Vagabond's Heart: A Dimwood Tale | Ep. 4 | Taxation and Theft
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This is Mikey Gilder, and you're listening to Vagabond's Heart, a Dimwood tale. Here's what happened last time.

What a tragic thing for Mr. Smiles to be murdered by vagabonds. We got ourselves in quite the predicament here, ladies and gentlemen. I don't think we smash our way out of here. What are you going to do with me? I'm not going to kill you. I need you to write a confession note right now and you sign it with your phone name. Of course, we're taking everybody to the pearl. Well done, vagabonds. Godspeed. Thank you, Alabaster. A large clearing appears for you, Wartwall.

in town and built onto the river. Mr. Alabaster said that maybe we'd find the mayor or something. Well, I received the letter that there'd be vagabonds bringing justice to for Mr. Smiles. May he rest in peace. We had a shipment of taxes that went missing and so we have to just pay up somehow and the townsfolk and especially me, I am bending over backwards to make sure that we are delivering what's owed.

I have the horrible, monstrous, fluttering dragonfly out on the marsh. Of course, monstrous dragonfly. Well, that's certainly a tale that is believable and is a thing that exists. They made off with all of our tags. You see the mouse woman. She's wearing a bonnet and she's crying and she's holding her cheek as she goes back, a dejected hang her head. I wish all this then. Amen.

I've been sent to collect the taxes that failed to make their way where they should. If we could, you know, somehow

We claim the missing taxes. You wouldn't need to take these extra taxes. Is that correct? That is correct. And we have your what? We'll get those taxes in you. Please stop what you're doing. Have you ever seen a dragonfly? Suddenly you hear a loud bell. Clang, clang, clang. Get to your homes, dragonfly!

You are all, wherever you would like to be on this evening, or wherever you were as the dragonfly had just soared over, buzzing, the buzzing of this creature seemingly shaking the entire town. As you saw the massive eyes, the slavering, not proboscis, what am I? Mandibles. Mandibles of this creature, the razor-sharp appendages of

of this massive insect fly over north in the direction of where Rhodey, the small henchman, had told you the taxes had gone missing. Sorry, go ahead. You left the refrigerator open. Oh yeah, I'm putting this back. Jesus. I'll shake my head at the window of the place that we're staying at after seeing this thing walk over, walk back to the bar, slam the remaining amount of my drink, put the glass down and say, yeah, one more, one more.

We gotta go right now! And I start getting my arm around her. I start... I guess, is it gone? It's gone. I will still put my arm around her. Are you in the room? I'm, like, down at the bar. Oh, you're at the bar. Yeah. I'm by myself. It just flew north. Peggy, you can be wherever you'd like to be. I'm in my workshop if you're in wherever we're at. Yeah, no, you're in Warp Wallow. So, yeah, Peggy peaced out to her workshop before you all settled in for the evening. And... We know the way there.

We've been there a couple of times. We've been there...

According to Mike, a while ago. So it was enough for me to fulfill my wanderlust or whatever. But you know where it is. You guys know where it is. You've been traveling with Peggy. Can I swim? I thought it was secluded, right? Is there a ferry? I take a little lily pad that I got here. You can get there. You just have to figure out how to do it. It's on a lily pad in the middle of the lake. It's not easy to get to. So you know that you have gotten ferries in and out

And obviously Peggy doesn't need that because she can swim very well. But so Peggy, you're working away at the workshop on whatever you're crafting. Oh, I am. And so you've also heard the horrible buzzing and maybe you were too busy to even look up. Oh yeah, I didn't hear it. I was running my little, I've created my very own rotary sander and I'm sanding down the tips of these feathers. I like where this is going.

Not the Booker Nose. Booker's dream. So you're in the room? So yeah, once I get my armor on, I'm gonna stomp downstairs and pass the bar. Are you still out? Yeah, I'm sitting on this fountain going, "Oh, that seems bad." So everyone that you had been waiting for the Hustle & Bustle to die down, but rather than making it easier to steal, it seems that this has put a lot of the denizens on edge.

and everyone's fled to their homes. What do you do? What's around me in the square?

You are sitting on this huge fountain of the goofy statue of Mayor Boghop. And there's a number of carts and some vegetable carts that would have been boarded up or some shops. And it's a well off town center. You know that it kind of gets to lower class areas the further away from this town square that you get.

And do I see, ooh, it's a dragonfly. Do I see it? It's like buzzed past. Has it come back yet? Or do I see it somewhere else? Oh, no. It just flew over the city or flew over the town, the clearing, and just kept going north. And everybody's like fled to their homes. And everyone has fled to their homes. And as the quiet returns to the town, you kind of hear, you see, you hear shutters opening and windows sliding open as the creatures holding candles and lanterns are looking cowering.

I'm gonna climb onto the fountain and see if I can pry some of the like gold filigree off of the fountain. You said it was like really like elaborately like... Yeah, yeah. You can't eat that! I'm just gonna pry, yeah but I really hate him. So I'm just gonna try to like pry a chunk off before people start coming back outside. Okay, attempt some roguish feats. We'll see how you do.

Where did I put my good dice? I tested all of them over the session. As you do. Oh, what are they, finesse? Is it finesse? Yes. Sorry. I can't remember what it is. Roll with the mess. Okay. So that is a ten. Ten. Okay. So you pick...

So you need to leave evidence of my roguery behind. What is it? So you're gonna leave some evidence. Yeah. So where, you see this large statue, and, uh, uh, forward-facing, he's holding up both of his hands, and there's actually some large, gaudy rings almost, uh, built onto this thing. Uh, but there's also, he, uh, his, his, uh, butt is, uh, is pushed out as well as he's looking. He's, like, trying to look like an Adonis. Uh, so you're, where are you climbing up on this, this statue? And it's all gilded. Uh...

I don't know, like, does he have toes? Like, I just want to take some, like, just to face this property more so than to take this. You lean forward and you start, you easily are able to take your blade and shave off a few sheets of gold. We'll give you that one box of, like, of toad toad.

Ew. Of Toad Toe Gold. Um, and you're able to do that as you just see the statue, uh, uh, just standing there and glimmering and glinting in the moonlight as you manage to secure that. And then people start to, uh, uh,

Right as you get off, you stumble a little bit. A large acorn drops out of your pack, and there's actually a little trail leading directly to you. Oh, no! As you do that, the job that you did is actually pretty rough. It was very clear that someone scraped it, and so you just see some guards starting to walk in your direction. Oh, that was terrible. Did you see what that dragonfly did? Oh, my gosh! Oh!

You should really do something about that. It's terrible. The guards aren't even paying attention to you. They're just looking up and they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. You get the sense, though, that if they start to look down and investigate, they may... Do I see the acorns? What was that? Yeah. Oh, look who left acorns. He dropped acorns, too. It's awful. And I'm going to start picking those up.

picking those up. You do that. You pick up the acorns. You start picking up the acorns. You put them back. Uh, and it's very clear that like the toad, the toad toe has been scraped with gold, but it no longer is looking like it's leading directly to you as you do that. I'm going to start hustling back to the end. Okay. You hustle back to the end. What are you two doing? Uh,

I'm going to stop downstairs and I'm going to just walk by the bar without a word. I'm going to grab a book here by the scruff of the neck. Hey, hey, hey, hey! Hey, hey, hey! Hey, hey, hey! Hey, hey, hey! Hey, hey, hey! Hey, hey, hey! Hey, hey, hey! Hey, hey, hey! Hey, hey, hey! Hey, hey, hey! Hey, hey, hey! Hey, hey, hey! Hey, hey, hey! Hey, hey, hey! Hey, hey, hey! Hey, hey, hey! Hey, hey, hey! Hey, hey, hey! Hey, hey, hey! Hey, hey, hey! Hey, hey, hey! Hey, hey, hey! Hey, hey, hey! Hey, hey, hey! Hey, hey, hey! Hey, hey, hey! Hey, hey, hey! Hey, hey, hey! Hey, hey, hey! Hey, hey, hey! Hey, hey, hey! Hey, hey, hey! Hey, hey! Hey, hey, hey! Hey, hey! Hey, hey! Hey, hey! Hey, hey! Hey, hey! Hey, hey! Hey, hey! Hey, hey! Hey, hey! Hey, hey! Hey, hey! Hey, hey! Hey, hey! Hey, hey! Hey, hey! Hey, hey! Hey, hey! Hey, hey! Hey, hey! Hey, hey! Hey, hey! Hey, hey! Hey, hey! Hey, hey! Hey, hey! Hey, hey! Hey, hey! Hey, hey! Hey, hey! Hey, hey! Hey, hey! Hey, hey! Hey, hey! Hey, hey! Hey, hey! Hey, hey! Hey, hey! Hey, hey! Hey, hey! Hey, hey! Hey, hey! Hey, hey! Hey, hey! Hey, hey! Hey, hey! Hey, hey! Hey, hey! Hey, hey! Hey, hey! Hey, hey! Hey, hey! Hey, hey!

Oh, yeah, I failed. I got a 10. Oh, you crushed me. You picked me up. I'm just holding you. I'm just holding on to my drink, though. I'm making sure I don't spill a drop. Even though I'm flailing, I'm not going to spill my drink at all. And I will walk outside of town...

and I'll look around to see if I can see any guards or anything. You look around and you see Hazel with her cheeks full of acorns and a little glint of gold in her paw as she scampers on back. And you see that there's a number of heavily armored cats and actually a few mice here and there as they are walking out and they're like, "'Order, order, calm down. The beast is gone.'"

Back to your homes. They're grumbling. What's the big idea? Didn't you see that giant thing? What's so interesting? What's going on? It was horrible. It was this huge thing that flew over. Did you see it? Is it going to come back? How often does this happen?

You see one of the cats turn to you, to red fur, poofing out of armor, as he has a large halberd. As he looks at you, he's like, "At ease, citizen! This is just standard lake business!" From the back of the crowd, I yell, "HA!" "At ease, citizen!" "How often does this happen?"

Well, you have to be careful of giant dragonflies and giant lampreys and giant beetles and all the other horrible monsters of the lake and the river and the forest. You don't say! Oh, right, well...

Apparently you're recently not keeping a watch because why can't you fly right into town? You can't stop it, you can't shoot it with arrows. I'm not going to shoot it with arrows. Last time we tried that, two guardsmen got plucked off, never to be seen again. Only two? It was quite a tragic day.

They're families! I'm sorry. Addy's citizen! I'm sorry for the loss. Um, good night, good night. And I hold it in my helmet and I'll walk back with the gang. Fools. Absolute fools. I don't think we should stay in town tonight. Peggy slipped off and went to a workshop. We shouldn't be there. I mean, if we have a way to get there, then sure. I know it's a little difficult. Well, we could try. Can you swim?

I don't think I can. Not very well with my arm on, probably. Well, we could write, we could get a boat. We read it once, didn't we?

Do we know if there would be like... You know that there's a bunch of docks all around this lake and, you know, there's a lot of, there's a number of lily pads and structures all built onto the various lily pads. And you know that Peggy's is out a little bit further than the others. You've taken boats operated by frogs, toads, otters, heron. You've gotten plenty of boats. They'll usually do it for a coin if you find someone up that late. It's not that, it's not super late.

I will approach one of the boats. You look, you make your way through the town and you don't really see anything. But then you actually see a muskrat with these bushy whiskers. He's a little bit portly as he seems to be tying up his boat after just getting in from some fishing. Oh, are you friend? Yeah, yeah. I'm a friend. Oh, are you lad? You get the lad I'm older than you are.

How much to take us over to that living pad in the middle of the lake there? That one? That's pretty far. Two pieces of coin. Gold pieces, probably. And, um, two pieces of coin...

So that's one there, one back, correct? Perfect! Great deal! Make a Persuaded NPC track. Roll. Move. I got a seven, but it's with charms. That's going to be a nine. Someone could assist. I would love that. I will assist.

They see things your way. Yeah, well, he said one go there and one go back is perfectly reasonable. How long are you going to be? Overnight. When do you want to leave? Why don't you come back in the morning and pick us up? Yeah, that's what I'm saying. When do you want to leave?

I don't know. How much time do we have? Dawn. Dawn will be good. Dawn, that's really early. Can we make it like two hours past dawn? Two hours past dawn. We have a deal. Okay, great. I hand him one gold piece. I'll mark one. I'll handle him one gold piece as well. Okay. I'll mark the one to K for my bag of coins. Me too. What a nightmare.

You all pile into the boat and you all make your way through the clear water of the lake that's shimmering in the moonlight. As you see a number of these huge lily pads, quaint little homes built on top of them. And then you see your destination as you get a little bit closer, a bit farther away. It's harder to access, especially for a lot of the mice and the cats that rule the area. The cats, being cats, they don't care for water.

And you now see your destination. What do they see, Peggy?

Oh, they just see like a ramshackle old hut built on a lily pad. It's like very Weasley Burrow style, where it's like a bunch of different things kind of piled on top. A Weasley Burrow? Weasley. Weasley from Harry Potter. You know, their house. Oh, it's Bob Brown, the Burrow. Yes. So it's very much the Burrow. Yeah, I was like, a Weasley Burrow? Isn't that really funny?

How unusual! Yes, it's the Weasel Burrow. Now, it's like the Weasley's Burrow from Harry Potter, where it's like, you can see that there was like a basis of a building, but that Peggy has just built on top of it, there are like towers and all kinds of other little things that are built out of all kinds of things that she's found. The door, yeah, exactly. It looks like a strong gust of wind would knock the whole thing over, but little do you know, it would not.

Got it. And you're working hard away. Yeah, my door is locked. You prose as ramshackle workshop in an almost like with rude way to say it. Ramshackle's a great word. SAT word.

As this workshop, as you approach with the work that's going on, it's kind of like bouncing up and down like a steamboat willy. It looks like it's going to topple over and fall into the water. Steam is blowing up. And it's like steamboat willy style, Popeye style as this large workshop. Um...

It gets closer and closer. And eventually you arrive at the other end. And there's a little dock that's built out that's tied up with all these fronds of the lily pad. Some nets for catching fish. Some nets. And you all are managed to ferret off. You give him the other coin, right? We gave him two. Okay, yes. So we each gave him one. Okay, I'll be here two hours past dawn. Yeah, you better be.

Yeah, you better be. Hey. That's really early. Quit that. Really early? We were trying to get a start by dawn. And we gave him two extra hours. Wait, what? Unbelievable. The point is... Wait, did he have to be up at dawn? Two hours after dawn, we just told him to go. The real problem here is that we were complete sitting ducks crossing the river like that. Probably heaven forsaken things. I can't believe you would even put us in danger like that.

Hello? She's gonna kill that thing. Who else is gonna kill that? You think there's just one of them? You keep saying that thing, like we're gonna do something about that thing. It'll look big enough like they would beat us to main one kind of thing. Oh, my sweet, sweet Summer Grumly. Well, I don't know. I've never seen... Have we seen a huge dragonfly in the time that you've been here? Um, I would say that you've probably...

You know that the lake and like the river, because the river goes to the forest, there's a lot of horrible creatures in there. And what comes out of the water of that can be very rough. I'd say Peggy has definitely told you stories of some horrible things. And sometimes you maybe wouldn't have believed what she said because of how horrible and massive and vicious these are. But yeah, no, I don't know if you would have seen them. I thought you had said I'd seen them at Muckbed.

Oh, yeah. Or you've maybe seen giant dragonflies, but nothing of that size. So it's even worse than I already thought it was. Yes. That's what I'm trying to tell you, Brumley. So this is a dragonfly of unusual size. And there's probably lots of them. They'll carry off whole families. Can we please just get inside Peggy? Peggy, please let us in, please. Peggy!

It takes a moment, but you see two gigantic frog eyes magnified by the spectacles that I'm now wearing. As I look over into the mirror, or the mirror, the window at my door. Yeah, what's the code word? Oh! The code word. What's the code word? I forgot the code word. What's the question then?

The code word is fly-favored ice cream. No, that's not the code word. But that sounds exactly like something Booker would say. Thank you, Peggy. I appreciate it. I was getting a little nervous. Wake your feet off before you come in. I'm going to be working. Of course. Whatever you need me to repair, put over on the anvil over there. Oh, well, thank you. What is the code word?

