C01 - Ep. 44 - Paralyte’s Poison - As Wood As It Gets
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This podcast is supported by FX's English Teacher, a new comedy from executive producers of What We Do in the Shadows and Baskets. English Teacher follows Evan, a teacher in Austin, Texas, who learns if it's really possible to be your full self at your job, while often finding himself at the intersection of the personal, professional, and political aspects of working at a high school. FX's English Teacher premieres September 2nd on FX. Stream on Hulu.

This is a Rooster Teeth production. Happy TGI Fade A to all you darklings. Betray your way into the stinky dragon. Throw back our latest thirst quencher, Edgar Allan Crowe. It's a mixture of peach, pear, and plum pits, vexed vodka, wrath of rum, and black curacao. One sip of this dark draft is enough to make anyone go stark raven mad.

Previously, our adventurers left the Dreamery and were back in present-day Boulderay. They ventured back into the Elder Pines in pursuit of Paralite and their captured friends, and along the way they encountered a metamorphical fern named Frank and a reluctant Evergard named Lil' Jimmy. Eventually, they hoisted themselves up into the Elderling Village, and now they find themselves face-to-face with an explosive situation. Flump your feathers, wet your beak, and let's resume this Timberline tale. ♪

Explosive. Explosive. Remember our episode ended with an explosion and the tree house, the building you were in splitting into. Yeah. Right. The two tree people. And then I forgot little Jimmy until just now. And I,

I'm glad he's still out there somewhere, you know? He'll be the big bad evil guy in a future arc. Oh, no. Don't make him do that. That was Quadrant. That's good storytelling when your best friend becomes the villain. Yeah. See? Chris knows what's up. He was never our best friend, though. Well... He was in friendship bracelets with Gum Gum. That's right. The friendship bracelets say otherwise. So this is kind of a metagame question for you guys.

At the end of the last episode, those kind of wooden-looking creatures came out of the walls, and there was an explosion. And like I said, it split the building in two. Right down the middle, the crack runs west to east, so it split the building into north and south sides. The party was on one side.

and Sleek and Spectral were on the other. Do you all have a preference which side you're on, north or south? As in, like, we still have the same grouping, our party and Sleek and Spectral on the other side? Right. South side! South side? No, I'm a huge fan of Elijah Wood's work, so I'd like to go north.

I don't get it. The North remembers. I knew I'd make that reference and no one would get it except maybe like two people who listen to this podcast. Remember that little movie where he disowns his parents and goes looking for new parents called North?

No. No remembers that? Cool. I thought you were going to make some Game of Thrones reference. Elijah Wood? No, not with Elijah Wood, but just the North versus South kind of thing. What was that evil kid movie with Elijah Wood? The Good Son. The Good Son, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know any of these movies. I believe it's based off a really old movie called The Bad Seed. I just remember one of them died at the end, and it was just like a little kid just...

Sorry. Anyway. We can go south side. I'm sorry for derailing everything. I vote north. North? Oh, that's two for south, one for north? Oh, I mean, I'll stick with north then if Barb wants to go north. Oh, one for south, two for north. Come on, GumGum. I abstain. I don't care. North it is. Okay, so you guys are on the north side and Sleek and Spectral are on the south side.

Hey, your good buddy Sleek's on the south side, Blaine. Your favorite side. I was going to say, as long as I'm away from him, that other side is the best side. So north all the way. Okay, gotcha, gotcha. All right, so a barrel has exploded, splitting the building in two, separating the party from Sleek and Spectral. So everyone needs to go ahead and roll me some initiative. Let's get this episode rolling. 15. 9.

19. Sorry, my thing is doing that thing where it's letting me click it, and it's like, this is what initiative is, but it's not letting me roll initiative. You want me to roll for you? Yeah.

Do I trust you? Hold on, let me see if this refresh works. Yeah, you're going to have to roll for me on this one. 13 for kyborg. All right, I'll take it. And does it matter what sleek and spectral roll? It does. I'm going to roll for them in just a second. Okay. So we're still, we're in the combat realm of the other group. They're just across the way. Correct. How big is the chasm? Yeah, I was about to ask you. Look at you all on the same page. It's a pretty big gap. We'll say it's about,

20 feet across. 20 feet, okay. Really quick, I know we just rolled initiative, but I call out to Sleek, I say, Sleek, you can make the jump! Just come to me! Jump, Sleek, jump! I bet Sleek could make a 20-foot jump. I bet he couldn't.

So Sleek gets a 16 and acts before Kyborg, and Spectral gets a 14. Also acts before Kyborg. Why is that an important detail? Just an important detail. Because he knows it bothers you. Just letting you know that they're better than you. In every way, it's weird. You're just...

Well, you rolled for me. Yeah, and then you rolled afterwards and it was worse. But that was a test roll. It was a fake roll. It's not here. I'll roll a real roll. Here's a real roll. 14. One more than you. That was such a Disney villain-esque way to do it. One more than you. Ha ha. Ha ha. Back, you noble steed. Do not fight me. Ha ha. Ha ha. Ha ha. Is Kyborg fighting a horse?

I think I got everyone taken care of. Gum Gum, the explosion is still ringing fresh in your ear. You are first to act with your cat-like reflexes. What do you want to do? So, that wood thing, where am I in relation to it? You are on the same side of the chasm as it. You and your party are on the north side of the chasm along with one of those creatures, the one that fired and hit the barrels. The room wasn't huge to begin with, and

And now it's kind of separated. So I'd say all of your party and that enemy are all probably within 15, 20 feet of each other. Okay. It's a weird security system to blow up the room. Yeah. Yeah, it is. I'm going to rage. And so I'll roll my rage magic thing. And it is a one. Each creature of your choice that you can see within 30 feet of you must succeed on a constitution saving throw or take 1d12 necrotic damage.

You also gain temporary hit points equal to 1d12 plus your barbarian level. Okay, so I can hit the one wood thing, right? Can I hit the other one? Yeah, I said the gap was 20 feet. Y'all are pretty tight. It's pretty tight on the other side. Yeah, the other one's barely within range as well. Oh, all right. So I'll roll a d12. Yeah. Eight. Pretty good. I mean, you roll a d12 plus your barbarian level. Oh, 10, which is 16. So I get 16 temporary hit points. Wow, look at you. Woo!

You're level six? Yeah, you are level six. Look at you guys. You're all grown up. I'm this many. He holds up a four. And I guess they roll a... Oh, yeah. They each get a constitution save. That is correct. What is their constitution? Their constitution is plus one. And the save is...

Eight plus your proficiency bonus plus your constitution modifier. So it's eight plus your constitution is three, 11. Where's your proficiency bonus? Oh, there is three. So that's a 14. They need a save DC 14. Let's see how they do. One of them fails, one of them saves. So we'll say the one on your side fails and takes the damage. The one on the opposite side saves and does not take the damage.

Okay. And then, so I'm raging. I mean, these guys are wood, right? So... I know what wood hates.

Sharp things. And then I'm going to go recklessly attack it with my axe. Sure. Yeah, it looks a little withered. Like ever since I guess it got hit with that necrotic damage, you know, some of the wood like kind of curls up and looks like it's desiccated and kind of rotten a little bit. So it doesn't look as pristine as it did before. It looks like wood that's been out laying about for a long time. Okay. That's a 21 with my axe. That hits. Okay. And that did a 7.

16 plus my rage, so 18 damage. 18 damage? Yeah. Is this wood plank gonna survive? I mean, I guess not. Yeah, Gum-Gum, seizing the advantage of the somewhat desiccated wood, brings his axe down from the top and cleanly cleaves it in half. And to a left and a right side, and it falls to the ground.

Chris killed that piece of wood harder than a 10-year-old going after a yellow belt in karate class. Oh, I love that mental image. And then I have a second action. Second attack. Yeah. How far away is the other one? It's about 30 feet. 30 feet? Yeah. That's within jumping range. Nope. He's got his ring of jump. Oh.

I just said nope because the last thing I need is for Gum-Gum to go down a chasm. And if I recall, the ring of jump gives you triple your jump, right? Yeah. Do I have enough movement to use it to get to him? Yeah, sure. Okay, I'll do that and then recklessly attack with my axe on him. Okay. Gum-Gum is just going to take care of both these enemies in one turn. I do not like wood.

