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We are PBOP - a TTRPG actual-play podcast where we pretend to be other People! Join us for, hilarious improv, immersive storytelling, and an original score to set the mood. Subscribe now and adventure along with us - for excitement, for love, and for giggles!
The Feywild. Some say there is no realm closer to our own than the Feywild. Day and night does not pass on the face of a clock, but along a great distance as you travel from one horizon to the next, walking out of daylight and into night. And while there are beautiful parts of the Feywild with gentle, benevolent creatures, that is not where we are. Here in the farthest reaches of darkness, in the withered heart of ancient, unseel y territory, only things crueler than death itself can survive.
Tim / GM:Here, the night is eternal and the forests are lush with eager death. The sky is a window to the clouds above, transitioning from a violet, to a sickly green, to a feeble red in the evening, but never enough light to see by. The poison ground here offers no refuge, no sustenance, no comfort. This is no place for mortals and yet, last time, on Cloudfall, each of our heroes plummeted into this strange new land and survived. Some, not for the first time.
Tim / GM:Journey. When you were little, back with your tribe, back when your name was what was your name back then?
Tara / Journey:I think that Journey was small, and I think that they just called her littlest.
Tim / GM:Back when you were littlest, you had an especially delightful dinner one night with your tribe sitting around a fire, and the harvest was just something special. The night was crisp on your skin. And afterwards, you took a long walk in the woods just before sunset. Where did you go, and what were you looking for?
Tara / Journey:I would I don't know. I I think she was always a wanderer and liked finding little bits and pieces and leaves that had a fun shape or flowers where the petals grew the wrong way, and it made them interesting. And just little ways to interact with nature and find its patterns and find the things that broke those patterns.
Tim / GM:At the end of that walk, you enter into a clearing surrounded by a medley of pines and oak trees, and you do find something that breaks the pattern there. In the crisp, late summer air that's filling your lungs, and the buzz of wildlife all around you. You're looking out at the sunset, and just as that last molten glimmer of golden sun is about to disappear over the horizon, just as the soft violet twilight of the evening creeps over the forest, you see a creature standing tall in the shadows. So beautiful, so powerful, you could do nothing but stare. She was tall and thin, taller than any living thing you'd ever seen before, delicate antlers raising from her graceful, angular face, and a long draping robe with the blues and violets of dusk spilling over her shoulders.
Tim / GM:She looks at you like she had been waiting for years, and her smile makes you feel like you were waiting for her all along. She says, hello. What took you?
Tara / Journey:I don't know, but I I think I've been looking for you.
Tim / GM:She smiles even bigger, maybe a little too big just for a second, she says. I'm so excited. Aren't you?
Tara / Journey:I think so.
Tim / GM:Don't you wanna come with? Don't you wanna come with me?
Tara / Journey:Where are we going?
Tim / GM:Not far, and we can come back anytime.
Tara / Journey:For a second, she looks back the way she came, and then kinda gives a little hop and then runs after this being.
Tim / GM:She glides next to you as she walks. Seems 10 of your paces to her one. She reaches down and takes your hand, and she says, but we don't walk there. We just go there. It doesn't take long.
Tim / GM:Just look at the sunset.
Tara / Journey:Alright.
Tim / GM:You do, and you focus on the sunset, that last little speck of golden light, and it's dancing in your vision and it never seems to go out completely, But meanwhile, your vision goes dark around it. And when you break your gaze, you realize you're standing in a new world entirely, and that speck of sunlight begins to gently bob up and down, and you see several others join that light of several different colors. These glowing sprites start to surround you in the magical twilight of the Feywild. Now you're in the Feywild journey, but you're in no part that you had ever seen before. It's dark here, so dark that you can barely see beyond the glow of your own Feybud swarm, which is now only half as bright as nearly half of your fey buds have departed in a frantic search for the rest of your party.
Tim / GM:You landed in a weird spot. You can tell there's a drop off nearby, a cliff, some running water. You can see in the underbrush that there's withering grass and a thick blanket of fog. It's cold to the touch.
Tara / Journey:When she landed, Journey dropped into a crouch and kind of instinctively became that most, like, primal and savage version version of herself. And just instead of using it as a scare tactic like she does in the, you know, material plane, she just dropped into it and kept it.
Tim / GM:Journey, you may notice at this time, looking through your inventory, that several items are labeled missing.
Tara / Journey:Mhmm.
Tim / GM:Pay close attention to those things that are missing all of you because during that fall into the Feywild, most of your important belongings were scattered.
Maggie / Poppy:Hey. I don't have pinch anymore. You took my Oh.
Hannah / Eryn:Took my crossbow.
Tara / Journey:I got no echo bells.
Thomas / Guy:Oh, yeah. That's big.
Maggie / Poppy:My pinch is gone.
Thomas / Guy:It's like 1 or 2 episodes after we established, like, okay, we just all have echo bells.
Maggie / Poppy:Yeah. Not too long.
Thomas / Guy:You do.
Tim / GM:You each have an echo belt. It's it's a string of all your echo bells, and they're all gone. That's what you get for consolidating.
Maggie / Poppy:Easy to
Hannah / Eryn:Damn it.
Maggie / Poppy:All of our stuff has gone too.
Tara / Journey:I got no ammo. I got my bow, but no ammo. Alright. Yeah. I was can I do a perception check just to see if any of my stuff is around me?
Tim / GM:Yeah.
Hannah / Eryn:23.
Tim / GM:Very good. Some of stuff is around you.
Tara / Journey:Some of stuff?
Tim / GM:I wasn't even gonna say your stuff. Here's the deal. You find one arrow head down in the dirt. Okay. A little blunted from the fall, but it should still fly.
Tara / Journey:Alright. Yeah. I grab it, and I put it in my pocket. My pocket. I don't know
Maggie / Poppy:I don't know if I have a quiver.
Tim / GM:With a 23 journey, you also find, hanging on a low branch, a copper bangle.
Tara / Journey:That's Aaron's.
Tim / GM:Aaron's Ganymede bangle.
Tara / Journey:Okay. I I took that away. Wait. I put it on.
Tim / GM:You feel a sort of quickened attunement here. It feels frantic, and it's a little exhausting when it happens. It's vibrating against your wrist as you put the bangle on. You hear Ganymede's voice crackling at first as it comes through, and he says, hello.
Tara / Journey:Ganymede, this is Journey. It's not here. I'm sorry.
Thomas / Guy:Oh, this is a new view.
Tara / Journey:Probably a little taller.
Tim / GM:Sure.
Tara / Journey:We're in a a bit of a situation. We're in the the Feywild and
Tim / GM:We're home.
Tara / Journey:Home is a strong word for where we are right now.
Tim / GM:Okay. Okay.
Tara / Journey:We all got separated and we'd, I don't have my piece of you, and I have errands. I don't know how it happened.
