the reeds, into the swampy bit, but you were still, like, the voracious gloom was probably about 100 feet out, and you were off towards, like, the swamp area in the back. Yeah, so that's, you know, that's what it was. I mean, I can swim a little bit, but not great.

A boat, maybe? Maybe we take a boat. Where are we going to get a boat? It sounds like that Louis guy knows a lot of things too. He probably knows which one. I'm just very hesitant to say anything to anyone. This is a place where, you know, there's a lot of people who do a lot of things for power. And unscrupulous people. I don't think I want to take anything from him.

That's all. We might not have a choice. I just think he wants money, don't you think? What's he gonna do with the information? I don't know. We don't even have to say why we're asking. We can just say, "Has there been any weird stuff going on in the swamps? Like any weird shadowy figures?" But what if he already knows and then he thinks... I mean, like, maybe he just knows and he's real grifty. He's grifty? Maybe.

And crafty, but also possibly grifty. Wait, crafty or grifty? I don't know. Maybe the second fits as well. Well, Peggy's really crafty. I don't really see him as a crafty type. I haven't seen him make anything. That's true. Besides deals, I guess. If you're a deal maker, they're like a... Yeah, he's a crafty maker of deals. Oh, that's probably true. And just general sorrow. Are you talking about the alligator guy that was inside that place? That big old alligator guy. Oh, yeah. I don't

I don't know, he doesn't seem like he knows much. He was like, what, the cook? He was the fanciest cook I've ever seen, if he was the cook. I don't think he was the cook, because he wouldn't even try more berries.

I mean, well, they did kind of look like they had mold on them. Well, I just ate a little bit of it. It wasn't moldy. I swear. They're really not. I don't think Sherry gave you the best berry. I don't think any of them. It was a little bit hairy. I did have a hair on it. It was frankly no scary.

I can't help it when I'm wary about the

It's a good thing I'm now headed. Oh, do you really? Oh, I haven't taken that skill yet. That's next. I don't need the parry. All I do is hairy. Oh, you can hairy? Yeah, I could really use some dairy. Does someone want to go get a sink?

You don't want to play our own game? Come on! I'm getting on a ferry. If there is a ferry, that might be helpful. I think we'd be better off just trying to...

borrow or rent a boat because I don't think we want anybody to know that we're going out there and we're not going very far and if we had to pay someone for a ferry... You know what we could do? Which could be really cool? What's that? We could find like a door. Like a wooden door, you know? And you could all sit on it and I can get under the water and we could strap some weeds to me and I could swim and swim and swim and we wouldn't go anywhere because then that movie's gone.

You know what? I don't have a door, but I do have this big hideous sign on me that's kind of like a door cut in half. I don't know what that does for the second half. We could try and find, like, maybe we could find some puffer fish and we can blow them full of air because obviously they don't have any lives. They're already dead. That's right. So we just find them and we just, you know, if they had lives, we'd take them. And then we fill them full of air and we keep the Sherry's Berry sign buoyant and we float on the raft down in the water and then we don't have to tell anyone.

Hmm. Or you can all just swim. Well, it just depends on how deep it is. I know that you can doggy cattle. I've seen it before. I've got a lot of armor on me, though, so that would be a wee bit tough to swim, don't you think? So you're not strong enough to do it? Oh, no, I'm definitely strong enough to do it. Have you seen how strong I am? So you're trying to tell me that you think that your armor is stronger than you are?

No, it's not. I can swim no problem. Who needs a stupid boat or a raft? Please don't let him drown. I would never let him drown. So you don't think he's strong enough to do it either? Well, you swindle your friends and you don't even have faith in them. I'm not even going near that. The bottom line is we need a boat. Well, what else could we make a floaty out of, except all the pufferfish?

Yeah, I don't know. What about all dead bodies? They seem to float about. Sure, I can round them up and strap them to your wooden sign, but then that's your call. Well, honestly, this sign is pretty heavy, and don't tell my manager, but Sherry's very suck, and so I'd rather just not have to carry this sign around. So if we can make a raft out of it, and maybe we can just paddle instead of you having to pull us all.

I'm sure we could do that, maybe. Did it seem like it was near the shore? Yeah, it wasn't in the water. It was kind of off just towards, like, the murky, dark trees. You know, so we could also do this thing where we walk around, and then, like, I just get in the water and see what I see, and then if you need to come in, if there's something down at the bottom, a boat isn't going to help us. So, you know, if it's down in the water, you're going to have to get in the water. All right. I guess we could just stomp our way through the swamp.

Doesn't sound very pleasant, though. What if we get stuck like we did in the Quicksand? Then I'll probably just pass out and maybe die. Yeah, that was probably... You'll definitely drown in that. That was true. Either way, I think we should get some sleep. We'll talk to the Marquis at eight in the morning, we'll put in a good word. I think we try to learn from this Louis guy. Unless we should just go explore the swamp without even asking him. I was almost thinking under the cover of darkness.

Oh, not tonight. You want us to go out into the water tonight with whatever that shadowy... Okay, I'm in. I don't want anyone seeing us do any of this. I'm very concerned. We can at least look around. Maybe that's a good idea. And then the others won't know what we're up to. I'm very stealthy. Yes, you're very stealthy. I'm very stealthy. I can't be. My finesse is plus one.

I can't be seen by anyone. That's true. Let's just take a look and see what we can find. Alright. Well, Peggy, you gotta lead the way and show us where you saw the thing. Yeah, alright. I'll do my best. Alright, let's go. After finishing your meal and enjoying a drink,

And dessert. And dessert. And dessert. It's on Booker's dime. It's on Booker. Only kind of sort. Oh, no. You make your way out, and as you... You're still wanting to sign, right? Mary's very... You...

As you're making your way through, you turn around one corner and, Hazel, you're in the back as Harry's Berries is displaying proudly on the back. And you hear a voice call out, "Honey!" "Oh no!" "I don't remember making any partnership deal with that strange looking chipmunk!"

You turn and you see that there is a hair with crazy white hair and large spectacles and big buck teeth behind a fruit cart that says Harry's Berries. Oh no! Hi! Are you plagiarizing my marketing materials? This is a horrible, horrible coincidence. How could this have happened? What is he talking about?

I may have changed the name on the back of your sign from Sherry's Berries to Harry's Berries because I thought it was funny at the time, but I'm not finding it comical now. Oh. Hey, turn around and face me, coward. Go ahead, Hazel. We won't let anything happen to you. I'm going to turn around and...

I really decided my greatest enemy and competitor, Sherry. I think you're mistaken. Oh, Sherry's Berries. It says Sherry's Berries right here. But on the back it says my name in very clear blemish. I don't see that. I don't see that at all. I'm going to hold the sign and spin within it so it's like I'm looking at the back but he still sees Sherry's Berries. But see, it just says Sherry's Berries just like this. This is the back of the sign.

I'm very confused now. Hi, my name is Harry. I sell berries. Would you like to buy some and maybe enter into a partnership? I don't know. I really, you know, can't enter into that kind of thing without at least two or three simple ways. Hey, if you're working with a sherry, I'd sure like to poach you. Good.

I'd also hire you. Oh. How much are you offering? You know, the chipmunks are the most dangerous game, they say. She would love to work for you. How much are you offering? Oh, are you her, I mean, manager? Yes, I'm a manager, exactly. Look, are you not my manager? Yes, I am. Quiet. How much do you want? How much do you want? Sherry's paying us five gold pieces a day for her to wear that signboard. Oh, it's true.

Five! Gosh, what was she made of? Berry? Clearly. Are you trying to tell me that you're not? You're going to let Sherry one-up you like that? How is Sherry doing so good? I demand to know her business practices. It's the advertising, my friend. Business is up 5,000%. Yes. I recommend you see it. Please! For the love of God!

Yeah! So I roll with charm, which means I got a 12! 5,000%! Well...

If Sherry's going to try to warn me, I bet she didn't even pay any eerie taxes. I bet she's a filthy tax evader. You know, you know, Harry White always pays his taxes all the time. All right, all right, fine. And I start to take the sandwich board off of Hayes. And I'm like, do you have another one of these? I don't have that at all. Just fix the partnership on the other side. Damn it. No, I flip it inside out. You got anything?

- Oh, I guess I have berry juice. - Oh, I can do it. I'm grinding. - No, no, no, no, no. Just let Peggy do it this time. Can you write nice so it's not upside down and backwards? - Yeah, I'll cut the shit out of that sign. Then I can start taking my hammer

and a jizzle and i start carving in harry's berries like beautifully fill it in with the berry juice that's not even my that's not even up to brand standards but heck it looks so good i'll just take so tomorrow morning after we've done advertising all night we'll be here to collect our uh six gold coins i guess you tricked me to do that sure done hey just hey just stay where

Stay away from the- while you're out there, don't go by the horrible movement of the woods. I'll chill eat you up! What? But I hope you don't run into any cannibals, I have a phobia of that. You know, I have a great idea for a new slogan for you. Harry's Berriest for the- Harry's Berries for the Merriest of Jerrys.

I don't think I've ever met anyone named Jerry before. That just doesn't... But you know, if you ever did, he would immediately be like, I need those berries. Do you have any demographic data to back up your claims? No, not at all. I'm in. Just

Just stay away from the evil woman of the woods. That's my only advice. Is this like some lore that I would have heard of, like, being from here? Or is this guy absolutely insane? He sounds insane. You haven't been here in a while, though. You can ask him more. I'm too confused. Yeah, who is this witch in the woods? Is she a woman in the woods or a witch in the woods? Or a witch in the woods? Would she ever be, like, inside of the water?

Well, I don't know if she's in the water. I know she's... Well, they say that basically if you go wandering towards the woods and you see ghostly light, and then you see your own shadow move, and then you never return. Oh, that seems terrible. And so, I mean, it sounds like she's a horrible, vicious, blood-sucking hag, but enough about my ex-wife. I knew it was coming. I knew it was coming. And I just didn't want to play into it at all.

You son of a gun. You can ask him more, of course. Alright, this has been lovely. This has been really... I'm pretty sure she's a catapult.

Well, this sounds really scary. Well, we will make sure to not go there at all. It's the whole folklore. Definitely don't go there. I don't think anyone there would care for any of Harry's berries, especially if she eats flesh. She wouldn't care for berries unless she was to care for your berries. I think I've got a new slogan to play off of this film. You can say Harry's berries is better than eating people.

Yeah, that's much better than the one about Jerry. Is it? It's better than eating Jerry's. Oh, that's good too.

Perry's berries, better than a witch jiggling your balls. Well, that really took a long turn. I like all of it. We're good at eating bigger size. We'll just put them on rotation. You make the signs and we'll rotate through throughout the week or something. I'm sorry, Matt.

Biggie bag fire. Well, good evening, Harry.

