Dice Shame - 2-36 | 'Joy Ride'

Episode Date: May 4, 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.

Catapult yourself to the end. Wait, what's this button here? You do smell great now. It's no sand or iron, but... Hard all the time. That's a good question. I can get higher and take a look. We get to snuggle.

Jack stumbles in that direction. You never heard of that, eh? Have these guys ever considered having a single, simple door? Press the button, darling! Good stretch of the legs will do it. I can tell you what it's like turning back from crap. I don't know if I want to do that again. Let's poke around a little bit.

Is there anything else worth taking? I remember hearing books. Listen, listen. Shush. books I like books They're in the distance They're whispering Read me

I'm a Daniel Steel novel I'm words Ooh Daniel Steel Dorens like steel Welcome back steel Welcome back to dice shame

Welcome back to Dice Shame This is Season 2 Episode 36 Joy Ride MVP this week is Jared Warren from our Facebook group. Jared writes, I am only on episode 45, but I am in love. Keep up the amazing work. Thanks, Jared.

We love you too. Thanks, Jared. All right. So we do this? Yeah, let's play some D&D. Party down. Woo! So if you were told, like, hey, in two hours from now,

you need to give a five-minute presentation on something interesting. What would you give a presentation on? You're just looking for an answer for what to do. Are we doing this right now? Wait, does it have to be interesting? Yeah, I mean, well, I'm the sort of person who has like a list of topics in my head. I'm like, this is not a scenario that would really happen. But it's one of those things like, oh no, what would I have to?

So in my mind, I've got Jumbo the Elephant and a true story. Oh. Hold on. What? Is it a true story just a true story or is a true story? No, no, a true story. Jumbo Jumbo video? You're going to have to give a...

I'll give you that way less than five minutes. You're talking with Operation Dumbow drop? Jumbo the elephant is where the word jumbo comes from. It's like this corruption of a word from I forget where he was captured in... Ah, you've already failed your speech. I'm just kidding. It's a corruption of a Sudanese word. Two hours to prep.

And then Jumbo... Everything Jumbo comes from that. There was this big elephant. Right. He gets paraded around all over the place. He dies in St. Thomas, Ontario. You know, there's a whole bunch in the middle that you would need to put there. But you do need to know that as of

1975, his ashes from the fire where his body was burned in are kept in a Peter Pan crunchy peanut butter jar in the office of the Tufts Athletic Director. Oh my God. What? What? This is the thing, like, go read the jumbo Wikipedia page. It's bizarre.

No one do that. It's very... So it's not like the word jumbo existed before... Well, it did exist, but it didn't mean jumbo. No, it didn't. Imagine an elephant's ashes stuffed inside an empty peanut butter jar. It didn't exist. It sounds so barbaric.

You got to get them right down to ashes. Yeah, it was just. It's like a Sudanese name. You're going to need more than one jar. Like a tusk sticking out of it. Well, it was the fragments of jumbo that survived to April 1975, then burned in this building fire. And they went to kind of the area Jumbo was in because he was the mascot for Tufts University at the time and scooped him. into this peanut butter jar to live on the athletic directors, you know, covered in his

thing. A Peter Pan peanut butter jar. Peter Pan Crunchy. Peter Pan Crunchy. The other one would be a true story, which is the first science fiction story written in like 150 AD by this Greek guy that talks about outer space and alien life forms interplanetary warfare and all that kind of shit written, you know, thousands of years ago. A true story. It's called a true story. And the best part about it is that it was written as like a send-up of these like big grecian epics to be like fuck you and it ends with to be continued and he never wrote a second book oh what a jerk he could still that i mean you never know he could he could lucian could turn in his grave and like turn in a new script so i'm i'm the kind of person who will just make a power point to like prove a point

um so i don't say many on my computer i have given multiple presentations to my friends to get them to, like, join me for something. I knew I was in a good crowd. If you guys all buy in. I do have two also as well that I would do. Both of which I have done presentations for before, as a joke. What are your go-toes? My go-toes are talking about F-1 because I just want people to watch races and they

slash come for brunch because we do F-1 brunches, where we theme the food to wherever the races. Nice. Do you like real housewives and fast cars? That's F-1. And it's just fast, rich, pretty boys with very fast cars. Oh, the TV show. No, the sport.

