Dice Shame - 2-147 | 'What's Mine is Yours'

Episode Date: June 19, 2025

The party hastily descends the elevator shaft to find themselves in the heart of Iron Slag and it's mines...________________________________________________________________________________________________________________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.

Like a baby would, you know? This can be so exciting. On my way, on my way. No good. I'm not even bringing it up. Really want to. Are you all right up there, Timiel? Sorry, just making sure. Uh, how long have you been able to do magic for it? The goblins do it this way.

That's pretty standard, yeah. It would be nice to have some shafts. Don't make him so relatable. Agreed, let's do it. I'm doing it now. Rafi is useful. Another set of hands. You know, if there's a cage hanging over the lava and the chances someone going there is going to die, but there's a prisoner inside that, you know,

Like, that's a monkey risk. That's a monkey risk right there. It's a monkey risk. Classic monkey risk. That's a monkey risk if I've ever seen one. A monkey risk. That is a monkey risk. Textbook monkey risk.

Welcome back to Dyshame. This is Season 2, episode 147. What's Mine is yours. this week is Izzy, who has completed their back listen and caught up to the present episode. Izzy says, my takeaway is that I love this show and all of the talented people in it. Thank you so much for listening, Izzy, and thanks for the feedback. You are this week's MVP. Congrats, Izzy.

All right, should we play some Dongionis and Dragon? Yeah, let's do it. The party stands at the edge of a vast, deep, giant-sized elevator shaft into which a chain dangles, suspending the elevator platform below somewhere. With the possible threat of inbound giant folk, you've decided to hazard a descent into the depths. And Red, you've decided to just jump for the chain? Yeah, full out, full run, jumping for the chain.

Whoa, we're doing this, hey, chain style? Yeah, chain goes all the way down, right? Goes down to the elevator. Dora's eyes light up when red steps to the edge. He's like, oh, we're doing it? He nearly bumps to meel as he jumps to his feet. Oh, come on. We're going to go down the elevator chains.

This can be so exciting. I can carry up to 130 pounds just in case anyone starts plummeting. This is not necessarily a sustainable method, but I will do my best. And he starts just hovering around where people are climbing. Yeah. So these chains are suspended. from an apparatus that is hanging above this open pit that descends 500 feet in order to grab hold of them, any creature who wants to try to descend using a chain is going to have to

run up to the edge of the pit, jump and grab a chain like a hero, and then like hold on and just sort of like using their bodies just allow themselves to slide right down. Well, that's good, because we are heroes. Although, could I might maybe suggest a slightly more cowardly approach? Please. What's your strategy?

If someone were to say, try to rely on their acrobatics or something, could one kind of traverse the remaining bit of the axle, get over to where the chains are actually hanging down and then just kind of like swing under and instead of like leaping out to them kind of like grab onto them from above. Definitely. Cool.

Absolutely can. So anyone who wants to do the bodily like run, jump grab is using their strength. Anyone who wants to follow Tamil in a little more finesse style can use their acrobatics to traverse the chain and like slide down. But everyone who wants to grab a chain and control

fall will be rolling for me, please. Well, Redd already ran and jumped so I'm just going to follow for it. I think Timil would also look at Witted and say, unless anyone objects, perhaps you could take Wim. Certainly, yes. It seemed like I would be able to carry Wimmo. Yeah, she's like

110 pounds soaking wet. It seemed as such I'm definitely going to absolutely odd duty and I just, the suit picks her up. The suit strength is 12. I don't even want to think about wooded strength is, but the suit strength is 12, so it could just barely carry it. No one has feather fall, right? Just a dumb question.

I do not. Because that would be a much more elegant way. That would be... I have a rope of climbing, but I haven't brought it up because they would not reach at all. It's embarrassing. It's so excited to be like, and I can fly, and I packed a rope of climbing for everyone else. And it's just no good. I'm not even bringing it up. Whim does not possess featherfall. She does have fly if we run into some real trouble. But right now I think we're in good hands. I mean, listen, fuck it, man.

What? Whim's got the perfect tool for this too. She's got my favorite magic item. Yeah. The immovable rod. Which I feel like you could descend anything. Press, press. Yes.

You just have to make sure you don't. Oh, that's really fun. Click, click, click. How are you getting? Your shoulders would be so sore. Oh, yeah. It would be like a whiplash. Ultra dislocated.