Oh, there isn't one. Oh. Well, that's why it didn't sound familiar. I will take off. I'll put my sword there. I will put my armor in the corner. And I will say, I don't know how much you can repair on these guys, but perhaps, you know, if I can get just a little bit done on each of these, it would definitely help me out. ...

Is that alright, Peggy? Yeah, I use the repair move at my workshop, and I repair damaged personal equipment at my workshop.

Is there, like, a limit? As long as I have the tools and resources, and I do, because in Workshop, I made sure that I took all the tools and resources. Okay, I just have one... But I had to give up other things to do it. I have one exhaustion on my leather armor, so I'll, like, take my jacket off and be like, hey, there's holes in my jacket, if you wouldn't mind, well, don't repair all of them, but just repair some of them. I don't want to look too good. Hey!

Hey, alright, just put it over there. I'm a little busy. Can you tell us if we get decay on, like, our equipment? No, there's, like, they have abilities, and, like, I tried to grapple a guy, and I marked exhaustion on my leather armor, but I'm flavoring it as just my normal clothing.

But so I use... Yeah, so you'll give decay on certain objects that you have. So I'll repair there. Okay. Use my workshop to repair. You have all the tools and the resources that you need. You've done this a number of times, and it doesn't take you very long, as you all enjoy the evening repairing. You're the best, Peggy. Yeah, I know.

I'm trying to make some kind of a weapon against, you know, jerk faces that try and get us to do things we don't want to do. Oh, you mean Brumley? Because right at the moment, Brumley's making me do lots of things that I don't want to do. I don't know. What's he trying to do? He wants us to go kill the dragonflies. And I use that with the plural because there's always more than one. Why would we want to kill a dragonfly? Because they're evil, big old dragonflies. How do you know they're evil? One flew over just now and didn't kill anybody. That's true. He thinks...

Now, the root of the problem here is that we believe that the mayor of this fine town has been collecting taxes and then sending them to the Marquise, Decat, the Marquisate, if you will, and one of those shipments didn't arrive...

And they blamed it on the dragonflies. Yeah, so what you're telling me is that he's stealing all of the money and he's blaming it on the dragonflies so then they can recollect the taxes from the people and get that sent to the market. Exactly. So they're getting paid but he's also making money as well. But we're not telling anybody around town that because we're working with the mayor to get lots of free food and drink. So until we get more information... You know you could just come in and get free food and drink. Yeah, I didn't want to be a leech, if you will. Is that why you just took your shoes off when your feet smell like that?

You told me to take my shoes off. You know, Peggy, I'm trying to do you a favor. No, I told you to wipe your feet off. I didn't tell you to take your shoes off. Well, I'm comfortable now and I'm not taking it back. At least go over to the wash bin and wash your socks. Fine. Damn it, Booker. No, we heard from the guards that that dragonfly picked off two guards and killed them horribly. Wait, that's it? I thought we were

about the, we were worried about the taxes. That's why you picked up like, you should have seen the guy Grumly tried to pick a fight with. He was bigger than four of me. But Grumly, you killed like a lot of guards the other night. I didn't kill anybody. He's the one that killed the guards. What? Oh.

You shoved the guards in the face! All of them were gonna- That was after I got shot! Well, he was in self defense! I'm gonna be honest with you and say I don't really have a problem with murder. Like, what I'm doing right now, I'm really trying to figure out how to murder a lot of people at one time, so- Well, it's literally- It's just that I don't know what. What? Sometimes we get into trouble and we might need to murder a group of people. I don't know if you were with me when we were in that last town, but some of those people weren't the greatest.

What did the guards say? Oh, the guards said that the last time that they tried to shoot at the dragonfly killed two guards, so that's self-defense too. Well, all I'm saying is that we... No, I said heart and that means we're done. Oh, oh, but is that how it works? I don't know, but I heard Piggy say it once. Oh. Did it work? Oh, wait, we've got to get those taxes, we've got to get all that coin back. Okay, well, if we're going to do that, we probably should go to the mayor's house and look through it and steal all the taxes back that he's taken from all the people.

No, we were told that the dragonfly took it home. Oh, you know what? I have something I want to tell you. What? You're green.

Yeah.

And he hangs out in town all the time writing papers and stuff, so I'll see if he knows anything. He'll write me a letter. All right. I figure maybe if we get some proof that he's actually pilfering some of his taxes before we go risking life and limb for no reason. Yeah, no, he gets hired all the time to write letters and stuff, pamphlets and official documents, so maybe he'll know something interesting. I hope so. Probably doesn't, but maybe.

Well, off the way, we know that they were taxed. We know that they were put on a boat, though, and taken north, right? Allegedly. I mean, that's what we were told.

So all I'm saying is, even if it wasn't these dragonflies, we've got to figure out where they went. We can track them down. We know where they went. Which of us is a ranger? Which of us took that class picture? What do you mean, ranger? What the hell is a ranger? I'm an arbiter. I'm trying to bring truth and justice in the dimwood way. You actually call yourself that? Do other people call you the arbiter? Well, I think it sounds more cool. So you've got a nickname that you gave yourself. Well, I mean, that's what the cats used to call me.

Oh, there goes Diabolo. Name one part of the culture. What is his name? His first name is... Phil. Phil. No, Phil. Oh, no.

How many fills are in the dim wood? I don't know what you mean. Oh, me neither. Okay, fine. Peggy, you got anything to drink around here? Yeah. I just point over this crazy mechanism that's like filtering water up from the lake and it's filtering it and making it clear as it drops it into a bin that's got crystal clear water. This is just water. Yeah. I was hoping for something a little more kick. Okay, well then they'll answer for water. Okay.

Fair enough. You want whiskey or something? Yeah, I'd like some booze. All right, then swim the ass back over to town. You asked why we came all the way out here, and I told you that's why we bought good favor with the... I'm kidding. I got a shelf over there. Thank you. I appreciate it.

Well you're turning blind. I don't know why they say that. Why do they say that Booker?

Why do they say you turn a blind eye? It means to stop looking at something. It means to pretend like you're not seeing it. But if your eye's already blind, why do you got to turn it?

Yeah. Why, Booker? You got me there. Booker? I don't want to talk to you. But why? But why, Booker? Why, Booker? I hate all of you. I hate all of you. I hate all of you. I hate all of you. I hate all of you. I hate all of you. I hate all of you. I hate all of you. I hate all of you. I hate all of you. I hate all of you. I hate all of you.

Does she live in... where are we right now? Yeah, she lives in a bunch of wadja house somewhere else. And I don't like being there. It's not my style. Is she a frog too? No, no, no. No, she's not. She's a cat.

Is that with an A or an S? Or I mean a Z or an S? It's spelled like a... It just flies. Got it. That's how I spell that.

That's why Hamel toed. I didn't realize, is that why you were Peggy? Yeah. This whole time. Yeah, so that way randomly I could say and Peggy. So you could be the other random sister. We were all crossing the pond on the boat and we looked in for a frog at work. We looked in for a frog at work.

So you are all enjoying some beverages, Peggy finishes repairing the armor. And is there anything else you're doing before you head to bed? I'm just gonna scowl at Grumly for the next 12 hours. So what are we gonna do in the morning then? What are we gonna do? We're gonna march on to our deaths. I don't know why we're chasing after taxes that clearly don't exist.

Only to find horrible, horrible beasts and creatures that are going to swallow us whole. Maybe we'll just find the taxes. We're going to track down the... You honestly go... You honestly believe... So you think that the mayor just rounded up the taxes and moved it out so I'm going to stash it and knock it here in the city? Maybe it's got like a little hut. Like a frog hut. What a hut. Do frogs live in huts normally? A mud hut?

- You know, that's a little offensive. - Is it? - You were the one who did it. - I just didn't know. - What, you just presumed that old Fromms live in mud huts?

You know, some, it really depends on the frog. You know, some are tree frogs, so they live in trees. Some are water frogs, so they live on lily pads in the water. What's a big ugly mayor? What kind of frog is he? Oh, he's a toad. Yeah, he's just like my friend Hamill. Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean that. I'm not your friend Hamill Toad. Yeah, you probably won't, it's fine. Also, then what are toads, then? Maybe a mud hut?

Is that a defensive? I think whatever we do, once that guy comes to pick us up, we're going to have him go all around the lake or the river, and we're going to look for any signs of ne'er-do-wells. I don't think we ought to bring that guy with us. I know we're only paying the coin, but we should probably... Wait, no, we only paid the boat guy coin to take us back to the mainland or off the pond. We haven't paid anybody else any coin. Hey, did you build a boat? Did we? Yeah.

Well, I think we can convince the guy to take us to... A boat's like a big thing. That's fine. Destination's a destination. We already paid the guy. He's got to take us somewhere. We need a return journey. That's a good idea, though, is if you had a future to do a long-term project, making a boat sounds like a great idea. Can your lily pad move? Yeah, don't see why not. I just don't have a way to make it move. What if I built like a...

You mean like a rudder? Yeah. Yeah, but we don't have any of the supplies for that. Or like a propeller? Or like one of those, like, hamster wheels where you run and then it scoops the water. Do you want to be the one that runs in it? Well, I'm a chipmunk, so not a hamster. Well, you know, not all frogs live in mud huts. But toads maybe do. No, I'm telling him I just said that. I'm sorry. This is not good. Shh.

I think it's something just for the brain. If you're gonna be up for a while, there's a few dings, a bit of rust in me arm. Yeah, you know, I already did it. And me right here. I did it while we was talking. Oh, and did you finish fixing up me halberd from last time? You gonna pay me for it? Sure, how much you want? Nothing, you can take it. I'm already done with it. Are you good with that? The halberd? Yeah, let's just try it. Yeah. Ooh.

Oh, right, I feel complete now. And I pick it up and I give it a tap and I'll put it away. What is the vicious business you mean? It's a weapon. It's a special weapon move.

That I took when I leveled up. A vicious strike. A vicious strike. When I viciously strike, who would have thought an opponent where they are weak. I mark an exhaustion. I roll with might. On a hit, they suffer serious harm. On a 10 plus, you get away with the strike. Got it. Okay. So it's a way that you can kind of do damage without taking a hit if you're a little tired. Okay. Cool. Very cool. So...

Is anyone else doing anything else before bed? No. I'm drinking. I'm sleeping. I'm eating. Okay. You all... I'm tinkering, but then I'll go to bed. Okay. Peggy, everyone else falls asleep, and it's at this... You're working late into the night. You're tinkering on probably a lot of fun stuff. You maybe write a letter to Hamilton or whatever it is, but I really want to role-play him. LAUGHTER

You are so welcome, Mike. No, you can do whatever you want. No, I do want to write a letter to Hamilton. You write a letter to Hamilton. And ask him if he's seen my sister Flyza. Yeah. Flyza. And Peggy. You know that the...

You know that you're pretty far out into the lake, and you know that the Old Toms River that splits the Dimwood goes... basically the lake is formed in the center of the Dimwood and then continues out where to the clearing town where Booker's from, which is Muckbeck Creek. And you're used to the occasional very, very, very distant light at the other end of the lake.

But for the hour, you notice out of your window, as you're finishing writing the last letter to Hamilton, you see that the far end of this lake, there seems to be movement of the light. And the light seems to be in the sky, almost like dancing lights flickering around all above where you believe Muckbeck Creek to be.

And it seems like there's a lot of late night activity. And it seems strange for this hour. And that's what you see.

I'm gonna go around and shake everyone awake. Yeah, I think you should get up and look out the window. There's all kinds of stuff going on in the city. In the town, the village, the whatever. What do you mean? I'm still asleep. I was in the best dream. Okay, well, y'all are the ones who want to know what's going on with all these taxes. And I'm telling you right now, there's some weird lights that are happening. No, it's just grumbly, but fine. Point the direction, please. What did you say?

Well, you can see for yourself, but I point out the lights. You point out and, uh, and Booker, you see where at least where you grew up, Muckbed Creek, and you see How far is this? It's absurdly far. It is, it is But it's like just relatively flat where you can just kind of see the lights across this massive lake. So it's almost like just past the horizon and normally you could just see the glow because of how huge this lake is. Um,

um you know that that these are because they're on either end of a lake that these clearings you know the very edge of uh of of war wallow basically the very edge of war wallow and the very edge of uh muck bed creek are not too far not as far as a lot of the other clearings but it still across this massive nearly great lake and why don't we take a look yes please

So yeah, you normally wouldn't be there, would you? No, what is that? Oh, I can't read. Oh, it's... Where is it? So... Oops, I'm going to move this... Okay. Oh, yeah. Oh, it's a lot closer than I thought. Yeah. Okay. So we're here, and then... So we're probably on this side of the lake, right? Yeah. The workshop. Yeah, you...

I got it. I thought it was a different, I was picturing it as a different clearing. That's my thought. And so it's south and you see that there's a lot of movement in the air. Isn't it looking like anything's coming closer? It doesn't look like there's anything like heading towards you, but it's, it seems to be very clear that there is a lot of, of operation going on. And that's unusual? Uh, yeah, for this, for this hour. Do I know what, who controls that clearing? I,

I know I can look at the past, but... You know the Eyrie. I do think that's normal. That's like a normal thing for... The Eyrie has controlled it for a long time. They maybe have lost it, but you know that that was... When they... After the Civil War, you know that was the first clearing that they took back. And it wasn't very difficult, because the otters are more than amenable to having some grease bombs. Well, I hope everything's all right. I mean, that looks unusual for Muckbread Bed. I hope...

I hope the people are alright. I hope the artists are alright. Wait, so... You've never seen anything artist? No, that's why I woke you up. I'm not really in the habit of waking everybody up to things that I've seen. Well, we appreciate it. But I can, you know, if you want. Now, stick to emergencies, I suppose.

Wait, so we see this arm up in Wartmallow? No, it's in the direction of Buckbeck Creek. So you see, and then normally you wouldn't be, you can only see the glow past the horizon, but you can see the lights in the sky moving around. And you had seen a similar lights before of the eerie soldiers carrying torches and the like in your adventure in session one. I'm worried that means trouble. Well, there's not much we can do about that right now.

I mean, I'm not worried about it. I haven't been home in a very, very long time. I don't intend to just go home now. What about your family? What family? Do you have a family? I mean, I did at one point in time. They might still be alive somewhere, but I... No, I don't really have family. I mean, you guys are my family. We're vagabonds. That's what we do. We travel. We see the world. We sate our wanderlust. He's a wandering vagrant.

You keep throwing around these terms. I don't know where you're pulling them from. My name is Booker. Well, yeah, you're Booker, but you're all shabby and you're always trying to pull a con. That's textbook vagrant. I'm a person. I exist. I do things. And you're just trying to slap a label on me. You're really good at putting some patches on your pants. Sometimes when you bend over, I can see more than I want to. Why?

Why didn't you tell me sooner? You know, because I didn't really think about it as being a problem, but now that Grumly puts it that way, yeah, he's right. You got time to do a quick bath job? Yeah, but could you put another pair on first? Do you have a towel? Yeah, over in the washroom. All right, and I take my pants off, I throw them in the bathroom, and I strut them over the towel, and it's completely naked. Here we go again.

Russell around in my pouch and I get a needle and some thread and I match up his Thank you, Peggy. I appreciate it. You know I am a friendly. You do? Oh, you mentioned your brothers and sisters. Yeah, I just kind of thought you guys didn't maybe...

I like yours or something, but I thought you still had one. Well, I mean, I'm relatively indifferent. I mean, they were good to me while I was there, but things happen and people move on. There's things and people to see all across the world. The Dimwood is a very large place and I have to see all of it. But wouldn't it be nice if you saw all of it and then you went home and told your family? Wouldn't it even be nicer if I made a new home with lots of riches by myself?

Or with you guys, I suppose. Why do you think that we didn't like our family? I don't think Rumley's done anything that makes you think you didn't like his family. Yeah, my family's very far from me. But you know, that's what I'm saying. I thought you all had, like, family you were missing, and you do. And you are just kind of different, I guess. I've been home many times. Mine are just down the road.

Angelicroak, Flyza, you know, we're all there. Is it worth stopping in and seeing them? Yeah, why haven't you introduced us? Why are you looking at me? Because you look at me like, "Niggy, look at that." I feel bad. We've been here, like, a lot of times over the amount of time that we've been here. But it hasn't been quite some time. Quite some time. Oh, we haven't been here quite some time. That's what I'm saying. So would it be worth it to stop in and see your family? Nah.

