S1:E63 – A Night on Campus

Foreign. The Mind podcasts are intended for mature audiences. Listener discretion is advised. Content warnings can be found in the podcast. Description. Welcome to Theater of the Mind presents Retribution episode 63. My name is still Mike. I'm your dungeon master. And this week's question from the Ultimate RPG Campfire card deck by James Motto is which days or times of year are significant to you? How do you observe or celebrate them?

My name is Amanda and I'm playing Mel Kelly. I think Mel always really liked Halloween. Her birthday is in October cause she's a Scorpio and she always really enjoyed Halloween. She liked being able to dress up. She went through her like pretty princess stage and then she went through her like fun animal stage and then because she was in college she went through her as little clothing as possible stage and she just really enjoys the being able to have fun with it and be somebody else for a little bit.

I'm Jeremy, I'm playing Elliot Brandybane and Elliot Brandybane's favorite time of the year. It's, it's, it's a little bit different. It's depending on the seasons and it's the late summer, early fall time of the year. The hay has been put up and the baby calves are grown up big enough that they're pretty self sufficient and everybody is up in the high mountains and for usually a couple of weeks at the ranch it's very quiet. There's not a lot going on. Most of the hard work for the moment is done and the fall circling shipping season hasn't happened yet. So usually for a couple, three weeks at that particular time Elliot kinda is caught up on stuff and that is his favorite time to take off into the mountains and with his couple of his favorite horses and go off camping completely alone without really any worries for a bit. And so just to enjoy, enjoy that downtime and just being alive and enjoying. That's his favorite time of being outside. There's not much attention he needs to be giving and that's his favorite time of the year.

Hi, my name is Brunel, I'm playing Olnak Vaga Johnson. Olnock's favorite. What dates are significant to him are. Well the day he lost his custody

battle I'd give you the date but

I didn't make that up in my head. So it's just a date. Whatever, pick one. We'll just go with that.

April 3rd.

Sure, April 3rd. Fucking whatever year.

The day before we started the podcast.

Yes.

No wonder he was, that's why I was there. That explains his stage ranking there we

go, let's do that.

Oh, my God, Lore.

All right. Accidental logic.

So there's that one, and then the other date is the day that everybody died on that aircraft that got shot down.

Yeah, that's an exciting.

That's a pretty rough one. I believe that was July 15th.

No, that one.

That's my birthday.

Well.

Cause I just. I just picked a date.

Gotcha.

July 14th. So it's not Dan's birthday.

Dad's birthday, Eve.

So those are the downers. He doesn't really celebrate those, but he does drink copious amounts of alcohol to cope because he's not very good at actually coping.

Wow.

Really weird, right?

He's such a well put together person.

I think we're all coping magnificently.

I mean, I think we're doing pretty good, all things considered. No one's died that I'm aware of permanently.

At least nobody that we knew.

No one that mattered.

We've just had a lot of near death experience experiences.

And then he secretly celebrates every day that he wakes up because that means the depression and the PTSD didn't win because that fucker's not taking me out.

Yay.

I have no idea how the hell I'm gonna follow that up. Hi, I'm Downs. I played James o', Brien, and up until this point, James didn't really celebrate days because he didn't really have a family to celebrate days with. So he was kind of like just internal, small accomplishments and didn't really keep track of what day had happened. It's just like, yeah, yeah, that happened. I don't remember what day that was a thing up until now though. The day that he'll remember is the day the apocalypse started, which is April 3rd. Yeah.

4th.

April 4th.

Oh, crap.

His thing happened April 3rd.

Sorry.

What about Zombie Death Day?

Zombie Death Day?

Yeah.

That's a significant day we track the date down for.

I was going to say, did we actually know what day it was at that point?

Cuz you're celebrating Death Day.

You made it. You.

You.

You made it. You made it.

It was almost celebrating James's birthday. We're now going to celebrate James Nearly Dead Day.

His rebirth is a fungus.

His rebirth day. James doesn't have a birthday. He has a rebirth day. He has a rebirth.

The tradition is we're gonna just hand out bags of beans to people.

Yep. Every food you eat has to be made with fungus.

Yeah. It has to be some sort of mushroom. Absolutely.

It's either going to be a mushroom or a bean.

Mushrooms and beans.

Well, you never had like sauteed mushrooms on a burger or something.

On black bean burgers.

Yeah. There you go. We're apparently vegans now.

Yeah.

On with kale chips.

You can't eat meat in remembrance of the day you were almost the meat. Yes.

Ah, fair. There you go.

Every year Elliot complains bitterly all day.

It's not my fucking fault. He almost died.

I gotta eat this crap. I saved his life.

I should be exempt.

What did you lose?

I dropped the squishy thing.

Well, the fidgets are backfiring. We're gonna try to keep them from distracting us too much. That's the.

As you and I are actively playing.

Not very. I don't know, but you notice I'm holding it above the table.

Yeah. I'm not like chucking mine across the room.

I've learned from doing my arms.

He asked me to throw it back, so I did.

It is on me.

I've learned my other fidget from the home game that I accidentally dropped down the back of my shirt.

Yeah, that was funny.

That was funny.

This is my squishy silicone D20. I had my arms like this and I was messing with it and it went down the back of my shirt and I thought it felt. I thought it hit the floor. Cause it's silent. So I got everyone. Everyone's helping me look for this thing and I'll turn around, it falls out of the back of my shirt.

Wild.

That was a strange one. Anyway, I'm Casey. I play Emery Lee and Emory's favorite time of year is the summertime. Partially because, like, as a kid, that was always the time of year. You know, the family goes and does a road trip, or we do camping trips, or we go see relative on the other side of the country. Or like, because that's the time we're out of school. Our time is ours to do what we want. And we're always gonna do something fun. So even when she was in college, you know, that was the time where she would normally like go drive home and visit. And then they'd do some fun family vacation or she'd make plans with friends and catch up with people. And the summer for her has always been a very fun, fun time.

Nice. Amoritar's favorite time of year is mid fall. He really likes apples,

like always. Or that's always been the case.

They had apple adjacent fruits.

That's cool. Okay.

Opals. Opals. Opals and bononas.

No, they're Beninis.

Opals and Beninis. And we'll go ahead and roll for

recap Ah, God damn it.

I forgot.

Closest to a nine.

19.

How about a 10?

All right, seven. I'm safe. I was gonna do the spinny, but

I just decided 12.

Yeah, that's Emery.

That's me. All right, so last time we made it to Notre Dame.

Dame.

Notre Dame.

Notre Dame. Damn it. I thought I got it right this time.

I know.

You even emphasize if it sounds fancy, it's wrong. If it sounds like you're insulting them, it's right. Yeah, Notre Dame.

I'm still going to get it wrong every single time. There's two options. My brain will always pick the wrong one. It was kind of an experience that, as we were wandering around looking for Mark Baylor, is become a very magically exploratory place. People are experimenting with various different kinds of magic. You can kind of like see the different people with different flavors of magic that are kind of banding together in different ways to learn how it works and why it works and what it does and all the effects thereof. We did eventually find him in anime, told him that his parents had passed. One of the things of note is that there were a lot of warlocks here, and Mel definitely recognized the energy coming off of them. So we believe that they're warlocks of Ub Ogi Wan.

Yeah, she sensed the cell reception.

Exactly. So we intentionally tried to not engage with them. And we camped out overnight under the trees on campus. And we are heading towards Cincinnati tomorrow. And I believe that's where that was everything. And that's where we left off.

That's an excellent recap. Edna May had gone and talked about maybe stuff staying put. They told her they didn't want her. She's an old. And so she's coming with you for now.

She's an old.

She's an old and awesome. So, yeah, you guys are setting up camp in the big kind of forested, like, quad that they have in the heart of campus. You had noticed that an abundance of the vendors were setting up like they were just going to be staying in. So you're by no means going to be alone tonight. And it's almost got, like chill music festival vibes that everybody's kind of winded down. Everybody's pretty positive. There's absolutely a couple of bars strumming away off out of camera's field playing Wonderwall.

I thought Jumper was the one.

That's also. That's a very common acoustic play. Yeah.

God, that guy can't sing. Anyone that didn't bleed 182 can't sing for shit. Which one, yes, exactly.

Tom DeLonge. And the other guy.

The other dude. Alien guy. Another guy.

Yeah, but that genre doesn't require good singing, though. Sounds good for them.

So. Yeah. So what are you guys doing? What do you want to do?

We'll set up camp. Any requests for dinner?

Food.

Okay. Warm food. Okay.

Do we still have some sort of meat?

More than likely, yeah. Hell, yes.

Meat.

Warm meat. Food.

Warm meat. Food.

I mean, if we felt like it. One of these vendors probably has something like,

what?

Is my food not good enough for you?

No, it's just a novel experience to eat out anymore.

That's fair.

Get it?

Do that.

Just. If they have tech, don't talk to them.

We don't have to. We don't have to.

If they have tech, don't talk to them.

That's what I said.

Okay. I was just.

Oh, man. There's a dude in the karaoke machine over there, though. I want to jump in there.

Bro, there's some rave lights over there.

If they have tech, don't talk to them.

I don't have to.

Warlock part.

We didn't do this when we were wandering around today, but before we, like, on our way out tomorrow, before we leave tomorrow, I would love to see if any of these vendors is selling healing potions. We got a couple of those from the cathedral that's believed. And that was very nice to have on hand.

Yes.

Yeah, we're probably running low on those.

I guess a better question is, do we have anything to barter? We can't barter in favors, really. We're trying to leave.

Yeah. Also, the majority of the favors we were offering to people involved magical things, which most people here could probably do.

Yeah. Yeah.

I could barter the bag of tricks, the bag of fuzzy balls that summons animals.

But we might need those balls at some point.

We might need fuzzy balls.

I don't know. I want to see Emery bartering a fuzzy ball exchange for a healing potion.

I have this fuzzy bone.

Have some lint. You give me healing.

I have a whole bag of it.

I have a bag of lint.

It's weirdly different every time you pull it out.

Yeah. All it takes is a demonstration.

That's true.

That's not the worst idea in the world. I mean, I feel like it could come in handy, but a healing potion could come in handier.

We have needed healing a lot more frequently than we have needed. Needed fuzzy balls that summon animals.

Sure.

That's fair.

I'm not giving up my portable pocket.

No, you shouldn't.

No, that has come in way too handy too often.

Not to mention there's a you know

what in there, really cool book you can find.

Absolutely not.

No. I don't know.

I can't read it.

We've already seen what things out of that book can do. Do you want to put it in the hands of people who are actively experimenting with random books?

I mean, as long as we're not stay.

That'd be like that.

No, no, we're not doing that. That's.

