This is the ad-free patron cut. Timestamps have been removed for readability.
Dumbgeons and Dragons will begin in a moment.
The heavy front doors open without resistance to the Lingersville Academy.
Warm afternoon light spills across the polished wooden floors untouched by dust.
Rows of neatly hung student coats line one wall.
Umbrella stands remain full.
A large slate chalkboard dominates the entrance hall.
Written in perfect white chalk are the words,
Welcome students.
Visitors, please await classification.
Attendance begins shortly.
Fresh chalk rests neatly on the tray below.
A polished brass bell hangs beside the board.
It has been wound, you can tell, recently.
Nothing here feels abandoned.
In fact, it feels expected.
As you walk into the room, you see two doors that are closed behind the chalkboard.
As mentioned, there are coat hooks in a little like student seating area, often to
the left and right.
The wall is lined along the left and to the right, there are five hooks all empty
along a very similar wooden coat rack.
Do we hear any noise?
Like, is there any sound as if there are students in a classroom?
Or does it seem abandoned?
You don't hear anything from further inside the building.
Not like a switch just hitting a kid.
Just, oh my God, it's from a different time.
They were really, they were punishment.
You wait a moment and then you hear, oh, stop, God, why?
I wasn't here before, but somebody recommended it.
I'm sorry.
And then they yes ended it.
No, you don't hear anybody screaming.
Spoken in new existence.
Little Timmy's been here for centuries without rain getting switched yet.
Brutal.
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.
You just wait till I turn this bucket into a bucket of holding.
I hit control F.
Nobody thought there was Russ.
You might be right.
Let's go.
Dumbgeons and Dragons is a Patreon-supported show made possible by listeners like you.
Join us today at patreon.com slash dumb dragon cast
and get a free seven day trial to try everything out over there.
And now fuck it.
Let's play.
You don't hear anything as you enter the building.
How about smell?
Musty or like exactly the smell of a school that seems to never change?
It does smell exactly like a school that's never changed.
It smells, it doesn't smell musty.
There's no dust.
It looks as if this entire area has been fairly well kept up.
Like if you were to walk into the school back in Vintersmouth,
you'd say that's, you know, they were expecting students tomorrow kind of thing.
Sure.
Well, perhaps the attendant just needs to be summoned.
I'm going to ring the bell, see if there's like a little hammer.
It's got a clapper on it or something.
Yeah, we had a good experience with the other ones.
So let's just, let's get them out here.
Let's get them out here.
Brazard, you walk up to the bell and give it a ring.
And it rings this clear tone that you hear echo throughout the entire space.
And several long seconds later, you hear a second bell
that answers from somewhere what sounds like below.
It doesn't sound like an echo, though.
It sounds like a response.
Alastair looks at you and says, I think that came from underneath us.
I mean, that makes sense.
The other guy was underneath, right?
So this guy might be the paper guy.
Yeah.
Right, yeah.
Do you guys think we should just wait here?
I feel like that's what the sign says to do.
Oh, should we hang up our jackets?
I think it's a good idea.
Actually, it crossed my mind just instinctively from going to school.
So look at you thinking about how to act in the school.
I've been there a couple of times.
I'll take off my jacket and hang it up.
My two coats.
You take up all of them?
Leave none for anybody else?
Everybody who is wearing a coat, I assume everybody,
goes and hangs up their jacket.
And every hook along the way has a carefully engraved brass nameplate.
Yours, the ones that you're hanging up on, appear empty.
There's no engraving on them.
That'd just be weird if it had our names on it already.
I know.
Did you imagine?
That is odd.
Do you think we expect visitors often?
Well, who is they?
There's not supposed to be anybody here.
That's true.
But nothing about this place in this town has seemed normal.
Can I do like a general vibe check?
Because for Carla, this seems fine.
Again, all based on that other attendant guy being chill.
Yes, absolutely.
It's the only reference point we have.
Even though we're in an abandoned town.
But it's like, this feels kind of OK.
It seems less scary than the portal door
in the middle of the empty lake.
I would take an abandoned, maybe not abandoned, school any day
over a random portal in a dried up lake.
There doesn't seem to be any immediate danger.
You can just look at anything you want.
So there's the chalkboard, the coat hooks, the brass bell,
the floor looks immaculately clean.
