Click any line to jump to that moment in the audio.
The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire.
So we're gonna go get some water
and be right back with Dumbgeons and Dragons.
It'll start in just a moment.
The three of you follow the banjo man inside of this house.
The door creaks open and down at the end of a long hallway,
you see him standing there with his banjo in hand
and he plucks his strings and you feel the house shudder.
The air vibrating with a sickening resonance,
shadows stretch unnaturally
and the wallpaper peeling like old skin.
You hear the sound of a music box playing
from somewhere within the house.
It's tuning slowly into something warped and wrong.
Then they emerge.
A cello unfolds from a wardrobe,
its body groaning as its spindly wooden legs
creak forward, its strings snap and recoil
like exposed tendons,
deep bass notes rattling the air with every breath.
A brass abomination slithers from the dresser,
its twisting trumpet bells gasping like open mouths,
golden surface streaked with something darker than rust.
Violins twitch and lurch on the wall,
their bow limbs scraping over their own strings,
pulling out shrill discordant notes
that burrow behind the eyes.
Their whispered melodies slither into Alydin's ears,
coiling around her memories, siphoning them away.
And then the piano moves,
a hulking thing with claw-like legs.
Its lid snaps open and shut like a gnashing maw.
Keys grind like splintering teeth,
every note a fractured scream
that sends reality skipping and stuttering
like a broken record trying to play.
Upstairs, we see Alydin's breath shudder
and her body tremble.
The room darkens,
tightens as if the house itself is watching.
Back downstairs in the doorway before you,
the banjo man grins and says,
dance with me, sweet thing.
Let the music take hold.
Roll for initiative.
Oh, okay.
Cause to the M.
Cause we're fighting the scary music monster.
Dumbgeons and Dragons is a D&D actual play podcast
and I'm your dungeon master, Russ More, he, him.
Also with me today is Amy More as Alydin, she, her.
This is where the saying comes from,
always we're too close.
Carla Maxtad as Bonwyn Everbane, she, her.
Great, I'm gonna do something really stupid then.
Tom Laird as Kavlaran Goldweave, he, him.
I'm gonna like draw upon a force
that I don't know too much about.
And Kyle Claset as Bizard the Wizard, he, him.
Haha, screw you, I study daytonal music, bitch.
Dumbgeons and Dragons is a Patreon supported podcast
and when you sign up today,
not only do you get access to a plethora
of bonus episodes, like in the hundreds,
I just counted them.
But when you sign up now before the end of April, 2025,
you'll save 25% off your first year.
That's patreon.com slash dumb dragon cast.
We hope to see you over there and now fuck it,
let's play.
That's an 11.
14.
Wait, do I get to?
Yeah, we'll roll you in.
You will be unconscious for the first couple rounds
at the very least.
I also got 11.
Oh my God, guys, I got nine.
Oh.
Tom, is it going first?
Do Kyle and I have to do a roll off?
Roll off, roll off.
Oh, that was a seven, got much worse for me.
That was a nine.
Okay.
Okay, now you can read dessert.
11.
Do it again.
Bonwyn, okay, that's all of you.
You see this.
This list is gonna be like,
this is initiative, gross scary piano,
gross scary jello, banjo man,
gross trumpets, gross violins,
then we all get to go. Candelabra.
Except for Amy.
I'm snoozing.
Yeah, a candelabra that's like very sexual
for some reason.
Yes.
The door slams shut behind you
and the walls shudder.
Alydin, you're up first.
I can't sleep.
Yeah, okay, let's re-describe that
knowing that you're up first now.
The door slams shut behind you
and the walls rumble as the wallpaper falls
to the ground and these creatures lurch forward
and down the stairs at you.
Upstairs, Alydin is laying in her bed
with the two parental figures
who have music box faces standing over top of her,
letting out this low droning note towards her body.
As we pass through the room,
we see the music box clicking ever so softly
on the dresser.
And we head back down the stairs
and as all of these different creatures
are coming down towards you,
Bizarre, you are up first.
Russ, quick question, the instruments that are around us,
I don't imagine you would consider them creatures.
What did I consider them?
I did try to write down musical abominations.
I would call them probably,
well, I mean, it's the fae,
so everything's fucking weird.
But yeah, probably constructs or abominations,
not fiends, because that would be more devil-y.
Yeah, yeah, but then, yeah.
Anyone else in Oliver Twist musical as a kid
and now has like, consider them?
Consider the machines constructs?
No, just me?
No, yeah.
Okay, well, sorry for interrupting with that little beauty,
but that's what's in my head now.
Look, one other person
who's been got that reference. No more Cotton-Eyed Joe.
But now I've got Oliver Twist.
How far away is the banjo man?
Interesting question.
Banjo man is- What is distance?
Who is the banjo man?
Perceptively to you, on the other side of this-
I hate this answer.
Hallway.
Dope, dope, dope.
He appears to be about, how long is a hallway?
He appears to be about 25 to 30 feet from you.
Jesus Christ!
Damn, Elidette's fake parents are rich, hey?
Right?
