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Dumbgeons and Dragons will begin in a moment, repair what can be repaired, replace only what
must be replaced, leave every craft stronger than you found it.
You enter this space, along the perimeter of this room you see workbenches.
There are those unfinished projects, as I previously mentioned, you see tool racks
all along the wall and as you at first glance, every tool is cleaned and looks
like it is in its correct position. There is a shelf along the far wall in this
space that has a number of broken items that look like they're waiting to be
restored. Not in the center of this room but kind of towards the back
there's what looks to be a teacher's bench. There are several papers not as
neatly stacked as every other room that you've been in but the stacks
of papers look like they have writing on them from the from a distance and
there is, Bon, when you clock it immediately as you walk in there is a
miniature forge in one of the corners. Sick. In my professional opinion. Is it on? Oh yeah, is it extra warm in here? Yeah, like is it stoke? It doesn't look like it is, it is not active. And we do not see the caretaker. You do not see the caretaker.
Is there an exit door? There is not an exit door. Fascinating. What? Is there a window with a curtain slightly moving? Is there a trap door on the floor? Yeah, a sign that says not here.
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. Maybe
there are more in here. Carla Maxted as Bonwyn Eberbane, she, her. As much
as I've been avoiding it we are gonna have to go through that portal.
Tom Laird as Kavlaran Goldweave, he, him. I mean I'm really still focused
on the ball bearing pretty good. And Kyle Claset as Bizard the Wizard, he,
him. I hear the grinding. Dumbgeons and Dragons is a Patreon supported podcast
made possible by listeners like you. Join us today at patreon.com slash dumb
dragon cast where through the month of October you can get 50% off your
first month or your first year. Check it out. Now fuck it, let's play. There
are curtains half drawn but there are two large windows on the other side on
the opposite side of this room. He went out the windows. Man do I want to look at the
forge or out the windows? Probably the forge. Just want to go check it out.
Sure. See what we're working with. Baby's first mini forge. You draw
immediate comparison to your own forge. Whether it was the style that
Malin learned from this school or perhaps some other force or person
helped craft the forge that you have back at Eberbane's. There are a lot
of similarities to how this is constructed. And in fact, aside from the
size of it, it is much smaller than yours. You would say that perhaps it's
been just shrunk down from the one that you have existing in your own
space. Some slight variations to kind of the stonework that's done around
it. But very, very similar. I'm gonna like crouch down and like, see if
because you know, inside mine, I found that mark from Ashutra. I want to see if
there's something like that in here. You got the coveted Jess thumbs up, by
the way, if you didn't see it. Wow, that's never happened before. I never
remember anything. Amazing. Yeah, you bend down and look in there looking
kind of around the inside of it and almost in the same placement you see
the exact same seal, same imagery.
I want to go and look at all the different tools and
sure, see if I can't find something neat. Not to steal. Because I still
don't know how I feel about that. But sure, maybe something that might be
useful in our useful to steal. Yes. Yeah, you see all manner of tool
There's hammers, saws, screwdrivers. Look, there's just a fuck ton of hammers.
There's a fuck ton of hammers. Did I say hammers? There's axes too.
Probably some chisels. There's some chisels. There's a knife. Yeah,
utility knives. There's not a there's not a lathe. A lathe would be a much
larger. I don't know how big this is. Yeah. No, these are like hand
tools. All hung up along the wall. There's meter stick, a pile of meter
sticks and some smaller rulers. Is there something in particular that
you're looking for?
Looking for I don't know, something that just caught my eye or something
that seemed out of place. But I think what
Alydin notices is the askew pile of papers on the teacher's desk
because everything else has been so perfect.
Okay, so I want to go check out those papiers. You begin heading over
there. Cav, what are you looking at? I mean, I'm really still focused
on the ball bearing pretty good. But that's fine.
Maybe there are more in here. Right? Maybe I find where it goes.
Who knows? Is there a jar just full of ball bearings?
You have to guess the amount of them in there. And then you win
the prize, which is a ball bearing, which is the ball bearing.
