D&D is For Nerds - Zombie Plagued Chult I #5 Giants in the Dark

Episode Date: August 17, 2019

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Sands Pants Radio. Are we allowed shorts? Hey dickheads, while listening to us, do you ever wish you could see Adam's beautiful expressions? Well now you can! For the month of August, we're playing D&D live on twitch.tv slash sandspantsradio every Sunday at 9.30am for us in Melbourne, which is just after midnight on Saturday for you Brits, and anywhere between 4.30 and 7. on Saturday for you Brits, and anywhere between 4.30 and 7.30pm for you handsome American devils. So come watch us dick around in the bottled brother's bar. I'm a centaur wine mum, Cass is a gambling tabaxi, Jack plays a very tall, very thin Dickensian villain with a heart of gold that the town seemed to just hate, and Joel Dusha is a recently divorced

blue sea lad. Once again, that's twitch.tv slash Sandspans Radio, and don't stress if you miss an episode, they're available for a week on Twitch, and each episode is self-contained. Also, if you're a fan of our sister show, Plumbing the Death Star, we're going to be doing several episodes on Twitch starting this Monday at 8pm for us, 11am for the UK and a god awful time for the US. Trust me, you're not going to see this one live. Go to bed and stay there. Once again, that's twitch.tv slash sanspantsradio. Welcome to Season 1, Episode 5 of Once Upon a Time in Zombie Plague Chult. Previously.

Well, we'd better buy the charter then. Hopefully it's, you know, six gold. Yeah, because that's all we've got. Hello. You must be River Mist and Flask of Wine? Yes, the female says again. I am, as you have said, River Mist, and this is my brother, Flask of wine? Yes, the female says again. I am, as you have said, river mist, and this is my brother,

flask of wine. She bows, and flask of wine also bows, finishing up with the word wine. We are preparing to go. We're going to meet our two other guides at the Thundering Lizard. Hwasha and Kupalu. Is there anything else we need to do at this place before we head off?

You might want to say goodbye. We know a person where we can get canoes off. Get canoes off. For a very cheap price. Cheap price. Can I take a stab in the dark and guess that this price is zero dollars? I caught a big fish. Now I search for a good friend to share my lunch with. A total haiku.

Oh my god. I would never share my fish. Oh, that is not you. Fuck, Adam. Are we about to get attacked? No. Why do you say that? Riding along in your boats on the river, you notice a velociraptor on the shore.

The velociraptor turns suddenly, Tiffany, so that its entire body is lined up with you. Its back legs quickly dig into the dirt. And in one deft move, it launches itself at you. So, Tiffany. Oh, gosh. Let's have a look at your armor class. 15. Pitiful. You should have got behind me.

You should have gotten behind me spiritually and helped. The Velociraptor lands on your boat. One of its legs on each side of the canoe and it steadies itself very quickly and very precariously in the middle of the boat. It spreads its arms out

and its feathers splay behind it. That's right, I'm using correct. Yes! But it's a velociraptor which is not what the... It's still a little incorrect because Velociraptors weren't like this. Alright, so, good news,

bad news. Good news is it sinks... No, bad news is it sinks its teeth deep into your shoulder. You take three points of damage. Oh, no. Is that one for each tooth that got in?

What? Yes. Sure. Adam, when I am in my withdraw mode, am I aware of things happening around me? Yeah, you're aware. Great. Cool.

You know what's just happened. Sick. Now, the good news is, as it tries to rake you with its claws... Oh, yes! It failed! It failed. It failed. I haven't seen this card for ages.

This is the first thing we've had to fight. We've done a lot of just, like... Roleplay. Roleplay. A lot of Animal Crossing-type adventures. When it tries to rake you with its claws, it misses you almost completely. And instead, its claws dig into the boat around you. You see or you hear a snapping and you turn around and you can see that many of its claws have been embedded in the sides of the boat and broken off as it raked.

The creature howls in pain and for one minute cannot attack with its claws. So, functionally for the rest of this combat. Good. Okay, so... Is it my turn to... No, it's Pop's turn. Sorry. Pop?

I'm going to stay in my... No, I'm not going to do that. That's rude. Please. I insist. So, now that I know that it's in the boat, I pop back out of my shell with my... Like your name. Sorry, go on.

Yeah. That's how I got my name. I'd be fucking so dumb if that's how I got my name. It surely could not be. He's like, oh, he popped out. It's pop and a pip. He pipped up. I come out of the shell.

I've got my hammer and my sickle. And it's splayed, yeah? Yeah, it's one foot on either side of the boat, and it's using its wings to steady itself. Adam, I would like to hammer it in the nutsack. All right. I'm thinking, I'm like, because I'm like, oh, my gosh, if it's one foot each end, all you need to do is throw it off balance

and it'll fall out the boat and you're like, penis. That'll throw it off balance. Right, Adam? No, its knees will not be able to fall into the boat. And swing, you're drawing your light hammer, you swing it upwards into the creature's ghoulies. You connect solidly, dealing four, no, six points of damage. The creature cries out in pain, but being, like, it has a cloaca, you quickly realize.

