Dungeons and Daddies - Ep. 13 - Terry Jr. and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Dad

Episode Date: July 25, 2019

The dads come to terms with their actions and try and salvage Ron's relationship with Terry Jr. Darryl disguises his voice, Henry makes a phone call, Glenn grabs some goods, and Ron gains insight into the ways of the forest.This episode contains profanity, violence, sexual content, and animal cruelty/animal death.Support the show on Patreon!Get merch and more at our website!Follow us on Twitter @dungeonsanddads!Join our Facebook group!Check out the subreddit!Project DADGUT is the group transcription projectDM is Anthony BurchDarryl Wilson is Matt Arnold (@mattlarnold)Henry Oak is Will Campos (@willbcampos)Ron Stampler is Beth May (@heybethmay)Glenn Close is Freddie Wong (@fwong)Additional Voices by Jimmy WongAdditional background audio by Sound Coast SoundscapesTheme song by Maxton WallerCover art by Alex Moore (@notanotheralex) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dungeons and Daddies is a rowdy, horny, violent podcast for grown-ups. Content warnings can be found in the episode description. Something less literal, less physical. We're going to be exploring the planes. Wait, the planes? Like, as in planes of reality? As in the planes of reality. But not just any plane. One, two, three, four, five, hello, hello. The astral plane. So, why don't you start with your name and what you do?

Sure, I'm Dougal Hornbuck. I'm a research magus at the Conclave of Silvery Moon. Dougal has spent the last ten years studying the astral plane. So, I guess the first question I have is, like, what is it? What is the astral plane? So yeah, we have an idea, okay? We know it's other dimensional, that the laws of physics and those sorts of things as we know them don't necessarily apply there. And we know that aside from spells or projection, it's basically physically unreachable from the plane that we inhabit. So let's leave Dougal. We just met him. Yes, but just for a moment.

And travel all the way to Waterdeep. Shinji is a merchant. Yeah, I'm Shinji. I run Shinji's sundries. Oh, wow. Look at all this stuff. Yeah, yeah. I usually sell it to weird perverts and stuff.

Findom fetish play kind of thing. You may have seen my street team out in the Forgotten Realms. I met Shinji at his shop along the waterfront. And while he sold all kinds of tools and provisions for travelers and adventurers, I really want to ask him about one thing. Tell me about the fanny pack of holding. Yeah, so this is an enchanted bag. This one's meant to go around your waist. I don't see what this has to do with the astral plane. Just wait. And this model's special because it can carry a lot because the items that you put inside of it get held in the astral plane. Oh. Right. So the question I want to ask Shinji was this. What happens to the items inside that fanny pack if that fanny pack gets

destroyed? Well, I guess you'd lose whatever was inside. Like, you lose them? Or are they just in the astral plane? You know, I really never thought about that. So, theoretically... Here's Dooloo again. Those items are going to be suspended in whatever state they're in, inside the astral plane. What if, like, say I had my hand in the fanny pack and I fell and tore a big hole in the bag? Would my hand get cut off? Yeah, well, you'd probably have to try it.

Magical items are pretty rare, and I've never heard of something like that happening. But it has happened. It has. Yes. What would you say if I told you that four dads very recently beheaded a vampire using precisely that technique in the city of Rokoport while trying to rescue one of their sons? I'd say tell me more. And we will, after a quick break.

You're listening to Dungeons & Daddies. We'll be right back. Welcome to Dungeons and Daddies, sometimes a BDSM podcast, a actual play, D&D podcast about four dads from our world flung into the Forgotten Realms in a quest to rescue their lost sons. My name is Freddie Wong. Freddie, I want that with ten times more Glenn energy. We're coming back from three weeks. That's true. Oh, man. Hey, what's up, guys? This is Freddie Wong here. I play Glenn Close. I'm a bard. I play Christmas music. And I don't let anyone harsh my vibe. And Glenn's dad fact today is this.

If Glenn was still in the real world at this moment in time, you bet your ass that he was on that Storm Area 51 Facebook group within the first 100 group. He would be the one sending it to everyone and be like, guys, finally, someone's figured it out. You guys, we're going in. They can't 100 group of you. You'll be the one sending it to everyone. Be like, guys, finally someone's figured it out. You guys were going in. They can't stop all of us. All of us.

I don't know what this Naruto run is, but I'll be there. I don't think we've mentioned it yet on the podcast, but all of this canonically started on the day of the area 51 invasion. That was, we planned six months ago that that was going to be when the whole thing kicks off. We planted the meme seed on 4chan and we waited for it to flourish.

So happy actual canon first day of the podcast. There we go. Hello, I'm Matt Arnold and I play Daryl Wilson, stay-at-home coach dad, Barbarian in Forgotten Realms. And my dad fact is after the DILF incident, Daryl decided to join CrossFit on Wednesday nights. No way. However, his first night was not a very enjoyable night.

He hurt himself very badly and did not feel welcome in that very kind of macho group. But he was too embarrassed to say that he stopped doing it. And so instead, right next door, there was a square dancing class. So now he does square dancing. But now he's embarrassed. Well, yeah, he goes there by himself. I mean, there's a whole group of people. He's got a whole group of square dancers with him.

But now here's two problems. One, it's a two-hour class. It's about an hour longer than CrossFit was supposed to be. And it definitely doesn't, like, Carol's definitely noticing he is not doing two hours worth of CrossFit every night. Is he still paying for CrossFit was supposed to be. And it definitely doesn't like, like Carol's definitely noticing he is not doing two hours with a CrossFit every night. So is he still paying for CrossFit? Yes. He's paying for both on that monthly.

He's hoping at some point he's going to surprise Carol by taking her a square dancing, but then he's also going to have to let loose that he has not been losing weight by going to CrossFit, but always square dancing. He's going to have to, Carol needs to like know this. There's steps to square dancing,

aren't there? Yeah. Like, so you can just come in need a class yeah yeah you could just square dance that's a that's a hell of a good time she's gonna have a good time when she shows up what's up everyone i'm will campos and yes man three weeks since a d indeed oh my god was that what you were so proud of coming in? No, that was not. No, that's just the appetizer for you. No, it wasn't. The thing that I really loved was... I play Henry Oak.

He's a granola crunching Birkenstock rocket nature dad slash druid. Henry Oak's dad fact this week is that Henry has a retainer. Like still has it? Oh my God. Henry wears a retainer. And so I want to, I want to go into the details a little bit. Henry grew up in a commune and didn't really go to the dentist until he was

like in his twenties. And then his teeth were really bad and he felt really self-conscious about it for a while. He didn't really do anything about it, but then he decided as you know, later on in life as an adult to do the braces thing finally got the braces off and he's been on that retainer now i should say he had a retainer because the first time he turned into a bear the retainer was still on and he felt something burst in his mouth and then unfortunately he swallowed oh no

thank you beth for reacting the way we are all faking reacting henry hasn't quite figured out what happened to the retainer yet and he's kind of getting worried because it hasn't shown up yet let's put it that way so henry's never got the experience of digging through a middle school lunch uh pin at lunchtime trying to find your fucking retainer. It's going to be hard to role play not knowing about this ticking time bomb that's happening because all I can think about now. Hitchcock said surprise is a bomb exploding suddenly. Suspense is someone swallowing a retainer and waiting until it comes out. Henry, like every night after everyone else goes to sleep, like turns into a bear and sneaks off to the woods to try to pass the retainer.

Oh my God. So far, no luck. Holy shit. So that's the energy Henry's bringing. Hi, hi, hi. Sorry. Hi, my name is Beth May and I play, okay, I play Ron Sampler,

emotionally detached stepfather slash rogue. My dad fact for Ron this week is a fact that actually Ron only recently learned. And it is that Ron needs to watch his cholesterol. Oh. Yeah. Just a little bit too high. Just kind of keep off the bacon. Is he, does he, what does he do about that? What's his strategy for cholesterol? I mean, Ron kind of keep off the bacon. What does he do about that?

What's his strategy for cholesterol? Well, I mean, Ron is all about making the bacon. What was his response when he found out? I feel like Ron's a pretty thin dude. Was he surprised? Did he just not care? What's up with that? Yeah, I think he'd think it was a really big compliment.

Oh, is it higher than the other guys? Who has the highest cholesterol? Tell me. I'm Anthony Burch. I'm your daddy master. Hi, daddy master. My dad fact for today is that Streets of Rogue is a good video game that you might like if you play video games. I don't know.

I don't have anything daddy specific that happened to me. Actually, I did weirdly get my physical back and my cholesterol is very high. Oh, no time i've related very hard to ron stanford dog your cholesterol is high my cholesterol is high too dog yeah i'm vegetarian though it's bullshit it's just congenital for my shitty dad how how am i like you and you put together and my cholesterol is pretty good it's it's complete well first of all the hd whatever we don't have to get into it. It's a thing. It's genetics is a big part of it. You probably have good lipids. What did you say

when you found out? I went, aw. That's better than what I thought. Because it was literally a second opinion and I went, no. All the cookies and things that I like to eat,

no. I became a very small child very quickly. That's a funnier reaction than I came up with. Well, it's because my life's actually in danger so that's much funnier.

