Tales from the Stinky Dragon - Menace of Maschatten - C02 Ep 08 - Gone with the Windmill

Episode Date: June 21, 2023

The party searches Frankenstein’s Windmuhle in hopes of tracking down Weegor and Skelegonne’s mysterious crystal.  Check out our merch and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok and more: https://linktr.ee/TalesFromTheStinkyDragon Go to http://shadyrays.com and use code DRAGON for 50% off 2 or more pairs of polarized sunglasses. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is a Rooster Teeth production. We'll see you next time. our adventurers arrived at the mountain of musketon to warn the village of an impending eddy while combing the local commerce the party encountered a wage wanting weegor with wild wargs and eventually the infamous dr frank and his brother stein but their meet cute was cut short by skelegon a black boned purple flame dragon searching for a stolen crystal, but settling for a hostage. Frankenstein, grab a guzzler. Let's get back to this gassy goss. Gus, it sounds like you're on the verge of tears. You're like, I'm going to cry.

I'm at the Frankenstein. It also sounded like you were like asking us. And it settled for a hostage. Frankenstein. Yes, that is correct. You are an inspiration to us. I have a question. You keep pronouncing it drag on.

Why are you pronouncing it that way? Because that's how it's written. Yeah, but how is it written? Drag on. Is it like a spray for drag queens? Is it different than dragon? I think there's just an E at the end. D-R-A-G-O-N-N-E.

Okay, that's what I was asking. That's what I was asking. Okay. Yeah. My name is Gustavo Sorolla. I'm our dungeon master. I'm joined with our four players, as always, who are... Barbara Dunkelman.

I voice Elga Von Brath. She's a female vampire barbarian half-elf and very cute. Blaine Gibson. I'm doing Chip Haney. He's a male tiefling rogue. And I just noticed that I've had a mustache the entire time I've been playing chip. I think that that helps me get into character.

Interesting fact. I'm Chris Damaris and I'm playing Barney, Barney, a human cleric. Someone posted a photo of a John with a bunch of photos of chip and they're like, spot the difference and you can't big, big, dark mustache. Yeah, uh i however am john reisinger and i am playing matty conficius who is an eric

cochran uh ghost monk all right now the intros are out of the way let me hit you guys with an arrow a little uh warm-up role-playing question this week we rolled a 27 so the question comes to us from ibsa rochelle on Discord. What's something about your character that would surprise your party members, but your character thinks is no big deal? I can go. Yeah. I don't think that they're aware that Chip was, like, an assassin in a

past life. I think I've, like, talked about it in a meta perspective, but, like, he's brutally murdered and killed people. But it's just a 9 to 5. It's just a jab. Just pays the bills. Yeah. brutally murdered and killed people but it's just a nine to five it's just a jab yeah keeps the lights on for for skipper and carol so the the question was something about her character that would surprise other people but it's no big deal to us right it would surprise your party members uh but it's no big deal to the character themselves. Don't tell anybody, but Elga is a vampire. What?

Here's the thing. I don't know. I don't know if we've established that the party knows or not. I can tell you for a fact, Barney doesn't know. Chip doesn't know. Elga just happens to keep falling, like stumbling and tripping mouth first onto people's hands. Although I think she tried the bite of sucking last episode, which almost got us into an encounter situation. Oh no,

you tripped. You fell. You're a little goober. You fell down. Yes, absolutely. I think Mateed is probably the only one who knows. Does Mateed know? Mateed knows. I think they know. Barney, he's not always happy. You know, go lucky. How? Oh.

Wait, the question was, what do we not know that your character knows but is fine with well like it just thinks it's a big deal yeah okay well i just i feel like he's only presented a very happy you know sunny disposition yeah yeah it's a very barney answer which is why elga like always shields herself. The sunny dispositions. Yeah, that's why she can't be near Barney. Yeah. Mati doesn't, it's been so long. Mati does not actually remember how they died,

but they don't think that's that big of a deal because it's such a non-starter for them. I could see that. Once you're dead, it doesn't matter. I would imagine the mortals of the group would think that that would be a very memorable experience. Yeah. How dare you speak to Skelegon this way? I will only ask you once more.

Where is the crystal? No crystal, only death. Frankenstein grabs a loose plank of wood from the ground and lunges towards Skelegon, striking his claw with the plank. The wood breaks in half, but Skelligon doesn't even flinch. Instead, he lifts the claw and snatches Frankenstein, lifting him high into the air. Skelligon glares at the purple-clad brute for a moment and then turns to you all. This one may be a fool, but perhaps you are not. If you ever want to see Frankenstein again, you will return the crystal to me in the eastern snare lands.

You have one day. Do you understand? What's the crystal? What's the, what the, what? No. Get out of here. You're starting fires. We got to evacuate these buildings.

Is it better because in that bread box? Skele-God looks at you, Elka. Do not test me, spawn scum, or I will raze this village to the ground. You have one day. I'm only trying to get you what you want, and you're not to give me details. This is not helpful.

Skelegon launches into the air and vanishes into the clouds of ash. I think Skelegon has mistaken us for heroes that are here to save this land. We're just trying to clear our legal name. That's it. We're alleged criminals.

Speaking of legal names, the alchemist in pure shock, Mother of Maul. Am I seeing things? Was that a dragon? I don't know. Yes, it was. I'm very familiar with dragons. Oh, really?

Yes, I studied them in school just last year. Well then, Elga, you would know, of course, that dragons have been thought to be extinct for at least 300 years. So at this point, they've passed into the realm of myth. Right, Elga? Yes, you could see the shock on my face when I saw Dragon only simply because they should have been extinct, not the reason. I need to note that with the random biting

that Elga did at the end of last episode and this random lying that Elga's doing now, Matit is fascinated by this little creature of chaos that doesn't seem to have a rhyme or reason on why they are doing these things, but Matit finds it very enjoyable. So a little bit of a smile on Matit's face right now. Elga, would you like to tell the rest of the party

about dragons or would you prefer I tell them? Why don't we tag team? The one word at a time. Okay. right now. Elga, would you like to tell the rest of the party about dragons or would you prefer I tell them? Why don't we tag team? The one word at a time. Okay. This will go great. I'm here to hear it. Dragons.

Are. Large. And. Fearsome. And. Powerful. Don't. Don't.

But. And Powerful Don't But Were Thought To Be Extinct

Oh, see, I saw much information I knew about them I am imagining that Chip and Barney are watching this like it's like a tennis match Back, forth, back, forth Oh my goodness That was amazing I am imagining that Chip and Barney are watching this like it's like a tennis match. Back, forth, back, forth. Oh my goodness. That was amazing. As you could see, they are winged creatures that ruled over Grotef long before any settlements were established. It's speculated that when the Great Mars spawned her children, dragons and spars got along peacefully. It's unclear who drew first blood, but after Millennium of Peace,

a war broke out leading to the Draconic Discord. Oh, Discord. Oh, sounds like a nice fancy app. Hey, for continuity's sake, from the last time we talked, last episode. Okay, yeah. Please switch to Blaine if you're talking meta. Please switch to Blaine if you're talking meta. Please switch to Blaine

if you're talking meta. Fires! There's fires! Should we help the people? The dragon lit things on fire. There could be people burning. The local fire brigade of Maskatin

has sprung into action and is quickly cordoning off burning buildings and trying to evacuate people as efficiently as possible. Do you guys need any help?

I'm a volunteer firefighter. I can volunteer firefight too. See two of us. They wave and just continue about on their way, dealing with the damage. Was that a yes wave or a no wave? Like two waving hands or like a hello wave? Monsieur Alchemist, do you know anything about these crystals that the Skelegon referred to?

Because quite frankly, it left before giving us any information in order to assist. No, in fact, I had no idea Dragons was still around. Why would Skelegon reveal his presence after all these years? The one thing I do know is that we must find the crystal and rescue Frankenstein. Is Weegor still here? Everyone go ahead and roll perception checks. What? That little turd run away.

I rolled 18. Eight. I rolled a 21. Ben. Barney, you instinctively look up to the sky to surmise what time of day it is. But you get distracted. There's a cloud that looks like an aurochs floating by. Sexy, sexy cloud.