Your light hammer gets embedded deep into the creature's cloaca. It's unpleasant. It comes out with a little bit of white stuff at the end. You do not like that. How much damage have I done, though? You did six points of damage. Oh, that's all right. Do I get an extra attack because I used two weapons?

I'm just looking at this here. It says extra attack. You can attack twice whenever you take the attack action on your turn. I don't think you have. So you can only draw one weapon a turn, unfortunately. Let me just double check. Can I attack again with the hammer? I think you can only attack once with each weapon.

It's like you attack. Oh, no. No, I can draw a stone. You have extra attack. Yes, sorry. You can attack twice. Great. I would.

Now that I've hit it in the cloaca, I'm now going to try to smash one of its ankles that's on the boat. Oh, also you have dual wielder. Sorry, so you can attack three times total. All right, then. So what I'm going to do is I'd like to now try to gut it with the sickle, and then for the third attack, smash its feet off the boat. Sickle will be a hit, and light hammer will be hit again as well. All right, so you slam your hammer in draw your hammer out where did you want to sickle it uh just like like up the guts because it's you

you're just bringing your arms up and down cutting and hammering into the creature you deal a further oh god a 12 points of damage so 18 points of damage total have i knocked it off balance adam yeah yeah yeah you knock it off balance as you're bringing it up one of its legs begin to knock inwards because i hit it in the cloaca you grab its knee with your sickle wrench downwards and you feel cutting and then breaking as you destroy the creature's knee then as it comes down almost completely its knee bending inwards now they're not symmetrical anymore that broken knee slumps into the boat and the other one collapses on top of it you hammer it in the side of its head the the back of its head. You hear a cracking sound. The creature rolls over and splash hits the water. Its body floats away.

Is it dead? Yeah. You both get 25 experience points. Thank you. You ride horns? Yes. Thank you. Just a bit of a bite.

I'll be fine. How much of a bite? Just look. It only left three puncture wounds. Cure wounds. As a first level spell? Yeah. Didn't do a lot of damage, did it?

No. You're being such a whiny pig. Warm heart, warm heart. Big thick shell, but warm heart. That's my theme song. You recover nine hit points. You have extra hit points? Put you up to max.

No, you can only have a max of your max. It'd be very funny if I like overhealed you and then you died from being too healthy. That can happen. That can happen. You can cure wound zombies, yeah? And it hurts them. Not in fifth ed. In fifth ed in fifth ed that

doesn't work but in 3.5 they were a bit looser where healing hurts zombies and hurting heals zombies and if you somehow found a way to get double your hit points in uh like restored up to double your hit points, you exploded. You're full of too much positive energy. Oh my fucking god! That is my quest. Oh, I can't do it. That's not this edition, is it? Yeah, unfortunately. There's, like, for the different types of energies, positive and negative, there's

the positive and negative energy planes, and so if you're on the positive energy plane, you slowly take up positive energy until you slowly take up positive energy until you have double your positive energy and hit points and then you explode fun fact zombies don't have that so zombies get hurt by positive energy but that doesn't like they can't get healthy yeah they can't that won't work on them that's bizarre yeah you're right now i feel really good thank you yeah i don't mention it how's everyone else doing no one else was attacked yep do they look impressed they seem with you no

of course not no just generally like hey the lost raptor is gone these guys flask of wine gives you a thumbs up what does that mean i give them back back, but... You continue onwards. You seem so genuinely upset, Cash. Yeah, Hesh. What, did you want them to be more impressed? Well, I don't know. I think it's cool to be like, okay, we're like, we need people to help us on this journey

because we need to get over going. And everyone's like, okay, you don't know the forest. And then we're like, we can kill anything in this forest. And they'll be like, okay. Only if we're in the butt. Only if I can hide in my shell and hit it in the cloaca. You did that.

I did. You hid. Also, I'm going to wash the hammer, Adam. Yeah? Yes. Fair call. Not the sickle. It's got blood on it.

It looks sick. As you're dipping it into the water. Don't be a cunt. As you're dipping dipping into the water, Quasha sees you do that, looks back and says, be very careful with that. The water here is diseased. You do not want to drink

or let any of that water touch your blood. I'm not bleeding. Just letting you know. I feel like you'd appreciate the warning. You actually didn't need that warning. You knew enough. I thought so. Put my hammer back and keep rowing, I guess.

Yeah, I'm always going to go on my shell first time. Get safe, recalibrate, have a look, see if you can find your tools, because that's where you keep everything. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You don't even look inside my shell. It's called my private business. Yeah, I don't want to. Yeah, good. No, that's you time.

Do you know what's fucked? Technically, if I am an anatomically correct turtle, we'll also have a cloaca. Oh, no, a spade dick. What? Have you seen turtles' dicks? This might shock you, but no. So, turtle penises.

