Bonus One Shot: The Witch Is Dead!

In this very special bonus episode, we play invite our first guest star to play The Witch is Dead, a one-page TTRPG developed by Grant Howitt. Listen to the chaos unfold as our group plays familiars seeking revenge for the murder of their witch.

Meet the Circus:

• Jeff as Game Master

• Brian as Quinn the Magpie

• Stephanie as Gerri the Rat

• Doja as Belgarath the Toad

• Scott as Ted the Fox

• and Special Guest Rebecca as Jareth the Owl

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Special thanks to Brad and Holly, our first Scapegoat Syndicate members on Patreon!

They're keeping the lights on and the airlocks sealed.

• Show Transcript

  The Witch Is Dead

  Choas: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Dark Star Venture Casts Bonus one Shot where the episodes are longer, the editing is looser, and guest stars hide behind every corner in the wild west of one shots. Anything is possible and our heroes are set to explore those very possibilities, eh, just as soon as they get their shit together on tonight's adventure cast.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): Look at this adventure we're on, and we're so close to finding the witch guy. There's only three possible buildings

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): I heard tavern, and I'm certainly going to go for that one. I'm gonna do my other magic spell Fireball, where I take a shot of Fireball.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): Oh God, God. Belgar. Oh my God. What? Ah, just give, give a guy

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): awarded next time, uh, to tweet you to tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet to tweet.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Tweety. Tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet. Hold on. Let her cook. [00:01:00]

  Choas: So strap in for a bonus sized episode. This is the Dark Star Adventure cast.

  Choas: Woo.

  Choas: Welcome everyone. Hello. We're back at the Dark Star Adventure Cast. And tonight, here we are. We have something very special for you tonight. We are not just playing the stinky old normal campaign boo. We're doing a cool ass bonus. One shot that's way easier to edit. Yeah. Yay. The easy way out. And that's why we do it.

  Choas: I mean, we do it so we can try different systems. So, uh, tonight we are playing a one page T-T-R-P-G called the Witch is Dead. It is made by Grant Howett, who is a prolific T-T-R-P-G author who creates a single [00:02:00] page, a 10 piece of paper, T-T-R-P-G every month, and now he's created over 100 of them and is releasing a book thats wild.

  Choas: Nice. If you are interested in seeing his stuff, you can just, you know, Google the witch is dead, or you can go to his Patreon, which is GS Howett, so Patreon slash gs howett, so check him out. He's also on HIO and he has lots of extremely cool stuff. I'm sure this will not be the last tt. RRP G, we play by him.

  Choas: Love a good

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): one page,

  Choas: but that is not where the excitement ends. My friends, tonight we have the Dark Star Adventure Cast. First guest player. What? Woo. Who's that? Welcome. Rebecca, an old Overwatch friend of mine. We used to, we started a different server together like 10 years ago, so I've known her for a minute.

  Choas: Um, Rebecca, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Awesome. Yes. Thank you for the kind introduction. Yes. My name is Rebecca. Um, I go by also Rebecca, Olivia Hodges. I'm a voice actress based in South Florida. Been doing it [00:03:00] professionally for over three years. I do, uh, audio dramas, animation, video games, you name it, I do it.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): And my website, just in case you're curious, is voices by rebecca.com and, and that's me.

  Choas: Awesome. Nice. Welcome Rebecca. Welcome. Thank you. Nice to have you here. It's kind of like, I'm kind of nervous. We have like our first guest star. Oh, don't be nervous.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): It's gonna be fun.

  Choas: Oh God. She's doing accents. She's better than all of us.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Shut it down.

  Choas: Shut it down.

  Choas: So, uh, I'm not sure how many of you actually read the T-T-R-P-G for tonight. That one page I sent it to you kind of late, but at the table tonight, you don't have to have brought anything with you. We're gonna make characters right now. Uh, I'll read the T-T-R-P-G so that those at home can follow along.

  Choas: We'll get into character creation and then we'll launch right into the story. Sounds good. The TT RRP G is called the witch is Dead. This is the little intro spiel that grant wrote. Once upon a time, there was a kind and [00:04:00] wise and beautiful witch who lived in the forest with her familiars and her life was peaceful and happy until a fucking witch hunter broke into her cottage and dragged route and fucking murdered her.

  Choas: And now she's dead. But if you get revenge and kill him and bring his eyes to her corpse, within a week, she'll come back to life or so you've heard. Even if it doesn't work, at least he's dead. Cool premise. Very cool premise. So in this you play the familiar of a witch that was killed by a witch hunter.

  Choas: And literally the next line on the sheet says, you are a cute woodland animal. You have four traits, clever, fierce, sly, and quick. Those are your four attributes, like strength, dexterity, you know, charisma. Clever is, uh, like interacting with humans and understanding them. Fierce is scaring, dragging, pushing, biting.

  Choas: Sly is sneaking, stealing, and hiding. Quick is to outpace, [00:05:00] climb or evade. And then there are 10 different woodland creatures. We'll be rolling randomly to see which one you play, and then you learn a spell. You were taught a spell by your witch, not owner but friend. We'll rule randomly for that as well.

  Choas: Everything's a D 10, so we'll roll a D 10 for that as well. And then we'll roll a couple attributes about the nearby village where the Wi Witch hunter is. And then we'll roll an attribute about the witch hunter themselves. And then there's a twist, which is a secret thing that the GM will roll. That's me and I'll roll that and I'll log that away somewhere.

  Choas: Are you gonna tell the folks at home or are they gonna have to wait and find

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): out?

  Choas: Um, I don't know how I would do that unless I ask you guys all to cover your ears

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): because secret slime action is being a woodwind

  Choas: creature. Uh, okay, so let's get started on that. So, uh, you all have your character sheets in front of you.

  Choas: You'll see that you have your name, your species, and then your attributes and your spelling, all that. So the very first thing I need everyone to do is roll randomly for their cute woodland creature roll D 10. And then that will [00:06:00] inform you of what your stats are. You don't point by, you don't allocate, it's just, for instance, if you're a fox, you have clever two, fierce two, sly one and quick one.

  Choas: And while everyone's rolling, I'll say those numbers are your bonuses on your roles. So if you try to, you know, I'm a tree while you're trying to like evade something. So you're trying to do it like frantically you do your climb, which is based off of your quick attribute. So if you're a fox, your quick is one.

  Choas: So you roll one to 10 plus one. It's that easy. It's just one to 10 plus your attribute. Seeing the rolls come in now.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): Oh yeah, I rolled a 10. I'm thrilled. I am a rat.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Oh, you got, I got, I got magpie. I swear I'm not cheating. Oh, that's so cool. That's

  Choas: the one you wanted. Hold on. Lemme look at this roll. Listen,

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): I grabbed the fox.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): I'm pretty happy with that.

  Choas: Damn. Me too.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): Ooh, we've got two foxes. Ooh, two foxes. All right, let's

  Choas: go.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Should I switch or should, yeah. Do you guys wanna

  Choas: re-roll duplicates? Uh, do you guys want, if we don't [00:07:00] want duplicates, we can have a roll off to see who gets to keep the fox. I think it'd be fun to try different ones.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Yeah.

  Choas: Okay. Roll off each of you roll A one. D 10. Whoever gets highest gets to keep the fox.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Seven,

  Choas: nine.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): All right. Sorry.

  Choas: Sorry. Guest. Learn how to roll dice. Yeah. So much for the, the guests now has, yeah. There she oh seven again, you gotta, no, now we're, that's a magpie. I'm a mag reroll. Re-roll.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): Can't do it.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): That's

  Choas: Brian's a magpie. You gotta keep re-rolling. This is how we treat our guests. It's house rules. Everyone already not magpie again, meant to be magpie. If you rule a magpie a third time, Brian has to give it. Yeah. Then I have to switch.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Okay. There you go. I'm an owl.

  Choas: Ooh. Okay. Do you wanna trade? No, I'm just kidding.

  Choas: Okay, so what do we got here? Brian Magpie. Uh, Rebecca Owl. Stephanie a rat. Uh, Scott. A Fox. That's right, baby. And I did not hear what Doge is. [00:08:00]

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): Rolled, uh, one and then a three. Um, so Fox also, or Toad.

  Choas: Looks like you're a

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): toad

  Choas: buddy. That's cool. We actually have a really good spread. A couple flyers, couple sers.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): I like

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): it. It's a good group.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): You know what? It works out. It's my, uh, karma for being a dirty, dirty power gamer that I get the, the under power class towed.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): You know what happens to a toad when it gets struck by lightning?

  Choas: Okay, so everyone has rolled their creature. They've inputted their stats on their sheet.

  Choas: Some animals are powerful and other things, some are powerful. You. Cleverness or quickness or whatever. Uh, everyone should roll their spell now. So roll D 10 to get your spell. There are 10 spells. I don't know if they're all useful. I have honestly not read through them all.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): I know it says in the rules, it's like, oh, these aren't meant to be flashy, but they're all incredibly useful.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): Should we try to keep unique spells? Yeah, I think we should. Same with animals, because right now three of us have conjure light. Yeah. Maybe not. [00:09:00] Who got it first?

  Choas: Uh, doge. Got it first. Yeah. Okay. So Doge, you get to keep your, your Chondra light. Other two people have to re-roll. It's a fucking

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): glowing

  Choas: toad.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): I, I am actually Hypnotoad.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): Yeah, you are.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): I'm sorry. I am just in love with, uh, Jareth Rebecca Owl, who spell is Conjured dinner. Sorry, I'm like running in my mind right now and I am like, oh, Jart, that's like a fairy name, right? Because like, the lain movie is about fairies. You got it. Conjuring dinner. That's what you don't wanna do with fairies.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): You don't wanna eat their food. Like this is already some hardcore fantasy here. The witch would be proud. I'm in it to win it. Guys, I'm here for you. Mm-hmm.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): All right. So I got, I, I'm a, I'm gonna be the fox who tidies queens and mens things.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Oh my God. I could use a fox like that. Don't be mad, but I got lock unlock.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): And you're a mag pie

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): with lock

  Choas: on

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): lock. What

  Choas: the fuck did that happen, Brian? [00:10:00]

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): Okay.

  Choas: What, what, okay. For the, for everyone that doesn't know, Brian sent me like, he's like, I randomly rolled up a character just to test the system and it was a magpie with lock unlock. And I'm like, oh, that's pretty good. He is like, yeah, I really love it, but I could see his roles.

  Choas: He did just re-roll magpie, lock unlock. Well, he didn. He rolled magpie and then he rolled conjure light and had to re-roll and got tidy, clean and men, but had to re-roll 'cause Scott already had that. And then he got lock on lock. Yep. Perfect. The lock this guy has,

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): I've got something.

  Choas: Anyway, it's so good.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Today is the day of manifestation being 10. 10 guys. I'm just saying it's

  Choas: Mercury,

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): Gatorade, me, recent Gatorade. Steph, what's your spell?

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): My spell is Distract and Confuse, which as a rat is going to be very helpful.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): Oh, I do love that for you. Mm-hmm.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): Yeah, it's gonna be super helpful for my quick getaways and you know, general

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): Sliminess, I think one of you guys can, like, one of the birds can like carry the toad as like a light source ahead of us.[00:11:00]

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Oh, you're like a glow toad from the dragon Princes.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): I, I am literally just a carry on item at this point. That's worthless. But let me tell you, I'm a beacon in the darkness. Just don't try to do anything fierce.

  Choas: Okay. Doja. I know.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): I love the Zero Fierce Toad.

  Choas: This is great because it actually makes Doja play a different character.

  Choas: 'cause his normal character is very fierce and combat ready. But you're very sly,

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): which is honestly the funny part because my typical character, my absolutely favorite character of all time is the character that does nothing. So I'm, I'm in my, I'm in my element right now.

  Choas: Okay, wait, hold on. So I actually. I didn't read one part.

  Choas: It says the witch hunter has retreated to the village. The fucking coward. Get him, get up.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): The only thing better than roleplaying, a tiny woodland creature is roleplaying a tiny woodland creature with a thirst for murder and vengeance. [00:12:00]

  Choas: What

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): I'm, that's what I'm talking

  Choas: about. So the first role I got for the village is it's incredibly superstitious.

  Choas: They're not gonna like that glowing toad then. No, they, they won't have fun with that. And I had to roll one more time. The town is also oppressively Perfect. Oh wow. Okay, so we have a village, uh, that's incredibly superstitious and oppressively perfect. And the witch hunter had one attribute and he or she is

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): an asshole.

  Choas: Six. An asshole. No. Magical and jealous. Same

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): thing.

  Choas: Yes. Magical

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): and jealous. Oh, so he, a little, little bit of self hating going on there. If he's going after the witches. Well, I mean, you gotta, you know, or he's a huge misogynist or it's

  Choas: a, you know, a woman.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): There's so much intrigue to get into. There's true.

  Choas: I could have a woman villain.

  Choas: This is 2025. There could be a female villain. I do like her. I do like your lady voices. My lady vo. They all just sound like this. Hi. Hi [00:13:00] boys.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): I've never heard you play a woman's voice that way. So how do

  Choas: I normally do it?

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): That's too camp for you. Usually it's breathier.

  Choas: Is it? Yes. Hey boys. Too Breathy. Too breathy.

  Choas: Reel it in. Reel it in. That's my lady voice where she's having an asthma attack. Hey boy.

  Choas: Uh, okay, I have to roll a twist so I get one twist. I'm not gonna roll it in the open. Uh, but it could be such things as the village hates the witch hunter. Or the witch hunter is waiting for you and prepared for you. So I'm rolling that separately. Both of you tried the talk and then both of you waited for the other person to talk and then No, I said my whole thing.

  Choas: I

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): was done.

  Choas: I was waiting for an answer.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): I was waiting for

  Choas: an answer to

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Brian. I couldn't hear either of you 'cause you guys were just like, Scott, why don't you tell him what I said and then I'll tell him what you said. Okay. Do you want us all to Deafen?

  Choas: You know what? I'm sick of your weird little twins like fucking telepathy.

  Choas: Like no one likes listening [00:14:00] about it. Okay. What was the thing Scott? I wasn't listening. I was making fun of people.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): I know. Do you want us to deafen so you can tell the audience what the twist is? Or do you want it to be a secret for everybody? I think a secret's good.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Okay. Yeah. Secret secrets. So what Scott was gonna say is since he's a fox, but I actually don't know what he was gonna say.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): That's as much as he got out. I

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): know. I was say 'cause my spell is that I'm tidy queen and can mend. I'm gonna love this fucking um, oppressively perfect place. Or you'll hate it 'cause there's

  Choas: nothing to do. So I have rolled for the twist. It's secret. Secret secret. Uh, but if you are a Patreon subscriber, uh, and you want to know the Twist, DM me, don't listen to the episode, DM me and then I'll get back to you and let you know the twist.

  Choas: I am on call for our Patreon patrons. Within 24 hours, I will get back to you and tell you the twist. Okay. So just to describe how this works again, 'cause it's a paragraph at the bottom. When you try to do anything, you'll be rolling a D 10. So you'll say what you want to try to do, uh, quick. Rebecca, give me an example of something you [00:15:00] wanna do.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Uh, pick my toenails.

  Choas: Okay. So if you wanna pick your toenails, that's a bite or a scratch. So I'd have you roll your fierce. So you roll D 10 and you add your fierce to it. So if your fierce is like one or two or three, you just add that straight on. There are difficulty checks, like difficulty like margins.

  Choas: Six is simple, seven is basic, eight is challenging, nine is difficult, 10 is near impossible. So for picking your toenail, I'd say that's a simple task. So you rule one to 10 plus your fierce and you want to get, uh, six or above. If the task was dangerous, you're gonna gain a point of danger if you fail it, but nothing else bad happens.

  Choas: But if you already have danger points and you rule equal to or less than your danger point score, so you started zero, you go to 1, 2, 3, then you're dead. You're trapped, you lost, or you sliced your toe open with a butcher's knife. There's a little note here. It says, remember, most tasks that are normal to humans are really difficult for animals unless they're broken down into small steps.

  Choas: So remember that you don't have opposable [00:16:00] thumbs and all you know of the human world is what the witch taught you. You can also talk to other animals of the same type or a similar species to your own. And as an additional note, you can talk to each other. Like all the time because you're all sort of like evolved elevated animals because you've been hanging out with a, with a witch also.

  Choas: Uh, if your danger points go above zero, you can lower them by solving the issue or running away from your problems. So basically if you, I love that if you solve a, a problem or so, if, you know, if you get put into serious danger and you're like trapped and then your friends save you, your danger points go down.

  Choas: Um, or if something really bad happens and you're gonna die and you're able to escape your danger points, go down. Love that. So there is a way forward and this is a one shot. So if, if you get really wounded and you die or anything like that, that's sort of the way it happens. We don't wanna think about cute little critters dying, but I will be trying to murder you.

  Choas: Fair. Perfect. I'm [00:17:00] fair. And just that is my nickname. Fair. And just Jeff? He's just Jeff. Just Jeff.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Oh, look at the nice.

  Choas: Okay, so everyone has now created their furry little woodlan animals with some furry, not all, some not furry, some furry, some slimy. I don't know if that's speciesist of me to say that you're slimy if you're a toad, but I'm gonna soldier on and hope no one writes me an angry email. I would like each of you to introduce your character from the perspective of your character.

  Choas: So name, species, uh, your magic, spell your general personality. And I am going to, I, it sounds like doja is locked in, so doja, you should go first.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): Well, of course, I'd be happy to explain. I've been around for quite some time now. Um, I'm gra the toad. I've, I [00:18:00] believe it was so long ago. I may have been one of the witches first familiars.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): She was younger in those days and wasn't able to imbue me with. Quite as much power as some of the others. But whew, did she make me shiny? I don't like to reveal my power often. It makes a little too much noise. And well, being a small toad, I am a little gro to being attacked by random avian creatures.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): Luckily, I have a couple of friends who helped me out with that. Um, I always seem to find myself in the right place at the right time and well, I like to shine a light on little truths. That said, I'm just a toad, so I can't really help that often. Anyway, we're gonna shift it over to And who wants to go next?

