Dice Shame - 2-47 | 'Scouts Honour'

Episode Date: July 20, 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!https://www.extra-life.org/participant/INVICTUSContent Warning: swearing, violence.Part of the Rusty Quill Network Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It seems very large and very scary. Daddy, you in there? Maybe we could climb up there and take a look in. It all comes together now. That's what it's okay. I got you. Okay, we're going to try this again. We're not in my home. Form is perfect. Well, he is the mage and they are the magical fruit.

I can't do my joke now. Now it's just weird. How do we even know there's one in there? No, if Kieran's on point, he knows this is serious. They're quite uncreative. I needed help. Yeah, you can roll a perception, smell-based perception check. A natural 20. Good job, Doran.

Welcome back to Dyshame. This is Season 2, Episode 47, Scouts Honor. MVP this week is Alex Guthrie. He's been nominated by Marie from the Discord for the amazing backstory story. They also went on to say that Alex has been. been their favorite player because his characters are always chaotic, fun, and hilarious. And I tend to agree. Great job, Alex.

Great job, Alex. You're this week's MVP. All right. Should we play some D&D? Yeah, let's do it. Woo! Deadstone cleft is a site to behold. A central canyon is open to the sky, and a wide, shallow river flows through it,

overlooked on both sides by the frozen figures of stone giants protruding from the cliffs. Mist drifts in soft waves. And along the canyon walls, a handful of cave openings are already visible from where you stand. The four of you had snuck along the river, shadowing a barbarian from a distance as he passed by and disappeared into a cave. You're about 200 feet away from a promontory, atop which a huge bird's side. nest can be seen. Is it snucked or sneaked? I don't know, but if we don't do this right, we're all completely snucked.

Inspiration, Alex. Oh, nice, good. You're all going to be snucked, that's for sure. All right. What are you supposed is up there? Red points to the giant nest on top of the hill. It's big enough to keep a rock if that's where they're... Oh, right.

Yeah. Big bird. Big bird. Okay. I'm a little upset by the fact. that both the big birds are rocks and the thing they'll be throwing at us are rocks. Just too many rocks to think about.

I mean, they are stone giants, so it's kind of the whole thing. They're quite uncreative. Maybe that's why they like the birds because they're called rock. It's thematic. So how they keep them around. You know, I'm kind of curious about that nest. All right, let me send Screvin up.

Scriven! And Scriven, and comes out of a bush nearby. Hey, Scriven, go give that nest a fly by. See if you can see anything in it. And Red kind of lets him off to fly up. Yeah, scream in screeze into the sky. But then he remembers that you guys are trying to be stealthy and he does a much quieter scream. A whispered scream.

He just can't help himself. And then he, yeah, he becomes smaller and smaller as he ascends into the morning light. And he wheels around this huge rocks nest. First, inquisitively, you know, keeping his distance and then circling a little closer, a little closer. and nothing seems to happen. After a few minutes, he flies just up the canyon a little bit and then returns to you without much incident at all. Red puts out two small piles of bird seed and says,

this one's yes and this one's no. Was there anything in it? I'm guessing not. He packs the yes pile. Oh, there was Doran. He eats some bird seed. Was it dangerous, large, something formidable? Probably a baby.

He eats like 20. 25 pieces of bird seed in a row. It's like a hamster. They're getting all packed in his little bird cheeks. Right, right. Okay. Look, that's enough for me. Let's, uh, let's head inside. Do birds have jowls? This one does.

Mine does. So that's a, so that's a yes that there's something in there. Yes, he ate all a bed seat door. That means super yes. Oh, okay. Well, we better keep an eye on that nest. Yeah. All right, we got three entrances.

One across the river to the right of us, I guess the east. one sort of northeast and then one pretty close to that big do we think something's in it I don't know I'm thinking maybe we could climb up there and take a look in and while we're up there we've got a great vantage point to see all these different entrances and maybe what's a little bit higher up I don't know if that's a good idea well how do we even know there's one in there seems very large and very scary did we see where the barbarian went the barbarian entered into the cave that's almost directly across the river from the rocks nest. So that's the southernmost entrance.

All right. I still have passed without trace active. Why don't we sneak along this bank, take some cover by those trees, and then head up to the hole in the middle across that log. I think if we can get there silently, it'll be our easiest way in. Yeah, I think that's probably a good idea. Not follow that barbarian, but maybe go in a different entrance because maybe that's less traveled.