The racing. Oh, okay, okay, okay. I'm, uh, and then the other thing is the, the timeline of the Halloween movies. Um, for I, four, there are 12 movies and five timelines within there. So the in-universe timeline. Yes, there's five separate timelines. Amazing. Um, and it is, uh,

truly an experience to like explain to someone of like where these come there's three movies called Halloween in there there's two called Halloween too don't tell me that somehow the police officers who allowed this kid to escape and kill a bunch of people couldn't put together a proper timeline they no one does no one does just it's a mess yeah the people in the movie wrote the movie i can just i can just give you a very quick rundown of the timelines without any going to details. Branch 1 is Halloween, Halloween 2, Halloween 4, Halloween 5, and then Halloween 6. Branch 2 is Halloween 3.

It's by itself. That's the best one. Only one I've seen. Branch 3 shoots off of Halloween 2 and it becomes Halloween H2O 20 years later and then Halloween Resurrection. Oh, wait, Halloween 3 goes to H2O? Yes. No, Halloween 2 goes to H2.

I was going to say because everything ends on Halloween 3. Yeah, Branch 4 splits off separately. it's a nice little disease tree off at the side. That's the Rob Zombie Halloween. It's Halloween and Halloween 2. Thus putting us at two Halloweens and two Halloween 2s. Oh my God. And then Branch 5 branches off of the first movie.

So that one goes Halloween and then Halloween, 2018, and then Halloween kills. And then I think there's the new one that came out. So sorry, there's 13 of these movies. Three of which are called Halloween. Two of which are called Halloween 2. How do the conversations go around these production tables? They're like, oh, well, well, I want to make another Halloween movie.

Well, what do you want it to start? Why? What do you want to start? I want to start the first one. Okay, but it doesn't really fit. I don't care. I came up with my perfect timeline, which goes Halloween, Halloween 2, Halloween 2007, Halloween 2, 2007, Halloween 2, 2009, Halloween H2O, a Mermaid's Tale, Halloween Revengeanceance, Halloween Revengeance, Halloween Again, Halloween, Halloween Town, and then practical magic. You miss Halloween 3, the best one.

Where's the bug masks? No, no, it's still. to the side. Halloween 3 lives on its own. Yeah, that's pretty cool. It's like, the bad guy's Irish. It's like, ah, you didn't like to do's Halloween. I'll kill you with masks. Um, so I have a cheap answer and an easy answer, and I think Narsal would back me on this. I went with zero prep. I could expertly talk about malevolent. And Norsal could do the same with Parkdale-Han. Well, but this is funny and this is kind of the nice thing about, and it sounds like a cocky title, but being a creative. No, but you know, having something like that, I easily could answer every question, talk about every

motivation, talk about every reason for a musical choice, which is actually kind of nice for a question like this, because it's just, it's an easy answer. That being said, it's also a cheap answer. So if I had to have an actual answer, I could talk passionately about some of the detailed choices in Doom. I knew that. I was like, it's going to be Doom. I could feel it's not. It's not. I could talk passionately about some of the details, but I don't know anything about its inception, creation. I don't know any of the people's names who did it. What I would pick, which I doubt is going to be where you're coming from, is the Cohen Brothers Sam Ramey connection pre and post Evil Dead as well as the creation of Evil Dead one. Those specific topics

with two hours of prep to memorize some titles and stuff like that, I could do because I've read the biographies. I've read the biographies of the Coens and Bruce Campbell who talks about making the film. I've seen all the behind-the-scenes stuff. I've seen the snoring cam, or not the snoring, the cam that Sam made and they use it in raising Arizona, and I've seen all these connections. I've seen all the Coen Brothers discography

or filmography that allows me to sign it to see where it comes from. That would be my topic. I would still need prep because it's been a while since I thought. You'd have two hours. It's not putting you on the spot. Plenty of time to be like, cool, I got this. Refresh. I would attend that talk.

That's interesting. You would attend by? I would listen to that. I mean, I find movie making really fascinating, like, especially just knowing the details around, oh, yeah, that scene, they actually got high in that scene and had to cut all the footage. That's why that one line is, in this scene, he flubs that line. That's why he goes, literally, and there's a scene in the first one where Scotty goes, what do you mean, we can't, and he goes like that, and the actor is like, oh, I blew the take, but everyone kept going, and they just kept it in.

And then, like, there's a good second. You see him in the background, he's like, oh, we're still rolling. And he goes back to it, how, like, they had to drive two. hours back to the small town in Tennessee and it was freezing cold and Bruce Campbell just sit with all that fucking like disgusting blood how they just used a real shotgun just fired it through a window whenever they needed to do a real shotgun it was like everyone clear cool safety off that's wild for real yeah it was scary I love it nice we killed so many grips that day so I have a cheap answer which is blood yeah I can talk about blood I don't need two hours

Give me one second and I'll talk to you for literally an hour about blood. Okay. But I want this. I want to learn about blood. I'm interested in your in that world. That's your everyday. What parts of it are still exciting and interesting to you that you would want to talk about for five minutes? I think that's an interesting lens to look at like blood from, right?

