OSRIC, Shadows of the Pale Ep17
After interrogating their Bandit ally, the heroes creep closer to the manor house, investigating the root cellar tunnel near the summit. untold things skitter in the darkness as the companions try to gain a foothold inside the Giants' hold...
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!
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#ad&d #Osric #OSR #ttrpg #actualplay #rpg #Dnd #oldschoolrpg #tabletoprpg #retrogaming #greyhawk
1 SPEAKER_07: Meanwhile, on Retro Rollcast.
So we give the spider, we hollow it out, stuff you in the spider,
right?
That's Robert's gone.
The Trojan spider.
If we can't reduce on everybody, can we fit everybody inside the
spider?
Or enlarge on the spider.
And then we can just like each grab a leg and it's the dumbest
idea he's ever had.
I don't know what.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know where he's going with this, but it's
dumb.
SPEAKER_07: It's dumb.
It's actually the second dumbest idea he's ever had.
Wow.
Okay, what's the what's number one?
The next one.
Right.
SPEAKER_02: Whatever this is leader.
SPEAKER_03: Like, cascaded.
We're gonna have to create a trainer as the leader.
SPEAKER_07: But the temperature in the room is about the same.
Let's close.
Right.
SPEAKER_04: It was pretty steamy at Lazarus Games.
It is pretty steamy now.
We are recording in the evening, which is unusual for us.
Because we are we're not morning people, but we usually record in
the morning.
But we are here in the Attic of Doom, ready to move on with the
podcast.
How are we doing today, guys?
Ready to win at DD.
Yes.
I don't know how to act because I said all of that and none of
you interrupted.
Because we just got yelled at.
SPEAKER_07: We had wings.
We just got to write.
Oh, we're settled in.
We're all like, yeah, we're been a long day.
SPEAKER_04: Everybody worked today.
We're realizing why we don't eat before the podcast.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_06: I have my two monsters, but it's not
counteracting the wings.
Yeah, I think it's a good point that we all have jobs.
Everyone should know that who's listening.
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
Do we?
SPEAKER_06: This is not what we all get a paid.
SPEAKER_04: This is a labor of love.
Yeah, we either work in tech or healthcare, or both.
Yeah.
And there's a transition.
Me and John and Rodney work for competing tech conglomerates.
That's true.
Which has never made it awkward.
SPEAKER_07: There is tension.
It's palpable.
It's palatable.
We both think your company sucks.
And you guys probably, we probably all think my company
sucks.
I think both your companies sucks.
No, actually, I'm not sure.
SPEAKER_04: Well, and the other thing is we compete and we also
collaborate.
What a tangled web.
I mean we were getting a little too into the work.
SPEAKER_07: But now I do nothing like that.
We don't want to bring our listeners down by talking about
work.
We did.
In fact, I thought you were just going to go straight into
intros.
SPEAKER_04: I didn't know what to do when you guys didn't
interrupt my intro.
SPEAKER_07: Well, you could have just seguated into it.
SPEAKER_04: So now we're just in this weird place.
SPEAKER_03: This is a reluctant leader?
A reluctant leader, yes.
He doesn't want to be, although he's forced to be because No one
else will do it.
SPEAKER_07: There's a bunch of idiots.
SPEAKER_06: Lord of these new lands.
SPEAKER_07: You know why you're the leader?
Because I was told to be the leader.
Because you have the most hit points.
SPEAKER_03: Nobody can beat me up.
SPEAKER_04: You're in front of me.
And next to the leadership icon, which is Reyes Monin, is Reyes'
personal herald.
That's right.
That's right.
SPEAKER_07: My second in command.
See, the your backstory vice admiral.
It's invented at the table.
At the table, right?
SPEAKER_04: Pindar, the paranoid, pure blood.
Well yeah, the paranoia has come to the fore, and we will discuss
that.
SPEAKER_05: It is paranoia.
SPEAKER_07: He is a fourth-level fighter, fourth-level mage.
Not terribly good at either, but very flexible character class.
SPEAKER_04: You're paranoid about certain people, but I
don't know that you're paranoid enough about the next character,
which is played by Sean, which is Merrick Thornleaf.
Yep.
He's not the best color man in the business for nothing, folks.
He's currently in the motions.
He is hiding, skulking about as usual.
And sitting atop his mule.
Oh no, you guys left the mountain.
Yeah, the mounts are down at the bottom of the mountain.
So standing there, wishing he was sitting atop his mule is
Theran the Elf.
SPEAKER_06: Level five, magic using elf.
SPEAKER_07: It's true.
We'll call him Their in the Wondrous.
Oh, I like that.
SPEAKER_06: He's not afraid to use magic items.
Wondrous is the wondrous item.
SPEAKER_04: He is unafraid and bold in his use of magic items.
You're my one.
He makes up with the red.
Yep.
And last but not least, Eric plays Edric.
The least.
SPEAKER_06: Claire of Cleric Level 5, the unwilling healer of
the group.
SPEAKER_04: And he did you did disclose your deity to us.
So either in the I tried.
You gave us a trifoil holy symbol.
Some trip person.
Yeah, but I looked it up after we recorded it.
And you found it?
I did, yeah.
He's leaving breakfast.
Okay, who is it?
So I'm saying it doesn't exist.
He's got the libertarian deity.
The libertarian deity.
Interesting.
Your holy symbol should be the snake with the words don't tread
on me written under it.
The libertarian deity.
SPEAKER_06: That is what is on my cloak.
Or a house cat.
A house cat.
SPEAKER_04: Well tread on me.
Thou shalt not step on my cloak.
While stepping on everybody else's cloak.
Right.
Right.
SPEAKER_06: Should I reveal?
Yeah, with the who though.
Yeah, yeah.
Who's your deity?
Let the good people out there know.
Right now.
Seeing the symbol, you immediately recognize.
SPEAKER_07: We're not.
I'm sure my character did.
SPEAKER_06: That might tattoo on his ass.
The deity I currently, which is an ongoing fluctuation,
Tritherian.
Is Tritherion.
Very good.
SPEAKER_07: That's how fast I can look it up.
Tritherian.
Triterian.
SPEAKER_06: So three-horn dinosaur.
SPEAKER_04: No.
Oh, hey.
What beliefs does Triterian espouse?
SPEAKER_06: I don't really know.
I can't remember at the second.
Sorry.
SPEAKER_04: I haven't written on my character.
Oh my god.
Defense and Liberty.
SPEAKER_06: It was yeah, it was looking out for others too, and
not giving a whole lot about what other sort of governments
think and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_07: All right.
Ironically, Pindar had written around, oh, whenever we started
this, three deities on top of his character sheet of like
deities that you know he would like to do.
SPEAKER_04: It kind of rocks with.
SPEAKER_07: And it's I got like Delib, which I don't remember
anything about.
Triphurian, which I just learned something about.
And Corellon Larethian.
Oh yeah, Corallon Larythian.
So because in this in these kinds of settings, when Osric,
Greyhawk, all these places, it can be there's there's nobody
who doesn't have a deity, right?
All of you guys, like the gods exist.
There are walking physical manifestations of deities on
these planets.
People believe in them, people see their miracles all the time.
Where?
So, you know, your character's gonna pick a god or something.
SPEAKER_06: You should watch evangelical TV, and then you'll
see which if I'm drunk and want a good laugh, sometimes I do.
SPEAKER_07: Or you could just play Osric.
SPEAKER_04: But anyway, moving along.
And thanks for bringing that up.
Rodney, we are playing Osric by our sponsors, MythMere Games.
So if you are interested in the game that we're playing, which
is a restatement of first edition done by Stuart Marshall
and Matt Finch, laid out by Susie Mosby and available from
MythmeirGames.com.
You can also get the PDFs for the system absolutely free on
Drive-Thru RPG.
I think actually on Drive-Thru as well, you can get a print on
demand version of the entire as one rulebook.
SPEAKER_07: Oh, really?
Oh, like all of it in one in one thing.
Not just the player's guide, but the player and I G M G landscape
all in the world.
SPEAKER_04: No, you can't.
Not with the print on demand.
That would be awesome.
So it would be a cheap way of getting a hard copy of the
entire rule book.
I have bought print on demand products before.
They served their niche.
They fall apart, don't they?
They're not things in the world.
But if you do go to MythmereGames.com, go to their
online store, you can get either landscape or portrait copies of
the Osric rule books for$50 each.
So for a hundred dollars, you can get in the entire system.
SPEAKER_07: Which is pretty much a pretty good deal.
You won't need to buy any more books in a year.
The only limit is your imagination.
SPEAKER_04: If you're like me, you're gonna.
Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_07: Most of our audience does have a problem buying.
As we sit here next to my hall of shame.
I think we've all got one of those.
Honestly, that's like there's boxes and boxes behind that
wall, to be fair.
SPEAKER_04: I think I'm the I am this particular group's whale
for two reasons.
Yeah.
But yeah, I can't stop.
SPEAKER_03: Every time we go to the bookstore, it's like you
come out of there, and I'm usually shaking my head.
SPEAKER_07: He's usually got at least three or four things
tucked under his arm.
Right.
SPEAKER_04: When we play Lazarus Games, I often walk out.
SPEAKER_07: Well, not necessarily there, but I was
referring to the other one that we go to, but all of the games
and stuff.
Yeah.
But the most places don't carry Osric on the shelf, right?
You gotta go to mythmeer games.com to get it.
SPEAKER_04: If you want the high quality copies of Osric, you
need to go to mythmeirgames.com.
SPEAKER_06: Well, check out Osric 3.0.
SPEAKER_04: 3.0, yeah.
SPEAKER_07: Go to mythmeregames.com.
M-Y-T-H-M-E-R-E.com.
SPEAKER_04: Fantastic.
Also, Telmode Adventure Design is there.
We have been hyping up a backer kit.
We have been informed today that the backer kit for the Jordoba
world has been pushed back a bit until January.
But if that is something you're interested in with the sword and
sorcery setting of Jordoba, check in for announcements on
that in the future.
SPEAKER_06: I am.