What would you like to look at?
I am actually fine to hang up my coat.
And did it seem like one of those doors
was closer to where the sound was coming from below?
It did sound like it was coming up from beneath you.
So either door at this point doesn't really
lean one way or the other right now for you.
What do you say, guys?
Both at the same time?
Cthulhu style?
If you don't get that reference,
listen to Call of Cthulhu.
It's on our Facebook page.
And we make some really good decisions.
Choices were made, absolutely.
Interesting choices.
Bizard, I will point out for you as you rang the bell
that the brass bell itself looks
like it was recently polished.
And as you rang it, it did feel like warm to the touch.
OK.
Yeah, I was curious if there's been some bells in the past.
I feel like there was something in the Feywild
we were in there.
I was wondering if it was reminiscent of that
or had that kind of essence to it.
Great question.
I'm trying to remember those bells specifically.
Nothing aside from it being a bell, being the space
looks like it's kind of out of place within the town.
Nothing that would specifically draw you back.
No runes, no banjo man kind of paraphernalia,
nothing like that.
Not banjo man, Pierre.
The banjo man is just standing there.
That was the second follow up question, OK?
Does it have banjo man's face on it?
Is this a banjo man bell?
Is there a banjo on it?
Exactly.
Yeah, it's a banjo bell.
Let's never look at banjos the same again.
I'm going to take the response and say,
I think we could go ahead and head on in.
I think so too.
We should go to the office.
That's where the visitors go.
That's true.
But there's nothing labeled office, right?
We just see two doors.
Yeah, there's nothing indicating as you specify.
OK, well maybe it's this one.
And I point right.
You might be right.
Open the door.
Let's go.
Are you opening both or just the one?
Just the one on the right.
So as you all step towards the door on the right,
Bonwyn, you kind of take the lead.
Alydin, I assume you can follow pretty quickly.
Kav, you and Alastair are farthest back in this room.
And as your friends reach the door and go to open it,
you see that the chalkboard appears
to be like cleaning itself.
And a new phrase is being written on in chalk,
even though the chalk remains on the sill.
And it says, attendance is ready.
And as you approach the door, the double doors,
you hear them unlock with a soft metallic click.
So did anyone notice the chalkboard
has a new message on it now?
Oh, yeah.
Lookie there.
Attendance is ready.
Attendance is ready?
Like haunted school?
Is that what's going on?
I mean, we've seen things being written on paper
a lot recently.
It's just charmed, right?
So just magic-y shit.
Just magic-y shit, yeah.
Yeah, magic-y shit.
Everything about the Weeping Archive I've read
is just littered with magic-y shit.
I mean, actually there's something to be said here
when it comes to the potential for illusions
is you have to question what you see
as we move further into this.
I am giving this lesson to myself,
and I think it's important for everybody to hear it.
Like, don't trust what you see.
Give it a second look.
Okay.
That seems like a really good idea.
Thank you.
Just a good life thing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Still going to open the door.
Is it a door?
Is it a door?
Is it a door?
It's a mimic.
Fuck.
Jesus, no.
Do we check for trap?
No.
You didn't check for traps.
No, we did not.
But yes, it is a door,
and it opens into a chamber.
And as you kind of take a half step in there,
first one through,
Bon, when you were leading the way,
you look to your left,
and this room, both doors open into this room.
Oh.
The chamber is lined from floor to ceiling
with narrow brass tracks,
hundreds of carved wooden nameplates rest within them.
Above the wall, five headings have been carved into the stone.
Present, absent, excused, reassigned, and preserved.
There are no desks in this room,
no chairs, no people,
only names.
So the names themselves appear on the wall straight ahead of you
as you walk in there.
As you step in, there's also a teacher's podium,
a leather attendance ledger,
and a brass, a polished brass bell also sit on this podium as you enter.
Another thing you notice as you step in
is that this room feels like a well-treated voicing booth.
Like, the sound of your footsteps,
the sound of your voices, like, quickly dissipates.
There's not a lot of echo in this room.
Well, Alydin definitely runs up to the podium
and starts just, like, mocking teachers.
Like, settle down, class, settle down!
Who am I?
And then I realize none of you go to my school.
I'm like...
It's true.
