S1:E46 – The Corn

Theater of the Mind is for adults. Ears only. Listener discretion is advised. Welcome to Theater of the Mind presents Retribution episode 46. I'm Mike. I'm your dungeon master. And this week's question from the ultimate RPG campfire card deck by James d' Amato is what change have you made in your life that brings you pride? How does it impact you on a day to day basis?

My name is Amanda and I'm playing Mel Kelly. And Mel recently cut a really dark and scary figure out of her life and she's very proud of herself for doing that. No, Mel doesn't really give a shit about Blake. No, I was referring to oop, everyone. Not only did it involve a strength of character Mel did not know she had, but the idea that her strength and power could actually come from herself is sort of novel and foreign and really empowering.

I'm Jeremy. I'm playing Elliot Brandybane. And honestly, there's not been a lot of changes. I guess, honestly, Elliot is the fact that he's getting to spend all day, every day riding a horse is actually. He's glad to be able to do that. That was the one part of he had to spend too much time fixing his pickup and fixing tractors and fixing fence that he always felt that he didn't get as much time out on the range as he should have. So he's okay with this.

Nice.

I am Brunel. I am playing Ulnach Bage Johnson and I may have mentioned this before, I don't remember. So we're just going to go with this. We're going to say that Ulnach is proud that he has been able to control his anger so that it benefits the party in some sort of beneficial way rather than just being really pissed off for no reason and having no idea how to outlet it in a at least helpful manner because it's certainly still not healthy. But it's, you know, helpful.

I was just gonna say, like in any other period of time, it would not be a constructive use for anger.

But we're in the apocalypse, we gotta kill shit sometimes, you know?

Yeah, it's a very constructive outlet, for sure.

It's kept us alive and it keeps me from dying so I can keep taking hits. So y' all fucking don't know. You know what I mean?

I appreciate that.

I don't know.

I need the B shield.

Hello. I'm Downs and I'm playing James o' Brien and James is very proud that he hasn't stolen from the party in like the past couple of days.

Oh, my God.

It's true.

He hasn't.

Surely it's been at least a week.

At least. Yeah. It depends on what you constitute. Stealing. It gets more borrowing or acquiring, as the E4s would say.

He acquired a lot of their stress. Resilience.

Yes.

No, no, no. He earned. I'm Casey. I play Emory Lee. And I think Emory is kind of realizing that in several ways she has kind of dedicated her life to different causes or different paths. And I think she's just kind of starting to realize that that's actually taken like a good for. Especially when you have people around you saying that you shouldn't do things a certain way or you like. She's an artist and it's really hard to make money as an artist. And she pursued it anyway. And even though it hasn't been an easy road and she's not doing art right now, obviously, but now she's on this different path that she's dedicated herself towards. And that takes a lot of mental will to dedicate yourself to something and mean it and hold to it.

Absolutely. Amoritar has recently adjusted his leadership style from complete totalitarianism to full dictatorship.

It's an upgrade for him. Yeah.

Okay.

Downgrade for everybody else.

He's very proud that he realized he actually can coordinate every aspect of everything all the time.

So the best way to kill a Moritar is wait for him to burn out.

He's gonna run out of meth. All right.

Yeah. The Germans introduced this new chocolate to him. He is digging that shit. Comes in their field rations.

Every time we do this, I forget that you're gonna answer as a monitor.

I know.

So it catches me by surprise literally every time.

And I roll my eyes so hard every time.

If you see me making funny faces every time you start. That's why.

Fair, fair.

I keep imagining like a hard cut to a Moritar, like behind a desk.

Yep. In full. You know, in his full, like daedric looking armor kind of thing.

It is.

Air Jordan's copping on his typewriter. Yeah.

With a pretentious quill. Some glasses.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. He's got the reading glasses on his nose with the reading glasses on.

He's got the visor pulled up.

Yeah.

But chk.

I was thinking. And on that note, let's go ahead and roll for recap. We'll go just highest.

I wasn't in the tray.

Three. Five.

I rolled the same.

Jesus.

I got an 11.

I also got an 11.

All right, James, let's do this.

How are we the highest?

I Know there's no way we remember.

There are two worst people to do a recap.

Hey, you want to know what's in my notes for last episode? Long rest.

We slept.

Oh, hey, I can read that.

Five days ago.

Star Trek.

Probably because we love.

Double 11s. Double 17.

Oh, no. You got some work to do, bud.

Hold on. Let's go double ones.

No, I gotta. I gotta die.

I also just want to note I'm using a different character sheet app. So if I take longer to find my this session.

That's why I'm double check something. Okay.

I don't know.

You probably.

I don't even know. I probably didn't even get to bring that up.

Anyway, sure going to look at what my character can do. Besides that, I want to see how to play it.

His physical sheet is still level six.

Yeah, that's. I want to make sure that it didn't do some extra boosting.

Do you want.

Do you need a pencil for adjusting.

Stuff.

Mark or something?

You can borrow mine. I need it back though.

Yeah, let me see if mine still work.

So, James, what happened last episode? Last real episode.

Last real episode. Okay, so anyway, last. Last actual episode. Recall correctly the episode before that. I'm going to go back slightly further. We killed Ezra Phael. He fell through the portal, and then we wound up in the zombie pen.

If I remember correctly, that was three episodes ago.

How many episodes am I far back on now?

3.

You should have seen when you almost fucking died.

The last thing I remember was usually saving.

We had an entire episode of exposition.

Oh, it's because I was listening to the podcast.

Anyway.

Not the last episode we released. The last episode we recorded.

Would you like my notes?

Yes, please. I apologize.

I don't know if they're great because it was radical. My notes get worse the longer we record.

Clearly so do mine. I'm not nearly as thorough in my podcast notes as I am in other.

D and D same. Now that I've learned that, I can just listen to it.

I don't do that either, though.

I told you it wasn't that.

I did try today. For the record, I did try 44, right?

Yep.

44.

45 was a Q. A. Don't feel bad, dads.

I don't feel bad. I didn't write down the Q.

We leveled up the last other podcast.

45 is officially.

Okay.

We did have a long rest. That was something that.

That way you could.

Oh, right. James turned into an O. Yep.

I'm taller.

Distinctly healthy. You're a bit taller.

We Had a really awkward conversation.

Yeah, that's true.

Oh, yeah.

I was trying. I didn't really feel like arguing with Mel.

Apparently took drugs.

Nice.

What?

Painkillers.

Yeah. Yeah.

I think we all lined up in.

A row and painkillers kind of wiped out the.

Oh, yeah. Emory and her mom had a little heart to heart. Had an argument slash conversation about Emory actually leaving.

Yep. Argusation. I like it because the Converman doesn't really work.

No, it sounds weird.

I haven't read cursive since third grade.

Worst first. It's not even straight cursive. It's a cursive.

You're right, it's not.

I don't like all the letters in cursive.

Can you read the very last thing that happened on that page, please?

Probably.

You left Colorado.

That was part of it.

The next day we got ready to go. Sadie gave Emery a compact that talks to.

Oh, compact talks to me.

Yeah.

Oh, it talks to her.

Oh, yeah. It's our FaceTime.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You have a FaceTime app?

We have FaceTime along with our Rocky Tuckies.

I do apologize. That was bad.

And then we go riding off into the sunset. There's sunrise. That's the case for me.

The sun was very near a horizon.

We did a lot of talkings.

We talked a lot. Yeah, it was mostly an RP episode. Emory had a heart to heart with Ma. Emory had a heart to heart with dad. Emery had a heart to heart with Sadie. You left.

We also stabbed each other because we learned that Sadie and Elliot have barkskin. So we were stabbing each other.

Yes.

And James and Mel both now have invasion. Invasion. So we were chucking rocks at each other.

I want to say you stopped by Walmart and got some shit moves. Yes.

We did not. Jeff and the pastor were kind enough to do that for us.

That's right. Jeff and the pastor did it. Jeff is staying with the pastor.

We restocked our everything.

Yep.

We gave up the secretism on the whole flying broom thing and just Jacob here. Stay within sight.

And that's where we'll pick up. So it has been several days of rather boring travel. But painless. As I recall, you guys decided you wanted to follow the river.

Yeah. Luckily the interstate actually follows the river for a long way. I was looking at the map.

Damn. It's a truck. Yeah.

I was wondering what that was.

You've had a detour a couple of times. Either for there are some roving packs of undead that you're seeing. Nothing like, you know, a couple thousand head. But 10 20.

No ogre zombies or anything?

Nah, you're not letting them get close enough to really see any detail. Nice thing about the plains, you can see shit coming, right? That's true. And sometimes you've seen some pretty spicy looking animals to that. You vetted the two around but between the ease of the landscape and your ranger's expertise in this domain you are having no difficulties traveling and you're having no difficulties keeping supplies stocked, food rations, etc. Today upon waking you noticed a fairly ominous looking thunderhead building from the west. And you feel the wind starting to pick up. It's now getting near when you'd settle for lunch and the wind is blowing like mad and it's raining very hard.

Well guys, whatever we're going to do for lunch, it's going to have to be quick.

I think we should probably find shelter somewhere. Guys, this is like thunderstorms aren't really something you should mess with out here.

We need to find shelter because it's. We're April. May. Yeah, it's maybe getting close to you. Cuz this crap can turn into hail out here and we do not want to be out in that.

Anybody worse than that, it could turn into a tornado.

Anybody got a cellar handy?

Guys could roll a perception see if.

There'S just a random seller in the middle of the field.

We don't have those aren't there anymore.

I can do this.

You're in the middle of nowhere.

That's 12 minus 1.

11 14.

11, 18. 18. OK dokie James. You see a. So you're getting into farm field land in a major way. Everything you've been passing is just endless rows, endless fields of farmland, wheat stuffs corn looking maybe baby young. Right. But you. This last one is weirdly tall. Very very tall and it's very obviously corn but even, even the novices know that like it's a little early in the year for the corn to be as tall as it is. It's well overhead height but the road's on a little bit of a rise. The fields are a little bit lower on each side of the shoulder and you're able to see over the tops of the corn and you do see a farmhouse about maybe a 10 minute ride from you through one of the fields. Other than that it is a whole lot of flat. Not much of fucking anything. You don't even see any overpasses.

Yeah, we need to get, we need to get over there.

