Vagabond's Heart: A Dimwood Tale | Ep. 1 | Into the Woods
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This is Mikey Gilder and you're listening to Vagabond's Heart: A Dimwood Tale. This is a side canon prologue to uprooted Dimwits of the Dimwood with most of your favorite characters and lots of shenanigans, so we hope you enjoy.

Welcome everyone, we are playing Root the RPG by our incredible sponsor Magpie Games. This is our first time actually running a proper Power by the Apocalypse system, so I do want to say that this is very very very different from Dungeons & Dragons. It could probably not be more different, so everyone, we're going to totally disconnect that comparison, and it is a 2D6 system.

And no matter what, you only ever need two D6s. - These are the only dice I have on the table. - You need two D6s. - I have four in case two of them fuck you. - That is gonna be the case. I don't even own these. We are playing in the world of Root. And so this is a world that is specific to this campaign that we created based on the world of Root. It's called the Dimwood. And our party,

And we can pull up the map, Rich. Why don't we do that? So you can see the map of the Dimwood here. It's controlled by a... You see that there's two factions here controlling it. And I'll get into my narrative. There's the Marquisate, which is a faction controlled by cats that is bitterly opposed to the Eerie Dynasties. And they are these aristocratic birds that used to rule the forest. And our party, you see the little gray meeple, the little token right there,

They are vagabonds, a group of forest creatures that just wander around and see their own fortune and they have their own goals that they're trying to achieve. What we're going to do is we're going to go into introducing our characters.

My name is Brumley. I am a dog, specifically a punk dog, and I work very loyally and very happily for the Marquis 8. They are very... They are my cat masters, and I was a deputy to a sheriff, and it all was working just fine. They fed me well. I served my master well, and then all of a sudden, one day the sheriff asked me to do the unthinkable thing

And I wouldn't do it. So I was cast out from my home in these woods. I'm not from here. I'm from the Cat Empire. I'm not sure if you mentioned that. I think they are there. It's a marquee. The Marquise de Cat is a singular leader who is from a foreign empire that basically settled these woods and Grumly is serving them.

- A what? - And so I'm a vagabond, but I'm still an arbiter. I still want to defend the helpless and do what I can to make my way in the woodland, in the dim wood as best I can. - Okay. Kelsey, who are you playing?

Alright, well, I'm Laine Hazenlove. She's a chipmunk thief. And I'm from the Nookington Clearing. And, well, my fingers just got a little too sticky and I ran away with a whole buffet. And I was going to get everyone in trouble, so I turned myself in and then I ran like heck. So, I'm just, I guess I'm putting up the money for the funds that I stole and I am always after a tasty treat.

Great. Nikki, where are you playing? You know, so I'm just playing Peggy, but some people know me as Rosie the Riveter. I'm a frog. And, you know, I'm a tanker. I make things. It's really cool. And so I just happen to have kind of a side gig, a secret persona, as it were. And that's how I met my friend Grumly here. Because, you see, I make things for the Marquis VIII, and I kind of got to keep it on the

on the DL, so I gave myself a fun name and they partnered with this cute little pug over here. I'm just delivering my whiz. - My character's name is Booker.

And he's kind of a fast-talking, wisecracking, raccoon vagrant. I'm a vagrant, and he's very much a hustler. That's my class as a hustler. Booker is originally from the Muckbed Creek. He's good friends with the otters down there. And due to all the political turmoil, there's a lot of people out there who need to be separated from their coin. I like to use my fast-talking ways to maybe scam some people out of their money.

And where, with all of this political turmoil, there's a lot of muck. And when there's muck, there's clams, as my good friends the otters say. So Booker's whole goal is to kind of just make his way and carve out a little place for himself by separating fools from their coin. Great. So, let us begin the campaign. Welcome to the Dimwood.

A vast, sprawling forest south of the Ice Hell Mountains, cut through by Old Tom's River, flanked by the Sea of Seven Stars and the Hatchet Saw Hills. This is an ancient forest that was once nearly unlivable.

Terrible danger lurks within the dark tree canopy. Savage barbarian bears. Mysterious, some say magical, deer. Beasts of all kinds, almost too terrible to mention. That was until...

The Eerie arose. The Eerie dynasty, a proud people led by birds of prey predominantly, brought civilization, if you would, to these forests. They were the ones that created the clearing. They carved the paths and allowed the denizens of the woods to live comfortably.

predominantly mice, rabbits, and foxes. As the rule went on, however, there was squabbling within the aristocracy of these birds of prey, and there was a massive civil war that almost wiped out the Eyrie entirely.

Pushed back to just a handful of clearings, it wasn't long before an opportunistic feline set her eyes on this forest. Coming from a great empire far away, the Marquise de Cattes had been sent by her country.

to become the new ruler of this forest. They saw a lot of great opportunity, rife with natural resources and a population to be controlled and to get taxes from. And they cut their way through the hatchet saw hills and developed a foothold. And with the Erie in such a devastated state, they took over almost all of the dim wood.

And while they were effectively an invading species, there was jobs for the denizens of the forest. Industry was brought, great mills, workshops, field hospitals, medicine, things that the Eyrie had never really provided, despite the Eyrie bringing civilization. So although they were still paying high taxes, it was a new...

not the worst thing. However, the woodland, the woodland, the Dimwood is populated by a huge variety of woodland creatures, and four of these creatures sit around a campfire in the forest not far from the path north of Okak's Hollow, the seat of power of the Eyrie. All four of you have

are licking your wounds, so to speak, and nursing your pride after a great con job went wrong and you were forced to flee the city. However, unfortunately, you were not entirely detected by many of the warriors of the Eyrie.

And so, it's evening. You decided to make camp. You haven't been attacked by any horrible giant spiders or barbarians. And... That's a thing! You're all, you don't know. They speak of the barbarians of the forest. Oh no! Oh dear, it's a deer! As you all sit with sticks of, with acorns roasting over the open fire,

And you're all going around telling an old story from your past. Your life before you were a vagabond. As Grumly starts drinking deep from his cup of root tea that's sitting on the campfire. What do you do?

Let me tell you, first of all, look, I told you that was a terrible idea to go right into the heart of the area and try to run a con. What were you thinking? Well, clearly I wasn't thinking. That's just it. That's how I ended up in a horrible predicament. Well, we're all alive and with none of our boxes checked off. But let me tell you a story of when I was Deputy Grumley.

It was the greatest experience of my life. The cats, they fought. I was so loyal enough that they brought me all the way to the dim wood. And they, the second I got here, they put me to work. You know, I collected taxes. I kept the order. And, but then one day,

Sheriff Beatrix, who is... I was very loyal to. She was my master. She was my commander. Like that film. And... Starring Russell Crowe. Hey, Boomer. Do you remember Russell Crowe? And... She...

there was this cool rabbit family that couldn't pay their taxes. And so I'm like, no, that's all right. Just hopefully you'll sell more pies next month and you can pay your taxes for this month next month. What kind of pies? Oh, I don't know. Whatever pies rabbits make. I don't know. They don't taste the same to me.

Are they meat pies? I don't know. You know, I'm pretty sure they're carrot pies. Maybe they're carrot pies. So more like a carrot cake than it is a pie. And so I went back and Sheriff Beatrix, she tells me, she tells me, we need to make an example of these people. We need to burn down their farm. If we need to do worse, so be it.

Because he didn't pay their taxes. And I said, no, that's not right. These people can't pay their taxes. He said, they did. They had a bad harvest, maybe. I forget what they told me. But he told me something that sounded good at the moment. And I believed it. And I still believe it. I think it was a true story. And I wouldn't do it. I'm not going to destroy the livelihood and potentially kill these poor little bunny rabbits. Oh, they were so cute. All these little bunny rabbits. And...

So on the spot she fired me. She released me from my duty and I was cast out with the rest of you lot. Oh, probably. And this has been how long ago was all this? Probably a year. A year ago. This was now a year ago and here I am.

Camping in the woods, about to be slaughtered by a barbarian or something. Oh, it's terrible. Well, I still hope not. You know, that was just as bad the first 76 times you told us that story over the past few months as I mark another check down. You know, Peggy, I was going to ask you exactly that. I can always count on you to keep telling you those things. Yeah, you might get it right here on my ledger. Whatever happened to the little bunnies? Let's see if he gets it right. Well...

As far as I know, they had someone else do it. That's terrible. I don't think anyone died, but I think that they burned down their barn, maybe a silo or two. And as far as I know, maybe they're out on the street. I left the clearing as soon as I could. That's terrible.

Who else has got a story? Well, I don't know if my story is as involved or long as yours, but I can certainly try to spit a little yarn. Go on. Thank you for your permission, Robin. I didn't know that I really do actually have yarn in the back, because I have this thing that I'm working on over here, and I could really use some kind of string or something. No, no, you are far more talented than I am. I assume you'd be able to do that. Oh, well, that was rude to bring that up, then. No offense taken.

What? Never mind. Don't you know that yawns are sensitive subject to Peggy? We've been traveling together for at least six months. My apologies. We don't mention yawn in front of Peggy. Anyway, when I was just a young little raccoon back in the muck bed creek,

Where there's a large predominant group of otters who live there. I grew up with my good friend Benny, and he taught me everything that I needed to know about grifting. As you can tell, I'm not one for fighting. I don't really have any interest in any kind of war. The dim wood is an absolute mess. But all I can see is an opportunity to make some money. Well, needless to say...

The Dimwood is a large place, and there's a lot that I haven't seen, and there's a lot of people I haven't met, and there's a lot of persons that need to be lightened. Can't spend too long in one place, otherwise people start getting wise to your, uh, your, your plays, your cons. So, uh, after Betty taught me everything we know, my special patented move is the, uh, desperate smile, which is exactly how we got out of the area. So when in doubt, give them the old smile and walk away.

I'm glad that you learned that patented desperate smile. I'm not sure of the validity of the patent you have on that smile, but I'm not in that business anymore. I do actually have a scroll here somewhere that talks about everything you need to do to file a patent. Thank you. I'll be sure to take notes later. Sure, we can talk about it.

I wish she hadn't said pie. That's all I can think about. Every pie I ever ate. I've had blueberry pies, raspberry pies, pecan pies. Oh,

I think my favorite pie is my mom's pie. She makes a bumbleberry pie that's just unbelievable. And she won't tell anybody what the secret ingredient is, but I've got my nose out for it. Every time we go into town, especially around them rabbit folk.

I've got my nose out. I'm sniffing around for it. Wait, hold on. So maybe the secret ingredient is bumbleberries. Have you ever considered that? You know, if it's in the name, I don't think it's very secret. Well, maybe that's... Well, it's sort of that. Right?

I said it in plain sight! Like you never expected the secret ingredient in Bumbleberry Pie was bumblebears! Have you ever thought to cook bumbleberries? That's actually a fantastic point! The best cons in the world are right in front of your face, you'd never see them coming! Well, I'm not saying that I like that con, but... Well, next night, where can I buy a berry pie then? I didn't even have time to look, you got us kicked out of town so quick! Well, I got us kicked out alive, didn't I? I guess I can bumbleberry another day, but gosh I miss my mum.

Well, one day, hopefully, we can head back there. It's very far from here, though, I believe. And a good thing, because I'm left... I'm on the run. The Eerie are trying to get me. Well, that means two of us. I'm like the Eerie, very much at all, so... Three of us. Four of us. Four of us. You know, you act like you haven't been travelling for months together. You know this.

Yeah, we're just reiterating for you perhaps, I mean... Yeah, I'm a big idiot, but it's every time they come around me. To be fair, there isn't a lot to talk about, so we often come at the same topics more than one time. Yeah, I know, I've been writing them all down. It's almost as if there's this thing, this fourth wall that we have to talk to to make sure that everyone else is on the same page. Why did we even come down here? If we all hate the Eyrie, why didn't we head north? Does anyone have a map?

I pull out a map. Of course, we all have maps. So then we can all blame Grumly that we ended up in the wrong spot. Come on, Grumly. No, you told me specifically that we were supposed to go to Okax Hollow to do this thing. Grumly, calm down. I want to hear Penny's story.

Yeah, I guess I could tell you my story. There's not really much to tell, you know. I've got a really amazing workshop which you've all seen, so you know you've been there, you've experienced it, you've eaten all of my fish. To go outside of that, I really just left because I've got a

lot of things I gotta collect. I've got an entire booklet here of all the things that I want to find. And I've pretty much just gotten all the ones that I needed from home. I might just leave a friend back there. He's really nice. His name is Hamill. He's a toad and he's got great penmanship. He's just phenomenal. He's the one that taught me how to write in this beautiful script.

Wow. You know, hopefully one day someone will think of me and think, wow, Rumley, his redeeming qualities is a good penmanship. Unfortunately, that was the only class I failed in school. No, he writes like he's running out of time. But you know, he all are. I need him a clock for his wrist. I call it a skin clock.

What an interesting name. That's terrific. Yeah, you know, it's kind of in it. I haven't copied it. It's not a TM yet. It's made from skin. It's not patterned yet. Yeah, actually it is. It's made from leathers. Oh, so it's literally a skin clock. A clock made from skin.

So, it's as you're all debating what constitutes a skin clot, as you start to hear a branch snap

In the dark woods past you. As soon as your attention is drawn, you see through the forest and in the same direction is what seems to be a swinging light. Almost like it's coming from the lantern, heading directly in your direction, swinging hastily, jaunting all around. And it seems to be getting closer as the light gets larger and larger in your direction. You just hear it snapping.

- All right, I'm on the fly. - What is that? - Who? - What are you doing? - Who goes there, who? - Yeah, well, if you're in any trouble now, just make yourself known. - I'm gonna hide back in the bushes a little bit. - Okay, so you dodge back. - I see a light, whose light is that? - And you see the light get larger and larger.

there isn't an immediate response as the cracking of the branches and the twigs and the rustling of the brush around you. You start to hear a panting and you hear a voice call out,

"Oh, I'm on the run! I mean no harm!" And you sort of see a figure emerge, and you see feathers. Brown feathers. Not unlike the Erie soldiers that you ran from. And bursting from the clearing, you see an owl. A great horned owl, not flying.

holding a lantern and you see that one wing is in a sling as he wears a large black coat, a bent top hat on his head as he carries a lantern, as his eyes are wide, as he stumbles into your clearing, he looks around almost confused. Hello!

Begone! They are coming! What are you doing? What are you doing? Scarlet season bird! What are you doing here, birdie? Do you have to read for Eerie?

No, I am running from the eerie. They will be here soon. They are coming. They are after me. Wait, wait. I'm pulling my greatsword. Let's get moving. I pull my greatsword away. Where's the eerie? Now, now, Bromley, we're not looking for a fight. I think it's best that we get a move on here. It's evening, right? Yeah, it's night. Yeah, it's night. I don't really want to get caught in the woods with these birds of prey, if you know what I'm saying. Um, d-d-d-d-d-d.

We can't handle the eerie soldiers in a clearing, but we're in the woods. This is our territory. How many are there? Friend or foe? I don't know yet. I didn't get a good look, but I think at least five. You know, I'm a tinker not a fighter. I'm not sure I might get involved in it. I'm with Peggy on this one. I'm certainly not going to leave you hanging back and dry, but I'm not really looking for a fight right now. Out of the bushes. Why are they chasing you?

