Dice Shame - 2-137 | 'Ham-Fisted'

Episode Date: April 10, 2025

With the knowledge from the Escapists, the party heads to the Thousand Maw's cave system in order to track down the fire immunities potion...________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Imagine your best game of D&D. The shocks, the twists and turns, the moments that can’t be caught because you just had to be there. That’s Dice Shame.Join our DM Jo, her husband Harlan, their brother Alex & their friend Nic as they experience those unmissable, gut-wrenching, heart-aching, joy-filled moments.This legendary AP releases a brand new episode every Thursday morning at 1:20 am!Content Warning: animal death, swearing, violence, claustrophobiaPart of the Rusty Quill Network Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm open to a diplomatic solution here. Only because we're wasting spells. In the name of science. What if you pretended that we were prisoners? I agree with this approach which is both optimistic and strategic. I know orcshit and that's orcs shit. I've been thinking about this, uh, you know, since our encounter. You are kind of magic?

That doesn't moan. They are called the thousand fists. Who needs them? Wait it, how many is a score? It depends on which nomenclature exactly are using. A gnomish score is different, for example. example than a dwarven score, but roughly 20. Ah, how much is a gnomish score?

A nomish score is 30. Everyone knows that. Perfect. There's a gnomish score of orcs in these hills. I really hoped you were going to say an elvish score. That's smaller than a normal score. Welcome back to Dyshame. This is season two, episode 137, ham-fisted. MVP this week is Cuff War, who wrote, Y'all are amazing. Love what you do, except Joe. She made me cry too many times.

Oh, Joe. Sorry, Cuff War. Although, secretly I do try. It comes with the territory. Thanks for listening, Cuff War. You are this week's MVP. All right, shall we do this? Yeah, let's play some D&D. Hachar! Woo! We have another voice on the show, guys. Hey!

Everybody welcome Tim Woods. Hey, welcome Tim Woods. Thank you so much. We have had a little bit of time to get to know Witted over the past couple of episodes. He's Wicked. Wicked Witted. Absolutely. Wicked Witted.

But I'm sure the audience wants to know a little bit. about the person behind the voice. Who are you, Tim? Yeah. I appreciate that. Thank you so much. Well, I do do professional game mastering in New York. I basically am very much getting to do exactly what I want to be doing, which is focusing

on education and the overlap between education and D&D, and mostly getting to run like after school programs and stuff in the New York area, but also sharing D&D often for the first time ever in their lives with a lot of. people who come to me through, like, my podcast, uh, D&D work that I do on the part of my take podcast or things like that. Amazing. So you're a pusher. You're getting people.

100%. I am a gateway for people to enter the hobby. And I am an anti-gatekeeper, I like to say. I'm making gates everywhere. I'm open in portals. I'm like, Dr. Strange and end game. Just like get everybody in this hobby as much as possible. And like, especially a young people who are very much like, I think I like to get

kids right when they are at that age where they want to play D&D, but very often at that Stranger Things age where, like, D&D is going to spark a lot of, like, when they're doing it on their own, all of a sudden, like, there's a lot of heightened emotions, and they're like, you're doing it wrong. No, you're doing it wrong. And instead, like, when there's an adult kind of helping them with D&D, you see such incredible growth and amazing things happen. So that's what I want to say about Tim Woods is I love running D&D for people who are new to

the hobby. Fuck, yeah. I mean, that's so true, too, because that's like, honestly, That's the age where, like, the min-maxers branched off. You know what I mean? And you deal with a lot of those in this hobby now, and they're older, obviously. It's a really good point. That is where you can kind of like...

But you're, like, getting them while they're young. Listen, I know you know D&D better than all your friends. But what if? What if you just kind of let everybody play and do what they want to do? And, like, everyone will have more fun. And you watch them within a few weeks just being like, it's working. They're playing bad characters, but they're having... having fun, Tim, and I'm like, it's amazing. It's the magic of D&D. Sometimes the quote-unquote bad

character is actually a lot of fun to play. Who knew? So really, you're doing community service here because you're helping a lot of creative individuals. Wow. Absolutely. Helping our tables in the future. A lot more creative than me. Those kids are incredible and they do really, really cool, cool games and amazing stuff. You're too humble. Tim also made the Green Knight RPG for 824, or whatever, which was awesome. And you also, and you can, you're like a professional GM, people can, like, hire you for games, right? Timwoods.com? Yes, if you go to my website, Tim Woods, T-I-M-M-Woods.com, that's where you can kind of reach out to me via my email and stuff and request games.

If you are interested, never booking a game with me. I love game mastering, which is why it's such a pleasure to actually get to play and, like, watch someone amazing doing their game mastering. And I kind of get to, like, enjoy being on the player side of things, which I don't get to do often. No. We're going to get to do it a lot here. Absolutely. I was going to say, he wants to play, guys. He wants to play.

