Dice Shame - 2-146 | 'Get The Shaft'

Episode Date: June 12, 2025

Within the elevator room, the party makes a plan and scouts ahead in order to locate their target...________________________________________________________________________________________________________________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 friends Nic & Timm 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.

So, we need to get keys. Chuck a dwarf. Somebody stop it. Moor stairs. I know. I know. Down to the belly of the beast. I think we should try to rest.

If we get interrupted, we get interrupted. Just hanging out with a little baboons. All right. It seems to me like it might be a good idea to find somewhere that we can stay hidden. They definitely probably wouldn't expect it. There was a lot of ogres down there. Ogres and giants. You can't even float ideas like this.

It's Sunday dinner. They always do this. It's the game. The game is on. Giant gathering Giant ball Frost Giants versus the fire

Welcome back to Dishame This is Season 2 episode 146 Get the Shaft MVP this week is Jeremiah Who found Dyshame through malevolent A few weeks ago they finished season one and they are well on their way through season two, they said that this is one of the greatest TTRPG podcasts there is.

Wow, Jeremiah, thank you so much for the kind words. You're this week's MVP. All right, should we play some D&D? Yeah, let's do it. Woo! Aha! How was your birthday, Tim? Did you have a fun celebration?

It was very good. Yes, I had a great time. time with the family. Obviously, my family's gathered for Easter, so it worked out perfectly. Yeah, you have a close-knit family. You play a family D&D game, don't you? We do, and normally on Sunday, so the funny thing was our, it's all family members and then Will, who joined in the beginning before all the other family members glommed on. So Will's like, oh, gee, you can't deny Will is, like, a core member of the game, but he's also the one random, like, non-family member. And so, yeah, yeah, it was, it was, Will chimed in like, hey,

are we playing and my family's like we were like the we were raised catholic and stuff so for all of us who was like no it's easter are you crazy man like what are you talking about and then my brother woke up because we're not big like anymore on easter and like don't make a big deal out of it but we do gather and we have dinner and it's really nice but we just woke up like a normal day and my brother's just like logging on like it's sunday time to play d and he's like wait no I'm supposed to be heading in to do Easter with everybody. Took a minute to catch up. I wish I played D&D with my family. What? Wait a second.

Alex doesn't count. No. And I count. Oh, yeah. I guess two of my family members. Yeah, exactly. I thought you were goofing. You weren't even goofing.

I was half goofing about, I was having me about Alex, but I kind of forgot you're my family. Hello? Wow. I'm like premium family. You're so much more than family. You're, you're premium plus. You're family plus. She chose.

You're a subscription without ads. You have the high tier. You have the highest tier. You are on at least three devices. Fucking subscriptions. Yep. The worst. I realized that I didn't, I should have asked this in the session last time.

For something like, Alex, you had brought up the idea of having to meal throw Dorn in through a window. My assumption is that would take an action. Would it have? or is that is throwing a teammate in a free object interaction. I like how Tim's going back and forth on that one. Yeah. You can see Tim being like, I would probably personally, I think we treat it as we look at these things storywise first.

Why are you answered? I would like to, yeah, wow, please. I'm not answering. I'm just suggesting we have historically. I mean, obviously it would be something that you'd have to do on your turn because it would be part of what your characters or action economy would need to take care of. I would definitely be asking for a skill check.

Typically, I allow for like one kind of free skill check per turn in combat. And then obviously there are a list of like free interactions. You know, open a door, chug a flagon of ale, whatever. I wasn't sure of chuck a dwarf. Chuck a dwarf is. Chug a dwarf. Open a door.

Yeat a dwarf was part of it. Yeah. chuck a dwarf it's on the fence for me honestly and i think you would probably depend on whether we were in like a dread peril situation or not okay because i think the majority of combats are free and chill and easy um but when we're getting into for example tonight's session where we are actually delving into a fire giant fortress this is going to be a situation where i'm going to be a lot more by the books in terms of how I want to dictate character action. Okay.

Adjudicate. It ended up being a tense fight when we knew that they were going to like just start murking the prisoners. It was like, oh, man, I felt a lot of tension and drama in that fight. Yeah. It's also true. Like, it's okay to say no. Like I also kind of sprung that on you.

