Dice Shame - 107 | 'Heart to Heart'

Episode Date: October 28, 2021

The team confronts some truths about themselves and their feelings... Comedy, action and a whole lot of shaming come together in Dice Shame, an Actual Play Podcast of Storm King's Thunder by Wizards of the Coast! Join our GM Jo; her partner Harlan, his brother Alex & their best friends Justin and Rob as they tackle the daunting world of Faerun in this legendary adventure module! Dice Shame is a podcast that welcomes its audience to the gaming table. Like the games they play at home, they try not to take themselves too seriously. The show aims to be entertaining, inclusive, and irreverent, while still taking the rules (somewhat) seriously. Join us every Thursday morning for brand new episodes available on all major platforms including; Spotify, iTunes, Google Play and more! If you haven't checked it out yet... what are you waiting for?!? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What the hell was that? It's getting stronger every time. Is it a blue moon? Look to the south. You might have known these other tabaxis don't look exactly like me. Someone's going to die tonight. I might have met someone. It was only one night, right?

Are you sending a letter? I appreciate having friends. What happened? You guys knew her for like five hours. Why are you so sweaty, Krayloff? And you see Krayloth is like pacing back and forth in front of Jack. I'm wondering what you can tell me about, uh, love? Uh...

Welcome back to Disham. This is episode 107, heart to heart. MVP this week is Nicole Lamana from Twitter, who is excited to share their thoughts on the wild animal intro. Can't imagine growing up with bears, cougars, and coyotes in your backyard. Thank you so much for listening. Halloween is just around the corner. Seance is an immersive. audio experience for one, something you can do anywhere you have a chair and some headphones. Created by Mark Harris and our own Harlan Guthrie, it's been described as genuinely scary and

fun, a perfect spooky season activity. Find seance today on the malevolent podcast feed or by visiting malevolent.ca and find out what awaits you on the other side. And as a quick side note, thank you to everyone who voted from Malevolent in the Discover Pods Awards. Harlan took home second place in the audio drama category and an incredible achievement and something we are really proud of. Dog, Gars! All right, shall we do this? Yeah, let's play some D&D.

So Harland does almost all of the cooking at our house. I'm a lucky woman. You're a lucky woman. I'm a lucky woman. And he can recreate stuff that we would get at restaurants. You mean like heat up leftovers I do that too I can like you know

I can like you know take it out of the box and recreate it all the plate I get home from work and you're like Joe I made this food That's what's been happening It's just like you ordered it and reheated it In the oven

Plating something is a skill though Making it look pretty Is a different skill from cooking of food It's true which I can't do but I can't cook the food I can't do the plating thing Your plating is excellent as well But one thing that I find that you really can't make at home as well as you could do it in a restaurant, not you just, you in general.

Sushi, have you guys ever tried to do a sushi home dinner? Yeah, I haven't, but I have friends that do it. Yeah. Like, I don't know, I mean, sushi or sashimi? Sushi, but sushi me too. You can do it? I don't know. I mean, I can roll it up and stuff, but it's just.

Put it on some rice? Yeah, but even that, can you really do? Let's be honest here. We have a lovely sunfish on top of a... Storebought tilapia on top of this poorly cooked basbati ready. I defrosted the bassa. Chicken fingers. I think it's one of those two.

It's like pinching dumplings or something. Unless you do a thousand of them, are you really any good at it? I've done two sushi rolls in my life. And they were strongly mediocre. Strongly mediocre. Well, to me, there's like, there's something to be said about a rest of... restaurant that maybe doesn't specialize in it, but definitely makes enough of it to have certain ingredients on hand and to have the right tools to make it. Like, for instance, at-home pizza

is fine. It's delicious. But it doesn't taste anywhere near ordering a pizza. And the same goes to sushi. At-home sushi's fine. At-home fish and chips are fine. You can do all that. But you're never really going to be able to emulate a store or a place that only makes that thing and does it extremely well. Furthermore, I would argue that restaurants who have menus that are like too full, way too varied and too many items, I always kind of look at them with a little bit of side eye. If I were to get Harlan to recreate one kind of food from a restaurant, it would be the Popeye spicy chicken sandwich. That shit is crack and delicious. He knows the chicken sandwich, too. Oh, man, listen. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, there's a really good sandwich. I

