Dice Shame - 111 | 'Blind Spot’

Episode Date: November 25, 2021

A terrible reality begins to set in as the party sees the results of the Hunger... 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.

Greyloff, help me with this boy. I don't know, is this that same hunger you guys came across? Captain Cheniero's, I've been wanting to speak with you about this. Red's over at the side, almost practicing a smile. What happened down there? Fucking strong-headed noble wizards, just do what they want to do? Perhaps we should get some focus groups on this. Why does Akirn get a vote?

I think it would be most respectful to sit with them, at least for a short time. I've seen a lot of beautiful things. This one is definitely up there. If we're thinking, in terms of Lion King, which I always am. We always think in terms of Lion King. Say, in terms of Lion Kings, how many symbols are we away from being a full-on pride? Welcome back to Dys Shame.

This is episode 111 Blind Spot. MVP this week is Sabu, or at sub-blue-blue on Twitter, that's S-A-B-L-O-O-B-L-O for their amazing Dyshame commissioned artwork. If you like artwork done with amazing, heart, and wonderful care taken to a beloved character, check them out. They did an adorable picture of Jack and Kieran. Want to hear your own name at the top of the show? Come join us on the Discord. You can find the invite link on our website, www.dyshamepodcast.com.

Harlan and I moderate the community, and it's a great place to meet new like-minded folks and get up to some mischief. Take part in a holiday gift exchange, attend virtual gaming conventions, catch our live gaming streams, post pictures of your cat, whatever. I can't believe there are already 800 members, but it still feels very close enough, and we'd love to meet you. We sure would. All right, shall we do this?

Yeah, let's do it. All right. All right, Alex, you wanted to talk about something important, remember? Um, remember when Alex is like, I got a great idea for the opening chat. and then forgot about it. Oh, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We were talking, okay, we were talking about sleep

and how sometimes when you are completely sleep deprived, I find that life is just, the next day is always expected to be a write-off, but somehow you just kind of float through it. Yeah. And things work out still. Yeah, like, have you ever noticed that? Like, you ever had a really night, like a late night out drinking

or something, doing, you know, like, getting hot, late late. you're going to talk about having a newborn, but no, it's late. No, like you're out partying or something the night before. Late night when you're running around, stoned in the woods from trying to get away from the wolf. Hey, nothing stops him down. Trying to hide coyotes. Maybe you haven't had this experience, but the next day, you know, you, it's exactly, you, you actually put so perfectly, Justin, you, you, you expect it to be bad.

You expect it to be rough. But you float through, right? You kind of like, rather than your. on your toes, you're on your heels all day. And yet you managed to make it by, and it's almost like you don't care as much about anything. Yeah, there's a zenness. It's like, I don't care.

I'm just tired. Yeah, that's right. Zen, you know? I remember going to the grocery store, this just sticks out, going to the grocery store and being like, yeah, whatever, I'll grab this. I'll grab, oh, this will be good. This will taste good. You know, you kind of fill your car with a bunch of crap

that you don't really need, but whatever it is you're doing that day. Maybe you're driving somewhere. You're like, yeah, I'll just go in this lane. So you're talking about getting drunk and then being hung over and buying whatever you want at a grocery store. And then driving. Well, no, these are examples, but what it really comes down to is the mindset and the feeling you're in. Oh, so being hung over? No, the sort of the tired I don't care.

Fuck off. You're just doing this to annoy me. The tired, I don't care, fuck off attitude. Zenness. Is it a thing. Yeah. It really is. after a night of heavy drinking.

Heavy drinking is also a thing. I don't know if it's an attitude so much as just a reaction to everything that you've done to your body. Well, come on. I'm sure. Okay. So what is your experience then, Harlan? Like when you have had a really, really late night, have you never experienced like three hours of sleep? And then the next day, you're expecting it to be bad.

And then... Oh, absolutely. I'm not in any way discounting Alex's point. I'm confused about the point he's making, because it just... It just sounds like he's saying, you know, when you get drunk and then you're hung over the next day? It's like, yes. Well, you know, that's a thing.

It's like, okay. It's this so tired. I totally agree, Alex. I totally agree. But what? Good intro. But what about it? Are you just excited about it?

