“Penelope’s already gone, and I don’t want her to get into trouble without me.”
“Not that you don’t want her to get into trouble, you just don’t want to miss out on the trouble.”

— Briv and Orkira

Watch Beyond Heroes: Wildemount | Episode 16: Drop the Bass

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The cast of Beyond Heroes, Penelope is level 12 while the rest are level 11:

• 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 10/Warlock Pact of the Archfey 2 played by Hope LaVelle
• Alyndra Alexandria Garanahil Sarrbarand, Lorekeeper of Rime Spiro, Kinscribe of Clan Monkeymouse, Daughter of Oblivion - High Elf Cleric 1/Wizard 10 played by Jen Kretchmer
• Orkira Illdrex - Dragonborn Light Domain Cleric played by Lauren Urban

Full Summary

It’s the morning after returning from the adventure at the Mawl, and Orkira has finished consecrating a corner of the living room to the Phoenix. With the space now a sanctuary linked to her deity she is excited to cast word of recall on it. This gives her a safe place she can teleport the whole group back to in case of an emergency. Meanwhile Keen is still feeling bloated and heavy from all of the sugary snacks he indulged in, though he’s still craving the sugar rush. He did bring back a few Creme Eggs, and Alyndra is happy to cast fabricate to create as many of the sweet treats as her companions desire. The group decide to name the safe house Creme Egg Cottage, in honor of their new batch of fabricated chocolate eggs and the safe place they can teleport to.

Orkira mentions she received a message from a friend, which reminded her she wanted to try casting sending to contact Freely and asked if anyone had anything they wanted to pass along. With Penelope’s help she crafts a message hoping their missing halfling is safe, confirming everyone is ok, and asking if he needs any assistance, and the cleric is happy to cast the spell and send the message across planes. They are all distracted by Keen’s moans as he is still recovering from his sugar overdose, so Orkira casts lesser restoration which helps bring the eladrin’s cholesterol back to normal and re-enter his Spring.

There’s a knock at the door and Penelope answers it to find a gnome named Arnold looking for assistance with a job. He’s the Interim Deputy Chief, as the previous one was one of those killed in the sewers, and has heard that the group staying in this house were adept problem solvers. Penelope is happy to offer the services of the "Super Duper Hooper Scoopers," and asks for details. He relays that a group of a dozen gnomes lead by a man named Therin has anonymously received blueprints to build some strange device, a mechanized unit of some kind, although they didn’t know exactly what would be created. While curious they wanted to experiment away from the city, so they collected a caravan of materials and traveled into the woods to build the super secret device. They’ve lost contact, and now there is concern something has gone wrong. After some negotiation Alyndra is able to use encode thoughts to quickly create a contract for 1,000 gold for each of them, or the equivalent in diamonds, and some horses to travel quickly to the location.

The Heroes saddle up and ride out of the city, following the deep tracks of the trail they are trying to follow. Alyndra offers to try and scry on the caravan, and borrows Orkira’s gnomish spectrometer to start the process.  But she is interrupted by the sudden sound of bending trees and creatures crashing through the underbrush, as a massive owlbear comes charging out of the forest and directly for everyone! The group scatter, Orkira into the air, Penelope dismounting her pony Bill, Keen wheeling around on his horse Lord Birmingham Cadbury, Briv on his horse Not Spiral moving to intercept, and Alyndra dodging on her horse she hasn’t had a chance to ask for their name. Sensing that this creature is acting more aggressive than normal, Briv attacks to knock the creature out, successfully turning his weapon into a spear to cause it to trip and tumble into the dirt unconscious. As he quickly ties it up, he can see it’s been severely damaged by something else.

Another owlbear jumps on top of Penelope, knocking her to the ground to snarl over her menacingly. The druid remains calm, grabbing her staff of the woodlands and casting animal friendship on the creature. With Alyndra’s portent causing it to fail to resist the spell, the owlbear calms down and begins to lick Penelope’s face. She can see this is a younger one, and the other is probably it’s mother, and the druid is quick to reassure it that everything will be alright. Alyndra is able to include the owlbear in the telepathic bond so they can talk with it, and the young one is happy to be friends with Penelope as they always wanted to meet a druid. He relays that they were attacked by giants and were fleeing, and apologizes for attacking the group.

They all can see a column of thick smoke in the distance deeper in the forest, so Orkira and Griff fly off to scout the area. They can see the gnomish caravan parked outside the entrance to a cave, and situated near the opening are six hill giants. One of the giants looks sickly and maddened, almost rabid and chaotic, and has been chained to a large tree. It appears as if the giants are taunting the gnomes, almost as if they are playing with their food. The dragonborn and the owl relay everything they’ve seen, prompting the group to gather themselves and head for the giants. The young owlbear offers to let Penelope ride him into battle with the giants, and she climbs on board with epic delight. Mounting their horses the rest follow her into the forest.

Before they get too far a blur of motion zips in front of the group and a quickling named Vee arrives. He says he’s a messenger from the Eldritch Council and is looking for Keen. Vee informs the group that they are aware of the situation, and have approved the death of all of the giants in the area. Alyndra is suspicious of the quickling as they have no proof they come from the Council, but Keen is too distracted by Vee geeking out asking for his autograph, then showing off the variety of Keen tattoos of the eladrin in all his seasons. Keen finally stops the quickling from being an embarrassing fan by asking them to find a spot nearby they could use as a funnel and trap for the giants. Vee is happy to help, and starts to lead the group towards the narrow valley between two large outcroppings of basalt rock that is perfect to set up an ambush.

As the group come up with a plan, Orkira and Griff perch in a nearby tree and watch their enemy, waiting for the signal to cause a distraction and lead the giants to the trap. The young owlbear is impatient to attack, saying his middle name is Adventure, which prompts Penelope to help him come up with his full name: Mr. Adventure Guy. Keen organizes the plan; Orkira and Griff will lead the giants into the narrow passage, where Penelope has created a hole for the giants to tumble into that is disguised by Alyndra’s minor image. Then the druid will make the ground difficult to walk through as Keen and Briv cut them down. Meanwhile Vee will zip around to the gnomes inside the cave to lead them to safety. 

With the plan in place, Orkira flies nearby the giants and calls out to get their attention, asking what they are doing. At first the massive humanoids are confused about what a tiny dragon is doing, but eventually they start a very poor attempt to deceive her into flying closer. Recognizing the lies, the dragonborn blasts them with a fireball before flying towards her friends, making sure she doesn't go too fast so the giants follow. As the giants approach, Penelope casts freedom of movement on Briv as the half-orc casts haste on himself, and Alyndra casts storm sphere. Before long giants are falling into the pit, being trampled, and hit with lightning, killing two of them. Penelope casts erupting earth to call spikes of rock up and through them, making the whole area difficult terrain. Charging forward like a ballerina of death, Briv leaps off of pillars of rock with expert movement and slaughters two more as he cuts them to pieces.

The final giant manages to grab a massive boulder to throw at Orkira, slamming into her side, before Keen arrives in a flurry of glaive strikes and fire. With his mirror image cast, he leaps into the air to cut the tops of the stone spikes off and launch them, even as he falls on the giant in an epic attack that finishes off their final foe!

What will be done with the final giant chained to the tree? And what are the gnomes building in the cave? Find out Wednesday May 20th at 2pm PT on twitch.tv/dndbeyond!

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!