Dice Shame - 2-31 | 'Keg Party'

Episode Date: March 30, 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.

I don't know if that's entirely true Oh, of course Dangerous He's popped a ruby off Murray, you got a wine skin in there Anything to put a liquid in? Oh, I like it. It's very comfortable. It's a one.

Yeah, I mean, the word infernal Generally is never used positively. It's making noise over here. I'll come with you. Yeah, Jack's eyeing up the bookshelf. I'm just uncomfortable. Hey, uh, veranda, you're standing by that button. Stone and metal, I know. So those elf ears, they stick out. They're like barbs.

Yeah. Hey, when in gnome, do is the gnomish do. Very good, very good, very good. That one's got to stay in. That's what they say. I'm giving you inspiration for that stupid joke. Welcome back to Dice Shame. This is Season 2, episode 31, keg party. MVP this week is Ren. Ren is a longtime fan of malevolent who just started listening to Dice Shame and posted a really

sweet message in Discord about what an absolute blast they had listening. Thank you so much for joining the party, Wren. Looking for more TTRPG Actual Play Fun? Check out our friends at Ain't Slade Nobody, a gold, any winning podcast that brings immersive tabletop role-playing games to your feed. They feature short campaigns and one shots using Call of Cthulhu and other systems. Check them out at Ain't SladeNobody.com or follow them on Twitter. They're a lot of fun.

All right, should we do this? Yeah, let's do it. Woo! Joseph Boplin was doomed. Perhaps our ambition was too keenly felt. Our final Treveo turned fatal. Regret and consequence be damned, the lives lost here were easy payment for knowledge.

If you seek the jewels of the workshop, you will instead find our ruin. Leave now. Oh. Interesting. thing? Um, that sounds pretty ominous. Yeah, that's not good. I thought that was a big word for me.

Three whole syllables. Yeah, I don't know. On the one hand, if we were going there seeking the jewels of the workshop and instead find their ruin, documenting their ruin and bringing that story of what happened is a treasure all in and of itself. I'm not opposed to going. Is it though? Well, it is for him.

It depends on what your values are. I certainly would like to know about it. Well, I guess my biggest fear is that, you know, we put this, we put this gear wheel in there where it goes. And we turn that wheel over there that Mary's been pushing on. And it opens up a door to a dragon cave and dragons come out. Like, I guess that's my biggest fear. Are there dragons down here? I don't know.

But I hope not. Oh, excuse me. It'll be bad. Whatever it will have been, We'll have destroyed the whole civilization here. So that's not great. Yeah, no. And maybe it's a risk we don't need to take.

We're certainly burning the midnight oil before we get out of here to go to Scarborough and see your mom. Yeah, and, you know, I think we should try this, and then hopefully it leads to a way out of here. Regret and consequence be damned. The lives lost here were easy payment for knowledge? What the hell does that mean? The lives lost were easy payment? Well, whoever was here was apparently expendable. Either that or the knowledge was great.

I just mean to say, if the person writing this note said, the lives lost were easy payment, and then also you'll find our ruin. Well, I guess it's our ruin, not their ruin. I think it's a comment on perhaps the Zozenboffel chieftain over there, whose sword this is, and I wave it around a little cut yourself. Ow! Mari Ducks.

Yeah, it's not great. I think I end up hitting the wall and dropping the sword and having to pick it up again. Did you just chip that thing? No, Jesus Christ, you chip that thing. Popped a Ruby off. Careful, Jack. How did you do that? Do I put it in the bag of holding?

Can I put it in the bag of holding, please? Put it in the bag of holding. Here you are. I drop it in very carefully, pommel side down. And you hear it smash against something. Just a plate in there from my mom's house that I'm sure you've been. Thank you. Raw chicken.

No, a live chicken. I mean, this could be a commentary on the things the leadership did to throw away the lives of the other gnomes who lived here, a tale as old as time, as it were. But no one feels this ominous warning is caused to try to climb back up that hole we came in from, right? We're all still pretty confident in this delving. Can we climb back up that hole? Look, we can do anything with enough willpower.

But I don't know if that's entirely true. And dynamite. Oh, listen. And Doran's picked up the gear now and he's walking back to, you know, where it's kind of clear that the gear goes. It's pretty clear, eh, Joe? Oh, yeah. Hey, Joe. Hey, Joe.

It looks pretty clear. So you can talk to the DM now, but when I wanted to ask you about your suspenders, it's a whole thing. Spicy. Well, this is Alex talking to the DM, not Doran. Oh, my mistake. Dear God. I'm wrong again. And Doran...