Okay.

All right, fine.

No, yeah, it's the right call. You're right.

That would absolutely just become a problem for later.

It would.

That would just be a future us problem.

The animals summoned by the fuzzy balls, do those like disappear at a set amount of time? And are those just here

shortly after you kill them?

Obviously, yeah. After we kill them, field dress them

and eat them at the next dawn or when it is reduced to. To zero hit points.

Yeah.

So yeah, the one that we tried it out on, I mean, I was gone by the next day. Maybe I thought I might have just wandered off or something.

I mean, that's not the worst idea. Like I'm maybe barter. Try to barter one at a time. See how much mileage you can get out of the bag of fuzzy balls. Because we don't know what it's called, so we refer to it as the bag of fuzzy balls.

The fuzzy ball sack. Yeah, the fuzzy balls.

I will gladly trade you two fuzzy balls for a health poker. What's the going rate for fuzzy balls anyway?

I don't know. Whatever. I could get someone to pay for it just same as cryptocurrency. Whatever they'll pay for it is the amount that it costs.

They're worth less than fuzzy tokens. NFTs.

This NFT will be blockchain soon.

I mean, unless there is a group of people who are selling things that are like obviously picked on by the better magical people. I could give them self defense lessons in exchange for something.

Yeah, one vendor who's just getting his ass handed.

Yes.

Excuse me. Do you want some. Do you want some self defense lessons? As he's actively being beaten?

Yeah, pretty much.

Bro, roll over. Protect your face. What are you doing?

Hands up.

Bob and wave.

Oh, right, right.

The eye.

I think we still have some gold coins too, don't we?

We?

Oh well, why don't we just use those?

We might actually have some regular cash. If any of us had cash on us.

I know Elliot doesn't have a credit card anymore.

What do you mean?

I don't have a credit card.

You gave it to?

No, no, he just gave the number.

Yeah, well, I'll pick. Yeah.

See if they'll take a credit card.

It's a credit card.

However, that does mean we're going to talk to tech people. People.

Yeah, no, remember, don't talk to.

Anyway, it is possible that there might not even be any out here. So I think we'll just take a look tomorrow and see what we can find.

But.

Yeah, no, I think that's a good idea.

Worth it.

So. So meatloaf for dinner, then you have a loaf pan. The meat that we have left he. I don't know.

Sloppy Joe together and hope for the

best is closer to what you're gonna be able to do with the pan.

I think we're moving into one pot meal territory.

You could do a pretty good shepherd's pie in the Dutch oven on the fire.

Hamburger helper type foods where you just put it all together.

Crock pot stuff.

Yeah, I'll wing it. It's fine.

You got this. We trust you.

You're tough, bro.

You got it.

Do we still have any dairy leftover?

Yeah. It's the cow.

All of a sudden, you hear. I feel like you hear that from the distance.

Chuckle balls.

Looking for a cow.

This one's cow colored.

This one's black and white. It's probably a cow.

I could get a goat.

Penguin.

Yeah, there you go. Goats do milk.

Yeah.

I can get a giant goat, which would do a lot of milk. Assuming.

Unless it's a billy goat.

Well, it doesn't specify. We have to roll for it.

Roll for goat gender.

Evens or boys. Odds or girls.

Yeah, but I think. I think maybe, like, this is a pretty chill enough atmosphere that Emory might break out the deck of cards. And like, as we're just kind of like hanging out at the camp, you're cooking. You can't cheat at cards when you're cooking.

Do you have a job to do? Goddamn, get over there.

You offered to cook. We could have gone hell.

But you tried to go to yes, I get apocalypse chilies, but you didn't want nothing to do with it.

James, you never take me anywhere nice.

I'll play with somebody else who won't cheat.

Y' all see, for the first time. I believe it's the first time Elliot pulls out of his pack harmonica and he actually begins playing fairly upbeat jazzy blues, too. I'm not that familiar with harmonica music, but Elliot would be. And he kind of starts going at it.

Performance.

Can I have advantage? Because it is one of his things.

Secret, if not advantage. Proficiency.

It's his instrument. Harmonica in my wrist.

It's his favorite instrument. Therefore, as a ranger, he gets.

He's in a forest. That's one of his favorite.

Mel is a favorite instrument, but she didn't pack her flute recorder.

Okay.

He's a little bit rusty.

He rolled a 10 on average. On someone that can play the harmonica.

That's not bad. That's good. One of the guitar dudes comes over and tries to start jamming some blues brother. No, Blues Traveler. There we go. Blues Traveler with you.

Okay.

Ooh.

Are you good enough to play that opening? Dude, that's baller.

Harmonica player. I don't think I can probably play that then.

Hey, Jacob, do you know how to play Crazy Eights? No. The card game.

The card game.

The Crazy Eight.

We did go fish last night. I can see that your parents had good taste in music. However, let's teach you how to play Crazy Eights. So I'll teach Jacob how to play Crazy Eggs. All right. You're welcome to join if you want. Emery.

Yeah. It's all knocked like crazy 8.

It's basically uno, but we get a card deck.

Hell, yeah. Should we roll off and see who wins?

Yeah, sure. Closest to an eight wins.

Jacob. Two.

Closest to an eight for Crazy Eight.

What if it's an eight? Doubles.

Oh, Double down.

Not close to an eight.

I said doubled, not eight.

And eight.

Sixteen.

Two.

Two.

I'm cooking.

Nineteen.

Five.

Hey. Beginner's luck.

Damn. The boy got me right.

Beginner's luck.

Yep.

This is how it goes with every game I play with my roommate is I teach it to her and then she immediately wins my ass at it. Every time.

That's. That's.

That's fine.

Next time we do board games, I really want to play that one where you had the pot and you were making, like, potions. That was so.

I like that one. It's unfortunately only a four player game, so I don't bring it every time.

So next time we're down to four.

So what we do is we buy another copy of it and then it becomes a sweet. There we go.

Yeah.

Or we learned you can make Pandemic into a teams game. Yeah.

And get our asses kicked.

I also. We read the rules. I was making that way harder than I needed to. Sorry.

Yeah.

If there's no Shoggoth and you move it, it doesn't make one appear.

Yeah, we were adding Shoggoths. Extra.

Extra.

I am not a good rules manager. That Is your job for a reason, Casey. Not having you made that way harder.

I got a 15 for the food.

It's nice. Solid.

Yeah.

Very good meal.

It's a solid.

Yeah. The warm pile of meat.

The warm pile of meat.

Yeah, man. Get out of my way.

The food was amazing. But the description was what made it a 15. It would have been a nat 20, but that was how you described it. Here, have your pile of meat.

Wait a second.

Give it up on plating.

Yeah. It's literally just like a paper plate with a bunch of like. Like cooked ground hamburger on top. Each of you gets, like, a quarter of a can of refried beans.

It's still.

Yep.

You've given up.

You can still see the ridges of the can,

bro.

You gotta cook these now. They do that for you.

Trust me, you can totally eat a can of.

With that said, canned beans are intended to be cooked more.

Yeah.

Can does not equal should.

Because it can

doesn't mean you should.

See, that's called a subtle pun, James.

Yeah, that's gonna be.

What are you talking about? I'm the rogue. I'm the king of subtle.

Yeah. Yep, that's it.

Yeah. As you're wearing a cape and a

hat and hauling around, bright red cape, seven foot long, fucking woolly chaps.

Not to mention the fact that because of that cape, you always sort of smell like farts.

Yeah, it does. The cape does smell like sulfur.

Real subtle.

Popped off by the hoskat.

Yeah, real subtle.

I have the green pointy ears and the green.

Yeah, all right, all right.

You stand out like a soap element.

You kind of are becoming an anti rogue.

You would stick out on Fremont Street.

I'm just saying.

Wow, that's hard.

People would go, dude, look at that guy.

I think he's an exhibit.

No, he's not one of the circles.

Nope.

Anyway, I think that's everything.

We had our pile of meat. That was shockingly good.

Yeah,

Our meat sauce was decent.

He, like, plops it and then hands it.

Yeah. It looks like prison.

See this? It's a lot better than cookie from Atlantis.

That was the cilantro

lettuce.

Lettuce. I got your four basic food groups. Beans, bacon, whiskey, and lard.

Heavy on the lard.

I was gonna say Walt.

Yeah.

Plotless Walt. Disk, cookie, Crisco.

Same thing.

I'm running out of, like, toppings.

If anybody has any vegetables for sale, let's buy those.

I guess we did get rid of the corn.

Well, yeah, there's been a lot of

corn this short shopping trip on Our way out of town.

Yeah.

I'm pretty sure if I eat more corn, I'm going to die.

There's been a lot of corn.

It's.

I still got it back in time.

Veggies. We can get things like carrots and radishes and get some cabbages, as he say.

Yeah, we should. We should pick up some vegetables.

Those are a little bit later.

In Walt's defense, Crisco is vegetable shortening. So he was practically a vegetarian.

Yeah, he managed to make basically the same thing. Put a little chocolate chips on it. It's like, almost like.

Like ice cream. Yum. When I was a kid, my mom tried to convince us that yogurt and ice cream are the same thing. Lard and ice cream is a very different story.

Oh, no, no, stop. That texture.

You won't taste anything for a couple more days. Takes a while for that Crisco to wear off the tongue.

Just a layer.

Second your medicine, though. Yeah.

Ugh.

Okay.

Anyway. Hey, who wants an after dinner walk just to get away from this conversation?

As long as you're not saying high knees the entire time.

I might be. You don't know. Now, running after dinner is really bad for the digestion.

That makes sense. So you guys want to do watches?

Yes. We're camping near people. Absolutely.

I'll take morning watch. Like my usual, though, because I can't see them.

Wherever you want me.

I will take second.

You want to take first watch with me?

Sure.

All right. Yeah.

Because honestly, that's Emery, the one who

can't have watch by herself.

Huh?

Is Emery the one who can't have watch by herself or something terrible happens or is that a different game?

That was a different game.

Sorry.

It was me, but it was a different game.

It's been a while.

That was Lionel.

So first up is. Oh, knock. Emery.

Okay. Sounds like some sort of mischief.

We're getting into

a wee bit of tongue. Yeah.

You want perception checks?

Please. Yeah.

Oh, that's a good one. But I still have a minus one.

I don't remember what I add.

Hopefully more than minus one.

It's a 17. 18. Minus one.

I add zero, so I got a 13.

So it's particularly for Emory because l bypassed the college stage and went to the government sector.

Yeah. And I hadn't gotten out in this alternate timeline, so I haven't been to college yet.

So Emory in particular. This feels very reminiscent of basically any Friday, Saturday night.

Yeah.