Where did you get that extra M? Did you have to pay extra for the second M or did that come along with a family? No, it's more of a discount, I think. I feel like if you go there's less demand, I'm not competing with all the other Tims with one M. Nah, God, I just skip that line. My son is also named Bort. Bort. We need more Bort license, please.

yeah we're so happy that you're part of the show thank you for having me I appreciate it it's a it's a pleasure so far to have both you joining so far you know oh first of all it's a pleasure it's a pleasure to have you both recut it's a pleasure to have you both joining us so far for now um Tim have you in your either with the kids or with the adults or whoever how you started using 2024 rules in your games? It's a great question. And if so, which do you prefer? Initially, so I'm very like, my opinion does not matter.

I run whatever people want me to run. And that means I'm very burnt out on even deciding for my own objective, like, subjective decision making, like, do I prefer this even? I'm just like, literally, what do you guys want? You want the optional flanking rules? I'll do the optional flanking rules. I think they're crazy. Like, I'll just, I do, like, some pretty wild homebrew.

Like, I stack advantage in certain scenarios, sometimes up to, like, four, even five times. If it's a kind of thing we're like, this helped you, and this helped you, and this helped you. And now you've got to make one big speech to the king or something like that. So I go wild and crazy with rules a lot. I just do whatever people seem to be having the most fun with. And the, what do you call it? 2024 rules, I think, are fine as far as I can tell. I've been enjoying them when I have been using them,

but it's sort of been one by one. The groups will kind of be like, no, we're not using them, except like, hmm, that new barbarian rule, though, looks pretty good. And I'm just like, okay, as long as you're not mix and matching, you, like, you can convert over, and the rest you guys can still be 2014 and do whatever you want. And it's, I like that it seems like it's modular.

Once you convert. It doesn't seem like they ever go back. There's no going back. That's awesome. So it's all I could ask for, which is a slow migration. I appreciate that at the very least. Maybe we can all get Joe to convert to my one rule request, which has always been that advantage should have the option to be used after the role as well.

That's always been my like, please type trying to. Joe's a hard ass. Bar-Dic inspiration, you can do that. You can choose to inspire people. But when you use inspiration as written, you've got to decide. I had to do it before you roll. That's just how I said it. Well, but Joe, you have, so the lucky feat, they've changed it for 2024 so that you also

have to declare that before you roll. You can't retroact it. He's lucky anymore. Rules written. So. Doran has lucky too. I do. And we're not playing with the new rules, though.

Playing with the old rules. My lucky is 2014. We are playing with the old rules. Speaking of playing D&D, shall we get down the business? Yeah, let's do it. Out, do it. Fuck yeah. Yeah.

Absolutely. After helping the escaped slaves from Iron Slag and learning more about the Von and Dodd and its intended target, plus making some pie-in-the-sky plans to melt the snow-capped mountains in order to mire the colossus in swampy mud, you send word to Captain Chaoshammer with another raven before setting out together a fresh new party of five.

The southern range of the Rauvin Mountains seems to brush the sky with its snow-capped peaks. With the spring thaws making what would be a dangerous journey into something even more unpredictable, you instead opt to skirt around them, heading east and then south, keeping the range on your right side for three days of travel. The weather is mercurial, and the gray clouds dump snow and rain on you in turns. It's miserable, sloppy travel, and the ground is slick, and treacherous. In the foothills and valleys to the south of the Ravon Mountains, you briefly encounter a road, the turnstone pass, a poorly marked winding trail that disappears almost

immediately in your wake. Your goal lies to the south, the nether mountains, a seemingly impassable barrier running east to west between the Anoroc Desert and the Evermores just to the north of the high forest. A shepherd provides a shepherd. crucial information as to the likely whereabouts of the Thousand-Fist orcs, warning you to stay away from a dangerous cave system known as the Thousand Maws, a place that berths the tributaries of the Delimbir River, known to be the home of an Ork clan. Late in the day, on the 16 of Tarsak, the claw of storms!

You find yourselves in a rare patch of clear weather, and approaching a mountainside pockmarked by cave entrance boy that was a nice shepherd that we saw a few days ago he gave me this necklace red points to like clearly not a necklace but like something the guy discarded and he just put around his neck makes me feel fancy it's like the plastic thing that goes around like a six pack of beer canes the thing that turtles like die on yeah yeah it's It gets stuck on my throat every once in a while, but... Do you ever wonder why not all shepherds walking around with their flocks? Just didn't make any sense to me.

I think he was like a shepherd of the land, you know? So not really a shepherd at all. That could be other types of shepherds, right? They're at least 16 that I know of. So what do you say? You said it's called the thousand maas? You think they could come up with something more interesting than the thousand? It's like a thousand fists, the thousand maas.