Your last one to enter. So you're still hearing that. I mean,
everybody's faintly hearing it, but you're still hearing the chimes.
And as you cross the threshold into the room, you hear them
very quickly stop. You turn and you look back and you see the
bottle still gently swaying. But it's like as you step that
second foot over, that's when that that sound stops behind you.
Guys, did you notice when we walked in the room, those chimes
just like stopped? I guess now that you say it, yeah, I thought
I just couldn't hear them anymore. I just seemed quiet in here.
But, huh, just something to, like, be aware of. Yeah, good
observation. Bizard, what are you doing in this space?
I'd actually be leaning over Bonwyn's shoulder and
ride along with her on this. And my first after revealing
the issue through a connection, I would say, like, do you think
MAlydin was marked as preserved? Is it so much that
MAlydin's are preserved preserved or MAlydin preserved a practice of the school?
Hmm. Yeah, great question.
Or like the knowledge was preserved in the new forge with like the family line.
Right. It's got to be.
It's just such a direct connection, you know. Yeah.
What's still happening?
If only we knew who Elric River was and what survey they did
to, like, figure that out. But yeah, that's the only other
preserved person that I see on here. Yeah.
Or like, was everyone finding their.
I don't know, fired elemental equivalent.
Yeah. At the school.
Well, it's it's the states.
What do they mean? Yeah.
Yeah. Alydin, you've been filtering through some of the
what you now see is evaluations on on the desk.
One on top is actually of for MAlydin Everbane.
And it says good repair. Explain your reasoning.
You filter through a couple more.
You see one that doesn't have a name on it.
And it says you preserved more than the object.
A third says, try again.
Failure recorded is knowledge preserved.
Maybe makes sense.
I mean, MAlydin's nails bent, right?
Yeah. Like, why did she fix a bent nail?
Why did she repair it like that or.
Craft it like that.
I'm going to go and look out the window and see if I can see.
Sure. Just like a cool wooden guy just chilling out there.
Joe's running away.
Exactly. Yeah, sure.
No, you hop against the window.
You look out the window and you find that you're looking out
to the front of the school again and you see the dry lake bed.
You see the same kind of fading in and out,
holding for a little bit longer than than was previous.
The the the doorway in the center of that.
You don't see the hall monitor.
And as you turn back, you see Alastair.
He's got a what looks like a repaired mug in his hand.
And he sets it back exactly where he found it.
And he looks puzzled.
What you thinking, buddy?
Well, I, I, I, I came here looking for history.
I came here looking to find like what the archive was keeping.
But the school is teaching me that
perhaps there's something more to it.
Perhaps it's it's not just preserving history.
It's preserving certain values, maybe.
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, this seems like I was thinking of the archive
as like this record of grand events.
And this is really like the minutia of small lives, which is.
But is this.
But is this a grander extension of the library, or is this.
A training ground.
Are they teaching these kids to be to work in the archives?
Maybe I think so, which means the school
back in Vinter Smith was created for the same reason, if it has its own Joe.
Yeah, is that is is that hold true?
Does that hold true?
Like are teachers doing these types of oh, not ours?
Not not now.
I mean, not even when I was in school.
But I mean, historically, if they if they moved from
from here to there, they like maintained.
Fair. Some of that.
But then why did they abandon the school?
What happened to the lake bed?
As much as I've been avoiding it,
we are going to have to go through that portal at some point.
Eventually, I get there's no other way out of this room.
Like, that seems to be the last door.
Yeah, maybe they were preparing them to go into the archive
and not be a part of it.
And they were preparing them to.
Understand how to approach it,
and maybe that's what we need to understand, is that
we need to observe.
And we need to maintain ourselves.
And have a good reason for using the resources
to repair ourselves in the event that we may need to do so.
Or repair items that we take along with us.
Our archives are filled with.
Things that people have already recorded, right?
I mean, yes.
Usually books, tomes, scrolls.
What if in order for things to be recorded in the archive,
they need people out in the world to experience them?
