Dice Shame - 97 | 'Fire In Your Belly'

Episode Date: August 19, 2021

A monstrous creature intends to put an end to the Nightstone four... 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.

Doran strikes the creature as it tries to squirm out of its grass. Hey, I found something. Jesus, Jack. Take a chill pill. I've melting. Oh, this stuff will just clean right off. Trust me. Doran's hypothesis needs to be tested.

You're right, Jack. Doran saved the day. Well done, Doran. I don't know if that's a good idea. If a hill giant can come here and figure it out. We are all team awesome corpse inspectors. I got to cook these before Jack sees them because they're interesting. And so he takes them over to the fire.

Jack takes everything interesting away. They're more important as a specimen than as a food source. Why can't things just be food sometimes? MVP this week is Prez of Pez for their wonderful review they left on iTunes. They're only at episode 37, but we can't wait for them to. catch up and hear how much we appreciate them. Thank you so much. Yeah, thanks.

This week we wanted to shout out our dedicated crew of memeers. There are a couple of you who listen every week and immediately start in hours after the episode launches with Primo Golden Memes. They're hilarious. And so thank you to Mosey, Doug, Rain, but especially to the Uber prolific meme lords. Colin Burkart and Connor Bowlins for the hilarious content.

We've been dropping some of the older images on Twitter to avoid spoilers for the newer episodes, So go check them out. Primo memes, dudes. All right, shall we do this? Yeah, let's do it. So I am driving home from work. Almost home.

I'm right around the corner, and I'm, like, so stoked. I'm almost there. And I come to a four-way intersection. Yeah, you're blowing off the meter here, darling. We want you to tell us the story like the blues. I can't. It's not the blues. It's not a sad story.

It's not the blues, blues. It's not the blues. No, no. I'll leave it to you guys to judge. All right, what's up? So I'm trying to tell you about the traffic. Motherfuckers. Sorry, Joe.

I can't even. Okay, all right. We're done. We're done. There's a pickup truck in front of me, and he's signaling that he's going to turn left, and he's starting to turn right. No. And I'm like, I just sit back, like, all fucking ready to watch this fool turn the wrong way at the stop sign. And the bases are loaded.

There's cars waiting in all directions for this guy to do his dumb turn. Doesn't he crawl? He continues to turn right. He crawls out and then starts to do the biggest fucking slow ass you turn that I've ever seen in my life in the middle of a four-way intersection. And I just started clapping. Oh, like a sarcastic clap. Gave him a little round of applause.

Well done, man. Good job. I bet you feel really proud of yourself. And in my mind, everyone else, all the other drivers were also applauding, but none of them saw me do my cool. I had a very similar thing happened to me today, except it was a three-way stop, and there was just me and this other guy, and we were both, we both had to turn, so he signals he's turning left, great, so I pulled up, I'm turning right,

there's space for two cars. Doesn't he turn right first, cut me off, and then turn left all right around for no reason? I was just like, well, that's... This is his intersection, and he gets to use it, the way he wants to say what's his license plate rob obviously you memorized it i did and i've i've already shared it on every social media this grandmother or so her bumper sticker said i was driving and i got to a four-way stop and i realized i forgot my phone at home there were people at every stop and i did a u-turn i just went into the intersection

Oh, no. You turn. And people were clapping. People were clapping. There was this one girl who looked a lot like you, Joe. Snotty white woman just applauding sarcastically. The funny part is Justin in a pickup truck. Imagining Justin in a pickup truck.

I don't have any problem imagining that. I don't know what. I've thought about it. I've thought about it. I carry heavy things. I think the fact that you think it's a statement. Sometimes you've got to move the booth. Oh, I thought you're just tapping the wall.

Like, my house is happy. I'm tapping my sound booth for anybody who can't see, which is anybody you're listening to this. Well, it's a sound booth. They should be able to hear you tapping it. Yes, that's true. Yeah, for anyone not on the Patreon to see our video record live on demand, they're the ones really missing out.

That's what we need. That's right. Hey, we're recording live. No one needs to hear all of our shit. The only fans here. We're recording lies? Yes. I mean.

On demand. Lives or lives? That's all our people. PG's really are just fanciful lies, right? I mean, yeah. Pretending to be climbing a mountain. Wait a minute. I was listening to Invictus stream.