Have you ever heard about swamp plague? No, no, no, no. We're not doing this. Come on. Come on. Come on. I try to grab a hazel by the hand. I'll turn him into a squad. Well, you didn't even get us paid. Tomorrow morning. What if he's not here? I don't know. We'll find him. It's fine. You better negotiate at least a berry for me. It's the least of our worries. We're selling berries. Let's find this woman in the woods.

Do we really want to find a woman in the woods that she's not going to eat your jiggling balls? Oh, she's no match for us. I'd like to see you try to eat my jiggling balls.

I can't breathe! I'm not scared of her. She's got the relish. I know she does. I swear he doesn't even hear the things that come out of his mouth.

I'd love to see her eat my jigglypuff. We can end there. And that's where it was. Beware the swamp, I hope I don't get it. Oh god. I'm going to be honest, I was having a hard time following his logic. There was a shadow and then you disappear but then something eats you.

I mean, are we just done with the swamp then? We're just going to head out into the woods chasing a ghost story? No, we're going to go in the swamp. Oh, with Grumly. I think that guy's crazy. No, I'm not saying he's crazy at all. I'm saying that there's probably a woman in the woods. She probably has the relish. And we'll just take you from...

Oh. All right, so. Do you think that he was being honest about the swamp plague? Because to be quite honest, I was really deep in that swamp today. Well, if it exists, you're probably screwed. But let's just hope that he's crazy. Don't you skin usually all green like that and bumpy?

Yeah, I'm a frog. Are your eyes usually all big like that? Yeah, I'm a frog. Are your feet usually all floppy like that? Yeah, I'm a frog. Okay, I think you're all right then. And I have these really thick fingers. Is that normal? Don't you dare. Don't you dare do it, Eddie. Yeah, I'm a frog. What can you even do with those fingers? Well, they make a lot of things with these fingers. Fuck.

Well, that seems like a good place to leave their company. I turn and I just walk in, he's hanging in the ground. Bromley, what are you doing? What do you smell, Bromley? What is it? I just start walking off. I'm on the trail. Are you guys coming or not? We're going to farm this relish. Yeah, we're right behind you. I do love a good relish. Oh, dang it, I forgot what we were talking about. All right.

What do you smell it? Peggy, you should probably lead the way.

I'm gonna go ahead and lead the way. And I'm gonna jump forward. Booker, you don't really think I have big old frog eyes or green skin or warts or big frog feet, do you? No, I mean, not in any kind of, you know, in a way that would make you insecure. All right, because, you know, Hazel really just made me think a lot about myself. Well, she's a lot like Bromley sometimes. I don't think she thinks about the things that she says before she says them. Yeah.

I think you're beautiful. Well, thank you, Booker. I don't feel the same way about myself sometimes, but I know you thought I was going to say you. I caught you. She actually had me going. I was convinced that that was going to be a real thing.

You hear one final on the way. My expectations were super high. You just got Rian Johnson. I think it's this way, guys. I was telling you who that was. You see a little orange mouse. It says, Rian Johnson. And you still have nods.

Hot dogs, I told you guys! I use a weapon to steal murder on the mouse. They taste like shit! Mushroom meat is my favorite. All right. Yep. All right. Can we get all this fire right in the mouth? No!

As you walk by, you... Can we get on with this fucking heist? As you see Vinny and Benny over to the side, and they're all, like, pulling masks over their head, and they're making their way out towards the lake. As you see them heading out...

And you make your way through the streets, and you're not impeded by any more ridiculous NPCs. Are you sure? One more. As you make your way, you hear, although a lot of the town is kind of calming down in parts as the night has settled in, you are under the cover of darkness. And you remember a lot of the cleavages you've been to have been relatively well lit, large street lamps,

But a lot of these stretches of water and boardwalk are very dark. You see, however, the glowing beacon at the edge of the clearing, the voracious gloom is almost kind of rocking with the music and the dancing that's happening within there. As however, all around it, it's almost as if the gloom of the swamp is almost trying to engulf it. As you make your way, you make the wide, uh,

the wide breadth around this casino. As you see that the very, very, very top of this casino, you see that although all the floors of people dancing and celebrating, there's a single window, the very tip top, and there's a light on. And you see, as you're making your way, slipping through the darkness, you see a silhouette

Dark silhouettes long snout in the top hat walk by and turn out towards your direction. You may are able to dart out behind a barrel and then it turns back and disappears. As you make your way, you see the looming trees of the swamp and you stare off into the darkness. You hear the chirping of crickets and the swamp is directly ahead of you. You're in the darkness. What do you do? Do you think we're getting close?

Oh, you're talking to me. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, definitely think so. Well, I'm not going to make you go down there by yourself. Oh, no, I will. I'll just immediately go back out there. Okay, good, because I was going to convince Hazel to join us.

You jump into the water and you land with a splash and you're able to swim. And it's only about probably a 20-foot gap of water before you're able to swim out. And you actually find that through the reeds, you're able to make your good grounding on mud. It's a bit soft and your feet kind of sink in a little bit. But you get the sense that your friends would be able to walk along here if they made that 20-foot jump through the water.

Oh, head back. Yeah, if you make it like a 20-foot jaunt through the water, you can stand in some mud. And I like to stand in mud, so I think you should join me. All right, I'm going to head back out there. If we don't have to dive down, I can swim out there. No problem. I can swim, no problem. I'm very strong. Maybe you need to lose the arm of the first. I'm going to start leaning into the water. Oh, no. And then I'm going to start...

As soon as the water... You immediately sink into the water as soon as you leave it in your armor. It just sends you... I will attempt to walk along the bottom holding my breath until I think that I'm going to get... Pirates of the Caribbean style. You see, as all of you make it over, you swim on over, and you see little ears pop out of the water and slowly walk out and completely soaked, grumbly, you step out of the water.

Wow, um, I thought he was going to die for sure. I didn't seem very smart, Grumly. Look, I'm fine. I'm a little wet, but... And actually, in your own scrape of water. Not nice. I don't see any shadows down there, so I don't know what you're so scared about, Peggy.

I don't think the pigs see it. Can you even see in the water? Or would you just walk in straight with no idea where you was going? I had my eyes closed, I guess. But I just went straight, and here I am. It's a literal miracle you've made it this far in life. Well, just a little bit of luck, although that's my worst stat. Let's go! Let's go into the woods! Into the swamps! All right. Where do you see the shadow? Down in the water.

I thought it was standing up out of the water. Oh, I don't know. I too thought it was under the water, to be honest. There's a reason why I asked what the depth was like four times. That's why it was swimming down into the water. It was through the trees in the swamp. Oh, yeah, let's get out of the water and talk about the trees in the swamp. I must say, I have a...

A little bit of a confession. Oh, no. What's that? You're the witch in the woods, and you're going to eat Rumi's balls. You almost had me for one second.

No, no, as much as it displeases me to say so, I think that that crazy hairy guy might be telling the truth. Why do you say that? Well, I just, I completely misunderstood what was going on. I misread the situation, and now I worry that there might be some truth to what he was talking about. You think that's the witch in the woods? Yes, in which case, crumbly, protect your balls.

Oh. All right, I will protect him as carefully as I can. I think he's got it pretty well covered. Now that we're all on the same page... My face just falls out. Nice. Glove, glove, glove. Ooh, I'm going to take it. Now that we're all on the same page, I suppose we go find this...

Spooky apparition or whatever it was you might have seen. Didn't we just see somebody walk into the woods with a tarp? You think it could have been that weird guy, the cook from over at, what's it called? Oh, most certainly. But he wasn't a cook. He owned the establishment. Who did? I thought he was up in the window. The alligator. He was in his riverboat. Oh, I thought he was in the woods. I think he's got the calamities, everybody. No, I think I got the river muck sickness. Oh, no.

Oh no, there is pond water. Swamp plague. I have swamp plague. Oh no. It's just another thing that Harry was right about. And to think we dismissed him as an absolute fool and a buffoon. And he's basically clairvoyant. Oh no. Oh no. Harry knows all.

Well, I'm not scared of no woman in the woods. So then why don't you lead the way? I'm a little bit scared of a woman in the woods to be. Well, then stand behind me. I'll kill anything that crosses our path. Don't kill it, like, right away, just, you know, in case it's, like, Jericho or somebody again. I wouldn't kill him, but any other bird, I'll definitely kill on sight. Follow me. I'll start starting in the woods, just... Are you going with a lake source?

Ooh. How well can we all see in the dark? Uh,

I imagine Booker could see pretty well. I don't know how well dogs, frogs, and artichokes. Frogs have really great dark vision. It might be artichokes. At the very least, then, for now, we should keep out any kind of light source. We don't want to scare this thing off, right? And then if we need to, we can always light it, of course. But maybe you just trust Peggy and I to lead the way, and we'll see what we can see, and then keep a low profile. I'll use my nose to steer me, but you can also lead the way. Would I be able to see if I'm, like, a burrowing animal?

Like maybe not as well as... Yeah, you'd be able to see decently enough, probably. I think Midbooker probably would guess that would happen. You just want me to hold on to your tail, don't you? You better not touch me. Oh, shit. Oh, shit. As you make your way through the swamp, it gets darker and darker. And then you kind of see the clouds above you part. And a nearly full moon beams down through the boughs of the swamp.

What was that? Becky, did you see that?

You know, I'm gonna say it was a shadow moving across the tree, but I've gotten a lot of facts wrong recently, so I don't know for sure. Nope, nope, nope. That's all right. That's all right. So the two of them would have said none. No, I think that it was the moonlight. You know what Harry said? Once you see a shadow, you're dead. I know, we all did. I really don't want to go out this way. Maybe if we're trying to get to the bottom of this, we should walk towards it. I can't believe I'm saying this. We should head in its direction.

You know, Hazel, I'm not sure of anything anymore. Yeah.

That's definitely going to die to a witch that's going to eat all of our balls. I don't know. I'm not an expert, but I would say it's where the light sources come in from. You know, I've gotten a lot of things wrong recently, so I don't really know, Hazel. All right. You got to keep pointing it out. Can we just get on?

Can we just go along with this ice? We begin to lead the group towards where we saw the shadow go. Just to try to follow it. You make your way through another ten minutes and suddenly you see a dart of movement. And you see across one tree, another tree, another tree, this dark shaped move. And it moves off in one direction. You follow it. Then you continue deeper and deeper into the swamp. And then you see it again.

And it seems to be very much deliberately moving in a direction, almost leaning you deeper into the swamp. And then, once you've been traveling for about two hours, you peer through the darkness of the swamp. And you see faint, flickering light far off in the distance. Seems like a small...

Firelight. Thank God there's a light here. I was starting to get worried that all of its predictions were coming true. That's the ghost light. He said about it. We're dead. I can still feel all of my warts. Well, just hold on to that because the flickering ghost light was one of Harry's predictions. Oh, shoot. I really am getting everything wrong. He said it was the ghost light and we're going to die. We've come this far, right, Brunley? Well...

