Cool Zone Media.

Book Club, book Club, book Club Club Club.

Clubs.

Hello, and welcome to cools one Media Donna Frogs, the only Donna Frogs where you don't have to do the reading because I play it for you with all my friends.

That will make no sense if you're only listening to this and not the rest of cools on Media book Club, which is the feed that this one is in.

Unless it's the future and it's in a different feed.

I don't know what's going to happen.

I'm wearing a very strange hat.

I am your host, Margaret Kiljoy, and we are doing tabletop role playing and we're specifically playing Pathfinder.

We're playing Pathfinders Second Edition Revised for anyone who wants to nerd out about that kind of thing, which you should, because it's kind of my favorite tabletop role playing game.

And I am very lucky because I'm joined by a bunch of my friends and also my friend who's the creator of the original Pathfinder and one of the people involved in the second edition revised.

Who's Jason who I'm now going to hand it over to.

Hi.

Jason, Hi there, everybody.

I'm Jason Bowman.

I'm the Drifter of games at Paiso, and I'm thrilled to kick off the third episode of Dawn of the Frogs are Game Night Adventure.

I hope you were all excited for more fun here today when we last left, are intrepid band of adventurers.

Before heroes found themselves in a tiny town called bog Bottom on the north edge of the Isle of Cortos, after having been unceremonously dumped on the shore by a captain because they had no coin in their purse whatsoever.

You found yourself in this town desperate for a job, desperfer some action, desperfer some fun.

When the townsfolk began to talk and murmur about a number of their fellow townsfolk who had gone missing in the dark, dirty dank depths of the dun Meyer Swamp, somewhere around the old mill.

The four of you ventured out to this old mill to find its leaning, dilapidated structure sticking crookedly out of the swamp surface.

You ventured inside only to find it infested with beetles and a giant lizard, and upon reaching the top, you found that it had a pair of giant frog people.

These creatures known as boggarts are a well known sight for those who live in the dun Meyer Swamp.

Most of them are peaceful, friendly, you know, swamp traders, merchants, people living their lives.

But these two were not.

They were holding a pair of villagers captive and were still they were waiting to ambush the four of you.

The battle was fierce.

There were people falling through holes to the floor below, there were frogs running around trying to hit people with morning stars, and there was plenty of alchemist fire thrown about the room.

But in the end you managed to be victorious, and the four of you rescued a pair of villagers, one Halprin and Paneria, and you dragged their unconscious bodies back to town.

They're in bog Bottom.

You received a hero's welcome, a feast celebration spontaneously thrown in your honor for rescuing these two.

You also managed to recover a fair bit of loot, some of which you have already divvied up amongst you.

Some magical weapons, including some scrolls, and some potions, and some bombs, and all sorts of stuff, all sorts of goodies that you have already distributed amongst yourselves.

But before we kick off today's story, why don't I thought around the horn for everybody introduced themselves briefly and their characters equally briefly.

Spite will start with you.

I'm Spite.

I'm fresh from the crash of the revolutionary order that worships a god whose name I absolutely know, named Malanie, and I feel very, very strongly that people should not be in cages.

And I am very willing to hit people with a spike stick until they stop putting people in cages.

That makes good sense, Trance, why don't you take next?

Well?

I'm Trant.

I'm an explosives officionado and insurgent bomber.

Some people call me a mad bomber, but I feel like I have a pretty good temper for the most part, and i'm more or less, you know, blow up whatever Spite says, that's okay to blow up.

And right now I'm feeling pretty good because I think we all learned a valuable lesson, you know, which is that when you break into someone's house and start setting off explosives and attacking people, you wind up being a hero and everything ends well.

And that's the only moral lesson I need to take from this adventure boy.

Lessons are being learned, that's for sure.

Mardie, do you have a lesson to teach us?

Sup?

Oh, good stuff.

I'm sister murder gon a bow.

I'm a souper nan a half hour cleric.

That's all you need to know.

I got perpetual stew on a bindle and it heals people.

And last, but not least, Squash, what's up, gamers?

This is Squash here.

I'm a rowdy little dog man.

I used to rob banks for the Revolution, a little bit for the rev and a little bit for Daddy, and then I got stitched up until my new best friends they busted me out, and here we are in bog Bottom is a sword tail.

You wouldn't be interested, Squash?

That's me.

Well, I would hope that everyone's interested in our sword tail, because it continues right now.

A larger meal in good Night's rest cures most ailments.

And so it is with the adventurers at the Old Mill yesterday.

As the first rays of dawn creep across the moss Pig bog Bottom's only in.

There's an urgent knock at the door outside La Drusa, the towns healer looking worried and rather exhausted, as if she did not sleep at all last night.

Impatiently waits for you to answer the door.

Hurry, she says, gather up your things.

She goes on to explain, it's the villagers you rescued.

They're awake, but they aren't acting as themselves.

They want to go to the Boggarts, and they don't remember their lives in town here at all, and I fear if we don't cure them soon, they might forget us all forever.

Ledrusa is knocking on each of your doors.

Each one of you has your own room, I would assume, or if you like, you can rent the larger adventurer's suite in the moss Pig.

I guess we didn't figure that out, But you're all awoken by Ledrusa nonetheless and asked to come with her at your soonest convenience.

Squash definitely has his own room.

Trance preference is probably going to be to crash out in front of the doors of everyone else on the top in.

The ground, so like in the hallway or like a dog.

Yeah sure, okay, yeah, that tracks.

Both hands and a foot touching each of our doors.

I like pull the door open, just in a jock strap, and I say, Helprin and Panaria they're awake, and I like rush down to go see what they have to say.

Yes, meet me at the House of Rest as soon as you are ready.

La Drusa, who is a kind middle aged elephant woman.

She beckons you to come to this place, the House of Rest.

It's actually where you took them last night.

When you arrived, you were asked to kind of help get them to this modest kind of house of healing in town.

Do you think it was the fault of the wheelbarrow?

Do you think they were in the wheelbarrow too long?

I start looking to Murdy and Tranton squash.

Do you think it's Do you think that I didn't move the wheelbarrow over the path correctly and they maybe hit their heads?

And well, no, that doesn't make any sense, because could you imagine if we lived in a world where you went to bed injured and then you woke up still injured.

That would be so terrible, What a terrible fantasy that would be.

But we live in the real say that.

We live in the real world, So why aren't they better?

I feel better?

And I was hit by a lot of stuff last night.

I'm worried about them.

And then I start trying to say all this while also putting chainmail on, which is very hard to do while talking.

Yeah, I mean I got a medical theory here, which is, like, you know, when people need to get up in the morning, they have a hot beverage, right, So maybe if we really need to wake people up, we need an even hotter thing.

Yeah, you think in fire.

I'm thinking like maybe a grenade.

Yeah, I think you're cooking with gas.

The best part of waking up is alchemist fire in your pants.

I think we just give them some soup.

He'll be fine.

Soup eels.

All, well, we should get to the House of Rest and hopefully that they got enough rest to Except what do we do if they've changed their personalities but they still genuinely want to go back there.

Can we even tell them that they can't?

That's an interesting question.

Funny you should mention it.

Actually, all of you, by the way, are back to your full health and capacities.

Like normal people.

Yeah, but as you gather up your gear and make your way to the House of Rest, it's literally you go downstairs in the moss pig and go outside.

This is a swamp town, by the way, so all of the foot traffic and whatnot is generally on raised wooden walkways kind of above the swampy surface.

Takes you just a minute or two to make your way over to the House for Rest, and inside you find Ldrusa in the main room of the place.

There's a pair of cots there with halprin and paneria on the cots, and although they aren't exactly restrained, you do notice they have like heavy blankets and stuff on them, and they seem to be like trying to rise.

And Ldrusa's like, no, no, you're not well enough yet.

Please please just rest and l Drusa.

She says, I'm glad you've come.

It's it's quite serious.

If you'd like, I'd like to talk to you about it back in my office, and she walks back.

Landrusa has a couple of assistants who are helping, and they're putting sponges on the foreheads of the pair of villagers and although they are conscious now, they definitely look kind of feverish.

Yeah, I'll follow Ledrusa.

Yeah, I'll go into Landrusa escorts you back into her office and she says.

I've been treating them all night and they only just roused a few hours ago.

But almost immediately upon regaining their senses, they spoke only of the Boggards and wishing to return to them.

I tried to talk to them about their lives.

