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Ep. 80 End Of The Line
183 Plays2 years ago
The line has been drawn and the lives have been laid down to rest.. But who is to answer for this? Who is to pay the toll for what's left in these broken lands?
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Transcript
Sister's Fear of the Dark
00:00:09
Speaker
I used to think my sister being afraid of the dork was just a childish little fear. Geneva, I used to tell her. There's nothing that happens in the dork that isn't already happening in the light. But there's something about this place that tells me that's not true. And now that we know all the truth about our dwarven friends and our sad demise, I feel as though all the darkness here is bringing upon itself something that the light is just, the light can't keep away.
00:00:39
Speaker
I understand her fear now. I understand.
Introduction to 'The Hired Swords'
00:01:11
Speaker
You're listening to the Hired Swords. I know there's an 11 out of 12 chance it's not February, but will you be my Valentine?
00:01:32
Speaker
Hello, everyone. Welcome to our podcast, The Hired Swords. I am your Dungeon Master. My name is Michael. With me, I have Mikey. He's Joxer. You did find me. You did find me. I'm right here. And I also can go by Michael. Yeah. If you'd like. Yeah. If you prefer. So can I be Michael number one this round? I'm fine with that. Maybe we should do zero raise. Whatever you want.
00:01:59
Speaker
I'm easy tonight, I'm good to go. Derek's here too, he's Daven. I am, yes, that's true. Last week I was also Michael, but this week I'm not, this week I'm just Derek and Daven. Just Daven.
00:02:10
Speaker
or dare. Maybe a, maybe a Clark. I'll get back to you. Okay. Let us know if that sound decides, if you decide that sounds good to you, let us know. I'll let you know in the hour. Blaze, are you here? I can't see you. So I don't know. Guess not. All right. Okay. There he is. He's, he's soft for an ember oak, AKA, Craig's Golder. It's AKA and as low energy as possible. Yeah, that's good. AKA mushroom daddy.
00:02:34
Speaker
Mm, fungi. Yeah, he is. And Ash is here. She would be Gwendolyn.
00:02:41
Speaker
I also go by Derek Blaze. Sounds like the name of a TV slash street magician. I am part street magician. Derek Blaze. Oh, you are. That's fascinating. That's
Journey Through Haunted Lands
00:02:55
Speaker
great. Hey, in our last episode, you probably remember, if you listen to this podcast consecutively, that we were still traveling through the untouched lands, had come across some strange folks, a group of dwarven soldiers who
00:03:11
Speaker
Where a journeying is similarly to our party in order to stop some sort of darkness or evil in the land after traveling for a little while our party started to realize that the darkness or evil that they were discussing might be a little different than what our group was after.
00:03:26
Speaker
As they start talking about giants rating a party or parties of. Supply lines and things that had been coming from some elven territory towards the west northwest towards the from there to the stone mountains where these doors come from.
00:03:43
Speaker
And the stone mountain fortress to be exact and so these doors are talking about that discussing their mission and making some connections with krigs golder remembering him or suffering from speeches and conversations back during the war and then suddenly.
00:04:00
Speaker
while scouting, continuing forward towards the northwest to try to find, you know, whatever answers they could, they come upon a ambush scene with bodies. And our party quickly discovers that these bodies are those of these dwarven soldiers they've been traveling with. After discovering that, they while discussing how to handle breaking the news to the dwarves themselves, the dwarves come upon this group and they tell them
00:04:26
Speaker
You know, back off. You don't want to come here. They try to kind of keep them away to no avail as they approach one by one, seeing their own corpse as fate or a pattern or whatever instinct draws them to draws each of these doors to where they fell and to take positions for action. They'd vanish. They disappear each kind of having their own little experience with one of our party members until they're gone.
00:04:55
Speaker
And our party members, our group, Krigs, Joxer, Davin, and Gwendolyn are left standing there alone, looking around these corpses at this battlefield. It looks like giant boulders had been thrown at some of these folks and killed, they were killed. Others just crushed by bludgeoning weapons. And this is where we are standing in this old, forsaken, rotted out battlefield in the middle of the untouched lands.
00:05:20
Speaker
after seeing some of our new friends vanish into nothingness when realizing they've been dead this whole time. What are you going to do? Krigs definitely is probably looking shaken by some of the realizations of the fact that they were soldiers and have kind of just been left to wander aimlessly for however long.
