WWW Interlude #2: The Clearing

Tall

growing trees,

deep

roots

A forest

known by the potency of each sense which it touches,

the smell

of

earth,

rot,

moss, fern, leaf, flower,

the smell of life and death fully intermingled in the haze of pollen and

a wind that blows stirring up the power of the forest itself.

Sunlight does not reach and yet is reflected green off the far canopy. Rays of the sun can be seen but not felt in a forest this ancient and primeval.

Cool, damp air.

Within this forest

is the place where we

will

now see for the very first time.

I would like each of you to describe a feature of this place deep within the forest.

And I want you to tell me about something that can be seen here within the forest that would immediately strike the heart of an onlooker to let them know that this place was

sacred

almost beyond words. A place

so

meaningful and profound within the forest as to arrest the heart of one who would stumble upon it.

Deep within the forest,

in

the darkest depths of it,

there is a place

where all of the trees in that glade have branches that stretch straight up towards the sky.

Fuck you.

We, Abri and I, saw a tree like that.

Abria was like, nope. Yeah, no.

I didn't see anything. And if there's any spirit watching, not a snitch.

Do you? Not me. I use it for content.

Though many of the branches near the bottom reach, stretch outwards towards the other trees around them.

The sticks,

because

that's the most appropriate word for these, because they stick just straight into the branches, outreaching.

So it is this odd effect of an almost cube or a

or sometimes like bars.

Let's bad here.

Rows upon rows of grid-like patterns. In this place, it feels unnatural

because the organic nature of

the way that trees bend and move and twist and twirl is

so foreign here in this geometric

glade.

We see

the bars of branches moving out at angles that we are unused to seeing.

Uniform

turns of right and left as though here in this place the forest had left the natural mathematics of organic life and instead sought to describe with their growth itself.

some different facet of the universe that

most folk would say it was not given to the trees to understand,

as though in this place they had conspired to share the secrets they had wrested from the minds of mortals.

High, high are the branches in this place. What else do we see within this place to connote its sacredness, and a sacredness that has been described already as somewhat unnerving?

It's not something you see,

but

the way the wind moves through this place.

The ferns and moss that grows here has like a very like reedy and hollow element to it.

So depending on the way the wind blows, it's like moss, certain kinds of moss grow on the north sides of trees, but like there is a like cardinality to

the like lower plant life here. here, and as the wind whips through this forest, there are different pitches of sound that kicks up.

And sometimes it is a very like low drone.

Occasionally, like

before a storm hits the outside of this forest proper, you can hear like the tones rise here, and it sounds almost like a like high-held note or a shriek.

And

I think, along with that, the wind always smells deeply of water, like clean, fresh water. But

there aren't a lot of like visible water sources here. Like, there is no babbling brook that you know is just around a bend or in like a little glen or opened area.

But you smell water all the time and you hear the wind.

The branches move and conspire in strange pattern,

but in certain secret places where the glade begins to fade into the forest itself, certain curvatures open.

Circles within the straight branches that move and reconnect.

Pieces of punctuation that nevertheless hang at the outside of the glade and create an Aeolian instrument, an instrument played by the wind itself.

The notes

have either harmony in one moment or dissonance or discord in another. But the dissonance follows a pattern.

If it is a note that strikes the ear as ominous, uninviting, a sour note, a note of unwelcome, then it is a note played with all the intention that the wind can muster.

What else do we see in this space that marks it as sacred?

On the forest floor, there is a

crowd

of mushrooms.

So dense

that they would seem to be the floor.

They are individually capped, but of slightly varying sizes and shape,

but all kind of in a hue, kind of ranging from a

light, like greenish blue,

kind of to a bluish purple, depending on their elevation from the forest floor. But it is dense and thick, so much so that if anyone were to step into this space, an impression would be made.

And we see, in fact, that within this

crowd of mushrooms,

not a fairy circle, for indeed the interior of the space is choked with mushrooms. It is filled as though this

herd, this flock of these beings were all here in this space, listening to the music of the wind being played for them.

No footprint, no scratch of beak, no marring of jaw or fang marks the mushrooms in the center of this place.

I will ask only

if there is any sign

that

an artifact of the world of mortals has been left here. If your answer is no, then it is well taken.
But I ask now if there is some trace left here, if mortals have ever found this place.

Or if they have, have they left anything here to mark their presence?

I think if you look at the trunks of these trees, you can see never iron, nothing like

nothing sort of dug and melted,

but there are like rotten and rotting bits of rope and like wooden steps built into the trunks of the trees to connote that like people used to live in the branches and never walked on the ground here.

Ancient steps

covered in moss, whose fixtures attaching them to the trees have long since been swallowed up by the trees themselves. These steps are ancient.

Perhaps once

there were charms hanging from the ropes that are now moss covered and rotting. But whatever those charms were made of was neither stone nor wood, for they are long gone.

It is a sorrow of the world of mortals in the passing of long centuries that those

gifts, those amulets, those charms, those talismans made of fabric and of wicker, of growing things, pass

almost immediately into the forgetfulness of time and history.

Take a moment to listen to the wind and see a place that exists beautifully hidden in the world of Umora.

It is beautiful whether it is regarded or not.

It is beautiful that it merely exists.

And I want you all to take a moment

before you describe to me

each a person

that under no circumstances should ever be here

you see

flitting along hovering sometimes as low as

four inches off the ground or as high as the canopy.

