Dice Shame - 2-70 | 'Hammer Home'

Episode Date: December 28, 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: animal death, swearing, violence, claustrophobiaPart of the Rusty Quill Network Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If it's still there, that's Gorgon's tavern. Unless she's sick in a way that's contagious. I'm a bingo card, Doran. Oh no. We're in a dormit city. There's certain protocols. Hi, we're friends. Mr. Doran, iron fist.

Bingo card. Hey, I should take great offense to that. This explains so much. Clearly things down here find you, friend. Archman on everything. Perfectly understandable. Recently a gnome, yep. Chancellor?

Chancellor? Chancellor? Chancellor Gautier I think it means something like money Welcome back to Dyshame This is Season 2, Episode 70, Hammer Home MVP this week is Alex Nersal Who was nominated by Anonymous

They wrote Alex's spoilers, wrong answers only in the Discord has been amazing and her gameplay is inspiration-worthy. Thanks so much for the nomination Anonymous and congrats. Yeah, congrats. All right, shall we do this? Yeah, let's play some D&D.

Woo! Aliens, you know? Whoa. Oh, God. Enough said. Got to love them. Do they exist? Do they not exist?

exist, who knows. I mean, probable, probable art. Enough said. Let's play D&D. You know, I would say aliens in general fall into, you know, two big groups. You know, you got like the xenomorphic types, which are like seemingly mindless monsters, you know, you got like those. You got tons of movies and literature about these mindless creatures. And then you got kind of like the more humanoid meant to be a reflection of us in some form. You know, maybe they don't look necessarily humanoid always, but they act pretty humanoid, you know. The Martians.

Clearly, those writers are kind of filtering them through their own experience. And I say this because I just watched Alien 3. Great movie. Great movie. Which one is that one? It's all the shaved head sigourney. Yeah, it's the one directed by David Fincher, which he, like, you know, abandoned. The penal colony one.

Really, really, really good. But anyway, out of the two sort of types, and obviously there are more, I'm getting big and broad here, Which do you think are more likely to exist? Do you think out there there is just this like, you know, crab legs, you know, more creature scuttling across? Or do you think there is some humanoid type of creature that's not just a organism that reproduces and kills, but kind of has society and culture the way that we do? And then third part to this question is, if you were to imagine an alien out there, what do you think it would be like? and it can be a third type of category.

Nersal, xenomorphic, humanoid. What do you think is out there? See, I think out there if it's going to be something xenomorphic because I think that it's going to be on other planets with different atmospheres and makeups of all this stuff and that it's too narrow-minded to imagine that they're all going to be sort of like humanoid. It's like...

Bipedal. Yeah, and just being like, oh, they're going to be living on an Earth-like planet and stuff like that. because I think life could live in conditions that we can't even imagine. But my problem is that I've watched a lot of Star Trek. So when I imagine an alien, my brain just like imagines a person with a bunch of shit on their forehead. So I'm just like, sure, sure, sure. Sexy green lady.

A wharf. Why not? Yeah, like, I don't know, paint her green and put some ridges, like, right in the middle of her head. And you're like, good enough, she's a beta zoid. Sometimes you're like not even going to do anything. They're like, I don't know. they're just like a lady and she's like but I'm psychic and that's maybe a great way to put it

there's like kind of the yeah there's like the xenomorphic view of the universe where like every alien is clearly an alien you know like movies like a rival and like all those kind of weird and then there's like the Star Trek you know of the world is almost every creature that you encounter other than a weird tar thing is like you know pretty much a humanoid but you would say it's it's xenomorphic type yeah I think that It's more likely you're to come across something that's like some weird like organism that's like four giant cells that like all blob together or like is like a goo thing or like has like weird spooky exoskeletons versus like more squishy humans because I think that we are truly the freaks of the universe where you're like speak for yourself just out here being like I've thought of another alien it's just a person with more stuff.

on their forehead. I put some little leopard spots right here. I think it gets backwards, though. It's, I walked through the stuff aisle at the store, and I've got so many new aliens to make. Shut up, Gene. Get back to work. This is my job.