Back in Stimul. Kids just bouncing around. You know, a lot of them are leaving campus, currently headed towards I think you guys walked past the creek row on your way in. So there's a lot of folks, a lot of kids making their way back

to the Greek houses.

You do hear a fair bit, you know, it's far enough away that it's not like a problem. You know, it's not going to keep people like. But you hear a fair bit of hooping and hollering. Yeah, like I said, there's definitely a bear there. Fair bit of kids nearby playing on their guitars and stuff, you know. Pretty damn good. Yeah, their part program is pretty solid. Every now and again they discover a new spell which is a bit exciting. Accidentally one of them accidentally sets off pyrotechnics.

Sick.

That'd be so awesome.

It was fun to watch.

Yeah, no, it's. Honestly it's pretty pleasant. You see that there are a handful of vendors that were closed during the day are opening up. Oh, interesting smell like, definitely like greasier. More fun food stuff. Drunk food. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And there's. You see a dude who's got one of those big kegdalies wheeling in a barrel of something towards one of the, towards one of the tents and there's a fair few kids hopping in and out of there.

Nice.

There's another one that's brewing fresh coffee for the night. We're fired up. So it's happening, it's enjoyable, it's a lot of.

Yeah.

Weather's honestly pretty nice. You know, it's. The heat's dying back from the humidity of the day.

It's not bad.

Nice, moist. Would it be possible that like in the couple times that Emerie's had access to a forge, she could have made like some little small knick knack items, whatever, like spare. I don't know, I want like pocket change. Like something like maybe I could go buy a couple beers and come back and hang out with Ulnock a little bit while we're on watch.

Yeah, I'd say you guys can play her like a brutal. What you also hear, and you heard it last episode, is you can hear the distinct clang of people smithing. Not crazy. Far from here.

Yeah, I think she kind of like in kind of watching all this. Olnock's doing a better job of keeping watch than I am. Emery's a little bit distracted. So in like kind of looking at all of this, she's like looking and thinking or menacing and then she kind of like thinks and goes and digs through her bag for a minute and says ulnock, hey, I'll be right Back. Give me just a second. And she kind of hustles off to the vendors and she's very tempted to go check out the forages, but we don't have time, so she's not gonna even tempt herself. But she comes back with a couple of beers and cans of wine.

Hell yeah.

Kampai.

So I don't know, it's been a while since we've like, camped like this around people. It's kind of strange.

It has. It's weird being around other people, especially this many, honestly, because usually if there's any other people around us, they're a threat and we're ready to stab people

in a town and we're indoors. And that's true, it's different.

But that's also when the invisible people kidnapped the Edna.

So.

Yeah, that's true.

Hasn't been great. Whenever people have been around.

I am very glad that we are out of Carson. That place sucked.

There's a lot of weird shit going on in that place.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm not 100% sold that we fixed that.

You know, we fixed something. They have to figure it out from here. There's not sorcerers going missing and being used to power the town anymore. That's something.

Yeah.

So I'm glad not to be there.

Yeah, for sure, for sure.

Are you excited to see your daughter again?

As long as she's alive, yeah. 100%. You know, it's gonna be awkward. I'm sure. Probably didn't get the best feeling that she was happy to see me, which, I mean, somewhat understandable.

Has she lived in Cincinnati? Cincinnati. For a while.

I don't know. Honestly, once I lost my custody battle, it was hard to get in touch with them.

I didn't realize it was that kind of situation.

Yeah, it's not the best situation. It was not amicable. It went south very quickly.

Oh, I'm really sorry to hear that

is what it is. Just I was hoping one day I'd get to see her and hopefully under better circumstances then, hey, you might be fucking murdered. You know, that's not the best.

No, it's not.

But, you know, hopefully we find them. They're all safe. I'll kill whatever I need to to make sure she's safe, but.

Yeah, well, you know, we're right there behind you.

I know. I'm glad you guys are here because I probably wouldn't have taken any time to do anything else. I'd have been headed straight to her and I'd have done something stupid, so.

Well, at least Here you've got people to pull you back when you do something. We're out of beans, but we are out of beans. We'll do something.

I can't do a James, but I can, you know, throw my hammer a lot.

Yeah. Now whatever's out there, whatever's in Cincinnati, we'll figure it out.

Yeah, for sure. For sure.

It looks scary though. It looks, you know, it was reminiscent of that. Was it. Was it a church? The cults.

Yeah, the cathedral

commune. Is that what they're called when it's like a cult and there's like a neighborhood?

Yeah, Compound commune. Also humans.

I know it was kind of a. It was more of a church than that, but like, it seemed like that type of vibe where everybody was all on the same page, you know what I mean? And they lived there. It had similar vibes and like they were. It felt like they were spreading into the town.

Was she at the church there?

It didn't appear so. It appeared they were just kind of in a. Like an apartment complex area. Now I don't know if they were just kind of hanging out and standing there and I happened across her or if that's where they live. You know what I mean?

But.

Gotcha.

Too close for comfort, if I must say.

Absolutely. I don't trust. I mean, obviously we don't trust people that are worshiping.

Absolutely not.

But it's just so insidious to go into these places where people are really struggling and use that as a way to get them on your side.

That's a really common cult tactic, if we're being honest. Low hanging fruit. Get the people who are struggling the most, make them feel like they have some sort of hope, and then lie to them to give them all your things or give them. Give you all their things. There we go. That's the words.

Yeah.

Forced philanthropy.

Yeah.

This must be a very strong beer you got.

It must be. You know, I think they're probably brewing it themselves these days.

Yeah, that would be.

Yeah.

Freshly fermented.

Any abv?

Yeah, it was cool. It had like a pseudo corked top. Yeah. And they wax dipped it. Oh, cool. To seal it. Fun handwritten label.

That's good though. But it might be a little strong.

Yes, might be a little strong.

It's just a Sharpie that says.

Is this alcohol?

Yes bar. It's blue.

Oh, no, that would be a scary one. That's gotta be strong.

Isn't that jungle juice?

Yeah. Sit ahead of my cabinet,

you know. Well, yeah, I mean, this must feel kind of nice. For you, though. I mean, it feels kind of like college. I would guess it kind of feels like being in the barracks for me, so.

Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of fun. I definitely have the urge to go party right now.

Yeah, understandable.

That's kind of. I did a lot more of that in college.

I mean, if we felt like we were safer, obviously, I would.

Yeah. And if we weren't in charge of keeping everyone else safer.

I'll call you real loud after I throw a hammer at a dude.

Emery. If I watch, I'm gonna see.

I gotta go get sloshed. I'll come back with a BAC of 20.23. It's gonna be great. Close to death. I don't know.

That's close.

A 20% Alco. One out of every five parts of your blood is booze.

And we would not be trying to.

You gotta work up to that. His tolerance is there. Anyway.

We haven't been drinking for a while here.

Well, no, you've been drinking moonshine for a while.

Yeah, that's true. We've been drinking some hard stuff.

Yeah.

I mean, olnux up a lot of corn.

Corn with it.

Almost.

Almost gasoline, right? Like.

Yeah.

I mean, you're a Goliath barbarian. I'm pretty sure that'd be fine.

I'll be fine.

You could drive a car with it. If they were to.

I may not be.

You would be dead.

If it's flammable, it's a good kind. You know, like, that's what it means.

Yeah.

It takes a surprising amount of alcohol in your alcohol to make it flammable.

Yes, it does.

Like, vodka does not burn. I've tried.

I almost didn't follow that sentence. Sorry.

You're good. My booze ain't booze enough.

I have not tried to light Everclear on fire, but I'd like to. It will.

It's absolutely flammable.

I was gonna say vodka is not strong enough. Neither is whiskey.

151. Rum is flammable.

Okay. I don't know. I'm just telling you what I know from things I've experienced.

Some of the bourbons will. Yeah, some of the whiskeys will. It just depends on which one.

Anyway, they all will if you get up hot enough.

Very true.

Well, if you get anything hot enough, it'll burn.

Well, if you take a blowtorch to the side of a house, it'll put a hole in it, obviously.

Or a fire breathing. Emery.

Yes? I light things on fire.

Are you awake still? Oh, yeah. That's right. You don't sleep anymore. I got it.

Oh, God. How cool would that be, Emery? Like, drink something heavily alcoholic and then cast dragon's breath on yourself. Like, that's.

Thankfully, that's not one that I roll for. The damage type. I can pick the damage type, but

that's like a sideshow right there.

Yeah.

Oh, shit.

Oh, yeah. I could do some cool magical performance. I would roll every time I cast an action spell slot.

Oh, yeah.

So it could be.

Might accidentally nuke the fucking audience.

Very interesting.

And watch as she freezes. Fire. Kaboom.

Whoa.

I gotta go watch as all of your eyebrows disappear.

No. No refunds. We have to leave.

Yes.

Oops.

Sorry.

Bye.

Run, run, run.

Grab the money.

Grab the money. Go, go, go.

Well, yeah, I mean, we'll figure out when we get to Cincinnati, but I think we're gonna be optimistic here.

Yeah. I mean, I feel like we have to be because I don't know how I'm gonna react if she's hurt.

Yeah.

It's gotta be honest.

Yeah. I mean, and if they're.

I mean, I'll be sad, but I'll be. There'll be good days. You know what I mean?

Yeah.

Be okay.

I'll be sad, though, eventually.

Yeah.

If my daughter's dead, I'm gonna go on a murder spree and, you know,

we'll point you at the cathedral and follow you.

Let me some shit up. I'm down.

And if there's depending on what we find in Cincinnati, it's true. Like, regardless of anything that might be. I mean, we've already done Ash Raphael.

Yeah, I remember. Ass. Rifle. We kicked his ass.

We did. That guy did. And it wasn't fun.

No, but it was. It was a slow burn. But we got out of there.

The more we take out some of these generals, you know, the harder it will be for a Moritar to continue to control people in places.

That's true.

And things and ideas.

So, I mean, depending on what's there, that might not be out of the question either.

Yeah, I mean, it looks like. For lack of a term, I mean, I. What I think of when I. When I saw the structure, I. It felt like a citadel. Just a really tall fucking tower.

And

they seemed to be patrolling the area. Whoever was chasing my daughter in the vision or dream or whatever the hell it was, you know, so.

So kind of like police state city.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I don't think there's any way of getting out of there without fucking shit up.

No.

Probably not.

So.

Well, if your daughter's anything like you. She's gonna be fine. And we're gonna find her in one piece. I hope she's like me, causing some good trouble. And we'll get her out of there.

As long as she's a fighter, she'll be all right.

Yeah. It's hard to imagine that any kid you help bring into the world is not something of a fighter.

That's fair. That's fair. She was pretty young before, but, you know.

Yeah.

