Dice Shame - 2-26 | 'Cog In The Machine'

Episode Date: February 23, 2023

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 best friends Rob and Alex 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: swearing, violence.Part of the Rusty Quill Network Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You know, not too big, not too small. Oh, how dare you? Of course they're still here. We have the same side stairs as you. Nome must make good stuff. You're speaking my language. I have dreams about other things. But I can't read Gowl.

Follow Greenock to farm, then down. Gou ate straight. I told you to get groceries. I didn't know what you said. It tells this whole stupid Nongish place is old. Has made in China stamped on the back. The pork cullis is a great made out of ham. I've killed thousands of people.

Maybe these are like, uh, what are they? called automatrons. Is that like... Atomaton. Atomatons. Thank you. I like automatrons. The theme of this episode

is saying words bad. Welcome back to Dyshame. MVP this week is Zoron, who is listening along and has just caught up to 145. here in no time. Thanks for listening, Zoron. This one goes out to you. Yeah, thanks, Zoran. All right, shall we do it? Yeah, let's play some D&D. Woo! Is it weird to, like, throw a YouTuber's name out there as well? Just to sort of matter.

Are that racist, homophobic? No, no, I don't think so. Is it us? Hitler 69. This is YouTube right. Anti-Logic? Anyways, it was, I was watching a couple of videos that I just sort of came across. And one was about the sinister look behind Peter Pan, you know, and it was sort of like the correlation between Peter Pan's like this childhood, child that never grows up. And it's sort of like, I don't know what necessarily represents, but I thought, oh, I'd start reading Peter Pan the book, Peter and Wendy.

Anyways, what I was thinking was kind of an interesting topic, was these like childhood fairy tales that seem like fun and they and they kind of feel like there's a lesson there but they come from really gripping and gruesome histories oh like the grim fairy tales yeah stuff like that well just before we continue on antilogic is a youtube channel it's a 5,000 subscriber gaming channel i don't think it was that they seem to play a lot of gta 5 and Battlefield 4? What if you just search? I'll do a search for it.

It wasn't that. Maybe you just like zoned out one day and you're like, oh, Peter Pan. There is, what is Antilogic? That's got 93,000 subscribers. That's the one I watched. Ah, what is Antilogic? But no, it was sort of interesting.

I guess Peter Pan, I thought it was kind of interesting. It wasn't like actually a person, but it represented stealing child Hood. Yeah. Well, no, no, no, for sure. My favorite example of this in the fairy tale realm comes from Hansel and Gretel.

One of the spookiest fairy tales, in my opinion, on its face, because, I mean, it's about, like, cannibalism and stuff and getting lost in the woods, right? Oh, yeah, I guess it is, right? They eat the kids. It's not cannibalism if you're eating children, though. Yeah, yeah. They're hardly people. It's comparative. They're like, it's like veal.

It's just cruel, but, like, it's like, it's. fine. In case you're not familiar with the fairy tale. Everything eats down. Everything eats down. Yeah, like, you know, it's like cannibalism. It's a shark. It's a baby shark. It's like comedy. It's just the natural order. Well, as long as it's smaller than you, it doesn't matter.

Is that a hunch down, eat down? That's why, that's why like my last snack with someone who was five feet tall. So in case you're not familiar, Hansel and Gretel, Hansel and Gretel, it's a German fairy tale. It's about a couple of kids whose parents actually bring them into the woods and leave them there. Yeah. It's like the lumberjack and the stepmother or something? Yes.

And then they try to be able to find their way home by leaving breadcrumbs, but they come upon a house in the middle of the woods that is made of candy. And then a witch lives there. She captures the children. She tries to fatten up the little boy to eat him. but every day, because the witch is blind, he holds out of bone. A chicken bone, yeah. Out of the cage to show.

No, I think it's like another little kid bone. Oh, maybe another kid bone. And she's like, oh, you're too small. I'll have to keep fattening you up. And then I think Gretel pushes the witch into the oven. Yeah. And then they escape, right? Yeah.

