Doggie Bag

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(CLINKING) Peacocks. This summer, during the biggest sporting event of the year, Peacock turns to two broadcasting legends for the Olympics coverage you can't find anywhere else. Um, I think they mean us. Oh, s***. Um... (CLEARS THROAT) With an incredible duo sure to take home the comedy gold, Olympic Highlights with Kevin Hart and Kenan Thompson. New episodes Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Only on Peacock. Coming to Apple TV+ on August 9th. You're the Marine? Yeah. You're the ex-con. Yeah, I did time, but you don't gotta cast aspersions at me. From the director of Mr. and Mrs.

Smith and The Bourne Identity comes a new film. This your first job? I know what I'm doing. I'm late for a crit change. Starring Matt Damon. Everybody in New England is after us. And Casey Affleck. Go, go, go, go, go! What are you doing? Taking notes. Taking notes on a criminal conspiracy. The Instigators. Rated R. Streaming August 9th on Apple TV+. Howdy everybody. Welcome to Arc for Episode 6 of the DNR Podcast. As I record this on a very rainy day in California, we are about to listen to Group Vanguard. It's their second episode and we are going to explore the continent of Kian and maybe get a chance to really know these characters.

But before we do that, we have to listen to a few words from our sponsors. Please don't go anywhere. We'll be right back. Let's do that thing where we go around the table and introduce ourselves. I'm Jason. I'm the Dungeon Master. Going around the table, starting with Lisa. Hey, I'm Lisa and I play Vella, the Minotaur Rogue. And Ian. I'm Ian. I play Corvus Eben, the level 2 anxiety boy. And James. Hey, it's James. I play Gaius Rean, the human druid. And Susan. Hey, I'm Susan and I play Alna Elri, the Quar Artificer. And last and certainly not least, Ryan. Hey, everyone, I'm Ryan and I play Yegman, the gnome paladin.

So... We did, right? No, let's talk about last session. Good night. Let's talk about this. That was... Harry's an understatement. That was pretty... That was pretty... pretty bad. As... Barry. Barry Harry. Awwww. Goodbye. Good night, everyone. I... I want to enact a policy that if someone makes a joke bad enough that they know it's that bad, it's a silent thing that they retire from this show. Like, they're just gone. Like, they say goodbye and then they never speak again. Like, it's... I don't know... That's pretty high stakes, Jason. That's the thing. I don't know where the line is, but I feel like we'll all find it together.

What if they just flail themselves? Like, pengulation? Like, uh... Yeah. Yeah, that's some Darkest Dungeon shit. I don't... Anything that we can monetize, Jason. Come on. Okay, okay. So... You need our flails? Last... last time, you guys had a really nasty fight with some polar bears. Was the fight avoidable? Eh, who's to say? Yeah, I think so. Was the fight avoidable? Eh, who's to say? Is that your defense? I don't need a defense. It's the Arctic and there are polar bears. I don't have to defend that. But I'm really glad you all lived. And thanks to some quick thinking, throwing away some rations, you can get your bearings here and recover.

What... what... what would be the first thing that you want to do? Like, is Yegman going to, like, after the bears flee? Is it like, "Hey, everybody, let's pull our wounded into this cave or out of the way somewhere"? Oh, yeah. So that would be the first thing. So he wouldn't be able to pick them up, because he's tiny, but he'd be able to drag them. So he's dragging them through the snow into those caves. Um... Corvus would help out. He'd be giving you a hand. We could drag them together. Okay. And he'd be talking to you about what in the world just happened.

About, like, you know, how they come up. You know, what happened here? I was smacking them once, one instant, looked away, looked back, and then all of a sudden everybody was down. What happened? [laughs] Uh, Corvus is just totally shell-shocked. I think he's just, like... He's just kind of, like, doing that thing where you're just, like, nodding and, like... So it's just the Eggman talking endlessly. Yeah, it's like active listening, yeah, but he's not actively listening to anything. Um... Yeah, sorry. Go ahead. No, so he would drag them in, just keep talking, just trying to fill the silence with something until everybody gets inside that cave, and then, I guess, just make sure that people are stabilized, wait it out until they wake up type of thing, keep an eye out, make sure those bears aren't coming back.

We get everyone up. We get everyone. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That makes sense. So how about we take a short rest, and you guys regain some hit points, and we'll talk about next steps. Let's just assume that you guys are good enough to get out of this place. Is Ylna... Okay, are you acting as a guide at this point? Are you... I mean, obviously, you're pointing them in the direction of where you live. Duh. But... Are you... It's this, like, "Hey, sorry about the bears, guys. "That one's on me, whoopsies." Or was it, like, "That was a freak thing. Who could have seen that coming?" Uh...