Something

it's

gray,

black,

white, it's a drift, a wisp of smoke.

No, but it's not as clean and elegant as smoke. It's something a little oily.

It's a little

smog. It looks like smog, but what is smog doing out here, completely detached from any mechanism that could have possibly created it?

But if you look closely within that smog, smoke, dirty smoke,

you can see a little face.

And it looks around, yeah,

deeply

unsettled, but uh,

perhaps hopeful.

A drifting,

oily,

and though they are small

and out of place,

there is a word that they have been referred to by already in their Taimanumora. A demon

drifts towards the glade, flitting up and down hither and yon.

What other companions do we see approaching this

glade deep within the forest?

You see

prowling

with a collar around its like incredibly thick neck,

what looks like just an oversized Rottweiler.

It's not a wolf. It's not a like natural dog of this place.
It's something that like has been bred carefully by human hands over generations to be a guard dog

and clearly with the collar on it it has an owner somewhere but it walks forward

and i think it like looks up at the little gray smoke as it drifts around and goes

get down here

and you know that it is a familiar for a witch that is nowhere in sight.

Erica, now that they have been addressed,

what is the name of the oily, smoky spirit that now has been barked at and commanded to come down to the forest floor?

The spirit looks down, directly down and says, oh, but

okay,

I thought for sure that I'd be able to see something and from up here,

I bet we can. I'm sure of it.
As sure as my name is Puffs.

And what is the name of the massive guard dog that we now see patrolling the forest floor below? Well, I was going to do a silly name, so now I got to think about it.

Bevan with a B.

Growling in command, the

spirit of smog returns down to you. Puffs.

Beholding the forest around you, the moisture of the air clings to your body. You can feel pollen and even some larger, sort of drifting

vapor. It's all mixed together here.
The forest is an organism, it is breathing. The air in this place is not clear or distinct.

Have no illusion that if you do not touch the forest floor, that you can avoid the forest touching you.

The rot, the haze, the fog, the mist, the pollen.

Everything in the air in this place is still somehow alive.

Lou

coming up behind these

servant creatures, a familiar, and a spirit not of smoke, which can occur in nature, but of smog which cannot.

Who else do we see approaching this glade?

Doing his best to stay hidden in the shadows, wearing a wide-brimmed black hat and a kind of tight red leather outfit, we see Aiden Crutcher, Demon Hunter.

And we see that I think Aiden has almost no awareness of his surroundings or like where he has ended up. It's just eyes on prey, crouched low,

has been working more to stay silent and stay unseen than he has been aware of the environment he is entering.

Moving through the space, you

strike an imposing figure, a wide-brimmed hat, a red leather outfit. Walking down the street of a large city, you'd cut a terrifying figure.

Sitting in the back of a tavern, smoking a pipe, one would wonder what troubles you had seen before.

Sweat pours down your body in the humidity of the forest, seeping into the red leather outfit.

That after many days travel in your seven-league boots, the moisture that has collected there, you feel intense shooting pain as the wrinkles in your feet split open as blood comes through.

These boots are impossibly expensive, incredible traveling boots that split on one of their seams long ago as you sunk into some quicksand, and now that leak in the shoe has caused one of your feet to split in blood.

You can feel like the sting of

forest material in the boot. And all of these artifacts of clothing you have, this leather outfit repels knife attacks.

It is an incredibly useful garment that is slowly killing you with each passing day in this place.

Looking up ahead, you spy the dog, Bevan, in this place.

And

you

have on your person a small scroll of contract,

as well as

a

game that was given to you by your employer in this space, who has provided you with your companions here.

And the game is a small tablet with assembled tiles, almost like mahjong tiles, but arrayed, sliding in grooves, almost like a puzzle, like a slide tile puzzle in this space. That

heavy clay apparatus rests in another one of your bags, and you know that that is a way to contact the mistress of the dog that you now see ahead of you. As you approach these companions,

you know that you are not far off from the glade you are seeking.

What do you do as you approach and get closer?

Are we there yet?

Are we close?

I taste the air.

It's different here. It's nice.
Erica, please, if you would look up the stat lock of a smoke method.

Bevan tries to like taste the air like puffs and then catches a little bit of new blood and starts like sniffing at Aiden's boot. Stop.

Get off.

Don't nudge me. Stop.

Are you bleeding?

Yes.

Stupid forest.

Hot. It is hot, and I am uncomfortable.
I want to amend Mrs. A.
Bevin has a little dog backpack on.

You can put your...

Why are you wearing so much? What?

Just take it off. Take what off?

My clothing?

Yeah.

Of course, now the dog is asking me to take off my... my

outfit. All right.

Excuse me. Bevan is asking me to disrobe.

I'll stay dressed. Thank you very much.

All right. Bleed to death in your weird thing for your paws.
Whatever.

Just keep sniffing.

We will go ahead and if you want to take a I think it's I it might just be I think for a big dog this we can do a wolf we'll do a wolf stat block And then for Aiden,

Lou, how badass is Aiden Crutcher?

I think his, it's a lot of charisma. It's a lot of like, the vibe is immaculate.
Yeah. The vibe is perfect.

I think he's pretty badass in his element. But it's like, go hunt a demon in the forest.

It's like deeply centralized. I don't have like a second outfit.
I don't have

his ability to adapt is not ideal. Please take the swashbuckler monster monster stat block.
That's yeah, you're no joke. Armor class 17, hit point 66.
Let's go.

