C01 - Ep. 71 - Betwixt The Bramblecracks - His Name Is
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A swig of dragon's breath bitters. One taste of this tantalizing intoxicant will finally give you the courage to go out on a limb. Previously, our adventurer sparred with Sludge the Monopoloos, his army of amnesia, the sinister Shaman Soos. While battling in the Bramble Castle, they slayed some slimes, shoved Soos down a hole, and spellbound Sludge with synaptic static.

Sadly, Sludge managed to slink away in defeat, but it looks like Lord Lomish is finally on the man. To round up a refreshment, let's return to our rank recollection. Vroom. Vroom. Vroom. That's how the song goes. Oh, yeah.

Un-Sludge slumps to the ground, his oozy form starting to shrivel and turn pale. A portal opens up beneath Sludge and he sinks into it as it closes around him.

You hear a gasp from the southern end of the room. Lady Sandra's on the ground holding Lord Lomish in her arms. Sorry to interrupt, but I also shot Soos once again with the exploding arrow. At this point, yes, the exploding arrow went off again. All right, thank you. Continue. Lady Sandra's on the ground holding Lord Lomish in her arms. He's beginning to stir. Where am I? Oh, my Daya, you're finally awake. Don't worry, sweetheart, you're safe. Sweetheart?

Lady Sandra turns to Mud. His memories? Are we too late? She holds up Lord Lomush's head and leans him towards Mud. Look over here, sweetheart. See that fear bulb? You remember him, right? It's been a while, but you've been waiting to see him for so long. His name is Mud.

I turn into a plesiosaurus. Just fill the room with aquatic dinosaurs. Could I go over to Lord Lomush and hold his hand and go, That's right, his name is Mud. Very good, sir. And who is he to you? Make a medicine check for hospice care. Bart's about to kill my dad. 17. Okay. Oh, okay. He looks at you with a quizzical look and then turns back and looks at Mud.

Mud casts Disguise Self and looks like Bart. Whoa! I love how this poor old man is finally getting some memories back and you're like, da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Gum-Gum goes up and goes, why don't you go say hi to your dad? Yeah. Mud. Mud, you're home? Tears streak down his gray furry face. I'm sorry, Mud. I'm sorry for pressuring you to take the crown.

My-

very happy to hear this from his papa, thinks for a moment and then reaches into his bag and pulls out a little badger and says, this makes me happy. Oh, Gumbo. Dad, I'd like you to meet Gumbo. Attack. He puts his hand on your shoulders and smiles and says, it's a pleasure to meet you, Gumbo. Well, son,

If you're happy, we're happy. He looks at your mother and they smile. Then he turns to look at Bart, who's still holding his hand. And I go, if you're happy, I'm happy. And then he hugs her. And says, and who are these folks? My name is Bartholomew Finn, sir. Pleasure to meet you. And he kisses his hand. He's so proper. Make a charisma check. You got it. Gladly. 16. Oh, quite the pleasure, sir. Mwah.

And I am the killer of Quadrant, the slayer of Sludge, the hero of every winner of Kyborg. Did you really do much damage to Sludge? Your exploding arrow hit Soos at the end. I did the killing shot. I did the killing shot. How much damage did you do, Kyborg? Was it 60? It was a killing shot. Soos.

Bart the Charismatic, Qyborg the Boisterous, and... He looks to Gum-Gum. I'm Gum-Gum. I'm a flower wizard. The flowering wizard of Quadrant, and then the flowery wizard of Sludge. Stop.

Stop it. And my best friend. And Bert's fair best friend. Yep. And Gum-Gum the simple. And Gum-Gum the long-winded. My dad is back from the grave for five seconds and he's burned Gum-Gum already. Well, it is an honor to meet all of you. I assume I have all of you to thank for my rescue? Yes, all of us individually help just as much as each other. Woo!

Equally, everyone took their time with each turn and did just as much work as everyone here. I thought Mud Mercy was, like, in a shield. He came down in a bubble, Mud! Mud helped the most. Your boy really is, uh, quite the fighter. Oh, I see. Yeah. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

You will always have a place to stay in Babayu. Lady Sandra chimes in at this point. Oh, that reminds me. Mud, I know it can be cold out there on your adventures, and I know you can get cranky if you don't get some alone time away from people. So I grabbed your favorite cloak from your room. You must have forgotten it.

She holds out a mossy green cloak with yellowish trim. The mantle seems to be made of fresh grass and wildflowers. I love a new fashion to put on. Well, it's an old fashion. This is your old cloak. Yes, but I don't remember it. Retro. Yeah. I put it on and I do a little swishy swishy. Nice. You can actually add this to your inventory. It should be listed in there. It's listed as the Cloak of the Secluded Garden.

And she asks, what was your password again? You know, to get inside the garden. One, two, three, four, five. I like how it's not a keypad you type in. It's just something you say. You want to read it for everyone? It has a spell called personal space.

As an action, you can unclasp this cloak and speak a command word determined by the wearer. When you do, the cloak stands upright on its own and opens into a doorway that leads into an extra-dimensional space. The space is 50 feet. With a command, also determined by me, the light, temperature, and humidity of the space can be altered to simulate any season in a temperate, tropical, or continental climate.

The soil in the space is magical and rich in minerals, which causes plants and trees to grow three times as fast. Seeds, plants, furniture, materials, and tools can all be stored and used within the space. You can speak the command word again to return the cloak back to normal if the doorway is closed or damaged and a creature inside that extra-dimensional space are expelled into their open space nearest the entrance. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Cloak is destroyed. Everything stored within the space is scattered across the astral plane. So it's personal space.

I take it off and I whisper a word that they don't hear and I let Gumball go play in there for a while. Oh, cute. And then I whisper the word again and for the rest of the time.

My voice is my password. One, two, three, four, five. Did you ever actually have a brother? That's a very good question. Did you guys have a son named Clay? I'm on a heap of ash that Clay became and I'm like, I don't think he was real guys. And your foot is standing on Dr. Suits. They all seem to be perplexed. Like they're trying to think really hard about Clay, about his existence or his lack thereof. Yeah.

Speaking of which, maybe that's a good segue. What do you all want to do with Soos? Soos actually did not manage to escape and she was very, shall we say, incapacitated, very injured by some exploding final shots from Kyborg there. You're welcome. Well, could we tell if she was like being brainwashed or affected by anything that would make her do these evil things? Like I'm trying to figure out if she's actually a bad person deep down. Should we go interrogate her?

I'm down. Before we get, uh, Dr. Sorry, your dad. Lord Lomish? Lord Lomish. Dr. Mr. Lord Lomish? Dr. Seuss? Shaman Seuss? Was Shaman Seuss mean or evil before? Do you all remember any of that? It's very difficult to think about that.

