Uprooted | Ep. 5 | Crazy River
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Welcome to Legends of Avantris. You know, I'm Peggy, and you're listening to Uprooted. Here's what happened last time.

Brumley, just grab some of the plates. Start giving them to our lovely guests. The Viceroy has to eat first. Both Clonk and Viceroy Lentilda just completely collapse. You're going to find a very large bear and a really kind of very rude bird, but they want to join the Woodland Alliance. They can help you. My name is Ginger. Come to Stickerbrush. Sean, we have a weapon of war. Yes, a bear! So where's

We've come to take what's ours. Fine, we have to get out of here anyway. Let's go past the honey. Let's get to the edge of the clearing. Then we gotta decide where we're going. We can't stay here. We gotta find another clearing. I'm gonna sing a little tune for her. You get a line and I got a bowl of honey. You get a line and I got a

I think we gotta get out of Marky's out territory as fast as possible. Let's go south then. Alright, let's talk to the others and see if they'll even take us. Safe passage. Thousand gold pieces a person. Very fair price. Or, you know, we can drop you off at Ward Wallow and you can find your own passage south after that. But what if we could help you out along the way? You all are crazy.

She's especially crazy. I kind of like it. What's your name, sweetheart? My name's Peggy and I'm single. I know a guy who I think I might have a job as the barge...

pulls away from the dock and you take off into the river, into the night, the dull glow of the slowly dissipating fires of Click Clock Crossing behind you, you see amidst the throng of Marquis Zot's soldiers looking around vengefully and resolutely, you see a hound as Inspector Jarvis is on your trail. ♪

These otters, they'll take you for everything. That's right. By this muck, there's clams. You'd think that they're cute when they're holding hands and it's floating around, but man. They'll dash your brains out like an oyster on their tummies with a rock. All right. I'm back. So...

The five of you are riding Old Tom's River south through the Dimwood. The

It's approaching dawn, leaving the... You see the light glow of the fires that are slowly being extinguished in Click Clock Crossing behind you. The billowing plumes of smoke from the chaos and the carnage that the members of the Woodland Alliance had unleashed upon their oppressors not so long ago.

There are several otter... There's several otters working the barge with the skipper being the Otter Scampi, who had negotiated with all of you. And it's at this point that you are about... You're probably a quarter of the way to Wortwallow, and...

You are surrounded by not as many townsfolk as you might expect, given how much space is on this barge, but not many of the denizens of the Dimwood could afford the prices that the river folk company was charging.

And so it is here that you have just managed to narrowly escape Inspector Jarvis, at least you think so, leaving him behind at Kluk Kluk Crossing as you ride south. The Wartwallow, the clearing predominantly inhabited by, I think that's a mice clearing. Why don't you bring it up, Rich?

- Yes, by mice and frogs, toads, other swampy aquatic creatures. - But ruled by? - But ruled by, once again, the Marquisat. So you're not out of the woods. - And did the Jarvis see us? Was it very much like an, "Au revoir, Inspector Jarvis?"

- Would you like to cut back to that scene? - No, not if we're like trying to lay low. I didn't know if he saw us or not. We can like draw attention to us. - I think he did. You mentioned something. - He was like, "Curse you woodland critters." And we were like, "Ah, ha, ha, ha, ha." - We saw like the form of him.

- I would say as the barge was pulling away, you saw him and you saw him turn in your direction just as the barge disappeared around the bend of the river. - Oh, sneaky. - Don't keep a low profile. - And I'll make a roll for him. - Hopefully he can't afford the barge.

- Well, I don't know. It depends on whether or not the Marquis Zaid can bend the will of the otters. - Barge, quick! - Iron paws. - Follow that barge. - Yeah, maybe. He might have that kind of pull around here, we don't know. - I'm excited for the coming barge fights. - With that, you are discussing barge fights. There are two teenage possums that are trying to start a fight club on the barge. On the barge and try to start barge fights.

And there aren't many takers. As you ride south, not really sure what your game plan is, as you all have a moment of privacy, what do you all do? - What do we win in a barge fights? I go to one of the possums.

That's a good question. Oh, you actually... He wants to join the bar fight. I'm just saying, if there's like a prize or something, we just spend a lot on his bar so I could use a little bit of, you know, compensation for winning. For what it's worth, you know, with your first rule being like, don't talk about barge fights, terrible marketing. You're never going to spread this thing anyway if you don't talk about the barge fights.

Oh, God, that's why my marketing is so bad. Yeah, well, yeah, you gotta spread my word of math. If you cut that off, you got nothing. Yeah, and you really should be advertising yourself on Click Clock. Well, we just left Click Clock Crossing because there's utter chaos.

Yeah, well, you should have advertised yourself on Click Clock before you left. Is that the one where it is spelled without the C's and it's just a case? Oh, my money don't jiggle jiggle at fold. Oh, God. I don't know what that means. Speaking of money... You obviously haven't been on Click Clock lately. We were just there. So is there a prize? Do I have to pay to enter? I mean, I'm just thinking that at least one of us could help earn some of our gold back. Oh, follow-up question.

Who do we fight? You? Yeah, and if we do, my money's on Grumman. Well, then, if we can get more people, it'll be a full tournament, and we'll have betting, and we'll take a portion of all the proceeds. Sure. Why? Oh, because we don't have any money. Our uncle spent everything he had to get us out of town.

So how are you going to bet on it if you don't have any money? Well, we're organizers, so we just take everything in a portion. Right, it's a skim a little off the top. Yeah, that's business. That's exactly right. Oh, so we wouldn't fight you then. Oh, no, no. Jimothy over here, he's a fighter. Is he also a possum? He's also a possum. How much smaller is he than Grumly? He's like a third of the size of Grumly. Oh yeah, my money's definitely on Grumly here. Um...

But, I mean, you don't have anything and your uncle spent all your gold. You poor, defenseless, waddling critters cast out by the government in a horrible rebellion. I can't fight them. Yeah, I guess so. And also, they would just take a little bit of your money and then give you the winnings back, less whatever they took out of you. They don't have any money for me to take, I guess. I mean, even if they did...

Is there anyone more, like, less disenfranchised that I could be? You know what you could do, right? Because obviously this barge fight isn't going to work if you can't talk about it and you can't mock it. But what you can do, I've got magic, all right? I'll start off by saying that. Hello, my name's Peggy. I have magic. I create magic. Magic isn't real.

- I know she invented it. - I will literally burn. - That's dumb. - I will burn your flesh from your skeleton. - Don't make a man. - All right, I've done it before. I know how animal flesh smells when it's being melted. - I got Jimothy guarding me. - I never wanna smell that again. - You see that Jimothy is actually smaller than the possum who's talking to you, but he is scrappy and he just looks at you and goes .

Oh wow, that's, okay, alright, that's a new one. Anyway, as I was saying...

- I love possums. - All right, anyway, as I was saying, I don't think your barge fight's going to work out well for you, but what you could do is some grease wrestling. So here's the thing, I've got this great spell. I like to call it grease. What I do is I throw grease on the floor magically. And when it is on the floor, it becomes very slick. And if you roll around in it, people will pay money to watch it. I don't know why.

I'm not sure what they get out of it, but they'll do it. And you can advertise it too. Oh, we can talk about it? You can talk about grease. Yeah. Grease wrestling. So if you want to grease wrestle, neither one of you has to die is the great part about it. Right? Wait, it wasn't a fight to the death. No one's going to pay for that. Well, it won't be more on Brandon to like Brandon grease wrestling, you know? Yeah. Grease wrestling. No, no, no. Wrestling. That's what I said.

- It's a little different. - No? - No, it's a little different. - Do you want to wrestle in Greece with this possum? - No, I don't like the idea. - For a lot of money? - I might, what kind of Greece is it? - A kind that will never come out of your fur, trust me.

Actually, that's a good point. It's got to be some of that duck grease that I stole out of the kitchen before we left Clip Clock Crossing. Oh my god! Somebody's dead meat! Thank god we don't have to deal with him anymore. Oh, he's not here? No, he's gone. He's with the Little Lions.

I ditched his ass. He was basically like, please don't leave us. And we were like, we don't care. So we used him and then threw him in the trash. Yes, and we were like, go. You've overstayed your welcome, Nesta. We don't ever want to see you ever again. Why do we do more evil shit in this kind of a campaign than when we're all long-slaying actual Dungeons & Dragons? We just want to be left alone, really. Vagabonds.

So anyway, that's my pitch. You can't talk about your barge fighting, so you're not going to make much money that way. We could really sell this duck grease rasslin'. Did I say it right? Yeah, yeah, you did. All right. That's what I was thinking. So what are your thoughts? Well, if it's a way we can make more money, I'm in. I'm a business possum. I can tell.

Oh, wow. Thank you. No one's ever said that before. I can tell. I mean, yeah. I mean, yeah. And also, there's no one deadlier than Jimothy. And he just hisses at you. Would Jimothy like to be first in the rink? He looks and says, like, well, I think that we should save that. Jimothy's the champion grease wrassler, even though we just invented it right now. And he'll go last. I'm so confident I'm going to put up

You guys are gonna have to put up your own money. - Well, I'm putting up the grease. - Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, hold on. Why are we putting up money for this? I'm very confused. I do this off for three seconds and I can go on my own life for one moment. - If you're going to start an epic gambling ring, you have to have backers. So we've got to back this. Think about it this way, right? - Well, there's an entry fee.

Why don't you go see if anybody else just wants to watch some wrestling and charge for tickets? Yeah, that seems like a lot more reasonable. There's like eight people on this barge. Yeah, it's a long barge ride. Just say, hey, you really want to be bored this whole time when you could be watching Greece wrestling? Tickets can be like a thousand gold pieces and then you'll get your money back no problem. You can have a thousand gold pieces?

Somebody might. I would just like to say this barge was incredibly expensive. So out of the seven people that are on it that don't include us,

They either have no money or way too much money. So you've got a 50-50 chance. Wait, hold on. You said there are eight people on this barge. There's five of us, two of you, and the otter driving the barge. Oh, well, actually, yep, that math doesn't make any sense at all. You're boned. Go ask the otter captain if he wants to pay $1,000 for a ticket to the barge. To be quick, no, actually, that's a really great idea because we gave him all of our...

our money the possums even more of their money if we could convince him to put that money towards the grease wrestling we could make our money back if i know anything about the honors they're just gonna be pissed that there's grease all over the rack but hey anything's worth a try i guess if there's eight of us and just one of him why don't we just take our money back

I said, "Hushed." - I thought we were well past trying to- - Hey, what did you just say back there? - We're talking about race wrestling. - We're gonna stop him. - You know, I can only stop an unstoppable force of nature for so long. I'm really trying here. - They could kill us. - We could kill them. - You think killing one otter? I mean, we could be in a million woods and eight otters would jump out and cut our throats in two seconds.

- Yes! - Look at those rivers! - I'm saying it! - Let me just try to maybe frame things a little bit better for you here so you can understand, right? We go to the clearings and we see a lot of cats and you think, oh, maybe the Marquisat are the ones who own this territory. And then you go, you know, a little south and you see the bird people and you think, oh, maybe the Eyrie here, they own these places, right? They own the woods. But then when you really look at things and you really look at things close, a little bit under the surface, you realize that everything is really owned by the otters.

Everything? Everything. So are we going to start a grease wrestling ring or no? I want nothing to do with that. What if we do that and he just, oh, I guess he can swim pretty good. But what if he just slipped off the barge and it wasn't really a murder in the first place? Why are you trying to kill the guy that's driving the barge? Because he took all our money and it wasn't fair.

Well, if you're so incensed about it, why don't we have a grease fire between Timothy and Hazel and we'll convince Pastrami or whatever the fuck the hell his name was to maybe bet. Scampi. Scampi. And he can bet on who wins and who loses. Wait, if I have any money, what do you mean? Do you have a wrestling outfit, Hazel? I don't know. I've never really done wrestling.

It's like a really thin piece of fabric that goes between your butt cheeks and is super uncomfortable, but it's really stretchy. But where would my tail go? Oh no. Does anyone know how to sew? Is that what that is? A wrestling costume? I'm wearing that right now. Oh, I might be Bitsy can do it then. Do you want to be the person that wrestles Bitsy? If you've already got the costume.

Where did you get duck greens? From the kitchen. I'm duck, people! Duck greens is too bad! While you were leaving,

- While you were leaving the kitchen from the Viceroy's private kitchen, you saw Peggy, once she was free, hop in and actually just run around Nestor's things. And there was a mysterious jar of just a duck grease. - And we don't know what that means at all. - And you have no idea. You have no idea what's in it. - It's really difficult to milk a duck. They have cooked screw penises.

I know. Oh, God. I guess I'll do it if I can get some money. That sounds great. So I think we've got Bitsy against... No, because I still don't have any money. What do you have? Just a cheeky attitude. I might have food. Do you have any food? We just get water space to Beck.

Yeah, I got some strangely rectangular pies. They call them apple pies, but they're really not. What are they? You're not sure? I could probably tell. They come from a workshop that the Marquis Zot mass produces on. I'll still try it if you want. I could be like a guinea pig chipmunk, so to speak. It could be dangerous. I don't want you to be in danger. We'll put up, we have three of them.

We'll put up three of them. Strip down, Bitsy. And we have our grandfather's golden watch. I don't really have any use for that. Well, it's made out of, it's plated in gold and it's the last memory we have of him. He basically raised us. What on earth do you need that for? That sounds like it's worth money. Definitely throw that in. Okay, yeah. What are you guys going to put in? With the pies.

Three pies and a good, priceless golden family heirloom. Perfect. And we're betting on, like, Bitsy against Jeremy. Jimothy! I'm Jimothy! Jimothy, Jeremy, I apologize. All right, a lot is going on. Um...

- Yeah, all right, I'm in. - I don't wanna wrestle him, he's the champ. - You gotta win, I don't know what to tell you. You can be the new champ, come on, kid. - I thought I was gonna wrestle Hazel. - No, no, no, you gotta take on old Jimmy Jeremy-thee. You can do it. - I'll try. - I've got at least a few answers away to you. - How much you, how much you each of those pies are worth in maybe the priceless family ad room? I'm thinking like maybe 20 gold pieces. - Only if you're lucky.

What could we put up? We have any like corn pone left from calling in Cornel? - No, I just really have all the gold that we've made recently. - And you look around and there are by eight people, he meant eight people additionally, eight passengers in addition to the crew. - Oh, there's a couple. - So you get the sense that if you wanted to try to get people to bet on it and skim some off the top, you could.

- Let's do that. - It sounds like a job for Booker though. - Oh boy, all right. - Come on, you're great at that kind of stuff. If I have any money, I'll give it to you. - Okay, you guys, just, you start getting everything going here and I'll just see if I can-- - I've got it under control. - Drum up some business. - Both myself and King George, we can handle this. And I'm gonna open my mouth and let King George out.

And then I'm going to use Mage Hand, which is just my tongue. And I'm going to start to use my Hemp and Rope to set up an actual ring. And then I'm going to use, eventually, the Grease spell to fill the ring with duck grease. But just to open it up.

