Dumbgeons and Dragons will begin in a moment. Kavlaranan, you're going to write in this ledger and nothing is happening. No indentation in the paper, no ink being written across the page. Nothing.
So I can't write in this.
Okay, well, that was a good thought.
Yeah.
Like, do you want to use my pencil?
I mean, I'm happy to try it, but I just, like, I can't even, like, dent the page. Like, it's going to accept writing on it.
But sure, toss me the pencil.
I rummage through my bucket and I throw him a pencil. Joe, can you write in it? Is it maybe just for Joe?
You go to scratch something with pencil and same thing, nothing. You hear the sound of the pencil scratching, but nothing is happening to the page.
Joe looks at it and says, I don't believe that ledger is for me.
Do you know who it's for?
I don't believe I'm authorized to remember.
Thought I got him that time, guys.
Yeah.
But if you cannot make a record in the ledger, perhaps the ledger is not ready for any sort of categorization or input.
This is, like, three pay grades above me, guys.
The ledger isn't ready?
Well, you cannot affect the ledger, correct?
Yeah.
I cannot.
Perhaps the ledger is not prepared.
Who prepares the ledger?
Yeah. How do you, how do you prepare a ledger?
Specifically for education.
Hypothetically speaking.
He's trying. Like, he's, you can tell, like, he's not immediately jumping to I don't believe I'm authorized to remember.
He, it looks like he is, like, going through any sort of categorization.
And he's Rolodexing in there.
It's just paper sounds.
He's flipping over.
Pauses in, like, his shoulder slump and he's, I'm sorry, I don't believe I'm authorized to remember.
That's OK.
Don't worry about it, buddy.
We'll figure it out.
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.
I know, not everything's a conspiracy.
Carla Maxted as Bonwyn Everbane, she, her.
We've tried so many times.
Tom Laird as Kavlaranan Goldweave, he, him.
Interesting.
And Kyle Clasett as Bizard the Wizard, he, him.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
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And now, fuck it, let's play.
Hey, Joe, can I ask you a personal question?
Do you hear anything when you stand in this circle?
Like, does anything happen to you?
Because when I stood in it, like, I heard, yeah.
And there was an effect.
No, no.
He walks in and out of it a couple times.
Nothing happens.
Doesn't do anything, hey?
Me neither.
What do you think, like, you're going to do when we, when we leave?
Just, like, take a break or you have some filing to do or are you going to be bored?
Go back to sleep?
Well, I will check the records and make sure everything has been maintained.
And then await further instruction.
Who is permitted to give you instruction?
I report upward.
But to whom?
I don't believe I'm authorized to remember.
Imagine the current headmaster or headmistress.
Do you know who the current headmaster is?
There was a change in who the headmaster was,
but for some reason that record is lost.
So you'll just stay here and wait?
You'll be here if we need to come back?
Correct.
Fantastic.
I hope to see you soon.
Great.
And he walks over to the filing cabinets and pulls them open.
Pulls one out and begins to read, thumbing through it.
Guys, this feels weird.
Yeah.
Should we take the ledger with us?
Oh, we're taking the ledger with us.
Absolutely.
Okay.
In fact, Alydin, let me go ahead and start.
Let me see that real quick.
As we walk to where we're going to walk,
I'm going to be focusing on casting, identify on the ledger.
Where is it that we are going?
Just walking out real slowly.
Okay, bye, Joe.
Guys, he's going to be so lonely down here.
I highly doubt that.
Yeah, honestly, he seemed like if he just went to sleep
when you found him, I think it's okay.
Should we tell June?
No, I say we keep it secret.
In fact, we're putting that bookshelf back,
and nobody needs to go down there and mess around with that.
I agree.
Seems safer that way.
Okay.
So Bizard, all of you are heading back up.
You hear cabinets opening and closing, filing through papers
as it kind of fades out as you get back up into the proper basement.
It sounds like you push the cabinet back against the hole in the wall,
and you cast identify as you get it back out into the light,
and identify is just something that happens.
Yeah, there's no-
Well, yeah, I mean, there's like a casting time and whatnot, but-
Yeah, sure.
So as that begins to reveal information to you,
so I mean, what you probably could have jumped to fairly quickly
is that the ledger is in fact magical.
You gather that it is dormant.
There's a sense that you get that it is not empty.
The pages are blank,
but the magical nature of it leads you to believe
that perhaps it is concealing some sort of information beneath it.
It is not cursed, it is not sentient, but it is also not complete.
The magic school that you get from that,
because I believe that's something you get as well,
is a hybrid of abjuration, divination, and enchantment,
but none of them are primary.
The dominant magical principle is continuity.