I did what I could.

How long has it been?

Five years.

How old is she now?

Fifteen.

Wow.

She looks very different. I almost didn't recognize her. Honestly. It was kind of.

Yeah.

Jarring.

For some reason, I thought she'd be younger.

Yeah, it's fair.

Suddenly, Emery realizes Odok's old.

Your daughter's uncomfortably close to my age.

That's how life goes.

Yeah.

I mean, it's not like, you know,

Emory works in kitchens.

That's how a ragtag group of people that met at a fucking diner bar thing.

Dive.

No, it's not a dive.

It's not a dive. It's just.

It's a pub of sorts.

That's right. It was the Shamrock Sheep. It is a pretty nice place.

I think that would be quite a

fitting to be called a dive, especially as a chef.

He'd be pissed,

right? He's still awake. Whatever was a dive bar. James.

Ben is crying.

Ben is in his.

Ben.

Ben sneezes and then starts bawling.

Whiskey collection. And the craft brews.

I feel like he's probably been defending those with his life.

For sure. 100%.

It is the only wealth.

Good alcohol in the apocalypse is currency.

Yes.

Yeah.

He's got him unlocked a long way that that. I think we clink our bottles, finish our beers, hide the evidence.

Yeah.

Right.

And we'll wake up. Who was second? Elliot was second. No, James was second.

He's already awake.

Very awake. He's listening.

Yep.

You're up, bitch.

Maybe.

Okay.

That's James. What?

Yamez.

Yammes.

Interesting fact, the name James doesn't exist in Spanish.

Is that Jaime?

Nope.

Jaime.

It just isn't a thing. There's something close to it, but it's not the same name. It's actually closer to, like, Phil or William or something like that. It's weird. It just isn't a name that exists in Spanish.

Interesting.

That is a fact. I did not know that.

Alters Season two. You can't go south of the border.

I guess not.

Well, he can. They're just all gonna be like Poof.

Cease to exist.

Suddenly

I am Juan Kayan.

It's just they're gonna mispronounce his name bad.

Hey, you'll be Yamis.

Yummy.

Yeah, pretty much.

Yams.

Yams.

Yay me.

All right. So, other than. Other than sneaking some brews, what'd you guys doing much. Anything eventful happen?

Not really, no. The bards over there keep setting shit off every so often, but it's what I hear. Not bad.

That dude sang Wonderwall 15 times in the last two hours.

I don't think he knows anything else.

Yeah, I like this point.

Here's somebody scream.

Today.

It's gonna be, oh, my God.

Someone learns how to cast silence.

Specifically.

I just knew them.

Yeah, they cast it on him out of sheer defense.

You're my wonder nothing.

And then you hear from somewhere else. Thank you.

Buy me a beer.

Now it's just the sound of something. But other than, like, nothing crazy.

Nothing crazy.

Basic college crap.

Yeah.

Okay.

We hear a drum set kicking up somewhere nearby.

This place doesn't sleep, does it?

It's a college campus.

College campus.

What do you expect?

Just because it's Catholic doesn't mean they act any different.

See, I didn't go to actual college. I went to culinary school.

Pretty positive.

We were usually dead tired after. Shit.

I was gonna say, my experience with community college is that it's pretty much the same as all the other colleges. And dry campus means jack shit.

Yeah.

This just means they gotta sneak it on.

Yep.

I wasn't supposed to have booze in the barracks either, but it was there.

Don't get caught.

It's always there. It doesn't matter where you go. It doesn't matter that everybody's 18. Who gives a shit?

We'll find a way. We'll find a way.

All right, you two have a good night.

Yeah, me too.

See you in the morning. For high knees.

Hell, I heard that bell Rolls over,

you're supposed to be asleep.

She is asleep. She says that every once in a while.

Oh, she's kind of.

It's a reflex.

I heard that. What are you doing on your watch there? Yummy.

Yames is. Probably gonna take stock of gear again since we were talking about buying stuff tomorrow. So. Probably make a checklist of food, like items that we'll need to burn. Procure.

You need food tactically acquire.

Yep. We're not E4.

That's okay. Still fits. It's not stealing. We're just not gonna give it back.

And once I'm done doing that, because it's like Go through. Yep. We're low on everything. That was a waste of time.

Still have some corn. Starting to get a little thin. You stopped getting it a while back because. Because you had a lot and now you're finally about to run out.

Yep.

There's probably some like fruit bushes and stuff that you guys have thoroughly pilfered on your way.

Traveling with a ranger. We're doing some foraging and this is very fertile land and there's enough hunting that we're able to kind of like hunt some stuff on our way through when we need to. So meat's not a problem.

Gotta give me a perception.

Oh boy. That is suicide.

Massive. What?

32.

It's a total of 19.

Yeah.

All right, here we go again.

Mr. 19's back on it. Oh, yeah. So again, most of what you're seeing is pretty much the same as what was described to Emory Ulnock kids. It doesn't ever really slow down. They are aware that they're near folks trying to sleep, so they're relatively respectful. But they're still conversating as they walk past. Every now and again you hear the distinct chugga, chugga, chugga. There's a kid on his skateboard, Terrence.

Oh, yeah, much better. That's pretty good.

And you know, you're hearing a lot of that. You see kids cruising by on their bikes, you know, pretty non stop. But the biggest difference is at. Towards the end of year, watch, people have started returning to campus and they all. There seems to be something at the other end of this forested quad that folks are kind of like gathering around.

Looking at that without leaving camp. Am I able to tell? Get like a better look or is it too far away?

Yeah, it's pretty far. And it's again, it's through this. Like it's lightly forested, but there's a lot of trees between you and there. So you're basically. You're able to tell that folks are moving that way. I will say that there's pretty obviously like a decent sized bonfire down there. So you can see the glow. It's not like they're like fucking like homecoming weekend, burn an effigy to the opposing school kind of shit. But there's a good sized bonfire down there and folks mingling about, but that crowd is growing.

Gotcha. I'm probably not gonna go to it. Cause I don't want to leave the group. The last time that I left the group, bad shit happened.

Sure did.

So I feel like every time I leave the group, bad shit happens.

Don't split the party.

Is there a pattern there? Probably not. So I'm probably just.

Should I learn from my mistakes?

Nah,

who needs character development? I'll probably stay close to the group, then, and probably work on cleaning some of my knives because they've been getting a bit neglected as of late. We've been kind of busy saving a town. Haven't really had time to take care of them properly.

Running for our lives. Yeah.

I'll be taking care of the newest acquisition, the one with the black gem in the pommel, and I'll be cleaning it. And suddenly, off to the side, I get a. Like, a feeling that, like, I can sense where my group is without actually looking at them.

That's weird.

I close my eyes and I still get it, and I, like, look around with my eyes closed. It's like, oh, shit, I turned into Neo.

Yeah, you absolutely. You close your eyes and you know where everything nearby is.

I can see, like, their outlines and, like, their. Are you guys intense? Yeah. Are you guys intense or are you guys just intending sleeping bags?

I think we're just sleeping bags.

Elliot's a toy in a sleeping bag.

I. I think it's probably humid enough. Why bother with the tent? Gotcha.

But, like, if you ever, like, see images in your mind, but they're, like, wispy and, like, not really there, it's like that, but more defined.

So, like, seeing things in your mind?

Yeah, it's like I can see people's outlines, but it's, like.

It's, like, smoky.

Yeah.

Okay.

Well, I can perceive things with my eyes closed now.

I found the dagger.

It's a dagger of blindsight.

Yes.

Out to 30ft.

That's awesome.

The descriptor made it sound like it was a poisony thing. It was leading me down the wrong trail. It's not a poisony knife. It is a blindsight knife.

You know what that means? The next time that we have that incident where had.

Can't see something in the dark.

Yeah.

We have a fight in the dark where. Shit. Can't see shit. I can now see shit.

It's a shame you weren't at that fight.

Yeah.

You weren't even there.

So with that, I'm probably, like, getting used to it. I guess I'll just perceive camp with my eyes closed. Patrol with my eyes closed.

Perfect. That looks weird. It is 30ft. Am I remembering correctly?

You are correct. It's 30ft.

Excuse me.

So I can't really tell out past that.

It's still, like, after that, it's just gone.

Yeah.

Honestly, you're Kind of operating on daredevil rules.

Yeah. But, yeah, I'll probably try getting used to it. So it's like. Okay, so that's. That's the Elliot wisp. That's the Mel wisp. Just get used to everyone's presences.

Perfect color auras.

I don't do that. That's.

Color is your energy.

That's an Elliot thing. When he does his.

Surely that's not still college music.

Surely it was when I was in college. Although to be fair, it's been a few years now, too.

Yeah, joke's on y'.

All.

I didn't go to college.

Joke said y'. All. I wasn't cool enough to know.

Same.

That was the old guy in all the classes.

Not even that.

I was four years older than everybody.

At least.

I went to two parties and hated both of them.

So I discovered 90s rock in college. So, you know, I was only like 15 years off.

This Nirvana thing's really good.

No, I discovered Nirvana in junior high. High.

Yeah. The right age for.

Totally is.

Yeah, that's the right age to learn about Kurt. Perfect. So, yeah, again, you know, throughout the rest of your. A fair amount of your watch, you don't notice this because you can't see that far.

I assume you have.

You.

You're keeping watch. Once you realize you can't see past 30ft with the blind sense, you open your eyes and look around. Right.

Occasionally, maybe.

Nah, nah, we're sleeping. We don't know.

Should we let him take watches alone?

And it's not like it's like an exponentially growing event that I probably.

I'm smart enough to keep track. I'm smart enough to keep track of the bonfire group growing.

Yeah, you are.

I'm not that stupid. I'm not that stupid.

So, yeah, it's not like an exponential growth rate where this bonfire is spreading like a plague and it's gonna be an issue. But there is steady.

And they're not getting, like, rowdy.

No, no, they all are. From what you can see, again, it's a fair clip away. All you can see is people's backs. They're all focused on the fire. They're not focusing fire. They're focused on lay down fire.

Gotcha. They're not like, chanting shit, are they?

You don't hear any chanting. You hear Mike. Muddled conversations, right? And we'll say kind of at the end of your watch, basically Right at

the end of your watch.

Because four hours. We'll say your watch ends at about basically midnight, basically Right at When you'd be waking Elliot up, you're noticing it getting quieter.

Gotcha. So it's like dying down at this point.

The volume hits.

Okay, but the group is still.

Yes.

Okay, gotcha.

Sorry, I bumped your mic. I bumped my mic with my back and I bumped mic. Point is I bumped a mic.

There's bumping in bags.

It's okay. I don't think anyone noticed but you, you notice.

That's cause I heard the thump.