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Well, hello there. It's me, Quinn, the [00:19:00] Magpie. Well, at least that's what the witch always called me, Quinn. She was always really nice, gave me shiny things. I used to take those shiny things back to my nest, stack 'em up real good. I like to put the shiniest things on one side with this wing. And then I put the least shiny things on this side with this wing.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): And sometimes I let those things fall outta the nest. 'cause I, I don't care that much about them. But this shiny stuff, that's where, where it's at. I know the witch has that toad friend, Beath. Yeah, he's pretty interesting. I like how shiny he is. I've been trying to get him up in my nest, but unfortunately I'm a small bird and even a toad is a bit too much for me.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Maybe I can get one of the other familiars to help me. But then the question is how do I get him to stay inside my nest? Oh, sorry, we talking about the witch. See, this is exactly why I wasn't paying attention when the witch hunter came. I swear there was something shiny and I went to check I was gonna come back, but then I didn't because there was another shiny thing and then it was dark.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): And luckily Grat is bright, so I knew how to get home, [00:20:00] but when by the time I got there, it was too late. Now I'm gonna have to work with everybody and we're gonna make that witch under pay. And if you have anything shiny, please give it to me. Who's next? Brian? Um, I see that Steph is still typing. So how about Rebecca, do you want to go?

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Yes. Hello. I am Jareth. I am an owl. Um, I might be in love with Jerry, not just because of Jerry's berries, but, um, enough about that. The witch, the witch, loved my wit and my sparkle. She called me a clever fellow once or twice. I tend to protect the other familiars in my clan. Then yes, I would be happy to bring Belgar up into your nest.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Can't guarantee he'll stay, but you know. We will have a good time with that. It is shiny. I do enjoy the shiny as well, but not as much as you. I can see very well in the dark, just in case anyone's curious. Did you want to see a trick? I can spin my head all the way around. Uh, [00:21:00] so cool. Who else should I speak of?

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Oh, my clever, my clever friend Ted. Um,

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): yeah, I'm, I'm Ted. I am, well, mostly I clean up around the place after all the spells and the, you know, experiments and, uh, I like having all the, the potions labeled and all the ingredients in their places. And, oh, the witch hunter made such a mess. And, you know, as, as a little fox, there was only so much I could do to clean up what he did, what he did to our witch.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): But I know that he's out there and we must clean the world of his stain and we must find him and destroy him and take his eyes and bring back our witch.

  Choas: Jesus.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): I wanna hear more from Jareth.

  Choas: Hey, taking

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): the eyes is the only way. That's what the witch always said. You gotta take their eyes. That's the shiniest part. I do like me a good set of eyes.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): Mm,

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): yes I

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): do. Like me a good pair

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): of eyes.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Yes.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): Yeah. Jareth, you've got good, uh, good eye grabbing [00:22:00] talons there. So let's, uh hmm. That could be useful.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): Let's keep that in mind.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): I do, yes. I'll use them to conjure dinner for the rest of my friends. Speaking of dinner, you know, who has some good berries, Jerry?

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): Thank you, Jerry. So, um, Jerry, we'd love to know, do we get, uh, free berries because of, uh, if we advertise for Jerry's berries once we get into town?

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): Yes.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): You will get free berries if you advertise for Jerry's berries.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): Excellent. Okay. New Quest unlocked.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): I'm sorry, what's the question?

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): Who are you?

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): Oh, who am I? Oh, I'm so sorry. Um, I'm Jerry. I am a rat. Um, you know, it's, I'm, it's hard being this small sometimes in such a large forest. I have wanted to make friends and the witch was so nice to me.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): She found like the one skill that I'm really good at. I like food. I like my berries. And [00:23:00] together we started Jerry's berries, the local CSA can be found under the large oak tree. Um, she even helped me put together a little bit of like a business plan kind of so that I can run a totally legit CSA for all of our berries.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): It's been really important to me and, um, you know, there's nothing sneaky about it and it's a totally legitimate business. I, um, you know, Jareth has been here with me for a long time, so she gets the best berries. And gra is also a recent, um, you know, another visitor to Jerry's berries, which I really appreciate.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): And I hope our, our circle continues to grow, you know, and we get revenge for the witch

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): revenge. For our dear, our dear, dear Witch revenge,

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): sorry. I was really focused on my o most my upcoming, um, delivery of Jerry's berries, and it's really been helping me compartmentalize from the fact that. [00:24:00] The, you know, the witch who like, you know, saved my life changed.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): It really has been gruesomely murdered by a witch hunter. And it's, uh, guys, I I, I have to, I have to just go away a bit. I'm going to go eat some berries.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Poor jet. It's okay, Jerry. We understand it's a shared experience. Who's gonna give us shinies now without this witch? Oh, you want shiny? I can help with that.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Hypnotoad.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): I just perch on top of your head most of the time when you're lit up. So, so

  Choas: we've met the characters. We all know people's spells their vibe, and we've already laid into the fact that the witch has been murdered. The witch ewin currently lay in repose in a peaceful clearing outside of her cottage. Smoke is lazily curling up from the chimney into the late morning sky.

  Choas: The leaves of autumn are settling softly upon her dead body, hastening her [00:25:00] burial. And then there's you, her five familiars, her best friends, her confidants. You ring her body as it lays still in cold. She has been a fixture in your forest for generations of wildlife. Ancient among the animals. The forebearers of your forebearers have passed down stories of her charity and grace.

  Choas: Through happenstance and a bit of luck, she met each one of you adopted really, and took you into her inner circle where you enjoyed heightened senses. Intelligence and empathy. You provided each other companionship and love over the long seasons, exploring the forest together with innocent abandon and living in peace with nature.

  Choas: The town a few miles south was barely even aware of her or her cottage. That is until the witch hunter arrived. But all is not lost. You have heard that retrieving the eyes of the murderer and bringing them to her corpse will resurrect her. You hasten now to save your friend. [00:26:00] It is the afternoon of day one.

  Choas: You have seven days to retrieve the eyes of the witch hunter and bring them to her. Corpse town is due south. Good luck.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): There's only one thing to do's. Find that witch hunter. I agree. We'll get him.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): Certainly agree with that. But where do we start? I wouldn't want to go accusing the wrong person. What are your thoughts on maybe searching the

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): crime scene?

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): No, I don't think so. Gra I, I'll, I know, I know his scent. I've got it. Oh, I know what he smells like. I can find him.

  Choas: Uh, Ted, the fox roll? Mm-hmm. Clever to see if you do have the scent, either way you think you have it, but just a eight. You, you do have the scent. It stings

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): in my nostrils, the acidity of his, of his scent.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): So different from El Owen Owens.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Then

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): I think you should lead the way. We'll follow you. Happy to. Mm-hmm. [00:27:00] Alright,

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): let me just load up my little, my little berry backpack

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): cart of berries.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): Mm-hmm. So we have snacks.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Uh, do, do the smaller critters need a, a move movement aid. Like can a, can a, an owl gently carry a to without eating it?

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Yeah. Or piercing. Its soft toad flesh with its talons.

  Choas: Yeah. The, the toad is gonna be slow. Oh my God. Please make me a little berry

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): hammock. I would be happy to ferry you across the forest.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): I mean, yeah, I think we can, or you can ride on my back, I guess. All right, Ted, lead us. We'll follow in some caravan ish way.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): I have my little mouse hands. I'll cling like a backpack to an animal. And my backpack, my very back. My berry pack will clinging to me. Who am I carrying then?

  Choas: Okay. We're talking bogged down in too much minutia. Yeah, yeah. All right, let's go. All right. So I'll wait way with my, my minutia.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): How dare you. This is critical information.[00:28:00]

  Choas: By minutia, I mean small creatures.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Oh my God. Whatcha Call him minutiae. Eth and Quinn can like scout ahead, you know, from the air. I'll keep my eyes peeled for anything shiny. I mean, dangerous, I mean shiny.

  Choas: Okay, so I want, uh, so Jareth and Quinn race out ahead in the still autumn air. The, the first chill of winter is just starting to descend upon this land, which is, uh, a valley in a fairly far north area of this, of this world.

  Choas: As you go out, you can see it's a clear blue sky, crisp air, the mountains all around you in a complete 360 and nestled in this valley and the furthest southern reaches of it, nearest the path leading to warmer lands through a, a gap in the mountains is the town of piety. You know its name because the witch spoke of it often, and like everything pertaining [00:29:00] to human towns and customs and really anything about their civilization at all, all of it has been hearsay.

  Choas: From what you know of the witch, for you very rarely venture yourselves out of the forest, and for the non avians amongst you, you've never been outta the forest. The avians are sometimes used to spy or check in on the humans at the behest of the witch ein. So Quinn and Jareth, you make your way over to the town and begin to circle it.

  Choas: Taking a quick look. You've seen this town many times. It's really the only town, more like a village in this entire valley population. Somewhere between two and 3000 humans. It has a 10 foot palisade wall surrounding it, made of logs clear cut from the forest. Your forebearers speak of what their forebearers have told them.

  Choas: When the village was first being established, they clear cut much of the woods near the southern pass, their encroachment on the woods has been increasing year over year. Much of the land [00:30:00] around their village is being cleared and not all of it is even being turned into farmland. It's simply lay useless.

  Choas: The witch has often wondered when, what season she will need to venture further north and outta the reach of the groping hands of human civilization. The town does seem different than it normally does. Normally there's the hustle and bustle of trade and commerce. The church bells ringing. Uh, there are three churches in this town.

  Choas: People milling about going every which way, but on this day, the large gates on the western side of the town are closed. The church bells are silent and no one is in the streets. Well, almost no one for you see that there are two guards, ato, the gates and several guards stroll the streets looking for trouble.

  Choas: You circle back to your friends, which have not even made it halfway. The toad and rat riding on the back of Ted the Fox. Is that what you guys decided?

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Yes.

  Choas: Okay. Uh, you were light on a branch near them.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): There seems to [00:31:00] be something different this time in the town ahead, the town of piety. I know you have not been there before, but Quinn and I have it.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): It seems eerie like there's something wrong. Would you agree?

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Yeah. Something about those people walking around in the shiny clothes. The witch never wore shiny clothes like that, but the shiny clothes, that's hard and loud. Lots of guys like that walking around. Only that happens. Only when something bad is going on must be cautious.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): Did you see the witch hunter? Did you see the witch hunter?

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): The what? The witch hunter. Did you see the, were they shiny? Oh, the witch hunter? No. No jar. Did you see

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): him? I saw not. I did not see them. Witch hunter initially. Only Ted knows what the witch hunter smells like.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): His, his smell is still going this way, so I think, I think he's in the town

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): now.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): Quinn and Gareth, you, have you been to this town before? Do you know anyone that we might be able to talk to?

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Many [00:32:00] moons ago I have before I came to live with the witch, Owen.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): I've been there a few times, spoken to, uh, some of the birds, but usually not, they kind of don't like me that much. I wouldn't call them friends.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): Have you stolen their shinies again, Quinn?

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Almost exclusively. What does that mean?

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): You guys are so brave to be coming here and Ted can, can you just make sure the scent is there before we have to venture into the shiny, clingy things?

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): Yeah, I, I, I agree, Jerry. I, I'll be sure, but I don't wanna be around humans anywhere than you do.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): But we have to get, we have to get his eyes.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): We, we do have to get his eyes. I can do this. And I munch on a berry.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Oh, there's a big wall. There's a big wall. Ted, you can jump over a big wall, right? I haven't jumped like that in a while. Maybe Jerry could dig under it.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): I am like an inch in diameter.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Well, there were three gates.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Just the gates on the western side is closed. We could try the other side [00:33:00] if that's easier.

  Choas: Oh. So, uh, as birds that have flown over this village multiple times, there are two gates. Uh, there's the western gate and there is the southern gate, which heads towards the pass. The southern gate is on the very far side of the town.

  Choas: Um, but it did appear to be open.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): I believe that's where we should go. Yes. The southern gate for it is open

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): and there were the fewest shiny people over there.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): My question for you both is what is the plan once we get there? Do you think we could lure him out of the town? Are we going to have to go and deal with the, the people?

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): What, what would, what do you think we should do?

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Well, I do know that the people tend to carry round flat shinies, and if you distract them, sometimes they drop them on the ground and we could take 'em and run. And Quinn, that's not what, that's not our main what mission here. Right? What do

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): you, what do you, what do you what

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): I is, Quinn, we

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): can also have [00:34:00] them exchange Chinese for berries.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): We just need to avoid the people. Like they're, we need to avoid the people and find the witch hunter. Like that's what, that's what ELO n always told us. Stay away from people.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): Quinn Quinn. Jerry pulls two blueberries out of her backpack Quinn. These are going to be in one of the large creature's heads, and she holds up the, the big berries in her tiny little paws.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): I'm picturing it.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): Tiny paws. These are the Shinies Quinn. These are gonna be the best shinies because it's what Elo N. This is what this is where elo N, we find these shinies and we take them back and they might not be blingy like the normal shinies, but they shine brighter the back of them, the ones in the people's heads.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): When we find the hunter, as soon as we get those berries, those berries out, and she holds the berries up really close to 'em. Again, get these out. You'll see how shiny they are on the inside [00:35:00] parts.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): Are you trying to train Quinn to rip out people's eyeballs again? Hold on. Let her cook.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): See, see, you're saying that if I, if we find the witch hunter mm-hmm. That I should peck out his berries.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): Yes. And they're in his, you know how I have this cute little face with my cute beady eyes? It's like that. Yeah, I know.

  Choas: Eyes are

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): but bigger. Yes.

  Choas: Somebody tells me you didn't need to use like a metaphor for eyes of berries.

  Choas: Yeah.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): And in fact, if you want my critique, blueberries are some of the least shiny berries. If you're really trying to get me in on this plan, you should have picked a shinier berry. But I'm following you though. I, I think I remember the plan now.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): Well, I'll get them shined right up for you, Quinn.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): The plan is Ted takes us into town.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): We follow the scent until we find the witch hunter. The witch hunter comes out into the open and we just be careful. Oh, we're [00:36:00] careful. Okay. I like this plan,

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): and those berries do look delicious. Thank you. Jareth. I say onward. Oh, you're welcome. Of course.

  Choas: Yeah. Jareth as the wisest character, the most clever of them all.

  Choas: You notice that you started off in the afternoon and the sun is already starting to reach sunset because the mountains are so high in this area, and it's pretty late in the year, and they've been chitchatting for about 45 minutes.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Do we set up a camp then? Is that, that sounds like the wisest idea. I believe it's getting pretty dark

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): wise, yes.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): But we could also try to find one of their, uh, places of raucous ale making and potentially find, uh, I'm, I'm sure there's a witch hunter there. I do enjoy, uh, soaking myself in a puddle of beer every once in a while.

  Choas: Agreed. Agreed. Uh, Jerry, you oftentimes sleep on the pillow of the witch ein, so you get to [00:37:00] hear her, her deepest ramblings while she's getting ready for bed.

  Choas: Mm-hmm. And the, one of the things she starts to complain about when she's been into her cups, or she's very tired or very cranky, is that there is a tavern in town, and it is called the clear cut tavern. And they made it with the largest logs they could cut from the forest instead of cutting it into planks.

  Choas: They used whole logs, the most wasteful way to create a building, and they built an ugly monument to drunkenness.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Well, then we shall need some good light to lead us the way

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): Raz. Oh, I know. Just the path. Boom. Hypno.

  Choas: Are you casting conjure light?

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): Damn right. I am. It's my one job.

  Choas: Okay. This is not a dangerous situation, so I'm not even gonna ask you to roll.

  Choas: So light emanates from your toad. I was gonna say towed like body, but you are a toad. So light emanates from Toad body. Normal toad body, normal toad body. [00:38:00] You're currently on the head of Ted the Fox. So you are acting like a cute little miner's helmet light for him.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): Um, I see. Well in dim and dark light, so I would like, I'm kind of actually blinded by him right now, so close to my eyes.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): Yeah, he already cast it, so

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Oh, oh, I'm so sorry about that. I'm fluttering around him like a moth.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): Oh God. God. Belgar. Oh my God. Well, ah, just can you give a guy a warning

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): next time? Let me, let me dim that for you. I, I, I use my toed dimmers from to

  Choas: you, you put on your low beams. That's much better. Thank you.

  Choas: How far are we from the town? Just a couple miles. How long is that in Fox time? Well, going over land. This is gonna take you probably 30 minutes.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): Oh, okay.

  Choas: Yeah.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): Yeah. So we'll keep going. I, I say we keep going. Mm-hmm. So I, let's get close to the town. We'll see where it goes. He, he might have gone past the town, like, let's see what happens.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): And then we can make a plan when we see, when we have all that information.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): That actually is the [00:39:00] question. Um, because be you, you do have his scent. We could, alternatively we could go to the tavern. Love that idea. We could also circle the town and make sure, triangulate and make sure that he's here.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): That's what

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): I'm saying.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Let's get, let's get closer and figure it out. I'll keep scouting for Chinese.

  Choas: You're heading east and south towards piety. So you're gonna hit like the, the northern western side. So you're gonna be closest to the Western gate, but you're just bee lining it straight for there. Mm-hmm. And you know, you know the western gate is closed, so just as you're, you're just bee lining straight for the town, it starts to get dark.

  Choas: The sun in these types of areas with a really high mountains, they just whap, they just disappear. So by the time you get there, sunset is well, well along and the sun is quickly disappearing. Bet behind the high peaks to the west that the witch calls mount, uh, Rebecca. Gimme a name, quick Mount Doom, [00:40:00]

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): um, Mount Celine.

