In our last episode, the team left the clearing with the circle of graves in Mausoleum. We'll only find that the Mausoleum was following them, unsure what to do, they entered, descending as far as their case into a crypt. There, they fought animated skeletons and strange old men called Darrow. One of the Darrow fled the battle, and you can join us now to chase him into a twisting cavern.
Welcome fellow travelers to the Legends of the Child. I'm here and I'm playing Waylon Darrow, the human barbarian. My name's David. I'm playing Ichabod Pike.
He's a human wizard. My name is Theron and I am playing Day. She is a human druid. And I am Hazel and I would be your DM.
So you guys step into the cavern. It opens up a little bit. Bigger than the room or just bigger than the door? Just bigger than the door.
Another five feet on each side or so. Before narrowing back down to a five foot path, which leads straight into the distance. So just keep going straight in the same line that we've been going basically? Okay.
In this section there are a few, I don't know, I guess, building materials. Like there's some broken carry crates and a few barrels and some fabric, a lot of it with holes in it. It looks like some of that has been organized a bit and some of it hasn't been sorted through yet. Okay.
I'm going to poke through it and just see if there's anything of interest. Okay. Perception? Sure.
Hey, 19. So you poke through and most of it does seem to be building supplies and there are a few food elements. You do find behind a crate, it looks like somebody had hidden it there. This bottle of clear liquid.
It looks like a bottle of clear liquid. Like water? Cool. Okay.
Also cool. Give me a minute or 10. I'm going to drag out my spell book and cast a ritual, identify. Or you can just try to detect magic on first.
I don't have that. I have to detect magic on it. Okay. Visually detecting magic.
Hold on. So you're not picking up anything from the bottle. No. You are seeing an aura coming from your own equipment.
I go digging through my stuff to see what it is. Is it the statue? It is the statue. Okay.
What kind of aura? So the aura is... I'm all good. I can take a closer look at that if you want.
Okay. There are a couple of different horrors on it. Okay. The first one you notice is there is a pure white glow that fades to the faintest shell of energy and you get a kind of feeling of stability from it.
So like an afteration-y kind of protected thing? Mm-hmm. Am I just a person of pretend that I didn't write that for you? Or a description?
Okay. Where are the things else? Healing spells are what was the E1? Evocation.
For the other aura, you see these beams of bright yellow-white light like sunshine and it feels warm. Okay. So I hold it out and take a bow and say I didn't think to do it before but I think this might help us. Okay.
I'm going to try it. Let me take a look at it. I'll hold out my spell book and spend 11 minutes reciting. And that should tell me everything about it.
Properties, how to use them, whether it requires attunement, how many charges if any. Good grief. Statue of healing. Small terracotta statue is in the vague likeness of a humanoid as an action that can be broken.
Okay. Like this. When broken it releases a dust that when inhaled by one creature encases that person in stone for 10 minutes, turning the person into a living statue. While encased in the stone, the creature heals one hit point per round.
In addition, the creature can't see or hear anything. Their movement or speed is reduced to zero and they can't take bonus actions or reactions. They have one action and that action can be used to end the statue's effect and return to normal. After the 10 minutes elapsed, the creature returns to normal.
Any hit points that were restored while a statue remained once you emerge, whether the effects ended earlier or not. If used against an unwilling target, take that, Ellie. You'll let boy. One more time out.
The failed save that comes trapped in Statue of one round after which he uses action to end. So it's a, I mean, run away stupidly kind of thing. Has an AC of 22, 100 hit points. It's resistant to all damage.
Wow. So not the greatest offensive move. Not at all. Not the greatest defensive move either.
Really, it's a lot of effort. Yeah. Just in case. It turns into that little cute Overwatch character in the ice bubble.
Is this a consumable or once you break out or get it returns to Statue? Is it consumable? Okay. Okay.
I thought I had that in there. Sorry. I just wanted to make sure I understood it. Alright, neat.
It's hilarious, practical joke. Be useful for a short rest. I think it's something that's really hard. If you're really desperate in battle and really don't want to die.
Yeah. I could imagine that happening. Only if we face spiders in the end though. Deploy the spiders.