Sorry.

Gotcha. All right, I will head over to Illiot and looking at him, I can't see him. But then I close my eyes and it's like I notice he's exactly there.

The question is, do you wake him up with your eyes closed?

Oh, absolutely.

At this point, yeah. I'll reach down, just poke him, Poke him in the shoulder. Huh? What? Huh? It's your watch.

Oh, okay.

Anything happened?

It's your watch.

Hey, Batman.

I'm starting my arrest early.

I'm blind, man. I mean, just your basic college activity. Except for there's a group growing over that way by a bonfire. They were a bit louder, but they're, they're quieted down. So I don't know if festivities are about to start or what.

Are they rioting?

Doesn't look like it.

Okay, somebody's phone just went off though.

I just got an email.

All of the warlocks suddenly just look at their phones. They're getting instructions, right? That would be terrifying as one. They all get the notification.

We know what those notifications sound sound like.

So.

Yeah, I, I, I'm going to be honest. I honestly think that Mel's on edge enough with all these warlocks around that she's not sleeping. Great. So she hears part of Al Mary and Alnak's conversation. She hears James stumbling around in the dark going, oh, this is cool. Like she's sleeping, but not well. Like not enough to give her exhaustion. Unless the DM says so. But just not restful. Like she's definitely half aware all night.

Oh, for sure. Yeah.

She hears James's creepy waking Batman voice, she rolls over

Sandwaker.

It's like she wants everybody else.

Cool.

Yeah, I guess that's like a meeting of some sort. They didn't start chanting anything, so that's good. I was expecting like 2 o' clock

in the morning and a whole bunch of people remaining around a bonfire. What could possibly go wrong?

They could summon something.

Yeah, yeah, that's on my list of things that could go wrong.

Yeah, I'm supposed to be sneaky.

Do we want to Go down and check it out. Or do you think it's fine?

We should go check it out?

You hear a lot of rustling for Mel's sleeping bag? Of course it's not fine.

They're fine.

Nothing's fine.

Yeah, if anybody needs to go check it out, it's you and me.

Yeah, okay.

Hang on a second.

I'll stay.

I'll make this better.

Go back to sleep.

You're not part of this conversation.

I'm trying to go back to sleep, but you keep talking.

We quit talking. If you would stop talking to us. You know what? Here.

And apparently the Wonderwole guy is at it again. I hear that song one more time.

He started a new song. That was.

Oh, you're right. That was Jumper. I hate that one, too. Can we not do that one either?

So Elliot's gonna say here. And he literally picks up Charlie and hands him to you. He says, here, Peter, don't.

Okay, That. Honestly, that was the kind of music I discovered in college.

Elliot's gonna hit.

Hey there.

Elliot's gonna pass without a trace on James and I.

The plus 10.

Plus 102 are stupid, insane, ridiculous.

Actually, I'm curious. You know what? You roll your number, guys.

Okay.

You guys have the ascending. Both of you have descending stones, too.

Yep.

So if you wanted to, you could

leave one with us laying in the dirt.

You're asleep.

I'm asleep.

Shut.

I'm asleep.

Everybody's asleep.

We can see it from here.

Yeah, the sending spell is fire.

I curl up with Charlie.

Okay, let's see here.

This math. Well, actually, not that great. 22.

I also got a 22.

Oh, no, I'm sorry. I mathed that incorrectly. That would be 28.

Sorry, 28.

Oh, yeah, not that great.

That's.

I rolled it.

So you rolled an average 25 better

than I could do with a nat 20.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I got a 13 plus. His password. That a trace. Which is. It's a plus 19.

Yep. What?

Did I do math wrong? I feel like I did math wrong.

So what'd you roll?

That doesn't make sense.

With 13? No, it's a.

That's a 23 because I have a

stealth of plus nine. But his plus nine plus 19 plus what you roll?

Yeah.

19 plus 23. Okay.

19 plus 13.

32.

32.

Yeah.

Nobody hears you.

You're real.

You guys are fucking ninjas. You just disappeared.

Well, that's why we're gonna go check this thing out.

15 plus 9 is 22.

Plus 10.

Oh, right.

Okay.

Yeah, I did do math. Wrong.

Okay.

Jesus.

My brain is.

I was gonna say, in spite of the hoss hat, nobody knows you exist.

Yeah.

This is a floating hoss hat. What the hell is that?

It's just a drifting smell of brimstone on the breeze.

So your average is high? It's like an average 30, I think.

Pretty close. Yeah.

Pretty damn quiet. And you know, it's not exactly like a roving guard here trying to track.

So we're just trying to sneak up close enough to kind of discern roughly what's going on without anybody knowing we're there.

So, you know, I would picture, I would assume especially you being a forest

ranger,

I would assume you're sticking in the woods, whatever it takes, moving your way up through. And as you're moving, the fire in front of you becomes more and more clear just for the lack of obstacles. Right. And what you see before you is a pretty healthy crowd, a couple hundred heads strong and pretty good sized fire. I got an average, like we got a bunch of pallets. We're gonna burn it in the desert, kind of bonfire vibes.

Yep.

And there's a small makeshift podium a relatively safe distance away from the fire. And you'd see two people standing atop it. A dude in a robe.

Ah, shit.

God damn it.

And a chick with some crazy hair.

Like. Like stick hair. Like on a scale from you would.

You're from this. You'd think like she's got some like cool ass dreadlocks.

Are they like writhing around like snakes?

They don't appear to be stationary, though.

Ah, God damn it.

And yep, actually, as you guys are

approaching fucking Medusa and Merlin up,

they

draw the crowd's attention. Just kind of their energy just kind of draws you. Like, if you've ever met somebody who's a really just a good crowd control public speaker, they're able to just draw your attention with their presence.

I hate those guys.

I don't understand it. I don't know how to do it. These two can do it. These two people do it. And immediately the crowd significantly quiets. And depending on how close you want to get, whether or not you can

hear them close enough to hear.

Yeah, you do got to get close because they're not like full chest projection talking.

Right.

They're just conversating. If you're able to get close as they are saying that. We must try to find these people. Our gods have declared it so we need to find them for the ends of their goals. And so we've been asked to summon forth some guardians. And the dude in the robe moves so he's facing her, and she kind of pivots back. They extend their hands out over the platform. And now they can start chanting some stuff.

So I'm gonna tap James on the shoulder, and I'm gonna motion kind of over my shoulder back to the camp. And I'm motioning that let's go back to. You can.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Let's get the out of here.

Okay. So as soon as we have far enough away that we feel it's safe, it's like we're waking everybody up.

We are out of here.

Right.

The boat now.

Absolutely. You and I are on the same page, sir.

So we're gonna.

We're gonna haul back to camp. I'm gonna. I'm gonna grab Charlie and, like, pull him out of Mel's arms.

Who's this? About to fall asleep.

Just finally fall asleep. Fallen asleep properly.

This is not a drill. We are leaving right now.

I'm waking everyone.

Hines.

So I'm grabbing Jacob. I'm literally picking him up out of his bag, setting him on his feet. Say, son, we are leaving now. Let's go. And I'm sure between all this stuff now, Jacob doesn't ask questions. He just immediately says. And it's gonna be quietly, everyone, why we are leaving now.

We'll explain later.

Quietly.

No questions. Like shoving sleeping bags into saddlebags, Saddling horses.

I'm using all three hands to put everything away as quickly as possible.

I'm just laying on my horse, holding the saddle.

You're doing the heavy stuff with your two hands While your mage hand is doing the light things.

Your mage hand's over here, like packing sleeping bags and clothes.

Exactly.

So we're up.

We're getting ready pretty well packing.

And about the time that you'd be ready to start heading out, you feel,

Oh, I don't like that. I don't like that.

A pretty intense light flashes off about roughly where mage and Medusa would have been standing.

Assume that's what we're running from.

Yep. Yep.

All right.

Let's go, Jacob. Broom. Broom. Stay above us.

Okay. Okay.

Scooty, scoot, boys.

Obviously, people have magic.

Stay with us. Be ready to go above us if you need to get.

Yeah, I was gonna say stay at the same level as the horses or, like, in the middle of the pack. People might think you're just on horseback. Yeah, but be ready to run.

But be ready to, like, get above danger.

Where do you want me?

I'm on the level with the horses.

So like horses. James on the broom at the same level as the horses.

Here, here.

Fly like you're on a horse next to somebody who's also on a horse.

So he's flying like this.

Fly like you're on a horse.

His ribs doing this.

Whatever. If you were to PA attention from a ditch, you'd be like that kid's on a horse.

His broom's literally bobbing.

Otherwise that would definitely look weird.

Listen, I just want you to. He's the only steady one if you need to. That's all.

Yeah, yeah. No, that's a good call.

Movement speed of 30 on that broom, I believe.

Is it? No, hold on.

Broom of flying. Flying speed of 50ft. It's only 30 if it's carrying over £200.

That's right.

So with him. He's fast.

With my big ass, it's not going very far.

Far.

Yeah.

Got.

I feel like we ran into that.

I'm pretty sure I lost.

It's 50.

I remembered that being a thing cuz that's kind of how you got.

Yeah, we were. That's cuz we were heavy loading it.

Gotcha. Gotcha. Okay, beautiful. So you guys are able to start making some progress. So we're going to enter into a skill challenge. Let's just get this. What I would consider. You might disagree, but I would consider a fairly high stakes. Sure. Shit's hunting. You don't know. It's freaky.

You could guess.

Most things have been freaky so far. We do not. That's correct. We do not know this is us. I'm not taking that chance.

Well worth risking. Absolutely not.

If it's not us. Sorry we missed a night's sleep. Rough. I don't care if it is us. This is not good.

How ironic would that be? We're summoning guardians to help track down these people who happen to be napping a half a you a half baker away.

Like two of their members happen to

be here in the crowd.

I bet you feel dumb now, don't you?

Hey, Elliot and James, come on down. We're the next contestant. Luckily we will you.

Okay. So I had. I had to read Pass without a Trace. And the way it is written, I can move my Pass without a Trace to everybody in the group.

Okay.

Because it's for the duration, which is one hour. Each creature you choose within 30ft of you, including you as a plus 10.

Beautiful.

And cannot be tracked except by magical means. So because of the. For the duration. That tells me I didn't have to designate it when I cast it.

That's More of a radius around you.

Yeah.

So, yeah.

Yeah. You are casting it around you to every you want.

Yep. So this is going to go to everybody else, and so we are moving out, but we are moving stealthily, which I indicate to everybody as we're getting.

Does it lessen the skill challenge?

It's going to make it safer? Yes. That'll. That'll be the.

The horses are some of the designated creatures that are moving quieter.