And so what if they're like somehow magically tied
or like connected to the archive and all of their observations
and recordings as they're like living life
is what or how the archive collects its records?
Hmm.
Yeah, and they learn these to focus on these little memories
to not like lose themselves in that greater process
of collecting for the archive.
Maybe.
Hmm.
I don't know.
I don't know either.
I just sure wish old, new, old Joe was.
Yeah.
Other Joe was so helpful.
I wish I'd met him.
I miss him.
Well, no other doors unless we want to try to find if there's.
He had to go somewhere, right?
He had to go somewhere, right?
He had to go somewhere.
Is there a trap door?
Maybe that's what we need to look for.
The sound was coming from below as well.
So, yeah, I guess we didn't.
I guess we say as well.
Do we need to find a well?
Maybe there was a well outside.
I heard somebody shitting that well.
What?
Why would they do that?
That's gossip travels fast.
Like recently must have been.
Wow.
No, it was tally and it wasn't a well, it's just a hole.
Oh, classic tally.
One to Deborah Deborah.
The only right thing to say.
All right. Well, that was a good night, everybody.
We'll talk to you next time.
We'll be back next time in the middle.
Sometimes they get a 12 minute middle
and sometimes they'll get just four seconds of us screaming.
Yeah.
But regardless, the middle always has an episode dedicated to somebody from Patreon.
That's true.
And it's not Deborah, which might have been might have been your first guess.
But it would have been good.
I would have gotten really lucky if that's the name that you have prepared
already because you didn't realize we were in the middle
as soon as we started screaming.
Look, it's a game I play trying to figure out
if you think that I think that we're in the middle.
But it is because we are.
And we dedicate it to a person.
Yeah, we do.
Yeah. Today's episode is dedicated to Alex, the human person.
Alex, the human person.
Thank you, Alex.
It sounds like something tales of the human person.
But this is just seems fake, right?
I'm suspicious.
Is it a clanker?
Alex, are you a robot?
I am human person.
I can hear that.
That would be the only reason to clarify.
The you know what? You're here.
That's more than enough for me to believe that you are human person.
Exactly. We won't make you do a captcha person.
Even if you have the motorcycles in it now, that's not even a great judge.
Hey, well, are you trying to think about what is a good captcha?
I'm trying to think about I mean, what?
What's y'all's favorite captcha?
Yeah, you can prove you're a human if you go to Patreon dot com slash.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So we're doing that one.
Ignore a way to prove you're a human.
That's how you get an episode dedicated to you.
So if you were wondering how Alex, the human person, got that dedication,
Carla just gave you the 411 sign up or whatever
the relative three digit number is on how to get there.
So but it's not just dedications.
There's a whole bunch of other stuff like, you know, the adventures of.
And hey, we're going to record that like right now listen to.
We're going to be doing that.
I thought we were going to start off with that, but that's good.
We started screaming.
Well, sometimes you just have to bring that energy, right? Sure.
Hey, and you mentioned a lot of great things, including the dedications,
including the early access episodes, including being
part of this recording situation that we have going on here happening right now.
For some reason. Yeah.
You mentioned all of these great things.
But what you forgot to mention is that through the month of October,
new patrons, when they sign up, can say 50 percent off their first month
or their first year.
Do the year. Such a better deal.
Russ, I feel like it wasn't that I didn't mention it.
It was that I didn't know that was a thing.
And that's awesome. Yeah.
Yeah. Well, we know.
And now Tom knows now you guys remember the last time we recorded a middle.
Tom probably wasn't here, so he likely didn't know.
New information. Yeah.
Did we mention ad free?
I did. I snuck it in.
Throwing that out, too. Yeah.
OK. You still heard it.
Look, we say ad free.
You still get middles, but we have started.
Yeah, don't worry. You don't miss this good stuff.
Oh, yeah. That is shame.
Yes. Different middle.
Damn shame. Yeah.
Where normally we know.
Yeah, we know what the the cross comparisons,
but we haven't done that one yet.
So you're. Yeah.