The spiders get bored in me. Oh my. I have to figure out a way to somehow fix it to me that when I'm knocked down, I fall under the stairs. I'm in case and I'll eat all of the people.
Alright. Shall we? Into the narrow corridor. So you walk down this corridor.
You can hear drips of water in the distance from somewhere. Editor Snoke. At this point, somebody dropped like a thousand dice and we spent five minutes trying to pick them up again. So the corridor stops going straight.
And instead, there are four small, brinking passages. Okay, that's four. Kind of. Okay.
Two go to the right and two go to the left is a bit more sharper than four because they are curved off sometimes. How do I draw this? Like this. Okay.
It's one of those works you get at a restaurant, you know, not a use. My drawing kind of looks like it's four tuning pegs on a guitar or a loot or something. I can see that. They are narrow.
They're probably less than 5 feet. Yeah, less than 5 feet. Okay. They're like 3 feet.
I'm going to right here at the intersection. I'm going to peer at the ground and see if I can see the prints of the fleeing darrow, which one he went down. Alright. Sounds like a survivor check.
I mean, I could use my goggles. You know what I am. Eleven for survival. Yeah, it's not too difficult to follow him.
He was in a rush and the floor is pretty dusty. Okay. So the most recent prints take the second right passageway for lack of a better idea. Let's go that way.
Well, can we tell anything different about Bing? They all have identical except for the darrow and done one? You can take a look at them. Okay.
And the one that the darrow went down looks like it continues forward. It just arcs around. The left second fork also looks like it goes forward. The first right fork looks like it goes to the right for a little lie.
I'm sorry. Can you draw? Because this is not working for my brain. The first left most work.
If you want to get the correct. Yeah, that's how you described it. Okay. So this one goes like that.
And that one goes just off straight. Yeah, kind of. Okay. And it gives this one the better one down.
Okay. But that's a dead end card. Right? Yeah.
Okay. Alright. Oh, oh. I turned into a puppy.
I turned into a massive and I sniff around to see if there's something better. Like if there's a better trail of some variety. Okay. So I go probably like I do some scouting.
I probably like 30, 40 feet down the corridor snipping two good rolls. So what if I have 20 on that? Do these connect here or is this a room? This is right.
Okay. I'm not confusing at all. It's like confusing that. I'm not going to need to post a picture.
Right? Room just like that so that I remember. So I get into the room when I start barking. Okay.
That's my Russian. What? What is it girl? I run up to you and I go like this and there's a room in here.
Look around. Is there anything in this room? In the middle of the room is a small pool of water. It looks like a natural pool.
There's just here and there's water dripping down from whatever a ceiling pillar is down into the pool. And there are a few heavily patched wooden buckets. So a water source? It looks like a select type.
Sorry. If I had been planning on there being one, I would have looked it up myself beforehand if I would know. I'm used to it too. There's a select type.
It should have been probably down into the pool. So there's nothing interesting. Just water. Yep.
How deep is the pool? The pool is about roughly 15 feet across and it looks like it is also probably about that deep. It's splashing to the pool. Okay.
You get wet. Your dog efir is all wet. I get all wet and smelly and I splashed it out and shake off again. And then I keep exploring.
Okay. So you finally have the refill our water here. Not now. It's a dog.
It tastes like a mess of silica. It's a drug. So you find these various multidinous passageways. Yep.
Many of them quite narrow. And you were sniffing for things. I was. Where you're trying to discover by sniffing.
But interestingly, other creatures that have been through other than the darrow or other than darrow generally. And you know, like maybe the smell of something fresh so that it leads back to the surface. Okay. I can do more rolls if you want several rolls for all of those things.
It mostly smells like darrow. Okay. Delicious. Also getting, you know, a very small vermin like rats and stuff that have obviously come through and possibly live around here.
But you're not picking up anything else unusual or distinctive. And then you were sniffing for related to the surface. And so musical now? Sure.
We also do that. When you get to this bigger corridor, you get a hint of moving air, but it's very, very faint. And you think that if this does lead to the surface, that it's going to be quite a walk to get there. Did the darrow go that way?
It is the direction that the darrow went. But he did not go down the larger corridor. He kept going around. So you smell something from this direction, which you can probably see a bit further there actually.