To recall that right now, everything seems very hazy. Perhaps you can ask Soos, and maybe she probably remembers."

Okay. I could use my ring of truth. Yeah, I was going to say, let's get the truth maker. Do it. Yeah, use my arrows of truth where I aim one right at your head and I say, hey, what's up? I say thanks and give him a hug. You're dead. Okay. Because I want to know. He needs dad. He needs dad vibes. Should we first maybe like detect magic on her? See if she's like being enchanted or anything like that or. Sure. I cast detect magic. Okay.

Okay. By the way, I should mention, I'm pretty sure Bart is still a tree. That's cool. Because I don't think I did anything after turning into one. Oh, so you still got your bark skin? Mm-hmm. Okay. Oh, not your bark skin. That's a separate thing. Maybe when you turn into that. You want to try that again after you breathe? Okay.

Maybe when you turn into that, we don't call you Bart, we call you Bark. Bark. He was so excited to get it out, he started choking. Maybe we're... Death by a joke. It says up to one minute, so it might be over by now. That would be like 10 rounds. It might still be going. Okay. Anyway, detect magic. Who cast detect magic? I did. Mud. Okay, yeah, you detect...

detect magic from her broken staff. Remember it shattered when she tried to dive into the portal that Sludge was escaping into? As well as you think she's wearing a ring with some kind of magic properties on it. I take the ring. When you look at her hands, you can detect where the ring is and the magic is, but it doesn't look like she's wearing a ring on that digit.

You can see like with your magic sense that there is a ring there, but visibly you can't actually see it. Can I still just grab that? Yeah, you can grab it. Okay, I grab it. You grab it and pull it off of her. And then when you pull it off of her finger, you can actually see it. It seems to be like a gold ring. Any inscription on the inside?

Uh, no, no inscription on the inside. Throw it in the fire. With a very familiar sort of carving. You know you've seen this ring before. Yeah. In fact, you think you have one on your hand. Oh. Wait, I have a ring. Is it like a family crest thing? No, I have a ring, and I will tell you what that ring is henceforth.

Immediately. And he did proclaim that the ring was thus. It's a ring of mind shielding. Yeah. It looks like this ring that you've pulled off of her is identical to the one that you have. Oh, gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme. You're immune to magic. It allows other creatures to read your thoughts, determine whether you're lying, know your alignment. Oh, good call. I like to think Bart reaching up with his hands. Gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme. All right. Yeah, you can have this ring because I have one. Put it on me. I give you the ring of mind shielding. Oh.

Add that to your inventory now. That totally just shotgunned it. Yo, I kind of hope I die at the end of this campaign because if you die while wearing this ring, your soul goes into the ring and you could choose to remain in it or go to the afterlife. Yeah, I have one ring like that as well. Is the idea that someone would pick it up and then you take over their body or?

I don't know. As long as your soul is in the ring, you can telepathically communicate with any creature wearing it. Yeah, so you're like in there and now you can telepathically communicate. And they can't prevent it. Yeah. Weird. Is anyone in the ring now? Oh.

That's a good question. I listened to my ring real quick. We can make Dr. Seuss go into this ring. Shaman Seuss. We can make Shaman Seuss go into this ring. Let's put it back on her. Did I pick up the staff? You pick up the staff? Yeah. Or did it bust? Remember, it was like a wooden staff with a glowed yellow on the end, and it just broke into two pieces. Okay. Pick it up. Pick it up.

There was a diagem. There was a jewel. I don't know if we ever... Oh, where's the jewel? What jewel? Oh, from the staff? Yeah. I assume there's part of it that he broke it up. What jewel? Stop trolling me. Can I look at it and see if it... Does it look like the other diagem? Well, did that light up at all with my detect magic? Yeah, that was... The staff also did illuminate with your detect magic spell. Do I know what kind of magic it is? You detect divine magic. All right. Okay.

So now you have to tell the truth. I mean, you can say what you want, but we've got a ring that'll tell us if you're lying. If you lie, my friend here, Kaiborg, he's got some anti-lie arrows. I popped my knuckles. So it's in your best interest to just tell us what's going on. Bard puts his hands on his hips. And

and I give you my gift of friendship and friendship bracelet on that doesn't actually um give you any bonus right it's just not unless like role playing yeah okay Zeus says well you can try to scare me all you want

I'm not going to answer your questions. We're not trying to scare you. I'm trying to be your friend. Your friend is pointing an arrow right in my face. Yeah. Actually, make an intimidation check, Kyborg. There you go. I smack Kyborg's bootay. And I have the dread helm on, so I have advantage on intimidation. It's a 10 and a zero. Plus D4? Plus D4. Come on.

13. You have a helm to help you with this? How did you end up? Because I have a negative two modifier. Stop it. I'm trying to be scary. What was your final total? 13. 13. Your charisma is seven? Yeah. Is it bad? It's not new. I've told you. We have no charisma. We have no intelligence. Gus's head is on the desk. But ask me to do a backflip. Yeah. Haven't you seen him just do all physical things?

It's okay. That's why we have some people on our team like Bart. Mine's eight. I designed kyborg like this. This was the intent. Your charisma's eight? Mine's eight. Gum Gum's is 14. I know. Whoa. My lowest thing is strength, and that's 10. Yeah. My God. But what's your highest thing? Dexterity. 18. Yeah, and I have a wisdom at 20. So it's just where you spread. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, she scoffs at the arrow you're pointing in her face. What?

Whatever pain you think you can inflict on me is nothing compared to the power of sludge. I call that bluff and I shoot an arrow at her. No, no, no. Wait, wait, wait. I stop the arrow. I stop the arrow. I stop the arrow.

I grab it. I grab it. I grab the arrow. She did say, uh... No, I've got a tactic. Okay. Okay, so my friend Kyborg doesn't interest you, but I am sorry to say, but you're attached to one of the most feared creatures in all of the land. Who? You're not helping! Oh.

And if you don't tell us the truth, you're stuck there forever. Gum-Gum, be tough, be tough. I'm tough. Down break, madam. You are barking up the wrong tree. There you go. Why don't you leave our friends alone? Have Gum-Gum roll for intimidation. Okay. And I slap Gum-Gum's butt. That came off weird.

I've unlocked memories in gum gum. Oh my god, I rolled a two. What is wrong with you guys? I rolled a two. I have a plus six. I mean, I guess I could use an inspiration die. Do it. For this? Yes, do it. For this woman who's probably... Wait, can't I give inspiration...