Chip, you're not sure what happened, but you look around and see that Uyghur is nowhere to be found. But with your keen eyes, you spot several sets of footprints in the ashy ground. Mateed, you surmise the tracks are a mixture of humanoid footprints and paw prints. They appear to be heading northward toward the top of the mountain. And Elga, with your very sharp bat sense,

you peer up towards the summit of the mountain and spot cloth blades spinning amidst the clouds. Okay. The windmill. Or some sort of Leonardo da Vinci helicopter. And you said that was also north? Yeah, up towards the summit of the mountain. Is it going the same direction as the human and paw prints?

Yeah, the prints are heading north up the mountain in that direction. So we go left to the windmill at some point. Presumably. Well, if we're being deductive about it, then yes. We should go get our tax from him. We didn't give him any money. I know, but we should collect this from him. Just, you know, a little bit of karma.

Money is of no business to us. We have to save a life. Matita's shaking their head. No need to worry. I'm fully stocked and prepared to equip everyone on this journey. I have my bag full of potions.

And he pulls out a bag and begins rummaging through it. There's not as many as I thought there were in here. I could have sworn I had more than this. He pulls out two potions of healing and one potion of growth and offers them to you all. Apologies. Apparently my alchemical supplies were low. Perhaps it'd be best if I go scrounge up some more while you track down Weagle and then we can reconvene at that time. HP-wise, what's the team look like? I think that that'd be a good judge of who gets what. Well, I have three health.

Maybe stick a short rest. Visually, what was the time limit that Skelegon gave on the crystal? 24 hours. Okay, so we got 24 hours. Divided by three hit points means you can lose one hit point every eight hours, Barney. So ration those out.

I'm just going to take lead, and Mateed grabs the potions, gives healings to Chip and Barney, and gives growth to Elga. From a meta perspective, you do have time for a short rest, but definitely not a long rest because of your time crunch here. Chip falls face first into the ground to take a brief nap. That's how tieflings sleep. Yep. Eyes closed. Face to the ground.

It's a dirt nap. A dirt nap. Before we take our short rest, because I think we need to go somewhere to take a short rest, Mateed would like to question the alchemist a little bit more. I am a bit confused. I do not understand why it matters to us that we retrieve Frankenstein

considering our own goals currently. Yes. Well, Frankenstein is one of the clan leaders and can vouch for us. He has much sway in the judicial system of Groteth. So if we were to save this double-faced individual it would be beneficial for our overall goals.

We get a pardon. It pays to have friends in high places. Understood. It also, you know, this dragon is very dangerous, so we maybe want to keep him happy. I don't want him coming back. That's why it's best to find the crystal with much speed. Is there an inn close by? I think, you know, if you're doing a short rest, it's not like you have to sleep.

You just have to like sit down and take a load off. So, I mean, you go to like an inn, you could find like a tavern and, you know, just sit down and maybe eat a little bit of food. Okay. You go to Jacqueline's Jug House. Do we know if Frankenstein had a place that he lived or resided here in this town? Yes, he does have a manor, but it is some distance to get there. He also seemed just as surprised as we were about the crystal, so I don't know if his domicile

would have any clues to help us. Or like hiding there. Yeah. You would think if this dragon wanted this crystal so bad, he would tell us more information about it. It seems awfully inconvenient. Elga sounds cranky after their short rest.

Does Elga need a little time to wakey-wakey? She doesn't usually sleep at this point of the day. Gotcha. With that, the alchemist says, I must make haste to replenish my supplies. I shall catch up with you, and we will deal with Weigel together. Okay. And with that, he's off. Bye, Al.

I suppose we should head off and track down these crystals somehow. Y'all take a little nap, you little nappy fool. Took a short rest. Yes, it's absolutely nothing for me. I didn't need any HP. Why was Barney

so hurt? I don't know. I think Barney failed the dexterity check when Skelegon showed up and I think took a face full of fire. Yeah, I got half that fire because I'm a tiefling. Gotcha. Okay. That's right.

You also failed, but your tieflingness helped you there. So we head towards the East Gate, which we had seen on signs. Yeah, you can head towards the East Gate, but I will say that the tracks you saw that presumably Uyghur left did head to the north and that the windmill and the summit of the mountain is to the north. Just FYI. You're more than welcome to go to the east gate if you want. I think we should maybe go north.

Go after the Uyghur? Couldn't have gotten far. Why? Why do we need Uyghur? No question. He seemed real suspicious and he was trying to steal money from people. There was clearly some sort of, you know, differences of opinion between he and Frankenstein. Perhaps then maybe

he is connected to this mysterious crystal. Could be in on it. Okay. We don't know. Maybe we offer Vigor as human sacrifice to Dragon instead of getting Gristle. Maybe he'll approve of this. That's a good idea. I'm all for this. A nice little backup plan. Seems mean,

but okay. Or maybe we just use him as little snack. Who knows? Let's head north. All right, gang, let's boogie. We're gonna power walk there. It's funny because that's something that Blaine actually says in real life.

You follow the tracks northward, climbing stair after stair. The air begins to feel thinner and the ashen clouds closer and thicker. Finally, a hazy silhouette catches your eye, something spinning in a circle. Before you stands a tall stone tower Windmule. Windmule? Like M-U-H-L-E, but the U has an umlaut on it.

Oh, okay. If I say weird things, it's because they're spelled weird. That's fine. I just want to know. We don't get to see how these things are spelled. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Would this be kind of like a power plant in this world?

Is this what this is kind of considered? Yeah. Previously in the last episode, some townspeople had described to you the windmill and how it provided volts for the town. Okay. So yeah, you would imagine that this is what they would have been talking about.

Okay. And the door, there's a door in front of us? Yeah, it's an iron door. Mati tries to handle. Go ahead and make me a constitution saving throw. Definitely electrified. Don't forget to say it's alive. 12.

Volts course through your body, giving you a little bit of ouchie. Ooh. And you take four points of lightning damage. And you're knocked back, kind of like Back to the Future when Marty McFly gets knocked back by the giant speaker. You're like knocked back like five feet.

Matee, you're a flying Pokemon, so that's super effective. However, that being said, your sacrifice was not in vain. The door is open. Just don't think that I should be electrocuted because I don't have a circulatory system, but we'll go ahead with this. Well, you're ghost and flying type, so, you know.

Oh. I literally just went, do birds not? Nope. Birds do. Birds have brains and nerves. I was like, that's not, what? There it goes. Yeah.

Can I help Mateed up? Sure. I'll do the predator handshake and I'll. Messy. I'll go in. Okay. All right. Barney walks in.

Our stealthiest scout is going in. Does anything happen to Barney when he walks through the door? He disappears into the windmule. Oh, dear. I follow. And I say it's alive. Matide goes through and whispers it's alive as well. Elga goes through normally.

She wants to conquer her fear. Yeah, you all walk into the windmule. And you enter into a circular room with stone walls, wooden floors, two barred windows, and of course the iron door you just walked through. And there's a wooden stairway ascending up to another level. However, it appears the center of the room has collapsed, leaving a large, fairly deep chasm filled with water and floating wooden debris. Oh, weird place for a pool.

Like a sinkhole in the middle of the, like a water-filled sinkhole? Yeah, yeah, I go with that. Okay. Should I look around to see if I see anything that might look like it caused this or like there's any way around this? You can make an investigation check. Can I do that too? Because I want to look for tracks.

Yeah. If you're looking for tracks, that's like a survival check. No, it just seems like a lot of water here. What'd you roll, Elga? I rolled a three. I rolled a 21. One bad, one great roll. Yeah, we balance each other.

Which one's which? You can't really ascertain much. Your investigation doesn't turn up anything, Elga. Mateed, you are able to see tracks that walk around the edge of the room, kind of skirting the sinkhole to the east, going around that presumably look like they lead up to the staircase. Okay. Chip threw a copper piece into the water.

All right. And you wonder if you're missing money. You're the one throwing your money away like crazy. I miss my wife and I'm wishing for her safe return. All right. Well, now it's not going to happen. You told us. Yeah.

Oh, shoot. I throw another one in and i say i make a completely different wish make me a perception check chip okay let me remove this copper piece from my back pocket and here's a perception check voila it's a 17 you notice that you know you flip your copper piece into the water and it doesn't immediately splash. And you take a closer look and you realize that when you flip your copper piece into the water, it hit a hand that was reaching up out of the water and then bounced off of that into the water. Hold up. I want an accurate description of this.