Yeah, I'm not scared of you. It's probably just a natural phenomenon in the swamp. Those words are far too big for you to be saying. You're going to go in there and kill whatever it is, right, Grumly? That's what this is for. All right, Grumly. And I get behind him. I start pushing him like towards the light. Keep your eyes peeled, Grumly. You never know what might strike.

As you push Grumly, Grumly, you are walking along and you're growling and you're, you're so, you're growling almost in fear. Half growl, half whimper. Your, your boot catches something and you stumble forward and fall into the muck. Ha! Ha!

And... Grumly, I didn't mean to push you. Are you all right? Why were you pushing me? No, it was a gentle movement in the right direction. I'm sorry. And I'll try to help him up. You help him up, and as you're helped up, Grumly, you see what you tripped on. It was a large stone block almost sunken into the muck. Sorry, I'm excited. There's a large stone block almost sunken into the muck.

What? That's crazy, what is that doing there? This is where I tripped on! Does this look at all like any of the other things that we've seen? I'll get closer and look to see if it looks like it's not natural to the swamp. Uh, you look, and it seems to be... You see that it's almost like a stone slab of a structure that has sunk into the swamp. You see the construction and the jagged edges. This seems to be a very similar, familiar construction.

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Crooked Moon, a folk horror tome for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition. And don't forget to snag all the extra goodies like dice, miniatures, plushies, a tarot deck, and more. Thank you. Well, we're too late. What do you mean? It's been lost to the mud. This is just one stone. What if the rest of it's all underneath? Well, it's not lost. It's just under the mud. Then how are we going to get it out of the mud?

You know, I know someone who is the best digger in the whole world. All right, I'll do it. And I pull out the contraption I've been working on. Yes! It's a long, almost square-looking thing held together with wood, and it's got, um...

clamshells all along it and a small crank so that I can put it in the mud and it basically the clamshell shovel the mud and don't find it. Shovel the mud and don't find it. That's incredible. And I just crank it and start shoveling mud. Mud is flying everywhere and as you crank deeper and deeper and deeper water is starting to kind of settle in a little bit but the mud is going away and as you get further down this seems to be a large pillar.

as you're burying and excavating this. And you get deeper and deeper and deeper. And you start to see a bit of mural emerge. There's more! You're doing it! Keep going! A scene. I'm going, I'm going. Emerge. An armored stack. Large antlers and twisted oaken crown. Holding a flaming sword within a medallion. And holding a banner. And beneath the banner...

you see that it casts a shadow along the ground. And the shadow of the banner, but then it stretches out in multiple directions. Shadow that shapes and moves in humanoid, critteroid-looking shapes that spread out and move. And you see that there are creatures that

As Peggy's excavating along this pillar, that you see a savage-looking bear holding an axe, a bear-barian that you had only heard of in legend, a brutal-looking boar, as they're all cowering of these shapes made of pure shadow cast by this bear.

Never seen anything like this before, ever. Does this look like those shadows that have been moving around on the trees? To be honest, I just kind of thought they might be tricks of the light. I haven't gotten a good look. Peggy, the one that you saw, does it look like this? Here on this mural?

Yeah, it does look like it. But I've been wrong about a lot of things tonight. The Game Master says yay! Oh, did you hear that? Oh, God. Peggy, you are right about this. Oh, no. Oh, no, we really do have that swamp gas. Oh, no. Oh, no, sorry. It just got on a fish. Oh, well, that thing's not alive anyway.

Well, that means that the bed is probably nearby. And then they all just should play by the next artifact. I mean, relish. Yeah, well, then don't say that word. Relish? Relish. Yeah.

Anyone could be hearing us. We've got to make sure we only call it a brother. Oh, there's still lights off in the... You see that you've gotten closer, but there's still a flickering light off in the swamp. It's hard to tell from this distance. But then as you kind of look through, you see that the shadows are now starting to move and coalesce and take shape and dissipate. All along, the bits of light cast by the moon on these tree trunks

And you now see that there are flickering bits of stone columns of bricks emerging from the swamp above you. I'll look left and right, and then I will pull the amulet out and just kind of pull it in the air and just see what's going on. Okay. So as you had all been taking your time, as you had all been taking your time digging this out, you hadn't really been noticing that...

It had been getting darker around you. As you noticed that the moonlight on the trees all around you had been getting blackened by shadows. As you see all around you, as almost these moving silhouette, long spindly fingers, hands all around you, starting to reach towards you. And then as soon as Grumly pulls out the amulet, all of them move their arms back.

as it seems to repel the shadows that have been encroaching. Nice job, Grumly, nice job. Quick thinking. Let's all stay close. Yeah, we were almost grabbed by shadows. That's horrifying. Let's just stay close to Grumly. And just like before, we try to navigate through and figure out where these shadows are coming from, right? The banner, right? You know, just in case they have access to one of those phone books, we should call each other by code names.

Oh, like what? Like you should be Grubbly, you should be Booga, I should be Piggy, and you should be Hazel. That's my name. Yeah, I know, but if they get you, that's the least of our worries. Oh, no. Oh, it's Ozona. That's a great one. Let's do that. All right, Piggy. Like Grubbly. Shh. Now listen to Booga. I mean Booga.

Well, I'm as good as dead now. Let's all stick together. Does it look like they're coming from, like, just all sides evenly or any, like, direction we can go in? I would say that as you're noticing that the shadows had been darting from the swamp, but as they all shoot around and are burst back, you kind of get this direction that the shadows had been coming from behind you.

As you see the light flickering off in the distance, the shadows that had all been encroaching are all cowering back and dissipate. And I'll say that as you turn around with the amulet to look behind you, you see the faint flicker of... You'd seen just simply the silhouette of a long spindly hand, but you then see this very brief silhouette of a head, elongated snout,

with a top hat before it disappears into nothingness. Tell me you all saw that. Yeah. I did. I think it's a very good thing that we haven't mentioned this to anyone and we've stumbled upon it in the middle of the night because I think that there could be eyes and ears everywhere. Oh, that could have been bad. Well, enough of that. Enough of that. Do we follow? Kind of.

What do we do? I mean, we gotta pick a direction, we gotta pick a way to go. I say we just go towards the line, keep our eyes over our shoulder. Alright, alright, then what I'll do is you keep walking forward, I will walk with my back towards your back, and I will try to keep an eye on what's going on behind us. Everybody else look to the sides, maybe, while Runley's got the front. Can you walk backwards very easily? Oh, I'm very dexterous.

Very dextrous. Are you sure? I've never been more sure of anything in my entire life. You back home, they call me the sidewalking extraordinaire, so I'm good on the side. Look at that.

Alright. Alright, if you say so. Nice and easy now. Alright, and I'll start marching towards the light. Okay. As you're marching towards the light, holding the amulet, radiating that orange glow that seems to just be keeping the grasping hands of these shadows just barely at bay, as they all seem to be coming in the direction of the town, not this hut up ahead.

As you make your way closer and closer to the source of this light, and you see now up ahead that the ruins that you are walking through seem to rise up a little bit more. And there is a row of stone monoliths. And in the very center, you see a hut.

A wooden hut and where firelight... I'm sick of eggs. Firelight flickering from within tiny windows. Almost a warm, inviting glow with a thatch roof. A bent tin chimney billowing with smoke as you... as there seems to be this warm glow that this hut is also raised.

on a what seemed to be two halves of trees with long roots that almost look like chicken's feet. Jesus fucking Christ.

How's it going? Why have we stopped? Is this the woman in the woods? Is it hot? I don't want to take my eyes off of what I'm looking for, because I don't want to get jumped. You tell me what we're looking at. You're a lot bigger than I am. You know, is that another frog joke? What? No, no, no, no. Like a mugging, like an attack. Bromley, what do you see? Hold on. You're right. We have to make sure that we keep all of our eyes...

Here, take this rope. What? Okay, I feel it. Now pass it back to me. And I grab it and tie it. I'll turn around. No! Hey, hey, hey! He's smacking, but he's on the ground. He's falling down face first. Easy, easy. Broly, what are you doing? I'm disinsurging that we always have our eyes in the front and back of us. It's a little tight. Nice.

Gotta stay secure, you dainty cubs! Okay, is that the woman in the woods? I can't see it anymore. Oh my. That's kind of ominous. I guess we could ask, but if we think that this is the source of our love of the shadows, we don't want to cause any trouble and be eaten alive.

Well, maybe it's just a nice old lady. I'm not afraid of nothing except everything. But you know, if I'm going to die, I'm going to do it because I fucked up real bad. So let's go. Okay. But send Grumly first, but maybe untie me before you send him into danger. I'll turn back and I'll just start walking. No, no, no, no.

As you approach this hut, it gets larger and larger and into view. And you see that the thatched roof comes down and there's something tied above the door.

that there's a row of stairs that lead down to this ground level from the trees that it's built up onto to get out of the swamp. And you see that hanging above the doors are these large peppers that are tied up by ropes above this doorway as you approach. And you are staring directly up at it.

As you look up, you hear movement. Sounds coming from inside. Clattering of pants. The scuffing of feet on wood. As there seems to be movement, dark shadows dart across these glowing windows. It's hard to see. Try hard to make out the silhouette as it crosses the window and you see a single shape moving around inside. What's going on? What's going on? I don't want to turn around. I want to keep my eyes out there.

It's just somebody moving around. He's probably cooking dinner. We should go say hi. I think that's probably a good idea, especially if we get safety from whatever's out here. All right. What do you think, Peggy? Should we knock on the door? Yeah, most definitely. Okay. Go for it. Well, no, you're a talker. I think you should do it. Well, then we should turn around at once. On the count of three, we'll trade places. Book away. What? Just in case it comes up, I'm kind of hungry. Okay? Okay, on the count of three. Okay.

Hazel. One. Wait, on go or on three? It'll be... I'll count to three and say switch. Sound good? And we'll switch when I say switch. Wait, on three or switch? No, on switch. We will switch when I say switch. Should we do switch this time? No! All right, all right, all right. Nobody move. Let me just...

Let's just survive this. I'll take a few steps up the steps. I'll walk up the steps. I'm begging you to take a few steps, and the clattering from inside gets louder as it's shuffling about. You see a few black feathers hanging around from the tops of the roof as well as you arrive at this door. With one shaky palm.

I try to rap loudly on the door. With one shaky paw, you lean in and suddenly your paw gives way as the door flies open. You see the light burst forth from this hut as a silhouette is standing there wearing very simple robes as an incredibly voluptuous black chicken. As she stares at you and says, Who the fuck is coming tonight?

house in the middle of the night! I'm sorry. My name is Booker. It's a pleasure to meet you. I take my hat off and I say, we were just looking for respite, for some sort of relief. She waves a wooden spoon at you and points it at you. Are you with the alligator man? No, no, no, no. We're just vagabonds. We're just passing through. We wandered out into the swamp foolishly and now we're here. No, we saw the shadows of the alligator man in the swamp, though. Is he with you?