That's my favorite magic item ever. Just put it between your legs, you know? You're like, you're falling onto a fence every time you're going on. No, that's so much more. Anyway, yeah, red runs for the edge, makes it full on jump, and aims for the chain with a 17. Nice. Great. Yeah.

You grab hold of it successfully. Is it like moving all the way down though? Moving? Like is the chain, you know, I mean. It's holding something that's very heavy. Perfect. So it's not like, it's not loose at the bottom. Excellent.

I was like, that would be really dumb if like giants are walking by and like seven of these chains are wildly swinging. Yeah, Red starts hand over hand climbing down. Cool, cool. You've got to climb speed, so. Doran? Doran rolled a natural 20 Hey That's so perfect

Added the wrong thing It's amazing Marvelous Yeah he leaps He leaps across the chasm And happily grabs onto this chain He's been thinking about this Since he walked into the room

He's just been like eyeballing it and going over in his mind So good I could do that I could totally do that Yeah yeah you psyched yourself up Jump off that. Are you all right up there, Timmil?

Tamil has been kind of like making her way across this axle. She's slowly shimmying. I think that she paused for a moment to watch both Red and Doren kind of make these impressive leaps. And Raffy runs by her and kind of knocks her off balance. I rolled a 14. You succeed. 14 is still okay. Yes.

Oh, you're all right up there. Come on, grab on to that chain. Yeah, yeah. Careful. On my way. Oh, my way. It's only hundreds of feet down, right? Everyone got a grip now.

Okay. And he floats down just so that he's right next to every. He doesn't want to be above anybody. He seems to be at level with the lowest person on the chain at all times. Whim and Witted have like a kind of awkward few moments together where they're like... Very awkward. They're like really close. 100%.

Like, her face is really close to your face. And, like, you guys have not. I can't imagine Wim is just staring at it. Yeah. Like, like, stone face, she's just, like, staring at him. Like a baby would, you know. He is kind of staring right back in this, like, what is, he's not saying what is it, but it's that's sort of the vibe that he's giving, but it's just them staring at each other kind of.

Yeah. I mean, Wim's just staring at you. She, like, hasn't blinked yet. And she's just looking at you. And I'm imagining, like, a Ren and Stimpy kind of close-up where she's looking at, like, all of Widdeds, like, pour. Yes. There's, like, like, the light wrinkles above his eyebrows. The, uh, the hairs coming out of his ears once you're up this close are, like, really, you start to really think, like, wait, how much of his hair is beard, hair on the top of his head, and ear hair. It's, like, minimum 10% ear hair, percentage-wise.

She's just like lost. Does it have like a long kind of bulbous nose? Yes. With like a few sproats of hair off the end? 100%. And he just goes, how long have you been able to do magic for? And she's like holding on to you

to like prevent herself from falling to her death. And so she can't really sign back at you. She just like, this is one of her eyelids like closes just a little bit. She just keeps looking at it. I find sorcery fascinating. And just so, the five of us begin our descent down the elevator shaft into iron slag. It's not a graceful affair for some of us more than others, but we make our way down these chains. It takes longer than it took Reggie for sure.

I presume Rafi is with us as well. Oh, yeah, Rafi's making a nuisance of himself and has to be shushed. That monkey on your back. He has to be shushed several times. But actually, as we're descending, are the giants that we're walking up the stairs, can we hear any sounds from them as we're descending? You don't detect them through your normal senses. You can't hear them, see them.

The elevator shaft is like an entirely separate structure, Although they run parallel down into the rock, you're like separated by quite a distance of solid stone. Potentially, if they had decided to take a break along one of these levels where it opens up on all sides and there's like tunnels into the mountain that you guys, as you climb down, you see like, oh, level one, level two, level three. If they had decided to take a break and like sit on the edge and talk about. To them, I just think Susan doesn't get me anymore. She never got you, erg. They're best friends, and they're like, oh, we'll go investigate it. We'll go investigate it.

Really? They're just slagging off. Taking some time away from the war council feast to, like, talk about their private issues together. No, yeah, you guys don't hear them, don't see them. You descend for maybe 10 minutes. It's hard going. For those of you who do not have a very high strength score, just hand over hand descending down this chain.

It's like pretty hard work. Not for Witted and Wim, though. Or Red. I have a climb speed. Yeah, that's fair. Red is just like, do, do, do. In fact, he would be at the bottom first because climbing is half speed, right? That's right.

