OSRIC, Shadows of the Pale Ep16

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Free of the confines of the mine and confronting the smoldering fire ravaged mine village, the concerned heroes plunge back into the forest in hopes that the safety of the villagers they left behind is not in jeopardy.  Next steps are discussed and taken, whether to confront or escape their foes in the manor at the top of the hill...

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!

www.mythmeregames.com

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_00: This week on Retro Rollcast.

There's a place where you can enter the Bramble Wall safely.

It's hidden.

Yeah.

I'm pretty sure what's happening.

So that's not all that.

If you ever go there, it's near the top of the waterfall.

SPEAKER_06: There's only one waterfall.

That's all you gotta know.

SPEAKER_02: Don't go chasing waterfall.

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00: Stick to the rivers and the lakes that you're used

to.

Jesus Christ.

I know you want to have it your way or nothing at all.

I think you're moving too fast.

What in the actual hell just happened?

SPEAKER_01: The door was left open.

SPEAKER_00: Check them out, their online store, their eBay

store.

This is, I believe, the last time that we will be playing

here this year.

We keep saying that.

Because we are going to renovate our Attic of Doom.

We keep saying that.

And also sitting here today playing, it reminds me that

maybe we could be playing in the Attic of Doom right now because

it is every bit as hot as it would have been if we were in

his attic.

You think?

I am sweating like nobody's business.

SPEAKER_03: It's swampy.

Well, yeah, and it's it's only like 70 degrees out right now.

I look, if you've GM'd before, you know that when you're up

there in the hot lights of the retro roll cast GMs.

SPEAKER_00: It's the stage lighting we have in here.

SPEAKER_03: That's what it is.

It is a hot time.

It is a hot time.

Stressful.

SPEAKER_00: It's not just hot out there, it's hot in here,

too.

SPEAKER_03: Right.

And you know what else is hot?

The Osric system by MythMear Games.

Woo! You know, it's hot out there.

SPEAKER_00: Thank you.

Thank you for that incredible lead in.

That's a great segue, right?

That is we're getting more pro by the day.

Paint yourselves on the back when you hurt yourself.

But anyway, we are brought to you today by our friends at

MythMearGames.com.

They are making the game that we are playing, which is Osric by

Stuart Marshall and Matt Finch, edited by the fantastic Susie

Mosby, and also laid out.

And we've gotten into this before, the layouts in these

books are incredible.

They have landscape and portrait editions of Osric available on

their website for sale at MythMearGames.com.

If you just want to check out the system, if you just want to

see what it's all about, they can be.

I think they heard me.

It's cool in here now.

That's turned on.

It hit 80.

The air conditioning is kicked on here at Lazarus Games.

Because they were all very distracted.

They heard the mild criticism of my voice from the front desk.

I'm like, oh man, we gotta hit that button.

SPEAKER_03: We gotta keep those retro roll cast guys happy.

SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: Or they're gonna leave.

I am sure they talked about that.

For certain, I'm certain.

SPEAKER_00: But anyway, back to Myth Mirror.

SPEAKER_03: There's old darks in that room over there.

SPEAKER_00: Uh again, if you want to check out the Osric

system to see if it is for you, you can go and drive-through RPG

and you can download the PDF of the entire system for the

amazing price of absolutely nothing.

So go in there, download it, check it out.

It is a great restating of the original rules of first edition

A D D in a manner that can be understood by humans.

SPEAKER_03: Yes.

Without some of those weird gygaxian turns of phrase.

SPEAKER_00: Or digressions into how he feels about certain

players that play the game not the way he likes them to play

it.

SPEAKER_03: Well, to be fair, we play a very particular way here

at Retrogramming.

SPEAKER_00: Don't ever let your players get do this or Yeah.

SPEAKER_06: Well, he's moved on.

SPEAKER_00: Like three pages of why you don't want the players

to play monsters as characters.

SPEAKER_03: Because that would suck.

It would, but there's no monsters as characters in

Austin.

That's great.

You get your standard fantasy races, excluding is there

gnomes?

SPEAKER_00: There are gnomes, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: Gnomes.

Okay.

Not being a big fan of the gnome race myself.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we found that out last night in our second

edition game.

SPEAKER_03: There's things that you can do in here, like you get

to wear armor if you are a fighter mage and a half elf.

It's you get to take the best of all classes.

So that's why when Pindar runs around, he gets to wear armor

and cast spells.

Something you cannot do in other editions of the game that I'm

aware of.

Certainly not second edition.

So if you're a mid-maxer.

SPEAKER_00: Well, not among the advantages that your character

got was your hit point rolling.

SPEAKER_03: Well, but that could have been partially me.

Partially me as well.

SPEAKER_00: But anyway, check them out.

They have lots of great products there.

They have the tome of adventure design, which is fantastic.

They have a backer kit coming up for the world of Jordoba, which

is a sword and sorcery Conan inspired.

Lots of like temples of set and serpent enemies.

SPEAKER_05: He's more about I believe he calls it the forces

of ruination a la chaos.

SPEAKER_00: Chaos.

It's the it's the classic sword and sorcery law chaos acts of

the city.

Yep, yeah.

I can almost.

So we operate here at the table.

SPEAKER_03: Right.

We have members of the forces of ruination right here.

I can see that in our future.

But again.

And we know Sean's Kickstarter or Backer Kitting it.

SPEAKER_00: So that that world was originally written for the

Swords and Wizardry system.

The backer kit, the the product, the the world of Jordoba is

system agnostic.

So you can use it with whatever fantasy game you play in.

But it's also for Swords and Wizardry and Osric.

So what's the difference?

Well, I think at some point we want to play the Swords and

Wizardry system just because that sort of is a restatement of

original DD, which is a little bit before our time, and it

might be interesting to go and play what the first rules were.

SPEAKER_05: And by original DD you mean pre-basic brown box,

right.

SPEAKER_00: Right.

So originally there were the was the box with the three little

brown books, and then there were supplements after that.

That's what Swords and Wizardry is a restating of the three

little brown books.

Is that out right now, or is that the background?

That's been out for a while.

Well, hell, go get it then.

Yep, and that's available in Myth Mere as well.

There is a what I really liked was I did a Kickstarter for

them, and it was a Kickstarter.

I think a year and a half ago, where they released a book of

options where they had character classes, spells, and options

that were not in the original Brown books, expanding Swords

and Wizardry with things like witch hunters and necromancers

and things like that.

And that's really cool to check out as well, including specific

spells for those classes.

SPEAKER_05: I can't believe nobody's mentioned Sean's pen.

It's a very large pen.

SPEAKER_00: It's a rubber feather.

I bought this during our original campaign.

It's the raven feather pen.

Because it's got a raven feather on it.

Right, right.

Because ravens were heavily themed.

SPEAKER_04: I don't think that's a part of this product.

I think that's rubber.

I don't think it's a raven feather on it.

SPEAKER_00: It's not a real raven feather.

SPEAKER_04: No, no.

SPEAKER_00: It's as rubber as Sean's new dice.

That's true.

That's true.

So we were going to talk about this last episode, and I think I

I promised to, but before we sat down for today's session, and to

peek behind the curtain, we have we do more than one episode per

session.

But before this session, Sean went and purchased in an attempt

to get out of his horrible dice luck.

SPEAKER_05: Okay, no.

SPEAKER_00: Which I don't know that it's the dice.

SPEAKER_05: Well, we okay.

The real story is this.

Okay.

Sean has a crown royal bag full of dice that he's accumulated

over the last time.

In the third person.

Yes.

Jesus.

SPEAKER_00: You can't do that when there's another Sean at the

table.

Yeah.

Or I'll start doing it.

SPEAKER_05: Maybe I'm just deflecting.

Leave me alone.

SPEAKER_04: I think you're going through manopause.

I am.

Hot flashes and all.

Say hi.

SPEAKER_05: I hello.

And at the table, certain members of the group.

All of them.

Are dice goblins and would grab weird dice from my pile.

And then I would say what it was.

Goblin kind of looks like it.

SPEAKER_03: And interrupt the flow that was happening.

And I got shit for it.

For interrupting the flow, probably.

SPEAKER_00: So you got dice that nobody would want to.

SPEAKER_03: So then I said, all right, fine.

SPEAKER_05: I put the Crown Royal bag away.

There's a lot of holes in this story.

And I went out to the floor here, Lazarus Games, revealing.

I stood four feet back, scanned the straight outs of all the

dice sets, and any of the ones I could actually read from that

distance, I chose.

Because we're old.

And as a result, I have two sets of dice.

Now I did not notice when choosing them, one of them is

rubber.

SPEAKER_00: You bought rubber dice today.

SPEAKER_03: I have a set of rubber dice and a set of not

rubber dice.

SPEAKER_04: It cost more than regular dice.

Yes.

SPEAKER_00: The rubber.

And we tested it out.

What would you say?

This table was 10 feet long?

SPEAKER_03: No.

Eight, maybe.

Yeah.

Eight by 42.

SPEAKER_00: But anyway, he threw me the D20 from his set of dice,

and I've bounced it from here all the way across the table.

SPEAKER_03: Yes, they are very bouncy.

SPEAKER_00: They are bouncy ball type type.

SPEAKER_03: They're rubber bouncy ball material.

Super ball.

But dice.

Yes.

You could probably buy them online at Lazarus Games.

Not that we're going to send you there.

You should.

SPEAKER_00: They don't sell you dice.

Stoop so low as to sell rubber bouncy rubber.

But what I will say is we're going to, as I wag my rubber

raven feather at you.

SPEAKER_05: Scoldingly.

SPEAKER_00: He's wagging in our direction.

Well, this is going to be a thing now, too.

But I would say if Merrick needs to make a saving throw this

session, you have to roll it off of the wall.

SPEAKER_03: Can I roll it off of Alban's forehead?

You could lose an eye that way.

Listen.

SPEAKER_06: And then it would be off of the wall.

SPEAKER_04: As HR director, I can tell you that would count as

workplace finance.

SPEAKER_00: Not if he gives consent.

SPEAKER_06: So yeah.

I don't give consent.

I'd like to be taken advantage of.

SPEAKER_04: Your non-consent is duly noted.

It's recorded for posterity.

SPEAKER_05: So I was thinking it through, and I actually have

played ODD, sort of.

So back in the day, and we're talking.

Is this story going to take a while?

SPEAKER_06: It's going to go get drinks.

SPEAKER_05: Back in the 80s, there was a shop here locally

called Worlds of Wonder run by a very cool guy named Tom Hiller.

He built like take a full sheet of plywood, put walls on it,

like lay it down flat, put walls on it, do the whole thing with

paper mache, paint it gray, dungeon.

Okay.

SPEAKER_00: So he didn't do sand in his.

SPEAKER_05: No.

Well, he had sand tables too.

But these were built dungeons with like lighting and crazy

shit.

Alright.

So you would go to this shop, you sold miniatures, and you

could sign up to play in these games where you would buy a

miniature and then you'd show up to the game, put the miniature

down, he would write up your character based on the

miniature, and then you would play through these dungeons.

And he used the old pamphlet style rules for that.

Alright.

That sounds way cooler than what we do.

SPEAKER_03: It was awesome.

