S1:E16 – The ruff night

Theater of the mind. Podcasts are not suitable for all ages content warnings can be found in the audio description. Listener discretion is is advised. Welcome to Theater of the Mind, episode number 16. I am your dungeon master, Mike Schock. And tonight we are pulling a question from the ultimate rpg campfire card deck written by James D'Amato. And our question tonight is, what assumption did you make about one of your companions when you first met them, and what were you surprised to learn?

My name is Amanda, and I'm playing Mel Kelly. Mel actually didn't make a ton of assumptions about her companions because that would involve thinking about somebody else besides herself. However, the initial conversations that she had with Elliot, she's just assumed, like, total stick in the mug, conservative rancher type, not willing to learn anything or try anything new. And she's actually been very surprised that how willing to teach he's been, but also how seemingly accepting of all of the shit show that's reality. Now.

I'm Jeremy. I'm playing Elliot Brandybain. And Elliot's assumption, really, Emery, when he first met her, she just kind of faded into the background with everybody else. Sort of the faceless humanity and her willingness to jump in and be stand up and in bad, bad conditions really surprised him. He didn't expect to see that.

I am Brunel. I am playing Olnack Vaga Johnson. And I made so, so many assumptions about Mel because she is the exact age range of everything that I hate.

So.

I figured she'd be, like, easily triggered, talking about, you know, just shit that I don't agree with all the time. Turns out, you know, she's absolutely way into kale chips. But that was not one of the assumptions I made. One of the assumptions I made was that she would be just somebody I legitimately cannot stand. Fortunately for Mel and the party, I think she's actually pretty good. You know, she's not easily offended. She's kind of handling everything way better than anybody has any fucking right to be. But, you know, she's getting through it and she's powering through, and I see a little bit of myself and her in the fact that she very much masks her emotions. So, you know, that's a little different than what I expected.

I'm downs, I'm playing James O'Brien, and I'm also jumping on the map. Melanie Bandwagon there in the beginning, James perspective, you know, Mel was like a kale chip eaten, blunt, crazy person. Turns out that she's a kale. Yeah, a kale cracker eaten blonde. Crazy chick who can sleep after killing somebody. Goddamn. Do not get Mel angry is what. Is what is what James has learned the moment that she runs out of kale crackers, it's gonna be a very.

Bad day for coffee.

We could probably find some in the health stores. I doubt anyone else is rating this.

That's gonna be the one. The one item left on every shelf.

Yeah, it's just the kale crackers, guys.

There's kale crackers everywhere.

Yeah. Kale crackers and tofu.

Yeah. I'm Casey. I play Emery Lee. I've got one for pretty much everyone in the group, but I'll go for James because Emery kind of knew James a little bit before all this went down. Cause we worked together for, like, the month that Emery worked at the Shamrock sheep. And he was really just kind of a recluse. He didn't really talk. He was kind of prickly in the kitchen. Didn't really hang out with, like, sometimes the rest of the crew would go out for drinks after work or whatever. And he wasn't really super into that. And he's opened up more than Emery's ever seen. And he's shown kind of almost a fun side. So she's a little surprised by that. So. Yeah.

Nice. I think those are all fair assumptions and fair warnings. So let's go ahead and roll for recap. We'll go lowest goes today. I try to spit that out before you guys roll.

18 1714.

Which is exactly what I rolled on the last recap.

Twelve.

I got a six.

Gems or Brian, what happened last fall?

I just fucking dropped. All right, so last episode we went to a morgue with the sheriff and the deputy rekilled some Richardson boys. If I remember correctly, one of them was a ghost, which absolutely scared the shit out of Emory to the point where she.

No, to be fair, it hit me this time. I didn't just get scared by it.

James didn't see that.

So that's James. You guys heard me scream from the hallway and then I was on the ground.

All right. Anyway. Beat the shit out of Emory. She went down. Yeah, we rekilled some headless dudes.

But we did not shoot the deputy.

We did not shoot the deputy. Although the sheriff almost shot us.

He did.

That was a fair recap.

Otherwise, we're back to camp. We're all reunited with Jacob and whatnot. I think we ended with my watch, with hearing a wolf howling not too far away.

Perfect. Yeah, that was an easy recap. Nice thing about battle episodes.

Yeah, we did a battle we beat the shadow stuff. Almost died. Perfect.

And, yes, it is James's watch. And you hear a wolf howling year bye.

And does it sound similar to the. The bang of the wolf that we heard prior?

The biggest difference is you're not hearing the echo. You're hearing the wolf. It's close enough that you're mildly surprised other people are sleeping through it.

Old knock. I'm gonna say that, like, as I'm making my way to old noc, just, like, shaking him.

There's a wolf.

There's a wolf.

There's a wolf. Okay.

All right. Damn it. I just fell asleep.

I know.

Sorry.

Elliot, wake up.

You start to hear screams.

Shit. Everybody up. I'm gonna, like, throw something at Emory's tent.

I'm up.

I'm up.

Throw something at my tent. I dare you.

That's why I threw it at Emory's tent. Bill, I might hit your.

I'm up.

Okay, I'm sorry. I didn't.

Sorry.

There's a wolf howling, and they're screaming, everybody up.

Do we hear Elliot, you good?

Yeah.

He throws his bedroll open and jumps up with a machete in his hand. Like, what?

Huh?

Huh? Could I tell which direction it's coming from?

Yes, it's coming from that place.

All right.

Four or five doors.

Okay.

Oh, it's fucked.

Yeah.

I'll tell Jacob to stay in the tent. I know that that won't help if we get eaten, but stay in the.

Tent and keep Charlie with you.

Stay in the tent. Keep Charlie with you.

I'll sit.

Here's a picture.

Send Charlie in there.

Protect Charlie. Charlie, protect Jacob.

Okay. I'll stab it real good.

Yeah.

Do not move unless it comes at you. Then run for your fucking life.

You can breathe. Breathe.

I could have once.

Yep. Okay, bye.

Okay. Please come back.

We're planning.

We're gonna do our damnedest, buddy.

Let's go.

And I'm gonna. I'm gonna tell Charlie. Charlie guard. And Charlie will actually kind of stand up.

Yeah.

He'Ll stand up and poop slightly.

Oops. Got all of his fur. Just.

Jacob's so scared, he doesn't even throw up.

If you're gonna do that, please do that outside the tent.

Belle's bag is not a barf bag.

Emery's gonna start taking off towards.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. James is also like.

Hey, there, listener. I know it's a little earlier than normal, but I don't want to interrupt the excitement that's coming, so I'm going to cut in now for a quick ad break. You've heard me talk about two of the platforms that make this podcast possible for quite a while now, namely epidemic sound and Pinecast. But there's a third platform that I've neglected to mention as a dungeon master. Staying organized is an essential part of the gig, and to accomplish that, I use Obsidian. Obsidian is a free to use open source program with a terrific community of programmers working together to make it the single best note taking platform I've ever used. For example, programmer Jeremy Valentin has put together a suite of plugins that make Obsidian an all in one dungeon masters tool, including an initiative tracker, a dice roller, and an encounter builder. Whether you are a dungeon master or a student, or a working professional, Obsidian's flexible plugins allow it to be the most useful and powerful note taking tool. As always, we appreciate your support. Please follow us on the social medias, leave a review on your podcast app of choice and share us with a friend. We currently rely exclusively on word of mouth to help us spread, and we appreciate you helping make that happen. Now back to the episode.

Booking it.

Alright, so the sound leads you guys to a nice single story ranch style house. It's got a nice light brown stone, brick front face that's hard to see. Light brown stone, brick front face and a nice two car garage. The front door is left hanging open and there is some serious streaming and growling and what not happening inside. You can't see in very well. The blinds were drawn for the night.

Um, okay, we don't really have time for a plan, so I guess we're going in.

James is gonna like, like book it into the building.

All right, I'm gonna take just a moment.

Okay.

I'm falling right behind, jumping in cast mage armor.

Perfect.

I'm also gonna take a second to. To cast fiendish vigor. So I've cast false life on myself.

Ooh.

Oh, I don't have time. Never mind.

I have to roll on the wild mission.