Gus, what time of day would you say it is right now? Let's see. When you awoke from the dreamery, it was morning. It was a fresh morning. Then you hiked down south, then you went west. You went through the thing. I'd say it's probably about midday, about this point. Oh, so this isn't Morningwood? Oh, my God. I can't believe I went through all of that to give you an answer. Woo!

All for a pun. My girlfriend works customer service. Some customer's just getting... Get the background. Morning wood! Yeah! Okay, well then, should I go ahead and roll for attack? Yeah, we said you want to attack it, right? Yeah, I'm recklessly. It's a nat 20, so that's a 28 to hit. 28, damn.

That hits. That's a crit. Okay, yeah, that's a crit. Wait, what did you do there? I hit attack and it rolled two dice. Maybe because it was a crit, did it do that automatically? Yeah. Because normally what we do is we'll do, you make your attack roll and then we'll add like one at max. Okay, well then you can pick whichever of those two numbers you want, the nine or the eight. Yeah, we'll take the first one because that's what we normally do when there's multiple rolls, which is the higher one. So nine plus 12 is 21 plus 15.

is 26. Plus 2 for raging, so 28. Plus 2 is 28. Yeah, once again, Gum-Gum jumps across the chasm and brings his axe down and in one mighty swing cleanly cleaves the enemy into two pieces.

Well, I already knocked an arrow, so I guess I got to shoot it at Sleek. I don't know what else. That was impressive, GumGum. Where's the other guys? Where's the other ones? Gus is frantically adding HP to all the other enemies that he was going to have us fight later on. Yeah. They're getting moved up in the map. Yeah. You get 10. You get 10 more hit points. Good job, GumGum.

Thanks. I'm so proud of you, buddy. Thanks. I'm proud of you. And you can just do that every time. Okay. Spin move. I'd be lying if I didn't say Kyborg was super jealous right now. That's a very Kyborg reaction. He's like happy that we beat them, but also still very jealous that he didn't get to participate. That's right. At this point, additional enemies that look like wood pop out of the walls, pointing at Gum Gum and pointing at Kyborg, saying contraband. Woo!

Let's do it. Hold on. What do only Gum Gum and Kyborg have? We have sharp weapons. No. Bart does too. Yeah. So what do you guys have that me and Mud don't that they're classifying as contraband? Well, I think last episode Gum Gum put on one of the guard's tunics and mine is a fake guard tunic. So that's a common denominator there.

Now, I figured it out. It's heterosexuality. That's what they're aiming towards. Contraband. Straight. Straight as an arrow. Bart is definitely not straight.

But we're the only ones who have brandished melee pointy weapons. We have hand axes. I have a hand axe. Also, this room was filled with common weapons when we came in. But I'm saying Bart has a sword. Yeah, but he hasn't brandished it. I have a long sword and I also have daggers. Did you brandish yours, Chris? Yeah, when I used my axe and cut those two guys. Right. Contraband happened before that. That's why the room blew up. But they didn't say contraband to me. They did. They did. At the end of the last episode, they did. Didn't they just say it to Kyborg? They just said it to Kyborg.

Oh, okay. So you're saying they didn't say it to you. Yeah, but now they did. Put down your stupid weapons. Put down your stupid weapons. Never! I don't think I had my weapon drawn in the last episode. Yeah, you did. You drew an arrow and aimed it at him. Sounds like Kyborg, yeah. Okay, I am putting my contraband in my shirt. Okay.

And I put my axe away. Can you put that genie back in the bottle? Bart holds his hands up and does one of those little magic tricks where you make the rings with your thumbs and forefinger and go da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da

Just to try to distract him a little bit and calm him down. I was just watching an episode of The Simpsons this morning where Homer was humming a little Spanish flea. Yeah. Well, okay. Just to be clear, Gum-Gum hides his axe under his shirt and Bart does magic tricks to impress them. And Kyborg. Well, what's their reaction to Gum-Gum doing that? Well, I don't know. It's not their turn yet. Whose turn is it? It's about to be Sleek's turn. Okay. All right. I'm going to move on unless anything else. Kyborg.

Am I allowed to go? Am I allowed to do this? Well, other people were doing stuff, so I was just curious. Okay. This is a damage if you do damage, you don't situation. Because either I moved out of turn and get yelled at, or I don't do this and I get yelled at. So I'm just going to put my arrow back in the quiver, and I'll mount my bow back on my thing. And then as I bring my arms back, middle fingers at everybody. Okay.

Rude. Okay. It is Sleek's turn. There's an enemy on his side here along with Spectral and Gum-Gum. He's going to go ahead and pull out his tuning sword and make an attack. Sleek, what are you doing? I'm yelling at Sleek.

attacking the enemy? It's contraband. You're one of them. He looks at you quizzically. I refuse to believe canonically that Gum-Gum knows the word contraband. He's just repeating it from them. I assume that there's been some situation in Gum-Gum's past where he dealt with the word contraband and didn't know what it was and got arrested or put in timeout.

Well, regardless of Gum Gum's past, Kyborg swings true with his sword. Sleek. What did I say? I said Kyborg. I said Kyborg. Oops. Sleek. I get them confused because they're always together. No. Sleek swings his sword. It strikes true, doing seven points of damage to the enemy in front of him, which brings up Bart. Then after Bart is Spectral, then Kyborg. Okay.

And how many are there now? Two. One on the south side and one on the north side. Okay. How long are these pieces of wood? Oh, that's a really good question. They're humanoid size. So about the same height as an average human. So like six feet-ish? Yeah, I'd say a little under that, but yeah. Dang. Okay. I mean, average is like five foot six, Barbara. Come on. Whatever makes you feel good. I'm just kidding. Um...

So they're not like 20 foot planks, right? No, no, no, no. Dang. Okay. I was really hoping I could like... Build a bridge. Yeah. Could I cast my command at one of these planks near us or at the plank that's on our side? Yeah. Why not? Can I tell it to freeze? You speak a one word command to a creature you see within range. Target must succeed on a wisdom saving throw or follow the command. Spell has no effect if the target's undead or doesn't understand your language or if the command is directly harmful to it.

Yeah, you can try that. I mean, the example they give is halt, but it's the same thing you're going for with freeze, where it just like stops, doesn't move and takes no action. Yeah, freeze. Absolutely. Cool. Freeze. And I do like a fake gun with my two hands. Gotcha, band! And I go freeze, but it's just my fingers. What is it? Do they have a save? Wisdom 14. Their wisdom is plus one.

- That's pretty good for a plank. - 14. - Does that mean they pass? - Yeah, that means they made it. - Damn, okay. Well, that was a bonus action. How much do these things weigh? - Good question. All these tough questions. I'm gonna say, you know, wood can be pretty hefty. It's just under six feet as we've established. We'll say around 100 pounds, maybe a little over 100 pounds. - Dang it, come on.

I was gonna try to use my Mage Hand to pick it up and throw it down the castle. Oh, they're not like balsa wood. Balsa wood?

They turn into a hundred little airplane things that you get from Hobby Lobby. I was like 10 pounds, 10 pounds, because that's how much I could carry with Mage Hand. Okay. Well, can I try to just like unarm strike it down the hole? Are they near the chasm? They came from the wall opposite the chasm. So you are between them and the chasm. I feel like I could wrassle this thing. You could try to like grapple with it. Yeah. I just don't want to take out my daggers or spears or long swords because I feel like that'll just make more show up.

Could I grapple with it and try to throw it over? Yeah, you can try to grapple with it. Is that just an arm strike? You make an opposed strength check with it, then it can counter you with either its strength or dexterity. Oh, could I use my dexterity? No, I believe if you're initiating, you have to use strength. Okay, so a strength check, or saving throw? A strength check. For you, it looks like your strength check and saving throw is the same thing anyway. Dang it. Nine. It's going to go with dexterity.

Zero. Zero. Oh, I rolled a one. Woo! Yeah, you're able to grapple with it. So that means you've initiated the grapple. So you have it like wrapped up. It's like you're wrestling with it and you've got it like pinned kind of. Get over here. Seems like this guy's really pining for me. Stop. Joke's a little wooden for me. Guys, I'm bored. No! Could I try to throw it into the chasm?

