Hey, everybody.

Welcome to this, another episode of Dodoborne!

I'm your GM, your good friend, your Uber driver, Isaac Allen Burns, he him.

And sitting in the back seat is one Annie Hawthorne.

Oh, hey, Squawk.

And sitting next to Annie Hawthorne in the back seat is one Jodi Amity.

Do you have any mints?

Can I can I pick the song?

Two stars.

Oh, no.

A Nightmare Guest.

And finally, having decided instead of sitting in the back seat, but sitting in the passenger seat is one, Rowan Collins.

I'm so sorry for my friends.

I'm I'm so sorry.

How is it being an Uber driver?

Is this fun for you?

The passenger seat always has to.

Like, wow.

Like, what

Yeah.

What is it like

to be an Uber driver?

Wow.

That's great.

Yeah.

Is this like

your full time gig?

Or

Yeah.

I really appreciate your dedication for this.

I really couldn't do this.

Nice turn signal.

Yes.

Yes.

You're doing well.

Thank you so much.

I lost my job at the EPA, and now I drive for Uber.

Oh, wow.

Did I mention I have a PhD?

Anyways, it's me, your

Oh, god.

Be your your Isaac Allen Burns...

Be your Isaac Allen Burns...

I got too lost in that joke, and then it was too personal.

I don't have too many friends.

RIP.

That'll get cut probably.

Anyways, well gang, hello.

Welcome to another episode.

And I think it's time to queue the music.

Get out of here.

Get out Help me out.

To recap last week's episode for you Mhmm.

As you may have forgotten Mhmm.

You found yourselves at the Alchanabai Adventure and Guild.

Much bigger than it was in Bracken Road and much more full because in fact, there were more individuals there.

One of which was someone from Kapi's past who clearly had it out for the role captain there.

After some tense words and some discussions with Michelle, the goblin front desk individual administrator of the Algenabai adventuring guilt, You had a choice of two different jobs.

One of them in the sewers and one of them in a spooky graveyard.

With a spring in their step, they headed to the graveyard.

And you hung out for a while in the graveyard speaking to each other when you had the idea to perhaps attempt a seance using some makeshift materials of two softs of rope.

Within this dream, something horrible happened and Crank was shunted down into a dark place.

However, Crank was rescued by his old mentor, Adrian Toulouse, who appeared to him in a vision and lifted him up out of the darkness.

Upon arrival, a little bit of magic flowed into Crank as seen by the glowing arcane gauntlets on his hands.

The joy was short lived though for an arrow slammed into the side of the tree that they were standing next to and turning around.

I set the scene for you now.

The three of you are standing at one end of this graveyard.

Rows of tombstones, couple of mausoleums stick up out of the ground, creating some kinds of cover.

However, that is not the first thing that comes to mind as directly in front of you are a handful, a cadre of skeletons.

Some of them seem a mishap and misshaped group of them as if melded together.

Some of them wearing armor as though at one point they were a soldier.

Some of them wielding nothing but stones as though they were not buried with their weapons, and others probably rangers of some kind because they have a bow and arrow.

Now I wanna know, Kapi.

Yeah.

As you're looking out at these skeletons, I wanna know from you, what is it about these skeletons that makes them much more frightening than what you would imagine a normal skeleton look like?

I think that there still seems to be flesh sticking to them, eyeballs hanging out, chunks of brain and skin just hanging on somehow.

Yes.

These are not pristine skeletons.

They recently came up out of the ground.

These were once people and remnants of that personhood is seen on them.

Another thing that catches your eye Kapi though is that not all of these individuals are skeletons however.

Because in the back, you see that there is a path that winds through these stones and sort of far distance from all of you, you see an individual holding up what looks like a stick, maybe a wand, maybe a rod, you're not quite sure.

It's a little too far away.

But you hear a somewhat youthful voice yelling,

Yeah.

Get them.

I'm the bone master, and I'm gonna be your doom.

Oh my god.

And,

Crank.

As you're looking out, the bow master strikes you as interesting because everything else here is undead.

How what is it that makes it so that you can tell they're not undead and what and sort of just describe what they look like for me.

All I'll tell you is the voice sounds somewhat youthful, like preteen.

I think he's very, like, stout and plumping.

This is like a dwarven kid who, like, is trying to look older than like, he is.

I think he's trying to grow a beard, but can't quite grow a beard yet.

Oh, nice.

And he's just, like, obviously not undead because he's kinda

plump.

Yes.

Yes.

I love this.

Yeah.

You see this dwarven kid, this plump dwarven kid in the back who clearly has not seen a lot of action.

That is awesome.

You see this as this kid is back there.