Are We Ghosts?
00:05:44
Speaker
It doesn't feel necessarily like his story, but it feels
00:05:49
Speaker
It feels too real, just how he felt previously about Helm and everything. It hits Helm a little bit too much for him. He's kind of noticeably shaken by this. I think I'm kind of posted up on one of the big boulders and just
00:06:10
Speaker
just cross-legged, staring into kind of the vast nothingness of where we saw everybody, just kind of in a similar way as Krigs and just... I had no clues that that could be a thing.
00:06:35
Speaker
Well, that the ghost thing, what are you talking about? Watching, watching them return to, to a spot. I, I traveling ghosts. I mean, obviously we've, we've encountered them, but not, not like, not like this. Oh, this is the first time I've really had any kind of a conversation with the ghost. That's for sure. And that's maybe I'm, maybe I'm being paranoid here, but
00:07:03
Speaker
We're not ghosts, right? We're still alive, right? What? I hope so. I mean, I don't know. When we crossed that river, there was a point where I just kind of blacked out. I remember going under the water and not really having any issues. I don't know. I don't remember how we got out.
00:07:25
Speaker
not to ruin the moment, but Gwendolyn kind of looks back at Daven with her goopy hands, not to be a mood killer, but she just not realizing it. Just, we can't be dead, but I also don't remember. I just assumed one of you guys pulled me ashore. Craig's talk, sir. Did you guys pull us out or what happened?
Battlefield Discoveries
00:07:53
Speaker
Do you remember?
00:07:54
Speaker
What are you talking about now? It's pretty foggy for me too. Carmen, do you remember much of In That Water? My recollection is trying to swim away from whatever darkness was there and then it just overtaking me. I woke up
00:08:17
Speaker
flat on my back with a mouthful of water, spewing up water for my insides as I looked around to see if I was alone and saw you all. So nobody remembers how we got out of the river. How, how is this a concern of yours at this time? Oh, it's not been a concern the entire time. This should have been the first thing we're asking when we came back, right?
00:08:40
Speaker
I mean, up until this point, I didn't really think it possible to have that thought and not be alive, I guess. I'll just assume that when you die, it was over, right? Blackness gone forever. No thoughts, no body nothing. But we just witnessed a group of people or what used to be people, right? Still thinking that they were alive. That's a good idea. That's a good idea.
00:09:09
Speaker
Dale said we should go ask them What? I'm not following either Gwen. Well, I I mean he did they it might have been a while ago, but but I mean What if those elves are still there? Well, we should go ask them. Oh You mean you mean the the meet up with the almanoura tribe
00:09:38
Speaker
Exactly. I want to believe that they possibly know something, but I don't want to get my hopes up this time. Well, I mean, I think that that's all we can do is move forward there. I'm definitely not going back to that river to see if I might be in it, I guess. The way that river was rushing, if we're not in our bodies anymore, those bodies are long gone.
00:10:07
Speaker
So we just move forward and assume we are still alive. I mean, I don't see any other purpose. You're going to leave. You want to leave the bodies like this. Just leave this place like this. I'm not saying we have to do that. I'm just saying that we need a plan moving forward. We can do what we need to do here first.
00:10:33
Speaker
Yeah, I wasn't trying to overlook what's here. And just just for my knowledge, whenever you whenever Gwen went to grab at that body, it just fell apart or she wasn't able to grab it or what exactly was that interaction that I saw?
00:10:50
Speaker
Yeah, it began to kind of fall apart and really she was trying to dig, dig it out. And it just kind of as, as her hands dug down through the, the guck that is the earth, the soil here, it, instead of like digging out a hole, it like just made everything that was there kind of merged together to become, you know, the, the bone and the guck and all that kind of, kind of just mixed together.
00:11:19
Speaker
From what it looked like, they might be more entwined with that ground. I mean, what would you like to do, Krix? What would make this as good? Or is it just some burial? Is that what... I think what Dijox is trying to say is how can we honor them?
Divine Attempt and Exhaustion
00:11:49
Speaker
I... I don't know. The best I can think of is... They were abandoned here. This...
