what is up sneakers welcome to this week's episode it's brought to you by you guys the community we love each and every one of you and i want to let you know about a little thing we have called a patreon account i know groundbreaking stuff however if you go over to patreon.com forward slash sneak you can check out all the cool stuff that we are trying to provide to you guys uh build that relationship, extend the community in ways that maybe just this weekly podcast isn't able to do. So we've got stuff like behind the scenes audio, monthly Q&As with the cast of the show, exclusive art prints, really cool stuff like that that we hope help foster and build a more creative community. So head on over to patreon.com forward slash neat. Check it out and see if it's something you want to be involved with because it is you guys that actually make the show happen. And we really do appreciate it.
Hello and welcome to this week's episode of Sneak Attack. I'm Reed, your host and DM of this original D&D adventure. To my left we have... Akio. Verana. Milo. And... Cool. So Greg is still kind of half mute, half monster type of thing. But at least he can dab. But he's missing. He's dabbing all alone. Took me to get a negative intelligence. That was fine. I'm finally at the level of intelligence. I'm okay with dabbing. I'm finally like the rest of the group. Wow. God complex over here.
Sylvana Complex. So, the group met this really cool druid dwarf named Varn Orbreaker, who turned into an eagle to help guide them along their way. However, in this conversation, Greik and his feeble mind, see how he's made it there? Nice. He slipped away from the group and is wandering back, unbeknownst to the group, heading back towards the city. What he intends to do there is an unknown. Even to him. But the group, however, is pressing on an attempt to undam the river that is cutting off just much-needed resources to the city of Fairfall. So, where we last left off...
Varn took to the skies in eagle form and was going to go searching for Greik. So really what I'm just going to do here is roll a couple of perception checks as an eagle, and then the result of that will determine what happened to Greik. So we're not going to spend a lot of time on it because I didn't actually foresee it going this way. And for the most part, we're going to stick with the three core users because jumping back to Greik would just be an exercise in frustration because he can't talk. This is a podcast. So the eagle is just going to look for you.
Oh, no. He rolled very poor on both his attempts. He rolled an 11 and a 7, which is not enough to spot you. Your bush hat was just too strong. So he's going to circle the bend a few times, but he might come up short. We'll see how we address that a little bit later. I don't like that.
I don't even know what's going to happen. I need to think on this. Dwell on it for a while. Was this your idea of Josh's? This was definitely Josh's. Reed didn't think that we were going to make forest house. Reed didn't think of that. I just figured you guys were all just sitting around talking and Greg can't really sit around and talk. You can't sit and listen to someone talk? And he got really bummed out that he couldn't summon his hammer, so he took off. So, the three of you keep moving along the riverbank edge towards this mountain. You guys do anything, say anything, prepare in any way. You really don't know what you're walking into.
We're rested up. Got all the slots. What? What's your guys' inventory look like? I do have bombs. Where'd you get those from? Oh, from the warehouse. Yep, the army warehouse. Okay. Okay. I see you over there. Yeah, we got a plan. We got bombs. We're ready to go, Reed. Okay. So you guys keep moving up this mountain. The train becomes more and more difficult as you guys continue to ascend. And the riverbed kind of dips then bends a little bit. And as you get to the top of this crest right before it begins to dip, you can see off in the distance, probably, I don't know, a quarter to half a mile away, a bunch of torches lit.
I'd like to keep moving forward, but slowly. Okay. Do you just want to keep moving right towards this camp? Wait. Do we see anybody around the torches? Do we do a perception check? It's a little tough to tell, because it's pretty much dark, except for that. So, I'd say...
Every five to ten seconds or so, you see a shadow, a dark figure pass in front of the torch. So it just covers it for a second, and then it passes by and reveals it again. Where are these torches in reference to the river? Pretty close. So you see where the river or this riverbed kind of flows into the mountain. You see probably a couple dozen torches half on each side of this bank. It's pretty tough to make out just quantities of everything, though, from how far away you are. I'll go up and check. Okay, you can sneak. And I'm a bush. And you're a bush. All right, I'm okay with that. Okay.
I'm going to get up closer. Okay. What are you two doing then? Just chilling? Observing? Hiding. Fair enough. So Milo, when you get within 500 feet, I'm going to need you to make a stealth roll. Okay. 24.
Just barely eluded these creatures if you can. Plus five for the bush. Just kidding. Making up his own rules. Okay, so you get within 500 feet. You plant yourself next to another actual bush. And you hear all of a sudden, hey, get your own spot. I'm a bush. I'm just kidding. Someone else is already there doing the same thing. No, you just cozy up next to another bush. You blend in perfectly. You kind of like, I don't know, I envision you just like putting your hands to your face like they're goggles, but they don't actually help you at all. I don't know why I see you doing that.