That's the story. They don't eat her. So on its face, it's already pretty grim. Yeah, yeah. But apparently the reason behind this fairy tale is because of the great famine, which happened just prior to the black death. Right.

But in 13 something, the 14th century, it was so common in the rural parts of Europe that people would be starving to death that they would often either abandon their children in the woods so that they didn't have to feed them or eat them. That's right. When this came out, it was like social commentary of the Times. It was like, oh, yeah.

It's why I did the John last week. That's so funny. You got to read this. Remember when we dropped their kids off in the woods? She's exactly the fucking thing. The only piece of whimsy was the house made of candy. And literally everything else happened. I mean, I wonder if that, if it's contemporary to that moment or if that's something like

40 years on, people are looking back. I'm thinking that, oh, you know, 25, 40 years later. That's a kid unpacking their trauma. Yeah. Why was I left in the woods? Like the equivalent, like when you write like a personal essay. slaving over the story and the wife not coming in and being like,

is everything okay? No, I'm revealing stuff about my past. I totally forgot. All my brothers and sisters died. Totally true. To some extent. Especially the candy house part. Hansel literally wrote that story.

He's like, yeah. My name is Hansen. This is my testament to my terrible parenting and the town I grew up in. She puts the wish into the fire. Someone reads it and they're just like, ah, this is a great story, dude. He's like, no, that is true.

It happened to me. It really happens. So be careful of the woods. Was the house made of candy? No, that's just a metaphor for my dreams. Everything else was real, though. Yeah, I can't think of like a fairy tale per se that is like grimer than, you know, I guess that's what you're kind of going for.

But I had recently... Interesting tales, I guess, yeah. I had recently finally looked at Frankenstein for something else. I'm just trying to get the research on it and trying to understand. And I never really knew what it was about. Like I didn't even know the actual plot points of Frankenstein. I always kind of assumed it was like classic castle, Frankenstein monster and all that kind of shit. Yeah.

And then it wasn't until I'm like reading. I'm like, oh, yo, this is nothing like the universal monster stuff. There's like no castle. There's nothing like that. It's a lot of globe trotting. Tell me. It's a lot of chasing people down. There's been sort of tangential revelations that I've seen of Frankenstein's morals and themes of being like,

Like my, you know, hand distance of Abbott Costello shorts and Universal Frankenstein movies are kind of like, oh, Frankenstein was like a troubled monster and all that kind of stuff. It was like, the monster was like a terrible, terrible freak that like at the end of it wanted to torture Dr. Frankenstein beyond every shadow of himself and like killed his wife on their wedding night. And then at the end of it, it all just sums down to these two people who are chasing each other. And then Dr. Frankenstein, like, kills himself or dies on the boat or something like that. And Frankenstein just, like, pushes himself off on an iceberg to, like, be lonely forever because he's like, no one deserves me. And I was like, what is this? Like, none of this is what any of the, where's the flat top green? With the bolts in his neck?

Which is interesting because that's like owned by Universal, you know, that depiction of Frankenstein, that's owned by a movie company. Yeah, there's no, like, you know, if you want to buy that mask or if you want to feature that version of Frankenstein, that's owned by a movie company. They got in at the best time possible. They were like, here's this thing, let's make a movie, which is like profit off it forever. Because Frankenstein is experiencing such a cultural renaissance these days. They must be making so much of money. But it's interesting to see, like, how these things end up, you know, going and changing so much. And I think that's kind of in theme with what you're talking about, where you have this kind of,

idea, and then, you know, whether society or other interpretations of it just kind of run hog wild with it and end up forming a very different relationship to the people who are, again, like me, seeing it at an arm's length and developing their own understanding of it. I, so in another context, I ran into that same kind of phenomenon. I was watching an Adam Neely video about, so he's this like musical YouTuber or musician YouTuber. But he was he was talking about he was at Magfest and he went to the 8-bit big band show, which is like, you know, so it's this big band show. I don't know half the words you're saying, but I mean either.