There was a Hank Green Twitter tweet, I don't know, whatever they are these days. Oh, yeah? A while ago, that stuck out to me, and I had to go find it because it was, so the universe is like 13.7 billion years old, which is hugely old. Life has existed on Earth for 30% of that time.

That's pretty great. Like a significant part of the time that the universe had existed, life has existed. Lots of that time, it was like little single-celled whatever's. Most of it. And so to my mind, I think little single-celled whatever's are the most likely other extraterrestrial life we're going to find. Yeah. But to sort of step back into maybe the fun zone. I'm really, well, I'm way more interested in the, I think, I think the exciting part of alien fiction is that idea of being alive at a time to meet other cultures from really different perspectives.

And as a lens to, to look at that in all the ways, we wish that had gone on Earth or we would like to see it go in the future or it's that sort of like, I want to, you know, I want to go sail around to another planet and meet a new people and see what that's like. I think that's the fun sort of adventurey part of those stories that definitely clicks with me. And who would want to do that with a xenomorph type alien all out there, right? You just get eaten constantly. Well, don't let one on your ship. Yeah. That's what they say. Did you bring the android that has the secret thing that says put the xenomorph on the ship?

Don't bring him. You always need an Android. You need an A, B, C. You need an E Android. There's no E or F yet. No, because they're all named after that. I can't remember the guy in the first one, but Ian Holmes starts with an A and then Bishop. So it's like Android, Bandroid, Android, Dandroid?

They're really explicit about it. They want to hammer this message. E Android and a Fandroid and a Fandroid done. 26 movies, the end. Dandroid. Just a man, hunt. I'm Dandroid. Yeah, just call me Dandroid.

I mean, it's better than Fandroid who just wants to help, like, is just so excited about everything you're doing. Do you think it's more likely that in our lifetime, we will encounter an alien race, or robots that were sent out thousands of years ago from said alien race that will just land on our, oh, hold on, I got a movie idea, I got to write down. You know, I think on the grand scale, truly, I would, I truly believe it's probably something more along the lines of what Rob was saying, you know, like there's microorganisms out there

and that's probably the life that we'd find if we went exploring. But that's not fun, no offense, Rob. and I think you'll agree even. Fuck you, Rob. But, and I don't even know why I said, no offense, Rob. I'm so sorry, Marie. I'm sorry I had such a bad idea with the baby. No, but I guess, I guess, um, in my mind I like to think that I would hope that's more

exciting than that. You know, that they're like giant aliens that are just feet that walk around. And then we meet them and they're like, wait a minute, you each have indombed. individual thoughts. How weird is that? And then all the feet go marching together, you know? It would be nice. That's like more of a hitchhiker's guide type vibe.

Very much. Which I would agree is kind of the best take on how. A hyper-intelligent shade of blue or whatever. Yeah. Or just dolphins. Yeah. And it might surprise you, but I've been watching also a lot of the next generation myself.

And they do. You have? I have, yeah. And they do cover off a bunch of like, of those scenarios, like when they run into the thing that lives in the vacuum of space and it's like communicating with them from like a different time. Encounter at Farpoint. Oh, God.

I can't. Honestly, I think I'm mixing up two ideas, but yeah. We're not going there. But I think the funniest part about that show is, again, you know, it's like aliens. They just pitch out on their face. so much so that, you know, in order to disguise themselves, they literally are like, oh, we'll just do cosmetic makeup on our forehead. Yeah, it's so good.

I'm going undercover with the Bajoran people. Yeah, and not like, not like, oh, they do that for the show. Like, they do that in the show, like, as the characters. I don't know. For me, that threw me up. That's awesome. What about you, Joe? I mean, I think that it's almost extremely, extremely likely that there is alien life somewhere in the universe, right?

But that we will ever interact with them is probably not very likely. However, I guess I just, there's so much biodiversity just on our planet and so many, like across the eons of time, you know, Rob was talking. about pre-Cambrian explosion and single cellular life and all that stuff. And just to think about how many different kinds of plants and animals have existed on Earth that will never even be able to comprehend because they didn't leave a fossil record. Like, there's so much incredible diversity of life that we could just have here on Earth that would feel so alien to us to perceive that. Yeah.