I had an idea, but I can't. My spell doesn't work. It takes too much time.

Please don't. You are keeping track of where you're at, right?

I was at four. I rolled a four.

Oh, you have to roll.

I have to roll on table.

Gotcha. She has to roll on table. Oh, no, not roll. I have it pulled up here. It's 880.

Yep.

This might change. Oh, no.

Oh, no. I don't like that. Don't laugh.

I didn't say through the. This is strange. It sets a weird tone for this. Illusory butterflies and flower petals flutter in the air. Within 10ft of you for the vestiges. 1 minute.

Oh, it's gonna be this whole fucking.

I'm so sad. It's gonna be weirdly, like anti and pretty.

I'm so sad that James already ran into the building. Or else making flower power.

I cast mane armor in this, like glowing armor, like first round me and then just butterflies just kind of look.

At you like this new.

I don't know. We don't have time.

As she runs, she leaves the trail of rose petals.

It's like cherry blossoms.

And Mel, straight out of a japanese fantasy movie. She has false life on herself, which consists of taking a swig out of a hip floss.

Okay, and what does that do?

That gives me seven temporary hit points.

Okay. Those could save your life.

Yeah. Yep. That's why I did it because I actually read my apps this afternoon.

All right.

When you take a drink, you feel way better. I do. Okay.

As you, I guess, James approach the front door. You could tell that this sucker was forced open. The door is near the frame.

Okay.

No longer attached. The door jamb has been splintered apart. The hinges have been ripped free.

So I'm in the right house. That's good.

Yes. Yeah. You are confident you have come to the right place. You hear a lot of animalistic growling coming from within the house. Once you get through the front door, the scene is brutal. Blood coats most of the visible surfaces. Walls, carpet, ceiling, windows.

Damn.

And there are quite a few destroyed bodies littering floor. What was clearly some sort of celebration ended quite tragically. There's balloons, there's streamers. You're in a fairly good sized living room. And there's three corpses in here. It's got a nice open floor plan that leads directly to the dining room, uh, where you could find two more bodies. On the other side of the dining room is a kitchen with another two dead. Goddamn.

It's a freaking massacre.

You can see going to the left is very obviously a hallway.

Okay, um, do I see anything down the hallway?

You did you go all the way into the house by yourself?

Yeah.

Oh, I'm. I'm right behind.

Yeah, we're all. We did. Slow down.

James is so hyped up on adrenaline right now that he is just going.

I think we're all.

Elliot's got both of his machetes out.

As you go to the hallway, you can see you pass an empty bathroom across from which there is a closed door. You can't see within there. Further down is a bedroom to the right and there is a bedroom to the left when you do hear growling and shredding, tearing, juicy sounds. But I genuinely don't matter either.

Is there still screaming?

No. Oops.

All right, well, probably wait for the rest of the group to get in.

Before we're right behind you.

Yeah, we're super.

I'm right on your tail, buddy.

Yeah, we're.

Let's go ahead and roll initiative.

I think we slowed down only a couple of steps for Emory's little butterfly performance.

A minor distraction at best.

Why? What's with the flowers?

I don't know. I got a twelve.

What did Mel get?

22.

Oh, very nice.

There's only one behind where you were. What did Elliot get?

24.

Goddamn Olnock.

I spent.

Okay, it's a 14.

James, did I ask you?

No, but I got a 17. Once you ask me, that's what I will say.

And straying from normal, Elliott's first, you hear the sounds to the door to your left, there's an open door.

To your right, the sounds of the ripping and tearing. That's the. That's where the ground I want to open. Or actually, I prefer to open. Okay, I'm gonna kick it open. I'm gonna go in, and anything that looks like it's ripping and tearing human bodies, I'm going to attack.

All right, so you. You kick the door open the rest of the way. And what you see inside is the beast appears paused mid change. So what you see is not human. It's distinctly not human. It is distinctly not a wolf. You see a creature covered in thick fur. A humanish face has started to morph into a snout with fangs showing patchy fur covering the face. You can see very obvious animalistic fear features are starting to evolve. For example, the fangs. The fingers are ending in thick black claws. Very gnarled. The feet have ripped through the front of the shoes. They have that kind of. That dog leg. The extra joint that has pretty well shredded the jeans that it was, is wearing, and it's still wearing its flannel shirt. But it is also shredding pretty bad, as this beast not only changes shape, but is very obviously getting bigger. For what it's worth, the hair color does match griffs.

Okay, I'm going to attack.

All right, go ahead and roll.

Okay, so because this is the first turn in combat, I've actually got three attacks.

Okay.

You fire in some silvered arrows.

No, I've got my two machetes out.

Okay.

I'm not. I don't feel like I'm probably far enough away. All right, first attack machete number one missus. Second attack machete number one. Same one probably misses.

Eleven missus master.

Yeah. And this is my offhand. Attack machete. That was better. That's gonna be 21 to hit.

Gee, it's a lot better.

Yeah, that hits.

Okay. He's going to take three, four, five points of slashing damage.

All right.

So I'm going to run in and I'm just going to start hacking with the first one. He knocks it away. He slashes his right hand again, kicks that one away. He was kind of ready for him to hit the sword away or the machete, and then he's going to come in with an under swing with his left hand. He's not going to get a real deep cut, but he's going to slash you.

So now that you have fully got his attention on you, you do see that in his hand was a mass of flesh. His mouth is very bloody. He's got blood up to his elbows on both arms. What's in his hand is what you would imagine a human heart would look like if somebody were to take a good sized chunk out of it. As you're hitting him, he drops it and stands to his full height.

Crap.

Where Mel hit.

Mel is also sees Elliot run in and doesn't necessarily run into the room, but at least peers through the open door. I'm assuming I can see all of this.

Yeah, yeah. This is plain view and it's the most interesting thing in the room.

How big. How big is the room, just out of curiosity?

It's a. It's a decent sized master. Like, it's a good sized bed. You've probably got 10ft from the end of the bed to the wall. You've got probably easily 8ft on each side of the bed.

Would it be possible to cast something that has a ten foot radius without hitting Elliot, but like catching the werewolf at the edge of it?

Let me do some measuring on that. That is less certain.

If there's a wall through part of it, it'll probably just get cut off at the wall, right?

I would think so. I mean, like if I said entered it on the corner and then just got werewolf.

I mean, by that logic, yes, there's. You can make it to where 6ft of it is outside. What are, what are you doing?

I want a shatter.

Shatter. Oh, it's gonna get loud then, with it being something like that. Yeah.

Okay, that's fine. It's con safe.

What does it have to be? 14 just fails.

Nice.

19 points of under damage.

Probably busts the windows of the house?

Yes, yes. The windows are all shattered outward.

Yeah.

If there's anyone still alive, I suspect they start screaming.

And if I remember correctly, that is particularly effective against things like rock and whatnot, right?

Constructs.

It sucks the wall.

Yeah, I bet it does.

Not only does the window shatter, you crack the shit out of this dry wall. You hear a fair bit of thudding and falling sounds outside, but do I.

Hear any additional screaming? Like is there anybody else alive in the house? Because if there is, they'd probably start screaming at that point.

Roll. Uh, perception.

Who would have thought that the best way to look for survivors is make a very, very loud noise?

Ten. And yes, that's better than my passive.

That was so loud. You're not sure if you heard anything else.

Players.

Yeah, where, where are you? Did you stay, did you go into the room or.

No, I stayed at the door.

Okay.

And I ducked back into the hall again.

Back into the hall. Beautiful. We are. If that's all you want to do, we are at James.

That's all I got.

All right.

James is going to take a silver dagger, silver ship. He's going to run up and he's going to attempt to stab said where.

All right, you get right up in mealy with him.

Yeah.

Just for clarity, he is in the corner of this room.

Okay.

So there's room for one more person to get in melee after you. Okay.

If I'm able to get like behind him so that I'm going for his back to like try stabbing him.

He's in the corner.

Okay. He's like, he's pressed up against it like that. Okay, gotcha. Well, I will attempt to stab him in the ribs with a silver dagger.

Oh yeah, that's cocked.

Son of a bitch. That is a 22.