Can you? Yeah, can't you? I thought somebody said that in like the Reddit or something. You can gift inspiration die? Yeah. That might be like a homebrew thing. What if I try affection? Wait, wait. You could try persuasion instead of intimidation. The intimidation I thought you could transfer. Inspiration die? Yeah, sorry. It's inspiration die. No, Ben actually saying he's looked into it before and no. That might be someone maybe said yes as like a homebrew thing or something that their party does, but typically no. Okay. Mrs. Seuss. Shaman. Shaman.

I don't think I've heard Gum-Gum talk that long ever. Yeah, make a persuasion check. I see.

I smack his butt. 23 plus, what's his butt smack? 4. D4. 25. 25. Ooh. She lets out a long sigh and says, I guess.

Oh, no. That's impressive. I bet she does, like, fantasy catfishing because she's an old lady and she probably...

uses like super hot dudes to pick up dates. I'd get with Zeus. Bart, Bart, stop. All right.

So was that the only memory that you altered? Well, if I'm being honest, I also performed magic on your memories, Mud. Is that why I can't remember a jack squat about my home? When you decided to leave the Wither Vains, I gave you three stones that you carried with you. And the longer they were with you, the more they depleted,

your memories of this place so that you would slowly forget things over time. You saw the stones? I think I gave them to... They were taken from you when everyone's equipment was stolen by Soos. Yeah. These were stones. I think you even brought them up in episode one from your homeland. These stones were intended to make you forget this place, to keep you out of the way so that I could try to empower Sludge to come back.

However, as time went on, I realized I needed royal blood from the Bramblecrack heir to free Sludge. So I faked this crisis to bring you here. I'm sorry, but just a little bit of a tangent. Of all the deities to align yourself with, you went with the giant snot bugger.

At what point do you just realize that you're evil, old woman?

I'm surprised she's also admitting all of this to us. Gum-Gum had a really good persuasive power. Persuasive powers of Gum-Gum the Persuasive. Yeah. If it wasn't for Gum-Gum, you all would not be getting any of this. Well, because I haven't tried yet. Based on the other side of the table, it was not going well. Well, seeing as how your oh-so-holy deity has abandoned you completely and your staff is broken and you're not going to get what you want, how about you help us and tell us where Sludge has gone? Unfortunately, I don't know.

I've only ever known him once he was trapped in the Briar Orb. Oh, okay. He also mentioned something about knowing the future. What does that mean? That one was news to me. During your time under Sludge, did he mention anything about Quadrin or any other evil powers aligning? Sludge did refer to himself as a Tetragog. Ah.

And he said he was one of many powerful beings. So we've technically gotten two of them at this point. Or we've identified two of them. Yeah, I don't know if we've killed them both. Did he tell you his goal? Sludge seeks power and control. No. Sludge always hungers for memories to feed himself. And why do you follow him? He gave me power. Didn't he kill all your people, though? Well, if you want to get technical... Uh-huh.

I provided those people to him. What? Oh, you're a piece of crap. They never let me get access to our magic. They excluded me, and they made me feel bad for it. Well, this is probably why. So Sludge gave me access to power.

So of course, in return, I am going to use this power on those who tried to deny me. You suck. I am the victim in this scenario. I don't care what you say. I don't care what you say. I was the victim. Hey, you're such a victim. I slowly unhook Gum-Gum's friendship lace and start just shoving her towards the hole. Wait, wait, wait. Oh, wait, no. Yeah, that's fine.

Yeah. No. No, no, she teleported. I don't have to cheat into the friendship bracelets. Why does she want to go in the hole? Because she can teleport, I think, if we leave her out of eyesight. All right. What if I shoot her with an arrow? Don't shoot her. She's a prisoner of war. That's against laws. What does this do? I go, what does this do? And I wave the broken staffs around. Make an arcana check. Okay.

Gumgon's got a potential new weapon. It's a negative two. Wow. Minus three on Arcana? Wow. You're so magical. Oh, my gosh.

Uh, yeah, you, uh, you begin, yeah, conjuring magic from nothingness and powerful tornadoes appear all around you and lightning crashes. And from everyone else's perspective, he just hit himself in the head. Laying unconscious on the ground. This is mighty powerful stuff. It's probably for the best.

Okay, all right. So I feel like we've gotten a bit of the story now. Well, I wanted her to answer my question. Oh, what's your answer? What's your question? Of what the staff does? Yeah. Oh. Hey, what does the staff do? It was a manifestation of the arcane power that Sludge granted me. It's broken now, obviously. Yeah, you don't want that. So now that Sludge is gone and your staff is broken, does that mean you have no more powers? Those allowed me access to greater power than I could ever imagine.

Gotcha. To say I have nothing would not be accurate. Not accurate. Not accurate. Where's the die, Jim? I have it. The green one. Oh, okay. That's what you came here for. Do we have three? Or did one get taken? We have two. Because one got taken. Quadrant. Quadrant. Should I put that in mine? No, no, no. The other guy got it. What? Oh.

Oh, that's right. Because Gum Gum took it from Quadrant and then the misty red guy took it from Gum Gum. Should I put it in my bag of holding? I have the Diagem. I know. Yeah, it's giving me powers. Yeah, it's just like mine. Okay. He's using it. I shouldn't know if I should put it away for safekeeping. No, I got it. Whoosh! A terror shell wearing sneakers and a cummerbund suddenly appears in the room. It's Torathor. Hi, Torathor. He doesn't notice you all at first as he smiles down at his cummerbund. Wow, talk about the gift that keeps on giving. Okay. So glad I bought it.

He looks up at all of you guys. Oh, there you are. Hi. I love this guy. It's not looking pretty out there, folks. In addition to Crokemeyer, the Amnesia have now taken over Moorbane. Oh, crap. So now there's giant blobs of ooze wreaking havoc across Bobayu. I barely made it out. Oh, but look what I brought. Salt. He reaches behind him into his shell and pulls out a large sack, opens it, revealing a mound of antiseptic salt. So...

it looks like we need to do some seasoning. Yes. Yeah, if you could figure out a way to quickly spread the salt across the wither veins, that would maybe take care of this amnesia problem. I can think of a way. Are we going to play Santa Claus here for a moment? Cowabunga! What can I turn into?

Could you turn into a sleigh? No. A giant reindeer? A flying reindeer? It can turn into a sleigh. I don't have a flying reindeer in my... This guy. Miss Seuss, real quick. So, since Sludge is gone and your powers are gone, and you're kind of on our side now because, you know, you're handcuffed to me. I mean...

Your friendship to me. What can you do to help us? Oh, I'm just a frail old lady. I don't think that's true. I don't have access to my powers anymore. Because you broke my magic staff. Do you know what I think needs to happen? Is that she needs to spend her time here thinking about what she did in the prisons of... Time out? Time out. She needs to have some time out. So...

