 Right where we left off. I'm scared. I'm so scared. Dad. With Mr. Astrapio. And he, as from continuing from last session, he has just taken aback and has just informed you, Fritz, that he is your biological father and is waiting for a response. Put him on the spot, why don't you? Shoot him. All right. Got to get a character. Let's go. All right. Shake it out. Get the adrenaline going. Vocal warm-ups, vocal warm-ups. La, la, la, la, la, la. To a bar, you find your dad. Go north. I guess Fritz kind of looks at them for a second and turns their head to the side and goes, you don't look like Dozen. No, of course not. He kind of scratches the back of his head. No, Dozen is a good friend of mine and he was... My dad. Yes, I guess he would be considered more your father now, considering that he raised you. No, he is my dad. You will refer to him as such, thank you. I see. Well, he's just kind of scratching his arms. I did not anticipate this to happen today. Well... What do you mean? We're just strangers. Respectfully, sir. What business do you have here? I am the officiat here to bring a suspect in for questioning at Pelitrios. Oh, fantastic. We can take you to where she is. That would be preferable. Thank you. So this guy's from Pelitrios? Me? Who are you asking? Oh, you're questioning. Yeah, I'm sort of ingesturing to the party, like pointing at him, probably making eye contact while asking that. I'm sorry, Fritz, have you ever met this guy before? This is your biological father. Absolutely not. No, she wouldn't remember me. We gave her away when she was very, very young. That's always a good move. Okay. Let's go upstairs. Wait a minute. I kind of want to address this. You've never met this person before. You don't want to talk to him? I mean, I don't understand what's happening here. Why did I talk to someone who abandoned me? He actually, like, straightens up a little bit at that. Listen, we did not abandon you. That's not what happened. I don't know what Dozen has told you, but... Perhaps we can discuss this more strongly when we have less pressing matters currently that we need to attend to. I think that is preferable. I'm sorry, whatever it is that I may have done or the lack thereof that made you feel this way, Phelan, but I have business to do. Okay, upstairs. It's Fritz. And he just kind of walks on upstairs. You hear the thumping, thumping, thumping of his boots. And you see the mayor, Isaac, is there as well. Oh, right. He was here. And he's just like, whew, should I leave you all to it or...? Is there anything author... Words are not working for me today. Do you need to do anything because you're the mayor? Do you need to do anything about this situation or are we all good? He will give me some paperwork to deal with. You are free to go. I'm just concerned about this whole deal. Yeah. I wouldn't want to butt in where it's not my business. Sounds great. I'll wait outside. Mr. Astrapia will speak with me when he's ready. Feel free to have anything off the top shelf. Oh. Mayor. Yes. Would me causing a scene in any way affect you? Perhaps not, but I would hope that you wouldn't cause a scene with an officiate of Poletrius. He does have friends in high places. What's an officiate? Well, he works closely with the Lord, Lord Euphrasia of Poletrius as well as the dragon, Sergi. He is one of their underlings. He does a lot of their busy work while they are, well, doing other more important matters. Is he upstairs? Is Astrapia upstairs while we're having this conversation? Yeah, he's not in the room. Okay, sorry. Oh, boy. If you need the tavern to yourself, if that's what you mean, I can leave you to it. Yeah, can we, can we maybe just like, just step outside, have a quick break so we can have a kind of a group huddle here? Yes, we wouldn't dream of evicting you from your own town. We'll be right back. There was a really nice rock on the road we can sit on and talk at. Thank you. So yeah, you guys are gonna have a chat. I guess. Group huddle. Whoo. Guys, come over here to this rock. Oh, man. It's a solitary place. There's not enough room for, I'll sit, I'll stand over here so there's room on the rock for another verse. That's fair. I'm gonna sunbathe a little bit while we do this. Okay, keep, please keep your shirt on for what we do together. What? Okay. I don't know what's- A lot of things just happened. Yeah, right, I agree. Are you, Fritz, are you okay with, are you okay? Yeah, that's just a stranger. It didn't sound entirely like that was the whole story. You know as much as I do. Yeah, says he's my father. I've never met him. All I know is Dozen picked me up as a kid. Can I make an insight? Ooh. I don't know if that's intrusive. I just want to know if like- Up to you. Yeah, up to Poi. Okay, because I want to see if that's genuinely what Poi knows or if that's like how Poi feels. Even Fritz. Who's Poi? Hey. Yeah. Okay, Fritz, do you feel as though that is enough for word to learn anything from Fritz's- Yeah, Fritz, sorry. Manorisms. I guess the only thing you would learn because that is quite high is Fritz is being honest with this is a stranger. They've never met them. They're lying a bit about not being pissed that they're here. Yeah. But they're trying to hold themselves composed. All right. Yeah, there's no way or reason that word would press that. Yeah. Fritz, if he works under one of the dragons, the odds are good. We're going to need to deal with him again in the future. Is there anything any way you'd like us to play that? You don't have to deal with him face to face if you don't want to. All I ask is you don't call me Faelin. Oh, yeah. I'm no fear of that. I like Fritz. It fits me more. It's what Dozen calls me. And- Yes. This is certainly strange. I won't lie, I'm curious. But this is a stranger. And this means more to me than whatever he provides. Yes, we haven't really discussed this in the past. But have you ever been curious about your birth parents, where you came from? When I was younger, yes. But I don't want to make Dozen feel like he wasn't doing enough by questioning. God am I glad I don't look like him. Um, I don't mean to. Kiddo, I hope you're not trying to be too strong or, you know, act like you don't care too much about it. I guess it's a complicated subject. But to what Larry was saying, I could understand it if you're curious and had questions. I mean, this might be a chance to find some things out about yourself that you never knew. Well, I just, you don't have to hide anything, you know, the way that you feel about this from us. I mean. Or you can be strong and blind yourself from the situation until it goes away. Word. Nope. Slap out. I guess what I'm trying to say is that we got your back. If you, if you, you know, on how to handle this, if they're, if you need it, that is. Yes. However you choose to play this will support you. I won't lie. I am being strong, but if I let, ah, this is so not me. Ah, if I let the bitterness of what someone I don't know done to me affect all the kindness that people put into me. Am I really fritz? Of course you are. You can't blame yourself for how you're treated or what has been done to you. The man in there I think has a lot to answer for, but it's up to you if you want to give him the chance to answer whatever questions you might have. There might even be good reasoning behind it. You might be surprised. I don't think he was looking for me. Ah, that I agree with. I guess I'd like to know what happened to my mom. Never had a mom figure. Yes. I don't make a good mother figure, so I can't help you. It's all right. We appreciate that you tried. So, I mean, and you can shoot this down if you think it's a bad idea, but we're heading to Travis said, or sorry, Politrios. That's the one that we're going to right next is Politrios. I think so. Yeah, we're heading to Politrios anyway. So this might be a good time to get there a little bit quicker. If we have somebody who clearly is woven into that inner circle, I'm not saying we have to go with him, but maybe we can get some information about meeting up with the dragon, that sort of thing. I mean, he is definitely headed back there once he's done here. So we don't have to travel with him, but if we have questions, we can be two steps behind and then ambush him for his stuff. We could leave a day before or after. It won't impede our progress either way. We don't need to be. We don't need to deal with him any more than you want to. We don't know how people are in Travis said I am curious. I'm curious. I'll meet him in the middle, not as a daughter and father, but there's two strangers and a predicament. Very well. That is certainly what we are in. I'm going to have a fritz push down the feathers on the neck that were a bit pent up. I slink off the road rock. It's a nice rock. It was really nice. It's actually quite warm today. Oh, you were sunbathing. Yeah. Cold blooded. So you guys finish up your conversation and I assume you're going to wait for Astratio then. Yeah. Seems like he's coming out. He does come out and you can see that he's kind of fixing his gloves and it seems as though he just finished. We're just like... So what's the situation with the snake lady? Where's she at? You can see he's actually looking around for you guys and he sees you kind of to the side and he walks up to you. All right, that's all taken care of. She will be teleported to Polyterios for questioning and I got my witness report and the mayor here, Isaac, he will be signing a few papers and sending them back to us and I will be on my way back with my own teleportation circle very shortly, but while I do have a bit of time, I did want to formally introduce myself to you all. I presume you are... I hear that you are the pilgrims from Sacia. That is correct. Word and the rest. It is very nice to meet you all and I do hope that I can do whatever it is in my power to make your journey a smooth one once you make it to Polyterios. I unfortunately don't have much time to wait here as I have my own business to take care of once I get back there, but it was nice to meet you all. Well, he looks over at Fritz for the first time. Hmm. I'm... I'm glad we could get the situation sorted with the lady in there. Yes, me as well. Fate is a cruel lady. Oh yeah, she's nasty. Radioactive levels of awkwardness coming off of that. Is there anything else that I could perhaps provide in the next few minutes before I need to go? Actually, yeah, I have a question to open to the floor. Is it against the rules for us to just teleport with him? Like, do we have to walk there? I would love to assist you in that, but unfortunately the circle is only enough for one person. Nah, you got weak circles. There will be many opportunities for exploration between here and our next destination, so... That's true. Yes, of course. In fact, he reaches into his jacket and pulls out a little card that seems to be signed with a Lord Euphrages name herself and the Olympian sigil, the life tree stamped on it, and he hands it over to whoever will take it. I'll take it? A stop in there. Yes. If you hand that to the Lord's offices, they can get you in contact with me. Immediately. I will drop whatever I'm doing at the moment and give you my undivided attention if you need anything at all. Huh. How responsible. I'll just tuck that away. Is that a promise? He looks to you and he just kind of gulps. I presume so. Can I insight check this man? Yes, you certainly might. Thank you. Ooh. You can tell that he is definitely awkward. He is unprepared for whatever this is, but, you know, that's easy to tell that vibe. Yeah. Well, I suppose we'll be seeing a lot more of you when we reach our next destination. Stop you. Before you go. Yes. You don't have to talk to me again, but I'll meet you in the middle when you're ready. Very well. I do want to ask you one thing. Hmm. How was he, Dozen, your childhood? How was it? I was very lucky to have very friendly sailors around and Dozen has a really good moral compass. He's a really good dad. Would you say that you were happy? As happy as a dolphin can be. Then that's good. That's good. And he kind of like has very slight nods. I will see you in Pelitrios. Okay. We'll hold you to that. And he steps back into the tavern. Well, that went. Hmm. That I think