  Choas: Mount Celine Dion. So I think the sun is sitting behind Mount Celine Dion, which is a larger mountain right next to Mount Doom, right next to it. And as Twin Peaks, you could say, the Twin Peaks of Celine Dion and Doom. And as the sun. Uh, quickly retreats behind the bulbus mass of Celine Dion. Uh, the town of piety comes into, into view, and as you crest that final hill, and you look down upon the town of piety, you see darkness.

  Choas: And then at that moment, lights and lanterns begin to be lit. All along the wall, you can see that the West Gate is closed and there are two guards on top of it. You're about an eighth of a mile away from it. On top of a rise, maybe a hundred meters. Up in front of the gate, you can see that there is a donkey pulled cart with a man standing in front of it.

  Choas: And he seems to be in a discussion with the two guards on top of the gate. And once again, for the non avians that didn't see [00:41:00] this before, this is a Palisade wall of sharpened logs about 10 to 12 feet high, and it completely encircles the town except for on the far Western side, because it actually meets the base of Mount Celine Dion.

  Choas: So there's like a little bit of a sheer wall there that protects them. What would you like to do? What did they, what did

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): they do to those trees?

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): They're evil and cruel to the forest.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): Is the, the witch hunter's scent? Um, I do, I still have it. Am I still able to kind of get a beat on, on where he went? I'm assuming we've been following in his kind of footsteps.

  Choas: Yeah. You've had a very easy time of following his trail. Not only because his scent is very strong, but also because he is covered in the scent of the witch een, which you are very familiar with, and it's a very still day, not a lot of wind. So you've, he went this literally this exact path, but we don't know, like, did he go into the town yet?

  Choas: We'd have to get closer to figure that out. Yeah. I mean, he might, he might go right down to the gate and walk right past it. You don't know until you follow the trail.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): I mean, so that's what I want to do. That's what, that's what Ted wants to do, is kind [00:42:00] of like, I do good in dusk and night situations. I like to kind of skulk down there, you know, figure out where he went or where the witch hunter went.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): Are the frog and the rat coming with you?

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): I'll go.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): I wasn't, I I mean, if they want, I'm not bringing the glowing toad.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): Yes. Um, I, I will, uh, happily sit back here. Thank you.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): You extinguish yourself.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): Oh, hell no.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): No. That's how he, that's how he gets the flies. They're attracted to him and all the moths.

  Choas: That's

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): a good point.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): Yeah. Wow.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Weirdly brilliant.

  Choas: Yeah. Evolutionarily important. Ac Actually, why don't we have glowing frogs? It's actually, yeah. It's not even a, it's not even a spell. He can just do it. Idiot. We need to do it. He's phosphorescent. Okay, so the fox and the rat riding on the Fox's back begin to skulk down towards the gate.

  Choas: So I'm gonna need our fox to roll sly vore. D 10 plus your sly score. That's not very good. I rolled a two. You roll the two You sly boots. I got a two. I rolled a [00:43:00] one I got, so I got two. Okay, so go ahead and up your danger point by one. 'cause you failed. Okay? Yep. And you begin to skulk towards the gate. As you get closer to the gate, you can hear some of the conversation happening between this donkey cart guy and these two guards.

  Choas: You hear the, the guy on on the bottom say, oh, come on guys. I mean, I'm a little late, but the gate was closed way earlier than it's supposed to be. This is ridiculous. I've traveled for three days to get here and one of the guards says, Hey, listen man. I know, I know. But we had orders to close the gate, so we closed the gate.

  Choas: I can only say, why don't you just make camp outside? We can help you make a fire. We can give you firewood. We can either get something from the clear cut, bring it on out, some hut stew or something, whatever they got. That's all I got for you, man. Stop asking. Well, it doesn't make any sense. Like, what is the point of this?

  Choas: Just let me in. Okay. You wanna know what's up? We had a witch. We had a witch in the area. The hunter took [00:44:00] care of it. So you know, oh, you don't know you're not from around here. The forest is going to retaliate. So say if the church, so we gotta close everything up. We've gotta button it up tight for at least a week.

  Choas: We gotta keep the witch hunter outta sight. So he's hanging out with the the church elders and at that moment the merchant looks over to the side and catches the fox outline once again. Once again, I was gonna say the fox like outline of Ted, but no, the fox, Ted, you hear him quietly say, guys, there's a fox there.

  Choas: Do you have a bow? Do you see it? Do you see the fox? Get your bow. If, if I hear him say that I run away. Okay, you start the runaway, but at that moment an arrow is loosed upon you. Go ahead and you do get away a little bit. So go ahead and roll. It's quick right? For running away? Yeah. Yep. Go ahead and roll quick.

  Choas: And I'm gonna make it simple instead of basics, which is against a six. I rolled a nine. So

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): did I also be rolling? 'cause I'm with Ted.

  Choas: No,

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): because I'm [00:45:00] kind of tucked into his fur.

  Choas: No, you're just a passenger. Like if you ride a train, you don't like roll to engineer the train, so you're fine. However, if

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): you wanted to distract or confuse people, you could say, so I could

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): distract and confuse here,

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): but it sounds like Ted

  Choas: got away.

  Choas: I rolled a sick, a sick nine. Yeah. So you actually would've succeeded even, even if it was difficult. So the arrow was loose, twang, but you're already running away and you poof, you dodge to the side and the arrow slams into the ground where you were a second before and you speed off to the darkness and you mur, you hear the merchant say, oh, that would've been good.

  Choas: Had a pretty pelt. I'll get you fox. Don't worry, I'm looking for you. Hear him laugh. Fox, you make your way up the hill back to your friends. Where the glowing fox, uh, the glowing toad is residing behind the bush.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): Let me ask you a question. Can my danger go down? '

  Choas: cause you ran away. Um,

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): yes.

  Choas: Your danger goes down by one.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): Thank you.

  Choas: And now I've set precedent. Oh no.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): All right. So I'm going to share the [00:46:00] information that I heard with my group. I got bad news guys. Um, the witch hunter is here, but it seems like the humans are protecting him. What? They wanted to kill Ella Wyn. I, I, I can't believe why anyone would want to hurt her, but they said something about something they called a church and their elders.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): Oh, I've heard of that.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): I haven't, Quinn, what, what is

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): a church? It's a, it's one of the bigger buildings that humans have and they like to put shiny adornments all in the inside. But it's hard to get in. You have to wait for one of them to open and close. Well, one of you would have to wait for a human to come and open the door, but El taught me a little trick so that I don't have to wait for the humans.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): But it's, I, I can find it for you. It's big, it's shiny for a building and all the humans go in there. Those church people. The church people collect shiny things. They, yeah, they decorate the nest to [00:47:00] the big nest that they call church with the shinies. Like I would,

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): I don't understand humans.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): I mean that I understand.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): What I don't understand is, you know, the hot shinies that the witch used to use to boil her potions? See they put hot shinies all over the town and you can't even touch 'em. You can't put those in your nest. It hurts.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): I certainly don't need any of those. Uh, and I can provide you all the shinies you need, but I still don't know which building you are you are referring to.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): Do you mean the one with the, the lowercase T on it?

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): I don't know anything about human letters, but what I do know is that normally that so-called church makes a loud sound.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): But please, let's don't forget, there are three of those large, large buildings from what I saw from flying above. You know, if I recall correctly,

  Choas: that is correct.

  Choas: There are two churches and one cathedral to put it [00:48:00] into human terms.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): I just don't know how we're even gonna get in there and get 'em if everybody's helping him. Like that's, that's a, that's a lot of humans.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): We're going to have to be very

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): sneaky. I mean, they already almost got me, they shot one of their pointy sticks right at me.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): Wey. We'll distract them so that we can get inside the town and figure out which one of these buildings it's,

  Choas: I'm picturing Jerry whispering in Ted's ear from his back. Oh, I like that. We will distract them

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): and, and I say we'll, we'll distract them. It's Rati Is

  Choas: Rati in me. Yeah, I was, oh, that's weird. I was thinking Yorks from Animorphs for some reason instead of Ouie.

  Choas: She's like a brain leach. Jerry's like,

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): or Chad's like all of a sudden I really wanna collect berries.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Perhaps I can be of assistance in distracting them to open up one of those doors. And you may slip in unnoticed.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): I do know a thing or two about opening human doors. I

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): was going to say I think that we [00:49:00] have a wonderful means of distracting and uh, I know our young magpie friend here can certainly jimmy his way into a door.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Hey Ted,

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): did you talk to those donkeys? I don't, I don't speak donkey. Have you tried? I mean, well, anytime I've tried before, they just, they just kind of look at me and they, they smell real bad. And also did I mention they shot a pointy stick at me? That is unfortunate.

  Choas: However,

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): the witch ein means more to us than your hide at this point. So, wow. Sacrifice. You must be

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): Ted.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Yeah.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): Sorry Ted. It's the truth.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): Ted

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): wisdom is the wisdom.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): If I was brave enough to come out here, you can do this. You can talk to the donkeys.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Well, are they still even there? Did the donkeys take their human and leave or are they They aren't,

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): they're not letting anyone in tonight.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): We have to [00:50:00] sneak around with them.

  Choas: So Quinn, you poke your head up above the bush where everyone's hiding with the glowing toad. Yeah. Flutter up and look. And you see that the merchant has retreated about 15 feet away from the gate into the side so that the, the path is clear and unhitched his donkey and he is feeding it.

  Choas: And he's beginning to set up camp. One of the guards is off the wall. There's only one guard on top of the wall right now. If we could somehow get

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): I fly back down.

  Choas: Beautiful. That was my wing flapping

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): sound. I mean, I'm not adding sound effects in

  Choas: this

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): episode,

  Choas: so feel free.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Please do that. It looks like the donkeys took their human and they're setting up a little nest over in that clearing, which one of the shiny humans left. So if we can maybe get Jerry to distract the one remaining shiny human, I could try to open the human door for Ted to run in.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): What

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): about Bill Gore? Well, hopefully taking carry him,

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): I could carry him. As

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): long as

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): he's not glowing.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): I [00:51:00] am much faster than I look.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): All right, you,

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): you hop away then, man. Snapper, I may appear ostentatious, but I am just as stealthy as any of you.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Well then Jerry, you will come with me. We will, uh, I will fly you up there.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Mm-hmm. We will distract the shiny man.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): The shiny loud man. But you, and for

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): wyn and the berries, of course,

  Choas: they're on the same level. Well, berries, I mean for elo,

  Choas: ELO's Barry eyes. Okay. What's the declarative action happening right now? What are you guys doing?

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): I am being lifted into the air and, hi Jerry.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Yes. Eth is going to be dropping you on top of his shoulder and you squeak in his ear. Mm-hmm. And he goes, ah,

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): a beautiful rat. Yes. I [00:52:00] squeak, I squeak in his ear, squeak, squeak.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): And I take some of those, um, a berry from my backpack and smush it against his neck. It's a, it's sad for the berry, but good for us.

  Choas: And I know I shouldn't be asking, but what is the, what's happening right after that? Like, what is, what's gonna happen after he's distracted? So,

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): while he's distracted, uh, Quinn is gonna try to use a magic spell to open the gate so that Ted and GRA can run in.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): 'cause once those two are in, the birds can just fly in with Jerry, you know? So

  Choas: that was my understanding, but I wanted to make sure everyone also got that. Otherwise it's gonna be a shit show and it's gonna be like he's distracted and then we're looking for fucking berries for some reason.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): Do like the jerry is distracted by smashing the berry rather than using her magic spell.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): Distract. Confused.

  Choas: I thought that that was just the, like, I thought that was just the, the sugar of like describing, casting the spell. Well

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): [00:53:00] that was to me like it's part of the, yeah, sorry. I think it, my brain, I was like, I'm casting a distract spell and then I jump straight to using the berries.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): I love that.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): I feel like as a woodland creature, you're gonna probably resort to the natural world more than the magical world.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): I'm very small, I have very limited things, but this guy, he's g hopefully just gonna see a rat and assume rabies and like freak out.

  Choas: Some people like to take a character and have 50 different things that character has with a super crazy deep backstory and all kinds of crazy shit.

  Choas: And like mind warping, like personality traits. Stephanie likes to take one extremely simple thing and find the ultimate depth. It's that thing. And tonight is berries. And tonight we're gonna learn everything about berries and we're gonna see every possible use for berries.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): Learn everything I know about Barry's.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): Look, I commit to a bit. I find a bit,

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): you are the bit commit queen. I just can't believe it that she has a, an M-L-M-C-S-A that's a rat who can do distract, [00:54:00] confused to make everybody want to do

  Choas: her scam. And came to the table with that idea before she knew what animal she was gonna be. So good. So good.

  Choas: I'm

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): working, I, I I'm work shopping it.

  Choas: I love it. Step Anything

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): gotten to my rat family that I had to leave behind yet? Oh God. Which is, oh my gosh,

  Choas: of course that's gonna be the prequel. Okay, so I need, I need Jareth the owl. To roll a, a quick, uh, yeah, a quick. So this is aiming and releasing Jerry into the 13.

  Choas: Oh, damn. Wow. So DC 10 is near impossible. I was putting this at an eight. You got a 13 or 13? 12. 12. Quick. 12. 12. Not oh, 12 sucks. 13 would've been so good. Yeah. But 12. Aw, 12 succeeds, but just fist by a little bit. So you swoop in [00:55:00] with J I'm sorry, Rebecca, do you wanna describe what's going on with your owl?

  Choas: Would you like me to

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): feel free? Oh, please. I'm enjoying this

  Choas: majestic, snowy owl, right? Snowy owl.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Yeah.

  Choas: Jareth takes wing with Jerry, uh, very softly cupped within her fierce talons, very sharp, fierce talons and swoops down silently, completely silently, as we know owls can be to the one guard atop the gate swooping, unseen, and unheard.

  Choas: Definitely drops Jerry the rat onto his shoulder. Now the guy's wearing stud leather, so he doesn't even feel the little bit of extra weight, because that is how surgical jareth is when she decides to not be seen, hurt, or felt. Jared swoop swoops away back into the night. Her stomach's growling. So she might look for a rat.

  Choas: She can actually eat in the field. But meanwhile, on the shoulder of Guardsman number two, guardsman number one has left. No one knows where he went. Guardsman number two, [00:56:00] Jerry the rat is now perched. And what would you like to do, Jerry? The rat. Jerry

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): The rat is gonna distract this guard so that the team can get through the gate.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): And to do that, Jerry is going to start scratching at this guy's neck, which I'm assuming is uncovered. 'cause he's wearing leather. He might have a leather cap on, but I not sure if it's like covering his neck. So she's gonna scratch at it and then smash berries on him.

  Choas: He's wearing so leather armor and underneath he's wearing a tactical turtleneck, but it only reaches up so high.

  Choas: The tactical neck, Jerry

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): figures out, finds a gap in that tactical turtleneck. Ugh.

  Choas: Yeah, you, you rip through it easily with your sharp little rat claw. They're so cute, but also so deadly point. So go ahead and roll. Uh, fierce. And this is you casting a spell, right? Because you're rolling, you're doing your distract spell.

  Choas: Mm-hmm. And this is like the manifestation of that. So it is dangerous. So if you somehow roll a zero, you will [00:57:00] be harshly penalized.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): So is there a way for me to preempt my fierce role with a hide using my sly skill?

  Choas: Not even necessary because Jared has done all that work for you.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): But what if I have to hide?

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): I mean, excuse me. Okay.

  Choas: Well, that would be post-em. Yeah, that's post pre jareth with her never ending wisdom and understanding of the shadows. Yeah.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): I rolled a six oh a six.

  Choas: And you, is that a success? I don't know.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Hmm. Is it, Hmm. Dramatic tension. Dramatic tension. Yeah. I'm just messing success.

  Choas: Oh

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): my

  Choas: God.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): Yeah.

  Choas: You dig in with your claws and you claw through the tactical turtleneck and straight into this man's neck, while also casting your distract confused spell blood begins to gush out of his neck. He's filled with panic and he goes, ah. And he looks at his shoulder and he goes, ah, the plague.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): It was about that time a familiar little Diddy started going through my head.[00:58:00]

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Is that the weird owl?

  Choas: Yeah. Get it off. Is that Albuquerque? It is Albuquerque, yeah. Wow. I'm, you're taking me back man. You're taking me back. So

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): taking advantage of the, the screaming that I hear Uhhuh, uh, Quinn flutters down to the road and lands like in front of the door and he lifts both of his wings into the air and casts the spell that Elo taught him to open and close human things so that he could more easily steal their stuff.

  Choas: So, uh, roll your clever for that. Okay. Which I think is what you saw coming. Quin Magpie Quinn. Quinn. Quinn Quinn. Oh no. I only got a four. Don't you have a plus two for clever, which makes it six. There it is. That's what you needed. Hey, basic condition saves the day. You'd be such a better warrior if you knew how to do math.

  Choas: Okay, so you cast your open close [00:59:00] spell, and the gate, it's a big double gate with like probably th 500 pounds of logs. And I'm a tiny bird

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): and I lift my wings into the air and all of a sudden the giant a hundred pound wooden gate just starts to

  Choas: manual sound

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): effects.

  Choas: And a guy on top of the gate retreats back to like the walkway on the side of the gate. He's like, whoa. And he is trying to get this rat off his shoulder. And then he falls, he falls off the back of the walkway and you hear his body thud on the harsh, slightly frozen ground in the town beyond Jerry.

  Choas: And you hear the squeak of Jerry in panic squeak. I sorry, I was humanizing the enemy so much. I forgot Jerry was on his shoulder. Oh, Jerry's, okay. I don't care what happened to that guy though. Yeah. Okay. Jerry squeaks and falls over with him now.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): May I fly in guys? Retrieve Jerry, keep Jerry safe.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): Jareth.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): That was the second human I've ever [01:00:00] seen. Are they all like that? No.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): No. Did you see that fall? I, I certainly did. This is,

  Choas: this is happening in midair. You guys are talking because you haven't actually retrieved her yet.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): This is like from Bill and Ted's bonus journey. When they're falling, hell, they're just talking.