All right.
Everybody give their best guess at what we're going to talk about.
Captures. Yes, I took that one.
Yeah, it was easy.
Motorcycles, sea words, human beings.
Maybe we'll do a little recap of Jeopardy that Tom put together for us
as part of our discord downtime, which is another thing.
If you join you can join us for a whole Jeopardy game was very fun.
Kyle soundly beat all of us.
Just smacked the pants right off.
Just absolutely embarrassed us.
I got really competitive.
I'm sorry. You got it.
You got to be here for it.
Look, you had the best Internet.
You had the best answers.
Really? I had this.
Everybody was half a second behind.
That's the key. Yeah.
So you lock in right there.
That's right. And then yeah.
And then knew the answers also.
So it was it was yours to win.
So Patreon dot com slash dumb dragon cast where we do lots of things
next month, probably not Jeopardy.
Amy's running it. So maybe I will do Jeopardy.
It could be. You know.
Yeah, I could do it.
I would be mad. Me neither.
Jeopardy is all we do now.
This is the slow transition into just Jeopardy.
I think I did say that maybe it would be all about me.
But I think that Russ would have an unfair advantage.
Amy episode.
Oh, we just have to just have to come show up and find out.
That's right.
Thank you so much for being here.
We'll get you back to the episode.
Talk to you soon. Love you. Bye.
Love you. Bye.
Russ, can I use eye for detail to use a bonus action
to make a perception check to spot a hidden creature or object
to see if I can find a trap door?
Nice. I was going to say, can I investigate to try to find a trap door?
Some kind of secret egress from this room?
Of course.
Synergy. Absolutely.
Yeah, you can because there's no danger.
We don't need to get into bonus action nitty gritty.
But yeah, I would roll your perception
and then that would dictate how well that works.
Yeah. OK.
Well, pretty bad.
Pretty bad. That's an eight.
As perhaps a detail that I've neglected.
The last room you walked in, I described as the most quiet of rooms.
Previously, you'd been hearing sounds of nature, but also the sound,
the mechanical sound that was stirring beneath the building as well.
As you've entered this room, that kind of low thrum returned,
not as loud as it was before.
But as you as you look around, there are
it sounds like as you are examining the floor
and the shelves and anything else in there.
It sounds like it is louder towards the center of the building.
You look high and low,
and there is nothing distinct, particularly about this room
that you are able to spot.
No. Change in the floor pattern, no levers on the wall,
nothing that's jumping out as a as a way that this hall monitor could have left this space.
Can I also investigate the space in using a child's eye? Sure.
Yeah. You want to roll investigation?
I'll roll for kid goggles, please.
Oh, it's terrible. It's an 11.
Damn it. That's OK.
Yeah. You're looking around
and you're you're perhaps not following exactly behind Bonwyn.
You're looking at other spaces and you get more distracted
by some of the completed projects that you find on the work benches.
That makes sense.
Yeah. And you're quickly drawn to one that Bonwyn didn't search out, really.
Not like she had in the other rooms, but you're drawn to MAlydin's project.
And it is a small iron hinge
that looks like it's been repaired three different ways.
And beside it, there's a write up
annotating with why the previous attempt that she did fail.
Beside it, it goes into detail about the temperature
at which she forged the metal, how it made it, in fact, more brittle.
And this attempt where she wove through a more rare ore
created the strength that allowed it to be repaired in the way that it had.
Beside it is the mug that you saw
Alistair pick up and put down.
There is a a little bit further down.
It looks like a torn satchel
that looks like it's been the stitching on.
It's been repaired.
I want to look inside the satchel.
And you pick it up and it has
an embossing, is that what I'm thinking of?
If it's leather.
Yes. Yeah.
Yeah. It has an embossed
what looks like a some
some sort of like lizard like creature on it.
You pick it up and it's heavy, hefty,
well, well stitched.
Like everything is very tightly woven.
You look in and you can see the bottom of it.
There's nothing else inside of it.
But it it's a very well put together satchel.
I put it back, but my eyes linger on it.
