Dice Shame - 86 | 'Hunt High and Low'

Episode Date: June 3, 2021

The group comes across a quiet and ancient tower in the middle of the canyon full secrets and a shaded past... 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.

Anyway, I suppose we should keep going. Here, catch this rope, Doran. We all know how I can cross gaps. Zulkin, hurry up, you're going to be last. I'm right here. Can't be any worse than the one we saw just outside of East Haven. Clunk, clunk, clenck, clank, clank. How you like that?

Gritty, the seventh door. Good call, Jack. I've got my medical kit. This is not the place to argue about this. And Zulken. You're not in a freeze frame, Zulken. You're not even part of the Nightstone Four. And red opens the door and peeks through.

Stop that. Sorry, that's my stomach. Welcome back to Dyshame. This is episode 86, hunt high and low. MVP this week is Childish Froggy from our Discord, a friend and family connection. Thanks for joining up. Yeah, thanks for joining us. If you want to enrich your canonical chops, you should check out the travel log.

It's a weekly D&D lore podcast about the towns and locations in Fyroon, hosted by Canadians, Lily and Stephen. Whether you're looking for inspiration for your own campaign, or if you just want to get knee-deep in the history of the setting's rich fiction, this is definitely the show for you. Check out the travel log wherever you listen to podcasts or visit D&D Travel Log on Twitter. Should we play some D&D?

Let's do it. Secret candy. Candy? Secret candy. Secret candy. We got $15 food vouchers to use at work that you can use at the food court downstairs, as well as at the gift shop and the associated candy store that's in the lobby. And I used the voucher to buy more than $15 worth of candy. Yeah, you splurged.

It's because I already had lunch, but... You needed more candy. More than that. just like a have more to buy on a candy. Secret candy. All right, Joe, you can have one candy secretly stashed upon your person

at any time. What's your pick? Is it real world rules? Like, if it's chocolate, will it melt? No, no, no, no, it's perfect. It pulls out of your pocket. No matter what you've been doing,

it's perfectly preserved. Does you get to pick one? Wait, is it infinite? Yeah. Every time I reach into a pocket, I pull it another one of them. You always have the perfect amount of this candy. Reese's pieces.

Oh, there are. You would be able to catch so many ETs. I love them So I bought some high chews Some banana ones And I Among many other things I like to buy

The foreign candy Harlan loves British candy They didn't make them home By the way The High Chews banana Well so that's the secret candy part I ate them in the car On the way home

And I like Hid the rappers in the car I have a little Garbage bag in there Because I'm fastidious By my car But I made sure that None of the rappers

Were like in the bag With the rest of the candy And then so I come home to the boys to eat dinner, and I didn't really want them to know that I'd eaten a whole little thing of banana high shoes. Harlan fucking smelled it immediately

on my breath when I came in the door and he went in for a kiss and he was like, did you eat candy? No, I didn't. No, no, no, no. Even better, I said, did you eat a banana? I infest up.

The nose, nose, man. I got a good sense of smell. I fessed up right away. I just think of that sonic song. Have vouchers. Eat candy No, no No, there's a bit of a stretch

Have love, we'll travel I didn't really sing it very well It's a bit of a reach But you know what? I appreciate it I applaud you anyway I can't say I can't sing it It's so what about everyone else

What's your What's your dispensable candy The thing that Rob asked me If you could have a secret candy On your person ready at all times For nourishment What way do you have? Sour Dinosaur-Dinosaurs

Sour Dinosaur? What? What? Those, they're like little gummy sour dinosaurs. They're like five-scent candies from when you were a kid. This is a Saskatchewan thing. I don't know. Come on.

But definitely. Definitely sour keys. I'm not crazy. Yeah. Are they covered in sugar or are they in that? Oh, yeah. These. Okay.

I didn't realize they were like a thing. Cell? People enjoy it. Dean of Sill. They're the perfect, they're the perfect texture of gummy. That's the, or there's the same like the Easter candy. There's a certain kind of Easter bunny thing. That's just that firmer texture of.

Are they dino-soures? They are dynosaurs. That's probably what they're called. It is. Dinos. Yeah, I love gommies. I love gommies. I love sour.

And I'm sure I've had these. I love them. I don't know how much you love gommies, Rob. I'm big gummy. I really like gummy. He's capital BG. I keep gummies in the house all the time. They're not secret.

They're just gums. You kept those Coca-Cola gums from me, and Henry told on you. Well, I think in the three person, if two of them know, that's just the majority. And you wonder why she hides her banana candies in the car. Right? What about those, like, redhots or the feet? I like redhots, yeah. I love...

I hate redhots. I want to be able to turn my belly button and just nerds pour out of my head. Oh, my God. You don't have to become the dispenser. I saw a nerds commercial on YouTube. I haven't thought about nerds in like a long time. And then YouTube was like, have you thought about nerds? Here's a commercial.

Yeah. And I... Yeah. Yeah, I saw a weird ad like that the other day for like Pepsi or something. I'm like, oh shit, yeah, commercials used to exist. I was like, when the last time you saw a Pepsi commercial? I've now just Googled candy to get an idea of what kind of candy I like the most. Justin, what about you?

What are you reaching for? Pez, definitely Pez. Just having like an infinite supply of like always pulling out a different Pez dispenser. Nothing for me. Oh, the dispensers too. Just like in a holster, the right dispenser for the moment. Did you have a dispenser growing up that you particularly liked? Probably, but I haven't thought about it in days.

I had a Garfield one. Garfield's cool. That guy hates Mondays. I'm like, I'm trying to remember, I can remember the feeling of it. It was something with ears, but I can't remember what it was. Was it Garfield? Maybe. I remember I had a quark dispenser from Deep Space Nine, weirdly enough from Star Trek.

