Dice Shame - 65 | 'Make Like a Tree'

Episode Date: January 7, 2021

The party is finally ready to leave Shadow Top Cathedral, only they still haven't met their contact... Comedy, action and a whole lot of shaming come together in Dice Shame, an Actual Play Podcast of Storm King's Thunder by Wizards of the Coast! Join our GM Jo; her partner Harlan, his brother Alex & their best friends Justin and Rob as they tackle the daunting world of Faerun in this legendary adventure module! Dice Shame is a podcast that welcomes its audience to the gaming table. Like the games they play at home, they try not to take themselves too seriously. The show aims to be entertaining, inclusive, and irreverent, while still taking the rules (somewhat) seriously. Join us every Thursday morning for brand new episodes available on all major platforms including; Spotify, iTunes, Google Play and more! If you haven't checked it out yet... what are you waiting for?!? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Long has it been since the cathedral has seen a gathering of this kind. We're sorry we were so grumpy. Doran and I clearly found a little bit lost. Doran's a rebel. You had me on my toes, sorry. And we haven't killed any orcs. Hey, tree, tree, tree, tree, tree. What's a few minutes with Doran and giants?

He's got it. We've been waiting for you. You have nothing to apologize for Doran. The decrop dust us. And so Doran goes into stealth mode. What is that? Yeah, I'm like, I'm like ready to adventure. Welcome back to Dice Shame.

This is episode 65, Make Like a Tree. MVP this week is Jake Wiseman for his kind words on Twitter. Thanks so much for being a part of what we do here, Jake. Thanks, Jake. Ignorance was Bliss is an interview-style podcast that seeks to find answers for the burning questions we have about the ways people act. Whether mundane or extreme, Kate finds the thread and pulls at it. She's got a background in mental health and criminal justice, and while that expertise can sometimes lead her into the macabre, she's mostly interested in shaving down the difference between us and them. Check out, ignorance was Bliss, wherever you get your podcasts. All right, should we do this thing? Let's do it. The sun dawns on Shadowtop Cathedral. You're attended by songbirds. I'm feeling especially lovey today. What about you guys?

And I look towards orange. And then I look towards Kralov. And then I look towards Elmort, who's, like, curled up at the bottom of my bedroll. Like a cat. Like a cat. What do you do? What's your morning look like? the day after a crazy underground wedding.

We don't do the dishes. We run outside and play. And red runs outside. Whippee! Just red runs outside the time. It's a really interesting bit of contrast, too, because we've really, again, still got nothing to do but wait for Turling to get back. And so it's this element of like, okay, yeah, this cool, big event happened.

And now we're settling back into limbo waiting for the next thing. Right. The whole wedding left Jack a little bit like his thoughts want to be elsewhere. And he's now feeling like, oh, I want to move. I want to work. do something and we're in this place where we can't do that. Yeah. And so he's maybe a little anxious, a little antsy

pacing around. Maybe even we start like packing up a little bit, you know, like getting the idea that once what we need is here, we're ready to go. Yeah, or sorting or resorting, making sure he's got every book in his library where he wants it and like ready to put it in the bag and nowhere, you know. And I think that

I think that Kralov notices this and he walks over to Jack who's preparing amicure and he says hey, Jack, you plan on a head and out soon? Well, no, I'd just feeling a little antsy, so I thought I'd make sure I knew where I was going to fit everything. I just, you know, wanted something to do with my hands.

Huh. It'd been... Are you not enjoying this here? I mean, this is beautiful forest, magical. It's, no, it's stunningly beautiful. All the love and the magical creatures. Well, yeah. I mean, I've never been someone to stay in one place too long and, you know, for better or worse, right?