They just made all this shit up. Such bullshit. They just made it all up. This is so bullshit. Here I am listening. I'm like 100 episodes in. And these guys, I think they're telling the history of Fayrune.

Is this? Tolkien? Is this? Sanderson. Turns out that red-handed Robin isn't his real name. What? No. Who said that?

What? But that actually could be a thing in the game, too. Yeah, you don't know. You don't know shit about me yet. Red-handed chickadee. So we're talking about driving, then I guess. I don't know. Yeah, I guess so. Driving?

That was my thing. Right-handed robin. I don't have anything to add to that, though. I got stuck in a field once. Oh, yeah, you did. Me too. Must be a brother thing. Did you get stuck in a field, too, Alex?

Yes, I did. Because your dad was also telling me about how he got stuck in a field. All got three men have been stuck in the field. One day it'll happen to you, son. And what it does, you remember this tale. Cotton, nitty-headed thing to do, shall I say. I bring Henry out to a field. One day, all this will be possible places for you to be stuck.

One day it'll be spring, it'll be muddy, and you'll be up to your ankles and this, and you won't know where to go or what to do. So be prepared. And you'll try to push it out. You'll have to call a tow truck, and they'll pull you out and not tell your parents. Just like the tow truck driver didn't do. So I feel like, to come back to your story, I feel like there are certain situations where the threshold is met for between road rage

and actually being like, wow, holy fuck, you pulled that off? Wow. It wasn't that she pulled it off. I was just like, that takes some fucking guts because this is, it's a pretty slow residential street. You could have just pulled a U-turn any old place, but no, you wanted an audience. You want a people to stop and wait and watch you. Which you gave him. So I gave him his due applause.

So I have a funny little one too that I was like kind of doing the same sort of thing. It was a similar reaction. So I'm sitting there in the middle lane going straight through a light. I'm sitting there the red light. And there's a right turn lane that you can also proceed forwards. Okay. And then that lane ends once you get through the intersection. So I'm sitting there and I'm not really paying attention to the light too much.

I'm, like, changing music. But the light turns green and I start to drive forward. Well, the person in the right lane didn't turn right, and they proceed to go forward. It's like this, like, mother in a minivan with a bunch of kids, right? And I'm, like, in my... Extracted drivers. Somewhat sporty SUV. It's not like whatever, but, I mean, it's got some balls to it.

Alex, you have a Porsche. No, it's an Audi, but... It's an Audi. But it's got... It's an Audi. What I'm... My point is, it's like... my point being is I can put the pedal to the metal

and I can get some serious traction, right? So anyways, we start to go and I kind of put a little bit of gas in. Well, you know, this person decides that they're also going to put gas in. Well, I'm like, what the hell is going on? Oh, yeah. You really, you know what?

Like, I'm not going to be this dick and, like, kind of like, ride beside you. I, you know what? I'm not in a super rush. So fine, I will let you go. You are, oh, you have, you have, you have somewhere you got to be so i'm like fine you want to go go and i'm sitting here talking to them even though they can't hear me i'm like you better freaking floor it because at this stage

this is like an open dirt road and normally i floor it here so you better be moving don't they just fucking dawdle along laity da die da and then i'm like are you kidding me like they they they fought me to get in front of me and then fucking dilly dallyed that pisses me off it's like why are you going to fight to get in front of somebody if you're going to dilly dally. How do you really feel? And you know what? And you know what?

I wanted to ride their ass. I really wanted to be right there and be like, fuck you. But I'm not that type of person because they've got kids in the car. So here I am just like, okay, fine, I guess I'll just doll along here. Can I offer an opposing theory for, so this was a mother and children.

And this was near your house. This is presumably a residential street. It's sort of a new street. There's no intersecting streets into it. It's just a straight run. But could it be possible that she was trying to slow you down, getting in front of you and maybe making you slow down a little bit? Because there was an axe murderer.

There was an axe murderer in your back seat. She was trying to save your life, Alex. It's the truth. She kept flashing the blinkers. It's like that movie with the subway doors, right? Like, you know, if you'd have gone first, what could have happened? Where would you be? Yeah, Guineeth Peltro could have been there.

Or it was Carmo. It would have been so different. It's like, I'm not kidding you. Like, I speed. Anyway, so Alex is a jerk. What else is you? No, no. In fact, anything, I'm not a jerk.