But the thing was, I had no idea what the fuck did. deep space nine was. I was like eight. And I don't remember where I got it. But I just had this like hideous, giant-eared alien pez dispenser that fed me candy and had no frame of reference for it. I feel like that describes a lot of pest dispensers. Yeah, but like most of them are like children based, you know, oh, here's a, I don't know,

Power Ranger head or a Muppet or some shit. But here's a fucking alien from an adult space show. I feel like we had a lot of toys that we didn't not know where they originated from. Hold on, we didn't not know. So we knew where they were from. I feel like we had a lot of toys that we did not know where they originated from. Yeah, I agree.

Pieces of toys that would have gone with something, but we only had the one part of it. Actually, funnily enough, I was going through a bunch of old photos the other day, and I found a picture of you and I playing with the play set. And I have no idea what it was. You know what it looked like?

It looked like a big mobile rolling unit. It's the G.I. Joe Technodrome. Was it G. I don't know. It's not technical. Ninja turtles? I don't know, but it looks like, oh, let me tell you. And then you can figure it. I know what I thought of it. That was the Christmas that Mom and Dad went to a good will. It reminded me of that Star Wars thing that those little sand guys.

Good description around. I'm glad we waited for that one. Those little sand guys have, it's like a big sort of boxy. Oh, yeah. a trapezoid. Like a jaw-wah carrier. T-W-W-T-R-W-T-R-T-E-2 gets sold into slavery for. It looks like that, but it folded open.

And then there was a bunch of toys all around that I don't, I didn't recognize it. The candy, I would say, is something more of the chalky type, like sour-tarts. I like sour-tarts. When you said chalky, I thought maybe you slurred the word pocky. No. Chalk-like.

But you mean like C-H-A-L-K? Yes. Like it's a part. powdery substance. Like chalk. Do you like those dip the sticks or whatever they put there? Actually, I do. Fundip.

Fun dip. Yes, thank you. Fun dip. I brought some fucking pop rocks home for Harlan, too, the other day. Yeah, I ate those. They're so good. Those are cool, but they're different. So gleefully holding his mouth open like a goldfish to the air so that I could observe.

Do you know what else I love? I love pudding. Yeah, he does. God, I love pudding. Honestly, yeah. Or like a moose? Harlan has a specific dance that he uses when he gets a pudding. if I get some good pudding in me.

I just love a pudding. He does. I never answered my secret candy. My secret candy is probably nibs. Because I really like nibs of the shit. Yeah, yeah. That's my movie candy. Well, that's my movie and role-playing candy.

I'm a big fan of nibs when I'm playing RPGs. I think they have the... Is that like little pieces of... No, well, I like the long ones. So I like super nibs, technically. But the thing is... No, I do not like Twizzlers. I do not like them when they're twisted and they have the hole in them.

I find they lose a bit of their flavor. What I do, going back to the secret part, is I buy them and I hide them. Oh, really? Because if I know where they are, I'll just eat them because I love them so much. So what I do. But then how do you hide them? Secret candy. So I have them in a cabinet that I use so infrequently that normally I'm like going through.

I'm like, okay, I'll better, and I open them. Oh, nibs! So if we went to that cabinet right now, what would we find? There would be two packages of nibs and one of them is half eaten. See, what I do is I hide them in this cupboard, and in this cupboard, I hang a little hammer. And what I do is I put them in the cover And then I smack myself in the hammer And the way I always fall

Close the cupboard But I wake up hours later Out of a cold coma And of a cold coma He popped And I have forgotten Why I'm lying on the ground Naked

You know what he does is he just pops One roofie after he eats I take a roofie He does And I get stuck in a roofie circle And then every time Every time I see the candy I take another roofie

You just mix a couple roofies in But it really controls the consumption Yeah, yeah, I get Joe to cut in the nibs, cut in rupees with the nibs. Whatever I need to do. And the nibs are also my D&D food. I find them perfect because they're not full of crumbs. They don't have like a feeling of too much grease on them. And I think they're just absolutely delicious.

I totally agree with you. Speaking of which, shall we partake of some D&D? Let's play some D&D! Woo! Yeah! D and D, oi, oi, oi, D and D. So you're standing in the bottom of this canyon, on this dry riverbed.

There are the dead corpses of monsters lying all around you, and the battle has just ceased. Some of you are bleeding, injured, but it's quiet now. And the late afternoon, early evening, sunlight doesn't quite touch down. here. You're about 80 feet down in this canyon on this dry riverbed. Red walks over to one of the fallen mantacores and pulls an arrow that hasn't broken from its head, wiping the blood on his pants and puts it back into his quiver. Well, I don't think we've fought anything quite that interesting, he says, gesturing to the fallen creature with the antlers. What the hell was that? It's a peritin. This thing, it's huge, though. Not at all

like the ones I'd heard about. You've got to wonder what this thing's been eaten up here to get that, to grow to that size. Yikes. Probably mantacores. My thought exactly, Zolkin. Too shay, Zulkin. Also, shut up. And I walk over to the legendary creature. I'm going to search it for, I don't know, some legendary shit. I'm thinking, you know, I would love to maybe even take its antlers and try to forge something with those. I feel like antlers are closer to woodworking than they are to metallurgy, so. Mm-hmm. Well, this giant beast,

this monstrosity, doesn't, it's not carrying like a purse with gold in it or anything, but I mean, if you spend 20 minutes, you could definitely saw through part of the antler and take a piece with you. These are very large

antlers. I'm on it. And Red starts cutting off the antlers. And we'll check its insides, too. See what it's eaten. Why don't we take this opportunity while Red is salvaging to take a rest, lick our wounds, and uh, sure, eat some lunch. Doren kind of looks up and is wiping the dark blue blood off his face and he

pipes up, oh yeah, that was exciting in it. I've worked up a hunger for sure. Mighty hunger. Let's get some grub. I wonder how these things taste and he's looking down on the mantacore. I don't know, Jack made a good point last time about not eating things with faces and that can talk to you. Oh, yeah. This periton, though, this is a classic beast. I mean, I hate to really drag it down, Doran. No, no, that's a very good point.