But then we have to hear about insurance from Alex. Well, so I was like racking my brain. because I feel like I don't really know a lot of random facts about stuff. Like, Harlan literally hosts a trivia night every week. And I feel like Nersal is kind of a magnet for random pieces, flotsam, information flotsam. My brain is like a soup. And same with Rob. Let's be honest here.

But given, given, you know, the two. hours. I could probably chat about any number of semi-interesting topics, like how to cook a really amazing cake or how to. Harlan's looking at me with doubt. Like I'm like historically shitty at making cakes for some reason. Because because you could have picked some really unique dishes that you cook really well that I don't know many people that can and I don't know why you pick cake. Because like you've done that like raw noodle. What's it called? I could have Pad Thai. Pad Thai.

The raw vegetable patty that you've made that was phenomenal. I did work as a cook in a raw vegan restaurant. And I'm never in it's just a weird For a couple of years. So I could definitely talk to you

about the mooses and patets and crackers. Well, not only that. If it was just a dish, that dish is phenomenal. And that's a totally great example of your skill. Yeah, I could talk about weird cooking stuff probably. Blood and weird cooking stuff and then a combination.

Equally interesting, I would say, are the things that the customers used to come up with in that restaurant, like that they're allergic to the color red. It was a good one. What? That's not how that works. Oh, yeah. Like red pepper? Allergic to red bell pepper, but not green bell pepper because the color is inflammatory.

It's not how that works. You understand. Huh. But yeah. I think you're selling yourself short. I think you have so much, from that skeptics guide to the universe stuff, to the last podcast and left stuff that you listen to. to all the, like, little bits of information and trivia and stuff like that, you've absolutely

gotten feral on topics. I mean, I could definitely talk about serial killers and conspiracy theories for a long time. You spent 20 fucking plus minutes researching a lemon pig. What's that? Lemon pig is my favorite. What is lemon pig? No, I don't know lemon pig. Joe, two hours to prep.

Here we go. Lucky one today's 10,000, I guess. Just Google it. You're going to see a lot of pictures. It's my new favorite New Year's tradition. Okay. Is this like orange? Oh, what?

You get a lemon and then you put cloves or something for eyes and you cut little ears in it and then you cut a mouth and you put toothpick legs and this is important because this is the beginning of Lemon Pig's stories. You have to have a curly aluminum tail because Lemon Pig was actually created or I should say publicized by the makers of an aluminum foil company. Oh, I thought you're going to say.

I didn't in a cookbook about that you need aluminum foil for. And then in his little mouth, you put a coin for good luck, and you have a lemon pig for New Year's, and apparently he'll bring you good fortunes. I want to stress that Joe has changed. We both have dual monitor setups. She has changed both of her backgrounds to different pictures of lemon pigs. That's beautiful. She cycles through them.

Oh, it's a cycle? I didn't realize. So many pictures of lemon. Right now, on my left monitor, I have someone's effort at making a lemon pig, but they didn't have any lemons. So it's a banana lemon pig. Oh, no. It looks horrifying. Can I just say? I'll send you guys some. Don't worry. These are all subjects that I want to know more about. Blood, lemon pig, vegan food, all interests. All right, Alex, what about you? Yeah, I mean, you know, obviously my, if I was going to give a presentation, do what you know best, right? So obviously I'd be.

I can't do malevolent. You can't do insurance. That would be my easy one out, right? It would be like insurance. But that's not my answer. I truly love getting up in front of people and ad living, like improv, right? I think it comes through here. And I think I don't, I'm not too bad at that pretty often. I'll say that. I think you're good at that. You could definitely do a two-hour presentation on improv.

But I think what is most interesting is I could probably do the impromptu presentation five minutes before presenting. Two hours with no time to prepare. I want a five-minute presentation on how to fake a five-minute presentation. People do that, though. I've seen those on TED talks, and you know what bothers me about those? Those people are so fucking smug. I saw one, and they're like, and it's like kind of funny at first.

And this guy's like, I'm talking. And I am saying words that you think matter. And at first, people are laughing. And then he keeps going, and you're like, this guy's kind of just an asshole. You can tell that he really thinks he's funny. The joke was only 30 seconds long and it was stretched to. Give me something and I'll do it. presentation on it, right?

