The Adventure Zone - Ep. 2. Here There Be Gerblins - Chapter Two

Episode Date: December 4, 2014

Our heroes’ first job is not going especially well. Taako, Merle and Magnus are hot on the trail of their employer’s kidnappers, leading them into a perilous gerblin den. Will they discover the fate of Gundren and his ward, Barry Bluejeans? Or will they find themselves held up by complicated gerblin office politics? Happy MaxFunDrive! Right now is the best time to start a membership to support your favorite shows. Learn more and join at https://maximumfun.org/jointaz

Previously on the Adventure Zone. I'm playing a human fighter named Magnus Burnsides. I love that. I'm playing a wizard. Okay. His name is spelled T-A-A-A-K-O. Are you naming your goddamn wizard taco? Daddy, what are you, you're a cleric, right?

I'm a dwarf cleric named Merle High Church. Over drinks one night with Gundren Rock Seeker, he has to offer you what he calls, the last job you'll ever need to take. So he has asked the three of you to escort a supply wagon to the town of Fandolin with a fighter escort named Very Blue Jeans. They are two dead horses lying in the middle of the road. Seems fine. Seems strange at all.

So you follow these drag marks down the trail to the mouth of a cave. From the back of the hallway that Travis just ran up very valiantly, you hear the the telltale sound of rushing water. Both of you get flushed in a torrent of water. Do we get them? Answering Goblin, Tago. I got too horny from the killing, and I... Oh, Jesus, not again!

Don't come in here. It's private. What other worldly horrors will the Macquarie's face this week? Let's find out together. in the adventure zone So the three of you have You have regrouped At the mouth of this cave Where Merle and Magnus just got flushed to

Taco you just sauntered back To the mouth of the cave to rest up I imagine you'll want to take a short rest To recover those precious HPs that you lost Especially you Merle if my math is right You're like One

You're one years old I have one One life point. So you guys are going to take a short rest, and the way that you do that is you roll your hit die, which should be on your character sheet somewhere. You basically spin a hit die to roll whatever your die is. It'll be a D6. Taco, I think you have a D6. You roll that.

I have a D10. You have a D10? Oh, wow. Okay. I want to say it's because I'm a human or a warrior. It's one of those. So you roll that. You add your constitution.

modifier and that's how many hit points you get back. I mean, I gained back 13, but I'm only down three, so I guess I just go back up to... Did you roll a critical 10? I did. Okay. Good work. Merle? Interesting.

I'm wondering, should I be like documenting these things? I feel like you guys never believe I'm just saying you've rolled extremely well. I can't see what you're doing and you're... You rolled nothing but 20s last time. Yeah. Well, I'm rolling into the cardboard box. I don't know if that helps. All right.

I rolled an eight plus two constitution, so I recovered 10. Cool. And Taco, I don't think you've taken any damage, have you? I have not taken any damage, so I'm just getting some, I'm just getting my grounding. Just some R&R. Are we not going to get the Taco Voice this episode? We actually got a lot of complaints about the Taco Voice. Oh, no.

Oh, no, really? People said it was, like, really racist. And I don't know which race. It just sounded like the kind of thing that would be racist. Well, we'll see how the reaction. People are so Elvis. go in and out of it. But I also wasn't, I'm talking, I'm not talking to you guys. I'm talking to Griffin, which is like God. I'm like praying. When I pray, I don't have an accent.

Taco there? Can we talk to Taco? So you guys are, you're healthier. I don't know what you're, I'm not going to keep track of your HP, because honestly, I couldn't give a shit. But, but we'll just assume that you're right as rain. Uh, dad, you, Greg and I have a problem, a question? Do we get like experience? Yeah, I'm keeping track of that. Y'all are about halfway to level two. Sweet. And you're going to get a lot of great stuff and you're going to love it.

And you're going to be better people because of it. The level. So you guys get the impression that you probably shouldn't wait too long because they are going to notice that that one goblin is missing. You watch him very lazily float down the river, super dead by you. He's moving at a little. snail's pace. Comically slow.

So you guys have recovered and I'm assuming you want to make your way back in the cave. You can go back to town and you do whatever the fuck you want to do. I'm not your dad. I say we go join Taco up on that overpass because that's going to put us at a higher elevation. Okay. But if you, uh, no, please say the thing that you're going to say. Let me say the thing. Come on up.

Why is that funny? Because of the racism. There's no racism. All right. Merlin, Magnus, you guys can make a, make a, it would be an athletics check to just get up this rope. It'll be a very low check, though. Okay. I rolled an eight.

Am I rolling an eight again? What am I rolling at 20? You're rolling a 20. Whenever you do a skill check, it's always a 20. Okay. And then I add to it what? Your athletics bonus, which is on your sheet. Okay, I rolled a 20 and a four.

Oh, my God. You hover, just like you were at the bottom of the thing, and then you were. were like at the top of the thing. And everyone got super scared because that shouldn't happen like that. Travis, you rolled Nate? Yeah. Yeah, you got up there. You weren't as effort.

In fact, it took you 35 minutes to get up the road. It was embarrassing. It was like the first episode of the biggest loser. It was like, oh, Jesus. How white. Everyone's at the bottom guard and like, just give up. You'll never do it. But you do make it to the top and everyone's really proud of you.

Yay! Not as proud as dad who just sort of displaced himself to the top of the I was very proud of him. Yeah, let's remember that. So from... I look around. Well, I mean, you have two directions. It's a bridge.

From one direction, you hear the sound of rushing water, and that's about all that you can hear coming from that. And it's louder than the stream that's below. The stream, by the way, has actually started to dry up a little bit since the initial flood. And the water that you hear coming from one, and sounds more like a waterfall or something along those lines. From the other end, you hear some low voices talking, the smell of roasting meats that you might consider delicious. Or you might consider our buddies.

Or you might consider friends. Listen, Magnus doesn't judge. So, yeah, you have two directions. I say we head towards the meat. If there's one thing I know about Magnus, He loves a majestic waterfall. If I'm the tiebreaker, I say we go investigate the neat, the smell, and the voices. How do you want to do this?