You can tell that he's doing something that's impacting these skeletons.

The stick that he's holding up seems to glow, and you see in the eye sockets and sometimes the hanging eyeballs of these skeletons, you see a similar colored glow.

Rowan.

There is something else going on, however, in this graveyard that is very dire.

What is that extra bit of danger either to y'all or to someone else that is occurring right now?

I feel like the bone master dude is standing very close to a liquid that seems to be moving very quickly towards him, whether it's like oil or something or whatever.

And he's a he's a little prick and he's got like a like a cigarette as well because he's a little rebel.

So it's definitely like that's a flammable liquid and homie's about to like accidentally light himself on fire.

So you're standing there.

There is a group of skeletons in close range to you quickly approaching.

You see that there are two archers and a heavily armored skeleton.

Like, clearly, this guy was a soldier buried with his armor.

It's even in undeath, he seems to wield this enormous sword with some amount of deft.

They stand in the path just outside of close range to you.

I'm also gonna say you hear the banging of wood.

Kinda to your right at the end of the path, there is a little house that you know the old man that takes care of this graveyard is living in.

You see two skeletons banging against that door, trying to bust it down and get to the guy inside who is screaming.

And then finally, you see the bone master far away from you, but basically on the other side of the heavily armored skeleton.

So I know that was a lot.

And as you're standing there, crank your hands.

You see that they glow a little bit with some magic.

And I wanna know, just to start us off immediately, crank, to see these skeletons in front of you, to see everything laid out before you, what does Crank do?

Crank is gonna see is the bone master within far range of me?

Yes.

And I'm gonna look at the bone master.

I'm gonna look down at my hands.

And I'm just gonna, like, will magic through my body like I did earlier.

Like, I just really believed in myself during the seance.

So I'm gonna do that again.

And I'm gonna, like, reach out toward the bone master, and I'm gonna conjure a magic hand over the bone master.

Oh.

I wanna try to pluck that stick out of his hand and just lift it up above him where he can't reach it.

Is this a spell effect of some kind?

It's in the book of Typhar, magic hand.

You conjure a magical hand with the same size and strength as your own within a far range.

Nice.

Wow.

Oh my god.

Nice.

Let's go.

I'm gonna go ahead and reading that hearing, it says size and strength.

I'm gonna say that you can use your own strength.

Go ahead and make we're gonna say a strength check against this against this person.

Can I

use I've got the magic, baby?

Absolutely.

You can.

You can spend a whole use that experience as the magic magic courses through you.

Oof.

That's a 12 with fear.

Oh, a 12 with fear.

A 12 does succeed.

As the hand comes down, it grabs onto it.

He's not expecting.

He's up there.

He's like on that rebellious high right now, and he's got it lifted up.

He's like, yeah.

Takes up a hit.

He takes a hit.

Yeah.

You pluck it out of his hands, and you hear him go, oh, what?

Magic touching this thing immediately spills into you for a moment unexpectedly, and there is a pulse of energy that moves through all of the skeletons.

And I'm gonna go ahead and activate a couple of these skeletons, very specifically, the skeletons directly in front of y'all.

You see that these skeletal creatures, these dredges move closer.

There's a handful of them.

There are a lot of them.

They're pretty small, pretty diminutive.

They look more like pieces of bodies that somehow fused together.

Perhaps somewhere around here was a mass grave.

Perhaps these weren't laid to rest as they should have been.

Crank, you see they move towards the biggest thing, the biggest threat.

But as that pulse of energy goes through them, they look away from you.

You seem to no longer be a target of them and they're gonna move towards Pistachio.

Okay.

Big attack right here.

Better watch out.

Coming for you.

Does eight hit?

No.

Okay.

No way you don't.

Well then.

Very good.

It just like shunts into the tree.

Do you see in the back these archers?

At one point, rangers, perhaps they were hunters.

They have their bow cocked.

Can't be the third to you?

Meets it.

Meets it.

Oh, don't you hate that?

Oh, no.

I hate that.

Oh.

That is 16 piercing.

As this thing stabs into you, Kapi, you you it becomes very clear that at the moment, you're kinda standing close with Pistachio and Crank.

These dredges, these tiny skeletons in your way created an opening for that guy to just snipe you right in the chest.

Am I

doesn't look good.

You're not near.

I very close.

You're very close to your shield?

I am your shield.

Oh, very nice.

K.

Oh.

Like, Kapi's, like, patting himself.

Like he closed his eyes getting ready to die and then he's like, he opens his eyes.

He's like, am I alive?

Am I alive?

Crank, as you take damage, you feel something stir within your magic of the hand pulling it, and you see the knight that's in the back there full of armor, lifts up his sword and brings it down on the skeleton that attacked you.

