Hey, it's Kat Nat from Kat Nat Unfiltered. You know what matters most to us when cooking for our family's freshness. That's why we always choose Metro. Their produce is hand-picked, their bread is baked in store, and their butchers custom-cut meat to our exact needs. Freshness is the thing that can make a simple meal simply amazing or turn an ordinary bite into an extraordinary night. At Metro, fresh matters because fresh changes everything. Find fresh meals and deals at your local Metro.
Hey, it's Kat Nat from Kat Nat Unfiltered. You know what matters most to us when cooking for our family's freshness. That's why we always choose Metro. Their produce is hand-picked, their bread is baked in store, and their butchers custom-cut meat to our exact needs. Freshness is the thing that can make a simple meal simply amazing or turn an ordinary bite into an extraordinary night. At Metro, fresh matters because fresh changes everything. Find fresh meals and deals at your local Metro.
Let this one tell that one a tale. The story of great heroes marooned without a seat, stranded in a place of nightmares called Barovia. The antagonist, a creature known as Strahd von Zarovich. As all great epics, someone must die. Either Strahd or our heroes. Henrik, you seem upset. What's the problem? Good business for you. Adventurers are dying all the time. Perhaps we should... To lift people's spirits. Some sort of talent show.
We will need to raise morale, though, because the city's in shambles and no one's happy. I mean, that's normal. I know this is Barovia, but we can get everybody from, you know, fuck-arse depressed to just sort of mildly bummed. And that's kind of your baseline. One of the downsides of bringing adventurers into your town is that adventurers, like I said, they need a purpose. And if they're without one, they're liable to fight one another and kill each other with spears and axes and spells. They will need to be corralled. I could look after this for a fee. Ah, yes, you will look after the adventurers, Izyk. And then, of course, once they are loyal to you, once they are following your orders, an argument breaks out. Okay.
I use this time to think. I just let them snipe at each other while I start thinking about... Blitzki leans over. He's been getting closer and closer to you this entire time. Please, Purge Master, you cannot let them fight like this. I'm not the Purge Master, Blitzki. I'm thinking, I'm thinking, shut up. Okay, I like slap my hands together and try and get everybody paying attention.
What the fuck? Okay, it takes a couple of guys. Enough! Shut the fuck up! Here's the problem, okay? The problem is that we, well, you, and I suppose me, exist within Brovia, okay? And Brovia is one big downward spiral to evil, okay? So that's the thing you're going to have to avoid. Oh, Izzik, we could give you the task of running some kind of police force, of corralling the adventurers, but you know what's going to happen if we do that? You're going to become even more evil than you are now, okay? And you're going to start leveraging that power for a...
better position on the council, and then, oh, guess what? All of a sudden, you're some other adventurer's problem ten years down the line. And we can't have that happen. Same thing if I give that responsibility to Evgeny and Soldar. Okay, if we give it to you guys, I'm sure you're nice. You seem very tough and intimidating. But again, this is a downward spiral. The arc of history in Barovia tends toward evil. We can't avoid that. Even Blinsky here. Can you imagine?
It's not going to be good. The Burge Master's right. No one person should have control. It should be part of the council. Obviously, at the Burge Master's discretion, they should have ultimate power. But then the council. This is the kind of shit I'm talking about, okay? Pointing to Blinsky. Okay, this kind of toadying, no good. No good people. Okay, any of you, Casimir, even the coffin man, if I give it to any of you. Okay, even Henrik. One ounce of power here, it can be devastating. So we're going to have to share it equally, and that's going to mean a lot of arguments.
And that's going to mean a lot of fighting. But for God's sakes, if you want to have any kind of future in Barovia, any kind of pleasant happiness, any kind of joy, you're going to need to learn to get along and work together. Now, in my stead, I will be leaving Danica and Claudio in my position. And I don't even necessarily mean that they will take the role of Burgermaster. We might chuck out the role of Burgermaster entirely. OK, that's not a good title. That's putting somebody above everybody else. Evil, evil, evil, evil, evil, evil. OK, and Claudio and Danica are nice people. I like them. But guess what? Give them power for 10 years. Sorry, evil. So.
We're going to try and have an equal share. Spread the darkness amongst everybody here at the table. Probably that's not going to be to everybody's tastes, but if it's my decision, that's the decision I'm making. No one person in charge of anything. Blinsky, with his overturned mug, starts slamming it on the table. Blinsky, I swear to God, I swear to God, Blinsky, I will make you leave this meeting. I know it's your house, but I've had it up to here. I am very sorry. Okay. I look to everybody else. Some people, you know, still seem a bit grumpy, but no one's voicing disagreement. Okay.
So what that means is that if somebody is corralling the adventurers and the rest of you decide they're not corralling them in a way that you like, that means a meeting and perhaps a change of position, okay? You have to be checks and balances, people. Checks and balances. But that's a future problem. When I'm not here, that's a future problem. It's not for now. Right now, the main thing will be importing adventurers from Kutri and opening discussions with them regarding food. The same with Cresc. And before the adventurers get here, because you're not really going to be able to start building these wineries and chopping down the trees, there are plenty of houses here that are effectively, you know, nobody's going to live in them. You've got more houses than people.