Yeah. Yeah.

For a whopping four points of silver dagger damage and six points of sneak attack damage.

So ten. Yes.

Did you want that together?

Yes. For this guy. You see that the dagger hurts him.

Uh huh.

But there's no clicked. Yeah, it doesn't seem to. Perhaps this story is not accurate for this creature. Fuck.

Well, try on error. I'm going to bonus action. Disengage.

Okay.

And if I had movement, you have 5ft. Okay, then I will, I will do that. I will.

Feet away.

Yeah, just get 5ft away.

Okay.

So that if he does move towards me, he'd get an attack of opportunity by Elliot.

There you go.

Silver doesn't work as well.

Okay, full knock.

With that said, I'm coming in straight in. Can I carry, can I carry both axes as a person. Or just would it be one?

You can have both of them on your person. You're not dual willing.

Right? So if I can carry both, I'm gonna use a great axe because he just said silver doesn't work on this thing.

Okay, you have a way to carry the. You came in with the fireman's axe.

Yeah, I was ready for it.

So for your movement, you can drop the fireman's axe and draw your grate.

Okay.

But your fireman's axe is laying on the floor. Okay.

I'd have to retrieve it.

Yeah.

Okay.

You will have to remember to retrieve it when you leave this house.

Got it. Okay, so I'm coming in. I'm gonna attack.

Okay, go for it.

That's a nine.

That misses.

Yes, it does, Emery. I'm really good at the first shot. Just being a fucking garbage.

Hey, don't forget the rage.

Damn it.

That's why he ends up enraged all the time.

He can still rage.

It's a bonus action.

Oh, right now I'm enraged now because I missed. I'm pissed off.

Not a bad idea.

The axe goes in.

So I'm going to cast a cantrip called True Strike where it points a finger at a target and it grants me a brief insight into their defenses. In my next turn, I get advantage on an attack roll. And then I want to use a sort some sorcery points to do a quicken spell and cast a spell as a bonus action on this turn so I can use my.

Oh, nice.

Advantage immediately.

I don't think I've ever seen that work. That's awesome.

And I'm gonna cast a kid chaos bolt at it, which I now have advantage on. So what that looks like is with one hand I point a finger at him, and then with the other, I release this bolt of energy.

She flips him off.

I was just about to say that. There's like, one middle finger. Two middle finger.

That's a 19 to hit.

Hits.

Hang on. I have to remember how the damage on this works.

Yeah, this is your weird one.

This is the weird one.

Don't you have to roll, like a d eight for the damage?

Tie? Quick retcon. Uh, actually, your dagger hurt him.

Oh, it did?

Yes.

Okay.

Oh, thanks. After I drop my axe in the fucking hallway, you have it in hand. Okay.

I read the important section that says things. Sorry. You have your fireman's axe in hand. You still missed. That changed nothing.

So that is going to do 13 force damage to him.

Okay. He doesn't like you.

And then I am going to step. So there's a wall between me and him.

Perfect. And so I'll just say you, like, straight up stepped into this room.

Yeah, basically stepped in, ducked out, pointed, blasted him with force damage, which I imagine just kind of, kind of like the comic book like sound waves that, like circles that come off the hand. Just kind of blasted and rattle him a little bit. And then I duck around the corner.

So to repaint this picture here, we have directly in melee with him is Elliot and Ulnok. Behind. Ulnok. So it goes werewolf ulnok. James. Yep. James, you're kind of. You're up and against the bed now. Okay? So you could. I mean, it's a bed. You can tumble over it, come back, roll, and then outside the door. If you were leaving this room, if you turn right back towards the dining hall, you are looking at Mel. If you were to turn left to the end of the hall, you are looking at Emory. At this point in time, the two in the hallway hear moaning.

What now? Apparently they do come back to life quickly. Apparently so, gentlemen, you might be on your own.

What?

Oh, right, yeah, there's the shatter.

Sorry.

But did it hurt the werewolf? That's the real question.

It should have, theoretically.

I hope so.

And so it's, uh, the beast's turn. He has just stood to full height. He's an imposing son of a gun. And honestly, if any of you ever watched the old Wolfman movies, it's fact.

He's a big fucker.

He's still got distinctly humanoid features, human face. His nose is starting to develop the black dog tip. His teeth are starting to jut forward and out and sharpening pretty intensely. His fingers end in jagged claws. And he's not fully encoded in fur yet, but he is well beyond a sweater, if you will.

To put this in perspective, is he about as tall as Alnago?

He's should be taller than me.

He's taller than Olak. He's. He's a big son of a gun. Now, at full height, we're pushing seven, seven and a half feet tall. Big son of a gun. And he looks first at Elliot, who did the first bit of ouchy. And he swipes at you with his clawed hand. Hey, on cross 14, he rolls a 17 to hit. And he does seven slashing damage to you. And he looks at Olnack and he goes for a bite at you. Great, because you tried to hurt him.

Yeah, but I missed.

But he's not gonna give you more chances. Whatever.

Griff thought we were homies. If you weren't killing people, we wouldn't be having this problem.

That's a 19 to hit.

You son of a bitch.

You did rage, though.

I did, yes.

You got only half damage.

That's a good point.

And I need you to make a constitution saving three.

Great.

You're good at.

How many damage did I take?

I'm sorry?

A total of six halved. Three.

Let me do that first.

It's a good idea. I need just 318.

Wait. Constitution saving throw. Hold on. What's my modifier?

Plus 418.

Plus 422.

You feel no different than you did a second.

I hope that's a good sign.

I mean, for now that is.

Kister. Everything else wakes up. Elliot.

Don't like the way you said that.

Nope. Sure don't.

I don't know what you guys can see.

One zombie, two.

Round two. So we're caught up.

Fight.

I'm remembering control Q this time so far. We'll see how long it lasts.

Elliot, unfortunately doesn't have a spell, so can't cast under smart. So he's just gonna continue his attack. First attack, machete. Oh, that one's gonna hit 24 to hit. Seven points of slashing damage.

Okay. Did you cast hunters?

Mark, I don't have an out of spell spots.

All right. I'll give you the health I did last time because I fucked up. It doesn't harm him.

It doesn't do anything.

No.

Okay, so we do need silver to hurt this fucker.

Okay.

I fucked up last round, so I'll give you that. Cuz that's on me.

Okay?

This round, it doesn't harm him. If that changes your plan, you can change your plan.

Okay, well, then, if it did, if it wouldn't have hurt in the last time.

Yeah.

Then I would have. I would have disengaged. I would have disengaged as an action. Then I would have got away from him. Dropping my machetes, drawing my bow, knocking a silver arrow.

How far? Doorway.

Or as far as I can get away from him, which is probably not far, but still be.

That will get. I can give you 15.

That's fine.

That'll put you in the doorway and you can easily round the corner if you want to.

Oh, okay. As long as I'm not blocking it from other.

You could pass through for this.

Okay.

Yeah. So. Yeah. Okay. You're good.

All right. So I was already engaged. I disengaged. That was my action. I dropped. That's pretty much all I got.

Okay.

So I'm no longer in melee with him, but I do have my bow with a silver arrow knot.

Perfect. Melissa, Elliot has backed out of the room.

Can I see any of the zombies or do I just hear them?

Um, I think I said the door. I think I said the door on the opposing side was open. So yes, you can see one in there.

Has it started moving or just making noises?

It's upright.

Okay. I think Mel will decide that Griff's probably the bigger threat right now and she's going to cast Eldritch blast at him.

All right, just for the sake of things, you'll have to move a little bit to get there. We're talking 5ft.

I'll stand in the door so I can see him.

You snuggle up next to Elliot and you can do the shot.

That's out of character for those two.

Hey, buddy.

Sup, Grant?

Or briefly step in his space and point at the guy.

Don't mind me. That's 16 to hit for a whopping two points of force damage. When I hit him with Eldritch blast, though, I can push him up to 10ft away in a straight line.

He's in the corner now. Very in the corner.

He's very in the corner.

He does bounce off the wall a bit. He doesn't. We'll say it like staggers himself.

Yeah, sure.

Kind of a stun. Yeah.