Why don't you... Can we transfer her to the proper authorities? Yeah. Some guards appear at the beckoning of Lord Lomish and Lady Sandra. Sorry, just talking to these guards. Where have you been this whole time? They were helping the other victims in the Bramble Castle. There's amnesias everywhere. Yeah, okay. Guarding the people. Not Lord Lomish. As if you would even let them fight if they were in this room. Mud gathers the salt, puts it in the sleigh that has now appeared...

from Bart's inventory and turns into a giant bat. - Ooh, wait, you all do this inside? - There's definitely a big window. - Torthor says, "If you want, I can teleport you all outside of the Bramble Castle out in the Bayou." - How far away is that from here? - Just outside. - It's just, remember you all jumped out the window before. - I'll walk.

I'll follow forever. Let's go. We've got a job to do. All right. Meet you guys out there. Just get in the bloody sleigh. Aren't we going to teleport it outside first? You can all be teleported along with the sleigh. Okay. I hop in. Get in the sleigh. But it's Torthorne. Get in the sleigh. He's showing off the thing. I wanted that. Get in the sleigh. This is the only chance you're going to get to use it. Bart lifts Kyborg and puts him in the sleigh. I oppose your strength check. Let's go. Fine. I'll get in.

Ha!

You all get in the sleigh and whoosh, you arrive back outside the main entrance of Bramble Castle. - Don't say it. - You feel the warmth of the morning sun pouring through the droopy willow trees. And then you realize you're completely surrounded by slimy yellowish amnesia. - Will we fly? - Oh, you immediately just like take off? - Yeah. - All right. You take to the air, abandoning Torthor to his awful fate below. - Can I grab him? - He'll just teleport over there. - Yeah, he's fine. Don't worry about him. - Okay. - Bye Torthor. - He moves slow, but he thinks quick. - Yeah.

Most of my party members are the opposite Nice yeah you already have an inspiration tie Alright so exactly what are you gonna do here? You're taking off and you're just gonna fly around and throw the salt out or what's going on here? Hold on let's see if we have anything here I mean I have the salt in my inventory from when he gave us some so I can read what it says

zombie on all and oh it does a lot of stuff didn't they have anything that like duplicates anything or like makes it grow well we have a big old bag yeah he gave you yeah he gave you quite a bit of it so yeah is there anything against just us like you know sprinkling santa claus style throwing it out no i was just looking for like descriptors you know well obviously bart's gonna get into a a wardrobe of

Of course, Bart becomes a very jolly fellow with a white beard and a red-looking velvet outfit with a black belt and black boots. And he goes, oh, oh, oh. It's magic. I got it.

I got it. I don't know if there's copyright on Santa. I want to like dip some of my arrows into the salt. Oh, and just be firing? Killing them. Oh, I guess they are. Yeah, the amnesias. Your Santa's merry elf? Yeah, yeah. Distributing joy to all the people. I want to kill a bunch of goobers with salt. Amnesia. Yeah. All right. I guess everyone make a... What do we call that? I guess...

I guess just make dexterity checks to see if uh you're able to successfully reach in the bag and toss salt over the edges I have an 18

12. 10. I'm flying. Am I doing it? Oh, no, that's right. You're flying. I forgot. Yeah, everyone seems to do okay. Gum-Gum, you throw some salt out, but you don't account for the wind, and you throw it directly in front of yourself, and the wind blows it back into your eyes. You have some trouble seeing which way to go, and you start fumbling around, and you get too close to the edge of the sleigh and start to fall over. I...

quickly grab hold of the edge i'll make a dexterity check with disadvantage because you can't see but i have advantage on dexterity can i so you get it so just even can i grab it gum gum can i assist in this let's see what happens you want to check or save check check oh you have advantage on dexterity that's right yeah i have advantage on dexterity stage but i just thought this was safe because i was like saving myself from something gotcha

11 yeah you start to fall over a little bit uh kyborg i guess you make a dexterity check as well see if you can grab him 21. oh okay yeah you start to like tip over the edge of the sleigh but your friend kyborg grabs you in a big friendship hug thank you and pulls you tight and what about bart yeah 18. bart's like laughing at the whole thing i assume yeah i do a barrel roll oh no everyone make a dexterity save save save this time

19. Okay, yeah. Maybe Mud telegraphed it a little bit. You all knew it was coming and you hold on for dear life as the sleigh turns upside down, causing a lot of the salt to fall out and then dissipate into the wind over all the land below. Do you hear that? The sound of the slimes dying. It's just sizzling. No, no, it's like a...

and then i'm like wait look and i look out the window and i'm still uh chained to she were worried about copyright you start seeing not the appropriate lyrics though yeah all right yeah you have uh distributed all of the salt and below it you can see all the amnesia are um

dissolving away. Yeah. We did it. Yeah, we did it. I high five kyborg. I return the high five. Dexterity checks, both of you. Oh, God. And in doing it, some of the salt spews off our hands. 15. 22. Oh, okay. Yeah, it's a good high five. It's solid. Sparkly. Ah, my eyes. I, uh, as we're, like, flying around and people are, like, seeing that we're killing all these amnesias, I make sure to tell them

Remember, it was the Infinites who saved you. A little marketing there. PR, that's nice. We need it. And to all a good night. You've already got an inspiration. Okay, yeah, I assume at this point you all head back to the Bramble Castle. We have any extra salt? I'm sorry, Quinn? We have any extra salt we can keep in our bag? Just the original extra salt that I think Mud had. Yeah, because when he did the barrel roll...

it all fell out. I didn't read it before, but it actually has some effects that can be used to get zombies too. It's pretty useful stuff. All right, you all land back outside the Bramble Castle and Lord Lomish and Lady Sandra are waving at you all as you land. Lord Lomish proclaims, Thank you, all of you.

"You've saved countless lives today, and I get the sense you've done this before." His gaze turns to the mural of Bramblecrack's behind him, and he points to a face at the very top. You see a grizzled furbolg with a weathered look of determination of what looks to be a furry creature on his shoulder. "I don't know if you knew this, Mud, but your great-great-grandfather Brumble Bramblecrack was a fierce friend to animals of every shape and size.

In fact, it was while he was dwelling amongst the wilds of Faesa that he learned a rare ability. He learned to create what we call a Briar Orb. That is how Sludge was defeated the first time. It imprisons creatures in a demi-plane of touch, and I fear you will see Sludge again someday.

I, uh, I take Gumbo's hand.

And I push his hand against the box, but then I make sure my thumb kind of touches it too. Gumbo needs a win. Okay. Gumbo gets an inspiration die. Okay. I'll remember that. I'm going to have to try. He's really pretty good about it. You can add the Bramble box of the Briar Orb to your inventory.

And when you, you know, touch your thumb to it with gumbo, the box pops open. And inside the box, you see a white seed and a small scroll with scribbled instructions on how to plant the seed and cultivate it into a fully grown briarwood tree.