that went pretty good. I mean, all things considered, I mean, no one, I think word introduced us as the rest. No one got hurt. All things, I think it could have gone worse. Thank God I don't look like a Ponzi fuck like him. No, you have so much more fashion sense than him. By actual nautical miles. Green serves you better as clothing than feathers, I think. I think you do good with one of those little ascotts that he's got on. I think that would look good on you. Just having like a little neck. No, I just, I'm just. Just we get you like a nice neck piece. I think that'd be fun. I'm trying to make conversation. That was one of those conversations. Word, have you been graffitiing the rocks? What are you doing? I, yes. I felt the need to briefly exit the premises. I distracted myself. Very stylish. Thanks. Well, I guess we better be getting efficiency and butterscotch ready for the. Traveling so. Yes. I don't know if there's anything else you all need to do here, but I'd like to get on the road. I think as long as we've said our goodbyes to the various people, we helped out. We can probably leave whenever. I still have six days of butterscotch leg ointment. Have we traveled the full day? Should I apply that? So from Nubiski to here was one day, and then you guys stayed one night here as well. Okay. So you've, I would have presumed that you put on two of them. Yeah, I'll push that up for red. That includes this morning, right? Yes. Okay. Cool. And you can see that butterscotch's leg does look a little bit better. She's not limping as much. Good. That's what she deserves. And she's actually been spending the morning kind of trotting around the field somewhat close to the cart, of course. We frolic together. Claw and hoof together. As word is applying the leg ointment, I'll go to word and I'll say, you know word, I actually think you would make a pretty good maternal figure. Well, thank you. That does mean a lot. I've never really had to. You know, we've always had kind of a small population. So you need, you know, an even mix. The thick of muscles kind of helped me as a leader. It helps me run away from things, honestly. Look, I get it. I could. I could. No, I get it. I get it. I just, you know, you got that quality. He's not the step mom. I appreciate it. He's the mom that stepped up. Well, yeah. So you guys get ready to go then. Say your goodbyes to the people of the Sarely. Which is like two people. I think we only like the mayor a little bit. Yeah. Mayor's all right. Grumble's great. Yeah, you say your goodbyes to Grumble, who, of course, Grumble. So did did Pyrea? Pyrea, right? Yeah. Pyrea, Pyrea. Did Pyrea give us the photo that she was going to send? Yeah. She gave you a small little portrait. Yeah. A painting portrait of her. And the little, like, wooden carving, which she fashioned into a small little automaton, like toy as well, since she is a tinkerer now. And she said for, for you, once you reach the next mailing station, which will be in Politrious, to send it back to Koryak and Sachia whenever you get the time. Nice. And she's given you the money to pay for the stamps and the stampage or whatever shipping. Stampage. The postage. Postage. That's the word. The stampage. The tiny teleportation circle they used to manifest mail directly to people's houses. Definitely a thing that exists indeed. And did she install the true site lantern that she sent you? She did. And she was just finished fixing it up and hooking it up and kind of making sure that it's working after your little bout at night with the Lucid Folk Lady. And she kind of gives it a little knock and it rings a little bit and gives a very dim green glow before fading back to its kind of normal lantern yellow. And she gives you a thumbs up, ready to go. Thank you. And thank you. I think this place is a lot safer now. Wait, who are we talking to now? Pyrrhea. Pyrrhea, the dragonborn sister of Koryak. Yes, that one there. Gotcha. Oh boy. We ready to get out of here, gang? Yeah, I give a quick handshake to the old man Grumble. He just takes her hand. Yeah. I give Grumble a firm nod. Give Grumble a firm. Grumble and I are going to have an emojis and GIFs only chat going for the entire rest of this shoot. Just on each other means. And anytime when you don't know what they were doing, she's texting GIFs to Grumble. Wonderful. So yes, you hop onto your cart with your brand new lantern of true sight and you return to the wilds of the verdant hills. Let me move the map. Yeehaw. To the verdant hills to make your way back to the road to Peletrios. It's a fairly uneventful journey with a decent amount of downtime, if any of you so wish to do anything to pass it. Hmm. Who's driving? Who's operating this? Who is driving? Oh, no. Who has experienced driving? I mean, word has the most horse experience. I'm assuming it's word. Yeah. I just purchased the horses and loved them. I'm not good at them. Would it be animal handling for driving experience? In that case, it might be me. It would be intelligence with land vehicles, but... You are now proficient in those. I don't think any of us are. No, if it is animal handling, I am also not proficient in that. Really? What's your bonus? It's plus three because it's wisdom. Okay. If it was nature, it would be plus four. We are equally wise. Yes. I'll give it a shot. I'll drive. Yeah. You know what? Anyone can try whatever role they think is relevant to driving the cart. I will help you by doing a soothing animal handling. I don't know if I need a role for that. What are we saying is for... It's not sleight of hand. I guess it is animal handling. Either animal handling or straight intelligence. Yeah. Oh boy. Straight in. Yeah. Okay. Are we going for animal handling? Okay. Okay. You try to soothe the horses, specifically efficiency, who is a very tough breed. As Lord Nicholas has come to claim that this is a very strong horse, good over pulling the cart, it's also a very stubborn horse. And you are not particularly trained in cart-pulling horses. So kind of wibbles around and just kind of huffs at you every now and then as you pull its reins trying to direct it. Fritz, you're holding the reins way too loose. Let me try. Okay. Please do. There we go. Very nice. You know what you're doing. Word you're able to pull it back in and efficiency is more receptive to your rain-pulling as you direct the cart just fine, no longer on the bumpy roads or anything like that. Cool. In the meantime, can I, can Buck wants to try to teach Lyra how to play like a card game while we're just like waiting? Yeah, you can. Yes. I'll just like, I'll pull up my card and like, I'll just be like, you know, here this is the Trump card and you use that to, matters which suit you pick. So you got to draw these four cards and then we will go back and forth and play these and I'll kind of just show her how to play. But while we're playing, I want to say, so we're just like playing in the back of the cart while you guys are in the front while Fritz and Werder are driving. Perfect. You know, I was just thinking about Fritz and her dad and that whole thing. You think she's going to be okay with, you know, learning her biological dad? I just, I really feel like that's something that we should probably address, right? Fritz can be difficult to read at times. They are very cheerful by nature and I think the feelings that this encounter dredged up in them are unfamiliar to them. They might not entirely know how to process it. I get that and I'll put another card down. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. I, to be frank, I just, I just kind of assumed that the dozen for the time I knew him was like, I didn't know if he was the biological dad or I really don't get how that whole thing works, but I just didn't ask any questions. I just don't really, yes, you don't really know much about, I don't really know much about all of you guys just from being in passing from living in the same town. I've known Fritz for many years and we don't discuss this very much either. Neither of us were raised by our biological parents wherever they may be and I always felt that it was mutually understood that some things just weren't worth thinking about. Put another card down. So that Shamiya person, that's not your, Shamiya, sorry, that person isn't your, that's not your parent? No, she's my mentor. I don't entirely know the story of how I came to where I was found, but I assume tragedy must have been involved at some point for somebody and since I'm unlikely to ever receive more answers than that I find it an unhelpful avenue of thought. Shamiya is the only mentor that I've ever had that has mattered. She's the only person I've been striving to make proud. I'm unaccustomed to seeing a situation where the parent has disappointed the child. Right, well, I'm sure Fritz felt kind of the same way and all of a sudden we run into our biological dad. I don't know if you're looking to find out any sort of information on this whole trip we're going on or anything like that. About my parentage? I consider it broadly irrelevant, but just about yourself. Who I'm growing into seems rather more interesting than where I came from, but I'd be lying if I said I'd never wondered. And I suspect Fritz is the same way, but I doubt this is the answer that they particularly wanted to see. Yeah, I guess you're right. Like, pick the cards up and just kind of... How many aces are supposed to be in this deck, by the way? Well, there's four. There's just four. Has word gotten his hands on this one? Yeah, I just... Let me count these here. Four. Okay, five, six. I did lend this deck to word at some point. There's six suits in here. I've never even seen these ones before. I know some divination spells we could use this for. This is like a clam symbol. This one is a rose. I've never seen this. This one was hand drawn. Yes. I'll talk to word. I'm going to go read my book now. Thanks for the game. I'm sure you're going to make Shamiya proud through all this. We're doing pretty good so far. Yes, things have gone remarkably smoothly for the most part. And also, my dad is dead, so we don't have to worry about running into him. Oh, my condolences? Yeah, it was just like old age, it wasn't anything like... It wasn't a big deal or anything like that, so I wouldn't worry about it. If we do run into him, that means we're some sort of zombie creatures involved, and that will have more to worry about at that point than the way that I feel about it emotionally. Yes, although I suspect the emotional side would have some impact on that. Hypothetical and hopefully never real situation. We've been fighting giant goo monsters on this trip and we ran into Fritz's biological dad and we've also had multiple run ins with people that turned into dragons, so I'll be clear when I say I'm not putting it past the realm of possibility for the things we've been doing. I suppose that's wise. But realistically, I'm just trying to roll with the punches as they've gone. Yes. I suspect that's the only way that'll really see us through. Yeah, just want to get back into this book here, so... When you go and look for your book, it's missing, as well as when you were counting your cards, several of the regular four suits are missing. Oh? It was harder to notice because of the other two suits. Yeah. The clam suit and the some kind of three-legged horse suit. Interesting. I don't have my book on me? You search and actually you can give me an investigation, if you'd like, to try and search for it. Can I also do an investigation? Yeah, you may. With my raw plus one. Lost in a drift. I knew I left it around here somewhere, I mean... Lair and beguess. I search every spot that it would have been. You search your pack, you search the shelves where you would have stored it. You look around and it's nowhere in its usual spot. My natural 20 didn't turn anything else up? My natural 20 makes you search in places that it probably in places that are not its usual spot, including outside the cart and you see a sleep on the side of the cart, kind of on the railing, looks to be a faithful of some kind, a young boy who's just laying there sleeping just a passenger on your cart. I have several questions. So you know, you see the cart. I see the cart. I see the