A stagnant hand that's just floating out of the water or like under the water or like is it like grabbed it it didn't grab it it's like the copper piece hit the hand and then bounced into the water but the hand is like a stiff hand of rigor mortis no it's like grasping okay gang i threw a copper piece into this pond and then i told you my wish for carol to come back so then i threw another one in also wishing for carol to come back god dang it okay you didn't hear that i'm gonna throw another one in anyways it hit a hand so maybe that's carol oh god oh god i dive in i dive in all right my wife what happens guys i gotta know chip dives into the water as you're diving in chip you realize that there's two hands reaching out of the water

that are close to each other. I presume you're diving for those hands to try to retrieve them. Yeah, to embrace his wife. Volunteer fire brigade, but also just like, you know, emergency responder. Here you go. You're going to be safe. Carol, is that you, honey? Yeah, you begin swimming towards the hands.

And as you get close to one of them, it swipes at you, trying to hit you with claws on its hands. Is that something Carol is known to do? No, that's not Carol. That's not Carol. It hits AC-19. Oh, that's a hit. Carol, if that's you, honey, please stop. It hurts. It does four points of damage. Oh, no. Now both hands seem fixated on you, and they're trying to claw at you and trying to grab at you, Chip.

Help! Can I go grab Chip and pull? Yeah, let's send our most athletic lifesaver. Lower your walker. Yeah, you're going to jump into the water and try to pull him out? Like, what do you mean, Barney? Is he drowning? No, he's still swimming fine.

Just that hand swiped at him. Yeah, I guess I'll do the walker. Yeah, you extend your walker out to Chip. Chip, just roll an athletics check. See if you're able to grab onto that. 20 plus 2, 22. So nat 20. Nat 20.

Barney places the walker out perfectly for you, and you're able to grab on, and he helps pull you back out of the water to firm ground. I make sure I tuck my tail, too. I don't want any exposed pieces. I always forget you have a tail. Oh, yeah. I feel like Marty should have to, like,

roll a strength check or something. He's an old man. You can stop with that, please, Mickey. He's got it. He's got it. He's very proficient with this walker. I'm stronger than I look. Okay.

You said they were humanoid hands? Yeah, they look humanoid. What color are they? And now that you, you know, look at them a little closer, you can see they're kind of blackened and brown. So, like, I'm still not fully grasping the image we're looking at. Are these hands just reaching out of the water

and staying in place, or are they just below the surface of the water and just kind of hanging there? Like, what is this? John is really focused on how much these hands are out. I want to know if it's just hands that are reaching out of the water or if it's something creeping under the water waiting for us. Big Depeche Mode

fans, you know, reach out and touch me. That's great. Personal Jesus. Can I kick Blaine from the car? They were hands that were reaching out of the water. And they're just still hanging there. Yeah, they're like grasping around.

Oh, can we see anything under the surface that they lead to? I got dark vision. Yeah, make an investigation check. That's only a 12. It's hard to see. It's not just the fact that it's dark. It's also the water's very murky as well. So it's hard to see through.

But you can't see anything really further what they're connected to. I have no interest in dealing with this thing, and I think we should go upstairs where the tracks are leading. I kind of want to stab it. Did you happen to be able to tell how deep the water was when you were in there? Like, is it standing or too deep to stand?

God, the water is too deep to stand. It's pretty deep. Maybe this person is drowning and maybe they need help. Maybe they're just scared like a feral cat, you know, and you try to rescue and they claw at you, but really they just want love. I have rope if we wanted to throw it in there. As a flying creature,

I don't care about the things under the sea. Should we get rid of the water? How do we? Please explain, Barney. Please... A sinkhole in the middle of the room that is big enough for Chip to have jumped into and swam towards somebody

and is not standing depth. What are you going to do? I've got a few tricks up my sleeve. Mateed does the thing where Mateed crosses their arms and just gives that gesture of like, proceed, impress me well i can cast create or destroy water and i could destroy up to 10 gallons of water okay i don't know if that's enough how much water is in this do you think if you were standing in 10

gallons of water you could reach the floor 10 gallons is not very much water yeah i guess it's not that much think of a gallon jug in your fridge and just have 10 of those. It would be like ankle deep. It's like your bath. You'd have your bath. It'd be like a Coleman camping cooler. You know? Yeah. Yeah.

But maybe if Barney wants to try to destroy like the water around the hands, it would give us a better view of it for a moment. Yeah. Water holds still, you know, long enough for the reveal. There has to be a vacuum of like the water. It's not an immediate. I know how physics work oh the physicist baker magic physics you know what matide kicks chip back into the water can i dodge can i dodge matide does it matide does it i want to do it and i you know what i want to counter that and pull them in.

It's not that you can try to dodge it. That's part of your AC because your dexterity is added into that. So Matide makes an attack roll to see if they hit you. Okay. I'll only roll an eight. I'm using inspiration dice on this. Wow. My God.

I rolled a one. You're good. You're good, my dude. You're good. No, no, no. We're not, no peace No peace, signs and love and hugs, I'm gonna push you in now Oh, I like it

When I break your guys' character, this is not in chip Character, no it's just assassin training I would say for rolling a one Mateed loses their footing And stumbles a little bit into the water Oh no Kid Barney running kind grass Mateed isn't like very far.

It's just like a step into the water from where you are. Oh dear, oh no, oh Matid, no. So are we destroying the water or are we walking up the stairs? Let's walk up the stairs. What does Elga want to do? I haven't heard from Elga in a bit. Elga wants to try to take her hand axe and like use the edge of it to try to help the person who's in the water. Like, I don't know if it could reach.

The hand axe is pretty short typically. And this like the hands are. What about the great axe? The hands are kind of far. Like the actual hole in the ground is like 40 feet wide. Wow. So like it's out a little bit of a distance. It's a big room. The entire room you're in is about 70 feet wide. Wow. So like it's out a little bit of a distance. This is a big room.

The entire room you're in is about 70 feet wide. Okay. Yeah. And then the, what did we, we said like a sinkhole filled with water, like that's 40 feet wide and the hands are like 15 feet out, you know? So it would be, it's quite a distance.

I have rope if we wanted to continue to try that. Elga, really, you're the tiebreaker here. I'm down to try to save this person. This is our next person with ink in the well. Yeah. From our last campaign. That's what this is. And I'm glad I'm not the one causing it this time.

I'm going to lower my rope in. Reach out and grab the rope, Mr. Hands. So you would have to like throw the rope out there. Because like I said, it's like 15 feet or so. Sure. Elegance yelling instructions to the hands. Make an athletics check just to see if you're able to get the rope out there close enough for the hands to grab on.

It is a 17. And as the kids say, I go, yeet. I can't wait to meet this like story-wise pivotal character with an amazing voice that Gus has been working on for us to talk to. I'm excited. You're going to be blown away. I'm excited. Genuinely. I love fishing. All're going to be blown away. I'm excited, genuinely.

I love fishing. All right, 17's a good roll. You throw it out there, and you manage to put it in a position right where both hands are able to grab on, and they grasp onto the rope, what appears to be firmly. Okay, gang, can you support me?

Can you, let's... Here, let me take care of this. And Elga rolls up her little sleeves and pulls the rope all right all right elga make a strength check just to pull on the rope i feel like barney would chip in but would just be pushing the wrong direction 17 nice oh that's a really strong pull on the rope make me a dexterity check as well small vampire strength we love it it. Nat 20, 21. Yeah. Good Lord. You put all your strength into it and heave and pull on the rope firmly,

expecting, you know, a lot of weight and a lot of resistance, but you nearly lose your balance because there's actually almost no weight on the rope. But luckily you're able to catch yourself and right yourself. You very quickly pull the hands to the shore and you realize that they are not connected to anything. It's just two hands and they both lash out at you, Elka. Well, they're at the edge of the shore and you realize that they are not connected to anything. It's just two hands. And they both lash out at you, Elka. Well, they're at the edge of the rope.

Could I just not like toss the rope back into the water? My rope! I have a question. Are the hands not even attached to stubs of arms? They are just like... They're just hands with a little bit of a bone sticking out. Oh, this is weird. What's the thing from Adam's family?

Kind of like thing from Adam's family. I was thinking of the things from Legend of Zelda that come down from the ceiling. They both swipe at you, Elga. However, they rolled a two and a six and they both miss. And they're just kind of flopping around on the ground now.

Elga kicks them back into the water. Okay, yeah, you punt them back into the water. Slimy little hands. I pull my rope back in. I, like, you know, do the whole, like, loop thing, and I say, no one mentions this to anyone. Barney goes and pats you on the back and says, that was a good catch.