Do you? Yeah, that's it. Builds it up. Is that a level of. You know when you're up for like 24 hours and then you're really tired? Yeah. Yeah. And then you go to the grocery store?

And then you're like, and then you're like driving. You're not sure if you should be driving because you're so tired, but then you do it? Yeah. Life's fun. Alex, is that a Zen state you feel like you have easier access to now or 10 years ago? 10 years ago. I think that's definitely tracks with my experience also where maybe it used to be like, all right, to pull an all night or doing something else and be like, all right, I haven't

slept or I napped for 20 minutes, but I've still got to get up and go to work because whatever we were doing and I'm going to fake it through. Yeah, definitely not a workday. But there's definitely like a systemic sleep to depriveateness that I do not appreciate with the like, the nine to five regular schedule of things when my body's like, yeah, 2 a.m. always feels like a good time to go to sleep. You know, maybe midnight if you're lucky until it's like, yeah, you've done that for two weeks in a row. You better like crash and catch up. Okay, I've got, I've got an example. You guys ever seen a coyote while you're high? If you, if I haven't either. I told that's You ever see a coyote when you were really, really tired?

I heard one once. Do you tie up your shoes tight? Like, do you guys have tie up shoes? Hold on. I'm going somewhere with this. Just go with me. That's a natural segue. Did you just ask four adults if we have tie up shoes?

Well, I know, like, Harley wears loafers. You just slip them on. Oh, yeah, but I still have a pair of shoes that tie. Tie up shoes? My point is, do you have a pair of shoes? Like my converse... Hold on. Can we focus on tie up?

shoes rather than laces or anything like that? I love the idea of tie up shoes being the easiest way for you to say shoes with laces. I love a compound word. That's great. You have tie up shoes. Okay, I've got shoes that have

laces that I don't tie up every day. They're slip on, they're slip off. They're tie up shoes with laces, but I don't tie them up, right? Okay. Whereas I also have like a pair of converse, which you can't really do that with my point being, unless you're super tired and you just don't really care you put them on you walk around with unlaced shoes you're

like when we picked up henry i didn't lace my shoes up because not how could you and why joe why was an extra step because he's too tired because you're too tired and you're in this zen zone you're like i really don't even care if my shoes are that tied see see see we come we come full circle is exactly what i'm talking about is it full circle that is definitely a state where you just don't care where like you're walking little things like yeah you're walking to the kitchen and there's a chair in your way, you could just pick up the chair and move it slightly out of your way with your hands. Or you could just kind of bum rush it with your hips and make it move out of the way. Maybe what's happening is, like there's, I think that some people just do that

all the time and some people never do that. Maybe. And when you're tired, maybe it's emphasizing a different part of yourself or shifting it a little bit for you. But I think there's definitely people who are extra tired and the idea of a single thing out of place or that not being in the right is just like crushing and so now you need to you're tired and now I've got to scour the whole whatever to get everything straightened up because I just can't deal with the mess or something yeah tie up shoes tie up shoes I switched to loafers a while ago too harland I'm I'm into yeah see I have loafers as well but tie up shoes I got tie up boots for work but are you happy it's just too funny do you have the four-wheeled motor drive

A car? Do you own a... Oh, that's it, yeah. The Vroomroom. The Vroom, you know? It's clear that he has toddlers. Oh, yeah. That's true.

I'll give you a pass for toddlers. Do you guys have tie-up shoes or Velcroes? Because you're being like, no, no, Liam, put on your tie-up shoes. Not your slip-slippies. I just forgot the word laces, all right? No, it's perfect. It's descriptive to the thing. I feel like your shirt, which is like basically a 70s psychedelic print, really works

in line with your air-quoted Zen, which is really just lazy because you're hung over, which, again, is a state I totally agree with, and I have been in. There's a cookie monster on the pocket. You see the cookie monster. It's even better. You tied-died that shirt, didn't you?

Oh, nice. Actually, I didn't. My sister-in-law tied out of it. She gave it to me. I like it. But it is personally tie-dye. That's a good shirt. That's a bespoke tie-dye job right there. And it's been one-of-a-kind.