I would not do a task that they demanded of me. Oh my god, you and Grumly are like the same person. Why don't you come with us and you can tell us all about it on the way? Is there any chance that maybe we can put that light a little bit lower and maybe we can all hide a little bit? You could just blow it out. But I cannot see. They took most of my eyesight.

Oh, no, we gotta get you somewhere to sleep. How did they take somebody's eyesight? Can you tell me exactly how they did it? In steps from one to ten, and then can you describe all the feelings to me? There's not enough time. I'm gonna start, like, kicking dirt on our campfire. I still have my stick with my acorn on it, and I'm just, like, trying to put out the fire and be like, maybe we should head a little deeper into the woods here and get out of this line of sight. We can take this guy with us and make sure that you're alright.

I would appreciate that. Yes. As he stumbled, come on, come on now. And I grabbed him and tried to help him along. So as you douse the campfire and you all start to douse out, you all then start to hear the flapping of winks.

as you all look up and the moonlight is enough to illuminate flapping flying figures as the moonlight glints off of armor and weapons as you see five, what seem to be eerie soldiers flying through the woods in your direction. What do you do? We better go north. I'm gonna try to like duck into some bushes and hide. I don't want to be seen.

So I'm going to look for whatever the biggest kind of brush I can find and like dive into it. Okay. So if you are all, if you are all hiding, we'll just let Booker, why don't you do an attempt roguish feat? So this is one of the moves. You don't want me to do that for the group, do you? You're trying to hide. But for the group? For you. Yeah. Do you want me to do that for the group? Because it will fail.

Well, I rolled a 10, but what is it, finesse? So, that's a minus one. So, it's a nine. So, as you dive into the bushes, you dive behind it, and so you need to pick two of the problems as you attempt to dive in.

- Ooh, I'm okay. I have to pick two of them? - Yeah. - I will use up some resources and attempt to mark decay and I'll leave evidence of my roguery behind. So I didn't, you know, I'll just try to describe. - Yeah, yeah, you can describe it. - We didn't have time to cover up the campfire. There's obviously been camp and I left footprints as I was diving into the bush and I'll mark one decay. - Okay, so now that you see that the camp

has not been fully packed up as there's still some smoldering embers as Booker dives into the brush. They are getting closer and you start to see that one of them is holding a torch in its talons as they point over in the direction of the camp. They don't seem to see you now, but they definitely see the embers of the campfire. What do you do? - Well, do we just fight them now?

I don't want to fight anybody. I really want to fight those evil birds. From the bushes. I mean, if you make me, I suppose, but I'm still hiding in the bush for now. Well, I'm going to join. I'm going to sort of like hide, but I'm going to walk behind the tree. Just like stand there. Skinny little tree. Super skinny tree. And I'm like...

are you all right, friend? And I guess he's like over my shirt. He's on my shoulder. So you, uh, you have this owl over your shoulders. He seems to be, uh, there's a bit of gray in his feathers as he seems to be, uh, quite old as, uh, he's trying to stuff the lantern into his coat and, he's kind of shaking it. It's, it's, it's snuffed out almost entirely. And he's, he's, he's hiding it behind his coat. And, uh, you start to see as you're back off into the trees and you see, uh,

five eerie soldiers fly down and land. You see that there's a variety of, there's a hawk, there is a cardinal, the variety of songbirds and raptors as they begin to poke around. And one, the head, is this tall, this tall falcon. And you see that- I'm just sitting by the fire.

What fire? The one that we had made. I never, I never moved. Oh, okay. So, oh, so, so, so Booker just kicked Ash in her face and ran. Can you hear this? Aww. So as they fly down, they see you, Peggy, sitting there. And they, as they land, you see that they all stop for a moment as the one at the lead draws a sword. And

and looks at you. You see his eyes, his avian eyes going up and down, and looking around the campsite and says, "A vagabond." - Yeah, just hanging out here by the fire. - "Have you been traveling with an owl?" - No, I ain't seen no owl on the frog, it ain't me. - "Are you sure? He came in this direction and he's not very fast."

Well, then I think if he's not very fast and he's not here, you might be in the wrong direction, friend. Have you seen a light in the woods? Yeah, there's one flickering off over yonder. I figure it was lightning bugs. Which direction did it go? Oh, shit, I had to nip a little something. Uh, I'm gonna close my eyes and point and I hope it's right, alright? I'm gonna point over in the opposite direction from where we're at. This is...

Could you please roll with cunning to tricking an NPC? I have a little nip. Nine. Nine. Okay. And so it's a partial success. And so could you please pick one of the two things? Trick an NPC, correct.

So, I don't understand. So, what does it mean you gain a critical opportunity? So, a critical opportunity will be, for instance, like let's say that they stumble and they might be confused and they might turn around and kind of look away and start squabbling where their attention is totally taken off. And you can maybe either book it into the woods or stab them in the back or...

or doing something like that with a fleeting opportunity to take advantage for a potential, it could be risky, but it could lead to a greater reward. And then they overreact plus one forward? So plus one forward means that basically you will gain...

If you take it, they overreact and they might get flustered. For a forward, it's basically for this whole scene, you'll get +1 to all of your cunning rolls, I believe, on that. So if you're trying to trick them again, they get flustered, it'll be easier to trick them because they're not as on guard. I'm gonna-- so I choose two of these? You just choose one, correct? Yes. They overreact, take one forward against them.

as they all look around. You are a drunkard, madam. You are a drunkard. Do you expect us to believe? No, but I didn't ask you to come here and ask me questions either.

Do, do, please tell us right now. I did. What? My tongue was going to fall out of my mouth and probably grab a fly. You know, I think you're right. I don't think it was that way because I tripped over that log to stand next to and I fell that way because I saw it over that way.

I'm glad you asked me again. Got my head on straight. Had time sober up. Make another tricking NPC with plus one. God.

- 15? - Oh. - 15! - I got two sixes, I got a 12 plus two plus one. - Oh my god! - 15. - Shit, that's a max roll. - 15, you see a woodpecker step up and lean in and only you can hear this, "I think he's getting away, sir. "I don't think this frog has anything for us. "She seems like a drunk." - She steps up! - I know! - Let's go now!

And he screamed and all of the four other soldiers immediately get flustered and fly off.

as they take off and they head directly in whatever position you sent them. - In the complete, they're over there? - In the complete, yeah. - In the complete opposite direction. - A completely opposite direction. So they're probably heading west and you just send them totally west and you all wait for a moment and then they are gone. And then you sitting alone in the campsite,

uh, uh, you're Peggy. All you see Peggy basically just totally, uh, trick these, uh, these eerie soldiers as, uh, this, this owl looks and says, Oh,

I'm gonna poke my head out of the bush and say, "Well, well, well, Peggy, very well done! Cunning and bravery to boot!" And I'll jump out of the bush and I'll go and just sit right down next to her. What time of year is it? Like, what season is it? It's probably about autumn at this point. Yeah. Why don't you even ask? It's not early autumn. It's not early autumn. That was quite the display.

What was? Everything that you just did. That was well done. You tricked those stupid birds. No, I didn't know what else to do. I was sitting here and I was thinking to myself, oh, you know, Hamlet would really appreciate it if he wrote down exactly what happened to Guy. And I turned to look over to see the owl and it all jumped into the bushes. And I look up and then these two birds stand in there. I had nothing else to do.

Well, I was ready to fight them both. Why are you always trying to hurt people? I'm not trying to hurt people. I'm trying to hurt birds. There's a big difference.

The Fowler Eerie is trying to take over control from the Marquis 8. Well, that's true. The Bands are people too. Well, they're people, but they work for the Eerie. And Eerie, they're up to no good. Isn't that right, friend? What's your name, friend? Yes, my name is Jericho.

Derrick, oh, my name is Grumly. It's a pleasure to meet you. You, you all saved my life. I... I am in your debt. Well, it's mostly Peggy and Grumly, but mostly Peggy. But if you'd like to pay us back, we'll be happy to take... You, young lady. Yep. Thank you. Oh, you're welcome. You feeling any better? Hold on, let me touch your forehead.

And it doesn't do anything. I don't have any way to do medicine. You touch his forehead and through the feathers, you feel a good amount of... Oh, actually, would you mind if I had a couple of your tail feathers? Like, if you don't need them or anything. Oh, my God.

You saved me from the capsule, so I would not be able to continue my task. Of course, of course. I'm going to pluck out four feathers and put them on my back. You do that. I'm going to take the acorn off the end of my stick, having it had been cooled by now, and say, friend, do you fancy some acorn?

I would fancy anything right now. Please, help yourself! And you see his beak tears into this large, comically large cartoon acorn as he scorches it down in four great horned owls, which are in nature carnivores. This is rude, so he enjoys it and is perfectly sustained. Would you like part of my flesh? No! I'm kidding, I don't actually have flesh. I possibly couldn't. Oddly enough, though, that's going to be one gold piece.

Oh, please be the port.

to, like, we should kill all the birds. That's what I'm saying. I'm just trying to help a fellow bird. Yeah, but do I actually feel? Do you want the birds to die at that time? The birds that work for the Eerie is what I mean. This guy is against the Eerie. Are you against the Eerie? You never actually said. You just said you was running from the show. I am a member of the Eerie. Well...

Easy, buddy, easy. What do you mean you remember? Don't make me put on my ribbita outfit. I... Things are getting awfully tense here at the table. I think we all need to take a deep breath and hear Jericho out. I was. I was. I was a... I was a master of whispers. That sounds awesome. I...

It was my life getting inspiration, information, spying on the denizens of the forest, making sure that we were watching every move of the Marquis 8. And then I found out that my information, they wanted me to violate my personal code, and I've done terrible things. My wings are stained with...

the blood of many of these denizens. Oh, boy. But I could not and would not allow them to destroy whole clearings, even if they are cats, they are invaders, they're still civilians. And... He kind of puts his lantern down. Wait, you mean to say that they're going... The Erie plans to wipe out entire clearings?

Cats and otherwise? Yes, they... My information, my network of spies. We discovered a plot by the Marquis Eight. Create horrible machines of destruction. And wipe out entire swaths of forest. Instantly...

You said machines? Yes, I did. I don't have a blueprint for these machines. Would you want no way to get them? No, it's... Well, you may be able to get them. It was a very dangerous mission. I lost three informants and a new Felicia. You know...

The machines, where would the machines be? Are the blueprints? The ones that I had, the most potent of them were in New Felicia. New Felicia? The cat was going, where are you, Shirley? The cat is quite a ways away from you. Wait, so you're saying that the cats actually have these machines that are wiping out the queer rooms? Yes, but it was then once, once they found that out, they devised a room plan. They...

They wanted to seek out ancient relics from ruins around the Dimwood.

The bygone civilization that may have dark magics and I wouldn't have believed in magics. Well, you know what they say. Our ancestors know a lot that we don't know and they have a lot of technology that we don't currently have and they use a lot of things that we don't use right now and that would be really important, I think, for us. You know, we've got to go. We've got to look into these things and maybe we can look into them. We could all go. We could figure it out. Don't you think? I don't know. Wait, hold on. Hold on. So...

What I'm getting from all of this is you used to be the master of whispers. I was. Can you show me how well you whisper?

Yeah, actually, that's really cool. I would love to see just how masterful you are at whispering. Yeah, but we gotta confirm you who you're saying you are. That's right. You can't say you're the master of something and not actually do it. Before I trust you, I need to understand who you say you are. Let me hear you whisper masterfully. It absolutely amazes me that somehow, someway you were able to see through the con that I tried to play on you.

Wait, who? You. Me? Yes. Wait, what is it called? I'm sorry, my friend. Continue. I've had a lot of routine, you know. I don't think you understand me.

When I refuse, they... That's not a very convincing list. I agree. It's a metaphor! A metaphor! They have my daughter! Did you say a megaphone? Wait, they have your daughter? They do. What are they going to do with her? Bury. Bury, yes. They took her.

From our home, she's all I had. They told me they have her somewhere in these woods. Where in these woods? Do you have any clues? They just told us somewhere. Well, no, but is there any more information? There's no other clearing named Somewhere Clearing. It was their threat. They told me that she would be alive as long as I told them the information they needed, the locations they needed to get what they desired.

Well, that's... But you didn't tell him. That's literally all you had to say, because once you've said that, Brumley's gonna go. And if Brumley's gonna go, that means Peggy's gonna be going. And if Peggy's gonna be going, then Hazel's gonna be going. And if everyone's gonna be going, then I guess I'm gonna be going as well. Yeah. And sometimes... Well, it's sometimes how it works, but not all the time. Probably this time. Yeah, like 95% of the time, it works 60% of the time. Oh, yeah. How old's your daughter?

She's 23. She's close to death. We have humanist lifespans in this world. I forgot to set that context. We're human-sized. Doesn't he actually just blossom the fact that we're all anthropomorphic? Yeah, we're just anthropomorphic animals in a world. So to set a little bit of ground here, this world is like anthropomorphic animals.

and they're all people. They're all peoples, right? So we're... You compared it to the Robin Hood Disney movie. Yes, yes. It's just that. And a people. It's just that. And chickens are the same size as a fox, roughly. Right. But, so like, my first question when we were working on this earlier is like, what size is the forest in comparison to us? And it is basically the same as if I, as a human, were standing in a regular forest. But this forest is just massive, right? Yep.

Like, it's ancient, ancient, super, like a redwood farm. Yeah, like a huge, like, large space. Yeah. Yeah. So. Just in case anyone else was confused. Yeah, just that precedent. So I was like, don't wait, but how big am I? That's a good point. Um, so he, he looks at all of you and says, I

Finding my daughter is my burden to bear. You all have done enough. If you have any interest in foiling their plans... I'll do very much. It would be very dangerous for Wanderers. But if you seek out what they are seeking in the ruins, it could...

Be a great boon. What are you saying? We should go to the ruins. We should probably go there with this. Probably. It's a really interesting stuff. Yeah, I'm just saying. If he's got a star on his patrol, there's really no reason we shouldn't go. Are you sure you don't want any help if you don't? No. It is my folly, my sins that have doomed my daughter. I will wander until I find her. It is my burden.

You all have your own burden. Yeah, we like both of us though. If there is something you can do, one last good act, one penance I can make, you four strangers, I will tell you.

Where the ruins are. Oh, I get it. Now you're saying I'm your burden. Oh, I'm sorry. Continue. Yeah, no, that's exactly what I was saying. You were saying about the ruins, though. That there's some oil. That makes it a lot more palatable. But I said we like that, you know.

- It's true. - Yeah. We have gotten kicked out of a lot of communities. I'm sorry. - Wait, who do you know? - He's like this all the time. - I think I'm not understanding what you're talking about. - So he made a comment about we all have a burden to bear and he wasn't talking about beers as in like,

Oh, I thought he was talking about barbarians. It's so dumb. Oh, you are. No. I still feel like I'm the only one who's absolutely horrified to learn that that may be a thing. Don't say it again. They are very real. Beware the barbarians. Oh, no, we're done for.

Wait, so they're real? Barbarians are real? You know, he's not going to stop talking about barbarians for the rest of the day. Ever since I arrived at the dimwood, the local townsfolk are, don't go into the woods. There's barbarians. Oh, dear. Oh, dear. Oh, dear.