I even considered summoning their family, but in their current state, I'm afraid that might be confusing or even frightening for their spouses and children.

It is very troubling.

And I also investigated that strange fungus you brought back that you found in the boggared layer up in the mill.

It is not entirely one that I'm aware of.

It is very similar to some other funguses that I've seen that cause delusions and foggy.

Memory, big raised eyebrass from squash on that, but I stay quiet.

I've managed to convince the pair of them to stay while they recover their strength, but I'm very worried.

They don't seem to remember living in bog Bottom at all.

Are you sure that they lived in Bogbottom and these aren't maybe doppelgangers?

Are you sure that we don't have it?

And there's a lit candle on our table that I pull underneath my chin.

A body snatchers situation.

Well, I would certainly hope not.

They seem to be the villagers.

We all know.

They're still dressed in the clothes that they were seen in the day they went missing.

There appear to be them, and all of my tests and care seems to be working.

They seem to be human.

Trant once told me that body snatchers respond different to fire than regular people, and that the way to test.

You know, now that I say this aloud, I think Tran was maybe incorrect.

I mean no, no, no, definitely, Like, if someone's not themselves, the best way to tell is by burning them, because that will burn away the far outer skin and reveal the true inner skin, unless it's just them, in which case they'll just get burned.

Well, speaking of skin, I like this fire idea.

Maybe before we burn them, have we called in their identical twins to see if they have the same birthmarks?

Right, we should be burning their twins first?

What's the secret?

What did they get for their twelfth birthday?

Like?

How much do we really investigated?

What was the name of their childhood pet?

What was the street they grew up on?

Ladrusa looks at all of your ideas, and she looks a little concerned about some of them, but says, well, perhaps we might try some of those.

But I have another idea.

First, I believe that they have some sort of poison or toxin in their system that is clouding their minds.

Now, I happen to know of a powerful alchemical palliative that will purge these toxins from their body, but unfortunately I do not have the ingredients for them.

Here.

I was wondering if I could call upon you to aid us once again and retrieve the three ingredients that I need.

Yeah, I hear you, But have you tried the soup?

It is good soup.

I would be happy to feed them some of the soup that you have brought.

I'd be happy to But I also think that we should perhaps investigate finding these three ingredients.

They would prove vital in attempting to purge them of these toxins.

It's like they're still in a cage and we need to get them out of the cage.

Well, I got some lysergic acid and some ergo fungus and some dileta.

I can never pronounce that you're the doctor.

Maybe are you a doctor anyway, that'll probably carem.

I'm afraid I'm unfamiliar with those ingredients.

But what I am looking for are some ripe lantern berries.

I could also use three pale waning mushrooms and the petals from a tomb flower.

Now, fortunately I know where all of these ingredients can be found, but I myself must stay here to care for them.

But if you could go and find these ingredients, I would be able to purge these toxins from their body and perhaps bring them to their senses.

Once Squash realizes these are like like square chemicals, is frown is just like an upside down you?

Okay, well, why don't we go get those?

But I haven't eaten anything.

Could I have some soup?

Marty?

Sure can.

Yes.

As a matter of fact, I shall draw you a map and arrange for you to have a raft, and perhaps while we're doing that, we can all enjoy some soup.

Oh horrible, Yeah, what's the soup today?

Mary?

Well, it's kind of a lot of lizard in it.

Right now, I hope you like sweet and sour lizard soup.

I don't know if I've said this into a mic.

This is a perpetual stew that is kept alive by the members of my soup cult, that has magical healing properties due to it being perpetual stew.

I was wrong about food safety last time.

I said one sixty five.

The temperature real perpetual stew needs to be keppt at two hundred dereies minimum because boiling this one's finest.

That's just first ay perpetual stew stuff.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's first date of perpetual stew school.

The one person who got deathly ill from taking your advice last time.

Goddamn you, and is in prisoned from listening to your advice last time.

Your entire soup cult fell apart because of listeria.

Squash is lapping the soup up out of a bowl.

I'm drinking it out of one of my empty alchemist's flasks and periodically reaching for the wrong one and going, oh wait, nope.

I'm just dipping my spoon that I keep on my belt into the main cauldron and just eating out of it.

I'm doing that, but with my soup ladle that I also fight with.

This ladle can do everything, sure can.

How's a map comming?

Ludrusa is preparing this map for you.

She also explains that she can provide a barge for you to get around the swamp.

The mill you were able to get to on foot, but if you're gonna go into the deeper swamp you need to take a barge because their vast expanses of the swamp are not traversible by land.

And she says, well, I'm having one brought in for you, but most of them are in use right now.

It'll take about an hour or so before it's ready.

So if there's any last things you need to do around town, perhaps pick up some more provisions or ask around you should do so.

Now I have a last thing we need to do around town.

Yeah, we gotta break for ads.

Yeah, we gotta go to the ads.

The party barge is not free.

You know, the party barge that we're taking to get mushrooms.

It costs money.

Well, we buy products in town.

You buy products, buy some soil, and I don't know who advertise.

Is, probably why not.

Here it is.

And we're back.

I'm just so proud of all of you.

If that was beautiful.

Thanks, you've trained as well.

Yeah, yeah, we learned from the best.

Now in addition to those ads, I have several ads for places around town.

There are, in fact three places you may wish.

Is one of them a casino?

I'm afraid there's no casino unfortunately, can.

We police take spite to the casino.

I'm walking down the street with Trance and I like pull on trance coat and I say, hey, hey, hey, Bud look and there's a neon side that says secret Opium Dead.

Do you guys find us there?

Three hours later?

Anyway?

Ye take it away?

Yeah?

Yeah, you go into the bok Bottom Casino.

Four days later you come out and they're like the villagers left and uh, everything's screwed now.

Yes, and we say four days We thought it was two hours.

Yeah, there's no clock in there.

No.

So there are three places you may wish to visit around town.

Bok Bottom is a very small place, to be clear, it's not exactly a large metropolitan community.

In fact, you've really probably only got three places you want to visit.

There's a place called Mudfly Supplies, and this is a shop that mostly caters to people venturing out in the swamp to do like fishing and gathering and stuff like that.

There is the Moss Pig, the Tavern and inn that you are staying in if you wanted to go get some food or perhaps here local stories and get the kind of situation on the swamp.

And then finally there is a place, a small shop called the Sinking Pony that sells kind of generic goods and supplies.

Could I dance on the stage in my heels at the Sinkpony Club.

We're having fun here.

So those are the three places you have to visit for the sake of expediency.

If folks want to visit some things, I'll let each one of you visit one of the places.

So if you can visit one place together, or however you want to do.

Mudfly Supplies sells stuff for the swamp.

Moss Pig is all about rumors knowledge getting some food, and Sinking Pony is more like generic supplies.

I want to go gossip at the kitchen of the Moss Pig.

I was thinking also about going to the Moss Pig because I spent all my money getting this new fancy room put on my morning Star.

Ah, yes, you took one of the rooms now the weapon and had a transferred.

Yes, this roun and there's a secret second function to the new Morning star that I added.

Now, it's pretty complicated.

But what you're gonna want to do.

Is it the bottle that you taped to the tip?

Yeah, well it's a lot more complicated than just taping it.

There was glue involved.

Oh okay, but yes, essentially, I'm excited.

By the way, Trance.

Can you please give me a craft check for your improvised explosive device sire warning Star.

Oh oh, I got a seventeen naturally.

Oh no, it's great.

Yeah, it's gonna work, right.

You're sure folks at home can't see my expression of uncertainty anyway.

You know, Trance has gotten me through a lot ever since we broke him out of jail, so I trust him implicitly.

Yeah.

I trust me implicitly too, boss.

I trust most people implicitly unless they put people in cages and then I hit them with a stick.

That's fair, all right.

So Spike and Murdy are going to go to the Moss Pig.

We got mudfly supplies and the Sinking Pony.

I'm gonna go to the Sinking Pony because I need stuff there and also a really good shop name.

As a connoisseur of fantasy shop names, you knocked it out of the park.

Jason, I think I'm actually going to Mudfly.

I think I realized that.

I'm like, well, what if we need waiters.

I'm actually really excited about getting the gear to go around.

I've never been in the swamp before, so.

All right, So so Spike's gonna go to Mudfly.

Sounds like Murty's gonna go to the Moss Pig.

Squash is gonna go to Sinking Pony.

Trent, you get to choose what place you're going to double.

Up at Sinking Pony.