Tell me you were like, you know, middle class.
Me too, I was picturing,
like I essentially was picturing your guys' house.
I was like, nine feet.
Yeah, that's what I was like, more like that.
Well, you see, they bought the house back in 1982,
when things were real good,
and you're maximizing that dollar per square foot, so.
Oh my God.
Oh, dang.
I like that.
So, we have the hallway.
Is there anything else, like what else?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So, you are standing in the front entry,
like tiled front entry, door right behind you,
a couple of transom windows.
Off to the left, there is a living room area.
You can take a quick glance in there,
as all of this is at first initially happening.
This is where the piano is coming out of.
Behind the piano, there's a fireplace
that looks like it has a low fire still burning in it.
There's a sofa, and there is another egress
out of that room, which, from what you can tell,
may be a kitchen area.
Down past a lot of the creatures
that are coming at you down the hallway,
you see there's a set of stairs that goes up upstairs.
Weird.
And then it looks like there are,
from what you can see, two other doors
down closer to where the banjo man appears to be.
Aren't all stairs going upstairs?
Unless you're upstairs already,
and then they're going downstairs.
But then that doesn't mean they don't go upstairs.
If you're standing upstairs, your stairs cannot go up.
I think we're slipping into
another philosophical conversation,
and I feel like whenever this happens,
it becomes somehow very crushing for me,
and I make some huge realization about the world.
So let's just, can we just skip past this one?
All good news is also bad news.
Exactly, I don't want to go through that again.
No good deed is actually a good deed,
it's all selfish.
Exactly, so the stairs go up and down, please?
Please, guys?
Yeah, the stairs go up and down.
Unless you're upstairs, you can't go up the stairs.
Russ, stop.
I'm going to start by using my full movement
to move up to him.
How close does he get?
Can you give him a little kiss?
But, apologies if I didn't describe it well enough,
between you and him are the trumpets and the violins
coming at you.
That's all happening in a narrow hallway.
In a narrow hallway.
I'm sorry, I'm trying to do just a quick sketch here.
I pictured it right for once.
Usually I'm way off.
I can work with that,
so I'm going to run towards the instruments
that are there, and right as I get close to them,
I'm in a bonus action, misty step,
the rest of the way towards.
Fuck yes, you will.
It's so exciting every time Kyle can do stuff.
Thanks, Bazaard.
Coming in clutch every time.
Absolutely.
You want to misty step, yeah?
Uh huh, yeah, it's teleportation.
Kyle knows this could get fucky,
but Bazaard does not.
Bazaard doesn't know.
Way to keep that knowledge from your character.
I like making real choices for them.
Yeah.
Like this is what they do.
Yeah, I'm nervous about every magic thing
that I do right now,
because God knows what the fuck is going on.
For reasons.
But it hasn't been taking as much of a toll on you.
You're in the fae, right?
It's true, it's true.
Is that actually true,
or is that Kyle forgetting to give flavor to his spells?
No, I feel like Russ didn't.
I thought Russ explicitly said that that was the case.
I think we said in one of the first couple things,
where yeah, it doesn't appear,
you're still feeling like a pull,
but it definitely doesn't feel like the same
as what you are used to.
Bazaard's gonna become a medical tourist to the fae.
Yeah.
Just dip in, refresh every so often.
Get his top up and.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Bathe in the waters of Minnetonka.
Okay.
Yeah, you cast Misty Step.
Roll a D20 for me, please.
That would be a three.
Oh, it's definitely gonna be good then.
Comes in threes.
You run forward, cast Misty Step.
When, what does it look like
when you normally cast Misty Step?
When I normally cast Misty Step,
there's an after image of myself
that just kind of like settles to the floor like mist,
and then I reappear, just a slightly damp boy.
Just a little sweaty for some reason.
Cause that's like a misted portal?
I ran out to the car and it was a little rainy,
but I was back really quick.
I like that.
You step through the plain of water.
The water on the plain.
Oh, you're going through the cool zone.
Yes, like the mist tent at the Dirty Festival.
I love this for you.
You're gonna be so refreshed.
So refreshed.
So ahead of you, everybody else sees that Bizarre disappears
and there's the usual mist,
but then reappearing down at the end of the hall,
Bizarre, you reappear where you wanted to,
but you find yourself wrapped in thorny vines
that are piercing into your skin.
Oh, that sucks.
Yeah, it's not great.
And you are going to take three piercing damage.
Okay.
That was my bonus action.
So am I restrained?
Do I need to free myself?
Yes, you are considered restrained.
Cool, I would like to do a dexterity based slip
out of my restraints as best I can.
Yeah, you bet.
That's a 14.
It succeeds.
How do you maneuver your way out of this?
Well, you know, like school taught me
to wear multiple cloaks on some occasions,
and I think this might've been one going into the face.
So the top cloak is caught up in the thorns,
so I can just kind of slip out of that.
This is where the saying comes from,
always wear two cloaks.
Always wear two cloaks.
Exactly.
Now that nice cross-stitch sampler
that Bazaard's mom made him that he has hung in the store
makes a lot of sense.
