Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Ep. 14 The Voice Of The Forest
163 Plays4 years ago
Krigs, Davon, Gwen and Joxxer continue through the Wilds set for The Stone Mountains. With days left to trek these forests caution is paramount as our Hired Swords find themselves being watched in the night. Of all the members in this small band of friends, Krigs counts the days with every step as the words "One Week" ring over and over in his mind.
Recommended
Transcript
Joxa Battles Inner and Outer Demons
00:00:12
Speaker
previously on the hired swords. After watching each of his companions fall nearly into the cold grasp of death, Joxa finds himself unable to shake the fear of that day. Not long after facing these fears, our heroes stumble onto a small group of goblins along the wilds.
00:00:34
Speaker
Losing a bit of his control, Joxa mercilessly pursues the goblins, driven by a need to protect and a fear of loss. A letter was found in the possession of these goblins. A letter that raises even more concerns and curiosities. It makes Minchin a beast. A mistake.
00:01:03
Speaker
you
00:01:33
Speaker
you're listening to the hired source, because you're probably all caught up on Critical Role.
00:01:53
Speaker
Okay, everybody, we are we're back at a new session here. And we had ended our last session and episode having had some some sort of encounter with some goblins. And first of all, thank you everybody for listening to the hired swords. I know you already heard something but
00:02:14
Speaker
I never get to say it to you, so I wanted to say it. Secondly, yeah, you molested a bunch of goblins and they ran away from you. And then you said, let's just keep on traveling.
Journey to the Mountains: A Quest Begins
00:02:26
Speaker
You were on your way to the mountains after taking a job from an elven noble girl, woman, young noble woman, who sent you to find her father and rescue him or at least bring back news of his
00:02:42
Speaker
livelihood if there is any, because he's been missing for a long time after being sent to serve Helm's armies in the mountains beyond the wilds. You're a couple days into your travel. First day had a pretty extreme encounter with the Banshee in the middle of the night. Second day, you again face these goblins. You are in the end of this second day and you have traveled
00:03:10
Speaker
You've kind of moved on. You fought these goblins, chased them away. You said, we need to keep moving because you expressed some concern that maybe they may come back with someone else. Also on these goblins, you found some items. The most significant item you found was a letter from someone called Denaldi who asked someone named Teld
00:03:32
Speaker
to go hunt down a creature and kill it saying it was a bad idea in the first place. So that is what it is. You don't you don't know much more than what that said, but you are now in the last probably couple hours of travel. Is there anything anyone would like to say or do or anything that needs to happen as you are traveling after this encounter with these goblins? I don't think so. It's kind of just a travel day. Yeah. OK. How with the travel where where
00:04:02
Speaker
are we headed technically? Closer to like the Stone Mountains? You're probably, at the end of tomorrow, you will be in the deep, dark middle of the wilds. You're about halfway to the... In about three days' travel, you'll be at the Stone Mountains, but you're making your way now into the thick, deep, dark wilds forest. And we don't know exactly where this fort is, right? We just know it's on the north side of the wilds.
00:04:28
Speaker
Yes, you knew it was northeast through the wilds to the northeast and up in the mountains and that there's trails up there that you felt confident or Krigs at least felt confident he would be able to use those trails to find his way to a fort. Yeah, familiar with the stone mountains. Correct. Correct. And yeah, so and you're like I said, you're, you're two days into the the wilds and
00:04:54
Speaker
you're definitely down in the deep wood at this point. So if you're gonna wrap up your day, the sun starts to set, you decide to set camp, anything anybody wants to say or do at camp tonight, anything like that. I think everybody else is just seeing jocks slowly start to come down as the day's coming. He's been a little excited the whole last half day or so.
00:05:22
Speaker
or day. Yeah. Been a little worked up after. Yeah. Been through something. Doctor, are you all right? It's kind of interesting. You're the only one to survive that fight and yet you seem to be the most worked up about it. Absolutely. I'm fine. But what happens next time? I just have to get stronger. That's it.
00:05:48
Speaker
Well, I think that we have strengthened our numbers as long as we stick together. I think that it would be okay. We made it through the house. We can make it through anything. You're right. You're right, Devin. Well, it gets stronger. Uh, jocks are, we'll kind of go off into, uh, um, the, the, the fine, find a flat space and see if he can, he can kind of lose, you know, calm himself down and, and trying to analyze new herbs and stuff in his little hole. Okay.
00:06:17
Speaker
Yeah. If you're going to do some of that, you can go ahead and do those roles and let me know the result of that. We should talk about on the website maybe releasing the rules about that in case anybody's interested. Yeah, absolutely. I'm interested. Yeah. Same. I think the, hey, he's doing some brewing has come to
00:06:38
Speaker
To be understood what's going on so let's i think i don't know that might be it might be rules people might be interested in trying out or using so anyway so yeah you go and you find your way to your. Your little portal to your your laboratory so to speak and the rest of you are able to get camp anybody anybody in particular going to do anything to try to conjure up some firewood.
00:07:04
Speaker
Yeah. I knew. Yep. Yep. You were picking up what I was putting down. I was picking it up. I was ready. I'm going to look around. Craig's looks around and spots the hardy tree. Yeah, make a major check.
00:07:28
Speaker
That is five plus zero. Five plus zero, okay. You see a lot of trees. I mean, there are so many trees. Right, I walk up to a tree and I'm gonna wind up my war hammer and just swing, swing. Do it, do it. That's a five. Okay, it's an attack roll. What do you add to that?
00:07:53
Speaker
Uh, pull up my character sheet here. Sorry. I am so organized. It's an important thing to have your plus seven. So yeah, 13. Okay. So have you ever seen the cartoons when somebody swings at a swings and hits something and it, it just rattles them. You kind of get, have one of those experiences. You shake the tree and a.
00:08:20
Speaker
squirrel or something, it's hard to tell what it is jumps out of the tree and runs off. And as you scare it out and you shake that tree real good, but you don't have any success getting any wood off of it, or I think you think you may have kind of cracked and busted up a little bit of the bark of the tree, but nothing, nothing significant enough to start a fire. Definitely.
00:08:39
Speaker
So cool. I try though. Yeah. Feeling a little bit dejected because of your slight success and your slight success I had last time. Yeah. Yeah. Feeling dejected. I'm going to kind of just go sit in a clearing and.
00:08:59
Speaker
It's hard to find a clearing the part of the woods that you guys are in now is very, very thick with with forest. There's a slight path that you're following still that is is it's definitely a natural path kind of taken by animals through the woods, not a
00:09:19
Speaker
you know, manmade kind of or even worn down path by people. It's more worn by a trail, a trail for some creature that may go through here regularly to get to its feeding ground or where it rests or something. So yeah, you're just really in a real thick area. After the failure, I'm just going to lean against the tree that I attempted to break and just feel after
00:09:46
Speaker
After falling to the wraith that we went to and then now having just no success on this tree, my feelings are a little hurt.