enjoy it from Kelsey's that I can recreate to a tea. The issue is it just takes so much work, and that's part of the reason. Crispy chicken, like, to make, well, to make a crispy chicken sandwich, it's like, okay, cool, yeah, chicken, easy, but dredge it, deep fry it, so it's crispy, make the sauce, make the ranch dressing, cut up the tomatoes, cut up the, you know, the lettuce and whatever other toppings you're having. For what? Well, that's what I mean, like, it's genuinely just not worth it.

Yeah, it's too much work, which is why these things are so successful. Damn restaurants. Although Swiss chalet's closing. Really? For sure. In general? It's not legal. Conservatives couldn't turn it back around with their free Swiss Scella thing.

Did you hear about that? No. When Aaron O'Toole was like, and for a limited time, if conservatives are in power, you can go to Swiss chalet and get 25% off. Are you fucking kidding me? He's trying to offer coupons for Swiss chalet. It's really funny. The conservatives have nothing but buck a beer and chicken. And it's like, hey, we're just get drunk and eat some chicken, and we're going to try and just let us.

run a government. Leave us alone. Well, it's interesting because I saw that advertisement before the election, obviously, and I was like, well, that's stupid, but whatever. And then today, uh, I just read that they're closing like five Swiss chalet locations. And I was like, uh, Swiss Lai really went all in on the old tool platform of please get people to come into our restaurants.

I've only been to a Swiss L'A once, actually. It's just wasn't a thing out west in it, I don't know, it's never been here. I've been a few times. It's fine. They're okay. They are all. It's definitely solidly in the medium quality. It's, as Rob would say, strongly mediocre.

Yeah, strongly mediocre. Nothing like some good takeout, though. Yeah. I might be ordering tonight, actually. Usually this is what happens on Friday night. Yeah, you get a pizza. I get a pizza. I might order some pop-ups.

And then for some reason, we end up seeing your feet. You eat pizza and then you get your feet out. That's the Justin guarantee. Uh-oh. This is the cup. Oh, that's what it is. He gets sleepy, and he reclines.

Oh, yeah. I need one of those. I got a more laid-back Kralath somehow. You know what we need to do? Kralov needs to relax. Once the Patreon, we'll just spend our Patreon money on a mansion. And then we all live there. It'll be like Big Brother.

And we'll have a room where we record Dice Shame, where we all have couches. Lounge chairs. Lounge chairs where we can put our feet up and just like a mic that comes to our face. and a beer, and we all face... That's good for audio is lying down. Yeah, always sounds good. Well, Kurt Cobain did it. That's true.

Kurt Cobain did it. It's true. Kurt Cobain recorded his entire album on his back. He did. All right. How's he doing it now? I feel like we already had this conversation. He's doing great. No.

He hasn't gotten up since, but... Maybe I just heard this. He's lying down to this day. Yeah, he is. Do you ever hear about the Nirvana kid who's like suing them because his penis was on the album of that, Nevermind album? We have had this conversation. Oh, no.

On Day's shape? No, you're having deja vu, my friend. Maybe it was Invictus. I don't know. I feel like we have... He's suing. He's suing Nirvana. Yeah.

The baby who was naked on that cover. That baby has a lawsuit. Who's grown up and now been like I was exploited. Now he's a big baby. Well, it's funny because at first I was like, oh, come on. And then I was like, I thought about it. And I was like, well, I mean, I like kind of right. I mean, someone took a picture of this kid.

Was he given royalties? They used it. No, he's nothing. He's never gotten anything, right? They're just this like culture icon. of this baby photo. Now, I don't know. Like, really is he entitled to it?

I genuinely don't know. But from dismissing it outright and then thinking about it, I kind of was like, oh, well, you know what? Yeah, that is kind of fucked up. So you came back around on the baby penis issue. I think he should have been getting some residuals or something when he turned to.

Personally, it's like, well, what took you so long, huh? Yeah, big baby. Come on. Idiot. That album was released in, like, 92? 1991. Statute of limitations. God.

