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Ep. 33 All Eyes, All Lies
138 Plays4 years ago
Finally, it seems answers are coming together for our swords. It does however feel like those with rank in Wildhill just turn a blind eye in fear of rocking the boat and being an outlier of the status quo. Pay that no mind for now. After what we witnessed with this beast and the black ooze, our focus is turned to Darnaldi and whoever is funding his operation. I'm sure they won't mind answering some questions for us.
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Transcript
The Ignored Threats of Wild Hill
00:00:13
Speaker
previously on the hired swords. Finally it seems like some answers are coming together for our party. It does however feel like those with rank in Wild Hill just turn a blind eye, either in fear of rocking the boat or being an outlier of the status quo. Pay that no mind for now. After what we witness with this beast and the black ooze, our focus has turned to Darnaldi and whoever is funding his operation.
00:00:44
Speaker
I'm sure they won't mind answering a few questions for us.
Casual Banter and Catching Up
00:01:12
Speaker
You're listening to The Hired Swords, the fantastical story of a mother-father and their two children, which is which you decide. It's recorded! Can't do that, man.
00:01:40
Speaker
Welcome back, everyone, to another episodic installment, as Blaze would say, of the Hired Swords. Welcome, Blaze, Ash, Derek, and Mikey. How are you guys doing? What's up, dude? Fantastic. I had bad Chinese food. Why? Why'd you do that? What? Because there's no— Only get good Chinese food. Oh, I'm still learning. Oh, I'm still learning. I'm still learning Chinese food.
00:02:05
Speaker
Well, we are back in action. It's been like a month, I think we decided since we recorded last. So we're in a solid minute. That is very true. We're all pumped, pumped.
00:02:17
Speaker
to get going. At least I am. And if you've been listening up to now, you have not missed a beat because I think we have been continuing to release episodes. So thank you, Blaze, for making that happen. And so let's just recap real quick for our sakes because you listened to this last week. But for our sakes, we're
Chase into the Woods and Discoveries
00:02:37
Speaker
going to recap. You all chased Saraiya's party into the woods to try to find
00:02:43
Speaker
creature that had some sort of strange essence about it. You ran and flew as fast as you could but you were not able to beat their teleportation magic as they as upon your arrival a fireball blasted the face of this monster and they attacked it killing it swiftly and starting a long conversation in which they discussed with you some interesting information about Wild Hill and what's going on there and how
00:03:12
Speaker
the something's going on with the chief and he's doing stuff to make a little extra money. And they kind of had that conversation with you revealed a little more than you probably expected. And then they
00:03:22
Speaker
bounced. They took off in another teleportation circle, inviting you along, which you turned down and decided to give this creature a nice little moment of silence. And when you did that, Gwendolyn, as she does, asked the forest to take it. And when the forest took it, it immediately began to create this black, gross ooze that rose up onto the side of the tree that this creature was pulled down underneath. And so you all stood around it, Joxer, walking up to it,
00:03:51
Speaker
putting his
Mysterious Black Ooze and Concerns
00:03:52
Speaker
hand in it, touching it and realizing that it didn't really do anything to him right away. It didn't seem like but it was this weird, gross kind of corruption type goo. And then as we just discussed before we hit record, Joxer immediately professed that he doesn't care if he's involved or not. He's going after Darnaldi. And that's where we left the episode. So there you stand around this disgusting looking tar looking covered tree. What are you going to do next?
00:04:23
Speaker
I know Gwendolyn's going to be shocked by what's happening. I'm going to be concerned for Joxer. That doesn't look healthy and he just touched it.
00:04:35
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Are you okay? I'll be kind of staring at my hands because I just like touch it with my fingers and just kind of feeling it. So far, I don't seem to feel any pain or anything, and then I'll try to like wipe it off on maybe like one of my sleeves. Hasn't done any actual damage to him?
00:05:04
Speaker
as he begins to wipe it off.
00:05:05
Speaker
it's sticky like tar like like like it it kind of more spreads than wipes off and it creates this like sticky tackyness between your hand and your pants or your sleeve whatever you're wiping it on and as you begin to pull away it just kind of you know creates those kind of strings of stickiness until they finally separate and and it didn't spread like there's not more of it now but and there's less on your hand and a little bit on your sleeve now but it's definitely really tacky and sticky and hard to wipe off you don't
00:05:35
Speaker
feel like anything's wrong, it doesn't seem to hurt, and you can't really see any damage that has been done. But that's the, yeah, it just was like that tacky kind of tar feeling.
00:05:51
Speaker
Gwendolyn will immediately go and look at Joxer's sleeve. I want to inspect it and smell it. I'm just going to just grab his arm, not tell him. Smell it. Make a sniff check. Yeah, it'd be an investigation check, I guess. Or nature. Joxer just kind of looks up and feels his arm kind of get lifted a little bit.
00:06:18
Speaker
You're Gwendolyn, right? You're not a creature at this point? Yeah, correct. Yeah, I'm a person. I'm a person. I rolled a 10. Well, my score is a 10. It smells like rotten flesh a little bit. But I've read about this. Do I know anything associated with it while I smell any associations? Make a history check.
00:06:42
Speaker
This came from the ground, right? Oh, no, create one.
Cryptic Messages from the Forest
00:06:46
Speaker
It seems like it came from the ground or from the creature as it was crushed by these roots that crushed it underneath the ground. But it started from the bottom and it's working its way up the tree. It worked its way up the tree and only went up about three or four feet and stopped. Oh, it's not continued. It's not continuing to climb. You know, it's not like it's still going up and now spreading everywhere. It's just yeah. Concerned or did you say one?
00:07:12
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, you're not making any connections. It's a little too. It's a little too Awful in your memory to or in your opinion as you're looking at it. It's just kind of nasty and you're like I don't I don't like this and it's making it difficult for you to Think about where you may know about this from I slowly put down jocksers arm. I Don't know what this this is and I start backing away
00:07:41
Speaker
It's fine. I don't think we should worry about it. If anything, and I'm going to look over to where they had actually... Because they beheaded it, I believe, right? They just sliced its head off? Yes, they took the head off. Yeah. Is there any blood or is it a tar that might have spattered out from... I'd like to investigate to see if I see anything. Make an investigation check.