It's great, though. I'm just saying words now. Magfests. I do. I'm following. Jazz big band concert at a convention. But the point was most of the video game music they do is from 20, 30 years ago because they had these really simple kind of phrasing,

or maybe not perfectly simple, but phrasing that could be really easily adapted to like a jazz standard. And so there's now this whole remixing of people who know these songs from video games from 20 years ago because they're going to form this new, like, canon of jazz where people are reinterpreting and remixing them and, you know, winning Grammys for their, the, you know, Song of Storms from Zelda or whatever. And like, that's a good one. Yeah. Just like the Jazzars would have done Lullaby and Birdland, let's say. Well, it's exactly that. And so this video goes into a lot of the parallels about how the Tin Pan Alley music.

that became the jazz standards really has a lot of rhymes as far as like structure and things with the music that was designed for 8-bit stuff that's becoming the jazz the like modern standards of this like you know big band jazz movement which is super neat.

Yeah well you're working within these like really tight sort of systems to like do like jazz jazz has like both very freeform and also like kind of has rules and so Like, so when I was a kid, I had a book, you know, I was, I was a kid in the 90s, so the little, the littlest mermaid, little mermaid. Little mermaid, littleest mermaid. Little mermaid, little mermaid. Well, they have Little mermaid, then they have the littlest mermaid, which is the sequel. You can eat that mermaid. And it's not cannibalist. She is just a prawn, just a girl. I don't know why she swallowed the prong. I guess she'll die. Little mermaid was a thing, but I had someone got me like the original story and the original story is much more violent much more weird it involves a lot of knives um every time when she when she loses her voice to to be able to be turned into like a woman with legs it it hurts her to walk it feels like knives

are stabbing in the souls of her means of punishment to do that and she and then her sisters are like oh you can be turned back into a mermaid and come back with us if You take a knife, you take this knife we give you, and you kill the, well, I guess the Eric or whatever. Yeah, Eric, or whatever the name is, it's a guy in the original one. I don't remember if it's Eric. And she goes to kill him because he's married to someone else. Oh, no. And hasn't married her.

And he was like, oh, I don't, this nice mute lady, I like her, but like, we're just buds. He friends owns some hard. Hans Christian Anderson was working through some stuff. He was. Boy, was he. And she can't bring her love to do it. So she kills herself with the knife and turns into sea foam. and that's the ending.

Classic C-foam ending. Children loves this book. I always pull that Dei-SX C-foam out. Right. Well, this explains. That's pretty wild. I feel like I had this book and I was like, this is so much more badass than the movie version.

Kids love it when the protagonist is always feeling knives all over their body. And has C-foam as an out. And I loved it so much that I created a water-based character in this game. That's the segue. There is the segue. Is that why you're always the pissed off as Mari? Are you always walking on knives? Yeah, that's going to be part of her backstory

that I'll have to work in eventually. She's going to rock in her shoe that she's never taken out. She's got a secret knife waiting for one character later on in the game. And we're going to find out who it is later. Yes, wait for Sweeps Week. Play to find out.

Play to find out. Speaking of playing to find out. Let's do it. Yeah. There we are. Deep in the earth, our party begins to explore a gnomish dungeon called Zoshenbafel. After being drawn in by some kind of magical, mechanical quicksand, you begin to explore the tunnels in the darkness. As we walk out and pass the dead creature that was in the hall, Redjust wants to bend over it and take a look at what it was.

There is a discarded animal bone stripped clean of flesh on the ground here. Oh, at least it's clean. Hold up, everyone. I'm getting a big rot row. Can I roll nature? You certainly can. Anything you prefer? Investigate, whatever.

15. 15? This is some kind of bird bone, and there are teeth marks on it. Looks like it was discarded here after being eaten. Are there pieces of flesh on it the way you would leave if you were a humanoid eating meat? Or is it stripped completely clean as if you were an animal? you ate cartilage and everything. It's not to say it's dainty.

