The Adventure Zone - The Flop House Presents: Return of The Hogsbottom Three

Episode Date: December 29, 2016

We're all on holiday break as we spend some time with our recently expanded families, but instead of skipping a biweek, our friends at The Flop House put together a SUPER BEEFY bonus episode for us! The Hogsbottom Three, fresh off their MaxFunDrive Switcheroo debut, are up against some devious dangers whipped up by DM Stuart Wellington: an old foe, a volcanic giant and the deadliest bowl of chili ever stewed. 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

Trace Horny Boys are on holiday break, but who's that questing in their stead? Welcome the Hogs Bottom 3 back to the Adventure Zone. Welcome back to The Adventure Zone, a podcast about great role-playing games. I'm Stuart Wellington, and with me, as always, is... Who starts? You do. Dan McCoy. And I'm Elliot Kalin.

And I'm Jubin Parang. Okay, we're off to a great start, guys. We're not the normal Adventure Zone people. We're not the normal Adventure Zone people. We're filling in on an off week. Those guys are off having some of their kind of fantastic adventure. But we, the guys from the flop house and our pal Jubin, are getting to take the reins again. So why don't we jump right back into it?

Let's do it. Okay, so it's been about six months since you guys last saw each other since the Battle at Hogs Bottom. And you have reunited at the common room in the inn, Kraglind. Haldahans public house in the mountainside town of Kilm. With a name like Craglahans, it has to be good. Now, what have you guys been up to? You guys, after reuniting, you're sharing tankards of red cheek brand cider and catching up on what you guys have been up to in the last six months. It's an basically empty in, so you guys can just sprawl out and share your stories.

It's a real big chill moment. And it's the four of you. So, of course, Jeremy Scales-Fang Battle. Just call me Scales. It's okay. ...is joined by Hathaway Red Sheek Fang Battle, his wife. And, of course, we have Tanzer Silverview and Lucian Butwatcher. So why don't you start us off, Scales, since I think you had probably the...

I don't want to assume, but I think you had the most momentous six months. Well, guys, you should remember this because you were there, but I got married. It was wonderful. She was the love of my life, Hathaway, who I met on our last adventure. And I've married into the red-cheek cider dynasty. Yeah, I mean, it's a cider farm. But I didn't marry her for her moderate amount of money. I married her because...

It was very little money. Because it was love. Is that a crack about her being small? No. She's a halfling. She's a halfling. And I don't appreciate it. It's not...

It was a joke that I didn't think about the implications of, and I'm sorry about it. I respect the halfling people. And you know what? It was a joke. Get over it. Get over it, Havel. That was the most self-conscious. I think you've ever been, Tander.

It was. You've obviously grown. And for good reason, as we'll get to. But, yes, I've been, I've got married. You guys were my best man, of course. And since then, I got some big news. We were pregnant. What?

Expecting a little dragonling. Wow. So you've achieved your life's goal, right? Life's goal was to build up and contribute to my people by creating more dragon people. So dragon people and halflings can mate properly? That was also my thought, but I didn't want to say it out loud. They sure can, honey. She's blushing.

Her cheeks are naturally red, but she's also blushing. Yes, let's not get into that. But it's great. I thought this would really help me get back in good with my family. The Fang battles, who were always a little disappointed that I became a bard rather than a warrior. They're not crazy about having mixed. grandchildren. Sure.

But when the baby is born... Is it the race or the religion thing? Everything all together. Everything all together. They don't approve everything in my lifestyle or anything in my lifestyle. But when the baby's born, I'm sure they're going to turn around and just have their hearts, their blue-skinned hearts melt. Their hearts are covered in blue skin?

Well, I just wanted to remind you guys again that being, of course, Dragon-Born, I'm blue. Oh, my God. Just didn't go away after six months. And of course, as he sings, you see his wife Hathaway kind of closed her eyes and shakes back and forth in some kind of a rhythmic dance because that's clearly one of the things that they're like the bedrock that their relationship is built. Oh, she loves my music and she loves that I'm a creative person. I've been trying to build up that career and get my touring in before the baby's born because I know that's going to curtail my traveling. I have two questions for you. One is what's the baby's name going to be?

You'll find out when the baby is born Oh, come on, fine And my second one is... But it's going to be named after a musician It depends If it's Taylor Swift bang, bad How did you guess it If it's a girl?

What is the... Actually, it could also be a boy. Taylor goes either way Yeah, because he won't be made fun of For being named after. Well, Taylor Lautner. You know, 10 years ago, that was a name. It was not named after Taylor Swift.

Yeah, but he's a boy's name. Also, here's the problem. A girl named Taylor. Oh, that's cute. a boy named Taylor, you're damning him to a life as a tailor. And I want that to be his choice. You mean as a career? Yes.

In this world, let us remember, your name often has a lot to do with your profession. It's why I want to be called Scales and not Jeremy. That's fair. Have you been looking at my adventure notes? And, but yeah, and I've been practicing magic too because I want to liven up the act a little bit. So magic ventriloquy, it's all stuff I'm adding to my main music. Wow, you're trying to be a variety act? Hey, look, varieties of spice of life.

If I, look, you know, we're not interested in music acts. We're interested in comedy acts. Great, I can do that. I've got a talking puppet. We're interested in magic acts. Great, I can do that. I'm making career opportunities for myself and my family. Being flexible.

So, Lucian, what have you been up to? What mysteries have you uncovered? Well, Tanzer, Jeremy. And Tathaway. As you know, we're playing in a band of two. That's soon going to be a trio. Oh, my God. Adorable.

As you know, I'm a druid and a hermit. So I spent most of my time in quiet reflection, although I did go to a convention about funguses, fungi, and mushrooms. Oh, yeah, Max Fungi Khan. I went to Max Fungi Khan. Did you speak at it? Well, what happened was the leader of Max Fungi Khan. His name is also Jesse Thorne. That's weird.

A lot of parallels. A lot of parallels. He got murdered. Oh, my. Oh, wow. I had to solve the mystery with the aid of my Watson-like sidekick, Gartholomewule. Oh, wow. Introducing a new character, I like that.

I mean, for a sidekick, we only meet up about once a year. Yeah, just at Max Funkkeye. Because, as I said, I'm a hermit. And Tanzer, what have you been up to this last six months? Things have not gone great for poor Tanzer in the last six months. No sooner to the adventure. venture, uh, end when very troubling, uh, accusations and rumors about his family's extensive mining operations began to be raised, whether, both under legality and the working conditions,

forcing, uh, poor Tansor to go home and fight duel after duel in defense in his family's honor, uh, against other aristocrats, naysayers, journalists asking questions. Sure. As soon as all those were resolved, another series of accusations and rumors emerged, uh, regarding his family's extensive tanneries and slaughterhouses and whale honey operations, forcing another round of duels that Tanser had to do. I had no idea that Silverby family had such a diversified portfolio. Massively. But all of them are coming under scrutiny and outrage now,

which has unfortunately turned Tanser very insecure about the future of his family's wealth. So he's much more interested now in finding some new industry to secure the Tanser View, excuse me, the Silverview fortune. and also as politics are taken on a harder libertarian edge as a result of all the scrutiny. Yeah, and at this point, your arms are caked up to the elbow in dual blood. Oh, yeah. I mean, you don't win all those duels out getting a little bit more experience and a lot more bloodthirsty. So as I mentioned, as I said, it's been six months.

So, of course, you guys all went up for the bookkeeping listeners out there. You guys are all now third level. as you can see on your character sheets. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Three out of three possible levels? Out of three, you've hit maximum. Yeah. And you've all acquired at least one magic item.

Do you remember what magic item you've selected? Yes. And how you came across it. Oh, do you want me to go first? Yeah, yeah, you can go. Well, this is Meathead Mace, we're talking about, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Meathead Mace is a huge wooden mace with a face carved in it, and he grunts and can he talk?

Nope, but just grunts. Well, luckily, I've been learning how to throw my voice, and he is an intrinsic part of my ventriloquy act. Sure. It's a kind of comedy and violence act in which I combine the classic ventriloquy dynamic of kind of of the straight-laced ventriloquist and the naughty puppet with your classic Punch and Judy in which the puppet plays a part of punch and I play the part of Judy. Just suffice to say, it's a hilarious act in which I throw my voice in his and we argue and he

hits me really hard. Is it a maze actually usable as a weapon? Oh, very much so. It hurts a lot. that I'm willing to take that sacrifice. One, to make people laugh, and two, to support my family, which is so important to me right now. And forever.

It just brings me so much joy. So, yeah, and in game rules it means when he's holding onto it, it will make noise when enemies are closer, which will give him a benefit to being surprised. But it will also make it harder for him to sneak around as it's basically tool time all the time. Yeah, grunting caveman-like all the time. Lucian Buttwatcher, what is your magical,

item. I got some sort of a vine cloak. I don't remember what it's called. Sure, it's the vine weave cloak. It's a cloak that looks like a mesh of ivy or vines. Yeah. And Jesse Thorne's widow gave it to me as a thank you for solving her husband's murder. Oh, wow.

That's a potent magical gift. Yeah. She must have really liked her husband. Oh, it was tragic. Yeah. And in game rules, that means, of course, that you can cast your cloak upon the ground, and it counts as the entangle. spell, or you can drape it over a wall to create a climable surface up to 30 feet high,

or drape it across a gap or water or something to make a bridge that's 30 feet long. Oh, that's great. Wow. And Tanzer, you also got a magical item, right? I have Little Godfrey, who's a two-foot-tall mannequin, umbued with magical powers that can hold and carry a lot of my stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's from the makers of Scuttle Buddy. And he's a tiny suit of armor that can carry up to 400 pounds of gear, treasure, etc. And follow one-word commands.

He will, however, not fight, talk, or perform more complicated tasks than following standing still or picking things up. Let's see. Once he sees the Meathead Mays Act, I think he's going to want to get in on the show, he'll start talking. Okay, and how did you come across this? Did you win him in a duel? No, he's been in my family for generations. He's seen everything the Silver Views have ever done. Um, we treat him terribly and have for generations as far back, but he probably features in all the portraits of every silver view dating back to antiquity.

Okay. So you guys are sitting around the, the common room at Kragelhans Public House. Now, a week or so ago, uh, Lucian and Tanzer, you received a missive or a letter. I don't know exactly what your living situations were, but you were summoned to meet at, uh, at the town of Kiln on this date, um, in this specific, uh,

tavern. Because a few weeks prior, uh, Hathaway Red Sheek Fang Battle, the wife of Jeremy Skatele's Spang Battle, uh, received a distressing letter.

And she reads out loud to you at the tavern. The letter reads, help. I'm a close friend of your uncle, Darius Redcheek. I fear that. is found himself in grave danger with the Lady of Kiln,

Titania Gravemore. He has oft mentioned you and your friends, the Hogs Bottom Three. I wish that wasn't our nickname. It's not a great name. Please gather your friends. I can see an upside to it. Yeah, you would.

Please gather your friends and meet me at Craglahan's public house in Kieln. Make haste, and it's signed Griselda Plotch. Before we deal with Griselda Plotch's clearly serious threat, have you guys ever thought about performing as the Hogs Bottom Three? Oh, my God.

I can already see where this is going, and I just want you to know that I don't want to be a part of what's going to eventually be your family act that you're going to take on the road. Three words. Soggy bottom boys. The hit of a certain story, which we don't have films here. So it's an oral tradition tale. Tell me the story of what about the round.

About three convicts who are on the run, and they form a musical group. Now, we already have an up on them because we're not convicts. We're heroes. Do you play instruments? I play the washboard, but it is below the dignity of a high elf

to play it in public. You play it behind a curtain again. I do it alone to comfort myself. There's nothing more comforting than the sound of the washboard. And I was obviously forced to spend 20 years taking violin classes at the behest of my parents, but I don't see what that has to do with anything here. So let's tape it.

We'll do this for now, but after this adventure, maybe let's, we could go on the road as the Hogs Bottom 3. We do a little show, I do a little singing, we do a little comedy, we sign the autographs. I want that kid to be born so bad to take your attention away from all this. Look, I've got to build a nest egg, literally, because I'm a dragon.

Your nest is not big enough for the three of you? Where are you living right now? Oh, we're living with Hathaway's family. I mean, we live in the basement of her family's house. The place we dug up? Yeah, it's not ideal. but look, the rent's pretty attractive. They're charging you rent?

No, they're not charging us rent. That's not saying they are charging us a little bit of rents. But, I mean, it's negligible, you know, and chores and things. You know, I sing for a copper or two every day. Anyway, what was this adventure that we're talking about? I feel like things did not turn out of this. You know, if you're not talking about how I'm living in my in-laws basement. Now, the town of Kieln is a small mining town built near the summit of the Shatter Peak, a mostly dormant volcano.

No. Now, as you arrived in kiln, you notice that it is, as I said, relatively small, and it's clinging to the edge of this mountain. The two notable features are at the northernmost point of the highest point of town is the Tower of Unity, where the Lady Titania Gravemore resides, which is a small castle. And you also notice, as you're riding the massive winch lift up to kiln, you notice along the eastern side of the mountain, a massive fire giant who you know to be as magmar stone bones, a massive ancient fire giant who lives in peace and harmony with the people of kiln. And he spends his days hurting fire beetles around that he milks to serve, he sells fire beetle milk to the people.

Now, how big is a fire beetle? A little bigger than a horse. Okay. And he's about three stories tall, which is very large for a fire giant. So if I could, if I want to say impressed to my wife by jumping on and surfing on the back of a fire beetle, much as I've heard heroes do in legendary tales. Yeah, the strange portal to another world that you're able to look through. I mean, it would be very impressive, but it would be at this point, she's feeling very no nonsense.

since her uncle, her uncle might be in danger. Yeah, no, I wouldn't do that. Honey, I'm not talking to doing that now. I'm just saying, like, when we're all done with this later, that'd be cool. Yeah, she seems pretty serious at this point. Okay, understood. She was very close to her uncle. Yeah, I mean, and he never, Darius never really got over your inclusion to the family.

As you remember, he was not a big fan of U3 adventurers showing up. No. And he's kind of never been right since his daughter, Noel, has, uh, has, uh, has, uh, gone missing after the explosion in Fandelion. Yeah, we heard about that. So he just kind of, he kind of wandered off shortly after your wedding, and nobody's really heard from him since. Wait, I didn't hear about that.

The Fandlin explosion? It was a super huge explosion. It was a news story. You're probably busy dealing with other, you know, selfish stuff. I don't know. There's so many lies in the media about so much stuff. What do you know? It really happens.

Is, are we, so we are waiting for, Darius to show up. No, you're hoping for, you're waiting for Grizelda Ploch. We want to find some answers about where Darius is. And you are currently inside the common room of Craglahan's public house, which is a small two-story in on the lower slopes of kiln.

I thought we were going up a winch-powered thing above. Yeah, that's how you got to kill. Oh, I see, I see. You're way near the top of the Shatter Peak. I see. I didn't realize that. Yeah. I thought it was at the... Oh, that's what you meant.

Okay, I get it. So you're clinging to the edge near the peak of the shadow. I mean, I didn't get the best of you because I had my hood over my head and I was scribbling down lyrics to some of my new rhymes, you know, just kind of trying them out to myself, you know? I have a new one about how, like, it's your second. You have it. Are you going to release it from your hands?

And Hathaway passes you a blade of spaghetti she bought from mom's spaghetti. It's like the mom of my kids spaghetti. The hands are sweaty. But not too sweaty because I'm a dragon. I can deal with heat very well. all start out so great. Yeah, the meter kind of falls apart halfway through. I'm still working on.

These are works in progress. You know, it's hard to come up with your own original material, but that's where the money is, is in the publishing rights. You know, I've been doing a lot of research on the music business. Do you have any idea what the taxation levels on these things are going to be? Like, just first and foremost? Let me tell you something. It doesn't matter what you do,

because the goddamn government is going to get in there and just squeeze you dry regardless of how hard you very. You've earned it. If I write a song and I kind of license it out to different barge to sing elsewhere, it's a cash under the table business. I mean, I'll keep the record. That's how to do it, man. That is how to do it. Let me ask something here.

Just on an honest note. Have you guys heard anything about anything? I mean, I heard about it. It's a lot of lives. It seems very cryptic. Which you apparently didn't hear about. It's just like, a lot of what you've heard about the Silver Review family is just a bunch of garbage. I'll put it that way, all right? It's a bunch of garbage. It's a bunch of

lies by a lot of, a lot of interested parties. A lot of... We know you come from a pretty bad background, but we still, you're still our friends. No, I come from the best background. In fact, here's the song I wrote about it. Heroes are we, the hogs bottom three. Tans are the reason in the middle of your singing slash argument, Hathaway slaps her hand on the table and she says, my family is in trouble here, you stupid son of a bitch. So why don't we just take it easy if you mess this up for me?

Oh, oh. I don't get too agitated, honey. Think about the baby. I'm so sorry that being here to help you out for no money so far that we've discussed is upsetting you. I'm so sorry about that. Let's take our leave.

Let's take our leave. I mean, I don't enjoy being around people in the first place, so I'm happy to... One second. I got three points to make. One, Tanzra, I don't appreciate your tone with my wife, and I want you to apologize. Two, Lucian, don't let you make him a pawn. And three, we're the hogs bottom three, guys. We're heroes.

We do things for valor and courage. So we can sing epic songs about him. So let's find Griselda. Now to punctuate that. The door to the common room opens, and an old woman comes in wearing the clothes of maybe a tradesman, but oddly more colorful with clearly, you know, like beautiful and more expensive patterns than you normally see on somebody of the working class. Unicloat stuff. Yeah, H&M, sure.

Bright color blocking. And she sees you, seems to recognize you, and makes her way over toward the table. Clearly, we're kind of minor celebrities. Clearly, this is Grisel de Blotch. I say, hold on for a second. The thing about our nickname also is that it wouldn't be such a big. thing if maybe you wouldn't keep including in all the songs about us. Why would I remind people

about our greatest victory? That's a crazy thing to say. It's just the Hogs Bottom 3 is the thing. Just call us the Triumvirate 3 or the triple 3. How do people know what we did? Come on. Just any nickname besides Hogsbottom 3. I'm uncomfortable with emotion. I don't understand.

I don't like it. Pulling up a chair and helping the old woman sit down. I was going to do that. I never get this right. And she sits down and holds the old woman's stained hand, like her hands clearly

have been stained, possibly in like a dye maker's shop. I continue to ignore all of this. Here's another issue I have. What? Zhezilda's here. Like, let's talk to her. Who is Griselda?

Oh, God. She says, the old woman says, I am Griselda, young man. And I am so glad you answered my summons for your, uncle, Darius, might be in grave danger. And Hathaway says, so how do you know my uncle?

And Grisela says, he came to town a few months ago and began working with, working at the tower in the kitchens, and we struck up a friendship at the covered market. But I haven't seen him in some time. he had seemed trouble. Weeks and weeks ago, he seemed troubled and increasingly distant.

And then after a while, I didn't see him any more at all, which could be he just got tired of spending time with me, but I thought we had something. Thank you. Maybe, I can't believe that. No. I can see right from the beginning that you are,

one in a million, you're one in a million. I don't have the rest of it, but that's the start of something. Thank you, Scales. Continue, Griselda. But shortly after Darius failed to, stopped coming to the markets, the tower closed itself off entirely.

No one was allowed in nor out, and people around town are beginning to whisper that some foul deed might be afoot. Until, nay, a few scant days ago, word has gotten out that the Lady Titania has invited luminaries from around Fayrune to a party that's going to be held tomorrow night. This is the kind of gig we could get if we were the hogs bottom three, but continue, result. So, perhaps you might be able to find some answers if you could. could perhaps gain admittance to this rather exclusive party that Lady Titanio is holding.