Who's the sneakiest of us? You see, going down that sort of hallway, it stretches in about, I mean, it's a cave, not a man-made thing. But it goes in the channel there goes in about 20 feet, and you see some light, some dim fire light coming from there, and you definitely hear some places. I say whichever one of us has night vision, taco or... Oh, yeah. I'll go... I think both of you do except for Magnus. Nope. And I've also got stealth disadvantage.

Clunk, clung, clung, clung, clung. I'll go take a look. I have stealthist disadvantage, too. What's your stealth? Good. Very quiet. Not bad. Not bad, it says. Plus two.

Plus two. Taco, would you go investigate? Gladly. So you're sending him up by himself while the two you hang back on the bridge? I'll be, it'll be better by myself. Well, yeah, because if we're trying to be stealthy, it's always better to have smaller numbers. Okay, so if you're going to make a stealth check, I'm guessing just to move to the end of this channel and sort of peek, peek around the corner to get an idea of what's going on in this room, you'll make a stealth check. And I will contest it with a perception check.

Okay. So we roll, and then whoever wins wins the... Okay. The contest. Our roll, 19. And two plus your stealth. Oh, so 21.

Okay. You managed to soundly beat them. Stealth. You look around the corner into this room. You see a fairly large chamber that is sort of split into two sections. There's sort of a ground level where you see three goblins, gurblands, all sitting around a fireplace, roasting the leg of something. It's a beastial in nature.

It's not like a dude, not like a dude foot or something. This room that I'm in, would you say it's spooky or beautiful, or beautifully spooky or spooky or spookly beautiful? If you were a Gerblin, you would actually find it like a pretty chill din to like throw out in.

So is this like the break room? Yeah, you get, yeah. It's the Gerblen break room. There's some like OSHA posters. up. Something like, make sure wash your hands. It's cold and flu season.

Oh, Danny's been microwaving mutton in here. Gross. All right, what's the second? What's the second? So then there's a

sort of natural stone staircase leading up to an escarpment, a stage, about 10 feet off the ground. It's not an actual stage, but there is a second level,

a loft, if you will, in this room. And up there, you see another goblin that's just sort of sitting around rummaging through a crate. And next to him, almost on the edge of this stage, you see an unconscious human man. Okay. And the three goblins are talking to each other, dicking around.

The goblin is up on the stage is just sort of ignoring them and rummaging through this great. Do we have access to that stage? I mean, is there... There's a natural staircase that's leading up onto it, yeah. I have a question. Is the room... I'm trying to visualize it. Is the room such that if we were to interact with the goblins on one of the levels, the other ones would definitely be aware of what we're doing? Oh, sure, yeah, yeah. They are not that far away. Is it lit by anything but the campfire?

There is some... There's some torches on the wall. Fatty torches. You know, those torches that are like... They have, like, fat that burns. on the top of it. No, I got you. So just to, how many gerblands are... Three on the floor. Three on the floor. One up with the captor.

Captive. Right. Oh, what's the captive? There's a sleeping human man. Oh. Now, is that on a level above us or below us? What celebrity does he most resemble? Good question.

He looks a lot like... Say John Goodman. John... No. Say John Goodman. Say John Thomas. He looks a lot like Tom Arnold. That's the exact middle between John Stavis and John Goodman.

I said that's the median. That's the mean of John Goodman and John Stamos. So yeah, please don't make me describe any more shit in this room. Okay. I just want to know. So we have access from where we are in that passageway to that stage area, right? The passageway opens up onto the floor level. Then there is a slope that leads up onto the stage.

Okay. So I assume has Taco come back and relayed all this to us? I mean, he would have to... Yeah, it's, yeah. You know, let Taco be Taco. You guys, so whenever I am explaining a scene like this, where one of you has split off, the others, you guys need to understand that you don't possess this knowledge.

Gotcha. Right. You can't rush in there and, like, blindly, like, throw a shot at a character that you don't know is there, but Taco does. Okay. Gotcha. I'll wave them over. Okay.

They are going to, they are also going to make self-checks. Okay. That's fine. All right. Been a lot of faith in us here. 17 on mine. Well, you have disadvantage.

So you need to roll again and use the lower result. Okay. 11. 10 was my lower. Okay. You actually all three managed to beat the, I'm using my original check, which was not so great. Okay. So you all three managed to beat.

to beat it, the three of you are sort of on this, the precipice of this room. Now, okay, so since we have the drop on these guys right now, do we still have to roll for initiative? So you do, but in a scenario like this, you can get what's called a surprise round, where when you can actually manage to do it, you guys have done, which isn't easy. You get to take a round of combat. Everybody who has surprise gets to take a round of combat before the regular, like, combat order begins. So here's what I would like to do. Okay. I have an idea.

My motion to Taco, I use intricate hand signals to relay that what I want to do is I want to rush in past the goblins on the floor to underneath the edge of this stage thing and see if I can get in position where he could Mage Hand the human off the edge and let me catch him. I think Mage Hand can only interact with about 10 pounds. and Tom Arnold, as you guys can probably intuit, more of that. I don't want to call the dude overweight because it seems like he works really hard to maintain that. And he did look good on running wild with bare grills. He looked amazing on running wild with bare grills.

I have a slight amendment. I think Travis's plan is good, but how about if we attack the guys on the floor giving him a chance to... My only worry is, My only worry is that if we don't eliminate the guy holding Tom Arnold prisoner that he might do. I don't know what the situation is there. I don't want him to take a shot at Tom Arnold or have Tom Arnold as a bargaining chip.

If I go first, if I attack and distract them giving Travis a chance to get there in one move. Why don't I just shoot the guy holding Tom Arnold prisoner with magic missile? There you go. That works too. How about him just going to shoot him with magic missile now? All in all, I like all three parts of this plan. Taco, magic missile, Merle, guys on ground. I'm going to run up to the precipice.

Perfect. I want the three of you to go ahead and roll initiative then, and we can get into it. All right. Mine is 19. Mine is zero. You rolled a... You rolled a one with a minus one initiative. That's like myself right after.