OK, because I want it.
But also conscious that it's not mine.
Did anybody find anything?
No, but I'm curious if the person
maintaining the school would.
Come out to maintain the school if somebody took all of these
hex bolts and knocked him on the floor.
Oh, wow. Clank, clank, clank, clank, clank.
Just freeze and wait.
Alydin looks over at a bizarre and is like
in a hand reaching toward just like a jar full of like nails
and is like, huh? Yeah.
Like you're some sort of.
Is that about to fall off and make a mess?
I mean, what if I accidentally.
Oh, no. And I bumped in the.
Nails flew everywhere.
Glass smashed, glass smashes, clatters across the floor.
You pause and wait for a moment.
Sure is getting messy in here.
You don't hear any footsteps.
You hear that low thrumming beneath your feet.
You hear the bell toll from down below again.
Sounds like it's at a bit of a distance, like more.
Towards the foyer area of the building.
That's where it sounds like it's coming from.
There's got to be a downstairs, right?
There has to be, I guess, now that we're a bit further away,
I feel like it's like coming from that direction.
Right. Do we miss?
Yeah. Go.
Do we miss a door in the floor?
Do we miss a door in the floor?
We'll find where it's loudest.
Do we miss a floor door?
Maybe we missed a floor door when we came in
because we were busy hanging up our coats
and just like looking at things.
Well, you know, and.
It's entirely possible.
That chalkboard was.
Exactly.
There was a lot to take in.
Also, we were really nervous
that we might just get murked immediately.
Yeah.
Could write basement, please, on the chalkboard.
Maybe that'll be.
We're just being polite about it.
Yeah. All right.
Yeah. Talks about this mess, though.
No. OK.
I feel bad.
We feel guilty now.
Yeah. Exactly.
Yeah. Everything was so tidy.
Way she likes to keep things in her space.
But, you know, this isn't the time
to start cleaning a random school room.
So.
OK. Yeah.
Let's head back into the foyer and.
Look around there.
Pull up rugs, floorboards, whatever the hell is out there.
And yeah, right.
Whatever we want on the chalkboard.
As you prepare to leave this space,
Alydin, you were kind of furthest into the room.
First few of you leave back into this memory room.
Alydin, you see every tool on the rack
settle into perfect alignment.
Oh, like something got shifted a little bit,
and it's just like, yeah.
Oh.
There's the soft metallic clip.
Alydin goes over and moves a tool
slightly out of place again and just waits.
You try to move it and it doesn't.
Oh, it does not move.
You hear behind you towards the forge in the space.
Gears begin to turn.
They sound rusty and stuck.
Almost like the first time
and perhaps centuries that these have begun to turn.
Somewhere below the classroom,
everybody now hears a heavy mechanism.
Unlock everybody else.
Stop or you keep going.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Turn around.
You come back in and the forge itself
begins to shift out of place, revealing the staircase.
What's hidden staircase?
You slowly make your way over,
and there are, it's a spiral stone staircase.
You see warm lamp light down at the bottom.
Can't see really anything else from inside the classroom.
I wanna send my little buddy
whose name I will eventually remember,
Cogsworth Quackleton.
I take him out of my bucket and I go,
get down there.
What do you see?
Chk-chk-chk-chk-chk-chk-chk-chk-chk.
Chk-chk-chk-chk-chk-chk-chk-chk-chk-chk-chk-chk-chk-chk-chk-chk-chk-chk-chk-chk-chk-chk.
Wait, you hear nothing.
I go to the bottom and it's just a bunch of cogs
and fucking springs and shit.
I feel like, God damn it.
I wasn't gonna break them,
but if you wanna break them, that's fine.
I'm joking.
No, I don't want them to break.
I just figured that's what would happen.
Yeah.
Well, we haven't established
that you can communicate with Cogsworth
and it is a spiral staircase.
So I don't think there's anything
that you gain from that, specifically.
I mean, I'm gonna go towards those stairs.
I've been saying. Absolutely.
Yeah.