He kind of had to grow up. You couldn't have brought this up in 90. Go to school. 30 years ago? Oh my God, 30 years ago. When you were still a child? Was that 30 years ago? You're old and you're old and you're old.

91 to 2001 to 20. Is he my age? Was I the kid? It was you, Justin. I don't think it was me. Deception. It was always you. There's something about that picture.

Jesus Christ. I just get a feeling it wasn't me. Anyway, is this the intro? Yeah. Should we play some? and D? Let's do it. Yeah.

Whoa, that's right. We're playing D&D. Let's do it. Yes. Oh, wait. And then Henry, when he grows up, we'll sue us for being in an episode and not getting any royalties. Earlier this evening, you arrived at the sacred hills of the Griffin tribe's spirit mound,

shining white, to uncover a giant relic for the Oracle. You found the site to be desecrated and dug below the shattered altar to find two halves of a cloud giant's porcelain mask. As a mist shimmered out of the ground, you heard regretful whispers from ghostly figures and then came face to face with the hunt lords, who had once again caught your scent and found you here. After a hard-fought battle culminating in the reanimation of a barbarian's corpse and its skeletal griffin mount, we find our heroes in the dark on the frozen hills of this holy graveyard. What the hell with that? That was not what we fought before. It looked like a... It looked like a barbarian. It's getting stronger every time.

That's right. What do you mean every time? Every time we kill the hunt lords. They find a new body, and they take some of the power with them and get whatever powers their new body has. Who knows who is buried here. But never that quickly. It always had green eyes.

That one had violet eyes. I feel like something different. We need to get the hell out of here. Yeah, we really do need to get out of here. We've got the mask. We've got to get moving. Hold on. Do you see anything, Brett?

I don't see anything, not in this storm. Let's just get the hell out of here. Something feels off about that whole thing. Of course. I think Jack raises his hand and puts up the, like, illusion signal to try and call down the airship to come and pick us up again. Wand drawn kind of back to everybody, so we're all facing a direction to... Yeah, I think Red is, like, frantically turning around. Real, real shook.

After a few moments, the airship hovers into view, lanterns hung from the deck, making small points of light and marking its passage. The ladder unrolls with a clatter to permit your ascent. Oh, what a clattering ladder. Jack's happy to start climbing as soon as he can. Yeah, I think Red does the same. I think Doran takes up the rear. I think Doran is the last one up the ladder.

praising. You're taking up the rear, Doran? Doran, take it up the rear. Come on, let's go. Yeah, all right. Yeah. I'll bring him. I'll bring him. You're coming right behind me, right? I'm coming in the rear. Okay. Dorn, loosen up. Crayloth's coming in your rear. Let's go.

Before Crayloth jumps on the ladder, he turns back and I think he catches eyes with Captain Trenneros, who's standing ominously behind. His presence urging him forward. And he turns back and stoically climbs the ladder. Stay close on my rear, Doran. Get right up there, Doran. Oh, I'm following everybody quite closely. I don't want to be left here. Doran begins to climb the ladder. I hope you can get up.

It's been a long day. Don't be self-conscious if you can't get it up. Get up. Don't worry. I'm getting up. I'm stiff. Cold. Yeah, I can tell you.

Climbing real stiff. Use your hands if you need to. It's a good thing he wields ork splitter, right? Yeah. You can do anything. Krayloff gets to the top, just lights a cigarette. Why is so sweaty, Kralov? I have no comeback.

Such heights, ecstatic. That's good. So as you're all aboard, airship takes off and turns north again, because your next stop will be the Great Worm Cavern. What's the name of the airship? Sylvester. What did you call it?

I was going to say Jessica. I would... Jessica. Sylvester, Jessica. The beautiful airship. No. No, no, no. It's got to have a noble name.

Like, Queen Sylvester, Jessica. Yeah. I think Doran takes this opportunity and as he gets the top of the ladder, he sees that there's another ladder going up the side of the balloon to a crow's nest that sits atop of the balloon. And he's just, he's going to climb up and take that spot for the next little while. Sure. I mean, it's dark out, but you can absolutely do some stargazing from up there if you like. Yeah. That's what he does. Yeah. I feel like Red watches door and climb up and then looks towards Jack and Kralov and he's like, I'll go make sure he doesn't fall.

