Timothy (Witchy Narrator)
[in a crone voice] Beware, ye wary souls! for you have entered the Witch Woods, home to a morbid, morose, and utterly peculiar coven of witches. As the light of the moon touches these lands, they gather once again as a ghoulish cabal to scheme up a kooky, spooky plan. 

Timothy (DM)
Hello, listener, and Happy Hallows' Eve. My name is Timothy (pronouns he/they), and I am the Dungeon Master and curator of festivities. Welcome! With me today, we have...

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
I am Dan (pronouns he/him), and I am playing the "always twinning" Helga Heidenfel.

Chris (Rubella)
Hi there! I'm Chris (he/him) and I'll be playing "Rubble, rubble, soil and shovel" grandmother graverobber Rubella Kruitwagen.

Ellie (Hors)
[laughs] Yesssss.

Kendrick (Mallek)
Well, to follow that one up. [Kendrick and Ellie laugh] Hi, my name is Kendrick, and I'm playing the aarakocra who puts the ill in eye of newt, Mallek. [all laugh]

Ellie (Hors)
I'm Ellie, I use she/her pronouns and I'm gonna play [scratchy voice] "If you can't beat him, eat 'em" Hors D'oeuvre, [Tim cackles] who also uses she/her pronouns. 

Chris (Rubella)
Oh, I love it.

Jen (Flannery)
I'm Jen, my pronouns are she/her. Today I'm playing Flannery O'Neal (also she/her), and "If you can't say anything kind, say nothing at all."

Timothy (Witchy Narrator)
[in a crone voice] And so it begins. In three days time, the planets will align ever so nicely, offering the perfect opportunity for an especially powerful night of casting. As our five witches convene around the cauldron, one steps forward to address the coven.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
[in a loud warbly voice] Hello, everyone. My name is Helga Heidenfel (if you did not already know) and [*clears throat*] here's my pitch for what spell we should cast on the alignment of the planets! Picture it: twenty years ago in a darkened moon when the sun and stars aligned, me and my twin sister Hilda were born. Because of the circumstances of our birth, we are connected in mind and powers. She unfor-- well, someone ask me where my sister is...

Chris (Rubella)
[with Mallek and Hors] Where's your sister?

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
SHE'S DEAD! [all laugh] SHE DIED! And when she died, I inhabited this grotesque old form... and I want her back. [folds arms] That's my spell: bring her back.

Chris (Rubella)
So, you're only 20 years old?

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Yes! [Jen giggles]

Ellie (Hors)
You just look old? 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Yes! Because we're connected, the theory is-is that because she's dead, I'm old.

Ellie (Hors)
So, you're like halfway dead. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Half dead. Yeah, in a... in a sense. 

Jen (Flannery)
Well, you LOOK half dead.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
"Well, how dare you? I am young and perky." and you notice that she does look like a haggard old woman, but she's wearing this, like, almost, like, tavern wench dress that shows, like, a LOT of boob. [all laugh] A lot of cleavage-- 

Kendrick (Mallek)
They must be down to the floor.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Like shoul-- like shoulders are out, like one leg is, like, sticking out from underneath her dress. She's, like, pointed it out, like...

Kendrick (Mallek)
Jinx Matsu, but with lower titties. Ok, got it. [Editor's Note: I don't think I'm weeb enough to understand this reference. Jinx from League of Legends or from Pokemon]

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, tits are, like, at her belly.

Kendrick (Mallek)
Pendulums.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
[meekly] And so we should bring my sister back. That's all. [looks at Rubella] Next!

Ellie (Hors)
Good pitch. Next!

Chris (Rubella)
Interesting pitch. Hello, I'm Rubella Kruitwagen, and my pitch for this is that: wouldn't you love not to have to travel everywhere manually with your feet and legs and associated other parts? 

Ellie (Hors)
[with Flannery] Yes.

Kendrick (Mallek)
I have wings. 

Chris (Rubella)
That's a very great gift that you have, but most of us have to do it by just walking places, so my pitch is that typically when you need to use Teleport, you have to use a 7th level spell level, but I am proposing that we create a Object of Teleportation so that we don't have to cast it every time.

Ellie (Hors)
AH! Practical, widely applicable.

Chris (Rubella)
So if you want to go to the Realm of Fire, you just put the helmet on, and you go there, so you don't have to make yourself tired.

Timothy (DM)
What does Rubella look like? 

Chris (Rubella)
So, Rubella: she's much older looking than probably Helga, but she's wearing like six or seven different old gross dresses that are caked with dirt. She has this green cloak on top of it, and she's wearing a skull of a horse as a hat, but yeah, she just looks like covered with dirt, her face is pockmarked and creasy, and she's got a dirty gold dress on. Very scrummy, yeah. [Editor's Note: Chris thought he made a turn of phrase with scrappy and scummy, but this happens to also be British slang for scrumptious, so unintentionally paradoxical.]

Kendrick (Mallek)
So, hear me out. That's a good plan. I have wings, so that's very impractial for me. Plus, I don't want to go to a place of fire because [gestures to self] aarakocra. 

Chris (Rubella)
[stammering] It could be anywhere! You could go to the Land of Water or Disneyworld... 

Kendrick (Mallek)
But you sold it with fire, so, uhhh, with that I'm out. So, here's my pitch, picture it: I really want to say 'Sicily 1920' [all laugh] but that's not a part of this world. [Editor's Note: This is a Golden Girls reference] As you know, aarakocras have a very short lifespan of 30 years to be precise. I am now 25, and I would really like to live as long as you guys probably not look as "great" as you guys, but [Rubella: "Rude."] I want to... I want to live longer. I want to learn more what the world has in store for us. So, I am suggesting that we have a spell that gives us life: not immortality, but enough life to kind of get what we want from life, whether that's pain, pleasure, whatever we want. That is my plan, and I think that's beneficial to all of us: not finding a sister or teleportation to a world of fire.

Chris (Rubella)
It doesn't have to be fire, I want to make that VERY clear. It can be ANYWHERE in the world. 

Ellie (Hors)
You gotta work on the pitch, Rubella. 

Chris (Rubella)
Anywhere... hey, I-I... sorry, I don't communicate with a lotta people. I-I'm mostly a loner, so...

Kendrick (Mallek)
That's okay.

Jen (Flannery)
[in a creaky voice] I can see whyyyyy.

Chris (Rubella)
Nobody asked you!

Ellie (Hors)
Flannery! 

Jen (Flannery)
What? Everyone's thinking it. [all laugh]

Kendrick (Mallek)
So, Mallek, as you... I already mentioned is a 25 year old aarakocra, 6' tall, 200 pounds. Even though he is pretty old for his race, he still looks very young and nice. His feathers are golden brown that kind of build up into a mohawk on the top of his head. Also, I forgotten in the beginning, pronouns are he/they, but any pronouns as long as you use it out of respect. So, what he wears is a turqoise tunic that is very... that is very dirty, but it looks intentional. It looks like he's done it on purpose, and he wears a pendant for whenever he is in battle: it protects him as a shield.

Jen (Flannery)
Stylish. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
[nuzzling Mallek's chin] Aren't you a handsome bird? Ohhhh.

Ellie (Hors)
Very stylish. Who's a pretty bird? [all laugh]

Chris (Rubella)
You are!

Kendrick (Mallek)
[cooly] "Ka-kaw." So that's Mallek.

Ellie (Hors)
All right. Hors D'oeuvre looks up from where she was crouching on the floor eating crackers. She has the appearance of a slightly-past-her-prime Charlie's Angel who nonetheless clings to her fading good looks, so she's got, like, the big voluminous hair. The effect, however, is somewhat hampered by her talon-like nails and teeth that are filed to sharp points. She compulsively licks and nibbles at her lips, so her mouth is all chapped and bloody. She looks up and says, "My pitch, team, is straightforward and to the point: I think we should find the biggest, most insane animal out there that we can lay our hands on, and we should ritually slaughter it and eat it and see what happens! That's all! I bet it would be REALLY cool. Don't you want to find out? Doesn't that pique your natural curiosity?"

Chris (Rubella)
In terms of biggest, do you mean like a bull or like something with particular characteristics? 

Ellie (Hors)
Whatever we can find that seems like the coolest. I heard there's, like, a lion that can shoot lightning out of its mouth. I would definitely like to try that. I would love to kill, like, a big big big bird. [Mallek turns his head] Not... sorry! [all laugh]

Kendrick (Mallek)
[in disbelief] Wow-wow-wow.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
I've met a big bird before!

Ellie (Hors)
Or, like, maybe some kind of a princess, y'know, like, whatever the coolest... you know, I'm an opportunist. [Jen laughs] That's my pitch. I'm not committed one way or another. I'm just saying whatever's out there that's the coolest, I think we should eat it.

Jen (Flannery)
[stares at Hors d'Oeuvre, coldly] I think you're terrifying. [all laugh]

Ellie (Hors)
Thanks, Flannery. You know how to make a girl feel special. 

Jen (Flannery)
Flannery O'Neal waddles up to the cauldron and looks at everyone and says, "I think all your ideas are shit." [Ellie laughs] She is a little rotund old woman with a little knitting kit, and she has tiny spectacles and a little kerchief on her head, and she says, "I think that we should make being young illegal. [Chris and Ellie laugh] I think that young people are rude, and get to have way too much fun, and I don't think it's fair to the rest of us. So, the spell that I propose is to curse all the young people to age so that everyone is old."

Ellie (Hors)
That's so spiteful. I love it!

Chris (Rubella)
How does that... so whenever people have babies, do they come out as old people? 

Jen (Flannery)
Wrinkly. 

Chris (Rubella)
Wrinkly babies, and they just stay old and wrinkly?

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
[a la Foghorn Leghorn] "That's not terribly fair." What-what accent was that?!? 

Jen (Flannery)
[imitating Dan] "That's not terribly fair!"

Chris (Rubella)
"I do declare!" 

Jen (Flannery)
Oh, I do declare!"

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Well, that's not fair! As a young person, I feel like that I don't want to be old.

Jen (Flannery)
But, you... listen, you already look like shit, so, like, nothing will change.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
But if we bring back my sister, then everything will be fine. I will be young and tall and BEAUTIFUL again! 

Jen (Flannery)
[out of the side of her mouth] I doubt it. 

Ellie (Hors)
But what's the benefit to bringing back YOUR sister for US? [Flannery: "Yeah!"] I don't care about your sister... unless I can... does she have a powerful heart that I can eat? [Chris laughs]

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
We are powerful together! [groking Hors D'oeuvre's morbid request] Maybe when we're dead... you can have our hearts... How 'bout that? 

Kendrick (Mallek)
Uh-uh-uh. Listen listen listen. 

Jen (Flannery)
I don't want it. 

Kendrick (Mallek)
I feel like your spell is similar to mine, but it's internal.

Chris (Rubella)
They're opposites.

Kendrick (Mallek)
It's like like... 

Jen (Flannery)
Mine's a little better though, is the thing.

Kendrick (Mallek)
I stand corrected.

Jen (Flannery)
"I think yours is pretty good, but... y'know." and Flannery waddles away, off away from the cauldron, backwards into the crowd.

Kendrick (Mallek)
Alright, good conversation. That was a really good conversation [Jen: "Great great conversation."] Um...I want to say that we should ix-nay the teleportation and the sister immediately because that doesn't feel like it makes sense. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
That seems unfair. 

Chris (Rubella)
It can benefit us all!

Ellie (Hors)
I... now I like the teleportation idea: that seems to have practical applications to us as a community-- 

Jen (Flannery)
And as elderly people.

Chris (Rubella)
Yeah, getting around is not as easy... [to Mallek] You look like a young spring chicken, but none of us can just move like that. 

Jen (Flannery)
Yeah, I have tiny legs.

Kendrick (Mallek)
It's not my fault, though.

Ellie (Hors)
I think sister is off the table for sure though. No-- 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
WHAT?!?

Ellie (Hors)
Does anybody care about her sister?

Jen (Flannery)
[directly to Helga's face] I don't give a shit about your sister. 

Ellie (Hors)
I don't care about her sister.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Me and my sister could uhhhhh... We could do "great" things for this coven together!

Jen (Flannery)
I met your sister once; she was horrible.

Ellie (Hors)
We really only have five seats around the table and a sixth is gonna make things start feeling crowded.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Oh, I mean, my sister is terrible as well, but we share our mind, so if we're on the same plane, we would be like one.

Chris (Rubella)
One mind and two mouths: that sounds like a recipe for disaster. [Jen and Ellie cackle]

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
[grasping for arguments] Uh....

Ellie (Hors)
I'm with Rubella!

Jen (Flannery)
Yeah, Rubella says--

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
[panickedly] She comes with a dog!

Chris (Rubella)
[with Hors d'Oeuvre] A dog. Ohhhhh.

Jen (Flannery)
I hate. I hate dogs. They're smelly.

Chris (Rubella)
What are the characteristics of-- 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
It's a Corgi. 

Chris (Rubella)
Oh! [to Hors D'oeuvre] Can you eat that?

Ellie (Hors)
Can I eat it?

Timothy (DM)
And at this moment, the ground begins to rumble outside your cottage.

Jen (Flannery)
[to herself] Oh, not again.

Timothy (DM)
Everything inside the cottage begins to shake and rattle. The clinking of glass; things start to fall off shelves and smash to the floor.

Jen (Flannery)
[snidely] I never liked that vase anyway.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Oh dear!

Ellie (Hors)
I'll take a look out the window.

Kendrick (Mallek)
 [Kendrick dies laughing] OMG, so Mallek sees that their shaman book is falling and jumps to grab it. "Oh, that was a close one."

Timothy (DM)
So, Hors D'oeuvre, you look out the window, and you see mud beginning to emerge from the mud outside your hut.

Chris (Rubella)
Mud?

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Mud is rising from mud?

Timothy (DM)
Yes. 

Ellie (Hors)
[whispers to self] I'm gonna eat that. 

Timothy (DM)
You may have forgotten but about a year ago, the five of you cast a particularly powerful spell and made a mud golem. They have not appeared until now.

Ellie (Hors)
Oh! 

Kendrick (Mallek)
I completely forgot about that. 

Ellie (Hors)
My god, better late than never.

Chris (Rubella)
Who's idea was that again? 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Oh that was mine!

Jen (Flannery)
[out of the side of her mouth] It's about time. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
It's Francis the mud golem! [Jen cackles] 

Ellie (Hors)
Oh my god. Well, we don't need your sister now! You've got Francis the mud golem.

Jen (Flannery)
Yeah, we've already have a sixth, and six is a crowd honestly. 

Ellie (Hors)
It's getting crowded in here.

Chris (Rubella)
And he's going to track in dirt. 

Jen (Flannery)
[Francis squelches] Oh, well. That's just horrible. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
"I hate it. Now, Francis!" 

Ellie (Hors)
Don't answer the door. Don't open the door.

Jen (Flannery)
Francis, go back into the dirt, please. 

Timothy (Francis the Mud Golem)
MoTheRssss...

Ellie (Hors)
No, no. No no. I'm too old, too old to be a mother.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
I'm nobody's mother.

Timothy (Francis the Mud Golem)
DoN't BiCkEr, MoThErSssss...

Ellie (Hors)
Oh, god, Oh, Francis. 

Timothy (Francis the Mud Golem)
I CaN't sTaNd To HeAr YoU bIcKeR. 

Jen (Flannery)
I can't stand to hear you at all.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
[clears throat] I disspell you, Francis! Back to the mud with you!

Timothy (DM)
[laughing] And this mud creature emerges, and its body starts to form: an arm, another arm, [Flannery: "Oh god!"] two legs, and a head, all dripping and sloughing off with mud.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
[snapping fingers in disappointment] Oh damn, I thought that might work. 

Ellie (Hors)
Oh, upsetting. 

Chris (Rubella)
A face that only a mother could love.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
[mildly] Oh, aren't you handsome?

Timothy (Francis the Mud Golem)
I aM aS yOu MaDe Me, MoTheRs-- 

Jen (Flannery)
Don't lie to him.

Timothy (Francis the Mud Golem)
ArEn'T i PrEtTyyyy?

Jen (Flannery)
No! 

Chris (Rubella)
Not particularly.

Ellie (Hors)
But that wasn't what we had in mind when we sculpted you out of the clay using our lifeblood. So, don't worry about it. You're intelligent. And well-spoken-- 

Jen (Flannery)
Well, we don't know that either. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Please go back... Back to sleep with you, Francis. [Ellie and Jen laugh]

Jen (Flannery)
Francis, what's-what's up? Why are you appearing now?

Timothy (Francis the Mud Golem)
I cAn'T hEaR.  I cAn'T sLeEp WiTh aLl oF tHe BiCkErInG.

Kendrick (Mallek)
We kind of bicker a lot. This is normal, so... 

Ellie (Hors)
We've been bickering for five years straight, Francis.

Jen (Flannery)
That's our whole... that's our whole thing, Francis.

Chris (Rubella)
We have no other hobbies. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
We're powered by the argument.

Timothy (Francis the Mud Golem)
BuT I aM hErE tO sErVe YoU sHoUld yOu NeEd AnYtHiNg... 

Kendrick (Mallek)
Now that's great to hear. Now go back in the mud and we'll ask you later.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Oh, I got a... Francis! I have a quest for you: walk north until you see the ocean and then continue walking!

Timothy (Francis the Mud Golem)
[glumly] "As YoU wIsH mOtHer!" [Hors D'oeuvre: "Are you sure?"] and they begin to trudge north. 

Jen (Flannery)
Oh, well, they seem very polite.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Wuh-wuh-wait. Stop at the ocean!

Timothy (DM)
Their head hung low in sadness.

Ellie (Hors)
Oh, that was very cruel of you to say to Francis. 

Timothy (DM)
--and they begin to trudge out of the muck and into the woods.

Chris (Rubella)
What a waste.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
The ocean isn't that far; we'll go get him when this is over.

Kendrick (Mallek)
You did tell him to walk into the ocean, so that's nice.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Francis! Stop right there. Wait! 

Timothy (Francis the Mud Golem)
YeS, mOtHeR?

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Now wait there. 

Jen (Flannery)
Your mothers are talking. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
We need a private conversation. 

Jen (Flannery)
Yes, that's all... [aside] That's not all. We want you to leave but...

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Okay, now that we have some quiet again.

Ellie (Hors)
Okay. What are we gonna do about... mabye we could send him to fetch the ingredients for our spell-- my spell? Maybe we can send him to go kill the most fucked up animal in this forest!

Jen (Flannery)
You're the most fucked up animal in this forest, Hors D'oeuvre.

Ellie (Hors)
Maybe we can send him to kill the SECOND most fucked up animal in this forest. Oh, that would be you, Flannery!  

Kendrick (Mallek)
Hey, hey, hey, hey!

Jen (Flannery)
You're right!

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
I think it'll have to be the SIXTH most fucked up animal in this forest.

Jen (Flannery)
You're right, we're all fucked up.

Ellie (Hors)
No, the sixth most fucked up animal in this forest is Francis!

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
The SEVENTH most fucked up animal in this forest!

Jen (Flannery)
Listen, you guys know that a wizard cursed me and I can't lie. I HATE him, and I don't want him around.

Chris (Rubella)
Why did you agree to the spell last year then?

Jen (Flannery)
[to Helga] I felt BAD about your sister. I felt, you know-- 

Ellie (Hors)
[helping Flannery] She was sobbing at the time.

Jen (Flannery)
--kinda made us feel all... yes, you were crying; it made me feel bad.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
But that's fair. It happened like five years ago, so...

Jen (Flannery)
I know, but you were, like, talking about it, and you got emotional. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Was it the anniversary? 

Jen (Flannery)
[Helga wails] Yes. Yes it was. And you wanted-- [a chorus of cacophanous wails from the group]

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Are you compulsed? We will bring her back?

Kendrick (Mallek)
[with the group] No, we won't. No, nah.

Chris (Rubella)
It's four against one, and Francis doesn't count. [Hors D'oeuvre: "Yeah."]

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
[to herself] Francis would agree with me.

Kendrick (Mallek)
Francis is in the forest right now. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Francis would like a sister.

Chris (Rubella)
Francis doesn't have a mind.

Jen (Flannery)
Francis is barely sentient.

Chris (Rubella)
Agreed, Flannery. [gives her a high-five]

Timothy (DM)
It's the truth.

Jen (Flannery)
Flannery only speaks the truth.

Ellie (Hors)
So, we've got one... one down, now it's four.

Chris (Rubella)
[pointing to Mallek and Flannery] So, I feel like two of yours could be combined... or no! Yours is just to live longer, and yours to make EVERYBODY old. 

Jen (Flannery)
Yes.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
What if we made everybody young? 

Jen (Flannery)
No, I hate young people.

Chris (Rubella)
Why if we just leave you alone?

Jen (Flannery)
[processing the offer] ...but what about everyone else and their actions that don't affect me, but I hate them anyway, because they play loud music and they're rude?

Chris (Rubella)
Maybe you could live in a deserted island just by yourself, and that could theoretically mean that everybody that you know is old.

Jen (Flannery)
[looking Rubella dead in the eye] Listen, Rubella. I wish I fucking could, let me tell you. [all laugh] I'm so sick of it here. We all share one room. It's very crowded.

Chris (Rubella)
Wouldn't you love to get away with a teleportation spell perhaps?

Jen (Flannery)
[rubbing her chin] That does sound pretty good, honestly. The teleportation spell.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Can it take me to Shadowfell?

Chris (Rubella)
Oh definitely. I've been there several times!

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
OOOH! I can visit my sister!

Jen (Flannery)
I'm not... wait, isn't your sister DEAD?!? 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Yes! She's in Shadowfell, where the dead people go. That's what I've been told.

