previously on Dumbgeons and Dragons.
the building, two guards, and one man dressed in foodwares.
who are you and why are you here?
where's macawthin?
where's my bag of holding?
and they say that they saved you, and that they brought you back here, and those
people were gone by now.
oh shut up, welcome, my friends.
we had discussions with the magistrates here, and they are willing to help you
out.
but your brain friend, brain friend.
there is a spell of sorts, that does require some components we don't have
regularly here.
a request.
you might have seen the airship, i feel like that's for you.
let's go see this guy, what name did he give you?
Grancis?
that sounds like, that sounds me now.
oh, you guys are back!
it's been weeks!
and he runs back into the airship, and then you see a ladder just fly over the
edge.
just come on up, come on up!
and you come in and you see him kind of frantically running about the airship,
flipping knobs and turning things, and saying it's time to go!
oh, oh, whoa, whoa, whoa!
i've been waiting here for weeks, what do you mean we can't go?
nope.
where do you want us to go?
well we gotta go down in the serpent hills area, there, uh, bermspeaker, white
mouse.
so like option two that you gave us like way back when?
can we get out of here now?
let's go!
you see three recognizable horses riding in your field.
tiny!
are we picking up these horses or what?
they shit!
i'm not cleaning up!
and then he takes back off, setting itself towards the serpent hills.
welcome to Dumbgeons and Dragons, we are a fifth edition actual play podcast.
i am your dungeon master, Russ More, and with me today is Amy More, who plays
Thea Amastasia.
and Carla Johnson, who plays
New Laura Moonbrook.
and Tom Laird, who plays
FlintFirebeard.
hi guys!
we nailed that, you guys.
we really did.
we know who we are.
i got nervous halfway through, but i think we did a good job.
now that i'm not looking at all your faces, it seems a lot easier to do this.
yeah.
it's less pressure.
like when Russ can actually stare at me and like shake his head ever so slightly,
it's too much.
he's doing it right now!
i know who he is!
i know who he is and i don't even see him.
i was just happy to have him stare at someone that wasn't me.
but he did, most of the time, stare at me anyway out of habit.
after you called me out on it, i spread around the love of staring.
one, two, three, switch.
it was a good time though.
it was a good time.
it was great.
i miss you guys.
aww.
hey we're on Patreon and you can visit Patreon.com slash dumb dragon cast and we
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it's aLex!
yay aLex!
thanks for supporting us on Patreon aLex!
you rock.
you're amazing aLex.
i want to be you when i grow up aLex.
i can't really do better than that.
i know exactly.
i really wanted to make her feel good.
thank you aLex.
it's all about here at Dumbgeons and Dragons.
our Patreon should feel really loved.
absolutely.
like hugging with words.
i can appreciate that.
yeah that's what i want.
that's not how we treat each other but that's how i want our Patreon people to
feel.
no.
i don't want to be as awkward with our Patreon supporters as i am with the rest
of you guys.
i don't want to be as awkward with anyone ever as awkward as we are with NPCs in
this game.
that is a nightmare.
well guess what, here comes some more NPCs guys.
all right.
yes so thank you to aLex and thank you to all of our patrons.
if you want to become a patron of Dumbgeons and Dragons all you have to do is
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that's less than a cup of coffee a year.
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no that's not true.
two cups of coffee a year.
depending on what.
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i demand accuracy in my math analogies.
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so on with the game.
onward.
last time you guys acquired an airship with your new friend grancis.
grancis the man who no one seems to like very much.
but we begged for this character too this is all our fault.
i don't remember us not liking him i just remember the entire
town of luskin not liking him.
yeah they were all pretty choked at him.
i mean he spent a fair amount of time there just waiting for you guys
so maybe he just he was very intense and they weren't wanting him or his airship
there.