I gotta get some reagents to make more.

I can't believe we're letting Squash and Trent go to the same place.

I'm sure it'll be fine.

It's gonna be great.

What an opportunity, now, Boss, before you go off to the re agent place, I'm an expert on bog survival.

I am been to a bog, but I'm pretty sure i'm an expert.

So you're gonna want high legged pants, like the shortest shorts that you can get, right, really really short shorts, okay, and just socks, no boots.

You know, if you have boots over your socks, then you're gonna get foot rot but if you just keep putting on new dry socks over the wet socks, that's how you stay healthy in the bog.

And that's that's about it in terms of bog.

Trent's just built different everybody.

Okay, I put my hand on spice shoulder.

I say, he's not technically wrong, but don't follow that advice.

Okay, all right, so let's start this out at Mudfly Supplies.

Spie, you make your way over to this wooden shack that sits near the swamp's edge.

Atop the building is a large wooden fly that has been spattered with muddy moss.

As you approach the shop, it's it's kind of it's not really a shop you go into.

It's more like a booth kiosk kind of thing that you just walk up to.

And sitting inside the place is a rather large and gregarious boggart who's like and as you approach, he's like, hello, wom to mudflows the blase.

Hi, I'm Spie.

I'm new to going around in swamps.

We're gonna be in a barge, which I'm really excited.

I think it probably comes with a pole.

I probably don't need a new pole.

I think yeah, probably not.

What do you think we need for?

I look around and what kind of is it?

Just like waiters and nets, and.

Yeah, it's stuff like nets and waiters.

And he's got some other stuff too.

He's got clearly some things behind him that looks like bombs or potions or something that you might want to ask about.

But he's like when you first ask what you need, he looks at you and says, bright burr, you want berry, and he holds up a sack of we're going worming bait, which he is also eating.

Okay, well, I'm not actually sure we're here to fish.

We're actually here on kind of a scavenger hunt.

And I'm sure it's going to be easy.

I'm sure.

The only problem we'll have to deal with this flies.

Except actually, now that I think about it, last time we went out, we had to fight a lot of people and objects, or not objects but animals.

But I guess, well, if you think we need bait, then we probably need bait.

But what's that stuff behind you?

This always need?

And he's like his long tongue darts into the bag and pulls out and it's covered in like flies and worms.

To be clear, my plan is to leave here with a ridiculous amount of like fishing nets and like especially like butterfly nets, and like waiters, and like.

I don't want to actually spend I don't have that much money, but I'm a sort of in pathfinder.

I feel like a gold piece is worth a lot of money.

It is, And so I'm planning on getting like a bunch of stuff we probably don't need that I'm willing to get upsold on.

So I will say this.

One thing that I think we kind of glossed over at the end of the previous session is the townsfolk did actually give you a reward for saving the villagers.

Oh, that was in addition to what you found.

Everybody got ten gold pieces.

I'm doing so in addition to all of your money, you have ten more gold to spend on stuff.

Now.

Obviously you don't have to spend it all here at Mudfly Supplies now.

But he's like, well, if you're gonna deal with bugs, you want my bug bombs.

Oh.

I bet our friends will be really excited about bombs.

Now.

I did send you off with a list that's Trance Bog's survival guide and creatures that are not in the swamp.

It's just a list of everything that lives in a swamp, different bugs.

So he's got these bug bombs that he's willing to sell for two gold each that make bugs sick.

When you throw them, they make a pale blue smoke that makes bugs sick.

Rule of good against bugs.

Well, I'll take two of those.

Those are two gold apiece.

Yeah, I'll take two bug bombs.

Also, got antidotes if you get poisoned.

Okay, how much do those cost?

Three goldies?

Oh, this is going to get expensive.

I was mostly hoping buying fishing gear and waiters.

But so a lot of the fishing gear and waiters and stuff.

If you want to say, spend a gold on that, I will say, you can come back with just an armful of fishing nets and waiters.

And that's another great I'm going to buy two antidote all right, and I'm going to buy I'm blowing all my money here, sure, And I'm going to buy a gold's worth of fishing stuff and waiters.

And I'm absolutely walking back in the waiters.

So all right, you've got you've got waiters that come up to you know about mid chest.

Over my chain mail.

Huh Yeah, exactly, it's horrible.

Yeah, your arms are filled with nets.

Inside the nets are like little like fly gauze and stuff, you know, stuff to prevent flies from getting in places, and candles and all sorts of stuff.

Okay.

And in addition, you got two of these bug bombs and two antidues.

Okay, that costs me a total of nine gold And I think I'm good all right.

So at the Moss Pig, Murdy, So the Moss Pig is run by a family of dwarves.

The owner and the proprietor of this place is a Berna Cragborn.

She's very stern, but she's been very friendly to you and your fellow adventures as you stay here.

As you saddle up to the bar, she comes up and says, what can I get you?

Would you lack another pint and mossy stout?

That's three pm?

Why not?

It's three thirty.

She pulls you off a pint of mossy stout and sets it down on the crooked, slightly warped bar, says, I I heard you're about to go out into the swamp on a barge.

Yeah, that's what they tell me.

Ah, would you like some food and drink.

I can pack you up a meal or two, no cost.

No cost to the heroes of Bald Bottom.

Yeah, I appreciate that, ma'am.

Do you have anything that could go, you know, in a soup.

I've got a fair number of turnips and mushrooms.

Ah, that'll be perfect, thank you.

I take the vegetables and I start cutting them up on the bar and adding them into the bindle full of soup.

Just there, she's behind the bar kind of cleaning out some glasses using an old dish rag, and she's like, ah, the water seems higher again today, shaking her head.

Oh, isn't not usually this level?

That's been higher and higher for weeks now.

Hmmm, soon we're all gonna be standing in it.

That's true with where I live to What do you think is going on?

What are people saying?

Ah, there's lots of stories out about the swamp.

I haven't heard many about the waters.

Everyone in town.

That's seasonal.

It's fall, the waters rise and fall, So they say, I don't know, it seems higher than normal.

High water is the spring thing.

No, around here it ends up being fall and spring.

Our summers are low, the winters get cold, the waters get still.

Yeah, that makes sense.

I'd buy that.

What else do people say about the bog?

Though you said their stories?

What should I be on the lookout for.

Ah?

I wouldn't trouble you with them.

You're going out on the bog.

You don't need to be scared by any of my ghost stories.

Now entertain me.

It's fall I'm a hero on a journey.

Do you have diplomacy?

Sure?

Do you give me a diplomacy check?

All right, Jason?

Well that was an eight on the die, but plus my five diplomacy modifier is thirteen.

Ah.

Well, I'll tell you a bit, just a bit.

Though I don't want to scare you.

You need to keep your mind focused.

You don't need to be thinking about the legend of tool Tusk, the terrifying swamp creature said to dwell in these parts.

Massive it is the size of a barge, come up out of the deep and pull you down into the slimy depths.

Many have lost their lives to two Tusk, including a knife fighter who came to town about a year ago bragged he was going to track down the monster and kill it with his magic dagger, but he was never seen again.

I would like to act appropriately terrified based on what I think that this bar winch would like.

If I can tell that she wants me to look scared because she's doing a good job done the story, I'll look scared.

But if she doesn't want me to be scared, I will be like, no, I can handle this.

She's generally trying to tell a good tale.

And you notice that as you're doing it, she like grabs your mug and refills it and puts it back in front of you.

I'll ham it up.

I'm like, oh, all right, nasty, nasty beast.

As she wraps up her store, you know, several other guests come in and Bernat goes off to serve them food and drinks.

And your time is running short.

So we'll call it good there at the Moss Pig, unless there's something else you wanted to get.

I've got rations, I've got gossip.

I think we can move on.

All right.

The Sinking Pony.

The sign for this small shop is a pony neck deep in the swamp muck that oddly fills both of you with a strange sort of melancholy.

Anyway, The human ShopKeep Hair is alevena Etragon, and their shop carries a variety of useful items.

You see things like bull's eye lanterns and rope and torches.

It's kind of a place that sells kind of generic adventuring gear.

Alvina looks at you as you enter and says, so anything I can help you with?

I put my forearm right on the bar and I say, hello, Elevina.

Yes you can, but ask my friend Trent first.

Yeah, I'm just looking for about six pounds of ammonium nitrate, the largest carriage you have, and a map to the nearest government building.

Ah.

Fine with this.