We at least need to get someplace low like I can't see through all this rain.

But.

Yeah, some place.

The best idea.

Yeah, I think we need to head for this house hopefully. Yeah, hopefully it's abandoned. While this corn. This corn is bizarre looking.

It should not this.

It's way too early for corn this tall. But we got to get out of this rain and I'm afraid it's going to turn to hail and we need to get out of this cuz they can get dangerous right now.

Are there things like reverse crop circles or something? So instead of making it flat, it makes it taller.

I think that's called fertilizer.

Milk, bone meal.

In Minecraft, there were a lot of things that went through farmer Casey's brain. Emery would not know what's an anti cordon.

Dear listener, you cannot see this, but Mal has flipped off James.

So you enter the corn and like I say, this stuff's quite tall. Even if you're staying on horseback, which your horses are starting to really get agitated, they're not exactly the most fun to ride right now. They're getting skittish and jumpy and ready to bolt. But even on horseback, this stuff's taller than you. So you fall, don't fall. You enter down into the field and you're engulfed by the corn you make. This is very unpleasant travel because the wind is whipping the cornstalks like a son of a gun. It's battering into you. You're kind of having to fight your way through. Even if you're in one of the rows, you're still. You're getting whipped pretty violently by this corn, by these cornstalks. And after a little while of this, you enter a very small clearing in the corn. Directly in the center is a sturdy wooden post with a scarecrow perched at the top. The scarecrow is exceedingly average looking straw poking out of the armholes, a hat with a chin strap holding on for dear life attached to a head made out of a burlap sack with a kind smile painted on it. You see, this farmer even included a little carrot nose and a pair of worn out leather gloves to help the strawman look quote unquote real. And at the other end of the clearing you see five basic paths.

That's too many bats. I don't like that number personally.

This clearing is not where the house is.

No, I'm getting some really just I as a player, I'm getting really disturbing. Don't go near the windmill vibes. But that's just me.

I'm feeling like I've seen this movie is all I'm saying. And it doesn't end well for anybody.

Can we see the house from where we're at?

No. The corn is so tall, all you can see is what's in this. Clear. Maybe.

Maybe. Just hear me out. Maybe the person who lives in this house is lesedy, like the magicy nature y thing, and they put their magic into making the corn really tall.

Well, that would be good. If we don't find that house, we're going to have to stand under our horses. If this storm comes through, I don't.

Think the horses will let me stand under them.

Well, sit down. I'm telling you guys, it's the way to do it. We don't want to do that.

No. Anymore.

Elliot, do you have an idea of which way the house was? I couldn't really see it.

I. Well, I've got to ask the dm because I'm in my favorite terrain, I can't get lost. Let me double check that exact wording. That exact wording. Because I'm in my favorite terrain. Difficult terrain does not slow group can't become lost. Except for by magical means. Advantage Initiative. I could forge and watch for danger at the same time. Can move stealthily at a normal pace, get twice as much food. And while tracking, I learn more stuff.

The food is definitely not an issue. Currently.

No.

There's an abundance.

So except for by magical means, I can't get lost. Doesn't mean I know where the house is, but I should know where I.

Okay. You know for sure. You're in a cornfield.

Shit.

Ah.

Hey, I've made some really big decisions with any mini Minymo.

I mean, the only person I think we shouldn't trust to make a big decision like that right now might be James. He's not. He's not. He doesn't have a great track record right now. You know, just pointing that out just in case you forgot.

You know what? This storm's getting closer. Eenie, meeny miny, mo. Pick one. I got nothing. Which disturbs Elliot more than he's letting on.

Mel singing a little song.

Give me a holler. Just let him take.

What's the thing? If you follow the left path, eventually you'll find the way out.

Or the right path. Either one.

That one.

Okay, which one's that one?

The second from the left.

Got it.

Okay, so you enter back in and it's the same basic experience you had the corn. Get back in the corn. It's beating the shit out of you.

Let me.

The wind whipping through these corn stalks is just developing this really unpleasant, kind of whistly, rattly papery chaos sound developing a very, very unpleasant white noise. You're starting to hear boom. Of thunder in the distance. The rain's getting a little harder. That hitting the corn stalks is pretty loud. It's not. It's getting pretty fucking loud. And so after walking down the path for a minute, you come across another clearing. And in this clearing is a rather large rock, stands roughly 6ft tall and is nearly twice as big around and is currently black in color. But you can't tell if that's from the rain or if it's actually a black rock. Do you see five more paths outstretched? What the.

Are we in a corn labyrinth? What's going on?

Are there any markings on this rock at all?

Negative.

Is it five paths including the one that we came from, or five, like, in front of us?

Five plus the one behind you, so six total. You could go with.

All right. This is just bizarre. I'm guessing I have no better sense of direction than I had before.

Correct.

All right. Shit.

I got lost in a corn maze once. They had to call the fire department to save me. I'm having really unpleasant flashbacks.

Well, we better hope we don't need the fire department.

Yeah, there's no fire nor phone calls.

They won't be coming for us.

Well, let's just start.

I'll share that for my not so fun.

If it's gonna do this, let's just start taking the right path every time. We'll eventually end up somewhere.

Well, we took the second from left.

We did, but we didn't know we were in a maze.

Well, that's fair.

All right, let's just start taking the right path anytime we can. And we'll just start following it.

So we're going far right?

Far right.

Oh, no.

I don't like that.

You don't?

You shut your face.

I see a man with a very small mustache. So you enter back into the corn on the rightist path. The field of corn surrounds you. This one seems to take a hot minute. Yeah, there we go. Man, that took a second.

I am so sorry. I'm running about two hours of sleep. Y' all fucking leave me alone.

And this one. This path has you kind of going across rows instead of in them. So you're. You're fighting through the corn. It's getting. It feels suffoc. With it just whipping around, it almost feels suffocating. But just as you're about to think, man, I'm not fully confident this is even a path anymore. You break out into another clearing. The middle of this clearing is a mud pit. Very large mud pit. In it, you see a partially submerged and very dead deer.

Thinking, maybe don't cross the mud pit.

But I don't know.

I'm not the expert.

That looks like you said, is that dead deer's like it had gotten trapped in the mud pit.

So you see most of the upper portion.

Got stab of that damn thing. Keep the. Keep the horses.

Ew.

Is there enough space around the edges that we can avoid the mud? Is there also five paths?

Yes. Plus the one you came in.

Okay. Avoiding the mud pit. Take the right one.

Yep.

You fight your way through the cornstalks as they batter against you in the wind. And you find yourself in another small clearing. Sitting in the open are onions that have toppled out of a basket. Some of them appear to be rotted. Same thing, five clearings.

Are they like.

How big is this pile of onions? Are they bigger than normal sized onions?

No, they're good sized onions. I think they call them cellar onions or whatever. And I mean, there's like, I don't know, probably like 30, 40 of them. Looks like somebody was like, just got done harvesting some onions and dropped the basket.

That's weird.

I want to do a quick check for tracks.

I'll just stick with the same thing.

Go ahead and roll.

Can I assist? Can I do this as well?

You can do it as well. You can't assist him, but you can do it as well. Mostly due to. I don't know how you would assist that without us doing it.

You said perception. Have you said or 19 or bastard.

There are no tracks. You know, with that roll that it's not. You're missing them. There are no tracks.

So I'm like, yeah, no tracks out of here. I say we just keep on the right path.

No tracks, but it looks like where Bassett came from somewhere.

Sure. Did you guys watch me do the Elliot thing? Around the entire clearing, I not find one track.

I don't like this at all.

I'm tired of being wet.

This is. This. This is like more than being wet, too. It's like we just climbed out of a lake.

Yeah. You are getting drenched.

Yep.

And I'm tired of that. I would like to not be this wet anymore. And I'm hungry.

Here, he hands you a piece of corn.

Okay. Mel eats.

Ain't no Olathe sweet, sweet corn, but it ain't bad.

All right. Right path again.

All we can do this one. Your path lines up comfortably in between the cornrows so it's a little bit of a reprieve from the last one. And you open up into another small clearing. Shocker. The only thing of note is a yellow, nearly brand new looking plow.

Yellow paint?

Yes.

No tractor. Just plow.

Just a plow. Wow.

Okay.

It's.

Well, I assume still no tracks at all.

Yeah. You're fully confident?

This is the goddamnedest place I ever saw in my life.

And assuming you continue on the right path, the corn seems actually even getting taller as you're going. This almost, almost triggering clusterfield. Like you feel like you're being swallowed into the field. And just as it feels as though it's going to blot out the sky above, you stumble out into an overgrown clearing with a tractor, looking nearly ancient and dilapidated.

Can I get on top of the tractor to see if I can see over the corn?

You can and you can't. You can get on the tractor and you can't see over the corn.

Yeah, that's what I interpreted.

That's what I get. Yeah. Yes and no. Ha ha.

If I wasn't in the middle of this deluge, I'd try to start the tractor, see if it'd start.

But nothing works.

You could tell looking at. I mean, we're talking.

Oh, more rust. Tires are flat. Yeah.

Oh, a good chance if it actually starts hailing, it's going to put holes in the tractor.

Well, we might better make a little shelter here. We wanted to stop, let the storm pass. We could probably use the tractor, tie some of our tarps or whatever we've got up and get under them. I mean, it's all we found so far. We can keep riding around.

I mean, I literally cannot get wetter, so I don't care.

You're as. As wet as your. Your clothes are fully saturated.

We could try. I think it's still worth trying to find shelter. Like the storm could turn. This is tornado season.

It is. Hey, I'm with you. Let's keep going.

And honestly, I should probably try to put a hustle up.

So you continue.

If we can't find something but right path.

All right. And you come out into a clearing where you see a scarecrow that is exceedingly average looking.

God damn it.

Staring at you exactly the same way it was the last time you entered this clearing.

Well, we took the second to the last path out of this clearing.

The second to the left path.

Second to the left. We did not take the right path here.

Instead of trying to remember paths.

Well, why is it looking at us?

Does it look like there's marks from where we trudged through the mud last time.

Negative.

That's odd.

That's.

What if it's a different skin scarecrow?

Does it look exactly like the previous Scarecrow roll?

Would that be investigation perception? Sure.

I'm gonna do that, too.

I should not participate in that.