And a lot of them are pretty demolished already. So until you reach a point where you can use, you know, strong, sturdy trees from the various forests that surround Velikai, I suggest taking some of the logs and the walls and the buildings that we have already and sort of cannibalizing them to build the walls surrounding Velikai, just as a stopgap until you can get something sturdier. You might as well. With that, crib it. Maybe there's like a final round. There's like some small quibbles here and there that need to be dealt with as well. But nothing really of substance. Just like tiny issues with maybe stuff like sanitation or housing peace. Some groups of people who need a place to be housed. For most of that, the council works on autopilot. And you notice, as it continues, people stop talking about the Burjermaster and start talking about the council. And you watch as this idea of the Valakai council kind of gains a bit of momentum.
Am I, do I have like a, not a moment of privacy with Krippit, but like, could I say something to Krippit that kind of only he would hear because everybody else is in the middle of the discussion? I like lean down to him and I say kind of conspiratorially, I mean, of course, Krippit, you know, by sharing the evil, there's always a chance that the same thing will happen if you give power to one person. It'll just take longer. That's, that's always a risk. You know, you can have such thing as an evil council. We just have to hope that the people that we've picked or the people that, you know, sort of fate has picked for us never reach that point. Krippit thinks about your words for a moment. Yes, this is definitely threshold.
you he says and with his huge feathered pen he touches the feathered end to your chest cannot go back now how many Thresholds does a fella get, Kribbit? If they're lucky, they only need one. I sit back up. Perhaps I've got to stop talking to Kribbit. Okay. I should have said that to someone else. Oh, well. Okay. You see him flip through notes that quite clearly are marked Pip Mandarin character study. He flips to a page, Times Pips was mean to me, and does a tally, Times Pip was mean to me. That would be so fucking funny. He's got one for everyone. And he flips back to the council meeting.
The minutes of the council meeting. Okay, yeah, I wait for like all of the, as the kind of council decides, you know, stuff. Yeah, as the decisions are finalized, people start getting up and saying their goodbyes. Okay, well, I hope, you know, I want Velika to do well, and I hope that this meeting was the beginning of that. I guess we're stronger together, as hard as it is to believe that. The little speech that you're giving, as you turn from person to person, you can see the council seems kind of like receptive to what you're saying in the moment. Even Henrik, he's not like got that grumpy silence that he usually has. But then you get to Blinsky and you're a little bit thrown as you see him like silently crying.
Come on, Blinsky. For a while. I don't say that to him, but I say it out of my breath. Nose above. Bones above. Come on. Okay. Second pressing appointment. I say to Kribbit because I guess everybody else is going to stay. And then we'll head to the rest of the party. As you become the last, you and Kribbit become the last people there in addition to Blinsky. Well, when you realize the only other person there is Kribbit and Blinsky, I suppose you very quickly decide to start.
Yeah. You've got to leave before it is just Blinsky's the last one. You know what? Because then you stop chatting to him for hours. And you go, I've got to leave. And he's like, I'm with. Where are we going? Can't be having that. You decide now would be a very good time to leave, Hector. You have much to do today. Yes. It's a new day. It's a brand new day. Oh, cool. Oh, in a town that loves me. Yeah.
When do town love you? Yeah. My face when? Yeah, my face. Thanks for laughing, Jack. It was funny. Well, you're kind. Well, um, oh, there's still that cursed house that people are in trouble. There's at least a ghost in danger.
deal with that another day. You don't have to do everything today, Hector. The ghost's not... That's character development. Hector being like, I'm too tired. Yeah. I had two thoughts. I was like, well, I could burn the feather, get Muriel down here and be like, we just thought this out, but I feel I'd get scolded. Yeah. She might be like, I don't know how relevant this is, pal. I don't know if we should be doing that. Could then maybe talk to the guy who hates me and thinks I'm like, you know, responsible for bringing death and destruction wherever I go. And I'll be like, no, I'm not. By the way, your priest is dead. Yeah.
Don't worry, so is his son. Don't worry, so is his son. But also, his son was a vampire. Having escaped the lions then, Hector, you went back for your hat. Oh, it's all not good. Speaking of the church, I guess, where is the church located in terms of the town? Do I need to go through the town to leave the town? No, you don't need to go through the town to leave the town. That's good. Sorry about your priest. Now, I don't say this to be a big bitch. But it just is where...
the house is, as you leave Barovia, one of the last things that you see is that house where the two children, or whatever's left of them, resides. Fair enough, fair enough. So you see that. I'm just curious, is this, like, we'll have to go through everything. Alright, so before we leave, I guess, yeah, it's all pretty kidding, Hector, at this moment, where, you know, it's, okay, this is a pretty, Barovia sucks. Not just the town. The realm. And I'm realizing Gretchen is kind of only really here now because of me. So...