So that would be 15 and Red climbs 20. So at the very least, he would get down there, which is nice because I still have pass without trace active. So you can sort of lead the way a little bit. Yes. Doran's so strong. He's doing that thing that really strong people do

with like poles and stuff where he looks like he's got his arms stretched out and he looks like he's walking sideways. You're just stunting down? He's like, check me out. Look, look how strong I am. You look over, he's doing like stunts on this like a circtusillade.

And then he starts stripping like it's like a strip chain. Oh yeah, you're like doing it. My wife's told me this. And then you look back, I'm back, dressed properly. Very good, very good. Mini montage.

It's about five or ten minutes of solid hand-over-hand descent before you make it down to where the elevator platform stalled between levels. But that's going to allow you guys to all sort of take a break, get off your biceps for a minute and collect your thoughts. Did it stop at a level? Between levels. So it's between. Oh, that's scary.

Because like imagine if it moves just a little bit, then you get chopped in half? Mm-hmm. What? If you're like trying to get down. Oh, I get it. Yeah. I get what he's saying. Yeah.

You get chopped in half instantly. Instant perma death. That's how you do it. It would be stupid if there wasn't enough space for you guys to shimmy between the wall and the elevator. But there's not. But there's not. No. No, what I'm saying is there is room because otherwise.

otherwise that's dumb, but there's going to have to be some finagling. How far down is the elevator from the floor below? There are 15 stops total along the way. There's 33.333 feet between stops. So are we closer to the stop above or below us? You are just above the floor below you. And what's the composition of the wall? Is it climbable for red?

It's pretty sheer stone. I mean, you can climb back up the chain. No, I would be thinking climbing to the nearest one. Climbing down these chains, we would have seen these floors, like these openings. Yes. Red walks to the edge and he ties a rope off the wood. You know, maybe I imagine for some reason in my mind, the platform is like almost woven at certain point so you could see through it. It allows the air to kind of flow through it.

And he ties it around and hangs it over the side. He says, we're pretty close to the floor below. Let me see if I can reach it. If not, I can use my kitty claws, and then we can just squeeze off there and walk down the rest of the way. And he flips over the side, lowers himself with the 20 feet of climbing rope, and that should bring him to the floor below us. Yeah, it's the mine level that is just above iron slag.

So you are still in the mine tunnels, not in the fortress proper. Excellent. But you are real close. And being that this is the case, starting get real sweaty down here. All right, Red pops back up, opens his bag of holding and hands an elixir to each party member.

All right, this is the show, guys. Everyone take this. He said eight hours, they last, and I have an extra one just in case. Beyond here, it looks like maybe the mind level. I'll go down last, and I'll untie the rope to make sure there's no evidence. That is the key here.

No one knows we're here. We made no evidence up above. For all we know, the elves revolted, and that's why one of the yak folks slaughtered them. It doesn't matter. But secrecy is key. Everyone got this? Wimnods.

I might go without saying that we might want to wait until the very last moment before drinking these. You don't know how long we're going to need it. I agree, Doran. Good call. Is there anything else we need to discuss? I don't know how much we're going to be able to speak down there, so I imagine, Tamil, you're going to come in clutch with that message. Yeah, I'll relay whatever messages I can back and forth. is there a chance that there's some sort of opportunity for ingress

from the mines, some sort of ventilation shaft or something where we can just, we don't have to go further down the elevator shaft. Well, that's my thought. We'll get off at the mines and we'll navigate through the mines, so I should have been clear. I don't think we should dip back into the elevator shaft. Thank goodness. Sorry, just making sure. Let's go.

Yeah, totally agree. All right. All right. And Ren just stops everybody and sort of locks eyes for a moment says, look, Tamil, Doran, Wim, Witted, this is, this is the big leaks. This is the third giant stronghold that Doran and I have come up against, and the first for you, Witted, and I know you've been here before, Tamil. There's no fucking around here. These giants will kill you if they get the chance. Let's stay smart.

Let's make the right call. stay in communication and above all else have each other's back no one gets left behind okay agreed whim nods

to meal nods together together yeah and Red walks over the rope and sort of helps people through he's gonna be the last again he's gonna untie the rope so yeah with the help of the rope

with Red's assistance everyone sort of swings down to the mine level just above iron slag proper and you make your way out of the elevator shaft. Very exciting stuff. So I wonder if this mine would connect and if Doran would know anything about that being a dwarf mine. Does he have mine sense? But I don't think that Doran's interests are that. You like licks the wall. Yeah.