Look, it's great if you're in a dungeon, but we're not spending

all of our time in dungeons.

We are leaving the dungeon right now.

SPEAKER_00: We've left the dungeon.

SPEAKER_03: We've left the dungeon.

We're fine.

SPEAKER_00: But anyway, I feel that we should this game.

We should cycle back and try Swords and Wizardry sometime.

Yeah.

I was actually reading through it last night.

Because there's a lot of things that might piss us off.

Because there's things like only fighters are allowed to use that

strength bonus.

Lots of stuff like that.

There's only there's one single saving throw.

Yep.

There's not a saving throw for every category or for there's

essentially there's really no real reason to have stats.

Because you don't get many bonuses.

SPEAKER_05: Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: And but I think it would be interesting for us to

do it.

It simplifies it.

It's split into two paths.

So you had original DD, and then they they made the blue box,

which was your like starting point, right?

The blue is expert.

SPEAKER_04: No, it was white and blue.

SPEAKER_00: It was like a oh, so you had the second blue box.

SPEAKER_05: I had the pink box, the basic box.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's not that's the fourth edition of

Dungeons and Dragons.

SPEAKER_04: Yeah, or the red, yeah.

It's red, blue, teal, and black.

SPEAKER_00: So there was original DD, of which Swords and

Wizardry.

And then it split into what's called the Holmes blue box,

right?

Yep, which was the first basically.

And that's like blue and white.

SPEAKER_04: It's like a cloudy kind of.

SPEAKER_00: And then that became what you played with the DD

basic set in the early 80s.

Yeah, probably.

And then the other path was Gygax took and made advanced

Dungeons and Dragons out of the basic, the original Dungeons and

Dragons.

So it was like two pathways that started.

And then the basic path went to the to all of the multicolored

box sets later in the 80s, and then A D D became second

edition, and then they all merged back into third edition

ones.

It's like really like you could do it on a different thing.

It's convoluted at the beginning.

Just explaining I think you didn't know the 15 versions of

pretty much pretty close.

SPEAKER_05: The way it was marketed here in Central PA,

like you could find basic and expert first.

Right.

Like that's what was available on the shelves here in Central

PA.

And then like the next year, A D D became available.

So that was our arc.

It's odd because ADD was actually written before.

SPEAKER_04: Yeah.

I don't know.

The the box sets came after hardbacks.

SPEAKER_00: They actually had the hardbacks though in books

bookstores.

SPEAKER_05: Yeah, like Bookland.

SPEAKER_00: I was at a B.

Dalton and Walden Books.

SPEAKER_05: I was a regular attendee of B Dalton and Walden

Books, like weekly.

SPEAKER_00: I had the card.

Oh yeah.

I had the fantasy club card for Walden.

SPEAKER_05: That was like Friday for mom and I.

SPEAKER_00: But anyway, uh MythMear Games, check them out.

Lots of good stuff there.

But getting back to our game, uh, briefly, we have here at the

table Eric playing Edric, cleric of whoever.

SPEAKER_03: Crayhawk.

Sorry, John figured it out and he wrote it down and got a nod,

but now John's not sharing it with the rest of the crew

because we're not doing our due diligence trying to figure out

who his god is.

SPEAKER_06: I follow he who heals me.

SPEAKER_03: Don't care.

SPEAKER_06: Don't care.

Oh, now we don't care.

Yeah, we don't care.

It used to be how are you casting spells?

Now it's I don't care.

SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I don't care.

SPEAKER_00: Rodney is playing Pindar Pure Blood Half-Le.

Pure Blood Half-Elf.

Second rank fighter.

That's right.

And mage.

Mage.

Directly across the table, Sean is playing Merrick Thornleaf.

Indeed.

And pin card.

He found the trap.

That's his job.

He did.

And next to him, John is playing Theron, the wild elf mage of

Wonder.

And Meon.

SPEAKER_06: Wonder how he's still alive.

Wonder why we keep bringing him back.

SPEAKER_00: And looking for the next straight-ahead fight is

Reyes Monin.

SPEAKER_01: That's right.

Let's get into it.

Played by Doc.

Fighter starts with fight.

SPEAKER_06: So are we following the stuff?

SPEAKER_00: But we left the last episode with Merrick striding

out into the How does that look?

Well, it's a halfling stride, so they're not baby steps.

Yeah, right.

Baby steps.

Toddler.

He totters out to the remains of the village, which is smoldering

in in ruin, and the tendrils of smoke are rising into the clear,

warm summer morning.

And again, you found numerous footprints around the village of

large feet, some of which are booted and some of which are

not.

Several giants?

SPEAKER_05: Ogres, probably.

Ogres.

I'm guessing the booted feet are the giants, the non-booted feet

are ogres, and whoever else.

SPEAKER_03: Hopefully they left all the way, because that's your

what you're going out there for, right?

Make sure that there's no sign of them.

SPEAKER_06: Yeah.

Go dance around a little, see if you get any.

SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna basically walk through the village and

then into the woods and leave.

SPEAKER_00: And take an orbit.

SPEAKER_03: Okay, so you're walking all the way around the

you're walking the perimeter of the of the looking for their

egress.

SPEAKER_00: Okay.

So you take some time to you're not a ranger, but you're trying

to see where they came.

SPEAKER_05: It's giants and ogres.

I should probably be able to find where they left.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah.

And the footprints appear to have arrived and departed near

the the road coming in.

SPEAKER_05: Okay.

SPEAKER_00: Arrival actually it looks like they they go off the

came from off of the road a little bit to the right.

Came more out of the forest.

SPEAKER_05: Memory serves, that's where we put the

villagers, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00: It is vaguely in that direction.

I'm sorry, what's over in that direction?

SPEAKER_03: They killed villagers.

Villagers are knights.

And the knights?

Yes.

I'm sorry, but tracks.

There's tracks leading up.

Yeah, they came from that way.

Okay, well, I got look, we gotta go look.

That's do we?

And that's what good people would do.

SPEAKER_00: And sort of after you see that, you turn around

and then you look up above the minehead.

Your peeps are standing around the around the entrance and

watching you case everything because none of them told me

they were doing anything else.

But above the minehead, uh a lot of the slope leading up the

mountain has collapsed in, and there's like a large there's a

large sinkhole.

Go figure.

The uh the hole that you saw before with the smoke coming out

of it, there's still a small tendril of smoke, but not as

much as you saw the day before.

SPEAKER_03: That makes perfect sense.

All right.

While he's out there, I'm gonna knock this little box we found

open.

SPEAKER_00: Okay, so you're casting knock.

SPEAKER_03: Yeah.

I'm gonna do it from the range is 60 feet, so I'm gonna set it

on the ground and walk like 30 feet away from it.

Actually, 35, because fireball's range is 35 or 30 feet, right?

SPEAKER_00: So see, so you're leaving the copper by your

friends and walking.

No, I'm putting it, I'll put it somewhere away.

Walk 35 feet.

Here, hold this.

I'll hold it.

Put it on my head, go for it.

SPEAKER_03: Cast the spell upon it and then walk back.

So it will unlock it, but it probably won't undo any traps.

Okay.

SPEAKER_00: Pop open.

SPEAKER_03: And then I'll just I'll take my spear tip and I'll

lift it up and see it.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you when you cast the spell, you hear a

little click.

SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and then I walk over and I open the top

with it.

And the lid flips open.

And I duck.

SPEAKER_00: And there's a little ballerine.

Nothing happens.

Okay.

SPEAKER_03: Alright, I walk over, pick it up, and look

inside.

SPEAKER_00: Inside is a single, very large blue sapphire.

Ooh.

Tuck that in my pocket.

There's nothing in here, guys.

It's empty.

No, don't look.

SPEAKER_06: Yeah.

Drops a silver coin into it.

Slight of hand.

SPEAKER_03: Hey, it's a good thing the halfling didn't open

it because he would have.

A good thief would have dropped a coin in there.

I'm a scout.

One gold coin?

SPEAKER_06: A good thief.

SPEAKER_03: I'm sorry, scout.

Yeah, sorry.

Yeah.

We'll stick with that.

SPEAKER_00: That's not what it says in your character sheet,

man.

Man.

SPEAKER_03: Alright.

So let's.

I'll keep the box too, since it's probably fancy box.

So you just it's well made.

It's not decorated.

I'll keep it anyway.

Look, I haven't got a lot of treasure.

SPEAKER_00: I'm keeping the box, man.

We just got a hole.

What's in the box?

SPEAKER_03: So we're gonna go.

Don't go there.

We gotta go try to find our villagers.

I guess we didn't.

SPEAKER_06: Are we certain at this point no one's hanging out

there in the woods?

SPEAKER_03: They would have solved.

No.

No, we're not, but they wouldn't have seen me.

They saw you.

We would have attacked.

Did you even I didn't hear anybody say making any roles

about being stealthy?

You're three and a half feet tall, bro.

You're totally stealthy.

You can definitely stop with the bros, bro.

Bro, bro.

You're 55 years old.

Stop watching Rick and Morty, bro.

SPEAKER_00: We're gonna go.

All right, chat.

Let's go.

Rick and Morty.

Listen, fan, I hate you guys so much.

Bet.

No shot right now.

No shot.

So let's not as good as adventure time.

SPEAKER_03: We gotta go out.

Are you dead ass?

No cap.

I'm putting in my retirement.

SPEAKER_06: On God.

SPEAKER_00: Yep, on God.

SPEAKER_06: So are we going back to the city?

SPEAKER_00: 20 experience points to anybody that says are you

dead ass right now in response to something this episode.

Fair enough.

Are you dead ass?

Bet.

SPEAKER_06: So we're gonna go look for our villagers and nice.

SPEAKER_03: We're gonna go look for the villagers.

SPEAKER_06: See what carnage is left.

SPEAKER_00: Okay, marching order.

Probably well cut.

But the villagers are filing out of the line.

And they're oh well.

They're freaking the fuck out.

We'll be this way if you're gonna catch up.

Better start rebuilding.

SPEAKER_03: Don't stay here.

SPEAKER_06: Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: Go to Zeep's run.

SPEAKER_00: And they file in behind you, muttering back and

forth to each other.

So the Dwar guard just disappeared.

Yeah, he was gone this morning.

SPEAKER_05: Yeah.

That's probably from the disappeared, can't they?

Jerk.

I believe they have uh visibility and they can't.

I don't know.

Something like that.

I thought they had some sort of stone milled thing, too.

SPEAKER_06: Nothing in my character knows.

SPEAKER_03: I don't know.

Never met one of them weirdos before.

Yeah, me either.

They're from why didn't you just do that like deep darkness?

That's what I get away from bad guys.

I don't know.

SPEAKER_06: Because he liked it.

Because he was in on it.

SPEAKER_04: He wanted to prevent me from killing that cleric.

So I doubt it.

SPEAKER_06: Reyes first.

SPEAKER_04: Wait, no, we don't agree to that.

SPEAKER_06: Pender second.

SPEAKER_03: No.

I'm gonna bring up the rear.

I'm probably a solid one, 40-50 feet ahead of the group.

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: Okay, well, we'll follow him.

Moving ahead.

Some point.

All right, so you set off through the forest.