Let's do it And Red starts heading that direction All right Everybody roll some stealth checks for me please 30 Nice I rolled a 32 I got 30

Nice The three of you move stealthily Through this misty canyon Jack tromping along behind you clumsily I mean a 16 is not nothing Quiet Jack Oh my God you won't speak quiet

It's the beans you had this morning It's all The nerves working their way out. At the end of this, I'm going to be ready to go. Something else is working its way out. No. Yeah. And you seem to be unobserved as you cross the bridge and head up the embankment.

It's a bit of a steep slope and you make your way towards this cave entrance. It's pretty big. It's maybe 20, 25 feet wide. and about 35 feet high. And it's dark inside. Red will lean over the edge and just roll perception to see if I can maybe smell anything or see anything. That's a 17.

Yeah, with a 17. I mean, it's really dark inside. You don't hear anything. But you do smell. There's a strange odor. I smelled something odd, but I don't recognize it. Doren, do you recognize the smell? Red grabs Doren's head and puts it in front of him.

Dorn sniffs the air down the hallway. And should I roll for this or do I know it? Yeah, you can roll a perception, smell-based perception check. A natural 20! Good job, Doren. Yeah, it's faint right now. Maybe just a residual smell or from something far away, but it's unmistakable smell of strong beer.

Oh, wow. Duren's like I know that smell It's the smell of Beer in a deep cave And I know this smell from growing up It's that weird mix I mean you just can't get the same thing from a tavern

It was my father's breath Daddy Oh no I can't do my joke now Now it's just weird Mine was your personal experience Oh no All right well look

We don't want that rock to spot us Let's head inside. Doren, you take the lead. I'll take up the end. Absolutely. Maybe we'll find some beer to drink. No, snap out of it. I've got to remember we're not in my home, although that beer smell in the cave is very, very, it's throwing me off.

None of us are even remotely in doubt of that. We definitely know this isn't your home, so don't worry about trying to tell us. Well, I wasn't telling you. I was reminding myself. Oh, well, we'll help you. Guys, this isn't Doren's home. Doran, this isn't your home.

Well, thank you. If this was his home, I'd have questions. And the doors would be shorter for Dorman homes. The scale of the place might tip you off, unless that's like that dream where you think you're small and you're... Aw, he's like remembering being a little dwarf. It turns out that Doren is like the tiniest dwarf. All of them are actually massive.

And he's just like, oh, I'm so little. He's the cute little run to the family. He's actually of giant lineage and he just never replaced it. These are normal. Wait a minute. This is my home. Maybe this is home. It's a carrot disc world thing.

Dorn's going to make his way in slowly. not really against the wall, but certainly closer to a wall and not down the middle of this corridor. Okay, yeah. And I'm going to follow right behind Doren just keeping my eye out to make sure we don't fall into any traps

or get, you know, who doesn't want to get a good view of giant culture and the kind of places they build. Definitely. Where's Kieran? Is he right by your side or is he... Oh, yeah. Chasing butterflies around. No, Kieran's on point.

He knows this is serious. He's been in this life and death situation more often than any of us. Red, you're in the behind. I'm taking it up the rear. As usual. Murray's following right behind Jack and Kieran

and is feeling like that sort of like dread settle in so she just keeps like absent mindly like petting Kieran. But it's like you're petting it too hard where like the eyes are being pulled back and it's like, you gotta pet him so you can feel it. It's like sending mind messages to Jack being like

this is not okay. Well the hard part is that because she's nervous, the petting is fine, but it's just like there's just, he's just wet now. Like the dog is, and he's like wet. A whole different smell. The smell of beer is being taken over by wet dog. Come on, daughter, let's go.

Maybe there's werewolves in here. As you enter this giant tunnel, it's strange. It's not like other stone passageways that you've been into. These are intentionally carved passageways, or at least this one is, it seems. The rock isn't craggy. It's not a natural formation. This whole place seems to have been carved from the living stone. The walls here are engraved with these maze-like patterns and whirls. And the ceilings are a dizzying landscape of upside-down stone giant faces that seemingly watch you as you pass by underneath. Doran sort of whispers back and maybe he even looks towards Jack behind him and he says, do you think they're carved or do you think they're actually stone giant faces in the wall? And I'm like expecting it to look at the wall and see like the Scooby-Doo canvas and there's like eyeballs behind holes.

