D&D is For Nerds - Stories of The Greyhill Free Company II #18 Mistakes were Made

Episode Date: March 12, 2022

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lord and ruler of the Dungeon Cast and greatest and most undisputed powerful demon lord in the known cosmos. Shout out to Demogorgon and all praise Demogorgon. You're listening to the Sandspan's Network. Home of comedy, culture, adventures and ghosts. Previously on Stories from the Greyhill Free Company You must be maybe 50 feet below where you were previously.

What's the opposite of your ears popping? The bends. Oh, no. Does anyone want to look at the golem head? Are there any tools with which I could flip the head over and not touch it? There's a yucky thing in here. Scalpel. I hold out my hand for scalpel.

Yehola Yehola says scalpel and hands it to you. Like a red goopy substance pours out of the helmet. Oh, I found the organic matter. The eyes of the golem go dark. You look into the

faces of Herdek and Tavrotine along with a couple of other people. What are their stances like? Tavratine has, he wields a short sword, typically, in combat. He has the short sword drawn. And Herdek has her light hammer and shield at the ready. You feel sick. You feel sickened and weakened. You take an extra

six points of necrotic damage. Right, I want one hit point. That fucking rules. Oh, hey, it could have been worse, I guess. Big T, it's your turn. Guys, what are you doing? What the... Why are you doing this? Why are you doing this?

Double stop! I spend my turn trying to flag someone down to talk to them. What would you like Saren to do? Saren will be using shatter against as many of the other team as they can. Saren has no idea that we are hired by the same people. Yes, they do. Yeah, they do. I thought the whole point was that we...

That was Zemir. Zemir, right. Yep, okay. Well, Saren's still... I thought the whole point was that we That was Zamiah Right, yep, okay Well, Saren's still Alright, Saren can hit the three enemies At the top of the elevator Saren will be doing just that You hear a

Saren does the What's it, that superhero Black Widow, not Black Widow The one who screams Oh, yeah You know the one who screams. Oh, yeah. You know the one I'm talking about? Yeah, Old Yellow.

Angie? Yeah, no, she's like married to Green Arrow or something. Big screams. Come on, Zamet, you know. You mean DC? Is this like a, yeah, no. Zamet, you know. Zamet, stop. I'm looking it up. i'm looking it up i'm looking it up does no

uh it's screaming me me maybe not hell cat songbird i think i think black canary black Black Canary Serene does like the Black Canary scream all three of them take 10 points of damage they scream and yell and roll around in agony Zia Mia doesn't know what the fuck's going on

Zia Mia just knows that you are being attacked and so attacks in turn they're probably gonna to also, look, everyone else seems to be acting as if this is a big deal, so she's probably going to do her worst damage as well. You'd join in. You'd absolutely join in. It makes sense.

Could I have gotten Chantel to try and tank some of that damage with her reaction? The intercept? Okay. tank some of that damage with her with her reaction uh uh uh the intercept um okay uh does she tank the damage or does she impose this is prevented by a d10 plus two all right sure just to try and here you've got an extra 10 hit points oh thank god and then zia mia uh zia mia i guess casts frost fingers at a third level and those three people she can't target tavertine without hitting someone else in the group but she can target those other three and each of them needs to make another constitution saving throw. Her deck passes, but the other two fail. Both the flunkies are frozen solid, fall backwards, and shatter.

Two down. It's Chantel's turn. She, similarly to Big T, hesitates. She spends her turn doing nothing her deck calls out there must be mind controlled try not to kill them see are they um yeah right and then her deck's gonna try and heal herself uh oh they need to make a concentration check. Which they fail.

Alright, lose the spell. Okay, then it is Globble and Yayola's turn. Okay, so Herdek has just said that. Yeah, okay, that's interesting. You were checking if they were being mind controlled. See?

It's just a big bit of silly. This is a sitcom. Except two people died. Oh, but they were barely named. You're allowed to die in a sitcom if you don't have a name. Okay, okay, okay, okay. If that's the case, then... I'll end.