Okay, just to clarify something,
it says you learn its properties and how to use them.
Essentially, I've learned that this is not something for us to be used,
but more of a reference.
Is that what I've gathered?
Yes.
So yeah, you've gathered that the ledger records identities
that pass through institutional thresholds.
Okay, where are we headed?
Do we want to go talk to the historian?
Do we want to see Alistair?
I'm really, I need to think about this book a little bit more
before I really speak more to it,
but we need to think about Lingersville
and what's going to set us up best to head that way.
Yeah, what do we need?
I mean, other than supplies, weapons, etc.
What do we need to know before we go there?
Or what do we think we want to find out when we get there?
Yeah, I guess a little more detail on like
what exactly happened to the town.
Yeah.
That sounds like a historian.
Yeah.
Oh, so we should chat with Candle.
Okay, cool.
Light up our situation a little bit, yeah.
Very illuminating.
Oh, no.
They're going to be like this the whole time.
Okay, cool.
I bet that will make us really popular with this new historian.
He probably, they, she probably loves jokes about their name.
They've never heard before, probably.
Or a million times over.
Sure, they'll be all new.
Are they working in the school?
What's the time of day right now?
School.
We're in that basement.
I mean, you weren't in there at a super, you know,
there were a couple check-ins and you said to do them every 10 or 15 minutes or so.
So like no more than an hour.
Okay.
Yeah, enough time for basically Tally to go run, find, bond, win, and come back.
So it's like the end of the school day.
Yeah, post-lunch, you know, things are wrapping up.
But yes, all educators should still be there.
You enter back into the school and head towards the history class
and the bell rings and students begin to pour out of the of the rooms running off for the day.
You walk into the history class and there a couple students kind of push past you
as you are entering and inside you see a kobold dressed in a very nice cropped
pants and a very clean cut blouse.
She's wearing very small round glasses that extend down to the edge of her nose
and she's erasing the chalkboard and she sees you come in and says,
Alydin, did you forget something?
I actually didn't see you in class.
Is everything all right?
Oh yeah, no, everything's fine.
Sorry, I'll make sure to get the notes from somebody.
Of course, of course.
What can I do for you?
We just were wondering if we could ask you a couple questions.
Okay.
These are, she just realizes the awkwardness of the situation of being a 14-year-old being like,
these are my friends here, these fully grown adults.
These are my peeps.
This is my posse.
This guy's my magic daddy.
This is my government worker and my mom weaponsmith.
There's lots of children with found family at this school,
so that makes a lot of sense.
It's lovely to meet you all.
Hi, Bonwyn.
It's really nice to meet you.
Bizarre.
Cav.
Welcome to the middle, everybody.
Once again, I find myself here.
Every time we come back to the middle.
We have a big announcement that you may have seen on our social medias,
something that we have been wanting to do for a very long time.
We've even tried.
We've even attempted.
We've tried so many times.
I think all of us have tried.
Wait, are we just making another podcast?
We've done that too many times.
That's not the announcement.
No, this one is that we have transcripts for all seasons and episodes of Dumbgeons and Dragons.
All you got to do is you can go to our website, dumdragons.com.
I've added a transcript tab.
You can just go click that link.
It's all searchable.
If you're looking for a specific event,
you can listen along while you're in there.
You can jump to points.
It's pretty frigging cool.
That way you can do it at karaoke.
Exactly.
Absolutely.
I mean, the first episode of season three, at least, right?
Yes, yes.
Yeah, exactly.
And if you, you know, a little help us out.
These things are very close to being good.
I would put them in the 90 to 95% ready to go.
Like there's some fantasy names in there that are hard to catch.
Sure.
If you see an error.
The cast probably doesn't even know how to spell some of them.
Probably not.
You can report that on the site, too.
And it'll come straight to us and we can fix it.
So thank you for that.
And hopefully that helps you enjoy the show better if you need them.
Absolutely.
Just go search for keywords.
It's so fun.
We just did it for like five minutes.
How many times did we say sex?
Look up bitch.
Look up butts.
Oh, God.
We're children.
Absolutely.
But we're children that are more accessible now to more or less be themselves.
Yeah, absolutely.
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Thank you so much.
What are we looking at here, Russ?
C-O-R-Y.
Girl, Corey.
C-O-R-Y.
C-O-R-E-Y.
There's a lot of options.
K-O-R-Y.
Corey.
Center of the planet.
On the first one, it was a C-O-R-Y.
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Thanks for being there.
Get you back to this episode.
Come on back now, you hear?
Y'all, come on back now.
Are we trying to interview?
No, I think that's...
I was just trying it on.
I think that's Midnight Burger.
