In our last episode, the party fought some frightening spider hybrids, a different variety than the ones they found outside Skyla Town. These could talk! After a harrowing battle, they decided it was time to get the hell out of this place. Our adventurers today are Kieran who plays Wayland the Barbarian, Max who plays Playster the Monk, Tharen who plays Day the Druid, and our DM Hazel.
So we have to try and break our way out of the thing basically. Yes. So I can try to cut through the membrane that I came through. Yes, you may try that.
So I will attack the wall. I'm going to make an attack on the wall. Great, so 19 damage. 19 slashing.
Okay, yeah, you swing your scythe at it and it's much more resilient than you would think thought that it would be. It kind of flexes away from your scythe and you can see a thin line where you've cut it a bit. It's interesting. I'll swing at it a second time for 14 slashing damage.
How much does that hit? 20. That doesn't hit. What?
20 does not hit. Whoa, strange. You said that it was some kind of mold, right? Can I have an herbalism kit?
Can I do some little test tests with it? See what would be the best way to get us out? You can. You also see at the end of the round, I didn't have you guys rolling initiative if you want to roll initiative and just everybody attack it eventually.
We can do that, but at the end of the round it heals up all of the damage that went into it is kind of like the walls basically, but it's just different. It's just stronger. What ability do you want me to use for my nature, I guess? Well, I mean, I can do a nature check, but I have an herbalism kit, so do you want it to be strength decks, con, intelligence, wisdom or charisma?
Wisdom. Wisdom. Okay, that's the best option for me and I rolled a nap on. Yeah, you're not sure about this stuff.
Okay, well, Willin, did you have to cut to get in or did it just let you in? Can we just show our way through? Just let me through, but I don't think it's going to let me out. Will it?
Can I just put my hand through it this way or is it a one way valve? No, it just flexes away. Okay. Yeah, that's what I thought.
I mean, spike can cast inflicted wounds on it. That seems like it's a pretty good bet to hurt it pretty badly, but I don't know. Maybe you just fire? Oh, yeah.
I mean, I'll produce a flame in my hand and just sort of hold it up to the webbing. Does it react to that? Like, does it react to the fire? Yeah, like if my hand is on fire and I put my hand on the wall, does it burn?
Does it do nothing? Does it shrink away? Does it not shrink away? If you are trying to do damage to it, you can do damage to it, but it doesn't seem particularly vulnerable to it or anything.
Okay. I've got like two ways I can try to do this because I have my ring of the ram trying to decide if it's better to attack with it or use the object breaking option. I'm not sure it counts as an object is the thing. Oh, yeah, it might count as a creature.
Oh, okay. Yeah, because it's part of the castle. I have it as an attack. Now the thing is if I want to expend multiple charges, should we just multiply whatever the 2d10 is by the number of charges or should I roll multiple times?
Because I can do it one attack but use all three of its charges for more damage. Right. So that wouldn't be if you did that, it wouldn't be multiple attacks. You'd just be doing whatever the additional damage is.
What? Yeah, I guess I'm just asking for the sake of calculating that damage. For each charge you spend the target takes 2d10 force damage. Right.
So should we just multiply it by three if I hit and I say I'm using all three charges? Yeah. I'm going to try and use all three of my ring of the ram charges here. Here we go.
You're a mess. That's a 12. Yeah, it does not hit. That's a mess.
How did you win this? Or I guess the bro side of the barn. I don't know. Yeah, that's what I don't understand.
Well, what I picture is that it's flexible. So it sort of extended the wall out like a rubber band and then it snapped back into place without basically damage. Damn. And that's it for the ring of the ram for today.
Yeah. Make that zero on my little token here. So I mean, I guess we can just we can roll initiative and start chopping away at it. If you guys would like to give me straight intelligence checks, I can give you a hint.
I rolled 813. I rolled an 8. I got a 22. The 22 is good enough.
You remember when you were in the temple, when people had left, there had been some damage dealt to the room. And whenever you replaced the stone, that damage started healing itself again. So we have to go and undo those gems. Does I need to kill the flumps?
I don't want to do that. That means that I screwed up by helping the flump. Well, kinda. Yeah.
But you could also stay and try to hack through the door. So do we really want to leave this place intact? Think about it. The deal is to purify the corruption of the forest.
And we don't want this living fortress to just randomly eat people once the forest is green. I don't know if I would even consider this to be like a particularly corrupt thing. It's just strange. It has like an ecosystem in here.
