Dice Shame - 2-141 | 'Change of Heart'

Episode Date: May 8, 2025

As the party continues to search the caves, they discover a violent foe and a mysterious pool of water...________________________________________________________________________________________________________________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.

Well done, everyone. That was simpler than I thought it would be. Red desperately wants to high-five your hell hand, but he's nod. Maybe we should also keep our eyes out for pressure plates. It's not normally that cool. Thumbs up from Tamil. Magic fights are not my bag. Give me a physical fight any day, Red. Oh no!

Ork-ish! I've seen you fly. Let's go! Could you carry a little one in your mouth? How can you guys even care about that stuff? What's the point? Let's just go. going to take the double you then.

Welcome back to Day Shame. This is Season 2, Episode 1.41, Change of Heart. MVP this week is Go-Go-Go, who's been posting some character designs for Red on the Discord. Very cool stuff, Go-Go-Gote. Thank you for sharing. You are this week's MVP. Thanks, Go-Gote.

All right, should we play some D&D? Yeah, let's do it. Woo-hoo! Woo! To! To! Temeal, you stand in the entryway, looking into the largest room you've seen so far.

There is a vaulted ceiling, maybe 40 feet. overhead and a pool of sapphire water surrounded by columns occupies the center of this room. Colorful light refracted from within the water dapples the ceiling and walls in reds, purples, and golds. You also observe a creature in this room. It sleeps sitting upright in one corner off to the north. From your vantage point, you can tell that it seems like some kind of huge orc. It has hyper-trophied limbs covered in bulky muscle, but there are these bony spurs straining against its top gray skin on shoulders and forearms, and they pierce through its forehead, these wicked curved horns. In slumber, its open hands rest on the floor on either side

of it, and there's a serrated sword you would gather is probably as tall as you are, just lying within reach. Tamil, as soon as she clocks this creature, she immediately holds up a hand and a finger to her mouth indicating everyone should be quiet, and then she begins to message every single person all of the information about what's in the room

and about that creature and describing it and describing its location. Donors is just like nodding. Red desperately wants to high five your held hand, but he's knocking the process. He's done it himself. But he Never gets a high five. Doran's thinking really hard.

Can you read my mind? Can you read my mind? Can you hear? Thank you very much for passing that information along. You can actually respond, yeah. You can? You can, but it's only like one one response, basically. So that's the response you get.

The only response is, can you read my mind? Very good. Yeah, so I think that very quietly, and kind of keeping an eye, she might say, what's the, how do we want to handle this? Look, it's an orc, you said? Ork-ish. Is my axe glowing?

When is your axe glow? Oh, wait, no, no, no. Sorry, wait, what is it again? That's never been a property of your... I know, I was thinking of sting? Shut up. Yes. I was confusing my axe for this obscure weapon I've heard of once.

Oh, holy smash. You are aware when arcs are within 120 feet of you, an art behind total cover, which... Orks are here, everywhere. They are to you. So currently... It would also probably have been glowing most of this time, considering we're not that far away from the orcs in the cave.

Yes, that's right? I think it's a glow so much as you're just aware, right? Yeah. And the awareness is Ork splitter just going, Oh, fuck! Yeah. That's it. Well, if it's an or are allowed to be in here,

can we just talk to it? It's not an orc, otherwise the orcs would come in here. And do you remember how, how they said that there was something in here. There was some sort of beast. I think this is what they were talking about. Oh, right. Like an orc.

Well, look, I can cast silence around it. It could give us an advantage to moving through the room. Or we could just... And Red runs a finger across his throat, indicating to kill. Yeah. Forwitted. That means kill. Dorn, looking back at Red sees the room over his shoulder.

from where we just came and then looks back at Tamil and he says maybe we should also keep our eyes out for pressure plates or any other traps that might be in here. Good thinking. You never know.

Yeah, can I do any kind of like perception check to look for any other like things that we should be aware of? Maybe specifically pressure plates because only because we've already stepped on one. Nat 20 baby. Hey! Nice. Nice.

Nat 20 perception. Tamil, you notice the two floor tiles ahead of you are ringed by this strange bronze-looking metal, sort of inlaid in the tiles. You get the distinct feeling that standing on either of those places is going to be quite dangerous. And then continuing to look around the room, again with her enhanced vision, I think that she might notice that there is. on other places around the room as well. Is it just those two plates, or is it the copper, anything with copper on it? I mean, you notice that the copper all around the room is looking like it's probably going to be a bad situation for anyone who stands on it. Great. So again, messaging everyone.

