Dice Shame - 3 | 'Talk of the Town'

Episode Date: October 31, 2019

With Nightstone's state a bit of a mystery the Party must take it upon themselves to find out exactly what happened. With information providers in short supply, they look to an unexpected source... Dice Shame is a podcast that welcomes its audience to the gaming table. There’s nothing quite like getting together with your close friends on game night, getting the snacks out, and rolling some dice together. Right now we’re playing through Storm King’s Thunder, an adventure for D&D 5th edition. Like the games we play at home, we try not to take ourselves too seriously. The show is entertaining, inclusive, and irreverent, while still taking the rules (somewhat) seriously. As for the eponymous Dice Shame? When the rolls get cold—well, you’ll have to tune in to find out! Episodes are released every Thursday at 1:20 am. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Goblins are like babies if you shake them to go out. They're like evil babies that don't die. Shit, this chicken's still alive. When you're lying on the ground bleeding out, you don't make so many rolls. 37 copper pieces and 15 silver pieces. I'm rich, bye. This is a joke and I kick the Doran. Boom.

Doran kicks the Doran! Now I get your name! I can't hear you. There's nobody here. Oh, there's nobody here, Doran. Hello all, and welcome back to episode three. Talk of the Town. Let's give them something to talk about. Oh, my.

That's not bad. Role performance. MVP, this week is Fiorini Swan. For jumping on the Instagram bandwagon and sharing some great images, reminder that November 2nd is our Extra Life live show. stream, so come hang out. It's going to be long. It's going to be fun. It's going to be really fun. It'll be something. Should we get to it? Let's get her done. The four of you were invited to Nightstone to Lady Nandar's place. Oh, Val Rosa, my friend

from childhood. Yeah, Lady Val Rosa Nandar. Asking for your help with a mission to go to parlay with the elves of the Ardeep Forest and upon reaching the settlement of Nightstone you quickly realized that not all was well here you

fought off some wargs in the town square nearly died doing it it was very difficult you retreated back across the drawbridge across the moat to the safety of a tree

where you rested for a little while Recomposed. Yes. Did a short rest. Kralath was able to recover his consciousness. Yeah, I was doing death saves there for a bit. And then you stormed the temple. You killed one of the goblins there.

And then just mere moments ago, Doran was able to render the second goblin unconscious. And he's lying in the graveyard, unconscious, with his back propped up against a gravestone. Doran stands over top of the unconscious goblin licking his lips. Thinking of... Are we still an initiative?

No. Thinking of the days where he actually ate, uh, ate goblin because it was in the... I think Reds were like... Run up next to you and be like, good job, Doren. You nearly got him.

Oh, he's still alive. Jack, uh, Kralov, come. Because I guess you wouldn't see, right? I mean, you can see. You guys are like at the front door. He's got the dark vision. I just mean to say you wouldn't know that he didn't kill him instantly. As Jack's walking into this graveyard, he's had a thought struck him,

that this, we know Darkstone is 10 years old. How big is this graveyard? Is it like how many graves we talk about? Good thought. How many people have died in 10 years to warrant an entire grave? This is what I'm thinking is maybe it was populated by really old people. I mean, maybe. It's anything is possible, but like, how, it's a, I'm getting a sense of a lot of graves for 10 years. Nightstone is a retirement facility. Like, that they, that they, like, in addition to, we need to put out, plot out land for our farms and plot out land for our chicken. Oh, we're going to need the graveyard.

And we'd better put the graveyard in the walls. Well, how big do you want it? Really big, believe me, in 10 years, it's going to be filled. I offer an answer here. Have you ever been up and seen a church on its own and then a community built around it? So maybe this was a church in rural area that is now. Oh, that's a, that's a very good thought. Interesting.

The island church. We could see by the ages on the... The graves. That's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, these kids were under 10. And it's epidemic that Jack would go on this sort of mental noodling as he's like, just been in a fight.

And just, and like, to be like, oh, graves. Oh, that's like, archaeology. I'm really interested. Like, I wonder who's, like, he's just... And then suddenly like, no, you know, here's red calling him. It's done. It's over here. And, like, is back in the moment of in this dark.

is this, you know... But now I'm curious, too. His black and white and dark vision. You didn't say it out loud, luckily. Red would be like, oh, good point. And he's walking over with everybody else to... Yeah. You wander through the tombstones.

There are about 20 of them here. You see that more than half of them all have the same year, last year, on them. Jolly. Oh, you know what? It was probably the big elf fight. You know, that big old elf fight? You read my mind. Well, I just mean to say, not right.

I guess I wasn't looking, was I? Very good observation. Say, Jack, what you're looking at? Oh, the tombs of the gravestones. You know what? It corresponds with that fight. In the northeast corner, there is an above-ground crypt with a name Nandar engraved over the entrance. Nandar.