00:09:59
Speaker
Yeah. Make a hurt feelings check. I'm just kidding. It's a 20. It's a 20. I am angry. Naturally always a 20.
Powering Up: New Abilities and Levels
00:10:07
Speaker
While he pouts, I'm going to collect actual firewood and it's a small fire going to do something actually helpful. You don't have to roll for that. You're able to find firewood all over the place. And he's the pro at this at this point. Yeah. It's all over the ground already. His new special ability. Yeah. And it's going to be even better than stuff that would have come fresh off the tree because it's dry. You know, it's been sitting.
00:10:29
Speaker
So what you're saying is smacking a tree with a hammer is not a good way of starting a fire. I've never successfully done it. And I like to watch nature shows on National Geographic. And I've never seen anyone on there do it either. So I love to watch crease do it every time. No, I do too. It makes for a good time. That's why I brought it up. And I will say your your the the amount of success you had in selecting a tree also impacted the what happened when you hit the tree. So I want to say that too.
00:10:58
Speaker
Um, so you guys are able to settle in for the evening and if there's nothing else you want to do, anybody? Yeah. The jocks are just comes, comes out, uh, comes out holding like this, this broken cask in front of him and just like tosses it over to the fire and it'll ignite a little bit more. Yeah. A nice little flare up in the fire as it splashes in there and, uh, you get the feeling though, but he didn't want anybody to try to drink that.
00:11:26
Speaker
During this whole time, Gwendolyn heard Daven talk to Joxer, and it makes her happy to know that he has faith in us. Her new friend has faith in us, I guess, now old friend, to see how time has passed. She goes back to thinking about the note that they found foretold about how we have to find the creature.
00:11:51
Speaker
Gwendolyn would start like racking her brain, like what kind of creature or stories or lores she would have heard about Wild Hill. Yeah, you can make a- To try to think of what creature is either being summoning, found, created. Sure. Yeah, make a- either history or nature. Let's do nature. Oh my gosh. And dirty 20. Okay.
00:12:20
Speaker
You know the wilds is famous for the most dangerous creatures in this world. This is where any tribes that live out here are expert hunters and they become so because they have to to live out here. You know that there are many creatures they could have been talking about.
00:12:41
Speaker
you do also with a 20 you definitely are questioning what they said about this creature was a mistake in the first place because it sounds like this creature doesn't just naturally exist out here right
00:12:57
Speaker
Something some they were involved in this creature even existing somehow and that that gives you pause and it also Helps you feel pretty confident that you maybe wouldn't know exactly what it is because it's something new maybe something that you haven't you you you think they may have created something that they're now trying to Clean up their own mess, right? Yeah, she's gonna be thinking that okay the rest of the night
00:13:22
Speaker
Okay, great. All right. Well, as you all settle in for the night, you are now level six. So we, yeah, we who so we at the end of the last session, I told you this was coming. So you have done what you needed to do to become level six. So let's start with jockser. If you will tell us if anything significant that level six did for you as we move forward.
00:13:46
Speaker
my level up essentially gave me a new key attack and an extra regular action attack. So anytime I attack, I get to attack twice.
00:14:01
Speaker
And I can also, if I feel like I need the extra attack roll points, I can spend key to add two to my attack roll. So I wanted to focus up a little bit more if we got into battles. That's awesome. Cool.
00:14:26
Speaker
So you get two hits, and then if you use a key, you can do four? Yeah, yeah. Oh, and also my melee went from 1d4 plus 3 to 1d6 plus 3.
00:14:37
Speaker
Aye, aye, aye. And we have to stop now so I can change all of the future monsters. I'm just kidding. Aye, aye, aye. Aye, aye, aye. All right, let's go to Craig's now. What does your level up get you? My level up will give me a aura of protection. So basically, after coming to grips with the fact that
00:15:03
Speaker
I might not be as strong as I once was. I'm having to kind of maybe rely on Helm a little bit more than I wanted to. And in doing so, I've more or less was blessed with the ability that anyone that is within 10 feet radius of me can actually feel the blessings and they gain a bonus to the saving throw.
00:15:27
Speaker
on with my charisma and basically anyone that's around me gets get some sweet perks. Aside from that, I am going to attempt to maybe summon a friend to help us along the way with a new new new spell I got.
00:15:47
Speaker
Nice, so you got an AOE hedge of protection? Basically, yeah. If you grew up in those churches I grew up in, that's a thing, so you're welcome for that joke. You can snuggle up next to Krigs. Yeah, just snuggle up next to Krigs and swing your axes, boys and girls. Let's go ahead and ask Gwendolyn what her level up did for the druid kind.
00:16:08
Speaker
Um, for level six, I got a few spells, but the coolest thing I got was a feat called mighty summoner where basically, um, beast and fae that I conjure are more resilient than normal. Any beast or fae summon or created by a spell that I do gain like two benefits where they either get more hit points or they do more damage. So I'm pretty excited about that. Um,
00:16:36
Speaker
One of my spells that I picked that I added, um, I can speak to plants and I hope to use it while we're in this forest. I have no doubt you will use that. I'm surprised. Well, no, we just started, we just announced the level up. So I, I imagined first thing in the morning, there will be a chat. That's
Night Watch and Restlessness: Tension in the Woods
00:16:58
Speaker
fantastic. Chat with a shrubbery of some kind.
00:17:00
Speaker
I'll wait to hear the plan's voice. Oh my god. That's what I've been thinking about. How to make this more awkward for the DM.
00:17:10
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. I actually don't think they speak back. I don't remember how it works, but- Yeah, we can figure that out when the time comes, which may be soon. All right. What about Davin? Is there anything interesting you got? Well, first of all, Davin bumped up to a massive 34 hit points, so killing him won't be nearly as easy now. Tough boy. Tough, tough boy. Yeah.
00:17:34
Speaker
I also gained another sorcery point that I can use during battle, a new spell which will come out later, and then I have a new ability called Empowered Healing which means that if I or anybody within 5 feet of me do healing, I can use those sorcery points to re-roll bad dice. So basically just more healing.
00:17:51
Speaker
Awesome. Awesome. And if you're unconscious, you can't use that healing. Have you learned? Yeah, definitely. I'm super, super excited that we can use healing points for the dead. Yeah, that's good stuff. I also wanted to just say, and while the fourth wall is down here, so to speak, Gwen also got an upgrade to her sound. How she sounds.
00:18:15
Speaker
Not only am I tuned with nature, I'm attuned with this mic. Really great. So everybody sounds real good. It's pretty awesome. And awesome. So that so you're now level six and level six isn't the most exciting level. But I mean, there's some cool stuff that happens depending on what class you are and spells will come out. I know everybody got a few, you know, the spell casters got some spells they could use and things like that. But pretty, pretty cool. All right. So as you guys are sleeping, somebody gonna take watch.