Dear God, it's me, Doran. Puts the... Going through some changes recently. Plunks it in place. Cool. Yeah, you like... There's a lot of blood in my beard. It's not mine, though.

You crank up the grate and pop in the gear, and it looks like you have... Crank up... To your knowledge. Pop in the gear. completed this gear puzzle. All right, well, it looks like if this is turned, that it activates something in the other room, right? I mean, hey, otherwise, what's the point of the gears in the other room?

So I guess someone stays here and someone heads over and sees what gets turned. Yeah, and I agree with you, right? And in fact, I think we should spread out because, you know, obviously they're going to move something in the room where we just were, but what about that room with the up and down, lifty thing? Lyft. Yeah, we can call elevator.

Why not? I mean, dumb question. I know we didn't test it, but like, did we see if it worked or did it seem like the elevator was only... Yeah, you guys tried to push the button and it did nothing. Oh, okay. So I think Doran's like saying that and he's going to leave the room. I'm going to go to that lift thingy.

And I'll come with you. And Rick runs after him. Well, and then while we're walking and I say, Red, why don't you go in the room where we just were? Or I can go in the room where we just were. And you go in the room with the lift. I don't really care. But, you know, we'll just see what happened. I don't want to go in the lift on my own.

Okay. So you go in that room. Can you hear me? Jack, Mari, Red. What? What? Yeah. What?

Okay. I hear something. Just yell really loud. What? I said, yell really loud. We hear you, Doran, it's okay. Don't listen to Red. I said, yell really loud.

okay on three let's do it one two one two what you're not doing anything you guys count and do it i'm not doing anything wait no one's doing me i love that everyone's counting and it's mary who's the only one who's about to do something okay not are doing it go for a jack bunch of idiots whatever you're ready marie all right let's do this so one two three and what are we doing pushing Like pushing the thing.

Mari, just like counts the three and then looks at Jack. I was going to push the thing, the wheel. Mari, you push against this wheel and all at once, all of the gears in the room that you're in begin to turn. And red, you see them now in your adjoining room also turning underneath the floor. Doran, in the elevator room, you don't detect any change. But Jack, from where you're standing, you begin to. hear the flow of water through the pipes near to you.

Oh, interesting. And one of them begins to rattle almost as if under a lot of pressure. I go to the rattling pipe and I try and crank the valve open, just a little bit to see if I can get, you know, get it to calm down a little. Yeah. And as you open that pipe, Doran, you hear a little chime happen in the elevator. Bing, bang, bang. And girl from Ipanema starts to play

But like an Alvin version D&D elevator music It's played on a hurdy-gurdy Hey, it's making noise over here What? Clean your ears out I can't hear you over all the noise It's so loud

I can't hear you guys over all the noise Over 85 decibels What? Jack, what's happening with that pipe? Is it fine or do we need your run? I think no, I think it's okay I think we've relieved some of the pressure here, and let's go see what this is happening in other rooms. Red walks up to Doran, who's standing at the lift.

I was so bored in that room. Nothing happened. Oh, the lift. The lift, it's making sound. It's making, it's, I don't, it hasn't started to move yet, I don't think. But it's starting to make sounds. Well, let's take it down, I suppose. Right.

Let's try. Oh, hi, Miranda. Yeah, Veranda and Kieran show up also. They're here, too. Now, didn't the other people we already killed say they took this list? already? Um, no. All right, let's do this. Let's do it. Red stands at the doorway for a second. What if I stay and jump on the top? Isn't that better? No. No? Please do not. Red. Okay. What if I just jump on the last minute? I don't know. What if you can't come back up?

What if, you know, I'd rather have you with us than... Damn it! All apart. Dorn and your keen intellect. God, you're the smartest one here and I often forget that. All right. Red steps on. I am. Do you want to to hold my hand? Sure. All right. It's so wet. It's just clammy.

It's fine. No, I like it. It's very comforting. It's like holding one of those, um, those squishy things. You got like, like they, I don't, never mind. Ignore this. I forget what they're called. Like, little squishy toys.

I figure out they're called, though. The ones that roll inside out consistently? They're full of water. Yeah, that roll back in your hand. Yeah, yeah. It looks like, um, like a sea cucumber. Yeah. Dick hold.

I knew. exactly what you were talking about as soon as you failed to describe it. It's like I don't think they have a name other than just like weird. Something you'd put your penis in. Do you? Never have but always tempted to because it looks like a shit. Don't lie to us.