00:08:10
Speaker
That is a 17. Yeah, you you do see the blood that from this creature that is there. And you actually kind of find a little pool of blood there. And and you can see that like oil in water, this black tar type substance is separating itself from the blood and doesn't blend with it. There's the red blood and then there's this tar like substance that's in there with it.
00:08:39
Speaker
And it's kind of in little globules almost kind of on top of the blood. This is another altered creature. You can see the same material over here. I'm not really worried about the creature now. I'm more worried about the tree. It doesn't seem to be spreading, but I don't have high hopes that this tree will last as long as the rest.
00:09:06
Speaker
Just knowing, having dealt with the board and having dealt with the liquid that hit my hammer and actually, you know, started melting it away, which is a very strong metal. I'm still going to be concerned for Joxer's wellbeing, being that he actually has this touching his skin.
00:09:22
Speaker
And I'm going to just casually walk up and put my wrapped hand kind of on his shoulder, on his back as high as I can kind of reach and attempt to cast Lay on Hands and give him just some kind of blessing or healing with whatever capability I can.
00:09:43
Speaker
You walk up and when you put your hand on him, just like you've done so many times, and you just kind of do it almost without thinking, other than concern for your friend, that this process doesn't really take any effort on your part anymore. And you begin to say the little incantation that you know to say the little prayer to Helm, and you feel an emptiness and no spell is cast.
00:10:09
Speaker
Yeah, then I'm just gonna pat him on the back and kind of casually walk away like a good boy slap on the back We'll we'll get this cleaned up whenever I will whatever we get back to the Wild Hill Let's let's not focus on this. I think I think it's time to go back and and figure out what our next move is I Agree, we should make make some haste back to Wild Hill All right
00:10:34
Speaker
Okay, you see Gwendolyn like, while they're having the conversation, she's just over there muttering to herself trying to think of what it could be. And I guess when the group starts to move, she's gonna whisper to one of the trees, hopefully without anyone noticing while she is speak to plants. Okay. What will you say to the tree? I'm gonna ask it in Elvish. I am
00:11:04
Speaker
I know there's there's secrets around here, but but I need you to help me find out who who is doing this. And then that's it. So the other three of you, the trees start to sway like they're blowing in the wind. And you don't feel any wind. But you may just assume it's high up in the tree line. There's pretty high canopy here. But as the branches kind of clack together, Gwendolyn
00:11:31
Speaker
you pick out this groan of the branches that say basically it says they want to save us.
00:11:46
Speaker
at that point I think jocks are like it's starting to walk away and and the feeling the tree you'd look back and Gwendolyn we're we're heading out it yes and I'm just gonna think about that okay, I don't I Don't know Gwendolyn's confused. She's gonna be muttering the whole way home. Okay
Daven's Fears and Mutual Confidence
00:12:09
Speaker
All right. Uh, are we just walking back now? I guess most of us are. Yeah. We could speed it up if we need to. That's not that far, is it? Uh, you're a, you're probably just a few hours out of town. I think it was, yeah, you turned your, like, I think it was more like four or five hour walk. You turned it into about a couple hours flying. What, uh, what time of day is it? It's.
00:12:37
Speaker
It's about midday at this point. Safe to say if we walk back, it'll still be evening or like late into the night if we walk. It'll be evening, around dinnertime, maybe just after.
00:12:47
Speaker
OK. I'm in a hurry to get back myself, but I'm not trying to fly or nothing. I don't know if anyone else has. I do need to do things when I get back to town. Yeah, I don't have anything specifically to do. We could make a faster travel if we wanted to try to double speed it. But other than that, let's just walk.
00:13:12
Speaker
kind of mosey and gather our self. We haven't had a lot of time to just think, I think. Yeah, especially this morning.
00:13:20
Speaker
Okay, so as you walk through the forest, slowly, about a half hour, 45 minutes into your walk, slowly the sounds of the forest start to come back. They seem to have silenced and everything kind of ran away from this, whatever this creature was. But it seems like the threat being removed, everything is just kind of coming back. And so you hear birds again and that sort of thing after, you know, 45 minutes or so of walking. Any conversation, anything you guys are doing as you walk?
00:13:48
Speaker
I think if we're just kind of moseying with Gwyn talking to herself and Joxer kind of being focused on making sure she's keeping up as he was whenever we left, I'm going to kind of look over to Daven with a little bit of space between us and the other two. I think I have a problem and I think it... I don't really know how to handle it.
00:14:15
Speaker
Devin's looking at his hand and he keeps pressing his fingers together and as he pulls them apart, you see these little sparks of lightning that kind of stretch and then disconnect between his fingers. And he looks up at you and he's like, huh? What was that? I'm sorry. You saw my hand and you saw the glow that was in my hand when I had it unwrapped and I'm going to
00:14:33
Speaker
start to unwrap it and kind of hold it out. And you will see there's no glow anymore. And the brand that was there looks to, I guess, be just kind of healing or an actual scar now. I may have a problem. I don't know if I have any of my blessing anymore from hell.
00:15:00
Speaker
I'm afraid that I'm a lot weaker than I once was. I'm not sure I entirely understand what happened, what changed. I told you the story back at the Bogus Shack of the time in the battlefield right just before where I had called down to Helm and I guess essentially cursed his name on top of the mountain.
00:15:22
Speaker
The other night when we were back at the shack and I finally started to get the best sleep I'd had, I found myself slipped into dreams of my family back home. And more than that,
00:15:38
Speaker
I felt Helm's blessing over me, or at least an attempt to bless me either with more power, or I don't know what the intentions were, but after conversations I had with Mick back in town, and just what I had seen back at the fortress with Delmar, and the way that I had handled the battlefield, I don't think I have that connection to Helm anymore. I think he's forsaken.
00:16:11
Speaker
You're not wrong, but this is not the best time for that. We're walking back into a volatile town with
00:16:19
Speaker
More questions than answers it feels like and I have my hammer and that's it. I can't protect like I have before. I can't heal. I can't bless. I don't have that connection anymore. I'm just a dwarf with a hammer and a lot of not much else. Surely you had to know there was going to be consequences to denying your God, right? I suppose.