So we've been here a couple of days and it's just feeling like, I don't know, I feel like there's part of me that wishes I could just teleport myself anywhere else in the world I wanted to, you know? It's just to, I miss water deep, I guess. Yeah. And stuck here waiting for a triant, the notably slow-moving plant for the wind to blow the right way to bring the trees here to hopefully get us another clue to help us along the way to, you know, the giants are out there still. I'm with you on all this body, Red says. He like sits up from tall grass, like two feet away from you guys. Oh, I also want to get out of here. Hey, Red.

Hey, guys, I'm feeling too. Look, true Stephen's all packed up, ready to go as well. I just want to get going. It's so funny that you guys are saying all this because literally this is what's going through my mind. And when you awake, Doran's not even in the Lehman's tiny hut anymore. Oh, no. There is stuff that is his that's all packed up and ready to go, but he's not there.

And what Doran is doing, he's retracing the same way that we came into the forest. walking back out, not all the way, but retracing steps, thinking to himself, do we miss something? Should we have gone a different direction? Should we have left some sort of note, some sort of message? He's just talking to himself. This is internal thoughts. This is not talking out loud. But you went alone? That's dangerous. They're like spiders and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Doin's a rebel. But again, it's early morning. The sun is poking through. I'm really just kind circling the shadow top cathedral. Yeah, because you traveled in from Nguanar's hold into the high forest and ended up traveling

like three days to get to shadow top. So I'm not going three days out. I'm really just kind of going. No, it's like a sea, like an interminable sea of trees from all directions. But I am kind of following our steps back thinking, did we miss something? Was there some sort of note or message we should have left a mark on a tree or anything? You know? When Doran gets back, maybe we should figure out what we're going to.

going to do next if Turling doesn't appear and... I don't know, you guys. I mean, we've been wandering the lands for what has it been a month already and fighting monsters and just there's been so much death lately. I feel

like my entire life has been all about death and fighting. And now here we have this beautiful opportunity to be around love and life and just all of this magic and beauty, I just, I don't think I want it to end.

Yeah. It's, it's just that it hurts, Kralath, because I chose not that. I chose to go on this adventure. We chose to go fix the giant problem. And so sitting around here and somebody else's version of, of that is hard. So I'm feeling a little lancy and organizing my pack. For me, my legs just don't stop wiggling, really. If I sit still too long, they just go back and forth and they start to ache. So really, I'm not the emotional ready to go, but I am definitely the physical ready to go. Well, if you guys are both antsy, I don't even know where Doran is.

Where is Doran? Yeah, where is he? Doran, as you are traveling, as you are doing some scouting, which is not usually what Doran gets to do. Yeah, no, not really. But you're trying your hand at scouting around, looking for clues. What did I miss? You start to feel the ground shudder. under your feet.

Yeah, you're reminded of giant footsteps. And I feel it too, eh? Yeah, you feel it under your feet. It feels like something very, very large is moving in the forest. Pick it up. Two, three, four. And so Doren goes into stealth mode. What is that?

What's that? I have a question. So, Doren wakes up after wedding, post-wedding day. Yeah. He goes out on this walk. Are you wearing your armor? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm like ready to adventure. Always. What's a few minutes with Doren and Giants? He's got it. So, yeah, I say stealth mode. But really, really what I mean is Doreen stops and listens. And I'd like to maybe roll a perception to find out if I can hear maybe a direction.

God, you absolutely may. With a natural one. Oh, no. That's your second. Shame, shame, shame, shame, I think it's, I think it's wind. Shame it. Shame it. Shame on you. I must have farted. I'm shaming it. Dice jam. Goodbye.

Stupid die. Bad dice, pay the price. Maybe that was the problem. You named it stupid dice. My stupid die. Well, okay, on that note, then I don't see anything. And you have to pee little. I'm hearing, obviously, rumbling. So I'm thinking it's either the trient is arriving. My stomach is really rumbling this morning.