Tenises. Tortoise penises? Tortenises. The most delicious delicacy. Are like the length of their bodies No Like retractable And end in like a disc Aww

Aww Yeah, yeah, yeah Are you googling turtle penises? No, no A little bit later in the day I would say that was about midday That you were attacked by the velociraptor But a little bit later in the day, I would say that was about midday that you were attacked by the Velociraptor, but a little bit later in the day, maybe towards when the sun's setting, as you're starting to think about packing up for the night, or pulling onto, quotation marks, dry land for many many months but uh pulling up onto dry socks yeah pulling up onto land and making camp for the night you see that the tabaxi and the druid and his veggie pygmy have

pulled up alongside each other and are pointing at something off the river again as you approach or as you get closer i think both of you will notice this. What's your passive perceptions? Yeah, no, no, you both notice this. You can both see a 10-foot tall statue on the side of the bank. There's been a small clearing of trees so that there's enough room for this. It's overgrown with vines, and you can see that it depicts a stylized chultin king so a king of chult a representation of ubatal so you pop would just inherently know who this is tiffany you have no idea what this is

but pop maybe you lean over and explain it's not really your style you just know but you do not explain no no you promised to help you gotta ask no you promised if your knowledge would ever come in handy you promised to use that knowledge to help and i that was the one thing i asked it's a king kind of a representation of a god specifically so that statue is a king his name is king um... Ubtau or Ubtayo. Both pronunciations are correct. Ubtayo is the posh way of saying it. It's a king.

They treat him like a god. He's now a statue. Good for him. Merry Christmas. He's a local god. He's sometimes referred to as the father of dinosaurs, creator of Chult, sometimes even the Deceiver. He has several different aspects, and people in Chult worship the many different aspects. This is possibly a shrine dedicated to him in some form.

You know that shrines like this tend to have magic about them. There could be potentially a boon you could gain off this statue. If we praise this statue, we might receive a blessing or a boon from his godliness. Rivermist, you pulled up alongside everyone else. Rivermist nods slowly and says, I believe it is the maze walkers. Maze walkers.

It potentially could guide us towards your path better. Oh, well, we should definitely do it then. Sorry. We should definitely do it then. How do you... Are you apologizing too? How do we get this boon? Do we pray?

Do we... We will need to approach the statue. Approach the statue. Okay. Do you want to pull up closer to it? You'll have to get out of your boats. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You get out of your boats. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You get out of your boats. You're kind of standing in ankle-deep water at this point. It's a little bit uncomfortable, but the water is kind of warm. It's a nice day out. Poor diseases. That's why it's so warm. If you could kind of forget where you are, it almost feels nice. The statue has, you can see now that you're close enough, grooves carved into its stomach that form a maze.

You can try to study them if you want. Yes, definitely. Yeah. Does, would Druid Boy be better at knowing what's going on or? Druid Boy, he shakes his head slowly. I don't know the gods of this place very well. I just know the lands. Can I try and use my finger to do the maze? Yeah, sure.

What if you failed and it, like, cuts your finger off? There's an idea. You try, but try as you might, you can't figure out the maze. I can't do it. I'd say half an hour of trying. It's a big maze. I can't figure it out at all. Does anyone else want to have a go?

Is this the right way to go about this? Oh, let's have a closer look. I take a closer look at the shrine. You have a closer look? Like I said, it's got like a lot of moss and stuff on it. Looks like it was left here and not really tended to, but that doesn't seem unusual. The worship of Ubteo is sometimes very infrequent

There's a lot of people who don't really believe him to be a A lot of Choltians who don't really believe him to be a god at all Some people believe that he does not really care about the day-to-day activities of his worshippers So he's a bit of a deadbeat dad in some aspects This guy thinks that Would you like to try to also trace the maze? Looking at the maze, can I see if there is a worn, an area that looks like... A more worn path than the others?

Studying it closely, how smart are you? Ah, just smart enough. As you're studying it closely, you see that there is a slightly more worn path than the others. You put your finger at one end and slowly trace that more worn path. When you get to the other end, you feel the statue has become incredibly warm, hotter than the baking sun would allow for it. When you get to the center of the maze, a little band of light forms to the center of the maze a little band of light forms around the center of the maze and slowly runs along your finger until it disappears about halfway up your

arm you feel a magic descend upon you and you know you you can use that magic to allow yourself to, shall we say, find a path. As the spell, some might say. I'll just look at Tiffany and be like, there you go. I just stand there impressed. So this is quite a powerful spell. Fuck yes. It's a sixth level spell. So you'd have to be like level 10 or something like that to know it.

Holy shit. This spell allows you to find the shortest, most direct physical route to a specific fixed location that you are familiar with on the same plane as existence. If you name a destination on another plane, a destination that moves, such as a mobile fortress. By the way, mobile fortresses are a thing. Or a destination that isn't specific, such as Green Dragon's Lair. The spell fails. For the duration, the duration being a day, as long as you are on the same plane of existence as the destination,

you know how far it is and what direction it lies. While you are traveling there, whenever you are presented with a choice of paths along the way, you automatically determine which path is the shortest and most direct route but not necessarily the safest route to the destination you have that you can hold on to it you can cast it whenever you want basically but you only cast it once yeah yeah so it has to be a place you are familiar with am i familiar with any of the places we're going to? Well, familiar with does not mean that you've been there. You just need to be familiar with it, so Mbala counts.