Oh, it turns into a tree? Can you bring that with you, like in one of those bags that we have? Put it in your safe space. Yeah. Stuff grows three times fast. Speak to the... He's got steps. I also have a bag of holding if you need to store anything. Step one, speak to the seed in its native tongue. Speech of beast and leaf, which I have. Whisper words of encouragement and nourishment. This is definitely coming out of my brother's love of plants. Carefully plant the seed in loamy soil. Clay doesn't reel. Under full moon. Ha ha ha!

Daily dampen the soil with a mixture of water and ground arabica berries. Arabica berries. Arabica berries. The seed will eventually sprout and grow under direct moonlight. It will grow up to be about seven meters into a shrubby briar. The leaves will appear dark green, blah, blah, blah. If properly nurtured, flowers may be bare. A rare fruit known as briar orbs. These orbs are brown, thorny, and house self-contained demiplanes. All right.

Gotta catch them all. Let's go. And, you know, Arabica berries, or as they're more commonly known, coffee. Coffee beans. Arabica beans. Nice. Can I make a moon appear in my little cloak? Yeah, why not? Sure. Okay. Then I'll do that later. Okay. Lady Sandra asks, So, where are you all headed off to next? We don't know. Ha!

I like that confidence. Probably back to the castle. Open to suggestions! Yeah. I mean, we're still looking for the other Diagems, right? Yeah. Is there any... We could try to find Gum-Gum's dad. What? Is there any good restaurants we should hit up before we head out? The Diagem that might have... Do y'all have any legends about other ones similar? Oh, yeah. Uh...

If you recall, I believe when you all were previously asking in the area about Diagems in an earlier episode, no one seemed to know that term. Yeah, so I suppose we should head back to the Dr. Ahem place. Don't remember what it was called. Boulderay! Do you all want to head back via air or water? Should we change it up with some water? Let's do water.

You have to be a giant dolphin and make it swivel. I'm going to turn to a plesiosaurus. Thank you very much. Oh, okay. Ye work hard, ye play hard. That's the Bart Marge way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So thanks for the fun times. Glad you're not dying. Don't know if I should be upset I don't have a brother. Maybe they could get to work on that while we're gone. Hey, I could be your brother. Chuck. I want to say something. I know you and your family don't always get along.

I don't like this tone you're talking. I know you don't. I'm going to need you to talk in a higher tone to me, John. How close is he to your face? I'm trying to have a moment with my therapist. Gum-Gum just showed up. But I'm just saying, the mouth sounds in my ear right now are making John uncomfortable. I know you're not very close with your family, but your dad was almost dying. He seems like a cool dad. I feel like if there's anything you want to say, you should give him a hug because you got to see him again. Gum-Gum, do you want to give Mudd's dad a hug? No.

I hear, I gotcha. You might regret it. No, I do. I gotcha. I gotcha. I gotcha. I walk over to my dad and my mommy and I give him a big hug.

Um, they're the only people I'm down with hugging. Um, and I whisper something into my dad's ear. I'm going to slack it to you right now, Gus. Okay. And how does that make you feel? Gum Gum is like starting to tear up and starts hugging Bart. Hugging anybody that'll take it. Bart hugs Gum Gum. It's okay, bud. Your dad, your dad loves you. I know. And he stood there somewhere. It's simple. He accepts your big hug with a smile. Hmm.

Then after you all finish your hug, he looks over to Gum-Gum and approaches him. And Gum-Gum, he wraps his arms around you. Lord Lomush wraps his arms around you and gives you a giant hug. Thank you. Like freed his soul from his... Thank you. There you go. It's a good dad.

Bart hugs Lord Lumish's leg. I put my hand on my die-gym crystal because my family reminds me of them. How touching. Literally. Okay, so you all are going back by water this time. Is this your first time going by water? Normally, I'll do... We're scared to be maybe vulnerable. Before we go, I want to find some wood that we can use for skis.

It was a little vacation time. I am very nervous that they're going to bring back that sea monster we avoided that one time. I'm down for it. That was naval combat. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, I grabbed some dirt from the ground to have some fresh dirt from the homeland. Should we take a long rest before we get going? Maybe we'll do it on the boat. Yeah, we can do it on the boat. You got time. You can do a long rest on the boat. Can Mud do that? What? Long rest while you're... Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got it.

I'd be big dino. Okay. I show off that I can turn into a big dinosaur. Ooh, a crowd of people appear and watch as you transform into a plesiosaur and as you pull away the ahem-mobile.

Hey there, Stinky listeners. If you want even more odorific content like this show, you should follow us at StinkyDragonPod on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok. Come join us on the StinkyDragon subreddit where fantastic folks like you are constantly posting thoughtful theories, magic items, and hilarious memes about the show. If you post on social media using hashtag StinkyDragonPod, we might name an NPC in the show after you. In addition to those NPCs, we also want to give a special thanks to some friends who provide voiceover for characters in the previous episode, like Shaman Seuss, who's voiced by Elise Willems,

Sludge, who's voiced by Jeremy Dooley, Lady Sandra, voiced by Kelsey Chiles, and Lord Lomish, voiced by John Grylls from the Bloody Disgusting Podcast. Speaking of which, go and roll me a D6, if you could, John. Let's see how this goes. The lower the number, the better. I think it's random. Ooh, three. Y'all head out and...

And you're starting to leave the coast behind when you see a massive wave quickly closing in on your position, heading in your direction. And before you know it, it's on top of you, crashing over everything and everyone. All you need to make a strength saving throw. Oh my gosh. Not me. I guess not. You're an aquatic animal. Everyone in the boat. 13. 16. I rolled a one, but that's a 10. Okay. So I don't know if you want to- 13, 16, 10.

but I mean it wasn't that one so punish me is what he's saying I'm just I'm trying to be honest everyone in the boat gets battered around quite a bit as the wave rocks it back and forth quite violently everyone takes a little bit of bludgeoning damage 21 points of bludgeoning damage as you're violently thrown around am I still technically the tree? no it would be over by now because that was only a minute but after that happens that's when they take their long rest yeah

Then after that, uh, it seems after that tidal wave passes you by, the seas become calm, almost like you could fall asleep. Are we actually taking a long rest? It's up to you if you want to. I would like to. Yay! I take a long rest too and we hit an island. No. When you wake up, the tides have pushed you back up to the bayou. We haven't gone anywhere.

It's just like, this looks familiar. Hey, worth it to get all our skill slots back. After a while, y'all begin approaching boulder A again. Everyone go and roll me a perception check. Love to. Oh no, it's gonna be on fire. Something's wrong. This boulder's on fire. 21. 13. 4.