The copper, there's copper on these two tiles. I think those are pressure plates and there's some around the room. You have to keep an eye at the top of the stairs and then at the far end of the pool as well. Well, do you want to just attack him or what? Wasn't part of the deal with Graglake that we were going to clear out whatever danger was in here. I think this is the danger. Oh, all right. But look, if that is a trap.

No offense, Dornan. I don't know if you're going to make it over. Why don't Dorn and Wimmy and I go round through the mirror room, act as sort of a pincer? And that way we can get right up close to him. As you and Witted jump over this clearing, I think Wididid... I start to hover a few inches off the ground. I can do it. We'll meet you.

We'll wait for your signal. We'll swoop in from behind. And Red starts heading north. Cool. Witted and Tamil are staying on this side. Are we all staying on this side? I'll follow Redden whim. Is the intention that everyone's going to get into position

and then sort of like fire down while you still asleep? My thing is we will wait until they clear that. If they clear that without waking him, then I think ideally yes. we'll all try to attack him silently. I wasn't going to jump until the battle started. I can kind of do what I need to do from right here for the moment and then clear it once we're in it. Okay, cool.

Then maybe we'll wait for Witted to cross the plates. And if his landing is too loud or something. Red looks at Timuil. We'll wait for your signal. You let us know. Thumbs up from Tamil. And Red starts slinking off. Cool.

Give me a physical fight any day, Red. Like I was saying to those two, some reanimated skeletons. Hey, I'm right there with you. Magic fights are not my bag. All these magic scares me. Red touches himself and casts icy mantle as like we're kind of talking. Yeah, yeah. And he's like, yeah, I'm right there with you.

Give me something of blood and flesh that I can kill. But this thing looks awfully bloody and awfully fleshy. And with icy mantle, like almost mid-talking, he'll step out in front of the mirrors. Cool. Yeah, it's strange when you move between the two mirrors because you have that impression that like you can see into infinity almost the way that the one mirror reflects the other mirror and back so yeah red you you get like a little bit off balance for a second and then uh yeah you're good perfect come on let's go dora like watches and he's like

expecting red to burst into flames or disappear or become many reds and nothing happens and Yeah, I know. Doran scoches through like as fast as possible. He's like, you just scoot. Put up a scaredy cat, I guess. Just takes a few minutes before Temeel is able to see Red sort of poke his head around the side as the other characters make their way through to their pincer movement. Yeah, you just sort of see maybe like Red's foot a little bit.

Is it the right room? Yeah. Great. As soon as she sees Red, she'll turn to Witted. All right. Do you want to lead us off? I think that would be best. Activate Stealthabode, and you see when it turns invisible in his armor,

and in this comically slow way, you can tell where he is based on like, wom, wom, mom, wom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom. Moving across the room as he starts to make his way over these pressure plates, hopefully without any trouble. And he tries to come down to a landing, like literally right in front of this thing. Very cool. make a stealth check from please. Absolutely. I am assuming

invisibility doesn't give me advantage on this. Yeah, definitely. Perfect. I wasn't sure if it was because it was to determine whether he wakes up or not. I only have a plus two on this so I need every advantage I can get. I'm not an infiltration mode. Ooh, 15 is the better

of two rolls. The creature that is sleeping just ahead of you sort of like snuffles and doesn't seem to stir. Okay. Messaging between everyone,

is everyone ready? Yeah, yes. Affirbitative. Wim just nods. Yeah, I'm sure she has an inner voice. Whoa! Do you think she can communicate telepathically? Oh my God.

Okay, she can, but I believe... We had already discussed this. We've discussed it, and she doesn't like it. Yeah, that's right. She's kind of affronted by the nature of it. Yeah. Instead of getting a verbal response from Wim, you almost get like a visual image of her signing like she's ready to go.

Yeah. Cool. That cool. All right. Then Temeel starts whispering in this kind of low guttural sound and from her mouth starts to kind of spew forth this almost black, very transparent smoke. And it starts to wind its way through the room. And then it begins to encompass this, like the head of this beast and seeps into his mouth, his open mouth, his nostrils, into his eyes, into his ears.