And then I'm gonna step back into the hall again.

He doesn't like it. You go back to where you was. Yes. Okay. You are back in line of sight with zombie girl. Um, hi. She's James. There is an olnach between you and the beast.

Yeah, I was going to see if I could build a section, hide behind old knock because he's a lot bigger than I am.

And then maybe you're the same size creature.

Okay. Darn, I was true.

Secretly building yourself based off a certain class or a species that can't do that.

Yeah. Okay, cool. It was worth a shot. Well, I'm gonna step around all knock and I'm going to stab the werewolf in the dagger. Yes.

Okay.

With the silver dagger.

So you go where Elliot was. You attempt and you roll a. I missed nothing.

And I'm going to bonus action. Disengage and go behind old Noc.

And you go back.

It was a very poor roll. I saw it. Very disappointing.

So you tuck and tumble over the bed, land next to old Noc. You a stab that does nothing. And you tuck into the head. You look cool. Yeah, but you didn't accomplish much.

That's all right. I'm still trying to get my axe out of the fucking wall.

And speaking of getting axes out of fucking walls, it is old Nox turn.

As I'm ranking on the wall, I'm gonna try to attack him again. We're gonna assume I get it free if I can hit it. How about that?

Sure. Now just remember, ones matter.

Yep.

Cause you have the silver weapon.

I haven't. Natty won, but it was not a good roll. Motherfucker.

Motherfucker.

God damn it.

Natty one.

There it is.

That's the one I didn't want.

Dump that. Die.

Good job.

Frickin'you. Freaking called it out of it.

Roll something else.

You fucking. You jinxed me, you dick. All right.

Should have knocked on wood.

That dm intuition. I feel like this is worse than that.

So I get it out of the wall and I can literally see the fucking silver in the plank. I was like, ah, shit.

I just put that together.

I'd love to think that, like, the axe went from the wall, out of the wall, swung past the werewolf and into the wall.

That went well.

You're extra.

We're killing it.

I've so far had one good battle. If we're keeping track and you almost.

Step in.

It is Emery's turn. You see Ulnok doing his damndest to kill this one. God damn it.

You just hear me?

We're doing good.

Hit the thing.

You do not see any zombies.

Okay?

You can see the beast.

Okay.

We're worried about and Ulnok fucking murdering the drywall.

Yeah.

That one. You hit a stud, right?

Call me Kyle. I'm just swinging at the wall, dude.

What?

So the distance, it's a stereotype.

The distance between the door and the werewolf is 15ft?

Yes.

Okay.

Old Nok is 5ft from the beast. James is ten.

Totally. Yeah.

It sounds like you're doing distance math.

I am. 15 foot cone is hard to do. And you can't actually see the battlefield.

You would.

I would need you to enter the room and you can angle it.

Okay.

And you would destroy the master bathroom.

Could I stay 10ft away from the.

Yes.

Okay.

Yeah. You'll need to literally just enter the room.

Okay. I'm going to do that. Then I'm going to cast bonus action. Cast Dragon's breath on myself again because I didn't get to use it last time. We are good on wild magic and I'm going to go for fire. I'm going to step into the room and blast fire out of my mouth at the werewolf. He needs to make a dex save.

All right?

God, we are fucking destroying this house.

The people here are mostly dead. I'm not that concerned about it.

Well, they're undead now, so to hit.

The most important part, the bathroom's fucked.

Yeah, that's okay. I don't give a shit about their bathroom.

Thankfully a tile bathroom, so it's not actively on fire. Yeah, you melt the plastic toilet.

Yeah, it's like a night on taco Bell.

As far as the beast. He rolled a 19.

God damn.

I am going to step back into the hallway.

Okay? Does he not take half? It's a cantrip. Or is he not taking half? That was.

No, you're right, he does take half.

Yeah, I was gonna say something.

That badass. That's a second level spell. You're right. That's twelve total, so he takes six.

Okay.

God, that'd be a shit second level.

No, you're right. I've been casting cantrips a lot, so I forgot. And then I'm going to duck back around. Elliot, back through the door into the hallway.

Elliot, sneeze a little bit from the flower petals.

Falling in his nose.

What the hell? Flowers?

I don't know. I don't know. It smells like incense. Cause they're burning in the fire now.

Anybody else smell lavender and burnt plastic tiles, maybe?

You smell nice. That's weird.

That is the first time that has been true since we left Grand Junction.

Yes.

And that's my whole turn.

So, is the room now actively on fire? Asking for a friend, I don't think.

Probably.

No, the drywall's fucked, but this was a nicer house. It's got the good drywall.

Perfect fire approach.

Melanie, you see zombie girl in the room, shamble up towards you, and she just swings a wild punch at you and rolls a total of 13 to hit.

Just hits. That's why I work less.

Grab some armor.

Four damage from concussive attack.

There's half my hit. My temper.

Oh, thank you for saying that out loud. I forgot you had that. Do you see another one enter the hallway? And you hear a couple more coming? Well, you hear one more coming. While you hear the bones shuffles, the beast turns at the only person in combat with it.

Good luck, bud.

Damn it.

And it swipes at you with its vicious, ugly, horrific claws.

Sweet.

It rolls a 19, so I assume hits. I am gonna have you take seven. Damages halved to three there. And it comes in for another.

God damn it. Why does everything attack me multiple times?

You're in melee with it. You're a melee fighter.

I gotta get close.

It rolls a enough 20.

Yeah.

23 to hit. I need you to take another three damage.

So I'm gonna confiscate his dice and.

I need you to roll. Need to roll a constitution saving throw.

It's every time.

It's every time. This one does not have a permanent 13.

No. Nine.

What?

You didn't add your.

It's a sin. Six.

Okay.

Failed 410.

Fucking pick it up.

Ten. Sorry. Six plus four. I thought it was a nine. Yes. Six plus four is ten.

You failed. Yeah. The first number didn't. The last two numbers. Did you fail this saving throw? We'll deal with that. The good side is you won't have to do that anymore. Great, sounds good. You guys tripping a morphe 27.

The bad side is that we're all going to roll for nightmares with disadvantage now.

Yeah. Hey, Casey, can you touch his dice, please, on the next break?

And then Mel hears some more shambling and we go up to Elliot. Elliot, you just saw this thing.

Oh, no, it's looking all right, but.

It just unloaded on.

I'm gonna. Now that I've got my trusty bow in hand, I'm gonna knock one of those silver arrows on, I'm gonna take a careful aim, and I'm gonna fire with my sword arrow.

Yes.

That's gonna be 23 to hit that.

Yeah.

You are going to take eight points of silvered piercing damage.

Does not like that.

Nice.

Good.

Fuck a ball.

Mel, you have a zombie that just punched you. And you hear more coming by.

I'm going to fire bolt at the zombie that punched me.

All right, this is canonically zombie girl one, which is confusing because I only chose female characters. I don't know which two herbal is.

So that is going to be 17 to hit.

Yep.

For five points of fire damage.

It does not like that.

And I scrape it.

So just to paint a picture here, you have a very short hallway. You can walk towards Emory. You can try to get through the door that is closed to a room you're not seeing yet. There is a bathroom behind you you can go into, or you can remain in the hallway, or you can go into werewolf.

I'm still in melee with zombie girl, though.

Yes, you are in melee with zombie girl. We're coming up behind you.

Behind me.

Yes, I can I back from the dining kitchen.

Can I remain in melee with zombie girl but have my back up against a wall?

I mean, you can rotate 90 degrees.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yes.

So that nothing can attack me from behind me. That's really all I wanted to tell me.

Yes.

So now you can look to the right and see back towards the dining kitchen, living room, where you can look to the left and see everything.

Okay.

Gotcha. And zombie, that touched you.

Yes.

And where's my ousters? With that is James's turn.

All right, rinse and repeat with a different diet this time. Shall we? I'm gonna duck around a very pissed off Olnach and I'm going to attempt to lose. I'm attempt to stab the werewolf again with a freaking silver dagger. Here we go. That is cocked again. Fucking Christ, bro. There we go. That is a 21 to hit, maximum damage on the dagger. That's seven points of silver piercing damage and an additional seven points of sneak attack damage. So 14.