Or binoculars, I guess, not goggles. It's like you're looking through fake binoculars. With my glasses. Sure. I put the glasses on the bush. So you can see worse. Yes. Well, the glasses don't actually help his vision. Yeah. Oh, that's right. They're superficial. I forgot. So you can see much more clearly the quantities of figures, but you can't actually make out what they are.
Can I waddle forward a little bit more? Or am I going to be in the light? No, you wouldn't be in the light yet. You can move another 200 feet before the light and actually sound is going to start. And they'll be like, why is there a bush in the middle of... You don't know what these creatures like darkvision is. Bushvision? If you want to move closer still. But you can see that there are two main camps of whatever these creatures are. You see about half a dozen figures on the south side of the bank, which is your side of the bank, and probably another half a dozen on the north side. Okay.
Can I see what the characteristics are? Humanoid looking. Okay. They seem to be moving kind of slow. Like, they're not picking up their feet. They're not moving with deliverance. They're just kind of like standing around. Maybe like lazy or tired, but humanoid for sure. I'm not actually in the camp, though. No, no, no. You've still got a ways to go. I'm not. About 200 feet. I'm going to keep going forward. Okay. So you bottle forward 200 feet. Roll another stealth check. You're heavily. Yes. Luck. What'd you roll? I rolled a one. Oh, cool. I'm going to use my lucky thing. Okay. The wisdom. 21. Okay.
I was going to have your bush just disintegrate. Like, a light breeze goes by. It's gone. That droid really screwed you. But, no. He's in the back like... He, uh... You move up towards...
towards another bush as you get about halfway there you hear a sound to your left and you plant yourself drop to the ground and very clearly in front of you you see what appears to be a fully alive corpse shuffling across the ground and just kind of like walks 10 feet in front of you across your path it kind of like just like glances over and just like shrugs it off like do i know it's a corpse you know this dude definitely you've seen enough dead bodies to where this guy yeah this guy looks like he's dead but not dead okay What kind of clothing is he wearing? Looks like the same clothes he was wearing when he died. Okay. Is he like an official or like a commons person? Looks just like a regular Joe. Okay. Like he's got like pieces and chunks missing out of his body, but his clothes are really tattered and stuff. And he passed by me? Passed by you. Didn't give the bush a second thought. But you can tell he might be like perimeter patrol. Okay. So maybe that is as close as you could get, but without like really starting to draw suspicion. Okay. I think that's enough for me. I think I can. I'm going to start. When he goes past, I'm going to try and make my way back. Okay. Go ahead and...
You give him like a minute to pass by because he's very slow. Go ahead and roll me one more stealth check to retreat. 23. Fair enough. So these guys, these guys' passive perception is not high. So you're able to slink back into the cover of darkness and far enough away from being too obvious. And once you break free, you just kind of like stand up and walk back like normal. And you meet up with Brenna and Akio again. Brenna. Yeah. There's dead people. And they're walking. Like zombies. Like what?
Zombies you were saying? Vincent the zombies? I know you weren't around for that, but... What's that? Good. No, it's gross. He's... Blood and... He's walking around. He smelled terrible. I turned to a keo. Zombies. Necromancy. Sounds like it. Sounds like necromancy. Sounds exactly like it. Guys, do we have to do this? I don't... It'll be fine. You've killed people before. This will be exactly like that. Then they've already died once. What? It might be a little messier. Their insides are on their outsides. Well, not completely. Okay. There's a lot of them up there, though.
It's fine. We'll be okay. What are you going to do? They're already dead. How can we kill them again? You just got to cut off their heads. You're good at that. I can tell. I don't cut people's heads off. That's not very efficient. There's a first time for everything.
All right. Also, I would just like to point out that this is technically our Halloween episode and we're having an episode of zombies. So you're welcome, audience. You got like a half special episode. And I got my costume. Yep. He's got his costume on. There's zombies around. Where's the candy? Where's my candy? You still have that chocolate, don't you? Probably like two pieces. He needs more. You probably would have eaten all of it on the six hour walk. Yeah. Okay. Who are we getting? You called me out. Try to finag a little more candy. I was like, there's probably a whole bunch of bars left. It's probably a wondrous jar. Just always has candy in it. You're not keeping track.