00:18:46
Speaker
Daven's pretty tired. He would like to skip the watch if he could. Great. I will take watch. Krigs is going to take watch. Krigs, make a perception check for me as you take watch. Sure. Let's go ahead and roll. That is 14 plus my big old whopping one, 15. You can hear in the distance
00:19:15
Speaker
Sounds like it's pretty far away. Hard to tell for sure, but you hear just rustling in the brush and you hear loud snorting sounds. Stuff like that. And it doesn't approach. It just kind of stays in the distance, but it definitely keeps you alert for your watch as you kind of are tracking the sound and trying to make sure that you don't need to
00:19:42
Speaker
awaken anybody to see if you may need some help here because it sounds like there's more than one something out there but it's definitely staying away. Nice. I'm just holding my hammer and I have my shield kind of at the ready for any kind of charges or anything it might do. Awesome. All right, Joxer, if you could do me a favor as you're sleeping, a wisdom saving throw for me.
00:20:08
Speaker
Oh, ready? Let me. Wait, why? Oh, Jesus. Okay. Um, that is a whopping eight.
00:20:21
Speaker
an eight. Okay, so you have a really restless night. And in your night in the night you dream of you dream of the screaming face of a ghost like creature. You dream
00:20:40
Speaker
that face as it screams it shifts in and out of people looking like people you've known in your past and you see some of your former masters as you were training to be a monk and every time you see these faces you all you want to do is
00:20:59
Speaker
is put yourself put yourself in the way of of this scream and this this seeming assault and attack on your mind to put yourself between them because behind you you can sense you don't look you don't see but you can sense that some that everything and everyone you care about is behind you and you're wanting to put yourself in between whatever this is and whatever it is behind you
00:21:23
Speaker
And you feel like it's overwhelming and you can't stop it. Whatever you do, you can't. And so you start swinging and you're doing every move you know and you're punching, you're kicking, you're throwing elbows, you've got your rapier you pull out. And it's not having any effect or any impact. You're just blam, blam, bam, bam. You're doing all you can. And suddenly everything just goes peaceful.
00:21:48
Speaker
And you see a familiar female face, the face that has, it's like there's no features, but it's beautiful again. And you hear this voice in your head that says, will you choose?
00:22:04
Speaker
And you wake up, and when you wake up, you see Krigs just sitting eyeballing the forest, the tree line, as there's just a very dim kind of sunlight starting to come up. Do you see anything, Krigs?
00:22:23
Speaker
There's been some rustling in the distance, but nothing overly alarming. I just expect, you know, the wilds. Potentially we have an animal kind of tracking around, trying to forage. Yes. I wonder if it's a wolverjack. Never did find one. It could very well be, I suppose. Yeah. If you want to take a rest, I have a lot to think about.
00:22:52
Speaker
You sure? Absolutely. Yeah, fine. That's fine by me. And then I'm just gonna kind of lay down my shield and hammer and bunch up a little bit of clothing that I have, like my cape, my cloak rather, and use it as a pillow and try to get some rest. As once I see him kind of sit down and he's a, he's a quick sleeper from
00:23:17
Speaker
from what I remember, I kind of go behind a tree and start taking some deep breaths. I think I will choose. And then I'll just kind of walk around the camp and see if there's anything important. And maybe whenever it starts getting later, I'll start looking to set up the fire, make sure it's up and ready unless I need to do anything.
00:23:46
Speaker
As you walk around Joxer, the sun starts to come up. You get the sense it's been up a while, but you're just now seeing it come through the trees as the canopy is so thick here. And it's strangely everything is a little bit brighter and the green is a little greener.
00:24:08
Speaker
The brown on the tree trunks is a little more brown and the sunlight just seems a little brighter to you. And you kind of sense that that's your answer to your choice. And, uh, at this juncture starts rumbling about getting things ready for the morning, as he said, and for the breakfast and things. And it kind of rouses many of you to awaken.
00:24:36
Speaker
Good morning. Good morning. I'm I assume we want an early start. I Can't see the Sun where I'd normally it's pretty thick here Yeah, we're kind of right in the middle of the forest that seems I think you're right though an early start would be good
00:24:53
Speaker
I'll get up and I'll start making some breakfast for everybody. I've got a mess kit so I'll pull it out and I'll start trying to cook up the best I can with what we have. Do we have any of that meat left or has it all gone bad by now? I donated it to the rest of the hunters. I could take a quick check. Craig said there have been some beast noises right outside the perimeter. I can see if there's something I can wrangle. I did buy us some stuff before we left. I think I have enough to make us some breakfast.
00:25:23
Speaker
Um, and then I'll kind of move over to, uh, um, Craig's kind of, kind of nudge, nudge around him. Oh, fine, fine. I'm up. We, uh, we need to, we need to make sure the, the fire woods, uh, you know, got plenty of firewood. If you want to, if you want to find some more firewood, Craig's just.
00:25:50
Speaker
throws up a middle finger and slowly gets up. Does that mean the same thing in this world? It does. Is that up to me? I love you. It's pure and dear means we are best friends. We're besties. I'll mosey towards Gwen and nudge over to her. We have a mission.
00:26:19
Speaker
All right. Good morning. Good morning, Gwen. She nonstop thought about that note till she fell asleep. She's a little tired. Looks like everyone has a lot on their mind this morning.
00:26:34
Speaker
Yeah, I just... I keep thinking about that darn note. I just... They failed when they created this creature, but I don't know what kind of creature it would be. Well, I'm not sure if we want to find out. I mean, it's not exactly our mission to find out. I think it's best for us to just focus on one thing at a time.
00:26:57
Speaker
I guess you're right. She starts to help Daven and starts to pick berries and nuts that she sees around the forest or around their area for her and Dale to eat. All right. I'm going to do some foraging. I'll say you're good enough at that that that's just a thing you do. Sweet. I was about to ask her. I have to roll and then only find three nuts. No, no. I don't want to do that.
00:27:24
Speaker
No, it's fine. You got plenty of trail mix anyway. Oh yeah, that's right. Devon bought a bunch. That's true. That's true. Devon is prepared for this. I was prepared. She starts to go scavenge, but then she remembers that her friend bought her some trail mix. Great. Awesome. All right. So the morning kind of comes together. Everybody feels, you know, you got a lot on your mind, but you feel like, you know, Krigs, your mind's a little sharper and you kind of feel like
00:27:54
Speaker
There's a little more, I don't know, something that you have experienced the last few days has given you a little more of a solidarity with what you do and who you are, and you're a little more self-confident in that and feel like you're moving in a direction you could be proud of and with some people that you think you've kind of maybe found some people you can actually rely on for a little while.
00:28:18
Speaker
And Davin, you're super, typically super skeptical of most people, but you've come to kind of want to help out here and be something of a friend to these folks. And it seems like so far they don't want more from you than you're willing to give. So you're willing to maybe give a little bit more on your own and go in.
00:28:47
Speaker
You and Dale, you know, you find yourself a little clan here and you're pretty excited. You know, you've never had a tribe.