Take swashbuckler, yeah.

As you approach, I'm gonna need a perception check from puffs.

17. Go off, puffs.
Puffs, give me a wisdom saving through our DC12. Oh no.

14. Go off, Puffs.

Distantly in the forest, Puffs, though not so distant as it was before you embarked this morning from your last campsite, you hear

music

being played on the wind.

It

means

something.

The chords of music have meaning to them, even if humans cannot hear or appreciate them. But everyone knows what it means to play in a minor or a major key.

Everyone knows what it means that some music gives a feeling of sorrow or loss or some of joy and triumph. How these vibrations

removed from

sentiment or intention do yet somehow mean

something?

Why do the sounds mean the things they mean?

Why does the music that now plays on the wind,

unforced by human hand or mind,

give you the feeling that you are already doomed?

uh sir, are we sure we want to keep going this way?

If if this is the way to the prey, then this is the way we'll proceed. Well, well, yes, but uh also it's it's uh it's got a real doom-like quality to it.
What

you think Aiden Crusher backs down from danger?

Never. In fact, we move toward it.
Ah, my feet. Uh, and Aiden's gonna start trying to walk forward.

Hell yes. You continue to march forward.

Amongst your gear, Aiden, you have a bunch of things.

You have this little clay tablet, but you haven't had much need to use it because, Bevan, in your mind, you actually hear the voice of your mistress, the witch Corillia of Maranthus.

Your mistress

is

a powerful witch who lives her life as a witch

in hiding.

Not for reasons of being,

shall we say,

in danger, not living in a place that views witches as dangerous. She is instead a noble, an aristocrat.

and simply keeps her witchcraft hidden because it is less becoming than her first identity, which is as a landed, powerful, and wealthy woman.

Her voice in your mind conjures images of a peach and coral-swept stone balcony overlooking a beautiful rocky seaside of warm, sun-drenched cliffs.

The place that you have spent most of your life as a familiar. And you hear her now speaking out to you.

Bevan, darling,

are you

indisposed or can you receive a missive from your mistress at this point in time?

Bevan stands like super still, and I think the only like the obvious signal that Bevan is in communion with his like mistress is that his little docked tail is wagging really hard.

I'm good. How are you?

I'm in the forest. I can talk.
It's fine. We can talk in our heads, and this is so good.
You don't smell like blood at all. I bet you smell really good.
How are you?

Listen. Listen, Beth.

Keep focused on the task at hand. I'm listening.
I'm listening so good. I'm so good at listening.

Mr. Crutcher, is he near to the site? Is he near to

the creature?

Um, we're near this. Puff says we're near the site.
I don't think we're near the cree. He might die first.
His foot is.

He has a bad foot.

It's not going good. You should be here.
Should I come to you? I can come to you, and then we can do it.

And he just sits.

You are

young.

You are inexperienced.

Do not make me regret my selection of familiar.

Good.

He just kind of lays down, does sad dog underlook. Mr.
Crusher must be given every advantage in this regard.

It is of the utmost importance that he be successful.

I have seen it in this glade.

The crowned panther.

Panther.

Mr. Crusher knows what he is after.

See to it that he is given every possible advantage.

The spirit that I bound to his service, is it

executing its duties admirably? Yes, ma'am.

Very well.

When Mr. Kusher has sight of the field and he feels that it is advisable, let him set the first beacon that the rear train may come and establish camp there.

And Aiden, you know that about like a day's travel behind you, not able to travel as fast as you. And also just for sort of your own.
Aiden doesn't Aiden works alone. Aiden

doesn't love these two companions he's been given.

There's about a half dozen or more professionals behind you. One of them is a guy that you really don't like who is a local kind of guide to the outer edges of this forest.
True fucking asshole.

Dope moron, just constantly telling you your business and there's several people that have come from maranthus at the behest of the lady corillia

who are basically here

you would know them they're not warriors they're not people that that are like here doing what you're doing they're actually just to your knowledge like butchers and taxidermists who are traveling with a lot of like supplies a lot of their supplies are about what happens after you do your job But if things go haywire or wrong, they also do have like water and additional food.

Or if the creature proves hard to find or pin down, they have some certain like magical gear that they there's like basically plan B and after is also what they're bringing up in the supply train.

But they are, they were supposed to be like an hour behind you and they've fallen a full day behind you.

Carillia says,

The spirit

it is serving mr crutcher well yeah

very well bevin

i shall check in again in a few hours does mr crutcher need anything from me

you see aiden crutcher is like about 20 feet away from you just walking slowly and stealthily just talking to himself it'll be me aiden crutcher slayer of the crowned panther

It is I, Aiden Crutcher, slayer of the crowned panther.

Another thing that you didn't hear, dumb man.

His puffs making that noise up there.

Aiden doesn't realize that it's Buff.

Aiden Crutcher.

Oh, that's you. Oh, yes.

Not bad. Keep it going.

Crutcher, Slayer. Joke of the Crowned Pepper.

No, we got it.

Ma'am,

I promise. Very well.

Contact me, Bevan, only if something deviates from the plan.

You've been a very good boy thus far.

And you see that the connection severs.

I love my mom so much. So, Aiden, as you begin to approach in the direction that Pop's sort of seen this,

I would love a constitution saving throughout DC is 11. Okay.
Can I give him the help action?

Yes, you can.