I really enjoyed our fishing with you. This has been really nice. How does Chip feel about that, Blake? I mean, it was all Elga anyways Yeah, Elga was the fisher person You threw it in So, Bothiel Well, I guess it depends on what is the skill involved in fishing

If it's the cast or the reel, who knows Matee just, you know, looks around at everything that just happened And then just silently turns around and heads towards the stairs I follow Okay around at everything that just happened and then just silently turns around and heads towards the stairs. I follow. Okay. Oh no, there's hands in the water. We need to save the person. I jump back in.

This show is silly. You do have to walk around the perimeter of the room just because the sinkhole's in the middle. But yeah, you can get to the stairs no problem. Do the hands wave by to us? I have a feeling they do something else. They shake their fists. They beckon towards you. They beckon you to come into the water. Weird. This is weird.

They start splashing water playfully. That's cute. I give them a thumbs down. Mateed turns back to the group and signals a good hush and tells everybody to... I don't know why we're being stealthy at this point. Consider we just had this splash zone adventure and signals a good hush for like, and like tells everybody to, I don't know why we're being stealthy at this point.

Consider we just had this splash zone adventure screaming about these hands. But let's, you know, maybe from this point on, we try stealth. I don't know. We had a man in chain mail jumping into the water. Barney stayed on the shore. He pulled him out. He pulled him out.

Yeah, yeah. So is everyone on board with approaching stairs and going upstairs? Sure. All right. Well, what's the marching order up the stairs? I assume Mateed's first. Yeah, I'll go first.

I'll go last because I'm noisy. Yeah. I'll go second after Mateed. Third, can Elga just do the thing you do when you're trying to make your keys not make noise and just kind of hold Barney just so all of his legs chainmail? He's behind me. Yeah. Or he's behind all of us.

Can we put a blanket over Barney? chainmail. He's behind me. Yeah. He's behind all of us. Howdy, my unhygienic hearers. Have you seen all the awesome fan art over at the Stinky Dragon subreddit? If not, you should go check it out. It's Stinky Dragon Podcast over at Reddit. You can meet up with other people who like the show and see all the awesome things that they're making. Give us a follow on social media at Stinky Dragon Pod. We're on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.

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Head over to rtxaustin.com, get more information about the event, and buy your badge. You all take the stairs up to the second floor. And again, it's another circular room, obviously, but about the same size, about 70 feet wide. Stone walls, wooden floors, two barred windows, and two wooden stairways. The one you just came up and another one that's going up to the next level. I just realized we're in a land where it's all about attaching random parts to people.

So these hands kind of make sense. I got you, Micah. I figured it out. The room is dimly lit by a few volts bulbs. It's furnished with three desks and a few rows of shelves. First, can Mateed hear anything? Like above us? Make a perception

check. Mediocre to bad rolls today. Twelve. No, you don't hear anything out of the ordinary. Nothing that catches your attention, I should say. Okay. Can I go check the farthest leftmost desk? When you come up, there's three desks to your left. So you're talking about when you turn the furthest to the left? Sure.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You approach the desk and take a look. And on top of the desk, it's a little pulse bulb and a page from a set of blueprints. And there's a few drawers. And actually, you look around, you notice all three desks have little false bulb lamps on them. Oh, they're little lamps. Yeah. Are all of them lit up, or is it only like one or two? They're all on, but they're producing

very dim light. Okay. I look through the drawers. What's the blueprint to? Just kind of give me a lay of the desk. Make an investigation check. 17. Nice. I'm all about 17 today. The blueprint looks like it's a rod of some kind.

It doesn't make much more sense beyond that, but it looks like it's a blueprint for some kind of rod. Looking through the drawers, you find a set of carpenter's tools. Oh, I used to be a carpenter. Barney, why don't you take these tools, huh? These tools look pretty used. Honestly, they're a little gross. There's like a blunt

saw, a viscous covered hammer and nails, a bloodied hatchet and a chisel. You said they're shelves? Yeah. Let's deal with this carpenter tools real fast before I get to that. So Barney's taking the carpenter's tools just for clarification. Yeah. So Barney, you can have these well-used carpenter's tools. And you asked about the shelves there, Mateed? Yeah. Just curious. Chip's looking at the desk. I go over to the shelves. Yeah, there's shelves actually all around the room. There's a few rows of shelves. One set of shelves on the northern wall.

And there's like five up against the southern wall. And then three also kind of close to the southern wall, but like a little offset from the ones up against the wall. Kind of like they're creating rows of shelves. Matide turns to Elgin and goes, shall we split the work? Absolutely. I'll take this one and you take the other

13. Just kidding. Matide chuckles. Matide like that. I go north. Okay, so Matide goes to check the ones up north and Elga, are you investigating the ones down to the south? Yes, but specifically during my investigation while also looking at the shelves, I

want to see if I could check for, I guess, if anything opens something, you know, like a secret book. She's trying to pull everything. Oh, you know what? Are there any candle braziers on the wall? Any sconces? Or those paintings with a candle? Yeah.

Any paintings with eyes that are looking at us? No, there are no paintings and no candle sconces because things are illuminated by volts here. People with electricity don't need paintings. I was hoping there would be a Young Frankenstein reference. What's funny is Elga said she would look at the one and

Matid could look at the others and then when you all divided it up Matid is the one who ended up going north where there's only one and Elga ended up going south where there's all of them. I like that. I like how that turned out. Okay. I go look at my one and Elga's looking at the ton. Mateed will just be very thorough in that one shelf. How high are the shelves?

Should we have had somebody with higher height looking at the shelves? The ceiling in here is only about 10 feet tall. So the shelves, you know, they are a little tall on the southern set of shelves. So there is a ladder leaning up against one of the shelves that helps anyone reach the higher levels. So both of you that are looking at shelves make me investigation checks especially since you're actively looking for you know books and stuff.

Are you sure I'm not perceiving things? Are you plus anything for investigation Barb? My investigation is a negative one but my perception is a plus three with advantage. My investigation is a plus zero, so we're not really that good. Could Barney go help Elga?

Yeah, I have more shells to look at. We didn't roll bad. You got a 14, I got a 13. Thank you, Barney. I got a three. Barney got a three. Barney, the shells are over here with the stuff on them. Yes, and on the walls, yes, that's where they are. Oh, these are bricks.

That's the floor, Barney. I'll deal with Matide first because there's only one shelf up there for them to look at. You're looking through the shelf up there and stacked on each shelf are various organs, innards, and body parts from a variety of creatures. It's just all different kinds of body parts. Elga and Barney, you go down to the south and there's much more shelves down there. The first shelf you encounter, Elga, you also see that there's a bunch

of different organs and innards and body parts seemingly organized in some fashion that you can't figure out. You can't figure out the organizational method. And as you're looking that, you know, Barney's help... Organization. There it is. That's good. That's really good. There it is. That's good. That's really good.

Give yourself an inspiration die for that one. Even though I interrupted you. As you're doing that, you know, Barney's also helping. And he turns the corner to look at the shelf from the other side. And as he does so, he turns that corner and comes face to face with a ward that is feasting on intestines and various viscera. Gross. So Barney's the only one who's seen this yeah it's because it's like from where you all entered it was behind some of the shelves barney went around to the back side of the shelf and he's the only one who can see it

currently does the warg know that barney's there barney you see there's actually two wargs they're not right next to each other they're kind of a little bit of a distance apart they're both eating the one closest to you that you kind of came face to face with is looking at you and growling Barney. So it looks angry? Yes. That's usually what looking at you and growling signifies. But it's okay if Barney doesn't like have good facial recognition.

Nice doggy. And now Barney will back up like a cartoon. Barney, have you found anything over there? Dogs. Puppies? Oh, no mean dogs.

There's no such thing as a mean dog, only a mean owner. Let's see these puppies. The warg that was growling at you, Barney, starts following you as you're walking backwards and the second one that's further away takes notice and begins walking around the far side of the shelves to investigate. Everyone go ahead and roll initiative. Okay those are mean dogs. Yeah.

We're fighting dogs Gus. You're fighting wargs. You all keep saying dogs. These are wargs. 15. They're just big dogs. Elga rolled a 9. 14. And you don't have to fight. You might be able to find another way to navigate the encounter. 18.

I'm not saying you will, but I'm saying it's possible. And I'm going to roll my initiatives here. So Barney, you and one of the wargs, presumably the one you came face to face with, both rolled 18 for initiative. Your dexterity is higher, however, for some reason. So you get to act first. What's Barney Dexterous Barney? So it's attacking, huh? We're in initiative.