You know, Doran, it could be either. I mean, maybe that's part of the way they decorate their homes. But I think more significant, they decorate their homes. Any other time we've seen these xenophobes, they've been trying to wipe every scrap of civilization off the map. This is the first time I think we've ever together seen them build anything. And this is what they made. I mean, it's, I wonder why.

Can I just make an observation? And I don't want to take it too far off track, but I thought this was interesting because the giants are xenophobes, right? And the other day I was like, you know, outside, and I stepped on a bug. I can't remember what happened. But I wonder if bugs look at us and they go, oh, terrible xenophobes

because they don't like bug people. You know, like, they don't like bugs. I wonder if it's all just, like, really perspective. Like, the giants don't even look at us as if we're on the same level because we're just so small. Deep thoughts with Alex Guthrie. Like, maybe they just don't realize

that how xenophobic they are. They're like, oh, these little creatures, they don't have the same mental capacity. I love the idea that, like, wastes are like going like anti-fash, bash for the fashion, like stinging us. All right. Anyway, sorry, that was my morning thought. What you should have done is done that in Doran's voice.

And then we could have called it deep thoughts with Doran. And it kind of like is like a dwarven thing. I think it's too philosophical for Doran. No, it's not. Brett hangs back and does his primeval awareness just to sort of get a lay of the land. And as the others are looking around. around the carved stone room. Sure, yeah.

You give them a minute, I guess it takes. Yeah. Red, I guess you learn the rough numbers of each of your favorite enemies, right? So humanoid and giants. Humanoid giant, yeah. Within kind of the immediate area, we're looking at around 30 humanoids and about 15 giants. Red stands up and talks to the others. Hey, we're looking at about 30 humans, humanoids, and 15 stone giants.

Maybe some scouting is in order before going in there for force. Doran's looking at the walls, and he's going to try and perceive through his stone-cunning skill, whether these walls are sleeping giant faces or if they've been carved out of the rock. Doran, why don't you roll a nature check for me? That's going to be 13. What did you add to that rule? Eight. My double my.

Okay. Double my. Yeah. I'm getting not bad at this. I'm getting not bad at these. Three years later. 13, Doran, you're able to ascertain that the faces above you probably aren't living stone giant faces or petrified stone giants.

Something strikes you as odd. The quality of the carving is, you're not sure if it's just so strange because you've never really inspected a stone giant carving before or whether there's something unique about this place specifically. It's hard to put your finger on. Yeah. Red walks up and just runs his hand over the walls.

And actually, while he's doing this as well, I'm going to investigate the wall. But I also want to just see if I can remember anything about stone giants. I remember fighting one when Jack got petrified, and it kind of came out of the ground. It didn't seem to hear us or see us. And I'm wondering if I can roll something or maybe even just remember something about the way it perceived us. That might be a help in here. I mean, you definitely remember in your combat that when the creature was going to attack you,

it didn't like peek up out of the earth like a whale looking out of the ocean before it attacked you. it just kind of showed up. Right. And as Red sort of rubs his hand over the walls, he whispers to the others, you know, the stone giants didn't need to see or even really hear us when it attacked us before.

It can only move through stone. So if we see any areas that aren't stone, let's try to stand on those. It might give us an advantage. And I have a passive investigation of 17. So I'm hoping that's enough to sort of decipher what I want to about the walls. Apart from the faces, Red,

they're not depicting realistically, objects that you would recognize in the way that when you had seen the stone giant that was petrifying things and attaching them to its body you were like oh that's an anchor from a ship like there's nothing that's being depicted that exists in real life here it's very abstract cool all right there's something strange about these walls dorin kind of correlates what he learned earlier they're carved but it might have some significance in this hallway you know maybe Maybe this is the confused giants hallway. Is it worth trying to do an Arcana check, or is that just going to be?

You absolutely could. Mari sort of like runs her hands across the wall and does an Arcana check on the carvings that she sees. This is a monitored security system. You're being watched. Oh, God. That's a ringed camera up there. It's got motion detection on. Shit.

I rolled a 17. Yeah. Mari, just from seeing the whorls of minerals within these rock formations and your knowledge of the natural world combined with your knowledge of all that is arcane, you can tell that these sculptures were made magically. Cool. These weren't carved traditionally, they were carved magically. Something did seem odd about them. Yeah. These aren't chiseled away.

No. And Doran now inspecting closer. Well, that was obvious. I don't know how I missed that. Yeah, me neither. I totally don't know how I missed it. Anyway, let's keep moving. We don't want to linger here too long.