cart. So you know how there's like a ledge kind of on the side, kind of where people can make a walk? I do see that. Sleeping there, kind of in the back. I see. Oh, there was a curtain in front of that. Yeah, there is a curtain because that's... I thought we were like fully separated from the conversation. No, no, no. Well, I mean you could hush whisper as I would presume. I just kind of make eye contact with Lyra. Do you know that person? I don't think so. It doesn't look like anybody you recognize. A fae folk, a young boy with blue hair. Huh. Are we all aware of that or the two have not told us? Only really Lyra and Buck have noticed him. Word, please stop the cart. Their book. Stop it. By the way, Fritz, have you seen my deck of aces anywhere? No, it sounds like odds. I've been missing them for like two days. Alright, I'll find them later. What's the hold up? Why are we stopping? We have a stowaway? Yeah, have you guys noticed anything strange in the time that you've been out here? I'll get the negotiation. You guys also see the elven, not elven, the fae boy sitting kind of laying arms crossed behind his head snoring away. Did anybody give birth while I wasn't paying attention? Not that I checked. Yeah, you can. Oi, dimwit. Me? Not you. The other one. You can see he yawns awake and he looks directly at you but remains silent and perfectly still and he looks in the direction that you're speaking, kind of past him, kind of behind him and then back to you. Yeah, you. He looks at his arms inspecting himself then he jumps. What? How did? Oh. Did we have something on the... We do. The true sight lantern has taken away this young man's invisibility. I go to grab him. You pull him up and you see the stowaway. Here he is. He's an elven boy. It's a cheeky little boy. He's just a little guy. Hey, come on. There's no need for violence, right? You wouldn't hit a guy with glasses, would you? It's my birthday. You can't hurt the birthday boy. He's actually a little child, is this? Um... Can I, like, give him a little shake? I'm a big guy. I'll give him a little shake to see if anything drops out. Oh, I just love ending. Yeah, you see a few cards fall out of his kind of pockets and shirt and you can see your book, Lost in a Drift falls onto the grass as well as a potion of hillgine strength, which is fritzes and a scroll of jump, which is words. Excuse you. Can I roll to grab him? You don't need to roll to grab him. Buck already has a whip. I hold him. As soon as I see words thing hit the ground, I hold him up high so that word cannot hurt him. Does he trust me? Hey, no hard feelings, right? I mean, I stowed away. You caught me. Might as well let bygones be bygones, huh? Hey, good job. You got your stuff back. I've gone from being frustrated to being rather impressed. How did you get away with all this? He took my lucky 52nd ace. Hey, why do you think I took it? Listen, you know, you know, I'm from the circle forest. The witch forest? Oh, oh, wait. Joe, how much would I know about whatever this guy is and what he's talking about? So the circle forest does have an incredibly dense fey population. Oh. A lot of them work with the lords of Elinthe to upkeep Quarencia. A lot of them guard Quarencia. He does not seem as though he is wearing official garments, so he is probably just a civilian. Hmm. Because there are plenty of fey and non-fey that live in the forest and they have opened it up. What is your history score? Uh... Tasty plus one from my rod. That's about how much you would know. Okay, so this isn't like a thing I'd especially know about because of my plus four to nature. Okay, plus four to nature, you would know that... It is kind of my one thing. Hmm. You would know, as mentioned before, that there is an incredibly large fey population. You know that the fey are not the fey they once were from a long time ago. Oh. They are more a civilized people compared to how they once were more mischievous and Celtic mythology insert here. Right. And they have kind of more gotten along with the various different peoples in order to keep Quarencia alive since it benefits them as well. Someone seems to be... How long ago did you get on? Uh... He kind of counts on his fingers. When did you leave Nuba Sky? I see. Just a couple of days, right? Yes. It's not much. Someone seems to be attempting to... How much of our food have you taken? Enough to get by. Okay. Someone seems to be attempting to revive ancient traditions. What do you guys want to do with him? We could sell him. I like that idea. I don't think we want to deal with anyone who'd be willing to buy him. You know what, that's actually very fair. All right, Miss Jifmaker. What exactly was your end goal with this situation? Listen, I was just trying to get by, you know? I read some books about how the fey folk tricksters and misfits back when old Diocio was most of this place and honestly, that sounded way cooler than whatever it is we do now. Guarding the forest, surveying the tree, it's so boring. I want to stir some shit, make some idiots lose their minds, maybe make a lord cry. That sounds way more fun. Well, you definitely picked the wrong people to mess with, but the right people to mess with other people. Oh, I think I picked the very right people and he reaches into his shirt and he holds out. He has Elias' heart. Oh, all right, this stopped being funny. Do you want to keep your wings? What horrifying spell am I going to cast on this guy? Oh my God! He holds it out and just be like, I know some mad fire spells. I invite you to try. I'd like to see you try without your wings. Hand it over. Give me the intimidation of whoever, with advantage, whoever wishes to. I'm doing it. I'm probably not very intimidating, but I don't like the speller. With advantage? With advantage, you may roll again. No, you have a smaller bonus than I do. You can roll it again and we'll take the higher one. Ah! Okay. I just don't like you. Oh yeah, just like you officials. Play nice and then get aggressive when you don't get what you want. Then let's continue playing nice. I'm going to cast Entangle under him. Okay. Lyra, hold me back. Lyra, I am... You know I don't like these fucks. Okay. Oh, can I, well this is happening, do Mage Hand Ledgerman to grab the heart from him? Oh, please do. He certainly can. Give me eight. Actually, no roll needed because he failed the DC. You drop him, vines come up from the ground. He's like, that's more like and he immediately drops the necklace and word. Your Mage Hand just swoops it up and even hits the floor. I'll just tuck that back in. Your antics are a little misguided and I think you're pissing everybody off. Take it from word. He's found a way to make an art of striking the exact right balance of how much to piss people off before they start swinging. Exactly. And you're making my friends here start swinging. We don't want that. Just to make sure, do I still have the other heart? Yes, you have the other one. You have the napkin. Good. How long does entangle last? Like an hour concentration, I think. So much fuss over a dumb necklace. Concentration up to one minute. So he's going to get out of there soon, but Oh, up to one minute. When you were reading those books, did they happen to include any details at all about the nature of the giant sacred tree in the very forest you hail from? Great. Okay. He'll let them, the lords, the dragons. They're trying to keep us down. I'm trying to keep us strong like the old faithful. And how exactly are you trying to keep yourself strong? Sticking it to the man, like you. We're not the man. We're people in a car traveling on a road and you're here grabbing random stuff that you don't know about. Like a few playing cards? Yeah. Don't downplay the playing cards. Those are important. Do you have number 53? I can't find that one. Get up there like. I told you not to mix the decks. I put mine next to yours and then we hit a bump and they spill. I'll fix it on the way there. Give me that. He squints his eyes and as you guys are fumbling about. Oh my gosh. You're the pilgrims. That's hilarious. That means Kip failed. That's rich. She's not going to be able to show her face again. I remember Kip. Oh. I was about to tell everyone. I'm sorry. You were sticking it to the man without even realizing that we are actually official emissaries of the man. Do you just assume that anyone who owns a cart is the establishment? Well, I was right, wasn't I? No. Oh, this is a whole different kind of nightmare. If you go back and tell them all that you interrupted a whole ritual to save the tree you're supposed to be protecting. Or transversely you could just not come back at all. Are you sure? I think if we hurt him just a little bit then he'll get to learn the lesson. Look, we don't need to hurt him. I think maybe if you want to cause some mischief, right kid? What's your name? Have we gotten that yet? My name's Ali. Ali. It isn't, but don't worry about it. I don't believe it. They both are just like that with names. That's profiling. But am I wrong? He just kind of squints his eyes and grumbles. Would have been a good spell. Look, do you want to cause a bit of properly directed mischief? Or do you want a couple of wings snapped and to go back home? You're considering one or the other really? All right, go on. I'm listening. We're headed to Politrios. There's a bunch of stuck up people there. And some of them we might not like that well. And we can definitely, it's a high population. We can find some that we choose not to like. I feel like we've done that everywhere we've gone. Yes, I would venture that we already have a group of people that we don't particularly like. So instead of attacking people who could very easily threaten or end or disfigure your life, you could come with us and then you could have us helping you as you do kind of what you want. Mostly what we want, but it's fun. Oh, that's a fun game to play. You see, because I was thinking you don't get to go anywhere after today otherwise. Is that an intimidation? Or is that a deception? That's intimidating. Intimidation. I'm calling it with advantage. I'm begging you. Because he is entangled. Okay. You can't do that. Can you? I'm actually forgetting the name of our crew. What are we called? The Pilgrims of Statue. Yes, we're the Pilgrims. We can do what we want. We're saving Statue. Don't fuck with us. Don't get your hammer yet. He hasn't said no yet. Do you want to continue to tomorrow? Should I get my hammer? You can't actually do that, right? Right? You attacked us on the road and we are on a very important mission. I suspect any of the authorities in the woods of the Circle Forest that actually understand the importance of what we're doing and the artifact that you briefly stole would be rather displeased to know that a truent youth from their forest nearly caused the apocalypse 15 years down the line. There's a better question. Do you really want to try us and see if we're capable of that? His eyes look dark back and forth to all four of you. Okay, you win. At the bare minimum I recommend reading the actual books about this before you go raring off in a random direction. Start picking fights, really. A fay from the Circle Forest who doesn't know what the point of Quarrencia is. That's a little goofy. Whatever, you're goofy. We can be friends and you can be silly. Just don't be stupid. I will not be friends. I will also not be friends. But that's okay. Words not your best friend. Your high fives, my friends. I don't hate fay on principle. I simply hate it when people steal very important artifacts. That's fine. I'm fine. I'm walking away. One turns around trying to hold back a smile but he got away with it. Briefly. Yeah. So are we leaving the kid here or are we taking him with us? That would be very funny. The spell will last for some amount of time. I don't know if we want to unleash him on an unsuspecting town we theoretically want to get in the good graces of. What's that on the other hand? Yeah, kid, there's a place called Trevesetic on a west of here. That would be a great place for you to go. If you meet us there, we will set fire to everything. No, no we won't. We cannot be held to that. To a couple of things. There's a lot of the mans in Trevesetic here. That is correct. A