Yeah. You got to raise the stakes sometimes. Don't eat steak if you have high cholesterol. I'm gonna have to fucking do cardio. I'm gonna have to work out like a human being. It's gonna be disgusting. This is the most dad this podcast has ever been. Can I recommend square dancing? Okay.

Are we ready to deal with the trauma that you inflicted upon a child? Oh, man. Punted that one, didn't we? Yeah, yeah. You killed to deal with the trauma that you inflicted upon a child. Punted that one, didn't we? Yeah, yeah. You killed somebody who was seemingly the father of a child who had watched their dad die before, and then we took a three-week break just to sort of chill out. Still not sure this wasn't all a dream.

Roll to see if it's a dream. I got two. It's not a dream. See if it's a dream. I got two. It's not a dream. After that cliffhanger, I know there's one thing that I was just on the edge of my seat wondering.

Oh, right. Yeah. Did we level up? We killed a really hard dude. Like, that's gotta be a level up, right? We're up to level nine now. You absolutely leveled up. Yeah, baby!

Do we level up now or do we have to wait for a rest? Let's wait for a rest so you don't put off this emotional trauma any longer. Okay, okay. Terry Sr. ambushed you in your house after Terry Jr. invited him in after Ron attempted to win him over.

You successfully shoved Terry Sr.'s head into the bag of holding and then destroyed it, thus decapitating him and sending his head to the astral plane. And as that was happening, Terry Jr., in a performance that was so good, it lost us a few listeners, said that he cannot handle watching this happen again to his dad. And he began to cry. And then Ron... Ron reacted really maturely, right? What did you say, Ron? Ron said, who's your daddy now, is what he said.

This must be a reflex, really. Really, it's a rhetorical question in the best sense because there's only one answer. So as... Oh, my God. So Terry Jr. looks at you as you say that and you see the anguish on his face disappear. It goes from tragedy to anger in an instant, and then the anger just vanishes from his face,

and he's filled with determination, and he starts rummaging through Terry Sr.'s pockets. Henry's stunned. Son, son, are you, son? That's okay, son, just, Henry's gonna try to pull him away from the decapitated corpse of his father. Okay, go ahead and roll dexterity. Let's say strength with disadvantage. I got a 10. Okay, so that's not going to be enough. Okay.

So you begin to pull him away, and he reaches into the coat pocket of what once was Terry Sr. and pulls out a small glass orb. And then he... Sonny, you got to put that down. And I try to grab Are you gonna answer the question? So you try to grab it? Yeah

Go ahead and roll dexterity That's a six You try to grab it out of his hand and just quickly moves it out of the way and then you say you still haven't answered and he looks you dead in the eye and then points at the headless corpse and he goes him and he smashes the glass orb on the ground

and this vapor seems to rise out of it almost like it had like kids and their vapes am I right this jewel erupts from the he pulls this spherical jewel out he fucking dabs he smashes the orb this vapor comes out of it and encircles Terry Jr.

And then he seems to bind with the mist and become sort of incorporeal. And you see him, you see the mist essentially begin to escape through the open door that Terry Sr. came through. Witch lady, can he do something about this? Come back here, mister.

If you don't come back right now, you're grounded. As in you have to be like a human person that sits on the ground you can't be a mist that's what grounding is so the vapor forms itself into a hand and then the hand raises its middle finger and then the uh aaron o'neill peeks out from the top floor hearing uh the commotion and she goes like no i'm not gonna i'm not gonna help i'm i'm i'm good i'm i got what i wanted he's dead hell yeah well oh my god well you see the mist and it flies toward the very top of the black tower that terry senior used to be into and goes

inside the window at the very top where you initially saw them standing on the balcony so he's presumably in there glenn narrows his eyes and goes it appears the forces that be will still be having us do this tower section i I heard a whisper and I said, you're going to play Anthony's dungeon design whether you like it or not. Well, at least I still have other Terry, the small bat on my shoulder. How long has it been since he summoned him? About a half hour.

He vanishes with a little pop and he's gone. Daryl puts an arm on Ron's shoulder and is like, look everybody, we did what we had to. He was going to kill us. Yeah, that was self-defense, man, and any court of law will clearly see that that was self-defense. It's just

important that we all get our story straight and the same, if anyone asks. I don't think that's really, I mean, you said Terry Sr. died. Yeah, we just killed the shit out of him. I meant the first time, Ron. Oh, yeah. In our world, he died.

Yeah. So, look, there's only two options. Either we're in heaven, which, again, we've already talked about, or hell. Or we got to kill him again. In which case, we didn't kill him. We just put him somewhere else. Like, we're already dead. Or we are alive, and that wasn't Terry Sr. So somewhere else like we're already dead or we are alive and uh that

wasn't terry senior so i think we're okay or it was terry senior and we just still have to kill him a couple more times right i think he's dead i like to roll perception on the body of terry senior okay go ahead uh there's a nine uh you can tell that he's sorts of pockets and stuff oh sure sure uh so you search the pockets and you come up with uh 20 gold hell yeah on his person i noticed that glenn is looking at the body and only saw about half of what he should have so i'm also gonna roll perception check and i get a 16 you find an additional 20 gold you can tell that this person this body was basically undead that whatever form vampires take in this world, he is undead. So your hypothesis can be Terry Sr. because Terry Sr. died in

Earthrealm, as you would call it in Mortal Kombat. Could not necessarily hold weight. This still could maybe be Terry Sr. Something could have just happened to bring him back from the dead. You're not really sure. But this is, he's definitely dead dead right now at least, or at least the rest of his body is. You don't really know how the decapitation thing works.

Let me roll perception to see if there are business cards. Go ahead and roll perception. I got a 10 plus one, 11. You see a single business card tucked into his coat pocket and it just says, you're welcome. Strong formatting. I'll just take this. It doesn't seem like we're going to be able to find anything else from this guy.

Give him a couple of kicks with the old toe as a sort of gesture and also to make sure he's fully dead. Henry, you okay there, buddy? Henry has turned like a sort of like even whiter pale and he's sitting in the corner and like his head seems to be spinning a little bit. Daryl looks and grabs like a look for like a bowl. Is there like a bowl anywhere around?

I just Henry just waves him off. Give me a second, guys. And Henry walks into. Is there like a bowl anywhere around? I just, Henry just waves him off. Give me a second, guys. And Henry walks into, is there another room? Is it just outside? Yeah, you can walk outside. Henry walks outside.

Wait, Henry, there's a- As he walks outside, you heard the sound of it happening, but now it's confirmed that the little girl vampire that was fighting you guys is just unconscious on the ground. And just as you exit, you can see that the overcast sky

that had put a pall over the entire land is beginning to clear. Some of the black fog that had twisted the tree roots is beginning to move away. Life is coming back to the town. Henry checks on the little girl, so she's, like, breathing? Yeah, she is unconscious but breathing. Okay, Henry takes out his phone. And Henry is going to call Mercedes O. Garcia.

Oh, shit, okay. Ooh, okay. Why don't you roll for your phone? You going to call Mercedes O. Garcia. Oh shit. Okay. Oh, okay. Why don't you roll for your phone? You want to get higher than a two. 17. Okay. Hello?

Hi honey. It's Henry. Hey, hey, what's going on? I have something very, very important. I need to tell you, honey. Oh, okay. Me a more. Oh, oh.

My lioness. My lion? My strong, strong lion? Let me go, let me get out of the, we're currently interviewing Noam Chomsky. I gotta get into a brew of laws or something a little quieter so I can focus on this conversation. Okay, I'm sorry to bother you at work.

That's fine. Lo siento. Damn it, no problem. So there's been an incident. Do you remember, what, how long has it been since I left this morning? Uh, about four hours. Oh my God. Okay. We were on our way to the game and I'm going to tell you something crazy, but I know that like me, you're a kindred spirit who believes in powers beyond the normal and the natural, who believes in a greater plane of spirituality. And so I'm just going to ask you to take this on

faith. We've crossed over into another realm. There seems to be witches and warlocks. We're in a fantastical world and the boys are missing and I'm looking for them. We've been here for weeks and I didn't call you, uh, because this whole time I was just kind of hoping if I didn't talk about it, it wouldn't really be happening. It wouldn't really be real. And I figured, you know, we would just be something that would fix itself. You know, I wouldn't have to deal with the reality of it, but something, something happened and we, we did something and someone, someone died and I'm, I need your strength right now. And I'm really scared. And I, I just wanted, I just want you to know that I love you and that I'm fighting to get our boys out and there's something I need to ask you as well. Okay.

Okay. That was, that was a lot. Okay. So first off, thank you for, for calling me. Thank you for giving me all this information.

It takes a lot to reach out. I'm a hundred percent. I'm on your side. I do need to ask, did you get into Glenn's stash? How do you know about Glenn's stash? We did all the research on the other dads before they went on the...

You're so smart. Yeah, I just... I wish you were here. I just checked it on Facebook on the other dad just to make sure, and he felt like he might be hitting the gun. It's really happening, babe. It's really like a Narnia situation.