Oh, bother. Or, there. are giants afoot. And so either way I head back. All right. You head back to the clearing. To the clearing. Which takes me all of 20 minutes. And you are nearly paced by this heavy footsteps. You hear them. So by the time I get back. We're all prepared. We're all ready for battle. Like we're ready for an ambush and you just come traipsing in through this whole. You bust into the clearing. There's something right on my tail. On my six. As I step into. And everyone's like, yeah, I know. What's the place this called? These footsteps herald the arrival of a huge creature, an awakened tree. Oh. This being is bigger and older than your memory of Liferous. Its branches are warped and hung with Spanish moss, and its large roots grasp the earth and ungrasp.

Take long strides but faltering. It's an old ancient creature. It has amber colored eyes that peer suspiciously out at the denizens of this glade for obviously there was a fucking party here recently. There's like toilet paper streamers hanging from the trees sort of situation like a bunch of saders like who fell asleep where they dropped last night like twitching and snoring in the early morning. And there's a half-alph woman dressed in a light-colored smock sitting in the branches of this awakened tree who looks down on all of you.

Emotionally or physically she looks down? I feel like as the tree crashes into High Top Cathedral, Doran's prepared for battle. Sorry. What did I say? High Top. As the tree crashes into Shadow Top Cathedral, Doren's ready for battle, brings his axe up,

and then realizes that it's a trient, and he immediately sheathes his axe. Yeah. You had me on my toes, sorry. She says to you, I am Therah Shindle of the Emerald Enclave, and this is Turlang, guardian of Shattertop Cathedral.

Long has it been since the cathedral has seen a gathering of this kind. It may never have seen a gathering of quite this kind. There was a wedding between a Seder and mycannid last night. A what? A mushroom. Oh, it's Marela.

The mushroom. Ah, yeah, mushroom. He means mushroom, I say to the elephant tree. Thera grabs the trunk of this triant and swings down to the ground, landing lightly on bare feet in front of all of you. Cool. Cool, yeah. That was like a superhero landing. My name's Red, and this is Kralath.

That's Jack, and this little guy. up here is my favorite bud Doran. I'm Doran. Nice to meet you. We're the Nightstone Four. Well. Well met. And what is your allegiance? Uh, Kallumvore. Good?

To ourselves. And each other. You? So it's kind of a motley band. We fight giants, basically. Mainly, yeah, giants. Yeah, we fight giants. That's a good tagline. She's short for a half elf.

She's got these long braids and locks kind of melding through her hair. hair and wooden jewelry, and she's got these gold tattoos on her throat and her shoulders and kind of all the way up to her chin. She looks up at all of you, and she's like, giants. What do you know of giants? What do we know about giants, really? We've killed a bunch, and we've talked to a bunch, and we've destroyed a bunch's houses, and basically we've been tasked with reordening them.

That's the part. That's exactly what we've. you've been tasked with. Tasked. Well, Destin, too, it's, it gets muddy, and maybe that's part of why we're... So you're the superheroes, really? Well, I wouldn't call it super.

Dora, and your bum must be blushing. It is. This doesn't happen to be Turlang, is it? This, this is he, and the creature looks down at you with its great amber eyes. We've been waiting for you. Hi, Turling. We met Liferlis. We love your kind. We respect the woods and the forest and we respect your advice and need your help. We helped Liferlis defend Goldenfields from some hill giants and he had suggested that coming up to speak with you might help us on our quest to reordain the giants in a way that was a little nicer for the world.

Basically what I said. I don't know about that. Okay. This is my forest. And are protected from outside. And I don't know. Remember what Greenwistle said. He said he's a bit of an old grump.

So we got to be cool to him. And you are clearly doing a fantastic job here. I mean, the level of peace. We're all sleeping in a field here. You're not worried about dire wolves, undead, or anything like that. It's really quite a... Or giants. Or giants.

And we're being careful not to disturb any of the wildlife. You know, we're being very careful with the grass. And, hey, does anybody have a hard candy? The old people love hard candies. And I find, like, an amber stone, like, you know, and walk up to his giant mouth. Yeah. You might like this. He just, like, put it in his mouth.