That other person was a jerk. The mother with the kids. That just, that, that, that, needed, that felt they needed to get ahead of me. We could let the audience decide. To slow you down. To save your life. No. They did not know either.

I could have been going to long and 60 kilometers an hour. Alice, you don't know if she saved your life or not. That's right. Maybe she had an alternate future where she knew what was going to happen. And by doing this, she saved your life. That thankless woman, that god send of a woman. This is the problem when you play with imaginative people. All of a sudden, there's alternate universes, the fucking parallel situations.

But with a minivan. You got to go back in time. You got to slow Alex Dowd. Always second guessing you never on your side. Some people's friends, I tell you. Mildly annoy him. You know the other part, too, is that, like, you, not only did it the...

This grandmother was crossing the road. There was a baby. She turned. And it really irritates me because there's, like, this railroad crossing where people always slow down to, like, a stop. To get over this fucking little bar. Are you being ironic? Are you being serious?

No. They're slowing down. Hold on. No. Are you putting on a bit? Are you actually anger that people slow down over railroads? I'm being genuine. You do not.

have to slow down over railroads. What do you mean? Like, rail tracks? You do not have to slow down when you're crossing past. On an uncontrolled, on an uncontrolled road. It is a controlled railroad. Okay. Is there a bump?

There's a bump that I go at 60 kilometers an hour and I enjoy it. How dare these people? And it's not even that big of a deal. It was a bit. I can't tell if you're putting on a bit. No, I hope this is a bit. You're angry. I get air.

You're angry that people aren't. hitting railroad crossings at 60 kilometers an hour. I'm irritated that this person felt that you needed to get in front of me. Just to slow down over a railroad cross. But it's just, it added on to it. It added on to it. I love to bolt.

I love to bomb it down this empty road. There's nothing residential. You're going to get murdered by a train. I'm going to take you there one time, Arlen. There's fields. He's going to take you out of this field to the railroad tracks and really show you what's going on. I hope you guys get stuck in the fields.

I'll show you with this out. do. Then we're going to race. Is this where Doran gets his need to kill? Rage. Is love of death and

gore and violence? Doran is so much more patient though. Doran's more like, you know what? He's measured. Oh, please, go ahead of me. Dora doesn't have rage. Dorn is not Alex. I can't remember I was going with this point.

Cut in your quote, Doren is not a smart dwarf. Yes. Dorn is, but he is. Deep within the eyes, of the all father. The giant's feasting hall is pleasantly warm from the raging fire captured within a bowl-shaped basin in the center of the room. Arranged around the fire pit are several tables and benches carved from granite, under one of which lies the fire-breathing

many-legged thing that just ate, Kralath. So Kralov, you are unconscious, but also you are, I mean, blinded and restrained. Yeah, and just having a bad day. having a terrible time. Really? Then the creature is going to try to escape from you. Escape from you? Yeah, it's going to, I mean, the creature is going to retreat from the combat, having eaten one of you. So it's going to take some opportunity attacks from Harshnag and from Doren right up against him.

So the creature runs away. What? Yeah. Doran, did you want to take an attack of opportunity? Yes, I do. Of course I do. I'm barely in this battle. I got to get in there anywhere I can.

Do it with Doran. Doran strikes the creature as it tries to squirm out of its grasp. And, of course, hits it with a 24. Nice. Yeah, you do. Nice. 18 damage. Whoa.

Slashing. The most heroic thing I've ever seen, Doran. Yeah. As this creature tries to just writhe away. I stab it in the back. Yeah, you kill it. I'm picturing you, like, crawling up on top of it, and as it's, like, escaping underneath the table,

Doren just starts, like, hacking away at it. Oh, no, you don't. You split its body down the side, and as the creature dies in death throws, Kralath's body just, like, spills out onto the stone floor in a pool of, like, molten-hot icker. Amazing. Woo, go Duran.

Nice. Red just jumps down off the top of this and runs over to the body. As he lands, the ice mantle shatters around him. And he just runs over to his friend who's now on the floor. And he like grabs this and he's like, okay, it's okay, body. It's okay. And he like feeds him a health potion. Nice.

We got you back, big guy. Thank God you're alive. Why am I sticky? Hey, is it dead? Yeah, it's dead. I've been used as bait before. Wouldn't be the first time, won't be the last. Thanks for taking care of that.