I am gonna take average 16.

You can't take average on 21.

Oh, then it's a 2.

9.

I see nothing with a 21. James, you are on fire in this cornfield. But thankfully it's raining, so you're not going to catch it.

Oh, good.

But something tells you that that smile is a little less happy than it was last time.

Guys, I don't think it's the same.

Can I have you guys all roll wisdom checks? Saves no wisdom Save.

No Save no.

No. Oh, it got 6.

18 with my minus 1 7.

16.

2.

All right, everybody who rolled above a DC8, which is a shockingly small amount of this party, you look around and you can't find the rest of your crew.

Oh, great.

Those of you who rolled below an 8, a shockingly large majority of you are lost in the corner.

We just turn around and no one else is.

You are alone in the corner.

Hello. Wait. Who else rolled above an 8?

I think it's just Mel and James.

I rolled a two.

So where did everybody go?

I looked at the Scarecrow for one minute. Everyone else just disappeared. I. Horses, too.

Yeah. They're gone. Yeah.

Do we still.

There's no sign of your companions.

Do we still have our horses?

Well, you're still with your horses. I don't know if you're ready to sell.

But you're still with them. I'm going to assume that since it's raining and windy and nasty, that Jacob's probably on my horse with me.

Yeah.

This is not brimweather.

No.

I'm not okay with this. And then I'll start calling Elliot Emery. I'll knock. Hello?

Are you alive?

Hello?

So you hear no responses where I'm.

Lost in the court. I'm still on my horse. I'm still with my horse. We're just wandering the corn. Can I hear anything?

Well, you hear one hell of a storm.

Yeah.

And it is just for the three of you who failed your wisdom checks. That storm is just overbearingly loud. Every raindrop that hits a leaf sounds more like a snare drum being smacked near your head. Okay. Just loud.

I know exactly what that sounds.

The wind whipping. Yes, you do. I do the wind whipping. The cornstalks around is just almost like you have a thousand rattlesnakes near your head, just driving you insane.

And we are alone.

Correct. We're not. You don't even see each other.

Nobody.

You are isolated.

I'm just in the middle of a cornfield that's taller than my big ass.

Yes.

Alone.

Yes.

Can I launch a fire bolt into the air in lieu of a flare?

Sure.

Okay.

You do that. Okay.

Mel not.

You do not see any fireballs come. In response.

He launches a fire belt. Mel screams.

I was trying to be a lighthouse of sorts.

Oh, you're. You're not just trying to light a cornfield on fire.

It's flipping.

Mal doesn't know that she knows that, but she doesn't know that that means anything.

You do produce a wicked amount of steam right near you. Yeah.

So probably just.

Yeah, yeah. It sizzles its way up and nothing in response.

Now what do we do?

You see five paths outstretched before you.

We are not splitting up. I refuse. I will follow you.

What was it going to suggest that anyway? A horrible idea.

Should we stay here? Maybe the others will find us again.

I'm pretty sure this is magical in origin because the three of them kind of just vanished from existence.

Done.

This does not help me make decisions.

You're right. It does not. We tried eeny, meeny, miny, moe. We tried going to the right. Wanna just go straight? Okay, your guess is as good as mine.

Hang on, hang on.

Mel gets off her horse and rolls a die on the ground.

Mel's striker had an augury. I rolled a four.

Is that good or bad?

I was rolling to see what path we could take.

Oh, well, that would line up with the path you took last time.

Should we just keep going to the right and maybe everybody else will do the same? Sure, that sounds reasonable.

Theoretically, if we take it enough times, we'll come across this exact scarecrow. Can I mark this specific scarecrow? You said that he has a carrot for a nose.

Sure.

Can I take the carrot?

Beat it to Burt.

This way, if we take the right path enough times, we'll theoretically come back to this exact scarecrow and I'll know that it's the exact same scarecrow. Because it doesn't have a nose. Or can I, like, dishevel it in some fashion?

Then you try to take the nose. It's pretty in there. It's pretty fucking secure.

That is so not right. Why don't you firebolt the scarecrow?

Oh, yeah, that's gonna go great. I can feel it.

Stand Back.

Roll to attack.

If I fucking miss the scarecrow.

Do.

I get sneak attack?

No.

I get sneak attack.

He can hide behind Mel.

That's an eight to.

Damage, I guess. See how much you fuck up a scarecrow?

Soggy scarecrow.

Yeah.

14 points of magical fire damage.

Yeah.

So you burn off its flannel.

Okay, well, now we. It's marked.

Now we know.

All right.

Right. Bethesda.

Strangely, the straw stays in shape, but its shirt is gone.

Now would I know that with like things like heavily drenched in water not being able to burn.

I feel like that's common knowledge.

Yeah, that's Kind of Fire 101. Water in it don't mix well.

I was just expecting it to like do something. Does it look like perfectly fine?

I mean, the final is very much gone, but like what's scorched all. Yeah. Well, right there it seems like a.

We're going to keep going down the right.

Smells like rotted straw. Yeah.

Do we have rope?

Do you have rope?

I was just thinking to avoid being split up, if we like tie our reins together or something.

Okay.

Okay.

This way, whatever happens.

Yeah, no, I, I'm. I'm cool with that. How wide is the path? Could we possibly ride two abreast?

No. Okay. This is firmly single file territory. Okay. We.

We attempt to tie to each other in a way the horses can still walk, but nobody can wander off.

All right. Right. Path it is.

All right, let me update notes on my head. Really brief.

I hope everybody else keeps following the. The right path.

If possible. What if you can, I use minor illusion to put like a gigantic neon arrow pointing in our location constantly. Kind of like how like I had like the.

Yeah.

How far away can you get from it though?

No, it's. It's like like pointing at where you are right now.

Oh, I like that. Yeah, let's do that.

It's like.

And minor.

Minor illusion lasts for a minute.

Okay.

And I can have it follow us.

What are you wanting to do?

I'm going to use minor illusion to put a gigantic neon point arrow directly above us and have it follow us in theory.

So somebody could find you more easily if they wanted to.

That's the hope.

Okay, sure.

Somebody could just.

Traveling through. Oh, God, I didn't think of that. Traveling through a magic corn field with the bee on it.

We are here. We are here. We are here.

Sorry, I'm updating.

Oh. Emery is going to take this moment while she is lost in the core. She's going to cast mage armor on herself because she still doesn't do this like on a. First thing in the morning on a daily basis.

The three of you who are lost in the corn. Roll me perceptions.

What? I don't like these. Wisdom based, intelligence based these things.

Passive of 10.

14 for Elliot.

Passive of 9.

Elliot, you think there's something near you in the corn.

All right, I'm going to. I'm going to yell out Mel Emory, James Olnock. Anybody, can you hear me sound off?

They do not cheer you. You are replying.

You the what am I on? Am I on a path or am I just in the middle of the corn? You're just in the middle whatever I think is near me.

Right, left, front, back, just out of sight to your right.

I'm gonna turn my horse and head towards it.

All right. The two not lost ones, which path are you taking?

Two differently lost.

Yeah. Yes, technically three.

We got Jacob.

Yeah.

Rightmost path.

Rightmost.

So you come out into a clearing and you see a yellow, nearly brand new looking plow.

Is it the same plus once again, I'm gonna. I'm gonna use the labyrinth method and I'm gonna like attempt to mark it in some fashion too.

How so?

I assume metal.

My name is Plow. So. Yeah.

Okay.

Can I make a lot of glass?

Yeah. Can I use one of my knives to like scratch like. Like put like a. A plus or something like that on it?

Don't piss it off. You can roll? Yeah. Yeah. You can scratch it. Cool.

Does this make sense? How could we get back to the plow when we're taking a different path?

How can three of our party members disappear plus horses without us going?

Oh, that stuff happens to me all the time. Like I wasn't joking. I did get lost in a cord maze once. It was terrifying. I still have nightmares about it.

I don't. Your guess is as good as mine.

I guessed last time. It's your turn.

I.

Well.

They say that an insane person is somebody who does the same thing expecting different results.

Well, no.

What if we keep going? Right. It'll take us back to the first scarecrow, right? I don't know. I'll follow you.

The two least wisest people in this party.

No.

Two of the most. All right, well, the right path it is. And until we get something better.

I don't know why you're listening to me, but.

Okay, we've established now that I make stupid ass decision.

You know, maybe this is your chance to redeem yourself.

The three lost individuals go to Romeo Wisdom. No. Why? The wisdom was different.

The last one.

Still.

Oh, no, that's.

That's not bad. 14, 18. You guys come out of the corn and you have found your companions.

The fuck just stumble out?

Oh, thank God. Where's Elliot?

I'm right here. Can't you see?

Oh, hi.

No, I can't. You snuck up on me. Sorry.

He Batman'd you in the cornfield.

You're so sneaky.

All right, I give up. I think we need to. When we get. I think we just need to keep taking the right path. What clearing are we in now?

Yellow plow.

Yellow plow.

I marked it, so if we come across it again, we'll know.

All right.

We also stick together, so we could get lost. Yeah.

By the way, I'm gonna teach you guys how to. How to. There's a name for it. I forgot. I'm gonna teach you how to tie your horses together. That is ridiculous. I'd take that off their range. Good Lord.

The lead horse is definitely turning to the left.

Yeah, I got some stick. Okay.

I'll teach you guys how to.

How to run. Pack string. Oh, God. Yeah, that's awful. Take that off. Let's take the right path again. That should lead us to the tractor. When we get to the tractor, let's set up whatever we can for a tarp and wait this storm out because we can't find shit.

Do you think it'd be possible to, like, sleep under the tractor?

Yeah. Or wait under it. I don't know how much sleep we're gonna get, but we gotta. We gotta wait this storm out. And that's the only. That's the only shelter we found.

Okay.

Yeah. Storm could go long time out here, but. Yes, it is. I mean, it fucking beats wandering the. I don't even know how I got lost to begin with.

I don't either.

I lost all of you by myself.

Yeah, I was too. I don't know what the hell happened.

As you say that, it starts to hail.

Oh, God.

Pretty aggressively.

Let's go. So the right path. Let's head down that path leads you.

To a dilapidated, ancient, nearly looking trailer. Trailer.