Oh dear what? They would say that too, you know? They would say, oh dear, they would be very worried of bears and wild boars. But anyway, you were saying about those ruins where there could be potentially a lot of things that I could think of? I'm ready to draw a map. Yes. I have in my last act, I

I think I've deduced the...

area of the clearings. Oh, but you know the beast? Yeah. Bromley's also a villain now. Not just you. It's also Bromley. You were saying. Where the clearings are closest to where I believe the ruins to be. Yeah, yeah. Do you have a map of the dimwood? Someone! We do, we do. Hold on, Bromley. Let me get my map out. Here it is. He takes it and he

pulls out a wooden pencil or something. I don't know. What is it? And I pull out one of his feathers and I turn it into a quick quill and pass it over to him. He goes... I crushed up some beetles and make a quick ink. Here you go. Hey, thank you. Screw those beetles. And he marks on the map Reckonoiter Ridge. Yes.

Rye Barrel Falls. Drake Smith. Wait, are you saying there's multiple of these ancient ruins? And Muckbed Creek. Oh my god, you're saying there's multiple of these ruins, or are you telling me we have to go in them?

That can't be right. You put down the muck bed. That can't be right. Wait, what were they again? Reckonoiter Ridge. Reckonoiter Ridge. Rye Barrel Falls. Muck Bed Creek. And Drake Smith. Drake's Mouth is how it's spelled. But you might pronounce it Drake Smith. Correct. I don't even know. What total place is where I can go and...

Help whatever's going on, the big picture. So if we do this before the Eerie does, we can save a lot of people? You could. And you will have a terrible price. Terrible burden.

You have much power. If you just met him, you could at least be nice. A terrible burden. I'm so sorry. I didn't tell him he was terrible. I'm pretty sure we're back on the ruins here now. I'm pretty sure. We're not on the ruins. He just told you we're the ruins. He's just talking about the ruins. You've mentioned the word burden like five or six times. Are you referring to Booker when you say burden?

because I think Peggy thinks that you're saying or referring to Booker. I thought you were saying there's a terrible bird on and then we kept cutting him off so we don't know what the bird's on. He has a bird on? Ew! Oh!

No! Ladies and gentlemen, Booker's leaving the party. I can only hope that he reads me a line and I step into the first layer. I thought we talked about that and I told you that it made me uncomfortable.

"Well, I thought you..." "Say things like that." "I thought you knew what he said, Bledar, first!" "I mean, like there's a bird on a rock, there's a bird on the tree, there's a bird on anything." "But you said Bledar! No, there's a great board..." "A bird in!" "Oh no, there's a bird in where?" "Oh, in the roots." "Oh." "A bird in. That much power."

You could sell that to any one of the factions that competes for the Dimwood. Sell it, you say? You're saying there's one of these new ones for each of us. You will need all four to unite the power of the lost dear king, the Blazing Heart. When you say dear king, are you talking D-E-A or D-E-E? D-E-E.

Are you okay? Are you having heart palpitations? I may very well. So, can you answer my question now? Are you talking D-E-A or D-E-E? D-E-E. Oh my god, are you okay? Are you having heart palpitations? I think I am. I almost died. Okay, so anyway, are you talking D-E-A or D-E-E? D-E-E.

The druids that stalk the woods. What was his name? You said the Deer King? The Flaming Heart. Is that his name? Was it the Lost or the Last? The Lost Deer King. And the Blazing Heart. Yes, the Blazing Heart. Sorry. Sorry.

The one who brought this woodland to ruin centuries ago and the horrible magic that they practice in these woods. The ancient relics remain. Why, so his name is Burning Heart? Is that what it says? I do not know of his name. I know of the king. The king. King D. That brought his kingdom to ruin. So King D had a kingdom?

What? Are you saying the Kingdeer had a kingdom? I think he means kingdom like the one word. Yes. Like an entire place. Like the empire that I'm from. Have you heard of it? You may have heard of Marquis de Cat. Yes, I have. That's where I'm from. It's a long way from here. It is. And there will surely be coin.

though for any faction of the many that are attempting to rise up from our power struggle. It may not just be the Marquis H or the Eyrie in the years to come, but I have lifted this burden selfishly from my own chest, for I no longer care about the fate of the Dimwood. I care about my daughter.

And I leave it to you four, the ones who saved my life and turned down a very plentiful bounty for my head. You know, there's no better way to repay people than to throw a heavy burden on their shoulders and force them to make their deal with it. You do not have to. But the burden is released from my heart. And that is what matters. It's really sweet.

To be fair, I'm not really looking to go on any kind of dangerous journey here. I don't really want to die. I just want to be comfortable in whatever new world is currently forming around us. But it does sound like, if we find these things, we might be able to sway the tide a little bit. That's true. Who else knows about ruins? No one besides me.

And now you... This is my final sin. Devolving this to the four strangers that saved my life. So why us? Just because we saved your life? That seems a little far-fetched. And because I wish to be free of this knowledge, being the only one who knows. It's terrible.

But now I do not have to worry. You may tell others it matters not to me. I now search for my daughter, for that is my duty, and that is all that matters to me. Well, I hope you find your daughter. Is there anything we can do before you go? Would you like to at least spend the night at our campsite?

I don't even have a campsite anymore. We kicked the fire. Yeah, and you know, to be fair, if they're keeping this dark for a lifetime, I don't know how much longer they're going to do it. And he gave him the last acorn. I'm not even going to make it till morning. I'm already hungry again. You had five out of the nine acorns that we got. I don't care. I'm still hungry. I think there's over half. I had to run over there and hide. You know how much energy that's going to take me? It's just like all of it.

I mean, that's probably true. But you've already had a lot of people is trying, I think she's trying to say, would you like another encore?

I don't want any eggs. Take my egg, one. I wish I still had it, especially since it's an egg hole. Hey, do you wish for payment? No, no, no. We insist that you don't pay us. I would like to do... For what? If there's anything else we could do, maybe that would be worthy of payment. But it seems like to take payment for saving your life, that would maybe be...

Rude. But Booker knows a lot of jokes, and maybe you could use some cheering up, and that'd be worth a coin. Oh, um, yes, I have plenty of jokes.

Is that a cue to tell one? - Do you have jokes? I don't think I've ever heard you tell one. - Oh. - Why don't you tell one now? I'm ready for a joke. - Of course I have jokes. - I'm so excited, I love jokes. - Hundreds of them. Let me just, my favorite joke, the one about the, oh, there was this raccoon, went to the local tavern, sat down, had a drink. - Yes. - Next day, walks in the tavern, sits down, has a drink.

The same day, over and over again, continues to drink until he realizes that his drinking problem is absolutely destroying his life. Oh, this is going to be a good one. I can't wait for the punchline. No, no, that's the whole joke. What? The whole joke is to go... Everyone keeps me every time. Wait, everyone is laughing, that's the punchline? Yeah, that's the whole joke. Oh, um...

That was pretty good. That was good. That's worth a coin, isn't it? That's a high-quality joke. Tell them the one about the seagull. You remember that one? No. Oh. I've never liked seagulls. I'm not even sure I've ever seen one. I knew a seagull once. I didn't care for him. More than all. More than all. They always work with the artists, don't they? But in this grim time...

Oh, you know, I think I just got your joke. It's funny because the guy himself was a joke. You know, that's actually really clever. Oh, ha, ha. His eyes widen. His eyes widen. Come on, please. In these dark times, that is funny and worth a coin. And he pulls out two coins and he hands it to you. You can mark a decay. Oh, I'm back to you, Ethan.

You don't have to play him.

He doesn't have to, but he did. And I put the coin in my jacket pocket. He gets off on this, you know. This is what he's all about. And I just think next time... Everybody likes a joke. I like to pay for a joke. No, no, not about the joke, about taking poor people's money. It's what he's all about. Hazel, it's a good thing you mentioned more jokes because I've got a bunch of them and you remind me and I'll tell you another one another time. I don't care if he's poor. You just assume that he's poor. You can ask me if he's poor. I don't care if he's rich and poor. He should

be giving Booker money. To be fair, you said to him exactly that you shouldn't be taking a poor man's coin, but you don't know if he's poor and if he's super rich. I was paid very well. See, there you go. Stop making assumptions now. He encourages bad behavior from Booker. Look at how excited he is for two gold pieces. That's barely anything at all. Look at him. He's grinning. He's giving me a thumbs up.

I just have a big toothy raccoon smile. I don't like encouraging bad behavior. Anyway. We all act in our nature. It's unavoidable for us in the Dimwood. That's right. Because we're all like animals, kind of. Yes. Wow. It is nature that rules. But I must go. I have no need for gold where I am going.

And I may not survive, but... You did show two gold pieces. I did. But you're not going to need it. Well, I think he gave me both. What? You have them. Oh, I'm sorry. No, he hands you two of them as a little tip. I take it back then. Pretend I didn't say that. Continue. Continue on with your horrible, horrible end of your life. I now will go...

You've bought me time. I do not know how much time I have, but it is now my time to wander these woods and find my daughter. Should she still be alive?

Well, I'll thank you very much. And stay safe, if you must go now. And in the morning, we will continue to, I think, reconnoiter the ridge. It's the closest clearing that has one of these ruins you're speaking of. Yeah, we'll reconnoiter the ridge. But you know, in the meantime, I hope that you find your daughter and that she's all right. And if you need anything, then, you know, hopefully you find someone in the forest. Because we're going to be going in that direction.

Well, thank you, and like I said, this is something I have to do on my own in Reckonoiter Ridge. I believe the Smiles Mining Company may have done something to unearth the ruins that are there. There's a mining company over there that has very important information for you to jot down. There is. Levi Smiles, his greed knows no bounds. I...

You may be able to find the ruins to follow what the minds have uncovered. And with that, I begin my journey. Goodbye, strangers. Good luck, friend. Thank you for lifting me. Lifting this burden off.

of my heart. We will do what we can to stop this terrible evil from the ancient deer king, um, and whatever else anybody else took notes on because our language was keen deer. Literally, I'm burning heart something. Anyways, I'm gonna do, I'm gonna stop at nothing.

To stop the evil that is capable. You know, that same doesn't really make much sense because it means you're going to stop at nothing, which means you're basically doing nothing. You don't want to stop is the entire point. I'm just going to continue eternally is basically what you want to say. I'm going to stop at doing nothing is not going to get you anywhere. That's it. Jericho, I hope you find your daughter. Thank you. And that she's not dead yet.

What kind of lamp does he have? It's a black lantern. It's a hooded lantern. Is it a black? Yes. Can I see that? Like, just one of those things?

What would you like to do? I'm going to take one of the panes, smash it, take a rock and carve around it and make them a pair of spectacles. You know, for your eyesight.

So you can find your daughter a little better. Okay. Okay, so you smash it and you take some metal in your... So you have some metal. Yeah, yeah. So you want to mark a decay to basically use your supplies. And you fashion him these spectacles that seem to fit his yellow eyes, his huge yellow eyes. And he puts it on the end of his beak. And his eyes kind of widen and he blinks. And he says, I can see again.

Well, that's great. Thank you. I hope you find her. Thank you all. Well, be safe, and I hope you find your daughter. Good luck, my friend. Good luck to you. Do what is in your natures. Carry your burdens how you will. It is all we can do in the Dimwood. And you see him turn as he slowly walks.

out of the clearing, and you see as the light from the lantern as he wanders off gets dimmer and dimmer until it fades into the night around you. That was very nice. Yeah, he was. I feel like we should get a good night's rest.

and then set off immediately for the reconnoiterage. If I look at the map right here once this thing works here... There we go. Now I've got to do one of these things. If I look at the map, it's just straight to the northwest, I think. It is. I do not have time to look at the map. I do. Oh, no, there's... I'm not... I think it's a fox clearing according to this map here.

But we're in these woods. We're in these woods right here. And I point at the woods we're in. It should be not even a day's travel. Provided everything goes well. Yeah, provided we don't try and ambush, you know, people and go. Yeah, we should just try to, like, sneak. I think at the very least, we need to remember that life is very difficult out here in the Doomwood, especially this past year or so. We should make things a little bit more difficult for ourselves.

Well, if I see a bunch of eerie soldiers in a way that I can defeat them very easily, I'm gonna take that opportunity. Just remember, you're probably the only real trained soldier amongst any of us.

Some of us are just along for the ride. You guys can just watch me do it. It's fine. I'm not saying I need your help to kill five of them. I mean, five of them is a little too many. That's why I didn't just charge in and I let Peggy do her thing. But what I'm saying is next time when there are four, I can handle it.

- All right, Gromly, what do you say? Can I climb? - Yeah, as a raccoon, yeah, you can climb. - I'm gonna like, scurry up into the nearest tree and say, "Well, good night, everyone," and sleep up in the branches to avoid being seen by any wandering eyes. - Okay. You scamper up and you all take the evening.

and, uh, left with the thoughts of the burden that has been placed upon you. And it seemed as if Jericho didn't really care what you did with this information, take it or leave it. It could lead you to great profit. It could lead you to potentially saving lives or, or taking a great many of them. Um,

the information was yours to do with what you would. And you all enjoy, you don't enjoy a long rest, that's not a thing. You wake up in the morning. You gotta break the mentality. We're all, we're all, we're all... Dungeons and Dragons! Dungeons and Dragons!

You all awake in the morning, and you are ready to set forth to Reconnoiter Ridge. And you are just far enough out of the forest where you could choose to get on the path and go that way, but you know it is heavily patrolled by eerie soldiers.

and as well as Marquisate soldiers, as it is a border between their power struggle and there's a great number of battles. Or you could choose to travel through the forest, although you know that there's dark creatures within. What would you like to do? - What do you think? - Fellow vagabonds.

I don't know. I think maybe if we go through the woods, I could pick up some, like, nuts and berries as we go, and that would make me pretty happy. And I was thinking, you know, if we go through the woods, then I might be able to pick up some, like, poison or some beetles or, like, something else. What do you think, Luka? Some thorns. Well, to be honest, I'm not really in any kind of a rush, and I'm not usually the one who makes any decisions, because when I do, you all yell at me.

Well, that sounds like a third vote for the woods. What am I going to do? Usually just rumbling. Touche. As long as we stay out of the eye...

I think we'll be alright. If it's faster for us to move through the woods, then that's fine. I'm looking forward to seeing a new clearing, potentially a place I've never been before, and maybe seeing what they have to offer. So the sooner we get there, the better. Well, we're already in the woods. I suppose we could go through the woods to... What happens when we get there, though, with the cats?

Well, I'm good friends with the cats. I used to work for them. It's not like they hate me, per se. So... What do you think they're going to do to us? I don't know. We can also try and find some things that I can intend to make something and then Romy could deliver a package from, you know. You know.

Yeah, we got a way to grease the wheels, if you know what I'm saying. Actually, quite literally, I could do that if you have a wheel that needs going in the grease and I got some of this and I pull out a baby grease. None at the moment, but thank you. All right, sure, then I don't know why you brought it up. The point is, when we get there, I'm sure there'll be plenty of things for us to do and see and people who are loose with their money. And their snacks? Could be.

And they're a cat stand, and we could maybe provide services to. But I think, at the very least, we need to be very tight-lipped about these ruins. I lived in, uh... Muckbed Creek. Muckbed Creek my entire life, and I've never even heard of these ruins. I know the muckbeds inside and out, almost as well as the artists do. And if the artists don't know about these ruins, then I'm not even sure they exist, to be honest with you.