You're in initiative, yeah. It's approaching you menacingly, growling and baring its teeth. And what's behind it? There's another warg and they're eating what exactly? A body? They're eating like intestines and hearts and livers. It looks like maybe stuff that's fallen off the shelves. Barney, do you have any tennis balls on the bottom of your walker?

That's actually very smart. I like that. I don't. That's funny. We should upgrade at some point with those. Nice doggy. Go to sleep. And then I'll try and cast sleep on it. Ooh. That's smart.

This warg has low HP. And I guess I'll cast the sleep on the one that's furthest away. Okay. Just for my own curiosity, why the one that's furthest away? Because more likely to stay asleep and away from combat. And sleep casts out in an area from that, and I'm close to the other one. Barney puts himself to sleep. All right. Yep. Yeah, so you're starting close to the other one. Barney puts himself to sleep. All right.

Yep. Yeah, so you're starting trying to target the one furthest away. For sleep, you roll 5d8, and that's the total number of hit points that it can affect. So roll 5d8. Big rolls, Barney. Big rolls. 18.

Nice. 18. Yeah. When you cast sleep, do you, like, sing a lullaby, or how does that go? Yeah. Go to sleep, do you like sing a lullaby or how does that go? Yeah. Go to sleep, little doggie. Don't beat me. I'm a froggy. You calling it a little doggie is such a gum gum move too.

The warg furthest away from you seems like it gets a little shaky on its legs and lays down, closes its eyes. All right. Now it's just the one that's in front of you that has the initiative roll right after you that's going to attack. Mm-hmm. And I guess I'll kind of like back up and stay in front. Is he far enough away to not get an attack of opportunity? He was maintaining enough distance, like a little more than five feet. So, yeah, he'd still be able to. Yeah, so I'll back up as far back as I can, but still stay in front of the party.

Okay. Is that it for your turn? Yeah. Okay. This warg that you're backing up from senses weakness in you backing up. So it decides to charge at you and try to bite it. It lashes out, biting, hitting AC. Oh my God.

That's a one. I can see it. You rolled a one. That's a one. I can see it. You rolled a one. I rolled a one. It's like in Jurassic Park when the raptors try to attack the kids, but, like, it's the reflection. Yeah.

It mistakes the side of the shelf for Barney and rams into the side of the shelf and crumples to the ground. Oh. And they're confusing. Well, Barney successfully put both of them to sleep. Is it, like, it hit the shelves and like knocked out or? It's a little disoriented. It's not unconscious, but it's disoriented. Right.

Chip. Do I have any sort of advantage because it's a little bit wobbly and it's also not aware that I'm approaching? Is there any sort of stealthy approach I can make to not tip it off? Since I said that, you know, it hit the shelf and fell and was a little disoriented. I would say that it's prone, which would leave it open to melee attacks being at advantage. Okay. So far we haven't killed any puppies

and I'd like to keep it with that. So I want to see if I can like grapple it and like put it to sleep, put it down. Put it down? No, no, no, no. Not like that kind of way, but like, you know, put it to sleep. Okay. All right. Sure down? Whoa. No, no, no, no. Not like that kind of way, but like, you know, put it to sleep. Okay. All right. Sure. Make like an unarmed attack on it with advantage

because it's prone. I also have like sneak attack. Does that count towards this? Yeah. Attacks can be non-lethal. So you could attack, roll your damage and like your sneak die, but you have to specify before you roll your attack that you want to be dealing non-lethal damage. Yeah. I want this to be non-dealing.

I'm going to go ahead and roll my attack. Oh, that's a one, but I'm going to have an inspiration die, so I'm going to roll again. No, no, no, you have advantage. You have advantage. Okay, never mind. Here we go. That's a seven.

I'm going to roll that again. I'm using my inspiration die. Here we go. And that is a 14. There you go. That hits. Yeah. Okay.

So then I do the bludgeoning damage plus the 1d6 from a sneak attack? Correct. All right. So that was a three. And then we're going to roll a d6. And that is a four. It's a seven. It's a seven points of non-lethal damage.

Yes. Okay. And I'm just trying to grapple it, pull it down. Come on. Yeah, you're grappling with it. You've got a firm grip on it. And it seems like it's on the verge of going night-night. Say, hush, puppy.

Hush, puppy. I'll give it to you. Why not? Yeah, you managed to successfully placate the dog enough to where, or not the dog. You got me saying dog. You managed to placate the warg enough to where it passes out and is unconscious.

I put it down, and I say, good night, sweet prince. And then I go, give him a little kiss. A little scruff on the neck. And somehow that heals him just enough for him to wake back up. That enrages Ward. What are you doing? They hate kisses. Should we tie him up?

Or her. Like a leash. Yeah. Maybe like hog tie. You know, just because it's a problem throughout the land, you know, overbreeding is something that is afflicted atrocity and other regions nearby. I think we need to spay and neuter these two beasts just to be safe.

I'll pull out my arm blade. I think that we need to... No, no. This is weird. I've got carpenter tools. I think with our powers combined, we can make these. No. Mateed pulls Elga aside.

Do you want to go do our own thing? Do you want to just, I feel like we could figure this out on our own. I don't think I've finished looking at the shelves, if I'm being honest. Got interrupted by some big old wargs. As you continue looking through the rest of the shelves, Elga, you see the rest of them also all contain various body parts. And there's nothing that I see that like is out of place or? No, it's just many, many body parts. You rolled a 14 on your investigation check, if I remember right.

And I believe Matita had a 13. Could I also quickly, I know Chip saw the blueprints of the pole could i just look at it and see if i recognize like if we've seen that while we've been walking around musketon like maybe the poles that were surrounding the city yeah make a wisdom check i think what i said was a rod a rod okay yeah wise old vampire old vampire. What did the wise old vampire It almost rolled onto a 17 and it stopped on the 3 so it's a 4 total. No, does that look familiar to you? Just some

blueprint for some kind of pylon shaped rod. Could I take it? Yeah, why not? I'm gonna put it in my pocket. Okay, so we have searched one desk, all the shelves and two dogs. And two dogs. Matide goes to the desk next to the shelves. And two dogs. And two dogs. Mateed goes to the desk next to the one that Chip checked and just like starts looking around.

Make an investigation check. Oh man, Gus, I would love to. Hey, it's a 17. That's not bad. Hey, you did. This desk is very similar to the other one. Also has a blueprint on top of it and a couple of drawers. I checked the drawers.

Is it the same blueprint? In the drawer, you find an herbalism kit. It's a bunch of pouches filled with fingers, clippers, and leather gloves, mortar and pestle, and several glass jars of organs. Fingers. Um, I take it. I like an herbalism kit. Elga, I assume you come over and take a look at the blueprint if you're asking about that. This blueprint looks different than the one that you previously inspected this one looks like it's a blueprint for some kind of clawed foot so rod clawed foot and i've checked all the drawers of this desk yes yes was there anything past the works when i went around that area it was just more rows of shelves that i would assume you all went ahead and continued your investigation of and that's

just all body parts i can check the third desk. Make an investigation check. Investigating world's greatest detective, bada-bing, 10. Why do you, anytime you say world's greatest detective, you end up kind of not having a great role. Cursing myself. He's got a plus three on investigation,

so I think he might be the best of us. Probably. This desk is built just like the other two, and also on top of it is a blueprint, and there's drawers on the desk. I presume you open the drawer and look in just like the other two and also on top of it is a blueprint and there's drawers uh on the desk i presume you open the drawer and look at it like the other one yeah uh you open the drawer uh and inside is a leather workers kit it's got a dull knife a hole punch and a spool of thread well i'm just gonna go ahead and pocket that into my magical uh fanny pack or bum bag for our European listeners.

Is it magical? To me, it is, because Carol gave it to me. And I've been through so much. Did she write your name on like a little like on the inside seam or like a little tag or something? It says, well, while you ask, Matilda, it says, To Chip from Carol with much love in every stitch. I made this for you. It is

magical, just like our romance. I will never forget the first day we met. We were both on the job as assassins. I knew that I could not continue on my life as an assassin without you, and

so I gave up my assassin. Some of it's scribbled out. I so I gave up my assassin. There's some of it scribbled out. I had to give up my assassin wave. I'm not done. I had to give up my assassin wave. I like to think he opens the fanny pack and this super long scroll just like rolls out and just keeps going and going.