I was like, oh, you know, it's like, oh, you know, it's. do you want to do this it's okay for be like no i don't really want to i kind of want to i kind of had this idea harlan i do that all the time yeah where i'm like hey harland just do this and he's like no say no like i do that a hundred times and he just keeps saying no no we get off on jo denying us yeah i like being withholding i just i want to make sure my nose are defensible do you know what i mean like sometimes just going to be like i'm not in the mood alex yeah that happens a lot to me now she's never in the mood i'm not throwing dorin most most nose i will say, Alex, most of your

denials of me are when you're not in the mood. Because I'll be like, what about this? And you're like, no. And then it will be like, you'll literally finish the session and go, I probably should say yes to me. That was me last session. I was like, oh. No, because Alex, it's the brother thing.

Because he'll be like, no. And then he'll think about it like, oh, that was fun. To be fair, to be fair, nine and ten times I'll still go with it. It's that one time where you really piss me off. I'm like, fuck you. I'm not doing it. Oh, you think you're going.

Getting away with this, eh? Guess what? Door just sits there. Anywho. Anyone else want to bring up any... Are their grievances? Do it now? It's the holiday.

I got a lot to send. No, I'm just kidding. And another thing. Are we... Do you have a... I just... We can do this in this... Shut up, Nick.

Mm-hmm. Do you want to try again? And take two. I was going to ask about where we're starting, but I could also just sit back and kind of let that happen as it would naturally. Do you know what I mean? At least it's not me.

You're eager to play and that's a good thing. That's true. Lafo, listen and find out. At least you're not Alex. That's the best. That's, because that's what I always do. I'm like, okay, so where are we? And Jill's like, well, let me speak.

That's not even the worst thing you'll do. The worst thing you'll do is you'll like narrate her job. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I imagine we're in a small village. And she's like, and like, the snow is coming down. Yeah, yeah. And I'm like, and I'm like, cool, Alex. Joe, continue?

When we started this show, the number of times where I would have written an opening paragraph to like begin and set the scene. And Alex fucking cuts in and it's like, so anyway, Doren, I'm like, give me a second. Not only that. Not only that. You'll be like, you enter the inn. And then Doren's like, yeah, so Dorn's like outside on the street, you know, touching the snowflakes. And he's looking around. an in nearby, that's more often.

You're in the in. He's like, what the fuck? Okay. We love you, Alex. That's good stuff. I love you guys too. Yeah. Should we play some D&D? Yeah, let's do it.

Cool. All right. Do it. Let's go. After having ascended the 12,000 steps on the face of Mount Hammerhaast, investigated the yak folk village and liberated the remaining slaves you encountered there, you destroyed the water wheel

that controlled the elevator which would have delivered you deeper into the mountain The elevator thing He's not working anymore Is that a problem? I don't think I could fix that Yeah, we'll have to take the stairs, I think

Ugh More stairs? I know, I know Hey, they're good for your thighs and your buttocks Not more stairs, Edwitt, it's just floating The legs aren't even moving on Bessie Absolutely, just jets.

So we've moved into this like vast chamber. It's very large, 50 foot high ceiling, 80 foot diameter. And as you look down, everybody's dark vision just drops out at the limit. This is an incredibly deep pit. Suspended from the ceiling, there is this rig of like a, there's a platform, that would be ascending and descending, you presume from this like winch and there's a chain and it's all very elaborate, but there's essentially this like fantasy elevator that would be powerful enough to permit ascent and descent of you would presume several giants at a time

or who knows what they would use this machine to transport. But as it is right now, it is neither moving and the platform is also not visible. To the west, you can see there is sort of like another chamber off to the side and that's where Tamil has said there's this set of stairs you can use. I don't think Tamil said that yet, did they? There's a chamber over to the west here. There's a set of stairs there that we can use. Oh.

My name is Tamil and I'm saying that. Those are the stairs. Those are the stairs you're referring to. Those are the stairs. Doran, how are you feeling looking over Doran's wounds from the previous battle? Right, Doran got hurt.

Red says as he's like spitting over the side of the thing tearing very little. Yeah, I'm down to 71 hit points from 97. Doran's like, oh, thanks, Timile. And he kind of holds his forearm a bit where his bracers clearly taken

like there's the leather on top of the metal and you can see there's like a crease where the great sword kind of came down and crinked it all a little bit nothing's broken I should be all right just a little worse for the wear and you can see he's got some

some blood under any of his arm do we have a moment to just I know that we're under a bit of time pressure but do we have perhaps a short while to just mend up a bit? To mend up her. Sure. Hey, whatever's down there is sure going to be bigger than the yak folk and those chimera, so I'm happy to take a quick beat.

