C03 - Ep. 27 - From On Hyra -Early Bird Gets the Vermustang

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Previously, our adventurers were caught dead center in a duel.

After testing Gunther's tete-a-tete, Aunt Shannon Hoffered fighting instruction from formidable froggy friends.

Soon after, B-Team sojourned to Solicad and spoke with Iris the Bookie and saddled up for some vroom vrooms on Verma Stings.

Bring over a brew and let's buckle up for this bedtime tale.

Hello, everyone.

Welcome to Tales from the Sticky Dragon.

I'm your dungeon master Gustavo Sorola, and I was caught off guard.

I'm going to hit our four players with an arrow.

We are not caught off guard here.

This week's arrow question is: which celebrity from our world would your character be the most starstruck by?

And that's submitted by Buggy52.

Everyone, go ahead and roll that d20.

Let's see what order we're gonna do this in.

Shout out to Buggy.

Two.

Oh, also, it's

20.

Eight.

All right, Blaine, roll off.

Roll off.

You two roll off for third and fourth.

17.

Oh, I bet I could beat that with a 17.

Roll off.

No.

Let's keep going.

Come on, Barbara.

How are you going to keep this going?

What are the chances?

16.

Two.

Dang it.

All right, so who at the 20?

Me.

Gunther.

So it's Gunther, Naddy, Doug, and then Tolf.

Hi, I'm Chris Damaris, and I play Gunther, the male Croakfolk fighter, level six.

And for me, the celebrity I would be the most excited to meet is, of course, Carmel DeFro.

Oh, yep.

Are you not not like offended by him?

Like

his representation of frogs being maybe unrealistic?

Oh, I think it is very realistic.

Wait, is Gunther's representation of frogs realistic?

Maybe.

He's a different type of frog than me.

He does not burrow.

He's also much better at singing and dancing.

Could you sing one of Kermit's favorite or famous songs, Gunther?

Get a five, six, seven, eight.

It's not easy being green.

I was hoping people would check it out on that one.

It's actually really nice.

It wasn't being close to the melody, but I love the effort.

Can we have that available?

Chris, can you sing It's Not Easy Being Green and we can post it on

Patreon?

We have a chance of copyright infringement with that one.

I love it.

It was so good.

Yeah, the melody is totally different.

It's totally different.

Yeah.

We could call it it's difficult being a made

of

emerald.

Yeah.

There you go.

So, Gunther, this begs the question.

I know everyone's thinking it.

Is your wife a pig?

Don't you take that out of your mouth?

No, no, I'm just like a literal, not she's not a pig.

Oh, God,

Gunther's climbing on the stage.

He's about to hit Gunther.

Take that out of your mouth.

Okay, here it is.

Oh, there it goes.

Gross.

Cool.

All right.

Thanks, Chris.

Next up, I believe we've got Netty.

Howdy, everybody.

It's John Reisinger, and I play Natty Wonder, the Drought Warlock, Drag Queen, mother of the bringer of the apocalypse.

Mr.

Gigglesworth.

I think I've been pretty open about a lot of the people that I like and a lot of the people that I've styled myself a little bit around.

But the celebrity I'd want to meet might be a little bit of a surprise to people.

But if you really think about it, it shouldn't be that much of a surprise.

Obviously, I'm a lover of music and musical talent.

And the musical giants out there, I've made reference to plenty of times.

But if there was one celebrity I got to meet, it would be this hunk of a musician that I've got the hots for.

What?

His name is Mr.

Johnny Cash.

Oh,

that's a good one.

Yeah.

First time I saw that man ever performing, I had the vapors.

I thought you were going Orville Peck.

I thought you were going RuPaul.

You took me on a journey there.

I didn't expect Johnny Cash.

I was thinking Johnny Cash.

There you go.

I think you set it up well.

Thank you.

Yeah, so that's who I'd want to meet.

Johnny Cash.

Or at the very least, go to a concert.

That's all.

I think your wife may have met him.

Too soon.

Too soon.

His wife has been meeting a lot of people lately.

Yeah.

This week.

Yeah.

Oh, cool.

Yeah.

I think

very well suited.

Thanks, Natty.

Well, we'll talk maybe in a second winter something about some more Johnny Cash.

Love to.

Up next, I believe, was Doug.

It is.

Hello.

I'm Barbara Dunkelman, and I play Doug Boone, the artificer bugbear, level six as well.

And

you know, I think, obviously, you guys might think people Doug would want to meet.

Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein,

you know, Benjamin Franklin.

These famous guys who are very smart, You know,

Alexander Wambel.

And of course, Doug would be absolutely starstruck to meet these guys.

But ultimately, similarly to Natty, Doug is a lover of music.

And it might surprise you to hear this, but Doug would be absolutely starstruck to meet Madonna.

Madonna.

Okay, big fan of her music.

Which era?

Okay.

You know, kind of like the 1984, kind of like a virgin era.

some of the best music yeah ex exactly you know some of the best stuff over there doug used to to blast for music when he was working in his workshop and just you know especially uh you know because we are living in a material world

bug uh

just some of my favorite stuff there i was gonna ask what your uh favorite song was but you you belted one out

pretty good i also papa don't preach is a good one you know i could go on but I'll save those for whenever I do meet Dolly, not Dolly Potten.

Whenever I do meet Madonna.

John, I always think about Dolly Potten because of Natty.

Well, maybe we can reach out to her people and see if we can get her on Doug's on the ones and twos, which I hear is blowing up.

It's massive.

Yeah, you know, maybe,

depending on when you're listening to this, maybe that's something that's coming soon or already out.

It's probably already out by this point.

Hopefully.

Hopefully.

We are telling ourselves one way or the other with that call.

We're not good at planning too far ahead.

Okay, thanks, Doug.

What musician does Tove want to meet?

Because everybody's doing musical.

Well, Kermit's kind of half and half.

Yeah, Kermit's

very musical.

Triple that.

Yeah.

I will say when Doug was talking about liking a musical act, I was thinking maybe like Devo or something like that.

So maybe very up Doug's avenue.

But yeah, Madonna, didn't I expect that?

Anyway, I'm sorry, Toll, you're up.

Well, hello.

I'm Blaine Gibson, and I play, ooh, you who it's me, Tolf.

I am a male or

Thaumatech barbarian.

I still need to change that.

Here we go.

Another week, another me needing to change my character sheet already.

Now, pull it up.

I'm trying to change it last week.

No, no, no.

I'll do it.

I'll do it.

I'll do it later.

I'm a level six male Thalmatech barbarian.

And I have a bit of a cheaty answer.

Oh.

I guess if I wanted to do musicians, it would be Bjork, obviously.

But no, I actually,

yeah.

But no, I have an actor.

Actually, a family of actors.

This again is a bit of a cheaty answer because I love the Scars Guards.

Oh, they're wonderful.

The Stellen and the Alexander and the Bill.

Oh, I love Bill.

Pennywise.

Even Gustav and Stéphane, the lesser-known Scars Guards.

But they're they're just so great.

And

wow, they really are just a family of Vikings going out and pillaging Hollywood and starring in every film genre and franchise you can imagine.

I just re-watched Nasferatu, and yeah, Skarsgaard gets he's lost in that character.

It's fantastic.

Yeah, no, they're such good actors, and I think that's something I channeled with when I was lying to you about being an orc.

I was like, what would a Skarsguard do to lie to their friends?

And they did own method acting.

So that's why I ate food and then would spit it out whenever you guys weren't looking and things like that.

Yeah.

Delicious.

Yeah.

Generally, if you see a Scarsguard in a film, you know you're in for a good ride.

Yeah, like if Scarsguard shows up, you're like, ooh, yeah, we're in for something good.

Yeah.

And Alexander, oh, he's so cripped.

And have you seen the Tarzaned movie?

It's actually very good.

I mean, you'd think Northman would be my favorite, but Legend of Tarzan, so good.

So good.

Marco Roby.

I thought you would have wanted to meet Brent Spiner.

I don't know who that is.

Data.

Oh, Star Trek, huh?

That's cool.

What about the guy from Bicentennial Man?

The guy who's

the actual Bicentennial Man.

Oh, robots, people.

Yeah, no, I just, I just can't get enough of those Scars guards.

Or Haley Joe Osmut.

Oh, also, a good one.

I want to meet Flubber.

Another green flubber.

Yeah.

Maybe I can make my own flubber for you, Bundle.

That would be so neat.

It would help me jump.

Oh, it looks like

it looks like Giggy already made a bunch of flubber-like substance over there.

All right.

Everyone roll a D20.

Lowest roll has to clean up Giggy's flubber.

I literally pulled up my dice to roll it right out as soon as you said that.

The fun thing is you don't know which end it came out of.

Yum!

Fun.

All right, let's get everything set up and get these races underway.

Natty does change Natty's attire through her morphing abilities into a very fancy racing dress and a big old white hat.

Oh, nice.

Very appropriate.

All right, you all lead your Vermistangs out to the starting line.

There's little stalls with the gate in front of it.

And Iris is watching it from the side.

And with a flurry of magical explosions, go off.

On your mark, get set.

The gates open.

And from the top of the crackdus, all of you hear a loud, blood-curdling scream.

And with that, at the same time, a fifth unknown Vermistang takes off from the starting place and starts the race.

We're going to do this kind of a way that we've done before where we're going to have a skill challenge, and I'm going to describe obstacles that are in your way.

Then each of you is going to tell me how you're going to try to get around it, and we're going to have a little bit of fun with this.

We're going to see who wins and wins their money back, I guess, from the betting with Irish.

Should we go over who's on who?

Yes, why don't you all tell me which Vermustang you are riding?

I'm on, I believe, Poppin' Fresh.

That sounds right.

And I'm on the winner, Terry, everyone's a favorite.

I'm on precious little Anhill.

And I'm on the fourth one.

I didn't write it down.

Help me.

You are on Wester.

Wester.

Yes.

Isn't Gigi writing it for me?