No, he's not. He's a thief. Are you thieves? You see your vagabonds? You're coming to take even more of the relics? We don't want to take anything. We'd be happy to explain everything. The alligator man seems to be pretty dangerous and we have nothing to do with him. Wait a minute. Did you say that the alligator man took one of the relics? I mean relish? I mean relish. An 11. She turns to you, Peggy, and says, I ate it!

And you're a girl too stupid to be trusted by him. Get in here. You'll catch a death in the night air. Thank you. And she weaves you in. Is the swamp plane real? We've been in the swamp for hours.

I come in the door. As she hears that, she leans in. Her waddle is hanging. It kind of grazes you, Booker. Seductively? It twitches seductively. It grazes Peggy and Booker. Oh, you must not have seen us there. Oh, okay. All right. All right. As it leans towards you, Grumly, it says, Are you afraid of the sword plague? Yes.

Well, we heard that there may or may not be a swamp clay. Does it exist? No! But you know what does? What? The Clam Crazes! I knew it! I told you! Oh no, I took one bite of that stupid clam sandwich. I didn't eat any clams. Wait, how did you get... You ate three whole clam sandwiches! I did! I ate three whole clams for Reuben. So it looks like...

You've gone mad! Oh no! And certainly explain all the things that we've been seeing. I'm gonna have to put him down. Oh no! Am I a danger to my fellow vagabonds? How do you care? Can't you

God, you lot are stupid. Sit down. Sit down. And she shuffles over and you see that in this hut, there's a large stove that's connected to the chimney up at the top. And there's a large cauldron on it and it's bubbling with this brew. And you see there's a wide variety of peppers that are hanging from the ceiling, dry and fresh, and a variety of different...

ways. And she immediately leans forward and fills four bowls with soup and sends it all in your direction on this table and she sits you all down. Well, this is very, very hospitable of you. Thank you. I can't smell anything like it. What is this? This is my special brew.

Cheeks. Smells really good. You smell really good. Oh. I've got some berries. Did you want some of those? And some pies. Cherry pie? I didn't check. I don't recall. I may have eaten that one already. But you can have some after this. She takes it. She immediately wolfs it down. I haven't had food from the settee in so long. What are you doing out in my swamp?

All right, I suppose we should just explain everything. It seems like you know what's going on, and quite frankly, we're all a little confused. So, you said the alligator man, he stole some sort of relic. Aye, he stole the banner of the Blazing Heart. Well, yeah. He has it. Aye, he does. He's been using it to make dark deals, swindle people out of their money.

When they catch rise, they die horribly! I knew I had some sort of bad feeling about him, but I never could have guessed it was that sinister. We almost made a deal with him! I think we might have, didn't we? I guess we kind of, sort of did, but it wasn't... No, no! I told him that we would have to see what was going on. We didn't make any deal. That was pretty lucky. I'm not going to lie. We didn't give him anything.

And all he said is that he'd give us free drinks if we gave him a... We don't have to give the word. We don't have to put in a good word for him. I mean, not that we would anyway. Now, but... No, of course not. We don't have to do any kind of bargain. Okay, that's good. Makes me feel better. So why are you living out here in this swamp all by yourself? Is this swamp yours? This is your swamp. Hey, this is my swamp.

No one else had any chicken breast to live out here. Keep an eye on the standard. Until it got stolen from me. So why do you need to keep an eye on the standard, though? So you're like, it's guardian, but why? Because when I was a young chick, I wandered out into the swamp and I saw a good orange glow out in the distance.

And I wandered through and the shadows, they all lingered around me but they did not strike. And I saw it rising out of the mug of the swamp. And I saw the beginning of the forest, the beginning of everything. And I knew I'd become the crazy old woman of the swamp until the alligator man

knocked me out, stole the standard, and now I can't leave. The shadows have turned me apart. How did you make it this far? We tied Booker to Grumley's back, and that seemed to work for some reason, I guess. It's like the shadows wanted to stay out of our eyesight. They were always in the corner of our vision. Yeah, that's true. Also, I'm confused. What's the standard? It's the banner. It's like a flag. Why didn't they just call it the banner? I couldn't tell you.

It's more like an official sounding name in an army. A standard is like the... Is it built to like a standard size? Well, it's more of the official... Thank you for the five. 113. It's

It's more like if you're in the army, you have a standard for like a unit, for instance. And it's very important because it identifies that regiment. And so it's more important than a banner. It's more important than a flag. It's a standard. And if you lose it or you drop it, it's very disheartening. While we're on the topic about these things, you wouldn't happen to know...

What constitutes a deal with the alligator man? Did you shake his hand? I don't think we did. Do we? I didn't because my hands were sticky with it. Well, that's kind of my thing. I always offer a handshake. It's what a gentleman does. It's also a way, well, anyway, to be fair, I've been up a long time and I've seen a lot of things tonight and I'm not so sure what I might have done. He might be doomed. Well, what's the worst that would happen? I mean, would we all die or would it just be me?

Uh, Booker? If you shook the alligator's hand... I can't remember. The inviting smile... No. Of the alligator as he swam through the shiny teeth. Stop! You're dead. Just me or my friends too? Would you be more scared if I said your friends would die too? I think I would be more preferable.

I don't want to die alone! You will die alone! No! That's so much worse! And unloved! How do we fix it? Is there a way to undo? We have this! And I pull out the amulet. How did you get that? We found it!

Can it help? This is how we got through the woods. This is what kept the shadows at bay. This is why we weren't torn apart. Yeah, that's right. I don't want to die. Can we use this to make sure Booker... I mean, Booker doesn't die. His name's Booker, not Booker. That was a mis... Please stop calling me Booker. This isn't how I go. Are you saying you're willing to go against the shadow? Of course. That doesn't mean I don't have to die if we beat him.

If you beat him and take the banner back. Oh, yeah. Aye. Aye. Aye. Consider it done. Don't touch me. You're going to grab my waddle. No, no, I would never even think about doing something. No, no, don't even. It's been a long, lonely life out in these woods. Absolutely not. Don't even think about it.

Oh, she's so lovely. She might appreciate it, nice little... Just grab it. Just for a little bit. Never. Not even once. I'm not making any kind of weird deals with anybody else in this godforsaken... What happened to this place in the time that I've been gone?!

That's it? Yeah, you're from here. You know, there's always been people in the swamp. Not that I'm aware of. Not that you're evil, but they're evil. How do we go about fighting the shadow thing and getting the standard back? Do we just walk up to his place of gloom and just go in there and just be like, hey, fuck you, give us the standard?

Or do we have to, like, go do a dark ritual where we all take off our clothes and dance around in the moonlight chanting and sacrificing goats? Like, what do we have to do? That seems like something I want to do. I know. I don't want to do either one of them. Maybe we could lock chicken. Chicken? No, no. I'm sorry. That was rude. Oh.

Wait, wait, I mean, I want to know the answer to Peggy's question. It sounds like there might be something specific. What do we have to do? What do you want to do? Do we have to cut our fingers off? The remnants of them? I just want to live. I don't want to do that. Do you want to trick the alligator man? Yeah. We want to take the standards from the alligator man, so what do we have to do? She wants to steal.

Standard. Yeah. Do we have to make a batch of mashed potatoes, put it out in a canister and step on it in the moonlight so we don't turn into wolves? That seems kind of fun. These are all very specific things you keep saying, Peggy. Do you want to die? No! All right, then let me ask the hard question here, all right? I'm sorry, I'm sorry. You died. It's up to you how you get it back.

If you're looking... Do we have to give ourselves a wedgie and walk through town and act as if we don't have one? It's too hard. I know. You have to give it to him. He's doomed! I'm sorry, Booker! No! I don't want to die!

It is one way to remove the curse. Wow. Just give it a little fumble. No. Do you want to live? I don't want to die. No. I don't know.

Can I try to figure her out? In my horrible confused state. With your wedgie and your beard. Yeah, I think figuring someone out is a better way to go here. Oh, it's charm. You got this. Okay.

I got a... 8 plus 3 is 11. So I get to hold 3. And while interacting with them, I can spend my hold 1 for 1 to ask, is your character telling the truth? Absolutely not. Okay. What does your character wish I do? She wants you to fumble that wobble. Oh.

And then how can I get your character to tell the truth? If you fondled her waddle.

I'm noticing a theme. This was the most unfortunate set of circumstances that I could have ever seen. I know you're lying to me. I know you're lying to me. You still want to find all the dorks, you booger? It's Booker with a K. I'm going to pick you, booger. I don't care for it at all. Can I have some soup, please? You have soup already?

Why don't you find out?

Give it to Fondle, then, Boomer! You can't lie to me now, right? No. Okay, all right. Very hesitantly. Oh, no. I feel as though history's repeating itself in some weird parallel time frame. And I reach out and I fondle her wall. Oh, no, dear gods, it's all gross and slimy. She ruffles her feathers and some black feathers, some giant feathers shake out. Oh, no!

I don't want to die. I don't want to die. Tell me how to get the jam back. Well, you can do it in a variety of ways. I have some special brew that's not soup. What is it? Is it pie? It's brew of pie, you dumb shite. Oh!

is this fucking stupid? I don't know. All the ones I've met, yes. But there may be some intelligent ones out there. No, no, tell, no, what's in this? What's a brew? It's something you put in a pot and... Where did you find her? But you can put it into a pot... How do

Oh, Harry's a mad man, but he knows more than he lets on.

I've seen him from afar. I've tried to beckon him. You know, he did kind of tell us about you and we all thought he was crazy. Oh no, I saw his terrible relationship with his wife so I sabotaged it. That's pretty dark. That's an awful thing to do for Sherry's old family. I'm shaking in a hundred and twelve slob. Wait, is Sherry Perry's other wife?

How did you know? Oh no. She wouldn't even give me, well she did give me a sample, but she wouldn't give me more than one free sample. She did something, that's why the relationship lasted as long as it did. I don't care for that kind of talk. Oh no, this makes me really nervous because you know what he said about you? He said you were going to eat

The ball's right off of the guys. Grumly specifically. Yeah, are you going to eat Grumly's ball? Grumly said he'd like to see you try. Don't play so many balls. She turns and looks at Grumly. What did you say in that little book? Good sickness. She struts over.

Do you doubt my power? No, not at all. Um, um... You seem very powerful with your cooking abilities. That's true. It's very delicious. Are you gonna cook his balls? Are there balls in this soup? No. Yes! Really? And there's clowns who've climbed crazy in Swamp League. Oh,

You already told us those things weren't real. I'm a vegetarian. But the clam crazy is real. I don't believe you. Did I actually get something wrong? No. Okay, so if we've got the clam crazies and we've got the swamp plague, what do I have to do to get rid of it? The banner.

We need the banner. Yeah, okay. So to get the banner, so to get the banner, what do I have to do? Oh, that's right. You were talking about a boat. Do I have to go outside? Do I have to walk on my hands? And as I'm walking on my hands, I'm also trying to suck on my toes. And then when I'm doing that, I'm going to spin around 14 times, exactly 14 times. But when I get halfway towards the 15th time, I'm going to flip over onto my back, scream up at the sky in rage.