I just feel like at some point it just goes, so anyways, I should be going. Thanks for... I'm running out of thread and time. And by the way, I left you some leftovers in the fridge. You just put it in the microwave for two minutes and 52 seconds. It should be perfect for your lunch. No, Barbara, it's just, so anyways, I'm at my sister's house if you need me.

If you forgot her number, it's 555. He's been on the search for this woman and she left a note in his fanny pack. Oh, man. Okay, we have pilfered and dealt with this room. Is there anything else anybody wants to do in this room? Are there no more blueprints on the third desk? Yes, there was a blueprint on the top of the third desk. And it was for?

It's like a blueprint for a mounting for a crystal. Elga, make me a wisdom check. Oh, great. Nine. We got a bad vampire. I feel like we got a bad vampire. You should be learning and aging. Because I'm a barbarian. I feel like we got a bad vampire. You should be learned and aged. Because I'm a barbarian.

Yeah, okay. They completely do not go together. That's why our vampire just bites instead of talks. I'll do my inspiration. Oh, really? Yeah, I want to know what this is. I predict a great roll. Here it is.

Ten! Your first one was a nine. Your second one was a ten. At least it's double digits. I will give it to you. Ten is the number I was looking for. There we go. Be me. Be me. Elga's really the only one who's looked at all three blueprints, so you're the only one who notices

this, Elga, that it seems like all three of these parts were designed to fit together. A rod, a claw, and a crystal mount. Like, right, right. Like the claw would sit at the bottom of the rod. Then the crystal mount would sit at the top of the rod. And it all looks like it would fit together.

So would it be kind of like a staff of some sort? Maybe. Okay. Like Indiana Jones? Could I take the other two blueprints since I already took the rod one? Sure. Unless your party objects. I shouldn't speak for them.

I'm imagining she just snatches it out of Chip's hand while he's looking at it. Did you discuss that they were all three? So we all have that information? Elga. Hey, guys. Listen. I have some information. Go ahead.

I don't know why these would all be separated. It seems very counterintuitive. But I have three blueprints that I think will go together to hold the crystal we might be looking for. See? She holds them all up to them. I have a question. Blueprints often have the author on them. Do these blueprints have the author's name on them?

No. Well, that's a bad use of your time. Does it seem like these are things that we could build with these new kits we got? It might be outside of your realm of expertise. It's like something you could maybe attempt, but you would need parts and some skilled hands to work at it. So Mateed's able to count. We got two wargs down, one warg still out there, and Uyghur still still out there and two sets of stairs that go up now one set of stairs to go up was one set that goes down okay where you came from and then only

one set that goes lovely then hit those stairs uh alonzi and and let's uh chip go ahead matide let's chip go first okay here we go power walking so uh it's chip first this time i assume matide's second then yeah and then elga third and Barney last. For flavor text, as we pass by, Jacques hisses at the ward. Oh, hey, Jacques. As you approach the stairs and begin walking up them, Chip, you inadvertently trigger a trip wire at the base of the stairs and a net falls down from the ceiling on top of you.

Make a dexterity saving throw. Okay. 13. The net falls right on you, trapping you, and it is electrified with volts, which course through you, doing five points of lightning damage. Oh, gee. Is there any chance that Weegor looks like Macaulay Culkin?

It's a good thing you weren't first that time, Mateed, because right in front of you on the floor is Chip restrained by an electrified net. It's a shocking revelation. I was just about to ask, what does this sound like, Chip? As you get electrocuted by this giant net. I don't want to touch it.

Help me. Mateed just observes what's happening to Chip. Could Elga use the corner of her great axe to like loop through the net and like throw it off of Chip? Yeah, absolutely. You grab part of the net with your weapon and toss it off back into the room. It lands on the sleeping warg. It wakes up. Roll for initiative again.

All right. So yeah, you're free. All right. Well, I dust myself off. So stealth is out of the question entirely. Maybe. Maybe. Or it could just be a trap that was set up and no one's around.

It's just like an automatic. I just meant Chip's reaction to it would have been a bit noisy. Do you want to continue back up the stairs there, Chip? Yeah, but I want to like investigate or perceive if there's any more painful things that are going to hurt me. Check for traps. Make an investigation check. I don't trust these here stairs. That's a 10.

It's fine that you don't trust the stairs because they're gone. When the trap triggered, these stairs retracted into the ceiling and they're now inaccessible. Guys, I lost the stairs. I'm so sorry. We weren't on them yet is what you're saying? Correct. Yeah, it was at the, I lost the stairs. I'm so sorry. We weren't on them yet, is what you're saying? Correct. Yeah, it was at the very base of the stairs, so that got triggered. The steps went up into the ceiling. The net

fell on Chip. Made a boo-boo. The stairs are gone. If only one of us could fly. If only one of us could fly and look up and see what might be the dealio up there. Garsh, what are we gonna do? The tea turns to Barney. After you.

I can't fly. But have you ever tried? Maybe you just have to say a word, like maybe the name of a creature really loudly. Go for it, Barney. I'm not a fool. Could have fooled me. So how high up are these now retracted stairs to the ceiling?

The ceiling's about 10 feet high. So it's like 10 feet from the floor. So just above your reach. Is it flush now? Yes. All right. Really quick. You grabbed a potion healing from the alchemist earlier.

Do you mind if I grab one of those off you? I gave one to you. I gave one to Barney and I gave growth to Elga. Okay. Then I'm going to use that now because earlier when I regained my HP, it was because we had a short rest. Yep. If you want to save that, I could heal you.

Yeah, gosh, Barney, if you want to. I mean, I'd really appreciate it. Gee whiz. I do a healing word. What's the word? Band-aid. Band-aid? Oh, gosh.

How much does that give me? I always thought the bird was the word. 1d4 plus 4, so that's a 5. I'm sorry. Oh, he rolled a 1 does that give me? I always thought the bird was the word. 1d4 plus 4. So that's a 5. I'm sorry. Oh, he rolled a 1. He rolled a 1. You asked for a 4, Blaine, so he did better than that.

All right. 5 is good. It seems that we have lost our entrance into the next floor. Perhaps there is a lever to get the stairs back down. So Mateed goes and tries to find anything now is no time for relationships and finding uh you know lovers and such elga will help look for a lever or some type of oh guys now's not the time for dating both of you can go ahead and make an investigation check elga picks the net back up with her axe

and flops it back onto ship. Put that down, put that down. I'm gonna roll two. No levers here, not anything. I think we're in a room of some sort. Elga rolled an eight. I rolled a nat 20. You can't find a lever, but you think you see

a mechanism partway up the wall that can be triggered to release the stairs with some kind of mechanism. I don't want to say a key, because it's not a lever that's sticking out of the wall. It's kind of something that's recessed in. If you fiddle with it, you might be able to get the stairs to come

back down. What do I roll for fiddling? Make a dexterity check. I'm all feathers. I'm all feathers. I'm all feathers, guys. You can't quite manage to trigger whatever the mechanism is. Perhaps one of you would like to have a try at this mechanism. I can try to do some dexterous Assassin's Creed leaping and jumping around to get to it. It's just a mechanism.

It's just a mechanism. It's just... You can reach it. Okay, then I reach it with my tail, huh? Whoa. He's going to make you do this at a disadvantage if you do it with your tail. Do it with my tail. Disadvantage.

Roll a dexterity check. Dexterity check. Here we go. You take five damage for electrocuting yourself by sticking your tail in this thing. That's a 16. Oh, off to a great start. Here's the second roll. Oh, looky there.

A 20. Good job. Here's the second roll. Oh, looky there. A 20. Good job. Nice. Gus is upset. He's showing off, but without even looking, just using his tail, Chip manages to manipulate the mechanism and have the stairs pop back out of the ceiling, down to the grass. We all are able to proceed if you wish. And then I use my tail to wipe my hair back, like slick it back, like real cool.

You know, now that the stairs are back you might want to check that the trip wire is also not back because i don't know if that resets every time the stairs come back down so maybe take a big step over the first step chip yeah okay i'll investigate to see if there's any other traps make an investigation check by the way gus are these stairs would you call these stairs or maybe like a diagonal ladder? Maybe a little column A, a little column B. That's a nine. No, there's no traps here.

Go Chip. Go Chip. Well, everything seems safe and sound. Here we go. One big confident step towards it. Right on the first step. I hop up. What happens, Gus?