No, I honestly haven't. Too little. Yeah, it's pretty small. Okay, side story I actually bought Liam one of those not long ago except the stupid thing about it was that it had like these little plastic frogs inside of it. So you couldn't put your dick in it.

He rolled it around enough And eventually one of the little plastic They weren't like soft They were like plastic frogs you'd buy the dollar store And like it punctured it It leaked everywhere and then I'm like why would you put hard sharp things inside of this? It's a prize

To make you buy another one Child sad, yeah Anyway Red takes Mary's hand And it closes his eyes And Doran's looking around for some sort of lever button Yeah there's a there's a fan on one side And there's a button just underneath Hey, look, our biggest fan.

Hi, can you leave us a better review, please? What's a review? Just tell your friends. You know, like two thumbs up. Unsubscribe. Red and Jack and Doran and Marys' adventures. You've never heard of Fugel? Oh, yeah, yeah.

Pogplast. Fantasy, Google. Hey, Veranda, you're standing by that button. Press it. Sure. She presses the button and the fans. starts a worrying. Doran turns to Jack.

He's like, this way if she screws it up, it's not my fault. Red through closed eyes is like, did she die? Did the button kill her? I'm fine, Red. Oh, good.

He sounds so relieved. And with a jolt, you begin to travel slowly down through darkness. All right. You know what I miss? Mind message. Remember in the early days,

Jack, when you used to be able to talk to us through your mind? I never got to see that. That was so useful. Yeah. Should bring that back. Well... Wait, could you, like, read minds?

No. No, but he could, like, speak to you telepathically. Maybe next level. We'll see. I traded it for something when I level that. Oh, right. We used it all the time, remember? It's good for, like, moments where you don't want to talk out loud around other people.

Like, Miranda. Hey. You know that you're talking out loud, right? Oh, sorry. I forgot we're not using it. I forget sometimes. My eyes are closed. Does that mean the words are still loud?

Something like that. You're like, Red's trying to cast past without trace, forgetting that you can still. hear him. You travel down through the darkness. You hear the faint protest of metal on metal for about 20 seconds before stopping with another jolt. Whoa. That doesn't sound good. Down through the darkness. Ahead of you, the corridor extends east and then turns south. An opening leads to the south and two doors lead to the north. Doesn't it kind of remind you of being on a ship? A ship?

Yeah. I don't think I've ever been on a ship. I've never been on a ship. That's nice. Oh. Oh, they're fun. You mean an airship? Well, yeah, but also I meant water, but airship too.

I mean, you guys had an airship for a while. It's true. How did you know that, Veranda? What? How did you know that? No, that wasn't Veranda speaking. That was God. I didn't tell difference anymore.

She has a very similar voice to me. Ferranda, are you God? Yes. Oh, what? Wow, my quest is done. Do you need to fight me now? All right, where to now, adventurers? Well, all right, this lift hasn't been used in a long, long time, right?

That's what we sort of deduced. Yeah, and admittedly, going down seems kind of to be going against, we're trying to get out, aren't we? Not down deeper. Is there a lot of dust in this hallway? Does it look like it hasn't been traveled in a while, or is it? Yes. Are there any footprints in the dust? Not that you can see.

Well, let's, uh, Start looking around and maybe there's an answer to an exit. All right, let's do a room-by-room sweep. Doran, you take the lead. I got you back. All right. Let's go in here first. It's the first door on the left.

Excellent. You head to the room. It's the first door on the left. So you're heading north. You head through the doorway to reveal a room that's split into two halves by thick metal bars, into which a heavy-looking portculeous has been set. On your side of the bars, there's a workbench, crowded with all manner of tools and gadgets.

A stone tablet sits on the floor, and beside that, a golden wheel with spokes, that looks like it's meant to be turned, much like the one that Mari was just fucking with. On the far side of the bars, you see a low bookshelf with several tomes, a banded chest, several metal barrels, and some of them appear to have leaked a dark liquid onto the floor a long time ago.

Remember, look up into the corners. Red immediately looks up and scours the ceiling. Good call, Jack says, not taking his eyes off the books. Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever you guys got to do. Doran agrees not taking his eyes off the barrels. Do I see anything in the corners? You see, there's a lot of spider webs, really old spider webs. Are they big?

No, they're just tiny. But there's so many of them. They're all friends. Looking around, Doran points to the wheel thingy, and he says to Mari, hey, do your thing with that. Give it a turn, will you? Semi thing now, I turn wheels. Give it a spin.