I mean, no pressure. Yeah, they'd be like, you know, flouncing and prancing around town doing their like fancy, fancy things. Fair enough. Fair enough. I'm a little too oily to go to the parties they like to frequent. You and me both, Peggy. Yeah, well, at least my crotch isn't hanging out. Touché, as I like floss the towel between my eyebrows. Oh, my God!

You done with those pants yet, Peggy? Yeah, I was done with them two minutes ago. I, like, crack the towel and, like, flop it over where I found it. I'm like, thank you, Peggy. I appreciate it. That once was a yellow towel. Please describe what color it is now in great detail for the viewers at home. It's like a very speckled gray. Well, it's probably just a lot of raccoon hair. Thanks for the pants. I'm going to put my pants back on. You do that and you all eventually settle down.

And go to sleep. And the next morning, the next morning you awake, probably near dawn, and you have a little bit of time before the old muskrat gets there. So where are we going to have the tychus?

Well, I think we need to go up through the clearing on the river and go north and look for any kind of evidence of these taxis going missing, dragonfly or otherwise. So that's just it. We're ready to move on and see what we can find. That's your plan.

Are we all in agreement? Is anybody going to vote against Grumley like Booker is? Yeah, I'm coming with you. I do want to go up the river, though. I'm about half and half. Like, if you were standing like you are now, I'd be right in the middle. So what is your counter-proposal? So I want to go up the river, but I don't want this musket fellow to come with us. What does it matter? He's just a guy with a boat. So what if we find something nefarious and, like...

Peggy already said she devised a device that could kill 30 of them, so it's fine. No, no, he's working on it. I don't think that it's any way near functional. Who cares if we find something? He's an old man with a boat. He's not going to give a shit. What if he is? I mean, what if he cares? Then Grumly will drown him like he's murdered people before. He's a muskrat. Better swim with him, mister. What do you propose? I think we should get a boat that we can take all on our own.

So you wanna just kill the guy and steal his boat? I don't wanna do that either. I think it's perfectly valid. You know what, Hazel? I think that boat that he's got is full of pumpkin pies. He thinks that? Yeah, but I know that guy. I know that guy. He hides them in a non-smellable box. I'm just confused as to why we care. Hold on, this is important. He doesn't share those pies with anyone. That's really selfish. I know.

I mean, you know what? I think he even steals them from the kids. He does too. He should probably kill them. Kids with no toys, probably.

We should probably kill him. We don't need to. We don't need to kill the man. I don't understand why you're concerned about him just taking us up the river. He's going to drop us off on any river bed like anybody else. Think of the children. I don't. How many pies do you have on your person right now? That's none of your business, but go ahead and take a guess. If you guess wrong, you owe me a gold. That's wrong. One gold, please. Show me.

I open up my coat and I turn my pockets out. No pies, that's one, please. I'm going to request a pat down. Fine. Show me the gold. Spread your legs. And lift your tail. I do this, but I'm ready if she tries to lift something off. Okay. I'm patting her on her thighs.

Do I find any pie? No, I don't have a fucking pie! Then you don't have any gold, and you're a liar. I have a gold, you owe me one! And you proved my point. He's got a bunch of pies, and you don't have any. How did I prove that point? And neither do I, and I don't think you guys do either, so we should probably pick the point. I don't think there are any pies! He's got a whole pie stash, and he moved them from the boat, and that's why I didn't smell them.

I think he's gonna be here in a couple hours. I changed my mind, I vote with Brumley. For the pies? No, we're headed up north. Who would have thought I was so smart that doing that would get you to side with Brumley? I was lying about the pies. Of course you were lying about the pies. Now I've got pie eyes and it's like you look like a pie and you look like a pie. You've got pies. It's like all I can see is pie and I haven't got any.

Maybe we could go into town and just have lunch. Well, how about after all this is said and done, you can get a pie. But the old people, they're going to lose their homes. They're going to lose their possessions. You know what I'll do? This is what I'll do, all right? You can help me collect some things, and then maybe we can make like an oven or something in my workshop, and then we can make our own pies. That sounds really nice. And then you can have a pie whenever you want. What do you need? I have no idea. Well, let's go. Let me think on it, all right? Some stuff if you need it. Okay.

So, but that's, I'll work on it for you if you help out whatever they want to do. All right. Done. Done. We already paid the man. We just tell him to take us north, correct? You know where we're going, right, Brumley? We're going pretty well. Then you're leading the way. How's my armor looking?

I gave it back to you last night, why are you even asking me? Oh, you know why? Did you get hit in the head? You did it all in like an hour before we did bed. She said it like three times. Oh, wow. So do I just clear all my exhaustion? Yeah. That's what it does. I literally have nothing in combat. That's all I can do. That's real. Yeah, I'm good. That's all I can do. How do I clear, like, regular exhaustion?

So when you sleep, you get rid of one. Oh, okay. You each have the snake oil business, which clears two. Can't we do stuff in her workshop? Oh, I don't think I have a room. Yeah, I mean, I have food and drink in my workshop, so we can eat and drink, but I don't think that does.

I don't think I ever wrote that one down. I would say that if the food and drink is something, I would say that if you can choose food and drink, I think that probably once a day you could either choose a decay or an exhaustion to get rid of. Okay. Decay orange.

So basically, decay would be you're packing whatever, you're stocking up, or exhaustion would be you're eating to get nice and hearty. So you can clear injury if you were to spend decay and be like, I'm going to use some medical supplies to heal myself. And I would say that

that Peggy you can either do one or the other basically the supplies at Peggy's place would that that aren't exclusive in the moves would just be like the food could be one decay injury or exhaustion however you're going to deal with the food you can shove the fish into your wounds so I'm gonna remove two exhaustion one for sleeping and one for eating yep cool yeah

Free. Um, alright, well, I think the guy's almost going to be here, so we're going to take him. He's going to take us up north, and he's going to help us find wherever these missing, these missing, missing taxis went. Alright. Alright? You lead the way.

And I will try not to die. And he doesn't have parts. Remember that. There ain't no hidden parts in the apartment. No, I've just forgotten about it and you didn't have to bring it up so soon. Well, I just want to make sure that we're not on there and you're like, oh, look over there. And you're like, I'm looking around his pocket. And we're not killing anybody. Unless we need to. I didn't say to kill anybody. You thought about it. Only for a minute. And you didn't know that because it was in my head. You thought about it out loud.

Well, to be fair, the last time we advanced, you know, it was now literally a murder room. I was hoping that no one would mention that and it would come up naturally as opposed to in a meta sense. But thank you, Grumly. Thank you. Well, either way, I think we need to find these fireflies and we'll murder these dragonflies. Well, we're going to try and we're most likely going to die for it.

I don't think you realize what we're up against. I've been trying to tell you this now, Grumly, for roughly about, I don't know, the last almost a full day, right? You don't understand what we're up against.

Well, I guess we won't know what we're up against until we get there and take a look. Or until, you know, we saw it fly overhead, but regardless, it doesn't matter. I'll just get in the boat and die. You're just being really pessimistic. I mean, maybe what we're up against is just a big pile of Texas in gold that is waiting for us to come rescue it. I wish. I can only hope. I can only hope. Yes, yes, that's what I pray for. I pray that you are right, Hazel. I pray. You pray a lot? No, no, just in this instance when I'm pretty sure I'm going to die.

I'll weave the guy down. It's not much longer until... Thank God. It's not much longer until the old muskrat shows up. You hear the creaking of his boat. It's big enough to fit the lot of you. As he arrives and he says, Okay. As promised, two hours passed on. Great. You got your payment. Now take us where the pug is telling you to take us.

So you need to take us to the north side of the clearing and keep going and we'll let you know where you can drop us off. Oh, okay. Where did you get this boat from? I bought it a couple years ago. How much? A good amount of gold and whatever the setting is.

Something that would be feasibly un-purchasable for you lot! No, it could be quite purchasable, actually. Maybe like... I'm sorry, I'm not the game master! Fifteen gold pieces, why not? Fifteen? Goodness gracious. That isn't like fifteen decay, but...

Well, it could be. I mean, if we have a bag of coins that we mark with decay, and then decay we mark with decay, I can come up with one, two, three, four, five, six. I know six gold pieces myself. I'm full right now.

Not that I'm gonna, I don't want a boat. I was just, you know, meta-prophesizing. Theoretically, right. Yes, theory crafting, if you will. Doesn't matter. I'm not interested. I don't want your boat, old man. Okay. Why? Why were you thinking about taking my boat? We weren't. You're the one who brought it up. Oh, okay. Shop and roll, old man. Okay. Okay. Sorry, I'm just, I'm a, no, I'm not hungry. I'm a little on edge. I might be a little hungover, but I'm not, I'm not hungry.

They call me Old Man Creep. Did anybody ask you? Well, you said part of my name. Old Man Creep. That was one of the most unfortunate circumstances I've ever happened upon. We once almost got killed by a spider. Old Man? You met an old man? Just bro. Just bro. Please. Okay. I'm sorry.

It's okay! He paid me, so it's fine!

And he rows you through Old Man Creep. Creep? What a name. What an absolute name. Rows you through to the shore of the lake. And he's like, wait, you're not getting off here and we're going through it? Yes, sir. That's right. We keep going all the way through. We never explicitly told you where you would drop us off, so you agreed to this.

Do what Grumly the Arbiter tells you how to do. Yeah, they call me the Arbiter. I just roll my eyes. You have some guy named Pete. Pete? Okay, well, I guess I should have looked at the fine print.

I love that Mikey cracks you up so much. It's literally all the time. I know. They cannot be in a room together. I know. He continues to row north. As you make your way through the town, and along either side of Old Tom's River, there's a lot of docks. There's a number of fishermen, fishermen.

There's people making their way up and down the river. There's some barges of shipment. And as you get close to the towns, you're gonna see that the townsfolk are a little on edge.

And you go beneath a bridge and hear the loud marching footsteps of soldiers. As you make your way to the other side of the bridge, you see a number of spears and pikes, tall longbows, as a regiment of Marquis VIII soldiers walk over it and march.

Everyone, all the denizens seem to be very on edge. And as you make your way in the bend around, it really kind of encircles almost the town square. You see that same large bloated statue. And Hazel, you can see that little bit on the toe that's scraped off of the gilded statue. As you see...

As you see, down one row, the number of the same four cats, the large leather-hooded cat-of-nine-tails, making their way with the wagon of the taxis. But however, you see that the road that's coming into Wartwallow from the... What's that clearing? From Click Clot Crossing...

is there's a number of soldiers marching in. Nookington, you mean? What was that? Oh, yeah, Nookington, yep. Nookington is to the east. Yeah, to the east. And there's more regiments of soldiers coming in. Wait, from that direction. They're bringing soldiers from Nookington. Yeah, they're bringing soldiers from Nookington. As they're going in, and you actually see...

In the center of the circles as a number of denizens are all forming a crowd. They're looking nervous. They're whispering back and forth. And you hear...

Mayor Boghap, as he's standing on a platform that's elevated, and he's on almost like this pyramid, and at the very top, the wood is kind of buckling a little bit, as he moves around in his boots. Now, now, there's no reason to be alarmed. The eerie may perhaps

perhaps be advancing, and they may be the ones that are responsible for all the taxes they were taking. It was probably the Erie. They was using their scouts to take all the taxes. And even if they think they're going to attack us, we have the protection that I have called for from the Marquis 8. So remember, Mayor Boghop is looking after you. And

And that's what you catch on the wind as he's shouting out this to the crowd as you all make your way up the river through the town. What do you do? He keeps coming up with different excuses as to where these taxes are going.

Mr. Dragonflaw and our e-rate? So are you convinced that we might be on a wild goose chase, per se? Well, I think that the taxes... I didn't know that we were doing anything that had to do with wild geese. Do you know if wild geese have any kind of medicinal properties, or maybe even some voices or anything? I couldn't doubt it. Well, I would hope you would know before you lead us on a chase after them. No, Grumly is the one leading this chase, if you hadn't noticed. So, do you know?

Wait, what would that mean? What's the purpose of us going out to some wild geese? We're not going to an actual wild geese. Then why would you bring it up? Yeah, why would you bring it up, Brumley?

Don't bring it up on him, Booker brought it up. It's one of those crazy idioms you always say, turn of phrase. I don't even know what you're talking about. No, I think you're right, I think he did bring it up. Don't bring up Wild Geese if you're not going to follow through. You know, Booker's always like, it's a turn of phrase, Peggy, it's a turn of phrase, Booker. Grumly, Grumly, Grumly, it's a turn of phrase, it's just a turn of phrase, Grumly. You idiom. He's always calling me an idiom. I swear you're not nice at all. It's not nice at all.

You're not an idiom, Grumley. An idiom is just another word for a turn of phrase. It's not an offensive phrase. It's not an offensive thing. It's just another word for a turn of phrase. I'm just saying, don't bring up wild geese if you don't intend to dull them out. Come on, Grumley. Please. Haven't you run by now? I guess I won't bring up wild geese again. Anyways. I think we all learned a valuable lesson today.

That's very true. Yeah, because poor Hazel here, you know, she could make a meat pie out of some wild geese. I don't like to do the stuffing and the cooking. I don't want to see how the sausage is made. I just want it delivered to me.

What are we doing? I knew a cobbler once. She was a wild goose. Don't say the word cobbler around there. Oh, no. What have I done? I don't know why you did that. She's not going to stop talking about cobblers for at least the next four hours. I'm going to shoot her in a cobbler. Leather cobbler.

I wouldn't write it off completely. I'll put it in my journal. Don't eat leather. We're talking about shoemakers here. We're just trying to set you straight here. How would you eat a shoe? No, you wouldn't eat it. Go on, Lee. How far until we get to where we think we're going? All right, old man. Go all the way through the clearing until you see something suspicious. So just for the record, if we're convinced, you literally just heard the mayor saying that the taxes have now gone somewhere else. What do you think we're going to find when we get where we're going?

Well, I think we're either gonna find a hideout where the mayor's stashing it himself, or I'm gonna find some of your troops that are stashing it. No, I've got a question for you there. Why would the mayor send us in the direction of where the hideout is that he's stashing stuff? If he wanted us to go after a dragonfly that's stealing all the taxes, but there's not actually a dragonfly, don't you think he's gonna lead us in the complete opposite direction? I think that Peggy is onto something.

Well, it's all we have to go on, so we're gonna look until we find something, we're gonna follow every lead, and if it leads nowhere, then, oh well, I guess he was wrong. You didn't bring any of that booze from your workshop with you, did you? Is there a reason you let him tell us where we're going? Because I try to argue and I get nowhere. And then if I get frustrated, he just picks me up and I kick and I kick and I kick until we go in somewhere anyway.

By the way, did you send a letter to Hamill? What does it say? Hamill Toad? Yeah, Hamill. Say the full name. Hamill Toad. Hamill Toad. Hamill Toad. I basically said what you said. It was, have you seen my sister Flyza? It's been a long time. A long time-za. My sister, Angela Croak, never writes to me, but I know that you're great pen pals, so please send her my best.

Um, do you know anything about the mayor? Is he doing, you know, is he doing anything strange? Make sure you keep this under wraps and try and get some rest. Stop writing. Stop writing. Like you're running out of time. Peggy. Okay. And so are you going to just drop it off at the post as you pass by? Maybe a postman, uh, you see a, uh, a postman, uh, walk in a, a, a, uh, long neck goose. Uh, you remember the old postman while, uh,

As he walks over, he goes, oh, hey, Peggy. I'll take your letter. And he stuffs it in his bag. And another love letter to Hamill. That would imply love. Oh, you. And he stuffs it in his bag and he flaps off. He does that every time. I don't know what he's talking about.

What an interesting thought. And he flies off with the letter and you coast north. You continue to row. And as you get further and further away from the clearing, you see all of the, many of the denizens are terrified. As if they weren't afraid enough of the Cato Ninetales and having to come up with another year's worth of taxes, it seems. Now there's unrest as if the Eyrie might be mobilizing.

