The Pickle | D&D Beyond Heroes: Episode 2

“A pickle in winter is nothing to laugh at.”

Keen

 

Watch The Pickle | D&D Beyond Heroes: Episode 2

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The cast of Beyond Heroes, currently level 8:

  • Todd Kenreck as the Dungeon Master
  • Keen Dayeprath - Eladrin Eldritch Knight Fighter played by TJ Storm
  • Briv Steelmarrow - Half-Orc Oath of Heroism Paladin played by Adam Bradford
  • Penelope Half-Pint - Halfling Circle of Land Druid played by Hope LaVelle
  • Alyndra Alexandria Garanahil Sarrbarand, Lorekeeper of Rime Spiro, Kinscribe of Clan Monkeymouse, Daughter of Oblivion - High Elf Cleric 1/Wizard 7 played by Jen Kretchmer
  • Orkira Illdrex - Dragonborn Light Domain Cleric played by Lauren Urban
  • Freely - Halfling Bard 2/Paladin 2/Sorcerer 2/Warlock 2 played by B. Dave Walters

Full Summary

High in the mountains of the Howling Peaks in Eberron a train races away from the city of Sharn. In the caboose of this train sit six heroes, packed in wooden crates, waiting for the right moment to break from their cover and search the cars for their quarry. They were given an anonymous bounty for the capture of a nefarious and evil villain, and among the mountain peaks and howling winds that villain has no chance for escape or backup.

Fed up with the packing crates and figuring the time was right, Freely uses prestidigitation to break out his box with grand style in a shower of sparkles and glass bottles that were knocked over by the explosion. The broken jars were filled with large pickles and lots of juice that now cover the floor and pelt Freely in the face. He’s able to call out a warning to the rest of the group. Orkira peers out of her crate just in time to see Freely shrink and deform into a pickle, though retaining his limbs and items. Using misty step to safely escape, Alyndra and her familiar use the parts of her crate to push the pickles into her box. Noticing many of these pickles have humanoid features, Alyndra introduces herself and asks what has happened. They respond that they are lycanthropickles, sadly transformed a long time ago, and many have forgotten what they once were.

The door to the train car opens and an imposing warforged steps inside. After greeting everyone in a surprisingly cordial manner and introducing itself as Odu, they announce that the Heroes are trespassing and will disintegrate everyone. Quickly casting polymorph and using one of her portents, Alyndra turns the warforged into a tomato. With the area safe for the moment Penelope busts out of her box and the noise wakes up Briv as well. The druid is enamored with the living pickles and picks one up, while the paladin reaches down to take a bite out of the tomato. Odu appears, now with a chunk missing out it’s shoulder, just as Penelope shrinks to become a pickle version of herself.

Orkira helps Keen get out of his crate while reminding him to be careful not to touch any of the living pickles around them just as Freely uses his mage hand to make one of the vegetables touch Odu. The warforged is also reduced to a living pickle, and because he is still grabbed by Briv it causes the half-orc to also transform. Enthralled by the power of this transformation Alyndra collects a jar of the juice to study for later.

A small, metallic disk covered in runes and gears is slid under the door, and Alyndra can see it’s a type of messaging device. When she presses the button a hologram of a tall, skinny man with wild hair and a white cloak appears. He introduces himself as Rick Sanchez C132, says he knows who the Heroes are, and challenges them to make it through an entire train full of dangers. If they survive then he agrees to let them live. Briv threatens Rick, either with death or haunting as pickle form, which Rick seems unconcerned with as the hologram disappears.

Orkira confirms that the lycanthrapickle condition that now plagues Penelope, Briv, and Freely can be fixed with a remove curse spell, however she won’t have it prepared until the next day. Until they can discover another way to cure themselves the trio must remain in pickle form. Keen remembers before they were packed in crates that the train had ten cars and recommends they begin the journey quickly. Now that they know the name of the person they were sent to hunt down, Orkira uses locate creature to confirm Rick is indeed in the front of the train, and maintains concentration on the spell in case he moves. Thinking about the powers that other lycanthropes have, Briv wonders if they have the power to shapeshift into their own forms, but when Penelope attempts it she simply turns into a pickle without any face or limbs! Eventually she manages to turn back, but does not recommend the experience.

