D&D is For Nerds - Trouble in Orwa #1 Unlikely Foes

Episode Date: June 30, 2018

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Sands Pants Radio. I'm bad at improv. Hey everyone, our sister show, Plumbing the Death Star, is doing another UK tour. We're doing Edinburgh Fringe, London Podcast Festival, some late night shows at the Soho, and a bunch of cities in between. So, if you want to catch us live, even if it's just a demand we do D&D and bring Cass next time, you can grab tickets at sandspantsradio.com slash live. But be quick, as a lot of shows are close to selling out. Welcome to episode one of

Trouble in Orwa, a D&D is for Nerds 5th ed adventure. On the island of Cloud Strix, nestled just below a massive mountain in the center of the island, is a city by the name of Orwa, where you three find yourselves. Atop the mountain that Orwa sits in the shadow of is a giant stone pantheon, in the classic Greek sense, the building. In the classic Greek sense, the building.

And within that, during the day, a conclave of eagles sit, and at night, a parliament of owls, both of them giant and both of them intelligent beyond measure. They discuss the matters of the day, anything brought before them, and they are considered the wisest and most respected creatures in the world when it comes to adjudications. In recent times, the elven gods, their power and grip over the material plane and their own realms of existence has slackened. The elven gods are dying. As they die, the souls that they once held and the future souls of elves to come have begun to slip through their fingers and they have become up for grabs. A mad dash to grab as many as possible came between the forces of heaven and hell who are now locked in a battle, a struggle for the souls of the elves slipping through. a struggle for the souls of the elves slipping through. To prevent an all-out war, both the parties have sent petitions to Orwa,

to the wise sages there, to get their matters or their opinions on the matter and for them to adjudicate how to divide these new souls. You three are agents of three of the devil princes. Jackson, or should I say secretly jacob you are a servant of the devil prince mephistopheles mephistopheles comes from a frozen not a fiery hellscape deep within the layers of hell. He conducts arcane experiments in this frozen wasteland and often refuses to see any visitors. He does, however, obviously, as all devil princes do, have a stake in this.

And so he has sent you along on the matter that I will soon describe, but tell me about your character. My name is Seekly Jacob. I'm a tiefling like everyone else. I'm, what class did I pick? I'm a ranger. Oh, and I think the most pertinent thing to know about me is that I have a giant rhinoceros by the name of Thomas who will do all my fighting for me as I am very sick.

When I rolled my character, I used a specific way of getting stats. I couldn't do the voice. The voice is gone. I couldn't do the voice for explaining things about the character. I'm not my character explaining things about myself. Oh, I insist. When I rolled this

character, I rolled a couple of times. I got Ruby to roll my stats once. They were all bad and then adam was like well you can do a thing called suicide dice where you roll a d20 and you just take whatever you get for each individual stat so the first roll is strength the second roll is dex no matter what you can't mix them around it could be 20 for your strength big strong boy but or or one for your strength big weak boy i got six for my strength, so still pretty weak. And six for my constitution.

So I'm very sick, but I have a high intelligence and wisdom. So, look, I'm getting by. Other than that, from having my devil prince be Mephistopheles, I get, and I wanted to ask this, Adam, but I completely forgot to, mage hands, cantrip, burning hands, one a day? Yes. Sick. So yeah, I got those spells from my man. Plus I have cold resistance instead of heat resistance because he's a cold devil. Yes. And that's me. Well, my personality trait is that I see myself

as too high class to do hard work. And my flaw is that i'm a terrible ass kisser to those more powerful than me i'm a snivelly boy and that's sickly jacob sickly jacob sartorius i should write that down shanks your liege lord is glacier both in charge and the most notorious prison and prisoner in the hells she flaunts rules breaks tradition and respects that in others she's a complicated creature in that she both operates technically within the laws of the hells but understands that sometimes to get things done you need to ignore the laws of the hells she's a classic example or the most notable example of the idea that in the hells you need to use the law to your advantage no matter how it's written what's your name oh right um hello fuck off oh god my name, I'm not going to do that.

Imagine you would be bleeding from your mouth by the end of... Oh, my God. Wait, shit. Oh, my... I already am. No, that's stigmata. Oh, shoot. When it comes out of your hands, it's stigmata.

I don't know, because you were looking at your hands. It's just a sick hand, man. I smoked some weed and I'm like whoa my hands man the colors the color of hand my name is uh i said an overwhelming urge to say judge reinholds like i don't want to change my character name no my name is uh is trisco flam jam uh i am also a tiefling but my class and level is rogue and three uh my background is that of a spy and my player name is shanks um my personality traits is that i would rather make a new friend than a new enemy my ideal should i read all this read whatever you think is pertinent i don't mind okay cool well

my uh my my ideals is that freedom chains are made to be broken. And my bonds, I will become the greatest thief that ever lived, come hell or high water. My flaw is that I have a tell that reveals whenever I'm lying. What is the tell? Oh, time will tell. Unlike sickly Jacob, I'm a hot demon so i am uh resistant to fire somewhat and i'm also inexperienced at reading uh dnd adventure sheets so i don't know how long to keep going feel free to end it whenever you want literally right now i'm gonna end it now. All right. And the third devil prince who will be featured in our party is Balzable. Did Dracula just walk in?

Balzable is cursed. He broke from, well, didn't break from tradition. didn't break from tradition. He continued the classic tradition of trying to usurp Asimodeus, the leader of hell, by trying to amass an army. When Asimodeus found out of Balzable's intentions and betrayal,

he cursed him. Whenever Balzable lies to a devil, for one year, he turns into a reprehensible, an awful-looking slug creature. That's a worse tell than mine. Appealing to nothing. He looks like the lowliest of lowly creatures. No one wants to look like this slug creature.