I'm just debating whether or not it's wide enough
for me to pull my weapon out comfortably.
Sounds good.
My homunculus obeys my commands.
Yeah.
Communicate with me.
Doesn't talk, though. That's the command.
Right?
Damn it. Talk to me.
What if you commanded to talk?
Exactly.
Yeah.
You talk now. Done.
Ooh, maybe you can do some mechanical fuckery
like I did arcane fuckery and make it a voice box.
Yeah.
She did just throw it down the stairs.
I did, just, yeah.
Somebody poisoned the well.
It understands language and you speak,
it doesn't speak.
It's immune to poison.
Sorry.
No, okay, I sent him down,
but I'm gonna have to go get him.
I'll lead the way
and I'm gonna draw my rapier just in case
and lead with the pointy end going forward
as I walk down.
Okay.
I mean, I'll take my weapon out too.
Little sling shot.
You head down the stairwell
and the stairs end beneath a low stone arch.
That warm lamp light that you assumed,
it continues to glow ahead,
though from what you can see,
no flame burns anywhere that you can see.
The further down you go,
that mechanical grinding sound
that you've heard throughout the building gets louder.
You hear copper pipes tick softly inside the walls,
belts turning from somewhere within the space.
You step through this low stone arch
and you see that shelves of labeled parts
stand in exact rows.
There are five different passageways
in this space that you've entered.
And beside the first entrance that you can see
off to your left, you see a brass plaque
that reads, continuity requires care.
The mechanical sound begins to chug from within this
and you hear grinding of the gears.
Do you know it really grinds my gears?
I hear the grinding.
I hear the grinding.
Dumbgeons and Dragons, season four, episode 65,
starring Amy More as Alydin,
Carla Maxted as Bonwyn Everpain,
Tom Laird as Kavlaran Goldweed,
Kyle Claset as Bizard the Wizard,
and Russ More as your dungeon master.
Dialogue editing and sound design by Russ More.
Community management by Jessica Babyok.
Music and sound effects from Epidemic Sound,
Boom Library and Sound Ideas.
Cover art by Matt Garbutt.
Dumbgeons and Dragons isn't possible without you,
our lovely listeners and supporters,
like our workshop producers,
including My Name is Dee,
Ongoron Kierzen, Perry Matey,
L.A. Branton, Craig Zeiss,
Gabriel Lynch, Cat Waterflame,
and Jessica Babyok,
along with the support of all of her other amazing
patrons, including Caterpillar Farmer,
Matthew Clark, Jayden Schaefer,
Mycroft, Courtland,
Joshua Person,
Travis Richardson,
Sonya Weiberg,
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Theo Drax,
Alex Martin,
The Fashionable Wizard,
Travis S,
Nathan Irvin,
Katherine is Four,
Hannah Gilliwick,
Will More,
Tiffany M,
Sam Crawford,
Jill,
Robert Phillips,
Amber W,
Josh,
Minona,
MJ,
Barbara,
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Sarah Wolf,
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One Cutie Pern Joy,
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Kay,
Lisa S. Beasley,
Phoenix Black,
Jason Quinn,
Kaitlyn,
Ted Hubbard,
Jay Polk,
Faust,
The Heavenly Demonic Monster,
Lord Arachan,
Stuttering GM,
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Emma KB,
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Coe Salzburg,
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Jeff B,
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Twiglets Are Great To Eat,
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Zombie Army,
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Bold Mouse,
Gungan Mobster,
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and Jonathan Nguyen.
Join them all at patreon.com slash dumb dragon cast
and help us tell the stories you want to hear.
And we hope to see your name in that list there.
Thanks so much for listening, everybody.
You have a great week and we'll talk to you soon.
Who's exploring the space?
Russ's beeper went off.
That's what I was just making.
He's the only guy with a pager.
Right?
He's so cool.
He's such a 90s drug dealer.
And it's full of drugs all the time.
That's true.
They're prescription, everybody.
It's fine.
Dumbgeons and Dragons is a Dumb Dragons production.