00:28:55
Speaker
And so this morning, that all feels kind of real and it's kind of given you guys a little bit of extra vitality and health, maybe. Maybe like the power of friendship has leveled you up. So to risk sounding like a 90s cartoon. So her power is combined. Yeah, exactly. You need a ring. You need one more die with a ring that's just heart and then you're good to go.
00:29:23
Speaker
Nobody wanted it anyways. Nobody wanted that guy around. No, but, uh, yeah, so, uh, this morning you're, you're all ready to face whatever's coming and, and, uh, you eat your breakfast, kind of move about your day. And then I need somebody to roll for me for our little random checks here. I'll do it. So roll a d20 for me. Ooh, seven. A seven. Okay. Uh, roll a d12 for me now.
00:29:51
Speaker
12 is a eight. I rolled an eight on a d 12. Okay, so you guys feel pretty good, pretty confident. And you're you start your walk after a little breakfast, you start to walk and this forest gets so dark. I mean, it is. It's, you know, it's daytime. But if, if you didn't know better, you would think it was, it was dusk or later like twilight. And so you're, you're kind of struggling to see where you're going. You're, you're
00:30:20
Speaker
You literally just as you're walking,
Lost in the Dark Forest: A Time of Crisis
00:30:23
Speaker
lose the trail that you had been on and you're kind of looking around and it just, everything looks the same. And suddenly you, you path a tree and let's this little cluster of trees that kind of looks like it might be some sort of landmark for you. And about an hour and a half later, you feel like you you're seeing it again and you know, surely not. And then maybe that's it again, another hour and a half later.
00:30:48
Speaker
And anyone who wants to see if you can figure out what's going on here, I need you to make a survival check for me. Probably best. It's not me. Yeah, I'm not the best at that either. I'm good at it. Go for it. So Gwen decides to say, Hey, something's going on here. Yeah. Okay. Um, six plus seven 13.
00:31:09
Speaker
13. So Gwen knows something's up, but she thinks, hey, I think right over here maybe is where, let's try this way and you start walking and sure enough, back around you come. You want to try it again? Yeah. 17.
00:31:27
Speaker
Okay. This time Gwen goes, realizes, oh, this isn't, this isn't, I was wrong. Please forgive me. And she actually settles into a direction and you follow her for a while and you've lost half a day's travel, but you've been kind of walking in circles in the thickest part of the forest here, but you have, you finally made your way through and you don't encounter anything other than typical kind of critters here and there that are,
00:31:57
Speaker
skittering away from you as you walk through the woods, but you did struggle to find your way for a little bit there. And now you settle into the darkness of night. Once again, it seems like darkness came in like from, oh, it's still daytime to boom. Now it's night. It's almost like as outside the forest becomes dusk, it just becomes like midnight here in the forest where you're at and there's part of it at least. So it is now time for another night to fall.
00:32:28
Speaker
Uh, while we're sitting around camp, I'm just going to, uh, look over at Craig's and I'm going to say, um, I'm not sure if you're keeping track, but today was our third day in the forest. Before we left, that's widow Tolliver. She told you one week. Have you thought about that at all? Um, every second of every day we've been on this trail. I'm not looking to get into your personal life, but is this something that's going to be a problem for the group? I can't imagine it would be. Uh, but honestly, I.
00:32:59
Speaker
Definitely waiting for the next shoe to fall. Joxer kind of looks over at Devin. Well, what does it matter to you? You're very adamant that it didn't exist or isn't real.
00:33:17
Speaker
I am. You're right. And maybe I'm wrong. I'm not sure. You know, as much as I don't want to believe in those sorts of things, it seems all of you do. And who am I to say that you're wrong? I think it's more of me not wanting things to be real and not having to deal with it. I don't know. I'm still thinking about it myself.
00:33:38
Speaker
I don't deal with it. This is something never happened to you for a man of magic. I, I just, it just seems that you don't, don't want to acknowledge something. I can, I can, I can follow. Um, I mean, I was picking flowers, um, but you stormed out of there with, uh, with quite a vigor and then back in with, uh, equals.
00:34:08
Speaker
figure. Is there something that happened? Well, I think we all had something that happened that we don't completely understand. And we all have our pasts and things that have happened that maybe won't want to leave there. I don't mean to be rude. I consider you guys friends at this point, but it's not something I'm really willing to talk about at this point. Fair enough.
00:34:29
Speaker
I hope I didn't, I didn't, Gwendolyn gets flustered. I didn't mean to poke. You're fine, Gwen. I appreciate you asking and caring. Okay. Um, do we hear any water in, uh, or have we seen any water around? You have not, uh, as you've been walking, you haven't seen, you can make a, you can make a perception check to see if you can hear any water.
00:35:00
Speaker
Yeah, no, you don't hear anything. It is the springtime, and so you would think that there should be rain within a week. It should rain a couple times. It doesn't seem to have yet, or the canopy's so thick. Maybe you wouldn't know it, but maybe you would. I don't know, but yeah, you don't hear any running water anywhere, like a river or anything like that. Devin will stay quiet most of the rest of the nights, eat his food, and go to bed early. Awesome.
00:35:27
Speaker
Gwendolyn whispers to Dale, I'm not going to ask him any more things. Because Dale secretly, he loves gossip. She knows this. Of course, Dale. Naturally. Of course he is. If we're, if we're resting again, I'll gladly keep watch the first night knowing that, uh, yeah, I'll just, I'll keep watch.
00:35:51
Speaker
Okay, go ahead and, well hang on, let me do what I gotta do first. All right, so you kinda take a look out as you sit, everybody starts to settle in after a nice meal, make a perception check as you settle in. Okey dokey. That is going to be 16. Nope, 17. Okay.
00:36:21
Speaker
As you settle in to kind of keep watch, you are looking out through the woods, and as you're looking out through the woods, you see it looks like something or someone is out there. It's like two eyes looking at you, kind of in the darkness of the forest. What do you want to do?
00:36:48
Speaker
Can I tell, just based on the spacing of the eyes, how far away they are in the forest? And how low to the ground? What's the placement vertically? It's hard to know for sure because it does seem pretty far. It's hard to know for sure the height, but it feels very humanoid to you.
00:37:11
Speaker
Okay. Uh, I am going to kind of back closer up to where the party is actually encamped because I'm, I'm close, but I'm not that close. I'm going to get within like nudging distance of say Daven and, uh, just going to kind of keep an eye on this and see if anything progresses. Okay. Um, as you keep an eye, the, whatever that is also keeps an eye, it seems, but
00:37:41
Speaker
Never makes a move and you do actually make a insight check as your, or not an insight check. Just an investigation check. Sure. Uh, really wish you to set insight, but it just isn't really. Oh, doesn't matter. 19.
00:37:55
Speaker
Great. You notice as you're watching it that you haven't seen it blink or anything. The eyes are just there. It's weird. There's no movement. There's nothing lifelike in them. It's just this kind of glow of two beady yellowish eyes, it looks like. Cool.