That sounds like the sort of activity you might want to engage over an apsalom, but out here in Bunk Bottom we don't have that sort of material.

I do have alchemists fire though, if you're interested in that.

Do you have any other things that I can throw and like, you know, the acid or electrocution or any other kind of a throwable explosive damage doing things for self defense?

I do have two acid flasks if you're interested in those as well.

Yeah, I'll take some acid.

So the acid flasks are three gold, the lesser acid flass and lesser alchemist fire.

Got both those for three gold.

Each.

Okay, I'll take two of those.

Is Elevina keeping this under the bar or is it sort of like in the back more secure?

Oh god, are we gonna have to run out of town?

Oh?

Yeah?

What are you talking about?

If you're wondering if this appears that Elevina is selling you contraband they are not.

I mean there's weapons for sale here too.

As it turns out, when you live in a world with dragons and skeletons, and you know, terrifying monsters that crawl out of the dark places to eat.

You, we also live in a world with skeletons.

And I've been saying we need a lot more bombs.

But anyway, there's a lot of terrifying things in a lot of worlds, and many of them could be solved with bombs anyway.

So scary everywhere.

I look at Elevina direct in the eyes, I'm really barreling Elevina, and I say, I would love some alchemist fire.

I'd be happy to sell you some.

But also wait, and I see that that that's not translating.

So I look between Trant and Elevina and I say, are you guys friends of Jerry?

What do you mean?

By that.

No, okay, okay, now, no, no big deal.

I'll just take some alchemists fire.

But I want to look at the chemicals at the walls and see if there's stuff I can make drugs out.

Of that you don't see here, but you do actually see some minor elixirs of life.

These are the healing potions that you already have two of.

They do have some more of those.

I can make that work.

Well.

They won't get you high, they will get you healthy.

Not the way I take them, buddy, I'll take two elixirs of life, and to wait, how much of a.

The elixirs are three gold as well?

So two alchemists fire and two elixirs of life is exactly the amount of gold I got, right, yep, I'll take them please.

And then I just wanted to fill up my reagents.

I'm not sure how much I used in terms of money.

But so the great thing about being an alchemist is that refilling up your reagent is actually something you did this when you kind of got up and while just kind of wandering around town, you literally just scavenged the components you need because they're really kind of everywhere.

What do you have in the way of gunpowder, firearms, ammunition, any of that.

Nah, they don't have any of that here at the Sinking Pony.

For that, you'd probably want to go to a bigger city like Apsalom.

What else do you guys sell?

What do you got that might be useful for heading into the swamp to do abide by the law, the local and federal laws.

Do you have anything else you recommend here?

Like bullseye lanterns, pints of oil, rope torches?

How much are these pints of oil?

Pints of oil are just a copper a piece.

I mean, they're pretty cheap, But mind you, a pint of oil is not nearly as explosive as say, alchemist fire.

It'd be like trying to light cooking oil on fire.

Okay, I'm going to get ten pints of oil.

You clear outlet out.

Is there like a big cooking pot?

They don't have a cooking pot here?

No?

No, okay, any large ceramic pot, any kind of container.

They do have a ceramic Okay, I'm gonna get that ceramic jugged.

Okay, it's gonna go great.

Is there like glue or something?

I know where this is going?

Sure, Yeah, I'm gonna do like a fuse.

As well, if you've got fuses.

Yes, they do have rope.

I'll take some of that too, Okay, yeah, great, I'm feeling pretty equipped to that now.

All right, Okay, so we're taking out two tusks.

I'm looking around on the shelves and say like, oh, well, you got a lot of got a lot of beautiful chemicals out here, gorgeous chemicals, sexy chemicals out here.

And I raised my eyebrows, but uh, you know, I'm trying to get a little you know, these frogs out there, I tell you, they hit me with their wavy gravy and I'm just looking for a little something to even me out catch my drift.

E Levina wink.

Elevina looks at you like, I don't, I don't know what you mean.

Oh Elevina, come on, I know you're cool, and I just say, okay, I'll just take a bit of what do you got there?

Ever?

Clear?

They do have like, you know, brog basically, you know, watered down rum.

Give me a growl of grog?

Sure, all right, So everybody does their shopping, you know.

Who else can do shopping?

Way?

Is it time?

It is time it's time listener for ads.

It's time hooray sandwich, and we're back.

As a busy morning of preparation ends, Ladrussa approaches with a whole look on her face.

I've secured a small barge to help you get around the swamp.

If you leave now, you should be able to gather all three ingredients and be back by nightfall.

I've drawn up a map that shows you where you might find the necessary ingredients.

Hopefully the swamp doesn't give you too much trouble with that.

She hands you a rolled up map and walks you to the dock where the barge awaits.

So at this point in time, unlike our previous adventure where you kind of had to, you know, kind of experience things in the order that they came in this one, you do have three locations that you've been asked to visit.

You've been told to go find some lantern berries, which are kind of circled on one part of this map.

You've got this kind of map of the swamp which has bog bottom, one kind of on the bottom, and then out in the swamp itself.

You've got three location circles.

So the lantern berries are on there.

There's also another location where the waning mushrooms are located.

That one's not too far away.

And then there is one final location which is circled and it says tomb flowers, and it appears that it's drawn around what looks like it might have at one point in time been a cemetery.

So, as you hop on the raft and begin making your way out into the dun Meyer Swamp, where do you want to go to?

First?

Mushrooms is closest, right, to look.

A little closer than the others.

I mean, they're all relatively equidist in a way.

But yeah, you can go to mushrooms first.

It seems like a fine enough place to start.

All right.

As we get onto the barge, I drop a ridiculous number of nets and waiters and all the things that anyone could need, and I point to my own waiters and say, you probably want these, And then I pick up the pole and I start pulling our way.

It's a pole barge, I assume.

Yeah it is.

Yeah, you're gonna have to pull your way through the swamp.

What's with all this desert gear that you brought here?

Trans I'm beginning to think that you might be incapable of determining one biome from another.

Well, I do have swamp lind.

This ah a common ailment.

Transpin consuming too many of their own reagents.

They do say that deserts are the swamps of the sand.

Spite has made her haters, her waiters, you know, and the swamp of success.

And I laugh and I lay down on the raft.

Alright.

I was just gonna make a comment about the nets and say, you know, boss, you look like a real net and yahoo.

Really nuts, editor, turn that up?

Can you make that one funny?

I start pulling our way to mushroom town.

All right, Yeah, I'm gonna put on my waiters and explain about the two fanged monster.

That's why I'm putting on my waiters.

Two fanged monster.

So you all hear the tail of two tusk as you've been pulling your way into the swamp.

Now, unlike you know most images of a swamp as being kind of gray and dour, the Dunmier is actually rather colorful.

The greens are very vibrant.

This is a very active living swamp.

There's lots of colorful mushrooms and fungus growing on things.

There are iridescent insects buzzing around and making the whole place almost feel rather vibrant than a line.

Pulling between the locations is slow going work, to say the least.

It does take you a few hours to make your way to the first spot.

But before you get there, let's see if you can navigate these swamps carefully and simply.

Do any of you have survival.

I think I do.

Actually, yes, I have a seven.

Seven is very good.

That's probably the best in the group.

I would guess I have a two.

So I'm not the best in the groups.

Yeah, so Murdy, you're probably the best one to be reading the map and guiding the raft along.

So Murdy, why don't you give me a survival skill track?

All right?

Oh that was a ten, so seventeen after my no problem.

You make it there in pretty good time.

That is a success.

And after about two hours of pulling through the swamp.

I do take breaks to catch I have butterfly nets.

I do catch several of these iridescent bugs and put them in jars.

A lot of dragonflies, some larger just kind of beetles.

Put at dragonflies in prison.

As soon as the squash says that they're in prison.

I let all of them go, and I look shamefully at my feet.

O jeez, I'm sorry, guy.

I know you were just doing nature checks and stuff, and I like reach up as far as I can go to like rub your shoulders.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

Trant is just eyeing the jar you were using as the prison and then looking back to his explosives, and then looking back to the jar.

All right, and then we make it and we're there, So you do make it to where you're going.

I'm getting everything set up here.

You all should be able to see everything.

That'll be kind of gone towards the bottom of the page.

Wow, it's so iridescent.

It's just like the stage design in that play that I all called Annihilation.

The barge coasts up to a small island.

The huge trunk of a rotten tree looms ahead.