Let me see if you can grapple and throw on the same turn.

It boils down to if you're able to make multiple attacks with the attack action. And you have two attacks currently, Bart? Is that true? It says actions attacks per action one. Oh, you just have one. If you had two attacks, you could. Otherwise, you'll have to wait till your next turn when you have another attack to try to like get him down the hole. Okay. So right now I'm just grappling with him. Yeah. You're like pinning him down. Cool. I'm helping. Okay.

Bart with the busting out the new tricks. Punching it. I'm helping. He's like slamming his little wooden head. Yeah, stop hitting yourself. Stop hitting yourself. I'm just going to go like this. And if you happen to get in the way, it's your own fault. Another Simpsons reference for you guys. Love it. That's one of my favorites. All right, Pi. I'm just going to go.

If you happen to get in the way, it's your own fault. I believe that is it for little Bart? Yes. Okay. That means it is Spectral's turn. Then after Spectral is Kyborg. Spectral is on the other side with Sleek and Gum-Gum. Spectral's going to pull out his daggers with a flourish. And he's going to go ahead and make an attack on this enemy. That hits doing 14 points of damage.

Then he's gonna go ahead and make one more attack with his deck. Ooh, which also hits. This one, however, only does four points of damage. That's it for him. Kyborg, you are up. And then after Kyborg is Mud. - So is there any indication as to if the contraband thing worked out? Like if they are just attracted to weapons?

You all have been operating under that assumption, but I don't think anything has been confirmed one way or another. Great, great, great, great, great. You could try rolling like an insight check, maybe. Would that be an action or would that be a bonus? No, no, no. Bonus action. Okay. All right. Insight check. Here we go. 14. Not bad. Yeah, it seems ambiguous to you. You can't tell if there's any solid connection between contraband and weapons yet.

So I still have no answer, yes or no. Correct. Cool. Okay, okay, great, great, great. That was a waste of time. Good God. Are we interrupting you? Do you have somewhere to be? I just want to make sure that we... Okay, all right. As opposed to the waste of time with the constant wood puns. Bart? Hello? Do you think that I should try to attack? Because I could down both of these. I bet you I could down both of these guys. It's not possible. Yeah.

Only Gum Gum is capable of this. Sorry. No, no, no. Okay. All right. Here we go. We're doing a little long row triumph. Aiming for the guy that's in our little wood area. Bart is grappling? Grappling? I have very good aim. But if you roll bad. I didn't. It's a 19. Okay. Now, if I made it explode, that's another situation. So you take careful aim not to hit your ally, Bart.

Actually, since he's grappled, you attack with advantage anyway. Oh. Well, well, well. You're welcome. Thank you. That's at 18, so 19. 19, yeah. You do manage to hit him. Doing seven points of damage. And how much for the bursting arrow? No, no, no, no, no, no bursting arrow.

You'd see a little Bart just getting rocketed out of a tree village. - He flies through the air and ends up landing on little Jimmy. - Oh, not you again. All right, so that was my first of two attacks. So I'm gonna roll again, longbow triumph. Let's get going, 17. - Are you still attacking the same grappled one? - Same grappled one, 'cause he's still alive apparently. - Is he? - Yep. - And I have advantage, right? - Yep. - 17. - 17, a little off your game today. That still hits.

Alright rolling for damage 11 11 he takes another 11 points of damage, but is still writhing and wrestling with Bart Okay fine action surge You can take one additional action on your turn I'm gonna I'm gonna hit him again do it long go try him 20 you have advantage. Don't forget 27 girl 6

Oh, so just a point of clarification. Thank you to Ben for pointing this out. I get two attacks. Yes. Since you get an additional action with action surge, now that you've leveled up, an action for you is two attacks. So if you action surge, you actually get two more attacks, not just one. Right.

I had someone on Twitter clarify that for me. And you actually need it because even doing six points of damage, this enemy seems to not want to stop fighting. Okay. How does it look? Like a piece of wood with three arrows in it. Yeah, it's getting feathered.

So it's got a bunch of, you know, arrow shafts and feathers sticking out of it. Did you raise the HP of this thing? Nope. Okay. Exact same amount. Then it doesn't take arrow damage very much. Or you're just not doing very much damage. No, I'm doing plenty of damage. I'm doing as much or more damage than Gum Gum did. Nope, absolutely not.

So much damage. All the damage. All right, I'm rolling again. 26. The other one was 24. That hits. All right. Six points of damage. You rolled a one. Finally, with its fourth arrow, the wooden humanoid goes limp and stops contesting Bart's grapple.

Okay. But say I were to do a bursting arrow. Would that hit the other one? I mean, I know it would hit Bart, but you know. The other one? I'm not near the other one. It's 30 feet away. Yeah. All right. Fine. All right. I'm done. I'm done. I mean, you could try to shoot that one. No, I'm out of attacks. So yeah, that was my turn. I only killed one guy.

This is really tough. I like how you went from super confident from I could off both these guys to having an action surge and barely getting one. I'm just, I have bad rolls today. It's not my fault. It's the roll's fault. I will say that I think the reason you think that the HP changed or that you weren't doing enough damage is don't forget, Gum-Gum also affected them with that necrotic damage from when he raged. So he cheated. Okay, well then as long as the DM admits that Gum-Gum cheated, then I can move on. I'm fine. Gum-Gum can do more damage sometimes. I don't know about that. That's not true. It's

All right, Mud, it's your turn. Then it's the enemy, and then it goes back to the top at Gum-Gum. The enemy is the one that's on the other side of the gap. Yes, it has been attacked by both Sleek and Spectral, and Gum-Gum is over there as well after he jumped. Okay, Mud slaps his butt, gives himself some guidance.

And then... Oh, oh. He uses a bonus action to make his cloak of billowing billow dramatically. And he uses all of this...

gusto and bravado to address the room and say, alright everybody, we think we figured this out. Put down your weapons immediately. And tries to convince the entire room, Sleek and everybody to just stop and, you know,

Like, stop this cycle from repeating over and over and over again. Pacifist. So you can either make a persuasion or intimidation check depending on how you are approaching this, whether you're just trying to persuade everyone or with your additional gusto and flair if you're trying to intimidate everyone into following your advice. I'm going to use persuasion.

13 on persuasion. 13. I'm inspired. I follow you, my captain, my captain. I think it's really cool, bud. All right, I'm gonna go and roll for Sleek and Spectral. And just for the record, I'm rolling wisdom saves for them. First up, we have Sleek gets a 13 exactly.

Spectral. Yeah, he makes it as well. Okay. Well, that's my action. I tried to use reason. Mud, always with the level head. It's a good try. You put a mug of coffee up there. It's so level. All right. So it's the enemy on the other side. He's been attacked by everyone. There's been attacked by Gum-Gum. He's been attacked by Sleek. He's been attacked by Spectral. I'm going to roll to see who he's going to attack. Gum-Gum, you are in his sights.

What's he gonna do to you? You put your axe under your shirt, right? Mm-hmm. Okay. It seems like out of this wooden plant-based creature, its roots start, like, writhing along the floor, making their way over to Gum-Gum.

Ooh, but Gum-Gum sees them coming and manages to like kind of stomp on them and step out of the way. So they're unable to grab onto him. Excellent work, Gum-Gum. That's too bad. That would have been fun. You always lie to us. I could have. I let you guys see the rolls though, unfortunately. So you see that a five definitely would not hit. Oh wait, Gum-Gum has disadvantage because he attacked recklessly. So they get to attack again. Oh.

But I do have advantage on dexterity saves. Right, but I didn't ask you to make one. Seven. Okay, no, it still misses. Man, that sucks. Okay. You're really rolling bad today, Gus. Yeah, you can commiserate, huh? It roars angrily. And with like one of its giant trunks, it brings it down and tries to smash Gum-Gum.

That one works, though. Oh, let's roll one more time because it has advantage. So that's a 22. That connects. It does seven points of damage. Is that factoring in my raging? No, you're raging, so you end up taking three. And you go ahead and make me a strength saving throw, please, GumGum. That's 11. 11. I might have an advantage on that.

It doesn't matter. You made it. Okay. It was a DC 11 strength save. Okay. All right, Gum Gum, you just got hit in the head by a giant tree branch. What do you want to do? Ow. Appropriate response. Was it the ugly tree? Okay, I don't think they're stopping their attacks.