Does that name ring any bells for either of you? Is that Dresz. Yes. It's Drelin. Drelin. Dreslin. Dreslin. You're right.

Dreslin. It's a silentness. Who knows? We weren't close. Well, maybe this guy will tell us what's up, and I bend down, and is the goblin, like, conscious? Not right now. Shake him. Let's talk.

Wake up. Goblins are like babies. If you shake them, they go, how they, you know. They're not like, they're like evil babies. They don't die. No, but they're very small and sensitive, and if you shake them too, how they get hurt. Yeah, now that the goblin is lying prone, unconscious at your mercy, it occurs to you how frail he looks. Like he actually looks malnourished, or?

No, he just looks so. cute gobliny let's bring him back inside the temple at the very least and maybe tie him to a pew don't lower your guards though bind his hands these little bastards are now dorin i really don't think it's how much to worry about but but fair enough and i pick up a piece of garden twine and i tie it up so you know they're spooky looking yeah but they're they're small you know yeah are you and i touched dorin i say are you scared of goblins a little bit i say it quietly so not to upset him I know you're spooked about the graveyard, is to the goblins maybe get you a little bit. Doran is unfazed by the question and just looks at red and then looks away.

And then I look to Crailof. That is one of the most offensive things you can say. I think he's a little spooked by goblins. Oh, my goodness. I didn't see you there. Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. Kaloth, how are you doing, bud? Oh, no, I'm fine.

I'm glad that we're bringing them into the temple because I felt pretty vulnerable out there. I think there's going to be more of them. I think Jack's idea of questioning this thing is the right way to go. Let's tie him up. Let's see if we can wake them up somehow. Yeah, so I'll use some of my twine from my explorers pack.

Crafted noose, hang them from the bell tower. Oh, boy. That's a bit more intense than I was thinking. So the goblins were definitely ringing the bell. Can I do a perception in here? Of course you can. See what's up. With a natural 20.

Whoa! And that is the die that you chander. That's Chester. That's the die that came out of dice shame last week. My goodness. Second's chance die. Now, right? He rolled a one and he learned his lesson.

He came out and now he's back to 20. So it's really more of a penalty box over there, you think? Well, you know what? I don't want to... A penalty jar. I don't want to be so strict with my dice shame. I mean, he was shamed. He may come back.

I don't know. You make a good point. Maybe I'll take mine out there. Oh! Whoa, whoa, whoa. Well, you never know. What if my one now rolls a 20? Well, you can do that.

This show is called dice shame. Right, but we can't just have no dice in the dice shame jar. There's still one day. They're shamed. They're shamed. The way that, yeah, exactly. They're not. We got to lay, all right, all right, all right.

We got to lay, not a rule, but I just want to say we can't get too attached to these dice. I recognize that. They don't have feelings. I do, though. And you know what? I like Chester. No, but okay, we talked about, you know, maybe one shames three times in a row and you shame it. Yeah.

maybe for me, he goes in the box, if he comes out again and he shames again, then he's dead to me. You know, like a two-strike rule. Yeah, I'm still developing my method for sure. I think we're all going to come into our own and figure out our own. Yeah, yeah. You know, I haven't had to shame a die yet.

Yeah, you don't know. Brag about it. How dare you? But I have almost died. So I almost had to shame my entire character. I guess that stops the amount of roles you make. And Jack hasn't had a shame either. What's that?

When you're lying on the ground bleeding out, You don't make so many rolls. No. It puts things in perspective. It's like I see how. No, well, he was rolling a lot of 3.20s. So you rolled a 20. Yeah, anyway, I rolled 20.

Did you go back in through the window or did you go around to the front door? Yeah, so I walked. I climbed through the window again. Moonlight is pouring into this high vaulted chamber through the stained glass windows that were once set on the walls. There are a few intact windows yet. A couple on the same. south walls and one intact window on the north wall still. There are some plain wooden benches for people to sit on, you would presume, as benches

are wont to be used for. The room is mostly empty otherwise. There are two sacks, two leather satchels. I excitedly open them. Meanwhile, we're tying the goblin up to a chair. That's a lot of people. full of tie up a goblin. I love that. I think I'm probably waiting for Kieran, my owl to do just another swoop around to figure out

what the chicken coop goblins were up to, what the other ones were up to. You and this owl. I mean, it's his friend. I'm jealous. I'm getting jealous. I mean, I know you and Kralath have a thing going, but this owl and I, we've been together for a long time. Well, so at Krayloth and I? Well, sometimes when we're in a big crowd, because I'm taller than most people, I can tell

I can tell Red where the fountain is. See, that's kind of like what I'm doing. We have a similar thing. And sometimes when we're sleeping next to a fire and sleeping bags, we play wiggle worms. We'll talk about that after. Wait until they get closer. Then we'll show the wiggle worms. They won't understand.