I saw it said something about heavy metal music as part of the
reason it was designed.
SPEAKER_07: So cool stuff.
Heavy metal and fantasy.
SPEAKER_04: I am wearing my Dio shirt today.
Alright.
It's means God.
It does.
In Italian.
Latin and Italian.
SPEAKER_07: Technically, they were on the same land.
Right.
So technically.
SPEAKER_06: They're still there.
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
But anyway, when we left last time, there was some.
SPEAKER_06: We have to kill this guy.
SPEAKER_04: Merrick had scouted out to see if he could find the
underground entrance to the manor.
Had crept close to the manor house, heard a couple of ogre
guards talking up on a terrorist.
Yeah, I told you that last time.
Not guarding the cellar.
Oh, this this episode's gonna be salty.
And he was returning to the group hiding in the woods where
some homicide was being discussed.
There was a little bit.
SPEAKER_06: There was whispers.
Whispers.
SPEAKER_07: Thoughts of murder.
The reason Pindar introduced himself as the Pindar the
Paranoid Pure Blood Half Mouth was because he just had a he had
a moment while Merrick was gone where he remembered that the
Ogre Mage's tracks just ended in the woods, right in the middle
of where there was a combat between some humans.
And then we assumed that the Ogre Mage flew off because we've
seen him fly in the past.
But what reason would the ogre mage have to leave a combat when
they had multiple ogres, right?
They were most likely winning this fight, I would like to
think, right?
But so then that just triggered this thought in my head that an
ogre mage can turn into somebody and he just walked right into
their camp to find out where they were.
And now I have no idea if an ogre mage can do that, and if
the ogre mage could do that, I have no idea if he did do that.
But if he did do that, my thought was that this is the
perfect guy to imitate.
SPEAKER_06: And Edric thought it was a great idea.
So we draw weapons right now.
SPEAKER_07: Like full on.
So and hold still and do not move as I put my spear towards
him.
Don't shout for help or do anything else.
When we first met, what was the and I ask all of the things that
happened.
SPEAKER_04: Okay, so while you were doing all this, Winmour was
busy down on the ground.
He's taken a number of arrows out.
He had them laying next to his position, and he was busy tying
little bundles of sticks around the around the end of the arrows
and soaking them with some pitch that he had in a backpack.
SPEAKER_07: Nothing an ogre mage would do, right?
Before he was getting ready to turn back into an ogre mage.
Maybe if he's he's committed to that.
Right.
He's a he's a wood, he's a method ogre.
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
Wit Whitmore slowly realizes that the conversation has
stopped and turns around and sees the spear leveled at him.
SPEAKER_07: Did you hear what I said?
The spear?
Hey, so remember, remember that day we first met.
Tell me how that all went.
Break it all down for me.
SPEAKER_04: Well, I was sleeping and then there was a large
fireball.
SPEAKER_07: Okay.
That is what happened, but you could have heard that from
somebody else.
SPEAKER_04: And then I cried a little.
I might have peed myself.
And then there was a fight outside, and you guys came, I
passed out.
You guys hauled me out, healed me.
SPEAKER_07: There's no way he was the ogre mage then, or he'd
have tried to kill us, right?
Unless he's playing the long game.
Has he been the ogre mage the whole time?
I'm not going to do that.
Don't feed his crazy.
You know, don't feed it.
What if Matthew?
Just a random hold on.
Too dumb.
But would a random dude, a random Brigger.
Have you ever seen Matthew all together?
He he pretty much like, look, the way look to metagame it,
you're like, this guy's got levels, right?
That's how he that's how you metagame that.
You're like, this guy's got levels.
He's a fourth level fighter or something.
He made his save.
Like, we know that he could definitely survive that because
he was tied up, he didn't get a save.
Doc's character would have survived it.
Everybody gets a save.
The orgers were asleep and they still got a save, right?
So, all right, that's definitely what happened.
Have you ever heard or seen anybody talk about ogre's name?
Paranoid half elves?
Bel Knack turning into uh a human or looking different.
You ever heard that?
Anybody ever heard about an ogre mage, which I've never heard of
before, turning into a human and looking like him?
SPEAKER_04: Well, he's he would fly down.
He would come to the camp.
Like a dragon.
Never seen him look like anything else?
Grozig, he Groz didn't like him.
SPEAKER_07: Well, that's probably because he's good at
flaming whatever.
Alright, he's definitely not the ogre mage, I guess.
I look over at Pindar and I'm like, are we okay?
Relax, calm down.
Yeah, I'm all better now.
SPEAKER_06: Just watch your step.
SPEAKER_07: No, you're fine.
Don't worry.
Fine.
You're fine.
Watch out, or that guy that hides behind the other guy and
stabs people with spears is gonna get you.
SPEAKER_06: It's coming.
He's coming for you.
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, did you make Raya stand between you?
Yeah, no.
You shut up.
Don't do any magic y things.
SPEAKER_07: God.
Oh boy.
SPEAKER_04: So Whitmore goes back to rare form tonight.
Whitmore goes back to he's obviously making fire arrows.
And he goes back to his task, but he seems a little distracted
now.
Just giving you the side.
Like regularly.
And then at some point he just turns around.
Yeah, no longer bending over in front of you, losing it
nervously.
SPEAKER_07: I'll give him a good 15 feet of space here as I
contemplate.
How long is the spear?
What's that?
How long is the spear?
It's a regular size spear, so probably six feet or so.
It's not long, it's not a long bike.
Not 20 feet long.
SPEAKER_06: I'm gonna stand a little closer and look for signs
of magic use.
SPEAKER_07: So you're gonna observe and like a parallel.
SPEAKER_06: Now, are we talking about Pindar?
I think that's who we need to watch.
Well, which one are we?
If I had my detect evil.
SPEAKER_03: You would cast it on Pindar.
SPEAKER_06: Everyone.
SPEAKER_03: Everyone's observant of Hthulu.
SPEAKER_04: Well, uh the the other thing is you guys know
Whitmore's line of work.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_07: Bandit.
Right.
SPEAKER_06: It doesn't mean he's evil.
SPEAKER_07: A brigand.
It doesn't mean he's evil.
He could wrong.
SPEAKER_04: We're not making any judgments on the early.
But one could also be evil and not be in league with the other
evil.
SPEAKER_06: Well, absolutely.
Absolutely.
Pindar could be evil.
Right.
I mean, he's at least chaotic, right?
I expect one in this group to be evil for sure, but not.
SPEAKER_07: No, he doesn't have to be.
He's part of a gang.
He's lawful evil if he's evil.
He's neutral.
Or neutral.
Whatever.
Who cares about what that is?
It doesn't matter right now.
Jesus.
Are we going to bend?
This is the noisiest hassling every day.
SPEAKER_04: Merrick, you walk back to the worst.
To the you sneak back down up over the road through the cops
of trees.
And you arrive, and the the situation is much more awkward
than it was when you left.
It's getting weirder.
Wait more is like furtively glancing at you at your friends.
What's going on there, boys?
SPEAKER_07: Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
It's fine.
So it's everything's fine.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_06: It's Pindar.
I'm picturing.
SPEAKER_07: No, it's fine.
SPEAKER_06: Pindar and Reyes are like a pair of three-year-olds
hiding some candy.
We're like whistling and looking like it's fine.
It's all right.
It's nothing.
There's nothing here.
I don't have anything.
Chocolate on their face.
SPEAKER_07: Hands twitching by my sword.
It's okay.
It's okay.
Hey, I think maybe you have an unhealthy, yeah, like too low a
level of parent.
SPEAKER_06: Is this guy's name William?
So there's uh Whitmore.
We just questioned Whitmore.
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
SPEAKER_06: Just to make sure he was not an ogre mage.
He says he is.
SPEAKER_07: All right.
So we're determining that he's not an ogre mage.
SPEAKER_06: Sure.
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
Yeah, I've determined that he's not an ogre mage via my
extensive testing.
Well, being somebody who's not into magic at all, I just sure.
All right.
Yeah, you party on.
I don't know.
I heard a lot of snide comments over there.
Somebody just blown it off so easily, right?
You sniffed no bad magic.
SPEAKER_06: No bad magic.
SPEAKER_04: So I don't know.
SPEAKER_07: Did your Lord Triceratops tell you that he was
not evil?
SPEAKER_04: Well, Sean's character is as his thoughts,
but Sean the player can't comment at all.
No.
SPEAKER_06: He can't.
SPEAKER_04: There's a messenger riding by.
I shoot him.
SPEAKER_07: So what'd you see, Merrick?
Well, there is a root cellar.
SPEAKER_06: Is there?
SPEAKER_07: Okay.
But there is a couple of guards within earshot of said root
cellar.
They're guarding the root cellar?
No.
Like it's a trap?
No, like the root cellar goes into the embankment and they are
above the embankment.
unknown: Okay.
SPEAKER_07: At a guard position.
How high is that up?
SPEAKER_06: They keep it.
SPEAKER_07: How high was it?
I don't remember.
Like a bunch of hills like 35 feet.
Oh.
So pretty high, 35 feet or so.
SPEAKER_06: So we could sneak in?
Like 10 Mis.
You could sneak in.
SPEAKER_07: 10 me.
Like 15 Ms.
SPEAKER_06: I'm three and a half feet tall.
SPEAKER_07: Oh, okay.
That's what she said.
How what's the cover like?
I I had no problem getting in.
Well, you're only three three and a half feet tall.
Right.
You could hide in bushes.
The rest of us need trees.
SPEAKER_06: So you got into the root cellar house?
SPEAKER_07: No.
SPEAKER_06: Okay.
SPEAKER_04: Well, and again, between where you are and the
trees and the manor house, there is low scrub brush and high
grass.
There's the abandoned overgrown garden up near the manor house
itself.
Right.
On the right hand side where he went, there's the road that cuts
down, and then there's an embankment off of that, and he
had gone there and come back under the what'd he say?
SPEAKER_07: The elevation of the So how far is it like once you
cross, like get like if we were to get to the others, like go
across the road and get to the road and come up to where you
would cross the road to go into this hole in the ground or
whatever.