And, uh, you see a number of, of Nickelback. Oh no. Yes. Uh, there's a number of individuals or families that have packed up just small carts with barely anything in them as they begin to, uh, make their way to see some families, mostly mice, a few, a few frog families, uh, with just their, their last belongings, uh,

pushing past the rows of soldiers that are marching in toward Wallow as they begin to make their way up to Nookington. As you continue to roam, or not you don't, but old man, whatever his name is, Crebe. Old man Crebe. Old man Crebe, boat guy. Muskrat. He's a muskrat. You...

You know that these rivers are relatively treacherous, but you know, it's normally the otters of the Riverfield Company that are the masters of these rivers, but muskrat, otter, eh, you're on a budget. So he takes you north and the water gets choppier.

as the thick reeds and grass on either side gets more and more choking. Almost when it's not choking the river, there's crazy rapids and he's trying to row very hard. And you get to a stretch of forest where there are just willows on either side. And you seem to be very close to where Rhodey had said the...

The taxes were lasting. And then to turn around a bend in the river going north, the low willow trees, the hanging leaves and fronds start to shake as you hear a low buzz that gets louder and louder as it's almost seemingly coming right along the bend on a stretch of water as the river expands. What do you do?

i don't like that tell him to pull over here grumly right that was the whole plan right maybe we can can go through the leaves and hide for a minute why don't you bring the boat over to the shore here mate can we like see the shoreline or is it through the willows

So you see that there's a river starts to once again widen as there are willows on either side. And you see through, you can see the shoreline, but around the bend off past on one side of the shore of this river. You hear the buzzing as you're to see the leaves start to shake. We should definitely pull over and take refuge like Hazel suggested before we get too close to that buzzard.

Um, I'm wrong, yes. You can just drop us off here and go back on your way. But so far we're gonna get by. Yeah, we'll figure it out, right? Unless you got another gold piece to let the man wait around to get eaten by dragonflies. No, it's far too dangerous. We'll find our way back. We'll stomp to the marsh if we have to. Well, that does sound dangerous. And I... Oh, man, my king, Kreeb, ain't looking to be eaten. As he starts rolling away after he drops you off on the shore. Fantastic.

You make your way onto the shore and your feet sink into the thick mud as you make your way up to the bank and there's a huge log on the side and you peer over and you see that there is a large opening of the river almost forms like another kind of mini lake but

of the river being split by these huge rocks and these rapids. And you see up ahead that there seems to be a scattering of wood and scraps of metal here and there. You see some glinting off in the sand and the mud of this riverbed. But as the...

As the, once again, the buzzing gets louder and louder, almost shakes the ground. You see that directly ahead of you, you see a bit of flapping chitinous wing. As you see what is probably the massive monster's dragonfly is resting on the edge of the water. Just the wing flapping and disturbing the willows. But we do see that, that,

wreckage. Yeah, you do see some kind of wreckage. Oh my acorns. Is it possible that the mayor was telling the truth? It looks just like it. It's all glinting and shiny. How far away is it from us? It's probably a couple hundred feet up as you're looking over this log. If I had bet every ounce of wealth I ever made, I guess I might have been wrong.

I hate to admit it, but I was... What if it's hurt and it was shot out of the sky and it landed on all that stuff and broke it because people were trying to kill it because they thought it was doing this thing that it wasn't actually doing because the man is actually doing horrible stuff. And it's laying over there and it's wings in the water because, you know, Draco's not going to put their wings in the water because then they can't fly. They've got to wait for it to dry before they can get up into the air. So that doesn't leave them much room for escape. And I'm just spitballing here, so I don't really know, but I'm concerned. And I don't think that this is a good thing is all I'm going to say.

What if it's not hurt and then we get close to say, hey, are you hurt? And then it eats us. Yeah, well, then we would be dead. Very much. Then I would pull a hazel. I wouldn't eat you guys. We're friends, not food. I think it's just a beastie. Just a beastie. What? I'm distracted while you guys...

Go check it out. Why don't we just sneak around? So what I'm concerned about is that the wreckage that we see there isn't very substantial. So even if the mayor was telling the truth, I'm not sure there's much to salvage. We might be able to salvage some of it, but not to save the, you know, the innocents, so to speak. Let me take a look. Do I see any, like, places where anything was, like, dragged away from that pile? Or, like, is it evidence?

Does it look like it was just smashed there? So all you see are bits of wood and scraps of metal. You get the sense that some of it has drifted down from up through the willow trees.

As you get ahead. So you haven't, you're not like looking at the remnants of like a large cart. You see pieces, but it looks like whatever it's, it's, it's not a salvageable thing. At least from what you can see, as you start to see, once again, you see the buzzing of wings as, as, as, and it's very difficult to see through the darkness of this, the overhang of the canopy. And then you see occasional flash of this bluish green, uh,

armor and the flick of a large spiked tail as it flaps around a little bit of dark blue and green with some shades of orange and pink as the wings continue to move but nothing takes off into the sky. Well, why don't we go sneak on over there and collect what's there? If the operative word is sneak and you can actually do that and remain hidden then maybe...

Well, are you gonna distract the thing or I'll sneak over there? You choose. If you distract the thing, you die. If you sneak over and you make noise, we all die. Peggy, do you think that you could talk to a dragonfly? No, I don't think so. Does it speak frog? I don't think it speaks at all. It's a big, foul beastie.

So would you, would you talk? Wow, that was pretty savage. I understand that that was a joke. As the youth would say, you got nae-nae'd. I don't know what that means. It doesn't matter, let's move on. So what are you guys doing?

I'm going to be honest with you. Padden. Lily padden. Padden. I'm not willing to take the lead on this one because I don't want to risk life and limb for what may or may not be anything. I'll look over there and try and talk to it. I would not advise that. Well, I can jump out of there hopefully before anything happens.

I don't think this is a talking situation. And the thing is, I can't swim. So if I go over there and I just leap into the water and then I swim away, then... Then stay close to the shore. And you make an opening and I'll come in with more help. Oh, dear Lord. I'll let you know. Oh, heavens. So here, this is what we'll do. We'll have code words. I'm going to go over there. If it's in trouble and it needs help, I'm going to say... No, that wouldn't be good because you'd think it's the wrong thing. I'm going to say...

Dragging down. Dragging down. Oh, right. Okay. And then, no, you're going to shut up. Let me do this. And then if I get over there and it's a bad guy and I need help, I'm just going to yell help. And then I'm going to jump into the water and you probably shouldn't come to try and help me because then you'll just die.

Alright, okay, so you're going to do all your tinkery stuff, alright. I will stand by and get ready to fill the foul beast. You go sneak over there and you're going to steal all the taxes back and then Booker, you sell it some soap or something. No, that's not what we're going to do. I

I want you to just stay here and not move and not do anything at all. And then I'm going to find out what's going on and I'll come back here regardless of what's happened. If it's bad, I'll come back here. And if it's good, I'll tell you dragon down and you come over because it means it's okay. I'll be ready. Would we have any reasonable knowledge about like these creature sections? No.

You would get the sense that they are... They're not, like, sentient people. Basically, to what... It's a beast. To what, like, a wild animal would be to humans. It is a beast. It is a beast. Okay. It's not like a Smaug, you know, I'm a giant monster, but I can talk and have a conversation with you. Gotcha. Okay. Okay. All right. So I'm going to sneak through the...

through the vegetation that's aligning the water. And I want to get close enough to see if it looks like it's been hurt, and that's why it's doing, just basically to scan the area and find out what's going on. If it looks like it's going to attack me, I want to just leap into the water and swim. Got it. But if it looks like it's just in pain and will let me approach, I'll attempt to do that. Okay. So can I just get an attempt, roguish feet, to see how quick can you stay by the slippery mud...

and still approach stealthily. The next... 10. 10? Okay. So you pick one of the other clear path of escape, you use some resources, or you leave evidence of roguery behind. Okay, so wait, oh yeah. You pick only one of these things, but you succeed.

I'll mark a decay. Okay. So, you pull out some, maybe some weeds or fronds and you get some camouflage, some active camo or however you would want to do that in order to sneak and you can see like this bush, this swamp bush scamper off. Sometimes it hops more than a bush should hop. And,

You begin to creep your way through. You see three pairs of ears behind you from the log as you see another three pairs of eyes watching you as you make your way through. And you manage to get close to the water and come around the bend three

through the willow fronds. And as you get closer, you see once again, the massive form of this huge dragonfly resting on the water. As you get closer and closer, you start to smell

smell along with the river bed, just that dank smell of the creek, which you may be used to from your time in the swamp, in the pond, as something is mixed in.

Smells like blood. Fresh blood. But something else. You look to your left as you creep around. You see a scattering of coins. Gold coins. Around. As you look up ahead, as you get closer and closer, you see a smear of red blood.

And you look past through the willow leaves and you get close enough to see the scene ahead of you, almost totally enveloped in this massive tree's canopy. And you see a, not a humanoid, but a critter figure lying down with a huge harpoon-like spear clutched in webbed hands. A slain toad

Seemingly, seemingly his his throat torn out as you get a little bit closer. You see another one laying down on its back as well and directly ahead of you.

resting, almost tilting into the water. You see this massive dragonfly that is flapping its wings and buzzing as it seems to be attempting to get some kind of lift. And you see that the wings now are shredded. As you see a number of harpoons impaled on it on all sides. As you see the coins and the bits of these wood are from these huge crossbows.

that are splintered next to several of these toes. You see some tracks going off into the rest of the swamp and the forest along this massive river. As you see, the wide eyes of this huge dragonfly

It is insectoid, but you do see a sense of distress and pain as it's attempting to fly, as it is almost kind of sliding back into the water, just kind of perched on the side of the river as the water is rushing past it, as it seems to be just covered with all these huge bolts and harpoons.

I'm gonna hop back. I'm gonna hop into the water and swim back to my friend. Okay. We'll keep that roll. You are not noticed as you swim back and Peggy appears behind you. Yeah, so, you know, it's definitely her. Like, its wings are completely shredded. They were hopping there that it destroyed. And some people that it killed, but it looks like they were attacking it.

So I really want to go repair its wings but I don't want to do that until I know whether it's good or bad. So I'm thinking we should do a little more investigation and hopefully it doesn't die in the meantime. Or I can go and I can take some of the spider silk and some of the cloth that I have on me and I can try and repair its wings at least enough for it to start feeling and

And then we'll see what happens from here, but I don't know if I should do that. Be fair! Maybe you'll be really happy if you did that and be honest with us. But you know who might try and eat me, you know? It's really hard to decide. It is a thing, right? While I don't think that it's inherently evil, I think you're right about that, Peggy.

I don't think that we necessarily need to be restoring any kind of strength to this creature that has been wreaking havoc. But you don't know if it has. You don't know if those people ran out here just because the people in town have been saying that it's stealing all the taxes. I want you to think about it this way. That's true. Let's say you don't have much money, right? And some big cat of nine tails comes and roughs up your family and steals everything you've got. And they say that the reason that happened was because a dragonfly took it.

And the dragonfly didn't take it, but you think that, so you come out here with your harpoons and everything, and you hurt an innocent creature that hasn't done anything to you. I don't disagree with you at all. I think that you are on the right track. I guess my point is, there is no finding out whether it's good or evil, and that it's just a beast. It just eats and does what it needs to. And you don't want to risk your life trying to- Which is kind of my point, right? Like, why would a beast that just eats and does what it needs to, why would it be still intact?

I agree. I still think that this mayor is rotten to the core. I just wish Hamletoad would send me something. He would know. What were these toads doing out here? Maybe they're the ones that was carrying the taxes and they got attacked by the Skarncule. Maybe the taxes over your bar went off and you didn't kill this dragonfly in the first place. Well, we can try to... I certainly don't want to even get close to that thing. Even wounded, it'll still kill all four of us.

I would rather try to figure out what happened here and get some evidence and move away from the danger. But that's just my vote. Let's do that. Do you want to repair the wings while we look around? Yeah, I want to try. I won't. I'll help you. We don't want you to die. Yeah, you know, I don't want to die either, but sometimes you gotta take a chance. You gotta trust me. Well, I think Angel will help you with the dragonfly and Booker and I will take a look around. It's a little sticky. Maybe it would stick the wings up together.

What river causes a horrible infection that will make it worse and its wing will fall off? Well, maybe. Why don't you eat the honey while I do all of the hard work? That's a really good idea. I know, that's why I'm the smartest in the room. All right, Grumly, let's try to find some of those missing taxes.

So I'll wait until they're like up, kind of like taking the attention. Yeah, we're not going to fly. And then we'll go start to look around. So how are the ladies approaching? So I am going to put together a, um, basically two more bushels where we look like we're hopping like bushes to kind of get back to the area. And then I am going to, um, really, really, you know what?

I am going to load up my blowgun with one of my paralysis darts. Oh no. Okay. And I'm going to paralyze it, hopefully, so that way it can't do anything so I can repair its wings. Okay. Because I can't think of a way that I would be able to approach it without it freaking out and trying to just kill us, and I need it to be perfectly still to try and repair him. Okay. So. I'm gonna do that.

Then whoever wants to do an attempt roguish feat, I'll just have that for both of you. So one of the things that I've been working on, I've been talking about my bamboo shoots. I've been basically making one of those pipes, like the Piper's pipes where you go...

And each one of them has a dart on it. A pan flute? Yeah, a pan flute. So each one of them is loaded with a dart. I'm going to put four darts because it's significantly bigger than a skinkerton. Okay. I'm going to put four of my feather darts. So I've been sharpening my feathers that I've been collecting and filling the shaft with some of the poison. So that way it can pierce it and...

I'm going to put four in there, and when we close it off, I'm going to shoot it with four of them. Okay. Which should be enough, I'm hoping, to bring down a beast that size, but not kill it. Okay. So as you-- You never wake up. Yeah, but you know, choices. So as you all approach-- Does someone want to do an attempt at Rogash Feats for both of you?

13. So pick another one. You don't have a clear path of success. 13. I'm going to do another decay. Okay, so you use more of the reeds and you give some to Hazel. As you approach...

And as you make your way through this chipmunk and this frog covered in reeds and leaves, as you see now, Hazel, you see the sight that Peggy has seen. As you look up ahead, you see a number of slain toads with their harpoons and large crossbows. As you see this ichor pouring into the river now, a blood that is spilling out. As you approach... Spilling out of the dead toads or out of the dragonborn?

Out of the dragonfly. You see the blood of the toes. You see that the dragonfly, as you now make your way around to get a good shot, where the wing isn't flapping, kind of directly beneath the large head of this creature, seems like there could be a good vantage point, especially getting it closer to the heart or the brain. And you see now that there's a huge wound of this large harpoon that sunk pretty deep. And make an attack roll, I guess.

How does that work again? We'll do target. Or you can trust fate. Do you have some type of attack? Yeah, so you can either just try to trust fate to see through because it is a tinkered thing. Or if you've made it and you spent time in your workshop...

A ranged attack is what, target? Target, yeah. So you roll with finesse. I will roll with finesse. There's target someone. When you try to target a vulnerable fillet range. Eleven. That's fucking good. So with the eleven, you see Peggy go...

all four darts pierce in to, uh, this creature and they crack the, the, the, the kite in the shell of the dragon fly. And let's tell this. And the buzzing, uh, starts to get crazy. And you're not sure if the darts actually pierced all the way through for this, uh, toxin. And you just see as it, uh, shifts as his massive legs, heave itself up and shift around. And his wings are buzzing, uh, not finding purchase from, uh,

how much they were shredded and they- it turns to you, but as it turns to you, it starts to slow down and lock. And it should still be conscious. It is. It's just paralyzed. It is. So I'm going to run over to it and "I know that you can't understand anything that I'm saying" and I talk in like a really soft voice, "and I know that you're probably horrified" and I'm gonna like slowly pet the side of its face.

I'm going to make you feel better, and I'm going to take those things out, and then hopefully you'll be all right. And I'm just going to kind of like try and just be as kind to it as possible. And then I'm going to go over, and I'm going to start breaking and pulling out all of the harpoons. Okay. And I'm going to show Hazel how to do that, and I'm going to have her on harpoon removal duty while I then take –

leaves, a bunch of leaves that I can find around all of basically my entire stock of fabric scraps and my entire stock of spider silk. I made a big ball of spider silk and I'm going to use those to make it to kind of patch up its wings. Okay. So, yeah. So I will say to see what

As you're doing this, make a persuade and NPC check. Oh, God. So, buy a spider silk. Top. Left. No. And that uses charm. Yeah, so a two. Oh, shit. A two? A two. Okay. I think.