00:11:59
Speaker
This isn't right. I'm sorry. And as, as he apologizes, he's going to, to say his magic phrase. I am member. I am Oak. Um, and he's going to pop two of his wing, both. Well, he's going to pop his wings and he's going to just fly. Try to try to fly as straight up as he can. Oh, here. Okay. How high up are you going?
00:12:27
Speaker
Uh, I'm going to go as high as I can go. If I can break cloud coverage. Awesome. If not, I'm going to get to is just, I'm not going any direction, but up as you start to go up, you start to go up and you get 30, 40, 50, 60 feet up. And you're starting to be in this, these clouds that have been above you. And as you begin to fly up towards them,
00:12:55
Speaker
you look around and in the clouds are now swirling like ebbing and flowing. And it's this black cloud, these black clouds around you as you fly up and, and you feel more, it feels more like your wings are propelling you through some sort of like thick fluid than it is you're flying through the air, but you are
00:13:21
Speaker
going up just definitely not as quickly. I need you to make a charisma saving throw for me. Sure. We're starting strong. That's a 19. So as you begin, as you continue, you're, you're, you're definitely slowing down, but you get the, you continue to get the sense of where you are and what's happening as you continue to go up, up, up, but it gets thicker and thicker feeling and you get slower and slower until
00:13:50
Speaker
It's now hard work to push yourself upwards in this as you are now, you guess, actually make a survival check right now. Just to see if you could kind of gather how high up you are. Well, keep the ball rolling. That's another 19.
00:14:07
Speaker
okay so yeah you figure you're probably a few hundred feet in the air now 300 feet at least you've you've been climbing and climbing and you are surrounded it's like you're swimming in this fog and mist and you no longer see much
00:14:24
Speaker
above you or around you, you barely can see the faint, just kind of faint glow of maybe some sort of sunlight or something above this mist. But it's hard to tell the distance it might take to get to it. You're going to continue to go go up. No, I feel like I'm probably far enough. I just didn't. I needed I needed space for this. I'm just going to cry out.
00:14:52
Speaker
The defender of the wilds begs your audience. As you scream at the top of your lungs, you make no sound. Like whatever you're inside of right now completely absorbs.
00:15:07
Speaker
the sound waves coming out of your mouth and you're just moving your mouth, yelling, like yelling under water, but even less sound, like nothing comes out of your mouth. No volume, no sound. Yet, yet your hand begins to glow and it begins to glow brighter and brighter as you cry out. Do you say anything else after you notice your hand glowing?
00:15:35
Speaker
I start to say a lot of swear words in Dorvish and, uh, I say the F word in Dorvish. I try to speak, but obviously nothing's really coming out. You abandoned again. These were your chosen. They fought and they died and they lived for you in your name and you left them.
00:16:04
Speaker
What do you say for yourself? Sorry, I'm just trying to fight gods right now. It's fine. Your hand continues to glow and the glow is kind of the only thing you can see as you kind of look around crying out with no, with making words with your mouth and your mind is thinking them and you're sounding them out and you're not hearing your own voice, but the glow in your hand becomes so bright that it's, you can't see your hand, only the bright glow.
00:16:34
Speaker
And the color of it changes from this light green that you had that's been kind of like this greenish white. It completely changes to green only. And as it does, you sense this, you see this, the mist and everything around your body and your hand, it's like it's repelled by it.
00:16:58
Speaker
And it's it's it's just kind of swirling around the outside of your hand where you can see now you can even see like some of your wrist and your arm and you look and in the light. It's it's not shining through the mist. It's not penetrating and creating like a line of light or anything. It's just it's it's not allowing this mist to touch your hand. And I need to make another charisma saving throw as this miss is swirling around you during this time.
00:17:27
Speaker
Uh, 15. So you begin to feel yourself losing consciousness. And as you do your hand, the color and the light on your hand begins to fade, but you don't completely lose your consciousness. You just get this overwhelming sense of exhaustion and tiredness and your wings continue to flap to keep you up, but it's taking twice the effort.
00:17:57
Speaker
to keep you up now than it did before, as you're trying to fight against the swirling of this mist, the passion and anger you feel inside of you, as well as the power surging through you, seeming to rebel a little bit against the God that you're crying out against, just as you're rebelling against him. What do you do? I just have a few more words, more swear words and dervish. And then I just say,
00:18:24
Speaker
This is over. Their watch has ended and I will see to that. And I'm going to not try to stay up anymore. I'm going to try to descend, if I can, just straight back down. Yeah, you start to fall back down, a controlled fall as you kind of drift back down. And everyone else, he's up there a little while. What are you guys doing during that time?