I'll end, heat, Mel. that's the case then hmm I'll end I'll end heat now does it does the damage go off now or does it like you know what I mean let me check am I too late to end that damage basically

are you locked in you're like well we might as well kill them they know too much well look just in case things go wrong no you need to use a bonus action to maintain it They know too much. Well, look, just in case things go wrong... No, you need to use a bonus action to maintain it. Okay, okay, okay. Well, in that case, I'll end it.

And I will just be like, Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. There's been a very big misunderstanding. Very misunderstanding. Tavertine, it's you. We're good? Sorry? We're just...

Everybody? Well, Tavertine glances back at Herdek. Herdek glances at Tavertine, and they both slowly lower their weapons. I will say, as the elevator reaches the top, you are out of initiative. So, sorry, Herdek. there was perhaps a little bit of a misunderstanding her deck rushes back to those two people and starts trying to provide medical aid

i also do the same thing to be like are they um i'll also run over they are very dead. I'm so sorry, I never actually caught their names back at camp. I guess it doesn't matter now, Hood XS. Yes, yes. Frightfully sorry. What are you doing here? Yes. We are here on a mission. What mission?

We got a quest. We need to reactivate this place to uh well I guess we didn't really think about the logic on that one we were just told to

come here and turn it all on we were told to destroy it well you weren't told to destroy it. Well, you weren't told to destroy it. You're here on an unrelated quest. Well, obviously a related quest, actually. But yeah, your quest

is separate to this one. Oh, we're here on a, well, actually it was a quest to stop a swarm of locusts that were terrorizing a farmstead. And that sort of brought us here because the iron golems are being made. I think the iron golems are for farming.

No. That's what we were told in the quest. No, the iron golems, we've fought several times. I think they're supposed to be reseeding this place or something. Well, unless it's the seed of blood. They keep trying to kill us. Wait, wait, wait. Zemir, when the golem attacked us, you have memories of that, yes? Zemir nods.

Can you show how... She pulls out a brain worm. Tabritine, for the first time you've ever seen him, when the little wriggling brain worm comes out, Tabritine's eyes go wide and he seems excited. He licks his lips. This is what's happening, I suppose. Her neck has the brain worm, and so does Tabertine.

Huh, says Herdek. That's not a farming implement, is it? Not at all. No, no, no, no. So we need to destroy this place. Yeah, that's pretty bad, says Herdek. This could have been here the entire time. You could have had this, every interaction.

One of the other fucking members dies, Herdek. Well, that seems bad, but I guess it was inevitable. I'm sort of glad we didn't. So did you guys tamper with the upstairs? How did you guys come here? Did you go through the... We were told about another entrance. I assume there's one this way as well.

Yes. What have you turned on? Yeah, what have you turned on? Tabritine and Herdek look at each other. I don't think that's possible anymore. We got a very specific set of instructions. Herdek holds out a little basin. The basin has water in it.

Our mission came with this. We've been getting instructions through it yeah what what are the instructions um her deck kind of like shakes the water like you would like you would shake at one of those eight ball things her deck shakes it like that nothing happens huh usually words show up with instructions so what what have you done, Ziva? We can take you back to where the machines are. I think we need to go very quickly because if they know not to give you instructions

now, we don't have very much time. Yeah, um, they maybe don't like you very much. I start walking. Come on, come on! You're, like, pushing Herdek along as Herdek is still saying. Yeah, the last instructions we got were that there were intruders trying to stop us.

Up we go. They led us to you, actually. That makes sense. I wonder if that was on purpose. You're, like, shoving them still. I wonder if that was on purpose. Just vibing it out. They're not going to attack us now.

Like, they're not going to be like, well, the quest has said we're doing this. You don't think Herdek is that dumb. You just think Herdek's a bit like... You just think Herdek's a bit like Eeyore. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I'll just tell you, they're not going to be like, well, the

quest is... Herdek doesn't seem addled or anything like that. Herdek's never been hostile towards you. It just seems like a genuine... Genuinely like they were deceived. Yes. All right. So they're on the same page.