I guess over the fireplace before we're heading out, I guess that early morning when we're breaking down, I won't really attend or anything like that, but we're repacking everything up. And I'm guessing, are you hungry, Gretchen? She maybe has already been feeding herself. Yeah, she's tucking into some hot rations. Okay, all right. I mean, hot tack. Hot rations is an entirely different thing. It's made by Grox. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I won't then offer to make a breakfast. Right, I've realized I probably should have this conversation with you a bit earlier. But I think having this conversation, I don't know. But I think, honestly.
fighting a spider vampire is easier for me than having this conversation. There is something I should, I don't know if you want to know, I don't know if you would like to know, but I guess the future, it does concern you. Do you want to know a truth that might be hard to accept? I guess, she says, not knowing anything about the truth, I suppose, yes, I would like to know. So your god, Gulliver, by my time, he is the only god that is known as a dead god.
Around, I don't even really remember the exact time frame, but around, I think it is centuries after your time, there was, I believe, I think he was immortal and he took on a mission to kill a god, to become a believer god. And he succeeded in killing Gulliver. This now god, his name of Gaz, is an evil god that is worshipped by a lot of assassins. And I'm telling you this, not because there was, the moment it happened, by all reports, all of his followers went mad. The severing of the divine snapped. Something happened to all his followers. And I believe they just called it maddening.
I can send you back to our home. I just don't know when you will arrive. I've realized I probably should have done this before we came here. I'm sorry, I don't know why. But I can send you back. I was at the meeting with Thrad. I've given a little bit of that decision-making. But I don't know when you'll go back. And if you go back in my time, I'm a little bit afraid that you will snap because you will have been severed from the divine. There is a chance, of course, you'll go back to your own time. So I give you the option. What would you like to do?
Gretchen sits down and she sat down as you were explaining this to her. Hector, that's a pretty huge thing to know. I cannot comprehend the death of a god. Yes. The moment before we went to Portia, there was a moment where I thought maybe if you were trapped in here, you might have brought a sliver of Balava with you. There was a moment where you were...
where you almost cast a miracle. I thought maybe there was a sliver of him in here. I am not a philosopher. I do not know. And I'm sorry to be the one to tell you. Hector, I'm starting to think that I'm here for a reason. And if Gulliver, people say that they find their god in things, but that's not strictly true. Gulliver isn't a god of the roads. Gulliver is the roads. They are his body.
Dead or not, a stretch of Gulliver runs from the township of Barovia out to Cresc and to Kuchery. And so long as it is there, and so long as it is dangerous, I am needed here. I will not bring it up again. She nods. I don't know that Gulliver sent me here, but I know that there is a job for me to do here in Gulliver's name. Hell if there is one god that this place does need, protection where we travel is...
Definitely needed. She stands back up. We better get going. Let's go travel these roads. All right. You set off. Yep. You're bush bashing it, right? Yeah. Yeah. We're avoiding the town. Yeah. Fair enough, dude. You're avoiding the town, sticking to the woods. Now... Was there a direct... Yeah. I'm remembering like the map in my head. Yeah. I'm like, all right. We got to get to this sort of like a meeting place as it were to Argenvoss Vault.
Yeah, is it a direct path would be through the woods, or is there a path I can take? Forgive me, sorry. In my mind, I had your next destination as Argen Vostholt, but actually you're going to meet up with everyone, and that needs to be done along the road. While you could, while if both of you had your knowledge, you could meet up in the woods, just making a beeline for each other, you know that they are going to be taking the road, because they don't have your knowledge, so you will also be taking the road now. Okay, we'll take the road then. Heading along the road. No, never mind, actually. It's snowing, yeah. Oh, it is. Sorry, forgive me. As you set off...
You can see that a fresh layer of snow has blanketed all of Barovia. And your companion, Gretchen, appears to be definitely feeling the cold. As you step out, you see that she immediately, like a shiver, runs through her. And you can see that the breath coming from the horses and from her is forming this heavy mist in front. Okay. Was there anything in the church or anything like that that we could... She's already wearing several of the priest's clothes. We would have prepared for at least going forward. The winter, was that like a sudden thing of like, oh, no one expected this? Or was it like...
You'll expect some, like, winter to be coming soon. Um, you... Winter's coming. Um, reference. You...
Very nice. Very nice, my friend. Very nice. This isn't seriously unexpected, but no one probably told you to prepare extra hard for this. This is a sudden change in the weather. A sudden but not unexpected change. Do I think that we have enough for her and the horses to be okay for the trek? Hector, you noticed something for the first time. You can't tell.
You're right. That's funny. For two different reasons, two different forces right now have disconnected you somewhat from humanity. And looking at the horses and at Gretchen, you realize you have no concept of if a regular human being can survive in this weather. Gretchen, do you ever get this cold? Have you been around this sort of weather before where you're from? It snows sometimes in Kandor. Yes, but do you ever get this cold? This feels like something else, yeah. Do you think that we have enough?