No, they won't. Not yet. Inside the first sack, there are three blocks of incense. I will take them. And a silver holy symbol of Maliki, shaped like a unicorn's head. some other stolen personal effects you recognize that these sacks contain the relics of the church I'm gonna take all of it

so you then take these stolen relics yeah I mean ultimately we're gonna see somebody and be able to return them okay makes no sense to be like oh by the way you there's some sacks over there with some stolen shit go retrieve it the other sack contains three empty vials Can I smell what was in them? You can certainly do that. Make a religion check.

It's like what I'm best at with a 12th. You detect no, there's no detectable smell. I think Jack has already revealed himself to read, to be the intellectual of the group. Just because you won't shut up about it. Insufferable. No, I love it. Constantly pushing his glasses up on the bridge of his nose.

No, I love it so much. I would. I think you're kind of like, not the tactician, but for some reason, Red sort of sees you as like, maybe the dad a little bit right now, like just the person or the mom. And he walks over to you with the vial out and he's kind of like, do you have any idea what this would smell like? What, what is it? Where did you? It's a long story, but do you recognize it? And I just like put it right under your nose.

Religion, you say. Religion, please. That is a 20. Nice. You also smell nothing. but you would assume these vials probably once contained holy water? Getting it shoved under my nose, there'd just be a moment where I grab Red Tent and move it up

so I can see the vial in front of my eyes. Which says Holy Water ran on it. So, Red, this is a temple of Maliki. You can tell that by the unicorn symbol on the wall that we smashed. As I just stole one, yeah. You also recognize now that you are not just taking the briefest of glances at this building, carrying over that 20, that there are icons of Lathander as well.

And you'll notice even we saw a sunburst on the window and there's some other imagery in here that very reminiscent of the Morning Lord. I just lost the name, Lathander. Lathander. And so I wonder if there isn't some sort of semblance of, you know, nature and the sun or something they were trying to build here together. I would expect Krayloth knows.

I mean, it's undeadful. fighting. Oh, shit, you're right. And he walks immediately away mid-conversation to Creel. Kralov, do you know what this vial is? Holy water. Oh, yes, it's holy water, but do you know why? Why holy water? Well, because this is a temple.

Jolly, do you want them? And I hand the empty vials to you. Yeah. Red, the second sack is still a little bit heavy. Oh, I reach in. There is a wooden collections box in the sack. Yes. Are you going to take that money?

I mean, no, I guess not, eh? Certainly we've got to hold on to it at least. There's 37 copper pieces and 15 silver pieces in there. I'm rich, buy. No, I think, I mean, Red is not motivated by money anyway. He's very much of the experience and sort of the artifact. Like, he loves the idea of the holy symbol, the unicorn or whatever. He's like, ho ho.

But, I mean, the money, he's very much like, oh, look, there's some money here. That's a collections box, is it? I didn't want it. Well, it might be a good idea for us to take it and deliver it to a church of Calumvir of La Fander. That's my church. Or Maliki. They're both here.

It'd be really interesting to find the priest or priests who set this up. It seems strange. There's not like hatches in the floor. As you look around the room, you see that set in the west wall north of the pulpit, there's a half-opened door. Oh, I mean, yeah. We'll head there. Just based on my knowledge of the building, would that lead up to the bell tower?

Probably the steeple and maybe a back room. So, I mean, this is a silly question. Is this a ruin or dungeon? No. Okay. Listen, I'm the same way because I'm a natural explorer. Because I'm the unearthed or canter ranger, I have advantage in nature. So anytime I can use it, I do.

But, yeah, I think inside buildings and stuff like that's like... I mean, is Maliki's a nature goddess? Oh, listen. I'm going to use it. when I can't. When we were outside, yeah, I was. Doran doesn't care much for the chitter-chatter that Red does all around him and walks to the front door simply to stand and look out into the night and see if anything's going on. There was another door inside the building? Yeah, that's what I was going towards. So Doran stands guard at the front door as other people go and investigate

the side room. Krayloff is going to stay with the goblin. Keep an eye on him, make sure that if he wakes up, then... Yeah. He's starting to stir just a little bit, but he's still unconscious. You know, you can tell

that his breathing is sort of returned to a more normal pace. I love that there's a shared curiosity of like, what's behind this door going on with... That's what... We're chaotic good. That's like our thing. You guys go back there?

Absolutely. Definitely. I literally looked at the three of you and was like, okay, I don't need to... Children. I don't need to see what's beyond this door. I'll go with Stangarry because These three are chomping at the bit.

Well, that's the thing. Doran's like definitely the, like you're what, 100 and what? 108. Yeah, you're like the old guy. You're like, oh, fucking kids. Like, you know. I'm actually not even that old.

For a door? For a dwarf. Yeah, but you know. And you're only like a 40 year old wizard, right? 53. Yeah. But it's half out of years. So, you know.