With that they open the door and enter the next car, which is filled with wooden constructs stylized like pirates. The attempt to stealth is ruined by the clumsy winged dragonborn, and the pirates all come to life as music starts to play. The captain rattles off a riddle, and when Briv fails to answer it correctly, the captain announces that they must all die! THe captain swings his hooked hand at Freely, who returns the favor with a fearsome smite. Charging in to help, both Keen and Briv slash into the captain, with the half-orc slicing off its leg causing it to tumble to the ground. Leaping onto the chest of the captain and shaking the severed limb in the air, Briv demands that the enemies surrender and join them in fighting against Rick. He is so intimidating that the wooden constructs acquiesce, handing over their treasure of a portable hole and agreeing to help storm the train.

Taking a moment Orkira uses mending on the captain’s leg, then healing word on Freely to fix his injury. The group pauses to contemplate if they should continue through the train or instead climb up on top of it, but as they do, another metal disk slides out from under the door. The hologram of Rick appears, angrily firing the wooden pirates and complaining about the quality of the parts he has to work with. Freely asks what the scientist wants from them, and Rick admits that he’s setting up a dungeon for his nephew as a fun adventure. But he needed some test “heroes” to run through it, so he placed the bounty on himself to convince them to come. After taunting them a bit more he disappears. The heroes consider abandoning the whole endeavor, but most are too enamored with the adventure or concerned with discovering a way to remove the pickle curse.

The next car contains an ornate pedestal with a golden chest on top, gloriously lit by a stained glass window. It’s such an obvious trap that Briv sends the Captain in to check the chest, and immediately the mimic grabs the wooden construct and snaps its head off! As Alyndra comforts the dying Captain, Briv suggests to Penelope that it is her turn to intimidate an enemy into submission. The druid does her best, but the mimic still attacks her pickle form! Keen quickly uses his glaive to pierce the tongue of the creature, slicing it clean off and saving his friend. Then the pedestal reveals itself to be a mimic and strikes out at Orkira. The cleric also tries to persuade the mimic to join them, mentioning she had a friend like them once, but the mimic seems uninterested. With a command Alyndra makes the second mimic cooperate, but just as everyone starts to move the floor opens up to reveal that the entire train car is one gigantic mimic! 

As everyone scrambles for the door, Briv casts enthrall, causing the train car mimic to be distracted enough that everyone can escape. The gigantic tongue of the train mimic wraps around their car, so Freely unhooks it from the front of the train while Penelope casts heat metal on the walls to get it to release its hold. With a burnt tongue the mimic lets go and begins to fall back away from the front of the train. Alyndra says a small prayer for the lycanthropickles in the last car that are being sent to their doom.

With the back door wide open to the cold mountain air, Orkira claws her way outside the train to look over the top of the cars. A hologram of Rick appears, sarcastically mocking the dragonborn for trying to go over top of the train and digging in with questions about her wings and tail. She tries to ignore the jabs, hoping the dangers on top of the train will at least be faster to deal with then those inside. Metal spikes erupt from the top of the train slashing into the cleric, while the cold wind starts to take its toll. Taking one last moment to gauge the speed of the train to make sure she could fly fast enough to keep up with it, Orkira returns to the inside to report her findings.

Either path presents dangers, but Briv points out that if they fly outside of the train and fail to catch it they are at least free to leave for home, so the decision is made to go above. Penelope grabs Freely and uses her Wild Shape to transform into a giant eagle—though, to her chagrin, she transforms into a giant, winged pickle isntead. Orkira follows with her own wings, taking a moment to cast cure wounds on herself, while Alyndra casts fly on herself, Briv, and Keen. The Heroes take to the sky and pass over many of the cars, but because the engine has no windows or doors they are forced to reenter in the car just before the front of the train. Orkira tears open a window and peers inside, and everyone can see the car is filled with a thick mist. Grif enters and appears to suffer no consequences, so Penelope dives after the familiar and casts warding wind to clear the car of fog while Freely and Briv join her inside. The rest of the heroes enter as the mist is cleared to find Penelope, Freely, Briv and Grif now have identical copies of each other, even in their pickle forms! All the twins seam delighted at this turn of events, and while there is a brief moment of concern that one of the pair might be evil the consensus is that they will figure it out as they go.

