D&D is For Nerds - Stories of The Greyhill Free Company III #14 Roleplay While We Roleplay

Episode Date: July 16, 2022

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Ahem. You're listening to the Sandspants Network. Home of comedy, culture, adventures, and ghosts. Previously on Stories of the Greyhill Free Company Chantel hefts her hammer over her head and then becomes inert. Can I cast darkness around me? Yeah, you can. Would that break Chantel being turned to stone?

Yeah, no, I guess it would work, actually. Tree Stump and Serene, it's your turn. I don't like what's happening with Chantal. Is she saying anything? Chantal has said and done nothing. I'm very sorry. So you recognize a Tabaxi, pause for consideration. They are a paladin.

And you recognize, they're a paladin of a gambling god as well, which is very funny. I fit right in. Really? And you recognize the goblin 50 chickens. I feel this company might have a gambling problem. And then it is Yayola 50 chickens, pause for consideration, and Tavo time's turn. What a crew we've got. What a crew to dive bomb this.

Big T, you bring Baby down. Oh my god. Without too much trouble, you restore Chantel to a living state again. She starts breathing heavily. I'm sorry you have to smell this. What was going on here?

Says 50 chickens. There was an overturned wagon and a bunch of stone guys and a bunch of dead guys. Well, no stone guys left, just little crumbs of stone guys. And we realized there were basilisks and Daffodil had already gone and we did our best. Okay, that makes sense. But it was a family. It was the mom and dad

and the baby. That makes sense. That makes sense. Just one more thing. Why are there basilisks out here on the road? They didn't get lost. You see, my wife, she has a book on basilisks and it says

that they live kind of hot places or underground. What are they doing here? Well, the wagon over there, perhaps they're being – are they too big to be in the wagon? No, the wagon looks like it. I mean, it would have been cramped, but you could have fit them in the wagon. Perhaps they were transporting the basilisks? Does it, has it?

Would you like to, you haven't really picked over the corpse as much yet or looked around. I'm going to have a sit down. Come have a look with us. Okay. Yeah, let's all have a fat gand. Everyone can get the benefit of a short rest if you want. Oh, yeah.

Love that, actually. So after an hour's rest, would anyone, maybe 50 chickens. 50 chickens and paws for consideration are both picking through the wreckage. What did you find? 50 chickens comes up with like a sheet of papers. He walks over to you. As he walks over, oh, by the way, 50 chickens wears a trench coat. As 50 chickens walks back over to you, he tucks the papers underneath his arm

like they're a folded newspaper, puts his hands behind his back, and he goes, Well, I just had a little look around the place, and I kind of but notice something caught my eye, you know? He holds the papers out. It's some quests that were from from greyhill and from the capital and yeah if you have a look he hands them to you if you have a look it's a quest as some normal quests in there you know just go over here deal with some problems farmers getting attacked by wolves that sort of stuff that sort of stuff that sort of stuff but then if you check some of the last pages it's just a little interesting, I think.

They've got a mission to go collect some basilisks. There's an entrance, a cave entrance, not too far from here. Takes a little while to get down there. Takes a while to get there as well. They would have been here, I don't know, maybe like a couple weeks or something like that.

But, there's a basilisk nest down there somewhere, which is interesting because the thing that bothers me is that I remember, pause, pause, do I remember, do we remember, we went and found that basilisk nest not too long ago. Pause nods. That we did. We had a quest that there was a strange creature coming out of a tunnel. And we went and we investigated and we found them. But we didn't have to kill

them. We just caved the tunnel in. And so they shouldn't have been a problem. Yeah, because we had a quest to kind of just find a giant well, it ended up being a giant bird, but it was a creature.

But, yeah, we just went to find it. That was about it. Is there anything about capturing like a big bird or something? Yeah, can we have a flick through the – You can have a flick through. You don't see anything about capturing a big bird. Or slaying a big bird? No, you don't see don't see anything about capturing a big bird. Or slaying a big bird? No, you don't see anything about slaying or capturing a big bird.