So that's the play. There are zombies up there that seem to be patrolling this area. Quantities around a dozen, you know, in terms of who they're serving or what reanimated them. Unknown. Scary spook. And this is like where the dam is? It's not like a checkpoint and beyond that is the actual dam? Unknown. He didn't get close enough to make that determination. I'm not going back up there alone. What do you want to do? We got to get to the dam. So we either get up close enough to see if we need to go around this or if this is it, take these guys out. Can we find Greg? Can we tell how big the camp is?
In terms of square footage or, I don't know, like two city blocks? Okay. Like one city block on the north, one city block on the south? I got it. I'm going to cast invisibility on myself. Okay. And go scope it out for myself. Okay. How long does that last? An hour, right? Yeah. I'm pretty sure it's an hour. Yep. Okay. Before we jump to that, Greg. Yes. Let's say you're about halfway to the city. Okay. What's going through your head right now? Well, it started with...
Where's my hammer? Where's my hammer? Where's my hammer? Can't find my hammer. Ooh, a city. Walk towards the city. Go towards the city. I wonder where my friends are. Probably in the city. Going towards the city. Okay. So, oh, look, a flower. Picks a flower. Eats a flower. You ate a flower. Oh, look, a city. Oh, look, a rock. That looks yummy. Still not eating rocks. Still not eating rocks. Okay. I'm just trying to play this out of my head. I'm trying to think about how this will go. We'll do it live. Is the city fearful? Yes. You went back towards the city? Yes. All right. Someone's got to find this lost puppy.
Oh, there will be plenty to find the lost puppy in a little bit. He's going to come back as a zombie. Scary face. And a scary voice. Greik, you're shambling towards the city. Okay. Moving without much of a thought in the world. Yeah. Off in the distance, you see...
what appears to be, like, the lights and torches of the city being obscured for just a split second, and then they're, like, visible again. And then it's, like, obscured again for a second, and then they're visible again. Not, like, all the lights, just, like, certain lights, and it's kind of strange. Weird. That was really intriguing. You start to move a little faster. Okay. You kind of pick up your pace a little bit, go to a nice saunter, a trot, if you will. Yeah. And from, let's say about 100 feet away, you start to hear a similar trot.
And it's the shape that was kind of obscuring the torches is a zombie. Okay. It's heading your direction. That's maybe heading towards camp or delivering information or something. Don't like looking at that. Yeah. So as soon as it kind of emerges from this low-hanging canopy of trees that was covering the riverbed, you see in the moonlight kind of this decrepit, decaying zombie form. And it sees you, and it's charging right at you. He pulls out his axe. Okay. And he starts to roar in, like, excited, fighting fury. He's never liked the undead. Correct. So that's just, like, a base element of, like, Greg's mind. Corvenhood. Yeah, yeah.
Okay, so we've got that to look forward to. We're going to jump back to Akio then. So Akio, you're invisible. Just like Milo, I'm going to need you to roll me a stealth check when you get to like 500 feet. Okay. So we'll say you're at 500 feet. 18. Okay, that's fine. You can kind of see, again, just a basic composition of the camps, how it's kind of separated into two sides of the river. Number of combatants seems unknown, but you can tell that there's definite activity there. And does the river appear to go further up? Into the mountain, yes.
Okay. Do I see any semblance of a dam on the outside? No. I mean, it's dark and you're pretty far away. So really the only thing that you can make out is like the torches that are just like dotting the front of the mountain. All right. I'll go closer. Okay. You move closer. We'll say you get to 300 feet. Go and roll it. Eight. Okay. So as you...
As you get closer, you're navigating some fallen tree branches, boulders that have cascaded down the surface of the mountain just over time. And you have to climb over one of these rocks. As you slide down the other side, you don't realize you're sliding right towards a downed tree. And so your feet get kind of wedged between the rock and the tree. But it's not big enough to stop you. This log isn't. But your feet get caught there. And so you slide, lock your feet, but the momentum keeps shifting you forward. So you fall forward over this log and smash down into the ground below and a bunch of leaves and branches and stuff go skittering everywhere. And right at that moment, you hear a...
Okay. Do I see where that's coming from? In a few seconds, you'll hear the ground kind of being shuffled as dead legs and feet are being dragged towards you. Not just, like, not legs and feet, but they don't pick up their feet when they walk, so they're dragging their feet towards you, towards your direction. Okay. This zombie, he's missing his left arm. All you see is just, like, the tibia bone? No, that's in your... That's your leg? Yeah. The fibula? That's also leg. The elbow bone? The ulcer. That's in your stomach? No, no, or ulnar.
You want me to Google arm bone? Give me an arm bone. Connected to the hand bone. Hand bone. Hand bone connected to the T bone. Humorous. Humorous. Is that in your forearm? It's because you hit your funny bone. Shut up.