Giggy's writing it for me.

Yeah.

Oh, that's right.

Giggy was on it.

Okay, so we're going to do this, and we're going to have three rounds of racing, and we'll see uh who comes up first so every round ichi is gonna make a skill check and you cannot reuse a skill check twice and the dc of the skill check depends on the risk involved but i'll announce it before the roll there's no magic and you're playing against the other riders so you're playing against each other and this mystery rider who has shot out of the gate racer x racer x yes speed racer your goal is to have three successes before two failures okay so why don't we uh everyone go ahead and roll an initiative for me so we'll determine the order everyone's going to go in.

Ooh, 23, 18,

24.

Alright, so we've got Gunther with a 24, 12 with a 23, Maddie with an 18, and Barbara with a 9.

Oh, and I gotta do race for

Barbara, the fourth character in this campaign.

Yay!

That's funny.

I wrote down,

I read as I typed it out, and I wrote Barbara instead of Doug.

We are one in the same.

It's because I'm such a good character player.

Player only.

Player only.

I'm gonna make a shirt says player only.

Okay, Gunther, we're going to start with you.

Giddy up, little

wormy.

Worm Mustang.

Oh, that's good.

Gunther, you take off with a shot and you're going down the straightaway.

And as you do, a nearby cliff begins disintegrating and a rock slide begins coming down the track in front of you.

Don't get knocked over.

What do you want to do?

What are the capabilities of like, how does the worm thing move?

Does it move like a horse it's got like jaggers legs yeah that that like a horse but they don't end in hooves okay could could i try and make the horse jump like jump over it yeah and i'll since you asked i'll reread the description of vermostang to you since we haven't done that in this episode it's a worm horse that's horse shaped with no hooves and worm skin and it's got a colored mane of hair and yeah it gallops pretty quickly through the sandy ground all right so yeah you want to try to make it jump yeah hell on hell you must must use your wings to fly.

That came out more dandel than Gunther, but whatever.

All right.

It's angel.

What kind of check do you want to make?

I guess like, would that be acrobatics?

Yeah,

make an acrobatics check, we'll call it.

So you're just trying to make a jump?

We'll call it a DC-15 acrobatics check.

I passed with a 21.

Ooh.

That was a high.

That was a high.

I was nervous.

What?

15 is kind of high.

15 is pretty middle of the road.

You have a plus eight on that.

You You whisper into El Angel's ears to fly, you fool.

And it takes to the air gracefully, jumping over the skittering rocks and boulders that come onto the track right in front of you.

Next up is Toll riding Terry.

Yoo-hoo and yee-haw, let's go, Terry!

You begin catching up to Racer X, and as you do so,

I'm glad you used my joke.

I like it.

It made me laugh.

I wrote on the initiative order, Racer X.

You begin catching up to Racer X, and right as you pull alongside Racer X's Vermostang lashes its head out and tries to headbutt Terry.

How are you gonna try to evade it?

What are you gonna try to do?

Well, first and foremost, I'm gonna make a mental note to talk to Iris about the safety of this race course because I'm seriously questioning it.

And then I think I'm going to try to,

you know, scare them back.

You know, maybe intimidate them with Terry, make them second guess fighting Terry and Tov, the dynamic duo.

Okay, so you're gonna absorb the headbutt and then try to scare them back?

I'm gonna try to challenge the headbutt with a headbutt of my own.

Some like a counter-attack.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

How do you want to do that?

What kind of check you want to make for that?

Whatever a parry mixed with some sort of check to, I don't know, like diverting their

momentum to make them attack themselves in some sort of way.

I don't know.

Yeah, I don't think there's a judo check.

All right.

How about we do sleight of hand?

You're like trying to get around them and redirect it.

Yeah, sure.

Sleight of head.

Yeah, sleight of hand.

We'll also call this one a DC-15 sleight of head check.

Okay, here we go.

That's a six.

Is hero is inspiration dies allowed?

Yeah, you can do an inspiration die.

Thank God, Terry, that you could have goofed that up so bad.

Good thing this next roll is going to be a victory.

14.

Just ever so shy.

So I think Terry's trying to gauge how to avoid and, you know, redirect this headbutt.

And we'll say Terry manages to avoid the head butt, but when you go out to kind of redirect and give the energy back to them, you kind of stumble a little bit.

And Terry, instead of continuing down the track, begins going perpendicular to the track and veers off to the side.

Oh, oh, no.

You begin falling behind a little bit.

Oh, no, I'm tangled up with Racer X and now we're kissing.

Oh, no.

So Gunther Pass, Toll, you kind of stumble a little bit.

You avoid the head butt, so you don't take any damage or anything, but you do end up falling behind a little bit because of the kerfuffle.

Okay, because I'm right, I'm right where I want to be.

One mistake away from failing?

No, I have a plan.

I have a brilliant plan.

I have concepts of a plan.

All right, next up, we've got Naddy.

Nope.

Yeah.

What'd you roll?

I'm not in the race.

Doug.

I'm not Doug.

Geeky.

A lot of people get Doug and Geeky mixed up.

Yeah.

We are very similar.

Giggy.

Riding Wester.

As Giggy is riding Wester going down the track, a flock of birds that was circling overhead begins getting lower and lower, and suddenly you see a murder of murderous crows begin pursuing Giggy, trying to peck at his eyeballs.

Well, the early bird gets the worm.

Because we're riding worms.

Thank you, Nigel Thornberry.

What does Gigi want to do?

Giggy would bare his teeth at them and be growling at them to like show his alpha dominance like a like a little kitten trying to like puff up.

Yeah.

If the kitten was a team it was a demon from hell.

Why don't you make an intimidation check on that?

And we'll also call this one a DC-15.

In my head, now, for the first time, Giggy is like a Stitch.

Or Lilo.

Is it which one is it?

It's a stitch.

15 with no modifier.

Nice.

Plus zero on

intimidation check.

The murder of murderous crows descends and begins trying to die for Giggy's delicious, juicy eyeballs, but Giggy bears his teeth and the murderous crows think better of their plan and begin climbing away and continue to circle the track from above.

Next up, we have Racer X.

As Racer X rounds the bend, he comes across a dead animal that's laid across the track and just tried to jump over it.

Fail, fail, fail, fail.

Racer X makes the jump, and you can see as he clears it, his Vermistang tries to kick it back at the racer behind them, but his kick to kick up the dead animal in your faces fails and does not manage to actually kick it up.

Also, this isn't a sponsored thing for a 17-year-old movie, but the Wachowsi Speed Racer, really good.

It's incredibly good.

It's really good.

You should watch it.

A lot of people have slept on it.

I've never seen it.

I'm one of those people.

It's incredible.

It's maybe one of the best anime adaptations in a live-action format.

Heart agree.

I don't know.

It's ghost in the shell for me.

All right, Doug, you're up.

You would be pulling up to Racer X, and his Vermustang, once again, rears his head around and tries to headbutt your Vermustang.

What do you want to do?

Could I maybe, while this is happening, see if there's like a better kind of angle or path that like mathematically that my Vermustang could take to avoid this.

Yeah, it's geometry, right?

Yeah, idea, Watson.

Yeah.

How do you want to do that?

Like investigation or do you have a specific role in mind you want to make for that?

Like perception.

Yeah, you should be able to do a perception check to try to figure that out.

Since this is kind of in Doug's wheelhouse, we're going to make this a DC-10 perception check.

Okay.

11.

Good thing it was.

You see Racer X's Vermustang rear its head and you kind of expected this might be coming after seeing what happened with Toll.

So you make a break for the inner lane to try to pull away, and the headbutt clearly misses you and popping fresh.

Uh-huh.

Miss me.

Now you gotta kiss me.

Wait a minute.

Two out of the four of us have made one about kissing the Racer X.

We all want to kiss Racer X.

So hot.

Why don't all of you make perception checks since we're talking about Racer X?

Okay.

Ooh, that's a 19.

18.

14.

Is this Natty or Geeky?

I'll let you choose.

It don't matter.

Natty could be watching.

I rolled a seven at best.

I'll say everyone except for giggy slash natty kind of gets a look at Racer X.

You see that Racer X has bristly hair and looks vaguely familiar.

Maybe a little on the on the plump side.

And is a human.

Okay.

Okay, we're back up to the top.

Gunther.

Who have we met that's on the plump side?

That's a human.

Colonel Boy.

I wish.

Love that guy.

You like the

person that wasn't, yeah.

Yeah.

Gunther, you know, you see Doug take that angle and move to the inside.

You're distracted for just a second, and when you look forward ahead onto the track in front of you, Gunther, you turn around and you see a large cactus in the middle of the track.

Oh, no, what are you gonna do?

Oh, no.

Well, Gunther would use his survival skills to avoid natural hazards.

Okay, yeah.

Make me a survival check, We'll say this cactus is so big, you're going to really have to kind of try to find your way.

Make a DC20 check on this one.

DC20?

Yeah.

Give me one of those 11s, Gus.

What?

What 11?

Gus.

Or

whatever Doug has.

Okay, I'm rolling.

Don't worry, Ganto.

You can make it through the wilderness.

Somehow you'll make it through.

Wait, what was it?

20?

You wanted a 20?

Yeah.

I rolled an 18.

Mm, close.

That's pretty good.

Gus is playing favorites again.

Barbara always gets

mad.

Favorites.

Because he picked one of his modifiers that's high.

And so then Gus met that with a higher check he needs to make.

It's not even that high.

It's a plus four.

But watch this.

I'm going to choose religion.

He's going to be like, Brilliant 30 savings throat.

All right.

Can I, can I use?

I guess I'll use my inspiration die.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, go waste that inspiration die.

I like Gus's response.

Well, I want to try.

Yeah, go for it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

21!

Aha!

Whoa!

Eat Chris's butt, Gus.

Num, nom, nom, nom, nom, nom, nom, na, no, no, stop it.