Jen (Flannery)
Oh, ok. Oh, right. Of course.

Chris (Rubella)
Yes. With this, you can teleport ANYWHERE, and I've been there. Shadowfell is a lovely place this time of year.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Have you seen my sister? 

Ellie (Hors)
No, no, you know, I know how to rejoin you with your sister. [licks lips]

Jen (Flannery)
OH! WE COULD KILL HER! 

Ellie (Hors)
[fists in the air] We could KILL her! And eat her heart for our own!

Chris (Rubella)
But we don't... we don't know where she is though.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
You make a good point.

Jen (Flannery)
I've wanted to do that for years. [Hors D'oeuvre makes a lipsmacking noise] Not that eating part; that's weird.

Ellie (Hors)
Hors D'oeuvre licks her lips and looks directly at you.

Jen (Flannery)
Harrowing!

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Helga makes eye contact and doesn't blink. Helga also HASN'T blinked since we've started.

Jen (Flannery)
You're really freaky, Helga. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
[unblinkingly] Thank you.

Ellie (Hors)
I would do anything to close those eyes. [all laugh] I'd-I'd like to change my proposal: I'd like to cast a spell that makes Helga's eyes close again.

Chris (Rubella)
I have this bandana here. Maybe that could do something.

Ellie (Hors)
Okay. Well, eternal life also sounds pretty good. I don't know if I'm on board with making everybody old. 

Jen (Flannery)
I don't want to live forever. I want to die. 

Ellie (Hors)
I'll kill you and your heart right now. 

Jen (Flannery)
That doesn't sound so bad honestly.

Ellie (Hors)
Come here; fall on my knife.

Chris (Rubella)
Honestly, dying is not so bad.

Jen (Flannery)
Oh, Rubella, tell us the story again about the time you died. The interesting one, not the boring one.

Chris (Rubella)
Yes, I will. So, here I was in the depths of the jungle, robbing a grave. It was very hot, very sweaty--

Ellie (Hors)
Oh, classic Rubella.

Jen (Flannery)
Very stinky too, no doubt.

Chris (Rubella)
Hey, nobody asked you! But I was bitten by this bug, and I just collapsed into this grave, and I woke up in Shadowfell. And, uh, it was lovely, lots of flowers everywhere (Dead flowers, be it) But yeah, it's... I mean, you get to go in and out. You make deals with demons and devils and all these sorts of evil things. So I mean, you get to come back.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
[cuttingly] That's the interesting one?

Jen (Flannery)
That's awfully boring. 

Chris (Rubella)
I DID FIND A--

Ellie (Markie)
I thought there was one that involved a sword fight.

Jen (Flannery)
Me too! I remember. Did you LIE Rubella?

Chris (Rubella)
That was the one on a Greek isle. [Hors D'oeuvre and Flannery: "Ohhhh"] There were these undead skeletons that had swords on them. I, uh, well, I fought them, I beat them. I, uh, made some jewelry out of their bones and... 

Ellie (Hors)
Classic Rubella.

Jen (Flannery)
[narrows eyes] I think you're lying.

Chris (Rubella)
You never go anywhere. You're a homebody!

Jen (Flannery)
You're right.

Chris (Rubella)
Wouldn't you love to get out and see something?

Jen (Flannery)
Absolutely not.

Kendrick (Mallek)
Alright, ladies, ladies, ladies. We have to choose a spell. The more we bicker, the more the planets are gonna go by and then we're all fucked. [Rubella: "True."].

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
I have an idea!

Ellie (Markie)
Is it getting your sister back, Helga? Because we already vetoed that one.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Never mind, I don't have an idea.

Kendrick (Mallek)
Great. So it seems like everyone's on my plan. So let's do that.

Chris (Rubella)
I think we should vote, though.

Jen (Flannery)
I think we should vote because [out of the side of her mouth] democracies always work. [normally] Just kidding; they don't. Sorry, I almost dipped into sarcasm, which I cannot do! 

Ellie (Hors)
Which is basically a lie! 

Jen (Flannery)
It's basically a lie. Can't do that! [all laugh]

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
All right. I guess I will vote first. I vote for... if not my own since that will clearly lose, I will vote for teleportation, so I could visit my sister in Shadowfell. 

Jen (Flannery)
That's fair.

Chris (Rubella)
Rubella will vote for teleportation since it was her idea to begin with.

Kendrick (Mallek)
Mallek will vote for teleportat-- not teleportation! I... just kidding!

Jen (Flannery)
Too late! You said it.

Kendrick (Mallek)
No I didn't. No I didn't. I take it back. Don't make me hit you with my quarterstaff!

Chris (Rubella)
Oh, I've got one too.

Ellie (Hors)
Violence, sisters, violence.

Kendrick (Mallek)
So, I'm gonna choose mine for eternal life. Thank you. 

Jen (Flannery)
What if you can't vote for your own?

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Well, Rubella would need to rescind her vote as well.

Jen (Flannery)
Rubella, vote for one that isn't yours.

Chris (Rubella)
Can we have ranked choice voting then? [Flannery: "Sure.", moaning from group] 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Now I have to describe how many! How many ranks? 

Ellie (Hors)
Everybody get a piece of paper. 

Jen (Flannery)
What if we... okay, fine. What if we just vote for not our own?

Chris (Rubella)
Then I will vote for eating the creature.

Ellie (Hors)
[gleeful] "AAAAHH!!!" Hors D'oeuvre looks up from her spot on the floor, like, genuinely shocked. [Jen laughs]

Kendrick (Mallek)
Mallek sighs "If I can't vote for my own, then I will vote for teleportation."

Jen (Flannery)
WHAT?!? Really? Damnit.

Chris (Rubella)
Love it!

Ellie (Hors)
I also vote for teleportation because I'm a follower.

Jen (Flannery)
All right, fine. These old legs would like the teleport-- old short legs might I add. [spitefully] I will also vote for teleportation.

Ellie (Hors)
Teleportation wins!

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
 We will teleport.

Chris (Rubella)
A giant cloud of, uh... what's a smell? A giant cloud of chocolate emits throughout the cottage as Rubella looks very happy. 

Jen (Flannery)
Oh, chocolate. I always HATED it.

Timothy (DM)
It replaces the smell of onions [Hors D'oeuvre: "And FEET!", all laugh] that was previously--

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Oh, and death because Helga smells like death. [Flannery: "Oh, yes."] because she is HALF-dead as we have established.  

Jen (Flannery)
Oh, yes, that makes sense. 

Ellie (Hors)
And Rubella probably kind of smells like death most of the time a little bit too.

Chris (Rubella)
Yeah, I complete the other half of that death smell.

Timothy (DM)
So as your decision was made, the spellbook [Hors D'oeuvre: "Teleportation."] from the shelf begins to float over to the podium in the center of the cottage. The pages begin to flip as a gust of wind blows through in a whirlwind around the cottage, and it lands on a page for a teleportation spell.

Jen (Flannery)
Well, that's convenient.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Someone else will need to do this. I can't read.

Jen (Flannery)
Of course you can't. [*heh-heh-heh*]

Chris (Rubella)
Your eyes are all...

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
My sister learned, and since we're separated, we... I don't have that one anymore. We split our time as young people learning different things, so that we would all know them. 

Chris (Rubella)
So what do you know? 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
I can knit.

Jen (Flannery)
Ohhh. I like that. That's the one thing I like about you. [Ellie laughs]

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Oh, well, you're welcome.

Ellie (Hors)
Why would we want to bring her sister back if her sister can't knit? That's my question to you, Flannery.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Well, she can knit! If we're on the same plane, she can ALSO knit!

Jen (Flannery)
Wait, whaaaat?!?

Ellie (Hors)
No! Don't talk about it anymore. Nobody wants to hear about your sister anymore! We all get the concept, Helga. No, it's okay. I'm sorry. You could... I know it's traumatic for you.

Jen (Flannery)
We've all been through trauma. Who cares???

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Yes, I was there when she died. She was struck by lightning.

Kendrick (Mallek)
Kinda sounds like fun.

Chris (Rubella)
Very, very frightening.

Ellie (Hors)
Did you study the part that lets you not be struck by lightning?

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
No, she was holding a metal rod in the.. in a storm and it's all her... it's her fault to be fair.

Kendrick (Mallek)
So, why would we want to bring her back to life? Sorry, I'm getting ahead... we're not choosing it. We're not choosing it. We're not choosing it. We're choosing--

Chris (Rubella)
Because she can read! She's a speed reader.

Jen (Flannery)
[laughing] Because she can read!

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
I don't really like her. But it is... I would like to read again. 

Jen (Flannery)
It sounds like she might be the smarter one. No offense.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
No, it's fair.

Ellie (Hors)
'Cause she killed herself to get away from you. [Jen cackles]

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
I studied the arts. She studied the academics.

Jen (Flannery)
Oh, that makes a LOT of sense.

Chris (Rubella)
Now that you say that, yes. 

Ellie (Hors)
Anyway, it's a moot point since we're not bring her back.

Jen (Flannery)
So, what does the book say, someone who can read? My eyes are bad These glasses are just for show.

Ellie (Hors)
Well, it's your spell, Rubella, why don't you read it? 

Chris (Rubella)
Oh, yes, this... this old book. Let me see.

Ellie (Hors)
Take a little peek. A little peek-peek in there. Take a little gander.

Kendrick (Mallek)
And as you're beginning to look through the pages, you can see Mallek's demeanor has become very sad because with the loss of his vote, that means he will not be living forever.

Jen (Flannery)
Sweetie, it's not that great, let me tell you. I'm 103 years old and I was... really really wish that the fever had taken me back in 1902, let me tell you.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Oh, and when you die, you will be able to visit my sister Hilda! 

Kendrick (Mallek)
Your sister sounds terrible.

Jen (Flannery)
She can read though!

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
She can!

Kendrick (Mallek)
She sounds even worse. 

Chris (Rubella)
Mallek, have you thought about changing your diet? Usually if you eat nuts and other fatty foods, it makes you live longer.

Ellie (Hors)
That's true. You know what lives forever? A rock. 

Chris (Rubella)
Have you eaten rocks before?

Kendrick (Mallek)
I have not eaten rocks, you dumb bitches.

Chris (Rubella)
Maybe you should try.

Ellie (Hors)
I'm just saying; I'm still kicking. 

Jen (Flannery)
Barely. 

Ellie (Hors)
I'm only 42! And I attribute my stunning good looks and vivacious personality to my steady diet of granite. 

Timothy (DM)
Oh gosh.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Oh lord.

Kendrick (Mallek)
Mallek just walks... walks to the side. 

Chris (Rubella)
Wait, Mallek, you have to hear the spell first. [Mallek groans]

Timothy (DM)
Yes, so as Rubella starts reviewing the ingredients, there are a lot. This is a very complicated spell, but on the plus side, most of which are already in the hut.

Chris (Rubella)
Good thing we're hoarders.

Jen (Flannery)
[in chorus with the group] Convenient.  Oh yes. I always say that.

Timothy (DM)
However, there are three ingredients in which you are currently out of. The first one:

Chris (Rubella)
So, we're missing the hair of a doll loved by the heart of a child. 

Jen (Flannery)
Ew, children.

Chris (Rubella)
My point exactly. The second is the blood of a goat as black as night.

Ellie (Hors)
Yeah. I drank that last week. I was feeling peckish.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
You drank our goat's blood!

Jen (Flannery)
You always do this, Hors D'oeuvre. 

Ellie (Hors)
Sorry. I had a little hankering.

Jen (Flannery)
You need to stop eating the ingredients.

Chris (Rubella)
What did you think that was gonna give you anyway?

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
That's why I have two sides of the pantry: one for ingredients; one for your snacks.

Ellie (Hors)
[to Rubella] Don't you remember how good I headbutted you that day? 

Chris (Rubella)
I... oh, yeah, my head is still a little bit woozy from that.

Jen (Flannery)
Your head is very hard.

Ellie (Hors)
'Cause IIIIII ate the goat blood. And youuuu didn't!

Chris (Rubella)
And the third is a magic mushroom. Pretty straightforward. Those are the three that we're missing.

Ellie (Hors)
Well, shall we send Frances to gather them?

Chris (Rubella)
"Is he still here?" I look out the window.

Ellie (Hors)
I believe he stopped about 20 feet into the woods.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Which one should we send him for? Which is the easiest? Probably the mushroom, right? [Rubella: "Maybe."] Would be in the Mushroom Forest, maybe, perchance?

Jen (Flannery)
I think it'd be funny if we sent him to do the child one and terrify a child.

Ellie (Hors)
[laughs] That would be hilarious.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
But wouldn't you rather terrify the child yourself and see her face... his or her face... their face? 

Jen (Flannery)
You're right.

Chris (Rubella)
You could probably hurt their self esteem because you're so honest.

Jen (Flannery)
You're right, and I would love to do that. 

Ellie (Hors)
And I would like to get the goat blood personally. [*heh-heh-heh*]

Kendrick (Mallek)
All right, so that's... that's kind of settled, so maybe the magic mushroom they can go get.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
All right, on it. Which direction is the forest again?

Kendrick (Mallek)
Question: Why does.. [forgetting Helga's name; Helga: "Yesss??"]

Ellie (Hors)
Helga?

Kendrick (Mallek)
[in a Southern accent] Sorry. I'm getting old. In my old age, I forget names (and I apparently became Southern [all laugh]) in my old age... Why does Helga get to control Francis?

Ellie (Hors)
Because he's disgusting and so is she. 

Jen (Flannery)
[laughs] Hey! That's my line. 

Ellie (Hors)
I'm sorry; you're rubbing off on me, Flannery.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
I named him! I named him.

Kendrick (Mallek)
You know what? I actually believe that hideous part, so go on. [Flannery: "Same."]

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
That's fair. I'm a beautiful young woman.

Jen (Flannery)
[bites her tonuge] Okay, whatever you say... sorry, I can't say that. No, you're not!

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
[out the window] Francis! Francis, darling! Go collect a magic mushroom, please. 

Timothy (Francis the Mud Golem)
As YoU wIsH mOtHeR. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Ohhhh, it's soooo terrible.

Jen (Flannery)
Horrible. I regret--

Ellie (Hors)
Awful.

Kendrick (Mallek)
Sounds like Helga.

Timothy (DM)
You hear a shuffling in the woods, some cracking of twigs, the dead dry leaves on the ground being tromped by their muddy figure as they stop going north, and they begin heading southwest towards Moonbeam Pond. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Make sure to go around the pond; you'll just dissolve in the water.

Kendrick (Mallek)
Maybe you should've asked them to get some food too. We don't really have much food in the house.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Oh yes. If you see, like, a rabbit along the way, kill it and bring it to us.

Kendrick (Mallek)
There's five of us. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Five rabbits please!

Timothy (Francis the Mud Golem)
As YoU wIsH, mOtHeR...

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
[in existential dread] Why did I ask it...?

Jen (Flannery)
So, when do we go get the child's tears or whatever?

Kendrick (Mallek)
Do you want to get that first?

Jen (Flannery)
Yes. What was it again?

Chris (Rubella)
It's the hair of a doll loved by the heart of a child.

Jen (Flannery)
I like child's tears better. Can we do that instead?

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Well, what time is it? 

Ellie (Hors)
I mean, we can ALWAYS use child's tear. 

Jen (Flannery)
You're right; I'll just add those to the shelf. NOT the eating shelf, Hors D'oeuvre.

Ellie (Hors)
[*slurp*]

Kendrick (Mallek)
I mean, child's tears have salt, so it's a nice flavoring.

Jen (Flannery)
That's fair. You're right, you're right, it's my favorite flavor of muffin. 

Ellie (Hors)
Child's tear?

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Child's Tear Blueberry.

Jen (Flannery)
Child's Tear Blueberry.

Ellie (Hors)
Very well.

Jen (Flannery)
[awkward pause] Let us go get the doll hair!

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
All right. Where will we go? The nearby village, perhaps? 

Chris (Rubella)
I think... Yes, the village.

Ellie (Hors)
To the village. It's full of children: nasty little things. 

Jen (Flannery)
Disgusting. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Again, what time is it? 

Ellie (Hors)
"It's time to make a child cry, Helga." and Hors D'oeuvre high-fives you. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
That's not the answer I was looking for!

Ellie (Hors)
Whoo! High-five!

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Helga misses.

Ellie (Hors)
Aw, I hate you, Helga.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
I'm sorry, I haven't obviously closed my eyes in years!

Ellie (Hors)
Your sister practiced high fives, I see. She's the one that got all the spatial awareness.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Yes, also with my eyes open for this long, I can BARELY see anything.

Ellie (Hors)
Oh God. All right, sisters, get in line! Get in our order.

Chris (Rubella)
Single file.

Ellie (Hors)
[in chorus with the other witches] Single file as we always do.

Jen (Flannery)
I want to be in front so I don't have to look at any of you.

Chris (Rubella)
Tallest to smallest. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
I will be last! 

Chris (Rubella)
You're tall then? [Helga: "Oh."] Wait, we're... uh, smallest to tallest.

Jen (Flannery)
I am the smallest.

Ellie (Hors)
Smallest to tallest.

Kendrick (Mallek)
Then I will be last. 

Jen (Flannery)
You'll be last. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Oh, but I like to walk in the back. 

Kendrick (Mallek)
Then I'll just fly. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
All right.

Chris (Rubella)
I guess it makes sense. [Flannery: "Away!"]

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
And I pretend like my sister is behind me. That's why I like walking in the back.

Jen (Flannery)
Away! On to the village we go!

Ellie (Hors)
"Away sisters!" and we march out of the house in single file in our usual order. 

Jen (Flannery)
More like shuf-- shambling, yeah, we shuffle out of the house.

Timothy (DM)
The five of you shamble-shuffle

Chris (Rubella)
Slash fly.

Kendrick (Mallek)
Except for Mallek, I fly. As soon as we get out, my wings, like, disperse and fly.

Jen (Flannery)
You CAN be in the back, Helga.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Yes, and I pretend like my sister is behind me--

Kendrick (Mallek)
Your sister's dead. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
-- so I'm technically second to last. Let's me pretend...!

Jen (Flannery)
That's basically a lie.

Timothy (DM)
And you begin to head towards the village. As you round the corner of your cottage, you see the old rickety bridge over the Drowner's Stream. It leads to the Forbidden Path... not forbidden to you, but to the villagers, of course.

Ellie (Hors)
*heh-heh-heh* We're the reason it's forbidden.

Jen (Flannery)
That's right because we are soooooo terrifying and horrible.

Chris (Rubella)
And we got the zoning permit, so they're not allowed to be here.

Jen (Flannery)
That's right! The government is a scam!

Ellie (Hors)
But at least they're on our side! 

Jen (Flannery)
Very true.

Kendrick (Mallek)
I hate you all.

Jen (Flannery)
[polishing her fingernails] Kidnappings will get you so far.

Kendrick (Mallek)
I hate all of you. [all laugh]

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
What was that, Mallek? I can't hear you all the way up there. 

Jen (Flannery)
You're so high up. No one can hear you (not that they would want to)...

Ellie (Hors)
[admonishingly] Flannery...

Chris (Rubella)
Wait...

Jen (Flannery)
What is it, Rubella? 

Chris (Rubella)
I wanted to hear what he said, though.

Jen (Flannery)
[shouting] Repeat yourself!

Kendrick (Mallek)
Nevermind, it's nothing important.

Jen (Flannery)
Oh, that's what I thought.

Ellie (Hors)
FLANNERY!

Kendrick (Mallek)
Mallek stops in their flight. "Shut up, Flannery, ya' dumb bitch."

Jen (Flannery)
You're not wrong. Okay. Listen.

Ellie (Hors)
I would also self-describe as a dumb bitch. 

Jen (Flannery)
[out of character] So would I.

Timothy (DM)
So, it takes about two hours to walk along the shaded path.

Jen (Flannery)
My god. My poor legs. [Dan: "We shuffle."]

Ellie (Hors)
Two hours of banter.

Timothy (DM)
Two hours of banter, the very overgrown path. You are the only ones that walk this path until you find yourselves at the edge of the village of Dusk: a few lights are lit in some of the homes; a fire in the center of the village with several people around it. But for the most part, it is a quiet calm scene.

Kendrick (Mallek)
Mallek lands. "Oo, my wings are tired." and Mallek shakes them off.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Do we see any children? 

Jen (Flannery)
Are there children about? 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
I can only see about 20 feet clearly.

Jen (Flannery)
I can see one foot.

Chris (Rubella)
Who's out and about?

Timothy (DM)
So the village of Dusk is pretty quiet; there aren't kind of people out. They do this thing where they have, like, a campfire in the middle of the village, where people stay up and keep watch. These forests are haunted, of course. 

Chris (Rubella)
We point to ourselves.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
By us!

Jen (Flannery)
Yeah! Hell yeah. [all laugh]

Timothy (DM)
And so the villagers have learned to be cautious, always to keep an eye out for the stray witch... or five.

Ellie (Hors)
We always traveled together in a single file line so it's not difficult to see us coming.

Jen (Flannery)
Flannery walks up to, like, a lone person on the street and goes "Hello, we're witches, and we're looking for a child to harass. Do you know where we can find one?"

Timothy (DM)
Hold on for a moment, while I keel over and die. 

Timothy (Paul)
"Halt! Who goes there?" [Flannery [softly]: "Five witches."] They throw up a torch; it illuminates your grotesque face.

Chris (Rubella)
Rubella Kruitwagen!

Jen (Flannery)
Ouch!

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
We are just four old women and a bird-- 

Jen (Flannery)
That's a lie!

Ellie (Hors)
Flannery! You're blowing our cover! You're blowing up our spot, Flannery!