How far is it from the embankment to the cellar?
SPEAKER_04: You guys catch some motion out of the side of your
eye.
I disappear.
What?
And like you're having a conversation, you turn and you
see a flying blue ogre coming up over the road, and he's
descending down towards the manor house.
SPEAKER_06: I check if that guy's still here.
SPEAKER_07: I could have done that 20 minutes ago and saved us
a lot of awkwardness.
SPEAKER_05: Way to go.
SPEAKER_07: Timing is everything.
SPEAKER_05: Sorry, dude.
Scream, Ogre!
SPEAKER_07: No, we all just hold really still.
It's dark now, right?
Or twilight.
That's getting towards twilight.
SPEAKER_04: Twilight so it's like probably an hour and a half
until actual sundown.
So he went through the manor house.
SPEAKER_07: So it's still light out.
SPEAKER_04: And it looked like he came f up.
He came from down in the valley.
SPEAKER_07: Right.
SPEAKER_04: Does he notice us?
unknown: No.
SPEAKER_07: Did he do anything with the water?
SPEAKER_06: Well, he can walk out and ask him.
So I'm not screaming.
Hey, did you see us?
I thought he was landing right in the middle.
SPEAKER_04: He lands in the in in the garden and he walks
towards the manor house and disappears inside.
SPEAKER_07: So we know Grosik is still around and this guy and
possibly other ogres, right?
There's definitely other ogres.
Yeah, he said he heard something.
Yeah.
At least two to three.
So a dragon, a giant, and a couple ogres.
I am Fireball.
No shape to go fight all this.
SPEAKER_06: Dragon Turtle.
SPEAKER_07: Oh well, how wounded are you?
I am three-quarters of my fighting capability.
So you're wounded, but not bloodied.
But not bloody, correct.
SPEAKER_06: Oh, you're fine.
SPEAKER_07: I can go a few rounds, but this is a lot up
here.
It is a lot.
SPEAKER_06: Get them all together and we fall apart.
SPEAKER_07: It's not necessarily the physicalness of the fight.
It's that the you don't know what the Ogre Mage can do.
We do know that he did something with there was fire over there
in the one.
And then there was an ice thing, like melting ice.
Disappear.
Right.
Well, we know he can disappear and we know he can fly.
A coat of cold.
SPEAKER_06: He has a demon thingy.
Was the demon thing with him?
SPEAKER_07: Well, the good thing is I don't know how many times a
day he can use those at the end.
I don't know either.
But if he needs a coat of cold on all of us, we're done.
Two or three of us are dead.
I'm just gonna go with he can use it enough.
Well, the question I believe that Doc was saying is Do we hit
him now?
Can he use it again now?
Or is it like not capable yet?
We don't know the answer to that question.
So we have to assume that he can.
SPEAKER_06: What?
SPEAKER_07: Well, if they're nocturnal, that means he just
woke up.
SPEAKER_06: Cast silence on him?
Yeah.
SPEAKER_07: Well, but but which would say he has his spells back
if that's in consideration.
I don't know this to be sure one way or another, but doesn't ogre
mage are these certain creatures have the ability to do things
innately that they don't require sound.
I don't know if the ogre mage have we seen it, we haven't seen
him cast anything that ever required him to be like a a
wizard and make the noises and the symbols.
SPEAKER_06: But how many things have you seen?
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I was gonna say there's three ogres walking
up the path towards the manor house.
Let's gank them up the road.
Yeah.
Yeah, well, this is like run for the root cellar.
Well, we if we're gonna do the root cellar, but three other
ogres appear at the mouth of the manor.
SPEAKER_07: So we're between six ogres.
Yeah, but how hidden are we?
That's what we need to know that being punished for inaction.
SPEAKER_04: Well, the ogres keep making their way, coming up the
road, keep making their way towards the manor house, and the
three others go down the road towards the three hours.
Changing of the guard, perhaps that are coming up the road.
SPEAKER_07: That's what it seems like.
SPEAKER_04: They exchange they exchange some some greetings.
I know the kind of greetings you're talking about.
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, we had this conversation.
Yeah.
So we just watched them let the ogres go down that are going
down and let the ogres that are coming up come up.
We're not gonna engage all six ogres at once.
We could, I guess, but then we're in it.
Just like that.
So we're not doing that, right?
We're not just gonna be like boom and in a fight that we
don't know that we can win.
I toss a flask of oil in the midst of all six ogres with a
fire arrow.
No.
Yeah, there's doing six at a time is not a good idea.
No, no, no, I'm with you on that one.
Okay, so they come coming down the hill.
Let them cross paths, and that's it.
We're not gonna go.
That's it.
Yeah, we'll watch.
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, we watched the three ogres that came up the
hill disappear inside the manor.
SPEAKER_07: Okay.
And you can see the sentries on top of the tower as well from
which gives us at least eight total ogres that we know about.
Right?
Three that went down, three that went up, and two here.
So five ogres here, a giant, and an ogre mage.
Potentially three ogres.
Backing them up.
Yeah, I don't know how long it'll take him to get here, but
if we make him a ruckus.
SPEAKER_06: Do we know the giant's here?
SPEAKER_07: No, but we can assume he's.
SPEAKER_06: That's a fight.
SPEAKER_07: That's a fight.
And we're not here for a fight.
We're here to get Whitmore's friend out of the damn root
cellar.
You go.
So get him out.
So yeah, those our options may very well be make him invisible.
You cast silence 10-foot radius on a rock that he can carry with
him, and he just goes in there and does it all by himself.
SPEAKER_06: I don't have that spell.
SPEAKER_07: What?
SPEAKER_06: It's silent 15-foot radius.
SPEAKER_07: What did I say?
SPEAKER_04: Good luck.
We're all counting on you.
SPEAKER_07: Yes.
SPEAKER_04: Go, Merrick.
SPEAKER_07: It's time to pull your weight, dude.
Or we wait till we wait until full dark.
It's a stealth mission.
SPEAKER_06: We give him all our weapons and armors.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_04: You might be thief abilities, you might be able to
use the one-to-one.
Hook it up.
SPEAKER_06: Ask something.
Or help us.
SPEAKER_07: Or we all wait till we can.
We wait till full dark.
Then do you really not have silence?
SPEAKER_06: No.
SPEAKER_07: He was being pedantic.
You said 10 foot.
It's 15.
SPEAKER_06: I'm sorry.
Oh my god.
I'm done.
He was being pedantic.
SPEAKER_07: Who is your god again?
The one you worshiped.
Pedantis.
Triceratops.
Triceratops.
For burdening us with someone so pedantic.
His god is Ron Ball.
Ron Ball.
For a second, I thought you were going to say Ron Swanson.
SPEAKER_06: What kind of power?
Oh, yeah, he'll do.
SPEAKER_07: That's in the same way.
Worship smoked meat.
Ron Swanson is numbered.
I would worship Ron Swanson.
SPEAKER_04: I'm just making sure nobody has to eat this.
All right.
I said all the bacon.
SPEAKER_07: I think you misunderstood me.
SPEAKER_04: So yeah, we could probably do Ron Swanson quotes
for the rest of the podcast.
Yeah, but we won't.
SPEAKER_07: Let's have an entire episode that's nothing but Ron
Swanson quotes.
So do we there we got our two options be very serious?
Do we get Merrick's thorn leaf and just see if we can go in
there and get what he can get, map it out.
I can make him invisible.
I'll take my chances with dying.
Your chances with making him invisible.
And then he goes in with the silent rock.
And then he can do the rescue without us even getting
involved.
He's silent.
He's invisible.
He's literally unnoticeable.
SPEAKER_06: What?
SPEAKER_07: The only problem with this plan.
SPEAKER_06: It'll work.
SPEAKER_07: I am absolutely certain the ogre mage will be
able to detect me.
SPEAKER_06: You're silenced and invisible.
SPEAKER_07: Right, you're like a stealth ship.
SPEAKER_06: And he's like up in his magic.
SPEAKER_07: A glowing magic stealth ship.
Why do you assume he's can look see you?
You think anywhere can cast the phone?
SPEAKER_06: But he's all in the woods.
Weren't you invisible back then?
Didn't I make you invisible when you went into the woods and then
he ran into you and found you?
SPEAKER_07: Alright, fine.
Then we don't need you to be invisible.
I'll save it for later.
All we need to do is be yeah.
Well we save it from self.
SPEAKER_04: We're gonna need the silence to get out of the
inevitable TPK.
SPEAKER_07: So we all get right now make me invisible.
No, I'm not doing it anymore.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not doing it now.
SPEAKER_07: You missed your chance.
You bitched for 10 seconds too long.
Now we're on plan B, motherfucker.
We'll be on plan C no plan B is we all go in there.
Yes.
SPEAKER_05: Let's do it.
SPEAKER_07: Plan B.
But plan B means we wait till dark, we do the silence, you
lead us in through the bushes at when it's dark so that nobody
can see us, right?
Let's do it.
And then we're in.
SPEAKER_06: And then if all fails, we wander wander.
Go.
And fireball.
SPEAKER_07: Fireball.
Yeah, don't forget that.
Do it.
And look, we don't have any idea where this guy is, and we don't
have any idea what the extension of the underground of this map
is.
Root cellar?
Yeah, it's probably more than a root cellar.
SPEAKER_06: Would you like he's probably dead already?
I say we don't worry about it.
SPEAKER_07: What kind of root cellar holds a giant and a bunch
of ogres?
Merrick's not if it's a root cellar.
How are they gonna fit in there?
I don't think there is ogre size.
Ogre size root cellar.
SPEAKER_06: Merrick's not going?
He refuses to go.
SPEAKER_07: He said I'm not.
SPEAKER_06: Oh, it's just us, not Merrick.
SPEAKER_07: Oh, I didn't say he wasn't going.
I just said he's not gonna be invisible when we're gonna go.
Yeah, he's going.
SPEAKER_06: When are we gonna do this?
SPEAKER_07: Those are the same kind of people keep it up and
we're not cast in silence, too.