At this go, it's like this. And this goes like this. It splits further? Okay.
So I like shake my head in frustration and I point the way that the darrow went. Alright. Keep trying to hold on. You guys are following this doggo?
Yep. Who's following the darrow? Mm-hmm. So you guys continue along the corridor.
I'm going to draw this. If there aren't going to be... Oh, it is going to continue being complicated. Okay.
Alright. So you guys get here. I'm going to show you. The darrow went up that way.
Are you following that way? Yeah. Yeah. I'm just trying to figure out how playful puppy I'm doing it.
I think that I like gallop into the little room at the end of the room. I look around. Okay. You get into that room and the darrow is standing there.
And there are a few other darrow. Oh, there are a few darrow. I'm going to recognize which one. There is a darrow standing there with one of the spears holding it up.
Oh, waiting for you and threateningly. And there are a couple of other darrow back on the back wall and they have pickaxes and they're digging. And you see four other darrow, but they're smaller. Okay.
I bark with like a goofy face with my tongue hanging out and I like hold up one paw like I want to shake hands. Boak. The darrow says something under common and does not lower their spear. Boak, boak.
They frown and then haltingly they say something into wording. I don't know. I know I see Elden or Elvish or Robert is. Do you know?
Nope. So they're just standing there and they're like. Go away. I hope we follow down.
Are you guys are behind me? Yeah. Like I'm sitting for like children. No.
We're going to get kids. It's nice to know that you have a line. Children, which also look like old men. Little little little little little little.
I'm assuming they're children. Alright. I guess we'll be. I spin around and then chop back.
But now we have to make a decision. Like why wasn't there something good here? Well you got that bottle of clear liquid. That's that is true.
Which isn't magic. I didn't even try to stick in that. No, we just learned that it wasn't magic in Rolle. Alright.
But in the bags. Maybe they know. Hey, what is this? It's a fact where you smell fresh meat.
Well, that's not the only option. But it seems like the best one. Yeah. So that card or that you smelled fresh air down.
Slits. Do you have an idea of? I can scout. I can scout more which direction it leads to the fresh air.
Yeah. It's been a while. Just go ahead and give me another real quick. Okay.
Natural 18 21. Yeah, that's good enough. So you can tell that the fresh air is flowing from the direction that I'm in. Which we're going to say south because it's facing me.
Okay. So it's coming from the southern direction. Is it slipped downward or upward or even? It seems to be mostly straight.
It's not really great for my map. Come on. It goes up to the space there. Okay.
So are we going to? We'll head in that direction. Okay. So you guys are walking for a while.
You guys almost just have the whole map that I actually drew. That's the goal. So you guys are just walking and in power passes. And another hour passes.
Okay. And you're finally starting to get a bit of a feeling that, hey, I'm getting close. I can like, YouTube can start noticing that the air is getting fresher and blowing in through here. Do we have an estimate on like how far we've walked?
I'm going to say that traversing this passage which is pretty much straight and doesn't branch is going to take about two and a half hours. Okay. So whatever the equivalent in miles for that is. Cressed over where we could really call it four.
You know, four or five. Walk off the edge of the map. You guys are approaching. And as you go, it's not just been straight.
It has been, it is starting going where it started slipping up slightly over the course of this. It never gets really very steep, but it's a long walk. You keep going. I think that if I stop being a dog at some point, I think it's just that last an hour.
So you guys start getting towards the end and you can see light starting to come through. Light? Probably not. Probably dark outside.
Two hours. Because you guys have been doing stuff for a while. So you don't see light. You see the outside?
Yes. Okay. You guys start to see kind of a deeper, inchier darkness because it opens up into the world and so there's more space there. And you come out of this tunnel in a hillside.
And you are in the forest. Oh. Okay. And it is dark because it is night now.
Like wearing the witch one? The last? Or wearing the A forest? It looks similar to the witchboy.
Okay. I mean, I think I'm pretty well-qualified to know. It is the witchboy. Okay.
Shall we sell in? Yeah. Do we want to stay in the corridor just for some cover or do we want to camp outside? We'll probably be a bad idea, but is there even really nothing for us to take it evenly down?