You find yourself in a small back room. that contains a plain wooden bed. The straw mattress has been torn open and its contents all pulled out. The floor is also strewn with the contents of two wooden chests, vestments, and personal effects. Now, I rolled a natural 20 when I came back in to the... Can I roll it over?

Do you want me to roll perception this room, too? I would roll it because it's a new room. Sure. That is not as good, but not bad, 15. There's a knotted rope that hangs from the steeple, which is just to the side of this room. Noddy rope. As Jack is sort of wandering through the space, I think he's clearly the goblins, I'm not sure if they were just looting it. I'm wondering if he can, like, pieced together somebody was pulling on the rope.

They were ringing the bell. There was clearly people here. We haven't seen a single body of people here. I'm wondering if he's just trying to walk through this space and piece together a picture of what happened here before we arrived. Just roll straight up and down intelligence. check. Okay, uh, 17. Okay. It's very strange to you that you would be here

investigating the apparent ruin of a church and not find the priest or his body or her body. And yet there are goblins here. That's weird to you. Yeah. I mean, goblins in this whole place is weird. Do you say this to red? There are no signs of a struggle in terms of

there's no blood on the walls or mashed in with the contents of the room you know yeah this this wasn't a fight red these goblinsers looters they're coming after the fact this whatever happened here we're we're seeing the the parasites we're seeing the the carrion eaters scavenge afterwards we're not seeing the real

the real thing that happened I agree with you. It seems odd that they left this place. I mean, the falling boulders from the sky must have been part of the motivation now. I mean, what could do that? And I speak to Jack for, like, serious for a moment, which is unlike red. And I'm like, what on earth could cause boulders like that to fall all over this place? Got to be big.

Giant-sized. Yeah. Do giants throw boulders? You don't have stories of them? Well, you're very much so. There was one called a giant stone thrower, the stone thrower. What did you do? Oh, God, you're right, Jack.

So they must have vacated this place, and you're right, the goblins that came from. Well, they must still be somewhere, maybe in town. Kralath, at this moment, the goblin that you are watching over opens his eyes and looks at you, and his eyes narrow with hatred. And he starts straining against his bonds wordlessly. And I hold up a big hand and I say, whoa, whoa. Escambe dukeba. It's okay. We're not going to hurt you if you answer our questions.

I'm just going to give my tambourine a couple jingles. I have a question. And I will hear that and I will come out. We have some questions for you. And he says, let me go. We might let you go. Let me go now. Well, you haven't answered my question.

Well, you haven't let me go. You're the one tied up. Is this all in Goblin? Or can we, okay, so we're just hearing you be like... I'm a little confused with my goblin. I started mixing up my words there. We're all just listening to be like, where is the bathroom? My first question for you is, how long have you been here, you Goblins?

Just a day. Just a day? Yes. Did you encounter anybody here? Any humans? This is a human village or Elvin. No, not here. It is empty.

The fort across the bridge that's broken up. Can't go there? Can't get across the bridge. I don't swim. Okay. Let me go. Well, we'll see what my friends think about that. You just relax.

I hear the voices of the goblin and Kraloth, and I wander back towards them. And I chime in, Kralath. Ask him if we let us. Let them go if they'll leave without any problems. And I do, I ask them. Better to ask, will we let you go? What did he say? He seems to think he's in a position of power here.

Say, Kralov, Jack and I were just talking in the back room, Dolan, you should hear this too. These bolders that are covering the land here. We have a bit of a theory about why they're here. Catapults, tribuches. A little bigger. Giant. Sorry? Giants.

Giants. There haven't been giants here in a millennia. No, but look, a trebouss air, a catapult, they wouldn't spread the rocks out the way it has it. Based on what Jack told me about the owl, it looks like it's spread out all over the area, large circles. But a catapult would be in the same area over and over again, very rarely disperging from where they are. Ask this one, what's he know? What do you know about what happened here? Aka, duke, chagabai.

Roll persuasion. 14 The village was attacked Go on We knew that it was easy pickings So we came in Did you watch the attack happen? No

So how do you know it was attacked? By all the boulders everywhere Hark told me This hark Another goblin friend of yours Kralath What's going on? Tell us I'll fill you guys in

And I'm gonna like I'll be filling you guys in like as I'm doing this and like, ask him where he is. We want to know where this tack is. And if anyone else is here, there are any humans hiding out? I pick up my battle axe and allow it to reflect the moonlight into the goblin's face, wiping the blade with my beard to give it an extra sheen. And I, and I turn to it and I say, uh, or I turn to Kralath and I say,

have him bring his goblins here or I'll take off his head. And Kralath's eyebrows go up And he turns back to the goblin And he says My friend here is crazy Yes I can see that Well, they won't follow me if they see that I'm captive

You'll have to let me go We could just walk over to the chicken tube coop Or the pumpkin patch and talk to them two at a time Maybe they'll be more ready to talk to me I'm liking that idea more You're very anti-goblin, right? I mean, pro-goblin. You don't want to kill them.