And Red looks up ahead to see what there is. Yeah, I mean, this whole place is giant-sized. So your dark vision is only about 60 feet, I believe, for everybody. Except for Ork Splitter. You can see into the future. And Mari. Murray. Marie's a 60.

It is? Oh, okay. Yeah, she's got the goggles on. But you travel through this worked cavern corridor, your footsteps echoing very lightly against the stones underfoot until the passageway turns to the east, and you are met with a 10-foot ledge, so you would have to climb up 10 feet in order to proceed east. All right, Red sort of moves forward.

I got to climb speed. I'll move up. take a look and then help anyone else up. It's like giant steps. And these bar relief carvings that are all over the walls and the floors, they're also on the face of this ledge. So it looks like actually there are places here that could be used or have been used easily as handholds to help climb.

Red scampers up quietly and looks over the edge. Is there anything sort of on the ledge above? Do you do like a little pixie? Yeah, a little pixie-weecksy, kind of like Gollum in the little. Lord of the Rings. Just my cat eyes looking over. Yeah. You look. What are those cat eyes see? You look over the ledge, Red, and

you see another empty hallway, although it seems to turn to the north here and out of sight. All right. Red gets up, turns around, and lowers a hand for Mari. Come on, Mari. She starts trying to crawl up her skinny little arm muscles, like, straining as she tries to, like,

hold her own body weight up she's trying she's trying to be graceful but she's just like it's like a really damp hand it's okay i got you all right you'd think that like the active adventuring would just actively improve your strength score over time yeah we've only done it for like five days yeah that's fair i mean marie for marie is only done for five days yeah that that's my strength stead is an eight so he's gone please i think that's the worst in the party no mine's eight as well. No, mine's eight also. Like, we're all.

Mine's eight, but... Wow. However, one of my saving throw dies is strength. So my stat is eight, but I have a plus three when I do saving throws. You've got that. So it's kind of... That's why I play Red, even though he's not that strong, I feel like he's got like a good core.

You know what I mean? Like, he's got really good core strength, but bad, like, arms. Jack's got that wizard body. I feel like when push comes to shove, Red's got like this deep inner. reserve of some kind of wildness that you could just eat like my my strength saving throw is the same as my charisma saving throw right in terms of you know so it's like if he's this charismatic he's at least got to have this much core strength but when it comes to the one-on-one it's time you can do one push-up but it's a good one form is perfect mine mine's a negative one so i just lay on the

ground face down if she tries to do a push-ups red reaches down and grabs jack's arm come on jack and doring kind of boosts him up from the bottom well thank you No problem. Hold your breath, Doran, in case he fights. I knew I should have done that black bean oatmeal. It all comes together now. Well, he is the mage, and they are the magical fruit.

Magic beans are a staple of alchemy. No, Jack, now you've made it too funny. I've got to keep them in. You tip the scale. I see it happening, too. I'm like, that's not making it. That's still not making it. Now that might make it in.

Now it's got reason. It's boob talk all over again. Dorn kind of climbs up the faces, you know, putting his hand on the nose and his foot on the lip. There's like a roughly carved nose and Doren sticks his hand up like both like up the nostrils and grabs. Buggers. And like when Doreen gets close enough, Red grabs the like belt of his butt and pulls him up the last little bit.

Yeah. Oh, thanks for that. You got up the first step. Congratulations. I think that's an episode's worth of content, right? That's the first step in completing this mission. Red heads to the next ledge, and he sort of holds up a finger in front of his mouth, and he does a perception roll.

18? Does he see anything over it before approaching? Yeah, you do, actually. Red, there's a little flicker of some kind of dim light coming. See it almost like reflected off of the ceiling. And Red gives the signal to sort of everyone, lay low, and he very stealthily climbs up and again peeks over this next ledge. Roll another stealth check for me.

32. Oh, all right. Whoa. I feel like, Red, you're so stealthy that the only thing visible as you look over the ledge is just at an animal flash of light in your dark eyes. Oh. And you see a large cavern. read, this cavern is lit by two campfires that are burning in the darkness.

