230: What WAS Your Job?

## Summary

Following the mischievous creature into the forest, the group encounter more traps, deftly dodging a mimic masquerading as a chest and rescuing Raphina after a trick door in a tree sends her way up into the forest canopy. The party then discover a huge unnatural rainbow, where they catch up with the creature and learn her name is Farella. She leads them up the rainbow (backwards of course), high into the sky before sending them zipping down the other side towards its shining, glittery conclusion.

## Synopsis

Will flies ahead of the others a short way and sees a treasure chest sitting in the middle of the path. He *Message*s Gwen, telling her to be careful. Getting a little closer, he notices that the clover footprints continue on beyond the chest. Gwen approaches, her *Detect Magic* spell showing that the chest is not magical. She casts *Mage Hand*, and tries to open it, but can't, and Raphina casts *Find Traps*, revealing nothing. Gwen pokes it with her lollipop quarterstaff, hesitantly jamming one end of it under the lid, but she can't exert enough force to open it. However, she immediately finds she can't pull her quarterstaff away; it's stuck! Will suddenly has a flashback to when Nick got stuck to a door in the Durst House and tells everyone not to touch the chest, concerned that it could be a similar creature.

Gwen casts *Eldritch Blast* at the chest, and the beams are absorbed as it gives out a strange cry. Will laughs excitedly at at his own brilliance for a second, but then realises how awful it is that he knows these things. Raphina reacts immediately, throwing banana peel and casting *Banishment*, causing the chest/creature to wink out of existence. Will tells them all to get away before it returns, then whispers *"I don't think this thing is going to let us catch it. I think we have to ..."* and he drops his voice even lower *"... set up a trap!"* From somewhere in the forest, the creature's voice rings out *"Oh, you'll get to me soon enough, we're just having a bit of fun! Just follow my feet! Think you need somethin' lucky don'tcha? That mimic's gunna come back."* Raphina calls out to them, *"Hey, little short guy..."* and the creature corrects her, *"Girl!"* Raphina apologises and continues, letting the creature know that Will doesn't really do fun. They quickly hurry away, just as the mimic pops back into existence and waddles after them, but it can't keep up.

They continue onwards, following the clover footprints. Will is still thinking of traps, but is struggling to come up with any ideas as he's out of his element. Gwen revives her *Detect Magic* spell. Eventually, up ahead they see a patch of forest where the sunlight is breaking through, and arrive at another meadow in a clearing. On the other side they see the creature casually leaning up against a huge, wide tree. In the centre of the trunk, at ground level, is a small wooden door. Gwen notes that the creature is glowing with her *Detect Magic* spell. *"D'ya find anythin' lucky yet?"* says the creature. Gwen says that it wasn't cool that she nearly lost her lollipop. *"But you didn't, so it was a spot o' fun!"* the creature replies. Raphina asks how she feels about gold and she says she loves it and has lots of it. The creature asks if they want some and Raphina says she doesn't want any, but she'd like to see it. *"Come on, then!"* the creature shouts as she turns, opens the door in the tree, and runs inside.

Will shouts *"Oh no, we're not going in this tree, you guys. No way."* Gwen starts heading over to it. *"No! No! This is a deathtrap!"* insists Will angrily. Gwen stops short of going in and bends down to take a closer look. The door is still open, and it is glowing with magic. There's a 3-and-a-half-foot space carved into the tree. Batthwack comes closer and notes that his *Robe of Eyes* isn't revealing anything. Raphina steps inside, finding she can fit pretty easily. However, no sooner has she done so, the door slams shut behind her and she finds herself in complete darkness. The rest of the party outside can hear her call out *"Hellooo!"* Will shouts back, *"Are you kidding? Are you trapped in a trap?"* *"I think it's a trap. I think it's harmless, maybe. So far I'm not dead."* replies Raphina. Will asks Batthwack to get out his magical battleaxe and Raphina's cries of protestation can be heard from within the tree. The creature's mischievous laugh echoes around the forest.

Raphina tries the door and it actually opens easily, but is surprised to find herself looking out into the open air, about 60 feet up. Way down below she can see the heads of Batthwack, Will, Gwen and Mo. Around her are the branches of trees, a squirrel perched on one of them. The others look up and see her and begin to wonder how they'll get her down. When Raphina suggests she'll be fine climbing down, Will begrudgingly says he'll cast *Fly* and glides up to her level. Raphina clambers onto him, which he finds weird, until she re-positions herself on his back, hanging on to his neck. *"This is better!"* he says while choking. He drops her on the ground before flying back up to the canopy to have a better look around. The sun is shining on his face and it feels great. There's a nice breeze up there and he finds himself actually enjoying it for a brief moment. Off in the distance, he spies a huge rainbow arching over the trees.

The rainbow is the grandest rainbow Will's ever seen, it almost looks like you could walk on it. In fact the more he looks, the more he thinks it looks a little weird and the sinking feeling returns. His natural state of suspicion and pessimism resumed, he points out the rainbow to the others. Gwen immediately starts heading in that direction, despite Will's pleas to stay away. After a brief pause to take in the stunning view once more, Will flies back down to the others and tells them all to head after Gwen and they do. He flies back up to his vantage point above the trees to look for the creature.