No, you're probably right. So, you see the... Ulna. Ulna? Not ulcer. Ulna. Ulna. I was like halfway there. Mr. Jones. Still in there, Mr. Jones. So, you see that half of his arm is missing with just his humerus, like the bottom of his humerus is sticking out like a little fin. And one of his eyes is like caved in and collapsed. And he's just kind of like, he's able to walk okay with one leg, but he just drags his right one behind him. And he comes up and... He's like sniffing for you. He knows that there's something over here. What do you do?
Is he looking in my direction? Oh, yeah. He's five feet away from you. Now, our items, all my items are invisible as well. Everything worn or carried. If I threw something, would it become invisible? I think the word is just visible. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uninvisible. Would it become uninvisible? I believe we said invisible. One nation, uninvisible. Uninvisible. So, it's not like, I mean, if you throw something. Like, would he see it? Yeah, I mean, it depends. These guys don't really have the best, like, peripheral vision. Three stacks.
Get it right. Start it up. What's your plan? You tell me what you want to do. I'll tell you how possible it is. I've got extra bone keys in my inventory from where we were last time. Bone keys, right. I would like to take a bone key and throw it behind him to get his attention away from my direction. A little bone key action. Okay. Because he likes bones. We'll say that you can time it in such a way that when he's glancing left and right looking for the source of the sound, he glances away from you. You can toss a bone key. Roll me a dexterity. Again, you're prone on your stomach.
Ten. Okay. I just didn't want you to get below a five, because you just want to hit him with it. That's fine. You throw it past him, like, ten feet. It makes a noise and skitters across the ground, and he turns real quick and saunters over to it in a hurry. Now he's looking over this direction, paying back and forth, not really seeing the source of the object or the sound. All right. I'll take this opportunity to head back towards the group. Okay. Your feet are kind of pinned right now. You're going to have to move this log. It's not a super heavy log, but it will require moving.
I'll wait until, is he like moving away from me? I'm going to let this dude die. I'm going to let the river come through that mother nature carve. Carve by the way for me. It'll take a million years, but I'll get there. It's a real 127 hour situation. I look at the bone saw. Finally a leg. You won't. This isn't the leg I wanted, but it'll do. Good news guys. You got to carry me. So, uh, Hmm.
So is he... You're just gonna ride this one out. He's heard two distinct sounds now. At this point, he's either gonna go get other people or he's gonna figure it out for himself. I have to move this log, which is just gonna bring his attention back to me. Is there no option attacking him? Is that none of your options? I'm pinned. You're a magician. But I'm pinned. But I'm pretty sure as soon as he casts... I'm like, it's correct. As soon as he casts a spell, he turns visible. You don't know how strong these guys are. You do realize he's already like a decrepit half person. I'm not telling you what to do. Your options are stay put and maybe this guy will leave.
move the log and hope that he's not able to actually track you down while you're still invisible or attack him and become visible. Those are the only three options I see for you. How close am I to the camp of all the others? 300 feet out. Okay. Spicy Town? Spicy Town, let's do it. Eldritch Blast. This guy? Yep. Okay. Okay. Here we go. It's been real. Let's say 24 to hit. Okay. Because he doesn't know you're there, I'm going to give you advantage.
That's definitely a hit, but you could crit and deal more damage. Same roll. Okay. 24 is a hit, barely. Uh...
10 damage. Okay. So you shoot a blast at this guy. An orb fires from your hand. And at this point, you become visible on the ground with your hand outstretched. It rocks, hits this dude right in the shoulder blade. And what was left of his half arm is now blasted off of him entirely. But he ain't dead, boy. Do we hear the blast? No, probably not. So what happens, because this again is just an orb of energy. Yeah. Okay. It passes through him.
Blows his arm off. He takes 8 damage, right? Yep. It hits a gong. It continues heading. It takes 10 damage. It continues heading towards the mountain. And opens the dam. And it makes impact with the mountain some ways further up the cliff. Yeah. Avalanche. But it causes some rocks to start falling. Not a full-on avalanche, Dan. Rock avalanche. It's a rock avalanche. Warning, falling rock. But now the camp is alerted to something is either up there or caused these rocks to fall. Good job, Dan. Yeah.
Classic Dan. Double down. That's what I would advise. Double Dan. Double Dan. Don't double Dan. That's a bad idea. Never go double Dan. There you go, Reed. There you go. Double Dan.net. What was that last part? Double Dan.net. Dot net. Dot net. Dot set. All of these episodes are website themed, I guess. Double Dan.net. We're really into websites, so. Yeah. I don't know if you guys have heard of websites. We're really into them right now. We're really into them. Sometimes we'll call them URLs. That's none. That's just the. You ever gone to my URL? What does URL stand for, Josh? No one tell them. Utility resource.
