Dumbgeons and Dragons will begin in a moment.
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. Carla Maxted as Bonwyn
Everbane, she her. Tom Laird as Kavlaran Goldweave, he him. And then Kyle's playing
a theremin, I love it. And Kyle Claset as Bizard the Wizard, he him. Dumbgeons and
Dragons is a Patreon supported show made possible by listeners like you. Join us
today at patreon.com slash dumbdragoncast and get a free seven day trial to try
everything out over there. And now fuck it. Let's play.
Dare is running real hard towards you.
Run so hard.
Bizard you had something prepped before. Absolutely give you that to try and stop
this bear.
Yeah, waving my arms as if I'm participating in this but really casting web to stop it
because it's going to charge I can have a feeling about it. So yeah, that's
going to be a DC 14 dexterity save. I'm going to center it right on it, make
it as difficult as possible.
That is going to be an 11.
Okay, that is a fail. So it is restrained by the webs. They can take an
action using a strength athletics check to break it. DC 14.
Amazing. Okay, so this bear running towards you all fours you see it as the
light kind of shines down on it. These mushroom caps coming out of what
appear to be open wounds all along this bear's body has this well, I
mean, angry look as it's tearing towards you as these webs shoot up in
front of it and ensnare around it as it's scratching and clawing at it.
What do we do? Do we run? We can't outrun it.
You can start trying get down and I mean, I need to maintain
concentration on the webs and hope that this thing is weak.
Where are we? Are we there yet?
There's a giant bear.
Where?
It's covered in mushrooms.
Right there.
What if what can we pull and push this card and run?
I can push a cart.
And then you, Bizarre, do you just focus on your web?
I'm focusing and...
But then what? I think we have to fight it.
I know that's stupid, but Bizarre can't just stay here and concentrate
on the bear all day and then he's going to try and run away and then
it's going to chase him.
I think he said we put him in the cart.
Yeah, what if he sits in the cart and we like take off with him and
we run and he can like keep the concentration going.
Oh, smart.
I'm not thinking clearly.
Okay, that's a great idea.
You hear the snapping of the webs as it's trying to trying to break free.
Bizarre, as you climb into the back of the wagon, Alistair and whoever's
pulling, Alistair's pushing, whoever's pulling, you barrel off.
Okay, Cav, you're pulling.
Barrel off down this path.
Hey, Trees, if there's anything you can do right now to like do a little
like a wall, that'd be great.
There's a pause as you hear
your voice delayed echo through the trees.
You hear a roar from the bear come as you're running down this path and
you hear that same wood creaking behind you.
Go faster.
Yeah, we're all just running and like I assume all pushing and pulling
and like go faster.
Since it snapped out of the web, I'm going to break concentration on that
and I'm going to cast grease under it and try to make it fall.
Okay, yes, I'm going to cast banana peel.
Yeah, pretty much all of you moving down this hill.
You see it come over the crest of this hill and the grease spreads out
in front of it and like loses its footing like whoop whoop whoop whoop.
How embarrassing.
Oh, as Alydin, you see the roots extending from the side of the path,
making their way towards the bear itself, closing in on the path around it.
Oh, it's Alydin.
The vines listen to you.
OK, please keep doing that.
Thank you so much, Vine Lord.
I think that's what people would say.
I would think so, yeah.
I don't know how I feel about it.
The bear looks like it's like trying to scratch at the ground and
pick itself back up.
It's kind of like when in the movies you actually get a dinosaur to fall down
and then you are throwing the ropes over top of it.
You think that's going to do anything?
And you think it's going to do it and does it?
Does it do it?
Yeah, it manages to to get back up and the grease is pouring down the path.
So give me a little extra room on this here.
But the roots reach and like wrap themselves around the hind legs of this bear
and it's clawing at them.
It looks like its attention has been drawn away from you
and is trying to bat away the roots and the vines that have have come out of the forest.
Run. Thank you.
So we just keep running, right?
Yeah. Where are we going?
Are we running back the way we came or we're running it like came from the side
and we're continuing on?
You continue running.
You hear the the echoing sound of this bear off in the distance.
You hear the snapping sound of trees and vines and that slowly fades away.
You crest over another hill and you see the same scene that you saw before.
You see smoke coming up off in the distance, but it doesn't look like it's any closer.
Do you think that bear set that fire?
Did you bear set fires here in Vintresmith?
Well, bears don't have mushrooms growing out of them typically.
No, that was new.
That was gross.
Yeah. A poor bear.
It was so mad.
I'm glad we didn't have to fight it.
I've never fought a bear.