The ogres and giant and whoever else was in this column were not

kind to the environment as they were moving, so they're pretty

easy to it's pretty easy to follow the trail.

So they left by this route as well?

Well they came in well, they left on the different path.

On the path.

SPEAKER_05: Okay.

SPEAKER_00: The path.

They came from the forest.

SPEAKER_05: And we are following their tracks to the village.

SPEAKER_00: Correct.

Backtracking them.

Yeah.

And you arrived back to the spot where you left the villagers.

Okay.

And nothing.

SPEAKER_03: But that we followed the did the other tracks go

there?

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: Yes.

SPEAKER_03: They ate our villagers.

It's all our fault.

So any like nightly remains?

No, because they left, they were leaving from here, which is what

we told them to do.

SPEAKER_06: That's true.

SPEAKER_03: But we don't know where they went, and we told

them that we would find them.

SPEAKER_06: And we tried your whistle again.

Didn't you learn that guy's whistle?

SPEAKER_03: I did, but I think we're probably too far away.

But yeah, that's thanks for reminding me.

Give a little whistle.

SPEAKER_00: Well, you can see the tracks coming from further

into the forest.

SPEAKER_03: Well, we must follow.

SPEAKER_00: So are there human-sized tracks mixed in

here?

There are some, yeah.

They're faded and look older.

They're not tracked based on the fair.

Yeah.

And they're mixed in with other larger tracks.

Right.

SPEAKER_03: But there's horse prints as well, because our

horses were there.

Like eight horses is going to make a significant trail.

Or dinner.

SPEAKER_00: There's bovine foot footprints.

Oh, right.

SPEAKER_03: Because we told them to get some cows.

Yeah.

Right.

We should be able to follow this path.

You're right.

So the ogres and giant had a great meal on their way to

sacking the village.

Maybe.

Maybe they didn't have time for that.

Maybe we're on our schedule.

Maybe they didn't have that.

A self-imposed deadline?

Yes.

Like our previous self-imposed deadline.

So you're at the clearing.

All right.

Keep going to where their tracks lead.

So we want to keep backtracking.

Yeah.

But this point is just tracking our people.

They would have to have followed them somewhere to get there.

How are but they're just backtracking from there?

Like they got there a completely different way, right?

Our village, the villagers' footprints are going one

direction, and the giant footprints are coming back the

same trail the villagers took in?

At this from this point forward, yeah.

Okay.

So the oh, odd.

Not good.

Yeah.

All right.

Well, continue.

SPEAKER_00: Maybe they got lucky.

So you follow that through the forest now alarmed and fully on

guard.

SPEAKER_05: And is it an established trail, or is it just

walking through the established trail?

Okay.

SPEAKER_00: Ten minutes after leaving the clearing, you see up

ahead a large dark shape laying on the ground.

Up ahead, about a hundred feet or so.

SPEAKER_03: Like it's daytime, right?

Giant large?

Cal cow, horse.

SPEAKER_06: Yeah, what is it?

A large dark shape.

SPEAKER_03: I'll skirt it by like 15, 20 feet, try to sneak

up.

Okay.

I don't even bother.

I just keep walking.

SPEAKER_00: It appears to be an ogre.

And it lays there in the pathway.

Night dead.

The night dead with arrows.

The coon all over them.

Lance bows.

SPEAKER_03: Yeah, they did.

SPEAKER_00: Those four's had both bleeding from a dozen arrow

wounds.

unknown: Nice.

SPEAKER_03: Well, they got one.

All right.

From here, I'll give a I'll give a whip.

Clearly, they loot the body.

Found them.

Yes.

SPEAKER_06: Gonna loot.

Loot.

How do you treasure?

SPEAKER_05: Is there like signs of a battle here?

SPEAKER_07: A dead ogre is more scuffed up here.

SPEAKER_03: He just appeared out of the blue.

It was an ambush, not a battle.

I think is what he's implying.

Was there more?

Does it look like they hit one ogre, or does it look like there

was hit and run?

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's one dead ogre here.

There's not there there is sign of like smash trees.

SPEAKER_03: Yeah.

Okay.

I give the whistle that uh I I imitated from the bandit

archers.

SPEAKER_06: Yeah, the whistle that we found that we're going

to be.

Oh, that's right.

I forgot about those guys.

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: They're where the arrows came from.

From the bandit archers.

And old guy whose name I already have forgotten.

The one we didn't trust.

You didn't trust him.

I actually did.

SPEAKER_00: Okay, so you give a loud whistle.

SPEAKER_03: Yes.

No response.

Alright.

Well, we keep following the trail back towards Death and

Destruction.

Yes.

Cared.

No.

Cared?

Cared?

Who's cared?

SPEAKER_06: I don't know who cared.

Yes, the kid was it?

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: I have his name written down here again.

But it wasn't cared.

It was a guy whose name I can't remember.

SPEAKER_00: A minute up the trail later.

You find the body of one of the knights.

Oh no.

Oh.

Moisture is dripping off of his armor.

Moisture.

There is the the vegetation around where he is in like a

cone-shaped pattern is all wet.

I know what this was.

And he looks frostbitten.

Frostbit.

SPEAKER_03: He's got freezer burn on his cheekbones.

He does.

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06: What level does one have to do?

SPEAKER_03: No, you have to be an early cone of not hot.

Maybe.

Right.

Perhaps.

What is the opposite of not hot?

It's what we'd like this room to be.

Yes.

The cone of not hot.

Well, the good thing is he doesn't have that spell.

The bad news is he could have done this yesterday afternoon

and he might have it again.

It wouldn't be wept.

SPEAKER_06: Maybe he took it four times.

That's a level five spell.

SPEAKER_03: We're putting an awful lot of stock into hoping

that he did it yesterday and not today.

But yes.

Or last night.

He used all spells.

He's good.

Let's go get him.

Well, anyway, but it's not going to stop us.

Loot the body.

I'm almost blessed there.

But we can go.

SPEAKER_06: I am.

You put it out there this time?

SPEAKER_03: Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: All right.

Eight total gold pieces between them.

Was there Oh the the knight has a shield, long sword.

Yeah.

Whatever pay you gave him, which wasn't probably much.

SPEAKER_03: Did he ever blather about the uh his magic his magic

sword and his magic shield?

This knight?

Yeah.

No.

No.

Okay.

SPEAKER_00: Damn it.

His dad gave it to him.

SPEAKER_03: Okay.

Well, it could have been magic.

But are they God damn it?

Well, hey, one of you villagers, carry this shield and sword.

There you go.

Treasure.

SPEAKER_00: Well, it's it's one of the one of the villagers

confidently steps up with a determined look on his face.

Grabs the shield, puts it on wrong.

Falls over.

That's not really about the sword.

SPEAKER_03: That's okay.

Thank you.

Yeah, we really just want to return it to the family.

I want to help.

You can help, but just be it.

Let it be known that it could be my squire.

Yeah, there you go.

You are now Sir Reyes' squire.

SPEAKER_06: Do what Reyes tells you to.

Follow him around.

Carry on down the page.

SPEAKER_03: Well, he's got that.

SPEAKER_06: Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: He's in charge, even though I'm the one giving

orders.

Charisma's just better than mine.

Not much.

Yeah.

Follow him.

I'm as Harold.

Yes.

Because I did I do call him Lord Reyes when even he doesn't call

himself.

SPEAKER_06: You need to give your sack and everything to him.

Just let me go.

SPEAKER_00: But following on up the trail.

A lot here.

True.

Moving off.

Another minute later, you see a large shape hanging in the air.

Maybe we should turn on that.

Above the it's noisy.

SPEAKER_03: Hanging in the air.

Well, maybe it could be by a rope or something.

We didn't pass that.

Or floating.

SPEAKER_06: Which isn't.

SPEAKER_03: Yeah.

SPEAKER_06: It's like the picture of the spiders in the

air.

SPEAKER_03: Just by choice.

Well, which is he hanging or floating?

SPEAKER_06: Or is he just in the middle of the room?

SPEAKER_03: We're getting closer.

SPEAKER_06: Go check it out.

SPEAKER_03: Weapons out.

We've pretty much given up on stealth, I think.

SPEAKER_00: And you come to another what looks to be there

was another fight here.

Hanging in the air, a vine wrapped around in a noose around

its ankle is an ogre.

Wrap.

Ambush.

Hanging dead in the air with again arrows.

They're beyond this point, there's like a 10-yard deep and

40-yard wide, just everything in this was burned.

Definitely an ambush.

And there's a one of the bandits lies dead on the other side of

that.

They're in here?

With a caved-in skull.

Sounds like they're pretty good gorilla fighters.

SPEAKER_03: Are they uh except for that one guy?

Are they still warm?

Oh, you're checking to touch them to see how it's a good

yeah, still a little bit.

Okay.

This is very this is recent.

Let's go.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's still heat coming off in like the

burned area.

Okay.

SPEAKER_03: So like wall of fire or something, maybe.

SPEAKER_06: Yeah, search the bandit.

SPEAKER_03: Then the ogre while you're at it.

SPEAKER_06: It's hanging in a tree.

Cut them down.

SPEAKER_00: The bandit appears to be, it doesn't even have a

bow or a quiver or a pack.

They looted them or anything.

SPEAKER_06: Man, they looted them already.

SPEAKER_00: Preluted.

Wow.

Prelude bodies.

SPEAKER_01: What are they going to come up with next?

SPEAKER_06: I'm here.

What campaign is this?

SPEAKER_03: Sign up for those.

That doesn't like we're kind of in a bit of a hurry here.

Yeah, that's where we have to get rid of stealth.

And he's an ogre.

What's he doing carrying really?

Eight gold.

That's what the last one had.

So big deal.

It's just eight experience points.

Well, eighty.

Eighty.

Yeah.

We're never going to get the next level with eighty.

We're going to need a little more.

So let's go get that ogre mage.

Find some dragons.

At least two.

Dragons?

Yeah.

Maybe some baby dragons.

SPEAKER_06: Ancient dragons.

SPEAKER_03: Well.

Continuing on, yeah.

Now, how far have we traveled from the village by this point?

A mile or two?

Oh, yeah, at least.

Okay.

Alright, so we've been going for a couple hours chasing this

trail.

SPEAKER_00: And the further on a little bit, the trail just

stops.

Is there water?

SPEAKER_03: Stops.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's there's like a few large

footprints beyond the burned point, and then they stop.

SPEAKER_05: So that means the uh ogres and giants gave up and

went back toward the village.

Or won.

SPEAKER_04: And we didn't find any bodies yet.

SPEAKER_03: Right.

Well, yeah.

Not enough bodies to for all the dead humans, but we know the

ogre mage thing can fly, but we don't there's no way he's

carrying giants, right?

So when the trail stops, I'm gonna go 90 degrees left, out

about a hundred feet, and then make a semicircle.

And circle back around and cover the back.

See if I can find anything, anyone.

SPEAKER_00: All right.

So you guys hiding and screening.

What's the thing guys doing while he's doing this?

SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna move forward past where the feet have

left the area and look for them maybe a little further down.

I'm not going alone.

Right, Reyes?

I'll go with you.

All right, excellent.