I really was referring to the periton, but you know me with my names. I was pointing out the bird thing. I might be able to put together a little bit of a special treat. And Kraloth is going to make use of this time cooking. And he can make special food that will give everybody plus 1D8 per hit die when healing. Nice. Cool. Doren, can you come help me with these antlers?

I need some way to cut them off a little bit. I can help you heave my axe through it, but I've got nothing with a tooth blade for us to saw it. I've got my medical kit. There's a bone saw in there. Yeah, so you guys take a short rest. Kralov maybe starts a fire. Zolkin helps by gathering some dry, scrubby brush

that's like in the corners of this canyon. Jack definitely takes a moment to center himself and uncover some spell secrets and get some of those spell slots back. So anyone who is rolling hit dice can get an extra 1D8 courtesy of your friend's delicious food. Cool. Yeah, it's a little bit shaved off the flank

of the periton. This is delicious Krayloth. Oh, thank you, Zokin. Oh, just a couple of spices I picked up back in Everland and, yeah, mixed with this creature that just tried to kill us. Really special stuff.

It's like seasoned with Manticore flesh. Be eaten or eat, right? This is delicious. I'm glad you like it, Zokin. Is there anything I can take from the Manticor? Maybe it's poison gland or something fun? You could definitely take some of the tail spines. Yeah.

I think red is really fascinated by these creatures. I would love to try to take some unique items from them. They're loose enough to dislodge for sure. These are eight inches long to a foot long, black, extremely sharp. And they seem a little bit hollow, maybe like a porcupine's quill, but heavy. Ah, I think I could shoot these as arrows, Red says. And do you think I'd be able to, if not fashion them, but maybe... I think you could probably fashion them into arrow heads.

Cool. I'm not sure if you'd be able to use your bow to fire them, but you could probably... I mean, they're hard and heavy and very sharp. Yeah, and as Red puts those into the bag of holding as well, he sort of looks down the antlers in there too. And wonders, you know, if I ever lost this bow, maybe I could fashion a new bow out of the actual antlers, which I think would be really cool.

You know, they have that natural sort of bendiness to them that I think would make a really strong bow. Yeah, totally. Cool. And then Red sits down. He doesn't have to roll any hit dice, but he eats some of the delicious food. Cradle off, this is wonderful.

It's so delicious like a chicken wing. Yeah, I've been... Wow. Ever since that time in Jalanthar, I've been feeling really good about my cooking skills. Thank you, Red. Thank you. I'm thoroughly impressed by all your cooking, Kralath. This is, I would say that it tastes like chicken, but it really doesn't. It tastes like, um, giant chicken. It's much more, uh, a little gamier. More gamey. That's a good way

you put it. Yeah, I can see what you mean. Anyway, I suppose we should keep going. Zulkin, whereabouts does this map take us? Well, it doesn't look much farther, really, just around a couple more of these twisty, twerney areas should be just down the way. He stands up and dusts his pants off and leads the way. All right. The narrow canyon balloons out to a wider gulch, still about 80 feet from where you stand on the

dry riverbed to the top of the ravines' walls, where the early evening sunlight still illuminates leafless bushes peering down into the shadows. Completely hidden by the walls of the gulfs, a stone tower stands in partial ruin and neglect. Wow, we! That must be the place. Wow, look at these ancient ruins. How old do you reckon they are, Doran?

Hmm. I'd like to roll stone cunning. Yeah, definitely. A 12. It's hard to tell from this distance, Doran, but you would gather that this is probably white limestone. Hmm. Well, by the looks of it, it's white limestone, but I can't make out, you know, based on the carvings or whatnot. There's nothing here that's telling me what civilization this might have come from.

Is white limestone local to here, Doran, or did they have to import it, do you think? Oh, it's hard to say. Based on this area in the canyon, I'm going to say, I'm going to say there's a lot of limestone around here, actually, yeah. So it's not necessarily imported from far off. Is there any place around here, I can get a bit of advantage point? So you see that there's a natural rock formation adjacent. to the tower red, it provides a ramp that curls upward about 10 feet and it ends in a chain and slat bridge whose slats are largely disintegrated away and that chain and slat bridge

forms a passageway to the tower. So you're only about 10 feet up. Okay, I'll go up there and I'll look around sort of from the height. The sandy remains of the dry riverbed curl and course through tracks in the earth, and you see from your perspective that these tracks carve out a natural dry moat around the tower's base. Just above the dry moat at ground level in the tower, you see that there are a dozen or so doorways that radiate from the tower pointed in all directions. I think I'll just do a perception. Take a look around, make sure that there's nothing that we can see from the outside. That would be at 24. Nice. Red, you see that there are tower windows, looking outward in all directions above the ground level that would indicate a possible three

stories up. And the top of the tower comes just under the top of the canyon. So this tower is essentially entirely hidden within the walls of this gulch. How interesting. So this tower is hidden from the outside world. It's difficult to see. We couldn't even see it when we approached from the river. Zulkin, what is this place? You don't know anything other than that you, what, stole that map from someone? That's basically it, my friend. Can't be a watchtower. Yeah, it's not a very good watchtower.

Yeah. Jack's painting himself, knowing that this is exactly the sort of place he'd love to spend months and has, like, less than a day here. Yeah. But can't help. He sort of stops at the edge of the bridge,

sort of looking back to see to everybody think it's okay to get closer or not because he's clearly antsy to feel the limestone under his fingers and try and get some answers. And Red sees him toiling. Hey, it can't. be any worse than the one we saw just outside of East Haven.