- Open the jar, the point of grease. - Meech Tongue is coming to our Patreon soon as a custom homebrew spell. - So you see actually that this is also a cargo barge. So you're able to push around some of the cargo and barrels to make sure that you're able to actually form a ring. It's actually shockingly effective. - Perfect.

- All right, now keep going. - I'll dip a little, I'll dip my paw into some of the duck grease on the side and start massaging it into Bitsy. - Oh! - Getting it on your own. - I'm gonna eat lightning and I'm gonna grab thunder. - That's right. It's all gonna be all right. And if your eyes swell shut, just come and I'll cut you, Bitsy, I'll cut you. - Jeremy walks up to you and says, "You're no match for Jimothy. He's the champ."

He's undefeated. Jimothy looks at you. I'll get you, Jimothy. I'll grab you by the scalp and I'll just tear it off right quick. You watch your ass. Oh. It's scary. What the fuck?

With that, Jimothy looks at you, and his eyes widen. And he leans down, and you see that there's a crate next to him. He leans down and just chomps onto the wood. And he rips off just a strip of wood, and there's splinters all over his mouth. He's like...

I look around. Do I see any, like, wood or something similar? Yeah, there's crates and shit all around you. Oh, there's these cannon rusty nails right there. Oh, God! Piercing damage? Right.

That's horrible. This is gonna hurt. LAUGHTER LAUGHTER LAUGHTER LAUGHTER LAUGHTER Blood everywhere. Bleeding from the mouth. It looks like a Ren and Stimpy close-up. Like, your blood. Take six points of piercing damage from the nails. LAUGHTER

Make an intimidation check. Oh, that's funny. Six. Six points of piercing, yeah. I have to remember how to use fucking Dungeons and Dragons here. What's that? Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. Natural. natural. natural. natural. Natural. natural. natural. natural. natural. natural

The total is 22. 22. He falters. Timothy. Do you know what to do? And he steps forward and he goes and he grabs the cup of nails and he looks down. What?

I spike it on the ground. Let's do this thing! And he hisses slightly less. You put the fear into Jimothy's eyes. He still looks crazy as fuck. Thanks, Hazel.

He spits up some splinters. Abitsi, before we do this, you do know that you're going to have to have a rasslin' name, right? Rasslin' name? Yeah. Who's going to be the announcer for this? I'll do it. It's fine. Don't ask me too much. I start to get a little shy when people ask me often to do stuff like this, so I'll just go ahead and just agree right now. What about Abitsi the Merry Mouse? Was anyone going to ask me once? Oh.

what? To be the announcer. Oh, I just assumed that you would. Oh, do you want to be the announcer? Oh my God. I just said, don't ask me too much, but sure. I'll do it. So anyway, when I'm announcing you and I say Bitsy in the red corner, if I just say Bitsy in the red corner, that's stupid. Who wants to pay for that?

I've got to say like Bitsy the-- Murdering mouse. Thank you, Hazel. Or a mouse of mayhem. Perfect, yeah. Or Rusty Bucket Bitsy. Or Rusty Bucket Bitsy. Roll a card season saving throw against 10, Mousy. You're gonna get a lot of trouble before the season starts. I wish I was an opossum, I couldn't get rabies. Like the rabid rodent.

Rodent? I'll make sure it looks good. Yeah, mice are rodents. Okay. Yeah. Parsons are marsupials. Oh, yeah. Aren't you a rodent? Yeah, she's a chipmunk. I just connected that. But you think that all rodents know what other rodents are? Aren't they kind of like cousins? That's really close-minded. Rodent cousins? We're a totally different species.

Well, I mean... I mean, sure, all rodents eat absolutely everything that gets close to their face, and we know that's true with Hazel. Sure, both of our teeth just grow and grow and grow and... And can't be stopped. Well, that doesn't mean... Is Booker a raccoon? I mean, I know he's a raccoon. Is he a rodent? Booker has thumbs.

Yeah, he can't be one of us. Oh, no, y'all have thumbs. We're all people. What? I'm a frog. Well, I know you're a frog. I only have four fingers. But one of them's a thumb. What? One of them's a thumb. A thumb. That is quite literally the only finger I don't have is a thumb. Oh.

- Probably has some like, special experiences. - Bitsy? - Hmm? - Your conjuring saving throw. - Oh. - For tetanus? Whoa! - Uh oh. - Ruh roh. - I don't feel so good.

My jaw's turning. I got, I got knee. You act like your jaw does lock up in the poison condition. Oh no. You alright, Betsy? I can still wrestle, let's do this thing. That's what you're doing with your face, it's like even scarier than before. It's like my teeth are rustling already.

- Use that, use it, use it in the ring. I'll show some grease, I'll loosen that right up. - You see Jimothy look at you and he's getting his shoulders rubbed by Jeremy. He's like, "She's crazy. "You're gonna destroy her."

And as that happens, Booker, what are you doing? I'll walk up to the first person on the raft and I'm not eager. I'm just kind of like, I'm almost dragging my little feet, my little raccoon feet. And I go up to him, I get up to him and I, excuse me, sorry to bother you. I know I look a little dejected and that's just because I'm contemplating how my life got to this point. Yeah, me too. I don't know how else to say this, but there's going to be some sort of

oil wrestling fight that's going on and we're wondering if you'd like to bet on the... Oh my god, she's eating nails. The mouse that's eating nails or the possum that's chewing on the rat? Are you interested? I don't know, I'm sorry. This is the best I've got right now. I'm very tired. Make a persuasion check.

- Oh my God, she's eating mail. - Jesus. - I got persuasion? - 26. - Hell yeah. - And I just kind of shrug like this. - This is a portly rabbit who's, he's got like shaggy brown hair, there's a little bit of patches of white. He's wearing an outfit that's not very well fitting.

You can tell that he just barely made it out of Dodge and he just looks at you with these very deep bags under his eyes and he looks over, he says, "I don't got anything better going on." - Join the club, Sam. - What are the odds? - You know, I just say, "Oh."

What are the odds on the dog? He's fucking huge. He's a chonky. He looks like he can take a punch. I'm glad you asked. He's actually my personal favorite fighter, but he's not fighting right now. Maybe we can work on that next time. But this time, what I hear is that there's no way the possum could possibly lose. No way. It's basically a sure thing. But don't tell the others I told you that.

Deception check. Stop it. Stop it. Deception starts with a D. Ends with an F. Oh, that's going to be a 25. Wow, thanks, pal. Nothing, no problem. Man, I appreciate it. It's literally the best odds in sports betting. I can't continue it for me. What's the minimum?

How much does he look like he has? I'd like to insight check him. I'd like to discern how much money he looks like he has. Did you expect this session to go this far, guys? Fuck, I got a natural one! Do it, twist it! We're twisting it. But my insight is still... Okay, get the fuck out of here. Shitty die. Let's use you. Come on! 17. 17. Okay, for an insight check.

- You quickly survey his form. You can see that there is a, very clearly a flask in his coat pocket that is fraying a little bit. And although his clothes are ratty, you actually notice that he has some pieces of jewelry more than you'd expect. And you get the sense, you look at, I would say that you have met many people of this type. He seems to have been some sort of,

salesman or merchant of some kind, where you get the sense that although he's looking a little shabby, he probably has some extra gold. - Be about a hundred gold pieces of equal value of items that you've got on you. And don't worry, as the bookie, that's why they call me Booker, I've got the gold to back it up. And I like jingle my, my money jingle jingles in my- - It doesn't fold. - It doesn't fold in my pocket. And I just want to show him that I have like the money to back the bets.

And he looks and he says, "You're saying it's a sure thing?" "Yeah, it's a sure thing as hell. I mean, that's what I get from the people who tell me the things about the odds and the people that I scope and talk to coaches and things like that. Hey, look, but you know, I am the impartial judge here. I'm just saying, I just, you know, I got the thing with the money and you know, who knows what'll happen." "Okay, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on." And he goes into his coin purse and he's like trying to count. "Well, I got 43 gold pieces.

and then he starts pulling off rings, and he pulls them. And this is from my ex-wife. Oh, perfect. Oh, wow. Very nice. And this...

- You're saying this is your thing, right? - Well, again, you know, I'm just saying it's, you know, that's what I hear. The coach is very confident in his young, scrapping, wood-eating fighter. - Okay, this is a locker that my daughter gave me. - Oh my god! - Yeah, you are. - Perfect, oh, that's fantastic. - That should be worth about 100 gold pieces, right? - Done! I'll hold onto these for you, and I'll probably take some of the gold off stuff, finders fee, risk reward, things like that.

We're good! I'll be back! Yeah, I'm gonna triple my gold, right? What? I'm gonna triple my gold. Oh, give or take, at least. I don't know, we'll figure it out. Yeah, now I'm in! Yeah, yeah, yeah. You just go over there by the ring? Yeah. With a renewed sense of purpose and vigor, I go and I fleece the rest of the people into voting against Bitsy. I do. The best that I can. That's a lot of faith. This fucking guy might take me down like no one else. No, you have to beat the shit out of this stupid possum. All right. And I will attempt to equally sway people

Okay. But very subtly, I'm impartial. I'm just the bookie. Booker. And I'm trying to take everybody's money, and I'm hoping that Bitsy's going to win. Okay, make a deception check for me. Just a single deception check to see how you do. I hate this thing. Every time I scroll, it tries to change the fucking thing. Yeah. That'll be a 30. The skill point is weird. Okay, then make a persuasion check, and that affects the DC for how many people you get to get in on this. Not as good. You said persuasion? Yeah. 17. 17.

- 17. You see that there is a fox family of three and they have spent everything to get onto this boat and they are not interested at all.

and especially the smell of the duck grease is starting to kind of like waft. - That's delicious. - It's going a little rancid. - It's a little gamey. - Yeah, it's a little gamey. But you're able to approach a, the most well-dressed person on this barge is actually a frog herself. And she's holding a parasol in a very nice bustle dress.

And you are very easily able to get her to, she bets 700 gold pieces on Bitsy. - Whoa! - On Bitsy? - That was the intention, right? - Well, I mean, they can bet whomever they'd like, but what I would like to have them do is bet against Bitsy so that when she wins, we take all their money.

Oh, so on the possum, yeah, she bets on the possum, yeah. She bets on Jimothy. But if anybody were to want to bet on Bitsy, that's certainly not an issue. No, she bets on Jimothy. I misspoke. We're gonna get paid no matter what. And you see that there is an older otter who is working, and he's looking over to the skipper, to Scampi, and he says, hey, come here.

- There you go. - He gives you 40 gold pieces to bet on Jimothy. And so all in all, I'll probably say that from the individuals and from my personal effects and heirlooms, there are probably 1,300 gold pieces worth bet on Jimothy. - All right.

- All right, okay. Well, I hit everybody up. We've got some bets here. How you feeling, Betsy? You're looking a little tense. You're looking a little tight. You all right? You gonna be all right? - Let's do this, Ben. - You gotta win this one, all right? We really need you to win. - Do we have to bet? I'll grease her up good. - I mean, I've got the money to back it if they really try to.

I got a backup plan, don't worry. If this goes south, I bet Bitsy, look how ready she is, chomping at the bit to win. But doesn't one of us need to bid on Bitsy to win? Yeah, no one even bet on the stupid mouse. No, we just- Jimothy, you're a sure thing. You know, I can't bet because I am the MC of the evening.

Hazel can't bet because she's the coach. Booker can't bet because it would be a conflict of interest. That's right. So I think Grumly needs to bet 500 gold pieces. 500? Can't we use your corn bone? We had a corn bone again. Remind me. It's all right. Just say that you're going to bet. It's all the money we got. We can back it up. I'm going to bet all the money I have on Bitsy. Which is 500 gold pieces, right? Which is 500 gold pieces.

Oh, you absolute fool. How could you do something like this? Question mark. You know that she's going to lose, though, right? But that's my, my bitty. She's going to win. All right, listen. I believe in you. Before this gets going, I just want to give you the gravity of the situation. You have to win this, all right? Yeah, I agree. Take no prisoners. And I'm going to give her inspiration. And I'm going to scoop in and stare at you in the face. Your mouth looks horrible right now.

So I'm gonna go ahead and give you something to try and make it better, all right? Yeah? - Uh-huh. - And I'm gonna take my mushrooms and press them into her teeth and force them into her mouth and cast haste. - Just up under the gum? - Yeah, you do that. And Jeremy walks up to you and says, "So the victory fee is half of the bets, right?"

The prize. There's got to be a prize for the winner. Oh, yeah, sure. That sounds perfect. Okay, business man.

I got it, don't worry about it. Alright. Okay, wait, hold on. Pitsy, do you need your mouth to fight? To wrestle? To wrestle? Are you supposed to use your mouth to increase wrestling? I think my teeth would be in the death. Can someone get me like a wooden wedge or something? I'll fix it right up. You can use my staff. Oh, okay, thanks. But I'm going to take the end of the staff. Come here, Pitsy. Mm-hmm.

And I'm gonna, like, get it, like, right here, and I just wanna, like, pound on the end and try to, like, break her jaw open, casting Leon's hands to end the poison effect. Oh, okay. Okay, it's extremely painful. Ow, my muscles! Ow! You cough up a nail. Must gotta feel better already. Save that. The nail? Yeah.

Oh, and I found one of Booker's last bottles of whiskey. Let me just try to disinfect your mouth a little bit, and I'm going to heal you for six points of Leon Hands, additionally. Thanks. Okay. So half the earnings. To the victor. To the victor, and then 10% of the bets. 5%. For all of us, we split. 5%. Yes.

20%. You went the wrong direction. Now you're supposed to say seven and a half. That's going to cost you, though. So your phrase is seven and a half. Repeat after me. Seven and a half. Five and a half. Five percent. Done. Okay, get to announcing. That's not very business. I had a good day of you, Anne. All right, you make sure that Jimothy's over in the... Do you want blue or red? Red.

Oh, Red. Make sure Jimothy's over in the blue corner, all right? Okay, Jimothy. Brother, you're going to do this. We're going to do this for Grandpa and for Mom and for Uncle Jimbo, who gave everything he had.

We're gonna do him proud. And he's nodding and hissing. And then I'm gonna make my way into the middle of the grease pit. I'm gonna slip a couple of times and fall. But I'm eventually gonna get out to the middle and I'm going to yell out, everybody on this barge, it's time now for some grease wrestling. Woo!

That's great, I can't wait to watch this. If you have bet for this fight, you know you're in for a good time, yeah. This fight is brought to you by basically all of us on this barge right now.

the blue corner, we've got Jimothy. Thanks. Alright! Now! Yeah, Jimothy! And the whole crowd is going crazy. Yeah, yeah. Jimothy's not gonna get much more of an announcement because he's highly favored here, okay? He's highly favored and definitely flavored. He's the champ! Yeah!

Undefeated. Undefeated. So if you bet on Timothy, you're probably going to get your money's worth. Yeah. Wow. I wish I'd done that. To the underdog. Let's give a round of applause. Oh, my mouth. For the... Oh, my God. Can you please let me do this? Okay. You're wrestling. I'm announcing. All right? I'm sorry. Shut up. All right. Eat some more nails. No, don't do that. No, please. All right. Can we give a...