00:16:49
Speaker
Your training. I assumed that you had training with fighting, yes? It's been most of... I guess most of my adolescence, either behind a forge, hammer, or on a practice battleground. And I'm sure that that training was not done with your god, right? No. We still had our oaths we kept, but the training in and of itself was just tactics and...
00:17:15
Speaker
So you're not really a useless dwarf with a hammer. You're still the trained warrior that you've always been. You just maybe don't have some of the abilities you had before. But I've seen you on the battlefield just plenty of times to where you destroyed things with that hammer and it didn't take any magic for you to do so. I don't think there's going to be an issue with you being worse off than you were before. We'll make this work out and we'll find a solution for your problem. For now, don't feel like you're a useless part of this group. You're still our leader and you're still a capable fighter.
00:17:43
Speaker
I appreciate your confidence, and I want you to know I do share the same confidence in you and, well, the other two rascals back there. But I do want you specifically to know, earlier at the Bogus Shack, before Gwendolyn woke up, I had seen a side of you that I hadn't seen in our entire travels, something that I wouldn't call it fear, but uncertainty. I want you to know that
00:18:09
Speaker
I do consider you a friend enough that if you have problems or fears or concerns, we are here for you. Oh, don't be confused, friend. I have fears. I am terrified of what's happening, but there's nothing to do about it right now, so there's no reason to dwell on it. Understood. One problem at a time. First we gotta get back to town.
00:18:32
Speaker
We have to keep the two scamps back there from causing too many more problems before we have some solutions to the ones we already have. Why on earth would he touch it? I don't know. I sincerely hope that it's not going to cause problems for him. I don't know what it's capable of. We'll find out. I have a feeling it's going to be fine. I don't think he got enough on his fingers to really do anything. I'm more worried about that tree and it's spreading through the ground. But again, one problem at a time.
00:19:03
Speaker
One problem at a time. And I'm gonna keep walking. Okay. You just see Jox here patting Gwen on the back. You seem distracted. Are you okay? If it wasn't in this lesson, why would it be there? Could it be Denali? I just don't know. She's off and around the world. Just muttering away, not noticing.
00:19:29
Speaker
You just see Jocks are kind of like looking around like, oh, this is a little awkward and seeing the other two up front.
00:19:38
Speaker
Okay. It's like you're on a road trip and you're stuck in the backseat with that one person you don't get along with that well. You're best to make conversation. Or they just sleep every time they get in the car. They just sleep. Oh yeah. And you're like, man, why am I back here with the sleeper person?
00:20:01
Speaker
Otherwise I'll just keep kind of walking a mid distance making sure she doesn't get a sidetracked And she's like doing hand movements as well. So like she's like putting them out. She's putting them in She's putting it on just doing the thinking position on her face. She's just very gestury just hardcore not in the zone just freely walking and
00:20:23
Speaker
What's Dale doing? Oh, you'll hear Dale sometimes, like, when she's talking. Because it's kind of like she's talking to him, but he's just chillin' her bag, just chillin'. She'll pat it sometimes when she's mad. If she's like, like, no, don't say that, and she'll pat the bag. Not hard. But just like, get your stuff together.
00:20:50
Speaker
Nice. All right. Your journey continues like this and your conversation varies from thing to thing, topic to topic, or nothing at all as you just walk through the forest. You walk for a while and you recognize where the path becomes. It curves to the left and becomes the path that goes down into where the road to Wild Hill is.
00:21:19
Speaker
You start to walk through there and it's a little more familiar up to this point. You hadn't had much trail or path because you kind of follow this creature into the woods. But now you've made your way there pretty easily. And you get closer and closer to Wild Hill. You get to the point where you can even hear a little bit the sounds of the town and everyone make perception checks.
Ambush by Goblins
00:21:44
Speaker
I'm going to use my new D20 I got from Starbucks.
00:21:50
Speaker
Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen
00:22:13
Speaker
a little scurry up a tree behind you that is a little heavier and more hefty than the small little creatures that you expected. I immediately turn around. When you turn around and you look, you see just barely catch a light green foot of a goblin pull up into the tree and suddenly
00:22:40
Speaker
A maelstrom of arrows fly out of the trees around you towards all of you. Roll initiative. Oh, OK. Oh, that's not super great. Fifteen. Twelve for Jaxer. Seventeen. Craig's is fifteen. Twelve for Jaxer. Daven. I had a twelve as well. OK. Daven with the twelve.
00:23:08
Speaker
All right. So those arrows all fly out. I'm going to roll some attack rolls here. Did you say no? Arnoldy. Okay. So Gwen, you're first. You get four arrows shot at you. They shoot with an 18 to hit. Oh yeah.
00:23:37
Speaker
So four arrows fly out of the sky and hit you. You take 4d6 plus 8 piercing damage. What? Wow. I'll wait for the damage. 13 damage. As I get hit, I want to yell goblets. OK. And I did that wrong. Hang on one second. So the first one hit you for not 13 damage. Oh.
00:24:08
Speaker
seven damage. Um, the second one rolled a 15 to hit. Yeah, that hits. Okay. Third one's only a six and the fourth one's a 23. So six more damage and six more damage. So a total of, yeah, a bunch of damage. And then the next one flies at Krigs.
00:24:33
Speaker
That's four more arrows flying at Krigs. So it's 18. That hits. Nine, 20, 30, 20, and 15. So two hits. So that's four damage and then six, seven, eight damage. So 12 damage total. And then another group shoots at Joxer. 20, 30, 20 hits.
00:25:03
Speaker
A 11. Does not hit. 16. Does not hit. And nine misses. So one hit, four damage. I would like to use the reaction to catch that. Okay. So that is deflect missiles. And that's a 1d10 plus my decks. What are you, some ninja? Yeah, so I deflected.
00:25:32
Speaker
12 damage so it doesn't really matter it was only four so i grabbed it and uh i'm just gonna grab it i'm not gonna throw it back yeah you can't really see i mean there's arrows came out of the trees at this point that's all you know and then um then one arrow shoots out at davin one oh no this is a javelin it's only a four it misses oh he gets to throw two
00:26:01
Speaker
Second one's a 14. Still misses. Oh, good for you. Good for you. You have major. Good. Um, so you, so that one, two javelins land beside you. And then, then we get one more baddie turn here in the surprise round. I don't like it at all. His short bow.