I don't really want to kill anybody. I do want to figure out what happened here. Are we a pacifistic D&D group? I think we are. Stand back, I say, and I wave my hand at Kralath to step away from the goblin, and I ready my axe for an obvious beheading. I can't watch.

This is an intimidation role. Okay. But I would prefer to use strength and civic charisma. We can't. do that. But you can if you, if you allow it. Because I was reading the rules.

So I'm going to roll a 12. Okay. To intimidate. And so the thing that you do is you pretend to get ready to chop off his head. Yeah. He coweres back from you in fear. You smell the rank

scent of goblin urine. What's that lovely smell? It's goblin piss. And he's not worth it. Doran. I suggest, I suggest we leave this one tied for now and go collect the others and see what they say. I'm just going to, I'm just going to step back and I'm going to say, well, I'm trying to talk to you and be friendly about this, but if you like, I can let my friends do the talking.

They don't speak Goblin. They speak in another language. No, no. The villagers, I know where they are. If you free me, I'll tell you. I never trust a goblin. Jack, what do you think? Jack's overstanding by the door.

He's, um, do you really think he knows something? I do. You have my word. Word on Kalimvore and the Knights of the Order that we will let you go once you tell us where they are. And once we have visual confirmation. I can't. I can't. I'll get in trouble.

Fuck this. And I kick the goblin in the chair, sitting in the chair back. So the goblin's lying prone sitting in a chair. Okay, well, so there's this cave, you see? That was all attack. Brilliant. It's good. We did it well, Doran. You did it well, Doran.

I didn't take off its head. There's a cave. that way and he points to like the northwest i will pull out a map i have of the area take a look at this map and see is there an area that might have caves in that you know based on on what i what i know think or have heard of the hills around nightstone are riddled with caves so certainly there would be caves okay so taking taking a piece of of that that map and then sort of sort of making an illusion of it, drawing this little picture of it,

sort of zoomed in on the area, sort of where we are and this area of caves. What's this one's name? Bidol. It's rare, this one right here. He better be quick, or else I'm going to beatle out of him. You let Bidot free now. We did make a deal.

I'm very badly hurt from axes and stuff. Leave him tied up for now. We'll come back for him. We give them our word. We didn't say when. Yeah, that's true. Yes. All right.

You free Bido now. We will free you, but we didn't say when. My friend does have a moment. Treacherous, human. No, no, no, no. No, no. Okay, all right. Well, I'm just going to knock you out now.

So I'm going to, can I, like, knock him out and make him unconscious? And I'm going to untie him. Well, it might be a ticking time explosive magic bomb. but uh the bargain's a bargain like i say so uh we leave him down here when he wakes up he wakes up we really need to just come down on one side of this goblin thing though do we want to i mean like if we interrogated and we found they have human sides to them you know do we want to just attack the other two try to talk to them give them a chance to leave i think we try to talk to them i mean they're looters they're not responsible for this how about this so long as we don't come across anyone

they've killed we'll talk to them and let them go I agree. But the minute we come across someone that they've killed, bang, boom. And in that case, I got to pick up Bido's limp form, put it over my shoulder. Might be a good bargaining chip. Hey, not a bad idea. That's excellent idea. All right.

You don't have to worry about that tipping, ticking magical explosion. So let's swing north to where we should have, where we're, not should it, but where we're going to. And I think we should get at the back. Yeah. The inn area and then maybe the chicken coop next to. Yeah. Let's do it. So poking our head into the inn.

would be the first task. Sure. Yeah. Literally. And how I kind of want to go about it now, knowing what we know, is not so much sneak, just walk up and make the goblin's aware of our presence

and say, here we are. If we're not trying to attack them. Yeah. Yeah. You either talk to us or run. I mean, we killed two wargs in the square and then had a fight in the temple. If they were going to notice,

they'd have noticed. That's right. Doren begins to lead the, the group out of the church towards the tavern. And I follow the grumpy little dwarf. So you go from the temple to the inn. To the front door of the inn.

And basically just swing the door wide open. Was there a goblin on the other side of the door? Why did you squish when you opened that door? Something sounded wet. You reveal a giant rock punched through the roof and landed here. destroying a dining table and a pair of long benches. There are two little windowed alcoves to your left and right,

a staircase that leads up just ahead of you. There are some unlit oil lamps resting atop a couple of tables, and you can hear someone rummaging. There's like clattering of dishes in the room beyond you. Doran kind of steps in. Morik! Morik! Yeah, we turn to each other and shrug.