And he made the ruling retrospectively so every time he had lied previously counted god ballsable has been a slug creature for several thousand years and only recently retained his original mighty form he is very careful to never lie to a devil because he does not want to incur that punishment again. And he, of the souls of the mortals, he prefers to recruit those desperate for redemption. He likes to bargain from a position of strength at all times. He will only come to mortals, he or his agents, will only come to mortals who are in desperate need of help. His agent in the world is Cass, or should I say...

Prangles Punch! Punch? Punch. What does that rhyme with, Cass? Oh, sponge. Not clunk. Hi, my name is Brangles Yeah, I'm not doing the voice for the whole thing

I'm a monk But also a tiefling A meefling, if you will I won't I will Thank you That's alright, Cass, I got your back I think I've already sung a song about

Jackson Jackson having my back some. So I'd just like to return to that momentarily. I was a foolish fool. I know all the things about Belzebul. I did accidentally make a tiny bit of a deal. Oops. And in exchange for me being able to, oh, it's more of a punishment. In exchange for me being able to go out on this quest,

I have to give him my soul when i go back that's rough that's rough to hear i'm gonna just try and find a different one surely you won't know oh no it's all souls look the same when they're out of the body i i assume the taste is what defines them and he was never tasted by him before. They're turned into devil creatures, actually. Oh, okay. So the souls are... Devils cannot reproduce in any way. To make more devils, they need to make bargains with mortals, take their souls,

and they turn them into devils. I don't want that to happen to me. So I'm just going to try and take someone else's. Personality traits. The best way to get me to do something is to tell me I can't do it and I blow up at the slightest insult. Good.

I wouldn't call myself an asset to this party. My flaw is that if there's a plan, I'll forget it. If I don't forget it, I'll ignore it. We're in trouble. Yeah, I'm pretty wise and dexterous and i i have a lot of as a monk i've got key points that i can spend i can do cool things with the elements so like light like light or extinguished candles i've got thermiturgy i can make a good entrance fuck yes yeah and i've got a dagger on a whip that's sick yeah your primary weapon is a metallic whip, a flexible metal metallic whip.

At the end of it is a large barbed dagger. Fuck. What weapons are you using, Shane? I got a rapier, a shortbow, and a dagger. Because I'm like a sneaky little rogue boy. What do you have, Jack? I have one dagger. That's all I need.

Because I'm not going to fight. Because if I get hit once, maybe I'll die. So, because all of your character explanations have pleased me, we are going to be playing this game with several different types of cards. There are combat cards, which we'll get to later. But outside of combat, we have what I like to refer to as good boy and bad boy cards the good boy cards are in the middle of the table there each of you can get one good boy card oh best boy so you will receive good boy cards when i roll a 20 for something that you're doing or when you when you play out your personality traits, ideals, flaws, and bonds. Those are the reasons you get good boy cards.

I, over here, have bad boy cards. Which benefit me. Now, I get bad boy cards when you roll a one on something. Or whenever I deign that I deserve a bad boy card. Like, for instance, now. What if I deign you deserve a bad boy card? I'll get a bad boy card don't you deserve a bad boy i'll get a bad boy card do i deserve a bad boy card yeah you've been good all right do i deserve a good uh jackson give me your character sheet no god you haven't even started

as i arrive in Orwa, I am dead. Jackson, a small item on your person goes missing. Thanks for the bad boy, cunt. What will I lose? It's a good question. Take my dagger from me. It's a good idea. I've lost it on the boat ride over.

Every spy dagger. All right, let me finish the introduction. Damn it. You try to be nice. Oh, fuck. I love my life. No, you don't. You have a terrible life. What are you talking about?

Why are you mean to me? Let me believe my life for a moment. Have a good boycott. I don't know. Give me a good boycott. What are we doing? There's no fucking rules. All right, cool.

What did it say? I don't have to tell you. Keep on keeping on, Adam. Get a good boycott. This is chaos. There are no rules. Imagine if I give one of you guys a bad boycott. Oh, no.

What if we're really bad well we'll see what happens when we come to that bridge so like i said there's a petition right now before the council at orwa to have them decide what to do with all of these souls now when the owls and the eagles come together for their meetings, there is imprinted on metal tablets the minutes of their meetings. They don't actually announce what their decision is. They simply discuss it, come to some conclusions, and record everything that they do.

Those metal tablets are sent to a place called the scriptorium in ottawa where they are read by the speaker so a person known as their title is the speaker working at the scriptorium they are responsible for reading all of the minutes and then explaining the different conclusions that they have come to and making the rulings or interpreting the rulings i already know what my end game is sorry it's okay recently some sort of attack happened at the scriptorium and several of the metal plates have gone missing including all of the ones related to your different devil princes and their individual stakes in this little tiff between heaven and hell. You have been each dispatched by your different liege lords to come here and retrieve the metal

plates or to retrieve a convincing forgery of the metal plates. Something to trick the speaker. Yes. Yeah, okay. All you really want to do is to get a positive outcome for your individual liege lords and know that your devil princes while you are working together on this because you have been sent together your devil princes will be happier with you if you find plates that probably favor them okay so there's a bit of competition there.

Okay. Sorry if I missed this. What is myself, Trisco Flamjam, what am I being, like, paid by my devil lord? Like, what's in it for me? Why have I accepted this contract? You will please a prince of hell, a very powerful entity.

It will mean... So it's like a religious thing, sort of, right? It could be a religious thing for you, or it could be more of a... Pleasing a devil prince comes with a lot of power. You might be able to leverage this for a place in his court. Sorry, her court. Or you could use this as like a, oh, and I want this item.