All right. Well, I'm going to cast... Cure Wounds second level on myself. Yes. I wonder if that spell had anything to do with anything so did you guys see as we're brushing i guess them along um any did you uh awaken any of the golems in what did you do um what were the instructions what did they tell you to do exactly what was the spell? Slow down. One thing at a time. Speed up. Speed up.

One thing at a time. What do you want me to answer first? Did you turn on any golems? Yes. Quite a few. How many? I don't know. Like a hundred? Maybe more? I wasn't counting. The machine does its own thing. We just hit some buttons

and stuff. Maybe at that point we stop. I think I would stop at 100. Nope, I push everyone. Got to keep going. We got to turn off 100 golems. Is it still going? Yeah.

Like making more golems right now? Yeah. We put some more of the juice stuff into the machine. That's people. Where'd you get the juice from? I don't know. It was just here. It was here. We run. We run.

You pass a lot of side corridors which quite obviously have very deadly looking traps. You eventually recognize where you are. You recognize yourself from Zia Mir's original brain worm. You're in that massive room. Simply enormous. There's the machine slowly are you recognize yourself from zia mir's original brain worm you're in that massive room simply enormous there's the machine slowly whirring and chuffing along in the center and as you watch as you're walking into this room and watching the machine you see as a golem steps out and then

walks towards the wall plants both of its arms firmly in the wall making its own hand holes as it begins to climb up the wall and to the roof you can see the holes from many other golems doing this before there is light streaming down from above the golem gets to the roof and then crawls through one of the holes that golems have assumedly been making oh no oh no we have to flood the place what spell uh this one her deck holds out a uh spell scroll oh no can someone else read this i go and read it uh it's written in draconic so you know draconic right we've established that yeah so it's a very archaic form of draconic as well you struggle to formulate what the spell scroll like even says before what it does it's some sort of really this spell scroll probably goes over several pages it is very complicated

you cannot even begin to work out what this spell scroll does but you can tell that it is a custom spell you see like altering many different clauses and stuff like that it feels like a contract more than a spell scroll did you just read this or do you know anything about it we found some statues and read it to them

and that's how you got in no we had to do that to activate no we had to do that. To activate the... No, we had to do that. We met those statues. Oh, maybe it activated something. I don't know. We met those statues.

Oh, yeah. One tells only truth and the other tells only lies. Oh, no! Weebor! We forgot about Weebor! Tabat We forgot about wee-bore! Tabatine shakes his head sadly. And now a quick word from our sponsors. Did you know that our sister show, Plumbing the Death Star,

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Tickets may be still available, but hopefully not. Okay, so you read this to the statues, and that's what caused them to... Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. So it looks like it's been used, yeah? Yeah, oh yeah, the magic has been discharged. Okay, well, does anyone else, like, I guess, does anyone else know Draconic that can decipher what that was quickly? Well, obviously Herdek does.

I mean, yes, and I guess... Yayola does, and so does Zia Mia. Yaola reads it. Yaola shakes her head. I can't make heads or tails of this chicken scratch. Zia Mia looks at it as well.

She spends a lot of time studying it. Maybe another golem gets made in the amount of time it takes her to study it, but you can see that quite clearly, there's a level of understanding with Zia Mir. I'm hoping... Well, that's happening. Maybe they're doing that. We'll be racing around trying to

flood the place. While you're racing around, the machine is moving very rapidly. A lot of very firm and very strong equipment, pistons and pieces are moving in rhythmic time, slowly creating. You can kind of see in between gaps, you can see the golem being created.