He doesn't even really, like, chew. You just, like, put it in there. and it's just in there. You take that big guy. I got some white stuff at the side of your mouth. Let me just clean a little bit of that gunk. Oh, you just farted.

That's okay. Thara's like, so, this is incredible. I mean, first of all, this wedding. I'm sorry, I missed it. You've got to go say congratulations to Green Whistle and Morella. They might just be through there.

You might want to knock first. They could be sporing. I mean, I certainly will. I've never heard of such a union, but how blessed. And you're here just to wait for Turling. We're also on our way to Everland. We've got another sort of clue to follow up on. Ultimately, we're trying to...

Let me tell you the whole story. It seems like a long story. But Everland, you said. That's next, yeah. Well, perhaps I'm a druid of the high forest I was raised here. So perhaps you would permit me, I mean, I don't love traveling by myself. This is why, and she puts a hand on Turlang's trunk, I have such a venerable traveling companion.

But if you need a guide, I would be happy to bring you to the Evermore Way. Well, we were looking for a fabled giant slayer at Shadow Top Cathedral, Airglass, the Moon Elf. Oh, Airglass. Well, I mean, it's been a very long time since I'd seen him. I do know of Air Glass. He's also a member of the Emerald Enclave. Ah, do you guys have like a cool meeting spot that we can maybe meet him at? She looks around.

Well, here, the Emerald Enclave meets at Shadowtop occasionally, and I last saw him in this very grove some 15 years ago. Well, 15 years. Well, I don't think we should wait that long. I mean, I just... Yes, we were discussing issues of centaur territories on the star mounts, if I remember correctly, but that's neither here nor there.

I doubt you would be able to find him. Fair enough. I mean, Leffler sent us here, because he thought, Air Glass, obviously the one who created him and Turlag, could help us. Is there anything that you might know that could help us in our quest to slay giants?

And she puts her hand again on the trunk of the tree beside her, Turlang kind of shudders. Well, if your goal is indeed to eliminate a direct perhaps second

That'd be lovely And then he calls out In this crazy holler This reverberating howl It's like That was a nice little fart. Look, guys, he farted again.

I imagine that to be sort of like a wooden trumpet. Where is this gas coming from? Yeah, yeah, yeah, but from an old man. Old man trees. Yeah, yeah, it's Orrin cleaning one of his instruments. Camera snaps over and he's like, oh, sorry. Pardon me. And then he's like, hey, tree, tree, tree, tree!

And the forest, the canopy, the The canopy of the woods around you shudders and shakes and from within you hear more footsteps as an awakened tree, smaller than Turlang, but still tall, maybe 30 feet. and two shrubs kind of waddle out from the undergrowth and stand in the clearing here in this glade. So I asked you guys to send me some names for trees, and here's what you sent me. Tree Eater, Erecor, from someone who actually gave a shit,

and Scragly Bush, I believe is what Alex chose. I'm going to name this one tree eater, the tree, not the shrubs. It rustles its limbs at you. He likes it. This one's kind of scraggly. It's a bush. Let's call it Eri-C-R-A-R-A-K-H-O-R. There you are.

Perhaps if we're naming them, this one could be E-R-A-R-C-R-E-R-E-R-E-R-E-R-E-R-E-E-R-E-E-R-E-E-R-E-E-R-E-E-R-E-E-E-R-E-E-E-R-E-E-E-R-E-E-E-R-E-E-E-R-E-E-E-R-E-E. And this one could be blocky branch it also means protector of branches because they block the branches sounds good grayloth raises his eyebrow blocky branch so we can have these trees and bushes to help us on our quest blocky branch turlang looks down at you with its great amber eyes you can call them to you once when you Need help. Wow. And then they must return to the woods. Essentially, Turlang is loaning you an awakened tree and two awakened shrubs that will come to you in your time of need once.