That. That'll be how I factor that into everything. Is the skill challenge got safer. Sure.

And that's what. The way I'm reading Pass without a trace, I'm. It's not damping the horse's sound, but they are not leaving tracks. So, yeah, it's a.

So we're not taking off at a gallop right now?

No, we are not taking off at a gallop. We're loaded up, and we are. We are just as quietly as we

can moving away until we're far enough that we can.

Until, yeah, we get a little distance, and then we're booking hell and getting out of here.

The hell out of here.

So I don't think we need to roll initiative on this. We can just go poker around the table.

Story versus poker. Mal always starts.

That works. I think I had Emery go once.

Emery started last time we had to roll.

Cordel, you're first.

Oh, what.

What is did.

You can't just throw that on me.

No, I got to her all the time.

I was gonna say, what is the challenge?

It's to be a D.C. it was going to be a 15. It'll. I'll bump it down to a 13, which pass without a trace, and it's 8 and 8 instead of 8 and 5.

My best skill is athletics. How far have we gotten away?

At this point, you're basically starting.

Okay, so we're just starting.

Okay.

So my thoughts is I'm going to use my athletic to kind of gather more than the average bear to get our stuff back on the horses so we can get the hell out of Josh.

Okay.

All right. Good job, Yi.

Come on.

Big money, big money.

No whammies.

17. Yep. That beats 13. 17 beats most of the challenges.

I forgot I had a plus seven.

I was going to be 15. I'm downing it to 13 because the pass is not a choice.

I wrote down 15. I heard the wrong. As I said. But if there's two numbers, I'll remember the wrong one.

Fair.

There's two options.

I remember the wrong one.

Huh?

He looks really cool.

Yeah, he does. We'll go to James.

Okay.

Shamas.

That's gonna become a thing, isn't it?

It is today.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, don't worry. I'll forget. And then in a month and a half when I'm editing this episode, I'll remember again. So it'll be a thing for another episode after.

Great.

About every two months.

Yeah.

A recurring recurring nightmare.

50. 50. Only to nickname half of the episodes. The other half are Jimmy.

Jimmy.

Probably do a perception check to find like the clearest route to get us out of here as quickly as possible.

Okay.

19.

It's not 18. 19. But it is over 13. It is a lot of options. It's 14, actually.

Beautiful. 14.

That is over 13. You were right.

You can math.

So more than anything, finding a path through this. It's not like you're not in the woods. Right. This is still a college campus. It's still clear. So you're not fighting through like underbrush or anything. Right. The thing that you perceive more than anything is this thick, heavy, leathery flapping.

Ah.

Jacob will not be going up.

No, no, no, no, no.

Jacob, get off the horse. Get off the horse. Jacob, get off the room. Get off the room.

Get off the room.

Get on a horse. Get on the broom.

Dig a hole.

Operation ostrich is a go.

I don't have a burrow speed.

You're gonna get one real fast or flambe trying.

I feel like Jacob absolutely tries to do a mid flight transition from broom to horse.

Oh.

Ow.

Counter gets through. We'll see if he pulls it off.

I think that's it does.

It's a 15/ Dex.

Nice.

Use a moment. So yeah, he's able to. He does like the Harry Potter Episode 1 Stand on the broom. Except he doesn't eat shit.

Yeah. And he jumps onto the horse and Mel grabs the broom before it can run off.

He pulls up next to you standing on the broom and you hold the broom while he jumps on the horse.

There's a weird moment where it's magically resistant and then all of a sudden it has weight.

I look at the down.

The broom whimpers slightly. All of its bristles go taut. If a broom could do hide knees, stick with that.

Hang on. I have a thing when it comes to my turn, hang on to the broom.

Ha.

Okay.

All right. Because we are still moving through a college campus and there are a lot of people around, I want to do a deception to kind of like make it seem like we're not in a panic hurry trying to get out of here. If People do. So spot us. Then we just look like we're out riding, like we're not. We're not. Nothing's happening. We're not drawing attention. It's a poker face.

Check.

Exactly.

You totally don't mind us.

Sorry.

Almost verbatim.

We just have to leave.

Oh, I'm sorry. I should have said this earlier. We haven't made a full lap yet. This is one of those. That's long enough. You can repeat if you do. You take a minute. We're glad you just came back. Next.

I got a 23.

Yeah. That's a bit more than 13. Just a little bit so far. That is three wins, zero losses. You are a motivated crew.

We're scared.

Yeah. So, yeah. No, you guys. Despite the fear, Emery looks cool as a cucumber.

Yeah.

Which will be exceptionally hard because Emery really has no idea what we're doing.

No.

She was woken up and said, we are leaving now quietly.

And you're like, okay, okay, we're doing it. We're doing it quietly. Everything's fine. We're fine.

This is fine.

It's fine.

She's that little dog in the coffee shop where everything's on fire. This is fine.

This is fine.

And everybody is like, what the.

Is going?

And James and I are just like,

yeah, we've been through enough shit that Emery trusts you guys with her life. If you say, we're going, we're going.

I'm not questioning it. Let's get the fuck out of here.

Your turn.

Sorry.

It's a thickest of the blue on

the flight room, so following in line with the whole broom thing, about the same time that Mel grabs the broom and looks at it and says, down. We come across some just wasted students. And she has the same tone to intimidate them into just getting out of the way.

Okay. Down, move.

Pretty much.

Down.

Move.

Yes, ma'.

Am. Mom. Boys.

Yeah.

That's a six.

Oh, no, no.

They are too drunk to care.

Hey, Lariti.

Me? Of course it's the drunks.

They're catching you on your good side. They're not seeing how scared.

Probably the broom was. On the bad side, the drunks are on the good side.

Why are you running away so quickly?

Go away, please. I am too tired for this.

I got a place in Crisp.

You're too.

Elliot. I want to sit.

If we had time, I. We had time. I throw something at them so Elliot,

I could chuck a ball for the

bag of tricks and poke myself in a bear.

That spells response to you.

Mel has gotten Discombobulated by the response to the college students and is going to drop the broom. So Elliot is going to use his acrobatics to. It's really cool. If you've seen people do it. They do it in contest where like some. That the trick is to ride by on a horse and hang off the side of the saddle and reach down and pick something off the ground. It's a cool thing that guys can do. I couldn't begin to do it.

No. Hell no.

Elliot should be able to do it. And so paper.

There it is.

Oh yeah. So Mel drops the broom and Elliot is in the back because he's basically pushing everybody, making sure everything's clear. And he looks and he sees dark vision. The broom hit the ground. So he hooks his spur over the horn drops because he has to pull his left foot out of the stirrup hook. And then he falls off the side of the horse. Almost inverted. And then snatches the broom off the ground. Pulls himself back up. And then he looks at the broom and he turns around. He drops it in his magical quiver and it disappears.

Beautiful. What was that total. Just out of curiosity. Sake.

It was seven plus six. So it was 13.

Just. Sorry.

It was seven plus seven. But it's still passes no matter what

to find a way to make performance work.

Definitely took a second to get the abs to get.

Yeah. Horseback riding he's been doing. He's got.

Was that moment of I haven't done this in a couple of decades.

Oh, that pulled something.

It's impressive when people do it.

Oh yeah.

Especially if you've never tried it. If you've even attempted. You're like, holy crap. How do they do that?

All right. Watching those Mongolian archers. They're so cool.

I had a friend that did like gymnastics of horses.

There's a name for.

I can't remember what it's called.

Vaulting.

Yeah.

Which is a much that deserves. Yes.

Yeah.

It's true.

That just sounds like horse jump.

Yeah.

No.

They do gymnastics on a running horse.

It is wild.

It's so cool to watch.

Give you enough time.

Nope.

I don't know how to use performance for this. I'm trying to think of a scenario. So we're running away. We've got the drunkies talking to Mel.

You maybe. Maybe you try to convince the drunks that Mel's with you so they stop harassing her.

We'll do that.

Leave us all over.

I gotta pretend.

Yeah.

Even though she's.

There's your performance.

Significantly younger than me. But you know it's not weird. Cause it's not real.

She's not actually. She's not actually young enough to be your daughter. She's still like nine years older.

Yes.

Eight years older.

Ten plus four.

Hey, I was trying to help him out a little with us faking it.

Right?

She played along for long enough that the drunks get all disappointed and like, aggro y puff off and then they

immediately forget that we existed because they're that wasted.

Like, sorry, I know that was weird,

but that was really.

I'm trying.

I'm sorry.

Thank you. But that was weird. Don't get any ideas.

I could have just pretended to be your dad. That probably would have been more convenient.

No, that would have been weirder, actually.

Would have been weirder. All right.

Get off my daughter. You are at 6. W is 1.

L

just eat through this.

That's not actually possible. We've only made my count was five in one.

Yeah, you're right. I only have seven boxes.

Yes, I'm like that. We've only. There's only five people and we just did one round.

So I've just given a box to make it eight.

Hold on, hold on. It started with me.

Yeah. So there's a total of six. Five wins, one loss.

Success.

Loss. Success, Success.

I just added a box.

We're.

Right now.

Yeah, we're good. Sorry.

We're winning. That's all that matters.

I skipped one apparently, because I was like, wait a minute, I did twice.

We're winning.

We're all good.

You're eating this like cake right now. You want to change that direction there, Jaime?

Let's fuck shit up.

Are we far enough away that we can kind of like kick it up a notch? Or are we still.

I mean, I will do an investigation, check to see if we're fine.

Well done.

Thank you, Elliot. No, I'm at the level. Not sure. I'm in the front of the group. I can't see shit.

I don't know.

You have blindsight.

You do start to hear an interesting combination of hooping and screaming coming from behind him.

Don't love that.

It's not like blood curdling, like, oh, my God, I'm being eaten.

Screaming.

Oh, that's good.

But it's definitely like, holy shit. What the fuck is that?

I regret my choices. Screaming.

It's a scream. Like, I might be.

Yeah, well, maybe I am a scourge, but not in pain.

How's that?

And you've been in enough fucked up situations.

We know the difference.

We know the difference now.

Yep.

Speak and scream.

Well, don't even need an instruction. Is the NMA keeping up good? Okay.

Yes.

Oh, no. You forgot to wake her up.

We just left her behind.

That's true. Nobody said shit. She'd be waking up about now to all the screams like.

Hello, guys, Hello.

Fuckers took my horses. Guess I'm staying at Notre Dame after. Yeah. Get the leather cloak flying from the sky.

So hearing some of the screams and stuff starting to happen and whatnot. Emory wants to. Want to go for like a sleight of hand to get close enough to Mel and

Jacob.

Yes, him. And I want to. I want to cast mage armor on Jacob. But sleight of hand to like kind of negotiate horses and whatnot to get close enough and reach over and tap him.