00:18:49
Speaker
Gwen's probably just staring at the sky, hoping he would come back down soon, but then looks over at the other guys and just, I don't know what to do. I think in situations like this, it's best just to wait. It's worked twice now. I don't like waiting. I'm going to look around and see if we have anything on these bodies that maybe tell us any more of their
Fallen Soldier's Past
00:19:14
Speaker
story.
00:19:14
Speaker
Be careful because you might get some goop on you. Thanks for the warning. And I'm going to go and investigate the bodies and see if I can find anything on them. Make an investigation check over there on their bodies. Sure. Investigation is not bad for me. Oh, 22 total. All right. So you look body to body
00:19:40
Speaker
as you search around them and begin to kind of, uh, see what you might be able to spare from, from the things that they all are, have been carrying and you find, you know, just simple hand crossbow, crossbow bolts and things like that. You, you look and find, and most of those things, they're pretty corroded. They've been here a while and it's like this, this soil here is corrosive and, and.
00:20:08
Speaker
Is you know eating away at the metal in the wood and the leather or or any you find some scraps of parchment that maybe were once scrolls but they're completely just you know rotted away and that's okay I'm not necessarily looking for things to take there's magical items of course I'd like to know that but
00:20:27
Speaker
Uh, mostly I'm looking to trying to find out how long they've been here. Like how long ago this happened? If I could try and glean from that and any information from, if I could decide on where they came from, like personally, not from the stone mountains. Uh, you just, as you continue to search, each one seems to be, it just seems like this all was here has been here for a very long time to the point of, like I said, this mostly just everything's damaged beyond repair.
00:20:55
Speaker
You do, however, find a small lead box, probably about the size of a little pill box, a round lead box that is closed. And it's kind of tucked underneath one of the, the bodies and it's the body of the, uh, the body of one of the Rangers, the ones who, the one who was carrying a bow, who, who was considered the scout who had been scouting ahead. They have a small lead box that's been, that was behind her closed up.
00:21:24
Speaker
Is it locked or is it just like a little? No, it doesn't look like it locks. It just looks like it has a lid that just kind of is slightly larger than the bottom part. So it'll just slide on and stay, stay sealed and then kind of slide back off. All right. I look over my shoulder, see if anybody's paying attention and then I'm going to pop it open and see what's inside of it.
00:21:43
Speaker
So you open this lead box. It's pretty heavy. The box is compared to what you would imagine. And when you open the lead box, you see inside of there is just a couple little things. You see a small drawing of a.
00:21:58
Speaker
Looks like it's just on a little bitty like a small little piece of parchment and it's a simple drawing well done but simple not a lot of detail of a small child it looks like and there's also there are also two little ten like dwarven toy soldiers.
00:22:21
Speaker
I'm going to put them back in there and close it back up. And I'm just going to hold up my hand. I'll walk back to the group and say, well, I couldn't really find much detail. They've been here for a long time. The one thing I found was this. I think the ranger over there had kids maybe.
00:22:39
Speaker
Yeah, and you kind of see Joxer folding up his little portable hole and he just takes a big swig out of something that he had just pulled out of there and I imagine that all of these soldiers had family, sad, but maybe happy to hear that there's someone was out there and
00:23:06
Speaker
maybe continued living with the knowledge and hoping to meet this person. Well, I think when Krix comes back down, we should bury the bodies the best that we can.
00:23:20
Speaker
How long do you think these bodies have been here? Gwendolyn has rubbed off most of the dirt from her hands and is just having a thinking pose. Because she's thinking about doing reincarnation.
00:23:37
Speaker
But it has, they have to be of dead less than 10 days, no more than 10
Contemplating Decay
00:23:42
Speaker
days. I should say. I'd say that it's been years that they've been here, just dodging by the amount of decay. Although it's hard to tell because the ground seems to be affecting things a little bit differently.
00:23:52
Speaker
Craig's mentioned that some of some of the timeline here didn't didn't make sense and I mean the war that he was that they were talking about I wasn't that that's that's been over for. While.