How far away are we from Mbala, I ask, I guess, of guides? Or am I familiar with that? You're several days away. At least that long. There's still a ways to go. I might wait to use this, by the way, until we're like... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not going to use it immediately. No, no, no.

And it won't expire until I use it? No. You have it. It's just a magic that you have about you until you use it, and then it lasts for a day and then it's gone. Cool. You can also use it... I would allow you to use it to look for Oralunga, because you are quotation marks, familiar with the place.

It's a specific place that you can name. Oralunga's near Mbala, though, isn't it? It's somewhere near Mbala. you are quotation marks familiar with the place it's a specific place that you can name or along as near umbala though isn't it it's somewhere near so we're still several i could use it to get to umbala and then use it to try to find it basically that's what i'm thinking you're doing uh horns yes why don't you reach the center of the maze as well and see if we can get more blessings out of this statue i'll give it another go uh yeah can i try it again but both of you can immediately tell that the magic about this statue has disappeared oh it's not you think it can only grant this boon perhaps once to a group or once a week or something like that there's no way of

specifically telling fuck you guys i'm the best uh one of the tabaxi shrugs uh no not one of the tabaxi shrugs, no, not one of the tabaxi, river mist, always the one who talks, shrugs and says, if there is potentially chance that we might encounter another such shrine somewhere in the jungle, another such shrine somewhere in the jungle. Well then. Of course. Bully for all of us. Are we making camp here? Are we continuing on?

It's about night time, so might as well, yeah. Let's call it a night. Okay. Should we have a watch? Yes. Oh, yes, absolutely. No, no, no, that's all got to be. I'll take first watch.

Thank you. I'll rest my weary arms. You wake me up when... Sorry, where'd you go? Oh, because it's dark. What? Do the Tabaxi also rely on dark vision? The Tabaxi also get dark vision, believe yes let me double check so to tabaxi tiffany i'm gonna assume plant boy

weed kwasha does kwasha i believe is just human he is yeah it's just human so kwasha the veggie pygmy also cannot see which is all irrelevant at the end of the day because Quasha lights several lights and a fire. Fine. Well, no, we're not going to bed just yet. When we go to sleep, I'm going to douse the lights. As soon as the sun is down, Quasha shakes his head. We will want these all night. There is not going to be a single point where we will not need the fire and the light.

Surely the fire will help ward off predators. Potentially. Thank you, Quasha. I'm taking first. Watch then. Okay. I'm going straight to bed. I've had a big day.

At bedtime, because Quasha can't keep the lights going. It's just the fire. I'm going to sit in shadow. Mm-hmm. Okay. So that I'm invisible to things that don't exist that's not hard to do, the fire isn't that big

oh fuck Adam he looks too happy for that to be good for us don't be rude happiness in Dungeons and Dragons is a finite resource only so much of it can go around at once and most of it goes to Adam or us and then Adam gets none.

But we'll never- As a group, we will never individually feel as happy as Adam does when he does something to us. Happiness is a finite resource, and when Adam gets it, it lasts longer. When we get it, it's borrowed happiness. There's like- I always see it as there's X amount of happiness to be had, and we can pull it around and share it,

but there's only so much. So if, if we feel like we're doing pretty well, everyone's having a good time. That's good. If we ever feel like we're being cheeky to Adam, Adam's a bit annoyed. We're having a good time.

If Adam ever feels happy and we're a bit sad, there's no comparison to how happy Adam is. No, correct. We will never know that feeling. His happiness is limitless and terrifying. So, at some point in the night, Pop, you hear... Oh, that's no good. Something big distantly rumbling through the jungle.

Do you do anything about it? I would like to investigate. Just on your own? Silly total. See, Tom would 100% not investigate on his own. But Pop would absolutely investigate on his own. You silly, silly total. Stealth your way there?

You've gone. You've gone and left us defenseless. We're all asleep. You've got the fire. I'm not a good man. I am a good man. I just make bad choices. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I know. Well, get through to your soft centre. Heist. Oh, no, Adam. What I meant was... I've got to jump to a different page. Fuck. Oh, boy. First, what I meant was... I gotta jump to a different page. Fuck!

Oh, boy. First, you find the trail. It's pushed aside trees, giant footsteps. Footsteps, humanoid footsteps in the mud and wolf paws. You move a little bit further ahead and you see two giants. Oh, Jesus. These boys here frost giants yes so you don't know much about frost giants but a huge creature let me try and give you some scale here a huge creature is maybe six or seven stories tall they are accompanied by giant about them size wolves white pure white wolves there's two of them and two wolves they don't seem to have noticed you though are the wolves to scale to the size

of the giant or is it yeah okay they're not as tall as the giant no no they're like they're like a man and a dog yeah yeah. But the giant versions of that. That's still too big. I am going to just nope my way back to camp. Oh, bring them to us. Cool. And I'm stealthy. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You make a very important stealth check on your way back. Oh, fuck. Hang on, do I have any magic that helps me move stealthily? Zephyr Strike helps me move quick. It doesn't help you move stealthy. If anything, it's the opposite of moving stealthy. I'm called a gloom stalker. I should be able to like... But I'm not.