And Red follows him. It's like an interesting. It's like an interesting. Just hold the railing, bud, hold the railing. It's fine. And Kralath walks over to the edge of the ship and leans over and just looks out over the very dim horizon, leaning out the wind whipping through his scalp. He turns back to Jack and says, It's just a beautiful night tonight, hey? I mean, Jack can't feel the cold much anymore, and he's still shivering just thinking about the hunt lords following them

and whether or not this airship moves fast enough to sort of shake him. And he stands behind Kralov and says, I mean, it's one more evening we get to see anyways, so that's something. Oh, and Kralov kind of tilts his head and says, Yeah, I guess it has been a busy week. Truth be told, this is all I've ever known in life. Monsters rising up from graves, having to vanquish them, moving on, killing more monsters.

I guess this is a lot newer for you than it is for me, eh? I mean, parts of it are remarkably familiar, you know. How fun was it to get to spend a little bit of today in a dig site finding artifacts from long, lost civilizations almost trying to put together the pieces what it all means is it this mask is really important to the griffin tribe but also it was originally a giant artifact who's got the bigger claim to it yeah let alone it isn't doing much good under the ground yeah fair dorin and red you guys have climbed to the top of this balloon and are sitting in a crow's nest It's remarkably stable up here for how precarious it would seem to be perched atop a balloon.

I still feel like when Doran leans over, Red just grabs his belt. Just like he's a toddler. Okay, oh, not too far. Oh, not to worry. And then that's when you notice that Doran tugs the rope that he's tied to his own belt. Ah. That's attached to the, an anchor point on the top of the crow's nest. Clever.

And Red does the same. He sort of grabs a rope and ties it to the back of his belt. He's like, that reminds me of the time I had a tail. You used to have a tail? Yeah. Oh, interesting. Well, don't you find it affects your balance without having a tail? It was removed when I was so young that I managed to...

You know, it was a tough time, Doran. It was taken when I was very young. Who would take your tail? Well, it's a long story. Well, we don't have to talk about it. That's okay. Cool. Look at the night air. Yeah, look at it.

And in between the clouds, you can see the stars. You say, speaking of things we don't need to talk about, are you going to tell them about, you know. Your tail? No, Doran. The thing you told me. Oh, oh, oh. You know, when Captain Chaos Hammer confronted you.

Doran's face kind of goes a little bit shocked. Maybe you don't see it because it's dark. But Doran kind of continues to stare up at, the night sky. Chaos hammer? Oh, what? Oh, not. Well, all in good time, my friend. But, uh, you know, I really did want to know about your tale. I was only, uh, I was only trying to be kind. I mean, I'm sure we could have long conversations about our pasts here if, if we really wanted to. Well, I mean, I wasn't supposed to be born to who I was born. to. Oh.

I wasn't, uh, proper, in a way. You might have known, you saw that Tamaxis don't look exactly like me. Yeah, I've, I have noticed that actually a little bit, but, uh, yeah, just figured it was maybe the region of the place you were from. No, no, it wasn't. Um, I'm, what you call, a bit of a, well, runt would be a kind way to put it. But, um, um, unwanted is what I was heard a lot of when I was younger I grew up in a place that made me feel very wrong

to be alive and part of this and he gestures to his ears and then vaguely to his tail was a way of I guess them making me fit in I'm sorry to hear about that

and as you know I mean, we all have things in our past that we're ashamed of, you know. I think we should do our best to. Let others in on maybe our feelings and what we're thinking. It would certainly strengthen our relationship with, well, especially, you know, Kralath and Jack down there. Maybe even your daughter. Have you ever told your daughter about your...

No, no, no, no. I've never told anyone but you. and it's not something I'm keen to share it's something that hurts to remember if I'm being honest I won't say anything about it

and it will stay with me quite frankly I I can't understand why it happened to you because to me you seem like a perfectly excellent individual I have to say

well thank you Doran and to me you've been nothing but a hero well and thank you There's something else that maybe I should mention. Yeah, maybe, me too. You first.