For yourself, the horses. I give like a rough idea of how long I'm going to be traveling for. Probably, she says. I mean, you know, let's not dawdle, but probably. Yes, no, I just don't want to dawdle, but I don't want to. I don't even know where we get extra supplies right now. I think perhaps if you went into town without me, you might find somebody, but I don't know what is there. I think it's best if we just hit the road, she says. I think you're right. Anyways, here.
take my jacket she takes your jacket i look at the horses the horses are incapable of voicing protests yeah but do they look like they're having a shivering yeah the horses are shivering like we don't have cold weather for the horses no you that would have that definitely um yeah while the weather change is sudden it is not entirely unexpected you do have like a blanket to throw over the horses it does not feel like it's enough look um Look, I'll just wait here with one of the horses. We got like a meager and a gold. Just be like, look, do not bring up my name. Do not bring up. But if you can go to town, see if you can buy anything for warmth. Okay. Please don't be way late too long. You know, however long it's going to take, an hour or something. Clearly, my name is Mud here. So do not mention me. Just try to get some supplies. Extra blankets, anything warm. I'll see what I can find, she says. Yeah, all right. I'll wait here. She turns her horse and sets off at a trot. Is there anything you do while you wait? Kind of just like scan the horizon, really. Sure.
I just sort of mutter to myself. I'm just like, what the fuck? Is everywhere I go death and destruction? I mean, I went to seek silence of a priest. I mean, there was violence upon me, but he's dead. And then his son. I mean, I'm not responsible for that, but I'm responsible for killing him.
Hey, it's Kat Nat from Kat Nat Unfiltered. You know what matters most to us when cooking for our family's freshness. That's why we always choose Metro. Their produce is hand-picked, their bread is baked in store, and their butchers custom-cut meat to our exact needs. Freshness is the thing that can make a simple meal simply amazing or turn an ordinary bite into an extraordinary night. At Metro, fresh matters because fresh changes everything. Find fresh meals and deals at your local Metro.
Welcome back to Fresh Matters, where we discuss matters of freshness. I'm the grossier here with Kat from Metro. Kat, your produce is impeccable. We have high standards. Meat is custom cut on site to my very delight. Yep, it's important that we... And the baked goods? More like baked grates. Fresh in store every day. So at Metro you would say fresh. Matters? It does! Find fresh meals and deals at Metro!
A while later. Well, no, actually. Not too long later, Gretchen comes back in a huff. You can see visibly she has no extra equipment. She throws you the coin purse. You can see she is like, she's red in the face. She looks quite visibly upset. What happened? The trader down there, he was requesting quite an inflated price. I shrug. We have the coin, don't we not? I would rather not. I would rather die. Oh, okay. What's happening? Just the price point? He...
Well, he was a very unpleasant man who was charging an exorbitant rate for not much. Are you sure? I mean, the coin we have, it's fine. If I go back there, I might punch him in the face. I do not think I need to. Do I need to go down there? Do I need to go back to the town? No. Well, I just feel that we're going to die. You're going to die at any point in Borovia, dude. Oh, what? The wind's going to kill you? Okay, let's go. You set off with Gretchen on the horses.
You idiot. You should have gone down there. You idiot. You fool. No, he's drinking you, dude. You can light a fucking fire. This is better than the Monty Hall problem. I'll tell you that much. You can drink a potion of warm belly. Drink a potion of warm belly. That's what they should call a potion of endure elements. I agree. Actually, can I not drink a potion of warm belly? But warm belly? That sounds weird to say. Warm belly? Yeah, not drink a potion of warm belly. But can I light a torch? And like, can we do that at least? I mean, it's not going to do a lot of warmth. Yeah, but it might warm your hand underneath the torch. Well, I don't care. The whore.
The horse is going to die. You can light a torch, but a torch doesn't last terribly long. It will provide some heat, but the amount of heat it provides, you would rather have that light at night. Okay. Let's keep going, and I will pay attention to Gretchen and the horses for signs of hypothermia. You pay extra attention to both, realizing how disconnected you feel. I can't feel shit. Yeah.
Are you managing okay? Yeah. Let me know if you need to stop for a... Genuinely, if we need to stop, we're not in a hurry. We can stop at any moment. If we stop moving, we might not be able to start again. Look at the horses. That's a dire straits, my friend. It feels very cold. Yeah. What else do we have? Do you have body heat anymore? I don't think so. I want to flex a muscle to just see why he's out there, to see if there's any traveling. Can you flex a muscle to warm it up where you are?
I don't know. Strahd is the land. That's all I'm saying. Strahd is the land. Strahd is the land. Okay. Two things. Are you, because it's a very different scenario plays out depending on which option you're picking here. Are you searching for what's nearby or are you changing the temperature?