That won't be a problem for me, certainly. I'm to answer Silverview of the Silverview's. Very honorable family. I probably could just get an invitation just by walking to the door. The old woman pats your hand with her claw and she says, oh, I know, honey, I know who you are. You're very famous. Why? Why do you, for what? Of the Silverviews. They're a very famous family. Yes. Honorably famous.

For good reasons. Oh, I never questioned your honor. Good. Good. And Hathaway says, So what else can you tell us about it? You say nobody's been in or out of the castle? How are we to get in?

And also, so did Darius's disappearance? How long was that from the castle being shut off? Uh, he, maybe a few days, four or five days. Okay. Hmm. Hmm. You believe, so you believe Darius is in this castle somewhere, and this would be the only chance we get to get into the castle to find out his whereabouts? It's the first time the castle will be open to the public.

And why was it shut down initially? I have no idea. Nobody knows. It's one of those Willy Wonka things. So many references everybody's making these magical worlds Those are all to analogs to the things we know Yeah Books or epic poems

Analogs that have the same names Tapistries So wait, when is the party? What night? Tomorrow night Guys Changing room montage Dete

Deeee Dee Dee Luckily I always bring in Sits and puts his finger His thumb up or thumb down as people come out of her changing room. I walk in and out in a series of different tuxedos, all of which Godfrey is packed for me.

Black on black, white on black, navy blue, black with blue undertones, silver and white. I'm going for kind of a pretty glitzy kind of liberace type thing. I'm trying to play up being like an impresario. It all has feathers, no matter what it is. It's huge. So this goes on, and Griselda is loving it. Because you guys have clearly committed.

She knows the kind of stuff they like at the castle of the tower. So you, do you agree to do it? Do you? Something tells me that if we don't agree to do it, this will be a very short episode. Now, I would like to. And my wife also. I don't think, I don't think Hathaway would be super cool that. No, guys, we got to do this.

This is my family. I'm married into it. She's already kind of agreed for you. Oh. Look, I'm willing to do this for free. because we are all very close and we were at your wedding Well, we are certainly A3 of a sort

How come you guys never wear the jackets I made for you That's a hogs bottom three on that. It's just the hogs bottom was in such large font And the three was so small It just didn't feel right It's like hogs bottom three I didn't want to wear it But I will say

You wear it tomorrow? I'll if we I will think about finding it I've lost it But I will ask that if there is any loot to be found or a treasure or anything, that Lucian and I get first dibs at it since we are doing you a favor scale. I'm not doing this for money.

Yeah, this is for my family. Hathaway says, so Lucian, how are we going to get into this? I had this idea where we all dress as young ingenues. Ladies get into most places for free, right? that's that's the way these parties work I haven't been I haven't been to one in quite some time

Hathaway looks to Griselo when you suggest that and she says no my dear you you'll need a you'll need an authenticated invitation here's my plan for how to get into the castle as a silver view I will approach

and insist on my noble right to enter the party along with Godfrey and Hathaway who I can claim to be my partner. In the meantime, Lucian... That sounds like a lovely idea, young man. Well, there we go. See? This old woman thinks so.

She has a name. It's Griselda. She thinks so. In the meantime, Lucian, you use your new cloak to scale you and scales up the side of the building. Scales shall scale. An excellent turn of phrase. See, it's lyrative sense. I'm using that pun in my epic about this adventure. You scale... It'll be called the Hogs Bottom Three Return. I guess we'll talk about that nickname.

Party time horror. What about that nickname? Why don't we just dress them up like guards or something? Why don't they have to climb over a wall? We could go in as your bodyguards. You have a retinue, right? Well, I guess I can pitch that to the guard. I'll try to buy them armor or something.

Because you guys are wearing your traveling clothes. Yeah. Well, who's going to pay for the armor? Which for me is like kind of loose fit sweatpants. You know, like a comfortable t-shirt. You've really become dad wear. I'm getting ready for it. I mean, most of my clothes.

Neck pillow. Yeah, neck pillow, and like eye, things to cover my eyes, fanny pack. Most of my regular clothes now is like cargo shorts and like a polo shirt. Yeah, just like really light tank, cargo shorts, like really thick black shoes. Yeah, yeah, and I wear, with tall white socks. Tall white socks. And I wear a brown belt on the shorts.

Wow. It's so fast. My polo shirts are tucked in, by the way. And my, if, and anything I would. Sounds like a really cool musician type. I do have a spell called Pass Without Trace, which could probably get us through the guards outside, but then we would have to be inside mixing among the guests. So I don't know if that's the best.

And I can charm people. Well, let's use all of that to get in there on the power of my name. So maybe if you got in, if you were able to sneak in, maybe you could pass yourself off as a guest or something. Mm-hmm. That sounds. Yeah, let's do that. Let's do that. Well, it's taking us a lot of time to get to the point

we're going to just pretend for guess. Just walk into the party. Do we need to know anything else? Do we know what this party's for? And Grisel is, I don't know. I'm assuming it was on the invitation. Perhaps the Lady Titania's son, Leo, is coming of age.

Perhaps it's a birthday or something. Uh, maybe, do you think you, Sandra, you think maybe you could get an actual physical invitation that might give us some more information. I will... Invitation information also rhyme going in the song. Sure, great. I will ask, uh, as I, I will, uh, ask the guard as I walk up, uh, that my invitation must have been lost and, uh, ask for another one. So you're just going to wing it on the day. I'll just wing it on the day.

I was, I kind of go now. To get an invitation? Yeah. All right, sure. Sure. I'll do that. I'll go get an invitation. Because it'll give us a chance to kind of like, we'll go as your retina and we can kind of scope out the lay of the land around the castle. Yeah. All right. I'll head up there. As you guys leave, Grisilda says, I'll be staying here if you have any other questions. In the inn?

Yeah, a place are people staying. It seems like the most logical place for her. It's not like we're meeting at an amusement park. Does she live in the general area? This end seems pretty empty. The only other people in the common room were Craglahan, of course, who's manning the bar. He's a crusty old half-work. Yep. My sense of this bar being on the slope is that it's kind of like, is that the floor is at like a 45-degree angle.

Oh, yeah. Everyone's just kind of basically like carefully walking up. A lot of beers or a lot of tankards fall on the ground and roll down and smash against the wall. And it doesn't help. Craglhan only has, Cragelhand has one hand and his left hand is a hook, so it makes it somewhat hard for him to, I mean, he's pretty good at pouring

drinks, but it's still, it's still a little sad. It's a lot of shattered glass all the way in the far wall. Yep, and there's a poster for the movie Shattered. And the only other patrons are a pair of drow bravos that are sitting in the corner,

whispering to each other. Normally I might suggest we ask Fragelhan for some information, see whether he knows anything. But it's taken us over half an hour to get our mission and we haven't gone anywhere.

Sure, yeah, yeah. So unless our dungeon master winks at us to tell us that we should talk to somebody in the bar. No, it sounds like you guys have a plan. Let's get going. Okay, to the tower. So the four you guys, make your way toward the tower.

It's winding streets. The town is surprising. amazingly full. But Tans are paid for a coach for us, right? It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a little guy who, uh, does, uh, what you might call it a rickshaw, he, he takes you up the streets because they, it's hard to maneuver horses. Oh, I see.

So he's got the four of us in the, in the, in the rickshaw? Yeah, yeah, four of you in a rickshaw. I mean, he's, it's a dwarf pulling the rickshaw. He's, he's sturdy. Okay. Low center of gravity. So, uh, the dwarf, uh, drops you off at the front. of the tower.

Now the tower has a large, like 15 foot high defensive wall around it. The tower itself is kind of built into the side of the mountain, very close to the top of the Shatter Peak, which still has a like a thin stream of smoke rising up out of its molten depths. The tower itself is set slightly away from the rest of the remaining buildings. You can see as you look down. down slope, you can see a wide staircase that leads to the covered market that Griselda had mentioned. And then further down, you see the winch house, the wheelhouse that you guys rode the winch up to.

And then further way down below, you can see the town of Dew Drop Falls where you took the winch from. And in the wall, there's a, the wall around the tower is a small, wooden door. It's wide enough just to fit a cart through, but not much more. It's mainly there for defensive purposes. And there's inside the massive wooden doors, there's a, there's a much smaller wooden door that's just human size with a little, you know, one of those little sliding things about eye level for somebody to make sure that when you knock, you're not bad guys. A speakeasy type thing. Yeah, it's a speakeasy type window. So who's going to knock? I'll knock.

The gate's closed. I'll knock. After waiting a a little bit of time, you hear the wooden window slide over and you see the face of a guard occupy the little window frame and she says,

who goes there? Me, Tansor Silverview, of the Silverviews. I am coming to the party tomorrow night. I have fortunately lost my invitation on the travel over, and I would like to acquire another one, along with my retinue of bodyguards and troubadours and what have you, as a nobleman of my stature has. But the castle's closed till tomorrow.

Wait, you're a guest? I guess it's a morrow's party. What do you say your name was? Tanzer Silverview. You've doubtless. heard about my family, although recent news will all be lies. Now, clearly, this is a time in a game of Dungeons and Dragons where you're going to have to roll some dice.

So you're going to have to roll a... I'm assuming you're trying to persuade this person to do what you want. Now, if this is a very important role for you, Jubin, you can spend that point of inspiration that you earned from the Battle of Hogs Bottom in the last adventure to roll two 20-sided dice and pick the best result. Now, this could also... Now, is this an opportunity where I could use my spell of Charm Person to help him with this? You could.

The only thing about Charmed Person is that it's, they'll know that you charmed them afterwards. So they might be like, hey, they'd be like, hey, that's the person to be charmed me and they're giving you something. That's a good point. Now, my persuasion is a three advantage, so I feel like I can do this without the inspiration. I'm just giving you the option, my man. I don't know if I should save it for later. Let's see if this is classic Tansor Silverview, hubris. Yeah, I'm not sure.

I feel like I can do it without the wasting the thing. I mean, your confidence is winning me over even though I know it shouldn't. But that's part of my natural persuasion. I'm going to try it without the inspiration so we can save it for later. Sure. So I roll this 20-sided die. Yep. I hit a 19 on it.

Whoa. Plus three. Plus three. man. 22. Okay. So the guard says, uh,

just a minute, sir. And closes the, uh, slides the thing shut. After another wait? I look back at the guys and wink. I think it went pretty well.

Uh, and after you, once again, you have to wait a little while before you hear a bolt being thrown and the door opens. And, uh, you see a pair of guards, flanking the door and then standing between them is a tall, skinny, older man

wearing long wizard's robes covered in images of skulls and bones. And he's got a long white... Yes, I was also in that fraternity in Silverview University. And he's got his hands kind of clasped together in the front. And he says, Silverview, a guest to the party? That is correct. And I've been waiting for almost 30 minutes now. Oh, I'm so, so sorry.

Greetings. I am Lady Titania's resident wizard, Capadocious. It's wonderful to meet you, Capadocious. This is my retinue of bodyguards and troubadours. Oh, I'm a motley crew, to be sure. Of course, myself as a high elf would normally not be in a subject position to anyone, as my race is superior to all others, but I have decided to, as a humbling exercise,

become this man's compatriot. No, it's cool. I buy that. I understood that right away. It's a super awkward beeping for it everywhere. Just as you can see. I'm the music guy. Wonderful.

And your friend that seems to be getting angrier as you speak, Just, uh, I'm Hathaway Red Sheek. Uh, I'm his, part of his retinue, I guess. Oh, wonderful. So, uh, you say, uh, you need an invitation of Silverviews, of course. You're a very well-known family. Uh, but you said Tanzer Silverview? Yes.

Oh, all right. Uh, from Waterdeep then. Of course. Oh, okay. And he fuddles through. his his his uh his uh like morbid skull covered robes and pulls out a uh pulls out a invitation a small card and hands it over to you with a hand that is dripping in weird skull rings like he's some kind of biker wow and he passes it to you i take it and read it uh it says you are hereby invited

to the introduction party of leo gravemore Oh, it was, we were thinking it was. And it has the sigil of House Gravemore. You mean it's what we knew it was, since you hadn't. Of course, that is certainly what I meant. I will see you tomorrow at the party. I assume this invitation will take care of my retinue of troubadours and bodyguards. Of course, as long as it's fewer than six people, it's cool.

I think we're just about there. Yes. We'll bring some ale. Oh, wonderful. Of course you should bring a gift. It's an introduction party. Oh, and what greater gift than the gift of song? I'm on it.

Wink. Well, we'll be seeing, you guys. And Cappadocious slowly, he does that thing where he, like, slides backwards and you don't really see his feet move. Like, some kind of vampire. Like, like, Bram Stoker's Dracula. I don't know if it was all the skull rings, but I got a bad feeling about that dude. Yeah. It seemed nice to me.

They close the door and lock it. Okay, we have the imitation. Do you guys do a no way moment where you all look at each other and you breathlessly say no way under your... Yeah, we all high-fired. But not within view of the cards. Sorry, honey. Do you guys want to wait until we get back to wherever we're staying for me to perform the rap that I've wrote it in so far about our adventure? Well, you can practice while we walk there.

Let's wait until we're done with the entire... Let's finish this adventure. After a while we're tabulating XPs. So you, so you guys head back to... Let's go back to Craglands. Cromat, Lines. Yeah. Okay.

Okay, so we know that it's, it's Leo Gravemore. That's his name, right? Yep. Okay. This introductory and party, which I guess means in, I don't know.

You know, in your experience, in your experience, it's the moment when like a younger, Yeah, it's about the same age. Like about a barmets for age. And you invite, you know, rich and famous people, and they come and they give you gifts. And it's like a time to show off how, like, rich and fancy you are.

And the gift is kind of for the kid, kind of for the family. There's usually a big dinner. Boy, I wonder if there's a way to use that gift to our advantage. If we can suggest that a gift needs some sort of preparation and then use that to sneak into different rooms to look for Darius. I'm thinking, I'm just spitballing here, guys. I mean, I feel like once we're in the party, we kind of just got to say like, oh, where's the head? And then, you know, we can go use the bathroom. All right.

Walk around. Okay. Griselda is sitting at the bar in Craiglans Public House knitting away at the, and nursing a large cup of red cheek, applesaucee, the highly potent apple brew that the Red Sheek family says. Wow, you guys are really branched out. I mean, the Apple Cheek family, the Red Shek family is full of a number of people. Apple Cheek family is an enemy family. We don't like that.

I apologize. I'm sorry, sweetie. That's the Red Sheek family. There's a large number of products and varieties. Very successful. Of course, you would look down on us because we're merchants, and you look down even more on me because I'm a creative type and I don't play with the rules. If we were not have the bond of combat, then I would never look at you twice. Absolutely.

Now, can I ask a result of question? Of course. She seems very happy when she sees Tanzer walk in spinning the invitation in his hand. Like a basketball. Careful, careful, careful, careful. Just going, boo ya, baby, boo ya. I take it just to look at it and I accidentally crumple it up a little bit. No, no. They're kind of clumsy.

Oh, it doesn't spin like it used to now. Oh, so you got your invitation. I never had any doubt. That was seems kind of ominous and creepy. I don't know. Griselda, have you ever been in the tower before? What can we expect from the layout of the place? I've never been in there. I've only heard it's built into the rock of the mountain

and filled with twisting almost labyrinthine corridors. Darius has been acting as a chef for Lady Gravemore. So perhaps you might find him, if everything goes well, he may be in the kitchen or, possibly the dungeons. Like cooking in the dungeon, like overflow? Like, manning for the prisoners? Cooking for prisoners, maybe?

Perhaps he is the prisoners, what I'm suggesting. For not cooking good enough. I see, yeah, probably. I've noticed that my Grisela voice is very similar to my Ambrose tablo voice. I hope they don't meet each other. He said he did? No, his son is. Oh, oh.

He's a bitter old man that was in jail. Oh, that's right? Yeah, no, it was a son who was murdered by our allies. Oh, and then we killed the others. Yeah, we took a, we took a entire line. Oh, boy, that was rough. They went after the, they went after the red cheeks, okay. That's a good point.

They've murdered most of them, so that's good point. You go after the red cheeks, you get, what, like a red neck from your throat cut? Yeah, from being strangles, yeah. Yeah, we're cut. I don't know. Look, they don't tell them. I'm married in, I don't know. That slogan is on their crest, but it kind of goes off the crest.

It's so long. So we got to get in there and find the kitchens, is what it's what it's. sounds like. That sounds, and yeah, that sounds like the first step, definitely, assuming he's not, maybe we should split up and go the dungeons of the kitchens. We'll do both. Yeah, because it's a great idea to split up always. Now, here's the thing, so do we, are there any supplies we need?

We already got our sweet duds from our trying on clothes montage. So we're all ready to, we'll look the part of guests at this high class sullery. So you guys, what I thought was just offhanded jokes, you guys actually got clothes. What kind of, you guys got like noble finery? Well, you were talking about how you have a tuxedo. I packed my noble finery with me. So a little Godfrey is always carrying, I'm assuming a giant trunk. With multiple options.

He's a little suit of armor that chirps kind of like a little robot. And you want him to carry what, multiple trunks? Yeah, multiple trunks of clothing for debutante balls, evening debutante balls, summer debutante balls, old age balls. the middle-aged balls, death balls, also not as funerals, but in the nobleman families, still you got to dress up for it. Yeah, yeah, so you have plenty of things in your various friends. And I can also in various sizes, too, so I have enough for them. Now, you guys do not have appropriate garments and would need to go shopping.

Is that what you wanted to spend time doing? I thought we did that already. No, no, no. You couldn't do that all in the middle of the conversation. I guess not. But you will have time in the morning of the next day, if that's what you want to spend your day doing. Yeah, yeah, I think that sounds a good idea. I was hoping for something with sequins, uh, flashy, real flashy.

A kimono and nothing else is going to be really creepy. It's really creepy. Just slightly open. Is there with a over the room slightly? Is there an eccentric hermit type? No, what time is it now? I mean, it will be a nice kimono, though, right? No, it'll be the finest silk against my body.

Sure. Are you going to put your vine weave cloak on top of that? so you're wearing a kimono with a With kind of a swamp thing Clogue over it And don't forget your quarterstaff that you can transmorph into a shaleli Yeah, that's right

I can change one stick Into a different type of stick A bigger stick Slightly thicker stick Yeah, druids are pretty amazing Now one of the things about you being a druid Is you can also transform into animals Now when you transform

Do all your clothes and possessions fall off Or do they transform with you That's up to you, actually. That's a choice you get to make. So if you're a real exhibitionist, then, uh-oh, I transformed and I transformed back, and my kimono is gone. No, that appeals to Lufian, but I think that of convenience, his clothes, transform with him. Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, that makes sense.

Okay, so Griselda goes to bed at a relatively early hour while you guys. She's an old lady. She had her applesau dinner. The bravos in the corner seem to be playing some kind of, a game that you're not familiar with that involves cards and knives. I mean, they are bravos, so we could watch what happens live, but it doesn't seem like it's really relevant. Yeah.

And other than that, you guys are the only, you're the only guests here at Craglahan's. Now, what time is it? Like early, let's say, dinner time. Okay. You're probably just finishing up a delicious meal served up to you by Craglahan himself. Thank you, Craiglin. Some kind of grayish meat that's simmering in some kind of spicy fire beetle sauce. And the ball is tomorrow?