There's. Yeah, it's a giant creature that consumes its inhabitants. Question, I guess, as as Palaestra do I think that my position of privilege background feature would give me any kind of sway if I were to go talk to the other minotaurs. It could.
You could definitely go and talk to them and try to use your influence as a noble. To try to get them to do something, I guess. Okay. I don't know what your plan is, but you can definitely.
Oh, I've definitely got a plan. Definitely not winging it. See, I think Palaestra is going to say I have an idea if you guys want to follow me. I shrug and say sure if you have an idea.
Alright, Palaestra is going to go back up through the throne room to the temple here and are the two minotaurs still around? They are, yes. Alright, Palaestra is going to summon every bit of their sort of noble minotaur or wrist to krat upbringing and say, would you kindly please allow us to leave your weird castle? Should I make like a persuasion?
Are you saying that to the minotaur or the flumps or? I'm saying that to the minotaurs. Okay. Yes, go ahead and roll a persuasion check with advantage.
Sweetie swag. That is a 17 with advantage. Leviathan will turn to you and say, this isn't my castle. You seem to be in charge ordering these flumps around.
Well, I'm just trying to give them some backbone. Okay, I'm going to let that go because they're literally invertebrates. Well it seems that we are unable to leave and we believe that we think that these crystals are part of the issue and we don't want to do anything uncouth to your flumps but we need someone who knows something about these crystals to maybe deactivate one temporarily so we can leave possibly maybe? Perhaps.
You hear all the flumps grown in your head at once and then they say, fine, just hurry up and a number of them will go over to one of the stones and they will say, okay, it's deactivated now. Please leave and do not come back. Gladly. Oh, please, you will never see me again.
At least not willingly and Polaestra will power walk away with stinky. Okay, so you guys get back out to the foyer and the membrane is still there but you may walk through it. Okay, we do that. Yes, very quickly.
Please, thank you. And you are underwater. Right now. Well, I have my ring of water walking so there's really no headspace in here.
I just motioned to everyone. Alright, let's go. Start swimming. It is not a long swim.
You're not risk of drowning and if you want to activate your water walking ring you can but it's not going to prevent you from swimming. Oh, I thought that maybe if I did that I would just sort of like be like skyward or something. I would like glitch like vertically directly upwards to the surface of the water. I think it'd be like the opposite of feather fall.
You'd go up at a certain speed. Yeah, yeah. Early fast speed. You'd go up at a certain speed.
And for some reason I'm thinking you'd be walking upside down on the water if you started it from underneath. Like you go up to the surface and your shoes would like attach to the. I don't have shoes. Well, your hosts.
I could see your shoes but I didn't. Alright, so then I guess I'll swim. I'd still like get up above the surface and then activate my water walking and like climb up like I'm climbing out of a hole. Alright, sounds good.
It is not a difficult swim. You don't need to make any checks. So you make it out of the castle. Early after you do, you see the castle kind of start to shake and shudder and it rises up a bit on these big long legs and it starts walking away from you guys.
No. Good rittens. Okay. This might as well happen.
I will carry Stinky to shore so he doesn't have to get tired swimming. There's only a small moat basically. Either way but once we're on dryish round we both dry off in the same manner by vigorously shaking ourselves. Wait let's just go to the hand in front of the face.
Oh god please no. So Dan, Wailing probably get showered with fur water. Yep. Yeah but we're cute.
So it's okay. Swampy fur water. I know Stinky is cute. Stinky, you take that back.
I don't know exactly a strong assertion that I can take back. Stinky is adorable. Whatever floats your boat police. Well that would be my ring of water walking.
Okay let's spike lead the way to the center of the forest please. Ooh, just a blank map. Instead he leads us to a blank map. That's what you should do.
Well they tricked you I guess. Probably should have a picture or something. Do I have something like that? I can draw something.
What do you want? I don't know. So you follow Spike and you walk for a while. You face some of your regular enemies, alligators and sturges and alike.
Nothing too serious. The swamp starts to get a little bit less swampy and you start seeing more solid land with trees and bushes appearing. Still definitely a swamp. The ground is still fairly wet but it is not nearly as bad as it was.
Okay. You find yourself walking past a sign. Does it say beware of ogre? It is hard to see what the sign says it is old and faded.
Oh. So if anybody is interested in reading it or attempting to read it you may make. I would like to. Make perfect checks and if you're not you can walk past.
Palaestra rolled a 15 on that perception. Ooh, I only rolled an 8. I got a 24. Nice.