The process of making a golem takes maybe 20 minutes. You can see the red goop slowly lowering. There's like a container with that in it. It's slowly being punched into sacks the sacks are being connected into the golems you don't see the entire process there's a lot that you miss out on like at one point it's just a torso then you see both arms are attached then you see the head is attached legs are attached how much yeah how much goop is there there's uh it's running out it's running low there's almost no goop left can we poke holes in the goop container so no goop can...

The goop container is made out of glass and it is kind of up the top. There's like a feed tube that goes over the side and then a container, a glass looking container holding it up the top. If you wanted to smash it, you would either need to make a ranged attack or climb up there. top smash if you wanted to smash it you would either need to make a ranged attack or climb up there okay is it possible can we reach the the leather pouches um before they go into a golem no you cannot at all you if you you feel like unless you start taking the machine apart if you reached an arm into the machine you probably will lose it oh yeah i'm just wondering with like say a spell or something to kind of like puncture the you could try with a spell like any anything to kind of be like before if someone is trying to climb up there to get it but before that to try and puncture those well if you want

you could cast a spell let me know what spell what about sarin can you shatter on the glass sarin oh sarin could yeah well what would you like to do first? I personally probably will be casting Frostbite through to try and get those sex. The sex to try and destroy them. Alright, you cast Frostbite,

you feel the weave of energy ripple into the machine, then immediately the machine shudders. You can see the weave of magic flip and the spell reverberates back at you. You need to make a constitution saving throw. You pass so you take no damage.

Okay. Would you like Sorin to cast shatter? Probably not. What about a crossbow? Where are you firing the crossbow? Can we... Similar, I'll get...

Can I use a crossbow? I'm not sure. Lobble, where are you? Whoever's good at a crossbow, aim it at the sacks that are on the conveyor belt kind of thing. You are not proficient with the crossbow. Gobble? I've got the javelin.

You think the javelin might just come up to works, maybe. Who's doing what? I don't know. Someone, I don't know, Chantel to shoot like a crossbow at the little... Chantel fires her crossbow. She aims it at the big glass container, fires it. As the crossbow bolt streaks towards it, you see the air ripple. The crossbow bolt strikes Chantel in the chest.

That's not good. She takes five points of damage. You okay? She puts her hand at the bolt and says,'ll be fine you can see blood is trickling from underneath her armor um i'll be fine she says a second time a little bit more certain with a little bit more certainty okay i'll fix that in a minute did we go through and collect all the spheres again yeah i'll say that you have the spheres again, so you have a total of four. So we've pretty much flooded the place

as much as we can. Well, you were going up and down. Sorry, we skipped over a lot, but the walk between when you met Herdek and Tavartine and here took you like an hour. There's a lot of this facility that you have skipped. Okay.

Well, what is a around that we can kind of maybe put those well you can start looking around sure you walk around do like maybe a perimeter check and you can see there are eight places where the pipes come down from roof to floor at each of those pipes just below one of the like a big connector thing which is whirring at a rapid speed and you can hear water going through the pipe you can see there's a little slot for a control sphere all right well should we put one in there so what i think so you put one in there you hear the machine begin to work over time the pipes begin to like increase in size a little, but it looks like that was planned for.

There's a housing thing. These pipes have an extra bracing strut that keeps them affixed to the wall. When you do that, it looks obviously like it's working extra hard, and maybe more water than normally should go through is being channeled through. But obviously, this appears to have also been planned for, and so when it balloons a little bit, it is still being held by those extra struts. Can I try and just hand-axe some of the pipes? Oh, no. The pipes in the other room were cut open.

Oh, no. Oh, actually, what about with my halberd? Yeah, with your halberd? Sure. You swing as hard as you can with my halberd? Yeah, with your halberd, sure. You swing as hard as you can with your halberd. The air ripples, and then your halberd is in your shoulder, Big T. Well, it worked in the other rooms. I just, I'm fine. I'm fine.

I'm fine. Big T, you take 13 points of damage. You can do that stone's endurance, if you will. No, I might need the leather. All right. Your D&D lawyer advises you that you can use your stone's endurance, if you so wish. Thank you.