00:26:31
Speaker
14. That is at Davin as well. Still misses. Yep. So let's see. Can he do? No, he can't do any of that stuff. Okay. All right. So there you go. That has, uh, you just got ambushed to these arrows, fly out of the trees. And some of you take some, some damage. Um, have you adjusted your damage in roll 20? Those of you who took damage.
00:26:57
Speaker
Yeah, I have. OK. Awesome. And so whenever you get hit with these arrows, you hear the goblins all start to start to kind of shout. And it's starting to get a little easier to to realize where they are as they they break. What's the term? They break their they break their stealth basically by getting a little bit ruckus in celebration of their surprise attack. Ruckus. That's a fun word.
00:27:28
Speaker
So now you see all these creatures around you, and Mr. Bad Man gets his, he was the 22 initiative, so he gets to go first. So he's going to, is he close enough to do that? No, he can shoot his, he has to shoot his shortbow. So you still don't see where this shortbow arrow is coming from, but he attacks Davin again, and this time he,
00:27:57
Speaker
fires it at with a 23 to hit yeah that hits and it does Mercy does a d6 plus 5 piercing damage so 7 piercing damage plus 66 sneak attack damage
00:28:18
Speaker
17 more damage.
Combat Skills and Surprises
00:28:20
Speaker
So at first I thought you said 66 sneak it back. No So that was 17 added on to that initial What was it seven seven? Yeah, so 24 total
00:28:34
Speaker
24 total damage as an arrow catches you right in the gut and just sinks in deep. And you look up and you barely catch a cloak, the back of a cloak as somebody leans back to put their backs up against the wall again. Or not a wall, up against a tree trunk again to try to hide. And then that brings us to Gwendolyn.
00:29:02
Speaker
Alright, would you say that the path that we're on is kinda dusty? Yeah.
00:29:07
Speaker
sick it's padded it's it's worn down a bit but yeah i mean it's it's still dirt and dust on the edges okay um i so when i get hit i am immediately going to fall to the ground um but i'm going to turn to a giant eagle and when that happens i'm just as soon as i go down and after i yell goblets i'm just going to immediately rush into the sky
00:29:32
Speaker
as an eagle, and I hope to make a dust cloud to protect them, but it may not protect them. OK. Let's say you might hurt them. You rise, you start to flap your wings and start to hover above them as they are, you know, as they're standing there on the trail and you do flap up some dust. And I'm going to say roll roll a
00:30:02
Speaker
Roll a D100. I'm going to say this isn't like you're in some like major dusty area. So I'm going to say it's minus. We'll do it minus 20, whatever you roll in your D100. And that'll be the percentage coverage they get. 80 minus 20, 60. So 60 percent coverage is half covered. So right now you're a little bit harder to see. So that's good for y'all. I believe it makes your AC go up to hip two or something like that. Half cover.
00:30:32
Speaker
I mean, I don't use that very often. I think that's right. Yep, half cover is a plus two, plus five to three quarter cover. So yeah, you did something. So yeah, and then you're hovering up there flapping and you're, because of how you're flapping your wings and stuff, the dust is rising up and then swirling underneath you. So you are now basically the giant eagle target above all this dust below you. And that's obscuring your friends. What else do you want to do?
00:30:59
Speaker
i just screech okay just a big old screech craig's where do you buddy sup are any of these actually on the ground no they're all in trees okay i am for the like first portion of my turn i don't want to
00:31:25
Speaker
Screw it. I am going to. Can I tell one of the trees that one of these are on? Like am I have I isolated which ones? Yeah, you can see there's one up in a tree. You can kind of see one aiming its bow down again or up at the eagle that's in the tree just to your south on the map here. There's this this tree right next to the to the trail there. And it's it's up a good 15, 20 feet up in this big tree. OK.
00:31:50
Speaker
Uh, my first reaction would be to try to call them, uh, get some sense into them because we don't want more goblet problems. Um, but this is a full blown ambush. So I'm going to approach the nearest tree and without any magic or any range or anything, I'm going to confidently swing as hard as I can at the tree that it is sitting on and try to break it much like I did that one time. All right. Make a attack roll against the tree.
00:32:20
Speaker
Uh, 25. Oh, okay. So you, you swing as hard as you can and you're relying solely on your strength, your ability, and you hit this tree and it starts to bend down. And as it does, this goblin jumps out of it and tucks and rolls on the ground beneath it.
00:32:48
Speaker
and it lands on the ground and hits the ground next to it behind the goblin just ahead of you toward and it fell southward. And so that goblin is now still there and still fine. It's just right there on the ground next to where that tree stood. Okay. And it is within a walking distance to me. I am going to approach it with a swiftness and swinging my hammer
00:33:18
Speaker
kind of over the side of me, over the top, and then try to just come down as it's trying to regain its composure, having just jumped off a falling tree. I'm gonna try to hit it as broadly as I can. With a two-hand attack. Well, that's a nat 20. Okay. All right, roll your damage. Four goblet. Yeah. Good job. That is six plus eight.
00:33:48
Speaker
So 14 plus 2 with dueling style is...
00:33:54
Speaker
Okay, so 16 demo. It is, you swing your hammer as you run up and just, I mean, your hammer's already in motion before you even reach this thing. You swing at it and just crush this creature at the shoulder and neck area, bending it sideways and throwing it over into the goblin that's hiding behind a stone next to it. And you kill the goblin you hit and you do three damage to the goblin that was next to it.
00:34:24
Speaker
Well, I'm harming it as well because you just slammed into it so hard. So anything else? That's all I can do. I don't really have. Okay. That was my attack and extra attack. I don't got much else. I don't got any bonus actions with no magic. Okay. All right. So four more arrows fly down this time, fly up this time. They're at Gwen up in the, up in the trees. No.