SPEAKER_06: Does it really matter?
SPEAKER_07: Does what matter?
SPEAKER_06: If it's dark or not when we can't see us.
SPEAKER_07: No, if it's dark.
They can see in the dark.
We'll make shadows.
Yeah, but if there's they can see the light better, right?
There's limited range on how far we can.
You're a human, right?
Sleeping in the day.
SPEAKER_06: I'm just saying if we're in the woods and they're
looking down at the woods, it's argue I pull my bedroll out and
go back to sleep.
SPEAKER_04: The twilight deepens in the air outside.
SPEAKER_06: The sun's coming up.
SPEAKER_07: But there's a limited range.
Yes, there is a range.
Right.
So 60 feet might be the range of vision.
SPEAKER_06: How long do we wait?
SPEAKER_07: I'm having second dinner.
Till second darkness.
Until it's nearly full dark.
You guys nearly, because you're a human, right?
Wait a second.
You're human.
SPEAKER_06: What is that?
What are you saying?
SPEAKER_07: I'm saying you can't see in the dark.
I can see just finely.
These guys are nocturnal.
Why are we attacking them in the dark?
Yeah.
Because we're smart.
Because if we walk in there in the daylight, the ogres in the
thing will see us.
This gives us at least a chance.
SPEAKER_06: I'm thinking during the day they're just going to be
napping.
I don't know.
SPEAKER_07: I think you guys think they're way too sleepy in
the day and way too awake at night.
SPEAKER_06: I'm thinking of myself as an orc.
SPEAKER_07: If I was an ogre, I'd probably be pretty tired
right now.
SPEAKER_06: Of course, they do have this mage master who they
probably don't want to.
SPEAKER_07: The three ogres that just came back, they we can
assume they were up all day guarding something.
They weren't sleeping down there, right?
They were doing something.
So they're up here now.
They're tired.
SPEAKER_06: The ones that are up on the hill or whatever.
Look, man, we're either going in the stupid thing.
Or we're not.
Yeah, we can talk about 18 different ways.
SPEAKER_07: So let's go.
SPEAKER_06: I'm casting plan A styles.
It's a half moon.
I'm casting styles.
SPEAKER_07: Waxing or waning?
SPEAKER_06: It's waning.
SPEAKER_07: Oh shit.
Here we go.
Is it waning?
Okay.
You're casting invisibility.
No, I'm not.
I am not.
I give up.
Somebody else is leading.
Look, it's invisibility for one person.
Why would it be I'm going to make anybody invisible?
Why would I make the guy who can sneak invisible?
He's not going alone.
We're all going.
Oh, okay.
He's going to make the silence 15-foot radius.
We're just going to sneak in under the cover of darkness,
apparently.
Silently.
Close together.
Yeah.
All you humans grab a should go.
Improvision person's hand.
No, there's a way to do this.
You hold the belt of the guy in front of you.
You hold my belt.
We'll pretend it's the opposite.
March and step.
Pull the pole or hold.
Everything will be fine.
And then he can go behind theory, and we'll all be behind
Merrick.
SPEAKER_06: Again, a couple of things with the silence that no
one can hear us.
We can't hear anything either inside.
Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_07: Plus the word silence.
So it's deafness.
SPEAKER_06: You can't cast spells with verbal components,
obviously.
Okay.
Attempts to sneak and move silently always succeed.
And dolphins can figure out where we are.
SPEAKER_07: Dolphins.
Echolocation.
SPEAKER_06: And bats.
SPEAKER_07: And bats.
SPEAKER_06: I thought dolphins was a better.
SPEAKER_07: Well, they just forgot about the bats and the
movies.
They put it in there.
No, bats are actually possible where we are.
They are to attack us.
And the sort of dying light of the day.
SPEAKER_04: How long does it last?
And hope.
What the dying light?
The duration of it.
You see the ogre mage walk out of the of the manor house.
Hold off.
His wings unfurl and he's he's standing next to the hill giant.
And the uh ogre mage, they exchange some some form of
conversation, and the ogre mage rises into the air and
disappears down over the hillside.
All right.
He's gone.
SPEAKER_07: Towards which direction?
SPEAKER_04: He's headed south.
SPEAKER_07: South.
Is that the direction where the camp is?
SPEAKER_04: The camp is more southwest.
SPEAKER_07: Okay.
So all right.
Well, I guess that's our sign.
SPEAKER_06: Just take him out.
That's as good of a sign as any.
Now we can take the giant.
SPEAKER_07: So we gotta sneak along to the edge of the road.
From there, how far was it to the not far.
To the entrance?
You mean the entrance to the root cellar?
Yeah, from the root cellar from the side of the road.
Come up the bank.
30, 40 feet.
Is that it?
Alright, so that's all we need the silence for, is that
section, right?
unknown: Yeah.
SPEAKER_07: Well, there's guard towers, but who knows?
SPEAKER_04: And the the last light of the evening sun has
sunken down over the western reaches of the post which in
this world it does make an audible pop on the moon.
SPEAKER_03: Friday in the sunset.
We ready?
Let's do this.
SPEAKER_06: I've been ready to storm the cellar.
Can be can we go?
SPEAKER_07: All right.
Make sure you put that on a rock or something we can throw.
SPEAKER_06: You could put it directly on Merrick, or would
that be a bad idea?
SPEAKER_07: Wouldn't it be a bad idea because then he's got to
get away.
You gotta get, yeah, you gotta put it on a rock, you can just
throw it away.
SPEAKER_04: The rock of silence is the rock of silence.
It's not the same thing as the rock of light, is that you can't
just put it in a pocket and have it not work.
SPEAKER_07: No, I'm just saying you could throw it like it's a
15 feet radius, throw it 25 feet into the mouth of the ogre made
in his eye.
SPEAKER_06: So I spend a good deal of time looking for a
stone.
SPEAKER_03: The perfect stone.
SPEAKER_06: The right one.
And then you can have a glowing one.
I beat up with everyone else with my nice smooth stone.
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
SPEAKER_06: And are we ready?
SPEAKER_03: We're ready.
We're ready to go with the stone.
SPEAKER_06: So I am now casting it on the stone.
And everyone within 15 is exactly.
SPEAKER_03: All right.
SPEAKER_06: We're silenced.
SPEAKER_03: And we're all standing around.
We're all looking at each other.
We didn't think we didn't.
Okay, yeah.
SPEAKER_04: So I'm just gonna talk.
SPEAKER_03: We're idiots.
Yeah.
I think that's been established a long freaking time ago.
SPEAKER_04: So mercifully, silently.
Yeah.
We pointed marriage.
You've never had you the the five of you have never known
such peace.
You creep towards the manor house.
Hearing nothing.
Seeing.
What's your what was your predetermined route?
And you're you're following him, right?
Yeah, we're all following him.
SPEAKER_07: Time in the open between cover and the root
cellar.
SPEAKER_04: Okay, we feel that would be the way that you took
before, where you go down over the road and then up.
SPEAKER_07: Right.
SPEAKER_04: That's the route then.
Alright.
It takes you ten minutes or so to traverse that distance.
SPEAKER_07: So the asylum spell ends at the end of that.
Because it's only ten minutes.
SPEAKER_04: Oh, it's only ten minutes?
SPEAKER_07: Right, so we gotta make haste as best we can.
SPEAKER_04: Alright.
SPEAKER_07: Right.
We know that it lasts because we asked.
I asked how long.
SPEAKER_04: Okay, so you spent, we'll call that with haste, you
it was seven minutes.
Okay.
Yeah.
Unless you actually cast the spell haste.
SPEAKER_07: Which we did not do because we can't cast any
spells.
SPEAKER_04: So not anymore.
And you're down over the road, you can see that the depression
is just a little bit further on.
And it is dark out.
Atop the tower, there is a torch burning.
Okay.
And you can see, occasionally you can see ogre guards.
SPEAKER_07: The good news is that completely ruins their
imposition.
So we're all like right behind Merrick, just waiting for him to
rush out and go across.
We're literally holding onto the belt, the guy in front of us,
choo-choo train style.
SPEAKER_04: Okay.
Silently you move over the ground and you come to a a
dilapidated door set into the earth.
Okay.
Does it is it locked?
Check it.
Doesn't it feel it feels like the whole door might
disintegrate if you push it too much.
SPEAKER_07: Does he gesture at Ray's?
SPEAKER_06: I won't go over and just stomp on it.
SPEAKER_04: I'm gonna try to force it.
Okay.
So you pull on the door and silently it bursts apart.
SPEAKER_07: Oh yeah, okay.
Hopefully there's nobody on the other side.
It would be quiet.
It's quiet, but that doesn't mean there's nobody on the other
side.
SPEAKER_04: There's darkness beyond.
SPEAKER_07: All of a sudden the door explodes with no noise.
No heat signatures in my range.
I push them in.
SPEAKER_04: There is something towards the like well away from
where you are.
Some sort of bulbous shape.
It's hard to tell from the distance.
SPEAKER_07: Bulbous.
That's not a good thing.
It's Eric's DD.
SPEAKER_04: But what are you doing?
Your silent spell is about to run out.
SPEAKER_07: I'm going to sneak in and get closer to the bulbous
shape.
Okay.
Try to determine what it is.
And I'm just going to get in and close the door.
Everybody get in and close the door.
I'm pushing people in the door disintegrated.
No more.
Disintegrated means the lock.
SPEAKER_04: Well, it's right.
It's it's not very functional as a door.
SPEAKER_07: There's still a slab of wood that you return it to a
state that makes it look like nobody went through it.
SPEAKER_04: Everyone inside.
Anybody that's looking particularly at it will know
somebody's been fucked at close like that.
SPEAKER_07: But it's dark out.
True.
We're silent.
SPEAKER_04: But you all find yourself in this cellar.
SPEAKER_03: As odd as I can.
SPEAKER_07: Ah, when the spell runs out.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_04: So the those of you with infravision see the dim
outlines of some shelves along the walls.
The whole thing, it seems to be a long corridor, about 15 feet
wide, but not that 15 feet isn't all usable.