But what I think is most interesting, and because I, the question sort of makes me think of what do I talk about at parties? Like, what do I talk about with people, right? Like, that sort of is what it makes me think of, give a five-end presentation. Hey, you want to hear about the Cohn brothers, Sam Ramey connection and evil dead one? Well, that's true. Yes, I do. Can I talk to you about F1?

Let me tell you about vegan food. These are the sort of things you talk about. You make us sound like terrible party guests. Well, that's why we never get invited over. What do you have an inordinate amount of knowledge about to the point where you could inform others? Pool care. What?

Pool care? Pool care? Yeah. No, no. No. How to spot the difference between a wolf and a coyote. Oh, God, yeah. So good at that.

No. How to make friends and influence people. How to roll a really nice joint. Yeah, yeah, that one. Running through the woods high, but... I know what you could do. You could teach people what to do when they roll a critical hit.

Ah, there you go. In fact, we might get one in this game. What do you guys say? Let's do it. Yeah, let's do it. Get presented. On the other side of the door, there is a confusing site. double puzzies

A bunch of scribbles on the wall Gnomish fuckery basically There is a turntable on the floor Yeah you guys Drop A beat

A Beastie Boys concert From 1984 Hey ladies Rock music It's mixed master Mike has been here That's right It's like

One of those turntables that rich people have for their cars to, like, put them in the garages and stuff. It's operated, you would imagine, by a large crank kind of attached to this turntable. Have these guys ever considered having a single, simple door? Don't you remember how we got in here? It was through a fucking sand trap. Magical quicksand, yeah.

I know, but here's my only thought. If I hop off of here, she sort of, like, raised off the ground. It's, like, standing in between the door as you do this. Yeah. Is that good? Thunk. Is this going to close this? the door. That's a good question.

We'll step off for a second. Everybody's done another way to the door. She hops down for a quick second. Yeah, the door begins to close. Is it closing fast? Back on, back on, back on. She jumps back on. No, it's like, takes like a good minute. It's Prince of Prusa style. Alex and I are both showing with our hands how

slowly it's going. Okay, so she could run through it. Just stay there, Mari. Yeah, you can run. Yeah. Do you want to hear more about the room? Nah. You want to hear of a crank. I was going to sneeze and then. And he gave us an opening. I'm really excited about the turntable.

Give us an inch. We'll take a mile. I can't leave a single moment of silence. So on the other side of this door, there is a turntable on the floor with a crank that will rotate the turntable. On top of the turntable is a confusing array of vehicles. And there is some mind track that has. heads down a very, very long tunnel into darkness. Maybe what I smelt was not air.

This must be how they get their stuff out. There is a strange mechanism at the end of the mine track, and a cart or a vehicle seems to be preloaded into this propulsion mechanism. There are huge springs that are compressed. basically there's like a car ready to go cool it's no rothay but and it's already positioned to the out sort of direction is spring loaded to go towards a wall yeah yeah catapult yourself to the end is there room for all of us in the cart or is it one at a time in each cart you guys could all fit oh good we get to snaggle I think I think it's safe in here why don't we all

come in and then marie you run in was there anything else in that That room before Murray gets off. Was there anything else worth taking? I remember hearing books. There's no books. Listen, listen, shush. Books. I like books.

They're in the distance. They're whispering. That's why I was thinking about you. Well, thank you. Read me. I'm a Daniel Steele novel. I'm words. Ooh, Daniel Steele.

Dorn's like steel. It's nighttime reading for both Doren and I. It's no sand or iron, but. Dorn, is that you? I love that Jesse bronze. enjoying this book, although this blacksmith seems to get turned on a lot. Hard all the time. The furnace is like her vagina here.

They really, really go off track. As I was splitting this steel with hot molten lava, all I could think of was her sweating body. Everything reminds me of her. Her nipples upon my face. What's going on? I don't know. what knows less what's confusing I'm just I'm just I'm just I went off on a tangent thinking

they were like those romance novels that have like that yeah we got we figured that out yeah yeah all got that I don't think I've ever heard Doran's a nipples all right yeah red's in the room come on everyone Mari last as everyone else goes and I guess she watches veranda follow them in yeah you realize oh no veranda's no she's with you we left her behind no whatever Jack poofs Kieran into a pocket dimension for the ride And away we go. Didn't he die?

Oh, yeah. Kieran's way dead. Oh, he, maybe he died over here. He's dead. Yeah, he got arfed. I couldn't remember where he was. I thought he was with veranda for a while. No, he's fucking dead.