Cavern is about 200 feet wide and the ceilings are higher here, maybe 45, 50 feet. And you see people. There is a barbarian, a warrior here, maybe about 20 feet away from you looking in your direction. clearly on guard watchful, but you don't seem to have been perceived. A little farther back in the cavern, you see another warrior gazing off into the northern tunnel that exits, and there are a couple more figures in the dim light in the back. Red slinks back down to the others and turns and says, there's five barbarians up there with their eyes this way.

but there could be more. We need a way to be able to scout ahead. What about invisibility, Jack? We pass without a trace I might be able to sneak in and move around them. The spells I've got prepared today won't last long enough for a good investigation. Hmm. Any ideas, Mari?

I mean, I guess we could technically fight them. I don't want to, but I guess we could, but... And then she sort of, like, steals herself because she's trying to stay confident and stay like she knows what she's doing, but she really doesn't. And she's like, I can try to go up in there and take a look, and I can go up there as something just really, really small as like a little spider or a bug or something and hopefully get around

and maybe no one will notice me. Hey, if you feel like that's a risk that you are okay taking, then I think that would be the smartest call. I don't know if I'm okay taking it, but I can try. Marie, you are powerful. Don't worry. You got this. You're a strong adventurer. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm... Okay. We'll hang out here. In the meantime, we'll come up with a plan as well.

But yeah, see, you can find as much as you can up there and then come back. Yeah. And so here's just the thing. And she sort of like waves her hand and like a little like glowing hourglass pops up and she just goes, I can do this for about four hours until I have to turn back. So if I'm gone for that long and you guys are still here, I'm not coming back. Mari, you're coming back. Yeah. If you hear the sound of the bird ring and she holds her hand up, or if you just hear a lot of screaming of the sound of, like, me getting stepped on and then turning back into myself and then getting stepped on again,

then I guess either come running that way or go running back out the door. Really, it's up to you at that point. We'll come running. We're not leaving this place without you. Don't worry. Absolutely. You've got our backs. Don't worry.

All right. She takes a deep breath and she puts one hand on her chest. You can see it's like visibly shaking. And Red puts his hand on top of it. You've got this. Oh, thank you, Red. And she glows for a moment and then sort of in that little, like very short little dim blue flash. You looked down at the ground as a tiny, just a little tiny cave spider down on the ground.

And the only thing that looks any different about it than like any other species, wandering around is there's like a thin blue line that runs down the back of it. Ah, spider! Squish, squish. And then there's like a moment we're like, oh, damn it. And then Mari just reappears and she's like, okay, we're going to try this again. And you do not step on the spider. No, we like squish it, squish it.

We all stand back. And then you just hear the faintest bird ring go, boom. I needed help. Weirdly, didn't have a problem riding on a big spider a couple of days ago, but the small spider, something about it. She just scampers across Jack's foot Just to bug him Why there's so many bells on this shoe I like how now I feel like Jack now has

Bell shoes and a hat Which is like one thing I've retained Canonically he's got like the cliche Christmas elf bell hat And shoes But also if we took everything you said Jack has He's also got assless chaps from a couple of years ago He's got a hat

Which is this He's also got a gloves. He also wears gloves. Yeah, he wears gloves that are full of cat hair now or tabaxy hair now. But I do love the idea that, like, Red bought the bell shoes for you and the bell hat, like, thinking that you'd like them. Of course, like, I don't want to be rude. I got a, you know. But there's like, there's like three layers to this.

Like, Red was like, hey, I got these for you. And you're like, oh, okay, even though you hate them. But Red Seeker, like, they look ridiculous. Oh, no. The deception. Wait, you know what? They're not the worst thing I've seen. It seems like something that could fit into Water Davian fashion.

I've always just been told what to wear because it was fashionable and done it anyway. The third layer of it is like we were in water deep and someone's like, people are stopping you being like, this actually looks really good. And Red's like, damn it. It actually does look good. A trend setter over here. The long con. Red's now wearing a bell hat.

He's like, everyone's just got bells fucking everywhere. I did it to goof with them, but now I'm kind of jealous. Yeah, that's exactly how it would go. I love the idea of having to roll disadvantage on every single stealth check because of all the fucking bells. But advantage on all the charm. this is why pass-o-led trace is so important because everyone's just decked out good luck marie and red pets the little spiders oh a little tap on the head anything goes wrong i'll be there with bells on no matter what even if you

don't want them with bells on um you just see like the little spider arms like wave and then she crawls up over and into the cave part where the barbarians are yeah we see a little fish eye lens version, which is Mari's spider vision as you climb up and over the ledge's edge. You look out into this big cavern. Yeah. She creeps sort of staying along the walls and starts heading over sort of more into the middle of the room to see, to sort of get a vantage point of like what's all around her. Yeah. I mean, I'm not going to make you roll stealth checks because you're like a tiny dark spider in a giant cave. Yeah, she's avoiding everybody. She's just, she's not going near anything like living. Exactly, exactly. So Mari, you see now that you are