Can I deny it? Yes. Ace Crusher doesn't need help.

Yeah, as soon as describe the ass, Bevin comes over to try to help him.

Yeah, Bevin's just going to come over and just do the like dog lean against a leg just to give like some moral support. It's fine, Bevan.
I'm fine.

As you see me continue to hobble forward.

That's a five.

Oh, no.

You continue to move forward in this place. You're sweating so much.

You begin to like taste copper in your mouth.

And

you see that your foot goes into what you think is going...

You're so tired of stepping in this like

bad, sort of like slippery moss that's all over the roots of the tree that you decide to go deeper down in between the roots where the moss is a little bit less because you're tired of just slipping and falling down and fucking

over it. And in the one of the deeper portions your foot goes into what you think is terra firma and this rock just fully drops and your foot drops into a two-foot hole swarming with insects

As you swat them off, they go off as fast as you can, but you see a bunch of them have bitten you as you've like stepped into their hive and have to rush farther away.

On that failed constitution saving throw,

you

get,

although it takes a while, but you get to the edge and you see the glade.

The

throng of mushrooms in the center is

about as wide as a coliseum.

And the trees are surrounding it are so massive that it is one of the darkest parts of the forest that can be.

Meaning that with all of this space in the middle, the branches overhead reach so broadly and vastly that even in this massive and enclosed space, you still cannot see direct sunlight.

You can see only dappled brightness of some layers of leaves that have received a little bit of the light of the sun above.

When the sun sets over this forest, forest, it will be dark in a manner that you have only ever seen in like the deep subterranean sewers of your home city, like adventuring through pirate

catacombs in that place.

The wind blows through, and as it does,

you watch the

pollen

and mist hanging in this vast cavernous glade

move and swirl like

the snow within a snow globe. The wind comes in, but none of the material here is blown away.

The forest is so thick and rich with life that anything that came into here would be bearing as much pollen and haze and matter with it as anything that would leave.

So instead, it just swirls and collects and richens this fog, this miasma of the forest itself.

You look in and see the rotting staircases built into the trees and the strange geometric patterns of this place.

And as you behold the glade for the first time,

climbing over a root of a tree that is truly almost like a small hill to get up, the trees are this massive here.

You hear a pop of a stitch in your right boot.

I look down.

Your thigh, sort of right above your knee, which is where your boot ends, normally there's a

little bit of a gap so that you're the sort of tops of the boots can like jauntily swish as you walk. Your thigh has swollen to the point where it has filled the top of that boot.
And your calf,

which you now can, as you look and you can start to, but now that you've stopped walking,

you look down and your boot is splitting along the seam from how much your your leg is swelling.

Oh god.

Wow.

Impressive gains, Mr. Crutcher.

Puffs, that is not the case.

I'm going to take out my knife and

cut the boot open. Great.
Give me just a proficiency check, like a tool proficiency check. This will just be dexterity plus proficiency.
Difficulty, we'll call it, is 14.

Proficiency for you, I think, should be a plus three. Yeah, that's what it looks like.
Dexterity plus proficiency? Yeah.

14.

14, exactly. Amazing.
You managed to cut the boot off without further injuring yourself.

And

this expensive, beautiful boot comes off. You look down and see that this was one of the ones that split, that the soul had come off in your travels.

And it looks, you see several of the crushed insects that got inside, and some of them died with their fangs in your leg.

And that's where the abundance of venom, what should have just been a stinging bite, instead they got in, got crushed, and just kept injecting venom into you for the past like 20 minutes of walking.

When the boot comes off, your leg fully swells up and you can see at the base, the infection is bad and the sort of the sting, the swollen leg is bad enough.

But looking down at your foot, the splits that the blood is coming from where it's just trenched foot, just the constant moisture in your feet has sort of cracked them open as they've wrinkled too much.

There's a little bit of

moss or mold in one of the cuts in your feet. And that has been hurting you all day.
It does not hurt at all right now.

Bevan's mid-piss and just looks over.

Oh,

you're taking. You're taking your clothes off.

No, it's the stupid fucking forest. The the insects, they...

I think it's the venom of...

Your legs, man.

This doesn't look good. I'm going to...

I'm going to try.

I don't have any skill in medicine. But there's part of me that...
I'm going to run my knife over the moss. Okay.

And if it's not just on top, I'm going to try and cut it out. Okay.
Give me a medicine check.

That's wisdom? Wisdom, yeah. All right, that's a plus zero.

It's a five.

You are looking, basically looking at it.

Do you think that on a five, do you think that he would not get all the way in there or would he be overzealous in getting in there?

I don't think he would be overzealous, but I think that there's like a, it's, I'm, I'm poking. I'm really trying to get this.

I don't understand why there's moss on me that won't come off. Yeah,

maybe there is a little zealousness

So I think that you you get in there and as you cut I think the lack of pain

Really sort of terrifies you you're like that should hurt this should hurt.

I'm putting a knife in my foot and you also know that feet are incredibly sensitive for so for one to like be numb is kind of freaky.

The moss and fungus goes deeper into the cut than you were anticipating, but you do manage to get it all out, but in so doing,

it's like victory. It's like lancing a boil.
You're like, yes, thank God, relief. Like, I got the shit off.

And in doing so, you look and there is a just open, kind of large hole in your foot. You've cut way too much meat out of your foot.
Bevan, the backpack. Oh, yeah.
Bevan goes over, like, lays down.