Now we all get it, right?
Like always wear two cloaks, now I understand.
Now we know why.
It's gonna become a thing.
Perfect.
In front of you though,
you look to where the banjo man was,
and the hallway has extended another 30 feet.
Calder, you son of a bitch.
He plays a little ditty on his banjo
and just kind of chuckles at you
as he paces back and forth,
and then turns and starts walking down the hallway,
which is like unfurling itself before him now.
Bonwyn.
We remind me,
we don't know that Alydin is in this house.
We kind of think she might be,
but we have seen no proof of that, correct?
No, you have not.
Great, I'm gonna do something really stupid then.
Cool.
Because you said there's like a sort of parlor
off the hallway.
Yes.
Yeah, there's like a living room area couch,
fireplace, and that's where the piano is.
And that's where the piano is?
The piano's coming out of, yeah.
Great.
Can I, hmm.
I would like to get to the fireplace.
Am I able to like do some kind of cool dodge
around the piano, or?
Well, you could disengage, which would.
I do have a cunning action that is a bonus action
that allows me to dash, disengage, or hide.
So could I do that?
You absolutely can.
So yeah, bonus action.
But then is it gonna eat me?
Well, if you disengage,
you remove the chance for opportunity attacks.
Oh, okay.
That would make more sense to call that
a cunning attack than be like,
oh, you're so cunning, you get eaten.
Yeah.
Okay, so I'm gonna use my bonus action
to disengage, and I'm going to get to the fire.
And then I'm gonna try and burn this fucking house down.
Okay.
Do it.
Burn the house down.
Because I don't know Alydin's in here.
My friends are here,
and it appears to be a wooden house
with a lot of wooden instruments that are all crazy,
but I don't know how crazy things work.
I know how fire works.
Everything burns.
Hey, y'all, what?
Everything burns.
If I know anything.
Why don't we go to fire?
It's real dark.
Yeah.
Everything burns.
So I'm going to assume that I probably
have some things on me that are flammable.
In fact, I'm sure in my inventory,
like explorers pack or whatever,
I have like- It's gotta be flint or something.
Yeah, I definitely,
well, I would definitely have- Molotov cocktail.
Flint.
But I would also have- Butane torch.
Flamethrower, you know, just like normal stuff.
So I'm gonna maybe,
I probably have like a torch or something.
I'm gonna light that in the fire
and just start trying to, like,
the couch, the curtains.
Is anything a non-natural fiber
that's just gonna go whoosh?
That's what I'm hoping for.
Where's all the polyester?
That's what we need. Exactly.
I'm looking for some foam cushions
that are really dangerous to have in your home.
Yeah, so you zip over to the fireplace
and now you are just trying to, like,
not necessarily the piano or anything like that,
but like the surroundings.
The whole fucking place.
Burn it down.
Yeah, like- To the ground.
Yeah.
I hate it.
I hate this house.
Yeah, absolutely.
So you light that, you go over to the couch,
you hold it there for just a second,
and yeah, it begins to smolder
and flames start on it.
Yeah, curtains, there's probably wooden furniture,
like just anything I can like start to try and get.
And in fact, hmm,
if there's like a coal scuttle or something
that I can like get some of the hot fire
out of the fireplace onto the floor,
like anything.
Yeah, absolutely.
I don't wanna be trapped in here, I hate it.
Hold on, sorry.
This is what I'm picturing.
Group of adventurers, some quotation marks.
Yeah.
Bus into this house with a really long hallway.
Lots of monsters, too.
The furniture freaks out, comes to life.
Yeah, that's why I wanna light it on fire.
Just in case.
The whole couch comes alive, too.
But I'm imagining them being like home invaders.
And then all of a sudden, one disappears in front of them
and the other one just randomly starts just
lighting shit on fire.
These people are unhinged, oh my God.
So getting back to your description,
we're only three turns into this first one.
Yeah, we're very chatty today.
We are.
We may not wrap this adventure
if this is the way we keep going.
I know, but we're having so much fun.
We're having a great time.
You have to find alternative needs
when you're a level two character.
I can't do anything.
I love this.
I'm missing more than 50% of my hit points.
Exactly, like none of us have a healing kit.
We can't do anything.
All we can do is like, I don't know.
I can handle the heat, can they?
Couch lights, curtains light.
Make a perception check, please.
Eight.
Love it.
You're going lighting.
Smoke is beginning to fill the room
with like a mashing chord.
The piano now is tottering back and forth
and trying to turn towards you.
I'm gonna drop to my knees
so that I can avoid the smoke.
Because I also took fire safety as a child
and went through a tiny house filled with smoke alone.
Yeah, so I don't wanna get smoked out
and maybe I can like sneak away from the piano again
if it's getting smoky in here, you know?
All right, all right.
That's my plan.
I do not want to engage with the giant mashing maw
of the piano.
Well, you know, to each their own.
Kavlaran, it's your turn.
All right, so the furniture's freaked out
and it started coming alive.
There's now fire spreading everywhere.
Yeah, off to your left, that room in particular.