Tastes like mine. Is there any reason why they wouldn't have exits? There's no exterior, holes on this mountain. We've seen that. There was two ways in. A mine that does not connect anywhere is the most useless mine in the world. You have obviously never played Minecraft. A central hub that you spoke out from looking for diamonds is how you do. That's how mining is done. Yeah. But also, it would be nice to have some shafts. No, but it would, it would connect. Yeah. And I played a lot of Minecraft. And I saw the movie. You make your way out from this elevator shaft into the mine's proper. It's labyrinthine in here. There are 20-foot diameter rough-hewn tunnels,

so much larger than the kind of mine that Doran would be familiar with. But similarly, there are rail tracks spiked to the floor, iron carts, all of the, like, standard mine accoutrement. Yeah, Doran's like, standard. That's standard. That's pretty standard. Some of the aspects of the mines are giant-sized. So there's like tools for mining all around sized for medium creature's hands. You presume that the labor that was being done here was all by smaller folks. How lazy are these giants? Right.

They're giants and they're getting the small folk to mine. That's just inefficient. That's like us making babies do the mining. That's exactly like making babies. babies do the money. It's arguably very efficient if they don't have to do anything. If you did this, how quickly you could have it done. Well, they got other stuff to do, apparently.

It's just that they melt all the ore if they get too close. So they can't. They just can't be in those minds. It's not all turns to glass. And if you choose, like, the downward sloping tunnels whenever you get to an intersection after about five or ten minutes of navigating these tunnels, You come to an area that has some light at the end of the tunnel, and this is where it's starting to get seriously hot.

Look, all I'm saying is why have the yak folk enslaved humanoids when the yak folk themselves could be better slaves than the humanoids were? They're giant, and clearly they... The thing is some sort of tear system. It just doesn't make sense. They're too proud to do that sort of manual labor. I know. Anyway.

I'm relying on you, Joe. as the DM to tell me when it's too hot that I start taking damage because I literally can't feel anything from here. You can't feel what your character's supposed to be feeling?

No, I'd love to, but I can't. That's so strange. Have you tried to fix the Augsport? I should plug myself in. Plug yourself back. Oh, it's hot there. It's starting to get to the point now where your skin is like,

it's like breathing through a hair dryer at this point. like yeah yeah yeah you're starting to do those little grunts that indicate you're taking poison down it's getting to the point where your skin is bubbling and you know that's way too late no but like you know that feeling when you step outside on like a really hot summer day and you're like the air that's coming into my body is hotter than my exhalation it's getting like that here now like when you're in a sauna so you're traveling south down this mind cart track and you see you're that up ahead there is

a room beyond. Tamil's going to do the kind of like the military hand gestures of like hold and then you know pointing at her eyes and then pointing forward. Doran's digging it. You know communicating back and forth and then she'll start creeping to try to get a look

into the room. Red will stay with her just to keep her in pass without trace. Thank you so much. Yeah so she'll come to kind of the edge. She's pressed up against the wall. She's moving super slow and she is trying to listen first for any movement and then try to get vision on the room. Fabulous.

Roll a stealth check for me, please. And add plus 10. This would be hilarious to fail. Here we go. Boop. I got a 17. Oh. Okay.

Thank you for the pass without trays. Yeah. Tamil, as you creep up to this room that is at the bottom of the mine shaft, you are able to assess that This is like the end of the line for the mine cards, essentially. This is like an ore shoveling and sorting room. There's a bucket chain that runs east-west through this room.

So there's like a huge iron chain that runs from a hole in the wall on one side to a hole in the wall on the other side. And suspended from this chain, there are these like 15-foot wide metal buckets. And some of them have got like some ore shoveled into them, but they are not moving. It's just stationary hung suspended through the room. There are a couple of piles of moldering crates and barrels in the southern side of the room that seem to be like coated in a layer of grime and coal dust. And somewhere in the middle-ish of the room, there is this.

large creature that is standing around looking kind of bored it's it's like 10 feet tall and it's got this vicious looking spear like held kind of casually off to the side and it's got like a long serpentine sort of body do i know what this is Roll a nature check for me, please. Oh, I already have two. I have a plus one on that. Better than my negative one. Eight.