  Choas: Jerry is falling with the body and you're talking with Jerry as you swoop in to catch Jerry in midair and Jerry's like, did you see? I'm like, I did. And you roll. Uh, D 10 quick please. I'm rolling. Eight

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): plus

  Choas: 10. Eight 10. Oh my God. So this near impossible task. You met with a near impossible role. 10 is the DC you needed to hit.

  Choas: You swoop in and you grab Jerry in your hard talons, but you catch her softly and you continue the conversation as you swoop off into the night.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): You did wonderful, my dear. May I have a berry now I'm starving. Of

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): course. I have kiss [01:01:00] the best raspberry. Well, of course she's just feeling peckish and you know, as soon she's gonna make us dinner, it's gonna be the best.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): Look at this adventure we're on and we're so close to finding the witch guy. There's only three possible buildings.

  Choas: We

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): did it.

  Choas: And as you are congratulating each other on opening up the gate, uh, we're still not even in yet.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Yeah. Can you please run through Quinn? You

  Choas: see the crumpled body of guard number two on the ground inside the town.

  Choas: Uh, not moving. He had a 12 foot fall and he did not land softly.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): So obviously I gesture for Ted to move in with gra, but also wait gesture. I also, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Slow down mister. I knew you knew you were gonna say that. I knew you're doing a

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): gesture. Hold on. You gotta roll

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): for gesture.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): I knew I was supposed to come

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): in.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): It's fine. But what I was trying to say is that I want to try to pull the studs off of his leather with my little beak and steal them. You're outta

  Choas: control.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): They're like. [01:02:00]

  Choas: Not, yeah, they don't come off, but I don't know that Yeah, they're like fully welded together across, I'm like over

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): there trying to pull them off like, man,

  Choas: these things are annoying.

  Choas: And he's just going, uh, as like his femurs sticking out of his skin. Oh.

  Choas: Pretty shiny fever. Yeah, it's, oh, that's right. This is a cutesy game, but also he's gurgling blood and it's just pulling out and like his ribs have obviously punctured his lungs. The fox on the one sheet is covered in blood. That's true. I should be making this a bit more bloody. But hey, this is the first person you've interacted with and you killed them and it's not great.

  Choas: It's just murders. It's just, it's just practice. We're for the show it was, it was accidental. It's sort of like breaking the seal. It's like now that you've accidentally murdered someone, the rest of the murders will be okay. I mean, it was just all vibes, so it's fine. It was a vibe kill. Yeah. I don't like this thing you got going on, Scott, where you vibe kill people every session.

  Choas: Now you played with me long enough. You know how that goes.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): Well, [01:03:00] honestly, though, this guard. The femur is the least of his problems, considering I might have given him the plague. Do

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): you show the plague? Are you the carry of the

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): plague? I don't know. I'm on a diet of berries, like even for rats, that's not recommended.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): Also, the, the plague comes from the fleas that the rats carry. So do you have fleas is the bigger question.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): No. Can

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): we talk to

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): these? I

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): do not do, please. I also think that his biggest problem is that he is, has a punctured lung. Yeah.

  Choas: Um,

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): I run into the town as soon as that gate opens. I was like waiting off to the side bell graft by my side and I, I literally part the sea for you

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): With my

  Choas: wings.

  Choas: I run the sea being a big door. Okay. Yeah. So not literally, so like more like figuratively, figuratively part the C with my wings, but it's a gate.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): It was literally with my wings except for the part that was magic.

  Choas: Do you have bell graft on your back or He said he was gonna go on his own? He was gonna show us how quick he could be.

  Choas: Oh, I wanna hear from Dojo. Are you still glowing?

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): Oh no, of course not. Um, I do take a quick [01:04:00] hop over to the uh, ing corpse over here.

  Choas: Jesus Christ ing, so you hop over to the corpse is bleeding quite a bit. I'm not gonna say fountain. Thank you. Gushing blood upwards.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): I did buttering and

  Choas: um, buttering. You're trying to figure out what to do now?

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): Yes, because I'm like, I try to use my non opposable to hands to snap his neck. Oh

  Choas: my God. I'm gonna be honest with you, but it seems unlikely. Okay, well let's try, let's try. Go ahead and roll. Fierce. And it's a near impossible task, so Yep. With my zero.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): So if you

  Choas: roll a 10, you snap his neck. That's still like a 10% chance.

  Choas: That's pretty good. Yeah, I guess. But I, that's the only thing I have to work with within the rules of this system. And I roll a four. Oh, so you slap his Adam's apple around and you feel like that's probably enough.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): That'll show him [01:05:00] my to weight on, on his throat until he stops twitching.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): Imagine this guy, a rat just drops onto him.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): He falls off a palisades and their toe just sits

  Choas: on

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): his neck.

  Choas: I feel like the line should be as he's flapping his Adam's apple. He is like, what's wrong? Got a frog in your throat, got a frog in your throat. Yes.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): He's a, he's a, he's a toad, his

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): frog self. Deeply offended by your frog accusations.

  Choas: Very, I knew it's the second is started.

  Choas: I said, I'm gonna get angry emails about being like a speciesist or something.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): The eyes open of this gentleman. Should Quinn pluck them for practice? We're

  Choas: obsessed with this guy. Yeah. This guy is turning into a fucking like experiment. Mark. Okay? Yes. His eye, his eyes are open because of he's blinking, he's awake, he's scared as he gurgles on blood and slowly fades

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): in the stealthiest possible way.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): I can, I, uh, say [01:06:00] I see Shinies,

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): qui, shiny, shiny. Hmm. And Quinn is trying to pull, you know, the studs off of his leather. But then I hop over onto his chest where, where Beath is and I say, oh, those the eyes. Yeah. Is this the witch hunter or is this just practice? Practice.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): Practice. We're gonna have to find out.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): Go to town buddy.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): I peck out one of his eyes.

  Choas: Okay. Roll. Fierce. Also, I told my wife before this game started that I was a hundred percent sure that it was gonna end in torturing some poor man. But I thought it was gonna be to get, I thought it was gonna be to get information. I didn't think it would just be because you found someone to torture.

  Choas: Well, I only rolled with two, so I can't seem, I can't think that this is going very well.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): This is why you need practice.

  Choas: Yeah. You were unable to peck out the eye. You instead turned it into a mash. He is going, he's just going, oh. As he grew his blood, this isn't shiny at all. It won't even come out. Are you sure?

  Choas: And we cannot have that happen with the witch hunter. That cannot happen. He clamps a [01:07:00] hand over the eye and he starts, like rubbing at it, and he's like, as he, I like flutter

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): away to avoid his hand. So I've, I've run in while all this is going on and I'm appalled at the mess. Um, but I'm finding, I'm, I'm trying to find like a shadowy spot to, to hide because I assume there's other people nearby

  Choas: everyone situation.

  Choas: So, like I described to the Avians earlier, the town seems like everyone's locked in their houses. However, guard number one is trotting down the, the boulevard right now back towards the gate carrying a tray. Looks like he's coming back from the clear cut Caver tavern to bring some food to the merchant outside.

  Choas: You also hear the merchant outside, like saying, oh, I see. So now you decided to open the gate and you hear him clumping over to the gate. Alright. So I,

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): if I, if I heard that and slash saw that, I, I say to the, the crew, like, they're, they're coming. They're coming. We have to hide. The humans can't see us. I think the birds will probably

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): just, yeah.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Dart to the air. Jerry, let's fly. Yes, [01:08:00]

  Choas: I love it.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): And jar's back with my, my little paw.

  Choas: These voices are killing me.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Do we make it twice safely?

  Choas: Jareth grabs Jerry and, and takes off, right? Yes. Quinn, what are you doing? I'm just fluttering into the air, into the night sky, away from human,

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): uh, Bel Garath. And Ted,

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): what are you doing?

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): So, I'm, I'm looking for like, you know, a place to hide basically outta the way, like a, a dark corner or like a barrel. I can get in or like a, you

  Choas: know, a crate or something. Okay. And gra you're currently on the man's neck punching his Adam's apple. What would you like to do?

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): I start riping my way, uh, actually silently, uh, jumping my way, uh, into a corner where, um, I might be able to slowly weasel my way through the shadows, uh, towards that [01:09:00] perfect logged tavern.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): Uh, a tavern. I still have a, a, a, a deep desire to sit in a big puddle of ail.

  Choas: Okay, so I need everyone to roll a slide.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Dang. I'm just solid. I'm really excited when I

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): saw the 10. 'cause I just did the roll, but it wasn't mine. And now I'm sad. I know. Rebecca's good at rolling. Life's so

  Choas: bad. Oh, this is bad. It's an important skill for this.

  Choas: Okay, so, uh, Rebecca Jareth takes off. Um, where's Jerry? I rolling into four. Four. Okay. And then, and everyone else.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): Oh, a six. Arnold is six. Sorry, I got six. Okay.

  Choas: You did not tell us. Uh, art DC Oh yeah, yeah. Uh, I got it. So. Uh, Jareth. Sure didn't Jareth uh, you are not really noticed, but I don't know how this is possible.

  Choas: But Jerry, you are seen by this guard that's running up with a tray and he's like, oh my God, that [01:10:00] ratchet got snatched outta thin air by nothing. And then the owl jareth catches Jerry and flies off not being seen at all. He just sees a rat falling, and then the rat just fucking disappears. And he goes, oh my God.

  Choas: And he is looking, you see him kind of looking around with the tray and being like, did anyone else see that? That was wild. And then he keeps going back towards the gate and he does not see a magpie take flight, but he does see a, a fox and a toad both sprint into the darkness. And he says, is that the fucking fox from before?

  Choas: What was that frog beating up his Adams apple? Oh my God. Guard number two. And he drops the train and he runs up. He goes, no, no. Guard number two. And he's cradling his head. Oh, oh, oh. Numero duo. I've got you buddy. I've got you numero duo. And he's, he's hugging him and he's be like, oh. And he is gurgling blood.

  Choas: And he goes, what did they do to your eye? What did they do to your eye? Oh, and what does your Adam's apple looks like? A slapped ass. Oh my god. [01:11:00] And then numero dies and numero uno goes, no, I'll get you frog and rat and fox. Those are the three he saw. You've made an enemy this day. You three animals, you've made an enemy.

  Choas: And then the merchant pokes his head around the corner and he goes, Hey, yeah, I saw that the skate was open. Can I just come in? Oh, hey, okay, see you're having a moment. And then he, he backs off. And that's enough of me talking to myself. What do you guys want to do?

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Does, does the toad have like psycho psychotropic properties?

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Like if someone licks the toad, are they gonna get high and like Great question.

  Choas: Okay. Wait,

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): we're, we're gonna find out later. Trust me.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Okay, good.

  Choas: If, if Doja rolls a. Five a six or above, then? Yes. On a G 10. Yes.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): So does guard number one wanna lick the toad just for fun season? I see six. Oh

  Choas: yeah. I'm fucking [01:12:00] psychotropic.

  Choas: Oh no. I gave him an extra power. The one player I should never give extra powers to. Just gotta, seriously, he's gonna find out a way to get licked. Mm-hmm. In his defense,

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): his spell is just to do one thing, whereas my spell does four things. So yeah, I feel like he needs an extra power. That's true.

  Choas: He's conjure light slash lick toad ability.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): You don't even know what you just did because now I'm going to go into somebody's cup of Ale Leach my psychotropic. Uh uh. Enzymes into it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And, uh, oh boy. Okay. Now we

  Choas: have a plan. It sounds like, well, hold on a minute. You say, I, you say you, you say to me, I don't know what I just did. I am, I'm very worried.

  Choas: I know you. Let's

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): get the whole town high guys.

  Choas: In episode one, I said the floor was greasy and you rubbed your whole body all over it. Yep. Did somebody say you get the whole town high? No. No one [01:13:00] said that. This is a very serious, this is a horror based game in the town of piety, and I'm making it up as I go for the most part.

  Choas: It could be

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): terrifying, serious for them. They're even a bad trip, bro.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): Honestly. Are our, which elo? ELO had like elo our, which elo? Like ELO had a total menagerie in her home. She sang to us. We, yeah, it was a bit of a fairytale comedy every day. Didn't you see her play that we put on There was even an animated feature that the songbirds did.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): I mean, I cleaned up a lot of, I cleaned up a lot of eyes and new, she wasn't always like, kind to all the creatures. There was a lot of new eyes around.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): Yeah. Did you meet those guys?

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): You know, you just used that play to sell berries. You were selling berries through the stand the entire time,

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): as I should. I, it was, you know, a, a, a freebie to get people to join

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Jerry.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): We did. To get [01:14:00] them hooked.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): So Ted's the only one who really has a direction for us to go. So as far as us three in the air, we're kind of just soaring around trying to see where Ted went so that we can either regroup with him or follow him towards the source of the scent. Yeah. Once I get away from like the seat of the crying, that's what I'm doing.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): I'm like trying to re re get the scent and start tracking again.

  Choas: So now that you're in town, Ted, you're having a hard time picking up the witch hunter's scent. There are just too many scents in this area, especially near the West Gate.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): God, these humans, they all smell so strong and weird. Maybe if we go, I, I can't pick it up.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): Maybe if we go to the big buildings, I can get a better, I try to like flag down the Yeah, I flutter down

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): regardless. As soon as I find you,

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): I, I to signal Quinn, I I flash my, my frog light.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Oh, I know that. Shiny anywhere. I,

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): I can't, I can't quite pick a scent out. I, I need to get closer [01:15:00] to one of the buildings.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): What is it? What was it called? The church?

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Yeah. Uh, yeah, that I think we are looking, we are looking for the tavern. Are we not?

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): Crystal cut tavern. Clear cut Tavern.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): We know, we know he's

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): with, we know he's with the, the, the church. I heard Tavern, and I'm certainly going to go for that one. I'm gonna do my other magic spell Fireball, where I take a shot of Fireball.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): That's amazing. That's amazing. That's a good

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): one. Bill, cat, you have so much experience,

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): but the churches are not open this evening, correct? Or it only is a tavern? Or do we worship at night?

  Choas: You're, you're not sure. Right now there's really no one out on the streets at all except for guards,

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): whether they're open or not.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): I kind of point my, my nose over it at Quinn. I think we can get in.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Oh, certainly. Let's go in. Human dens are really easy to get into,

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): so I wanna follow Quinn or Jareth to like the [01:16:00] nearest one of the possible churches where the witch hunter could be hiding to see if I can pick up his scent again.

  Choas: Okay.

  Choas: There are two churches and a cathedral. Uh, one of the two churches is the closest of the three to you. Are, are you heading over there now? Yes. Yeah. Okay. So it's just a couple blocks away. This is a fairly small village spanning just a couple miles, square miles of, you know, two to 3000 people. So you have to walk through the town square to get there, or not walk, but whatever you do on four legs or fly.

  Choas: And as you go through that area, you see that the town square has a large wooden and steel apparatus in its center. And surrounding this apparatus is a ton of wood all stacked up like a pire and smelling of, of rich oils. Also in this town square, besides a lot of closed shops, is a brightly lit building.

  Choas: There is a sign hanging over a door with a mug of veil [01:17:00] on it. How dare you tempt him Like this. The church is in the northwest corner of this town square and whatever this is with the beer on the logo, on the sign that's in the southeast, and it's actually closer to you by about 150 feet.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): Oh, you guys are screwed.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): Um, from a purely mechanical point of view. Um, is my light fire, uh, uh, plasma based or fluorescence based?

  Choas: Hmm. I would ask you that same question.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): Well as there's a big old pyre. I know what I want my answer to be, but um, I'm gonna go bioluminescence based for the funsies of it.

  Choas: Okay, so you look like a bunch of fungus all lit up.

  Choas: So do you guys wanna go to the tavern, which is essentially right next to the toad, or do you want to go across the town square to the church, which is the equivalent of 10 miles to the toad?

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): I mean, I'm still going. Towards the church with my nose kind of down in the air, sniffing [01:18:00] around,

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): don't we need food?

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): Will that become a problem for us?

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): I ate a, I

  Choas: ate a couple bowls at the end. I feel like Jareth has it covered. Aren't you nonstop eating berries?

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): Yeah. Right. You're good then. Well, I'm eating berries, but Jareth makes dinner for the group every night back home.

  Choas: What? And I've

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): gotten used to this.

  Choas: Does Jareth do that?

  Choas: Rebecca? Yes.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Jareth does conjure dinner. Oh, that's true.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): I forgot to always your spell. One thing I always appreciate be about the way that you play Steph, is that you're never afraid to just say something is true. You know what I mean? Like I play with players who are like, I don't know. Can that be true?

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): But you, you don't, you just say, this happens. Yeah, she just makes up delore.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): But I did. It's what? It's what the, the witch taught Jared how to do is to make dinner and all Jerry has wanted her entire life was a place to belong with friends and now jar's there [01:19:00] and she can cook and Jerry with her berries can make like a tart to go alongside and it's just really nice.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): You guys,

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): can you make a tart? I don't know about

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): that. Let her literally cook. Or some wine. You could also make a, some wine. I would love some of that as well.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): Oh, oh, that's so smart. If we can take a break, I will get to stomping

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): lime.

  Choas: Yeah. Do you mean a break from the adventure out of game or a break from the adventure in game?

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): Oh, no, no. I was just thinking in game, do we have to stop to eat or anything because we have seven days to accomplish this.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): Yes, you do. I don't know. I think we're in a good spot now. It's night, there's not many people around.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): We should get all the information we can and then we can like sleep and eat.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): So I think we should go to the tavern.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): I'm also going to mention if we're going to be making wine fermentation does take a couple of days.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Fine, fine.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): And um, I will mention also [01:20:00] just additionally in case you're looking for something a little fun, uh, if I stomp the wine, all y'all get high?