Opening the door to the engine they first find a small room containing a blue box with a button on top. Behind it there is a giant metal door covered in locks and chains. Seeing the box immediately Penelope, Briv and Freely run up to push the button, and in a puff of air and smoke a small, bald, blue creature appears. It announces “I’m Mister Meeseeks, look at me!” in a friendly though screeching loud voice. Delighted, Penelope pushes the button several more time to summon more of the creatures. One is asked to open the giant metal door, but before it can comply Alyndra casts knock and with a tremendous crash the door is magically forced open. The Mr. Meeseeks that was tasked with working on the door grows angry, his eyes glowing red, and announces he will now be trying to kill everyone. Freely grabs the box, presses the button to summon another creature, and orders it to kill the one trying to kill them. As the two Meeseeks fight the Heroes back through the doorway.

Finally at the front of the train they find Rick Sanchez C132, absolutely sloshed and just as condescending as when they first met him. When it seems that he won’t help undo the pickle transformation or pay for their services, Alyndra pulls out the jar of pickle juice she took and throws it at the scientist. Instantly Rick is transformed into a pickle, and Orkira casts hold person to keep him immobile. The group decides to put Rick in the portable hole and bring him back to Avren, and one mage hand later the drunk is deposited in the hole even as he is calling Avren a hack.

Freely summons a Meeseeks to stop the train, and then several more to transform them out of pickle form. The strange blue creatures set to work, pulling the breaks on the train while using a variety of alchemical concoctions to transform all the pairs of pickles back to their preferred bodies. There has been no way to tell who is a clone and who is the original of the pairs, so Orkira casts zone of truth. Three of the pairs fail to resist her magic, and when she asks that Penelope, Briv and Freely if they are evil all truthfully respond that they are not. The dragonborn doesn't care if anyone is a clone, all she is concerned about is if the versions around her are good people, but there are still three who she cannot tell if they are lying or not. They all have identical memories and identical bodies. Freely summons a Meeseeks and asks to reveal the clones, but the Meeseeks announces there are no clones. Alyndra asks another Meeseeks what the fog did, and it replies that it created identical twins.

Suddenly the train is rocked as the mimic car returns to attack again! It rips a section of the car open and devours a Penelope, Briv, and Freely in a single gulp! The remaining Heroes start the engine again to flee, a small debate on who that remains might be a clone and if it matters. Above them Rarv arrives in the airship Murray, and announces that he is there to rescue them if they are ready to leave. Quickly snatching up anything of value they can find, Freely orders one last Meeseeks to destroy the train, and as the group climbs the rope ladder into the safety of the airship the dungeon train explodes into shards.

Teleporting back to Sigil the group hand over to Avren much of the loot they recovered from the train, as well as the still pickle form of Rick Sanchez C132. However Freely and Penelope decide to keep the Mr. Meeseeks Box after Alyndra advises they not relinquish that magical device. Orkira sadly takes a moment to ask Avren if he can recover the bodies of their three friends eaten by the train mimic, and he assures her that can be done so she can lay the bodies to rest, but the cleric is hoping to scrounge up enough diamonds to bring them back to life.

Opening the massive, secure vault Avren brings Rick to a miniature version of a prison. Locking him away Avren announces,  “Goodnight Sanchez, enjoy your pickle prison.”

The next adventure the audience has chosen is titled Planescapers! Join us November 27th at 2pm PT to see what dangers that mission will hold!


Lauren "Oboe" Urban is the Community Manager for D&D Beyond, as well as a professional classical musician on oboe and English Horn. When she's not playing a Bard in real life she's a prolific Dungeon Master and player on a variety of livestreams and podcasts. She lives in Seattle, Washington with her husband Luke where they spend their free time playing video games and drinking tea. The best way to keep up with Lauren's busy schedule is to follow her on Twitter @OboeLauren

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