Oh, is that what it is?
I thought it was John Wayne.
Now come on back, kick the dust off your boots anytime.
All right.
Love you, bye.
So I'm sorry, you had questions about...
Sorry, did you say what you had questions about?
No.
No, we didn't.
But we do have questions about Lingersville, if you're versed.
I've read up on Lingersville.
Very interesting historical moment in the transition from Lingersville
to Vintersmouth to Vintersmouth.
But yes, what do you know and what can I fill in?
Oh, I think the water went away and that's why.
Yeah, basically just what happened.
It's pretty weird that there was a water problem
and then the whole down basically moved.
I mean, that seems unusual.
Well, yes.
Well, Lingersville...
Well, let's take it back a little bit.
Lingersville was a vineyard settlement.
It centered on Lake Vochtig.
It was built on, as it was well known, remarkably pure water.
That was one of the calling natures of the town.
It flourished for some time, but then residents reported illness.
There were some strange behavioral effects.
A water contamination event occurred
that was directly, in the lessons that I received,
presumed to have caused the illness.
So the lake itself was dammed and the town was relocated
to what would become Vintersmouth.
And that's when the rise of this town occurred.
From a small settlement along the river expanding into,
well, I mean, you could call it the much larger town that it is today.
And it was an unfortunate but well-managed transition
under quick action, civic leadership, and forward planning,
as all the lessons tell.
Did anyone ever test the water and find out what happened?
It was interesting because there's mixed reports.
The contamination itself, I suspect,
based on what I've been able to research of my own,
did not appear to be any sort of bacterial contamination.
I have found discrepancies in the timeline
that don't quite match public records.
Oh, like what?
Well, records from the final year are incomplete
and the school records are, and I'm talking about here,
the school records are particularly sparse.
The relocation planning began before the contamination peaked.
Checking kind of the timing of all of these like
is led to believe that Vintersmouth was a town
that came because of the, quote unquote, fall of Lingersville.
Wouldn't call it that necessarily.
It was already being started.
Exactly. That's right.
Why would they do that if there wasn't a reason to move the town?
That is a great question.
I have found in my travels some records that elude to the fact
that some families transferred wealth before the crisis.
And I suspect, I cannot confirm this,
but I do suspect that there was knowledge
ahead of public knowledge, if you know what I mean.
So you're thinking some like insider trading kind of shit going on.
Yeah.
Like the elites knew something was going to go wrong
and started making plans to get out.
Or did somebody poison the well?
That is a possible piece of the puzzle, yes.
I can't substantiate that.
I've only kind of pieced together different transitions
and different ledgers and that sort of thing
and come to my own conclusions.
Right.
It's hard to stand on speculation when the evidence just isn't there sometimes.
Exactly.
When everything in the historical record points to the fact of the timeline
that adds up, so to speak.
Interesting, though.
Also, I just love gossip.
I know it's historic, but the elites being bad,
that just plays right into my worldview.
Well, that's excellent.
What do you...
Well, it sounds like you know...
You're an Everbane, correct?
So you've been here for some time,
or at least your family has, not necessarily you.
Oh, for sure, since, I mean, for many, many generations.
I think going back that far.
The Everbanes go back, as you mentioned, some time.
And the dam, as much as it was...
I mean, the dam was framed as a public health measure.
It required unusual structural reinforcement,
and they had to call in several smithing families.
And there are records that the Everbanes
may have been one of those families.
Huh.
I mean, it would explain why we ended up here.
I mean, a dwarven smithing family,
I mean, we're definitely still a minority in this town, right?
So that's interesting.
So you're saying you think my family
might have helped build the dam to stop the...
Yes.
Yeah, well, I believe so.
If what I've read holds true, then they may have been a part of it.
I don't... I have no knowledge or information
that would insinuate them in any way,
other than the fact that they were called upon
to help the public health concern.
How did building a dam help the public health concern?
Well, the lake in and of itself,
with conflicting accounts, of course,
was believed to be the source of the contamination.
So damming off the lake,
removing the water from the lake.
So they just took all that water out?
Well, over time, if you cut off the supply,
the lake will dry up.
Right.
Diverted the river,
and that's how we have the stream going to Kingston.
Used to be forked.
If you've walked along up near there,
where the dam is quite prominent,
the river forked.
And that's first pass, went down to Lingersville,
and then a lesser stream came down this way.
After the damming, more flow came down this way.
Wouldn't one assume if there was a contamination in the water
that it would come from a source?
One would assume.
I have thoughts about where you're going with that, Alydin.
I know.
Not everything's a conspiracy.
But maybe.
But some things are.
No, I think this very much is.