Hey, Red, Doran, there's some lights in the sky. Look to the south. There's stars. What the hell is that? No, no, not stars. Jack says it's some sort of Aurora, something. It's lighting up the tears of saloon. Hey, look at that, Doran.

Oh, yeah. Back down in the belly. of the airship, I feel like we see Krateloth and Jack huddled together over a table with a lantern swinging above them, giving a warm glow to the room. The other cultists are

walking around, attending to the various chores aboard this airship. You have a little bit of time alone without the more boisterous members of the party. The two revealing their deepest, darkest truth. The boisterously. As Kralov and Jack get inside to get out of the cold,

Kralath moves to go to his bed or his hammock, and he stops and turns back to Jack and says, Hey, Jack, I wonder if I can ask you a personal question. Sure. What's on your mind? Well, I mean, you're knowledgeable, man. You know a lot about the world and, you know, in the books that you've read. And I'm wondering what you can tell me.

me about love? Wow, that's, I mean, that's a, that's a subject, I think, very poorly covered academically. I mean, is there any, anything specific you have in mind? Are you feeling some things? Yeah, I'm just wondering what, well, I mean, full disclosure, I'm going to met someone. Oh, yeah? Yeah, some, um, you were back in town. We went on that trip to, uh, uh, Sindigather's estate and, uh, well, uh, and Krayloth sits down heavily and bashfully puts a hand to his face and says, uh, turns out Miss Sindigather is, uh, quite lovely and enchanting. It's like, there was a spell put on me or something.

Could it have been a charm spell? It was only one night, right? Yeah, yeah. You'd only known this woman a few hours, so, I mean, you're talking about something almost fairy tale asking, you know, what happened? Oh, well, she came into the room, and I felt my heart just do all sorts of gymnastics. and I couldn't really think properly and my hands got all sweaty and I just completely lost track

of everything else in the room besides her and I really want to speak with her again and just be around her and talk to her. Just be close. I mean, that certainly sounds like you met someone important. And I mean, that's one of the hardest things I've discovered. I guess I've known it all along, but really recently has brought it into highlight that this amount of travel that we have to do is really hard. I mean, hard enough that I invented a whole spell to try and keep in touch with people and get to see their faces sometimes because otherwise only getting to see

Torin after so many life and death calls. It was a feeling I'd never felt before, Jack. I mean, if what you feel for Torin is in some way similar to what I maybe foolishly feel for Marina, I completely understand why you'd put all the work in to develop a spell like that. And quite frankly, I'm glad that you have because this is the reason why I would was hoping that you could show me how to use it or help me send a message. Hell yeah. Let's write a letter.

And Jack starts taking out, putting aside all of his stuff that was, you know, for resummoning Kieran and puts that all in one pile and starts to pull out parchment and magical inks and, you know, bespelled ground up pigments to go into this parchment. And, you know, sort of explains how to Kraylaith's letter can reach anyone. and it can even have like an audiovisual component in addition to whatever you write down. Like you could share however much of yourself you'd like. Well, hold on, Jack. I, uh, there's something else because, um, I mean, what I feel for this woman is, is, is something,

but, uh, I'm just not entirely convinced that it can be love. and I wouldn't want to send the wrong impression. So I'm hesitant about committing to this decision because I'm not fully sure that I'm capable. You had a really great experience with a person who you've known for a handful of hours. And it sounds like you'd like to spend some more hours with this person eventually to figure out

to answer some of those questions you have. She sounds lovely. I'd love to meet her. You don't need to look at this like sending her a letter, says anything more than, hey, you're nice and we should be friends, right? You're not committing to anything. You're just saying a couple of days ago, that was a great reprieve from a life of horror and adventure on the road.

And if we could find another space and time where we could occupy the same space and time, that would be nice. Oh, that's good, Jack. Write that down. Write that down. I really like that. And Kralath shakes his head

and whatever was bothering him seems to have been mollified for now. It says, okay, well, yeah, how do we get started? Should I just tell you what I want to say to her? Yeah, tell me what you'd like to have happened, and you'll get to see it all before it gets sent, so we can make any changes you like.