And I am applying my hexblades curse to this being. You're scary, man. You are scary. Yes, that is. I do not want to be on the wrong side of you. I mean, you kind of already have been, but. Yeah, yeah. And then as soon as she sees that kind of take hold, she'll again kind of blast out this message to everybody.

All right. Go time. Since we're all acting in concert, essentially in a surprise round, we can sort of decide what order everyone's actions fire off. And so take it away, team. I can hurl static at him. You might as well go first. Still an arc, yeah.

Yeah. I was just say you take the line there. I mean, that was your bonus action, right? your curse, so you may as well finish your round. Yeah. So my hex blades curse. I imagine you're doing one of those like superhero jumps where your like legs are back

and arms are open and somehow you are able to jump, like leap. I've cursed this creature for one minute. Oh. I gain a plus four bonus to damage rolls and I score critical hits on 19 or 20. And I regain HP when it dies.

Holy crap. Nice. Okay. So I got to rebuild my character. Ha! And I rolled a 19, so that's a crit. Yes. Wow.

Let's go. So she rears back, she hurls static at this beast. It does 35 damage, almost pincushions him. She calls it back, and she's going to throw again with her second attack. Excellent. Nat 20. Wow. Rolling fun.

Tonight is the night. Let's go. Nice. Yeah. As static impales this creature through the stomach, with it, you are up close and personal when you see its eyes fly open in anger and confusion. And then the javelin is ripped from his stomach as it's called back to Temeel, you launch it again. 29 damage.

Fuck yeah. Cool, cool, cool, cool. God. Insane. That is insane. She'll then jump over the plates to... She'll enter the room and make herself a target. Excellent.

Make a real easy athletics check for me, please. It'd be really funny if you trick and trap, though. I mean. Or if I had not one here. 24 athletics. Now you're good. Excellent. But two juicy hits and then you like fumble on the...

You're looking so badass. Such a Tamil move, yeah. Classic Tamil. Instead she somersaults across the... And then trips down the stairs. Phenomenal round for Tamil. Who wants to go next? Witted, I presume, since you're standing in front of this creature,

or do we want Red to hop in? Whatever you want, bud. I feel like I can do a good final move if we need it, so you guys go ahead. Perfect. Then I'll step in. Red pivots out of the corner cover and pulls back on his arrow and fires at this guy. It's like starting to struggle to stand to its feet a little bit and then just... That was a natural one.

No! Wow. We are polarized. I was thinking Wittit is invisible and probably got really out of the way of Temeel's attacks, but I won't just say, I'm like right there. You wouldn't know.

You're not sharing the square, though. Fair enough. I appreciate that. Shame, shame, shame for real. Shame, shame, shame, shame, shame. Shame, shame, shame. Harlan, before you do anything, do any of your magic arrows

force any kind of saving throw? Yes. As part of my hex, I can give disadvantage on an ability. So if you have an ability that you would like this thing to have disadvantage on, let me know. Con. Con? Yeah. Okay.

So then as part of this hex, his con is compromised. His stamina. Okay. I mean, con's a bad one for this guy, but this would be a fun one. What makes you think that? Well, put it this way. It's either charm him, which I don't think we want to do. No, I'm going to, yeah, con.

Sure, sure. It'll be fun. Red pulls out one of his magic arrows. This arrow. is dark and there's wisps of black smoke licking off of it. What the fuck was that?

That's the licking. It's a sound it makes as a guess. The wispy black smoke. Most uncomfortable arrows. It's going to be a dirty 20 to hit. You hit absolutely. A dirty 20. Oh.

Nice, nice, nice. It would be a dirty 20 with those arrows. What the fuck? Dirty 20. All right. Immediately regretting. So that's 33 damage.

Hot damn. Seven of which is necrotic. I don't know if that matters. Never seems to. I always say it, but it never really seems to matter. Some things might have vulnerabilities or immunities. Yeah. Not Joe's monster.

How do you? He must succeed at a Constitution saving throw that he'll have disadvantage on. Excellent. I already rolled it. Twelve. That is a fail. Woo! So, it would have been a 22.