I was going to search for what's nearby because I'm aware also that time still goes. Sure. That is correct. So I don't want to go on like a complete trance and then fall off my horse. That would be fine. Yeah, and also not be. You're being watched. Yeah, right. You realize immediately it's the same connection that you felt to the priest's boy. Something is following you. Something is watching. Uh-oh. Yeah, you're right, Gretchen. We need to move. If we stop, we won't probably be hard to move again. Gretchen is about to reply when you hear a soft, low sound from the woods to your north.
What the fuck is that? Whistling vampires now? They're making whistling vampires now? Let's pick up the pace, I say, as I kick the horse. I'm thinking maybe if we run, increase body heat. Yeah, smart. Good move. North is not where we're going. You're heading west. Excellent. Actually, no, sorry. You would have been heading north and the noise you would have heard from the east. Okay. Where's east? East is from back where we came from. East is kind of back the way you came from. Barovia. So the road. I'm just wondering, is like the tune, is that a familiar tune? A jaunty familiar tune? No, that's not familiar at all. Okay. Not to you. No. So from the village of Barovia, the trail.
The road heads southwest and then curls back in a northward direction. You're at the point where it begins curling back northward. So you're currently kind of facing north, but the noise you're hearing is east, which is vaguely the direction of Barovia, the village. Which is vaguely the direction of Castle Ravenloft? Yes. Okay. Now the noise. Oh no, Ravenloft would be dead north at this point. You're kind of heading towards it in a vague way.
Connected to me, you say, in a way? Yeah. That was connected to the... Look, I'm not going to beat around the bush on this one. It's a vampire. I'm aware. I'm just wondering, like, I think I've had it. I think I've picked it all up together in my head here. Is it a certain, like, is it maybe, is it mimicking a sort of jaunty tune that I might have heard before? We're doing, like, we're running. Using the horses to run. We are running. I'm like, fuck off, Trump. When you start, fuck off. When you move fast, the noise matches you.
We dumped her in a river, dude. We chained her up and threw her in a river. She got out. That connection that I have. Yeah. What if I flex it a little? What are you trying to do? Fuck off. Hot dog. Not now. Not now. Leave me alone. What is this? And then it goes away. That's bad news, Trump. It's got out.
Fuck. You told me that. Oh, absolutely. A long time ago when a Gugash got to it. Yeah, you know what? They're not coming back. You got to tie him up in chains and dump him in a coffin in the river. Did not work. Off the fucking Dingus Bridge or whatever it is. Oh, yeah. Maybe under my breath. Like, yeah. Half measures, Pip. Half measures.
He doesn't know what he's talking about. He doesn't know what he's talking about. Guess who hasn't had to deal with trumpets again? Yeah, yeah, fuck. Guess whose problem that isn't. If you tied up trumpets, chucked them in a river, wouldn't be your problem anymore either. Yeah, she's not coming back, right? Keening goes, I don't think so. Then you move on. I don't think Keening was part of that. I thought that was more like Pip came back to camp and was like, there's a trumpet problem dealt with? Yeah. She's not coming back. Don't worry about it, Keening. She's fine. Pretty sure. You feel?
that sensation, you feel it withdraw from you. It doesn't feel like it's a, it doesn't feel like this is a permanent solution. That's fine. But it feels like, when you say not a permanent solution, do you mean like a permanent solution problem for me? It's like, imagine, okay. All right.
Imagine it's one of the studio cats. Okay. And you see she's eyeing off the door. She wants to get out. Okay. And you have been like, ah, scram, scram, get out of here. And the cat has turned around and wandered away. But you know that it's just, she's just going to try a new angle of attack later. I've closed the door though. Yeah. But you know, next time you're through this area, this might be a problem. Next time you open the door again. Well, yeah. You feel like.
You feel like, with a lot less effort, you solved this in the same way that Pip solved this. Took you less effort, but- A lot less effort. A lot less dead men. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I don't, yeah. The only vampire I've dealt with is seeing somebody who tried to kill me. Yeah. And maybe that was just they were hungry. Yeah. And I don't know if Trumpets. Speaking of actually, what Trumpets motivation is. Well, they also want, you know what I mean? They love to sing. You had 37 hit points, correct? Oh, yes. You had... Sorry, I think I currently have 21 hit points, yes. 21, oh, forgive me. 21 hit points. How many hit dice would you have liked to have used last night? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. A good chunk of them. So you've got...
60, 10, and 48. Let's do the... God, I wish I was any good at math. I just say stuff. Yeah, dude. I go, yeah, use them all. And Adam says, are you sure? And I go, nah, use three of them. Let's go use 46. Yeah, okay. Oh, 48, sorry. 48. 48. I do a 48. Do I get short rest stuff back or long? Yeah. This is a short rest, but you get short rest. No, sorry. Yeah, you get short rest stuff. Remind me again what we do when we get short rest. You get a short rest, yeah. 10, 15 hit points back.