All right. All right. And Kralov begins to orate. Lady Marina Sindigather. It has been not very long since our last correspondence when I met you and slew those demons with my friends. you were an exceptional hostess and your canopays were fantastic. I particularly like the shrimp ones in the batter.

And I also really like those little egg things that were baked, you know, like an egg bite type thing. Those were delicious. I'll need to get the That's it Akeesh I would love to get the recipe for that sometime

Also we were talking about your orchard in the summertime and you were saying it was quite beautiful I would love to come back and try those fruits

I haven't gone very far since we met I'm on an airship right now with my friends Red and Doran you met them and my friend Jack as well and we just slew some undead hunters excuse me

hunters they're following us How long does this message get to be? You got five characters left I think we've got a page of paper L-U-V-U-C Anyway I just wanted to say that

this won't be the last last of the letters you received from me, I hope to get some letters from you because I think you're pretty great. Take care of Marina and let me know if any more of those demon things come for you. Lock your doors.

Do you want to include a recipe for her to try? Oh, that's a good idea, Jack. Yeah. Here is, P.S., here is my trademark recipe It's not really trademarked. For blueberry scones, you can use it as much as you like, and I hope you love them as much as I do. I'm eating one right now. Red and Doran come downstairs.

Yeah. The door flies open and Red and Doran are walking in. No, tomorrow's a blue moon. It'll be a boon. tonight's a red moon, you're near a lagoon. That's how it goes, Doran. The blue means it means a good thing. Red moon means nothing.

You don't know what you're talking about. No, no, no. And you see Krayloth is like pacing back and forth in front of Jack, who's kind of half writing, half spell casting this recipe? It's almost gets like a cooking show-esque air because there's a little illusion that gets to go at the end of it. And so you get to see Krayloth making these scones with love where his passion really comes across.

And then it's sort of hidden in this. letter that gets folded up. Yeah. And she gets the smell as well. Oh, yeah. Oh, it's Acrella cooking for. Oh, what are you cooking for? What are you sending a letter?

I thought I saw you cooking. Oh, let me see, let me see. Red Walks over and looks over Jack's shoulder. Let me smell. Yeah, okay, that's good. I was speaking from the heart. That one's a bit. Well, I don't know.

Well, I don't know. That word I wouldn't use. I wouldn't. You're smarter than this. You, you mean, there's a lot of hums here. Am I smarter than this? Jack, maybe cut out some of the ums. Jack tosses the letter into the air and it disappears in a poof of magic.

Oh, God damn. The letter sent. What? Sorry, Kralov. Should I have edited it? I would have. Oh, well, um... You didn't come across like that in front of her.

Yeah, maybe you're right. You were much more poignant. Well, I... Kraylath, this was very you. Uh, yeah, maybe you're right, Redd. Uh, is there a way to undo it, Jack? Oh, no. Can't unsend the email, my friend.

Kralath, you came across as an authentic, lovely version of yourself. Who wouldn't want to spend more time with you? Who did you send your letter to? He sent it to Marina Sendergata. Oh. Oh, Mariana. Well, we don't have to talk about this anymore. No, it's good.

I think you should definitely reach out to her. I'm really happy for you. you, Krayalath, I, I sincerely hope you the very best, and he walks up and shakes your hand a little too long. Well, I don't, what? I don't know. What happened? You guys knew her for like five hours. What? I don't know. Oh, shit went down, Jack. Shit went down. Anyway, as long as you didn't mention scones, she hated blueberries, remember? I think it'll be fine. What's the worst that could

happen? Doren's still shaking Kralat's hand. Nothing went down. It doesn't necessarily mean anything, Doran. It just so happens that I really enjoyed spending time with her and Oh, of course. Maybe this will mean that we're friends. Oh, of course. I don't know what's, what's going to happen next, but I thought that maybe sent her a nice letter about how we slew those mean demons. Of course. Would be, uh, well received. Of course. Yeah. Are you all right, Doran? Of course. Hey, Doran's fine. Don't worry about it. Doran, you're fine, right?