Okay, perfect. This is where we want to be. Let's. We'll get the horses. We'll set a perimeter with the horses, and we're going to get in between them and do our best to get out of this hail. Hopefully it's not straight down. Hopefully there's a little bit of an angle. Horses will turn their butts into the hail and they'll put their heads down and then we'll set them up to make Some kind of a shelter for us and wait the hail out. Luckily, it won't last very long. Hail storms don't last very long, but they can be bad. So we gotta do it now.

Yep.

Roger that.

I don't suppose we can make a shelter out of corn stalks.

Yeah, if you have a couple hours.

Well, I feel like we're gonna be.

Here for a while. That sounds like too much stuff to do in hail.

And this as you're talking, the hail's going from, like, sonic crushed ice, gradually rapidly getting closer to baseball.

Yeah. Bell is still bruised. Every time it hits.

Ow. Oh, yeah.

No, it's gonna hurt. It's as bad.

The wind is whipping like a son of a. Yeah.

Yep, yep. So the like says turn the horses, their. Their butt into the wind, head down, and then just do the best you can to stay out of it.

As you get to the tractor and you start getting ready to build, the wind is blowing the corn so hard now it's starting to dang near lay with the horizon. And you catch a glimpse of a roof.

I want to. In the dirt, mud, whatever. I want to make a scratch pointing to the house.

Okay. You barely see it. It starts to go back. You're looking elsewhere at the sky from the direction you think you came from. You're all twist. Turned around, is black, and the wind is picking up with intensity.

This is fine, right? We're gonna be fine, right?

Yep. By the way, while we're doing this, we need to be praying. Cause that's about all we got right now.

Roll survival to see how well you set up camp.

I wouldn't quite call it a camp, but yeah.

Yeah.

Do you want multiple survivals or can we lend advantage? Cause Emory's helping.

You can lend advantage.

Okay.

19.

I thought it was a group thing. I was gonna roll.

Did he take advantage?

You're able to. I mean, there's not a lot to work with here. Yeah, you create something you guys can grab the clothes hide under. And it just keeps getting worse.

Over his head.

Oh, yeah. I've got a pot on my head. I probably have, like, mage hand trying to, like, cover Jacob's.

And it's going ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

I got my hair going. You. You could be more optimistic. You're scaring the children and Jacob.

So who's the other child?

No, he's not. He's not wrong.

That's like.

I grew up with tornado warnings out here. Like, that shit's fucking scary.

I've never experienced a tornado. I don't want to start now. I'm too young to die again.

You can roll a history. Specifically the two of you from the flatlands if you would like to. Or nature would make sense. Lightning starts cracking across the sky pretty intensely bad.

18 18.

You are 100% confident you're in a supercell.

What the fuck does that mean?

Just hang on.

To what?

The ground.

With that being said, I just grabbed a fistful of whatever I could hold on to because I took it very literal.

That's my hair.

Sorry about that.

I didn't realize we were that close.

Ow.

Old knife just reaches down and grabs.

It's like this.

Picks her up like so. By now I'm sure we. It's almost probably too loud to even talk to each other.

It sounds. You're hearing what sounds a hell of a lot like a jet engine.

Basically you got to lay down and get as close to the edges like make as little of a target of yourself as you can.

I'm going to.

Can I tie myself to the tractor?

Sure. Roll survival. See how you tie a knot like.

In the furrows of the cord. Like you lay in as low as you could possibly get. Reduce your surface area.

I. I think we've probably pushed Jacob under the tractor. If anybody be small enough to get under there.

We're going to shove Jacob under the tractor.

Yeah, probably Jacob and Mel. There's probably enough space.

Scoot over. There's room enough for both of us.

You know what? I'll do another mage armor on Jacob too.

Cuz this checked in like with old school. New school. Does it have actual. Okay, never mind. So it doesn't have a cab?

No. Oh yeah. It's old. Very old. Yeah.

So Jacob's armor class right now is 13 plus his decks.

Okay. Wait.

Did you say bark skin?

No. In mage armor.

Oh, mage armor.

It's a touch spell so I can cast on anybody.

But says you're hunkering down trying to hide. All you have to do at this point is just observe. It's now it's so damn loud you can't even holler at each other anymore. The wind is blowing about as hard as humanly possible. Even with a 19. One of the tarps that you laid out to try to provide you some shelter gets ripped out from above. You sure it's gone? It's immediately you don't get to see it. Like a trampoline gently drift away. It's just one ripped and it's gone. And naturally you look up because there's a sudden Change above your head as you're looking up. Sky is black, black, black.

Actually, by now it's probably green.

You see lightning dancing and a huge crack of lightning occurs. And you see the funnels drop down, make contact with the ground. Oh, shit. About a mile or so, second crack of lightning. You see a second funnel touch down and they start dancing around each other. The wind at this point is just unreal. You've never been more terrified in your life.

No, you have not.

And as you're watching now, the lightning is damn near constant. You're getting a weird strobe view of this. The two clot. The two funnels start to almost look like they're coordinating, as if they are a large pair of legs. Elliot and Emery, being from this area, may have heard of legends of what's called a dead man walking. You are confident this is exactly what they were talking about. The two funnels, as they dance around each other, give the illusion of a gigantic creature pacing its way across the plains. With a snothered crack of thunder. You see something appears to be standing in front of where they are walking. A gigantic something. And with that, the rain starts to get so bad and so heavy, you lose sight out there. But one of the thunderclaps sure sounds more like metal than it does thunder. After an uncomfortably insanely long period of time, there's a period of time where the tractor almost starts to wiggle, sets back down. The corn is. You're dodging as many ears of corn as you are hail just getting launched at you. Strangely, the corn stalks seem to be standing strong. You even think you see an old lady on a bicycle. Maybe just when you think you can't take any more, the wind starts to die. And when I say starts to die, I mean it's less insane. It's not suddenly calm, but it is suddenly less insane. You think it's quiet enough, you might be able to holler at each other again.

At that point, everybody hears this high pitched screeching sound.

Mel was like non stop screaming that entire time.

You feel gentle vibrations on the earth.

I know that.

You see a puddle by your feet and it occasionally ripples, but the ripples are getting slightly less intense with every thump.

Did you say slightly less intense with every thump?

I'm so confused.

I thought life was about to find a way, right?

And the storm breaks.

I'm going to release my death grip of the tractor and untie myself.

It's now back down to just raining pretty badly. The wind's still blowing, but you think the worst has passed.

If my mark survived where I drew towards. Super God, do I remember which direction I thought I saw the house roof?

You do.

Okay, I'm gonna say. Come on, guys, grab your horses. Let's head this way. I think I saw where the house was.

All right, you guys are at the track.

Mel, come on. Come on, Mel. We're going.

That was an impressively long scream. I didn't hear the whole thing, but I assume it was the entire time.

I saw the whole thing.

I had to take a breath occasionally.

I guarantee if he didn't.

Oh, you all. You have. You feel like you've got swimmers ear. The pressure differential of what just occurred has you up.

Even when I stop screaming, we're all still hearing the high 50.

I don't. Emory is not getting on the horse. This moment I don't like. I think she's just walking.

Oh, are we taking a path or just straight shot?

Straight shot.

If there's a path that was headed towards the house, I'll take the path. But if I remember where the house. I'm gonna go straight towards the house.

There is a path that lines up close.

Okay.

So you remember right before you came here, you left the yellow plow.

Yep.

The path is the middlest path that leads you closer to that. That looked like it was going in the direction that house.

So from. We'll take the middle path. From the brown tractor.

Yes. Tractor leads you to. Going down the middle path. You enter into a clearing with a yellow, nearly brand new looking plow.

Does it have my straight line?

You continue in a straight line from the yellow, nearly brand new looking plow. You end up in a clearing with a very large rock.

Continue.

Straight line.

Why does it feel like we're going backwards?

You enter into a clearing with a dilapidated tractor.

Son of a bitch.

This place is bullshit.

If we did. Was I able to check that plow? Did it have my X on it?

Yes, it was an Exxon plow.

I do not like mazes. Mazes are not fun. This is stupid.

This is like a maze. These shouldn't connect to each other like this.

If we go in a straight line, we shouldn't go back to where we left.

No, we shouldn't.

What if we know you're not backwards?

Backwards through the corner?

I don't know.

That's it.

All right. Sounds good. Hell, good ideas I get. We turn around, we start walking backwards.

You leave. Where do I have the tractor? The tractor? Tractor? No. You walk backwards and you enter into a clearing with a tractor in It.

How the does that work?

What kind of.

This is what.

Okay, hold on. I'm.

Well, I'm not the best thinking there.

So.

I'm gonna brain real hard here. We're gonna see if I can figure this out. Hold on one second. What if it's like a number sequence, right? Like it's like. Like a. Like a lock combination. It's like if you were to number the paths. Like we got five paths of photos. Yeah, it was like a 5, 3, 4, 1, 2 or something like that. Like what? Any chance? I don't know.

Yeah, I mean, it probably is. We'd have to get every single one. Exactly right.

Well, what if we just.

There are 779 permutations of this that.

Black for the math.

I appreciate it.

I have a feeling you did that before I asked.

What if we just did the simple ones? You know, take the leftist path and then go to the next one. And then go to the next one and you just count up.

What if we take the sixth path.

Technically back that way. You just did that.

I thought we went right back to where we started.

We just walked through.

You did that and then you turned around and went back the direction you came. Yes.

We ended up exact same spot.

And the thing that's really nauseatingly confusing is you are coming out of each path looking at the object same direction from the exact same perspective. Perspective. Even when you left the tracker tractor clearing by going back the way you came, you come out and you're looking at the tractor at the exact same angle. Yeah.

All right, let's. I want to take right paths until we get to the rock.

Okay. Spit you back out by the scarecrow. Before you get to the rock, I need you all to make a wisdom saving throw.

I'm going to disappoint Pier again.

Oh, maybe finally. Thirteen.

Okay.

Five.

That.

That's 18. Sixteen.

Emory, you're gone.

I'm gone. I'm in the corn, guys.

Emory.

Emory, go ahead and roll a perception, all right?

Cuz you're real good at those. Like 16.

Hey, you are pretty confident there is something in the corn with you.

Oh, God.

The rest of you, what are you doing?

Okay, here's a crazy, probably stupid idea. What if I got on the broom and tried to fly above the corn?