How far down does it drop with the drawbridge there? It's about 12 feet down. Is there any, actually, I don't really know if this is a Kralov question, but I'm wondering if there's any water erosion. Am I talking to Kralath or Justin? Well, I'm curious as to whether or not it was designed as a dry mode or if there was at one point water in this valley and it's dried up since this tower was built. It's probably fair to assume that at one point there was.

on water here. Red's just going to look by his feet and see if there's any tracks. A 16? There are some tracks here in the dust. A couple of sets of footprints. It's hard to tell how old they are, but they're human-sized. You know, it's an interesting vantage point. They've hidden themselves, whoever built this from the outside, but it's also protected, you know, by these high walls around it, you know, the high natural canyon walls. Yeah. I'm definitely interested to get inside and discover what the purpose of this place was. Yeah. Look at the way that the walls

kind of protected. No typical person would be able to heave their body across such a wide gap. I mean, unless, of course, you're a dwarf like myself. You know, we all know how I can cross gaps. When I throw you. Kralath walks up to the drawbridge

and kneels down and I just want to inspect it to see how sturdy it is. You can roll a perception check. That is a 12. It does not look terribly sturdy. The chains that hold this slat bridge in place are fairly strong. It doesn't look like any of them are rusted through anywhere,

but you don't think that the wooden slats will necessarily hold your weight. So you're going to have to carefully pick your way across just standing on the chains. I feel like Doran walks up next to you. It doesn't look like it would be terribly difficult, but you do need to watch your footing. Yeah, let's be careful here. Yeah. Red's going to spend a minute and do his primeval awareness to detect any

humanoid within a five-mile radius. Does he detect any? He does. Detect humanoids, yes. Humanoid alert! Humanoid alert! There are six, zero miles away. Zero.

A point zero one miles away. Like in the building? Yeah, basically. The call is coming from in the building. side of the house. Okay, and Red gives a side eye to Zulkin. And Zulkin, you're sure this place is empty, right?

No, no, I'm not sure. But, I mean, doesn't look occupied, does it? No, it... And he puts his hands to his mouth like he's going to call out... Oh, Zulkin, shish. And Red gives a serious look to Zulkin and then to everybody. And does like a

hand gesture, which is like just across the throat, you know, like stop. He's like, nah, I don't think anyone's here, but he's like, nods yes, and he points up. And then he holds up six fingers. No, he doesn't have them on one hand. He uses two hands. That's how serious red is. No polydactyl's here. And Doran watches intently and nods at Red as he makes that comment. Okay, well, I guess we can just wander in without any concern because it looks pretty abandoned to me. Wink. All right, Doran, don't ham it up. All right, let's go in. Red draws his bow.

who moves across the chain bridge will have to make a dexterity check for me, please. Ooh. Come on. That would be a 21 for Red. Nice.

Natural one. Oh, Jack. Whoop. Jack is entirely struck. His mind is on the historical knowledge. He's so close to knowing the original purpose and who the builders of this thing are

that he's really focused on that and misses where his feet are supposed to go on this chain bridge. I picture Jack, like, looking at his book and then looking up at the tower and looking down his book and just walking. No thought at all about the bridge. Just like, do, do, do. You lose purchase on the chain and you slip and your whole leg goes right through. Make another dexterity check to see if you fall straight through or if you catch yourself awkwardly midfall.

Uh, six. Uh-oh. Okay. So, Jack, you fall through this chain bridge. You're going to take three points of bludgeoning damage as you slide and tumble all the way down into the bottom of this dry riverbed, 12 feet below you. Kind of hilarious, though, right? I love that one foot goes through first. So I'm wondering when I hit the bottom, if that counts as entering a ruin or dungeon, so I can correctly ask you.

ascertain the original purpose in its building. Sure. You lie in a heap in the bottom of this dry moat looking up at the tower. It's true purpose. Yeah, the final clues all come together. Its true purpose becomes clear to you now. Now that you're seeing it from this angle, you realize that this was probably actually built by Water Davian hands.

I'm not sure what it is about this angle, but you remember a long-forgotten tower that maybe had been built a couple of centuries ago at least and was used by aerialists this like secret society and has been long forgotten long left to ruin and here you are I think you just hear red laughing up above not in like a mean way just like uh it does look funny jack are you all right we just saw you take a tumble bud I'm all right Kralath was about to step onto the bridge, and as soon as he sees Jack goes through, he's like, uh-uh. And he goes beside it, and he just sits down on his butt on the side of the cavern, and he just slides down kind of awkwardly.

Doran, do you succeed on your check? I don't know. Does a five succeed? Oh, my God. Just barely. It just barely succeeds. Really? A five?

Yeah. It's a DC5 check. Oh, my God. No kidding. You hit it. Doreen, like, makes it across. like breaking every other step that he steps on. He's like, I'll just go,

and then maybe I'll l'all-w-roll. I keep on, all these are they're really breaking here. Here, catch this rogue, Doran, and Crayloth tosses. Zulkin, hurry up, you're going to be last. I should be clear. So, on this ground level, the bottom stalwart adventurers,

all of you. At this lower level, this moat level, there's enough space underfoot for a river to have passed, but then there are also doors on this level as well. So you don't actually have to go up to the drawbridge level to get in. You're just entering on the very, very bottom level. Jack stands up and there's definitely connections firing in his mind to a lot of stories that he's heard before about what could be here

or what might be here, how this could relate to this secret club from Waterdeep. and he's trying to take a page from like a famous mystery novel he wrote and just be like, well, I don't want to spoil it for everybody. Let's wait till we go inside. I want to have it confirmed first. I've got a hunch, though. Sounds good. All right, well, Doran and Zulkin and I will meet you on this floor. Cool. Come on boys. We'll enter on this floor. The doors that are in front of Zolkin, Red, and Doran are 12 feet tall. They're splintered and warped with age, but they hold steadily with iron reinforcements. Is it locked?

No one knows. So Red goes to the door on the first level, and he's going to try it. Yeah, it's open. Perfect, and he enters, and he calls down again. You find a stairwell, we'll meet you there. And he turns to Doran and Zulkin. Come on, guys. And he draws his bow and enters.