You saw me run in and just start lighting shit on fire.
Great, great, great, yeah, okay.
Yeah, fuck, I don't know.
I'm gonna kind of take stock of my situation
and my current health issues.
And I'm gonna like draw upon a force
that I don't know too much about
to attempt to heal myself.
All right.
This is when we start praying.
Yes, yes to God, something, anything, where are we?
Christ and Jim Bob.
The nice thing about Cure Wounds
is you don't need to like roll to pass it.
No, you just do, yeah.
Yeah, which is real good.
All right, D8, here we go.
That's a four and two,
so that's six hit points that are coming back my way.
Describe what it looks like as Kavlaran does this,
because this is like the first, I'm assuming,
the first time for Kavlaran to actually
probably need this,
but to be able to actually call on it.
Yeah, because he doesn't really know like what,
but he knows that they're in a world of trouble
and like he needs to bring his A game
to like help everybody out.
So he finds this like inner light, I guess,
to draw on and like a little bit,
like a little bit of a shimmer for a half sec
as he like gets those hit points back.
I imagined a whole Sailor Moon experience.
I went there.
I hope I'm alive.
Not I.
Specifically when they like,
where she's not naked
and it wraps her up like bodice style,
that's what I was picturing for.
Okay, I love it.
I love that.
That's amazing.
Yeah.
Sailor Moon, just kidding.
Perfect, I love that.
And is that as an action or a bonus?
That's probably an action.
That is his action because it's a full spell, okay?
And in the meantime, I will also like
make sure my Warhammer and Shield are like up and out
at the end of my turn.
Got it.
You gonna move away from that firearm setting?
I mean, I don't really have anywhere to go.
I don't think it's gonna be a lot better.
That's a great point.
That's a great point.
Unless I missed like a secret panic room,
I can chill out.
Not that I described.
So you gotta go investigating
if you wanna try and find one.
I'm gonna roll for panic room.
Yeah.
As a matter of fact, the door slides open
and Jodie Foster's in there.
What?
Any room can be a panic room
if you just give me one fucking second.
Right?
I will make it so.
Oh my God, that's my life motto.
You do this, light comes out
and you heal yourself for six points,
which hopefully gets you closer back to where-
Almost there.
Almost, baby.
Coming down the hallway,
these twisted trumpet tuba monstrosities
let out this swell and burst from their mouthpieces
in a 30 foot cone,
which everybody has left Kavlaran.
So Kavlaran, please,
please make me a constitution saving throw.
Oh, you should be-
Oh, it's probably extra good
that I did that.
There's still some of that like shimmer on there, right?
Yeah, right.
It's like little like imperviousness
coming with it for a sec there.
All right, that's a 13 plus two, so 15.
Oh, you feel this ear splitting compression
come and hit you.
And because you've braced yourself,
you feel it like hit,
you move backwards a little bit,
but definitely not what you could have.
On a success, you're gonna take half damage though.
So you are gonna take a little bit of force damage.
It's three.
Oh, okay. Force damage.
Which means he rolled his X.
Thunder damage rather, sorry.
Yep.
If that makes a difference.
I mean, it might.
Let me just look at my features and traits real quick.
Yeah, true.
Hasn't come up before.
Wait, I am the thunder god.
I can do this.
Guys, turns out I'm Thor.
Yeah.
I'm totally fine.
If anything, it heals me.
Behind you, Bizarre, the violins scrape off the walls
and their strings emit this unsettling atonal melody
that slips into your mind.
Make an intelligence saving throw.
Oh, buddy.
That's 21.
Okay.
You feel this melody resonating into your mind
and trying to like take hold of you.
You shake it off and you turn
and you see three of these violins
like bearing down towards you.
Ha ha, screw you.
I study daytonal music, bitch.
In the living room, the piano,
it lets out this thunderous chord
and all around you, 40 feet.
So that's gonna be Bonwyn and Kavlaran.
Roll a D6, please.
Yidoki?
I don't know if I want it high or low.
I know, I got a one.
I also got a one.
Okay.
Whatever happens, you guys are together.
We're together.
Okay, roll one more D6, please.
Oh, boy.
Four.
That's a six.
As this thunderous chord rings out,
reality around you begins to fracture
and you see the walls tear away
and as you, Bonwyn,
are going to light something else on fire and Kav,
you're just trying to hold your ground
against this blast that's come forward for you.
You feel like the ground leave beneath your feet
and it's like you're falling through this space
and then suddenly you're in another part of the house.
You still hear all the chaos happening.
Kavlaran, you are up at the top of the stairs.
You can look down.
You see the violins climbing off the walls
and moving towards Bizaard from your vantage point.
Bonwyn, you find yourself in the kitchen,
which is, for all intents and purposes,
very quiet at this point.
Nobody's in there right now.
So you've moved over a room
and then there's still one more.
God.
I know, we're gonna die, Russ.
Who put so many bad guys in this?
So many bad guys.
Where is the cello?
The cello, I forgot to place the cello.
We'll put him in the hallway.
Cello's in the kitchen.