More clover footprints lead the way in the direction of the rainbow. Eventually they catch sight of its glowing, vibrant colours through the trees ahead of them. They continue on and reach the source of the colours, a flat rainbow ribbon arching up and away from them, over the trees and into the distance. At the foot if it stands the creature they've been chasing, a bright smile on her face. Raphina asks where they're going. The creature says she's taking them on a trip through the woods. *"You got to find somethin' lucky for those little furry horned creatures, don't you? And who better to give you something lucky, but me?"* Will asks who she is. *"My name is Farella"* she replies. Will begins questioning and she reveals she lives in the forest, and that she keeps herself to herself so the umlauts don't know she's here. *"I've only been here for a short period of time. I'm not that old."* she says. The group find this to be a strange statement to make. Will wonders if it's related to all the other odd things that have been happening. Raphina asks if Farella is a depraved god, but she says she isn't, as far as she knows. She says she overheard the group's conversation with the umlauts, which is why she knows they're looking for something lucky. She also says she's not aware of any others of her kind.

Gwen introduces herself to Farella and asks if she likes eating sweets. Farella says she's never eaten anything. Will sarcastically tells her it's like what the mimic tried to do to them. Farella assures them that she just found the mimic there, it wasn't planted, and she only led them to it for fun. She eats one of Gwen's truffles and says *"They're quite delightful aren't they?"* Raphina asks her where her gold came from and she says she just has it. They remind her that they're looking for something lucky. Farella tells them to follow her and walks over to the rainbow. She steps backwards onto it and begins walking backwards up it.

Will urges the others not to follow as Gwen tests her foot on the rainbow, which goes straight through. Batthwack tries stepping on backwards as Farella had done, and finds he can begin to walk up it. He uses his sword as a mirror to keep an eye on Farella as she walks away from them. This also helps him not look down, as he has a nagging feeling that it might cause him to fall right through. Gwen also turns around and begins to make her way up. Knowing that his *Fly* spell is going to wear off soon, Will begrudgingly tries what the others are doing and finds that it does work. Mo is doing the same and calls out *"Wow. This is weird!"* Raphina also follows in the same fashion, but skips backwards up the rainbow, tripping occasionally. Before they get too high off the ground, Will experiments by turning his body, working out precisely at which point he starts to fall through, which is just as his shoulders become parallel with the rainbow. He excitedly explains his findings to the rest of the group.

Eventually the party reach the crest of the rainbow, the tree tops spreading out beneath them. Will starts to feel very nervous about the height. Raphina seems very blasé about it, saying that Will can just catch them if they fall. Looking around and counting the group, Will's not convinced. Gwen says she can save herself if the worst comes to the worst. Batthwack looks down, estimating that they're around 200 feet off the ground. Beyond the crest, the rainbow begins to slope downwards and the party suddenly feel their feet being pulled out from under them. They spin around and land with the softest of thuds on the rainbow as they start zipping down it. The wind rushes through their hair as they pick up speed. The trees are rushing up towards them, but they actually notice that the rainbow is heading towards a black ring. Within the ring, the sunlight is catching on something shiny, glinting with flashes of gold colour. The trees rush up past them as they slide into the ring.

## Quotes

* *"I like this one. I'm going to break your fingers."* - Raphina, speaking about Farella after she asked if Raphina's description for herself, "speedy" was a synonym for "depraved"

## Trivia

* The episode title quotes Alex. Will was experimenting with walking on the rainbow and is excitedly explaining to everyone what he found. *"Guys! What I found is that if you turn this way, don't do that, you're gonna fall through, but if you turn this way, you can still kind of do it."* Eric points out that Will has a lot of experience having walk-and-talk meetings and he's had to turn and face them whilst still walking. KT suggests that it seems like Will is finally in his element. *"I'm walking backwards on a rainbow, instructing people around me how to walk on the rainbow and suddenly I look the most confident you've ever seen me. And you're like, Will, do you walk on rainbows all the time?"* Alex completes the sentence with what's on everyone's mind, *"... What WAS your job?"*

## References

1. ↑ See episode 8: Mist-ical Visions: Part 2
2. ↑ This is the same magical battleaxe that Hilula briefly carried, which Batthwack originally retrieved from Yester Hill and is known in the *Curse of Strahd* adventure book as *Treebane*! - see episode 43: The Patriarchy Tree
3. ↑ Obviously it depends on the type of tree, but in an article on Wikipedia, *"the data used to determine the average tree shape is derived from a tabulation of the largest trees of each of 192 different species in the NTS 2009 dataset. [...] For the dataset the average height was 87.6 feet"*, which is pretty close to Eric's estimate of the trees being 100 foot tall. Redwoods, the tallest trees in the world, *"can easily reach heights of 300 feet (91 meters),"* according to livescience.com. Awesome!