All right, David Adam. It would be so fucking cool to just. just be an eyeball on another planet to see what they fucking came up with like a whole other... To be an eyeball in the planet of only feet? That's some metaphorical bullshit right there, man.

Oh, to be an eyeball in the planet of all. Speaking of giant feet, should we go wreck some giant feet? Yeah, let's do it. Let's get down to business, motherfuckers. Oh, that was fun. Oh my god You round You round the corner

To behold a massive cavern below you Whose upper reaches are shot through With several slanted beams of light The town of Scarborough Is spotlit by these beams Competing with warm lights shining From deep within its building buildings, forge light and lantern light, and furnace light, and cookfire light.

The town is ringed by an impressive stone wall whose perimeter is pierced by a handful of gates, as well as a black, slow-moving river, the shores of which are smooth, markless stone. From your vantage point, midway up, on the northwestern wall of the canyon, you can see several large statues overlook the majority of the buildings, and a central grouping of large stalagmites appear to have been carved out and occupied. Your path down towards the city is steep, but carved with worn stone steps whose every turn and twist take you closer to the place that one of you used to call home. That one of you was me. I'm excited to get there. Ah, yes, Scarborough. Where I was born.

Where I used to call home. Well, now that we've seen it, we can go. What? Doran turns around and does one of those things where you guys hold his elbows off the ground. No, no, no, no, no. As he starts to run. And Red light puts his hands on your shoulders and turns you back around. Not getting off that easy.

Oh, but Red. No, no, no, no. You are going in there and you're kissing your mother on the forehead. to dwarfs kiss. Unless she's sick in a way that's contagious that we wouldn't want to do that. Hopefully they're not contagious. Oh, we kiss. Of course we kiss.

Just like everybody else kisses. And he kind of stands there for a moment and kind of taking it all in. Oh, God. Stop wasting time. Red walks forward towards the gates. Oh, look. They'll do anything but walk forward. Mari's just following Red, just kind of looking around because she's never been even close to a Dwarven city.

So she's just like, what? Yeah, so this is like a big cavern. and Scarborough's all on the bottom and you guys kind of entered like up halfway on the bowl of like the rim of this cavern and you're heading down steps towards one of the gates right now.

The acoustics in here are fantastic. Fantastic. During what area did you live in? Well, if everything's still the same, then he's kind of pointing and he follows the path of his finger and he points. He kind of moves to the right.

He goes, I think if it's still there, that's Gorgon's Tavern. Hopefully it hasn't changed owners or names, you never know. But my home was just up the street from there. Finally, with your feet on the cavern floor, you make your way towards the town's walls. The parapet here is topped with chiseled stone braziers, carved as stern-looking dwarven faces.

But only every other brazier is lit along this stretch of wall. It would appear that the gate you're approaching is a lesser-traveled one. the gate before you bears a little ornament apart from well-worked iron though it is firmly closed an armed dwarf on the inside of the gate nods at your party as you approach Oh there

My name is Redd This is my best friend Jack And my best friend Mari And Elister And my very best friend Mr Doran Iron fist And Doran sort of brushes by Red

and walks up to the, the garden, he says, I'm sorry, my tabaxy friend here is a bit of a chatterbox. What? He just likes to talk a lot and introduce everybody that we meet. Well, Red's Rovers. That's my whole thing.

I introduce us. We're Reds Rovers. And then I do the introduction thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. It's on the bingo card and everything. It's on the bingo card, Doran. You see Doran's demeanor kind of changed to, like,

the serious person. Listen, Red. We're in a dorm of a city There's certain protocols All right It turns back to the guard We came in the western Entrance over there

And it should be noted That we came across Some cultists that were Trying to hatch a wormling Dragon's Egg They mentioned Clarion You might want to get Some guards out

Towards that end of the tunnel The guards' eyebrows climb As he listens to your story story, Doran Iron Fist. Yes, he is. It's good to see you well, and I note your report about the cultists. It's good to see you, too. Though I cannot offer ye a welcome.

Huh? You can't come in. And the smile that appeared on Doran's face vanished almost as quickly as it appeared. What do you mean? Orders of Chancellor Gautier Brighthelm. And you recognize that name, Doran. Gautier Brighthelm is your cousin, though you didn't know that he was chancellor. Chancellor?