Two swings and that skeleton becomes dust.

You see there's no more archer there.

Aye.

You see this the armored skeleton looks at you and gives a thumbs up.

I give a thumbs up back.

Nice.

Pistachio and Kapi.

You see the skeletons attacking the house with the old man yelling from within.

You see in the distance that the see the bowmaster's kinda leaping up trying to get it.

He's, like, jumping.

He doesn't have much of a vert.

Hanging it over him out

of his reach.

Like an older brother bully holding up something important to him.

He's, like, trying to get it.

He just can't.

What do you two do?

Pistachio looks to Kathy.

Do you wanna get the skeletons by the door and I'll get the boater over there?

The what?

The boater.

The what?

The bone master.

Boater.

Right?

Okay.

Yeah.

It's actually just been hanging out with y'all too

long.

I Kapi's going to shadow step.

Oh.

Hell yeah.

Uh-oh.

Okay.

So I'm going to mark a stress.

I wanna disappear, and then I want to the man's house was within far rain.

Right?

So I picture that out near the house, there's also another tree.

And I disappear, and I wanna show up in the branches in the shadows of the tree.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

You appear in those branches.

Oh, where'd he go?

Oh.

Oh.

And then Pistachio, like, looks around and sees you and he goes, okay.

I guess that was a yes.

And then I think Pistachio will mark a stress to do beast form into a pouncing predator.

This time, it is a cheetah dodo.

They're going to be a cheetah dodo, and they're essentially going to

A what?

A cheetah dodo.

Please describe.

Yeah.

Was gonna say Yeah.

We need

some You

can't just You can't just

say that.

Pictures.

Oh, she's a dodo.

Okay.

Yeah.

It's cheetah dodo.

No question.

Yeah.

No.

It's

a dodo with cheetah dust all over it.

It is.

It's like a dodo that's orange wish that has like, you know, the cheetah spots on it, a long cheetah tail.

It's almost like a chimera between a dodo and a cheetah.

Dodo head, cheetah legs, and cheetah tail.

Can I put the little dodo wings on either one of like, all of their paws similar to, Hermes?

Like Hermes.

Like It's a mercury cheetah.

It's a mercury cheetah.

Alright.

So cheetah dodo.

And it just, like, takes off.

So what I'm gonna use, the specific one is I want to use fleet, which spends a hope to move up to far range without rolling.

And I wanna pounce on this guy.

Oh my goodness.

Yeah.

Do it.

You're pouncing on the bone master?

I'm pouncing on the bone master faster than a blink of an eye, just, like, speed up next to them and almost, like, just pounce on top of him.

That is going to be an 11 with fear.

An 11, unfortunately, is a failure.

A 12 with fear.

I don't know if that makes any difference.

No way Isaac's face just fell.

12 works.

I'm sorry.

I saw the

One of worst.

Sorry.

Yeah.

You leap on top of this kid.

He's being like, fuck.

Get off of me, pervert.

And I'm just gonna Get

off of me.

Fuck.

This fucking cat.

Fuck.

I feel like he

always like, I don't even like pussy.

So you know how cats just, like, kinda lick things that they pet?

And they still, like and just lick his little hair to make it stand up on end.

Like, you're now being groomed, cat baby cat.

That's what I was gonna do.

That's why he yelled that.

Like, no.

He's stuck now.

However, that was a role of fear.

So you know what happened with Eric?

I know.

What happens next is still in this scene because this ooze is gonna move.

This oily ooze.

Now this thing is really slow.

It costs a lot for me to do this.

To be clear, they are slow.

What that means is that if I wanna spotlight this thing, the first time I do it, I put a token on them, and then I have to spotlight them again by spending another fear to do so.

So this is an expensive move, but I think it's worthy of what's about to happen because this thing is going to attempt to envelop our good friend, the bow master.

And along with it, one cheetah dodo.

Does the 12 hit?

No.

Not with a cheetah.

Well, you know what it does hit?

That guy.

Sure does.

You see this ooze comes up, this oily ooze.

This thing envelops the kid, and you hear him yell and scream and start thrashing about.

But this thing gets between you.

As you're looking at some of it, like, gets in your face and your mouth, you taste like the oily slickness of this.

Kapi and Crank.

Actually, let's go to Crank.

Crank, you're watching this occur.

Kapi vanishes and Pistachio turns into an amalgamation of a big cat and a bird, and in a blink of an eye, whooshes away towards the bow master.

But what are you doing in this moment?

Oh, I just took some damage from a Skelly that was trying to hurt my friend.

True.

So I think my first reaction would be to just punch it in the face with my new gauntlet that's glowing.