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): No. Oh, it's, that's not the way that I make it. But you're in luck 'cause I brought my trusty jar and I pull a jar out of my bag and you know, I thought we might be gone a few days so I can, if I get started tonight, the rat foot wine might be ready. Rat

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): foot wine. I like that. We're just gonna call it that now.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): My vote is clearly rat foot wine.

  Choas: Oh my god. Okay, so you guys are, y'all are outta control. So let me, lemme just, lemme just rephrase this. You're in a town square. You have two different locations you can go to. I only want to hear what location you're going to.

  Choas: This is the one shot stop expanding the world so much.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): Ted is on a mission and he is stenting right now and he's going over to the church.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): And I'm going to give you Ted um, [01:21:00] I will say the church would probably be a better spot for us to, uh, cook up some dinner and to make some wine. I feel like the tavern will be quite.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): Busy and, uh, a rat making wine might make a little more of a stir than we're prepared for.

  Choas: Agreed. Let's

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): to the

  Choas: church we go. That does, that does make sense. Yeah. We should, we should not be around people. Yeah. You hear some cheering and lots of talking and yammering going on from inside of whatever that brightly lit building is with the beer on the side, since I,

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): I'm, you know, significantly more mobile than the mammals, can I at least perch on the tavern window as they go by and just hear in?

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Yeah,

  Choas: absolutely. So as, I mean, the fox is pretty quick, but you swoop into the town square and you take a peek into the clear cut tavern. In here you can see that there's quite a number of people here. Although the streets are empty, this place is hopping, so whatever's going on has not stopped people from going out entirely.[01:22:00]

  Choas: There are probably 35 to 40 humans in here, uh, lining the, the long bar or sitting at tables, you're just milling around. They're playing darts or some of them are playing an odd game with a ball and some sticks and they're throwing it at the sticks and trying to knock them over. Everyone's deep into their cups and having a great time.

  Choas: One thing you do happen to notice is at the bar is a man wearing some or ornate, uh, ceremonial clothing with very different from the rest of what everyone else is wearing. And he has large golden bobs hanging around his neck and hanging from his ears. And also a golden chain hanging from the, the, uh, like skull cap that he wears as well.

  Choas: He is sitting by himself in the corner and staring down at his cup and taking long sips from it before eventually calling the bartender for another round. He does not look to be in good health.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): I fly over and [01:23:00] land back on Ted. And I say, Hey Ted, there's a, there's a real shiny human inside that tavern.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Oh,

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): oh. Like one of the

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): ones from before? No. So this is the good shiny, this is not the dull, shiny, but like the gold shiny. And he has a good amount of it. He looks unwell. Perhaps it different than everybody, but very shiny. I don't know if I've ever seen him before, but there's lots of humans I've never seen, including the witch hunter.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): I don't know what he looks like. I wasn't home

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): so unwell, like the God we just put to his demise. Unwell.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): I would say better than that. A little bit better than that.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Just, just

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): checking

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): or his bones exposed. Does he have both of his eyes? Which parts of the bones? I think those were on the inside.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): It's one of the inside bits, I'm pretty

  Choas: sure.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Mm-hmm. Some be

  Choas: shiny of the human anatomy.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Yeah. No, I think he was, uh, he was mostly regular human shaped, not inside out human shaped. Well, you could keep an eye on him. Okay. Come get me if you [01:24:00] need anything opened or closed or locked or unlocked.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): We have rat wine to make, um, could you make sure that we can get into the church first?

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): Um, and then, and then go, go scout the shinies. But, uh, we, we have rat wine to make. Okay. So how, who's going to check the door? We need

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): to open up this door. Yeah. Are we at the church now? The first church, did you go with them or you, are you hanging out at the, at the tavern? No, I'm back with them. 'cause I had to go explain that.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): I saw it. So I fluttered back over to Ted and if we're at the church now and they need my help getting in, that's what I'm here for.

  Choas: Okay. So you successfully, I want everyone to applaud you successfully crossed the town square. Yes. Oh yes, we made it guys. I knew you could do it. I knew it. Fuck yes. Fuck yes.

  Choas: Fuck man. 15 minutes later. Oh my God guys, I'm so fucking pumped about this. So you guys are now in the northwest of the town square. Yes. And here you have, how much XP do we get for that? I'm

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): gonna

  Choas: set this town on

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): fire so hard. By the way. I get extra [01:25:00] XP for murdering that. Dude. He died. I get the xp.

  Choas: Do we live elope?

  Choas: Oh my God. No, you will get xp. When I say you get xp, you guys are a bunch of delinquents. Okay? So you make your way to the northwest corner of the town square. Here, you find a church, or as you guys like to call it a church. And there is a, we're not sure how to

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): pronounce it.

  Choas: It's a large stone, uh, building, you know, not as big as the cathedral on the other side of town.

  Choas: And it's honestly a little bit smaller than the second church as well. I don't know if this is right. There's a sign out front. It's written in common, which is a language that none of you can speak because you're animals. Mm-hmm. But you can see that there's a symbol on the front, which is of a single drop of water.

  Choas: There are large double doors made out of wood with steel banding on it, very ornate and carved. Um, you wouldn't say that they're carved by a skilled hand, but [01:26:00] for like a village, this is like pretty nice. So obviously they take religion very seriously. You can't see through any of the windows. They are all stained glass.

  Choas: Once again, not terribly ornate, but depicting a couple images here and there that you do recognize.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): Yeah. What I wanna do is work my way around the building, trying to see if I can pick up any hint of his scent. That is so sexual

  Choas: of you to say that one. Wow. His musk. His musk. I feel like you, you're rolling around the church looking for his scent with a capital H The Lord I wanna find his, I'm looking for the, I'm searching for the Lord's.

  Choas: I'm looking for the scent of the Lord. The scent of the Lord. Praise Lord. So you make your way around the church looking for his scent, his, uh, scenta. And you look around the church and you do not find his scent. But there's a lot of sense. There's so many scents that your little nose is confused and you feel like your tracking ability is probably not very useful once you've actually entered the town.

  Choas: I'm,

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): I'm just exhausted now too. It takes a lot of outta me to do all this tracking. [01:27:00]

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Listen, Ted, I don't think this, this is the place, you know, outta all the big shiny buildings in this human town. This one's the least shiny. There's just so much, I dunno anything about. Yeah, I don't know anything about the rituals, but if there's an important person here, I'm guessing they're in the shiniest building in town, just ain't it.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): I mean, you do know about shiny stuff and humans, I feel like I'm the resident human expert. Why do you feel that way? Because I've seen them before. I've seen like 18 humans. How many have you guys seen? That's my thought.

  Choas: Belgar is like 7,000 years old. He was probably owned by a human at one point. I met.

  Choas: I do feel like Belgar is a lot more

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): worldly than Quinn.

  Choas: But also he saw humans

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): like evolve. He, he could, he could have been

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): a human at this point.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): It's Cannon

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): Cook, young bird. I, I don't really like them. Um, and you know what? Shiny, shiny is great. We love shiny.

  Choas: You know what, RAF Doja, I think I would like to say that.

  Choas: I'd like to say, yeah, you're like 7,000 years old. It says it in your bio. Does say that. I think that you were a human [01:28:00] before. And I think that means you can read human human writing.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): Oh, I've been able to read these signs from the beginning. I just,

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): you, you guys were on such a wonderful journey. Why would I take that away from you?

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): Gras, I'm moving you down a tier in the berry. CSA.

  Choas: He's now, uh, a tier instead of S tier. Your

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): Cs a box has been reduced by one eighth until you bring in a new recruit. I've heard you have a daughter. I

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): will enjoy that eighth.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Please.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): I just eat the flies around your stand. I, you've, you've known that for a long time. Come on, uh, uh, Jerry, Jerry, Jerry and your berries. Um, I, I, I, I get it. But I will also mention this is a church of water. This might be the perfect [01:29:00] winemaking venue.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): Very true. Gra.

  Choas: You can also read the church sign. Uh, gra.

  Choas: This is the Ministry of the P, overseen by Father Pray. Lot,

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): lot. Sorry. Lot,

  Choas: lot. Does it say witch hunter here? Overseen by father kills animals in his free time. Also knows. Uh, there, uh, gra he, I mean, you, you were asked the question about whether it says anything about witch hunter live-in status.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): Sorry, I'm, I was taking notes.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): Could you gimme that one more time? Uh, this is, this is the

  Choas: ministry of the Pure overseen by Father p Prelaw. And then Ted asked if it said anything about witch hunter status.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): Oh, Ted, I don't think that's something they're going to just advertise. Um, but I, uh, we, we can get in there and check it out. Um, in my experience, if you carry

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): around,

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): say that again, Jerry,

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): I apologize.[01:30:00]

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): Gra

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): no, please tell us again.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): I can, if you'd like, I can scurry around. This is something that I've been like perfecting in the forest. This is my scurrying skills.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): Scurrying. Nice. Well, we are going to have to find a place. Uh, this might be a good one at nighttime, but I will tell you humans do occasionally get up very early to go to these type of buildings.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Early human gets the shiny. That is what they say.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): That's a very common human expression.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): See, I told you, expert speaking

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): of shiny Ben,

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): what about

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): the

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): human you saw? Oh yeah, they were really shiny. Man. I gotta get my hands on those shiny bobs. I mean my wings. Uh, yeah. Is there any chance that, uh, that we could do, stop whatever we're doing and go get those things instead?

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): If not, that's fine. I forget why we came here. I think it has something to do with shinies. Well, you said, you said the shiniest place would be where the witch hunter would be. So the shiniest person would probably. Go to the shiniest place. Oh, that's [01:31:00] true. I did say that. And I'm right about these things.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): So that's what we should do. Or tell me this, uh, Belgar, what kinds of things do humans write on signs and are there other ones that could tell us where to go?

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): Oh, well, I'll tell you. Typically the signs are not going to have the type of information that we are looking for, um,

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): useless. But in

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): this case, the, this tells us it's the Ministry of the Pure.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): Um, the Ministry of the Pure is a long standing, uh, religious institution around here, led by Father Preton, Clayton, pray Lot, pray lot led by Father Pray lot. Um, well he, if anything is an early riser, we're certainly going to need to avoid him.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Humans invent some really stupid stuff, but written language has gotta be the stupidest,

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): what's even the point?

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): I [01:32:00] said that long ago? I, I, I can barely read anymore. I kind of quit cigarettes. Yeah, I

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): gave up the habit.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): It's, it's like cigarettes. Alright. Just say no.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Should Jerry run around inside the, the place? Or do you want to go to the shiny house with the shiny man?

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): I think we should at least give it a run.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Yeah.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Take a look. Jerry. Jerry,

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): do your thing, Jerry. Mm-hmm.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): I am. Ready.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Go.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): Jerry. Go. Go. Jerry, go.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): Iri. Jerry.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Jerry.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): Oh, that was low hanging berry right there.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): Our, our whole Cory cheering squawking. Screeching cooing.

  Choas: What do you do? And I

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): go into the building.

  Choas: Okay. You circle around and investigate for

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): any cracks in the walls that have likely been made by my city brethren. Um, and yeah, try to find the shiny. Okay.

  Choas: Go ahead and roll a sly as you look for a crack to squeeze through to [01:33:00] make your way into the ministry of the pure.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): I rolled a five, no, a seven, no five. Most definitely a five.

  Choas: So you look around the entire church, but it seems to be very well maced. You know, they, they take their religion quite seriously in this town, so no pests allowed.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): May I peck out one of those glass windows for Jared? What if you set me on the roof?

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Ooh.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): I

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): can do a little bit of

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): the old witch

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): magic. Oh, I like the, uh, find a stained glass window with eyes and peck out the eyes.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): Oh, that's a good one.

  Choas: It's more practice, so, yeah, that's true. Yeah. Jar Jareth had asked if, if she could go up and, sorry, is Jareth a boy or a girl Owl?

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): I not could be either at this point.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Okay. So

  Choas: Jareth asked if they could go and peck a stained glass window. You absolutely can if you want.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): I'm pecking. I peck a 10 again. Wow. Look at those p Whoa.

  Choas: [01:34:00] Wow. Plus you're fierce. So it's really an 11. Wow. You're rolling. Crazy Good. F Fantastic. So you, you peck at a stained glass window. It's not crazy well made or like, you know, but it has withstood many storms all of these years, especially 'cause they're up here where winter is very fierce, but with a bit of persistence and hardened ding dink you shatter through one section of the stained glass.

  Choas: I mean, because it's all like laced with like metal to like, actually like create the stained glass. You would just peck out one, like shatter one piece of it. Large enough for a magpie to fit through. Oh, but not quite large enough for an owl.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Well, Quinn, please do your thing. Into the hole, Quentin.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): I flutter into the little hole.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Into the hole

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): in the

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): hole bird. I fly around the big open wherever I am once I get in there, um,

  Choas: well, you assume it's a big open space. I mean, whatever it is

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): for a magpie, I assume it's,

  Choas: yeah, it's a big open space. So you go into the ministry of the P and you start flapping [01:35:00] around. And in here there are several candles that are starting to burn low.

  Choas: Uh, their keeper, whoever's supposed to keep them going, is obviously not around and hasn't rejuvenated them quite yet. This room is set up like any sort of puritan type of church. From early American days. So you have a lot of standing room and you have a couple like benches towards the front for people that can't stand for long periods of time.

  Choas: But most people are expected to stand at the front. There is a very simple wooden altar on that. Altar is an arrayment of, uh, steel and gold. You see it as weaponry, but they're very ornamental. There's also a tabernacle behind the altar with gold embellishments all over it. There is a a to on the altar as well.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Is any of that steel or gold on the, on the altar? Like small enough for a magpie to lift?

  Choas: There are like two things that look like buttons and they have little engravings on 'em. Um, it looks like they could be [01:36:00] like, they're like engraving on it looks like it could be something like Swahili.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Oh, so like some sort of xeno language.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Um, that's a deep cut for anyone that even gets that joke. So the first thing that that Quinn's gonna do is I go down onto the ground, I pick up some of that stained glass that got shattered and is now laying on the floor. I fly back up to the hole and I drop it out onto the ground by the others shatter.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): And then I go over shatter and I grab one of those little buttons, that's fine. And I bring that over to the hole and I drop it on the ground. And I say, here, hold on to these. And I drop it. I wanna bring these back. Look how shiny they are. And then I go, there was two, right? So I go get the other one as well, but I also, I, I, Jerry, Jerry, can you put these in your bag?

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Let's bring these back. Look how shiny the glass too. It's colorful. I bet. When the sun's

  Choas: out hoo fricking bag is holding Ted on the ground, you notice that the tavern door has opened. Mm-hmm. And there's a man outside smoking a pipe, enjoying the night air [01:37:00] when the stained glass falls and shatters on the ground and he's locked eyes with you.

  Choas: Oh God. And his pipe is kind of like hanging loosely in his mouth. And he goes, why? Of animals, animals, animals. And he opens up the door and you hear him just yell. There's like some animals out here or something. There's animals at the church. Oh God.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Scatter my brethren. Scatter. Scatter. Scatter. Scatter.

  Choas: So everyone runs off except for Quinn, who's inside the church.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Yeah. I, I'm just in the rafters. I mean, if everybody leaves, I grab the last shiny thing and I drop it out the hole. But if I see that they've all scattered, I guys,

  Choas: as you all scatter, jareth. You scatter, uh, going up north, following a lane that leaves away from the, the town square and you find yourself flying by.

  Choas: You've never really flown this low in town before. You find yourself flying by an [01:38:00] old derelict wooden mansion. Uh, mansion by the terms of this village is, you know, something with like eight rooms and two stories. There's a long path leading from, uh, a rickety derelict wooden gate going up to this house.

  Choas: Something about this home is calling to you. It, it reminds you of ewin. It reminds you of that feeling that you got when you first met her. Something, something like magic filling your body.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Hmm. Um, do I, I I fly closer to investigate and see what else I can see.

  Choas: Sure. You fly closer to this derelict mansion and the, the door opens as you land on the railing of the porch and you feel a warm breeze, almost like a horizontal thermal pushing you towards the door.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): I go towards the door and see what's inside. Hmm. What goes, what's going on in here?

  Choas: You find yourself in an incredibly dusty entrance [01:39:00] hall that leads to a small sitting room in here. There are two rooms leading off to the left and right, but the doors are shut and they're boarded up. There is a staircase leading up to the second floor, but that has also been boarded.

  Choas: But you could easily fly around the board and go upstairs if you wanted to. In here you find a roost for a bird. You also find a large tome, which you are unable, unable to read, but most importantly, you find a small box, a box with a specific pattern on it that reminds you of een, a music box. She used to use these music boxes to try to emulate the beautiful singing of all the birds that she met in the forest.

  Choas: She would hand etch the spinning wheels inside one by one meticulously. She said it was a, an old witch hobby, something that only the elders used to do, and this seems to have that exact type of look.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Am I able to open this box?

  Choas: Yes. In fact, this has the same mechanism on the side of it that Elwin [01:40:00] did a special crank made for a bird's beak and a special latch made for a bird's TAs to open.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Am I that special bird was coin that special bird.

  Choas: I think it's any bird that knows how to do it.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): I open the latch and begin to crank it. Just crank it away. Okay.

  Choas: Wow. You, you crank it real good and you wind it way up.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Birds kidding.

  Choas: And you open the box and it begins to play. It's playing in the mechanical tone of a songbird, but not just a mating call or some random, you know, mimicry.

  Choas: This is the language of the birds. This is speaking in a way that you know how to understand. What you hear is this, oh my dear, dear Tel, I'm sorry I must leave you, but they are coming. Let's no one [01:41:00] say that the witch moria didn't go without a fight. Though. On this day, I lay a curse upon the home. None shall enter it.