Liberation. Exactly. That's actually dead on the money. So close. Was that really? No. Not at all. All right, Dan. Union. Realty. All part of the play. Logistics. Two for two. Universal. Relevance. Location. Okay. You've missed the fact that Link. Yeah. Oh. The L is Link. Universal Resource Link. I think it's Request Link, actually. Okay. I think. Universal's right there, right? I believe. I think it's Universal Studios. I think it's Universal Request Link. I'm pretty sure it's Unicorns. Rainbows. Liberace. Unreal Life.
Unreal is one word. You looking up URL right now? You looking up URL? Yeah, URL. Oh, I was way off. Is net.net taken? I was way off. Com.com. Uniform Resource Locator. Uniform Resource Locator. We were all wrong. You guys were just as wrong as I was. I didn't say anything. Yeah, Mike knew the whole time. Mike knows what HTML means, though. He knows snakes, and he knows URLs. Do you know what HTML means? Hypertext Markup Language. Very good. Rip. All right, so now here's the thing.
We have two different sets of combat going on right now and two people not engaged at all. I'm just hanging out. 126 episodes later. 126 episodes. Happy Halloween. So what I need from Greg and Akio is initiative orders. Did you waste that on initiative? Sure did. I'm going to go really first. Greg, what's your initiative? 21. Akio? 10. Okay. So I want to know what Milo and Brenner are doing at this moment.
Akio's been gone for 10, 15 minutes. You haven't heard from the hawk in a while or the eagle in a while. Greik is nowhere to be seen. Like, what is going through your guys' head right now? I'm going to attempt to message the eagle. Okay. You get no response right now. Okay. Brenna, Brenna, Brenna. What? He went into the camp to spy. Yeah, it's been a long time. Yeah, it has. Should I go look for him? Here, you wear the push costume. I'll sneak. I'm good at it. Okay, I'll stay here. No, you come with me. I'm scared. I'll just go invisible. Oh, can you make me invisible?
Actually, yes. I know. I'm just looking at my spell slots. Yes, I can. Okay. Let's go. Okay. I turn both of us invisible. Okay. So you guys are both invisible. We'll say that you'll get there in five turns. That's probably a lot less time than it would actually take, but stern, but fair. It's fine. But whatever. So we are going to start with Greg. All right. I'm going to run, rush the zombie. Okay. Raging. Smash him with a hammer. And with the axe. You wish with a hammer. He wishes. Sure.
16. Okay, that is a hit. Okay, 10 damage. Then he'll attack again. That's non-natural 20. And 14 damage. 14? Yes. That good old barbarian extra damage. Oh, yeah, yeah. Forgot about that. All right, so you charge at this guy snarling. And you slice this dude right in twain. Awesome. Kind of like shoulder blade to waist, and he just like slides apart. Nothing for more. Okay, you just keep on charging? Yeah, yeah. Maybe this is where the action is? Yeah, yeah. Okay, so boom, you take off charging. Akio, you're up.
Uh, I'm gonna Eldritch Bless this guy again. Okay. Go ahead and roll it. I need to roll it. Oh, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. You rolled a 14? 14 damage. For your damage? For the second attack. For the second attack. Okay. He's not dead.
Zombies have this feature where if they take zero hit points, if they go down to zero hit points, they make a constitution saving throw and take him back to one. Okay. So he's just an upper body now, though, right? We'll say that you cut off the left side of his torso, like from shoulder down to hip. Okay. So he's just like a huge chunk is missing now. Okay. But he's alive. All right. Because zombies have that weird trait. Sorry, I forgot about that. Don't want the fans mad at me. Rules and stuff. Akio, you're up. Eldritch Blast. Eldritch Blast, right. 13 to hit. Hit. 10 damage. Okay. I'm going to do it a second time. Fire away.
24 to hit. 9 damage. Okay. Oh, no! So, he had to roll the same thing, a constitution saving throw, but he crit fails, and you blast his head off. But, unfortunately, you also send two more shots firing into the mountain. And more rocks scatter and tumble down towards the camp. They're going to roll a perception check now that they're a little bit more on alert. They're woke. Straight woke. Ooh.
