OSRIC, Shadows of the Pale Ep11
After the last troll falls, the troupe surveys the damage... An item of wonder is found, some sketchy NPC's are met, and the PC's follow the halfling under the mountain...
Shadows of the Pale is our house written Season 4 OSRIC mini(?) campaign where we play the amazing third edition of the OSRIC rule set. (retroclone of the first advanced edition of the worlds most well known role playing game, available through Mythmere games, or free pdf from DrivethruRPG) This story is set in the fabled World of Greyhawk fantasy setting, on the border between the Duchy of Tenh and the Theocracy of the Pale; and features wilderness exploration, a tense political backdrop, and the creeping long arm of the ominous Empire of Iuz...
Featuring:
Bryan (AKA Doc) as Reyes Monin, fighter, displaced noble, straight ahead action enthusiast, likes being big, seeker of treasure and XP.
Rodney as Pindar, Fighter/mage, pureblooded half-elf, second rank spear wielder, deviser of many plans, knower of moon phases.
Shawn M as Merrick Thornleaf, Fighter/thief, Halfling, scout, Agent provocateur against The Pale, devils advocate, roller of ones.
John A as Theron, Elven Mage, mule owner, onetime seeker of Gelatinous Groundhogs, puts a big C on his CG alignment.
Eric as Edric, Human Cleric. either does not know or will not disclose his favored diety, reluctant yet ineffective healer, often the first into the fray.
Shawn G as GM, deviser of plots that might be deadly if he rolled better in combat, awkward NPC portrayer. Edits and produces whatever this is.
Please visit our sponsor, and publisher of OSRIC, other wonderful RPGs and The Tome of Adventure Design, Mythmere Games!
sign up to be notified of their new Backerkit campaign for the World of Jordoba!
https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/mythmere-games/the-world-of-jordoba/pre-launch
#ad&d #Osric #OSR #ttrpg #actualplay #rpg #Dnd #oldschoolrpg #tabletoprpg #retrogaming #greyhawk
1 SPEAKER_01: This week on a retro rollcast.
SPEAKER_02: Try and scout out this dude's his answering
whistleman.
I could.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe get him to stop whistling.
SPEAKER_02: We're not supposed to trust NPCs.
It's not that we don't trust the NPCs.
No, we don't trust the people who are trust the NPCs.
SPEAKER_01: That's why we drove him out of the house.
We haven't got nothing useful yet.
SPEAKER_00: This season of Retro Rollcast, we're playing Osric,
which is published by Mythmeer Games.
You can get free PDFs of the Osric system on Drive Thru RPG.
But if you want to get actual excellent quality hardbound
books for the new Osric version, including the landscape versions
excellent for reference at the table, you can visit
MythmeirGames.com.
While you're there, you can check out other good stuff like
adventures, source books, the Swords and Wizardry system, and
for use with any fantasy game, the Tome of Adventure Design,
Tome of World Building, and the Namicon.
Once again, Mythmeergames.com or copy the link in our show notes.
Thanks again.
Now back to the adventure.
Welcome back to Retro Rolecast.
We are here once again at Lazarus Games.
And ready to get after it after the big combat last time.
Once again, a shout out to our listeners.
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So, how are we doing today's guys?
We made it through that without interrupting you.
That was very nice.
It was a struggle.
I don't even know how to.
I was like, I mean, you can it might have hurt my flow.
Were you all ready to tear into it after the big combat where we
taught the kids how easy Thaco is when you try to do it?
It can be done, Sean.
I think there was a little scarrel for Sean.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I do think we had a little hiccup with Thaco.
Shh.
Actually, Thacko wasn't the problem.
SPEAKER_00: It was remembering all the other modifiers.
Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02: I lost myself in modifiers.
SPEAKER_00: Well, see, if you build all those modifiers into
your Thacko, that's the important bit.
It is.
But the problem is they're conditional.
SPEAKER_02: And the problem is when you're your pure blood
half-elf changes your statistics.
So the math gets I didn't change anything.
SPEAKER_01: You engorged him by Taco.
SPEAKER_02: My thaco is different with sphere versus
simply.
SPEAKER_00: From this point forward, no use of the word
engorged on this podcast.
Now we're getting rules.
If you want to use a lot of rules now, no starting go for
mules.
Now you can't stay engorged.
We gotta print this out.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we need a print out of what we can do on
the wall.
SPEAKER_00: No, I like the rules to be vague and in my head.
We want to hang on the wall.
All right.
Like, are we allowed to say six, seven?
But anyway, quick.
Yes, but you have to know what it means.
Yeah, you can't just I was going to do an entire episode where I
did nothing behind the screen but Gen Z slang because I get a
lot of that in my house.
Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_02: I do too now.
My nine discovered YouTube.
But anyway, chat.
SPEAKER_00: Let's get this started.
Yes.
Okay, fine.
We're going to start on my left-hand side this time with
Brian, aka Doc.
Brian, who you playing?
SPEAKER_02: I am playing Rheus Monin.
He is a human fighter.
SPEAKER_00: And it's sort of fun to play.
SPEAKER_02: Leader of the group.
And next reluctant leader is Rodney.
Rodney, who you got?
I am playing Pindar, the pureblood half owl fighter mage.
Currently Pindar, just as for the GM's reference, might as
well do it now.
He has memorized the spells reduce in large, spider climb,
web, and invisibility, of which he is cast in large.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
Did you also memorize reduce just so you can get him down to
size if you need to?
SPEAKER_02: I did actually memorize reduce.
It is not to be used on anybody who's enlarged.
It's to be used to shrink a halfling down to a two or three
inch tall size.
I could do it on a giant, but he would get a saving throw, which
we do not want, because then he would succeed and I would feel
like I wasted a spell.
Well, there's a giant land right here.
You can I don't care about dead giants.
SPEAKER_00: Directly across the table from me, once again.
We gotta change that.
Well no.
You saw what happened last year.
I want to sit next to Sean.
Sean, uh no.
Who are you?
What character sheet do you have in front of you today?
I am, of course, playing Merrick Thornleaf, the microphone.
SPEAKER_02: Fighter thief halfling scout of doom.
SPEAKER_00: Next to him, moving over to my left-hand side, uh,
man of many words.
John, who do you got today?
SPEAKER_01: I have Theorin, the magic user elf.
SPEAKER_00: That came through nice and clear.
What?
He's actually breaking his head up.
Wow.
Not yet.
I'm waiting for it to happen.
He's learned to talk directly into the mic, ladies and
gentlemen.
It's not gonna last.
It's celebrated.
It was an accident, my bad.
SPEAKER_01: Happened.
And last but certainly not least, Eric.
Yeah, it's playing Edric, the cleric, who is a bit hoarse from
chanting from last time.
And just for you all to know that your soul is not corrupt.
Can you hear the rumble?
SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry, the rumble of what?
Cleric of Thunder Gods.
Well, yeah, he promised to reveal that last time we sat
down and played, and we never got around to it.
SPEAKER_02: I don't think he ever looked one up.
They did.
I'm sorry, so now you know, and it is Thor.
SPEAKER_01: We'll discuss.
Ooh, Thor.
No, Thor is not a Greyhawk.
SPEAKER_02: All right, so let me ask you this.
Do you have any symbolism on your character that might help
us?
I do.
Oh glowing mace.
Oh, what's the symbolism?
Maybe we can guess.
Let our listeners guess.
Is it a skull?
It's an eye.
On a red field of red?
Is it a big white hand?
No.
I'm just gonna remain quiet in this one.
SPEAKER_01: We can feel the rumble.
You feel the rumble?
SPEAKER_02: Feel the rumble.
SPEAKER_01: I mean I feel if I did have an egg with muffin this
morning.
Oh, I had a breakfast burrito.
SPEAKER_02: So does your breakfast burrito that you
worship, this burrito god, does he have any healing spells that
he could maybe distribute after our massive combat?
Because we're not doing healing anymore, I was hurt.
I do.
Can we all heal?
SPEAKER_01: Yes, curious wounds.
SPEAKER_00: One, two, three, four, five.
Before we get to that, I didn't take any damage.
Just to set the scene for our listeners who may have
forgotten.
Last episode, we you guys snuck up on and engaged the encampment
with the larger of the two giant brothers, Grozig.
You fireballed him within his home.
Terrible.
And a furious melee ensued, and you guys ended up the victors,
dispatching one very large hill giant, four ogres, and two
trolls that you are aware of.
That we are aware of.
And right now you are in the encampment.
The building that Grosig had been resting in when he was
rudely interrupted is on fire.
So all you can hear other than the forest sounds are the sounds
of the flames from Theron's fireball licking into the uh
into the wood frame of the building.
And catching the thatch on top on fire.
SPEAKER_02: Is this pouring a lot of smoke up into the air?
It is.
But it is you said it was a cloudy day today.
It was a cloudy day, yep.
Is it still is super cloudy where they're low or they're
kind of high?
Like, are we getting a lot of smoke between us and them?
Is it super obvious that this is a unnatural amount of smoke from
a campsite?
SPEAKER_00: Well, there was smoke from the campfire, the
from the bonfire before that the two trolls are now roasting
merrily on.
Creating extra dirty smoke, right?
But there is the you would say the volume of smoke has
increased by threefold.
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
So it should be obvious to anybody who with eyeballs that
this place has been lit up.
SPEAKER_00: So anybody with eardrums heard a heard an
explosion not long ago.
Yeah, picture fireballs more as a whoosh than a boom.
SPEAKER_02: Woosh.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: Isn't it a whoosh boom?
A woof.
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
Yeah, there might have been a woof.
Anyway.
A woom.
A woom.
Wait a minute, wait a minute.
I could use some healing, Edric.
What?
Hey, healing.
I it must have been a boom.
Healing.
Healing.
Yeah, if you wouldn't mind.
I know you rushed in and probably got beat up too, but
I'm okay.
I'm actually okay.
Like half.
Yeah.
I'm slightly more.
I have a couple of cuts.
SPEAKER_01: I will say some magical healing words.
SPEAKER_02: Alright, I'm gonna try to figure out who your guy
happens.
SPEAKER_01: Three! It's always so good.
SPEAKER_02: It's not Helm.
You are it's not Helm.
SPEAKER_01: It's not a deity of healing, right?
Man, you are terrible.
You are terrible.
He worships crumb.
Who doesn't believe in Conway his worshippers?
Actually, I gave you three, but then I took five.
That's what happened.