What, Russ?
You want to fight the cello now?
No!
You know, cello's in the kitchen.
Cello's gotta move.
Cello doesn't move very far, though.
So it's gonna come to one of the open doors
of the kitchen.
You see it, you hear it slumbering hops.
I was gonna say, how is it moving?
Yeah, how's it ambulating?
It's got like a wide base.
Wheelie shoes?
Does it have wheelie shoes?
It doesn't have, oh, it should have wheelie shoes.
Yeah, it just kind of skids real cool guy-like.
And he's got a backwards hat.
And says, I'm gonna fuck you up on my next turn,
is what it says.
What's up, fellow you?
I want to be an upright base.
Welcome to the middle, everybody!
Hey there, honey.
Amy started a yawn train,
like, immediately before we pressed record.
Yeah, but then I got it together,
and now it's everybody else's problem.
That's why I immediately announced it was your fault.
I thought we were through it,
but then everybody else started.
I was like, three, two, and I was like, after yawn.
It's happening.
Anyway, we're all wide awake and excited to talk to you.
Absolutely.
Yeah, we're adults,
and we can stay up past nine o'clock.
Yes, we can.
Sometimes.
We're doing it right now.
We're doing it right now.
Always about me, it's only eight o'clock.
We might be able to stay on task
and talk about the thing that is exciting us.
Yes.
Like what, what are you excited about, Kyle?
Well, some Patreon stuff
that I think Russ knows a lot more about.
Oh, okay.
I think.
Wow.
That was good stuff.
Beautifully done.
I appreciate that.
That was good.
Usually we just go silent until he just picks it up.
Anybody spiked it right on Russ's face?
Hey, when you sign up for Patreon this month,
we have a great thing going on
where you will save 25% off either your first month
if you want to sign up monthly,
or your first full year.
Whoa, 25% is huge.
Between those two choices,
why would you choose the month?
Three months free.
That's such a good deal.
That was a huge deal.
So you can check that out when you sign up today
at patreon.com slash dumb dragon cast,
25% off the first month or the first year.
When you sign up from now until April 30th
and then that offer disappears.
Oh no.
It's like it's just around for my birthday month.
Yeah, it is.
It's the Amy's birthday special.
Yeah.
So give Amy a birthday gift by buying a year
and getting 25% off.
What you doing?
Don't you think Amy deserves a gift?
I don't get any of like kickback
from that specifically in terms of that deal.
But if you were to join on my birthday month,
like boy, would I be very excited.
And guaranteed May 1st,
she's gonna come and be like,
how many people signed up?
Where's my money?
I need names.
No, no kickback.
I need names.
I want names.
That's a nice set of shins you got there.
It's gonna be terrible if something happened to it.
And when you are a patron,
you also get an episode dedicated to you.
Like today's patron.
Let Russ take that into his own hands.
Craig Zeiss.
Thanks, Craig.
Craig.
Thank you so much.
So glad to have you, Craig.
You've been with us for so long.
Zeiss.
I like that.
It's good.
I also like, what do you guys think?
Craig or Greg?
Craig always seems a little bit cooler to me.
No offense, Greggs.
Yeah.
Well, I mean like, you know,
is it just Craig or is it like Craigery?
Oh, I hope it's Craigery.
I was just thinking that.
What if your name was Craig Gregg Zeiss?
Oh, then that would be incredible.
Also your parents are hilarious.
Could be any of those things.
It could be.
Or it could just be Craig Zeiss.
You could be like Craig or Gregg
and sign up at patreon.com slash dumb dragon cast
right now and save 25% off your first month or year.
So hope to see you over there.
Yeah.
Do it.
Okay, get you back to the episode now.
You don't need to be sad about it.
Yeah, no, that's exactly the episode now.
Well, now we don't get to specifically talk
to our listener right now.
Are you sad because you don't get to tell him anymore
about the sweet deal of 25% off
either in one or three years?
Three times, that's what they say about ad copy.
You gotta mention it three times
comes in threes, gotcha.
Comes in threes, gotcha, yeah, yeah.
Well.
So thank you, Kyle, for bringing that home.
And we'll talk to y'all next week.
Love you, bye.
Bye.
Alydin, make an intelligence saving throw, please.
Okay.
That's an 18.
18.
I got a plus four intelligence, so smart.
That's right.
Hell yeah.
You awaken from this slumber that you are in
and your eyes slowly open through like your eye,
your eyelashes, you see these two figures
bearing down at the end of your bed on top of you.
They, I mean, you're, I'm gonna assume
you're gonna play it a little cool and not just shoot up,
but like they haven't noticed you're awake yet.
So what do you wanna do?
You are lying prone in the bed.
I close my eyes and I wait for my friends to come.
I know.
No.
Save me, please.
Kinda, I'm like, do I?
I hush like a little baby and I don't say a word.
Yeah, I don't know.
I don't know if it would be better to play it cool
or if it would take them by surprise
if I shot up and just started swaying.
I mean, maybe, cause you don't know we're downstairs.
You're probably just hearing all this like chaos.