Yeah, you've got that ability, haven't you, to heal? I do. Out of character, I'm wondering if we do have time for a short rest. This is a meta thing of wanting to preserve spell slots, but if we do not have the time, then I will absolutely heal. I am always in support of using short rest. rest same joe listen you guys are full within your rights to dictate whether you want to take a short rest or not the world will keep happening while you are resting though so take that into consideration

and maybe consider what that means okay yeah i don't know if they'll notice that the elevator isn't working or if there's some other way that they would be able to tell that something has changed but um i don't know red can you hear any anything down there as you're like leaned over spitting down the what oh yeah sure let me take a lissy and uh red just crawls down and under the guise of putting his head to the sand he uh he'll cast primeval awareness and sort of suss out if anything moves around i'm gonna i mean you don't have to tell me the numbers or anything like that my purpose in this is to find out if there's any sort of congregation of giants around the base of the elevator, perhaps in response.

So it takes one minute for Red to do this. He'll do a sequence of three minutes doing them and sort of do like a radar, like a boo, bo, right? Like seeing if they're moving towards it. Okay. That's fun. I'll allow that. I'm mostly just excited that you're not going to make me count tokens. Oh, no. I don't allow that. Oh, dear. A mutual allowance. There is indeed a huge congregation, numbers-wise, of both humanoids and giants here in Iron Slag, above which you are standing. And as you ping three times over the course of a couple of minutes, you are able to discern that there is kind of a large gathering all in one place of these giants and other

creatures and also a couple of other creatures that are moving around. Most importantly, you detect that there are two creatures who you would classify as a giant type that appear directly underneath you and are approaching. Red pops up. Look, I think maybe it's not the wisest time to take a break as much as Doran might need it. I do think they'll notice that the elevator is out, but more interestingly, there seems to be a large congregation of the giants and some humanoids down below. I wonder if they're doing some sort of ceremony or maybe a meeting of some sort to prepare for the assault leaving this place, which could give us the opportunity that we need to perhaps draw away Duke Salto. I don't know, we'll have to scout it out. But there are two giants below us now, and they more or less are heading this way.

Joe, could I do a history check or something to, just in case there was some sort of congregation that Timale would have seen when she was here last? It's Sunday dinner. They always do this. It's the game. The game is on. Giant gathering. Giant ball. Frost giants versus the fire. Yeah, I don't think you need to roll. You can just, you're not like reaching through the annals of history to recall what happened. This is just your lived experience. You, to your recollection, there was never like, oh, it's time for Sunday mass or whatever. There wasn't like a habitual gathering ever of these creatures necessarily. Okay. But you did see several spaces as you were being kept in iron slag that could have been. locales for a large meeting, just big enough for a bunch of creatures to have gathered. For instance, in the foundry hall where the pieces of the Von and Dodd were being hung and

assembled, certainly a large enough chamber for there to have been this aggregate of creatures. Additionally, there's like a feasting hall. So there's like a couple of different big rooms within the fortress that could accommodate something like what Red's talking about. Okay, Tamil kind of explains all of that. But I think at the conclusion of it, she'll say, but I've never, in my experience with them, they had never brought everyone down in from up here.

So whatever this is, it seems important or deadly to them at least. But I agree with your assessment. We should get moving. The congregation seems to be sort of in the north direction. around the, you know, and then based on what Tamil knows and now what Red knows, I'm sure the two of them can figure out whether it is the feasting hall or the foundry room. Yeah, this congregation that's happening is almost directly below you. So the room at the very, very bottom of the elevator shaft and to the north is the feasting hall.

and the room at the very, very bottom of the elevator shaft and to the west is that huge foundry room. So honestly, it's kind of tricky to determine. It's like a difference of like 30 feet. Okay. This is the elevator in between the dining hall and that forge room. Yes. Okay.