I would love it if Red just used his on the most, like, insignificant thing. Like, he had to get an apple from a tree. I'm tired today. Carry me. I could use a back scratch. Thanks, guys. Bye. Kind of unceremoniously, Turlang just starts walking away.

Oh. Bye. Thank you. Did he crop dust us? What is that smell? That's it. You're not going to, like, solve our problem. What's your problem again?

There are giants and you need to figure that out? Yeah. No, there's no problem. This is what we came here for, Doran. We came here to try to speak with airglass, or at least speak to Terlag and we've got these amazing tree out of it.

Yeah. I think that's kind of my point. We don't even know what we're doing. And this is when Doreen kind of throws up his arms at this point. He turns back to his companions. He says, we don't even know what we're doing here. What the hell is the reordining?

I'm so frustrated. I wonder if all these good vibes from the wedding are, like, making him feel bad about his, like, murder divorce. There's a lot of things that are kind of culminating here. The fact that we stuck around for so long to wait for this tree, I thought he was going to give us answers. Yeah. We had three magical days here.

What's wrong, Doran? We're still on the right track. I mean, we've found Turlang, and we've got some new allies. And what was your name again, miss? Thera, I am a druid, so I do have some ability. My mother taught me to hunt, so I'm able to wield my weapons. There we go. Yeah, but I'm with Doran and Red Walk's next to Doran.

Yeah, I'm angry, too. Team Awesome boys stick together. What are we angry about again? Doran doesn't really even acknowledge, he's pissy. Doran is right now, and he kicks a tuft of dirt on the ground. he just kicks it and he's like kind of crosses his arms and sulks a bit and red kicks a rock but it's too heavy he's like you still don't even know anything about the reordining we don't

we don't know what we're doing I don't want to just go around continuing to kill giants this is a waste of our time we're not getting anywhere we're not doing anything yeah and orc splitters on your back like and we haven't killed any orcs yeah we haven't killed any orcs fuck you fuck this yeah I'm with darn on this one guys Thera is kind of looking between Kralath and Jack, and she's like, have I done something wrong? No, no, should I?

Of course not. We've had a very long journey, and Doran here has been in the thick of battle right up front, the front line since day one. She kind of takes a couple of steps back, and she's like, I will go and congratulate the newlyweds, and then we can reconvene in a little while. Good idea. She kind of extricates herself from the situation. I wish her well in Elvish. And maybe Doran sees the elf kind of excuse herself. And then he's like, now he's feeling a little bit,

a little bit embarrassed that he's kind of reacted so childishly to this situation. And he comes back in, I'm sorry. Look, I don't mean to get frustrated. It's just we still don't really know what even we're doing. And I just, as much as I love battle and I love to, You don't kill. I don't necessarily think that just going around killing giants is the answer that we're looking for.

Yeah, we're sorry, guys. We lost our temper. We're just tired of waiting here. You have nothing to apologize for, Doran, at all. And I can appreciate that sentiment myself. I mean, I'm used to having a direct goal and a purpose, a clear, crystal clear purpose. And now I feel like that. purpose has been a bit more floaty, but I don't necessarily feel like that's a bad thing.

Honestly, I'm starting to appreciate not feeling like I need to be doing something right now, but I can understand you guys might feel different. I mean, yeah, Doran, get your shit together. I think we all kind of roll our eyes at red. When I think about the ordaining, when I'm thinking about it today, what our goal is, what our task is, it feels like a puzzle, it feels like an excavation. It feels very comfortable in that context. We don't have all the information.

It's behind that next level of dirt. It's maybe a clue we get that we have to take to the next dig to really understand all of this that we're trying to piece together. It's energizing in that way because it's not a complete picture. We've got to make guesses and take stabs in the dark and try and come up with the next most logical conclusion and flail around a little bit. And I can appreciate how that can feel frustrating, Dorian,

in the same way that searching for the next vein of gold or silver in the mountains trying to figure out where you're going to find those minerals collected is a challenge. The way read those puzzle boxes fooled us for so long trying to figure out that we had to pull that damn red side up and then twist the key. It's that kind of challenge that we have ahead of us. It's not an obvious one. And that's why we need several different approaches to it. And that's why our perspectives are so set for this task. Inspiration for your motivational speech. Very good.