Yeah, so one of them hears the sound of the orb passing over their heads before it smashes into the mountain, letting them know it didn't come from up above. It came from out front. So after you kill this guy, you look towards the mountain and you see the torches start moving. Oh. So they're still a good 300 feet away. Okay. So some of these figures have picked up the torches and they're heading your way. Okay. But that is the end of your action. You want to move or anything? Can I get myself loose? Yeah. We'll say next turn. You'll have to use your action to push the log off you.
then you can run. You can run on that turn, too. Okay. These zombies went down pretty quick. I didn't even probably need to take an initiative order because they rolled really poor as well. I was just seeing if they were going to get hit off. So, Milo, you and Bren are moving invisibly towards Akio. You hear the sound of rocks scattering and falling towards the ground closer to the mountain. About 30 seconds later, you come up to the crest of this ridge that I was describing, and you see Akio shove this log off of his legs. What do you do? Akio! Yeah? What are you doing?
Milo? I'm invisible. Where are you? Right here. Right here. I mean, you're invisible. I can't see. I run up to him. I'm right here. Okay. What are you doing? Where's Brenna? I'm right here. Yeah, she's right here. She's right here. Oh, guys, we got to get out of here. They're coming. I said there was zombies. They're coming this way. Okay, then let's go. Come on. Can I cast invisibility on myself? You have another level three spell, right? You have another level three spell. Mine's a level two. You don't need to do that. Oh, wait.
Yeah. It's a level two. Okay. Sorry. I was thinking cantrip for a second level. Oh, sure, sure, sure. Let's fight him. Okay. I didn't say that Mike said that. Mike's not here right now. Okay. I'm not here right now. I mean, there's a lot of them, but we could probably take them. Milo didn't say that. Okay. Mike, put that thought in your head. What are you talking about? No one said fight this. Okay. You can turn invisible though. Okay. Okay. You're invisible. All right. That's right. Yeah. Do you guys want to run? Run to the ghillie suit.
I mean, we're invisible, so... Oh, you want to stay here? Leave this area? Maybe head towards the mountain or find the dam? Yeah, let's try and find the dam. Isn't the dam where we are? Is it going? We don't know. We've got to get closer. That's usually where a dam's at. So we should probably follow the river. Swim upstream like salmon. But we can't go any further because we have to go through camp, yeah? Yeah, but we're invisible. Here's the thing. I don't want to tell you guys how to play, but you may have just inadvertently created an advantageous situation for yourself. They're moving towards your direction, and you can move past them invisibly, have almost unfettered access to whatever the cause of the dam is.
Got him. That's actually pretty clever. Good job, Akil. Wow, Akil, you're really thinking ahead. Those three sticks really worked for you. In this case, there were three orbs. Always in threes, though. I still have three sticks on my head. Let's just go back. Come on. We've got to find the dam. We've got to find the dam. What? You're invisible. It's fine. Okay. Hey, these guys die real easy. They're already dead. Well, they die a second time real easy. Okay. All right. Let's hurry up. Okay. Wait a minute. You still have one alive. Yep. I moved on thinking yours was dead because you did so much damage, but he's still alive, so it's got to be his turn. By a sliver. By a sliver. It's his turn. He's going to try and do that thing. Yes.
so he's gonna try and attack you okay turn you into a zombie oh 20 not natural that's a hit for sure yeah so this guy he uh he takes his uh his right hand because that's the only hand he has left and he grabs himself by like the back of the head and just like throws himself into you and he's gonna try and headbutt you just like using the extra momentum of his hand i don't know how effective it is but He takes three bludgeoning damage. Okay. I know. It doesn't hurt me. I know it doesn't. But he smashes his head into yours and you get some decayed skin and stuff that falls off and hits you in the face. Okay. But he's still alive and now he's sad. Now he's a sad zombie. Now he's a sad zombie. Go ahead and finish him off, Greg. Okay. Can I just headbutt him back? Real hard? It's just a D4, right? Yeah, I think so. If I do a melee 9 weapon attack. Go ahead. That would be 16. Yeah. And seven damage. Seven? Yeah. Good grief. Two plus five. Okay.
natural 20 on the constitution saving throw he's still kicking then i'm gonna attack him can i have headbutted as a bonus action no that's your attack and then i'm action surging you got a natural 20 natural 20 and i'm gonna attack him with the axe his hand grows his arm grows back seriously natural 20 read max damage okay it's automatic death then because he can't save he can't roll that on a critical also if i deal double his initial health I don't know if I could. The constitution saving throw is null and void if you get a critical hit. That's how it's written. Fantastic. Greg's angry now. You headbutt him, and he just kind of laughs at you, and then you golf swing slice him up between the legs and just twain his body in half. Awesome.