I graduated college. What we don't know about Merle is he has narcolepsy, just look back and he's sleeping. Okay. Is Murrow holding a bong? Is that a bong? Murrow, put down the burrito.

Top of the order is Magnus. What would you like to do? So, in this surprise round, I can wait and let the two of them go first and then do my action. So if you do that, you are permanently

moving yourself. back in the order. Oh, really? It's not just for the first round? Right. There's an established order of play now. If you want to delay your turn, you can do that and pop it back in wherever it is,

but then that's just where you are from that point on. Okay, well, I guess since we're on a surprise and I'm not worried about them do anything. I'm just going to run for the precipice. But we have surprise. Why don't you move yourself back on the order, like he said, Trab, and let the two of us do, you know, launch magic missile and let me attack the guys,

and then you'll be able to... If I can eliminate the magic missile, you may not have to worry about Tom. Okay, fair. Yeah, I'm going to let Taco go first. Okay. So I do a very polite, like, after you, gesture. So who the fuck is going, and please do it? I'm going. I'm using Magic Missile.

Okay. So you sweep around the corner and levy a shot. Magic Missile, you don't actually need to attack with that, right? You're just burning a spell slot to use it? I create three glowing darts. Each dart hits a creature of your choice within range that you can see. A dart yields one D4 plus one forced damage to his target. They all strike simultaneously, and I can direct them to hit one creature or several. I'm going to have them all three of them hit the full holding Tom Arnold prisoner,

because I don't fucking caught into that. Yeah. You weigh off of Mr. Stupid. Listen, here's the amounts. Four, two, two. All right, so eight damage? Yeah. Okay.

He is, consider him surprised. Yeah He immediately stops what he's doing Clearly because you just knocked him back a bit And he rallies and gets up on his feet And yells something in goblinish You speak goblin, right? Yeah, what's he say?

He says, ow So It's quite the word smith, our little goblin So yeah, who's next? Well, I'll go Well, wait a minute, wait a minute, that didn't kill him No, they're not dead. But since I can't get up on this stage, I'm going to shoot it with my short bow.

Okay, all right. So same dude. Okay. Crit 20. Holy shit, really? Yeah. I'm really good at D&D. Yeah.

Got those all 20 die sides. So on a crit is our first crit attack, I believe. You basically rolled your damage dice twice. Oh, terrific. But I don't get the automatic, like... No. Okay, great. And you add your modifier, but you only do that once.

Okay, so I just need to... If it's 1D6 plus 2, I'm going to roll 1D6 twice. Yeah. So 3 and 6 plus 2, so 11. 11? Yeah. Okay, he falls over the edge and dies. Yeah.

All right. I'm going after the guys on the floor. I'm going after the one on the left, the one that was eating. Off the haunch. Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, it was on the spit. He was reaching for it. He was reaching for it.

Yeah. Greedy bastard. He's got a powerful hunter. Greedy, greedy bastard. And I'm going after him with my Warhammer. Okay. So that's 17. Okay.

Yeah, that's a hit. Okay. And then I roll for how much damage with an eight, correct? Whatever it says there on the sheet. Well, I did three. Okay. What happens, Griffin? He is phased.

He is not unfazed. faced by that, he takes the hit and immediately sort of stands back up. And he's a little bit imposing now. Because you know this is, I think, the first time you haven't one hit killed somebody, so you don't know what's

going to happen next. One of you might be attacked. Wouldn't that be not? What? Gee, I wonder who that's going to be. The guy that made him drop the haunch, maybe? Maybe. My haunch. It's the best haunt. Oh, man. I have so few

pleasure. in life. That was my grandfather's haunt. He gave it to me. We're moving back to the top of the order. It's actually the goblins' turns since Travis delayed. There are three goblins.

The one that actually did just take that hit is going to swing right back at you. Merle. Yeah. And they are going to roll fucking clown shoes. Nine? Is that going to do it? I have an armor class of 18. So no.

That's half of it. So the clear one. Okay, yeah, their attack is buffeted away by your heavy hide. One of them is going to rush at Magnus and try and attack him. That is a 19 plus, that's a 23. That's going to hit. Ow. And they do four plus.

to they do six slashing damage six slashing damage you say one of the other goblins is going to try and scurry up the wall towards Tom Arnold a 15 plus what would that be

I don't think you need to tell us these rolls I think that kind of ruins the illusion okay he scurries up the wall towards Tom Arnold and grabs him by the scruff of the neck and hangs him over the edge of the stage and says, put your weapons down.

Damn it. But only I know that he said that, right? He's actually speaking in common. So the three of you can understand it. Does he look like common? He looks exactly like common. Oh, that's a badass goblin right there. He looks super cool.

He says, the three of you strike me as businessman. Is that a fair assumption? He sounds like Kelsey Grammer, and he looks like common. He's one hell of a goblin. I love business. I don't think anybody in this room wants to get stabbed any more than we already have. I have a proposition for you.

Okay. He does. I will let you leave this cave with your Barry Blue jeans. Alive and unharmed. If you do me one small favor. What is it? I want you to depose our current employer whose name is Clark.

He says, I want you to help me, help you, help me. What will it take to get you to murder my boss today? I need you to murder Clark for me. And I know you're wondering, what's in it for me? I've already told you this. It is Barry Blue Jays. I will give you Barry Blue Jeans alive and well.

I asked the other two people in the group if they have any idea who buried Blue Jeans is or care. I'm almost certain he was, was his face, buddy. He was. That was the mercenary he hired. Okay. Oh, right. So he's a mercenary. No. Excuse me, sir. Goblin, sir. Yes.

What? I'm sorry, what is your name? I, I, I, I, how rude. me. Magnus Burnside's The Hammer. Now, hold on. I've picked up a nickname since last week. In this cave, you picked up a nickname in the cave.

No, I just remembered it from a long time ago. Flashback. Fantastic. Yes. And what is your name, sir? My name is, of course. No, not you. Oh, sorry.

I know your name. You can call me, you can call me yemick. Yemick. Yemick. Yemick. Why do you want us to depose Clark? Is it a power grab? Let's call him a new hire, a transfer from the home office.