Oh, my gosh. Oh, no. That's so... Oh, that's kind of exciting, but it sounds awful. It sounds awful. So, wait, what's the... You need to ask for something? What's going on? Look, we're fighting our little butts off over here trying to get these boys back,

but a strong man admits when he needs help, and we need help. So this is going to be a weird request, but I need you to form a coven or something. Or like our Wicca friends, or like that girl Cheryl you know who's really into the crystals. Just get everyone together and see if you can open a portal or something. You know, I know it sounds kind of kooky, but I just, I would feel stupid if I didn't try. No, you know what? Absolutely. I will get on Wikipedia. I will bring together all the different witches of the North and the South,

the ones on the East and the West convention. So it's probably going to be really hard to get to them. I think WitchCon is going on later this month. Maybe there's something there. I don't know. You're smarter than me. Well, the thing is, if I wait a couple months, then it sounds like time is...

It'll be about 20 years. Yeah, time is dilating. Yeah, time is... Okay, okay, okay. Are our boys okay? The boys, it's complicated, but I'm working on it, and I need you to trust me that I'm going to do everything I can. And I love you, Mercedes. I need you to trust me that I'm going to do everything I can and I love you Mercedes

I love you too so much we are going to get through this together on the one hand it's very validating to be proven right about all our fantasy bullshit that we've been saying for years oh boy okay alright yes I'm going to fuck Dom Chomsky alright I'm going to peace out Noam might be able to help tell Noam

okay I love you I got to go back to peace out. No, might be able to help. Tell them. Okay. I love you. I got to go back to figuring this shit out. Um, I'll, I'll, I'll be in touch. I love you.

Bye. Incidentally, by the way, we can PDA doesn't exist. We got PDA. Does that right? No, it's like,

it's like being squatted by some dirty cheater. Oh, that's bullshit. We should have that. Well, while he was talking, Daryl walks over and checks in on, uh, Peyton. Hey there. Uh, hey there, Payater. Oh, that's bullshit. We should have that. While he was talking, Daryl walks over and checks in on Payton.

Hey there, Payton. How you doing? Pretty rough, right? I'm doing shadow boxing. What are you doing there, Payton? I'm fighting the greatest enemy there is, myself. So you okay about everything

that just happened? I got no problems with it. It was a bad man trying to kill us. We put the hurt on him. Peyton, I appreciate you being there for us, little buddy. I know that's rough, and I think your dad, do you have a dad? Yeah, no, I fucking hate him. He's the one who dropped me off in the UFC in the first place and left me for dead.

Oh. I ended up liking the fighting, but I still kind of resent the, you know, abandonment stuff. Well, screw that guy. I'm proud of you, Peyton. Good job. Hey, you know what? I'm proud of you, Peyton. Good job. Hey, you know what? I'm proud of you. Daryl turns away to hide the tear

that's forming in his eye. Yeah, alright. Henry re-enters. Gentlemen, I needed to It was a lot. And this is a lot. And we may have just done permanent emotional damage to Ron's stepson. So tomorrow's another day.

We got to keep going. And this team's going to keep going. Hell yeah. And if there's something to be done for your poor, sweet stepboy, Ron, we're going to do everything we can for him, okay? Ron looks at the body of the former Terry Sr. and says, oh, I just can't figure out what he had that I didn't. I mean, I have a head now.

And he still prefers this headless dad. We're going to get through it. We're going to sort through that with Terry Jr. Oh, I don't want to do anything with Terry. I'm mad. I'm mad. I'm mad as hell. I risked my life to protect him, and he didn't even want to be protected,

but he needed to be protected because all children need to be protected. And here's the thing. I'm pissed the fuck off at my stepson. I wasn't a stepdad. I was the dad that stepped up, and he stepped me two steps down. Well, maybe it's important to try and see it from your kid's point of view, Ron.

From his point of view, you kind of killed his dad again. Well, I guess we all did, but he seems to blame you for it. He blames you primarily, it looked like. Yeah, I hear what you're saying, and I'm pissed the hell off because that guy was going to kill us. Well, I mean, he may have made me a cool vampire, which would have been awesome, and I could have called my friend Beth in Los Angeles

and talked about it. I could have been like, Beth, I'm a vampire. But he tried to hurt us real bad, and I just... I mean, no one's doubting that we did what we had to do. It's almost as if you can do whatever you can to get somebody to love you, and they still might not love you, and that's just ridiculous. That's true, Ron.

Ron, have you ever lost anybody before that you really cared about? Next question. What's going with Terry right now? Just remember, he lost his dad, and he was going through a lot, and you were there for him. Like you said, you stepped up. But whatever happened, whoever this guy actually was, if it was Terry or not, he, for a moment, felt like he got his dad back.

And I don't think you can take everything he just said, you know, don't take it to heart. You know, you're going to have to work on this. It's going to be difficult. But he's going through a lot right now. He just got somebody back that he thought he lost, and now he lost him again. And I agree. Hey, everybody, we did what we had to do.

We all were going to die. Yes, that was an act of self-defense again, if anyone asks. And we're going to fix this, but, you know, try. He said a lot of hurtful stuff. You, frankly, said some more hurtful, a lot more hurtful stuff as well. But I understand you're going through a tough thing too, but just like you are, he is too. And we're going to, we're going to get him back and we're going to fix this. I'll say this, Ron.

Sometimes my beautiful boys, Lark and Sparrow, give me what, you know, I like to call it the business. The business you say? They like to give. I'm a businessman myself. You're a businessman. So I think you'll understand that sometimes they don't want to eat food that's healthier for them than the food they want to eat. Sometimes they want to have processed meat, and I think that they should stick to a sort of soy alternative. I agree.

Soy alternative. Are we talking about your kids or me here, Henry? talking about your kids or me here henry they throw a big stink sometimes and they say stuff like i hate you dad and fuck you and you know that really stinks the old butthole and really those words huh and and sometimes i get madder than a whole nest of hornets about it but you know what being a dad sometimes means doing things that your kid is not gonna like you know like feeding him, you know, a nice soy burger instead of a beef burger or killing his biological father. If he happens to be attacking you and you have to do something in self-defense.

But the important thing is that it's OK for your kid to feel angry and to not into, you know, you got to try to help them express in a healthy way, but they're not going to like everything you do. And part of being a dad is doing what's right for them anyway. And I just yeah, Glenn's like furrowing. And part of being a dad is doing what's right for them anyway. And I just... Glenn's like furrowing his brow like, what a weird thing for someone to say. What a dumbass.

That's completely against my thing, but I'll keep quiet, I guess. Hippies, right? I'll say one other thing for you, Ron. You mentioned that sometimes, you know, you can love and love and love someone, and no matter what you do, they don't love you back. Well, sometimes you can love and love and love someone who And no matter what you do, they don't love you back. Well, sometimes

you can love and love and love someone who, who isn't good to you. And no matter how bad they are, you still love them. And maybe that's what Terry has going on with his dad, you know, and that can be really complicated. So I think the important thing is you screw up sometimes, but you power through, you move on from the severed head, and you go re-unsever your relationship with your stepson. You don't love somebody because they're going to love you back. Like, you love them because you love them. And that's the reason you do it. It doesn't matter if it's your son or you've been married for 20 years or whatever it is.

I mean, you love somebody because that's what you're supposed to do. It's not like an obligation, but, you know, it's what you want. Yeah, it seems kind of like handcuffs. It seems like not fun. It's almost like maybe love is kind of hard. It is like that. I mean, it's only, it's always hard, right? It's never easy.

But a dad's got to do what a dad's got a dad. I like... I love that. You know what? Hands in the middle, everyone. I'm so confused by... Okay, sure. Let's stop this. You know what? Hands in the middle, everyone. I'm so confused. Okay, sure. Let's stop this talking.

Let's get back in the game, gentlemen. Let's do this thing. Dad's got to do what dad's got to do. A dad's got a doodler. What a doodler dad did. Doodler dad did. What the fuck did he just say? Hands in the middle, Peyton.

Go doodlers on three. One, two, three. Doodlers. What are we doing? What's a doodler? What happened to that kid? That was in the van, tearing up your van. Oh, two, three. Doodlers. What are we doing? What's a doodler? What happened to that kid that was in the van tearing up your van? Oh, good news. She's out there.

She's taking a little nap. It seems like she's okay. It's sunny outside again. Guys, I saw a beautiful bird. I'd like to suggest we all walk outside. All right. So you all walk outside and- Roll perception.

If you want to. 20. Wow, okay. I wasted that 20. What do I see daddy master what do my daddy eyes witness uh you see that at the top of the tower you see that the mist that terry jr took the form of that window that he slunk into lights are intermittently flashing from within blue then green then red then, on a seemingly irregular kind of cadence. Something is happening in the top room of that tower. I think there's a Wi-Fi router up there.

Freaking kid playing Nintendo. Looks like he vaped and now is listening to EDM. You also hear around you the trees surrounding this little town of Rokeburt, beginning to creak

and moan, and you can see erin o'neill on the roof of her house yeah like punching the air being like yeah yeah yeah yeah it's happening it's happening it's happening so yeah the trees saying anything that the trees are not currently saying they're just moaning they're they're like creaking like they're beginning to like stand up almost like they're beginning to pull their roots out of the ground that huddle that huddle really quick uh whispering so Whispering so the witch doesn't hear us. Hey. Are we sure she can't hear through the grass and stuff?