What is it next? a thousand teeth, a thousand gray hairs? Well, it's probably for a reason, like there's a thousand of them or there's a thousand little holds in this hill or, you know, names have meanings. Yeah. But also just idiomatically, you know, it's interesting

because it indicates a large amount but not an infinite amount, you know, a grokable amount. Very true. Agreed, but you don't have to call Dorn an idiot. So anyway. We should figure out certainly whether or not the thousand refers to a number of

holes in the mountain or the number of orcs we are about to face. Let me think. And I am curious, does he know anything about the thousand laws? Such a great question. Did you want to roll some history for me? I would absolutely love to. Fantastic. I mean, if Witt had wanted to get real smart, he could be like, well, there's a thousand to fist,

so technically it should only be 500 orcs orcs or so. That's a good. This is a very good point. Absolutely. Statistically speaking, we're probably looking at his variable. About exactly, but somewhere around 500. Some of them could have lost their arm. Some orcs are born with more than two fists, I'm just saying.

Sorry, you're not welcome here. You'd equal a thousand and two fists. Well, I was going to say, if somebody dies in battle, they're going to be like the 998 fists. Yeah, and Jeremy was born with a third arm. Think of guys waiting in the wings. What wonders how they control their numbers. Their bench is like four deep.

Yeah, their bench is four deep. What did you get on your history check? Do you have a plus nine on history? So, oh, with a 17th, that'll be a 26 toad. Fabulous. I rolled so well, my own voice became nerdy, like widens. Possibly because of the name of this mountain range, the Nether Mountains, you know that the location is associated with the ancient civilization of Netherill.

The netheries were known to have been creators and purveyors of magic of all kinds, and it's very possible that you will encounter some kinds of ruins while you are here. About the orcs in particular, you know that potentially based on the place where they choose to make their home, they are known to be adept at the creation of bespoke potions and artifacts. These orcs are clever creatures. So what do you know, Woodid? They are capable artisans, especially in the alchemy of potion making. This is something we should watch out for.

As far as I know, the thousand in the name is purely idiomatic, but their potion brewing is something that we should be aware of for certain. And I don't want to get anyone's hopes up, but we are in the presence of ancient greatness, the Wizard Empire of Netherill. is said to have created some of the greatest magic that humankind certainly has ever known and it was in this area that some of the great cities of that empire

the woods flew in the skies flying sky cities oh yes witted does that mean that we could potentially find something here that could help us against the vonondard or against Xolto if I wouldn't presume to hope that such a thing, of course, for stopping Duke Zalto, we would want to find such artifacts. And if we do come across anything of the sort, please bring it to my attention. As I understand it, the netherese practiced very powerful artifice, and I could identify anything that it is that you find.

Totally, totally. Red light taps to me on the shoulder and, like, gestures her to step to the side. Hmm? Hey, Timiel. Yes. You get a vibe from Wadid, a little. bit like, what's that, you know, saying about power corrupting and absolute power corrupting absolutely and something like that with other words in between? I think that at this point all we can do is assume best intentions. I think that he is a

curious fellow and that perhaps he may be open to hearing a side of things that doesn't involve just letting this monstrous creature or thing or, you know, artifice just run wild across the land. Totally. In the name of science. Totally, totally, totally. I'll keep an eye on them. Don't worry. Okay. Red Lake winks at you like. I also don't trust them. No. I don't think that's what I said, but... I'm picking

up what you're putting down, buddy. Don't worry. Okay. We'll keep an eye on them. Wink. I'm saying wink. Did you say wink? Do you say... Okay, right. I'll keep an eye on them, too. While Red is off to the side sort of talking, whispering with Timil, during... Seeing wink loudly.

He strikes up conversation with widens. Wink. So, uh, great magic in these, uh, in these caves. Oh, yes. Say, do you use magic, widded? Well, it is somewhat complicated. Uh, you will notice that there is a certain amount of whipsy and chaos inherent to the technology that I wield. And he sort of makes these gestures, both with his hand, that are mimicked, even though he's not really touching any controls by his armor, which is just gesturing around and clank.

Again, no obvious means that this is like how this mechanism is working and just to gesture like all these things start popping out of like my wrist and forearm like it's a kind of Looney Tunes type space a little bit it seems where the the technology it seems to run off of magic as far as you can tell and as I'm gesturing this there there is magic inherent to what it is that I perform at the art at artifice that goes into old Bessie here and I slap the machine. Oh, is that what you call it? Old Bessie, eh? Yes. Bessie. Doren's like eyebrows are sort of down, not angry necessarily, but a little bit quizzical, I guess you could say, as he sort of watches this all happen. But his expression more or less doesn't change. And he just sort of says, oh, interesting. I think over the past couple of days of travel, Wim has shown herself to be strangely,

may be distrustful or kind of uncharacteristically shy of this machine. Whenever it makes like a surprising bout of fire or strange warring noise, you see her kind of eyeing it suspiciously. She's been working on this game of Cat's Cradle for the past hour while you guys are sort of chatting and figuring out what your next moves are going to be. And as Bessie, the armor. Yeah. As the armor gives its showy display, she sort of gives it a side look and sidles up next to Red and Tamil.