The wooden behemoth lost its crown and most of its branches long ago, likely from a lightning strike.

Now it leans precariously to one side, covered in mushrooms with a distinctive black cap and white rim, making them look like waning moons.

These match the description that Drusa gave you for one of the ingredients that she needs.

I'd love to harvest those mushies.

I stand guard with morning Star out and shield, and I say, I don't know if I trust this.

Swamp squash does the keep on truck and walk and just walk directly up to the mushrooms and starts chopping the melon down.

So as you make your way up to the tree, axe and tow, some of the mushrooms begin to move.

In fact, what the Some of the mushrooms aren't attached to the tree at all.

As a matter of fact, they seem to be an entire body made up of fungus.

This creature steps forward, its body made entirely of fungus and mushroom material, and it has this kind of broad head that is a large mushroom cap.

Directly underneath the rim are kind of bulbous eyes that appear to be made out of fungus material, surrounded by fronds of fungus material that kind of writhe and shake.

As the thing before you begins to speak.

Barm lover cap, who are you and what do you want.

With my chin?

They say in a low and ponderous voice.

Us, I think that's some sort of dire elephant.

We really got to get you out of bog bottom.

See this swap gas is not doing good for you.

Who did we decide is doing our face?

Pre game we had a big talk about me being the face and the way I'm playing.

I don't know.

I don't know.

Gang, I think I got the highest charisma, but me, I, oh, I don't know about it.

But here we go, leather cap.

Damn, this is beautiful.

You've really made this house a home.

What we want is I don't know.

We're looking for a couple of ingredients here, and if it's your kin, then I'm not fucking with that, you know what I mean?

And I like reach out for a handshake, and I see that maybe he doesn't have any hands, and I like put my hands down and just give like a big, a big wink.

I will say that it does not appear that they have a gender at all.

They're made of mushroom.

My man.

They look at you with kind of a quizzical look.

Bloo, these are my ken, my children?

Why do you need them?

Is this?

Wait?

Is this what we were looking for?

And I look over at you guys with bleary eyes that you realize now I have done something to myself.

I step forward a little bit and I go yes.

So we were sent to get three pale waning mushrooms as part of what's needed to poor Halprin and Panera were taken captive and they were fed poisonous mushrooms very much unlike you and your kin, and we're just trying to trying to reverse the ill effects of those mushrooms.

We don't need elephant either, Yeah, we don't eat elephant.

And so we've been sent to get weaning mushrooms and lantern berries and tomb flowers.

And I didn't know that the weaning mushrooms were your kin.

But the cycle of life is a very strange thing, don't you.

Think thin skins often get sick from our gifts?

Who are you to assume that I am not poisonous?

I am proud of my poison.

It makes thin skins very ill.

Oh that makes sense.

Can I roll a nature check to see if this is the mushroom we're looking for or if we maye gotta whack this guy?

Go ahead and give me a nature check.

Okay, five on the die, but I do have a plus seven nature, So that's twelve.

Murdie.

You look at this creature, and although you don't know the specifics, you do know that this creature is what's known as a leshie.

Leshie are sentient plants.

Basically, they come in a wide variety of shape and form.

This one appears to be a fungus fleshy.

They're known to be rather dour, sometimes intransigent, but they're not overtly hostile.

Okay, but the other mushrooms like on the log are not also leshie.

These are what you need?

Yeah, pretty sure of that they match the description.

Okay, Mushroom bodies are complicated.

Mushroom consciousness is complicated.

If I take some of the mushrooms, will he feel pain?

Will he feel like part of his Sorry, this is less she doesn't have a gender.

Will this less she feel pain or feel like part of their consciousness is being taken?

Or is the consciousness of the less she bounds solely to the mush.

The lushy creatures are sentient and separate from perhaps non sentient versions, but they would consider them kin right, it's there.

They're definitely related.

Okay, So it's more of like a solidarity thing than a cosmic.

If leather cap is to be believed that is very much the case.

Yeah, So I'm just gonna like ask.

I'll be like, so, if we need three of these strong, beautiful, poisonous mushrooms in order to help our thin skinned friends, is that possible?

Is that something that you would be okay with?

Perhaps if there's something you could offer me in return, perhaps something in which they could grow more.

Oh, corpses, But we do make a lot of corpses in our line of work.

A lot of corpses.

And like I mean, decay exists as an extant form of life.

Am I right?

And I like, turn to leather, cap you.

Coundnot kill me in any ways?

That damn you.

I turned to spite, and I say, can you not feel your heart burning?

Turn?

Can you not feel the struggle within?

Show me the face of God, you fungal piece of shit.

The fear within me is beyond anything your soul can make, which it takes like some corpses, because I know.

Like or we could bring the spores and put them into the next corpses we make.

Now you're talking my language common.

M you would spread my king?

Yeah?

Absolutely absolutely, give me a diplomacy check, somebody, I've.

Got a plus four.

Yeah, I rolled a seven, So that's the eleven.

Can you're gonna hero point this.

I didn't use my hero point last time.

I'm just gonna hear point this.

I want to not kill this thing.

Dig deep within too?

Well, I dug deep within and did worse.

What happens when you do worse with a hero point?

Oh you take the better of the two.

Great, then I have an eleven eleven goodbye hero point.

All right, well, I'm gonna give you a bonus on that you were wasted.

I rolled into diplomacy check and got a total of sixteen.

And we were both talking, but I don't know.

Leather Cap looks at you and he says, I will give you what to see, but only if you tell the people of Bottom not to harvest here without my consent.

Oh that seems fair, and we are really into consent, that.

Seems I mean, we can tell him anything.

Should we put up a sign?

You have men to write a zine about it?

Yeah, people always read those.

I can set out some land mines.

Now you gotta be real careful because they will go off for just about any reason.

No, thank you.

You wait, spore minds hold on, and I like go off up by myself and think.

With leather caps help you harvest the three mushrooms you need and make your way back to the barge.

We get a little bit more to use to spread them the spoor into the next corpses.

Leather cap asks you for a piece of cloth.

Okay, great that They then soak in the swamp water and take over to some of the mushrooms, and he gently, almost delicately, with almost a lover's touch, harvests some spores and deposits them into.

That's a very specific image that works very that's a very strong image.

Yeah, I cut my shorts even shorter and I hand them over to leather caps.

I'm working with the medium, I half.

Yeah, yeah, No, it's all about the image.

Yeah, mushrooms are the sexiest monsters you can find here.

Yeah.

Boy, for those of you listening, just do a Google search or a fungus lushy and when you see the picture of what I'm talking about, you'll know how this all works out.

Okay, Yeah, your tongue will roll across the table like a looney tune.

Yeah yeah, all right, So you have harvested the first ingredient and can now make your way to the next the question is where do you want to go next.

You have your choice between the berry patch to get the lantern berries, or you can attempt to go get the tomb flowers.

I feel like that one seems like it's the hardest, is the tomb flowers.

So maybe we should go to the lantern berries.

You can get the lantern berries first.

I bet it's easy.

I bet it's fun.

I bet we'll have a good time and we'll all grow closer as threads.

So you hop back on the raft and begin pulling your way through the swamp.

As you make your way through, Can I get you all to give me a perception check?

Hell?

Yeah you can?

Oh shit, seventeen.

Yeah, that's the twenty I have.

Twenty seven, twenty five?

Is that twenty one?

We get all of our good roles here?

Twenty two total?

I got an eighteen total.

I thought I was doing good.

We did great.

You all did pretty well, actually, And after the story that Merdy told you upon leaving town, you've all been kind of on edge looking at the swamp, not just for its natural beauty, which it certainly has plenty of, but also for this supposed threat.

And while up until now you haven't really seen anything to give you any sense of pause.

As you make your way away from the mushroom Stummach and begin making your way towards the location of the bury pat, you all can't help but feel like you're being It's just that sense that feeling on the back of your neck, all of the hair is suddenly standing on end, that something is observing you and all of you.

Murdy, you can't help but remember the words from the dwarf at the moss Pig bar Nah talking about too testing said that it was a massive thing dwells in the water, big as a barge.

It's a hippopotamus.

You've been looking hardy, and you can't help but notice that there is a weight in the water that seems to appear some distance off to your right.

Now and again, guys, it's like somebody's stirring the bog.

Or should we go towards it or away from it?

I feel like towards Okay, I.

Turned the barge towards it without any second thought.

You begin pulling in that direction.