It's probably about seven feet through the center.
And there are shelves, there seems to be like long abandoned
organic matter upon the shelves.
Further on, you can see like there's some casks lined up on
the shelves going back through.
Okay.
And you you see something you you saw like a bulbous shape
when you moved in and it moves out of sight.
SPEAKER_07: Is it still silent?
SPEAKER_04: Oh yeah, you can't hear anything.
unknown: Okay.
SPEAKER_07: It moves out of sight.
When it moves, what am I seeing?
SPEAKER_04: Like, is it look like you saw a bulbous shape and
it disappeared behind some cast.
Okay, bulbous shape is pretty vague.
Like it is vague because it's basically at the limit of your
introvision.
SPEAKER_07: Okay, then I'm going to get closer.
SPEAKER_04: Okay.
So sneaking back, all of a sudden you your hearing returns.
You hear small creaky sounds.
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
And the echoes of my screams.
SPEAKER_04: You've been screaming the whole time.
And the labored breathing of your companions.
SPEAKER_07: And the noises he makes as he gestures wildly.
In the dark.
Who was gesturing wildly in the dark?
You were.
So don't act like you couldn't see me.
I couldn't.
SPEAKER_04: I was looking down there.
There's like a soft clicking sound up ahead.
SPEAKER_07: A clicking.
Somebody's playing with dice.
Like a dog's toenails on stone floor.
Like a chitinous being that lives underground.
SPEAKER_06: Intellect of hour.
SPEAKER_07: I forget.
Well, what do you think about it?
How much further do you go?
Far enough to get a more positive ID.
Have I made it clear your job is at stake?
You're about to get fired to be some great colossus, and yet he
gains.
Right.
You're this legendary thing.
And yet he gets away.
SPEAKER_04: Okay, so you walk further down.
After the first little bit, the the shelves on the walls are
just large casks.
Most of which appear to be in disrepair have slats missing
from them, whatever liquid they contained is long gone.
A couple of them are reasonably full.
Past that you can see now a small wooden ladder at the end.
And about twenty feet further ahead, the the casks stop, and
it just looks like there's just jumbled up detritus beyond that.
SPEAKER_07: Like any like a nest?
It's just junk.
Big pile of junk.
Did Whitmore I the intent was for Whitmore to come with us?
Did Whitmore come with us?
SPEAKER_04: Oh did you want him to?
I did, yeah.
Okay, well, yeah, we wouldn't know who the hell the guy was
without him, would we?
SPEAKER_06: Yeah, Whitmore would have come with him.
SPEAKER_07: He's with Okay.
He can be in the back.
I don't have to stand behind him.
SPEAKER_06: We assaulted him.
SPEAKER_07: Just pulled a spear on the guy, so biggie.
Okay.
SPEAKER_06: Happens.
SPEAKER_07: There was a threat.
Wasn't assault.
SPEAKER_06: Poke poke the tritis with you.
SPEAKER_07: I think that's actually a silly.
You guys, the batterons, can't see anything.
I can't see shit.
I'm sitting here going, duh.
So we need to light a torch or something.
SPEAKER_06: Here's a light rock.
SPEAKER_07: It's a light rock.
SPEAKER_06: A light rock.
I have a silence rock.
SPEAKER_07: You want to trade?
Every rock I ever met.
I think you should always carry a silence rock.
SPEAKER_06: Just have it with me.
SPEAKER_07: No, he should.
SPEAKER_04: Okay, so so he pulled out his light rock.
You pulled out your light rock.
We can't.
Okay, so you're looking for it, and all of a sudden from behind
you, bright white light floods the corridor.
Your shadow is shot ahead on the on the on the far wall.
And as soon as you do that, you hear like a scrabbling.
Where off to your left.
Okay.
SPEAKER_07: Roaches.
SPEAKER_04: Hallingly close.
SPEAKER_07: Okay.
SPEAKER_04: And there's like scrambling for a few seconds and
then nothing.
SPEAKER_06: Gelatin is more red.
SPEAKER_04: Okay.
SPEAKER_07: Definitely gelatin is red.
SPEAKER_04: You move over to the other shelf.
SPEAKER_07: Three feet makes all the difference.
SPEAKER_04: And the the it's well.
SPEAKER_07: Okay.
SPEAKER_04: How what's the uh the range?
What how far does that light shine?
SPEAKER_07: I think it's 30.
Yeah, I think it's 30 feet.
Okay.
30.
First level wizard spell light.
Or is it continual light?
Oh, it's continual, isn't it?
SPEAKER_06: Continual.
SPEAKER_07: Pretty sure it is.
SPEAKER_06: Everything in a 60-foot radius is around the
target.
SPEAKER_07: That is bright.
SPEAKER_06: That is why it's bright.
SPEAKER_07: That is a big ass flashlight.
SPEAKER_06: It's like telling them that we're here.
unknown: Yeah.
SPEAKER_07: Right.
There might be light coming out of the door back in there.
Right.
Shit, there's aliens.
Well, that's why I asked him what the radius was.
SPEAKER_06: No, he didn't.
No.
That's not why you had it.
SPEAKER_03: It's 10 feet.
SPEAKER_07: No, it did 10 feet.
It's 60 feet in front of you, 10 feet behind you.
Just a candle.
So did we see whatever was making all this scrabbling?
No, you just heard it.
Oh, you all heard it.
Okay.
We heard it to the left.
And it was to the left.
But see, okay, I'm picturing a long hallway with like shelves
and stuff built into the walls.
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
And it's it's like the walls are rounded and there's shelves in.
It's obviously a wine and root cellar.
SPEAKER_07: So but there's like spaces behind the shelves?
Or a hole he dug in.
Something.
Not really.
SPEAKER_04: But you're just at the end of the shelves.
You haven't gone past the There's just a pile of junk
here.
And there's and beyond, there's just it's a rust monster.
SPEAKER_07: Is there any metal down here?
No.
Just on him?
No, like other than that.
SPEAKER_04: More metal shavings for the podcast.
Soon to be anyway.
SPEAKER_07: So you have magic metal armor?
No, but like where I'm saying, is there any metal anywhere that
we could see?
Like somebody said rust monster.
So I'm looking.
SPEAKER_04: No, you don't see any metal.
SPEAKER_07: Right, because it was all eaten, right?
Yeah.
Whitmore, where is your pal?
You said he was in the root cellar, right?
SPEAKER_04: They have them.
I didn't say he was in here.
I said this looked like a good way of getting into the manor.
SPEAKER_07: It's funny how the GM can play this character and
he'll say all sorts of things over there from that side of the
street.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_04: But then I say things, you hear way more things
than I say.
SPEAKER_07: But just gonna remind you for a minute that all
of this was recorded.
When it comes time for the NPC to offer any kind of useful
advice, they don't say a goddamn thing dumb as opposed to it.
He's just like, why are we doing this?
Oh, you wanted to bring him along?
Oh, I just think he was somewhere in this general
direction.
Right.
As he he hears all of our plans.
SPEAKER_04: I mean, if I could hear things additional to what
is said, I would have said that maybe did come along.
SPEAKER_07: But yeah.
No.
Sorry, we the assumption was that he was down here.
And I thought we vocalized that.
And he never said anything about it.
Anyway, we're here now.
SPEAKER_04: He specifically called this a tunnel.
SPEAKER_07: Okay.
Wow.
Well, now we're in a tunnel and there is some sort of critter in
this tunnel with us, and we can't see it.
Right.
We can't see it, and nobody's willing to walk around.
I'm getting my wooden shield out.
Okay.
Your booger shield.
And my short sword getting ready for the ship.
SPEAKER_04: That's right, you're a wooden shield.
SPEAKER_07: Yes, I am.
Okay.
SPEAKER_04: Forgetting that part.
You shall fight.
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
I think we're in a kind of a pseudo-declare action stage.
I'm going to go back to that door.
Is there some kind of uh wood that I can use to lean up
against it or prop it like Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_04: There's like walking back, you can probably get
enough parts from old casks.
SPEAKER_07: Just want to like lean it up against there, brace
it a little bit so nobody can barge in from behind.
SPEAKER_04: The metal door is still there.
SPEAKER_07: It's wooden.
SPEAKER_04: Well, you don't know that you can keep anybody from
getting it.
SPEAKER_07: But I do want to hear them if they come in that
way, right?
Right.
And maybe it'll block some of this god off.
We put up wind chimes.
Oh.
That's a great idea.
Caltrops.
Metal wind chimes.
SPEAKER_04: Metal cultrops.
Again with a caltrops.
SPEAKER_07: I'm never, I never leave home without them.
SPEAKER_04: Not anymore.
SPEAKER_07: Alright.
So that's what I'm doing.
Going back there and just is it reinforcing and bracing the
door.
Yeah, I can come to the door.
SPEAKER_04: Okay.
You brace the door.
Like occasionally you hear shh sh from the left still.
SPEAKER_07: From the left still.
I'm going in there and poking around with my sword.
Is the stone like the floor here stone?
It's dirt.
It's a crab monster.
SPEAKER_06: Purple worms.
SPEAKER_07: It's a goddamn squirrel that got loose in here.
You know how they sound skating.
You know how squirrels can be.
They were fucking annoying.
Like 12 feet tall when you're in the woods.
You're like, what is that elephant?
Oh, that's a squirrel.
I'm revising the use.
SPEAKER_04: Squirrel with nine hit them.
SPEAKER_07: It's one giant.
SPEAKER_04: So within Valley used the stats from bears,
right?
SPEAKER_07: Yes.
SPEAKER_06: Yes, they do.
Well, behind the squirrel.
SPEAKER_07: Gelatinous bears.
So we're in a tunnel, and then it opens up into this like
storage room.
SPEAKER_04: It's just a tunnel.
The tunnel stops having shelves.
How wide?
Okay.
Narrowing it.
Okay.
It's about what almost 20 feet in total.
SPEAKER_07: Okay.
So it's like this room.
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
SPEAKER_07: Almost.
SPEAKER_04: It is it is stunningly almost like the
nearly exactly.