  Choas: That is not a friend to witchery. Tell Vv, I have told you this before, but I remind you now that it has been over two decades since you come to live with me and you may not remember what I need to come back. The one who sets the pyre in the town square ablaze, take note for they are the one who killed me.

  Choas: You must find them pluck out their eyes one by one, my best friend and my companion. I implore you. This town is aware that you will be coming for them. They know that nature always fights back, but they are professionals. They are a town of witch hunters. Following a religion that specializes in the task they will have hidden him beneath the largest stone building behind a door that can only open with a silver key found in another of the stone buildings, most likely kept on the person of one of the owners of that stone building.

  Choas: Retrieve the key. Find your way into the sanctum obscura [01:42:00] where this witch killer will be. Pluck his eyes. Doesn't matter if he's dead. Bring the eyes to my corpse. Thank you, my friend. And if you are unable to succeed in this task, then I will meet you at the prismatic gates when time is coiled back. And we will be together again.

  Choas: I will wait for you.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Mm-hmm.

  Choas: And then it stops.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): I, I shed one owl tear and then I, I, I flutter back to my friends with the story.

  Choas: You're like,

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): are all my companions together? Did they all scatter off in different directions?

  Choas: They had scattered. But during your extended look inside of this, this home, they reconvened, uh, on a side street, which Rith has read the name of the street as The Way of Sad Owl Tears. Sorry. It's one of those in every town.

  Choas: Yeah. It's like Elm Street. Yeah. Yeah.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Aw. I flutter back and I tell everyone the story of this [01:43:00] beautiful safe place for us to be, uh. It is a place where only those who are friends of the witches may find safe haven. But the witch Moira has one of those beautiful magic boxes that Elwin had. And it told me a story in my language.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): And you know, Quentin, you'd understand this too, but mostly mine, but mostly mine. I'm mostly, I It's an owl dialect. I get it. Yes. That we must fight back by plucking out the eyes. And this town is a town of witch hunters, so we are not safe from anyone except in this place. Just so you are aware of that. So the largest stone building is where it's hidden, but there's another stone building.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): And we must find someone who has a key around their neck. And then we take that key to the first stone building, we unlock it, and then great success profit.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): So you're, did it say which of the [01:44:00] buildings, because they're kind of all large stone buildings to us tiny animals.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Uh, I believe there was one called sanctum.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Obscure. I wasn't a hundred percent certain. I was crying at the time. I

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): stabbed.

  Choas: There's a very,

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): the sad owl, tears street, uh, is, is named for such a occurrence. It just

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): aptly named. So I was very sad.

  Choas: So being, uh, you know, having seen this town a million times, our two avians know that the three largest buildings are the two small churches and the one cathedral.

  Choas: So

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): the church is wooden, right? One of them was wooden. The church

  Choas: just had a wooden door. Oh, sorry about that. I like how you respond to the GM in character. Feel like the sign of the cross. Sorry about that. This sounds crazy.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): Now we have a lot to unpack with this and I, I, I have a couple of [01:45:00] questions for you.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): Um, but uh, before we do that, we may want to, uh, well get a little bit of rest and it sounds like we found a safe haven. I will lead you all

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): back there. Let's follow me, my friends, quietly, safely, please.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Perfect. I'm exhausted. Hey, Jerry, did you get those shinies I dropped on you? I'm really tired, but I wanna make sure you got those shiny.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): We were kind of being chased. Uh, I, I, I'm sorry. You, uh, Quinn, you expected us to to bring those gra Yes.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Yeah, we'll get 'em later. It's fine.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): You, you know what you do a couple of, just do a couple of flybys. You'll be fine. I'm sure. Just do a couple of flybys.

  Choas: Ka ka. Who said that? So Jareth leads you out of the, uh, avenue of sad out tears.

  Choas: And back along the main boulevard until you reach a side street that leads you to the derelict building of the witch Moira. There you find the front door is already open and [01:46:00] inside it seems as though some automatic ations have already taken effect because there are several brooms floating around, sweeping the, the dust aside and some dusters have opened the windows and are making sure all of the dust makes its way out into the night.

  Choas: And this is more like it. The music box has self wound and plays itself as Quinn enters, but all gra Ted and Jerry here are Tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet. Kaka a Quinn. You get the full message that J heard earlier minus some dialect differences. Yeah, it's like a heavy southern accent.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): Well, the one who sets the pyra blaze get is the one who did it. Make sure

  Choas: you pick out their eyes. Their eyes are like two crickets on a hornet's nest.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Yeah, exactly like that.

  Choas: I don't know any southern things. I 100% rely on doja to do that actually. [01:47:00] Aren't you as cute as a kitten on a far toad? I don't know.

  Choas: What do you guys say? Yeah, that's great.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): Yeah, that again, a common southern expression.

  Choas: And here you find, uh, comfortable places to bed down. There are several roosting spots for the birds since it seems like this was an AV in witch. And obviously there's floor space, so there's spots for the fox, the rat, and the toad.

  Choas: I'm assuming the rat and the toad nuzzle up into the fox's fur and the big bushy tail, and they all drift off to sleep. The next morning you awaken in this one safe spot that you have. It is the morning of day two of seven. What would you like to do? Oh, oh, sorry. One more thing. Uh, there is a breakfast of things that your animals eat all laid out on the floor.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Aw, what about rat wine? Rat foot wine there. What is that ready yet?

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Yeah. What, what's the status on that?

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): I think, did we, did we start, did we start fermenting it? Jerry? Is that, um, I just got

  Choas: a, a magical breakfast and you're [01:48:00] asking about the rat foot wine

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): priorities.

  Choas: That's the good stuff. Yeah, I,

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): I started on it in fermented down it.

  Choas: This ain't no lucky charms. This shit. This is a three course fox breakfast, right for the fox and one for the show. It's

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): nice. And I, I also have fermented wrap foot wine.

  Choas: Is it fermented yet? It's ready to know. It's ready to go. The rat's foot helps to ferment faster. Actually, that's just grape juice. Jerry,

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): don't be ungrateful.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): You do not have the taste buds who understand this.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): I've been sitting on the top of the house most of the night licking up flies. I am. Uh, so don't start with me, Gareth. I'm so sorry.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): So, alright. So morning we're eating. So, Jareth Quinn, what's, what's the plan

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): We need to what? First of all, what's a pyre?

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): Well, uh, this is a common human expression, uh, that they use for the big stinky wood [01:49:00] pile that we passed on earlier in the town.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Oh, oh, I know the one, yeah. The big, bright, hot,

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): shiny. It going to get much brighter and much harder. Um, in fact, they commonly use them to burn witches.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): That sounds horrible. We need to go there.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): The message said something about whoever lights the fire is who we're looking for, right? Yes. It also said that he

  Choas: would be hidden

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): in the, in the, in the sanctum. Yes.

  Choas: Yes. So the message says that he was, he's hiding within the sanctum obscura in the largest of the buildings, the stone buildings. And that the key to open the sanctum obscura is around the neck of the keeper of one of the smaller stone buildings.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Okay.

  Choas: And the perpetrator was the py lighter or the key holder was the py lighter. Well this was, that that message was specific to the witch Moira being killed.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Yeah,

  Choas: right. It seems like her avian familiar maybe wasn't able to help her, or she [01:50:00] never came back to this house after she was helped. Hmm. That is the optimistic possibility.

  Choas: Yeah. But you guys are working on a different thing. You guys are trying to get ELO in back alive, so you have to find the witch hunter, not the pyre lighter from Moira's death. Yeah. Okay. So the, that the pyre lighter does not help us with the key. Okay. Yeah. You guys need to find just the key to get into the sanctum obscura, which it sounds like that's where they hide the witch hunters because they, if you like what the guard was saying and what this message is saying, seems to hint at the fact that this town is fully aware of the seven day rule with the eyes.

  Choas: So I think, I think we should wait until nightfall though. Like I don't

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): wanna run around in the daytime.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): I certainly think, well, my question is, Quinn, you mentioned a shiny man with very shiny things at the taff.

  Choas: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): Did you happen to see a key by any chance, or should maybe we investigate that?

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Remind me what kind of shiny is a key? [01:51:00]

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): Well, it's the kind of shiny with a circle and a line and then some other lines coming off of it. I'm, um, that's a good question. What do humans use 'em

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): for,

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): for, for, for sticking into doors.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Humans are weird. So weird. It's like a shiny stick. Is it part of the opening and closing ritual?

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Because I can do that. Yes. I know all about opening and closing and locking and unlocking.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): Do well, of course you do. Um, but I worry this one might be more than just your average door. They all same to me.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): No wonder Ella couldn't hang out with these people and she had to come to the forest. Yeah. They have to use, they don't have magic for this.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): Humans are weird.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Totally agree. I I don't get 'em. But I did not see a shiny stick with a ring on it. I only saw golden bobs and a golden chain around their neck. Hmm. [01:52:00] But Ted might be right about the, uh, the knight being our ally. Humans have terrible night vision. It's real bad. It's embarrassing, frankly.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Agreed. Mm-hmm.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): And it seems that Moira's magic will protect us as long as we stay here. So we could kill a few hours of hanging out with the dancing brooms.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): Well, during the day. Would you like to do some shiny hunting fly by scouting exact shiny hunting?

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Yes. Uh, yes. We will. We'll scout in the air and see what we can see.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Any movement, anything out of the ordinary that sounds like a plan to me.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): I'll stay, I'll stay here. I'm, I, I don't trust

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): myself to not be spotted. Dibs on the shiny stuff. And Quinn is gone.

  Choas: Quinn and Jareth, uh, Quinn Much faster than Jareth streams outta the front door, which opens itself as he approaches.

  Choas: And jareth, uh oh. Jareth the owl. Do you wanna go out in the daytime? Just to double check.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Yeah, why not? You know, why not just make it interesting?

  Choas: [01:53:00] Stay up high. It'll be fine. Yolo as eth the owl always says.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): That's my catch

  Choas: phrase. You own the owl once. Oh. Oh, yes. Uh, Yolo.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Uh oh, I got it. Yo owls love outdoors. It's true. Damn. What we do Yolo,

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): I, I'm gonna give it to you bit of, a bit of a stretch, but I'm gonna give it to you

  Choas: so you go out looking for Bobs and for some sort of information. However, first I wanna deal with Ted. Ted, I feel like we've been losing track of you.

  Choas: What's going on inside your little fox brain? Uh, I've noticed you've chosen the picture of the fox from the fox in the hound when it's like a, when it's like a baby fox. So, I just wanna focus on you for a minute. You're, you're here in the, the witches, you know, you're here in Moore's house and mm-hmm. The brooms have cleaned everything, but there's one spot that you see.

  Choas: They have not cleaned. There is a small [01:54:00] hatch in the floor that they simply avoid. Okay,

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): well I'm feeling refreshed after my night's sleep. Um, some good food and, you know, cleaning and tidying is my specialty. And so they must have left this for me 'cause they knew that. So I'm gonna go over there and I'm gonna cast my spell.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): I'm gonna clean up this, this last bit of dirt, um, and make the whole place spotless.

  Choas: Okay. You whisk your spell over this, this trap door, this hatch in the floor, uh, in the kitchen by the way. And when you do that, you see that there's an odd, shiny bit of stone stuck to the door. Uh, looks almost like a, a mica flicked with, with fool's gold.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): Hmm. Interesting. I kind of paw at it and like sniff at it a little bit. It's interesting to me. It smells like magic. And your paw is unable to dislodge it.

  Choas: Hmm.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): Everybody else is gone or are they still here? Uh, gra and Jerry are still here. They're, I, [01:55:00] I, I kind of just kind of sit and look at it and I've kind of waited for Quinn to come back, honestly.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): 'cause it seems right up his alley. Um, but, but I'll, I'll like call attention to it. The other two, just, they're aware of the situation as well. Brian is so angry. Quinn isn't in the house right now.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): Hin so shiny.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): I'd like to go over and give it a good rub.

  Choas: Oh, gross. You start rubbing it like it's an Adam's apple just vigorously slapping it. Oh, you know, I

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): wish there was a way for us to send a vision of this to Quinn.

  Choas: Does anyone have a vision sending ability that I'm not aware of. Manner.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): They'll be back before nightfall and right now I'm just happy to be.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): Be here again in a place that even if it's not home, it feels like home. I, we've never been away from the house for so long or outta the forest and it's, it's overwhelming honestly.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): Have a berry

  Choas: help keep you calm.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): Here's a blue berry.

  Choas: That'll [01:56:00] be three silver please. After he eats it.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): No, no, he's in tier two.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): It's okay.

  Choas: Oh God. He gets one berry gratis every day.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): Ted's a tear tier two.

  Choas: That's my, my quota. Wait, have you figured out everyone's tears?

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): Um, actually no, I haven't.

  Choas: Okay. So as you all are like looking at this, this pyrite like Micah Pyrite combination and you're kind of just hanging around that area and you feel like this is a very mystical spot.

  Choas: You almost feel like there's flute music playing. Like there's trees growing around you with, you know, delicious fruits and soft grass. The kitchen is so homey and just reminds you of the cottage in the woods. At the warmest and most tranquil it's ever been. So you hang out here. Mm-hmm. And slowly the morning sun creeps across the floor as time passes into the late afternoon disappearing from the eastern window up over the roof.

  Choas: But at noon, the light shines through a window, a skylight in the roof, and refracts off of a [01:57:00] carefully placed mirror on the wall. And the sunbeam strikes the pi and the luminance practically blinds you. And slowly, and that's my gag. Slowly but surely, the hatch clicks open and swings back on its well oiled hinges.

  Choas: Oh, you could feel the coldness of the cellar beneath you and glancing down into it, you can see that there is a space large enough for a human to go down into if there was one left in the house to do so.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): Kind of, what kind of vibes am I getting from this space? Just, you know, my animal senses are my hackles up.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): Yes. Okay. You're fully, all three of you are

  Choas: fully hacked.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): I'm glad you asked because I was about to go full, uh, hypnotoad b and then drop myself down the, well, like a glow stick.

  Choas: Oh my God.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): So I, I kind of creep, creep forward a little bit, you know, senses on alert, you know, I jump onto text. I'm curious about this new, um, with a goal of like, exploring

  Choas: down there, but doing it carefully. You can see that there [01:58:00] is a, well, you know how bell grass looks when he is glowing? Mm-hmm. There's one of those down there, but with a blue and purple light swirling around.

  Choas: Interesting. There's like a, a cosmic orb in the black darkness below you. Mm-hmm.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): Oh, Ted, what's, what's the, how down there a fiber drop. Okay. This a drop.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): Um,

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): I don't wanna be stuck down there, guys. What's the texture

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): of the wall? Like, is it stone or like, is it made out of?

  Choas: It's just dug out of the, the, the dirt.

  Choas: I'm a

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): pretty good climber of Alia. Thanks.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): I am also, uh, a, a, a bit of a sticky situation. Um, uh, would my frog nature ants be able to give me the ability to clinging to these walls?

  Choas: The toad and the fox feel like they would have a hard time getting back out. Foxes can jump. Jerry, you think foxes can jump six feet?

  Choas: I just looked it up. Okay. Well you feel like you couldn't climb out. So you might, you might. [01:59:00] Is that a six feet long or six feet? Straight up high. Six feet high. Straight

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): up. With no running. No running. Yeah. 'cause they do that thing where they jump up and then they land on the snow.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): Have you seen that? Uh, uh, planet Earth?

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): Where they, where they, where they're

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): rotten. That if we're gonna send anybody to investigate, it's gonna be me.

  Choas: Well, let's put it this way. There's no way the toad could get out.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): That's fair. I, I'll, I'm, I'm chilling up here. I got some flies to eat. People. Y'all have fun

  Choas: Sacrifices must be made. So, lemme say this, there's no way gra could get out.

  Choas: There's a hundred percent chance of Jerry getting out. And Ted, it'd be close, but you think you can do it? All right, let's scope it out. All right.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): I'm gonna go down and investigate

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): while they go down there. I am going to, um, sit in the Toad wine and put my psychedelics into it while no one notices.

  Choas: And then also look it up yourself.

  Choas: Oh, I mean, of course. Okay, so you jump down into the hole, the camera follows you down into the hole, into the blackness. But then we alight on the two [02:00:00] birds flying over the town of piety, looking for cool bobs and seeing what they can see. Owl jareth, you are getting your eyes just straight up photon fucked by the sun because you're an owl and this is crazy for you.

  Choas: It's way too bright outside.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Damn, it's bright out here guys.

  Choas: Should've worn sunglasses. I apologize for the phrase Photon

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): fucked. Photon fucked. It's fine. I'm into this.

  Choas: My eyes finger blasted by the sun is 100% my my thing. So you fly over the town of piety and you take note of the two smaller churches and the one large cathedral.

  Choas: You could see that there's still not a lot of people around. Most of the businesses are staying closed, and a lot of the communication you're hearing from the people around is that the witch hunter is in hiding in the sanctum obscura and that they must wait and shut everything down for seven days until the wildlife has calmed [02:01:00] down.

  Choas: Something that you notice is that around the edges of the town, around the palisade wall, you see that some other animals, ones that weren't even familiars with the witch seemed to have been stirred. There's a bear or a moose, the errant deer clawing at the wall, and then once they meet, some resistance from the guards shooting down at them, amble their way back into the woods.

  Choas: But something is clear. The forest is awake and it is angry.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Uh, for clarity, uh, for the bird for myself here, is there a specific side of the town that they're all going towards or is it all edges of the town that all the animals are trying to get in through?

  Choas: Just, just from the sides where there's forest touching it.

  Choas: So there's two sides, the south and the west. The west is right up against, uh, the, the girth of Celine Dion and the south is the, is the past that leads outta the valley. So the north and the East are flanked by the, the woods of the witch, and that's where the animals are predominantly [02:02:00] coming from and trying to make their way into the town.