Yeah, I fought a stag once.
It's just looking into the middle distance.
Yeah, and just just reliving some trauma more.
I still have its fucking thing with me that I keep forgetting that I have.
I can't even remember the word to it, guys.
It's antlers.
Did you take antler?
It's hoof.
It's yeah, you had you had a lot of things that you took with you.
You had a lot of things that you took from it.
You used every part of it because you're a conscientious hunter.
Absolutely.
You touched elk.
So the antlers, yeah, you have the antlers of reflection.
I have a hoof stone.
Oh.
You have an echoing hoof stone.
What does that do?
So once per day, you can use it to reroll a failed saving throw.
God damn.
When you use it, you can hear your own voice whisper the successful outcome a moment before
it happens.
And you have the ink vial or somebody has the ink vial of the archive and antlers of
reflection.
Antlers of reflection are pretty cool.
I'm sure Bizard would have cast identify on that at least once.
Like something similar.
So the antlers of reflection, the effect of those while carrying one, the user can
cast mirror image once per long rest.
Oh, shit.
Yeah, this is the middle part of the show where we rediscover all the things we've already
received.
It's my favorite part.
Like, what? I've never even heard of that before.
I always learned so much.
I know.
Bizard, Arcana or Insight.
Is this in reference to the smoke?
Uh, yes.
OK, I'm going to go with Arcana.
Nineteen.
You pick up that this visual that you've seen now twice.
I think you may can't remember if it was in the downtime or in the episode, but you
drew the illusion, the effect that if the sound is creating a distortion, perhaps there
are some visuals that are creating a distortion too.
There could be in your inventory something that may help with an illusory effect that
was recently purchased.
The fade dampening cordial, maybe?
I would guess on the anchoring drought, since it seems like we're being displaced
and there's spatial distortion.
And then Kyle's playing a theremin.
I love it.
But who drinks it?
Can't be all of us.
It has to be one.
I mean, I didn't purchase that one, so I don't think I'm drinking it.
I didn't either.
Oh, I thought somebody said they purchased it.
Well, I thought it was Bonwyn.
Yeah, I thought Bonwyn purchased it.
Did I?
I thought it was Alydin.
Oh, no, I was talking about wanting to not.
Yes, yes.
Uh, OK, great.
See, this is why I need you guys.
I already forgot.
OK, I'm going to I got this from from the sisters.
So I'm going to look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look.
What's it taste like?
Kind of like an apple cinnamon.
It's really good.
You taste that and like there's this this warmth that washes over you.
Your feet begin to feel very heavy, like almost
like gravity has almost doubled where you are right now.
And all around you,
like this distortion effect begins to wash away.
Nobody else witnesses this, but you see that in front of you now
where there was clearly one path, you see the smoke off in the distance.
The the the path diverges.
There is now two paths before you,
the one that you were following and another that looks like it's going
towards where the smoke is more clearly.
So I Robert Frost it up and take a moment to consider which path to take,
because if I take one, I can't take the other.
In your, I guess,
an experience to this point, the one path that maintained is the one
when you previously saw this that you took before.
Right. OK, so there's I see.
I think I see what's actually here now, and there isn't just, you know,
this path that you guys see that we've been on. Yeah, yeah.
But there's also a path right here.
But that is trees, but it's not.
It's not trees. I don't think it's trees.
I'm going to walk briskly in that direction,
but with an arm in front of me, because I'm not totally crazy.
I'm not going to break my own nose, but
in case this potion is playing a trick on him.
This is the platform nine and three quarters.
You have to go at it running. That's right.
And see what happens.
OK, Bonwyn cautiously, but also briskly, but with an arm up.
Yeah. Walks forward.
We're like, you see Bonwyn like right when you think they're going to hit
this huge red wood, walks through it.
You see this rippling effect of the image that you see before you.
Oh, shit. See, no broken nose.
Is this entire woods.
Just belong to the fey.
I don't know, but I do remember that this potion only lasts an hour.
So I think we should like 10 minutes.
What? Really? Son of a bitch.
Time distortions fucked up. Let's go.
Welcome to the middle, everybody.
The middle. Hey, here we are.
Hold on. What's over there?
Uh, did you?
I hear you.
Crawling under the desk.
This is a new kind of audio experience for the middle.
Yeah. Come with me under under the table to the audio interface that we have.
No, we're here. We're here with you and for you and having a great time.
And we got together
this past weekend.
Yeah, we did.
All of those things that we did were so magical.
It was so fun when we.
And then also when we.
Yeah, hold on.
Yeah, let's manifest what we what we think we did
and then check the boxes when we did.