lot of puntsy guys. Yeah. In fact, the man just acquired large swaths of Nuba Sky. Nuba Sky is so fun. Yes. As I understand it, some of the mans are attempting to remedy that. Perhaps you could be some sort of folk hero if you went and helped them out. We know someone who owns a tavern down there, don't we, word? We do, but I feel like these two would not get along. But it would be very funny. It would be, but also I'm trying to set up an operation and that would really be a wrench in it. I feel like we can use this kid. He is a wrench. We don't want to throw him into gears. This analogy is becoming confusing. Yeah, I don't want to use the kid. We can use him to do things. I want to just get away from the kid who tried to steal all our stuff. After I said all that. Word, you know what? It's your problem. You do whatever you want. I just think it would be funny to leave him here. It would be rather funny, but word has a point. This kid's skills are impressive. Which is your preference? Well, fine. I'll cause some mischief in your name. Do it all. The name's Wood. Wait, actually. Word. Don't worry, I don't actually know any old Fay spells. I just thought I'd scare her. Has nobody read the official dealing with the Fay handbook? No. Those have been outdated for for centuries. I don't know that magic anymore. I don't read. Well, that's deeply tragic, but on both counts. I know. So you were sending this kid back to Nubiskaya? Yeah. There are a few places he could be directed to cause mischief against people we do not think have the world's best interest at heart. I don't have a preference for where he goes as long as he goes alone and doesn't steal important things without knowing what they are. Yeah, I would generally prefer that we leave people in our good graces. Well, whatever you let me do, could I at least go back to the Circle Force to tell everyone about Kip? Yeah, you said that name earlier. How do you know Kip? Ah, Kip, yeah. Me and her, we grew up together. She was never really good at anything. I'm not saying that to be mean either. It's just the truth. She sucks. She can't fly very fast. She's a lousy shot. And a worse swordsman. Yeah, she actually got us pretty good. Yeah, I highly doubt that. She's become another capable warrior. Did better than you did. Hey, listen. Hey, listen. And then we got our stuff back cause you didn't follow through with your job. You failed. Yeah, from where I'm standing, it doesn't seem like you were super successful. The job's not done until you're free from it. You're really harried. What'd you say? No, I won't get mad at that. This is such a chaotic experience. Your hair's blue. Yeah. Yeah. Well, now that we've finished observing things about each other. I hate this kid. I hear a lot of guys like it. So what? I hear some of them don't. All right. As fascinating as this is. Hold me back. I will beat this guy. I think that it might behoove you to take some advice that we gave to Kip which is to question what it is you actually want to do and pursue that. And as fun as robbing random people who can't tell that you're there might be. Sometimes it backfires very badly and everyone in the woods will make fun of you or possibly arrest you in a sort of endangering the world crime that I assume you have there. Give me a persuasion. Me a persuasion? Yeah, okay. You're doing a lot of the persuading in a lot of this campaign realizing. He actually is taken aback by that and kind of squints his eyes. He really starts to consider dang. There you go. For your life and your freedom take these and I'll give him five pieces. Each of them with my name written on them. His arms are bound. Do you want me to drop that? I essentially tuck them into his shirt. Put those somewhere in point. Don't spend them all in one place. You could at least get these off of me. How long does this last anyway? I'll drop concentration on the spell. Tell about right now. As long as he drops head first a little bit. Yeah, he does and his face just immediately in the dirt. He's got a lot of hands he got. Not really. And he dusts himself off. How big is he? He's just a little bit. He's like one head above you word. He's just a little guy. Oh boy. Can't believe you made him say hey listen. If I ever see those guys again. Okay. Well. I suppose. This was fun. For your time. I'll never forget you. Kid. Everyone, nobody's missing anything, right? He just kind of looks. He rolls his eyes a little bit, reaches in his pocket and hands. Buck, you one gold piece. It's not the lucky coin is it? No, it's not. Okay. Just keep it kid. I'll give it back to him. What? Why? And like holds it closer to you like it's icky? Now he owes you a life debt. Very wise Buck. The ways of the old fay have not been entirely forgotten. That's a thing. Yes, definitely. Okay, I do. Mage Hand Ledgerman. I'm gonna slip a gold piece into his pocket. Wait, did you just, is that a bomb? Did you just put a bomb on me? Worse, it's responsibility. I hate responsibility. That does make sense. Actually no, some of them are good. Fine, whatever. I'm going back to the forest. See, you'd be a great mom. Treveseta, you said. Yes, they seem to be making a habit of attempting to harsh the vibes of everywhere they go. Hmm. That place is probably just as dangerous as us, but probably a lot more fun. Just as dangerous? I don't know. Alright. I'll see what I can do. I'll see you later, Pilgrims. He flies off north. Alright. I'm telling on him. From afar, he yells out, by the way, real name is Liam. Liam Villalba. Yeah, that definitely sounds like something he didn't just make up. Liam looks at smudged writing on hand. Villalba. Alright, someone note that down in case we need to do some kind of true name binding magic later. Also Buck, he doesn't actually owe you a life debt. I just thought it would be funny. God damn it. I just thought that he could probably use that wherever he's going. Hmm. Might teach him some manners if he has to actually pay for things. Buck, do you want to make a really high stakes bet? Go on. What do you mean? I am willing to put 20 coins to one that when we get to Treveseta and we look for the dragon's heart, we're going to find one of my cards. Hahaha. You're betting, so if I put down one gold, you're going to pay me back 20 if we don't find one of your cards in place of that heart? Yes. Yeah, I'll do that. I'll absolutely take that bet. There's no chance that kid's getting the heart. Alright, let's get back on the road. Alright. I would perhaps lay a bet that when we reach Treveseta, we find him in some sort of horrifying major prison blood. Here, Lyra, you hold it. I'm going to put a 20 gold against this. Alright, I don't entirely know how this works, but I'm sure we'll figure it out. Let's get back on the road, shall we? That's 400 gold if you are incorrect. And you guys continue on the road as you head north back to the road heading towards Pelitrios to the west. And you approach the bridge that avoids the river splitting the verdant hills and the barbellons of Vanna that Pelitrios calls home. And on it, you see a troll woman who seems to be lost in thought and talking to herself at the foot of her bridge. Okay. Well, I feel like every bridge is going to be a problem. Who wants to... Do I recognize her? Is she the one I spoke to earlier? No, this is a different troll. Okay. Does she have any markings that resemble the other ones, or is she clearly independent? Clearly a different independent troll. Didn't know if there was a network of them. We don't want the stereotype. I didn't know if they had a union or not. Ah, yes, of course. So, yeah, she is looking at her bridge and just kind of looking around does not seem to have noticed you all yet. The bridge would be that wide. Hale, hello there. You call out to her and she kind of jumps a bit, and you can see she is a lot... kind of smaller than the trolls in Nuba Sky. She has red braided hair and a few piercings on her. And a bushy eyebrows. She looks nice. And she kind of jumps Oh, rotten roots, you startled me! Have you ever heard have you ever been taught not to sneak up on folk? My deepest beggings for forgiveness. I didn't realize how gone you were. What is happening? Any chance you're going to let us pass? Oh, yes. Sorry, I'm just a bit miffed right now. It's no problem. Shouldn't be a problem. You need to cross the bridge. That we do, my friend. Okay. Alright. She looks it over. That will be five gold pieces for the cart and one per passenger and the horses get to pass free. Oh, that's generous. Well, who's got money? I've got it. Here's nine gold. Alright. You hand it over to her and she is just kind of like fiddling with her fingers and you see that she's kind of biting her nails as the cart starts to cross over the bridge when she steps aside. Yeah. I like get halfway across the bridge almost and then I'll like drop my head and flick the reins to make the horses stop. The horses stop and as soon as they do you can see that one of the stones on the path comes loose and falls about a dozen feet down into the watery river below. Oh, yes. Heart rate jumps. He's mucking up. Are you all right, love? I'm sorry about that. Concrete must have been a shoddy mixer. I swear this river must be cursed or something fierce. How far down is the river? The river is about a dozen feet like below the bridge. Okay. Do you want to stay on this bridge? Yeah, can we keep good? Let's keep the horses moving. She runs up to like stop you. Hold on, hold on. Ugh. You mind explaining yourself? Almost getting us killed. I didn't mean to. I'm sorry. It's just this bridge, you see? It's been causing me so much trouble. It's like it falls apart every other hour. I've tried getting meddling charms mending charms and reinforcement beams and all the works but this thing just don't like to stay whole. Hmm. Even my night shift partner has been having to put the bricks back in place in the dead of night. It's starting to get exhausting. Well, that's quite strange. Who has jurisdiction over the bridge that who are you collecting the toll for? It's just mine. I'm independent. I keep this bridge up. She's a property owner. I? Well, that's quite respectable. Yes, but it might be time to move. I'll grab the true sight lantern and hand it to Fritz. Can you make a quick round through there? See if there's anything down there mucking this up. Shelton. Thank you. Oh, no love. You don't need to go through that trouble. It's best to use the bridge to the north. The elf that keeps that one. It's alright. I've been sitting down for so long. Stretch my wings. And we already paid you. Even that, I feel like you deserve a refund. Well, that's very kind of you. But certainly can't hurt to take a quick look. All right. If you say so, just be careful love. I'm a good fly. Don't worry. So, Fritz, you fly below the bridge shining the lantern below it. And as you do get closer, you see that there are some hidden creatures kind of sticking all about below it. But it's a little bit dark as the lantern doesn't light the area like a proper light. It's more of like it shows invisible things. You can see that there's something glistening and seeping kind of in the cracks of the stone that is held together with the concrete. Word. Yeah. Hop on my back. We're going again. Alright. Giddily on your back. Giddily as one would say. Hopping on the back of Fritz and flying underneath you can see peering through the dark shadow under the bridge. You can see that the little glistening spots are actually tiny bits of blot eating away on the concrete. Oh boy. All right. We got save is a such stuff to do my friends. It's blots. I'm going to start from the bridge before we do anything. Turning the horses around is such a hassle. I'll do it. I'll move them. All right. You see the troll kind of lean over the side just kind of looks a little bit concerned. Is there a problem? Oh yeah. You might want to step back unless you can swing something real hard. I can swing a lot of things hard. Oh my. Then grab something heavy. We got blot to deal with. Blot? On my bridge? Get the scraper and she stomps over and pulls out like she finds like a young tree and pulls it from the dirt. Oh my god. Show me where they're at. I like that. She's got fucking like cartoon awugas going on