This is on you now? This is... Wow. I see what you did there. -Bait and search. -Don't appreciate it. Well, she almost died, so... She's not feeling too good. Honestly, she's probably a little shell-shocked, too, 'cause this was, like, her first grand adventure. Like, "I'm doing this to prove my worth. Oh, no. Almost died." So, um... After she's revived, and if they're talking... I apologize. I should have been more... alert to these dangers. It's all good. We're all up. And for some reason, Yegman's very... cheerful. There's nothing like a tussle with a bear to get your blood flowing.

Yeah. Glad I didn't die. I feel like I was just about to turn into tears. [laughter] Is that an everyday thing? That we need to keep an eye out for bears? It isn't... every day. Okay. So, like, every other day? It is something that we will want to keep an eye out on in the future. Hey, uh, Corvus. Do you have more of that jerky to throw? No. Not for... Not of mine. No. That's... gone. And Corvus, I think he's, like, building a really... like, rudimentary sign out of, like, the firewood or something. It's just like, beware bears or something to, like, leave at the campsite.

Like, he's just, like, making with charcoal or something. Could I get everyone to give me a perception check, please? Oh, god. More bears. More bears! No, no, no. Ooh. That was almost a 20. So, you guys are huddled up. This is how I imagine it. There's this frozen wall that's really high, and there are sort of pillars of rock and ice that create almost, like, prison cell bars, but big, thick pillars. So it's thick enough that these bears couldn't get to you. I imagine that's the safest place, right? Like, where you were hunkered down. So, in this ice behind you, Corvus is going to notice... a mitten sticking out of the ice.

This big, puffy... Looks like it's maybe made of, like, seal or something like that. And it's just kind of like, eh, sticking out of the ice. And whatever would be connected to that is obscured. Okay, so it looks like it's full of something. It's not just, like, a floppy... Yeah, no. It looks like... Like, you can see it protruding, like, the outside of this mitten or glove. This, like, catches his eye and... And he says... He, like, points over to the group and is like... Looks like we weren't the only ones... You know, this might be a popular spot for bears.

Nah, we're fine. The bears aren't going to get us now. See these things? And he's going to, like, smack. Like, the entryway. On the pillars? Yeah. Corvus is like, "I'm still... I think the sign... I'm committed to the sign now, so... I'm gonna... I'm putting that... Yeah." Don't... Don't... Don't bears open inside. Bears open inside. Boy, I figure we can get nine or ten seasons out of that. Yeah, let's do it. Yegma and I start to walk over towards this non-floppy mitten. Yeah, this thing is definitely embedded in the ice here. It looks like it's pretty damn old. Like...

Something would have had to happen to somebody. Like, maybe they... You know, maybe they just got trapped here during a blizzard or something. Maybe... Maybe there was some sort of cave-in or... You know, but... This is, uh... Definitely connected to a dead person. He would take out his knife and start chiseling away some of it, just to get a clear picture as to what's actually behind this. So just kind of like... Ice picking your way through there. It's going to take you a good four or five minutes to chip away enough that you can really make out what's...

But you're going to see that this gloved hand is gripping some sort of rotted object. And all of that is just behind a wall of ice. But you're getting to the point where, you know, you can at least see what's going on. It looks like maybe a quarterstaff, a spear, you know, maybe a casting rod, something like that. But it is... He's holding something. And it looks to be made of some really fine material. It also looks to be covered in blood. Oh. Um... Frozen blood, if that makes it better. Okay, so his first reaction is going to be that this is something magic.

So he's just going to stop in his tracks and just kind of look back over towards Gaius. Hey, Gaius! Come over here. You want to take a look? It's a terrible way to die. Yeah. What do we got here? It looks like something magic thing. Hmm. Can I do an Arcana check on it? Sure! All right. Oh, that good? No, sheppy. Not too sheppy. Yeah, yeah. 21. You're picking up some heavy mojo coming off this thing. Whenever it is, it's... it's... it's big. It's a big find. Like, maybe someone rolled a 20 on a travel table last time we played kind of a big find. Like that kind of thing.

Ooh. So the bears attached to it... Yeah, yeah, no. The bears weren't the 20. She gets blamed for some bears. The staff of bears? The staff of bears. What it is, it's attracting all the bears in the area. It's just... It's a staff of bear summoning. That's amazing. [laughter] Now we have mounts to ride through the snow. [laughter] Um, so he'll, uh, do his check or whatever. Oh, looks like there's some big mojo coming out of this thing. And, uh, what I'd like to do... So this thing is embedded in the ice. It's pretty embedded, yeah. Can I use Purdue's flame to melt the ice around it?