Come on, soldier, back on your feet. And Red helps you up. Doren kind of walks over and starts wiping away the goop that's on you. Oh, this stuff will just clean right off. Trust me. You can wash anything off. I know it well. And he's like, ston, you're putting more dirt on him.

Get you clean your hands first. You just, you monster. Let me help, and I creep down and, like, there's hair on you now, and there's, like, hair and dirt from Dorn and red, just, like, sticking to this blood gut. Yeah, yeah, yeah, give me some room. I'm fine, I'm fine. Where's Jackson?

Jackson is sitting up on top of the far slab in the southern half of the room, pacing back and forth fretfully and stretching his wings, looking like he wants to come down to see you, but he's afraid. of all the commotion. It's all right, little bro. Come on. And Kraloff holds out his hands and gestures to Jackson.

But you're like 200 feet away. He flies across the room back into your arms, this little black missile of furred love. Yeah, he's like walking towards him. Yeah. Let's look around this room and then get the hell out of here.

And Red will walk over to the brazier. I don't think we ever actually explored it. And can I walk up and do her perception, see what it looks like? I mean, yeah, Doren took a pretty good look at it, so did you. Then you know what? I'll walk over to where the serpent seemed to have been hiding, and I just want to look around that area to see if he was either guarding something or...

It's gross. There are like these huge chitinous plates that are semi-translucent. It looks like the creature maybe had molted here or something. So it's like a weird, like, serpent creature's nest. I rifle through this nest as well as the body to see if. there's anything of interest. Eggs. What the heck was it eating over here?

I mean, this place was locked up. Red reaches down and breaks off a piece of the molten chitin and just feeds it to Shale, who's still been like tucked against his breast. He's like, here you go, Shale. A little bit of food for you. And yeah, he rifles through this and the body. Yeah, you don't find anything interesting

apart from this creature's exoskeleton. I think Jack's main interest walking around the room just to investigate to see if he can find, you know, find anything that catches his eye that's obvious, but to see if there's any evidence of like how long ago people were in this room and used it as a mess hall or like how long has it been sealed up behind ice? For sure. If you're interested, Harshneye can give you a boost up onto the tabletops. Yeah, I think definitely the sort of thing I would recruit Harshnag and just just for that extra giant context. You see that atop the southernmost slab, there are some neat stacks

of plates and goblets that had been left here. And as Harshnag assists you in the approach, you see that they are all green and black with oxidation. Additionally, now that you're here on top of this slab, you feel like a little bit of weird texture underneath your boots. It's like a kind of sticky feeling, like maybe the residue of like fat or bloodstains here. Gross. Those plates are super cool, just for a...

Jack's got a weird fascination with the way people eat and what the tools they use. But yeah, I think he's walking through the like gross drippings from centuries ago to go see if these, you know, ancient plates that are stacked neatly. And that says something about the culture of the mess hall. I wouldn't have thought, giant mess hole, let's do the dishes before we leave. So that's kind of fun. As you finish striding through this strange array of giant-sized dishes, things that would easily hold you if you were laying down on them, you spot a glint, something standing up against the southern side of this slab, a glint of metal.

Hey, Harshnag, what do you make of that? Let's go take a look. And as you and Harshnag round the corner of this southernmost slab, you spy the missing, weapon from the main statue chamber, the giant axe, that belongs in the hands of the frost giant. Hey-oh. Way to find it, boys. Sweet. Jack sets up a little firework minor illusion in the far side of the room. You're like, hey, I found something.

Can we take a short rest while we're kind of investigating this? You guys want to spend an hour just hanging out in the feast hall? That would be great. Yep. Absolutely. I'll go see what Jack wants. and I will stay here with Kraylon, I guess.

Thanks, buddy. I appreciate the company, Doren. Hey, Jack, what's your fine, bud? Nice fireworks. You've been practicing. Thanks. Red, look at this axe. It's the giant axe from the statue out there, I think.

Whoa. Yeah. Cool. That's all. I don't know if that's related to the puzzle or the mystery or how we're going to get through. Oh, most definitely. All right.

You figured it out. buddy, good job. Here, come here. It's a... And I go to give Jack a hug. All right. Not romantic, just a nice friendly hug. So this axe, it's steel, and it weighs 750 pounds. So Harsnag picks it up, I presume. Yeah. Yep.