I don't even think I'm thinking about the fact that it's glowing.

I'm just trying to hit it, and then I wanna see what

happens.

So I just

wanna hit the skeleton on the face, like, push it away from me.

Nice.

You wanna get the ones just right in front of you here?

Yeah.

Nice.

Do it up.

Roll that attack.

They're right in front of you.

They might be very easy to hit.

You don't know till you roll.

No.

No.

That's cocked.

Seven, eight, 11 with hope.

That does succeed.

Amazing.

Roll damage.

That's a two d eight plus seven.

At least I think it is.

Do I have any fancy

For now, the magic that courses through this is a little too weak, you think, to impact Okay.

Your strikes.

Your strikes are still the same for now.

Okay.

13 damage.

13 damage.

Mhmm.

You cleave through these things.

Your fist breaks through the first one, breaks through the second one, breaks through the third one.

You fully, like a martial artist doing power breaks on bricks.

You demolish through multiple of them.

Your strength kinda wanes at the last one.

The friction of all of this bone and sinew that you're moving through.

And your fist connects with the last one, and it kinda stumbles back a little bit.

Can you give me, in this moment right now, a instinct reaction roll for me?

So that's not with hope or fear.

Right?

It's just No one a will roll with hope or fear.

This is just a flat roll.

19.

Incredible.

Mhmm.

Crank your eyes are on the battlefield at all times.

You are trying to keep awareness as much as you can, And you notice another figure appear behind some of the graves.

You think at first that they're a skeleton.

They seem almost like a blur of white.

Mhmm.

Suddenly, they glow gold.

You see a crossbow pointed and a bolt fires.

And as your fist connects with this last skeleton, it stumbles back.

You see that this bolt goes right through it.

And go ahead and deal another dice of damage.

Roll higher than three.

I rolled exactly a three?

Nice.

That this bolt slams into this skeleton, and it turns to ash.

You see some of that color that was glowing from it in its eyes seems to linger in the air for a second.

Okay.

I think I've zeroed in on this guy, and I'm just gonna start moving in that direction.

So he is in far range.

If you wanna beeline over to him, go ahead.

Give me an agility roll.

Eight with help.

K.

So you're moving.

That is unfortunately not quite enough to get there.

You are moving.

And the graves here, some of them have been disturbed due to these skeletons.

The ground is a little soft and your feet sink in a little bit.

As you get closer though, you can see that this is a person.

They look like an elf.

They wear a white robe that kinda goes down pretty far.

It's open in the front and you can see a couple of belts, like command belts strung across the front of them, almost like holding different ammunition and bolts.

This is like an elven man.

He has this almost like a monocle that has a couple of lenses on it that seem to magnify.

His hair is also green and slicked straight up.

And he looks solid and not like

He does not look like a ghost.

No.

He looks very You unfortunately do not recognize this person.

Someone who would recognize this person, however, has been sitting very patiently in a tree.

Kapi Mhmm.

You're up in a tree.

What do you wanna do?

Alright.

Well, first, Kapi reappears in the tree and he didn't mean to do that.

So he's like, fuck.

And he looks back and he sees the whole thing with the dodo cheetah.

And he's like, how animals?

And then he looks over at Crank and sees Crank obliterate a bunch of skeletons into a million pieces.

And then he's like, oh, fuck.

Okay.

And he looks at the two skeletons trying to bash down the door of the grave keeper, I guess.

Mhmm.

And he's like, okay, Kapi.

Get it together.

It together.

Okay.

And I would like to use my new card that I picked, which is called troublemaker.

When you taunt or provoke a target within far range, make a presence roll against them.

Once per rest on a success, roll a number of d fours equal to your proficiency.

The target must mark stress equal to the highest result rolled.

So, yeah, Kapi's up there and he's like looking at the skeletons and he he's just gonna start yelling at them, you know, just like, wow, I remember my first time trying to get through a door.

Like, you can tell you weren't you know, you can tell you haven't been alive in a while.

I just you know, I think you lost a lot of muscle mass, you know, with the whole dying thing.

Kind of embarrassing for you.

So with that, I have to make a presence roll, and my presence is plus two.

I can't wait.

That was cocked.

13 with hope.

Nice.

You yell out these things and as that sound carries, luckily enough, Kapi, both of them still have ears.

And you see their ears fleshy and decayed Mhmm.

Kinda perk up.

You see one of them turns around and it's got a mouth and you hear it grumble.

Oh, I can't talk either.

And then I'm gonna roll a number of d fours equal to my proficiency, which is two.

A three

Okay.

And a two.

Okay.

So he has to mark three straps.