That doesn't do anything. Who's there? Hi Adam, do the giants need darkvision? Because if they do, I'm just going to disappear into the shadows. No, they have giant torches. Trees. Trees that they're using as torches. That's cool.

Who's there? You're maybe hiding behind a tree, but they definitely are semi-aware of you. What do you want to do? I am going to slowly pull myself into my shell and hold my breath. Because I could hold my breath for an hour, Adam. All right. And just, I'm a total, I reckon I just try to make myself look like a rock or something. Hey, Adam, can I use disguise self to look like a rock?

Yeah, you attempt. Oh, disguise self as a spell? No, that only allows self to look like a rock? Yeah, you attempt. Oh, disguise self as a spell? No, that only allows you to look like other people. Ah, damn it. Yeah, sorry. Can I just try to make myself look like a rock and hide and hold my breath? Fuck, I'm stressed. You hear the two frost giants walking around you.

Where are you where are you are you perhaps mercenaries? Is that it, flaming fists? A boulder next to you is lifted out of the muck, and you rock a little bit as that happens. Under here, mercenary. The rock is dropped right next to you. Under here, mercenary. The rock is dropped right next to you. Luckily, it's a little bit further away than it was before.

The wave of muck and mud washes against you, rocks you up and down, and you realize they must think you're just a smaller rock. I keep holding my breath. They slowly stalk away. Adam. Oh my breath. They slowly stalk away. Adam. Oh, my goodness. I count to ten. Okay.

Slowly come out of my shell. Poor Mandarin, you were getting too old for this shit. Get a card. That was great. Yay. Also, because I get to use both of your experience points separately, get 100 experience points that Tiffany doesn't get. Cop that.

That's what reckless gets you. Until it gets you dead. Yeah. Get you good until it gets you dead. Now, I've seen them. They've walked way away from us. Yeah, they're fucked off. All right, I go back to camp.

Cool. The rest of the night is uneventful for everyone. We swap watch. Yeah, yeah. We swap watch. Don't freak go back to camp. Cool. The rest of the night is uneventful for everyone. We swap watch. Yeah, yeah. We swap watch. Don't freak out. Just so you know. Giants. Good night. He's invisible. What? What?

What? I am frozen for three minutes. In place. If you're doing the watch as the dawn comes, you would finally see that I appear and disappear in shadows. True. Unless you take the watch right after, in which case you wouldn't. I would.

I'd take the watch right after. You wouldn't. One of the, like, maybe Quasha is taking the watch when sun rises. Oh, then no one finds out your secret. It would be funnier if it was Flask of Wine who was on the last watch and couldn't communicate that he knew my secret. Anyway, it's fine. So we're all good.

Sorry, question about spells because this is the first time I've done a spell person. I've played a punchy boy and another punchy boy. Do they reset after naps, after sleeping? Yeah, everything comes back. Cool. I have a tent. I have a two-person tent, and I just sleep in my shell

and don't give the tent to anybody. Oh, God, I love you. Your character's just... As an audience member, I can't get enough of Pop. And how much of a bad dude he is. Yes, as Tiffany, I know you'll love me one day. Because if I don't believe that, I've got nothing. Yeah, all the people in your life have just treated you terribly.

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eating breakfast well when you're packing up your tents a light speckling of rain starts hitting when that light speckling of rain starts hitting cooper louis gets low to the ground and you see him just staring up at the sky quashaasha shakes his head slowly and says, sadly, bad day today. By the time you are finished with your food, it is pelting down. The river has swollen in size. You all need to quickly collect your canoes before they sail away without you. There's thunder, heavy lightning wailing in the distance and you can see through the tree line distantly the water has risen so much that the beach has kind of started

coming to meet you oh holy shit is this normal quasha nodss. Well, Quasha and you, Pop, you know as well, this is quite normal. Absolutely. And is it going to pass or? Maybe. It'll pass eventually. What do we do? You know enough, Pop, to know that if you move now, it will be exhausting for you, but you could potentially be stuck here for a while if you don't move.

Basically. What I'm saying. Now, if you start moving now, you will immediately take a level of exhaustion, which will give you a disadvantage on ability checks, strength checks, dexterity checks, constitution checks, stuff like that. And as you're paddling in this weather, you might take a second level of exhaustion, which will halve your speed. But if you don't move, you

might end up stuck here for a while. Well, how's I see it is we gotta keep moving or we gonna have to pay more. I wish I was doing an accent I could do. No, that's a good one. Yeah, I guess we gotta move

because we got no money, see? Yeah, no money. Definitely definitely i only got 19 gold don't say numbers out loud or gold don't use those words no one here speaks in finals the second level of exhaustion will be and you'll be moving a lot slower because you cannot take the canoes in this weather you will have to walk and move them behind you. I guess that's what we're doing. It's just too tumultuous here. The canoes are not designed for this. Mother Nature done twisted our arm.