So, well done, teamwork. The damage dealt by this creature's weapon is halved. Nice. Okay. So when it attacks, it's going to attack half. I mean, if it ever has the chance to, probably not. And Red sort of saw Widdid standing right in front of it and was like, got to get one for my buddy and like hoping that, because, based on the image,

I'm assuming he's got like a giant mall or some shit that's going to wreck. A huge sword. Yeah, so, so yeah, anything he attacks with is going to be halved. And Red moves to the farcourt. Marvelous. Who's up next? I have this like really comedic image in my mind of like Doran racing around the corner

and like just charging and sort of like this blind attack from around the corner. You know? And doing 29. Yes. A 12 points of flashing damage. Marvelous.

He takes a swipe at this creature's gut. Oh, how uncomfortable for this guy. And I'm going to use the great weapons master feet on this one. Nice, nice. Uh-huh. And attack is a 12 hit.

You miss. Doran misses. Okay. Doran basically looks over at Witted after he slices this creature in the stomach once and kind of fumbles with his axe a little bit. Oh. Absolutely.

That's what he says. Very good. Right is he's a word like Witted is a very obvious. he is based on the noises, even though he's invisible, but you can't see what he's doing with his gauntlets or anything, and it's only when the orcish creature with all the spikes is like getting ready to apparently attack, and you're not sure if Witton's going to do anything, when all of a sudden it looks like something's hitting him in the stomach a little bit, and as Witted appears in his armor with his invisibly wearing off, it's clear

that he has pushed his gauntlet into the stomach, where you tore through the guts with your axe and there's no fist anymore. It's just sort of a gun that then fired a thunderwave directly into the stomach of this creature. Wow. Gun hand.

Amazing. So he gets a constitution saving throw and I'm doing a second level thunderwave. It shouldn't hit any teammates, but it is going directly into the wall. So if he fails a saving throw, in theory he goes flying 10 feet back but that's really I have this vision

of like someone trying to climb out of their bed and someone just pressing a shotgun to their chest and pushing them back into bed with the shotgun kind of yeah oh that's awesome um and he's still hexed right 14

14 is not enough to beat my spell save DC he takes the full 18 damage and then any damage he might take from being shoved 10 feet directly into his sarcophagus thing he was in. Yeah. Witted. All

of that happens and as you shove him up against the wall blood just pours out of the wounds all around your gun hand and the life leaves his eyes and he slumps back and then down against the wall

there's like streak of blood on the marble behind him. Holy fuck! Whim runs into the room ready to go and there's nothing to do she's like all set she's eating a granola bar you don't want to see whimmy

we disarm her slumps like taxed obviously and he turns back rotating the full head towards Tamil and he goes it's not normally that cool thank you for the alley-up there yeah thank you for mine too she gives you a little salute and then she

starts to whisper again and you see that same kind of black cloud emerge from the corpse now of this figure and make its way back to her and it just kind of dissipates as it gets closer to her. Well, so cool. Mr. Vampire!

Timil chuckles and starts like stabbing kind of like lightly at the ground. Oh no. Well done, everyone. That was simpler than I thought it would be. Yeah. The orcs kind of made a big deal about nothing. Well, I wouldn't say nothing. That creature looking down at this, like, bloody mess.

I don't think he saw it coming. Hey, you should check his body. You see if he's got anything good, Doran. Yeah, I might do that. Doran, like, misunderstanding kind of goes reaching through the corpse, like the cavity. Apart from this wicked, entirely too big great sword, you don't find anything interesting inside of the body cavities. of this creature.

My Detect Magic is still active. Is there anything in the 30-fit radius that sort of glows? Yeah, dude. Red, not only are there some really interesting things deep within this pool of water that are pinging your detect magic, but the water itself actually has got this haze of magic coming off of it. The water is magic, FYI. Seems like it's abjuration

What does that mean? I love that red knows what kind But like not what the flavors are supposed to taste like Kind of thing It's like it's blue raspberry What is that supposed to be Abjuration's brown everybody knows that Oh yeah definitely looks around

Canonical What's it when you've seen colors As numbers and numbers of colors He has that for magic Cytesthesia Yes yes he has magical synesthesia Amazing oh that's cool Um, but what does it mean?

Protection magic primarily, warning, that sort of thing. Ah. Do you think it's safe to drink? I think it's quite the opposite. Most abjuration means do not touch. You know what? I'm going to, I'm going to recant that. I'm sorry.

It's evocation magic. Everyone knows evocation is brown. What does evocation mean? explosions, energy very often. Oh, well, that water could explode, so... Do you think it's safe to drink? I think it's quite the opposite, unfortunately. Red kicks a skull into the water.

