232: Shoulda Bit Him in the Taint

## Summary

The pitch-ed battle with Farella and her golden golem continues until Batthwack strikes down the mischievous creature, and Mo, inspired by Gwen's bloody-thirsty rage, finishes off her golden crony. Farella's dying declaration is to mess with one of their minds, and then her body poofs into a pile of 4-leaf clovers, at the centre of which is a mysterious orb filled with green mist. Batthwack collects the orb, finding himself in secret conversation with a spirit called Toeval the Fortunate who grants him a gift of luck, but when Batthwack is also shrunk to half his size, Will tries read his mind and find out what he's been up to.

## Synopsis

Gwen fires three *Eldritch Blasts* at the golden golem (a goldlem, if you will), and rainbow-coloured energy that smells like Haribo gummy bears crackles out. Mo has been been lying prone, having just taken another pummelling from the golem. He jumps to his feet and crazily stabs at Farella, but she jumps nimbly out of the way. Raphina is also on the ground, behind the molten circle of coins, having been dropped a little way from the battle. Will is dancing merrily above her (though his face is furious) as she casts *Sacred Flame*, blasting Farella with radiant energy. Raphina makes her way around the edge of the pot, keeping the molten coins between her and the danger.

Will concentrates as hard as he can to block out the sound of the Irish jig that's rattling through his head as he frantically dances. Eventually he manages to quieten the music in his head and regain control of his body. He furiously flies behind Farella, trying to avoid being attacked. Batthwack swings with his *Searing Smite*-charged longsword, but Farella jigs out of the way, skipping on top of the blade for a second as she laughs maniacally. He swings again, this time connecting with her mid-laugh, cleaving deep into her flesh and cutting the laugh short. She cries out in pain and shouts *"I'm not having fun any more!"* Farella looks right in Batthwack's eyes, holding up a hand, which she suddenly clenches into a fist. He feels her mind trying to invade and dominate his, but he's able to resist this and when Farella realises, she turns to run. Batthwack swings his sword and Mo bites at her and she falls to the floor motionless.

Despite Farella's fall, the goldlem shows no signs of being dissuaded from it's purpose and it roars in anger, raising its fists over its head and then smashing them down on Gwen and Batthwack. It raises it's fists to strike again as Gwen casts *Healing Light* on herself. Her eyes have taken on a somewhat vacant look as the red mist starts to descend on her. She mutters something in draconic and then begins to *Rage*, her jaws snapping furiously at the goldlem, but they just clink off its gold body. Mo rushes up next to her, wide-eyed and nodding vigorously; he is clearly inspired by her display and does his best to mimic Gwen, latching his jaws onto the goldlem's hip. At first he appears to have copied her a little too closely because his bite does nothing, but at the same time he manages to stick his blade directly up between the goldlem's legs and it immediately shatters into a pile of gold coins.

Batthwack runs over to Farella to see if he can stabilise her, glancing up at the giant pot's opening above them to see if they're free or not. However, just as he gets there, Farella breathes her last and in their heads they hear *"I'll mess with one o' your minds! But you won't know whooo!"* and her mischievous laugh fades away. In that moment, Batthwack and Gwen feel relieved that the fight is over, Raphina suddenly forgets Batthwack's name, though she is not immediately aware of this fact, and Will instantly feels happy and agreeable, as though he's soaking in a hot bath after a long day. Perhaps most strangely, he also feels comfortable with, and trusting of, Batthwack, Gwen and Raphina, but he is not aware that anything has changed.

Farella's body explodes in a puff of rainbow and in its place is a mound of four-leaf clovers. The giant pot and it's giant coins all dissolve away into nothing, and the party find themselves back on the familiar grassland of the forests of Beartoggle, the goldlem's coins piled in front of them. Batthwack picks up a handful of clovers, noting that they do not change into the three-leaf variety as they had done previously. Nestled among the pile of clovers, right in the centre, is a medium-sized glass orb with some sort of a swirling green mist inside.