I think this is starting to get a bit suspicious. Is anything that maybe some of the quick... Yeah, like iron golems or any other quests that link up to other quests? Like if we saw quests on the board, hives. You find another quest obviously this would have meant nothing to pause for consideration or 50 chickens but you do find another quest about discovering a dwarven ruin somewhere out in the badlands that quest appears to be have been completed and they're just waiting oh wait no that quest has been completed

signed in and and whatnot that's like an wait no that quest has been completed signed in and and whatnot that's like an old quest that they've done they've still just got the paperwork for it yeah this was um i held like a tap it with like a gnarled finger right this one that one that's where the this is the iron golems were tabatine that was your tabatine tabatine nods and has like a concerned expression but says nothing do you mind if we keep these 50 chickens well 50 chickens 50 chickens like puts his hands up like in kind of acknowledgement that this is something important but also in resignation that like it's something that maybe you should have. It's a piece of your puzzle. He puts his hands up. He goes, well, I'm just

a... I'm just a gobbler. You know, I ain't got nothing special. I ain't nothing special. I just... I just think it's a little odd, is all. And I think it's a little interesting. He runs one of his hands through his thick, curly, Columbo

hair and clasps his hands together when he's done. Well, I think at the very least, at the very least, for your trouble, you should part with the papers. Hang on. Do we know much about, like, these are like our brethren, basically. Yeah, you know them. Like, you might not know them very well, but you know them from around camp.

I was like, would we fill them in on what's going on or no? Up to you. Well, he seems to be a bit very sleuthy. Well, see, we went to deal with

a farmer problem. They had someone coming in and destroying crops. But it turned out to be actually a woman who was running away from, well, this particular thing. And just kind of fill 50 chickens in on, I guess, what we discovered. He sits down on a log, puts one of his hands on his hips, puts his other hand against his head, and he just listens intently. He seems very concerned by this story.

Yes, I think we still have, I think you, Tavitine, you were talking to somebody through a little, like a basin or something. Tavitine nods, once again, not saying anything. And there was this, Ben, fill the 50 chickens and pause for consideration in on everything. So, yes, we were heading up to, I guess, speak to Moromash

to see if he knows anything. 50 chickens chickens nods like I said very worried about this situation pause for consideration puts a paw on either of 50 chickens shoulders and says this is very concerning behavior we will accompany you to the

camp and perhaps even to the conversation with Morimash should you want backup yeah very kind thank you perhaps even to the conversation with Maura Marsh, should you want backup. That would be very kind, thank you. It's good to know that someone else also thinks it's a bit weird. Yes, yes. Anyway, I'd like to... What do we do with the other mercenary camp?

I mean, the mercenary group that are... The... How do we... The... What is it? Yeah, do we clear up this mess? Uh, that's entirely up to you. What's the protocol? Surely we should. Like, if we're gonna... We're pretty much gonna go back to camp and be like,

these people got... And here's all the proof, and here's who they are. Let their families know. So, is there stuff we can collect for the deceased's families? Because otherwise nature will take them and that's fine. If I can grab the wagon, I'm sure I can get in. I mean, can I pull the wagon as a bear? Surely.

Or is there anything I can turn into that I can pull the wagon? Probably not. It takes four horses to pull the wagon. You don't think you could turn into any one animal. You could not turn into any one animal that could pull this wagon, especially since it's pretty beat up as well. You don't know. Even if you had four horses, you don't know if you could pull it.

I guess with the adjust of the current wagon, is there anything we could make a makeshift, like a litter or something that we can maybe bring these poor folk back to our camp and message the leaders of their mercenary group? Perhaps, says Chantal, perhaps it would be simply best to maybe bury them here. At least then they get a funeral. Bringing all their bodies back is a lot, a lot of effort,

and is probably like I don't mean to be rude. I mean, a life is important and a death is important as well, but like we're kind of dealing with something right now. Yeah, yes. No, that seems sensible. I'll start digging with my big hands. 50 chickens breaks out. Enough shovels for everyone.

Oh, that's better. Why do you have that? No one thinks to ask. I guess I don't help. I just watch. Sure. Maybe I go and, yeah, I guess apologize to the horse we couldn't save, and that's about it.

Well, Chantal spots you apologizing to the horse and says, you know, I mean, once we're done with all this, we will probably come back and help with these people as well tell them where tell the tell the company where they are and we can possibly help the horse then look maybe just just uh oh i've never been turned to stone what was it what was it like could you feel anything or everything just stopped says chantal just look at the horse like that doesn't sound like a good fate well i mean it's comforting in a way i think it would not comforting but at the very least if the horse dies the horse dies but it didn't suffer

it's true and if it is brought back to, the horse won't really know what happened. It's very true. Have you ever tried having a conversation with a horse? Let me tell you. As the only person in this group so far who has died, Chantal says, and speaking from experience, if one has to go, there are worse ways. That's fair. Very good point.

Well, maybe when she says there are worse ways, you see her eyes glance down at the mess of bodies you are burying. You are guessing what parts belong where. I don't look down at them. I just don't follow her gaze. Yeah. If we dig very well, that's helping.