That's wild.

Nice.

The one with the

one with ears and a mouth hears this, physically shaking.

He's rattled.

Yeah.

Because he's a skeleton.

He's rattled some bones some bones fall off.

That was funny.

He kind of stumbles away, afraid of the door because he doesn't understand what just happened.

Mhmm.

He just hurts.

He was at this door and suddenly he heard someone insulted and say he can't get through the door and demoralized him.

So the skeleton kinda wanders away upset.

That's right.

Now you see there is one more skeleton there.

Yeah.

Is there anything else you're gonna try and do in this moment?

Yeah.

I wanna reign up blades, the last skeleton.

Nice.

Y'all are rolling with a lot of hope.

So, like, y'all gonna keep it going, chain it up.

So I'm gonna mark a hope and do a spell cast roll.

We started off strong with, you know, one fear roll and now I'm just sort of sitting here like, oh, man.

I want some fear too.

Aw.

Poor Isaac.

Fear too.

Aw.

And if you call in right now at +1 800 you can donate fear to your GM.

That's right.

For every thousand subscribers, I get one free fear.

Shit.

That's a ten, eleven, 12 with fear.

Oh.

There's your fear.

There's my fear.

12 that will hit.

Go ahead and roll that damage.

I mean, it's a crit, but it doesn't matter.

It's four.

These slam into the skeleton and this is magic damage.

So it hurts them.

They're hurt by it.

The other one stumbles away and we have now taken care of the skeletons outside of this guy's door.

Good job, y'all.

This guy is not getting mauled by skeletons now.

His skin is gonna stay on his body.

Great job.

Oliver, you rolled with fear, which means all that yelling

Uh-oh.

Gave your position away

No.

To the other living archer.

You know what's bad about me?

Mhmm.

Is that when I picked that card, I was like, how could Isaac use this against me?

And I was like, surely he can't?

Bullproof.

I didn't even think that's so simple.

That's a 16 that hit you.

I made a face that knew that that would hit.

I don't know why.

I didn't even have to ask.

That is seven points of damage.

Oh.

This guy did not have as clean of a shot on you because you are not surrounded by other skeletons creating these openings.

Crank, I'm gonna spend a fear.

I'm gonna spend this yellow fear and the big skeleton marches towards you and holds out a hand to help you up out of the dirt.

I reach up and grab it, and I let him pull me up.

The skeleton pulls you out of the ground and nods respectfully, and then turns to the guy who just helped you.

And he's gonna use the rest of his movement to get over close to that guy.

Wait.

Slings his sword on.

Don't do it.

Oh, too late.

Too late.

You have to use the magic.

He brings his sword down.

The guy was kinda like watching you approach and seemed ready to say something to you, and then got a little confused by your interaction with the skeleton.

And then a big gash through the front of him, he kinda screams out in pain.

I'm not very close to him, am I?

You are not very close to him, unfortunately.

No.

You are within close range, but not very close.

Okay.

As you watch this large skeleton slice into this guy, this skeleton is quite dangerous.

It's quite scary.

And whenever this hits, it makes everyone around him lose hope.

And so I need you to lose one hope as this thing successfully hits somebody.

That is all, however, and I will leave it back to you

Does this lose hope?

Anything, like like, any sort of natural sort of gross, like, ooze that I could talk to or, like, slime mold or something like that?

Or is it just, like, looks magical and gross and

This thing looks less magical and looks like almost the equivalent of, like, a single celled organism like an amoeba.

It solely works on instinct.

And the one thing that it wants to do, its motive, is to consume, multiply, and envelop.

It also wants to creep up, which it did successfully.

So gold started this ooze, but it wants to consume.

You know that the only thing this thing is gonna care about is consuming its food.

I'd like to cut it.

Yes.

Can I mark another stress to shadow step into the shadow behind the Cheetah Dodo and try to pull Pistachio off of this kid?

Yeah, you can.

Alright.

Oh, no.

I'm going to mark a stress.

And, yeah, Kapi's watching all of this and he's like, fuck, fuck.

And then he disappears and on accident again and reappears and just puts both of his arms around Pistachio's, like, stomach and just, like, tries to rip Pistachio off.

Pistachio, do you wanna resist being pulled away from this?

I feel like Pistachio seeing the ooze is going to try and, like, grab the kid to almost is like, oh, Kepp.

Oh, Kepp is helping me.

Okay.

Great.

And then just, like, gonna hold on to the kid to try to, like, pull him with pistachio.

I don't think that they're wise enough to well, yeah, I don't think they're wise enough to realize that you're trying to pull me away from him and think that you're trying to help me pull him out.