So my point is, we shouldn't be mentioning this to anyone. Well, J.O. Go said nobody knew about it. That's the point. Well, that's a good point. You lived there your whole life and you never heard of these ruins? Not even watching Dear God, King Power? King Dear Power? I gave the guy an ink on it because I felt bad for him. And then he gave me some money in return so that I didn't really feel bad for him anymore. You,

The point is, he might be giving him his key. You mentioned it three times, like, well, you didn't give me any gold for an ache, or I'm broke now. And then he did it out of pity. The point is, he could be a darling old fool, and we don't know if his story has anything after it at all. That's a really good word, Zodway. I'm going to write it down.

I don't know.

I don't know why I'm shouting at you from two feet away. Are you busy climbing into somebody's attic and shitting in their rafters? I don't think that happens in this world. Do we have to abide? I assume he doesn't have to abide by nocturnal animals. No, no, no. We're anthropomorphic. We're basically...

And we're not dead at 23. Are you sure? I have to look at how old I could for Chipmunk Slug. Well, let's go through the woods. And I would like to spend time looking for poisonous bugs or snakes or anything that I can...

Milk for poison. And I will be looking for nuts and any late season berries that are still on the bush. I have nipples. Can you milk me? Yeah, you probably could. I've got this contraption here. Oh, no. Keep that thing away from me. So now we're going to get into movement or travel moves.

And so, traveling between clearings is a big part of the Root board game. And it is a big part of the Root RPG. So, it's different between traveling on the path and traveling in the forest.

And the party of vagabonds is going to decide how much, how many resources they're going to expend to make this journey. And they're going to make a group role with a modifier. And depending on how many supplies they utilize to go through, if they are traveling on the path, it would be how quickly they go. And so they would be spending exhaustion rather than decay. Question. Go ahead. What is the,

Oh, it's a straight roll, right? Straight roll. There's no modifier. So, well, it's minus one. No, but I mean, it's not like a finesse roll or it's not like a one roll. Correct. Yeah, the modifier is determined by how much you all put together. Got it. So it really doesn't matter who rolls. So if you put in three or less...

Then you're at minus one. If you hit four, that's a plus zero. Five is plus one. Six is plus two, et cetera, et cetera. So on and so forth. Well, I'm happy to volunteer at least one decay. It's the start of the day and I'm feeling pretty good.

I'll use some of my own supplies as well. Can we get our decay back at the beginning of the day? Oh, no, you need to resupply. Oh, okay. Yeah. Does finding things that we're picking up, does that count? What was that? It's like picking up things in the woods, like how we're looking around for things. Does that count at all?

I would say that if you're being deliberate about it, you may be able to, depending on what you find, you may be able to get a, I know that's a ranger feature to actually be able to get one decay by going through. So, but you may be able to find stuff that like it's helpful, but it may not count towards the decay. Okay.

This podcast is brought to you by our Patreon. Become a patron today at patreon.com slash legendsofavantris and gain access to tons of exclusive perks, including a monthly movie night and a weekly Patreon exclusive campaign set on the high seas. Shroud over salt marsh. You can also go to thecrookedmoon.com to pick up your own copy of our first published supplement.

The Crooked Moon, a folk horror tome for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition. And don't forget to snag all the extra goodies like dice, miniatures, plushies, a tarot deck, and more. Thank you. So, how many resources or how many decay are you all going to put in? Well, let's all start by at least saying what we're willing to. I'm willing to do one. I can do more if we need to. I'll put in one. I'll do one as well.

Yeah, I'm going to ignore everybody and I'm going to focus on getting all of my stuff. Okay. Very important. Well, that's free. I'm thinking I can feel, uh, this is decay. Yeah. Oh boy. I'll put another one. But I'll do it begrudgingly. All right. Well, if we do that. I acknowledge your begrudgingness and I continue to learn from them. So you're going to make the roll at plus zero.

Yeah, we negated our minus one. Okay. With the four decay. Yes. So anyone can make the roll that they would care to? You did too, so you make the roll. That sounds like a terrible plan!

- 11. - 11. - Okay. - These dice have action in the middle of it. - Dang, okay. So, um... - So do we, we all still lose the paper we put in, right? - Wow, look at that really expensive paper. - Really expensive paper. I recommend if you want to print out a sheet, every single one on oversized expensive paper that you need to fold. - Right now. - So. - One of us. - You, thanks to, um,

Booker is using a lot of his resources, his torches, he's using his compass and actually it breaks, but he has actually another one. And he devotes a lot of the resources and you all pool together and thanks to all of the efforts, you make your way through the woods. You're able to find some small spiders that, well, they're small, they're about like yay big.

But you know that spiders in these woods, at least their stories of being the size of, three times the size of a critter, of a wooden critter. - So it's like a spiderling. - You find a few spiderlings. - So these are like the perfect spiders to milk. - Exactly right. And you find some fresh berries. I would say you'd be able to milk some of these spiders and get a couple vials of poison.

Or venom, pardon me. - And would you assume that it's your typical paralyzation venom that spiders do? - I would say until, you weren't able to observe it, so you have to experiment with it to see what it does.

Put that in my root tea, I'll kill you. I wasn't thinking that you were. I was thinking about the dog. He weighs a lot more than I do, and it would be a good way to test him. So you get one jar of this venom from three spiderlings that you find. I will say, Hazel, you managed to find a nice pouch full of plump berries, of forest berries. These are exotic. You can't get them by... These aren't grown in the clearance.

especially back where you're from. And as you make your way through, you occasionally hear the loud echoing roar of what sounds like a bear or the vicious snorting of a boar. But however, you make this trip during the day and you arrive to Reconoy to Rich uninterrupted. And with how dangerous these woods are,

It's a relief and almost a shock as you arrive on the outskirts of this clearing, as you see what seems to be a huge mining town.

As you approach, as the forests clear into this clearing, you see tents and tents spread out as far as you can see. You see dozens, maybe even hundreds of these, as you see a great number of critters walking around, all covered in soot, wearing leather hats, holding mining picks.

They look tired. You hear a babbling creek off to the side as you enter, and you see a few prospectors panning for what you assume to be gold. And as you see these huge hills, the forest has been completely cleared all around it. And you start to see that there's a heavy population of Marquisate people.

soldiers guarding and marching and patrolling around as you see all of these great hills and ridges and all these maces going up into what gets its name, the Reconnoiter Ridge, as there's these great cliff sides and hills that go off up towards the... Oh my god, what is it? Ice Howe. The Ice Howe Mountains. As...

As you arrive, you see a bunch of just filthy miners. As you see a many wooden... A bunch of filthy miners. As you see a bunch of wooden structures erected, there's a town built up amidst all of these different mining operations. Small hills that seem to have been bored into different entrances. You see tracks laid down with mine carts going in and out, all around and up,

Far ahead off, as you approach, far ahead off to the northeast, you see the largest structure of them all. And as you enter, you can, even from very far away, you can see the Smiles Mining Company in huge letters. And...

You are in Reckon Order Ridge. Important question. Yes. Have I ever been here before? I would say, for the purposes of this game, probably not. So I'll say... It matters. Yes. That's why I'm asking. Yeah, I would say, you know, I would say probably...

Probably not. As in, this is, you know, I guess it would kind of, uh, uh, you probably would have all met towards what you call it. Let's pull the map. Let's pull the map.

I would say, like, for this purpose, you guys probably would have stuck around those middle clearings there. And the Reconoydor Ridge is pretty – it's far off. It's on this edge of the dimly as it goes off. And so that – being far north and far south –

Okak's Hollow was about as far as you had gone in these clearings. So I would say probably not. As you also know that this is a pretty rough and tumble town, as many people from all over the woodland, all over the Dimwood, have come to seek their fortune in a variety of different ways. And you know that once the... It was a simple town until the Marquisate came in and

and established the Smiles Mining Company. And basically installed, it was predominantly dominated by foxes. And one fox basically made a pitch and became the designated mayor of the town and brought in the company, which seemed to be run by a cat.

So you are all at the, uh, entering this clearing. You see a great, uh, this, this town, uh, that's kind of sprawling out in between these hills within this clearing. And you see, uh, the mines off on all directions as you enter. What do you do? Well, well, well, this is quite the sight to behold. Yeah, this is a lot bigger than any, anywhere I've really been.

I'm gonna be honest.

I've never even looked at the map, so I couldn't even tell you. Well, I've had it this whole time. Would you like to take a look at this map? I'd love to, but it's very difficult for me to see because it's a map for ants. Do you need some of those spectacles that Peggy's made? Yes, and then some. Laser eye surgery might be best. You know, that can be...

That can be arranged. I've got this laser, right? Bear with me. I don't know very much about the map and the learning. And so actually, Rich, why don't we... I know I mentioned some clearings where the ruins were, and you all have a map. This is the map that you see that you all have. Do you want to show the viewers kind of where these ruins are allegedly spread out? Yeah, so now that the map is up, we have received information that there are four ruins throughout the woodland,

And they're in Reckonoiter Ridge here in the east, Ryebarrow Falls directly in the north in the middle of the map. There is a ruin in Muckbeg Creek, which is where Booker's from, the fox clearing there kind of towards the south, and then there is a ruin in Drake's Mill in the southwest of the map. Well, we're on the way to answer your question.

These books are huge, and yes, as much as I enjoy traveling, I can't say I've been to every clearing, or even most of them. Generally, often what ends up happening is I find unsuspecting travelers who may be lodging in the woods or along the trail, and I talk to them and hopefully fleece them for everything they want.

well we're going to do no fleecing here all right under my watch this is a marquis decapley ring and we're going to do the marquis eight well and hopefully maybe provide some services maybe the mayor or this leave our smiles guy maybe they're looking for some you know some

They have some jobs that no one else would be willing to do, and we're vagabonds. It's kind of our thing. Oh, well, when you say it like that, sir, then yes, sir, I won't be fleecing anyone, sir. All right. Certainly not the very expensive and powerful-looking Levi Smiles. You know, would you say that you have them fleeced? Because I could really use them. No, I don't want any fleece. You know, then we shouldn't have brought it up.

So I, as we walk into the clearing, I'll do all these, and I'll make sure that my fur looks really nice, and I will put on my old, tattered Marquis Zane tabard from back when I used to work for them. Oh, great, come here, come here, come here. I'm going to pull out some thread and needle. You got a little rip here. I'm going to sew it up, make it look nice.

You can patch it up a little bit. Well, thank you. It still looks terrible. I don't know if it's a tavern or whatever. You've gotten chubbier since you last wore it. What I chose was a faded military insignia. So whatever that would be, whether it's like an old tavern. Yeah, an old tavern's fine. However you want to flavor that. It's up to you as the player. Well, then, man, let's say it's an old tavern. So I put that on over my very heavy plate armor. And as you walk in, I'll leave the group and I'll say...

No, I just want to make sure that I can get many of you for that.

No, I mean, I used to work for them and they might help us out in a bind. Ah, sounds like you've been hanging out with me a little too long. Well, we need some kind of leverage, don't we? You say the word leverage a lot. I think I know what it means at this point. You're learning quick, my friend. Proceed. So as you walk into the clearing, I want to, like, every cat soldier that I see, I'll be like, how do you do? And, like, sort of, like, stick my chest out and be like, oh, yes, very important stuff, eh?

As we walk into town. As you walk down, you puff out your chest and you're wearing your tattered tabard. Tattered tabards, say that ten times fast. And

as uh all of these uh soldiers as there's you realize there's a really uh heavy presence of these cats of all different uh fur colors and varieties and you also see that there are also foxes and rabbits and mice wearing the colors of the marquis they seem to be soldiers just along with them as well as

animals of other varieties. You see a few birds, and as you look up and around, it's not just a town that is built into these hills. All in the trees around, you see that there is lodging built on stilts where there are perches and roosts for the bird that is in as well to live. And as you make your way through the tents, as you kind of pass some soldiers, you hear the mutterings of

of these miners that seem to be employed by the mining company. And they seem to be muttering about the terrible work conditions. And you hear like, oh yeah, no, old Jeffrey got killed in a cave-in just last week. I don't know if they're not shoring up their tunnels. This is going to be a death trap. I don't know if I'm going to make it. And you hear people muttering

about, um, you kind of see people whispering as they see all of you walk into town and they all make their eye contact with, uh, with Grumley and his tavern. And they're all, a lot of the miners, they'll be a little bit haggard and they look a little bit scared as they kind of avert their attention from you as soon as you, uh, as you do that.

Um, and as you're, you're making your way through, uh, you get towards, uh, you get towards the outskirts of this town and, and you see that there's this, uh,

back alley and you hear as you're making your way through it's in it's not a very populated part of town you're at that time of the day where a lot of the miners are deep in the mind you see a lot of activity up in the hills but in the town proper you probably get the sense that this comes alive in the evening when everyone is off work and they're ready for for a drink but you're in this kind of it's almost seemingly deserted part of town and then you hear a loud thud as if a

Someone got punched and you hear a grunt and a groan and then another as it seems that someone is getting beaten up right around the corner from where you are. What do you do? And I'm going to start. After the source of the noise. You run over the source of the noise. I'm going to run behind him. What do you guys do?

I'm following along. I want to pull out a hollow bamboo reed with a nettle tipped with my spider venom, and if it gets out of hand, I'm just going to blow dart whichever way. You know there's no better time to test it out than now! Okay! So you craft a nettle device.

And as you do this, and you make your way, and you curve around following Grumly. And Grumly, as you turn the corner, you see this back alley. There's a number of barrels and crates almost kind of shielding the scene that you see. But you manage to squeeze through this little hole and see the scene. You see a fox.

whose fur is coated in blood, a huge black eye, dirty with soot, as you see that the scruff of his neck and his shirt is being pulled up by two hulking thugs. One seems to be a large brown cat, and the other seems to be a

but taller, like a dark-scaled lizard of some kind. As the brute seems to be, the cat, and seems to be wearing a simple uniform of cloths and leathers. But the lizard is wearing a hat, very well-dressed,

and almost wearing a nice suit as he's also taking turns with this fox, he's getting beaten up. What do you do? - I was so disheveled! - You see as the cat is grabbing this fox and is getting ready to wail it again, he stops and you see the lizard turn his head and says, "None of your business, friend."

What did he do? He seems pretty helpless. Why are you beating him senseless? Why are you poking your nose in the business of the Smiles Mining Company? This is mining company business? Yes.

How does the fox gentleman look? Is he bleeding? He's bleeding. His mouth is all fucked up. You see that there's actually a tooth on the ground. He is beaten to a pulp as the lizard looks at you and says, This individual was causing discord for the company. And what causes discord for the company causes discord for

for the Marquisette. And when the Marquisette has discord in these disgusting little clearings, they call him the Pinkerton Company. The Sloth Hardy, the Skinkerton Company. I was gonna say, that's awfully... On the nose. On the nose. The Skinkerton Company. I'm a skink.

- Now, now, now, run me, my friend, if you don't mind. Did you happen to give us your name? - I'm not gonna give you my name. - That's fine, I'll be happy to offer mine. My name is Booker and you look to be a very, very well dressed and very sharp individual, if I don't say so myself, putting on a pleasant facade. - How does that work?

So I am sucking up to an otherwise buttering up and unsuspecting NPC and then roll with charm if you'd allow me. Yeah, yeah, no, that is a class move you can do. Since this guy seems a little aggressive, the idea is that if I roll a 10+, I'll hold 3. Okay, got it. A 7 to 9, I'll hold 2. Got it. And I can use those to deflect suspicion or aggression, correct? Correct.