SPEAKER_02: Well, thanks for those three.
SPEAKER_01: How anyone else?
I got more.
I got plenty of healing.
It won't do you much good, but I got it.
SPEAKER_02: I'll roll my own healing next time if you don't.
SPEAKER_01: You certainly can.
SPEAKER_02: That way I don't know.
SPEAKER_01: That's up to the GN's discretion.
He probably wants me to do it.
SPEAKER_02: While they're doing all this, I'm gonna head for the
building.
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm gonna follow into the building.
SPEAKER_00: So you two are going to the building, Arayus.
So what are you?
You're still very large, and we'll be for another turn.
SPEAKER_01: Parts of you anyway.
SPEAKER_00: Parts of me.
Okay.
SPEAKER_02: What is wrong with you?
SPEAKER_01: I didn't say it.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you did.
SPEAKER_01: Let's get big feet.
SPEAKER_02: Big feet.
And a big nose.
Big things.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, we gotta stop.
Focus, gentlemen.
Focus.
SPEAKER_02: Come on.
Let's go.
It took him freaking two minutes.
Stop talking into your mic.
Yeah, I'll think I'd turn him down a little bit.
SPEAKER_04: It was better when we couldn't hear him.
SPEAKER_00: At first, he wasn't talking enough.
No.
Okay.
I actually asked it aside before Doc gives me his action.
I edit this thing.
I listen to the commentary from our newest retro role caster.
And I would say it's mixed.
Number one, he doesn't talk as much as the rest of you, which
is probably a bonus.
Wow.
But it goes, it goes between inane stuff like gelatinous
groundhogs.
But like occasionally, he will give a coherent solution to a
problem, and he will be completely ignored.
Like I'll be hearing like four terrible ideas being debated,
and then he's like, Well, why don't we just do this?
And I'm like, oh man, that's the best thing.
But nobody says anything to him.
Are you sure we heard him?
No, I'm not sure you heard him.
I'm pretty sure you haven't.
But it's kind of cool.
But anyway, back around to duh to the two.
SPEAKER_02: I'm just gonna go into the giant burning giant
building and see if anything needs lifted.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so while Edric is healing Pinder, the the three
of you head over towards the burning building.
And inside, flames are licking up the walls, illuminating the
ghastly scene.
There nearly everything is on fire.
The pile of furs and blankets and straw that the giant had
been using for a bed, along with the the ogre that was in there,
is a flame.
You see two charred corpses of human size in the building as
well.
And of them there is a third human figure that that appears
to be over in the corner and is moaning in pain.
SPEAKER_01: No witnesses.
SPEAKER_00: And right right near where the giant had his bed is a
massive chest.
I like big chests.
SPEAKER_02: What does the what are the walls made out of?
SPEAKER_00: Uh flaming logs.
I'm gonna say, isn't this whole thing just like rough cut logs?
Yeah.
You feel that this this was the ultimate destination of a lot of
the wood that the Zeeps run was delivering to the to the giants?
Was they were delivering rough cut logs and they were just
being haphazardly assembled into this building, is not extremely
well constructed.
SPEAKER_01: Is the chest something we could drag out?
SPEAKER_00: Just very heavy.
The chest is a big chest, and depending on its weight, the
three of you can probably drag it out.
Unless you reduce it.
I'm pretty big, so I don't think it's a good one.
Well, yeah, you're enormous, so yeah, you could pick it up with
both hands and haul it out there.
SPEAKER_02: You guys grab the injured and I'm telling you and
the halfling to grab the injured guy.
I can't carry it.
The injured guy.
You can between the two of you, can drag him out so he doesn't
burn to death.
I can't believe I have to explain this.
SPEAKER_00: He'll be dead long.
Ryan's going for what's important.
And you guys are dragging the injured guy out.
No, I'm telling them to do it.
And they're not being willing.
You have to mean it.
You gave up your leadership.
You passed that off seven.
I really mean it, guys.
I mean it.
I mean, damn it, come on.
Okay, you guys make a reaction roll.
SPEAKER_02: All right.
Let's see.
And minus five.
Minus four.
What are we gonna beat?
I got a four.
They're percentage rolls, by the way.
I pretty sure they're percentage roles.
Oh, are they?
Are they percentage?
I don't know why you're rolling.
You're a player character.
You're not an NPC.
You get to choose how you react.
I want to roll.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I know.
I'm just doing the general area.
I got a 92.
Okay, you're you react, you jump right to it.
Yes.
You snap a select.
Actually, I have an 11 strength.
SPEAKER_02: I can probably drag the guy, so I will.
I'm sure between the two of you you can figure it out.
He's not unconscious.
It's one person.
64.
He's crunchy, though.
Okay.
SPEAKER_00: You're kind of all right.
Maybe.
Man.
I don't think he's gonna make it.
You're not the boss of me while you do it anyway.
I hate you guys.
Stomping my big foot jerk.
So you drag, you I mean, are you picking the chest up or are you
dragging it?
Okay.
All right.
So Reyes grabs the chest and hauls it out into the daylight,
and the two of you drag the the moaning man.
He seems to be covered in like scorched leather armor.
Sort of a scarred face, bearded.
I mean, I'm not sure.
Oh, he's a sympathizer.
God damn it.
SPEAKER_02: This is smoke inhalation.
SPEAKER_00: Smoke inhalation.
How do you know this isn't cared?
What the prince?
And you and you drag this man out into the sunlight.
How old does he look?
As you do, in a dramatic fashion, several of the logs
collapse in, and it looks like the building is in the process
of coming down.
Okay.
SPEAKER_02: Right in the nick of time.
We left him in the great googly moogly.
I hate you.
Oh, and empty glasses.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I've seen that dice roll.
It was probably a good move anyway.
SPEAKER_02: There's a reason it wasn't only on the table to be
thrown at sunlight.
SPEAKER_00: So if you can finish healing, you have the chest and
the and the man out into the sunlight.
Is anybody we recognize?
SPEAKER_01: Priorities.
What's in the chest?
SPEAKER_02: So if he's in armor and he was with the giant in the
house, why would we think he's not part of their evil?
I'm not telling you how to think.
Why not?
SPEAKER_01: There were three of them total.
Human.
Three human sympathizers.
Is he awake that we could ask him?
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: He's kind of out of it.
He's moaning.
You don't think he's in very good shape.
I mean, he wasn't probably in good shape before, but he also
got fireballed.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
If only we had We weren't there.
We don't know how.
If only someone could do something about it.
SPEAKER_01: But do we really want to waste that on him?
I think we need to wait and find out his story for gonna die.
SPEAKER_02: Are we heroes?
No.
SPEAKER_04: No.
A couple of us think we are.
Are we heroes?
SPEAKER_02: I am.
Yeah?
Well, you don't have to say heroes, but the good guys.
The good guys would heal the person who they presume was a uh
a victim of giant oppression.
That's a good guy.
Plus, we're not presuming he's that and we're presuming he's
one of the bad guys.
So what would lead you to believe that he is working with
the giants because he survived a fireball?
SPEAKER_01: He's not tied up or found anywhere.
SPEAKER_02: He was in the he was in the building in armor.
So heal them and then ask him some questions and determine
this.
SPEAKER_01: So then we can torture him.
As a good guy, I heal him.
SPEAKER_02: As a good guy.
With an evil guy.
SPEAKER_01: Eight points.
Woo! Fucker.
SPEAKER_02: He must be really good.
SPEAKER_01: He's definitely a bad guy.
SPEAKER_02: He's the worst cleric ever.
Well, no, it's his evil deity healing the evil character.
One of them.
He's got four heals left.
He'll be lucky to get eight hit points out of it.
Yep.
All right.
While these guys are all doing this.
Unless he heals that guy.
I'm gonna go up to the troll hole where they've got control.
The cannon I just want to kind of look at it.
Troll poop.
SPEAKER_00: Smells.
SPEAKER_02: I just want to make sure.
I mean, I didn't think there's any others in there.
SPEAKER_00: But no, it's sort of a they had a pen for these
trolls.
There are some rotting, mostly eaten cattle carcasses in one
corner.
There is evidence that there was a fire, fire like pit.
The troll hole?
Correct.
Okay.
But other than that, you don't see anything.
SPEAKER_02: All right.
I just wanted to make sure that we weren't going to get
surprised in this direction.
While they do all that, I'm going to go up there and then
I'm going to come back.
I'm going to keep a lookout up the road in the direction of the
manor and where the orcs were as a sentry.
SPEAKER_00: Well, the manor and the orcs are in different
directions.
SPEAKER_02: Well, I'm going to keep looking up the road.
Okay.
Which I assume is where anything.
SPEAKER_00: You can obviously swivel your head, so yeah.
You can only think the roads.
No, you have to pick a direction, man.
Okay, so you're on lookout.
What are the rest of you doing, Reyes?
I'm going to open this chest.
Okay, the chest is locked.
SPEAKER_02: And then I'm gonna smash this chest.
No.
Hey, little guy.
Can you use your tricks of your trade and maybe finagle this
lock?
I can try.
Go for it.
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
Stick your hand in the keyhole.
If we rest, I can get knock.
It just pops open.
SPEAKER_02: Pick locks is 47%.
Alright, you can roll and roll that.
You'll know.
So I'm assuming this is roll under?
Yeah.
But God, is this your first time?
I failed.
SPEAKER_00: This is your first time.
What'd you roll?
67.
Okay.
So he attempts to pick the lock and fails.
You're going to have to break it.
Nope.
I don't want to.
SPEAKER_01: Did we check the giant and see if he has a key?
I think it's melted or something.
I don't wanna.
SPEAKER_00: Do it.
There you go.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we're gonna check the giant.
Well, I'm gonna check the giant, see if he has a key or two.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, the the giant has a very large belt pouch.
In that belt pouch is 20 gold pieces and a key.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, I found a key.
SPEAKER_00: Clink, clink.
Well, why don't you use that key and see if the only god, I said
something about listening to it.
I know that.
It doesn't matter.
We're never going to get the phone.
I'll bring the key over.
SPEAKER_02: Here, try this.
We're not gonna level up.
If we're lucky, it'll be so much we can't even carry it all.
That's right.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, the key fits into the lock and you turn it
and it opens with a click.
And inside.
And inside coins is lots of coinage.
There is a gleaming pearl on top of the coinage.
They're like sort of folded up is a well-made looking suit of
chain mail.
A couple of potions, and a about foot and a half leather, foot
and a half long leather pouch.