Well, to be clear, nobody has put down their goddamn weapons. Well, I did. Yeah, but it's got to be a collective thing. It's got to be everybody's got to do it. Okay, I'm going to try and grapple this thing and pin it down. All right, you're a trendsetter, Bart. Turns out I am. Everyone wants to pin the wood. All right, go ahead and make a strength check. It's 11. But I do have advantage on that because I'm raging. I get advantage on strength checks. Yeah, she's a 13. Not much better, but...

Okay, so you get a 13. So it just has to roll better. Yeah, it's going to make a dex check, which is plus three. So 18. So yeah, you try to wrap your arms around the enemy, but it's wily and manages to evade your grasp. You don't know how Bart did it. Maybe because he's lower to the ground and got better leverage or something. I'm stout. Yeah. Well, then can I use my second attack to try it again? Absolutely. Bart went to state in high school for wrestling. Okay.

You slippery wood. It's just Gum-Gum's wood is stronger than Bart's wood. All right. For my second one, I got a 19. A 19 string check. 19. He's going to try to evade you one more time. 18. Almost gets out of your grasp, but you learn from your first attempt. It thinks it's going to step away at the last second you grab it by what would be its collar and slam it back down to the ground. Kyborg slides in on the mat and starts slamming. One, two, three.

Anything else, GumGum? GumGum's trying to think of a wood pun. Why don't you stop being wood? You're a chip off the old block, GumGum. Classic. Classic. That would be good. Wood chip! How many chips would it would be? I think he was commenting on his own. No, no, he's yelling at Kyborg's suggestions. Good work, Kyborg.

All right. That's it for you, right? Yeah. Okay. In that case, it's Sleek's turn. Then after Sleek is going to be Bart. I guess, yes. Sleek is going to take advantage of the opportunity in front of him and try to just finish off this enemy, maybe. Cool.

Connects with his tuning sword. I rolled twice because he has advantage. Okay. Since he's being pinned. He didn't actually roll a 34. I was like, damn. A 15 and a 19. A plus 19 modifier. So he arcs his tuning sword down onto the enemy doing eight points of damage. And it stops moving. No longer fighting back against Gum Gum. And with that, the enemies are vanquished. You guys did it. Yeah. Yeah.

Hey, everyone. Don't forget to give us a follow on social media at StinkyDragonPod on Twitter and Instagram. Why don't you send us a message or a tweet? Let us know what are some of your favorite moments in the show so far. If you have an episode and maybe a specific time code that would really help us out. We're just trying to put together a little greatest hits, if you will.

And don't forget, if you engage with us on social media, you might be an NPC in a future episode, just like Lil' Jimmy, who's named after James Kingsip at JimmyKing411. As always, Sleek is voiced by our own Ben Ernst, who's one of the producers on this show.

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Go to bit.ly/shiphitsthefad to subscribe or click on the link in the description. So they're just laying there? Yeah, they're like little piles of wood.

There are exits out of this room on both sides of the chasm, north and south? Correct. Okay. Which one goes into... Because we were on a balcony area before, right? Going in? Like the landing? Yeah. That's from the eastern side you all entered. So you came in from the east, and then there's exits to the north and south, which would be to your left and your right when you enter this room. And do those both go back outside or into the building? It seems like...

You're in one self-contained building from what you can tell. And then to the north and the south, they're both exits that leave this building that you're in. Okay. So either we need to try to get the party together really quick on one side and leave out door or we split the party and get out of this room before another contraband wave comes. And I don't know if we can make that 20 foot jump all of us.

I guess we just go our separate ways then. Okay. Okay. Mud exits stage north. Yeah. What about everyone else? I give a very long and thoughtful goodbye to Spectral, telling that I wish him the best of luck and that I hope he does well in the battles to come. And then I leave. Maybe I, like, lift my leg and do a quick fart over in Sleek's direction. Can I look around and see if there's anything that the ones that were killed dropped?

besides just wood? Sure. You can check the two on your side where you are. Make me a nature check. Nature. I'm one with great natures. Oh my God, I rolled 20. That's a 17 for me because I have minus three. Oh my God, he has one. That's funny that you rolled a 20 and it's still only a 17.

You feel like you can pull off some of the branches from these and use them as clubs if you wanted to. Just normal clubs? Yeah, just like wooden clubs. You also feel like the roots look pretty cool. All right. Like, you feel like there's something special about the roots. Remember how I said that one of them kind of like tried to like wave its roots out at you and grab at you with them? You feel like there's something special about them. I guess I'll take the roots from both of them and then grab one of them as a club. Mm-hmm.

and whisper, I'm sorry, to it. And then go out whatever the closest door is. I guess that's the north one. Nope, south. You're on the south side. Sorry, south one. He falls into the chasm. Yeah, you're on the south side with Sleek and Spectral. The rest of your party is exiting through the north door. So you're stuck with Sleek and Spectral. Oh, I guess I could run and jump over there. Yeah, run and jump over and join the others. Okay. Ah!

So the four of us are exiting North Door. Sleek and Spectral can do whatever they want. Yeah, Sleek says, don't worry. We'll probably meet up on the other side. You guys go that way. We'll catch up with you. I like having them with us, though. Especially Sleek. Troll Bart. Don't beat yourselves up too much. If you need to go back to the castle to see the doctor at home, we understand. It's fine. We got this covered. It's okay.

We exit the door. Okay. You all exit the door. Like we established before, you all are up in the treetops. And as you exit this northern door, you're out of this building, and there's a wooden walkway that leads a little bit. It goes down about 15 feet and curves to the left and goes like another 10 or 15 feet and enters another building. We're like at one of those team building exercise camps, you know, where they have like the walkways and the zip lines and all that stuff. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, it's actually just like that. This whole show has been a team building, actually. And you guys refuse to learn. Right. Team breaking. Is it a door at the end of the walkway? Yeah, there is a door there that leads into this other building. Oh, we should try to get across. We're like out in the open air now, right? Yes, correct. Great outdoors. Is there anything else worth looking around and trying to get a lay of the land? Make a perception check. Yes.

Okay, I make that check right now. It's 24. You look around and since you're in the treetop canopies, it's very difficult to see very far. All you can really see are like the other trees around you and it's a very thick forest that you're in. What about animals? Animals? Yeah, I mean, there's various small birds chirping about that are indigenous to the area.

Mud walks down the path towards that door. Oh, yeah. You're standing at the door. And wonders if the party's going to follow or react or anything. I just wanted to make sure nothing happened to you. Like, no, like, Indiana Jones, like, arrows coming at you. Yeah, you're standing at the door to a building. It seems to be of similar size to the one you just left. You know, very similar makeup. It's a wooden building. No window into it? From the side you're looking at, no, there is no window there. Mud puts his ear to the door to listen. Make a perception check.

20. 20. You do not hear anything inside.

We're in an enemy base and this is a door. We don't know what's on the other side. What's our plan of action to enter this room best? Reaching clear. I got an exploding arrow. All right. You guys ready for this? Why don't we go in as everguards? I like that idea. How are we going to execute that? Well, I've got a cloak. I have a disguise kit. Kyborg has a cloak. And then Bart, you can go invisible. Okay. What do you have, GumGum? I have a cloak and I'm an act. I can act.

Raw talent. I'm an act. I could act. You could make me look like little Jimmy. Or you have a cloak already, which makes you already look like an Evergarden. I could disguise mud and I could go invisible. I have disguise self-spell.

Oh, okay. I could be a prisoner. We do it like Chewbacca style. Or we just are all the Evergards. Have we seen any half-orc Evergards? Are there like some like xenophobic like stormtrooper type? I don't know. Are we allowed to know that, Gus? You have noticed non-human Evergards. I don't know if you've seen any orc ones, but you have noticed non-human Evergards. Does invisibility burn up like spell slots, Barb? No.

Um, it does, but we had a long rest. Okay. So it does use up a spell slot, but I could also use my disguise kit on myself. Okay. But I don't know if that includes like clothes. Yeah. How far can that go, Gus? I know we've, we've,

pressed the limits of the disguise kit before, but I can't remember what we can do. It seems to only have cosmetics, hair dye, small props that you create disguises that change your physical appearance. So I don't know if it really, there's any clothing aspects to it.