It's a sauce made out of fire beetle milk, like a curry almost. Oh, okay. Is the party tomorrow? The party is tomorrow night. Now, are there any open mic nights tonight in kiln or? If what you're asking is, do you want to, you could probably go out and peddle your wares, meaning your singing abilities. I think it might look bad for me trying to get into a fancy party if I'm busking the night before. Yeah.

Like a common hobo. And you don't want to wear like a fantasy mustache or something? Oh, I do now that the idea has been brought up. But I don't know how many blueskin dragonborn there are in the town. It might be pretty clear. And I don't know if we can grow mustaches. I feel like unless there's something specific we need to do, we need to bustle ourselves to the party. Maybe we should all just go to bed guys and rest for 24 hours.

Well, no, I've got to get a new suit of clothes. Maybe you can do, I don't know, whatever it is you do during the day. Brush your hair a lot. Stuff to do in the town? Or is this pretty much it does in? Oh, there's plenty of things you can do in the town if you want to do things of the town. Or you can just go straight to the party, if you'd like. I feel like we should ask around, see if anybody knows who Darius is.

That's true. Yeah, maybe we go. We go around to any pub we see that maybe has like a... Okay, so there's a tavern in town. Okay. There's a large tavern that seems very popular with the miners. And it's... Minors shouldn't be drinking.

It's called the Lodestone. I'm working on the comedy in my acts. and that's a sort of, it's a large open hall room. There's a woman behind the bar, and the bar is filled with dirty minor types that are playing cards. There's a guy plinking away at a little piano in the corner. There's guys arm wrestling. It seems like a real fun place.

This weird set up for a real Hal Needham evening here. Yeah. Is there, okay, so I guess we can ask, I mean, Teres was working in the kitchen of a wealthy tower. I don't know if the miners were necessarily. Yeah, he's a rich. Maybe he made friends with them in a public place like he did with Griselda. Go ask the bartender.

Maybe he was, maybe there is, they probably serve as, and barbacks all know each other. Maybe they're familiar with you. Yeah, they're on the service industry. They tip each other very well. Yeah, they go to parties after they close and get drunk together. Yeah. So we go ask the bartender.

What are you fellas doing here in town? Oh, you know. Not adventuring. That's for sure. Not at all. Just friends, gathering around, having a reunion of sorts. I'm wondering where our good friend Darius Red Sheik might be

I give him an okay sign like you're doing great Yeah I'm winked back at him She looks a little like she looks a little confused Hathaway kind of stands up and using her hands She says well he's a middle-aged halfling man About this high with big sideburns And bushy, bushy black eyebrows And I jump in very awkward kind of brooding

like a hard guy to get to know, even when you try really hard. Because you know what? He's your family and you want to love him, even though he makes it very difficult to love him. And in a way that makes it easier to love him for his flaws. She says, oh, yeah, did he work up at that tower? Yeah, I think so. Probably, yeah. I mean, he was a really good cook.

He was a really good cook, so maybe he found work doing it. Yeah, I haven't seen anybody from the tower in a while. What, yeah, I haven't seen that either. What's going on with that? I don't know. We used to get some of the guard, the town guard that are stationed up there. They used to come in, but they don't come in anymore. And then even, I've been hearing there even looking for more, for more people to join the guard.

Really? Yeah, I mean, it's an easier life than down on them their minds, you know. Why would that be necessarily the case? People in mines are treated well all over the world. You know what? it's not a here nor there. It's not a here nor there. Here's one thing I would wonder about is where those guard

recruiters are. Oh, uh, I don't know, they usually... On a side strategy we're getting into the house. Maybe it couldn't hurt, maybe. Uh, I mean, I imagine they're up in the tower. I mean, after night, there's, they're not going to be finding new folks, but I guess they'd

maybe come in here or, uh, down the covered market. All right. So there's some, Maybe even, I don't know, had down to DoDrop Falls, get some of them local boys, get them up there at the tower. Mm-hmm. Okay. So there's definitely some increased security around there. There's some other. They're hiring more guards.

That means, yeah. There's a lot of, there's going to be a lot of things to guard and people guarding them. Hathaway says, so what do you remember my uncle? Did he come in here a lot? What do you remember about him? Oh, there goes secret. And the woman says, oh, the half one fell? He used to come in here and drink with an old lady

Off in the corner Oh yeah, the potch, yeah, yeah, yeah, we met her. Yeah. I don't know her. She had, like, dyed hands, like her hands were stained with dimes. Yeah, it looked like a seamstress or a dye maker. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nice lady.

Oh, I haven't seen her in a while either. Hmm. Hmm. I wonder if it's worth asking her on anybody else. Darius seems to have been pretty kept to himself. I mean, I could have told you that about Darius. He wasn't the most outgoing, kind of like,

he's not the life of the party the way that say like his nephew-in-law is, but he's, you know, solid salt of the earth folk. Thank you. What was your name, Miss? Haley, are y'all going to order a drink? Or you're just going to talk my ear off? Can I have some

Fire Beetle milk? Of course, we mix it up with a little bit of ale, though, because string that stuff straight I'll kill you. Well, not literally, though. You town folk, certainly, but all right. Wow.

If you want to do it like my me-ma used to do it when I was young. Yeah, I'm at your me-maw, mister, but yeah, I'll put some extra in there. She'd mix you up a drink. Give me one of the most popular drink around. None for my wife, please. She's expecting. You drink when your wife is pregnant and can drink? I'm drinking for two.

Three, really. Now the way, says, Stop bringing that up. I'm just proud, okay? I'm very proud. Dude, it's weird. We're going on an adventure together. You don't have to keep bringing that part.

No, it's just, I'm very excited about it. I'm very proud of it. I mean, and not just because it means my parts work, which is something that all males of all species worry about. No one didn't think that until now. You're making it super weird.

Sorry, honey. Anyway, just give me one drink of whatever. Now I'm wondering with Lucian, Does skills parts work all the way? No, they do. So, sir, my lord, would you like some brandy? Yes, I'll take whatever the finest apple cheek cider you have. Oh, the apple cheeks cider, we're more of a red cheek cider place around here.

Apple cheek ciders, do drop falls, folks. Uh-oh, I think we got to leave. Hathaway, why don't we just step outside? You do any? No, she said red cheek ciders will they carry here? Apple cheek, they don't care. Oh, oh, I miss her. Oh, yeah, Apple Che is a crap-tide.

What were you asking? I forgot. I forgot. That drink really went to your head fast. I'm sorry. It was, she gave me a shot of something that tasted like something that, uh, that a fire giant vomited up. And it is making me feel pretty good. Which is delicious.

Although it kind of, uh, were you a lesser man, Lucian, it would probably shoot, uh, steam out of your ears comically. And your eyeballs would turn into little thermometer. that would then fill up and explode. I order a red cheek ale and drink it. Okay. You guys have your drinks. Do you plan on doing anything else at the tavern? It seems like kind of a busy night.

After a drink or two, you guys end up back at Kraglehands, unless you were planning and going somewhere else. I wasn't. You guys get, of course... If I don't get it in nine solid hours of meditation, I am a beast. Oh, you don't want you to not want to see him in the morning or ever, really. Okay, I guess we'll all go to bed.

We didn't learn that much, but we'll wake up in the morning. The, so you guys, you guys rent, you guys rent rooms at Cracklehands. They are pretty terrible. Your room barely has enough space for you and Lil Godfrey. Oh, poor Godfrey. And all of your, yeah, you make him stand out of the hall. Yeah, it looks like the little Godfrey is going to be sleeping outside. tonight.

He chirps, kind of sadly, but he goes out in the hall anyway, because you need room for your, your chests. Yeah, I got to try on all the various clothing I might wear for tomorrow. So you guys get a full night's sleep. Next day dawns. You are going to need to go get some clothing. Hathaway goes with you because she needs to get some fancy clothes. Griselda is nowhere to be seen, and you haven't seen those bravos are gone as well. do you have any other plans for the day leading up to the big party?

It takes me hours to get dressed for an evening event. Lil Godfrey's holding the mirror for you, and it always seems to be slightly off kilter. Everything below my chest has always been perfect shape, and everything above is like a little off. Yeah, yeah. And Lucian, you're going to get that kimono we were talking about. I mean, I pack a selection of kimonos

For wherever I go Okay So you didn't need a new one No, I just pick out the finest one And by the finest one I mean the one with the deepest V cut Sure, yeah Yeah, I mean most kimonos are basically just deep Vs Yeah, no, it's the looseness of the time

But it's the looseness of the It has both the deep V and the upside down V and the bottom Yeah, yeah How flowier the sleeves, how large The flowiest So you end up not having to go shopping You and Hathaway end up

You go out to get clothing I go shopping Tanser very nicely gave us some money To go shopping I'm looking for something that's kind of like Like a Matador's outfit You know pretty flashy A lot of like reds and yellows

Half cape over the shoulder or Yes Going for like an Elton John 70s Or David Bowie 70s look Like more Elton Johnny Librachi type You know really bam You know like

Not necessarily like severe style. Star of the show. Like you get from David. Yeah, like Star of the show, like, we can't help but look at this guy. When I see him when he comes back, my immediate thing is like, we are trying to sneak around this castle for most of the night. Why are you wearing it something that's going to be

immediately visible by every single person who looks at your way? Hey, look, I crave the spotlight. But also, I'm hiding in plain sight. They're not going to suspect the guy who showed up looking real showy. So as you guys are making your way through the covered tavern. which is a large open-air tavern

that's covered with interconnected tents basically to keep the steady flow of ash from the volcano from rooting the wares of the marketplace you guys are you are carrying your purchases and you pass a large three-story in

but what did Hathaway get? She got a let's say slightly more muted, but a, I would, more of a, like a, like the,

the outfit of a page or a court, uh, like a court attendant. Okay. Something that allows a fair amount of movement, as opposed to like a long dress. Because I was saying like, she's trying to,

she's trying to be a little more muted and also, possibly something that she can sneak around in. I guess because I'm saying like, we don't get a lot of nights out these days. We're only going to get less once the, baby's born. Let's do it up. Show off what you got. Come on. I want to show you off. We can easily do that after my uncle's

taken care of. All right. The next fabulous party at a huge castle we get invited to, half, come on. As you guys are arguing. As they're having it. I'm watching it from

about a foot away. My face is right up. I'm fascinated by the way these two interact. While this argument is going on, you are walking past a large three-story inn called the Golden Grouse. This is clearly the more upscale in option that is also very full. And outside, you see a large cart is being unloaded as

new guests are arriving. And you all see a familiar face arguing with one of the bellboys. You see the ancient and stooped Ambrose Tapwell. Uh-oh. What? Be careful with that luggage, you in. I'm going to a party tonight. Do we just duck or? Let's just keep moving. Let's just keep moving.

Come on. I go up and say, Amby. No. Why are you doing that? He turns around and sees you. You're a hermit. Why are you interested in keeping this relationship alive?

I also have a deep distaste for most people, and so I like to rub it in. He. He turns around. He turns around and see, it takes him a moment before recognition sets in, and he has a look of both horror and anger on his old features. And he's still wearing a doublet with the Tapwell family crest. And he says, you! How long you've been out?

I'll have you know those charges didn't stick. Really? What? And you're pretty cut and dry. You. killed my son. One of that. Specifically, I forget.

We killed one of that. As a group. The other ones. You guys. Well, the halflings killed the other one. Yeah, it was my wife's family that killed his other son. Be fair. Now, before his head explodes from sheer

parental rage, an elf comes out. And I get that now, as an expectant father myself. Before you had no empathy for some of those jobs. I couldn't put myself in that situation. I knew it was bad. I knew it was tragic, but I couldn't feel that hurt. And now, oh, it's just. Ambrose,

I don't like you. I don't like the things you've done, but I sympathize with you on that level, you know? Are you this more intermodel or this is... No, no, I'm telling you that. It's just going to get a matter. While this elf shows up, I just wanted you know, I feel you, bro. I don't like you, but I feel you, but I feel you. Now that I have a beautiful young son

on the way, how healthy child. My family life is growing in the yours has been decimated. No one to carry on your name or blood, whereas I am now continuing my lineage. So I feel you, bro. If that was taken away from me, I don't know what I do. I would hate those guys.

As you go on this explanation, it falls on deaf ears, not just because he's an old man and can't hear that well. But he doesn't hear it because he doesn't want to hear it. He's too angry. An elf wearing a beautiful, elegant dress comes out. And with a young... You're a hermit. A young half-elf girl in tow who is one.

wearing a dress that she does not seem very happy to be wearing. How young? Like seven? I would say like 12. Oh, okay. I don't know what I thought to hate being in a dress. She looks a little more rough and tumbling tomboy, less wants to wear a fancy

dress to a party. And the elf comes up and puts her hand on Amber has his shoulder and she says, honey, are these men bothering you? She says, they killed my boy. I say hello fellow Superior Being

Oh hello Lovely kimono Thank you And wait Is Have you met my husband How do you know each other We had some dealings

We go back About half a year ago I mean dealings Look your husband should have been forthright About the fact that he was sitting on stolen property And had killed some I'd say numbers of my wife's family. In a certain way, we're, you know, we're some of the most important people in his life.

They're putting a positive twist on it. That's good. Her smile turns to a frown and she says, I think you're upsetting my husband. Good day to you all. How long have you been married? I'm just curious. I mean, Liz Lee seems like a very happy. Good union. And what's your secret? So she, the elf leads him inside while he mutters, he mutters curses under his breath. And the, the half-elf girl looks at you guys and then chases after her parents. I mean, that can't be his... Is that a secret family or something he had?

It doesn't seem like much of a secret. I mean, yeah, I guess now that, I mean, did we... I'll tell you one thing. He married up. Well, here's, I'm guessing that an elf with a single elf mother with a young child who clearly is having trouble, you know, finding her place, marries a rich old man hopes he's going to kick off, leave his money to her. Case closed.

That sounds like... A trophy else. Hathaway starts stomping toward the door to the end, and she's saying, I'm going to fucking kill him. No, no, no, no, honey. That would really get in the way of our finding Darius if you were arrested for murder. Hey, look, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, you know. And that's the way it should be.

And that's the way it should be. We can investigate that. But we've got one goal in mind first, and that's find Darius, right? This whole thing, he wouldn't be missing if we hadn't had all that crap with the tap wells. What's he doing here? I assume he's going to the party. So we've got two goals. I've got two goals.

One, find Darius, our beloved uncle. Two, ruin Ambrose's night at the party. Because the best revenge is served singing. Wait, what revenge do we need against him? We killed two of his sons and put him in prison. Okay, that's fair. He didn't really go to prison. He's out and about.

We got to, what if we set him up for a crime or something, so he goes back to jail. But first we've got to find Darius. And then we can go after Ambrose. Okay, okay. Let's, we'll find Arias and then deal with him. And then we'll fuck his shit up. Honey?

I apologize. You don't like me using that language. In this case, it's justified. Okay, thank you. That evening, you arrive at the Tower of Unity for the party. As the invitation says, you arrive an hour or so before sundown. Did you have any final preparations? that you wanted to make ready before the party.

I wanted to see if I could hide a weapon in my... I mean, your no finery. You can wear a weapon. Then I will wear the rapier and hide the whip wrapped around my leg. Do you bring Little Godfrey along or do you leave him? Can I communicate with Little Godfrey outside the... Like if we're not in the same room? No.

he still needs to hear you. I mean, yeah, I guess if he's not in the same something you shout through the door, he can hear you. So I'm wondering if he can be, like, stand guard for me. Then the concept of standing guard is not something he can do. Then I'll bring a little Godfrey with me. Okay, he just follows it. Yeah.

And you guys got everything planned away? I think so. Do you write a letter to Gartholomew in case anything bad happens to you that he can carry on the good work? I write a letter saying that all my lichens should go to my next of kin. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you just keep chasing those lichens. That's why he's tweeting all the time. Okay, so we, you guys arrived to the party.

The double doors of the gate are wide open. There's a, there's four guards standing at the ready, carrying long spears. Now, this is the first time that you've seen the palace guard, it's kind of in full gear. And they're wearing heavy armor that almost makes them look like they themselves are little fire beetles. With, like, beetle horns on the top of their helmets. You know, these are wearing beetle boots. Yep, and they're wearing beetle boots. Yeah, they have beetle haircuts.

It's tough to see. You can't see underneath their beetle helmets. Well, we'll just assume. All reading Beetle Bailey. Yeah, yeah, they're always getting in trouble with Sarge. And you can tell that these guys are, this is the famous forge guard of kiln. They're a well-known defense force. So you passed through the gate after handing your, you hand your invitation to...

I think this will get everyone through. That's a weird way of question. Real confident. Yeah. The, the gruff. Dwarven Captain of the Guards looks over your invitation

You can tell she's the captain Because you're pretty good at reading The rank in The rank of soldiers On their armor That kind of stuff you would learn Because it says captain on their shoulders That's exactly what it is

And she looks it over and she says It looks all right Just head on in Thank you, thank you What do we say, everyone? Oh, thank you Thank you Thank you

you all make your way in inside the wall there's a there's a small stables a smithy a storehouse as well as off

off in the corner of the little area between the tower and the wall you can see a little family crypt inside the the doors leading

into the castle itself it leads into a large hallway there's it's torch lit there's a large rugs spread off along the floor. You can see small passages snake off of this main hallway, basically filling in what Griselda said,

of the idea that there's many passageways filling this castle. You can see lining the walls of the hallway, you can see paintings of the Gravemore family story, including their progenitor, Angus Gravemore, the mighty hero who, was seeking to slay the giant magmar stone bones only to reach an accord with him, a friendship to form kind of a unity between humans and this giant. So instead of slaying him, they continue to live in peace.

And the town of kiln was built. And these portraits all show them shaking hands with magmar. Some of them, yeah, there's one of them shaking hands. There's one of, there's a painting of Angus, Angus Gravemore laying the first stone of the city of Kiln. There's a painting of Angus's son Hagstrom at the building of the winch house that leads, has the winch lift that takes you down to DoDrop Falls. Magmore cutting the ribbon, things like that.

Magmar, yeah, Magmar is cutting the ribbon. Yeah, and any of the ones where he's not focused, you can always see him in the background. I'm just waiting in a pile. So this is really the kind of deep family roots in terms of positive public works that the Silverview would love to be a part of. Oh, yeah, yeah. I'm learning now this is the exact kind of PR that you need to get down to people on your side. Because right now you seem like you're one step above organized crime.

If above, I'm not sure about that. This is why I'm beginning to realize this is why we need to invest in media operations. We need some sort of news organization that can defend our point of view. Well, it's like the silver reviews need to step into whatever century it is that this is taking place in. Yeah. Yeah. I'm beginning the thing I need to talk to August Graemeore. Angus Graymore. Well, he ice him his long dead. Angus Gravemore is long dead. Although maybe if you were a necromancer, you could talk to his spirit.

But you could talk to his ancestor, his great-granddaughter, Titania Graemeor. The lady of Kilton. And I will. And I will. You pass through the, you pass into the great receiving hall. the audience chamber of the castle. And this is a large castle hewn from the very stone of the mountain. This is where the party-partiers have gathered. You can see small groups kind of filling the room.

There's at least about two dozen people in here. I instantly start judging the musicians harshly. Oh, and they're not great at all. There's barely, there's a guy playing the pipes, and one guy playing a two-stringed violin-type instrument. And this is at the hottest part in the town. They're not playing the hits is the problem. It's all B-sides.

It's all obscured to do. Their own original work. Yeah. Beetle sides. So I'm just like, oh, God, this is, oh boy. Just don't go up there yourself. Just don't go up there yourself. I can't make that promise.