Try that.

I'll try that.

Okay. You fly up and if this was call a cathedral Cthulhu, you would be rolling a sanity check.

But it's not. So instead I'm rolling a charisma safe.

You see? Nothing but corn. As far as the eye can see.

It's like being in the middle of the ocean.

Everywhere you look, it's corn.

Oh, fuck.

Except for the clearing she just flew out of.

Except for the clearing below you, but.

I don't see a house or any of the other clearings.

You don't see the road that should in theory be somewhat nearby. You see none of the other clearings. You see corn. Roll a perception.

Mat 20. So that's a 19.

From within the corn. You see. You think it's the scarecrow.

Oh, fuck.

Looking up at you. Oh, but it's not in a clearing. It's in the corner.

And I don't see Emery.

You do not see Emery.

Us in the clearing when we see her take off up in the air. Do we see her up in the air is here?

Yeah. Okay.

We do we see her freaking out about a scarecrow out in the cornfield.

Do you hear me making an assortment of. Oh, fuck. Fuck.

I can hear that. It's still pretty loud, but nowhere near what you were dealing with. About this time, your ears pop.

Ah.

Pressure is regulating back out. Finally.

I fly back down and I tell them what I saw.

Emery go to make a wisdom signature.

Here's a weird question. Was that scarecrow naked?

I didn't notice.

When you walked past the scarecrow into this cornfield where you had to this clearing, the flannel is still gone. Every change you've made so far has remained.

I was just curious if the one that you signed the corn like out.

In the corn was face drew most of her attention.

Are they still in the clearing with the. The scarecrow?

Yes. Okay, 18, you're back. You come out of the corn perplexed.

There's this. What? This. This. That scarecrow, the one right there is also in the corn.

I. Is it? I thought I felt like there was something in there with me.

Yeah, it was probably the scarecrow that's right there.

I don't like being in the porch.

That doesn't make sense at all. But nothing does anymore.

Regular toilet style.

And when I. Okay, Elliot. When I flew up there, there's no house. There's no other clearings. Just this one and corn as far as the eye can see for. Well, however far my eye can see.

You didn't see the other clearings with the tractor or anything?

No, it was like they didn't exist. I don't know how far my eyes can see at the moment. There were no other clearings, no tractors, no house, no road that we came off of. Just corn.

Hey, Guys, if every time we've had somebody disappear, it was in this clearing with that scarecrow, wasn't it?

Yeah.

James, burn that scarecrow to the ground.

I thought we tried that.

No, he just marked it. But no, no. Incinerate that son of a bitch.

Okay, I'm going to cast create bonfire.

Burn the scarecrow with a stake.

You mean that's actually a spell?

Yes, it is.

It is.

You create a bonfire on the ground that you can see within range, which is about 60ft until the spell ends. The magic bonfire fills a five foot cube. Any creature in the bonfire space when you cast the spell must succeed on a dex save or take 2d8 fire damage. A creature must also make the saving throw when it moves into the bonfire space for the first time on its turn or if it ends its turn there. The bonfire ignites flammable objects in its area that aren't being worn or carried.

So you light the bonfire on the ground. Now, this guy was up on a post, right? Because he has to be tall enough.

That the post is like directly in the center of the mud.

And you got a good fire underneath that scarecrow.

Is he burning?

No.

Can we cut him off the post? Can we cut him off the post?

I do still have a great axe. Need some other great axe, but Paul Bunyan's ass. I'll try.

I'm going to protect the font. Fire away so I don't burn my companion. It's a concentration.

Can you move it? You have to put it out.

I can just drop concentration.

Well, yeah, but we might want to fire it back up again.

It's a can trip.

Oh, it's a can trip. Oh, all right, Cool.

Yeah, it's a Dexan, but nothing happens.

I don't know.

Is it like an attack?

What? What are you doing? Chop, you're going to try to cut the post down. Cut him down? Yeah, sure. Roll an attack. Okay. 15. That post is hard.

Clang.

It shocks your hands pretty hard. That was very unpleasant, bro.

That was like hitting a steel beam.

Well, the goddamn straw scarecrow that doesn't burn wood post. We can't chop down.

You guys can roll for two. Accept. You don't have to try. Totally up to you.

16.

15.

Passive.

I don't even want to tell you, just.

James, you are keyed in on this scarecrow. Huh? It's not smiling anymore.

Guys. I think we've just pissing it off. Oh, never mind the. It's grimacing.

Okay, well, screw this. Some bitch. Let's try to. I'm Thinking. Go to the rock, see if we can find anything with the rock. If we can't find anything with the rock, let's go to the bud puddle with the deer and see if we can find anything in there.

What about your fiery sword when I just hit it in the face real quick, see if that does any.

Sure.

I'll pull out the sun sword, I'll ignite it and I'll. I'll stab the scarecrow with the sun sword.

Go ahead and roll an attack.

All right.

Did you just miss?

No, I shouldn't have. 14.

Yeah, you hit. Hell of a lot of steam erupts off from because of how wet this thing is. The hat goes blown away. It looks less good than it did before. You hit it.

Hit it again.

It is absolutely not smiling anymore.

Can I just continue my attack until it's beaten to pieces?

Should we.

Can I. Can I look at this character? Like, listen here, you shit, we're cold, we're wet. If you're a living magical creature or whatever, just cut the shit, let us out of the cornfield or else we're gonna burn your face off.

It does not reply. And let's go to take a break. And when you come back, I'm gonna need stats totally unrelated, of course. Hey there, listener. I have a couple quick pieces of news for you this week. First, we had our first live streaming session. For those of you who were able to join us. Thank you. We certainly learned a lot about how that side of the audio world works, and we are fully confident that our next session will be even better. We have had an interesting time with TikTok lately. They seem to be quite loose with their requirements for going live, so the best current suggestion would be to follow us on Twitch. We have that link in our link tree. Also, as previously mentioned, we will be at the Grand Junction Comic Con. We have been locked in for two panels this year, with an option for more as this gets closer. We will be delivering a panel on how to run a session zero as well as a panel on how to be the best player at a table that you can be. Both of those panels will be on Saturday, September 20th, but the convention itself starts on Friday the 19th, and I have been told that they have a couple of very strong panels that they are featuring that night. As always, thank you so much for listening. If you like what you hear, please like comment and subscribe. Not to sound too cliche, but that really does help us out. Also, sharing us with people who you think would like what we do and following Us on social media would be massively helpful as well. We're posting constant content over on our social media page, Cages. And odds are if you enjoy this content, you're going to enjoy that content as well. Anyway, thank you again and let's get back to our lost companions in the corn maze. So you guys are waylaying into this scarecrow because you have decided he is your opponent. He's the problem.

Well, I was not going to, but. But Mel said it wanted to die, so.

Okay, well, that was.

I didn't have a good reason not to.

Mel said that she saw it in the corner cornfield.

It's the only thing she saw.

But they were in the clearing with it. You guys were in the clearing with it while she saw it out at the cornfield too?

I don't know.

So can't hurt as you are. It could waylaying into the corn.

It could hurt.

Or into the scarecrow. Out of the corn steps, a nearly identical scarecrow.

Ah, okay.

This one is wearing a flannel. This one is the decidedly unhappy. And instead of a pretty painted on smile, the burlap is ripped open.

Oh God.

With a big old joker style grin, some wicked sharp teeth. The gloves are off. You can see the straw ending. It's like braided itself into gnarled claws. It has the same with its feet ending in gnarled talons. Almost. Almost. Almost like chicken legs made out of straw. I never did initiative.

Well, I'm glad I told you. I have initiative advantage now. So that's cool. Let's see which One of my D20s will betray me. That one.

And now that one.

Don't forget to add your.

I got it.

Okay.

It just doesn't make a lot of difference. I didn't rage yet either.

It makes sense not to.

I guess the only thing that would have made me angry was hitting it. Hitting the thing with the ax with my hands just going clang. And it hurting a lot.

Do we need a monitor on or does it matter?

Yes, it matters like a lot.

Like how many matters?

Just going into combat.

How many matters?

That's what I'm thinking. Are we fighting 22 scarecrows? What's going on here?

All right, Olnock, what did you roll?

Do I have to take tell you?

You do. All right, it's 11 with advantage.

Yeah, I rolled a two and a nine.

Emory, what did you roll?

Seven.

Better about my.

That die is not doing well for me today.

I'm going to.

Elliot, what did you roll?

These have not served me well tonight.

Either. Elliot, what did you roll?

26 makes more sense.

That sounds.

That's on fire.

That's.

Yep. Who have I not Mel, 16.

18.

James 12. Okay, Elliot, you are unsurprisingly up first. A very scary, angry looking scarecrow is coming towards you.

Is he 30ft away from me or less?

Sure.

Okay, you guys actually have not seen this yet. On my first turn in combat, I move faster than I normally do. Only on the first turn. So at this point Alnock thinks he's mad. Elliot is even more pissed at this point. So on his way as he races towards him, he's already got his sun sword lit because he had it lit attacking the scarecrow. He is going to run at a frightful speed straight toward. Actually he can move by way the I think 45ft this round only. Okay, straight towards the sun sword's already lit. He's gonna bonus action as he runs towards him. Cast hunter's mark on it. Okay, so he's got. Please tell me the scarecrow is undead. I don't know if it is or not.

Ah, it is not undead.

No, I know, but okay, so he's two handing this sword. He's gonna attack him. Okay, he's gonna get.

What? Three.

He's gonna get three attacked. Okay, here we go. Three attacks. I'm gonna roll all three and then I'll start rolling damage.

Okay.

All right, here we go. Blue, last second. All right, here we go.

Oh, that one's cocked.

Really?

Five, six and a six.

Jesus.

Plus oh, plus eight.

So 13 six.

So I got 13 and two 14s.

This is a bummer. All three miss. This thing is alarmingly quick in a just a creepy, twitchy, awesome, jerky fashion.

I'm thinking about it.

So your blade is coming down right to make contact and it's not there anymore.

That would have been a D10 and two D8s of damage that had been big damage. Plus plus five, three times. Anyway. Shit, I missed. And he's just slashing left and right. I hate Kansas.

I hate the planes. I hate this place.

All this.

And it's Elliot that has a seafood.