Because agreed, something's feeding the lake,
and there's not a problem coming from elsewhere.
So it's not like the river going down to Kingston.
Yeah, it's the same river.
It's the same river.
So maybe there was something on the land.
It was passing through, or someone was doing something.
Like a runoff situation?
I think it was something they did at the bottom of that lake.
Yeah.
Oh, are you saying you want to get to the bottom of it?
Yeah, and I pull up my book, Portals, Portals, Portals.
I'm like, how else could you get a contaminant
in through water that's not visible?
Oh, interesting.
This might be a conversation.
OK, is bottom of a lake in the index
a portals, portals, portals?
It's so hard to say portals three times.
Why is that?
It's really hard.
I don't know.
The thing earlier sounded a lot harder.
It's probably because of the store, Portals, Portals,
which you're probably equating it with.
More well-known than the book, Portals, Portals, Portals.
Exactly.
So you kind of just stop after the two.
Thanks, Candle.
Of course, of course.
More knowledge is good knowledge.
You're a quick one, Alydin.
You're asking really good questions.
Thanks.
I'm sure they're going to get me into a lot of trouble one day.
Sounds like Alydin doesn't have to do that homework
you mentioned earlier.
No, no, Alydin has to do that homework.
Won't take you long, Alydin.
Don't worry.
We'll get it done before we head to Lingersville,
which, yeah, Alydin's going to be gone for a little while.
Oh, sorry, you're heading to Lingersville.
Oh, did I say that?
Yeah.
You did, but that's fine.
We're camping.
We just want to make sure that everything is fine
and we're not going to get some sort of weird disease.
So you're going there to see if you're not
going to get some sort of-
No, no, we came to check with you.
It was so nice meeting you.
Thank you so much for your information.
That was fantastic.
We have a thing.
We got to go.
Oh, right, the thing, of course.
The thing, right, guys?
Are you ready for camping?
Okay.
It's a family trip.
Okay.
Great.
Well, I'll see you in a couple days, it sounds like.
With the homework.
Let's go.
With the homework.
Here, take a booklet.
This is what we'll be working on for the next two days.
Okay, thanks.
You actually have to read this one.
This is how I wish I could behave in real life.
Awkward conversation.
I actually need to leave.
I just have to not be here right now.
Just walk away.
Goodbye.
Yeah, I love it.
You exit the hallway and are heading back
towards the front entry into the open courtyard.
Kids are playing on the playground.
What do you do?
Where do you want to go?
Guys, are you sure we shouldn't tell anybody
that there is a sentient paper hallmaster monitor
being in the basement?
I don't want to tell Tally.
She's just going to go down there.
Yeah.
Yeah, no, we don't want the kids to know.
I mean, that was the one hard question I had, so.
Yeah, but like.
Okay.
Is it responsible?
What's the benefit?
What's the benefit of letting someone know?
In case he gets out.
Never got out before, and he's been there
for like 250 years.
All right, so what you're saying is
you guys will be held responsible if anything happens.
Well, I don't love the way that's framed.
I mean, that's kind of how it's been.
I mean, you know, Cav literally went on trial for something.
True.
So we're kind of.
You know what?
We kind of are responsible, I guess, actually.
Thanks, Buzzard.
You're right.
Yeah.
It sounded bad, but it's just accurate.
Yeah, we're responsible for everything that happens to us.
So we're kind of responsible.
Okay.
Do you feel okay, Alydin?
Yeah, I guess so.
See, if we told somebody and they went down there
and got hurt, we'd also be responsible for that.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
That's right.
Okay, fair.
Are we bringing Alistair to Lingersville?
Oh, um.
Yeah, we need a tester.
What?
Dumbgeons and Dragons, season four, episode 58,
starring Amy More as Alydin,
Carla Maxdead as Bonwyn Everbane,
Tom Laird as Kavlaranan 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 Babyok.
Music is from Epidemic Sound,
and sound effects are from Epidemic Sound,
Boom Library, and Sound Ideas.
Our amazing cover art is by Matt Garbutt.
A huge thank you to our supporting producers,
Gabriel Lynch,
Jessica Babyok,
Angaron Kierzen,
Perry Matey,
Count Waterflame,
Jacob Madden,
Old School Gamer D,
Craig Zeiss,
and L.A. Branton.
Dumbgeons and Dragons is a Patreon-supported show,
and because of our Patreon supporters,
we get to keep telling bigger, weirder,
more heartfelt stories in this world we love.
And honestly, that's something we will never take for granted.
Join us today at Patreon.com slash dumb dragon cast,
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We hope to see you over there.
Have a great week, and we'll talk to you soon.
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