Is that like a- Speak really weird and quietly. We have to speak- Be really quiet. We have to speak really hard. Everyone, use your best accents and impressions. Do we think we're going to have to kill this witch? You're talking

like somebody from the Black Lodge. Maybe it's like hard to hear through the brass. Should we kill this witch before she gets too powerful? Daryl, you gotta be better about disguising your voice. Your voice.

Hayden is blown away. He's like, you guys became different people. Otherwise, people might hear you. Who are these magicians in front of me? Well, uh, oh boy, are we all doing our Jimmy Stewart impressions? Oh, Mara, it looks like that. Daryl, why are you talking all goofy? All right, because what if you said that she might be able to hear us?

I'm trying to say, should we kill this witch? She goes, what? You guys going to kill me? Somebody say it in a normal voice. No, no, no. I heard a normal voice say something about killing somebody. Hey, man, it sounds like we did something great here, didn't we? Yeah, you killed the fucking vampire.

Thanks, man. So, uh, that was, like, step one. What's step two of your plan? Uh, I was gonna bring all my children up from the forest, then we'd sort of take this village for ourselves and drive off the humans. Like, approximately, give me a range. How long do you think that's gonna take? Oh, probably a couple hours.

It takes them a while to, you know, get the kinks out of their tree branches and all that kind of stuff. Why do the people don't want to leave? I mean, they'll want to leave. Guys, I was, I was right. We should probably kill her in a surprise attack. Hi, Daryl. You know, maybe we don't have to solve every problem by killing someone. Seems like we just learned maybe a valuable lesson about the emotional trauma of violence.

And it seems like we're already talking about killing people again. Alright, Mr. Bear cutting off heads and everything, this is a witch that's gonna kill this entire town if we don't do something. I can almost hear what he's saying, it's too close to a normal voice. I'm just saying maybe we should take it one

tower at a time. I have a question. Hello, Aaron O'Neill? Yes. Hi, could you here would be my idea. Could you not take over the village? Is that an option? I mean, I guess I could, but they took

it from me in the first place. Did they? I don't remember hearing about that. This belonged to nature and then they came in and built their little town and then they attracted the vampires, so it's all their fault that my babies died. I have a follow up question. Yeah. Are you nature? No.

Well, then it doesn't sound like they took anything from you. Oh, well, are you your kid? No. Well, then if somebody took your kid away, you would feel. Are you responsible for all of nature? Yeah, I feel like it. That's the burden I've taken upon myself as a garden witch. Well, that's not.

I mean. Hey, Henry, you're being remarkably intolerant of other religions and other cultures right now classic nature nurturer debate is there is a ron here's a businessman is there anything we could do to maybe at least stop you from doing this or or some sort of deal or maybe just delay it while you want to stop me i have several business cards it just seems like these people went through a lot. They lost their kids and everything. It just feels like a shame that... They went through a lot. My kids went through even more.

I do want to clarify that these aren't your children. They're my children in a sense. The planet is a lot older than you are. I feel kind of a hypocrite saying this because back where I'm from, I consider myself something of an environmentalist. I voted for Dennis Kucinich. But I feel, you know.

You know of Kucinich? The Grand Druid of the Diner Elms? Kucinich is a good fantasy name. Wait, wait. I'm confused. Wait, Henry. Wait, you don't have children? She means the trees and stuff. Wait, wait. I'm confused. Wait, Henry. Wait, you don't have children? She means the trees in StarCraft.

Wait, wait. So you're talking about trees? Yes. Like this tree. Yes. I throw my axe into the tree. Holy shit. That's a tree.

So go ahead and roll an attack. This seems like a bad idea. This lady, you're all sitting here like nothing. This lady's going to kill these people because of a bunch of freaking trees. Look, I get it, Henry. I respect you. I'm all for nature. We all got to breathe good air.

But I'll eat that thing. That's a tree, goddammit. Oh, sorry. You'll eat a tree. Calm down, Daryl. Calm down. We got triage. As you throw the axe into the tree.

God. You hear. Triage. You hear. Oh, God. Also, okay, so here's what happened. When Terry Jr. reacted with such agony at who's your daddy now,

it shifted the polarity of your brains and dad jokes are no longer something that doesn't do damage to you. We're just straight back to them just doing a D4 of damage because that was always funnier. So we're just going to do that from now on. So everybody take a D4 of damage.

I take four. Woo-hoo-hoo, three damage. You deserve it. One. All right, I'm down to 15 hit points, guys. I hope we don't get into a fight with this witch right now. So the tree that you threw the axe into, you see a bead of sap form on the blade of your axe

and it runs down in a rivulet. Let's have some waffles, motherfucker. Hell yeah. Slowly, the branches above it sort of bend at what would be an elbow if it were a humanoid and push down into the ground and massive tree root legs come out of it so what did you throw which axe did you throw the ward cleaver no no no i threw my normal the great axe i normally have okay oh when you said tree you meant you meant tree i'm sorry i'm sorry and where we come from a tree is like a rock totally total misunderstanding yeah you should totally

take over this village okay why don't you roll uh roll persuasion someone okay so she looks at you I'm sorry And sees an almost complete lack of true remorse On your face That would be an accurate read And then raises her arms and she says Children of the forest Destroy them

And the forest around you You hear every tree Begin to yank itself out of the ground Around you These are some big ass children you every tree. You hear every tree begin to yank itself out of the ground around you. These are some big-ass children. Yeah. Every shrub, every flower, everything with stems

begins to pull itself out of the ground and slowly amble towards you. I put my pocket, and I click the buttons, the side doors, the van open. Go, go, go, go, go! I'm running for the van. I barely survived the last fucking thing. Now there's a bunch of trees. Henry is furious.

As Ron is running, he says, Now, my doctor told me to eat less meat, but I will eat more meat and less vegetables, less anything with a plant in it. Less trees. Roll persuasion. 14. So you see one of the trees that's slowly ambling towards you

extends a branchy hand and it gives you like a thumbs up, but like just for you. I give him finger guns and I wink. It now has advantage on charisma checks. Henry sees this and shouts to the trees, I've been a vegetarian since I was 10. All right, go ahead and roll.

I got a 13. Won't that have the opposite? Yeah. Oh, no. Roll again with disadvantage. Roll again with disadvantage. Fuck! I got a 19.

So, yeah, I guess they're coming after you now. Intimidation. So all of them were sort of like splayed out and going for each of you individually and then they hear, I was a vegetarian for the last 10 years and they all stop

and like trees don't have faces, but you can swear they all in unison turn to you and then they start fucking sprinting. Henry, no! And it's terrifying. Irony is dead! I'm going to try and... I regret nothing. I'm gonna try and I regret nothing.

I'm gonna try and cast charm person on on Aaron. Okay, is she fighting us? Yeah, I would say so. So that's going to be an advantage for a 13 wisdom saving throw in character. I'm going to basically say carnivore diet for life, baby.

Yeah, nonstop protein and meat. I love it. All right. So she hears that and she goes, you I like. Hell yeah, throw the horns up. Just you I like. So basically everybody, you can get one action before

they're on top of you. How far away is the tower? So the tower is basically, so when you're- Is it one action away? It would be a little bit of a drive to get from here to the tower. So basically once you're in the van, you can either speed out of the town or you can drive to the tower, but the tower is sort of in a cul-de-sac. So once you drive there, the trees are going to be basically, they'll have boxed you in. Okay. I think we should go for the tower. This vampire's probably got something in there that can help us fight these trees

and then we can stop this forever if we just speed off the trees are still going to rip apart the tower yeah we gotta save this town and we got and terry terry is still up there we got three all right to the tower daryl as he runs he picks up the girl okay that's his action if if i if i okay i pick her up and i throw her in the well i throw her into the van like generally i mean i try not to hurt her but i put her in the van as cool as i can and get in the front seat yeah henry's action is to try to do a duke's a hazard slide across the hood of his minivan and hop inside it's gotta be a roll god damn it fucking gotta do so you you do this slide but ends up more like a bare naked ladies one week music video kind of slide where like you get halfway across

and you kind of just fall off the side. And it looks more embarrassing than if you'd completely face planted. You're just sort of standing in front of the hood. Just humiliating. Just, it's just awkward and weird. I clamber into the minivan. Cool move, Henry.

Buckle up, buckle up. Roll call, Peyton. Peyton, Peyton's here. I feel like I could take one of these trees if you need me to like buy some time. Peyton, Peyton, hold on. So as Aaron is charmed by me, she's going to regard me as a friendly acquaintance. So I'm going to watch everybody clamber into the minivan.

I'm going to look up and shout at Aaron. Hey, sorry. I left my guitar in there. Can you just hold off these guys while I just grab my guitar from inside? They'll let you go through it. That's fine. Yeah, cool. Thanks.

All the trees like gesture toward the house with their big brand charms, but they're still like menacing the van still like hold a fist bump out for one of the like alders like the smaller alder tree maybe i go for a fist bump for the tree oh yeah they they're like nice check that one off the old bucket list that's the sound of a fist bump canonically with the trees so do i how much time do i have do i have a time for one action inside? Dude, just trust me here. Give me 10 seconds. I'm ready. Leave the door open. I turn on the engine.