Stepping out from one of the paths is something that can only be described as a mudman. It looks not unlike a snowman, except it is not snow. It is mud with some barely formed arms. Like you can't really see joint. You don't see muscle, you just see these are clearly arms because they're coming from where shoulders would be on a mudman.

Specifically.

And same thing with legs. So it's not like it's rolling like a droid. It is walking gloopy and slow, like.

A little gingerbread mudman kinda.

Yeah. But it does have the distinctly large ball bottom, medium ball torque torso, little ball head of a snowman.

It's almost like a more rounded tire guy from a specific tire kinda.

Yeah. You can see a face. It's almost just depressions in the muck. This is goopy gloopy mud. This isn't like a golem. That's a firm earth. This is like a Pokemon Blue key. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Kinda like. What is that? Graymer or whatever. Fuck. Yeah. Yeah, it's one of. It's kind of like that, but in the shape of a snowman. Ish. Thankfully, it is quite slow, so it is just able to make its appearance. Belle.

Belle takes one look at that mudman and then goes after the scarecrow.

Perfect.

So I will attempt to. You hit it three times.

Okay. With your fists of magicalness.

Yep. All right. Three misses.

Yes.

I have eight and six. That's 14. That misses.

Yep.

And I have an 18 and six for 24.

That hits.

Okay.

That hits. That misses.

Be questioning sanity of the 24 more mist.

Eight points of magical bludgeoning damage.

You punch it. What did I do? God damn it. Oh, me?

You hit me.

I hit it so hard.

Why?

It was like, ow. I just have a flashback from when she took me down.

And the nice thing is, Mel, for the first time in quite a long time, this doesn't hurt to punch. Oh. This actually feels the most like your heavy bag you've fought since you left the gym. Cool. Anything else?

I think that's good.

Okay.

I feel like her eyes are still a little blurry because her black eyes are now sort of yellowy green.

Stepping out from another path. No, you see another mucky man.

Is it the path next to the other mud man?

Different path.

But are they next to each other?

Yes. Yeah. Yes. And you see another one. And you see another one. Oh, for a total of four mudmen. But all they do again, they're slow. They make themselves known.

They all come from different paths.

Yeah, but they're all over on the same general side. They came from the five paths side of the clearing, James.

Yeah. Well, how close are the mud men together?

What do you want to do? What's your goal?

Well, I was wanting to sleep them down, but I don't really want to go after them by myself because that.

Doesn'T sound very fun. Oh, I'd say. Let's say there's about 10ft between them, each 10ft apart.

I'm gonna pull out my sword of wounding.

Okay.

And I'm ahead for the Scarecrow because there's two people in melee with it, and I could get sneak attacked that way and hopefully take care of it, and then we can deal with the mud people.

Okay. You are not hidden. That's fine.

So I won't get advantage, but I'll get.

You still get sneak attack. Yeah.

So may I hit?

In theory, that is. That is the first necessary step.

That is a 19 to hit.

That hits. Okay.

Thank God.

All right.

Oh, sneak attack. Went up by one. Oh, yes. But 46 is now.

There you go.

For a total of 23 points of magical piercing damage.

Nice.

And on the Scarecrow's turn, I will roll a D4 for it.

Thank you. And it makes constitution saves, Correct?

Yeah. At the end of its turn. Let me check. I think it's the end of its turn. Yeah. It's a DC15 con save at the end of its turn to end the effect.

Perfect.

It ends the effect of every D4 that I've dealt to it.

Perfect. Hold on. Okay.

I assume I'm closest to Scarecrow, but you said it moves wicked fast, so I want to double check, make sure that is the thing I'm closest to.

Yes. Okay.

I want to kind of get in the way so I can take the damage if it does attack. But first I would like to bonus action.

Rage. Okay.

You rage, and then I'm going to hit it twice.

Okay. You can't get in the way. There are three people in different positions.

Y' all are ready to duck a fucking hammer because it's coming.

All right.

Also, I'd just like to say I think that's the calmest I've ever heard somebody rage before.

I am now angry, if I may, please. Yeah.

Pod intimidation.

Feeling a tidbit. Frustrated.

Thirteen plus nine and seven plus nine. So 18 and 22.

Yeah. Well, not 18. Sixteen. But seven plus nine is not 18. Oh, yeah, it is 16. But both hit. Okay, cool.

That's good news. First attacking you.

Six plus eight. Thirteen. Thirteen.

Fourteen.

Fourteen. Nope. Yep.

I told you I'm struggling.

Sorry. Wrong too.

The math ain't messy.

14 damage both times.

That's the first one.

Okay. Yeah.

No.

Okay.

Six plus eight.

Fourteen still? Yep. Is it? Yep.

Oh.

Oh, my other one moved.

Okay.

I thought it said nine plus. I was like, hold on.

Sorry.

Yeah, that's impressive for a D8 to show a 9.

No, no, it was a 5 and a 4. I thought because this one moved and showed me a four. So, yeah, same thing twice.

Perfect. Anything else again, you cannot put yourself between it and your friends. The only friend left is Emory.

Now I'm just kind of hoping I get its attention enough that it ignores.

Them when it comes to me.

Emery, why are we all the Scarecrow? We forgot about these mud men.

I'm not far away if I don't have to.

How far away from me are they? They?

They are one movement from you. Okay.

Like, one movement and I'd be in melee.

Yes.

Okay. I want to move forward 15ft so I can catch probably just two of them in the edge of a thunder wave. Because thunder Wave is a 15. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah, I'll say. You can get one and four because they're next to each other in initiative.

Okay, cool. So they need to make a con save.

Please.

That's a 10 and a net 20.

Well, that works.

So one fails, four succeeds.

It's 10 thunder damage total.

Okay. He's pushed back 10ft.

Successful save. They take half damage. So it'll take five. Five.

Nice m. All right. And when it hits, they not quite bowl full of jelly jiggle, but you can see the force ripple through them.

Yep. And then I'm going to move back to the middle.

I would make all kinds of fun slappy buns.

So 15 forward, 15 backwards.

Yep.

Okay. Scarecrow.

He takes three points of necrotic damage.

Okay.

Take that.

I think he also makes a save.

Yeah. Then he gets.

Well, I know. Elliot and I are both in melee.

As am I. I never moved.

That is a dirty 20 to hit on Elliot. I assume a dirty 20 hits Elliot with an AC of 14. He does.

It would make sense for him to go after Elliot. Elliot went from the front.

Well, Elliot's got the big glowy sword. It's fucking scary. That's nine slashing damage. And I need you to make a wisdom saving throw, please.

It was a bad match for me.

Oh, God damn it. 7.

You are terrified.

Terrified or frightened? Frightened is a condition.

Yes.

I do not know the condition of terrifying.

You are magically frightened. Yes.

Thank you.

Terrified is just frightened. Her too.

And because of its unique frighteningness, you are effectively paralyzed until the end of its next turn. That's its first attack.

Oh, no, I don't like multi attack creatures.

Well, at least he didn't go like, oh, they have multi attack.

I tried really hard to keep from the very beginning.

He knew from the very beginning.

Elliot tried this real hard to kill it, too. You got too bad. That's what happened?

16 plus 3. 19 to hit Mel.

Yeah. That.

I might have took it down.

That is nine damage now.

I did a stupid amount.

I need you to make a wisdom saving throw.

Well, one of. I was just curious.

I positive.

You know, I missed one hit was 27.

Smoking.

That's a 10.

You are frightened until the end of its next turn. And you are effectively paralyzed till the end of its next turn.

I got you.

I'm not a melee. But I got shot. All right.

Don't worry.

I got a thing for.

I don't.

I'm not sure you can be frightened.

While you're reading because you're. You're a berserker.

Yeah. Elliot. You are frightened and perilous. Paralyzed.

I don't have that ability.

He's not. I don't think he's.

Yeah.

I. Wow. Paralyzers.

Nope.

So I'm seeing these images flashing in my head of a small child from Kansas seeing. Running from a tornado and getting. And running into a scarecrow and tripping and falling. And it's bringing back all these suppressed childhood memories of this scarecrow being tied to mortal terror of keeping me from running away from the tornado. And that's what's got me paralyzed with fear.

That's fantastic. That's good. Cell.

I don't get a resave.

Nope. Mudman 3. The first Mudman to enter the scene. It's confusing. Makes his way up to. Oh, no.

Okay.

And That's a net 20.

No.

Oh, no. It is actually, Unfortunately.

Remember, half damage here.

I need you to make a strength saving throw after taking.

That'S. Is that that a crit for NPCs as well again?

Yeah.

Just making sure.

Thought I was almost there.

Yeah.

17 damage halved to.

8.

8. 8. Yeah.

Oh, no. You didn't do Berserker.

You did. Totally. Yeah.

I told him.

Yeah.

How did your strength saving throw go?

I didn't roll it yet.

Gonna roll that too much. Okay.

And you have advantage because you're.

You're great.

Oh, I have a great. Yeah. I do have advantage on strength saves. So the first one 18 plus you succeed.

So it flaps out at you hard with its big old gloopy arm beating the out of you. It hit like a truck. It's like that non. What they call it Notodium fluid. Yeah. Where it's gloopy until it hits upon impact. Man. That could have been concrete.

Solid.

Yeah. And it's sticky as you feel it trying to drag you in. Yeah. But you break free just trying to pull him in.

Yeah, it's trying to suffocate me. That would sound right to me.

Oh, good.

Mel, you are paralyzed.

No, I think the mud men are huggers.

No, Mel. Mel is paralyzed and terrified. And she takes a deep breath and calms and recenters herself and chooses not.

To be anymore based off of what.

Calls stillness of mind. I can use my action to end one effect of myself that is causing you to be charmed or frightened.

Okay, you are no longer paralyzed.

Mel's just like, you know what? I kind of like being terrified. But then I was over it, you.

Know, I decided that was not my thing. And then I'm gonna bonus action. Try to punch the scarecrow that terrified me.

Okay, so the stillness of mind is an action?

Yes.

Okay, go ahead and try to punch the scarecrow.

Punch him in the face.

Fifteen misses.

Oh, anything else you would like to do.

Now?

I'm good.

Okay, move away.

Oh, I probably should do that. That would be a logical thing.

What are you doing?

Yeah, I'll move away.