So same marching order, Chip, Mateed, Elga, Barney. But Mateed gives a pause to let just Chip do his thing. Let's boogie, gang, come on. Chip takes a confident step towards the stairs and begins walking up them with no net falls. I don't know what the hubbub was about. Mateed, I assume you go as well? Mateed takes a nice step over the nasty step and goes

forward. Elga's taking steps, but like very like much like lifting her legs very high and putting them down on the steps just to make sure she doesn't trip on anything. Looking like John Cleese doing the silly walking. And just for safety, he's going, it's a life, it's a life.

Barney follows. Okay, great. You all go up these stairs and, you know, much like before, you enter a circular room with stone walls, wooden floors, three barred windows, one of which is larger than the others, and two wooden stairways, the one you're coming up and then another one that appears to be heading up to another level. This room is dimly lit by a single vaults bulb atop a circular wooden table that has a few papers on it.

The southern half of the room is split off by a wall and an iron door that's flanked by two suits of arms. Hey, what kind of instruments do these barred windows have? I don't even know what you're reaching for with that. I like bard I got it Blaine I got it Okay I'm gonna go back down the stairs and try to purposely trip the tripwire So we came up and we're

entering the room from what direction? You are entering on like kind of the northeastern quadrant The southern half of the room is blocked off by a wall, and then the stairs proceeding up to the next level are kind of across the room from you in the northwest corner of this room.

They're accessible not behind this wall with a door. Correct. Yeah, you don't know what's behind that wall with a door. And there's like, you said armored guard? Yeah. Yeah, there's like one suit of arms on either side of the iron door that goes to the south. I'm very suspicious of those suit of armors.

I feel like they're sentient. Iron door that is solid or barred? Solid. Okay. I mean, should we preemptively just attack these suits of armors just to get it out of the way? You do you, boys. You do you. I'm going to shoot my crossbow at it.

I will do the same. There's two. Are you both hitting the same one or are you hitting different ones?. I will do the same. There's two. Are you both hitting the same one or are you hitting different ones? We'll both hit the same one. Really? Why? Okay, I guess we'll hit two separate ones. I'll hit the one on the left.

So when you're facing them, you're going to hit the one on the left, which is the one to the east, and Barney would hit the one to the right, which is the one to the west. All right, both of you make attack rolls. Dang it. What's your roll? Roll one! Which rolls out to a what? Five. Five.

Got a good mind to fire on it, at least. Fifteen. Oh, that's good. Chip, you go to fire your crossbow, and right before you're able to pull the trigger, the tension line on it snaps and breaks. It's going to take you a little while to have to restring that crossbow. Oopsie-daisy. That sucks.

Shucks. Barney, yours does manage to fire just fine. And your crossbow bolt flies true and hits that suit of arms straight in the chest. And the bolt's sticking out of it and nothing seems to happen. Oh, false alarm. Well, I guess we should go through that door then, huh? Anybody want to try to open it? The door is a metal door.

Yeah. So I have thaumaturgy and it allows me to open unlock doors can i try that yes open so you cast thaumaturgy uh on this door to the south between the suits of arms and nothing seems to happen it's locked it's a locked door oh geez is there a keyhole no in fact now that you look there's not even a handle on it Jeez. Is there a keyhole? No. In fact, now that you look, there's not even a handle on it. Oh, it's just like a metal plank kind of thing?

Right. Hmm, it's not a good door. Was it there, and when he tried to open it, the handle disappeared, or was it never there? It was just, there was no handle, no. Can I approach the metal suits of armor and see if there's anything within those, or switches, or anything hidden in it? Yeah, I assume you're approaching the one that you shot? Yeah, and I'll get my arrow too. Your bolt.

I think when they're fired from crossbows, they refer to as bolts. Just minor point of clarification. So this suit of arms is actually a collection of various arms that are sewn together to appear like a suit of armor. Oh, God. It's holding a great sword raised in its left hand, and its right hand is slightly outstretched. Like an open palm? Kind of like horizontally, like it's reaching to grab something.

Like a handshake. Yeah. What's the other suit of arms doing? They're almost like mirror images of each other. Do they both have their right arm stuck out? No, the one on the western side has its right arm stuck out. The one on the eastern side has its right arm stuck out. The one on the eastern side has its left arm stuck out. Maybe if we make them fist bump, then the doors will open.

Perhaps we have to shake the hands at the same time. Oh. I'll shake the hand. Can I do that? Of the arms on the west. Yeah. You reach out and grasp his hands to shake it. And the iron door that's between them slides open.

Hey. Nice to meet ya. Before we go in, could I just look in and see, just to get a lay of the land? Just to peek your head in? Yeah. You peek in, and you see what appears to be a small bedroom that's furnished with a few pots of flowers, a rather large bed, and an iron chest at the foot of the bed. I want to go over to the iron chest. I'll go in with Elga, and I'll say it's alive. Do you think we should maybe keep some people outside of the door in case we get

trapped in here? Matisse stays. I'll go in. Yeah, you approach the chest, and it's a large iron chest. Does it appear to be locked, or can I try to open it? You try to open it. You want me to shoot it with my crossbow? I'm going to try to open it. Elga tries to open it. However, it is locked. Should we look around for keys? Mateed perks up, noticing that the chest is locked. Perhaps someone would like to come out here and hold watch while I try to fix that.

Okay. Or maybe you can try grabbing the other little knight's hand. Is this not a bad idea? And Mati shakes the other hand. You hear like a sliding metallic sound, like another door opened somewhere. Oh, Elga is smart. Want to try again? No, I guess those are like the only two things it does, probably.

I'll go out and keep watch. No, but like, as in like, did the sound come from where the chest was? No, it came from somewhere over on the western side of the room. Maybe over by the stairs that lead up. I look over. What do I see? Yeah. You just see the stairs going up.

Was there a door there in the first place? There's more stairs going upwards. Those have been there from the start. Okay. Okay. Right. It sounds like the metallic sound came from somewhere further up those stairs. Yeah.

So whatever the top of the stairs just opened up probably. Okay. Yeah. Barney, come out. Okay. Okay. I go in. I have a thieves tools.

Can I do a little bit of peeky peeky? Yeah. You can make like dexterity or slide a hand. Check on that. Gee, who's the rogue here, huh? I know what you're doing. I, you know, I don't know. 15. Nothing, I guess.

Fifteen, that's a good roll. Mati tries to manipulate the lock chest with the thieves tools, and you hear a click, and the lock pops open. I peek in. You open it up ever so slightly to peek in. You catch the glint of coins and gems. Oh my goodness. I close it.

Elga opens it back up, but like wide. What'd you guys find in here? What's going on? What's in here? You open the chest wide and you see it's filled with coins, gemstones, a map, and a scroll. My goodness. Well. What kind of gemstones are we looking at?

There's seven gemstones of various varieties, like rubies, sapphires, emeralds. You'd estimate that each gemstone is probably worth about 50 gold. Wow. Should we just divvy this up amongst the party? Let's do that. All right. Who's good with stealing?

Anybody want to steal with me? I love stealing. Stealing is what I love to do. Anybody else? If no one says yes, it's just going to me and Chip. No, I agree. Any times that one of us finds any treasure on this journey, we should split it between the group.

Oh, I wholeheartedly agree. Yeah, yeah. I think any time we find treasure where all of us are present at that time, then we split. But whoever finds it, even if they're alone, they keep it for themselves. Elga's right. You got to be there or you got to be square.

All right. Mateed finds their answer quite odd and wants to roll for a deception check on this. You can roll an insight check. I'll roll an insight check. I'll roll the deception if you want, Elga. Please do. Please do. I rolled a nat 20 plus 5.

25. What does Mateed learn from this? I rolled a 17 Plus 11 so that's a 26 There you go 28 Cause it's both of us lying You just get the sense

They're being duplicitous like they're They're hiding something That's a fun word Did you guys perhaps come across a treasure early on in our adventure together? No, right here. Look at the treasure in front of us. Isn't that wonderful?

Let's explain it. You know who found a real treasure? You. Because look at Jacques. You got a kitten. Hey, you got the best deal out of us all. Anyways, let's divvy this up. Jacques jumps off of Matisse's shoulder

and walks up to Elga's bag and begins like pawing at it. Oh, that is a good kitty. I would appreciate knowing if you guys found any more treasure. Did you find some with that? Can we just move forward? Listen, I helped Barney pay for whatever the heck he was

buying the other day. I'm no I bought drinks for the whole team you know i haven't had a lot of expendable income i come from a good i worked for a dagger for several years assassin work is good money okay i'll tell you this matide notes this well i note that you note this it's like when you play a role-playing game, it's like, Matide will remember this. Yeah. I'm not going to push any further. I don't care that much about the gold, but Matide notes this.