- Round of applause for the Undermouse. - And the Red Quana. - I'm gonna flop over your gold pieces. - The Manic Mouse of Mukwalo. - Hey, what's up, Fred? - Boo! - Yeah, big thing! - Boo! - The Terrible Tootha of TikTok crossing. I don't know. What is it called? - Click-Clack.

Oh, the creeping crustacean. Are crustaceans mice? No. What do you think I am? Bitsy. No, Rusty Bucket Bitsy. Oh, Rusty Bucket Bitsy. Oi, don't you mention the creeping crustacean here, it'll hear you. It'll hear you. You invoked its name. Hoo-hoo.

You see a giant crawdad breach just slightly off the riverbank. You see now that the older drunken sailor on the barge is now looking very nervously over the river. We just summoned some kind of elder being. The elder crawdad.

And with that, let this, well, we gotta go over some of the rules. So the rules are, you're gonna get into the ring, you're gonna start wrestling. Whichever one of you survives is the winner. So how do you win? You either survive or you're the last one to give up. Oh, okay. So you can give up by screaming. What do we want people to scream? Uncle, is that what people scream?

Uncle Roger! Pitsy, what's a word that you don't know how to say very well? *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *laughter* *l*

You can't talk at all. Or you have to hiss. Oh, he doesn't give, no, that's too specific. That's all he does. Yeah, that works. But he's going to give up on me. He just gave up then. Then I don't know what to do about this. No, just don't kill him.

Yeah. I wasn't going to kill him. I just need to know how to win a grease wrestling match. You have to throw him out of the ring. Oh, what? The first person thrown out of the ring by the other person or dead. All right, are we done? This is clearly a well-oiled machine. Let the games begin. It's grease. We're loyal. I get it.

The denizens on the barge that are paying attention and actually care about this are cheering as the older otter sailor is trying to keep the other otters on the barge away from the scene, especially Skipper Scampi, as he's nervously looking in the river after the invocation of the creeping crustacean.

And it's with this I need you to roll initiative. As Jeremy says, "Jimothy, go get her!" - Is initiative a dex save? - Show no mercy! Show no mercy! - I'm gonna go with dex check. - Oh. - Yeah. - Okay, I'm pretty good. - You have plus two to your AC.

- Okay. - And you get to take an extra action. - Yeah, and you're hasted. - I'm a tank. Is this what Toh feels like all the time? - You should go ape shit on this guy. - 22. - 22? - Yeah. - Okay, I'm gonna roll. - You fucked, Jimmy. - And you don't forgive or get inspiration. - Jimothy, who's wearing torn overalls, he just leans down and he bites into another, the side of a barrel, and there's just splinters everywhere, and he spits.

- He's gonna be really full for this fight. - There is still a bit of hesitation. The eating the nails did seem to have shaken him a bit. - When I grab your scalp and I pull it off, I'm gonna rip it all the way down to your ass. - What? - I just like-- - What the hell does that mean? - I just do this and you can see my bloody teeth with like bits of shroom sticking out.

- We're just like open mouth, like, got each other from a girl's third. - And you see the drunken rabbit salesman say, "This is the most entertaining thing I've seen in months." Go ahead, you're first. - Oh, terrific. - Get the absolute piss out of this guy. - I'll...

- Run up, is he within 40 feet of me? - Yeah, so he's on the corner, he's running to meet you as he's spitting out splinters and he's running, his tail is, is, is, is flying behind him. You can see that his nails are actually look shockingly sharp.

- Yeah, that makes sense. I'm going to, just as we're about to collide, I'm going to dive into the grease and attempt to slip underneath him, and I'm gonna start to go up to grab him by the legs and Zangief him backwards behind him. - Okay, roll your first attack. - I will. That's gonna be two attacks because of how I work. One's gonna be a natural 20. Yes! Yes! That pocket watch is mine, old man!

Oh, this is gonna get so much worse for you because I have the Crusher feat. You might actually just one-shot this guy. How do I do fucking damage? It's gonna be... I should pour some fucking Flurry of Blows in this because it doubles all the dice, right? Give him everything! Unleash hell! All right, so the other one is a 19. Does that hit?

Yeah, it does. Okay, so that's going to be this, and this is going to be that, and then I'm going to pour a heat point into it for the purposes of Glory of Blows. Two more attacks. Which means I get two more attacks. I'm going to start doing this like this. Another natural 20. Yes! Yes!

- That three is actually a 13 now. - That's a 13, so that hits. I'm gonna turn it to a 13. - That's important. - Jesus. There's the 13, that's gonna be that dice. And then I take my hasted action, which is gonna be an additional two attacks.

- Holy shit. - Those both hit also, so that's gonna be an additional, I'll roll this D6. - What's your plus to each attack? - This D6, five. - Oh, you're talking like 50 something damage. This is ridiculous. - He's gonna die. - Yeah, you actually just kill him right at the starting battle. - Three, four, five, six, seven, eight. This is a fireball. - Well, plus all the plus, yeah.

- Plus 10 is 25, six. - Plus 25. - Yeah, so 50 plus points of damage. - 50, you know, 61? - I should have been fishing for criticals 'cause after I used the crusher, after I crit with a critical, all of them should have been at advantage, but I completely forgot about that. - Fish for crits. - Fish for crits? - Yeah. - Fish for crits. - Okay, so that would have been-- - So how much damage right now?

I want to say 52, but I'm not paying 100%. I think it's 54. 54, okay. So we're at 54. Okay. Let's pause because... You might just have to add some dice. This dice, this dice, and this dice would have been at... Just re-roll them. No, because two crit already, right? So just... Yeah, just roll three more dice. Yeah, so just re-roll those three. If any of them are a crit, I'll add additional dice. Fine! Let's go! And so that'll be an additional... Oh, this is the easiest 1,300 gold pieces I've ever made!

- 56, 61. 61 points of damage and he flies back five feet because of the crusher feet where I'll push him back so he's now five feet away from me and I'll use one more ki point to take the dodge action because I can just-- - You just Ip-manned the shit out of him. - Isn't it five feet per hit too? - You can literally

- You might actually just bang right out of the one punch man. - When you hit a creature with an attack, you can move him five feet. So I could go hit him five feet, then move, hit five feet, then move, hit them five feet. - Describe this whole how you do this. - How Vitsi does this. -

I slide underneath him and grab him by the waist and I suplex him like so. And then I roll on top of him so that I'm actually straddling him, grab both of his feet and do another roll. And he double suplexes, cracking his skull back against the greasy floor each time. And then I flip around, grab him, and I Bowser-style super party.

him all the way around, smashing him into the side and throwing him out in one direction, covered in grease, fluffy, breathing heavy, blood coming out of my mouth. Ah!

Holy shit! Oh my god! What did Bixie just do to him? So you do that. I trained him! I'm the coach! You chuck this teenage possum and he flies covered in grease and you do a non-verbal teenage possum. And he goes, and he smashes against the barrel and

No! No! Penfie! And the crowd's just finally gasped in abject horror. What? Who's the champion now? Holy shit! It's over! Is it over? What the fuck? I run over to Jimothy. Ding, ding, ding. Yeah, and I'm gonna... I didn't say non-lethal. Ha ha ha ha!

You run over to Jimothy as Jeremy runs over. Jimothy, you are the champ! Jimothy, no! And he's going to run over. I run over and I check to see if he's alive. No, he's not. Oh my gosh! I just killed a teenager! Holy shit! Jimothy, stay with me! Roll medicine, Jeremy. Wake up! Wake up!

This got really dark really quick. Holy fuck! 17. With a 17. But it turns into a burial fun cartoon. Ah.

Jesus. Oh, God. You just hear this whisper, spaghetti! Oh, my God. You run up to him and you check his vitals.

And, you know, I gave him 30 hit points. Oh, no! Holy shit. You overkilled him. Which means he is actually dead. He's just dead. You check, and Jiminy's been smashed against the barrel. And you find no pulse at all.

Get a pump. Well, we're not there. We're celebrating Pitsy's victory. I'm running around the Greek pit, high-fiving everybody who is willing to put their hand up, and most of them are just like... And I jump into the middle of the pit, and I'm like, Congratulations to...

- Brutal Bitsy, the winner! Takin' down Jimothy, the undefeated champion! - Yes! - Well, let's get Jimothy back in here for, you know, celebrate a second place. - Hold him by his hand. - I'll walk over to Jeremy and I'll be like, "Here's your 5% and I'm gonna drop 65 gold pieces into his hand."

And then I'll just pat him on the shoulder. And then I'm going to go over to Bitsy and I'll be like, here's the remaining 600 half for your winnings. And here's the rest of it that goes to the only person who bet on Bitsy. You fine gentlemen. Cheers.

He's dead. Maybe he's just playing possum. They do that, you know? You killed him, Betsy. Yeah, so the games are over. We'll see about a rematch. Thanks for being here. Booker, you gotta get ahead of this. You should talk to Pistromi and make sure that there's no legal implications for this. And if there is, we should figure out how to pay him off. I'll handle it. You can just tell him we're in an international river.

All right, uh... You guys deal with all this. And I'll go talk to the Otter. Oh, God. Um, should we say anything to the family? Um... Um...

No. And I go and I leave and I go talk to the Otter. Where's the pie? Oh, I can't. No, I got those. Here, take these. I don't want them. They're causing crumbs everywhere. I could take those. Just, you know. All right. There we go. And I'll leave. Just a little bit. And leave them to their devices. It's weird to be sad to this, too. Could you, could you, Mr. Dog? Can't you do nothing?

I mean, there's nothing to do. He's already gone. I'm trained in field medicine and this is... There's nothing I can do. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry, Lou. I'm sorry for suggest... Well, I guess you really suggested the pie, anyway, and I'm sorry... It was all Jiminy's idea! I didn't want to do it! He's the mastermind! In that case, it's kind of like he got what he was asking for. You want a bite of pie?

I don't want pie. Okay. And with that, you approach. You see that four ahead, or I guess four in the back, high up. You guys have been sheltered by boxes or crates just for the sake of this. As you see Skipper Scampi. Oh!

Oh, hey, Skipper. Hi, Scampi, sir. It's your good friend Booker again. How's it going? How you doing? I've been better. It's a good river. It's good fair seas, fair currents. Well, hold that thought. It's a really good day. Oh, yeah, okay. It's about to get really worse. Listen, you know, we were back over in front of the ship. Things were getting a little rowdy. People were trying to give some on-barge entertainment as we were going, and unfortunately, we were corpused.

Well, now that sounds really entertainment. What?! Listen, I'm sure that this is not the first time that you've had to deal with something like this, and I'm sure that we can just make it go away. One of the passengers is dead. How did a passenger die? Did he already pee already paid? Hey, I don't know. That's all on you. All I can say is that they were looking to do a little bare-knuckle boxing. Things get a little boring out here on the river. And one thing leads to another. Wham, bam, he's dead. How much blood is there? Surprisingly little.

It was a very clean job. Chris really staunches the capillaries. He just stares off into the river. Oh, God. And he looks back at you and he says, Do they have any family?

Only just the one, the one possum that's on the boat with him, right? Two, right? It's the one possum? Or is there, are there two? There's two possums. Well, they're both possums, they're brothers. But I'm saying there were originally three brothers or originally two brothers? Just two brothers, yeah. Yeah, there's just one of them left, actually. Oh, no. Booker, my friend. What? We don't like revenge plots here in the Riverfolk Company.

Well, yeah, but you take care of that, right? It's the artist take care of this. That's what I said. You've done this before. Not Book has done this before. Book, my friend. Come here. Oh, no. What? No. Come here. Would you like to share a clam with me? Oh, no, no. I'm very full. He reaches up and kind of gives you a tap on the face. We had a lot of clams earlier. You got nice fingers. You play the banjo real well, huh? I dabble.

I dabble a little on the banjo, I guess. - You won't be so good at dabbling on the banjo if you lose a couple of 'em, would ya? - Not as the way. - I suppose not. - Can't hold any cotton candy with those hands if-- - Why? - If you lose a couple fingers, huh? - All right, you know what?

I'll deal with it. I'll deal with it. You're going to deal with it? I'll deal with it. I'll deal with it. So I don't have to worry about it. You don't have to worry about it. So I don't have to tell the Don about this. You don't have to tell the Don about this. It disappears. Yep, I'll deal with it. And all my guys, they're busy. They have work to do. Understood. I'll deal with it. I'll deal with it. Thank you, Booker. Thanks for your time. Thank you for letting me know.

Oh, dear gods. And I'll rush back to the rest of them. While this is happening, I'm going to go up to Peggy. Hey, Peggy? Yeah, what's up? So, I mean, since you invented magic...

Have you invented a way to like resurrect the dead yet, you know? Like, you know, bring someone back from the great beyond? No. You haven't figured it out yet? Well, it's not that I haven't figured it out yet. I just don't see any reason to have undead thralls hanging around me taking up my time when I already have to spend a significant amount of my time grooming King George. Yeah.

Well, I mean, I'm talking about undead Frolls. I just mean sort of, you know, like just back to how he was. Just not dead, you know, before Bitsy killed him horribly. I don't think anyone can do something like that. What do you mean Bitsy killed somebody?

- What? - Get Bitsy Zangief to guard her death. - Bitsy did what? - Zangief to guard her death. - What does that mean? - I don't know, Bitsy-- - What does that mean? - When Bitsy was doing that move, she kept saying Zangief. I'm presuming it's grabbing him and like throwing him back. - Wait, so what you're trying to tell me is that possum that could only hiss, that one is dead now?

Yeah, he's dead. He died from his... I mean, he died instantly. I was going to say he died from his wounds, but... No, that was the first try. I mean, he just died. It was entirely a rag doll after that. Very blunt first trauma. Yeah, he's dead. He's dead, Peggy. He's not alive. He's like, you know... Are you sure he's not playing with me? I mean, I felt around a couple of his vertebrae and they were just totally separated. Ha!

Have you heard of internal decapitation? Oh, god! That's basically... That's terrible. That makes sense. It's really more like a bag of loose meat. Are you sure he wasn't like that before the fight? Are you sure? I'm pretty sure. I'm pretty sure he wasn't. I'm pretty sure he's voted Brave and Fierce before the fight. Oh, god.

Peggy, you think this is funny? Peggy? I can't believe you're laughing at this! It's just a little bit of gallows, you know? Just when something horrible like this happens, I just laugh. Don't ever invite me to a funeral, because it's the giggle loop, you know? They call it the giggle loop. Once somebody cracks, everybody starts cracking. Mr. Dog! Yes? Yes?

You're from the army, right? Sort of. And would you help prepare my brother for a river burial and say some nice words? A burial at sea?

Um, absolutely, of course I can. Yeah, please. You deserve those winnings. You bet fair and square. I'm sorry I bet against him. I mean, really, I just feel awful. That's the call. Massive sagging off. I'm so sorry. Look, you know, I, Jeremy, I know that it's really gotta be horrible to lose your brother in such a heinous way. It was so heinous.