But what else do we see? In addition to a couple of small passages leading off into different directions. One, I'm assuming, going to a bathroom. There's off to the line. left, there's a passageway with a staircase leading up that you can see goes leads to kind of like a trophy room or a treasure chamber. And then off to the right, there's a stairway and a passage going down leading to a fecesing hall. And in the middle of this big room is a on a dais. There is a massive stone throne where you can see the lady Titania Gravemore seated with her.

massive Warhammer resting at her right hand. Yikes. And behind her is a, like a massive floor-to-ceiling window that leads directly into the heart of the mountain itself. It's not a window. There's no glass. It's just this open, like an open lip that leads directly into the heart of the mountain. You can see the light from the lava far below. Wow.

Wow. I have a question. Wait, what? This seems very dangerous. A little bit, which leads me a question. All sorts of building codes. So I assume that we couldn't just walk in carrying weapons. Is Godfrey maybe carrying a trunk or something that has the weapons in them?

I mean, I have my rapier and wig. There was no reason for you not, you're allowed to carry your weapon. Okay, okay, good. So I have meathead mace with me. Yeah, you have the meathead mace. Okay, and my bow. Yeah, the bow is a little weirder because, like, a weapon is, like a... It's not so much a ceremonial weapon.

Yeah, yeah. You're not like, oh, this is for a meathead mace. Hunting, dude. I know my rights. To carry a weapon is partly like a sign of mobility. Okay, so maybe I just have Meathead Mace. Yeah. Which is, again, part of my act if I decide to get on stage.

Oh, of course. Which you shouldn't. As you guys, as you guys enter into this room, you are stopped by a page who, he leans over to you. He says, wow, what's your, what's your name? Me, I'm Tanzer Silverview Of the Silverview family Okay And he announces

Tansor announcing Tansor Silverview Of the Silverview family Of Waterdeep And I wave to everyone Just a hail of booze And you see You see all the eyes Kind of look to you

Appraising looks Especially when they hear the Silverview name I'm very sensitive To how they're being To how they're looking at me And I lean in And I just whispered to him Don't worry they're loving it.

This is so unfair. Don't you feel their eyes on you? Isn't it addictive? Isn't it intoxicating? Just having the attention. Look, all publicity is good publicity. Listen to the hermit. He knows what he's talking about.

Now, of course, you don't see Darius anywhere, but you do see Lady Titania is sitting on the throne. She is a powerfully built old woman with long gray hair pulled back into a military braid and she is wearing very expensive but battle worn armor and at her right hand seated on a much smaller

wooden chair is a little boy that you can only assume to be Leo Gravemore, her son who's only actually about six years old which is a little young for this kind of a party and at our left hand you see like speaking

to her very closely is Cappadocious her wizard. Yeah of course when he sees you arrive, you see him start to make his way over to you. Let me do the talking here. You got it. First, I'm just going to clear my name here for a minute with these guys, and then as we talk, I'll figure out of sense. These are my people. These are the people I belong with, and I don't want them to think any less of me for what my family's been like.

Hello. Sir, is there food out by any chance? I believe servants are bringing canopays around. Guys, I'm going to try the canopays and see if it tastes like Darius is cooking. That's a good idea. Okay. How do you know what Darius is cooking tastes like? He was the main, like, grill guy at the red cheek, like, family gatherings because it meant he didn't have to talk to anybody.

Okay. And Hathaway knows this cooking very well. I'll talk to Cappadocious. Cabadocia about the, about any. It's Cappadocious. Caradocious. Cabadocious, my mother. Excuse me, I didn't know what you could hear.

Oh, hi. Hello. I'm saying. So, why don't you speak to the mail? Sure. So, I can, are you ready to be introduced to the lady? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.

Excellent. And have your gift prepared. Ah, uh, yes. The gift. Um, little Godfrey looks scared that he's going to be offered as a gift. Oh, my God. I think it's just, you have to offer this droid. For the little guy for your favorite generation

He's worth like 50 fucking portions Okay A gift I mean a gift What? There's no greater gift than the gift of Song Like something creative just for her I have like nothing else to offer

That's going to have to be the gift Do you have anything? I've got some berries that restore hit points If people want those I mean she's a battler Maybe Yes So

What do you have... The gift... He starts kind of like comically leaning around and looking around you. The gift... Where is it? The gift will be a gift of song

from the... From the renowned scales fang battle. Award nominated. Oh, really? Award? Which award? Not a major award. It doesn't matter. It's the award winning... No, we didn't win. We didn't win.

Scales fang battle. A long... I'm trying to stammer to think of something else to add. Accompanied by the Hogspa. Fusion butt watcher on the washboard. On the washboard. Would the household have a washboard that we could lend? I suppose.

He calls over a servant with a tray of canopays, which Hathaway takes one and then takes another. Great. Okay. And then he hurries off. I think this is our chance to start looking around while they're trying to find a washboard. Oh, no. Cabinotius doesn't leave. He started ushering me toward the lady.

So, you've been having some trouble, I hear. You know how it is with the townspeople. They're just ravenous for any kind of scandal. Everything is fine. Our family is as wealthy and important as ever. Oh, I know public perception. He gestures toward the skulls and bones on his outfit. You get it, right.

People think you're probably evil or something because of all this stuff. They see and they know I'm a necromancer, but I consider myself more of a necromanager. I don't get it. It just takes a kind of puckish sip of his drink. He leads you up the steps of the dais, and you see the withering stare. of Lady Gravemore says, may I introduce,

wait, let me get my notes. Getting my notes? Oh, perfect. No, wait, that's not my I think Capadocious would be like he had that quote. He said, he said, The Duchess of the Shatterpeak,

Lord of Kiln, Dewdrop Falls in the Ashfields, as well as the hero of the Battle of the Darkhold, Lady Titania Gravemore. And introducing. Tanzor Silverview of the silver views of Wells Deep. Oh, you mean water deep.

I did mean my home water deep. Which we were thinking of renaming to Wells Deep after all the, you know, scandals, michigas in the papers. Actually, I would like to talk to you about that in the future, Lady Greymore, just about how you particularly have managed to have such a fine level of town support and still be so wealthy. But before we do this, I would like to give my very deep congratulations to your... She holds up her hand, she says, stop blowing wind up my skirt, honey.

Sure, sure. What you got here from my boy? Well, uh... Wait a minute. Silverview, you're... Battle of Hogs Bottom, eh? I heard about you, fellas. Oh, yeah, you might even call us the Hogs Bottom Three. I wouldn't.

I certainly wouldn't. As we're renowned as, Heroes by... trade and singers by maid. Just see them, Leo, we got us some, we got us some adventurers here, some real heroes. You're just... I didn't remember you guys were being invited. But yeah, well, still

you have your invitation to answer, but we had to celebrate this very exciting and important day for Leo. I mean, we wouldn't be caught dead, not coming to these. Once again, stop blowing that wind up my skirks. I personally have no care for such things. I feel like anything

that brings attentions to oneself is vulgar and unseemly, but I, but I, of course, respect you as a great... No, I understand. There's... The position of power comes with a bit of pageantry, my friend. And in this case, you've got to look

the part. That just seems all right. It's not all... It's not all killing goblins and amassing hordes of treasure. I bow deeply, and my Camaro falls open a little bit of it. And I cinch it up of it. Hey, that ain't nothing I ain't seen before.

I was an adventurer myself one day And she's gesturing toward down the hall Where you can see Lined with chests with like rubies And little like museum stands With various things that she has accumulated over her years That's wonderful news You sound like an accomplished person who

Respects honesty That's true So if I could just be honest with you, my first impression upon hearing the rank amateurs that you have hired to perform at your party. While you're talking, you hear the page say

announcing Sir Ambrose Tapwell of Baldur's Gate. As I was saying, they're doing great, let's get out of here. You don't want to take up too much your time. And his wife and consort, the Lady Sapphire. Let's move and right along, shall we?

We'll catch up with you. you, Lady Graemeore. You have more guests, obviously, to entertain. Capadocia says, they have prepared a song for you. Is this the best time? I guess it is. No time like the present. We did request a washboard. The washboard is

placed in your hands. Oh, boy. Seems more like a private thing, though. Perhaps later when the guests have left. Leo Grameur, like, shifts uncomfortably in his seat, and the lady, like, leans back to take this all in the house.

And my hand. Flats fly across the washboard. You've never heard watchboard play like that. It brings tears to the eyes to hear this washboard. This is the great moment in the adventure where the Game Master says, Dan, I need your role performance on this one. So you're all Tony's out of dying and add your performance. You're going to spend that inspiration?

I'm looking to see if there's anything I can add to it. What if I have a... Oh, no, I've got a negative. one performance. Oh, no. Well, how hard can a washboard be? For an audience. It's very difficult.

Oh, I get a nine. Ooh, not the company man. What's your performance skill? Well, that's the negative one. Okay, it's with a nine. You got a nine. But I think the centerpiece of the star of the show scales. So what kind of beat are you giving me?

What kind of is this like, what kind of music is this? It's definitely a regular. It's sort of a weird zytoe code. Okay. It's not so helpful. And repeatedly, you're like, wait. Hold on, and you start restarting over and over. I'll tell you what, why don't you just go easy on it?

Honestly, this is a lot better when I'm alone. Yeah. Trust me. Now, I clear my throat, which is actually bad. You should take a sip of water instead of clearing your throat. It just moves the crap around in your throat. Yeah, get on with it. Okay, I'll just...

And I'll start playing my violin. You have it with you? I've, well, Gifrey pulls it out in the hand and sticks it in your hands. And I have 20 years of training. Okay, give me a performance role. Oh, okay, sure. This is the most important rolls of the game, boys. Performance is one.

Yep, so roll the 20 side die. And I roll a seven, so an eight. Ooh, okay. Wow, we're building up a mighty collection of successes. Now, here's my question for you guys. Do I sing an original song about Leo, or do I wrap the rap that I've been writing as the adventures and going out about this adventure?

I think the Leo song is important. because we're both playing very badly out of tune violin and washboard. I am performing this rap before the adventure is over. So, okay. Even if it's just over the end credits as we celebrate. Okay. So you're singing a song directed toward Leo. Yes.

Okay. I'm going to give you advantage on this, so I'm going to let you roll two 20-sided dyes. Oh, nice. And then you pick the highest. Okay, because my performance is seven, too. Oh, wow. All right. 13.

Plus seven? Yeah. Okay. So that's a 20. That's not bad. Okay. You want to give us a little, hum us a couple of bars of this song? Mm-hmm. Okay. When a boy becomes a man, he's introduced to the entire land.

Take your war hammer in hand and see. I mean to be disadvantaged. It's Leo here. He's the one we know. Leo's the one we're going to show how highly we think of him you see. He's Leo Leo Gravemore He's Leo Wish I could say more

About the bright future He's got ahead of him Here at this place of kiln A place that means so much To all of us To all of you And to Leo So

Happy whatever day this is Leo So there's a moment of silence as Lady Gravemore appraises you with her stony gaze. It's like I'm on Star Church. Never before. Have I ever been waiting for those, that rating? And then she leans forward and clas her hands, and she says, well, that was something special.

And thanks for singing a song special for My Leo here. Your friends, maybe they should keep up their jobs as adventurers. Well. You. I don't know if you're looking for permanent work, but maybe. I mean, I would love to talk. point possibly yeah you know it's i thank you so much i really appreciate that you appreciated it so it's during this that you realize that hathaway has slipped away while you guys were

distracting the lady during my big moment she didn't get to see my triumph yeah she doesn't come to any of my shows mm-hmm she gets so nervous because she doesn't want you to flub it she does get nervous and i do often flub it i imagine you in the moment seeing your wife you're so nervous that you flub it uh maybe somebody's better to hear if you care for any encore lady grave more I could sing a little song about being blue. Maybe afterwards, honey. After dinner, I'm getting to my peckish and I still got to meet a bunch of other folks.

Understood, understood. Thank you so much. Capodosius bustles you away. You can see a very annoyed Tapwell being led toward the lady. Tapie, what's up? Shut off, Lucian. He actually doesn't hear you this time

because his wife is whispering to me is here. I'll catch a later, Tabs. Looking around of the rest of the room, you can see, there's still a fair number of guards posted basically at every, there's one or two guards posted at every entrance or exit to the room, which is not necessarily weird for this kind of a party. There's servants kind of intermingling with trays of food and drinks.

There's a few musicians, as I mentioned, just a pair. The room, despite the being open to the heart of a volcano, know is actually pleasantly pleasant temperature-wise. If you were going to guess, you two that are magically inclined would assume that there's some kind of sorcery at work. I would guess there's some kind of sorcery at work here, temperature-wise. Now, we're just talking magic talk, tango. You didn't need to worry about it. I imagine it would be massive amounts of slave labor using huge amounts of ice cubes and blowing them out into the room like the silver views do. But hey, That a source.

Why? My friend. Yeah, went and killed. You can tell, just from the style of clothing, the vast majority of the people, at least half of the people that are here are locals. They're dressed in the fashion of this part of the mountain range.

But you also see a couple of small groups of people from out of town. You can see a group of people dressed in the dower clothing of Neverwinter. You see a group dressed in the ostentatious finery of Goldcliff, as well as

a pair of religious figures, a cleric and a paladin of the god, Torm, most likely from Elterrell. You think the Neverwinter fashions would be a lot more

sunnier and happy. Yeah, you'd think that, right? Yeah. Yeah. But they're... It's the most depressing, like, floral prints you've ever seen. But it's a northern city. And you can also see...

And people are standing around drinking, but also people seem to be going in and out of the trophy room and appraising. You can see people are looking at some of the artifacts that are on display and appraising them. But the nobody's going in or out of the feast area. The only people that seem to be going in and out of the feast hall are servants. We got to check out. Yes, don't seem to be welcome down there. yet. Okay.

We've got to get, that was, one of the servants, I guess, dropped a dish in the feet of all. Maybe that's a good distraction for us. We should probably try to get in there because if Darius is in the kitchen,

maybe my wife went over there, and we could, like, we might be able to find some clues there or him. Maybe, the ultimate clue, which would be Darius. Yeah,

that would help us find this location very easily, yeah. Why don't we try to see if we're looking around, why don't we hold some empty glasses and look around as if we're trying to find them to get refilled? I just walk into the room. That sounds like a great plan.

Awesome. Let's do that. I take a... It's clearly been to a lot of parties. Very much so. I try to get out of a lot of conversations by pretending to need my glass refilled. So I pick up... As you guys are walking over there, you see Ambrose Tapwell is presenting Lady Gravemore

with a collection of fancy cigars and cigar accoutrements. And their... His adopted daughter seems even less... happy to be at this fancy party than she was just hanging out in the street with... I can't believe that that jerk is not in jail right now. I can't believe that he has like another source of wealth now that he's lost the

red cheek ciders. I can't believe an elf married him. It sickens me. So we all agree. We're really astounded by here. He's an old guy. They've got a lot in common. I'm a little impressed with how quickly you got himself back up on his feet, to be honest with you. I mean, I don't like it. I don't like it.

It's a true success story. I would say what you want about his marriage. murdering your in-laws, but all the same. The guy is, the guy definitely goes from... I don't think I have to give him a fair shake on this one. Riches to rags to riches again, though. So, okay, well, we're... So I take a drink off a passing tray and down it.

Good, yeah, lower your... Well, I've got to empty it somehow. And then I start wandering around, suspiciously looking for someone to refill it, and then start sliding towards the service off. And we're walking with you because we're re-retinue. Yes. Really, it should be up to us to find it. someone to refill your drink.

So we're coming with you anyway. Yes. So the three of you really sneakily move over toward the entrance of the feast hall? Yes. Okay. So as you're approaching, you can see one of the guards like turns to kind of square off. By the way, I'm also suddenly kicking myself for not performing a magic act for the, for Leo. Oh, we could have done that.

He probably would have enjoyed that a lot more. But anyway, we're trying to get into the. be so the guard that's close to you kind of squares off against you which is a little weird because you even if you're going in a place you're not supposed to go in a party it's a little weird that he is so openly like kind of aggressive about it yeah and the the servant that's waiting there says uh what can i do for you oh um i was just looking to uh get my drink refill but i can do it. I can do it. Don't worry about it. It's fine. Oh, sure. The tray is right over there.

Oh, yeah, but I was hoping for water. You know, there's so much liquor around here. I'm just wanting just a glass of water. I get it. I get it. It's no problem. I'll get it. No, it's right over there. It's not. He's got the tray. I'll tell you what. I'm in his retinue. I'll just go in and get it. He'll just go in and get him some water. And I should probably go with him anyway, just because... Yeah, and he's my boss. He should come with me. And both two are going. I better go. sense.

I mean, that only would make sense, but... We have achieved Marks Brothers. So, it started,

like, you see a look at his eyes where he's like, I can't really argue with their logic anymore.

When you hear the page at the front of the hall announce. And from Waterdeep, may I

introduce Lady Tiana Silverview. Oh, what? When you turn to see standing at the entrance of the hallway, your sister wearing a peacock mask and a ball gown with a big flowing skirt that is covered in spider webs

or a spider web design. We find a female character that Tanzer won't hit on, hopefully. Well... In theory, yeah. And she's accompanied by a drow wearing... To the contrary, I should say. I'm murderously jealous of anyone who tries to go after my sister. Oh, it's a...

She's accompanied by a drow... A drow bravo wearing, like, a fancy, uh, uh, fencer's clothes and a half cape. What the hell is that? I like his half cape. And he's wearing, while she's wearing a peacock mask, uh, he's wearing... And her peacock mask only covers, like, one half of her face. Uh, he's wearing a full, he or she, you can't really tell because of the, the clothing. It's like a David Bowie, Tilda Swinton's sort of thing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And more attractive for that. The, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, he was wearing a, uh, a full face mask of an octopus. And he is pushing a massive wooden barrel on four wheels, a massive wooden barrel that has a spigot sticking out of the side. Like, this is clearly the size of like a draft cart. And he's pushing it in.

This is clearly the gift that they've brought to line. Is your sister married? Not since I left the town. No, I think I don't know what it is. A thousand waves to the whole room. Most people don't seem to give a shit, but she's really handing it up. I get that. I don't know if I should say anything.

She's, like, I don't know if she sees me, she'll ask what I'm doing here. She sees you and she goes, she starts waving. I'll tell you what. You go talk to her. I'll just get this water that he needs. He should get the water. He should really get the water. You know what?

All this talking has made me thirsty, too. We'll just both go get some water from inside the feast hall. Give me one final persuasion roll. Okay. What do I roll? Persuasion. A 20-sided die. 20-sided die.

And then you add your persuasion scale. I just wasn't, I couldn't remember if it was a 20 or not. But I guess it almost always is. 20. Whoa. He says, I don't even need my four of persuasion. You don't know if it is your fast talk.

If it's Lutions, kind of strange reasoning. Or maybe the servant is kind of dazzled by the spectacle of this massive barrel of liquid. Who wouldn't be? Huge barrel. Who wouldn't be distracted by that? He just says, uh, sure. Go ahead.

And that barrel's beautiful. What a gift. Should I go with you guys or talk to my sister? Hey, that's on you, man. Tenser? I think you're going to draw more attention if you don't talk to. So let's go. We'll go into the feast all.

Yeah, I really am thirsty. And then we'll get to your water. Let's go. Yeah, we'll do that. She, uh, she comes, she walks down the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, she's probably wasted at 20. With her, with her, with her arms outstretched. It's been so long, brother. Oh, yes. What are you doing here? I didn't know. I didn't know, I didn't know, I, I didn't invite to the party. Why were you invited? Oh, you weren't. But you're here. Well, I, well, well, yeah, I'm, listen, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm here on, on, on, on, I'm, on, don't tell me, on other

I'm, who, first of all, who is this guy you're here on business, are you? Yes, I'm here on, I do things. I don't just sit around all day in the house. Who is this guy you're with? Oh, Venom? Oh. Oh, he's, uh, he's, um, an attendant. What is that supposed to mean?