I've got a bundle of sticks that we got and one of them turns out to be essentially an instant tent. So we can go find ourselves an area in the woods. I'll jam it into the ground. It'll pop up a tent.
It'll fit us all. It has light and we can even control the color. Partially light blue. So we'll have a place to stay.
And I can also cast a spell in the area that will notify us if anyone comes within a distance. Certainly sounds more comfortable than just lying like this in the corner. Yeah. So I'll do that.
I'll put in Liam on the self-reacting tent. You have a tent. And then I will spend time on a ritual casting alarm and I will identify the three of us as safe in the area. But if anyone else crosses it, it's a 20-foot cube around us.
And I'll set it to a mental alarm in my head, which will wait me if I'm sleeping. It goes off. Okay. How does this work?
Like if Lydland creatures walk through the squirrels? It alerts you whenever tiny or larger creatures, accepting designated creatures. So what I could do is I could probably identify a class of animal that I don't want to be bothered by, you know, but really it's a specific threat animal that I'm looking for. But we will also set up Watch This Is Just as an Attic Recautian.
Okay. Cool. So if you're saying watch, how is the watch going? I'm happy you've taken.
I'll be last, so I'll sleep the first too. I'll take something to watch. Okay. We got some first.
Because I don't watch what sucks the most. I don't remember. How is Dave? How about a perception check?
18. All right. It is dark out. You do not have any serious issues to watch.
Okay. There it is. It's a particularly annoying bird that you have to listen to throughout your watch. What is it talking about?
Oh. Hey, hey, hey, hey. Listen. It's also about how it's dark and it takes that the sun isn't out and why isn't the sun out because it wants to be in the sun.
So I talk to it in Sylvan and I'm like, I can start a fire. Is that enough? Are you good? You're very loud.
Yeah. Ask you if you're threatening to cook it. Oh, no. I'm just, do you want it to be brighter?
I want the sun. I mean, it's the same every day. The sun goes away and then comes back. I want it to be here.
Aren't you supposed to be asleep? Oh. You're going to sleep. Great.
All right. I'll watch number two. I give the finger against Will and then I'm like, take care of it and annoy bird for ya. I'm like, I'm saying you.
Take your work for it. Okay. Perception check. No, I have it.
So what are you doing while I'm watching? Maybe, um, I don't know, twiddling a piece of weed and looking around or something. Okay. Actually, like, if you want to keep a small bundle of weed in his back or something.
All right. I'm not really supposed to be like, hey, you're playing around with stalks of plants and being really bored and looking at it and just surrounding. I know. I wish I had some annoying bird to keep me coming in and something like that.
And it's a long time on these four hours, I guess. Check. But nothing happens. Okay.
All right. I'll let it. So you're sitting around, well rested, waiting for the others to be up, hoping nothing shows up. And everything seems fine for a while.
But it's worth the early part of the day before the sun actually rises. It's getting lighter. You start to hear a strange noise. It doesn't seem like it's immediately threatening.
It seems like it's probably out of distance. But it's really loud and you're not sure what it is. So basically, sound, it sounds like a chainsaw. Which of course don't exist here.
But so that you guys now get sounds like a chainsaw slicing into a tree. Can I tell the direction? Or is it just from somewhere around? You can do a survival to see if you could discern where it's coming from.
14? Yeah. So it takes you a little bit, just echoing off the hill in area and there are trees all over, and it's bouncing off of those two. But you do figure out that it's coming from the north.
Can I determine if the sound is coming closer or is it centralized? It seems to be stationary. It seems to be getting any louder or quieter. It seems to be just in the same spot.
Okay. I'm going to keep one ear out for it to see if it changes in pitch or volume, if I feel like it's getting farther way or closer. But I'm going to carry on with the watch and wait until everyone finishes and then let them know. Unless it's still going on.
I'll say, you hear that? I heard that all day. Okay. Well, it's towards the end of your watch.
And these two do wake up while it's still happening. So you guys wake up to this noise. Does it sound like a thing that's hurting a tree or does it just have that loud chainsaw noise? It has that loud chainsaw noise, but it's obviously, or not necessarily obviously I guess, but it's like a chainsaw with something resistance.