Tim / GM:I don't know myself. I didn't see it happen. I wasn't around.
Tara / Journey:Is there anything you can tell me about where the other pieces of you are?
Tim / GM:Hard to say. It feels far away. Usually, when you're all palling around, it like, can sense that we're close, but right now, no.
Tara / Journey:Okay. Well, maybe I'll need you later, but for now, I guess I'll just try to figure it out. Okay. Because we fell, I don't think I can necessarily track from my position to another person's position because we all landed where we landed.
Tim / GM:Right. Yep.
Tara / Journey:So I think what I'm gonna do instead is cast primeval awareness Mhmm. To try and sense guy
Tim / GM:Oh, hell yeah.
Tara / Journey:Just to see if he's present. It says it doesn't reveal their location
Tim / GM:Mhmm.
Tara / Journey:But it says whether he would he is in a mile radius of me.
Tim / GM:Yeah. You do I'm kinda focusing on the undead part of this. You do sense undead, and it's similar to what you would feel around Guy, except you can tell that it's in 2 different places. Okay. Just looking around here in that same perception check, you can see that you're on kind of a high overlook.
Tim / GM:You're above a waterfall actually. I mean, it's dark as hell. You can hear it before you can see it, but you're standing on top of a waterfall, these streams tumbling down the cliffside.
Tara / Journey:With that primeval awareness, I'm just guessing that there's gonna be just a chockablock full of fay.
Maggie / Poppy:I mean, that's the entire place.
Tara / Journey:Yeah. Okay.
Tim / GM:It was only useful to focus on the undead.
Tara / Journey:Yeah. Okay. I think that what I'm gonna do is start hiking along the body of water with the assumption that someone's gonna try and find water.
Tim / GM:When you're watching the water here, you see that on its surface is this thin layer of black fog that is always rolling across it. You notice it plumes out from your feet when you step on the grass here. It's kind of like stepping in silt in a stagnant pond or a lake where it just kind of plumes out around your foot everywhere you step, this black fog. As you're following this body of water, with Ganymede's help, you can see a good distance away. Looking down from the falls, you see a glint of green.
Tim / GM:You recognize it for the flames of Guy.
Tara / Journey:Journey's gonna go find that. Tara thinks that's a different Dullahan, but Journey's gonna go find that and thinks that it's Guy.
Tim / GM:It's a long way down. You are on a cliff. This is a waterfall, and it's almost pitch black.
Tim / GM:I don't
Tim / GM:know what your dark vision is like.
Tara / Journey:It exists. Okay. Maybe. Let me make sure that's true. I know.
Tim / GM:Yeah. So challenging to see.
Tara / Journey:Do I know that in this area of the Feywild that it's ever gonna get lighter? I have to travel toward light to get to light?
Tim / GM:That's your assumption.
Tara / Journey:Okay. Shoot. I'm on a a ridge, a higher ridge.
Tim / GM:Yeah. Yeah.
Tara / Journey:Can I look around and see where the lightness is on the horizon?
Tim / GM:You think you see a lighter horizon
Tara / Journey:Okay.
Tim / GM:That strikes you in that moment. You are so far from it.
Tara / Journey:I'm far from it, but going toward it will make it closer.
Tim / GM:True.
Tara / Journey:I'm just gonna start heading toward the light k. And hope that that gets me something to work with.
Tim / GM:Okay. Doran, you are accompanied by a pair of Faye buds swirling around you and Mikey, and they're getting between any of those red caps that dare come close to you. You see one of the red caps wielding some kind of spear. It's like a stick with someone's knife, like, strapped to it kind of thing. One of the Fey Buds strikes out the redcap because it gets too close, and when it collides, you can see a sparkling burn across the redcap's face, and it squeals in agony as it spins away and runs off into the woods.
Tim / GM:Can I start by rolling, like, a a knowledge check or something to to that effect to know if if I've seen these before, if I can speak to them
Tim / GM:at all? Yeah. I will do it. You can either do survival since that's applicable here. You could also do history because I sometimes use those for personal history checks.
Tim / GM:Okay. I'll do history. 20.
Tim / GM:Yeah. Redcaps are pretty unmistakable. Their faces are always covered in blood. Their hair is always slick and dark with blood. They crave weaponry and wear heavy iron boots.
Tim / GM:You would know these anywhere.
Tim / GM:And do I know if they can speak, common intelligent creatures?
Tim / GM:I don't know if they can speak common. Sorry.
Thomas / Guy:Well, we met one who can speak. Right?
Tim / GM:We did. That, we did. Yeah. Let's do that.
Tim / GM:Okay. So, Doran places his hand on Mikey's shell just kind of looking at them. So there's, like, several?
Tim / GM:At first, there were a lot that were coming straight for you. When those Faye buds showed up, they kind of don't dare to go in the glow of those things. You still hear them lurking, and occasionally, though, they're close enough to see, you just know that you're surrounded. If those lights go off, you and Mikey are dead in seconds.
Tim / GM:Okay. And sorry for all the questions, but, like, do they produce enough light that I can kind of see?
Tim / GM:So I Yep. Totally.
Tim / GM:I will try to get my bearings and try to figure out where I might be able to find some sort of shelter.
Tim / GM:Yeah. Yeah. Give me a perception checks with advantage. 15. You notice the same thing that Journey did, that the ground here is covered in this black fog everywhere you step, and you might have seen something like this, but this is very different from the first time you were here, it wasn't this bad.
Tim / GM:At the same time, the the glow of those Fay buds might have been working against you in some respect because for all the brightness, you weren't able to see very far, but when you cup your hands around your eyes to look out into the distance, you see a black lake that is familiar to you. The surface of the water is completely obscured by that undulating fog. In the distance, you see a gleaming tower rising up to the clouds.
Tim / GM:How are you doing, Mikey? We can talk a little bit now. Well, are
Thomas / Guy:we are those things gonna eat us?
Tim / GM:They'll try. But if we stay close and if we can find others, we might be okay. K. You can see pretty well. Right?
Tim / GM:Yeah. Okay. Well enough.
Tim / GM:Alright. If you see anything of that fell with the skyline, anything we can use, let's keep keep our
Tim / GM:eyes open and try to spot that. I didn't even think about that. Should we be watching out? And he, like, looks up.
Tim / GM:Probably not looking up. Anything that's on the ground, let's watch our step. I don't wanna lose sight of you, so we're gonna make our way towards that lake down there. Okay?
Tim / GM:Looks scary. I mean, it's all black. It is. There's a what is that? What is that?
Tim / GM:You'll see as we get closer. And, I'll kind of, make my way towards the lake, but I'm gonna try to stay on higher ground so I can kinda get a sense or see more. I really don't have great vision off of the Fay buds. Yeah. But, Mikey does have dark vision.