Batthwack picks up the orb and immediately hears a cheery *"Hullo Batthwack!"* in his head. Batthwack responds hesitantly, in his head, saying hello and asking who it is. The voice replies *"I'm Toeval the Fortunate. Would you be interested in a gift? You've saved me. I was trapped in the body of that evil creature."* Batthwack has heard that phrase before and asks what kind of gift it is. Toeval says it's a fortunate gift. Batthwack asks if there is a price and Toeval replies "I don't need a payment. You've saved me, this is a gift. If you wish... Don't you wish you were luckier?" Batthwack can't see anything wrong with this. He apologises for being so cautious, explaining that he and the party have accepted gifts before and some of them suffered horrible consequences, though he did not. He considers this for a moment and then says *"Maybe this world* is *different. Thank you and I accept your gift."*

The others see Batthwack pick up the orb and too late Gwen wishes they'd detected magic first. Batthwack is just very quiet and concentrating on the orb, seemingly oblivious to their attempts to attract his attention. Will touches him on the arm, but he doesn't respond. He pulls out his billy club and tries to push the orb out of Batthwack's hands, but just before making contact with it, Batthwack instantly shrinks down to half of his normal height and the green swirly mist in the orb darkens and fades out.

Raphina calls out *"Hey... Bob, George, Joe, Jimmy Bob! Um. Um. What's his name? You know! Green guy! Is small now..."* *"Batthwack?"* suggests Will. *"That doesn't sound familiar"* says Raphina. Will tells everyone that this is really bad and just like the dark powers in Barovia. *"This is dark power shit"* he says.

   Batthwack opens his eyes and sees everyone towering over him. *"What happened to you?!"* he says. They explain its him that's shrunk. Will lifts him up, holding him under his arms, and says *"Batthwack, does this seem normal to you?"* Batthwack responds *"Does* this *seem normal to you?"* and kicks him in the face. Will yells in pain and Gwen urges him to put Batthwack down, saying *"We're done fighting!"* Will complies.

Gwen asks Batthwack what happened and he says *"I seem to have made a huge mistake."* Will says he thinks he knows what happened and asks Batthwack what power he's been gifted. He says he doesn't know and tells them he spoke with a spirit, but denies they were a dark power. Raphina asks if it was a star, like Delban, and Batthwack says he would never have talked to anyone like that, but Raphina reminds him that he did speak to The Kingmaker, *and* accepted his gift. Gwen and Mo look a little lost. Will explains what happened with the dark powers (what he calls "bad spirits") and their gifts and flaws (what he calls "crappy deals"). Raphina points out that Will accepted a gift too. *"So did Stefan... Sponopolis over there"* she says.

Gwen and Will are a little worried about Raphina and wonder if she got hit a little too hard or something. They ask her what their names are and she rattles them off, but struggles when she gets to Batthwack's name. In their minds they all faintly hear Farella's mischievous giggle. Will begins to wonder if this is all a hallucination. Raphina says she's fine and they should just carry on.

Batthwack says he feels as if he's been cursed. He is just beginning to tell them what the spirit said to him when Will casts *Detect Thoughts*. His surface thoughts are *"Does this spirit I talked to have something to do with the dark powers?"* He's also curious about what it means to be lucky and he's also wondering why Raphina got his name wrong twice.

Batthwack is aware that Will is casting spells on him, though he's not sure what. Will asks Batthwack what this spirit's name was, but he says he can't remember exactly, though he does reassure them that it wasn't like Delban. Will asks *"Have you come across the Kingmaker while we've been here?"* There's a long pause and Will detects no surface thoughts. In a sudden tussle between the two minds, Will begins to probe deeper into Batthwack's thoughts as Batthwack races to counteract him with *Dispel Magic*.

## Trivia

* The episode title quotes Denise. After Gwen rages at the golem and utterly fails to bite him, Mo immediately jumped in and dealt the killing blow by sticking his dagger between it's legs. KT: *"The taint shot. We gotta remember this for the future. Stab a golem in the taint to defeat it. It's canon apparently in this world!"* Denise: *"Shoulda bit in him the taint."*

## References

1. ↑ KT was informed that these feelings remain true unless the DM tells them otherwise!
2. ↑ Eric explained on the Discord that Toeval's name was inspired by the Dutch word for "luck"
3. ↑ Batthwack is, no doubt, thinking of the dark powers in the Amber Temple, who all offered gifts, but which were all granted along with a flaw.
4. ↑ Alex does an excellent job of staying in character here. Batthwack did receive a flaw with his gift from Zantras, which was that he can't take no for an answer. Batthwack was not aware of this at the time, though.
5. ↑ In game, Batthwack is now able to re-roll a natural 1, just like the halfling trait.
6. ↑ Batthwack was 6'7", so now he's roughly 3'4"