Jen (Flannery)
Hors D'oeuvre, cover my mouth now. Plesae, someone cover my mouth. I can't lie; you know this about me.

Chris (Rubella)
[deadpan] We're salesmen.

Ellie (Hors)
We're here to sell dolls to children 

Chris (Rubella)
And collect old ones.

Ellie (Hors)
Yeah, it's a recycling program.

Jen (Flannery)
Flannery is sweating and has her hands CLASPED over her mouth desperately.

Kendrick (Mallek)
Mallek pushes Flannery to the side.

Chris (Rubella)
Pay no attention to our friend: she's got an illness.

Jen (Flannery)
I have several illnesses! That is true!

Ellie (Hors)
You just have to be vague about it, Flannery. [all diabolically cry]

Timothy (DM)
Can you all give me a Deception check? We're gonna take the group average.

Jen (Flannery)
Good, great, okay good.

Ellie (Hors)
Nat 20!

Jen (Flannery)
Oo, a natural 1!

Ellie (Hors)
Which makes sense.

Chris (Rubella)
11.

Kendrick (Mallek)
14.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
10.

Timothy (DM)
So pretty mediocre. 

Jen (Flannery)
Just shove me in a bush. Shove me in a bush, you guys. I can't help with this part. 

Kendrick (Mallek)
I'm mean that's what Mallek just did.

Jen (Flannery)
[in fake distress] Ohhhhh, I can't get up. 

Kendrick (Mallek)
Serves ya right.

Timothy (DM)
So, I... [flummoxed] It's not often that I don't know what to do with an NPC. So, there's, like, three pretty built, grizzled men that are [Flannery: "Oh, hot damn.", Helga: "Oh, hello, handsome."] that around this campfire. One has the torch in Flannery's face, and as you all just start...

Ellie (Hors)
That's true.  Speaking at once?

Timothy (DM)
--speaking at once, they just freeze up. Their brain is just not turning fast enough to keep up with what the heck is going on. 

Jen (Flannery)
What are you stupid? 

Ellie (Hors)
We have that effect on people.

Timothy (Paul)
They just stand there and they go "Uh... uh... uh..."

Jen (Flannery)
[trying to not lie] I'm... an old... lady.

Ellie (Hors)
That's true.

Jen (Flannery)
[out of the side of her mouth] That is technically true. 

Timothy (Paul)
[surfer voice] Oh, I'm sorry, ma'am. I didn't mean to disrespect or anything. Can I get you a glass of water or something? Do you need to sit down?

Kendrick (Mallek)
I mean, first you've got to help her out of the bush.

Jen (Flannery)
I would love to sit down somewhere that isn't this bush.

Timothy (Paul)
"Oh yeah yeah, guys! Get... get a fucking, like... get a stool or something." and you see the two other men they, like, go and, like, very, like, confusedly at first but then they start to scurry, and they, like... go into one of the houses, grab a stool. They set it down in front of you, Flannery.

Ellie (Hors)
[to herself] I can't believe this is working!

Jen (Flannery)
"Oh, thank you. That's... that's very... that was very sweet. Thank you." and Flannery sits down [unprompted] "These glasses are for show!"  Shit! Sorry.

Ellie (Hors)
Flannery! Nobody asked!

Timothy (Paul)
Um, where are you... where are you ladies from, like...? [Flannery strains to keep her mouth shut]

Chris (Rubella)
We've-we've traveled from afar.

Timothy (Paul)
Afar like... like another village? Like, where are you from? [Rubella: "Yes!"] Uh, that sounds really far, and you're walking at night? Like what?

Kendrick (Mallek)
Well, I flew, I flew. So it's, well, my wings are tired, though.  "Yeah, we're from, um, um..." and Mallek looks around, sees a bird "Bird--" and then sees, um, a star "Birdstar. We're from Birdstar." [Flannery strains ever more!]

Timothy (Paul)
Yeah, I do see the wings. Nice, nice.

Ellie (Hors)
I just flew in and my wings are tired.

Jen (Flannery)
[surfer voice] Hey, nice wings, bro!

Timothy (Paul)
Nice wings, brother. [Ellie: "Sick, gnarly."]

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Helga is gonna get up really close to one of them, and be like "We are just old spinsters" like pushing up her boobs with her, like, forearms, "...and we're looking for a place to stay. Do you know any kindly people who would gladly take us in (preferably with children?) We LOVE children!"

Kendrick (Mallek)
Helga, pick up your boobs! Helga, pick up your boobs!

Ellie (Hors)
Higher, higher! Hoist! 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
They're like up in her neck.

Timothy (Paul)
Uh, I mean, like, there's, there's usually... I mean, let me go get Miss-Miss Sunshine. She's our, like, our teacher for the village. [Helga: "Perfect"] She helps out with these types of things. Yeah, she'll know what to do, like, Miss Sunshine's pretty legit. Like, whoa."

Jen (Flannery)
Pretty legit!

Kendrick (Mallek)
And can you... and do you mind bringing up some food? We're kind of hungry. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Yes, we've been walking for hours. 

Jen (Flannery)
I've only eaten entrails for the last month. I could really use something el-- wait, yeah...

Chris (Rubella)
[covering Flannery's slip] Yes, the entrails that contain the sausage.

Jen (Flannery)
That's what I meant [softly]. No, it's not.

Chris (Rubella)
Look, the village we were in last: they just sold sausage, hey didn't have any vegetables. So, that's what we've been eating for the last month. 

Jen (Flannery)
[choking back her words] I hate vegetables.

Kendrick (Mallek)
Mallek hits Flannery with one of his wings. "Shut. Up."

Timothy (Paul)
"Yeah, Miss Sunshine, she'll figure all of that out. Like, she'll know what to do. Let me go get her." and he just runs on off, knocks on one of the doors of the village. 

Timothy (DM)
So, the way that the village is set up is kind of all around this campfire. It's a pretty small village, just like a single ring of houses around a central structure, and so he goes up, knocks on one of the doors. You hear it echoing across this open plane, and then eventually you hear the door creak open, and you hear a muffled conversation.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Old woman and bird huddle! Sorry, young men, please step away. [to the witches]  Huddle up!

Jen (Flannery)
[unpromped] You're all very attractive.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
It is true. 

Ellie (Hors)
[unpromped] I'd like to eat their eyes.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Do we think there might... [addressing Hors D'oeuvre] Yes, we know. Do you think that maybe at the school house there might need to be a doll that a child loves?

Chris (Rubella)
Quite possibly.

Jen (Flannery)
I think this town is kind of shit. 

Ellie (Hors)
I don't want to doll without getting to harass a child.

Jen (Flannery)
You're right. I feel that way too. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Fair point, nevermind.

Ellie (Hors)
I'm going to cut their hair and eat it and regain my youth! That's what I'm interested in these children. 

Jen (Flannery)
I will NOT allow it!

Kendrick (Mallek)
Wait, does that... wait wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Does that actually work?

Ellie (Hors)
For me. 

Kendrick (Mallek)
Oh, well, shit.

Ellie (Hors)
I'm special gorl. [Jen: "A special gorl!"]

Chris (Rubella)
[to herself] Maybe I should eat some hair.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
I'm sure you have. [Jen: "I'm sure you have?!?"] 

Ellie (Hors)
I've been feeding you hair in the night. [Rubella: "Oh! So that's--"] You'd be surprised. Yeah, your mouth is open, you're snoring so loud.

Jen (Flannery)
YOU SNORE SO LOUD!

Ellie (Hors)
I just snip pieces off the end of my braid and I sprinkled them into your mouth 'cause I think it's funny.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
The wonderful thing about not being able to close your eyes: you can not be snuck up on in the night.

Ellie (Hors)
Ah, I never sprinkle hair in your mouth while you're asleep 'cause I can't tell when you're asleep

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
--'cause I'm looking at you!

Ellie (Hors)
Oh, don't! [to Helga] Someday I'm gonna eat your eyes.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
At least they'd be closed. 

Ellie (Hors)
The clock is ticking.

Jen (Flannery)
Hors D'oeuvre, you can eat my eyes when I die, which will inevitably be SOON, I hope. 

Ellie (Hors)
Fall on my knife.

Chris (Rubella)
With any luck, yes.

Ellie (Hors)
Oh, all right. Thank you all. You're very kind, Flannery. You're all very kind. 

Jen (Flannery)
I wouldn't describe myself that way but I'm glad you do.

Timothy (DM)
So, you see a woman in a nightgown coming across the field towards you.

Jen (Flannery)
[out of the blue] Why is she dressed like a whore? [stifled laughter]

Timothy (DM)
Her hair is pulled up into a nightcap, but you can see a braid that's fallen out from underneath her nightcap.

Ellie (Hors)
[eyes as big as plates] Ohhhhh.

Jen (Flannery)
That is very scandalous. Eat her braid!

Ellie (Hors)
*ha-ha-ha* That braid is calling my name.

Jen (Flannery)
Your hair will grow!

Timothy (Miss Sunshine)
[Southern belle] Well, how do you do, my fair ladies?

Jen (Flannery)
Generally poorly.

Timothy (Miss Sunshine)
What brings you out here in the middle of the night?

Chris (Rubella)
Dolls.

Jen (Flannery)
Someone stop me, somebody stop me from speaking!

Ellie (Hors)
I start chugging your glass of wat-- like, hold ing a glass of water up to your mouth so you have to chug it.

Chris (Rubella)
We're-we're looking for a doll.

Timothy (Miss Sunshine)
A doll? [Rubella: "Yes."] You came all this way for a doll?

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Yes, we are traveling doll makers, and we like to see the dolls of different regions to see their uniqueness.

Timothy (Miss Sunshine)
I mean, I can't lie that-that's pretty weird, but--

Jen (Flannery)
[interjecting amid the water] Oh, you can't lie? Me neither!

Timothy (Miss Sunshine)
Um, wow, y'all are very peculiar. Anyways...

Ellie (Hors)
We're eccentric in a charming way. 

Timothy (Miss Sunshine)
Um, I mean, I guess I could oblige. Paul over here says that you were also needing a place to stay and some food preferably--

Jen (Flannery)
Paul is a stupid name. Yes, we need those things please.

Timothy (Miss Sunshine)
--"preferably not sausage" is what he was telling me? A very specific request.

Chris (Rubella)
The doll is the primary objective.

Ellie (Hors)
No, the-the sausage is the primary objective.

Timothy (Miss Sunshine)
Oh, you would like... you WOULD like sausage? [Flannery: "Nooo! NOoOoOoO!"] I guess I'm very confused.

Chris (Rubella)
Whatever a child would eat. 

Timothy (Miss Sunshine)
[visible confusion] Anyways, I'm the school instructor here. You're welcome to stay in the schoolhouse for the evening. [Flannery: "Oh, perfect!"] Yes, however, we will have to have lessons in the morning, so I will just ask you to clear out before then, or you can help if you would like. We're always in need of additional hands and services around here.

Kendrick (Mallek)
We'll make sure we leave. 

Jen (Flannery)
The children can catch THESE hands!

Timothy (Miss Sunshine)
There's quite a few children, and it's only me, so if you are stickin' around that would be quite nice.

Jen (Flannery)
Oh, we will most certainly stick around.

Kendrick (Mallek)
Ha-ha-ha. Excuse her. She's old and delusional. [Flannery: "I am!"] We'll leave in the morning after we get the doll.

Timothy (Miss Sunshine)
Alright. Well, if you'd like to come this way, I can show you... we don't really have anything in the way of cots or anything, but we do have these, like, mats that the children take naptime on if that's all right? Is that-- 

Kendrick (Mallek)
I'll take one that hasn't been pissed on.

Ellie (Hors)
I don't think that's any of them. [Mallek groans] Based on what I know about children.

Timothy (Miss Sunshine)
Yeah, I-I-I taught the children real well, they don't pee on the mats.

Chris (Rubella)
Good.

Jen (Flannery)
[laughs] Good?!?

Ellie (Hors)
You're quite an educator, Miss Sunshine.

Timothy (Miss Sunshine)
We have trained all of our children to use the bathrooms unless they are obviously of an age where they cannot use the bathroom on their own--

Jen (Flannery)
What's a bathroom?

Timothy (Miss Sunshine)
Well, it's these little pots that we, like, put out in this little room. And then... why am I explainin'? This is a weird conversation-- 

Jen (Flannery)
How sophisticated! 

Chris (Rubella)
Anyway, thank you, we appreciate it.

Timothy (Miss Sunshine)
Anyways, could... just come on this way. I can show you a nice, somewhat comfortable place where you can spend the night and I'm sorry we don't have any sausage cooked right now, but we do have some bread left over from his day [Flannery: "I LOVE bread."] and I can give you a little bit of butter.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Do you have any dolls at the schoolhouse? 

Jen (Flannery)
Butter is such a luxury.

Ellie (Hors)
Mm. You should try some of my toe butter.

Timothy (Miss Sunshine)
Yes, we-we do. All of the children have toys to play with.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Do the children love this doll?

Timothy (Miss Sunshine)
I mean, they love all of their toys. [Rubella: "Good." Flannery: "I would like to meet a child."] A big creative imagination is very important for child development. It helps the brain develop properly.

Ellie (Hors)
Oh, you're like a Montessori school.

Jen (Flannery)
Oh, no! Not a Montessori school. 

Timothy (Miss Sunshine)
It is a single room, [Flannery: "We're used to that."] where children of all ages develop at their own pace. So, that is the model that we use at this institution of education. 

Jen (Flannery)
Ew... sorry, I mean... Ew... 

Timothy (Miss Sunshine)
All right. Just this way, come on. Do you need a stick to walk with, or do you want to take my arm? 

Chris (Rubella)
[shakes her quarterstaff] Got one already.

Ellie (Hors)
Mallek can fly!

Timothy (Miss Sunshine)
Ma'am, I only have two arms.

Jen (Flannery)
I don't want to touch you. 

Timothy (Miss Sunshine)
All right, that's fair. That's fair.

Kendrick (Mallek)
Just lead us to the school please. Thank you. 

Ellie (Hors)
I grab her arm, and as I walk beside her [Flannery: "Sniff it."] Yeah! I grab it, like, very hard and I stand... I walk really, really close next to her, and I start trying to grab her braid. "You have such beautiful hair."

Timothy (Miss Sunshine)
Oh, why thank you. I comb it every day. I brush it out. I put a little lavender oil in it and then I braid it on up and put it underneath my bun, so it doesn't get damaged by the sun.

Ellie (Hors)
I try and put it in my mouth without her noticing.

Jen (Flannery)
Sleight of Hand.

Chris (Rubella)
Sleight of Mouth [Jen: "Sleight of Mouth!"] 

Timothy (DM)
Give me a Sleight of Hand.

Ellie (Hors)
Like I'm walking along just close enough next her that I can kind of chew on it while she's not noticing.

Jen (Flannery)
Just give a little nibble. 

Timothy (DM)
Yeah, give me a Sleight of Hand.

Ellie (Hors)
Oh shit! Natural 20. But let's see what I've got for, uh... Okay, that's a 0, so it's just the regular nat 20.

Timothy (Miss Sunshine)
A 20 will do it; she does not notice, and she continues to chat you up. "Where are you from?"

Kendrick (Mallek)
Birdstar! 

Timothy (Miss Sunshine)
Birdstar [Mallek: "Yes."] I've never heard of i. Where-where's that at?

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
[shouting] EAST! IT'S EAST!

Timothy (Miss Sunshine)
Ma'am, can you keep your voice down just a... just a tad?

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Oh, I'm so sorry.

Jen (Flannery)
She cannot. 

Timothy (Miss Sunshine)
Everybody's sleeping.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
My sister had the good hearing.

Timothy (Miss Sunshine)
Ohhh, well I'm very sorry for your loss.

Jen (Flannery)
Don't be!

Kendrick (Mallek)
"Anyway, we are from Birdstar, which is in the..." and I look around, and I see a plant "... the Fern..." and then I look around and I see darkness. "...Ferndark country."

Jen (Flannery)
[strained] Yeah, I like darkness.

Timothy (Miss Sunshine)
Oh, wow, um, that sounds really far away. Well, what are... if you don't mind me saying this, women of your age doin' traveling around from so far away at night?

Kendrick (Mallek)
Well, I'm not a woman... so I... I'm just here for the adventure. [Miss Sunshine: "Oh, I apologize--"] It's okay, we all look the same in my race.

Timothy (Miss Sunshine)
Oh, all right. That's-that's a weird thing to say, um...

Chris (Rubella)
Learned something today, didn't you, schoolmarm? [Jen: "Schoolmarm!"]

Timothy (Miss Sunshine)
I did! 'Always learning something': that is my motto. To the day you die, you learn something every day.

Jen (Flannery)
That stops being true at a certain point.

Chris (Rubella)
We're out here earning a living as doll makers.

Timothy (Miss Sunshine)
Oh, that is very lovely. Well, here we are. This is the school house. As you can see all the toys are put away on that wall over there. I guess you're free to rummage around and see if there's a doll that sparks your interest. Please don't take it, but you can use it for inspiration.

Jen (Flannery)
We will just cut its hair.

Timothy (Miss Sunshine)
Oh, please don't do that.

Chris (Rubella)
Metaphorically.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Yes, as to get the essence of it.

Chris (Rubella)
It's like a mental picture.

Timothy (Miss Sunshine)
Um, all right, it must be a specific idiom from where you're from, isn't it?

Chris (Rubella)
Yeah, it's shop talk.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
"To meet someone" is "to cut their hair." [Jen dies]

Timothy (Miss Sunshine)
Oh, well very nice to cut your hair.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Very nice to cut your hair as well. It is beautiful and tasty.

Ellie (Hors)
And as you say that, her braid, like, spit-soaked, falls out Hors D'oeuvre's mouth, like, part of it has totally been gnawed off. [*plech-bluh-blech*] and is Hors D'oeuvre's hair now a little longer and shinier and silkier?

Timothy (DM)
Yeah, your hair has just, like, slowly gotten this sheen to it.

Jen (Flannery)
Hors D'oeuvre, your hair looks slightly better than normal. 

Ellie (Hors)
[jostling it like a Panteen ProV commercial] Thank you!

Timothy (Miss Sunshine)
All right, well, the mats that the children sleep on, they're right over here in this corner, so you feel free to lay them out however you want, and I'll be back with bread in like five or so minutes. [Hors D'oeuvre: "Oh, thank god."]. I'm just gonna grab it from the pantry. All right, well, you all have a good evening until I see you in five minutes, and then after that have another really nice evening, and I'll see you in the morning." 

Jen (Flannery)
Goodbye!!!

Ellie (Hors)
Thanks, Miss Sunshine.

Timothy (DM)
As she closes the door behind you all... 

Jen (Flannery)
Oh my GOD! That was SO hard. 

Chris (Rubella)
You have such restraint!

Jen (Flannery)
Thank you. [shouting to the empty room] We're witches! We didn't... it was like a two-hour walk. We're here to steal a doll's hair. Ok, I've got it... I've got it all out of my system now. This is why I can't survive on my own. 

Ellie (Hors)
We can't take you anywhere. 

Jen (Flannery)
It's the only reason why I'm with you guys. [Hors D'oeuvre: "Yeah."]

Timothy (DM)
There's a crate of toys. There are mats on one wall. There are little, like, tables throughout the room, there's like... I mean, this is a schoolhouse. So, all the schoolhouse things.

Chris (Rubella)
Yeah. Which doll looks the most peculiar?

Jen (Flannery)
Beloved.

Timothy (DM)
Beloved, yeah, give me an Investigation check.

Kendrick (Mallek)
14.

Chris (Rubella)
10. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
12.

Ellie (Hors)
18, but I think more likely Hors D'oeuvre is picking through the toy box in search of what looks tastiest.

Timothy (DM)
All right. So, Hors D'oeuvre is able to find several hand-carved wooden monstrosities: various terrifying creatures of the forest that the children may play make-believe with.

Jen (Flannery)
Hors D'oeuvre, maybe if you eat one of those, you'll turn to wood and we won't have to hear from you again.

Ellie (Hors)
Haha. Flannery, you're such a joker. 

Jen (Flannery)
You know, I tolerate you.

Timothy (DM)
But other than that, there are several dolls that you can find in the chest. There is one in particular though, whose dress is very heavily stained with dirt and the grime of children's fingers, and their hair has been coming out in patches, and they're missing one of their eyeballs. 

Ellie (Hors)
All right, get the scissors.

Jen (Flannery)
She's so beautiful. [Rubella: "I know!"] She's perfect. I take... I take my little scissors off my belt, and I do a little *snip snip* on the doll's hair.

Timothy (DM)
All right, you snip the hair off the head of the doll, and you have the doll's hair.

Jen (Flannery)
I look at Hors D'oeuvre and I say "You CANNOT. EAT. THIS. NOOO." and I put... I put it in my pocket so that Hors D'oeuvre can't get at it.

Kendrick (Mallek)
Mallek grabs the doll, rips some hair out [Jen: "Just in case. Backup plan."] puts it in... puts it in his, like, little satchel and then grabs one tiny strand. "Here, Hors D'oeuvre, 'cause I know you want it."

Ellie (Hors)
"You are so sweet. That makes me wish I voted for your plan." She pops it in her mouth.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
What'd it taste like?

Ellie (Hors)
Tastes like a child's love: bitter and slimy.

Chris (Rubella)
So, were you expecting to get some sort of childlike innocence from eating... what was your game plan with the doll hair?

Ellie (Hors)
Well, that one I mostly just wanted to try [Rubella: "Oh, okay."] because I know how bad you guys want me to not eat it and that makes me want to eat it MORE! Ha-ha-ha!

Chris (Rubella)
We need to try reverse psychology next time.