Correct. Cool. And Red's just been like sketching in the sand what you've sort of said about the places. And he's kind of like, yeah, you know what? It's tough to tell. They'd be somewhere between these. But either way, definitely means we want to keep a low profile. Dorn gets up from the knee he was taking,

tightens his bracer and says to Red, let's do this. And then, but looking around, okay, I love that. But looking around, is there still like the cable or rope or whatever? Like the platform of this elevator is all the way down? You don't know where it is in terms of its position, but it's not level with the ground. Like you can look down into this elevator shaft

and you're seeing only darkness. Like your dark vision peters out before you can detect where the elevator is. But it could be anywhere. But there is a cable or rope or something that presumably winches that up and down. Correct. I think you guys, judging by your faces,

I think you have an idea of what I'm about to suggest. Sorry, you madman. Stop, but he's stopping. He's crazy. Yeah, yeah, there's like this look going through his eyes. What if we, uh, and he kind of points up towards the top of the cable and then points down. What if we went down the cable? You know, down to the belly of the beast.

I bet they'd never expect that. They definitely probably wouldn't expect it, no. Did the elevator have an open top or was it more like a, like a basket? It's, it's like a platform. It's this elevator platform and it's suspended by there's an iron rig that's bolted to the pits rim and then suspended from oak beams that are above it. There are iron chains that are attached to presumably. So there are multiple chains that suspend this platform. It's like just a big cake stand is what I want to say.

Are you hungry or? I love it. Chains, I mean, we could climb down them. Wouldn't even get rope burned. Well, that's certainly one strategy as I, like, hover there. And I just kind of quickly, almost as if to cut us off from doing anything that hasty, you can tell he's a little bit nervous. When it extends an arm, you mentioned keeping a low profile, scouting potentially,

and a panel pops open and Reggie comes crawling out. I have to admit, regardless of what plaid we follow, I do want to know why the Giants gathering before we make any further moves. I would love to just send us for a little looksie ahead. I think that's a great idea. Might be a smart idea. And then while we're waiting for the recon to come back,

perhaps we can patch you up a bit, Doran. Hey, you know what? I wouldn't, I wouldn't deny it. Reggie crawling to the edge of the, and very much like setting up the whole like telepathy, but doing it via a panel like he's a drone kind of and I'm sending him down into the depths. Like, good luck, Reggie.

And he crawls to the edge and sort of opens up those glider wings, the teeny tiny little wings, and takes off and just starts doing some loops. Oh, and right before he goes, I reach out, and I just cast visibility on him. I'm not taking it out. Extra stealth, though, actually. I was going to say, that would have been a bad call otherwise. Wow, you're down one homunculus all of a sudden. I got, there is, in fact, those two giants, they are definitely there 100%. Yeah, I'll send him doing like little spirals downward invisibly, just trying to be as quiet as possible.

Fabulous. Like, during climbing down there on the chains is interesting, but it also leaves us no retreat. You know, if something goes bad, we're not going to climb the thing back up. Yeah, that's true. And then Red sort of looks towards a stairwell. However, it is interesting to think that we have two ways down. but they only have one way up. It could be beneficial to draw these two up the stairs

while we descend via the chain. It would take a lot longer for them to walk up and downstairs than it would take us to infiltrate. Do a bit of the old switcheroo. A switcheroo. Open up these doors. And Doran points to the doors that lead back out to the... Nope, no.

And Redd-like grabs your hand and points it to the stairwell. Nope, that way. Beyond the doors, I don't know. the chimera. We just need to make enough of an interesting sound to have the two be drawn up and drawn down. Look, it took us 1,200 steps to get up here. It's got to be at least

1,000 to get up and down. Two giants walking up and down. 2,000 steps. It's going to be a hell of a lot slower than us descending once. You got something there. Maybe we're resting while we're having this conversation. I'm

curious what I'm going to add here. Are we going to do this? I think we should try to rest If we get it erupted, we get it erupted. You know what, I can, I'll keep my ear out and do some primial awarenesses to see if I can't see if they start making their way up the stairs. How's that sound? That sounds good to me. Radar red? Healthy alarm system.