Tim / GM:So Perfect. Yeah. Hopefully, he'll be able to see something.
Tim / GM:You find a overlook about 10 feet up from the edge of the water, so you've got a little bit of height here to get a lay of the land or a lay of the lake as it were. And you can see that tower, the one that you had to ascend to get home. But you see something new. Several somethings. But Mikey sees it first.
Tim / GM:There's a shifting in the light from above, and for one split second, you can see a massive, dark land mass sitting in the lake. Jutting out at a crooked angle, you see the crumbling towers of Lor. Lor, it is. Is that is that lore?
Tim / GM:I'm afraid so, Mikey. Looking at it, does it seem like it was a really violent crash, or did it
Tim / GM:The part you're looking at, you can actually see the bell tower is still standing strong. A few of them are still intact all around there. But what you also notice, there's pieces of lore miles away from itself. Okay. Doren, judging by the color of the sky, this green going yellow, you only have 2, 3 hours before real dark.
Tim / GM:Okay. We'll have to talk about this later, Mikey. Hopefully, we can find some of our friends.
Tim / GM:Well, can we just go there? What if Doreen, what if maybe we should just go look.
Tim / GM:Hey, Mikey. If if he's okay, if any of them are okay, they had to get inside because it's dark now. It's gonna get darker, and we need to be somewhere safer. There's nowhere safe here, but we need to get safer. This isn't good, and we may see them in that tower.
Tim / GM:We'll we'll have a chance to look. K. We'll probably be here for a while.
Tim / GM:I wish you had a shell.
Tim / GM:Me too. Just got a gambeson.
Tim / GM:A god gambeson.
Tim / GM:K. So, yeah, After getting that kind of, like, look, we'll make a more direct path towards the tower at this point.
Tim / GM:Okay. Yeah. When you get down to the edge of the water, the attack before was rather simple. There were stones, land bridges, things that would help you get to that tower in the middle of the lake here. But things have shifted.
Tim / GM:Things have set off the water levels in this lake. You're going to have to go from skylend to skylend to get to the tower.
Tim / GM:Okay. I'm assuming we should stay out of the placid dark water. Right?
Tim / GM:You had seen some of this fog before. It is 10 times thicker now, and it is everywhere, and your new experiences that you've had since then allow you to recognize what this is. It's the very same stuff dripping off of those creatures that have assailed you time and again.
Tim / GM:K. Right. Mikey. I'm gonna kind of, like, grab him and have him face me. I'm gonna cast enhance ability on Mikey and give him Kat's grace, which just gives him advantage on deck's check so he doesn't, like, slip or fall and can help move more stealthily with me, hopefully.
Tim / GM:I'm so graceful. You are now.
Tim / GM:You always were a little. We may get to see a glimpse of lore earlier than I thought, so we're gonna have to make our way Skyland to Skyland. Okay?
Tim / GM:Okay. Do we get Guy's sword first?
Tim / GM:Yeah. Yeah. Where where is it? You Look around.
Tim / GM:Turn around, and, of course, Mikey spotted it first again with his dark vision. Yep. You see in a low grove behind you, it dips down a little bit into something of a pit.
Tim / GM:Mhmm.
Tim / GM:Moving through the trees here with dry, withered grass cracking beneath your feet and that black fog pluming up every time you step, just ahead of you, you see the silvery glint of the great blade of Lotem buried nearly to the hilt
Tim / GM:after it fell. K. Yeah. I'll move over not too quickly, make sure those Faybuds are with me, and then I'll reach down and grab it, and then, press the digitization, just, like, clean it as I pull it out.
Tim / GM:Give me a strength check. Okay. Well Give me both hands.
Tim / GM:That is a 2.
Tara / Journey:What, Mike? You get it.
Tim / GM:Are are
Tim / GM:you gonna pull it, Doren? Yeah.
Tim / GM:I just slipped a little bit. This back's a little sore from the fall. Do you mind helping me, Mikey, if you just grab the help with me
Thomas / Guy:and the small? I'll grab the little sidey bits.
Tim / GM:Yep. Yeah. Alright. 12.
Thomas / Guy:17. That's really it there.
Tim / GM:I don't think it's gonna budge.
Tim / GM:Okay. There's no good way for us to explain this to Guy when
Thomas / Guy:we see him that we couldn't pull his sword out. Are we gonna remember where this even is?
Tim / GM:Tell you what. Let's just dig a little bit and see if we can we don't have a lot of time, but it it might be good for him to have this.
Tim / GM:Yeah. That's a good idea. We'll dig around it instead. Okay.
Tim / GM:So, yeah, we're just gonna try to get, like, 6, 12 inches down a bit so that and then give it another tug.
Tim / GM:As you're digging, also being in this low pit here, that fog is kind of pooling into this area, and as Mikey's digging, you seem kind of accidentally huff a whole lungful of it. He reels back. He starts coughing and spitting and gagging. Says, Dora, I don't I don't feel good.
Tim / GM:Okay. Let's was that? Alright. Let's just go. Okay.
Tim / GM:I grab his hand, and we just try to move quickly and try to get to higher ground, try to get out of the fog. Is he able to move?
Tim / GM:He's able to move. He keeps closing his eyes hard, and looks like he's sweating. Stay with me, Mikey.
Tim / GM:Once we get a little higher, I'll I'll take a look. Can I roll, maybe an arcana check to see if this is something I might be able to dispel?
Tim / GM:I'll let you take arcana or medicine, whichever direction you wanna go. Somehow medicine's better for
Tim / GM:me, so I'll go with the medicine. Okay. 21.
Tim / GM:Doran, as you're examining Mikey, you get down close. You can see that he's I mean, he's still conscious. He's still looking you in the eyes, but he is fraught with peril at the same time. Even in the light of those Feybuds, you don't want to be tracked. You don't want to be seen.
Tim / GM:At the junction of these two ideas comes the same thing. The one thing that had saved you last time you were here, bark. Specifically, the bark of a parasolene birch.
Tim / GM:Okay. I'll check. We still have 2 feybuds with us? Yes. K.
Tim / GM:And it doesn't seem like this is, like, something I can just dispel from Mikey. It's just
Tim / GM:Might go away over time with other sickness, but it's it's slowing him down right now. K.
Tim / GM:Okay. You stay right here. I'll be right back. I'm just going to look around, and, I'll come right back, and we'll start a fire. Okay?
Tim / GM:He grabs at you. He says, please don't leave me here.
Thomas / Guy:I'm not
Tim / GM:gonna leave you. I'll be within your shot. Okay? If you need anything, just just yell. Okay.
Tim / GM:Yeah.
Tim / GM:You seem to recede into his shell, and one of the Feybuds swirls around him.