Ellie (Hors)
No, it doesn't work on me: my brain is in reverse. [Flannery: "Yeah it is!"]

Chris (Rubella)
We'll try forward psychology. 

Ellie (Markie)
No kind of psychology can address what's going up on this noggin. [Rubella: "Oh goodness."] I'm a medical wonder.

Timothy (DM)
And then the door begins to creak open again, and you see Miss Sunshine [Flannery: "Oh no!"] now holding two loaves of bread with a bowl of butter.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
I shove the doll as deep in the box as possible.

Timothy (Miss Sunshine)
She comes on over and hands you the bread. "I hope this will be sufficient for after your long journey, and if you need any water, there is a well in the center of town. Feel free to take as you please, and I will see you in the morning. I hope you have the most blessed of nights. Sleep well, and don't let the bedbugs bite."

Kendrick (Mallek)
We'll be gone before the morning. Don't worry. It's like this will be the last time you ever see us.

Timothy (Miss Sunshine)
[sad] Oh, well that's not very nice.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
We had plenty of inspiration from your dolls in this box.

Timothy (Miss Sunshine)
I found you all quite pleasant, [Rubella: "Likewise."] in a weird sort of way.

Ellie (Hors)
Really?!? I find that difficult to believe. [Flannery bites her tongue]

Timothy (Miss Sunshine)
Very peculiar bunch, but you know sometimes Pelor's gifts come in the most peculiar of packages.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Helga vomits. [all laugh]

Timothy (Miss Sunshine)
Oh dear! Are you feeling all right? Do you need me to--

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Oh yes! I'm so sorry, it's been such a long day.

Timothy (Miss Sunshine)
Aw, well, let me go get you this little bucket or there's a little pail--

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Noo! That's... I will clean it. I will clean it up. 

Timothy (Miss Sunshine)
All right.

Jen (Flannery)
Helga, you are as disgusting as when I first met you. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Thank you, darling.

Timothy (Miss Sunshine)
Well, that's not very nice, ma'am.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
No it's... from our country 'disgusting' means 'great.' Like 'I love... I loved cutting your disgusting hair!'

Timothy (Miss Sunshine)
Ohh... 

Jen (Flannery)
That's true!

Timothy (Miss Sunshine)
Y'know, again, I'm learning something every day. Well, you all are so disgusting. [Flannery and Hors D'oeuvre: "Yeah!"] It is disgusting to have met you? Is that the correct way to do that? Is that the corr--

Jen (Flannery)
Something like that!

Kendrick (Mallek)
[over it] Good enough. Good enough.

Ellie (Hors)
[to the group] She's got the spirit. [Miss Sunshine: "All right."] You could be a cr-- you've got a little crone in you! You've got a little hag. 

Timothy (Miss Sunshine)
Oh, um, I don't kn-- 

Ellie (Hors)
Have you ever thought about engaging in the dark arts? [all laugh]

Chris (Rubella)
Dark arts and crafts. [Jen: "Dark arts and crafts!"]

Timothy (Miss Sunshine)
Yeah, we do dar-- We do... we do arts and crafts pretty much every day; it's really good for the imagination of the children-- 

Ellie (Hors)
Oh, no, this is not a good fit. Disgusting.

Jen (Flannery)
Disgusting.

Chris (Rubella)
But that's a good thing, though.

Jen (Flannery)
No, true. Very true. Too true, bestie!

Timothy (Miss Sunshine)
--and get their creative juices flowing. Um, well, I'm gonna go back to sleep; it's been a very long day. I would hope to see you in the morning, but if not, you have a very fantastic rest of your lives. 

Jen (Flannery)
[pushing Miss Sunshine out the door] Have a very okay night.

Timothy (Miss Sunshine)
"All right," and she curtsies and turns around, walks out the door and closes it behind her. 

Jen (Flannery)
That was kind of shitty curtsy, I think we can all agree.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Yes, that's that's fair.

Ellie (Hors)
She's a bumpkin. What did you expect? 

Jen (Flannery)
Too true, Hors d'Oeuvre! 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
I will say there is potential. I was... after her... she gets bitter from teaching these god awful children--

Jen (Flannery)
So right!

Ellie (Hors)
She could evolve into a child-hater.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
-- all the rest of her life she could become one of us. So, we'll just mark her down as a potential candidate for future inductions.

Jen (Flannery)
Yes, once she's a widow, I think we've got it on lock.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
'Killing her husband' is on the to-do list. [Flannery: "Yeah. Oh, always!"] All right. I've marked her address. All right. Now the only thing we're missing is a terrified child.

Chris (Rubella)
What?!? 

Jen (Flannery)
A horrible disgusting...

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
It was a sub task!

Ellie (Hors)
I'm so glad someone's...

Jen (Flannery)
I just want to make one child cry.

Ellie (Hors)
Well, what if we crept into their window?

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
All right, I give us 30 minutes to scare some children and then we meet at the edge of the forest and we head off to our next location.

Jen (Flannery)
Oh, Helga! You know just how to entertain me. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
I did study project management while my sister didn't! So, I give us 30 minutes and we will meet where we came in the forest. 

Ellie (Hors)
Sounds good.

Jen (Flannery)
Let's go cause some mischief.  [girlish laugh] Let's go, girls. 

Timothy (DM)
All right. Let's give me some Performance. [Dan: "Yes."] As we montage our way through terrifying children.

Chris (Rubella)
Oh no. 

Kendrick (Mallek)
I got a 7.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
9.

Jen (Flannery)
Natural 20. [joyous rejoicing]

Chris (Rubella)
12.

Ellie (Hors)
Oh my god, you're so good at it. 

Jen (Flannery)
[flips hair] I'm so good at scaring children.

Kendrick (Mallek)
I just want to push over a mailbox. I feel like that's fine.

Timothy (DM)
Yes, all the mailboxes in this village of like twenty homes. 

Kendrick (Mallek)
So, there's... there has to be a post office.

Timothy (DM)
[sighs] All right. And what was Helga's? [Dan: "9."] 9. All right. So again, very mediocre Performance to follow up on your very mediocre Deception check [Jen: "Natural 20!"] which somehow worked with the EXCEPTION of Flannery. As you are all going about your various pranks which is mostly just popping up in windows and yelling 'Boo!' [Ellie: "It's a classic for a reason."] you start hearing screaming children lighting up ALL around the village. Just like... 

Jen (Flannery)
Flannery's revealing some very harsh truths tonight. 'Your parents are getting divorced. They don't really love you!" 

Chris (Rubella)
Your teeth are misshapened!

Jen (Flannery)
You're ugly, and your teeth are bad!

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Does your... does your quirk... your "not being able to tell a lie" also give you insight into everyone's, like...

Jen (Flannery)
Insecurities? [Dan: "Yeah."] Probably. I'm really good at insulting people. I know where it hurts.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
You just look at a child, and be like "Your-your parents are awful."

Jen (Flannery)
Your parents don't... you were an accident.

Ellie (Hors)
They tell you you can be anything you want when you grow up, but it's NOT true.

Jen (Flannery)
YOU CANNOT. You can't; do dark magic instead!

Ellie (Hors)
Oh, you're on a... you're taking a little bit of a recruitment bent!

Timothy (DM)
So, you here just, like, shrill children screams throughout the village as you all collect back at the edge of the village, hidden by the shroud of the shadows in the forest.

Jen (Flannery)
[rosy-faced] Well that was delightful. I'm so glad we came here.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Good job, everybody, being on time. [counts the gorls] 1-2-3-4... oh, I'm 5! Yes, we have everyone!

Chris (Rubella)
And we have snacks for the road!

Ellie (Hors)
Oh, you studied counting...

Jen (Flannery)
You counted so GOOD, Helga. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
I did study basic algebra. That was my job. I don't know why? I think she was too busy. So, I was...

Jen (Flannery)
Honestly, I'm impressed and surprised.

Ellie (Hors)
Shocked.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Fair. I can't go past that. So, I don't know what happens after five.

Jen (Flannery)
This makes perfect sense. [to Ellie: "Sorry, my feet are like on your chair."]

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
I have forgotten what's next on the list.

Chris (Rubella)
It's the blood of a goat that's black. 

Jen (Flannery)
It's six... oh.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
No, I haven't had six in years! What are you talking about? [Editor's Note: This is an erudite joke because "six" sounds like "sex".

Jen (Flannery)
This is why being young should be illegal: they have all the six.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
I'm rethinking my vote.

Chris (Rubella)
No, no take-backsies. You can't do that in an election.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
All right. 

Jen (Flannery)
Sorry, my peach black tea just went up my nose a little bit, so I'm, uh, you know, I'm recovering.

Timothy (DM)
Oh, all right. So you are at the edge of the forest. [Chris: "Yes."] The best place that you can think of to find a black goat would be the old farm. [Hors D'oeuvre cackles]

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Oh yes, farmer, uh... what was his name again? 

Ellie (Hors)
Pilaf. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Oh, yes, Farmer Jimothy Pilaf.

Timothy (DM)
[perfunctorily crossing out notes] Jimothy Pilaf. Okay...

Jen (Flannery)
I've always loved him. 

Ellie (Hors)
Tim starts CROSSING things out.

Timothy (DM)
Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes. 

Jen (Flannery)
[laughing] Old Jimothy Pilaf!

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
He has goats, right? 

Chris (Rubella)
At least one.

Jen (Flannery)
[wiggles her eyebrows] Among other things. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Let's hope it's black. 

Ellie (Hors)
Does the goat have to be black, or does the blood have to be black?

Chris (Rubella)
[reading the Post-It note] So, the blood has to be black as... or... it's weird in the way that it's written: it says "blood of a goat as black as night" so it could be--

Jen (Flannery)
No, it's the goat, right? A black goat. [Rubella: "Yeah, I think it's the skin of the goat..."] Blood is red, you fool!

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
But you could mix the blood with, like, some--

Jen (Flannery)
Black paint from Michaels! 

Chris (Rubella)
Curdled blood. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
You know, Michaels Paint Shop in middle of town?

Jen (Flannery)
It's overpriced! You go into Michaels, you spend $100 on NOTHING!

Chris (Rubella)
You need to get enrolled in their membership plan, and then you get to $5 coupon for everything over $25.

Kendrick (Mallek)
Michaels: not a sponsor.

Chris (Rubella)
...yet.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
This is not an advertisement. 

Ellie (Hors)
It's kind of the opposite.

Chris (Rubella)
Yeah, a dissuasion.

Ellie (Hors)
Their goat's blood? Overpriced. 

Jen (Flannery)
Overpriced goat's blood at Michaels.

Timothy (DM)
So, you know that the only way to get the old farm from here is actually down Drowner's Stream. However, you do recall that your boat has a hole in it.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Oh, damn.

Timothy (DM)
So, as you make your way back to the cottage, down to the bank, there you see it, laying on the bank side, bushes overgrown.

Chris (Rubella)
Does anybody--

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Alright? Well, sorry, what were you saying?

Chris (Rubella)
Does anybody have Mending as a cantrip?

Kendrick (Mallek)
[in chorus with Helga and Flannery] I do!!!

Chris (Rubella)
Oh, my goodness!

Ellie (Hors)
You don't even need it.

Kendrick (Mallek)
I don't even need it

Jen (Flannery)
I can mend so GOOD!

Timothy (DM)
And you cast Mending? [Flannery: "I cast Mending."] Yay!

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Right, and we'll--

Kendrick (Mallek)
It makes us wonder we didn't fix it beforehand.

Timothy (DM)
You solved the puzzle!

Jen (Flannery)
I solve your boat puzzle. 

Timothy (DM)
The boat puzzle has been solved! And how do you cast Mending? 

Jen (Flannery)
I spit into my hands and then I kind of rub it on the... on the broken part of the boat and I go "I never liked you anyway." and that fixes it.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
As they say in the Book of Witches: "Spit cures everything!"

Kendrick (Mallek)
[speaking from experience] Does not cure everything.

Ellie (Hors)
You must be reading a different Book of Witches. [Editor's Note: Maybe the Book of Itches?]

Timothy (DM)
And you watch as the hole on the bottom of the boat disappears, replaced by fresh wood. [Hors d'Oeuvre: "Wow."]

Jen (Flannery)
I was aiming for kind of, like, lightly, like, patina kind of aged wood, but fresh wood is good too. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
In the boat I guess!

Ellie (Hors)
Into the boat!

Chris (Rubella)
Wait, do with have oars and poles to sort of propel us around?

Kendrick (Mallek)
That's what the magic is for. 

Chris (Rubella)
Oh, I see.

Kendrick (Mallek)
Mallek just flies up.

Jen (Flannery)
Ok, see you there!

Chris (Rubella)
You're going to miss out on the bread, though.

Ellie (Hors)
"Oh, you missed out on the bread, I'm afraid." [Flannery: "Oh no!", Rubella: "It's gone? You--"] Hors D'oeuvre licks her lips. 

Jen (Flannery)
Hors D'oeuvre, I'll never forgive you for this. 

Kendrick (Mallek)
Is there any butter left?

Ellie (Hors)
No. [Rubella: "Gosh!"] I ate the butter too. And now I feel...

Chris (Rubella)
Oily.

Ellie (Hors)
Oily? Now my skin is just a little... [Rubella: "Creamy white."] slick.

Timothy (DM)
So, Hors D'oeuvre sits down in one of the seats in the boat and immediately you see that she's starting to kind of like slide around a bit. Just like there's the film... like a thin film of grease beneath her.

Jen (Flannery)
Hors D'oeuvre, you're so greasy. What happened?

Ellie (Hors)
[like a Russian] "I'm a greasy girl. I ate some butter." What was that voice? 

Jen (Flannery)
I don't know you became like a... you were like "Oooo, I ate some butter."

Ellie (Hors)
I ate some butter. It was delicious, or I don't regret a thing.

Jen (Flannery)
Okay, but do we have oars?

Chris (Rubella)
I have a quarterstaff. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
It's like a gondola situation, and you push us along.

Jen (Flannery)
Yeah, "I have a stick. I have a long stick."

Timothy (DM)
It does seem that you've misplaced the oars. 

Chris (Rubella)
God dammit!

Kendrick (Mallek)
Mallek drops down their quarterstaff "Use this."

Jen (Flannery)
Thank youuuu.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Here, if you hold on to this rope, you could just pull us down the river.

Kendrick (Mallek)
"Yeah, let me just grab something." and I just start flying slowly past. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Wait, wait. Oh, alright.

Jen (Flannery)
Oh, okay, bye.

Timothy (DM)
And you start slowly propelling yourselves down the stream.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
I would like to cast Mage Hand at the end of my stick, so I get a little bit more traction in the water. [Tim: "Yeah, yeah, yeah."]

Jen (Flannery)
I'm like, I have nothing useful.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
So, a hand on a stick that I'm just, like, pushing the water.

Timothy (DM)
You have a hand on a stick; a Mage Hand on a stick, nd you start propelling yourself down the river. There are little fireflies that start to light up around the banks.

Jen (Flannery)
Fireflies tastes delicious. [Helga: "It's true."] "Have you had any recently, Hors D'oeuvre?" Like, your tongue is just, like, shooting out like a chameleon. 

Ellie (Hors)
I'm trying to grab at them. I'm trying. 

Kendrick (Mallek)
Mallek looks down: "Do y'all see the fireflies down there?"

Jen (Flannery)
Yes, they're delicious

Chris (Rubella)
They're everywhere. 

Kendrick (Mallek)
Ah, okay.

Ellie (Hors)
Do you see them? Up there?

Kendrick (Mallek)
Yeah, I can; that's why I asked.

Ellie (Hors)
Are they beautiful from up there also?

Kendrick (Mallek)
They look like lights.

Ellie (Hors)
That's beautiful in its own way.

Kendrick (Mallek)
I mean, fire; small fires everywhere. Little fliers... little fires everywhere.

Jen (Flannery)
Oh my god. A great book. [Editor's Note: I'm guessing "Little Fires Everywhere" is a book?]

Kendrick (Mallek)
Only on Hulu, whatever that is.

Timothy (DM)
And in the very very VERY short moments of silence bene-- between...

Kendrick (Mallek)
Very short: that is called shade.

Timothy (DM)
You hear the crickets starting to chirp as night has fully set.

Kendrick (Mallek)
You see Mallek swoop down and grabbed some crickets to eat.

Ellie (Hors)
Ho-ho! A bird after my own heart.

Kendrick (Mallek)
Ka-kaw!

Ellie (Hors)
Ka-kaw ka-kaw!

Jen (Flannery)
I'm cricket-intolerant.

Ellie (Hors)
Nobody asked, Flannery.

Timothy (DM)
That is until Flannery notices up ahead in the stream a shape moving through the water.

Kendrick (Mallek)
Malik looks down "Do y'all see that Shape of Water down there?" [Editor's Note: This is reference to the movie of the same name which involves a fish man.]

Chris (Rubella)
It looks like a fish.

Jen (Flannery)
Looks like a fish MAN. [Rubella: "Exactly."]

Ellie (Hors)
Helga, push your boobs up.

Timothy (DM)
And it... you begin to approach it quite quickly until you realize that it is the River Monster, your good friend. 

Jen (Flannery)
Well, hello, handsome.

Timothy (DM)
--slowly meandering through the stream. 

Kendrick (Mallek)
[out of the side of his mouth] That looks like my ex. 

Ellie (Hors)
Brutal. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
So, we know this river monster?

Timothy (DM)
You do know this river monster. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
What's their name?

Jen (Flannery)
Oh, I KNOW the river monster, intimately. [Hors d'Oeuvre: "Intimately, carnally."]

Kendrick (Mallek)
Phoenix.

Timothy (DM)
They do not speak. They have never spoken, but they take up most of the space of the stream so much so that you cannot pass. 

Jen (Flannery)
Yeah, they do!

Chris (Rubella)
Can we help you? You're sort of blocking traffic.

Timothy (DM)
As you call out to them, you see they raise slightly out of the water to reveal two orange beady eyes beneath a tangle of roots and seaweed and muck [Flannery: "God, you're so beautiful."] They slowly turn their head around towards you. And begin to stare.

Kendrick (Mallek)
Mallek flies down.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Hello, darling.

Kendrick (Mallek)
What the hell's going on? Why can't y'all get through?

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Have you not met the river monster?

Kendrick (Mallek)
I call him Harvey.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
[in unison with the group] Harvey?

Timothy (DM)
And then, it turns its head back up the stream and sinks into the water and continues to go forward. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
All right, follow Harvey.

Jen (Flannery)
I love you.

Timothy (DM)
So, you follow slowly behind Harvey--

Jen (Flannery)
[desperately] Do you remember me?!?

Timothy (DM)
--as it just kind of coasts along the surface of the water, slowly but surely making its way up the stream.

Ellie (Hors)
This is going pretty well for us.

Chris (Rubella)
No conflict.

Jen (Flannery)
Compared to other times, yes.

Kendrick (Mallek)
Mallek is gonna stay close to the boat.

Ellie (Hors)
Thank you, Mallek. It's very kind of you.

Kendrick (Mallek)
I'm just doing this because my wings are getting tired, so I may plop down soon.

Timothy (DM)
As it slowly makes its way up the stream, you start to see the old farm in the distance. Oh gosh, this is going to take forever.

Kendrick (Mallek)
Is that the name of the farm?

Jen (Flannery)
Oh Gosh This Is Going To Take Forever looks different.

Chris (Rubella)
He was never good at naming things; always too long and not very, uh, succinct.

Timothy (DM)
And two hours later... [laughs and groans from the group], you finally arrive on the bank of the old farm.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
All right, everybody out.

Jen (Flannery)
I need a nap, but I won't take one. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
You had two hours! 

Jen (Flannery)
I know. [bitterly] We disembark. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
All right. Where... is the goat shed?

Jen (Flannery)
What are we here for again?

Chris (Rubella)
The goat blood. [Flannery: "Oh, yes."] It's probably in the back with the cows.

Timothy (DM)
Yes, you see lights on in the farmhouse, and a barn behind it. You see fences around the perimeter of the farm with wheat fields.

Chris (Rubella)
Should we distract him? 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
The barn?

Jen (Flannery)
I'll do the talking.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
How about we just go over to the barn?

Jen (Flannery)
That's a good idea, too... [directly to Tim] We do that.  We just sneak.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
I guess we sneak to the barn.

Ellie (Hors)
Does the river monster...?

Timothy (DM)
Yeah. Yeah. Would everybody like to give me a Stealth check? The river monster just continues on up the river.

Chris (Rubella)
He's lonely, I suppose.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
K, bye, Harvey.

Jen (Flannery)
Goodbye, my loooooove. 

Ellie (Hors)
Oh, I want to eat that river monster really bad! 

Jen (Flannery)
[in her telemarketer voice] I got a 9. 

Chris (Rubella)
5.

Kendrick (Mallek)
What the fuck was that voice?!?

Jen (Flannery)
That's my normal human voice. 

Kendrick (Mallek)
Oh, that was like Disney Channel. "Hi, you're watching Disney Channel." 

Jen (Flannery)
[Valley Girl voice] "Hiii, you're watching Disney Channel."

Kendrick (Mallek)
What was I supposed to roll? [Chris: "Stealth."]  Oh, 10.

Timothy (DM)
We've got 9, a 5, a 10, a 5.

Ellie (Hors)
8.

Jen (Flannery)
Very mediocre.

Timothy (Paul)
So, this is LESS than mediocre, this is very much less than mediocre.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
I got a 19. 

Timothy (DM)
Oh, you do get a 19.

Jen (Flannery)
Hey, 10 is mediocre, okay?

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
[Valley Girl voice] 10 is average.

Jen (Flannery)
[Valley Girl voice] 10 is average.