You can hide under one of our cloaks and it just looks like one of us has a huge donk or something. I think of, like, Jean Parmesan in Arrested Development. Well, which one of you wants to be caked up with Barton?

Could you maybe make me not look like a half-orc, just because we haven't seen any half-orcs? Like makeup? Yeah, like... What do you want to look like? Could you make me look like a hobbit? Halfling, halfling! Is this okay that I'm doing this to Gum-Gum, the disguise kit, before we start role-playing this scenario? Do it. Yeah!

Absolutely, you do whatever you want. All right, Gum-Gum, have a seat in old Bart's chair. Let me get to work. And he cracks his knuckles. Okay. And then now it's just me doing a bunch of stuff to Gum-Gum's face, and all you see is like a big puff of smoke, like in a cartoon. And then all of a sudden it goes bling. He's done. He's perfect. Magnificent. Hello. He's the biggest halfling in the world. My name is Big Jimmy.

Big Jimmy. It's pretty good. Mud casts Disguise Self and looks like it's close to the last ever guard I've ever... Little Jimmy. I can't change my size that much. But you were an otter one time. Yeah, as far as Disguise Self magic, I can look one foot shorter. I don't know how tall Jimmy was. Can you turn yourself into an otter and then Disguise Self? No, I can't. I can't cast magic after I've turned into an animal.

I just turn myself into a big old Evergard. That's what I do. Big old Evergard. And I will cast invisibility on myself. There you go. And then Kyborg, what are you doing? I have the cloak of many fashions and I'm just going to fashion it after every Evergard cloak I've ever seen. It's like an amalgamation. You're missing a cloak, are you, Mud? Mud's full appearance mimics an Evergard. I can change my clothing. Okay, cool. That's cool.

That's awesome. Micah made a really great joke when Bart made Gum-Gum look like the world's biggest halfling. Micah called him a hole-ling. A double halfling. A hole-ling. Yep. All right. Since Mud looks the most like it because of the magic, I go through the door first. Okay. You open up the door, and it opens up into a rectangular room. It's about...

25 by 15 feet with some pretty tall ceilings. You see some windows on the north side of the room, so that would be to your right when you walk in. And it looks like outside that window, there's like a little platform out there. In addition to the window on the north wall, there's also a door out there as well that leads to that little platform. And there's another door opposite side of the room from where you entered on the western side.

Inside the room, you see shelves and tables that seem to be cluttered with various tools. What kind of tools? It looks like carpentry tools. There's a theme going on here. Fashioning a wooden army? My God, it's Pinocchio. You mean Geppetto? Geppetto. Fashioning an army of Pinocchios. No people inside this room? Not that you see, no. Can I do a perception check? Yes.

Yes, absolutely. Do a perimeter walk, little invisible boy. Yeah, I'm going to do a little investigation. 24. 24. Is there anything specific you're looking for there, Bart? Oh.

Or just like in general to see if anything seems out of place. Like I'm just trying to make sure I answer your check appropriately. Yeah, just if anything seems out of place, especially if like there's any people or enemies kind of like lurking. If anything seems off. Yeah, because those wood guides appeared out of nowhere. Yeah, you know, now that you've seen those wood creatures, you know what to look for and you don't notice anything like that. You know, you're looking around and you see various, like I said, carpenter's tools and wood carver tools. And it seems like the tools are vibrating ever so slightly.

Could I tell if like the floor is vibrating? From what you can tell, no. You know, it seems to be swaying a little bit, you know, moving with the trees ever so slightly, but not that same kind of vibration. No. Interesting. So it's like almost like these tools are just the tools are moving. It's not like they're moving because of the floor or something like that. From what you can tell, that is correct, Barbara. Okay. Could I...

Pull up my wand and try and do magic awareness to see if there's any presence of concentrated magic. Contraband! Yeah. As an action, you open your awareness to the presence of concentrated magic until the end of your next turn. You know the location of any spell or magic item within 60 feet of you that isn't behind total cover. When you sense a spell, you learn which school of magic it belongs to. Okay.

How do you do that? Describe that to me. How do you open up your senses to magic awareness? All right, I will tap into my magical power. And I pull out my wand, Boomba, and I close my eyes and wave it and go, mmm, magic, where is it? Oh, the eldritch words, mmm, magic, where is it? Yes, you sense magic, not only from your party, but emanating from the tools as well. And what type is it? Enchantment. I knew it.

These are magic enchanted tools. And as you say that, the tools seemingly pop to life and then they all fly at you, Gum-Gum. Oh no. And they start swarming around you. Oh no! Wait. What? They recognize me as a magic wizard and they want to join me. Everyone go and roll me initiative. Oh, never mind. Yep.

Nine. Ten. Six. Twelve. Bad roll date. Get him out. It's initiatives.

Okay, Gum-Gum, you have tools flying all around you. What do you want to do? So what types of tools? Just can you describe a couple of them? Are they sharp tools? Most tools that work with wood are sharp. Yeah. Saw, hammer, nails, hatchets, knife, small saw. Tell you what, maybe a perception check, Gum-Gum. 15. Yeah, it seems to be like all those tools I mentioned. And in addition, you also see a small brass key flying around.

Snitch, are we in the Harry Potter room? And do I see anything where a key might go in? I mean, there's locks on the doors. Beyond that, no. Did I see a key? I'm gonna get it. Um...

Does it look like something I could try and grab? Yeah, you could try that. We'll say it's like some kind of touch attack or dexterity check to try to grab it out of the air because they're all like flying around rapidly and you want to make sure you grab the key and not one of the other tools. Okay. So make like an unarmed attack to touch them and then a dexterity check to see if you're able to successfully grab it. Can I use my bolstering magic on myself before I do it?

I touch myself and I get a D3 when I'm taking an attack roll ability check to add to the number. That counts as an action. Okay, so I can't do that before. That would take the place of your attack action. Okay, well then I guess I'll unarm strike this thing. Yeah. I'll try and grab it. 16. Oh, not bad. You have a high modifier for your strike. Yeah. Strength, isn't it? Strength.

Yeah, you're able to reach out and touch us. Go ahead and make a dexterity check to make sure you grab the actual correct item. Well... Got anything you can add to that? Uh, I could use my...

- Well, I could try my second attack. - That's true. You're close, but I would say that you're unable to grab it. Like instead of grabbing the key, we'll say that like a hammer comes by, you end up punching a hammer as you're reaching your arm out instead of actually grabbing the key. - Okay. - So since you punched it, we'll say go and roll like unarmed damage to see, you know, how much damage you do to the hammer. - Six. - Six? All right. Yeah, the hammer goes flying and it hits a saw and it's flying through the air as well. But all the tools are still like circling around. - Hammer beats rock or scissors.

All right, so I'll try another unarmed strike. Oh, yeah, that's 25. 25, yeah, you're able to successfully connect. Now make a dexterity check. Yes, 22. That's a nat 20. Nat 20. Yeah, you very deftly snatched this small brass key out of the air, and it's now in your hand. It's still vibrating him.

I found the key. What do I do now? Why is Gum-Gum the hero of this episode? He's doing all the cool stuff. I'm so flustered right now. It's just his initiative rolls. He's going first. Could I run to the next door? Here's what Gum-Gum would do. He would run to the door that we just... I start running to the door that we just entered. I found the key to get out of here. The door you came in from? Yeah. Gum-Gum feels an invisible Bart take him by the shoulders and turn him around.

Okay, sorry. I found the exit. Thank you. I believe I was... My father gave me the...

the direction to go to magically. And then I run over and open the door or try and put the key in. To which door now? The one opposite of us. Yeah. The one that we haven't gone into yet or from. Okay. Just for reference, there's two. There was the one opposite you and then there was one to your right to the north that leads to that little landing that was out there. So you want to go to the one to the west that was opposite from where you walked in? Yes. Okay. And you said you try to put the key in there? Yeah. I see if it's locked and try to put the key in. Yeah. The door is locked.

Yeah, we'll say you put the key in and unlock it. So the door is now unlocked. That's the fastest we've ever gotten through a door before. We're not through it. You're not through it yet. It's still closed. It's just unlocked. Okay. Everyone over here, at the door. Can I, like, go in?