I'm gonna see if there's any medical supplies that was in this little kit. Yeah, you do.
You see, see, there's some bandages and other stuff like that. You can bandage yourself up, no problem.

Aiden eats one of the crushed bugs.

Hell yeah, you eat a little crushed bug. How are you going to fish the legs?

I spit out the legs. Puffs and Bevan, as Aiden is doing this, you sort of patch yourself up.
What are the two of you doing as Aiden takes this sort of long moment?

And I think, Aiden, even in this moment,

just the breathing is hard here. It's not even hot.
It's so humid that you can't stop sweating. It's, you know, the temperature, it's maybe like, you know,

like 78 degrees out here. It's not, it's not like,

oh my God, it's 100 degrees Fahrenheit. It's like, like coming up on 80, but just the moisture is so thick that as you're applying any effort at all, you're just...

Puffs and Bevan, as Aiden is dressing his injury, what are you doing in this moment? Bevan's only good good at two things, and it's making holes in people and

being around weird magic. So,

can I do some sort of check to try to figure out what's going on on Aiden's leg? Go ahead and give me.

I can think this would actually be either medicine or nature.

Okay.

If you want to. I'll make it nature because I have a minus four to int.

We can say that you have a 10 to int as a familiar, but I do think that, like, do you, are you looking for not an academic understanding? Are you looking for a like intuitive understanding of this?

It's just the, like, Bevan has strong,

like, pack tendencies, and it's like, okay, injury, but is this, like,

magical or is it just sort of like my friend, he wouldn't use the word friend. I would use the word best friend.

My best friend

is making more holes in his body. Can I just like lake it and fix him? Or is it a magic problem? problem and I need to call my mom? She doesn't like when I call her mom.
Actually, I you know, I

drift down back down, um, and I'm taking a look at it too. I know poison, that's pretty much one of the only things I know.
So, I think maybe we can, what do you think?

Do you think it's just like I think he's dying? You're okay, I think he's already dead. Oh, no, no, no, he's still noises,

yeah. You can make noises after it, like the forest.
What are you saying? What? What are the two of you talking about?

you

just pretend to be a normal dog and i'd like to assist with yeah okay you give the help action thank you

it went from a 17 to an 18. um

plus wait what was i rolling I think if you're trying to get a deep academic understanding, you are rolling an intelligence check.

But if you want an intuitive understanding, you can just make like an insight or perception.

Let's go perception based off of smell as I snuffle his like weird bad foot and that would be a 22.

On a 22 perception, right? This is a skill that doesn't give like deep academic insight. But on that, what you can get is the perception of Aiden's body.
Aiden is a powerfully built, imposing figure.

He's got his

rippling muscles. He's got this sort of armored stuff on.

And rations got powered through a long time ago. And the main thing is there's still food left, but Aiden got out way ahead of the rest of the party.
And so is working off of a canteen of water.

That water has gone. And I think you think Lou Aiden is smart enough to know not to just drink water off the ground here.
Yes.

So Aiden just like doesn't fuck with the forest to begin with, but he's been walking all day without drinking water. So there's a degree of like,

you're like, well, I'm not a doctor. I can't diagnose this injury, but his leg is deeply swollen.
All his blood is rushing there. He's been eating less than we did at the start of this.

He hasn't had water all day.

You can see kind of like salt crusted around his brow from like sweat. And I think on that perception, you don't know what magic moss does, but you do know that Aiden like has early heat stroke.
Yeah.

Then Bevan's going to start scratching.

Bevan's got a little like dog water bottle attached to his little backpack, and he's gonna start clawing at it to like try to disconnect the carabiner, uh, and then nose it over to Aiden.

What's that for?

You're thirsty?

I won't drink dog water.

Aiden's gonna light a hand-rolled cigarette.

I'm going to bite it out of the air.

I go over and I go, shh!

Fuck. Come on, Gal.

You said you were quitting.

Well, you said you were going to quit.

Yeah, I know. We're just

after this one last job. Look what you're doing.
What?

What I'm doing is what I do best.

Die in the forest? No hunt monsters.

Oh, we're here.

We're here. Can you please have some...
It's look, it's kind of thick for water because of my spit, but it's water. And you're going to fall down and die.

Do you actually, you light a hand-rolled cigarette? Yeah. Um, uh, as you do that, does Bevan really like snatch that out of his hand? 100%.
Cool. As it touches the

forest floor, it's much too humid for like a wildfire to start here. But just for, and then, Puffs, do you go to take a little puff of it? Yeah.
Brendan's going through everything we just did.

It's like, are we actually doing this? Yeah, yes. Yes, indeed.
Read it, guys. Hey, read my tone.
tone.

You know what I'm saying? Read my tone. Puffs, as you take a little drag of that,

it moves into you, and I'm going to need perception checks from everybody. Yeah.

21. 21.
Five.

Seven.

Bevan, as Puffs takes a little drag on the cigarette, Puffs immediately looks healthy, like more full-body,

kind of nicer. But you notice that when Puffs did that, the the wind

stopped.

You know, when you're swirling milk into like, or when you're swirling like a mixer into like a coffee or a tea and you suddenly change the direction of the spoon and it creates a little moment of chaos?

Yeah.

All of the swirl of the pollen and mist in the massive glade has a moment right when Puff takes a drag of the cigarette that it

swirls and you just get this feeling that something is aware that you're here.