Is there anywhere else in the room that we can put some spheres? Well, hang on. Before, because we've got the jar of acid, we could pour on this for the water, but I don We've got the jar of acid. We could pour on this for the water, but I don't know how much water is going. The golems aren't attacking us, right? No, they're leaving.

Okay, and they're running out of goop? It is about to... Actually, the golem that the machine is currently making falls apart as it leaves. There wasn't enough goop to create it maybe like underwater there is just the torso and arms and head and that slowly starts crawling its way towards the wall okay so i guess time is no longer of the mia looks up from the sheets

there is a confusion and a little bit of a little bit of fear in her face. I believe I got some cartographer's tools, some of that, or a piece of paper. Sure. As opposed to kind of having... Or does she want to communicate through brain worm? No, she gestures for pen and paper. Yes, hand her pen and paper. She writes down,

can't work it all out. Very complicated spell. Spell affects all the automatrons here the automatrons either get messed up and then she writes lux slash knock nix x question mark or become controlled by someone they are heading to someone, maybe. Well, that's worrying. That's a very bad sign. Okay, so we need to destroy this machine. Okay, let's

take a breath. There's no longer making more golems. They've clearly already made as much as this group has allowed, which is quite a lot. I think it might be worth noting, this contract that we got,

I don't think we were the only company to get the contract. There might be other adventurers coming by. We found corpses from other adventurers in some of the traps. I think we weren't even the first. Yes, we haven't encountered personally, but we know of some.

Shall we backtrack and try to find any more of those? Oh, I should say, that pipe that you slotted the thing into, there are eight of them. I don't know if I've already said this. There are eight of them.

All of them have one of those slots for a sphere. So we need eight spheres. Do you do it just to one? We've got four now, don't we? Eight spheres and we've got four. Let's plug them all up. You can see each time you plug one in, all of these things appear to be connected.

And each time you do it, it looks like it takes a little bit more load and the load affects all of them. When you slot one in, all of them bulge a little bit more. When you slot a second one, all of them bulge a little bit even more. When you have put all four in, there seems to be quite a lot of strain on the system,

but it is not enough to burst them. Okay. If the big glass container could take goo, what if we put acid in it? If the acid runs in to the next part of the machine, maybe it will destroy bits of the machine as it goes? Potentially. I don't know.

Can we look up? Can we get into that vat of goop? There's a, like I said, there's a little tube, a feeding tube that you would use to put goop in. I mean, we could try and pouring the acid in there and see what happens. Maybe one drop at a time to start off with to make sure it doesn't come on us. But that way if adventures come in here very quickly

at least we get some time. So I guess we do that. Congratulations! Both of you get a good boy card. You found the way to destroy it with acid. Yay! You pour a couple of drops experimentally

and then you see that it goes into the feeding tube and it tries to feed the acid in then you're like well this looks like it's working you feed the entire thing in and that fucks the machine here's the bad news uh ladies and gentlemen when you do that the machine doesn't like it and it doesn't like it in a very explosive way the machine begins to bulge at the edges you a part of it began boom boom boom the entire building begins to shake you are worried for the structural integrity of this entire complex okay can we all have a climb speed? Can we go the way of the golems? I don't think anyone here has a climb speed.

That's so embarrassing. I can have a climb speed, but that's just me. The room begins to rumble and rocks begin to fall. Right. Oh, no. So when we were speaking to the sad dwarf, Havastack. Herdack. Herdack?

Herdack. Sure, let's go with that. Havastack. Did they say they also came in from the same entrance? No, they said they came in from another entrance. Yeah, I'm wondering if their entrance was closer? Yes. I guess I don't know, since, you look at tabatine tabatine gets hit by a rocket

dies no he can fly cardi he just fucks off imagine wait can he fly on a minute. I mean, he's a bird boy. He does have a flying speed. Holy shit. I didn't even know that. What the fuck? Tavrotine leaves. Bye. No.