Yeah, you see this huge cactus, and at the last second, you drift your Vermistang around it and narrowly avoid hitting the giant spines and getting them in your leg and your Vermistang's side.

Ooh, close call, Gunther.

Thank you.

So that's two successes for Gunther.

We're moving on to Toll.

Yoohoo.

Yoo-hoo, Toll.

What kind of treachery do I find from that dreaded racer axe?

I hope it's not more kisses.

Oh no.

A nearby body of water, it looks kind of like a stream.

I think I described it in the previous episode, begins rising and flooding and running over into the track.

And now there's rising water on the section of track that you are on, Tollv.

What are you going to do?

I'm going to pick up such speed, I'll be like a skipping stone gliding over the water bracefully with terry oh i like it what kind of role do you envision that being i've got an idea but i want to hear what yours is you're probably going to say athletics which is my highest modifier so you're going to make it something impossible but i think that that's the most appropriate one athletics right or is it acrobatics i was thinking acrobatics but since you said like gliding and skipping and not like brute forcing through it but you want it's whichever you want chris pick one acrobatics or athletics i thought acrobatics thing say acrobatics acrobatics all right why'd you put it on me i don't know you're just standing there Yes, and

yeah.

I was like, oh, shoot.

I have to make a decision.

Why don't we make this also a DC-20 check?

Brutal.

Okay, here we go.

Ooh, you know I failed.

That's a six.

Ooh.

Ooh, yeah.

Okay, you try to power your way and kind of glide across the top of the water, but Terry doesn't quite have enough speed, and you end up getting bogged down in the water and the mud.

And slowly, Terry begins sinking deeper and deeper deeper into the mud betray you

immediately immediately the swamp everyone in a certain age range uh becomes very upset when you hear something described like that until eventually yeah terry is chest deep in mud and unable to move and tol the race is over for you oh you know what that means i've got to put terry down i got my warhammer

sorry terry you had a good run close your eyes Look away and think about rabbits.

Don't do that.

Canonically, I will not kill the swamp, the horse thing.

We're going to go hoofer on this guy.

No.

All right, that brings us to

Giggy.

Hoofer's alive.

Trodener's goat.

Stupid hoofer.

Giggy is racing, probably.

I would imagine he's looking up at the crows and like shaking his little fist and muttering curses at them under his breath when he suddenly rides into a giant dust devil that has wandered its way onto the track.

It's obscuring his vision.

Where's the track?

Where is he?

What does he do?

Hmm.

He would probably

just be like, okay, if the Vermistang just goes really fast, as fast as possible in some direction, he'll get through it.

It worked out for Toll if it'll work out for Giggy.

I just can't think of anything else that like if he was in like, if he's a toddler who is stuck in a space he doesn't want to be in, and so he's just going to want to muscle his way through that space.

Again, I'm going to make a reference to a cat.

Like if you get like a cat with a plastic bag attached to it, and then the cat just has to get away from that plastic bag, but has no like idea of like how not to hurt itself while it does it.

Okay, what kind of check do you envision that being?

I have an idea for one, but what do you think?

I feel like he would bear down on the Vermistang, like gripping it really tight and just like really trying to like push it forward.

So I would would say either something strength-based or he could be trying to persuade the Vermistang to go as fast as possible through like, I don't know, intimidation or persuasion.

So I'm gonna let the DMs go.

These are all good.

You did intimidation last time, so we cannot reuse that.

So let's go with something strength this time.

Sure.

Now keep in mind, Giggy's life depends on this role.

If he fails, he dies.

Good luck.

You can make an athletics check, I think.

It would be good.

That's a a strength-based one.

Go ahead and make that check.

And we'll call this one.

Hmm.

This is also kind of hard.

So I'm going to give you the option here.

I can give you a lower DC, but then you have to make a separate roll to see if you pick the right direction or a higher DC and you don't have to pick the direction.

You don't have to make the roll to pick the direction.

That's fun.

Let's do lower roll and luck into a good direction.

So just make a, we'll call this a DC 10 check to see if you can go fast and then we'll roll for the direction.

Yeah, you got 16, but but his modifier is negative 3.

So 13.

Yeah.

That's why I went low check because I'm like, he's got a negative modifier on strength.

He's small.

He's small.

Yeah, he kind of bears down and gets the Vermistank to pick up speed incredibly fast.

Now, so what we do is I'm going to have you roll a D6.

One and two, you veer off to the left.

Three and four, you go straight correctly.

Five and six, you veer off to the right.

Go left.

Who said that?

It's like a ghost.

I like to picture Like the face of Kyborg, like partially dissolved over Giggy's shoulder, just appears and says, go left.

You can do it, bro.

And Giggy bites at it.

No, ow.

He rolled a six, so he goes the same.

If you're off to the right, yeah.

So it makes you fall behind a little bit, but you're still in the race.

You haven't, you know, totally fallen off the trail.

So is that a failure?

No, no, no.

You're still in it.

You're just falling behind a little bit.

It's a success.

You made the successful roll.

Oh, okay.

Cool, cool, cool.

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Okay, so now we are up to Racer X.

Okay, Racer X is racing along, then as he is accelerating, the sand beneath the feet of the Vermustang begins sinking in and collapsing into a sinkhole.

And he must try to power his way out.

He is going to make a athletics check for this one.

And this is pretty difficult.

It's going to be a DC 20, but don't say I don't challenge him to.

And he rolled five.

That is a failure.

Racer X begins sinking, kind of like, you know, in old cartoons when someone steps in quicksand and they begin, like, sinking into it and they can't move.

It's kind of like that.

Begins slowly sinking into the sand, significantly slowing him down and letting everyone catch up and or pass him.

Which brings us to Doug.

Hello.

Doug, you are riding Pop and Fresh, not Coopin' Fresh, as I wrote down here.

Let me write that.

Yeah, that's what you call him when he goes to the bathroom.

As you're racing along, a giant sack is tossed onto the racetrack in front of you.

Independent of everything else, make me a perception check.

20.

Ooh, that's a really good roll.

As the sack hits the ground in front of you, it opens up and you see 22 pieces of gold spill out of it onto the track right in front of you.

Deal or no deal?

No, wait, hold on.

What did I bet on this race?

I think I bet like one gold.

Yeah.

You know what?

I'm gonna overcome my greed in this moment and keep on racing.

No deal.

According to the calculator, this is 22 times the earnings you could get from your bet.

I'm gonna, I'll leave it there for Giggy to pick up for Natty.

I think she's uh, she's in need of some.

Yeah, see, the problem is Doug has a gambling problem, and so they, even though it's an easy win, Doug has to

play the

bet.

His pride now is at stake.

Okay, so yeah, you look down and contemplate the deal or no deal for a moment, and then when you look back up, you have to very quickly pull yourself back onto the track and find the best angle once again to get ahead.

What kind of check do you want to make for that?

I mean I get would it be another perception check if I'm like essentially doing the same thing with figuring out the angle?

Yeah, but we can't use the same check again so you gotta find think of like a different way to do it.

Well from the previous time I did it and I did it well what if I use my history of that moment and do a history check.

Sure, you've learned about the local landscape and you're applying that knowledge practically now.

Why don't you make me a we'll call this one a DC20 history check.

Oh dear.

Gustavo, that was a natural 20 with a seven modifier for a 27.

Go Doug Racer, go!

I noticed.

Yeah.

I noticed.

Once again, works out the best angle using his history of mathematics and knowledge of the local landscape.

History of mathematics.

History of mathematics.

Mathematics of history.

Pull poppin' fresh back on track onto the best line.

Which brings us back around to Gunther.

Get y up.

You are looking at the track, and in front of you is strewn out rotten fruit.

It looks like someone maybe just dumped trash all over the track in front of you.

It's covering the whole track, and it's super deep.

Let's say it's like a 10-foot patch in front of you.

What are you going to do?

Okay.

You have done acrobatics and survival so far.

Yeah, you should stealth.

Can I do like a dexterity check to try and like weave through it?

Yeah, but it has to be a skill.

Gotcha.

Okay.

You could pick a dexterity-based skill.

Okay, what about this?

Gunther will lean down and try and push all the stuff out of the way as

the worm's running.

Looney tunes.

It's like curling.

Well, this whole thing has been like Hannah Barbera's wacky racer, so 100% this is this is on track.

I guess that would be sleight of hand is what I would propose for that.

I like it.

It's a very creative solution, but it sounds like it would be incredibly difficult.

So once again, why don't you make me a DC-20 sleight of hand check?

Getting me all the hard ones.

Listen, when you're in the front of Mario Kart, you don't get blue shells.

13.

You don't have an inspiration?

I think you used it already?

I used it on my last 20 check.

All right, yeah, you lean over and begin swatting away at the dead fruit, but as you're doing so, Elon Hell's legs begin hitting your hands at the same time, and it just ends up creating a huge mess, and your hands get really dirty.

Oh no.

Dinky rotten fruit.

So it does cause you to slow down just a little bit.

All right, we're back at Toll.

What are you doing, Toll?

You're out of the race at this point.

You have a horse that's never-ending storying over here.

Yo, go get the money.

You know, I'm glad that you came back to me.

No, I won't cheat.

That's not the Tollv way.

Instead, I will be comforting Terry by singing him the classic ABBA song.

The winner takes it all.

Yeah.

You want to give us a taste?

The winner takes it all.

The loser has to fall.

It's simple and it's plain.

Why should I complain?

But tell me, does she kiss?

And then go for that high note.

Like, I used to kiss you.

We're getting into racer X territory now.

It isn't easy being green.

Why don't you give yourself an inspiration die if you don't have one, Tolv.

Oh, wow.

Hey, I'm going to add singing to my list of things to do to get inspiration die out of you.

You have a list of things to do?

Yeah.

Jokes is crossed out.

Those died long ago.

Yeah.

Good jokes.

Yeah, good jokes.

That's the key.

All right.