It's why they pay you the big bucks. Yeah, it's why I'm here. They need somebody with thumbs. I mean, it's not a prerequisite, but it helps. Yeah, she's glancing over at the tools that heads over to the wheel and takes a look at it. He said it was gold and decorated? It's decorated nicely, but it seems very similar to the one you operated upstairs. Is it a fixed to the floor?

Yes. Well, maybe we should just wait before we start turning wheels, you know? Why? Doran's so thirsty. All right. Looks like there's a brew in there. I mean, barrel aged for a thousand years. Yeah, maybe don't drink that.

Could be a really good brew. Treasure in there. A book would fit through the bars here, right? Probably, yeah. Jeez, Jack, just a one-track mind. All right, well, let's look at this workbench first before we open the Port Colis, Port Cullis. Yeah, Red.

The workbench has a lot of specialized tools that are sized for gnomish hands. You recognize some of them kind of adjacent to woodworkers tools, forceps, pliers, keys, wrenches, all manner of tinkerer's tools.

Oh. Anything that would work for wood? Like a nice ornate thing I can swap out because I have woodworker's tools to be kind of nice. Anything that would work for woodwork? Anything that would work for woodwork.

Yeah, there's like a planing instrument that would allow you to shave very thin slices of wood off like a woodpeeler. Oh, this one's fancy. I'm going to swap it out for my, well,

I'm not going to get me. in my old one. It's my favorite one, but I'll take this one, too. And Red takes it. Into the sack, you go. As you pick up the planer, you notice that you bump against a side of the workbench, and it sounds a little bit hollow. What clumsy as fuck today. Hey, look, Mari, it's hollow here. Oh, and I'm, Mari looks around and tries to see if there's any sort of like, is there a drawer or? Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Red looks to his shoulder at Stevie and goes, Stevie. Is it safe for Mari to look around here. Stevie sniffs around and then nods.

And Red gives you the thumbs up. No, no, Stevie gives me the thumbs up. Just a tiny little rat thumbs up. Oh, rat thumbs are so cute. And then I do a thumb up to you, Mari. We're good. Stevie's my favorite. Yeah, so I'm going to take a look to see

if I can find any sort of button or pole or anything. Yeah, roll an investigation check. Cha-cha-cha-cha-cha-cha I rolled a 16 hell yeah it doesn't seem so much like hidden as it like it doesn't seem like a secret compartment but it is very tricky to find the opening once you do though you're able to pop it open without too much trouble there's like a secret lever and yeah it's kind of just a mundane drawer full of different kinds of crafting materials There's some kind of dark metal, some horns, some glass vials of some white substance. Are you like picking them up and looking at them all, or what are you doing? Is there anything in there that looks like, because Mari's got leather worker skills, is there anything that looks like that could relate to that? Not so much.

Red, are you looking in this drawer also? Oh, yeah. I feel like Mari and I've been doing all this together. We're sort of looking through all of it. Red, you recognize some of these materials, and a feeling of dread washes over you. You recognize a piece of coarse, pocked redstone. These are materials that are very similar to the ones that made the infernal puzzle box that you have in your bag of holding. Oh, shit.

Red, what's going on? Is it going to blow up? Well, these materials are very similar to... the ones that made the infernal puzzle box. Jack, you should take a look at this. What? What? I mean, I don't know what an infernal puzzle box is, but it sounds... Dangerous.

Yeah, I mean, the word infernal generally is never used positively, so... It's this, and Red Reach is in the bag of holding, and he pulls out this puzzle box. I mean, for meta, it kind of looks like the Hellraiser cube, but bigger. And if I remember correctly, once we open it, we can open it with ease now, because I was storing stuff in there. Yeah. It's where we found the coin, the goose coin. We found it at the hump rat household, a very rich, noble slave owner, a really piece of work, shit kind of person. But the long and short of it is, it's a very, very dangerous thing and perhaps was made by gnomes.

I mean, they have the stuff down here, I guess. They have this, and Mari just sort of gestures to the stuff in there. We've turned that infernal puzzle box we have over and out and inside out. and examined every piece of it that comes apart. Did we ever see anything that might look like a maker's mark or something that was like stamped on the inside to give like a... You want to get drunk? No.