Yeah, listen, I hear you. Look, this is all new for us, Red, just like gestures to like, you know, to wedded as like we're approaching the edge of this. And like a little bit to Tamil and says, look, Dorn and I are meat and potatoes types of guys. You know, we seize the things. We shoot the things. we stabs the things. That's kind of where we're at. You gotta give us a break.

We're still wrapping our head around all the cool stuff that you can do to meal with your whispering magical words and all the magic that you can do. Wadded with your mystical whispering armor that's very loud. It hardly ever is capable of whispering. So you are kind of magic?

Oh, okay. That would be an accurate way of putting it. And there is like a big whistle like and steam that like shoots out of the shoulder. And, like, I feel like a few, like, bugs go fly, like, and not disrepair, but, like, little magic bugs, like, go flying off. Little magic bugs. I love that. Oh, Bessie.

Extremely interesting. If Wim kind of reacts to the commotion of, you know, like, Witted's demonstrations, then I think also with Red's words echoing in her head, she'll cast back in her memory to some of the first conversations that they were having with Witted, and she'll ask, you had mentioned that you were being. financed by someone in silvery moon. Who exactly would that be? Primarily, I work and do my crafting in the city. It's clearly being a little evasive about this. Through the funding of my family, primarily. Your family, is that the wigwam family?

Yes, the wigwobbers are a fairly profitable family who is coming to money in our history. It has luckily allowed me to get the education that I have in Silvery mood. Oh, very interesting. With money often comes expectation. What exactly is your mandate on behalf of your family with regards to the Vonendard and all of this? It is of no regard what exactly my family wants for me right now.

I am much too focused on my own work and let's just say they're interested in the voted odd would be short-sighted and thoughtless in regards to my research, which is much more thorough. A fair, family, you know, who needs them? You know, we all have our family problems, right, right, Doran? Oh, uh, well, I don't know much about your family, actually. Oh, never mind. Uh, look.

Whim gives a heavy nod. Like, the important thing is, you know, we've been traveling together for a little bit now, and obviously, you know, At night, we've been camping a little separate, and I want to try to get our team a little bit closer together. And I'm recognizing that we're about to, you know, probably encounter some, you know, combat. So, let's talk tactics, you know.

Doran typically gets up in the meet and I hang back. What do you two do? Well, actually, just based on... I've been thinking about this too, Red, based on our encounter in the bar in deep snows. I don't mind getting up in the mix, but also... I was going to say dead snow. You said deep snows.

You know what? Oh. Because I've forgotten about that place already. Who needs them? Who needs them? Get out of here. You're allowed to go back anyway. Deep dead snow.

I've been thinking about this, you know, since I encounter in the bar at dead snow. And I don't mind getting up in the mix, but also I will tend to fill whatever role is needed in a given situation. Brilliant. So, Red, your demonstrations of power, if you need some. support on the backline, I can provide that. Doran, if you need someone to fight alongside you, shoulder to shoulder. Every day of my life. I'm game for that as well. Well, that's wonderful. Look, I mean, typically we like to play it a little bit where we analyze a situation and try when we can to use stealth to our advantage. I have a spell called pass without trace that will give us all

a little bit of advantage when sneaking. But, you know, when the shit hits the fan, I'm best used as far away from the action as possible, picking them off one at a time. And then Red's eyes sort of like saddle over to wedded. What about you? There is a little bit of a shrug that is mimicked by the armor that he's sitting in. And he says, I confess I am slightly at a loss strategically right now because I'm, well, in so far as I have engaged in combat in Bessie here, which I have on a fair number of occasions, is primarily bidden on my own.

I have not typically been traveling with companions. So I have, out of necessity, designed her to be versatile. Well, I admit she's not in stealth mode at the moment. Oh, it has a stealth mode. There is a stealth mode. But I don't think we'll be seeing that today. Unfortunately, the modifications would simply take too long. It would be prohibitive to do outside of the walls of silver reboot.

However, all is not lost, though she seems clunky at the moment, I must insist that looks could be deceiving. I immediately press a button and speak like into an intercob. Bessie, please activate stealth mode. And there's just a ripple outward and the machine turns invisible. I sort of like sit back and disappear into this cloaking field. Whoa. Wow. Wow.