Thank you for letting me help you, sort of thing. You could... It's just like a very powerful tool that you can use, that you pleased your liege lord. Yes. Alternatively, if you want, you can try to please a different liege lord. Not only is that allowed, it's basically encouraged. I do not wish to please my own.

I have the same ideal as you, Shanks. I change freedom ideal. You love freedom. Including mine. Selfish freedom. Brangles, if I might let you know, Glacia, the liege lord of Trisco, is an expert in conniving their way through contracts and negotiations. Glacier is the person you want to impress if you want someone who can help you get out of a contract you've made.

Guess who got an ally? Jackson? No, I'm staying as far away from sickly Jacob. He's sick, don't you know? One of the powers I have is ray of sickness, and I might just use it on Jacob. Just like whilst he sleeps, just like a little bit, so he wakes up feeling like shitty.

It's gotten worse. The illness I have that only rich people get has gotten worse. The three of you are standing before the gates of Orwa. The town guard are standing out the front, screening people as they come in and out. This theft is being treated very seriously by the town guard. It's the first time something so audacious has ever happened. No one has ever tried to rob the scriptorium before. so audacious has ever happened no one has ever tried to rob the scriptorium before you can see that as they as they search people they're doing it in a team of six where two people are doing the

physical pat downs and searches and the other four people are just standing on overwatch watching out for trouble and such like that they don't have regular looking weapons Their weapons are long poles with a metal cylindrical tube at the end of it. So like a imagine a spear but instead of the spear point just a Pringles can shape at the end. It's in line

with the spear. Are we allowed to be here on our devil's behest? Anyone is allowed to come or go from Orwa. Okay. You will not be here in any official context, though. Okay. If town guard bar you from a scriptorium for maybe the reason that it's been robbed recently,

there's not a lot of recourse you can do other than just breaking in. Well, I'll approach them. All right. They're not searching you if you're going in. They just, like, wave you through. Cool. I have Thomas, my rhinoceros, with me, yes? Do I have to summon Thomas, or do I just start with Thomas?

No, Thomas is just with you. Good. Are you riding him? Yeah, can I be riding Thomas? Yeah, that's allowed. Yes. In combat, it might be difficult, but outside, when you just... Thomas is not hard to ride.

Just sit on. Good. As you pass through the gates of Orwa, you pat yourself down and realize you're missing your dagger. Somebody stole it. On the ship, perhaps. Would you have gotten to know each other very well on the trip here? It wasn't very long. You've maybe been traveling together for only a day.

We know that we're all together to get those. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You were brought together and told. And probably, you know. Alright. I would have been. What is because I'm very, look, there's class structure. I'm a fan. What's the better devil?

Is my devil better than their devil? So, technically Give me that hell ranking well your mephistopheles mephistopheles is one of the more prominent powerful and well-known ones he certainly would be among the royalty of the princes he is certainly one of the most royal balsible uh cast sorry slug devil brangles's liege lord is kind of in the shithouse right now. Like, for the next couple of dozen thousand years, Balzable will be, like, kind of like the talk of the town

for what he tried to do. Glacia is also kind of being punished. Oh, boo. But Glacia's punishment is also just... Azamodeus had every right to just outright kill glacier but kind azamodeus kind of likes glacier okay likes what she represents and so she has the favor of azamodeus even if she is being punished as well then i'll probably chat to uh tris tris tris tris trcapisk? What's your name? Trisco Flamjam?

Is that what you mean? I'm so sorry. Easy to get. I'll speak to Trisco, but I will not speak to... Brangle. Brangle. I'm also speaking to Trisco. I'm Trisco.

Trisco, you are quite popular. Hey, guys. How's it going? I mean, I know that I would rather make a new friend than a new enemy, but hey, it's nice to make two new friends right at the get-go. Hey, what's up? My name's Trisco, you are quite popular. Hey, guys, how's it going? I mean, I know that I would rather make a new friend than a new enemy, but hey, it's nice to make two new friends right at the get-go. Hey, what's up? My name's Trisco. What am I to do with you? Anytime you speak, Brian goes,

I'll probably shoot you a dirty look and I'll probably never talk to you directly, certainly not on the ship, you know. I find it a bit kind of gross that you deign to you know worship a slug devil i just quietly think of when i will cast ray of sickness i'm looking forward to inevitable infighting i have i'm encouraging it okay great i stabbed jackson i'm kidding he doesn't have a weapon. You could. Imagine if you died, like, now.

I'm like, the rest of this game is Shanks and Cass. As we approach the gate and I notice my dag is missing, I'll definitely shoot Brangles a dirty look. I wink. Oh, God. How long till the infighting destroys us? You do not get the obvious hostility from Sickly Jacob. Perhaps your wink back is because you thought he was winking at you.

Am I seeing sparks fly? No. Star-crossed lovers. Oh, no. It's a bit late in the day when you arrive here at Orwa, so would you like to find some place to rest for the night first? Sure. We'll find a tavern before we head inside.

The most convenient tavern, or the first place that you pass, is a tavern called The Usual. They've got a great sense of humour here in Orwa, right? It's a funny place. Yeah, it's sort of a meta-textual town. Alright, well, we'll head into the usual. What happens if I order the usual?

They have a drinks list. The death penalty. No, they do have a list of drinks. They have a specials board, and the usual is one of the drinks you can get. How many drinks are on the specials board? Six. Okay, read me all six. The usual,

obviously. Hang on, wait, let me write them down as I think of them. What am I saying? These are all pre-planned. I'm just ticking them off as I mark them down. So the first one, as I said, was the usual. The next one is... Can you jump into the fourth one? What's the fourth one?

The fourth one is Blue Moon. Okay, that's good. Do they only have it on occasions? Blue is spelt B-U, by the way, if you wanted. Blue is spelt... So if I were to ask for the Boo Moon, I'd be like... Sorry, B-L-U. No, I'm just saying, I didn't see the L I wrote here a couple of days ago.