But, you know, like if a goblin would eat it, it would probably leave the last scrappings and just toss a little bit because they're kind of lazy, well, not late. I don't want to start dispiraging goblins. How dare you? Still whole, what are you saying?

People. Fuck goblins. Red is just a racist. Dorian is right there. 120 episodes. It turns out. It's just mean as hell. Like, I want to know,

I kind of just want to break down if there's any way to, to say for whether this was a humanoid that ate it or if it was a creature, like an animal. Not really clear to you. Okay. But it looks like something definitely enjoyed a snack down here. Well, we might not be alone down here,

so let's be cautious. Something definitely ate the meat-off of this bird creature. But like a small bird. Yeah, like little. We're not talking a falcon. Falcons are pretty small. Yeah, let me rephrase. Not like a pterodactyl or something.

It's not a bird. I think birds are... No, it's a flying squirrel. It came down here. That's right. So, like, not a chicken or an ostrich. Not a griffin. As Red spends some time looking at this snack,

everyone else moves west, I suppose. Well, I said, hold on. I hope people aren't walking. It would be so rude to leave me alone. Mari waits for Red while he's peering at the bone. And while he's doing that, she reaches into her bag and she takes out. That's so nice of you. Something that hasn't made me.

appearance yet. That is the moon sickle. A moon sickle. Sounds tasty. I was going to say it very refreshing. What the hell is that? It's my sickle and I think it might be useful maybe at some point. What does it do? Red pops up and like looks at it. I mean it's it's a blade. It's a blade and she takes the little piece of bone and she like slices across it and it takes a little snick. It just takes a piece off. But the blade glows a little bit like the moon is shining on it even though obviously there's no light down here. Wow.

Cool. Is that a magic weapon? Yes. Yes, it is. Cool. You've been holding out on us, Marr. I have been. All right.

But she's, uh, yeah, so it very, very lightly just sort of glints as if, like, Starlight or Moonlight is somewhere around it, even though it's not. Needo burrito. All right. Good to know. Finally, you have some weapons. Yes. Finally, something cool.

Don't worry, guys. Yes. Also, in a meta thing. It does give me bonuses on things, so if I'm holding it. Oh, well, good that you finally decided to eat. Shut up. No, Red says that with a genuine kindness. Meanwhile, Doran and Jack, you come to a rectangular room

through which runs a jointed metal pattern on the floor. On the south side of the room, the metal pattern disappears into a small, dark opening, and on the north side, more of this shiny chromium gravel. seems to have accumulated against another opening. So it seems like you've found the beginning of this rock stuff. So is it like a conveyor belt? Yeah, it is like a conveyor belt.

Okay, so they're moving this. Maybe they're moving this chromium? There's a metal platform that hangs from the ceiling on chains that have small stairs that ascend up one side and descend the other side. Looks like it's used as an archway over the, conveyor belt so it would allow people to kind of come and go as the belt is moving so how small are the stairs clearly like gnome stairs yeah they are they are they would be a little bit small for you but much more comfortable for your stride compared to some of those stairways that

you're usually heading up and you know it's kind of funny I I I never really considered the fact that Doorms don't have smaller stairs. We have the same-sized stairs as you. But when I look at these, they're kind of cute. They're old gnome stairs. You know, I thought they were medium-sized stairs, you know, not too big, not too small, but maybe that's just my own perspective.

I can step up four of these in one, you know. Just doing that up and down, like, check it out. Doren's getting a real tickle. Look, Doren, we don't make you feel bad about your size. Let's not start bashing the gnomes. We haven't even seen them yet. And they could be watching. Yeah. Do you think they're even still here?

Of course they're still here. Well, what do you think ate that chicken bone? I'm not afraid of a gnome. You're not afraid of no-nome? I'm not afraid of no-noms. No. I don't think gnomes are bad. So maybe this is some sort of darn looking at the chromium building up on the, that's sort of

still sitting on this conveyor. Maybe maybe this was some sort of a chromium mine. What was it called? a Zeissen-Fi vizers? Ziffel-baff. That's so close, shockingly close. Zosan-baffle, but... Oh, he's patronizing you.