And these, um, the playbooks all have special moves that you can choose. They have a number and you can either choose one or two special abilities. Yikes!

I got a five. All right. I pulled my grace word off my back. So on a miss, your attempts at flattery are suspicious and they're going to keep their eye on you. I'm pulling out my hand to this guy. As you hold your hand down, he...

- In a quick move, he swats it away and you see he reaches over and he pulls out a hand crossbow. - I shoot it with my-- - Now, now, friend. And as you say, "Now, now, friend," you shoot. And so how do we decide to use, are we doing targeted or are we doing-- - It would be-- - Fate.

What do you think? Would it be a ranged attack? I would say actually just do a target. Target a person. Target a person. On a 10 plus, you inflict injury. On 10 plus, you can strike again before they get to cover it. I don't know. This might be more of like just sort of a...

If you want to test faith, if you want to test faith, yeah. I think it might be more. Because you have a read and like a point. And you're hoping. And I suggest, I don't know if this matters, there is a special one for quick shot when you fire a something at close range.

So that is a special move, that special weapon. It's also great to mention that when you advance, you can take special moves like Quickshot. So yeah, we'll do a quick, you're trusting fate here. Is this going to work? You're just blowing in and hoping this thing takes off. Seven. Seven. Okay. What does that do?

Um, Fingy, how do I know? It'll be in your weapon move section, as I have seemingly lost one. No, it's a test fate. Oh, it's a normal ability. This is going to be this one. Trust fate. Trust fate. Scream low.

Oh, okay. Okay. So, um... So, uh, as you... I scrape by. You scrape by, and, uh... Sounds like a success. You, uh, blow in, and, uh...

And as it flies out, you had used some of your special twine and material, and it immediately explodes in your hands as soon as this dart flies. So I'll say mark a decay. However, you see as soon as Booker backs up, it hits the neck of this skink as he looks at you and...

As I see this, as I see the dart go and I hear Booker's really like cringy, like fucking up, whatever. If he rolls low and like, do I get a sense of the quality of what he's doing as well? Dude, pull on it. Crossbow.

That's all you would see. That's all you would know. He pulled out a crossbow. He pulls out the crossbow. Peggy shoots it. It explodes, but it goes into his neck. He sees you

He sees you pulling out your greatsword. And as he does it, you see him turn. And as he does that, he frees up and his finger squeezes the trigger and it fires off. It hits the wood as he just gets...

Oh my god, Peggy, let's go! And falls back down. No, no, no, I'm pretty sure he's just paralyzed. And he falls back, and you see the cat look around as then he throws the fox down. I got another dog for you, friend. If I were you, I would stop what you're doing right now. Go on, get out of here. He pulls out his thing, and so I will say, Peggy, make a persuasion.

We can't do that. What? Persuasion? I'll persuade him. I'm conscious. For promises or threats. You're trying to persuade him to stand down because he sees that he's outnumbered. He pulls out a great, a huge morning star. Yeah. Seven. No, it says roll with cunning for trick or embassy. Yeah, for charm. While they're doing this, can I do it? Oh, not the trick. You're persuading him with threats.

- Oh, okay, that's a four. - That's a different one. - Oh, so four. - Yeah, no, it's a four. - So as this happens, he looks at you and he looks down at the exploded pieces of your contraption and all of your string which is all on the ground, looking down at the skinkerton as he has his huge club and which one of you would be closer? - Oh, probably.

- Wait, I mean, I reached my-- - Oh no, you 100% would. - I had reached my hand out to shake the guy's hand. - He is taking this huge Morningstar and he is charging at you. What do you do, Booker? - I'm going to immediately see him coming at me,

Oh, we're on dirt, right? Yeah, you're in the dirt in this back alley. I'm going to reach down and pick up Santa and throw it in his eyes. Okay, do that. So I take the weapon move blind, which I actually don't know what it does unless there's a weapon move. Oh, here it is. When I throw something to blind an opponent, roll with finesse. This lets me roll with cunning instead as my special move. Yep.

And on a hit, I've impaired their vision and given myself an opportunity. On a 10+, they have to take some time to clean out their eyes before they can see clearly again. On a 7-9, I just have a few moments.

So that's going to be a shitload because it's coming instead of... So it's a 14? I rolled one less than max. 14. So I throw sand in his eyes. So he is... He has to take some time to clean out his eyes before he can see clearly. Right, and I've given myself an opportunity. Okay, so as you do that, you see him reach forward and you go, shot!

And you're familiar with Booker's classic Pakistan move. And he reads the book and it hits the cat's eyes and I literally hit my eye. Ouch. As you hear the group, oh, bro.

And he stumbles forward, leaning down. He's very close to you. So what does it do? I guess my question is, what does give me an opportunity? So it's an opportunity that will be basically he is stumbling around. He is unable to fight right now as he is wiping the dirt. It's always bucket sand. We're getting raccoon.

I'm gonna lose my opportunity to TKO him. Get him, Grumly! I will say that you can put, if you guys, 100%, you guys have fought in some party code, you can absolutely take this opportunity. I would basically be like setting him up for Grumly. So I'm gonna just kind of rest my sword on my shield and take my foot and just like kick him in the backside and just knock him in the dirt as like an intimidation.

Yeah, I would say that with that fleeting opportunity, with that pocket stand, it is not hard at all to do that. As you, as he stumbled, he revealed his cat, his cat tail is flailing around and you effortlessly kick him into the dirt. He stumbles forward and lands hard. I've been sick of this. You're going to hear about this. Go on, get out of here. You've done enough harm. This man's practically been in the dust. Get on him.

- Make a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a,

Yeah, we're just kind of moving the camera around. So as it happens, you see him, he's still wiping the dirt off and he's on the ground. He stumbles over. He looks, he sees this bleeding fox on his back and he's looking at you. You see now his maw is totally smashed open. He's bleeding. He's looking really rough. He's really wide eyed. He seems to be very nervous. He knows that he's outnumbered. He has sand in his eye. He got kicked down. His skink boss

is paralyzed with spider venom and he does not know what to do. And so now as the GM, I will tell you what you need to do to sway them. I will say that with everything that you're registering, you can tell that he is worried about the consequences of leaving the skink here, people finding out about it,

Or he's also worried about you. So if you want to threaten him with murder, kill Ron because he's afraid. Or if you can try to persuade him that people won't find out about it, that he'll be fine. Those are the two things that you can persuade him to leave if that's what you're trying to do. So I will finish with, go on, take your boss, your scaly boss, and get out of here, lay low. No one will ever find out about this. You'll keep your job. Yeah, as long as you don't say anything about us.

And none of this happened, and we won't kill you. And I definitely did not tell you my name was Booker. And you can tell everyone that you beat this fox within an inch of his life. All you know, you left him there. And remember, Booker's a fake name. Yeah, and my name's

Jegging. Jegging, that's a stupid name. Yeah, so you'll forget it. I will say with... I just want to help him if I can. So with Stevie Rolls. With Stevie Rolls first, but yeah, you can. So make a...

I'm going to give you a forward on that. Okay. For persuading NPC. So please make one more persuaded NPC with a forward. Which is a plus one. Yes. But what did you get? Seven. So... Barely. If we both assist, he's still only got the nine.

So, um, as... As, um, as this... So, as this happens, he still is like, they're going to beat me up or even worse if I come back and we didn't convince the Fox. I don't want to fail.

What do I do? And he's very, he seems very afraid. What do you think I convinced the fox to do? He has to stop trying to turn all the miners against Smiles. Okay, well, tell him you did that. Is that all I have to do? Yeah, sure, why not? You tell him you did it, and he'll take care of the fox. Oh, okay.

You know, don't tell anyone! Don't tell anyone you met Hooker and Jeggings. Hooker? Oh, no! If it's gotta be put down in writing, that's absolutely my name. Oh, no! Or Snooker. Snooker and Jeggings. Whatever. That's even better. Um, I'll...

So as you see that he's not, with all of that, he's so confused, he sees the skink on the ground, the dart still in his neck. As he... Yeah, and to be fair, I have no idea how long that's going to last. That was my first try with it. He stands up. He might never wake up, for sure. He stands up. I need this.

there's a 100% chance you killed the man. You know, if you look at him, his eyes are moving back and forth, so I think he's probably dead.

- What did you wanna do? - Yeah, so while the fight was going on, I would've stopped short. I was following him, I would've stopped short of where the crowd was kind of watching this fight going on, and with them all distracted watching people, I wanted to kind of sneak around and pick some pockets if I see anything of value. - Okay. - Or even not of value, really. - Okay, so they're all distracted, so while this is happening, the camera pans over to you, and they tell you to use the thing in that kind of language,

which is something that is unique to Powered by the Apocalypse systems. So as this is happening, you're imagining them arguing, these three people doing, you know, you're not sure if they're being heroic, but they're interfering with this encounter. And you see this, the camera sees this chipmunk, I'm not gonna stop doing that now, that's my last time I'm doing that, as this chipmunk creeps out, and you see a bunch of, a number of miners walking around

looking tired and dejected. Some have a little bit of a pep in their step as they seem to have a hefty coin purse. Yeah.

Yeah, I'd love to take that. Okay, so you're going to attempt to narrate that. You see a miner walking by and he's a hefty coin punch. I was kind of imagining that there was like a crowd of people watching this guy get his ass kicked. No, no, no, no. He's in a back alley. So it's away from prying eyes. Otherwise, we instantly murder. Okay. And we probably will be if that guy ever does wake up because then all of this king gets in is going to be on our asses.

So then you see me hiding behind like a box or something. You know, I kind of thought there would be a crowd here to pickpocket and then nobody came. But it seems like you guys got it all done.

And as you get back, this cat picks up the stinker tin and like, you haven't heard the last of this. As he carries off the stinker tin. As he's like walking away, I want to make the noise of shooting a dart at him. Ah!

he like dives behind. He actually falls on top of the skinkerton and picks him back up. And he's like, oh God, I hope you're not dead. As he, uh, carries him off around a corner. And, uh, you now see you're alone in this, um, or the four of you are alone with this, uh, fox. His, uh, just his eyes are bloody. His, uh,

his mouth is bloody his eyes are kind of rolling around like he got knocked in the head a few too many times Peggy that was unbelievably quick thinking thank you for saving my life that guy would have shot me right in the chest yeah no that's what I was worried about all I was gonna do was tell him my name which in hindsight we're probably really up up Schitt's Creek without a battle oh you got a paddle on you I know that's the point we don't have a battle why would you bring that up if you didn't have one because we're up Schitt's Creek and we don't have a battle actually when

when you should. That's not where you came from. Give it a few hours. Sure. So, the thing I was going to say was, actually, I don't remember. Overall, I was going to look around and see if any, like, coin fell out of the skink's pocket when he was knocked on the ground. Oh,

She said he was kind of fancy. Yeah, you're fancy and you look around and you see that it didn't knock him enough that anything that he would have had for coins didn't fall out. No paydays. No paydays. Damn it.

So you see the fox on the ground, what do you do? I will pick him up. Or like, get him on its feet, not like physically pick him up. Okay. You see this orange furred fox as he kind of has this tuft of hair and you see as he's looking, he's like, I am not okay! I...

I don't feel so good. Is there anywhere in town we might be able to take you some sort of infirmary, a tent, some sort of first aid tent? There is first aid. No, no, they will, the cats run all the hospitals in first aid. Take me to the Pearl Saloon.

How do we get you there? I have your point. I have your point. All right, Bradley, get one side. I'll get the other. All right, come on now. Just rest your weight on us. Let me scoop him up. So you scoop up this box.

And as you're making your way through, you see that the crowd, as the sun is basically setting at this point, the miners are starting to flood these streets. It took you a long time to get there. I don't know how many days, but it doesn't really matter at this point. How many days it took you to travel here? Because the force is really big. So at this point, the sun is setting, and the miners are coming back. Many of them are horribly...

are horribly hunched over, they're covered in soot, and they look tired, so a lot of them are coughing, and they're all shuffling around. You manage to dart around. You see the occasional cat, but you're able to kind of duck around with this crowd as you make your way to...

So as you're making your way through this crowd, you see that there are a number of, as you dart your way, how are you carrying him? What are

- Describe to me kind of how this is happening. - I imagined it, and please tell me if you imagine differently, that we basically put one arm over each of our shoulders and we're scooping him up and like dragging his ass where he's telling us to go because he sounds like he's pretty rough. Like, you know, we've got one arm over, like we're getting him and pulling him up and we're gonna drag him to the pearl. - Okay.

- So, you're not doing it sneaky or anything, we're just trying to get this guy where he wants to go. - So, you see him and you see that there's a number of cats and as they see you dragging this fox, you hear one of the cats kind of pull up like, "Oh, another bar fight."

As you make your way through these streets and it smells of the filth of all of these miners and it is not a clean town. As you step in these puddles as you're making your way through and then you eventually see this two-story saloon with a large balcony out in front on the second floor. And it says the Pearl Saloon. As...

As you see that there's swinging doors, as they're swinging doors and there is a... - Yeah, my "Adventures in Chill" moment. - A miner steps out and stumbles out. He looks very drunk. And this stumbles out and he's a fox, a bit smaller than the rest of you.

And he stumbles out and is like, I'm going to sleep well tonight. And scuffles off. You then drag him away.

And I'll say that the cats as they see you, some of them start to actually see and they notice your tabard and they're like, "Oh, I guess he has it." And it's like, people are, but then you, as you're kind of dragging him in, you see as down at the thoroughfare, a well-dressed skink lizard, another one that seems to be of a different individual, steps out and you see that there are two hand crossbows in each of his hips.

As, uh, you give the term, you managed to just pull him into the saloon just in time. And as, uh, the door swings open, um, you hear a piano going, uh, wildly. And, uh, there is just one person at the piano just stomping his foot with a, with a big mug of ale as, uh, there's a number of patrons all around. And, uh, uh,

Behind the bar, you see what seems to be, you see these are mostly foxes, but you see the occasional mouse and rabbit and a few other smattering of creatures. But behind the bar, you see a badger that seems to be very well dressed in a pinstripe suit. And as he's wiping down kind of angrily with his rag, the bar, what do you do?

And

And as you get further in, you see that the badger finally looks up and notices you and his eyes go wide and his brows further. Whoa, whoa, whoa, what the fuck happened to him? Why are you bringing him into my joint? - Listen, sir, we don't want any trouble. We just found him like this and he told us to bring him here. They said that we couldn't take him to a medical tent. - And as, he's like, take this one. And he looks and he says,

Oh, fuck, Basil, they beat the shit out of you. Did anyone see you come in here? As he walks around the bar, as he walks over and helps you start dragging him toward this door in the back. Yes, sir, I'm going to be honest, people saw us. Of course they did. There were people in the thoroughfare.

We need to get this guy some help, please. I'll have some girls give him a hand. He helps you drag up... Oh, that's gross. I agree. Continue. He helps you... He didn't realize he did that yet. He...

behind this small room. It's a storage. It seems to be a pantry of sorts, but there is this low cot as you drop the fox down onto it gently. And he looks down and he says, Bassel! Bassel!

did you fuck any snacking this fox I tried they found out and he passes out as this fox does this and this badger looks at you and says I never seen any of you before

How the fuck did you get mixed up in all this? What the fuck happened to him? Why are you cursing us? We didn't go anything wrong. We're just passing through, my friend. We found it. We stumbled into the wrong alley. We found the street. Yeah, it was just the wrong place at the wrong time. He was getting his butt kicked. It was a skink and a cat. And I shot the skink with paralyzation from my darts. Oh boy, here we go. And then we convinced the cat that he wanted to scram because otherwise I was going to get him with another one. That's right.