Describe this.

Oh, so Griff bites into Olnack's arm. I assume so. I'm just gonna. I'm gonna bring the silver dagger, like, down onto his neck and just pull the dagger back.

Beautiful. Uh, Griff falls, his mouth loosening off of Olnach's arm. And as he falls to the ground, he returns back to his human form. And it is very much griff. 100%, undeniably. Griff lays on the floor and a puddle of blood in your.

You good Olnaq?

I hopefully. I don't feel anything yet.

I want to check that wound. He might have rabies.

Rabies? That's what we're worried about is rape. Okay.

I'm saying that like, as I'm. I'm using my movement to head for, like, the. The rest of the group.

You have movement left?

Yeah, I'm gonna try heading back to Mel and the rest of the group.

Easy. Do you want to get in melee with zombie girl?

Yeah, I'll get into melee with zombie girl.

Okay. That puts you. If the team was a t. You're the intersection. Emery, you, Mel, Elliot, cap with that it is.

Well, there's nothing for me to kill in this room, so I gotta go outside.

Everybody's partying in the hallway.

Yep. Let's go fucking throw down in the hallway. Who's closest enemy to me? Zombie one.

Can I get there?

Can I get there though, or am I blocked?

You're.

You could probably move through all of us and head towards the dining room and kitchen too.

You can get to the other side of Mel to be prepped for dining room, kitchen.

Okay.

You would have to tumble through zombie girl's space to find a spot you could land, which requires an acrobatics. Acrobatics but you can get to the other side, a mel for free.

Oh. What would acrobatics be?

Whatever your status, it's your dex. Yeah. Plus maybe proficiency, but that'd be a weird choice for your character.

I have a plus two, and I think acrobatics is one of my characters, but I'm not sure. I'd have to look.

At athletics for yourself.

The pitch.

The one back. One back, yeah.

So do you want to tumble at zombie girl one or do you want to go on the other side of Mel?

I try to tumble.

Okay.

See what happens.

Go for it. Why not? You're rolling well.

Doing great. We're doing great. Run hot. All right, that's a four.

So what happens when you fail? That. I've never had anybody fail.

I'm gonna roll. Okay, so we're gonna describe my failure.

You stay where you are. You're not able to get through their space.

Do I try to roll, though, and just, like, fucking fall?

Yeah. So you eat shit behind Elliot. So it goes you Elliot James Zombie.

He's like, damn it.

You were ready to tumble through zombie girl. You forgot Elliot was in the way.

Just rolling into Elliot's legs. Ow. Come.

Shit. I'm sorry, bro.

Are you all right?

Yeah, I'm okay. What the fuck are you doing?

I don't know.

What you really do is you cut your foot on the foot of the bed.

Yeah. There you go.

So you tumble. And with that, we are to Emory. You can see zombie cross.

Yep.

She's standing in a door.

Understanding, right. I'm like, on the far end from the dining room, kitchen.

It's you, James. Mel. Dining room, living room, kitchen.

Okay, I want to get to.

You are in melee, Sabi.

I am, yes.

With where she stood. She's right in the doorway.

Okay, in that case, I'm gonna just breathe fire at her. Can I do that without hitting my friends?

Fuck the wall in front.

I don't care about that.

And I'll say this is one where if you roll in that one or something, you catch the wall in front of your face.

It's. They have to make a dex save.

Well, then that happened.

Emery says, fuck this house.

I'm more worried about killing the shit inside. I don't care about their house. They're all fucking dead anyway.

It's just excessive remodeling.

This is weed eating your garden with me palm.

Listen, I use a flamethrower at work to kill.

Do you think we could just blow up the house?

With enough magic, anything's possible.

I mean, at the rate we're going with the ax holes in the wall and the freaking shatters, we're just demolishing this house. Dude, her helmet.

Which is why if we just light it on fire, then all of our problems will be.

I'm working on it.

Friendly reminder, there's no such thing as a fire department anymore.

Zombie girl one where blowing fire routine fire damage.

You burn this house down, you're gonna burn down.

Helps, like, funnel it directly at her and just fully blast her.

It looks and smells gnarly, rough. It actually, honestly doesn't smell horrific. This is a fresh kill, so you might be a vegetarian a little longer.

God damn it.

We're gonna run out of vegetables.

Wasn't, like, a heavyset girl or nothing. There's not a ton of, like, burning off fat or nothing.

But it's still not the smells.

Too close to pork for your comfort. Yeah, but it is still upright. And because it's still upright and you just lit its ass on fire.

Yeah.

If the zombie could be scared, it would. And it smacks the door.

I just dunk on the other side of the wall. It runs into the door frame instead.

You're kind of. You see that some of the eye is melting.

Perception's a little fucked. Yeah.

Reminds me. A hostel.

And now, canonically, zombie boy two.

Great.

It looked like a birthday party. There were neighbor kids. No, it's worse, but it explains his logical loophole there.

Yeah, it kind of pushes its way through to go into the bathroom, and as it's doing so, it punches the door open. And then, canonically, zombie boy one comes up on Mel, and that one hits Mel, takes four more damages, which means you basically take damage. Griff's dead.

I never thought I'd be punched by undead things.

Yeah, if you had a nickel every time that happened.

And zombie stands behind its friend. Cause this hallway is 5ft wide. It's hungry.

It's a crowded assombie swarm, where they're, like, bumping into each other and, yeah.

Maybe they'll kill each other.

Unlikely.

Elliot, you are standing in a doorway. You have James directly in front of you with a zombie on the other side. Bell to your side. We'll say you could see zombie boy.

Whichever of the zombies I've got the best view of best is gonna be.

On the other side of James.

Okay, that's the one. I. I'll shoot at that.

Just for silvered or normal? Normal. Okay.

Miss. So as I'm trying to clunk my bow up it, like the one leg.

Hits something and it throws running into you through you.

All between Olmach and you're not used to shooting an arrow with somebody directly in front of of you. That breaks all range safety rules. Yeah, all of them.

I bump you as I standing up. That's what happened. I hit your elbow and fuck it all up. I'm sorry, Mel.

You're in a zombie ice cream sandwich, of which you are the ice cream.

Yay.

I guess I'm gonna go after zombie girl one again. Okay, we'll do another fireball.

Dope. Just finish cooking her.

Yeah. Between the two of us, we're gonna burn this shit down.

Oh, that is a Nat 20.

Hell yes.

For 18 points of fire damage, she's already on fire. So at this point, I think that the fire bolt that I add just sort of engulfs her like little pillar of fire there.

She stumbles back into the room, falling, engulfed in flames, and collapses in a nice, black charred Melty. The cheap chinese knockoff clothing that she was wearing is pretty well melted onto her body.

And the carpet.

Carpets, yeah.

Ew.

It's like a mortal kombat fatality.

Ew.

Very much dead. Would you like to move? If you do move, you get two opportunity attacks against you.

Oh, lord.

One's in the bathroom doorway right next to you, and one's right in front of you.

I'm gonna stay put.

All right. That brings us to James. On the other side of Mel, you can see three zombies.

Okay. If I'm able to move towards one of the zombies that's in melee with Mel without getting attacked.

No.

No.

You would have to tumble through two. It's a five foot wide hallway.

Right?

So you can get in the same. You have a door that's closed that nobody has touched. Or you can go to the bathroom with the zombie and be in real close quarters, but you'll have to tumble through it.

Gotcha.

You can tumble through one to get in the bathroom.

So at the moment, without, like, tumbling through somebody's space, I can't attack somebody that's on Melee?

Currently not. Yeah, I think you can occupy Mel. Space, attack and bounce.

Yes.

Yeah. Yeah. You can do that because you can.

Pass through my space.

Okay. But that requires me tumbling through zombies.

No.

No.

Okay, then I will do that.

I said that very confusingly. Apologize. You can enter her space, attack and leave.

Okay, cool. I will do that.

Okay. Enter her space attack and leave.

Yep. So I'm. Don't mind me. Personal space. Don't mind me. I'm going to stab a zombie. In the head. Kill with. With my silver.

This will be zombie boy two.