Oh, natural. Cool. You would presume that this is some kind of fire elemental based on its coloring. Yeah. And the fact that it seems like really chill to be hanging out in this extremely hot room. Yeah. But apart from that, you don't know. You've never seen anything like this before.

Yeah, so then messaging to each individual, individually, some sort of fire creature, I don't know exactly what it is, but seems like he's a little distracted, maybe. Only one that I can see, though. Do you see an out of the room? There are these buckets on a chain and they have to be able to get out of this room. They're not moving right now, but there's to be somewhere that they can leave here. If I can see this guy, can I also see the opening into this other shaft? Yeah, you can see the exit of another set of mind. cart tracks, so you can extrapolate. There's also another set of

mine cart tracks just over to the side here, but I think that's just going to lead us back into the mines. Right, do you think we can sneak past this thing? Is he looking around, or is he just on his phone or like... Yeah, um,

he's... Acting like an NPC is a pacing? Some guy is trying to offer me 50 bucks for my old Xbox controller, no deal. As you watch, he sort of turns so that he gives you like a three-quarter profile and you watch as he is fucking with something in his hands and then he like puts in his mouth and like tears off a chunk of this like

riding creature. Ew. It's like little, it's like maybe a big rat or something. He just like bites the head off of it and like looks around. Rat like. Like he's having a little rat snack. It looks like he's having a little rat snack. Oh, that sounds delicious.

Don't make him so relatable. We've all been there God, he's just taking his 10 minute break, you know? It looks like he's going through something, you know? He's me, he's just having a rat snack. He's off the clock, but not for long, you know? What if it's not with the Giants? Look, everyone in here is with the Giants.

Let's just sneak past. Agreed, but be ready to fight just in case. Right, we all take him out strong as we can, one maneuver. I'll go first, so pass without trace will cover as much as it can. and red will slip forward to the edge. Tamil puts up a hand as Red steps forward and then just holds up a finger, one moment. And then she will cast mage hand

and find any loose pebbles or anything. And then she's going to try to cast them down the mine shaft that they're not in in order to try to draw this fire elemental out of the room a little bit. So smart. Nice. Not thinking. I love that.

So as this fiery snake, creature turns around maybe to like wipe some rat viscera from his face with the back of a hand your mage hand just like apparates and grabs a handful of gravel and just like scoots around the corner and down the mine shaft just a short way tosses it and there's like a little a very tantalizing clattering sound I can hear the sound effect now yeah Oh, there it was. Oh, that's good. Oh, and there's like metal tings from when it hits the iron games.

You heard that too, eh? It's not clear. It's like, is that a footstep? Is that a car horn? Is that like a creature? And then there's a duck down there too. Do you hear the duck? There's a duck.

Sounds like a dinosaur. A full marching band? Yeah, that's just drunk. That's a drunk, but anyone who's got their heads like peeking cartoon style around the corner watching this fire elemental type creature. Which we all are as students. Like a totem pole of heads looking around the corner. I'm on the bottom.

Sees this creature like immediately drops the half rat, stands at attention, like takes up the spear in both hands, and stalks north up the mine tunnel to investigate the noise. You have a few moments. And red immediately moves out and sort of stands at the mid distance between the two tunnels that we're heading toward. And we'll keep his pass with a trace as people pass. Cool. Yeah, Tameel's going to scoot, scoot, kind of leading the charge a little bit. Rafi right on her tail.

I'm not invisible, but I'll hover. Everybody please make a stealth check. Tamil is locked in. This is her jam. I got a 32. Wow. Well done. 26 for Red.

Wim's got a 21 only. Nice. 26 for Witted. Ooh. 31. Okay. Nice. Just say a bunch of numbers until one of them sounds high.

Sixty-thirty-one. I rolled it and you can see it. And I just make sure that everybody is out of sight from this creature should it return immediately. Yeah, it's like, just as Rafi's tail disappears around the corner, this fiery creature, you can almost see like light from it and maybe from it coming back down the tunnel and it reenters the room like, I don't know what that was kind of vibe. I thought I heard gravel. Must have been the wind Must have been all those rats I've been eating There was some carrion crawler

That farted down the tunnel If only there were some folks in here That weren't giants and ogres I'm looking for a friend to help me revolt I would love to just help them on their task I have this conscience key To the Vonnegut I give it to them to be honest

I'd let them happen if I just had some companionship I'm just so tired of being by myself Only they knew I was the prince But again, just more growl sounds. All right, and we move ahead. Let me tell you what you see here. This area is wildly hot because you're standing on this iron grating. Something similar to what parts of the elevator were made from that allowed red to, like, tie the rope off.