I agreed. You know, and I suppose you're right. And like Kralath was saying, I'm very used to having a straight goal that I can lay my eyes and thoughts on and go after. And you said it well, Jack, this is not a single goal. there's some uncovering that we still need to do here. Well, we've got a destination. Yeah, that's true.

What's the destination again? Valharo, the wizard in Everland. Oh, yeah. I wrote it down on my journal. Me too. And at this point, Therah Shindle sort of tentatively makes her way back into the circle where you're all standing. We're sorry we were so grumpy. Dorn and I clearly felt a little bit lost.

See, we're really motivated people. We need direction, but also me and Kralath and Jack were feeling a little bit like we had enough going, so we needed to talk. That's just fine. What he said. Look at that, butterfly. I don't know about any of you, but I'm the kind of person who likes to kind of get where they're going, and it seems like that's sort of what you were talking about. I have places to be, and you seem ready to travel. We're ready to travel, but I guess the point that I've learned here is that if it were so simple, just anybody would be able to do this.

But it's going to take some mastery on our part, I think. Well said, Doran. Couldn't find that butterfly. Yeah, I agree. All I know is a God told me that I'm going to save the world. And I'm going to do it. Did you get that butterfly? No, he ran away.

All right, or all right. be all right true stephen let's roll out you guys say your goodbyes absolutely yeah bye mushrooms goodbye green whistle oh you give them all little kisses you feel like there's like yeah this this scene where the bride and groom are hugged and kissed by each one of us and there's handshakes and morella is standing underneath this shade that was woven for her so that she can be out in the sunshine for a little while safely and she everyone wishes you farewell, Green Whistle, plays you a song to sort of shepherd you out of the glade and there's a couple of tears shed.

It's the wrong way, Doran. It's the wrong way. We're going this way, sorry. Nope, the other wrong way. Oh, this way? Oh, okay. Yeah, got it. Your journey through the high forest away from shadow top cathedral and away from the

beauty and community you experienced feels a little bit solemn. And as you descend off of the slopes of this mountain down into the high forest and then out north, the season again degrades into late autumn and early winter, away from the heat of these hot springs erupting out of the cavernous under dark. You are now less afforded the shelter of this magical warm embrace. And again, the trees become naked and the banks of the meadow glades become just covered in frost and ice and snow.

And it's cold again. And it's fucking awful. Welcome back to the rot. Book tour. Thara herself, she's a very knowledgeable guide and a polite companion. She's especially interested in trading her information about the high forest with anyone who has more information about, you know, different kinds of environments as a druid of the Emerald Enclave,

she cares a fuck ton about the natural world. So she wants to know all about, you know, red where you came from what that was like. And I'm telling her all the Mazdican stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Jack, it's constantly trying to like draw back to listen in and then I just kind of stop talking. And then he continues up ahead and I continue.

There's part of Jack that's like, I haven't hung out with another elf in a long time. And, you know, my mom's an elf from Silbury Moon. And I just, you know, having a little elf in my life after being in, you know, Shadow Tommel I could feel really, really like nostalgic and grounding in a way. And of course. She's telling you about her upbringing. Like, her mother was an elf.

And you get the impression, Jack, that Thera is very interested in sharing her experience with you as well as a fellow half elf. You know, her mother was also of elven descent, and she was raised here in the high forest. And as you guys get to know each other a little better, she tells you about how her mother was sort of evicted from the tribe here. Oh, no. Because they were xenophobic. They were, her and her mother were cast out at an early age. And then she was raised by her mother in the high forest by herself.