SPEAKER_06: Me too.

SPEAKER_03: Number one and number two.

You're number two.

You stay here and cast fireball over somebody's shoulder if they

need it.

And you heal us if we need it.

SPEAKER_04: Got it?

SPEAKER_01: I'm ready.

SPEAKER_04: This is a plan.

SPEAKER_06: Newly appointed squire gonna hide behind with

his shield.

SPEAKER_04: Yeah.

No, he's cruising with me.

He's holding my mace.

SPEAKER_03: I could use somebody to carry all my crap.

Oh, you could use my squire.

He's not doing shit.

Choose my squire.

Here, carry this, Frank.

Stay here, everyone.

And I'm going forward with my bow out.

SPEAKER_00: Okay, so you keep going and you go around and then

hit a semicircle.

After about a hundred feet, you see tracks again, large numbers

of human tracks.

I do.

Well, you meet.

SPEAKER_03: Oh, okay.

Yeah, I was going straight forward.

I thought he was going behind us.

SPEAKER_00: No, I was going straight forward now out and to

go around.

Excellent.

Okay.

And you find actually, Merrick, you see it first.

Because it does go off to the right a little bit.

You see the path of many human feet and horse prints and cow

prints.

SPEAKER_03: You don't see any big we can find out.

Maybe the cost was too great.

Wave the rest of the villagers in.

Assuming they could still.

Yeah.

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: So let's follow the trail.

Yeah.

Okay.

You go another five minutes through the woods very

carefully.

SPEAKER_03: Cause.

Yeah, I was just thinking I could do the whistle again.

Caca, I do the whistle.

SPEAKER_00: You do the whistle?

SPEAKER_03: Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: Ten seconds after you do the whistle, very faintly

off in the distance, you hear a return.

SPEAKER_03: Okay.

All right.

Let's head that way.

Yeah.

I there's no way the ogre mage and the ogres either know that

symbol or sign or could make it with their giant sausage-y ogre

fingers.

SPEAKER_07: Sausagey I don't know.

SPEAKER_03: It's an ogre mage who can do it pretty much.

That's true.

I don't know what they can do, though we've seen evidence of

cold and heat.

SPEAKER_06: He reduced his hand and made the whistle noise.

SPEAKER_03: That's a good point.

Yeah.

Maybe he's knocked himself down to normal people's size.

No more sausagey fingers.

SPEAKER_00: So 20 minutes down the path, you're headed in the

direction where you heard the return whistle from.

There is like a small forest creek that winds down the far

side of the slope.

And as you keep walking, you see that there's a like a little

ravine.

Very steep, wooded at the top, rockier down the slope where

this the stream cut in and heads down downhill towards the west

and the south.

SPEAKER_04: So what you're saying is this would probably be

a good place for knights and villagers to hole up.

SPEAKER_03: Well, those guys didn't stay hidden for a month

by being obvious.

SPEAKER_00: Further down into the ravine you go.

And the ravine widens out at a certain point.

And there's like a grove of tall pine trees down at the bottom.

And that's where you see a makeshift encampment, a lot of

lean twos.

Right.

Campfire going up.

You hear the mooing of cattle.

Excellent.

And the neighing of horses.

I hear the mooing of dinner.

And you see a couple of the you can see a couple of the knights

walking forward defensively.

They both look pretty beat up.

Like they've taken some some wounds.

One of them is limping very badly.

Same with the the couple of bandits that are there.

They have knocked bows.

What was the name of they relax a little bit when they say it's

you?

SPEAKER_03: The name of the one bandit that we rescued after

Fear and Firebolt.

SPEAKER_00: Oh, it's Whitmore.

SPEAKER_03: Whitmore was the name of the Nah.

SPEAKER_00: That's not what it was.

SPEAKER_06: That's not what it was.

SPEAKER_00: Whitmore was the name of the bandit you rescued.

That doesn't matter.

He wasn't it is he was looking for a man named Stokely.

SPEAKER_03: Stokely.

But you haven't met Stokely.

Man, did I write all this stuff down on a different sheet of

paper?

What happened?

Yeah.

Stokely.

I do remember all this.

Stokely.

SPEAKER_00: And around you, as you reach the camp, there is

joyous reunion as the miners are reunited with some of their

family members.

Right.

And then there is less joyous realization as some of the

miners look around in vain for.

And some of the villagers again look around in vain for the

people that they have missed.

SPEAKER_06: In fact, their village is destroyed.

SPEAKER_03: And well, yes.

But as always, they would, in my opinion, they would all of these

people would be dead if it wasn't for our F.

SPEAKER_06: Ah, okay.

SPEAKER_03: Probably true.

So yes.

Right.

We don't know for sure, but so we're glad we uh missed we get

their story, assuming it's a running ambush kind of fight.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and that's what they've been doing all last

evening was they had a spot.

They were prepared to move here, but were chased by the by the

ogres.

They describe the terror of facing the ogre mage.

The ogre mage and his his blast and the fact that he would

appear and disappear.

Yeah, tell us about his abilities that you witnessed.

Well, he could appear and disappear at will.

His little flitting, cackling demon was flying everywhere, and

I thought we were being herded by the demon.

SPEAKER_04: Do you think this guy knows we're here now?

SPEAKER_03: Right.

Do you think do you think we we were some were herded and some

we just walked into the trap?

Well, well, that's everybody here is mobile except the

knights are wounded essentially, but they could ride.

Yeah, villagers are tired and bedraggled, but right.

SPEAKER_00: It didn't appear that the ogres got any villagers

in the fight, but both of the remaining knights are heavily

wounded.

Three of the four bandits, Whitmore and two of the other

bandits, are very wounded.

SPEAKER_03: Whitmore spent the day at the morning getting

fireballs, so he started the day wounded.

Whoops.

Well, yeah, whoops.

How are we to know he was he had fire and ice in the last 24

hours?

Hey, he's a must be a tough son of a gun.

SPEAKER_00: They definitely described the cone of cold,

right?

Which killed one of the knights and severely wounded one of the

other ones.

They described that he could he could appear and disappear at

will.

They described him making globes of darkness that people couldn't

see.

SPEAKER_04: Man, it's amazing that you managed to survive.

How has he attacked?

Have they attacked every night or is this one night?

Just one night.

SPEAKER_00: It's basically been 24 hours since you finished.

Okay.

Assaulting the clerk.

SPEAKER_03: They keep talking about how injured people are and

looking at the cleric, and the cleric's just oblivious.

Reading a book.

Well, he's reading his cleric on what he can do.

Is that what he's doing?

Well, he's reading a cleric book for sure.

Because the Myth Mere games, they have these little spell

books that you can have at your spot just to look through the

spells.

It's actually kind of convenient.

SPEAKER_00: No, I will say if you they do have the PDFs

available on drive-thru for those books.

Drive thru actually prints those on demand.

SPEAKER_03: So this was a print on demand.

Correct.

Oh print drive-thru.

So well, anyway, these are super convenient.

SPEAKER_00: But if you want the spell books, they are super

convenient for the table.

Get those at drive-thru.

Print on demand.

SPEAKER_03: All right.

So are we going to be able to leave today because of the our

our talk about the map and the potential assaults on Garson

from 500 orcs?

We don't really know that's the case, but we really don't want

to be taking that kind of thing lightly, you know, considering

that.

SPEAKER_05: So you're saying we should go to Garson?

SPEAKER_03: Yeah, but we it's going to be we can't take all

these people, of course.

Right, right.

Well, maybe they could go to Zeep's Run for now.

SPEAKER_06: Hey, they're rescued.

We're done.

SPEAKER_03: Any idea what happened?

This is to the knights.

I really we really should have named these three knights.

There's only three of them, for goodness sake.

Uh-huh.

And like, do they have any idea what happened to the ogre mage?

Did they all just leave?

I mean, what did they do?

They got to go.

They went back to the mine and trashed the house.

unknown: Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: We don't know exactly which happened first.

That's fair, but we don't.

The two remaining knights are named Hostrid and Stirner.

But so we don't, but they didn't know.

Like they don't know, like, hey, we saw the ogre mage disappear,

and that was the last we ever saw of him.

We saw him fly off in that direction visibly, or they all

just turn around and left once they got to a certain point

because this is where the dragon lives, and even they don't go

there.

Did you see the other giant?

SPEAKER_00: Well, they we had been fighting a running battle

with them for some for some time, all day, all night.

And he we finally got to the point where they had caught up

with the main body of our villagers.

And the the the blue ogre in the fight, he's he shouted something

to the other ogres.

It looked like he looked over the the villagers and shouted

something and then they turned.

Like they're not there, like somebody they were looking for

for would it be us?

Do you think they were looking for us?

Maybe.

Was the giant with them?

Yes, Mozig was he wasn't in the fighting, he was behind the

lines.

But yes, I could hear his piercing maniacal voice shouting

commands.

How many ogres were there that you saw?

Eleven, ten, eleven fireball.

SPEAKER_03: Fireball.

There's remembers when when you hear that stuff, then we think

they're in the same fireball.

Fireball first.

unknown: What?

SPEAKER_03: It's more reliable.

It's fun.

You get to pick up a bunch of dice and roll them.

That's the fun.

Have you seen my dice rolls?

No, not enough of them to really have a judgment on that, to be

honest.

SPEAKER_06: 11 ogres and sudden grass grows up underneath.

Tickling their feet.

That'd be great.

SPEAKER_00: And I'd have the bag of seasonal candy for a moment.

SPEAKER_06: The bag of seasonal beauty.

SPEAKER_03: Maybe the ogres would just sit down on the grass

and decide they wanted to just sit there and lay down and take

a nap.

SPEAKER_04: So we have to send the villagers to a safe spot.

I say the knights are about useless, so they should travel

with them.

SPEAKER_00: Oh, and yeah, there's like I said, there's a

they made a makeshift camp with a lot of lean twos and things

like that.

There is an old hunter's cabin here.

Okay.

It's not very huge, but there's like a small pile of firewood,

and it's uh there's a a cabin here.

SPEAKER_03: Right, because this was the valley of the hunting,

the lord of Garcons hunting camp.

This whole valley was probably really has that.

Were we supposed to find this hunting camp?

Yeah, it was something your lord tasked you with.

That would be the manor on the hill.

Yeah.

Well, yeah, we find the manor.

Yeah.

Man.

Sir Baron Moordier.

He uh he's the one who said about hey, while you're up

there, if you can.

Now we haven't cleared the manor house out yet, obviously.

We're not making that attempt because we got more important

things that we think are depressing, right?

SPEAKER_06: The manor house is messed up, so who cares?

SPEAKER_03: So next.

SPEAKER_06: Where's that town we need to get to before they do?

SPEAKER_03: Well, Garson.

Yeah, Garson.

So we have to go back to these run, down to the river, up the

Yole River, towards Vells Barrow, and then cut across the

road east to Garson if we want to go search for the pit or

wherever we think this opening may be.

Once we're about two-thirds of the way to Garson, we can head

south and look for it.

But I have suspect that it's going to be very hard to find

even with a scout.

But we still gotta get rid of we still gotta get these villagers

to safety.

What do the villagers want to do?

That's weird.

SPEAKER_06: Who's the the villagers and leaderless?