00:34:48
Speaker
The first one, the first one is not up in the trees. He's up in the air flying. The first one is a 13. Miss. Nine. Good Lord. Good Lord. Eight. Sixteen. Yeah, that hits. Hits. OK, so one hit. So you take a D6 plus two. So three, four, five piercing damage as an arrow lodges itself in the eagle's underside and
00:35:17
Speaker
that is it for those goblins and then another enemy attack as out of nowhere you don't see another another javelin is thrown and it is thrown also at well I don't think he can hit the eagle at this point so it's just thrown into the into the the crowd there towards krigsgaulder with a 21 to hit remember you have plus two because you're in half cover
00:35:47
Speaker
It aimed at me. Yep. Does not hit. Twenty one does not hit with with your cover. OK, so the the javelin flies by your face, Krigsgold, or just flies right next to you. And the dust swirls behind it as it flies by. Where to Daven now? All right, I'm going to look up and find where I can see two goblins within like 30 feet of each other. OK, is there an area where that is?
00:36:14
Speaker
You can see the ones in the trees to the northwest of where you're standing. There's one with the green dot, one with the blue dot on our map where you can see. I will aim at the closer one and I'm going to cast Chaos Bolt. So you guys see now is like the swirling energy of fire that turns into ice, that turns into lightning. Swirls around his legs, up through his arms as he throws up bolts forward.
00:36:36
Speaker
And I rolled a three, but you know what? I'm going to use my inspiration that I got like a lot of episodes ago. Nice. And I'm going to reroll that. Beautiful. I'm going to let you do that. I got a seven this time. What do I have? What's my plus? I don't even remember. It's been so long. That's a 14 to hit.
00:36:55
Speaker
Oh, that just misses. And you notice, as you cast that spell, that as the Chaos Bolt shifts between different types of damage, you know, you can kind of see the stream looking different as it shoots out of you. It's all laced with this electrical energy that flies through it, this lightning that goes through it. No matter what it is, it still has that element of lightning in it, but it sails by this goblin, it doesn't hit him.
00:37:25
Speaker
That's that's it. All right. We are at jocks are now. So I'm well, I guess technically right now I'm holding an arrow and then my rapier. OK. Yeah. And I think I would probably do it. Do I see the goblin in the tree to the east?
00:37:44
Speaker
yes yeah if you can see them on the map you can see them okay perfect then i i'd probably run up to that tree and then um climb up to to get to him and then for flavor i'd probably uh shove the arrow into the tree and try to jump off of that upwards okay cool uh just making acrobatics well make a
00:38:07
Speaker
Athletics check to shove that arrow in the tree as hard as you can so it can support you. Okay, so that is a 15 plus whatever athletics is, which is a number on a different page.
00:38:20
Speaker
That is 19. 19, so yeah, you run and you jump right off of that, or you shove that thing into the tree, you step on it and leap up. I'm not gonna make you roll for acrobatics, because monk stuff. And you reach up and yeah, you're up there, right eye level with this creature about eight feet up in this tree now. Okay, then he's gonna get a face full of rapier and fists. Okay. And let's see here.
00:38:48
Speaker
A 15? Is the AC that hits,
Joxer's Combat Efficiency
00:38:52
Speaker
exactly. Okay, perfect. And then two fists just to follow up. That will be an 18 and a 21. So three hits. All right, so... Show off. Okay, so the radio goes... So seven damage. Now, let me say something to you real quick.
00:39:15
Speaker
That seven damage kills it. Oh, wow. After you make that first attack and you punch this or you stab this thing and it dies. There is a creature down here beneath that tree. There's a goblin down there.
00:39:27
Speaker
Would you like to transfer that attack to that one? Yes, I can reroll if you want or I can just move it over. No, just roll the damage for it. OK, then you'll you'll see me. I guess like Nacho Libre just Sumo jumped down from the tree. Yeah. And so so that'll be five damage.
00:39:53
Speaker
and seven damage. So five and seven for both fists. Yeah. Yeah. So you swing that you come down both fists and just catch the thing and drive its head down into the ground landing on both your feet.
00:40:08
Speaker
Yeah, landing on landing on both feet, but you know, hunkering yourself down almost like a gorilla standing there with that goblins head underneath your two fists as it pops like a grape and you stand back up and you look around for what's next. And is that your whole turn? Yeah, that'll be it.
00:40:25
Speaker
Okay, then three, four arrows shoot down at, I'm gonna move Joxer's token here so I don't get confused. Actually, these four arrows are gonna shoot up at Gwendolyn still, up in the sky. The first one is a 20 to hit. Yeah. No, it's a 22 to hit, actually. 14 to hit. 14 breaks, it's a year. Okay, it was a 16. I'm adding two instead of four, like a dummy. 12 to hit.
00:40:55
Speaker
Okay, and then 21. Yeah. Okay, so the first hit is five damage. Second hit is seven damage. Oh my gosh. Third hit is seven damage. So 14, 19 total damage.
00:41:09
Speaker
Oh my gosh, this eagle has two HP. Oh boy. So this eagle's flapping up there, catching an arrow in one wing, an arrow underneath, an arrow in its neck, and Gwendolyn's staying up there, keeping that stuff swirling beneath you. And then we have another, let's see, I think we only have one more of this goblin group left, and it jumps down out of the tree and runs over to Krigs.
00:41:34
Speaker
in an attempt to kind of change the battle from arrows to hand to hand. And it makes its attack with its scimitar against Krigs. It rolls a large seven to miss Krigs. Oh, it just barely misses. Then it ducks back away and disengages from you.
00:42:00
Speaker
and hides itself back in the bushes back here with a stealth check of 20. Cool. I can't see it. Right. So it is hidden. Oh, I keep doing the wrong thing. So that will take us back to the top of the round now. So at the top of the round, certain somebody with a stealth check here.
00:42:29
Speaker
Ooh, not great. Except it's... Okay. So, 15. Anybody who's passed the perception better than 15? No. No. We're not a perceptive group. Okay. No. All right, then... What else can he do here? Nothing. Okay. So, that's gonna take us now back to Gwyn.
00:42:57
Speaker
Eagle! I am going to stop swirling, and I'm going to find this guy over in the trees, one of the goblins, and I'm going to attack from the trees. As an eagle, do it. In what manner do you attack this creature? I have multi-attack, so I'm going to use my beak and try to poke his eye out. Okay, which one? This one here that's in the tree to your west?
00:43:24
Speaker
Yes. Okay, so the big tree to your west, this goblin's kind of standing up near the top of it, poking its head up to shoot arrows down. But this eagle flies over to it with a beak and... 18 plus 3. 18 hits. Or 21 hits, actually. 2. I do 1d6 plus 3. So I do 7 piercing damage. That's what you needed. So you...