  Choas: But the gates are shut. Mm. And I'm sure

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): that the humans suspect that no animal could open or close something, so they must be safe as long as they keep it closed. Ah, right. You seem to think that way.

  Choas: Hmm.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Oh, humans. And there's simple ways of thinking anyway. Do you think we can still find that shiny stuff I threw on the ground?

  Choas: And you go back to find the shiny stuff and as you swoop down to pick up one of the Swahili buttons, we find ourselves back in the basement of the witches house here, Ted and Jerry riding a top Ted have jumped down into the cold stillness going after the strange purple and blue orb that is down in that blackness down here.

  Choas: Once your eyes adjust, you see that it is not simply a floating orb, but a glass orb upon a golden metal stand. And when you look into it, your eyes see far away places and things you do not understand.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): Did EEN have something similar to this? Not at all. [02:03:00] Like is there something,

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): does Bel Garath recognize anything going on?

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Am I there by the way? Did I fly back?

  Choas: Am

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): I there? No.

  Choas: You guys are flying around collecting bobbles and doing reconnaissance. GRA is upstairs, excreting into liquid without anyone knowing. So only Ted and Jerry are down in the basement interacting with the strange, glowing orb. Is there anything else down here?

  Choas: Once your eyes adjust and you take a look around, you can see that there's shelves that have been carved into the dirt walls, but what you see on the shelves you don't find particularly useful. Okay. It's an arraignment of human bones, most notably three skulls. Gross.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): Hmm. I mean, I kind of go up to the orb and like nose at it a little bit, I guess.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): Trying to like see what I can see in it.

  Choas: Although you're looking at something that's directly in front of you, it seems as though you are looking into a vast open space. Deep, deep, far beyond. Your vision can even penetrate. And as you nose at it, it changes a bit. It's reacting to your [02:04:00] touch, your presence.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): And I'm gonna poke around on the shelves.

  Choas: So you're scampering over the, the bones and the skulls. Mm-hmm. Classic, classic rat, classic rat. Oh my god, dude. Like, this is straight outta Indiana Jones. And what you find inside one of the skulls is a strange talisman, uh, threaded upon a golden chain.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): Ooh. I, um, grabbed the chain as close to the talisman as I can get it in my mouth to carry it over towards Ted.

  Choas: Ted, you see Jerry with some loop? Mm. I have a shiny Quinn Will like Quinn will

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): like that. That's you. Um, I'm freak, I'm freaked out by this thing. Um, like when it reacted to my presence. What, what did it do exactly?

  Choas: It uh, it's showing you a strange hazy, faraway land, but when you touch it with your nose or when your attention shifts, it shows you a different image.

  Choas: But it's all very hazy and dream-like. Mm-hmm. I kind of like, you know, do that animal thing. I kind of like whimper and back away. 'cause it doesn't make sense to me when you do that. It dims and [02:05:00] stop showing you an image. But Jerry mm-hmm. You come out with that talisman. Mm-hmm. And you don't seem freaked out by this thing at all.

  Choas: Mm-hmm. So you approached Ted and it starts to show images again. It starts to show you all of the best berry spots in all of the forests across the entire land. Far from within this valley and far beyond it. Berries you haven't even dreamed of existing cross this strange orb.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): Wow. Even elusive cumulus berry.

  Choas: There are cumulus berries. There are strata, strata berries. It's not a cloud type.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): They play music Berries like play violin

  Choas: berries.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): Yeah. Violin berries.

  Choas: There's the harpa scored berry. There's the oboe berry.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): What a world out there. Jerry. How did you

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): make it do that?

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): Oh, I, I, I wonder if it's the talisman.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): Take it.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): I kinda like hold it in my mouth. What do you think of? I mean, I'm just thinking of what I've been thinking of just e ein and what, you know, the safety that I want back.

  Choas: Hmm. [02:06:00] So you think of ein bell, gra you excrete more into some liquid.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): Damn right. Uh, at this point I'm, I'm feeling like I, I want to jump out of that liquid because, uh, I don't want anybody to know.

  Choas: It is like you've doubled the liquid in that glass. At this point, it's 50% RAF juices.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): Okay. Says the person who was like rat wine. Yay

  Choas: rat

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): wine. Rat wine has a recipe. It is not a hallucinogenic

  Choas: rat. Wine is worth something. I don't know. They're both worth something. But down in the basement, Ted, you are holding the talisman and you think of safety and you think of ein. And what you see is the largest stone building the cathedral.

  Choas: It resolves becoming less and less hazy, and then it dissolves and shows you the inside of the cathedral. It shows you the main area where masses are held. The name comes into your head, the [02:07:00] sanc toum of Ulrich father Dunny. You see him presiding over his mass behind the altar, a hallway leading to his chambers, but uh, offshoot leading to a door behind a bookcase.

  Choas: A keyhole, a door once opened, leads to the sanctum obscura, hidden subterranean apartment under the cathedral. You seem to melt through the floor and find yourself in that apartment. And there you see a young man, no older than 17 years old. He's terrified. He's holding a crossbow. He's covered in the blood of een, and he is shaking as he points the arrow towards the entrance, waiting for the inevitable.

  Choas: He whispers to himself Just five more days, Henry. Just five more. And then the orb dissolves, showing you all that it is willing to show. Do his eyes look, grab-able. Oh, they're big too. They're like some Elijah wood, like big blue eyes, like half a 10 His eyes. Yeah. Great.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): So easy target.

  Choas: Yeah, they're, and so I come out of that, the eyes [02:08:00] being so big probably means he'll get resurrected faster.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): Yeah. Yeah. So I come out

  Choas: of

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): it, I, I looked at

  Choas: Jerry,

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): I, Jerry did you see that? We know where he is.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Bring Belgar drink.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): Go back upstairs. I go back upstairs and go like, like wait, we gotta

  Choas: go wait for the others. So outside, uh, the two birds, as you are like spying on the town, you see the man that you saw before, who you have now figured out is one of the two fathers or three fathers from one of the churches.

  Choas: The man, the ornamental clothing. Shiny man. Shiny man. And now that you have Jareth, the Wise Owl with you, Jareth is able to see the actual objects that this man has about his body and recognizes a silver key hanging on a silver chain about his neck. The exact type of key you need to open the sanctum obscura.

  Choas: Ah, swooped

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): down. Try to steal that key.

  Choas: Oh shit. Okay. I thought we were gonna have like a planning session.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): I want that key. You ever get swooped down

  Choas: by an owl? It's not something that you terrify. [02:09:00]

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Terrifying.

  Choas: Yeah. Nobody's ready for swooping owls. I mean, I'm the GM and I wasn't ready for that. Okay, so you're doing a steal.

  Choas: So that's a sly. Come on, motherfucker. Sorry. Oh. Oh no. Oh, uh oh. You finally roll terribly. So you got a two, you swoop down, uh, in owl form. That's the only form you have. I don't know why I said that. This is an anor. Yeah, I know. I wanna say like owl, like and owl form. And you fail so terribly that you swoop past him, raking your claw along his neck.

  Choas: And he goes, ah, and he grabs his neck as you swoop off. And he goes, ah, the forest he is attacking

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): fly off, away from him. Didn't work. Abort, abort.

  Choas: One random pest goes,

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): yo,

  Choas: was that a fucking owl? What the fuck

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): can I, can we do like a one two swoop where Yeah. [02:10:00] Jar's unsuccessful. You know, they're flying back like abort, abort and, and Quinn's like abort Or like grab one shiny thing and then abort.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Uh, yes. I mean, you guys,

  Choas: you, I mean, don't ask me, I'm just the guy telling you what happens. Do

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): it. Yeah. Yeah. All

  Choas: right, well if there's time then, yeah. Is that sly

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): roll? A sly? Yes. Sneak steel or hide. Okay, I got a six, but before you tell me anything, I'm not so sure. Well wait. Why are you making the rules all of a sudden?

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): No, I'm just saying. I'm saying I'm not so sure that Quinn is even going for the key and not just like the shiniest or closest or easiest to get thing. So if that is a success, I will roll something else to see

  Choas: if it's even the key. Why don't you roll a clever versus six and if you succeed, okay, then you're able to be like, nah, I'm getting the key.

  Choas: If not, you're gonna grab a random bobble, which might still end up being the key. Who knows?

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): A six. You got it?

  Choas: No, that was before. That was the,

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): oh, that was a previous role. That would be, that was the fly, which was successful it sounds like. 'cause you're [02:11:00] having me roll this. So here is the clever.

  Choas: I got 10.

  Choas: Congrats. Whoop down. You're laser focused on the key and you're like, gotta get that key. Gotta get that key. Ooh, that's a gold earring. No key key. Those earrings are nice. No. And then you swoop over to grab his ring and you're like, no key in its last minute. You grab the key and then you try to swoop away.

  Choas: But it's on this silver chain, so I need you to roll your fierce versus a six to break the chain. You can never break the chain. The chains of oppression,

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): the chains of this key, with all the ferocity that a magpie can summon, I pull with all my, might flapping my wings as fast as they will flap, but it only results in a four.

  Choas: So you are holding onto this key and just flapping as hard as you can, but you've lost all momentum. You're just now slowly falling to the ground, holding onto this key on a chain.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Well, as a bird, I will let go of the key before I touch the ground. So, hey, then you fly away. It's no good. It's stuck to him like some kind of sticky thing.[02:12:00]

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Uh, I poop on him. Oh, brilliant. Yes. Okay.

  Choas: Roll, roll. Uh, um, fierce. It sounds like fierce. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's a, that's a fierce bm. That's a

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): nine. A nine, a nine Him,

  Choas: which is almost a near impossible level of rolling. Yeah. Really accurate. Pooping. So you bullseye owl poop. I'm honestly impressed. There was a bullseye

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): in his eye.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): The priest's eye bullseye, the priest eye.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Then we swoop back in for another go at this key, this

  Choas: one more pass. Okay. You swoop in and you poop on him. And he goes, first of all, he goes, ah, my neck. And someone goes, was that a fucking boy? Was that a fucking owl? And then a magpie grabs on and he goes, oh, and the wings are flapping in his face.

  Choas: The magpie flies away. A moment later, shit hits him straight in the eye and he goes, oh. And then the magpie swoops in again. Roll [02:13:00] sly magpie. Okay. Okay. Meanwhile, rith has left the, uh, the cup. Okay. What's your sly. Are you drinking your own juice? Yes,

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): always. I got a 10 on my

  Choas: sly. Oh, so you've grabbed onto the key, roll your fears to see if you can disconnect it from the chain.

  Choas: Break the chains of the key. Break it. Break those chains. Break those chains, break chains, break those cheese,

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): break those chains. Pies are not particularly strong,

  Choas: but I was 11. Oh my god. Up to 11. My morphine magpie ranges. So you grab onto the key and you rip it off of the chain and you fly into the sky like a fucking silver bullet.

  Choas: Wow. And you're up into the great blue, crisp air of a late autumn day.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): I spread my wings and you can see my silhouette in front of the sun with the key dangling from my feet. It's majestic as fuck.

  Choas: And father pray a lot. On the ground goes. I'll get you mag pie. [02:14:00] Can he see

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): with the poop in his eye?

  Choas: Nope.

  Choas: The real question, his one eye, one eye is completely destroyed and he will have to wear an eye patch from now on. So you know he's coming back. You know, he's a recurring mill now. You know he's

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): important if he has an eye patch,

  Choas: so you start flying back towards Moira's abandoned home. Meanwhile, Bre, you have left your uh, liquid.

  Choas: And you are now sipping upon it. It's a good mixture. It's like a 50 50 water frog tonic. And Ted and Jerry have come outta the basement and they seem very excited. They seem as though they've gotten some information, but before they can tell you that information, Quinn and Jareth fly in equally as excited and yammering through the open window.

  Choas: And now Ri you have four creatures all yammering and yammering at you and you can't seem to quite, can't seem to quite get the straight story from any of them.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Oh my god, dude, I totally, shit his eyebrows was a guy Jerry, he had

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): his eyes there's [02:15:00] on him and I like pulled really hard

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): to great.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Well guys, this certainly

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): like a lot's happening.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): Um, maybe, maybe one at a time. Can we, uh, pass the speaking stick? Uh, is there a, a long shiny here use this that we could pass and I drop

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): the key on you.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): This is perfect. Who'd like

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): to go first? Oh, give it to me. Give it to me. Give it to me. I take it back. What happened, Quinn? I found this and then I give it back to you again.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Excellent. Fine.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): Who would like the speaking? Oh, this is a key. My god.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): Where did you find this?

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Well, we found shiny man. Um, and I guess he did have this,

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): and

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): and I pooped in his eye. I did it.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Jareth pooped in his eye

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): from like

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): way to go.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): Jareth

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): 50 feet.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): Wait, we didn't need his eyes, did we?

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): They're still in there if we need them.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Yes.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): Okay, good.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): Do poop eyes still count as eyes?

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): I, yeah, I think so.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Yeah.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): But, but, but eyes, I found him. [02:16:00] I found the, the eyes guy, the wi the witch hunter. I found him. Do you have the shiny, sorry. Here's the shiny. Thank you. I found him. There was a, a, a ball downstairs and it showed us things and I saw, I saw the big building and I saw where to go to find the witch hunter.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): And he's got big eyes ready for us to take big, juicy eyes. He's got a machine that shoots the pointy sticks.

  Choas: It shoots the pointy sticks.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): I don't like the sound

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): of that.

  Choas: What, what's a machine?

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): I he, something he holds in his hands. Like what, what Owen would use. Um, uh, what is it, you know, when she would make her clothes, like how she, she moved the thing.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): Oh, that's

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): crazy. Yeah.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): So it's like, oh, something like that. Like a needle in thread. No, but it's like, it's just a, it's hold in his hands. The thing with the shuttle, it, it, it's, it's bad. It's hurt. It'll hurt us.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): Oh, I don't like that.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): Yeah. I don't like

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): hurting his

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): eyes. We have to get his eyes before he gets us.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): Well, it [02:17:00] sounds like we, we know where to go. Do you know, did it tell you where specifically? I know where him,

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): I know where the big, the big stone building. The biggest one. I know that one. The biggest one. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. But there are lots of people inside. Well, Jareth and I did find something else. All the woodland creatures are around the walls of the town.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): It's only the doors that seem to be keeping them out. Maybe if they were inside the town, all the people would be too distracted to guard the witch hunter. And just to be clear, I mean like bears, not like mag pies.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): We could also light the pire, which seems to be prepared. I can't

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): make fire. Yeah. I say we do the doors

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): and then of course.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): Beline it. While the doors are being opened, we run as quickly as we can to the large stone building. We use the key to get into the Abba obscura. The sanctum obscura. Mm-hmm. Um, this sounds like a wonderful plan. Do we want [02:18:00] to drink to our success? No, no, no, no. It's, that's okay.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): No, no. I'll take some clean water if

  Choas: you got it.

  Choas: He gestures to a yellow phos fluorescent drink that he's sipping out. No, I'm,

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): I'm bad. Not

  Choas: right now. He has one like dangling in the cup still. I think. I think we should get going.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): We should bring some with us though, to give to the, you know, the, the man with the weapon.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): Oh,

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): I mean, why not

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): like a peace offering

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): ex.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Yes. Yes.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): I don't want peace. We want his eyes. He knows we want them too. He's waiting for us.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): He must be thirsty down there.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): But

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): we can get his eyes.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Get his eyes.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Okay. You three, you four. Take the key and you go to the big building and I'll go to the doors and see what I can do. Perfect. And I'll meet you there.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): Do we need a time, um, to, to meet? Do we want to, as the sun goes fully down to. Break in that will give you time to open the doors and get back to us.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): I guess we should wait [02:19:00] like till it's dark out, at least for Ted's sake. Probably yours too. That's

  Choas: fair. Okay, so you wait till it's closer to dark and then Quinn takes off and shortly thereafter the rest of you make your way towards the Cathedral Quinn.

  Choas: No one notices a small magpie. Yeah. Especially at night or you know, as it is in the twilight hour reaching towards night. So you find your way to the west gate there, you find the merchant is still camping outside. 'cause there is no way in hell he's traveling for three days back without selling his wares.

  Choas: So he is camping out for as long as it takes before these doors open, which he's been assured will be in just a few more nights. Do I see any of the woodland creatures

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): still milling about

  Choas: Yes. Specifically the bears. Uh, near

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): this gate

  Choas: there is a moose. Yes. And seven raccoons. Okay. Six raccoons. I don't wanna be crazy.

  Choas: Oh, never mind. There's a moose of six raccoons. Never mind. That actually completely changes everything. 10 raccoons. No six, six raccoons and one meese moose. No bears. Let [02:20:00]

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): let them in.

  Choas: Uh, yeah.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): So I purchased a top the, the gate. And in my mightiest magpie voice, I cry out fellow birds of the forest. Let it be known.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): The gates to the human village will be open. Now is the chance to enact our revenge. Come my brethren and I use my magic, hopefully to open the door and not fail and make a fool of myself.

  Choas: Okay. Roll your clever and also repeat some of that in bird for me real quick.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Uh, tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet, tweety tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet,

  Choas: tweet, tweet, tweet.

  Choas: There's a guard right, right next to you. And he is like, what the fuck? This bird is going nuts. And I got a nine. This magpie iss up way too late. It should be sleeping. And then you get a nine and the doors start to open and they're like, no, no, no, no, no. And they like get on the ladders and they're hustling down and they're trying to stop the doors from opening and they're pushing with all their strength and they're just being like, they're creating big furrows in the [02:21:00] ground with their heels as they're just being pushed back.

  Choas: And they're like, ah. And the two guards are forced back. And then you see birds, birds upon birds flowing outta the forest. The witches woods is alive with avians. And then the moose. And the moose. It's rack. Yeah. Covered in birds as it charges through and goes and starts stamping down the boulevard of owl.