So that's the fourth one. What number would you like next? Well, let's go two, three, five, and six. Maybe all at once. Two, three, five, and six. All right. So the second one is Red Harvest. Are they all color-based?

No. Did you say which one? Three or four? No, we've done four. We've done four, yeah. Which one was next? Three, I'll say. That one's the Star Wars.

When you said Red Harvest, was that a reference to Blue Harvest, the working title of Return of the Jedi? No. Wait, yes. How do you spell harvest? The normal way. You don't spell it W-A-R-D. H-A-R-V-E-S-D. And did you want five or six?

Surprise me. No, that's the name of number five, right? Yes, it is. Were you looking at my notes? Yeah, sorry. I checked it all out. Surprise me. And then six, of course, is the dead man's drink.

All right. Is it just a glass of arsenic? No, it's a glass with a dead... A glass with a severed finger in it. Oh, I like that. That's fucking hard to make constantly. It's the same finger. Oh, okay.

All right. They don't just, like, take it from the person who orders it, and it's like... It's an embalmed finger that they put in the drink. You have to give it back. Yeah. And you can't order two at once, then. You have to give it back. Yeah. And you can't order two at once then. You have to give the glass back.

What? Is that shock that you have to give the glass back or is that not understanding what I'm trying to say? Yes. All right, cool. So what would you like? They also have just ales and wines. I do not drink. It's bad for the constitution.

Well, my constitution is 12, so I do not drink. It's bad for the constitution. Well, my constitution is 12, so I love a drink. I'll grab the usual, thanks, because I forgot the rest of the list. Alright, they give you the usual. It's a citrusy drink. Oh, I hate that. A little sprig of, I was supposed to say onion,

a little sprig of orange on the side. Nice. As if it were yours, I was about to say onion, a little sprig of orange on the side. Nice. If we all were you, what do I suppose? Thank you Brangle. You're Brangle. Thank you sickly Jacob. I will

have a blue moon. Alright, they give you a blue moon. What does it taste like? Cheers. It tastes like blue, what is it, curacao? Curacao? Curacao. Cool. I don't know what that is it's like a licoricey taste nice um well i guess as we're sitting down i'll be like what what is our game plan tomorrow when we head inside we we're going we're going to um you know just walk up to the front gate we're going to look for the missing person what's our plan missing person the missing tablet but somebody's our plan? Missing person?

The missing tablet. But somebody died, didn't they? No one was killed. Oh, I don't know. That was a discussion we had before this came. Oh, I see. You imagine that you might be barred from entry if the town guard is still investigating the place. It might be worth it to

case it tonight, if you want. I wander up to the bartender and hope for some exposition. I'm like, oh, man, thanks for this usual. It's really, it's sick, man. So, have you heard anything about, like, the news from the scriptorium? What about it do you want to know? Well, I mean, it's under, like, have you ever seen this much activity around? It's gone, like, it's nutso.

People are, like, going crazy. Maybe they lost something or something. man i don't know anything and i think it's a bit suspicious that an outer towner is asking about that we made out of town i was born here i haven't seen my wings nah just kidding man i'd rather make a friend than an enemy what's happening sorry sorry i thought the thing that's usually going to my head, my constitution's feeling more like a nine at the moment. But surely you get a bunch of out-of-towners, like, this is a big deal, there's, like, a big thing being, like, celebrated right now. It's gotta be a bit of a tourist trap, yeah? People can't watch this course, it's like Judge Judy, whatever that is.

Do any of your, either of the cards you have shanks do they relate to uh increasing a role oh no what just what are they um i've got one that uh a plus uh 1d12 after making a saving throw all right cool cool and the other and a succeed on a skill check ah that is one you want so you know these roles i'm doing this is you persuading the man yeah if you want you can play your succeed on a skill check if you want and you can just pass this role okay right or you could take whatever i rolled which will not be enough okay okay cool well i'll hand you this card you fast talk the man into into giving you up some information what did what did you want to know about the scriptorium it looks like he's just trying to get rid of you because you're like

you're boggling his mind you could almost see steam coming out of his ears as he tries to keep up with you geez it it's under wraps right now by the town guard right i don't know much more than that mate you're talking about a scriptorium or the local mummy? Take it easy, man. I skulk off back to the table. All right. Well, that happens. Well, I will do it as I plan tonight. We'll scope out the place, see what we're looking for, this kind of thing.

I'm happy to have a bit of a casing. You have a bit of a skulk, but I heard that it's a bit under wraps, guys. So let's keep a distance. I forgot how to speak. Good intel. Maybe leave the rhino. My rhino can be stealthy if I'm alone. That's a power I have, too.

You're not going to be alone. No, that is not a power you have. The power you have is you do not need to move slowly to make a stealth check. The rhino still sucks at stealth checks. Okay. I have nothing without my rhino. Then you are nothing. I can't leave it.

The two of you will have to protect me if anything goes wrong. I heard, did you lose your dagger man? Yeah I got two Do you want one of my daggers? Did you have two when you got on the boat? I sure did And I sculled the rest of my drink Everybody's stealing from me

You can make of that what you will I won't take a dagger Okay suit yourself No dagger no rhino Everyone's trying to rob and kill me You can make of that what you will. I won't take a dagger. Okay, suit yourself. No dagger, no rhino. Everyone's trying to rob and kill me. Cool, let's scope the place out. You head towards the... The Scriptorium is the most obvious building anywhere in Orwa.