I'm like, I'm like revving dirt back into the faces of the trees. All right, guys, what are we going to listen to? Put on whatever you want, Ron. I put on Rush's. What's their tree song? Oh, God. Yes. The trees, I believe.

There is unrest in the forest. There's trouble with the trees. Yes. We're listening to the trees right now. Okay, so while I'm inside, I kind of want to do something that's a little bit of a secret and not reveal what it is until later.

So how can we resolve that? You can just make a roll. I'll take it on faith, depending on what the outcome of that roll is, if what you wanted to do happens or not, and then you could explain it to the group in canon okay so that'll be i'm gonna burn an advantage on this one um okay i have a base role of 14 but depending on i don't know what the modifier will be but we'll just say 14 for now i am on the edge of my fucking seat right now so i disappear into

the house for a second and then moments later i'm reemerge guitar in hand i'm like go go go go okay so you're running towards the van yes so then seeing seeing uh glenn run towards the van i'm going to pop up and the the odyssey has an automatic uh yes a little button all right cool so i press i press the omag back so the trunk starts opening up and as it's opening i'm peeling out and spinning so that the back of the car faces glenn giving him a nice little place to hop into right so you're gonna hop in yeah i'm gonna try and hop in and like toss everything into the open truck sweet okay i feel about right yeah that's great that's good that's uh what is what athletics maybe yeah 12 12 will get you in the in the car yeah so we have in our van heading towards the

tower everyone me hanging out the back a little bit including an unconscious and include a conscious kid. Okay, so I'm driving as fast as I can to the tower. Okay, great. So pain's like so what happened back there insurance baby? What the hell was that? What did you get? What happened? Well, she said that she checked out a lot of books from the library. So I

want to bust in and just steal a book so that the library will take care of her and fix this problem ourselves. Oh, wow. That's really good. Like, I wanted to bust in and, like, while I was looking around there, like, you know, grab a book and be like, we out. And it's like, hey, this problem, like,

solves itself, guys. So what book do you think you grabbed? Ooh, it would probably be, like, some thing. Did you have time to pick a book? Or did you just pick a random one? I picked a random one. Okay, when you picked a random one, I'll tell you what you did. You got Grand Druid Kucinich's... It should literally just be whatever his book that he wrote was. Oh, yeah.

Oh, did he write a book? I'm sure he wrote a book. I'm sure more than one. Oh, okay. So it's A Prayer for the Forgotten Realms. By Grand Druid Kucinich. You know, Dennis Kucinich wasn't really what America needed,

but he sure was what we need right now. He was the hero we wanted, but... Dot, dot, dot. Is anything stopping us from driving full speed to this? Nope. You make it to the Dark Tower. What's the door look like?

The door is basically the size of a six-foot-tall man. It's big enough for a tall guy to go through. It's not big enough for the van to fit through. Okay. I do that power slide again to try to get the... Perfectly flush? Yeah, try to get it perfectly flush. Okay, roll your car driving skill.

God, you're going to wreck your fucking van. So 15. All right, cool. Yeah, no, you do it perfectly. You just... Man, you practiced that one, huh, Daryl? Yeah, no, you do it perfectly. You just, man, you practiced that one, huh,

Daryl? Yeah, I mean, I got 13 on my minivan stats. What does that mean, Daryl? I got plus three on my minivan stats. That's the score you get when you get the special license

you need for a minivan. Oh, like on your test. Yeah. I see. There's a game called Dungeons and Dragons where they have point values assigned to things.

I thought it might have been an oblique reference to that. No, no, no, I don't play that shit. So the tower is, it looks like it's about 20 stories tall, but you can tell from the angle of the windows

and the way that they're dotted around the tower as it sort of goes upward that a lot of that is probably just stairs. Just poor use of space. Fucking bad architect. It's almost as if somebody tried to design a dungeon but didn't want to put that many rooms inside of it uh like a linear stair kind of a linear one way one way that's it kind of no real exploration kind of thought it would be better for an audio

podcast because you can't really see the map kind of thing um like well i'm gonna get my steps in today give a map out even if it's a straight line i would like a map does helps me yeah i could yeah i'll give you a map anthony is raising his middle finger directly at that straight line this one goes up this one goes down uh this tower looks like it's spraying up so just sort of in the center of a forest like you can see trees that are there that are just bisected vertically as if the tower wasn't there and then just boom suddenly it was it doesn't feel like it was built brick by brick like it just boom just appeared other trees are sort of like trying to wilt away from it the The ones that still have some of the black mist inside of it

are still a little bit gnarled and curly, but you can sense that some of the life is coming back into them. The tower, despite the fact that it no longer has that sort of necrotic fog around it, is still a very intimidating structure. And just looking at it kind of chills you a little bit. What's it made out of?

It is made out of black stone. Like it's almost shiny. It feels smooth to the touch if you wanted to touch henry is this uh obsidian golly gee willikers i do a geology roll god loving this rock oh wait i'm gonna use inspiration i can i cannot whip a geology roll what would i add to that perception oh yeah perception all right i got a 14 yeah 14 lets you know yeah it is definitely obsidian it's obsidian what's obsidian henry it's a company that makes really great kind of underrated role-playing games ah finally i get to share some rock knowledge i'm so excited someone asked about the rocks obsidian is a naturally rock knowledge like little theme song maybe underneath this? Yeah.

Can we get like a little drum beat? And like a little bit of like a little... Yeah. Rocks. Rocks. Obsidian is a naturally occurring volcanic glass formed as an extrusive igneous rock. You don't have to be an ignoramus to know that obsidian is one cool piece of stone that is produced when felsic lava

extrudes from a volcano and cools rapidly with minimal crystal growth sounds to me like this tower may have erupted from the mantle of the forgotten realms earth crust fascinating you can definitely see where henry's knowledge tapered into will's knowledge at the end of that sentence obsidian tower, beautiful brown oak door. Do you want to go in? How long before those trees catch up to us? So the trees will catch up to you. And it looks like at the rate that they're going, uh, since they're big, slow kind of dumb trees, the camera zooms in. I mean, I'm doing like the mathematical equations to show up like beautiful theorem equals MC squared. Um, just like math equations have

nothing to do with rate of travel, which is all this is. Yeah. It looks like you probably got about 20, 30 minutes till we get here. Ron would like to try something that he tried a couple episodes ago. I mean, a couple hours ago. So he looks up and he says, Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair.

You hear a voice go, fuck you. And you recognize it as the voice of Terry Jr. Terry Jr., Terry Jr., let down your hair. I don't know if your hair has grown out since I saw you. Five minutes ago? Five minutes ago when you killed my dad? Yeah. Leave, just go.

Wait, this is good? You're starting a dialogue. Hey? You're starting a dialogue. Hey, we're starting a dialogue. You see and then you hear a lightning bolt shoot out of the window and then a loud crack that echoes and no response from Terry Jr. Hey, Terry, could you just come down here? It's easier if you just come down and talk to us like last time rather than us going all the way up there.

He does. He just comes down. You don't have to do the tower at all maybe he left and he's not here anymore maybe he did the mist thing again but with lightning terry are you still out there no answer no answer well i think he's giving you the silent treatment i've seen this a lot with my boys when they stomp up back to their room when they don't want to have their overnight oats for dessert. So we could have overnight oats for dessert. What? Holy shit.

Overnight oats. You got to enjoy them. They're a treat. Oh, no. Freddie and Glenn are both completely unfamiliar with this. In the oak household, it's a tradition to have your overnight oats right before you have an overnight sleep. And you have overnight oats for dessert.

You've seen me buy overnight oats and eat them. Do you know what overnight oats are? No, I don't. I never. Oh, is that a real thing? I thought you were just making up the idea of oats as dessert. Oh, okay. I was.

But overnight oats are a real thing. You get some. Hey, folks. Will Campos and Henry Oak here to tell you about overnight oats. Healthy snacks. Overnight oats is like when you put oats and then you soak them in a little milk or some almond milk overnight and they soak up. It's kind of Overnight oats is like when you put oats and then you soak them in a little milk or some almond milk overnight and they soak up. It's kind of like cold oatmeal.

And then you have them with like a banana and like a little, you know, some raspberries in the morning. It's really good, guys. It's like healthy rice pudding. Mix some peanut butter in there next time, why don't you? I can feel my cholesterol lowering already. Yeah, we should get in here. The reason I power slid the van was to block the door so nobody else could come in. Anthony is losing his fucking

mind right now. I'm looking at a bullet point list of things that'll happen once you get in the fucking tower. Alright, quick dad huddle. Here are the two options. You sack of human refuse. We can get in the tower, or how much do we have? About

20 minutes to maybe think of a way that we can get Terry Jr. out of the tower. So you're saying what do you think we should do? We can either go in the tower or we could not go in the tower. Oh, my God. There's a storm and a flood comes. I'm just saying my vote is we should go in the tower.