God, bad roll, 12. Gum-Gum, I can always count on you for the low perception roll. Man, Gum-Gum, you're so excited. You're looking forward to some R&R back in Boulderay. You're just so preoccupied making plans for your staycation. What do you want to do with your time off, Gum-Gum? Well, first, I'm going to do some magic spells with my new magic rod. He's got another broken piece of mundane equipment that has no magical properties to it. And then...

I'm gonna look into trying to be a spider again. And I'm gonna talk to people around town and see if they've seen my dad. And then... As per usual. And then I was thinking about, I don't know, having breakfast.

Sounds like fun. Yeah! Mud and Kyborg, as you near the borders of Boulderay, you see the entire town seems to be blanketed in darkness, even though the rest of the vast highlands are bathed in sunlight. Bart, you try to listen for any signs of disturbance, but it sounds like it's completely and totally silent. Bart specifically, you see this as a trap waiting to happen, but it's more than that. You can't seem to shake the feeling of fear growing in the pit of your stomach.

Guys, we should stop moving. Something is wrong. I swear to Daya, we can't leave this stupid town for two seconds before something happens to them. You know, this town reminds me of, you know, Hercules is a town of Thebes, I think it's called, where it's like they're constantly getting pummeled by beasts and terrible things that happen. And then it's like that. I am one step away from us relocating the Infinite's base somewhere else. Somewhere where you get a better tax incentive. Yeah.

So we don't hear anything. It's covered in darkness and I could sense it's a trap and that's something like something really bad. Something very wrong. Yeah. Okay. What kind of darkness are we talking like? Is it like a fog or is it like you just literally can't see? I would say it's like the absence of light. Can I pull

Pull out Boomba, my wand, and check for magic. Yes, but I believe your magic only goes for like 30 feet. Yeah, pretty far. Don't you have fancy glasses that can see through stuff? I do, but I don't know if it would work on this. I have the goggles. Ryan, might as well. Yeah, I'm wearing my Veronian goggles. And what is the range on those? 100 feet. Oh, okay. What do they do? I guess, yeah, read them just so we know. You can see up to 100 feet through all types of non-magical weather, which I imagine this is magical weather. Oh, okay.

Rain, fog, snow. Additionally, your vision is not affected by the fog cloud spell. So do you want to pull in within 100 feet to try to use them? Feels like it's magical. I think it's probably magical, and I also don't know if I want to get within 100 feet of this place. Do you want me to send like a scout? Yeah. Okay. And see if we hear anything. Are you on the boat at this point, or are you still able to do this as a giant dinosaur? I'll turn back into mud, get on the boat, and I'll cast Conjure Animals. Conjure Animals.

Okay. And I'll conjure, let's just say like, I can't remember what birds I could do, but like- 47 pigeons. I mean, eight birds. Can I just say I send eight birds out? Yeah. To scout and come back. Yeah. Yeah, you send them in, scout, wait a few minutes, and they don't come back. Uh-oh.

Is this some sort of portal? Maybe, maybe, uh, Boulder Ray got like displaced and it's somewhere else. So we can't even see Boulder Ray. Correct. It's completely covered in pitch black darkness. Okay. Okay. Are there any other nearby towns or docks or anything like that? Um, hmm.

Not towns, per se. The nearest town would be pretty far. Normally, in the past, when you've docked, you dock off those cliffs. There's another area that's wooded to the west. There's no towns really nearby. With the bird that you... Or whatever the...

creature you sent? Did it like go all the way in? Do we like enter the darkness? I would say it goes up to the into the shadows and then you lose sight of it in the darkness. Does anybody have like some sort of spell that makes things glow or if I lit an arrow on fire and then shot it into the town we could see what happens? I think some of my illusions could include light. I also have presbytation. Presbytation.

You did so good for so long there. Shut up. Prestidigitation. So I could like light a fire on an arrow and then launch it in and then just kind of see if it disappears or if it teleports or maybe we should be somewhere and be...

Sneaky. I feel like we should just go in. I don't know. Everything in my gut is telling me this is a trap and that I'm really scared. I don't usually feel this way. I'm usually very brave. I'm a brave boy. That's our home in there, though. What are we supposed to do? I say we go in. We go in sneaky like... Like snakes? We get as close as we can on the boat. I cast polymorph and make Gum Gum a snake. He's scared of snakes.

He slithers by a mirror. We could like, SEAL Team 6 this, where we all get in the water and then bring the Ahem-mobile and then we just kind of float in. Okay. I mean the Ahem-mobile I think we could just like, get rid of essentially. What if we make it look like a shipwreck floats in and we're all sneaky?

Like Pirates of the Caribbean. Yeah, like you go invisible and then you become like a crab. And I'll be a snake. The most stealthy of the aquatic creatures. And then, Kyborg, you... You! You use your... I don't know what you do, Kyborg. But we just let... And it floats up and everyone thinks it's just a ship. I'm going to regardless cast invisibility on myself. Okay. Alright.

Alright, well then I will exit the ship and I will like help paddle. Wait, so are you all keeping the hemobile as a ship or are you getting rid of it? Because I heard both options here. Well, if we get in the water and start swimming, we don't need the ship. And that's probably better if we want to be stealthy to not have a big

boat coming behind us. Sure. We'll go in swimming on our own. Can you turn me into a seal? Yeah, I turned Gungam into a seal. Can you do that? Oh yeah, polymorph, right? I have polymorph. I was joking before, but I'm doing it now. Yeah, we're seal teams. Yeah, I cast, but that's fine. Seal team six. Kyborg, do you want to be anything? I have polymorph as well. I like me. I'm like who I am. I cast polymorph and make Kyborg a seal. You want to be a seal? Okay, good boy. I turn into an otter.

Bart, are you just Bart? I'm just Bart, yeah. Okay. You can ride on me as an otter. Can I choose when to turn out of this? I say as a seal. How does it sound? How does that sound? Now say that in draconic. I'm kidding. I see...

Light go out in Blaine's eyes. Okay, so you stealthily go up. All of you make stealth checks. All right. And me with advantage, yes? Yeah, and you have advantage because you're invisible. I feel like we all should have advantage. Yeah, because we're all seals. Well, yeah, I'm not making you make swimming checks. 16. 27.

Eleven. Nine. Half stealthy, half not. Okay. But we're also seals. They just look like seals. That's true. So maybe they see, but they see seals. Yeah. I mean, a theoretical. And an otter. And an otter. Okay. So y'all, you know...

swim up to the shore and, you know, Boulderay's right in front of you. Are you just going to go in the front gate? No. I mean, do we have... There are docks or anything like that, right? Normally, you all dock at the base of those cliffs and then you go up the cliffs to go in the entrance to one of the gates of Boulderay. And are those not available? No, they are. I'm just asking, like...

like if that's how you're gonna do it. Let's go an alternative route than the front door. Yeah. Whatever like less treaded path there is to get in. So the main gate like where you met Guard Grattle way back when you first got here was the southern gate. But where you're docking now you could try to come up from the northern end of town and there's like wooded hilly areas you could try to walk through to enter the town in a more stealthy way that would put you kind of close to where the immersed gateway was at one point. Let's do that.