This iron grating is the gantry of this upper level. So you can see through, like, I mean, you got to step carefully because these. These holes in the iron grating are definitely big enough for you to lose a foot down and like punch through if you're not careful the way you step. Designed for big feet, right? So this is like kind of difficult terrain-ish. Not mechanically, but just like in terms of trying to describe to you. You are in the northeast corner of a very, very large rectangle.

Tangular room that spans these two stories. And standing as you are on this iron gantry, you see below you is just a fucking pool of magma. It's very intense. Heat is just like coming up in these shimmering waves and like it's blowing your hair up. There's like thermals almost being generated from this pool. Oh, we're Frodo. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sounds hot.

It's so hot. Oh, that's so hot. Below you, as you can see down into the chamber, this is like a big foundry room. There are these four huge smelters that are doing... Smelting? Smelting operations? Facilitating smelting. I don't know anything about smelting or foundry.

Oh, well, all of us... Good for you. I do. All of us have... worked in foundries for a year. Yeah, it is smelting when you, when you melt down. That's what's happening. So there's like a wild amount of heat being used to turn metal rocks into molten metal. And then as you can see from your perch in the gantry, these like channels of molten metal are being directed eastward into little rooms that are specifically designed to turn that

molten metal into equipment. There are some like molds for weapons and armor. There are some molds for pieces of Von and Dodd maybe, like plates of armor, perhaps. And then throughout the room, this bucket chain continues to snake in like a big sea. So coming from the direction that you guys were in and it like loops around the room to an exit on the south side. Oh, like a letter C. That's correct, yes.

Additionally, you can see at the very southern end of the room, there is a large iron staircase, a spiral staircase, that descends to the lower level. So you could take that as like a safe exit from the top level. From your vantage point here, this entire chamber seems to be deserted. Hmm. Hmm. I feel like I'm standing on a giant barbecue grill. And Doran lifts his licks her up.

He says, I'm doing it now. Cheers. Cheers, everyone. Bottom's up. Oh, that's quite nice. He's got florally fungus notes. It tastes awful. Oh, wait, never mind. This is my wine skin. He actually drank just a random different potion by accident.

Get like two sizes bigger. I'm extra strong now. I really don't need any loot whatsoever. He's got his wine skin filled with the pool of water that we took from the thousand mods. Oh yeah, yeah, you're like, I don't need any of this. We don't need the conch anymore. You empty your bag of holding above the magma

and just everything flows out. I love this idea, though, of finishing the fire elixir and like tossing it into the magma below, but the bottle smashes, but the liquid doesn't go into the magma because it's like... Oh, it just floats like oil on water? Yeah, it's like mercury. Cool.

Any thoughts, so we just move? We're heading for the staircase, yes? Yes. That works for me, absolutely. I want to see that up closer. See what up closer. Oh, boy. I like you taking the direction here, Tamil. All right, we're all good, and let's move then.

I have one extra elixir in case we need it. Red Taps the bag. Right, okay. And I think maybe Tamil looks at Rafi, and he's sweating. He's a sweaty little monkey. No, but it looks like he's probably uncomfortable. And, you know, like, maybe even his fur is catching a light in some places, like at the edge of his tail or something.

Oh, shit. Oh, shit. Why don't you grab one for the monkey there? He looks like he's sweating his ass off. I only got the one left, but... I'm so sorry, Raffy. I mean, listen, there's... We don't know what we're going to find in there,

so if we encounter someone that might... that could use it. Raffy is a creation of an old druid friend. He'll be fine. Look, look, look, look. The truth is, Raffy's already helped out more. And even if we find someone in there, it's not going to be one person. so we'd have to make a terrible choice frankly

not having to make that choice might be easier for us and Red walks over to Rafi and he dumps the potion down the little monkey's gullet and he gives him a pet also I'm a ranger and I love these little things and he like pets it Rafi runs up your body and then kind of like he's got his arm around your neck

and then he just grabs the bottle out of your hand and out he's just playing with the bottle but seemed exceptionally grateful oh the truth is he could be useful that's the truth okay another set of hands hell and and frankly no offense raffy but an expendable one that doesn't have to die instantly here ravi shakes the bottle i want to also believe that ralphi leaves enough potion in the bottle to extend fire immunity to reggie oh absolutely reggie you'll dip his beak in real quick like one of those little birds on the desk i think that's fair too like

two two NPC characters sharing it's pretty fair yeah they're not Full-sized, yeah. Yeah. Meta, honestly, Rafi is useful. Another set of hands, you know, if there's a cage hanging over the lava and the chances someone going there is going to die, but there's a prisoner inside that, you know, like, that's a, that's a monkey risk. That's a monkey risk right there. It's a monkey risk.