Wow. Strup waffle. Sounds delicious. Toaster strut. Something about contriving and innovating and all of that. Yeah. I mean, it does remind me a little bit of mirror bar and all the like metal works down under there.

It's, you know, got some, some, a nomish flare to it for sure. It reminds me of the end times. The end of what? Wait, do you have, like, prophetic dreams of the apocalypse? No. I have dreams about other things. But, no, in Tabaxi culture, we all have our world-ending stories.

Tabaxis have one. You seek too much knowledge, and it ends up ruining you. Yeah. The drawers have something similar, too. You seek too much bland stew, and it ends up ruining you? Funny. It's hard on the digestion, surprisingly. You don't seek bland stew, it seeks you.

You dig too deep, and you hit the molten core. of the world. And it eats you up. That's a theme that we see time and again, for sure. Life as we know it. Basically, seeking too much knowledge is your downfall. Anyway, I'm curious what's in this room. Let's go.

You continue west? Yeah, let's see what's hanging over. Cool. One door hangs from its hinges and the other lies on the floor. Beyond, this small room is wrought from some silver-colored metal. Who's the first person to step into this room? Rob and Red. Jack and Red.

Rob's not playing. Sorry, Jack and Red. Rob's not in the game. Let's rule and see whoever gets higher, just straight up. That person walked through. I mean, I think there's a- Oh, I got a natural 20th. Jack was about to put his foot down and Red deeks by him just to be the one to have a hair ahead of him.

Yeah, but I'm guessing this is a punishing thing. So I was going to let Fate died decide because I'm guessing this is going to be a, uh-oh. Red, stepping into this room, You perceive a slight shift under your feet as if the room has just moved barely. Uh-oh. And I take a step back. You do. What happened?

The floor moved. It might not be secure. Is it an elevator? Hmm. That's what I was going to say, too. You wouldn't know what that is. No. It's an upy downy wiggle.

Well, I mean, but you've never built one into a tree where you have a little transporter and a rope and pulley system. Built one what? What are you talking about? No one knows what word you. A giant dumbwaiter. What are you calling me? It's a lift.

Is it a lift? Just wait. We would have a thing where we would build them and we would call them elevations and you would build them in the trees and you would have like a pulley system. You can get up into the canopy to harvest fruit. No, yeah. None of that explains why I stepped on this and the floor moved down. That's a good point. I hear it Mary's saying it's like a lift that we would use in our case.

You keep using that word as if it's supposed to mean something to anybody. No one here knows what you're talking about and everybody's nodding a long understanding. I love the idea that Red just distrusts. Elevators. We're all confused. He doesn't know what they are. Now, we'll find another way down. Let's go.

And Red turns around and starts walking away. Now, now, Red. Come on. Don't, don't be afraid. And now Doran's like got his arm and he's kind of starting to pull him a little bit. What are you doing? Is that only because you want to be in the meme where D&D podcast don't know what elevators are? Is that a meme?

Is there a meme? There's like a three or four different D&D podcast that all encounter an elevator. And they're like, I've never heard of an elevator before. And then go to excruciating detail. explaining what an elevator is because Do you want to be a part of that, Jack? No, I just, I thought, I thought Harlan was referencing it. That's, no.

I thought we were being fun. Let's not jump on that elevator bandwacking. Can I still be scared of an elevator though? Of course you can. Yeah, I like what are you like. Come on. I don't know if it's very like animal like to be like, I don't trust this thing, it's moving in a weird way.

Let's find another way. Come on. I think elevator, the word is very human. We should like very, we should stick with lift. Let's do something archaic. The modern thing they call it in. England. What is it?

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Like, yeah. Okay. An apping downy. Fair enough. I'm not getting in that thing. I don't know what it is.