He was kind of a pussy. Literally. I don't know. Yeah, he was. Oh, you meant that as a joke. Yeah, that's really funny. You said skink. Yeah, one of the skinkers. Did he say he was from the skinkertons? Oh yeah, he very much mentioned that he was one of the skinkertons. Fucking skinkertons! Yeah, that's what they said. But again, we were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Yeah.

Fuck! Okay. This is...

This ain't good. Okay. Well, now you're all mixed up in this. Wait, wait, wait. We're not mixed up in anything. What's wrong with discovering the skinkertins? I'm glad that he was paralyzed in the street, but how are they any different from any of these other goons? Well, he tried to shoot me in the chest and no one else has tried that in this town yet. Oh, yeah, it was kind of extreme. Well, in this town, but what about the last town? We're not talking about that. You get shot at a lot. Focus on

I just got a normal shot in the chest, but at least the guy didn't come running at us just cursing us like this guy is. Well, to be fair, as long as you're not shooting at me. Who are you, by the way? I'm mighty good with a knife.

That's a horrible name. You should probably change it. Can I call you something shorter? That's not my fucking name. That's an even worse name. He sheathes his knife. You know what? That's not my fucking name. I think that you should really try something else. Alabaster. Selgen Alabaster. Selgen Alabaster. Do you want my name a little shorter?

You can call me Seljin. I'm Seljin. Or Sel. My friends call me Sel. I like that. Sel, it's a pleasure. My name's Booker. Booker. He means smoker. No, it's Booker. Alright. My name's Grumly. I'm Hazel. Sel. And Peggy. You're vagabonds. How'd you know? A group of ragtag animals. They ain't foxes, mice, or rabbits.

Getting mixed up in the shenanigans, those are vagabonds. Mixed up is awfully strong words. We're really just looking to see what the local fair has to offer. If you're looking for local fair, I got the finest whiskey you can ask for, Fred. Say no more, my friend. I pull out a coin and say, where can I get one? Come sit at the bar and act like nothing's wrong. You got anything to eat? I got stuff. It's not great. Do you have any root tea? More of an alcohol establishment.

We got a piano. Oh, can I take it apart?

No, I just got that piano. Oh, is this the one the guy was playing downstairs when we came in? Yes. It's not a tune, you want me to fix it? No, not if you want to take apart my piano. Come on now. As he opens the door and storms out, what do you do? I'm going to go right to the bar with my coin in hand and basically slam it down on the bar and say, I'd like some whiskey, please. All right,

as you put the coin down as he slides you a glass of whiskey as he says so

The Skinkerton, is he alive? Well... You know, that's kind of like... It's up in the bay. It's a little bit of a loose turn. No, of course we didn't kill him. Yes, he's alive. Really, I'm not a good Santa Lion is all I'm going to tell you. Wait, did you kill him? I'm not a Santa Lion or a lion. Did you kill him? I think they decided he's not dead yet. My vote would be if we were to take a coin and flip it in the air. What?

One or the other is he's alive or dead. Yes, I'm going to tell you this. I harvested some milk from some spiders out in the woods and it's paralyzational, okay? And I never used it before. I was going to try it over here on Grumley but then this guy got all handsy with Booker so I shot him with it. So I remember

I don't know. He might say it like that forever. He might say it like that for just a couple hours. Either way, he wasn't doing anything for the time being. To be perfectly fair, Peggy saved my life. The skiggers had tried to shoot me right in the chest. So that he was intending on killing all of you. All I did was offer up a hand. Oh, he didn't have a chance to kill all of us. He should have shot him, like, almost immediately. Don't underestimate those skinks. They're the muscle behind...

for those that don't need the muscle for the, the, the marquis eight and that, that,

fucking smiles. Well, how does the Marquis A mix up with his smiles company? Based on what I heard, the Marquis, the cat probably doesn't know anything about this. And it's probably the smiles guy that's become corrupt. He's a bad actor, as they say. He's crooked. You know, I think the term's a bad apple, not an actor. A bad apple? Yeah. Well, I think that's a different term. He's all about apples.

I've had so many bad apples. Sometimes they've got worms in them. Sometimes they've just got like little brown patches. They get squishy, but you still eat them, but they've kind of got that dried out texture. And you don't eat the seeds because they've got arsenic in them.

Wait, do, wait, like poisonous ass? I forgot to tell you that. You might find that interesting. Peggy, sometimes you frighten me. No, that's really good to know. I find myself bewildered by my fucking circumstances.

What circumstances it needs. I'm going to go fix that piano. Please don't touch my fucking piano. No, I'm going to do it though. I'm going to walk over and I'm going to tinker with and pick the piano. I'm taking a fart, but I can fix it. Have I received my bourbon? Oh yeah, no, he's got to give it to you immediately. This is a fine drink, my friend. Thank you very much. It's

There's more where that came from. For the rest of you, the same. Well, I gotta be honest. We're not much for the way in funds, but if there's anything I can do to get more of this, I'd be happy to help you out. Oh, shit! Basil! Dolly, go get Basil! As he yells off, and you see that there is a fox...

girl as she's a little bit shorter and stouter as she walks over and she has some bandages in the med kit and she hustles down into the room. I gotta be honest, I'm really sorry about the way we burst in here like this. We asked the guy if we'd been taking any medical attention and he told us no. And this was the first place that he mentioned. We didn't mean to cause a stir. To be fair, it's like the swinging doors. It's like every time you come in, you kind of burst in.

Because it's just like pow, and then you're in. Touché, Hazel, touché. It was very bishop. And they swing a little. It's very dramatic. The point is we didn't mean to mess up whatever operation you got running here. Well, it seems like Basil messed that shit up already. Yeah. What's your relation to the guy? I make friends with the other businessmen in the town. And we... When I was a young badger, I was cutting down trees, establishing real business here.

So trying to make a name for myself. And then the Marquis ate these cats. Now you spouting stupid garbage about how they don't even know. Who do you think sent the fucking skinkertons? They come in and they put their own. That gray cat. Son of a bitch. Smiles? Smiles. Gray cat. Levi. Never met the guy. We've heard his name now.

It's like on some signs outside. Where would be on signs outside? Yeah, there's the Y and you see the smiles and there's a bunch of like crates and things and like there's even certain buildings that have smiles on them. But Jericho told us his name too. Right. Yeah. Yeah. There's nothing more distrustful than a smile of all I'm doing today. So are you saying... And I learned that by traveling with this guy. And I'm just being... As I sip my whiskey. Are you telling me that...

That you're involved in this whole revolt thing that they were referring to in that back alley. I wouldn't call it anything as noble as a fucking revolt, but... Destabilization. Try to get him... Played in the language that he understands. Make him fuck up. Have the cats take him out. The cats take the cat out? Yes. What do you mean?

"Maybe some incompetent jackass in charge." "Well, I should probably take this show off when I stick out." "I rolled up."

That's gonna be a yikes for me. He looks at you suspiciously. He looks at you suspiciously. He's like, what the fuck are you wearing? It's just so close. I haven't done laundry in a while. We've been living in the woods for a while. Yeah, we'll be honest with you. He's been spending a lot of time with me. He was doing a little bit of undercover work. Now...

I'm confused. What? Who are you? Why are you here? And what undercover work are you doing?

When I say undercover, I mean we knew we were going to be passing through this area, and we knew it was cat-controlled, and we wanted to just maybe have a little bit of a smooth entry. We didn't want to cause any friction as we were entering the camp. I have a history with the Marquis de Cap. They used to be my employers. But that's over. It's way in the past. It's way in the past. You're saying you need to sell this quarter.

Amongst the cats here. Yes. We can't talk about it in front of you, though. Just in case it's not a good idea, you know? I don't want to go, like, giving you all my bad ideas. Can you make a persuading with charm? Damn it! No! Oh, no!

Can I assist? It won't matter. Oh, boy. Nothing I can do about it? Okay. He looks at you flatly and he says, you're in my joint. You can say what you're going to say to your goofball friend in front of me. All right, well, I guess I just won't say it. I just want to give up the idea. Okay.

I think we should be honest and tell the fine gentleman. So my idea was this then, okay? You know how you've got connections with Rosie the Riveter? Uh... I was very confused. Like, oh, oh, yes, I do. Have you heard of Rosie the Riveter? Everyone around here knows that Rosie delivers all the best stuff to the cats.

So what if, 'cause Grumly works with Rosie the Riveter, now we don't know where she is right now, of course, but what if we made it look like smiles or whatever?

So what you're saying is for once that this plan involves putting Grumly in harm's way instead of... Yeah! I'm in. What do you think? Who's Rosie the Riveter?

No, the ribbiter. It's the ribbiter with bees. Yeah, with bees. Ribbic, ribbic. Ribbic, ribbic. Whoa, I don't... I'm going to catch a fly. Frog? No. Why would you think it was a frog? No one really knows for sure. That's a pretty big jump in logic. Wait, why did you say jump? You think it's a frog? Oh my God, it's not a frog. It wouldn't be a frog. What? Wait, it's a frog though, isn't it?

I find myself bewildered again by my fucking circumstances. No, what I'm saying is that the Marquis de Ca... Is that the big guy in charge? The big clown in charge? Oh, it's a female, yes. Yeah, female.

You know, they got all that with technology and stuff. Well, there's someone, one of the critters is what beings inside of the forest and stuff that gives them things. At least that's the one on the street. It's like super important and stuff. Good stuff. Probably delivers it because nobody knows who Rosie is.

And I have my past employment, and so I may not work for them, but they at least know who I am. They know that I'm a trustworthy good boy, and then I will do them just fine by helping them. So they thought that Smiles was getting a little too cocky with himself, and he thought that he deserved the delivery that's supposed to go to the Marquis the Cat, and he tooks it.

We'd be pretty pissed, don't you think? I guess. I know that people get really mad when they have their things taken, so I think that's a great plan. Yeah, speaking of which, you might not do an inventory of everything you've got in your kitchen. I'm not telling you why I'm telling you. I'm just telling you. Should I be concerned? Why are you looking at her?

Because everyone else is. Oh shit, stop looking at me, guys! That was very obvious. Why would you think Rosie the Ribbon is a frog? I'm sorry. We're scooting around the issue itself, the reason we're here in the first place. He just knows it's for Richard. Richard on!

By Leader Games. It's a wonderful board game. Check it out. The reason we're here in the first place, and we can help you deal with all this if you need help, but the whole reason we're here has nothing to do with this company, and it's nothing to do with the skinkertons or anything else. We're here to find ancient...

And I immediately drop my empty glass off the bar and it breaks. Oh my goodness, clumsy me. I'm so sorry. Oh no, I'm going to have to fix that. I start clanking the glass as I spill mine. Oh no, I'm so clumsy. As I was saying, no, the point is I'm very not finesse. Another moment. Please. I put another glass. I put another glass.

on the table and I slide it to her south? You know, the thing is, when dogs start drinking, they start barking and making no sense. Grubly is done speaking for the evening.

Is that right, my friend? No, don't talk to him. I'm speaking. He does a lot of stupid stuff. Another whiskey would be fantastic while we discuss our potential plans with Peggy. Yeah. So you have a plan for this Rosie the Ripper? Yeah, yeah. Let me, let me, so first of all, for this to work, I need to consult my...

I need to consult my people to see if anyone even knows who she is. And this is where we're going to bring in reputation moves. My tail is staring at me.

I'm sorry, I scratched the shit out of you. No, no, we're good, we're good. No blood. What is role-playing a little blood-sweat? It takes one side of the table to shut off a dog. In unison.

Literally all three of us are like, "HELLO!" I'm sitting here thinking, "He's not gonna do it. He's not gonna do it." Rix would not listen to that son of a bitch. Amazing. Can you make me a cup? So, we're going to now feature another mechanic, Reputation Moves.

And, um, I don't even know about this. So yes. So prestige is positive word. Notoriety is negative word. And so, uh, we're, uh, it's like, it's generally sometimes when you meet an important NPC, you will make a reputation. So we're going to kind of do it for, uh,

the company. We'll do it for what Alabaster has heard about the mining, or what he will be able to discern about the reputation of Rosie the Riveter from these individuals. So, we are going to do a roll, and you'll just mark your modifier for your reputation.

- You make a shit roll if that's okay. - Yeah, four of these and whatever. The marquee's in because the company is with the marquee's in. - Okay, so it would just be plus zero 'cause I haven't gotten to the bustle. - Correct, so plus zero. - Is this for Rosie? - Is this for Rosie? - Is this a helpable roll? - I would say no, the travel move is just a straight roll. - Got it.

- Sex. - Sex. So that is... - Damn. - We need those bitties.

You have one. 490. How do you go, folks? So close. Damn it. You did say it was a plus. What was it? It was a plus one. Like a twist of fate for us is a plus one. Yeah. Yes. Yeah, that would have been huge. Yes. So yeah, that would have been a plus one. Don't you love your old pal Booker? Your old pal.

So, and so the reputation moves, it's for like generally NPCs. And so it works a little differently. So we're going to homebrew a little bit because it's kind of more like a group role. But he says like, well, I guess I'll figure out who knows of Rosie the Ribberer. Just ask around, my friend. Just ask around.

Ask around. Ask around. You gotta get up. You gotta get down. I don't know. Unless... Unless... If people know who Rosie the Ribbiter is where you're from, maybe you could meet with fucking Smiles himself and offer your services and sabotage him.

Or kill him! Well, now we're not gonna go that far here, alright? I don't really like to kill, I mean, aside from the guy that probably killed things, my god. Well, you didn't mean to kill him. No, I was trying to hit, I was trying to go with it. The bottom line here is that, you know, we're not just gonna do this, why, why, why would we put our necks on the line for this?

We're just passing through. We don't want any trouble. We're a bunch of, you said it yourself, a bunch of vagabonds. We don't want nothing to do with this war. No, I was just trying to give you an idea of something you could do to help yourself while we make our way out of camp. Look, and we're not, I'm not going to say we're not completely opposed, but we got to know what's in it for us, my friend, my friend. I mean, we are pretty far away from the famous coin. Restocking wouldn't hurt.

If you could help us out with something, maybe we could try. I am hurt with this flies. If I had to put a numerical number on it. So, what is it, I'll ask again, besides yelling down whatever this guy, Joker, was going to say, what brings you in town and how can Seljan Alabaster help you? What if we don't know yet? What if, on the morrow, we meet...

We have another talk. We all decide exactly what our plan is moving forward. Would that be amenable? If you need the night to think about it, I'll give that to you. Yeah, you know, and that gives you the night to find out from your lackeys how important Rosie the Ribbit is. Exactly. I will ask around. I'll see what the fuck Basil got himself mixed up in. You got a place you can stay? Do I? We got a few rooms.

We don't need much space. It fits the piano, by the way. Oh, I'll take off a coin for that. I know I'm personally not much for wares at the moment, but again, I'm willing to make some deals, make some trades. What time is it again? Sundown? Yeah, it's like night at this point. I could pay for whatever one box of decay mark pay for. That's one room.