I'll go for some makers mark. No, these items are so bespoke, so brilliantly engineered that they speak for themselves, essentially, that you don't have to put a stamp on them. Like, it's not like a piece of clothing that needs a label. you know, they are objadar, right? You don't have to assign them ownership because the right people are in the know

about where they come from and who makes them. Right. Yeah, I mean, it looks very similar. Look, I mean, all the pieces are here. But I guess that speaks to the particular brand of ruin that Zosin Bafel might have befallen if they're dealing with infernal things. Well, I mean, somebody had to make the original one

would stand a reason that craftsmen of these sorts might have made them. I don't think there's anything necessarily verboding about this, you know, it's just a thing, like a sword, it's a tool. I mean, maybe Jules wasn't literal in that description. If you seek the jewels of the workshop, you'll instead finder ruin. Maybe Jules wasn't literal. Yeah, like not actual Jules, but like more like diamonds or gems. Like a metaphor.

Oh. The valuable thing down here. The knowledge. Oh. Yes. I think a metaphor is like a really, really good knowledge thing. Is that what a metaphor is? I never, I didn't ask.

I think it's like a type of elephant or something. Oh, yeah. I remember that. It was like the wolf. But anyway, it's just, you know, they're just things. I don't think this means anything yet. But we'll add it to the, you know, list of worries. Well, while those guys,

are, you know, looking at the table and the tools and finding the hidden drawer. I think Doran's kind of inspecting this tablet on the floor. Hmm, mm-hmm. The stone tablets that you are examining, Doran... On stone, perfect. They are ancient. That's like my whole deal. These stone tablets are ancient and carved with inlays of metal.

There are scorch marks along where the metal runs through the stone. Do they have writing on it? I would imagine it's a dwarven or a no-mish if it is. No, there is no writing on this. No-mish. There's no-mish writing. Can you, are they, can I pick them up or are they like massive? What are we talking about?

They're pretty big. They're like maybe six feet across. Oh, okay. Yeah, so not like something I can put put in my pocket. No. Six feet across. You can try. Is it worth rolling?

stone cutting on this? Probably not. I'm just going to tell you that this is a kind of technology that you are not familiar with. Although you could surmise that based on the scorch marks and their proximity to the metal, it looks like the metal gets burned somehow and the stone is used as an insulator. Huh. You know, just looking at these, it looks like maybe this might be some sort of, maybe a work bench type thing. I don't know. It looks like it looks like maybe they did work on this

and not necessarily that these were something. Yeah, fair assessment. Just before we move on from the puzzle box, I think red will take the pieces. He'll check for a false bottom because that's what he does. But I think he'll take the red, you said it was red sandstone.

So here's what we got. All of these materials now that you know what they are, it's not that they're actively radiating magic but they just make you feel kind of yucky to touch them there's a dark metal that looks bloodstained that you identify as being part of your previous puzzle box that's infernal iron yeah um there's a demon horn in here yeah i think what red does is like some shit in here yeah i think he's going to take the infernal puzzle box open it put the coin somewhere else And I think he's going to put the shit in that box to, like, store it. The infernal puzzle box is pretty small.

It's like holdable. This is the raw materials. So there's like a plank of wood, a chunk of stone that's like the size of, I don't know, three bricks. Right. There are some vials. You could probably fit a vial of stuff in there. He'll put as much as he can in, I think, just because it seems. If Doren were to see you holding this, like, metal, this, like, demon metal or whatever it is.

Oh, yeah. He'd be like, Doren, look at it. this metal, it's like bloodstained. Yeah, and like my attention goes directly towards that metal, and like I approach you very quickly and pick up the piece of metal from your hand. I'm like, stone and metal, I know. Yeah, well, this looks like really, wow, this is incredible. I wonder, I wonder what I could be able to fashion out of this.

You know what I just realized? Between your metal work, Mari's leather work, and my woodwork, the three of us could make a pretty good killing, you know, when we retire here, just putting up a little shop, you know. Hey, and Jack, you could do... Jack can come too. He can be the bookkeeper. I'm a cartographer. I make maps.

Yeah. He's also a great friend. Oh, of course. Remind me, did you guys take the dynamite? Yes. Jack took it because I said it would bump around too much in the portable. Or I mean, in the bag of holding you. Yeah, no.

And so I guess all Doran surmises that this would be pretty neat to work with if we ever get that opportunity in, he kind of hands it back to you to put back in the, you know, along with the rest of the stuff. Yeah, I think I'll put the things that look most dangerous in the infernal puzzle box. Like the infernal

iron, you know, doesn't thrum with the same dark energy, I'm assuming. You can fit one of the vials of pure white sand that is gently smoking, despite its stopper. That seems like probably the most volatile substance. Yeah, I think that'd be cool. Who knows?