You turn it over, Harsnag, just to see the other side? He turns it over. It's the same on the other side. Mirror axe. Should we ask him to wait to put it in just in case something triggers right away? Yeah. Seems like Crayloth wants to take a long rest. Maybe we should just wait to put it back into the giant statues. Short rest, short rest.

Maybe just a short one. Yeah, what did I say? Long one. Sorry. Harsh egg nods. He's like, okay. Good fine, Jack. Should we look around and see what other kind of mysteries are in this room?

Sure. Take a look. If you can find something else. I just wanted to hang out with you. I'm just going to follow you around. This room is mostly unadorned. It seems to be kind of just a functional feasting, hall rather than a ceremonial chamber.

And so that's how you can see they cleaned the plates and the fire over there before they stack them at the end of the table. Isn't that an interesting like end-a-meal thing they giants must have done? Yeah, totally, yeah. That's so strange. What's strange about it? And Krayloth walks over and he picks up one of these plates. And they're huge, right?

Like, they're like shield-sized, right? Yeah, definitely. You were saying that to Red, though, right? You guys were setting up camp and we're like walking around. I do love the idea that just he explains it to Red and then sees Kralath's ears pick up and just start speaking of that, to that side of the room, talking a little louder. I'm listening. They're pretty neat, actually.

Look at the size of this thing, Doran. They places it down. And it's like, it is like a shield. It's made of copper. Yeah, yeah, made of metal that's rusted or oxidized. And you could certainly, I mean, it's big enough for you to lie down on and not be able to touch any of the outside corners. If I was going to ever open a restaurant, I'd call it the Giants Plate. and take one of these plates and one of those knives and one of those forks

and put them all up there hanging on the sign. How cool would that be? Huh. Yeah, that'd be pretty cool. I just got to go do something. Give me a second. And Red like runs around a corner to a table. You just hear him grunting, pushing something in the bag and whispering,

yes, Shale, it'll be a gift for Jack. His next birthday will be. Cool. So you guys spend your hour here relaxing, joking around, trying to forget the ordeal with this giant monster and otherwise just recuperating your strength. After that hour elapses, what do you do? What if these runes are sort of like the runes

of the portal that we took here? Oh, really? What ruse? Well, the runes outside the next door. Like, what if it's a portal? As opposed to, I mean, I'm just thinking here. We stepped into a rune circle. to come from...

The teleportation circle? I'm out here with city names. Yes, yes. Oh, yeah, Dorian, yeah, yeah, okay, let me tell you, teleportation circles, you're right, you do need to know the right key to get to, you know, fixate on them, for sure. Absolutely could be something related to that.

It's definitely magical, we know that. Doren, good job. Jack seemed to like that idea. That means it's a good idea. Look at you. I'm so proud of you. Well, thanks. And while this is happening, Krayloff has cooked a little bit of snails, some escargo he's made, just like campfire escargo. And this is special. This is part of my chef feat.

Oh, I love it. As part of a short rest, I can make special food, and I can make food for creatures equal to four plus proficiency bonus. So any creature that spends hit dice at a short rest gets to roll an extra 1D8. Fuck yeah. So I definitely gobble one down. Maybe you found these snails living in part of this eternal fire pit. They're like weird magma snails. Oh, cool.

They're like, they have these dark, black conical shells and these like livid red bodies. It's like those snails that live at the bottom of the ocean that have iron shells because they're right at the steam vents or whatever. Yeah, yeah. So Kralov sees these? and he sees them before Jack, and he's like, oh, I got to cook these before Jack sees them because they're interesting. And so he gets them over to the fire.

Jack takes everything interesting away. They're more important as a specimen than as a food source. Why can't things just be food sometimes? I think Doran watches Kralaith and kind of steps so that even if Jack did turn, he wouldn't see what Krayloth is doing. He catches on. And Krayloth winks. And after cooking these and gobbling one up himself,

Krayloff takes one of these snails and he walks up to Harshnag and he says you took some bad hits back there and you could probably use some sustenance yourself. So this should help out a little bit. It's nothing magical or anything, but yeah, hopefully it heals you up. Thanks for taking that thing for a little bit. As he puts it between his huge teeth, he doesn't even pull it out of the shell. you watch as the snail shell resists for just a second and then everyone hears the crunch reverberate around the hall and he becomes a fire giant

the frost melts oh yeah he takes damage oh I'm melting yeah and I think red and Jack come back oh this looks lovely and he picks one up and takes a bite and then feeds one to shale in his little chest delicious crayloth I love it

Escargo. I mean, predictably, Jack pokes it around his plate. Not because he's not interested in eating it, but also because he just wants to see what the heck it is and where it came from and how it works first. Are you eating on one of the giant plates? I was sort of picturing they were all cooked in one of the giant spoons over the fire or something.