So it is like it's cutting through wood, but I'm not sure you'll be able to discern that really. Okay. So it just sounds like a really loud noise like a chainsaw. All right.
We don't hear like a tree falling everywhere, right? Not at first. So you hear this really loud noise and you've been hearing it for a couple of minutes too. And these guys wake up to it.
But a few minutes after you guys wake up, you do hear a loud crashing sound. Like a tree falling, like it's crashing down through the other trees. Did you hear a big loud boom? Is it?
How close is it? So it wouldn't have been hard to tell us just the chainsaw noise, but with the tree falling down, it's a lot easier. But I'm going to have you up there. Is that survival?
Yeah. Natural 20 plus five. No idea. You can't.
Yeah. Yeah. You know exactly how far away that is. And it is not too far, actually.
It's about 200 feet north of you. Okay. So like close enough that maybe I saw it. Yeah.
You see some trees moving because it fell. Okay. Do you want to go check that out? I think we should.
All right. I'll pull the stake up for the can right once everyone is out and then cast Mage Armor on myself again. And then I guess we'll just head in that direction and see what's going on. Okay.
Regular walking it. Yeah. All right. We will never sneak unless we think it's absolutely necessary.
We have no other option. Because otherwise we're getting caught. Yeah. So you guys move forward and let me get perception checks to see from how far off you guys can see it.
I have an additional question with my perception check. All right. Is the mausoleum still following us? Ah.
It is not. Okay. Great. 19.
17. 22. All right. So you see it first and we go to the heart too far behind really.
And you see it from a distance that you see it before it sees you. It is this weird creature. It looks insectoid like. Okay.
It is about the size of a large dog. It has big back legs like a grasshopper. And now that you're closer, the loud chainsaw noise has stopped. But now that you're closer, you can hear it again.
It's quieter than it was before. But it's still making that noise. And you see this creature and there's this massive tree that is spelled. And it is facing the tree.
And you can just see like chips of wood and like sawdust flying up around it as it is facing this tree truck. Okay. So you described it like a dog with an insectoid thing. So like it's on a horse?
Yes. It's the size of a dog. It has four legs. The two front legs are a little spindle.
They're not like insect legs. They are more like dog legs. Okay. And the rear legs are big and powerful.
They're kind of like grasshopper legs. Okay. Is it a beast? It's not a beast that you are familiar with.
Look. And now is it something that you're turning to? Yes. Yeah.
Okay. I turned into one. All right. Great.
Now we have two. I mean, actually not necessarily. It has to be a CR one quarter or less. No.
Okay. You can potentially turn into it later. What's the vibe that we're getting? Like, is it something that's just doing its job?
Is it like a beaver? Just like cutting down wood because that's what it likes to do? Have I ever read anything about this? Sure.
We can check on that. I believe because it is a natural feature. Strange as it is. 19.
You have. It is called a tree cutter. Whoa. Slow it out.
What you know about it is it has a very interesting set of teeth for one. So it eats trees, basically. And what it does is it opens up its mouth, which you can't see it from here, but you read about it and you know it's kind of like a big snap. You can open up its mouth and it can flip down its bottom teeth and they spin around like this and they cut through the tree.
Once the tree is down, it can close up its mouth again and it can start gnawing on the end of it. Do I know if these creatures are damaging or they're just part of the natural order? Like parasitic or dangerous to a natural environment? You know that they're not harmful to the natural environment.
There's a lot of debates on what purpose they actually serve and there aren't very many of them that have been seen. At this point, I'm going to dig out some parchment ink and start sketching a picture of it and writing down tree cutter and everything that I remember about it. And also noting everything that I've just seen it do. No, I might not be the time for that.
I like a lean over and I was very lonely to talk to it. You see those teeth? I don't really want to see them. What most dangerous to me is that there hasn't been a lot of them seen.
So the worst case scenario is that... The worst case scenario is that we have to kill it, right? I want to do that. It's not a danger to this environment, it's just living.
So I'm happy to enjoy seeing it and then backing away. Also, you do know that it moves very similarly to a grasshopper. It hops. It hops.
Do we think that's important? Mad Marley has done it pretty well so far. He gave us a really good item. He gave us the eye that got us into the muddly end.