00:43:52
Speaker
fly over towards that goblin and it looks up and lifts its hands up, like to try to shoo you away, even though, I mean, you're giant, but you're able to peck at it with one big peck, just good enough to crack its skull and it just falls down out of the tree and hits the ground beneath it. That one is now dead. Do I, do you, I mean, I have another attack, but- Do you have enough movement to get to one of the other goblins you can see?
00:44:23
Speaker
Well, let's see. Twenty five. I can fly 80 feet. Oh, then, yeah, get to the other one and do it. I'm going to get my circles around them all. I'm going to go to the guy in the north. OK, there's a guy kind of north, just barely north, northeast to you. There's a you know, another this is probably one of the largest trees in the area with two goblins in it. It looks like this one is standing there. As you fly over, you do see another goblin near the back of the tree.
00:44:52
Speaker
with your keen eagle eyes. Oh, wow. So you fly over to that area towards those two? Yep. Okay. I want to do Talons first on this area. Talons, okay. Yep. Well, I mean, do you get two attacks or three? I get two. Total, two. Okay, so you've done one, so you get one more attack. Correct. And I rolled a 16 to hit. Yeah, that definitely hits. Whee!
Gwendolyn's Aerial Attack
00:45:21
Speaker
This one's 2d6 plus 3. 2d6. Uh-oh. I rolled two ones. Oh no. Plus three. You were just like, we're above two jokes. Five. Oh man. So five slashing damage.
00:45:37
Speaker
So you fly towards this thing, talons up, ready to go, and it turns its back to you and kind of cowers, and your feet scratch it, but it's only able to get the back of its head and down its back. And it's deep, but it doesn't kill the creature, is it? Still sits there trying to kind of catch its breath after that vicious claw attack. Gwendolyn feels good. She's got rage in her eyes. Nice. Eagle rage. Anything else? Nope, that's it.
00:46:06
Speaker
Craig. What is even alive at this point? Well, like there's one that's hidden that I do see. Yeah, it went off after it attacked me. There's one that I have. I don't think it's still up in the tree. This other one that's still attacking.
00:46:26
Speaker
Yeah, there's one down to your southwest a little bit still in a tree. You can see it there. Then there's the two that Gwendolyn are working on and there's arrows coming from places. You don't see goblins whenever the attack time comes. So there's some out there that you haven't seen yet as well. Cool. I am.
00:46:45
Speaker
How close am I? I mean, I guess I can try to climb the tree that the goblin is in. Yeah. I'm going to do that. I'm going to walk over to the tree and start climbing it. Put my shield on my back and kind of like satchel up my war hammer and start climbing the tree. And if my movement will allow me, I'm going to try to grab the goblin by the ankle and just pull it off the tree to the ground. 25.
00:47:08
Speaker
to the bottom of
00:47:27
Speaker
all about time is negative one okay let's see here oh hi that's a five okay so you get there you climb up and when you reach up for this creature's leg it pulls its leg up and draws its scimitar out nice and you've used your you've now dashed no you yeah you dashed because it took that much movement to get up the tree um
00:47:50
Speaker
So is there anything else you want to do? I guess you could have a bonus action if you wanted it. Um, if I dash, I don't think I can use an extra attack, can I? No. Okay. Well, I don't have any, I don't really need any bonus actions I can, I can do with my current weak boy. Okay. All right. Then that creature with its scimitar slices down at you as it's blue's turn now, blue goblin team.
00:48:15
Speaker
So he rolls his attack roll, plus four, man, it's only a nine. So he's gonna swing down and catch your armor. Ching! Ching's off your armor. I'm like a little dormant turtle at the moment. Yeah, you kind of are. He swings down and you pull your head down into your armor with your shield. Oh, that's an amazing visual. Like your turtle in the turtle shell. And then, ching! It hits the shield above your head there and you poke back up and smile at it. Like, uh-uh!
00:48:44
Speaker
Yeah, so and then we go to someone else here and This creature can't throw anything else So you suddenly see? Another goblin come out from behind the trees over here, but this goblin is not like the others. He's a little bigger He's got a tuft of hair on the top of his head that that has some braids and some gemstones kind of in it and he steps out into the middle of the road 5 10 15 20 20
00:49:13
Speaker
And he... Let's see. Sorry, dead air as I look at this guy's movement speed. Yeah, it's only 30 feet. He's a little fella. So he just runs up over to get closer to where the action is and drawing out his... drawing out his scimitar as well. And that takes us to Davin.
00:49:39
Speaker
Uh, I'm going to look at Craig's trying to crime a tree to kill a goblin. And I'm just going to shake my hands with melee fighters. And I'm going to cast the ultra magical special spell mage hand as my action. Although you don't see anything. Um, and then I can now as a bonus action, because I have this ability now, I can shove a target. So I'm going to shove that goblin out of the tree. Okay. It has to make a DC 15 strength check.
00:50:04
Speaker
Strength check. Perfect. I was going to ask what the rolling situation is there. So a DC 15. Yep. It's got a minus one and rolled a six. So that's a five. So he gets pushed forward toward me five feet. So hopefully it's out of the tree. So, so Krigs, you're looking up at this goblin grinning, ready to reach up and grab its feet. As you begin to move your hand, it just looks like it leaps off the tree head first. It just starts to fall down and it takes,
00:50:35
Speaker
It takes literally seven damage as it falls 20 feet and dies. Next snapping when it hits the ground and flops down dead beneath you. There was a killsteal going on right there. Anything else, Devin? I was leaving them for you, but you get this big eye. I hope I win and I'll go running back toward the other goblins. Okay. All right. Are you gonna stay along the path or do you want to go down into the trees or what?
00:50:59
Speaker
I'll go just like right down the middle of the path underneath goblins wings flapping above him and seeing the goblins hiding that we're hiding he now can see the two up in that tree ready to help out over there and then that takes us to Jox's turn
00:51:18
Speaker
You can see after killing the goblin in front of him, his mood changes and he just gets extremely frustrated. He reaches and grabs some rope. I can see the one that walked closer to us.