  Choas: Tears making its way into the town center. The clear cut tavern's door flies open, and a man goes, Hey, what have we got out here? Boom. The moose is fucking gore zone. He's just fucking gore dude. And the birds flutter everywhere.

  Choas: Meanwhile. On the other end of town, darkness is falling as the four of you approach the cathedral. And you can hear a bell, an alarm bell ringing from the far west side of town. Your magpie friend Quinn must have succeeded in his quest to let the moose and a bunch of birds in through the gate. The birds could have flown over the gate though.

  Choas: Just [02:22:00] say he did it. Hooray. Well, I did it.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): I was calling the birds so that they could tell the other animals that don't understand me. You know, the birds have lit. The beacon is exactly

  Choas: the first bird is lit. The first bird is

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): lit.

  Choas: Go door, calls for aid, and you have reached the cathedral. At that time here, the cathedral doors are open because there is currently a mass in session.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Uh, you

  Choas: can hear the, the, the dull voice of father dunny at the front of the mass saying yes. And here saying, tell Rick the cleanser. 500 years ago, crusader against witchcraft in the highest order and the darkness of the wilds, which must be pushed back, has killed personally over 80 witches. Set them ablaze at the pirate, at the center of town, so holy be his name, and on and on.

  Choas: Terrible things like that. And you are standing at the front of this cathedral, looking through the door. What would you like to, and, and there's hundreds of people on either side with like an aisle down the middle, leading to the front. And

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): we're [02:23:00] kind of waiting to see if they make

  Choas: a move with the alarm going off now.

  Choas: They don't seem to really notice just yet, but there's a lot of noise inside the cathedral. Hmm.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): I mean, we do have days, and this won't last forever. I say we, uh, find a, a position and wait it out.

  Choas: A guard runs up to the door, not noticing you guys off to the side. And he calls out Father duddy. Father Ddy.

  Choas: The, the animals are attacking the right bastards. I had to close this door. Everyone should stay here. Safe and sound. Damnit. Took away my, what I was gonna do.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): It's

  Choas: backfiring. I guess. Try. I, I, yeah. We try to slip in before the door. The guard shuts the doors. Oh no. Oh, you're trying to slip in. That's fine.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): I wanted all my bird friends to go in and poop on everyone, which I wanted.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Mm-hmm.

  Choas: Oh, okay. So poop

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): on them

  Choas: all. I could do that. Uh, I need Jareth and Ted to roll sly. Oh, good. Eight roll. Great. Rolls all around. So we have an eight and a nine. So the two of you slip in with [02:24:00] gra and Jerry, uh, on your bodies, I'm assuming. And you slip in completely undetected as this guard's freaking out and not closing the doors.

  Choas: And he stays outside. He's like, oh God, draw from out here. Don't worry. You're safe with, with the brave. Bell. No, can't say Raf. That's the toad's name. You're safe with the brave Benny guarding you. Uh, and you are inside the DIM church now? Uh, only the candlelight is lighting everything and father dunny at the front goes.

  Choas: Well. Okay, so I guess we should continue the mass, but everyone be on the lookout for errant animals. Oh God.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Mur, mur, mur.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Sweet. Did, did gra bring the, the psychotropic drink then they should give out at mass?

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): Yeah. Can

  Choas: we put that in the,

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): I put that in the wine. Actually,

  Choas: I'm, I'm still slurping. Gra uh, the four of you took a moment to transfer it to a canteen, which is slung across Ted's chest.

  Choas: Oh. All right. And spells. [02:25:00] We got distract confused. I have distract.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): That's me. I can distract and confuse.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): Confusing. Sounds good. And then I can dip the canteen and my booty into the holy water. That's

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): what I was wondering. I think that's the way to go. Mm-hmm.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): Should

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): we just like, fly up and drop 'em right in there?

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): Yes. Fly. Oh yeah.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Drop Raf into the holy water for everyone to drink.

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): They might not drink it if it's too obvious. Just a word of caution. Yeah. I

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): think you have to sneakily put it in. Well, we will. You're gonna distract. Yeah. And then we not toad. Mm-hmm.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): All right. Sounds like a plan. And I'll go, I'll go the other way from the distraction to see if I can get back to the, the wish hunter.

  Choas: So Jerry's distracting. Yep. Mm-hmm. Okay. Jerry, go ahead and roll your. Uh, sly, sly for distract for your distraction attempt. You go around and you're pushing over candles and making general, general disorder. Oh my gosh. I scored a 12. Oh, yay. Fuck yeah. So Jerry starts pushing over candles [02:26:00] and they perfectly land on like curtains and tapestries and start letting lighting the whole hall of fire.

  Choas: Oh, okay. And people go, ah, ah, ah, ah, and people are standing up and rushing to the door, which, which the doors are locked. And the guard outside is going, don't worry. You're safe with, you're safe with Benny in front of the door. Just keep that door shut. Don't worry. I got you. And they're going, lemme help be.

  Choas: Hey. He's like barring them all in. Yeah. He's completely locked the door. Meanwhile, Beath is getting, hitching a ride on Jareth, right? Yeah. So, Jareth, go ahead and roll your slide. I am gonna give you a plus one bonus 'cause everyone is extremely distracted. Oh, 12 necessary. Oh, not necessary at all. Amazing.

  Choas: What, what? These rolls. Okay. So you fly up and you drop gra into the communal wine where he immediately exudes a lot of his liquid. Is the right way to say that? I don't want to be like affectionate. Is that the right way to say it? Do I have to roll for, uh, excrete? Uh, [02:27:00] I'm gonna say no. Okay.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): I go for a little swim, little backstroke and then try to jump out, um, and see if I can make my way towards, uh, my other perch, uh, on top of Ted as quickly as possible.

  Choas: Okay, so that's, you know, real quick. So you swim around, you ex you excrete and now you're jumping out and trying to quickly make your way over to Ted. Uh, Jared, after releasing him, you're flying around way outside Quinn, you're totally safe. You're like hanging out with the birds and you're causing crazy general mayhem.

  Choas: So you're just like added to like these thousands of other birds that are everywhere. Uh, gra that's gonna be a seven. Great role. Seven is plenty. You swim around, you're like making all your excretions come out and you hop out and you run over to Ted who has a additional flask of your juices around his neck.

  Choas: This one

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): does.

  Choas: And then a little bit of time goes by outside is still crazy. The inside the fire's put out and Father Dunning's like, all right, [02:28:00] all right. All right. Hal Rick, the cleanser. All right. Hal Rick, the cleanser who died 500 years ago, must still be given his due justice. Let us pray. And they do a little bit of a, you know, a call and response and then he goes, hall Rick the cleanser.

  Choas: So be his name up in the sky, and then an organ starts. Everyone funnels out into the aisle and makes their way to the front. And each takes a sip of the communal wine along with, I don't know, what do they eat? Like an Oreo. And then they all go back to their benches, a lot of standing rooms, some benches, and then they all, one by one start to scratch a little bit, start to look up into the ceiling, uh, staring a little too hard at the windows here, drink some more.

  Choas: Getting a little bit of dry mouth. Something's kind of wrong. Some, some of them think something's a little wrong, something's a little wrong, and some of them are just laughing and some of them are starting to freak out. Some of them are just laying back and [02:29:00] looking. Most importantly, father dunny at the front, who he does not skimp.

  Choas: When he is taking some sips of his ceremonial wine, he's standing there looking out over the congregation and he says, truly Saint Halbrich, the cleanser is blessing us this night. So be it. The Church of the Silence Grove Civilization will win against the darkness of the fierce, fierce wilderness. We shall push back the darkness in every animal and every piece of wood will burn to the ground in the great cleansing of the sacred flame.

  Choas: Then he sits down and then he is like, my shoes are tied weird, and he starts retiring his boots. What do you guys wanna do?

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): Well, I was making my way like back to the door, like the pathway that I saw in the, in the vision basically. So that's where I'm heading.

  Choas: Okay. So you have bell graft on your back and you make your way to the, the bookcase that you saw in the, the crystal orb.

  Choas: Mm-hmm. You see that there's scuff marks on the floor. You saw in the, the orb how it moves to the side. Yep. I don't have [02:30:00] hands. Mm-hmm. This is gonna be a problem for me.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): I can, I don't have thumbs, but I have paws. We all have paws.

  Choas: You find that the, the bookcase is very easy to move.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): Sweet. Okay.

  Choas: We move the bookcase, you kind of like wiggle your paw back there and then you're able to like wedge your snout back and then you just force your body back and it just keeps opening wider and wider.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): Nice.

  Choas: Alright, so we're in, and now you have a small hallway with a door with a keyhole. So the question, can any of us use a key? Definitely the magpie can.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): Yeah.

  Choas: And

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): definitely the rat can. Yeah. I say Jerry can definitely use the key.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): I'll use the key and then I'll give it to Quinn. 'cause I think before then, I'm not sure what'll do with it.

  Choas: Quiz not here right now.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): Perfect. I use the key,

  Choas: Jerry, you easily scamper up onto Ted's head who gets up and puts his pause on the door. Thanks Ted. And you put the key in and with some difficulty you're able to like wiggle it around and turn it. And then once the door is unlocked, it just simply swings inward.

  Choas: There is a set of stairs that curves downwards in a counterclockwise fashion. [02:31:00] Guttering torches are on the walls.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): I've seen this before. I know what to do, so I lead the way down knowing that we're not gonna have much time before the. Effects

  Choas: wear off. Mm-hmm. Okay. You make your way down and when you reach the bottom of the stairs, when you round that corner, you see the bright blue piercing eyes of the witch hunter staring down the arrow of his crossbow.

  Choas: And he says a fox. And he lets his arrow fly. I,

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): as

  Choas: he

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): does it, I like leap from the stairs trying to like, you know, leap over the path of the arrow essentially. You knew it was coming.

  Choas: Yep. Roll quick with a plus one because you knew it was coming. Ooh. Ooh. Nine. Ooh. Great. Roll. You twist over the arrow in Slowmo.

  Choas: Bullet time doing a full corkscrew landing on the other side. And off of your back launches. Jerry the rat. Straight at this guy's face unintentionally. Jerry, what would you like to do, Jerry? [02:32:00] Finish him.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): I finish him.

  Choas: Get those eyes. Jerry. What does that mean? Yeah, it

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): means I scamper up onto his face and I take my tiny little pause.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): Yeah. Right. I guess. Right, right. And I do, and I do exactly what I showed with the blueberries. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. In the very beginning.

  Choas: Ah, it's all coming back.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): Yeah. And I pull his eyeballs out.

  Choas: Roll fierce. It's all coming back. All coming back to let's my tiny little pause. That's more Celine Dion. It all comes around full circle.

  Choas: I'm so here for this. The girth of Mount Celine Dion. Mount Celine Dion.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): A six.

  Choas: But it's, it's fierce. Do you have any? Well, six makes it. No. So it doesn't even matter if you have anything. Oh, you have a zero fierce. Oh my God,

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): I'm zero fierce.

  Choas: You land on his face and you dig into his eye socket and you just pop out his eye and he goes and he falls backwards.

  Choas: He was grabbing at another crossbow bolt to try to like [02:33:00] shove it into his crossbow. And he is like, ah, this 17-year-old kid is writhing around on the ground and he is reaching for the dagger that's strapped to his, uh, strapped to his thigh. He's looking for the Dirk.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): He has much larger problems. Now

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): I, I run over there and I, I bite his hand while he's trying to grab the dagger.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): Roll fierce.

  Choas: Seven. Seven gets it. You bite his head, he goes, ah, and he releases the Dirk Bell graft. You are on, uh, Ted's back. What would you like to do?

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): Oh, I tried to jump into his mouth and release as much hypno poison as I can.

  Choas: Oh my fucking God. Okay, I'm gonna count that as a climb. So go ahead and real quick.

  Choas: Actually no, I'm gonna do it as a slide 'cause it's, you're trying to hide in his mouth. So roll Aly, and that's gonna be a, oh my God, you guys are rolling. So good. You guys got like no danger points. So you jump and just as he goes, ah, you land in his mouth, he goes, oh, then you exude your psychotropic drug into his.

  Choas: Gums in his mouth and he swallows and he is like, oh, oh, [02:34:00] oh, oh. And he's screaming 'cause he has a fox attached to his hand and a rat is digging out his eye. And that is the scene that Jth swoops down the stairway and finds,

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): oh, we only have one eye.

  Choas: Yes.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Okay, I'm gonna go for the other eye.

  Choas: All business.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Yes.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): This is an

  Choas: owl. An owl of bitterness.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Yes.

  Choas: Oh my God. Uh, eight. Really A nine. 'cause it's fierce. You see what's happening before you and the snowy white owl immediately swoops down and gets covered in the blood of this young boy as you tear at his eye and effortlessly and quite adeptly. Fuck it out. I feel kind of bad.

  Choas: You have both. I know. I have to humanize every enemy. I don't know what's the problem I have And he's, he's rolling around on the ground going, ah, mommy, mommy, is that too far? And there's, oh my god. His eyes are plucked out and he is like reaching for his dagger and he is being like, please, someone help me.

  Choas: I'm just a little baby boy.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): Put it back,

  Choas: man. Give it [02:35:00] back.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): Okay.

  Choas: I'm

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): sad now.

  Choas: Yeah. Give him back his, his eyes. Come on. Give him back his eyes. Come on. No, that's, that's fair. You're taking

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): it home with us. These humans are scary.

  Choas: Do you let him live? No. Hell no. I mean, I'm not there, but I hope not. I, I, I claw his

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): jugular.

  Choas: Yeah, I, I, I sit on his throat, gra sits on his throat and the sheer weight of that starts to strangle him. And then Ted, the fox begins clawing just below gra and the kid's clawing at his neck trying to get the fox off. But he has an owl and a rat clawing at his face. Yeah, it's no good. And somewhere not far away is the haunting call of a magpie as it roosts upon a moose's rack.

  Choas: And it charges, along with its new moose friend and thousands of other avian allies, deep within the heart of the town of piety, leading a battalion crashing through door after door until every home, every [02:36:00] church, every tavern is a blaze.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): This is really gonna make them like witches. I think. I think we really turned a corner with this.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): I hope it makes them learn a lesson.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Yeah. They hate the birds. They fucking hate birds. Birds. Now the forest don't fuck around.

  Game Master (Jeff): That sunset is when the attack started and at sunrise you are standing atop the small rise that you stood on just 24 hours before watching the town of piety burn to the ground.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): Well, that, uh, that escalated pretty quickly, guys.

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): It really did.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Who's hungry? I'm hungry. You Are you all hungry?

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): I'm hungry.

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): Oh, were you gonna go us dinner again? I do love your dinners.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): Let's, let's get Elowyn back and then we can have,

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): yeah, yeah,

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): we can have,

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): that's a good idea.

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): We'll eat with Elowyn

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): Oh, that's wonderful.

  Choas: Fatigue sinking into your bones. You take a short rest before going a five miles back to the cottage of the witch ein. There you conjure a dinner jareth as the [02:37:00] four other creatures ceremonially place the eyes near the body of the witch. You thought you'd be back really quickly, but apparently it's a bit of a taxing process.

  Choas: So you eat dinner, you stay up all night, you ring around her and you tell her stories. You tell her everything that happened that night about cosmic orbs shit in eyes. Scared guards with femurs, poking good times, and jugulars jugulars that look like a slapped ass. By the time the morning comes, she is laughing along with you.

  Choas: The eyes having dissolved into her skin, the life essence of that poor child that killed her, gone revitalizing her soul. And you go back into the cottage where the embers from two days before are still just barely alive and she stokes them back into a fury. She grabs some of the vials from around and she says, I think it's time we brew another potion.

  Choas: Something that makes sure that the town of piety. She doesn't ever come back because this valley [02:38:00] is ours and she hugs you all close. Hell yeah. The end. We got the good,

  Belgarath, the Toad (Doja): we got the bad murder paid off. That's a good, good job

  Choas: everyone. We killed. We got the Chinese. So many people, there was a lot of killing going on.

  Choas: I feel

  Quinn, the Magpie (Brian): like we had to do logs. The subtitle of this, of this, uh, one page is an RPG about murder. So mission. Yeah. There isn't

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): really another way it could have gone. It was always gonna be this way. I'm proud of all of us.

  Choas: Oh my God, that was really fun. Thanks all. Uh, so it was awesome. Impressions on the Witches Dead for in case.

  Choas: Uh, grant Howt listens to this literally is so much fun. It's so much fun. It is so cute. It's cute. I playing as

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): cute. Yeah. I like playing as an animal a lot.

  Choas: I will say you guys all rolled so well that we didn't really get into danger points and I wasn't going to see that happen. Did you guys roll, fail,

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): roll all [02:39:00] night?

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): Geez, I did. I did early on a couple, but yeah. No, it was, this

  Gerri, the Rat (Stephanie): is the problem. I think we all get so exci, we all talk a lot and we get so excited to talk

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): when our, like every one of us had our own thing that we could do and like, I don't know, it was just fun and the, the setting was fun and um, yeah, I think the

  Choas: system worked really well.

  Choas: Yeah, I think it was great. Uh, so anyone that listened to this and is interested in playing, you can go look up Grant, uh, Howett, the Witch is dead. He has a Patreon, he has an HIO. He has his own website. It's donation only if you want to go get it. So give him a couple bucks and try this game out. It's super fun.

  Choas: Thanks for listening everyone, and thanks for hanging out, Rebecca. We really enjoyed having you. Yeah,

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): it was great to have

  Choas: you, Rebecca. Yeah,

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): this was so much fun. Oh,

  Choas: please, that was great.

  Jareth, the Owl (Rebecca): Oh, thanks. Happy. I appreciate it. I hope I get to come back sometime soon.

  Choas: That'd be awesome. Okay, everyone, that was another thrilling adventure from the Dark Star Adventure cast.

  Choas: Love you all and bye for now. Bye

  Ted, the Fox (Scott): everybody.

  Choas: Bye [02:40:00] bye.