Should I, should I tell Mom and Dad about Venom? You can tell Mom and Dad whatever you wish. Maybe I will. Listen, I don't talk to me too much right now. I'm worried about being distracted. What do you know about this about Graham Moore? Capadocious, what's up? He says, why this is unexpected, for some reason I thought you were the same person.

I did not realize there were two silver views invited to this party. Well, of course there are. We're that big of a family, aren't we, Capadocious? Very well known, I suppose. Indeed. And I'm wondering now if I should ask... Tayana gives you a hug. She says, it's been so long since I've seen my brother.

Can I be introduced to the lady in a moment? Give us a second. And Cabadocious kind of slides away. I'm wondering if I should inform Tayana of our plans or not. I think that I... I think I'm not in the room, but I think you probably should not. I probably shouldn't. I'm wondering if I can pump it for information.

I mean, you have this kind of like, what was that movie with Ryan Philippi and Reese Witherspoon, where they were in college and they... Cruel intentions? You have kind of weird cruel intentions relationship with her, and it feels like she might... She might try to torture you.

Betray me in the last second? Almost certainly, just for her own amusement. Yeah. I'm going to... Meanwhile, Venom has pushed the wooden cart next to the entrance to the trophy room. So the like spigot side of the barrels are kind of facing out. I mean, definitely find out what's in that barrel.

And he's, he pulls out a sleeve of a sleeve of metal cups. What, I asked Tana, what's in the, in the draft cart? Oh, that's my gift. It's spring water. It's spring water? It's spring water. They don't get much spring water up here. No, that's true.

No, that's very true. Teana, listen, it was so difficult to bring up here. What do you know about Gravemore? Why is... What do I know about Gravemore? Yeah, do you notice this tower's been shut down for the past few weeks?

Is there something going on here? I know she's incredibly wealthy. Well, obviously she's incredibly wealthy. We're all incredibly wealthy, right? We've still got money, you know? I mean, we're still an important family. Yes. What is that supposed to be?

me. I'm just saying we're going through some hard times, Hanson. I just want to know why... It's times like these, when a Silverview has to make one's way in the world, and you know, relying on the family sometimes. I mean, I'm not the firstborn son.

I don't have Silverview industries waiting for me. Are you here to try and get a match with a kid? Are you trying to present yourself? Speaking? Why do you want in?

Well, if that's an angle, then I want to know about it. Tanser, let me level with you. I'm going to rob this woman blind. What is it? Shh, don't tell anyone. No, no, no. I'm, I'm, I, I, I, wow, what's your plan? There's nothing in that draft card is there.

Just follow. He doesn't have filled that draft card. Well, you'll know when the time comes, but. a word of advice. Play along and don't eat the chili. She pats you on the shoulder. Oh, Lady Gravemore. Okay, I kind of walk backwards now.

A little scum by my sisters. Ooh, chilly. So she goes up and she walks up to steps and is charming, charming the tough old heart of Lady Gravemore leaving you standing in the middle of the room

dumb spoken I'm stunned you guys are in the Feast Hall the Feast Hall is is a like a large long like tube of a chamber it also the far end is just wide open

like a big open window but this rather than leading out into like the heart of the mountain leads to has a long drop to a big cave and that's about it. It just leads to like a big deep cave. And there's a massive long table

and a couple of smaller side tables that have been set up and in front of that window there is a huge wooden spoon lying on the ground lying on the ground of the... Maybe a spoon that would be about the size of a giant. Oh, it seems like there's going to be a special guest. at the proceedings.

So as I was saying, ooh, chilly. Now, as you, there's servants rushing about and setting up the, setting up, like, the place settings and making sure everything's okay. These servants don't look up or pay attention to you at all. Do they seem like they're just focused or are they beaten down? It's a mixture of focused and their servants, why would they be paying attention to you? I see. Like, they're not going to challenge you.

You also notice A weird amount of rats Running around Weird amount is in like More than one I mean any For the richest person in town In a mountainside

I mean it is in a mountainside They're not on the top of the table They're scurring along like the edges of the room I mean well rats they prefer that Rats don't like to go into the middle of a room They prefer to be touching the wall inside of a tunnel Yeah Now there's a few

That's just, that's real weird. Dragging pizza along a subway's there. Now there's many, there's many little side passages that slip down each direction. And it's not super obvious which one leads to the kitchens. Should we ask one of the servants which way is the kitchen? Is that weird? I'm not used to being around like servants, you know?

I'm not like, it may shock you. I don't like travel in like the coyety-to-tiest circles. It doesn't matter to me because since I see everyone else's mind fear anyway, they all kind of blend into the same level. Why don't you ask one of them which way it is to the kitchen? You? Yes. Which way to the kitchen? Uh, uh, uh, uh, and, uh, while he's trying to answer you, he like burps a little bit.

Just, who, who, who, who are you? you. Who are you? You're... Are you? You're not supposed to be here. Are you okay? Ugh. What are you doing here? We were just

wanting some water. But ask him, don't let him challenge you. Come on. He's a servant. The other servants all, like, you had been hearing a, like, a steady, like, clink of silver on things and people moving things around. sudden you realize you're not hearing anything anymore and all the servants have stopped and they're standing and staring at you oh maybe we shouldn't ask them anything uh hey don't you guys

have work to do what are you doing here you're not so you're not supposed to be here first off are you okay the servant the closest servant that you're talking to starts walking over to you i have some fungus that works as a powerful ant acid I need to take you out of here. You know what we'd be the best place to take us to? The kitchen. That's out of this room. Uh, uh, I can't take you to the kitchen.

Is there a place that you could take us that is not... If you just stole for five more minutes, they're going to... You notice the servants are starting to lie? like spread out and start to surround you guys. It's not a tight enough circle that you can't get away, but. And they're all kind of staring at you and looking a little bit weird, and they're all kind of burping weird. Everyone's really burpy.

Yeah. Maybe they had some fizzy lifting, right? Yeah, I don't think that exists in this fictional reality. Yeah. Not even that fiction exists here. Even though we've already mentioned Willie Wongin. So here's my, here are our options as the way I see it. They're moving very slowly so we can talk about this for a little bit.

One, we get into a fight. My wife's not going to like that. Two, we go back into the main room. I feel like we haven't learned very much. Three, we just run down one of these corridors. There's four, I can turn into a rat and blend in with all these other rats. And then you kind of have to deal with things. You know what?

Yep, you're right. There is that option, too. I forgot that's another possible option. Hogswell v. 3 is really splitting apart here at every level. Hogs bottom 3 is about to be the nobody won. They're closing in on you when you hear scales, honey. What are you doing over there?

And you see Hathaway standing at the steps leading down to the feast hall. Hathaway, we were looking for a glass of water. All the servants turned to face her. We thought maybe the kitchen might be a good place. to do that. Buy you a moment. Hit them all in the back of the head. Use that.

Should we make a break towards the kitchen? Yeah, dude. Let's do that. But you don't know which ways the kitchen. How many quarters are there? Six. Oh, boy. And there's that window, too?

The one that goes into the cave. Straight into the mouth of the volcano. No, that's in the other room. This one just leads into the Giants Cave. Should we go meet the giant? Or should it be? Just leap into it. Okay.

Hey, Giant. Where's the kitchen at? I need your helmet. I'm like something. I worry that we've split up the party and sans or is never going to be able to find us now. Should we just go back to the main room? I feel like we haven't really accomplished very much in here. Unless, like, you have a...

When they turn and look away, you have a second you could transform. You turn into a rat and I'll rejoin my wife and then you go investigate. Honey! Oh, I got lost here. Is that what you want to do? Sure. I'll come to you. You immediately are killed.

They're like, ah, a rat. No way. There's rats There's so many rats in there. No, no. But I held my finger on the page that we turned from. So I could just turn back and take the choose the other adventure. So you,

they turn it, like, the servants all seem to relax a little bit when you, when you walk over to meet with your wife. And you keep your clothes or they turn into a puddle of clothes on the floor. My clothes. Okay. Just the little rats wearing a small kimono? That's true.

I mean, it transforms into his flesh. Oh, okay. It's pretty gross. Can I talk to rats if I'm a rat? Uh, yes. Hmm. I mean, you can communicate in relatively rudimentary rat communication. All right.

I leave it to you to figure that. So you run up to the nearest rat. Yeah. I ask, where food room? You speak the rat. And the rat is like very badly. Uh, Food room down.

Which corridor? Who are you? You knew. Take to food. And the rat starts to lead you away. Okay. Hathaway grabs you by the arm. What's going on?

We were trying to find the kitchen so we could look for Darius and we thought you might have gone there. We couldn't find you. No, I was over there talking to the people from Goldcliffe. Oh, did you find anything out? Not really. They're just trying to introduce their daughter to Leo. Okay. Well...

The guy kept touching me on the head. It was really weird. That's awkward, yeah. Yeah. He smelled like a loan. I guess let's find Tanzer. Lucian's going to go... His sister's here.

Yeah, I saw that. What the shit is that? I told you not to mess this up. My family is in trouble here, probably. You think your family... Listen, hey, first of all, my sister's going to... It plans to rob the place. What?

Okay. Don't eat the chili. I should really emphasize that very much so. There's chili? Her plan is. What kind of chili is it? I don't know. It doesn't matter what kind of chili it is.

Hathaway makes great chili. That's fine. Not like Chilin chili, though. No, no. That's not of that is the point. That's like A. Not of that is the point. Let's not get into chili.

So, does she say why we should eat the chili? Because for me, this listening, she's saying I want more chili for myself. That's, I doubt that's part of her plan. That's actually a good point. I feel like you guys are gang up on me now I'm trying to warn you The chili It's bad

She's gonna try to rob the place Her plan right now is robbed That's what she told me That'd be a great distraction For when we're trying to find Darius Lucian is in a rat form And he's gonna try to find the kitchen I'm kind of on the idea

That we should join my sister And robbing the place now Maybe we shift this objective A little bit In that direction I don't think But we gotta find Darius That's why we're here

Look money would be great I got a little one on the way As you know Light of my life and, like, I couldn't be more excited and I couldn't be happier that, like, I'm fine. We're doing it, honey. Like, we're doing this. It's amazing.

And we need to. And we just, and we need to. She's standing kind of listening and watching Tiana, who is now in the trophy room, appraising the various gemstones and trophies that line the walls. Now, you, Mr. Lucian the rat, you follow. I'm making ratitude. in the kitchen right now. You follow this rat down some twisting... You follow this rat down some twisting corridors.

You pass servants walk past you and make... Do not pay any attention to you going by. And you go down a couple of tunnels, enough that were you a less... If you had a less good sense of direction, you would get lost. But you didn't, as I just said. You.

It was a close one. You find your way into a large, low-ceilinged kitchen room. The heat is incredible as there are multiple fires going. There's multiple small cookpots going on in little alcoves around the room. It smells very thickly of a spicy, delicious mixture. And this room is teeming. with rats, filling almost every little nook and cranny of the room,

leaving kind of a path in the middle for the servants to move in and out, who seemed completely oblivious. Wow. And in the middle of it all is this massive stone cookpot that's covered in odd and strange runes. And atop this, like, massive, like, massive atop this massive

cook pot you see lit from from below from the fire beneath the pot you see the face

of Darius Red Sheek who is stirring the pot with this twisted and gnarled wooden cook spoon

Now let's just say I found the Darius Red Shekekeke clue Now he did it Now he he I assume

at some point has seen like I guess maybe you saw Darius at her wedding or something That's why Yeah you saw

Darius Not only at the wedding. We saw him at the... In the old adventure, right? So, yeah, Darius is Hathaway's uncle, the brother of Jacob, and he was the one who was against the idea of getting some adventurers to do this work for you.

That's right. So you know him. You recognize him. Yeah. Does he seem happy to be there? He seems very intent on the making of this chili. He occasionally reaches over and grab some spices and sprinkles them into the pot.

But you also... give me an insight check. All right. So roll a 20 side to die and add your insight. Plus more on insight. That's an 18. Okay. So you you can tell that he has not been sleeping

very much. He's got bags under his eyes. He looks a little sick and also and also a little manic. That's there. I'm sort of curious about those runes. Do I...

Would I know anything about them? Like, being a druid? Like, do I be... Can I, like, rule for Arcana or something? Yeah, yeah, yeah, why not? Not just a 10. You can tell that they are... You can tell that they're...

It's their magic script. But you can't tell much. You know it's related somewhat to druidic magic, but that's about it. But I'm not a very good druid. Well, it's not that you're not a good druid. It might be from a sect of druids you don't recognize. You're also looking at it from a rat's point of view, so you can't. Yeah, yeah, maybe if you've got a different perspective.

Are you able to, is it worth you just transforming back and asking him if he's there of his own free will and what the chili's all about? Yeah, unless you want to become his talking rat sidekick companion. I'm out with chili. Unless you want to stir with a little this. I'm also worried about doing this alone, whether I should go back and get you guys or not. I mean, you are a hermit who thinks you're better than everybody else. You probably see us as encumbrances. It's ruining the adventure.

The rat that led you down here scuttles over to one of the walls, and there's like a little trough in the ground, and he's looks like he's eating some kind of chili mixture. Oh. Come on. Who single-handedly solved the mystery at Max Fungi Khan with the help of, what was his name? Wait, Gartholomew. Gartholomew. You can do this.

He's a half-man, half-meule. I'm not there to tell him not to eat the chili, though. It smells delicious. How many people are in the room? Right now, it's just Darius. and a bunch of rats. But every, like, since you've been in here,

one or two servants have come in and out. If it's just, if it's just Darius, then yeah, I do transform back. With the servants possibly coming in any moment. Okay. I think you should change before you just become a rat who eats chili

and that's all you do. Yeah. So you transform, your head almost hits the ceiling. This is a very low ceiling to room. It ruins the magic of a transformation. The room is. Darius is,

oh! Oh, God. Darry's looks up from the pot, and he looks shocked. He says, who are you? What are you doing here? Don't you remember me? Come on. Wait a minute.

You're one of the adventurers. Yes, I'm here with my, I guess I would call them companions. Ouch. With a hogs model three. Come on. No, what are you doing in my kitchen? Hathaway is here. She's worried about you.

There was a knitting lady. Wait, wait, wait. Hathaway's here? Yes. Fine. It's probably safer for her to be here. Get out of the kitchen, though. Did you sneak in?

I snuck in as a rat, which is the thing I can do. I'm pretty cool. Wow, that is really cool. Ask you what's going on. Well, like, find out some questions. I suppose you can help. Now that I know you have ratfathers. Is her husband here as well?

Jeremy Scales, Fangbattle is here. Yes. Ask about me. Tans your Silverview. And that rich fool. Well, here, help yourself. Any motions toward a, there's a wooden bowl of chili sitting there. Now, there's no good reason for me to not eat the chili because I don't know that it's not bad, but can I do some sort of, like, check or?

Well, are you concerned that the pot is magical? I am concerned that the pot is magical based on the... Would you want, you might want to use detect magic? Okay. So you speak the word of power, and which is what? What's your detect magic word? It's probably butts. What's up?

What's up? And you see the, you are almost blinded by the aura of mind control enchantment magic that is emanating from the, both the cook pot. And also you see that, like a slightly lesser but still powerful effect is coming from the chili in the, in the, and in the troughs. I'm like, dude, what are you trying to do to me, man? Oh, you're a spellcaster. Well, no matter. Perhaps you can help me, right?

That's what we're here for. You're here for, you wouldn't want anything to happen to Hathaway. Would you? No. As Haplings go, she's pretty good. As Hathlings go. Well, then play along and keep it cool. Hey, man.

Check out this kimono. There's no one cooler than this guy. Yeah, I agree. So, such a huge self-esteem at the end of the kitchen. Perhaps, perhaps afterwards, I'll reward you. That's more of some of you sort of thing, but since he seems to care about it, sure. Sure, yeah. I'll treat him as a king.

Great. Tell him, go to Hathaway, tell her I'm fine. But stay. Don't leave. Wait. Stay close. I'm supposed to go.

Don't leave the castle of what I mean. I couldn't follow you. There was a little L. All right. So I guess I transformed back into a rat to to go Hell Hathaway Willey

Still so cool And I say as I'm shrinking I go Smell you later Yeah he's He's shocked for a moment Then goes back to And you hear him muttering

Something about Hathaway Under his breath Yeah so I run back to the others Okay So you guys Hathaway just saw Tiana go into the trophy room Just

She's going to steal stuff now? I don't know what her plan is, but I assume so. My working theory right now is that draft cart is actually empty. She's just going to stuff with trophies. She goes, you see, you see Venom is waiting by the draft cart, and there's a couple of folks have gone over and are pouring, like, turning the spigots and pouring water into their cups, and they take a sip, and they make kind of like a face, and then they keep drinking it. Like a surprise look on their face like I wasn't expecting to taste like that. Hmm, okay.

And Hathaway starts storming up to the trophy room. I'm, here's what I'm thinking now. I'm thinking the chili is poison, and I'm thinking that spring water my sister brought is poison. We certainly shouldn't drink anything your sister is toad around. Absolutely not. But I don't at the same time want to distract us from

finding Darius, but if your sister goes, if your wife goes and causes a commotion, that's going to get us all kicked out. I'll, look, okay, you figure out something. Find out more about your sister's plan. I'll go after Hathway. Okay. And I'll stop her from making a scene. Where is, where the hell is Lucian?

I appear at their second. Oh, God. Oh, so cool. That was awesome. Dudes. Don't eat the chili. That's what I was going to say. After he transforms into a rat, you can see Leo was clapping his hand. That should have been our trip. That should have been the show. He would have loved it.

My sister said, don't need the chili. How do you not eat the chili? It's got some sort of mind control powers. But then my sister it is? How do you know that? It doesn't seem to be your sister who's in charge, but maybe she just knows. She might be in on it. Maybe they're working to, well, who told you about the chili? Oh, I buried the lead.

I found the guy we're looking for. Darius? Yeah, he's in the kitchen. Oh, okay, where we thought it was right, we should have gone to the kitchen. How is he? But let me get, you know what? Tell me, and I'll get Hathaway. She'll be more interested in this than the trophies, although, who knows, sometimes

with her. Anyway, Hey, man, divorce is so easy. This is why I didn't come to your marriage. We are. I did come to your wedding. You were at the wedding, but you kind of, you were kind of absent. You weren't really paying attention. I remember I asked you for the ring at one point, and you went, no, it's all good.

And then you said, what's up? I don't know what that was about. You seem to know each other a very short time before getting married. I all love at first sight, okay? Anyway. My gift was separate vacations for your honeymoon. Yeah, that wasn't great. That wouldn't kick things off on the red,

Although it was an awesome trip. It was nice, yeah. But you got her tickets to Fandelion. Maybe you should have read up more about it. I think not a fun place to be right now. It's like burnt glass. Anyway, that doesn't matter. We're not getting divorced.

We love each other. We have a baby on the way and I just can't wait to just, you know. Vandal that thing on your need. That part of my life, you know. And anyway. You're distracting us. Go get Hathaway. I just, when I think about.

I'll go get Hathaway. Okay. Well, no, I'll get Hathaway. So you saw Darius. He's doing okay. He seemed kind of squirrely. Okay, that's Darius. I'll go get Hathway. Hold on a second.