Tim / GM:K. I'll give him bardic inspiration. Mikey's as buffed as I can get him. And yeah. So I'm gonna head out, look to see if I can get any of the bark.
Tim / GM:Okay.
Tim / GM:Yeah. The other Fey bud comes with you, and I'll split between the 2 of you. Give me a survival check. That's a base y rule.
Tim / GM:Yeah. Sorry. So survival, I got a 5.
Tim / GM:I mean, it's just not here. There's nothing you can do about that. There's no parasolene birds around you.
Tim / GM:Okay. Still hearing the red caps around us, basically.
Tim / GM:Worse than that. They weren't running away. They were getting their friends. Good. Guy.
Tim / GM:Great. You are just your head. You hear something moving near you, but your head is turned the wrong way. It's breathing heavily, but it's not very large, but it sounds excited. Not 12 inches away from you guys, snagged on a thorny bush, you see your echo belt.
Thomas / Guy:I could get there. I could contact the others. Guy's trying not to make a lot of noise because he knows something is nearby that probably isn't friendly. His first move is gonna try to use his tongue as an appendage to crawl his head toward the echo bell.
Maggie / Poppy:Okay. That's horrible.
Tara / Journey:That's just awful.
Tim / GM:I have to make a ruling here. I'm going to call this athletics.
Thomas / Guy:Oh, gosh. Brilliant. How strong these guys' tongue is?
Tara / Journey:Tongue strength. Yeah.
Maggie / Poppy:He does tongue push ups like
Thomas / Guy:here. 1, 2, 3. Athletics?
Maggie / Poppy:Yes. 22. Wow. That tongue is beefy.
Maggie / Poppy:What the fuck?
Hannah / Eryn:Wow. Okay. La lengua.
Maggie / Poppy:God. It curls up and it has little bites of just an arm a little r
Hannah / Eryn:beat actually his tongue. It comes out and it's like, And
Maggie / Poppy:it, like,
Thomas / Guy:reaches up and wipes the sweat off of its
Tim / GM:upper lip. Guys, you you you stick out your tongue and your tongue flexes its abs.
Maggie / Poppy:And then it makes a clover shape, and
Tara / Journey:then Yeah.
Tim / GM:A tube.
Tara / Journey:It's a newspaper.
Tim / GM:I think what really happens, guy, is this is not the first time you've been in this situation. Mhmm. You throw your head off to its side. You get up on your mouth, and then you just spike your tongue as hard as you can. You get an inch at a time, and you're just pushing and rolling yourself.
Tim / GM:It's good when you can get a roll going because then you can just kinda carry on, but you are now directly beneath those echo bells and they're just above you. Turn your eyes to the side and you see it, the masked face of Smile Grin. He's whispering to himself in giddy glee. He says, I get to kill somebody. I get to kill somebody.
Tara / Journey:You're perfectly safe. Smile, girl, is canonically useless.
Maggie / Poppy:I was just thinking that
Tim / GM:His breathing is just utterly excited as he creeps on all fours through the tall grass toward you.
Thomas / Guy:Well, I watch him approach a bit. Yeah. If it becomes clear that he's heading right for me, I'm gonna cast cause fear.
Tim / GM:Go ahead and do that.
Thomas / Guy:That's a wisdom saving throw from him. K.
Tim / GM:Not too bad on a smile again. It's a 14. 15
Thomas / Guy:is my sad DC.
Tim / GM:Well done. Smilegrin stops and stands up for the first time, and he looks down at you. He says,
Maggie / Poppy:hey, Ed. Hey, Ed.
Tim / GM:And he takes couple steps backwards. Head.
Thomas / Guy:Fear the head.
Tim / GM:You hear a little whimper out of him. He can't seem to get any closer to you. He's just kind of waiting in the wings, staring at you. He gets low again as if you can't see him. He's behind 2 blades of grass.
Hannah / Eryn:Can you
Hannah / Eryn:remind us what Smilgrin looks like?
Tim / GM:Smilgrin is a redcap. Some kind of elite rank among redcap because he's a little bit larger than the rest of them. He also wields bismide like those other fae royalty do. He is about 3 feet tall. He has what looks like red slicked back hair.
Tim / GM:You can't tell if it's really hair, but it is darkened with actual blood, and he wears a mask over his face. It's kind of like a poorly made, like, Oni mask, like a demon almost, but it's stuck to his face with dried blood at all times.
Maggie / Poppy:He's shorter than I thought he was. Yeah.
Tim / GM:He's pretty small.
Maggie / Poppy:He's shorter than me.
Thomas / Guy:Alright. That should hold him off for a minute. Can anyone hear me in there? Hello?
Tim / GM:You wait a while, and you don't hear any responses.
Thomas / Guy:So they're hanging on like a tree above me?
Tim / GM:Not a tree. Just a low shrub. They're not 3 inches from your mouth. Oh. And you know that it's your echo belt because there's a big tree painted on it.
Thomas / Guy:I don't think my tongue can reach that. Is, like, keeping his eyes on me this whole time?
Tim / GM:Yeah. He moved away from you a little bit. He's watching you from, like, some low shrubs from behind a tree. He's waiting for you to become vulnerable. He's trying to figure out what you are.
Thomas / Guy:I'd like to roll into the shrub to conceal myself a little bit.
Tim / GM:Okay. I'll let you take a stealth check with disadvantage.
Tim / GM:Okay. Great.
Tim / GM:That sounds good.
Tara / Journey:Oh, that's a bummer. 6
Thomas / Guy:and a natural twenty.
Tim / GM:It's too bad. You see Smilgrin get a little bolder. You sense that your time may be running out.
Thomas / Guy:Yeah. That's about less a minute. So Okay.
Tim / GM:Poppy. Oh, no. The brush all around you is a mix of wilting tall grass and surprisingly vibrant dark blue flowers. This area that you're in is dense with blackened trees, many of which are dead or leafless and withered, but many are also lush with large dark leaves, almost like bat wings, and strangely luminous pink vines that hang down. Again, you hear something huge move in the woods near you.
Maggie / Poppy:I believe when we left off, I was hiding under the shield.
Tim / GM:Yeah. Yeah.
Maggie / Poppy:Okay. Staying in that position, I'd like to kind of peer around me, try and figure out what it might be.
Tim / GM:The big thing? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Give me a perception check.
Hannah / Eryn:That's a 8.
Tim / GM:Yeah. Peeking around here from under the shield, you only take little glances at a time. Every little dancing leaf in the wind has you startled. You recede back under the shield.
Maggie / Poppy:Guy? Journey?
Tim / GM:You hear a voice not far from you. It's Guy's voice. You hear?
Thomas / Guy:Can anyone hear me in there? Hello?
Maggie / Poppy:Which sort like, is it nearby?
Tim / GM:Tough to tell under that shield. Hard to tell where the sound's even coming from.