So Palaestra you can make out a few words just in like random spots. You can tell that there are several lines of text going down this sign but you can't read most of it. The first word is he'd and you see like the word past and the word oak but you're not really getting much meaning out of it. How do you shit?
It's oak and not oogara. With a 15 you're probably not sure. Could be oak. Day.
Much the same. You can pick out more words but not get much meaning. You can tell that there are 10 lines of text and you can read the first line. So he'd these words and he'd them well then the next line ends with a rhyme spell but that's the only word I can get.
And there's a line that I don't know anything on and then in the middle it says old dead oak in the next one. The next rhymes and trees and bees. There's another line that I can't read. And the next two lines have near the end an iron gate and then I can't read the last line.
So it seems like some kind of bullshit like when we first got into the witch wood. That's not right. We didn't know what we were getting into then either so I guess it's fine. Well hopefully these are these types of try to turn us into statues.
It sounds like we're trying to turn us into bees. Or trees. Okay so are we going to keep following Spike or do we want to try and puzzle over this? Is it worn or is it dirty?
Like I could clean it. It is worn. It is old. Okay.
Like there are sections that you can't read because they are not there basically. So I guess we can just carry on then. Yep. This is going to bite us.
So let's go follow Spike. Continue. Follow our boy. Yeah.
Okay Spike leads you on forward and you find yourself in an area. It's getting a little wetter again. There's definitely water on the ground. And for you there is an oak tree that has partially fallen and is propped up against another tree so that it's not laying on the ground all the way.
Okay. You know, it's like an angle. Mm-hmm. I think this is old dead oak.
Probably. Do you think that we're supposed to avoid old dead oak or like check it out? Avoiding is probably easier. Otherwise we have to do some ritual.
Right? Well I mean I can just go check it out. But I can also wild shape into something and go check it out and be like disguised. Perhaps at least.
And I can't fly. But I can turn it into some sort of swam bee creature. Maybe you could summon some bees and send them into Scout. Since apparently bees are in this area.
New bees shouldn't be too often. Yeah I just don't. Right but I don't want to spend that spell slot. Okay.
Um, on. Scout. Yeah. We got anything.
Yeah. Okay fair. Although there would be very beefy bees because they would have six extra hit points. So they would have six hits.
Yeah basically. Which is very beefy for a bee. Beefy. Oh.
I think that we should just go check it. I mean what way is this bike going? A spike is going straight ahead. He's moving past the oak tree.
Yeah he also went straight over a pit. So that's true. Okay I figure we should go check it out because we're playing D&D not trying to make the best decisions. That's true.
Yep. Okay. So let's let's tell Spike to chill and go check out the oak tree. Um, it is as I described as an old dead oak tree is leaning up against another tree.
I poke it. It feels like an oak tree would feel. Okay. It's leaning like in a way that would make it really easy to climb or no.
You could climb up it. There's a gap underneath it. Not big enough to walk under a bright for many of you. If I climb would I get like a good, like a good view or there are just enough trees around that it doesn't matter.
Let me see. If you climb up it because you get a good view. I don't think it would matter much. It's not.
It doesn't go super high in the air. It's not like a steep angle or anything. Okay. So you get a bit better for you.
I don't know that it would be significant. Alright. I want to investigate the tree. Okay.
Make an investigation check. I got it. Great. That's a 22.
Okay. I don't know what to give you. Maybe you can climb up a little in the gap underneath it or? No.
There's nothing cool in the gap. There is something hiding. No creatures in it. There's nothing weird in it.
It's just a normal tree. Okay. I will give you, since you got a crit and I don't want to give you nothing. If you climb on top of it, ahead of you, you see the water is getting even broader and there's a lot of long grasses coming up to your left and right.
There are trees and to your left. You think you see something caught in a tree. Okay. Something, something.
What? Like a person or like a piece of paper? You're not sure. It looks colorful.
It could be a piece of paper or a bit of clothing. It doesn't look like it's a person or an animal or anything. Okay, so like from my my high vantage point where I'm like standing like Captain Morgan, I point over at the thing and say There's something stuck in that tree. Yes.
Did you want me to go get it? I don't fucking know we came over here I was hoping there would be something. I don't know go get it. The sign mentioned the tree.
That's fair. I will follow Waylon, I guess. Okay, David, what are you doing? I'm gonna follow too.
But like after a while, I'm gonna take my time getting down. So the three of you walk to the left and you're heading toward the thing and you can see it in the distance. It looks very colorful, but then it disappears and you find yourself walking past the sign again. As you do that, something different happens this time.