In the middle of like trying to get you to drink dog slobber water and for you to stop smoking, even though it makes you much healthier, Bevin is a guard dog and immediately, like, gets low, hackles raised, and just starts growling.

Um, all right, uh, I'm gonna get the other boot off

and uh

pull out my uh pull out my rapier and uh kind of get behind

Bevan's into this music.

Aiden, you have this little beacon. So, you have a moment, you guys square up,

nothing happens.

You spend as long as you want to spend tense and ready.

Does it feel like we have a moment? Or like, like,

I just made it like a seven on a perception check but does it feel like like Bevin is on yeah but visibly nothing is changing immediately no the dog just went crazy okay yeah I'm gonna stop

I'd like to stay ready stay scanning and reach down for the tablet you reach down for the tablet and pull it into your hand no problem you are now looking at the glade from a distance still like it was probably another like five ten minutes to walk to get to the actual last line of trees and where the mushrooms start.

But you pull the tablet out

and you see it sort of clack in your hands. I'm going to slide it into places that would allow me to communicate with the witch.

And suddenly the tiles begin to move almost of their own accord and the shape produced sort of in points of the symbols and characters on the tiles creates the face of the witch.

And the opening is the sort of the tiles meeting as the movement of a mouth as it moves in the sort of

tablet that you have been given. It says,

Mr.

Crutcher, a welcome to hear from you.

Would I call her? What would I call her?

Lady Carillion. Lady Carillion.

My lady,

we've reached the monster's lair.

Extraordinary, extraordinary.

Ian. Yes, sir.
Times of the essence.

Sorry.

Are you alright?

I'm just fine.

Times of the essence. I have received some information that

we may have limited time in the forest.

However, it is crucially important that the beast be slain

communicate to the rest of the group. I should know they should be by an hour behind you.
They will not be necessary, my lady.

I can take care of this.

Mr. Crusher, the heart of the Panther is what I require.
The heart of the Crowned Panther.

And as we agreed, you will have the heart, and I will have the head.

You can have the head, that's fine. But understand, Mr.
Crusher, that you may not have time, I believe. You see that there's a pause and the tiles fall flat for a second

and then come back.

Sorry, Mr. Rush Times of the Essence.

Make a signal to the party behind you. They should be up there.
Oh, they're about a day away, my lady. I don't think they'll be able to see.
Hi. Yes, they've fallen behind.

They could not keep pace, my lady. But do not fear.
You've hired the greatest.

Which

country are we in? Or space. Larger space.
Larger space?

You are. I guess they're like, what would what if I'm

yeah, as Ursula is the strongest man in silberry

aiden crutcher is the greatest monster hunter in

we'll call it uh you come from a coastal region known as taladir

my lady you've hired the greatest monster hunter in all of taladir

you need not worry you will have your heart

all right

you

you do not have time to wait for the

uh for the other party

retrieve retrieve the heart as fast as you can once you do so return within at once all right worry not aiden crutcher slayer of the crowned panther will do his duty all right and you see the tablet goes slack

You behold a glade. You have this Evans at the mushroom line has done like the slow

like guard dog stalk to to that like edge uh puff has been sort of like in the background of like you know how when somebody sort of ducks into the background of a column like hey

here uh

this is everything is going exactly minus all of his injuries

Aiden does feel good about this setup Bevan first then puffs Aiden's wish would be for a bit of height.

Is that, are there, you describe maybe stairs or some sort of structure structure that might allow him to climb above the mushroom, kind of at the mushroom line, but higher into the trees? Correct.

Aiden will take that path, looking to Bevan and nodding, and really limping the entire way.

Once Bevan gets the nod from Aiden, Bevan's going to scratch at the front of their collar where like a tag would be, but there's nothing written there, but there's like a thin

beam of like kind of like orange light that connects from Bevin's collar to Aiden's hand.

As they like, it's not like a physical tether that like stretches and goes taut, but there is now a connection as Bevan goes into like

fight dog mode. You behold the glade.
Aiden, you get up onto some of the sort of rotten moss-covered steps, get up high enough to find some distance. How high up the tree do you go?

Like, it's probably by the time the stairs make a full rotation, given how wide the trunks of the tree are, it probably you can get up like 40 or 50 feet just moving from one side of the tree around the massive trunk to the other.

I think he maybe gets about, he gets up and then maybe makes it 10, 15 feet and is completely out of breath. Great.
As you cannot breathe, feet are killing him.

Like, stops and tries to make it feel tactical. Yes.
But it's purely just he is not able to continue at any confident speed.

You go up, like, you can still see the beginning of the staircase around the curve of the tree. But you're there, you're breathing.

As the hours go along, give me another constitution say of difficulty 14.

No.

Five.

Without water, the adrenaline crash with the swollen leg,

you take a level of exhaustion.

Disadvantage on all skill checks. Disadvantage on all skill checks.
And

you

are crouched for a while.

Just looking, waiting. This is the part that you're good at.
You are a monster hunter.

As you are crouched, you realize you need to kind of shift position because your left ankle is really hurting. You've just been crouched for so long.

As you shift, you hear a a loud pop in your right ankle and feel nothing.

Aiden is not going to look down.

Yeah.

Because he knows if he looks down, that could be the advantage that the enemy is looking for. But he's going to use his free hand to try and touch that space

and make you describe it physically.