Okay. And, yeah, I'll enjoy as well. This is all happening at the same time, so. So what does the goblin do that's obviously rushing through this place when he hears someone yell? You hear all sounds cease from the room beyond you. And I holler again, Morik! Damn it. I don't think it's him. No, I didn't either.

lying in the middle of the room is a dead goblin oh oh shit how far away is it from us 10 feet or so I walk over and take a quick medicine look at it yeah of course 18 there is a crossbow bolt sticking out of its chest the wound is fresh the goblin's been dead only a few minutes I quickly get into cover. Okay, you take cover behind a table or something? And I say, it's a crossbow belt. Something attacked this creature. It could be friendly, it could not be.

I don't take cover, but I see you guys, and I kind of act like the decoy. If something is going to pop out and it only sees one, then you guys can have to jump on them. I mean, it could be your friend. Could be. I ask Kieran to sort of, fly in the door behind us and take a minute to rest against the wall and embody Kieran's senses

for a moment to fly through this space, which has got like holes in the roof and everything and just give us like a good sense of who's here, what's going on, what do I hear, what can my owl's eyes see. I'd love to do a perception with this fabulous keen hearing and senses. That is a 17. Your owl flies around the room briefly and then up through the hole in the ceiling through which this rock has traveled, you immediately see that there is a young woman baffled at the sight of an owl flying at her in the room directly above you. She is a human woman. I think seeing this woman, Kieran will perch somewhere nearby. Not in a threatening way, but just across the room just to be a presence in her space to, like, you know, have, meet her eyes with mine through this owl.

She looks steadily at the owl and takes an inquisitive pace forward. Kieran will stand there. It's an owl. It can't speak. But it will, like, give a friendly nod as friendly as an owl can be. A friendly hoot. Kralath sees the owl fly in and with a knowing look, leans over to Jack and says, what do you see? I think I'm, I don't know if I'm even present in that body right now to hear. Oh, you don't even hear it. No. Oh, interesting.

He's like, eyes rolled back. I'm just like, I'm closed. I just expect him to. And I just like wave in front of his face. You like take a coin out of his coin purse. There is a moment though after, after, you know, Kieran and this woman have, have that brief like nod where Jack would bring his senses back into his body. There's a woman here.

We're friendly. And I hear you call. call that from outside. I'm like, I know we're friendly. And Doran looks back and he hears you say there's a woman here and it gives you a look almost of like, okay, I'm not as on guard anymore. And looking at the dead goblin in the middle of the floor, I obviously see that she's not a threat to us. I assume she's not a threat. The owl there, that's, that's Kieran, my familiar. Can I come up the stairs. Yes, but be careful.

And as you move through this lower room, the door that lies across from you into the room where you heard the clattering opens just about an inch and then shuts again. Careful of what? Goblins. Oh, now we've killed plenty of them. I'm going to walk up the stairs and leave, trust Doran with the goblins. Yeah, do we see the door open? Yeah, do we see the, the door open?

Or is it just Jack who sees that? I'll go with the door. Anyone who is paying enough attention. Yeah. That's your own vote. I exchange a look with Doran and... With a passive procession of 12. Yeah, that's fair.

Are we staying down or... Let's investigate that door, I think. Yeah, I'll go upstairs with Jack. Okay. So Jack and Red go upstairs. Kralath and Doran investigate the door. We're coming upstairs. Don't shoot us with your crossbow.

Let's go back to Crailoh. Relath and Doran real quick. How do you approach this situation? And I look at Krayloth. It's Kraloth and Doran. How do you feel you want to approach this situation? Maybe we can speak with them. And I approach the door and I softly knock on it.

And in a whisper, I say, I doke acting Bido. We have Bidog do. We have Bido, and we want to talk. He is alive. Do you know where I can find hack? Shamy! Which roughly translates to no one's here.

These goblins are awesome. And you hear a little bit more clattering. We don't want to hurt you. They're too cute to kill. we yeah really never really if only joe wasn't playing i know right some big something angry i'd be like okay let's kill them all i'm not here we're just investigating the town we have no quarrel with you and your people we don't want to hurt you do you know who beato is i can't hear you there's nobody here oh there's nobody here dorin so we can just we can just open is this a joke

and I kick the Doran. Boom. Doran kicks the Doran. Now I get your name. Oh my God. Classic. There's a little goblin who's got a flower sack

on her head. She is holding a really large burlap sack with both of her hands. It's bulging full. And part of it is moving a little bit, and she's, like, trying to drag it with all her might out the back of this kitchen. The back wall has been collapsed by another boulder, and she's, like, trying to make her exit, but she's, the sack is caught on some chair leg, and she's, like, desperately trying to untangle it.

The one that she's holding? Yeah. I'd just like to make a perception role, I guess, to see if I would know or assume what's in there. Okay. Be 11. There's a clucking sound. Okay. An alligator.