Oh boy. On top of the sign, this little blue man appears. Uh-oh, you're not making a reference right now, are you? Hello, I am the Maze Master.
What? I am furious. I'm furious with you. I am the Maze Master.
The Maze Master is a character or a villain or an obstacle from Roll Like a Girl. Which you know reinforces my reaction of the what? It's been so long. This is really one of my favorite mazes, but I'm afraid it has fallen into a bit of disrepair.
Here, let me recite the hints for you. Ooh, well let me pull the word decadent. I'm going to put him in the chat. Okay, cool.
As he says the words, they also reappear on the sign. Cool. Heave these words and heed them well. This swamp is under a magic spell.
To pass you must strike forward and true to the old dead oak and pass right through. Onward to a nail of trees. Watch out for a hive of bees. Follow the scent of fresh-mown grass and you'll be near the end of your first task.
Now look out through the iron gate. Call your name, sit and wait. And then he disappears. Heave these words and heed them well.
This swamp is under a magic spell. To pass you must strike forward and true to the old dead oak and pass right through. Onward to a nail of trees. Okay, so we have to go under the tree.
Instead of with the bees. We don't have to avoid them. We should just watch out for them. Call your name, sit and wait.
It's it. I find it unsettling that the first task is so close to the end of the poem. Like maybe there are additional a lot of things to come. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking right now.
So I guess we can go head through. I mean I'll pick up Spike, put him on my shoulder. We can head out through the old dead oak. Crawl under the thingy.
Okay, so you're going to walk forward to where the oak tree is and then you're going to go under it. Yeah, under the gap. Well, should we go under it or should we go like should we like break through it? Because it's just passed right through.
We can exit down if you want to. I'll probably follow the day. I think Palaestra is probably gonna take days lead because day seems like a smart one. No geez.
Ouch. No, that's the way Lynn. She is a little smarter. Probably.
I have a plus two. I am average. So yes. I have zero to intelligence.
Yeah, you're you're no better than me. I got three in wisdom though. So I have two in wisdom. We're we're street smart.
We're in a higher street smart. I have a four in wisdom. Okay, but we're not a street smart today who is also book smart. We're semi-wisdom based parties.
So I mean this is going to happen. Sorry. Sorry. It's cool.
Here we are still making bad decisions. Anyway, like, you know, selling ourselves the hags. Not souls of favor. A favor is much worse.
Probably. Yeah. You go through underneath the tree. Where do you go from there?
Well, I want to look. It says honor to a knell of trees. I don't fucking know what a knell of trees is, but I'm guessing it's the tree that we saw with the thing in it. I don't know.
I think a knell is a kind of I would assume it's kind of like a group. An and now usually refers to the sound of a bell. It's a yeah sound, but so we need like a tree that makes a noise. We could go to the tree and make it we could go cut down a tree.
I don't know if that's a good idea. It would make noise. This is all starting to feel very cool. Sam, let's just stand and listen for a second.
Okay. Yeah. Are you okay? There?
Yes. I'm fine. Sounded like that might have hurt. Just a little bit.
So let's listen. 15 perception. I got a 25. I got 14.
Wayland and Felistra being quiet and listening closely. You can hear the faint sound of bells, but you can't quite tell where they're coming from. Are they running? Are they running bells?
It bells run. It was a what do I hear? You can hear the bells. You can tell that they are coming from your right.
Okay. So I point it's coming from that way and start going that way. Okay. Walk to your right and you come upon a bunch of trees that have like these little bells tied to their branches that are tinkling along merrily.
Cool. And Stinky takes a tinkle on the tree. Good job, Stinky. Okay.
So we found the now of trees. I guess we need to look out for bees. And we need to sniff for some freshly moaned grass. Well, then I assume that's where we turn towards the open grass that we saw from standing on top of the tree.
Can I make another perception check to see if I smell cut grass? You may. I want to use a well shape and turn. Sorry.
I just want to use a well shape and turn into a bear because I can smell better. I was just going to ask if like as a minute or I have better smell. But I guess it probably would have said that in the yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Stats or whatever. Yeah. You're just I got a six.
Can I can I see what Stinky maybe smells it? You can't really communicate with Stinky. So whether it's stinky. Yeah.
Okay. Melted or not. You wouldn't even know. He's still just smiling like an idiot.
Yeah. Alright. Alright. So I'm going to turn into a bear.
Okay. Okay. And then I'm going to smell around to see if there's grass or if I can smell honey. Okay.
Player necessities to simple player necessities. At advantage, I only got a 14. Okay. You're not picking up either of those since.