Sure can. Without burning it, of course. Right, yeah, no. Yeah, uh, that would be a hell of a lot faster than chiseling. That's for sure. So he's gonna rub his hands together and put them up near the ice and do his best to remove the ice and melt it away from this, uh, staff and body. So, uh, the first thing that's gonna happen is you're gonna melt the area around that, uh, that mitten and that's going... It is just frozen in the hand. Like, rigor mortis set in a long time ago. So you'd have to kind of, like, peel that away, like that hand open. So if you did, you'd hear, like, a crackle and, like, a pop.

And this is a spear for stars. Ooh, um, it is finely crafted. Like, this probably was commissioned or fashioned by... This wasn't done by a novice. This was done by a master craftsman. Uh, it looks like this is a porpor dwarf that got caught in the ice. So you're gonna... It's just this deep blue skin from being stuck here. And, uh, it's going to kind of, like, kind of limply fall away after you melt the good majority of this ice. I'm guessing, not to be crass, that you want to check the rest of the body? Uh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think that's the natural thing to do.

I think, uh, if you guys were looking at the spear, Velo would definitely be like, "I'm just gonna go through these pockets real quick. Don't mind me. Maybe this pack, if there is one..." The spear would get Yegman's attention. He'd probably stop paying attention to the body. Mm. Mm. So... This looks like it was a gift. If you're going through this guy's pack, there's gonna be a letter. Um, and it looks like it was made by a friend of his. There was some debt to be paid. But, essentially, it says, "Gordon, I hope this will make up for anything that I owe you.

It's called the sub-reality spear. Enjoy figuring it out." And there's kind of like a winky face emoji. Like, uh... Is it signed, the letter? Um, it is, but it's in Dwarven. Do you read Dwarven? No. Oh. Does anyone read Dwarven? No. No, mine just says "common." I do. I do read Dwarvish. Alma does too. Okay. It's signed "Die, Garjan." Die, Garjan. I'm probably butchering the... But... That's... And I just want to point out, while this is going on, I'm gonna use magical tinkering to make Corvus's sign glow bright. Bright. Oh, nice. Like, she brings out a paintbrush and the words start glowing.

It's a bright light, five-foot radius. So if anybody gets close to this, they'll see the sign. "Beware Bears." And it opened up their eyes, I'm sure. Hey, if this expedition doesn't work out, sign-making, I think, is something to get into. We have a future. So, sub-reality spear. Is there a check that might have it ring a bell? Like a deduction? Something like that? Give me... Okay. Give me a history check. At least for the name. Oh, boy. Alright. Anyone else? Yeah, can we all do a history check? Yeah, absolutely. Anybody who heard the name. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm very curious.

What dice? What are you doing? I'm changing my color. Vella! What's up? There is a Garjan family in Stonesunder that are friends with me. Don't even talk to her about Stonesunder. I mean, it's... She just spits. Spits on me. I imagine Stonesunder's like the Chick-fil-A of Alara. Like, it's like, do they make good stuff? Sure. I don't agree with a lot of their choices, but yeah, it's good chicken. Like, that's gotta be... Like, if you get a weapon made there, it's, you know, like, maybe just donate to a charity afterwards or something to make yourself feel better.

But, like, you know. So she knows the name. Okay. Yes, definitely. Yeah. You can trace that back. Yeah, so I guess if Gaius or Jallnna would have read that name out loud, she would have been like, ugh. Okay. So then this is probably from Stonesunder then, which would make sense because they're a family that lives there. And she would just kind of, like, put that out there. But I don't know if she knows what the spear does. She's like, "Is it safe to touch?" And he says that with his hand, like, hovering an inch away from it, like, getting ready to grab it.

She'll shrug, be like, "Probably." Real positive. He'll pick it up. Might I recommend a glove? Not that one. It's dirty. I'm sure with all of this cold weather, there's a bunch of gloves and layers on. Or a minton. Yes. So, you gonna kind of play with the rod, get attached to it, like, see if you can, like, meh? Yeah, so I'll step outside, out of the cave a little bit, back into the bloodbath that's probably still marked the area, and play around with the spear a little bit. That's definitely a... it's a sight, but the snow's covering it up, so, yeah, it's getting better.