Spoken for. So all of this is to say that Joe is extremely zen. I'm not. Because you're overly tired. We're going to be playing. She's like, no, that's not what happens. Well, I mean, you didn't tie up your shoes the other day. Maybe you could just, like, write it into the episode where everybody in Faroon is put under a spell that everyone, all the NPCs are just a little bit more tired and we have to figure out.

I actually like that idea. That's kind of fun. I love the idea, yeah, of like slotting in little excuses to not have to do as good a job, you know. Like, Josh Whedon famously wrote an episode. episode of his show, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, where there's no dialogue, and he did that because... He was tired that day? You know, there were some writers that said, oh, the show wouldn't be merely as good

without the witty dialogue of this writer. So the entire episode is silent. It's all sort of pantomimed and all that kind of stuff. So I'm thinking we release episode 202, you know, and we say it's silent. Oh, I see where you're going. This is our silent episode where a spell gets cast over the town, and that's it. It's just 90 minutes of silent audio. And at the end, it's like, down.

Wow, I can't believe that happened. Thank you so much for listening. Sounds like this. 90 minutes of ASMR. I do like that idea. Who's that composer that wrote like four minutes, 53 seconds of silent? John Cage. John Cage, thank you.

There you go. Four minutes 33 seconds. How do you write that, though? Effort, Alex. Well, he went to school for music. He went to the conservative. It's just a bunch of rests all the way along. Like, if it's not, if it's in the middle of a song, okay, I could get that you have like a beginning and then a four minutes of silence and that's art and then an end.

But like to say that you wrote, like here's my sheet music for my four minute silent song. Yeah. Why? Why would you bother? But I think the sheet music uses different rests. I think it like I. I don't know. Because it's silent. It's art.

Yeah, I guess. Because it's art. But you know what? On the plus side, I can play it without a single mistake. and I'm doing great job. It's like that artist. Did you hear about that artist who sold a blank canvas

for like $4.3 million? Yeah, he called it Take the Money and Run. Yeah, he called it take the money and run. Yeah, yeah. Oh, no, sorry, it wasn't. What he did was he was commissioned

to do a piece for something like that and then called it, take the money and run. That's Rebel. Yeah, I like that though. That to me is like, it makes almost a little bit more sense

to my simple brain where it's like, okay, cool. And then when asked about it, he's like, well, the piece was, sort of a lesson in that people will pay anything for art, which... It's perfect because it actually

is an art statement, as well as a fucking hilarious satire on how people will pay anything for art. And he made money off of it. But if we could go back to that four and a half minute song of silence, I just want to know, like, when they play it live, are they like... They sit. Absolutely. Whole orchestras

will just sit there on the stage with their instruments ready, and they just wait. Quoting MoMA, during the piece's premiere, Tudor sat quietly at his piano, opening and closing the keyboard lid to mark the progress of the three movements. The audience waited in anticipation of the performance, but the expectations of a conventional concert were shattered.

Standing ovation. I would love it. I don't know why this tickles me so much, but I'd love to see a sketch where someone, like, tries to play that piece, but fails. He accidentally plays a note. I got to start over. It's like whiplash.

He's like, again, again, again, faster. I like that. I imagine four minutes and 33 seconds, it's hard to end on beat, right? Like, you might, the timing must drift on you. Could you imagine if someone's like, nah, someone performs that as their like entry into Juilliard and they fuck up the ending? It's like, I'm sorry, no, but I do like that because you're right. And it is a subversion of expectation and especially now, you know, with with it being

the latest year it's ever going to be until next year before. People have. Yeah, we're talking about it that way. Okay. People have only built up expectations. It's like return of the living dead, you know, killing a zombie's brain is like the first thing anybody tries, you know, and it doesn't work. And there's certain pieces of art or even just media, you know, that try to make people expect something. And then when it doesn't, that in itself becomes the statement, which I think is really fun. It's a weird reference, but I just watched that movie. So with that in mind, here's an idea I just came up with right at this moment. about, you know, an episode we could do. It's not silent per se because I honestly think our viewers would not really appreciate that.