You have been walking barefoot for a moment. As you've been walking through, you

the bandage you put on, you laid into it. You were not sparing putting this bandage on.

It was thick, but you know, like it had a deep pad of gauze. When you put the gauze on, the gauze got soaked or the sort of pad got soaked.

But when you wrapped it, the wrapping was dry as a bone until you started walking on the forest floor. But you were keeping to the dry parts of the forest floor to the best of your ability.

So, you know, the outside of the gauze may have been damp, but by the time you get to the stairs, you're not walking on moss anymore. You know, you're walking on this sort of old rotted wood.

You touch a hand down

and touch the bandage. Just the top of the bandage, the injuries in the bottom of your foot, the top of the bandage is soaked.

And as you pull your fingers up in the now fading,

diffused sunlight, At first, you know, with the light, quality of light being this low, it looks black, but you know it's the dark red of blood on your fingers soaked through in the bandage i think as the blood becomes

like things are not good and thus

if you can believe it things are not good aiden is now going no wait time to push um and is going to be looking to find eyes so that he can initiate us becoming the aggressors in the situation while that was happening what were bevin and puffs doing?

So

after leaving the audience of my lady,

I drift,

I think, towards the glade,

tasting the air as I go, sort of letting some of the spores and things kind of pass through me.

I'm gonna start to whistle. I start to whistle just really lightly and gently

in tune with the

music that I've been hearing.

Give me a performance check with advantage.

Okay, that one was a 15 and this one is

a 19 on the die. Nice!

And then, I don't think I have a performance check. I don't think you have a performance.

On a 19,

you whistle a beautiful song, and the wind begins to move you through this massive glade,

and you begin to pass through the air.

And lost in the music and reverie, it is

too late before you notice that you have passed through one of the openings of the branches of the tree as it plays its own song matching to yours, and you vanish into dark branches as you hear approaching you though it remains still and you are the one that moves

a new song sung in the glade

bevan what are you doing do i see that no you don't see it or hear it i don't see anything okay uh bevin is doing the slow prowl circumnavigating the outside of like the glade

but if

aiden's intentionality is like we have to press the advantage like if if you feel that i think between that like tether bevin's going to immediately like speed up start running and start barking loudly like we're gonna draw it out Okay, so when as soon as you see the bloody hand, Bevan, you're like, something's wrong, and you start barking.

It's less of a like, something's wrong. It's more of a, Aiden says, now it's time to, or Aiden feels, now it's time to push, and Bevan goes, great, bait the thing.

Yeah, um, uh, actually, I think as you will get to that moment in a second, Aiden, what do you do to communicate to Bevan that it's go time? I think if

you'll allow some kind of torch or some kind of

flame, Bevan is going to produce that, light it, uh, light it a flame, and raise it high

in one hand with his uh rapier in the other. The sun is almost set.
Do you do this before the sun is fully set while it's getting dark? Or do you wait for it to be fully dark?

I am not waiting for it to be fully dark. Great.
So you just get started. Um, puffs, as you move through space,

you move through hidden circles within the geometric branches. The lines contain these embouchures where the wind can pass and create these whistling notes.
As you you move through, you have visions.

Early chimneys, brick, the beginnings of industry. A little spirit birthed from choking, noxious creosote.
Up through the chimney,

birthed out and grasped in a hand with sharp and beautiful pointed fingernails crusted in rubies and diamonds,

bringing you to bear as the first spirit born of the nascent power of her industry.

You move through this space and suddenly see yourself surrounded by

tiny little ghosts, spirits of mist and vapor. They look at you

fully rendered in persona with hands and with like in the flickering of smog that you have features and a voice and character, and you see that they are just but wisps that seem to almost like cyclops have but a single opening that renders their eye and another opening underneath it.

Almost

colons rendered in bits of vapor, but one as an eye and the other as a mouth, opening almost like sea creatures feeding.

You see some strange cousins of yours hidden in the dark branches, and they appear en masse masse

as the sun sets.

As night falls, they become visible regarding you.

You feel that you still have a belly full of smoke as well from the earlier drag in the cigarette.

Hello, cousins. I'm Puffs of Taladir.

I come

with friends.

It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance. And I blow out a little smoke ring

of an offering.

You blow a little smoke ring.

A hand-rolled cigarette. Something half between nature and artifice.

You see that as the ring moves, all of the little mist spirits around you seeing this little smong demon look

their one eye each goes wide with admiration, and they begin to go.

And little circles of pollen and vapor come as a chorus of vapor rings joins your smoke rings as they begin to twirl and dance, going up.

And as they dance, two powerful lights appear, slitted and pupiled, as of a massive cat that goes

beautiful.

And prowling with six legs is a massive striped panther.

crowned with curling ram's horns that

move around this massive head. It's got a square jaw like a jaguar, a huge bone-crushing jaw, massive eyes.

The eyes gleam, not casting visible light, but luminescent, as though it's sort of subtly glowing like algae on the deep sea floor or some other thing given to announce its presence in this place.

Its pattern of stripes crosses horizontally along its back, ending in a series of dots that sort of stray from the edge of the stripes, covering a cream-colored stomach.

Even here in the night, you can see as a spirit yourself that the stripe is like a deep, rich brown, almost black, a cream stomach, but a sort of almost like

maroon

fur around otherwise. You see, it moves towards you.

My

friends of the mist,

they cheer for you, cousin. And you see, they'll go,

oh, that's nice. I have never, I have never met

this part of the family before.