Same sort of underground.
SPEAKER_07: But cooler.
SPEAKER_03: So yeah, because it's underground.
Right.
Poke around 76 degrees or whatever.
Poke my sword into the trash around on the left-hand side.
SPEAKER_04: Okay.
So you go out around the area where the noise is coming from.
Where the noise is coming from and at the end of the shelves.
And you see there's a small hole about a foot and a half in
diameter.
A perfect half-ling size hole.
And there's darkness beyond.
Are you carrying the light source?
I'm no.
SPEAKER_06: I handed it to the humans.
SPEAKER_04: And there's like a there's like a pile of dirt in
front of that.
SPEAKER_07: So like he dug out, came through there.
Yep.
It is a groundhog.
It's a groundhog.
SPEAKER_06: Gelatinous.
SPEAKER_07: Maybe.
SPEAKER_06: It's definitely a terrasque.
SPEAKER_04: You guys are all hooked.
SPEAKER_03: I think you should, I think you should put your
knife in your mouth.
But I am going to be able to use my insider the terrasque battle
map that I have.
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
SPEAKER_07: It's a boole.
We're going to crawl inside the trasque through this whole
thing.
Boulet.
So we didn't you mention something about a ladder as
well.
SPEAKER_03: There's a ladder at the end.
SPEAKER_07: I know there's a ladder there, but I'm more
concerned with the chittering.
Yeah, it's a boulet.
SPEAKER_06: Pull some oil down the hole, light it on fire.
Ignore it.
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, that won't attract any attention.
Stealth mission.
When there's smoke pouring out of the root cellar, nobody will
notice that.
Stealth mission.
SPEAKER_06: They'll be distracted.
They'll come the other way.
We'll go up the ladder.
SPEAKER_07: It's not what we're concerned about.
We just move on down the way.
Somebody said it's a dirt floor.
Whatever it is, it's not as bad as the dragon disguised as an
ogram age.
What are we looking at on the floor here?
Is there tracks?
It's dirt.
Yeah.
Okay, so there's tracks.
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_07: Or if it's claw mark, if it's a giant vicious
badger or something, there's gonna be like little badgery
marks all over the place.
Right?
Wouldn't be able to identify giant vicious badger.
Badgery.
Okay, well you get the idea.
SPEAKER_04: Okay, you don't see anything on the floor that
resembles footprints of any.
Are there little badgery marks?
There's no badgery marks.
Gotcha.
Badgery.
SPEAKER_07: That's adorable.
unknown: Right.
SPEAKER_07: Badgery.
SPEAKER_04: No chittery marks.
It's gotta be so whatever this is, it's probably not a giant
weasel.
SPEAKER_03: It's not a badger.
Is this a stoat?
SPEAKER_04: Could it be a but while you're looking around,
there are some bones on the right hand side of the corridor
towards the end where the ladder is.
Loot the bodies.
Their bones.
How big?
Like human bones?
Ogre bones?
They look a little smaller than human bones.
Or gotta be bones.
You might even say that they might be half halfly bones.
SPEAKER_07: Are there any sense?
SPEAKER_03: It's your ancestors, dude.
Alright, so action's gotta be.
I've played too many RPGs.
SPEAKER_06: Edric, what are you doing?
Yes, you have.
I am moving down towards the tunnel.
I don't know how far Merrick was in front of me, but I'm moving
towards him.
SPEAKER_04: Well, Merrick got to the end of where the shelves
were.
Yes.
Reyes has gone beyond the shelves, and he's looking over
to the left at this hole in the wall.
And I got my shield out and moved against the opposite wall
and like.
Right, you're you've got your shield out and you're over
towards the right side of where you can get to the corridor.
Yeah, I'm moving up to be with Merrick.
Okay.
SPEAKER_06: Hanging out back by the hanging out in the tunnel.
SPEAKER_04: So you're all the way back by the three-way end of
the tunnel.
And I start chanting.
Okay.
How big are these barrels?
They're about three or four feet in diameter.
We tap one?
Big cat.
SPEAKER_07: For those of you at home, are there any get in a
barrel?
Are there any that but you said there's like solid?
Are there any that aren't broken apart that you could pick up?
SPEAKER_04: There's a couple?
SPEAKER_07: All right.
They'd be heavy.
Heavy empty or heavy full?
Both.
Well, okay, but could two people lift them?
SPEAKER_04: Oh definitely.
Two two strong people could lift them even if they're full.
SPEAKER_07: Do you find strong?
SPEAKER_04: Because some of us have numbers.
SPEAKER_07: We don't know what strong is.
Okay, tell me what you want to do.
We would put the barrels in stream and ride them down.
We would have put them out.
Those barrels are nearly the same size as the hole, right?
SPEAKER_06: We do that to get out, right?
SPEAKER_07: It's a little bigger, maybe after we get
captured.
Put the barrel in front of the hole.
Whatever this chittering sound isn't in the room, right?
Right?
We haven't seen it in the room.
All right, so we're gonna put the barrel in front of a hole.
There you go.
Jam the hole.
So you're helping barrel's in the hole.
Even if it's just in front.
That makes sense.
SPEAKER_04: So you two move off to find a barrel.
Suitable barrel.
You're all the way back.
You two are up near the front.
SPEAKER_07: Well, yeah, they're in front of it.
SPEAKER_04: It's rolling dice.
SPEAKER_07: That's not good.
SPEAKER_04: And who has the you have the lights?
SPEAKER_06: Or I have it.
You have this the rock in my sack.
I have the rock.
Oh my god.
Oh, the sack that you put it in, you gotta put it in the sack if
you have the sack.
SPEAKER_07: To make it dark.
Stop it.
Because that's what we want.
SPEAKER_06: I take it in and out of the sack to make a disco
effect.
SPEAKER_04: An impossibly large wolf spider rushes from the
entrance.
Impossibly large.
SPEAKER_03: Impossibly large.
Wow.
SPEAKER_04: Okay, a wolf spider in in our world is like this.
This wolf spider is probably four feet long.
Size of the table.
So it's not the biggest spider, it's not shelab, but it's a very
large spider.
But moving at incredible speeds.
Break your barrel open, just flip.
SPEAKER_07: As they do.
Two segments of surprise.
SPEAKER_04: Ignore it.
SPEAKER_07: Hold on.
We don't get to roll the surprise.
He rolled for us.
I rolled for it.
And it surprised us.
And it surprised us.
SPEAKER_04: If you were here, so you weren't going to surprise
it.
SPEAKER_07: Well, we knew that.
We knew it was here.
SPEAKER_04: And it surprises it on a roll.
It surprises on a roll of one to five on a D6.
It's a good surprise.
SPEAKER_07: I knew it was there.
Right.
I knew it was there, but I'm still surprised to see it.
SPEAKER_06: Yeah, you knew something wasn't there, but you
thought it was a little badger.
SPEAKER_07: I thought it was a giant spider.
I thought it was a gelatinous gun.
I thought it was a big one.
SPEAKER_04: Does it go after the target that it thinks that it
could eat?
Ooh, the crunchy one.
The hobbits.
Oh man.
The hobbits.
So you're one to you're one to three.
You are four to six.
Somebody tell me what that is.
Yay.
SPEAKER_07: That's the best thing.
It wants Cthulhu for dinner.
SPEAKER_04: The dice have picked Eric a lot for target.
SPEAKER_07: I wonder if you're going to get poisoned.
It's his god testing.
SPEAKER_06: That's why I have slow poison on me.
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, but slow to me.
We also have the ointment.
Yeah, we got the ointment.
SPEAKER_04: In the first segment, it flashes its
mandibles and does not hit you.
In the second segment of surprise.
Do they actually flash?
They do that.
It's a horror class.
Spider hazards.
SPEAKER_06: LEDs.
So probably not you.
Not me.
I push it.
SPEAKER_04: Do your worst.
All right.
It missed you too.
Actions for the two of you.
You two are a bit further.
Well, yeah, I guess we can get actions for everybody.
SPEAKER_07: Although it was two rounds of surprise.
He did, he got attacked twice.
SPEAKER_06: Oh, oh.
Attacked me.
SPEAKER_07: And it missed both times.
Armor shit.
Armor's a hell of a thing.
Dodge and look at you.
SPEAKER_06: Is God as an awesome god?
You think at the end of the way.
SPEAKER_07: Is it fully out of the tunnel?
Is it like in the room?
SPEAKER_04: It would have had to have rushed out of the tunnel.
Okay.
Alright, so actions for the two of you.
SPEAKER_07: I'm going to uh try to circle around it whatever
direction is away from him, like separate.
Okay.
And I'm gonna attack with my sword.
Alright, so you're moving off to the right.
Circling around, yeah.
SPEAKER_04: Alrighty.
Hey Roddy.
Grab that die for me.
SPEAKER_06: Going to attack the spider in front of me.
SPEAKER_04: Okay.
And roll initiative.
SPEAKER_06: Grab it by the throat and kill it.
Four.
SPEAKER_04: Okay.
So it gets one.
Well, go ahead and do what you're doing.
I'm imparting my energy.
SPEAKER_06: I'm attacking.
19.
That's it's a negative one.
Oh yeah.
That'll do it.
Is this a large or a small medium thing?
SPEAKER_04: It is a medium critter.
SPEAKER_06: Alrighty.
SPEAKER_07: So it's a not so giant spider.
Not quite giant spider.
Almost.
Only mostly giant.
Mostly giant spider.
Nice.
Technically.
SPEAKER_04: Okay, so you bring your morning star down with
force on this thing.
Triterion.
Here's a hell of a drug.
SPEAKER_07: Triceratops.
Triominous.
SPEAKER_04: And it skitters back towards the hole.
Skitters?
You're gonna attack.
Because it's gonna skitter right past you.
I skittering all in the hole.
Like it's it's full reverse thrust on all eight legs.
Jump in the hole behind you.
SPEAKER_07: I hit AC4.
That does hit.
You said it is medellum?
Yes.
D6.
Uh no, it's a D eight dagger.
Right.
Large D8.