He was there for an instant and then gone in an instant. And I know that's got to be off. It was like a raggedy Jan doll. And I'm sure that wasn't his Jan disease. Covered in grease. Yeah, I know. But he was the undefeated champ, you know?

Well, because he was, he never won either. He was the undefeated champ all the way to the end. I don't, you know, I didn't know him that well, but I imagine there's no other way he would have wanted to go than in the heat of battle, fighting for what he believed in. Listen, like his life depended on it, which it turned out it did. You know, she's really disrespectful. Oh, the dead.

I'm gonna help this poor little lad, alright? Can you please? Oh, thank you, Sue dog. Oh, you're a good dog. You're a good boy dog. Where's your uncle? My tail starts wagging a little bit. Oh, he couldn't afford the barge. He's back in Click Clock Crossing. Who's back in Click Clock Crossing? His uncle. Her uncle. Uncle Jimbo. He paid everything he had.

to send us down to safety in Wartwallow. Who were you meeting in Wartwallow? Oh, we were just going to try to make our way away from the chaos of the... If a mouse killed him that quickly in a horrible grease fight accident, I imagine it would have been really difficult for you in Wartwallow. Well, he said to check out some spots where he might still have old friends that might still be alive. Oh,

Yeah, and we could maybe help you get there. When we get to the other side, we could try to help. Oh, would you really do that for us? I don't know. Probably not. Oh, this is so sad. Because we don't really have a nice day either, so maybe they could take us in too, and it would be like we were all family. Yeah.

And have like family dinners and stuff, you know, together. I don't have a family anymore except for Uncle Jimbo. Well, so you do then! Don't forget about Uncle Jimbo. I'm sure he's gonna meet you in Walla Walla. If he survives, the Marquis Oddsoldier's coming in in their investigation. Do you think Alexander could look after him? Are you talking about Alexander Hamletoad? Yeah.

Or was his name just Hamilton? I forget. Where is that old Hamilton? No, his name was Alexander. His last name's Hamilton. I mean, do you think he could look after him? Well, he's the mayor now. At least for a little bit, you know? He's always so busy writing letters. I mean, he could probably take a fucking second to, you know, get out. I don't know. He writes like he's running out of time. I mean, we should feel somewhat responsible for this. I mean, you did suggest a grease fight.

That's true. I suggested the Greece fight. They were the ones that suggested the fight to begin with.

Yeah, but maybe if he hadn't been so greased up with duck grease, he wouldn't have flown out of Bitsy's arms so hard into that barrel. And Hazel's responsible because she didn't want to fight him. She did offer Bitsy to participate. That's right, it's Bitsy's fault. Just before the first suplex, he was like, Spaghetti! LAUGHTER

Well to be fair we did say that you had to say it clearly and completely. That's fair, I can buy that. I'm sorry for what I did. I didn't do it. You're a monster! I mean, maybe we add that to the title. I'm sorry. He really looked sturdier than he was, it seems. He was chewing up all that wood. I just think you're evil.

You're a bad person. That's not very nice. He murdered my brother! You put your brother to be murdered! Why didn't you fight? Maybe it's your fault! He wanted to fight! Do you see how many splinters he ate? Well then to me it sounds like it was your brother's fault for wanting to fight in the first place. Oh my god, I can't believe I'm in the news. He knew the stakes.

I hadn't eaten so many splinters. His stomach wouldn't have internally bled out when he got hit. No, it was the internal decapitation, I'm telling you. You don't know that you're not a doctor. I felt it all. It was a little of everything. Well, Jimothy would hate to hear this. Let's give him his proper burial, Mr. Dog. He could all hiss in his honour. Do you have some kind of shroud? Does anybody have any cloth or anything? Some kind of shroud? No? Here, shoot.

That's disrespectful. Tiffany, like, all the blankets and these. What this? Your greasy wrestling diaper. I got this greasy wrestling diaper right here. That one doesn't count. That one doesn't count against the shit.

I'll regret it as soon as I offer it. Disrespectful. Disrespectful. Yeah, I'm all covered in grease. I'm going to have to ask somebody if they've got any bacon soda. I'll get rid of grease. This is Kelsey asking. You see as Jeremy walks forward and he says, this was his favorite blanket.

I think you'd want to be buried with it. It's like this patchwork blanket. I'm gonna go over to his body and wrap him tightly in the blanket. As gently as I can. And try to put him back together, straighten out all of his bones. And wrap him in a tight bundle.

"Um, do you mind sharing a memory of Jimothy?" Yeah, and he like, he guides you over to the side of the boat and says, "Can you help me put him up on the side here? You're strong."

Oh, thanks. And I'll hold on. I'll keep him steady. Oh, good. Thank you. Uh, uh, Jimothy was, uh, my best brother, my only brother. There was a time where we would snuck into old Uncle Jimbo's stores in his, uh, his restaurant that he used to run. And we got covered in grease. It's kind of a strangely fitting story. Uh, and...

And we stole a whole sack of corn pone. And he actually called the authorities on us. And we actually got out of it. Jimbo kind of sounds like a dick. Well, he was, but he had a redemption arc. It's okay. Sorry, go on. It was more of a cover emotion for grief that he had. Anyway... Grease or grief? Yes. Still got enough grease in your ears. And...

The thing about Jimothy that I like the most is that he was always so good at playing possum. I need to make a dexterity saving throw at disadvantage. Holy shit. Well, one's an actual 20, but that's a seven. Oh, wait, no, I'm a paladin. Hold on. Hold on. What the hell? Got that aura. Twisted dread. Oh, boy.

One worse. Uh, ten. You see as the bundle is immediately shredded with claws and a blur of fur

The bag of gold has been removed from your hands as both possums leap forward, knocking you backwards, snatching the bag of gold. - Six hundo. I'll remove it. - And leaping off the barge into the reeds. - Ah, Peggy! Did you turn him into an undead trove? - It's a ghost!

And this makes the exact moment that Booker walks back as they're completely gone. I'll never forget you, Jimothy. All right. What the hell?

- Grumly, I got bad news. We gotta kill the other kid. - What? - We gotta deal with it. I talked to the Otter. He doesn't want the dead body here. He said, "We gotta take care of the loose thread." And I don't really wanna do it, but we gotta kill the other kid. - I throw a fireball where they just jumped off. - Okay. - I take my, all right then, I take my final Molotov cocktail and I chuck it down into the reefs. - But if you miss, we're on a boat covered in grease.

- I know. - Roll damage. - And Jimothy's dexterity saving throw is a four. - Oh no, I'm just waiting to see what happens. I mean, there's going to be a massive explosion. - Can I have some d6s? - Yeah. - How many? - Three. - Nothing really for me to react to until this happens.

- I love it. - 32 points of fire damage. - 32 points of fire damage. - Is this like from like under the water, like, or is it like on top of the water? - So, they leap forward and you see as they leap and you actually had been very close to the bed and you get the sense now that Jeremy had been waiting until the barge was close to the reeds on the bank.

and they leapt forward and disappeared into the very tall grass and the reeds that are whipping back and forth in the wind. You see Peggy immediately reach into her pack and pull out the flaming jar. And as I let it loose, I go, yeah, you piece of shit kid. You want to tell me magic doesn't exist? I'm going to roll that thing over the side of the table. And you see the reeds moving and suddenly...

And you hear, oh my fucking god! From Skipper, from the Skipper, there's a massive explosion, and the reeds, everything is completely singed and explodes, and it's just an empty crater. Oh, gosh. I think you're...

You either got away really good or you missed. What the hell was that? I was gone for five minutes. What happened? It turned out that Jimothy wasn't dead. I didn't kill a cat. Yeah, they jumped off the boat, but you said we had to kill the kids, so I just did it anyway. Oh, my. Why with our gold bookers? They stole the gold. Wait, now we don't know if they're dead or... Okay, if they're both dead or they're both alive... Oh, my God, somebody's got to go talk to Skye.

I can deal with this. I can handle this. I will handle this. But why? It would have been out the goal. So did I do a good job?

- Beats the fuck out of me! It depends on if they're both dead or both alive! - I jump off the raft and I run to where they were. - Well, it's certainly one or the other. - Where I think they might be. - I attempt to jump off the raft, but I slip in my own grease and I just hit my chin against the bottom of the barbed wire. - Ow! - You jump, are you gonna jump into the river? - Yeah, I'm jumping into the river. - Okay, make an athletics check at disadvantage 'cause you're wearing armor. - Oh no! - Oh good.

- Gromly, no! You're top of me, you're gonna sink! - I think Gromly might be a little too honorable to be hanging out with the likes of us. - 17. - 17, you plunge into the water and you sink, but with a 17, you're able to doggy paddle, and eventually you get over there, and you make your way towards the water.

towards the skipper. And he's running out as, he goes, "I didn't mean to blow him up!" - To be fair, one, you didn't specify, and two, I didn't really get a chance to explain anything before everything just kind of went pear-shaped. But hey, it's okay. - What the fuck happened? - It's been dealt with. I told you I'd handle it. And that's what happened. It's been handled. - There's no loose ends. - None.

Fuck! Yeah, no, I think the Don will have some use for you guys. Oh no. Well, that's what we were kind of hoping. We're in the wolf now. I was worried I was going to have to call in the wolf.

With the what? The wolf. Is he a grease fighter like me? What? What the fuck did you get? Fuck! Sorry, I'm really fast. Grease makes her silent. I'm as quiet as a mouse. In grease. As quiet as a grease mask. What was I even saying? I lost my train of fucking thought.

Um... Y'all, at your service. Okay. Well, there's no loose ends. There's no revenge plots happening. The Dom hates revenge plots. Yeah, I think we just have to worry about their Uncle Jimbo when he finds out. Oh, Jimbo? At the Click Clock Crossing? Yeah. Yeah, I'll call a guy. Great. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Apparently he had a redemption arc, so...

- That's what they all say. - Ain't it though? - Yeah, no. There's no redemption. - Yeah, I gotta start working on mine. - Well, more clams for the rest of us. And he goes back to his business. Grumly, you swim and make your way. - Jeremy, Jeremy, give me food.

You swim through the water and there's still some of the reeds that are crackling with fire, shards of glass that you're swimming around. There's some large dragonflies that are flying around and the smoke from all of this flame is kind of sending them away. And you just see just wreckage and flames. Do I see any corpses?

Make a perception check. Four gold pieces. We're not going to be so lucky. Perception. Eleven. An eleven. You don't... You see a single gold piece. I'm going to just very quietly bury the gold piece. Rest in peace, brothers possums, Jeremy and Timothy. We hardly knew you.

And you didn't deserve to die so young. But Booker did say to kill the kid. And, you know, this is what happens sometimes, I guess. Anyways, hopefully the great tree spirit and the river king take you on your way to the dim wood of the beyond. The dimmer wood. The dimmer wood.

And I'll just turn and I'll see the bard. Oh, fuck. It's like down the river. You're gone. Goblee! Goblee! I'm hustling down the... There's no way you're going to get me. Go on, Grumlee! Wait! Wait! Who's Grumlee?

Come back! What are we gonna do about this? Please! You do that and you all hear Grumly's out of breath voice shouting at you from behind the barge as he's running along the bank well behind you. It's

- Rope, it's a rope, somebody find the rope. - Is there rope on board? - Oh, there's a lot of rope. - I would find a long piece of rope and tie one side to the railing and cast the other rope off to try to like trail it behind the barge so you can hang on to it. - Okay. - Grab the rope Grimly. Go faster. - Can I catch it? Run faster. - You gotta go faster Grimly. - It's a barge, not a motorboat.

- Athletics? - Looks pretty good. - You're doing all right. - Seven, no, 18. - 18. - That looks pretty good. - I would say that you're able to, you see the barge actually having to turn around and bend in the river, which is your saving grace, as it is almost passing you in front of you, as you were able to attempt to make the jump to grab the rope. - Oh. - And make an acrobatics or athletics check.

- Even better? - 26. - Big money. - You all see, you see Grumly smash into the rope and he fumbles with it. He just sinks down into the river. And the water is just completely still as the ripples, the ripples cease. And then suddenly, and Grumly erupts. - Yes! - Like a tuna! - Good boy, Grumly, yes! - Like a bleaching tuna. - Guys, help me reel him in!

To hold a real grumbly in and get him on board.

Wait, did you find the gold? Why did you jump over for? What was that? Just to see if I could save him. Save? The gold? Wait, both of the... Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Wait, you were trying to save the people I was just ordered to kill? No, I mean, just because Booker told you to jump off a bridge, would you do it? Well, no, that would be stupid. Because I would have killed a kid. I stole our gold. Well, so, first off... You tricked us. I felt bad internally.

Totally, in my heart. There's a lot of problems here, right? Is that first, we thought the one was dead, so I went back and I told the captain that he was dead, and he told me to tie up the loose ends. What I'm hearing is in the meantime while I was gone, the kid wasn't dead, which means there wasn't any loose ends to tie up. So why'd you tell me to kill the kid then? I was passing along the message, and no one told me that the kids had stolen our gold, which, by the way, now makes us even as far as I'm concerned.

Where's the gold? He was playing possum. Know the gold, Zolens? I knew it! How does a possum play possum like that, but also separate all of his bones? I guess I was wrong. Did you find their corpses or not? They were atomized. Well, no, you either found their corpses or you didn't. Well, I mean, I found what was left of them, let's say. Which was?

Which was nothing. Well, then we can presume that they're both alive and well. You didn't find the gold, did you? I think we should assume that my spells definitely landed and they're both dead. All to go that it wasn't melted away instantly with Peggy's insanely hot magic. Well, that's what that little shit gets for trying to tell me that magic isn't real. I guess he would think twice about that if he was still alive. Today's youth has no respect for...

I found a book on how to become a lich. I've been reading it at night.

An interidion. I think, Hazel, we should think about, you know, people that make you feel not so good. You know, killing them isn't the best course of action. Unless it is. What if they steal from you? I mean, I don't think that deserves... That doesn't earn their death. Hazel, if someone would have come up to you, right? Yeah. And you had, like, a delicious...

cinnamon covered pretzel. I love it.

There's a sugar on it too? Of course there is. A little honey? A little, yeah, a little bit of honey. Surely a lot of bit of honey. Okay, I can see it. Go ahead. And you know what? You even have like a small, like warmed up bowl of frosting that you can dip it in, you know? That's like really hard to come by. That's a real treat. I know. Do you have that? I don't. If you had it though and someone came and stole it from you, what would you do to that person? Slit the throat. No questions.

- I rest my case. - At the end of the day, it doesn't sound like we have a problem. Either they're both alive and there's no loose ends that need to be tied up or they're both dead and there's no loose ends that need to be tied up. And if they survived and they got away with 600 of our gold pieces, which was your winnings, then we're even. We tried to get one up on them, they got one up on us, we can all walk away happy. - Well, they can't 'cause they're dead. - Maybe. - I'm gonna dry off my armor. I'm gonna start, I'm gonna take five minutes to doff my armor.