Whim starts applauding. So he is magic. That's amazing. Look at that. A firebolt launches into the air and I reappearance. It only works until I attack, unfortunately. Oh. Oh.

Hey, well, that's damn you're stealthy. I think that, like, Tamil watching you go invisible, and then when you say, oh, it only works until I attack, ah, I believe I can actually help you with that. And Tamil reaches out and touches Bessie, let's say, and it goes invisible again. And from there, you should be able to move about and do whatever you can, do whatever you like,

until, you know, I lose my concentration. And then you're on. your own, unfortunately. Wow. Is that greater invisibility? It is greater of invisibility. Wow. You see fire bolts start arcing up into the air and like some branches get sawed off trees.

It looks like. With it, with it, with it. Calm down. Yeah, this is pretty good. You're going to burn the place down. A big tree nearby just collapses being attacked so much. It couldn't be more obvious where I am. It's like in a movie where they want you to see where the invisible monster is.

It's really obvious. I'm like, you wouldn't even notice me. and I'm just like thumping around. Huge footsteps. Oh, oh. You know, actually, perhaps this would be of better use and just kind of casting around trying to find where Bessie is, finally makes contact,

and then starts to whistle a little, and Bessie starts to rematerialize, but now is however much bigger and large reduce makes you. One size category, right? One size category bigger than Bessie was before. Whoa. And then I think Timmiel kind of like goes around and is just, like, talking to, to Witted, to Wim, to Red, to Doran, to all, to everybody, just being, like, these are things that I can do to help, like, what can help you, what would be useful for you? What's your style? And we'll, just for the next 10 minutes, just kind of, like, get everybody's, you know, like, vibe and how they prefer to be supported. And if you'll allow this, Joe, I would love for this to be a use of my inspiring leader.

Ooh. Phenomenal. Welcome to the podcast, inspiring leader. Tell us what that does. I would love to. If I spend 10 minutes inspiring my companions, I can choose up to six allies, including myself, that can see and hear and understand me that are within 30 feet. And then everyone gains 14 temp HP per short rest. Nice.

I can do this once per short rest. So everybody gets 14 temp HP. Amazing. Thank you. Yeah, really. That's wonderful. That's fucking exciting. Cool.

Anyone else have any bragging or buffs that they want to do? Yeah, I mean, I feel like we all spend the time talking about it, Tim. I also wanted to say that when you cast the enlarge spell on the suit, I will request that that spell affect Bessie and turn Bessie from medium size into large size, but Witted stays the same size. And so initially, he's genuinely flustered, even though. he's not saying anything. You can tell he's a little upset because his normal rhythms are all thrown off because he's like standing up in the suit now, having to reach for stuff that he would

normally. And then with your inspiring leader is like talking him like, no, you can do this. Like just reach this way. And suddenly he's loving the large mode Bessie. Like this is an ogre now marching around. He's a huge fan of this considering he's like, the voted Dodd will slowly scaling up. This is working very well. I love it. You're a large fan of this. You're not huge yet. Good point, raw.

That's amazing. Well done, everybody. All right, look, okay, we got orcs. Now, it seems like with, you know, we could use that invisibility, or I'm thinking we do a little bit of scouting and try to move in quietly, taking out whatever we can.

I'm going to check, and red flaps down. hard onto the green grass and he puts his severed ear to the ground and I'm going to cast primeval awareness and this will give me all the humanoids and giants within a five mile radius just to kind of give an outlier of how to enter these tunnels and where the concentration of them might be standing there dorin seeing all this magic being used again around him has brought him back to maybe a week ago when his one friend was killed destroyed murdered by the Vonondod

and then the other one ran away but they were both the magic users and all this magic has sort of brought these feelings some mixed feelings up but after Tamil sort of walked around explaining how helpful she could be and watching the

this mechanical machine that Witted had built and thinking over in Doran's own mind about how some of these machine can be used in battle and other great uses is suddenly very much inspired by, but mostly by Timiel and her words. So he grips his battle acts a little harder and stares out along the thousand maws

as Red's got his ear to the ground. You detect about 30 humanoids present within the mountainside about half a mile to the south of you. Red pops up. We did, how many is a score? It depends on which nomenclature exactly are using. A gnomish score is different, for example, than a dwarven score, but roughly 20. Ah, how much is a gnomish score?

A nomish score is 30. Everyone knows that. Perfect. There's a gnomish score of orcs in these hills. Oh, fuck, I really hoped you were going to say an elvish score. That's smaller than a normal score. There's a gnomish score of orcs in there. Look, we can't take on 30, you know, especially...