So they're just gonna grab onto him harder, but kinda, like, let you pull them at the same time.

So let's start off.

Kapi, give me a strength check because a cheetah is not light.

Alright.

Strength is plus zero now.

And as I'm doing it, I'm like, come on, kid.

Let go.

And that is an 11 with fear.

K.

And can I have you, Pistachio Mhmm?

Make a standard attack, make a regular attack on this thing?

Yes.

So that is going to be math is hard.

And 18 with hope.

Nice.

Can you roll damage for me?

And an 11 with hope beats the oozes difficulty, which is what I am going to use to determine if that is successful rather than delving into PvP.

Mhmm.

Let's find out how much damage occurs here first.

Eight.

Eight damage.

Nice.

You bite into this ooze attempting to pull him out.

And while you get, like, a good chunk of flesh, you also get a good chunk of ooze in your mouth.

And as you sort of realize that you're not gonna be it's not enough to be able to pull him out, you feel yourself wrenched away as Kapi pulls you No.

How about that did deal some major damage to this guy?

I think Pistachio looks back at Kapi and goes, the kid's gonna die.

The boulder's gonna die.

You can't die too.

Okay.

I've got another idea.

And as you think of that idea Yeah.

We cut over to Crank.

Crank, you're standing there.

You're a good midway of close distance between whoever this new stranger is and the skeleton knight.

The skeleton knight just slashed into the dude and then turned around, gave you another thumbs up and, like, a devil horns.

Like, yeah.

We're doing it.

And you see the knight turn back around to attack the dude again.

I'm gonna quickly look around me and see what else is around me.

Is there any other skeletons in range?

You see there is another archer just a little ways behind you Okay.

Staring so intently at a tree, seeming confused.

There are two skeletons on the side of the path, both sitting down, seeming to ponder their life choices.

And kinda in the distance, you see your two companions kinda wrestling each other.

Okay.

Well, I'm gonna put myself in between the big skeleton and the guy.

And simultaneously, I'm gonna, like, bring my magic hand over with the stick, and I'm just gonna take it in my actual hand.

Okay.

And I'm gonna be like, bad skeleton.

No.

Go attack the archer.

Nice.

Okay.

Go ahead.

In this case, you are attempting to use this magic item to command Mhmm.

These skeletons.

Yep.

Go ahead and give me a presence.

Alright.

I'm gonna use I've got the magic, baby.

Honestly, go for it.

Spend that hope.

Use that magic.

Okay.

Twelve thirteen with fear.

You know, skeleton knight is a bit of a bruiser.

And so, you know, it's supposed to be a little harder than everybody, but that does succeed as the skeleton sees you, seems to understand it's used to taking orders, and it turns and charges towards the other skeleton archer.

You

see the guy who's just sort of holding his chest pulls out what looks like this emblem, this holy symbol.

It's got the nine pointed star on it.

Kinda glows a little bit.

You see his wounds kinda heal up, and he says, oh, that's what was a close one.

Thanks for that.

I'm gonna need that relic, by the way, just so that you know.

But we can use it for now, but I am gonna need that once this is over.

Oh, this this stick is a relic?

Yeah.

It's like a minor relic.

We can talk about it later.

Oh, okay.

Who are you?

We do longer introductions later.

I'm father Charles.

Nice to meet you.

Oh, okay.

And he raises his crossbow and looks back over towards your two companions where you see this morass of inky blackness moving around, and you two watch as this ooze, which is sort of tightening around this kid, seems to split apart.

As this ooze going to split, that's right.

I spend a few seconds split in twain.

There's now two oozes.

One of these oozes moves directly towards y'all and is gonna swipe at one of you.

And it's gonna swipe at the big one which is you, Pistachio.

Does a 10 hit you?

No.

Of course not.

The other ooze you see sort of collapses even closer on this kid.

You hear this kid yell in pain.

He's not long for this.

He could probably can't handle another one of those.

However, I throw it back to you two now.

Pistachio is gonna drop out of beast form.

I just checked.

You cannot cast spells in beast form.

So they're gonna drop out of beast form and they are going to go, I've got an idea.

And they will outreach their hand and you will see, like, their magic kind of flow through as, like, a swarm of fireflies emerge from their tips of their hands and start to go towards both oozes.

Mhmm.

So this is conjure swarm fireflies.

I'm making a spellcasting roll against all adversaries within close range, so I can do this to both of them.

I'm gonna spend a hope to deal damage to the targets I succeed.

So here we go.

First one, twenty three with hope.

Mhmm.

Uh-huh.

Yeah.

Second one.

At least you get a fear now.

He's 16 with fear.

Nice.

Both of those will succeed.