Chancellor? Chancellor? I think it means something like money. Doran turns around and walks away and does a big circle as he yells. Chancellor? You've got to be kidding me. Chancellor. I missed something.

What's going? Wait, why can't we get into the city, sir? I'm not to give ye or your party any accommodations whatsoever. Wait, we can't get in either? How the hell did he become Chancellor? Since when? You'll have to speak with the Chancellor. What if we have to use the toilet?

You can find him in his manor house overlooking the city there. And he points at a series of specks of light up and to the West. Ah, we just came from there. I know where the Chancellor's house is. You don't need to point it out to me. Thank you very much for your... service, soldier. And he

salutes you, Doran. Yeah, and Doran salutes back. Can you tell us if it's at least a good thing or a bad thing? Yeah, he shakes his head at you. All right, you're just doing your job. Soldier. What is your name? Fucking

Vingo card. I love doing that too. Mark, the dwarf. I pulled Doran away. Don't worry, but let's just go. No, no, no. I want... Listen, Mark. I understand. I'm not coming in right now Listen

But you know I've traveled a long way And you gotta hear me out I can sense you're not supposed to give me any information But you know my mother You know of her Doreen Iron Fist Listen

I'm just asking you From one dwarf to another You'll love your mother of course Tell me Is she alive He nods at you Thank you Red steps up

Says look Mark Would you be able to at least carry your message, a really simple one, from Doran, to Doran. Next time you're in the city, I promise we won't say word to the chancellor. Just let her know that her son is here. Please, it would mean the world to him. He came because he knew that she was sick. Could you do that? I'll see what I can do. Please. And Red just leans in close and says, for a boy to his maybe dying, mum. Please. What's the message? And Red gestures to Doran.

Um, please tell my mother that Doran is here to see her. Thank you. Sure. And that he loves her. Um, sure. Um, I love her. Thank you. And Doran and Red step away.

Let's go. Let's go see the chancellor then. You know, maybe it's just a meet and greet. Who knows? Maybe he just wants to say hi to you before sending you off into the city. It's probably something simple. Paperwork, you know? Jack loves paperwork.

Words are my favorite. I love paper. I love words. I like turtles. Very much that vibe. Books? And we head up to the Chancellor's House. Brighthelm Manor is not that far away.

Probably a half hour walk from you right now. You have to ascend to the stairs you came down, unfortunately, and approached Scarborough through some tunnels from a different direction. So you're definitely getting your exercise today. My thighs are so tired. Luckily, I know the way. But you know, it really... I can't tell you why he barred us from the city, barred me from the city. But also, how the hell that... that messy, macho, charming, goofy ham tart got to be chancellor. Hey, people change, doring. You never know. Wait, what kind of ham tart?

What's a ham tart? That sounds absurd. Well, you know, they're just full of... Oh, you mean a Saskatoonian hamtart? Yeah. Well, that's different now. I've heard of that. Like a Saskatoon berry.

They have healing properties. That's good, Barry. The fucking Saskatchewan of forgotten realms over here. Dorn people change. I used to be, believe it or not, a little bit of a goofball before I came over here and straightened out. Yeah.

Wow. Sure have. That voice, all of the hair on Mari's neck just stood up. Whoa. What? But why the hell have I been barred from the city? You ever been to the Chancellor's house before? Uh, I don't think so.

I can't say I have. He egged it when we were younger. One time we threw a bunch of paper all over. It parked it on everything. You're traveling through a dark passageway when you notice a little mushroom along the side of the path sheltered under a rocky overhang. It's got a short, stumpy little stem with a tallish cap, maybe five or six inches tall.

And as you approach, it moves, taking a couple of little steps towards you. Oh. Don't you look like you want to be eaten? No, Doren, it's another myconid, I think. Yeah. I haven't seen one of these around here. Mari sort of leans her staff out towards it.

Pushes its belly like the Pillsbury doughboy. Yeah, she gives it a little nudge with her staff. No, they're good. You're fine, Mari. Go talk to it. Mari, as you do that, it's a dusty purplish color. And as you approach it with your staff, it fluoresces kind of gently at you. There's this wave of indigo pinpoints.