Looking down, not helping. No, not at all. I'll, um, I guess I'll, you know, we'll wait and when we're all said and done, um, I'll turn back into a bear and help someone as we head towards camp.

Then we can just head back. Without any further incident, you arrive at camp. It's just as you always remembered it. It's as if nothing has happened and nothing has changed. It's a flurry of activity. There's, as always, the Greyhill free company has always existed as between like well for you guys as kind of like not necessarily newcomers but none of you are really none of you are really like the old bunch the old timers remember when grey hill was like five people and uh five people and a dream. It was more like an anthill, really, back then.

Yeah. Very clever. And Greyhill today is anywhere between 50 to 80 members at any one time, about half of whom are pretty consistently at camp. So you would guesstimate like 20 to 40 people around, just milling around camp. I guess we make a beeline tomorrow. At this point, am I still... I think I'd still be

a bear just for like mobility's sake. Just till we get there, yeah. Just be kind to yourself. As you pass, people wave hello. Some people probably... Some people recognize Global as bear. So no one thinks anything of you

because obviously you're not an old man publicly. That's true. Pause for consideration and 50 chickens as you're entering camp. Pause for consideration walks forward and says, would you like us in the confrontation or should we peel off? I tap once. Pause for consideration looks around. Has that been previously established? Let's quickly establish.

I'm pretty sure it should be for you, Cass. Let's see if Cass remembers. One was for yes, two was for no. Two was yes, one was no. All right, then. We'll see you later. Cass. Cass. Cass.

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would tap once and if tree stump says it's no i would tap some more times and then just nod my head. Oh, that's like a hard nod. Or growl at her. I'm kidding, I'm kidding. You heard him. No, no, no, no. Wait, no, maybe yes. That's just confusing. Yes, no, no. Make up your mind. I want to look at Chantel with my eyes wide.

No, no, come along. Just to plead for some help. Chantel is laughing. Chantel is laughing too hard to help you. You know, I turned back into a man. I just turned back into a man. I just... He's going to take so much more.

Yes, of course. Come with... One for yes. Yes, one for yes. One for yes. Remember when I was a spider, we had the one for yes. Yes, and there was one for yes. And then three for maybe.

Three for maybe. Three for maybe. Yes. Let's... Oh for yes. And then three for maybe. Three for maybe. Three for maybe. Yes. Let's, so, oh, so you don't want them to come. What? Come with us. We're going to talk to Morimash. Are they what?

Yes, of course. Go talk to Morimash. I'm so tired. As a big group, you head towards Morimash's tent. Might have a short rest. You need it. Yeah. You get to Morim marsh's tent might have a short rest you need it yeah you get to mora marsh's tent they're inside the mora marsh has like an open tent policy so the flaps are literally always open it's not actually when i say mora marsh's tent it's more like the command tent where like most most of the business of the of the camp. It's not more marshes like personal quarters or anything like that.

But it is always open metaphorically. Yeah. It's metaphorically and literally always open to you. So you enter, you see there's a table, big piles of quests and stuff. Some other things just dotted around, different things that are important for the operations, the day-to-day operations of the Greyhill Free Company. You spot the Greyhill accountant, the only person in this camp

who is not a mercenary or adventurer, just a person. His name is Hank. He sits in the corner and he does the finances. If you need, he helps you with your finances as well. He's very important. We all know him. Everyone loves Hank. He's the most popular person here.

No one hates Hank. It's abhorrent to imagine that. He's just very polite. He's a very polite, kind, calming man. And it feels genuine. He's patient. Sometimes people are polite and it's weird. Look, I think I, for one, can speak for maybe myself and maybe a couple

others in the company, but numbers are not our greatest strength. So he's so kind and very patient with us. He taught me about compounding interest. Yes. He tried. I didn't. He tried. Yes.

When one gold coin slams into another gold coin and then a third one apparently pops out, I still am yet to figure it out. He was talking about the kind of magic where you put money away. The magic of interest. Yeah, a lot of magic.

I don't know it, but I don't know magic. So maybe I'm not meant to know it. When you enter, Hank stands up from his desk. He says, G'day, mate. How you going? Hello, Hank. I give Hank a hug He says, G'day, mate. How are you going? Hello, Hank. I give Hank a hug. He gives you a hug right back. Hank gives great hugs.

Hello, Hank. Glopple, is that you? What the bloody hell happened? The price of being, I guess, an adventurer. How's my retirement fund looking? Well, I'll take another bloody look at that one. He moves back over to his desk. He starts sorting through papers.