I think. Yeah, no, no, it's a two. It's a minus one. Okay, so you approach as this... What happens when they're close to fate? Don't we have one? You get a plus one. So even if we all assist and you get a plus one, that puts you at a six, which isn't bad.

So as you approach, you see its eyes are wide with fear as it starts to shake a little bit. But you use all of your spider silk and you begin to start patching it up. It's unable to resist, but its eyes are still wide with this animalistic insectoid fear and pain very clearly. Hazel, what are you doing?

I'm gonna still in my full bush garb come up and just grab it by the head. You're gonna be okay. And then I'm gonna pull some harpoons out like she showed me and then I'm gonna take some of the like alcohol that I had and try to like clean off its wounds and just try to like

you know, like put pressure on it, make it stop bleeding if I can. - Okay. - So I'll give her some of my fabric cloth and the spider silk. So essentially packing the wounds and then wrapping the spider silk around it to keep it in kind of like a bandaid. - Okay, so you do that. Fellows, what are you doing?

So we were basically waiting to see if the ladies were gonna be alright before we took off. We didn't want to leave them for dead. Yeah, so you creep up behind them and you see Peggy shoot off the darts and the dragonfly gets paralyzed.

and with all four darts and you start to see both of them roach. They're not horribly torn apart and they're not ripped apart and you start to see as they begin to patch up the wings. All right, so we're looking for any kind of evidence that there may have actually been taxes here, actual real valuables that may have been taken off into the woods. All right.

Yeah, you look around for all the shiny stuff and I'll keep an eye out for danger. Say no more, my friend. We're looking for any evidence that there was actually some sort of, you know, some sort of payload here that looks like it may have, you know, because like a smattering of coins here and there doesn't do us any good. Yeah. And so I will help him, but my main focus will be like keeping an eye on the horizon, seeing if there are any signs of like toads or whatever while he's looking more for the gold. Okay. And so you look around and...

And as both of you are approaching Grimley, you're peering through the marsh, the foresty marsh, as all of your boots sink into this wet soil. As you look around in Booker, you see all these coins scattered about. Not the huge kind of...

payload that you were expecting as you begin to approach and you see now that there are a number of every single one of these individuals is a toad and it seems if their pockets are ripped their coins were just scattered across from this um

But due to this, you actually see that there's a total of three dead toads that have been totally slaughtered, cast aside, far from the dragonfly where the ladies are working. And as you look around, you're standing directly above this dead toad.

Grumly, I'm concerned that this is still not what we're looking for. I don't think that this is the missing taxes. Why don't you take a look, see if he's got any kind of writing on him, like, what is from the man? Fine, I'll search all three of these poor, unfortunate bodies. Okay. Poor, unfortunate toads. Yes. You begin to pat them down, and...

and reach in, and you find that each of them has a pretty sizable satchel of gold, the one that didn't get completely torn up, and the other two have their remaining. The two coins, perks, seem to be a bit...

a bit more gold than you would expect for people, someone to just kind of carry around. And you see that it's this velvet sack, this purple velvet, and you see a familiar seal on each of them. It is the symbol of Mayor Boghap, that he used to stamp the seal of the letter that you saw.

And as you rifle around, you see that one of them, the one that had this huge crossbow device with a number of these massive bolts in a basket on his back, now splintered across the ground, you find in his pocket a rolled up, crumpled piece of parchment.

And it's broken. And the seal is broken. It's that same seal of Mayor Bodden. And as you pull it out, you see that there's a very quick note written. And it said, the beast is up north. Take it out, and the victory and glory will ease the pain of the taxons.

And if some pesky foreigners show up, take care of them, too. I need to make sure that I can have full protection of the gold that's in my belly. Well, at the very least, Peggy was right about something. Peggy's right about everything. This dragonfly was set upon by the mayor. I mean, it says it right here. It looks like these were...

some sort of mercenaries or something paid to do the man's dirty work and killing this creature. It was definitely a distraction. It sounds like they were paying to take care of us in case we came out here. I knew, I knew. I tried to tell you the taxes weren't out here. I tried to tell you that. I don't like being right in this situation.

I want to see if I can smell any live, like, live alive toads. Live alive toads? Live alive toads? I would say... I would say you... You sniff around and you actually find tracks. You find tracks that...

that are coming towards this marsh, but you only find three sets, and you have three bodies in front of you. But you see where they came from going into the forest to a path. I'm gonna keep the scroll on my person. Okay. And make sure that it's safe.

Alright, let's wait for the ladies. I think we should follow these tracks and see where they lead. I think our next course of action is the mayor himself. So you don't think all these, uh, these, these, these poor bastards are dead? No, I think, I think there were three of them. Three, three tracks and three bodies. I think they're all dead.

Oh, I misunderstood. I thought you might have found tracks leaving this place off into the woods. Well, there are tracks from where they came from. They came from somewhere that wasn't... I see. Perhaps they just came around. My apologies, Grumly. I misunderstood. I was hoping someone had survived so that maybe you could give them the old Grumly treatment. Me too. Me too.

Let's get a little bit closer and keep an eye on the ladies and make sure that they're all right. Okay. You creep up and watch them as both of you are patching up this creature. I'm using my needle and the spider silk, and I'm trying to patch, like sew apart, sew together the parts of the wings that were torn apart so that way once it all heals, it would be able to fly again.

Okay. So it's like we're packing the harpoon wounds and then sewing, I'm sewing up the wing. Okay. So as you're doing this, you're using all these things. I would say that's probably just, I want to see a general trust fate roll to see how you do. You have to see that you're actually succeeding. Uh, yeah. Ooh! Trust me! I think it's just your eight. Okay.

Yeah, an eight. What is it? Trust bait is... Luck. Yep. I got a five. A five. Okay. Trust bait sucks because you only pass if you get a ten plus.

No, on a hit, you... Yeah, I thought it was a 10 plus. You scrape by? No, no. I hit you straight in the face on a 10 plus. That's what I was like. I don't ever want to use it. You have to get a 10, 11, or a 12. It's definitely, you know, trust fate is still... It's a crapshoot, right? You're literally trusting fate. It's a fucking crapshoot. But it's not... That doesn't feel like trusting fate. That's why I took one stat improvement and locked for my...

So after you finish, it takes up all of your spider silk. And you need to even pull out some extra things. I'll say an extra decay. But then as you step away, probably an extra decay for both of you.

But as you step away, you see that you did a pretty darn bang-up job. All this disgusting black ichor that was pouring out of this beast has stopped. And it's all washing away down... God, I hope this doesn't collapse on me. It's not going to. It's washing away down the river as you start to see that...

That the eyes are wide and this massive insect looks a little confused. Despite it not being able to move. And as you begin to back up... I'm going to go up to its neck and I'm going to pull out the four feathers that I used and pocket those again. Okay. And then I'm going to put my hand on it one more time and say, I know you don't understand this.

But you need to find somewhere else to go. You need to find a new home. Get far away from here. And I hope that you feel better soon. And I'm just going to kind of give it a little affection and then I'm going to back away. Slowly. Okay. I don't think he likes me very much, but I wouldn't like me very much either right now. Because I balk at the feathers. I don't think he feels very good at all. No, and especially not after I shot him in the neck with three feathers from that really drunk bird. Oh, God.

They were ass feathers too, so I don't know how sanitary they were, but I washed them off. I still got those with my boobs on them, so I think he's pretty sanitary. Unless boobs isn't sanitary, I just kind of assumed. I don't know. It burns, so hopefully it burns the bacteria. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. I think we did a good job, and I give you a high five, but I miss. It's fine. I've never been very good. They say to look at your elbow, but everybody's elbow is longer. Yeah.

And, um... Yeah, if I looked at yours, I'd hit you in the face. Oh, Christ, I love you. You all back away as you start to see that the movement starts to return. As the, uh,

paralyzing venom starts to wear off. And it wasn't, it was relatively not a very long time. You imagine that Phil was probably wiped out for much longer than this as the massive creature, the venom runs its course. And you should see that the leg moves and as the, it turns towards you, all six legs, crabs towards you, its eyes are wide. And, and,

And the wings are, it looks, kind of just tilts its head very slightly as it looks at either side of its wings as it gives each of them a little buzz and it starts to lift off as the gust hits all of you. And you see as it turns and surveys all of you. And it starts walking towards you and then stops.

And then after what seems like an hour of looking at you, it turns and starts buzzing. The sheer gust almost knocks you off your feet as it takes off into the air and flies very low through the willow. And you see on the other side of the river is a...

massive beetle, a little bit smaller than the spider that you had killed. This blue shell that is a chunk torn out of it, similar shape to the mandibles that you had seen. And it flies over, picks up the remainder of this giant beetle and flies off north.

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horror tone for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition. And don't forget to snag all the extra goodies like dice, miniatures, plushies, a tarot deck, and more. Thank you. Wow, that was quite the accomplishment, ladies. Nice job. Thanks. I've got bad news, though. I guess the good news is... Grumly's dead. No, Grumly is... Well, that's...

Neither here nor there. The good news is that you were right. The bad news is that you were right and we were set up. Yeah, no, I'm not surprised by that at all. So you guys didn't find anything? No. We found mercenaries hired by the mayor and they were the ones that were slaughtered trying to kill this creature to bring up morale in the town. They were going to blame the tax losses on this creature. Obviously, that's why he changed his story today.

Because if the dragonfly were dead and the tax theft continued, then it obviously wasn't the dragonfly. But if now all of a sudden the eerie is taking the tax money, oh, it wasn't the dragonfly, but don't worry, we got him anyway. It's actually the eerie. It's much easier to control. It's a really bad guy. All the way, I think we follow these tracks and we see where they came from.

I'm guessing they just came from the clearing, but we can maybe get our way back to the clearing by following these tracks. I think there's one last important thing to notice, and I'll roll up the scroll and say it says right here. It says specifically he's keeping the gold in his belly. And I don't necessarily mean that, feel like that means in a literal sense, but I think that it may be some kind of, I mean, it could be. I mean, he's a large, large individual, but there may be a hint here to where he's actually keeping the taxes.

I mean, all of the people of this clearing wouldn't have just given them gold, correct? We saw them taking items and things. So it's like if they didn't have the gold, they might pay in possessions. There's a hint here. In food. In cobblers. In...

What did I tell you about saying the word cobbler? Sandwiches. You can't say the word cobbler around Hazel. Sandwiches and cobbler? What are you trying to do to me? We've been out here all day. I was referencing more inedible individuals. I think that the belly is a metaphor for something. Perhaps it's like a basement. Or it's like a belly. Like a different belly. Right, like a metaphor for one. Or like a big belly.

Like, his big thing. Like, the fountain. I was at his fountain when the drone fly flew over. And I was just sitting there minding my own business. I didn't do anything wrong. But he's like a big fat toad in his statues and even bigger, fatter toad than he is. What if his...

So you're thinking they're just statching the riches right in the statue, right? In this letter of town, where anyone can find them. Well, let's do what Grumley said. We make it back to town and we see what's going on. So...

With that, if you're going to collect the gold that is around, I'll say you can probably each get an extra fill of decay from what's around. Or remove a decay. And you follow the tracks and you see that they just go off to a path

into the woods. I say we follow them. We see where they came from. Maybe they have some kind of hideout or something. We just don't want to get lost. We know the woods are a dangerous place right now, all right? All right. We'll follow the tracks. Okay, you follow the tracks and it's going to lead you through the forest in the direction of Wartwallow.

So we're going to do a travel move through the forest. So we need to at least give each one exhaustion? Exhaustion is the path. Decay is the forest. So if we each give one decay, we break even on the roll. Otherwise, we're out of deficit. I can offer up one decay. I will be maxed out at one decay. Because I was just maxed out. We could just risk it.

Hold on. Two, four, six. I'll max out my decay. No, no, no. I don't think you need two. I mean, if you want to, I might stop you, but two, four, six puts us at what? Plus two? Plus two? Yeah. So we don't even need, we don't even need, if you need, save your decay. Save it. I'll give two. I'll give two. That's four. Can you, can you spare any decay, Grumly? I'll do two as well. That puts us at a plus. Well, that's a lot of decay for one, one forest trip. I'll say we just break even.

Well then you don't have to donate anything, that's why I asked you-- I'll do one and one of you take away one of yours. That's fine, Hazel, just give him a one. You sure? Yes, I'm sure. Just don't ask me again or I might change my mind. Alright, you roll since you marked two of yours. I don't like how I always get chosen for this. Who's top did I pick? Seven. Nice. 'Cause no plus anything, so just a seven.

Seven, okay. So I don't think I did this the last time. My chain mail, so anytime we travel not woods or road, I have to do an exhaustion. Oh, jeez. No, what do you mean? We're traveling woods. Yeah, but I have chain mail, so it's weird. What does it say? Yeah, you mark one. So I mark one as one. I can't take that off. Okay.

Well, then you don't wear it, but then you don't gain the benefits that it gives you But you don't have to wear it. You can just leave it at the workshop or whatever doesn't give you something

I mean, only when I use it, I guess. But then you can't use it. That's the idea. When I engage someone sword to sword, pick an additional option. Yeah, so if you were trying to sword fight somebody, you get an extra bonus to your attack points, basically. And if you take injury from a fight, you can mark them on the chainmail instead of... I'm wearing my chainmail. Yeah, it's worth the exhaustion. It's real good. So...

As you're making your way through, you're trying to stay close to the river, but you're still deep into the forest at this point. As you make your way through, and as you're going through sometimes the tall grass, and you're sinking into the muck, as you start to continue your way,

And then suddenly you turn around a bit and hop over a log, and there's a large swath of mud out in front of you. And all four of you kind of jump over. Suddenly you sink in. And your feet, your boots sink in, and you try to get them out, and then you start to sink in more and more. And it seems like all of you have been ensnared in some sinkholes.

Quicksand. We all, we are? All four of you are now sinking in as the forests are all around you. Well, this is quite the predicament. This feels really bad, Piggy. Don't move too much. It's what I saw once somewhere. Just try to remain calm as we figure out how to solve this problem.

I'm shaking! No, no, I want to see what I'm doing. No, Gromley, no! Gromley, you start to, as you try to viciously escape, you sink more and more, and you wear yourself. Take an exhaustion. Oh, fuck. Gromley, Gromley, Gromley, stop, stop. Come on, buddy, come on. Come on, focus, focus. No, stop, you have to calm down. You're not going to get anywhere. We have to hope...

What's it like around us?

It's a wide swath of muck. About probably three feet behind you is the large log that you jumped off of. And there's probably, you know, trees probably ten feet in front of you. A couple trees. Branches are all shooting out in all directions. I'm going to reach in. I'm going to grab my rope. And I'm going to attach my hammer to one side.

and I'm gonna attach my big metal shears to the other side, and I'm gonna attempt to throw it around the nearest tree so I can use it to pull myself out. Okay. Um...

So I'm basically going to hold on. I'm going to hold on to the hammer side and throw the sheer side with the rope around. If we ever have an apocalypse, I call you. So that way I can get both of them and then pull myself out. Okay. Let's... How do you want to do that? How do you want to do this?

I rolled for it, you just tell me what you want to add. I think that's a... I would say that you could attempt roguish feats or trust fate. I will attempt roguish feats. And that will be a 11. 11. Yeah. No, so... I'm going to leave evidence. Leave evidence, yeah. So you'll be able to see, like...

where the, um, where the shears, like, sliced into the bark as it was coming around. You manage to, uh, fasten that together and throw it over and heave yourself out as, uh, you manage to pull yourself out and you see, uh, Peggy, her bottom half coated in this muck as she flies out and you get yourself on solid ground. And,

And then I am going to then take my, the hammer and the rope side. Actually, no, I'm going to take the sheer side and dig it into the ground and like lock it in place. I'm going to take the hammer side and chuck it into each one of their little pools. So it kind of weights it down and they can pull themselves out.

Make sure you go for Grumly first. He's panicking. I'm gonna do Grumly. He's panicking. All you can see are his floppy ears sticking out over the fire. Yeah, Grumly is very nearly there as... Grumly, you heave yourself out and you manage to pull yourself out of this muck. And I'll say...