Didn't take long for Alydin to turn on the whole school idea, hey,
after we just got it started and the kids were already complaining?
Man.
Yeah.
Baby steps.
You're right.
We got them in the building.
That's what counts.
I want to look over at the present,
absent, excused, reassigned, and preserved.
How many, like, what's the number of people listed under each?
Mm-hmm.
And that's on the chalkboard?
It's on the roof.
Yeah, it's like there's like...
Like, it's up on the ceiling?
Yes.
So, yeah, the actual headings of them appear above the wall.
And then the car...
There are, yes, a chamber lined from floor to ceiling
with these narrow brass tracks.
So all along the wall in front of you
are the tracks with these wooden nameplates
that looks like you could manipulate, slide them in and out.
It's like a physical filing system that...
Yeah.
Like how you put a nameplate on a door.
Exactly.
I was imagining train tracks.
I hit...
Not gonna lie, I was like tracks everywhere.
Control F.
I wonder if there are cars.
Control F?
With just hot wheel tracks?
Gotcha.
Yeah, like...
That's right.
So this is a manually done thing.
Yes, exactly.
So, yeah, you could, if you were so inclined,
you could slide them off, move names around,
and do it that way.
Gotcha.
So there are, as I mentioned, hundreds of names.
Make...
What's gonna be a good one here?
Make a...
Control F for us, I said.
I'd like to hit Control F.
You hit Control F.
And then put in, I don't know, Alydin?
Like, what do we...
Yeah.
What do we actually get to do?
Yeah, you begin to look through them.
And you take some time.
And there are infinite names that you don't recognize,
but a few begin to stand out.
More specifically to you, Bonwyn,
you see the name Malin Everbane
with a denotion of craft underneath her name.
And she is under-preserved.
You see Heron Linger,
which is a name that you've heard in other documentation so far,
with the denotion of agricultural, under-reassigned.
You see Loris Harrison,
Civic Studies, under-excused.
You see Elric River,
with the denotion of surveying, under-preserved.
Junel Foyson,
Observation, under-present.
And A. Grieves,
Maintenance, also under-present.
And Cav, I mean, the name Harrison has jumped out to you.
Sure.
But also you see one that isn't a name.
It just says pending.
Am I able to get more information on that?
There's not really any more specific information at this point,
but it stands out because everything has a name,
has one of these several classifications,
I guess you could call them.
And this one does not.
Just pending.
I would like to flip through the ledger,
the leather ledger that's at my podium,
as I am pretending to be a professor.
You step up to it and it's on,
you're flipping through in the final completed page,
kind of where this book ended off.
You see that it reads,
attendance complete,
dismissal complete,
transition complete,
and continuity maintained.
The signature line on it remains blank.
As you flip back through,
you see all of these pages filled out very similarly,
all signed off in a signature that you can't really pick,
you can't tell what the name is based on the signature.
It's pretty sloppy.
Can I pick up the book?
Yep.
I'm just going to take this with me.
Pick it up, you have it.
Well, you know, just in case.
Hey, you're carrying a bucket, why not put some stuff in it?
Absolutely.
You just wait until I turn this bucket into a bucket of holding.
It's got to happen at some point.
Are our names up there?
You spend some time looking through them
and you don't see any of your names up there.
And it was only the one pending, right, Russ?
Correct.
After a few moments of painstakingly going through
as many names as you can,
you hear some soft footsteps.
In this room, there's doors off to the left and to the right.
They are closed.
You hear some soft footsteps off to the right.
In that time, do we do a quick ballpark of,
you know, count across and down
and do a quick times table here in this school room
and figure out about how many names are on this bad boy?
Uh, yes, you could have done that.
Roughly, there's some spots missing in,
but between four and 500 names.
Hmm.
Damn.
More than I thought.
I'm glad I asked.
I was picturing, like, 50.
I want to go and slide one of the name plates out.
Okay.
Or try to slide one of the name plates out.
I'm going to go ahead and try to hide
as somebody is walking up on us.
Sure.
So the only place to really hide yourself
is either on either side of the door or behind the podium.
There's no desks, no curtains,
no anything else in this space.
So while you're determining where you want to hide,
I will tell you what happens.
So you just go to take it off then, Ellen?
Yeah.
I just want to go, like, just slide it.