So we got together.
We had a reasonable brunch time on the first day.
We were in Calgary. We were in Calgary.
We did karaoke.
Flights are booked, so we can't change that one.
So that's good. Yeah, it was karaoke.
Yeah. Yeah.
Either at a place or just in somebody's car.
One of them. Absolutely.
Yeah.
There was pasta and also clouds.
OK. Yeah.
Yes. Yeah. We got a little bit of rain.
And we got the moon showed up at one point.
Yeah. That was pretty dope.
I liked the weather more than I did in Texas.
OK. I would say.
Yeah, that was we saw some birds.
Yeah. So many birds.
We talked about the show and the game and then played,
probably played the game, too.
Yeah, we did all those things.
Played a different game, maybe.
And maybe you saw us.
Maybe you didn't.
Yeah, I don't know.
I think we've covered just about everything
that we could possibly.
And it was a magical weekend.
We had the best time.
And we have so many pictures.
Yes, we took so many pictures because we're so thankful
to Jess for taking all the pictures.
100 percent. And Kyle and Jess live in Canada now.
Yeah, it's just it's just where they are.
Yeah, nothing wrong there.
No. When you do get out of no.
When you do move to Canada,
you get an episode dedicated to Canada.
Yeah.
When you do move to Canada and also become a patron,
you can pay in Canadian dollars, which is slightly more than US dollars.
Just the way the world works.
But you and you become a patron.
We got there at Patreon dot com slash Dumb Dragoncast.
You get an episode dedicated to you like today's patron.
My name is D.
D.
Heck yeah, D.
D is D.
D is a lovely human.
Absolutely. 100 percent.
One of the best.
Are we allowed to plug D's show?
I think we're allowed to do whatever we want.
No, absolutely not.
Absolutely not.
I'm so sorry, D.
I tried.
Yeah, look, I gave him a shout out.
He doesn't get a show plug. Come on.
Go talk to him about it on Discord yourself.
That's right.
Yeah, no, D and Jess and Kat from the community
and many others in the community, too,
all have their own actual play show, which is called
The Taramundi Chronicles, an improvised history of the universe.
Nailed it.
Got it. Jess threw up her hands.
No notes. No notes.
And you should listen to it.
You should listen to it. It's great.
Yeah. Wonderful people.
I helped with the first couple episodes on sound design,
but then after that, D took over and now it sounds infinitely better.
D's amazing. D's amazing.
Agreed. Thanks, D.
Be like D, which I'd say very honestly,
everybody should be like D.
Go to patreon.com slash dumb dragon cast.
And now we'll get you back to this episode where things are happening.
Oh, I love things.
Can't wait for that.
There are probably mushrooms.
Animals.
And there are problems to solve birds.
Like probably birds might be birds.
Calgary did have birds.
Oh, good call out. Good call out, Carla.
We probably opened the bird app to see what birds were in our area.
110 percent we did, which is not a dating app.
I was. It's actual birds.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
All right. Well, on that note, have fun.
We'll talk to you soon. Love you. Bye.
OK, so we only have like 10 minutes.
Should we? Should we keep running?
I mean, I want to get away from the bear.
I want to know why they're blocking this path.
So I say we go in this direction.
Let's go. OK.
Let us hustle. OK.
Everybody tears through this tree, which ripples.
And now you see a path before you.
The illusion has broke.
Oh, so we just need to get through that illusion and then we can see.
It's like I get I was built for.
What's a dwarf?
I was built for sprints, but not marathons.
You know, that's right.
And you carry along this path with relatively minimal
distortion effect at this point, like you still occasionally
hear that sound, delay your footsteps,
making a double tap or maybe not even hearing them.
The the disappearing effect still is in place.
So you'll take a few steps and then they'll they'll be gone from you.
Um, you you continue on for
a couple more hours and it's getting late.
When you think you should be making camp,
the trees ahead of you begin to thin.
Beyond them, you see
the lake or what's left of it.
You see a vast basin come into view.
Of cracked earth split like broken porcelain.
There's a dam that stands at one end that appears to be intact.
Water not burst through or even trickling through.
At the center of the basin, faintly visible
is a stone arch half submerged in dust.
It appears to be flickering.
Like a reflection trying to remember what it reflects.
On the other side of the lake, you see
the worn down city of Lingersville.
You see buildings partially intact.
There's a schoolhouse that's still standing.
Vineyards charred and overgrown off in one direction.
You hear wind cutting through empty windows.
Oh, it's even creepier than I thought it would be.
If I'm being honest, it's really creepy.
It's like a ghost town.