Unless there's anything else that you guys want to do that you're just going to keep tossing. I want to use my halberd to try to get some kind of leverage to pull bolt with the help of Peggy to try to get out of this not via digging. So you're going to try to pull bolt? Wait, so what exactly did you do to my sinkhole? So I attached my shears into the ground. It's attached to my rope.

and it's locked in place at the base of a tree. And then my hammer's on the other side, sticking down. You're able to, with that, you're able to climb out and

And then I'm just reeling it back out and then dropping it into the next sinkhole. And then I'm reeling it back out. And then I'm going to clean them off and put them in my... Thank God one of us is smart. Peggy, good quick thing. I appreciate you saving all of us there. That was rough. It's the only reason you bring me with you, to be honest. I'm not very good elsewhere.

And you... I don't think I like this Swampy Woods situation. They call me a four to fix or repair daily. Wow. It's just someone who spelled frogging correctly. Touche. Wait, they weren't referring to like a four as you like cross a river kind of thing? I think that would make sense. No, they just spelled frogging correctly. Oh, well...

I could see how that happens, because like if you flip the D upside down and then flip it... Well, no, I think what will probably happen is they saw it spelled out once and someone had accidentally drawn a line through the G. It was an uppercase G and it turned into a D, but flipped the other way. You know what I mean? Only an idiot would do it, but this person was a real idiot. Okay.

And so you eventually make your way through the woods and you arrive onto the outskirts of Wartwallow as you see more civilians evacuating. And you see that there are a number of toads of similar style to the one that you had seen slain in the forest by the dragonfly here.

trying to convince people to stay and they're trying to get in the way. And you see that at every entrance that there is a cat with a clipboard checking off, stopping them, making sure that they paid their taxes before they can leave. And you see that this is happening. And you arrive at Wartwalla. What do you do?

We should just walk right up to them. We're people of the mayor. He knows. We've been talking about him. We're being free room and board. There's no one can stop us from letting us in. We're on official mayoral business. Done. Hey, you with the clipboard. Yes, we pay taxes. I don't pay taxes. I'm here on official mayoral business. My name is Booker. And this is Peggy and Hazel and Grumly. And we were on...

Dragonfly business. Dragonfly business? You mean the one from this morning? Yes, that would be correct, sir. Yeah, the dragonfly that died. It died? Yeah, it's dead. Now, all the toad warriors, they were murdered battle toads, if you will. I look down, I'm covered in blood from the dragonfly and Icar, both. He's like, yeah, it really is a mess. But as you can see here... I really want to clean up. I'm looking and smelling awful. We've done the job. You killed the dragonfly?

Yeah, they were a couple of casualties, but... Well, and a couple of dragonflies is an understatement. It was a swarm of them, but we held our own. And we got the big one. Make a fool-trickin' NPC. A roll with cunning. That'd be a ten. A ten. Hey!

Okay. That's good. Well, well done. I assume the mayor wants to speak to you. Yes, of course. Leave us there once. Yeah, come through. Come through. Thank you. Vagabonds don't pay taxes. Unbelievable. You are now in the center of the town as you see...

As you look around and there seems to be formations of soldiers kind of being formed at the edge of this lake, as you start to see where there's a number of these large wooden boats that are being brought up to all of these docks. Many of the fishing vessels have been pushed away or being converted as it seems like a lot that they're they're preparing for combat. What are you guys doing?

Well, this does not look like a situation we want to get ourselves roped up in. Why don't we go and take a look at that magnificent statue? Maybe give it a tap, see what it sounds like on the inside. Hazel, you don't think you can lead us there?

I mean, it's really big. I don't think you need me to, but I'm afraid that we'll get in trouble. If that's where the gold is, maybe we shouldn't go there, Dally. So this is what we'll do, okay? We just got back from finishing our mission. We're really proud. The mayor's our best friend. So I'll have the three of you stand next to it as if you're... I'm drawing a portrait of you.

Okay? And I'll be out there with my little notebook and I'll be pretending to draw you guys. And you'll be on it looking happy. And in the meantime, you'll be like tapping on it and also listening. That's a good idea. Secretively. And I'll pretend to be drawing on you and make it a big thing. I also want my baby just to look bad for me. They probably wouldn't like that. I don't care. Well, unfortunately, Booker sold all of his soap art items.

And we're also on official mayoral business, so as far as I'm concerned, we're going to push that envelope as far as it'll possibly go. So I can bathe in this big, gaudy fabric? Yeah, absolutely. And if anybody questions otherwise, we'll say we're here on mayoral business, and I'll slap them. Hey, what would we do without you? Besides, like, murder lots of guys. Yeah, I don't know. No, it's just you that wants to do the murdering.

I didn't murder anybody. I'm pretty sure you're the one that murdered them. I haven't murdered anyone. Well, you shot them in the throat and killed them. I guess not like murder. Well, it took several shots and that was after I got hit in the clavicle. I'm not saying you shouldn't have killed those guys, but I'm just saying. I don't think it's really murder at that point.

I agree. It's not really moody per se. But you know what really matters is whether it was premeditated. It certainly wasn't. I was following Brumley up a staircase crashing and bashing through the whole joint and the next thing I know I have an arrow in my shoulder. I don't think Booker meditates at all. He's pretty hostile. Thank you.

So are we going to go, you know, do that thing where we pretend to be blinded by each other? Let's go, let's go. I'll watch God. I think that's a lovely plan. Well, no, you have to also be in the picture. Yeah. Oh. And you can watch God. The three of you are going to be in the picture and I'm going to pretend to be, I'm actually going to be drawing it. It's not my best question. Just draw me watching God. Correct. And you're still going to watch God while we do our thing. Yeah. So everyone get in position and we will do what we can. Do you want the top or the bottom?

What? The top or the bottom? To do what? You know, to jump on the belly of the thing. You get on my shoulders and I'll stay on the bottom and push you up. It's not like I'm speaking a different language. Sometimes I just don't know what you're talking about. Come on, let's make haste here. All right.

So as you make your way through, what is your plan? So we're going to go to the town square where the statue is. And we're going to pretend like we're super happy and really proud of what we've just finished. And to commemorate this day, the day the dragonfly fell, they're going to get in front of the statue like tourists.

And I'm going to draw them to commemorate the moment, but they're secretively going to be tapping on it to see if there's like a cavern on the inside. I'm kind of picturing this like Grumly standing there with this thing going, and then I'm on your shoulders. Yeah, I'm on his shoulders and we're trying to stand up or we're swaying and I'm kind of knocking as we sway and patting things around. But we're all laughing like, you know how tourists be. Yeah.

So as you're making your way through the thoroughfare, you've almost arrived at the town square. And then you see a large shape directly in front of you, almost kind of appear from behind a corner. And you see Mayor Boghop waving.

coming from the direction of the statue. And he seems to be sweating, if toads can sweat. Probably not. But he's sweating. Oh, you're alive! I mean, of course you're alive!

Oh my acorns, where did you come from? I, I, no, I, I, I, do you not know that this, this, that there could be war? This could be war. This, but don't worry, don't worry. You are, you are alive. Well, good, good news, good news. How are you here alive? We did what you asked us to do.

Yeah. Oh, yeah, we did exactly that. Yeah, we went over and we killed that dragonfly. We took care of him. Yeah. Yeah, you got a couple of your men beforehand completely dead. Yeah, those battered toads. Yeah. They were covered in jits and pimples and rashes. Completely dead. They're all dead. But we're also dead. Yeah, we...

I think it was their bed, but... No, they were covered in horrible boils. You didn't see them up close. I mean, that's the nature of Battletoads. Unfortunately, the battle was really difficult when we weren't able to bring their bodies home with us. So they're just going to rest in peace. It's too many pieces, really. They were sliced and shredded. Didn't have a bag. You wouldn't happen to have any more Battletoads, would you? Yeah, yeah. Well, no, I...

I've got a few battle toes there quickly evacuating the town square because there could be battle coming to these shores. I thought this morning you said it was open to the other room. Oh, I mean, it's going to be... Keep your voices down. Keep your voices down. It's going to be fine. It'll be fine. The Marquis Zane is coming to save us. I'm getting out of town. Wait. You can't be serious. You're serious. You're serious.

I mean, I understand our game master's laughing, but you can't be serious. No.

Of course I'm serious, boy! I'm getting out of here. You're just gonna abandon everyone. Well, I'm not gonna abandon everyone, I just need to-- You killed the dragonfly, that was the big threat, I-- So what about your missing taxes, my friend? Well, I-- Oh, did you find the taxes? We didn't yet. Must've sunk beneath the river. Must've sunk beneath the river. Un-- Well, I am so glad that you have to-- I can't leave quite yet, I gotta-- Let's figure this fuck out.

Yeah. What do you have to do, Mr. Knife? 11 plus two. You know it's a good roll for Rich Ghost. You can hold three-- Oh, you do it from under. Oh no, you don't. I do this. I usually give it my own backhand. I always give it one of these. Like when you have a good sneak attack roll. Bingo!

It's the richest version of Maya's natural 20. It is. Much better on the ears. A lot better on the ears, let me tell you. Is your character telling the truth? Absolutely not. Wait, about which portion? About... Oh, the... Yeah. Yeah.

Is he telling the truth about the oncoming, the incoming Yuri soldiers? He seems to be genuinely nervous about that. Okay, so that's two questions. But he's not telling the truth about the whole gold and all that stuff. Yes. I'll use that as my... I wasn't sure if he was being honest about leaving town. I will hold my third. Okay. Well, I suppose as Vagabond, you're probably just moving on, moving on along here. Well...

If it were up to me, we'd make sure that you got your taxes because we care so much about the Marquis Zates. So what are you going to do if you skip town and then we find the taxes? Well, wonderful idea, wonderful idea. Perhaps we can all get a portrait together to show the heroes that saved the town from the dragonfly. That sounds like a lovely idea if you were to tell us maybe some more information.

While we head over to this portrait place. What are you trying to do here? We're trying to get out of here. I understand you want to leave. I'm saying what happens if we find the taxes after you leave? Well, I think they're lost to the river. You wouldn't want someone to maybe deliver those taxes to you personally, would you?

I'm just saying. No, I think that they are lost. I think the cat of nine tails, he's going to get most all of those taxes back and it will be just fine. The marquise will get what they are owed. And I don't need anybody to bring taxes because they are lost to the dragonfly, lost to the river. So you're sure? You're saying if there weren't four individuals who might be willing to work for you to make sure that you got the taxes that you need, if they found them, that you would just say, well, they've been lost, as it were?

I'm just saying. What are you saying, Booker? I'm saying if these taxes were to be recoverable, maybe there were four individuals who would fine them for this fine gentleman and return them to him. I think he's saying that they're lost to the ages. And I'm trying to see if that's actually the case.

So are you trying to get him to spill to kind of level with him? Yeah, I basically am trying to roguishly say we're willing to recover these taxes for you and get them to you if you tell us where they are.

He seems to be... I mean, I'm laying it off thick, right? Like, oh, if these taxes were to be recoverable, maybe there were four people who could get them back to you. Well, I gotta tell you, I gotta tell you, I don't think that they are recoverable. I think the dragonfly up and took... I mean, did it look like the taxes were there?

It did not appear to be the case. They must be lost. Oh, the people are just going to be so upset that they're gone and you've given up hope. It's so moralizing when your leader gives up hope. You know what would be really horrible too is if the dragonfly wasn't dead, but it knew exactly what you looked like and the moment you left town it hunted you down and murdered you.

Wouldn't that be so terrible? That would be really awful. I thought you all killed the dragonfly. Oh, we did. I'm just saying, what if we did? You know there also are in just one of them. I mean, you know that that's not how dragonflies...

work, right? But I'm saying that one specifically, you know. And it would be like, say, if you said that the Texas were gone and then they weren't. It would be a very similar kind of statement. Yeah. We killed the dragonfly, but maybe we didn't. You think maybe the Texas are gone, but maybe they're not. And you think that leaving town's a good idea, but maybe it's not. How can I get this guy to leave town? Like, now. He wants to leave town. Why are you trying to do that? Because Brumley thinks the Texas are...

are still intent. I agree. He seems very nervous, like he needs, he wants to leave, but there's something that he needs to do or get first before he can, before he skips town. And he seems like he's waiting for the town square to be evacuated before... You know, I live in my theater.

Why don't we just escort you out of town right now? Oh, yeah. We'll just head you straight there. No, no, no, that's fine. No, no, there's no need for that. You all have done enough. If some reason that dragonfly is not dead, there's no way you're surviving unless we're the ones to take you out of town. But we're really busy, you know, because we still got to find out what's going on in Thrive and Protect the Village with you leaving like a scaredy cat. So we'll just take you out of town right now.

I don't know. Oh my god, what is that behind you? Sorry, I thought it was a dragonfly. I'm more concerned about the... Oh my god, the eerie? The eerie. You mean the owl behind you? Make a tricking NPC. What is the favorite trick in NPC? 79. Cunning. Cunning? Yeah.

11? 11. You succeed. They take the bait and do what you want.

He turns around, he's looking... Did you see him, Dom? He's already behind you. They're already here. The eerie's already here. No, I mean, I'm nervous now. You are making me nervous. Aren't you a vagabond supposed to be helping me out? And we're trying to get you out of town right now. At the very least, it sounds like we already upheld our end of the deal, and what we're doing here is extra nice. If you're concerned with the eerie, it seems like they're already here. What I would suggest, Mayor, is that

If you would like to leave town with your loss, you should probably leave right now. Do you understand? Look, I'm just going to level with you. We know where you put it. And you're not getting it, so you might want to go. Excuse me? Excuse me? The tax money. I didn't put the tax money. You're not getting it out of your statue. Now go.

I didn't, I, this is not real. So if we go, so if we go and we break it open and show all that money spilling out of your statue, everyone's going to know. Do you think you're going to make it out of town with your life when all of the townsfolk realize you've been lying to them and you've been stealing their coins? Why are they going to believe Agabombs? Because if we break it open and it's spilling out of you. My boy Gromley here likes wrecking things. Show him the litter.

I'll take it out and unravel it in my hands and kind of show it to them. We wouldn't happen to be the foreigners you were referencing in this piece of parchment, were you? And the dragonfly, the one that you clearly mentioned, is a ruse? Well, foreigners could also mean eerie. And the dragonfly that you clearly mentioned was a ruse? They were going to kill it.

My man! Whoever likes to make an intimidation or a persuade an episode. Oh, it's persuade? It's intimidate or convince. I got none of the goods on that. Uh, so

Six plus two is eight. I will mark an exhaustion. So that's going to make you a ten? Actually, I can do that for an exhaustion, but I can give you a plus two for one exhaustion. Oh, fuck. Well, then there you go. Save your things.

She gives me a plus, she makes it a ten. Now, you drive a hard bargain, vagabond friends. So how about this? We split it fair and square, and we hold skip town. We're not going to split it. We're going to give it over to the Marquis Eight. They're owed their taxes. And if we don't give it to them, that cat of nine tails and all the other goons are going to beat it out of them. We're giving these taxes to the Marquis Eight. Well, it's almost...

As long as you drive a hard bargain. So y'all know where it is. So I am going to come up with an idea of where I found these. Where did you find the tax? It was with the dragonfly. Before we go. The vagabond found the tax with the dragonfly. Before we go another, even a second step, you also have to have the cat and nine tails return everything they took from the town's fold.

Because the taxes have been returned safely. That's true. And just because you've been kind of a nasty guy, I think you ought to give them something of yours. Like what? I don't know. Pick something and I'll see if it's good enough. Maybe that little cane with the gold topper on it. My cane? Yes, your cane. You don't even have a lid, do you?

No, I just do it to look fancy. Well, that's just preposterous, so you give it up. Everything will be fine. Return to your homes. Let's go, let's go. And he starts walking you through the town as people start to pass by. And you see that the cat soldiers are starting to kind of be prepared down along by the lake bed. And...

In this town square, it seemed to be totally evacuated. And the only people that are, uh...

that are in this square are several Battletoads. And you see that Rhodey, the smaller Toad that is there, is blinking and he says, Boss, I've been begging along with you. I'm going to immediately take my thing out and I'm going to shoot all of those Battletoads with some of my darts. Whoa! I'm not playing. Guns a blazing, baby. I'm shooting them with my darts. I'm going to...