Maggie / Poppy:Okay. I'm gonna take quick stock of, like, what I still have on my person.
Tim / GM:Yeah.
Maggie / Poppy:Is Pinch with me? I've noticed that the pendant is missing.
Tim / GM:Pendant's missing. Pinch is missing.
Maggie / Poppy:Okay. You've got this. You're you're bigger and stronger than you look. What would Journey do? She would tell you to pull up your britches and and just be brave.
Tara / Journey:No sagging in my house.
Maggie / Poppy:Okay. I'm gonna pull out my bread knife, which is still on me k. Apparently.
Tim / GM:Come get me, red caps.
Maggie / Poppy:And I'm gonna hold the shield as close as I can Yep. And, like, shakily hold the bread knife out in front of me k. And try, like, sneaking to where I heard the guy's voice.
Tim / GM:Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Still hard to tell, like, where that came from, and you don't hear the voice coming again. That's the hard part.
Tim / GM:So you're really just investigating around. Give me an investigation check.
Maggie / Poppy:That's a 6.
Tim / GM:Damn. Poppy, you're kind of, walking in a spiral to sort of search out where this came from, but without the voice coming again, it's difficult for you to find. You do pass by more of those flowers, more of those hanging tendrils coming from the trees.
Maggie / Poppy:Do I know what those are? Neither of them.
Tim / GM:This isn't Earth. This isn't the mortal plane. You have no idea what these things are.
Maggie / Poppy:Can I take some?
Tim / GM:Of which?
Maggie / Poppy:Both.
Tim / GM:Sure. Which one first?
Maggie / Poppy:Uh-oh. Okay. What do they look like?
Tim / GM:So you've got these, like, pink luminous vines that are hanging down from the trees, and you've got these vibrant blue flowers all over the ground.
Tara / Journey:Did a fay bud find poppy?
Tim / GM:We haven't said that yet. Okay. Okay.
Maggie / Poppy:I'm gonna take the pink one first. K. But I'm going to put my oven mitts on first.
Tim / GM:You, reach out and grab this vine hanging down, and you just make a constitution save with advantage.
Maggie / Poppy:What was this again?
Tim / GM:This was a constitution save. 10. Oh, no. K. Poppy.
Tim / GM:Yep. Grab a little too hard, and even through that oven mitt, you feel the sting of this tendril. You break out in a sweat, you are poisoned, and as tendril begins to wrap around you Okay.
Tim / GM:I need
Tim / GM:you to make a contested grapple check.
Maggie / Poppy:I have a bread knife in my hand. Okay. Can I slash at it?
Tim / GM:Yeah. Let's, let's just give you advantage on that grapple.
Maggie / Poppy:Okay.
Maggie / Poppy:I need it.
Tim / GM:Because you're defending, you can use strength or dexterity.
Tim / GM:Athletics or acrobatics, I think.
Tim / GM:Oh. Okay. Yeah. Pretty sure.
Maggie / Poppy:Yeah. 15.
Maggie / Poppy:I think
Tim / GM:that can only help you. Yeah. Perfect. With a 14, I think the inverse of the roles I got with guy, the, tendril wraps around you, and you can tell this thing is like a python. It reaches down and begins to wrap around your body after poisoning you to weaken you.
Tim / GM:You have disadvantage on your ability checks for the foreseeable future. But with that knife, you're able to cut away at this thing and you just cut it off. And when you do, you hear this, and the tongue just recedes up into the tree. Oh,
Maggie / Poppy:it's the tongue. Okay.
Tim / GM:Bleeding as it does. And you see a bunch of those other tongues recede back up into the leafy trees.
Maggie / Poppy:Let's stay up there.
Tim / GM:It doesn't. You see it crawl down just a little bit. It looks like a giant eyeless frog with sharp claws that dig into the trees here. It comes down and it starts to lash out its its withered broken tongue again, still bleeding, striking down at you.
Thomas / Guy:We used up our eye budget in the
Tim / GM:last episode.
Tara / Journey:Yeah. This one up.
Thomas / Guy:We're at an eye deficit.
Maggie / Poppy:I'm just gonna, like, ready, shocking grasp for if anything tries to touch me. Yeah. I assume that that's what the big thing was that was, like, coming to me. I don't think that that's true, but I'm, as Poppy, I would be like, oh, big creature.
Tim / GM:K.
Maggie / Poppy:So now that they know I'm here, I'm gonna call out to Guy.
Maggie / Poppy:Okay. Guy? Guys? Guy, say something again.
Tim / GM:Guy, you don't hear anything? Poppy, you do hear something. It sounds like a cookie jar opening. Again and again, a weird kind of ceramic, like, grinding noise and then a bit of a lid popping. Well, you heard it a lot in your youth, and it was the cookie jar back home.
Tim / GM:Because at the end of the day, when your family would tally up sales and see which of their kids sold the most that day, Only top sales got cookies.
Maggie / Poppy:Yeah.
Tim / GM:Poppy, never once in your life did you get one of those. Your parents are looking down at you and asking you what you took in for that day and 2 gold, 3. But your older brother? 20, 25, 75 on a good day. And their message stuck with you.
Tim / GM:Poppy, if you wanna win, you just have to do better. That's having a real effect on you, Poppy. You're you're actually slowing down.
Maggie / Poppy:I need
Tim / GM:you to make a medicine check.
Maggie / Poppy:9.
Tim / GM:With a 9 poppy, you can tell that there's something else going on, but that's as far as it goes. This memory is being forced on you. And you hear the last little
Thomas / Guy:Hello?
Maggie / Poppy:Was it Guy's voice?
Tim / GM:It was. Guy. I'll let you make one more perception check with advantage this time. You're closer.
Maggie / Poppy:23.
Tim / GM:Alright. With the 23, you feel feverish, Poppy. Your head is swimming in that poison, and there's something else that is going on in your mind that is distracting you, but you're looking right at it. Your echo belt, hanging off a branch with Guy's voice coming through.
Maggie / Poppy:Grab it if I can?
Tim / GM:Yeah. You grab it.
Maggie / Poppy:Am I, like, fading?
Tim / GM:You feel like it. You feel like you're disconnecting from reality here, and then you hear stomping. You hear branches cracking bushes, you know, shredded on the forest floor. Erin, you also have a high vantage point here. You're near a lake.
Tim / GM:You had just seen Doran's broken, glowing rapier sitting in that lake, indicating that something means you harm. But when you stood and turned around, you're looking at yourself. Every detail immaculate, a mirror image of you staring at you with a smile twice your size.
Maggie / Poppy:Well, that's new.
Hannah / Eryn:Aaron's gonna try to stab it.
Tara / Journey:Oh, well.
Maggie / Poppy:Okay. I mean, that's very Aaron.