Okay. 16 plus three beats your AC.

Yes.

My opportunity.

Yep. That's six damage.

Okay, don't forget, you have. I'm kidding. Dodge. Wait. No, no, that's me. Never mind. It's evasion.

I have evasion, but it's bonus action and I already took my bonus action.

Yep. Yep.

Oh, no reaction. It's a dead.

Oh, right. It's Dex save stuff. I just confused the heck of myself.

Well, I also didn't abbreviate version because I was just handwriting it. But I'll just take the points from now. I'm done.

Okay, sorry.

In summary, I am done.

I was trying to read at the same time. Talking this through. I couldn't say what's going on. Okay, so Mudman the sequel, who was conveniently the second one to come out the corn, might call him a child is going to approach Gems o' Brien and miss with a NAT one, which.

Is good because they hit pretty hard.

I can confirm Medman the first does not like that he got shoved 10ft back and he starts walking towards Emery but cannot make it. He gets 10ft from you. Mudman the Quattro, however, can make it to you. And he also doesn't like that you bait his belly jiggle. He's very self conscious about his size and he rolls a 12 to miss you.

That does miss. That's true.

James, the mudman's very near you. A scarecrow's scaring the out of not crows.

Yep, I'm going to does Elliot is He considered a combatant, but I get sneak attack if I went after the scarecrow. Because Elliot's still in melee with the scarecrow, but he's technically paralyzed with fear.

So that would not.

No, he's not currently capable of imposing any risk upon the scarecrow. Gotcha.

Now there are two objects I'm going to bonus action disengage.

Okay.

Back 30ft and I'm going to. For my action, I'm going to cast the bonfire cantrip and put it directly next to the scarecrow. Essentially where I was. So now there's a bonfire by the scarecrow and the mudman. So when they start their turn, they have to take. They'll have to do deck save or take fire damage.

Okay.

The bonfire is only a five foot cube.

Yeah. They have to go through the bonfire to take damage to them at you.

Can you probably drop it on one of them.

You have to drop that one.

Oh, I'm thinking of. Of fireball spell or the.

The fireball works a little differently.

Not fireball specifically. It's like that.

That spell that creates flaming sphere.

That one. Yeah, that's what I thought it was. I'm going to center it on the scarecrow though.

Okay, so what does that mean?

Dex?

Save.

Sorry. Any creature when you cast the spell must make a deck save.

Yeah, it fails that deck save. Sweet.

So it takes 2d8 point to fire.

Demarcia, want to tell me that total max damage?

I. No, that. I thought it was gonna. Okay. Stupid die. That looks cocked on the eight, but it gave me is a five so it's 13 points acquired.

Okay.

It's hard to tell on the digital dice.

Stupid physics engine. Except in a dice.

Anything else?

I was action Bonus action gift.

That's all I got.

Okay, Olnok, I am going to attack Scarecrow again.

Okay. It's starting to look pretty fucking rough.

Oh, sorry. Did the Scarecrow ever make a concave for the anti necrotic?

No, it didn't. No, it did not. Sorry. It passed. Okay, I figured it's a 17 plus something. Thank you. Yep.

So nat 20 plus nine.

Yeah. Okay.

And then a 14 plus nine.

Let's start with the net 20, see how much damage to do.

That's a double damage. So we're gonna roll both of these and they both count for this game.

They do indeed.

Damn it. That is double eights.

16 plus what?

8.

16 plus 8 is 24.

And then I got another set of double dice to roll for the double damage.

That was just confusing. Okay, double.

But you already Rolled.

Go ahead and roll those. Do whatever you're doing. You can either take the dice.

That's max damage twice. Okay, so what's your so 48 would be 32 plus 8 40.

Describe.

Nice.

So I just rear back in super angry fashion like double over the head.

And just yeet this thing at its face.

And I want to take its face off again because I really like this kind of attack. And it's gonna go like way over there by over there for the listeners. I'm pointing at an empty space. Like it's like. It's like a. Like a.

Like.

It'S like forest. If there was nothing in there but trees and sadness. And I'm throwing it.

So Mel's gonna end up covered in scarecrows.

Yes.

But the good thing for you is this time it shouldn't hopefully be like blood and guts and stuff.

Yeah.

This should be significantly easier to get out of your head.

This should be a lot easier to get out of your head. And it's gonna fly back at you. And I want its face to still be on my hand.

There is absolutely a torn to shreds burlap sack on your hand. I would never take. I wouldn't take it. And you have some straw in your hair.

Then I have another attack that I guess I will aim at something else if anything else is in range.

We can't wait.

There's several mud men, preferably in a.

Different Mudman, one of which is kind of like up in Emory's grill.

And that was the 14 plus 9 23.

Yes. Yeah.

This a regular. That is a 9 plus 817 damage.

Okay. And that was to Mudman 4 that the one that was able to make it to Emory. Cuz Mudman one could not. Speaking of Emory, there's a Mudman in your grail.

There sure is. I. What am I had a thought.

It's gone.

That happens quite frequently around here.

Yes, it does. I'm going to use a couple of sorcery points to quicken spell a sword burst. This is just this blast of swords that happen in a five foot radius around me. So the mudman in range of me needs to make a de save.

That is a 13 total fails.

It takes three slashing damage or sorry, force damage.

That makes more sense.

They're magic swords. And then I'm going to thunder wave again and I'm gonna catch this one.

Two again. Yeah.

Yep.

Cool.

So they both need to make con saves.

17.

I think that. God damn. I can't damage for.

They'Re blowing up on him.

Yeah. My spell save DC is 14.

This time they reverse order one. Six saved. Four didn't.

Okay, so four takes four points of damage.

Did you say four?

I told you. I rolled my damage so badly.

Did you blow up?

I don't.

I haven't rolled that yet.

So the other guy takes two.

Yeah. But four gets pushed 10ft away from me. So they're both 10ft away from me now.

Yeah. He gets scooched back to his buddy, leaving one hell of a trail at Gloop behind. Right.

Instead of it being like swords, it actually came out as those squeaky toy hammers.

And then.

So, yeah, so there was swords, and then there was a thunder, but it wasn't the loud thunder you're used to.

Yeah, compared to the storm you just went through, this is just. Just underwhelming.

A little rumble.

I was like, em, put some oomph into it.

I'm trying to. They're made of mud.

Elliot, you're no longer paralyzed.

That's good.

You have a selection of mud men.

Yeah, the. The scarecrow being killed by Ulnock makes kind of shakes him out of his daze. We've already established when Elliot gets scared, he gets angry. So he is going to bonus action. Throw his hunter's mark at the nearest Mudman, whichever number that happens to be.

We'll say three.

Three. Okay, so bonus action. Move it to three. And he is going to continue his attack on number three.

All right.

When you said you were going to throw, I thought you were going to chuck your sun sword.

But you saw my hand basically hold the hunter's mark from the body and toss it to the mark Mudman. And you can almost see this hint of a wisp of almost mist as it slams into the Mudman and kind of engraves Elliot's magical part, which even he doesn't know what it is.

Okay, that extra shake is really important.

It might have this time.

Okay.

I got an 18.

It's.

And I got a 12.

Just hits.

Okay.

Sweet.

Oh, that damage is nice, though.

See here?

That's 10, 21 plus 31 points of magical radiant damage.

Okay. Yep. That sucks. It has a bad effort. That's what I was trying to.

Trying to do in the first place.

God damn it. You slash through, then each slash just buckets amok erupt out of the back of this thing perfectly in line with your slashes. And it's a little bit smaller, and it's not very happy with you. Good. Is that. That. That hur. It did it. 17 to hit Elliot hits. All right, you're gonna take nine bludgeoning damage, and I need a strength saving throw.

Hey, strength save.

Six total. Oh, no. You get it again. Just like it did with Ulnok.

Yeah, yeah, it was me.

Reaches out and just batters into you again. It feels like a cinder block to the gun. Hurts like a son of a gun. But when it hits, you feel the mud, like, explode around you, completely wrapping your torso. And you get pulled into the mud creature. Oh. You are fully engulfed. You can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns. On a success. You escape. You cannot breathe. You are restrained. Mel. Elliot's gone.

Mel. Seeing all of these spodgy, mucky things and then sees Elliot disappear into spodgy mucky thing and goes, ugh. And then goes over and tries to punch Mudman 3.

Okay. I have a hunch you'll be successful.

That is a 14. An 18.

It's harder.

And a 11 misses.

Okay.

Four, five, six. We're 11 points of bludgeoning damage.

Okay. It's not fan of you now either.

Okay? And I am going to spend a ki point to disengage and back away from it to get out of range.

Okay? And just like so, unfortunately, unlike the Scarecrow, that wasn't actually really all that painful to punch. This feels like you're punching a wet brick wall.

Ew. Just. Why is everything sticky? No one told me that the apocalypse would be be sticky.

It was a relatively safe sub, right?

Killing sticky gooey zombies.

Yes. I'm tired of sticky.

He's in Ra.

That's okay. I thought so. So this one's going to swing on all shock. All right, here we go. And misses.

Okay.

Bummer. Mudman1 has been now skadooshed twice.

He's like, damn it, stop that.

And so instead of marching towards you, it grabs a chunk of its belly, just this thick gloopy mass, and hucks it at you. I need a dexterity already.

Saving throws nast.

Do the Spider Man 10. It's been nine Spider man since nine.

Really? Okay.

My dice have not been doable.

That is gonna be 10 damage.

Oh, good.

Of the bludgeoning varietal and the area.

Okay. Type doesn't matter what damage doesn't.

Gotcha.

So that was a stupid joke.

We're not resistant to a lot.

Oh, actually, I'm resistant to bludgeoning.

10Ft of you is difficult terrain until the end of its next turn. Okay?

Okay.

That sucks.

Mudman 4, however, is not affected by this difficult terrain because it's made out of it. And so it marches up to you because you skadooshed it twice and it doesn't like you. Yeah. It throws a hand at you in a very fast fashion. Okay. With a crit.

Oh, good. I would like to argue that it should be affected by difficult to raid. Because I know that if I bleed all over the floor and it's sticky for everyone else, I, too, am getting stuck in my own sticky.

But you're not made out of blood. You just have blood in you.

Fine.