But as soon as Murdy spotted it, it disappears.

Whatever it is doesn't seem maybe it's not there, Maybe it's just a fiction of Murdy's imagination.

Maybe Murdy was scared by the legend, but you don't seem to see anything.

I'm not scared of anything, but I might still be drunk.

Did have a couple of the stouts before you left?

Emphasis on a couple?

Oh my man, Murdy, I don't think there's anything over.

Here, So can I get another survival check?

As you make your way from one location to the other, and I believe this is Murdy reading the map.

That was an eighteen on the dieh plus seven is twenty five.

You know of the group.

You are incredibly skilled at reading a map and making sure that the BArch is going in the right direction.

You navigate to the next location in expert time.

It doesn't even take you two hours.

You're able to make it there in one You don't even have to go through any cutbacks or reroutes.

You make it straight to the next location.

Ste scouts say, what what.

Any this one can't see even from a distance.

The golden berries faintly glow among the brambles at the top of the hill.

These must be the lantern berries that Leadrusa needs to cure the villagers.

So as you approach.

This is kind of a hill, and atop it there are kind of these glowing berries on a trio of large berry bushes.

It does look like some of the other bushes are also lantern berry bushes, but it looks like animals from the swamp have eaten them all away, so the only intact berries are up at the top.

So these bushes do look very thorny.

So you can make your way up to the top safely as long as you go slowly, no checks required.

You just have to kind of be careful about it.

Who's waiters look dumb?

Now, that's right.

So as long as you're willing to take say, five minutes to walk up to the top, and you're not really under a huge time pressure, you can make it up to the top without any danger.

I'm walking in front with shield raised and mournings all right ready.

I'll get directly behind her and have a grenade in each hand.

Okay, So if you all take a look up map you've made it to the top of the hill.

There are these kind of bushes that are just in front of you.

As you've made your way up through the kind of thorny bramble berry bushes.

Doesn't appear that there's anybody up here.

This is kind of higher up in the swamp, and you're kind of up in the almost up into the fog that kind of hangs above the swamp at all times during the day.

Occasionally a bright shaft of sunlight will burn away some of the fog, but up here it's kind of actually a little gloomy.

You're a little overcast, allowing these berries to really kind of glow in the misty gloom.

And as you are approaching this, everybody give me a perception chair.

That was another NAT twenty twenty seven.

That's a fourteen, so nineteen total for me.

I promise I'm not lying about these dice.

I'm just using my lucky pink dye.

It's all twenty on all sides.

It's lucky.

Yeah.

I got a total of a six because I keep really my un bite die.

I'm gonna switch dice.

Nice, Nice, I got a natural one.

I walk back and to the river.

So spite and squash.

The two of you kind of make your way up into the clearing.

I'm gonna move you forward just a little bit.

You don't see anything.

You're making way up to these bushes.

Anything what a verdant land?

Tranp.

Murdy, two of you pick up some buzzing.

There's some weird kind of buzzing coming from the mist up above.

And as you get closer, the source of the buzzing becomes obvious as a pair of giant swamp flies come swooping down out of the mist.

And at this point in time, I'm going to need everybody to roll perception for initiative now, Trant Murdy, I will allow both of you to like draw a weapon or something real quick because you heard something going on.

So if you want to have a bomb in hand or a weapon in hand, you can certainly do that.

Absolutely.

I got a bomb in Eachance Sad.

I fully intended to give Trance the bug bombs and I did not.

So you still have them.

That's fine, don't worry.

I've got a bug bomb.

I've got my soup ladle out and my hot lid shield.

I'm spinning in a circle being like what's going on?

All right?

So go ahead and roll initiative, everybody, and hold on to the number.

I'll come around and get it from you, all right.

We'll start here.

Spite, what do you got total of the sixteen sounds good, And I'm switching out from a yellow dye to a blue dye.

I'm sure it'll fix everything.

That is fair.

Blue dye is more lucky.

Use a red diy if you want to go fast, Squash, what's your initiative?

I rolled a seventeen for a total of twenty two.

Twenty two, very good, murdy, what do you got?

Well?

I used up all my good rolls.

I rolled a five on the die plus seven is twelve.

There we go, Trance, what do.

You have that's a nineteen total?

Yeah, all right, and let me go ahead and grab my flies.

Okay, So these flies come swooping down out of the midstic above you.

And by big I mean I think it's important to understand these things are like fully three and a half four feet long.

That's how big their bodies are.

Their wingspans are more like five feet So these are very very large swamp flies.

There's a pair of them, and they look very angry that you have disturbed their favorites, berry bushes top of the order, Squash.

Somehow you didn't see the flies at all, But now that there's one that's probably only about ten feet above you, both are the flies that you can see right now.

They're about ten feet off the ground, so they're not down at your level just yet.

Squash, you get to go first.

Well, it's a good thing that I've got a gun.

I pull out my big machete gun.

I say, throw your hand, you son them a bitch, and I shoot them.

All right.

You draw your gun in fire, yep, and I rolled a sort of eighteen.

The sound of thunder echoes through the hills as your gun unleashes its bullet that flies up through the air and clips one of the flies in the wing.

Go ahead and roll damage.

I rolled two damage on this nasty fire.

All right.

The bullet grazes its wing, clipping it, putting a hole in its iridescent wing.

But it doesn't look like that affected it too badly.

Squash, you do still have one action left if you would like to reload your gun.

Matt might as well.

All right, Tramp, you saw these flies coming, you were able to draw some bombs.

It is your turn.

Well, I think I'm going to I mean, this does seem like the kind of situation that calls for grenade.

Do I think I can air burst this in such a way that it will hit more than one.

Two flies look like they're a bit too far apart for that.

They're If they were closer together, maybe you could try and pull something like that off, but they're over twenty feet apart, so the best you can do is target one.

Okay, I'm gonna go to the one that's just to the right of squash, and I'm gonna hurl an alchemist's rost at it.

Yeah, so these flies have kind of come swooping in around the berries on either side.

They're still about ten feet off off the ground, and you throw a frost vial at that one.

Yes, so right to hit.

That's a nineteen naturally plus.

I think a five is what I add to that, twenty four.

A twenty four is a clean and solid hit.

The frost vile slams into the fly.

You deal full damage.

Go ahead and give me the damage.

And what's the splash effect?

Online?

Is just one more cold?

That's a great question.

Yeah, it's definitely cold damage because it's frost bomb.

So it's gonna do one D six cold plus one cold splash and it takes a minus five foot penalty to its speed until the end of it's next.

That's what I was looking to do.

Okay, is that going to slow down its wings so much it falls from the air.

No, but it'll slow it down moving very fast, which is useful.

And I rolled six so max damage at seven total.

So the frost file slams into the fly, dealing a total of seven points of damage.

It looks very badly heard from that.

It is still flying, but the frost is now clinging to its wings and you can see that they're not.

It's having to beat much harder to kind of keep it up in the air.

It looks like the fly is slowed down by this attack.

That was only your first action.

You do still have a bomb in the other hand, what do you want to do.

I'm gonna say, oh, sorry, are you cold?

Let me warm you up a little bit, and then I'm gonna throw an alchemist fire at him.

All right, that's a three.

I don't know where it's going, but it's not going on target.

Do you have a hero a point?

Yeah, that's a good idea.

I feel close to getting away with it.

That's a five.

Curse of hero points.

I spend a hero point, I get a worse roll.

All right, Yeah, I rolled in that one after my last hero point.

I can't tell you how often that happens.

So you fling the alchemist fire, it goes wide and lands in the bushes behind it.

Fortunately, everything here is so wet that it doesn't start the whole place of blaze.

But the fly is unharmed.

All right, that was transferned.

Unfortunately, the flies get to go.

Now.

The first fly is gonna come swooping down at spite.

It's going to come flying down out of the mist spite, and it comes straight up to you and attempts to bite you with its mandibles.

Okay, I'm not afraid of no fly.

I had my shield drunk, nor should you be, as I have rolled a three to hit, which is not going to be super.

That is lower than my armor class even.

Plus my bonus and eleven is not going to do it.

So it is going to attempt to spend its third action to bite you one last time.

That is an armor class.

Of sixteen, nowhere near my armor class of nineteen.

The fly was hopeful, but it fails.

That is the end of the first fly's turn.

Poor rolling for my poor flies.

Next up, the other fly comes swooping down to squash, what it's going to attempt to bite you with its mandibles?