Foot and a half leather.
Like a little sheath of some sort that's about that long.
Like a weapon holder?
Could be a hold of the house.
It's closed underneath.
You don't see a hilt coming out of the end of it.
It's a pouch of holes.
It looks like it has like a little flap over it.
Okay.
But it's about a foot and a half long and about three inches wide
pouch.
I'm just writing it down.
I wasn't I'm not there to open it.
Examining.
I stick him in it.
Okay, and you pull out a smooth birch stick about a foot and a
half long.
A wand.
Birch.
Or a birch stick.
It has a word written on it.
SPEAKER_02: Ronson.
SPEAKER_01: Fireball.
SPEAKER_02: No, the word is duck.
Zippo.
SPEAKER_01: Make big.
SPEAKER_02: Is it?
SPEAKER_01: And the word is.
When Guardium Leviosa.
Please.
Sorry, I just.
SPEAKER_02: Adventure among yourself.
The word is somewhere in the book Sean is looking for it.
Well, here's the deal.
We don't know what it means.
SPEAKER_01: He didn't think we'd actually find it.
Even with all the helpful hints.
SPEAKER_00: Well, there, I mean, who was No, I don't want to use
any of the ones from Harry Potter.
That would get us that would get used to the water.
Who is the wizard that that must have been taken to where's that
guy?
SPEAKER_02: Can't see for a large.
It's probably his.
Why would the giant have the ogre mage's wand?
Maybe he took it from him as a practical joke.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: She's holding it for him.
You don't keep all your stuff at once.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe he's holding it for ransom.
He literally's got all this stuff in a chest.
And so you just said he doesn't keep all the stuff.
It was locked.
SPEAKER_01: And if you don't know, there could be a chest up
in the other one.
SPEAKER_02: Look, this could not be the ogre mages, because if it
was the ogre mages, he would be using it.
SPEAKER_00: The word on it is as a key.
At a key.
Do you say that?
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
SPEAKER_00: I'd dive for it.
Do you have anybody in mind while you're saying it?
No.
Kind of pointing it up and reading it.
Okay.
Roll me a percentage dime.
Oh my god, it's a wanda wonder.
SPEAKER_01: You have a second character?
SPEAKER_00: You guys are too good.
34.
All right.
34.
Random shit.
Captain Chaos.
I had the page for this already pulled up, but how's that
working out for you?
It's not.
It's not working out.
I'm gonna have to print it out for 36.
34.
34.
Oh, okay.
Roll me another uh percentage dice.
I'm so glad I'm not standing there.
Fuck.
A two?
It rolled extreme.
The GM has a shitty grin on his face right now.
Oh, a two?
Okay, so you point the wand up and randomly mutter the rounds
of the word.
I cover my hands.
All of a sudden, in the clearing, appears an enormous
animal.
Enormous animal.
Food has uh mostly hairless skin, a long tail, and a very
long snout upon which are two horns.
You've never seen this sort of animal before.
Are they white horns?
Does it have big ears?
Or is it a rhinoceros?
It is a rhinoceros.
Which we I was gonna make it a rhinocermous, just because big
big antlers.
Because burry with antlers is how you do it.
SPEAKER_02: It gazes over at you.
You're now the proud owner of rhinoceros puppy.
It's a water walking rhinoceros.
Come here, buddy.
This is the ultimate mount.
Yes, gelatin's headhog.
Yeah, you know what?
Enlarged would kind of rock on a rhino.
Make them even bigger.
Just saying.
On a giant rhino.
SPEAKER_00: This this this very large creature walks over to
you, shaking the ground a bit, and like lowers its head.
SPEAKER_01: Nice! Oh, I give it a scratch behind the ear.
SPEAKER_00: Anyone else remember that Ralphartha miniature?
SPEAKER_04: Yep.
SPEAKER_00: The hill giant on the rhino.
So if is anybody counting the coins, or are you all just
looking at the strange new creature that just counting the
coins?
I'm looking per way to transfer.
SPEAKER_02: Is it like dude size or is it like little thing size?
SPEAKER_00: It is dude-sized.
All right, like real man.
SPEAKER_02: Like it could be a human or a half-elf.
Like dude wipes.
Well, remember, we are missing one set of chain mail from that
would have been cared's.
Yes.
That could have been taken from his body.
So this could be cared.
We don't even know.
I've said as much, but he did also say that this man had other
armor that was burnt off, too.
So I don't think cared would have leather armor on if he was
or maybe it was just leathers.
I leather.
I look at him.
SPEAKER_00: Is it leather armor or it's leather armor?
Okay.
It's very like beat up, faded leather armor.
This guy's like 29, 30 years old.
Not our boy.
Oh, this could what's and he's sitting up looking at you and
he's looking at the what the fuck is that?
Who the fuck are you?
This has to be confusing.
SPEAKER_02: I say that often.
Egwar! Did he turn his head?
Who the fuck is Egwar?
SPEAKER_00: Well, who are you?
Not that guy.
SPEAKER_02: Telling you, this is not our friend.
Kill him then.
Wasted a spell.
Man o man.
SPEAKER_00: So you guys killed Grosig?
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
Among other things.
SPEAKER_01: We found him like this.
Yeah, we just came upon you.
It's all the smoke.
Who are you?
Why are you here?
Speak quickly.
SPEAKER_00: Now we have fun.
See, I pulled up the wand of wonder thing, and now my my now
my notes aren't in front of me.
Maybe you should use paper.
SPEAKER_01: Wand of wonder?
Oh paper.
SPEAKER_02: I called it as soon as he rolled percent on that.
Yes.
Okay.
SPEAKER_01: You did.
SPEAKER_02: Only it's too good.
Well, some of us have been playing for a while.
You can't.
Been down this block before.
Who the hell gave Albin a wand of wonder?
That guy.
The chaos agent going took him.
He planned this.
You know he didn't.
You know it.
Hunter.
Because there's not enough chaos from the guy who wants to cast
fireball at every question.
Fireball?
Fireball?
I mean it's just gonna wand.
It's almost as if the meme is real.
Yes.
Fireball?
SPEAKER_00: Sam Whitmore.
Who are you guys?
Whitmore.
Are you with Devis?
Did Devis send you for me?
No.
Devis.
SPEAKER_02: Never heard of him.
Nope.
Who's a new player?
SPEAKER_01: Who are you?
SPEAKER_02: I'm looking at my NPC list right now.
SPEAKER_01: I am looking at my list.
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna guess that's the You are not on it.
Neither is Devis.
Does Devis have horns and a little prancy friend that goes
around with him?
No, that's that's Belmac.
Belmac.
SPEAKER_00: No, Devis is my lord.
We've traveled a long way.
Since he was exiled.
He didn't send you?
No.
Well, where would where's your landlord's lands?
Where am I?
I was I was hit in the head and blindfolded about a month ago.
SPEAKER_02: You're in the Duchy of Ten in the southeast of the
Duchy of Ten.
You're in the Fostwood or close to it.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_02: Not far then.
Okay.
Is this guy are is this guy palish?
No.
Can't tell by looking at people.
I don't know.
No, I mean I mean like these flanness and whatever, all these
other Oh yeah, so right.
SPEAKER_00: No, he's not of the Okay.
SPEAKER_02: It wouldn't mean anything to the player, that's
for sure.
I don't, but the character might recognize differences.
SPEAKER_00: Well, did you were captured by the ogres?
Yeah.
Me and the boys made an acquisition not long ago.
We were bringing it back to Ashenford and we were waylaid.
Ironic, huh?
I mean sorry, w acquisition.
He stole something.
Acquisition.
You know what it's like.
He points at the chest.
Like that.
So you were an adventurer?
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: Something like that.
Yeah, like you guys.
Sure, yeah.
That's what it is.
Alright.
Okay.
Adventurer.
Now we know how he had the hit points to survive the fireball.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, he was never going to get away.
Nothing gets by you guys.
SPEAKER_00: He's so smart.
So yeah, well, if it wasn't you, I'm sure he sent somebody.
Well, is this a good thing?
Well, hold on.
He he puts his fingers to his lips and he gives a big loud
whistle with the little trill in the end.
And he just stands there.
And then like a minute later you hear very faintly awkward a
return whistle of the same sort.
SPEAKER_02: That can't be good.
Should have killed him, I told you.
Oh, whatever.
Which direction did the trill return sound?
Empty the chat.
Like because the camp was mostly on one side of the road and the
road ran through the camp.
No, from the same side of the road as the as the camp.
SPEAKER_00: As the campaign, deeper into the woods.
Deeper into up and over the what did you do?
But anyway, thank you for rescuing me.
I was almost certainly done for.
You're almost certainly well done.
When Grozick realized I could take a punch, he made sure to
punch me as often as possible.
And I appreciate it.
If you ever come to Ashenford, I'll put a good word in for you
with the boys.
Okay.
SPEAKER_02: Who are the boys?
You guys have a name besides the boys?
I know your lord is Devos.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Devos is one time the ruler of the city-state
of Stoink.
Former ruler of Stoink.
Till till Renfus did for him.
Now he's here, he's trying to get enough men to go back and
take what's his.
Not likely.
Seems to be a lot of that going on.
SPEAKER_02: Well, not likely to find the many needs out here
either.
How far away did that trilling sound and come from?
I mean, it was probably faint.
SPEAKER_00: It was fairly faint, probably at least.
Well, I mean quarter of a mile.
Okay.
SPEAKER_02: Well, I mean, we do have to vacate this particular
area.
We can't stick around.
SPEAKER_00: But just for accounting purposes, you have
the pearl.
There are 400 gold pieces.
Okay.
That's there are 40 pounds of gold.
600 silver, the chain mail, and two potions.
100 pounds of coins.
SPEAKER_02: 100 pounds of coins, two potions, the stick, and the
well-made chain.
Exquisitely made chain, I think it was.
Was it exquisitely made?
I did use that word, yeah.
Man, do you want it, Reyes?
Fine chain mail.
I mean, that it might be better than what you're wearing.
It's even, so.
Well, it might be better.
It might be better, yes.
It might be.
If you understand what I'm saying, I'm going to strip down
totally naked.
We don't have time for that right now.
We're not going to unarmor right here.
I just drop trial.
It's hard to do it.
I don't want to see that.
We need to move.
We need to not, we need to get out of here.
I'm grateful for your rescue in me and all.
I'm staying here naked, old giant.
I'm not casting that spell out.
Never memorizing it again.