And Thera tells you that after the death of her mother, she had to seek out company of others. And thus she joined the Emerald Enclave as kind of a way to rejoin some kind of community. Oh, Thera, that sounds so hard. Thank you for sharing that. You know, there's definitely that part of Elvin culture, for sure, that wants to hang on to the old ways and fight new things. and it puts us in a really weird spot. How did you experience a childhood, Jack? Was your mother similarly expelled from her culture because of your existence?

Or was your father and her relationship whole? It's really, I mean, so much of my parents are so distant from the real world, They're more than being human and elf and anything else. They're wizards. They're folks who fell in love on another plane of reality and decided to spend some time together before they got more interested in something else. They're both, you know, I was raised more by my sister than my dad,

and she was already like, you know, way timeline gets weird. I guess it's that elf time thing too, where, you know, they're 200 years old and you're a baby and they have no time for you, you know. But I did get to spend some lovely time when I wasn't learning to be a wizard in Silvery Moon with Mom. Like a comfortable silence just kind of settles between the two of you and Thera reaches down and pulls at a sprague of winter green that's poking out from between some clump of snow

and she crushes it in her hands and you smell this tang of peppermint reach your nostrils. And she's like, maybe we sell. from different problems you and I where I was grounded too much in reality and you among the stars. Yeah. Around the campfire that night, she tells

you of the sometimes dangers of the high forest that she's had to come to know and how to run away from or combat herself in her many years here, the fiercely territorial wood elves and tree ghost tribe, Uthgard

barbarians, about the ancient magical wards of the forest and And also about the creatures of boundless power and benevolence that live here like the unicorns. She tells you about the god that she worships, Maliki, and about her great respect for unicorns. And she tells you all about the two instances in her lifetime that she met a unicorn, memories that serve as nourishment for her soul. Wow. Wow. So you've met a unicorn?

A real live unicorn. Two of them. Unicorns aren't real, you dummy. They are very much real, red. Trying to pull another owl bear on us, I Kraloff? And then I turn and look at Kieran. Just shakes his little feline head. I'll tell you, you're interested in natural surroundings.

Where are you from again? Emerald. Emerald. Doran, I'm from here. But you're something Emerald is in your name. Emerald Enclave, that's the group, the faction that I joined up with. People who care most about the preservation of the natural world and defend it against all comers. But let me ask you, have you ever seen an emerald in its natural state? Deep in the caverns of the mountains.

Her eyes kind of sparkle in the firelight across from you as you tell her. No, I haven't. I didn't think so, and I thought that you might find this story very interesting. For when I was young, I recall of going with my uncles down into the dead. depths of the caverns and we would dig and look for this very, very dull and faint glimmer of a dark green and only then would we know that it was an emerald because it isn't as lustful when it's buried. But let me tell you this one time, we were digging for emeralds and this great dragon from beneath came up and when it spewed fire wow did i ever see the way those emeralds glowed

in the deep darkness and the fiery breath wow it was just something else that that image will remain with me forever inspiration doran nice it is as the fire is dying and you are preparing for bed that you hear an eerie sound a distant bay on the wind it seems to come from everywhere at once and drives the chill into your bones the hell is that sound you hear blood rush in your ears your heartbeat quickens mist rolls in between the tree trunks all around you oozing into the spaces between you separating you all into a chill gray void five mountains figures emerge from the mist astride black horses whose eyes roll and chests are plastered with bloody foam. Their tattered armor hangs loosely from their mangled frames, poorly concealing the

corpses underneath. Flesh flayed and rotten, undead light burning from within, broken bones and bared teeth. One of them raises its long sword and points it straight at you, Jack. And from a jawbone half hanging from its face, its tongue loose and drooling putrid fluid, it says

free. Oh boy, these guys kind of seem familiar. Thank you so much to our amazing Patreon supporters, Christopher Ryan Evans Mitchell Cadwell Colin Burkart Daniel, also known as

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