The skull slowly sinks into this beautiful pool. It's actually quite a lot deeper than you would have assumed from just looking down into it. The skull falls for a little while, and then it lands softly amongst piles of gems. Is there anything down there that looks like more than a gem, either like an actual piece of jewelry or maybe some sort of like artifact or relic or anything that's kind of visible? Hard to tell from how high up you are compared to the bottom of the pool.

It's maybe like 40 feet down. Wow. Dorn seems like a trap to me. Looking out and just picking one of the gems kind of at random. If there's a blue one, if there's a blue one, if there's a blue jewell. gem really obvious. There is. Tamil...

I'm going to pick the red one. Tamil kind of, she raises her hand, it gives off a little bit of a lightning discharge that forms into this kind of static-y spectral hand. I'm going to mage hand down into the water to grab just one of the gems and

try to bring it up and see what happens. Oh, cool. And your mage hand can reach 40 feet? Oh, no, it's only 30 feet. Hmm. So you're SOL. You scoop up a bunch of water, though. Yeah. Well, sure. Shit.

At least we know it is water. Dorn kind of leaves back down off this ledge and gets right down close to the water, almost like his nose is almost touching the water. And then he dips his pointer finger into the water and just holds it there. Yeah, it's wet. It's just wet. He's not sensing any, you know, magical. You know what? There is like a familiar kind of thrill.

It's the familiar thrill that you get whenever you touch a magical item. It's like, oh, this is magic. I can tell that. You know, it's like when you smell mint. You're like, oh, it's mint. There's mint. So he sort of proceeds to push his hand in further. Well, Red will be like, oh, hold on, hold on.

Could be dangerous. Don't worry, I got this. Steven! Red screams out, and you see emerge in the water is a dolphin. Ooh. What? Red reaches down and pets his dolphin says, oh, I guess you didn't know. This is my friend, Stephen.

Where did he come from? Oh, he's my spectral companion. Oh. I have Stephen, the goat. Sevin, the dolphin. I have Stevie the rat, and Red reaches into his bag of holding and pulls out an orange rat that he just totally forgot about it and puts it on his shoulder. And sometimes Stephen has taken the form of Scriven, which is a bloodhawk. But for now, Sivan is the one that will go down there and take a look, right?

Maybe like looks to the dolphin. Steven's like, eh, or whatever. Let us know. Yeah, and the dolphin goes. Yeah. And Stephen has a nice deep dive down into the water and then comes back up grinning the way that dolphins do. Could you carry a little one in your mouth, grab a little jemmy for us?

Totally, yeah. Stephen goes down and retrieves an aquamarine worth 500 gold pieces. Well, this seems to work. Do that a bunch more times. Have at it, Stephen. Yeah, just keep a pile. We did. If there were going to be some sort of technology or some sort of nether,

something, would it be at the bottom of this pool? Is there another place we should be looking? I think it's more than likely. I think we should take a close look around this entire chamber and see if there's anything we've missed. And Wood would definitely look around for anything else. He'd also send Reggie out his homonculus to see if he can grab stuff out of the water as well. Hey, jump on in.

Homoculus and Stevens. I love the idea like the homonculus like clips onto Stevens. Yes, 100%. Absolutely. Yeah, ride me down to the bottom. and then he can help grab stuff and throw it on his back. Are either of your companions considered, like, creatures? Mine's spectral.

Spectral and homunculi. Homunculi is a construct. Does it communicate with you? Like, does it talk to you? Understands the languages I speak, but he doesn't talk himself, no. Hmm, hmm. It's the same as mine. That makes my job a lot easier.

It's so similar between you and me. Cool, yeah So Reggie and Stephen go on some diving missions together Very good teamwork I love that they have like adventures down there Like a little bit down there like talking And like the adventures of Reggie and Steven

What a hundred is it They go off to Narnia Yeah yeah yeah Maybe Reggie like rides Steven down Because Steven's like a faster swimmer Yes You like clips onto his fin Yeah yeah yeah 100%.

Meanwhile the five of us are just kind of like looking around the room a little bit to see if there's anything else to be seen. Tamil wanders over to the west side of the room while everyone's, uh, ogling Stephen, or Stephen and the homunculus, and looks through the doors that are on that wall. Yeah. Um, there's more to this place.