SPEAKER_00: So the chain mail, the new chain mail fits.
What did you have on before?
SPEAKER_02: I had banded mail.
So actually it was one bad.
Just start loading gold onto my pony.
SPEAKER_00: So you had banded mail?
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
It's probably equivalent.
Anyway, you'll find out eventually.
Sooner or later.
What did we do with the horses though?
We left them with the knights, didn't we?
We have to lug this chest until we get to them.
It's 10 pounds of gold a person.
SPEAKER_01: We knew we had a giant rhino.
Damn.
Only only.
SPEAKER_00: Does the rhino come with sat saddlebags?
I think it did.
I think we can make a bag and have the chest on top of them.
I mean, yeah, you could probably take a sack and some ropes.
SPEAKER_02: We can engineer this.
Look, I know nothing about this creature, but it seems very
docile.
So yeah, why don't we around him?
He's he doesn't he gives you guys a wide oh no.
I'm giving Rhino a wide berth.
You're damn right.
But it seems fine if you can load it on there.
However, that works.
Are there any sacks around here?
I mean, there's got to be maybe a sack or tent.
We got tent cloth that didn't.
Yeah, there are two right in front of you.
We take the tent cloth and we put like make split, you know,
250-pound bags and strape it over.
Yep.
Good.
Yep.
Two sacks.
One for each side of the giant one-horned.
What shall we call this?
Let's call him.
Spot.
SPEAKER_01: Sticker.
SPEAKER_02: All right, sticker.
We'll call him sticker because he's got a sticker on his
forehead.
Sticker.
Well, the one's little and the other one's big.
Right?
SPEAKER_01: Thicker on the side.
I don't know.
It's not.
We didn't get a good description.
SPEAKER_02: It's not a rhinocer moose.
It's just a rhinoceros.
Yeah.
They have one.
Well, they have the one big one and don't they have a little
one?
Sometimes, yeah.
It's like clops.
What do I know?
SPEAKER_01: I think single on.
SPEAKER_02: Are they made out of like hair?
SPEAKER_01: Yes, they are.
SPEAKER_02: It's a toenail.
It's a giant toenail.
SPEAKER_01: It's a giant toenail.
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I would say.
Wait, toenails are made of hair?
Wait.
Yeah.
Why not?
Aren't yours?
I don't think so.
I think they're pretty close.
It's the same.
Anyway, we drape that over the side of sticker.
I don't like whatever has happened.
Can you put a rope around Sticker's horn and walk him
around?
Do we need to?
Do you want to like lead your giant sticker creature?
Could.
SPEAKER_00: Wait, are you naming him after Stigier from the other
now?
SPEAKER_01: No, my hedgehog I had sticker.
SPEAKER_00: Gelatinous hedgehog.
SPEAKER_01: No, who next?
SPEAKER_02: That was a gelatinous groundhog, not a
hedgehog.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, sorry.
Sorry.
Sorry for your loss.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's easy to get lost in the bizarre.
SPEAKER_01: Sticker.
SPEAKER_02: Especially with some people around.
They call it the John Zone.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
So you get the sacks fashioned, tied to a rope, and you have it
over the back of the rhinoceros.
SPEAKER_02: And let's we gotta go find our knight and villagers
now, right?
And I don't know what direction they went, I forget.
We sent them into the woods for sure, but I don't remember
exactly where.
Talk about easy trail to follow.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Sticker's gonna leave some big old print.
How rhinoceroses aren't stealthy.
Sticker disappears.
Ah drop down to the ground.
SPEAKER_02: At least it made out of tent sacks so it looked all
right.
So I'll Whitmore's like, what the fuck?
Do it again.
No.
Put that thing away.
SPEAKER_01: I look over at him, I'm like, and this time I think
about the largest creature you've ever encountered.
SPEAKER_02: Would have been exactly what he just did.
Well, all right.
So we're gonna take a I'm gonna take a go chop down an
eight-foot piece of wood and we'll drape the hundred pounds
over that and we'll walk it out like across our shoulders.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_02: Like a big hook of game.
SPEAKER_00: All right, yeah, you can do that pretty good.
There's a nice stout branch nearby that's trying to grab one
of the cows.
SPEAKER_01: I want to ask the cows over there.
Free food too.
We need ration.
SPEAKER_02: If only we had a ranger to make the cows
compliant enough to throw a saddlebag onto.
SPEAKER_01: We had a giant guy just punch one in the head.
SPEAKER_02: We don't know the giant guy.
There's no doubt it's been more than 10 minutes.
I'm heading back to the nights.
We've got around way longer.
So the halfling just starts walking.
But we also need to take a cow or two with us.
SPEAKER_01: Does the person we just rescued know anything since
he's been here about the night of fires?
SPEAKER_00: No, I don't know what you're talking about.
SPEAKER_01: We know anything about what the plan was here
with the Giants.
SPEAKER_00: But their plan, as far as I'm aware, was just to
beat the fuck out of me and the other people.
Well, that's a pretty short-sighted plan.
That is, that is.
SPEAKER_01: I think are we gonna just let this guy go or are we
gonna let we get it?
SPEAKER_00: They kept talking about a mine.
No witnesses.
Uh Grozick kept complaining about his brother or something.
I kept getting threatened with being taken up to the manor
house and thrown off the side if I didn't behave.
But I don't think he got along with his brother too much.
Well, that's don't have to worry about that anymore.
SPEAKER_01: All right, back to the knights.
I'm gonna start trudging too.
SPEAKER_00: Wait, knights?
Yes.
Yeah, a couple of things.
You have like a whole army?
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
A whole regiment.
We do.
SPEAKER_02: No.
No, I know if they ask you if you're a god, you say yes, but
no, we don't have a whole army of knights.
SPEAKER_01: Oh no, we have no knights.
I mean, as in it's getting dark.
SPEAKER_02: It's not getting dark either.
SPEAKER_00: It's he hit his head.
It's me.
Okay, so you start heading back towards the the villagers.
Uh are you going down the road a bit or are you well?
SPEAKER_02: I think we told him to go into the woods on the same
side of the road that we were on here, and then we would come get
them or or meet them.
But that was we will go in if there's a way where we think we
could get that way in a shortcut, then we'll do it.
But otherwise we'll go down to the road and then walk in.
SPEAKER_01: Do we have a cool whistle?
SPEAKER_02: I mean, if they had each other, uh I know.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so you start heading back towards the
villagers.
About halfway back with you, Whitmore gives another one of
his whistles, and you hear another return closer this time.
SPEAKER_02: You're gonna have to explain that.
Well, Devis doesn't forget his men.
How many?
So you're saying there's a scout here that's been waiting for you
this whole time?
SPEAKER_00: A single none of our boys are gonna take on a giant,
unfortunately.
SPEAKER_02: Well, it's terrible.
Well, you might in the future.
SPEAKER_00: But I'm sure he sent somebody in no honor.
They're responding.
SPEAKER_02: Great.
Yeah, it's not awesome.
Yeah, we're not big fans of the unknown.
We were gonna talk it to death.
Well, these are my boys.
Fear the unknown.
SPEAKER_01: How many boys do you have?
Well, I don't know.
You don't know.
SPEAKER_02: Is the sound in the direction we're headed?
SPEAKER_00: Or is it like directly in front?
A little bit.
But the other thing is, I don't think I wasn't the only one in
the on the group that got waylaid.
So they may have Stokely or some of the other boys somewhere
else.
Okay.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you're the only guy we've seen so far.
Nobody else alive.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't gonna forget me or him.
We've been with him since the beginning.
SPEAKER_02: So, what do we know about Stoink?
This Davos person.
SPEAKER_01: Nothing.
SPEAKER_02: He's the former lord of Stoink.
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
SPEAKER_02: He was usurped by Renfiss.
He's the leader of Stoink.
So we don't know what Stoink is.
I don't even know where Stoink is.
SPEAKER_00: Stoink sounds like a place.
Well, you guys would know where Stoink is.
Oh, okay.
Been to Stoink.
It is sort of it's a city-state that's on the it's actually on
the Yole River, much further downstream from where you are.
Not on any map I saw.
No, it's not on that map.
Not much is at least Stoink's.
And it's like a couple hundred miles from here.
SPEAKER_02: Oh wow, he's a long way from home.
It's like a lifetime.
SPEAKER_00: But it's on the Yole River.
It is one of a number of kingdoms that is collectively
referred to as the bandit kingdoms in the rest of uh Oyth.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
My bandit radar was going off.
But it is the leather armor gate.
SPEAKER_00: But it is like the easternmost and closest one.
Stoink does a lot of trade with the Duchy of Ten and with the
theocracy of the pale because of their position on the river.
And you know that the the politics of all of the kingdoms
in that region are very fluid.
Yes.
Kingdoms rise, kingdoms fall, kingdoms get overthrown from
within and without on a regular basis.
SPEAKER_02: Kings are made and torn down sometimes in the same
day.
Yes.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
So you make your way back to the knights and your horses and the
villagers.
The knights, of course, greet you with salutes, Rayus.
The villagers look on intrepidation.
They're sort of huddled together and looking back and forth
anxiously as you arrive.
Okay.
What happened?
Are the gi the the giants are coming, yeah?
No.
Not that one.
Nope.
We got one.
You killed the giant?
Yes.
SPEAKER_02: Lord Rogers and controls.
It's roguers.
SPEAKER_00: Well, good.
It shouldn't be too hard for you to free the rest of our village
in the mine.
SPEAKER_02: That's the plan.
Yeah.
Have you guys ever heard of the Night of Fires?
SPEAKER_01: No.
Okay.
It's all made up.
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's made up, but you're not discussing
your plan with your slaves either.
You're just hoping maybe they caught it.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, true.
SPEAKER_02: They can overhear some of the go try to then by
I'm talking American here.
Try and scout out this dude's whistle repeater, his answering
whistleman.
SPEAKER_01: I could maybe get him to stop whistling.
SPEAKER_02: We're not supposed to trust NPCs.
It's not that we don't trust the NPCs.
No, we don't trust the NPCs.
We don't trust the NPCs.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's not that's all I can do to keep you
from murdering the NPCs now.
SPEAKER_02: I'm not sure why we healed this guy, but that's the
same thing.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know why we dragged him out of the house.
We haven't got nothing useful yet.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we did.
We got political information.
Yes.
All it costs is our healers.
Best healing spell he's done of all time.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
It was a proof of concept that he could do it.