Smells like wet dog. Smells like bugs in a park. Smells like a runny. Runny comes back and gets just dozed down. I just really, I'm just mad. I guess I've got the poise, but I just don't like to be tricked, I think. Well, to be fair, we walked away with 600 gold pieces and we tricked people out of that. And I got this neat pocket watch.

So did we get it? You see he's like, they're the rabbits, like, I'm gonna take, and then he's like, looks over at Peggy. Ah, nice day! Nice day! Nice day! All of the other, all of the other people who had been scammed out of their money are

are horrified and they just go about their business. - Well, considering they potentially watched multiple murders. - They look at Bitsy, like covered in grease and blood and rust. - Y'all got any baking soda? - So did we come out ahead in this venture? - Yeah, yeah, we're good. - Oh. - Again, it would've been nice to get away with the full amount, but you know. - It could've been worse. - I got 500 gold pieces right here. I added them to my inventory and they're mine.

I would say you probably deserve them for the performance inside of the ring. I'll remove them then. And in that case, no, no, that's fine. I'm going to take the remaining 7,500 and everybody else can track their own then too. That sounds good. However you want to do it. I didn't know we were playing first man. I'm totally fine with that. You can do that if you want to. No, I'm totally fine with that. You all get to add... I'm not.

2,000 gold pieces of your inventory. Oh, including myself? That's correct. 2,000? That's a lot. Yeah, we had 7,500 before we got on the boat. Someone can take mine. Oh my god. And that was after we... We walked away with 10k after we robbed all of the taxes that you could get. But to be fair, that was our 10k. You know how much fucking weight that would be? Wow, I didn't have any gold. It's magic. No, it's not. It doesn't really shit.

2,000 gold pieces? I'm rich, bitch! Okay. Amazing. We're almost there. Wow, this is awesome. I can start my own business now. I'll look at the pocket watch that I have now acquired from the Possum family. Well, you know, we got a little bit more time here on the barge, but this is only our first stop. We paid for two clearings. So I guess we'll see if...

Old otter guy on the steer in the boat here has a job for us here, but you know, we paid for passage another clearing away. And then hopefully we get all the way to the Woodland Alliance. Is it gonna go straight through or do we stop in Whatwall? Oh, I'm sure we'll stop. I'm sure some people paid to get here. Oh, that's fair. Okay. Like, do we get an offshore leave? Well, I guess we should talk to Scampi. See what we gotta do about that.

He scares me a little bit. He scares me a little bit too, but now we're deep in this. It's not going to be so easy getting out. Oh, God. I don't really know your meaning, but okay.

Mrs. Scampi? Skipper Scamp? Scamp? Scampi Skipper? Scampo. Scampi Skipper. You can call me Scampi. You can call me Skipper. Or Skipper Scampi. What about Scamps? No, never Scamps. I'll give you the Scamps. And you don't want to find out what that is. What about Skips? I'm sorry. That's fine. Skip Scamp.

I do like skipping. We'll go with skips. How far are we to Wartwallow? We should be there by the end of the day. That's pretty good. Hey, we're almost there. Before sunset, probably. All right. Are we going to get some time to go into town? Yeah, no, I've got to stock up. I've got to do a few things. You know, I've got to send a letter to Click Clock about old Uncle Jimbo. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

I think they said he was there, maybe. I don't remember. All right. This is some random guy. Hey, you Jimbo? Yeah, that's my son. Oh, my God.

Well, to be safe, you just kill every Jimbo and click-clop them off. How many could there possibly be? Yeah, a couple dozen. It's not that common a name. Well, I missed the Jimbo. Probably the Jimbo I'm thinking of. It's local Jimbo's found. The Jimbo murderer strikes again.

"Hear ye, hear ye, string of Jimbo motors!" "Change your name quickly!" It's like that scene in the Terminator when he goes to the directory and he looks up all the Sarah Connors. Yeah. Why does he point at the directory? He's got robot vision. It doesn't make any fucking sense. It's for the audience. I know it is! Horse shit!

Just helps. Sorry, this has been a random rant. Oh, I'm standing in the garage. That's a mechanism. All right, so that's good then. We're going to have some time in town. Is there anything, Peggy, I mean, this is your town, right? Anything you want to do while we're there?

This is where you're from? Yeah, no, not really. I don't want to see my sisters. You got sisters? Yeah. Do they also create universes? No. Oh, I'm dumb. Well, they're not as smart as I am. I don't think many people are as smart as you are. Oh, Hazel, you're so sweet. You're gonna make the greatest of friends. We're not friends now. So yeah, I don't really want to see my family while we're here. Oh.

Well, what should we do then? I could eat. An hour will end when we get there. Yeah, we could see if Alexander Hamilton is going to have a dinner or something. That could be kind of nice. He's loaded, so. At the mayor's house. That could be really fun. Is he really the mayor?

Well, he was in a previous iteration of my character at the very end. So he may or may not be now. It's been a while since I've been meshed. It's nothing as steady as the governmental policy of the Dynwood. I mean, that's true. You never know. You blink and just... My sister's married to him now, you know. Fleiser. Is that going to be all right if we eat there with him?

You'd have to see your sister. Nah, I don't have to look at her. That's fair. That's the great thing about being able to control your eyes separately. Hi, sis. You're looking well. I was talking to that squirrel over there.

I'm just gonna take a nap until we're there. That sounds like a good idea. Been on an emotional rollercoaster for the past 15 minutes. I'm pretty tired too, I could do with a snooze. Please? Skipper? I don't mean to alarm you. No. Bro, I think we've got a spot of bad luck. Oh no. I think... Who's the... Cookie! Cookie!

- Is it a cookie? - No, it's not a cookie, man. It's the CC! And there is an incredibly loud splash ahead of you. - I don't know. - As you see the chitinous shell of what looks to be a monstrous crawfish.

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moon.com to pick up your own copy of our first published supplement the crooked moon a folk horror tome for dungeons and dragon fifth edition and don't forget to snack all them extra goodies like dice and miniatures and plushies and a tarot deck and more thank you from legends of adventurists there is a loud splash as a very large crawfish signs

monstrous spikes all over its shell, bright oranges and reds that appear almost changing color from a murky brown and green and blue as if it had been camouflaged.

this beast called the Creeping Carstation, allegedly. - Oh, I forgot that happened. - Yeah, we're toast. I don't know how we're gonna do this. - No, I mean, this is the campaign where you mention something and then it is offhand and it happens in the campaign. - Oh, what do you know? It appears. - Damn it. - If only we don't win the lottery. - He's right, he's right.

As it appears a mere 20 feet from the barge, this thing is huge. It's even bigger than the queen bee that you had fought previously. As it emerges and lunges forward in a single motion, and you hear a...

an almost cartoonish scream as it plucks off one of the otters and pulls it into the river. - Is it scampi? - It is not scampi. - Fuck. - We were almost out. - As you hear Wilhelm scream. - We were almost out.

as it then dives back into the water, as all of the passengers scream, as they gather in the center of the ship and the cruise goes to their harpoons to attempt to flank the sides. What do you all do? Oh shit!

What the hell is that? I don't like the sound of that. I don't know. Is that a creeping crustacean? You see the old, the old sailor. Who said it first? Did you summon it? I was just saying random things. I thought a crustacean was a mouse. We know a crustacean is that thing. That's a crustacean. What exactly is that thing?

Oh, yes, it'd be what I call it, the creeping crustacean. He keeps saying that word, and then I say, well, what is it? And you say, what's that? And I say, well, what is that? And you say, well, it's a creeping crustacean. Another name on the river is Big Bad Crawl Daddy. Oh, God. That's pretty good. What's it do? Is it friendly? It just killed Phil! We've got a family! No, Phil. I think I missed that. Is there any chance of us outrunning it?

I mean, I've seen the Creeping Crustacean, the Big Bad Crawdaddy, the Magical Crawdad, Citizen Snips. It goes by many names. What do we do? I don't know. Should we be lit and just have to pass this by peacefully? We need to protect all these people.

Because you're poor and innocent. And it didn't do nothing. They were the ones to summon the crawdad. Peggy just put two words together in her mind and just materialized a horrible monster in the river. I can't help that I created magic and that magical things just are inevitably drawn to me in the font of magic that wells within my soul. You just have to stop thinking of things. If it just comes true every time you think of it, imagine the horror of it.

I do every night. We invoked the creeping crustacean, for now we are truly doomed. I've already had two days ration of grog. We just have to think. And the skipper doesn't even ration grog, it's my own ration. Wait, wait, wait. You have grog? What's grog? Are you trying to get my grog? Yeah, you should share some with us. You're holding out on us, man. If we're all going to die anyway, why not?

I hold out the tin cup. He goes over and he pulls this huge barrel and he drags it. He's definitely the biggest of the otters. And he drags the barrel over and he tells him, okay, here you go. No time like the present. Here you go. Cheers. Oh, how is this going to stop the crustacean, Booker? Oh, it's not. I just really wanted some rug. I have a feeling we're all going to die here. Uh-oh. I don't think that we should think that way. We're not going to die. We haven't died yet.

That's good odds. The Fox family looks at you, they're huddling, and they say, are you sure there's nothing you can do? I don't want to get snip-snap'd by Citizen Snipsnaps. We just have to think, what if Citizen Snips walked? I assume to eat all of us. And does it speak? Is it an intelligent...

That's actually a really good question. I'm the small family. Distract them for five minutes, and I'm going to don my armor. I turn around and I... Us? The family that was like cowering in fear. You see as there's a mother, a father, and a child. As the father looks and he says, you're absolutely right. I have to be brave. You're going to protect us if I distract it. No, no, no, no, no.

Hold on, hold on, I just need five minutes. I can buy you five minutes. Is it actively like breaching or is it like up out of the water? So it is lurked down below. You can sense it's a lurking predator, it's a creeping crustacean. And so it's going to cut. You say, oh, he's gonna come back here.

- How did the first guy die? Like a claw just came out of his chest? - A claw, he leaped out and you just saw this crustacean that it's true colors. - It was like the worm in "Beetlejuice" that just like leaps out. - Yeah, exactly. - Literally. - It's a sandworm. - It's a crawfish, right? It's got a million of those lovely creepy legs on the underst- - It's not a million, it's a decapod. - A million. - It feels like a million in my mind. - It would be scarier if it was half crawfish, half millipede. - It has nine legs, or eight legs.

- And two claws. - So what is your name? - My name? - The fox guy's name, he's gonna help me distract this beast. - Oh, oh, oh. - And hopefully not get a victory. - Tim, his name's Tim. Timmy. - Timothan. - Timothant. - Tim-a-lan. - Timothiolophant. - Tim-a-lan. - Tim-a-lant. - Tim-talk. - Tim-talk. - Tim-talkerson. - Tim-talkerson. - Time. - Timberlake. - Timberland. - Blake's gonna make us all die.

Tiny Toon. Timmy Two-Tone. Timothy. Tommy Two-Tone. The name is Kane. Wow, I don't know why I had a whole bunch of other names flowing through my ears, but I never saw that one coming. All right, I have an idea. Tim's my father's name. Oh, that's weird. Very serendipitous. I don't know why, I just felt like sharing that. You

You're gonna help me distract this thing, but you're gonna be my backup. Don't go first, all right? I have a feeling you're just giving off a lot of weird vibes right now, and I feel like if you get too close to that thing, it might be the end. He's gonna kill you. No, if it's my weird vibes, it's probably my slingshot. I'm mighty lethal with a slingshot. And he turns over, and you see that there's actually a flag hanging from his back with a skull on it. Okay, all right, that's fine, good. You use the slingshot.

But not unless things start to go bad. I just need you to back me up, all right? We're going to go to the side of the boat where we think it's coming up next. Are you with me? Yeah, I'm with you. I said, Kane, are you with me? Yeah! Yeah!

- I'm with you! - All right, come on! - And we're gonna run to where we think the old otter is saying that it's coming around next. - Oh, he's here and he grabs a harpoon, it's huge and barbed and it's definitely rustic. - I'm gonna come with as well. - Okay. - I'll also be running behind them. I'm slipping a little bit, so I'm not as fast and running past them as I probably would be in a normal sense, but I'm yelling to, "Does anybody punch a old bay?" - Old bay what?

Obey? Obey. Buckets. Obey. You're saying two words, but you're not finishing your sentence. Obey what? Isn't that... I thought it was... Obey shoes. Obey...

- Old baby in a carrot. - There's a large shape underneath the water as it moves. Make a perception check to see where you think this thing might breach next. - All right, I have something I'd like to do if I could once I can see it. - Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. - Everybody should take cover. - That's not bad. Perception? - Yeah. - A buttload, hold on. This damn D&D Beyond is not cooperating with me at the moment.

as some people like to say, oh wow, it's only a plus two. So I got a 20. - 20. I would say with that, you look and you see that on the port side of the ship that there is, the boat actually, the barge is knocked a little bit and you stumble forward and you see this massive shape appear beneath the water and you see a faint,

sliver of orange where perhaps the camouflage isn't exactly entirely set in yet from the previous attack and maybe a little bit of blood from Phil. - Oh God.

- If I can approximate where I think that it is, I will get to the edge of the boat and look at it, and I will squat deep down and hold up two of my hands like claws and begin to go,

as I dance back and forth on the edge of the boat and use universal speech. As an action, I can choose five creatures within 60 feet. The chosen creatures can magically understand me regardless of the language that I speak for one hour. Once I use this feature, I can't do so again until I finish a long rest or expanded a spell slot. And so then I'll just be like on the edge. Everybody's freaking out and I'm just gonna be like...

Oh, God, he's possessed! What's happening? And I'm doing the best shouting that I can do and a gurgling and foam is like spitting everywhere. Oh, like when crabs go like that and their mouth bubbles. And foam is going everywhere. Oh, God.

And I'm doing my best to... I am become crab. We're all going to become crabs eventually, apparently. I'm just attempting to communicate with it. Okay. You do that and you are all splashed with water as it...

- Leaps out. You see that Cain in his, he has very simple commerce. He seems like he might be a fisherman. He has a slingshot and he's getting ready to let it fly. And a claw is going directly towards him and his death flag. So you start doing that and there's a moment of hesitations. You see these large eyes on Stalks.

they almost pulse with a strange color within them. - I can't understand what he's saying, but to the best of my ability in my crustacean speech, I will say, "Stop, don't attack, we don't mean any harm. "Please recede back to the bottom of the river. "If you must take someone, you can take Cain."

- No! - Oh, fucker. - Hold on, hold on! I just need like three, maybe two more minutes. - Make an animal handling check at advantage 'cause he spoke its crab language, its crustacean language. - 16. - 16. You see, despite this massive beast,

emerging out of the water.

You see it stop as its claw, as its one claw is out of the river. You now see as the greens and browns and blues are now turning to bright reds and oranges and yellows as its bright shell is camouflaged as it's out of the water. Seemingly the water hides it. And it stops. And you see that there's a sort of strange...

fascination as you are scuttling back in. And then its eyes focus both on you. And then suddenly there's this horrible slurry of just bubbles spill down onto the deck and you hear . I can't understand what it's saying. Look at you! I'm sorry! I'll just say back to it, see, this is going well.