Classic monkey risk. That's a monkey risk if I've ever seen one. A monkey risk. A monkey risk. Textbook monkey risk. That's a monkey risk. Classic. Any creature that ends its turn in the room would be taking one D-10.

fire damage so every six seconds or if it is wearing a metal armor that's 2d 10 fire damage so I mean I would I would count um reggie is wearing metal armor yeah that's very simple considering he's made of metal he is yeah instruct oh reggie sorry I thought you meant the monkey again I'm like why the fuck is the monkey metal are you kidding oh you didn't know that the monkey was totally decked out and he's wearing a breastplate full plate these are mostly iron Our party, thusly protected, we make our way into this forge room and head for the south. Yeah, let's move. To the south.

Stop saying to the Indiana Jones theme. I will not. We got themes for the show. I can't sing those things. I don't remember them, but they exist. Here we go through the room. To do do do do do do do the next room. I'll make a new one.

It'll be very fun. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, fire giant walk. As we make our way along this gantry that sort of hugs the perimeter of the room and circles its way from north to south, we see that there is a door at the far east end of this platform. And then to the south, there's this staircase that goes down. I vote staircase. Right, I mean, it'll take us into the main part of iron slag for sure. what if we went the wrong way? What if this isn't even an iron slag?

Oh, this is Silver Moon. Where's my car? Can Timile just really quickly go over the door and just put her ear against it to see if there's any kind of sound coming through of movement? These doors, to be clear, Tameel, are giant-sized. Okay, they're 20 feet tall. So if you guys wanted to get through it,

You're going to have to, like, someone stand on someone else's shoulders to, like, open the doorknob and then push your way in. Like, these are substantial obstacles. But making your way over to the door, putting your ear against it, listening for a minute, you're not able to hear anything beyond the sounds of, like, bubbling magma from within the room that you're in right now. Yeah, just coming back over, I mean, we wouldn't be able to open them without drawing attention. so perhaps we should leave it for now. Yeah, look, I'm tantalized as you are, but that fire elemental or whatever the hell he was was standing guard presumably for no reason whatsoever,

so we have to assume the same. And if we don't need to open a door, then we probably shouldn't as much as I really want to. Anyway, we know where the congregation of giants are, and we know where our target is, so we should head there. Red says and kicks a rock angrily. Doran's looking at the door longingly. Tamil seems a little torn

and she says I mean but if all of the giants are down there and there is a guard up here then that suggests there is something worth guarding but it is not our primary focus and we are on the clock You can see Red is so torn he's like looking to the stairs and looking to the door

like I mean look stuff is always good don't get me wrong and look we do know that Duke Zoltow and the Fire Giants have access to elixes. They bought some from the Thousand Moss previous.

Maybe having a few more of them could be useful. And that might just be Duke Zaltos, you know, fancy place where he lives, a bedroom. There's a hundred reasons why we should go through that door. Agreed, let's do it.

Red runs over. Oh boy. And in almost comedic fashion, And Doran, like, hoists red up on his shoulders. Wait, wait, wait, wait. We might have just had the same idea. Wait, can you just send Reggie around and see what might be on the other side there? Certainly, I'll take a little peek-in.

Absolutely. Yeah, that's the perfect little, like, vent for him to go in through. He's still, I think, invisible so he can get into here. Oh, yeah. This exact same time, Nick, you and I were like, oh, wait a minute. Oh, hang on. We could just like, yeah. There's a map here and we're not looking at it.

As Reggie moves around the hanging buckets into the room beyond, bypassing this giant-sized door behind which our party is currently sheltering, he makes his way into a gigantic room. I mean, all of these rooms are gigantic, naturally, but it bears repeating because, like, it's just enormous. There are a series of wheels here in the center of the room that Reggie can. Deuce would have been used by the slaves to turn this gigantic bucket chain. Ah, like a big da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just based on the way that the wheels spokes and the machinery interacts with a bucket chain, it would be used to move ore throughout this facility.