00:24:08
Speaker
Oh, yeah. And if they said they came from the stone mountains, that means they had to have left there before whatever happened there happened, right? With the creature. So that's got to be years for sure, right? Because I mean, we know. Yeah, even the books that we found that no one had been there for what, seven years? Something like that. I can't remember. I just been thinking about it. I just
00:24:36
Speaker
Craig's during this conversation, you are breaching the heaviest of the clouds and you can see them standing below you discussing this. When we look up, is it like the blackness that we had saw over the river or is it different?
00:24:51
Speaker
Uh, it's, it's about the same kind of like dark cloud cover, but it is, it does seem higher up at the river. It was like 30 feet above you. It was really just heavy here. It just seems like, and that was moving and swelling and all of that. And where you are now, it just seems like it's just there. Like it's just the state of the sky now.
00:25:12
Speaker
But it's, but it is higher up and you have, you would assume beyond it is the normal sky at this point, because there is some sort of light that kind of makes daylight seem a little different than nighttime, but not much. Well, here he comes. I hope that didn't do anything train storm. Hope is all right. When I land, I'm not going to like, I'm not trying to be stern or beat around the Bush or whatever, but I'm just going to ask.
00:25:40
Speaker
I'm assuming you guys searched the bodies. You're done here, right? You have no reason to stay. We can't stay as long as you feel it's necessary to honor them. We have no timeline. I have no reason to stick around much longer and I'm gonna kind of walk somewhat to the middle of them and look around and just like one more moment, take it in kind of just the scene and trying to take in what all's happened here and whatever.
00:26:08
Speaker
And I'm going to ask everyone to kind of just stand back a little. And I'm going to kneel. Granted, I'm probably going to get a little mucky in this ground, but I'm going to kneel and I'm going to put one of my hands on the ground and sort of quietly, I'm basically going to pray just great spirits of the wild, just
00:26:30
Speaker
Solran, I don't care. Hear me now, if you can, if it's possible. I need you in this moment. There's been a wrong here that I need to make right. Please, if you can, help me. And I'm going to try to cast Channel Divinity Scorched Earth.
00:26:48
Speaker
And as an action, I'm going to release a blast of energy that ignites the ground around me in a 20-foot radius. And everything around me either has to make a constitution save, but since they're dead, I'm basically setting the entire ground on fire with a nature fire with, you'll just visually see phosphorescent spores and mushrooms trying to grow around these bodies.
00:27:12
Speaker
If possible, if they can hear me, that's what I'm aiming for is just something to put this area at peace and give them honor. You put your hand down and you pray your prayer and that green light that surrounded your hand when you were flying comes back and it not quickly like you're shooting something. It slowly just pours from your hand onto the ground and begins
00:27:41
Speaker
to find its way through the bits of like little cracks and parched earth on the ground and this gucky ground and make its way towards these bodies. And as it does, it leaves behind these glowing dark purple and blue spores.
00:27:59
Speaker
that kind of have this pulsing glow and that moves towards these bodies, making it to the bodies and beginning to rise up inside of them and grow, these spores grow through them, their bones, many of them disintegrating, some of them staying put as these things grow and start protruding from the holes in their skull and the spaces between their ribs and it comes up and wraps around what's left of the spine
00:28:29
Speaker
The rest of whatever flesh was left behind begins to decompose and just fall off as that happens where it started create as you lift your hand up.
00:28:40
Speaker
these spores all start to turn in from this dark purple glow to this black tar like substance and they keep their form for a short brief moment until they begin to morph and distort and it begins to spread in that way and distort and morph all the way away from you.
00:28:59
Speaker
towards these bodies until finally they distort inside and in the skulls and skeletons of what's left of these bodies some of them disintegrating from the pressure of these spores morphing or growing some of the some of the bones becoming consumed and sticking out and protruding and now these creatures these these leftover bodies have
00:29:25
Speaker
have become this amorphous blob of ooze and goo and what looks like what could have been mushrooms, but if they had been left too long and become this disgusting, just corruption of what they could have been.