- As you can see, we don't mean any harm and we don't need, there doesn't need to be any more bloodshed other than Cain today. - Why? Poor James. - You see, make another animal handling check and advantage. - Wow, starting here? - 15. - 15. - 15. - You see as it,

It looks at you and then I scan the boat and it's like claws going back and forth. - And then I do this. - Oh no, it's preparing to attack. - Get him. - Make one more animal. I like taking advantage. - I just need one or two more minutes. - 21.

You hear Cain call out, I'm protecting you family! I'm making you- I should have saved my family, pug man! Save my family!

Now, before that happens, I'm gonna cast Web. Oh! And I'm gonna pull out two jars of like, literally like spider webs, and I'm gonna crack them open, and I'm gonna shoot them forward out of my hand, and I'm gonna try and entangle this thing in webs. Okay. Oh no, Cain. He's grabbed. I'm gonna remember this. You cast the web, so a dexterity saving throw?

- 13. - Yes, so you fail. - So you see as the webs, he grabs Cain and he's struggling against it, but as he's getting pulled into the water, the webs slam it down onto the deck. - I'm fighting, I'm fighting!

Almost done! Almost! Just hold on me gloves. Booker, should I attack? Should I go? Um, I wouldn't, but you know, hey, you're your own free person with your own free will and you can make your own free decisions. We're gonna make sure that you don't go down today, Kane. Don't you worry, we've got your back. Right, Booker? I'm coming to save you, Kane!

- I'm gonna run up and I'm going to attempt to pull him free of the claw as best I can, rest him out and see if I can get him away from this nightmare monstrosity. - Make an athletics or acrobatics, or an athletics contest against the giant crustacean monster. - Athletics you say? - 18. - Not acrobatics? - Yeah, that's the worst. - 17. - So you're pulling and pulling.

I'm a distraction! Can we say that my armor is on at this point? So finally, I'm done, Cain, just hold on! I'm gonna stand up, grab my halberd, pick it up, and I'm gonna look at it and I'll say, "It's crawboring time." And I'm gonna sprint at it and make an attack.

The giant crawfish looks at you very hurt and betrayed. Yeah, well, I tried. I'm going to try to chop it at a joint. Make an attack roll. That looks pretty good. That is a 20 to hit. 20 will hit. Got to be good enough. Ooh. Okay, so at first it's going to do...

13 points of damage, and as it cleaves in, I wanna take my forearm and smash it like I'm taking a knife and hammering on the back to Divine Smite. - Nice! - And how does Divine Smite work? - You just add extra D8s per level of the spell.

If it hits. Which it did. It did hit, and so I am willing to do it at a second level. Fuck it. So that's 3d8, so it's 2d8 base plus 1 for every extra level. So I'm going to do 1, 2, 3, 13, 28 points of damage.

- 28 points of damage. You run up and as you take your halberd, it's like you're at a crab feast as you do this and this. And then you hear, once again, another one of the pellets from Cain's slingshot.

And you hear as it snaps the claw off, it drops completely limp onto the deck as the- - Oh my god! - I saved you, Cain! - Run away! - As the crustacean rears back and looks at its claw and looks down at his shoulder, is that how you know it? - I can still feel it. - And there's all sorts of,

as there is all sorts of just this delicious white meat that falls out of it, that pours out of it onto the deck. And it lets out a . And these disgusting, stinky bubbles mixed with mud and dirt drip on the deck as it's attempting to communicate with you. Looking very hurt and betrayed. And then in a sudden,

it disappears under the waves, having lost a claw and retreating. - Please tell me right now, my children need food. - We'll never know. - Get away from the egg, you must die! - I'm gonna like try to open the claw and like let him out. - Yeah, I'm gonna continue to pull and pull him in half. - No, you can't do that. - No, no, let me open the claws first, now you can pull. - No, not that way! - You pull the opposite direction.

He is broken free. Break him in two. As he looks at you, Booker, and says, that was a good distraction. How did you know that the frog was going to web it? Thank you very much. You saved my life. Ah, what the hell? Human!

- A real good distraction, Pa, until Mr. Pugman was able to get rid of that claw. I can't believe that you failed that beast's claw. - I didn't know your last name was Pugman. - I'm a hinch, but I kinda like it. - Pugly Pugman has a nice ring to it. - Oh no, it'd be Grumly Pugman. - Yeah, but if that's not your real name, maybe you should have a false first name too. Wait, do you have a last name now?

I mean probably, I don't know. I prefer just calls you Grumley. We haven't really discussed that in a menace perspective. Well, I have a last name. Yours is easy because it's nut. It's true. I also have a last name though. What's your last name? Flyler. Oh that's right. Iggy Flyler. Like Flyler, like E-R at the end.

Purgly. It's like silent now. Hazel. No. Hank. That's right. I was worried you wouldn't remember it for a minute there. Hank. Um. Uh. Given that the music's changed, I guess the crawdad's gone. That's the right chance of him coming back. I'm looking over the edge and I'm going to be on guard. I don't know. I feel very in danger right now.

OY NO! You see the Gronk barrel's very empty. Look at all this meat! OY THERE'S SCOWERLY! Uhhh, creeping... What's your name? My name is... Orville.

Hi, Orville! My friends who weren't seamen call me Seamen Orville and it became derisive and I told them to stop. How much rum have you had, Orville? I've had a lot of grog.

I don't really know what grog is. Could you explain that? It's water and rum. It's just water and down rum. If I get in because of my grease, we can make a Sazerac. If I get in because of my grease. I accept my pay. Is he supposed to do something? What? I don't know. Someone should put him to bed. I frozen peas.

Do you mean like put him in bed? Yeah, of course. I just said that. Well, he won't return until the claw is regrown. Regrown? Perhaps returning to civilization to wreak vengeance. When civilization leaves his back, that's the legend anyway. Well, that's just a story, I'm sure. As long as no one invokes...

What? Oh, this is easy. Oh, I thought we already did that. So you only invoke it by saying the creeping crustacean? Oh yeah, that's another claw. Oh, he's safe, can I say? The creeping crustacean.

- We're at a creepinger station. - Creepinger station. - Creepinger station, this is Splash Bar. - It doesn't have any consciousness does it? - It has a second claw! - Big bad craw mommy. - It's a whole family. - Oi, don't step on me, craw mommy! - I mean, do! - To this point, that Skipper Scampi runs down

Maybe this old crazy guy is right, that you guys are bad luck. What the fuck happened? I mean, well done, but what the fuck? Yeah, bad luck's probably a pretty good way to put it, yeah. No, we're not bad luck. You think we are? Maybe a little bit. Okay, I don't know. I don't feel... I mean, what are the chances that we'd string together a couple of random words and this would happen?

- Let's try it with other things. - It's pretty unlucky. - To be fair, I am full of magic. - I mean, Peggy invented magic and she invented a creeping crustacean. Who knows what else she can invent? I know the creeping crustacean. - Just don't say things and see if it comes true. - A lot of money. - Say pumpkin fritters. - Why? - Just say it. - Pumpkin fritters.

Say it louder. Pumpkin fritters! Oh, they're almost done! Oh my god, it's working! I shoot Nestle in the face. Oh, I hate it being a rebel. I don't want to be a political agent. Should we cook this claw while it's still fresh? Yeah, we can have a fryer. If I ever lose my arm, please don't cook it immediately. Why not? I mean, a claw's different than an arm.

Do you know how much money that thing is worth? No. How much? From a big bad crawdaddy? Yeah, no, still know. How much? Oh, is it a lot? Oh yeah, we can make... I can make a lot of money here. Well, hold on. I was the one what severed it from its body, so... That's true. Grumly kind of did all the work. Through the right of conquest, I think that clouds mine. Especially when we're in, you know, maritime salvage laws and whatnot. That's true. Yeah, that's exactly right.

If you want it, you're going to have to grease wrassle for it. Uh-oh. And you really don't want to do that. Not again, Ted. I'm a champ. He looks around. What the fuck is all this grease on my boat? It's duck grease. Duck are people. Peggy, hide your jaws, sorry. Hide your jaws of grease. To the boss.

Yeah. Yep. Yes, they did. Yeah. I fucking hate teenagers. Yes, they do. That's real life. That's exactly what happened. You can't trust them. Crazy. That's why we had to light them on fire and pitch them over the boat. Yeah, I'm glad you murdered them. Oh, man, I was feeling a little bad about it, but...

Okay, so, and you don't get a discount, by the way, for being attacked and almost killed by a gigantic crawfish. - That's fine, if we just take, we'll just take the claw then. - Yeah, to be fair, I was the one that summoned the creature in the first place. - That's true, it's really your claw. And Brumley, it's like a split ZZ. - Okay, okay, this thing is not going to stay fresh very long, okay.

We can come to an agreement. I'm a businessman. I'm a skipper of my own barge in the Riverfolk Company. That is quite a prestigious title. You know this? No. You don't know this? Well, look like I knew that. You know what I've had to do, Mouse?

Do you know the filthy things these hands have done? These little hotter hands? Oh my god. They look awfully filthy. They're also real cute. I play with rocks and I hold hands while I sleep. That's adorable. It's not cute when I

hold hands and then the other one has a knife. - I don't know, that sounds kind of cute. - I'll give you like two little clicks with the knife. - Can we just see it and make a decision? Maybe, you know. - Me and persuasion. - Yes. - Yes. - I think I gotta come and check.

I can't remember any of my skills on this guy. - Oh, 20. - 21. - Dirty 20. - I got a 20. - I got a dirty 20 as well. - I got a nine. - The DC was very high, but it doesn't fucking matter. He's like, "Fine." - Oh, no. - Oh, wow, look at that. - Yeah, that is pretty cute. - You guys sound like my mother. You happy now? - Yeah. - I bash people over the head with that rock.

So, what's the agreement if this is our club? If... You agree to just leave us alone? Well, if you find someone to sell it to, I am busy, my whole evening is planned. With stuff I have to do for the boss and the Don, I can't take time away from it. You find somebody to sell it to, we split the profit 50/50.

Very reasonable. - That's a mad deal. - I don't know. Again, I really kind of feel like we did a lot of the work. 90/10. 90 for us, of course. - On my launch. - But yeah, but we saved your life. If we hadn't been here to chop off that thing's arm-- - No, my fell is here. Good with the harpoon. - You see one is against the side of the ship. - - I don't know. This isn't a very good look for you, Scampi. I'm just saying, if we hadn't been here, things would have gone very, very south. 90/10. 90 for us.

This is a Riverfolk company excursion. It's a three hour and change tour. And we've rightfully paid our way? Well, I feel like when a gigantic river monster attacks a barge that's owned by the Don, any appendages or otherwise that are procured in that is rightfully the Don's property. 80/20 and I'm not going a penny lower. Have you seen the Don?

I feel like you wouldn't have a barge no more if Grumly didn't knock that claw off. That's what I'm saying. Maybe you should tell the Don that. To answer your question, no, I haven't seen the Don. You haven't met the Don? Can't say that I have. You've heard of him. But I bet you he'd be very happy to hear that we saved your boat. You've heard of him? You know, I could always call the creeping crustacean back with my magic and we won't interfere this time and maybe you can have two claws or no barge.

He narrows off a little bit. And you see as Orville's dad, "Aaah! Grieving! Bad luck! There's magic! Do not bring me noo-ah!" Is he an otter too? Yeah, he's an otter. No, he's just a random human being. It's just Mike on this card.

- Tips a hat off. - Surrounded by woodland critters. - I've already said he's an honor, missed opportunity. And then you see Scampi is just narrows his eyes and he says, "60/40, final offer." - Oh, come on, you're breaking my balls here. - Again with the breaking the balls. - 75/25.

Molder. I can't believe you would even offer him that. Even after that rock trick that I did. Man, we saved your life. That was pretty good. How about zero, zero? And I chuck that thing off the side of the bowl. Let's not be hasty. You just better watch out. I can go invisible. She can. Please don't ask her to. You can go invisible?

I start to take my clothes off. We really are going to find out why they call her Peggy. That could mean so many things. That's a very good point, Bitsy. It could mean at least three or four things. 3070, and you are going to do me a favor when we get back to Muck Bed Creek. What's the favor?

I won't know what the favour is until I talk to the Don. Well, I don't know if we can take that deal. What's the worst it could be? What sorts of favours does the Don usually ask for? Why is he asking for anything? We're bargaining with you. Well, it's just sweet. It's the pot. 30%? This is the Riverfolk Company. This is Riverfolk Company Propriety. This is the Riverfolk Company Voyage. That's Riverfolk Company Grog. How much have you earned?

We haven't had any. That's all Orville. Yeah, it was all Orville. We didn't even take a single sip. Well, I don't even ration this stuff. I'll give you, we'll give you 5% and no, no, uh, deals. No, uh, what's the word he said? Favors. No favors. All, and that's 5% to you, personally, you, Mr. Skippy Scamper.

Or we'll just go over your head and you won't get a scrap. What say you to that? I really don't understand what you just said. It means if you just leave us alone or we're going to the Don and we're going to tell him that you tried to skim off the top. And you'll be very confused. You're trying to persuade me to skim off the top. Yeah, I know. I would never do that. I think he wants the money for the company. I mean, I'm sure the Don gets most of it. I think 730 is pretty generous. What kind of a dummy does

You know what? You can just have it for free. You know what? I'm going to unleash absolute chaos on this situation. Hazel? Yeah? That's food. That crab claw right there? You see that juicy, sweet succulent? That is food gold. I don't like them. Have you ever had crawdad before? I usually eat crab. Yeah, don't tell her it's a delicacy or anything. It is a delicacy. It is only like the highest elite get to taste something like that.

It is the most succulent, delicious thing you'll ever have in your entire life. You're gonna regret this day. Hold on, hold on. Just a little bit of the duck. Booker, I feel like you have the ability to stop this in some way. You just try a little bit, Hazel, and let's see what happens. Just try it. It's pretty good. He wants to take that from you. He wants to give that to someone else. I don't think you understand the situation, but...

Now you get nothing. Okay, let's not be hasty. 80-20. I didn't want to have to do this. 80-20 is fair! 80-20 is fair! Fair for who? Do you think you could hazel? I'll give you 20% of my foot in your ass! That's a lot of shit. Why is your name not Peggy? Holy shit.

Peggy's her middle name. I don't really understand that. He's a peg of Peggy's nut. Buzz, we can't give him anything, okay? Nothing. He doesn't deserve it. He's a piece of stupid mind. 80-20 sounds very reasonable. Thank you. Let's shake on it. If I shake on it, am I going to have to worry about speed here? That sounds great. It's better than the deal you just offered us. Right, Booker? That's right. You're very good at math.

Okay, someone who speaks sense. Yeah, good, like a loyal dog here. Otter's best friend, they say. It's, wait, 80% is pretty good. That's like almost all of it. Do we still owe you the favor? Nope, when you shook on it, there was nothing about a favor in there. Yeah, no, that's right. Fuck. All right, let's pick this thing up and get it on shore. Come on, we got to get going. It won't stay very good for long. We got to find a buyer. Come on.