So, this thing, it feels light. Like, it's not a big, heavy spear, but you can feel like there's just something about it, like it's sturdy. Like, you could prop yourself up on things, you can definitely... it's got a good ten-foot reach. It just feels right. It feels good in the hands. Okay. Now, is it like a spear that you can manage with one hand, or is it a two-hand? I'd say it's versatile. Okay. Okay. So, he'll kind of hold onto it, he'll kind of use it as his walking cane. Now, he's short, this little gnome. So, it's like... this is like... So, the best mental image that I'm getting is like when you have a tricycle when you're little, and you have that giant, flexible pole with like the orange little flag that's on top that's waving ten feet above the tricycle.

That's basically what it's like. So, you always know where Yegman is because you see the spear before you see him. I love it. Even if he's like buried in snow, the spear's like sticking up, he's like, "I'm here!" Exactly, this is where it's at. It's his new banner. Tie a little handkerchief on it. A handkerchief with a mustache emblazoned on it. Yeah, so I mean if nobody's gonna say anything, then he'll just... he'll hold onto it. He's claiming it? If no one else is gonna say anything about it. Like, he'll come back to the group, talk about how good it is, and then see if anybody says anything about it.

If not, then he'll hold on. What does it do? I mean, I know it's a... I know a spear. A stab? Yes. The arcane properties. Oh, that I don't know. Well, I guess that's for Yegman to find out. Maybe? I don't love that. I don't love finding out. I don't love that. Well, you wanna look at it? Here. And he'll hold it out towards you. Is there any check I can do to figure out what it does? You know what, if you give me a high enough arcana check? Okay, that's fair. I'll give it a try. A two's good. A two's good. A two's... well, the check was a one, so yeah. It was a 20 on my screen until the very last second.

I think he just holds his hand out and just goes, "No. No. No. Thank you." What, like bad vibes? I've had enough... today. Oh, okay. You need some food. He'll just reach in his pack and grab you some food and just hold it out to you. Here, eat this. Corvus just takes it. He's very confused, but he's like, "Thank you." So, I don't wanna keep rolling on this, but Yolna's thing is creating new magical objects. Can she check? I don't wanna keep rolling, but can I try? I'll let you have one. Okay. Give me arcana check. Okay. 'Cause that's kind of her deal. How about a 25?

Apparently it is your deal. So, Yolna's gonna get kind of a vibe. You know when there's a house fire? And you ever watch house fire safety videos and they tell you to tap a doorknob to see if it's hot type of thing? Yolna's gonna reach out to this and it's like, "Oh." There's kind of a magical heat coming off of it. It's like, "Oh shit. This is tapping into something pretty deep and dark." And I'm gonna tell you right now what this thing does. Okay. If you use this spear, it is going to obviously do a little extra damage, give you a little plus to your attacks and stuff like that.

It also bonds to the user. Okay. Technically it's a cursed item. If you use it, you can't let it go until someone performs a ritual to get this off of you. Now, what it does on a critical is very interesting. On a critical strike, this thing opens up rifts to different realities and does things to the target. Now, these things are completely random and the realities are completely random. These are different therias, different versions of therias, a multiverse type of thing. However, it also works on critical ones. Mm-hmm. It is wholly unpredictable. It is...

This is a physical version of the Rod of Wonder, basically. Okay. So as Corvus just goes... Don't tell him. As Corvus just goes, "Mm-mm," and then Yegman, I guess he puts a spear in the snow and then goes to grab from his pack for food. Yalna just goes to grab it and then immediately pulls back and doesn't touch it and then leans in close, puts her hand on her face, tilts her head, and then just leans back, crosses her arms. It's pretty, isn't it? It's shiny. Ah... I am unsure if you would... If you should use this. What do you mean? Well, technically, it's cursed.

If you want to label it. But... There are some pluses. Okay, well that's good. It's such an objective term to say an item is cursed. A weapon can harm its user, even a sword if you incorrectly use it. So this will, if you hit it just the right way, or just get a lucky strike, it will open to a different reality. But if you hit the wrong way, it'll do the same thing on you. I'm sorry, I lost you at reality? Okay, so let's say she gets a stick and puts a line in the sand. It's probably going to be like a 10 minute thing of you explaining this. Right. This is a Dr.

Ian Malcolm type of thing. So she draws some lines in the sand and explains that our reality is one line, and then there's a bunch of lines stacked on top of each other, and they all crisscross in certain ways, and we can access them at certain points, and then this rod actually binds them together, and pokes holes in each of them, and pulls something from them. Yeah, Yegman's just kind of staring. Mouth slightly open. I mean, it's a magical wonder. This could be studied for generations. Do I use it or not? I don't understand all that other stuff. It could do amazing things, but it could also really hurt you.