Are we sure this is a fight? Are we sure that this isn't a negotiation or, I don't know, a bribe? Mm-hmm. Or that, well, how do we know that they're not really good? And they're all just a bunch of work as chefs or something in there. Were they evil-witted? This glad is not particularly cruel, not necessarily. They engage in typical, perhaps, rating activities, but nothing more than that.

I have, in fact, know that there are good orcs, and I've worked with orcs in the past. Believe it or not, the voice recording for old Bessie, I did not do it myself. I had a friend do it who was a half-orke. And so I'm open to a diplomatic solution here. Well, ultimately, you might be on to something. Look, we've also dealt with orcs and had positive interactions. Ultimately, what we do know of them is that they did have. dealings with the fire giants.

Hmm. Yeah. These are the ones that have been creating the elixir. That's right. So the scientist orcs. All right. So here's a question. Do we want to play this upright? Go in as we are, who we are, express our stuff and offer money.

Or do we want to try a more, let's say, deceptive route? Red snaps his fingers and he casts this guy's self. And his entire skin. changes to look like an orc. Like he's got like a big scar over his ear and he's got like this massive mawn, this dark green skin and he just kind of like leers at everybody

for a second and then snaps his fingers again and goes back to normal. Only because we're wasting spells for expecting. Showing off, everybody's just like, look what I think. I wanted to show off. That was amazing, Red. I mean, the detail on that scar,

it was truly wonderful to me like his little clap quite convincing yes my only worry I'm not against that but my only worry is that if you have a group that is proficient in alchemy

or artifice or spellcasting of any kind that they may have measures for detecting that sort of thing and then there's just a bit more explaining that we would have to do that's true but that's not necessarily a bad thing

no but look I'm happy to go up and down like play it as is. I know what my sentient axe is thinking. And on your back, this entire time that you've been talking about the thousand-fist orcs, Ork Splitter is just

vibrating with excitement and bloodlust. I can feel it. Calm, girl. Is that going to be a problem? It's only going to be a problem if we're trying to make friends. Orks-splitter, can you be quiet for the next hour?

Absolutely not. Its name is Ork Splitter. That does it bode well. It splits everything. Red, I think you're right, though, that we don't necessarily need to... We don't need to divulge everything. We don't need to tell them our entire story or about, you know, why we care about getting into iron slack.

If they are mercenaries, then they will understand, you know, opportunistic, plundering and the like. so perhaps they're just creatives that want to be fairly compensated for their work? Possibly. Hells, yeah. Money in, money out. Maybe that's where they're at. I would say, though, given that they are orcs, and that Dorn is wearing Ork Splitter, and that a lot of the slaves in Iron Slag were dwarves, he may be our only problem.

Me? Yeah, you. Listen. Every head turns toward Dork. Listen, I'm not going to be a problem. problem, whatever we do here. All right, listen, I think Timil's got the right call. How about we do this? We try to go in with a diplomatic approach. We head in, we offer a coin, we do it on the up and up. Of the very least, if we get in, then if things go sour, we grab the elixirs,

hopefully we're close enough to them, and we skiddle the fuck out of there. If it goes bad at the gates, we start a shooting, and we go in guns are blazing. I like, uh, I like the sound of the options. Yeah. I'd prefer to not start a fight. Best case scenario, we get past the first guard and at least get in deep enough before they start shooting and we start shooting back to, like I said, be closer to what we really want. I agree with this approach which is both optimistic and strategic. Yes. Hey, I like the optimism.

I'm all for it. And, you know, you're right. Orcs can be nice. Let's do it. Whimmy, you know the plan? Wim has used her instant. inspiration from Temeel to figure out how to do the next step of Cat's Cradle, and she gives you a very excited nod over the top of this tangle of string stretched between her two

hands. Excellent. All right, well, let's go. And Red starts walking up towards the presumed entrance of the cave. Yeah. Are you traveling stealthily? No, I think we're going La-di-da. We're friends with the orcs now. I mean, listen, meta, I think you're right. I think these are Merks. Why play it violently? And like I said, when we're in the belly of the beast,

we can always poke its guts, right? So like, let's get in first. I love that saying. Totally. That's an old taboxy saying. The belly of the beast, I'd cut your way out. It's very evocative. It's very, uh.

Go through the anus. It's closer. Oh, no. There was. Sounds like maybe your relatives were eating, being eaten alone. Oh, yeah, in Mastika, they got giant wog wallows. They're like olefonds, but frogs. Listen, I'll follow up in the back.

And he just sort of, Doran follows behind the four of years. Tamil puts a hand on Doran's shoulder and says, are you sure you're all right with this? Are you sure that you'll be able to, I don't know what your history is with Orcs, I don't know what... Ork split his whole deal is. Oh, no. Trust me, Tamil, I'll be fine.