Hath, honey, come over here. Good news. She's stormed up the steps and is... She's making a B-line tortell. Hathaway. Hathaway. We, uh... What's away? Can I throw something at her? You hear a ding, ding, ding.

Dinner will be served in the feasting hall. Make your way to the feasting hall. Okay, this is the question. How ironic. When we really wanted to get into the feasting hall, we couldn't. Now it's wide open. I don't want to go. Anyway, you were saying?

It's all like rain on your wedding day. It's like a 10,000 forks and all I need is a spoon or something. Sure it is. Anyway, there's a song in that. Hold on. Do we don't write that a song? Do we need to let, should we let everybody else eat the chili? Or should we warn everybody about the chili?

I don't know if there's a moment for confrontation. Do we got so many things we got to deal with. Here's what we're going to do. Okay. If we're going to help you. just to rob the place. Mind control chili. Depends on who's doing the controlling.

My sister knows about us. Is she involved? Or did she just find out is Gravemore planning on controlling all these people's minds to, I don't know, amass more power for Leo? Like, I don't know. Do we care about that? Not really, but it's if she has suddenly an army of people in her house.

You feel a hand pat you on the shoulder and you turn to see the man from Goldcliff wearing. opulent clothing, dripping with jewelry, hair oiled, and his daughter is standing at his side, and he says, Hey, you look like a man with healthy appetites. We should make our way to the feast hall. I haven't met you before.

I think you were talking to my wife. Oh, yeah, the little lady? Oh, she was great. She's my little lady. I love her. You know, they're pregnant. Did you know that? And it's very exciting.

That's a weird thing to lead off with, buddy. You're going to find out pretty quickly either way. He talks about it all the time. I'm going to be joining the dad club too. I'd love to talk to you about that. My daughter here, Gina, she's the light of my eye. Gina Marie. Gina Marie, say hello to the Dragon Man.

Well, I'm Dragonborn. Yes, my name is Scales. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Hi, Counselor Jerry. Nice to meet you, Jerry. We have some business we have to attend to, and then we'll be joining you in the feast hall.

And I'd love to talk to you more about just like being a dad. You know, like, what's that like? You know? Oh, that sounds great. That sounds lovely. Just, uh, I'll keep a seat open next to me. That would be wonderful. I would love, if you can keep two seats, one for me and one for my wife, if that's not too much to ask. Oh, yeah, but like a little seat, because she's not a big lady. I don't think she's... I'm going to tamp down the feelings I have about that point. No, I get it. I'll see you later. Yeah, you understand if somebody... Nice kimono, pal.

Hey, you know it. And he... Are you high, Lucy? You've gotten so relaxed about everything. ever since he went to talk to Darius. So, okay. First off, it's weird no one's mentioned the quality of my noble finery. I just want to throw that out there. Or that you're being followed around by a little, a tiny little armor bot. Well, Godfrey is well-known in the Silverview world.

I think everyone would know who he is. But I don't think that, I think we should let everyone eat the chili and kind of see how it plays out before we spring to action. Sure, sure. We can also, can we fake eating chili? So they think we're under the mind-control powers? I can fake eating anything. You know how many meals had always made that are like,

I'm like one bite. I don't want more bites, but I got a, I got a big. There's a real trouble in paradise. And then I go outside and I'm just eating whatever I can find. I mean, there's apples everywhere, but, you know. This seems like a lot of, like, nervous eating, yeah. Let's all fake eating the chili and act mind control, so we figure out what's going on. We figure out the play.

Okay, but what do we do about your sister and my wife? Why are you supposed to get her? Who are approaching as they're walking toward the feast, And Hathaway has Tayaana by the elbow, and she seems to be angrily whispering something to her. And Tiana is kind of looking about not a care in the world. Hathaway, can I talk to you? Tansor, you never introduced me to your friends? Yeah, that's that.

I just met, uh, that's a buddies. I just met, uh, halfway. Hathaway, yes. I haven't you heard of the Hogs Bottom three. I'm one of them. I barely mention that. And of course, Lucien here. On washboard.

Hathaway, can I talk to you for a moment? We found a certain... She gives a, like, one parting, like, threatening point at Tiana. It says, what's going on? You know, a certain guy whose name rhymes with Procarius? Where do you find him? Lucian found him in the kitchen. He's been cooking chili.

We should not eat the chili. It's some kind of magic brainwashed chili. We knew that for my sister already, but that's... But Lucid really gave us more information. He's in on it. We've got two separate sources on this chili. So we can run with this story. Spotlight, everybody.

Spotlight. This is a spotlight story. Darius is in the back-cooked and chili. Chili has some kind of magic brainwashing in it. Tanger's sister seems to be involved in some way. That doesn't make sense. What did he tell you? Did you talk to him? He seems sort of nervous.

It seemed like something was afoot, but he wouldn't tell me about it. He said that he supposed it was good that you were here. You were safer here. That we should stay in the castle. That doesn't make any sense. That's, oh, wait, so there's going to be some attack outside of the castle? There's some danger happening. I don't know.

Everywhere else but the castle. Lucy's been real, it's been real, uh, you can, okay. I think it's that fire beetle muck I have. Still, just, still working its way to my sister. Because I'm like, let me just say two things. One, we need you to focus. And two, I like this new laid-back Lucian that I'm seeing. He seems like he was more comfortable.

in his own skin and his own kimono and like Lucian slowly lifts a white Russian to his lips. Don't drink more. Slaps it out of his hand. Hey everybody. This is Griffin McElroy, your dungeon master, your best friend.

Actually, hold on. I'm not actually your dungeon master this time. Stuart Wellington from the Flop House is, but I'm still your best friend, and that's a bond that you can't break no matter how hard you try. Thanks for listening to this special episode of the Adventure Zone.

We're on a holiday break, so we appreciate the Flop House boys. giving us an episode that we can put up in our absence. We will be back in the new year. Don't you worry about a thing. We're going to be just hitting the pavement doing that hard, dirty D&D work. Because somebody's got to do it, and it might as well be us. I have a few things I want to tell you about, namely people who have given us money to support our show in exchange for us talking about their goods and services.

I have a very special message here, and it's for Carrie. And it's from Jackson, and Jackson says to Carrie, to my sister, she of the canonically sweet flips. Happy birthday. There's no present I could give you that's as cool as what you've already achieved, making me tear up with your Sloan, Hurley, and Noel art, and using your Animorphs fandom for good, and writing some pretty good tweets. I love you, and good luck not crying when you hear this. Carrie Peach, is it your birthday? It is. Happy birthday, Carrie Peach.

It was November 11th, you would have thought for you, Carrie. We could have gotten a little bit closer to that date, but you know how these things kind of get away from you. Happy late birthday, Carrie, thank you for everything you've done for the show. And Jackson, you're a real sweetheart. Got another message here, and it's for Chris. That's from Abby, who says, like a parent rewarding their kid for good grades, your loving wife and occasional DM is rewarding your bard because you passed your exams. That's right. You're now a PhD candidate, and Albertine is getting a car.

I love you and am super proud of all you've achieved. Griffin, I leave it up to you to decide the make-slash model of this fantasy mobile. It is a, it is, appropriately enough, a 1970 AMC Gremlin. Not the most attractive looking car and actually a very dangerous car to drive around, but it has kind of a fantasy twist to it and it could explode. And so, like, you have some fun options there as a DM. 1970 AMC, Gremlin, look it up. You're going to love this car, I guarantee you, unless it explodes, in which case you're not going to like it very much anymore.

I want to thank everybody who's been tweeting about the show using the Zonecast hashtag. If you use that, you might end up as a character on the show. Again, in 2017, in January, we are going to be getting back into the suffering game arc, and we are going to be hopefully trying to wrap up this campaign sometime next year, and then moving on to a new game and new story, hopefully. We're still trying to figure out what we're going to be doing. and I'm really, really excited about where we're going to go. And thank you all for sticking with the show during this, what, like two-month-long period we've had here where Travis and I had babies.

And so we've had to inject some live shows in this flop house special. We appreciate y'all being patient while we sort of spend some time with our newly expanded families. And we are excited to get back to the grind. Oh, thanks to Maximum Fun for having us on the network. You can go to MaximumFond.org and check out a bunch of gritty. great shows there. If you want to hear other stuff we do and see our video stuff, you can go to mackleroyshows.com. All of it's going to be there waiting for you. I have a SoundCloud page where all of the music from the Adventure Zone is contained. You can find it. My name is just Griffin Maceroy on

SoundCloud. Oh yeah, and I just put up the 11th hour soundtrack on Bandcamp. And you can buy it there and just have it forever. It's name your own price. So go nuts, whatever seems fair to you. You can find it at Griffin-Mackleroy dot bandcamp.com. And the Crystal Kingdom official soundtrack is up on there too. So if you want to grab some music from the show, you can find it there.

All right, that's it for this break. Enjoy the rest of the adventures of the Hogs Bottom 3. And the next episode will be up in 2017, which is kind of bonkers, on January 12th. So we'll talk to you then.

Bye. Okay, guys. So you are seated in the feast hall. you're seated together, of course, just to the side of the delegation from Goldcliffe. Due to the Silverview name, of course, you are seated pretty close to the head of the table where Lady Titania is sitting. And on the other end of the, at the other end of the chamber, as I described, is basically a large open window where an additional guest arrives. and that, of course, is the grizzled old features of magmar stone bones, the massive fire giant who is seated in the cave,

and his head and shoulders just barely are visible through that window. Now, is he made of fire? Does he increase the temperature in the room significantly? No, he's a fire giant. He's like any old giant. Like my giant, show of belly crystal. Yeah, I see. He has skin kind of the color of obsidian.

And his beard and hair, which were once like a fiery red, have long since turned in ashen, white and gray. And he's actually even balding on the top. And he's wearing like rags and clothes that are made out of the skins of, you can see some dragon scale and some snow bear, pelt and various other things that have made his patchwork clothing. He's super big and super strong, right?

Yes, he's a giant. But not, it doesn't have fire powers. Do you guys think we maybe? But he can handle being near hot stuff. Okay. You guys think maybe we need to keep him from eating any chili? I want to see if he goes for the chili.

If he doesn't, that means he's a big wooden spoon. He's got a big wooden spoon. He's a fire giant and five alarm chili. the chili and whoever's in charge of that chili is going to have a fire giant under their control. But if he doesn't eat it, doesn't that mean he's in on it? I'm wondering. Why would he be? What?

Doesn't it make any sense? I don't know who's in on this scheme? My sister and Darius are somehow connected to this whole thing. Like clockwork, servants bring in place bowls on all of your plates, a big hearty stew bowl of chili. And it probably smells delicious. Yeah, I mean, it's the national food of the Shatter Peak. They're famous for their chili peppers. And hot, spicy fire beetle milk.

And, yes. I'm going to... Tuck in like a maniac. Well, uh, yes. Wait, what, tuck in? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just start eating, yeah. Start eating.

No, no, I'm going to have Godfrey, uh, sitting on my right between me and... We're sitting on your lap like a little boy. Yeah, yeah, about some of my daughter who's coming along. You, I'm sitting very calmly. Yes, he's going, as I pretend to eat, I'm going to, I'm going to put it, uh, I'm going to put it in a container he's holding. Sure. I think what happens is the top of his little helmet opens up and you pour it now.

Yeah, okay, that sounds good. Yeah. And you hear it like splat inside like a trash can. I'm going to use my sleight of hand, which is a talent of mine. Okay. To just kind of make it look like I'm eating chili, but my bowl never quite gets empty. But really, it's the Ace of Space the whole time. Yeah, really the chili is going into some of the many pockets in my coat,

but also just goes back in the bowl. Give me a slight a hand roll there. Okay. Speedy. A new. Lucian. Ooh, not so great. That's a 5 plus 6.

So 11. No one's really paying that close attention to me, even though I'm dressed beautifully. All the doves that you're hiding in there are all getting mind control. I just sort of tip it into my kimono. Such a nice kimono. I've got no other recourse, really. But now you got hot chili.

all over your chest and groin. That I don't mind. There's such a thin line between pain and pleasure. Just a centivite now. Tiana is sitting across from you, and she, when she sees you pouring the chili away, she winks at you. I'm just staring daggers at her. What's Hathaway doing?

Hathaway is not eating the chili at all. She's sitting there anxiously kind of looking around. every time a servant comes out from one of the passageways you see her look up like hoping it's going to be her uncle and I say loud enough that people around us would hear it but not so loud that I'm like yelling at I'm like honey I know you want the chili but spicy food has been noted to induce pregnancies prematurely

so like induced birth so maybe don't have any even though I know you want some wink how loud is the baby for the baby wink And then you go into a conversation about your baby. Actually saying wink, too. It's very suspicious. Oh, you're having a baby?

That's lovely. That's lovely. I was telling you about that. Yeah. Anyway, yeah, that's, yeah, that's, yeah, Jerry, right? Jerry, I was telling you about it. I'm going to be a dad. Scales?

You name scales? Yeah, that's what they call me. Scales. Oh, it's because you're covered in scales. Partly, but no, it's also because I am a musician. I don't get that part. Music scales, like notes, doremy, et cetera. How does that have to do with dragons?

I mean, I'm the connecting point. It's a Venn diagram between music and dragons, and the place where it connects is scales bang battle. And Lady Titania stands up and she welcomes everyone to the home. Thank you for, thank you for coming to my place. And, well, making my little offspring here feel so dang, welcome. I appreciate it. And of course. And I started a chant of, Leo.

Leo, Leo, Leo. It does not get picked up. I don't join in. Everybody else joins along because, man, there's just something super infectious about. Like, Leo, it's so easy. Can I look around real quick and see who has not eaten chili? You can see who doesn't have chili on their lips? Yeah, like who is, yeah, who's chili?

Using what your magnivision? Do you look over at you and their eyes flash red for a second? I'll just ask, have you eaten chili? Have you eaten chili? Have you eaten chili? And they're like, yeah, it's delicious. From what you can tell, everybody is... Is eating the chili?

Everybody's eating the chili? Tiana? Tiana's not eating the chili. What is she doing? She's sitting there chatting away with the representative from Neverwinter, who does not seem to give a shit. Is Lady Titania eating chili? Yeah, of course.

And well, right now she's actually leading her... She's like half, leading half, like, kind of carrying her. her son, Leo, over to the big window, over to where Stone Bones is. Has Stone Bones been eating the chili? No, his spoon is still empty. Okay. So Lady Titania and Leo go over toward the window and... Oh, wait.

One more question. Has Ambrose Tafel been eating the chili? Oh, yeah. He loves it. It's super soft. It's so easy for him to eat. He has no teeth. Oh, yeah.

He is seated as far away. from you guys as possible. Sure, sure. I wave at him. He looks like, you can't tell if he sees you and is ignoring you or if he just can't really make you out, you're too far away. Man, it's a big table. This is a rich place.

I make one of those. We'll talk later gestures at him. You mime a phone? Yeah. The Lady Titania leads Leo over to the window where she, you see, you see. that she's making some kind of a gesture to stone bones who kind of like leans in and he says

it seems they're making humans in such small packages now and his booming voice kind of fills the whole chamber and people of course crack up because that's hilarious and they're terrified of a giant

and Leo looks like he is fighting back from crying and Lady Ticator says in the honor of all of my ancestors of the Gravemore line, I'd like to, or she doesn't say it in that fucking voice, that's somebody else. She says, well, in the honor, to honor all my ancestors, from Angus to Hagstrom to myself, I'd like to introduce you to the next, the next part of the Gravemore line, the next champion

a kiln. My boy Leo, and she like lifts him up and, uh, uh, stone bones reaches his massive, twisted, uh, like a blackened hand in through the window. And they give, Leo kind of reaches both hands out and like shakes his index finger. And it's pretty adorable. And it strikes me that someday my own child is going to grab my pinky with their tiny hand. And I start to cry a little bit.

Just thinking about that moment. And you say, you start singing that father figure song. The cats in a cradle. And the dragons and the moon. and the silver spoon. I was thinking more George Michael, but that's okay. You gotta have faith, the faith, the faith. My two, you can't count on me.

The my two dads theme. But you're distracted for a second because a pair of servants straining under the weight of this massive cauldron. And probably burping up a storm. Are leading, are carrying this massive cauldron in on a pair of big wooden pikes, basically. And they are, they walk over with this cauldron over toward the, over toward that wooden spoon. And following them is a one, Adairius Red Sheek, who is following after them with a look of triumph on his face. And the two men kind of lean down and a big splash of hot steaming chili pours out of that cauldron into the, into the,

the bowl of the wooden spoon. And you hear Stonebone say, Mmm, that smells great. Okay. We got to stop this, right? I don't know. I mean, that's the thing. Is it your sister and Darius,

maybe the ones that are going to control what the spoon, small bones? Stone bones. It's past titanium and the, you want to, grasp the spoon? Do you want to stop it? Should we do this? I don't want, I don't trust my sister having this.

Just one of us needs to like, knock that, cut the spoon off, the bowl off from the edge of the spoon. Okay, I'm getting up on the table. Hey, guys, hold on a second, sir. Before you eat that chili, I've got a few things to say. I think we should hear him. You hear... Thank you, stranger.

Yeah. I don't know who that's going to fool. They all sit together the entire night. And we're also famous as the... Perhaps you've noticed that the hogs bottom three are among you. In the brief moment of silence, you hear burp, burp. We're getting a lot of burps from the peanut gallery.

Hey, watch out. Seems like a request for us to do a little something. Perhaps it's time for me to do a little routine that I call me and Mace. Hey, everybody who likes entertainment? And I take out Mace and I say, People all kind of look like, they're like, is this part of the plan? Is this? And Stone Bones is starting to move.

the, he's like, dinner theater, and starts to move the spoon toward his mouth. That's okay, Mr. Stonebones, you know what? If I could just ask you to put that spoon down. He opens his lips, revealing teeth the size of gravestones. I'm going to, I get to grab my whip at this point, right? And just trying to like, get this. Go for it. I mean, just try and whip the spoon out of his mouth.

Unless you want me to try distract him with ventriloquy or try to make the spoon disappear with magic. Sir, perhaps you are a fan of sleight of hand, not magic magic, which of course is on impressive, but trickery and things that are not done supernaturally but appear to be. The rest of the room goes quiet and you hear you hear Darius's voice cut through the noise of no noise in silence. He says, what are you doing?

Should we just give up the ghost right now and just say that it's all? Putting on the show for the people. I don't know. It's like, oh boy, half the way. like, Hath, should I just let Darius do? Don't ask your wife what's happening. I mean, she's my better half. Oh, my God.

You hear a couple of the sound of like a couple of spoons hitting bowls, like people kind of stopping and watching what's going on. Guys, I'm a lot of ideas. Like, I can turn into a bore, but I don't think that would help me. Either I whip the spoon out of the giant's mouth or we just announced the whole room of the chili is mind controlled. We can't have the giant be mind controlled. Are you sure?

The giant stuff's the spoon is. Oh, God. We've got too much about it. We thought too much about it. Darius says, Tonight, you've all been invited here. Well, most of you have been invited here.

Hey, her family. In order to pray, give fealty to Lady Titania. And me, the land of the big people have ruled for too long. You've fouled the earth in. taken what is rightly the the spoils of the hard work of all folk small and as well as

medium sized and I'm tired of inclusive racial order a couple of a couple of guards I applaud a couple of guards grab tapwell by the shoulders

and wrench him up out of the chair he says for too long my people have been oppressed I've been oppressed but no longer for you Are in my thrall. Even you. Any points to you?

Any points is a wooden spoon at you. All right. Just play along now. You're right. Master? Uncle? I've never liked you. And I'm frankly glad that you brought Hathway here.