Currently, though, the wheel is not manned by anybody at all. the room appears to be, again, largely deserted. There is a fireplace to the north. I don't know why these fire giants need more heat and light in the facility being that is like generating insane amounts of heat. Find a chili in here. Yeah, exactly. There are a couple of means of egress from this room.

You can continue along the bucket chain across the top of the room from west to east as you are traveling counterclockwise now around the facility. There are three other exits from the room. There's one to the east, there's one to the south, and there's one to the southwest. The one to the east is blocked by an iron portcullis, and Reggie can see through those bars that there are cages. within this room and contained within

are a few hellhounds. Oh. Uh-oh. A hellhound kennel. As Reggie continues to traverse this room sort of looping around the side of this big slave wheel, he is able to get a look down the hallway that leads to the southwest.

It's a medium-sized room square that has a giant-sized desk in the center of it, occupying most of the room. There's some shelves on the walls and things, but sitting in a chair behind the desk with his gnarled, calloused, sweaty feet up on the desk and just kind of like leaning back, almost in repose, there is an ogre. he's got iron armor on but it's also it's like he's got like his tie loser you know what I mean it's like unbuttoned down the front a little bit he's on break the straps are a little loose and it's on the ground sort of vibe um what a loser he wasn't even invited to the feast yeah yeah oh my gosh loser this is like the belly's hanging out in fact reggie gets like the feeling that this ogre doesn't usually sit in this chair like it's an underling being like I'm going to see I'm going to state here. I'm the boss in the boss isn't here. I'm going to sit. King in the castle. King in the castle.

Totally. A feeling that Reggie can agree with because oftentimes Reggie will take a seat in Bessie when like Witted is washing up. Pretend to be witted and like start like giving orders and stuff and pretending he's typing. He's cute as hell. Tries to like look like he's flying around like. I'm on an adventure. and in the final room there's another so like the southern exit to this slave wheel room has like an elbow bend in it the tunnel sort of heads south for a while and then it goes east and there's another iron portcullis beyond which there are a series of iron cages in this large room but they are not dedicated to

to the keeping of hounds. Instead, there are some humanoids being kept here. Damn it. And from what Reggie can determine, some of them are still alive. Ooh. Uh-oh. We got prisoners, everyone. What are we going to do?

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, S. Ray 96, Moon, Nikki, Gabby, Tao, Tea Kettle, Abriel, Annalena, Gareth Bradshaw, Joshua Nance, Stab, Manderpance, Oakland, Nerd Fairy, Keely Hill, Misrah, Aaron Lightning, Quinn, Rabida and Cheese, Axel, Abby Mae Birkin, Danny, Seer of Time, Izzy, Vol Control, Pan, Feli, Absolute, Ocello, Bally Behavior, Starlight, Clockwork Phoenix, Lechra, A.K. Trash Panda, Amanda Nicole, Hyde, Alicia D. Merrimo, Bird, Fisher, Kara, Navia Aguia, H.D. BeanFiend, Knox the Nightshark, Sunny, OB, Luna DiMaria, Luke, Wanderer Fen, Caspian, Zill Street, Liz, This Guy Could, Emerson Forsberg, Martina, Karen Dule,

Minty, Roses Sofenvi, Hydrus, Lissan Cluckner, Jack, Celeste Jedlick, Eli Davis, Grace Searcy, Morang, Ren Gillespie, Nick D, Jelly Bean, Slate Blue Flowers, Shonk, Jane, Veritas, Tell, Pat Trat, Laura, Busing Star O3, Snick-Snack, Jaron Blair, Nukulm, Sakura, Sparks, Trinity, True E.C. Elzebub. Delicate jaws. Nosts. Swuk. Bup. Zbaltazar. Ad Jack's Art. Jinks. Conzo Como. And T.Bad. Thank you again for listening. And I guess you'll hear us again soon. Send Reggie through the whole mountain. Let's just find out. Actually, you know what? He's going to climb into Duke Zalta's pocket. And he is going to get the keys in the conch. And we're done here. And with that, you solved the game. Why didn't I just think of that? You solved my fire giant puzzle. The whole thing with an invisible... No dice rolls necessary.

Why would I do that?