00:51:37
Speaker
Yeah, he's standing under that tree to your west. Yeah, so you're just gonna see Joxer walk over and try to just wrap him and tie him up in rope, start grappling him. Okay, yeah, make a grapple. Okay, and that one's strength, right? Yep. And I'm gonna use a luck, because the two's not gonna cut it. All right, so that one is a 16. A 16?
00:52:06
Speaker
Looking up grapples here to grapple. Is it just an attack? It's just a strength versus strength, I think it is. OK, I was wondering if it was that or not. So, yeah, rolled a nine or a 10. So your.
00:52:19
Speaker
You're able to grab him and start wrapping this rope around him. And I'll say you get it wrapped around three or four times, starting to wrap it kind of tightly. And he is grappled by you. His movement is zero. He still holds his scimitar in his hand, though. And then you're going to hear abnormally loud for as close as Joxer is. Is it Denaldi who sent you? OK. All right. Is that all? Great. All right, then it is.
00:52:45
Speaker
These goblins turn up here. Uh, the one that's being attacked by Gwendolyn Gwendolyn, how far up did you, did you stay down near close to this guy or did you hover back up a little bit? I hovered up a little bit. It was kind of like a talent and go. Yeah. He's going to shoot an arrow at you then. Oh, he only rolls a 13. Yay.
Daven's Magical Support
00:53:09
Speaker
So 13 misses the other goblin, actually three goblins, fire arrows at Daven.
00:53:16
Speaker
The first one rolls a 19. I'm going to cast Shield as my reaction, so it misses. Okay. Second one rolls a 20, Dirty 20. That hits. Third one rolls a 11. That misses. So one arrow catches you for a d6 plus two, so six total damage. You take six more damage there. Davin. So the goblins
00:53:42
Speaker
These four arrows one flies up at the eagle the other three fly down at dab and hitting the dirt next to him and then one of them catches catches him right in the in the leg and Then we are Over to this other sneaky guy here. He's gonna try to stay sneaky Come over to this area. He is Yeah, okay, and then we are Not to somebody else here so here we go so I
00:54:12
Speaker
Perfect. Suddenly, Kriegskalder, two daggers fire up at you, or thrown at you. The first one, the first one is a 27 to hit. Oh, I'm gonna say that doesn't hit, but that'd be a lie. And then an 18 to hit. That doesn't hit. Okay. So the first one hits the D4.
00:54:39
Speaker
plus five nine plus six D six sneak attack damage. Jeez. Sneak attacks. No joke. That's how we do it. All right. So that is, Oh man. 18 more damage on top of that other. What was the first head for? Cause I totally dipped out. As soon as you said 60, nine, nine, nine damage. Okay. So 27 total. Yeah.
00:55:09
Speaker
Wow. And this dagger, just these daggers just fly up out of nowhere. One of them catches the tree next to you. And then the other one lodges itself right next to your collarbone, right in this little gap in your armor. And and blood just kind of starts to pour out of your out of your chest there. And when it was it was thrown with expert accuracy, as you could tell from the way it hit you. Gwendolyn, right. You haven't screamed out. Use your turtle shell.
00:55:38
Speaker
Um, I want to do something a little different. I am going to circle around and I'm going to come back and pick up the guy that I talent. Okay. And I'm going to chuck him at the other one. That's right next to us. I love that. That's so good. Okay. Great. Goblin missile, goblin missile. Yep. All right. So you grab him and I'm going to say, uh, go ahead and make your grapple check just to, you know, just to roll dice. Cause I know you're going to hit him. This is minus one to strength.
00:56:08
Speaker
Well, he rolled an 18. It's a total of 13. Okay, so you reach down to grab him and he's able to kind of push himself back away from your talons towards a branch and you grab more branch than goblin. And so he weasels his way out and is able to escape your grasp. You're not able to grab him and pull him up. He rolled an 18 on his strength check. Oh. Sorry, the dice didn't want you to do it.
00:56:38
Speaker
Anything else you'd like to try? Do you have multi-attack? Yeah, could I do it again? Try it again. Okay. Coming back down, Adam. Juggling garblins. 16, 17, 18, 19. Okay, he rolled a 10. There it is. So you're able to grab him. I'm gonna stick two talons straight in his eyes. I'm just gonna chuck him.
00:57:01
Speaker
All right, so you chuck him. I'm going to just let you make a... That's nasty. Ranged attack. Okay. With a goblin. Against the other goblin, with this goblin, using the dexterity of the eagle. Okay. Shouldn't it be the dexterity of the goblin? It should not, no. But you do not get any proficiency on this, so it's just the dexterity bonus and the roll. I love the fact that you're not proficient with goblins.
00:57:28
Speaker
You're not proficient. The eagle is not proficient with throne goblin weapons. I rolled a total of 13. Okay. Well, you throw and it flies over this goblin's head and lands with a fud behind it on the dirt path behind this goblin. And he looks up at the eagles terrified, seeing what you just did to this one as an eyeball falls off your talon. I'm just glaring at this goblin. As you just stand there flapping your wings, staring at the goblin. Krigs.
00:57:59
Speaker
I'm up in a tree, I'm hurt. I'm gonna finish pulling myself up to the top of the tree that I'm on. I can't really attack anything because I don't have range and I can't reach anything melee style. So I'm gonna sit there and try to figure out where the heck that dagger came from. Okay, make a perception check. All right. 16. 16.
00:58:24
Speaker
You're looking around and you look down beneath you and you think you might see a. You think you might see somewhere where someone was like where the ground has been shifted and stuff, but you don't see anybody there now. All right, that's my turn. OK. All right, I'm going to pull the dagger out. OK, you successfully removed the dagger.
00:58:51
Speaker
with no drama necessary. As much fun as drama is, it's not necessary. And then three arrows fly out at Joxer from the trees to his southwest. So the first one is a 17. Just hits. And then 21. Hits. And then 23. Definitely hits.
00:59:16
Speaker
So the first the first hit is six damage. Second is seven damage. The third is five damage. All right. 18 total of 18 damage.
00:59:31
Speaker
And so these arrows fly from above from over there to your west above you up in the trees and they just all of them sink themselves into your arm and shoulder and yeah, stings like crazy.