Ooh, yeah. Sathing them in the spoon, that's cool. All right, so Jack found that giant axe, and I think that putting it back where it belongs is going to help us with that. puzzle in the other room. Harshnag, does that seem to resonate with you?

I mean... I will try whatever you like, but as I say, I've never been here before, so I don't know how to open this portal. Oh, it is a portal, though. I think we sort of determined that earlier. According to Jack, it is, and Doran. It certainly could be.

Good job, Doran. Doran's hypothesis needs to be tested, but it's certainly, you know, we saw conjuration magic there for sure, which is, you know, related to summoning things and teleporting things. You're right, Jack. Doran saved the day. Well done, Doran. Can I just say how pumped I am of that? Because that was a real stretch for me.

I thought, no, no, no. It's not going to be plural. They're going to tell me no, and that's going to be disappointing. But sounds familiar like we're on the right track. So just to reiterate, yeah, it's a huge archer. way it's full of mist that is glowing brightly such that the room is illuminated and this mist is just swirling and swirling and then on the floor inlaid in the stone with mithril there are these six rooms and one of them you i have identified now if it's stonework i just leave it to dorin by the way

good job dorin well we don't really know quite yet but there we need to detested, I suppose. But I think... And then he turns a little bit sheepish and looks at the more magical of his companions. And he says, I think maybe someone magical might be better to try it.

Oh, no, not me. Maybe Jack and Kralath. Yeah, well, I wasn't... Yes, I agree, Red. I didn't know if you meant magical personality. Oh, wow. Good one. So you guys move on into this large room? We need to get in the mindset of giants. And maybe Harshnag, this is where you can help us

out the most, because this is a place designed for giants. I think you even said all giants know where this place is somehow, but if everybody knows how to get here, how it works must feel somehow intuitive to you. Yeah. You make a really good point, Jack. If a, if a hill giant can come here and figure it out, well, then I feel like a little embarrassed that's taking us this long. this like pensive look crosses his face as he passes through the giant doors and moves into the room with the statues and you watch his harsh nag slowly regards each of these massive idols and he paces around the room for a little bit before coming back to stand in front of you jack and he says from what i can gather these giant statues

represent the sons of Anam, the god of hill giants here Grolantar stone is scoreus stone bones and that name rings a bell to you Jack

the frost giant deity thrim and he walks over and moves as as if to put the axe down into Thrim's hands. And as he lays it into the statue's hands, he looks up expectantly and nothing happens.

Yeah, I feel like we're all kind of gathered around, just like, jaws open, staring. And when nothing happens, he kind of looks towards the four of you almost for permission. and then start striding towards the archway, like, expectantly. Okay. Good luck, buddy. Show us how it's done.

Is there anything we can do? I mean, I don't know if it helps. That ruin means ice. Maybe that's relevant. I don't know if the other ones must mean something else. But go with your gut, Harshnag. I agree. It's big.

He approaches the archway and reaches out a tentative hand. and presses into the mist. And then he retrieves his hand and shakes his head. It's stone beyond the mist. The portal is not open. Ah. Okay. Well, at least do not hurt.

Did anything change in the room at all when he placed the axe? Did the color change? Did any of the sigils light up? No. Okay. Harsnick, can any of the other ways, weapons be removed, or is it just Thrin's? Thrims?

How do you, I get that, I get the giantish on it for me. I missed the name. Thrim. Thrim. Is it? He moves over to another one of these giant idols. He says, strong mouse of the storm giants. And he sort of nods respectfully and picks up the statue's adamantine trident.

It comes away easily from the statue's hands. Oh. Okay. Does it seem like all the weapons are in the appropriate slots? He looks around and then nods slowly at you. Yes, if my recollection of legend is to be believed as whole, then everything seems to be in order here. So I wonder then, how did that axe get in the dining hall? Did someone remove it or...