Well, we don't need much more than that. Can we all squeeze into one room? That's between you and your gods. Alright, well, yeah, that's fine. Everyone else is alright with that. I think I will do that. Take turns, take a little bit. Oops, I just broke my pencil.

Hey! Hey, Wormwood! Yeah, I'm not sure. This is our first night doing some proof. Yeah, probably a bit more, yeah. Yeah, we're around. We're not jumping off any time soon. So, with that, you all manage to shuffle into your rooms, and if there's anything you want to talk about, you get to rest. Oh no, I think we have much to talk about. You're all in your rooms. If you will, GM. Hear me out here.

Alright, I'll hear you. Spent a lot of time, most of my life, in the old Muck Bed Creek. And as I mentioned previously, these ruins were unknowns to anyone I know. And again, if the others don't know about them, I don't know who would. Now, I'm not necessarily knowing this alabaster might know anything about these ruins, but... And I know, I literally just said we shouldn't tell anybody about them.

But we need something to prove they exist. What the hell was that trying to tell him about? What was that? Why did we have to jump over the table? Peggy, I'm surprised you don't slap him upside the head. Yeah, I'm pretty sure I didn't murder anybody. I think the paralyzation is going to wear off soon. But, you. Yeah, what? We specifically told him anything. Well, I don't recall exactly what we disagreed about. You know what? I'm going to look through my notes. Right here, at exactly noon.

June 35, we said we're gonna go in and we're not gonna mention the ancient ruins to nobody. To anybody, nobody! I don't... Well, he seems like very knowledgeable. That doesn't matter. Unless we're all in agreement, we don't do something like that, Rodney. Come on. Well, I just think that he seems like he knows what he's talking about. He seemed to be very, uh, I don't know, uh...

He had a lot of authority, so I figured, oh, I might provide some information that might help him. I don't even necessarily disagree with you. But the point is that we don't offer up information even if we're just looking for ruins first. Why would he know anything anyway? Let's just assume for one moment that this crazy power actually exists. Let's just pretend for a moment it's real. We're not going to go around telling people about that. If we're looking for ruins, that may not be...

Well, hidden or out in the open, we can discuss that. But the point is, we're not just going to give the information away for free. All right. I was just trying to help you, Joe. We have no leads. We don't know where these ruins are. And that's why we're discussing it right at this moment. But I think he had a good point that maybe we should go and talk to him.

Mr. Smiley himself. Levi Smiley. 'Cause if anybody's gonna stumble upon ruins, it's gonna be someone digging up the earth, mining. While I agree with you, we certainly don't want Mr. Smiley to have any idea, Smiles Smiley, whatever. I think it's Smiles. The point is, with a smi- I can't say Smiley because it makes me picture him as a happy guy. When we find that toothy bastard, we certainly don't want him knowing anything about some untold fortune or power that he'll take immediately back to the cats.

I don't want to tell him, I just want to see if maybe he already knows and then we can find it. Without mentioning the source of the power of the fortune, so be it. Do you hear what I'm saying? You're weak at me, is that... No, it's more of a narrow glance, like I'm trying to gauge... Yeah, but when I closed all the ways, who's it... No, it's more like he's looking down his nose at you, like... Oh, that's not nice. I'm so condescending, it's kind of what I'm meaning it is. Is he a big raccoon nose? Yes.

We keep you.

- That's how I was born, you know, hey, girl. - He brought it up with his long, rough boobs, dude. - That's how I was born! - Don't have none of this, okay? - I think you kinda have little holes. - We keep the Blazing Heart a secret to everyone. Are we understood? The Blazing Heart is told to no one. - All right, it's fine. I won't mention it again, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. - So now I get to the point. - I love your holes. I think they're beautiful. Do you know?

I'm not gonna say this tonight, okay? You mentioned yawn. You didn't have any. True. Okay? You know? You mentioned some other shit too that you didn't have. Yawn means story. What? I was talking about telling a yawn means tell a story. So do you have some yawn? No, I told you. Why would you bring it up if you don't have any yawn? Because telling a yawn is not the same as owning a yawn.

Holly, yeah, we need to go to bed. We can talk about this in the morning. We don't even get any dinner. Hazel, you've eaten 14 times today.

I haven't even eaten once because you ate every time I tried. That is not. Oh, that was last night. No, you ate a fly in the, in the center. Well, you want my fly too? And I'm going to lick out and grab a fly and then I'm going to stick my tongue out. You want it? I'm going to take it and just. Maybe I'll think about it. She's eating my fricking flies. Oh, I'm starving. I've eaten 14 times. But just little things. 14 times. No, they weren't. There was nothing little about what you did earlier.

You were saying like... I was saying...

I believe that Grumly has a point about this Alabaster fellow having a very knowledgeable viewpoint or something along those lines. So maybe he has something to know about some ruin being discovered. We definitely make no mention of the heart. If this thing even exists, which I'm not so sure that it does. It definitely does. I think it does exist. I love the passion. I love where your head's at. But...

We still tell Noah. I don't even need a note to flip it out. I know it's here. We just need a lead with giving up as little information as possible. Are we all in agreement? All right. I sound fine.

I think we shouldn't... Dottle, doddle, daddle, daddle, doddle. How do you spell it? Doggle. We shouldn't daggle doggle too long because we gotta find some ruins. Fair enough. How many beds are in our room? At least one twin bed. One twin bed. All right. So about the awkward thing in the room with the bed. Are you leaving?

No, no, it wasn't going that direction, but fine. I will, why don't we gamble for the bed? All right, we'll flip a coin. Heads, I get the bed. Tails, you guys don't. Deal? I'm pretty scared. Oh, perfect. I catch the coin. Peggy, come on, that's my coin. I'm not paying it. I don't know. Give me back the coin, I can't understand you.

Spit the coin out and then we can understand what you're saying. I won't flip the coin if you spit it out. I stick it down in my cleavage so you can't see what it is. It's fine. I wasn't going to look at it anyway. I'm saying we can't understand you with the coin in your mouth. Oh, you know, all I was saying was if I let the coin down, then you'd know whether it was filled and then you'd do that trick thing you did. You

You know I ain't stupid, I'm a tinker, I make things all the time. No, I don't think anybody is stupid, I was just offering up a chance to win the bed. But you made a trick. Heads, he gets the bed, tails, we don't. I'm currently on my back, dead asleep. Let's see, Grumman already has the coin flip. Oh no. That was not nice.

- And next time I'm gonna remember that. And now that you've done that, I remember you did that the last time. But next time I am gonna remember. - I will take my spot in the coin and I just proceed back to where I was. - No, you flip the coin and you figure it out. - You won fair and square, but next time. - So this is what we do. Heads, you get the bed. Tails,

Hey, it's only my final word. That, my friend, is a wafer I'm willing to take. And I flip a coin. Do you have a coin? Let's flip a coin. Yeah, let's flip a coin. I have one of the Kraken double. The D2. I think I lost mine. I'm so sad. Oh, yeah, was it sweet? Oh, yeah.

As long as I can let it hit the table, if you don't mind. I'm a mess! He's very excited. I love coins! You should just keep this on the table for flavor. I agree. I want to...

Yeah, there's a good one. Flip a coin. So, before I flip the coin, Booker will examine them. So we've got this sweet plus. The treasure chest is head because you're. The treasure chest is head. Because that's you. The plus, this weird plus sign cross filigree is tails. That's us. So, all right. All right. If I flip the coin, heads as I win, tails as I will, as a gentleman back out of the agreement. The lady's fine.

Oh, what do you know? It's heads. I win. Ladies, stand down for the best bookends. And I immediately scamper over, jump in bed, pull the covers over, and I roll over.

I'm gonna go over, I'm gonna lay down, I'm gonna use my tongue and I'm gonna grab the covers and pull them on top of me. Yeah, but you know, get in flips to the covers. Son of a gun! Well, I'm delayed. So what time is it now in the evening? It's probably, you know, 9 o'clock, 10 o'clock. Okay, and it's... I'm gonna, okay, I'm gonna lay down. I'll lay down, I guess.

I was going to try to like, what do you want to do? I would like to kind of hang around, lay down, but stay up and listen for when noise starts to die down downstairs. Okay. Okay.

So everybody, so, I mean, you hear the uproarious laughter. It goes to midnight, one, two. And once it gets kind of the three, things are starting to die down a little bit as people are finally stumbling out drunk. It starts to get quiet about 3.30 in the morning. Okay. I want to...

very quietly exit the room and look over the balcony and just see if I see... I'm assuming this is...

I know the layout of this saloon. Yeah, you do. Okay. I'd like to look down over the balcony. You're on the second floor. You look down over at the balcony and you see that there is just a young fox that seems to be running the bar in the late shift. It seems as if Selgen is nowhere to be seen as there are a couple of patrons still remaining. You see one old prospector sitting at the end of the bar.

And the same rabbit that was tapping his foot to the piano is passed out in the corner. And there's a few other patrons, but it's pretty quiet. Where's the washroom? Who are you approaching? I'm just yelling it to the folks at the bar. Oh! Washroom's just down, down back there in the back! Alright, thanks. So I'm gonna make my way down that way and, um...

Do I see any other doors down there that I could... So, as you make your way down towards the back, you see that at the very end there is a door towards the washroom. There's a little moon out of it or something. I don't know. I basically want to open every door I go past very quietly. So, you go into the first door. That's how Hazelnut died. You remember that this is where Basil was. So, you see that door. I don't know if you want to open that one. I don't want to open that one. Okay. So, you know we're being here. Oh, no. Oh.

and you hear kind of this groaning in pain as you do that. And you make your way to the next door, and you try it, and it's locked. I don't feel like I can pick a lock. You can certainly try. What do you do? I mean, like, can I pick a lock? Yeah. Like, do I need to have tools? You have them. I do? Yeah. Okay.

This is the game? This is Powered by the Apocalypse? Yes! Okay. You're a thief! Of course you have a feel-alike thing! Um... I'm gonna just very, very lightly rap on the door and see if I hear anything within. You very lightly rap. You wait several seconds.

- A minute. You don't hear anything. - All right, I'm gonna check over my shoulder and then I'm gonna try to pick that lock. - Okay, this ability is called Attempt Roguish Feats and this uses finesse and it's what you use for any kind of roguey business. You wanna pickpock, you wanna case a room, you wanna stealth. So that's the Roguish Feats 'cause they're all kind of roguey. - There it is. - Finesse? - Yes. - One more shiggity shake, here we go.

Oh, that's good. Eight, nine, ten, eleven. Eleven! Okay. So you take out your pick and you slowly... She's got a few tools. And your few tools, and it opens, and slowly... Is there any light on in the room? There's no light, and it's very dark, but you're able to see as you peek in that...

that as it opens, you see what seems to be a whole cellar of rows and rows and rows of bottles of alcohol, of various whiskeys, and you see a few kegs in the corner, as it seems to be where the booze for the Pearl Saloon is kept. What do you do? I am going to slip in

silently and close the door behind me. Okay, you do that. I'm going to wait a few minutes. Is there any window or anything in here? No, there's no window at all. No window, okay. I'm just going to wait a minute and let my eyes adjust to the light. Okay. You're able to see the room all around you. Yeah, I'm going to start putting as many bottles of anything that I can into my bags, into the inside of my clothing. Smaller bottles I'm going to start packing into my cheeks. I

I would say, they're like little airplane bottles. Yeah. And you're like, you're just stuffing them into your cheeks. And so you start doing this. And I would say, fill up on your decay if you lost any. I have not. Okay, you have not. So you manage to stock up. And you are as much as you physically can carry. Okay. I'm going to...

Go back out of the room. Okay. So as you look around, you start to see that you peek out and you step out and you're trying to act nonchalant. Describe to me as you have all these bottles after coming back from the bathroom. The young fox boy is looking at you.

- Good night. Oh, I look terrible. I've taken my face off and I'm such a bloat at night. It's awful. - Make one more attempt at Rogesh Feets to see how you do sloshing your way back to...

- I'm gonna also be kind of like this, like I've dried my hands off from the washer. - Got it, got it. - Fred. - There's no DCs in this, so you either-- - 11 again? - 11. - Crush it. - Okay, so he says like, "Oh, good night, miss," as you manage to scamper your way up and get into the room and then you have a bunch of bottles of booze. - Great.

I have one question before we wake up. Yeah. Once everybody's done. Yeah. I think everyone else you're done and you all wake up in the next morning. So my only question is that I, I spent, uh, two coins on two drinks of whiskey at the bar. I removed them from my overall decay. Did you want, is that how I should have handled that? Or was it a matter of like, we discussed about the, uh,

- Whatever you say. - I'll say-- - He's one of those queens because Peggy doesn't drink alcohol, so I was just giving him my booze. - Okay, yeah, so we'll say that it would've just cost one to K for the drinks. - Okay. - So if you had drinks for the night, that would be one to K, we'll call it. - Okay, all right, cool. That's fine. I just wanted to clarify because I'm tapped out otherwise. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - And I was trying to stay, you know, maintain the instinct and all that good stuff. - Okay. - All right. - You all wake up, and unless there's anything you wanna discuss, you all will head downstairs

Are we all in agreement? I am all in agreement. This is the next morning. Yes. So remove an exhaustion if you have one. I don't think any of us got any unless there was something we were supposed to get them for. I have two. Why? Just wearing plate armor, I have one no matter what. Oh, dang. And I travel, I add an extra. Actually, I have to think about that too. I wear chain mail.

Oh yeah, so you needed to mark one when we traveled, but now it's gone because you slept. So just keep that in mind for next time. Got it. Alright, so as I stated previously, we're all in agreement. You know, you might want to ask him what we're in agreement for because I don't think he's that on the team. So we're going to ask him about where the ruins are, right? Wow.

We're going to ask him. Oh, my God. We're going to ask him for leads. Oh, my God. We are not going to. Come on.

Is something wrong? From a poker standpoint, my friend, that would be playing your hand too early. All right? We're going to try to get a little bit of a lead without giving away too much. I'm going to pop one of the bottles. You know, because I have this process. I've been working on it. Peggy, you're killing me. No, I'm not. These are all terms of phrase or metaphors or similes. If you have a lead, don't you have a lead? I don't know what a lead is other than a clue into what we're looking for.

I think she means lead. No, I'm talking about a lead. Like, you would put one on a doorknob. Some people call it a leash. Other people call it a lead. I don't have one of those. Why would you bring it up then? Because I was talking about... Never mind. Down to talk to old Alabaster. Are we good? We go. Wait, wait. What was that you spat out? Uh,

Oh, um, there's some things that I found that like little, they're like big bottles, but they're little bottles. Is there a window in our room? Uh, there is. There's one window. Wasn't it the pie that your mother baked before?

I don't know. Weren't you listening? Bumbleberry? I quickly take one step towards the window and go, oh my god, is that a bumbleberry pie? Bumbleberry pie? As soon as she looks away, I try to swipe some of the alcohol she spat out. I'll say if it would be... I think that...

you'd probably be able to easily, if this was on the thing, you'd be able to swipe it. I spat out all the airplane bottles. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. I just tried to distract her and swipe the bottles. Bumbleberry. You know what? I actually don't know what a bumbleberry looks like. I must have been mistaken. I apologize. But it just conquered

around saying that there's bumbleberry pie when there's no bumbleberry pie? He constantly tells me he's got things like yawn, he's got a lead, he's got other things. Were any of the berries that I found bumbleberry? I would say probably not. Okay. We never had a bumbleberry pie to begin with.