Radar red? Witted, let me ask you a question, roughly. Knowing how fast a giant's gate is and having a looksie at those stairs over there, how many stairs in a minute do you think a giant could walk? Oh, please don't ask me rhetorical There's so many factors there First of all you have to account for friction Is the giant a sphere potentially On average, on average

Witted is embarrassed Because he's trying to cover for the fact That this is actually a very difficult calculation So ooh, okay That wasn't a bad role though He does have a plus five intelligence So a 19 It's perfectly not perfect

Witted, based on your calculations, you figure it could take somewhere between 18 and 22 minutes for two giants to ascend the steps, depending on what kind of giant we're talking about. You know, there's different kinds of giants and Red only knows just the genre giant. Now, I know a lot about giants, FYI. But you don't know if this is like, is it a fire giant that's coming up the stairs? Or is it, I don't know. wouldn't it be a fire giant? Where are we right now? Well, Red, as you know lots about giants, you know that like an Etton, for example, would ping you as a giant. Stupid Etton. Well, just saying.

No, you're right. And like, they have different sized legs. Come on, where did it make a guess? Ten minutes, an hour. All right, give me a minute, give me a minute. And he stands up and you can tell he's a little frustrated. He starts marching around in a circle and finally seems to be like using the a firebolt beam to just do little tiny laser ping and you realize he's writing equations into the dirt like a napkin he's like, uh, right, and if I'm carry the four

and then he admits he has to look up and say do you do you know exactly the legs of a fire giant? You would know this better than better than be. Do you know their stride? Is it between what meters do their leg height usually come up to. Okay, what I'm trying to say is, are they taller than one foot above you?

Like, and basically he asks, like, has to ask a stride. Well, Red would know that exactly. Exactly. Because not only has Red track giants, there is favored enemy, and he has absolutely, like, seen their gate. Like, that's the one thing as a ranger. Red can pinpoint from a mile away. Like, that's a fire giant's gate. So, yeah, he tells you.

Oh, yeah, definitely. And he's 11.2 feet. He's excited that you know it's 1.2 feet. Oh, that makes it so much. He's up. All right, thank you. And, okay, so, yes, we have between 18 and 22 minutes. Don't hold me to that.

I would advise doing it every 17 minutes just to be safe. I'll do it every 10 to be extra safe. All right, let's rest. And Red will set up like, yeah, every 10 minutes, he'll do a little primeval awareness just to check. It doesn't cost anything. And rest. Yeah, Red then heads to the stairs and has his back. against the wall facing in, hidden from any giants that might approach from the top of the stairs and

look out. Hidden, you say. Yeah, hidden. So just to be crystal clear. Cool. And I think Wim is going to come with you just to sort of keep you company. Here with me. Sit down. Take a, take a bead off. Yeah, she sits down next to you and puts her back against the stone wall, sort of like pulls her legs up in and hugs around her knees and, like, lays her little head on her knees and look sideways at you. You okay? You get Cat's cradle done? She nods.

And then she pats her pockets, like, oh, I lost the string. And then she turns to you and pats your pockets. Like, do you have, did you pick it up? Do you have my string? No, I don't. Oh, Red reaches into his pocket. And he pulls at his page, his paper that says what every day is. Oh, I forgot about this.

I haven't looked at it in a while. while. You know, you never know if it's going to be good or bad news, but should I take a peek? She nods, like, super, super nods. Yeah, all right, I mean, and now and never, and red unfolds it. Your page fills with writing, and it says, Red makes an impossible choice. Oh, it doesn't bode well, or maybe it does. Uh, best not to think about it, I suppose. Redfolds a back up and tucks it away.

Don't worry, Wemiel, I'll always choose you, and he kind of nudges her. Tamil will go over to Doren and pull him a little bit away from the opening of the elevator shaft and also the top of the stairs. So they are kind of in as secluded a little area as possible, where she can be talking to him. And I think that she's just kind of commenting on the wounds.

How are you even standing with all of this? Oh. My God, you're one of the toughest dwarfs I've ever seen. Oh, well, thanks, Timil. That means a lot coming from a, you know, mighty warrior like yourself, but I don't know. I guess I have just gotten used to it through years of being in battles and scrapping with friends and enemies alike. And he's sort of undoing his bracers as he's talking about this. You see, like, there's, like, blood now leaking down his arms.

dripping off his fingers he's clearly got some like damage from this last little battle i did have a quick question raffy oh the monkey he's a baboon still here he's an ape oh he's questioning his existence why do i live oh yeah what am i yeah he's just hanging out i love the idea that if you're like tending doran's wounds raffy is like on the other side of doran like picking these please Picking my hair? What? Picking bugs out of my hair? Yeah.