It sits nestled in the mountainside itself. There's a bit of a hike to climb up to get to it, but you can do that without any trouble there's several other buildings along the way so no one is too suspicious of you heading along the road cool but when you get closer and closer the path gets narrower and narrower and it becomes more and more obvious where your destination is there's a bunch of from this range as well you can now see that there's a bunch of town guard strewn about the entrance way to the scriptorium you'd have to get past them to get to the door and it's unlikely that

they're gonna let you get past them the path here has a small railing but over the railing there's cliff on either side you could climb around if you wanted to and get up the sides of the scriptorium do we think it's worth do we want to go into the scriptorium tonight? You don't have to. We just check and- You can check that there's obviously town guards and they are definitely not allowing people in or out. There's an active crime scene going on.

So do we know the tablets were to be sent to the scriptorium? Do we know if they- They arrived. They didn't make it. They arrived and then they- They were stolen from the scriptorium. Okay. If we go to the scriptorium, we can see where they once were.

Can I have a look to try and see if I can glean any kind of side entrance to the scriptorium that's... Or evidence to a path that maybe leads to such a thing? I get a bad boy card. You get a one. That's it. Your character dies and Michael can go home. Okay.

You discern no obvious side entrances. There are windows. There's obviously other ways in other than just the front door, but you see no other doors in. And it's built into the side of the mountain, right? Yeah. So the back half of the building is a mountain. Can I, like, check the mountain, like, I don't know, just to see if climbing it would be even practical?

You don't know a lot about climbing, and you're not a very strong climber, but you imagine someone who is a better climber than you with some climbing equipment could scale the walls. Yeah, maybe somebody who has second story work. Well, you don't know this, Sickly Jacob, but for Trisco, this would not be a hassle. This just isn't a hassle. You could climb it easy. And I could climb onto the back of one of them.

Is there any water nearby? For some reason, I'm picturing there might be a waterfall or a river or something. There is a river that goes through Orwa, but there's no waterfalls or water near here. For some reason I imagine this whole thing kind of looking like Machu Picchu. That's not inaccurate, no. Neat. I was picturing more like the Black Panther, like, mountain panther thing.

It's just like a giant book coming out of a mountain. It exists somewhere in between those two descriptions. Okay, wow. That's really confusing. Could it be scaled using 10 pitons? I thought you were about to give a third one, and I was excited to be like, yes, you are all right, in a way.

Yeah, it's like Dr. Evil's volcano lair, right? Yeah. Sorry, what was your question? Could pitons, perhaps 10 of them, be used to scale? It'll be helpful. Pittance will certainly help. If you needed 20 pittance, guess who's got another 10 pittance? If you needed 30 pittance.

We could go buy some. Wait, hold on. Guys, did we just realize we all have pittance? Pitten, buddy. Woo! And we go back to the puff. PFFs. Well, do we want to return to the tavern and

sort out whatever we're doing there, or do we want to carry on around the side? It is sounding like you want to return to the tavern. It is cold. Seeming Jacob clutches his cloak closer to his body. I imagine myself very disturbingly

thin. Like... Yeah. The wind blows against you when we see the reality of your form, and it's like, oh. The wind blows against him, and you're like, why did you crease your robes? No, that is my legs. I like to imagine in the sunlight I'm almost translucent. I'm dying.

You're one of those fish that should never come out of the ocean. One of those fish, but should never come out of the ocean. One of those fish, but a man. Imagine standing directly in front of the sun. You can see through all of his skin. You can see the bones and the organs working inside him. The heart just doesn't beat enough. One beat per minute.

Gong, gong. There it goes. What time of night is it? What time of day? It's getting close to midnight. I'd say we return to... My cold bones aside, I'd say we return to the tavern and in the morning

we head back up and try a lockdown. But I'm willing to be outvoted. Well, I mean, I just feel like with our combined dark vision and pittance, we could maybe, why wait another night under the shroud of nightfall? We might be able to make some little progress into sort of getting a bit of you of this thing.

Brangles? Well, perhaps, what's your strength? You had to rate it out of, oh, numbers. Out of numbers? Well, if I were to look for my strength, whereabouts would I maybe look if I had a form in front of me? Well, it would be south of your name and right above Dex. I see. I'm going to go with seven.

And then there's like, again, if it was on a form, there'd be a little bubble that says maybe negative two. Adam, how well would I be able to uh wear sickly jacob as a belt if i had a strength of say oh 12 with maybe a plus one sickly jacob as frail as he is is still quite heavy for me sickly is anyone else quickly just flashing back to the usual, the tavern, in the little horse thing next door? It's your big rhino. He's grazing next to you between two horses. Tom, your rhino, goes down for some food,

and two horses over the top of him look at each other. He's a weird fucking horse. It's a weird fucking horse. I'd say we can compile our pittance and get to scaling. I reckon we do too. Simply Jacob, you're going first. Well, we can tether him. We'll tether us all together.

How much rope do we have? Just dangle me. You all have 50 feet of rope. Okay, nice. Is it soft and hempen? It is. 50 foot feet of rope. Okay, nice. Or perhaps it is. Is it soft and hempen? It is. 50 foot, not soft. Okay, right.

Though you are not the first person who thought that my 50 feet is soft. Oh, yeah. Every time I look at it. I want soft hempen rope. It sounds divine. Like silk strands of God's hair. You have about 100. Well, you have exactly 150 feet of hemp and rope between the three of you. That would be easily enough for you to reach some of the second story windows in the side of the building. Well, I also have a crowbar.

That's for window shimmying. I have two crowbars. What? Adam! Well, hold on. Soft crowbar. No, it's a 50 footer crowbars. What? Adam! Well, hold on. Soft crowbar. No, it's a 50 footer crowbar. Soft crowbar or a pointless crowbar?

Hey, I have a crowbar too. But I also have a signet ring. Well, I also have loft of string. Which is what I didn't even think it was. 10 feet. 10 feet. All right. I need to work on writing out distances.