Hmm? But we got everything we want here. Red's like lounging by the pool. It's just like, Tamil, you look down these twin-arched entryways and you see a wide, long corridor that extends 90 feet to the west. And at the very end of the hallway, there's like a cave-in-type rock-rubbly pile. And through this darkness, which your devil's sight pierces, you spy the hulking shape of the back. of a large orc that's propped up against a pile of skulls,

and it looks like he's picking his toenails. Yeah. Beyond which there's, like, more cavern. Oh, it seems to be looping back around. Okay. Huh. As Temeel is investigating what remains of these nethery's ruins, are two animal companions, one spectral and one construct,

managed to pull together quite a little haul of treasure from the bottom of this pool. And they're having like a full conversation that we don't understand. Yes. They're friends now. Every now and then, they'll cast a look over to one or the other of you and then kind of look back at the other one and they'll both start to do this thing that looks a little bit like laughter. I wore that for one week. What are they saying about us?

I don't know. But listen, we don't need them anyway. Sure, they're better friends, but that's fine. We'll be better friends. I mean, it's certain, maybe we should, maybe we should try to find gems ourselves. Well, I do think the water is dangerous, but, and Red is like scooping up these gems and putting them in the bag of holding. Yeah. There's, there's a bunch of gems.

Additionally, Reggie surfaces with a little ring. Good boy, Reggie. And Stephen manages to trawl for this strange pale blue stone that feels magical for sure. Whoa, you take the ring, I'll take the stone? We'll see what they do. Deal. Red picks up the stone without thinking. Sure.

You guys want to spend some non-canonical time to attune to these magical items just to figure what they are? Yeah. You discern that you have found a ring of regeneration. Well, well, well. As well as an Ayo stone of strength. Oh, Baba. Oh, Baba.

No wait. Now hold on Oh, wait, of strength? Ah, never mind. And as you are sorting through this pile of gems and these two magical items, any like minor cuts and calluses that are on your hands seem to be like healing over and...

Oh. The water. It's the water. I think I figured it out. Redpools and his dagger cuts his hands. and out, look with it, and like sticks it in the water. Yeah, the blood like seeps out of your hand and then slowly the cut on your hand closes over.

Oh. So it's not like a week later, Red's got a staff infection in his arms. It's Mercer, actually. Dorn like watches this and then leaps into the water. He'll roll in. Healing magic is evocation magic as well. I had not considered that. Yeah, Doran, as you spend a turn six seconds in this water,

perhaps drinking some of it in, you... Turn into a baby? Are healed. It's like a weak potion of healing basically 1D4 plus 2 every round. Hey, everyone get over here. Fill your canteens. Red sticks his water skin in and fills up. Doran as you float in this water getting nice and healed up you're also overcome by like a strange feeling oh no you are repulsed by material wealth

oh that's funny the idea of like accumulating yo that's so funny like gold just seems like oh you do not want gems or magic items. Yeah. So Dori kind of, he comes up on the edge and he kind of does that thing where you do on pool. He puts his arms in the ledge and he's watching. He's watching red and kicking slowly. Whitted around the gems. Doran's like, how can you guys even care about that stuff? I mean, who cares about these possessions of, it's just a few sparkly items? I just don't understand it. And he kind of shakes his head in disgust. What, what do you mean? What's wrong with possessions?

I mean, that's what we do. Kidding me? No, there's far more important things in this world. Like, how about life and living? He, like, lifts his hand out of the water and drinks some of the water. Come on. Witt is just looking back and forth between the two of you blinking behind his goggles, utterly confused. I mean, I guess.

Look, we should just put all that back. Do we know, we don't need anything. Yeah. Hey. I'm backing away. Come on. Shove all that back in. Yeah.

Yo, right. Red, like, dumps the bag of, like, the gems. He just collected. He doesn't even touch the water, but he's, like, convinced with Dors. So easily. So persuasive. Hey, Dorn's got a good point, guys. This is weird.

Let's leave it. They just, like, walks. We're all back in. He scoops a bunch of it back into the bag. No, no, wait a minute. Now, this is, this is ridiculous. No? Witted, you want me to keep it?