Your people.

SPEAKER_00: Okay, so Zeeps run then.

They're they're freaked out, they're happy that they found

and they feel indebted to you for Zepsrons.

They're not exactly safe.

No.

Agreed, agreed.

But they don't know what to do.

They're villagers.

SPEAKER_04: Why?

The orcs are gone.

A good chunk of the ogres are gone.

One giant's gone.

SPEAKER_05: Yeah, but the the giants and ogres had basically

extortions set up with the people of Zeep's Run.

It's not like it's off their radar.

SPEAKER_03: No, you're correct.

And we do know that Belnak threatened to kill the well or

destroy Zeep's Run in the event of whatever, which those

conditions have been met, so he could very well decide that he

wants to do that.

Or he could decide that all the other people under the ground

have left, the thing collapsed, he didn't get the one thing that

he needed, which somebody has, which may be us, right?

He may have been looking for us based on what the knight said.

For what?

I don't know.

Because we're the answer.

SPEAKER_06: They know of a location these people can go to.

SPEAKER_04: He wouldn't how would he be planning around us

if we hadn't met him yet?

We met him.

He met him.

SPEAKER_03: He met him.

Well, he saw him.

Oh, that's right.

So he made the threat to you though, specifically, right?

Which you may or may not have relayed to us.

Oh yeah.

But I remember the GM telling me, so I don't remember.

SPEAKER_06: He did he came back and told us to rein into the guy

in.

Okay.

SPEAKER_03: That part I remember, but I just didn't

remember if there was context of if I see you do this, I'll

destroy the village or whatever.

unknown: Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: No, the implication was more he would destroy us.

SPEAKER_04: Well when I talk about it.

SPEAKER_03: So what are we looking at?

A couple days to Garson?

Like three, probably.

If we're moving pretty quick.

And I don't know what their tunnel system looks like, but

that's this map makes it look like 30 miles.

Yeah, it's probably and we have probably twice that much to go

overland.

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06: Check out the bandits.

SPEAKER_03: See if they know a place.

Yeah, the bandits look, the villagers were here safe last

night.

Belknac and the ogres don't appear not to want anything to

do with them.

So here's the thought.

The ritual we interrupted was to summon something, presumably to

help them tunnel.

Right?

Agree.

Okay.

SPEAKER_05: If we interrupted said ritual and prevented them

from summoning the thing to help them tunnel, isn't the then

logical leap that they will not be able to complete the tunnel?

SPEAKER_03: Yeah.

We don't even know, right?

They got 500 orcs.

Well, really, we should that's gonna take way longer than

having a pet purple worm tunnel for you.

Well, you just if you got to a certain point already, like we

don't know, like on this map here, we don't know if maybe

there's an opening here.

Because this is clearly an opening, right?

It's got the little hoop you draw the door, and this is just

an X.

Like, hey, this is where we want to get to.

So maybe that's how far we've gotten.

Or right.

So maybe there's no, maybe there's no tunnel here.

We don't really know.

Actually, we got to go to Garson.

We can't even look for the tunnel because we gotta warn

them that the orcs may be coming, regardless of the.

There's definitely a force of orcs in the area, right?

And then and then we then once we warn them, we can go look for

the tunnel.

So posse up, whole crew goes to Garson.

All of us.

All well, but the villagers too.

Well, they can go, but they'll have to go on their own schedule

because we have to move quicker than we can move with a bunch of

villagers on foot, right?

Whitmore is looking back and forth as you guys are talking.

As we're debating.

Yes.

You have something to say, Whitmore?

SPEAKER_06: Whitmore.

What do you think?

SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm not part of Yell's crew.

These villagers can come with us to Ashenford.

There you go.

Dev us can use the help.

But we need to get Stokely out.

Of what?

He's being held by the by Mosic.

And the manor?

Where?

The manor.

You knew we were going back here.

No, I didn't.

I was going to Garner.

SPEAKER_06: I'm not gonna.

SPEAKER_00: Whatever y'all do, but it is the last piece of the

puzzle.

If you can't, if you're not gonna help us get him out, draw

the ogres off or something.

How about this?

Do you have somebody tunnel in below, but we haven't been able

to get there.

SPEAKER_03: Do you have somebody you could send to Garson?

I'm not with a message.

A fast rider.

A messenger.

Somebody who could move quickly.

Just to warn them.

Could the night could all the knights go?

Yeah.

You kind of need them to shepherd the villages, though.

SPEAKER_04: No, they're with the bandits.

SPEAKER_03: Right.

If the villagers go with the bandits, they can stay here.

The bandits go with us until such things happen.

And then if we are all killed, then the villagers are just here

on their own.

We send the healthiest knight to Garson, the other two go with

the bandits.

Never send one method.

SPEAKER_04: Yeah, send two.

SPEAKER_03: You always send both the knights.

But aren't they like beat up?

Yep.

Yeah.

So they're no use to us in a fight against the ogre mage or

the ogre.

But that also probably means they won't move very fast.

They're on a horse.

They're on horses, yeah.

Yeah, you're they might be a little slowed down, but it's a

damn lot faster than walking.

Yeah, and they're dead weight here, essentially.

Yeah.

Right.

Until they heal.

They are healed.

SPEAKER_00: I mean, it would probably occur to y'all.

I don't know that you would make this decision necessarily, but

you would probably you could probably send them with a change

of horses if you wanted to make them go fast.

We have enough.

SPEAKER_04: If you wanted to.

Yeah, how many do we have?

SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, we've had some round.

SPEAKER_04: We've had some die.

SPEAKER_03: Some some riders die, so there probably is.

Well, there's at least one extra horse from the other knight who

died because his horse wasn't there, right?

Yep.

So that's one extra horse.

We all had horses, correct?

And a mule.

Oh, he had a mule.

Excuse me.

Sorry.

SPEAKER_04: I forgot about the mule and the pony.

I have a an almost war horse.

SPEAKER_06: He identified as a war.

He has a hand and a hand.

SPEAKER_03: Yeah.

I have a basic horse.

It is a war horse in the same way a bastard sword is a

two-handed sword.

SPEAKER_01: Exactly.

SPEAKER_03: So we could send him with three horses, in other

words.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: And we could still have all of our own mouths.

Yes.

Is there any other horses?

They're just three then.

No, some cows.

SPEAKER_06: They can ride cows.

SPEAKER_03: Nobody's riding any cows.

I'll ride a cow.

SPEAKER_06: The villagers can.

SPEAKER_03: It might not know you're there.

Controlling it's another thing.

Put reins on it.

Grab its horns.

You gotta grab that ball.

Take that bull by the horns.

Yeah.

He said cows, not bull.

There's our plan.

Alright.

Yeah, cinema with three, the two knights with three horses.

And we don't have any extra horses, so and then we will go

with the archers because archers can stand there and shoot to the

tower.

What was this about a tunnel you mentioned, Whitmore?

SPEAKER_00: There's a there's an old root cellar below the manor

house.

Now how do you get in?

There's a little door.

SPEAKER_03: Go figure.

Thanks.

SPEAKER_06: A root cellar door?

SPEAKER_03: Well, yeah, but like it's not a tunnel you get.

That's a door into a basement.

A tunnel might be something that leads in from a distance.

I like this guy.

It's Daryl and his own brother Daryl.

We have a spot for it.

SPEAKER_00: I think there's they think they keep uh roots down.

Root vegetables.

Vegetables.

SPEAKER_03: Do they keep any any wolves down there like we saw

earlier?

Do you know anything about that?

Or fermented.

SPEAKER_00: I don't think they're in the cellar, but they

patrol the manor from time to time.

So you can't find it.

We haven't gone into the cellar before.

SPEAKER_03: Right.

You can't get to this door, go through a whole bunch of tunnels

getting under like the cemetery and everything else.

You have to get all the way to the manor to get into the door.

It's near the manor.

SPEAKER_00: It's near the front gate.

SPEAKER_03: But not on a little in a little depression in the

ground.

Okay.

So it is not necessarily like if the manor is this stump, it's

not at the base of the stump, it's out from the room.

It's a little bit out from the okay.

All right.

So Merrick can no doubt use his super stealthy halfling stuff

and get a get that scouted out for us.

Okay.

When the time comes.

All right.

Well, now we have a plan.

We have a plan.

Let's stick to it.

Well, until first contact anyway.

Yeah, it's not going to survive.

SPEAKER_00: The plan's going to change before we get there.

We'll take care of the villagers.

And I I and I owe you one for rescuing me from the no matter

how you did it, and it looks at theorem.

SPEAKER_06: Yes, you do.

SPEAKER_00: What?

What happened?

SPEAKER_06: What?

What did I do?

SPEAKER_00: He was the one you fireballed.

I'm going to make sure that we get Stokely out.

My boys will take the villagers back to Ashenford.

You are welcome there if you'd like.

unknown: Okay.

SPEAKER_00: How far away is this?

Our druid keeps the kept the ogres and ogre mage out.

He made a bramble wall.

SPEAKER_03: I'm sorry.

Is this druid here right now?

What are you talking about?

SPEAKER_05: Well, presumably he's talking about the druid

here right now creating something magically to keep the

ogres out of Ashenford.

SPEAKER_00: There's a place where you can enter the bramble

wall safely.

It's hidden.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: I'm pretty sure what is the water.

It's near the top of the waterfall.

So that's not all about it.

If you ever go there, it's near the top of the waterfall.

SPEAKER_06: There's only one waterfall.

That's all you gotta know.

SPEAKER_02: Don't go chasing waterfall.

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00: Stick to the rivers and the lakes that you're used

to.

Right.

Jesus Christ.

I know you want to have it your way or nothing at all.

But I think you're moving too fast.

It's just the way it is.

SPEAKER_01: What in the actual hell just happened?

The door was left open.

SPEAKER_03: And I'm still waiting for right through it.

I'm still waiting for how far from here is Ashenford.

I'm still waiting for how to do that.

You're never going to get that.

SPEAKER_06: They have a Druid there.

SPEAKER_03: And there's a water pole.

And a Bramblewall.

SPEAKER_06: So I can roll it.

SPEAKER_03: I'll find it on the map.

Google Map.

Someday.

SPEAKER_06: You put it in a Google and see what it says.

Bramblewall.

SPEAKER_03: Ashenford Bramblewall.

That's going to be my new character name.

SPEAKER_00: It's like a relative of Merrick Thornleaf.

SPEAKER_05: Ashenford Bramblewall.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: Actually, I do kind of like it.

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no.

SPEAKER_03: That's his little brother.

Or his cousin.

Cousin.

Alright.

So are the bandits going with us or are they shepherding the

village?

Whitmore is going to go with you.

Alright, and the rest are shepherding the villagers.

The rest are shepherding the villagers.

Okay.

To the manor.

Are we going to horse our way or are we going to I think we

should horse it?

And then hide the horses for our manor assault.

SPEAKER_00: On this episode of Retro Rollcast, we turned the

word horse into a verb.

Horse.

We're going to horse it.

SPEAKER_06: We're going to horse it?

SPEAKER_03: Right?

I'm sorry.

Have you never heard of horse play?

Or is that an adjective?

SPEAKER_04: I don't know.