Can we buy it to the Caribbean so we keep our heads dry? Sure, you can. Yeah, absolutely. That'll build our upper body strength in case we need to carry ourselves up a mountain. Hey, if we work out, do we get climb speed? Sorry? If we pump iron, can we improve our climb speed? I think we'll also get really tired.

No. Can you exercise in this game? That's leveling up. It's called grinding. Both of you take two levels of exhaustion. Does everyone else? Obviously two. The rest of the party, the tabaxi aren't doing so well.

Can we stop for a break? No one's doing well. Except the veggie pygmy. He's a fucking trooper, I guess. Because he's a fucking vegetable. Yeah. He loves water. He does.

He's good. But everyone else is taking two levels of exhaustion, basically. We might need to stop for a break. I think so. How are you doing? I feel twice as awful as usual. That is bleak and unnecessarily too much information about your life. I cannot be bothered arguing with you today.

Let's just quickly take a rest. You take a rest partway through the day. Close. Something nearly found you through the day. Close. Something nearly found you in the rain. Oh, God, no. Something's hunting for you. Oh. We don't know this, though, do we?

No. Adam. Cool, cool, cool. Is everyone good to go again? The Vegapigmy, Koopa Louie, starts, like, tapping something out, and Quasha says, maybe it would be clever to stay the day. We've made a little bit of progress, but not a lot. Yes.

Your core horns. Yes. Let's just, please, can we rest? Well, I guess we're staying here the night. Yeah. Does anyone want to take first watch? I'll take first watch. Okay.

I fall asleep where I'm standing. God, first watch again I do the same thing, Adam I hide in the shadows Alright, as the day As the sun sets The rain begins to slowly let up Until the night sky is clear

It's beautiful, looking up You can see all the stars perfectly There's not a single cloud in the sky Nothing to mar anything. It just looks pristine and beautiful. I'm having a great time. Everyone's asleep, no one is talking to me, and I get to look at the stars. This is fucking good.

Just the idea that you're facing your head directly up from your shell. You're still in the shell. Oh, yeah, yeah. You hear a crash. A tree falls over in the distance. Weird birds fly into the night sky. I'll get my hammer out ready. And Adam, I'd like to investigate the noise without telling anybody that's what I'm about to do.

I love you. All right. You move as quietly as you can through the underbrush, but you're making a lot of wet slurping sounds. There's a lot of just marsh here. A lot of water and sediment has washed up because of the rains. Is it a swamp, Adam? Yes. Good.

Swamp is one of my habitats that I like. That's good. What does that do? Well, you're just familiar with this terrain. Maybe you feel a little bolstered by that. Yeah, you're going to fucking punch someone. You see a herd of Hadrosaurus. Oh, herbivores. Yes.

Oh. Seven adults, two children. They're grazing. I'm just gonna watch them. Knock out the camp. I'm gonna watch these Hadrosaurs. You might all die. If I come back, it's just like someone has been taken.

Yeah, well, if you want, you can just have a quiet, peaceful moment watching them. I'm going to do that, Adam. Pop likes nature. There's nature like pop. Imagine one of them lowers its head, headbutts you, fall over, crack your head, dead. Critical hit. You never find out what happened to him because they take the body away with them. Later on the quest, you just find a shell that's been emptied out

with two belts on it. One of the adults comes quite close to you, and it's not really interested in you. It's interested in some foliage nearby. It starts eating the foliage, but it's close enough that you could just touch it. You feel safe to touch it as well. You can tell from its body language

it doesn't seem to really care about you. Can I tell if it's a lady or a man hadrosaur? It would be male. There you go. Little fella, you all right? Big fella. Give him a pat? Give him a little pat.

A little rub. It like... Accepts the pat. You're a lot better than the shitty people that I'm currently going through the jungle with right now. Let me give you the tip. Oh, boy. You don't even want to know. They are needy, thievy, and green.

You have a nice conversation with it. Yeah, I say more to this hadrosaur about my life and all of my fears and feelings than I have to anyone else. That's fine. Eventually, it and the rest of its herd slowly wander away. Good night, big fella. I head back to camp. Once again, the rest of the night passes uneventfully. I'm watched too.

No giants. You go to bed. What? What'd you? Hello. Hello. I'm frozen in fear for another three minutes. Highs or lows?

Highs. Highs? Once again, Quasha is the last person in the night. It's the best secret ever. So your secret remains. Sorry, I'm just trying to find where are the rules for if it's going to be a blizzard. Blizzard, sorry. Blizzards don't occur in Chult.

This place has never seen snow before and it's the entire existence it'd be very funny if it's all for the first time because you rolled real bad unfortunately that's just not on the roll oh no the weather critically failed it's snow the weather did critically failed didn't No, it's another fucking monsoon. You could try to make headway again today. The next day, as the sun's coming up again, it starts just bucketing, absolutely shitting down with rain. You could try if you wanted to. We'd become exhausted, though, wouldn't we?

Yes. Oh, fuck. What do you want to do, horns? Is there a way to make a small amount of headway without getting exhausted? Not without getting exhausted, but you could try just moving just a little bit. We'll have a go at moving. At least then it feels like we've done something. All right.