I was looking at it just the other day. Here it is. Here it is. Look. Good news, bad news. Good news is, it's doing quite well. Bad news is, it's doing

dangerously well He says Yeah that's good news A few investments paid off He hands it over to you Oh Hank Sorry I hope I didn't scare you A little joke there I'm so sorry You know me I'm still dabbling in comedy

He says I can't wait to see one of your What do you call them? Tight five? Yes. Oh, yeah, tight five. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've been practicing down at the comedy club in Greyhill.

Yeah, yeah. Well, practicing, you know, really a bit of a trial by fire. Yes, isn't it just? Isn't it just? I look forward to it. Yes, yes, yes. Thank you very much for this. Hank at a comedy night like

everyone would just smile at him anyway it doesn't matter if his jokes weren't funny everyone would be like you did a really good job i'm proud of you for having a go he's doing his best and that's nice i'm in practice and he says he goes back over to his desk and he brings you a book that says how to perform comedy it's got a bunch of tips in here it's written it's uh written by uh an adventurer themselves actually i don't think they were a bard but um or in any way gifted with uh magic or anything like that i think there might have been some sort of uh battle barbarian or something like that but it is can i tell you it is a rip-snorter of a read. Absolutely.

From cover to cover, I'm on my second read-through. Oh, ew. Yeah. Would you like to borrow it, he says. Not that you need it or anything like that. I just think it's really funny. I think it's neat, he says. Are you sure you don't want to read it a third time?

I mean... Well, I just get to Greyhill a bit more often, I suppose, so I can get myself another copy, but you might be in and out. I know how you lot like to play, you adventurers. You're here one day, gone the next. I think I might be spending a bit more time with yourself, I guess,

Hank, these days. I might give it a read. He nods. Hank quite clearly kind of understood the writing on the wall, but he doesn't want to broach it if you're not comfortable broaching it. Yes, yes, yes. So, yes, probably spending more time with your lovely self. Maybe you can tell me a bit about the book as opposed to me reading it.

Again, eyes aren't quite what they were a week ago. I would bloody love to. And I would love to hear it. If you're going to read out loud, can you read to me as well, please? Big T. Big T. You know, you are welcome whenever I am reading. That means so much, Hank.

Tell you what, tell you what, tell you what. How about you two, the lot of you two, what am I talking about? You're all family. How about the whole lot of you, I'll have you over for dinner sometime in the next week, huh? You can meet the missus, you can meet the kids. You love the missus and the kids, don't you? Yes.

Yeah, they love you too. Absolutely delightful. Anyway, it's been wonderful to catch up with you. I think I've got a couple more gold pieces to hand over in mere moments. But we have a very urgent chat with Maura Marsh. He's just on through. He gestures to another part of the tent. The tent kind of has internal walls that are separate sections of the tent. It's a very large permanent tent.

Yes. Excellent. You look after yourself. We'll see you soon. We absolutely will. You have to walk past me on the way out, he says. Yes, that we do. Yay!

He sits back down. All right. You head on through. You see there is another table. This table has a massive map on it, and there's pins all over the place. It's a map, basically, of the local area. You can see there's a little notation for the capital. There's a notation for Greyhill and some of the other surrounding smaller settlements.

As we were getting to Greyhill, we had had a plan to be like, look, we're going to talk to Morimarsh, but if things go south pretty quickly, like maybe they're the one, what do we do? Would we have had that? I feel we would have probably had that conversation just to kind of prepare. Look, just prepare ourselves if things go a bit south. Well, you can have determined that and what agreement you might have come to as well. Because I would have probably voiced it and be like, we're going to talk tomorrow, Marsh.

You know, just to benefit the doubt, let's not just jump to conclusions. And surely one of the more practical members of our party would have been, well, let's just quickly discuss the possibility that they are the ones that are doing all of this, or at least, you know, very aware of the things that might be happening. What if we just show him all of the quests and we say, hey, some of these look like they line up, and then we'd leave it for him to say something? quests and we say, hey, some of these look like they line up. And then we'd leave it for him to say something. Yeah, that's what I mean, Big T.

I'm saying what? Great minds, am I right? Yeah, but what happens next? Well, what if he's like, okay, let's role play. You could be you. I'll be Boromash. And I'll say, looking at these quests, and I look at them, and I'm saying, yes, I understand.

These were all, yes, we divided all these plans up between a bunch of different mercenary groups, so that we could, no one could figure it all out, but I'm, me, Moromash, I am the big mastermind behind this, because I want an army of iron golems to rule this world and you can't stop me.