maybe he kept talking about his sports almanac and buying kept trying to get
people to get like playing magic the gathering with them oh and the townsfolk
hated that idea they were like listen we have jobs and stuff it's a big
financial investment i just don't have the time who has the time i don't
understand it when you explain it to me what's mana is he is he a deep crimson
red yet i think he might be weeping
thanks guys so you uh you know i have feelings too
you set out from luskin in your airship and you went and swung by uh went and
swung by little rock got our ponies and you got your ponies so now you have
three horses on this airship which doesn't really have like an
space for them underneath so they're on the deck nice which you've managed
to fashion away to make sure they're secure in those gusty big gusty
breezes well we missed them we want we wanted them to be like part of
the group yeah absolutely and we definitely didn't want them going back
to that asshole in luskin no that is someone we definitely didn't like and i
mean that will never come to bite anybody back in the butt ever don't see
how it could no you guys have been traveling for the better part of two
days down the sword coast seeing some lovely scenery some burning cities
seeing some some general mayhem occurring in large and small towns
and this you can assume is just various groups and perhaps even the cult of the
dragon asserting their dominance across the land and we're just cool flying
over top like laughing at them this is what i'm this is what i'm going to
ask you you pass by a lot of cities that you know you pass by never
winter it seems more or less intact all of the major cities seem pretty
well well to do right now so never winter seems fine water deep seems
fine it's some of the smaller cities that seem like they've been recently
attacked a lot of them seem more or less abandoned at this point i guess i'm
going to leave that up to you guys if you along your ways have stopped and
looked in these towns or if you've just kind of glanced at them i don't
think we can stop at every burning city i think the best way to help
everyone is probably just get to where we need to go agreed we already
have many things to accomplish on our list what like the second thing on the
list exactly exactly and you know how much
we love cross and stuff off lists oh it's the best it is you see these
cities in shambles and but you you see caravans of people heading
towards the major centers heading towards water deep and never winter
and they seem like they are ahead of whatever attacked them or whatever
caused the mayhem that was brought upon their cities and after
like i said the better part of two days you come up
and uh Grancis yells to you and says uh oh boy we're uh we're uh we're
almost here um almost at the borskia bridge right
where we need to be where we're uh right where the guy was uh
what was the guy's name varam the white right where he was last seen i'm
just going to set her down and then in an open field here and
oh you guys can be on your way and i'll just wait here for you
your old man enthusiasm exhausts me yeah people say that yep yep yep
um and he's busy flipping knobs and switches as he do
and he brings down his airship right in a big field
on the west side of the borskia bridge
and to the east of the borskia bridge there is a
way station settlement that is little more than a collection of tents
and wagons and caravans with some people's
humans and halflings mostly going about and doing business
in this little area you see the borskia bridge
which is a a large pronounced landmark constructed of black
granite and it bears sculpted images of the deities
syric and bal commemorating a legendary battle that they fought on
the bridge during the time of troubles
and if you want to make a history check i can tell you more about that
but that's again up to you oh god it went so far
14 six for Nulara so i just stare in the other direction i guess
17 all all three of you know that the time of troubles
is when the gods were forced to walk Faerun
flint and thea you know of the battle between bal
and did they not have uber they did not
have uber do they have people yelling shame
shame at them uh perhaps perhaps yes all right ball
is the god of murder yes syric is a mortal who gained
the divinity from ball when ball was slain
by syric and syric became the god of lies
now ball was slain by at the time mortal syric using
the avatar of mask a sword named god's bane
who then stole ball's divinity along in the story and the in the lore of
that ball was not removed from Faerun part
of his divinity remained in the winding water
around the boars gear bridge where he was slain and his blood having flowed
into the river more importantly ball foresaw his
death and impregnated many mortal women
creating his heirs which later were known as the ball spawn
yeah wow whoa okay ha ha you know that as these
children grew up they found out that they were in fact
descendants of ball they fought for control
of their respected realms and cities one of them
stood up to the rest of them he fought against his his
call to kill and to and to fight and he
stopped the rise of ball again within Faerun
that is what that bridge represents and this is kind of a trading post
built around that and you pass over the bridge and you
enter the settlement and you see like i said humans and
halflings doing business but also a contingent of well-armored
pAlydins who look like they are standing guard and
watching over the settlement and this is the last
known location of veram the white what do the
pAlydin's uniforms look like perhaps you'd like me to roll to
find out uh no no you can you can just look at them
and looking at it but like not not aggressively
not just glancing casual sure you see that they are very clean
and polished very silver and bright looking
steel and on them they're very intricately designed
but you see also an insignia which is the insignia
of the elcher guard which the elcher guard
is the realm within the the southern part of the sword coast
where you are and as a nation of different cities some of which
you've actually been to and they encompass a large portion
of the area that you're in right now some of the cities that are part of
that are el turo triel scornuble burdusk
and in a bore who are all under this umbrella
of protection of these pAlydins and it appears that they are