That's why I drove here. Well, I want to make sure we check all our options. We could try to light the tower on fire to smoke out Terry Jr. That might kill him. We could try all the things we've tried before to avoid previous things. One at a time and rolling for each. I want to poke the unconscious girl in the car and see if she wakes up. Hey, wake up.

Get in the tower. Hey, first of all, how are you doing? Are you okay? Yeah, no, I'm, oh, God. Oh, I'm fine. Oh, the light's really bright. Oh, your neck has a gnarly scar. Oh, God.

Oh. That was, like, cool looking, though. Oh, okay, cool, cool. What's your name, little girl? She says, my name's Clementine Kremotinic. And that was sent to us by Valerie Wagner. Thank you so much. Very good name. Did I die?

Am I dead? I think. And she's feeling for her pulse. And she's like, okay. I'm not sure. I think I'm alive. And she holds out her hand for one of you to check her pulse. I give her a high five.

Hey, Daryl Wilson, nice to meet you. I put my hand over her handshake. So you just grab her hand and start shaking it? Two men high grab her hand and start shaking it? Two men high five her hand, and then another clamps over their hands with a handshake. This is what just happened. So I am dead. This doesn't make any sense. This is hell.

This is very weird. With a handshake this week, you might as well be dead, little girl. Yeah, you really dunked on me there. So can you tell us a little bit about what happened to you? Oh, God. The French guy came into town, and he sang sang and a bunch of us came to his tower. And I kind of don't remember anything. But the pain on my neck makes me think that he definitely turned me into a vampire or something.

Was I a vampire? I was a vampire. Yeah, you were a vampire. You were a hell of a vampire. Fuck, did I kill anybody? Unknown. Unknown. Yeah, no idea.

You tried to kill us and failed. I was really mad at you, actually. Well, I'm glad you didn't kill me. Thank you for not killing me. I mean, we tried. Unknown. Yeah, no idea. You tried to kill us. I was really mad at you, actually. Well, I'm glad you didn't kill me. Thank you for not killing me. I mean, we tried. Yeah. We did stop, though. I mean, that's...

Yeah, we killed somebody else instead. Okay, some stuff's coming back. The other kids, the other kids he took. How many other kids are there? There was like five or six of them, but he also had a bunch of them as like his guards and stuff like that. The ones that I was with,

they might still be waking up. They might still be in the basement. We should probably go get them. Oh my gosh, they's in the basement of the tower. Yeah, I guess. Okay. What else can you tell us about this tower? Do you remember anything that the front door's fucking unlocked? Little girl, you don't need to use that language with us. So the tower, as far as I can remember, like the French guy, like lived on the upper floor and God, it felt horrible. He was always like when he sucked from our necks,

it didn't feel like he was taking just blood. It felt like he was taking like something more that I can't really put my finger on. Bone marrow or white blood cells. No, like something from my mind, something that you might find out if you went inside the tower manners, the way you're talking.

Yeah. Well, I, I'm sorry if i feel crusty after waking up after i've having almost killed people with two big holes in my neck that apparently look badass but i can't tell because i don't have a mirror oh these work for you now and i pulled down the little side mirror thing you know she goes oh cool okay well we're gonna go in there i can understand how it might be kind of scary for you to go back in there considering

all the bad stuff that happened i prefer not to okay there are a bunch of killer trees outside so it might be safer in there yeah never mind i'm coming with you never mind let's go inside let's do hey two adults in front the kids in the middle two adults behind that sounds great payton hears that immediately goes to the behind he's like yeah it's a good play on ron hears that immediately goes to the middle okay looks and nods like, that's probably right. Good enough, let's go. So you enter the tower.

God, what do you call a room when you enter a fucking house? A foyer? Is it foyer or foyer? I've never known that. It's foyer. Nope. Is it not?

It is a foyer. Maybe a rocaforta. Yeah, so you enter the foyer. You see a bat perched on top of a tapestry depicting Terry Sr. And it opens its mouth and without its lips or its jaw moving, you hear the voice of Terry Sr. come out. And you hear it say, Welcome to the foyer of my home.

Little Borat. My wife. So Terry Sr. recorded his voice into a bat? As a creature. As a bat with its mouth still open goes, this is one of my many mucking bats. I've recorded information to pass on to any visitors who might wish to enter. Ron doesn't like it, but he sure as hell respects it.

Do these bats respond to our questions? Like Alexa? You asking Terry Jr. this? No, Terry senior. I'm talking to the bat. You gotta say, hey, Terry. Hey, Terry. So the bat with its mouth still open, you hear the voice go,

do not try to communicate with the bats. These have been pre-recorded things I've said into their mouths, which they only have the power to repeat word for word by opening their own larynxes for my beautiful voice. Environmental storytelling through audio logs. This truly is an obsidian tower. I may take a D4 fucking damage.

That's really good, though. Holy shit. That's really good. Oh, one. Four damage. You're going to kill me. That's great. Hey, Terry.

Fuck you. Thank you so much for coming into my home. You've clearly been invited because otherwise you'd be dead. He's slowly turning into Mario. Oh, yeah. Thank you so much for playing my game. All right. Does the intro look like this is, in my head right now,

just a black obsidian version of the Mario Tower from Mario 64? Yeah, pretty much exactly. It's a big old staircase. Yeah. It's the fucking... Like the eternal one that goes up. Oh, the big one. it's like a straight shot up to the right of just this staircase that it doesn't make euclidean sense it feels like it's

going straight in one direction like not curving around a tower to your right and to your left you can see a big painting of a bomb you can see candlesticks mounted on the wall going downward presumably into some sort of uh basement as that gets darker and darker as it curves around the tower. Hey, fellow dads, I don't know about you, but I'm feeling pretty like 14 out of 45 HP right now. Hey, this is just Matt talking instead of Daryl. What's all of our HP? I can cast some spells. I'm full.

I'm 21 out of 27. Well, we got this potion of healing, which will give us... We should use up my spells first, though. I got an idea. Let's take that potion. I pull out one of my Daryl Pale Ales. I don't think we should

I'm like let's mix this bad boy up. You know alcohol helps the you know kind of increases the effects of Tylenol and stuff. Probably tastes okay. We can all take a sip of this.

I don't okay. You're not supposed to mix alcohol with Tylenol. No I know. It's dangerous because you could feel too good.

Hey Glenn can you toss that potion over? I really need about 34 HP. I think you should just drink this on its own, but sure. I cast Cure Wounds on Daryl. Alright, go ahead and roll for that healing. 13 plus 3. You just

got healed for 16 HP, my friend. I'm about to pour the potion into the beer. I'm like, huh, I feel pretty good. You know, maybe it's like a like a placebo effect. They say reaching for a cold beer is actually what makes you feel better in the beer. You don't even need to drink it. So maybe we don't need to mix alcohol and medicine. I pour the I pour the potion.

Dear listeners, I pour the potion into the beer and then I put the twist off back on it. Go. We'll just save this bad boy for later. Okay, we'll find out what that is. I heal myself for eight. Great. Could I also get a little bit of that? Sure. I toss my bottle over to you. I drink it. All right. Roll

constitution saving throw natural 20. I'm going to do a statistical analysis on our roles like now Anthony went and checked it. I did. It was absolutely natural 20. So it turns out, unfortunately for everyone, that the combination of hard drugs and beer goes great. And you get the healing of two healing potions in that one drink.

Oh. So you roll 4d4 plus 4. It'll probably heal you all the way up considering you only had six you were losing, right? Yeah. Actually, no matter what, you will fully heal. Okay, cool. All right. That was some quality D&D action.

Good stuff. So I do think we should take Clementine's advice and check out the basement and see if there are any more kids down there. Absolutely. We've been pretty, I would say, loose with how much we should let the kids be involved in what's been going on. That's a good point. So do you think we should bring our little buddy over there? Well, I don't want to leave them alone in the town. Well, if there are kids trapped in the basement, then we could trap those kids down there too

and then just hold them all there. I mean, they could be safe down there. Yeah. Let's go down and find out. But before we enter any room, I think the adults should look to see if it's pg or maybe pg-13 before letting the kids look okay so payton and clementine you guys hang out back here okay okay you head downstairs basically you're in a basement and you see three things simultaneously all of equal importance first on your right you see that half of the room has

basically been bisected and uh half of it is just a jail, essentially, with these cell bars separating you from the inmates. And within the holding cell, there are six unconscious kids with bite marks on their necks. Guarding the cell are two very well-armored kids who are also unconscious. And across from them, on the opposite side of the room, across from them on the opposite side of the room are three treasure chests with a pool of blood that sort of is smeared all around and in front of them. Yeah, let's not touch that. That seems kind of gross. To touch the treasure chest?

Yeah, no, thank you. Are they like explodey treasure chests, do you think? Glenn's just not a fan of bodily fluids on stuff. He's not going to just wait in there. And we should open up those treasure chests at some point. Let's wake up to just wait in there. We should open up those structures at some point. Let's wake up these kids first and foremost. But wait, some of them look pretty armed and the other ones look pretty... Well, let's take their weapons.