00:38:21
Speaker
That's it. Feeling uneased, I'm going to rouse Davin. What's going on? We're definitely being watched. Do me a favor. I need to see what this is. If we're being followed, we need to know. Keep an eye. I'm going to see if I can get a little bit closer.
00:38:48
Speaker
Okay, I'm gonna take one of the sticks that's in the fire as like a torch and start walking towards You start walk you start walking towards it and as you do no matter how Are you are you being sneaky stealthy? What are you doing? I'm not being overly stealthy. I know it sees me. We've been staring at each other for a while Yeah, sure
00:39:13
Speaker
I am going to do... I'm gonna cast, I guess cast, it's not really cast, I'm gonna use divine sense while I'm approaching. The presence of a strong evil register is in the sense like a noxious odor. Basically if it's until the end of a turn or whatever as an action I can do it. I'm just gonna see if I can sense if this thing is evil as I'm approaching. What's the range on it? It is 60 feet.
00:39:41
Speaker
It'll tell me if it is a celestial fiend or undead. Okay, it keeps its distance. So it almost seems like as you approach, this thing is drifting backwards. You're not seeing it move, but you can't get closer to it.
00:39:59
Speaker
Am I able to tell us this movement, how far roughly it is from me? Yeah, it's it's staying about staying right at the edge of your sight line at right now. So it's it's right beyond that 60 foot threshold, probably no more than 70, 75 feet away from you. How dense is the brush here?
00:40:21
Speaker
The brush isn't too dense. The ground foliage doesn't have a lot of sunlight or rain here. So yeah, it's it's pretty much just tall trees, dirt and leaves and just kind of sticks and things on the ground. So OK. I'm going to how far have I gone from camp now?
00:40:40
Speaker
You you've probably gone 120 feet or so. Okay, so still visible hopefully to Daven with the torch. Just barely. He can see a slight glowing of a torch in the distance. That's about it with how thick this forest is. As I see that that's the case, then I'm going to send a message that goes up to 120 feet. And so he'll hear you whispering in his ear saying, I don't think you should travel too much farther than that. I'm losing sight of you. Great.
00:41:07
Speaker
Go ahead and make a perception check, Daven. Sure. 14 plus perception one, so 15 total. Yeah, the eyes that he was seeing and he pointed out to you, did he point that out to you?
00:41:23
Speaker
I would assume so. Those eyes he pointed out to you, from where he is, it seems like he's walked right past him, to you. But to him, he is chasing it almost. But you don't know that's what he thinks, but he seems to have walked past these two eyes. I'll send him another message. I'll say, did you miss it? You passed right by him.
00:41:48
Speaker
I'm gonna reply to said message. He's still so far ahead of me that's impossible. And I'm gonna look around just kind of behind and front and see if there's something sideways going on. Make a perception check as you look around.
00:42:05
Speaker
That is another 19. OK. The eyes in front of you, as you look around, you start to look away from you, and you look to your sides, and you look back, and it's still right where those two eyes are still right where you left them, where you last looked, and you don't see anything else anywhere else, any of those eyes. You can see the camp in the distance, and you can kind of see the silhouette of Davin standing between you and the fire behind him.
00:42:33
Speaker
But you don't see anything else of note. Okay. I am going to extinguish my torch and walk back to the camp slowly in darkness and see what happens.
00:42:47
Speaker
you extinguish your, your church CH or CH your torch and you you do walk as you walk back through the forest. It's real dark. If you didn't have a campfire ahead of you to kind of see and you do have dark vision, but you you would have it could have been easy to lose your way but you you do make
00:43:07
Speaker
The the trek through the forest a little ways back to the the camp and it to Davin again, it looks like he walked right by those eyes and As you get back to Davin you're standing right there with him. What do you want to what do you want to do?
00:43:25
Speaker
Uh, I'm just gonna, there's no way that I walked past that. It was still at least stones throw ahead of me. He points out to where the eyes are. He points out to where the eyes are. I'm assuming they're still there. They, yes, they're still there. I point and I say that they haven't moved from that spot. You walked right past them. I don't know what kind of illusion this is, but I guarantee you, I did not. At least from where I'm standing. Whatever's going on here. I don't like it.
00:43:55
Speaker
I'm not a very big fan either. Have you seen illusions such as this? This is a little out of my depth. I don't know exactly what it could be. I'm not something exactly like this, no. I mean, I know things like this are probably possible, but it's definitely out of my wheelhouse. Should we wake the others or should we maybe just keep watch and try to pass through the night?
00:44:20
Speaker
I'm not really sure. I mean, I figure if they were going to attack you, it would have happened while you were out there by yourself. I did extinguish my torch, basically relinquishing any kind of advantage I might have, maybe provoking an attack, but they didn't seem interested, at least not in the sense to go beyond watching. When he walked by, I didn't see anything else, just the eyes or whatever they were, like the eyes sitting there by themselves, right? Correct. With the torch, I couldn't see like any more details.
00:44:50
Speaker
That's correct, as he walked by. And it was weird, because it wasn't like, oh, I'm watching him walk by. It's like you're watching him walk out there towards them, and then suddenly he's past them. And it's like, it was a really strange, because you didn't see the moment that he, and it wasn't like he brushed by this thing. It's like he just walked right out there, and all of a sudden the things behind him, but didn't move, but he went past it. But what's going on? Like some weird optical illusion. Yeah, totally.
00:45:17
Speaker
I um while we could wake up Gwen and see if she could throw up a daylight spell or something or we could just continue to keep an eye on it and get our rest and hopefully in the morning things will go back to normal.
00:45:31
Speaker
That might be the best approach, pass through the night. Something tells me it's either not alive or living. I haven't seen a blink. It is keeping its distance from me, at least from traveling and traversing. Optical illusion or just magical illusion, I honestly don't know, but maybe our best bet is just to lie and wait. I think I agree with you. Would you like to take this next watch? That's fine. I got a good enough sleep.
00:45:57
Speaker
All right. I'm going to bed roll out of my cloak and try to rest. Okay. And I'll set up, stuck the fire a little bit and keep an eye out around us, especially in that area. Okay. You look down at the fire, Devin, as Craig's kind of settles into his bedroll. You look down at the fire and when you look back up, there are no lies. Well, that makes me feel worse for some reason. Okay. And he just goes back to watching.
00:46:25
Speaker
Well, through the rest of the night, you don't see anything of significance, nothing of note, and you're able to keep an eye pretty easily.
00:46:36
Speaker
And there's just not much out there going on at this point of the night. So you keep watch the rest of the evening and the daylight comes and it feels longer than half a night before you start to sense daylight coming through the trees once again. But you can barely see a few shafts of light and just a very few bare openings where the leaves have
00:47:00
Speaker
or have been knocked down or fallen and some of the sunlight shines through. So it is morning now. All right. I'll make sure that rouse the group to make sure everyone wakes up when I notice light coming through. All right. Morning, everybody. I have a feeling we are getting a late start today, so we should probably get moving as soon as we're gone. Okay. Gwendolyn starts packing her bags. Devin, you took second watch. Awesome. Okay. Jockster will just start picking up his stuff real quick.