Timothy (DM)
So, unfortunately, Flannery cannot keep their mouth shut as you try to stealth around, they keep making comments about the procession and the way that you are all walking.

Ellie (Markie)
In a single file line in order as we always do.

Timothy (Jimothy Pilaf)
As you always do, and that's when you hear someone call out from behind the door in the farmhouse. [gruff man voice] "Who's out there?" 

Kendrick (Mallek)
No one!

Chris (Rubella)
[whispers] Don't say... [mutters] God dammit!

Jen (Flannery)
I fucked up again, ladies and gentlemen.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
It's just some old spinsters 

Timothy (Jimothy Pilaf)
Get off my lawn. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
We're just passing through... your barn.

Jen (Flannery)
It's barely a lawn.

Timothy (Jimothy Pilaf)
I'm warnin' ya. If you don't leave my property right now, I'm coming out there with a shot gun.

Jen (Flannery)
Oh my god. Please do!

Kendrick (Mallek)
Most of these aren't truths, thes are just what you want.

Chris (Rubella)
Tell Flannery, we're leaving now.

Kendrick (Mallek)
We left our cat over... it ran over there next to your old goats.

Timothy (DM)
You're just, like, calling out towards the house.

Jen (Flannery)
Heyyyy, we're missing our caaaat. *pss-pss-pss-pss*

Timothy (Jimothy Pilaf)
You better be going. I still hear ya!

Kendrick (Mallek)
What happens if we're just quiet?

Chris (Rubella)
Do you shout that to him?

Ellie (Hors)
Are we capable of that? 

Chris (Rubella)
Some of us are.

Kendrick (Mallek)
We just gotta push Flannery into the weeds.

Timothy (DM)
You all try to be silent?

Kendrick (Mallek)
Yeah, that was a real... that wasn't recor-- rhetorical. That was...

Timothy (DM)
So you all stand there in silence, and you wait, listening to the chirp of the crickets, the sound of the stream trickling on by, and nothing happens.

Kendrick (Mallek)
[whispers] Mallek... why am I whispering? Mallek looks over at Flannery. "You know shut your fucking mouth."

Jen (Flannery)
[whispers] I physically cannot. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Much like my eyes.

Kendrick (Mallek)
I look at Flannery, and I'm like "I will cover your mouth with my talons." 

Jen (Flannery)
That's fine. Listen, why does it give ME a hard time? Helga can't shut her eyes. I can't shut my mouth. What's the difference?

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
My eyes don't make noise.

Ellie (Hors)
And Helga can't shut her legs either.

Kendrick (Mallek)
That is true. [Mallek: "Burn."]

Chris (Rubella)
She's in a perpetual squat.

Jen (Flannery)
I put a yarn ball just, like, in my mouth.

Kendrick (Mallek)
Better. 

Timothy (DM)
All right, you begin sneaking towards the barn yet again. So, as you begin to sneak around the farmhouse, you come across... a gate!

Kendrick (Mallek)
Very ominous.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Blast it!

Timothy (DM)
You see a barn on the other side of the gate... oOoOoO, a puzzle!

Jen (Flannery)
How will we get past a gate?

Kendrick (Mallek)
Mallek just flies up and over.

Jen (Flannery)
Well, that's not fair

Kendrick (Mallek)
I look over to all of them. [in a baritone voice] "Good luck, everyone. Oh, I guess I just turned 26."

Jen (Flannery)
Entered puberty. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Happy birthday, I guess. 

Ellie (Hors)
Happy birthday, indeed. 

Kendrick (Mallek)
Thank you.

Ellie (Hors)
It makes me regret not choosing your spell even more.

Kendrick (Mallek)
I mean we can still do that. 

Ellie (Hors)
No, it's too late we voted. 

Kendrick (Mallek)
Votes can always be rescinded.

Ellie (Hors)
The will of the people is absolute.

Chris (Rubella)
Coups are always an option... [realizing her folly] Why did I say that? No!

Jen (Flannery)
How are we gonna get around this gate?

Ellie (Hors)
Is it locked? I try it.

Timothy (DM)
It has a chain around the gate that has a padlock on it.

Jen (Flannery)
Oh, how tall is the gate? Like...

Timothy (DM)
Four foot? [Flannery: "Ok."] 

Chris (Rubella)
Is this gate made out of wood? 

Timothy (DM)
It is a... it is a metal gate attached to wooden posts. [Editor's Note: Chris was really excited to cast the spell Soft Wood in this one-shot.]

Ellie (Hors)
[group rejoices] Do it!

Chris (Rubella)
Rubella cracks her hands, and she says "Let me do my magic." and I touch one of the posts and I cast Soft Wood. 

Timothy (DM)
All right, the wood becomes soft and malleable beneath your fingers.

Chris (Rubella)
It slinks like Jell-o, and I-I'm pulling... I'm sort of, like, pulling the post out from the metal brackets that are holding it.

Timothy (DM)
Yeah, so the gate begins to kind of just, like, slump under its own weight as you pull down the wooden post.

Jen (Flannery)
Flannery still struggles to get over it. [Helga: "That's deeply unsettling."] and she just kind of tumbles onto the ground.

Chris (Rubella)
Rubella's still holding this post and she sort of just has it on her person now. 

Jen (Flannery)
I'm in! 

Chris (Rubella)
I'm so proud of you, Flannery.

Timothy (DM)
And the rest of you I'm assuming...?

Ellie (Hors)
Yes, we navigate it.

Kendrick (Mallek)
Yeah, yeah, I flew over.

Ellie (Hors)
Mallek's, like, on the other side watching us be idiots.

Kendrick (Mallek)
I found some snap peas on this... Took you... 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Just a bunch of old woman trying to hop over [a bunch of panting and noises from the group] 

Timothy (DM)
Just picking stuff out of the garden.

Kendrick (Mallek)
Took you long enough. [more Flannery and Helga huffing and panting] Oh, put you back into it. Put your back into it.! Like you've given labor. Oh, nevermind.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
I'm still young and spry. 

Jen (Flannery)
Tell yourself that, dear.

Timothy (DM)
And you all make it to the other side of this very difficult gate. It was great. Great puzzle solving. Yay.

Ellie (Hors)
[her eyes aglimmer] Did you say the texture of that wood is now Jell-o-like?

Jen (Flannery)
Noooo. Hors D'oeuvre, noooo!

Chris (Rubella)
This only lasts for a minute. 

Ellie (Hors)
Can I have a bite of that, please? [Rubella: "uh, sure."]

Jen (Flannery)
How many... how many rounds of combat have be in with this gate?

Ellie (Hors)
I take a bite out of it.

Timothy (DM)
All right. You take a bite of the Jell-o wood, and at first you yourself become kind of doughy, but after another 30 seconds pass. You stiffen up as if you had cast Barkskin.

Ellie (Hors)
*gasp* Ha-ha-ha-ha, Rubella, you've done it again, you beautiful bitch. 

Chris (Rubella)
Why, thank you.

Timothy (DM)
And you can make your way past to the vegetable patch, the field of wheat, and to the old barn. 

Jen (Flannery)
Hello, is there a goat here? We're looking for a goat.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
All right. We split up, yes? and find a black goat? [Rubella: "Yes."]

Jen (Flannery)
How big is the barn? Do we need to split... 'You take that end of the barn, I'll take this end.'

Kendrick (Mallek)
I mean, we're dealing with someone who has very bad eyesight.

Timothy (DM)
[goatly] *BAAAAAAAAA* 

Jen (Flannery)
I do have very bad eyesight.

Kendrick (Mallek)
Oh my god, Tim, no.

Ellie (Hors)
Oh, I'm near a goat?

Kendrick (Mallek)
I thought you were saying "bad" with a goat.

Timothy (DM)
You hear a goat in the barn.

Jen (Flannery)
Helllloooo?

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
"Alright, let's go" [Hors D'oeuvre: "In we go!", Flannery: "Get 'em!"] Helga goes in and immediately picks up a chicken. "Is this a goat?"

Kendrick (Mallek)
No.

Jen (Flannery)
Did you go to school?

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Oh, sorry. Hilda studied farm-ology. [Flannery: "ANIMAL HUSBANDRY!"] She specialized in animal... I-I-I-I did not; it's not a goat.

Timothy (DM)
[chickenly] *BRAWK BRAWK*

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
No! I went to art school!

Chris (Rubella)
What are you good at anyway?

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
I majored in knitting and drama! 

Ellie (Hors)
That tracks. [Rubella: "Yeah."]

Jen (Flannery)
This makes perfect sense. This is why we get along so well. 

Ellie (Hors)
Do you? I hadn't noticed. 

Jen (Flannery)
Compared to the rest of you, yes.

Ellie (Hors)
I'll find a goat. I know what goats look like: I've come here before.

Jen (Flannery)
Oh, fancy pants knows what goats look like, ok!

Timothy (DM)
And out of the shadows stumbles a black goat [Rubella: "Found one!", Hors D'oeuvre: "That's a goat."] Yellow beady eyes, shifting back and forth as it stares you down.

Ellie (Hors)
Ugh, I'll try and slit its throat. 

Jen (Flannery)
Uh, hello. Hello, cutie.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Did someone bring a bucket? A bucket!

Ellie (Hors)
Do you have a bucket? 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
No!

Jen (Flannery)
There's probably a bucket around here somewhere.

Timothy (DM)
It starts to munch on some hay.

Ellie (Hors)
It's munching on...?

Timothy (DM)
Some hay.

Chris (Rubella)
"Here, you can use the skull." I take the-the horse skull off my head.

Ellie (Hors)
Perfect. I try and grab it by the horns and yank its head back and slit its throat.

Jen (Flannery)
Using this knitting needle.

Ellie (Hors)
I've got a dagger. "Give me your blood, goat, and your flesh as well." [*slurps]

Jen (Flannery)
Take a little nibble while you're...

Ellie (Hors)
It's headbuttin' time.

Timothy (DM)
So, it starts to struggle beneath your grasp. [Hors D'oeuvre: "Aww."] *BAAAAAA*.

Ellie (Hors)
"I'm-I'm quick about it. I try and be quick about it. I'm an effective butcher." Hors d'Oeuvre kills things lots of ways.

Timothy (DM)
So how do you... how do you butcher this goat?

Jen (Flannery)
In many different ways. 

Ellie (Hors)
Yeah, she's used to it. Well, she, uh... in one swift motion grabs its horns, pulls its head back, slits its throat and then bleeds out... it bleeds into the horse skull.

Timothy (DM)
As it lets out its last bleat...

Kendrick (Mallek)
Bitch.

Jen (Flannery)
Oh, to be a goat.

Chris (Rubella)
You are one!

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
[correcting Flannery] A dead goat.

Timothy (DM)
... its body falls motionless in your arms [Flannery: "To be a dead goat."] The blood begins to pour into the overturned skull provided by Rubella.

Kendrick (Mallek)
But are the eyes covered up?

Timothy (DM)
No.

Chris (Rubella)
The inside of the--

Timothy (DM)
The yellow beady eyes stare you deep into your soul, Mallek.

Kendrick (Mallek)
[laughing] I was talking about the horse skull.

Chris (Rubella)
Yeah, yeah, the crainum of the skull is contained. It's like a little bowl.

Timothy (DM)
And you now have the blood of a goat as black as night

Jen (Flannery)
[waving her arms] We did it.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
I slowly close--

Ellie (Hors)
And I got the rest of the regular goat, too. I'm takin' this home with me. [Flannery: "You're comin' home with me!"]

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
I slowly close the goat's eyes "Rest sweet child."

Jen (Flannery)
They just pop back open. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
NoOoOo. Noooo! [Rubella: "It's a curse!"] Stay closed.

Timothy (DM)
All right, you have ingredient number two.

Jen (Flannery)
As we leave, Flannery is just like "THANK YOU, MR. PILAF!" [Hors D'oeuvre: [admonishingly] "Flannery!"] Sorry. Just being polite. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Back to the BOAT!

Jen (Flannery)
Oh, my aching bones.

Timothy (Jimothy Pilaf)
SHUT UP OUT THERE! WE'RE TRYIN' TO SLEEP.

Timothy (DM)
And that is the last thing you hear as you head back to your cottage. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
[correcting Tim] Gondola back to the cottage. 

Timothy (DM)
As you gondola back to your cottage. 

Chris (Rubella)
[operatically] O, sole mio! Sta 'n fronte a te. [Editor's Note: Chris loves "O sole mio" but forgot the lyrics.]

Kendrick (Mallek)
As this is happening, Mallek's going to slow down and be like "Should we check on Francis?"

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Yes, we should. He should return to the cottage when we're back. 

Jen (Flannery)
We should but I don't want to. But yes, we should check on him just in case.

Timothy (DM)
So, as you arrive at the cottage, Francis is not there. 

Jen (Flannery)
Oh my god. Of course, he's not. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Francis. Francis!

Ellie (Hors)
He's a disappointment.

Jen (Flannery)
Such a disappointment. Oh, I expected this, so...

Ellie (Hors)
Can't be disappointed.

Jen (Flannery)
That's right!

Timothy (DM)
You call out into the Witch Woods, and all you hear is the chirping of crickets and rustling of leaves. 

Jen (Flannery)
Not you, crickets!

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Blast it, Francis. I guess we're off to the-the mushroom forest. Let's leave our ingredients here.

Jen (Flannery)
That's a good idea for once. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Project management. Check!

Chris (Rubella)
We've hit our stretch goal. [Editor's Note: Chris confused "stretch goal" with "milestone".]

Timothy (DM)
So, you set down the ingredients in the cottage, and you get back into the boat.  [Flannery: [disgusted] "This again."] You take the boat across Moonbeam Pond--

Ellie (Hors)
Oh, actually, can I...? Actually quick question.

Timothy (DM)
Can you actually do a thing?

Ellie (Hors)
As, uh, as we're getting back into the boat, Hors D'oeuvre sees... she's staring into the water, and suddenly with one swift motion, she reaches down, snatches, like, a wriggling fish out of the water and downs the entire thing, and she sprouts gills and grows webbing between her fingers. She can now breathe underwater and gains a swimming speed equal to her walking speed, and she'll tow the boat.

Jen (Flannery)
I didn't think you could look more horrible.

Ellie (Hors)
[earnestly] Ha-ha-ha-ha. You're so kind, Flannery. Thank you for your... you're making me blush! I'm blushing! I'm blushing. A-ha-ha. I'll tow the boat; no need for anybody to do any work. I'm down here in the water,  swimming away.

Jen (Flannery)
I know just how to flatter you.

Chris (Rubella)
Perfect, my arms were getting tired from the rowing anyway.

Timothy (DM)
So, Hors D'oeuvre begins to tow the boat as you all sit in it. Mallek flying behind [Kendrick: "Of course!" Jen: "Naturally."] and you see the mushroom forest across the pond. Shimmering, glowing giant mushrooms catch the light of the moon reflected off the surface of the water. It's a nice, calm, serene moment between the very very, very SHORT pauses between each of you speaking.

Jen (Flannery)
I hate this! 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
You know, I bet Francis just walked through the water like I said NOT.

Jen (Flannery)
Oh, he's probably dissolved.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Probably dissolved. Oh, well. Problem solved, I guess.

Ellie (Hors)
He's probably at the bottom of the lake. 

Jen (Flannery)
[out of the side of her mouth] Not a big loss, honestly.

Timothy (Frog)
*MMMMWOP*

Ellie (Hors)
What did he ever contribute? 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
That was on my to-do list: get rid of Francis. 

Timothy (Frog)
*MMMMWOP*

Jen (Flannery)
Check.

Timothy (Frog)
*MMMMWOP*

Jen (Flannery)
Oh no.

Timothy (DM)
As you approach the shoreline on the other side of the pond, you hear the sound of frogs croaking in the night.

Jen (Flannery)
Delicious. 

Ellie (Hors)
I'm gonna eat them.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
We're all gonna eat those. 

Jen (Flannery)
My favorite snack... WELL! [Dan: "All right!"]

Ellie (Hors)
[to Tim] Can I grab a frog?

Timothy (DM)
You look around, but you don't... see any.

Jen (Flannery)
Like, oh, they're hiding? Well, time to look for Francis.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Or a mushroom. Mushroom will do.

Jen (Flannery)
--or a mushroom, whichever comes first.

Timothy (DM)
But you reach the shoreline, you dock the boat, and you step out.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
How big is the forest?

Timothy (DM)
I mean, it's a... it's a pretty big forest, um, but there are mushrooms freaking everywhere.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Did it specify the type of mushroom?

Jen (Flannery)
Found one.

Ellie (Hors)
That's what I was going to say: like, a MAGIC mushroom could be anything.

Chris (Rubella)
Might as well get as many as we can.

Ellie (Hors)
Hors D'oeuvre just starts stuffing mushrooms in her mouth. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
No, we need them!

Jen (Flannery)
Hors D'oeuvre, noooo.

Ellie (Hors)
[*chomp chomp chomp chomp*]

Timothy (DM)
As Hors D'oeuvre begins to stuff mushrooms in her mouth, you start to see a cloud of spores form around her.

Jen (Flannery)
I can't deal with you when you're high. [Hors D'oeuvre crows]

Ellie (Hors)
 And I still have gills and webbed feet, and she's soaking wet.

Jen (Flannery)
Something out of a nightmare.

Ellie (Hors)
A-ha-ha-ha-ha. I'm having a great time.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
[hesitant] This one's pretty fun. You think magic?

Chris (Rubella)
Maybe? What about that one? It's got a luminescence to it.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Oh yes. I'll grab that one. It's... [drops the pretence] this is uneffective. Does anyone have a detecting magic sort of nonsense?

Chris (Rubella)
I can Dispel Magic, so if it changes then we know that the other one... if we find a patch of them [stammering] it's like reverse Detect Magic. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
[unswayed] Oh, yeah...

Ellie (Hors)
Hors D'Oeuvre looks up with her... from her cloud of spores with her mouth filled to the brim: "Arr harv dertar marrick."

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
What?

Ellie (Hors)
Arr havr! 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
I have no idea what you're saying.

Ellie (Hors)
[swallows] I can cast Detect Magic. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Beautiful! Find us a magic mushroom... and don't eat it.

Ellie (Hors)
[pauses] I can't do that. No promises, but okay, I'll cast Detect Magic.

Timothy (DM)
All right. So, you can Detect Magic and--

Ellie (Hors)
Let's see, what do I eat to cast Detect Magic... I pull out a crystal from my pocket that glows with arcane energy and I pop it in my mouth. [*crunch crunch crunch crunch*] 

Jen (Flannery)
Mmm, rock crunch.

Timothy (DM)
Crunch crunch crunch crunch, and as you chew the crystal and the shards begin to cut the inside of your throat as you swallow--

Ellie (Hors)
I'm drooling blood a little bit. [Jen: "Oh my god!"]

Timothy (DM)
--your eyes begin to shift, and you start to see little pops of light throughout the forest: a mushroom here, a mushroom there. They're pretty much all over the place and now you know which ones to grab.

Jen (Flannery)
What do your witch eyes see?

Ellie (Hors)
The majority of the mushrooms in this forest are magical. 

Jen (Flannery)
Oh great, then we're on the right track.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Either of these two? 

Ellie (Hors)
[to Tim] Either of those two?

Timothy (DM)
Yes.

Ellie (Hors)
Yes.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Which which?

Chris (Rubella)
Either.

Ellie (Hors)
Both.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Both, oh, oh.

Ellie (Hors)
"So you don't mind if I eat one?" [Helga: "Here, no, you take one."] I pop it in my mouth. "This is going really well for me. I'm so glad our hideous failed son failed in his activities, 'cause then I wouldn't've--

Timothy (DM)
And then Hors D'Oeuvre begins to glow. 

Ellie (Hors)
OhHHHH???!?!?

Jen (Flannery)
WoooOOOOOowww, you look so "pretty." 

Ellie (Hors)
Oh, don't be cruel. 

Jen (Flannery)
Oh, I'm sorry. You're right. Well, our failed son isn't here; time to go home.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Must be dead!

Jen (Flannery)
Must be dead! Good!

Ellie (Hors)
No great loss. [Mallek: "Aww."]

Timothy (Frog)
*MMMWOP*

Timothy (DM)
As you turn around to head back to the boat, you notice a figure standing next to it. In the darkness of the night, you can't make out who they are.

Jen (Flannery)
Hello, we're witches; who are you?

Timothy (DM)
And they bound towards you. [Hors D'Oeuvre: "AHHh!"]

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Not Francis, not Francis!

Ellie (Hors)
Can Francis move like that?

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Noooo!!

Timothy (DM)
As they approach hopping, you see them in a shard of moonlight. It is a frog-like figure in tattered peasant clothes covered and twigs and leaves. They get to about five feet away, and they just say:

Timothy (Frog)
[in a wobbly voice] Which one of you wazzit?

Jen (Flannery)
Sorry, darling, you're gonna have to elaborate.

Timothy (Frog)
Which one of you made me a frog? 

Jen (Flannery)
[all witches look at each other] Oh, it could've been any of use. 

Ellie (Hors)
Oh honestly, I can't remember. 

Timothy (Frog)
Which of you hags?

Jen (Flannery)
Well That's rude.

Ellie (Hors)
Well, it's actually quite kind.

Jen (Flannery)
You're right.

Timothy (Frog)
[shudders]  Wuh-wuh-wuh. T-turn me b-back, right now!

Jen (Flannery)
Honestly, darling, you probably look better this way.

Timothy (Frog)
How dare you!

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Have you seen a human? They're terrible!

Jen (Flannery)
They are! They're disgusting; look at us! [Helga: "Hideous!"]

Timothy (Frog)
Turn me back, right this instant! 