I do hear a lot of noise.
Yeah, this is new for this house, obviously.
Yeah.
It's been very quiet except for the music box playing,
like a ticking clock kind of thing, but, and footsteps.
But yeah, no, like it sounds like there is a battle
going on downstairs.
Well, I think that, yeah, okay.
Alydin kind of like comes to and
becomes aware of this ruckus happening.
And I mean, she pretty much thought
that she was like dying or dead.
And now she's not, and she's not gonna let them
take another opportunity to, cause this is what,
the second time she's woken up in this place,
second or third, I don't know.
But I think she's gonna come out of it swinging.
She's gonna try to take them by surprise
and like, just, I don't know, fucking fist first
or like, is one leaning over me?
Can I like headbutt it?
I don't know.
They're at the foot of your bed.
Oh, fuck them.
Yeah, I know.
I did, I was clear and said it twice though.
You did, but that doesn't matter to my ears.
I know.
Okay, now hold on.
Now I am, I did forget that piece of information.
There's no way that she can spring up
and not immediately get caught by two adult size people
at the foot of her bed.
Ah, fuck, can you come back to me?
Do you wanna hold your action?
Yeah.
For the sound of something heroic happening outside?
Like what's happening right now?
Well, you don't know when it's heroic.
It just sounds like chaos right now.
It's like that scene in community
where they just go around lighting
the whole apartment on fire.
Uh-huh, pizza boxes turning around.
Yep, it's all that.
Oh god, it is the darkest timeline.
Okay.
Yeah, I'm gonna hold my action
because I'm trying to think about
whether or not it would be best to jump up
and make noise to try to alert.
That is what she would do.
Okay.
You got this.
Did you wanna hold your action
or do you wanna do the thing?
Yes, so with all this very high intelligence
and quick thinking she's got going on,
she knows that she can't physically overpower them
and touching shit has gotten her unconscious.
So she decides to, without even opening her eyes,
just start screaming.
Okay.
Just start screaming, help.
Okay.
Yeah, yeah.
Great.
I'll scream for you later if you need me to.
That's it.
Yeah, no, that's fine.
Um, help, I'm being raped.
You put it in your pants, Amy.
Jesus, sore you guys.
Who's even wearing pants?
God.
Okay, you yell help.
I do.
Just roll a D20 for me.
Make a loud roll.
Make a loud roll.
That's a seven.
Okay.
This is the quietest seven I've ever heard.
Seven, seven.
Seven, seven.
This is a weirdly sexually charged episode
we have going on here.
Well, in no way is it connected
to what's happening.
Not everybody hears this, but Kavlarin,
you are at the top of the stairs.
You're maybe taking a step to move back down
and behind you, in one of the closed doors,
there's one, two, three closed doors that you see.
You hear Alydin call for help.
It's not your turn yet,
but you have that information now.
Okay.
And only you.
Back downstairs, Bizard, you were facing,
you had turned around for Violin, yeah?
Yeah, you said I looked back at him.
Yeah, so yeah, you're facing back
towards the front door.
You see Kavlarin disappear upstairs.
You couldn't have seen Bonwyn
from where you were at that time.
But yeah, you have three of these Violin creatures,
and then you look back,
and the banjo man's still getting darker,
walking further down this hallway.
Before you tell me what you want to do,
make a perception roll for me.
You got it.
That's a 16.
Up at the front door, there's a little bench,
and on the bench is just a cardigan or a sweater
that's just been laid there.
But there's a glint of metal underneath that
catches your eye.
It, from what you can tell, how,
you went to the School of Magic, Fighting and Dance,
so there's like some musicality that Bizard probably has.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It looks like two ends of a tuning fork.
And how far away would that be at this point,
or perceptively how far?
You're at, because you didn't move,
you didn't follow the banjo man,
so like you're about the 25, 30 foot mark.
With three violins and a cello who's now facing,
facing into the kitchen.
Cool.
Look at these violins, be like,
honestly, I don't mind atonal music,
but I think you're still not quite in tune.
So let me help you out.
And I'm gonna cast Mage Hand to grab the tuning fork
and give it a ding.
Okay, okay, cool.
Yeah, I don't engage directly with enemies, you know,
I'll stay away.
Smart, smart, smart, smart.
Apparently that's how you're supposed to play
a magic character.
What?
No, just get in there with your scimitar.
I like to just punch it up.
I mean, there are times, time and a place,
if I have the right spell set,
then if I had web right now,
you bet I'd be fucking on that shit.
The tuning fork begins to ring,
make an arcana or performance check, please.
Ooh.
We're gonna go with performance.
All right.
Wouldn't matter, I got a nine total.
Okay.
You hear it ring out kind of amid the chaos
and like it swells,
like there's this building tension that fills in the air
and then it sucks back into the tuning fork
and it just kind of,
it fades off into a normal kind of echoing ring.
Okay.
Mage Hand was my action.
With my bonus action,
I will pull out my scimitar and prepare a blade song.
Last one I can do before a long rest,
so hopefully that'll happen later.