SPEAKER_01: He's riding high right here.
He just doesn't.
People are nice to me.
It works.
SPEAKER_00: The guy was dying.
So that's the secret.
Yeah, you have to be Whitmore didn't ask to be healed.
If you keep picking on me, though.
All right.
SPEAKER_01: Just gotta blindly follow he who has no name.
You must blindly follow him.
SPEAKER_02: Oh, that guy.
Yeah, this guy has a name.
I mean, we can, but also, yeah, I think the villagers are
correct.
I believe like we should go see what's going on in the mine.
I believe there's something.
First off, we got villagers to rescue.
And that's what good guys are.
We know there's at least 30 orcs in the mine.
We know there's an ogre mage and a giant run around with some
more ogres.
Yes.
Unfortunately, we also don't have any food for these
villagers.
We left it all back there walking around in the pasture.
SPEAKER_01: At least it's contained.
SPEAKER_02: True, but it's also not here with us, which I also
can't imagine trying to walk through the woods with a cow.
Well, we were just about ready to try it with a fucking rhino.
SPEAKER_01: You can shrink the cow and we can guide it easier.
SPEAKER_02: Seriously, just using a rhino as a pack animal.
Five minutes.
We were.
SPEAKER_01: We were.
It happened.
We don't talk about it.
SPEAKER_02: Never mention the rhino.
SPEAKER_01: I'm still in mourning right now.
You guys are upsetting me too.
SPEAKER_02: It's right up there with the hobbit spoon.
It is a good idea to shrink the cow, and then we could take it
somewhere and slaughter it.
But we have 40 minutes to do that before we wherever the cow
becomes large.
SPEAKER_01: The place we took these people from that village,
is that their village by the mine, or are they from some
butchered the cow?
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: So we could just take them back there.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but and then for what?
SPEAKER_02: Wait for them.
Yeah, wait for the other to show up and wait for the Ogre Mage
and the giant.
SPEAKER_01: And then we spring our trap.
I don't like any of these plans.
They're all bad.
And then we spring our trap.
SPEAKER_00: That's it.
Okay, so you guys are here talking to the villagers.
The world is moving.
It is.
Whitmore's people to show up.
Yeah.
The world is moving without you, so what are you guys doing?
I'm moving off in the direction of the last whistle.
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
So you're leaving the group?
There it yeah.
Goodbye.
Gonna go try to scout the It's been nice knowing you.
SPEAKER_00: And Whitmore goes, hey, can I come?
No, no, it might not be safe for you.
You're gonna stay here.
SPEAKER_02: I'm sure it won't be.
You sit down.
See him?
What giveth he taketh away.
Do you uh do you have invisibility?
Yes.
SPEAKER_00: So it looks at you and he gives another whistle.
Somebody tie that asshole up.
Take out his.
He's like, trust me.
Trust you.
I don't trust you.
Oh no.
You know, we don't trust each other.
This is real easy.
Sleep.
If and the the answering whistle comes very close.
I mean, if they're what's the word?
It's like it's all right, boys, these guys are okay.
What's the word I'm looking for here?
And out of the brush step four dudes with bows.
They're wearing green, brown leather armor.
They all look like they've seen action.
They're just looking back and forth.
And they're sort of approaching cautiously.
There's no arrows knocked.
Anything of the sort.
Ranger friends.
No, they're not.
Roll friends.
They're like Whitmore.
Where's where's Stokely?
It's like, I don't know.
He got taken the same time I did.
Look, these guys, I think they might kill you if you're not
cool, but I think we can all get along, right?
SPEAKER_02: Uh hey, your guess is as good as mine at this
point.
SPEAKER_00: Look, all I know is You killed the giant, and that's
a big, big help for me and my boys.
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: All I know is we found you in cahoots with the
giant hanging out at his mansion.
In cahoots.
In cahoots.
In the mansion.
If you hadn't burned the rope with your fireball, I would
still be tied up.
Sure.
SPEAKER_01: We don't know how that fire started.
Interesting.
SPEAKER_00: We got here, we call.
And we came to see what we're talking about.
So look, I know me and my boys look a little rough.
But we're not here for you.
What are you?
All right.
I take back those eight.
I need to rescue another one of my boys.
I need to get back to Devis.
And you guys would be well suited to come in with me when I
go, because there's no place in this godforsaken forest that's
as good for people like me and you than Ashenford.
SPEAKER_02: Yes, let's go to the bandit kingdom.
I mean, old old Lord Reyes here has obligations.
Yes.
Trying to respect family name, lands, and holdings.
So why are you here?
SPEAKER_00: I told you.
SPEAKER_02: I got jumped.
Well, you keep saying it like there's some ulterior motive.
SPEAKER_00: I told you already.
Devis is looking for men to take back his kingdom.
And he wants to talk to some sage in Vellsborough or some
such place.
SPEAKER_02: Oh, that's convenient because we'll be
going back there eventually.
And he recruits from the middle of the Fostwood.
SPEAKER_00: Some sage.
What's this sage's name?
Yeah, there's a lot of villages here that have been abandoned by
their lords and overrun with giants lately.
Yeah, that's true.
And you've It's been easy to find men.
Easy.
And he gives you a flat look, like straight down at you.
Yeah, pretty much down.
SPEAKER_02: Like really down.
In case you forget how tall you are.
Damn, string.
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, these boys are good with bows.
They can help out.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, good.
How much provisions do you boys have?
SPEAKER_00: Give us your food.
SPEAKER_02: This is a shakedown.
SPEAKER_00: They're like, we could spare some rations.
SPEAKER_02: Better idea.
Gesture at the villagers.
Better idea.
SPEAKER_00: People.
SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah, sure.
Why don't we send these boys back to bring some cattle and
slaughter them?
Yeah, go get a couple of cows from the cow pen and bring them
back.
You have a camp somewhere.
SPEAKER_00: The one guy that just arrived?
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: He's like, yeah, it's not far away, but we
couldn't get close to the manor without them wolves smelling us.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we know.
We'll take care of that.
Yeah, I mean matters last on the list at this point.
Hey, Whitmore.
You've been around here for how long?
Captured prisoner.
Months, he said.
Month.
Month.
Month.
In that time period, did the giants ever talk about an
encounter with a group of knights?
SPEAKER_00: Well, now that you mention it, no.
But I do remember that chainmail that your lord is wearing was
brought in a few nights ago.
Okay.
That looks nightly.
It's very nightly.
SPEAKER_01: Nightly.
SPEAKER_02: I need a table.
Did they talk about why they're using the mines, what they're
using it for?
Pindar's crest.
Well, I don't even know about any mines.
Where are the mines?
In the village about half a mile away.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't know.
Oh, the old silver mine.
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
Yes.
We already know it's silver because we already saw that.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Devis was interested in talking to the
villagers there until he got run off.
SPEAKER_02: It's funny.
Your lord might be a conflict with Lord Reyes here, who is
also claimed the silver mine.
Yep.
In fact, we were just on our way to clear it out.
All that I can see.
And put a sign up in front of it.
SPEAKER_00: Well, Devis has doesn't have any designs on
here.
He needs to go back to Stoink, but there ain't no Lord around
here.
Excuse me.
Just told you I'm Lord of all I see and survey.
He's like Stoink on Stoic.
Just like Devis.
I told you we'd get along.
Yeah.
All the same.
This is weird.
SPEAKER_01: You're all the same.
SPEAKER_00: These are my nights.
Genuinely weird.
These are my nights.
So we're picking his nose on his mule.
I mean, the difference between a medieval lord and a medieval
bandit is just social capital.
SPEAKER_04: Exactly.
SPEAKER_00: It's all perception.
It's buy-in.
All right.
Well.
But yeah, you say there's cattle?
There's cattle.
Yeah.
Well, me and my boys can wrestle up some cattle.
We've done it before.
I'll bet you.
SPEAKER_02: All right.
Yeah.
Sounds good.
Let's feed these villagers while we storm the mind.
Looks like meat's back on the menu, boys.
Go for a steak.
unknown: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Tonight.
SPEAKER_02: Today.
So nobody's coming to that camp, right?
Well, no, I would even hurry.
I would get in and get out quick.
Yeah, don't hang around.
Presumably putting them there.
Well, everybody that was there is dead, but that big plume of
smoke rising from the building might attract some attention.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, if you see what you mean.
SPEAKER_01: If you need help, do your whistly thing.
SPEAKER_00: And I didn't want to say anything, but you guys leave
an awful trail.
Yeah.
You're welcome.
As opposed to maybe we'll do something about that so we can
all live another day.
That'd be great.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's fine.
Be nice of you.
Also, I mean, yeah, you know what you're doing.
You sound like a competent woodsman.
So obviously, you're not going to rush in there.
Keeping in mind that there could be an in flying invisible ogre
magi in the area.
Yeah.
Oh, Bel Neck.
SPEAKER_00: Don't get me started about Bell Neck.
SPEAKER_02: Who's is this Whitworth son of a bitch?
Yeah.
He's pretty high on our list, so.
Yeah, what'd he do?
What's his powers besides flying in invisibility and sneaking up?
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if I'd mess with Belnek.
SPEAKER_02: We don't want to be honest.
We just want to usurp his silver mines, kill his giants, thwart
his plots, and then leave.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_04: Let's put it this way.
We don't want to mess with that.
SPEAKER_00: Let's put it this way.
Grozig didn't seem to be scared of much, but he was definitely
scared of Belnek every time he came to Grozick's gone.
Well, Grozig was a bitch.
And you're normal size now.
SPEAKER_02: That's and I still say that.
And I still you wouldn't have got that chainmail on otherwise
because it wasn't enlarged.
SPEAKER_01: So everything he touches enlarges.
You have to wait.
SPEAKER_02: Unless it's magic.
Magic.
I don't think it works that way.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: So Whitmore and the and the newcomers melt off into
the forest, back into the direction of the giant's camp.
SPEAKER_02: Wearing their butcher's eyes.
Am I able, this is a can my character simulate that sound
that they made?
Am I able to practice and get some tips on how to make the
call?
Oh, yeah, you can try it.
Yeah, I just want to try it a few times until I get the hang
of it.
SPEAKER_00: Give a little whistle.
That way So you give a whistle not long after they department,
and then you hear it come back, and then it's followed by a stay
in your lane, bro.
Oh, I'm going out of my lane.
We drive the other way in traffic.
SPEAKER_02: We've just whistled our lane.
But yeah, you can make the whistle.