Describing or is it an ad or play?

That's a noun.

None of us have an English degree.

SPEAKER_03: Horse it.

SPEAKER_04: You can verb anything.

SPEAKER_00: He just did again.

SPEAKER_03: Words are hard.

I feel like with the internet, it doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_00: It's the magic of language.

All right, are you gonna you guys gonna pindar up this plan?

Or we've all pinned our plan.

Until first contact.

SPEAKER_06: Did you do a pindar again?

SPEAKER_00: On God.

All right.

All right.

Well, why don't you finish marriaging up the village plan

and then we'll go from there?

Bet.

Stop it.

All right.

Okay, so plan for the rest of the day.

It's like midday right now.

Salt the matter.

Yeah.

What are we waiting for?

SPEAKER_05: We're slaughtering a cow and having dinner.

SPEAKER_06: And we have salted pork.

SPEAKER_05: Yeah.

SPEAKER_06: Plenty of pork.

Come on.

SPEAKER_04: Don't kill anything.

Well, how far what's the travel time to the manor from here?

SPEAKER_00: It's probably a couple miles of roughish

terrain.

I think we called the beef jerky woods.

Roughish woods with maybe a winding hilly road at the end of

it or whatever you do.

SPEAKER_04: Well, we were already there once, right?

SPEAKER_00: Right.

SPEAKER_03: Yeah, we know how to get there.

That was where the wolves were.

I'm not saying nobody can slaughter a cow.

I'm just saying we're not waiting around for them to turn

it into beef jerky before we leave.

Wolfies?

Huh?

Wolfies.

Yeah, there's wolves.

So that's a great point, though.

Let's take some meat for the wolves to distract them.

Good idea.

SPEAKER_06: So they can send us.

That's what I meant.

SPEAKER_03: Yes.

Yeah.

Good idea, Merrick.

I totally wasn't talking about eating it myself.

The cow for the wolf.

The halfling's idea was to wait around, butcher a cow, make

dinner.

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: Like all day he's been like he's had this vision

of a sizzling steak.

Right.

Yeah.

Ribs.

Right.

Be stewed.

What you didn't notice was on the way.

You're leading uh his steak out to be steak to a post and have

wolves stick on it.

SPEAKER_05: Okay, but what you don't know is while I was

scouting, I collected mushrooms and wild onions.

SPEAKER_06: Ooh, stooped for that steak.

And ate half a night.

SPEAKER_03: We didn't even bury the night.

Hey, whatever you're into, bro.

SPEAKER_06: We just thought we were busy.

That's all on Reyes, not us.

SPEAKER_04: Not me.

SPEAKER_06: That's it's Lord Reyes.

SPEAKER_04: I am Lord Reyes.

Saying no to eating people.

You can say a prayer over.

I'm talking about eating a cow.

SPEAKER_06: Where did we get to eating people?

Oh, what else about it?

It was all meats.

He had cooked food right in front of him.

He had a steak.

SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's pipe down the cannibalism back on

track.

SPEAKER_03: We're just gonna like if they have butchered

cannibal already, we take some of that meat for distraction

purposes for the wolves.

Okay.

Elves are cannibals.

So let's take a sack of the cow meat for the wolves.

Yeah, but there's no vegetarians.

SPEAKER_00: Sorry, in RuneQuest, elves are plants.

SPEAKER_03: Oh, that's right.

SPEAKER_00: Elves are plants.

SPEAKER_03: That's true.

I guess you are what you eat.

SPEAKER_06: Like orcs in Warhammer.

SPEAKER_03: They're plants?

Yeah, they grow on the ground.

Well, in in the new expansion, they are.

SPEAKER_00: They've almost so no let's execute.

I just need to know how you're planning on traveling there.

Are you backs?

Are you backtracking on the trail that you followed and then

taking the road?

Or are you dead reckoning where you believe the manor to be,

straight through the woods?

Don't they think it up at night?

Right, they're night.

SPEAKER_03: Is that how long it'll take?

It'll be getting close to dark.

It's not sure.

SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.

It's two miles through woods.

So you feel you can probably you can get that done.

SPEAKER_03: All right.

So there's merit to what you're saying.

Because if we get there at dusk and they leave in an attempt to

continue their search for us or whatever they plan on doing at

night, like when they're awake, they'll be gone and we can go

rescue Stokely easier.

Yeah, we gotta get there first.

SPEAKER_06: I can hit it from here.

You just gotta lob it.

SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you really just gotta get the ankle on.

Nobody would notice that.

Okay, shit.

SPEAKER_05: Hey, look at that huge ball of fire arcing across

the sky towards us.

SPEAKER_04: It's gonna be intercontinental ballistic,

right?

Intercontinental ballistic fireball?

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: How are you gonna account for wind resistance and

air movement?

It's magic.

It's magic, yeah.

It's like laser guided munitions.

All you have to do is look at the manor house and watch the

fireball.

It's there.

It's Starlink guided by Starlink.

Are there any spells that say things within like within sight?

There are some.

Yeah.

Not that one.

SPEAKER_00: I think the old school essentials, that's magic

missile.

Yeah.

Gotta see it.

Anything you can see.

SPEAKER_06: Man, a guy all the way over there in the hill.

SPEAKER_00: Like a but we're not playing old school essentials.

No.

It's like a sniper.

I was picturing actual missiles.

SPEAKER_07: Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: You know what the odd thing is?

No.

Because that's a very popular system, old school essentials.

But the season we played that is by far the season with the least

amount of listeners.

SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's not very popular.

SPEAKER_00: It's because those 3d6 down the line guys have that

market wired.

Guess so.

We like those guys.

Yeah, they're all right.

I'm listening to that.

I think their DM is actually from around here originally.

SPEAKER_03: Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: Like Carlisle or something.

SPEAKER_03: Well, why don't you hit him up and ask him?

Maybe he can come in and guess GM for give us some of their

listeners.

Yeah.

Why don't we go earn them by assaulting this manner?

That's it.

SPEAKER_00: In an entertaining fashion.

SPEAKER_05: I really thought you were about to suggest some sort

of assault upon 3d6 down the line.

With what?

I don't know.

But that's where I was heading, and then I was disappointed.

SPEAKER_00: All right.

No, we listen.

We love you guys.

If you're listening, probably not.

Probably not.

Meet us at park with nerf swords.

SPEAKER_03: And to our listeners, just because we're

mentioning 3d6 down the line, don't go listen to them and

abandon us.

We can be true.

SPEAKER_04: It's going to be like a battle between the

different news companies in Anchorman.

Yes.

SPEAKER_03: Doc, you get nerfed and unchecks.

Yes.

No.

All right.

So no, we are going to take a different path back to the

matter just because you asked us the question.

SPEAKER_04: Yep.

Obviously, he was setting something.

SPEAKER_03: And I'm going to lead them through the worst

swampy parts I can find.

You mean our horses and us.

SPEAKER_04: And you're you being the littlest person walking

through the swamp.

Swampy parts.

SPEAKER_00: You can give them your ring of water walking.

SPEAKER_05: Oh, that would be hilarious.

SPEAKER_03: I can walk out, everybody goes, Yeah, you know,

you guys could always switch, right?

You could switch your ring of water walking for the ring of

protection.

You probably need the protection, and he probably

needs the water walking.

It wouldn't be an unfair trade that would make scouting really

kind of easy.

Yeah, you could cross rivers.

What's an armor class to you?

You're supposed to be hidden anyway.

This guy goes and gets in combat.

SPEAKER_00: Well, despite all common sense, he goes and gets

in combat.

I mean, stupid.

But there's like a 20 minutes of our podcast is dedicated to the

fight of the movable object versus the resistible force that

happened.

All right.

Yeah.

All right, lead the way, Merrick.

Let's go.

I'm leading the way.

Okay.

You plunge on through the forest.

SPEAKER_06: We're retreating rings.

We're going to exchange our rings in a battle.

SPEAKER_04: Can you do a ceremony?

No.

They're exchanging rings.

They're exchanging rings, dude.

SPEAKER_00: Let's go.

Opportunity missed.

When an elf and a halfling love each other very much.

When an elf loves a halfling.

SPEAKER_06: I would never.

Okay.

We always need to act this out.

SPEAKER_03: I want to see some acting out.

And I wouldn't hear the ceremony because his God's name may be

off somewhere in there.

By the power vested in me, my Lord.

I'll even put on my good armor.

SPEAKER_06: She doesn't like her name spoken.

SPEAKER_03: I still maintain he has no.

SPEAKER_06: Okay, it's time to go.

Let's go.

SPEAKER_05: I still want to know who his deity is, though.

It's a she.

It's a she.

Let's see.

Let's get the list here.

Female Greyhawk deities.

SPEAKER_06: It's not female.

I never said it was female.

SPEAKER_03: He said she.

SPEAKER_06: So we're riding back off the descent.

SPEAKER_03: We're following Merrick.

SPEAKER_06: On horseback.

SPEAKER_00: Okay.

Follow Merrick, what's your wisdom score?

SPEAKER_06: Yeah, Merrick.

SPEAKER_03: Wisdom.

Ten.

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06: Okay.

Yeah.

All right.

What kind of wisdom is that?

SPEAKER_03: Average.

What kind of question is that?

Is the question?

SPEAKER_00: Merrick picks a heading.

All right, Merrick.

He decided to go.

SPEAKER_03: Two hexes later.

SPEAKER_06: Shouldn't we been there by now?

SPEAKER_03: We're gonna end up in Zeep's run.

Don't I at least get a roll or something?

Did you roll?

SPEAKER_00: He rolls 40.

I will I know.

I will make a roll for you.

This actually This is not gonna go well.

No, we're gonna go behind the curtain.

Uh this is episode 16, right?

Okay.

Of this particular I was going to do this entire campaign

without ever rolling an attribute check as an

experiment.

So we haven't rolled one up until now.

unknown: Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: Just to prove that you can, and I was gonna reveal

this.

So we're revealing it now because we're finally making an

attribute check.

Because I don't think you need attribute checks to play this

game in an entertaining and fun manner.

Because most of the things that you use these checks for are

either impossible or really easy.

And you're just gonna have either too much failure or too

much success for the I would say this is either one of those.

Right, which is why we're finally rolling it.

Okay, the GM is rolling it for you, and so I don't know the

results.

So we did 16 episodes now, no attribute checks whatsoever.

So the real failure.

I'm just making a point.

SPEAKER_03: Yeah, well, I think I'm feeling a little attacked

because I think people make attribute checks in my 2e game

that Sean plays in.

I did all the time.

SPEAKER_05: I think he's insulting you directly.

SPEAKER_03: I think so.

SPEAKER_05: I'm feeling it.

SPEAKER_00: I did all the time in our previous game.

If you rewind it a little bit and listen carefully, you can

hear fuck you right.

We never really did it back in the 80s.

Okay.

And I just since we were going back and playing first edition A

D, I wanted to do it old school.

But that they are a thing that you can use for exactly

situations like the role.

But again, most things people ask for are either too easy or

too hard to really make it make sense.

Does he know where North is?

Okay.

Merrick plunges into the forest.

SPEAKER_03: Damn it.

He failed his role.