00:59:47
Speaker
So that now takes us to the guy that you have wrapped up right in front of you. He just looks at you after you say, did Darnaldi send you? And he just, and he shows his scimitar up trying to get it up into your belly and makes his first of two attacks with a scimitar.
01:00:06
Speaker
That is not going to do it. That's an eight. The second one. Oh, man, is a 10. Nope. So he's he's restricted by that rope as you're continuing to try to wrap it around him. And he's kind of trying to swing that thing up and get it inside of your of your belly there. And it's just not he's not able to, you know, find you find his target. So he's unsuccessful. Davin.
01:00:27
Speaker
All right, looking up, do I see, I think this one goblin is gone, right? That she kind of tossed. Are there more than just the other one that's in front of me, like north of me in tree? That's all you can see is the one up in the tree north of you. You can make a perception check to see if you see any more. Would that take my action to do that? Yes. Well, then I'm not going to do that right now. I'm going to use my bonus action. Now, I'm just going to cast Chaos Bolt on that same guy or the one that I see.
01:00:55
Speaker
This time it's a 16 to hit that will hit and it's going to be 13 that's 17 damage. What kind of damage though? That's the question. That is the question. That's the beauty of Chaos Bowl. It's 13 poison damage Okay, no, so it was an image 17 poison damage. Did you roll your d6 for lightning damage? Oh, I did not Is it one or two? Do you remember?
01:01:23
Speaker
It was just one and it's a six. So it's 23 total damage. So this thing gets covered in this poison as it sprays all over him and it sprays this, this poison and he.
01:01:37
Speaker
and starts to choke and grabs onto his throat as this stuff oozes off of him and it suddenly just jolts he gets this jolt of electricity as well and he just and he falls down and when he hits the ground off this tree he is he is smoking from the lightning and he is
01:01:56
Speaker
His mouth you can see where it's foamed up really bad from the poison that got all over went inside of his of his body And he is dead Anything else? Yeah, I'm gonna move back the other direction About most of my movement not all the way and then I'm going to use my bonus action to move the mage hand down toward joxer Okay, so I can move 30 feet, but nobody sees that
01:02:17
Speaker
right okay so you moved southwest along the trail there and camped out kind of under a tree and moved that mage hand to where it's hanging out over by joxer yep is that it that is my turn then it's joxer's turn um i'd like to try to actually finish tying and restraining this uh
01:02:37
Speaker
I and I'm not too sure if there's any specific rules. If it's another strength check or anything, let's just do another contested strength check as he struggles and we can take him from grapple to restrained at that point. If you succeed.
01:02:49
Speaker
That is a nat 20. So did I. Really? Really, I swear. I'll take a picture of it. No, I can do the same either way. I really doesn't want to be tied up. My strength is a one. His is a zero. So you are success. It's everything you've got. And this takes your whole turn.
01:03:09
Speaker
but you're able to wrap him up and tie it up to where he's now restrained. He's stuck inside this this rope you've tied him in where he cannot he cannot move at all or do anything. He can't even swing his arms around or anything. You probably could have said something while you do that, but that's about it. I think I'm going to be after seeing the scimitar trying to gut me. I'm I'm just going to grunting and irritation. OK. All right, then.
01:03:39
Speaker
That takes us to two more goblins who make two attacks at Gwendolyn as that eagle. No. The first one is a 14. The second one is a 10. No. Did the 14 hit? Yeah. OK. The 14 hits. So that is four damage. I'm no longer an eagle.
01:04:07
Speaker
Okay. How high up are you flying? I actually don't know. You just finished throwing that goblin to try to hit the other goblin tree, at least above the tree, which is about 30 feet. Okay. I was about to say 40 feet, so let's stick with 40. 40 feet. Okay. 40 feet. Now that I got rid of it, I have time to use it.
01:04:36
Speaker
It's a d6 per 10 feet you fall. Okay, so 4d6 It's 11 damage. You got off easy with two ones on that one Alrighty 11 damage as you fall but hit the ground no longer an eagle But thankfully still have all of your items and clothing with you when you hit the ground
01:04:56
Speaker
You look up and you see the face of a goblin that was down under the trees where you couldn't see him. And he swings his scimitar at you whenever you land. You're still laying prone. So he gets advantage on the attack. Oh, sorry. Why? That's OK. He rolled a two and a four. So he gets a total of eight total to hit you. I'm going to beat him up. So you roll out of the way as he swings down and he hits dirt and he looks up at you and ha.
01:05:24
Speaker
grunts at you, and we are back to another guy's turn. I had back at him. Krigs, are you still up in the tree? Currently, yeah. I'm just kind of looking down. I don't have anything I can majorly do, and I'm waiting for an opportunity to be able to do something. He's basically just the judge in a tennis match right now.
01:05:46
Speaker
Fault. Okay, so what happens is you are standing there and you pull the dagger out and it pulls out of your hand and flies away from you and the dagger pulls out of the branch next to you and flies away from you. I don't like that. And it flies behind you towards the tree where Joxer is standing and then suddenly Joxer two daggers fly your direction. With a natural one,
01:06:16
Speaker
and a, what's the plus to hit on that? 17 to hit? That will hit. Okay. Ooh, man. So six plus 66.
01:06:33
Speaker
I think before you say it, I'm going to do another deflect missile just so you know. OK. All right. Well, it was 20 for 26 total. Oh, God. I'm at least reducing it. Where'd the D10 go? That is I got a 10 and plus 3. So I reduced it by 13 damage. OK. So it became, instead of 26, it becomes 13.
01:06:59
Speaker
And then suddenly you see, because he used up too much to hide again, you see standing there under the tree just about five feet away from you, you see a human man in robes and leather pants and he's got a cloak on and he's holding
01:07:20
Speaker
He's lifting his hand up to draw his daggers back and he has a rapier in the other hand and he grins at you and gives you a little wink.
Call to Action for Listeners
01:07:29
Speaker
Who saw that? Josh. Yeah, I'm so livid.
01:07:48
Speaker
Thank you for listening to this episodic installment of The Hired Swords. You're right, Michael, I do say that, okay? If you liked our show, tell a friend about us. And if you really liked our show, tell the world. Leave a review. If you want to keep up with us and get all the behind-the-scenes goofs and gaffs, you can find us on Twitter and Facebook at The Hired Swords. And again, thank you for listening.