I would say for getting all four in one go, that would be a trust fake. Oh my god, mom. No. So, you pull out...

So you pull out your pan flute and you, all of the darts fly out. And because they're spread out, they all start to stick in the various walls of these buildings. And the man's like, whoa, take it easy. Stay with me. They're going to help us out. Yeah, that's the problem.

Send them away. They're fine, they're fine! I think we can handle them if anything goes wrong, don't you worry. Alright, keep going, lead the way! It's at ease, man, you see they've all been pulling out swords. At ease, man, at ease, man. This is gonna be fine. This is gonna be fine. And he, uh, you see that there's actually four of them total. There's one at either entrance to this large square.

as you all make your way to the statue. And he says, "So what do we suggest we do now?" I said, what we suggest we do is we get the cat of nine tails to return all of the ill-gotten gains to the people of this town because we found the tax money that's going to the Marquis Zate, even though I don't necessarily like that either. The important thing here is that the people of this town are not robbed further.

Understood. I'm really sad. What? The mice, they were just really, really sad. And we're gonna set things right, correct? Yeah. So you tell these thugs what they gotta do to return the things that they took, and then we get the taxes to the Machizete and everything is all right for now, correct? As long as y'all ain't gonna rat me out to the Machizete, are ya? Well, if we rat you out, then you're no longer good to us, are ya?

We have a mutual understanding that you take care of the town like you said you would. You let the poor mice of the clearing go. You skip town if we need a favor, we find you. Well... Make a Persuade an NPC. Nine. Nine. Okay. Um... He... I'm marketing something. Okay. So, with that, he...

And you've been helping this whole time. Is there anything else you want to do in this moment? As he finally breathes and he says, Well, I suppose so. Brody, get the cat a nine tails. Tell him to get all that useless shit back to him. We'll give him these taxes. You fool!

Go tell the people everything's gonna be fine. Don't let anyone leave the city until they got all their things. These fine friends are the heroes of the town, and I found them. Ain't that right? Now, there is one last thing we have to discuss, and that is the actual area. Are they actually descending upon the town? Well, I guess so, but that ain't my problem. Well, it's gonna be your problem when they come knocking on your door.

Well? You're not gonna tell the citizens of this clearing to stay here when they're in mortal danger. Well, I'm sure the Marquis 8 soldiers can figure it out. Gromit, come now. You were so concerned about the citizens of this clearing, and you're just gonna let them talk about him like that? Saying the Marquis 8 will sort it out while he slinks off into the darkness? I have faith that the Marquis 8 can repel a military attack.

It's not unreasonable. They've done it plenty of times before. Just because they're marching on as clearing doesn't mean that any civilian's going to be in danger. All right. I'm trusting you. Because this all started because of the citizens of the clearing. But he is the mayor that's representing the Marquis X, so he's in danger. That makes sense to me. Provided he stays in the clearing and accepts his punishment.

Well, I ain't letting no birds get their talents on me. As long as the people get their possessions back and the taxes are paid, I don't care what you do. And you see him walk over. Well, y'all get your taxes back from the dragonfly. And he reaches up and you see that he gets up on the side of the fountain and he...

He knocks his fist along the statue and you hear it hit stone and gold and then you hear something, an echo of a knock as he reaches up and pulls aside as the large belly swings open. You see there's a treasure trove of gold coins. Gold coins and gems and paper notes. And he says, well, here it is.

I've... I've held my end of the bargain. Watch this end of the bargain again! Return the taxes, make sure that the people are compensated appropriately and not overtaxed, I suppose. Which I don't necessarily think is a great deal, but it's better than nothing. Well, at least it's fair the Marquis gets their... their due. And... don't do this again! We'll know.

Now get out of here. No, aren't you my heroes? We'll be your heroes, but I'm saying when you leave town to lay low and to see everything, I'm just saying you might want to think about what you've done. Make a, um, one more persuasion check. Eight. Eight?

He seems like he's not quite sure, as he sits there. And he looks at you, and you get the sense that he's not really sure that he can trust that you are going to either back his story or that when the taxes suddenly show up with a bunch of vagabonds, that the Marquis 8 are going to buy it, and if he is actually going to have to split town if the Marquis 8 find out that he was actually extorting from that one.

And so something along those lines to either threaten or convince that you're not going to spill the things will kind of get him to... He seems like he's kind of sticking around to make sure that he can get the story straight. All right, what are we... Are we just going to go along with this guy? I mean, I don't necessarily like him skipping town, but you've made your position very clear. I mean, I'm open to ideas, but...

I don't think it's a problem if he leaves town. I don't think he's the best thing for this town. He's going to steal from the people and if they need a new mayor. I just hope that there's somebody who can guide these individuals in a time of need, especially if the area is on their way.

Has he implied that he'll just come back as mayor and he's just getting out while there's danger? That seems to be his situation. He's worried that he doesn't, part of that role will tell you. I think part of the thing that he's nervous about is that if the Marquis 8 find out that he was taking the taxes and not sending it to them, then he's actually going to have to flee town forever. Maybe that wouldn't be the worst thing. No, I agree. I don't want to leave these people without some sort of leader. Look, we've missed life and limb for what?

The denizens of this clearing, and then we're just going to reinstate some garbage leader after this repelled eerie invasion? Somebody is. It's a pretty big pond. Pretty big town. I agree. Somebody's got to be better. Look, this isn't my wheelhouse, all right? I've already been dragged through the muck more times than I want to be.

How many times is that? More than one. One was more than I wanted. Zero. Zero times would have been preferable. Oh. It sounded like you wanted to be drugged through the muck a little bit. No. Now look, here's the way I feel about it. We've got something on you. We've got dirt on you. Yes. Agreed. That's true. So we won't tell anybody as long as you promise to never do this again and we will find out if you do.

"This is our home base. We come back every once in a while, so you'll see us again." "And I'm just telling you now, you do one wrong thing, I'll get one sniff in me nose." "Now you're up to no good. I'll go straight to New Felicia and I'll tell the Marquise herself." And I pull out my Marquise 8 Tabard. "Oh no, people! I still have connections."

Well, I hope that one day my connections and your connections can meet and I can get all your connections. But y'all drive a very hard bargain. But I'm convinced. And just heroes of the town. Heroes of the town. Yeah. And Rory, he's getting the cat of nine tails. And you see that coming down the alleyway is –

far away is the, uh, is, is, is roadie leading the, the, the cat and I feels as well as large wagons, uh,

of loot. And they all seem to be partitioned off into certain bags and things to each family. As you see that all of the thugs, all the battle toes are pulling all the gold out of the statue. And then before any of the cats get there, they close it back up. And he says, well, congratulations. I'm going to skip town. Y'all have a good luck and don't get killed by the eerie soldiers. And like Grumly said, we'll be checking in. So keep your nose clean.

Well, I don't have a nose. Oh, oh, Rhodey, come on, let's go. Mr. O'Nine Tails, it's been a pleasure. I'm gonna go official Toad business. Toodles! And he and Toadie, Rhodey, shamble off as they, as the Cat of Nine Tails shows up and looks at the pile and says, So you got this from, uh,

No, that's not an accent. There we go. There we go. I was going to say, it doesn't sound cool. Well, no, it was because he's a Russian blue. I should have actually given him a Russian name. So he had a big rake. I'm going to keep it like this. You got this from a dragonfly? That's what we said. Yes. That is what we said. Taxes is taxes. We'll count this, and if it's an average thing, we'll give it to the townspeople.

You see the cats walk up and they start to count through as they're doing this and it seems as if it does all add up as um...

as the gold is all partitioned and starting to count up, and you see that more of the cat soldiers are starting to walk back as the large wagons are pulled aside. You see a number of frogs and toads start bringing several of these mouse villagers and the like as they all walk up and they start getting their possessions back. It's like, "Okay, here you go, okay." And it starts to seem as if you're setting this right by they're trying to get their possessions back.

You know, it's the kindest thing. Just before Mayor Bokop left, he decided that he would donate this whole big Irish statue to help fund the townspeople who couldn't pay their taxes. That's right! He said he'd melt it down! Yeah. So you can take that and count it against whatever they have to pay in the future.

He looks at his clipboard and he looks it up. Trickin' NPC. I'm gonna assist the shit out of this. Fuck yeah. I'm taking my last exhaustion to assist the shit out of this. Let's see if she needs it. Yeah, cunning. I got no cunning.

We do. We have one twist. I got a six. Seven, eight. Eight, nine. Ten. I'll do one. So we're going to use the twist. We're using the twist and I'll assist. How will you assist? The power of friendship. Yes, I agree. We have it on. We are working on official mayoral duty. I've said this more than once. I'm going to jump up on it and pull one of my rags out and I'm going to buff up the gold and be like,

But the bottom line is the mayor said while he's out of town that nobody needs this but the good of the people. Isn't that right, Grumley? Yeah, that's right. And I think that this could pay for maybe several months of taxes. Easy peasy, as they say. Grumley forgot to remind me. And he gave me, and I'm going to reach for my pocket, he gave me a couple of these shavings so you can see they're all gold. He looks at all of it. And he looks up at it and he says...

He leans in and takes the shavings. Oh, this is with much more than all that.

Take it. Give it to the moths. I don't care. You look. He pointed at some cats. He was like, stop chipping away at this thing. As they take chisels and knives as they start shading off the gold. And you start to see as all of these mice and frogs and toads are coming up to you and some otters and herons and ducks. They're ducks. As they are like, oh, thank you.

Thank you for slaying the horrible dragonfly. I thought we were done. As their...

They're all thanking you. They're getting not just their possessions back, but also their portion of the taxes as the cat of nine tails and his soldiers begin to strip the statue. And you hear a loud creak as the belly bursts open, now empty, and the gold door falls off.

and the stone statue kind of starts to chip and you see how eroded beneath this gilded veneer it is. Well, to be honest, I was going to say that this didn't really feel like a good win until Hazel, you surprised me. That was absolutely stunning. Oh, thanks. You know, I just didn't like him. He's really not a nice guy. No, I don't like that guy either. He's a jerk.

But it seems... And that statue was just really ugly. There didn't need to be two maple cobs. This is much, much, much better than I thought it was going to turn out. This was good. This was great. And to think we all could have died in the middle of the swamp. Holy... Drowning in muck. You're not wrong. That's true.

But we didn't. Instead, we saved a bunch of people and we kicked the mayor out of town. And, you know... This next time we come back to your workshop, we should just make sure there's no funny business going on. Agreed. All this being really awesome people's hungry work. Can we grab a snack? I suppose we could. Well, there's nothing saying we can't take a little rest. I think we still owe the rooming board at the inn. What?

Yeah, I mean, he's paying, he's footing the bill for that, for sure, and I'm gonna get my fill, that's for damn sure. As that happens, you see the cat in Nine Tails with his clipboard all checked off, and all of it's been taken away, all of their, the individuals are returning to collect their things, and he extends a gold, a satchel of coins, and he says...

Well, y'all are tax collectors now. Here's some payment. And he tosses you a bag of coins. And I would say that's enough for two decay for each of you. Can I add it to my other sack of coins? I've just been expanding the sack of coins. Yeah, I'd say that's fine. For actual payment bags that you get, that's fine. Right, right, right. Okay.

Anytime that it's been like, "Remove a decay for this thing," I've done the other. So I'm up to-- I'm actually up to 6 decay. Can we do either now? Like, if he gives me that, can I-- and I have 2 decay, can I just take away my decay? Yeah. Yeah, right? Okay. Yeah. And, um, and you see as he turns and everything checks out, he goes, "Well..."

We finished our job before the year he got here. Not bad timing, lads. And he turns and you see the large nine-pronged whip as he turns and leaves. And as the townsfolk are collecting all of their things, they...

you see that although they're very grateful and they're thanking you, there's still the fear as they're like, "Oh, what's gonna happen? I don't know. I think... I don't think that the mark you say you'll lose. I don't know if I can handle living in an eerie clearing." As they're nervous, maybe not even necessarily about dying in battle, but just having it switch hands. You get the sense that maybe it has switched hands in the not too distant past.

What I understand that, like, if there's a battle and the clearing is, it's not like they're slaughtering civilians. No. The soldiers are fighting. They haven't yet. Right. Right. They haven't yet. So, fair point. And you see old...

uh old man creep walk by and says well the fact that it starts with old man is the part that really bothers me like if the name was just creep it would be one thing as he makes a noise as he uh scampers off as he gets out of town

And as everything is... kind of the commotion of the thoroughfare starts to get a little bit more as the town is no longer evacuated, all of the Battletoads are seemingly gone, maybe off with Mayor Boghop, or maybe they're just trying to get out of Dodge as well. As people are coming back, they're no longer being escorted away from the statue,

quite the opposite as there's a large gathering of people who would come in to collect all their things. You, um, you, uh, see, uh, that there's actually a crowd kind of gathering and there's unrest. And, um, you see kind of far off standing on, uh, the first layer of that wooden structure that, um,

that Mayor Boghoff had been standing up kind of as a town crier. You see a toad, a lot more slender, in a very nice like blue jacket with gold buttons and like epaulets. And he's standing in the square as he says, there ought to be someone that shows the mayor that he is not the right ruler.

of this clearing! As he is crying and shouting, and you recognize the voice and the appearance of Hamill. Why is Hamill Christopher Walken? Oh, wow! Oh, wow! As you just see people kind of crowding around him, he's holding up things. He's starting to spread anti-Mayor Boghop propaganda. And you are in the clearing. Yeah, that's my best friend! That's Hamill! Hamill!

The one and only. And then as this happens... He's a toad. Noted. You start to see that there are, that across the lake that these barges and ships are starting to get loaded with soldiers. And you're in the middle of the clearing. It's probably approaching sunset at this point. Can we see the map? Yeah, let's do it.

Oh god, I don't want to go to something else. Okay, so we're here. So the Eyrie controls Nookington, right? Yes. Okay. Where's Rybarrow Falls? That's north. All the way up here. And then we've got Drakesmith. Drakesmith's all the way down here. We have Muckbin.

Where are we in... So we're kind of in the middle. Okay, the middle one. So we are in Wortwallow. Wortwallow. And then what's the blue one below that? I can't read it. This is Muckbin. Muckbin, okay. Um... Are you going to introduce us to your friend?

No, he seems like he's a little busy spreading propaganda. But if you look over to the side, you see the cross-eyed toad or the cross-eyed frog over there, that's my sister Flyza. She's totally in love with him. You see her looking up. She's completely cross-eyed. And she's holding these large white gloves and a little too big for her. She's just looking up lovingly at Hamill. So, um, do you think that we can maybe, uh,

spend the night, one more night here before we head out. Oh no, things are getting pretty crazy around here. Well, we certainly don't want to get caught in any of this Civil War nonsense. We just, we want to move on. I don't want to be involved in any kind of Eerie and Marquis-y fighting. That's not for us.

We've got places to go, people to see. We've got... Namely to see Rye Barrel Falls is where I'm interested in going. Never been. Maybe we should go in the morning, though, because I am a little peckish. Totally agree. I know that Hazel's incredibly peckish. We get a good night's rest and maybe head to Rye Barrel. Yes, so let's go back to the... Did I write down the name of the inn? That really nice... Oh, Windy Willow Inn. What?

I'm certainly going to keep milking the old mayor for everything he's worth, especially before he gets back into town and realizes the bill. That's my goal. Let's go have a lovely meal. On the mayor, of course. That's right. Okay, you all are in the inn, and there is...

Um, there's an old mouse that is behind the bar, and he provides you all the drinks. And he's kind of wiping down the bar, and he says, "I don't think the Marquis 8 are gonna be able to handle the forces." "Well, when the soldiers look scared, so you know it's gonna be a bad battle. I've seen the lights across the lake."

I seen 'em. Wait, have you ever seen that before? I ain't seen that many birds in the sky and in a dog's age, points at you. It's terrible. What is that supposed to mean? Is that an idiom? You better hope! It's a short time. It's just a turn of phrase. Is that because dogs are not long-limbed? They poke their noses into business that's not theirs, then yes!

Otherwise, no, it's just the same as the rest of us. I'm totally fine. Well, so all those lights that we saw, those were the soldiers amassing? Yes, yes. That's more than I've ever seen, ever, especially at Macbeth. Well, do we want to get out of Dodge then?