You must be the Panther King. We're here for your heart, Your Majesty.

Oh,

the Panther King.

No, no, no, no, King am I.

Crowned,

I am.

But

what to all the forest are a set of horns are

to the suspicious and power-hungry a crown.

Well, it means you have

a lot of extra

hardness on your head, so nobody's getting in through there.

They're not getting in anywhere else either. You've come here with companions,

a beast, and a human traveler. Well, not just any human traveler.

I'm here with Eden Crutcher, the greatest monster hunter in all of Taladir.

You must tell your friends to leave. This forest is dying.

It is not safe here. Oh.

Uh,

what is the cause of this illness? I.

The crowned panther whips his head and sees fire. And hears the barking of Bevan and looks as night begins to touch the glade.
You've moved farther off in the forest. You see, he goes, goes,

and you see he begins to rush through the branches and rushes past you. The little vapor spirits swirl around in confusion and disarray.
What do you do with that?

I'm turned around in a quick little whirlwind.

I shoot on after him.

Oh yes, that's them. That's them.

You see that the panther leaps through the branches and covers he moves from one to the other and it's just enough that you can see there's a distant break of the fading sunlight in some leaves.

With just enough that as it touches the panther, he vanishes and is suddenly five trees back from where he started as he cannot touch the daylight. He goes,

Oh, don't worry, don't worry. It's just them.
He might be lighting up another cigarette.

Bevan and Aiden. Uh, you, yeah, you light the torch.
What do you do? Come out, you foul beast. Uh, and I'm going to give it a second, hoping that it we've

I'm gonna I'm waiting a second before I jump down to see if just the noise and the fire bring something

to bear. You do not see anything after a moment with the fire and I'm jumping down into the kind of mushroom field.

Your

bloody bandaged foot breaks

the fragile necks of the mushrooms in this glade for the first time since the dawn of time.

In all of the long years to come, this will be the most significant thing Aiden accomplished in his life.

You land in the clearing. The mushrooms are broken.
Your blood stains them. I am going to need a

constitution saving throw. Okay, fine.
Fine.

Suck it. I just leashed you.
I'm helping. Hell yes.
A four and a seven for an eight.

He got you. Great.
You land.

Your blood sinks into the mushrooms of this place. As it does,

the wind picks up tremendously. Leaves the size of, you know, shields begin to fall from the trees above.

Twigs, branches, a branch hits you on the side of of the head, spider web, cross the face.

As you land here,

you take that step.

You look and see the broken mushrooms, your blood staining them from the bandaged foot. As it does so,

you feel a sudden, sharp, sour feeling and cough and thick gobs of blood come from your mouth over your face

as you can see the edge of the clearing that is now in night. At the edge of the clearing are

hundreds of

women, children in spectral light.

Their mouths are open and cavernous without teeth and instead

small growing mushrooms inside. Where their eyes would be are open shadowed caverns with small mushrooms inside.

Where their hearts or stomachs would be are small caverns with mushrooms inside, and they hold lanterns of fairy light and begin to wail and mourn.

As night spreads across the clearing, you look behind you and see the crowd emerge cutting off your exit from the

glade of mushrooms.

And the spirits of these beings behind you cannot wail, their lanterns shattered, their bodies broken, as all of the spirits assembled at the edge of the glade wail and point to the fact that the spirits of their loved ones are shattered behind you.

Get off that! Get off the grass hats! Get off the grass hats! What are you doing?

Aiden is going to raise the torch above his head, spit more blood as he attempts to talk.

Great.

Beast!

I am your doom! And I'm gonna step on more mushrooms.

I will not!

You will not frighten me!

Bevan, you're barking at the edge of the clearing. Correct.
Have you entered the mushrooms yet or no? Uh, are there...

Are there ghosts in front of me now?

Um, uh, They're you there's they're appearing they're still the glade is large enough that you can see the light fading if you run fast to where there's still the edge of daylight in like a hemisphere of the glade You can run across the mushrooms to get to Aiden if you want to

buck it uh

Ow out ow and I

like I like leap into the mushroom field

You leap past the ghost into the mushroom field and try to bite a ghost just do the like air snap of a dog with a sprinkler like I'm actually

a spirit.

Go ahead and give me a um give me a constitution saving throw. Oh

13. Great.
You go to bite a spirit. It turns to look at you and you die instantly.

I'm sorry? You look and see.

I'm sorry.

You look and see Bevan attack a ghost. The ghost turns to regard it.
As Bevan's teeth sink through immaterial, translucent light, the light silently goes out of Bevan, and he is a dead animal.

We'll have to stop there for now. But dear listener, if you'd like to hear the rest of the clearing, you certainly can.
Come join us on the Patreon. Have a seat with us by the fireside.

This month, we got a ton of stuff happening on the fire i mean there's look there's always good stuff happening on the patreon but this month on the fireside you can hear the rest of the clearing they recorded a video we did the remix competition judging if you don't know what i'm talking about how you're gonna like it just trust me just do it and there's a lot more coming the wizard of the citadel subclass we are releasing this week on the patreon then we have the level up behind the scenes session between the arcs the the characters leveling up.

Then on October 8th, I think, we're even releasing a little bit of a map of the Shroud Mountains, a major location for Arc 4 coming soon.

All these things and so much more, we're dying to share with you here by the fireside. Come and join us on Patreon.

See you there.