Just because I'm perusing and I'm curious
and it looks like it's a manual thing you could do,
so why wouldn't I?
Do you go for any of the names that I listed
or just...
Can I reach them?
Which names can I reach?
Yeah, you'd be able to reach
any of the names that I listed there
are all within your reach.
I will look at...
The only name that I would recognize would be Everbane.
Sure.
So I want to slide Everbane's around
and take a look-see at that.
So, yeah, you slide it out and you can hold it.
It is a well-carved and crafted solid piece of wood.
It feels like a hard wood, perhaps an oak,
a nice shellac on it.
I sniff it.
I go, oak, I think.
Yeah, this is, yeah.
And as you do that, Bizard, where have you hidden?
I'm going to go from behind the door.
The door opens, and in steps,
someone who appears familiar,
it looks exactly like Joe, the hall monitor.
He steps into the room, he's carrying a clipboard,
it's carrying a clipboard, takes a few steps in,
looks at everybody else in the room,
not Bizard, because you're behind the door,
but looks at everybody else,
and offers what appears to be
the smallest, courteous nod.
Hi, Joe!
He looks down towards you, nods again,
looks back to his clipboard,
and then carries on, continues walking to the door
on the opposite side of the room.
I want to go right in front of him
and be like, hey, do you remember me?
He looks down, there's no response,
he takes kind of a half step back
as you get in front of him,
it appears to just be protecting you
from being stepped on more than anything,
not startled or anything like that.
He's not scared of me or anything?
It turns and regards everybody else in the room,
and then puts a gentle hand on your shoulder,
and just kind of guides you to the side,
and he continues to move forward towards the door.
Towards where we came from?
No, sorry.
So you came in the double doors,
there are two doors left and right,
he came out of the right and is moving across
to the other door to the left.
He's carrying a clipboard, he said?
Yeah.
Hey, am I on your clipboard?
And he's still walking, and I'm just like...
He's still walking, he opens the door,
and kind of guards the door.
Has my status changed?
Looks down at you, offers a similar nod,
walks into this other room,
and then closes the door.
Rude.
Welcome to the middle.
It's the middle.
Happy to have you here, patrons.
Absolutely.
Welcome.
We're trying something new where we don't
talk to you about the thing that you've done.
Except saying thank you for doing the thing.
Except for saying thank you, exactly.
This is the exclusive middle.
Yes.
Where we're gonna...
For people that already support us.
Where we're gonna talk about whatever we want,
and I took a...
I just basically copied what Carla did
on our last Discord downtime,
and I pulled some...
Which I wasn't present for,
so I have all ears.
So we played some fun games.
Tom's gonna run it next month,
so very excited for that.
He says he's got amazing things planned.
Like keeping him up at night kind of ideas.
I've got two different ideas.
He could have been sleeping,
and instead he was coming up with great ideas for you all.
That's right.
But what Carla did,
she gave us some would you rathers,
and I found a couple,
so I don't think we needed to talk about too many,
but like...
This is what you're missing.
We're like spicing up the Discord downtime,
so if you haven't been, come join us.
We're doing stuff like this.
Like this.
And mystery item next month.
Oh my gosh.
So not like this, but maybe like this.
Who knows?
Would you?
Imagine if it was just the same thing
with the same question.
Would you rather do last month again
or do this month?
Ah, that's good.
Would you rather have the ability
to see minutes into the future
or years into the future?
What's my upper limit on minutes?
Like, is it 90 minutes?
Or is it like five?
I'm thinking like it's on the lower end,
like a three to seven, so yeah.
So like a five.
Like you know that the mailman is coming.
I don't...
It doesn't seem like it's long enough
to do anything with that information.
Unless you're constantly getting in car wrecks
or something.
So like in the moments when it helps,
it would really help.
Yeah, you could guess like
bank security guard turnover
in three to seven minutes.
So crime.
I mean, you would know whether or not
to buy like a scratch and win ticket.
That's true.
You'd have to be like very,
you'd have to be very punctual.
Right?
You're like, oh, I'm,
you're like in the lineup in the cashier.
The thing, the mat with the tickets on it is there.
You know that at this point,
within five minutes,
you can scratch that ticket
if you so wanted to.
Seen it before.
And then you turn around and say,
wait, you need to be in front of me.
I forgot.