Okay. Once again, since you all are not in the water and you're sneaking through the ground, everyone go ahead and make a stealth check again. Nine. We were better that time. Nineteen. Not twenty for twenty-two. Twenty. I hate myself. I just turned to Kaibara and go, You're being too loud.

I probably will never fail a stealth check. I have advantage when I'm invisible and I have a plus 12. Hey Gus, challenge accepted? Yeah, you all start to get closer and you see as you are approaching that the entire town seems to be in darkness. Like where you are, it's sunny, it's daytime. And then almost like, I would say almost like a cloud, you can see the shadow, you can see, but way, way darker than that.

Is it like the episode of The Simpsons where Mr. Burns blocks out the sun? Yeah, kind of like almost like nighttime. Yeah, yeah. I'd say like that. And then as you're standing there looking at it, kyborg at your feet, four dead birds are thrown and land at your feet. Thrown? Yeah. Are they like my birds? Are they Fae? You recognize these birds? My babies. As a seal, I like look at it and start chewing on it. Wait, are you still a seal? I thought I was. You all went up the cliffs and I said you're on land. I don't know. I guess not. Where did the birds come from? I draw my bow. It's dark. I had dark vision. It doesn't work.

I'm cross-eyed. So we're at the border of it? Yeah, you're right at the border. I put a hand in.

Yeah, your hand is like just totally engulfed in darkness. And it shakes it, but it grabs your fingertips, you know, when it shorthands you, you know? And you're just, you're so annoyed. Does it feel like anything? I don't know. It does not feel out of the ordinary. I take handcuff. My friendship. I don't want to be handcuffed. I don't want to be handcuffed. No, so you can pull me in. So you can pull me in. So you can pull me in. So if I go in. Put a rope around me. I don't want to get handcuffed. I'm a bow. I'm an archer. He needs his arms. These can go 60 feet across. Thanks.

Give it to me. Put it on me. I want to do a barrel roll in. You know that, right? Yes, Sam. Oh, you're somersaulting. Okay, Gum-Gum goes in attached to me. Okay, so Gum-Gum and Mud go in. Kyborg, you're... I stay out. Oh, Gum-Gum goes in attached to Mud. Yeah. It's okay. Mud's probably stronger than Kyborg anyway, so...

Summer salt in. Skye, work summer salt in. Bart, how are you approaching this? God, I hope something just consumes him. I'm gonna wait on the outside. With me? Yeah, just in case I hear anything. Yeah, we'll send the expendables in. Let's go make a bubble, buddy.

The ultimate insult now. All right. And also while that's happening, could I use my wand to detect magic? Yes. And this will detect magic within 30 feet of you. Yeah, you can tell that the darkness is magical in nature. Can I tell what kind of magic? Evocation magic, which tracks with darkness. You two, Kyborg and Gum-Gum, when you step inside, you realize not only is it dark, it's also eerily quiet and silent.

I try whispering something to Gum-Gum. What do you whisper? Can you hear my voice? Can I hear it? Gum-Gum doesn't turn around. So did I hear my own voice? No. Okay, okay. Can I turn and look and see if I see Kyborg at all? If he's right next to you, you might be able to barely make him out, but it's very difficult to see. What's it smell like? Dirt and rock. Is that what it normally smells like here? Yeah, it doesn't smell out of the ordinary. Can I use...

press the digitation to make a small campfire, like, as far as it can go from me to see if it illuminates any of the area around it. The range is 10 feet. 10 feet in front of us. So you want to make a set of

campfire? You can light a candle or a torch or a small campfire. So you cannot manifest a campfire to appear, but you could light something that's within the 10 feet of range. Or if you pull a torch out, do you have a torch? What if I bring an arrow out and I look at it and I light the arrow on fire? Yeah, you can try that. Alright, I do that and then I shoot the arrow in. You hit an old lady that was standing there in the village. I've been screaming the whole time.

I kind of lob it, not in like a lethal sort of way. I wanted to kind of arc in, you know, a slower arrow. Before you even get to that point, I would say, like, you cast your prestidigitation on the arrow, and it sparks and, you know, it forms a small fire for a second, then it's very quickly snuffed out. Man. Okay. Can I pull up Boomba and go, show me the magic?

I just had done that. Yeah. Well, when he did that, when he did his magic, what, like his precedent... When he did his thing, did it change or did it... Well, you detected transmutation magic very briefly. Yeah, like did his magic work? I guess what I'm trying to... You did detect transmutation magic

Very briefly. I grab Gum-Gum with one arm, and then I start walking us backwards to see if we can leave the darkness. Yeah. You walk back out into the light, and the rest of your party is there. Okay. Well, guys, we didn't see anything. It's completely dark. You can't light fires. It just eats the light. Did you try opening your eyes? I did. I go back in. And does it seem like magic works? But we also didn't get attacked, so I don't know what that's worth, but something's going on. Okay. Okay.

It's dark. Well, I suppose we have no choice but to go in and try to figure out what's going on. I don't think we can go in because nothing works in there. We can't see anything, hear anything. Nothing works. Do you have any big digging creatures?

You can be mad. Um, no. Should we maybe walk around the perimeter of this and see if there's anything? Yeah, I like that idea. Could we do a little perimeter walk? Yeah. I mean, it's a big place, I assume, that's covered, but. It seems like it's all a boulder, right? Also, with my cloak of manifolds, I want to turn it, like, black.

black. Like I just want to match it. Just make a camouflage of sorts. I assume y'all are going to split up. Who's going with who? Well, can we just all just as a group do a perimeter walk? I guess. I'm trying to split the party. How do you want to go? Clockwise or counterclockwise? We're coming in from the north. Where you're coming from. We'd have to go counterclockwise, right? Yeah, counterclockwise really. Clockwise probably would not work out.

We go counterclockwise. Look at you, knowing that off the top of your head. I got a visual memory. I just can't remember names. All right. Yeah. Y'all begin walking around the darkness in a counterclockwise fashion. And if you go this way, it's not too far to get to Infinite Headquarters, which is actually the far northwest corner of Boulder Raid. Is that also covered in darkness? Yes. And as you're getting close,

A couple of hands reach out from the darkness and pull all of you in. Whoa. All of us? Yeah, all four of you. Everyone make a wisdom saving throw. Oh.