00:47:29
Speaker
We had an interesting night. There seemed to be a pair of eyes that were staring at us, but we couldn't find them. It was like Kriegs here went out into the woods to try and find it, and they just... I don't know. It was like some sort of illusion. It wasn't a wolf? It didn't seem to have any kind of body whatsoever.
00:47:51
Speaker
Would I have heard of any type of weird stories from the monastery about haunted wolves in that scenario, some kind of nonsense? Make a history check. That is a 22.
00:48:06
Speaker
You've heard stories like this a lot. You typically chalk them up as legends, folk tales, but you've heard tons of tales of people seeing things, watching them in the woods, especially deep in the woods like this, the wilds especially. Just like Gwendolyn knows of this being a place of dangerous creatures, you know that it is said that the souls of those who've been killed here get trapped here. You've heard things about how
00:48:36
Speaker
the those who travel into here don't come out and just things like that that most people in in Wild Hill and around there just chalk up as nonsense but you you also know most people don't travel through the wild they travel into and back out of but from one side to the other is a little bit of a trek and there's some extra dangers as you get deep deep in here like you guys are getting but as far as these eyes things like that it's it's a very familiar kind of idea to you
00:49:06
Speaker
Anyone who is learned it all it in in you know davin and krigs would have even probably heard of it but seeing it like that it's it's kind of like imagine actually seeing bigfoot right that's kind of that kind of feeling. Yeah davin i know that there's a lot of stories and of these forests that go around but i'm not sure i'm familiar per se about any specific thing it's. But we we do need to be weary.
00:49:34
Speaker
I remember when I was a kid, my mom used to sing a song to me about things like this, and she'd call it the Scrying Eyes. There was a song, how'd it go? Scrying eyes are watching you. No, that wasn't it. Something like that.
00:49:49
Speaker
Scrying eyes. What does scrying mean? Scry. Go ahead. Yeah, no, I mean that might have been right. Scrying eyes are watching you. Scrying eyes don't talk to you. Oh, something, something. Oh, God, it sounds right.
00:50:14
Speaker
Well, anyway, it's like a magical way of keeping an eye on people. I'm not saying that that's what it is. I mean, there's lots of stories about wolves like this one being haunted or strange beasts that can turn invisible. It could be just about anything, but it could be something watching us too. How long did they watch us for? Did they continue on through the night? They're not there now. The funny thing is, right after you went to bed, they disappeared.
00:50:41
Speaker
Okay, that is unexpected. Yeah, it was a little disturbing actually. I felt strangely alone all night. To ease the tension, I just said, don't worry. We're here for you, lad. I think it's probably just best for us to move on and get out of here as quickly as we can. I second this notion. I'm not looking forward to the trip back. I'm ready. All right. Let's go.
Through the Dark Forest: Unsettling Discoveries
00:51:10
Speaker
So you make your journey, you start your journey after a kind of worry-filled breakfast. And it's strange because you know it's daytime, but there are sections of this wood that as you walk through it, it feels like nighttime.
00:51:26
Speaker
in in this part of the woods and it's it just you guys are tough and you're brave but it's a little concerning how dark and how just empty this part of the forest feels you can every now and then you'll hear birds or something high up in the
00:51:45
Speaker
in the trees, but it's not the tweeting or the chirping of a bird. It's the call of a raven or a crow and the screech of some sort of buzzard or vulture. You can hear things skittering about in the forest floor, but it doesn't sound like deer galloping off in the distance in a lovely little... It sounds more like
00:52:10
Speaker
insects crawling but louder than it should be, like it's bigger than it should be. And it's just kind of eerie as you continue to walk through this forest. Somebody roll a d20 for me. Joxer will do that. That is a 17.
00:52:29
Speaker
Awesome. So as you continue to go through the forest and you you are you're somehow able to kind of get a sense of direction and you you make your way through these woods and I need somebody probably Gwendolyn to make a survival check check for me with advantage please. Oh my god.
00:53:00
Speaker
My name is Michael. No, I'm just kidding. 12 plus seven, 19. 19, awesome. So yeah, you are able to find yourselves a kind of, it seems like some sort of groove in the ground where the brush and everything that are not brushed, but like the sticks and the leaves and all that have been, it's continually disturbed. It's another little nature, like natural trail that has been formed.
00:53:28
Speaker
And you you kinda Gwendolyn find this and you you kinda get everyone to follow you through that and you actually you actually. Move it double speed through this day as you travel through the forest you you kinda feel you kinda feel like you're you're just.
00:53:49
Speaker
every decision on which direction to go or whether to pass this area or go through that area or not is the right decision, it's the right call and so you make your way through very well and you actually kind of carve into the next day's travel with your journey here getting some of that distance covered and the canopy of the woods actually starts to
00:54:15
Speaker
get a little thinner. And as dusk approaches, you can actually kind of sense the sunset, which you haven't sensed in a couple nights, because you've you feel like you're making it to the other side of this biggest thickest part of the forest. And you've come through a whole nother day of travel, you are now into another night. Another camp. Well, I'm definitely going to get my firemaking badge after this, that's for sure.
00:54:41
Speaker
Uh, Jackson is going to try to see if he can hear any water moving water or anything again. Okay. Make a perception check. 15, one 16.
00:54:54
Speaker
Not quite from where you are. But you do hear a distant rumble of thunder, it sounds like. And just just just in the distance just faint. And if it's not raining, it's raining here it's raining somewhere and maybe it will hear soon but that's you do hear that. But no hearing that rumble.
00:55:17
Speaker
I'm going to approach doctor. We have a, well, sorry. I'm assuming it's, it's, it's distant, but yeah, we'll say that minimum. I mean, I would have been like, uh, I, I heard it's raining somewhere. It's not here. There there's definitely thunder in the distance.
00:55:35
Speaker
So beyond that, did anybody else want to do anything? We got Daven making a fire. It sounds like, and Jockster was listening for water. Jockster, you keep talking about this water, like you're looking for a river or something. Is there supposed to be water we're going toward? I'm, uh, I'm a little low on, on, uh, supplies to continue making brew. Water is kind of a prime ingredient. Unfortunately, I can't do anything about that.
00:56:03
Speaker
Maybe I can help you find some water and she turns into a jackal. Okay. It's jackal. It's a jackal. It's a jackal. It's a jackal. That's old now. It wasn't a jackal the first time. It's not a jackal. I was thinking the same thing. Okay. She turns into a jackal. So I have keen hearing and smell. So I'm going to try to smell for water.
00:56:31
Speaker
Okay. Or wetness. Make a perception check with advantage with your smell. Your smeller, your sniffer. My sniffer. Oh my gosh, his rolls. 16 plus three, 19.
00:56:45
Speaker
Awesome. Yeah, you, you smell petrichor. So you smell the smell of rain. Rain is coming and you smell it. And as far as smelling like rain or water, maybe flowing somewhere or running somewhere.