No, it doesn't seem to want to budge. The door's unlocked, but it won't open. So the handle works, but it just won't swing open? Correct, exactly. Can I listen and see if there's anything on the other side? You've done quite a bit already. I'm going to say no. Okay. All right. The tools are still buzzing around you, Gum-Gum. They're not happy with you. So a ruler comes along and starts trying to wrap you on the knuckles. Ow.

It hits AC 25. Ow! He's not rolled damage yet. It wraps you on the knuckles for five points of damage. Ow! This is just like when I was in boarding school at orphanage. You know how the orphanages have boarding schools. It's common.

Mud, you're up. You see like a swarm of tools. It's like a swarm of bugs around a person, but they're tools and they're all swarming around Gum Gum. It's hard to tell exactly how many there are just because they're moving so quickly and flying about. If you had to guess, you'd say, I don't know, less than 10, somewhere six or seven, something like that. So these things are under an enchantment. If I were to cast Dispel Magic, would I only be able to cast that against an individual tool or is the spell controlling them all the same spell?

Good question. Make me an Arcana check. That's not good. Five. You're not exactly sure how it works. You're not clear on it. I mean, I would say just try. Sure. I just try and cast Dispel Magic. So you choose... Any spell or third level or lower on the target ends for each spell or fourth level or higher on the target. They have to do an ability check. And so it targets one creature, object, or magical effect.

Yeah. So we'll call this a magical effect, since obviously there's no creature, there's more than one object. So make me an ability check just for fun, using your spellcasting ability. 23. That's pretty good. Beat that, tools. So you cast Dispel Magic, and the remaining tools all fall down to the ground. All the ones that were buzzing around his head? Yeah. Even the brass key itself stops vibrating in your hands.

Come, come, try the door again. Okay. Can I try it again? Yeah, just for the record, we're out of initiative, so anyone can do whatever they want. Yeah, you try the door again, and it still seems to be stuck. It's stuck. Does someone want to try the other door? I mean, this is the key that unlocked that door, which makes me think it's the one we're supposed to go through. I can try ramming it. Or do we want to try the other door? Let's try it. Can I lay down and look underneath the crack? Yes. Make a perception check. Fifteen. Oh.

You see another walkway under the door, like the one you all came in from. That's it? You perceive that they need to sweep the floor. It hasn't been cleaned in a while. And did I hear the rest of the party say they were going to check the other door? Mud does. Mud's curious. Okay, that door opens freely. You're able to open it up.

And outside is just a small landing that has vines on it. We could Tarzan over. Yeah, the vines like climbable to somewhere else? No, they go down. So our only option is to go out and down there? Or try and force the door. Could I try to send my mage hand under the door to come around to see if there's like a plank blocking it or something from the other side? Yeah. How does mage hand work? You have to see where you send it? Yeah. Okay.

As long as she can see underneath the door. Yeah. We need to invest in a mirror or something. I don't know if it says anything about me needing to see it. Yeah, it appears at a point you choose within range. It doesn't say about like that you see or anything like that.

We'll say, yeah, you can try it. There may be some penalties or disadvantage to it since you can't clearly see what it's doing, but I mean, you could try it. So you would just like look under the door, cast your mage hand and try to have it lift or... Like feel around if there's anything like blocking the actual door from opening. Deadbolt, plank. Classic Bart B&E. You just see a hand that on the back of the door, it's going...

You don't know what it feels though, right? You can just come at it to move things. Like if it feels something you wouldn't know. Right. Could it come back and write it on a piece of paper? Just try. Yeah. Does anybody have a camera that I can send with? Can the Mei-Chan do that? Could it like communicate via writing? I don't think it's like thing. It's like just a manifestation of Bart's magic. I tell it what to do.

Yeah. Yeah, I guess make me... God, what kind of roll would that be? Make me like a... It would be perception? No. Is that like dex? I'll tell you what. Just roll me two d20s. We'll see what the lower one is and we'll go from there. Okay. Dang it. There's a four. Four. Yeah, we'll say that you can hear the hand like kind of like tapping up against the door and moving around, but it doesn't really seem to connect with anything or figure anything out. All right.

Mud turns into a spider and climbs down the vines. Like big spider or swarm of spiders? What are we talking about? Big spider. Yeah. You turn into the big spider and start climbing down the vines. It's kind of a ways up. I forget how far I said in the previous episode it was to get down to the floor of the forest. But eventually you climb down and you end up in a small clearing at the forest floor. I'm at the floor? Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. You know what I mean, right? Like the forest floor, like 50 feet down? Okay, yeah, like at the base of the tree trunk. So I just climb vines 50 feet down? Yeah. Mud goes off and has his own adventure. Bye, everybody. That's just it. Mud's gone. Mud left the park. He's going to go find little Jimmy. Yeah.

Okay, I guess I go back up. That was fruitless. Did you find any Easter eggs hidden on the map? Like a collectible? It seems easier to climb back up because the vine is retracting as you're climbing up, kind of pulling you up to the platform. Can Spider-Bot, can you go look underneath the door? Yeah, I'd like to continue to crawl underneath the building and see if I can crawl my way around the door. Oh, that's interesting.

Yeah, you're able to, you know, climb around the side of the building. Normally it seems like nobody would be able to get around this way, but since you're a spider, obviously you can. And you come across to the other side of the door, and there's a walkway very similar to the one you were on before.

And you see the door and there's a, like a bar, a wooden bar holding the door shut. I remove it. Okay. No, wait, this is what I do. I say, hey, it looks like it's jammed. If you all could just really hit it really hard on three, that'd be great. Okay. Kyborg? You got it. Here we go. Okay.

Count me down. One, two, and on three, that's when Mud pulls the bar aside. This is how Kyborg dies. He runs off the ledge. Is it just Kyborg ramming? I think Bart's ramming too, right? Sure. Okay, Bart and Kyborg make athletics checks. Here we go. Eight.

18. That's a 12. Okay. You both run at the door. Then at the last second, right as you get to it, the door swings open slightly. You both hit it. It doesn't give as much resistance as you expect, and you both fall onto a pile, one on top of the other, just outside the door. No, they fall right into Mud's arms, and he gives them a big old hug.

Aren't you a spider? Wow, Mud, that was a brilliant idea. I thought for a while you accidentally went down those vines accidentally, but it's just all part of your plan all along, wasn't it? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, of course he's still a spider, Chris. That's why he has enough arms to give everyone a hug at the same time.

It's not a dungeon until Mud turns into a spider to try to fix a puzzle. That's right. Okay, yeah, so the doors open and there's a walkway that kind of like snakes around from this building over to another building just to the west.

Mudhead's there. Yeah, let's hit that way. I'm down. Everyone on board with that? Yeah. Time to go to our duty as soldiers. Evergards. Oh, he's in character. Bart, you on board too? Always. Always. You know it. I'm still invisible though, right? Yeah, you haven't done anything to end that. So unless you say otherwise, you're still invisible. That lasts for a while too, I believe. I think it does, yeah. It lasts for up to an hour. Okay. Spider mud. Should I turn back into mud? Yeah.

I don't know if they have any giant spider-type regards. You don't know. But are they arachnophobics? Or whatever it's called. Arachnophobia? You got it. Okay.

Because maybe they'll be afraid and they'll run away when they see a giant spider. Or it'll be like that crappy alarm system where it's going to scream at us and then self-destruct. I turn back into Evergard Mud. Evergard Mud. All right. So the four of you walk down that walkway and you're greeted with another door leading into another building. Doors! Doors. So many doors. Mud listens again. Mud trusts nothing. Make a perception check. Sixteen.

No, you don't hear anything out of the ordinary. Could Bart try the handle to see if it's unlocked? Not open it, but just see if it's unlocked. Yeah. You give the handle a check and the door appears to be unlocked. Unlocked.

Well, should we go through, fellas? Go for it. Yeah. Okay. All right. Bart opens the door. Oh, sorry. Were you going to say something? Oh, no. I was going to walk in like we were all in character. What's the main lady's name again? It's not Spectral. So anyways, I told Paralite, working hard or hardly working? It's more like InfiNerds is what I said. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

Isn't Paralite so beautiful and talented? Wait, you're invisible. Who said that? I'm being the wind now. Is that how the wind sounds to you? It reminds me of Evergard camp. Oh, yeah. Big Jimmy, good one.