And it seems to be like communicating, almost like a, like an octopus wood, sort of, like the colorations in its skin. We met them before. Jack, where was that? Shadow Top Cathedral. It was in a high forest, yeah. Jack's going to just try and think really hard. Hi, we're friends at this thing, just to see if there's any enough telepathic spores or something the last group used to get us all talking.

Mari, they use telepathic spores to communicate. Just think, nice thoughts. She bends down and kind of gets close to it. It seems to have these little bulbous arms or legs protruding from its stem now that you can see it up close. It looks like if it has a face, it's hidden underneath this tall cap. She holds a hand out. And it gets a little bit closer and kind of inspects you, but doesn't touch you. You want a ride, buddy?

You're looking for a place to chill out? We can keep you safe. It, like, walks towards you red and does like a little... circle around one of your feet inspecting you and then walks over to Doran and looks him up and down and then it moves to Elister and it sees these like bear gradewarf feet and it looks up at him and then tries to start hoisting itself up onto Elister's foot fluorescing all the while. I think it likes you Or it's trying to kill you

I can't really tell It likes him It likes him All right Alistair's like Looking down at this thing Like Almost in distaste a little bit

Alistair the normal They're creatures Like you and me And Duragal live down here So maybe it sees you as a friend Well maybe All right He reaches down

And he picks the thing up Like setting in its palm And looking closely at it And then he just puts it on his shoulder, kind of with a shrug. I don't know what to do with it. Just let him hang out. Maybe he'll talk in a little bit. He's probably shy.

The little Myconid, like, waves a tiny little hand at you, Red. Hello. Hi. And that's what happens. Dun-dun-tun-da-dun-d-da-d-d-d-ha. And that's what happens. It's a real soft landing. Red walks over to Ellister and kind of like inspects the mushroom and then he's like,

let's keep going. Still a bit. And he hangs back with Elister as we're walking. You know, this is a whole new world for you. There's nothing wrong with embracing it. Clearly things down here find you, friend. Lee. Yeah, I guess it feels kind of good.

Yeah. You need to pick me up, you know? And if he does talk to you, see if you can learn what he needs. Hopefully he's not in trouble or any of his family. family is in trouble or anything like that. And don't eat them. We had a friend trying to do that, and it was a bad idea. No, no, no.

I mean, no. What? But you said don't... Not, look, ask Dorn more about this stuff than I do. I mean, they must eat something, so I kind of had to think about it for a second, but... No, no, you're fine. You're fine. Yeah.

Don't worry about it. All right. And Red skips up. Really settled his nerves on that one. I don't know. Through a wider set of tunnels, you come to the straight walls and edges of a surprisingly nice-looking manor house set into the rock wall like some protruding gem formation. It overlooks a chasm of space and surely provides a gorgeous view from its setting in the upper reaches of the larger Scarborough Cavern. A columned entrance nearby supports a slab of polished rock cut into fanciful geometric shone.

shapes, and underneath a dwarf-sized door flanked by burning torches. Remember this is built for someone who's six feet tall. I've realized that. Nope. No. Hey. Yeah. Yeah. Welcome to my world. Tusha. Literally, welcome to my world. Thanks, Doran. At least you're not banging your head on everything. This is not Mirabar where there are equal populations of humans and dwarves, and so there our doors for each. This is a dwarf city. I'm just, I have to apologize to you three, because when I go to a town, I walk freely through

very, very tall, unsized doors for people. And when you come here, you experience the same thing except you have to crawl. Or at least duck. Where? Oh. All through the door. Hey, before we head into here, Doran, there's no reason that we have to doubt your cousin, right? Like, he's just a goofball.

This is all probably on the up and up, right? Yeah, yeah. Well, put it this way. I don't know why he's barred me from the city. I mean, after all, he's my cousin on my father's side. You know, I have fond memories of spending years at his side. He had a little, a couple little stores, and then around Scarborough. He had some good success.

I don't have a reason to distrust him, except for this experience, right now of being barred from the city who knows what goes on behind those political doors as he points at the house. All right. We've been in that situation before. We're all play it cool, but we'll be friendly. Yeah. He's family after all.