But yeah, that's gonna be,
I'm gonna back up,
not facing the banjo man
and like coax the strings towards me.
Okay, okay.
So you are moving as much as you can backwards
and having them follow you down?
Okay, cool.
Love it.
They do that.
Bonwyn, you are in the kitchen.
Cello is facing you out the door to the hallway.
Now that you're in this room,
you see another doorway that goes into a dining room space
and the door out to the flame room where the piano is
and you hear its thunderous chords mashing
as it's trying to move around in the space.
You see it actually catch a light one of the corners.
I am going to say, and you can of course disagree,
but that Bonwyn being a person that works
like clanging hammers on anvils all day
probably has some ear protection on her person
that she's gonna put in her ears
because it sounds, it's really stressing her out.
So loud in like not a nice loud fire forge kind of way
but just chaos.
So she's gonna do that.
Anything with that, anything based on a sound effect
will give you advantage on the saving throw
that comes along with it.
Then that was the one smart thing Bonwyn's gonna do.
Number two, she's just gonna keep lighting shit on fire
guys, is there wine?
What do we have?
Like she's in the kitchen now.
So like there's probably more fuel.
Exactly, like what do I find
that is like a weapon of opportunity?
Yeah, like, is there a bottle of wine?
I can make them all a top cocktail and throw out the cello
or I can just start like, you know?
Yeah.
Lighten up tea towels and throw in the cello.
This looks like a well stocked kitchen.
So yeah, you do have tea towels.
You have all of that.
You've got tablecloths and napkins
and that sort of thing.
The cabinets themselves all wooden.
There is a small table in this room also wooden.
Some sort of pot of oil.
You do see, yeah, just a massive pot of deep fry oil.
But there would be like cooking oil, for sure.
Thank you, Tom.
That is totally a thing all people would have.
An unnecessarily large stack of doilies.
Exactly, exactly.
Yeah, so I'm basically just gonna keep
lighting shit on fire
because I don't know what else to do.
I don't fully want to engage with the cello
but I'm not leaving this space.
Like I'm gonna just keep.
Gonna burn it down.
I am burning down the house, exactly.
Okay, love it.
You don't need no water.
Let the mother fucker burn.
Yeah, you spend your turn
lighting as much as you can on fire.
Do you end your turn in this room
or are you gonna try and make your way further down?
If you go into the dining room area,
you're moving, you know,
you're moving closer to where Bazaar was.
You don't know.
Right, oh yeah, right.
Cause there was like to the parlor
and then to the dining room.
So I guess I would move into the dining room
after setting up some like,
you know,
lighten some oil and do it like,
or pouring out oil and lighting it.
Like just trying to do as much damage as I can
in this room.
And yeah, let's just keep.
Like how we're lighting the house
from the start moving into it.
Yeah, that's a great plan.
Hoping there's a back door.
Hoping there's a back door, yeah.
There's some lovely French doors
that lead out to the courtyard.
Or does it just look like there's windows?
I don't know.
But Bonwyn doesn't know what else to do.
But now this seems like a good idea.
Give me,
this is gonna kind of happen, kitchen to dining room.
Give me a perception or investigation check.
I mean, you would have been looking around
for things that you could have.
So yeah, investigation could work as well.
I mean, still only an 11.
Okay. Great.
I've got the fire bug.
I am the fire starter.
The progety, is it progety?
The progety.
The prodigy talks about, that's me.
Perfect.
The twisted fire starter.
You are just so wrapped up
in continuing to light this house on fire.
Kavlaran, up at the top of the stairs,
you've just heard Alydin call out.
You kind of look down the stairs.
It has bizarre backs away further down the hallway.
You can kind of get the,
you see more light coming from the fires downstairs.
But it does, you definitely do not get the sense
that either of your friends have heard the same thing.
Okay.
Is there any indication
as to where the cry for help is coming from?
Yes.
It sounds like it's coming from the door
that is directly behind you.
So if you're, or sorry.
You're standing at the top of the stairs.
You were facing down the stairs.
So you've got one door from that perspective
directly behind you, one to your left,
and then one further down the hallway that you see.
There's like a banister that goes.
Okay.
Can I roll a perception check
to see if there's anything that's like weird about the,
like the door or the handle or anything that might like.
Yeah, for sure. Give me some spidey senses.
Perception or investigation.
Yep.
Well, we're gonna do perception.
Okay, right, yeah.
I picked perception for a reason.
All right, 12 plus four.
So 16.
That's four, 16, perfect.
Sounds like enough to get through that door.
Yeah. I would agree.
It's a door, it's a push, not a pull.
It's, you don't see anything,
anything that jumps out weird about the door.
What you do get from that is that not only do you
hear Alydin screaming for help,
but inside there is this loud droning noise,
like a droning off-key note that you hear.
Okay.
I mean, you're not supposed to touch doorknobs
when there's fire around.
Fire's downstairs right now.
Fire's downstairs.
You don't see it still though.
Don't touch the doorknob.
It was drilled into cab from a very young age.
Exactly.
Yeah, the doorknob does not feel hot.