Toll tollv is beautifully serenading terry as terry is slowly drowning and dying no he's i see we saved him we saved terry can i make a roll to save terry i didn't realize he was dying he's sinking you can make like a strength check or something to try to pull him out yeah i want to lift this thing out seven i'm gonna use my inspiration die

30 20.

Yeah, you

managed to start pulling Terry back out, and he's no longer sinking and

is slowly making his way out of the muck.

Don't give up, Terry.

We have so many more races to win.

FYI, I was totally going to kill Terry.

Oh, no.

Okay, so that takes us to Gigi.

Gigi comes across that same sack of gold that was tossed out at Doug earlier.

So he sees the shiny gold on the track.

I feel like that would motive, at least motivate a Gigi check to see if he maintains concentration in the race or if he goes for the shinies.

Is that a typical Gigi 10 or 11 or higher?

Yeah.

That's a five.

I would think that that means Gigi stops the race and begins getting on the ground and grabbing all the gold and stuffing it in his mouth.

Could I try something as mama and try to convince him not to?

What do you have in mind?

Like, can I just yell from the stands, like with all the boisterous volume that Naddy can muster to tell Giggy no?

I'll tell you what.

Is there something that you have been, a lesson he's been trying to learn that could maybe be applied here?

Oh, yeah.

I think like

focus.

You know, like any toddler, that is not something that is in their wheelhouse by default.

In fact, the opposite.

And so we've been trying to work on focus because I'm going to need him focus eventually on his main goal and not get distracted by monies.

Shinies.

Or shiny things or candy or biting stuff or pooping in places he shouldn't.

Or stealing stuff.

Or saying bad words to people that he shouldn't be saying.

How many parents do it?

Spoiler, we do it poorly.

Why don't we get a taste of Natty's adult parent voice here and how she will try to convince Giggy?

Mr.

Gigglesworth, the harbinger of the great end, immortal keeper of the souls, blood harvester of darkness, and generally just a good boy, wonder, ye stop it.

Ye stop it right now.

I'm getting flashbacks of my mom doing this to me.

That's very well done, John.

It's like when you hear your middle name, you're like, uh-oh.

Yeah.

All right, why don't we treat this as a life lesson with Giggy?

And why don't we throw a wisdom check in here and see if this is like a permanent lesson that Giggy's gonna learn or not?

Oh, that's fun.

Good.

Actually, I was thinking about that.

We haven't done one of those in a bit.

Yeah.

So give us a wisdom check.

Let's see how it goes.

Will this trauma sit with him for the next 15 years?

Find out.

Is this easy, medium, or hard?

That's DC 10, 13, or 16.

Yeah, I'm going to say this is a medium one.

It's not basic social skills, slightly more complex.

It's personal skill.

Yeah.

You know, it's self-control.

Hey, that's an 18.

All right.

I'll say that at that point, like, you catch Gigi as he's stopping and, you know, like looking down and beginning to reach to grab, to put gold in his mouth.

And he hears you, turns, looks, and like does that thing like a dog where he cocks his head and you see like the light bulb go off behind his eyes.

He looks around and then pulls his vermistang around and continues the race.

Disappointing your mom is a powerful tool.

Apparently.

I know all about it.

Powerful incentive.

So I don't don't think in-game we've really dug into the life lessons with Gigi aspect.

We did that one episode where everybody got to do a life lesson.

Yeah.

But since Gigi passed this check and learned focus, the additional reward Giggy gets is he gets an additional hit die to his HP.

Yeah, I've been keeping track of his HP getting up, which I kind of think of like him actually growing.

Oh, does he get physically bigger?

Like, he learns this lesson and physically gets a little bigger on the Vermustang?

Yeah, I was thinking that, like, he should grow as we adventure, because I think that's fun because I think he does need to grow to something that's of a apocalypse bringer.

Yeah.

Although I can't remember what we figured out his hit die was.

D4?

Yeah, it's D4.

He's going to get an extra four points of hit points.

He's up to 36.

So yeah, Giggy perceptibly gets a little bigger.

He's not quite as small as he was before.

He's not huge, but he put on, like, he

walks up a little bit and turns around and gets his Vermistang back on track and begins resuming the race.

That Vermistang is suddenly like, it's heavier.

That's one-eighth bigger compared to his previous HP.

So yeah, he gets one eighth bigger.

How much bigger would you get, Blaine, if you got one eighth bigger?

Oh, let me see.

That'd be.

Come back to me.

Math is not my son.

He's got to figure out what one-eighth of like 200 pounds.

He's gaining roughly 23 pounds.

Whoa.

That's a significant amount of weight.

Yeah.

That's like almost as much as David Kornspot, but honestly.

I've lost that amount since last summer.

It's not a small amount.

So yeah, Gigi does good.

Okay, great.

Gigi has learned something and is still in the race.

Oh, hold on.

Let me check here.

Oh, that means that's three successes for Giggy.

So what's he got to do to win at this point?

Pass an English test.

I mean, he did fail the check to go get the stuff.

Is that not a fail?

We'll finish out the round.

It's only Racer X and Doug, and then we'll determine the winner based on all of the extenuating circumstances like that.

Let's go dope.

All right, so it's Racer X's turn, and you know, I'll say, like, all this weaving by Giggy causes Giggy to get in the way of Racer X.

So, Racer X has to perform some evasive maneuvers to try to get around Gigi or else either fall or collide.

So, I'll say, like, Doug, he's gonna have to find a path.

He's gonna try to perceive a better path to go on.

Uh-oh, maybe he makes a charisma check for another kiss from Tov.

Sorry, I'm just being around the presence of horse-like beings.

I just

Voluptuous horse-like beings.

That's in 19 plus 4, which is a 23, which is a success.

He did fail his previous one, right?

He did fail his previous one.

He was stuck in sand for a little bit.

So, yeah, Racer X manages to very quickly turn his Vermustang and cut the corner around Gigi and avoid collision and continue on the race.

Which brings us to Doug.

Woo!

Doug's got two successes, right?

Doug does have two successes.

I'm going to say if Doug has another success here, Doug is the winner because Giggy went slightly off course in the previous one.

But if Doug fails here, then Giggy's the winner.

Oh my God.

Only if you say it's a photo finisher.

It's going to be close.

I mean,

they're really neck and neck here.

We're a winner, Doug.

Come on.

Once again, the murderous crows make a reappearance and swoop down, trying to eat Doug's delicious eyes.

Doug, there's a murder of crows all around you.

What do you do?

Oh, man.

Doug gets really small like a bugbear and gets in the ear of his vermistang to hide from.

I don't know how small Doug can get.

I just went like full-on micro within.

I know it's not a check and I don't know if I'm allowed to do it, but can I cast shield?

No, we said no magic in this.

What about my steel defender?

Is he allowed to be

or is that considered magic?

Come on, Gambot.

That's not magic, but yeah, and your steel defender's always out.

You could try to figure out a way to use Gambot if you want.

He has the ability to kind of like extend his head up, like in a spring-like motion.

So I'm imagining he's just sitting on Doug's shoulders just springing and so the crows are kind of being swatted away by Gambot.

Yeah, sure.

What kind of check do you envision Gambot using for that?

I guess animal handling?

Sure.

Why don't you make an animal handling check?

We'll call this one, I think I said DC15 last time when this happened to Giggy, so let's do a DC15 again.

Ulfer surface-to-air missile.

The fail to six.

Ooh.

Ooh, do you have an inspiration die or anything you want to use?

No, even though I was so funny earlier on and I sang different songs and lyrics, I did all these things.

Barbara uses guilt on Gus.

Is it effective?

So, no.

Okay, got it.

Okay.

Judges checked.

Oh, yes, he has to have emotions for this to be a guilty guy.

Ooh, the

person from Russia, bad slow score.

But could I see that Gambot is failing and then

instead of this, just do it myself?

Ah!

Ha ha ha!

No, we'll say that the

have a talking to him and teach him how to speak properly.

The crows begin pecking at Gambot.

Well, at least Gambot distracted them from you, Doug.

So your eyes are safe, but the crows do peck at Gambot, and you have to, like you said, spend some time trying to shoe them away.

So they don't peck at my eyes, which means I'm able to continue on nice and straight.

Can you guys hear that?

Yep, that's Barbara's competitive nature coming through.

You know, I'm just trying to be fair, since one of us got to be able to talk to our little companion creature guy.

You're talking to the 20-2015 check guy here.

20, 20, 15.

Everyone's so sour.

I love it.

I don't care if I win.

Give it to me.

I'm singing album to my horse that Gus almost killed me in the bad time.

No, genuinely, Barbara is someone that I would.

If Barbara was on one of those reality shows, I would root for Barbara because I don't think anybody would want the win more than Barbara.

Go watch Survive Lock Island season one.

It's true.

Available for for first sponsors over Russia.

Generally super fun.

Yeah.

You can see me lose terribly.

All right, in a photo finish down to the very end, Giggy manages to pull ahead and pull out the victory at the very last second.

On Western coming in.

What's Giggy doing in the photo finish?

He's mooning the camera.

That's amazing.

So wait, when you say photo finish, who's it between?

Doug and Giggy.

Yeah, and you say he's mooning the camera, and is that

Flubber?

Nice.

Nice call back.

Give yourself an inspiration, Doug.

There you go.

My guilting work.

Nope, for the record, no, it did not.

I'm not encouraging bad habits.

I'm going to teach a giggy lesson here to everyone.

I don't think I was able to put any money down on this anyway, so I don't think I win.

Yeah, Giggy pulls ahead and wins the race.

Oh, wait, no.

Tolv fronted me money.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Five gold pieces.

So Tov wins money.

You all reconvene together at the end of the racetrack.

What do y'all want to do?

Could I go run back onto the track to

get that gold bag?

Well, no one's watching.

Yeah, so y'all reconvene that Doug immediately darts off back onto the track.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nanny would go up to Giggy and like raise him up over her head and like be cheering about how good he did and everything like that.

I want to comfort Elonhill.