All right.
Since we can't find a goddamn horn anywhere.
All right.
So they're going off to get the cattle, scout the camp, get some
food for the villagers, and then take them off to wherever.
And we are going to do what?
We're going to dance.
We're going to dance.
We are going to lick our wounds, sharpen our swords.
And spears.
Collect them too.
SPEAKER_01: Study some magic.
How many wounds do we have?
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
Learn some appropriate underground in the mine spells.
Aka not fireball.
SPEAKER_00: So you're going to you're going to spend the rest
of the day here and rest.
SPEAKER_02: No, we don't have time for that.
Things are moving too fast.
We gotta either A, go to the I think we go to the lines right
now.
Well we know the Knight of Fire is tonight.
Whatever that means, it sounds ominous for sure.
I thought it was a dude.
And there's 20 or 30 more villagers over there.
SPEAKER_01: The night.
Take out the giant first.
SPEAKER_02: You oh, you thought it was a dude.
Yeah.
Like K and I G H D.
Oh, interesting.
Okay.
Who the hell's that then?
SPEAKER_01: Who's the Knight of Fires?
SPEAKER_02: Maybe you.
Maybe.
SPEAKER_01: We've been waiting for you.
SPEAKER_02: I mean, so far it has been us.
Really?
True.
We have burnt everything.
SPEAKER_00: This was a mid-morning of fire.
We burnt one thing.
SPEAKER_02: We burnt one thing.
SPEAKER_01: Now you burn one thing, and all of a sudden
you're the night of the fires.
Set off one fireball.
SPEAKER_02: Just building bridges.
Stop.
We know where this is going.
Contextually, it sounded like it was used in a nighttime of fires
usage.
It wasn't canite of fires.
I agree with that.
SPEAKER_00: You're not the voice of reason, you're just the voice
of authority.
It's a game of telephone as a story.
SPEAKER_02: I'm the only one that actually heard it.
Oh, that's right.
But you told us.
Anyway, I think we should rescue the villagers from the mine.
Immediately.
Yeah, immediately.
Okay.
Immediately.
So let's say we do.
We do.
We do.
SPEAKER_01: We do.
SPEAKER_02: It's already voted on.
What do we then do with the villagers?
Bring them back.
Take them to the other villagers, and then all of us
use them as shields to get out of the cave.
And they can go back to Zeep's run, which is my official run.
Well, they need to keep going because Zeep's run is not safe.
SPEAKER_01: Also known as Ray.
SPEAKER_02: They need to get to Velparo.
SPEAKER_00: So you had a deal with the Ogre Mage.
That you were going to leave and return that Zeep's run was not
going to be harmed.
That's right.
So Zeep's run's probably going to be leveled.
SPEAKER_02: Who talked to the Ogre Mage?
I did.
So we're playing a game of telephone with the ogre mage and
him, so we don't know.
Well, okay, so are you worried about the ogre mage?
No.
I think we should be.
Alright, let's go to the mines.
I am worried about end this game real quick.
SPEAKER_01: We have our own wizard.
Okay.
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
He is known to summon rhinoceros.
SPEAKER_00: I can put people out.
The villagers get busy under the direction of your knights.
Oh, yeah.
Take the initiative to uh to have your villagers start making
like some shelter, some lean twos, and and that sort of
thing.
In in the forest in the meantime.
SPEAKER_02: They're not very well hidden.
They didn't go very far, right?
Like a few hundred yards off the road.
I think they need to go a little.
I mean, just I think you guys need to probably get a little
further away from the this area, if possible.
Big fine pile of logs.
Okay.
I mean So they all agree that that's a good strategy.
What's that?
Getting away from here.
Yeah, and look, the Whitmore and his dudes, they need they know
this area.
They've been wandering around here for a month, apparently.
So they should have all the good hiding spots by now.
Because they've been hit hiding for a month.
So whatever they and wherever they go, we'll find them.
That's our goal, right?
Sounds good.
Give us a general direction now.
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_02: East.
Okay.
Once because we want to bring the rest of the villagers to
that spot and then they all leave, and we either A stay or
we leave.
Right?
I mean, as a general plan, that's about as much as we can
really come up with, right?
That is a very general plan, yes.
All our plans should be general.
Yeah.
So to the mines.
To the mines.
The villagers will move on.
We will bring the villagers to wherever they moved on to, and
then we will all attempt to leave, and then we will come
back later with all the supplies.
Or the manor.
The manor.
We're about out of supplies.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
All right.
So damn the supplies.
You guys head off towards the mines.
Taking the road or going right through the woods.
SPEAKER_02: I vote woods.
Yeah, I vote woods, but that means we have to keep our horses
with the knights.
We should go lead them.
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: Can we lead them through the woods?
Yeah, I mean, I'd love to have my horse.
I would r I'm slow without him.
In a mine, no?
No, we're just like we're not taking the horses into the mine.
Put them in the woods nearby.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
So you grab your ponies and mule and horses and head off towards
the mine.
Doesn't take you very long, about 15 minutes or so.
Okay.
To get there.
And it is unchanged, eerily quiet in the in in the village.
Smoke still pours up out of the fissure above the minehead.
And you make a spot and peg at your horses and some trees they
have a little bit of underbrush to graze on.
I have an idea.
SPEAKER_02: What if we did something to plug that hole and
flood the mine with smoke?
And just wait for them to come out and kill them as they come
out.
SPEAKER_01: It would kill the villagers.
SPEAKER_02: That's not very honorable.
SPEAKER_01: I cannot abide by that.
SPEAKER_02: Alright, so we know it's not just God.
But what he said, I believe, is true.
I believe it would it potentially kill.
For all we know, the villagers are dead.
But we would like to raise it.
We need to confirm.
SPEAKER_01: Ideally, they'd all come running out of the orcs.
SPEAKER_02: I mean, the concept is oh, it's filling with smoke,
everybody outside.
But do you think the orcs would be very concerned with bringing
the prisoners with them?
No, I don't really.
And that would be a great idea if we knew it was just orcs in
there.
Like if it was just orcs in there, I'd be like, hell yeah,
that's a great idea.
Maybe somebody can sneak down there and see.
You mean through the crack?
Yeah.
I don't think that's gonna happen.
This is a point just for the GM.
The potions and the 100 pounds of treasure are with us.
Okay.
Or not with they are not with the knights to be taken by
Whitmore and his people.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, are you gonna taste the potions or sniff them?
SPEAKER_02: If that will give me some kind of clue as to what it
may be, yeah, I'll totally do that.
SPEAKER_00: This is one E A D and D, so that's the rule.
You can taste them and find out what they are.
I might be taste it and find out what they are.
And of course, if that's a cursed or a poison, then you
deal with the consequences.
We got a Kentuck's ointment, so I will do it.
Okay, so you the the two potions that you found in the chest,
your pure blood half elf tastes each of them.
SPEAKER_02: Well, I taste them one one at a time.
SPEAKER_00: You're not mingling them, okay.
SPEAKER_02: That all there are rules for that.
I know there are rules for that, and it isn't funny or pretty.
SPEAKER_00: This is cognac.
So the the first potion you taste, and it tastes exactly
like a healing potion, only it's very strong.
Very strong tasting.
SPEAKER_02: Extra healing.
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
SPEAKER_02: Or grain.
SPEAKER_00: Super healing.
And I hesitate to say what your hint is for the next one.
Because I know the group that I play with.
Well, just tell me.
All right, no, hang on.
Oh, this is.
SPEAKER_02: I'm offended that it would just be me.
SPEAKER_01: It's just you, Sean.
SPEAKER_02: It is just you.
No, it's not.
It's a little junior.
Let's just say about 10 minutes ago, Doc had an episode where he
let out some gaseousness from his interior.
He did.
Had he taken the entire potion, he would have turned into a
gaseous form.
Gaseous form potion.
SPEAKER_00: It's a small death potion.
I was gonna say you feel somewhat gaseous.
That would have just passed us by all comment.
SPEAKER_01: They weren't gonna say a word.
SPEAKER_02: You don't want to drink the gun.
You could have told me I I burped after that.
Gas in a ball.
Gaseous form is a burping potion, unless you drink the
whole thing.
And then you burn into it and you're gone.
SPEAKER_00: But you are staring across the the clearing that the
village is located in and looking at the open door to the
minehead.
Okay.
Oh, and just as a reminder, when you were here last, you killed
two orcs.
Oh, you're giving it to me.
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: And in their pouches, they had a number of a
small number of gold coins and two little wooden tokens which
said rezak in orca shone it.
Razak.
SPEAKER_02: Take it.
I believe this per potion is probably most appropriate for
the halfling who gets caught all the time.
SPEAKER_01: So you can become gas.
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
That is your escape potion.
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
Is it flammable gas?
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it could be.
Can we light you on fire when you're in gaseous form?
Is that what you're asking?
That's what I'm asking.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's worse through.
I'm thinking it could be useful.
SPEAKER_00: It's not methane necessarily.
Can you breathe him in?
SPEAKER_01: All right.
And then speak in a high voice.
Just swallow it.
Helium now?
SPEAKER_02: Helium.
So we got our horses staked.
Well, I mean, halflings might talk like that.
They might.
And now I know why you're reluctant to give this to us.
See?
I'm reluctant to give you guys anything.
Let's just be fair.
Fair enough.
I'm sneaking over to the minehead, and yet somebody has a
wand of the colour.
SPEAKER_01: Merrick is going to do some snooping of what's
happening.
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
All right.
So we're going to wait here while he snoops the mine
entrance.
And then you're going to wave us in, I guess.
Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
He's going to make a birdie noise.
SPEAKER_00: I am probably carrying one of those tokens.
Okay.
Tokens.
Alright.
So your halfling crosses the when we killed the two orcs.
They had the wooden tokens.
SPEAKER_02: Oh, oh, yeah.
Forgot all about those.
Jokes about them being Pokemon cards.
You made a joke.
You did that.
SPEAKER_01: I think you called them Pogs.
Is that us sitting together?
Is that what that was?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, probably.
unknown: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: So you peer into the darkened entrance to the mine.
And as your infra vision gets adjusted to the are you going in
the step right.
Step inside.
So you wait a moment for your halfling eyes to be adjusted and
for your infra vision to kick in, and you see ahead of you a
long corridor.
Mine timbers short up with timbers, things like that.
Just about 20 feet further on down, you see there are alcoves
on either side, but the can the uh the corridor continues on
ahead.