What are you going to scream? Well, that's how you summon an incubus. Oh, man. Well, I gotta go, guys. No, hold on. I'll join you.

I'm gonna die alone in the swamp. I loved... The three of us eat soup. I don't want you to go out in the swamp and slap on a fucking piggy fist. And that's the end of the campaign. Thanks for coming out, folks. It's been fun. Howie. So... And we all get sucked to hell. What's your name? My name's Piggy. And this is Grubly. And this is Booga. And this is... Zulnut. Okay.

Oh, Hazel! Look it with a K. That's a stupid name! Oh no! My name is Bridget! Not Bridget, Bridget! I'm glad you made that strangely specific clarification, as if we might make that mistake from some other parallel world. With a D!

I can bridge it like the name. I can't cross the bridge. Yes. You know, that would make it a lot easier for people to get here. Because, you know, you're in a swamp and you're really high up in the muck. If you just made a bridge, then people could come visit you all the time. And then you wouldn't have to put people's balls in your soup and you wouldn't have to have weird raccoons with a wedge to fumble your waddle. Do you think if you get rid of the alligator man, I can visit Harry and...

and enjoy his berries. I'm sure you can. I'm very uncomfortable. Well, assuming that the curse is lifted and you're not stuck here forever and we're not gonna die alone and unloved, then yeah. You probably still will, curse or not. Anyways! I probably got some hairy... I take four injury. Yikes. Ouch. I guess we gotta find a new booger.

Let's book out with a game. I have enough peppers for one brew. All right. I got my famous Bridget love potion. My famous Bridget boom potion.

Boom. Boom. Boom. Oh. Oh, I thought you said bone, like you put bones in. I thought he said boom. No, that's the bone potion. Oh, no. So you take him to the bone zone. Oh, no, I was going to ask if you were talking about a dick, and you were. Well, no, I was talking about one makes you fall in love, one makes it explode, and another gives you a bonitis. Bonitis.

What's that? Your bones turned to jelly. Oh, that sounds kind of... Oh, never mind. What kind of jello was I going to do? Like a bone marrow jelly. Have you ever had that? It's delicious. Can we get it in grape?

No! So what you're saying though is that we could firebomb the hell out of the casino. I thought- I don't see why that was a ridiculous question. So it is Boom Jelly and Bone Jelly and- and- and a Love Jelly! Why didn't you name them all with B's? It seems really weird that one of them would be named with a N. Bone. Bone! B-O-N. Bone. That's the love one now. Bone, Boom and Bone. So you got two Bones and one Boom?

Yeah! I really hope we don't mix those up. You can get one. I'll make one. We'll take the bone one. Wait, what do they all do? What do you mean? Love makes you fall in love with someone? Love makes you go boom. We could literally firebomb his ass back into the mic. I need to live here! He needs to drink it!

That's a little bit more tough. Can you explain what happens when you drink each one of these jellies? You just did. Why aren't you listening one minute? No, like in more detail than a single word that starts with a B. How much more detail do you need than your bones do? It's what it says on the tin, you dumb fucking dog. It says it makes you go boom, like Twitter painted, like a figurative sense, like a metaphorical boom. Or do you mean like boom when you're bumping uglies? Oh, like boom boom. Or do you like literally explode?

For some reason, I'm feeling like every single one of these is a fuck juice. And with the right attitude, they could be. I feel like at the end of the day, we just have to get him to drink this, which means...

We're in trouble. Um... I don't know. He's in a casino and he offered us drinks. Why don't we just go kill him? That would be great. That's what I was thinking. No, but that's right. We could go to the casino and we could ask him if he wants a drink. That's not out of the ordinary. He's just the cook. I don't think he's the cook. What if... What if... We've already gotten Hazel two jobs. We get her one more. All we have to do is get her hired at the casino. No.

as his personal assistant and she can poison him. - Well, you know what? - What would I do? - Because Havel's not a frog. - I was just gonna say. - Maybe we should get Booker hired at the casino. - I'm not a frog either. - We could disguise you to look just like a frog and you blend in with all the other frogs. - I know you're not much of a thinker, so I'm gonna let that one slide. The point is I wanna see that scaly bastard explode into visceral all over the inside of his casino.

I don't condone murder, but I need to live here. What happens when you drink the boom juice? You turn into this around the side of a casino. You dumb fucking bug. That's what I was begging on. I'm not a bug at all. You bug. Or did you say pug?

You're a bug now! Oh. Uh-oh. I'm gonna squash you like a little bug. You know, I actually really like you. I thought we were gonna walk in here and you was gonna sever our bodies from our bodies. Well, the night is still young. I mean, someone did call you a cannibal. Yeah, Harry. Harry did call you a cannibal. Yes, and Harry's the everything. But I guess if you do what you want to to him, you could kind of call it cannibalism. Oh, okay.

That's my special move. Gross. A cannibal? Never mind, I didn't ask. We don't need details, please. The manager. I don't like the way you're looking at me. All right, where does he keep this banner? Where is it? In his boat? She clucks. She clucks. Is his banner in the boat? I don't know. I don't fucking know.

What is it for every boot? I've been in the hut! Trapped by shadow crocodiles! What is it, alligators? Is it offensive? Anyways, we'll take the bone potion.

The one. Can we be a little more. Are you talking about the fuck tooth? Because I don't think that's a good. The one that turns into jelly? Yeah. Boons. What is that going to accomplish? One, I think it would be kind of neat to watch. And then two, we could just get him easy. Well, it's just. Well, you know, it'd be really funny if he was just trying to, you know, bone everything. Well, that would also be funny. But if he's just, if he just turns into like a gelatinous puddle, then what? Then what? I don't.

Well, then we can say, oh, can't do anything now. Where's that? And then we still have to kill him, right? I mean. Well, maybe we don't kill him that way. Maybe he just like flops around on the ground and we take the banner and we just leave. Maybe he'll just slither to where the banner is. Can he talk if he didn't have a jawbone?

Does it turn your jawbone into jelly? Are teeth bones, do they turn to jelly too? Bones are bones, yes. It's disgusting. He's just a businessman. Clearly not. He's got shadow people at his beck and call. And you said he kills people too? Aye. They are destroyed and ripped apart by the shadow monsters. Oh no. Can I try to figure her out? Yeah. Let's see if she's told the truth.

Seven. So I think I get one. You get one. Is she telling the truth? Yes. Well, she believes it at the very least. I've seen it. The body parts buried in the swamp.

Well, here's the thing. If we get the love potion, then we can charm him easily, and he might just tell us where it is and hand it over. But who are we going to make him fall in love with? Yeah, how does that work with the brew? Like, who does he fall in love with? The first person he sees when he drinks it. I am out. No way in absolute... Nothing in this godforsaken woods would ever convince me to get anyone near anything like that. What's wrong? I still don't know what's exploding him into viscera.

Can't handle little alligator love? No wonder you're going to die alone. Yeah, I mean, that's a given. We're going to be here arguing until we all die alone. What do you guys think we should take? I vote for exploding him into viscera.

I want payback. I still feel like the jelly bone is just funny. It seems a little more subtle than blowing him up. Yeah, like with the jelly bones, we don't guarantee he tells us anything. And then if he's like, oh, I'm not going to tell you. Or also like, oh, but the eye locked it away in a place where the only way you can get it is if you utilize my alligator bone.

And then he's blown to smithereens. We can't get it anyway. And if he's jelly bones, he won't be able to move towards it. So the only way to do that is to make him fall in love with Booger. I think that's right. We'll take the love potion. I'm telling you, I'm not going in there. Yeah. And you literally can't make me. You can take the love potion, but I'm not going to be the one to deliver it. He knows what I look like. Because I don't like it when we fight. He knows what we all look like. Good luck getting close to him.

We'll offer him a drink. He doesn't know what we're up to. Oh, my lord. She nearly started pulling some peppers. Do you see what I'm working with here? Do you see this? Do you hear these things? You know, it's fine. I'll make him fall in love with Gwemly. Gwemly.

That sounds fair, let's go! She mashes it up in a mortar and a pestle, and, uh, with a poof of smoke, uh, and she pours it into a jar and seals it up, and, uh, she hands it onto the table like, "Well, this is all I got! Good luck!" That was really nice of you. Well, please get the bat out of the bag so I can leave my fucking hut! Well, it's kind of a nice hut.

Thank you very much. I appreciate you lying to me. I love your hat. Oh, thank you very much. I think we should go. She clocks. So if we all calmly take the potion. Well, thank you. We will head back right away and we will offer this to him and hopefully get the banner back.

Very soon. And maybe you'll know if the shadows recede and you're able to leave this godforsaken swamp. Yeah, and you know, we'll make sure to let Harry know that there's no better place for his balls than out in the middle of the forest with a weird chicken. Ooh, I'd appreciate that. Yeah, we'll send him your way. And if you want to come back, you smell like berries.

Did you want to take a lick of my sign? It's got some of the berry juice on it. A lick of what? My sign. Oh, sorry, I didn't hear you right. That's still fine. And don't you forget that Waddle Fondle was strictly business. Nothing else. Business. You fuddle one waddle. Now where have I heard that before?

I have a strange, strange feeling deep in the pit of my stomach. It's almost as if this was unavoidable. Like no matter what I'd done, fate would have led us here. Fate is very real. Look at that, my fucking hunt! The door slams.

You're welcome! Come again! And the door slams behind you and you make your way back to the swamp. The shadows once again creeping in, the long jagged fingers attempting to claw you, but the amulet protecting you. It takes you another two hours to get back as you leave the ruined city behind. You leave the stone monoliths and all of the remnants of this ruin. And you make your way through the swamp and you see the back

of the Voracious Gloom, the large riverboat casino built up on this deck. You see that there are three tiers, but that fourth tier up ahead, which had just the one window on either side where you could see the silhouette of the Alligator Man, but you don't see it right now. What do you do? I've got to ask a question. What ever happened to the big crown here?

You got it. I think you have it in your pack. Oh, I do? In your gigantic backpack you've got there. Oh, good. I thought... I hope you didn't lose it. I don't think that I did. I didn't know I'd see that. I've got it. Don't worry. You don't sound very confident. No, I've got it. I just... There's a giant ooking crown in the bag. I forgot.

Should we have, like, shown her that we had that too? You think that would have made a difference? No, but I am concerned about the fact that she thinks we're bringing this thing back to her because we're not, right? Like, why would we bring this thing back to her? I think she just wants to be let out of the swamp because he's keeping it in there because of the shivers. Yeah, but she kept saying, well, here's this so you can bring it back to me. And we were all like, yeah, sure. Yeah.

Oh, I didn't really think that. Well, I think as long as we just say, hey, here it is, we're going to take it, but you can leave the swamp now, it's a fair trade. We can deal with that when we get to it. We don't know if she'll be able to leave the swamp if we take it with us. That's true. I think she can. Yeah.