Of course. See, he's fine. Of course. Hey, Settle a dozen. debate for us. It's uh, tonight's a blue moon. Tomorrow's a boon. Tonight's a red moon. You're near a lagoon. Am I right or am I wrong? Tonight's a blue moon. Um, I don't, I don't think if you check the almanacs, there's a lot of evidence to back much of that up. Tomorrow's red moon. I think the moon is a little bit blue tonight because we're coming up on the soul system of 20th. And so you're starting to see the shorter or the longer nights and the shorter days. So tomorrow's a boon. See, Jack gets it. Tomorrow's, right? Tonight's blue moon is tomorrow's red lagoon. Is it a blue moon? It's a

Same difference. Someone's going to die tonight. What? I'm going to summon Kieran. Night turns into day, and you are once more cruising over the tops of the lurkwood forest. You know, it's quite nice, Doren says, turning over in his bed in the morning. Fluffy sheets pushed up against his face. Oh, no, you've got a hammock.

Red and lying on the floor right below you. What's that, Dorn? Doren turns over and says, you know, it is a little. awfully nice being able to catch up on a little bit of sleep on this long airship. It's comfortable. It's cozy. It creaks.

It's pretty cool. It's got Kralath. Hey. Kralath's cool. You know, here we are. You know, I just, I think we needed this a little bit of rest in between, you know? Feeling appreciative, Doran?

I am. Very much so. Yeah. Yeah, me too. Let's all go around and say one thing we appreciate. I appreciate Shale. Come here. Well, I appreciate having friends. That I can trust here, you know,

and that don't frown upon me for making mistakes. More on that later. I mean, Jack raises a cup of tea that he's drinking for the morning and says, Cheers to friends, absolutely. You know, my life is in your hands, and thank you for being stewards of it. These hands? Red says, looking at his paws. Oh, I'm grateful for airships in general. I mean, this would take us a lot longer to get around if we didn't have this handy-dandy airship taking us to all these places.

You make a great point, Kralath. It's nice. It's weird, though, right? Yeah, the dragon cultists who run it and the dragon. who's like, yeah, yeah, don't worry about it. Just use my airship. It's fine. I don't...

Yeah, it's a bit weird. Like, I feel pretty nervous about that. I can't put those bits out of my head. Yeah, plus it looks kind of dorky. I think Red puts Shale in his little, like, baby pen and walks over to the table to sit next to Jack and, like, pulls out his plate and fork. Obviously, everyone has their own mess kit.

I think Red just, like, wipes the bacon grease from last night off onto his shirt and puts it down and, like, scoop some porridge on it. And he's like, I got the same feeling. It's a little bit weird. feels like we're being, like, kept, you know? Yeah. Taking care of. Yeah.

Hey, can I get some more bacon over here? We ate it yesterday, Doren. Oh, sorry. Who are you yelling at? Are they cooking for us on this shit? Or do we cook our own food? No, I think we're... I feel like it's us in our own little galley, like our own little...

I mean, I think it's a shared kitchen. I just don't think they care about us. They're taking care of steering the ship where you ask them to steer it to and not much else. So Doren yells off to nobody. Krayloth hands you some pork. And also Damien is on watching shale duty. Yeah. And it's actually been Krayalph cooking for us the whole time.

And I'm thinking it's like servants that work for the ship. And I fed the last piece of bacon to Kieran and I feel real bad about it. Where are those people that have been making our food this entire time? It's been Kralath. Get out of bed, Doran. We're all up. Oh. Look, we should talk about our next steps, though.

We learned a lot about what's going on from the Oracle. and obviously we're planning on now going to these burial sites and collecting the items of bringing them back to the Oracle. But, you know, there's been some heavy revolutions. It's taken me a while to let them sink in, but the doom of the desert has been one that's floating around my mind. That was a dragon. And I took a look at this, and Red Pools are Chasloth's book.