Exactly. He doesn't want anything from you, so... You don't owe money or anything. Yeah, you don't owe money or anything, do you? I don't think so. All right, then Red reaches over your shoulder and knocks on the door. After a minute, the door is opened by a male dwarf with a relatively short beard and a chubby face. He's wearing a

scabbard with a sword on his back and a chain shirt, but no other armor. He looks from face to face, his eyes resting on Doran several times. What can I help you with? Red goes to do the introductions, but stops remembering what Doran said. Well, Doran I emphasis is the name. I'm here to see... Ah, yes. This is, uh, Chancellor Brighthelm's home. Come on in. Here, you can set your things down here, if you like. And he's gesturing to a wall-mounted set of weapon hooks, some chests and things. As you come in, you're in this big front hall area. It's nicely furnished.

If a little more functional than for entertaining. So there's like this big planter in the middle that is growing all these different species of underground plants. And it's like clearly meant to be a decorative piece for the room. But then also off to the side, there's like a couple of car. and some barrels and the carts are just full of leather sacks and like wooden crates and stuff

so it's just kind of like a mess in the front hall a little bit Doran looks at the pile of stuff and the stuff hanging on the wall and he turns to the man in arms and he says if this is a request to disarm we'll abide but otherwise I mean we're fine carrying our stuff

and he kind of turns to the other three I feel more comfortable with my bow on still he gestures to the sword on his back and he says, you can carry your weapons if you like. I just figure adventuring folk like to put down their things, whatever. Yeah. No, it's appreciated. And it's nice to know that we don't have to disband our weaponry, as we've done in so many other places. That's nice to see that that hasn't disappeared. No, make yourself at home. Maybe once we know why we're here, we can get more comfortable. Yeah, of course. Let me go get goate here for you. Um, here,

Make yourselves at home. There's a sitting room just to your left here. Give me a minute. And he just gestures to an open door and then disappears down the hallway. Thank you. I mean, we could be in and out for all I know, right? Doren leads the way into the sitting room. And he immediately walks over to the barrel of beer that's sitting in the corner.

It's customary. It's customary that in every single Dwarven home, there is always going to be a large thing of some brew. ale or wine. Would you like one? Jack? Um, Marry? Red? Of course. Hey, as Jack said, do what the Dwarven do in the Dwarven... It feels like it would be rude to say no. Jack says, well, he's poking around, like, not touching too much, but snooping through all of the other piles of junk that are in here. Well, it is rude to say no. Yeah, Marie's just looking around. She's not even really paying attention to that. She's just taking it in from her weird crouched height.

The sitting room is lit with the bright embers. from a dying fire of a massive hearth. It occupies an entire wall of this room. And all along in front of this hearth, there's a low shelf that is decorated with these cushions, like you would sit on this stone ledge that is in front of the fire. On the adjacent wall, large windows are cut from the stone and set with clear glass through which you can see

the city of Scarborough from a dizzying height. The room otherwise has a handful of comfortable pieces of dwarven furniture, as well as two chairs sized for larger human-sized creatures. Oh, Red walks right over to one of those. And then he's like about to sit down and he's like, oh, Mara, you might as well take one of these. Jack, you can take the other. I'm all right, Red. You can take a seat and she's sort of, she's kind of got her neck cricked over and she's like looking around.

but she goes over and stares at the window and looks out over the city. The walls here are unadorned except for two tapestries. One showing Moradin with both his hands resting on the long handle of his hammer. The other is worked to appear as abstract from initial inspection. All right. Red goes to sit down and then doesn't. He immediately starts looking at a shelf of trinkets and his like fingers dance along the tops of them. And then he, like, licks his fingertips like, no, no, no, I'm not going to take that.

That would be silly. That'd be stealing. That'd be so wrong. And he just, like, mumbles to himself looking at all these, like, really cool chancellor-esque trinkets. I've cast pass without trace. You've got a brand new bag of holding to fill with goodies, red. No, I have the bag of holding. Oh, that's right.

Say goodbye to the library. Mari, you've got a brand new bag of holding. To fill with red trinkets. Doren fills five large tankards of ale and passes four of them out to his companions here in the room And he says, here, cheers To Morridan and to Reds Rovers Hey, cheers! Cheers! Cheers! Here, here.