It's a ghost town, which I guess it is.
But they're going to be ghosts.
There's probably going to be ghosts.
I don't know why.
Did I mean, the arch, right, is that
did we just find it, what we were looking for that easily?
Is it? It looks like it's it looks like it's fading.
Russ, does it look like, yeah, like what appeared in town
in Vindersmith?
From the distance that you're at, there are certainly similarities.
It's a stone arch, which appears to be
you'd be able to determine even from here.
Looks like it's a different type of stone, more
slate from the look of it.
As previously mentioned, like it's half covered in.
What did I say? Dust.
Yeah. Yeah.
Because like an old lake bed is like dirt.
Yeah. Sediment is like built up.
But yeah, there is a translucence to it.
You can see it there and then like almost like it glows
and then a bright light and seems to be fading away.
Well, I was going to suggest we make camp,
but now we're here. So. Yeah.
Do we keep going or get a good night's rest and then face it tomorrow?
What if it's not there tomorrow?
Oh, goodness, I hadn't considered that,
but everything is completely wacky here.
So. Yeah.
Or if we wake up somewhere else.
Oh, God. OK.
I'm going to pull out the spool of thread and see how it's reacting.
Kyle's good at this game.
Probably around the same time as like when when the lake came into view
and maybe even a little bit before, like you felt the same pull
and the like the cold.
What did I say? Cold.
It got cold towards it. Yeah.
You felt it grow a little chilled in your in your breast pocket there.
And as you pull it out, you see the thread spinning on the spool
and a an extension of it is leading you
not towards the stone archway, but to the city itself.
Hmm. You see how it's flickering?
Wonder if. Maybe we need to fix something
because this thread's not taking us there.
Hmm. Like fix what?
I don't think it's anchored.
I don't know if we go in like everything I've been reading,
like if you go in and there's it's it's not.
It's not set.
It could close or move behind you.
Wait, what would happen then?
Like, are we just lost in there?
I could only assume that we we would be trapped in there at best.
I don't know.
I don't have any reports of anybody getting trapped in there
or not making it out because they didn't make it out.
So should we just go where the thread's leading us to see what?
We're talking about it being properly anchored and the thread is.
Acting like a stitching from one realm to the next.
So maybe.
The thread will take us to whatever we need to put back together.
Yeah, because the thread in town
pointed us like where the, you know, where the entrance was, so. Right.
I guess I trust the thread.
I'd rather sleep inside,
even if a place doesn't have any windows.
Oh, I mean, we weren't going to have to really sleep outside.
But, you know, if we don't want to go into the city, then
we can make arrangements outside of the town.
I say we just go in. We're here.
Yeah, let's do it. It's pointing us here for a reason.
And we came here to do it.
And that doesn't mean we have to deal with it now.
But we can at least find a safe place, like Alydin said, with like a real roof.
And and. Yeah.
OK, yeah. To the city, to the city, to the city.
Is there a path around the lake or are we walking through the dry lake bed?
There would be a path around.
Of course, so scenic, beautiful, beautiful lingers.
Or you could cut through your call.
Seems creepy. Yeah.
Downhill. I don't want to be like a hill.
So now, oh, see that, too.
I don't want to be like.
Horse in never ending story.
I know it's all dry, but I.
This is why you didn't bring a donkey.
Exactly, exactly.
You can lose Alistair in the mud pit, but not a donkey. Yeah.
I'd be sad.
That's I know that says a lot about me as a person, but I would be sad.
Oh, geez.
OK, well, let's take the scenic path.
You continue along the path around the lake and the the trees become thinner.
The closer you get to the city, everything appears to be like dried up.
Some of it charred like there was a fire at some point,
and at least some of the area.
But by and large, it looks just mostly like the source of life,
the source of water for this area dried up long ago.
What happened to the smoke in the distance?
Is that coming from?
You don't see it anymore.
Cool. You get to the edge of town and it becomes clearer.
But from what you saw on the other side, like a lot of the buildings
are in a very serious state of disrepair.
Windows smashed and graffiti across some of them, walls half torn down.
Like it looks like at some point, a group of people, teens, probably teens.
I don't want to start
besmirching teens immediately, but probably teens.
I mean, that said, it doesn't look like like a big raiding party.
But yeah, perhaps a small group of people came and looted some things and then left.
As you make your way down,
what you can assume once was Main Street,
it leads you towards the schoolhouse,
which is the only building in this town that appears to be structurally sound.
Huh.
Do you think there's a, you know, like our friend in the basement?
Paper face?
No, no, no, I meant our actual friend, the caretaker,
with the roll call and the.