within this settlement as well let's make friends
i don't know we're so bad at that we are really bad at it but i'm happy to
try did they see us land in our sick ass
airship or were we far enough away that they
did not notice that you were a little far away but you
could see from when you were landing you could see the settlement as well
so you can assume that they saw you but perhaps
you're not the first airship they've seen and being that they are
a trading looks like a trading settlement there are plenty of
caravans and stuff they may have seen many different groups kind of
coming to and from in similar vessels perhaps so it
doesn't look like they're too thrown by
seeing your airship land across the bridge there they're not like ah
demons no okay um maybe we should talk to a
pAlydin first it kind of seems like if they're in charge of the safety of
this area that they would know about
veram yeah like when he was last here this seems reasonable thank you standing
just beyond the bridge at the unofficial kind of opening to
this tent settlement you see two human
pAlydins standing guard they're both very tall
uh or they're both quite tall standing at just over six feet
each one has very pale white skin the other
a lighter brown skin um and the the pale fellow is uh clean shaven
the other one he bears a goatee now which one do you think you guys would
match with on okay cubit oh the first guy definitely yeah you
like him clean shaven oh yeah is this in character it doesn't
matter tom and flint both have big beards
that's why so you know maybe he's like not into uh
he's no beard competition exactly i wear the beard in this relationship
yeah i would just be jealous of someone else's beard
beard envy i get that all the time uh thea walks up to the clean shaven
pale looking fellow i suppose um and says
hello friend and he uh he sees you walking up and
um kind of they keep an eye on you they don't move
in any aggressive manner towards you but he says yes yes hello how long have
you been stationed around these parts um well uh quite quite a while who are
who are you and why are you asking such questions
my name is thea jeez we try and make conversation one time
my name is thea these are my traveling companions these are my buddies
is there someone here we can talk to that might
give us some information of a fellow we're looking for
uh who who is it you're looking for i mean there's many people that come
through here um but uh i may be able to help you
or direct you where you need to be my name is
nohythic and i would love to love to help you
are you hating on me says no no i'm a man of
man of faith and i need to uh to talk to god right now talk to god
right now excuse me god uh who uh i i turn just too little aside
to new lar and flint and just kind of like should we ask him
like should we like do we just name drop or like is that gonna look bad on
us now i'm at a loss i've done the
introduction i'm stuck who who are we name dropping well we're
around right yeah oh so by name drop you just mean
tell them what we're interested in yeah i don't know if that's just gonna
seem like if that's gonna cause it these are like my trust issues
coming up again because i feel like yes because
because russ broke me as a human now i no longer
like just i have no faith that any stranger is not wishing me harm
glad i'm not the other that being said in character Nulara
it's obnoxious so here it goes hey uh we're looking for a real
powerful wizard uh okay he's a bad dude he's a bad
dude fair enough yeah that's that's uh so you guys have
uh you guys are some sort of uh policing
body or are you well yes yeah well it's kind of we're we do good
we're basically trying to save the world so yes
interesting oh well that's i mean world needs saving
i uh i totally hear you there i know what that's all about
saving the world so i'd love to help you but you need to
i've seen lots of wizards coming through here too so you need to give me like a
description of the fellow perhaps anything he may be
wearing or a race or
okay maybe you have seen a dwarf in purple robes
dwarf in purple robes uh not uh oh not in some time uh
and then his counterpart speaks up and he says uh
oh um i i know who might have seen him uh if you go in a little bit there big
tent uh bolo's tent she runs kind of the pub
area she was talking a story about a dwarf in purple robes it was again
some time ago that he passed through here but
maybe that's kind of who you're looking for yes that's very helpful
thank you and he says do you guys have like any like badges or
paperwork or anything that's saying that you're you know you're
you're looking for things i just say no and i boop them on the nose
and then i walk toward the uh the tent that he
directed us to that was just the uh flint and i pull out our badges sorry
flint i don't want to talk for you i don't know what you do
oh yeah sure i pull out my badge and say thank you sir
what is your name uh my name is shoop jow and he looks uh looks over your badge
and says oh uh from water deep there the cancel
water deep so yeah uh bolo's uh bolo's tent she she could probably
help you out she's like i said she was telling
stories of a dwarf in purple robes so if anybody has talked to you
might want to start with her thank you so much you're welcome i
follow theed awards bolo's tent the uh
rushes ahead about halfway apparently i was making an exit
yeah uh so you guys catch up with the uh and you pass by these tents and then
everybody's it seems there's a rotation of things going
through the city um it's a very fluid settlement you
could say but you get to what seems to be the
center of this this tent settlement and there is a
larger tent than everything else and uh there are people carrying
steins of of things coming to and from
this tent and you go inside and it is a
it is a reasonably busy tavern it is a rough and tumble
establishment set up in in the middle of the of the settlement in a large
pavilion yeah inside mostly humans there are a
couple dwarves and halflings kind of about milling about eating food and
drinking and behind the makeshift bar is a
older looking halfling female who's barking orders at
servers and and serving people up uh beer behind the
behind the bar there we go on over there
and she's busy serving somebody else and then sees you walk up and comes
over and says uh new faces in town there what