Cheers. It's rude in Dwarven culture to not accept a drink and it's also extremely rude to not help yourself do a beer when you're entering the home of a public servant. Sounds a lot like the Guthrie House. This explains so much. Jack, where are you settling? I think he's hovering around the chair so that he could sit if it looked like he was being too snoopy

in all of the other stuff. Like he hasn't quite got to opening boxes yet or anything, but he is shifting things around to see what's under what, and just to poke around and get a sense of what this room is full of. There's a lot to take in shelves, you know, all over the place. There are chests of goods. It seems like not only is Gautier a merchant and the chancellor now apparently of Scarborough, but a collector of oddities.

What's the oddest thing that I see? A troll skull. Whoa. Curious. As you are all enjoying your ale and rifling through the convaled through the contents of this chamber, respectively. A dwarven man who looks a lot like Doran, except his beard is a rusty brown color,

and he's very clean, comes bounding into the room. Doran Iron Fist by Moradin's beard. It's been an age since I saw you last. I see you've grown your eyebrows back just fine. And he, like, barrels into you and gives you a giant hug. Ha, ha, ha. Go tear. And it's that hug that ends in, like, you pressing your forehead against the other person's forehead

and, like, trying to see who's the stronger neck by, like, forcing your head forward on the other person. And there's this, like, awkward tense moment of, like, 45 seconds of just, like, head pushing and, like, not any much sound. The cords in your neck, just straining underneath your beards. And then it's over as soon as it's begun. We pull away. And Doran's companions. Hi. Hi.

Yes. This is red-handed Robin, my tabaxi companion. And this watery lass over here, this is Mari. Mari, what's your last name again? Charmed, I'm sure. He doesn't know my last name either. Don't worry. We're just so used to, you know, this water lady.

And then, of course, Jack Page from the House of Wands in Waterdeep. That's Elister. I can't believe that you have also attained such status of a politician. And no wonder, look at this wonderful view. Goetir, I don't know how you swindled your way up the ladder, but I'm impressed. Plenty of details soon, Doran, soon enough. You're all welcome here in my manner. Good, good.

As I said, Gautier, Brighthelm, you can call me Honorable Chancellor. if you want to be a fucking dipshit about titles. But I'm just go-tier to my friends. Oh, it is nice to hear this. It is nice to hear this. And not to talk too soon about the matters at hand, but I surely hope that the whole reason for you barring us from the city was purely to push me to visiting you first and foremost.

Chancellor. He's pouring himself a tankard of ale. from the barrel in the corner of the room and he turns back to you with a little bit of a solemn look on his face. I'm sorry, Doran, that you came all this way but to be turned from the gates. Scarborough's been under quarantine

for the last 210 day because of the rock plague. Nobody in or out. Oh. There's clerics in the city now, see into the worst cases from my last report. Things are slowly getting better, but it's slow going. and I'm sorry to hear about Doreen

Don'tie's always been good to me in the boys Yes Well that is I'd be lying if I was saying that I wasn't If I wasn't relieved to hear that It wasn't me specifically That was barred from entering the city

But it is disturbing Oh no! Of course not Don't be ridiculous I wish the guard would have said that a little bit more. He just said that I was barred. But regardless, I'm not going to dwell on it. Here we are. And it is disturbing, though, to hear that there's a rock plague. It's terrible. Just terrible. Murray's watching this go down and when she sees him give him this look, just trying to watch his body language. Can I roll insight? Absolutely. 15. He's stressed out.

He looks a little bit more tired than he's letting on, probably, and he's a little worried. Right. But trying to keep up a jovial countenance otherwise. Well, hold on, Doran, turn around. Turn around. Turn around. Bright eyes. Dorn turns around.

Shave me naked and call me a rock gnome. Oh, no. Sensitive. That acts on you. you're back, Doran. Surely that's not. Oh.

What the fuck is a legendary weapon like Ork Splitter doing with a great coward like yourself? No offense. Coward. Where did you even find her? Hey, I should take great offense to that. Can I wield her?

It would be my pleasure. Here, give her a goal. And he tosses Ork Splitter. Cross the room. You just hear her go, A-oh! She's throwing it in here. Oh, she's coming back to me.