Now, would you,
I guess would you have the ability to like
doctor strange your way through it
so you knew which one to pick?
No, I think it's a one and done.
Like you were going to buy one ticket,
whatever the random or your choices.
Right.
You know whether or not it's a winner.
So like now you don't have to spend your money,
but then you can easily get money if you hit.
That's right.
Oh, that's good.
So does this happen at random
or is it a controllable ability?
Yes.
So I'm just always in the lineup at the grocery store.
That's where I live my life.
Is this like taking ATM?
Where you get to see moments into the future.
But just moments.
Yeah.
I don't know.
I would choose that over years though,
because I think years would be scary.
But year seems,
this is the thing.
It's like.
You get too much information.
I don't know.
It gets existential at that point.
Because it's like.
You're kind of a black void
and you're like, ah shit.
You're trying to avoid things
or you're trying to make choices
to make those things happen.
Minimum 15 years into the future.
I don't know.
And is it just my future
and just things that are very specific to me?
Mm-hmm.
Right.
Or like a general overview of the future.
Society's future.
Because there is also, you know, like,
do you know what to invest in?
Because.
That's my thought.
So in that reason.
That was an investment.
But how do you not use that power
to like creep the people you love
and then find out some bad stuff probably?
Oh, you'd be guaranteed to find out bad stuff.
Well, and then your life
is all about that, right?
Now you're just trying to thwart.
Guys, I think I don't want to see
into the future.
I think it seems bad.
The future's scary, man.
Like every time we've talked
about the future,
it's just gone bad.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'll take the minutes.
Timey wimey bullshit.
Yeah.
Yeah, timey wimey bullshit.
I don't like.
Not our specialty.
No.
We've never done such a thing.
Give us one more.
I guess I would pick the minutes.
Okay, minutes.
Because it's lower stakes.
Because we've seen 10 years
into the future and we know
it's a darkest timeline.
And now we can't go back.
Like, would it have helped us
10 years ago to know
where we would be right now
in the greater world?
I don't think it would have.
Would you have context
for my mental health?
To know how you got there?
Would that help?
Yeah.
I mean, I've lived it.
I know how we got there.
Yes, I know how it got there.
It's not good.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I don't know.
Global pandemic plus people's brains got broken.
Yeah.
It's true.
But there is one reason why we got here.
Okay.
And it's because of people
that showed up to support us.
Oh, Kyle.
Wow.
So true.
Kyle.
That is one reason we are here.
So you got to still dedicate it,
even though you know you're here
because you're part of Patreon.
Absolutely.
You still got to dedicate
an episode to you.
So who are we dedicating
an episode to?
We're dedicating today's episode to
One cutie pern joy.
One cutie pern joy.
One cutie pern joy.
Love it.
You get one cutie per joy.
I hope you get a lot of joys in your life.
Is it pern?
You get a lot of cuties.
Okay, so here's the question.
One cutie, that's very clearly one cutie.
Okay.
Now it's PRN joy.
One cutie.
Pern joy?
Pern joy.
Cute pern.
Pern joy.
Porn joy?
I know, that's where my man went too.
And I was like, I mean, live your bliss, I guess.
Well, yeah, I don't want to misname one cutie.
If that's you.
Pern joy.
Can you let us know?
One cutie is cutie short term for like quid.
One quid.
One quid per joy.
One quid per joy.
The N is throwing me off with the per.
Yeah.
It always just comes back.
Perhaps you can explain it to us.
Maybe it's PRN joy.
Oh, it's N joy.
One cutie per N joy.
Ah, so there's a different word there.
Could be that.
Anyway, we love you, but tell us more.
Yeah.
That'd be great.
This is a fun riddle that Tom is like, I should have brought this riddle to next month.
Yeah, this might be next month.
If we don't find out an answer between now and then fair game.
Yep.
100%.
Thank you.
One cutie per N joy.
Yep.
Thank you for being here.
Feel free to post in the discord and let us know.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
100%.
Oh, what if they're just like nailed it?
Which version?
Yeah, we just said several versions.
Yeah.
We need.
Fair and valid.
If you just say nailed it and leave us guessing.
Yeah, I would respect that.
I mean, what are we going to do?
Respect the hell out of it.
That's what we're going to do.