It's not the first time I faced a group of terrible terrifying orcs. But also, I've learned to come to trust some and view them not all the same. I mean, hell. But not these ones. They are called the thousand fists, Red. But that could be branding, you know. No, I'm fine. Thank you, Tamil.

It's all about the branding. They got business cards. It's true, right? As you approach the mountainside in question, you see that there are many cave entrances over the course of about a kilometer. Red having used primeval awareness is able to pinpoint the current location of the tribe.

Although, as you travel, you notice that there's evidence of orcs having used other caves in the past. Maybe you see some like half-buried skeletons in the dust outside of, of a cave entrance. That's or ork shit. Oh.

I know ork shit and that's ork shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Laitrine that's been emptied over the size. They're like owls. Look, look. Snorke pellet. Bommets the bones. And as you approach, you see that this current tribe location

has two different entrances that are being used. that there are orcs posted outside of a northern entrance and a southern entrance. All right, I'm going to give this the old college try and then red whispers to it, I've never been to college. And he takes the bow off his back and he like holds it up over his head like in a T-pose, you know, like the universal sign of I'm a bowie and I'm not using my bow.

Do, do, hey, hey, hey, David Bowie. and I'm and yeah and I guess we walk up kind of as a group to the nearest entrance cool if I get shot in the chest avenge me it looks dead in Temeel's eyes like you're the one that needs to avenge me it's not gonna happen there are two orcs that are standing outside of this northern cave entrance that have what just realized the glaring error but I'm kind of excited to see what happens. What? Does anyone speak orc? Well, no. Let's find out. I do.

Would it just say casually slips that in real quick? I feel like I say that and everyone's like, oh shit, like no! That's way worse, actually. As you approach this northern cave entrance, you spot two orcs keeping watch. they are speaking in gruff tones to each other in a language that none of you understand except for Witted and Witted you can tell

that they are spending the time on their watch duty making up the most raunchy vulgar insults that they can and exchanging them with one another and red seeing them I have the observant feet and I got eyes like a fucking hawk. Like an eagle.

Like an eagle. Like an owl pellet. I see their lips moving and I'm like, oh shit, I can't understand what they're saying. I think they might be speaking or quitted. You think you got a lead on this one? I certainly do.

It does, well, no goodness. All right, that's just rude. These orcs are insulting each other right now. This is, uh, I learned orcish from my friend who helped me do the vocal programming for old Bessie. Darius was a quite refined individual.

This is not the version of orcish that he taught me. Wait, your suit speaks in an orc voice as well. It could, if I wished it to, yes. I mean, it might not be deceptive necessarily, but if you throw that hood up and do some of the talking... I do a fair bit of clanking and whistling, but if you want to try that strategy, I could try being deceptive.

All of a sudden I flip the helmet down. and you go, I can be tricky. I mean, it's the only play we got right now. And, yeah, I think we move up as a group. Fantastic. What if you pretended that we were prisoners? Too late, Doran. The St. Star Wars.

But it could be, red. It could be. We did. Try it. I'm 100% on board with this plan. I believe in you. I think that you'll absolutely ever. present us wonderfully. Could your first question be whether or not they also speak common?

Yes. Just, just get that out of the way. You know. That would frankly be my preference as well. Excellent. You could do this. I believe in you. I believe in you too. We're going to die. Whittied, by the way, does not have a cloak. So if somebody else has a cloak to like throw on over Witted's armor, it's probably not quite big enough, but it like works. I love it. That's awesome. Red, like, pulls out a little soapbox from the bag of holding and, like, slides it in front of you. This is Andre the giant, like, Dreadpire Roberts approaching the key energy all over.

What are you doing here? It's very adorable. I'm stomping forward in the cloak, and then I turn back, er. I've never done this before. And then take these, like, baby hesitating steps far. forward. You're doing great. We got you.

Phenomenal. Witted, as you approach this entrance, everyone sees the moment where the two orcs spot what's going on. There's a moment of alarm. They pull weapons off of their backs. And then drop their arms to the side, quizzical. It's my bow, I'm sure of it. I imagine they're right behind me.

Hands up. All right. All right. Love it. Witted will raise a hand from which the cloak immediately falls, revealing pretty clearly it's a metal arm. As he waves, he says in orcish, what's up, guys? Hmm. And one of the orcs says, state your name.

In orcish to you. What does he say? He'd say, sound like you as angry. Just a bobit. do you all speak carbon yeah we can speak common what do you think we are hill people all right well that's oh there we're companions like well we do live in the hills

shut up I would say more mountain people but there's nothing wrong with that oh that good just they speak carbon oh thanks wooded hi we are Reds Rovers my name is Redd this is my best friend Temeel and my best friend Doran and my best friend Wadded and my best friend Wim

we're hoping to buy some elixies. Yeah, we're... Red Lake puts his hand on Doran's mouth. Yeah, just like in his mouth. And then he whispers to you. Tell him we're traitors. Orks, but there's like muffled, screaming on your back. No, we're not going to tell them anything.