You're on a healthy 36. Nice, brother. Could I have last night? Uh-huh. No, that's a long rest. Sucks to suck, I guess. Yeah, it really does. Oh, I got nine hit points from the death of old, mate. Oh, yeah, true. Okay. I think. Are those hit points or temp hit points? Yeah, hit points. Okay. Yeah, you staked them. Yeah, you staked them. I'm just remembering all my beautiful abilities while I'm here. 45 then. Yeah, I'm currently at 45. And you know what? Maybe after my good friend.
Gretchen was like, I'm here for a reason. They're like, yeah. And I do an inspirational 10 minute speech by the two of us. We'll pump ourselves up together. So we both get 50 temporary hit points. Nice brother. Congratulations. Thank you. You got those abilities. You might as well use them. Yeah, true. All right. Oh my God.
And while I'm here, there's a second wind. You can do that once every short round. May as well. Just in case. You recover a further 14 hit points. Just in case, dude. Because, you know, bit by bit, inch by inch, work your way up to full hit points. If I don't get attacked on the road or a vampire is like, you know what? Hey, at least. Exactly. You're up to 59. 59 is pretty good. It's respectable. Truly.
Anything else? Any other little powers? Just checking. I don't mean to sound insulting. I'm just checking. I'm just skewed. Yeah, you should be. I am. They're going to shred you in Argenvoss, though, too. They're going to shred me everywhere. I don't think you guys know. Peer in your bitch. Hector, you head west. As Pip, you head east. Okay. You're riding with... I mean, you're taking all of the combatants, shall we say. Kribbit, Woken, Tiny, Muriel, Iona. Is there anyone else? I think that's it. Is the unicorn coming? Oh, that's real. Thank you. Yes, that's real.
Who am I riding with? I guess Keening. Yeah. Oh, that's right. I was like, everyone. No, I don't know how to ride a horse. Yes, I remember this. I got my arms wrapped around Keening's strong barrel chest. Keening is riding next to Thastriel and they're having like a conversation. You can hear them kind of telepathically because they're not trying to hide it from anyone. You can hear the conversation. It's very in-depth. Keening is asking Thastriel a bunch of kind of like specific magical questions. He's very curious about her ability specifically to move the Dusk Elves to a new homeland. He, as a planeswalker himself,
is very curious about Bastriel's methods of accessing different planes of reality are very different, alien to his. And he's very curious to learn. Iona and Elenial are, oh, is Elenial? No, yes, she should be here, but I don't have her character sheet up. Iona and Elenial are riding kind of up the back together. They're also sharing a horse. Elenial is, Iona, Elenial seems to be in a similar position as you, Pip, where Elenial probably can ride a horse, but she's not nearly as confident as Iona. And then Tiny and Kribbit, Tiny can't ride a horse.
I imagine Tiny, this is not probably what he does, but I can picture him rolling into a ball like a butchie boy. Just rolling alongside us. Yeah, Krippett's like on his shoulders, but then he gets into a ball. Oh, no. He's like running like a barrel. Yeah, you're telling me that Krippett's not running on him like a circus performer running on the ball?
Rack the game. Tiny with his smaller inner arms makes like a little cradle that Krivet lies in like a baby. That's pretty cute. Tiny moves at a slower clip. Well, technically he moves just as fast as the horses. But what happens is Tiny walks slow, but every now and then his beetle shell cracks open and huge wings send him flying in a huge leap forward. He keeps pace with the horses, but he walks slower. The first few times the horses just... Everyone's like, what the fuck? Oh, just Tiny flying.
I don't say anything. I just kind of listen to Keening and Thastriel conversing. Kribbit is... You can hear he's composing a song. Does Tiny seem like he's enjoying it? Tiny does not react. Tiny has an insect's face. Ah, yes. So the noise of your travel is just in front of you, Thastriel and Woken, having an in-depth, very cerebral chat about accessing, broadly speaking, the weave of magic, but then also accessing other realms of creation. And then from behind you...
And then he sings. And then... So you're getting like one half of a philosophical discussion about magic and then the beating of beetle wings from behind. We can access the harmonized... It's probably going to send Pip to sleep, honestly.
There's something kind of relaxing about it, you know? Yeah, okay. Well, in that case, then, you'll ride back down for a while. It would be a very comfortable ride then if it weren't for the fact that it is so... fucking cold. There's no wind. There's no falling snow. It is a still cold. Someone has turned the temperature way down. I've been so cold in the last three weeks. Not even, in the last week. I went to the cold dimension and other places. What are you talking about? Nothing, Keening. Continue your conversation. Uh-oh.
Uh-oh. It's been a while since I've had a random encounter. I've been doing a lot of real politicking. What? That's a word. Politicking? No, not organizational. Municipal. I've been doing a lot of municipal work. Yeah. Governing. Governing. Governing. Governing. Governor Pip. Governor Pip. Governor Mandarin. Interesting. What a grave encounter. Shut up. Shut up. Boo! Ahead of you, Pip. Yeah. You see a grave.