Yeah, Doren follows slowly after Zulkin with his axe drawn. Threateningly. Yes, always. You enter a 30-foot-long hall of cold white stone. At the opposite end of the hall are two tall doors like those of the entry gate. A sculpture of an eagle carved from wooden iron hangs partly suspended from the ceiling. One of the chains that would have held it aloft is broken. So the huge bird drags its beak and one wing on the ground.

The other wing is still tethered to the ceiling. Wow. There's also a door that leads to... to the south from this area. Dorn kind of approaches the hanging iron and wooden eagle. Red heads to the door to the south, and he'll just put his ear up against it and do a perception with a 16.

You don't hear anything. Yeah, I'll crack it open. We're going to be trying to look for the stairs first and foremost. This door is locked, actually. Zulkin, do you thing. And he steps back and sort of gestures to the door. Zulkin's like, well, it is what I do. He's got thieves tools.

and he tries for... Nope, Zolkin actually fails to pick this lock. I'm sorry, this isn't like me. Sure it isn't. All right, let's try these ones, and I'll go to the big double doors instead. You open the double wooden doors to reveal a single spiral staircase

that runs through the tower's center. It appears to have three other doorways leading off at this floor. and it travels both up and down. Perfect. Speaking of down, Jack and Kralath, you are at the very bottom level of this tower,

and there are many, many doorways that meet you as you travel around the circumference of this tower. Mm-hmm. Hmm. How do we decide? That one's perfect. Jack's sort of on the lookout investigating for any secret doors on the outside

or traps that they might stumble across just so we don't, you know, get caught unawares. But it's just as much out of a fascination for, you know, classic Water Davian architecture. As you look up at this tower, Jack, you see that there may have been some embellishments here and there made in marble along the edge of this tower, but the details are largely lost to the erosion of wind and rain. If you could have only been here, maybe even 100 years ago, you would have seen so much more

that the outside of this tower had to offer. Yeah, and I think I might just pause at one and point out to Kralath, see, see there and, like, snap my fingers and do a little illusion of what, like, could be there, but with all the details of, like, you know, watching it worn away with time. I don't know what it originally looked like, but, you know, I've got an imagination to put some kind of Griffin face on there that then gets eroded over time. Hmm. And Kralath, shield and mason hand, steps towards the door and tries to enter. You enter through these doors. They swing fairly easily. they are banded with iron

but some of them are rotted through in places and this doorway that you've chosen, Kralov, you find upon pushing on the door that the door you've chosen hangs loosely from the top hinge. It's rusted and it squeaks lightly as you push into this dark room. Hmm.

Within, you find that you are in the stall of a stable. The floor of this stall is littered with ancient straw and old animal droppings. Is it horse droppings, or is it something more obscure with flies? Roll a nature check with disadvantage. 15. Yeah, you don't know what these are. I like where your heads at, though, Jack, and Kraloth is going to move towards the door, and I'm going to try it.

You find yourself on the circular landing surrounding a central shaft of a spiral staircase. The landing here is piled with supplies and rotted bales of straw. Radiating from the landing, just like the one that you came out of, you see there are 12 stalls. Old chests and crates are stacked around the central shaft of the spiral staircase, pushed against the wall in messy stacks. Some crates are demolished or waterlogged. Others seem to be in relatively good shape. And as you hear the sounds of your friends on the staircase above,

Above you, you also hear a shuffling sound from one of the stalls to the south. Doran, Zulkin, and Red, and you were upstairs, and you hear Jack and Kralov enter in through the basement level. What do you do? Hey, guys, did you find your way in? Hush, there's something in the, there's something down here. What? Hush, come down here. Isn't that, like, loud whisper yell?

Yeah. Doren does, descends the stairs pretty quickly. Yeah, Red follows too. Zulkin, you keep trying that door. Just keep a look at, will you? So you're all down here in this stable landing. Doran feels the floor. This is a stable landing.

Hey, guys. Cool place. Listen, you hear that shuffling? Yeah, let's just try each of the doors. Yeah, Red walks towards the south door and nods and then opens it wide. Doren steps up beside the door. Red and Doren, you both peek in through the door as, well, I mean, Doren peeks in as Red throws the door wide heedlessly, and you are,

confronted with the giant face of a vulture, stands about eight feet tall at the shoulders. Its naked neck and head swivels to meet you. Cool. And then red shuts the door again. Emmett's a loud croak.

Oh. It was a vulture. What do we do? Who flies on vultures? Jack thinks to himself remembering cloud giants and then thinks about his time with the stone giants and cast a spell on himself to harden his skin like stone. In the process of casting this spell to harden his skin, Jack says, those vultures are like we saw on the cloud giant tower. They could be that cult. Hey, that's a good point. Hey, didn't they have

like certain clothes that the vultures responded to, remember? Yeah, like a helmet. It kind of looked like this and red snaps his fingers and it's like this helmet goes on his head that looks kind of like wonky but it's kind of black. Can I roll to see if I can accurately depict what it looked like? Good memory. Yeah. Roll a performance check. That is a good memory, actually. Surprisingly, I have good performance. 17.

Yeah, you are able to, with a fairly accurate depiction, show your friends what you remember of these dark helmets. Like this! And then Red opens the door again just a second to see if the vulture reacts to it at all. Kind of does a shuffling hop a couple of steps back and utters another low... croaking caw. Is this a beast? It is. So I have the innate ability to communicate with beasts and

they recognize me as a kindred spirit. That's right. Roll an animal handling check for me. Sure. 16. This creature is feeling neutral towards you. It is not affected by magic. It doesn't really have any short-term needs apart from the fact that it's kind of tired. Does it seem to look at my companions differently because they're not wearing a helmet? Yes. Perfect. And I just look around. Does it have any baggage or any insignia, a saddle? Very interestingly. Yes, it does. So there are harnesses. So there's a harness and a saddle hung on a tack hook inside this stall. This is a very light piece of equipment. There's not much to it apart from just the bare necessity of what you would need to get a saddle on a creature like this, a harness maybe. And because they're flying

creatures, you wouldn't really want to overburden them with anything terribly heavy. So it's just the basics. There are no saddle bags, nothing here. I think red might cut the strap that allows it to attach to the bird. I don't think we're going to be using this. And if something should happen and someone wants to mount it, not having the ability to attach the saddle to it might come advantageous to us. So I think he just quickly pulls it a dagger and snips it. Samotage. I mean, why not, right? Yeah. We're not going to use it. Maybe I wouldn't have cut it clean through, but like cut it, You know how you, like, cut it almost all the way? Jack's studying the supplies around the stairs.