Kendrick (Mallek)
[in his normal voice] "Are you sure it wasn't another witch?" What was that accent? [all laugh] 

Timothy (Frog)
W-w-what do you mean? There are five witches right here.

Ellie (Hors)
[to Frogman] Do you remember which of us did it because we cert--... we turn people into frogs everyday.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
And STATISTICALLY there are definitely more witches. 

Timothy (Frog)
Y-you all look the same. 

Chris (Rubella)
[in unison with the group] Woowwww, that is reductionist! 

Ellie (Hors)
I can't believe.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
We even have a BIRD MAN here. 

Kendrick (Mallek)
That's being witch-ist. 

Ellie (Hors)
Yeah! You think MALLEK looks the same as us?

Kendrick (Mallek)
Yeah, you're such a witch-ist.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Us? Maybe. This fuck? Abso-LUTE-ly not. 

Jen (Flannery)
He has FEATHERS!

Timothy (Frog)
Well, maybe I can rule out the feathery fella

Kendrick (Mallek)
[unenthused] Wow, thanks.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
[points to Flannery] And it's definitely not this one: she would tell you! 

Jen (Flannery)
Oh, I would. I would tell you RIGHT away. 

Timothy (Frog)
W-w-well, with you three, which one was it? 

Chris (Rubella)
I whisper to the other two. "It was probably me. I..."

Ellie (Hors)
It does seem your style. 

Chris (Rubella)
I-I do--

Jen (Flannery)
"IT WAS PROBABLY RUBELLA!" Flannery shouts. 

Timothy (Paul)
R-rubella? Which one is Rubella?

Jen (Flannery)
[points to Rubella] THAT one!

Chris (Rubella)
Rubella points off in the direction of the... "She's underneath the boat. I... Turn that way, and you probably will see her." 

Timothy (Frog)
[visibily frog-fused] Wh-wh-whh-where?

Chris (Rubella)
Un-under the boat. Look un-- What's your name?

Timothy (Bobbert)
Bobbert. [all echo "Bobbert"]

Chris (Rubella)
Bobbert!  She's, she's under the boat.

Timothy (DM)
Give me a Deception check.

Chris (Rubella)
Well, ok, I'm good at Deception.

Kendrick (Mallek)
[sing-songy] "Bobbert. Bobby, baby." Sorry. [Editor's Note: this is a reference to the musical "Company"]

Chris (Rubella)
Bobby, we got something to tell you.

Ellie (Hors)
I don't think I KNOW how to turn people into frogs. [Flannery: "What?" Hors D'oeuvre: "I don't think I know how to turn people into frogs." Flannery: "Oh, you know..."]

Chris (Rubella)
Oh!  I got a dirty 20.

Timothy (DM)
A dirty 20. "Wh-uh what? Under the boat?" 

Chris (Rubella)
She, like this one here that has gills on her neck [points to Hors D'oeuvre], this one is also amphibious, and she likes being under boats for whatever reason, I don't know.

Timothy (DM)
All right, so Bobbert hops back towards the boat.

Chris (Rubella)
As he's doing that, I want to cast Dispel Magic on him. [Dan: "Oooo."]

Ellie (Hors)
Oh, how characteristically kind of you, Rubella.

Timothy (DM)
How powerful is Dispel Magic? 

Chris (Rubella)
It's one of the things you can bump up. So--

Timothy (DM)
Yeah, so at what level can you cast it? 

Chris (Rubella)
--'any spell of 3rd level or lower automatically succeeds. Anything above fourth level,..' I don't have a 4th level spell.

Timothy (DM)
Okay, so you have a 3rd level spell slo?

Chris (Rubella)
Yyyyyyyes.

Timothy (DM)
All right. And anything above that? It's...? 

Chris (Rubella)
I have to do a DC check of 10 plus the spell's level.

Timothy (DM)
Okay. Do your DC check.

Chris (Rubella)
So, that's using my spellcasting modifier which is plus..., it's my Intelligence, right? Is it just my Intelligence or do I add my proficiency to it?

Timothy (DM)
Plus proficiency.

Chris (Rubella)
Okay, so that's +5. [Tim: "All right."] That's an 18.

Timothy (DM)
As you cast Dispel Magic, you see a shimmer above Bobbert, and you start to see he floats just slightly on one of his hops, and then crashes back down to the ground.

Kendrick (Mallek)
That looked like it hurt.

Timothy (DM)
...still a frog.

Chris (Rubella)
[mad as fuck] God dammit.

Jen (Flannery)
See, you look uglier.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
More a frog?

Ellie (Hors)
 He was originally a frog, perhaps

Chris (Rubella)
Maybe he was just awakened and now... yeah. 

Jen (Flannery)
Maybe he's just... doesn't know anything. Maybe he's stupid. Maybe he's stupid! 

Chris (Rubella)
I never considered that. 

Timothy (Bobbert)
He turns around and goes, "W-which one of you j-j-just cast a spell on me?"

Chris (Rubella)
[crosses arms] You're the one that ASKED to be turned OUT of a frog. I was TRYING to help you.

Timothy (Bobbert)
W-ww-well, do it! Fix me right now!

Chris (Rubella)
[coldly] I did. Maybe you're not the most trustworthy person, but I think you've always been a frog.

Timothy (Bobbert)
[indignant] I have not! [Flannery: "What were you before then?"] One of you turned me into a frog!

Kendrick (Mallek)
I think something you have to do is look within now at this point.

Jen (Flannery)
Mmhm. [all agree]

Kendrick (Mallek)
Mmhm. Ribbit.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Like the loss of my sister... [all groan "Ohhhh god."]

Kendrick (Mallek)
Oh, goddammit, your sister.

Jen (Flannery)
Oh, shut up.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
...is something that WE must deal with. 

Ellie (Hors)
We???

Jen (Flannery)
Who's WE?

Chris (Rubella)
Sounds like a personal problem.

Timothy (Bobbert)
[narrows eyes] Oh, I don't like you.

Jen (Flannery)
[in unison with Hors D'Oeuvre] We don't like you either!

Timothy (Bobbert)
And well... WELL...

Timothy (DM)
And they start to swell. [Flannery: "Oh god."]. They start to pulse as their little... whatever it's called, that, like, pocket-- [Jen: "Oh noooo"]. 

Chris (Rubella)
Undersack. The ribbit pocket?

Timothy (DM)
Underneath the... [groking Chris's joke] ribbit pocket? The ribbit sack?... 

Ellie (Hors)
It's where they keep their ribbits.

Timothy (DM)
--beneath their mouth gets bigger and smaller and bigger or smaller--

Jen (Flannery)
Ew, stop it. 

Timothy (Bobbert)
--and their body begins to grow. "I SPOKE WITH A HAG. AND SHE... gave me THIS!" And it begins to BURST out of its own form growing 10 times.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
[group says "Oh no."] Oh dear. Rubella!

Ellie (Hors)
Well, no wonder we couldn't turn you back into a human. 

Kendrick (Mallek)
 Is this how we all react like it's a good thing, like "Oh?" [all say "Ohh!"]

Jen (Flannery)
Honestly, that's an improvement, actually.

Ellie (Hors)
I'm gonna eat that.

Timothy (Bobbert)
Well, I'm gonna make you pay now!

Jen (Flannery)
Good luck. I don't have any money.

Timothy (DM)
Everybody roll initiative.

Ellie (Hors)
Let's rumble. [Jen: "Let's rumble!"]

Chris (Rubella)
Goddammit. Why did I waste a 3rd level spell on him? 

Kendrick (Mallek)
I got a seven. 

Jen (Flannery)
Oh my god, I did so bad. I got a 3!

Ellie (Hors)
I got six. 

Kendrick (Mallek)
My rolls have NOT been good.

Chris (Rubella)
I also got a 6. [Rubella: "Goddammit!"]

Jen (Flannery)
I'm as slow as honestly I could expect for my character. 

Ellie (Hors)
We're hags!

Chris (Rubella)
We've been awake for at LEAST two days now.

Timothy (Bobbert)
*MWOP... WOP... WOPP*

Kendrick (Mallek)
[sing-songy] Got that WOP-WOP-WOP. [Editor's Note: This is a reference to "WOP" by J.Dash ft. Flo Rida .]

Timothy (DM)
And as they burst out of their original form, they become this green, scaly twisted monstrosity of their original form. You see their eyes are shifted, kind of sliding off their face. There are horns and spikes protruding from random sections of their body, and then there are these tentacles that flail behind their face as one shoots out towards you. And then another. 

Kendrick (Mallek)
Who? 

Jen (Flannery)
Okayyyy.

Timothy (DM)
Helga, one of the tentacles wraps around your ankle, knocking you off your feet

Kendrick (Mallek)
Seems fair.

Jen (Flannery)
I wish that were me. [all laugh]

Ellie (Hors)
Not to fret, Flannery. 

Timothy (DM)
You take 20 bludgeoning damage [the group freaks out, Ellie: "Whatttt? What the fuck?"] as you're FLUNG across the beach.

Kendrick (Mallek)
I guess you're gonna join Hilda sooner than you thought.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
That's more than half my health. [Tim laughs]

Ellie (Hors)
WHOOOOA. BROOOO.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
OW!

Timothy (DM)
Malik [Ellie: "Oh my god."] What do you do?

Kendrick (Mallek)
I'm gonna look at... I'm gonna look at what just happened and be like, "DAMN!" I'm gonna hold my heart and be like "You are amazing at conflict management." [laughs] and I am going to... how close are we to the Frog-ert?

Timothy (DM)
You're pretty close. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Kendrick (Mallek)
I'm going to do Inflict Wounds. I'm going to get close to touch because I have to touch them. Does a 18 hit? [Tim: "Yes."] All right. So that I'm just going to do that, and that's going to be for 20 necrotic damage. [Ellie: "Whoa."] And with my bonus action, I'm gonna use Spiritual Weapon. [to self] "Your hair looks good in the morning." Words of aff--

Jen (Flannery)
[incredulous] You have hair? Your feathers.

Kendrick (Mallek)
[saving himself] My feathers. I call my feathers my hair.

Ellie (Hors)
Oh, you're assimilating into the culture.

Kendrick (Mallek)
Exactly. Does 21 hit?

Timothy (DM)
A 21 does hit. 

Kendrick (Mallek)
All right, and that's going to be for 11 damage.

Timothy (DM)
All right, what is your spiritual weapon?

Kendrick (Mallek)
It's spiritual...

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Does it have a shape?

Timothy (DM)
[laughing] Does it have a shape?

Kendrick (Mallek)
It's like a bow and arrow that's made out of light [groups goes "Ohh.", Tim: "All right."] mixed with a little darkness because shamanism... like, you get that dark energy just like a... like a Digimon like they can *pop into existence*

Timothy (DM)
Yeah, [Jen: "Hell yeah."] This giant bow manifests itself of light and darkness and shoots an arrow into the froghemoth. You see a laceration across its right arm from your Inflict Wounds. Helga. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Oh, it's my turn.

Kendrick (Mallek)
Hit there! Hit there.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Helga's gonna struggle to her feet. "Oh, oh. Oh, you absolute bufoon!" And then she's gonna... she's gonna hold her hands up in the air and, like, dark energy is going to start, like, swirling out from underneath her skirt. "Hilda, Hilda, HILDA! SEND ME YOUR FERAL DOG!"

Jen (Flannery)
[to Hors D'oeuvre] Oh my god. 

Ellie (Hors)
[to Flannery] Here she goes again.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
And from underneath her skirt runs out... a Corgi, a shadow Corgi [Mallek: "You really need to take a bath."] so it's got the, like, dark... it has, like, shadowy, like [Hors: "Oh, it's evil." Flannery: "Terrifying."] and she-she, like, squats. "Hello,  little Cremini. [points to Bobbert] Please kill that one." And it runs off towards... so I cast Hound of Ill Omen. [group: "Oooh."] Which means I summon a shadow... technically, it has the stats of a direwolf, so... but it's a corgi. It's Corgi! Her corgi, Cremini.

Jen (Flannery)
Direcorgi.  "Well, THAT'S where it went."

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
That's a bonus action, so then I will also cast Magic Missile against it. That doesn't miss, right? Magic Missile's like an auto hit? [Chris: "Yes."] Brilliant. So how many does it... I'll reread... 'Three glowing darts.' Okay, cool. So, I target all of them on him. So, that isss... let me roll the damage. 8 force damage.

Timothy (DM)
All right. And does Corgi make an attack, the direcorgi?

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Let me double-check and see when it goes in the round.

Timothy (DM)
Usually it's on your initiative.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Yeah, we could just... we'll just do that. Do that somewhere in there.

Timothy (DM)
Yeah, make its attack? 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Yes. It has Pack Tactics. So, it has advantage, right 'cause...? [Tim: "Yeah."] 'cause it's got another poyson up there? All right, it's going to bite. [Tim: "All right."] Shoot, does a 12 hit?

Timothy (DM)
It does not. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Damn. *nyan-nyan-nyah* It misses. 

Timothy (DM)
All right, Hors D'oeuvre.

Ellie (Hors)
All right. Hors D'oeuvre reaches into the pocket of one of her skirts, and she pulls out a squirming roach. And [Jen: "Oh, cutie."] *CRUNCH*. She takes a big bite out of it as its little squirmy feet slurp she slurps up like noodles, and then she points at Bobbert and from the ground beneath him swarm up hundreds of other roaches just like that one and they crawl all over his body, and he has to make a Constitution saving throw.

Ellie (Markie)
Does a 21 pass? 

Kendrick (Mallek)
*HAHAHAHA* [contrite] I mean...

Timothy (DM)
Yeah, a 21 passes, so nothing happens and he's covered in roaches.

Jen (Flannery)
Dang. D-d-dang. And he LOVES it.

Timothy (DM)
He loves it. You see his tongue shoots out, and he just, like, windshield wipers his face.

Ellie (Hors)
"Aw, we're... Man, we are two of a kind, Bobbert." All right, and I'm just gonna back away. 

Timothy (DM)
Rubella.

Chris (Rubella)
So, I am going to crack my fingers again, and I'm going to say "You look lovely in the pale moonlight." as I cast Moon Beam on this froghemoth. So, it has to do Constitution saving throw.

Timothy (DM)
Does a 25 pass?

Chris (Rubella)
It does, but it still takes damage, goddamnit!

Jen (Flannery)
I think it's Constitution is high!

Chris (Rubella)
It's pretty high, so I'm gonna go for Wisdom next time!

Timothy (DM)
I rolled a nat 20 as well.

Chris (Rubella)
"Well, get ready for some radiant damage, you ugly frog." And you take--

Timothy (Bobbert)
You made me this waaaaaaay.

Chris (Rubella)
They take 4 points of radiant damage.

Timothy (DM)
40? [Chris: "4."] Oh, all right.

Ellie (Hors)
I'm concerned that there's another hag in this wood who was treading on our territory of turnin' fuckers into frogs!

Timothy (DM)
Flannery.

Jen (Flannery)
All right, Flannery takes out some knitting needles and starts knitting angrily in Bobbert's direction... Froggert? Frobert? I don't know. And she's gonna cast Bane, and he needs to make a Charisma saving throw.

Timothy (DM)
A 1.

Jen (Flannery)
Haha, yasss. Ok, great [Ellie: "Thank god."] Whenever the target... So now whenever he attacks or does a saving throw before the spell ends, which is one minute, the target must roll a d4 and subtract the number rolled from the attack roll or saving throw.

Timothy (DM)
So, every time for the next minute. [Jen: "Yes."] All right. That's awesome because it's Bobbert's turn. So, you see his tongue shoots out towards Hors D'oeuvre. [Ellie: "It's time to BeReal." Chris: "Oh."] And I rolled originally a 23, but we're going to subtract 3 for 20. [Ellie: "Dammit."] So you get hit with the tongue. [Ellie: "Oh, no."] And I would like you to make a Strength saving throw.

Ellie (Hors)
Fuck. Okay, well, look, it's not good. It's a 3.

Timothy (DM)
All right. So, the tongue wraps around you, Hors D'Oeuvre, and puuuuullls you towards the froghemoth Bobbert, and then he tries to chomp down on you.

Ellie (Hors)
I can't really get mad about this, can I?

Timothy (DM)
With a -1 [Ellie: "Good. Thanks."] and so you wriggle out of his tongue JUST before he chomps down on ya'.

Ellie (Hors)
Can't beat me at my own game, you big idiot! 

Timothy (DM)
Mallek.

Kendrick (Mallek)
All right, how close am I to Helga?

Timothy (DM)
You can run up into Helga. 

Kendrick (Mallek)
All right. So I'm gonna run up to Helga, and I am going to cast... ooh... which one do I want to do? I have soooo many. I'm going to do Cure Wounds.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Thanks, you big hunk of man.

Kendrick (Mallek)
Now I have to roll with disadvantage. [chuckles] I didn't give myself an affirmation. 

Ellie (Hors)
Oh, no!

Timothy (DM)
[like a mobster] Yup. Them's the rules you made! [Hors: "I'm glad you're so--"]

Kendrick (Mallek)
[petulantly] Well, SOMEONE was TALKING before I can do IT. [laughs]

Timothy (DM)
Alright, so roll with disadvantage. 

Kendrick (Mallek)
Actually, do I actually even need to roll? It's instantaneous.

Timothy (DM)
Yeah, but roll the amount of healing with disadvantage.

Kendrick (Mallek)
All right, so I'm gonna do it twice. So, you get 9 points back.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
That's great. [Ellie: "Hell yeah."]

Kendrick (Mallek)
And then with my bonus action, I'm gonna turn over and use Spiritual Weapon. 

Timothy (DM)
Alright, make that attack roll.

Kendrick (Mallek)
Thank you for being the animal that I get to kill today. [whispers] Yes. [normally] Um... does an 8 hit?

Timothy (DM)
It does not.

Kendrick (Mallek)
So, my arrow just goes right past one of their eyeballs. "Damn, I have to aim better." And I end my turn. 

Timothy (DM)
Helga.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Yes? Oh, it's my turn. Helga... "Go! Go, little Cremini, go!" [Jen: "Sic em!"] And she will also cast Magic Missile again. She was going to cast it at a 2nd level though, so giving herself four bolts that will be... I can't read these dice sometimes and it's only rolled ones so far. Great. 11 force damage.

Kendrick (Mallek)
I thought I didn't know how to count pass six?

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
[points to self] I do! Helga doesn't. Helga doesn't understand the concept of damage.

Timothy (DM)
So, four magical bolts smash into the creature.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
And then Cremini attacks with advantage still 'cause Pack Tactics. Does... my god, a 12 doesn't hit. It's a 12 again! 

Timothy (DM)
A 12 does not hit.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
[like a disappointed show dog mom] Cremini! Get it together.

Timothy (DM)
As Bobbert stomps around, flailing tentacles, whipping you all around, Cremini misses in his lunge. Hors D'oeuvre.

Ellie (Hors)
So, I'm, like, within melee range of it now 'cause I got slurped. [Tim: "Yup."] Great,I wipe the goo off of me. "Ugh. It's or be eaten." I pull out my handaxe and I fucking jump on him and start hacking away, tryin' to hack off a little, you know, a bit! Hack off a bit. So, let's rumble. Does a 23 hit?

Timothy (DM)
A 23 does hit, yes.

Kendrick (Mallek)
[pointing to Ellie's heavy ass die] That is a very heavy die.

Ellie (Hors)
Great! [crowing] AHAHAHAHA! It's metal. Yeah, "I'm gonna beat you at your own game, you little piece of shit." and that's 5 points of slashing damage as I, like, hold this little hand axe and try and, like, hack off a piece of flesh. I'm drooling. [Jen: "Oh, wow."] But it's still kind of bloody drool because she ate that crystal a while ago, and she still kind of looks like a fish. The overall effect is... bad. "AaAaAaAaAHHH, yyyyes."

Timothy (DM)
Rubella. 

Chris (Rubella)
Has this froghemoth moved from its last turn, like did it move?

Timothy (DM)
I mean, it's been stomping around but mechanically no.

Chris (Rubella)
Okay, so it hasn't moved. So, it has to do another Constitution saving throw. 

Timothy (DM)
Oh shit, that's right.

Kendrick (Mallek)
Take that, ya little bitch!

Timothy (DM)
Do I subtract the d4 from all saves? [Ellie: "Yes."] Yeah. Okay, a 5.

Chris (Rubella)
So, it fails, so it's gonna take the full brunt of the moonlight, and it takes a total of 5. So, I'm going to use my... because I didn't take an action, I'm going to use a spell and I'm going to cast Ray of Sickness on it. So that's a ranged spell attack, and I'm just going to spit at it. [Mallek: "Uck, oh gosh."] Oh, and that's going to be a 18 to hit.

Timothy (DM)
An 18 will hit. 

Chris (Rubella)
OK, so it's going to take some mucousy green poison for 14 points of poison damage.

Timothy (DM)
All right.

Chris (Rubella)
I'm gonna say... "Take that!"

Jen (Flannery)
Good one, Rubella! [Kendrick cackles]. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
You're always so creative!

Ellie (Hors)
You're really on top of it today, aren't you, Rubella? 

Chris (Rubella)
[defensive] Who's the one with the magic moonlight [Hors D'Oeuvre: "Fair."] I guess there's a dog here too and...

Timothy (Bobbert)
[rubbing its eyes] Why is it burning? 

Chris (Rubella)
[coldly] It's because you didn't put on your sunscreen, you dumb frog?

Kendrick (Mallek)
Well, it'd be moonscreen at this point. [mechanically ] HA. HA. HA.

Jen (Flannery)
Too true. Too true.

Timothy (DM)
Flannery.

Jen (Flannery)
Flannery takes her knitting needles and rubs them together, and it makes a horrible loud high pitched noise.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
I hated that.