over here. She's a goddamn Hinox. All right. I think at this point all of us I feel like rolling initiative. Yeah, let's throw hands. Just drop me down on the bridge. So there's no massive because they are relatively harmless with the small bits that they are. They are very kind of splattered about but I think doing initiative is still good for taking turns on what you wish to do. So are they actually invisible or did she just not notice them before? They actually are invisible of these blots. They accidentally used big brain. Okay. Wow. Oh god. Okay. So the troll who she introduced her name I didn't actually introduce in character but she introduces herself but her name is Olivia. Towards the edge the kind of river bank to try and reach up with her tree to scrape off the little bits of blot with the branches just get off my bridge and you can see a few bits kind of fall kind of here and there. A few of them kind of fall on her shoulder and she kind of brushes them off. Yes. Under the blood is not where I would advise being right now. Fritz. How stable do you think this bridge is? No, not very stable considering they've been eating all the concrete I've been pouring in. Fritz why are you asking that question? I wonder. Nope. This is her property, don't break it down. We'd have to wait for her to rebuild it. How strong of a wind do you think it would take for it to fall? What? We can handle a good wind. Good. Step back, I'm casting gust of wind because we fixed her character sheet to properly have it now. Yes, I can actually, is it in my spells? It's in your spells, check it. Yeah. Fix it. 60 feet long, 10 feet wide, blast from you in the direction. So which direction are you trying to blast the blot under the bridge? I guess I'll be under and I'm pointing it if you see my ruler that way. Ah, pushing it away. Just like directly Just kind of like trying to delodge them. Okay, try to delodge them. Yep, you delodge quite a bit. They just go flying and they actually drop into the river. That might be no good. Yeah, that's my end of my turn. And I will say I'm keeping track. I would say about there is so how I'm keeping track of this is the little blotlings are going to have a combined hit point amount that you guys will take off each time you try to scrape them off and stuff. If they fall into the river, are they out? Are they dead? No, they are not. Oh yeah, because they came out from the ocean to attack us. I didn't think they were, you know, water soluble. A blotic word. I'm just going to try to run under the bridge daggers of blazing and do both a primary attack and then a two handed weapon attack. Ooh, okay. So first with negotiation. Nice. And look, I even added the little fire thing that you got. Yeah, that's super helpful. So that'll be nine damage. Yes, you go and stab and slice at these little things and little driplets of it fall on you. Actually, I'm going to need you to take the next dirty saving throw. That's my specialty. Oh, God. Ouch. They kind of land on you and sizzle a bit on your skin as you are going to take four acid damage. I didn't expect them to pop like blisters. Oh, Lord. Okay. Ouch. I'll swing at the one that's like bleeding on me with that second attack. Okay, yes, you chop up quite a few bits of the little teeny bits of blot. They're only about like the size of your fist, but they still burn all the same. They're very tiny. That's gross. All right, that's my turn. Buck, your turn. I want to draw a card to see if my rage can give me anything that will benefit me. So I'll reach down to my my deck and I will pull one of my eight cards. Let me see. When a creature hits you in an attack roll before your rage ends, the creature takes 1d6 force damage. All right. It's covered in sort of an armor of magic and I will, I guess, just throw a reckless attack at these little boys. Okay. Okay. That's going to be nine total because I'm raging. Yes, you kind of how are you attacking these blocks because keep in mind they're hanging and kind of attached to the bottom of the bridge. I was maybe going to just attack the ones to clean up the ones that are falling into the water. Okay, that's much safer. Good. Yes. You splish splash with your hammer smacking the ones in the water kind of with enough force that you don't even have to bat them into any surface before you're able to kind of splatter them and they lose their form and kind of dismiss into the water, get absorbed into it. Nice. Anything else? That's it. No, that would be it. You don't have a second attack or anything? Do I have it? You're level five. Yeah, I do. I do have a second attack. I was going to say. I do have a second attack. Yes. That's 12 total. Okay. All the blot that was thrown into the water thanks to Fritz are now gone. There's only more blot on the bottom of a ridge. Layra. Yes. I have a few options. Most of them are overkill. Instead of doing that, I would like to Can I get rid of Ice Knife? No. Ice Knife is just first level. I would like to cast Frostbite on one of the one of the little fellas that's on the bridge. So it's a cantrip so I can just kind of keep doing it. All right. Let's see it. It's not exactly doing the most damage. Okay. A few of them just kind of spread out of the way. Kind of like a little goopy venom into a hole and you kind of blast into the bridge as the ice frost covers the stone. And you can see that it starts to crack as well where the blot once was. Oh no. I made it worse. Yeah. I'm going to need you to make a dexterity saving throw as well as a few bits of stone start to fall. Oh boy. I was kind of hoping I could do this while not being under the bridge. Oh, not being under. Never mind. It's got a range of 60 feet. I was kind of hoping. Never mind. You don't need to worry about that then. Thank you. Okay. So the blot on under the bridge seeing that they're finally being noticed are actually start to slither towards the very edge of it to go down to the ground and seep into it. And you can see that Olivia is kind of swipe away with her tree with its branches. Oh, get out of here. You can see that one of them actually takes on a little carcass body of what looks to be some kind of wild dog and starts to run away. Oh no. That's so gross. That's very bad. We shouldn't let that one get away. Yeah, I agree. There's only a few bits of blot left as well as a few of them trying to escape. Fritz, your turn. Okay, let me double check how this works. Hail of thorns. Wait, does that take an action? Is that a bonus action? Yes, it's a bonus action. Hit of thorns. And crossbow time on the dog. Yep, that is going to hit the dog as well as a few other blot lengths that are trying to escape with it and the hail of thorns shoot out from it. Max damage. Yeah, these things are real frail so you take care of them before they are able to escape. Their form withers and the kind of wild dog carcass just kind of goes back to being mostly skeleton as it once was. And yeah, well done. I think that's actually all the blot. Let me see. Well done. You cleaned up the bottom of the bridge of its little blot infestation and Olivia just like throws the tree she had to the side. To think I had the archoness search for magic. They should have been searching for creatures. Gotta cover all your bases. Well, that takes care of that. It makes sense now why all my repairs were doing nothing. Here, she hands you back the gold. Really, I should be paying you for helping me with all that. Who does she hand the gold to? Back to anybody who will take it. I'll take it. It's so kind. And considerate. She kind of puts one hand to her chest. Oh, thank you. She's got to be like massive comparison. She's like 90. You're focusing on this to an interesting degree. Great. You're missing someone up a bit. My neck is fully creaky. I can give my thanks and saviorship to. That would be worried and the rest are the saviors of such. Temporarily at your service. Temporarily. I'll do like a little bow at her toes. Temporarily is such a blessing, especially with now I'm I cannot thank you enough. This allows me to fix my bridge. I won't even have to move. That's great. I can see my business. Thank you so much. It's not going to fall apart again either, which is real nice. Not anymore. All right. This is around to get buck and we'll get going. Watch the hole. Trying to dry off. Watch the hole, love. Oh, yes, of course. Right. And you are able to cross the bridge to the other side and it is still crumbling quite a bit from the kind of leftover damage that the block left, but you can see that she is immediately kind of got a what looks to be some kind of soil bag and mixing it in like a massive bucket or like a keg. Looks like she's making some more concrete. Just as a minor precaution I'm going to cast floating disc and always keep one of them below the two front hooves of Butterscotch just in case. Very good. Yes. You're able to make the trip across the bridge seamless and easily for both of the horses. Well done. If Butterscotch gets more hurt that would suck. Yeah. Good job. All right. Well, we're across the river. We got to we look on the map. What's that? That you can tell is a watchtower. It is just sort of a thing that is stationed with a few like official guards to keep a lookout and make sure everything is all right. I was hoping it was ancient ruins but I will accept a watchtower. No, the ancient ruins are these little crumbled things over here. Oh, the ruins that look more ancient. Oh, man, see that paletrios. Sue me for being hopeful. The deserts of low piramios have a lot of them. A number of ruins. Maybe we could explore that sometime. I don't know. With no motivation other than curiosity. Yes. So yes, you pass the watchtower. You can see a few official guards kind of give you a little wave through as you follow down the road. And they seem like not on edge. No, not at all. They seem pretty casual. And I spy something that is green. Is it trees? Is it grass? Yeah, it was trees. Actually, as you get closer and closer to the paletrios, the terrain looks more deserty. There is still wild grass here and there but the trees take more like palm trees and the grass is more yellowy as you get closer and closer and more dusty kind of hilly terrain and biome. Alright, I got a new one. Okay, go for it. This one's not trees this time. I spy something that's a little yellowy a little green but mostly sort of yellowish. I can't describe it as dying grass. Yeah, it was dying grass. I got you. Nature is truly beautiful. I spy something long and weird looking. It's a rude way to describe Buck. Was it me? Was it me? Yes and no. That's not what I was thinking. But now I am. Is it the watchtower? I'm still fresh. You have to have it in mind. It can't be me and something else. Okay, I remember what it was now. I saw another one. Is it the tree, the palm tree? Yeah, it's the tree. I'm still from it. I'm still a little upset. As you travel down the road down this more sandy terrain and you get a decent distance away from the watchtower in a more barren landscape you see a figure standing in the middle of the road directly where you are meant to travel. A very familiar figure. The soundtrack is spoiling it. You can see that it looks tall and black as night covered in a viscous fluid. It is a humanoid block. I thought it was a lot of strength. Bright glowing red eye. And it's standing there. Still. Alright. Who has the parts? Are you both of them? Yes. Just stay here. I'll do my best. This is so cool. You're going to approach. I'm doing the sort of Jojo you're approaching me style walk with word. Are you coming with me? Yeah, behind you. Oh yeah. There's a lone tumbleweed that rolls by. I have my goucho hat over my eyes and my poncho. This town ain't big enough. This road ain't big enough. Ain't big enough. What are you? The road's too narrow. The road's too narrow. When I get off and move I'm going to get about this close. Is this thing doing anything? Nothing. It just stands there. Menacingly. It's patient. I'm going to get close to this thing and see what happens. I'm going to ready my to move Fritz, shoot it. Just protect the hearts. Of course. I'm going to get my big blind out. You get your big blind out and as you step forward it steps forward as well at just about the same