I mean, put it this way, and Red says as he packs up the stuff, he's like, look, when we first ran into a dragon, we had to give up magical items like that. Who knows when stuff like this may come in handy as we get more and more into our quest, you know? Just looking at that stuff makes my stomach hurt. Oh, me too. Don't get me wrong. I'm not taking this because I want to use it, although I would love to put this in my coffee. I would love to see what I could fashion that metal into, admittedly.

I mean, I don't know if there are anything would be bad or good, but I think it'd be a pretty cool piece to work with. Can I just surmise what Jack's been doing this entire time? Because you asked me a really casual question, and I know exactly where you're head. Yeah, Jack's eyeing up the bookshelf

inside the iron bars and trying to figure out which book he's going to pull off first with his mage hand to bring outside and read. I presumed that while these three were going through the desk, you were just taking all of the books and taking them through the bars. I think once he's found the first few, he's got a number stacked beside him

sort of in order of most interesting, sorting through them to see what stands out for him. But yeah, I think he's pulling the whole library across. There are, the whole library, there's not that many books, unfortunately, there's only about six or seven, but you've got them all,

and they're all gnomish, and you're reading them. Yeah, I'm going to learn gnomish any time now. No, I imagine with the, with the mage hand, he just like snuck him out. I know, but how funny is it if he's just like leaning on the bars

holding this book like one that's too big to come through and he's just like got his head through. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Peak comfort, you know, a good lean. My head stuck again.

Hey now. My head stuck again. So as Elfirs, they stick out. They're like barbs. Once you get through, you can't get them out. They want to,

it's, they say cartilage bends, but I don't know. Not the right way. Not this one. Are there any titles or anything on them that stand out? as being particularly like grabby once I've translated a few of them.

Yep. Joe's Googling. Stupid books. Dumb stupid dumb books. There is a caretaker's guide to giant centipedes. Weather manipulation and farm management. Underground edition. Yes.

Volume 5. Surveillance techniques and then underneath scrawled, these don't work. and airships, an inflatable history. Can there also be an old comment? Wonderful. Oh, the darkest magic from the darkest depths. Yes. But it's like a kid's book.

It's a nomish translation of the darkest magic of the darkest depths. What I'm really stunned by is how much staying power that children's story has to still be like a popular dwarven tale. The darkest magic from the deepest depths. Oh, there's another book called Fungle Crop Rotation for Underground Dwellers. I feel like this is that part when you're in Skyrim,

you're just like finding a bookshelf and you're like, 100%. Exactly. I'm just going through it going, ooh, the Lusty Argonian made. Another copy. Waiting for one to pop up

and make my spell thing. What does Jack reading these though? Jack is up to see the sunrise every day which is maybe a little earlier than we're starting to get moving. I think he sleeps a little bit less than everybody else. that's kind of around the campfire as things are, you know, winding down or haven't started yet.

I'm envisioning he's reading them as his normal kind of practice. He's, I mean, he's got a pretty good memory for that kind of thing. So I think he sort of mulls them over as we walk through the day. Cool. So. Love it. Workbench investigated evil materials pilfered. I mean, evil is subjective.

Come on. Books read. Yeah. Remember last game when Joe said, you know, a lot of people do this in one, in one hour? and we've now spent like four episodes on this. We should just, we should get it going. Shut up, darling. I turn that wheel there, Mari.

Let's see if this gaity thingy opens. All right. Mari, you set your back to it once more and push that wheel. Push that wheel. Push that bust. That wheel. She's due to that. She feels really strong, but she's still quite physically weak.

She's like, I did it. I did it. you have to set some serious effort to this one it's equivalent to pushing like five babies up an incline like a pretty steep incline in a stroller one of those one of those big strollers with so many kids in them that's right and then as you push the portculeous lifts lifts from the floor however when you relax it begins to come back so are you are going to have to exert effort continuously for the door to stay open. Doran's like watching her kind of struggle with this.

Why don't you guys go in the other room? That's what I was going to do. He'll hold it for you. Oh, yeah, but I got to explore the thing. Sure, great. Thank you. I got it, Mallory. Go ahead.

Oh, you, you beat me too, a red, thanks. We'll take shifts. All right, let's see what's over here. I feel like Dora like cuts in front of Jack really quickly. He starts looking and lifting up these like barrels. Like, hey, what do you think is in these? He's shaking them around. Well, a couple of times.

the barrels are rusted through Doran, but a few of them still are full of some kind of liquid. They appear to be alcohol barrels. Like you could tap these. Do do, do, do. Ceg found.