Let's kick their weapons away like in a cool cop movie. Good idea. Daryl goes to start disarming the kids. Cool cop movie about arresting kids. Make sure they don't have an ankle sword. Daryl goes and starts disarming the kids. So as you do so, they begin to wake up, and you quickly realize, like, this is not going to be an issue.

Because the kids are like, Mom, Dad, oh, my God, what's going on? And they're feeling their necks, and they're all freaking out. And then the kids within the cells begin to wake up, and they're freaking out, too. And Clementine looks at them and is like, oh, we're fine. I think they killed the French guy. And they're like, yay! Like, all of them are pretty psyched about it.

That was me, actually. Ron Sampler. We all did it. Ron Sampler? Ron! Ron! Ron! That's right.

Ron and all of his friends, we all worked together and did it. This is Henry. My name's Daryl Wilson, everybody. Towards the closest camera, put my hand out. Nice to meet you. I'm shaking my head. We've got to read the room, man. The kid's still going, Ron!

Ron! Ron! High fives your hand. All out. Nice to meet you. I'm shaking my head. We gotta read the room, man. The kid's still going, Ron, Ron, Ron. High fives your hand. All right. And this is Glenn. Hey, how do you get you kids out of here? One of the kids with the armor on him

has a key ring on his belt and he goes like, oh, I think probably one of the and then he just opens up the prison. Hey, toss me that key ring, bud. He does. Nice.

I catch it and I'm looking and I'm like, how many keys are on this thing? Do we have a lot of doors that are locked or is this period the only thing on it? There's basically two keys on it.

One of them that unlock the jail door, and the other one that you can't tell what it unlocks yet. All right. What's the deal with these treasure chest things? So one of the kids, the armor kid, was like, I got this stuff that I was wearing from one of them. I don't remember which. I think it was a, it's like a, what do you call it, a trap.

There's like a trap involved. Do you know where that blood came from? Probably somebody trying to come in here and like free. There were other people that came in and tried to free us. Oh no. When was my dad? Yeah. Some of our parents tried to come here for my dad. Like slowly like dawns on him, but like, yeah, they kind of came in and they, I'm not sure how, but they died. Side note, we're going to start like a support group for all these kids, you know we leave i think we should do that yeah it feels like the least we could do a foundation how do we roll to like see if we can tell what the trap is um perception perception what's a trap everybody

because i rolled a two trap is a kind of music daryl it's played in a lot of clubs it's sort of a dance music genre what does that term come from trap uh what does it come from actually i don't know it's a name for the house where they like uh it's a dance club where they sell drugs oh it's like it's like a trap house it's a place where you know you can get uh drugs and stuff and you know i guess they also play music for everybody who thinks that i'm not as cool as freddie he did not know what trap was no one thinks either of you are cool right now. Two fucking guys trying to figure out what trap music means on their Dungeons and Dragons podcast is about a magnetic south from Coolsville.

One gentleman knew what it meant was trying to find the words to express it. In your mind, just to be clear, somebody's listening to this going, I don't want to fuck Freddy as much, but that Matt. Someday. I got a 14 on my perception okay so you can tell that two of these chests are not chests they are in some way alive can i tell which ones no you can't you're gonna have to do other shit like if this is one of the things i don't like about dnd is like the role should just allow me to solve the thing.

But the more fun version is like if in real life there were three chests in front of us and we had to figure out which one of them was not a living thing, like what would we do? Yeah. So that's sort of the puzzle here. Okay. So first step, let's get these kids

out of the area of the room. True enough. Because I see blood, but I don't see body parts, which makes me think something got eaten it was bad so let's get them out of here if i see a lot of syrup on the ground and there's no waffle on the barrel was there daryl was sure you could really use that bat right now oh that's a good all right kids you need to leave you can leave right now get in the stairwell hey payton you're in charge buddy yeah i got them

all right get those kids out and don't don't go too far these kids respect the beast that is payton these kids uh initially like why are we listening to you and then pay it's like because they said you should have the adult in the room i'm the i'm the line leader do you guys ever have line leaders in kindergarten no we had we had when we all when we all stood in line if you were a line leader yeah if you're a good student you got to be the person in the front of the line for when we went anywhere around campus. So the narc. So the narc, yeah.

I was line leader more than a few times. Freddie, that means narcotics officer. Which are usually not welcome at a track. A lot of people were like, ooh, I want to fuck Matt, but then they heard that Anthony was a line leader. He basically, like, flexes at the kids really hard. They're like, Jesus, okay, you really care about this, huh? And so they follow him into the stairwell, and he's like,

cool, we're just going to sort of stand here in the stairwell where we can't see anything, but I can hear you. Is that fair? Yep, yep. Cool. All right, hey, so maybe we want to throw some of those animals that only live for a certain amount of time as it is. What about frogs?

They're less cute than bats and I wouldn't feel as bad about sacrificing them. Why don't you spin up some frogs and we'll at least get rid of some of the uncertainty in the situation before us. Yeah, Henry can talk to them

and tell them that each of those chests are like wonderful candies or they're going to be safe forever. There's flies in them or something. Okay. Henry doesn't in them or something. Okay. And who doesn't want to do this? I take out the hat of vermin

and I say, hat of vermin, hat of vermin, I would like three frogs, please. Oh, we only need two, but I guess we can just keep one for fun. I would like one for fun. Okay, so that's fair, Ron. I'll call him the fun frog.

Two regular frogs appear and then one frog shows up and goes, a trap house is when you put two drugs and you listen to cool music. This frog isn't fun at all. Really quick, you should only be able to pull two. I was like, I want to fuck those other frogs. Because you already pulled a bat earlier. Oh, yeah, and I haven't rested.

It hasn't been a day. It's every day. Okay, so yeah, two frogs and I haven't rested. It hasn't been the day. It's every day. Oh yeah, okay. So yeah, two frogs. Nick's the fun frog. He goes, well I guess that's me. It's a living. And he just disappears. Da da da da da da. It is a comedy cheat, but there will literally never be

anything funnier than me than a Flintstones appliance shrugging and saying it's a living. Everything we did in comedy after that joke was a waste of fucking time oh you mean like the pterodactyl that lives in their sink and yeah it's a living like that's literally the funniest thing that comedy has ever invented uh uh so hey oh man all right let's throw these fucking frogs at these yeah why are you guys looking at me to do it? I'm not going to do it. I'm a vegetarian. I pick up one of the frogs and I chuck it at the leftmost. Roll attack.

I just want to see how hard you threw this frog. I chucked it. Like a light underhand toss. Okay. I thought you were saying you like fastball. Fucking knucklehead. I just chuck it to the leftmost chest. And here's the windup.

Roll a D3, baby. To do that, you take a D6 and you have it. Okay. I want to fuck you, Anthony. Now everyone wants to fuck me again. Line leader Annie on a roll of D3. The frog, as it goes through here, goes... And with a splorch, it smacks dead into the center of the chest and just squeaks off it and then just sort of hits

the ground and then starts hopping around hmm i pick up the other frog and uh i mean we gotta close his eyes he can't look this is awful we gotta see if it if the ones that are bad do anything so i control right henry right henry that's like in science you gotta do a control sorry buddy and i tossed it the middle one okay so and the second it hits, instead of sliding down, it just sticks there. And then you see the wood around the lock begin to, like, fucking finger tendrils come out of it.

Run, little frog, run! The chest, and it goes... And it can't move. It's like legs are, like, kicking. It's the shoe from Who Framed Roger Rabbit getting dipped in the... It's, like, that level of sad. Now I'm thinking about that.

That's the saddest thing in movies it's literally the worst thing that's ever happened i still can't i still have to skip that part if i'm re-watching that movie like it's literally immoral i think that that is in that movie the top of the chest opens up a massive tongue comes out with teeth lining the lid of the chest and the tongue flicks open and grabs the is it like the wrong stone Sure. Sure, it's like that. That's all I'm picturing is that big Rolling Stones tongue. Feed me, Seymour. It's like that.

The Rolling Stones tongue comes out, licks the frog into it, it drags it inside, and then there's a crunch. A little bit of blood squirts out of the top of the chest, and it slams shut. The frog that hit the leftmost one has to hop back towards us. No, it was busy watching the other one get eaten, and its eyes are very big. I think we know which one the normal one is a hop back towards us no it was busy watching the other one get eaten and its eyes are very big i think we know which one the normal one is i think we can confidently say that that's probably the treasure chest that doesn't eat the frog since it didn't eat the frog daryl walks

towards the left most treasure chest and uh tries to open it so you open it it is a normal ass treasure chest and within it you see does does Daryl watch professional wrestling? Absolutely. So Daryl immediately recognizes what's inside as a professional wrestling championship belt that doesn't have a specific logo attached to it, but it is an item created by Adam Soma and it

is called the belt. It is a replica wrestling championship that grants a dad advantage on persuasion or intimidation, but only if you phrase your attempt as a classic wrestling promo. Daryl reaches down, picks it up, and holds it up over his head and turns, and he's smiling like a 10-year-old kid. He's like, oh my God, look what was in here. What is that?