I feel terrible just leaving all these people here. Well, again, it's not really our problem, and that's why I suggest we head north and get as far away from this as possible as is supposed to dive into the heart of it. But that's just me, and I've also never seen the Rybaros, and they've got a lot of good things to say about them. So you're saying maybe we take the river north to Click Clock Crossing?

Yes, absolutely. Well, the bottom line is we have four places ultimately we need to see, and this one is the most out of the way.

No matter how we cut it. And I'd like to steer clear of whatever Marquisate Erie fighting is going on. What are we supposed to do right out of the way? Lie Barrel. Oh. But I guess what I was thinking is why, since we're already basically here, and all the Erie soldiers are coming here, why don't we crisscross them? Because we don't want to get caught between Marquisate and Erie business, is what I'm saying. Oh, great. I don't want to be trying to cross the lake while...

While there are eerie soldiers coming up the other way. And while I've never been, from what I understand, the more north we go, the more with Grumley's people we might be. So you're saying that the river companies, the river folk company is going to take them on their barges up the river? That's what I've heard the soldiers whispering. They come in here and got drunk this morning. They think that this clearing is going to be changing hands.

Then we need to get the hell out of Dodge. They must have paid the river folk quite a bit of clams. All right, well, one night we would like to enjoy a meal, please, if you don't mind. You should invite your friend Hamill and Fleiser and whoever else. Be sure to charge the mayor double, because we're going to be needing it. It's on his tab.

Okay, that's good to know. If you see Hamilton or you see my sister Flyza or Angela Croak, you just let them know that we're in here having dinner and they're welcome to join us. Okay, I'll be here with you. What would you like for dinner? I'm not sure what you have available. We got a...

A variety of... Do you have any shoofly stew? Of course, I don't have a restaurant... Can I get some shoofly stew in the bread bowl, please? Shoofly stew in the bread bowl, yes. We have great bread for mice. What have you got for dessert? We got pie. Rhubarb pie. Rhubarb pie. Okay, and then what? That's all we got. You only have one pie?

Well, I mean, dessert isn't very popular around here. But that's just stupid. I would like-- He looks genuinely hurt. It's my mother's recipe. No, no, I'll take the pie, but I just, you know... Why don't we sit down and I'll go through my book? I've got a lot of recipes I could share with you. Well, I guess I'm gonna probably need to make even more money once I'm paying taxes to the... Erie.

I've eaten a lot of pie, so I can give it a lot of Christmas. Well, when the night gets quieter, I don't think I'm going to get many visitors that are sticking around. But the battle will probably be on the lake. Once the Marquis ain't loose, they'll just march and fly in and meet the new boss, same as the old boss, that's what I say. Do they charge the same as the... as the Erie? I think the Erie... Let's pick your poison.

All right. I thought you were confident that the Marquis 8 might win this. I have faith in the strength of the Marquis 8. You, what do you think the chances are here? You seem like it's going to change hands here. I'm already preparing. The shoofly soup, I'm going to maybe add some worms to it. Because there's going to be birds. Well, then we're getting the hell out of here at the crack of dawn. Agreed? Is that all right if we go north? I think that's the safest course of action. Agreed. I don't think we want to head into the heart of the fighting.

According to the map that we've got, we can always do some sort of a loop around and see what we gotta do, but there's no real... where we're currently at, there's no real easy place to where we're trying to go. I think Rybal is the best place. But that's just me. I can't get caught here if the Eyrie's taking him, but... No, none of us want to get caught here, trust me. The Eyrie definitely don't... Well, nothing to get into right now. The point is we want to avoid the fighting at all costs. Agreed. Alright.

I order meat. You enjoy... Trash panda meat. You enjoy trash panda meat. Well, no, we're not eating trash pandas. Ew. You're eating regular pandas. No! That's enough for 12 of us. The shoofly soup is delightful in a bread bowl. A hamel and...

Flies up. Flies up. I mean, no one can get a hold of Angela Croak. Damn. No one can get a hold of Angela Croak. And they're both... She's probably on vacation with her husband. That's funny.

They're both optimistic. I mean, they don't like the Eerie very much. And Hamiltode, Hamil is, why would you say his full name? That's just weird. Who says that? Hamil is... It's almost like he'd never be satisfied. Oh my god, QS, so good.

He bows around his suit and is like, I will never be satisfied. Satisfied. This isn't very good. He will never be satisfied as he picks out the flies of his soup. He's not very happy about it. But he thinks that it might be an opportunity if the eerie takeover. And you see, and he might be the opportunity to get rid of Mayor Boghoss.

Because there's not a good chance that the eerie would take the same mare. I'm so mad. I didn't think of that. So when you're super proud of your friend, but you're also really bigger than they thought of at first. I'm in a glass cage of emotion. And then you all enjoy your... You have the rooms. The old mouse that runs the inn is...

Kind of is not particularly scared like a lot of people. You get the sense that he's probably seen the clearing change hands a couple of times, and it's just another day in the Dimwood seems to be the situation, and he says he's not leaving, and that's what he does. And you all drift up to sleep. Is there anything else you want to do? None for me. Okay. Can I clear my exhaustion track from the gold that the tag gave us? Yes, yes.

Sweetie. That's a pretty big payload. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so, you, uh... Actually, I guess I didn't really steal that. Never mind. Never mind. That doesn't count. But you did steal all that gold off of the toad from the statue. Okay. That wouldn't have counted as a big payload, though, would it? Mm-hmm.

Well, he gave it to the cat of night tales, so that was for someone else. So, you all finish your... You all go to sleep, and you feel as if you went up by two reputation with the denizens, and two with the Marquis 8. Oh, shit! I bump up another one with the Marquis 8.

So if you go one over, does it spill over or no? No. What are you at? Are you plus one? I'm at four with the Marquis eight. So plus two is going to put me to six. Did we get. So you keep going. You have to go up to 10 to level up. No, no, no, no, no. No, I've got plus one with the Dennis. So here's where I'm at. I'm plus one with the Dennis. I'm four with the Marquis eight. So I'm saying what happens to the extra? Did we, did we gain reputation last session? No.

No, it was the session before that. No, last session two and two. Did we? Yeah. With what? With the Marquis 8. We got two. You brought justice to Mr. Y. And you basically... We got two from the Marquis 8 last session.

So then, yeah, we each get four reputation. For the Marquis 8 for this session? We got from the Denizens last time. No, that was the session before. No, it was both. Was it? Yeah. It was two and two. Holy shit. Two and two and then two and two. But this is just the Marquis 8.

Because I'm going to be plus one for each. So what do I do? There's two this time as well. As you get your reputation, you awake in the morning and you hear the loud crack of thunder as the sky is still dark outside as the clouds of the storm have rolled in. And you hear the pattering of rain hitting the roof of this inn, the Windy Willow. What are you all doing? Nothing.

Well, I certainly hate to head out in this weather, but it sounds like we don't have a choice.

Are there any otters in this town that we could bypass and jump up a clearing? We'd have to take a look and see if Peggy knows. I mean, I know them in Muffet Creek, but I haven't been up this far in a very long time. Oh, frankly, we could just go through the woods. We could, but I'm sure using the otters is faster. We could also go see if we could talk to old man Creep and see if he was willing to go out in this kind of weather. He said he was going to leave town. I think he left last night. He's also no otter, and the otters are best at what they do, and there's nobody better.

If we're willing to spend a coin, it might be worth it to check out what's available. Otherwise, we're trekking on foot. Do we get a sense that if we were to pay the otters to take us up the river, we would avoid a lot of the danger of the forest and the decay and all that? You would imagine that it would be treated like a path? Uh,

A river-themed path. Oh, I guess that's exactly right. And the otter would be the best, but then you could probably pay a frog or someone else that is willing to go up the clear. Normally, it's like, you know, the otters take a lot of money for their river boats. Well, because what we're dealing with, we're deep in the muck, and, you know, where there's muck, there's clams. Well, then maybe we find someone that's not an otter, like a frog or another muskrat or something. I'm just saying, you don't pay for an imitation if you want the real thing. That's all I'm saying. Well...

Why don't you ask around? It's kind of what you do. You're from this sort of area. So... Oh, Peggy, I don't know if you know... Do you know somebody, like a family friend that might own a boat and they could take us? No, so you seem to think that I know a lot of people in town. I spend 99% of my time alone in the room just making things. Oh. So I don't really know any of them. Oh, I'm sorry.

This I'm going to be sorry for. I really like my alone time. Oh, you guys just hate hanging out with us all the time. I wouldn't say I hate it. Say! I'm going to see if I can ask around and see what I can find. All right? All right. So there were a lot of, like, boats that you said had been pulled up. Were they left with people?

So, uh, or the, the, the, uh, a lot of the dock space, the slip space has been devoted to like, uh, barges for combat. Oh, and, uh, you get the sense that they're transport. Yeah. Troop transport. And, uh, that a lot of like the, the, the fishing boats are kind of pulled off to the side or, you know, uh, anchored out basically. They need to take dinghies here and there, but you know, to go up the river or down the river and needs more than just like a rowboat. Uh,

You'll need some kind of ferry. And you hear that whatever river folk company stations there are in this town, especially now with the impending battle on the lake, allegedly, that was going to happen, is they have jacked up their prices tremendously. And you get the sense it'll be expensive. ♪

And that's just the price of doing business, you know? If we don't want to do it, we can go on foot and do what we can and we roll the dice. Can't you, like, talk them down or something? Of course. That's what they do. They love to haggle, and as do I. So if you'd like, I will go do what I can. I'll see what I can do. All right. Maybe we can, I don't know, maybe we can, like, sell them something.

It's not worth a lot, but maybe it'll think that it's a lot and you'll take price. We're not trying to trick them. We're trying to we're trying to haggle for a fair deal here. These are smart individuals. No, this is coming to a mutual agreement. We should give a little bit on both sides and see if we can come to something. We're not we're not trying to trick anybody here. All right. So you are.

You're leaving here going about the town? Hey, I was going to see if I could find some otters or any passage. See what our options are available. Obviously, I'm going for the otters because I think that they are the best at what they do. So the rain is falling down as you all leave the inn. And you see that all of the houses are boarded up, tightly locked in.

and as you turn around the bend in one of the streets, you see the huge lake in front of you and you see out ahead the, you know that it's a cloudy day, but you see kind of a cloud of black shapes in the sky and it seems like a cloud of birds and it seemed to be far off, but heading and you see on the lake heading in the direction of the town is a number of boats and

Off on the lake, moving towards that direction, is a minor fleet of Marquisate-controlled vessels as they seem to be heading out to engage. There's a number of birds flying as well. Some of the songbirds and not shorebirds, but like...

Oh yeah, shorebirds of this lake area are flying along with them. And you see that there's a lot of archers and anti-air ballistae on these ships as they are heading out to battle. And you look around and you find that the otters are charging

an exorbitant amount of money to get people out. There's only a handful of them. Most of their shops are closed, but there's one that's kind of off to the side that seems to be open. But you do actually manage to find that there is a frog that seemed to run like a freight business. He's greeting spots and

And he seems to be just kind of sitting, waiting on the boat. His arms are folded. You see this little sign on a rope in sloppy handwriting. It says, get out of town far away cheap. Well, well, well, well, well, this is the sign we've been looking for all day. Excuse me. I apologize. My name is Booker. I don't mean to come upon you like this.

Booker. Yeah, Booker. Yeah, with a K. Trying to get out of town, friend? We all. We understand that, you know, with high demand comes high prices, but we're wondering what you're charging. Depends on where you're going. Met, please.

Because I haven't memorized all 400 clues. Well, we're trying to make it to Click Clock Crossing at least, but we'd like to make it there first. If weather permits and you're still taking us, we're heading our way to Rye Barrel Falls. The Falls. We're heading all the way to the Falls if possible, but we'd be happy with at least getting to Click Clock Crossing. That's a long way, but y'all folks seem like you are in need and could use a helping webbed hand, but

I ain't charging as much as the artists are, but... That's called being competitive in a competitive market. It ain't gonna be cheap. And he tells you the price, and it would be about a combined $60K. Would you mark additional decay and still make a roll, or would $60K set us at like...

even or plus one or whatever that's a great question how would that affect our path i would say i would say six decay would set just to get the passage up the river because normally it's just either paths or forests right so i would say that it would it would treat that is the price to basically use a river instead of a path or a forest travel and this is all homebrew this is not in the system i'm just no i love it so then if we wanted to try to break even we'd still have to spend extra

And so then you would be exhausted. We have this exhaustion, which I am a little tight on. I'll say we just take passage and we see what happens. Well, at the very least, I can spare decay and I can spare some exhaustion from a medicine to make it at least closer to even. I'm willing to do both.

I've got... 60K is an awful lot. I can't spare any more exhaustion. That's fine. I'm going to be maxed out once we finish this travel. That's an interesting point. So my plate armor, I mark an exhaustion when I travel. If I'm sitting on a boat...

Would that be counterable? I would say no, I'd say that would counter that. But still, I would say don't offer up any exhaustion. I can offer up three decay and two exhaustion for the trip. I'm willing to do it for my friends. I could chip in certainly a decay. I have three possible slots. So that's four. I can do two. Plus two? Three, four, five, six decay. Okay.

So that covers the costume. Are you just going to take the six to carry? I thought we were going to haggle.

This is a much better deal than I thought we were gonna get. So we're gonna take it. You're marking three, you're marking two. And I'm even offering to pay for it, so don't give me that face, Hazel. Oh no, I'm sorry, that's just your face. It is just my face, but it's the face that I make when the con man's getting conned. We're not getting conned. I don't think you understand what the odds are charging. We're doing ourselves a favor here, trust me. And I'm offering up almost half of the cost. So why don't you just settle down and sit down...

Cheeks. And I give up two exhaustion in addition to three decay, so we're good on decay. How much exhaustion do we have? I've given two. Two? That's so good. Are you getting up any exhaustion? No. I don't have any. That's okay. That's right. I don't expect it. What do you got? You gonna give anything for this journey or you just gonna sit there and stuff your face?

Well, you've made me really mad now. Good, good, good! I'm not happy with you. You called me a con man, that's rude. You are a con man. Bullshit! Offer up exhaustion or not, let's go. I can give one, but I don't want to. Could you help? I could give a decay and one exhaustion if you give an extra exhaustion and not a decay. Done, I'm not gonna sit here and haggle.

So I'm back to four decay, my bag of coins. Mom's the only one who remembers him saying we were gonna haggle. It doesn't matter. You don't understand what's coming. Do you see that? And I point to the absolute hellstorm that is behind us. We're getting out of town now. So we're covered on decay. How much exhaustion do we have? Three? I gave one. I pound my snake oils, whatever it's called, and I give an additional two more exhaustion. You don't have those. I do. I thought we all do. We each have one. I have three.

Oh, we passed them out. I drank mine. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Just because I wasn't sitting here doesn't mean you get to pass them out. No, we passed them out when the session got them. We each had one. I took all of them. Did you? Yeah. Give me a potion! I had one too, but I thought we gave you extra. Am I crazy? I've offered up all the exhaustion I'm willing to offer. Yeah, I believe that you'd pass it out, but... I had all four, but it's fine. We can do it that way.

With that, who would like to make the roll? Not me. I'll do it. Are we at a plus zero, plus one? Plus zero, right? Yeah, plus zero. Should we just see him fist? Three.

Four. I believe you. You blame who? Him. Attitude. I'll stop it. Reach across the table. Good thing. So, we got a four. With that, you...

You push off and you see behind you as these Forsets seem to be sailing off to engage, and you see them clash as there's a cloud of bird figures all in the sky, and you leave Wallow behind.

And as you make your way north, you turn around the bend and you make your way up the river. You're probably traveling all day, and as night approaches, you see a light through the forest along the edge.

And you're way far away from civilization.

But through the trees, you see a small flickering light, almost as coming from a lantern. And as you turn on the bend, you get close to the shore, you see a cloaked figure in the rain emerge from up along the bank with a lantern. And you see two eyes peering down, and a feathered hand reaches up and pulls down the hood, and you see Jericho...

the Greek horned owl that started your quest and that's where we'll end the session. Oh shit! Alright. Alright.

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