And if she can't, she can't ever come after us. That's true. Yeah. So that's why I'm thinking we don't take it back to her, like, period. Because then if we take it back to her and she's like, no, you can't take it unless you follow my wand all night. I prefer, yeah, to never go back there, honestly. Yeah, we just not go back. It's kind of my thought. But we can cross that bridge at... Well, she doesn't have a bridge outside of our house is the thing. Yeah, that's true. Actually, I don't know if you were busy pulling your underwears out of your butt crack, but

I did have a long conversation with her when I told her she could use a bridge. Yeah, he's not listening to me again. I don't know how we're going to get this guy to drink this thing. I thought I had an idea, but then I realized it was a really stupid plan. Well, what was it? Maybe it was just stupid in your head. And then we can, like, we can work on it. Well, you can just call me stupid, maybe. No, I wouldn't do that. You might.

Well, he did say he wanted to play games. That's true. It's casino. I don't know many games. Oh, what if we played a drinking game with him? Well, I thought about that, but the problem is that we still have to get him to drink the thing, and so I was thinking of a shell game. Have you ever seen a shell game?

I've got a lot of shells in my pants. Right, right, right. So imagine those shells, three of them, and there's a ball under one of them, and you show them the ball, and then you cover it with the shell, and three identical shells, and you shuffle them around, and the person has to try to guess which one it is. But that didn't really work either. And then I thought maybe just, like, challenging him to some sort of a game of, well, we put the thing in, and we just swap them around, and we try to get him to drink the thing, but that didn't work. That wouldn't really work either. I mean, like, why would we ever convince him to risk his life for something? Yeah.

Well, why has it got to be a risk of life? Why can't you just say, you lay down two shots and you do the game, but you make him lose, you know? Well, of course. And then he say, oh, you lost, take a shot.

Maybe, you know, you pull a little something else for you and you lose first to get him off his guard. Well, what we could do is we could get completely naked. We could go into his room when he's sleeping. Oh, no, please, don't stop. Yeah. We could go into his room when he's sleeping, all right? And then naked, because then he wouldn't hear us at the entire point. We just cry his mouth open. And I have this puffer fish.

It's dead. It was born dead. Checks out. That's right. We just fill it full of the love potion and we just squeeze all of the juice deep into his body while we're naked. I don't know why being naked comes into play with that, but I'm willing, I'm open to the idea. If there's a purpose, I suppose. I really want to circle back to the mashed potato idea.

Yeah, but that was more for a thing. No, I don't know. That was just something I came up with for me. Do you just go, no? What? Maybe we just do that. We'll just walk up and be like, nah, we're done. You want a potion? What? No, no, no. Come on, do you drink to your game? Do you drink the potion? Because it'll be in my drinker. I already told you that I'm not going to be the one there when this happens. Is this a delivery?

That was really... That fucking got me, man. But you have to be the one to trick him with the game. Your whole thing is tricking and persuading people. The problem is we don't even have a game to challenge him to. And again, how do... I mean, I like... I don't know if... I don't know. I believe in you, Booker. I could help you. I need time to think. Oh, you know what we could do? What?

We can all show up completely naked and then say what you said. I think that that actually might work as like a distraction tactic while he's trying to guess the game.

I don't see the connection, but I'm not very sure. I just think the point of this is if we all work together as solo rapists... You know what we can also do? It has nothing to do with being naked, alright? So just listen to me on this one. We could go in and we could show him the amulet and say, hey, we'll give you this if you drink this potion. He might. I actually don't hate it. What if the potion doesn't work? What the fuck? Then we should get naked and run. Just don't shake his hand again.

Well, too late for that, my friend. Your good friend Booker is not long for this world. I will not let anything happen to you.

Oh, maybe we offer him a berry and it can be a stuffed berry. That's the best idea we've gotten so far. That's a great idea. Do you guys eat berries? Well, bring him one of Harry's berries because Sherry's berries are shit. That's right. Harry didn't give me any berries. Well, go get one. He's your employer. We have to pick up the money anyway. It's true. I also have a bag of exotic berries that I found out in the woods. Well, either way, Grumly, I think you're onto something.

Oh, you can start an entire new place called Berries. Hazelnuts Berries. Now that sounds horrible. Nuts and Berries. Oh, and every employee can be naked. That sounds great. That's great. And you don't have to worry about stains on your clothes. That's how I like to work back at my workshop before you showed up and started taking up space. Sorry. It's all right.

It's easier to carry your tools when you're wearing clothes. All right. Well, I think we need to figure out what our plan is. Well, how are we going to get the love juice into one of these berries? How do we guarantee that he eats it when he bites into it and all the juice spritz all over his mouth? Why did they continue to chew? How did Gay just flop out of his mouth because they have to chew like that?

What if he just eats it in one bite? He's pretty big. He's bigger than Grumlin. He's a big guy. What if he's not enough? If he's got to drink all the potion? What if we convince him that we found something really cool, right? And we tell him like, hey, look, we found this...

juice that's like it'll make you super strong and everyone will love you. And then we say, but we want to drink it, but we thought we could really use money more. So do you want to play a game to see who gets the drink and make it seem like we want to drink it?

And then we challenge him to a thing that we lose on purpose. I know it's really hard for you, Booker, but you've got to try. And then he has to drink and y'all look so sad. Oh, no, we really wanted to drink that potion. And then he drinks it and he falls in love with you. It's a pretty good idea, except for the last part.

Okay. Then we'll look really happy and say, oh, yay, you got the potion, and then he falls in love with you. That's the second to last one. You know, it really depends on your maths.

Well, I don't know. Also, we put the potion in a berry. It's not gonna fit in a whole berry. How much potion is there? It's like a jar. Pretty big berries. I mean, massive berries. You did not inspect Harry's wearies. Harry's wearies. That's true. I suppose worst case scenario, we go by in the morning, we see if...

what Ares' wares are, and if we don't like the look of his berries, we can go check out Sherry's berries. What if he's on to us and he's seen us out in the woods? I don't think we should wait. Let's just put it in the Sherry's big shitty berry and give that to him.

Yeah. I can't come up with fucking anything. I think we should do it. I'm just trying to take my clothes off. Oh, we weren't going to do that part of the plan? Well, you know, at this point, I'm getting pretty desperate, so maybe anything at this point might work. Let's just do it. I think we should do it. I think we should strike now while the iron's hot, as they say.

At the very least, he'll just be very confused and Grimly can hit him over the head. And we can just force it down his throat. How about this? Why don't we get two glasses and a bottle of whiskey and we'll spike one of the glasses with the potion. But what if we fuck it up and we give ourselves the potion? Well, nobody can be that stupid. You're right. I like that idea. And we challenge him to a drinking contest. Please.

Billy booked his most experienced drinking, so he will challenge him to a booking contest, and he will drink it, and then he will fall in love with one of us. It doesn't matter who. Whoever he sees first. That's true. It doesn't matter, and it will be like...

hey, look, if you want to, you know, have a good time later tonight, then take us to where their banner is. You know, we heard about it. You know, we didn't really think that through either because just because he falls in love with us doesn't mean he's going to tell us where their banner is. I think it will. We probably should have exploded his gut. It's almost as if I had suggested that. Oh, it's fine. We should have done jelly bones. Well, it's too late now. All we've got is this bones bonus.

Well, I like your idea. Let's do it. So which one of us is going to fuck him? I already called no, so... I don't have a no. I can't play this game. It looks like Peggy's losing the game. Oh, no. Come on, let's just go do this.

All right, get your bottle of whiskey ready. Wait, I thought we were spiking the berries. We're not even on the same page. Oh, no. We're going to spark a glass of whiskey, and we're going to challenge him to a drinking contest. Why wouldn't he just grab his own bottle of whiskey? Why is he going to take our bottle of whiskey? We have to offer him something he doesn't already have. Then berries sounds fine.

So, you make your way to Harry's Berries? No, we have the berry from Sherry. The shitty berry from Sherry. We might as well swing past him. See what he's got. We gotta check out Harry's Berries. No, we don't. We gotta see what he's hanging with. Yes. Worst case scenario, we'll steal from him. Fuck it. We're already screwing everything up. We might as well fucking steal Harry's Berries.

So that's the plan. Yeah, we're just going to swing by some of these guys. So you make your way through the town. Despite it being pretty late, there are a few bars and taverns that are still open. There are people walking around. Once again, you kind of stay a wide bit away from the voracious gloom. And you...

You walk past like a bar fight. People are beating the shit out of each other. And then you eventually make your way to the old fruit stand that says Harry's Berries. And it's very late and all the stores are closed. So we're right behind the fruit stand. It's this ratty looking tent.

and you hear a... Yeah, we should just steal some berries. All right, Hazel, we need you to go in there as quietly as you can and steal as many of Harry's berries as you can. Put all of Harry's berries in your mouth, but don't squish them. I'm always very gentle with berries, you know that. Except for the ones that were rolling around in my bag, but now I've got the clampers for the berries. We just need a couple of them in good shape. As many as you can get. All right, I'm...

Harry seems to be asleep, so just snatch his berries and get the hell out of there. All right. Any particular kind of berries? The plumpest and juiciest Harry's berries you can find. You can see on the sign that Harry's berries are the plumpest and not hairy like Sherry's hairy berries. Right.

Don't confuse sharing berry berries with Harry's berries that are plump. Don't forget gypsy. Safely. Even. All right. I'm going to see if I can sneak up. Attempt for hoagie speeds. All right. I'm going to sneak up on my little... I'm going to take my shoes off so I've got little pitter-patter feet. Yeah, pitter-patter paws. I got pitter-patter paws. Sticky fingers. Sticky fingers.

Nine plus finesse? Yep. Uh, ten on the top. 112, so you pick one. Don't have a clear path of escape. Use up some resources. You need evidence.

I'm going to leave some evidence. Okay. So you make your way to Creep Up, and you see that in this rickety tent, you see two long white ears sticking out, and you hear snoring like, I sure love it. No one takes my secret compartment, baby. God, no. No.

It's an absolute nightmare. It's an old family here, Luke. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. You make your way and you see that there's a good number of berries. They're all plump. Some are hairy. Some are not. They all look delicious. However, there's one in the back.

and it's this large plump like blueberry. Secret compartment berry. And there's an actual hole in it that seems to have a little reservoir in the center. Like a gusher. A gusher is literally a giant gusher. We're going to give him the potion. His head's going to turn into a banana. And it says, and it says, the prize of the Anses on this little pedestal.

And you manage to take it. And as you're turning to go, your tail actually switches out and it knocks over a huge tray of berries and it scatters across. And most of them just completely splatter and are completely destroyed, covered in, like, wooden splinters. A couple hit some rusty nails. And you wait. Harry should really clean up his shop. Look at that.