Henry's never seen professional wrestling. Are you kidding? You don't know what this is? It seems to be some sort of fashionable belt. It doesn't look very practical. It's a wrestling belt. It's going to be the thing that makes Matt study for the next two weeks wrestling phrases

so he can know what he's talking about because Matt does not watch wrestling. All right. Well, that was worth the traumatic death of a frog, I guess. Let's get back upstairs, guys. Is that it? Glenn, this is a belt. This is nobody.

What does it do? It looks like a cool, I mean, you can roll intimidation with advantage. Why aren't you thinking this belt's awesome, everybody? It's a 15.

I think that'll do it just for a casual intimidation. So everybody hearing that is like all of a sudden Daryl seems much more masculine and intimidating than he did before. Whoa, whoa, that's a good bell. It was really intense.

Was that the belt? No. Huh? I put it on. That's really cool. I have this guys. Yeah, go for it. Go ahead.

You just have a wrestling belt on my polo shirt. And then a wrestling belt. you. My polo shirt. Polo shirt. And then a wrestling belt. And then some fucking cargo pants. Yeah, and a wrestling belt. Yeah, it doesn't appear to be doing anything vis-a-vis holding up your pants, but it's pretty cool. I take off the wrestling belt, and then I take off my normal belt. It just feels stupid to have two belts on.

Good point. And then I put the wrestling belt on. But now the pants are definitely kind of sliding. It's not really doing the job of a belt, but he's not going to let anybody belts on. Good point. And then I put the wrestling belt on. But now the pants are definitely kind of sliding. Like, it's not really doing the job of a belt, but he's not going to let anybody know that. But definitely Daryl's constantly kind of holding his pants up from now on. You have disadvantage on all two-handed weapon attacks.

Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Well, no, here's what you can do. Here's what you can do. You have disadvantage on all two-handed weapon attacks. You can choose to let your pants fall down at any point to gain advantage again. However, from that point on... I might lose the pants.

It might go to my ankles. Exactly. And then you will be unable to move. Yeah. Then you're grappled by your own pants. All right. Daryl just like... Ron wonders when he can get a belt of his very own.

It is not the only belt that was offered by our fan base and our big list of suggestions, which you can add to if you're a patreon subscriber daryl just runs to the door payton check out the belt payton's like oh that's so fucking sick that's what i would have wanted if i'd let anybody fight for the ufc you want to try it on buddy i take it off i throw it at payton he wears it and he goes oh yeah and he like points at little kids he's like look at me look at me and tell me i'm intimidated like jesus christ yes oh my god you're so intimidating god he goes ah i'm never giving And he like points at the little kids. He's like, look at me. Look at me and tell me I'm intimidating. And they're like, Jesus Christ. Yes.

Oh my God. You're so intimidating. He goes, I've never given this birth. Daryl walks back and he puts on his normal belt. I think you should wear that, Peyton. Peyton's like, no, I mean, I got to earn it. Anybody who watches professional wrestling knows it's all about the chase. It's not about getting it.

So you should have it. And he takes it off. He goes, I know I'm intimidating. The real intimidation is inside me all along. Oh, yeah, Peyton. I take my belt off. He's like, yo, you not about getting it. So you should have it. And he takes it off. He goes, I know I'm intimidated. The real intimidation is inside me all along. Hell yeah, Payne. I take my belt off. I was like, yo, you can have this one. I chuck in my belt. He's like, I don't really want that one. No, put it on, buddy. Your pants seem a little loose.

Yeah, this gigantic man-sized belt. He puts it around and there are not enough holes for, it's like the holes are all on the end. Hey, what do you got that knife for, man? Put a hole in there. Okay, sure. So it like wraps around him like twice. Are we really going to sit here and say that Daryl's belt isn't one of those dad belts that's like the braided leather that you don't need the hole in?

Do you know what I mean? Oh, shit. That is very good. That's true. Let's wreck on that. No, because I would wear, he would wear like a church belt. Like a straight. In fact, it's probably reversible.

It's brown on one side and black on the other i forgot long ago that they even sell non-reversible belts so we were here for something oh terry save terry let's do this yeah let's head back upstairs so you head back upstairs pass all the kids peds like what do i what do i do with them are we cool we good should we keep following you guys or why don't you guys hang out down here in the lobby? I don't know that we want to be responsible for traumatizing even more children today. Okay. All right, kiddos. Well, Peyton here will take care of you, and we'll be right back, hopefully with another kiddo.

Should we go downstairs? I'm going to head downstairs. Ooh, three chests. Hell yeah. No, no, no, no, no, no. Don't wait. What? Don't do it?

No, no. Don't go downstairs. All right. And those chests are very, very bad. They will kill you. Those chests will eat you, so don't. Yeah. And they're really boring to fight, so don't fight them. All right. And those chests are very, very bad. Those chests will eat you, so don't. And they're really boring to fight, so don't fight them. All right, well, now you got me.

Now I'm not. You were definitely going to hear this after me fighting a chest if you hadn't said something about them being boring, so good on you. Okay. Peyton, you're in charge. If something goes south,

something feels like it's going off, take the kids and just get a safe distance away from here, all right, man? All right, just run, or do you want me to get in the van? Get in the van and drive. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Leave the van for us.

You guys get out of here. Go on foot. You guys are like a bunch of kids. I toss in my keys. What? Peyton catches it. He's like, hell yeah. Peyton's not going to drive without us.

He's not like somebody, Glenn. I'm going to stay here until he... Oh, damn. Oh, damn. I'll stay until you tell me to leave. Until I hear you yell Peyton Floret, I will stay here with you guys. Perfect. If something goes wrong, tell our story.

And make me sound really, really cool. Those are mutually exclusive. You guys are talking and you begin to notice that your voices are echoing through the halls of this tower. You can hear them echoing upwards. And you hear Terry Jr.'s voice boom down, and he goes, God damn it, I told you to leave. I told you to just leave me alone. All I want to do is get to the goddamn astral plane so I can be with my fucking dad. And I will open this portal if it kills you and every single other person in this town.

Now get the fuck out! I'm not leaving, mister. Even if you don't like it, I'm here to save you. So the tower begins to shake around you, and between all of you, you can see a tear open up in the fabric of reality. Oh, shit. For a brief second, you see, like, oh, my God, this is what we saw when we split the fanny pack of holding in half.

And the tear, just as soon as it opened seals back up and you hear Terry Jr.'s voice from above echo down saying, it's working, it's working I'm gonna see my fucking dad again and nobody, especially not my stupid goddamn stepdad Ron, is gonna stop me! We'll be right back. Dungeons and Daddies is Matt Arnold as Daryl Wilson, Anthony Birch as our DM, Will Campos as Henry Oak,

Beth May as Ron Stampler and myself, Freddie Wong as Glenn Close. Theme song and outro is All Right by Maxton Waller. Additional voices this week by Jimmy Wong and some ambiences from Sword Coast Soundscapes thanks this week to adam soma valori wagoner and harry motchman for submitting character names that were used in this episode these folks represent a stalwart vanguard of supporters of this podcast via patreon find folks like david d charles martin yamatt fiat lux ray mouse mundo and joel who doesn't need a last name because

believe it or not he's the only one These folks have all taken upon themselves the solemn duty of financially chipping in to help make this podcast possible. You too can experience cool perks and a deep sense of emotional fulfillment that can only come from putting the team on your back by visiting patreon.com slash dungeons and dads, where you can select from a number of levels of support, gaining access to everything from the ability to submit characters and items, all the way to uncut episodes with annotations and editing notes, monthly bonus content, and most recently, a PDF newsletter called Daddy Issues, where you can read in-character columns written about topics near and dear to the dad's hearts.

All that and more at patreon.com slash dungeons and dads. In other news, we're undertaking a group transcription project to transcribe the episodes of dungeon and daddies for people who like to read along or search for stuff or who can't listen to podcasts codename the dungeons and daddies group undertaking for transcriptions or project dad gut for short if you'd like to lend your lightning fast typing skills to this project you can find the link to the discord by visiting bit.ly slash dad gut all caps d-a-d-g-u-t all capital letters find us on twitter at dungeons and dads facebook at bit.ly slash dungeon dad subreddit at r slash

dungeons and daddies we're on spotify and itunes and we always appreciate when folks tell a friend about the podcast or leave a review on itunes which always helps get the word around and helps this podcast grow speaking of podcasts our other podcast story, is shaking things up. Instead of breaking a new story every episode, we're going to start writing a whole new scene every episode for one of the fan favorite movies we broke called Heaven Heist. And now is the time to get on that train because starting next week, we're going to be writing

that script one scene at a time. Story Break is a podcast. If you're listening to this, you know how to find podcasts. Finally, thanks to all of you listening out there for your patience these past couple of weeks. A bunch of us were traveling or sick or recovering from sickness, which made wrangling all five of us pretty difficult. So thanks for sticking around while we got better. And we hope you enjoyed this episode. Next one's coming at you August 6th. So until then, drink plenty of fluids because that's perennially good advice. There was a time when you could read between the lines

You know they never brought you down Never brought you down Just give me like five of those and then just Freddie layer them in. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Rocks rock. Rocks rock. Rocks fucking rock. Rocks rock. Rocks rock Rocks Fucking rock Rocks rock

Rocks Rock Okay now Freddie Don't do any of the Larry Just play those back to back Rocks