Yeah, sure he was, but then I killed him. Just force a habit. Jack's, like, waving. Come up. Oh. Oh, no. So sad. Yeah, Marcy's the spring-loaded cart and just sort of like,

ah, and then like hops down and, like, goes into the other room as the door sort of closes. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Come on, everyone. Doren sort of walks up to these massive springs and like very unconsciously taps on them. He's like, these puppies look like they're real wound up. And the cart launches and our only means of egress is gone.

It's just Red and Mari in the cart and Dorn and Jack and Brian are left forever. No, it's like, it's like, I picture them being too heavy of metal to like even flinch when I touch them. Yes. And there's like cruise ship. bumpers, you know, like at the docks where these massive cruise ships have like bumpers. And there's like a big button at the rear of the vehicle

that when it's pressed is going to release those springs. Oh, I can shoot it with my boat. Don't worry about it. Oh, it's the rear vehicle. Like you can hit it from when you're inside. It's like a big red button. I thought it was something I had to like fire at it. So where is the puzzle then? Is there no, is there a door

that's not open? There's no puzzle here. The puzzle is do you dare. The puzzle is door and get in the fucking car. I thought you said there was a big rotating Don't even stress about that. That's just what it's on. Yeah, we're going to... I'm picturing this like new.

Don't worry. Come on, everyone. Red climbs into the little cart and he sits right at the front. Yeah. Branda, come on in. I'll get in the back. She hops in.

Wait, what's this button here? No, whoa, whoa. No, no. Don't, don't touch it. I think this is the release switch. Mari gets right in behind red. You smell them, like, really smell them for the first time.

She casts Druid craft to give that. Now it just smells like eucalyptus. It smells like eucalyptus. I smell great. You do smell great. Dorn's the smelly one. I didn't say you smell bad. I know, I smell great.

He smells like, he smells like, you know, a dog smell like corn chips? No, no, no. I smell like a cat. Because I bathe myself constantly. Ew. Yeah. But it doesn't smell bad. It just has that, like it's a very distinct smell.

Saliva smell. No, because cats don't smell like spit. He's bathing himself constantly. It's like when we wake up in the morning, he's got his head in his crotch. He's like, yeah. Stop that. Good morning. Marry's nervous.

So she's, she trusts red the most. So it goes red, Mari, veranda, maybe. Yeah, Jack, then Doran, probably. Jack, Doran. Yeah, I want to be beside Jack. Yeah, I want to be right at the front so that my cheeks are going in like the wind. What do you do? Press the button, Doran.

Well, is everybody in? I hope so. Three, two. Wait, just to check. This is rotated so that we're facing. It's ready to go. Okay. I didn't want you to go, ha-ha.

Oh, yeah, that'd be great. You guys all die. The door's not open. Dun-dun-dun-dun-dun. Is everybody in and comfortable? Super comfy. There's no, like, seat belts in here, are there? Absolutely not.

Pess it, Dorn, before Jack makes us wear our seatbelts. All right. You want to do the honors, Jack? No, it's all you, buddy. Let's do it. Dorn, like, punches it with his fist. Immediately after you punch the button, the springs release.

and uncoiling, they release just a wild amount of energy. You are shooting forward through the darkness with a crazy high speed. And along the track, you hit these mechanisms underneath the cart that just add to the velocity of the trip. I don't think any of you have traveled this. fast before under non-magical circumstances but you figure that if you were to fall from this cart

while it was in motion you would certainly die 100%. Marri's been really into F1, Feroon 1 so she's seen things go really fast but she's never done it. She keeps trying to get us into it. I'm trying, I'm trying.

After a terrifying trip through the darkness Yeah, right. Red is laughing his ass off. He's having the time of his life. He's like you on a roller coaster. You're right. I can't tell you guys how your characters feel about this trip. Red is loving it. But it's very, very fast, and it's very, very dark. Are we there yet? Murray's enjoying it more than she thought, but she's fully aware that all of her hair is blown straight into Varanda's face and probably right into her mouth. She's drowning. It's just like, it's just, she's being waterboarded. Oh, no.

Because she's nervous in the head that's just shooting water. So she's just spraying water out of her hair at mostly veranda, but also Jack and Doren. Does anybody else find it misty in here? Tunnel was really damp. Yeah, it was. Several bumpers begin to apply friction to the side of the cart to slow it down to stop. Holy crap, that was amazing. Let's do it again.