Does an armor class of sixteen.

Hit you, Squash abstutely, No, it doesn't, fat chance you fucking fly.

No, it's an armor class of eighteen that you gotta miss.

Maybe the fly attempts to bite you, but you are just too nimble dancing away from its mandibles.

It will take its final action to attempt to bite you again.

And I rolled a NAT twenty for a critical hint.

No, my chaine meil cropped up.

Didn't protect me.

Who could have seen it coming?

I rolled maximum down?

Oh my god?

Yeah, okay, take eighteen.

As the fly sweeps down and bites you in the neck, so on folks his neck.

He's not supposed to get teeth in that.

No, I'm supposed to protect that.

So this fly comes down and bites you like square in the neck.

Oh my god, and just like rips out a part of your throat, blood spatters everywhere.

Is the fly lands on your body to feast.

Are you at zero?

Yeah?

I have exactly eighteenth?

Boys?

All right, So here's what happens, Squash.

You will move in initiative to right before the flyes so you now go right before them.

You are unconscious and prone, and you gain the dying condition.

Now, the way this works is if it gets back to your turn and no one has helped you, we will roll a check to see if your dying condition gets worse or better.

If it gets better and drops to zero, you become kind of stable and just unconscious.

But if you roll poorly, it will get worse, and it gets worse and worse and worse until it gets to dying four, at which point you die.

Now, I know I just said you were at dying one, but I forgot this was a critical hit which knocks you immediately to dying too.

Of course it does.

So you were at dying two, which means on your next turn, if you roll one on your save, you would fall two more spots and die.

So hopefully someone will get to you before that.

Won't be good for the podcast.

We'll see how good my friends are.

Yeah, we'll see how much your friends are actually your friends.

Don't worry.

I got something I can throw that'll help you save me.

I like it.

The main healer and the backup healer.

He only has one way to heal you, and it's with fire.

I kind of have a bob of healing.

Yes, that is the end of the swamp Fly's turn Spiked.

We are over to eat, all right.

Knowing that my dear friend Murty has the situation of Squash well in hand, I decide in Squash's name to squash this fly very good because my morning Star is already drawn.

I really want to throw a bug bomb at it.

I have bug bombs, but this thing is right in front of me.

I'm already holding a pointy stick.

There's no thing I could possibly remember.

You get three actions and your third ones.

That's such a penalty you might as well throw a bomb.

Yeah.

So I am going to use a focus point to do a weapon surge and call down the Mighty Malani to infuse my spiked Bat, the Holy Spiked Bat, and to do additional damage.

And so I will take a swing rolling that twenty I'm very glad I switched dice for a total of twenty eight.

So a lot of things happen simultaneously.

Because if you recall Transluede Alchemist fire to the morning.

Star do more damage than I'm gonna do for the next five levels of my character, including to me.

And there's no way.

I'm giving you critical damage on the Alchemist Fire, but I will give you full damage on it.

Okay, So go ahead and roll damage for the weapon.

We're gonna double that, yep.

Then we're gonna roll a D six for the Alchemist Fire plus the splash, which I will tak Yeah, just gonna be a lot.

Yeah.

So because I did my weapon searche, I get an extra D six to the damage, and so that is a I rolled a five, and a two plus four is eleven damage to twenty two damage with the morning Star and then the fire, I rolled a five, so twenty seven damage to the fly.

So you slam the morning Star into this fly and it hits its square in the middle of its two giant you know, they've got those hundred lens eyes, and these things are big.

They're like the size of beach balls.

And you slam the morning Star right in the middle of that.

The Alchemist Fire shatters and burns its wings to a crisp.

This fly kind of explodes in a ball of cooking ichor as fire and bug juice spatters you from head to toe.

You do take one point of fire.

That's fine.

I turned a trance and give a big thumbs up.

Two are spattered just from top to bottom.

Boss, Next time, I'll put two on there.

Great, I still have one action left.

Drawing a bomb or a javelin is an action.

Correct, so you can get something out, but you couldn't use it.

I'm raising my shield.

Okay, you're gonna raise your shild Yeah, all right, So I'm gonna go ahead and remove that particular fly from the map since it is super dead.

Yeah, you are just splattered in bug juice from top to bottom.

I haven't played a DPS character very long time.

Is very satisfying.

That was impressive.

All right.

That was Spike's turn, Murdy.

I would like to heal Squash, which will automatically take care of those dying conditions.

I'm gonna spend two actions to do this, meaning they will spells a range of thirty feet and I'm targeting Squash and gonna roll D eight.

Do you want me to roll D eight or Squash?

Do you want to rule your own healing?

Oh?

Please, I trust you more.

Okay, that heels for five, so you're back to five points.

I love it.

So it's plus eight, so that is a total of thirteen.

You're still prone.

You'll wait your turn and be laying on the ground with the fly sitting on top of you, lapping up your blood.

No, my blood.

And then my last action, I'm gonna mutter some shit to myself that no one else can hear and cast guidance on myself, and I'll probably say this, this wasn't supposed to be this way.

I'm supposed to just be doing soup.

So Trance, you now get to go again.

Squash now goes after you.

Knock before you because Squash call.

All right, Squash, try to stay real flat, and then I'm going to whip out my shotgun and just blast.

All right.

Ooh, that's not great.

That's gonna be a total of thirteen.

Total of thirteen.

What was your role?

Because those weapons do.

Miss fire at eight.

Oh that's fine.

Okay, So you roll a thirteen which is gonna miss let's say, drawing it and firing it.

You do still have one action.

I guess I'll draw one of my pistols.

Okay, So Squash, we're back to you now.

The fly is directly above you.

Like I said, it's been lapping up your blood.

You can stand up if you want.

I could have stopped you from getting killed.

My reaction would have made you take less damage.

That realization just hit me.

So you're you're absolutely right.

But remember you hadn't gone yet, so you can't take reactions.

That's right.

Okay, Yeah, no, I totally would have done it.

I totally was on top of it.

Okay, yeah, yeah, sorry, please continue.

Hey, everybody listening, get help.

That's why Spike didn't save their friend.

Yeah, exactly.

It's because they couldn't take a reaction.

Y.

Yeah, that's right.

It's not because they're a terrible friend to me.

Squash, Squash, it's your trip.

Uh.

For my first turn, I do a genkd vandam jump up from a front position and I say, no, fabulous, funny, mister Squash, And then I stabbed a fly with my cool new rapier.

So when you did get fit last term, by the way, because you fell unconscious, I didn't bother with the Fortitude Save.

You also needed to make from the swamp.

Why bite a crumbs If you could just make that for me real quick.

I just kind of want to see what's going on with you.

I rolled a fourteen.

What do I have?

It's a Fortitude Save eighteen total.

So yeah, that didn't do anything.

So you stand up.

Then what were you gonna do?

I skewer this nasty bug.

Go ahead and make me on my cool new rape here.

All right?

I ruled a seven plus eight, which is a total of enough to kill the fly.

I hope sixteen.

The fly is going to take a reaction called avoid the swat, and it is going to get a bonus to its ac which causes your attack to miss, and then it's gonna move away.

That's classic fly stuff.

I hate these nasty exactly that got flies dead to rights in Pathfinder.

I tell you, I happen to know my flies.

So I had this same problem with a fly in a shot on the other day.

What a game.

So you have one action left, but the fly is no longer within reach.

You've stood up and you've attacked.

And I got one more and that you know what, I just came back from the dead.

I am gonna I'm shoot it.

I reloaded my gun.

I'm going to shoot this bastard.

All right.

This will be at a penalty.

It's your second attack, so it's going to be at a minus five from whatever your normal illnesses, which I think is like is that one.

Well I rolled the five.

Okay, so you crack off a shop but it goes wide, landing in the bushes.

Now the swamp fly gets to go next.

And flies are not exactly known for their tactical acumen.

So it's going to fly up to spike.

No, don't fly at the full hit point person with their shield raised.

Yeah.

Well, like I said, it's a fly.

It's not a skilled soldier.

It's attacking whatever's nearby, which happens to be you.

Great, and it's going to fly up an attempt to bite you with its mandibles.

Here we go.

Well, oh that's really good.

I'll say this by dice are on fire.

That's a critical hit.

Is a twenty always a critical impath finder?

So the way it works is that a twenty is always one step better in the result.

So in this case, the total die roll is at twenty eight.

Now, if at twenty eight was a miss on you because your armor class was really hot, right, rolling a twenty would take it from a miss to a hip.