Is it because of stinky? Listen, I told you. He just looks like he stinks. That's how he got his name.
It's not because he actually smells bad. I mean you are a nice one. I think it's a 19. A 19.
That's a good role. Not enough. In order to try to smell honey. The first cut get it grass.
The first cut grass but it's further away. Oh, okay. So yeah, you're not getting anything. Okay.
Oh, that thing on the tree. Do we go back towards the oak and towards the paper and the tree? I'll be hives. Do we have to deal with that or do we just sort of avoid it?
Well, I would avoid it just cause the last time we went near it, we started over. Right, but that's only because we went in the wrong order. We could try that. Wasn't that tree back the way we came though?
Yeah, but it's a maze. Like we might have to backtrack to get like, it's obviously also like magical. So who the fuck knows? I guess that's true.
It's some ritual bullshit. So I'm up for that. I mean, actually I can't talk to you right now. So never mind.
None of this stuff that I've said matters. Well, that's the best idea I've got. So I think we'll go look at the paper in the tree now. If we want to avoid the bees, then we should head towards the clearing that day pointed out earlier.
So I feel like I'm just gonna start heading in that direction and hope you follow, unless you. Oh, I will, I will make agreement noises and follow you. Okay. What I want to say is that watch out doesn't mean avoid it means watch out.
I'm trying to translate it into bear noise for you. So you can edit that in. You can cut that out and just put in the bear noises where you need it. All right, sounds good.
Yeah. So you head back to the oak and then. Well, we head back in that direction and when we can see the thing that we saw before, we head that way. Yeah.
Okay. So you head back towards the oak and then you're heading towards the grass or the paper. The thing in the tree. Oh, okay, the paper.
Right? We're supposed to avoid the bees. I don't say avoid it says watch out. I think we have to see the bees ideally avoid them.
Oh, okay. And then get to the grass. All right. Okay.
I guess that's true. The hive itself could be some kind of like, you know, waypoint marker. But it's not a huge deal to have to start over again. Yeah, exactly.
That's why I was thinking we had to the grass first and see if we even need to interact with bees at all. We can do that. Okay. Okay.
So you're heading towards the long blades of grass coming out of the water. Yeah. So you start to move forward towards the blades of grass coming out of the water and you find yourself walking past the sign again. Okay.
So these it is. Is the maze master still at the sign? No, the maze master disappeared after reciting the poem. Okay.
I don't know if maybe he was going to come back every time we went to the sign. All right. Cool. As a bear, am I going to be able to fit under the tree?
Yeah. Okay. So you guys, you did the same thing you did last time? Yeah.
We go through the tree, we head towards the bell trees and then we go towards the bees or the thing that I think is bees. Yeah. Back towards the oak and then to the thing you saw on a tree. Yeah.
Okay. You end back up at the sign again. Okay. I can't think of like, I mean, I guess, I guess I can, we could listen again for the sound of a hive or we could wander around in the know trees.
In the know trees is probably the best bet. Okay. So we'll look through all the bell trees with looking for a hive. Yeah.
You don't see a hive in the bell trees. So we tried the field, we tried the thing in the tree. Now we don't see anything with any of the bell trees. And the, there's nothing stopping you from going in any direction that you want to go.
Just so you know. Okay. So then we go to the bell trees and then, I don't know. Keep going in that same direction that we were headed like, like we turned right at the oak headed towards the know trees and keep going straight.
Sure. Yeah. As long as we haven't already done that. Yeah.
I don't think so. I think we basically backed up. Yeah. That's what I thought.
Well, if you do that, you continue walking through a forested area and you start hearing the buzzing of bees and you can see a hive in one of the trees. Pass with that trace perhaps. I would like to sniff. I can't cast as a bear.
I would like to sniff for grass again. Okay. Make a perception check. 25.
Oh yeah. You can smell that grass. Okay. So I grunt and I head towards the grass.
I try and avoid the bees. You have the nice white birth. Okay. That's down.
Otherwise known as south I guess. Okay. So I lead a south. And you go up a little hill, you get out of the water and on top of the hill, there is just this grass that has been freshly mown.
It's a nice deep green grass. You can smell that nice freshly mown scent. Okay. I fucking, I roll around in the grass like in absolute joy.
It's not a swamp. It's not a swamp. It's not a swamp. Stinky is all over that along with day.
And it's probably trying to like get day to play with him now. I'll play. You'll be like, we'll play bow and wiggle that butt up in the air. Thank you for listening.
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