00:29:43
Speaker
And they've turned from a skull on the battlefield or a skeleton or a corpse on the battlefield to now a corpse or skeleton that has been distorted and disfigured and morphed and broken into these other looking kind of corpse. I kind of bow my head in disappointment, but
00:30:09
Speaker
Just feeling like I tried, I'm gonna, I guess, stand back up and say, I believe we're done here. Our business, our business is elsewhere now. We've done what we can for them. I think, I think when we need to try to find your tribe. Gwen won't say anything. She'll just nod at him. That's golden.
00:30:33
Speaker
I'll hand over or at least put my hand out with a drink that I had to Krigs. He can he can take it or not I take it and I chug it and I toss the glass or whatever you handed to me just directly behind me and I say I'll make you another let's go As yeah, and I'll start following too, but as we're walking out I
00:31:00
Speaker
Brinn Nobleton. That was, was that the, the scout that, that had children? I think so, yeah. We'll, we'll remember that name and try maybe to find his family one day. Well, no use in leaving this box, um, here to rot with the rest of this, I suppose, right?
00:31:24
Speaker
Krix, I found that someone else in the body sits on. I think proof of children. If you want to look inside, it's a little drawing and some toys. I open it up. Well, don't these look familiar? That one looks like you. Well, I mean, when you were younger, at least.
00:31:41
Speaker
had hair, I guess. It's funny. You had hair? No, no. We've talked about this. Remember? Rub the bald head for good luck. Throwback. He's been lucky for a long time. Why don't you hold on to that, Chris? I feel like it belongs in your hands more than mine. I'll make sure this gets back to his family. At least someday I'm going to put it in my pack and
00:32:11
Speaker
kind of start walking jovially as best I can trying to get my spirits back up and what was in that ale jockser as I walk away? It was pretty good as I get further away waiting for them to follow. So there's a special mix. He'll be a little bit more spry for a little bit. What are you going to do if we find your people, Gwen? Not to get, I understand you don't want to get your hopes up, but this is the first real lead we've had.
00:32:40
Speaker
I don't know. I just, I hope my father's there. That's the main reason. So do I. But I don't know. There's no talk of people here in the book. It just, I don't know. It feels right to go this way, but it also feels wrong, but mostly right.
00:33:08
Speaker
This land is, doesn't know much else besides decay, rot, death. I can understand nothing feeling right, but right now this is the best chance we've had. This is the most information we've had. At least, at least maybe if there's nothing there, there'll be a sign of where they went or just the fact they existed in the first place. That's true. And Gwen kind of reaches into her bag kind of quietly and she holds Dale's hand. Okay.
00:33:39
Speaker
That's it. She keeps walking. Cute. I know, right? Get your own taxidermic chipmunk. As you guys walk through the untouched land, your feet not really squishing through the ground. It just feels kind of squishy, but there's no squishing sound. The trees are just grayish, dull wood.
00:34:06
Speaker
And you see many of them many places where trees have just fallen over and are just partially consumed by whatever this. Soil has become again there's no sounds of birds nothing.
00:34:22
Speaker
no critters, nothing that kind of makes you think of life at all as you walk through this forsaken seeming place. Somebody roll a d20 for me. No, just a d100 roll a d100 for me. Okay, fine. I'll do it.
00:34:43
Speaker
We 11. Oh, wow. I was searching for my D 100 bits. All right. So as you guys are walking, you, you walk for a while. You, you definitely notice that the trees around you and in the wildlife around you is more
00:35:13
Speaker
it's more decayed than before. It was just like trees with like black ooze, but now it's like the trees are made of this stuff. And the ground, like I said, is still so, so just corrupt and almost gooey as you step through it, that it's like it sticks to the bottom of your feet as you're walking. And
00:35:42
Speaker
like we're walking on ooey gooey butter cookies.
00:35:44
Speaker
Mmm, yeah, just like that. Walking on, walking on, cooby cookies. I look so daven singing that. That's in, that's in the wall now. Oh, got it. Keep going.
Vine Creature Encounter
00:36:00
Speaker
And make perception checks. No, you. Okay, I'll do it. I gotta make one anyway for, uh, for what? For the, your Carmen Stone, the guy who
00:36:12
Speaker
Oh, that's right. Exists in this moment. I run the big fat six. Devin has a 17. Nine plus 15 24. Cool, cool, cool. So what'd you roll Doc's jockser?