You know, at the school.
Paper. Yeah, that was not the paper face we fought.
Oh, OK, I thought paper face bad guy.
We fought scary guy.
And I meant nice Lake Automaton man. Right. Yes.
OK. Joe, too many people named paper face.
Everyone's calling their kids paper face these days.
It's confusing.
Maybe especially the ones P.A.Y.
Right. P.A.R. Yeah, it's expensive.
Maybe. Maybe there's one of them, one of one of him here.
Good place to start.
I didn't think I'd hear myself saying this, but let's go to school.
Bizarre Beams with Pride. Let's go.
Oh, you walk closer.
And as you get closer, you see that the windows are intact,
but opaque with some residue from from the decay of the town.
You see a bell rope that's rotted off into off into the distance
and a plaque that's half fallen, says Lingersville Academy,
in pursuit of excellence.
You step up the five stone stairs to the front entryway.
And who goes to open the door, which is closed before you.
Yvonne, when what kind of rocks are these?
Mm hmm. Yeah, tell me about those stone steps.
Anything interesting or something local?
It appears to be local stone,
nothing exceptional, but has held up considering everything around you,
has held up incredibly well as far as you're concerned.
Just like a local sandstone, Alydin, something,
you know, probably from the quarry a couple of towns over.
Nothing, nothing weird, just just normal.
I thought there was a joke being made because it's a schoolhouse rock.
But that's I don't know if.
But you were wrong. I was wrong.
Terrible, Kyle. Absolutely.
I'll open the door.
I ain't I ain't scared of no school.
The door opens easily for you.
It's weird considering it's been abandoned for so long.
Yeah, someone oiling hinges here, that's.
Feel strange.
Well, I mean, if there is a worker down there, then.
It makes sense.
True. Good sign, then, maybe.
Is the what's the thread doing now?
Bizarre would have if you've kept it out.
Yeah. And yeah, the thread has been.
As you've walked around the lake, like it's kind of kept a clock
and now it's been pointing you towards the school.
OK, but nothing more specific.
It's not like more, more, more, more elusive.
It hasn't folded itself into a little arrow.
In fact, as you get to the entry, Bizarre,
you see that it respools itself now that you've reached the school
and stop spinning.
OK, tuck it back in a rest pocket inside.
Warm air greets you as the front doors push open.
Without resistance.
The scent is dry paper, cedar shelves and polished wood.
No dust hangs in the air.
Brass coat hooks line one wall, each numbered
except for one engraved simply monitor.
Across the foyer, a chalkboard bears a single message.
Welcome back.
The instant the last of you steps inside,
fresh chalk scratches across the slate by itself.
It reads, visitors, please await classification.
Dumbgeons and Dragons, season four, episode 62,
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 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 Garba.
A huge thank you to our supporting producers,
Gabriel Lynch, Jessica Babyok,
Angur Rangkirzan, 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 Dragoncast
and help us tell the stories that you want to hear.
We hope to see you over there.
Have a great week and we'll talk to you soon.
You guys know we can add item to party equipment.
No, that we all share.
Oh, is that news?
Where's that party inventory?
I'm like, oh, damn.
We should probably start to put some stuff in there.
Just knew that was there.
Jess knows that, but that's not surprising.
This is like 10 years ahead of the rest of us.
I'm just saying we should put some of the shit in here
because I'm like, when am I carrying antlers?
Share the burden of remembering.
OK. Yeah.
Bizard, make a.
What do we want to do here?
Arcana, Arcana or don't itch your tattoo.
I'm not itching it, I'm gently caressing it.
Don't do it.
And making your shirt rub against it.
Quit it. It's not me, it's the shirt.
A lot of semantics going on there, Russ.
Yeah, I know. Right. It's itchy.
God damn. It's a ten minute hour.
They dampening cordial.
Oh, yeah. One hour anchoring draft.
No, no, I don't think they dampening cordial.
Oh, then none of that happens.
It was the anchoring draught draft.
I thought we were talking about the anchoring draught.
Yeah, that's what we were talking about.
Is that what we were talking about?
Oh, yeah. That's why my feet feel heavy.
The fade dampening cordial.
It would be more if you if there were charm effects.
Yeah, well, let's just say it was a bottle of anchoring draught.
I think we did.
Well, I thought that's what we said.
OK, great. That's what we said.
OK, we're all on the same page. Great.
I know Carla and I are on one page.
You guys are on the other page.
I like their page better right now.
So I'm going to ditch my page and jump onto yours.
What a great anchoring draft.
Dumbgeons and Dragons is a Dumb Dragons production.