The home office, yes. Let's just say that there are certain gurglins in this institution who are not Clark's biggest fan. And the other two gobbins on the floor are like, yeah, fuck that guy. For real, though. For real, though. I have a question. I hate to interrupt. Yes. Is it far away? Oh, no, it's in this very cave, in a lofty antechamber.

Where were you educated, so you are very well-spoken? I went to Harvard. That's excellent. Fucking patronizing. Excellent. No, I'm respectful. On the other side, we could continue this fight, and I will drop Barry Blue jeans to his death.

Frankly, I see this is win-win for everyone. I agree wholeheartedly. Especially Barry. Especially Barry. It seems like you get what you want and we'll get what we want. You can see Barry Blue Jeans now that he's sort of holding him over the edge. You can see him illuminated by the fire a little bit. And he is he alive?

He is breathing, but he's beat to shit. He is, uh, he, he, he looks real, real messed up. I just don't see what we get out of this. Well, it's what we're going to do anyways, right? We're going to take out the boss man. And we, it seems like we... I thought we were just delivering something. But we need Barry Blue Jains to find out what happened to the other.

You do need everyone. Everyone needs a Barry Blue Jains. All right. I say we agree to his terms. Oh, oh. But first, before we agree to anything, I am going to need Barry Blue Jains probably. back over the edge.

I mean, some indication that this is not a trap. I'm not going to murder Barry Blue Jee. Pull him back from over the edge, and we could talk about this. And would he be of any use in our efforts against Clark? Oh, he's not in scrap and shape. Yeah, he's... Well, then just leave him on the stage there and come on down and join us, big fella. He rests him on the edge of the stage.

he's no longer hanging over it, but he is right there. He could be kicked over fairly easily. What happened to Barry's traveling companion? I wouldn't know anything about that. I'm pretty sure he was alone, riding two horses, a stride two horses. He's a mountain of a man, as you can tell. Okay. All right.

Now, dungeon master, do I need to heal taco or? will we rest and he will naturally heal. I'm not hurt. No, I'm hurt. I'm good. I'm at, I'm at Magnus. No, I'll be fine. It's up to you guys. If Magnus spent his hit dice, he probably doesn't have any more. I don't know. You could spin one of your spell slots to heal him if you want to do that. What do you say, Bigfellow, you okay?

Yeah, I'm good. All right. Screw it. Yimaw. Mimaw? What was it then? Mimick. You make, may we rest by your fire and partake of some of this delicious looking haunch before we move on to kill Clark. No, I am going to need you to get this show on the road, as I say, as we say in Harvard. I brought haunch helper. What's in the box? Stuff.

Go fucking kill Clark. All right, where do we go? Oh, you can find him across the overpass. We had that overpass put in earlier this year in a little bit of cave renovation. It's quite nice, don't you think? All right, fine, let's go. I say we go back over the overpass into the other chamber where we heard the waterfall. Maybe we'll have an angle on him.

Sure. That's what we're talking about, right? Selling it. Goodbye. Have fun. Have fun. Bring me his head. So when we get back on the overpass, I'm going to turn to Taco and Merle and say,

I don't trust this situation. Yeah, no shit. Okay, cool. I just want to make sure we're on the same page. Great job, Angela Lansberry. I don't know how you piece that one together. He seems so nice. He clumbered that one. Is there some way for us to kill both Clark and this dude?

Oh, yeah, we're going to. Yeah, well, he were killing everybody. I thought that was implied. I hope he'd hit level two by killing the other guy. As soon as Mimalk turns his back. Gemic. Yeah. Whatever.

Did he hear that? We're going to snuffing. It's there. Okay, cool. The voice of God just yelled his name. That's nothing about murdering me. Listen, Magnus is all about, Magnus is about action, not planning.

Yeah. So you got us. I am brew force. I am a blunt weapon. You point me in the direction. Let's go out of their room. All right. The direction of the waterfall.

Go. You guys move across the overpass. You move through a large, chamber. You are on a ledge fairly high up on this chamber and you look down and you can see two sort of man-made pools of water that are basically built out of giant towers of logs that are sort of arranged into walls that are damning up where the waterfall is coming from. And then you see on the front of each pool, they are sort of back-to-back. a gate, and you think that that gate is what was dropped and flooded the cave earlier.

Gotcha. So you count your lucky stars that they didn't drop the second gate on you and flush you out again. You see a couple of goblins down there, but they are sort of busy repairing the first gate that they dropped to flood you guys out, and they don't really see you. So you can continue on if you want, unless you want to, like, jump down there and murder them to. How far is it down there? It's about 15 feet down. I'm going to continuing on.

Yeah, let's just move on. Okay. You keep sort of creeping along the edge, and you come to the entrance of another chamber. You can't see especially far inside unless you get a little bit closer, but you hear a deep baritone voice shouting orders. Does he sound?

rather Clarky. He sounds Clarkish. He sounds like you don't want to cast dispersions and you don't want to judge a book by its cover, but it sounds like the voice of a creature that would probably be known as Clark. You can only hear that because the other sound that you can

hear is this deafening roar of this waterfall that is feeding this stream. So we can see Clark? The chamber is up away, is up some ruined stairs that have seen better days. So if you're careful, and I'm assuming you're being careful,

you can make out a few shapes. You see one figure that is absolutely massive, much, much, much bigger than the goblins that you have been experiencing in this cavern. And that is about the only shape that you can make out. There's a few sort of natural stone pillars in that room. But unless you climb up those stairs and get closer,

you're not going to be able to see much. Clark is facing your direction. He just can't really make you out over this staircase. Okay, listen, guys. Here's what I'm thinking. What if, rather than try to fight Clark,

we see if we can trade the information that we have in exchange for Barry. Like tell him that... Say, we know that he has someone in his organization trying to... Who asks us to kill him. We'll let him in on that, but he has to promise to let Barry go with us. I like that. Dungeon Master?