Let's find another way down. No, now, Red. Come on. What are you doing? Stop pulling me. Well, we can... You won't know until we try it. Now, come on.

I don't understand why you feel so confident about this thing. I don't, but there's no way to know it until we try it. And I am dragging you on? No, no, must make good stuff. Jack says as he steps on and starts looking around trying to figure out Nomes make good stuff. What this is. I want that on a shirt.

Quote of the episode. Nomes do stuff good. Nomes make good stuff. He's trying to just convince himself this is fine, and Red's overreacting as he tries to look around and see what's going on. I like to check the wall on the outside. Everyone can look around. Just outside of it to see.

Is there any marking on the outside? Is there any sort of like... How do you function it? Yeah. Lever, pulley, anything. There's nothing on the outside. No. On the inside, the walls of the room,

bear marks of abuse. Dents and scratches mar the metal as if some battle occurred here. There's a silver fan on one side. Underneath that, there's a small switch and crumpled in one corner. There's a piece of dirty parchment. Ew.

Paper. Maybe somebody wiped their butt. Go go read it, Jack. Go read it. We'll wait. You're speaking my language. Jack snaps his fingers and the paper uncrumples itself in the air and flies toward him so he can have a look at what it says.

And it hits him in the face. Tell him, make it hit him in the face. You still have Comprehend languages. I do. I think it's 10 minutes. You have to touch the paper. Touch the brown spot. Yeah, I'll let the paper, you know, float to me, but then, like, land in my hand so I can touch it.

It's gross. Yeah. It's a gross paper. Yes. You have to touch it. Ooh, slimy. Yeah. Jack, you've really.

Read the following in a goblin script. This says, Greenock tells this whole stupid place as old is broken. Follow Greenock to farm then down. Guate Strait. Man, this syntax is so interesting. What? No one knows what you're saying.

What's this say again? Jack takes the paper over to door and it sort of shows it to him. I think this is saying Greenock tells the whole stupid nomish places old is broken. It's interesting they don't have another word there. And then follow Greenick to farm, then down, goo ate, strike. Doren's just like standing there nodding? I can't really read. Goo?

Oh, come on, it's easy. Ging tells his whole stupid gnomish place is old. He's broken. Followed neat to farm, then down. Goh, it's obvious. I might not get a lift, but I'll get how to read disjointed illogical sentences. I was just waiting for Doren to recognize Goblin. because you speak that.

Do you not? Oh, yeah, yeah. Do you? Yeah. No, I don't speak it. No, I've been learning it. I was learning it many years ago. That was a while ago.

Yeah, sorry, no. Oh, okay. We made a bunch of jokes in the early episodes about how he had a goblin wife, but he didn't speak a goblin, and that's why they had so many fights. I told you to get gross trees. I didn't know what you said. Their language was love. He was reading part of it in the dream, which is why I only thought he might recognize

and say, oh, that's God. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. that's not gobblin which what i was okay i will do that there's no door yeah that's goblin oh hey yeah that's goblin

but i can't read goblin you can tuck that into there that's good be on the lookout for some goo which seems like good advice generally to the farm then down is where this person left a note maybe maybe red's right should we check the other end of the hallway i mean we took a

left when we came in, but maybe you should go to the other end of the hallway first. Just to make sure that we're not. There's a switch, but I don't trust turning on a switch out of nowhere. Sorry, Red, I just see. That's all right. Just occurred to me. Sometimes Fia makes sense. Noticing a trend, every type of goblin comes up,

Doran goes the other direction. I don't know. I feel like there's something there. Also, I want to just roll perception to see if there's any secrets in this place. Ooh, fun. There's like a wall to the south here that, like I would know layout-wise, this room leads into that room. I want to just poke around and see if there's any secrets. I've been playing too much doom.