Anything in the alcoves?
You don't see anything, but you're about, like I said, 20
feet from them.
Okay.
I'm gonna creep up to the alcoves.
Okay.
You look over and they appear to be like guard posts, but there's
nobody in either one of them.
There is a crude spear leaning up against the corner in one of
the alcoves.
SPEAKER_02: Weird.
So I'm gonna go into one of the alcoves.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_02: Like where the guard would be if he was there.
Alright.
Just kind of poke around a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, you don't see anything.
Okay.
It's just uh it's just like a guard alcove.
SPEAKER_01: Sort of not getting a good feeling, are you?
Something's up.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: Why are there no guards here?
SPEAKER_01: Because we killed them.
SPEAKER_02: They left.
No, we killed the outside.
He's alone.
Let him come up with double scenarios by himself.
All right, I'm gonna move a bit further down the hallway.
Union lunch.
SPEAKER_00: So it it's a long hallway, it goes to a door.
What's at the end?
Okay, so you the the hallway is probably I mean, you walk
another 30 feet down the corridor and it still keeps
stretching.
Are there like tracks?
On ahead.
Like mine.
The dirt floor is festooned with tracks.
No, I mean like mine, like cart tracks.
Oh, cart tracks, no.
Okay.
So the carts that are out front are just like wheeled.
Yes.
Gotcha.
They're not rail tracks.
Okay.
SPEAKER_02: Been going too long.
SPEAKER_00: But it continues to stretch on ahead.
At like the limit of your vision after you go in about 30 feet,
you can see that there's something like slightly glowing
on one of the support timbers over the passway, passageway,
like the very end of your 60-foot infra vision.
Gonna creep closer to that.
Okay.
So you how close are you getting?
Ten feet away.
Okay, so you get close and you can see that there on on one of
the uh the beams there in the there is like a glyph of some
sort.
Okay.
It's slightly glowing orange.
It's the only color you perceive because it's its own light.
But it's slightly glowing orange over the mine passageway.
So I'm gonna say Rosak.
And the glyph goes out.
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
Was that on the the on the pillar?
No, but the coin.
Yeah.
That's what was on the the token.
The token, yeah.
Yeah.
So you turned the lights out.
SPEAKER_01: It's a password.
SPEAKER_02: Wait, see how long it takes to come back on.
SPEAKER_00: How long do you want to wait?
Ten minutes?
Yeah, it comes on in ten minutes.
Okay.
Head back to them.
Okay.
SPEAKER_02: And what are you guys doing while he's Wells I
started to freak out because he was gone so long, and I was
suggesting we seal the mine and just go on.
But I countered with that sounding way too much like work,
and we should just abandon him.
Okay.
We should just leave the window.
You could have just shut and latched the door.
Oh, there's a door.
SPEAKER_01: The door to the mine?
Yeah, part with all the lock.
SPEAKER_02: Oh.
Why didn't you just say it's easier then?
See ya.
Okay.
Head back to the surface, let them know what I found.
You found nothing.
About the the glyph and found the light switch.
Found the light switch.
No, I'm gonna guess that if you don't shut that down, it
triggers some sort of a trap.
That would be my guess.
Did you test it?
I did not.
Sort of you did.
Go find a builder.
I know that we can turn it off using that keyword.
I did not experiment with what happens if you don't turn it
off.
Did you have one of those little Yeah.
But you didn't have it like out.
You just had it in your pocket and said the word.
Correct.
unknown: Okay.
SPEAKER_02: How do you say that word again?
Razak.
Razak.
SPEAKER_00: Now he speaks or so he knows the accent.
I got it.
You don't know that you could make that exact sound.
I don't know that I'm not sure.
It's weird.
SPEAKER_02: I don't speak just according to my character.
It's weird how much your hacking sounded like an orc just now.
All right.
Well, yeah, because nobody else wrote down.
I wrote down no extra language.
I'm apparently in no idea how that worked.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I was waiting for what I needed.
I just saw it.
I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_00: Come to think of it, I didn't know he spoke orcish
until I asked if anybody spoke orcish.
SPEAKER_02: Well, did anybody write any languages down in
their character shows now?
Yeah, zero.
SPEAKER_00: Well, don't uh don't elves and half elves get
languages.
I don't know.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we had a big pile of languages and then your
intelligence.
I had two more.
SPEAKER_02: I never played this before.
Shut up.
It's in the damn book.
I'll speak English.
It was literally, yeah.
SPEAKER_01: The elves basically can speak almost anything.
SPEAKER_02: I'm not an elf.
He can speak half of everything.
Okay.
SPEAKER_00: For the elf.
SPEAKER_01: Remember your pure blood half elf.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
Listen up.
For elves can speak and read common elven, gnold, gnomish,
goblin, halfling, hobgoblin, and orcish, and your alignment
tongue.
Jesus.
Jesus.
Goblin.
If your intelligence is 16 or higher, you can earn extra
language for each point of intelligence over 50.
That's for elves.
Half elves.
Yes.
It doesn't discriminate in here.
Common elvish.
Knoll, gnomish, goblin, halfling, hobgoblin, orcish, and
your alignment tongue.
Jesus.
I'm sorry.
Common.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, got that.
Elvish, gnollish.
SPEAKER_00: Gnomish.
Goblin.
Halfling.
So you can speak with your friend.
I don't want to.
That's fair.
Hobgobl orcish and your alignment tongue.
Oh wow.
SPEAKER_02: So he can speak orcish and he does make the
sound.
That's way too many languages.
That's true.
That ruins my sound.
SPEAKER_01: I kept thinking I did it wrong.
I'm like, oh we can.
Right?
15 languages?
Those two are screwed.
SPEAKER_00: Halfling can read common, dwarfish, gnomish,
goblin, halfling, and orcish.
SPEAKER_02: So how'd you end up with orcish if you didn't know
all that stuff that Sean described?
SPEAKER_00: What was your intelligence?
Who, me?
Yeah.
12.
Okay.
So you don't get any extra languages other than those.
Where did I get that?
I get three additional languages then.
From your intelligence score, but your halfling abilities
override that.
Okay.
The halfling, if your intelligence is 17 or higher,
you get an extra language for each point of intelligence over
16.
Gotcha.
Humans, you just get common and your alignment tongue.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm good.
I can speak common.
SPEAKER_00: I can speak common.
Stupid humans.
Where in the book are you getting this from?
Page 26.
Well, I'm looking at the at the wide books.
Probably the race part where it's what you get.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe I should have read that.
Yeah.
Man, maybe there's other bonuses there.
Maybe the next game we play, we'll try to figure out what the
rules are.
SPEAKER_00: All right.
I had mine too.
So anyway, while these guys learn ADD 101, what are you all
doing?
So you come out of the mine and let them know what you saw, that
there's a long entry court or that you didn't quite see the
end of.
SPEAKER_02: So an abandoned mine, it looks abandoned, you'd
know sign of people, and there was a glyph that you had to say
Raznak or whatever.
Razak.
What I said.
I have three torches.
Yeah.
I might have a lantern.
Lantern.
Lantern.
I have a lantern and one oil.
So that'll help.
I mean, I don't believe we should be dallying too long in
here.
We need to move it.
SPEAKER_01: I think we should dilly in there instead of dilly
too.
SPEAKER_02: But we can't do both.
We need to go back in.
SPEAKER_01: Let's go back in.
SPEAKER_02: You're gonna dilly.
SPEAKER_01: He's gonna dally.
SPEAKER_02: Are we solo dillying or group dally dilly?
SPEAKER_01: It's solo.
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
We're solo dallying for sure.
So halfling first.
SPEAKER_01: Halfling first, always.
Dungeon crawl.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe.
SPEAKER_01: Parkour.
SPEAKER_02: Might have been a dungeon crawl yesterday.
Today it could be a rescue mission.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so you guys enter the mine.
Yep.
And you are going halfling first, I am assuming Reyes
second.
Sure.
Then Pinder, so he can be in the second rank with his spear.
Yep.
Then Theron and then Edric.
Or is that good to me?
SPEAKER_02: No, spin that around.
I have no armor.
That's why you're not in the back.
That's what exactly.
SPEAKER_01: That's why he said Tiran and then Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_02: Sorry.
Yeah.
That way.
Yeah, cleric land.
Pindar, that's right.
Because he calls me Pinder sometimes earlier.
Makes me crazy.
SPEAKER_01: I'm just going to call you Pindar but the
barbarian.
SPEAKER_02: I'm going to call you Pindi for sure.
SPEAKER_01: Pindar the Barbarian, no doubt.
SPEAKER_02: Pindu.
You know I fight in the second rank with a spear right behind
you, right?
SPEAKER_01: With Princess Ariel and the lock.
SPEAKER_02: Are you threatening me?
Okay, so you enter the mine.
Are you threatening me?
SPEAKER_00: On the two let lose.
I throw my gauntlet down.
You walk in and you get to the point.
How far ahead of the party are you?
I'm going to go 50 feet.
Okay.
Good football field.
So you get to the point where the glyph is glowing orange over
the So Rosak and move past it.
Okay.
You say Razak, it just goes out, and you follow on.
We're going to need these things, aren't we?
Reyes.
Who has the other following right through?
Yep.
Okay.
So you all pass under the beam without incident.
Good.
SPEAKER_02: Excellent.
SPEAKER_00: Moving ahead.
SPEAKER_02: By beam you mean wooden thing, not a laser beam.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, a laser beam.
Moving ahead, you go another 50 feet, and you see up ahead,
playing across the hallway, some faint torchlight coming from
what must be a room on the right.
So you can see up ahead at the limit of your vision.
You mapped it.
Of your infra vision.
You see like an opening on the right-hand side of the corridor.
And there is some torchlight spilling out.
And you hear sounds of some arguing.
Like in what language?
They have to probably get closer.
Okay, I'll get closer.
Alright.
Creeping close, and you guys are following along, I'm assuming.
SPEAKER_02: Stealthily as possible with all this metal
shit hanging on above.
SPEAKER_00: Just say kitschy q.
I don't.
And you creep close and you hear this arguing in orcish, and they
appear to be Did you have a healing pill?
Yep.
Be two or three orcs arguing over some I didn't have it.
Some form of gambling game that they're playing.
Okay.
And you hear the sound of dice hitting a table.
Typical.
They're playing a role-playing game.
Oh, nice.
SPEAKER_01: They're pretending to be people in an office
building.