That, I would say red could certainly roll on. Ah, let me think on that for a second, my friend. With an 18 plus negative 1. I mean, with the 17, you're not going to learn a lot of specific information apart from the fact that perhaps a giant brought it there with them, had a meal, and forgot it. It seems like a giant must have just forgotten it in there, which means... Well, or is it all that in that? important to this. Or if part of the ritual of it was you take it, you do whatever it is, you do, and then you go and join a feast hall with everybody else who just came to the Temple of Anam or

something, you go enjoy all these giant plates at the endless fire provided, and you get a little drunk, you clean your plate off, you just leave shit there and go home. Like maybe it's the end of the ritual ends up there. Could you carry a weapon through? Hashnag. Maybe you need to be holding the power of the weapon to enter. If all of these weapons are removable, maybe all it takes is one of the appropriate giant type, i.e. Harshnag, removing the frost weapon to carry it through. Yeah, that's a good idea, Red.

Maybe you can try tapping through with the axe and seeing if it's still stone behind there. So Harshnag, again, strides over to Thrim, relieves this huge statue of the steel great axe, and moves toward this misty archway. He reaches through the mist and you hear a clang as the great axe hits the stone wall beyond. Damn. Hmm.

Harshneck. Didn't you learn about this when you were growing up in giant school? Like, come on, when I was young, I was driven in my head, all the, all the ancient lore of our kind. You didn't learn anything about the Temple of Anum? Don't end focus. It doesn't make sense to beat it. I'm not beating. I'm saying, think back.

Think back. A dark look crosses his face, and he's like, Doran, if I retained all of the teachings that I was given by my elders, none of you would be standing here alive. Okay, sorry, sorry, sir. I meant no offense. But we know the ruins are magic here. What about touching the axe to the room, the frost room?

I was just thinking the same thing, Red, yeah. I don't know if that's a good idea, but I got my diamonds. so worse comes to worst. Other people clutch their pearls. Kralath clutches his diamonds. He sure does. Yeah, Harshnag, what if you took the Frost Giant Axe and you touched it to the Ice Rune?

Harshnang takes a step back, locates the ice run, and slowly lowers the axe to touch this glowing mithril form. The mist transforms into churning thunder clouds lit by flashing lightning. And you can see another room

beyond the clouds. Hey! Jack jumps up and down and just shouts, ha ha! Good job, guys. We solved it. And then like, I knew it.

All right. Doran just gives a gaze in awe at Kralath and then Harshnegg. Ouch. Why me? Why are you looking at me? Krayloff is just petting Jackson.

I was so supportive of Doren when he had the toilet port idea. And he was like, Great job. Kralath. Was it red? I'm sorry. Back in,

no, this was Red's idea. He just gives a big wow at red. I do like that. Wow. Way to go. And he kind of puts his hand on your back. Yeah, Krayloff points at red.

And Harshani's like, what, I don't get a wow? Everyone gets a wow. This is a group, wow. All right. What about Jackson? Steele him. Meow.

Meow. What about Rob? Who's Rob? What about Jeff? Jack bends over and pets Kieran on the head and said, let's go before it closes. Quickly, everyone. And we run through the portal. Beyond the thundering archway lies a hexagonal chamber whose walls rise 50 feet before tapering to a 90-foot-high apex.

Standing in each corner of the room is a life-size statue of a giant, holding up a heavy iron lantern with one raised arm. Each type of giant is represented, hill, stone, frost, fire, cloud, and storm, in case somehow you'd forgotten them. They're archetypical depictions of these figures. They're not the same as the godly deities that you had seen in the previous room, and much smaller. A cold magical light radiates from each lantern that they're holding, illuminating a giant corpse lying on the floor beneath a shroud of frost in the middle of the room. Jack's running into the room and sees this corpse

and like full stop tries to back up and it's slippery and icy and he's trying to catch his balance before he like crasses into Red or Kralath coming up behind him. Oh, that's good, I like. Jesus, Jack. Oh, take a chill pill. It's like a three stooges sort of situation. I got real excited about science, and then...

Here, Red, can you hold Jackson for a minute? I'm going to prepare, detect magic. Of course, buddy. And I, a picture, it so doesn't make sense, but I want the cat to be like, like, scratching all over me and, like, trying to climb away. And I'm like, come, it's fine, Jack. Oh, it's because I have shale.