I was clearly mistaken, my friend. Clearly mistaken. All right. I'm not sure about that. I don't even see any pie. It was just a mistake. That was not even a pie to mistake. What are you mistaken?

steak a pie full he did mention last night his eyes are going I think his vision is bad you do know that when people are like trying to cool their pies down after they have them in the oven they put them on the still exactly the more than likely what happened was he saw it when it was on the still and then when you kind of look for it whoever baked it was bringing it back in the feed into the

I'm gonna open the window and smell and see if I smell any pie. You open the window and you smell and just the stench of the thoroughfare hits your nostrils. It does not smell anything like a pie. Oh, it's disgusting! Oh, God! It's terrible! Down to Alvacyn. Take another swig. You all-- Are we gonna come back up here? We may not. I wouldn't leave anything here that you find valuable. All right. Just take all belongings with us.

So, you all gather your things and you go and meet down with Seljen. And he's standing there, he's looking fresh, he has a cup of this dark liquid that seems to be steaming as he's just drinking it out of a tin cup. And he says, "So, you sleep on it?" Well...

I slept on the floor. It was a little tighter than we thought it was going to be. First up, you've got to tell us if any of your buddies got back to you about Rosie the Ribboner. Oh, yeah, they did. There weren't many people, and some of the marquees, some of the cats did hear, and they weren't great things.

What do you mean, weird things? What does that mean? What did they do here? Were they more than great? Were they excellent? Maybe exceptional. Yeah. Well, at least they heard of you, but it wasn't like they were... Not me, not me. I'm talking about Rosie the Rebel. They heard of her, I guess, but it was... I don't know if it's a she. I think we ever said it was a she. Rosie? I mean, I don't mean to assume, but Rosie, I just kind of, you know... It's probably safe to assume it's context on that.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, if we want to press it, we can probably... I could talk to my contact if you want to try... No need. No need. Those are the details. We're not worried about the details. I know. I don't understand why they wouldn't have the thing to say.

I mean, like, I... If you were Rosie, would you... No, I would never say that! There's no way I'm saying it out! Is that what I'm saying? Oh, okay. I'll stop. Anyway, I didn't sleep very well, okay? Because I was sleeping on the floor. Well, we have more rooms. Yeah. I'm gonna go out on a limb here. You have a word? Rosie. Rosie.

I understand what kind of industry is going on around here.

You heard, or any of your people heard, about any weird mining situations that are not the norm. That's what we're interested in. Do you know something about that? No. I guess that answers that question, then. No, no. We don't know if you know. That's the problem. We're asking because we don't know anything. Yeah. You obviously know something. There's...

I'm trying not to let anything get out because there's a panic, so keep this down. Maybe you have an office we can discuss it. Maybe we have somewhere a little more private we can have a conversation. Yeah, the only thing that's going to keep it down is if we get the information, you know what I mean? It'd be really awful if all of a sudden the frog just started screaming.

There's a look of fear where he absolutely believes you. And he's like, let's go to my office. You see the young fox that was up when you and he's like falling. He's leaning against the broom and

And, uh, he's like, Jimmy! Yes, yes! Watch the bar. And he, uh, walks and leads you up to the second floor all the way to the very end. Uh, a door at the end leads you into an office with a large desk. It's a two-bedroom, uh, it's a two-room, uh,

office and bedroom connected as he, he drags us to some stairs or some chairs rather. And he says, okay, I'm listening. Now, Mr. Alabaster, I can assure you anything you tell us will only be kept between four of us. Understood. Defy with us. Defy with us.

Am I miscounting? Yeah, you didn't count him. Well, he's one. He already knows the information, Romilly. He's not going to go spreading it. You said one of us. Like, oh, is everybody in the dim wood suite? I apologize. The point is, when you say the four of us, you could be implying him, but maybe not you. And then if he agreed to it, and then he told you, and you went out, and you told things you shouldn't, you could say, hey, I'm fine.

I said four, not five. Peggy, Peggy, Peggy. What? Peggy, I thought you were on my side here. I am. I'm literally standing right next to you on your side. You're the smartest out of all of us. Why are you doing this to me? Go ahead. Mr. Alabaster, I can promise you between all five of us here in this room, Grumly don't say another word. Anything we discuss will be between the five of us only. And I assure you,

We know nothing. Which is why we come to you. The established gentleman that you are in your fighting pinstripe suit, running this absolutely lovely establishment with the best whiskey I've ever had in my entire life. Yeah. The best whiskey I've ever looked at before in my entire life. It's really nice. I can't stress enough that we don't have any kind of fight in this turmoil that's going on. Yeah. And you aren't gonna say anything.

about anything I made the VOLG because the Skinkertons have killed almost all of my guys in the past two months. They almost killed me too. I don't think I like them, generally speaking. I'm pretty sure I killed one of them yesterday. They've been killing poor innocent people this whole time. Well, I wouldn't call us innocent, but... I've got more spider milk with that king. Against them.

It's Smiles doesn't like people that try to have, like, poor Basil. He's looking out for the workers, trying to improve their working conditions, trying to get them to organize and cause a little bit of trouble for them. Do you think Smiles is just like kind of a mean guy or are all the cats around here bad? I don't trust these cats. But he's like extra not trustworthy.

As I mentioned before, we're not...

So you have butter up, right? Pleasant facade. Yeah. So if you want to use that, you can. If not, or if you just want to put... So it's a persuasion.

And everyone will have the option to help you. I would say that I'm not trying to put on facade. I'm being very honest. Oh, okay. Got it. Got it. Got it. Got it. Got it. Okay. So, so make, so make a, I, is that, I thought that it is that it's not, is that fooling? Is it, or is it? Um, well, well,

is what for? For the pleasant facade. It says you suck up to or otherwise butter up an unsuspecting NPC and then I can basically deflect suspicion and aggression. So I'm more... I'm not trying to trick him. So, make a charm roll. Rather persuade. Roll with charm. Is that on here? Persuade NPC. Perfect. Okay.

I got a 10 with my plus two to charm. A 10? As he nods and he reaches into a drawer in his desk and he shakes his head. He's like...

And he takes a huge swig out of the bottle. Oh no, I put some of my spider venom in there. Oh no, I'm fucking with you. It does say provided you give them strong motivation or a reasonable bribe. So I was going to get to my proposal, provided he is. I think he says proceed. What I'm thinking here, from what I'm hearing, is that...

You really don't like this Smiles guy, and most importantly, the Marquisette occupation. We might be able to mix things up a little bit here. Maybe hit them where they really hurt. Coin purse. And how do you propose to do that? The iron mines show no signs of tapping out.

Surely, surely there'd be some way if we all put our minds to it and take a moment to think, to separate these fools from their coin. And they might even make your pockets a little bit more heavy as well. I figured this guy out. If you're trying to discern his business, yeah, feel free to roll with the hunt.

You can figure him out by rolling a Charm. Yeah. So how does this, my connection work? If you share information with Grumly after reading a tense situation, you both benefit from the plus one for acting on the answers. If you help them while they are attempting, you're not attempting to earn their feats. Yeah. So it's basically like you're seeing and you're like, or this is a tense situation, like there's a standoff or something and you're discerning. Or you figure something. If you do the figuring out, then he or you, I guess, gets a plus one on a follow.

is what it sounds like to me. So I got a seven. A seven. Okay. Which means that I hold one. Okay. And I will just ask it now. Is your character telling the truth? Yeah, you can spend hold one for one. Yes.

He is telling the truth. And I'll say that he seems to be, he seemed to also know something about a strangeness with them, a strange with the minds that there was, that he knew something about that. And he seems to be telling the truth and it seems to be out of a sense of desperation. Um, but it does seem as if like vagabonds are a thing in this world, which is something that happens. And it's not, maybe not often that vagabonds are rolling to a town like this, but he's telling you he's being forthcoming.

Alright, well, if we can help you get a little richer, will you provide us information with the strange goings-on at the mall? And I may have come up with an idea to, again, hit them where it really hurts, but let's discuss some information and then we can talk plans. Well, since you already fucking know, it seems, you vagabonds are a perplexing bunch. Yeah.

There have been... Well, you know, I'm organized. Well, that makes two of us. But even with... No, I'm more of a whiskey and throat-slimming kind of badger. All right, well, if you don't have an eccentric tool belt, then I don't think you have much on the thoughts.

I... There are miners that have... The most recent dig is... Smiles is dug too greedily and deep. There's been tons of cave-ins, but the ones that have made it out have almost been going mad, muttering, and then as soon as that happens, they wander off. Skinkerton's usually not far behind.

Never seen again. Madness, you say? Seems that way. And you know exactly which mind this may be? That's the one that... That's the one that Smiles is very interested in. I don't trust that fucking cat as far as I can throw him.

And it's not very far. Well, I suppose we should go investigate. Well, I don't think it'll be that easy. But we appreciate your forthcoming with the information. So how are you going to help me? Well, let me start by asking you one question. How many of these mines, I assume there are many, and we're not talking about the special mine, the standard mine. Dozens. How many do you own? I... I don't own any. How much would it help you if we even just took one away from them and gave it to you?

How do you intend to do that? What if... What if... We were able to convince one of these mines was very close to running dry. Got him to sell it for cheap. I assume you have coin, my friend. Lots of extra coin around there. We'd pull a con. We'd try to convince them that perhaps one of these is not what it seems.

Maybe we try to drive the price down, and if the buyer is right, you take it off their hands. Hit them where it hurts. The problem with that is that if it was any worthwhile to me, he would have bought it up instantly. That's just an idea. Just playing with a little... You think you can fool some of these miners?

If we get them on our side, if we get the people who want us to help them on our side, maybe we get a couple of experts up there. Maybe someone to reconnoiter some of these mines. Maybe they're not as valuable as they first appeared. How many people loiter around reconnoiter? It's a lot of fucking drunks. It's partially my fault. Well, how can we help you? Do you have anything more luggage to do?

Can you mess with Smiles' operation as much as you can? You're vagabonds, you're the adventurers. That's exactly what I'm gonna do. I don't know what Smiles wants with the mine where all the people are going crazy. Well, we can kill two birds with one stone. How does that sound? You guys still on it?

Well, it's more of a... What do you always call them? A metaphor? Figures, speech, turn of phrase, metaphor, similes. Whatever you want to call it. Idiom? Is that one of them? That's one of them. Why would you even bring it up? Look, I'm just trying to say... I think I've got a stone right here. I think I may have it.

Oh, cool. The only thing he follows through on his promises, you fucking schmuck. I don't get the words promise that came across my lips, but fair enough. You say it out loud and it's a promise. That's how frogs work. That would get me into very deep trouble. We'll go investigate the madness and on the way we'll spread word. We'll hopefully help with this organization of the miners and maybe we can...

mess with all their stuff along the way. And I think that if we can devalue one or two of these mines, there might be something in it for you to buy one. Yeah, you know, what if we could convince them that one of these mines has strange rocks that doesn't allow them to get drunk ever again if they breathe in the air? Heck yeah, I like where your head's at. Because then none of them would ever want to mine it, and then what good is it? It's true. You know, you give a drunk a you're gonna go mad or you can't get drunk and they're gonna pick the mad line every time.

Do we just go out that way? I just point in the big general direction of the mines. Where can we get some food around here? You want some... Here's some breakfast. And he pushes out these moldy biscuits towards you. This is all we got.

Well, I'll just scratch off the little green part. I think I'm gonna pass my time. Well, that's not me too hating you. Vagabonds. Yes? Four of you. That's what they call us. That's worth a couple of skinkertons. Yeah. None of you give your services to anyone else in this town.

Selz in Alabaster, you are employed as long as you are in Reckonoida Ridge. Well, you say employed, but what do we get besides info here? I'm looking at a lot of your pockets. Gold. Do you know how much gold these filthy fucking miners have to spend? We get gold. Yes. All right. No, hold on. We'll be in.

But there's a down payment first. If we're gonna agree not to do anything for anybody else, we can't do that with nothing to line our pockets. That wouldn't be fair, would it? Half now, half when it's done. Make a, uh, persuade an NPC.

Why? No, she's closing it out. What does it cost to help? Where's the first wave? Charm. Oh, no. What does it cost to meet that exhaustion? An exhaustion. Oh, perfect. Oh, perfect. Come on. Yes! I got 12, but I think it's a minus a one. No, you're still doing good. So he says charm. Yeah, so I got 11. Fuck yeah. He looks and he says, now that...

It's a forward-thinking fucking gumption. You're a thinker. That's not Peggy for you. The enthusiasm, the brain. I don't get why, what he's doing. The muscle. He's the muscle. You're the muscle. Come on. You're the growling thing that you do. Scary.

And, and, and, and, uh, I, I, I heard that, uh, you go to the bathroom late at night from, uh, from Jimmy. She's a distraction. And she's hungry all the time. I do. She's actually, she costs us a lot of money. She'll help you get rid of all your moldy biscuits if you have any line around. Yeah. I have, I have other things I can do. Well...

I suppose if this is a deal, and he spits into his badger paw, and you see the long claws extend as he reaches out to shake whoever's hand shakes first. I immediately spit in my hand, and I shake it. There we go. You're whatever. And my tongue comes out and wraps all the way around my hand, and it just, like, slobbered, like, with my hand out.

They're frogs. Oh, y'all, that's my fly-on, man. And I'm gonna put a fly back. I've got a paw full of moldy biscuit crumbs. And now it's all saliva because of the tongue. It's like his hands are covered in moldy biscuits and saliva. And flies. Thank you, sir. That's a fine handshake. You won't regret this, sir. Oh, and do me one favor. If we're gonna pull a fast one on these guys and get you a little extra lining in your pockets...

Try to come up with something, too, because it takes two to dango. I have ideas. That's my man. And so with that, he reaches beneath his desk and he pulls out four bags of coins as he drops it for each of you. And I would like each of you to take an equipment, a bag of coins that has two decay in it. Woo!

Half now, half later. Oh, my friend, I have a feeling that this is the beginning of a very beautiful friendship. B-E-A-U-T-I-F-L-E. And, uh, and, uh, as, uh, you see, like, there's a large, there's, uh, several, many windows alongside on the second floor as, uh,

As he says, well, shall we celebrate our new partnership with some coffee out on the balcony to overlook the filthy fucking thoroughfare? That sounds absolutely lovely. Do you have any root tea? Or did I say yesterday? I forgot I said yesterday. I have my personal stash. Now that you're in my employ, I tell everyone we don't, but...

I prefer chamomile myself. I would, if you have root tea, I would greatly appreciate some. I'll have Dolly make you some. And so as he stands up, the door swings open and you all, after storing your coins away, you step out and

And, uh, as you all begin to walk out, suddenly, uh, uh, Selgen jolts in shock as a crossbow bolt flies in and hits the doorframe. And as you all walk out onto the balcony, you see a row of, uh, of four skinks flanking a, uh, a large gray cat or a brown boulder cap in brown suit. He has, uh, two thumbs, uh,

in the lapels and he yells up and says, "I hear your man has been messing with my business." And that's where we're on the second. - No! There ain't no law against me breaking your fucking jaw! - I didn't know you were gonna get to play.

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