Jen (Flannery)
Oh yes, well, as you should.

Ellie (Hors)
Bad for everyone.

Jen (Flannery)
And the horrible frogman must make a Constitution saving throw minus Bane.

Timothy (DM)
-3.

Jen (Flannery)
Incredible [Ellie: "Good."] He takes 12 thunder damage.

Timothy (DM)
Yay-yeah. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
What did you do? What did you cast?

Jen (Flannery)
I cast Shatter. [Dan: "Ohhhh, yeah."]

Timothy (DM)
So, just, like, shocks of magic are, like, all over this creature, just, like, blasting out, like, craters of his skin. Flesh chunks are flying everywhere. You're all into it.

Jen (Flannery)
Ooo. Heee. Hors D'Oeuvre, those are for you! 

Ellie (Hors)
She's opening her mouth, hoping one will fall in. [sing-songy] "It's raining frogs! Hallelujah, it's raining frogs..." 

Jen (Flannery)
Well, save some for later!

Kendrick (Mallek)
She's spinning. [sing-songy] "This is what dreams are made of." [Editor's Note: This is reference to the pivotal Hillary Duff song "What Dreams Are Made Of."]

Jen (Flannery)
ARRRGH, and it just starts spinning around, stomping, splashing, and it CRASHES into your boat as it flails its tendrils at you, missing every attack.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
That's a lot of dice you just rolled.

Jen (Flannery)
You look ridiculous.

Timothy (DM)
--But now your boat lays in splinters. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Dammit.

Jen (Flannery)
Well, I guess I'll just have to die here.

Kendrick (Mallek)
That's fine with me. I can fly. Ha-HA! Oh, is it my turn now? [Tim: "Yep."] All right. I am going to do Inflict Wounds at the 3rd level. "Come on, bitch. You can do this, bitch. You are a great bitch." That's my words... [Dan: "Of affirmation."] Ooh, dirty 20, no, that's a nat 20! So 26.

Ellie (Hors)
That's a natty 20.

Timothy (DM)
Nat 20, alright, roll that crit damage.

Kendrick (Mallek)
Oh, that's gonna be a LOT 'cause it's 5d10. [Chris and Dan: "What!" Ellie: "Whoa.!" Jen: "Wow."] So I can... for crit, it's... 

Timothy (DM)
Double the amount of dice [Chris: "Double Dice."]

Kendrick (Mallek)
Double dice, so I need... I need 10. So, that's gonna be 65 damage.

Ellie (Hors)
Ohhhhh, my god.

Chris (Rubella)
I underestimated you.

Timothy (DM)
Holy fuck.

Ellie (Hors)
If that doesn't do it...

Timothy (DM)
As you cast your Inflict Wounds, you feel this, like, surge of energy as the strength of your affirmations shoot through you, and you just see laceration after laceration BURSTING from the skin of this creature. Blood begins to pour out all over its body just splattering the crowd; it is on its LAST bit of life.

Kendrick (Mallek)
[slowly and cooly] Kaw-kaw, BITCH.

Ellie (Hors)
That was good.

Jen (Flannery)
That's the first cool thing I've ever heard you say. 

Kendrick (Mallek)
I hope you die tonight.

Jen (Flannery)
Me too!

Kendrick (Mallek)
Ha-HA! ... wait! That didn't kill it? 

Chris (Rubella)
No. [Ellie: "Ach!", Kendrick: "Damn."] It's still alive! 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
I've got this, everyone! 

Jen (Flannery)
I don't believe you.

Ellie (Hors)
Oh god. You and your little dog?

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Helga holds her hands up in the air and says "[gibbering] Ah, wub-uh-nun-uh-nub-uh-nub. Hoooo! Wub-uh-nub-uh-nub-uh-nug, HILDA HILDA HILDA!" 

Kendrick (Mallek)
Dirty punani. [Editor's Note: This is slang for something. Look it up yourself.]

Ellie (Hors)
[rolling her eyes] Oh, here she goes again. Always with the "Hilda Hilda Hilda." 

Jen (Flannery)
Just get your own life, Helga. Goodness gracious. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
--and from underneath her skirt again [Jen: "Oh god."] flies a Chaos Bolt! 

Ellie (Hors)
Who are you keeping under there?

Kendrick (Mallek)
You really need to... you need to wash down there.

Chris (Rubella)
Holy hell! 

Kendrick (Mallek)
Wash your punani. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Does a 19 hit? 

Timothy (DM)
Yeah, it does.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Ok, cool.I-I'm casting it at a 2nd level by the way.

Ellie (Hors)
Is Hilda under THERE?!? 

Chris (Rubella)
She's been there the whole time. 

Ellie (Hors)
It's just, like, one of those dolls where you flip it over.

Kendrick (Mallek)
Is Hilda your vir-gina? [Jen: "Her vir-gina!"]

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
So I can do force damage or psychic... we're gonna do psychic damage [Jen: "Ooh."] It's gonna be a psychic bolt, and it does... oh my god: math. 14...21 psychic damage. [all say "Wow."]

Timothy (DM)
Finish Bobbert

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Um, because it's psychic damage, when it hits him, it doesn't,like, tear at his skin at all. Those who are nearby see his, like, brain starts to melt out of all the holes and orifices on his face. 

Jen (Flannery)
Oh wow.

Ellie (Hors)
I'm gonna eat that. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
You're welcome.

Ellie (Hors)
Hors D'oeuvre pulls out a straw.

Jen (Flannery)
Soup, wow!

Chris (Rubella)
Frog soup.

Timothy (DM)
So, as the layers of flesh begin to peel away, they slough off into the Moonbeam Pond, and as you look closer, you see Bobbert's tiny form laying on the beach. You see he raises an arm very slowly and forcedly and beckons you over.

Chris (Rubella)
[shouting from a distance] Not falling for that!

Jen (Flannery)
Get him! Someone step on him.

Chris (Rubella)
Is he...  he's still in my Moonbeam though.

Timothy (DM)
[laughing] He's still in your Moonbeam.

Ellie (Hors)
Rubella, I think you're responsible for this entire situation, frankly.

Chris (Rubella)
[confidently] I will walk over to this frog, and I'll move my Moonbeam.

Jen (Flannery)
[to the Moonbeam] Get out of the way.

Ellie (Hors)
Just scooch it over. 

Chris (Rubella)
It's like *fwoop* 

Timothy (DM)
You just wave your hand, move it over...

Chris (Rubella)
Like a spotlight. Yeah. 

Timothy (DM)
--and you approach Bobbert. You see he's breathing very heavily, straining to sit up and look you in the eyes.

Chris (Rubella)
[pause] Can I help you?

Timothy (Bobbert)
Pleaseeeee. Set me freeeeee.

Jen (Flannery)
[from afar] You got it, champ! 

Ellie (Hors)
Death is the only freedom.

Jen (Flannery)
That's what I always say!

Timothy (Bobbert)
[weakly] You must kiss me.

Chris (Rubella)
Out of the question.

Jen (Flannery)
I'll do it! I haven't kissed anyone in 74 years. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Except for... "Except for the River Monster!"

Jen (Flannery)
"Except for the River Monster, ooh." Yeah, Flannery kisses the horrible frogman.

Chris (Rubella)
Flannery pushes Rubella out of the way.

Jen (Flannery)
Flannery's like "Let me get in there!"

Ellie (Hors)
Oh, did someone say smoochin'?

Jen (Flannery)
Come. Come here, handsome!

Timothy (DM)
So you reach down-- 

Jen (Flannery)
Give him an old dry lady kiss... an old lady kiss. Crusty, stinky--

Kendrick (Mallek)
With the faint smell of hard... hard candy. 

Jen (Flannery)
Yes! Smells like a Werther's Original. 

Kendrick (Mallek)
Those are so good, though.

Timothy (DM)
And as your lips touch his cheek--

Jen (Flannery)
Oh, I was going full on mouth-to-mouth action. There's tongue involved!

Ellie (Hors)
This is a French kiss with tonuge.

Timothy (DM)
Oh, mouth-to-mouth, ok. As you place your lips upon his froggy lips, you begin to see the green fade. The face begins to shrink and reveal a human man.

Jen (Flannery)
A man!? This isn't what I signed up for!

Ellie (Hors)
I would never kiss a man!

Jen (Flannery)
I would never kiss a human MAN!

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Is he cute? 

Timothy (DM)
And as he places his hand on your cheek--

Jen (Flannery)
Ew, don't touch me. Gross.

Timothy (DM)
--you see the life fade from his eyes. [Jen: "Oh, thank goodness."] and he falls limp, dead on the beach.

Jen (Flannery)
[shouts to the heavens] You're welcome!

Ellie (Hors)
Hors D'oeuvre is hovering behind you with a fork and knife.

Jen (Flannery)
You're up, Hors D'Oeuvre [Hors D'Oeuvre: *cackcles*] And I cast Mending on the boat.

Timothy (DM)
And the boat is repaired.

Jen (Flannery)
Second time today, kids.

Ellie (Hors)
You're really pulling your weight here. I'll have a little snack.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Do you wanna bring him back?

Chris (Rubella)
Oh, well of course.

Jen (Flannery)
Oh, we can make frog soup! Oh, wait, he's a human again. Oh... 

Ellie (Hors)
No, I'm gonna eat him right here. She's already opened his chest and is eating his heart. 

Chris (Rubella)
We can make a Manwich. [Editor's Note: This is brandname of a type of ground beef sandwich that uses a savory sauce; see "sloppy joes".]

Jen (Flannery)
Oh, a Manwich, yes. 

Timothy (DM)
Ahhh, all right. Hors D'Oeuvre eats the human's heart. Bobbert is heartless... and dead.

Ellie (Hors)
Haha. Now I have... the power of a mediocre man.

Jen (Flannery)
The greatest power of all!

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
You just feel really confident. 

Ellie (Hors)
I can do anything! Would anybody like to hear my opinions? Oh, what am I doing? I shouldn't be asking. Here are my opinions.

Jen (Flannery)
Would you like to buy some cryptocurrency?

Chris (Rubella)
Let me tell you about my new self-automated driving car.

Ellie (Hors)
It's called a "sigma male" and it's actually a hierarchy ,but they're equivalent to an alpha.

Jen (Flannery)
Elon Musk is actually great. I love him. Let me tell you why.

Ellie (Hors)
Oh, God. Hors D'oeuvre makes herself throw up. [all laugh]

Chris (Rubella)
Get outta here.

Jen (Flannery)
I thought you were gonna tell us about your podcast!

Ellie (Hors)
[wincing] That's a little too meta.

Timothy (DM)
[with gameshow announcer voice] Shadows of Prophecy. 

Kendrick (Mallek)
Shadows of Prophecy, Fridays at 8. Sorry, Mondays at midnight.

Timothy (DM)
All right. And you are out of combat.

Ellie (Hors)
Well, did any of us actually turned him into a frog? Or is there another hag in these woods? 

Jen (Flannery)
I don't know. I don't know this man. 

Chris (Rubella)
My "Turn into Frog" spell is just literal "you are a small frog". Not "frog man" like this one is.

Jen (Flannery)
[exhausted] I think, honestly, I think he might have just been dumb. To be honest with you. Wouldn't be the first dumb man I've met, let me tell you. 

Kendrick (Mallek)
Flannery, how was the kiss, though? 

Jen (Flannery)
[rakishly] It was pretty good! Until he turned into a human. Then it got a little weird... 

Ellie (Hors)
Upsetting for you, right?

Jen (Flannery)
A little disturbing. Yeah.

Ellie (Hors)
Not your type. 

Jen (Flannery)
Not my type at all.

Kendrick (Mallek)
So, Mallek is going to look at the group "Well..." and Mallek claps his hand "I'll see y'all back at the cottage!" and I just fly off. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Yeah, we have our things? To the boat!

Chris (Rubella)
[with Flannery] To the boat!

Ellie (Hors)
Has it been greater or less than an hour since I cast my water girl spell? [Jen: [crying] "Water girl spell!"]

Timothy (DM)
Uh, less than an hour? Yeah. You found those magic mushrooms real quick.

Kendrick (Mallek)
Chlorine! No!

Ellie (Hors)
I'm still a water girl. 

Jen (Flannery)
Turned into a... Turn back normal in the middle of the lake, like... 

Ellie (Hors)
[drowning]" I'm drowning. I can't swim." 

Jen (Flannery)
I can't hear you. Wait. Yes, I can. Fuck. 

Ellie (Hors)
Anyway, yeah, I tow the rope.  I-I -I'm fuckin', like, leaping out of the water like a dolphin. It's horrible to see 'cause she's like a gangly wet woman and just like--

Timothy (DM)
All right, you tow the boat.

Jen (Flannery)
I refuse to look at this.

Chris (Rubella)
is it still nighttime?

Ellie (Hors)
Do I look majestic?

Jen (Flannery)
NO!

Ellie (Hors)
I feel majestic.

Timothy (DM)
It's still nighttime. Although you do see the first bits of light cresting over the horizon. 

Jen (Flannery)
Time for bed. 

Ellie (Hors)
What do you think happened to our terrible son?

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Oh, probably dissolved in the lake somewhere. 

Ellie (Hors)
Probably. Let's put a pin in it.

Timothy (DM)
And so you reach the cottage as the sun begins to rise. 

Kendrick (Mallek)
What took y'all so long?

Jen (Flannery)
We're elderly?

Ellie (Hors)
I was doing stunts. 

Kendrick (Mallek)
[does the surfer "hang loose"] Gnarly, bruh.

Jen (Flannery)
[throwing a "hang loose"] It was "totally sick".

Ellie (Hors)
As in "it made me sick".

Jen (Flannery)
I got very ill watching. She moved SO quickly.

Timothy (DM)
And you go to bed for the day.

Kendrick (Mallek)
Would that be considered a long rest?

Timothy (DM)
It would be a long rest. [Hors: "Wooo!"]

Kendrick (Mallek)
I get all my spell slots back.

Jen (Flannery)
Yay. 

Ellie (Hors)
Oh, it should have been slangin' those thangs. 

Jen (Flannery)
Yeah, slang 'em, baby.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
And I get my dog back. Oh yeah, Cremini just poofs. [Ellie: "CREMINI."]

Chris (Rubella)
And the lightning? You also store that under your... dress?

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Well, I cast everything from my ankles.

Chris (Rubella)
WHAT?!? 

Ellie (Hors)
How scandalous. What?!?

Timothy (DM)
Excuse me. WHAT?!? 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Yes, it's my source of power.

Jen (Flannery)
My sexy ankles.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Hilda cast from her wrists!

Chris (Rubella)
That's why... I've always wondered why you didn't wear socks. [Helga: "Yes."]

Ellie (Hors)
I'm gotta cut your feet off and eat them!

Jen (Flannery)
Cut them off at the shins just to be safe. Gotta get the power.

Ellie (Hors)
Got to get the power. Wouldn't want to miss out on that ankle power. [Flannery: "That's right."] Gives a new definition "ankle-biter". *snores*

Timothy (DM)
Yeah, and so you all sleep throughout the day-- 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
With our eyes open, well at least...  Helga has her eyes WIDE open.

Chris (Rubella)
I have my eyes open but for other reasons.

Timothy (DM)
--and Helga with her eyes open. And as you awake the next night, you come out of your rooms into the central space , the cauldron-- 

Ellie (Hors)
We each have our own bedroom?

Jen (Flannery)
No, it's just one room. I don't know what you're talking about, DM.

Timothy (DM)
Ok, as you wake up from your cots in the room--

Jen (Flannery)
Your bunk beds.

Timothy (DM)
From your bunk beds in the center of the cottage.

Ellie (Hors)
Which are five high.

Jen (Flannery)
Very tight.

Timothy (DM)
--you all awake to Francis standing next to cauldron, holding a mushroom 

Jen (Flannery)
Nooo, goddammit. 

Chris (Rubella)
Who let you in here?

Timothy (Francis the Mud Golem)
MoThErSssss.

Jen (Flannery)
Oo, don't call me that. 

Kendrick (Mallek)
And Papa.

Ellie (Hors)
And Papa, don't forget. 

Timothy (Francis the Mud Golem)
I'Ve BrOuGhT yOu ThE mUsHrOoM yOu AsKeD fOr...

Kendrick (Mallek)
Where have you been?

Timothy (Francis the Mud Golem)
I wAs GeTtInG tHe MuShRoOm YoU aSkEd FoR, mOtHeRsSsss. 

Jen (Flannery)
You took too long and now we're all very disappointed in you.

Timothy (DM)
[sadly] His head hangs low, and he just holds out the mushroom in his hand.

Ellie (Hors)
Oh, all right. We can you use it. Sure. I'll take it. 

Jen (Flannery)
Helga, deal with your child.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Dammit. "Francis. [Francis: "YeS, mOtHeR."]. I probably take the muddy mucky mushroom out of his hand. "All right, as penance for your slow work, we will have you walk north until you find the ocean and then return!"

Ellie (Hors)
Why don't you go tell him to find his purpose?

Timothy (Francis the Mud Golem)
As YoU wIsH mOtHeR...

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
His purpose?

Ellie (Hors)
Tell him to find a purpose.

Jen (Flannery)
Oh, everyone's purpose is to die eventually. [Hors D'Oeuvre: "Yeah."] 

Chris (Rubella)
Maybe he could work at a spa.

Timothy (Francis the Mud Golem)
Is ThAt My PuRpOsE, mOtHeR?

Jen (Flannery)
I mean, yeah, at some point, probably I would imagine.

Kendrick (Mallek)
Either that or work at an Etsy shop.

Timothy (Francis the Mud Golem)
PlEaSe DeFiNe "EvEnTuAlLy". Is NoW oKaY?

Ellie (Hors)
To die?

Jen (Flannery)
To die? I think any day is a fine day to die.

Kendrick (Mallek)
Mallek throws a cup of water on them.

Timothy (Francis the Mud Golem)
"As YoU wIsH..." and they sink into the floorboard.

Ellie (Hors)
Not in the house. NOT IN THE HOUSE!

Chris (Rubella)
I just cleaned that!

Jen (Flannery)
Francis, clean up immediately!

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Francis, not yet. 

Timothy (DM)
They sink into the floorboards of the cottage, never to be seen again.

Jen (Flannery)
That's disgusting.

Ellie (Hors)
Oh my god. Flannery, this was you're doing; you're scrubbing the floor.

Chris (Rubella)
[upset] Oh, we're gonna have worms!

Jen (Flannery)
I can't bend over; I'll die.  Oh good, worms. 

Ellie (Hors)
Oh goody! Oh, good worms. I've eaten all the rest of the ones that we used to have here, so that I could wriggle on the floor.

Jen (Flannery)
Oh, that's where they went. 

Ellie (Hors)
I've been writhing. 

Jen (Flannery)
Do we need any more ingredients?

Chris (Rubella)
Those are the only... well there are some like a dozen or two others, but we already have those in the pantry.

Jen (Flannery)
Oh wonderful.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
All right. What item will use to make this-this transport? What item will we use to make a teleport item? You understand.

Jen (Flannery)
Yeah, I know want you mean, um...

Chris (Rubella)
Something that will last and won't melt away like our last son.

Ellie (Hors)
What about a piece of jewelry? [all witches make a "Oooo" sound] Or perhaps a small wooden figurine of a horrible forest creature" and I pulle one out of my pocket--

Jen (Flannery)
Oh, very true.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Did you steal that from the school? 

Ellie (Hors)
Yeah, it has gnaw marks on it. [Flannery: "Wonderful!"]

Chris (Rubella)
Ooh, it's a child's!

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Will you not eat it?

Ellie (Hors)
I can't make that promise about literally anything if you're going to use "Hors D'oeuvre won't eat it" as your metric for deciding what to cast this spell on, there is nothing in the world, my friend.

Chris (Rubella)
"We need..." Rubella pulls out, like, a ruler and she measures your mouth [Hors: *ack*] Hors D'Oeuvre's mouth. It's like "We need something that's at least over six feet in diameter [all break out into laughter] and is not breakable."

Ellie (Hors)
She can unhinge her jaw like a SNAKE.

Chris (Rubella)
"Oh my goodness, I didn't know you did that. 8 inches diameter."

Kendrick (Mallek)
You said six feet.

Ellie (Hors)
You said six feet.

Chris (Rubella)
Did I say feet? Well, that works too. [Tim: "You said feet, yeah."] Uhh, how about this giant Omnikin ball I stole from the other village that we entered?

Jen (Flannery)
I simply do not care. Whatever you want, I guess.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
What about the boulder out back? 

Chris (Rubella)
The boulder. Well, we have to have it... it has to be portable.

Ellie (Hors)
Oh, it has to be portable.

Jen (Flannery)
We can roll the boulder.

Chris (Rubella)
[looks around] What about...

Ellie (Hors)
What about the house!

Jen (Flannery)
Oh perfect! It'll just be a moving house! 

Ellie (Hors)
Yeah, wherever we go. 

Chris (Rubella)
Does the house move already? I --

Jen (Flannery)
It's got legs! 

Chris (Rubella)
It does have chicken legs on the map. 

Jen (Flannery)
We inherited it from Baba Yaga.

Ellie (Hors)
When we killed and ate her! 

Jen (Flannery)
Yes, that's right; you got her powers! [Hors D'Oeuvre cackles] 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
The great house of Baba Yaga. [all the group shouts "Oh, Baba Yaga!"] 

Jen (Flannery)
All right, we... the house marches towards the circle.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Wait, the planets... we have two more days, right?

Chris (Rubella)
We can just chill there.

Timothy (DM)
Yeah, so the planetary alignment--

Ellie (Hors)
Yeah, we can disassemble the house and rebuilt it on the circle.

Timothy (DM)
--tomorrow. You need the potion in hand to perform the ceremony.