SPEAKER_00: They're pretending to be IT workers in the 20th
century, 21st century.
Oh, the router's broke again.
SPEAKER_02: Somebody plugged a wireless repeater in the goddamn
phone system.
I reboot the router.
Oh, wait.
Okay, it was a mistake.
SPEAKER_00: I know.
We do this to escape, damn it.
You're not kidding.
So you are able to creep up.
Creep.
And there's three orcs.
You're hearing three voices arguing.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, I'm gonna I want to get to a point where I
can see into the room, just like peek.
Okay.
See how many we got in there.
SPEAKER_00: You look in and there are three orcs, and they
are intent on a dice game they are playing on the table.
There are several bottles of liquid open on the table in
front of them.
And there are like weapon racks on the wall.
This appears to be like a guard room of some of some form or
another.
Any exits?
Not from that room, but the corridor continues on.
And now that you're close to that room, you can see that the
corridor ends 20 feet further on past this guard room in a an
iron door.
Okay.
SPEAKER_02: So I'm gonna go back to the party and give them the
lay of the land.
So for mapping purposes, I'm not like doing a lot of deviation on
left and right on any twists of the tunnels, but it pretty much
went straight in.
There was the beam, and then it opened up into a room before an
iron door.
Is that clear?
SPEAKER_00: So corridor?
Yeah.
On the right, there's like a five-foot alcove, and then that
opens up into the guard room.
And then the corridor continues going, and that ends 20 feet
after the guard room and a door.
So it turns right, and that's where the No the room with the
guards is on the right.
SPEAKER_02: The corridor doesn't turn.
Okay.
And then that is what ends in an iron door.
Correct.
Okay.
So they're kinda it's kind of like they're right there off the
side.
The door to the guard room is open.
Okay.
There is a door, and then there's an iron door which would
have been straight in.
Correct.
Okay.
All right.
And you have come back?
Yeah.
Okay.
How many three?
Yes.
Do we even need to discuss this?
Yeah.
Put him to sleep.
Or just kill him.
SPEAKER_01: You said to just save my magic.
Well, using it everywhere, and we haven't gotten the right
thing.
That's right.
SPEAKER_02: So what I'm hearing is run rushing and that's fine
too, whatever.
I mean, that would have been my first thought, but I thought
dude finally gets a chance to use his sleep spell.
SPEAKER_01: Save it.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, save it for the rest of the orcs.
SPEAKER_01: Save it for the creatures that are too large to
use it.
SPEAKER_02: Alright, how far away are we from the alcove?
SPEAKER_01: Nope.
Put them to sleep and leave them.
SPEAKER_00: Um right now you're about 30 feet from the alcoves.
All right.
Well, we can sneak up further than that.
SPEAKER_02: No, we can't.
30 feet in chain mail?
Hell yeah, dude.
All right.
Silent.
We sneak until we sneak until we hear them stop talking and then
we charge.
Silent but deadly.
That's right.
All right, Reyes, I'm right behind you.
Spear out, shield out.
Surprise.
SPEAKER_00: All right, so you creep up in marching order and
you get to the alcove.
They're still arguing over the dice game.
Two of the voices are still arguing.
One of them has gone silent.
I'm gonna be past the opening to the room.
So you're gonna zip across the okay, so you zip across the
entryway.
And you guys do not have the advantage of surprise.
And obviously, you're not surprised because you you
scouted ahead.
So what are your actions going to be in turn one?
Charge.
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
I'm lurking past the doorway in case something gets out and
tries to head for the iron door.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
Alright.
That's able to.
So you're gonna you're gonna charge in as you know.
SPEAKER_01: Readying my staff.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: Use that wand.
SPEAKER_00: Oh.
SPEAKER_01: I'm saving that for the fun time.
Wouldn't the rhinocross right now be cool?
SPEAKER_02: You're not gonna roll the rhinocross again.
But he's got this large detailing.
I know that's the first stupidity.
He has thrown it once.
Yes.
Actually, let me know.
This is for anybody's screen.
SPEAKER_00: I got you.
Let me take a screenshot of the table because I'm sure we're
gonna need it.
It's three orcs.
SPEAKER_02: A screenshot of the table.
Of the the chart he has to rub the wondrous wand for the what
the hell is it going to do next wand?
You gave Albin.
SPEAKER_00: I did I I the Instrument of Chaos an
instrument of chaos.
Of course I did, because I love this podcast and I want more
listeners.
SPEAKER_02: I don't think that means what you think it means.
I mean, I think everything he says there means what he thinks
it means, but I don't think the outcome is what he no, it is the
outcome.
SPEAKER_00: It might come, it might bite me very hard in the
ass.
SPEAKER_02: What can I give them that will wipe the party in a
random and stupid way?
SPEAKER_00: See, the the thing is well, I don't want to get
into it, but it's not a deck of many things that I gave him.
You're right, it's not.
Right.
That would be downright irresponsible.
This is just fun.
Sure.
And like 60% of the time it's beneficial.
Until it's not.
SPEAKER_02: Like when you're trying to sneak up on something
and a rhinoceros suddenly appears.
But he may have been able to command that rhinoceros to
charge his enemies.
Yeah.
I bet we get surprised.
By the way, that rhinoceros has a name.
It's called pointy.
Pointy.
SPEAKER_01: No.
Sticker.
Sticker, sticker, sticker, sticker.
You don't even know.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, back to the combat.
We're charging.
I'm charging.
So everybody's charging.
Initiative two.
No.
All right.
Initiative for the name, bro.
Orcs is three.
Nice.
unknown: Oh.
SPEAKER_00: So on segment two, you guys rip into action.
Yes.
Reyes, you're in front.
Well, I'm going to attack the biggest orc in front of me.
Okay.
So you run in biggest orc is on the right-hand side of the
table.
Go ahead and roll two hit.
SPEAKER_02: A lot.
A negative.
SPEAKER_00: Go ahead and roll your damage.
And I take it their small, medium.
They're medium, yes.
Yeah, six points.
Okay.
So with a with a battle cry, you rush into the room and behead
and orc.
Go.
Actually.
Two of them.
Isn't there like a no, I don't think there is in one e never
mind.
Like a cleave thing.
No.
So next in line, Pinder, you uh you rush in slightly quiet, more
quietly than not much.
Gracefully.
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I'm still wearing the same armor, whatever
that is.
Anyway, because he killed one, there's really no way to be
second line combat unless he engaged two guys at once, right?
So technically I have to charge in the first line.
Whatever.
We'll see what happens here.
A 16, that's armor class negative three.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_02: For D6 plus three for four points of damage.
Of course, I roll one.
And you skewer another orc.
Good.
All right.
Skill guys, you all can get this last one.
I have confidence.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, this is gonna be fun.
I didn't charge.
Watch this.
And Edric.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, sir.
You can get your way around the other two.
Yeah.
Get out of my way.
We you parted the red seas.
Yeah, I missed.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: How's that new dye working out for you?
That pink dye.
Pink and silver, I believe.
It's ugly.
It's purple as silver.
SPEAKER_01: Is it really?
Take a close.
SPEAKER_02: Yes, that's.
Touch it.
I will touch your dice.
It ain't gonna make it any worse.
SPEAKER_00: The third orc spills spits out a mouthful of ale.
Just like homemade spray paint.
And runs over to the corner and pulls on a rope.
SPEAKER_01: I knew it! Damn it! God damn it! Die Hart Dice.
Sponsoring this episode.
SPEAKER_00: Should have put him to sleep.
SPEAKER_02: Here comes the troll.
SPEAKER_00: Round two.
Actually, I should roll a morale.
Did someone say troll?
SPEAKER_02: Troll?
No, he said here comes the troll.
Who's got initiative this time?
I'll take it.
SPEAKER_00: All right.
Action, I assume you're just sneaking.
SPEAKER_02: No, he was watching the exit.
He was checking to make sure none ran out.
Can you shoot?
No.
Shoot who?
I'm in the corridor.
It's in combat with him anyway.
I knew it.
You know what's funny is I wanted to ask if there was a
rope, but uh, there was really no way to ask the halfling.
Right here.
When you run into combat, it's no before we started.
I wanted to ask the halfling on his way by the room, or when he
peeked in, if he saw a rope.
Because after the troll incident, I'm thinking these
guys know how to use ropes to do things.
Like alarms.
Yes, they do.
Clearly.
I rolled a four for initiative next round.
Okay.
I am going to double attack round.
unknown: Doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_00: And Orc is going on three and attacks the closest
one, which would be Edric.
And ooh, that hits an armor class, a four.
SPEAKER_01: Huh?
SPEAKER_00: No.
Okay.
I duck.
SPEAKER_01: I daunt.
Takes it right into the face.
I cower.
I cower.
SPEAKER_00: He's used to it.
SPEAKER_02: And you guys' turn.
Go ahead, Edric.
Were you going to continue combat?
I am going to go.
Why don't I go ahead?
Go ahead.
Come on.
You can do it.
Do it.
Come on, guys.
SPEAKER_01: It's just one, man.
Yeah.
Oh yeah.
Armor class one.
A 15 with plus three.
Okay.
Plus two.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: Do you kill him?
How many damage did you?
SPEAKER_01: I do a point.
I do a three.
And a four.
That's five, six, seven, eight total.
Do you roll multiple dice for your weapon?
SPEAKER_00: Two D.
You bring your mighty morning star down upon the leather skull
cap squish.
That is being worn by the orc in question.
I did a thing.
And his brains spatter upon the floor and walls and your armor.
SPEAKER_02: Well we run over too late.
We run over and celebrate like you just bump a touchdown.
Good, shut up, buddy.
Just got a touchdown.
SPEAKER_01: Woo!
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm like 10 years old, and I'm just kind of
42 to nothing game.
Behind the door, Sean, you hear like some scraping.
Scraping sounds.
It's somewhat distant.
It's not like right behind the door, but you hear something
moving.
By the iron door.
SPEAKER_02: Shout out.
Shout out an orchish.
It was a mistake.
Somebody rang the bell.
I would just like to point out in hindsight.
Remember when I suggested about sleeping and everybody poo-pooed
the sleep?
No.
You did that.
When you poo-pooed.
No, you guys did it.
No.
It's fine.
That was it's fine.
That is selective memory.
It's fine.
Remember all those resources?
It would have been possible.
SPEAKER_00: We'll resolve all of the passive aggressivity.
And we'll resolve what's behind the iron door on the next
episode of Retro Rollcast.
It's fine.