00:57:06
Speaker
You don't really get the sense of that at this point, but you're definitely confident that there's rain coming based on the smell you are smelling. I try to point up at the sky with my nose to try to tell them, hey, it's raining. But I decide to get out of jackal form, so I go behind a tree and transform back.
00:57:30
Speaker
And when you transform, uh, when you transform, you realize you, you still have your like kind of undergarment tunic, whatever on, uh, you were able to, you were able to keep that and you're like, Oh, Oh, Hey, Hey, I'm not a streaker. Did you see this? I kept some of it on. She's very excited.
00:57:56
Speaker
Awesome. Yeah, you have fine-tuned that spell over the last few days. Yeah. She comes around the tree and she's like, it seems like it's going to rain. I couldn't sniff out any lakes or rivers or anything.
00:58:20
Speaker
Thank you, Gwen. I'll have to make sure I prepare some casks to collect water. But I kept my clothes on. Yes. Or most of them. That's fantastic. Do you know where the rest are? No. She starts to look around. Not again.
00:58:49
Speaker
Yes. So many good moments with Gwen. It's great. All right. So the evening is setting in and you're able to kind of have your evening meal or dinner and whatever. Is there anything anybody's thinking they want to say or do or anything like that? Has it started to rain yet? It has not, but the thunder is definitely getting louder. Everyone hears it now. You're welcome.
00:59:17
Speaker
Um, I am going to just approach a tree and take my one of my spear, my spear that I have. Uh, and I'm going to like, just put a notch in the tree with the spear and with gravity and physics, I'm just going to wedge my shield and make a little like lean to, to sit under. Oh, nice. Okay. Cool.
00:59:45
Speaker
Yeah, you're able to do that easy enough and your shields giving you enough feel like your shield is going to give you enough enough coverage there. Make a make a nature check for me. Sure. That is not 20.
01:00:02
Speaker
Awesome. You even put the shield on the correct side that the rain is coming from. You heard where the thunder's coming from. You could tell what distance, where it is. You did the whole like, and counted down until you saw a little flash of lightning and you're like, okay, we're going to have rain here in about three minutes. Anybody else have anything before the full night? I don't even consider my future as a weather man.
01:00:31
Speaker
Yeah, I would do that. That's a good thing. Sit and contemplate. Joxer is kind of going to look over and then it's going to dawn on him and he's going to panic a little bit. Oh, rain. And he's going to just think to himself if he can figure out a way to cover himself. Okay.
01:00:53
Speaker
I might be able to help. It's going to rain and I think Kirk is the only one that has a way of handling it and she turns around. Oh, he already solved his problem. I see you guys kind of scrambling around and I'm like, I mean, you can try to fit under here, I suppose. It's going to be pretty tight, tight fit.
01:01:22
Speaker
But you're welcome. She walks over and puts a dale by Krigs and she goes to a nearby tree and she uses speak with plants. OK. All right. And.
01:01:37
Speaker
With the spell, I have I'm able to use vibrations or have a way to communicate with plants, but they can also perform tasks that I ask. So I'm going to ask the trees to provide coverage for us and make like an awning.
01:01:53
Speaker
Awesome. Okay, I'm looking at the spell. Let's see if it requires any sort of it's like a book. Yeah, it is. You'd be playing to 30 feet of you with limited sentience and an animation giving them the ability to communicate with you and follow your simple commands. Okay, they just follow your simple commands is basically the all I needed to see. So yeah, as you as you tell them to form a shelter,
01:02:17
Speaker
you just you do you do you do any do you say anything in particular to kind of get the plants attention or kind of is there anything that this spell as it has some verbal components to it anything you do that that kind of
01:02:31
Speaker
I go up and I touch the trunk of the tree that I'm going to make the awning with and I'm like, hello, I'm Gwendolyn. And I asked for its name and then I can you help us? It seems like it's going to rain and we're not we're not used to it that much. Can you provide some protection? You the
01:03:01
Speaker
the vines, the branches of this of this tree kind of tilt down like vines, and they start to braid themselves. And they all braid into this that many of them braid into this solid, like solid, almost like a like a like a canopy over the top of you.
01:03:27
Speaker
and it reaches over and there's a tree nearby that it starts to wrap around its branches to this tree and that tree begins to wrap its branches around and you see as that one reaches to another one and these three trees all start to kind of wrap their branches around each other to form this solid canopy roof above you and you
01:03:56
Speaker
kind of hear in the creaking, there's this, it's just like the as the branches move and stuff, there's this creaking sound and it just like, and you can sense this, or you hear this in the in the in the creaking, you almost hear a no name. No, no name. How can that be?
01:04:27
Speaker
What. Name. My name? Gwendolyn. It's about formed a full canopy that
01:04:42
Speaker
you've got this almost all the trees within 30 feet of you have started to participate in this this whole canopy and your whole camp on my about just about is covered and with with this roof and it it's just everything kind of starts to settle in and you hear the the groaning of the branches together say name for his
01:05:11
Speaker
It's it's it's all you can sense. It's all these trees talking at the same time What Gwendolyn is just shocked She so she knew of this spell Her father had used it once before and she never this actually surprised her that she was able to do this so She is a little shocked right now
01:05:35
Speaker
this is wild here I'm sorry this is all new to me I thank you for this I give the tree a hug okay the tree just the grown just goes from
01:05:55
Speaker
And then it stops the groaning stops as all the branches are finished weaving and it's almost like this ornate braided basket weaved roof above you of tree branches with leaves sticking here and there. And it's it's quite lovely. And it comes up just to where you're building the campfire but be but back behind the campfire towards this these trees where she's where she's cast the spell, you have a good 30 by the 30 foot diameter circle of
01:06:23
Speaker
complete cover, it seems. That's quite brilliant, actually. I turn around and I'm like, I didn't know that that was gonna work. First time's a charm. I look at Dale and I say, did you see that? Well, well done, Gwendolyn. Well done. I didn't know that I could do that. I thought I could try it. My father knew how to do it.
01:06:53
Speaker
He taught you well then because that's worked really, really well. That was beautiful. I pick up Dale and I come over and I say, oh, room enough for two more. Come on in. I'll fill my water. Go for it. That's it. I'm just filling my water skin. Yeah. Hand over, hand over Dale to Gwen. Right as, right as Krigs gets his shield and kind of puts it on his back and steps out from where he had had his shelter
01:07:22
Speaker
This, just like on a TV show, there's a crack of thunder. And then the rain just starts to just dump buckets immediately. It goes from nothing to buckets. And literally, Krigs is drenched in a matter of milliseconds. Oh, no. And then he gets under your shelter. Joxer, just the moment water starts to fall, you see him mad dash to get
01:07:50
Speaker
his portable hole out and start trying to toss out caskets that are empty. And so you just see like these wooden caskets start popping out of a hole in the ground. And him climb back out and just like, everybody get water in the caskets. Just get water in the caskets.