It looks like these chests and crates are all old. A lot of them have been demolished or are in poor repair, but you do find some as you're poking through this huge inventory that actually look like they could still be containing supplies. They don't look new by any means, but potentially there could be some. stuff in here that you'd be interested in. Hey, Doran, grab a crowbar for a second.

Yeah. Come help me get this open. No problem, Jack. Contained within the chests and crates, you find mundane supplies. Some of them obviously have been long spoiled grain and shit, but among those supplies that were not damaged by time, you do find some useful items. You find two hunting traps, two bullseye lanterns, some lamp oil, a block and tackle, 10 pitons, a coil of hemp rope, and three boxes of beeswax candles.

Nice. So that takes you like five minutes to root through, basically. You know, it's funny how much some of this stuff doesn't change in 100 years, right? Once you get a block and tackle right, it's just the right tool for the job. You know, Doran? That's it. That's it. Like, look at these traps.

They're still perfect. While everyone's doing their thing, Krayloth is just going to move to one door at a time, Put his ear next to it, listen for any more shuffling, and then open it if he doesn't hear anything. Mm-hmm. You find that several other of these stables are also occupied. So you're only opening the stables that are unoccupied? Yeah, yeah. Some of the stables to the north and northwest are in ill repair.

There's water gathered here on the ground that is brackish and smell. unpleasant. Looks like it's probably leaked in from the floor above you. So you determine from listening, taking your time quietly moving from stable to stable, that there are probably four other vultures apart from the one that red revealed that are all being kept here right now. Okay. And I let the party know as much. Well, interesting because as I said, there were six humanoids I detected. And if there's only five down here it's possible that maybe two road one or something like that it's right then that you hear a whisper from upstairs zolkin's voice and he's like guys i think there's uh people upstairs coming and he's like red i got through that that door and what's in there lots of stuff come on see

come on see it's it's slang yeah i head in with zolkin and check out this room that he's opened. Doran, why don't we hang back here behind this door? If they come down, we can flank them. We can surprise anybody if they come out. Yeah. Doran Kralov, sneak attack, assassins. Oh, yeah.

A snack attack. Red, you see that Zolkin has made kind of a mess of the door handle here where he's been like cramming different tools into the lock. You're a class act, Zulkin. And Red just like walks in. This room contains racks of weapons and armor, long swords, scale mail, shields, helmets, longbows, quivers of arrows. It would seem that this tower was once fiercely guarded.

You can find basically any mundane weapons in here that you would like to take with you or use. Can I do a perception of the room just to see if there's anything beyond what we see? Mm-hmm. Ooh, that would be a 21. There's no secret compartment here, no secret door, just a lot of kind of mundane but well-made. weapons. Zulkin wearing still his studded leather? Help yourself. Zulkin, if there's anything here you want to equip yourself. You see anything, Jack? I mean, there's definitely a part of Jack that's admiring the craftsmanship of all of these things. It's, you know, not so often

that you see weapons from a hundred years ago still kind of preserved. If there was anything that qualified as an art object because it was so beautifully made, that would certainly catch Jack's eye. Everything in here is fairly mundane, but well made. I wouldn't say any of these things are art objects. Is there a plate armor? Yeah, there's an old suit of armor. What do they call it those armor stands? Armor stands?

Like an old macket that is wearing a couple of different forms of Water Davian armor, and one of them is some old-looking plate mail. Red, look at this armor. Do you think it fit Kralath? Oh, yeah, I mean, we'd have to let out the sides a little bit. Don't say anything. He's been uncomfortable. Look at how well-preserved it is. It's pretty nice.

And look, right here, it's got a little light on it. And Red leans out, pst, Krayloth. Yeah. Pst, yeah. Come here. Okay, I'll be right back to her. Yeah, yeah, I'll keep an eye here. Kralov heads in and sees the plate armor that...

Look at this beautiful Water-Davian armor-smithing from a century ago, still sitting here, perfectly intact. This might be the right thing for you. And Jack, it is. It's emblazoned. with a griffin on the front of it. Whoa. It's my hometown right there. I don't know if you knew that.

That's cool. Wait, Jack, you like Waterdeep? I mean, I got a personal connection there. I thought you were from Evelyn. Oh, yeah. Close. Kralov's already in the armor by the time you finish this conversation. Yeah, we turn back around.

We're not in an initiative or anything, but Doran is sort of like readied. Good. I don't know. I want to mention that in case someone tries to pull a fast one. Come down the stairs, then I can. All right. I think Red is just going to take a spare long. bow and a spare set of armor and a spear sword. We tend to pick up a lot of strays and the

amount of times I'd love to reach into the bag of holding and be like, here's a set of armor for you. Yeah. You know what I mean? Maybe focus on like the quarterstaffs and darts and simpler weapons. Basically anything you could want. Red loads up with a few sets, you know, like a set of armor and some swords and, you know, just some general armaments. Awesome. And darts. and court of staff or whatever. Whatever Jack wanted. mundane stuff that people who are not very good at weapons can use.