Hathway, come to your uncle. And she gets up, she says, Uncle, what's wrong with you? She looks around at all the dumbstruck people. All the people that you were here with earlier. are standing there and rapt attention. But rather than like wondering what's going on or watching a show, they're like slack-jawed listening to somebody who's control with your mind.

They're zombie-fied. Yeah, they're zombie-fied. So it must be pretty clear to him that we are not zombie-fied then if we're not doing it. No, I mean, I can open my, but we can pretend to be zonbified. I just minute what the other three are. I don't know what we gain at this. I mean, let's just keep going on. I mean, we'll see what it doesn't seem to have realized yet that we're-

That's true. We're zombie folk. Yeah. Hathaway says, what are you doing? Why are you doing to these people? Are you in charge here? What's happening?

Is this mind control? And he says, yes, but it's, it's for us. It's for me, for, I can control it. It's fine. The cauldron told me that there's a darkness coming. I need to protect.

I need to protect everybody. We need to get the rest of the family here. I have these idiots. Penny waves toward Titania and the rest of the assembled crowd and the giant. He says, they're mine. I, we're, we're, this is ours. This is a place for the red cheeks. And Tapwell starts protest.

He says, what's happening? Put me down. Sapphire help me. But his wife is just sitting there. So Tapwell didn't have any of the chili either, huh? Or he did, and he doesn't understand what's happening anyway. He did, and he doesn't understand what's happening anyway. He's a big, like, if something happens to Tapwell, I'm not going to be that upset.

Like, I kind of want to see Tapwell get his, and then we'll just stop Darius, I guess. I don't know. They start to drag him toward the main, they up toward the audience chamber. Throw him into the volcano. know. And Darius says, he can't be allowed to live after what he's done. And Hathway says, well,

but that's not right, uncle, what are you doing to these people? You can't control these people. Could we try and stop this? I want to see him. I can see both sides. You know what? Yes, because we'll get him, this Darius shouldn't have this kind of power.

Come on, look at him. He's a crazy bow. That's what I was trying to say. And I'm worried about what your sister's up to. You guys hear Teana say, you guys should stop him. Hey, Tanzer, did you hear that? Oh, no, I don't want to stop him. Well, it's better to advance my sister's plans than to advance Darius's plans, right?

I guess the robbery would be better than the mind control. Than the mind control and murder, right? How does she know about, you know what, Darius? That was just acting. Amazing performance on my part. Do you want to say that or should we immediately attack? You won't be expecting it if we immediately attack. That's a good point. Let me rewind back.

Okay, so you guys, you're standing on the table. You're sitting with chili all over your kimomo. Are you still standing on the, did you climb up to the table as well? I did not. I'm sitting. You're seated surrounded by the blank stairs of people. Yes. who have become enraptured with this magical chilling.

Now, we are, I'll try to reason with them. And the people in the room begin to move in, like, unison where they, the people at the table put their hands on the table and slowly stand up. The guards and servants that are surrounding you in the room are starting to, like, circle you slowly, and you hear a couple people go, mainly the servants. None of the people at the table. Burping so much for. I mean, it's chilly. There's two guards have grabbed Tapwell

and are kind of like leading him through this circle of people. Tayana is still seated and seems kind of oblivious and is mainly looking at you. And her drow buddy venom has you noticed that he slipped away back up into the audience chamber. All right. Well, he's probably going to grab some of the treasure. I think we can let him go.

The thing we got to do right now is attack those guards holding Tapwell, right? Or Darius. I mean, I think, I mean, I don't want to save Tapwell, but I do want to stop Darius. But he's also got like a fire giant. But the quicker we knock him out, the quicker than my control drops probably, right? Yeah, all right. Your sister, like, puts her hands on the table and then, like, you can tell she, She's intentionally acting poorly, but she's pretending like she's mind-controlled.

Mind-controlled as well. I'll tell you who I'm disappointed in, Meathead Mace, who did not warn me about any of this. Well, you'd pulled your Mace out, I guess. He was eating the Chili's, probably. Yeah, I guess maybe that was, you confused the grunts who was making with the burps of this. Oh, that's probably it. Because it's burping up a store. You know what, Meathead, I apologize.

I shouldn't have doubted you. That's on me, user error. I got attacked Arias. Darius is saying, we're all in this, we're all in this together, right? You don't support, you tried to put him in jail.

Yes, exactly. We tried to put him in jail. We didn't try to kill him. We're not the law. There is a law. That's your big speech. I mean, I'm really used to singing,

so. Teana says, that's your big speech. Oh, oh. I didn't think I'd have to talk that long because I thought that, Tanzer was going to do something, Tanzer. As he's speaking, I'm going to attack Darius from while he's... What are you trying to do? Are you trying to hit him?

Are you trying to knock the wooden... The chili spoon out of his hand? Darius is a chili spoon in his hands? Yeah, he's got the wooden chili spoon still in his hand. He's at the source of... I don't know if that's the source of the power or not. I'm going to try and attack him and knock him out. Okay.

I assume with him knocked out, he can't control anybody anymore, right? I don't know. So I'm going to... Give me an attack roll. Lunge for... So what's the best weapon here for me? It's a distance thing, right? Yeah, yeah.

It would probably be easiest to... To whip him? Yeah, because he's on the other side of the table. Yeah. So unless you, like, jump over the table and stab him. So whip it good? Yeah, yeah, is that a 20-side die? It is.

Yep, roll it. Okay, so while he's talking, so give a speech there, scales. Scales is too busy reading his spells. Roll your attack. What are you going to say? What are you going to say? As he's distracted, listen to your stupid legal speech.

Let me say this. 19. Oh, whoa. The, okay, so your whip wraps around his arm. Why don't you roll damage, which is a four-sided die. Five. Which is this? And I have five.

Which is the one? It's the top. So you do a total of seven damage. Okay. So your whip wraps around his arm and you see that he, it slices through his tunic and you can see him bleeding underneath. And he goes, how dare you stop them? And you feel. You feel hands grab you on the shoulder.

All of you, you feel hands grabbed you on the ankles. Oh, yeah, because I'm on the table. And that's when all hell starts to break loose, because Tiana... It's a ballroom blitz. Breaks free from the crowd and starts running toward the stairs. Do you guys... Are you guys going to try and fight, or are you going to try and run? I mean, we can't fight every single guard, right?

But we got to stop... We got to stop Darius, right? I mean, if we knock him out, the lobby knocked out. Or at least they won't be under his control anymore. Yeah. Can I, uh... Yeah, let's attack...

Can I, I guess, can I do... Can I cast a spell? Sure. On Darius. Okay. I want to cast dissonant whispers. Okay. Will that carry?

It's a discordant melody that only one creature of my choice within range can hear. Ranges 60 feet. Yeah, yeah. And, uh, racking it with terrible pain. He's got to make a wisdom saving throw. Okay. sure that'll break his psychic hold on these people at least a little bit.

Hopefully it'll distract him. He won't be able to command them, right? He'll be like, ah, well, he won't be able to focus. So your spell does what? You start singing dissonant, like, crazy whispers. I'm like... He sings a careless whisper, but he sings it off the eat. Yeah, yeah.

Okay, what does it do? So it takes... Target must make a wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, it takes 3D6 psychic damage and must immediately use its reex. action if available to move as far as its speed allows away from you, but not onto dangerous ground. He's not going to fall into it. So roll damage. He failed his roll. And it's six, right? Uh-huh. That's this one. Uh-huh. And when he casts a spell using a spell slot of second

level or higher, which I am, second level, the damage increases by 1D6. So it's 4D6, right? Do I just roll? 4 or 6 side dice. Okay. One, great. Four. Five, two, so that's seven. and once. That's eight. So not great rolls. Okay. So how much was that totally? Eight. One, two, four, and... Okay, so Darius shrieks and runs away, holding his head. And as he does so, the crowd of people begin to moan.

and some of the guards or the servants, none of the people that are immediately around you, not the people that were like the guests at the dinner, but the people that are dressed in like the beetle armor, they begin to like shake violently as well as making noise and they're burping heavily. And you see a couple that are closer to you fall to their knees and they start to vomit out what looks like,

hot steaming chili, but it begins to like melt their face and skin off. Ah, that's horrifying. What? And in like, almost like a blink of an eye, the, you're looking at a person who's like, just like a weird animated skeleton torso covered in hot sticky chili residue. Oh, horrible. But like, maybe the lower half is still legs. And they, uh...

And I say, good work, Jeremy. This is not what I intended. This is not my design. And the, the, so maybe about it, you see about a dozen people where this happens to them. They become these like crazy, horrible chili skeleton monsters. Are they alive? They, well, kind of. They seem, they like lurched to their feet and are kind of jerkily moving toward you.

Oh, God. What are you up to over there, Lucian? Well, I try and stand up and I immediately slip on chili that is falling out of my, come on. Camono Why made that choice before? So who's my immediate threat? Is the people holding me?

Yeah, you have hands like kind of clawing at you. What they're trying to do is like drag you down. I suppose I use Shaleli on one of them. Okay, so you shout

Shaleli and are you trying to like, are you trying to kill them or are you trying to knock them out? Or are you trying to like break free of them. Trying to break free. Okay. Okay, give me an attack roll.

So wait. What is the... How do I do that? It's a 20-sided die. It's a 20-sided die. And then under Shaleli, there's a plus some number. It says plus four, but then it says one die eight plus two. Okay, that's if you succeed.

That's the amount of damage you have. Oh, I see. Okay. Ugh. That's a three plus four. Seven. Yeah. Okay.

So after shouting Shaleli and everybody stares as your... wooden quarter staff that you had been using to support your kimono transforms into an even more powerful staff and you swing it around and the uh the you may as should bat the arms free um you don't you don't uh you don't hit center mass on any of these people but you're able to slip and stumble away uh away from the table noticeably less cool than when he was rat transforming here. I assume that pulling the kimono out of his, the staff out of his kimono made his commo fall off.

Hopefully he's not. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I think your kimono is still on, but it's tied. It's now cinched kind of awkwardly around your body. Yeah. And it does, it is threatening to fall off. No. Tanzer, you hit Darius and then he has scuttled away into the corner.

Is he holding the sides of his head? You would have to, you have to, you have. have a couple of options. Uh-huh. You can try and stay where you're at and fight a bunch of, uh, what I guess I would say semi-zombies as opposed to horrible skeleton chili monsters that are closing in around you, or you can, uh, chase after Darius, or you could go at the chili pot, or you could go after your sister who is, uh, running up the stairs into the audience chamber. I mean, can I leave the battle? I'm the best, I'm the best fighter here.

modest. I mean, look, I mean, I'm... What's the goal? So, if you came to find Darius, that was a mistake. And Hathaway, when she sees her uncle hold her head, she goes, Uncle, what are you doing to him? I couldn't care less about Hathaway's reaction to her monster uncle. Should I try to attack her uncle and kill him?

Well, he ran out, right? He ran away. I have action surge, so I can double up my actions and chase him and then attack him. So you can either chase him or you can chase your sister. chase my sister. But that means me leaving the room and leaving you guys. One person's a ballad singer and the other one's kimono was half off. I don't know if I trust you guys. What is your character want more than anything else? I want to stop the fight. I want to stop Darius as control over all these people. I'm kind of like if my sister succeeds in stealing a lot of stuff, I don't care too much about

that. So I'm going to stop Darius. Okay. So I'm going to action surge. Or can I, do I need an action search to reach him and fight him? Uh, yeah, you could, uh, so the first thing you're going to have to do is give me an athletics roll to jump over or jump across the table and jump over the people that are trying to grab you. An athletics roll. That's a 20-sided. Wouldn't that be acrobatics more than athletics? I mean, a lot of parkour. Yeah, okay.

We can all call aggravatics. Nice. Roll 11 plus 5 is 16. Okay, you may get through the grasping hands of the... Yeah. Who? Somersoll. Summer dive.

Pommel horse. You jump over the... The, the guests from... Not even parable bars. It's just six minutes of me doing that, just to everyone's wonder. Everyone's applauding. The Giants like, oh, wow, no kidding. I slightly don't stick to landing, and everyone immediately judges me for it.

Yeah, that's a half a point off at least. So you go, you're going after Darius, whip or fence, fencing foil. Oh, man, do I want to kill him? I guess the rapier and out of foil. Yeah, I get, I have more... It would make things a lot easier for me if you didn't kill him later on. Okay, I'll try and hurt him, yeah.

You can try to capture him without killing you. I'll do a, I'll do a rapier. Okay, yeah. Roll a five, shit, plus a five, so that's ten. Okay. And I roll eight-sided for damage. Does that hit him, though? Yeah, it's going to hit him.

He's not armored. Um, uh, six. So that's six points. Okay. Uh, no. So that's six plus five. So that's 11. Ooh. Ooh. I think I hit, uh, hit too hard. Uh, okay. So you, uh... Don't worry, I'll just catch him. Stab him through the heart.

So you, you stab him through the, uh, through the shoulder and he, uh, he lets out another howl. It begins to pull himself away on the, like, leaving a bloody streak along the floor. And you immediately feel skeletal, rough hands grip you on your shoulders. Hathaway starts pushing her way through the crowd of the people and trying to get, and pushing her way to her uncle. And she's, like, howling with rage. and you see her like pick up one person and chuck them over the

over the table I didn't realize she has Wow yeah Your pregnant halfling wife is a very strong woman We gotta save your uncle He's gone mad I didn't help But I had to try to disrupt his control of these people

We've got to help them We got to catch them So let's go So I'm trying to follow after her Okay So give me either Yeah give me an athletics or acrobatics check Okay

Does it help that I'm just like sweeping at people with Meathead Mace To try to knock them out of the way? Or is it more athletics like I'm trying to escape through their grasping hands? It depends on how you don't want to do it. Are you swinging your mace or are you jumping around? Or what could I do with lightning? Could I blast a path with that? Yeah, you could certainly blast a path with that.

Do I want to save that for, how many times going to do lightning? I have to like recharge, right? You can do it once per day. Okay, because if we have to fight a fire day, giant. A number fire, you know, lightning won't hurt. This is the thing.

You, you probably would, under no circumstance, want to fight a fire giant. Yeah, that's a good point. So I'm going to try to use my lightning to blast a pack. Just like a lot of things, you wouldn't want to fight a room full of people

either. That's true. Good point. I'm just going to try to blast a path through so I can run through. Okay, and you're trying, she's pushing away toward Darius and Tanser.

Yeah. Is that the same direction you're going? You're not going to fire the lightning blasted me. Uh, I guess I don't do that. Should I? You know what? I'll just try athletics. And then once I get to them, I can turn around and I can blast out. Okay. Give me a roll. Okay. Which, what am I rolling 20?

Yep. 20 side die. And athletics or acrobatics. 20. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. I'll just add the athletics. That's two. 22. Everybody had been impressed initially. Oh, by athletics, that was more, so that's more of like a football run. This is really stupid. I don't leave the ground. But I'm like, yeah, but I'm blocking.

And I'm like ducking under. Yeah. Spin around. And the zombies are like, how this guy gets? so fast and like it's really more about footwork. Yep, they're just burping a lot. They're running into each other trying to catch you. And I'm holding, I'm miming as if there's a football. I don't have one. I guess I'm holding Meathead Mace like he's football.

Okay. So you and Hathaway get to the two half-skeletal chili zombies that are clutching Tanzer. Now, Lucian, what are you up to? You're on the far side of the room. You're actually closer toward the, you're closer toward the... The far side. You're closer toward the audience.

The stairs up to the audience chamber than you are then. Well, briefly, I get very hungry from watching everyone, and I reach for some chili, but then I remember what the problem was. Like, man, you're so high. Yeah. It's just high. It's a James Franco character all of a sudden. Because he's cutting his own arm off.

Yeah. I guess I want to try and get over where everyone is. I guess I don't want to be on this side of the room, so I have to try. and get over there. Okay, so are you going to try and, like, run around the sides of the chamber and get to them? Yeah. Okay.

What, do I have to do a roll? Yeah, give me an athletics roll. Let's see how well you do. Now, we've both completed dynamic fees of... Like, we both really impressed people in the air and on the ground. I had no... Trust in the die roll. Yeah, come on.

16. Oh, man. So you duck and dodge. around the zombies. Comono gets torn. As you run past another servant who is slowly melting away and

turning into a weird skeleton monster. Yeah. It looks like this is somehow keyed into Darius's mindset. So you're running around and you're close to them. It's like a Benny Hill thing with you now.

Like you're clothing is a little bit torn every time you run around. Hathaway Hathaway grabs the one skeleton and wrenches it off of Tanzer and like its shoulder its arm comes loose at the shoulder so its arm is still clutching you

and she hurls it out the window where the giant is the giant which you can hear is burping uh oh ominous scales what do you do to the other one the other zombie arm guy I hit him with meathead mace okay give me an attack roll

Okay. Still a 20, right? Yeah, it's always. Ooh, a one. That's not so good. I'm really... But me, head maze gives me plus three. So you rolled a what?

A one. A one plus three? Oh, that is a critical miss. Oh, yeah, that's right. Okay, so the... I wasted it all the money and I'm really winded. You, the skeleton, and Tanzer go rolling across the floor in a bundle. Oh, sorry.

Speaking of which, Tanzer, What are you up to? You slam into the hard floor now sticky with chili and blood. We're rolling around? Yeah, yeah. I'm going to try and... Wait, where's Darius? Darius is nearby trying to drag himself away.

Okay, I'm going to try and attack him again, I guess. But do I got to really get out of this? Nope. Okay, I'm going to try and... Look, I've got to try and knock him out, the very least, right? Yeah, knock him out. I mean... Don't kill him.

But don't kill him. you don't suffer any additional disadvantage, but if you were on the ground and he was standing, it would be harder to hit him. Sure, but we're both like, I'm just like kind of swinging at like plane level. Okay, so I'm going to use my rapier again? Sure, yeah, roll it.

Okay, let's try this. I'm going to hit a 16 plus 5. That's a solid 21. Okay, and are you trying to kill him? I'm not trying to knock. Am I trying to kill him? No. No, I'm trying to knock him out.

Okay. With a rapier. I mean, you can hit him with a hilt. I guess you can hit him with a hilt. hard in the head. Mm-hmm. All right. So with eight,

six, plus five, so 11. Okay. So you, you managed to land a firm blow across his brow.

Lops his head. And he, his head, his head cracks like an egg. You hear his head bounce off the, the marble floor of the chamber,

and he, uh, he goes, his whole body goes limp. Right. And the, you, you can see that the,

the, the rest of the, guests are shaking even more violently now. Oh, so it didn't break their control. It just made them crazier. Mm-hmm. Well, the guests are the zombies? Well, it's not that they're crazier.

It's that they seem less controlled. I see. It's not like they all were like, oh, oh, where were we? They're like, oh, you've broken the spell. Yeah, your heroes, no, they're just like insane, mindless things now, gibbering, mindless freaks. The neural link between them and their muscles is no longer... Hathaway runs over to her uncle to make sure he's still. lot.

Okay. I'm hit him. That's fine. I know how to hit a man unconscious. Is it Lusian's turn now? Yeah, yeah. I'm sort of, what do we need to do at this point? We got to protect ourselves from these.

If we can kill someone to the zombies. Yeah. Do you have any other spells you could use that would help? Or to escape, I guess, but I don't know how we would escape. We kind of backed into. What's behind us? What were running into? So you are in a long haul.