And he continues to sleep. Gosh, I'm so glad I just sleep next to my undefended Connor. Are there any other berries available? There's a good number of berries. Untarnished? Untarnished, yeah. I would like to take... How many berries are there? There's a lot of berries. A lot of berries. There's many berries! I'd like to take about a quarter of his berries.

Oh man, I hope I at least have 80% of my beer. As you're shoving berries, you're really surprised by how clairvoyant this guy is. Um,

uh and then spot on uh as uh you shovel all the berries and you manage to scamper but there are the it's very clear that he's been ransacked uh and you manage to scamper man i can't wait until that chipmunk brings me all sorts of business

I just quietly wait outside the tent for her to come back. Bam! Last you'd have called of the secret compartment barrier! Yes, sir! And she's back. This is perfect. This is actually perfect. We keep your sign facing the way that it is, and all you're doing is we're bringing him a sample of Harry's berries. And

And that they're the best berries on the planet. You're an employee of Harry, the berry man. Yeah, you can even add, because I don't know if you heard him talking really loudly in his sleep about that compartment berry that's a family heirloom. You bring it and say, this is a one-of-a-kind family heirloom berry from Harry's Berries, not to be confused with Harry's.

Hairy berries from Sherry's Berries, which are shitty berries. It's vintage, one of a kind only, and you're bringing it to him in honor of Hairy's Berries, not to be confused with Sherry's Hairy Berries that are shit. We'll write it down. And you want to give it to him.

That's it. To eat. And it's like a gusher in his mouth. And that's it. That's all we gotta do. It's just have you deliver the berry on your employer's behalf. Yeah, and then when Harry wakes up and finds out that it's been consumed, he can blame it all on the alligator because technically he did drink it. Eat it.

I feel like if it's so wonderful kind, I should have it. No, no, no. No. This is our one chance. We finally found a clear path of escape here. Yeah, but it just seems like he doesn't even really like berries that much, and I love berries. And I already have it, so it seems like it'd just be easier if it stayed like... Hazel. Hazel, we're talking about my life here. I need the banner. I don't want to die. Why don't we just say...

He's a starry alligator man with a shadow on me and you think he's just gonna give that up? Maybe? No. I haven't even ever seen like a compartment berry before. Can I at least eat a compartment berry? No, because you won't take it. I'm not gonna take it. My brother used to do that to me. Do what? Don't worry, I'll take my berries and say, how can I see it? And I'd say, you see it with your eyes and then I'd hold it up and you'd take it anyway.

I just want to see if the compartment can hold a whole vial of potion. That's all. I know you're just going to take it anyway. You can have it.

I'm keeping the rest of these and you guys can have any. And when I make a delicious tart, you can have any. That's fine. Because it's always, Hazel, steal this and Hazel, give up your berries. And I won't do it forever, but I'll do it this time because I guess I don't want Booker to die because he's my friend and not Owen. Thank you. I'll take the berry. Does it feel like it's... It feels like it's exactly enough room to fill this. How serendipitous.

You pop the cork and it pours in and almost as soon as it fills up, it just seals and it's like this delightful gummy gusher biz. So, first thing in the morning. No, we should go right now. He's probably asleep. Yeah, that's the best time. We wake him up and say, hey! We're all naked and we got this little bit!

I think it's slightly more believable if we just go first thing in the morning because Harry's berries, nobody gets up earlier than Harry's berries to deliver a delightfully new rare berry. The rarest of berries. Yeah. Maybe you should lock Town Cry ahead of me. Why? For what? Town Cry what?

I mean, just, like, advertise it ahead of me. I mean, we've been up all night. But, you know, I think that we've got to be careful because if we get up in the morning and Harry finds out that his con's been ransacked and starts telling people and then we show up with Harry's rear-end to bury him. It's going to start marching into town. It'll be a whole mess. Why are you so tired? You don't think that this is already a mess? Well, it's already a mess, but it'll be more of a mess. All right, fine. We'll go wake him up and give him a bury. No problem.

Don't be away! Not suspicious at all. I know it's fine, but please, please. Are you ready, Hazel? We can call it a midnight berry special. All right, okay. Do you have a berry? I think that's fantastic. Somebody put ocean in one of the things that's here. So I shouldn't eat it. No, don't eat it. No, definitely do not eat it. Put your Harry's Berry Scare on.

I don't think it gave me a hit. They said you had to pay for your own uniform, and I didn't want to. So who's going to take the clothes off first? I don't think anyone has to take the clothes off. I'll stop you. Hazel's going to act as a representative. So who's going to jump out of the cake? We don't have a cake. Hazel, you are also able to steal an employee's necktie that has a bunch of different berries all over it.

Wow, where did you find that? It looks very official. Well, yeah, I took it. She thought the berries on it were real. I did, and it smelled like berries from being near the other berries, and I just got confused a little bit. But I do look nice in a kerchief, so I thought I would just have it. Well, then we'd best be making our way there. We should go to the river. What time is it, Mike?

It's probably like 2:30 in the morning. Fantastic. We gotta go, because it's like 30 minutes after they stop selling alkyl also. All right. Okay. So you make your way into the hopping Voracious Gloom, and it's still going pretty roaring. The crowd's thinned out a little bit, and you make your way in, and you see that all

that several of the table games have been shut down, but there's a good number of, there's a good crowd around all the games that are open. The races of the water striders, the water bugs are still going. And as you make your way in, you see a looming figure walking along the second floor of this casino. The tall top hat and the long snout, as you see

What the hell did I name him? Louis Ruger. What the hell did I name him? Louis Ruger. As he walks along. As he's, you see him moving something in his hands and there's a large pair of dice that seems to be hand carved out of bone. As he just kind of runs it through his fingers as he surveys the scene walking along the railing. All right.

All you got to do is just tell them it's a gift from Harry's Berries, get them to eat the berry, and then we just get them to tell us where the banner is.

All right. Should we, like, keep him kind of alone so he doesn't just fall in love with someone random on the floor? Well, yeah, I mean, he's up there right now, right? Yeah, so come with me, though. No, no. No, absolutely not. I'm not an employee of Harry's Berries. You're the employee of Harry's Berries. We should all go. She makes danger breaks out. Elias might be a couple steps behind me. What if he trains the eater?

Well, then, as long as she's holding the berry, we'll be all right. But then he could walk around and fall in love with one of these other frogs, and I'm the only naked one in here. Well, hopefully that will draw his attention. You're perfectly in plan. Are you sure? I'm not. I actually kind of like the distraction tactic. I think it's fantastic. His eyes will be drawn directly to her. We've got to be incognito. We've got to look nonchalant.

I don't know what any of that means, but... Alright, you just tell me when and I'll drop a trowel! I'm gonna start going up the stairs. Okay, you make your way up the stairs. The rest of you follow? Yeah. Okay, and... I'm hiding behind Grumman. I'm standing right next to Hazel. You make your way up the stairs, and it's not long until Louie turns and he sees you. And he says...

Well, for being so chummy with the marquis Zayn that's supposed to be here early in the morning, y'all doing, what are y'all doing up so late? I poke my head out from behind Gromit and say, well, we found some work. Go ahead, Hazel, tell them. Yeah, we've got something special for you. We do, after your horrible disdain for Sherry's Fairies.

I realised that your top hat is so tall because you're so smart and I flipped sides and I went over to Harry's Berries.

And then while she's giving this spiel, I reach out from behind Grumly and I just take one of her shoulder straps and like lower it. And then I like take that behind Grumly. Please stop pimping our friend. No, I'm like... He looks and he's like...

So y'all didn't want to spend time in my casino, but y'all working for that old hell. Well, no, you see, the problem is that we didn't have all that much money to spend in the casino before, so we thought we ought to get a job, and that way we could come support your business. Exactly right. Harry had a great job.

I mean, a great idea while we were there. And he thought maybe it would be fun to send you over a gift as a means of making a friendship between your two local businesses. So he has sent me over with a very, very rare, hairy, very, very, very. The various of hairy berries. It's an heirloom berry. It's like really old, but not in the rotten.

kind of way. Not like a vintage sense. But like in the vintage sense, you know what I mean? Because he said that you were the coolest person in this entire place and it would be an honor to give his oldest and least rottenest fairy to you.

And he just really hates Sherry. And he just, when I told him what you said about Sherry, he was like, oh, I really respect that man. He's trying to get one up on the competition. You have to respect a move like that. That's right. One day off, she's going to run her out of town. And he's going to be the only place to get berries from.

And you know you want to be in line with the guy with the biggest, juiciest, fluffiest berries. Crushing the competition. Yes. Big crushing berries.

So, peace offering from Harry's Berries. He said that he wanted me to hand this to you with utmost respect and watch as you enjoyed the most wonderful rarest of Harry's Berries. At no cost at all to you. Free. It's a gift? Yeah.

Anything more would be a disgrace to you. And the longer we talk to you, the least less suspicious it gets. I would do trick or persuade in NPC. Your choice. It depends on what stat you want to use. Charm is better.

Sorry, no, I just hit the main button. You're trying to leave me. No, no, no. Okay, oops, that didn't count. Oh, it should count. I wasted one. It's okay, if you need it, I'm giving you one. Okay, so I am... Yeah, you all definitely can easily use this. I don't get to roll. Okay, she's in a fear.

that's not very good five plus one is six yeah oh that's one we still can't no wait seven a seven is all we need no it's not ten

For Persuade, we find out what we need to do. I mean, my question was going to be, though, and not that I'm opposed to what you're – because I know where you're going. Can more than one person assist? Yes. So if you all want to assist, I need one to use a twist. Three, four. And a routine. We still have an assist. Yeah. Like two sessions ago. So then it would be – we'd all have to mark, what, one decay? Yeah, or one exhaustion. One exhaustion. Okay. Okay.

and then use our routine. And that would make it exactly a 10.

As he reaches out, you hand it over and he says, Well, I suppose I am a bit pickish. I've been working all day and I have a big morning wheeling and dealing with the Marquis Z and the Viceroy when she arrives. Thank you, darling.

And I immediately step in front of Hazel, take off my other strap, and everything just falls down and I get in front of him. I'm waiting for this-- wait, can I make a prediction? I'm waiting for this to be delayed and not actually take effect right away, so they can be like, "What the hell are you doing?" That's what I'm waiting for, that's my guess.

Wasn't that delicious? Mmm, mmm, mmm. Oh, it's a little bit of spice to that, a little bit of kick. I don't have a taste of dairy that... What the hell is your monomouth? Anyone taste metal? I don't know, he's actually exploding, aren't you? Boom! And he blinks. And he looks at you and he says...

Well, my, my. You ever seen a pair of frog legs on a lady like me? I ain't never seen a pair of frog nothing like what you got on me. You want to stick a standard in this frog body? I'll do whatever you say. Let's make sweet music together, darling. All right, that's great. Where do you keep your battle standards at? I've got a fetish for battle standards and legs that won't quit. Ha, ha, ha.