Well, they're listeners. Yeah, viewers, they're not watching much. But if we did a whole episode in complete monotone, literally you do the whole episode in total monotone, everybody keeps their own tone. That'd be really tough.

I think I would find that more irritating, personally. It'd definitely be more irritating. But I think it would be really interesting if we tried it. Alex, remember when we say you make a bit

go too long? This is when it's too long. But it's actually really difficult to do. You should try it. It's like I'm almost impossible. I don't want to try it. So nobody's open to that idea.

No, nobody's open to that idea. The internet will sell me sheet music for four minutes and 33 seconds for seven bucks. Whoa, wow. Wow. I could tour in it for free.

I'm sure you could. You know what I could think it. 30 seconds. No, you can. People will know. $7 for blank sheet music? But you know what? There's probably something to be said about owning it, you know?

What time signature is it in? You'll have to go spend the $7 to find out. I still like the imagery of like this guy playing this, playing this four-minute silent song. And then an entire stadium, all you hear is like the chairs like that of chairs. And then like, that's all you hear? Like a standing ovation of like nothing? Like nobody's actually clapping. That kind of reminds me of.

Shreds videos, if you've ever watched those, where they take an old music video. And then they re-dub all of the music. Yeah. But they do it in a way that it looks like these people are just, like they did one with the Beach Boys. That's just hilarious. Oh, I have seen that.

That's so funny. I love the dancing in the street one. Anyway, let's play some D&D. Yeah. Do it. Okay. No. your breath streams out in ribbons of fog dissolving in the cold alpine air the pine forest is quiet once more you're standing around the rocky hole in the ground shelter now turned into a tomb the final resting place of ulverd red has blood on his hands a warm white light washes over jack's body as crayloth lifts his hand from his back and shoulder and says well

You should be pretty good in no time. Thank you. Well, uh, praise Calumvor for small graces. And Red climbs out panting in the snow. You see the red speckling his face. Yeah, dude. You're okay? Yeah, get over here, buddy.

One of the hardest parts about being a Knight of the Order isn't killing monsters. It's knowing who the monsters are. You got to find your way into a world of people. that aren't actually people. That's a perspective I haven't thought a whole lot about. It feels so unfair. It doesn't make...

He's just a kid, right? You know, that was Kava's kid. That wasn't Kavan's kid. Whatever that was down there, whatever took Renzo, whatever this shadow fell has cursed this land with. They're not the same people they were. Right. That's for damage.

Why do these dark forces choose the people they choose? Is there any rhyme or reason to it? Did Kavan's son deserve this in some way? Or is it completely random? So I think Jack steals himself for a minute and casts a glance over to Red to sort of see what his reaction is to Jack going back down in the hole. Red gives a weak smile and waves him forward. And yeah, he takes a minute to go down to pick up the wormblood's badge that he'd thrown at the kid just to toss through the rest of the kid's stuff that he'd hurried with him. And then Jack crawls out of the hole in the ground carrying over its body and sort of shouts up to Kralath and Doran to give me a hand with

this. Yeah, yeah. And Doran's kind of already sort of on his knees because he was helping red up and he reaches down and grabs the belt of this this boy's pant belt and pulls it off of Rob's shoulder and yanks it out of the hole. Who's Rob?

Did I just actually say that? You also said pant belt. Your shoe tides. Tie up shoes. Doran reaches down into the hole and grabs the belt of the kids wearing and pulls it off

lifts the boy off of Jack shoulders and out of the hole, dragging into the side. Here, Krayloth, help me with this boy. We'll find a spot somewhere where we can bury him in the dirt. Yeah, Kralov is standing beside the entrance to the cave with a shovel

and he stabs it into the ground and says, Jack, are you able to do your grave-making spell? Ground's too hard for shovels. Yeah. It has come to be that, hasn't it? And Jack

says a word and moves his hand and the earth moves with it and a five-foot deep grave is formed in front of us. Red's over at the side and he's actually kneeling down next to a stream and he's washing the blood off his hands. He's sort of alone for a moment

and as he stands there looking down at the water, the trickle that passes he sees this reflection and sort of shakes his head and stands up almost practicing a smile as he turns back to the others and and joins them by the open grave.