I read that before and I was like, I thought I had a pretty good vocabulary, but I've never heard of a loft of string. Adam's really impressive. All right. We'll try and scale the side with me apparently going first. I was just imagining Shanks coming to me after the episode. Adam, you're so clever.

Thanks, Shanks. Thanks. I'm going to write loft in everything now. Can I have a loft of your hair? Bye after this. Wait, why are you holding a knife? No! Where the fuck were we?

Yeah, we're going to climb. We're going to scale. We're going to scale. You start climbing. I'm going to choose a melodic minor scale. What are we to do? Trisco, you do not actually need any rope. You can just climb.

That's fine. Well, I mean, well, maybe should I... Do we want to be connected just in case, you know, old bag of bones here falls and then we can maybe try and collectively catch them or die a similar fate? Well, if we've got 50 feet of rope what we can do is sort of like i'll attach myself to things as i'm climbing and then we've got like 50 feet of rope each attaching us to sickly jacob yeah great but sickly jacob you're also climbing i want this to be like a baby

in like a remember those bouncing romper? Just drag me up the side of the mountain. Oh, the rocks are too harsh and you come up just covered in blood. Covered in bruises. That's the one. But like bad bruises. Is Sickly Jacob actually climbing or are you supporting him? I'll do my best. Hey, I'm mildly dexterous.

And Brangles, can you please get a good boy card? Hey, by the way, you got that bad boy card before because I rolled low. Yes. Does that mean you just get, like, an ability to use leather? You don't need to use it on that turn? Yeah, I don't need to use it straight away. So the ones I have, I'll let you know. Oh, that's a good boy card that you gave me.

Or don't spoil them if they're fine. You're right. I don't want to spoil them. Oh, boy. I'm guessing the thing is, like, force a roll fail on something we did. Yeah, yeah. I can force a fail or like before, I can make something just disappear. Right.

He can break something and then it doesn't work as well. That's pretty bad. That's pretty good. Yeah. That's probably my favorite one. Don't break my loft. Adam. Yeah.

This card says choose your initiative score. Does that just mean in a combat? Cool. Yeah? This card says choose your initiative score. Does that just mean in a combat? Cool. So in combat, you can, when I'm rolling, you can just be like, Adam, I actually just want to go first. Or I want to go after, um, Sickly Jacob or whatever. Cool. You can play that after as well. Like, we can do a round of combat and you can be like, Adam, I'd like to change my initiative order with this card.

You can do that as well if you want. So, like, have a turn. Then if you go last, you can be like, I want to go first this round. So you can just have two turns back to back if you want. Cool. So, Sickly Jacob, you do a surprisingly good job of climbing. Like a spider in a coat. I wouldn't say that.

Wrangles, you're a gun. You rolled a 20. You do as well as you physically could. And, Trisco, this is effortless for you. All three of you make it to the side of that building without any hassle. Okay. There's windows here. None of them are openable.

Okay. It's just glass. So this is like a building coming out of a mountain, and we're at like the side of it it's kind of built into the mountain yeah imagine like a fucking what's that lord of the rings castle uh pelms deep oh right i thought you were gonna mean the uh the big white one the big is that the one where i look to the Kingdom of Gondor, that one. No, that's like the... The massive white spire thing where the king eats a cherry tomato and it's gross. And Pippin's all like, oh, I'm singing. Yes, the tree.

Yes, that castle. Is that not Helm's Deep? No, Helm's Deep's like the fortified escape for the Rohan people. Yeah, yeah, no, I remember that. They're kind of both built into mountains. Sorry? They're kind of both built into mountains. Yeah's it well it is built into the mountain the front part of it the front facade of it is jutting out and it juts out enough that you can get onto the side of the building if you want but i guess i guess in

terms of scale though because you just like mentioned two cities or um how big is this like is this the size of a library or is it like a big big old fuck off it's three stories tall and across there are maybe 20 windows if that gives you any sort of yeah so it's not massive it's like a building yeah yeah it's not a mass massive like fantasy no okay cool it's the why it's so prominent is that it's just so high up set in the mountain. So you can see it very easily from the city. Do I think that if I used burning glass on this, burning hands on this window, I would be able to melt my way through with less noise than if we smashed it?

You'd probably break the glass rather than melting it. Can we see into the windows? It's all black and dusty. Can I try and wipe the windows and use my dark vision to have a peek? Use your dark vision to wipe down the window? No. Or your sleeve.

It's a wipe and peek, Adam. You clean the window as best as possible, but the grime is thousands of years old. Who's taking care of this place? Hey, I brought some easy off BAM. Sorry, that's 40 foot of BAM. Fuck you. I look around, just like, where we're at.

Are there any guards to be worrying about? Is there any sense of immediate danger? Well, you're on the side of the building, so you are not actually visible by any of the guards. Because the windows are all dark as well, you can't see in, and presumably no one in can see out. So you're basically invisible. And there's just windows.

Are there any other definable features of the building that seem of interest? If I were to put on Witcher 3 vision, what would be glowing red? Tell me how to beat this game, Adam. You look up and down. You can see above you there is what looks to be maybe a, what do you call it?

Buttress? Balcony? Balcony. There looks to be a balcony above you. But other than that, there's just windows, lots of windows. Point up to the balcony. Hey, there's a balcony up there. I might climb over the top.

Yeah, let's go for it. All right, you going to climb up? All right. Oh, gross. It's good because my noises, I normally make these noises in any recording. But now they're in character. No reason other than just dying. Dying in real life.

If Sickly Jacob cannot climb, do you leave him behind? Brambles and Trisco sorry sorry i corrected myself as well don't you dare leave me behind do you think there's a way that we could perhaps tie him to the balcony well i might just go and like scout out check this on a guard on the balcony first, you know? Okay. Well, if we. You guys get to know each other. I saw some sparks before. I would rather not.