what can i help you out with are you bolo as a matter of fact i am
this is my establishment thank you for coming in
uh can i get you some beers some food what are you in the need for
uh absolutely drinks my friends yeah great great great and some food would
be great too of course of course uh and then she
calls over to one of these servers says arden
make sure you bring out some some food here for our friends here
and uh she says anything else i can help you with what are you passing
through for and she's filling up the beers for you
we all take out our badges and show them to her
and you've got some badges great great your uh your enforcement staff then i see
yes ma'am we were just hoping you could um
tell us we're looking for a for a wizard and
and one of the pAlydins told us you maybe might have met him
a wizard uh you got a you got a description of uh
your fellow there dwarf with a purple robe
dwarf with a purple robe uh some time ago that i saw him
but uh yeah dwarf with a purple robe i saw him i saw him
he was asking about what was he asking about he's asking about
escorts into the hills when uh so not not the other type of escort
uh i don't know i know no that's a different tent
um he was asking he's asking about uh somebody to take him to the hills
uh the serpent hills there uh when this this hooded fellow starts
asking him you know asking him his business asking him what he's doing
here and the dwarf looks him straight in the eye
then pulls out his dagger and stabbed the tall fellow dead
he did it right there whoa and then this dead folk he was one of the
scaled folk from the serpent hills that come down to spy on us you know
that dwarfs he that dwarf there he's a hero
make no mistake there but he and his entourage
shortly thereafter took off straight away for the hills quick as cats you
know how long ago was this oh let me see here that's about uh
i'd say a little more than a month maybe four weeks four weeks ago
gosh guys we would have been right on schedule had we had not made all
those detours
and you say they headed up to the serpent hills yeah now north and uh
north and a little east there do you have any escorts that could take
us oh maybe sure yeah if you're uh you're
heading up that way i look back to most people here they kind of run
caravans you could probably find somebody quite easily if you're willing
to pay them a few gold if you if you feel you need it is
there what are the roads like like is it
like do we need escorts or can we just like
head to the hills have any of the um have any of the people that went
with him returned no we haven't seen them since
they left uh we'd assume that they would have
perhaps passed back through here if they had other business but maybe they
just kept going uh going up the river there or they
found what they were looking for or they got uh or they got you know
eaten by uh something in the hills what kind of dangerous creatures are
and then they're hills well i mean you know the you find
your usual like herd animals you find uh you find some lizard folk that
kind of roam around there and then i mean there's some hill giants that
that creep through there uh so there there are a bunch of different things
that live in the hills it's a it's a wild place um
but are the hills alive with the sound of music
uh you know i haven't heard much music out of there but uh if you go up
there singing i bet you will hear it she's very kind to humor us in this
way isn't she she's a good business woman i pass her
some gold to pay for our food and our drink of course and she says oh
thank you very much and it has brought you your beers by
this point uh why don't we go sit down and discuss amongst ourselves what we'd
like to do instead of awkwardly talking about it
in front of bolo sounds wonderful we nod and take our
sounds out of character sends let me know if you need anything else and she
goes back to helping other people there is an open table that you you
you're fine just yeah what do you guys
think should we try and join a caravan i mean all we know i think
is serpent hills for where he was going
nothing more specific than that uh it would be great if we just went up there
and there was like a big sign said like dragon that would be amazing
but varum this way yes i think maybe we should just i mean
new lar you're really good at going through
like forested areas right in terrain
it's true you'd be good in the hills i would assume
yes is this a forested area dungeon master
the serpent hills are alive with the sound of they really are
uh the serpent hills are a swath of badlands mesas and rocky
plateaus sprinkled with trees and tall grasses
so yes not really sure yeah i don't know ish
well i think either way um we will probably just end up getting people
killed if we go with a caravan true um and if we go with a
caravan that seems much slower than just the three of us
scooting along yeah we could even take our horses and cut down our time
we could take our horses what time of day is it can we get going like
right now uh yeah you planned it kind of midday
guys let's pound these beers back eat our mutton and leave
i order some takeout for uh Grancis oh you are sweet
i feel like we've just been eating like just the worst food on the ship
this whole time which he probably thinks is fine
but you know he probably probably wants something different
that's really that's kind of you wow she gets you your to-go mutton
is it just like a shank yeah yeah i just have to carry it back yeah by
the bone like a turkey leg at disneyland or
something you can put it on your spear maybe
that seems unsanitary i've killed a lot of people with that
you don't clean that well occasionally girl we were probably pretty bar
pretty bored on that airship probably all our weapons are tip top and
everything's very clean because you know what else are we doing
yeah okay yeah okay let's go get our horses let's do this thing let's do it
we all jump and high five in the air oh amazing i love it when we do that
you head back out and you head back to the airship saddle up the
horses Grancis is like uh oh you're taking
taking the horses there you don't want to take the airship
no you're just gonna leave me here waiting okay
okay oh god Grancis do you want to come no i don't have a horse
tiny is a giant i mean i somebody better watch the airship otherwise some hooligan
is going to come up here and press all the knobs and buttons and that's my job