Yeah. So geographically, the very first room we encountered when we entered with the wolves chained up and that was a chimney? Yeah. where would that chimney line up with the two rooms we've been in up here in the overpass? It was on the right and you were on the right side of the cave. So it's a logical assumption that maybe that chimney opens up into there. Gotcha. I like Taco's idea, but I think we need to work from a position of strength.

Why don't we do something that makes him think we're real, real badasses so he will think twice and maybe consider the offer? Like, could I use my, the spell I used before to illuminate the axe and to, you know, like, cast that spell on something, like, as a visual? You think this dude's never seen light before? No, but I mean, if something all of a sudden starts to glow. That's what they teach kids. They teach kids light in kindergarten. No, I think this is a good idea. Yeah, I love it.

Okay. And I'll cast at the same time, I'll use a can. I'll use my abilities of press to digitation. And I'll create a shower of sparks. Okay. And I'll build a chair with my carbonry tools. Yeah, okay. I say you draw a bead on Big Boy with your short bow.

Okay. Yeah, I don't think he's going to be threatened by us. We're level one. He doesn't know that. That's why we're firing off the fireworks in a life. You're not going to tell him, are you? No, so are you guys doing this now? Yes, we're doing it silent.

Three of you walk magnificent seven style, shoulder to shoulder into this room. Dad, you're shooting light beams all over the place. Like, they're in a daft punk concert, and Justin's showering sparks all over the place. And Travis strikes in him. And I'm calling out to him. I'm like, hello, friend. No, don't call him friend. No, no, no, no.

No, other way. Yo, fat ass. Hey, stupid. No, no, no, no, no, no. Sit one in the middle. Hey, jerk. Okay. And Travis, you just sort of strike an imposing pose.

with your short bow drawn, and then from the left side of the cave next to the entrance, you just walk through a wolf charges and attacks, Merle. So let's all roll initiative. Okay. Well, that one will. 19 again. Four.

14. Okay. Sounds like a lot of wolves. Wolf number 16 is going to come. So this wolf gets a surprise round on you. Excellent. Great. He is attacking Merle, and he is going to try and bite at your neck region.

He rolls a 7 plus 4. He rolls on 11. I have 18. I'm not going to do it. You just kind of throw him off just using your neck muscles. It's amazing. You're like Terry Cruz. They just sort of flex and the wolf goes flying.

Okay. So that was the surprise round. Clark is like amazed by your pirate technician. Whoa, he says. Clark is amazed by your power. So he is John Goodman. All right, now we got John Goodman. I'm John Goodman.

You don't actually, you guys aren't entirely sure what he is. You've never seen anything like. him. But he's not a goblin. He's definitely not a goblin. He's a humanoid. He is humanoid. He is furry. He's about six and a half feet tall. He is muscle bound.

He looks pretty badass. Does they look like more musly than me? Nothing's more mushy than you. Nobody's more musly than you, the most musly boy, aren't you? I mean more than Magnus, not more than Travis Maggraw. Is that my turn yet? It is Magnus's term. We're to the top of the order now.

Can you ask him to call off the wolves? Can I roll a quick animal handling check to see if there's any possibility of like controlling the wolf, like befriending my animal friends? You want to make an animal handling check to see if you can call off this wolf? Yeah, sure. Go right ahead. Or, I mean, I guess overall, I should say... Let me explain what's in the room. So you have this wolf that has just attacked you. There's a fire pit sort of in the middle of the room that's just sort of hot colds and embers that this, that Clark was sort of standing behind.

And then in the corner, you see this, that the entrance to that chimney that you walked by earlier with the wolves in it. And by that, you see two more goblins. Can I make a suggestion? we've already tried to establish ourselves as badasses. This wolf attacked us. Kill it, Magnus. But I want a wolf, buddy. All right.

I love this narrative thread of you trying to befriend everything that tries to kill you. Listen, I love animals. Yeah. Then I want to kind of do something badass if I'm going to take this wolf out. What are you thinking about? Can I double attack?

Not yet. Maybe someday. Then I am going to... You could try and pick them up and throw them under the fire pit. Yeah, that one. Let's do that. I'm going to do that. I'm going to hoist the wolf over my head and throw them in the fire.

You will have to make a couple checks there. No, I'm good with that. Dumb check. See if it's dumb to do it. I prefer action. Let me make the dumb check. Oh, man, it's a critical 20. Yeah.

All right, so you will have to make a strength... We'll say a strength contest against this wolf. So this wolf is going to try and wriggle to try and get out of, uh, trying to get out of, uh, try and get out of, Gotcha. So this is just strength. Yeah, yeah, you, ooh, yeah.

Okay, I got a 20, chav, was it a 20? No, it was 15 plus 14, 19. Uh, okay, one off. Uh, so yeah, you managed to hoist this wolf into the air. Yeah. And now what do I? Throw him! Okay, I'm gonna throw him.

Uh, yeah. I think that's a throne attack. Well, you're, You are only a few feet from this fire pit, so you managed to toss this wolf into the fire. The wolf is going to try and land on his feet. He's going to make a, we'll say, a dexterity saving throw. He does. He gets a 17.

So he manages to, he lands in the fire, and he takes, we'll say, 1D4 point of damage. He takes three damage. and he's very perturbed and it smells amazing in this room for a second. And as a free action, I'm going to point at Clark and yell, call him off. You threw my wolf in the fire.

And I'll do worse if you don't stop him. Ooh. But he's my favorite wolf. And you threw him in the fire, though. Then call him off or lose him forever. Ooh. But he's my... Just do it.

You threw him in a fire. He attacked my friend. I say, we're he... I attacked your friend. Then you'll meet the same fate. You can't pick me up. I'm way bigger than the wolf was. And then I say, fellas, fellas.

We came here to talk. You should have thought about that before throwing my dog in the fire. Well, you shouldn't have your dog jump at my ass. You got your ass in my dog. You got your dog in my ass. I don't think my dog has. But fit in an ass.

You haven't seen this ass. I am. We've gotten off track. He's not kidding around here. I have a question. Are we allowed to talk if it's not our turn? Yeah, sure. It's a free action.