Less is more. Does this look like a storefront to you guys? Tell them we're traitors. Shut up. We were told that we could procure elixies from you for gold. And we have gold to trade. Because we're traitors. Who told you that?

Shut the fuck up. We were told by a man by the name of Duke Zoltow. Tell him we're traitors. Interesting. Shut up. Redcast silence on door. Not really. Tamil wants to kind of like make things a little, a little,

she wants to like de-escalate a little, make things a little chummier. You know, I know what it's like, you know, standing watch. you're telling jokes. I've got one for you if you want to expand your repertoire. How about this? Yeah. If you can make us laugh, we won't shoot you. That seems entirely fair.

All right. Two fine upstanding gentlemen are walking down the street of Waterdeep, and they see a dog. What are their names? Shut up. Keep going. Their names aren't important, but let's call them Bartholomew and Buford. Bartholomew sees a dog sitting on the side of the road,

and the dog is avidly licking itself. You know how dogs do, just really going to town on his crotch. And Buford says, oh, hey, boy, I wish I could do that. And Bartholomew says, well, maybe if you pet him a little first. Red's like staring at you. You mean like, and then what happened? Not now, Red. Just a hand on your mouth.

What? It's pretty good. I don't get it. You're all right. Hey. Yeah, so as my friend was saying, we're just, you know, we were, we have coin to spend and we were told that you are the only ones that can make this specific elixir. We come only for the best, to the best.

former traitors. Oh! I just got it. That was good. Thanks, Red. What kind of elixir you looking for? Um, uh, an elixir of fire resistance. So you're saying that Duke Zaltow told you where to come to get the elixir of fire resistance?

Yes, that he procured it from you and that you liked gold, man. and we thought, well, we've got some and we need some in order to help him complete his master plan, the Vonnans. Because we're murderous traders. Traders, travelers, trading. He means with a D, not in... That's it. We're trading. We're traders. We're traveling. And we're dangerous. We're vile.

Wait, is that Murturis? If it's a T instead of a D? What? No, trade doors, like a D. Travelers? Doing evil trading. I think we're getting a little long. in the weeds right now. Um... We don't... We don't trade on our doorstep,

but if you want, uh, I'll bring you inside. You can wait in, uh... And then his companion's like... You bring them into the antechamber, the stores. Yeah, yeah, you can wait in there. And then I'll bring Graklock around. Graglock.

Yes, Graglock. Yeah. That's the one Duke Zolt who said to speak with anyway. So what are we doing with you guys, you know? Let's do it. All right. Follow me. Heck, no funny business.

Hey, other than that joke, Tameel just told, huh? Which was very good. That's as funny as it gets, yeah. And funny. Maybe funnier. One of the orcs hops down from his perch and sort of with a backward glance like, I don't know if this is a good idea, guys. Leads you in to the mountains.

Well done, Tamele, and well done, Witted. Just fist bumps all around. You see Witted kind of nods. you guys, it seems like the diplomatic solution worked. He's putting his hands up like this of the armor. You see like this the telltale ceiling of like the weapons systems like where they had opened

it. They'd been starting to come out and then like seal back shut again. I always believed we could do it. There's like a like a low rumble of like the engines. Yeah. It's winding up. Yeah. Absolutely. The self-destruct button powers down.

Absolutely. Yeah. Power levels He's like, I like, I like, I I love the idea that when everything is get bad, you're like fingers hovering over. Like, oh, guys. Blow it's all up. No, no, no, no, no.

Okay. Phenomenal. That's great. And with that, the five of you follow the orc into the Thousand-Maw cave system. All right, I just want to say thanks again to all of our wonderful Patreon supporters. And usually it takes me so long to read this, so I'm going to take a stab at going a little bit quicker here. Thank you to Abby Mae Burkin, Absolute Ocelli Behavior, Adam Fry, Abriel, Azu Yuckeye, A.K. Trash Panda.

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Thanks again for watching and see you around the table. I'm a little bit surprised at that way. I'm pretty impressed, actually. So am I. Good job, everybody. Yeah, hard and hard. Didn't even have to roll for it. Listen, you only have to roll for stuff that has a chance of failing. Hey. That was a good joke.

A good joke? I laughed in person in real life. That's good. And I'm like, just about any orc. I'm like your common orc woman here. I was laughing too hard to think of how Witted would ruin the joke. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's not what they would say.

Yeah. Dogs don't typically lick themselves. What kind of dog? Yeah. I thought of being like, that's not a Waterdavian name, actually, according to the census. That, oh, yeah, yeah. I didn't come here to be Tim. I came here to be Witted.