You're gonna regret this! My cheeks are like, my eyes are like... You're welcome to stay at Wardwalla if you want.

I feel a little funny. Actually. Oh, no, are you allergic? I should have mentioned that it's a really common allergy. Oh, God, look at your eyes. Wait, is that because it's a chipmunk? No, no, I don't think pus comes out of your eyeballs naturally. Oh, God. Let's get in the water. What's happening? Oh, God. Oh, God, can you open your mouth? My balls. Oh, my God.

- I guess your wife's bed. - Are we there yet? - I think I need a dip. - Or have you still got time? - Just a long dip. - Well, let's hope the throat isn't closed up.

We have a doctor on board, he's gonna do a trach. Jesus. You sure? We better be quick. Don't worry, I've got a paper straw. Hazel looks like Magic Blue from Dragon Ball Z.

There is a deal that is made, you agree to find a buyer to make the sale, and the sun is slowly dropping behind the treeline of the Dimwood as you hear the hustle and bustle, you see more and more ships

pass you and go up and down the river as you see the massive lake that's Wartwall, both Wartwallow and Muckbed Creek sit on. Far across this lake is Muckbed Creek, so far that you can't really even see it past the horizon. But...

But you make your way and you hear the hustle and bustle as you hear the buzzing of flies and dragonflies and the sound of croaking of frogs and people and toads. You see that the treetops built up into the swampy trees are filled with...

with whippoorwills and ducks and herons and egrets as you make-- - What's she doing here? This isn't Game of Thrones. - Oh, I get it. And finally, an arrow flies out of nowhere. - Oh. Just one moment. Wait, actually. - Hold on. I wanna see what's going. - Okay. - Okay, how much damage would it have done?

- Let me roll. - I say, I didn't really think that far. - No, it would have done six points of damage. - Okay, I reduced the damage by 16 and if I reduce it to zero or less and I have a free hand, I can spend one key point, which I still have, to immediately turn around and just the Northman style, the same direction that it came from, I immediately whip it back out into the air.

Oh, as you are pulling into the larger town, an arrow whizzes towards you and you instinctively grab it and it's leaning back. And you see on the side of the river, a snickering one with a bow and not hanging from their tails upside down. Cartoonishly covered in soot.

You see the two possums, Jeremy and Jimothy. How much damage does it do when you throw it back? Six. Is it just what was coming in? It is Jimothy, the one with the bow. He would let loose the arrow, and you hear a...

as he just drops from the tree. - I hit and he takes 11 points of damage in return. - He drops into the very dense underbrush of reeds and Jeremy looks, he says, "You're gonna pay!" And he scampers down into the underbrush. - Timothy, if you had a wrestler name, it would be Weak Baby! Weak Baby.

Remember the time we almost killed him in one hit? I remember. Why won't you die? You suck and you smell like grease! In my headcanon, I did. It's just that DMT, it's a thing that's important for narrative reasons.

according to the rules of the game, but they actually have a possum racial feature. There you go. They're nearly immortal. Fade deaf. Fade deaf. I love that Chat's immediate response is to murder them. As Jimothy is punctured by an arrow and they just collapse into the reeds and you hear taunts and skittering.

I can't believe that. I've got some nerves. He tried to kill me with an arrow, so I tried to kill him with an arrow. I think that is tip for tat. Seems fair, you know. Yeah. No notes. That's great. What's tip for tat? That was incredible. Oh, thank you. Can you do that with all projectile weapons? Really, any projectile weapon that I can carry. I mean, if it was like a big boulder and it was flying through the air because it was shot out from like a catapult or a trebuchet, I wouldn't be able to do that, no.

Maybe petty. You don't know what tit-bat-tat is, but you know how to pronounce trebuchet? And I can't say spaghetti. It's very inconsistent. I can't say spaghetti. I can't say spaghetti. Oh, gee, trips me up every time. You think the weasels have a trebuchet? I don't know. I don't know.

Who are the weasels? The rival family of the otters. Do you think those opossums are part of the weasel family? Maybe I'll have Jimbo make a visit to the dorm, get some answers around here. Well, fuck, you didn't like Jimbo. That's what I mean. Oh, God.

Those little scamps are related to Jimbo and they're working for the weasels. No, I don't like it. Smells like a conspiracy. Well, we'll put you on personal guard detail, Don. Anyways, we're here. I think we've got a job. I got shit I gotta do. I don't need a job. I'm gonna start a business. Where should we sell this giant crawfish claw? That's what you were getting the money for. I don't have time to figure that out. I'm sure we can find a place, you know.

I don't have time to think about this. Okay, you know, Orville, you stay and watch the barge. Thank you. Thank you for patronizing the Riverfolk Company Barge Services. Tell all your friends it was the greatest ship you ever had or else. I almost died several times. All of the passengers are just walking off very slowly. You spend thousands of dollars for that.

I think I would have been safer back at Qlik-Log Crossing. Probably. Thanks for the grog, Orville. I'll see you next time. Also, don't you hate it when the Inflagged Inbarge movie is just long enough that you only get to the last ten minutes and then you have to depart? You get all that momentum, you're never gonna get it back. That's really rough. What a tease.

Do you really pick movies that are going to end after you land? Well, it was Fellowship of the Ring. Why would I pick that movie?

- He asks Orville. - It's like a, that's like at least a 12 hour movie if someone keeps pausing and asking questions. No fucking talk. - Luckily he can't do that in a box. - There's really no reason to call Orville out for that, all right? He's got a lot of grog. - Orville, you see that there's like a little puppet theater and Orville has like a winged demon with a whip, hand puppet and like a wizard in a gray hat.

- Oh, God. - I thought we had more time. - Oh, this is my favorite part. He's gonna say, "You shall not pass." And then he's gonna jump in the pit. - Now you have to get out. - Kill the thing by himself so he gets all the experience. - Oh, wait, pause it. Is that Gandalf? - Yeah, and he's gonna, so he's gonna get all the experience because the rest of the party leave.

- And then the next time they see him, he's a level 20 wizard. - Oh, he's gonna fall off that thing. - No, but he doesn't really. He doesn't really. He's gonna kill it on his own and get all the experience. So he becomes a level 20 wizard and the rest of them are just walking across the land for a while. - Even so, they think he died. I mean, don't you just feel terrible for Dildo?

Well, technically he did die. Well, he sort of died. His mortal coil died. Dildo's dead? No, not Dildo. I am the serving of the sacred fire, wielder of the flame of Arnor. May you remember me.

You cannot rise! Or the dark fire will not avail you, flame of Udun. Can we make that Patreon content where you just drunkenly reenact with sock puppets the entire fellowship? For like four hours.

It's gonna take a while. I get to get off the barge. We gotta make all the sock boats. But all of them were deceived. Guys, we gotta get this crab claw off. We're all gonna live together here, come on. I don't really think I should touch it. Can I carry it on my own? No, you'll need help. You're very strong, but you can't get help. I'll toss some rope and help drag it.

I'll hit the front of it, the pincery part of the claw. If I stand on your feet, I can do this and hold the bottom of the claw as you're like hugging it against your chest. Okay. Very helpful. Should I tie your legs to my legs? I'm just gonna stand on your feet and then I'll lift up like this and I'll support the weight. Physics of all this makes no sense. And you can balance on my feet?

Yeah! I'll just step forward when you step forward and we'll be in lockstep like this and I'll help carry it. This is gonna work perfectly. That's fine. This is how physics works. We pick up the claw. Are there any, like, do we see any little, like, eateries or, like, restaurants or marketplaces? Um...

- I would say that you're able to go out into the town that is a very large and sprawling town in a very strong contrast to the hills and the apiaries of Clip Clock Crossing. This is very swampy and wet and there's lots of insects floating about. - Really? - You are in Wartwallow. - I love that. - Wartwallow. - Wartwallow. It's very swampy here. - I'll show the map. - Yeah, there you go. - I forgot the name. - Oh, you made it, yeah. - This is our little wreck?

- He did it. - As you are disembarking, you see, you hear the heavy footsteps of armored boots on the dock.

as you see a cat and you see a mouse in armor wearing Marquis Ott tabards and they approach and you see that Skipper Scampi says, "Come here, fellas. "Okay, okay, here's your bribe, here's your bribe. "Give the bribe to this, okay, there we go, okay." - A bribe for you, a bribe for you. - A bribe for you, a bribe for me. - A bribe for you, two bribes for me. - And the...

Marquis Zot's soldiers pay you no mind. They just completely turn their heads from all the goods being unloaded by the dock workers and unloaded the five vagabonds with a gigantic crawfish claw.

- Right. - And you know, and Peggy being from here also knows that there's a handful of restaurants in the area. There's the Windy Willow, there's the Grub and Go, there's the Old Stump Inn, there's Just Ann's, and there is a Quag Donald's. - Of course, of course there is. - Yeah. - Should've known.

So Peggy, what kind of, is there like, what's the fanciest restaurant in the clearing? Well, my favorite place to go is a place called Ampersand Pizza, but they closed down a few years ago. Oh, that's sad. I'm sorry. Yeah, it's horrible. The pizza's was shaped kind of weird though, so. Yeah.

Fuck 'em, I say. - Fucking horse shit for a family. - I mean, why not just make it circular like all the other pizzas? Why is it gotta be like all blondes? - I thought you said you liked it. - Yeah, it tasted good, but it looked like shit. - They said that you could put whatever toppings you wanted on, but they never did it the way you wanted it. - No, never do.

Well, is there any place that people might be willing to eat this horrible meat stick that makes your eyes swell shut? Is there like a really fancy upscale bistro that sells, you know, escargot? Yeah, that would be the place. For sure. I mean, snails. People eat snails? There's additional options as well, depending on what you make up.

I'll have to think on it for a while, but I'm thinking that, you know, Joe's Crab Shack is probably going to be our best bet. Oh man, that doesn't sound very upscale. I mean, I don't know what to tell you. Some dude named Joe put a shack on the end of the water and fills it full of crabs. Well, if it's the best that we can do, I guess. Is it overpriced at least?

Now, if you want overpriced, you gotta go to Hot and Juicy. All right, well, let's do that. Now, they closed down a few years ago. Gosh, they never had seating. Every time you'd show up, they'd be like, sorry, we don't have any seating. This is why I hate you mooks do this job. Yeah. Goodbye. That's unfortunate. See you. We shove off tomorrow morning. Maybe we could ask your friend, the mayor. We could go to Red Lobster.

No, sorry, they closed down a few years back. Yeah, COVID hit them real hard. It's actually COVID, COVID-19. Thank you very much. Yeah. The clientele was the elderly type. Oh, God. Just taking a turn. Well, in Pottsville, we have illegal seafood. Do you think they have one of them?

illegal seafood illegal seafood yeah that sounds great we just need black malcolm no i don't think i've ever heard of that place before oh yeah there's a place called coastal fats was run by this cool cat named fats that closed down

It's pretty like turnover in restaurants in this clearing. Well, there was this owl place that served lots of different food. They probably would know how to cook up seafood. They were called oomers. Yeah, we don't have that here. You know, I'm kind of surprised the contrast of this clearing compared to ClickLock, where it was like pies, taverns, bread, bread shop.

All of a sudden there's all these fancy restaurants with fancy names. Let's just head into town and see what we can do. Oh, I know where we can go. They established a central bank. We can go to Five Guys. Five Guys Burgers and Crab Claws.

I know that it's not, it's not whatever these things are, but if they take crab claws, they probably take crawdaddies. Oh, well, you know, I really don't give a damn. And the coolest part about it is they serve peanuts. What's that? Well, we don't know what a peanut is.

- What is it? - It's like a weird salty shell and you crack it open and you have to do it with your teeth and most of the time, like, parts of the shell cracks open and gets in your mouth and you're trying to spit those out while also eating the nut. It's a little bit hairy and it's kind of dusty sometimes too, but it covered in salt. And so then you try and eat the nuts within, but sometimes you eat some of the shell too and it's really messy and you throw them in a cup. - With a clientele like this, I figured the name would have been Five Guys Burgers and Flies.

It seems like a missed opportunity. No, I'm pretty sure that it's called Five Guys Burgers and Crab Claws. It just doesn't really hold off the tongue. I mean, you can take it up with the five guys that run it. All right, let's go to Joe's Crab. Oh, we could go to Long John Silver's. They have great... Oh, shit, they closed down like three or four years ago.

I'm so glad we didn't open our restaurant here. Everything closes down. You know what? Why don't we go to the mayor? Under Mayor Bogoff, the taxes were just crazy. Yeah. Why don't we just take it to the mayor? I'm sure he'll pay us a handsome reward for his private dinner. Yeah. Maybe like a nice party he's throwing. No. Let's just try it. Which way to the mayor's house?

It's that big house over there with the big sign that says Mayor's House. Oh. Let's go. We're getting on the nose. We go over there. It's starting to smell a little. I think we need to get it out of the sun. Would anyone like to buy a crustacean claw? Slowly decaying crustacean claw. Look at the size of it. It's really big. Buy one, get one.

The one you bought! You make your way through the town and... Buy one, get one. That's exactly right. Let me know if we pass the five guys. You do not pass the five guys. Oh shit, look, that's where it used to be! Yeah, it's old shard, you see the gun over there. Oh, it's a JSW!

I wanted to try peanuts. We'll find you a peanut. They're pretty common. Yeah? Yeah, especially like down, you know, in the further south clearings. Well, all right. We'll find you one. You're going to love it. Peanuts! Peanuts with a prize inside! Oh, God. No, don't call for that. Peanuts with a prize inside! No, no, last time somebody offered me that was horrible.

- Don't do it. - I run out from underneath the leg. - Don't be a nut, buy this nut! - I run out from underneath the leg so you're on your own holding the crawfish. - I don't notice anything. - No, no, in fact, the weight gets less because of the way that I was standing on your feet. - As you see there's a squirrel with a very big bushy tail, he's wearing a red friend.

He's got a bushy beard type thing. How much for peanuts? Peanuts with a prize inside. It depends on the level of peanut prize you want. Well, what are the options? Peanut prize is always a surprise. Do I want a prize or do I want just peanuts? What's your name? My name? Yeah. Pete!

All right, Pete, I'm Peggy. Pete Nut. Oh my God. I think we might be related. Are we related? I'm Hazel Nut. Hazel Nut? Oh my God. Oh my God. Hazel. Hazel. Hazel.

I know Coconut. Wally. We didn't know Wally. No, yeah, Wally. Coconut. Yeah, Coconut is a distant cousin of mine. Oh, my God. Is Grandma Nut still alive? She is, believe it or not. She's still kicking around. Nothing can ever kill Grandma Nut. Sure not.

And things have tried. I can't believe I've never seen you at the family reunion. You still go to those? I've been traveling around with my friends here. And then there was that weird uncle that no one wanted to talk about. His name was Deez. Diss. Diss nut. Diss and Deez, the twins, they were...

We don't talk about disindeed, I am. Holy shit! Last I heard, they were working the mines in Reckonoyner Ridge. Good riddance to them, that's what I say, and that's what Grandma Nut said, and I generally trust her. I know, she's like, "I can't believe that old Grandma Nut is still alive." She just won't die!

