The unconscious party members wake up, and McSneakle tells them that Soren burned down the nearby cabin with his sorcery shenanigans. This lie would have worked better if Soren wasn't one of the unconscious party members. McSneakle also lies to the party by telling them that 12 hours have passed since they fell unconscious. This lie also would have worked better if Soren wasn't one of the unconscious party members.
What else is McSneakle's dump stat?
Since Uul'valaar is at 1 HP, he touches himself tenderly to restore 5 HP. While that's happening, Soren and McSneakle further loot the remaining house and find a beat up spyglass pointed at the girls' bedroom of the nearby cabin, and next to the spyglass is a crusty spittoon. They don't loot the spittoon. This was a good idea. This was also the last good idea they had for a while. McSneakle keeps creeping around the cabin and finds a bedroom with maps on the walls, and he also finds an envelope with jingling contents hidden beneath a pillow. He pockets the envelope and doesn't open it up for dramatic effect.
The party then realizes that they can use their AFK cleric PC who is still hanging on the boat to heal them. As they begin to head out, Uul'valaar finds three red mushrooms growing near the burnt remains of Reagent's cabin. He licks one, and it tastes like a good meal from his childhood, specifically a roasted turkey leg from Colonel Heinelis' turkey shack.
He then eats the whole mushroom due to how wonderful it tastes, then finds himself tripping balls as he's suddenly transported back to his hometown in front of Colonel Heinelis' shack. The Colonel wears a bowtie, has white hair, speaks with a suspiciously southern accent, and just barely passes copyright infringement. The Colonel greets Uul'valaar, who promptly freaks out.
While this is happening in Uul'valaar's head, back in the real world the party witnesses Uul'valaar communicate with someone who isn't there. None of them realize that he is tripping on psychedelic mushrooms.
"My, Uul'va'aar, how you've grown!" Colonel Heinelis says to Uul'valaar, his accent equivalent to thick turpentine molasses drizzling down the trunk of a cypress tree.
"I think you're the devil!," Uul'Valaar responds.
"Son, did you ever follow that dream of yours?" Colonel Heinelis says, his smile growing ever more menacingly behind the food stand.
"You're not in my dreams! You're not real!" Uul'valaar screams elfishly.
Uul'valaar panicks and runs around and almost trips into the finely-investigated well, but he finally comes to his senses and realizes he is back in the clearing with the cabins. He promptly gives the mushrooms over to 🌱 since 🌱 is definitely into that kind of stuff.
The party then decides to follow up on the diary that 🌱 found in the previous episode that the DM forgot to tell them about and that the DM forgot to write about. The diary belongs to Reagent, and it refers to a magic user who is looking for a special type of mud that bullywugs imbibe with strange properties. Fortunately, an abandoned castle with bullywugs happens to be on the western side of the island!
Hashtag convenient!
The party then acts on this information and sets off westward to find the bullywug castle. They almost step into some bear traps, but clever maneuverability saves them from losing any of their precious hit points through loss of toes. They then find the castle and have to hop across swampy hummocks, slipping occasionally, but none of them failed their Dexterity saves (otherwise they would lose a random item in the swamp!) After enough leaping, the party arrives at the outer wall of the swamp castle.
🌱 peeks over the walls and sees bullywugs nestled in the mud of the dilapidated courtyard. While he scouts, McSneakle and Uul'valaar grab a dirty boat and paddle around to the side of the castle that has a bridge. They tie the boat beneath the bridge and peak inside, seeing another bullywug. At this point, the party is separated: 🌱 and Soren are on the east end of the castle, McSneakle and Uul'valaar are on the west end of the castle.
The party is split.
And frog people rest between them.
🌱 sends a signal to McSneakle, but McSneakle apparently skilled insight as a dump stat and doesn't know what the hell is going on. Soren then initiates the fight by casting sleep, singing sweet, sweet nothings to the frog people. His Celine Dionish voice causes the nearest bullywug to fall into a magical slumber, and he feels a sudden desire to consume chalk, quills, or charcoal as a wild magic table result is rolled. Singing this song always causes this sensation!
McSneakle lets loose an arrow but misses even on a +6, and Uul'valaar deploys a bear trap near the entrance for the bullywug to trip over.
The fight continues! As fights usually do...
Soren remembers how to hit people with fire attacks and blasts a larger, more colorful bullywug with arcane embers. Uul'valaar stands his ground near the entrance and roars at the nearest bullywug, but the frog-person is clearly unimpressed with this display and stabs Uul'valaar with a spear for some serious ouchie-wowchies. The colorful bullywug lets loose a powerful bellow from its throat and grants 10 temporary hit points to its minion frogs.
McSneakle fires another arrow and hits the bullywug that struck Uul'valaar, eliminating any temporary hit points the creature was enchanted with. Soren conjures more fire, but remembers that he absolutely sucks at landing hits with this attack and misses his firebolt attack.
Apparently "Contribution" is also a dump stat!
The bullywug leader opens its throat and lets out a phat dubstep beat that overpowers Soren's Celine Dionish cantor, sounding like BWOOOOMP WOMP WOMP WOMWOOOOMP!, dealing 2d8 psychic damage to Soren and 🌱 that almost drops them to 0 hit points. The bullywug fighting Uul'valaar charges, but steps into the bear trap and hurts its little froggy feet.
McSneakle finishes the trapped bullywug with an arrow through the head, leaving only the bellowing frog-man remaining. Soren and Uul'valaar brofist mentally from either side of the singing bullywug, and they combine their ranged superiority to pop the monster squarely with a firebolt and javelin, but the foe has one mixtape left to drop.
The bullywug lets loose with a funky fresh bass remix of "Sweet Dreams Are Made of This" that smashes Uul'valaar, 🌱, and Soren with devastating psychic damage, dropping both 🌱 and Soren to 0 hit points. Since Soren was standing on top of a wall during the attack, he falls off and hits his head, suffering 1 failed death save.
McSneakle fires an arrow into the frog, then Uul'valaar, emboldened with the fleeting image of Colonel Heinelis' words, "Son, did you ever follow that dream of yours?" realizes that the dream he needs to follow is the bullywug's hot new single, and that he needs to follow it with a javelin through the face.
Which he does.
The bullywug dies from sudden face trauma, and Soren bleeds to death on the outside of the castle from sudden can't-roll-these-fucking-virtual-dice trauma. The remaining PC's stabilize 🌱, and they curbstomp the sleeping bullywug to prevent anymore surprises.
McSneakle discovers Soren's dead corpse and decides to take some mementos to remember his dear comrade, so he graciously takes Soren's bone caltrop trinket, both daggers, quarterstaff, chunk of ruby ore, spyglass, and all of his clothes, leaving Soren looking like a defeated Skyrim bad guy who a player clicked the "take all" button while looting.
This motherfucking rogue even steals the man's XP, granting just enough to bring the surviving party members up to level 2.
The party relinquishes Soren's body by placing it in the wooden boat and letting it drift away, where a delayed wild magic surge promptly causes all water within 50 feet to boil violently, causing the boat to capsize and dump Soren's corpse deep into the steamy hot bogwater.