Dorn's canonically a very dirty dork. Yeah, just picking nits out of his hair, his beard. Well, this is quite the pampering. Oh, I've got to say. I haven't had this kind of attention. Oh, at least a couple days. Just hanging out with a little baboons. Oh, right.

Yeah. Thanks. Thanks, Timil, for taking a look at me. Oh, yeah. Tim, as you're homunculus, Reggie descends the elevator shaft. Are you getting a picture in picture of what's happening with Reggie? Right now I am focusing on him.

I don't think that I see through his eyes necessarily, but he can telepathically relay back to me what he is seeing up ahead. He would just be almost like transmitting just raw data that I imagine maybe while I'm sitting there, there's a screen that sort of interprets what Reggie's getting, but I can't use it in combat or anything like that yeah so as all of this is happening in the room at the top of the elevator shaft reggie glides down and down and down circling soundlessly through the dark elevator shaft and as he descends he begins to detect landings there are places along the shaft where the elevator you assume would be able to stop and let out passengers

or take on freight. And these landings, for the most part, in the upper portions of the elevator shaft, are dedicated to mine entrances. There are deep, long tunnels that extend sideways out into the mountain. You can Reggie sees mine carts and piles of coal and ore. There are tipped over mine cart. There are mine tracks and discarded pickaxes, but everything is abandoned seemingly. There's no movement at all on any of these stops. And Reggie continues to circle down deeper and deeper until he encounters the elevator bottom stopped motionless in between levels how small is reggie is he able to like reggie is tiny so i was thinking there would be a gap kind of between the platform of the elevator and definitely the wall the shaft

Mind the gap. Yes. I'm always worried about dropping my keys in that gap, you know? Having met with the bottom of this elevator, Reggie's able to sort of scrabble along the exterior, the circumference of the platform, finds a gap between the wall and the edge of the elevator platform and squeaks his way through and underneath

and continues the descent into the bowels of unlawful. iron slag. So just to be clear, this was the elevator. We were only seeing chains up there in an empty elevator shaft. So now we know where the elevator is for what that's worth, but it doesn't work. Yeah, yeah. Making his way deeper and deeper into this elevator shaft, Reggie begins to detect an increase in heat.

It's getting really, really hot down at the bottom here. And I know that Reggie does have like hip. hit points and can take damage so he's not going to be able to necessarily do a lot of exploring before he has to come surface in order to preserve his circuitry reggie's heat alarms are going off he does not have fires yeah yeah exactly exactly thermal sensors yes but at your direction reggie does make his way into the fortress of the fire giants people can see witted now with both hands tapping and typing away at the forearm computer that he's like looking at Reggie like, I don't like this, I don't like this. And it's, it's that the elevator

is like separating him. There's a big elevator like between him and Reggie getting back to safety. This is very nerve-wracking. He's like a hacker. Yeah. I'm in. Literally. Yeah. It's like there's like some static happening just because of like the heat that's emanating. It's like affecting your transmission? Yeah, the picture's getting more ionized and stuff. And when you said that it was getting hotter below, it makes sense that like I was thinking, oh, this would act like a chimney. But like the elevator itself is almost blocking most of the heat, eh? Interesting.

And now finally, Reggie invisibly flits down and lands on the floor at the base of this elevator shaft. It's 500 feet lower than where all five of us are perched in the darkness overhead. Reggie sees that there are these iron pillars that support a gantry above. So there's like two floors to this room, a lower floor and an upper floor. So he's right on the bottom. And immediately he knows where all of these giants, where everyone, in Iron Slag has congregated because there is a wave of noise that almost like moves him as every throat in the feasting hall is open in this like unearthly shout and as he turns he can see that

there is an incredible feast going on and it is like this like this. insane military gathering. There are an array of long tables and benches and almost every seat is occupied by a fire giant, by an ogre, and these are all giant-sized pieces of furniture. So everything, he's like looking up at all of these bodies, and they're all standing to attention as at the very head of the room, a fire giant that can only be Duke Zolto commands a speech Some kind of pre-war feast is happening here And as Reggie needs to take flight again

In order to preserve his life In order to come and report back to you He takes off again into the air And the last thing that he sees Before he ascends into the blackness are the trust steaming bodies of dozens of yak folk adorning the top of all of these feast tables. Oh, they eat the yak folk?