00:36:33
Speaker
Hopping 11. Okay. Dr. Joxer. Dr. Joxer. So for sure, Zeez, Daven and Krigs. No, Daven and Gwen. Krigs, what'd you roll? I just forgot. A big six. He probably sees it too. So yeah. Yeah, so it's a DC five. So Gwen and Daven, you both notice as you look around, you notice the ground is suddenly
00:37:03
Speaker
pulsing, moving in these like these pattern of like kind of swirls and moving, like something's underneath it almost. And Gwendolyn, you noticed that there are the trees, some of the trees actually have some sort of like the first kind of sign of movement or life on them. And it's these almost like vines, but they're moving like on their own.
00:37:32
Speaker
And then they're kind of like pulling through like a snake would crawl around a tree. And then you see some large sections of these things.
00:37:43
Speaker
as it kind of starts to rise up and surround you. These vines coalesce and begin to rise up in the middle of this, of this soil. And the soil begins to kind of ooze off of it. And these vines become this creature. Roll initiative. Son of a- Just like that? Son of a dwarven swear word.
00:38:11
Speaker
Uh, I got a 14 minus one is 13 is God. God bless low America. I rolled a four plus three. That's a seven. I technically got like 13 and a half because of my decks, but okay. 13 and a half. Well, let's not get nitpicky here. Then I have 14.14. What?
00:38:41
Speaker
So now everybody tell me your initiative. Big old 13.5 for Kriggle. Kriggle Gwen. 14.14. Gavin. Six point sad. Doctor. Seven point extra sad. Carmen. Ten plus a lot. Ten plus big mood. Plus... Oh, sheesh, sheesh, sheesh.
00:39:09
Speaker
Sorry, I'm on a new map here and so everything's not correct because it was a random encounter and I couldn't be prepared in the right manner for it. How embarrassing. How this, why do you guys play with me? I am so bad at all of what I do. I'm not sure why you are my friends. That's not true. You're a pretty good cook.
00:39:49
Speaker
You sign it when you're born. Baphomet stands out your mother's side and says, sign this. Sorry, boys. I like that. That's a fun story. It just comes out of the ground. You got served. I'm leaving this banter and I'm giving you a deep voice. Sign this. My voice is already deep. You don't even need to add anything. OK, it's so good. OK, my apologies. So Carmen gets to start off.
00:39:53
Speaker
I have no choice, we're related.
00:40:18
Speaker
So this set the scene again, this creature has risen it is it's covered in vines and it's made up like the inside of this thing looks like as you see through the vines as they kind of part and ooze around him. It looks like on the inside he's got different like living
00:40:34
Speaker
pieces and parts of living things inside of him. Weird creature looking like a face of a large bat it looks like with the wings sticking out. And it's got down here some hip and leg of some deer like creature, but it's hard to know what that even could have been.
00:40:50
Speaker
And it also has all the, like I said, the vines and the black goo that makes up the ground beneath it kind of fills the inside of this creature and oozes out of him. He has a sort of mouth that he opens up and these black and brown dark black tar like teeth kind of
00:41:08
Speaker
protrude from his mouth in all different angles as he lunges toward you guys. And Carmen, seeing this right away, he is going to do what he do best, and he's going to sidestep over to a tree. He's going to tuck himself back behind this tree. And let me see if I can do this in the way I'd like.
00:41:39
Speaker
I've never played a rogue before. You'll have to excuse me. Ash can help, that's her specialty. Can he jump over, like, can he go hide as a bonus action and then attack? I don't see why not. Yeah, I don't see why not. Isn't that a thing a rogue can do? They can certainly hide as a bonus action. He gets up to this tree, tucks himself behind it, and he throws, you just want him to do this because you want him to hurt this thing.
00:42:05
Speaker
Yes. If he was fighting against you, you'd be like, no, we can't do that. No. He's going to throw his two returning daggers at this thing. So that's two attack rolls plus nine. Here we go. Woke up in a new book. Okay. That's what he sings while you have sex. Yeah.
00:42:24
Speaker
Okay. Oh, yes, a 23 is gonna hit. And then his second hit, second throw is a dirty 20. So he hits twice, the first one doing sneak attack damage. So let's roll that. Oh, no, that's not how that works. But I got you. Okay, so 6d6 sneak attack damage plus the
00:42:50
Speaker
So 11 plus 9 is 20 plus the d4 for each on the daggers. So 24 total damage against this monstar.