Barney's just not paying attention. Well, maybe you should care about gold, because there are a lot of coins in this chest in front of you. I think he's looking at that, but not really so much about all this, like... What's the four-even split for this? We can just do that. Are you making me do the math?

All right. Hold on. We do the improv. You do the math. That's how D&D works. I'm doing improv too. Yeah, Gus is doing both. For each of you, it breaks out to 525 copper pieces. That's a lot of wishes from my wife, Carol.

475 silver pieces and 10 gold pieces. That's a jackpot right there. Man, he couldn't even make this kind of good money with scratch-offs. So, I don't know if you all split the gems already. There's seven gemstones and there's four of you, so there's no, like, even way to distribute those. Here's the thing, Mateed. You used your thieves' tools.

You got the jump on it. And I'll admit, I might have found a little bit of dough along the way. You can have my gemstones. Okay. So then what is that? I get three and Elga and Barney get two? If that's how you want to split it, yeah. Okay. I'll take the two.

Do we need to convert that to currency or do we have to add that to our inventories? You can just write like three gemstones worth 50 gold each. And none of these are the crystals that the big dragon Skeletor was looking for, yeah? If I were a dragon, I probably would not burn down a village for a 50 gold piece gem. Well, you know, I wouldn't burn down a village, period. He's clearly thinking illogically. So, you know, I'm not going to get in the mind of a dragon.

Plus, you might, you never know. I don't like converting them straight to currency just because you might have a spell that's like a gemstone worth 50 gold or who knows. You might find a use for it. And you said there's also a scroll and something else in there. A map. Could Elga take a look at the map? It's a pretty faded and tattered map. It's covered in strange symbols and markings.

You're not quite sure what they mean. Could Barney look at the scroll? Yeah, the scroll is frayed and slightly burnt. It appears to depict an anatomical diagram of a dragon. Ooh. Perhaps a weakness can be gleaned. There's a circle drawn around the heart, which sort of looks like a crystal.

The dragon wants its heart back. It's Sean Connery. It's like the... Is it the Tin Man that was missing its heart? Is that what it was? We need to get Dennis Quaid on the phone stat. Thank you, Blaine. Is it like frayed in a way that's like information is missing? No, no phone stat. Thank you, Blaine.

Is it like frayed in a way that's like information is missing? No, no, no. Just like the toll. Is there anything else worth noting other than the gemstone and the heart? No, not necessarily. No, nothing else stands out. And then the map that Elga looked at, it's indecipherable. Yeah, it just has a bunch of strange symbols almost like it's coded like some kind of cipher on it so it's not like a map in the way where we could look at it and be like oh this is

this area or this place yeah it kind of in very vague manners uh has that but you feel like there's information that's written down in this code that really explains what you're looking at i have a few languages under my belt i'm not going to take them, the map or the scroll, but can I look and see if I can decipher any of them? Sure, same. Yeah, same. Yeah, Chip, you take a look at the map and the symbols do look familiar to you. You're able to decipher them. Hey, looky there.

I think I know this. Is this Thieves' Cant? It is Thieves' Cant. Hey! The map shows a route to and the location of a place called the Den of Dragons. If you want to send me the text, I can read it to the group. It's just giving directions is all that it is. Okay.

You said Camp of Dragons? Den of Dragons. And it appears to be in the modern day snare lands. Okay. Anything else in this room or should we proceed further? I would like to look around. You're welcome to look around. Yeah, you can make an investigation check if you want to see.

Yeah, because it's a bedroom, you said, right? So like... There must be night tables or like any sort of stuff like that. Yeah, and they've got various like potted plants on some of these tables. How'd your roll go, Elka? The same as always. It's a bedroom. Let's go out the door.

I rolled a five. Elka rolled a same as always. It's a bedroom. Let's go. Out the door. Elka rolled a five. Okay. I'm disappointed you guys didn't want to hear what Thieves Can't sounded like, but maybe for another episode. What do you think it sounds like? It's just Thieves Can't. It's just symbols. Well, you know, every language sounds different, and Thieves Can't is a language for thieves, so...

You know what, Blaine? I want to hear how Thieves Can't sounds like. No, no, no, no. The time has passed. The time has passed. Isn't thieves can't just talking normally, but there's coded words within the words? That's what I was trying to get at. He apparently has a way of pronouncing it, and I look forward to hearing it someday. Someday, you ought

to tune in next time. Micah's going to have to write in where thieves can't. Chip is such a positive person, he only believes in thieves can That's right I was waiting for that joke Inspiration day to you To proceed on

Matee turns around and heads towards The stairs Yeah you climb the stairs so I assume you're taking point Again this time Sure why not Is Chip behind you then Elga then Barney That's fine with me. Everyone can tell you that. And Matide

checks for traps. Uh, yeah. Make an investigation check. Five. How many damage? No traps here. Yep. Matide flies up the stairs. Not trusting their own eyes. You, uh, take to the air and light yourself down

the top of the staircase. Lovely. Everyone else climbs the stairs and notices there seem to be more steps than the previous floors. The higher you climb, the more you think you hear a low rumbling in the walls. But before long, you spot some light peeking into the stairway and finally reach the next floor. Yet again, you enter another circular room, but the ceilings are raised much higher, at least 30 feet in a dome shape. A pair of small volts bulbs dimly light the center of the room, where the wooden floor gives way to a giant iron circle. At the far southern end of the room, the dim light gleams off a silver apparatus, a pylon-shaped rod with a clawed foot at the base and a glowing green crystal on its head. Standing next to it, you see the silhouette of a hunchback

covered in scars and stitches. You don't belong here. I can see it in your eyes. Your stunted brains can seem to stitch together the pieces of the puzzle. But don't worry. I know someone that can explain the situation. Uyghur pulls two levers on the silver apparatus.

The stairway behind you seals off, and the metallic floor in the center of the room Explain the situation. Weegor pulls two levers on the silver apparatus. The stairway behind him seals off and the metallic floor in the center of the room lowers into the ground, revealing a deep shaft. A low rumbling echoes from below and suddenly a massive head of matted gray fur, startling yellow teeth, and gleaming eyes emerges from the center of the room. It's quickly followed by a second head and a third. The metallic floor raises back up, revealing a giant warg body connected to all three heads. Castlebree here makes everything so much simpler. Wego reaches for another lever and... And green sparks discharge from the crystal

and the silver apparatus comes to life. Storm clouds begin to form overhead in the dome's ceiling, crackling and flashing with light. Cthulbre, try to leave at least a few appendages for me to play with, will you? Yes, master. Good warg. Now, fetch! We're screwed We are so screwed Yeah

Find out what happens In the next episode Of Tales from the Stinky Dragon Next week Let us know which Which of our characters You think will die next time We could take a puppy.

Yeah, this is another puppy. This is another dog. Just wanted, before we say goodbye, give you guys a heads up that, once again, we're going to be at RTX July 7th through 9th, and we're going to be doing a one-shot for our own party, which will be fun to do, and we're also going to do some

stuff with some other D&D shows, like Dungeons and Daddies and Must Be Dice. So, hopefully we'll get to see some of you there we'll get to say hi happy to sign anything or answer any questions or just give you a nice high five yeah i think we also might be doing like a group signing as the stinky dragon crew oh really oh cool yeah so that'll be a fun i'll have to work on my uh my. All right. Well, hopefully we'll see you there. Bye. Bye. rtxawesome.com.

Oh, yeah. Good job, Barb. Good job. Good save. This episode of Tales from the Stinky Dragon was produced by Ben Ernst, written, edited, and composed by Micah Reisinger with additional editing work by David Saunier.

Here's a quick shout out to folks that interacted with us on social media recently. Here's some NPCs named after them in this episode. Kass the Warg is named after at ProfMadScientist on Instagram. Elora the Warg named after at user Elorasaurus on Reddit. Brindley the Warg named after

at mbrindley13 on Twitter. All three of these names combine to make Kasselbrie the three-headed warg. Get it? Kasselbrie. Anyway, I also want to give a special thanks to some friends who provided voiceover for characters in this episode. The Alchemist, voiced by BlizzBear, at BlizzBear. Weegore, the Hunchback Henchman, voiced by Jack Patillo, at Jack underscore P.

Thanks, guys. Tune in next time for another thrilling episode of Tales from the Stinky Dragon. you