Oh, thank Lefander. We're alive. That was so fun. Can we push it back? That was certainly a thrill. We can totally do that again. Does it go backwards? I'm going to be sick.

Yeah. I could do that again. Miranda, like, crawls out of the cart. Soaking wet. Yeah. Mark gets out of the cart and she's just like, it's like, it's like legs completely shaking. Yeah. Okay.

I feel fine. I don't know if I want to do that again. What? We have to do it again. Guys, guys! Oh, that would be so exciting to do again. I have to sit. Dora, let's do it again.

I need a drink. I don't know how we'd get back up there. It's not really clear. from this side how to reset the mechanism to make it go back. All right, fine. Doran, you and me agreed. When the whole adventure's over and all the reordering is done, we come back here and we ride it again.

Deal? All right, deal. I mean, you guys did say earlier that you wanted this to be like your new hideout, and it's pretty rock and roll way to leave. It's like the reverse bat cave. That's going to be a post post credit. It's going to be a super long callback. We'll be like season five or whatever,

and it's just going to be like after everything's done, Doran and Red just getting on this thing. Maybe they're old people. It's red and he's got Doren's bones because Doren's long dead. It'll be next year in game. Come on, buddy. And it'll be 10 years in real life. Yeah.

Yeah, that's a good call. So what do we see in this room at the top? Yeah, it's, I mean, you are looking up at kind of a carelessly rough-hewn tunnel that just leads up to, it looks like an outline of a door. There's some light coming through just barely. Well, this is a little anticlimactic. Yeah, Jack stumbles in that direction. How careless. I'm just looking for surface.

Fresh air. Mm-hmm. Yeah, you press against this door and it opens. Jack, you're standing in a steep-sided valley, densely packed with pine trees. Oh. To your back, if you look past the opening of this tunnel, there is a slope of a mountain wall that shoots up into the grail.

sky. It's dark with clouds. Looks like it might storm sometimes soon. Ahead of you, a thin trail winds through the conifers. Where the fuck are we? What's up there, Jack? Oh, outside. There's definitely outside. And Jack takes a good, solid 10 steps away from this door and tries to sort of get his bearings on like where he could picture on a map these mountains might fit. Yeah. This like, Door begins to close as you step away, Jack, and looking back at it, you see that it's, like, perfectly disguised as a mountain wall, and as it swings closed, you just entirely lose the ability to discern where it even was. Oh, the door closed behind Jack. I wonder if he's okay. So Doring kind of runs up and follows behind, pushing the door open. But this mind. Murray's following. All right. And red. Pat Stevie, who I imagine the whole mine ride was like, you know,

claws deep in red shoulders, just like holding on for dear fucking life. Yeah, he's just like holding on and the tails flapping in the wind. Oh, Carla, do you have inspiration? No, I don't. I haven't had in so long. I want to give you inspiration for that adorable visual. Thank you. All right.

Red follows the other two. And actually, you know what? He hangs back for a second with the veranda. He's just like, are we cool? Yeah, we're cool. Cool. You can trust me. It's all right.

Yeah, of course. There's a second where you see her eyes flick to the side, and she looks at Flycatcher for just a sec, who had been strangely absent for a lot of the time down in Zosan Baffle. Does she look nervous of Flycatcher? Or, like, conspiratorial, kind of like, me and this guy know what's up? Or is she kind of like...

Hard to tell. Okay, okay, cool. Yeah. Crazy. And you know what? Red, like, offers a hand. Kind of like that. Like, he's a few steps ahead

on the steps of the end up. He kind of, like, puts a hand out. To assist her? Like, you can trust me. Like, in the moment, right? Like, in Aladdin. He turns around. He's like, you can trust me.

He puts a hand back. Yeah. Okay, she takes it. Yeah, very Aladdin style. Thank you. Yeah. I can show you the world. Let's go on the cart again.

All right. You guys all go outside. Yeah. And the door closes never to be opened again. I know it's like a game thing, but just as a shit, I want to leave like a ribbon between. You like prop it open with a little wedge of wood. I won't. I don't want to.

But like, because I know it's just meant to be cool. I wrote some kind of one way door that closes forever once the characters leave. No, I love it. Honestly, and I mean, I do like the Hobbit movies, but the way they do the secret entrance to, which is so. fucking cool it's just like that you can't see anything and then the door's just there it's fucking awesome yeah i feel like dorn would want to make like a notch in the tree for future reference he puts a little that's smart like in the closest tree he puts a little notch that looks sort of like the doran iron fist uh the tree cries out no red sees you do the notch and he's like darn you didn't

cut this tree down at all that's barely even stopping right you got a really swing on it are you okay and he's can't even tell that if you're joking or not he's like no no red this is so we can tell where the door is if I ever come back this way. Oh, cool. Yeah, I call it like a marker. Marker. Yeah.