Tim / GM:Yeah. I'm gonna get him a sacral.
Hannah / Eryn:I'm gonna do the short sword.
Maggie / Poppy:K. That's what I have.
Tim / GM:Nat 20. Wow.
Tara / Journey:On the die you gave her.
Tim / GM:Wow. Yeah.
Tim / GM:Cool. Okay. No sneak attack damage on this button. It's a straight up hit.
Hannah / Eryn:Okay. Crit. So 9 plus 5, 14 damage with a short sword.
Tim / GM:Yeah. You stab at this thing immediately, and you sink a couple inches of your blade into its cut. And it backs away from you and goes and it looks up and goes it smiles huge and goes, that's new. You see smoke plume all around it, and it falls to the floor and crumples, and it starts to scrabble away. It's crawling on the floor away from you.
Hannah / Eryn:Aaron backs up quickly away from it.
Thomas / Guy:And it
Tim / GM:stands up and turns around and goes, Hello? Hello? It's Hubert.
Tim / GM:Follow me. It's alright. Follow me.
Hannah / Eryn:Erin's gonna turn and try to run.
Tim / GM:Follow me.
Hannah / Eryn:I'm just running away from it. You picked the wrong
Tim / GM:No. It takes 2 slow steps to try to follow you. And as it does, it falls low onto the ground. And then you hear this heavy thumping of iron boots as this thing has turned into a red cap to chase after you. Do you grab Doran's rapier out of the lake as you leave?
Tim / GM:No. K. Yeah. You blow right past it, sprinting through the woods here. The wind is rushing past you.
Tim / GM:You come to the edge of a cliff, and you see this massive lookout. You stop at the edge of a cliff, catching yourself before you fall some 150 feet to the ground below. In the woods that you see laid out beneath you in the distance, you see this colossal tower springing up from this giant black lake. Then you realize that you're in a clearing, an intentional clearing, and there's something structured about this. There are 6 statues all around you in this clearing.
Tim / GM:With nowhere to run, this thing catches up to you, and it's got this little tiny dagger that is pointing at you and it's going and it's, like, pointing the dagger up at you as if it's gonna stab, but it doesn't.
Hannah / Eryn:Is it following me into the clearing?
Tim / GM:Yeah. It, like, got close to you, but it didn't hit back. It just got close to you and started pretending like it was hitting you.
Hannah / Eryn:Try to hit it again.
Tim / GM:K. Make another attack.
Hannah / Eryn:Guess I'll roll this day again. Hopefully, it's still hot.
Maggie / Poppy:Nope. No. It is not hot.
Hannah / Eryn:It's 13 to hit.
Tim / GM:13 does not quite hit. The thing is pretty quick. You take another slash at this thing, and then it kind of dives away as the red cap, and it changes once again. No longer a redcap and now cowering instead of aggressing. You see it backing away on its arms and legs away from you.
Tim / GM:A young boy, a shirtless boy with a big burn scar over his torso. You've seen that body before. That's Doran.
Hannah / Eryn:Arryn is holding the short sword, ready to strike again, but pauses when they turn into young Doran.
Tim / GM:You're here to say, help. Help. Do do you know where I am? Can you help me?
Hannah / Eryn:What are you?
Tim / GM:You see the young boy smiled, and it looks up at the 6 statues around it and grins big. And as it changes into diver, it says,
Tim / GM:you know what I am.
Hannah / Eryn:No. And Eren takes the sword and tries to stab it.
Tim / GM:Make another
Maggie / Poppy:attack. That's scary. No.
Hannah / Eryn:Is it a 6 or not? It's a 6. 14 to hit.
Tim / GM:That does hit the changeling.
Maggie / Poppy:Pizza pizza. Pizza pizza. Sorry.
Tim / GM:Any damage?
Hannah / Eryn:I'm so stressed right now. Without a crit
Tara / Journey:though. Okay.
Hannah / Eryn:9 damage.
Tim / GM:You've actually done a good handful of damage to this thing already, but something is keeping it here. It takes that. You can see there's a couple wounds on it now. It keeps replacing the wounds every time it changes like that, but you know how this works. It's it's losing sinew.
Tim / GM:It's it's dying as you're hurting it, but something is keeping it here.
Hannah / Eryn:I think at that point, Aaron notices the black smoke as it changes.
Tim / GM:Definitely.
Hannah / Eryn:And Aaron stops again realizing that it's a changeling, and Aaron's never met someone like them. But, also, this creature seems more beast than person.
Tim / GM:It gets closer to you, and it says,
Tim / GM:hello? What's that then?
Tim / GM:Hello? Then it says in Doran's voice, can you help me? It's still Diver, but it's using Doran's voice. Can you help me?
Tim / GM:Follow me. Come this way.
Tim / GM:I can help you.
Tara / Journey:That's so scary.
Tim / GM:What's wrong then? A little changeling? We could use a changeling. Come here. Come here.
Hannah / Eryn:No. You're not you're not like
Maggie / Poppy:me. I'm not that.
Tim / GM:Guy, you are out of time. You hear things crackling beneath you as Smile Grin begins to boldly trek towards you again. And you hear Guy? Coming through that echo bell.
Maggie / Poppy:I quit. You can take
Maggie / Poppy:your
Thomas / Guy:Poppy. Poppy. It's me. Are you there? I'm in a bit of a pickle.
Tim / GM:You can hear me.
Maggie / Poppy:Yep. And I'm not dead?
Tim / GM:Not dead right now. I mean, you're startled by that big noise you heard, but you can talk.
Maggie / Poppy:Guy? Guy? Where are you?
Thomas / Guy:Poppy, are you alright?
Maggie / Poppy:I don't think so.
Thomas / Guy:Things aren't looking too good for me either. Have you found the others?
Maggie / Poppy:No. I'm alone. Oh. And there's something big coming for me.
Tim / GM:Guy, every time Poppy talks, you can see the echo bells wiggling a little bit more and more off that branch.
Maggie / Poppy:The vibration
Tim / GM:is causing them to fall.
Thomas / Guy:Puppy. Keep talking, puppy. In fact, if you're scared, and you need to wail a little bit, that's fine.
Maggie / Poppy:I'm I'm afraid to make more noise. It's gonna hear me.
Thomas / Guy:What's going to hear you, puppy?
Maggie / Poppy:I don't know. It's really big.
Thomas / Guy:It's well, no. You should stay quiet.
Maggie / Poppy:Where are you? Can I find you?
Thomas / Guy:I am in a bush, about to be attacked by one of those fey monsters.
Maggie / Poppy:Can you see anything? Can you tell me are there glowing flowers and, like, tongues and stuff?
Tim / GM:You don't see any glowing flowers or tongues.
Thomas / Guy:Nope. The only tongue here belongs to me, puppy.