It was my plan the whole time. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. And now you either join me or die. Wow, Moromash, you're so clever and strong. I'll have fun joining you. And then we poison him later. Aha. Yes, yes, yes.

Well, if he's making a big army. Yeah. Okay. Cut off his armies. Okay. So no matter what, we... Is that the plan, everybody? I look around.

Well, he can't. If he has a big army, he'll kill a lot of people. And I really like Moro Marsh, and I don't think he'll do this. I hope he hasn't done. But, I mean, if he starts being thready, we just say yes because he'll get us. But we can get him later. Okay, okay. I was just wondering if we had a plan, if things went pretty well.

Did anyone else have a plan? We don't have to do my plan. I know sometimes my plans aren't always the best plan. And sometimes they are. Maybe this is one of those times. Does anyone else have something else they want to do? Anyone else want to add anything? Everyone else shrugs.

No one really has anything. This is uncharted territory. Right, well I guess that's the better plan of any. If he is behind it all, he probably has access to those Zion golems and I guess even if we aren't tried, I mean, I guess the

best thing is to pretend if things are going that way, we say yes and then hopefully bide our time and do something later on. Is everyone in agreement? Everyone nods. It seems like the least way to die. It is a very good point. Just one more thing.

Yes. It seems unlikely to me. It just strikes me as odd that Morimash, we would come to Morimash and be like, isn't this odd? And Morimash wouldn't kill us. What's to say

that Morimash isn't trying to befriend us to kill us later? It's a very good point. So what, what, okay. We'll go back. Real weird. Yes, I will roleplay again. Yes, it's me as Morima.

I did it all. Haha. And now we're not going to be friends. I'm making that very clear and I'm going to attack you all and try to kill you. Haha. Well, if that happens, obviously we fight. Maybe we win. Maybe we lose. There's a lot of us. We stand

a good chance against Morimush. What I more mean is, you know what? One more thing. Let me be Morimush. You got me. It's me. I've been orchestrating all of this. I'll cut you in on it. We'll go Tell you what, I'll cut you in on it.

We'll go percentage-wise. I'll cut you in on it. You in on this, and then you say... Yes, of course. Alright, cool. Shake on it. And then tonight I poison you. Ah, yes, fear. You see what I mean? Why would he not do that? Because if he starts

a fight, he's gotta know, just as we know, that we outnumber him you know maybe we should kill him on the spot then no no no that uh again we've got to give him the benefit of the doubt um but this is if he says pause for consideration says frankly i agree with big t and it rhymes So it must be right I like her Something Why give him the chance to fight back?

It's only if he says I'm a big evil man And maybe we die Because then you're allowed to kill Alright We approach him He's So then it's the, we approach him. He's like, yes, it's me. Ha ha.

And we can go halfsies. We shake on it and then we attack. We should put, yes, yes. Yes. Does anyone have any hand poison? Chantal, is that? Do you have hand poison? Then we shake his hand, he dies.

They all, they shake their heads. They seem very uncertain in the plan. Yeah. Why, what do you want to do? Well, they don't say that. They just seem. Oh. You seem unhappy.

Is there a better plan we could have? Well, I just, I think it's, I just feel like any plan we've made so far hasn't satisfied me as a good plan. But I can't think of a better one, I suppose. That's all right. No bad ideas. We'll stick with one. is. We'll stay fallen. I guess it's pro-Tim.

If he's hopefully as much in the dark as we were a mere month ago. But if he's not and if he's like, you know, but then he could just say he's in the dark. Oh, this is a troublesome one, isn't it? And then he could just kill us.

All right. So we go in, we say what he's thinking, and no matter what, we slot in. No, no, no. No. Okay, I see the flaws. Now, I like the way Big T thinks. Remember what I see. Does anyone have a truth-telling spell?

No. No one? No. No one? No. No. Yeah, son. Surely someone at the camp has a truth-telling spell. But look, I think we're all very good at reading a person somewhat. So let's go in, see what's happening,

and if, I guess, as 50 chickens has pointed out, he could have us killed in there that night. So all we need to do is, if something like that happens, I guess, yes, we attack. And hope that the rest of the camp don't attack us, eh? It would be weird if we were the only ones not in the loop. I feel like we're special, right?

He likes us. So with that kind of confidence, Adam, we walk into the tent to confront Borobas next time on Stories of the Greyhill Recon. And bourreaux bars, next time on Stories of the Greyhill Creek Company. Hey there, fellow adventurer. To be continued... campaigns that were once only available to Sants Pants Plus members, the further adventures of the Greyhill Free Company if you want shorter campaigns with beautiful guests,

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