Anytime we talk about you, we will just say all of them now.
One cutie porn, porn and joy.
Is PRN an abbreviation for a place?
Like, is it?
Well, I was like Pacific North.
No, it's PRN.
Pacific Really North.
It's Pacific Really North.
It's Pacific Really North.
All right.
Well, thank you for being here with us.
And now we'll let you get back to the episode and we'll talk to you very soon.
Love you.
Bye.
Love you.
Bye.
Yeah, not as forthcoming.
Hey, I don't think that's the same.
Joe's twin is like, yeah, I don't know.
Evil twin.
Evil.
That's a big jump.
Do you think so?
No, I'm just being silly.
We can go.
We can go where it came from and see what it could have been doing.
Okay.
That is true.
Hey, Bonwyn, do you want this?
I like that idea.
And I hand her the plaque with her surname on it.
And I had been so nervous when Alydin was taking it down, but I didn't, you know,
she needs to explore the world on her own.
I would be like, don't.
But I don't know.
I feel like until we know what's going on, maybe we should just put it back.
And then if everything's cool, it would be a pretty dope souvenir.
That would be pretty cool.
Okay.
I'll put it back.
I slide it back in exactly where I found it.
Exactly where you found it.
Exactly where I found it.
Okay.
I slide it in exactly where you found it.
And then you're going towards the door where this paper face came out of.
Joe, a lookalike.
Joe 2.0.
Rude Joe.
Cav, you're still kind of looking, trying to determine, you know, names on the board
and that sort of thing.
You see Alydin put hers back and everybody's making their way towards the door.
And as you take a few steps away, that pending plaque, you see it shift from kind
of this neutral position, not really in under any column.
You see it slide across the wall and it lands under present.
Huh.
Pending's now present?
Oh.
And I don't think their name is right.
Fair.
Fair.
That's very good, Alydin.
Thanks.
Do we, I mean, because you didn't, do you think that, is that you?
Do you think you have status now because you're present?
Because you were unknown before, right?
In the basement at the other school?
Me?
Yeah, you.
So you think that's me?
You think I'm pending?
I don't know.
I mean, you were pending and now you're here and pending.
I don't know.
It just seems like kind of a coincidence.
I'm the only one out of all of us.
You did just ask Joe.
Who actually attends school.
So I should be the least mystery.
I'm just saying.
Yeah.
That's fair.
Yeah.
You have a point.
Russ, can I roll an insight check on Alistar?
Sure.
Just see how his whole vibe is going.
Yeah.
Seems pretty awake for a while yet.
Because maybe he's a previously pending student and now he's present.
He has been awake for a suspiciously long time.
He has been suspiciously awake.
Suspiciously conscious.
Actually, it's been like 10 seconds.
We've walked into a room.
That's all we've done.
Well, not fucked around.
Pretended to be a teacher.
We looked around.
We looked around.
500 names.
We found Joe 2.0 when he found us.
Yeah.
Alistair, give me an insight roll.
Okay.
17 plus five, so 22.
Okay.
I mean, you've been paying attention to the wall, but as things are changing,
you look at Alistair.
And Alistair, he's doing very similar to you.
Looking very pensively at all of the names on the board.
You've seen him walk over to the door where this automaton has walked into.
And it seems like the door itself was locked.
He turns back and he's got his hand on his head and he's like,
he says schools record who's present.
Right?
That's what this is.
It feels like the attendance room, but he looks back towards the wall.
They don't usually decide who belongs here.
Right?
Like he looks equally as confused as everybody else around him.
Like everybody on this wall,
there's names here that seem familiar from writings that I've seen,
but he looks up to the ceiling, which seems like it goes on forever.
There's so many, there's so many people.
And what happens when somebody's preserved?
Yeah.
Great question.
And I mean, even reassigned,
do we think that means they just went to a different school?
Like they just went to Vindersmith or somewhere else?
I don't know.
And where is Janelle and Reeves?
They're here.
That's what it says.
Is here.
Is here.
This here is not the archive.
The door outside is the archive.
Right?
And he goes.
Yeah.
You're the expert.
You should know.
He goes back to the,
to the doors to the out there like the doors behind you haven't closed
or anything like you can still see out.
And he goes to the,
to the front door and he looks out.
And Alydin, you hear a little click on the,
on Malin's name.