How's that go?

Elon Hill, you won in my heart.

And I tell you what here, eat this.

That evil cactus.

I have cut it up and now you can cut off the thorns and now you can eat it.

Gunther, that's not the front end you're talking to.

Oh my goodness.

Oh my goodness.

Elon Hildegard you sneaky sneaky.

What about 12?

What's 12 doing?

He has sunk further and further into the quicksand with

Terry.

Yeah, just thumbs up as he goes down into the quicksand.

SOS WIABA as we both sink down.

No, I would have taken Terry to the stables and would have been cleaning the mud off of Terry and giving him a pep talk.

You did a good job, Terry.

Don't let him get you down.

Very nice.

Very nice.

I feel like worm horses would like the mud.

Well, then I put more mud on him.

How about that?

You're a super trooper.

Racer X pulls up as well and dismounts from his Vermistang.

I guess Doug has run off.

Tolva is off.

So Racer X would address Gunther and Naddy at this point and just kind of shake his head.

Oh, I would have won if you hadn't played dirty.

You did not play dirty.

Nothing played dirty except for someone who throw trash.

Yeah, now who did that?

Oh, I guess we'll never find out.

Natty would reach out to shake his hand anyways, because she's a good sport.

The racer would reach out to shake Natty's hand as well and say, I'm Sheldon.

Sheldon.

Sheldon, Sheldon, Sheldon.

Hello, Sheldon.

Is this your first time here at my uncle's place?

Yeah, this is Iris' nephew.

Who?

Iris is the person that was keeping the horses and running the batting oh they mentioned that their nephew is a racer oh okay i'm gonna give blaine my inspiration dice i have

for remembering that there's something about them looking familiar though but i don't know if we've ever met them or is it just because they look like iris sheldon bears a striking resemblance to iris now that uh now that you put it together really really looks like a younger version of iris oh we'll say doug you picked up uh the gold on the track

hey naddy i know you came into some bad luck recently so um here you go and doug hands half of the gold that he found on the track track over there.

Wow, 11 each then.

Oh, can I approach the group?

Yeah, yeah, I think as you're approaching Cole, I'll let you say everything here in a second.

Sheldon will say, Head over to my uncle Iris, and he'll give you your winnings.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to put block splitter back up.

And he takes his vermistang, turns him around back in the direction of the stables.

Oh, okay.

Did anyone else hear a merger?

We heard a scream.

Maybe that was just like the starting bell.

Yeah, that's just how they start them.

They just go, oh,

they start with a human sacrifice.

I'm gonna join the group, but as I'm passing, Sheldon, I say, hey, Sheldon, good to see you, Bazinga.

I was waiting for a reference.

Nice, nice.

Let's go over to Iris, and then we maybe can investigate what this scream was.

All right, yeah.

You all head back over to Iris's booth.

He says, oh, that was a good race.

You did very well.

Iris, were you throwing things into the track?

Be honest.

No,

never.

That was probably the spectators.

They can get so boisterous here.

Can I take a vibe check on that?

Yeah, make that inside check.

10.

You believe he is not hiding anything.

Can I approach Iris?

Yeah.

Say, Iris, we're not very familiar with this location.

Is it kind of a rough and tumble place?

Because we may have heard some sort of act of violence at the start of the race, and it's very concerning.

Oh, I heard that too.

It sounded like it came from the top of the cragtas.

I think we should go check that out.

Someone might have been hurt or in danger.

The cragtas is just a local attraction, right?

It's a monument.

Like that big castle thing.

Yeah, I knew what it was to look like, but I was like, its function is

just a tourist place, right?

How many people like living here?

Yes, it's a popular attraction.

Meta-wise, he mentioned last episode that y'all could ride a lift up to the top.

But like, is it like the Eiffel Tower that it's just to go look at?

Or is it like the London Tower where like prisoners used to be in it?

Eiffel Tower.

Yeah, okay, so it's just something purdy.

Yes, it's beautiful.

Well known.

They probably built it in the middle of nowhere to just attract tourists and stuff, right?

That's my, yeah.

So just as a reminder, now that we're done and the way this conversation is going, I just want to remind everyone of the general landmarks in the area here.

That way we're refreshed.

So there's the cragtus, which is a cactus-shaped boulder that's the size of a castle.

It looks like it almost has stained glass on the outside, and there are lifts to the top, which was also described to you by Iris.

There's also an aqueduct of some kind.

It appears to be like a constructed channel of water flowing from the direction of Endridge Bay with a stone bridge crossing it that kind of seems to flow into the crackus itself.

And there's also the racetrack that runs around the crackus across the aqueduct.

And there's this booth that Iris is in with a sign that reads, Place bets here, no magic, and the wooden corral of worm-looking horses.

Their spectator stands just past the booths.

And that's it.

Well, I feel like, as team leader, since I'm checking my device,

as team leader, I suggest we settle our bets and then head up to the cractus to investigate what's going on.

Why are we here?

Why are we at the Sola Saunders?

We're heading back from Endridge Bay.

That's right.

We're passing through.

Okay.

You're heading back to Fort Endridge.

Which means just like we're supposed to always, we get distracted by just random stuff that is interesting to us.

Exactly.

Can't avoid betting.

on horse races, you know.

Oh, definitely.

How much had you bet, Naddy?

Five.

so uh iris counts out five gold pieces and hands them over to naddy here you go wait all i got a bet all i got back was what i bet oh ten gold pieces you're right five and then five yeah ten gold pieces congratulations winner okay i give all ten to tall oh that's just so kind of you know this guy's got a pretty sweet deal because he gets you only get 50 50 earnings but everyone bets so like yeah the house always wins really wins on listen casinos in Vegas didn't get built because they give you money, right?

It's like, when you walk into a casino in Vegas, it's not because they're giving money away, right?

All that opulence, you see.

I want to go to Vegas with Chris so we can pick fights with all of the pit injury guys.

No way.

No way.

Oh, Chris got his legs broken again.

Dang it.

Should we hurry and go save the dead person?

Chris is counting cards again.

One, two, three, four.

I head to the crackdus.

Yeah, let's go.

I think, Nadia, that's a great idea.

Got your money.

Let's head up.

As we walk away, Giggy goes up to Iris and holds out his hand like he's supposed to win, too.

Wait, didn't you get double if you raced?

Yeah, you do get a little extra.

There is a bonus for racing as well.

So there is a little bit of money set aside for Giggy here.

I figure you're just going to give him like candy or something.

So yeah, half the winnings go to the rider, half go to the better.

So I'll give it as a bonus to Gigi.

We'll give an additional two gold pieces of winnings over to Giggy as acting as the writer.

And he immediately puts those in his mouth and eats them.

Savings account.

That's not going to come out very well.

Oh, you invest and then it will grow.

Pay off in dividends.

Oh, he made a deposit, all right.

Yeah, the payoff in flubber.

Okay, you guys head over to the cactus, which, as I said, is a cactus-shaped boulder the size of a castle, and it appears like stained glass.

And in one direction, I think in the last episode, Iris pointed out to you that there were lifts that you could pay to get up to the top.

What if we don't take a lift?

You want to try to free solo this?

Probably very tall.

Oh, I just didn't know if there's stairs, you know?

No, no, no.

It's a huge boulder.

You'd have to rock, climb up.

Make a investigation check for me, Natty.

Oh, that's not going to go well.

Except I rolled a Nat 20.

Woo!

Ooh!

With a modifier of plus one, so 21.

Gustavo.

If you had to estimate, you'd guess that the crack is probably about 100 feet high.

Cool.

How many people fit in one lift?

Like, is it one person per lift or could a whole group of us fit?

Three people, one bugbear.

It's one person per lift seat.

It's like a little seat that takes you up.

You know, like a ski lift, it's kind of like on a track that goes around, but each individual little seat is just for one person.

It's just those chairs attached to some elastic cords and you sit in and it just launches you up to the top.

There's a type of ski lift that is individual person and it looks like a little T bar and you have to like put it in between your legs and like the T goes around like the back of your legs uh-huh those would stress me out so much as a kid trying to get in one of those yeah that is exactly what i had in my head i didn't know how to describe it adequately i'm glad you did barbara because that's exactly what i was

that's how barbara got to school every day through the snow

honestly because we we could do some some like snow sports in california where i grew up because we had the mountains out there that it wasn't the getting on the ski lift that always got me it's when you get off to dismount Because

if you're snowboarding, this, because I would go snowboarding, one foot's not in the board.

And so you have to kind of like get off and keep going as you get off the thing and don't fall there and be where everyone else is getting off the ski lift.

Because it just keeps moving.

And so more people are coming in a second that need to get off the ski lift.

How much is it per person per lift?

It is one gold per seat.

I'm pretty flushed with cash.

I'll pay for everybody.

Dang.

As you walk up, it's just like how Iris described.

There is a tiny cactus with a mouth for a coin slot and a little sign by it that says one gold piece.

I'll put in, I guess, five at this point.

Does Giggy need one or can they can children ride for free?

Giggy can sit in Natty's lap.

Okay.

Four gold pieces.

Cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching.

Actually, Gigi goes in Natty's wig.

Oh, okay.

Even better.

He's getting a little big for that.

He may not be able to do that much longer.

I feel like a last.

I just,

I am a little embarrassed that I might not be able to get on this very gracefully, so I just don't want you guys watching Doug.

That's fine.

That's okay.

Doug, that is a great question.

I was about to ask, what order is everyone getting on?

So I'm going to write Doug last.

I'll go first.

I'll go next.

I'll go third with kind of a loose handout in case Doug needs it, you know, to support them.

While also respectfully not watching because they asked.

I had a friend that he was a very large football player in like high school, and we went to 6.5's Magic Mountain, and there were a couple rides that the overbar things, he was too tall and big for it.

Like they couldn't click, so he couldn't ride the ride.

Incidentally, unrelated to anything else, I typed everyone's names in on my computer to keep track of the order everyone's going in.