I did a nat 20, 23. Did a nat 1 for a 0. The duality of man. I have advantage on wisdom saving throws. 15. I rode a funk cat. 24. All right. So in the end, mud 24, kyborg 15, gum gum 0, bark 23? Yep. Okay. And mine was a nat 20, just so you know. I don't like brag about it. Gum gum 0, bark 23.

Gum Gum, as you step into the darkness, it unlocks your childhood fear of heights and you're overwhelmed with a feeling of vertigo. That don't feel so good. Everyone go ahead and roll initiative. Gum Gum passes a little bit of gas. 13. 22. Seven. 20. First time me and Kybar didn't roll the same initiative. It's been a little while. It broke the streak. It sucks. It broke it.

Kyborg, you are first after you is Gum-Gum. What am I looking at? It's like the darkness. You realize what pulled you in was like humanoid hands

and you can't really see anything inside here now that you're in the darkness okay I have an arrow um Mutt senses his dumb friend is going to start shooting arrows in the darkness and ducks I attack the darkness I attack the darkness I guess do we know how we're placed standing within range of each other or we don't know because we can't see it you would assume you were pulled in and you're in the same order they were walking in

Which we never established. I guess I'm just gonna like ready myself for an attack. Like that's a thing, right? Yeah. Where I can just kind of pull off. You can also, yeah, like delay if you want to go after someone else further down the list. But in a way that like it doesn't take me out of the initiative order, correct? Right. Well, you could delay your turn. Like you could say you want to go after someone else. So I have to call who that is now? Yes. I want to go after the enemy. Okay.

Is that allowed? Sure. You're going to wait to be a little more specific. You'll wait for someone to attack you and then go after that individual. Okay. Gum Gum, you are very scared. Okay. You don't know what's happening. I'm very scared. I'm going to rage. Just for reference, you have the status effect of fire.

Uh-huh. Little pee-pee boy. It says it's official D&D rule. And it just means you have disadvantage on ability checks and attack rolls, and you cannot willingly move deeper into the darkness. So you could still rage.

Well, then I'm gonna roll for my rage. It's an eight, which is a bolt of light shoots from my chest. Another creature of your choice. You can see within 30 feet of you must succeed on a constitution saving throw or take 1d6 radiant damage and be blinded. I can't see any creature in front of me. That's a pretty useful one in this situation though, huh? Bolt of light. Yeah.

Unless the light somehow is magical light. But the problem is in order to even manifest, you need to be able to see where it's going. But it shoots from my chest regardless, right? Because it just says a bolt of light shoots from my chest.

Just like shoot it out randomly? Yeah, because it shoots from my chest. Then it doesn't necessarily hit anyone. It just procs light. Yeah. So it just makes the light and then disappears. Okay. So yeah, you make a beam of light appear and just shoot out randomly. For a very brief second, the area around you becomes very quickly illuminated. Everyone, let's roll a perception check at disadvantage. Neato. Sweet. Okay, good.

17 is my worst. Man, look at you. 8, 9, 21, 25. Wait, hold on. I have a thing. I want to try something. Oh, no, it's a saving throw. I could do lucky. Yeah, I'm going to do lucky. Because... You'll probably hear what happens. We're

We're seeing it. It depends whether or not he can act. Oh. Okay, so I roll lucky and technically that means that I can pick whichever one, whichever roll. Mm-hmm. I'll just roll again. So I'm going to roll again. I assume for the nine. So what did I get originally? 21. 21. I take that one. Mud, Kyborg, and Bart. Very briefly, Gum-Gum, you do not see this. For just like a flash of a second, you see almost like elf-like creatures surrounding you and they all shield their eyes when the light goes off. How many?

These are a handful. No more than five. Okay. And they're all in front of us? All surrounding. Surrounding. Is their expression that of an enemy or a friend? They look mad. In that brief flash of light. Gum, gum. So that proc 20 rage. So just to be clear, you said I can't go any further into the darkness? Correct. You cannot proceed into the darkness because of your fear. Okay. In my fear, I'm going to do Cone of Cold in front of me. Okay. It's level fifth spell using my...

-Rainbringer staff, a blast of cold air erupts from your hands. Each creature in a 60-foot cone must make a constitution saving throw. Creature takes 8d8 cold damage on a failed save or half as much damage on a successful one. -The three of you roll a four-sided die. If you roll an even number, it hits you. If you roll an odd number, it doesn't. -They're not in front of me, are they? -You don't know. You didn't get to see anything because of the light. -You're blind shooting. I rolled a four.

I rolled a three. I wouldn't have rolled. I wouldn't have done it if they were. It's okay. Mine is a one. Okay, Mud, you get enveloped in the cone of coal. So go ahead and roll damage. Well, constitution saving throw first. Oh, constitution saving throw. What is it? I rolled a 15. You're good. It's 12. Okay.

I'm not going to show you the rolls, but I'm going to roll here for myself. Invisible, just like our enemy. Okay, there are some failures here. So go ahead and roll damage. All right, that's 25. Okay, so then Mud would take half, we'll roll down to 12. I'm taking some notes here for myself. You rolled four ones in there. Yeah, that was not great. I'll take it. Well, yeah, it's good for you, but... Yeah, bad for them. And if anyone dies, they become frozen statue. Okay, you don't have to worry about that. Oh, no. That's okay.

You're surrounding Sunly Brighton, revealing a sunlit boulder ray. For a split second, you catch sight of four gray-skinned humanoids clothed in shadow from head to toe. They're each armed with pitch black blades, wearing hooded cowls, each revealing a pair of indigo eyes. They quickly bow, then all at once vanish into thin air.

Each year you start to feel your pulse quickening, your heart stumping in your chest, beads of sweat trickling down your brows. Abart, you feel goosebumps spread all across your body. You look down to see your own shadow stretch out, clawing along the ground. It darkens to a pitch black and reshapes into a slender silhouette of a long-haired woman with pointed ears and indigo eyes. A thin smile curls along her face.

I can already tell. This is gonna be so much fun, Bartholomew. Oh, I'd be surprised if you remembered, but yes, we've met before. I'm Inku, Queen of the Shadowmane, and I come with an invitation. To all of you. Hmm, what do you call yourselves again? Infinites? Such a ridiculous name, but it does have a certain ring to it.

Come find me in the land of Tetra, Bart. It'll give us a chance to reunite face to face. You know, catch up, have a few laughs, walk stories. There's one story I've been dying to tell you, actually. It's the one where I trapped your parents in the Shadowmane for eternity. Ha ha ha!

What? I should narrow it for the shadow. Are you an ex-girlfriend of mine? Find out what happens in the next episode of Tales from the Stinky Dragon. No, I stop on the shadow. I stop on the shadow. I say, get back, shadow.