It's like just slightly off center and it clicks back into place.
And at that same moment,
and as Alistair kind of goes out to the front door there,
a low vibration passes beneath everyone's feet.
The bell below rings once again.
And Alistair calls.
He's like,
Hey,
Hey,
I think that I think the,
I think the door,
I think the door is brightening.
I run over something new is happening.
Yep.
You all quickly run outside and you catch just the tail end of it.
But what he sees is like the stone frame to the doorway appears to
like sharpen in picture and becomes a brighter than it was before.
You see.
Now more than just the door.
Like a hallway begin to appear visible only for a few seconds
behind the door.
You can see like walls beginning to form.
Then it begins to fade once again.
And Alistair stares toward the doorway and he's.
Something.
Something about this place is,
is certainly tied to that door.
And something we're doing.
Was it the bell?
The bell made it brighter.
The wall clicked.
I'm going to go ring the bell.
What do you mean?
Oh yeah, there was a click.
The wall clicked.
Well, like where I took out.
And replace the name.
Yeah.
I guess I didn't do it good enough,
but it went back in and it clicked and that,
and you were like,
Oh,
the door.
Okay.
I'm sure there's something we have to,
I'm sure we have to go check some of these other rooms,
I think.
Well,
it was Malen.
They were preserved.
So maybe it has to do with preserved energy in a way,
or something in a power sense.
Okay.
You guys watch and I'll go move it again.
Maybe.
Okay.
See if it happens again.
Well,
don't go alone.
I'll come with you.
What if you locked in there?
Thanks.
Do you do the same name or a different name or doesn't doesn't.
Probably the same name.
I want to recreate the same circumstances.
Sure.
Take it out.
Put it in.
Yep.
Wait.
Shake it all about.
Do the hokey pokey.
Do the hokey pokey.
That's right.
Take it out.
You examine it.
See if there's any like,
any sort of mechanism on it that maybe was missed.
It's just,
it's just a wooden plate.
That could have clicked.
Yeah.
You slide it back in.
Again,
kind of rattles a little bit sliding in there.
You leave it for a few moments.
And then because it's slightly off center clicks back into place.
Okay.
Click.
Did it do anything?
Everybody outside sees just the,
not quite as bright as it was before,
but similarly the,
the doorway brightens again.
That hallway appears for a few seconds and then disappears.
What if there's like more names that need to be put in to like
build up a whole.
Ooh.
Okay.
Okay.
I look around like for a stack of these guys.
I don't know.
There's nothing.
Yeah.
Cause the back of the book said that attendance dismissal and transition.
Real quick.
Malin was a crafter.
And when we put their name on it builds something.
So let's find other crafters and see if attaching them
builds out more of the realm.
Interesting.
I like it.
Okay.
Run back in.
Start looking for names.
Start looking for more crafters.
Yeah.
You find, well, I mean,
there's there's at least a hundred names that kind of fall under,
under that craft capability under different,
under different columns.
You,
you grab a few who's standing guard,
so to speak,
watching the door.
I'll be there.
Okay.
Bizard,
do you and Alistair are at the door watching the,
the fading in and out from the middle of the lake bed and everybody's,
you know,
analyzing and moving all of these name plates around.
I figure we're moving them to the preserved column.
Oh, okay.
Just cause that's where her name is, right?
That's where her name is.
Yeah.
That's the only one I remember.
Let's try that.
Yeah.
So how many names total do you want to move?
The names themselves aren't.
Let's, let's move one at a time and click them into place.
Yeah.
See if anything happens.
Sure.
This is a controlled scientific experiment.
I really feel like we're being very methodical about this.
You grab one from under the reassigned column and move it into the
preserved column.
You stand and wait the same few seconds.
It was a little longer.
And after you've kind of given up on the same experience,
you see the name itself begin to vibrate and it slides itself across
the track.
Like the track itself almost gives the appearance that it's like
extending out and then slides across back to the reassigned column and
snaps back into place over there.
Okay.
Did anything happen to the door?
Nothing out here.
Hmm.
What if we like mix up the ones in this room?
Okay.
Like everybody in preserve, move them.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Up and down.
Move them around.
I feel like this is one of those picture puzzles where you have to
move the tile.
Right.