Yeah, with proficiency, sure.

Okay.

That is a 13 exactly.

Wins a win. Dubs a dub.

Two more about the bronco season. All fucking year.

Oh, shit. Dub's a dub. Who cares?

It's ugly.

But they're winning.

And he now gets his. His armor is now 13 plus his dex. So it should be a little bit higher than his usuals.

Nice.

He's definitely not wearing. Yeah. Effectively increase it by three. Which is not armored.

Right.

Because it's 10 plus Dex. Or is it?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So yeah, everybody's 10 plus Dex. And then armor might add to that. So if he's not wearing any armor, he's. You're always 10 plus Dex.

Am I the only one, character wise, wearing armor?

Yes. Yeah.

I mean, I've got leather clothing on.

Okay.

That we've classified as armor.

Gotcha. I just remember taking it off the.

You're traveling with a monk, a barbarian and a sorcerer.

Yeah.

Can't wear armor. Shouldn't wear armor. Can't wear armor.

Yeah.

Oh, Elliot would totally look for some armor if he could find some appropriate stuff.

I would love a shield at some point.

I've got my bracers of defense and that's all. And my mage armor and that's all I've got.

So the Wonder Woman bracelets and maybe against explosive mage armor.

Yep.

I did check. I didn't explode.

That's good.

I rolled a 15 on that one.

Nice.

What are you up to?

Three.

Three.

So Mel is going to. As we're. As we are attempting to leave with all speed. And I feel like at this point, after feeling that Whomph. Most of us don't really know what's going on. But there's the wolf. There was the bat, the wings. Mel's going to try to use her experience with that eldritch type magic to her advantage to try to see if there's anything like, up ahead in the direction we're going. Like, if I can sense any of that gross green eldritch nonsense in the direction we're moving. That's an arcana check without all the flavor. Oh, nice. That's a 21.

Did you say wi fi check?

Mystery.

Oh, man.

Wi fi check's good though.

WI fi checks.

I cannot, like, for whatever. I have a plus seven to deception and persuasion, but every time I roll for them, I roll under a five. Yeah, that's so bad.

You absolutely. I mean, we've established there's a fucking the warlocks around this campus anyway, right? And I. The easiest way that got you away from everything was kind of vaguely Greek row adjacent anyway. So you're definitely picking up on that. So you guys. Peter would be south east to kind of swing away from that.

Okay.

Elliot, you could close this door.

No pressure.

Oh, genuinely no pressure. You've got like a load of.

We only have two losses.

It's a principle of.

You could roll poorly a lot if you needed to.

Okay. We're at night, we're moving. We know we want to head east. Elliot would like to use his survival and attempt to direct us in the most favorable direction that we want to go. So in the dark, it's pretty hard to tell what direction am I actually going right now.

Especially true dark because there's not even street lights or nothing.

Exactly. You've literally got the stars. So it would be a quick glance up in the air from a horse scared. How quickly can I orient? I am in my favorite arena and

Mel's over here going, not that way, not that way, not that way. Don't go over there. That one's green.

My green, not your green.

Not green, my green.

Scary green, not lime sick green, not lime green.

Really? I rolled two nat Twos.

Oh, no. Seven.

All right. That's a fail. So you're just. Your nerves are flit up, things are

spinning and I just cannot get.

And the direction you wanted to go, Mel's like, no.

And the direction I wanted to go,

you're like, I'll go.

Mel's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Don't go that way.

Don't go.

It was unsuccessful.

And you hear a borderline call it almost a chord of kaiju esque roaring.

Oh, no.

Of like. So it sounds like multiple things making kaiju esque noises.

Yeah, that would be a reasonable conclusion. Or it's one thing with Three vocal cords, Ash.

Well, that's also not.

Regardless. That's not.

I don't like either option, honestly.

Well, most of those options I don't

like Dragon, Cerberus or fucking, whatever they are. Yeah, he has more than three, I thought. Well, not necessarily. That doesn't matter how many you've removed.

Yeah, he started with one.

That's true.

Can you do three, though? Like, so he starts with one and you cut one off, right? That makes two. But if you cut another one off, that's gonna make three. There it is. I'm retarded.

Anyway, you got there, you just had your work your way.

I thought it was going to double

and I'm like, well, if you cut them both, then that's fine.

It does not increase exponentially.

That's right. God, that'd be a.

Don't worry.

Hard enough as is.

Yeah,

cool.

Could be a not bring us home.

I got to use intimidation or athletics again. It would just take a minus one.

I mean, hearing the screeches, we could just start running and you could intimidate people to get stuck out of our way.

How's your answer around?

I had a two stick.

Good.

Maybe I have a nerve for 50% chance on that.

I used performance. I don't know what I would see.

Yeah, we should start running and you should intimidate people to get the out of our way.

People in the way.

Get out of here.

Intimidate them. Those bastards to move.

And now that they're screaming, I feel like people are more understanding of the idea of flight.

You don't have to be subtle.

I still got that monster, but great axe as I'm riding on a horse move.

That would be terrifying.

That would work with my big ass. Yeah, you mean scared. I look like a soul boss.

And as a barbarian, you have advantage on.

Yes, I got advantage.

Does he have to be raging to do that?

I don't believe so.

I think he just has to exist.

I think so too.

I don't know that I have advantage on initiative. Couldn't tell you. I don't have that information.

Hang in a second.

We're good. On this week's episode of Jeremy's Ruled Quarter. If you have any D and D legal questions, you can call the Jeremy. You know, that might be kind of

cool for someone on social media.

If you would like to know how

Discord will find the right channel to put you in.

If you would like to argue your way into, out of or around rules, we suggest you talk to Casey.

I am the lawyer. He is the archive.

There you go.

I can't prove it. Never mind. So not advantageous.

Okay, Straight roll, bro.

You got this. You got this. Scary as fuck.

That's 12. That does not succeed. So the issue isn't that you're not scary, it's that compared to what the other thing is scarier.

That's scarier. That's fair.

It has nerfed nor perceived, frankly.

That's fair. I can't argue with that logic.

Maybe I. Maybe when I'm yelling, I'm not sounding as scary. I'm like, get out of the way. You know, like it sounds.

You are scared. You gotta go.

Gotta run, man.

Game over, man.

Game over.

All right, James, you can close this door, but it's appearing to be quite a jam. This door.

Bullshit. This door's kicking her ass.

The pressure is suddenly getting more pressure.

Now there's pressure.

Now there's pressure.

You only have four more losses to go.

That's okay.

There's some pressure.

On this musical episode.

This is a rather musical episode.

Can I do a history check to remember where the frick bait entrance or exit to this place is?

How we got in.

Nice.

Yeah, sure.

That's right.

If we can't find the best way to go, we may as well just go out the way we came in.

Yeah, that's fair.

Magic Bar is sprinting next to you.

Come on, brain.

That is a 19 on the die. So a total of 20 too.

Got him.

So, yeah, James realizes that you guys are all pretty well scattered and just kind of riding your horses around a campus.

And to be fair, Elliot's at the back of the group too. Try and navigate for us.

So sorry. Path of Berserker. Level 10 intimidating presence.

Okay, so I'm not there yet.

You're not a Berserker.

You're. You're.

You're totem.

Oh yeah, totem.

Okay, yeah. So I wasn't wrong or we just weren't there, right?

Not in the right class or right type or whatever.

Yeah.

So. Yeah, but you are able to escape the campus.

I knew it.

The exit was right next to the cafeteria.

Always is, bro.

And so you guys get clear of the campus. I don't know if this is true, but I'm going to say it's true. The town mir campus is short sky rising. It's more homes, you know, for a while. Kind of where the professors would live, maybe. Yeah, kind of a bunch of cheap residential rentals. That kind of flavor. So as you get into the less obstructed skyline, you do see flying in three separate directions. Some rather large beasties. Beast team.

So now that we're far enough away, James and I will tell the group what we saw.

It is right about the new moon too.

Like and explain to everybody.

Yeah.

So this is what was going on. And that's why we are running like hell.

There's one of the dudes in the

robes and then there was a chick that had a bunch of. Like, her hair was moving.

I thought we could get one night sky somewhere.

They were summoning two something to find the group. Not 100% sure that group's us, but I was not going to risk it.

Nine times out of ten, it's our group.

I have a strong inkling it's probably us.

And even if it's not us, I don't think we need to be there because there's enough magic there they can figure out how to save themselves.

Yeah, I agree.

Are any of those flying thingies in our general.

Absolutely. All of the magic users against the warlocks and they stand a solid chance.

So it looks like that one's kind of heading this way. We should maybe continue to move quickly or stealthily. But how is it.

Or stealthily.

Weak.

Stealthily.

Let's go stealthily.

I like the idea of being under things. Can we be under things?

That would be like hiding stealthily. Understand?

Just under tree.

Yeah.

Hopefully we can find some tree cover to get.

I'm just saying a dozen horses in a field stand out. A dozen horses under things don't.

Yep.

You're good with that.

Let's move and see if we can find some forests to travel through.

All right. Dealer's choices. You are wanting to hide, so I will need a group stealth. You still have pass without a trace.

Still pass without a trace.

I could use one of my spells to make like. Like a gigantic pile of hay and hide inside of it.

No. Let's just keep moving.

Okay.

Not yet.

Not yet.

We're just gonna. We're gonna.

You're not on a really tall building.

If we get desperate, we don't think

a pile of hay is gonna save you right now. Okay.

I think that's an illusion.

It would look bizarre a pile of hay out in this subdivision.

I'm not trying to Assassin's Creed. I'm trying to hide us in the field.

All right, let's go ahead and.

Mel.

What?

You roll.

Oh.

Group selfie.

We still have passed without a trace. Yes.

Yes.

So plus 10.

Thank God. I'm 16.

Okay. Elliot was happy a lot.

37. Holy I cannot get higher than that.

That's awesome.

Nat. 20 plus 17.

Wow.

Yes.

Just to confirm it's my role plus my advantage plus my add modifier plus what his advantage is. So that would be 22. I rolled a 10.

Well, I rolled a three.

So I want.

I did 10 plus two and then 10.

Make sure that I got the math right.

I'm not.

Sometimes it's necessary, apparently, because my brain Be slow. 36,

17.

I feel you not naturally still be.

Oh, James and I can hide from a dragon.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Meanwhile, Emery and I are like, I don't see.

We also can't see in the dark.

It's true. Neither of us can see in the dark. It's nearly new moon. You tell us there's things flying. We hear leather.

Fuck, yeah. And we're trying to keep a horse private. Like.

Yeah, yeah.

You guys are doing fun. That is an average 26.

Yes.