That is a dirty 20 hits. Nice. Do you need damage separate or together?

Uh, okay.

For a whopping 13 points of piercing. Ah, yeah, piercing damage. Okay, then I'm going to punt a.

Section, just a cage, and bounce back up.

Yeah.

Perfect. You are the perfect build for that situation.

Yeah. G two, your foe.

Um, olak, in order to get to the next bad guy, you have to go through three friendly spaces, which you can do, and then attack and then go back three spaces. That would be your full movement. You can pull that off.

Okay.

You do know that right now Mel's being your frontline defender?

Yeah, that concerns me.

Not as much as it concerns me.

If you want to draw some of the attention, you have to couple through two occupied spaces.

Right. So I could stay in there and take the blows. That's what I want to do. It's the best for the party. I don't know a lot about all of my abilities yet, but I can tell that I am not taking as much damage as everybody else, especially when I'm pissed off.

Yep. So go ahead and try. Let's get your first acrobatics. If you're not 20, you make it through.

Ten.

Roll your next 116. All right, we'll say it's ugly. Yeah, this ain't purdy.

Technically, he'd be leaving melee range with one. Right. Take an opportunity.

Attack will too. Thank you.

To be fair, this is the first time you've combat rolled with a big ass.

Sorry, I'll knock, but it seems like an appropriate edit for your bad tumbling. Oh, no.

Bring it on, you fucking zombie bitch.

Poor old Noc.

Jesus Christ.

I'm having a great night tonight, you guys.

Dude, you and zombies to still not going well.

I have not fought zombies well one fucking time.

You're so much better at killing living things.

Yeah, they're undead. I have a problem.

Nine halved. Four damage. If anybody's gonna get credit upon, do you want to end up in the bathroom or the dining room?

What? Puts me in front of everybody so I could take my remaining hit points if I need to.

You are equally in combat with the same amount of zombies.

Okay. So it doesn't really matter.

I would go with the dining room.

The bathroom. If you go there, you fill it.

Okay, let's go. Dining room then. Let's give me some space.

All right.

You can get fucked.

All right.

And you. The tumble is an action, right? Or is that. We've not used this rule very much.

It's actually not a fifth edition rule. It's a three five rule. But it would. It'd be part of your movement. The tumbling would be your movement.

So you could still do an attack. If you would like a pawn zombie, then fuck yeah.

Let's fuck. One fight.

Just think of it as a living thing, right?

Fuck yeah. That's a 23.

Hey, there you go.

That hits.

God, we'd be in fucking trouble if it didn't hit.

Just out of what? X again?

I have had terrible lucks with fucking regular fire axe. It was in my hand.

Yeah.

So you drop it and pull.

I'm gonna say I drop and pull. We're gonna have to remember that fucking axe.

That's okay. We need to remember Elliot's machetes too.

Yep, those are the different ones.

And max damage. Twelve plus 517.

Nice.

It does not like you.

Fuck yeah.

Got your attention now, donut bitch.

And with that, Emory, you have two friendlies, two zombies and then a friendly in a perfectly straight line. Um, yeah, okay.

Um, I want to cast a frostbite at the one in the bathroom doorway.

Okay.

Um, it needs to make a con save, which I'm sure it's good at. Fucking zombies.

It rolled a one mustard.

So it's going to take.

That is zombie girl two five cold.

Damage and it has disadvantage on its next attack.

Nice, Mel christians, I really do.

Yeah.

So that is zombie girl two that you just gave disadvantage to. And so zombie boy two is.

It's probably the one in melee with Olmok. Right.

Well, I gave Olnock's damage to zombie boy one. I gave 13 damage to zombie boy two. I don't know who did 13.

You probably, I think. Yeah, that was me.

So zombie boy.

Yeah, that's bad.

Closest.

Oh, okay.

Right. Yep.

Hallway.

So just to repaint this picture in an effort here, Elliot's in a door doorway. Directly above him is James, to James's behind is Emery. To James's front is Mel, to Mel's direct front is what I'm calling zombie boy two. Below that is zombie girl two. In the bathroom. Behind zombie boy two is zombie boy this first. And behind that is Olnack. Olnock, you are in the dining kitchen living room. You are the only one that has any room to move around in you.

Which seems to be a good thing cause when I got into close quarters, I just fucking hit a wall and ran into Elliot.

Swinging an axe goes better in a wider space.

Yeah.

No more bedroom comment for you.

Zombie toy two is on his shit. He hits you for nine damage. Ow. He rolled a crib, motherfucker. To be fair, that's the first actual real damage you've actually taken. Oh, you've taken ten.

I'm assuming that since you're in the hall, that must mean that Griff is not moving.

What? Oh, yeah.

Griff's been taking care of.

Griff's the dead.

Are you sure? Have you considered dismembering?

I ripped out his throat.

That's true.

Wasn't a full decapitation.

So I put my blade into his neck and pulled the dagger out.

Okay.

All right. I just said, zombie girl two is in the bathroom. Zombie girl two can only reach Mel.

Oh, she has disadvantage.

Thank you. That's a good thing. Eight plus three is eleven. Does that hit bell? All right, it lunges at you. Uh, zombie girl two.

Zombie girl two just went.

The one that skip.

Zombie boy.

Zombie boys. Okay. I went swinging at you. It misses. Get out of the zombie land, Europe. This is hurting my brain more than it should.

Okay, Elliot, whichever one I've got the best view of, that's what I'm sure.

Probably. Zombie boy two right in front of Mel.

Yes.

Zombie boy two. Here we go. Come on. Bastard. Maybe ten.

No.

Bastard.

Oh, yes. Sorry. Yes.

Oops. So eight points of piercing. Non piercing.

Go ahead and describe that.

He doesn't have a good view of him down the hallway. So he's just kind of. It looks like a hump and he shoots and it actually is the back of his neck. And so it pierces through his neck, takes out his spine and sticks there.

And despite being a zombie, it does very much need that spinal connection. It immediately collapses and he will draw.

Another arrow and get ready to shoot on his next turn.

Mel, you have. You're technically in melee with bathroom zombie.

Okay. I'm going to attempt to eldritch blast the bathroom zombie. That's going to be 18 and some stuff for seven points of force damage. And it should push it further into the bathroom.

Perfect. You are no longer in melee. It's sitting on a toilet.

Oh, thank you, God. Okay, I'm going to go to the furthest away from the zombie.

You have a bedroom with a door open that you can easily tuck into.

Have I been in this bedroom before?

You can. Well, you can go in either bedroom. It's a bedroom that the zombie came out of or the bedroom that Griff is in. You can reach both confidently.

I'm gonna go into the bedroom the.

Zombie came out of, but 100% sure that one's dead. You and I didn't see Griff dies.

We didn't see Griff dies. So, yeah, I'm gonna go into the bedroom the zombie came out of, looking for more undead things.

Perfect. That room appears to be just a guest bedroom, so there's nothing super fancy in there. There's no, including, no living zombies. There is one very thoroughly smoked, cooked corpse.

Okay.

It's probably still sizzling too.

Probably.

I smell barbecue. Does anybody smell barbecue?

Are you having a stroke?

A small part of you you don't like almost feels hungry. It smells kind of weirdly good. Cooked meat.

I hear that from marines.

You hear Mel gag a little.

You're not. Okay that it smells good, but it kind of does. Yeah. James, the path is cleared. There is a zombie that just got thrown into a bathroom that you can no longer see. There's a zombie in a straight line.

Okay, I'm gonna swap to something that isn't silvered. Like, take a second to readjust everything. I'm gonna grab my machete and probably charge at, like, the closest zombie that I can see going from there.

So you drop what you had in your hand.

Would it be possible to. Since it's a dagger, to sheath my dagger seething.

I thinks an action bonus. Action.

Free action.

Thought it was a free action. You could draw a weapon and you drop a weapon. You can't sheath and draw.

You could do one or the other for free.

What are you doing for free?

I will put the silver dagger away for free. And then bonus action or action to draw the sword.

Technically rules written as in action.

Okay.

Okay, that's fine.

So you can draw your weapon.

Yeah. Okay. And then I'll head towards the closest zombie into melee.