He died in the woods.

We follow him.

Our DM doesn't have a poker for me.

What if I throw this, bounce it off Sean's forehead into the

screen, and then he reads the result, but doesn't tell you

anyway.

SPEAKER_00: Go for it.

There's no way I'm hitting your forehead.

Don't do it.

You made it.

Oh maybe not.

SPEAKER_06: You don't know that.

Robert Doctor is fucking.

Is he loving?

SPEAKER_05: The urge to try is strong.

SPEAKER_00: I think it would be humorous.

You just want to throw it in.

But our listeners are never going to see the hilarity which

dexterity.

SPEAKER_05: You'd hit the TV and crack it.

But the TV would probably still put it where I need it to go.

What's Sean's dexterity score?

These days, not very high.

Single digits, four.

I've got those negative modifiers for age.

TV falls on four.

SPEAKER_00: Well, it's probably it depends on what we're talking

about.

Okay, so you plunge on into the forest.

It is hard going throughout the day.

You pick your way through rocky glades and dense glades and

different stands of trees.

You pass a small grove of foastwood trees that seem

largely bereft of leaves.

Like a lot of skeletal foastwood tree.

Seems like there might be some sort of blight or something.

SPEAKER_03: Invasive species from Ius lantern flies.

But you keep there's a ton of those out front here.

SPEAKER_00: You keep following up over small ridges and larger

ridges as you make your way in the direction that you felt was

the correct.

SPEAKER_03: Do we ever get an indication of when cresting one

of these ridges?

We never get a view of the valley that we're leaving by the

back door by net without knowing.

SPEAKER_06: Where did we start?

SPEAKER_00: That's the manor.

And about, I'd say it's probably like 6 30 p.m.

time.

Oh man.

You stumble across a road.

And beyond the road is a steep hill.

Should there be a road here?

Yeah, there's a road to the manor house.

SPEAKER_03: No, I know.

All right.

So I guess the goal is to find that tunnel.

So I'm going to head in that area.

All right.

Well, if this is the hill at the bottom where the manor house is,

should like should we like stake our horses down here somewhere?

Probably.

Like in a secluded same place we did last time?

Well, we're not exactly in the room.

You don't recognize any of the foliage around here as you

having been here before.

And we're so wait, so well, we weren't at the base of the road

at the base of the mountain, which is where this is, right?

It's kind of just starting up here.

SPEAKER_00: Right.

You have seen the back side.

You have seen roads while you were on the mountain.

You saw you crossed the road by the giant's camp, and then you

followed that road down to the village.

That's all of the road that you've experienced.

We have experienced this is none of those three two places.

SPEAKER_03: This isn't the road with the waving ogre.

Right.

There was the road with the waving ogre that led to the map.

SPEAKER_00: That was on the side of the hill.

SPEAKER_03: Right.

Up.

And this road goes up a hill.

SPEAKER_00: This you can see a hill rising beyond this road.

SPEAKER_03: Oh, okay.

Not that the road goes up, so we're not on the hill yet.

We're not even on the hill.

Right.

SPEAKER_00: You don't know where this road goes.

SPEAKER_03: Oh, okay.

All right.

So we all right.

Well, I guess we'll carry on then.

It goes to the manor house, of course.

That was what I thought.

But now unerring sense of direction.

Well, scout on then.

Guess we're about to find out.

SPEAKER_00: So right on the low road, left on the road, straight

ahead into the forest and up the hill.

Straight ahead and up the hill.

Okay.

SPEAKER_03: Straight on till midnight.

Okay.

Until midnight.

I thought it was second start at 11, straight on till morning.

SPEAKER_06: You suddenly feel stopped.

That's another location.

We don't want to go there yet.

SPEAKER_03: Okay.

SPEAKER_05: Are you a lost boy?

SPEAKER_00: You begin climbing the hill the hillside.

Is there a burly saxophone player?

You go about 600 yards past the road, and you can see that it's

clearing up ahead a bit.

And we're going up the hill at this point.

SPEAKER_02: Okay.

SPEAKER_00: So I go to with And you get to the edge of the

clearing and you can see up above you, about 20 feet,

there's a ledge.

You can't see what's beyond it.

And there is a you can smell the foul stench of something rotting

and dead.

So that ledge is the potty ledge.

We keep running into potties.

Potty ledges.

We do.

What is it?

To be clear, it smells like something that's dead.

It doesn't smell like shit.

Well, okay.

Yes, there is, yeah.

SPEAKER_05: Those are two distinct bad smells.

Alright, then I'm going to circle to the left.

Is this something that we killed maybe?

It's the overall.

Circle out and around.

So circle to the left.

Okay.

Like around and up, so I can hopefully come out up here and

see what's on the Okay.

SPEAKER_00: So the rest of you guys.

SPEAKER_03: Is he on his horse doing this?

No.

SPEAKER_00: Well, you guys left your horse and left.

SPEAKER_03: Oh, we did leave him down there.

Okay.

I wasn't sure.

SPEAKER_00: Well, that's how that's what I took it that you

guys were doing.

Signaling for them to stop, and then I'm going to go back to the

street.

It would be very hard for the horses to go up.

SPEAKER_03: Right.

That's why I was okay.

Yeah.

That's why I was making sure once we got the tail.

Okay.

SPEAKER_00: You're going to the left.

So you're going off to the left and circling up the hill.

But the rest of you guys are staying put?

Following.

At a safe distance.

Oh, you're following him.

Don't follow me.

I'm going to stay.

Finally follow.

What I want you to do.

Stay here and make sure.

He doesn't leave.

Right.

Okay.

So you go off to the left and you stumble across.

You hear the buzzing first of many flies.

And castles sink into the swamp.

And the flies are feasting upon the corpse of a surprised and

disappointed looking ogre.

SPEAKER_01: Oh man, that guy.

SPEAKER_00: That you've seen before.

SPEAKER_06: We remember him.

SPEAKER_01: He's surprised and disappointed.

SPEAKER_06: Yeah, well, yeah, we think.

SPEAKER_01: The story of my life.

SPEAKER_05: He's like sprawled out over a rock.

And then like I stop for a second.

Sightless eyes looking up.

I'm like, oh, now I know where we are.

SPEAKER_03: Okay.

So we're right where we need to be.

Like piles of brush thrown on top of him.

SPEAKER_00: Didn't we throw some brush on him?

We did.

I think I thought you just kicked him down this down the

slope.

That was good enough.

SPEAKER_03: Yeah.

Over the clearly it worked.

SPEAKER_06: Yep.

He's still there.

SPEAKER_03: Yeah.

All right.

And it's 6 30.

You said give or take?

Now it's probably 7 50.

So we have about an hour of light.

Ish.

Well, it's summertime, so.

So hour to two hours tops.

Okay.

Are we making a daylight assault here?

Is that no.

No?

Rush up and just well, that that would make more sense because

then they would be sleeping.

Right.

SPEAKER_06: Or just waking up now, grab daylight.

Hit them.

SPEAKER_03: The alternative is we wait and hope they leave.

Right.

Those are like, but we don't know either one of those things.

Obviously, I think we need to take out.

SPEAKER_00: But at this point with seeing him, you know that

up over the rise where it clears is probably the road that winds

up and around the mountain.

SPEAKER_03: Which we need to cross.

So we've got a bit yet before we're even there.

Yeah.

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: So I'm gonna have to attack go up to the edge of the

road, trying to not be seen.

Okay.

And scout that area to see if there's any traffic.

Anybody.

SPEAKER_00: Okay.

So you make your way up to the road, climbing up over the the

lip onto the road, your booted foot like slips on a rock, and

your leg kicks out, and you can hear you all hear a number of

rocks tumble down to the valley.

He failed that roll.

SPEAKER_03: No, you did.

SPEAKER_00: I didn't roll anything.

He failed for you.

And you like freeze.

What do you do?

I freeze.

Okay.

You continuing up or going back down?

SPEAKER_05: I'm gonna wait a minute to see if there's any

reaction.

SPEAKER_00: Okay.

Any movement.

Let's do this in real time.

We'll wait a minute.

That was awkward.

SPEAKER_06: Wait to see if we hear anything.

SPEAKER_00: All right.

You wait a moment, you hear nothing.

Okay, then I'll continue on.

All right.

Okay, and you hoist yourself up over the the road lip more

quietly this time.

And you look around, you don't you can see now the manor house

up at the top of the hill in the distance.

This appears to be about the same spot where you had to run

in with the ogre before.

And there's woods on on the left-hand side.

There's woods that you were that you guys ducked into before when

you because you went up to the manor house before when you went

straight up the hill and follow the road.

But that's about where you are.

You can see the the the scrubby trees on the far side of the

road, but you don't see any motion or movement.

Okay, then I will go back to the party.

unknown: Okay.

SPEAKER_03: Lead them up to the road so we can cross.

SPEAKER_06: What smells?

SPEAKER_03: Watch out for that loose rock.

Dead ogre.

Yeah, the smell was the small was the dead ogre cord.

SPEAKER_06: So we uh just run up to the manor now and attack it.

SPEAKER_03: No.

SPEAKER_06: Do it.

Oh, we have to find the wine cellar.

SPEAKER_03: Right.

Now, Whitmore was that on.

Do you know what that wine cellar door was on?

This side of the manor or the other?

unknown: Yes.

SPEAKER_00: So it's up and to the right of the gate.

Off of the main road.

SPEAKER_03: So that's where we saw the wolf guard things,

right?

That we saw that was like a door.

Well, in the compound.

All right.

I got the sack of meat.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you explored the left side of the direction.

You hang on to that.

SPEAKER_03: I will.

So it's time to meet snack.

Maybe I won't throw it for the wolves.

I'll only do it if I'm chased, not if you're chased.

There you go.

Super meat boy.

Super meatboy.

Super meat boy.

Sorry, I just had a had a mom joke in my head there.

I didn't say it.

A mom joke.

SPEAKER_00: So so what are you doing?

SPEAKER_05: So leading them up to the road, and then I'm gonna

leave them at the the original side of the road, cross, scout,

look for reactions, and then once it's clear, signal them

across.

SPEAKER_00: Okay.

You can you can scurry.

You can do all that.

unknown: Okay.

SPEAKER_03: So we want to get to the edge of the what was that?

Like garden thing?

Wasn't there like a wall?

Like a staring contest between the room.

He's rolling dice nonchalantly.

I don't trust him.

It's the oldest book trick in the GM book.

Just randomly rolling dice.

SPEAKER_00: I am guilty.

The other old trick is branding rolling dice for a purpose.

Yeah.

He's quite a dichotomy today.

But it sounds the same.

SPEAKER_06: Years don't make any noise.

Gotta watch room to make notes though.

SPEAKER_00: If I wanted to make you really paranoid, I could no

because that actually doesn't.

SPEAKER_01: I know nothing uses that much dice.

The single, yeah, it's the one check.

SPEAKER_00: Oh right.

The fireball those.

Rolling these rubber dice gives me anything.

SPEAKER_03: They're all so similar.

All right.

So I don't like this.

Did you find it?

No one else does either.

SPEAKER_06: It went away.

SPEAKER_03: Return it.

They don't know you used them.