It's an alligator. Yeah, she's trying to flee. She's not making a great go of it, but that's her obvious aim. I have one direction I'm going to go in. Go for it. All right. So my next step would be to quickly step up and grab the goblin by the scruff of the leather armor and intimidate it to see and ultimately the goal would be to find out if she's going to say the same thing as Bedou says or whatever. Bidot says where the people are in the cave.

Okay. And so I'll say. You'll have to speak for me. Oh, fuck. Sure, yeah. Four. I want to hear that lovely Doren voice, though. Tell us.

Tell them. Ask her. That's awesome. That's what I was like to ask her. Crayla, where are the people? She basically shrugs out of your grasp and beats it. She just runs away. No chicken?

She leaves the sack with you. Free chicken. She pieces out. back upstairs we have jack and red we mean you know hum as i walk up looking for nuggets of shadow to to skulkin everyone knows that's like the currency that shadows shadow nuggets yeah yeah give me 10 shadow nuggets please yeah and i'm gonna approach this lady hi the the door opens to her room as she she expects you up the stairs she she opens the door and you see her silhouette through the darkness of the room. There's obviously a big hole punched in the ceiling,

so the like spangled night sky is letting in a little bit of light. And you see, you see her. She has this halo of golden hair. She's wearing a brown cloak and she's got kind of an amused look on her face. I can't imagine what you've been through. Just look at this place. Yeah, I've been better. I'm Jack. this is red hello i'm kella kella it's i wish we get a met under better circumstances are you are you hurt is there anything no i'm i miraculously survived i'm gonna hang back a past few days i'm getting a weird vibe from this girl actually i'm gonna roll and say while he's talking to her okay how did you how did you manage to hide from i guess what what happened with the with the stones 60 how did it all start there was

there was terrible noise as rocks fell from the sky. Horrifying. I was a guest here at the inn, and I hid underneath my bed, she points, and you can see how narrowly that furniture missed being struck by a rock. I was too frightened to come out for a long time, and when I did, I was the only one here. That's terrifying, killer. Where were you traveling from? I came from Daggerford.

I'm a traveling monk. I was just stopping through, and the innkeeper has very reasonable rates here. Bullshit. Oh, lovely. What tradition you practice? You're a monk? Yes, of Lathander. Oh, fascinating.

The temple here must have been really interesting to you then. It was, yes. She's totally bullshitting you. I know she's bullshit. That's what I'm saying to Jack. I'm clinging the shadows now. I have my bow readied. What about the temple?

Do you know who the priest was? Who are you? What? Who are you? I just told you. And I draw my bow and I aim it at her. Red, what are you doing? Excuse me.

Does she have a crossbow in her? She has a crossbow. She doesn't have it on her. It's in the room. But I can't see it. It's like on the table. Okay. Who are you really?

What are you talking about? I'm not buying it. Listen, I've been around. And for all my light funniness, I can tell a bullshitter. And you are full of shit, madame. Killer, if that is your name, everyone else in this town has fucked off. And you stood behind under a bed, yet had the courage to fire a crossbolt at a goblin below. I call bullshit.

Who are you really? And what are you doing here? What are you doing here? What are we doing here? We're answering a call for a friend trying to help somebody. Who? Oh, Villarosa. You're a friend of her?

Yes. Well, you'll be terribly upset to know that she's dead. What do you mean? She was not as lucky as I. What happened? How did she die? I had nothing to do with a giant's attack. This was two days ago.

Huge cloud, the fortress built atop it, such as I've never seen, appeared from the horizon, grew close faster than any bird, and stopped. the town. Giants descended from it. That's unbelievable. It is. They dropped rocks, murdered townsfolk. Most fled. I'm not lying. I stayed here out of fear. I saw them in the town square out of my window briefly at some business. I don't know what. There aren't any bodies. There was no blood in the temple. What do you, how could it? I, I didn't see whether the, priest survived or not. I hope that he did. But who are you and why are you here? And how do you know

that Villarosa died? I made my way up out to the keep. It's quite the jump now that the bridge is out. There are some guards who are still alive there and the lady's body. She was crushed. No. I'm sorry. Was she a dear friend of yours? I've known her for years. Yes. Judging by the damage to the cottages. She's not the only person who didn't survive. Most of the townsfolk fled into the woods. I'm not sure if the, if they survived. I don't understand. How do you fit in all this? This doesn't make sense. You hung out and decided to go to the keep, saw the lady, then came back here and what, hid back under the bed? I'm afraid of the goblins. I'm waiting for them to leave before I can make my escape. Hopefully you can help me. You seem capable.

We're not here to fuck around. Do you think I am some goblin agent? I don't know why you're here. All I know is you're the only one here, and that enough is suspicious. Your weapon. No, not until we know exactly what type of threat you may or may not be. Is your name even Keller? Yes.