And then he takes flight up into the elevator shaft. Seeing that, he is so much, like, initially just focused on, oh, my gosh, all the giants. And he's so, yes, this is where everyone is, of course. this explains everything and who do we have here duke zalto well well well perfect job reggie come on back and he just freezes seeing the camera sort of focus in on the yak folk bodies he doesn't say anything he just says come come on come on back reggie good job wow when red here's witted say okay come on back reggie he just sort of turns in widd's directions it's hey how how deep was the elevator shaft

after all. How many feet roughly? Okay, roughly. And you can tell he's nervous. And he's been talking loud like he's on the phone with someone, but now it's become like NASA like, we're going to get you up. And he's like, yeah, it was about about 500 feet. He's on his way back. It's going to take, it's going to obviously take longer to get back. But he has to get around the elevator. Fowd the elevator, by the way. There's two floors. What upper, one lower, the upper one's more focused on binding, the lower floor.

is the fortress and let's just say if we're looking for duke zalto that just got a lot easier oh how is witted feeling right now considering you've just seen like you know dozens and dozens of ogres and fire giants like knowing that we're descending into that like i can imagine you looking at it being a little daunted he is definitely not as daunted as he should be be given the fact that what he's happy about is knowing that he can confirm all the giants are in one place. He even says, like, this way, I mean, I would, I'm certainly not on board with any plan that would involve fighting everyone in that room. I'm on board with any plan that involves avoiding that room as much as possible and trying to make our way through the fortress and get a hold of whatever plans or information we're going to get. And, well, let's just say getting Duke Zoldo apart from everyone.

I don't know about that. That's going to get a little tricky. This is something where I'm going to want an opportunity to look around this place. But Reggie, it's dangerous for him down there on his own. My suit's protected. I want to look around the fortress, and I don't want to go straight for Duke Zaldo right away. Would it, did Reggie see any of the, I suppose at this point there would be pre-escapists, wouldn't they? I'm sorry to say, and be completely honest, please tell me if this is too graphic, but I didn't see any living slaves.

Or former escapeists. I saw yak folk. They had been, they were eating them. Oh, oh boy. Well, it might have been the ogre's idea. There was a lot of ogres down there. Ogers and giants. Oh, oh my. The giants are giving the orders. You want to have a look around.

What exactly would that entail? I'm just saying that I, there are plans to the voted Dod. Or if there are plans to the voted Dodd, then they're somewhere here. and I just want to look. I just want to see what there is to see. It doesn't involve necessarily putting myself in the kind of danger of the Vododon itself. Any information we could glean here

would be of great value to me. So, we need to get keys and some sort of, did you say, a shell from Duke Zolto? Yes, a conch. A conch. Well, look, and with it, I don't know, I know we haven't gotten to.

speak about this just yet. Tamil knows. Obviously, Tamil was also one of the destined, but look, the long and short of it is, there's a bigger picture here, and it's a conversation for another day, but we want to make sure that we leave with the conch as well. That will eventually bring us to, hopefully, the court of the storm giants. Yeah, Dorn's like doing some math on his hands, thinking about all these giants and ogres. Hand math. Two, three. uh in the great hall feasting and whatnot and thinking you know of all the different potential

ways we could go down there and start a fight and possibly make it out and what sort of this or that and then he pipes up he says well it seems to me like it might be a good idea to find somewhere that we can uh stay hidden for some time and maybe uh maybe get duke zalta when he's not you know and with an entire crowd we don't have time darling look I appreciate the necessity that we have to take a break, and it is a necessity. But we don't have the luxury of waiting. Look, the Von and Dodd is on his way to Silvery Moon, and it's still going to take us at least five days to get there. We still have time, but if we wait a day and Duke's alto slips out from our grasp and we have to hunt him down, well, that's just a risk we can't take.

If it weren't for the fact that there might still be innocence down there, I would almost advocate for really. redirecting this fucking river and just drowning them all. Hey, hey, yeah. Just pour the water down the elevator shaft, but we can't be sure that there aren't more people who are there against their will. Yeah. No, you're right.

I wonder if we could poison all the food. It took a lot of poison. I do like the idea of sending this waterfall down that shaft. No, no, no, we're not doing it. To me, you can't even float ideas like this. He'll latch onto them. Lesson learned. But we, to your point, Doran, need to get Zolto alone if we do not want to find everything down there.