We do free actions whenever, huh? Well, I mean, I'm not going to silence you guys. If you want to crack wise, I'm not going to say, shush, it's not your turn. Okay. Do you want to say something to Clark? You can chime in here if you want to. Let me try. Please.

Oh, good. Is that good? Okay, you've convinced me. No, that's not what happens. It's next in the order is the wolf. He's going to scurry out of the fire pit. And he's going to tackle, he's going to make a running attack at... I just want to say, Travis, I wish you'd just try.

tried your animal handling. Or just killed it. Yeah, I mean, this wolf was actually supposed to be your pet, but you... This is perfect. Now we've got a flaming wolf. That's good. Now it's a wolf, but it's on fire. It's excellent.

He's more like a smoldering wolf. The wolf jumps at Magnus. He got a 16 to attack. My armor class is 17. Oh. So he is unsuccessful. He's very sad. The two goblins are up next.

They are each going to pull out short bows. One is going to fire at Magnus. One is going to fire at Taco. Magnus will do you first. 19 to AC. Give me one second, sorry. What happened? Somebody was checking his fantasy football school.

I was. No, as a protection fighter, when a creature you can see attacks their target other than you that is within five feet of you, you can use your reaction to impose disadvantage on the attack roll. You must be wielding a shield. So I'm going to say there's disadvantage against the attack on Taco. Okay. But this attack was on you?

Yeah, and that hit. That hit real good. 19? Yeah. 19. 3 plus 2.5. Piercing damage. So not great. Not great for me.

I'm down to 2. Okay. The other attack against Taco, so you're imposing disadvantage. How often can you do that? As far as I know, whenever. Okay. There's no limit. So the first attack is a crit.

So good that you did that. The other attack is a 12. 12 versus AC? It's equal. So yeah, that's a hit. And they do... At least it wasn't a crit hit. Yeah, that would have been pretty bad.

They only rolled a one plus two. Three damage. Three piercing damage to Taco. That is it for the Goblins. Who rolled a 14 for initiative? Magnus. No. No.

It was itemeral or a taco? I had a... Yeah, I had 14. Okay, you're up. You got... You got Clark. You got two goblins over by the chimney, and you got a dog over by Magnus. All right, I cast Charm Person on Clark.

Okay. Interesting. What do I do about that? I will tell you. You give Justin presents. I'm going to attempt to charm a humanoid. You must make a wisdom saving throw. If it fails the saving throw, it is charmed by you until the spell ends,

or until you or your companions do anything harmful to it. The charm creates regard to you as friendly as a friendly acquaintance. Okay. Nice. What do I have to save against? Wisdom. Save against wisdom. But there should be a number that you have that is my target to be.

Right. The saving throw DC to resist a spell, U-Cass is 13. 13. Okay. And I'm making a wisdom saving throw. This guy has plus zero to wisdom, so we need to roll a 13 or better.

I roll a 2. So consider Clark Charmed. How long does this last? Until we attack him. Okay. Or no, sorry, sorry, sorry. It lasts an hour. Okay.

Clark, call them off Call, sorry, who? Call the wolves off. Oh, sure, hey, Percival, come back, come to Daddy. Percival scamper's back to Clark, sorry. Can we put him out first? Can we put him out since he was on fire? Oh, he's not on fire, he's fine.

Okay, good. Clark, my name is Taco. It's a pleasure. It's really, really, really. I feel like we've known each other for ages. I feel that way, too. Do you need any money or any? Can I just start, can I give you all of the things I have?

There will be time for that. Listen, we have a sort of a situation. We wanted to loop you in on. We, do you guys want to, you've been in my cave for a while now. Do you want to do some oolong? No, no oolong for us, thanks. We don't have much time. Actually, about 59 minutes.

So listen Listen We have a situation One of your employees Yahweh Told us that I don't think the Jewish god Is under my employer

I think it's we-man We-man We-man yes We-man He told us That first off He has our friend Barry Blue jeans Held captive

You know Barry You know Barry That was I did Yes I thought we figured Listen, I may have... Water under the bridge. Let's get past it. Listen, your friend

wanted us to... I don't know. This is going to be hard to hear. Are you sure you don't want any tea? I have a delicious Earl Grey. Fifty eight minutes, Clark. Try to stay focused. We're good.

He tried... He wanted us to, believe it or not, kill... Well, you kill you. That doesn't sound like... Are we talking about the same yemic? There are, sorry, I think I understand what the problem is. I employ several yemicks.

Klag, look at me. It's taco. This is taco talking. Would I lie to you? Huh? I guess I've known all along. Look at that face. Look at that face.

Look at this face, Clark. It's me, Taco. Listen. So, here's the thing. we want Barry back we want to kill this bad guy that wants to kill you we want our friend Barry

and we want we'd like some gold like some gold like a little gold for our trouble for our trouble and if it's not such a big deal it would be great to know what help into our other friend what do you say Clark Gundron Gundren yeah Clark what do you say

I think that we can come to a very agreeable conclusion to this entire misunderstanding. Give me just one moment. He goes over to what looks like a desk that a bug bear would use.

He's a bug bear. And he pulls sort of a rock out of the wall so that there's like a small hole in the wall and he says, Yeamick, can I see you in my office, please? and he puts the rock back in

and about okay while we're waiting before he comes Clark just a heads up he's gonna know something's up when he sees us oh don't no please listen Yemik talks a big game

but he's really as he's as sweet as cherry pie you have nothing to worry about trust me my friend I say we move to either side of the door How about if we pretend we're captives we're dead Oh, can we feign deadness? Can we feign death?

Yeah, we all lie down. I lie down on the ground. I'm telling you this level of chicanery is not. I'm dead. All right. Come on, Taco, stay up. I do feel like you're embarrassing yourself a little bit, but if you want to lie on the floor and play child games. Yeah, tell it to my ghost.

Can I play with your dog? Absolutely. Oh, my God, he won't give up on the dog. Absolutely not. You did throw him in a... Listen, I love you guys. You're my oldest and dearest friends. You threw my dog in a goddamn fire.