Go ahead and do you roll damage or what does

this mean?

Yep.

I'm gonna spend a hope for I'm gonna spend two hope to allow to take have both of them take damage.

So Nice.

First one takes 11 magic damage.

Nice.

The second one

Now real fast.

Before you say that number

Yep.

That 11 damage, did that go to the one around the kid or the one closest to you?

The one closest to me.

I'm doing them in close order.

K.

The second one does 17 damage.

Nice.

That's the one around the kid.

K.

As these fireflies emit from your hands and wrap around them, you see a bolt of light shoot past one of the oozes slam into the one closest to you.

Go ahead and roll an additional dice of damage.

Oh.

Crank, basically, right next to you, you see that he has taken aim.

His little little monocle lens is out.

You see the moment that your friend Pistachio does an offensive move, he fires, taking that moment to increase the damage of that attack.

Seven.

So So that is a total of

Did I say 18.

Yeah.

Yep.

Nice.

These fireflies eat up this What does this look like as these fireflies demolish ooze?

So I imagine the ooze, based on how you've described it, is, like, almost like a goopy, like, oily, gross thing.

I think the fireflies almost, like, burrow into the ooze itself and then start to glow and then just, like, explode as the ooze kinda, like, flies everywhere.

Very good.

You blow up the ooze and the kid inside it and

It's not the kid inside it.

They don't target the kid inside it.

Nice.

This ooze is destroyed.

You see the kid lays there, seemingly unconscious.

His tongue lulled out, breathing, but unconscious for now.

And, Crank, as you look over at that skeleton slamming into the last of the remaining ones, you see the knight turns around and points at the other guy and gives you the look of, like, time for that guy, and he gives you another thumbs up and then the devil horns.

And then he does, the hang loose sign.

And you see the guy next to you, father Charles, says, can you will him to stand down and go back to sleep?

Yeah.

So I'll give him a thumbs down with the hand that I'm holding the stick in.

And and I'll just say, go back to sleep.

Go to bed.

Go to bed.

Nice.

Give me a, once again, a presence check.

Oh god.

I'm gonna spend all my hope.

Can I use my experience again?

Get scared.

Because my presence is my

It makes a lot of sense.

You're spending a lot of energy to use this new magic, this newfound magic you have.

Nice.

That's

18 with fear.

You see this thing nods respectfully and knowingly, and it walks over towards one of the mausoleums, which you see has been broken open, and he just walks into it.

And as nothing but the crying of the old man in the building from all of the fear he just experienced settles upon the place.

You hear, oh, that was a close one.

Oh, alright.

Crank, was it?

He pulls out what looks like a little purple handkerchief and says, can you hand me that relic, please?

Yeah.

I mean, I'll hand it to him.

You see that he takes it with his handkerchief.

You see a little bit of purple sparks as he touches it.

And then he pulls out what looks like a purple cloth bag.

He puts the stick inside of it, closes it up, puts it in his little his little, like, rubs besides thank you so much for being reasonable, Crank.

I was a little worried that this was gonna be a whole hoopla, but thankfully, I don't think you were holding on to it long enough for it to, know, make you all crazy and stuff.

So I

mean, it's just a stick.

I mean,

He'd be surprised.

Be surprised this was a this is a minor relic that controls some undead.

Minor undead, mind you.

Ones that, you know, haven't been alive for a long time.

Mhmm.

I see.

See.

You should probably go check on your friends.

We should probably go check on that kid.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I would like to start lumbering over there.

Nice.

The two of you walk up and Pistachio and Kapi, you're standing over this kid who's unconscious.

I think Pistachio's already down by him checking pulse, checking to see if he's, like, stabilized, patching up any wounds, looking at his burns.

Is he dead?

Is he dead?

Is he dead?

Is he dead now?

Oh.

I have my magic hand following me.

Did he die yet?

No.

He's not dead yet.

Shh.

He's still alive?

Yeah.

I know.

He's breathing.

What are you doing about it?

I oh my god.

While they're arguing about this, I'm gonna use my magic hand and slap the cat across the face.

Oh

my gosh.

That is not what he and I look to see where the magical hand goes and go, look.

Look, Pistachio.

Look at that.

That's magic.

Craig, you did magic.

And then they immediately drop away from the kid who seems to be fine and just, like, hugs onto Crank's leg and just goes,

oh my god.

I'm so excited for you.

See how my hands are glowing?

Look at this.

You did magic.

It worked.

I can't believe you were right, Kapi.

I can't believe I was right.

I mean, I had no doubt that Kapi would be right because the boss knows everything.

Yeah.

Right.

Standing next to Crank is the same doctor that treated you just earlier today, Kapi.