that's my job to push the buttons i'll just stay here the good news is
you know that we're coming back so you can like
go into the settlement you can you know you don't have to stay
at the airship all the time like yeah i think you kind of did in luskin
well no i went i i mean at the at the end there but they kind of got
i think they got tired of me so it's a new place new place new people new
new things happening for me it won't be two weeks buddy we promise
it's the few days of Grancis that's what we're going to call it that's what
yeah few lines of Grancis i think there's
going to be a side episode of Grancis just talking to people it's
going to be great that sounds amazing okay bye bye Grancis
okay you guys have fun now i'll just stay here
try not to fly away okay bye okay okay bye
okay bye yes mount up and ride towards the serpent hills
onward buttercup you head north and to the east you're
traveling through there and it's about midday so you
get going and how long do you guys are you guys expecting to travel for
here until we it's time to eat dinner or
we run into an incident you guys managed to travel
um about six hours somebody roll me a d20
16 uh you travel about six hours from when you left there so it is about
time you know you're starting to feel hungry
but it's kind of an open area uh down in some badlands there
and you haven't you haven't seen much you've seen some packs of
some goats and antelopes that you've passed by are we keeping our eyes
open as we are riding for any clues i don't know you tell me well yes i have
been yes high alert you have seen
lots of different trails and paths that have been padded down but
being that you know varam and hubolo said he you know he left with
with some people they left about four weeks ago
nothing super fresh or in any direction that makes
sense to you right now that makes sense four weeks is an awfully long time
there could have been lots of people going to these places
i'm pretty sure that Nulara is a good enough tracker though
is this like did we just go into a notorious frightening place or it
just has as many frightening creatures as
everywhere else in Faerun it has just as many frightening creatures so
there would have been travelers and stuff
other people coming through this way yeah okay i'll stop whining about
being an expert tracker then are you guys are you guys stopping
for food or are you carrying on for a little while
well we won't travel into the night how equatorial are we here is it getting
dark uh no you're doing fine still you
probably have another few hours of uh of travel time i say we can eat on
our horses and continue on agreed what if our what if our horses
are tired though is your tiny horse tired no he's fine
but i was just curious we're gonna say that you can travel
for another few hours and uh and then your horses are going to
need a break and you will probably need a break too
so somebody roll me another d20 i'll roll it this time
oh no it's doc these dice suck just kidding it's okay you come
dog it's getting close to dusk and you come across
a ruined settlement and it appears to be
kind of crumbling stones and dry wells that are
what remains of many lost settlements of the serpent hills from a different
time so you come across that and it is about
dusk and your horses are slowing down
let's set up camp in this sure to be haunted
abandoned settlement definitely not haunted
place that we're in right now um i kind of like
can i look around and is there anything that i notice about this
place any specific significance or importance does it
look like everyone left in the middle of a meal or does it just look like
it's old are there are there like feet marks from
people being dragged off exactly doesn't appear to be any of
that it it just appears to be a settlement
that's been long abandoned and neglected yeah it doesn't appear
that anybody has has camped there recently beyond the usual
animals in the area have uh have passed through
fia can you detect magic i could again i have no trust in anything that it does
like that we're not constantly about to be jumped and murdered
i do have detect magic uh what do you guys think think we're fine
my thing is i'm wondering if there is like
if this is a place that maybe was searched by
baram for his mask right if like something is hidden here or
although if he was such a powerful wizard he would absolutely have
already looked here um i guess russ can you be more specific about
abandoned settlement like is it half like is it ruins or is it just
like real old shacks that are still standing
like what are we looking at it's it's ruins like it's crumbling
stone like was built many centuries ago okay type bat yeah
so like half walls yeah may have been a city
under siege at one point and yes half walls and
it is yeah it's yeah not a not a ghost town
much like little rock is now are there any monsters high can i make a
can i make a role for can i just keep asking is it haunted
you can do you have a haunt check i don't think that exists does that
exist no i'm looking for it too i'm like is it
on here fine um okay i i say we just let it go
yep agreed we're not getting anything from them well and if there's like
semi-ruined walls like we can kind of like if we're gonna build a
fire or whatever like with walls ish to our back even if they're just
you know like it's some protection more than being in the middle of an
open field i like that idea right all right we
build a little fire have a little food tell sing a few songs
camp stories what how do the songs go yeah tom how does the song go
oh it's that famous uh dwarven sea chante that everybody is familiar
with and i don't have to sing oh it's this one in west philadelphia
born and raised on the playground is where i spent most of my days
chilling out you know the one i thought you guys were gonna join me
yep that's the one oh no sorry i thought you were about to change the
words to make it like warfish oh god i wish i was that good i was
excited i remembered that the fresh prince existed
yeah you got really far too oh i could have done way more
we'll see how many nights we camp so you guys uh sing songs
and it is now uh it is now sleep time
i guess we will take rotating watches i'm excited to get jumped in
my sleep me too no because we're gonna take
rotating watches i volunteer to take first watch
i think we should all just sleep at once it seems to work out really well