In this case, it's probably a hit which is going to take it to it it is.

It's not ten over, but I see that.

Yeah, I was rolling the twenty okay, yeah, okay, so.

That is going to hit you for fourteen damage.

Now you do have your shield raised and you do have a reaction.

Yeah, However, if I do that, it'll destroy my shield.

It will definitely damage it quite badly.

Yes, my shield is twenty hit points, but it becomes damaged at ten, so it becomes unusable at ten.

Yeah, you can't use it to raise your shield, but you could fix it like on the next boat journey between here and the next thing, you could work there.

I'm just gonna take the fourteen damage.

Okay, you take fourteen damage.

Okay, you do also have the Champion reaction.

Can you use that on yourself?

No?

I don't think so.

What is it liberating?

Step?

I believe it's an ally within my our fifteen feet is at least that's what I wrote down.

All right, so you take fourteen damage.

Okay, This one fly has one action left.

It's going to attempt to bite you again.

Can I roll another natural twenty?

I can.

That's not gonna hit this fly, however, has a taste for blood.

It keeps going for next.

I hate to ask this, but do I have to roll the Fortitude save?

Ah?

Yes, look at you being honest.

I'm going to grant you a hero point for being honest, for taking the damage and being honest.

However, you do stuff to give me that forty.

Yes, I passed it.

I think I got a twenty one after a thirteen plus eight.

Oh, that's definite.

Gonna make it all rights fight.

It is up to you, all right, I am going to You know I was going to do a creative diversion and then try and hit it.

Well, I still haven't done that yet, so that's what I want to do.

Okay, So I'm going to use this action called create a diversion, which is a deception check versus its perception, to give it a minus two AC.

This is probably not the most op thing I could do, but I'm just kind of curious.

Sure, and so I'm making a deception check at it.

So how are you attempting to deceive the fly?

I'm kind of curious.

Much like with a regular fly, I'm going to hit above it instead of hitting it, I'm going to get it to fly into my morning Star's all right, because that's how I kill flies in real life.

Okay, I wasted my notat twenty This die rules.

I really am glad I switched dice.

I got a twenty four on my deception versus its perception.

You did roll a natural twenty.

I don't think that there's a critical success on that, but it is still good, okay, and then.

I am going to try to hit it with my morning stum.

All right.

So basically you kind of distract the bug which kind of looks in the other way and is flying around erratically and kind of showing you its whole bug ass cool, so you're able to hit it more easily.

And I also have this feat that makes me stay hidden after I use created diversion.

It's a feat because my background is insurgent, and it's a feat called lengthy diversion.

The created diversion lasts past the end of the round, so it I think the idea is that it's like still confused by me.

That would work until you attack it.

So that would be really good if you were trying to distract it and get away.

But if you're just gonna hit it, it's gonna know where you.

Are, okay.

I rolled an eleven plus eight, so a nineteen to hit, and it has a minus two to its AC I believe, so.

The fun part about this is that my cool ability to avoid being swatted does require me to use it on an attacker.

I can see and I can't see you right now, so I can't use it.

Yes, so that is actually not a bad tactical movement.

All you are keeping me from flying away from you, so that is gonna hit.

Go ahead and deal damage.

Okay, I rolled A two undamaged, so six damage.

Six damage.

This fly looks very badly heard.

One of its wings is definitely broke and not flying the right way.

It's leaking kind of a pale yellow icher out of its spracked abdomen crack thorax.

I guess it's a fly got thorax.

Yeah, okay, okay, but with that, I'm gonna try and hit it again.

I am not smart enough to know that this means it's going to get to fly away from me.

Yeah, but it won't get to do so until after you attack.

So okay, great, because I rolled a let's see, it's at a minus five, so that's only a twenty two.

Well, it doesn't matter that I use my ability.

You're still going to hit, so go ahead and roll damage.

Oh good, seven damage, So.

It begins to try and fly away, but your diversion has completely confounded it, and it is killed.

You splatter it across the field.

Spite is a fly killer.

Let it be known legends throughout the land, the fly are dead.

I look kind of in amazement at the spiked stick, my morning Star, and I'm like, I look at the room that's etched in it now, and I'm like, cool.

So I'm really badly wounded.

I was pretending like it was all fine.

Yeah, that's definitely hurts.

It ripped out a good shop of my neck.

I'm looking down at the stick and you can see blood coming out of my neck with each beat of my heart.

I come over and I put my hand on their shoulder and I give you I will heal you up.

Does the soup actually heal?

Yes, that's the bit about the cult.

We accidentally made a soup that heals, and we keep it going in perpetual suicide.

How many hit points is that heal?

One hundred?

One hundred?

Yeah, I'm beginning to think the cult just thinks they have a perpetual healing.

We talked about the soup heels.

It's mechanically the heel spell.

Oh, but the fiction is so.

You're an assuming you get the benefits of a heel.

That makes perfect sense.

Okay, and it uses one of your heels.

Okay, yeah, yeah, that's yeah, that's perfectly fair.

I'm definitely in game with that.

What is that heel?

Out of combat?

How does this work?

So?

Out of combat?

It works?

SIMI works in combat.

You can cast it in any one of the three ways.

Obviously.

Out of combat, I suggest you use either the two or the three action version because those are the best.

The one action version is only for emergencies.

Right, yeah, The two action one gets me an extra eight hit points, so I'm going to do the two action versions.

It's best when you're only really healing one person.

There are two of us who are badly wounded right now?

Oh who else is badly wounded?

But spite you're much more badly wounded than squashes.

Right now, Squash has got a few scratches.

All right, I'm only down five now.

Okay, that's not nothing, but you're down fourteen?

Yeah, yeah, I can heal for thirteen for one person or five.

For multiple Okay, I'll take the thirteen, Jason, Yeah, well they're doing this and healin I'm gonna muck around in the fly corpses and find the hardest pieces of the flies.

Okay, like whatever, the hardest, sharpest bits of the flies, and I'm gonna kind of chop them up into bits, and I'm gonna use that to reload my shotgun.

Oh okay, sure, nice.

Yeah.

I mean the fly, like you know, kite tin, especially around their mandibles and whatnot, is very dense, very hard.

Oh.

I saw what it did to some throats.

I'm looking to do that to some throats on my own.

Yeah, you fill your shotgun full of bloody fly pieces.

I looked a squash, and I'm like, squash, we made corpses.

We should use your shorts.

Yeah.

I start ripping up pieces of of my my fungused up shorts, and I placed them deep within the caverns of these open flies.

All right.

In addition, you're able to gather up the berries you need with out too much trouble.

Oh yeah, oh yeah, we had a mission.

The bushes are thorny, but outside of combat you can just kind of take your time.

In addition to this, you notice that there is kind of buried underneath one of the berry bushes, you spot a skeleton looks like some poor traveler may have died up here, perhaps to the flies.

And it is clutching a scimitar that looks in good shape.

Wow, that's so scary.

Does it have a very similar rune as the rapier in My Morning Star?

Could I use annoledge kind on it?

Yeah?

You can figure it out.

Yeah, yeah, okay, let me try nine.

I mean, you can't be certain, but there's a decent chance it's a magical weapon.

It seems in way too good of shape to not be magical, because if it were just sitting out here in the elements, it would have kind of robbed away.

Yeah.

Boss, my guess is that this is special like the other stuff we found, so we could probably I mean, if nobody wants a scimitar, we can find something else to do with it, like we did with the other thing.

Okay, I put it in my pack, all right.

So you make your way down from the hill and back to your raft.

You now have two of the three ingredients that you need, and you begin pulling off into the swamp to find this soggy cemetery located in the distant corner of the swamp.

And as you begin to pull through the murky depths begins to get later on in the day, the sun begins to dip low, the shadows are growing long.

Your time is running short, and somewhere out in the swamp, something is watching you.

But that's all we have time for here today, everybody.

So that's going to be the end of this episode.

I want to thank you all for playing once again.

Is so good.

Thank you.

I only want to thank some of you, but it's a secret.

I sure do appreciate it.

And I want to thank everyone for listening to Dawn of the Frogs.

And if you come back next week you'll get to watch I believe it's called a TPK and if you don't know what that is, you can google it.

And that's not a dirty thing.

It's just a terrible thing.

Tph Margaret, you said this wasn't dirty.

Oh no, you spelled it.

Got seat.

Bye everyone.

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