Maggie / Poppy:He flex it again with his ass.
Maggie / Poppy:I don't know what to do. I'm I miss you, and I'm I'm alone, and I don't even have pinch.
Thomas / Guy:A pinch. I'll I'll find you soon, Poppy. I swear. Have you have you tried to reach the others? No.
Maggie / Poppy:I don't. Like, I'll try.
Tim / GM:That was enough. Guy, the echo bells hit you in the face. Wow. They fall off the branch right onto you.
Thomas / Guy:Well, okay. I try to, like, hang them from my mouth so I can at least hold on to them.
Tim / GM:Easy enough. You can bite the little, rope that they're on or one of the shells.
Thomas / Guy:Alright. Poppy, I've got the acobel. I'll try to reach the others.
Maggie / Poppy:I'll I'll keep trying to. I I think I have to leave wherever I am.
Thomas / Guy:Dora, Journey, Aaron, anybody.
Tim / GM:No answer from the other side. And at the same moment, Guy, you feel yourself being whipped away. Smile grin is holding you in his hands like a lover, just like clasping your cheeks, staring at you right against his own face. He says, head.
Maggie / Poppy:Head. Do I hear this?
Tim / GM:Yes.
Maggie / Poppy:Okay. Now
Tim / GM:This is
Thomas / Guy:not the head you're looking for, friend.
Tim / GM:He grips your remaining hair tightly and bashes your face into the ground.
Maggie / Poppy:Oh.
Tim / GM:And goes, dead head. Dead head.
Maggie / Poppy:Dead head. Ate him.
Maggie / Poppy:Poppy's just sobbing on the other line.
Tim / GM:Guy, you can hear this, like, tinnitus, like, ringing in your ears, and you don't even know if you're conscious anymore after all that and the world is spinning around you, but you can hear the world rushing past you as he's taking you somewhere. You're being whipped back and forth and Smile Grin is running at top speed through the blackened forest holding your head in one hand His iron boots are making a terrible racket as he runs. Then he dives into a shallow canyon in the ground, a dirt carved fissure that seems to run on endlessly forward. Guy, with your low vantage in the canyon here, you don't see much, except for when you start to arrive at Smilgrin's den. Poppy.
Tim / GM:You are still surrounded by tree tongues, these blue flowers all around you. Starting to notice now are giving off a weird smell.
Maggie / Poppy:What kind of smell?
Tim / GM:Just slightly floral, almost like lavender, but, more acrid. Like, when you smell it, it's almost pleasant, but it makes you kind of sick at the same time.
Maggie / Poppy:It's not one that I recognize?
Tim / GM:No. Okay.
Maggie / Poppy:I'm gonna cover my mouth with a tea towel
Tim / GM:k.
Maggie / Poppy:And nose.
Tim / GM:K.
Maggie / Poppy:No. Sorry. I was gonna make a joke about masks, We can cut all of that.
Hannah / Eryn:Too soon. Not too soon.
Maggie / Poppy:Okay. Is it just like flowers around me?
Tim / GM:You also see, not too far from you, kind of the beginnings of this low dirt carved canyon. You can see little fissures and holes in the ground that you really should not step in. It's kind of hard to see for all the black fog.
Maggie / Poppy:Okay. I'm gonna try again.
Tim / GM:K.
Maggie / Poppy:Pull out a jar. Yep. I'm going to double up on an on an oven mitt Mhmm. To pick up a flour and put it in the jar. Okay.
Maggie / Poppy:Yeah. Keep some light with me.
Tim / GM:Yep. Goes fine. Touching those doesn't seem to do much of anything.
Maggie / Poppy:Okay. Now I have a jar with the mysterious flower in
Maggie / Poppy:it Yeah.
Maggie / Poppy:That glows.
Tim / GM:About that time, Poppy, you hear that crunching getting closer. It seems whatever was wandering around here noticed you, and it's closing in. Let's do a contested perception check.
Tara / Journey:Oh, no.
Maggie / Poppy:12?
Tim / GM:Okay. You actually won that, and you see it first. The reason it lost is because it has no head. Mhmm. Guy's body is aimlessly wandering the forest here, stomping around with no ability to hear, no ability to see or perceive or connect with the head, nothing.
Tim / GM:But you see it first, walking away from you.
Maggie / Poppy:Oh. Oh.
Maggie / Poppy:I I'm gonna run after it. Mhmm. Okay. Can you feel things that happened to your body?
Thomas / Guy:Yep.
Maggie / Poppy:Okay.
Thomas / Guy:I think so.
Maggie / Poppy:I'm gonna run up and grab you on the hand and, like, squeeze.
Thomas / Guy:The body, like, jumps back, then he, like, puts up his dukes.
Maggie / Poppy:And you can see,
Maggie / Poppy:like, a little bit in front of you with that?
Tim / GM:The blindsight idea on Dullahan is just that they can feel what's around them. They cannot see Okay. Anything. Yeah. Yeah.
Tim / GM:Okay.
Maggie / Poppy:Then I'm going to go in and, like, kind of tap a little pattern onto your hand
Thomas / Guy:Okay.
Maggie / Poppy:To get you to calm down, maybe.
Maggie / Poppy:I think I found your body.
Thomas / Guy:Oh, that was cute, puppy.
Maggie / Poppy:Sorry. I should have said something. I I found your body.
Thomas / Guy:So the body kinda kneels down and reaches out in front of it.
Maggie / Poppy:I'll, like, grab its hand.
Tim / GM:Yeah. The body hugs a tree trunk right next
Maggie / Poppy:to you. Oh, I'm I'm over here, actually.
Thomas / Guy:Okay. Body's gonna go in for a little hug.
Maggie / Poppy:Oh, I missed you. Even if it's not all of you.
Thomas / Guy:I'm glad you're safe, Poppy.
Maggie / Poppy:I wouldn't say safe, but I I think we're better now. Okay. What if I rode on your shoulders?
Thomas / Guy:Perfect. Yeah.
Maggie / Poppy:Yeah.
Thomas / Guy:You can kind of guide me along the way, and maybe we can find the others.
Maggie / Poppy:I think that's a great idea.
Tim / GM:Poppy, you see a glow moving towards you at rapid speed, but you take heart quickly. You see a pair of Fey Buds, 1 purple, 1 gleaming yellow, come charging towards you and swirl around the 2 of you.
Maggie / Poppy:Oh, I think Journey might be nearby. Some of her Feybuds are here.
Thomas / Guy:Well, excellent. Maybe they can guide us back to her.
Maggie / Poppy:What? Should I find you though? Should I find your head?
Thomas / Guy:Oh, I am in a bit of a bad spot here. I think Smile Gwen, if that's who this is, has taken me to his den.
Maggie / Poppy:That's probably not good. Right?