00:43:04
Speaker
Nice. And then he is, he's visible now, cause he used that, that bonus action hide at the beginning before and not the end. So he's visible now, but he has thrown his daggers and then they now reappear in his hands and he says, let's do it. That takes us now to Gwendolyn's turn. This guy is basically a living plant. That's what it looks like. Yeah. I don't like that. I don't like the, it looks like I want the,
00:43:33
Speaker
Yes ma'am. Sorry? You should be. You should be. I hate you. I hate you. I see your might be a plant. How far away am I? I'm 20 feet. I am going to speak with plants. Don't stop me. Because I am. I'm basically just going to speak in the oven. Hello.
00:44:05
Speaker
I'm Gwendolyn. Who are you? Because it's the first plant life she's seen in a while. Yeah. Hello. Is that your whole turn? Yeah. As a player and Gwen, I'm just kind of shocked to see something like this. Yeah. OK. Like I've never seen a creature like this before. Gwen hasn't. I don't know, have I?
00:44:35
Speaker
No, I mean, probably not. I doubt many of you, any of you have. Ash hasn't either. Ash has not. Oh, OK. Cool. Well, that takes us to. That's a need for both of us. Yeah, that takes us. If that's your whole turn, that takes us to Craig's. OK, curveballs. Is he not does he not say hello back? I mean, we'll see what he does on his turn. Well, it's a free action. So you get actions on your turn.
00:45:06
Speaker
understanding that this is a combat situation, but also understanding that Gwen is trying something unique. I'm sorry, but just in my mind, Gwen is the only one who's turned off the battle music and everyone else knows what's going on, but she's... We're hearing... And she's all like... Oh my gosh. I am going to do something completely different. I'm going to cast Crusader's Mantle.
00:45:36
Speaker
Alright.
00:45:37
Speaker
Holy Power radiates from me in an aura with a 30-foot radius, awakening boldness and friendly creatures until the spell ends, the aura will move with me, centered on me, and while in the aura, each non-hostile creature in the aura, including me, deals an extra 1d4 radiant damage when it hits with a weapon attack. So anyone that actually hits with a weapon attack will do extra damage, but I'm just going to use that as my actual action right now. No bonus actions, nothing.
00:46:06
Speaker
Okay. Wait and see what happens. What was the radius? What was the radius on that? 30 feet. Okay. Big more. That's everybody. Cool. And then, so if that's your whole turn, then we're going to go now to the creature actually. And this creature, first thing it does is you see this kind of jolt of like surprise when it gets this communication to it that it's maybe never had before as, as the spell is cast on it. And this groan comes out of it.
00:46:41
Speaker
All of you hear that sound and Gwen, you're the only one that kind of makes out the word consume as it moves toward you. Well, that's not what I wanted him to say. At least you know what his goal is.
00:47:00
Speaker
I guess I do hear the battle music now. Oh, that's right. That's battle music. So it's going to make two of its slam attacks on you, Gwendolyn. Why? You got it. You got its attention, Gwendolyn. First one's an eight. See the first one, first one's actually a natural one. So the second try.
00:47:29
Speaker
Is a 19? Yeah, it hits. Okay, so it tries on this first hit, this first attack to hit you. And when it does, a little bit of this goo kind of falls out of it as it approached you from this weird kind of, kind of surprised, you know, and so it comes up and misses you that
Battle Begins
00:47:52
Speaker
first try. And then it's going to make its 2d8 bludgeoning damage with its slam attack.
00:47:59
Speaker
and you take 13 plus what was it it said it was 13 plus four so 17 bludgeoning damage as this thing strikes at you when the first slam misses the second slam hits you and you are really now in this Gwendolyn for real it's you're gonna have to fight this battle and that's where we're gonna leave this episode
00:48:26
Speaker
Well, that was very nice manners, please.
Conclusion and Thanks
00:48:36
Speaker
Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the hired swords. It's been absolutely great to be back and I'll have you here with us. If you enjoyed the show, tell a friend about us. And if you really liked what we're doing here, do us a favor and tell the world, leave a review.
00:48:54
Speaker
If you want to check out our merch shop, you can find it at the Hired.store if you want to find us on socials. We're on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at the Hired Swords. You may find a link for our Discord in there as well. See you in the wilds and you have a great day.