I got a battle standard. Lead me to it, honey, I'm all yours. I'm in full mast. I need my friends with me, though, because when I go down with the ship, they need to go down, too. I climb up on, like, Romy's back, and I'm, like, peeking over her shoulder at this point, like, watching this on point. I am all for him. I ain't much in the king, but I'm open-minded for you, darling. I've got eyes for Crocs, and as you can see, my eyes are large.

I am. My prophet quarters lead the way. He's like rolling back in his head. And I cough along naked behind him. You're doing it. Keep it up. Come with me, you heavy. Let's go. I slap Gronin on the back of the head. Go follow him. And you follow behind as he leads you to a back door. All of the staff that's like awake are looking, but they don't want to interfere because they see that he's clearly leading you.

And I'm clearly naked. And they're just like... As they shrug. And there's a small door in an end of a long hallway. He pulls out a key and unlocks it. And he opens the door and there's this swanky bachelor pad. There's...

This low glow over the light with a very large bed, plush, plush pillows. And you see them. I immediately jump on it and, like, lean to the side and stretch out my legs. I'll take off this bonnet if you get that battle standard, honey. Well, uh...

leaves much to the imagination, Don. I suppose I could if that's your thing. And he walks over. I'm almost like not even controlling himself. It definitely does more than make me fall in love. It's right in his brain. You get a purge damage. It's a little bit of leakage out of one of his ear holes. Oh, God! This is worse than film! Oh!

Is this a black jelly? As he walks over to his, uh, as he walks over to a large cabinet, a whiskey cabinet, and he says, I hope you ain't afraid of the dark, though.

And he pulls aside the cabinet and shadows explode from a chamber, completely darkening the entire room. I love nothing more than shadows. You better hand that over to Grumly so that we can get down to business. The only way I can do it is in front of a battle stand.

So I'm whipping out the amulet soon. As soon as the amulet comes out, I want to start making...

Doesn't this make you so excited? Do what they say! Oh, is he gonna hold the banner and watch? Yes, he is! Get over here! The shadow explodes and through him, darkening it, and it turns pitch black, and you pull out the amulet, and there is just an orange glow around you, and an orange glow deep into a chamber, and you see outlined a battle stander

And on it, a blazing heart with antlers and a crown around it. And it's standing there perfectly still. All of these shadows are radiating out of it. Cast by the gloves, orange glove, a similar style to the horn and to the amulet. And you immediately dart in and you grab it. And oh, well, little fella. I pick it up. Oh, hey, are you doing anything too? I'm taking my bonnet off now.

Oh, darling, come here. Let me see what you look like without that bonnet on. I take my bonnet off and my eyes go cross-eyed. He stumbles over and he collapses on top of you. Yeah, this is just the way I like it. Is there any, like, is there any, like, like, anything from the band? Am I able to, like...

As you grab it, as you grab it, you pull it, and it seems as if the banner has these long tassels that are all top, that are, it's not fully unfurled, and, or rather, it is, it is fully unfurled, but there seems to be tassels down that you can tie to pull it up and hide it. I

I try to start rolling it up and seeing if I can... As you start rolling up, you'll hear these strange kisses as you feel a crocodile... an alligator snout try to, like, slobberly kiss you. Let me get my bag. I got something you'll really like. Lay there, all right? Oh, yeah, whatever you say. I start taking the seaweed and I start tying him to the bed. Oh, I ain't never done this before.

Oh, you just wait. You're going to love all of this. And I take two clamshell or three clamshells. I put one over each of his nipples and then one over the junk. And then I get off. You guys ready?

And so as you're rolling it up, you hear slow shrieking as all the shadows retreat and slither back into the rolls of this banner. And as you roll it up and you seal it, it, and all the shadow disappears into the banner and it's just glowing orange. I've got it! You scaly son of a bitch, I've got it! But hold on, all right?

right? Is he gonna hit me with that? Yeah, hold on. And I'm gonna go over and I'm gonna get a little bit of berry juice from Hazel. I'm so sorry, but I need this. And I'm gonna write Harry's berries, best berries, not sherrys, gross, disgusting, hairy berries on his stomach. All right, I think we're good. Should I? Oh, sounds good. Just put him to sleep for the night? Yeah, sure. I smack him in the head with the back end of my halberd.

Oh, I mean, this could be my king. We did it. We've done it. His eyes are all back. There's a bunch of pink stuff leaking out of his ear holes. You've all saved my life. We have to get back to...

Do we have to go back and, like, potentially free her? I don't know. Well, no, because I think that now that you've rolled it up and all the shadows have gone away, I think that she's probably free to leave. That's what I think, too. I hope so. I just don't want to...

Leave her out there, I guess. She helped us. We should tell her that we've recovered it and that we will be all bird in the bear just like that fucking owl keeps saying. Do you think that our plan was successful? It was more than successful. It was a rousing success. I could kiss you. You saved me. I think I've been kissed enough tonight. I'm going to pass this.

but you know, Oh, I have to, we can't stay here before we go. I want to see what kind of misdeeds he was up to. And I was tearing through his desk and look for like contracts and just see what he was up to, you know, see if I can get evidence of his. Uh, so you tear apart his desk and it's not hard to find that he's a number of contracts that he made. Uh,

deals with wealthy people from both the Eyrie and the Marquis de Zade and other powerful denizens, blackmail, things of adultery, tax fraud, and things that he was keeping on people. And you had, there were also instances where he would keep ledgers of people that would pay him. And whenever they would stop, you'd see him kind of draw a strange shadowy shape and then a big X on

And since that was like his ledger to kill people with, with the magic of the shadow monsters. His death note, you would say? I will take all of that. I will take all of that. Okay, you take all of that and shove it in your bag. Is there anything-- do I literally find anything valuable?

You look around and I'll say that it's not... You don't even need to roll for it because he's knocked out and tied up with seaweed. And naked. His alligator junk is hanging out. It's covered by clams. I've never seen an alligator's penis, so I don't know how big of a clam it is. I clammed his ween before we... How much research did you do for cramming? A lot. A lot.

So you find that there's a very expensive, you find this beautiful velvet bathrobe that he has. And you also find a secret, a chest that seems to be locked. And you find the small key that works with it. And there's a large satchel of coins in it. All right.

I'm going to take that. I am watching the standard, like, like not letting it go. Do you think that the deal is done? I'm safe now. Like, or if it falls back into his hands, am I going to die?

I think it's over. We have the banner. He can't use this magic anymore. All right. That's right. Do you know how long he's going to be in love with me? Because I don't think I thought that through before we decided to do this and I got naked. I'm sure it will eventually. Yeah, I hope so. And if he's still in love, he won't be here when he wakes up. All right, well, let's go then. How large is this thing? Like, we're not going to be able to, like, keep it hidden.

Uh, it is probably about, like, yay large, that there is a pole, but it seems that most of the power is actually just in the actual banner. You feel like you could detach the top part from the sticking bits? Alright, well, if you don't mind, I'm going to take this rolled up standard and I'm gonna keep it in my pack because, god forbid it falls into the wrong hands and then I die.

It's code under there. And we'll just make sure that we go back into the swamp and we tell Bridget. And we just like send her a note or something. We can send her a letter. We don't have to go back there.

No, we should let her know. What if she takes it from me and tries to kill me? She's not going to take it from you. I'll stop. I'll chop her head off. You know, and if she does, we can all just get naked and ask her nicely to not take it. I don't think... I mean, she's just a chicken. I think she'd be in the bag. We could eat her. But not in the sense of what just happened here. All right. All right. Let me get a hold of myself. That actually might be a good way to get what we want.

If you think that's right, and we go back to the swamp in the morning, I just, I need to lay down for a little bit. A lot has happened. We've been up for a long time. We should go to sleep. I just need a little rest. All right. All right. I guess try to sneak out without being too, or casually walk out as if, like, we didn't do anything wrong. Okay. I would say someone make an attempt to go to the streets or trust me. For what are we doing?

We're just trying to get out of the casino. I'll do that. I'll walk out. Usher you out. Alright, thanks for the fun, honey. I'll see you later. And then I just walk out. Can I work on exhaustion? A 10 through a 10 is a what? Oh, it is? Then that's a 9. Alright, we'll mark 1. We're good. Okay.

You pick one. Oh, there's evidence all over the place. The room is torn apart. He has clients on his junk. Yeah, that's very... That would happen anyway. There is evidence. As you walk down and you strut out, you see two of the Frasnian. Just another day that ends in wine. And you all manage to leave.

And as you make your way back to the inn, it's very late now. It's probably about 3:34 in the morning. It's not too much longer until sunrise, and you notice something in the tree line near you, as you see the rustling of the trees. And for a split second, you see a flash, and you see very quickly a feathered wing shape flying away.

And you see a face for a moment. A heart-shaped barn owl face with a scarred eye as it flies off in the direction of Drake Smith to the south. As you make your way back to the... If you make your way back to the briny carpenter...

You settle in for the evening, and if there's anything else you have to do before you go to sleep. I get a stiff drink. Yeah, it is provided for you. Oh, and I'm going to enjoy that.

It's gonna taste sweeter than any booze Booker has ever tasted in his life. But it won't be sweeter than Harry's berries. Yeah, sure, whatever. We're not going back to collect the coin. I thought it would be an easy mark, but we tore his place up real good and we've done him enough trouble and we stole his family heirloom. I'm laughing, but I'm not laughing. I'll be really bad. Don't. We're alive.

But I do feel like I should get someone to take my post over and advertise for him. We can leave the sandwich board outside of his ramshackle tent for all I care. Well, why would you need a tent? I mean, a slime right out in front of you. No, I'm saying so he can give the damn sandwich board to someone else. I was thinking maybe I could just prop it up here in the inn, like a sandwich board. Sure, if that would make you feel better, Hazel, then by all means. All right.

I'm going to divide the sign in half and put one like up on the wall, like lean it up against the tavern. Which side out? Yeah.

The Harrys. Okay. I'm just making sure. Fuck Sherry. I'm just making sure. I'm Harry all the way now. Ew. I'm Harry all the way now. I'm Harry all the way now. You go to sleep. Yeah. And you awake to the sound of marching. No. No. No.

as soldiers march all around you. You look out the windows as armored cats march through the gangplanks of Muck Bed Creek. As you make your way down and you see a large ship

Gliding through the river and it has a large sale and on the sale is an emblem of a cauldron and a broom. As you see, it's sailing towards the headquarters of the Riverfolk company and you see, um.

You see Gino Donald standing there with Vinny, Benny, and Rhonda at his side as he awaits as the Marquis Zate march in. And you see that there are town criers that say the Marquis Zate take Wartwallow. Marquis Zate take Wartwallow in an incredible route. And as the ship arrives, the...

game plan lowers down and you see a cat emerge onto the deck. And that is where we're in the session. You all take four Reputation with Amarki's Eight and six Infamy with the Eerie. Wow. Six Infamy? Sugar. Wow. I'm going to borrow your pencil when you're done there.

What does infamy mean? It's like the negative. The opposite of the good reputation. We should do the other direction.

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