Imagine. I mean, he does leave, but Tavrotine gestures to Herdek and says, for the first time, for the first time, Tavrotine speaks and says, follow Herdek and says for the first time for the first time Tabartine speaks and says follow Herdek Herdek's exit our exit is faster and then he spreads his wings and fucking leaves

he goes through one of the holes um I look at Herdek so Herdek if I was to can if I was to turn into, say, a speedy horse or a wolf or something like that, do I know enough about the tunnel system and the thing that'll be- Highs or lows? That'll be fine.

Highs. Highs? All right. And big T, highs or lows? Highs. Oh, no. Big T. Big T.

You need to make a dexterity saving throw. Oh,s. Oh, no. Big T, you need to make a dexterity saving throw. Oh, no. Oh, fuck. My finger's too big to be finesse-y. Big T, a rock hits you in the head. You take 11 points of damage. What? Pardon?

And Chantal, highs or lows? Did someone say my name? Lowe's. Sarin, highs or lows? Lowe's. Sarin Heisel Lowe's. Lowe's. Lowe's. Aeola. Heise.

Heise for Aeola. Zemira. Ziamia. Heise for Ziamia. No one else gets hit by a rock, but it's becoming rapidly unsteady. Okay. Okay. So, Adam, this is not happening at the pace that I'm just asking a question.

Uh-huh. Would I know that the... Like, if I were to transform into a horse, is that going to get me stuck in any parts or anything like that? Do I... When we were travelling through here, did I think that, oh, yes, this isn't large enough to fit in a bloody elephant? Or is it all kind of tight spaces?

Well, if you're going Herdex way, you don't know. But if you're going your way, a horse would probably be fine right up until the end. Okay. And is Herdek slow as shit? I mean, you could hurry Herdek along. Right. I'm going to turn into a horse.

Herdek, get on and lead the fucking way. Okay, says Herdek. I turn into a horse. Can that also Chantal get on as well? Because I assume she'd be fairly slow with her, I guess, injured. She's only got one leg. I was going to say injured leg, but that's kind of underselling it. Yeah.

Yeah. I would like to remind you that everyone, basically everyone. All right. So not everyone, actually. Tree Stump, Chantel, Zarin, and Yayola are all still suffering from one level of exhaustion, which means that they are all moving at half speed. So you are greatly slowed down by these people. Yeah, well, I can't really do much.

I can only really carry some people. You can carry two at max. Yeah, I can carry two at max. And I'm pretty sure Saren can make us go faster a little bit to get everyone up to normal speed. It's not going to be long enough. She could use all of her bardic inspiration, and that would be for, like, maybe 12 seconds,

which is not enough. Not enough. Right. Yes, we'll find out next time on Stories of the Greyhill Free Company. Hello everyone, I'm Ben Elwood and I love David Attenborough. I was absolutely inspired by David as a kid. I'm definitely not alone in this. The world of science is full of Attenborough groupies. I've got a confession about David Attenborough documentaries.

Every week I'll be sitting with a science expert while we watch an episode of Life on Earth. Scientists want to talk about stuff. We are damaged. You do sound like comedians. We'll be talking about what we're seeing on the screen. Science have basically talked other organisms into being flying genitals for them.

Their experience in the field. I've seen a male cane toad on a rotten mango. Now I'll just go for it. And whatever other topics spin out of our conversations. Do you know I got attacked by an octopus one time? You want to start going away from comedy and into depressing. No, no, that's my wheelhouse.

Thank God for David Attenborough with Ben O'Wood. Now available on SensePants Radio. Hey there, fellow adventurer. If you're picking up what we're putting down and want more D&D content, To be continued... Pants Plus members, the further adventures of the Greyhill Free Company if you want shorter campaigns with beautiful guests, and D&D is for Nerds, not Ognot, where all our non-canon D&D adventures go to rest. Just search for D&D is for Nerds on your favorite podcast app of choice and join us on this epic quest of D&D podcast discovery.