He's not going to come running up the stairs at the sound of any noise. So how do we separate him from his pack? Well, Widdid wants to look around. Maybe we should just begin going down the stairs and maybe not go all the way down. Maybe explore the place just a little bit. You never know what we could come across. We might even find Duke's Alto's chambers. I think Witted is right.

I do think finding out the layout of this place is a smart first step, especially if we know this is their celebratory feast before they head out. And who knows, maybe that could be the moment we attack. I doubt Duke's Alta would be the first out of the door, or maybe he would be, and we just needed to lop off his head. Just set up one of those Home Alone type traps That's like a paint can

Just a large Yeah Anyway let me just take a quick lookie And Red does his primeval awareness It's been about 10 minutes And he just checks the And you can tell Red that The two creatures that have been approaching you

Have made a lot of ground Since the last time you checked And Red sort of raises an eyebrow And he says When you calculate it The time it took Did you calculate for 1,200 feet or for 500 feet, that 18 to 22 minutes? Oh, no.

They are definitely ascending the staircase, and you probably have a matter of minutes before they are on your position. All right, Red Hop's up. We don't got time for a rest. It's now and ever, folks. We need to descend. They are up here in minutes, and Red walks right over to the edge. Fuck it, and Red jumps for the chain. All right.

Now I'd like to just thank our wonderful Patrions. And what I've done is I've just created a list here. Let me just pull this out of my... Okay, here we go. Thank you to Lita J. Christopher, Colin Burkart, Merlin, Liz, Ruthan Reed, Trinth, Lorelei Feldman, J.D., Scotty, Haley, K.M., Queen, Shannon Waldner, Melinda Curley, Joy Robinson, Cass, Sray 96, Moon, Nikki, Gabby, Tao, Tea Kettle, April, Anna Lena, Gareth Bradshaw, Joshua Nance, Stab, Mandar Pants, Oakland, Nerd Fairy, Keely Hill, Misrah, Erin Lightning, Quinn, Rabida and Cheese, Axel, Abby Mae Birkin, Danny, Seer of Time, Izzy, Vol Control, Pan, Feli,

Absolute Ocelli Behavior, Starlight, Clockwork Phoenix, Lechra, A.K. Trashpanda, Amanda Nicole, Hyde, Alicia D, Marimo, Bird, Fisher, Cara, Navia, Navia Aguea, H.D. BeanFiend, Knox the Nightshark, Sunny, O.B., Luna Demaria, Luke, Wanderer Fenn, Caspian, Zill Street, Liz, This Guy Could, Emerson Forsberg, Martina, Karen Duley, Minty, Roses So Fenvi, Hydrus, Lissanne Cluckner, Jack, Celeste Jedlick, Eli Davis, Grace Searcy, Morang, Ren Gillespie, Nick D, Jellybean, Slate Blue Flowers, Shank, Jane, Veritas, Tell, Pat Tratt, Laura, Busing Star O3, Snick-Snack, Jaron Blair, Nukulam, Sakura, Sparks, Trinity, True EC, Elzebub, Delicate Jaws, Nosts, Swuk, Bup, Zbaltazar, Ad Jack's Art, Jinks, Conzo Como, and Teabad. Thank you again for listening, and I guess you'll hear us again soon. job being on the map first. Hey, look at you. Babe, you win map points.

Experience points. Just level me up. Just level me up twice. Oh, are we leveling up? Hell yeah. No, no, put just ready. Oh. Good job.

Can you imagine if you doled out leveling up the way you dole out? I've listened to APs that do that. But like individually? Yeah. We're like, you listened. You go up to levels. That's what I mean. But it's like where, you know, the different party members are at different levels

because they've, you know, participated in different. That's too complicated. Oh, no. I, oh, my gosh, I hate that. I don't even want to track XP. For an AP, especially, I, that's my first home game was like that. It always was like, it felt punitive. Oh, my God.

You guys are level 11, but you're level 9. The DM's like, let me just get out my game notes. Did you talk back to me? You're level 8 now. Exactly. 7, 6, 5, 4. No, no, no. It's not your experience.

It's our experience. Our experience. It's that, um, communist bugs bunny meme. Not your, our experience. We fought the orcs together. I was looting the treasure in the other room, but I felt part of the process.