Adam, I know that's what you're reading in your little book, but let me tell you, Pip doesn't. Pip's so used to the fabric of Barovia that a grave does not register for me. Why would someone dig it up? Jesus. I don't care. There's a million, billion things in Barovia that could dig up a grave. Oh, that's why. Million things. Million, billion things that it could be. Lows. Lows? Okay. Oh, intact. Okay. You're not going to give him the multi-hole? No, no. I don't get the multi-hole problem. Well, it's a separate thing. It doesn't matter, actually, which way you...
This is the correct answer here. As you approach, you can see that the grave has been disturbed. It looks like a roadside grave. Some travellers took a loss and kept moving. There's a little stone marker for the grave, but the dirt itself has been completely upended. That's pretty typical, yeah? No. This is like, I'm guessing, they just didn't dispose of the body correctly, and now you've got some hard undead or whatever you call it. Yeah, I like log, notice it, and then I maybe tap Keening on the shoulder. Sorry to interrupt.
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Disturbed grave. Or, um... Ghouls. And then I lie back down on Keenig's shoulders. Eleniel and Iona ride a bit. On the left-hand side, they ride around the group up ahead. And Eleniel hops off the horse and you see she does a little check around the grave. All good. She looks over at you and you can see her first impulse was to say something mean. But then she bites that back. Perhaps something crawled its way out. Yeah, probably a bog man, I would say. Bog man dry. Any tracks? I'll hop off the horse. Pip is never graceful.
graceful getting off a horse. I imagine it's like one foot in the stirrup and then I slide down on my hip in the mud and the snow. One foot on the ground but one foot still in the stirrup. The horse hasn't stopped moving. And I'm freaking out and doing that thing where my foot doesn't come out but it curves around in the stirrup. Hang on. Oh my god. Ow. Ow. My ankle. My ankle. Okay. I'm off. And then I'll look for tracks. You hop off as well and you look around with Eleniel. Eleniel, both you and Eleniel spot in among the... So there wasn't a coffin in here but you see...
where the body was. The mud here, because of the snow, the ground is hard and you can see a lot of the grave is still intact. Elenio is correct. Something has, from inside, from under the dirt, has clawed and crawled its way out. You see two things of interest to you. First off, well, maybe three things, actually. Hang on. I can imagine that it was fine. But then it got cold. Oh, yeah. It's chilly. You see three things, shall we say, of interest. First off, there is some stuff still left in the grave from the previous tenant, shall we say. Just like some bits and pieces and odds and ends. But you also see...
It's no longer attached, but essentially a full head of hair. Well, that is curious. In addition to that, you can see claw marks. The thing that crawled its way out, that dug its way out, wasn't using human hands. And then finally, the third thing is when you're mushing, when you're pushing the dirt apart, you can see little green, whether the claw marks were digging, you can see little green lines of liquid. It looks like some sort of venom. The clumps of hair, is that like where the head would have been? Yeah. Okay. I eat everything but the hair. Check for pubes. No.
The thing that was inside this grave did not get eaten. It clawed its way out and its hair fell out. So whatever was transformed leaving its hair. Okay, that's interesting. I like sit back, like not sit on the ground, but like stand back up, pull out a manual and start flipping through it. Probably a bog man could be a ghoul. Ghoul explosive, I say. Just look at everybody else.
The explosive ghoul is identical in nearly every manner to their regular cousins, but with several notable exceptions. Abyssal energies. What has been identified to power the ghouls has been supercharged extensively to such a point that the explosive ghoul gains its name and upon destruction will, and this is not surprising, combust and release said energies at high degree and far reach. This can clearly be seen on thine explosive ghoul in its somewhat bloated stomach and through its eyes, which will instead of being white, show through to the plane's abyssal red as it is speculated that the color of thine abyss are on the average. One should be well away lest they become caught in the fiery and venomous.
as the normal ghoul is, which is to speak that the... Don't worry about that. Unfortunately, dear reader and savvy hunter, I must confess that I was lying to you at the beginning of this here entry. Why would they do that? Why would they do that? As the explosive ghoul is not terribly similar to thine regular ghoul, as thine explosive ghoul also should be known to be rather tougher, well, that's not surprising, than its counterpart, and also that it can belch the very fires poisonous of the abyss of thy savvy hunter, which of all the treacherous... Oh, my God.
Well, look, I will say this. You are interrupted. As you hear a scream from further along the road. Never mind. I whip around to try and see where the scream is coming from. I mean, I can put two and two together. You scan, but see nothing. Okay. Exploding ghoul. Be careful. It's not a human scream, right? Yeah, it's like a woman's scream. Okay, but I know that the ghoul would sound different to this. Yeah, the ghoul would absolutely sound different. The ghoul, if you'll recall, when it screams, it screams with abyssal energy. This sounds like just a human.
Interesting. I feel like I'd let you know if it sounded a bit. I believe you would too. All right. I'll gesture, I guess, in the direction that it came from and be like, I'm guessing the exploding ghoul is in that direction. And then we'll start huffing. Does it sound far enough away that it'd be worthwhile getting back on the horses? Probably, yes. All right. We'll get back on the horses. We've got to make sure this person's okay, I guess. So we'll get back on the horses and go and try and help. Dripping with concern. You ride further down the road. And as you ride, you...