exploring this larger cavern that there are two areas not yet described by red. The first, there is a southern cave down another ledge. It seems like it's empty. It's quite big. And then And beside the bed rolls that are in the northern side of this cavern, where two of these warriors are actually sleeping now, you can tell, based on their loud snoring, there's a giant barrel of what is probably beer. Spiders can smell beer, I think. Right. They can't smell anything else, but just beer.

Yeah, yeah. She's got a wonderful nose, like, to be able to discern any sort of, like, beer. She's like a porter, a sept, an ale. We've all heard of spider sense. So this barrel is like 10 feet wide, 15 feet tall, and there's a, like an alcove carved out of the wall behind it, inside which sits a giant-sized stone mug. And there was nothing in that bottom cave. It was just empty. That's what you, that's what you perceive, yes. All right. And no beer. Okay.

So there's a tunnel that leads north from here as well. Keeping, again, against the wall, she scampers her way into this other room to take a look at what's further in. Mari, you are looking into a wide circular room. The ground under spider foot slopes down gently, and there's a 70-foot wide, wide. pool you would estimate of viscous liquid you can tell because it's burbling softly these big bubbles like gradually rising to the surface and then staying there for a minute before popping on the southern side of the room there are three huge stone giants that seem to be coming out of the wall oh boy and there's two passageways that lead

out of this room. One, to the northwest, through which some natural light seems to be coming. Maybe this is a way out. And then to the northeast, looks like maybe there's some more lit braziers in that direction. If I go up closer to the pool, not close enough to get really close, like, in any real bubbly danger, but like, is it mud? Is it some sort of magical liquid? Is it? I mean, just Just to look at it seems like mud. Right. And I guess all I can smell is beer. It doesn't smell like beer.

It's not beer related, though. All right. She's like, well, it's not a stout. Okay. She gives the passageway that looks like it lead outdoors, like a sort of long look. Like there's this moment where all she wants to do is run back out into the sun, but instead heads deeper in and goes towards the passage on the east side.

Yeah. down another long corridor you're taking up five 10 15 minutes now you come to another large cavern there are five stone giant sculptures it's hard to tell really what they are the nature of these things coming out of the walls here and a big pool of water in the center of the room it's open to the sky so you can see a little bit of blue up there some of clouds scuttling by and there are also three sets of big stone double doors here can i say a quick look at the doors do they have keys or they seems like just simple stone doors with hinges right says bless this mess on it live laugh love and then there's another um passageway that leads to the north and there's some natural light coming out of there yeah and marie sort of goes and like just takes a look at that passage, because it assumes that it goes outside, and she sort of spends some time looking up at the sky, because before going, Red describes her as an adventurer.

But she still doesn't feel that very much, but she does see herself more as an explorer. Because prior to meeting with the rest of the party, she had just been on her own sort of exploring, trying to figure things out just by herself. And going into this, she was terrified. but now that she's in this like little quiet tiny spider body and she can move around basically unobserved she feels more back in her element in a weird way than she has like actively fighting but then the the dread of seeing these giant these immobile stone giants kind of starts to settle back in and she starts to make her way back to the rest of the party okay as we've been waiting

Reds just kind of looking up at the firelight above, and he's sort of thinking, and he's like, you know, if we could lure them here, maybe one at a time, and maybe have a projection of some sort, like a minor illusion at the top of the ledge, they would just tumble off. Lure them towards us. I think I can match the way the edge of this ledge is crafted. I can put on a little illusion there just to extend it a foot or two out, enough to, like, throw them off balance. Yeah.

Yeah, I just, I guess I could throw a pebble at one of them, or something like that. And that's when Mari's little spider body scrambles over the lip of the ledge and drops down in front of the four of you. A spider again! Oh, right, never mind. She like, she like, weaves her way down and then does the little, like, she's like, no, no, don't, don't stop. No stopping. And there's like this tiny little blue flash of light, and then suddenly Marie's just sitting there on the ground. and she gets up and she's kind of moving a little weird because her mind and body aren't matched yet so she feels like she doesn't have enough limbs.