Oh, I'll kill for that hammerback. This is King Toriled Flame Tongue's weapon, if I'm not mistaken. You know it. She's seen better days, and he runs his thumb along her blade. Is that a notch on her blade, Doran, have you been using her to chop lumber? Not just lumber, but also to chop up stone giants. I mean, do you know how those things can dent a good iron or a piece of steel? No, shit.

That's some story. I could rickail you all night. You know how I like to. regale you regale like no other listen you look famished and travel weary the lot of you we are it's almost dinner time i insist you take some guestrooms here for tonight as long as you're not showing any signs of the plague we aren't he looks carefully from face to face what are the signs of the plague is it hunger because i'm hungry you get terrible rock skin and itch face and oh it's terrible My face does feel itchy.

It's my face, Hitchie, Jack. Is it itchy? Just because it's itchy doesn't mean it's rock itchy. That's fleas. How dare you, Marie. How dare you? I'll tell you, Gautier, the only thing that we've been plagued with is running into some dragon coltists on the west entrance of Scarborough.

The west entrance of Scarborough. And his face gets very serious. Yes. Not Clarion. Yes, yes. Damn. I'll tell you more later, but we'd slaughtered those cultists. Well, good for you.

It wasn't just me. Did you let any of them escape? None. Not once arrived, but... I did hear a roar in the deep. Let's catch up, and we could talk about this later. Well, hey, if we're staying here for dinner, then let's get comfortable. I'll go put my stuff in the front hall, and we'll relax for the evening.

Listen, Red, I'll have one of the men show you to your chambers. you can get all washed up and whatnot and then we'll sup together. I have a little other company here. I see you don't mind the diverse under dark sorts. Of course not. And his gaze moves over to

Elister the Duraghar. Oh, this is Elister. Sorry about that. Elister, come have a seat next to Jack. Relax. My apologies. I would have introduced you right off the bat except Elister is a fairly new

companion to the party. I don't think we're just taking him on the way home and he was recently a gnome. Say no more. Perfectly understandable. Recently a gnome. My wife was also recently a gnome. They'll rehash it all at dinner time.

It's a long story, but you know what? A wash-up sounds nice, and Red walks up to the chancellor and says, it's really nice to meet you, and I appreciate you taking us in, and he shakes his hand. And he shakes your hand back, Red, warmly looking up at you. Um, appreciatively. And I know that you mean the best for Doran, right? Of course. I mean, we're cousins after all.

Can I rule insight on that? See? I don't trust anybody. 23. Whoa. Hmm. There's a lot of jovial, good-natured friendliness radiating off of this dwarf,

but you do sense an undercurrent of something that may be jealousy. I'm excited to get a nice dwarven bed. A dwarf bed soft, Doran. Oh, well, for a rock. Some are. Some are not. Well, I guess we'll see. As you're led off down the hall by one of the other men at arms,

Jack, you look down at a little pressure on your shoulder, and you see that the Myconid traveler has taken up residence with you. Uh, hey buddy. Jack says to the little mushroom he tottles towards your neck from your shoulder and sort of rests against your cheek and he puts a little hand there amidst the scruff of where your beard is starting to grow back in

and it seems like he is trying to offer you some kind of reassurance Um Thanks for checking in Thank you once again Thank you once again to our wonderful Patreon supporters Adam Frye Amanda Kitchener Amy Gaza Anne Atholagoth

Cecil Lee Wilson Jerry Rose Anderson Christopher, Colin Burkhart, Crow, Casey, D.S. Dippity, Elizabeth H, Flynn, Gareth Bradshaw, Haley, Haley again, Harper the Marks, Indrid Hartley, Jekyll, J.D., Joy Robinson, Jory, K.R., KM, Cade, Lazzania, Last Ruth on the left, Leader J, Lizzie Demon, Lorelei, Matilda Rushing, Melinda Curley, Moon, Melissa, Merlin, Sam C., Reagan, Wren, Ruth Ann Reed, Scotty, S. Ray 96, Tony Pepperoni, Zander Morning Dove, Zephyrus, and Zach House. Woo! Well, I quit. You're going to figure it out. I like when that happens.