That's a 26. Ooh. No secrets here. You see that this conveyor belt is clearly old, but that is indeed its use. And it seems like the hole in the wall, it's probably large enough for like a small mammal to fit through, but definitely too small for you. Yeah. And you know what? Maybe I'll just, While we all mosey over the east room, I'll head back to the first room and then do the same thing. I'll just keep a keen eye to look for any, you know, mismatched stonework and anything that might say, treasure lies here. Nice. Meanwhile, you head to the east.

You find a large square room that houses a statue in an alcove at each of its corners. A short corridor leads to the north and is barricaded by a heavy iron porous. Portculus, beyond which you can see a great open room. The hall also continues to the east, down a flight of stairs, and winding away to the north and south out of sight. Okay, let me do the audience a little bit of a favor. Can you define porculus for us? Yeah, absolutely.

It's like a gate that goes up when you open it. Ah, like a big metal gate. Oh, oh, porculus. I'm sorry. I think it's portcullis, isn't it? I like to say portculeous. Sure. Because it makes me feel fans.

It's one of, yeah, yeah, portculeous. I'll say it's a great made out of ham. I was going to say, I thought it was going to be a handbook. I suffer. Pork cloutlet. I suffer from the disease where you read a lot and then you don't hear words in person. That's another one I trip up over all the time. Pork cullis?

Totally. Yeah, fuck off. too. Well, I don't know, I don't even really know that it's portcullis. I, I trust the port part because it means door in French, but the second part, don't know. What's, how do you say archipelago? Is that how you say it? Archipelago. See, that's one of those words. And I still say decal when it should be decal. You know what? We're all flawed. Archipelago? Archipelago. That's an American Canadian thing. Oh, is it? Yeah, because my, my grandfather was big into making model train stuff and he went into the states looking for decals and they're like, no, no, no,

any decals. We don't have decals here. I don't know what you're talking about. Sounds dumb and wrong. Yeah, we have decals in Canada. You guys are just giving me like flashbacks to work right now because I have to think about words like data versus data and how you say the word grocery or grocery or so like that.

Grocery? Like schedule? These are things I have to think about every time someone does auditions. Schedule. Go to work. You're at work. No, no, no work now. Nightmare, nightmare.

No, this is work now. Let's open that port cue list. Pork cutlet. Cool. Open the ham grate. How are you going to do it? Jack's never seen a statue. We didn't want to go investigate closer.

The other heard the story of Darth Porculus. Jack. Jack, these statues are fanciful workings made by skilled hands. The figures are carved and clothed from a metal with a blush blue color, each representing four different gnomes dressed for battle. Doran, you go over to the portculeus. Oh, excuse me. Yeah, Dorn kind of goes up.

He looks through the gate, the grate. This great gate. The room beyond seems very similar to the room that red is in currently, which I will call cog room one for simplicity's sake. Cog room one. Where you see a similar floor that gives way to a grate. And then if you were able to move further into the room. room, you could definitely imagine yourself seeing similar cogs and wheels.

But you can't, because there's a door in the way. Duran tries to lift it. Like, just pulled the door up manually. It's super, super heavy. Try to, I mean, make a strength check for me. That's going to be a... 15. Yeah, you can't do it.

It's too heavy. Red enters the room after having checked everywhere for secrets. You didn't see any secrets, Red. What's Doren trying to lift, and why is it so heavy? I can't get it. Nope. What are you looking for? Our secrets.

Places like this are often filled with tiny little crevices and holes that you can open and find gold in. Can I do a perception check and then hopefully there's something here so then I can feel really smart? You're pretty wise. You got this. 18. What are you, you're perceiving the walls specifically? Is there anything? Yeah, is there any?

Just trying to make me feel dumb. Yes. I see what you're doing. She's, Marry's peering around to see if there's anything, is there anything up with these statues? Like, do they move, could you, like, move? Is there anything like a joint on them or anything? Definitely worried one of them is going to come alive any minute now. Yeah.

Does anything seem up with these statues? Do you touch a statue? I touch the hand of one of them. Ooh, you do. Yeah. Mari, you push against the hands of one of the statues and you find that the fingers are jointed. You're able to open and close. the hand at will.