Off you go then, cats and vegetables. Cats and vegetables. He likes trees. Get a good boy, Garth. That's great. Cats and vegetables. I love that maybe. Sorry, you. Get a good boy, Tom. That's great. Cats and vegetables. I love that, maybe. Sorry, you. I love you, maybe.

Stop. I just... I'm real sweaty. He's got the romance sweats. I do. I got the crush hot body. Say it with your name. Say it with your words now. I got the... I got the crush hot body. That's pop mandarin. I fucking know i'm real fucking into that yeah more i've got a tingling in my shell right where my heart's supposed to be i ain't there because i took it out put it in the box and i can never have my heart fuck you

mom fuck you mom what would be the rough order here? Who's going first? I guess it's the guides. It's the same order we had where you and I are at the back. So it's like the cats, the plant boys, us. Yeah. Yeah? Yeah.

Okay. What happened, Adam? Did we find treasure? Treasure, you said. What? What? I'm not sure you won't notice anything. What? What? Don't even stress. Oh, no.

You just said we won't notice anything. You didn't say there's nothing there, guys. Oh, no. Adam? Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Adam? Okay. So as you're traveling forwards, you can see that, you know how you're doing the Jack Sparrow thing of holding the canoes above your heads? So as you're doing the Jack Sparrow thing, traveling along, whoever's in your canoe up the front will say, I'll say you pop.

You're up the front. Your leg kicks something. You look down and you see one of the canoes is just laying in front of you. The monsoon weather is hitting really hard. You can barely see or hear anything above the rain.

Uh, hold up. I stop. Obviously. Uh, you're still here. Your horns, obviously obviously you can barely make out horns fuck oh i want to call out but i'm also kind of concerned the horns is a fucking oh no i don't say i don't yell that i just stop all right well uh pop stops i do i notice you would have to you're holding the same canoe oh Oh, right. Yeah. Okay. I stop as well.

What is it? I can't hear you. It's pouring. Actually, Adam, I'd like to shimmy down the canoe to her. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you do that. Pop gets closer to you. Be quiet. Can I talk at a normal volume and she can hear me? You kind of got to still yell, even next to her, above the rain. I'm talking infernal into this canoe

real loud, okay? so just in case uh you know there's people listening they don't know that i know they're listening okay you know the kobolds understand common right i'm speaking infernal yeah but you're not saying you're speaking well you're just speaking in common adam i'm speaking infernal over here he's speaking i'm just making jokes anyway. Keep going. Sorry. Yeah, I hear you.

Loud and clear. Yeah, there's some schmuck left his canoe on the ground up ahead. I don't know if it's the kitty katties or the twins made of trees. That ain't Flash. Yeah, but I don't want to yell loud and alert the thing that might have put the canoe on the ground. I see. Yeah. We should slow down over there and gather what evidence we can.

Okay, let's check it out. But, you know, be ready. Yeah. Okay. Bada bing, bada boom, let's have a look. All right, then. Back to the front of the canoe. Yeah. All right, you keep moving.

Do you just kind of move straight? I want to look at the canoe at my feet. Oh. Do I know whose canoe it is? It would be Aquasha and Cooper Louie's. Shuffle back down. It's a tree, boys! No, no!

Are there any... Can we see any, like, damage on the... Like, what am I seeing, Adam? There's no damage to the canoe. You, as I would like to remind you, cannot see very far around you. You can see maybe five feet around you, so you don't know very well necessarily what... You don't have a lot of situational awareness right now. I say we keep it forward and see what we can see

so we don't want to yell too hard. Do we take off the canoe maybe? Well, it didn't help whoever got taken. Yes. You both take off the canoe. You can, like I said, barely see anything around you. You continue to stumble forwards. Do you?

The way you say that makes me think the answer should be no, Adam. And yet, highs or lows? Highs. Let's go. Okay. So who's in front? You are. Me, yeah.

Pop, you spot off to the side one of the tabaxi, just its feet poking out of a giant plant, a flower, massive, as big as a horse. The flower seems to try and be retracting itself up into the tree canopy. The other tabaxi, all you can make out is that they are the two tabaxi has their legs around a hand sorry around the feet of the tabaxi that has been trapped and is trying to yank that tabaxi out you see koopa louie and kwasha around the bottom firing up at the plant then you feel a light smattering of something dusting upon you oh fuck me you look over and you see another such plant there's a long string of green pollen in

between you and the plant it shot pollen at you without you even noticing the pollen rests upon you and you feel a mental compulsion coming over you you stare deeply into the flowers more and you ponder what your life would be like if you just climbed in horns do you know i'll be amazing fuzzing that flower right now no shake No. You shake it off. Oh, Jesus. Fuck. We got to move. Don't breathe. Another third flower shoots pollen at you. Oh, Adam. Once again, you shake off the effects. We're going to go to initiative. We need to move.

These fucking plants are going to make us eat ourselves. Eat yourselves? Wait. Make us feed them. So you wanted to get into the plant? I really wanted to get into the plant. Oh, no. So they're fighting one flower as a foursome,

and we're fighting two as just the two of us. Uh-huh. Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. We've got to go save the cats. I could go and help them and just focus all our energies on one plant because I feel like they can't move. Maybe they can. Do we know what the fuck these are, Adam?