Three points.
SPEAKER_06: I got a D12 now.
SPEAKER_07: Every session you're showing up.
SPEAKER_04: Shove your short sword right into the bulbous the
thorax.
My spider anatomy is not good.
Thorax.
Yeah, it is.
Okay, you shove your sword sword into the thorax, and it makes
and the eyes.
Do they bug out?
They do bug out.
SPEAKER_07: I will have you know, everyone, that my first
attack with the official 3D printed retro roll cast D20 was
a hit.
SPEAKER_06: Oh, yeah, okay.
Donate now, and you too could have one.
Donate now.
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, we need to we need to sell these things.
SPEAKER_06: We do guarantee 20s.
SPEAKER_04: We guarantee some of the time.
SPEAKER_06: 20 numbers on it.
SPEAKER_04: Guaranteed to roll 20s at least once.
SPEAKER_06: If you roll it the correct way, guaranteed 20.
SPEAKER_04: I don't know if I should allow it because
obviously it's not been scientifically weighted.
Have any of them?
It's not been all of them.
SPEAKER_07: Amazon dice are tank tested.
Yeah.
I'm not using Amazon dice for you.
No.
But the uh the spider is dead.
Oh yeah.
Oh wow, nice shot.
We killed it?
Let's go.
All right next.
Through the tunnels.
Loot the halflings corpses in the corner.
SPEAKER_04: The bones.
SPEAKER_07: The halfling bones.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_04: They don't really.
There's bones there.
SPEAKER_07: There's no rings on them.
There's like little bits of shredded or jewels.
So where it came from, is that like a legit tunnel?
I don't know.
You're about to go down there.
You gotta go.
You gotta put your knife in your mouth.
Dude, the treasure's probably down there.
That's where I'm three and a half feet tall.
I don't got to do shit.
I just walk down it.
SPEAKER_06: Yeah, it's nest is probably.
I don't care how you get that.
SPEAKER_07: I mean, yeah, you could fit inside it.
You don't know what's back there.
I wouldn't.
Treasure.
I would give me the rock.
Definitely crawl back in there.
SPEAKER_06: Here.
SPEAKER_07: Throw the rocket.
If I was in your tiny shoes, I would crawl back in there.
Not wearing shoes.
And then you look down and notice I do not wear shoes.
SPEAKER_04: So it's the explanation.
That makes my joke even funnier.
Okay, so you grab the uh the rock of the rock.
The light rock.
Yeah.
And deep inside the blackness, like maybe seven or eight feet,
you see like glittering.
unknown: Oh, glittering.
SPEAKER_04: Many glittering eyes in response.
Oh glittering gold.
Now you guys have managed to wrestle a cast.
Let's close it off.
Who brought the flamethrower?
SPEAKER_07: Let's just seal it off while he's in there.
He's obviously overwhelmed.
He's already dead.
Yeah.
Sacrifice.
Sacrifice.
SPEAKER_04: Well, I I gave you that information.
Are you are you crawling in there or are you with the eyes?
You're remaining outside.
Oh, I am not crawling in there, no.
SPEAKER_06: Oh, we've when you say many glittering eyes, how
big are the eyes?
It doesn't have to be a spider.
The eyes are Jesus.
SPEAKER_07: It might be gold.
Yeah, no, I'm not going in there.
It's probably like 12 of them on one spider.
Yes, but they're this big, which means the spider's really
fucking big.
You just saw its little brother.
SPEAKER_06: I push them in from behind as you go.
Go ahead.
SPEAKER_07: You said it wasn't Shilob, which implies the Shilob
could be in the tunnel.
SPEAKER_06: Shilob is elsewhere.
SPEAKER_07: So we're taking the big barrel that we never got a
chance to put down because this Edric and Treasure.
Merritt killed the thing so quickly.
We will walk it over to the entrance of this hole, and we
will put the heavy barrel in front of the hole.
Okay.
As quietly as possible.
Donkey girling it everything that you know.
SPEAKER_04: Put a hole in the bottom and drowned them.
So you you managed to find one that was about half full.
SPEAKER_07: Okay.
SPEAKER_04: Very heavy.
Oh sloshy.
But you like sloshy, you wrestle it, you put it in place.
There's like a little sliver of hole remaining at the top.
It sits there.
All right.
And while you guys are watching them do this, the the sounds of
like a heavy tread footprint over top of your heads over sort
of the end of the tunnel is where it's a dragon.
SPEAKER_06: Can we sort something up through the
floorboards?
SPEAKER_07: Stab him in the feet.
No, we just wait quietly.
SPEAKER_04: Muffled voices are heard.
And at the top of the ladder, there's a passing copy.
There's a small trapdoor.
SPEAKER_07: Passing gas.
Is that where we hear the footsteps?
SPEAKER_04: In that area, yeah.
SPEAKER_07: I just coin up there at the thing.
Yeah.
We all got our fingers in front of our mouths.
All of us.
SPEAKER_06: Indicating we shouldn't stab up the foot.
SPEAKER_07: Up stab the floor.
Stab through to the throat.
I give the old put the light rock away.
Because can we see like through this wooden floors, right?
SPEAKER_04: You can't really.
SPEAKER_07: Okay, so it's pretty tight.
SPEAKER_04: Oh, it's not wooden floors.
It's dirt, but you can tell.
There's like timbers at this end.
SPEAKER_07: It'll be awkward.
So the ceiling is the hatch itself is wood, but the other
ceiling is like stoned in.
SPEAKER_04: Right.
Well, it's like dirt.
SPEAKER_07: Oh well, it just sounds like a stable foundation.
I critique their construction methods.
Yeah, did you put the light away as I gestured there, Merrick?
Sure.
And the marquee return.
And now we hear things pushing a barrel out and you hear
scrabbling from behind the.
Well, this sucks.
SPEAKER_04: So you're by the uh by the ladder.
What are you guys doing?
SPEAKER_07: Breathing very quietly.
We have to go up.
Yeah, we don't.
SPEAKER_04: And Theran, you're all the way out by the entrance.
I give him the old van of white after you.
Your introvision wouldn't even be able to see him.
He's 60 feet away.
SPEAKER_06: See the glow rock disappear.
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, you heard some scuffling and muffled shouts,
and then the light went out.
What are you doing, Theron?
SPEAKER_06: I'm gonna still hang out at the door until I hear
something.
Okay.
I'm gonna guard the door.
Wilber gonna stand there and guard the door.
SPEAKER_07: Wilbur?
Whitmore?
SPEAKER_06: That's a nickname.
We're buddies.
SPEAKER_07: Oh, I didn't realize.
SPEAKER_04: Oh no, Whitmore's up with you guys.
SPEAKER_07: He's all along.
SPEAKER_06: Wow, he left me behind, bastard.
SPEAKER_07: No, you went over there on your own.
SPEAKER_06: You're not friends.
Not now.
We were leave me behind, not anymore.
Oh my god.
SPEAKER_07: All right.
We have to go up, but I'm in the pitch black and can't see shit,
so we gotta wait patiently for the ogres to leave.
Or we gotta we gotta come up with a different method or
something.
SPEAKER_06: Just start scratching at the door, see if
they open it for you.
SPEAKER_07: And stab them right in the face.
SPEAKER_04: After a minute or two, you hear heavy footsteps
going back the other direction.
SPEAKER_07: Coast is clear.
Let's go.
So we hear a flush.
Alright.
SPEAKER_04: And then a rush of excrement.
SPEAKER_07: So we get the spider, we hollow it out.
Stuff you in the spider.
Right.
I'm still the Trojan spider.
The Trojan spider.
If we cast reduce on everybody, can we fit everybody inside the
spider?
Or enlarge on the spider.
And then we can just like each grab a leg and this is the
dumbest idea he's ever had.
I don't know what.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know where he's going with this, but it's
dumb.
SPEAKER_07: It's dumb.
It's actually the second dumbest idea he's ever had.
Wow.
Okay.
What's the what's number one?
The next one.
His next idea.
unknown: Right.
SPEAKER_02: Whatever this is leader.
It's going to keep going.
SPEAKER_03: But but it's like cascading.
We're going to have to get creative.
SPEAKER_07: We're going to have to get creative here because we
have a bunch of spiders.
I tried that.
I was called dumb.
Right there.
What are you going to do with it?
A bunch of ogres right up there.
It's disguise.
You're literally going to gut it and get in the spider corpse.
Maybe.
I think it would be funny.
I'd be funny when that barrel breaks out and one of these
other spiders comes out and rapes him.
SPEAKER_06: Whoa, that would be breaking in the canker.
It's going to get all that.
SPEAKER_04: All right.
Hey, we got it.
This is the second time on this podcast that the prospect of
spider fornication has come up.
Which is.
Which is too too many.
Wait, wait.
I don't remember the fur.
SPEAKER_07: No, that was in season one.
Let's take the spider corpse.
I don't know what you really want to get into the term that
you remember.
How about I put the spider corpse on my head and I crawl up
the ladder?
SPEAKER_03: So the first thing they do see is the spider coming
out of the hole and they get scared and run away.
SPEAKER_07: I have a better idea.
We get an enormous pot of boiling water.
And cook the spider?
Yes.
Terrible idea.
SPEAKER_06: Spider jerky.
SPEAKER_07: And then we lure them out with the delicious
smell of cooking spiders.
They're ogres, they'll love it.
Let me just blow everybody's mind here.
Maybe the thief should climb the ladder and poke his head out and
look around.
Maybe the leader should do that.
The leader is saying spider on my head.
Go ahead and do it with a spider on your head.
SPEAKER_02: Do it.
Spider on your head.
SPEAKER_07: No, not spider on my head.
SPEAKER_04: Wandered.
SPEAKER_03: I am the least stealthy international
footprints moving back and forth up above the small for like a
minute or so and then they move.
That's the international sign for hurry to fuck up.
You guys are dicking around.
Right.
Make a decision.
I vote, Merrick, go up and take a look.
You got the last chance of getting it seen.
SPEAKER_06: I wander down to the group realizing they're never
going to make a decision and head down to the ladder to go
use the traffic.