Jen (Flannery)
Time to make it! 

Timothy (DM)
So, you spend the evening making the potion.

Kendrick (Mallek)
As we're making the potion, Mallek is going to be like "I know that we've chosen to do the transport spell, but hear me out. I want to live longer than four more years. I think this would be great. Time to plead my case once again?"

Jen (Flannery)
That sounds like a 'you' problem, to be honest, which is the only way I know how to do. [to Hors D'Oeuvre] Do you want to live for at least four more years? 

Ellie (Hors)
I'm not particularly attached one way or another. [Flannery: "Okay."] I take liberties with my life.

Chris (Rubella)
What would you plan to do with four years, anyway?

Ellie (Hors)
Well, they don't have to justify it.

Chris (Rubella)
I'm just curious.

Jen (Flannery)
Would we get to live longer to? 

Ellie (Hors)
Or would it just be you? Is this a selfish spell? [Flannery: "Ooooo."] Like, Hilda, Helga.

Kendrick (Mallek)
It's for all of--

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
My sister would be a GREAT addition to this coven.

Kendrick (Mallek)
NO!

Ellie (Hors)
If she's anything like you, we've got MORE than enough of that.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
She's EXACTLY like me. [Flannery and Hors D'Oeuvre blanch] ... minus the wrist thing.

Kendrick (Mallek)
So, I'm gonna face... so Mallek's gonna face the group. "It's not to live forever. It's just to live for as long as you want. And I want to live longer than the 30 years that I have."

Jen (Flannery)
I can already live as long as I want.

Ellie (Hors)
The problem is you can't stop it.

Jen (Flannery)
I could if I wanted to!

Ellie (Hors)
You could?

Jen (Flannery)
She points out your knife.

Kendrick (Mallek)
Well, if we grant my spell, I will kill you in a moment. I will give you the sweet relief of death.

Jen (Flannery)
Well, that's free. I can do that any time! All I'm saying is it doesn't benefit me. But what does the rest of the group think? 

Ellie (Hors)
[meekly] Oh, I like the teleportation spell. That's what I want. Teleportation.

Jen (Flannery)
Me as well.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Agreed!

Ellie (Hors)
I'm sorry, Mallek.

Chris (Rubella)
Maybe we can save it for next year whenever we have this planetary thing.

Jen (Flannery)
And by then, I'll hopefully be gone!

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
[to Tim] Yes. When is the next planetary alignment of this nature?

Timothy (DM)
That's a very good question. Give mean Arcana roll.

Ellie (Hors)
It's happens like every two months.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Arcana? [Tim: "Yeah."] Oh. 

Chris (Rubella)
Mallek, you do know there are spells that can prolong life?

Jen (Flannery)
"Mallek, you're 'young'", she says in quotation marks. "You'll be fine. Listen, you can do the next one. Whatever way you want, I don't care; I'll be dead!"

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
That's a 5.

Ellie (Hors)
You may not be dead. 

Jen (Flannery)
Don't curse me like this, Hors D'Oeuvre.

Timothy (DM)
You think there's another one next year, if your calculations are correct. You can't count past five but you think you've calculated this correctly.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Within the next five years. Yeah.

Kendrick (Mallek)
[sadly] I got four years left.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Within the next four years. 

Chris (Rubella)
If we do teleport, we could probably FIND somebody to cast a spell to make you live longer or to revert your age so that you're younger. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
That's true. 

Ellie (Hors)
Or we could teleport to somewhere where planetary alignment WAS happening.

Chris (Rubella)
THAT is a great point!

Jen (Flannery)
Oh, that's a better idea than all the others!

Ellie (Hors)
Free planetary alignments forever! 

Jen (Flannery)
There ya go! Everyone can get their wishes answered when it's a--

Ellie (Hors)
It's a planetary alignment somewhere! Ha ha ha.

Kendrick (Mallek)
You know, Mallek's gonna be like "Fair point." 

Ellie (Hors)
Or you could find another coven [koh-ven] if you hate us. 

Kendrick (Mallek)
CoVID? 

Chris (Rubella)
Koh-ven kuh-ven? 

Ellie (Hors)
This is so embarassing. 

Jen (Flannery)
Not koh-ven.

Ellie (Hors)
Not koh-ven? I've been saying it wrong my whole life.

Chris (Rubella)
You're thinking of the Kohven coven. 

Jen (Flannery)
[reasssuring Hors D'Oeuvre] Oh, easy mistake to make [whispers behind her hand] It's not...

Kendrick (Mallek)
Mallek's going to be like "Okay, Okay, nevermind then. Let's continue on. I just... I'm not ready to go yet." 

Ellie (Hors)
Well, you've got four more years.

Jen (Flannery)
Good thing, you've got four more years!

Ellie (Hors)
You change your mind in the interim. You could be excited to accept death. [determined] We're going to make your life so BAD that you'll be DYING to get away from us!

Kendrick (Mallek)
I can always just fly away from you all. 

Jen (Flannery)
No, you have to die to get away from us. When you entered the blood pact, that's what you agreed to.

Chris (Rubella)
Especially if we have a teleportating house. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
And even after that, we can visit you in Shadowfell. 

Jen (Flannery)
That's right!

Ellie (Hors)
You could hang out with HILDA. It'll be like you never left.

Kendrick (Mallek)
"Stop!" and then Mallek just flies out a window. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
[in unison with the group] Oh, nooo.

Jen (Flannery)
Don't. Don't go. 

Ellie (Hors)
"Mallek, come back. I'll give you... would you like a little bird seed?" I pull some out of my pocket. [Jen: "Uh oh, uh oh!"]

Kendrick (Mallek)
Mallek comes in and be like [discreetly] "You talking about bird seed?"

Ellie (Hors)
You want a little bird seed? 

Kendrick (Mallek)
Put it on the floor.

Ellie (Hors)
I put it on the floor. 

Kendrick (Mallek)
I swoop in and grab it "Alright, all right. I'm good now."

Ellie (Hors)
Oh, I know how you get into moods. 

Jen (Flannery)
Who wants to drive the house once we're done making the potion? 

Kendrick (Mallek)
Beep beep, moher fucker!

Jen (Flannery)
I haven't been able to see in 30 years. The last... since the last time I kissed someone!

Chris (Rubella)
That was yesterday.

Jen (Flannery)
I mean before that. 

Kendrick (Mallek)
Which was the other day.

Jen (Flannery)
30 years ago! 

Chris (Rubella)
What about the monster river?

Jen (Flannery)
He doesn't count; he's special. 

Ellie (Hors)
Could it... can it really be called 'kissing' what you do with the river monster? [all laugh] All right, that's upsetting to think about.

Jen (Flannery)
That's private! 

Ellie (Hors)
You can't lie! Um, I'll drive the house. I've got road rage.

Chris (Rubella)
And vehicle proficiency.

Ellie (Hors)
I do not have vehicle proficiency, but I'm full of anger and I ate part of a car once.

Jen (Flannery)
What's a car?!? 

Ellie (Hors)
Beats me, but I ate it. All right, beep beep. I slash the house.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Potion brewing!

Ellie (Hors)
Brewing brewing brewing brewing. 

Timothy (DM)
So, you begin to gather the ingredients for the potion.

Chris (Rubella)
Hilda, light that baby up! 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
All right, here we go. *huffs and puffs* It's... give me a second.

Ellie (Hors)
[shakes head] Oh, always disappointing.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
All right, all right, we're good. We boiling. 

Jen (Flannery)
Alright, here we go.

Coven
[in unsion with group] Double, double, toil and trouble. Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Filet of fenny snake in a cauldron boil and bake.

Kendrick (Mallek)
Eye of newt and toe of frog, wool of bat and tongue of dog.

Ellie (Hors)
Adder's fork and blind worm's sting, lizard's leg and owlet's wing.

Chris (Rubella)
For a charm of powerful trouble like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

Coven
Double, double, toil and trouble. Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Jen (Flannery)
Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf, witches' mummy, maw and gulf.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Of the ravin'd seasalt shark, root of hemlock digg'd i' the dark.

Kendrick (Mallek)
Liver of blaspheming mew, gall of goat and slips of yew

Ellie (Hors)
Silvr'd in the moon's eclipse, nose of gnoll and liar's lips *makes a lip-smacking noise*

Chris (Rubella)
Finger of birth-strangled babe, ditch-deliver'd by a drab. Make the gruel thick and slab.

Ellie (Hors)
Add there to a tiger's chaudron for the ingredients of our cauldron.

Coven
Double, double, toil and trouble. Fire burn and cauldron bubble. 

Jen (Flannery)
Cool it with a baboon's blood, then the charm is firm and good!

Kendrick (Mallek)
By pricking of my thumb, something wicked this way comes.

Chris (Rubella)
And now to add the final ingredients. 

Jen (Flannery)
Blood of a goat black as night 

Kendrick (Mallek)
Hair of a doll loved by a child. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
And of course, the crazy magic mushroom.

Ellie (Hors)
[all cheer] Yay! [Helga: "We did it!"] We're so good, potion girlies 

Timothy (DM)
As you cast the magic mushroom into the pot, it begins to glow a green and then a purple, a blue, a red, and then it begins to bubble. Everything's simmers, the room fills with this acrid aroma.

Jen (Flannery)
Yummy.

Kendrick (Mallek)
Baba Yaga!

Timothy (DM)
And then everything collapses in on itself until a very still black mirror-like substance sits about halfway up the cauldron.

Chris (Rubella)
Is that supposed to happen?

Jen (Flannery)
I think so. 

Ellie (Hors)
It's your spell

Chris (Rubella)
[trying to appear confident] Yes, this is... this is exactly what I expected.

Kendrick (Mallek)
I don't believe you. 

Jen (Flannery)
I KNOW that's not true.

Chris (Rubella)
"I... I was just doing that for effect." I touch the mirror 

Timothy (DM)
It ripples as you touch it.

Chris (Rubella)
"Yes, that's the right consistency" I lick my finger.

Timothy (DM)
It takes like a potion. 

Chris (Rubella)
"Yes, very black and-and rippley."

Kendrick (Mallek)
[offended] Black?!? [unseriously] I'm kidding. [all laugh] [to the audience] Viewers, I am black, so I can make that joke.

Ellie (Hors)
Can I have a sip... viewers?

Jen (Flannery)
Viewers, where? Who's looking at us?

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Someone's watching?

Chris (Rubella)
Yes, try it. [Hors D'Oeuvre slurps]

Jen (Flannery)
So, what do we drink it? We bring it to the altar and drink it?

Chris (Rubella)
I think we have to paint it on the house like... [motions painting]

Jen (Flannery)
Oh, perfect. Perfect.

Kendrick (Mallek)
 I did not ask for chores.

Chris (Rubella)
Well, you don't have to do it. You-you can sit and... 

Ellie (Hors)
Supervise [Rubella: "Yeah."] 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
You are the closest to death, I'm pretty sure. 

Ellie (Hors)
That's true. 

Jen (Flannery)
Oh god, depressing.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
[to Flannery] For you! 

Jen (Flannery)
Four more years with you lot.

Ellie (Hors)
Oh, you love us; you can't lie. 

Jen (Flannery)
Oh, I do.

Kendrick (Mallek)
Got 'em!

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Alright, so we... we wait till tomorrow when the planets align?

Chris (Rubella)
Yes.

Jen (Flannery)
Is it morning yet?

Ellie (Hors)
We have to paint the whole house? 

Jen (Flannery)
That's a lot of work. 

Ellie (Hors)
We might want to get started now.

Jen (Flannery)
Can we just throw it at the house and be like "That... we did it."

Chris (Rubella)
I don't know if that'll be effective or not.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
What if we just painted the door?

Jen (Flannery)
Oh, that's a good compromise.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Then we could use the door to teleport.

Ellie (Hors)
We could use the door to telerport in and out. Very good 

Jen (Flannery)
Very smart. I saw a movie like that once. 

Ellie (Hors)
Oh, maybe we'll get a hot wizard.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
What's... what's a movie?

Timothy (DM)
Do you paint the door? [group agrees] All right, so you gather some brushes of sorts and you slather [Ellie: "Just pull out some hairs." Chris: "Use the doll."] this liquid onto the front door of the cottage--

Kendrick (Mallek)
You missed a spot right over there.

Timothy (DM)
--And it becomes this, like, black mirror. Just, like, reflecting all the moon light back at you.

Jen (Flannery)
Oh my god, you guys it's like a phone screen: Black Mirror. Okay, sorry. [all laugh] [Editor's Note: this is a reference to the old joke about Black Mirror, the TV show]

Ellie (Hors)
"Alright, well, time to get the house to walk to the spell circle. Come on." I slap its butt. "Get up, you lazy brat!"

Timothy (DM)
With a bit of a moan and a creak, the house stands up on its feet. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
[to the house] No complaining from you: you haven't walked in days!

Ellie (Hors)
[to the house] I don't want to hear it. You won't take us anywhere.

Timothy (DM)
And it begins to lumber towards the ceremonial circle. You follow behind it as the sun begins to rise.

Kendrick (Mallek)
Mallek sits on the roof of the cottage.

Timothy (DM)
You arrive at the ceremony circle, and the house sets itself down besides it. You all clamber inside into your bunk beds and go to bed for the day. In the morning...

Chris (Rubella)
*snores*

Ellie (Hors)
[to Helga] I try to drop hair in your mouth.

Timothy (DM)
In the evening, you awake.

Ellie (Hors)
I, like, wave my hand in front of your open eyes to see if you respond and drop hair in your mouth. [Flannery cackles, Hors D'Oeuvre cakcles] "*heh-heh-heh-heh* I'm such a mischievious witch."

Jen (Flannery)
Yes, you are!

Timothy (DM)
After a full day's rest, you awake feeling moderately refreshed as much as one could be. 

Kendrick (Mallek)
"After intimacy, refresh." Sorry, those commercials remind me... sorry.

Timothy (DM)
And a full moon casts its light upon the ceremony circle.

Jen (Flannery)
[to the moon] Mother is here. Mother, you look so beautiful tonight. [glares at the other witches] Everyone tell Mother she looks beautiful.

Ellie (Hors)
You look beautiful. Ohhh. 

Chris (Rubella)
Lovely!

Kendrick (Mallek)
You look so good. You look so good. You look so good.

Ellie (Hors)
Really nice, really full. You've filled out a lot. [witches look at Hors D'Oeuvre weirdly] Right? I'm just saying the moon looks more round than it does... sometimes than other times.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Oh, beautiful!

Jen (Flannery)
She does, she does. She looks more round than other times, you're right.

Ellie (Hors)
I never noticed that before. [big brain moment] Do you think I could eat the moon?

Jen (Flannery)
You could certainly try, and I think you should. Do your best.

Ellie (Hors)
Thank you. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Teleport yourself there next.

Ellie (Hors)
Oh, I'm going to the moon, ladies!

Jen (Flannery)
First witch on the moon.

Ellie (Hors)
This is one small step for me. One big step for me also! Ha-ha-ha.

Chris (Rubella)
Buzz Cauldron. [gang loves it!] [Editor's Note: This is a pun on Buzz Aldrin, famed warlock astronaut.]

Ellie (Hors)
Alright, the end. We do it!

Timothy (DM)
Yeah, ok, we don't need to do the rest. So yeah, it is the day of the planetary alignment. It's also the night of a full moon. And you look up into the sky and you see the planets are ALMOST in position. What do you do?

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
All right. I assume we stand in a circle around the house?

Ellie (Hors)
And we chant.

Jen (Flannery)
Let's chant! 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Do we have specific words?

Chris (Rubella)
Yes, it's the spell of the teleportation. It's like...

Jen (Flannery)
How's it go?

Chris (Rubella)
You've got to put your left foot in [Flannery: "Oh."] and then take it out again. [Group: "Ohhh."] 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
And make a lot of work.

Jen (Flannery)
A waste of time, honsetly.

Chris (Rubella)
Then ina and out again.

Jen (Flannery)
This is a lot of movement. 

Chris (Rubella)
And then you shake it. 

Jen (Flannery)
WHAT? Shake what?

Chris (Rubella)
Your leg. [Group: "Oh."] and then you say 'I would very much like to make this a teleportation object.'

Coven
[as a group] I would very much make this a teleportation object. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
All right. We good with the practicing?

Jen (Flannery)
Alright, let'd do it again. Alright, let's do it for real. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Who wants to lead? Are we shouting?

Ellie (Hors)
I think Rubella should lead [Helga: "Oh yes."] It's her spell.

Chris (Rubella)
And a-one. And a-two. And a-one-two-three.

Coven
[*grabled nonsense*] 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Sorry, sorry, sorry. Let's start over.

Ellie (Hors)
The planets are moving! The planets ARE moving! Here we go, here we go.

Coven
You put your left foot in, you put your left foot out. You put your left foot in, and you shake it all about. I would really much like this to be a teleportation object.

Timothy (DM)
As you finish saying the words, you hear this, like, psychic resonance start to rumble--

Jen (Flannery)
Do you guys here that psychic resonance?

Timothy (DM)
--through the forest, building and building, as you watch a light shoot across the sky from Mars to Venus to Jupiter--

Kendrick (Mallek)
To Uranus.

Timothy (DM)
To Uranus, back to the moon, crashing down on the ceremony circle. As it hits the ceremony circle, the entire forest lights up in this blue light. [Helga: "Oh damn!"] and the door begins to glow. 

Jen (Flannery)
Flannery falls over, she's startled.

Kendrick (Mallek)
Can someone pick up Flannery please?

Ellie (Hors)
Stay down, Flannery.

Jen (Flannery)
No, just let me die!

Chris (Rubella)
I want to open that door.

Timothy (DM)
You open the door; where are you going?

Chris (Rubella)
Where should we go first, girls?

Ellie (Hors)
The moon!

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Shadowfell! Let's go find Hilda.

Kendrick (Mallek)
Another planetary alignment!

Chris (Rubella)
Shadowfell! 

Ellie (Hors)
The MOON!

Chris (Rubella)
I was thinking we could go to Club Med but...

Kendrick (Mallek)
[laughing] Club Med, you clever hag. 

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Club Men? What is Club Men? 

Chris (Rubella)
It's a resort that you can go to; it has very eligible bachelors.

Jen (Flannery)
What's a resort?

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
To Club Men! 

Jen (Flannery)
To Club Men, we go!

Chris (Rubella)
[laying out the options] Okay so: moon [Flannery: "the Moon"] Shadowfell-- 

Jen (Flannery)
Shadowfell, I want to go pick out a nice house in Shadowfell for myself. 

Kendrick (Mallek)
Planetary alignment.

Ellie (Hors)
Another planetary alignment 

Jen (Flannery)
Put me in a Shadowfell retirement home, I know you want to.

Ellie (Hors)
I desperately do.

Chris (Rubella)
So, we'll do Shadowfell first.

Jen (Flannery)
What? No, we do the moon first.

Chris (Sal S)
That should be pretty quick.

Kendrick (Mallek)
No, we should do the.. we should do the planetary alignment first.

Ellie (Hors)
I only need like two seconds on the moon.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
Arg, you've got four more years.

Kendrick (Mallek)
[cross wings] Fine, we can take her to Shady Pines in Shadowfell.

Ellie (Hors)
The Moon! If I don't get to go to the moon, I'm going to throw myself onto the ground and scream.

Jen (Flannery)
[in stage directions] We fade to black.

Timothy (DM)
And the night ticks on and the scene fades to black as these five witches spend the next decade bickering.

Ellie (Hors)
About... they've never actually used the teleportation.

Jen (Flannery)
They've never used the teleportation.

Dan (Helga Heidenfel)
We never go back inside our house.

Jen (Flannery)
20 years later, someone stumbles upon the clearing. There's a house and five corpses.

Chris (Rubella)
Francis got into the house, and he's like "I'm leaving you guys." 

Timothy (DM)
Well, that's the adventure. Happy Halloween. 

Coven
Happy Halloweeeeeen!

Kendrick (Mallek)
[sing-songy] This is Halloween. Just kidding. [Editor's Note: This is a reference to "This is Halloween" from "Nightmare before Christmas"]

Timothy (Witchy Narrator)
[in a crone voice] And as this scene fades to black, the five old crones did indeed bicker for years to come until their bones creaked and their skin tightened... well, moreso than they did before. And their vile deeds (now uninhibited by leisurely foot travel) expanded across the Material Plane, making it ever so a little more... wicked. Happy Halloween, everyone! [maniacal cackling]

Timothy (DM)
Thank you for joining us through this ghoulish haunt this Hallow's Eve night, and I want to give a special thanks to JCH, our fabulous patron keeping the candles lit here at Goblin Forge. Your support has meant the world to us. Shout out to Scrubcast for some absolutely fantastic sound mastering, music, and effects over the last year. They have been utterly amazing to work with, and I highly recommend checking them out if you are ever in the need for some audio editing. Shout out to Syrinscape for some amazing atmosphere and music. Make sure you check them out at syrinscape.com I always use them at my game table, and it really does add that little something special that brings your players into the story. Also shout out to the players this evening. Dan, Ellie, Chris, Kendrick, and Jen, your hags... I mean, witches were fantastic characters, and it was a BLAST recording with you all. This has been a Goblin Forge production. Please follow us on Instagram @goblin_forge_ttrpg. And hey, show us some love, show some support by becoming one of our fabulous patrons at patreon.com/goblin_forge, where you can get access to bonus content like handouts, encounter maps, and even adventure guides to run your own horrific campaigns or one-shots. And at the very least, give us a five star review on your podcast platform of choice. This is how we get the word out about our podcast, and we love sharing it with you all, and we love playing in it. Thank you, and tune in this December for season two of Shadows of Prophecy. I can't wait to see who dies.