Like, Red's just, like, easy going wherever it's going. I mean, we could keep it. These are relics. Oh, what's wrong with you guys? Come on. Well, hey, listen, we're a party if we did want some of them and we should keep some of them and Red puts them back in the bag. Oh, whatever. And he just kind of floats back and then move swords getting out. Tamil's wandered off down the hall a little bit because I think that she spies a passageway that she wants to peek down. Yeah, Tamil, as you hear your companions batting echoing off of the vaulted ceiling of the pool room like in a kind of like a comforting way sort of distant as you continue to explore this ruined by yourself heedlessly you come across

a T-junction on this hallway that leads west back out towards the orcish caves you look down the hall and you spy some chambers beyond, though it looks like there is some sort of cave in that interrupts the corridor. There's a deep crevasse in the floor stretching down.

She'll shoot back, aware that there's an orc and not sure who's been told what in terms of what that they're allowed to be in there. She'll kind of shoot back to Witted. She'll hit them each individually with message. There's something more here. More. Come on, Dorn, put your clothes back on.

Let's go. Dorn's clothed, but he's just sort of ringing himself there, yeah. Oh, yeah. Witted had kind of stomped his way down into the water and started gathering up the gem stones again, like I'll do it myself. And here's the message while underwater. Blom more and immediately to the surface. Bobbs to the surface.

Witted, as you're delving for gems, you also start to become less possessed by this. concern from material goods. Oh, right. Oh, no. I'm sorry, Witted absolutely goes, oh, right, oh no. And float to the surface in his armor and just anime style. He doesn't even say anything. He's just floating there.

I can't believe I did that. And Wim is standing there beside Red, like, what are they doing? Hey, listen, adventuring, you're going to change a heart every once in a while. We take and we take and we take. Maybe it's time to give back. Red dumps the rest of the gems back. She puts a hand on your shoulder, and she, like, takes the ring. She puts it on, and she, like, admires it on her hand.

Oh, yeah, keep that. Here, take this stone, too, and I give her the strength stone. Sure. She, like, tosses it up and down in her hand as she starts to walk out to where Timil is. Oh, whim. You're so young. You don't understand the complexities of what these two characters have learned. Like, red thinking they've had this change of heart.

They're not just, like, magically duped. They're so wise. So the party stands at this T-juncture. One end, the western side of the corridor, leads back in towards the cavern system where the orcs are. And there's also a hallway that heads south here. This southern hallway is interrupted by this huge crevasse in the floor that leads deep, deep, deep down into the earth. Cool. Should we cross the chasm?

I wouldn't. I mean, I've seen you fly any sort of. it turns to Witted. You'd probably be able to scoge across there. Would be a problem. And I've seen you jump. And he looks at both Tamil and Red. Well, Widdid, I look to you if you want to explore these more.

Your draw towards netherese is the strongest of all of us. Another option could be that we could return their sword and or head of that creature to Graklack, Chief Graklack and... And move on. I and Slag does still wait for us, and we do have the potions. I do also have to ask if Witted still would not feel materialistic. 24 hours. Oh. Yeah, then that changes things a lot.

And even, I assume, gnome cunning, having advantage on saving throws against magic, wouldn't interact here. It's just what happens. Dorebly, I would want to go with there, but what's the point? Let's just go Well, we might as well go back You wanted to look at that necklace, remember, the netherite necklace? You don't...

Do you want to go back for that? All I need, I have right here. Aww! Wait, with us? He just sort of sinks into his armor a little bit. Oh, your armor, right, right. I thought he was talking about us for a second.

I wasn't going to lie. My armor. My heart skipped a beat. All right, well, let's... leave then, I suppose. We didn't take anything, really. Since Tameel had punted the idea of, like, we'll deal with the necklace later, but was very aware of, like, Witted wants that thing, noticing that he's now just, like, disinterested,

I think that she would probably bring it up, and she would probably pull red aside. Do you have any worries about this, or should we just kind of take the W? Oh, Tamele. You and I, clearly, we have a lot to learn from these. too if they have the ability to walk away from such riches.

Tamil's nodding at this sage advice and internally is like we're just going to take the double you then and follow us off. And with that, the five of you exit the mountain system

heading for iron slag. 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. Alicia Andrus Alicia Duh Amanda Nicole Anna Lena

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Vol control, Waffle 427, Wanderer Fen, Ren Gillespie, and Zill Street, Liz. Thanks again for watching and see you around the table. And sometimes those who enter never return. Mmm. Mmm. Mmm. Mmm. I am very much picturing the next morning,

Witted waking up with a scream of utter horror as he realizes what he is done. No! You know, Hey!