Wow. You never heard of that, eh? That's strange. I thought you would have definitely heard of that. You're a Ranger, too. Marker. Now Red's fucking with you. Oh, I know.

I think it's called a marker. What time of day is it? We are in the late, mid to late afternoon hours. Um, looks like it's going to be probably storming at some point soon. Let's poke around a little bit. Are we on like a steep hillside or something? You are in a valley.

Of the seventh still, right? It is the seventh, correct, of Altariac. It's a long fucking day. Mm-hmm. Not really. We only fell in it like an hour ago. Well, no, but we also fought the wolves today. Yeah, that was nothing.

That's all. Easy mode. That was all today? Oh, my God. You fought the wolves for breakfast. I am tired. Yeah. Yeah, that was the appetizer.

Let's explore just a little bit before setting up camp. I would love to figure out where we are before we just decided to camp. I don't mind scouting a bit ahead. Maybe Dorn wants to peek at the peaks. Yeah, Doren, do you recognize where we are, Doren? You know the peaks better than anybody. Well, that's just it. So Doren's got his cartography book out, and he's kind of...

Jack's beaming with pride. Yeah, he's kind of like looking at Jack thinking, well, don't you want to pull yours out? Whereabouts do you think we are? Well, hold on. And that's when Dora thinks, oh, look at the peaks, yeah. So he sort of backs up and looks for some reference points. Should I wild shape and just take a look around? That's a fucking awesome idea.

Yeah, if you want. Also, no one's seen you do that yet. Mari just turns into a bird and pieces out. I was going to say, all the times to do it is the most random time, but I don't think it's a bad idea. Why not? Well, I'll do a little exploring. Mari, you want to come with me? I can get higher and take a look down below and see if maybe I can see something.

Well, these trees are pretty tough to climb. Okay, I haven't really mentioned this before, but I think I'm just going to just tear off the bandage and just go for it. And she gives red like a little wink. And she puts her hand in her chest and then there's glow starts. And for a moment it's like too bright to even look at. And what's standing there now is just a crow. And now she is a crow.

Yes, Mari. She gently pecks him on the head and then flies up above the trees. Yeah. Whoa. A bird? Mari. The camera follows this crow as you take to wing enjoying the breeze in your feathers for the first time in a long time. It feels so good.

Everything feels open again, especially after being underground for so long. The forms of your companions grow small as you leave them behind. And the mountaintops don't mean a lot to you here. You're not familiar with this area. You couldn't place yourself on a map. But you do gain an important vantage point. And you learn by circling this valley for about 10 minutes that the forest falls in a place close by. The pine trees are stumps and fallen naked logs. And in the center of this destruction is a town.

Like a large town or just like a little places or? This is a large town in the wreckage of this forest. It's got tall walls. Okay. Do you fly closer? Don't fly closer. They eat crows in this town. I don't know. I mean, who knows?

This town is called crow eat. This town is called, we hate corvids. Maybe they don't discriminate and it's all birds. They could just like anything that could be a spy, they better kill it. We call this place bird hate. She's keeping a bit of a distance, I think. She doesn't get too close. because there's been issues before where people

Have you ever been hit by a rock before when you've been a bird? It sucks. Oh, I thought you meant emotionally close. Yeah, no. It doesn't get too close because she's been hurt before. She is a deeply guarded character in a lot of ways. How far is it from where they are? Probably about a half hour walk, maybe a little farther.

And there's like, there's nothing else you can see in the forest below that is of any, like, real concern. No, it's like weirdly isolated. You don't even really see any roads. I guess there's only just the one leading to it. There's like a little path. It's like a tiny trail that leads through the woods that your friends were standing on. Yeah. And you see another trail, maybe a little bit of a more hefty trail,

but certainly not something that's well-traveled leading out the other side. She circles around. She sort of gets a feel for that. She does a couple of swoops and dives because it just feels nice being up there. It's great being a bird. You know, up until someone hits you with a rod It's great being a bird You're like, let them rot

I'm just gonna fucking have We're just smash cut to us We're like I hope she comes back soon We have no food Mari's up there She's like she's eating bugs She's just like flying around

So the irony is there's a storm coming You're probably miserable as all hell Trying to find shit in the air In the winter You're like, oh no But yeah eventually she turns She turns back and she flies down Other crows were mean to me

They told me my feathers were so dull. They don't want to join their murder at all. They kept calling me a raven. This is bullshit. She flies down and she sort of hops over to them and starts calling and then forgets that they can't understand what she's saying. He just, you're like, wah, ma'am. Maury, we can't understand you. But I think Mari's saying, don't move.