Doreen can retire. Say, any of you mind if I try and tap one of these barrels and see what happens? Is that safe? How old are these? The longer they ferment, the better the booze is.

I don't think that's how that works, but okay. Well, there don't happen to be any labels on them. I'm just going to... No. No? Dang. Bud light, but nomish. Ah, fuck it. Leave it. Piss water. God.

Definitely do the waft to smell it first before you stick your nose right in it, just in case. We don't need you to go blind. Well, I'm not dragging them out. I'm only going to try him here. So, Doren takes the top corner of his axe, and he jams it in the top, essentially like opening it up allowing it to kind of spill onto the floor yeah there's a hiss and some bubbles accompanied by a rush of what definitely smells like alcohol wow and doran's you know scoops two two hands you know scoops up some of the liquid and and tries to drink it

you succeed i won't even make you roll for it so generous you drink the alcohol it yeah it's booze, it tastes kind of like vermouth, but stronger, you would guess, maybe 30%. That's not, there's not graze, but it's not too bad, it'll do the trick. Hmm. This is good. I want to be on this. Veranda, come hold this wheel.

Veranda runs over just as you release the wheel. And Red runs over next to door and pour some in the skin. Pour some in the skin. Yeah, and we're just filling up every, hey, Jack, pass me your wine skin. Well, nice. Murray, you got a wine skin in there or anything to put

liquid. I have a thing with water. I'm not dumping it out, though, for whatever that is. Oh, you and your water. What I mean, whatever that is? That's high quality gnomish booze. How often are you going to have high quality gnomish booze? Probably, probably only this once. Yeah, exactly. Let's

have it this once. Cheers. Yeah. Dorn drinks his fair share of the booze and fills up every wine skin he's got. He's got extra wines. He's got two or three folded. He's got his morning one, his afternoon one, his evening one.

He's like a kid dressed as a grape where it's just like a bunch of balloons and all once gets the whole way down. Yeah, yeah. Cool. So Doran, you're drinking this gnomish vermouth. Yeah. Red, you're having some to drink? Ah, yeah, might as well have a little bit of, hey, this is quite good, Doran.

Mario, are you going to try some? Oh, yeah. Try some, Mari. Yeah, she hands over her little cup that she keeps. Yeah, here. Excellent. Jack, are you having some? are you busy somewhere else. Jack, I mean, no, he's, he's never too busy to try booze that's

been underground for a thousand years, so he'll pull out his cup from his backpack. Hey, when in Gnome, do his the gnomish thing. Very good. Very good. That's great. No. Cheers. I'm giving you inspiration for that stupid joke. How long are you even sitting on that? I've been trying to find Nome working in everywhere. I'm surprised. We haven't had more dumb gnome jokes. Everyone make a constitution saving throw. With advantage because we're drunk. No. Are you serious? Uh, yeah.

Oh. Why didn't you say this earlier after I drank? Natural 20. Hey, well done. Natural 20. Good job. 10. 10? All right. Also a 10. Oh, no. Hey, this is great, guys. It's sure something. This is going to be 18 for me. 18. All right. Hey, Doran, this is great. Belly bump.

Red and Doran, you guys love this stuff. It tastes delicious. It reminds me of those berries. had from that tree that one time. Yeah. Mari and Jack, I think you might be allergic. Oh, God. Yeah.

You're starting to spring up in hives a little bit. You're turning green from blue. You got itchy ears. It's not pleasant. I hate skin stuff. Why are you scratching yourself over? And what's wrong, guys?

You know, I don't, I don't think the, I don't think the gnomish booze is sitting well. I don't think it's, I think, oh gosh. drinks are best enjoyed in sunlight. Jack, your face is breaking out and hides. Yeah, uh-huh.

Uh-oh. Oh, I'm sorry I feel bad now that. Oh, yeah, me too. Me too. Hold on, though. Don't look. Veranda, come look at these two. Just wait, just wait, just wait. Come here, get to look. She's like, I'm holding the door.

Can you see that faces, though? Look. They got, they got hides. So fun. Okay, guys. How long are you going to be in there? All right, I'm coming back over. Is there still a chest in the middle of this room, or is that? There is. Yes, there's a treasure chest in the middle.