pace. The music. It's that spooky thing from that one movie. Annihilation. It moves forward as well. I'm going to give a glance back at my compadriots to see if you guys have any other advice. I'm going to just hit this thing. That's probably smart. I've got more reach. I've got bugbear arm. I can hit this thing. Is it copying you? Interesting. I'm going to step this way. It just like you can see I is not in a socket or anything. It actually turns on the liquidy fluid that it's made up of to look at you bug. It's like it's on its surface. God, this thing is so icky. Why is it like this? Why are you like this? It's a little wrinkled. Taking another step. It takes a step forward once again. Now, one more step and it's within range of me. Is there like anything? I'm worried there's stuff hiding. Can we be scanning the rest of the field? Yes, you can't give me a perception in all of you. Roger that. Sure. Okay. You are too focused on this guy. However, Leira, you can tell the landscape that this is the perfect place for some kind of ambush where you are between two hills where neither the watchtower nor even the city of Paletrios would really be able to see. Word and poi rather fritz, word and fritz you can tell the same thing. However, you can tell as well that this blot is not the only blot here and there is a lot of them hiding in the bushes. Oh, no, not the bushes. I've been hiding in the bushes. Yes. Back to back. Very well. I'll say I have been like skittering around I want to stay close to Leira and be back, like sitting back to back so we're watching each other's backs. I like it. And when you point them out, you can tell that here I'll put the blot that you do see. Thanks. You can see that they're mostly hounds. Oh my goodness. Mostly mostly hounds. Here here here here and here wait a minute. Oh my God, wait a minute. And as you look to me, I sort of poke my tiny little head out of a bush and I make gestures to each of their points and I hold up the number of them that there are that I've seen. I'll just short a nod that I understand. Fritz? Just go, if this thing takes another step forward or if you want to start this thing off I'll follow your lead. You want me to shoot? I can shoot at the same time we'll catch him by surprise with two arrows to the eyes. Assuming it can't hear us. If he can't hear us it doesn't matter. I don't think he's he's not getting away from here, we are. Yeah. He's as trapped as we are. I'm not sure about that. Should we roll initiative at some point? I'm not going to rush anybody. Should we roll initiative or am I taking the first shot? I would say initiative happens when an encounter that requires turns happens. Right now, although tense nothing has happened that would require turns I believe. Technically, not yet. The figure simply stands and stares at you buck for a little bit then the eye jolts back in the direction to look at word look at Fritz, look at Leira and then it grows what looks to be a limb an arm slowly lifting up and points at Leira. Okay. I have my bow trained on this one. I have a thing I want to do as well. Can I cast protection and evil on you? From good and evil. Can I do that on you Leira? Please do. I also have an idea but it depends on whether or not we can start casting spells. Protected. Benefits. Disadvantaged on attack rolls. Leira has the heart, huh? Yes. You cast this and you can see the hands shakes a bit and turns more into a claw. Did not like that. Okay. I was going to try and talk to the thing. Oh, feel free to. I'm not going to do anything until it's clear that we're about to fight but I'm like, it's happening. I can feel it. Can you understand the eye jolts from looking at Leira to you buck like quick fast motion. I don't like that. That means yes but it can't talk to you. Wait, that means we can palay but we know what it wants so that's actually useless. A little bit. It doesn't take a step forward but it leans down as this thing is incredibly tall. It's like 10 feet tall. It leans down forward to be at high level with you buck almost like making a 90 degree angle from where it's sort of its waist would be I feel like 10 to 12 feet is the most terrifying stature. Yeah, that's so tall. I'm going to be going to be real slow about this I'm going to reach down to my regular deck of playing cards not my rage one just my regular deck and I'm going to get a red card and a black card and I'm going to hold a one in each hand red in my right hand will say and red and right and black in my left and I'm going to hold them up to either side so I'm kind of just I'm T posing essentially but I'm just holding them up so he can see that there's red and black and I'm just going to indicate to the red red for yes black for no I'm just going to kind of toss them on the ground in front of him so that like one would be I guess one would be the one side one would be the other and I'll put my hand I guess back on my on big blind can you understand me I'm trying to get him to indicate to red for yes black for no if he can understand me it moves its long kind of onto the red card oh gosh that's not what I was prepared for red for yes red for yes rest yeah yeah it can understand me I knew it um and you're here for us it uh puts its hand over the red card again hey guys if you had anything you want to ask this thing um yes or no questions only now would be the time um it's understands us and it's here for us I inferred that I'm not good at 20 questions I would have thrown the cards I guess far enough to the left or the right so that like they could probably see which direction this things like hand is going so that they can I want that I don't want to be the only one to be able to communicate if you guys have yeah yeah something like that are you gonna let us pass it simply sits there and really just does nothing for almost a full minute before putting its hand over on the black card ah never mind you're trying to get the hearts is that right it puts a hand over the red card do you have a master yeah it put a black card no I would just say yes or no hmm yeah anything else you want to know guys I've limited us to the yes or no although that's better than that's better than nothing this card is A if only I had designed my character to be an Ouija board player and then this would be a much easier confrontation we get one of those like boards are you alive ooh it looks down at both cards and then just back up to you cool okay so it's a bit more complicated though and it takes a step forward yep okay here we go I'm not gonna I'm gonna stay where I am words a little on edge as it steps within Buc's range just like that's a whole different that's now or never that we start to fight I still have my arrow trained on this guy closest to my horses but I'm like break neck at you what do we do Buc I'm trying to think I want to are you going to stop at this if we defeat you here it takes a step forward okay can I do a thing go ahead I would like to cast call lightning now I checked and this spell has a radius of 120 feet it's very large which is the entire map yes but it doesn't hit everyone it does not it hits one target that's right so do you wish to cast that spell yes I do is everyone okay with Leira casting that spell yep okay in that case yeah out of character now what I don't know what word would have mixed feelings on this because we don't really have a consensus now but that's a fair move so out of character this is okay absolutely then in that case did I word that wrong you're like out of character now words fine with this I'm furious wait now go for it now you're kidding when you say that damn tone indicators two monotone we're going to roll initiative are you going to cast the spell the spell let me roll my terrible plus zero initiative are you slash s or are you slash jk how the heck my die came up cocked on my actual browser I didn't know I could do that uh let's see plus two plus zero okay so it's going to be this alright but because she was the one who started the encounter Leira cast little old me sorry call lightning and who are you picking to be the target of that call lightning that first call lightning the big boy however I would like to put it if I can uh back so that buck does not need to make the dex save to not get hit by lightning yes because the I'll do it no don't just massive bolt of lightning crashes down and splashes a large just crack and hole like the like the t1000 interminator two into the shoulder of this humanoid blot and it just turns and points and all the blot hounds jump out of their bushes yep oh boy oh boy it's your turn yeah baby buck's turn I am going to do my uh I'm going to rage so let me roll my rage to see what happened where is it hold on let me ooh shadowy tendrils hey that's appropriate necrotic damage okay yes and my con save I think is 12 or my save is 13 when you do this the tendril lashes out at the humanoid blot and it does nothing ooh that's not good immune to necrotic looks like or to this it doesn't do it to these ones either none of them do I I don't think it like steals from them do I still gain 1d12 temporary hit point it says you also gain so I assume that's independent I would assume that as well 1d I'm doing the wrong key things here 1d12 7 7 each let me add that and then I will I'm just going to go reckless actually this first attack let me just do my first attack normal because I don't know what this guy is capable of yet so I don't want to do reckless just yet let me do attack with big blind damn nope you go to smack with big blind and it's hand that was pointing at Leira just grabs it oh no it did the weapon catch let's see make a strength saving throw with advantage since you're raging eh nice it lifts you up ooh single handed by big blind and throws you to the side over here oh whoa up the hill yep and you are going to take 3-1 reduced to 1 because you are raging 1 bludgeoning damage as it tosses you to the side dang do I still have my movement? you do yes you can just move back I am going to move back I am going to move back in the way and I will move here because I have 10 feet with being a bugbear and Joe I am going to roll the all or nothing coin on your second attack yeah fingers draw is it 1d22? 2 is a 21 is a 1 come on baby dang it does it again you come back for seconds strength saving throw with advantage oh no no no come on daddy needs a new pair of shoes luckily this time it goes to yank you but you hold your ground oh the 18 was a fail luckily he says yes alright that's my turn Fritz your turn okay is it still holding on to his hammer uh yes fire my crust bow at it's arm that's holding his hammer okay let's see it oh yes alright and it pierces through and the fire sizzles and you just basically detach the goopy arm as it falls to the ground and covers a little bit of bucks boots yeah bucks boots yeah I think that's all I'm gonna do here your ranger right I'm pretty sure you have a second attack right I get a second attack I'm pretty sure they'll tell you under actions they'll say attacks per action oh two attacks per action oh my goodness yes oh yeah I'm shooting again but this time who is I'm going to shoot at this fella over here that's close to word okay let's see it and it lands right in oh my god that's a lot that just kills it out right into heck yeah fritz let's go into a black goop that covers the sand and a 10 okay bonus action I would like to shift not wild shape shift I gave seven temp HP and my I get slightly faster uh what it looks like is like a cat puffing up because some real scary shit is happening and then as because um call lightning is a concentration spell up to 10 minutes I can use my action to hit things with lightning if they're under the thing I would like to use my action to hit this little guy with lightning um uh top right there we go yes the guy who's almost out of range I just want to get him before he scoots um so let me figure out how this works it's like my only third level spell so it's allowed to be a little bit OP 3d10 lightning damage on a failed save let me just okay so that's pretty good so that's 18 on a failed save and the save dc I really should write down your spell save dc 14 it's gonna make it so the lightning just kind of hits it on the side but the sparks kind of