Oh.

You see father Charles standing there, hair just as green as when you first saw it, Smile just as easy.

I was kinda looking at the three of you, says.

Had you bit had yourselves a bit of a seance, did you?

Oh, you saw that?

Yes.

All you need is a medium of rope.

Oh, oh,

god.

If you wanna do, like, a back alley seance yeah.

Really, all you need is some rope and a little bit of willpower and a little bit of depression, and you can really, like, accomplish a lot on this.

Really did accomplish a lot.

I it honestly was a lot more successful than I really thought it would be.

It It was.

Okay.

Why?

Hang on.

Hang on.

Excuse me.

Bothered.

Father Charles.

Nice to meet you.

Pistachio faces their hand.

Okay.

Hand.

I Kathy pushes the back to his hand like, okay.

Bothered.

Couple questions.

Why were you following

us?

Really?

I had some people sort of mention that they heard some noises out in the graveyard and I figured that as a priest, it's my duty to protect people.

So I figured I'd stop on by, see what all of it was.

As a priest, we kinda deal with some things like this.

Something isn't adding up to me.

Oh, you don't care.

Crank is counting on his fingers.

Pistachio is like

if I'm gonna pick what it is.

Why were there socks in

the jar?

Listen, man.

That's Eleanor's thing.

She just has some weird quirks.

She likes to darn some socks, keep them by a jar by the door.

She likes to pick up rice where a wedding has been.

Really really a whole thing.

But, yeah, it's not where you kinda get used to it.

You know, she's great.

You know, she's a really great assistant.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

But that was all the questions I had.

Okay.

Perfect.

Pistachio, like, takes a second and then kinda, like, looks around and goes, where did Quackers go?

Quackers.

And they, like, look around and they don't see him and then goes, oh, no.

I hope I didn't leave him anywhere.

Quackers, go back.

Quackers.

He was with us in the seance.

Yeah.

He was with us before the seance, but I wonder I hope he didn't, like, run away or anything.

Pistachio, as you're reaching out for Quackers, what happened?

Go ahead and tell us what happens here.

I think Pistachio is looking around.

They're, like, running around the tree and drink like, looking under different things.

And then I think, like, Quackers just comes around the other side of the tree as if they were there the whole time.

And what do you feel when you see Quackers?

Immediately relieved.

Just like a gush of, like, emotions of, like, oh gosh, they didn't lose them.

It was almost like an emotional relief of, like, a buildup of a dam.

Like, their magic would have gone wild connected to their anxiety.

As soon as they see it, it's almost all like it all goes out of their body.

Nice.

The quackers

and they found it.

Is that okay.

Wow.

I'll I'll just go over there

and let them happy

that you're not good.

They pick him up and just, like, shake him and just go, oh, Quackers, I thought I loved you.

What?

I think Crank watching this feels very dejected and very replaced.

And, like, the magic hand just, like, pops out of existence.

And, like, the glowing on my gauntlets kinda, like, fades a little bit.

And I just, like, oh, and I just, like, walk away.

Quackers, you gotta see this cool thing.

Craig's got, like, a cool magic thing finally or he finally did magic, Quackers.

And Pistachio looks over and goes, oh, Craig, did you already dismiss it?

Oh, I I guess I can show my magic hand on top of the hand back out.

Like, I'll just pick Quackers up with the hand.

Oh, yeah.

Quackers is

I like lift it up and down, you know, like I'm glad you like magic, Quackers.

I like magic too.

So I guess that's something we have in common.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You that father Charles is kinda standing next to you, Kathy, watching this.

He looks over at you and says, y'all aren't doing so hot, are you?

Well, they're they're from a small town.

This is their first time being out of out of a small town.

Okay.

Yeah.

They're having a rough time, admittedly.

I'm trying to help them out.

I see.

I see.

Well, you seem to be doing a lot better, at least moving around.

Looks like the back isn't giving you any other problems.

Yeah.

No.

I I told you I was perfectly fine.

Probably held me a little too long.

I don't know about that.

Also, it really wasn't my call.

I know I told you that I was the one that passed you up.

It really wasn't me.

It was actually father McKenzie.

I was just trying to get information out of you.

Why?

Well, you see when a trio, a dodoborne walk through the hospital.

What the fuck?

And that's the end of our episode.

No.

Fuck you.

Don't you Tune in next

time when we find out when we find out what Where is

it gonna be next time, Charles?

No.

Keep it going.

Keep going.

Keep rolling.

Give us that sixty seven

minute episode that people love at asking.

Okay.

No.

Actually, no.

We're not doing that.

A sassy, baka squawk on three.

One, two, three.

Hey, it's a podcast.