Thomas / Guy:Now, find the others first, puppy. You need to be safe, and then the rest of you can come find the rest of me.
Maggie / Poppy:If you're sure.
Thomas / Guy:Absolutely. I I seem to have lost my sword though as you can see, so
Maggie / Poppy:Okay.
Thomas / Guy:You might not have much offensive power.
Maggie / Poppy:I mean, I've I've still got my magic, and and I have a knife and a shield. Alright. We'll see you on the other side. Onward, Steed.
Tim / GM:Okay. Doran, you are, still separated from Mikey, I believe.
Tim / GM:I was looking for Bark and, tried to stay within earshot of him. Yeah. And seems there's not a lot of hope for
Tim / GM:finding any. Not in this local area.
Tim / GM:I'm I'm just gonna kind of, like, shoot off some sparks with prestidigitation just to kind of, and just to kinda get a sense of, like, how many, red caps are out there, basically.
Tim / GM:Yeah. To your horror, when you send that out and it goes just beyond the kind of tree line around you, you see dozens of eyes waiting in the wings, just waiting for one of those lights to go out.
Tim / GM:I'm gonna stand up straight. Take me to her. Me and my companion, take me to her.
Tim / GM:They begin to close in on you, closer and closer until they're just at the edge of the Fey Bud glow. One of them looks up at you and says, we demand
Maggie / Poppy:snack payment.
Tim / GM:It licks its lips and looks up at the fay bud. You will
Tim / GM:not get any payment. You will take me to her. Can I roll
Tim / GM:persuasion? Yeah. I'm trying to think of what role it's gonna be, actually. Okay. There is a fear element to this where you are so drastically outnumbered by such vicious creatures.
Tim / GM:I want actually, I do. I wanna have you make a wisdom save and then a persuasion check.
Tim / GM:Wisdom save, I got a 21.
Tim / GM:Hell, yeah. Okay.
Tim / GM:And persuasion, you said? Yep. K. 28.
Tim / GM:It's gonna be crazy high, crazy low. Yeah. The one that has been talking to you licks its lips again and says,
Maggie / Poppy:snack later.
Tim / GM:Get my sword for me too. I gesture over on the shore where Guy's sword was stuck. It frowns. You're not strong enough?
Tim / GM:It turns and starts marching towards that sword. It starts to pull at it. Can't get it out. Looks back up at you.
Tim / GM:Don't know why I was so afraid. But, yes, take take us to her, please.
Tim / GM:You are now being escorted by some red caps.
Tim / GM:I have, Mikey with me?
Tim / GM:Yes. Okay. Yeah. I mean, he got up and joined you for this, like, as you seem to make allies with these things, they begin to march you off.
Tim / GM:Faye butts? You can hear me? See if you can go save the others. Okay? You're not safe here.
Tim / GM:I just say that out loud kind of in a mutter. I don't know if they'll listen or be able to hear me, but
Tim / GM:They they definitely heard that. They understand you. You you've seen them understand Journey before. They're hesitant to leave.
Tim / GM:We'll be okay. Others may not be.
Tim / GM:In that moment, Doran, one of the red caps gets close to you and takes a swipe up at the fay bud. It's a narrow miss, but it's a matter of time.
Tim / GM:Leave. I can't protect you.
Tim / GM:They don't go.
Tim / GM:My hand is slick with sweat, and I'm trying to keep my composure. So I'm holding Mikey's hand, trying to think of what I can say to get out of this.
Tim / GM:You lost in thought for too long. They lead you into a dirt walled canyon thick with shadows here. It's almost a foot deep. If you were to fall on the ground here, you'd probably die. They lead you further down this canyon and it starts to broaden out.
Tim / GM:When it does you can see a den, a pit thick with red caps, and piles of stolen goods. You see weaponry, their obsession with violence, with iron, with metal all stored up here, you see your loot just thrown in a pile of dirt and liquid, in fact, there's pools of liquid all over here low in the ground that you can see, A lot of these red caps keep pouring that liquid over their face. Aaron, you are on that high cliff precipice still with this other changeling and diver's body. It doesn't seem to really understand what you're saying. It mimics you sometimes, but it otherwise keeps repeating the same lines over and over again.
Tim / GM:There's, hello there. That'll change thing. This way. Follow me.
Tim / GM:Don't hurt me. What are you? What is this? It changes back into you, and it smiles big.
Hannah / Eryn:Can Aaron see a way to escape it?
Tim / GM:Give me an inside check.
Hannah / Eryn:Natural ones?
Tim / GM:Oh, no.
Tim / GM:You don't know if this thing wants to eat you or you don't know, but it's incredibly stressful.
Hannah / Eryn:Yeah. I mean, Aaron's probably would just continue to either flee if there was an opportunity or fight it if there's not a path that they can see to escape
Tim / GM:Yeah.
Hannah / Eryn:Since they rolled a natural one. Yeah. Aaron's just gonna try to attack it again.
Tim / GM:Okay. Go ahead.
Hannah / Eryn:It's plus 8 to attack.
Tim / GM:Alright. So 23. Hell, yeah. Hits the changeling again.
Hannah / Eryn:6. Okay. Damage.
Tim / GM:Yeah. It's had enough. It's taken way too much mortal harm to continue to play with you. With that, it turns back into you, and then it turns into something you haven't seen yet. Very tall.
Maggie / Poppy:It's
Tim / GM:got almost like sticker pods on its fingers, and you see it just kind of like creep over the edge of the cliff, and start to climb down, almost like a big slimy stick bug or something. Yeah. That's so gross. Leaving you in this clearing by yourself.
Hannah / Eryn:You said there's statues around me?
Tim / GM:Yeah. It's what you thought it was at first. You can see beneath you, under your feet, there's a circular stone pavilion here made from carved bricks. It's all overgrown. Those statues, those 6 statues that are placed in a circle around this, some of them are familiar.
Tim / GM:They're made out of wood, they're they're trees that are grown into the shapes of people including their faces. Looking around here, you see Parseman, you see Diver, you see SmileGren, Lady Viren, Lyrian Hale, and Phenom Green.
Maggie / Poppy:Oh.
Tim / GM:What? And I think that's where we'll end
Maggie / Poppy:it. Oh, my god. We didn't do anything.
Thomas / Guy:What did we do, Tara?
Tim / GM:Thanks everybody so much for listening. I am Tim, your GM.
Hannah / Eryn:I'm Hannah played Aaron.
Tara / Journey:I'm Taryn. I'm Journey.
Thomas / Guy:I'm Thomas, and I'm, both guys.
Tim / GM:I'm John playing Doran.
Maggie / Poppy:I'm Maggie, and I play Poppy, and I don't wanna be here anymore.
Tim / GM:Thank you all very much for listening. Please share the show with people you love, and we'll see you in the next one.