for us before instead of sleeping i'm just going to go
into a trance how long does your trance last
um i can meditate for up to four hours instead of sleeping if i want to
well you're only going to you can't sleep you can't meditate for four
hours we're not gonna be here for 12 hours
because you have to take your shift you turd
hey there it's me your dungeon master russmore thank you for joining us for
episode 22 of Dumbgeons and Dragons titled arrival at the boars gear
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our next episode will be out october 11th but let's jump back into
our adventures travels and see what comes next on their adventure to
stomp the dastardly cult of the dragon we'll talk to you soon
i said i could meditate for up to four hours
i will meditate until it is my turn so you are meditating
and flint is sleeping and newlara you are
watching are you keeping the fire low are you stoking it up
oh no i'll keep the fire pretty low uh donnie is of course with me as he always
is uh so he'll be like you know flying up
checking things out if i don't know you know we're just
hanging out sure sure um so roll a d20 for me
get that look on your face you're sitting you're kind of propped up against the
wall and you hear from behind you
just like a little louder than a skittering
um but wider than like footsteps and you hear that pass behind you
uh do the horses react they they don't appear to notice what's
going on no okay i
put my hand on my sword just in case like i'm aware
i hear it donnie kind of senses me like freeze a little bit and so
he's on high alert yep i don't get up or anything
because it's like you know i don't want whatever
it is to uh know that i know it's there but
i'm ready sure you're doing this you're readying your sword
are you uh the the half wall you're sitting down
and kind of back to it how high is is it like
literally half a wall like i'd have to get up to see over it
well it's maybe a foot above where your head rests now
well that makes me uncomfortable uh okay so i'm going to like
rise up to so that i'm like crouching basically sure
but i'm not gonna like i don't know what if it's a deer it's not a deer
ross is definitely gonna try and kill me
he's losing his shit right now
yeah so was it it was right like it was behind me on the other side of
the wall it sounds like whatever it was was
just on the other side of the wall there i'm just ready
i'm ready for action you look at you you kind of look
evaluate your surroundings um a little more and
the wall does end down about about 15 feet and where you could look
around the corner to see as well if you don't want to look
directly up over um you hear the footsteps trudging
along and it sounds like it's a little bit
like they're a little bit out of cadence and they kind of stop and scuff
kind of near the end of this wall oh my god carla just look
i can't take it i can't handle the suspense uh
okay i stand up and turn around and look but it's dark so i
probably can't see anything but i look because
i what else am i gonna do stand here crouching all night
you cautiously lift your head up over the wall
and you come face to face with a goat okay now this is the cat scare and
he's just fucking with me you're just staring staring down a
goat who is chewing who's reached down and picked up some
some grass from the ground and is just kind of
making its way through and it sees you and kind of takes a step back
and just carries on carries on walking down
walking down the path okay night goat i like it
and uh your watch goes by with no incidents perfect
who's on next watch did we decide oh i can do it
i wake up flint perfect see i was just gonna decide
flint you're up i saw a goat i'm sweet i'm sleeping now oh all
right it was very intense don't talk to me i'm stressed out
i'm a really good sleeper i can just fall asleep like that
so flint the fire is is basically embers now
so you can you can do what you will with that but you have
can i stoke it back to life a little bit sure yeah just preparing for the
night you guys have stocked some some wood and some kindling around so
yeah you could stock it up a little bit
you are kind of in a a cove is just of two
walls that are cornered to each other so where are you
where are you seated for your watch in the corner where the two walls meet
roll a d20 for me as a nat 20 about an hour goes by
roll a d12 for me mixing it up that is a one
and you start to get it a little sleepy you get kind of like the head bob going
i am bad at watching and you catch yourself and you're you're
okay and you're just kind of rubbing your eyes
yeah just make a constitution check okay
that is a 14 so you kind of catch yourself in one of these head bobs
and you're rubbing your eyes and you open
them up and there is a spider hanging in front of you
and it uh with 14 it gives you a little bit of a shock
otherwise your watch goes by uneventful okay man oh god
just uh i hope those new dice are lucky amy and you just they're not
you know because they're mine you knock thea from her meditation or
she's awake from her meditation and flint drifts off back to sleep
again the fire is burning a little lower
i stoke it just a little bit no make it
just roll a d20 for me oh that's a four
you hear what sounds like a cry off in the distance like in
oh here it is everybody cry of an animal
an animal cry not a human cry can i roll to see if i know that
animal cry and all that nature sure i rolled
so 19 yeah it sounds like the cry of a vulture
okay i make note of the direction in which i heard the sound and
remain non-plussed yep nice vocab thank you you maintain watch
until uh until the sun begins to come up
and your night goes by uneventful as well
another successful watch i do take some charcoal and draw funny pictures on
both of my friends for funsies nice i look at Nulara and i say i
mustache you a question and then giggle a lot as you look at me
with a confused look yeah yeah what's your question
you're just laughing and i walk away
onward i dose the fire you pack up your camp
mount back up and head out onto the trail
you head north and east further into the serpent hills
where you pass over a smallish river and on the other side of the river
you come across a set of tracks they're older
but there aren't as many around and Nulara you pick up
in these tracks that it looks like there are about eight to twelve