Yeah, like that. That's how you find secret rooms. Is it metal or stone? It's metal. Okay. Red, as you come around the corner to check out Mari's statue, you see that there is a glint of steel on the floor beside her foot. Looks like you found a spring-loaded knife sprung from its sheath, and it doesn't have a spot of rust on it.

Hey, look! Oh, watch that. I called it. a spring loaded knife from Yeah, so it's a spring loaded knife But it's sprung open Switchblade Yes, it's an open switchblade

Look, and Red picks it up It's a switchboard Hey, careful with that, that's sharp Thanks mom I've killed thousands of people And you tell me I need to be careful Owl shit I know humor Alex

Don't worry You and are literally said the exact same time. That's the funniest part. Yeah, Red cuts himself. Ow, it's nice, though. It's very nice.

It looks nomish, I presume? No. Wait a minute. This doesn't look nomish at all. This is like a marketplace. It's not from like a strip mall knife store, you know, but it's like... Mall ninja shit. Has Made In China stamped on the back.

It's nothing special, but it is, you know, new. I like this. Red folds it up and he tucks it in his boot. You know, for the amount of times that I get kidnapped, I feel like having one of these up my sleeve would be very useful. Sure. How many times have you been kidnapped? Well, you and I got kidnapped.

We woke up in jail once. I swear at least I've done it once more in this show, where I've woken up in a cage or something. Yeah, on that same episode. Doren, Jack, what are you guys up to? I would like to roll a perception. I'm going to walk up to one of the other statues that Mary's not at. And, you know, I see her move the fingers.

but Doran's now more thinking that maybe these are like what are they called automatrons is that like atomatons thank you I like automatrons the theme of this episode is saying words bad that sounds like like transformers something right automatrons like a fancy transformer is the automatron so that's what I'm going to rule to see if it's an automaton yeah or like down that path

I kind of want to see are these just statues or is there more to them. Roll an investigation for me. So that's going to be 10. Yeah, you're not able to tell. But there are statues of people? Gnomes. Oh, gnomes.

Okay. They are dressed for battle. Jack's hoping to start with this door and see if he can figure out, is there a mechanism locking it down? Is there a trigger that opens it? Is there something spring load? Just trying to peer in every crevice and nook around there to see if he can see anything or any strange patterns in stone coming up to it to figure out if there's a mechanism to

open this door. Roll investigation. for me. 23. There's nothing around the door that would suggest, like you have to step on pattern of stones or anything, but it does seem strange. There's no keyhole, there's no lever.

There must be some kind of mechanism. You would assume close by that would open this door. I try to press down just to see if it's one of those doors you need to press down to unclick and then it springs up. No, it doesn't work. Oh, damn. It's a push, not a pull. See, exactly.

Go right there, Jack. I just, it's such a cool place. I don't know where to start looking next, Red. It's, uh... These stairs over here. Just as you begin to head down the stairs, Red, you're interrupted by the distant, eerie sound of far-off laughter.

Apparently, you aren't alone down here, after all. Thank you once again to our wonderful Patreon supporters, Alexander, Amanda Kichner, Anne, Artistic Witch, Braden, Brian Blass, Brianna Weber, Michael Weber, Brin Marie, Cecil Lee Wilson, Cherry Rose, Creature, Citer, Zine, Daniel, Haley, Harpo the Marks, J. J.D. Joy. K.R. K.M. Cade. Lazzagna. Last Ruth on the left. Lead. Mari Knessy. Matilda Rushing. Melissa. Mellon. Michelle Kahn. Moss. Nimbledingo. Reagan. Ren. Roberta. Sray 96. Tama. Tara. Trapper 939. Zander. And Zach.

Thank you so much. excuse me um no i was doing that you do that you need to do it in character i would have burp and go excuse me you always do that and i have to cut them but if they're in character it'd make perfect sense noted i will do that next time there will be another one well now just say excuse me for doran oh excuse me