Jack stops Doran and Kralath from lowering him to the ground just yet and says Kralath, have you ever seen anything like that? This kid wasn't himself. This is, you know, whatever spoke to us back in that mountain, I don't know, is this that same hunger you guys came across? Kralath kneels down over the body

and he focuses on his ring and calls his captain and says, Captain Trenneros, I've been wanting to speak with you about this. Hopefully you can fill in some of the gaps of my memory here, but is this the shadow fell? The misty form of your captain walks out from behind one of the trees in this clearing and paces around this grave dug in the snow, and he shakes his head.

he says this is some curse thank you captain it didn't seem like the exact same thing that had the hunger that happened to uh what's his name and renzo renzo thank you

red and jack were both down in this hole when the child changed and became vicious and launched himself at jack and while it didn't seem

exactly the same as what happened in Pella's want. You saw a similar mutation occur. The child's teeth grew pointed. His mouth grew wide in his face. The skin on his body sagged. It did seem similar in appearance. Okay. Yeah, I think Jack looks the kid over and takes mental notes. Just to, just to, you know, figure out if there's any clues that we, that he feels like he could have noticed before the kid changed or should have noticed or wants to notice next time he encounters this, he's trying to just keep a list of them. The main difference here is that you have a corpse. You recall when Renzo was defeated, he disappeared. He collapsed into a pile of ash. So something, there are some similarities and some differences but it all happened so fast down in the darkness and i think

you know it it was it was difficult for you to see this child as anything other than someone who needed to have help it's difficult for jack now looking at him with the the wounds that like the final blow red put on him and all of that like i really wanted to help this kid and now we got to bury him. And so that's feeling pretty fucked up for Jack. And Kralov sees this look on Jack's face, this look of defeat. And he says,

we weren't able to help this one. But maybe there's information that we can gain from what happened here to prevent it from happening again. Let's finish this here. Doran looks over at Red and says, uh, hey, how you doing? Are you, uh, are you okay?

Yeah, I just uh, Doran, something came over me. I just, I couldn't see clearly. I was overcome with this violence. And he says it in a hushed tone, not willing to let the others hear. And he's just like, I feel better now.

I don't know. I think when he grabbed Jack, I just, I got really scared, you know? I made a promise to Torin, and I want to make sure that he stays safe. What, uh, what happened? down there. I mean, other than you losing your temper. I mean, that kid certainly wasn't that kid. And as you look back to Red, you see that Red is actually glaring at the corpse with that same

seething anger. And as you catch his eyes, he sort of changes his expression and sort of shakes his head. He just changed. Jack and I went down to try to talk to him and then he just, the minute that we said we would help him, and Jack turned his back, he lunged at him. And I mentioned to Jack that I didn't, I didn't trust him. And now Red's talking loud enough to sort of include everybody. You know, Jack, something just seemed off when we were down there, didn't it? Yeah, thank you. I, you had the, you had the right of it. I was really preoccupied with trying to save this kid. I'm not, I don't, it doesn't sit right with me when strange voices tell me to kill a kid or don't bring him back. That doesn't feel good and I really didn't want to believe him and now I

don't know what we're going to do when we get back because there was a voice that spoke to us that said, hey, go kill this kid and now we did it and maybe it was a, maybe it was a good thing. Well, how do we do this then? We can't go back telling this mother that we killed his son, that I killed his son. Maybe we should just lie. What if we tried to commune with the spirit first when we got back before we told the rest of the town what happened? What if we just said, hey, we have something. We did what we were asked of us by the spirit of this place, and now we need to guidance before we can share it. For their best interest, may be good that we don't explain exactly the details.

All right. Yeah, I guess so. Look, Red, I can tell you this. I don't feel right lying entirely, but we don't have to say that. You were the one that stabbed this kid, you know, yourself. No, I hope not. I don't see it that way. All I mean to say is we don't need to bring the body back. Let's just bury it out here.

Well, hold on. And Kralov kneels down next to the body and just does a scan over the body and looks for any sort of trinket or a keepsake or something that this boy would have that his mother would know as his. Mm-hmm. He doesn't have much on him in the... the way of possessions, but your eyes fall on the belt that Doran used to pull his body from the hole in the ground. And it has a worked motif in the leather of it.