I was wondering when you guys were going to bring that up again. Yeah, and he flips to an earmarked page and just whips it open. I've read this a few times now, but listen to this. It says Imrith is an ancient blue dragon that's known to dwell in the Amarok desert. I think this is the one that the Oracle was referring to when they said that they were manipulating the court. He's the one behind it all. It was the queen who disappeared first and then the king, and now their daughter's are in charge. So do we think he's behind the disappearance or he's behind the daughter's

dissolution of whatever's going on? I don't know, but we know that this, and I pull out the conch, we know that this brings us to the court, to the Stort Kings. And we know that Imrath is manipulating the court. So we can logically assume that it is the Storm King's court that he is obviously manipulating. And being that the king and the queen are gone and the daughters are in charge, it might stand to reason that they're the ones being manipulated, since the Oracle didn't say that they were manipulated, but they are being manipulated. These three daughters might be the crux of it. Don't eat soup out of the conch, and I take it back.

We're also trying to find three more of these conches, right? Right. Yes, and we'll get them once we return these artifacts, like the one that I have here. How many more artifacts are we looking for? because we found this giant's mask. Well, we're looking for three more. Right, so we need four conks and four artifacts. Now, we also know that Cheseran and Annexaster

are also rude twin blue dragons that live in the desert as well. Whether they have anything to do with Imrith, a blue dragon who lives in the desert, we don't know. However, we do know that Imrith is an ancient dragon, which could mean that he's the ones pulling the strings, at least between the dragons. You know, they could be working for him.

I don't know how the loyalties of blue dragons shake out. Hmm. Why do you think he's doing this? Or she? What is their motivations for stirring up things with the giants? Is there some sort of play here? Well, we know that the war between the dragons and giant kind has been long standing. Obviously, at the very least, there's an element of upheaval within the giants.

They're killing each other. We see characters like Harshnag destroying his own kind and having them all sort of focus inwardly and combat against each other must be beneficial to the dragons. Yeah, and what better way than to infiltrate the king's court and start speaking and manipulating those in charge

seeing as how the king is not there? Then, you know, what better way to defeat your enemy then from the inside. That's an age-old strategy. But what's the next move? So the dragon has been successful in creating this upheaval, like you say. What do you think the dragon's going to do next

now that stage one of their plan is in place? Well, we know that the conscious bring us to the king's court. And we know that our path as those who are part of the reordining is to go there. So we must eventually be seeking an audience with... The dragon?

No, with the Storm King. Or the dragon. You got halfway there. With the Storm Kings. We know Clouth, this big red dragon, is helping us out with this ship, meaning at face value at least doesn't want our kind of trouble in their territory any longer. And we know Claguliamitar, old Nabone, this green. Dragon Oracle was helping us out, is the strife among the Giants some sort of proxy war among

dragons? Like, are we just pieces on a great chessboard for them? Yeah. Like, are we the ponds or the knights? Well, you mean are the giants the ponds to the dragons? Well, yeah, and are we in just another piece in that game between them? We're like smaller ponds, like tiny, tiny little ponds that ride on the shoulders about the other ponds. Maybe, you think maybe these dragons have, you know, stake in what giant lands on top? I don't know. I think there's any reason to assume these dragons are all friends and on the same side. Yeah, no, I hear what you're saying, Jack. That's a great point. I think having there be chaos between all these giants puts a lot of problems in other dragons territory.

Maybe there aren't a lot of giants in the On Rock Desert. And so the doom of the desert doesn't care. Not going to be worried, but it puts a lot of strife elsewhere. But to what end? I think Kralat asked that question. I don't know that we have the answer yet. You know, if these dragons are all sort of in it for their own, you know, if we assume that Imrith is acting on his own accord, then what does the red dragon clout stand again by aiding us, you know? And what does, what do the other dragons?

You know, there's obvious a play here because the red dragon could easily just sit out. This airship is awfully comfortable, but it feels like we're floating on the tongue of a big red dragon could swallow us up in one moment. I don't like it. Thank you once again to our wonderful Patreon supporters Christopher Ryan Evans, Merlin, Mitchell Cadwell, Ashley NJB, Michael and Brianna Weber, Colin Burkart, Daniel, Doug,

Jessica Orrett, Jonah Goldman, and Mari Karneski. See you soon! Hey Hey Thank you.