Gunther is the only name it auto-capitalized.

Is it because it's the only like

name?

Yeah, it doesn't recognize everybody else's.

Maybe.

Yeah.

Because Doug is not typically a name.

Tolv is not a typical like English name.

And natty is not a name.

Natty's a way of describing whether a person's on steroids or not.

That's what I'm saying.

That's the only thing I can think think of.

Wait, really?

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

It's, are you natty?

Is it, do you do a natural?

Oh, I didn't know that either.

Yeah, I'm not.

I'm natty.

You do say, Gustavo.

What if, what if Gus was taking steroids?

What if this was the result of steroids?

And we just don't know because we just see him on a webcam.

Yeah.

I always remember Gus had abs.

Every time I saw him, he had abs.

It's like a, yeah, it's a no.

Okay, not anymore.

Not anymore.

Naddy, you are up.

12, you know, pays the one goal for you, and the lift comes around with the seat.

Go ahead and make me a strength check to see if you're able to successfully get on the lift.

Uh-oh, Doug's nightmare.

12.

What is my strength modifier?

Plus one, 13.

Yeah, you go to hop onto the lift.

You grab onto the bar, but you can't quite manage it, and you slip off, and the lift continues going without you.

Uh-oh.

Does that count?

Could like Geggy reach out his little hand and grab onto it and just drag you up?

Actually,

what if...

Now never mind.

Oh, I could fly a little bit.

You can?

Yeah,

that was an update from the last time they all loved.

An update?

Like, yeah.

We got a new natty DLC.

The new patch.

The new natty patch.

Elemental gift.

As a bonus action, three times per long rest, you can give yourself a flying speed of 30 feet that lasts for 10 minutes.

Can Natty fly to the thing and try again?

So, well, here's the thing I'm thinking.

You didn't go in the direction I was expecting.

Natty could also just fly to the top.

You said 100 feet was how tall it was.

Right, but I want to ride the ride.

Yeah, the flank speed's 30 feet for 10 minutes.

So Natty would just have to spend 18 seconds.

You know how your walking speed determines in battle how far you can go?

It's not how far Tove can walk until he can't walk anymore.

Right.

Tov only got 30 feet out of Ender

Endridge.

So you want to try to get back on the left.

Okay, Okay, so let me describe the way it works.

It's kind of like how Barbara said, how it's a T.

When you pay the gold, the T opens up, and then once you're not on it, it goes the seat folds back up into just a bar.

So, in order to try to get another shot, you have to pay another gold for it to open up and accept another butt.

I'll fly up.

Okay, Tolvari was very generous with paying it, and Natty's low on funds, so I'll just fly up, but I'll fly up like right in front of it, so it looks like I'm using it.

Yeah, I was gonna say,

do it like where everyone thinks you're using it, yeah, yeah, yeah, but I'm just like hovering in front of it.

Why do I imagine when Natty flies, though, it's just a T pose?

She just like

dragging an acid in Photoshop, you know, like uh uh Magneto in Days of Future Past when he uh when he just lifts himself up and just like

yeah, but instead of a cape, it's just her wig.

Yeah,

all right, Gunther, it's your turn to try to get on.

Make me a strength check.

Nat 20 for 20 19.

All right, nine nat 20 for a twenty nineteen

You grab onto the lift and manage to plant your butt firmly in it.

And the lift picks you up.

It's slowly taking you up to the top of crackus.

And next up is 12.

Why don't you make me that strength check, 12?

You bet.

Also,

they're not very compliant with accessibility laws, I'm pretty sure, but you know, that's an adventure for another time.

No, I'm not compliant at all.

They need some help with that.

12.

All right.

You try to grab on, but your hands, maybe your hand's sweaty or something.

I don't know.

You can't get a good grip on it and slide right off of the lift.

All right.

I will take another gold and I will hang it.

All right.

Yeah.

You put another gold in the cactus and the next chair opens up into a T, and you can try again to sit on it.

Make another strength check.

Hey, Doug, watch this.

10.

Somehow that's even worse than before.

Just would you roll me in the face?

You can roll to 10.

10.

Roll to 10.

And you, once again, slide off, narrowly avoiding the seat hitting you in the head.

All right.

Third time's a charm.

Here we go.

One more gold piece for the house.

13.

This place is a tourist trap.

12.

Maybe, you know, you keep trying to show off for Doug or show him how it's done.

Maybe you should have focus on yourself because, once again, you fail to really get a good seat and fall off the lift.

Hey, another gold piece.

What's your strength modifier?

Aren't you, Barbara?

3.

If I rage, maybe I can do it.

You wouldn't rage at this point.

Yeah, yeah.

After three failures.

14.

This is really infuriating, told.

Once again, you try to grab on and you slide off.

We'll say this time, the bar does kind of bop you on the head a little bit.

One more gold piece.

Rolling it again.

Fifth time's a chunk.

12.

I already know the answer.

Skipping this one.

The vibes off.

Rolling again.

14.

Another one.

this is the one here we go

come on dude five

oh my god he's rolling it again i i like to imagine doug is just here waiting as toll is just coin coin coin just falling coin falling in the head yeah over and over just smack smack

Gus, I rolled a net 20.

Eighth time is the charm.

It takes eight gold, but Toll finally does it.

Doug, this really boosts your confidence.

No matter what happens to you you cannot look nearly as foolish as toll does that's what i did

especially with no one behind me watching right so yeah toll you finally get the hang of it after eight tries and you manage to hold on to the lift and it takes you up doug this really does inspire you so why don't you make me a strength check with advantage oh wait how is this gonna work

Toll, since you went up, did you leave a gold for Doug?

I have plenty of gold.

Yeah.

I was just trying to be nice by paying for everyone's entrance, not knowing it was going to take me eight tries.

Okay.

Can you take me higher?

All right, Doug, go ahead and make a strength check to see if you with advantage, since you've seen how not to do it.

Okay, that was first one was a four, and the next one,

next one was an 11.

Oh, no!

Even with that guidance, yeah, you're not able to quite do it.

Maybe like your fur kind of slips off of the handle, and you're not able to get a good grip on it.

I'm trying to see if I have anything that could help me in this situation that would give me some type of advantage.

That's a very, a very dug approach, analyzing the situation, seeing what's available.

He just finds an off switch near the thing to just like stop the ride and then you can get on and turn it back on again.

Yeah, I'm like, could I cast warding bond on this thing?

Okay, I'll just, I'll just try again.

There's one gold.

Oh, 17.

Oh, okay, yeah.

On the second try is the charm for you.

You're able to successfully grab on and ride the lift with all of your friends.

I can't imagine that the checks for actually climbing this could have been harder than getting into the chairs.

Listen, I feel like it's accurate for how hard these things are actually to get on.

I know, we just had that conversation about it.

I like that before we did it.

You set the stage for this, Barbara, and how difficult this could be.

It really put it in everyone's mind.

Yeah, it's very stressful.

You all take the slow, leisurely ride on the lifts once you're on up to the top of the crack.

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After just a couple of minutes, you dismount.

Don't worry, I won't make you make a check for that.

Thank God.

It's a DC20 check.

Otherwise, you go all the way back down.

Yeah, I'm riding it.

I sleep on it.

No, no, no, no.

We're not doing that.

We're not doing that.

You dismount on the top of the cractus.

Like I said, you're about 100 feet higher than you were before, and you look around and you can see miles in every direction.

It's a really beautiful view.

Up on top of the cractus, along with you, you see a goat that appears to be asleep.

Oofer?

Oh.

Barney?

Sorry.

You heard a goat and you turn immediately into Barney.

Hoofner's baby.

He's been here here the whole time.

Before we wake this goat, do I see any signs of like broken glass or anything that may have had to have done with what we heard at the start of the race?

I'll tell you, this is going to be weird, but I want you first of all to make me a perception check.

Okay.

The goat could have been the screen.

Or it could have bucked someone off of the top of the thing.

18 on perception.

Okay, now make me a nature check.

Ooh, I am one with nature.

That is a pin.

Yeah, you look around trying to find what could possibly have been the source of the scream, and you consider the goat for a second.

And, you know, it looks pretty patchy.

It must be tired if it's asleep and hasn't heard you all.

And it seems almost like it's surrounded by a flickering aura of dark light.

And it kind of draws your attention.

And as you look at the goat more, you think maybe the scream you heard was a goat screaming.

So we didn't see anything related to the scream.

It was just we heard the audible scream from atop the tower.

The crack is yes.

The crack is pardon.

It's got a dark aura.

An aura of dark colour.

It's a haunted goat.

Could Natty

investigate or

check on that dark light aura as a spellcaster to see if this is the magic that she's familiar with or if like any bad vibes are getting from it?

Yeah, you want to make like an arcana check?

Yeah.

Plus one to Arcana

with a natural one.

So

that's a two, guess.

So maybe someone just installed black lights here.

Yeah, I don't know.

Well, Erba, it seems safe to me.

Go ahead and approach it.

I checked my shield.

Is my shield doing anything strange?

No, seems not reacting at all.

Okay.

Which number sibling is it?

I told you, you know what?

You know,

we could have just, I could have, shut up.

I was just curious.

I mean, they could be your, they bitches, robots, as people, but maybe, like, sibling number five was made of a girl.

Maybe I'm a little bit more.

I'm like a Beast Wars guy.

You know, I can transform into like a

gorilla man.

So we don't really know much about this creature.

Just seems like a Apache goat that is asleep.

Get in there, Doug.

You got some investigative power.

Do I try to read thoughts?

See if this goat's thinking about anything?

Yeah.

Of all the things that I thought you're going to do, that was not on the list of them.

I like to keep you on your toes.

I love it.

I love it.

What's this goat thinking?

12 of them.

How does that work exactly?

Can you read to me what it says for the read thoughts?

Absolutely.

I target one creature I could see within 30 feet of myself, and you detect with the sense thought option.

You learn what is most on the target's mind right now.