Oh, yes. Because I'm holding shale, Jackson is, like, trying to claw away from me the whole time. Like, it's okay, just things, too. Come on. Thanks, buddy. Okay, I'm just going to take a second. 10 minutes, and if there's anything magic in here, we're going to know about it.

Well, if you're taking 10 minutes, let's get some language going, just in case. I didn't want to be the one, but, you know, just a quick 10 minute little ritual break. Hope nobody minds. There's giant corpse over there, is all you know. Jack is like sweating as he's looking at this, all of these new things to look at. He didn't want to be the one, but he's so excited for somebody else to be like, can we take a break? It's all good. I'll do my primeval awareness.

Here, Doran. And I hand Jackson to Doran, who equally is trying to claw away, and I just flop down. And I'm going to do primeval awareness to see if there's any giants within a five-mile radius. There are no giants

apart from Harshnig within a five-mile radius. Well, these aren't real just super still giants. They're statues, FYI. Sweet. It's great. All right.

And that one's really dead. Doren, do you want to do Anything for 10 minutes? Yes, I want to do my stone cunning investigation on these statues. Like are they possibly frozen in time? Roll for it. So that's going to be a 10. Yeah, I think maybe because you're trying, and I mean, correct me if I'm wrong,

but maybe because you're trying to keep your distance so that your friends can finish their rituals before you approach. and Jackson is clawing at his beard the whole time because of the tressum that's just irritating you you're not really able to discern anything additional about these statues they are covered in frost and Jackson pause out of your nose frosty statues boomf boomf

Kraloff and Jack's rituals activate mine first no mine boomf boomf Got a race. Do you like that? All right. So if there's any magical traps, we should be able to see them, and Kralath tentatively starts moving forward with his shield out.

I'll join them just to be buddies. Kralath immediately, you reveal an aura of divination magic throughout the room. It's thick in the air on every surface, in every dimension of the room. Do you see anything, Kralath? Yeah, we got some divination magic. It's like a beautiful... gold and light. I mean, if you're going to an Oracle,

I would hope they had some divination magic going on, so we could be getting pretty close here. This could, this might have some answers for us. It seems to permeate the entire room pretty much. We've been standing in it this whole time. What? It's all around us? Red, see if you can spot any, uh, mechanical traps. Good thinking. I'll do a perception.

We should find out what killed that giant in the middle of the room because that could be a danger to us, whatever, whatever that was. Yeah, maybe not. stand right on top of the giant over the center of the room because that's where they drop the boulders maybe there's a big maybe there's a big spike underneath that we just don't see they drop a stone from the roof and then just raise it up slowly and then it falls again yeah right i mean you say that like it's not a trap that you had actually detected earlier on in the you know that's very true i'm going to roll a perception and that's an 18 nice okay

I'll tell you what I see, Krayloth. You don't notice a whole lot from where you're standing in the entranceway of this room, red, apart from the fact that there are no runes on the inside of this doorway. There's no runes with an N. There's no wounds on the inside of this doorway, so one-way portal. If I look back, is the portal still open? Yes. It doesn't look like we can conjure it from this side.

So maybe we've got to be quick. Kralath nods. Does the corpse on the floor look like a frost giant corpse? You would have to get closer to find out. I'll do it. I'm unabashed. You know, if you're heading up there, I'm right behind you. Well, Kralath is going to move forward as well.

Same here. Yeah. We all move forward towards it. We all do it together. We all go in a line. We link arms. We link arms. I kind of like that.

Team corpse inspectors are all of us now. No, team awesome boys are all of us now. I don't have to inspect a corpse, but I'm always awesome. We are all team awesome corpse inspectors. Boys, corpse inspectors. Harsh neck standing behind you with his arm crossed looking really cool, and he's got sunglasses on for no reason. So we all walk up, and I just want to get close enough to see if it's a frost giant corpse.

It appears to have been here for some time preserved by the cold. As you approach, you notice that next to the body, there is a giant frost-covered morning star, and then your vision doubles. The giant's body appears to shift. It gains a translucent cast, and then a ghostly duplicate rises up out of the frozen body, animated. It looks around at the four of you with a quizzical expression, blinking its huge, blank eyes as if waking from a dream. Small folk. What are you doing here in this divine place? Aki-g-g-g-g-g-g-r-r-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h. See you soon!

Hey, hey.