You're standing on a grave site. What? And now Mari's standing there again. and there's one lone feather stuck in her hair that she sort of like picks out and throws off to the side. Cool. Welcome back from being a bird. How does that feel?

I can tell you what it's like turning back from a crab. So impressive. Yeah. Is it? I always, I mean, my sisters were always so much better at it than I was, and they could. Oh, I mean, it's garbage compared to others. Sorry, I didn't mean, no, you're very, very poor. It's impressive as hell.

God, it is. Did you see anything of value? There is a town. Oh. Not far from here. Maybe about... Hey. Well, as the crow flies.

Um, that's the mary flies. You hear that door in, veranda? We got a town. Let's move. Might as well stay there for the night. About a half an hour walk up ahead. That's nothing. It's weird.

Maybe I just haven't been to enough places, but there is a wall around it. And there's nothing else around outside of it. I don't think we know to overthink it. I'm sure it's... It looked like a human scale town and not a giant scale town. Right? Yeah, it looks like a human's guilt town. Okay, good.

Let's go. Red picks up his pack, which he did, which was never existed before now. He picks up out of his other bag to put it on his back. It was there. All right, let's move on. All right, yeah. And Red starts heading in the direction. Good stretch of the legs will do it.

Just to look busy and tired. Hey, a town sounds, sounds wonderful. I think we should go. Picking your way through the trees in the middle of this remote landscape. It's strange to come upon this next sight, even though Mari warned you. Portion of the forest was mown down, old stumps, naked trunks, lying at angles amongst churned earth and scattered boulders. And just beyond the wreckage of the forest, the tall battlements of a walled civilization. You can see upon approaching closer,

The walls are strange, made of quarried stone, banded with metal, and interrupted by lumber at regular intervals. Atop the battlements, machines whose purposes clearly speak to warfare. Movement, also, several guards appear to keep watch here. And strangest of all, protruding through the base of one of the walls, the petrified lower half of a stone giant. splayed legs in the snow Thank you once again to our wonderful Patreon supporters Adam Frye, Amanda Kitchener, Amy Gaza

Anne, Cecil Lee Wilson, Jerry Rose Anderson, Christopher, Kirkhart, Crow, Cypress Key, cytosine, DS, Danny, Default Trauma, Dippity, Elizabeth H, Emma, Ghost, Haley, Hop of the Marks, Heather Nichols, J.D, Joy Robinson, K.R., KM, Cade, Kirsten Wolfe, Lazzania, Last Ruth on the left, Leader J, Lizzie Demon, Lorelei Feldman, Matilda Rushing, Marie, Melinda Curley, Mills, Melissa, Merlin, Nimble Dingo, Reagan, Wren, Ruth Ann Reed, Scotty, Sky, S-ray-96, Terabyte, Tony Pepperoni, Zander Morning Dove, and Zach House. Woo! Cool. It is cool. It is cool.

Because stone giants can't go through walls that are made of. of things that aren't pure uncut stone so they've made walls out of stuff that isn't uncut regular stone so giants can't teleport through it. I'm going to cut that dumb down right into the end of it just to kill all the attention. I don't know.

I thought it was a neat detail. I'm like, oh, that's cool. I like it too. I think that's cute. But we already did that. We had an episode and we talked about that. I know. I know. I like, I like hearing the detail. I don't want it as the end thing. Then it'll be an after credits. It'll be an after credit where he just does this thing. I just, that was, you know, okay, there's, there's, there's, there's the blurred line between

Jack and Rob, for sure. It's just funny to hear you like, well, yeah, there's just one blurred line. I was, it was a really thoughtful thing. I think it's a neat idea. I'm, I like it because I don't know these things, because I'm a big dumb down. Thank you for liking my fake town. No, no, I wouldn't have thought. Like, I wouldn't have thought of it.

I think what, what I'm laughing at is Rob pointing it out, not, not the description. I'm laughing at Rob being like, oh, look, they did the thing. I know, I, I, I hadn't thought of the idea before. I think it's really smart. I just wanted to note it. Let's go kick that thing in the balls. Let's go kick everything in the balls. Next episode is going to be called kicking in the balls.