Oh, but yeah. That was a misunderstanding. Okay, so what are you, what are the three of you doing? All right, let's say we stand to the side of the building. Yeah, at least stay out of sight to don't give him a chance. Oh, that's good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll stay on the other side of the door.

So he doesn't see us as soon as he walks in. Okay. Gimech walks in with the two other goblins that were in that room with him. they walk into the room they do not see you as they walk in is Barry with him Barry is not with them he's back on the stage he's back on the stage

but the three the three goblins who walk and have their weapons drawn and Clark goes oh Yemick I have heard the most fascinating story about you and Yemick draws a short bow and fires a

round off at Clark. Hold on. Can I use my protection for Clark? Yeah, sure. We will say that. Okay, so you're imposing the first role was an 18. The second role is 17, which hits his armor class. And he takes four points of damage.

And Clark reels from that shot and says, oh, so it's true. Oh, I see how it is. And pulls out a giant morning star in one hand and a javelin in the other and looks like he's getting ready for business. We're going to hop back into initiative. The two goblins that were in the chamber before walk over behind Yemik and align with this seditionist movement. and I believe the last person to go was Taco so Clark is actually next in the order he is going to bear down on Yemek

with this big big morning star and rolls a 19 which hits for 2D8 plus 2 damage it's a 7 real glad we charm that dude a 6

7 plus 6 is 13 plus 2 is 15 piercing damage, he crushes Yemik into the ground. And the other four goblins look a little bit worried about that. And next in the order is Merle.

Is Magnus still at only two life points? Two hit points? I mean, I've got second wins if I can keep from getting hit. I'm feeling fine. Don't worry about me. Action, action, action. Well, I don't want you to die. We're trying to make a podcast. here. I'll be fine.

Magnus will be fine. Then how would I proceed if I wanted to leave the cave and go back to Barry Blue Jeans and try to heal him? You could do that. You'd be splitting up the party. Don't do that. You got Clark in here. He's still charmed.

And you got four goblins left. How much longer in Clark's charm? Each round of combat takes about six seconds. So he's, we're fine. You got plenty of time on that clock. Sorry, Treve, I'm going to, I'm going to heal you. I mean, you shouldn't apologize.

How dare you, you turd? But here's the thing. Do I need to burn another spell slot? Yeah, your heels are based on your spell slots. So if I use heel here, does that mean I won't be able to cast anything else? Do you only have the two spell slots? Yeah. And yeah, until you take a long rest, you won't be able to cast anything.

All right. Well, I'm going to cast healing hands. hands a one. Okay. I add five to it. So Travis gets six. Magnus gets six hit points back. Gotcha.

Feeling fine. You feel lightly refreshed. You feel like you just applied some bin gay. Gotcha. And then I say triumphantly, you're welcome. I mean, you didn't like sew an arm back on. You healed him for six points of. I see you.

I appreciate it. Okay. Next. Next in the order, back to the top of the order, is Magnus. Then I'm, I mean, I'm going to attack one of the girl. Okay. Wait, can we tell if Yawai is dead? Oh, he's super dead.

Okay. Great. And by the way, we shouldn't say the sentence out loud, Yahweh is dead. Just for future reference, we should avoid saying that sentence out loud. So I would like to roll an intimidation check. Okay. And tell the four goblins that are left, their leader is dead. Lay down your weapons.

Okay. What is your intimidation skill? My intimidation is plus three. 18 We'll say you're contesting their wisdom That's a crit That is not successful

They are not intimidated In fact they're Can I still attack? They look super brave Yeah sure Okay great Then I'm just gonna swing One-handed battle axe

At whoever's closest to me Okay That would be the one And it kind of goes like this Lay down your weapons No All right Okay, that would be the one on the far right there.

18. Yeah, that's it. 1D8. 4. 11. Yeah, he is cleaved. He is cleft. Clefted.

He's dead. He fucking died. He's dead. Listen, I'll buy a thesaurus before we play next time. You kill the goblin. Great job. You get 20 experience points. Is this what you want?

Do I get 20? No flavor text? Here's some flavor. You killed him and you didn't even think twice about it. You just did it impulsively. You murdered another gurgling. You're deeply broken inside. Great job.

Next to the order is the wolf. The wolf is going to charge at the goblin on the far left. 15, which ties their armor class as a hit. 2D4 plus 2. That's 4. Plus 3, 7, 9. He tackles the goblin on the far left to the ground, and he stops moving. Next in the order is the goblins.

There's only two left. That is enough to intimidate them. One of them turns and runs and runs and sort of scurries down that chimney. Another one goes over there and tries to get down that chimney, but he gets stuck along. the way, hilariously. So that can be it. You got a goblin stuck in a hole. You got Clark there, still charmed.

You got a wolf. He is enjoying a delicious meal. And we are out of initiative. Way to go, team. Good work. It was a very unconventional way of tackling that, but I like that. You said you liked that. Yeah, sure.

So, boy, I wish I hadn't needed to murder them. That was, uh, can I search them? Absolutely. If you want to do that in front of Clark, I think more power to you. Let me talk to him. Clark, oh, buddy. We're going to search them for valuables.

Is that cool with you? You know, I suppose so. It's going to... Excellent. Thanks, Clark. I appreciate it. Okay. Yeah, just go right ahead.

Okay, we do it. Okay. You find in Yemix Pocket a... a sack full of golden teeth. And you assume that that's going to be worth a pretty penny. Maybe about 30 gold pieces or so. Do we need to sell it, or can I just put down 30 gold pieces? You can just put down 30 gold pieces.

All right. Split through ways, so. Clark goes, oh, I forgot. I promised you guys so much money. Let me go. And there was talk of tea. Oh, yeah. Is it?

He gets really excited about the. Do you want, I have so much, and I have a lot to share if it's something you're actually in my. You know what? A couple oolong would be a delight. Oh, fantastic. You would go down real soon. Scones? Do you have scones? Oh, my God. No, I. Oh, my God. I don't. No, it's, I can run out and get you some.