She's like, I need more arms. So when she talks, her arms are like moving kind of too much trying to make up for like the lack of the other ones. Mari, put your arms down. What did you see up there? She gets her little notebook out and starts scrawling like a rough map in there with the knowledge that Jack is now like committing this to memory.

internalized. I love a map. Well, that's good. If there's only five barbarians, I think we can take them. And I had this idea of having this illusory terrain that he's going to project there. And then we need a way to lure them over here. I was thinking maybe I just throw a pebble or something. All right, yeah. Either a pebble or maybe we can make the sound of a screaming dying animal out here and they come investigating.

Well, we don't want to draw all of them. We want to try to get them one at a time. Yeah, true. And we all know that barbarians can't resist a deal. dying animal they get a whiff of it and they're like i'm there let's let's go i mean you joke but but but like if if i heard a dying animal on my porch i'd kind of want to go see what's up you know i think there's depends what kind of animal is dying well you don't know till you go investigate do you can tell between a mouse and a bear oh dying lying dying lion lion he meant dying lying

dying lying diet lion the problem is he changed lion to how you say dying so he went dying lying. Wait, damn it, but I got what you meant. Yep. Dying lion. Years of knowing each other to translate between... If we can find a way to bring the movie here one at a time, then they'll fall through the illusion, and then we'll have a good opportunity to take them out. Well, I could drop a stone from the roof just to make it look like something fell.

Maybe it's just enough to draw them over here. Hey, that's a good idea. At the very least, don't embarrass them if they fall. They'll die. Psychic damage. Oh, my God, I look so dumb. Right. And Red hugs against the wall and he readies an action. See if we can get them right there. Drop the stone at the top and then maybe make it look like it's on the illusion so that they walk that extra few feet. When they hit the ground, I'll let them have it. Doran, you too, you ready up.

I'm going to fire the minute that this barbarian falls down and hits the bottom. Okay. And Doran readies his act so that, you know, when the barbarian comes off the edge in any way, shape, or form, he's going to swing. Okay, dook. If I have enough time to get back and get into position, I'm going to ready a firebolt to launch to. And Mari sees everyone doing this, and she readies guiding bolt,

which just creates this, like, long bolt of energy that, like, straining against her hands that she kind of, like, tucks into her coat, try to hide it. It just lights her from below, like she's got a spooky flashlight. She's trying to tell a story. All right.

And I do it. I creep up to the ledge. I create this illusory extension of it, and then using my mage hand, go as high as I can and drop this rock from 60 feet above me until it sort of bounces on the ground and rolls towards us and then sort of scramble back to get in position against the wall. You don't hear anything for a few seconds. And then you hear the approaching footsteps. Thank you once again to our wonderful Patreon supporters.

Adam Frye, Amanda Kitchener, Amy Gaza, Anne, Cecil Lee Wilson, Jerry Rose Anderson, Christopher, Colin Burkhart, Crow, Casey, DS, Dippity, Elizabeth H, Haley, Harper the Marks, Heather Nichols, Indian Thrifty, Jekyll, J.D., Joy Robinson, jewelry, K.R. K.M. Cade. Kirsten Wolf. Lasagna. Last Ruth on the left. Leader Jay. Lizzie Demon. Lorelei Feldman. Loon. Matilda Rushing. Melinda Curley. Moon. Melissa. Merlin. Sam C. Reagan. Regan. Ren. Ruthan Reed. Scotty. Sray 96. Tony Pepperoni. Zander Morning Dove. And Zach House. See? I'm cutting what you said because I know I'm right. Jack, stop doubting. I'll manipulate your files

so you're the one doubting. Quiet, Jack, this will work. Trust me. Too much power in one editor's head. Don't cry. It's fine. Okay. Cry a little bit if you need to.

Jingle, jingle, jingle, jingle. Touched bells to all of his walking. I just, I jingle with tears fall from my face. Parts. ass cheeks clapping in the chest with traps. Make him the mustard birds. Helps the flow of magic through. I'm just telling you.

Can I switch to the jester class? I feel like that's where I'm headed. Oh, yeah. They're so powerful. And I just saw Alex fart in real life. Got you. Gotcha. Well, let me say this.

I might burp on camera, but at least I wouldn't ever fart on camera. So I have my standings. Well, I could you've got a line in the ear. And yet. And yet, it's not like I'm, I'm not putting my ass in the cameras, you know, towards a camera farting in the, in the microphone. Right in there. These are bodily functions, guys.