Gently, Kralath unwraps the belt and pulls it into his fist and stands back up and says, we can give this to his mother as a memento. I like that. Me too. Yeah, Kralath, I want to give you inspiration. Hey, I will take that inspiration. Jack takes a minute to Barry Olverd's body and creates a bit of a hill of raised earth, maybe slightly in the shape of a dragon, just like something where it's going to be very clear to

if this mother ever wanted to come find it, we could, you know, give her directions to the raised piece of ground and starts looking at everybody to see if we're ready to march back. I think Red lingers on the grave for a second and just says, Is this a wise idea? We don't know what came over this body. What if it's not entirely dead? I mean, when Renzo passed, he disintegrated, he disappeared. I mean, don't get me wrong, burying the body is a kind gesture, and this looks nice,

but I just realized we have no idea what we're dealing with. We just fought a hunt lord that seemingly raised itself from. the ground. Who knows what we could be leaving behind down there? Krayloff puts a hand on Red's shoulder and says, I know how you feel. I personally feel more comfortable burning corpses than burying them. I have seen the dead arise from the graves that I've dug for them, but in this case, my intuition tells me that this boy is at peace. It's been my experience that not one person should just make the decision. It should be a group decision that we

whether we decide to whether we bury the body or burn the body. That's not, no, don't, that's that's not necessary. I want to say that though. I want to say something about a group effort versus one minutes. That just shits all over what Jack was doing, which is only trying to progress the story. I don't blame Rob at all for doing it. Well, my favorite

is Kralath asked me to dig the grave. I know. I'm not, I wasn't saying it to try to be like, oh yeah, that's true. All I was saying is that I felt like the party needed to make reference that maybe it came back. By the way, I prefer burning things. But I was just, yeah, I know. No, everyone, I was only saying it to make it clear. And now everyone's been like, Jack, you're wrong.

Fucking strong-headed noble wizards, just do what they want to do. And can't be told nothing. I said that satirically to make a funny comment. That was an inconsistency on my point. Mine is a character comment. That's why I wanted to put it in. That's all. Yeah, no.

Okay. Well, let's, let's, as a group, decide whether or not it's important as a group to decide things together. And so I think I've come up with a new decision-making model for the, for the Nightstone-For. for the Nightstone four. I've really written it out in this document. If you wanted to sign here, we can have... Now, during a tie,

equal vote goes to shale, and perhaps we should get some focus groups on this. These are the rocks that we've painted to draw. Why does Kieran get a vote? Well, look, I understand, you might think Kieran could be... But they're a vital member of this team, and they've got celestial insights

that maybe we could all learn from. So after saying a few words to Kallumvore and Overt Krayloff, nods and indicates that all of the rights have been done. Shall we get moving? Yeah, let's go back. It's dark by the time you return to the Great Worm Cavern. The glow of firelight from within makes the ice pillars glint and gleam,

and you smell roast venison on the air. Hmm. And I think red spirits have picked up, you know, he seems like his old self, as if nothing happened. I'm hungry Me too But again, let's remember that we have plenty of food back where we come from So, you know, maybe we'll make sure to leave some space for them Yeah, good idea

Jack, you hear a voice in your head It's not easy to kill a young one He was cursed And would have spread the illness to others here A contagion of the soul You have the blessing of the ancestors come. Yeah, and I mean, Jack

wrestles with a lot of that. There's an element of like, but sometimes you can heal the sickness instead of amputate, and he really is stuck on that for a minute, but he turns to his companions and says, the spirit of this place

spoke to me again. It says we have their blessing to go up. Then something falls and breaks in one of the family caves, and all around the cavern in ear unison, the heads of the barbarians here all turn to face you in the opening of this cavern. An older woman breaks out into some kind of high-pitched, keening song.