Yeah. Okay, perfect. So now you can see the zombie sitting on a toilet. It is well within one move from you.

Okay. But I'm in melee with. With the zombie.

Yes.

Okay, cool.

That zombie is now sandwiched between you and Olnack. Okay, theory. Next time you might get sneak attack.

Yeah.

And speaking of the other half of that sandwich, we'll knock.

I'm going to attack the zombie that is closest to me.

I did not see that coming.

Anything that's close to me is getting the axe, bro.

That's just how I fucking walls.

Doesn't matter what it is, all right? It's fucking non discriminatory. You know what I mean?

God, you didn't wind up. It hit me.

All right. Oh, no shit. Well, nope.

Maybe. Loading.

Ten plus.

Yes.

What is it?

Five?

Yeah.

Don't be math. Okay, got it.

Got him.

Ten plus. Got him?

No, I was looking at my modifier. Shut up, all right. Because I'm in a rage. There'd be plus five, right?

Yeah, I think.

16.

Describe it.

I'm going to fucking split this motherfucker like a japanese samurai movie. I'm gonna go right down the middle.

Dope.

I'm on the other side of this. I'm in the splash zone.

You're gonna get it.

What is this?

Kill Bill. Gross.

You have made my life easier. We're down to one zone. Oh, man.

Come on.

When I do hit, it seems to be a fucking banger. I just am missing a lot.

Try it more often. Um, that brings us to. Do you want to move anywhere? James is standing right in the doorway of the only remaining zombie.

I'm too busy celebrating this that I just split it in half. I'm gonna stay right there and just be like, yeah.

Emery, all you're aware of is a zombie that got blasted into a bathroom that you cannot currently see.

Yes. I am going to duck into James's space.

Perfect.

Into the doorway.

Okay.

And fire breath at the zombie. Let's make a dex save.

Okay.

It's fire blast and everything.

Listen, I gave myself a spellcard called dragon breath. I'm gonna fucking.

It's true.

There's no point in passing that up.

It makes it safe.

Wow.

Which logically doesn't make sense. I don't know how you dodge a fire breath in a bathroom. There's nowhere to go.

It pulls the shower curtain. Yeah, there you go. It's a glass shower.

There we go. There we go.

It's eleven damage total. So it takes half of that.

So five.

Yep.

All right.

And then I'm gonna duck back to where I was.

Alrighty. Well, that brings us to the sole res, the sole remaining zombie who's going to get back out of the shower. I'll even make it expend half its movement to do so. And then it removes the rest of the way to get into melee with James.

Okay. First time I've been attacked.

That is a 17 to hit.

That definitely hits.

Uh, take four. Damage cap.

Owie.

Hey, you got hurt. Elliot's. Do it. And speaking of the guy who's unharmed. It's Elliot's.

Oh, no. I took seven from the wolf.

Took seven?

Yeah.

It's all right. I'm not doing bad. I don't think I can see the zombie girl.

No.

And I probably can't get anywhere where I can see the zombie girl.

You could move to the other side of the doorway, putting you in melee with it. You'd have to go through two friends spaces to do it.

No, I'm not gonna do that. I'm gonna go pick up my. I'm gonna go pick up my two machetes.

Perfect. All right, now you're in a bedroom. You cannot. You do not have direct line of. You have direct line of sight to the zombie.

Perfect. Fire bolted doorway to doorway.

All right.

18 and some stuff for eight points.

Five.

Just grab it.

Uh, she also goes up in a little pillar of flame, standing halfway out of the shower.

God damn it. Again, in the splash zone.

Now you're covered in.

I'm tired of being punched by dead things.

I just got the equivalent of tarred and feathered from a bunch of dead zombies. I got goo.

And Ashton specifically sees the second woman tonight burst into flames, stumbled backwards into a room. James, you see her fall into the bathtub, knocking the door down, melting it and her together, and we are out of initiative.

I got a sneaky suspicion if this shit keeps going on, I'm gonna get a very strong stomach.

Are we, like, or become vegetarian first? I mean, assuming you came out because he was dead.

But, like, I'm gonna go into the room, and I'm gonna grab with, like, griff by the hair, and I'm gonna drag the body.

I'm gonna take one look at it. I'm gonna fire bolt it in the heart.

God damn.

Fucking splash zone again, just in case.

Yes.

He's deader.

Good.

He's more dead than he was before.

You cannot be too careful these days.

I missed one shot with an arrow. I want to go get.

Okay, it was just a normal arrow, right?

It was just a normal arrow.

We're gonna check to make sure that the house isn't actively on fire.

And I'm just kidding. We're gonna stay in melee till you guys leave this house. Okay, but the things that you did, you did.

Okay.

Mel, kill the thing. James.

What?

What?

Yeah, James, what about.

We're still sorry.

Yeah.

I'm actively checking to make sure that the house isn't currently on fire.

Okay, um, where do you bathroom first?

Yeah, I'm gonna check the two destroyed bathrooms first because that's where the flame attacks went into. All right, I think I was present to both of those.

Enter into the bathroom, and as you enter into the bathroom, the previously very dead zombie girl starts moving.

The hell?

Guys, we got a problem. The undead is coming back again.

What?

She's moving again?

Well, cut her head off.

Do I have an attack? Okay, I'm gonna all you've done is walk. Okay. I'm gonna take my machete. Cause I have that drawn. And I'm going to attempt to behead her. I'm gonna attempt to pull an old knock.

Okay. You go in serrated end or.

Sure.

Probably serrated end.

I'm sure.

Saw that bitch off.

Yeah.

All right, here we go.

That is a twelve.

Perfect.

Nice.

You are able to cleave the head. The body stops.

Okay, guys, we gotta take the heads off.

You are celebrating in the dining kitchen. Litter, like.

Well, at least I recovered a little bit after that fucking fiasco in the bedroom. God damn it. Everybody see that? That was pretty embarrassing.

Yep. I'm covered in it.

Seriously. Ellie, are you okay? I rolled on your leg. I'm sorry.

Oh, there. That's fine. I got these claw marks across my arm, but, yeah, I'm all right.

Right.

The zombie directly in front of you that was dead starts twitching.

You mean the one I split from head to taint? That doesn't.

Doesn't make a lot of sense, but it does happen. Both ends are twitching. You bought a hand earlier today.

That's true.

Now you're fighting.

Smash that shit. Ol knock.

Get up.

What the fuck? The fuck is that?

Okay, I'm gonna tell your ass.

You get it? You get advantage. Because it can't move.

You get advantage. It's on the floor.

Good thing, because that was a five. All right, all right. 16 plus 521.

Perfect. What do you do to it?

I don't fucking.

I've just whack it several times with your axe.

Swing with my axe until I stop fucking moving.

We've already come to terms with the fact that we're killing zombies, but the fact that we have to kill the zombies twice, that's a new thing.

Especially after I split his brain down the middle. Should be dead.

Unacceptable.

Emery, what are you doing? You are standing where a bathroom James just went into is there's a dead zombie at your feet. There's a locked door, closed door to your left. There are two rooms behind you. That chaos happened.

There's no sounds coming from the door to the left. Right.

You guys did not hear anything when you said specifically checked immediately after a very loud shatter sound?

Yes. Okay, I'm. At least. I'm gonna back up from the zombie at my feet.

Okay.

These things are moving. I don't want to get caught, so I'm just gonna. I'm just gonna disengage and back up. I've already burnt the shit out of a lot of these, and that doesn't seem to be a killing blow on them, and I don't have a lot of other options.

Fair. So, um, the first sabbath you killed starts twitching in the bedroom.

I think you're in there with it, Mel.

Yes. It is laying down. It is trying to peel itself off of the carpet that it melted itself to. It's Elliot's turn. You can see this as well. Oh, in the opposite. In bedroom.

Since I gathered up my machetes, I'll walk over with machete and to cleave its head from its body.

It's prone to advantage.

Yeah, 19 plus.

How do you do it?

Cuts his head.

Perfect.

Now, we are out of initiative at this point. I want to search the house for if there's any survivors.

There is one closed door.

I want to try that closed door.