Can we maybe get a pulley system going? Sure. Just hang me over the balcony on a rope and I'll just sort of swing there. Okay. I'm going to try and just work out some sort of hoist and give Trisco the end and hopefully I can just climb up and pull. If you leave me here, I will catch my death of chill. That's not so bad.

That's just not encouraging. You're resistant to cold. You'd think so. I'm resistant to cold, but not colds. So the plan is for both Brangles and Trisco to climb up and then drag Sickly up with you

I'll tie the knots you can go ahead, you're very good at climbing yeah I'll go ahead with the other end of the rope so I can maybe tie it around a banister but I check first to see if there's maybe like a snoozing guard that you can bop or grab and pull off like a self-kill in a video game. That's interesting because what's my moral alignment here?

Like, am I happy just to kill plungers? Well, you're not a good person. Okay. You could be neutral or evil, but you're not a good person. Okay, cool. All right, so fuck him. I'll kill anyone. Hell yeah.

You climb up and you look just as small as you can you look over the lip of the balcony and you can see that there is a a man an elderly man with a long white beard balding head and he's wearing deep velvet robes he has a classical wizard hat as well with like the stars and everything that's great he has it in his hands though and you can see he's rooting around in it He has a classical wizard hat as well with like the stars and everything. That's great. He has it in his hands though. And you can see he's rooting around in it for something. Pull the beard.

Set the cloak on fire. Grab the beard from the ground. Pull his head into this concrete. There's a glass door here as well. Can I see through the glass door if there's anybody? Yeah, you can see that this is obviously someone's room. Someone lives here. And you do know that several of the people who work at the scriptorium live here.

Oh, shit. This is like a problem. I need to solve it. Solve that problem. Fucking Trisco. Yeah, I'm not up there yet. Yeah, I'm just dangling. Are you still trying to climb, Brangles?

You're in trouble now. While you're supporting Sickly Jacob, you are having trouble. I mean, you don't speak thieves can't, do you? Oh, no. Okay, well, anyway, I sort of gesture down to Brangles and I'm like, shh, there's a guy up there, I'm pointing to be like, just take it easy, okay? Brangles,

you go. Here's a meaning. Can I hear what's happening if I'm pointing to be like, just take it easy, okay? Wrangles, you get his meaning. Can I hear what's happening if I'm a level lower? Yes, Ickley Jacob. You can also vaguely make out what he's saying and doing. Okay, I kind of shimmy around to the side of the balcony so I could essentially sneak attack him if I choose to. You get a bit closer, yeah. So I'm kind of behind him.

He doesn't notice you. He finally produces from inside his hat a rabbit, which he sets down on the balcony, keeps going in, and then pulls out a pipe. He starts stuffing the pipe with tobacco. That sounds like a magic. I thought you were going to say rabbit. Smoke that rabbit up. The rabbit hops over to where you are and starts sniffing at you.

It sees you. Okay. Throw it off the edge. Throw it off the edge. Fuck. Shit. Okay. What I want to do is withdraw my dagger and take the rabbit hostage.

and take the rabbit hostage. You're going to... You will have to drag yourself onto the balcony because you can't hold the rabbit ransom and hold yourself on the side of the balcony. Okay, then. I just, with my fast hands, I, like, grab the rabbit's paw and just, like, pull it off the side.

But I try and make it look like it jumped, so I kind of, like, grab it and go, like, flip. Oh, my gosh, somebody just snorted. But, dear listener, can you imagine who it is? None shall ever know. But Adam, like, rolls dice and then looks at them like, you've betrayed me, dice. And as I do it, I whisper to myself, hop to it.

You grab the rabbit's paw, you give it a little bit of a jerk, but when you do that, the rabbit digs its claws into the balcony and it doesn't shift. It hisses at you. Shut up, shut up, rabbit. what's that okay i am turns around

he has now that you can see him face on he has a massive you know those hearing hearing aid he has one of those stuck in the side of his head it glows faintly with a white light when he turns around as well. What's there? Okay, am I good enough at climbing where I can, like, move from my position to now be, like, hanging underneath the balcony? You can... So I'm just not in a position where he would look. Okay, yeah, I'll do that

and just kind of, like, be quiet for a bit. You hear the wizard... Oh, sorry, not the wizard, the man slowly plodding... Spoiler alert, I think he wizard, the man Slowly plod over I think he's a wizard He sounds like a magician He might, yeah, a magician is what I was expecting Slowly plod over to the side of the balcony

And he looks over So, good news, bad news Which would you like first? Bad news Bad news? The bad news is No, I'm just going to tell you the good news. Okay.

The good news is... That means the bad news is real bad. Trisco, he doesn't see you. You're underneath the balcony. How could he see you? The bad news is, sickly Jacob and Brangles, he looks straight down at you. Hey, what's this? We're going to go to initiative.

We're going to kill this man. There's no way about this Right guys? I'd really like to interrogate him It would be nice But I have very few actual combat abilities How are you against rabbits?

I'm useless I can't even fucking pull a rabbit off a balcony Yeah that's like blow to the self confidence Hop to it I let go of the balcony and kill self. Prangles, Pippa's scissors are on. The sound is amazing. Yeah, it was intense.

So, Prangles, you are first, then the wizard. I'm going to start compiling a list of allergies, Adam. Rabbits. Rabbits. Climbing. Brangles, you go first. I'll cast Ray of Sickness. I want to make this man unwell.

I want to make him real unwell. He's going to vomit off the edge of the balcony onto us. Oh, onto you. I'm not copying that. In my mind, this is actually not how we've set it up, but it's like you, Shanks, climbing the balcony, rope dangling from you to Cass, climbing the balcony, dangling. Is that how we're doing it?