And you see Cavan walk towards you out of the darkness. Jack, shut up. Do you say Jack, shut up? No, I said, Jack, shut your mouth. a real quick thought where he could cast invisibility and I'd go grab the thing while she you know because I don't know how they're going to react but then I thought let's just see how it plays it you see that Kavin's face is streaked with tears and she says the ancestors speak now to us and say that you did their will with

olver you brought peace to Bonham spirit The voices from the crypts are pleased. I think Jack might kneel, actually, and just look up and say, I'm sorry we couldn't do more for Alvord. I feel like we failed him, even if we did good for the tribe. You did what the ancestors asked. Thank you. And she wipes her face with the back of her sleeve.

his heavy armor clanking, Kralov steps towards Kavana and holds out a big hand, and in it is the leather strap that was Olverd's belt. This was with him, and I hope that you can keep this as a memento to remember who Wolver was, before whatever this affliction was took him. She nods and takes the belt from you like it's a lifeline. Dinner is ready. We'll join you happily, but I don't think we can eat. You people have been much hungrier for much longer than us, Red says awkwardly.

Yes, well, we will survive. Isn't there a tea ceremony or something we need to do before we can go up? It got cut, deleted scene. Okay, it's very high British. I think you got like one of those special keys in the level that like you get to bypass, it's like a warp zone. Yeah, understood. Let's sit for dinner and contemplate a minute before we go up and see the ancestors. That's the least we can do, yeah.

Doran looks around awkwardly having really no points to make this discussion and he just says, I think it would be most respectful to sit with them, at least for a short time. Cabin says, yes, please come. Well put, Doran. Jack, I wish you said something like that. God, I pushed past Jack, useless on his knees as we're all still standing. Let me rephrase. I agree with Jack.

There you go. That's so fucking funny. Jack. Kiss ass. Oh, God. And Red follows her very awkwardly, taking, like, the lead and then stops. And let's the other three go first and to hang back, sort of. Jack stays on his knees till Kieran runs over and, like, gives him a hello to be like,

oh, hey, you're here, you know, all that kind of stuff. And, and sort of. You have some face licks. Yeah. Mentally fills him in on what happened and, like, gives Kieran a big hug and then stands up to walk over to join everybody else for dinner. Even though, like, from the Fay Wilds, basically, you know, this animal companion of yours, It's like half moats of magic.

Kieran still has shitty dog breath. Yeah. I mean, look, he's celestial, but yeah, he's definitely still a dog. Yeah. Cool. So you guys go and sit down. You find your way to a fireside. There are a couple of different campfires speckled throughout the back of this ice cavern.

And you find yourself a seat around these fires. and partake with the community here. It's a slightly awkward meal. Most of it is silent. People aren't really talking. It feels very perfunctory, ceremonial. Even considering these people are enduring some measure of famine, no one is celebrating this feast.

And at the end, Kavan walks towards these ice, slopes that flank the promontory that overlooks this cavern and she nods and says now is the time i think throughout the meal red seems especially separate especially back from everyone else he sort of smiles and nods as people pass him bowls and things like that but he's definitely feeling immense guilt perhaps it's difficult to exactly discern but something seems off despite the facade he's puts forth. And when she says this, he sort of stands up, brushes his paws on his trousers, and starts heading towards the ice slope. Is it easy to scale, or like, should I climb it? Like, can we all make it up? Everyone who is not a worm tribe, barbarian, or who is not

equipped with cool climbing claws, has a hard time ascending unassisted. It's difficult. I really pictured there might have been a moment where we were up, staring up, at the, like at this hill, just about where we're all gathered about to tackle the challenge where Jack comes up beside Red and sort of gives him a hug from around the side just to be like, hey, you save my life. And this is a weird, hard day. Let's get it over with. Yeah. It's sort of unspoken. But since Jack doesn't say any of that, he's like, why are you putting your arm around me? No. Why are you looking at me longingly? It seems like you're thinking something, but I don't know what you're saying. I'm just kidding. It's been a weird hard day. Red throws an arm around him and sort of

side hugs and back as well, which is a different hug than you've ever received from Red before. It's always sort of this elated, almost flippant gesture. But this is sort of the first time you've ever felt Red hug you back with an actual longing. And he sort of steps back and grabs his rope. And I think Red will climb up and he'll tie off a rope and he'll lower it down for the others, sort of helping each one up with a hand, you know, sort of grabbing Doran's hand as he did with me and helping him up first and then the same with Jack. And I think that moment of connection between each of them is necessary for Red for some reason. He sort of seems warm. What does the cavern look like from this vantage point? So just to remind you guys,

because it's been a little while since I first described the cavern, there is this central promontory that extends out into the middle of this huge ice cave. It's flanked on either side. So promontory, it's like pride rock, basically, if we're thinking in terms of Lion King, which I always am. We always think in terms of Lion King. Who's the scar of the piece? In terms of Lion Kings, how many Simba's are we away from being a full-on pride?