Are we in the room? Is anybody in this room? Yeah. Okay, so you all are in character as Evergards, and you all walk into the room, correct? Yes. Correct. Yes, and I am the wind. And Bart is the wind. This room is a little smaller than the other ones. It's a square room. It's only about 15 by 15 feet. It still has pretty tall ceilings and some windows. There's a door opposite you yet again on the other side of the wall on the western side. Then on top of that, there's also a door to the northern side.

And you see windows on the north and south sides of this room as well. And we came in from the south side? What side are we coming in from? You all came in from the east side. Okay. In each of the corners of this room, it seems like there's hanging hammocks. And in the center of the room itself is a round table that has like a shiny bowl on it. When you all enter the room, you hear like a chime sound, like a ding. Everyone make a constitution saving throw. Uh-oh.

15. Nice, 22. Mud, you got a five. Gum-Gum, you got a 21. So everyone seems to get really sleepy, except for Bart. Bart, you see all of your party members eyeing the hammocks in the corners of the room, and they all slowly start making their way to those hammocks. You hear a disembodied voice state, begin in a comfortable seated or lying down position. I don't have a good feeling about this.

You got it. Close your eyes. Notice how good it feels to close your heavy eyelids after a long day. Could I try shouting over this message going, no, no, no, no, stop, wake up, wake up. Yeah, we'll call it a performance check. Make a performance check. Oh yeah, it'll be a performance check. Play the wake up gum gum song. 17. Makes a request to the DJ. Go.

Here comes the sun

Oh, it's morning already. Oh my goodness. I feel like I barely slept at all. Bart, you start singing your wake up song and trying to make as much noise as you can, but your party's still making their way over to the hammocks. Could I go and slash the hammocks? Good call. I was about to recommend that, but... Yeah, you can't recommend anything. You're sleepy. You got heavy eyelids. Yeah. Bart, what do you want to slash them with? Like your dagger or something? My dagger, yeah. Do you want to like cut

cut them down or do you want to like cut them through the hammock part so that they're unusable? Cut them down like through the hammock part so you can't use them. Okay. The room's not very big so you're able to do this pretty quickly. You know, you go to each of the corners and start cutting down all of the hammocks.

And what do you do with them? Do you like carry them with you or toss them on the ground? Toss them on the ground. Okay. You cut them all down and toss them on the ground. And even though they're logically, they're unusable, they're just laying on the ground, your party members still make their way to them and seem to be like lying down on the now cut down hammocks that are on the ground.

With every breath, the stress of your day can melt away and your body is slowing down, getting ready for bed. Do I have anything that could light things on fire in my inventory? Can you start an arson? Let's find out. Prestidigitation. Mud is yawning and says, remember there's something in the middle of the room. What's in the middle of the room again? There's a round table with a shiny bowl. Could I go over to that and look at it?

Yeah. Oh, wait, wait, wait. How big is the bowl? It's not very big. It's like one to one and a half feet across. So is it big enough to fit four hammocks? I'm going to say no. Even if you ball them up, you wouldn't be able to fit them in there. Is the bowl a bowl you would use a big spoon or a regular spoon in? Oh, I hate you. The regular bowl? Make me a perception check part. Oh, nice. 21. 21.

The disembodied voice seems to be emanating from the bowl in the center of the room. Uh, could I go over and flip the bowl upside down? Uh, yeah. You flip the bowl over. Bart just goes and fits his thick butt right in the middle of the bowl to muffle it. You flip the bowl over so that it's upside down on the table, and it's quieter, but you still hear a voice. Inhale and exhale. Quiet the mind, and the soul will speak.

At this point, all your party members are in different corners and they're all laying down with their eyes closed. What's the bowl made out of? It's made out of like a thin metal. So I can't like smash it? That's subjective. Could I try smashing it? Yeah, what do you want to do? Like pick it up and like slam it onto the ground or something? Yeah. Bart smashes it with a hammer! You said that at almost the exact same moment Micah typed that in chat. That's really funny. And I'll smash it with a hammer! Yeah!

Is that referencing something? Put that thing in a box. Mail that box to myself. That's Emperor's New Groove, Chris. Yeah, you pick it up and slam it onto the ground. Roll like a d6. Why not? Interesting. d6. Four.

Four. Yeah, you slam it down onto the ground and it dents the bowl on one of the sides where it hits the ground. Does anything happen? It doesn't seem like it. The bowl, you know, kind of rattles around it. It makes a really loud discordant musical chime when it hits the ground. But your party members are still asleep. Like I said, the bowl is dented now. So it didn't have to seem to have any effect on it.

Was there anything else on that platform other than it was just a bowl on a little platform thing? Yeah, it was just the bowl on that table. You know what they say, if at first you don't succeed, smash it again. Eat it. I was also going to see if I could, could I do a command on the bowl? You can try. You can always cast whatever you want. Could I try commanding the bowl to silence? Yeah. Silence. The bowl once again says, inhale and exhale. Quiet the mind.

They did not roll. Looks like you're going to have to fill it with some liquid. Pee in that bowl. Ha ha ha.

Do it. Can I spit in the bowl? No, you know what you need to do. Yeah, spit in the bowl. Okay, I'm going to spit in the bowl. Bart hawks up a loogie. Have you had allergies lately, Bart? Do you have some extra congestion? We're up in the trees, lots of pollen. Yeah, you spit in the bowl and you hear in the room, let all the toxic energy flow out of your body. That's what she's trying to do. Client the

the mind, let all the toxic energy out of your mind. I wonder if it's trying to also get us to do something. Um, alright. Can Bart pee in the bowl? Yay! Yeah, do you need to go? Have you not gone yet today, Bart? Uh, that's one of his talents. When he gets nervous, he could pee at any time. It's like nervous pee. I'm the same way, Bart. I totally understand. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, not knowing what else to do, I guess Bart brings out little Bart and begins peeing in the bowl. El Barto, is what I call him.

How can I say this without getting gross? - I feel the bowl. - Yeah, you put a considerable amount of liquid into the bowl and you continue to hear the voice, but it sounds like it's underwater. Like it's a gurgling sound.

Just let your stress help your way. I also love the fact that all my friends are asleep while I'm just like pissing into a bowl in the corner. That's the time to do it. Is there like a little crack in the floor where I could just pour my liquid out? Yeah, it's a wooden floor. So, I mean, any liquid that spills would fall. It falls on little Jimmy down on the forest floor. Yeah, meanwhile, little Jimmy's walking along on the forest floor. Glad to be back home.

I have a hammer in my inventory. Could I try smashing it with a hammer? Yeah, it's just like a regular hammer. Iron head, useful for pounding pythons into a wall. It doesn't have damage or anything. Roll like a, I don't know, roll a d6. Six. You pound the ball. It doesn't break or anything. You put a rather large dent into it, and when you hit it, like a discordant note once again sounds out, like an out-of-tune piano or something, and it just rings throughout the room.

At this point now, there are two rather large dents in the bowl. It's not looking nearly as pristine as it did before. But it's still doing the same thing? Yeah, it doesn't sound as clear anymore. It sounds, you know, kind of garbled. Maybe it's because of the dents. Is it having any effect on my party? No, they're still snoozing.

And once again, you hear, Begin in a comfortable seated or lying down position. Surprising that Bart's slamming on a thing with a hammer going, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, isn't woken us up yet. I'm going to try one more thing. Could I try playing my lute? Yeah. I'm just wondering if like the notes have anything to do with anything. What do you want to play? Do you want to play like a song or you just want to like put some notes out or what do you have in mind? Yeah, I'll just...

I'll just kind of strum on it, playing some notes and stuff like that. Yeah, make a performance check. I have a one, but I'm lucky, so I roll again. 28. 28? Bart, you're jamming. It's a shame nobody can hear it. Except the bowl. Yeah, you're giving a master class in lute performance, but nothing seems to happen. God dang. Well, should I just try going to sleep?