01:08:17
Speaker
That's a lot of water. I'm ringing I'm ringing out my cloak into the one of the caskets just pissed. Definitely. Can have cloak water. Definitely use press the digitization to dry off Krigs. And then he's going to use it again because he can heat he can chill warm or flavor a cubic foot of nonliving material. So I'll heat up his cloak to get him nice and toasty. Nice. Okay.
01:08:45
Speaker
Awesome and so you you've got it's not raining on you at all under this shelter now you have a a basically river of Water flowing underneath here on the ground and it is go it is it is going around the the wood of your campfire your campfire I assume is just a typical fire. Yes, it's not magical flame of any kind and
01:09:11
Speaker
And so it takes about two minutes before your campfire is washed away. And I don't mean like put out, I mean, there's so much rain, water just draining through your camp area that it has completely washed away the campfire itself. And so you're not getting rained on, but your feet and everything, you're about ankle deep in this just miniature river rapids of water runoff that's going through this camp area.
01:09:41
Speaker
I'm going to take my rope out, I'm going to tie it around like the base of the tree that we're nearest and then I'm going to use mage hand to tie the top of the other half of the rope to like the nearest top branch and then like hang my cloak and anything that I don't want to get too wet that I can hang on it.
01:09:56
Speaker
Okay, great. Awesome. And then, uh, yeah, so that's, that's how, that's your evening at this point. Uh, it is, it is full on nighttime now, rain, lightning. Uh, it doesn't seem dangerous. It's just torrential and there's no sign of it stopping anytime soon as far as you can tell. Um, jocks here. So once, once everything's kind of is all of them are filled up as much as they can, he's going to get
01:10:22
Speaker
uh, the 50 foot of rope that he has and tie like a big, uh, you know, tie like knots around each one of the casts that he filled up with water and tie it to the tree. And that, that'll, I think that was about 10. Um, so to kind of give him like a, a thing to sit on about two feet above. Great. Uh, Devin, can I, can I put my bag on your line?
01:10:50
Speaker
Of course. I make sure Dale is safe and sound in the bag and put it on the line and then I'm going to turn into a snake and crawl up near one of the branches that isn't a part of the canopy. I'm going to just keep watch. I'm not doing anything special. Okay. Craig's a standing feet covered in water.
01:11:17
Speaker
What else? You are warm. Krigs, you're welcome to stand on these casks if you don't want to just stand in water. I don't mind. This is not too bad. Bell means. All right. I'm going to lay out the bedding that I have and just lay on top of those. Yeah, OK, great.
01:11:45
Speaker
Makes sense. Okay. Um, so if he's laying there, Devin, are you, have you figured out a sleeping situation? I guess I'm going to, uh, it's just like a small river coming through here all of a sudden, huh? Yeah. Would any of the branches be, uh, big enough for me to kind of lay down on or are they all.
01:12:04
Speaker
I'd fall out. I'm just going to find the side of the tree that the water is rushing, the opposite side from where the water is rushing, and I'm just going to lean up against the tree and see if I can sleep there with it, minimal water coming my way. You're sitting down in the mud, but you're not... If you stretch out your legs, that water is gathering up about there where it would get on you, but you can lean with your knees up against that tree and
01:12:29
Speaker
Probably get some rest right there, yeah. All right, that's what I'll do. That'll work. Okay, Krigs, as everybody starts to settle in for the night and you are keeping track, roll a D20 for me. That is a seven. A seven, all right, roll a D12 for me. Okay, I didn't have one prepared because I don't normally use them. It's okay, it's okay. You must have all dice all the time.
01:12:56
Speaker
You have to multiples of each. Yeah, pretty much. That's a 12. Okay. All right.
Storm and Shelter: Meeting the Elven Scouts
01:13:04
Speaker
Interesting. So as as you guys are hate that laugh, they're starting to drift off. And he's this you suddenly hear shouting coming from
01:13:20
Speaker
the distance, Krigs. And you've only been keeping watch for about 40 minutes to an hour and you're hearing these shouts and you see before too long, you see a couple of figures coming towards you through the woods getting drenched in rain. You see several of these figures roll a perception check.
01:13:52
Speaker
17. Yeah. So these creatures, what languages do you speak? Oh, I speak all languages. No, I don't.
01:14:02
Speaker
Um, that's not a thing. Dwarvish common and that is it. Okay. You can't understand what they're saying. Uh, you can recognize their language as Elvish because you've heard it a lot, but you don't speak it, but they're, they're coming towards you through the woods and you hear one of them point or you see one of them point and they're definitely humanoid.
01:14:25
Speaker
individuals. It's hard to see clearly through the rain, but one of them can kind of make out his figure pointing, and you hear a shout in Elvish, and they start to come forward. A couple of them have spears kind of leaning down, like at the ready, not necessarily in an aggressive stance,
01:14:50
Speaker
but in a more defensive like let's let's just see what's going on here and they approach and they as they're approaching you they one of them steps in front of the other or steps up between two of the others with the spears and he doesn't have a spear he has a staff and with his his staff he taps it on the ground and it glows with light on the top
01:15:13
Speaker
and he holds it towards you and he looks at your face and he looks at what's above you and he says in Dwarvish, he says, may we take shelter?
01:15:26
Speaker
I didn't expect you to speak my common tongue, I reply, in dwarvish. I've known several dwarfs. May I please, may we shelter? It seems you have the room. By all means, I am going to enter first, though, and make a little whistle sound as I enter the shelter with them.
01:15:51
Speaker
to try to get the attention of Joxer and Daven just so they're aware and awake. Okay. It wakes them up. As everyone wakes up, you look up and you see, you see four elven scout looking folks. They have spears and bows. They're in leather, you know, leather
01:16:10
Speaker
armor with regular pants. They are barefoot and their hairs and braids, their face is they have tattoos on their face of just different shapes and things like that. They're kind of a bluish green tattoos, except the other one who has the staff that's now lit up, he's in a robe and his robes
01:16:37
Speaker
They're unique because they don't flow. They're like robes that kind of hug around his legs and it kind of fit form to his body. They're actually kind of wrapped up and tied up at his ankles and he's also barefoot. He's wearing a leather necklace, it looks like, with things like natural things or some interesting looking
01:17:02
Speaker
like tree branch pieces hanging from it and some bark pieces and things like that and He is he has a a short kind of mohawk and his whole head on either side of the hair is tattooed almost a solid green color and it goes down his neck and He's standing there and he has a hood that he does not have up right now It's down. He has taken it off since he's walked in here and he says he says greetings
01:17:30
Speaker
in common now seeing everyone. What brings you here? So there I was listening to the hired swords. Just like that, the episode was over. Whatever will I do?
01:17:56
Speaker
Well, I know I'm going to follow the Hired Swords on Facebook and Twitter at the Hired Swords. If you enjoyed our show, be sure to tell a friend. And if you really enjoyed our show, tell the world. Leave us a review. We would truly appreciate it. And on that note, thank you for listening to the Hired Swords.