Yeah. Kralath, maybe you get Doran's help in donning this armor. Doran knows his way around the set of... Yeah, definitely. I, like, kind of shambled back in to where Doran's, like, got his axe out. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And Doran's eyes, like, get all excited and he immediately sheathes his axe and forgets the whole purpose of why he's standing at the bottom of the stairs. And he, like, runs across the room and he starts immediately buckling and pulling and tightening everything. And Krayloff sticks his arms out. Just accepting it and just like, oh, I'm so excited.

We're both soldiers, right? Yeah, we've both been through this hundreds of times. Squire Doran. Yeah. So you know exactly how to stand. Doran knows exactly where. And then there's like a part where he's like, now I can't quite reach that one.

And he's pointing up to the one over top of your shoulders. You're going to want to pull it. Pull it down it. And then Doran jumps up and grabs it and you feel really tightened around you. Oh, how you like that? Nothing's going through there. A few too many scones, I think. Ah, you and me both, and he pats his belly.

But I feel invincible. Now watch this be the battle that Kralov goes down with his new armor. And you have to swim and we have to sneak. Right, yeah. Anyway, so we head back into the room with the staircase, and I know there are three doors leading from here, the north, the east, and the south. I think red will go up to the south one, crack it open, and enter. There are four double bunks in this room and little else.

Little elves. Hey, go away here. I want to be a dentist. A dormitory of some kind. Cool. I do a quick eye over the room with a, ooh, 24. You wouldn't be able to sell these bunks for anything because they don't look great and they're old. And there's no chests or anything.

No. Perfect. And red just turns back to the others and says, just some beds, nothing else, and shuts the door. And I think we'll go over to the east wall and do sort of the same. A bright room occupies the east quarter of this floor. It looks like this place could have been used as a greenhouse long ago. Now the wooden trellises are crushed to splinters. Their remnants scattered across the stone floor mixed with shards of broken clay pottery and other debris. Two 10-foot wide stone planters still filled with dirt occupy the western wall. And red puts his back against the wall and just slides down to a sitting position. He's like, all right, Jack, take your time. I do wonder if there's any seeds that are growing here that just, you know, there could be something that, like what? I don't know. He takes a minute to suss out which vegetables were grown where and how they rotated them

or how he would have done it. Do you dig through that dirt? Yeah. As you are going through one of these stone planters, Jack, to try to find out whether there might be any long-forgotten vestiges of root vegetables. or other root systems that you could maybe take a look at. Centuries old tubers. Your fingers brush a chest inside the southern planter.

It seems like someone long ago hid something here. Red, come here for a second. I need your claws to help dig something out. Red gets up like a little kid. It's like when your mom goes shopping and you have to like, oh, come zip me up. He's like, he like stands up and slumps over. Jack pulls the little shovel he's got.

off his backpack and starts to like scoop out the dirt onto the ground. Oh, treasure! Good call, Jack! And he helps them pull it out. Inside the chest, you find treasure. 50 gold pieces, 25 platinum pieces. There's a beautiful gold ring set with bloodstones worth about 250 gold pieces. Nice.

And a carved bone statuette worth 25 gold pieces. And finally, a black velvet pouch that rattles as if there's something inside. Black velvet. Doran's like in the next room. He's still at the bottom of the stairs now, like playing Century and he's like, do you say you, we've found gold?

You found treasure? Yes, there's treasure in here. Jack, what's in the black velvet pouch? Make sure you share it. I will open the black velvet pouch. With shaking hands. Yeah, yeah. Within the pouch, you find two polished pieces of amethyst

worth about 100 gold pieces each. Yeah. I mean, the ring is wonderful, but it's this bone statuette that's grabbed Jack's attention as something that somebody had to put a real bunch of care and attention into. This is indeed an art object that is greater than 100 years old. I feel Jack salivate. Just like drips of water hit the floor and I look up and I look over and he's just drooling. You weigh it in your hands.

It's heavy. This is probably carved from whalebone. maybe someone from the Karneski tribe. Are they like from the Sea of Moving Ice in the North or somewhere that... No, this is actually from the South, actually. Not one of the northern barbarian tribes. This is a very exotic piece of artwork. Yeah.

How fascinating that a whalebone statue traded amongst hands centuries ago to get from the South to be buried here. Huh, that sense of history. What? I don't know if anybody's listening, but... You hear a whistle. from the door, Zolkin's like, guys, we really should. I'm worried. So Red puts all those things in the bag of holding, but he takes the amethysts out of the black velvet bag and puts

them in. And then he reaches into the bag of holding and he takes out his dice and he puts them into the black velvet bag. Dice bag. Dice bag. And he puts it away. I think Jack would like to hold on to the bone statue just to have it into collection. It looks like you. Zulkin's like, guys there's like people around and red is there like just one minute and he's like fumbling with this bag he's like poured his nights one of them falls and clatters to the ground is like oh oh you know how it feels when you get like a really nice set of dice that you love oh yeah these are the orc bone dice oh yeah anyway is it made it of real orc bone that most real doran would know doran are these made out of real orc bone was it oh yeah yeah for sure they are oh okay

good no thank you i love that you're going on either side of your mic like it's stereo. It's called method acting, okay? Is that what that? I don't have to. Just kidding. It's not called nothing. So Zolkin has said that they're almost here, but there's one more door on this floor. I think quickly Red is just going to step

up and crack the last door on this floor. Red, you open a door to reveal a room that was probably once a kitchen with a stove and cauldron along one side, some preparation tables in earthenware pots. Dishes and cutlery are stacked neatly on a shelf under one

table. Water drips steadily from the ceiling above and aggregates in a shallow pool on the floor in front of the hearth. Wow. Red's going to do just a quick perception around with a 18. This water is probably also leaking through the floor. Okay. Nothing of substance. I shut it and come back to the others. Don't want to get Krala too excited just yet. Yeah, I mean, I think Jack is sort of peeking around Red's shoulder just to make sure he sees in the room just to like have a better imagination of the place, but agrees, you know, we got people upstairs. We can't. It's like trying to block it.