Given to peer pressure. I'm curious as to why Gus has been very specific on how many dents have been in the bowl and how it gets garbled the more you dent it. Yeah, I guess I'll just hammer it again if I can. Yeah, with that same hammer? Yeah. Yeah, go ahead and roll me a D6. Six again. Yeah, the bowl's looking very dented. And, you know, once again, when you strike it, the note that it makes, you know, makes the hair on the back of your neck raise. It sounds so discordant and gross. And you hear it say...

Close, close, close your eyes. And then it slowly stops. And then your party begins starting to wake up. Why does it smell like asparagus in here? Oh, God. Did you guys just take a short rest? That counted as a short rest? Ah!

No, it wasn't long enough. It was too short. It was a micro arrest. Well, what if I cast catnap? Thank you, Bart, for whatever you did. I don't really know what happened. Wait, let's not talk about it ever again. Yeah, what exactly did you try to get the bull to stop? That's between me and the bull. That was...

Why is the bowl wet? It's crying. It was sad to die. Why is the floor so sticky? Sticky? It's not sticky. That would be... I would have to go see a doctor if that were the case. I had a dream that Bert was serenading me while it was raining.

So there's another door on the other side? Correct. There is a door opposite from where you entered and then a door to your right as well. Does anyone need magic boost? What kind of magic boost are we talking about? I don't know. Do you guys need magic boost? Will you get more spells? I don't know what Gum Gum's asking. Do you need spell slots? I mean, yeah, always. Oh, you want to take a nap? No, I have a thing that can give you magic.

Oh, I mean, yeah. Give me more spell slots. I can only do... I only have three of them, but if any of y'all are, like, low... I'm okay on spell slots right now. But if Bart's burned some stuff, maybe... I mean, I'm still pretty good. I've only used up two of my level two spell slots. Okay. I just think Bart needs, like, a drink of water or something to, you know, refresh themselves. What makes you say that? You look parched.

So we came in from what angle? What direction? You came in from the east side. And then you said there's a door to the west and there's a door to the... North. North. And there's also windows on the north wall, right? North and south, both. And south. So basically to either side of us, there's windows. Correct. Sure. Mud looks out the north windows. You look out that north window and like before, you see a wooden platform out there with vines on it. Oh, another just like balcony? Mm-hmm. Okay. Uh...

Matt tries the west door. You open up the door to the west, and it swings open. And on the other side of it, you see a very short walkway. It's only about five feet or so, and then another building.

All right. These disguises have been really working out for us. Let's be sure to stay in character. And so we're eventually going to come across some other person. There's going to be a reason we went through all that trouble, okay? Okay. Cool. Yes, sir, Mr. Boss of the... What are we called? Evergards. Evergards.

All right. Thank you, Big Jimmy. Okay, go to that—cross the path and go to the next door, and I listen to the door. Make a perception check. That's a 17. 17. You do not hear anything out of the ordinary. I open the door. You open up the door, and it's another small room like the one you were just in. It's square. It's about 15 feet by 15 feet with some pretty tall ceilings and windows. Once again, there's a door on the opposite side.

And no one's in here. No one's in here. Hey, what little Jimmy told you there wasn't going to be anybody here.

When did he say that? You all asked if you were going to encounter guards or anything, and he said no, everyone should be gone. I'm invisible. You guys are all dressed up for nothing. It's a cistern of water. What is that? Yeah. Probably a pitcher. Yeah, it's like a big container of water. Should we do some magic detection maybe, just in case? Go for it, Gum Gum. Hmm.

I pull up my wand. Show me the magic. Show me the magic. There is no magic to be shown, Gum-Gum. You don't detect anything in this room. Anybody hungry?

It's the day the magic died. Bye-bye, Miss American Pie. How many bowls of vegetables and fruit? It's scattered. I'd say about four or five, something like that. What's pee in them? No reason. No reason. I'll bite. Mud picks up a piece of fruit. You pick up something from one of the containers. It's actually a roasted mushroom. Art opens his mouth, motioning for you to throw it in.

Sure. I toss it to Bart. Bart chomps down on it. It's delicious. Mud keeps watching Bart to see if he turns into something. Check his eyelids. Y'all are normally so cautious. I'm shocked that Bart was just like, yeah, I'll eat that. Well, you said there's no magic, so. Yeah.

True. Poison isn't magic. Why would they poison their own base? Well, luckily for you, I am resilient to poison. Ooh, lucky for you. And we knew that. That's why we gave it to Bart. Yeah, let me test all the food in here. Yeah, Mud grabs another piece from a separate bowl. You reach into another bowl and you pull out some really dried up fruit. Like we talking like edible, like dried, like... Yeah, like it's been preserved. Yeah, like it's been dried up to preserve it.

Bart opens his mouth. Throws it apart again. Delicious. You'd think this might have been an apple. So it's the cistern of water and just all the fruit. That's what we have in front of us. Is there anything else? Fruit and veggies. Like I said, there's a table with some stools on the northern wall close to where the cistern of water is. You want to go investigate there? Yeah, I guess walk over and look at it.

Look at what? The table or the cistern or the stools? I guess the cistern first. Yeah. You take a look and it appears to just be mundane plain water. Is there a brethren? Nice. At the same moment, Micah typed no brethrens. I think we need to make a stew.

Are there any ingredients? Do I perceive any, like, directions anywhere? Make a perception check. Okay. While he's doing that, there's a door, right? Yes. Eleven. You don't perceive any recipes. Can Mudd just try the door? Yeah. The door is unlocked and swims open and there's another walkway that goes out and then kind of curves to the left around to another building. Should we just leave this room? I think this is someone's lunch. Should we just do, like, a quick perception check to make sure there's nothing else we're missing? Sure. Yeah. Roll it. I'm confounded. All right.

All right. That is a 24. 17. Yeah. Nothing really stands out of the ordinary to you. You don't perceive anything else. This is just the kitchen. I'm down to leave. You guys want some snacks? Let's get some snacks. What's the tastiest looking thing there? Well, that's subjective, isn't it? Well, you know, what do you think the gum gum would like? The gum gum. There is some mustard pickles. Oh, mustard's disgusting. How about some pickled cabbage? Yeah.

Yeah, I could do that. All right. There's some pickled cabbage there. Yum, yum. And I guess I'll eat it. You eat it? Yeah, why not? That puts you back at max health. Gum, gum, gum.

It's good. This pickled cabbage is good. Maybe, maybe good. It healed me. Can I go? I just wanted a bottle of vial of, uh, like, pickle juice. It's good pre-workout and great for relieving cramps. That's true. Yeah. You could, uh, drain some of these pickled vegetables and just take the juice with you if you want. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll do that. I think I have a couple of, like, glass vials with me. All right. Can we, uh, move on to the next room? Yeah. Everyone wants to move on? No one else wants anything else? Okay. Okay.

You'll notice that this path seems to climb up higher than the other bungalows, wrapping around the center tree trunk. As you follow it, rays of light peek through the surrounding leafage from the west. At last, you reach an unlocked door. You enter into a large, open, ornate hall with high ceilings made of the tree's natural canopy. Along the western wall are tall windows with an idyllic view of the sunset cascading across the treetops of the forest. And in front of the windows are three thrones made of gnarly pine. They sit empty.

In fact, you look around and it looks like the whole room is empty. No elderlings, no pinecraft, just the thrones and some stairs leading below. Is this the same place we saw in our, like, dream sequence? It is. A muffled voice comes from the stairs. Is anyone there? Is that Brink?

You hear a slow creak and a door on the opposite end of the hall opens and a slender silhouette slinks into the room holding a dagger dripping with blood. A narrow half-orc face comes into view with empty black eyes staring at you. Spectral? One infinite down. He wipes the blood off his blade. Four interns to go.

What? Who was it? Spectral. It was Spectral? Yeah. Spectral, like, got stabbed? No. He's holding a bloody knife. No, it sounds like he's possessed or something. He's carrying a bloody blade. Oh, and he's implying that he killed Sleek? Possibly. We'll find out on the next episode of Tales from the Stinky Dragon. Oh, best news I've heard all week. Oh, good. No, we don't want them to die. Well, we are Evergards, so yes, technically we do. Really committing to the bit.

All right. Well, thanks for listening, everybody. We'll be back again next week to find out what exactly is going on and then maybe introduce some new mysteries. All right. We'll see you all then. Bye. Bye.