25.6. Rounded up to 26.

Pretty sure that worked.

That's pretty.

Thank you. To our outliers.

Mel's over here going, it's okay, Jacob. You can stop shaking. And Jacob's like, that's you. Sorry, you're right, you're right.

It's okay, Mel. It's okay, Mel. He's talking to herself. Belle's over here.

We're there. I'm good there.

There. You feeling other hand? It's my mage hand patting me on the shoulder.

Belle, like, automatically, like, karate chops it away. Yes.

Goes right through it.

Fuck, James, don't do that.

And so, yeah, if you guys want somebody to roll a survival to or something to see how you are progressificating your way through this.

I like that word.

I don't know if it's a word,

but I liked it.

Well, you don't want me to roll a survival.

I only have a plus two.

Elliot, you got a plus five.

No, that's one of my only ones that I have a zero in.

Can somebody who's can.

I can move up to the front.

You should move up.

I think at this point we move you up to the front.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And maybe Ulnock takes the back and protects her.

I can take 23.

Yeah.

I would not have been able.

That was the right call.

Fo shoes.

What would I have rolled? Let's find out. 17.

Not bad. You add your wisdom to that, you might be proficient in survival.

I'm not.

No.

Yeah, well, I am, but my wisdom scores, so it's just.

Just plus two.

So. Sorry, who rolled a what?

23. Unreliable.

23. Beautiful. So yeah, you're able to find. It takes a little while because it is mostly residential for a while you're. You're doing it. They've got, we'll say they've got a handful of decent sized apartment complexes with like maybe they had a green initiative recently. So they've got more of those solar panel parking lots.

And this is in like Michigan.

No.

And this is an older town too. Like all of the trees in the neighborhood are fairly tall. So if we stick so you're able to navigate.

We'll say that you find your way to a good sized. Takes about an hour. By the time you pass the fence tracer you slam up. You find your way to a pretty good sized park that's well again it's not the woods but it's a heavily tree. They believe in shade in their parks here.

So we have a decision.

We need an environment that helps.

We have a decision we need to make. We need to. Okay, we have two choices. We can try to hole up and finish the night here feeling that we're safe. Got far enough away to be safe or not. And travel and we're all going to be exhausted tomorrow.

I guess the question is what are the odds that whatever's flying around up there, would it be easier if it's hunting us, Would it be easier for it to find us at night or

during the day if we're not moving? In theory we're harder to find. But if we keep moving we're further away. So I think it's a six, one half dozen of another. Whatever the group decides.

Guardians. But they're specifically looking for potentially us.

That's what it sounds.

Or they're guarding something.

That's. That's where I'm like if they're guardians, I don't know if they're going to see stay with the city or if they're going to continue pursuing us wherever we go.

We should have got out okay. I feel good that we got out pretty good. I think maybe it's up to the group to decide.

I think maybe now might be the best time to finish the night, finish our rest.

I think so too.

And then take off in the morning because then we'll. We'll be easier to find during the day. But we'll also be in better condition if we rest now.

Right.

Because if we're exhausted and it follows us outside of here, we're going to have a problem.

Yeah.

When coming through the town to get to the college and whatnot. Did we see any more of like the, the cult iconography in town, like on like flags or some shit. Like.

Yeah.

You're not seeing like a church.

Okay.

You definitely saw again, there was like. It was like the sorority chicks had the homemade Our Patrex tees. That's right. So you're seeing that they exist and it has again, it has distinctly shifted away from the flail to the scale.

Cool.

James.

I'm sure the farther east we go, the more and more of this we're going to see.

Right.

I just wanted to accept that we're going to be moving and adding the territory and it's just what we're going to be doing.

I just wanted to make sure that the entire town wasn't going to be up in arms with pitchforks, torches, looking for us.

Good point.

Yeah.

You're not seeing any beer that would

make you think that.

Okay, cool.

Like, there's no, like, there's no. Nobody's flying the flag of our Petrix out there.

Most of the town seems to be like.

It's got a town vibe and there's maybe a church or two that are carrying these band, but. And when I say a church or two, it's like. Like they took over a downtown church. It's not like boom, medieval like you saw.

Right. Stuff that like splices.

This feels more like what you saw in that one town right before you got to Fort Morgan where the kid got.

That was like bright.

Brightish.

Yeah.

That was before we went to Di Haven White.

Right before you saw them doing like Blue Drive thing and the kid got yoinked. This has the same vibe.

Gotcha.

So they're definitely. They are a presence, but not any more populous than the Mormons are in our town.

Okay.

They're here, but it's not like the whole friggin town's Mormon. Yeah.

Yes. I think this is our best chance to rest and then we take off.

I think so.

Yep.

So. All right.

All right. Time to catch some more Z's.

Yes. You guys feel fully confident this is a place that's covered in.

Get some homes, cuz I meditate.

So, Ellie, you got the rest of your watch?

Yep.

I'm awake.

I'm not.

We're not going to unsaddle the horses, but we're going to loosen up the. We're going to loosen everything up so they could lay. They're not going to lay at this point, but it allows them to cool and dry. Dry off.

Okay.

That's the big thing. If you keep them saddled and tight, you're restricting blood Flow. So by loosening it, it allows the blood to flow to their skin and it allows air flow to dry them. And they're not moving, so they're not going to chafe. It's not as good as unsaddling them,

but it's a hell of a lot better.

All you have to do is cinch up tighter and then you're good to go. So it's enough. And horses don't need eight hours of sleep. They need like two.

Okay.

Yeah. They don't need a lot of little

quick power naps is all they need.

Yeah.

Yeah. I'm not even going to get my sleeping bag out. I'm just going to grab a nice

patch of ground pretty much. Yeah.

Yeah.

Beautiful. So what do you do for the rest of your watch?

Watch in the air. I'm gonna watch very carefully, keeping my bow strung in hand. But I'm gonna sit. I'm not gonna patrol. I'm gonna sit because I'm trying to bring as little attention as possible.

Okay. Yeah. Go to give me perception head just for jiggles. 1212. All right. You. At this point, though, especially the ones that were headed like northeast ish and pretty much due west, they're gone. They've made pretty good time. They are gone. And you've kind of. You've lost sight of the one that was hit ish your way. You know, you just don't smile.

General the civil.

But the rest of your watch does go uneventful, especially. We gotta go. God damn it.

So I'll wake up now.

Tiniest.

It's been quiet. I've been sitting quietly. The two things in the air seem to flown away. I haven't noticed anything. I'm going to try to get a little bit more sleep. Good luck.

Okay, thanks.

Valid response. Yeah. And now I get to sit awake and be anxious.

Yeah, pretty much. Mel actually did doze off and she was surprised at herself. I. I think that instead of Mel's normal morning, like, relaxed morning routine, Mel's absolutely going to be like me. Okay. I'm going to sit here with my back to this tree and try to look around.300 like she's. Like I'm going to perceive.

I gotta give you a perception.

Perceiving by force.

Perceiving by perceive. Yeah. Perceiving by force of will. She's gonna do everything she can to try to be observant.

She's going.

That is a Nat20. The dice agree. Belle is on it tonight.

Mel has gone full monk. She's one with everything.

So with Anat 20 she's beginning to believe. With Anat 20 you are able to confidently tell you pick up on where the thing it's. And part of why Elliot lost it is it's flying and it appears to be landing for a while and you can't, I mean, it's a good clip away, but then you can see it take back off and land in a different area. And even with not 20, you're not seeing, you know, this is, this is an area you've never been before and it's at night in the dark. But it, it looks to you like it is following something.

Okay.

Like it very much is choosing. There's, there's a logic. You don't necessarily know what the logic is, but this doesn't feel. It's not like doubling back on itself. You may, you can't necessarily tell what the logic is, but there's a logic to what it's doing.

Is it getting closer?

Not really.

Well, that's good.

Okay. And actually I'd say by the end of your watch, it is actually starting

to move a little bit.

Okay. Every now and again the wind moves just right and you are able to hear some faint screaming on the wind.

Don't love that.

That's just white noise at this point.

Close your eyes only for a moment

and the moment's gone.

Screams on the way.

Screams on the way. So,

but you're watching this pass.

Mel, like very calmly, but not in a serene Zen way, in a compressed anxiety way, very calmly goes up and wakes everybody with a like. Well, no, it's more like a gentle hand on the shoulder. Wake up. It's time to go.

Perfect. And I think that is a good logical spot to call this episode. Theater of the Mind presents Retribution as Amanda Arson as Mel Kelly Jeremy Arson as Elliot Brandybane Michael Burnell as Ulnock Vargar Johnson Michael Downs as James o' Brien, Casey Weingarten as Emory Lee and myself, Mike Schock as your Dungeon Master. The advertisement segment this week is a quick one. We are continuing both our Wizards and Wine event and Palisade at Restoration Vineyard and our Barbarians and Brews event in Fruita at the Fruita Tavern. Our next couple events are Whiz and whine on the 13th and barbs and brews on the 21st. Tickets are limited, so make sure you get them quick. Aside from that, we have our next Learn to play with board fox games on April 26th and May 3rd. That's right. This is a two day event where if you like what you're hearing and you want to learn to play the game at home. Home. We make that happen. The first day is the nuts and bolts, all the nitty gritty rules, and we build you a level one character. And the second day, if you attended the first, we try really hard to kill that character for you. You can register for the [email protected] we release episodes every time.

Two weeks.

So our next episode will drop on April 26th. So for those of you who have to be adults, we gotta deal with tax day first. As always, we have a promo code for both Pinecast, who we use to host our podcast, and Epidemic Sounds, where we get most of our music. The songs we used from Epidemic Sounds today, in order are Spanish Heat by Jonathan Bond, as Searching for Something by Louise Murra, Eclipse by Henry Miles, and the Final Charge by Dan Shway. The Theatre of the Mind intro and outro were written by Mike Schock. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of our collective imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual events, places or people, living or dead, is entirely coincidental, Which that fits because coyotes y. All right, you ready, guys?

Wait. Something about dates that are important and all of us went dark and you're like, oh, this one's light hearted.

We're just getting into which days or times of year are significant to you. How do you observe or celebrate us?

Bless you.

Sorry. All right.

Welcome to Theater of the Mind presents retribution, episode number 63. My name is Mike. I'm your dungeon master in this week's question from the ultimate rpg. Please turn that off. That's really undocumented. Oh, no. What?

All right, one of the teams has the audio on.

Yeah, bro, that echo is all killer.

What?

I don't like any of that.

Take 2. Reset.

Reset by Twitch. We're professionals.

It's been a rough week. Coming back to work after the holidays.

We haven't recorded all year.

It's been a rough week. Everyone is struggling this week.

All right?