So every time they're taken to zero, they get a roll? Yeah. If damage reduces the zombie to zero, it must make blah, blah, blah. Wow. It's a really cool thing. They have 22 hit points. You could theoretically one hit him. Yeah. Well, I kind of did. You know what I mean? My first attack took him to zero. Right. So, you know, it's just, they're kind of cannon fodder, but they're flavorful cannon fodder. I like it. So you slice that dude upwards, and then you just keep on charging towards the city. Yep. Ready for more. Yep, that's what happens. The three of you, you guys kind of move into the woods to the...
to the south of the river, uh, moving slowly. But as all of these zombie guards, uh, start like moving towards your direction, uh, you see a lot of them look just like the one Akio killed, uh, decrepit, missing parts of its body. Uh, however, there seems to be one with them that, uh, maybe looks a little heartier than the rest. He's, he's actually got like flowing white hair, uh, almost like fang-like teeth. Is it Leoric? Is it Malmaine? Uh, kind of a Leoric vibe to him, a little bit. Uh...
But he's also armored and carrying a bow and arrow on his back, a long sword. You can definitely tell that this might be the guy to command these troops or at least issue them orders. And there are two guys like that that you can see that looks just more equipped. If it wasn't for the skeleton face and glowing white hair, you probably wouldn't even know they were dead from a distance. He barks orders at them in a language that you don't fully understand. More grunts than anything else. Gosh, you're going to use comprehend languages, aren't you? Well, what language is it?
I don't know. It's whatever I want because it's languages he knew in life. Is it Elvish or Dwarvish? None of those things. Yeah, I'll use Comprehend languages. Thanks for making me do that. You understand that he was... Wait, what's the casting situation on that? Range says self. Duration, one hour. Is this instantaneous? For the duration, you understand the literal meaning of any spoken language that you hear. Okay.
So you understand that he is speaking deep speech? Uh-huh. That's the name of it? Yeah. Which is kind of like a subterranean, very ancient language. And he's just telling them to fan out and look for the source of the sound. Okay. Look for whoever fired the shot. Yep. Pretty much. And at this point, you're already past them, but you can see them examining kind of where your log was that you got tripped up in.
So what do you guys do? You just keep going? Okay. So realizing you don't have a bunch of time before they eventually give up the search, you guys keep on moving. About two minutes later, you are at the base of the mountain at the riverbed entrance into this thing. The camp is completely cleared out and the river, what would be the river, flows.
into the mountain or froze from the mountains you have to go deeper within actually find the source of the dam okay so you guys move in yeah okay you guys move in uh cautiously braggadociously just moving in with uh scared cautious yeah you know invisible cautious okay so the floor of this cavern is mostly loose stones pebbles that kind of stuff um from years of just water erosion and stuff like that uh you make your way inside and it's a it's again an ascending climb the water flows downhill but uh it gets narrower and narrower as you go and After about 300 feet or so, you see what you believe to be the source of this. Someone had used explosives to cause a cave-in near the origin of this river, and so there are big piles of boulders and rocks and debris and stuff like that that have actually just plugged up the underground water spring. Also, when I was writing this the other day, I was thinking, man, rivers are weird. They're just a perpetual source of running water from nowhere?
It's always from somewhere. A lot of times... Is it from ice? You have condensation from the tops of mountains. But it's also like... It's a water cycle. There is a source. The Missouri River has a source. It literally is coming from the ground. That's crazy to me. That is a water cycle. I love the water cycle. I think it's incredible. It's super interesting, but it starts out as a trickle. It's all about accumulation. And then it gets to be half mile wide at spots. And feeds into the ocean. Makes of the ocean. Like a river flows. Surely to the sea. I don't know that song. So it goes. Some things are meant to be.
I don't know that song. Sweet Caroline. I can't help falling in love with you. Elvis. And then everyone else remade it. By Michael Bublé, right? I can't help falling in love with you. I didn't know. That's literally the only line of that song I know. Most people know. So you're probably like 50 feet away from these boulders, big rocks and stuff like that. And what do you guys do? You see the source of this problem. You know what the cause is. How are you going to prevent it now? About how many bombs could dislodge this thing? Re-blow it up. Oh my gosh, you have bombs. Yes.
Sure do. You remember that the explosions from the warehouse were pretty sizable. How many do you have? Three. If I were you, I think I would need to use all three to even make a dent.