Like, it's like a younger brother. Let me see. No, this is mine. Go, go. Go, I. But imagine what they cooked in there. Stop. Like, was a century ago.

What a weird club. What a weird club. I'm bothering me. I wanted to, like, taste this water. Ew. Choices. I know. Sure.

But like, you know how like an investigate. I want to investigate, see what it is. Delicious in a dormant sense. It's bad water. I don't know. How do you want to do that? Well, why? What's it's going to do?

It's just gross water. What if it's blood? What if there's something? It's not blood. It's just gross, weird water from... Well, my investigative self... I think your impulse is right. I think your impulse is right.

I think it's just meant to be flavor. Okay, moving on. Brackish. Brackish water. Dwarven flavor. Hey, you never know. Moving on. Anyway, um...

Yeah. It's so good. Let's head up. I want to drink the weird water. Let's head upstairs. And red begins ascending the stone stairs. You do that. Doran waits until the end, as usual.

Bringing up the rear. Doran, it's your time. Doran's last. What's our marching order? Kralath will go after Red. Clunk, clachink, clank. Yeah, Red's going to go up first, but he's going to sneak. I think that puts Jack between Kralath and Doreen.

Zulkin will be four? No. Red. We'll go Red, Zulkin, Kralath, Jack. Do you want to stealth up Red and then signal first? Yeah, I think that makes the most sense. So Red's going to sneak up. In a very dwarf of the seven dwarfs way,

Doreen kind of goes up the stairs backwards, you know. Is a dwarf of the seven dwarfs? You know, from the snow weight and the seven dwarfs, he's like, I am the dwarf of the seven dwarfs. He's gritty, the seventh door. He goes up the stairs backwards to watch his back. All right, but I'm going up first and I'm sneaking. So I have a 24.

You're super stealthy, Red. You climb the stairs and you realize that this landing here on the third floor is closed. off by a set of double doors. Red puts his ear up to it with a 16. With a 16, you hear the muffled sound of a conversation. Okay. I think Red will go back down and say,

This set of closed double doors at the top of the stairs. And just beyond it, I hear talking what we might be able to do. What are they talking about? I don't know what they're talking about. it was muffled. What we might be able to do is get up there and then burst through it once. And I head back up

and I wanted to check to see if it's unlocked. Just, you know, maybe without having to turn it, maybe just get down to see if there's a deadbolt or something. Yeah, you maybe try the doorknob, it turns easily. All right. Can I hear what they're saying? Or is it just... No, it's like...

That's kind of what I thought. Check. It made me doubt my instinct. I'm just hungry for information. I'm sorry, Red. I didn't want to lead you a strape. They're like, we sure hope no adventurers are coming up the stairs. All right.

And I think we should all crowd on the other side of this door and like burst through in a freeze frame. Yeah. Right? Just ready to attack? I'm just like a 1970s dice shame. The horns kick in. That's like the logo on our shirt, you know? That's like what it looks like.

And Zulkin. And Zulkin. I mean, I don't think we need to necessarily. ready and attack. I think we can ready to attack if anyone looks violent. We're breaking into these people's homes so I love the big moment but not necessarily the violent moment.

No, that's what I'm saying. I don't think we should get ready to attack. Yeah, I'm behind you. Are you looking at me, Ron? No, no, no. I'm just kidding. Not saying that's Doran's only go-to. It's just most often his go-to. Doran does stand beside the door, the on-open door, ready to swing his axe like a baseball bat into the doorway if someone

were to come rushing out. What's a baseball bat? this game in Waterdeep? Are we at the top of the stairs right now? We all are. All of us, we're all standing right there, right on the outside of the door, fervently whispering about the arrangement of the freeze frame. And Zolkin's like, well, I think that I would like to be at the bottom, kind of with my longsword drawn. You're not in the freeze frame, Zulken. You're not even part of the nightstone full. Let him be in the freeze frame, red. But what if the freeze frame gets put on like a t-shirt? He's here with us right now. So is there a new name for these five? He's part of the team, but he's not part of the team.

I'm right here. Look, this is not the place to argue about this. NS4 exists. Look, I'm not saying you're doing wrong. I'm just saying this is... You're here, but you're not. I was thinking we could have... We're doing this presentation thing where we're trying to...

Okay, okay, okay, okay, let me take a look. Let me take a look. And Red slowly opens the door and peeks through. Okay, well, stop that. Sorry, that's my stomach. We haven't eaten in an hour. This Great Hall spans the... eastern half of the diameter of the tower. Between the overlarge windows and high on the walls,

mounted heads of griffins, whirons, owl bears, and manticors look out over the room. On the south side of the room, several collapsed portions of stone wall reveal the ruin of furniture and windows, looking out to the south and west. Two large fireplaces flank a feasting table and one of them seems to have permitted entrance of birds and other wildlife to the room at some point in the past. This place is not in good repair, shall we say. There are six people here. Well, so five of us plus one. There are six other people here in this large room. And red, as you creak the door open, they turn warily to face you hands on weapons. For during your armor makeover, you were less quiet than you could have been.

And Red's head is just like in the doorway for a second. And Red just goes, hello. And he takes a half step into the room and says, how's everybody doing? My name is Red-Handed Robin. This is my best friend Doran, my best friend Jack, my best friend Kraloff, and Zokin's here. And I picture it, like, as you're saying that, the door is opening slowly. And there's like all of her faces. To reveal you all one at a time.

And, uh, who might you be? A pale woman with white, blonde hair and a scowl says, what are you doing here? You need some sun. Zulkin immediately strides forward. Kella, darling. What have you done with the place? I knew it. Me too.

That's Zulkin. Thank you once again to our Patreon supporters, Christopher Ryan Evans, Colin Burkart, Daniel, Doug, Jessica Orrett, Mari Karneski, Katie Orrett, Perrin Caristie, and Merlin. See you soon!