No, no, I'm diabetic. I couldn't eat him anyway. I just feel so terrible. You just looked like a scone guy is all. He comes back and brings you out. the three glasses of the most delicious, most aromatic U-Long tea you have ever tasted. It is enough to level, all three of you up to level two, just drinking this incredible tea. Brings you up to level two. How much time has passed?

He also, 59 minutes and 59 seconds. No, you're fine. He also drags out a small chest that contains a lot of copper and silver. or pieces in it equal to about 25 gold pieces. There's also two potions of healing in there. Can you make it 24? 24 gold pieces.

Two potions of healing. I'm not going to round that up for you. And a jade statuette of a frog with tiny golden orbs for eyes worth about 40 gold pieces. Nice. So 64 gold pieces and two potions of healing. The frog statuette

small enough to fit in a pocket or pouch. I'm getting that one straight from the guidebook. Not making that part up. I'm glad we don't have to lug a six-foot statue around. Thanks. Thanks, guide. He says, that's about all there is, guys. I don't feel too bad about that. You just significantly reduced my company's overhead.

And he laughs. He has a nice, good laugh about that. He does, does me. He has a nice, hearty laugh. Well, just think, old buddy, just those many fewer Christmas. bonuses you'll have to fork up. Oh, yeah. Recruitment is a real pain in the old

heinie, but, you know, it's... Clark, since we're friends here. Absolutely. Best friends, I would say. I would say that. What happened? Lovers, maybe? Time will tell. What happened to Gundron? Gundren.

We actually gave him away. Gave him away. Come again? I guess I can start from the beginning. We were hired, we were contracted to give, to collect, let's say, to acquire Gondren, and deliver him to the Black Spider. So that's what we did, and that's where he is at, I imagine. What's the Black Spider?

I don't actually know. I've never met him. but I do know I guess he loves dwarves I guess he just I guess he just likes having them and where

do you think you can mark on my map here where you left Gunger we took him we actually delivered him to an envoy to a representative for Mr. for Mr. Spider here at this cave so unfortunately that is not

do you have a way of contacting the black spider The Black Spider typically contacts me, unfortunately. I do wish I could help you out in this regard, but I do not think there's anything I can do for you. Okay. You don't have any healing salves or anything, do you? I did just give you those potions.

Okay. Listen, Clark, this has been so great. I've had a fantastic time, too. I did have to murder my employees, but, you know. They were going to murder you. They were going to murder me, weren't they? You're always right about things, Magnus. Now, listen, now, before we say goodbye,

let's not leave without making plans to get together again. Can we have a hug? No, no, not with a bug bear. No. Can one of you guys give me just a quick hug? I say Magnus. Magnus, yeah. Sounds like a good job for me.

Okay. He's always, he loves animals. He loves animals. If there's one thing I know about Magnus, he loves hugs. Roll your hug die. Let's turn this bug bear into a hug bear. He takes you in his arms and he cradles you. His fur is so much soft.

than you thought it was going to be. It's amazing. So you share an embrace. You try to disengage. He is... He's actually holding you a little bit longer than you probably wanted to be held. Awkward.

But you know what? Maybe Magnus needs that. He starts moving his hand in small, slow circles on the top of your back. Okay, listen, we've got to be going. This is good, isn't it? Yeah. Are you the two of you?

Are you sure you don't want a piece of this action also? Next time, for sure. Sure. Time is running short. You are starting to think on this spell, and maybe it's time to head out. All right, here we go. Did we want to at least think about murdering Clark? No, we're not going to murder Clark.

We need to go get Barry Blue jeans and get out of there. Now, let me have a discussion with you guys. Can we leave the room first? Yeah, sure. Okay. So long friends. Goodbye, Clark. Goodbye, Clark.

Should we... God, that was creepy. Use one of our healing potions on Barry And so it's like Not dead weight Yeah Well why do that

Why don't I just heal him? You don't have any charges left Well that's right You should two small slots Okay well let's get back in the room first Because we left him alone Let's go check on him I said we carry him out

If we need him All right Let's get in there Is he okay Griffin? He is He's lying where Where He was left

By Yemick Well can we care And I want to I want to check the crate that Eymick was going through. Okay. There is, mostly it is some very rough leather armor, some clothing, some letters. You believe that these are probably Barry Blue Jeans possessions. Oh, right on.

Okay. So you guys slap Barry around a little bit. He comes to, he is in horrible shape, but he's not unconscious. He can... Like he needs to exercise more and eat better? He is a little bit overweight. Is that what you wanted to hear me say? I do.

I do want to know that bear is a little chubster. He is a solidly put together man in his... You'd estimate in his 50s. So he's basically got one foot in the grave age-wise. Is he conscious? He is conscious. and he is he is very, very grateful to be alive,

although he is, again, I can't stress this enough. He's real fucked up. Okay, listen, I want to go ahead and give this guy a healing person. This is silly. Okay. I heal it. You give him a healing person. He guzzles it down, and he says, this is wonderful.

Thank you. Thank you, you, you, you're kind soul. I will never ever forget this kindness. You've done for me. My name is Barry J. Blue Jeans. And I'm ready to kick some goblin. Ass. Where did they go? Listen, all the asses have been kicked, dear Barry.

You didn't leave me one ass. No, we do. There's some stuff out in the weeds, if you were really interested in it. We have your clothes. I will take those, yes. These are my favorite clothes. My name is Barry J. Blue Jeans. Ironically, they are blue jeans. Yeah, well, yeah. No shit. How do you think, why do you think they call me that? Yeah, he is a douche. You think they're such a family name? Barry's a douche.

Oh, guys, thank you so much. And again, that healing potion. So great. So smart. Definitely the right move to make. Let's get out of here. Wait. What do you know about this black spider dude?

Where are we right now? You were still in the cave. Okay. Are we in the auditorium room with the stage? He need a truck it out of the cave because Clark's going to wake up soon and he's going to mirror what happened and I don't want to be here when that happens. Okay. All right.

Barry Blue Jeans is amenable to that. He's like, yeah, let's get the hell out. of this cape. I'm not a big fan of this cape. Mine is Barry Blue Jeans. Maximumfund.org. Comedy and culture. Artist owned. Listener supported.