humanoid creatures that appear to be traveling
north together and even more east than your current direction
i tell the members of my party and suggest that we follow them
as we have no other leads as to where we're going so why not
you begin to follow these tracks and you travel for most of the rest of
the day nearly eight to ten hours without coming
across anything larger than roving packs of goats and oxen
but the longer you travel for the tracks being made by this group become
more and more clear and after nearly a full day of
travel you happen upon a larger more
mountainous wall and at the foot of a cliff face there
lies another city of ruins same as before the city looks like it
was inhabited long ago crumbling walls but of much larger buildings than
before you follow the footsteps and they
track up and down the streets of this town
along your way you are watching for signs of movement in life but
nothing catches your eye as you round a large mostly intact building
you come to a large paved plaza the remains of a fountain are now
little more than a stone circle set around a
crumbling hole in the ground leading to a well deep below
three bedrolls are laid out near the fountain and there is a long burned out
campfire in the center of them two stone statues stand in the
courtyard rising 20 feet high behind them a 40 foot high edifice
is carved into the cliffside dominated by relief columns carved
with strange otherworldly scenes you see scenes of
what looks like planets and planes and odd objects and
depictions of portals and other mystical engravings
and carvings that seem some of which unrecognizable to
you the two statues both of which are
statues depicting two separate colossus the one on the
right of the opening is a young human male and is
wearing exotic clothes its face is smashed beyond recognition
and it holds a bAlydince in its right hand and a cudgel
at its side its left hand raised as if in a warning
the colossus to the left is a bearded human male
wearing similarly exotic clothing the left half of its head cracked off
and lying at its feet guys i'm guessing ball
and that other guy yeah yeah that'd be uh it seems like a theme around here it's
a pretty good guess yeah ball and syric that hey you were
writing notes weren't you always as soon as he said what kind of
clothes did you say they were wearing uh exotic i immediately went to
coconut bra grass skirt and then as you started to
to kind of elaborate on it i was like no probably not
okay it looks like some mystical shit has gone down here you guys
i don't say that quite so loud because it seems like a whisper place
um is the stone edifice uh it is a door or it is just like a
huge wall carving um it is a it is a hole in yeah it
is a it is a doorway it is and then car there are
carved columns surrounding it i see yeah that and then
the doorway looks like it goes into this cliff side well
dudes if i was gonna hide some mystic shit
seems like this might be the place to do it yep
um should we tie up the horses somewhere safe and out of the way
they've got some grass we can leave them some water
yes i like this idea okay good whatever monster is going to come out
of this thing i don't want it to hurt the horses
exactly i whisper to tiny i pet his giant head i'm like we'll be back for
you let's go i want to fight something
or discover something as you approach the statues
you hear the sudden sound of grinding stone
and the colossal figures turn their massive heads
their shattered features staring down at you
and two voices issue forth in unison booming out as though erupting from
the deep earth halt you come before didyrius
ether walker and conduit of clairvoyance
behold ye now his wondrous triumphs didyrius
extends wisdom and didyrius offers knowledge
which do you seek i do the polite thing and i like
i i like bow to one knee we're in the presence of a god
uh yeah okay i'm on board with that sure
so i do the same thing sure let's make it three
you all kneel and they continue to stare in your general direction
without any response um i would like
wisdom didyrius shall they speak forth
didyrius shall grant you what you seek but only if you heed him and
continue to show proper respect you hear the grinding stone again
and they revert to their original positions
um do do we know who didyrius is have we heard of this person
this is a great question you know nothing of didyrius or what he may have
done or been doing here okay neato um let's go forth and
maybe we have more wisdom i'm sorry if i chose wisdom for everyone
it's okay i thought we all got to choose wisdom or intelligence
uh who could have known which would have been the good one or the bad
one i thought maybe we all had our own
options uh let's go forth into the cavern in the side of this
mountain sure let's do it you enter this
cave of wonders and you enter kind of an
antechamber of sorts and while an illusion still shows a tomb with
gilded carvings and silver sensors it appears that these are mere shadows
and it looks like perhaps looters have defaced
and ruined the relief carved walls and the sensors are long gone
set between the carvings are a dozen alcoves recognizable as
funerary niches though these contain only splinters of bone
at the far end of the chamber a stone door hangs a jar
marks on the door and frame indicate that it was recently forced
i guess like should i look like run up
run roll a perception check or an investigation check like to see if
there's anything else in this room to stop us from
like a trap or something yeah like just if
you know i don't want in like three episodes to be like
oh the mask was sitting in one of those funerary niches you should have
looked damn it i look around
i'll do a roll you want me to do a roll yeah for sure okay
uh what is the like investigation or perception
uh perception perception you're trying to perception is what you
notice just at a glance so you walk into a room and it's just what you see
investigation is when you are actively looking for something
okay well i'm not really actively looking for something particular
so i guess i'll roll a perception that is a 14
you just see that there have been footsteps
um that have kind of stirred up some of the dirt and dust
um and that that the door in front of you
has um recently been looked like it's been
forced open and perhaps some of the the hinges
which are all carved from stone have shattered