If the target doesn't know any languages and isn't telepathic, I learn nothing.

Okay.

Yeah, you concentrate on the goat and use your mind reading powers and you sense frustration and unhappiness.

You see from the goat's perspective, people yelling at it and taking it and leaving it here on top of crackers.

Oh, I don't like that at all.

Honestly, I feel like this goat has not been treated good.

Oh, no.

Has it been bullied?

I think it has been bullied.

Maybe we should go talk to him and maybe take him under our wing or something like that, or at least help him back down.

Yeah, we don't want to bully the billy goat.

Oh, I see what you're doing.

Just wondering, what is that stupid grin you were wearing?

I have no idea.

Bully the billy.

It's like, why are you smiling while you say that?

Can we approach the gootie?

Absolutely.

I think he's safe to approach.

Just be kind to him.

Hello, little billy goat.

The goat's eyes blink, then it looks startled for a second as it sees you and stands up.

And it asks,

who are you?

Oh, I am Gunther, and these are my friends.

Doctor, night.

It looks around, regards all of you, and says, Were you sent by the bedrock?

No,

we're nice to goats and not don't want to bully you.

What's the bedrock?

I was sent here as a sacrifice to the bedrock.

Aww.

You're doing a great job of a goat voice, Gus.

I gotta say, thank you.

I hope we don't recast that because I think Gus is doing a great job with this voice.

I'm impressed.

I'm always impressed.

You are a man of many talents.

It was not my fault, but they blame me for everything.

Like what?

What do they blame you for?

And who's they?

Failed crops.

I was sent here as punishment.

I carry the sins of all.

Oh, you're a whipping goat?

Some would say a scapegoat.

Nanny, that's Nanny laughing.

Not John, just Nanny.

That happens every time I introduce myself.

So, what are they sacrificing you to?

Is there like some sort of monster or dragon or deity that you're supposed to be appeasing?

Yes, the bedrock.

What's the bedrock?

I asked that question.

What's the bed?

Is it what is that?

She is a god.

And what happens if there is no sacrifice from you?

Um, I don't know.

Hopefully, nothing.

That's what I think.

Is that why you got bad, like, you got bad aura around you, like a dark aura?

Is that like all the sins or something?

Yeah, everyone in the community puts their sins on me and casts me out to sacrifice me and purge their sins.

Oh, God, this is Jesus goat.

Oh, no.

You know what?

I don't think that...

And a cactus is like a cross a little bit.

Oh, no, I was going to say that.

Micah, what are you doing here, Micah?

I approach.

Some people would say Jesus is the goat, you know?

Take an inspiration, die.

This isn't me doing any religious commentary, but this is me comforting the goat and saying, I don't think that you should be the one to blame for some people's misfortunes.

So I, for one, think that you should not be sacrificed.

You seem like a decent being, and you should have a second chance.

You shouldn't be shouldering the blame of a bunch of other people.

Thank you, but maybe I did it.

No,

did you do it?

Oh my god, did you do it?

What did you do?

No, I'm just you don't know me, that's all.

Maybe, maybe you do.

Can I do a vibe check?

Yeah, make an inside check.

Goat's weird.

16.

You think that this is a complicated goat?

You think that maybe

the sins that have been placed on it are affecting it, you know, this dark aura.

Oh, it's

like a kind of a.

It's like he's holding a ring that he's got to take to a mountain to get rid of.

Can we put the sins onto something else?

Like this hat?

And Gunther holds up his eelskin hat.

I forgot about that.

Has Gunther been wearing that this whole time?

No, but he's had it.

He sometimes puts it on in moments of privacy when he wants to to feel special.

No, I cannot transfer them.

It has all been put on me.

This is my life.

It's those mages down there who put me up here.

They're over there by the aqueduct.

And he kind of motions with his head down towards the base of the cactus, which in the direction of that aqueduct you saw before you came up.

Maybe we should go talk to the mages and release this poor goat.

You come with us.

What's your name?

Escape goat.

Escape goat.

No, not like Escape Go.

Escape Go.

Eh, close enough.

No, I cannot ride on the lift.

Neither can we.

Why don't you go talk to the sorceress and see if you can convince them to take me down?

I agree with that.

Do I have like the context that maybe are these related to like was it was it Mother Abbey?

Who was the who was the mage lady?

Campaign one, I think.

No, no, yeah, you're right.

You're right.

That was that was uh oh god, we met them.

They were like the uh priestess.

Yeah, they were at at the

chess, priestess chess, yeah.

Do you think that

they're related?

Thank you, Barbara.

Make a

religion check.

Okay.

That's not bad.

16.

This doesn't seem like it would be related to you based on your knowledge.

Okay.

Okay.

I think we will have a word with these mages and see if we can lighten your load, Mr.

Scapegoat.

Or if not a word, then a sword.

Perhaps I can offer assistance with the sword.

Go on.

Okay.

How show?

The goat begins, you know, you ever see a goat eat something, you know, how that really exaggerated chew, like when they're grinding up.

Plant material starts like doing that with its mouth, like chewing on something, and then it spits something out at your feet, Gunther.

Oh, okay.

Pick it up and inspect?

Yeah, it looks like a tooth.

That's one of my teeth.

You can craft it to a weapon.

Oh, my goodness.

Oh, are you like an inventor of some sort?

No, I'm just afflicted.

And much like the goat, this tooth also has that flickering aura of dark dark light about it.

Accursed tooth.

Thank you very much,

Mr.

or Mrs.

or just scapegoat.

Thank you.

Whatever.

Is there anything else of interest at the top of this cragdis?

You know, you can see in every direction.

If you wanted to, you could like look into other directions or you could just head back down.

We'll probably come back up here to talk to the scapegoat, so I don't know.

John, Barb, Butte, you guys, I don't know if you guys wanted to talk talk to goat anymore or look around i don't want to speak for y'all but uh i'm i think i'm i'd be good to ride the dreaded lifts back down

oh we gotta come back up

one last thing that'll help you in dealing with the sorceress the scapegoat kind of gets a little closer to you for there's a secret entrance to the crackers oh

very easy If you follow the aqueduct in, you can enter the inside of the crackers.

That's cool.

So, would it be advantageous for us to use that entrance to then go to the aqueduct that way, or should we go to the aqueduct the front way and get down off of this crackus first?

Get down first, then go to the aqueduct and enter crackdas that way.

Okay, are these sorcerers

anything that they do not like?

Goats, apparently.

I don't know what they don't like, but they believe sleep to be sacred.

Sleep to be sacred?

Yes, I mean, yes, Sorry.

Yes.

Like, just like normal, like a nap or like the forever kind of sleep.

Nap, dreaming.

Dreaming, okay.

Okay, bye-bye.

Okay, bye-bye.

But

I want to seal this, you know, promise in keeping with your culture.

And Tolv wants to bonk the billy goat's head with his own.

That's cool.

Oh, yeah.

Let's make a pro-strength rolls.

Okay.

18.

Nice.

Eight.

Okay, yeah.

You butt heads with the scapegoat, and you managed to push it back just a little bit.

It falls off the wire.

Yeah, very good.

Oh, crap.

We're going to do our best to get your situation figured out, Mr.

Scapegoat.

Thank you.

All right, you're all heading down.

What's the move here, leader?

That's me.

Yeah, why don't I gather everybody around for a little bit of a strategy meeting?

Okay.

All right.

So we're going to go and meet up with these sorceresses, and they clearly are the religious type, and they clearly have customs here that they might be following that they think that they're doing this for the good of everybody so we got to do this diplomatic like okay okay we are visitors in other people's lands and this there's other customs here okay respect okay yeah okay so who here should be leading the discussion on talking with these sorceresses oh that's a great question i mean i know a lot about different religions and ways of life just from, you know, my readings and studies.

But the only thing is I'm not very good at talking to people.

So.

Well, Doug, do you know how you get better at that?

Out, natty.

Don't say talking to people.

You don't have to talk to people.

It's practice.

It's something you can't get.

It's one of them things.

You're going to learn this, is that there's some things that book learning can't actually teach you.

I've read things about exposure therapy as well.

All right, I think this is perfect and just know just know that all of us back here me and Tove and Gunther and Gigi and Gambot and I think Captain Grumbles is still here he might just be a pile of oats somewhere at this point because I think

he's there he's there he's there okay we're all here to back you up okay yes look at this charisma team wow look at us all we will beat the muscle yeah well I was thinking more like we'd be emotional support for our friend here because we're not trying to intimidate people I'm glad I brought this up because Gunther, that's why I wanted to talk about this.

This is a diplomatic situation.

This ain't no like bullying situation.

Yeah, I kind of saw that coming from a mile away.

I was like, I think we're all on the same page, but I think that this whole group meeting is specifically for one person.

And yeah, you just converted to some practical thing.

Gunther nods and winks.

Yeah.

I don't think he's understanding now, DD.

Started brandishing his sword.

Yeah, yeah.

He's slicing his throat with a skinner.

arrow.

Okay, okay.

Then we've got our game plan.

Doug, you're gonna be the talk.

And Tov, you watch that frog, okay?

You don't let that frog do anything, okay?

You got it, you got it.

That's your responsibility, okay?

Let me ask him not to mess this up, Gunter.

I mean, it might be a good distraction if we need it.

But everybody's job is to be sending Doug good vibes, okay?

Okay, here we go.

Okay.

I like him.

Natty shuffles Doug forward to have us all head towards the aqueducts.

Okay.

You walk over in the direction of the aqueduct, and it's a constructed channel of water flowing from Endridge Bay.

There's a stone bridge that crosses the water, and there's a couple of what appear to be mages near the bank.

Are those the guys?

Yeah,

I don't know.

I mean, yeah, probably.

I mean, those might be like the welcoming party.

Like, we're probably on the outside of something where there's people on the inside.

Should we like talk about the game plan?

Like, are we telling them about the goat?

That's a good question.