It is locked. Um, it's a bedroom door.

Do you want to try to unlock it?

Uh, sure. This one, you can try a lot of those.

You can use your fucking fingernail.

Yeah, that's able to.

Or pull the thing from.

I'm a suburban child. I know how to break it into bedrooms. We'll say it's for out of the case, like.

Yeah, so you do need to roll.

Not a hairpin. That's all it takes usually, is a hairpin.

You can fail this. I have failed to get into them.

In the past 13.

Okay. You're able to pop the door, you open it up, and they can ground me.

In my bedroom.

You enter.

Yes.

Inside, you see a woman. A woman and a child cowering on the opposite side of the bed.

Oh, thank God there's somebody that's actually alive.

I am glad you were joking about burning this place down.

We can still change our mind.

On that note, the house isn't actively on fire.

Right.

Okay, cool. I just wanted to double check.

You are, like, alive alive. You're not gonna start beating me with your body parts?

No, we're. We're alive. We. We got in here quick, but we're. We're okay.

Okay, we're gonna leave. I suggest you close your eyes. We'll just lead you out. You do not want to see what the house looks like.

I believe you.

I need to get my other axe before we go.

You can grab it while she's doing this.

Can I do a medicine check on that old knock on. Can I see that bite?

That.

That looked pretty bad.

Yeah.

I'm gonna help Meli lead the two outside. I'm still being trailed by butterflies.

You look like a pretty.

Maybe it'll help make the carrowering child slightly less terrified.

You've got about another 20 ish seconds of spell.

Yeah.

Follow the flower goddess long enough to.

Go outside, and then they fade.

Yeah.

Oh, she pretty.

Oh, I am also. Never mind.

Your code name is Persephone.

Should probably get you guys sitting down over here, away from the house.

Yes. You know, I think we should all sit down because my head really hurts.

Yeah, that's a good idea.

Those zombies punch hard. What if em got me, like, right in the ear?

Yeah. Did not look good.

Yeah, the ear holes.

Those are.

Those ones hurt.

Can I do that medicine check on Olnug's arm?

Yeah.

Cool. Oh, it was almost a natural 20. That is a 16.

What, are you wanting to feel it or observe it?

I'm trying to check for infection, kind of. Maybe just to see how deep it is. Maybe. And see if I could wrap it and stop it from oozing.

I bet we've got some rubbing alcohol.

There you go.

Just.

But it is highly effective.

Can you give me something to bite down on before you pour that shit on?

It's a deep, deep bite. You're not confident. You're not a doctor. You think you see tendons in bone, though. It's deep. Deep. It hurts.

Yeah.

Hey, guys, it's not bleeding, which is weird.

Well, the good thing is you're not gonna bleed out, but, hey, remember when we said that we weren't going to the hospital? I think we need to take Olna to the hospital now.

What the hell are they gonna do?

Bandages. All I have is a bunch of Power Ranger band aids that I got from the sheriff. And those ain't gonna work.

They don't help a lot.

Yeah, you gotta point. Power Ranger Band aid ain't gonna close that big bitch up.

No.

It'S weird that it's not bleeding, though.

It was. It no longer is.

Should we, like, rapid or something like that? Make sure shit doesn't get in it?

That was griff that bit you. Yeah. Yeah, I'm no, like, creepy shit expert, but that's bad, right?

Yeah, classically where we mean from everything I know. Yeah. That's not great. I don't know, but potentially could be of an advantage. Right? I guess I can do beast stuff, right?

Can you do it in our sleep?

I'm gonna start checking his head, make sure he's not sprouting any fur anywhere.

Yeah, the bold guy's not suddenly growing hair.

Yeah.

Yeah, that might be a problem for.

The next full moon.

Yeah.

I don't know how this shit works.

Have that beast stuff that I can do or whatever. Maybe that can work out somehow.

I just talked to myself.

Yeah.

Or maybe I could talk to you. Talking to me. Back to you. Right.

We can speak with human while you're awarded.

Yeah, we can have an open dialogue of communication.

Do you think that there's a cure?

I don't know.

I don't know.

Everything I know about it is the one that bit you needs to be killed. And if the one that bit you was killed, you should be okay. I think unless there is an original that passed the virus on and he was not the original, I think that.

I thought that was vampires.

Yeah, it's from everything I know of werewolves and I've watched a shitload of.

Werewolf movies, they could have just silver. How come with silver?

As I was checking, uh, for fur, I was going to slowly remove the silver dagger. I'm not going to stab him, I'm going to just like push it against kind of. Yeah, just push it against like, like a wound that he got earlier. It's like tap, tap, tap. Does that burn at all?

What if we, what if we got some liquids? What if we did some more silver? Just poured it in the wood.

You know what, I think that would.

Let's just pour silver into my fucking open.

Not a good idea. I'm pretty sure that would fucking mess around.

Healing.

Who pours this?

Like what?

Why don't you go get some mercury while you're at it? Let's figure this shit out.

I'm not good at medicine, okay? And I have a concussion.

I think maybe, I think maybe we should collect. Jacob, walk these people to the hospital and get them some chalk blankets and get. Get all knock stitched up.

Well, okay. Do you think. Okay, here's another thought. We never heard back from the sheriff when he went to the hospital. That either one means he didn't need our help or two means he's dead.

Well, regardless, we need dead.

Okay, fine.

We'll just fight some more undead shit at the hospital and then hopefully zombie fucking nurses will help me fix my shit, right?

Yeah. And as far as we know, there was only one werewolf.

Honestly, now that I said that out loud, doesn't make a lot of sense.

No, no, I mean, we just killed the werewolf. Like, doesn't make sense.

Yeah, it's fair. But what if, right, we got zombie that can still like think and it's very compassionate zombie.

I think those are called teenagers.

I do think also that this does not paint us in a good light either, this whole event. And that maybe we should grab our stuff and get ready to get out of town.

Also.

We'Re not leaving a werewolf behind to hurt people.

That's fair.

I feel better about it.

Be gone.

We're taking the next one with us.

Yeah.

Brilliant.

So I think. I think we should go get Jacob and our stuff. We're not dealing with that right now.

As a full moon issue.

We're gonna get Jacob in our stuff.

We will decide whether this is a problem in roughly 30 days.

We're gonna try to solve the problem before then, hopefully. But it's not gonna happen tonight.

I think that's how moons work. I don't really know.

So we're not perception check.

So we're not getting that the holes in his hand fixed?

Well, yeah, we're gonna go get our stuff and go to the hospital.

Gotcha.

Okay.

Wisdom.

It's perception. Yeah.

Perceptions.

Wisdom. Yeah. You should have a straight 16. It's not a full moon tonight.

Oh. Oh, that. Hmm. So he was a werewolf. That doesn't change on a full moon. He changes at will.

He might have to do some research.

I think I saw a movie one time where like, your first change happens on a full moon. I can't remember though.

It was.

It was a weird, like, Michael Sheen movie.

There was one called Bad Moon. He didn't change on the full moon either. He changed every night.

That revelation will end the episode.

Huh.

Alright, get on that bombshell.

Am I a fuck?

Theater of the Mind is Jeremy Arfston as Elliott Brandybain Amanda Arfston as Melanie Kelly Michael Burnell as Olnach Varger Johnson Michael Downes as James Obrien, Casey Weingarten as Emery Lee and myself Mike Schock as your dungeon master. We release new episodes every two weeks, so our next episode will release on June 9. If you want to follow us, our social media and website can be found on our link tree, which can be found in the podcast description. Also in the podcast description, you can find a link to Pinecast as well as our referral code to get you 40% off your first four months of a paid membership, as well as our referral link to epidemic sound, which gets you a one week trial period to their excellent platform. The music this week was sourced from Epidemic Sounds, who we are not sponsored by under the Creative Commons license. The songs used in order Sleep encounters by Nylonia Hunter hunted by Pharrell Wooten this thunder by Xperia silent treatment by Phoenix Tale dark dealings by Phoenix Tale hes still out there by Wendell Scherer and fortress basement by Xperia. The theater of the mind theme, intermission and outro were written by Mike Schock. Theatre of the Mind is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.