Try and distract himself by looking at all the edges of it to try and make sure it's safe to open. With high vision, you're sure you don't want us to take a look at that check. You got swollen eyes right now. I'll help that too. Mari is just leaking water everywhere. Thorne's had enough to drink and all of his wine skins are full, so he moves on and lets the rest pour onto the ground. Excellent.

Great. As you stand in this ever widening puddle of nomish booze, Jack and Doran, you take a look over at this chest. Jack, you've got a pretty high, passive investigate. Does not look like this chest is trapped to you. Hold on, Stevie, is it good? Stevie holds up an uncertain thumb. He's also had some of this gnomish one.

Yeah, Stevie and I had a little bit extra. He does a little tiny, tiny fist bump for you, Red. I give him a little fist bump back with my thumb. All right, he says it's cool. Well, I'll give it a tentative open up. just to sort of peek and see what's in there. There's a wand inside, Jack. Ooh.

It's a short wand made of dark polished wood. It has a small band of silver towards where you would hold, like, the hand end, I guess. Uh, I will pick it up gently and give it a flick and swish as is tradition. Uh-huh. Jack, this is a wand that would assist. someone casting a fairly low-level spell, a wand of burning hands. It's got three charges remaining. Interesting. Spicy. Spicy fingers. Yeah. What is it? It's a, it's a wand. It's got a couple it's got some old magic in it. It'll take a minute to work it all out, but something

pyrokinetic for sure. I'm getting a very burning vibe from this evocation magic, I'm certain. Stevie shrugs at you like, sorry. I didn't know. Oh, you did great, buddy. Don't worry. You want a little ball? Yeah, he does. Is it like one and done type thing? Yeah, so it's got three charges of the spell. And then it's done forever. It's just a cool stick. Oh, okay. Like the, um, we had a wand of secrets or something at one time that Dornhead. You had a, like a chime of opening. Yeah, wand of secrets. For sure. I think Dorn still has that. I think Dorn still has it. I believe I do. That's what you find. Wonderful. Does, do you need to be a spellcaster to use it or can

Can anybody use it? No, you don't, actually. Anyone can use that. Cool. Well, hang on to it. You know we're going to need it. Well, yeah, we'll have to think about it. I might not be the right person to carry it,

because I've got a lot of this sort of... Yeah, maybe give it to Doran for the time being... You know, Doran, I'll... If you hold on to this, and I'll give you a quick lesson with it when we're back at camp, if you keep teaching me how to fight with that dagger. Hey, you've got it. It's a deal.

He'll make you read for it, Doran. No. He'll make you. read. Let's get out of here because I'll tell you what's wrong with reading are we all right red what's going on what are you looking at he's drunk

he's so drunk this is perfect always dungeon delve while you're wasted I'm not you wasted Jack it's all right Marry's lying on the ground trying to just let the cold stone like but you're also wasted because you both still drink

she's just lying there and seeping water out of her like a sponge and just like... Gently steaming. Yeah, just like my options are go bigger, go gnome and here I am.

Go bigger, go gnome. Good one. So everybody's drunk except for Doran because he's like... I wouldn't say that you're... I'm not really drunk. You're not drunk unless you want to be.

I'd never force drunkenness on you. I'm just uncomfortable. Yeah, it's just not fun. Let's move on, maybe. Yeah, maybe. before I leave, I'll just take a quick old lookie around the room. And I'll do

an investigation for like a secret because, you know, dungeons of secrets. Um, you do notice a secret, a little secret passageway. No fucking way. Yeah, absolutely. Oh my God, that's so good. Red, toward the south

side of the room, you notice that the bookshelf moves over to the side and you find a secret passageway that heads south and up. No fucking way. I feel like Red is like doing that drunken

like Abbott and Costello thing where he like pushes on this wall and it falls in and he like looks at it and he looks back at them but no one's looking. He looks at it and he looks at it. And he looks at it. I think there's a secret door back here. No. Oh. You pass the secret door? No way.

And then Red walks in. Thank you once again to our wonderful Patreon supporters. Alexander, Amanda Kitchener, Anne, Braden, Brian Blass, Brianna Weber, Michael Weber, bring Marie, Cecil Lee Wilson, Colin Burkhart, Cherry Rose, cytosine, Daniel, Haley, Harpo the Marks, J, J, J.D, Joy, K.R. K.M. Cade. Lasagna. Last Ruth on the left. Lead. Mari Kanishi, Matilda Rushing, Melissa, Mellin, Nimble Dingo, Reagan, Ren, Roberta, S Ray 96, Tama, Tara, Trapper 939, Xander, and Zach. Oh, thank you so much.