Or are we all sort of separate except I'm tied to you? I don't think I'm tied to anything. I think I'm just kind of carrying the end of the rope. The aim was that Shanks was going to tie the rope to the balcony and then... Now you're just holding it. That's so scary. I have two pieces of bad news. Which would we like first?

The first piece of bad news is you point upwards, cast Ray of Sickness, and the ray scatters itself against the underside of the balcony. You miss very badly. Highs or lows? Highs. Okay. Trisco. Oh boy. You are struck in the back of the head by a ray of sickness.

Call me Sickly Trisco. Sickly Trisky. That's unfortunate. You take eight points of poison damage and you are poisoned it's a affliction that'll make it harder for you to do skill checks and attack rolls right so so i'm currently uh eight hit points down yeah eight hit points down so that's 19 hit points left. I can do math, Adam. Are you vomiting? Yeah, that's the second bit of bat.

But I'm really trying to stop it, so rather than it being like a hurl, it's like dribbling down. It dribbles down the sides of your cheeks, around the back of your neck, and drips down. No, Adam! To sickly neck and drips down. No, Adam. To Sickly Jacob and Brangles. Adam, do I then throw up? You choke a little bit on your own sick.

Sorry, Sickly Jacob, let's make a constitution saving throw. Sickly Jacob, you begin vomiting as well. At least it's not going to land on anyone. Now, the second big bit of bad news, Brangles. When you let go with one hand, your other hand slowly, your grip slowly slackened, weakened, and then you let go. Your top half slowly slides off and falls downwards you fall past sickly jacob catching some of his vomit your rope goes taut it tightens around the pitton and you and sickly jacob start careening wildly the rope you set up starts going tight

and Trisco underneath the balcony the rope yanks at you but it wasn't tied to me I was just holding it I think you did say before it was tied no that's even worse

are you just holding it? you just let go of it you're fine Trisco I thought you said you tied it to you. No. I was trying to tie it to the balcony. Okay. So Sickly Jacob and...

What's happened? Sickly Jacob and Wrangles. Crunch, crack. The top pitton comes out. You begin falling. Oh, my God. Ah! What do we do?

Die. The second pitton catches you. You fall below the building, but you're not anywhere near the floor. You both take six points of damage. Okay. Oh, that's... Oh, gosh. I'm now allergic to and both of you your chests are heavily bruised where you were tied up together i'm very very bruised i bruise easy like a plum

who's there let me get my glasses wow this is a real cantankerous old man. Sickly, it's your turn. How far down am I? You are... From where you were before, you're maybe another 10 feet down. Yeah. No, 20 feet down. You're 40 feet from the balcony.

What's the range on talk with animals? Speak with animals. Yeah. Is it in range? I'm just thinking if you know about the rabbit. Ah, true. Probably would. I think you are within range of speak with animals, but I don't think you know about that.

May I have heard Trisco be like, hop to it and be like, I bet he's talking about the rabbit. Yeah. Maybe someone was loud rabbit calls that they make. That's true. Like, boing. That's absolutely Tr Like, boing! That's absolutely true. So, you are... The range with Speak With Animals

is you cast it on yourself. Oh, okay. The problem is you'd be yelling to the rabbit. I figure he's seen us, though, right? Surely at this point. He's an old man. You don't know. Okay, well, maybe I'll try and...

If I cast Fog Cloud, does that make everybody else... They can't see the wizard as well? Yeah, you create a Fog Cloud. Would that affect me or am I too high? Depends where he wants to put the cloud. Right, okay. If I put the cloud... I'll cast Fog Cloud directly on me and Brangles.

Okay, cool. You see, Trisco, a cloud of fog begins to form below you, concealing the location of Brangles and Sickly. Then it is Trisco. It's your turn. You can hear the wizard moving again. The wizard moves. Maybe you hear the door open open as well you hear the jangle of the door opening oh man um okay uh can i can i have a little like can i do a sneaky peek

above before i do an action you know like just to see i want to see if somebody just came out or if it was him going inside you climb around and you see that the man has moved inside the house and he's there's a table or desk near the door he's rooting around in that looking for something okay right where's this rabbit the rabbit's on the balcony okay twiggles its nose at you um okay i'm just looking i like your noise cast was like at the impunity like what the fuck? Rabbit wiggling its nose. What I want to do is I want to... I pull out my dagger and stab it into the rabbit. Yes. And if it kills it, I would like with time to dip my fingers in the blood and write

shh on the balcony floor. That's a bit elaborate. Damn it. Now, we'll see how, you know. Draw your dagger. Slowly move it over. The rabbit... So...

I got fast hands, motherfucker. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, you get the rabbit. Let me just... As you bring the dagger slowly towards the rabbit, not moving too quickly, because you don't want to scare the rabbit. The rabbit's head slowly tilts upwards to track your dagger. It's not moving too quickly so you don't want to scare the rabbit the rabbit's head slowly

tilts upwards to track your dagger it's not moving, it's just looking at your hand, then you bring it down with a single you kill the rabbit alright cool, and then can I just pull the rabbit's body down so I'm still hanging off the balcony

but I've got the rabbit with me you assassinate the rabbit absolutely, self kill've got the rabbit with me. Yeah. You assassinate the rabbit. Yeah I did that. Absolutely. Stuff kill. First win in the game. You got the biggest enemy I've put before you guys. Yay! Babystef. Trisco draws first

blood. But who will draw first blood part two? Find out next time on Trouble in Orwa, a D&D's for nerds fifth ed adventure. Thanks for listening. And if you want to follow us on Twitter, you'll find us at Sandspanceradio. Or you can find

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