And there's like the one empty space and you have to.
Yes.
Exactly.
Bizard, do you look back and you see everyone kind of rearranging
this column as high as they can reach, moving names around.
And on the chalkboard, you see that it's changed since you guys left
that room initially.
It now says attendance accepted and everybody else,
as you finish kind of reorganizing these names,
you wait about the same amount of time as that secondary name that
you had tried.
And then you see these names begin to slide out of place and
reorganize themselves within the wall until they all finally click
and then Bizard back out in the lake bed.
You see that doorway begin to glow again and you see that
hallway similar to before, similar to the first time that Alastair
called you out.
And then after a few seconds begins to fade back down and it
gets like, like it fades the most it's faded so far.
How about that? That do anything?
Yeah, I think grab the coats.
I think we need to get, we need to get in there.
We have to get in there?
Go in the fading door?
Weren't we trying to find out more in here?
I have like eight more experiments I want to do on this wall.
We didn't even go through any of the other doors.
I don't know if Bizard says we need to go.
I think we kind of need to go.
I honestly don't know.
Oh, okay.
As you guys are having this back and forth,
everybody who's primarily in the building,
you hear that low rumble again beneath your feet.
What if there's a dragon in the basement?
What if there's a dragon in the basement and it has to get free
and we're the only ones who know that it's down there
and then we'll have a pet dragon.
Alydin, the door that, the door.
Fuck you, Kyle, could be a dragon.
I'm not, I won't interrupt that back and forth,
but the door where the Joe figure came out,
not where he went in, where he came out,
you hear the faint, actually, what's your passive perception?
10.
I'm a G2.
I'm an adult.
Okay.
I'll take that.
Okay, hold on.
Never mind you see shit.
No, that's fine.
Tom, what's your...
No, it's okay.
You know, it's not, no, it's anything.
You hear, you're not entirely sure from where,
you hear a similar faint click,
similar to when the doors to this room unlock.
Is anything happening now?
I assume it's going to affect the door.
It's fine.
I don't see anything changing.
Alistair, stay here, keep an eye on it,
and I'm going to head back inside to talk with everyone.
Okay.
Yeah, yeah, of course.
I'll just stand here.
I'm going to ring the bell.
I want to see if anything happens.
It's the only other thing that happened kind of around that time.
It's accepted.
As you walk in, Alistair sits down on the steps kind of coming up,
and you see him lean on one of the stone railways.
You're ringing the bell.
As bizarre as you're coming back in,
Bon, when you're reaching for the bell,
you ring it.
Nothing immediately happens.
Five seconds, maybe more, pass,
then you hear again from beneath the academy,
you hear a single bell answer from somewhere below.
However, unlike before,
this reply is followed by the sound of enormous gears shifting into place.
The machinery continues for several seconds before falling silent again.
Oops.
Alistair, anything with the door there?
Huh?
What?
No.
Sorry.
No, no, nothing with the door.
It's the same, same fading.
We shouldn't leave the narcoleptic.
What if he falls asleep on the door and then falls through the door?
I didn't even think that could happen.
I'm not touching the door yet.
Until we're done looking at the school.
You were sleeping, weren't you?
I just got a little sleep.
I was just resting my eyes.
It's not your fault that you're sleepy.
We should know better than to have you be the person that needs to observe a thing.
That's on us.
That's fair.
I think that's on us.
I take full responsibility.
I think Alydin's dragon is a mechanical dragon.
And I look down at Cogsworth Quackerton.
It's been since February.
And I go, a Cogsworth dragon!
And that's where we're in today's episode.
Not so ready to just run bust through that other door.
Dumbgeons and Dragons Season 4 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,
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,
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.
This is recording.
Check one, check two, still recording with decent levels.
Okay, good.
Happiness.
Say that again.
Happiness.
Happiness.
Happiness.
Happiness.
Happiness.
Happiness.
Happiness.
Okay.
You all step up to the...
Oh, and if anybody has any notes from the previous one,
I've changed the entire entry narration to the school.
So disregard anything from the door opens.
I know, Tom.
That was the one note you took out of my mind.
I have to throw so many notes out now.
I was worried specifically about you, Tom.
I don't know.
Guilty as charged.
Dumbgeons and Dragons is a Dumb Dragons production.
Thank you.