No, if I'm confident that that's where the sound
is coming from, then I'm gonna like try to kick
the door in and like get the fuck in there.
Save me.
Yeah, do it, please.
There's nothing stopping you, there's nothing behind you.
You don't know what's on the other side, really,
but yeah, you can kick in the door.
It splinters inside.
Alydin, it startles you as the door flies open
and you see Kavlaran standing there before you.
Kavlaran, you see Alydin who is sitting up
in this bed that's right in front of you.
There is a window behind the bed.
And off to your right as you're looking
in this room are these two figures.
One appears more feminine, one more masculine.
And while their bodies are more humanoid,
more human in nature, their heads are these two
giant music boxes that are letting out
this droning note that you hear.
What do you wanna do?
I would like to rush them with like the arm
in the shoulder that's holding the shield
and like get them down or at least out of the way
and tell Alydin to fucking get out of the room.
Okay, so.
You're not my dad.
Cut.
You don't know, you don't know.
Let's do just an unarmed strike.
Well, maybe your arm technically.
I mean, it's a shield though.
I feel like unarmed strike counts?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So roll plus strength and that should do her.
Okay.
15.
So you charge into the room and you hit
like right between both of them,
knocking them off kilter, which sends them,
it sends the sound like spiraling
as they're falling backwards against this wall.
You've knocked them prone as they're trying
to scramble and get up themselves.
And now that you're in the room,
carry forward your perception
because that's all happening pretty quickly.
As you rush into the room and you turn
and you look back at Alydin and the way you came,
you see that there's a broken floorboard
underneath the dresser where there is a music box playing.
But in this broken floorboard,
you see this glint of metal,
like flash up and towards you.
I don't think I can do much else.
I feel like I've had a very robust turn.
Yeah, you've done it.
There's a lot of things happening.
Back downstairs, Bizarge,
you're keeping distance from the trumpets,
but still ushering them down the hallway.
Is there anything they can do at range?
Ah, there is not.
They're gonna continue to follow you down the hallway.
And as you turn and kind of look back over your shoulder,
the banjo man appears to have disappeared.
But for you, the floor keeps moving.
So as far as back as you go,
it appears that this house will just keep creating space.
The violins, sorry, you had the violins.
Trumpets were on calve.
There's nobody there right now,
so they don't do anything.
The piano is on fire.
It's gonna take some damage.
Actually, Carla, you can roll that.
You wanna roll me a d6?
Mm-hmm.
What?
You're there.
Nobody's close enough to the piano
to make that happen again.
Then you lit the kitchen on fire.
So the cello is gonna try and keep moving down
towards you in the dining room.
As all of these creatures are moving
and dragging themselves down the hallway for you,
we go back upstairs.
Cav bursts into the door and is writing himself
after having knocked your music boxhead parents
down to the floor.
And he turns and looks back at you.
You're sat up in bed.
You see the window off to one side.
You hear the chaos and cacophony happening downstairs.
What do you do?
Um, I've shot straight up in bed
and watched Cav do something
that I've been like trying to figure out how to do.
And so, as he turns to me and we lock eyes,
I say, what are you looking at me for?
Keep smashing them!
Ha, ha, ha.
Dumbgeons and Dragons, season four, episode 21,
starring Amy More as Alydin,
Carla Maxted as Bonwyn Everbane,
Tom Laird as Kavlaran Goldweave,
Kyle Claset as Bizard the Wizard,
and Russ More as your dungeon master.
Dialogue editing and sound design
of today's episode is by Russ More.
Our community manager is Jessica Babiak.
Music is from Epidemic Sound
and sound effects are from Epidemic Sound
and Boom Library.
Our amazing cover art is by Matt Garbutt.
And we'd like to say a huge thank you
to our supporting producers,
including Gabriel Lynch, Jessica Babiak,
Cat Waterflame, Jacob Madden,
Angaron Kiersen, Perry Matey,
Old School Gamer D, Craig Zeiss, and L.A. Branton.
We'd love for you to join us
over on Patreon.com slash Dumb Dragon Cast,
where there's so many amazing bonus episodes,
and now we're opening up the backstage
of our actual records.
Join us today.
Hey, you have a great week.
We'll talk to you soon.
Hope to see you over there.
Sorry.
Be.
Oh.
I have so many things to say.
Can we talk now?
Guest to be our guest.
I know, that's all I could think.
I was like, what is this dark beauty and the beast shit?
But it's so,
but it's like peeling like old skin.
Awful, awful.
Oh my God, you should have seen the faces
that we all pulled.
So like, oh my God, Russ.
So descriptive.
Visceral.
So visceral.
Thank you, Kyle is exactly the word
I was looking for.
Oh, also like, yeah, nightmare, beauty and the beast.
So, yay, here we are.
And I've seen enough fucked up trumpets
to know what a crinkly crunched up bell
would look like trying to gasp for air.
So that was very real for me.
Yes.
All right, we're off to a good start.
We're off to a good start.
Everyone's a little bit upset.
Dumbgeons and Dragons is a Dumb Dragons production.