SPEAKER_04: You're moving in the wrong direction.
I just got to tell you that.
All right, I'll climb the ladder.
The rational thing to do when you realize that these guys are
never going to make a decision is to leave.
We have Vyroball down the way.
Moving down.
Invisibility, I'm out.
SPEAKER_06: Forward.
SPEAKER_04: I climbed the ladder and listen to the door.
Okay, so you're climbing the ladder, putting your ear up
against the you hear muffled like human voices talking in
hushed tones.
Somewhat fearfully.
Human voices.
SPEAKER_06: We found them.
Quick.
Open the door.
SPEAKER_04: Okay.
SPEAKER_06: Push them down the hole and we leave.
SPEAKER_04: And we win.
SPEAKER_07: Are they eating them?
SPEAKER_04: Okay.
SPEAKER_07: I'm gonna.
Is it latched?
Is the the trapdoor secure?
SPEAKER_04: It's held in place by gravity.
There's like a little a little and it sits on top of it.
You feel that you could lift it.
Because it moves just that little bit when you put your ear
up.
Put it up a little bit just enough to get like sliver.
Okay.
There is light in the room beyond.
What is your move silent?
55%.
SPEAKER_06: The dragon.
SPEAKER_07: It is the rumble of his belly.
SPEAKER_04: 55%, you say?
Yeah, excuse me while the street racing goes by.
So you lift the and you like like the voices that you heard
have stopped.
You see like a couple of a pair of ragged shoes, like at the
edge of your vision, like human size?
And one pair of hairy feet.
Brother.
And then you see those back away.
SPEAKER_07: Okay.
SPEAKER_04: You hear may maybe hear whispered voices.
SPEAKER_07: I take one of the spider legs and push it out
through the cracks.
So they think it's the giant spider coming to eat them.
No, kidding.
SPEAKER_06: Sounds like a good idea.
Actually, actually.
SPEAKER_04: That was a better idea than you were working on a
couple of minutes ago.
Yeah, it's a lot better laying out their spider hat.
SPEAKER_07: Not gonna lie.
It's a better idea than this the original spider idea.
That was actually a good idea to me.
I was like, oh man, that's actually good.
SPEAKER_04: So you have a you have it still open a crack.
SPEAKER_07: Mm-hmm.
I'm gonna say something in halfling.
SPEAKER_04: Okay.
Be like, why are you here?
And you like hear for whispering back and forth.
And then the hairy footprints start heading towards the trap
door.
What are you doing?
He didn't answer me, just started walking towards the
door.
Yep.
SPEAKER_07: Why are you here?
SPEAKER_04: And the trapdo cover flies off.
No, it doesn't.
I'm holding it.
SPEAKER_07: Not well enough.
It's a halfling barbarian guard.
Apparently.
It's an ogre halfling hybrid.
It's a half ogre little halfway.
SPEAKER_04: Okay, well, all right.
A ogre.
You've got a gravity hatchway that you're pushed up a little
bit.
There's no handle.
Describe how you would have an ironclad grip on that.
SPEAKER_07: I've never seen a hatch like that wouldn't have a
handle on the underside.
SPEAKER_04: On the underside.
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, because when it's open, you need something to
on the top you would.
SPEAKER_04: Right, on the top you would.
On the bottom you wouldn't.
Right.
So I clearly don't.
SPEAKER_07: Because there's no handle on it because they didn't
think of that.
But okay.
SPEAKER_06: That's what's going through your mind right now.
Why didn't they put a handle?
SPEAKER_04: What kind of idiot doesn't put a handle on the
underside?
SPEAKER_06: What's going on?
SPEAKER_04: Way.
But anyway, this entire conversation is just being
idiotic being about a minor diesel.
All right, so they rip the patch open and I let go of the ladder
and drop to the floor.
And you see up above you, you see a halfling dressed in rags.
He's got like a bruised eye, uh black eye, and he's like, Who's
there?
Come down here.
It's safe.
Don't worry.
Yeah.
Oh my god.
We all float down here.
I'm not coming.
They'll see me.
They'll beat me again.
SPEAKER_07: Well, there's nothing down here but some
spiders, and we took care of that.
No, we didn't.
Shut up.
SPEAKER_06: We took care of it.
SPEAKER_07: This exact kid.
Shut up, man.
Shut up.
I cannot tell a lot.
SPEAKER_04: The ogres are gonna be coming back any minute.
And what will they do if you're not here?
They'll find us and beat us and throw more of us off of the
mountain.
SPEAKER_07: That's awesome.
Wait.
What's the guy's name that we came for?
Actually, not sure.
Whitmore, what's that guy's name?
SPEAKER_06: Whitmore.
Stokely.
Stokely.
SPEAKER_07: So where's Stokely?
SPEAKER_06: Who?
Yeah, human.
SPEAKER_07: It was worth a shot, right?
I figured I'd throw it out there.
Human.
SPEAKER_06: You haven't seen a human named Stokely in the
compound?
SPEAKER_04: And you see right behind the halfling who's a sort
of gaunt human man now also looking down into the darkness.
You can see them probably better than they can see you.
Who were you?
SPEAKER_07: Whitmore sent us.
Get down here.
Who's Whitmore?
Oh, that's not Stokely then.
SPEAKER_06: It's this guy.
Never mind.
Shut the joke.
Sorry, not the prisoners we're looking for.
SPEAKER_07: Good luck with your jail.
How far is it from the bottom of the floor to the wood?
SPEAKER_04: About eight feet.
SPEAKER_07: So look, you can close that thing.
That way the ogres don't see.
We'll be able to have a little conversation here through the
wood.
You can just kind of stand there, pretend you're talking to
your pal, and we can have this entire conversation without the
ogres knowing we're here.
SPEAKER_04: Okay.
SPEAKER_07: If everything goes well, you will be rescued along
with all any other slave here.
Are there other slaves?
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
SPEAKER_07: Okay.
I mean, you gotta eat, right?
What kind of number?
How many are we talking here?
15, 10, 500,000.
SPEAKER_04: Well, some of the ogres left the other day, but
there's still plenty more here.
SPEAKER_07: Plenty more ogres or plenty more slaves?
How many slaves are there?
SPEAKER_04: There's about eight of us left, I'd say.
SPEAKER_07: Alright, what's your name?
Mary.
Okay, Mary.
SPEAKER_04: He just doesn't didn't answer.
SPEAKER_07: Oh, okay.
Alright, well.
Anyway, if you know of any of the slaves named.
SPEAKER_04: What's your name?
SPEAKER_07: I am the herald of Reyus Monin, the new lord of
these lands.
Oh my god.
I'm here with Therin the Wondrous, Edric the priest of
Tritherian, Merrick of the local Thorp.
SPEAKER_06: Why does he hand everybody else's name out?
Merrick?
But his.
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, Merrick.
Merrick Thornleaf, actually, his name is, but I know I know
Merrick Thornleaf.
Merrick the Expendable.
Oh shit.
He would deny it.
Trust me.
He denies just about everything.
SPEAKER_04: Merrick, is that you?
SPEAKER_07: Yes.
Who are you?
SPEAKER_04: It's Nin from the Thorp.
SPEAKER_07: Do I know him?
Oh, you do, yeah.
Or of him.
Well get down here.
SPEAKER_04: He lived in the halfling Thorpe up in the hills.
He bullied you.
That Branna.
She hung out there a lot.
SPEAKER_07: Okay.
So she got captured and thrown in with the rest of the slaves
here on the side of the hill.
SPEAKER_04: But I thought you were captured or something, she
said.
Yeah.
I got out.
Well, get us out, man.
We're trying, but you won't listen.
Well, I didn't know it was you.
SPEAKER_07: Stay there.
Alright.
Then close the door.
How many ogres are coming back?
SPEAKER_04: I don't know.
They come in for breakfast whenever they want.
How many are there?
Oh, eight or so.
More of them.
Some of them left the other day.
SPEAKER_07: So any way to get them all together in one room?
The slaves, not the ogres.
No, that's or them.
Is there any place they gather, like for a meeting or anything?
SPEAKER_04: Well, Mosaic could probably you want me to ask him?
No.
No.
Yeah.
Are you cool with Mosic?
No.
Okay.
And why would you ask him?
If any of us see Mosic, we just end up being the next one thrown
over the cliff.
Mosak, could you get all your ogres together so we can lob a
fireball in there, please?
Are you are we?
Hold up.
Is it their kin?
And uh you're I'm assuming you're pulling the trap.
Well, I'm not.
Well no, there's no handle.
We can't.
SPEAKER_06: We have to drop the bag.
Remember, they yanked it all.
SPEAKER_07: We have to put it back.
Remember, you did that.
SPEAKER_06: Very true.
Very true.
I had to.
I had to.
SPEAKER_07: No choice.
I can't hold on to it.
SPEAKER_04: There's nothing to close it with.
Okay, we'll figure this out later.
You hear the tread of heavy footsteps.
And you're and scurrying smaller footprints.
SPEAKER_07: So they're the cooks.
Can we ambush them in that room up there?
I mean hide under the room.
A breakfast ambush seems very having.
We can hide under like bed sheets or something.
When they come out of a three and a half foot tall ghost.
SPEAKER_06: Oh my attention.
SPEAKER_07: You have my attention.
SPEAKER_04: Okay.
So what's your lap of the thing?
Yeah, you like hear the heavy treads meandering back and
forth.
SPEAKER_07: Right.
We have to wait for the ogres to leave, obviously.
Which could take a while.
I keep a very close watch on our wine barrel or whatever that is
in there to make sure it's not moving.
How long has it been since we slept?
SPEAKER_04: We slept.
Days this morning.
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
Got up this morning.
So it's a little late.
We're getting a little cranky.
Yeah.
Things are a little tense.
It was a little tense.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_04: So much like real life right now.
I've been up since six.
What about you guys?
Seven.
And we will passive aggressively navigating the next twist in the
plot on the next episode of Retro Rollcast.
SPEAKER_07: That's been a Retro Rollcast, but