throw it off a little bit it is close to dead so it takes 9 damage it stumbles a little bit as it tries to quickly get back onto its feet alright good start that was my bonus action and my action so I'm just holding concentration word alright I think my best course of action will be to dash under the horses use the per cover yeah I'll use my bonus action to actually try and hide if not under them then just like under the cart below Layra Joe may give me a stealth check okay as you slide under the horses like an apex legends character slide to the left we'll see if they notice you I only got her I have rolled their competing perception check to see if they were able to see you okay I'm gonna try I know this is like a frantic battlefield so I'm gonna try and just launch a short bow arrow at the big boy okay and you are going to do it at advantage because he did not spot you you are stealth against him yeah get him yeah sneak attack crit let's go and this just like makes another massive hole in like the side of this thing and blows off another chunk of blot that was a lot okay that was definitely my whole turn that was awesome so what's the total that is 1316 29 alright I'm satisfied I did a 29 very nice 27 it's 11 plus yeah I was thinking still very cool so now it's the blots turn these hounds yeah bring them on are going to surround buck whoosh whoosh whoosh just about every single one of them oh boy no what's even the point of the thing pointing at me and this thing so they are all going to take a bite out of you mashing away at you now they are going to take quarters out of buck sure sure sure you take a total of 12 reduced to 6 damage because of your raging and you are going to need to make me 3 constitution saving throws alright boys line them up here we go with the first one do I get advantage on the I do not bang there's the first one flip the coin that's a second one and that's the last one unfortunately the second one does not make it and buck you feel one of these bites sizzling at your skin and eating away at your wound you cannot recover any HP for the next minute oh no I have not lost any HP yet so none to recover I've only taken 10 HP damage and the humanoid blot is going to run what did I say through all the blot you can see that it almost like goes through the like these three yeah almost like no clips through all the other blot hounds as well as buck buck you do have an attack of opportunity if you'd like to take it as he passes through you I don't know if I can can I reckless attack of opportunity it takes a bonus action no no no I think reckless attack you just decide when you make the attack right when you make your first attack on your turn you decide to attack so I cannot but I will just do a regular I can just do a regular and I'm going to need to make one more constitution saving throw as it passes through you so that's 11 total damage one more constitution another constitution okay you're fine it goes through you you can't breathe for a second but as he just passes through you and doesn't leave a trace of blot behind on you except for a little bit of drips you are fine sorry go ahead it almost like it slides forward and the horses are just a little bit panicked and kind of move out of the way and it just goes to grab you fritz and you're going to need to make I'm sorry I'm sorry interrupt because I have the crusher ability I can move it five feet when I hit it with an attack that deals blood bludgeoning can I keep it can I like kind of like angle my hammer in such a way to just slow it down I don't really care to push it to the left or the right but I just wanted to keep it like drag it back I will say though that it's not going I don't know how much speed it has yeah that's fair that's fine you could almost like pull your hammer as if like to pull the goop and you knock off a few more pieces like just chunks of blot and it pulls it back just a little bit but this thing is not slowing down at all fair enough as it moves forward and goes to thrust its arm to grab fritz almost completely I'm going to need you to make a strength saving throw fritz okay how do I do that again is it just roll strength it's just a reaction for saving throws I think yes only bad things are happening okay and unfortunately it grabs you and throws you to the side like it did with buck you fly about this much into this palm tree and you're going to take four bludgeoning damage did we heal from our rest last time I forgot you did yes you healed up to full what is life and how much do I take four and it's going to come up and it is face to face with you later that breaks my concentration doesn't it is that the end of its turn you need to make a save for it can I make a save for my concentration wait are you concentrating on some fritz concentrating on protection from good and evil well yes you need to make a con save and beat a 10 okay that's okay is that the end of its turn that is the end of its turn to use its action okay as my shifting feature my swift stride reaction allows me to move up to 10 feet when a creature ends its turn within 5 feet of me this reactive movement doesn't provoke opportunity attacks so I'm just going to like back flip up and over if you don't mind yeah as you back flip it tries to go and like blast like some blot goop where you once sat but you just jump over it and it just covers the seat and it sizzles a bit that car is new all right terrifying okay it's cunningly put itself where I can't strike it with lightning because it'll fuck up the horses and word fuck don't I've got don't worry I've got the blot hounds um use use your spin attack I use the I use the spin attack you have a spin attack okay I don't have a spin attack unless the DM wants to rule of cool that I have a spin attack rule of cool that I kill everybody and win yeah I want to be cool I will use a reckless attack and I will reckless attack I guess maybe just the one below me like directly below me and I may just roll a big line with your advantage that is going to hit okay that's going to be 12 12 damage 12 is going to be enough and you slam as this thing splatters on to the white sandy road I roll a 2 and a 6 there I will try use my second attack to hit another hit let's just go for the one that's already damaged um just not enough gosh I'm not rolling very well today none of us are that is my turn I don't want to I did okay Fritz how far away are you Lyra Tony feet I've studied feet of movement I'm not prone right no you're not prone okay I'm once again running to Lyra I'm fucking I'm casting protection for good and evil you are not I am not letting this happen thank you I'm going to jump to just in front of the dead dude and then I end turn Lyra okay using my action to strike anybody with lightning is a bad idea right now because they're all within five feet of an ally so I am going to use my action to wild shape the hearts are physically incorporated into my form and can't be taken off my person they're going to have to kill me first or at least the panther awesome thing I just turned into don't say that so loud that'll give them the idea just comes out like a cool panther noise but I don't lose concentration on the spell because wild shape retains concentration on spells and I can still use my action to strike people with lightning for what it's for what it's for what it's worth I have advantage on deck saves if I'm not blind incapacitated so like if you wanted to do an area of effect on me to kill these things before they get an advantage attack I'm okay with that or you can do a proximity target like you did with the first use of it just hit near one of them I think it works on the blot because the blot is big I think if I strike next to one of those little guys they have to make the deck save but I think just go straight for exactly buck yeah yeah you could hit four and next turn I promise I'll strike buck with lightning thank you you're welcome but this turn I've turned into a sick nasty panther and I'm fucking booking it on the other side of the battlefield I want that blot away from word and fritz so let's see how much movement do I have as a panther speed 50 feet climb 40 feet probably more than the map has probably yeah in that case I would like to draw aggro I'm doing this in such a way that I'm not trying to provoke an attack of opportunity 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45 50 okay do I have as a panther bonus action dash I do not cool then I guess that was my action and my movement I do have climb I think that's going to have to be it I don't think I have any bonus actions I can use especially because buck can't heal right now so I can't bomb at the summer court oh yeah I forgot about that alright let me put a little thing on you to indicate that you can't heal thank you I'm scuttling under the cart and kind of into the bush within range of them as I'm grabbing just the one of my daggers so that'll be my bonus action to stealth using cunning action oh yeah alright if you want to counter that again and use the last rolls up to you just be like stay away from my friends stay away from my horses and he'll lunge forward with his negotiation the horses are not your friends wow such good sneak attack damage yes you are cutting away at this guy and almost like chipping away at him and you can see that the humanoid is actually getting a little bit smaller and it's now of medium size oh no my cunning plan to look works I won't stop until I can put him in a jar he was once we didn't adopt the charming little Peter Pan rogue but we're going to adopt the big bad evil guy I just want to shake him around when I'm stressed a little slime a little bowser use it to clean out your keyboards he's gamer gunk that's my full turn is there any chance that these horses because they are yoked together I think or one of them is bound to the cart would they try and trample him would they get a turn how about this maybe efficiency I don't know about with your reaction you can give me an animal handling to try and command them to do so so that's my turn that's okay though thank you because these horses they are panicked they know what the blot is they just think scary predator and I don't want to touch it so the blots turn all of these blot are going to have advantage on buck no oh jeez don't do that alright so all of them hit yeah you are going to take that's four more saves my friend I already can't take you unless they are different kinds but I already can't be healed like they are not going to make me more well I'm not going to push it 22 reduced to 11 piercing damage you don't have to make the saves again as it's the same effect you still can't be healed for the next minute okay and this guy is going to lean down you see its head to kind of stretch out to look at you word and I'm going to need you to make a wisdom saving throw as the red eye close he did this to me he did this to me on the boat it's a good save it is trying to draw upon your past but you are able to shake it off just fine fuck my past I got two moms and I'm thriving and then he is going to just run on over to Leira wait did he fall out of my attack range from getting cooped down no yes you sliced off the part you could reach it goes to pan the Leira and covers you oh thanks I hate it I'm going to need you to make a con save sure this isn't something I can use that reaction thing to reaction thing when I have shifted they don't say how that applies when wild shaped your walking speed increases by 10 feet I guess that doesn't apply because it sounds fun I'm going to say it works while you are wild shaped as well so the way it works is you can move up to 10 feet as a reaction when a creature ends its turn within 5 feet if you this reactive movement doesn't provoke opportunity attacks basically the question is why if the last thing they do is try to goop me you still have to make the con save however you don't have to stay in it which would have been worse good oh okay you're fine as this thing tries to kind of suffocate you and you can feel that it's trying to seep into your skin as well but you're able to move it off that's so nasty you can move you can move you can backflip out of the way to safety I'm sorry for making this less extremely fraught