No, I'll keep it on there.

All right.

But the whole like I like them.

I don't like them.

So we're across the road.

How far is it to the manor house from here?

We still have to go up the hill 100 yards.

100 yards from it.

All right.

Lead the way, Merrick.

Well, are we gonna go in tonight or are we gonna wait till the

morning?

I think we scout it out in the daylight because we can see

better.

We only have a little bit of daylight.

Well, that's enough.

Okay.

We'll wait for that golden light period and then we'll assault

them right at dawn.

That's right.

SPEAKER_06: The dragons can't see well.

SPEAKER_03: Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: Okay.

Okay.

So you make your way up the up the hill through the cops of low

trees.

The cops?

Cool.

Hey Cobbs.

SPEAKER_06: Don't let the cops see you.

Do you have Edric?

Do you have this silence?

Do I have silence?

I do have silence.

SPEAKER_03: Okay.

He's got the silence.

Memorize it.

Is it awkward?

Yes.

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_06: Otherwise, I wouldn't have.

SPEAKER_05: Very well.

SPEAKER_00: Shout out to Awkward Silence.

SPEAKER_06: Awkward silence.

Silence of awkwardness.

SPEAKER_00: Awkward silence needs some company on our he is

right now our sole patron.

Get out there selling awkwardness.

I don't know.

That's kind of awesome.

And because he is, we've given him shout-outs like four

episodes in a row.

Well keep giving.

We haven't given him anything useful yet.

We haven't actually officially launched our Patreon.

We haven't told anybody about it.

Give him anything one little post on Instagram.

Oh, yeah, as a test to see if we could post back and forth.

Right, to see if I could post on Instagram.

SPEAKER_03: And he's like, why don't you have it set up?

SPEAKER_00: And we set it up and just for him.

And then he showed him.

SPEAKER_06: Wow.

SPEAKER_00: So thanks.

But I promise I will have content available on our Patreon

for those who wish to access it.

SPEAKER_03: So around the manor.

Sneak.

SPEAKER_00: You're sneaking through the cops?

SPEAKER_03: I'm sneaking to the right to try to find the tunnel.

SPEAKER_00: All right.

Oh, okay.

So you're gonna go from there like closer to the road that

winds up.

The road winds up to the right.

SPEAKER_05: Well, from the way he described it, I'm assuming

what he meant was the entrance is on the right hand side of the

road.

Correct.

When it gets to the manor.

Right.

So I'm going to stay on the right hand side of the road,

skirt it, and head up the mountain.

SPEAKER_00: Alright, but you already crossed the road.

I'm going back.

Okay, so you're going back down the way you came and then

heading back up.

Okay.

And you guys are chilling.

I guess so.

SPEAKER_03: I'm confused on the geography of the city.

SPEAKER_06: We're sitting right in the middle of the road.

SPEAKER_03: It's okay.

I'm sitting there rolling one up, watching.

SPEAKER_00: Or rolling one up.

SPEAKER_06: Little campfire going on.

SPEAKER_00: My halfling pipe weed.

I'm going to do a patented impromptu GM map.

A little bit of long bottom leaf.

That's it.

And I'm only drawing the road as long as you've ever seen it.

Now remember the lessons learned.

Which is what?

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06: I can't remember.

SPEAKER_04: Waiting for the lesson here.

SPEAKER_06: Blindly charge in.

SPEAKER_04: Make sure you are 100% sure of what your map looks

like before you hand it.

Yeah, I've learned that lesson, I guess.

It'll be fine.

He's drawing squares.

Okay.

Well, then we're safe.

Or the listeners safe.

SPEAKER_03: No listeners.

SPEAKER_06: No listeners safe.

SPEAKER_03: One and a two.

For no reason.

He's rolling dice, everyone.

Yep.

All right, let's see.

Why?

Teen 16.

It doesn't mean anything.

Okay.

The moment it means something, you're roll terrible.

You're right.

I can't argue random.

SPEAKER_00: All right.

This is terrible, but this was your pathway.

So you came up here.

This is the dead ogre.

Okay.

You climbed up.

Road is going this way.

It stops as far as you've been there.

I have a question mark here.

So we don't know.

Because you haven't seen any of that.

This is the woods.

You were here on the edge of the woods.

There is like low scrub brush between there and the overgrown

garden.

And then there's the manor house.

SPEAKER_04: Okay.

Okay.

So now we are on the room.

SPEAKER_00: Whitmore believes the entry to the root cellar to

be where this X is.

Oh.

Okay.

SPEAKER_03: See, I pictured the road when I was picturing it for

some reason going the opposite direction of what it is.

Meaning I had it in my mind going the other way, left.

SPEAKER_00: I think it was.

I think it's because we're on opposite sides of the table.

Could be.

SPEAKER_03: Well, I'm pretty sure the if you looked at that

in a mirror, that's how I would have pictured that thing going.

SPEAKER_06: So we're going towards the man anyway.

SPEAKER_03: Okay.

SPEAKER_00: The road is going to the right, and the the So what I

have it from is that you guys are going to hang out here at

the edge of the woods.

Yes.

And Merrick, you are going to creep back here and then go on

the right side on up the hill.

All right, I guess we'll wait.

Okay.

So you guys are chilling.

Do you have any form of plan as to how to communicate with each

other?

Well, I'm why am I prompting you?

If I had a does anybody want to do anything?

Anything you're gonna do.

SPEAKER_04: I want to kill a cow and take its horns.

SPEAKER_05: We already did that.

SPEAKER_03: Look, I think it might take more than a couple

hours to make that.

I can I can start it now.

Do you want to make him invisible?

SPEAKER_06: Darren?

Don't you have it too?

I can silence them.

SPEAKER_03: Well, yeah, but this is to save my life.

SPEAKER_07: Oh.

SPEAKER_00: Yes.

Some of you may die, but that is the price that I am willing to

pay.

SPEAKER_05: The world's most cowardly half-elf.

That's fine.

I swear to God.

SPEAKER_06: If you die, as long as I'm safe.

SPEAKER_03: That's yeah.

So I guess not.

I guess not.

SPEAKER_06: I think he's good right now.

SPEAKER_03: All right, yeah, well, just let him go.

SPEAKER_06: He did perfectly fine the last time.

Snuck into the bedroom and everything.

SPEAKER_04: You have full confidence in his abilities, is

what you're saying?

SPEAKER_03: Yeah.

SPEAKER_06: He's super stealth.

SPEAKER_03: All right.

Well, if we hear you make what noise?

Scream.

SPEAKER_00: Scream.

SPEAKER_03: Scream.

Because we're way too far away to do anything to help you from

here.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm not sure that's him.

SPEAKER_03: Just not like somebody being tortured.

SPEAKER_06: Yeah, when someone is running from the police and

they release a dog when the dog gets to that person, there's an

audible signal.

So anyway, I don't know what we can.

We can, you know.

SPEAKER_03: I'm just trying to find the tunnel entrance.

He doesn't care about us.

We will wait and hope he does not get caught.

Because we might not even know.

Presumably the tunnel entrance is secret, right?

SPEAKER_05: Just do the occupants even know it exists.

We don't know.

SPEAKER_04: It's secret to no one here.

We know.

SPEAKER_03: He told he blabbed and told us everybody in our

party knows about it.

How'd he even know?

He must have been here scouting it out at some point.

SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to make you roll a lore check.

Maybe he's a cleric.

You have not found in your years that generally root cellars are

kept a secret.

The secret root cellar.

Well, if you were in a halfling village, you might because the

half-factory.

Facts steel farmer maggots vegetables.

So you creep down past the road and you skirt the road on the

low side, which it keeps you out of vision of the and the road

winds on up the hill.

As you get closer to the top of the hill, and you can you're

actually gotten to a point where you can see the uh the sunlight

bathing the lands beyond the forest.

You can actually see the moorish hills off in the distance.

Way off in the distance, you can you know there is Garsen and uh

and the areas that the barren oversees.

As you get closer to the you hear voices talking back and

forth.

Ogre ish voices.

What are they saying?

Coming from on high.

Do you speak ogrish?

Yeah, you can't really tell out from this distance what they're

saying, but there is discussion back and forth between it sounds

like two of them.

SPEAKER_05: Okay.

And so I guess I was wrong.

I took from what we were told that this was supposed to be

some sort of secret entrance.

Am I wrong in that?

We don't know.

That's what the the bandits thought.

SPEAKER_04: Okay.

Well, it probably is for ogres.

They can't kick it in a root cellar, I wouldn't imagine.

SPEAKER_00: Maybe.

Yep, the the sort of slope next to the road evens out and

there's less of a drop-off.

And you can see as you like get a little bit closer to that

point, you can see the manor house probably 150 feet away.

Okay.

You can see the the first the the tower comes into view.

And you can see there is an ogre ish figure walking back and

forth on the top of the tower.

What color is it?

It is a normal, uh ruddy colored.

It's not blue.

It's not blue.

Okay.

And then you see there's a little bit of a depression in

the because the road stops being a road at that point and just

starts being like a beaten-down courtyard sort of area.

And you can see that there's a little depression on the far

like hillside about 30, 40 feet away.

Okay.

But you'd probably be in the open a little bit if you unless

you went all the way back around.

And how much time do I have left before sun sets?

It's getting pretty close, probably like a half hour, 40

minutes till the sun sets below the western hills.

Alright, I'm gonna head back to the party.

Let me know what I found.

Okay.

And it takes you about 15 minutes to get back to the

party, and you tell them what you found.

SPEAKER_03: So before he gets back to the party.

While he's gone.

SPEAKER_06: We had a discussion.

We had, yeah, we had a discussion.

SPEAKER_03: We had a little discussion.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I wasn't really paying.

I saw you guys were making notes and passing notes.

SPEAKER_03: It could have it could we could be way off

basically.

It could be completely fueled by paranoia.

I'm just saying.

More than like more.

And bad information and probably some bad information.

Everything else.

But we're killing Whitmore.

It's not that we're killing Whitmore.

I just had this moment of paranoia where the ogre mage

disappeared right when they were in the middle of combat with the

village, like the people, right?

And the ogre mage disappeared.

We know he can disappear.

Can he look like something else?

We don't know.

SPEAKER_00: But I have I don't think they told you that he

disappeared during that combat.

SPEAKER_03: No, but you said the footprints disappeared, right?

SPEAKER_00: Well, they stopped going in a direction at a

certain point.

SPEAKER_03: The ogre mage can also fly.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I know.

And invisibility wouldn't make footprints disappear.

SPEAKER_03: Nope.

I'm not invisibility.

I'm like turning yourself, polymorphed himself into

Whitmore.

But he changed himself like, oh, there's the confusion of a

battle.

And now the to infiltrate, he changes himself into polymorphs

or something.

I don't know if they can even do this.

Polymorphs himself into one of the one of the people.

That's a pretty high-level paranoia right there.

SPEAKER_06: It is.

But we are.

SPEAKER_00: We are, and we all agree that it's going to change

paranoid.

Because I I think it would be better if this paranoia were to

just be resolved right now.

But we're going to have to resolve this particular paranoia

on the next episode of Retro Rollcast.

SPEAKER_05: That's been a Retro Rollcast product.