a little bit based on something or someone pushing the door open
uh in our direction or coming out going
into this room yeah yeah that's a good question
like oh we already missed the monster it already left perfect
um okay well i'm i'm happy to keep on rolling
yeah and by rolling i mean walking not rolling which is also the thing you can
do in this game we walk forward through the door
it's for work i was planning the session i thought you were i don't know
i forgot to plan the intro
yeah but nobody wants to play with me
now's not the time yeah anyways if you want to play magic with
me just hit me up on twitter lonely rust.com
i would absolutely do that but amy was like uh you know rust we're moving
away and then tom and carla would have to
buy cards and i was like yeah that i mean it's like a solid it's a it's a
monetary investment in something you're not sure you
oh his face oh oh would it be investigation if i'm looking
specifically for a trap yeah if you're looking for something
in particular yeah it would be investigation
well shit that's a nine what kind of trap are you looking
like a mechanical trap or like a pressure plate yeah kind of like
that it's littered with bodies in this
chamber that's a long narrow-ish
hallway not bodies bones okay i'm just uh still it would have been bodies at
one point um and there's a door at the end this
just smells trap it's just smells of trap you guys have stopped
i assume in the front of this room okay um you notice no
noticeable pressure plates looking around
um you don't see any any signs of any like dart do i see any rocks around
me um stones big bones yeah i mean a skull
perhaps yeah i i pick one up and i throw it
into the middle of the hallway now i'm just desecrating well you
picked up a shattered skull and it throw it and it bounces and
rolls into the center of this room and nothing
appears to move or react in any way to that
to that movement you don't see it shall we move forward
cautiously i like it okay we move forward cautiously you
slowly walk forward into this room what order are you going in here i'll
go first yeah i was gonna say a human meat shield
well too orrish but yeah yeah oh no i bet you're shielding humans
oh i'm not human so flint as you pass the halfway point of this room
the sound of grinding stone announces the statues turning their
cowled heads to follow your movements
what do you do i just kind of look at them and like
kind of nod my head at them like what's up
you look into them and you look into the darkness of their hoods
make a wisdom saving throw oh no so one of my weak ones guys that
is a seven as if he needs more things in his head
you are
yeah uh yeah i made a roll for board there
you look into which seems to you now to be the darkest black you have ever
seen and your gaze is
held by the dark gaze within the stony cow
you begin to hear the statue whispering impossible secrets
things that you can't quite piece together
right now make an intelligent saving throw again one of my strong suits
oh that was all right 16 thea newlar what are you doing as flint is
staring into these i looking kind of has he stopped
moving stop moving and he's staring into the
the cowl one of these statues i look at new lar and i say don't
don't look at the statues i think um much like we did at the
entrance it was so smart when thea did it
because it told us to be respectful right
so i drop to a knee and like lower my gaze
i i follow suit and i i pull i i pull flint down with us
flint doesn't move okay well but flint you
after a brief time you begin to understand
the world that you're entering in the world that you're in
more accurately and for the next 24 hours
you gain advantage on intelligence checks
and your gaze snaps clear of this statue
and you shake your head a moment and you're back
and you see thea and Nulara kneeling towards these statues
you okay buddy
uh i don't know
neat let's go
did the statues move their heads back or they still
i guess they they're still locked on you
okay and i'm scared to look it just like froze our friend
and i don't know i think i would just try and like keep walking
yeah let's let's let's go uh yeah flint you
you experience just like a bombardment of
whispers and like multiple voices talking to you
you picked some things up but nothing that really sticks as to what the
meaning might be right now um but you know that
whatever you've heard may help you going forward
okay question so i didn't actually like you didn't
i didn't actually hear like you didn't say
something particular and i just missed it it's just like a
cacophony of voices that i've somehow kind of filtered through
it didn't seem like it started off as gibberish and it started off as just
sound in your head that you couldn't break and you couldn't remove your
gaze from um but you began to pick things out
so nothing that really sticks in your mind right now but you feel that
you have gained some sort of knowledge that
may help you going forward into these chambers
okay oh and so russ they don't like they don't know what was happening when
i was frozen correct no they didn't hear any of the voices
or anything like that okay they just saw they just saw you
freeze in place staring directly at one of the statues
i kind of shake my head and say did you guys hear that
hear what hear what no obviously no i i don't really know how to explain it
all right yeah let's just keep going he seemingly brushes off whatever
happened to him and carries forward at a
a bit of a speedier pace and as you guys continue walking through this the
the heads of these statues follow you to the end
and you reach the door at the end it opens
and enters into another chamber with a high vaulted
dome with a deep inset ledge circling the room
about 10 feet wide and 15 feet up the floor here is set with a beautiful
tile mosaic showing a knight in plate armor
wielding a glowing sword against a chimera
the room is nearly darkness now but you make out the faint outline of a
door on the left wall of the room and
written on that door in bright white chalk
is the word safe
music in today's episode was by Kavin mcleod of incompetech.filmmusic.io
my name is thea these are my traveling companions these are my buddies my
right and left hand it's flin fire beard and now we're on the brights's
right come on down come on Nulara
moonbrook come on down i apologize for this
Dumbgeons and dragons is a dumb dragons production