You didn't roll particularly well, but that's okay, because... I'm not really riding the horse. What, sorry? I'm not really riding the horse, I'm just on the back. Oh, I mean the royal view, I guess. Your party, forgive me. Are we fighting? Your party rides further down the road, and as you get closer to the source of the scream, you don't get a great look at exactly where this happens, but you see as a small mushroom cloud appears over the tree line, and then a...
What do you call it? The fallout? No, not the fallout. The shell of the shockwave. As that rattles through the trees and then buffets your party. It's not strong enough to knock a person over, but you do feel the shockwave. It rattles you for a brief moment. Is he doing nukes? Yeah, he's made nukes in this game. Yeah, I'm inserting my anti-nuclear message into even the fantasy games that we do. I'm just reading about the ghoul. Okay. Abyssal attacks, venomous attacks.
Okay, and it's got the same strengths and weaknesses as a regular ghoul. Fire is good. I say fire and bronze if you have it. Don't get hit. I mean, it's like any ghoul. If you fought a ghoul, this is exactly the same. It just explodes, right? That's the only difference. You see as your party pats themselves down for bronze weapons. Eleniel pulls some bronze arrows. Oh, amazing. Incredible. She's the only one that found any bronze. Fire is going to work for everything else, so that's fine. You see Krippit's just holding a bunch of coins. Hey, it'll burn it. That's not, you know, it could be worse. You're continuing to get closer? Yeah. You get close enough that you're...
You're at where you would need to dismount and go into the tree line if you want to get closer at this point. At this part of the road, you can see that the trees here are a little bent away from the detonation. And you can see that there's a bit of... It's not like a forest fire. Well, it probably will eventually become a forest fire. But you can see that there's smoldering flames in some of the trees. It's not a hazard, once again, yet. But you can see a fiery detonation happening here. Can I still hear the person? No, you can't hear the person. There's a very good chance they are dead. It seems quite plausible, yeah. Getting closer, the first thing that you notice is a stream of Vistani.
coming out of the trees. You can see they're wounded. Some of them have burn marks. Some of them are bloodied. Can I get one of them streams past me? Can I grab one and be like, what's going on? What are we looking at? The Vistani, she looks back at you and she says,
Pip, they're in shock. You can see they are in shock. I'll push him out of the way and keep moving forward then. Thastriel stops immediately. She gives you a stricken look. Thastriel, what are you? I thought she was mad at me. Thastriel says, not everything is your fault. Not everything is about you, Pip. Thastriel, you don't even need to exchange words. There's maybe 10, 15 Vistani here.
She is collecting them, rounding them all up, and she is tending to their wounds as you move deeper. The soft glow of Fastriel slowly recedes as you get a bit further into the trees. It feels like... Like she's going to look after them. Yeah, she's looking after these wounded. It feels like her warm, comforting presence leaves you too quickly. Fair enough. We'll kind of fan out, I think, and kind of around the point of explosion and start to trace our way in. I got a bad boy card. You dismount with...
Iona, Alenial, Kribbit. Tiny Kribbit, Keening, and Muriel. Tiny Kribbit. Tiny Kribbit. Tiny Kribbit. Why, he'd sound a little something like this. It's me.
I really like him, Adam. I hope we see him again. Joel, are you having fun? Yeah, man. Yeah. All right. You dismount with your party and fan out in search of anything reeling. Pip, you, as you're getting closer to, there's a small crater where the detonation was. As you get closer to that, the foliage becomes more and more sparse as it has been just completely blasted away. And you get close enough that you can stand, if you want, at the lip and look down into the little crater. Okay, I pull my crossbow out, D-Rex crossbow, and I flip to fire. And then I like...
holding it out at the ready, peer over the lip and down. You peer over the lip, down into the center of the crater, aiming your crossbow, then immediately you... Go on. I'm listening. Then you swear. You swear... Language. Gretchen says to you... Sorry, I thought I saw... Yes, you're right. Why did I swear, Adam? Yeah, Adam. Because you saw a mushroom cloud in the distance. Okay. All right. You know what? Fair enough.
Welcome back to Fresh Matters, where we discuss matters of freshness. I'm the grossier here with Kat from Metro. Kat, your produce is impeccable. We have high standards. We... Meat is custom cut on site, am I very delight? Yep, it's important that we... And the baked goods? More like baked grates. Fresh in store every day. So at Metro you would say fresh. Matters? It does! Find fresh meals and deals at Metro!
Welcome back to Fresh Matters, where we discuss matters of freshness. I'm the grossier here with Kat from Metro. Kat, your produce is impeccable. We have high standards. Meat is custom cut on site to my very delight. Yep, it's important that we... And the baked goods? More like baked grates. Fresh in store every day. So at Metro you would say fresh. Matters? It does! Find fresh meals and deals at Metro!