I thought you were going to use Simba's as like a term of like, it's like a unit of measurement? Are we like four Simba's up? Oh, we're a Nala? Okay. So if we're three NALs and Asimba down, then we're going to need at least 30 feet of rope. How fast are we traveling in pumbas? Are we Hakuna Matatas or are we? That's great.

So, yes, it's like a pride rock scenario. On either side of this promontory, there are treacherous slopes of sheer ice. It's a fairly steep angle and they ascend 60 feet to a platform at the rear of the cavern that then forms a perimeter and that's atop which you saw these warriors at the beginning of your time here they were kind of like shouted at your entrance into the cave turning back on itself from that 60 foot height and jutting out into the center of the cavern the slope rises even higher and that's this jutting formation of rock and ice that I was mentioning is like this pride rock so it's about 80 to 100 feet high all right and i think as red helps everyone up he looks at the next height he's just like

all right that's at least three refikis so i better get a climb on he starts climbing up the ice wall before lowering another rope to help them up arlin do you have inspiration i want to give you inspiration i do but i'll take it anyway that's just hilarious thank you i love it against the far back wall of the cavern up on the platform level at 60 feet before ascending the central promontory, that's where you see this crescent-shaped piece of hanging art. It's gray and red, and ropes hang it from a large hook driven into the stone wall. And then finally, up top this promontory, there is another edifice, some kind of statuary, or it's hard to see from where you are, but there's something built atop the very pinnacle of Pride Rock, as it were.

I'm picturing a snapshot of Kralath and Doran standing over this promontory, looking down at the twinkling torchlight and the crowd of people 60, 80 feet below us. Yes, people are watching your ascent. The glistening of the ice on the walls of this cavern. It's just this beautiful blues and black and orange. and it's a breathtaking view up here. And I think Kralath says that. Just, wow.

The past few months, I've seen a lot of beautiful things, but this one is definitely up there. You know what, Kralath, I have to agree with you. It's pretty incredible. Absolutely, yeah, it's crystalline. Along this back wall, you see now that you're at this 60-foot height, you see that there are crypts here dug into the walls not all of them are on a level with each other

it seems like maybe they had been built at different eras right with the ice melt and thaw and refreeze maybe certain ones are at different levels sort of commissure it with the climate at that time of year or whatever but so there are these holes in which there are, you presume, the bodies of ancestors. Do we assume that that is what we need? Red says pointing to the large crescent red and gray thing,

or do we think it's in there? And he points to what's on top of the promontory. What's on top of Pride Rock? Hmm. Well, what's the thing on top of Pride Rock? Are we just calling it that? What's it made out of? Is it styred?

You want to go up there? Yeah, I think that's where Kralath and I are standing. Is that kind of what you mean? You can be, yeah, for sure. Is it like, is it made it a stone or? At the top of the promontory overlooking this cavern beside you, Doran and Kralot, there is this altar of frost-covered stone and it's carved in the shape of a coiled serpent with great wings. Jack, do you go up there to that altar?

I do, yeah, yeah. I think he's sort of just taking it all in, but yeah, he's trying to stay close to everybody else as we ascend just because there's so many climbing dangers here that to be far away is risky. It is very dangerous, isn't it? It is. Once you come to within 10 feet or so of that altar,

Jack, you hear the voice in your head once more. You have done well to heed my words. Do so once more. The great worm tribe languishes under the sway of an evil chieftain named Wormblood. He must not be allowed to return to the cavern. Or all here will perish. Hunt down Wormblood and slay him. Oh, really?

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Ha. Ha. Hmm. Huh.