How are you going to light all three at one time? Just put the fuses together. How long are the fuses? As long as they theoretically need to be. All right, we'll use all three. That's nice. Twist those fuses together. I'm a generous god. Some episodes. Yeah, I mean, I did almost kill all of you not two episodes ago, so I'm feeling like, oh, I should probably throw them a bone every once in a while, you know? I'm not going to make it like, give you long fuses. I'm just not going to make it like stupid and possible, you know? So, okay, so who's going to actually plant these bombs? I will. You should definitely call those bombs sticks. Yep. Three bombs, three sticks. Tie three sticks together. Three orbs.
Threes. Okay. So, uh, you turn to the, you turn to the, to the group, you say, whatever it is you say. And, uh, you pull out the bombs from your pack and you start making your way there. And, uh, you uh you get right to the base of one and this it's got like weird vines and overgrowth and stuff like that uh covering one of the covering one of the boulders and so you've behind that boulder with the vines and the growth uh you kind of like put the bombs right at the top so it meets it meets the bigger boulders and the smaller stuff behind it and right as you're about to like uh what's the spell with fire Firebolt? Yeah, right as you're about to create flame in your hand, an eye appears. Right in front, like the rock, its eye opens. Is it a shambling mound? Is it a shambling mound again? No, and those vines and growth weren't vines and growth. You baited me, doc. They're actually tentacles with eyes on the ends of them because you just encountered a beholder zombie. Oh, holy, run, run, run, run, run, a thousand times run. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we gotta go, we gotta go, we can't fight that. And...
As soon as you kind of take a step back to look at the eye, mouth opens and almost smiles at you as these really sharp fangs appear. And that's where we're going to end this week's episode because Beholder zombies are awesome, but Beholders in general are awesome. You're all going to die and it's going to be a Greik story. A dumb Greik story. The story's not dumb. Greik can't speak. This is the worst podcast ever. Terrifying. Absolutely terrifying. We fought a Beholder before, didn't we? No. Never. No. Oh, I thought we did. I wrote one in a short story. I could have sworn we fought one.
Beholders are like classic D&D monsters. It's one of the few D&D monsters that's original to Dungeons & Dragons. Why have I encountered Beholder before? I don't know where you would have. Here, I'll show you what's not. The zombie ones, the zombie ones, they look kind of the same, but they look like that. I didn't make them up. They actually have Beholder zombies. So, you get to fight. I mean, it's a three-on-one. It shouldn't be that hard. Oh, shut up. Read.
I'm going to throw you a bone. You can tie your bombs together. I know. Tie your little bombs together. Tie your little bombs together. I'm a generous gun. I knew what I was doing. I'm a generous gun. That cavern was a mouth. I almost told you I had a couple episodes ago. I got to throw you a bone occasionally.
I'm a really nice guy. I'm a nice guy. So, okay. So they have this thing. They have eye rays. It's like the different eyes can have different like effects and stuff. One of them's like disintegration. They have charm. They have sleep. I'm gonna like these bulbs. Walk right into that mouth. I bet you didn't see that one coming. One of their rays is literally called death. Not this one. Oh, good. Thank God. This one just has one called disintegration, right? Which is way better. Anyways, that's where we're going to end.
Yeah, you could have fun. This could be a great episode, next one, or it could be the end. TPK. Reed's just trying to TPK us, so the podcast can move on. We just move on. I'm just like, I'm done with this. He's ready. Let's go to the next thing. And Prince of Pockets win, Valser comes back, game's over. I just, like, I gave you guys a really cool item two episodes ago, so maybe it does more damage to these guys. I don't know. Just saying. I equip you. I give you better equipment to defeat tougher enemies. It's a little give and take we have between myself and the players.
And you all love me for it. I know underneath the groans and the words of I hate you, Reed. It actually comes from a place I love. If you liked this week's episode, definitely let us know on Twitter, or you can shoot us a podcast review on iTunes, Stitcher, Podbean, Overcast, Pocketcast. This podcast is awesome.gov. Yeah, we really appreciate those. The time you take to leave reviews or let us know what you think. Of course, if it's one person letting us know one thing, that's great. 50 people is too many.
about rules stuff. Just check it out. Just check it out. Maybe like, hey, I'll go to his thing and see if he's gotten blasted on Twitter. Do your research. I'm not going to blast him because he got the point. So, I'm still not salty about that or anything. So, like I said, that is going to do it. Thank you to our friends over at BattleBards for taking the time to reach out to us today. We think you could use this music and sound effects. Turns out, yes, we can. And they've been super awesome and we appreciate it. So, if you have a podcast or a campaign you're running, check them out. BattleBards.com. There's a link. And, yeah, that is this episode. I hope you enjoyed it. My name is Reed. I'm the host and DM of this original D&D adventure. To my left is... Thank you all.