On one end is the opening, there's the opening to the giant. And you can see he's burping and starting to shake as well. The other end of the hall is the stairway leading up into the audience chamber. And there's also a few passages on either, there's three passages on either side of the room that lead, question mark. One of them leads to the kitchen, you know. So can I get everyone to like sort of get behind me towards the exit away from? Towards the audience chamber. Yeah, to, away from all the zombie-zomified people.

And can I try and use my cloak to entangle, like put it down on the ground as an entangle thing? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You can do you want to, you want to save that until everybody's kind of gotten to, like, the stairs to like a choke point? Yeah, I guess that would be better. Because I think that'll, that's about the amount of space. Otherwise, they might be able to run around your intangels. Yeah, the old run around. Yeah.

Oh, reach around. Nope. So you see lying next to Darius's hand. 30 hands reaching around. Hathaway is lifting, is like, is picking Darius up. And you can see lying on the ground is the, like, the twisted and gnarled wooden cauldron spoon. I think the spoon was driving him crazy. Yeah, pick up that spoon.

Let's do something with that spoon to destroy it. Or will that kill everybody? I don't care I don't think it will I don't care If we grab the spoon Is there are we going to be in a thrall too Is that the way this

I think Darius said this I guess maybe I mean Is there we to smash it up With your shalalae or something Yeah I can try that See if that Does anything

Right You're trying to destroy The potentially magical spoon With your big stick Well when you say that That way it sounds dumb. Why don't you pick it up and see what happens. Maybe it gives you control over everybody.

Don't you have magical strength? The, the, you, when you did detect magic, the mind control elements were on the, on the caldron? On the contents. Oh, I see. Not on the spoon itself. Not on the spoon itself. Okay.

You might be wasting a lot of time on a normal spoon. That's just from the magic chili. just in case. Okay. You die. Picking up the spoon, you feel, you feel like a lingering magical property to it.

And you, you feel a little bit empowered. But you, for all you can tell, you have your own wits about you. Can I try and see it like a test case so I can like control any zon? I suppose, yes.

You just like zombies, do that, do that. You, dance. Okay, so you point at one of the skeletons that's like lurching toward you. Yeah. And it stops. Okay. And it starts to jerk around. All right.

So, hey, guys, I got a magic spoon. Yeah. You got a skeleton to Dougie. Great. Redirect the skeletons into the fire, I assume, right? Right? Into the volcano? Let's try that. Good idea, Silverview.

Thanks. The assembled audience is kind of staring at you and following. You don't actually have to say anything, but you almost like, if you think it, they seem to be doing what you want them to do. Make them do the thriller dance. Yeah. You're never going to have this opportunity again.

And two of the servants pick up the cauldron and follow along with you. you. Is the only time we can reenact... Pathaway is crying and clutching her uncle to her chest. I feel like... I feel bad just killing random people

who just got zomified, but... They're dead. They're zombies now. I mean, we don't have to kill them. Maybe there's... I don't know if there's any way to break the enchantment. No.

Well, that's... What kind of life were we leaving them to, though? Half-skeleton monsters? They'll die. That's... Do you think if we destroy the cauldron, they'll be released? Sure.

Let's see if we can... I mean, isn't the magic in the content? Isn't it chili, though? Well, but the cauldron has all those runes on it. I've got to assume that the cauldrons was gave the chili its magical properties and powers. Let's... All right.

So you lead a procession of chili zombies up the staircase in the audience chamber. Are the guests following us too? Yeah, everybody. Yeah, everyone ate the chili. Maybe, or what if you throw, have them throw the cauldron to the giant and you make a giant stop on it? Isn't that giant also part of the mind control?

What's the giant just like punching through the... No, he's... The giant seems to be... He seems to be resisting it somewhat, but he... You can't quite tell what's going on. Can we have him try and throw the cauldron into the volcano, like you said? Why don't we just do that? Let's try that.

Yeah. Okay, so did you guys take the cauldron up? Did you, are you making them carry it for you? We're making them carry it for it. Yeah, why should we? Okay. I could try to blow it up with my lightning breath. So you guys lead, you're, you head up the stairs from the feast hall.

There's like, probably about, you know, like two dozen, almost 30 people that are following along, including Lady Titania. Scales is playing some marching music. And they're, they're moving along completely silently. And you can see in the background, you can see the giant. is like up against the edge of the of the window with his like little hands like resting kind of watching you guys go away. He wants to come in, but he can't. Yeah, he's like, I can't hear it.

And as you guys are leading right behind you are the pair of servants carrying the cauldron. And standing at, standing in the middle of the room is your sister Tiana. who is no longer wearing a skirt. She's got long, like, riding pants. And her skirt has been whipped off and seems to have transformed into some kind of a bag, which she has hoisted up over her shoulder. And she is standing next to the barrel with the big barrel,

with her companion, Venom. and she knocks on the side of the barrel three times. She says, see you losers later. And the barrel explodes, showering you all in water. And in the middle of the barrel is a massive giant blue spotted octopus, which starts to slither its way across the now slick floor. Can you give me all dexterity save to prevent from slipping down the stairs? Which one is that one with?

20? Yep, it's always a 20. I'm always going to ask you. Oof. Oof. With my, I got 17. I got one. I got a four, but I have four dexterity.

So it's eight, right? Uh-huh. Everyone has dexterity. Oh, I have three, so I got a four. Okay. Wow. The, uh, wait, did anyone roll over a 10? I've rolled a 17.

Okay. So you stay. put with your magical spoon in hand. Did you guys fall over? I think so. You guys all fell over. I feel like I broke my leg in the process. It's such a bad role.

And so you slip and fall down the stairs as a tide of salt water splashes down the floor. And you guys hear a sound of like, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop. And a helicopter coming. Oh, thank you. We are escape route. And you notice a, you notice a, from your wet position on the floor, a what looks like a helicopter slowly lowering itself in the outside, in the middle of the, just out the window that leads into the middle of the volcano. So you see what looks like a, like a small cabin with a pair of, you know, like a little driver's cabin. cabin and a pair of

runner skis and then the middle is a massive bowl of water and above it is a pair of two like gyroblades like helicopter blades and it's slowly lowering itself and Teana goes running over

toward the window. That's Silverview technology right there, huh? I got two ideas. I either want to use my lightning on this. And driving that helicopter you see another drought. wearing an octopus mask. Oh, that's why they get the mactopus masks, because they're, I don't know.

You want me to see if I can use... If I can shoot the lightning through the window to blow up the helicopter? No, my sister's running towards it. Let her go. Who cares? All right. She's probably... She made fools of us.

Yeah, but the money's going to come back to me, which means, and by the trickle-down theory, theory to you guys, eventually at some point, a little bit of it. That's true. It's proven. We don't care about stopping Tanzer's sister?

I'm more concerned with stopping this octopus? Do you turn it and ask your friends? Hey guys. Roll down the bottom of the staircase. Hey, clumsy peats. I fell down those stairs very gracefully. I slipped

and slided very acrobatically. Yeah, but I think that there's a chance to stop her if we want to stop her. I mean, Octopus hasn't attacked anyone yet. Not yet. I mean, what's she doing? Just stealing some valuables from Titania? I don't want to stop her. She's my sister.

Tiana runs over to the edge of the lip, and you see she chucks her bag up into the waiting cabin of the helicopter. She doesn't care about you. He's got a big octopus that knocked you down. Yeah, yeah, what do you want to do? I'm going to try to stop her. Okay. Go for it. I'm going to cast a gust of wind at her. At her? Or the helicopter? Or at the helicopter?

You're at the helicopter. I'll do that so she can't get rid of her escape route. Just kill the guy in the helicopter. A line of strong wind, 60 feet long and 10 feet wide, flashed in your direction. Every direction? From you and a direction you choose for the spells duration, which is up to one minute.

Each creature that starts its turn in the line must succeed on a strength saving throw or we pushed 15 feet away from you in a direction following the line. Oh, it's going to kill my sister. It's going to hurt him right into Volcano. Okay, so the wind blasts away from you, and you see the octopus kind of stand. The octopus firmly stands its ground.

The other venom who was making his way after Tejana slips and falls and is blasted up against the throne. Tayana goes falling out the window. And she makes one last look and like reaches her arm out. And you see her pitch over the edge. And the helicopter swerves at the gust of the wind. And you see it bank up against the side of the inside of the volcano. And then you see it kind of pitch out of view.

I didn't want to kill you. What did you do? My sister. We were in love. I mean, in an aptly in hindsight, it was a crazy way to try to stop. It's like a hurled her in the worst possible direction. I yelled down the stairs like, bad news to answer. Your sister slipped.

Well, it long as it was her fault. It was definitely her clumsiness, much like yours. It must run in the family. The rest of the procession of guests are all kind of like riding. themselves, drying themselves off and kind of looking at you in expectantly. Because you still. What do you get? I'm running up the stairs and trying to look over the edge of my sister's maybe hanging

off the ledge. Okay. So the gust of wind keeps going. I think it's, it lasts for like a minute. So you're pitched along the floor. Give me a, no, I mean, give me a strength test. I'll roll this. I'll roll for my, I'll roll for the intel.

the inspiration thing? Use your inspiration. I'm going to say you can use athletics if you want. I'll use athletics. You know the winds go. You can kind of ride the wind properly. Can I use acrobatic? Yeah, that's fine.

Yeah, great. So I rolled a 15. So that's a 20. Okay, unrolled again to see if you rolled even better than that. Oh. And I roll one. Okay, now let's keep that 15. Yeah, woo. Okay, so you using that wind to kind of buoy your, you along.

You just gliding on a flying squirrel. You skip past the octopus and the drow, and you skid to a careful halt by the edge of the cliff, and you can see just within reach your sister clutching to the edge of the cavern. Oh, thank God. And the lava is looking. Yeah, you can see the lava below, and you can see the destroyed remains of the helicopter. sinking, slowly sinking into the magma. Oh, the treasure in it.

Oh, treasure. And she's looking up at you like, oh, shit. Yeah, oh, shit is right. Can I reach down and grab her? It's my turnover. No, yeah, you can, you reach down and grab her. Which on and grab her. Okay, so there's a moment of, like, you guys,

she looks at you for a second, not sure if she should trust you, then she takes your hand. We're still over here. You're going to have so many words of Thanksgiving. I want to look over and check to see how my wife is doing. She's surprisingly okay, and she's got her uncle, but she's super, she's distraught and confused and not sure what to do. And this octopus, does it look threatening, or is it just an octopus? The octopus doesn't seem to know what to do at this point.

It's kind of, it's sliding through the water, slapping with its tentacles. I mean, it's not just an octopus. It's like twice as big as a normal octopus. But it's like, is it like a mascot or is it a threat? It would. Like, is it like, this is our calling card, a big octopus, or is it like, this will stop them, a big octopus? It seemed like something that was going to be, this will stop them, but it wasn't expecting a huge gust of wind to then destroy its watery escape route. Okay.

I won't worry too much about the octopus, though. And the octopus is currently slapping its way over toward the drow, who is like, kind of right, Venom, who's kind of riding himself, and hasn't quite realized that his partner is probably dead. Yeah, Venom. He probably could kill Venom. Hit Venom. Well, I mean, there's not much he can do right now.

I mean, I don't know. I mean, he's the one remaining enemy. That's true, I guess. I kind of want to, so I kind of want to cast Healing Word on Darius. Yeah. To try to save him. So that's a creature of my choice. I can see it regains hit points equal to 1D4 plus my...

Spellcasting ability modifier. Uh-huh. So... So you're... It's 1D4 plus whatever your charisma bonuses. All the damage I've done is five. Wipe it all away? Just one.

Okay. So six. Okay. So... Hopefully it'll stabilize it. You sing a beautiful song and you can see his wounds magically niche. Darius don't leave us.

And she's like... She's kind of shaking him. And Hathaway looks to you. somewhat relieved that you're helping. Not like lovingly, but thank you. You drove them insane for a moment. I'm dealing with the situations as they come, baby. You know, if your marriage can't survive

these kinds of pressures and crises, how are you going to have a chance? Now, Lucian, yeah. What do you direct your army to do? We haven't tried throwing the cauldron into the lobby, yeah. Throwing in with the treasure. I want to try that.

Can we wait until like, my sister out of the ledge. You did that already. You pulled her up out. The octopus is trying to console venom who is trying

to figure out what's going on. Just consoling venom for the suckers. Yeah, well it's tenicles. And it's also very concerned that it's in the middle of a volcano and there's not a lot of spring water around here.

You lead the procession of servants and guests. Um, Ambrose Tapwell, who is now, uh, has been freed and not thrown into the, uh, into the, the center of the volcano is, uh, trying to shake his wife back to, uh, back to, uh, consciousness. Conscious. I get, I mean, she's, self-possession. Yeah, yeah. Um, and you, you hear his, other than you hear his like muffled old man cries, but other than that, the rest of the party is quiet. I give them a thumbs up and I say, Grape job, Ambrose.

You say grape job? It's an apple machine. It's a fun. So you can see the, as you lead the servants over toward the edge, Tayana says, you're going to throw that

away? But what about all the power? You can feel the cauldron almost kind of resisting you. So you're going to have to do a wisdom check, a resisted wisdom check against it.

Okay. Oh, God. Okay. Sounds like good odds. We got, so you roll that and add your wisdom bonus. Well, there's two things that say wisdom on here.

There's one on the left. It's plus two, and then there's saving, oh, that's saving throws. Yep. It's not a saving throw. It's just wisdom plus two. 20.

Wow. Okay. You can feel a voice kind of emanating from the spoon it feels. It sounds like an old, almost like a twisted old woman's voice saying, no, no! And the servants pitch the chili pot into the over the cliff, and you see it tumble down into the magma. Right onto the helicopter.

Yeah. And then do you toss the wooden spoon in after? You've been a real engine of destruction in this game. I guess you should probably toss a spoon in for good measure. One of the helicopter pilots is like trying to crawl out of the wreckage. Like, oh, just before I get in the... And then the cauldron calls on them. You see sentience return to the eyes of all the assembled parties.

We saw your chili puzzle. Unfortunately, many of them have turned it to skeletons. Now the skeleton ones don't. They're dead. They collapse. Who even knows who they were, anyway. But you're all granted a knighthood from Lady Titania. What?

Wait, what about Ambrose Tapwell? Ambrose Tapwell is... Was arraigned at Superior Court. He's sent back to Baldur's Gate with his family. Oh, that's not what... Sometimes there's not justice. What about Darius, though? Oh, Darius is put in prison.

Oh, just a fire way. However, the next adventure will be when you guys get to defend him and claim that it was the magical cooking pot They convinced him to commit those crimes. That's got to be a common defense in this world. Well, I mean, we're going to have to find out in the next... If only we had a lawyer on the team. I'd like to do the next adventures because we're mostly us testifying in court.

I'm just a character witness. So what happened with that octopus? Poor Darius. Oh, the octopus... Got married. Married. Venom. Venom and Priscilla, his octopus, are both put in... put in prison. Capodosius, luckily,

is able to conjure some water to keep Priscilla the octopus alive. And this is going to be terrible that I'm asking this after I asked about the octopus, how is Hathaway? How is my beloved wife handling this training event? Hathaway is happy that her uncles alive, but she's a little unhappy with how he is now imprinted. She surely doesn't blame us, though. She does not blame you now.

No, but he's criminally insane. And I assume Tiana and I I assume Tiana managed to beat the rap with using her and my name and connections. Well, actually, I don't even think any of those people were sentient when Tiana and Priscilla and Venom tried to steal a bunch of stuff. So I think they're probably all off scot-free,

I tell Tejana that she owes me big time, big time. You know, sometimes it's good to be a silver view. She did not care for me being killed. She blew up a massive thing. She figured you'd be okay. I'm annoyed, but I'm proud to be her brother. I'm sort of delighted the Cappadocious didn't turn out to be evil. Yeah, the skull and bones wizard always seemed like he was going to turn out to be

bad guy. Yeah. It was just to show you shouldn't judge someone by their robes. Okay. I'll tell you something. I'll take something. And I, and you know what? This has got to be the best debutante ball of all time for a little, uh, little kid. Yeah.

How's Leo doing? Uh, Leo, I had the time of his. Yeah. He certainly won't be eating chili ever. Next time you make the chili. Okay, guys. I like that we gave this a real animal house ending. We're going to whatever happened to everybody.

Yeah, I didn't even have a chance to write, to read my run. my rap. Okay, we'll pull it up as a bonus. Yeah, over the end credits. All right. Is that what you've been writing this whole time? Yeah. You've been writing a full-out wrap the entire time?

Well, it's not a very good rap. Well, why don't we just yell? We'll just roll the rap over the credits. Okay. Give it a watchboard beat. Don't give me why for me. Let me see if I can read my own handwriting. Brum, brum, brum, brum.

In the town of kill, me and my friends were ill, beneath Shatter Peak, with a smoke-tooth leak. you're throwing me off. Don't do that. My main man, Silverview. With him, it's always something new. My sweet wife, Hath. She's so good at math. My other man, butt watcher. Nothing runs a butt watcher.

Missing Uncle Darius. That guy was hilarious, but we needed invitation so we can get information. Is it a recapbing a plot? This is the story? It's a lot. Monster-slaude-style rap. So we talked to Capodosius. His wardrobe was atrocious after speaking.

with Griselda. Can I get a hell yeah? It's a party for Leo. Now this we had to see you. But it was time to do some thinking. So we went drinking. Chug shots of beetle milk went down smooth as silk. Picked up new duds. We were looking like studs. We run into a tap well. That jerk can go to hell. Then it's on to the party. Can't afford to be tardy. Because Darius is waiting. Can't afford no hesitating. My fellow hero's wife and me. And little Godfrey. Introduced to Lady Gravemore. An opportunity to sing more. The song is a success. How could it be anything less? My rhymes are so tight. It saves the whole night.

That was premature. Go to get a glass of water school of fool and why I ought to. Tans her sisters there. Peacock mask below her hair. Lucian turns into a rat. How messed up is that? Hold on. I mean, I'm getting bored with it. We had tried some lurking, but all these creeps were burpins. Darius was making chilly rats around him. Kind of silly. Find some mad brain washing. Watch out.

Folks. Stop gnawoshing. Got to make a lot of choices. Talk a lot in hushed voices. Meet a guy named Jerry. Things are getting hairy. Oh, hold on, dropped it. Going into dinner, the plot gets thick, not thinner. Fire giant in the winder could burn us all the cinders. That's not accurate. Everyone in Darry's Thrall, that guy has some got some gall. It's an all-out brawl, zombie battling in the hall, hit him with a whip and whisper,

burning people loving blisters, fighting people made of bones, screams and horrifying moans, running through zombie arms, they mean us lots of harm. Roll a critical miss. I don't deserve this. Lucian gets the spoon. I just play the tune. The sister has an octopus. It knocks over almost all of us.

Lucien cracks some wind. Sisters living seems to end. Tanzer saves her life. I check on my wife. Do some Darius Healing. Wedding promises resealing. Lucian throws the cauldron into lava. Now the end tall, the drama.

See, there you go. Nice. Wow. Wow. Bravo. So if I seem distracted at all, it's because I would literally like, what would Jeremy Scales-Bangbatel be saying about this?

Okay. Well, thanks for playing guys. Thanks for DMing Stewart. Thanks for the Adventure Zone guys for letting us take over their stuff for a little bit. See ya. Maximumfund.org. Comedy and culture. Artist owned. Listener supported. Following the news is hard and it sucks.

How do you know which stories are important? Which sources do you trust in this post-truth world of reactionary journalism? I'm Brett Black. And I'm Travis McRoy. And we host a podcast called Trends Like These. We cover trending news stories. We debunk misleading clickbait headlines. And we always try to throw in a little bit of good news.

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