If you were to walk on a floor made out of skin, I don't think it would bother you too. But, I mean, it'd be gross, but it wouldn't slow you down. Gross?

I don't know. Is there bloodiness under the skin?

That is 14 bludgeoning damage to Emory.

I tried to advocate for you, Emery.

I appreciate it. I appreciate the effort.

That ended really badly, but it's bad.

I. Three on the die.

Bummer. Yeah. You are engulfed. You cannot breathe, and you are restrained.

Good. Good.

Great. James. Emory's gone.

My friends are disappearing very quickly. Which one's closer? Four or three?

I think three. Okay. Because you were near Alnaki.

Okay, I'm going to. Three is the one that swallowed Elliot, right?

Yes.

Okay, I'm gonna fire bolt that way.

Cooking Elliot.

All right, let's see what happens.

I'm just terracotta.

Yeah.

I'm turning it into one of the terracotta warriors.

That's what Elliot wants to be turned into a statue.

Any.

That is a 25 that.

That hits.

Thank God.

That's more than twice.

14 points of magical fire damage.

Grab it. Yay.

You know, I've used these fire bolts on demigods. Give me back the Elliot.

I feel like. I feel like you make that motion too, like you're throwing a baseball.

Yeah, that's exactly the same motion that I did with Ashford Fahel.

Yeah. And it hits and it cooks away the water. So Elliot is just encased in dirt. He could breathe. The monster's gone. That's good. But he has a distinctly beige hide now.

And everything, of course, is sopping wet, so.

Hey, you're free from the killing. I'm gonna head towards four with movement, if I can.

Yeah, you can make it. Okay. Anything else? Nope.

That's my turn.

Oh, knock.

Is there anything out of my rank?

No. Okay.

Just double checking which one swallowed Emery for a second. I'm a double. Hit him. So the first one's gonna miss with the four plus plus nine. Well, maybe not.

Yeah. 13.

13 hits.

13 hits.

And then the other one's definitely one at a time.

One at a time.

Just one. Let's start there, and I'll.

You can really stuff up your damage. Numbers are big.

11 plus 8. 19.

19. All right. So. Yes. You can go and do the second one. It's still upright.

You son of a. Well, that one. Extra hits because it's a 19 plus 9.

Well, that nails them. Yeah. Unfortunately, it's not a crit, but you hit so close, though, go to describe it.

That's a nine plus nine.

So.

I'm going to aim high, hoping like hell that Emory is not in.

A head fist tall. She is tall.

Yeah. She just recently got tall.

But I'm going to aim low and likely possibly between the legs in hopes that I can 5 hole this monster.

Either that, or it's gonna.

It's gonna.

Cause I don't want to concuss Emery with my hammer.

Thankfully, as described, it's got a. It's got the biggest ball at the bottom because it's a snowman. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Let's do that. We're gonna like, like. It's like that game of Mario Kart. We gotta hit the buttons real fast. Not Mario Mario Party Makes a little more sense. I don't remember that part of Mario Mario Kart.

That's weird.

We're just gonna. I'm gonna throw the hammer right at the bottom really, really hard and pray that I miss Emery. And it's gonna send the bottom down, and it's gonna crumple when it hits the ground. And when it comes back to me, I'm just gonna be happy. I don't want to bring any souvenirs with this one.

I don't want it. Perfect. And thanks to its non Newtonian state, Emery is unscathed by your incredible hammer thrust. Yay. Magic. You definitely. It's weird. You can feel the material compressing on you.

Yeah.

Honestly, not the most unpleasant sensation.

It's almost like a massage.

Almost.

It's like a mud bath, except for you can't breathe.

That's the downside.

And it does. You're just left there.

That is one of the downsides.

This place is getting a zero star review.

Yes.

Okay, good.

You're getting washed off, Emory. You're not in a mud.

You're welcome.

Spits a giant glob of mud on the floor. Thanks.

It tastes horrific. It's very accurate. And almost sour. Good.

Gross.

Good.

I really don't want to roll for what I'm doing.

Sour in the way that a lemon is sour.

Elliot's still in mudman 3.

No.

No.

Is dead.

Can I line up the Mudmen one and two?

Sure. Okay, sure.

I'm going to run to the point in the clearing where I can kind of get them all three straight in a line and hope none of my friends are in that line. I'm gonna lightning bolt them. Dex saves.

Um, that is a 12 and a 16.

16 makes it.

Okay, two fails.

The third today.

Mudman 3.

Oh, he's dead. Okay, never mind. I don't care about.

So sure. Nail him.

That's where Elliot.

Unfortunately, that was Elliot.

He's still on the screen and I.

Didn'T look at his hit points, so I thought he was still up.

So she's hell but determined. Elliot. I need a no accident cuz he has just canonically tip beige. Right?

Yeah.

So Mudman 2 fails. Mudman 1 succeeds.

Elliot is now Mudman 5.

It's 24 lightning damage.

Okay.

And half for the one that saved.

Somebody came back.

Yeah, they undeleted.

That was close. Roll off a one onto a seven.

Elliot, what do you got? You're crunchy.

It's gonna take me a second to compose myself from being that crunchy.

And you've made their damage identical. It's weird.

Then I'm going to send my hunter's mark to the nearest one of one or two.

We'll say two.

Two. All right, Hunter's mark two. And then I'm going to continue my attack on number two with my sun sword.

Perfect.

At least I'm not restrained anymore.

You are not. Be impressed if you miss.

Okay, I got these ones. Finally, both of them hit. My lowest is 18.

Yep, they both hit.

All right, Sue's gonna have a bad afternoon, so let's see here. The first one. 6 plus 5. 11.

Okay.

Is he still up?

Yep.

Other attack is 7. 5.

12. 12. That's a total of 23 damage. Yes, it is up. It's not looking hot.

Do I have any movement left?

Sure.

Then I'm gonna move away from you.

Okay. Misses its opportunity. Attack upon you.

Finally, somebody missed.

Gamble worth taking. Mel.

I'm gonna go attack mudman 2.

Okay, give it to me one at a time.

Okay, first one is gonna be 19 hits.

Describe it.

I punch it right in what would be its cute little button nose if it was in fact a snowman and not a mudman, and it does its whole weird non Newtonian disassembly thing. And having successfully punched that one, I will then do I have Enough movement to go to four Can.

You're Lightning Queen. You can make it.

Okay. Then I'll go to four and miss it with an 11.

Yes.

And then hit it with a 13.

Just. Yeah, yeah. Both sides of it's AC.

Nailed it for five points of punching damage.

All right.

And then I'm going to spend a ki point to run away.

Sure. Disengaging. I am assuming.

Yes.

Mudman 1. They're not smart. These creatures might shock you. Not, not. Not particularly bright. But it knows it can reach em. Okay. And Emery was the last thing it wanted to hurt.

Yeah.

Zippy Magoo there disappeared. So it's gonna try to hit you.

Misses.

All right. Just misses you. James. A mudman is marching at Emery and swinging its arms. A boot.

Okay. It's in melee.

It's hard to tell what's mudman and what's Emery.

Yes, it's in melee with her. Yeah.

Hovered in.

I would to like to charge it with my sword.

Is it a type C or.

It's a. It's a type stab.

No, it's a. It's a lightning port. Those are great.

No, that's what I did.

Yeah.

I don't use lightning cable.

Sorry.

The wireless charging.

I was going to say. No, it's a firewire.

Firewire.

16 to hit.

Good. Yay.

I'm sorry. 13 points of magical piercing.

Nope, it's not looking good. Oh, knock. Are you gonna finish it off?

Yep. I'm gonna go twice.

Has something else he wants to do.

Negatory.

Oh no.

So is that cocker?

Yeah, that's cock. That's the epitome of cock.

Very cool.

I can see it.

Well, that was worse. So I.

You almost can't.

So the first one. Oh yeah. So the first one was a 2 plus 9. So it's still an 11. But then the second one is a 12 plus 9. I think that would.

Yeah. It exceeds its AC by 9.

That's gonna be an 8 plus 8.

16.

It's destroyed.

How do I want to kill this one? You know, I aimed at the. Aimed at the middle for one. I took the face off of another one that was a scarecrow. So this one I'm gonna aim at the middle just cuz there you go.

Get one of each ball. Yeah.

So I'm. I want the ball to fly off into the ether, but when it comes back down, I want to bring the head back with me.

Okay. The head makes it most of the way, but then it's.

No, no, no, no, no. It should make it all the way back. It splatter across.

There it is.

Yeah. You threw a mud ball at yourself.

It was odd about it.

You catch the hammer and the mud just flies off straight on your face.

I didn't get that through.

That is fantastic.

That's exactly.

It's about time that old dog. Right, right. Reaped his own gooeyness.

Yes, you finally got gooped.

By your decapitation, the gooper becomes the goop in.

It's almost a recapitution. Put a head on a new body.

That's what I attempted to do at the beginning of this.

All right. You have completed combat. You are in a cornfield. And we will figure out how you get out of it next time. A theater of the park as we.

Walk down another path. What's with this fucking tractor?

Theater of the Mind presents Retribution is Amanda Arfston as Mel Kelly, Jeremy Arst Marston as Elliot Randy Bain Michael Burnell as Ulnock Vargar Johnson Michael Downes as James o', Brien Casey Weingarten as Emory Lee and myself, Mike Schock as your Dungeon Master. We release episodes every two weeks, so our next episode will drop on August 17th, an important day for us TTRPGers as it's National 2 Pencil Day. If you want to follow us up, our social media and website can be found in 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. Our music this week was sourced from Epidemic Sounds, who we are not sponsored by under the Creative Commons license. The songs used in order Dusty Rhodes by JF Gloss, Forever beyond by Luella Gren, the Grip of Reality's Limits by Eden Avery and Theme of Nightmares one by Frederick Ekstrom. The Theatre of the Mind theme, Ad Break and Outro were written by Mike Schock. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either either 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.

Hey, you know, sometimes an act of God happens in front of your eyes. James fucking Downs called miracles.

The whole ass book about him.

No, James believes in miracles. That's the only reason he's alive.

I believe in miracles.

I believe in miracles.

I have never understood what that thing is before, you sexy thing.

Nobody knows.

It came along. It's just sexy.

It is very, very much mouthy. It came along, to be fair, that's whatever.

I got you a little bit of slack on your mic.