That's what we always said about her. It's remarkable. So my friend Bitsy has never had, if you'll believe it, she's never had a peanut. I just want to try it. That's incredible. When you come, there's peanuts with a prize inside. You got a little nut? What? Three tiers, you can get better prizes. Three tiers of nuts? Three tiers of nuts!

I think we at least want, like, you know, a double nut. A double nut's a special. That's not one of the tiers. If you could give both of us, I think, a middle nut, I think that would be just right. Yeah, just a little nut would be fine. We got a little nut. I ate on the bone, so. We got the big nut. We got the real big nut. Oh!

I've definitely not bought the room for the real big nut today. I thought Dizzy said the middle nut. Why don't I take a little nut and if I like it, then I'll get the jumbo nut after that. That's a great idea. Let's do two little nuts. I like it. It'd be conservative. This is like a Who's On First guess. What the fuck? Just the one little nut. I'm not doing it.

Well, you have a chance to win a fabulous prize inside. Now you want two little nuts? I'll pay for both of them. That'll be one gold piece each for the little nuts. Two nuts, I'll pay for two nuts. Little nuts. And even though it's a little nut, it's actually a large peanut, like about yay big. Oh, okay. That's amazing.

I'm really excited. Two gold pieces. Thank you very much. Thanks, Pete. Stamped by the Marquise herself. Good, honest Marquise-ite gold. All right. Are you ready? No counterfeiting here. I don't know why you would say that. I don't think we're doing. Oh. Just go ahead and put that little nut in your mouth. Well, not the whole thing. No, no, no. Take your little teeth first and like gnaw into it a bit.

Yeah, you'll break through. I find that it's a lot easier if you put the whole nut in your mouth and you just bite right down in the middle. What do you know? You're a frog. She's a nut expert. You can tell me how to eat a nut. I'll tell you how to eat a nut. If you go like that on a peanut, you're going to get all of the hair. The nut hair is going to be all over your teeth. Oh, sweet Lord. Look, we know Hazel. That's the thing.

There's nothing but suck on nuts. I don't, why are you questioning me? Literally all day, every day since the day that we met her. There is nothing I hate more than getting a nut hair stuck between my teeth. Look, nobody likes it, but it's just part of

part of the business of eating nuts and if you just put the entire nut in your mouth and just bite down on the middle you don't have to do it halfway down your throat before you even know what's in here it's never coming up i would rather than not hair down my throat than stuck between my teeth i don't know i imagine choking on nut has a lot worse than having to pick it out from your molars why don't you get two little nuts and you try it both ways and you tell me which one

I'll try it both ways and we'll see what's best. Ah, there you go. Here's another small nut.

Just follow my lead. I can't, I can't nut in both hands. You just cut it all like a little opening, like through the, through that. Yeah. Look at all the nut hairs that she's getting between her teeth. I know, but if you don't put it all in the back, it stays together. And so then, yeah, I know it's a little bit, okay, okay. Now just take your claw and open it up and it's going to like peel open. Yeah, and just crack it open and then look at this. Do we get a prize? Oh,

Ah, you both won prizes! What are the chances? Nut with the prize inside. So you open it up and the shell, there are these two large of the legumes inside of this shell. You didn't want to say nuts. There's a lot of nut going on. There's two nuts. There are actual. And in the center, there's actually like nestled between, there's like a flimsy piece of cardboard that's like painted with like, there's a,

It's like a frog with like some sort of cricket bat kind of looking thing. And then the other one is a very flimsy like ring that isn't really meat in the end. It's like made out of a very flimsy like reed. Wow! Fabulous prizes! None with the prize inside. That's pretty cool! Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Wait a minute. How did you get the prize in the nut? That's the secret! Pete's nuts! My eyes narrow at him very, very, really beady-eyed.

Don't question the magic. This is amazing. That's a very famous bog ball player. I'm gonna... I don't have that one. I've been collecting for years. You want this one? I'll trade you the ring. That's very rare. Very rare card. It looks really nice on you. Now try the other nut.

You like them. Ooh. Yeah, and if you like just keep chewing for a really long time, it's gonna swallow and it gets this like creamy, like nut butter. That's tasty. Kind of texture. Just the whole thing? You put the whole thing in, you bite down on the middle, and then you pull it out and open it. See? Significantly less nut hair in your teeth. Ah, no prize inside. Better luck next time. That's okay. This is really delicious. Thank you.

You're welcome. So peanuts is pretty good, huh? Peanuts, nuts, peanuts? Can we... You're right. Can we keep moving on? My arm's beginning to hurt.

I feel scratchy. Ah, well, uh... It's probably just the nut hair. Oh, you don't... Nuts with a prize inside! Oh, I'm not liable for any animal allergies! Have you seen the car that rattles off? Nuts with a prize inside! Beets nuts! I can't beat so good. Oh, no. Did I eat some of the crawfish? What's going on? You must have had a bit on your hands. Epi pens don't exist in this world. You're in trouble, Derek.

Come to Zing the Disadvantage. Disadvantage. Disadvantage? Yeah. Oh, wait. I'm a halfling. You are. I can't believe I finally fucking remembered that in this damn campaign. Deez nuts, baby. Classic pen.

You can feel your throat start to close up as your eyes start to water as your untested, very serious peanut allergy affects you. I'm going to be honest. I don't think we have any other way to solve this. I think Betsy's just going to die here. We should really get him to the mayor's house. He might have a doctor on call.

Alright, let's go! And I start pulling the claw towards the big mayor's house. Come on, Beep Beep. And I'll just grab her hand and lead her along.

- Yeah, I'm just sort of like walking as if I'm wearing a suit or something like that. I'm all achy and muscly. - As you come harder and harder to breathe, as you approach this very large manor house. - Bitsy, do I have permission to enter you? - Oh.

You're the god of the universe, you can do whatever you want. - I'm gonna stick my frog tongue into Mitzi's throat and try and pry her throat open so she can breathe. - This is a magic trick, she's just doing this. - It's not really doing anything but I am doing it. - I think it's May-tam. - That's exactly right. - You are joking and gagging on a frog tongue. You can read a little bit better actually, shocking way. Make a medicine check actually and see how well it works. - I almost rolled a chicken nugget.

You gotta pick the right-- I have a stegosaurus! Fuck! He's like, "Is that a medicine?" What is it? It's like a boob? Six. Six. It is not-- Perfect. Perfect. As you approach, there's several Marquisat guards.

And as you approach and they say, Halt! What is your purpose here? This is the mayor's private residence. Yeah, we know. That's why we're here. No, no, Peggy, kill him.

Your sister lives here. This is the mayor's sister's... No, the mayor's wife's sister. There was a shocking murder in Clock Crossing. Viceroy Brutilda is dead. We are on high alert. Oh, that's terrible. All the governors, mayors, viceroys, all nobles and governors and government officials of the Marquis Art are under protection. Pitsy attempts to say, yeah, we know, we were there, we witnessed the whole thing, but it comes out as...

Oh no, Dixie. Very upsetting news. Very upsetting. This young frog who's quite tied up at the moment with a tongue in this mouse. Surely there must be some kind of exception for family. She's family, that's right. Family, the mayor. Flies of Hamilton. This is Peggy. Don't you know? Peggy Flyler. I love him.

He looks and you see that he's a middle aged mouse in Marquis Zot collars, the bright orange tavern, very well maintained. He looks and says,

And he looks at the tongue, shoved down Bitsy's throat. It's not what it looks like. It's a medical emergency. Yeah, exactly right. I point to the ring. That conveys what I think is all the information that's needed. Mayor Hamilton is a very progressive mayor. You are, if there's proof that you are who you say you are, then I can let you in.

Peggy, do you have proof that your sister's your sister? That seems silly. Just have them come out and say, oh, hey. Hey, Peggy. It's good to see you. Make a persuasion check in advantage. What do we have to prove that?

Do you have any kind of identification? I'll throw frogs! I'll throw frogs and I'll try to get in here, okay? That's fair, I guess. Anything? Do I have any identification? Sure. I would say you could probably have like a flyler. Like a letter from your sister, maybe. Oh, yeah. No, she hates a sister. A family seal. A signet ring. A signet ring. An old signet ring. Yeah, I've shown the ring on my finger. See?

Yeah, it convinces me. Oh, great! Listen, you've done so well. It is an emergency. We are really needing to get some medical attention. And this claw's really starting to stink. LAUGHTER

- What are we supposed to do with that? - Well, we were hoping you'd buy it off of us. - Yeah, you bought it in the end. - It's apparently a delicacy. - No, not you, the man. - Well, not you, the general, the royal you. - The monkeys aren't you. - For the masquerade ball tonight? - Exactly right. - That's exactly right, it's a delicacy, but we gotta move.

It's really hot out here. I don't think refrigeration has been invented yet. It's a muggy, muggy summer day in Louisiana right now, so we gotta get this thing on ice. This thing's starting to sweat. Is that a... Say it aloud, just let us in.

Is that the magical crawdad? That's exactly right. Well, hopefully those two phrases... Can I have a little taste? I'm counting steps back to the river. Can I get a little taste? No. No! Well, maybe for 500 gold pieces. Honors always bribe me. He opens the door. And you are welcomed into a very colonial-style manor home. If you've been to...

Williamsburg? Well, I was thinking Monticello or-- I haven't been to Monticello. But Williamsburg, you know, anything like that. I love Williamsburg. Yeah, it's wonderful. Everything's cool there. Very colonial-style manor home with a large staircase going up to a second level. There are servants running around. And you are ushered in, there are guards also in Marquis-aute garb that welcome you in. Is there a doctor that maybe could see to our friend here?

Are you guys in the garden? Yeah. Oh. No, I'm just stuck under the wall. If we're inside, is there like a butler or like a servant? Oh, yeah. Whatever. Help! Help!

- Now it's an emergency, we need a doctor! - And this crab claw's starting to stink. - And a chef! - You see a toad, a very short toad with, in a butler outfit, and he says, "Hello!" And you would have recognized this as the mayor's former aide, Toady. - Toady! - Pretty apt.

Welcome to the Hamiltote residence! Thank you! Have you presented crab claws? Well, we've presented this one, but more importantly our friend is dying. Yeah, the crab claw's kind of a first for us. And if you have an icebox, you should really get this in there. Or at least in the cellar.

Is this for the masquerade? Are you the help? This is a delivery, a food delivery for the masquerade. Should I? More like food providers for money. And it's COD, so... Yep, that's exactly right. Cold, baby.

Cash on delivery for kids who probably don't know what that means because I'm old and COD's not really a thing anymore. Well, I will, I must, I'll find you a doctor and you take that to the kitchen right away. The party is only in two hours. Oh. All right. That's right. Okay.

Booker, you and I will take the crab claws. You make sure she doesn't die. And who's going to give us the payment for the claw? Yeah, he's in charge of that. I'll take my tongue out of her mouth. I pass out and fall on Laura. Oh, gosh. Take her to Dr. Frankel's right away. Dr. Frankel's. Frankelstein.

- And you see that there's a mouse and a fox come in and cart Bitsy away as you lose consciousness. - Oh gosh, I'm gonna go with Bitsy. - So is my sister here? - Oh, Lady Fleysa. - Yeah. - Yes, she's getting ready for the grand masquerade ball. - All right, what room are we gonna be in this time?

Me and my friends. Can you pay us in the room? Well, I'll just speak to the mayor about a payment. He's the one who's been ordering the food, especially for this wonderful political engagement.

All right, where is he? It surely will not be an opportunity given all of the rebellion activity. That's why it was very heavily guarded. Only, there's nothing, this is an eye impenetrable. Only a bear could break through our defenses. Why would you mention a bear? And that is where we'll end the session. Why would you?

Why would you even mention a bear? That's absurd. That's the most absurd thing I've ever heard in my life. Oh, no, the head of security was very certain about it. Even no matter what the rebels have, even if they had a trebuchet. Trebuchet.

- Trebuchet that they could not break through our defenses, that all of the visiting nobles and politicals after fleeing, especially many of them after fleeing Tlacloa Crossing, could join this masquerade ball to achieve, to spread the mayor's new ideals, to enact some real legislation in the Marquisate.

And so, but he said, "The only thing, the only, "his words exactly, there is nothing "that can cause the danger of breakthrough on defenses "except for a bear, and how would we

How would the Woodland Alliance have a pair? That is ridiculous. Exactly right. So tonight's a masquerade. I'd like to go as Ed Sheeran, please. So could I have that mask delivered to my room? No Ed Sheeran, the famous sheep? No, he's a human singer. It's a masquerade, right? We're supposed to dress up like humans?

A what? An ascarade? No, no, no, the other one. Humans? What? Oh, I must not have created them yet. Is it day four or seven? Oh, shit. It's not day seven yet. Dr. Frankles will be here with your medication shortly. Hopefully not too shortly. I mean, look at Bitsy. She's got one foot in the grave. Oh, I forgot!

Somebody turn around and resign. Joking out of time! And with that, you're carted off, and you are-- the two of you are guided to a large kitchen area, where you have literally just, two days prior,

done cooking and you're back here again as you the kitchen is a lot more organized very very well executed and you're able to drop it off and the staff take it very appreciative and very surprised to have a claw of a creeping crustacean that's it's such a delicacy that there's even a black market for such types of food and

and they're very appreciative and they presume that you've already been paid. - What? I'm sure we'll get paid later. - We better, we gotta split 80/20 with the others. - Talk to me Hamilton about it. - All right. - And you see Toadie walk up the stairs and

It takes about 15 minutes, and then you hear a huffing as you see in a very brightly colored dress your sister.

What color is your dress, Mike? I wish you would tell me right now. Can you describe what I see in her personality a little bit for me? Yeah, she's absolutely beautiful and she's wearing the classic English gown. Okay. And it is like a mintish green color, which is a beautiful contrast to Angelic Probe, who's probably somewhere in the house, in her beautiful red English gown. And I'm sure somewhere will be my nice yellow English gown. Mm-hmm.

- Not to be confused with a sackback dress, which would have been the height of French fashion. But this is... - Mike would never make that mistake. - This is War Wall of Fashion. - As you hear the banjos play from the...

scratchy dick scratch jack just down the row scratchy dicks scratchy dicks I had to change the name recently Jesus scratchy dick scratch jack isn't that scratchy dick there is

There is a rice cup. There's something called that. It's a meme. It's a meme, yeah. Oh, no, there's literally a place in Rehoboth called... It's called like itchy... I'm just looking up. I'd like to order the burger. Say it. It's on the highway. I mean, the burger, that one. Say it. I want the big sloppy daddy burger.

As you see-- We need to take a minute and brainstorm what kind of animal owns Scratchy Place. You think about that as your consciousness fades from you. Yeah, nice. As you see your sister

appear over the railing. - There's crabby dicks. - Crabby dicks. As she looks at you and glares and says, "You've a lot of nerve coming here." And that's one session. - Oh! - Okay. - Find out next week if Bitsy dies. - Oh, he does. - I see a bright light hanging his face and eclipses the light and emerges and welcomes me with a great warm arm.

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