He gave us that item. I feel like there was another thing, another piece of advice. Well, there was the bones. Everyone's dead.
Well, that's just like knowledge about the world as it stands. I mean, we came across skeletons and... True. It's the greatest of everyone we love.
Yada yada. I've wrote in my notes, watch their eyes and hop. It was one phrase that he said. So I don't know if he was listing things because he already does his with the eye.
Or if that's important with these guys or if it's nothing at all. Maybe we should hop around and not look at the eye. Let's retreat to where our camp was to discuss. Yeah.
Is there just a path? Anywhere? Yeah, is there a path? Do we have any other idea of where to go?
There, you do not see the path from your camp and you did not see it on your walk. Shoot. To you. The tree cutter.
Okay. But we're in the witchwood. We know there's more to explore, but it's miles away. If there is a connection with what Mad Marley said, let's say for instance that the path we started on, it's only purpose or the track we wanted to take was to take that as long as we needed to get to the mausoleum, which we needed the eye he gave us to get into.
Right. Then follow that out and then it drops us into a location with something that hops. So there may be some significance to this creature. Maybe you follow where it came from and that track might lead us to it or you might be able to interact with it.
I might be able to talk to it. I don't know how Mad Marley would have interacted with it if that's part of the puzzle. Right. Was he mad at the time?
Like when he did this? Yeah. Or did doing it drive in that? I mean, if these carters are a little trouble, they didn't form.
We can definitely go into a defensive position, but we possibly take advantage and see if you can interact with it. I think that we should try that. Yeah. Okay.
So we're going to go back and I'm going to try and talk to her interstate. Excuse me? In Sylvan? Okay.
Well, going back to touch on a point that you guys mentioned. Okay, sure. You of course don't know if Mad Marley was mad before going in and out of these caves, but you know that he was saying when he left and he was mad when he came back to her. Yeah.
So you're talking to it and you can talk to these and be some understanding. Yeah, they understand my language and I can interpret what they're saying, what their motions mean and what their noises mean. It does qualify like they may not be smart enough to give you very much. Okay.
Let's just start this over again. What did you say? I said, excuse me? Which is basically, you know, like whatever polite interaction I think will work with a creature like this.
I'll put my picture together. It hops up in the air about 25 feet and comes back down. I'm sorry. But look at you, it's teeth buzzing.
Do I have a good read on like what a good thing to do with my arms is that won't work? Sure. Okay. So I do that.
I'm just standing next to prepare to do it. I'm trying to buy out of stuff. Like maybe I cover my mouth because I'm not making angry teeth motions on it. Sure.
That seems to be. Yeah. I was eating. I didn't mean to interrupt you.
I'm not going to try to ask it. Like we're looking for hags. Like bad ladies. I don't know.
You don't know? Okay. When did Mademarly come through with it years ago? Yeah.
It's been a long time. Okay. He was an adult. But it, yeah, he'd had a kid.
He had a devster before he left. And he's old now. So it's probably been, say 40 years or so. Okay.
So this creature probably doesn't know him. But I say, do you know Marley? I really just want to say Jacob Marley. He was Mrs.
partner all those years ago. Is that a tree? No, it's a man. One of you?
Yeah. Never seen one of you before. Okay. So I relate this back to the guys.
I don't think it knows anything. Maybe we should go our way before we piss off. Can I eat? Go ahead.
I'm sorry that I just served you. That's all I'm going to start thinking. Okay. That is disturbing.
So, yeah, we get out of its face. That is... Do we just pick a random direction to go now? I don't know.
So if Marley has some kind of second sight, some sort of divination ability, I mean, that's the assumption we're proceeding on. That's why he gave us the eye to get us in. And I keep coming back to the whole notion of the hop. And so it might not necessarily be a case of his telling us what he did, but what he foresaw us doing.
Okay. And since we've just found a creature that does hop, there's got to be some significance to it. So I feel like in this case, if we follow, I don't know, if we follow its trail, it might lead us to something. Not having any other anything else to work with.
Whatever you guys want to live with. Do you think we should follow where it's been or follow where it's going? Okay. Where it's where it's been.