Is it? Looking around the room, do I see any of the things I would expect a monk of lethander to be carrying with them just to like verify any parts of her story? You can roll a religion check for that. A religion check? I would love to. Eleven for religion. Her robes seem passable. You don't see any specific accoutrement that a monk would necessarily be carrying apart from that.

Show us your holy symbol. And that's not a euphonism. She fumbles around in the folds of her cloak and pulls out an amulet that you would recognize as belonging to. a monk of Lothander's order. While she is rummaging in her cloak, the head of a snake, a live snake, protrudes from one arm of her vest. And I shoot a look at Jack.

And then I shoot the snake. What the fuck does that mean? Is that you're familiar? I'm sorry? Oh, this is a pet. Let's hop back. downstairs, Krayloth, Doren, this goblin has run from you, leaving all of the spoils of her pillaging on the ground in front of you.

I don't really particularly care about chasing down this goblin. I mean, it could pose a problem that she could go and warn the other goblins, but it might be a little bit of fun. I'm going to take a look around here and I want to search. yeah no specific signs of your friend moroc in the kitchen no what about if i go for investigation because then i'd have a no one's in the kitchen with dorin no but while you're i'm gonna say uh you're looking for signs of your friend i am i don't like to do this but i think i got my hopes up about seeing someone from my past and now they're not here and I've kind of got ahead of myself.

Well, he's an innkeeper. He's resourceful. I'm sure he would be able to... We haven't found his body yet, so... I see we go up and join the other two, and I'll take a look around. I'll look through the giant bag. Yeah.

There are several muffins, a block of cheese, a cooked chicken, a live chicken, a frying pan, an iron pot, a bull's-lantern, two flasks of oil, a set of cooks utensils, a jar of cloves, a jar of saffron, a dented silver jug, and a cracked hourglass. Shit, this chicken's still alive. Get out of here.

I will just stick then the chicken, the cooked chicken meat in my back pack. Sure. That's going to go bad. It's cooked. Back upstairs. Can I ask a question that I probably would have noticed? I was the one who did the medicine check on the goblin. I'm a ranger.

I'm great at using a bow. Did I notice the way that the bolt was? Was it a one-shot kill? Was it a head shot? Was it like sort of a messy off-the-center shot? Was it skilled? It's sort of what I'm trying to get at. Could I detect that from the death of the goblin?

This was a one-shot kill. Leading me to believe that this person was skilled, who used this? Yes. Okay. That to me is enough to be like... You would assume she has proficiency mechanically with this weapon. I just mean to say that to Jack, and I'm saying this with my bow still train owner. She's not the kind of high.

when an attack comes. She was here either on purpose or came afterwards. Listen, Keller, I recognize why you may feel like you need to hide your true purpose here. I really do. But look, and I'm going to slowly lower my bow. Possibly, at the very least, all of us here are on the same page in regards to whatever giant catastrophe might have happened. Please, tell us what you know. Perhaps we have information as well that could age you. And I'm going to try a persuasion. Sure. Because at this point, my logic is she didn't fire at us when we came in.

So at the very least, she's willing to talk. Yeah, she invited you up. And that is going to be a 23. I told you, truthfully, everything I know about the giant's attack was terrifying. And I have no desire to get to know them any better. As to my true reason for being here, being that you are friends of the Lady Nandar, I maybe obfuscated the truth slightly. She looks you both up and down for a moment. Are you hitting on me?

Not yet. Hello. Perhaps you're familiar with the Zentarim? I know them. Elfs, aren't they? No. I don't know them. Don't worry.

I'll explain that. They ruin. They are. I'm interested. Tell me more. There's a network of people who work together to common ends. We value people who know how to get what they need. Wait.

I don't understand. What are you talking about? Is Vela Rosa working for the Zantaro? No. Silly, I am. No, but not against her then, not with her. She's not here anymore. I understand that.

I'm trying to figure out what... I have my own ends, and they're not necessarily benign, but they're not malignant either. They just are what they are. They just are what they are. Anyway, I'm expecting company. Ah, so you're trying to meet with others, Zantara. And what? We're catching you in the middle of it.

You're here, too. Well, now that we are all on the same page, maybe we can help each other out. Why don't we hang around and meet with your friends, and maybe we can do a similar thing? That sounds fine. Well, who are you meeting with, and what's the goal? All right. Well, I'm meeting with... Oh, wait, hold on.

Dorin, Kralath, come up here! As Kralath and Doren... Doran climb the stairs of the inn toward the room where Red and Jack are speaking with Kella, you hear the sound of hoofbeats enter the square and a confident male voice calls out Keller, Keller darling, what have you done with the place? Thanks for listening, and thanks again to our Patreon supporters. Remember, you can support us to find the link at daisheempodcast.com. Make sure you rate, review, and subscribe, and be sure to follow us at

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