I would say until we get to maybe someone in charge, our goal is to try to get to someone in charge and let them know that we want an audience with them.

Um, oh

one of the sorcerers is drawing a pail of water out of uh the aqueduct.

When it hears you say hello, it kind of like jumps and drops its pail.

It turns around.

Who are you?

Oh, sorry.

Uh, my name is Boone, and here with me are my adventurer friends.

Uh, we got that creepy guy over there waving a you're tall, he her.

Dental giant over there.

And then that little guy over there, this gunter.

He might need to go boom-boom.

So that's who that was that noise.

And then right over there is Natty.

Addy.

Very friendly.

Very beautiful.

Hello.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, what are you doing here?

We're looking for your supervisor.

Flynn's not available right now.

Maybe you can leave a message and we'll pass it on.

Flynn.

Well.

No, I didn't say Flynn.

you said Flynn.

Well, it's funny because Flynn and I actually go way back, and so if Flynn is, you know, somewhere inside,

he wouldn't be surprised to see me, he would be excited.

So, maybe you should.

Inside,

inside what?

Well, I mean, because I know Flynn, I know there happens to be an aqueduct right here that will allow us to go inside and up to Craig Tis.

How do you know Flynn?

Well, uh, here's how I know him.

I will

send thoughts.

Just just sorry.

This is an audio podcast.

I am putting my hands to my head

as though

I'm sending my brain out in order to determine their just use telepathy.

Re thoughts.

Well, technically,

if we're being accurate, I think I could only use that once per long rest.

You used it on a goat.

I did.

You used it on the goat.

I did.

I did.

But it gave you good insight.

It's true.

Yeah.

Okay, well, he asked the question.

How do you know Flynn?

Okay, well, yeah, me and Flynn, we

go way back.

You know, we used to talk about how sleep is sacred.

Very good, yes.

You know, we used to bond over our love of sleep.

Yeah.

They called them the lazy boys.

Oh, did you kick your feet up with Flynn?

Absolutely, yeah.

Have you ever seen Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory?

You know how the grandparents kind of sleep like that?

Kind of

sardines in the bed.

That's kind of like me and Flynn.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Well, I bet Flynn will be excited to see you then.

Perfect.

Well, we will be on our way just after Natty chimes in.

You said Flynn's not here right now, and you could take a message, but maybe we go find him or them wherever they're at.

Are they at like the local watering hole?

Are they on an errand?

Are they at home or anything like that?

They'd understand if we stopped by.

Flynn is currently at headquarters attempting to connect with the bedrock.

Oh, oh, that sounds so.

I've always been interested in learning more about the bedrock.

They sound like such an interesting deity.

Where might that be?

Is there like a local temple that you guys do that at?

Make a persuasion check, I guess, Natty.

I have advantage on those.

What's my modifier?

That's still a pretty good roll.

That's 17.

17, that's pretty good.

Oh, yeah, Flynn, you just have to follow the secret entrance in the aqueduct.

And then the sorceress stops and kind of like puts their hand in their face.

Oh, no, not again.

Don't feel bad.

I think someone who's honest and nice is a good person, and you should be very proud of yourself.

The sorceress, like, shoulders are slumped and turns around and says, I spill the beans every time.

Actually, I'm gonna go take a nap.

I'm gonna sleep this off.

I think Flynn would really appreciate you being so honest to friends of his.

Thank you.

I'm gonna

go pick a nap.

Thorce turns around and walks away and finds like a little patch of grass along the side of the aqueduct and mats it down and lays down.

Like a dog?

Like those little circles to mat it down or something?

Similar, but like, yeah, kind of match it down.

Like, you can't just like lay down in a bunch of grass.

I've got to like lay it down and make a little.

A crazy person would do that.

What you gotta do is do little circles around the little grass.

You gotta make sure there's no snakes.

All right, well, uh, shall we go inside, everyone?

Yes, let us.

Yes, but before we do, 10 out of 10 performance, dog.

Very good socialization.

You're doing so good.

Black a pro.

My confidence definitely has increased by at least 0.6%.

This is a growing moment, and you have gained one-eighth your size.

I might not be able to fit into the awkward right now.

Do we know where the entrance is?

Gustavo.

Is it like just in it?

Like the water?

I think, Chris, the way you described it is probably most accurate based on the information you have so far.

Just follow the flow of the water.

We're like, enter the water, and the water leads you in.

Okay.

I feel like we should maybe have Hov lead the way just because he's the most familiar with water and might be able to sense kind of way to go inside.

I'm also very

spends lots of time underwater.

That is true.

I forgot you are a fall.

You are a dangerous fall.

Don't even say that.

Yeah, what are you saying?

You've been doing nothing but talking about how water's so rare and sacred to easy.

Especially, that's how I know how much to swim in it.

The good thing, though, about Gunda leading the way is if he does his voice from under the water, we'll hear the bass

of leading the way.

Gunther, can you breathe under water?

No, but I can hold my breath very long.

Oh, don't you answer my question.

That's all I needed.

No, no, no, thank you.

I can breathe under water.

Okay, as leader of the troop, I shall make an executive decision.

Tov shall take front, and then we will have Gunther.

And then Doug, you'd be right behind Gunther, and I will take up the rear.

Gunther salutes.

Yes.

All right.

All right.

Forward, march.

You all enter the water and realize that the aqueduct is kind of deep, you know, and is moving fairly quickly.

Why don't all four of you make dexterity checks just to see how you're able to keep your footing and if you're able to resist the strong flow of the water?

Ooh, five.

That's an 11.

17.

My dear god, six.

But did Natty give me an inspiration a while ago?

I did.

Can I use that, Gus?

Or was it like you need to use it in the middle?

Ooh, 15.

I won't use mine yet.

I'm gonna keep the five.

Well, I just made a whole huff about being the water guy, so if I were to fail in front of Gunther, I would never hear the end of it.

He'd be like, all right, Tony, Zoom.

I'd be like, our barbarian failing on a bunch of strain chair.

Doug and Naddy lose their balance and get swept up with the current.

The water rushes them forward, knocking them into Gunther and Toll.

The momentum causes everyone to spin and flail about.

Soon, you all are careening down a dark underground tunnel, caught up in the current, unable to see clearly.

Amongst the splashes, skittering noises shuffle along the tunnel ceiling, and several beady eyes leer at you from above.

One after another, lizards leap from the ceiling, lunging for your faces.

And we're going to resolve that in the next next episode of Tales from the Stinky Dragon.

Oh,

Gus and your cliffhangers.

Oh my goodness.

You're kind of under the cliff at this point, but yeah, it's the same concept.

Oh no, Racer X, he's back, he's kissing me.

Oh!

Ever wondered what it'd be like if the Infinite had known each other when they were babies?

Well, wonder no more.

The two-part adventure of our special tavern tale, The Infant Knights, is available to listen now on our Patreon at stinkydragonpod.com.

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Here's a sneak peek from the latest tavern tale, Infant Knights.

Well, actually, when Gumgum lands at the bottom of the tree, Gumgum, you see some people out there.

Oh, no.

They try to steal my birthday present for Mud.

Do you want to

maybe tell your compatriots about seeing some people out there with you?

Yes, the party's already started down here.

Come look.

There actually might be

my birthday present for you, Mud.

um i invited a uh a little bit of a performer what yeah

they're like a like a comedian

uh they talk about hair a lot though so like i don't really know if like that's their shtick

so you all rush to the treehouse windows i assume to see what gum gum is talking about and as you peer down into the sun-drenched yard below sure enough There they are.

A tiny kobald with oversized glasses and a lizard folk whose eyes never seem to be pointing in the same direction.

I wonder if we could build a ramp instead of a rope ladder.

I have crutches and that doesn't really

make it up there.

I have a hammer.

It's fine.

I'll start building it.

It'll be okay.

Kyborg is the strongest person I know.

He can pull you up.

Let's get this party started.

I call down to uh

what's what's doctor but like pre pre-doctor it a him you could just call me doc okay i call down to doc at him and hairless hutch i say hey guys be careful down there there's a lot of dirt that was um it was dry before but then someone had to use the bathroom so now it's mud

it's mud's birthday it must be him

i don't know i'm not asking questions just be careful of the mud don't go rolling around in it

Where's gum gum?

I'm rolling in it.

Once again, that's stinkydragonpod.com.

We are incredibly grateful for your support, which makes this show possible.

Some of our friends voiced NPCs in this episode, and listeners who interacted with us on the Stinky Dragon Discord had NPCs named after them.

Iris and Sheldon, named after Little Sector, voiced by Eric Vadour at Eric Vadour from Regulation Podcast and 100% Eat.

Eran Hel, named after Angel Kite.

Pop and Fresh, named after Pop and Fresh.

Terry, named after Kaija.

Wester, named after Andreas Westerman.

Block Splitter, named after Block Splider.

Block Spleater?

Blah, blah, blah, fla.

This week's arrow question was submitted by Buggy52.

This episode of Tales from the Stinky Dragon was produced by Ben Ernst and written and composed by Michael Reisinger with additional editing work by Catherine Arnold and David Sonia.

Tune in next time for another thrilling episode of Tales from the Stinky Dragon.

Have you ever seen those social videos where like people like they'll interview like little kids about like

serious things, but it's like getting them to talk about serious things and be funny?

Yeah, I realize that I've heard the way Chris talks, and it's in those videos.

It's how kids respond to the questions.

Like, I was, wow, that was that was high.

Like, just

It's very similar.

You ever have a dream that you, that you, that I, that you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris would be great on, like, if we did another reboot of Kids Say the Darndest Things.

He'd be great on it.

Chris says the darndest things in the series coming soon.

On October 17th, I'm an angel.

See the wings?

Don't miss the new comedy Good Fortune, starring Seth Rogan, Aziz Ansari, and Keanu Reeves.

Critics Rave.

Eat haven't sent.

Kinda.

You were very unhelpful.

Good Fortune, directed by Aziz Ansari.

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