Good question. Yeah. Does it look like we've walked into a nest or does it look like it's come to nest? I mean, does it look like the nest has come to us? Pop, you don't really know what these are or like you only know them as hostile plants. You are aware of some properties of plants i'm aware that plants exist yes sometimes they are flowers and sometimes they use grass they cannot be blinded deafened exhausted or knocked prone but beyond that you don't know that's just kind of like basic plant

knowledge tiffany you maybe uh in learning about this place you researched a flower called the man trap. Oh, boy. It's kind of just how it's like a Venus flytrap, but for people. It has an effect where it can alchemically attract its prey towards it, and then it tries to engulf them. But if you're not standing next to it, there's not a whole lot it can do. It has a movement speed, but they're quite slow. Five feet of movement a turn compared to your 30. So you could quite easily just outrun them.

But it would appear your good friend, one of the tabaxi, has been consumed by the plant or is being consumed. Tabaxi's turn. Oh, boy. We've got to go save them. Yeah. Pop, your turn. I mean, we don't have to. We do.

You should. They're your guide. Yeah, I could guess. I've got that fucking ring thing that tells me I know how to go places. That boon of that statue back there. True. We actually don't need them. Fine.

I'd like to remind you that does not last for very long. It wouldn't even get you out of the jungle now. It could take us back to where we came and I could hire some more guards. For like a day. You're a couple days in at this point. Let's follow the river. True. Gosh, Adam.

You did. Fuck him. All right, you leave. No. All right. Question. Yes. Rope trick.

Specific question about rope trick. What is? What do? How does? So, rope trick. You touch a length of rope that is up to 60 feet long. One end of the rope rises into the air until the whole rope hangs perpendicular to the ground. At the upper end of the rope, an invisible entrance opens to an extra-dimensional space that lasts until the spell ends. The extra-dimensional space can be reached

by climbing to the top of the rope. The space can hold as much as eight medium or smaller creatures. The rope can be pulled into the space, making the rope disappear from view outside the space. Attacks and spells can't cross through the entrance Into or out of the extra-dimensional space But those inside can see out of it As if through a three foot by five foot window Centred on the rope You create like a little hidey-hole Cool Hidey-hole

Wasn't what I thought I could do with the rope But that's fine Alright, I guess we come over to assist To get We get six feet away from the two plants that are nearer me. Six feet? Yeah, they can only move five feet. Oh, I see.

Yeah, that's right. Now, I head over to the tabaxi to assist. Can I get to them? Yeah, you can get to them this time. You may attack as well if you wish, Pop. Yeah, I'm just going to beat the shit out of this plant. You draw your hammer and sickle. Moscow, Moscow. Yeah, I'm just going to beat the shit out of this plant. You draw your hammer and sickle.

Moscow, Moscow. I should have sung Rasputin. Your first attack... Oh, their armor glass isn't that high. But you did roll pretty poorly. No, just enough. Your first attack is a hit. So you hammer it. You miss it with the sickle,

but your follow-up attack with the hammer is also a hit. You deal a grand total of 12 points of damage. The man-trap lets go of, you discover, Flask of Wine. Flask of Wine topples down on top of River Mist. They both look quite glad to be safe. Any of you idiots want to go in those flowers? Sorry? I asked them if any of them want to go in the flowers.

Neither of them do. The effect ends pretty quickly after you've been swallowed. Everyone step back approximately however the distance is. That ends your turn, and it kills one of the flowers, obviously It is Quasha and Koopa Louie's turn

Do they ever think about killing plants? No, they don't give a shit Good Quasha has a ball of fire in his hand He hurls it at one of the other plants It misses The ball of fire streaks past the plant And engulfs a tree nearby the fire dies out pretty

quickly in the in the heavy rains a cooper louis he just beats his chest a bunch and barrels forwards as he barrels forwards he throws a spear where did he get the spear? He grew it. He's a fucking brute. He spears one of the other plants, dealing four points of damage. Then he gets to it, having grown a second spear along the way. It is Tiffany's turn. Guys, we can outrun them. And let's go. I try and run.

Run them! And let's go! You... I try and run. You yell as loudly as you can, but no one hears you over the rain. I should have waited to find out what they were instead of just running off, potentially. Do you still run away, Tiffany? No, they're all still fighting them. I run up and send a witch bolt at the one that they're attacking.

You hit! them i run up and send a witch bolt at the one that they're attacking you hit dealing a grand total a powerful nine points of damage that's not none oh what a thing to say and you can with just one hand lazily keep the spell going. Done. Just this Molotov. It's the plant's turn. One of them just gets closer. That's its entire turn is just getting closer. But the other one attacks Koopa Louie.

Not Koopa Louie. Oh no. You could make noises like that if you wanted to. Oh no. I am indifferent to the well-being of the weed. Does Pop secretly love Cooper Louie? Find out next time on Once Upon a Time in Zombie Plagues Chult.

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