than it should be you are going to take four what would this be I don't know fours damage whatever suffocation damage would be I'll take it so it's a little bit complicated because right now I have 10th HP and I am a panther which has its own HP track so I'm getting exhausted will make me turn back into Laira so which of those things is getting chipped away at first okay so the panther has nine hit points left but I still have seven 10th HP underneath it wonderful okay buck you're being beat up by a bunch of dogs these these dogs are beating me up I will do the same thing I did last time I'm gonna hit them with my hammer and I'm gonna do it recklessly yee-haw 10 damage fully that was on the hurt one okay the hurt one splatters onto the sandy road like in the trailer yeah exactly this is the trailer part we finally got here feels exactly it's like the scene in the opening of the anime we've gotten to that part I will do another attack on just another one any random one 16 yeah I don't necessarily want to I'm gonna risk wait hold on how far can I get I've got 50 feet how many feet do I have 50 feet I'm gonna come and put myself here and I'll risk the opportunity attack what do you have about getting struck by lightning what I want to get struck one-time panic and it's going to be 8 reduced to 4 piercing damage copy thank you I better not go to 0 then you guys wouldn't be able to heal me I've just realized something very bad I was a shit I've made my decision and I'm sticking by it baby it's my turn baby your turn yeah we crossbowing him again yes another crossbow and again another one it just kind of like moves its head just out of the way onto one of its shoulders still transfixed on Leira but it is looking pretty roughed up actually with that hit it's barely keeping its form together okay that is my me done Leira alright I'm doing it but I am being very careful to do it right behind it so oh I'm so sorry that as the party healer I don't want to have to bring you up from getting struck by lightning you can't I can't take any healer don't even worry about it oh god alright 3d10 come here you huh alright make that dex save baby alright no that's gonna splatter it the lightning zaps right on top of it into the sand splattered and painting it a deep onyx gross so buck gets like cartoon coated right yes just to blink an eye and it's a little warm nothing that hurts you just a little bit gross just a little icky good job Leira kinda like doing the cat paw behind the ear thing like oh I can still feel it in the fur but that was my action I don't need movement cause the thing is not menacing me anymore so yeah it's word storm boss yep alright now I think I'll use another bonus action to stealth and I'm just gonna prep my bow and shoot an arrow into this sweet handsome character Bob oh yeah there's no way they're seeing you so you can get advantage on that one as well we're bringing one of those out unfortunately the advantage it's not enough as it goes a little bit wide no that's my turn and now the blot you can see the little kind of spot that the humanoid once was you can see the red glowing eye start to dim but then it pulses with red light just a bit and it starts to make a noise the first time it's made a noise it sounds like a voice but inaudible just reaches and cries muffled as if they were underwater until you hear one thing call out clearly we were here before and while it's doing this the red eyes of the hounds are pulsing at the same frequency of the voice from the humanoid blot and they are going to dash and escape whew no, why would you do that that is going to be the end of initiative when you reach down to kind of scoop up what remains there is no eye there is just blot goop like like it disappeared? yes I am going to rush over to you layer and hug you like okay I am still in cat form but you get an affectionate headbutt I'm hugging you is the blurring mess and I'm fine too as soon as Bucks no healy thing wears off he's getting some healing spells after about a minute his wounds are back to being able to be closed great we can do a cure wounds we can do a bomb of the summer court we can get you back up to it how far down are you actually I'm not don't get me wrong but if I were to put it out of give me a 3.5 out of 5 on a hypothetical numerical scale something out of 50 yeah I've given you what it is you're gonna get you're gonna get a second level cure wounds my friend for a grand total of 7 I did my best like a little shell shocked word left the bush and he grabbed the arrow that missed and he grabbed both of Bucks cards and he's just gonna hand him the buck yeah I guess we can confirm those things are sentient now and old yeah did you all hear what it said about we were here before what I'm gonna like shake myself out of the panther form if I were to use my deductive reasoning I would think they were here even before I don't know it linty itself maybe of the tree because if they're after stuff that ties to the tree of the dragons they were here before either of them it occurs to me that artifacts intended to instill the land itself with life might be very appealing to some form of ancient undead monstrosity they didn't seem dead though it didn't seem entirely dead they couldn't answer if it was alive or dead it had no master I almost find that more worrying we know from the thing that none of us can talk about that these things have a connection to the ancient ruins that predate the bulk of a linty does not surprise me to learn that it was here before but it is still alarming these things talk probably get going before more show up this is true I mean it's they can do more than talk these things were waiting for us yes I don't know if they were I mean they knew where we were on the boat they knew that we were outside of Nubiskar and they I don't know if they had planned to buck they have allies there are people that talk to them more than we're ever capable of remember that witch back home she seemed rather amateurish but if she could do it no doubt others can as well someone else they can I don't like that they talk to people I don't like that people talk to them here's what worries me this was a pretty straight forward path between where we were going between where we were and where we were going if I don't know how these things are finding out about where it is we're going but I think maybe if we're going to continue maybe using the main road isn't the best way to go deviating too far from it would open us up to ambush with no chance of help well that's if we assume that they I think we need to figure out how it is that they're tracking where it is we're traveling I think it's got to be with the people we talk to that's possible but there may also be a simple magical component they could identify which of us was carrying the hearts and pursued me even when the hearts were not physically present oh yeah that's true we didn't really tell anyone who had what other than that stupid little fairy kid yes but even if they can well as you say even if they can sense exactly where the hearts are why they're attacking us in full all the time I would note that they have attacked each dragon shortly after we acquire the heart or shortly before in the case of Cecilia it's possible they're only attacking us because we are now carrying two of them and it would be more convenient for them to acquire them that way so the further we go the more of these things there's going to be it wouldn't surprise me we got to find out what they're weak to or what they want I mean that doesn't change how they act it might change how we deal with them I didn't particularly think our odds of negotiating with them were good which is why I I didn't think we had any I was surprised I don't like the fact that we could talk to them that they seemed open to that there's too many implications it's a mystery and one I would very much like to unravel I'm not going to be happy once we do well I'm not happy what's going on even so when it comes to traveling plans I think we should try and keep it within the group about the precise nature of how it is will be traveling and where it is will be going because if we can at the very least eliminate the possibility of someone feeding information to these things which I guess is technically possible if they can communicate I want to eliminate that possibility try and and if we've already got on our plate ambushes by these things the last thing we want is a couple other people trying to make a name for themselves by bumping us I mean we've had a little bit of that with that one hanger on that wants to the one that wears all the weird get up that has come out by us that's all of it my clip is entirely practical here's what I'm confused about these things know where we are that person knows where we are I don't know if that's connected in any way oh La Destructora I literally didn't know who you were talking about sorry we've met some characters when I was referring to was La Destructora the person that runs around with all the get up of the cardboard and whatnot while she is an intimidating force of evil I can't see her throwing her lot in with something like this she seems to have some sort of moral code she operates on I do love playing a good game but I feel like I don't know if it's a bad idea if it'll cause more problems but maybe next time we see it we take off that mask something to consider for later I'll leave it open to the floor I don't care either way as we move westward we approach closely the lands that the artifacts that the blood are connected to are found and it may or may not cause more problems than it solves to investigate but it might also be our best chance of understanding them so at the very least it sounds like what we gotta do is get somewhere safer than this yes we should get on the cart and I think I think personally from here we should get to the fact that once we get that last heart everything knows where we are and where we're going so starting now we should be preparing for that yes when you get back on the cart you can see that the firstly the seat is ruined its cushion has been melted to bits oh no anybody know any magic for this I'm working on it hold on and you can see as well efficiency is hurt efficiency is getting healing spells and after a long rest I can get mending and fix the cart they've got what looks to be like a big gash on their hind leg on the side their left hind leg where word would have been sitting on the seat no and you can see that butterscotch is kind of trying to comfort them kind of rubbing their head against oh efficiency also getting a first level cure wound I don't know anything about infection but I'll be trying to bind the wounds sorry buck it's healed for more just better at healing the horse I can talk to the horse with that medicine check you can see you can talk to me oh yes I'm sorry you're able to patch it up you'll probably need proper healing either from Layra Layra just did the healing she did do the healing I can do more healing leave a scar but it's mostly okay Trovacetaga is going to be mad I'll give them like a little extra rations I'll try and do an animal handling check to calm them both down no need they seem to be comforted by your immediate attention like immediately kind of getting a little bit giddy and like back and forth and a little bit restless when you are further away and as you get close they just kind of rub their mouth kind of on your head and give you little nibbles friend to all animals truly beautiful I get back in the ruined little seat you know what I'm going to cast that same spell again floating desk and I'll sit on it in lieu of the chair I want that word Disney Princess on my desk by Monday put it on there you guys survived the blot attack and head the rest of the way you go past the in between hills that were blocking your locations vision from both the watchtower and the city and as you pass over the hill you make your way to the land of invention the land of progress the land of Paletriol whoa cool it's water seven it's got like a thing that I think is going to be where we call today's session is that a steam whistle is the whole thing a steam whistle it does look like a whistle it's even got that that's cool