So that's a yes. Of course it's a yes. You're not afraid of anything. There we go. That's my buddy. And he just kind of picks it up, attaches it to his pack, and starts walking out. Oh, and it won't... It'll make you want to keep using it, but okay. I love that that's the fine print. It's just fine. And Corvus is just shaking his head, and he's like, "I almost wish that we didn't know now. Now I wish..." "We just didn't know." Some do say ignorance is bliss. But knowledge is power. Let's keep going. I don't want to be near this bloodied mess anymore. You guys are going to hike again.

Again, not the best start to a day. I do say a little prayer, though. A little Raven Queen prayer for this dwarf stuck in the ice. Oh. Yeah, we can't do much. It's good to say something about at least finding some rocks or something, small rocks to bury him in or whatever to do a proper burial. If that's what you had in mind. Well, I don't think... Did we get him out of the ice fully? Is he fully out of the ice? I thought we did. He's kind of hanging there. It's most of the way out. Oh. Should I finish? Yeah. I mean, if it feels right, do it. If it feels right, finish.

Yeah, Corvus takes his shovel out. Boom, boom, boom. It's a shallow grave, unfortunately. We got to go. So it's fucking cold. Rub it dub dub, sorry you died. And then, you know, you get out of there. This is slow going because, one, you're hiking, you're getting into mountainous territory and the weather's not exactly cooperating. You're going to hit this patch of snow. It's kind of sleeting. It's just stinging your face. It's right in your eyes the entire time. Just really... If you do take off your scarf and stuff like that, your whole face is wind burned.

That type of... Whatever isn't covered is going to be like a purplish red type of thing. But eventually... Sorry, I was just thinking about the kilt. Oh! Oh no. No, I think he probably did something. Polar bear skin. Anyway, go on. Eventually, you're going to reach this area in the side of the mountain and it is covered by this metallic dome. And the way the middle looks, it kind of matches the mountain a bit. It doesn't look like... It's not too gaudy or doesn't clash with nature so much, but it's definitely not natural. And that would be the entrance to where Jolnir lives.

Jolnir's just going to walk up to it. Oh, is this it? Is this the tunnel leading to Saun? Or is this directly to Saun? Yes, this is... It's not right against the side of the mountain, but it's the tunnel that leads to it. And how much further through the tunnel? Not that far. Oh, okay. Yeah, not that far at all. You're in the homestretch. You should be safe now. Like, completely. We are almost there. We just have to pass through this tunnel and we will arrive at my city. Oh, oh, oh, so more walking. Okay, all right. Very little. And out of the snow. That's a plus.

Jolnir's gonna, like, motion with her hand, and there's gonna be this slight glow. And like shutters, these steel reinforced wall sections are going to kind of open up. And there's another half dome on the inside, so if you step in, it's kind of like an airlock, so that all that rushing weather doesn't blow directly into the city. So when you step in, it's going to open up on the other side, and this beautiful looking hallway... hallway's the wrong word. It's almost like a... You know when you're at the mall, and we have this weird, like, I don't know if it's like this in different countries or whatever, but you know how we all kind of obey the rules of the road while walking in the mall?

The right sides for walking this way, left sides for... that type of thing? As it should. Right, right. Because we're not savages. I'm looking at you, Denmark. So we're... Wow. We pulled him out. I love you, Denmark. I don't know if you have malls. I'm sure you do. But it's massive like that. Like, it is this huge expanse, and it's warm. Instantly, you guys are going to walk through and it's like, "Oh, okay. Wow. Like, this is beautifully lit. It is night and day." It's like you guys walked into a major city, and just outside is the cruelest expanse of nature you've probably ever seen.

It's like going inside the West End in Atlanta. Yes! But the opposite! Yeah, yeah, yeah. Jegemann's going to take a second to stop, set his pack down, and take the heavy coat off and stuff like that before they continue. Same. Yeah, and I think... I take a moment to appreciate the enormity and beauty of this place. It's not anything Corvus has ever seen. He's just like staring up at it. Like, the first time you go to a mall. That's what Saunte is. It's a mall. It is just a really nice mall. The way this place is illuminated, there are these tiny little metallic globes that shed this bright light, but it's a soft light at the same time.

It's not harsh on the eyes. It is just even lighting all the way down. It looks like someone with tremendous OCD created this place. There is a place for everything, and everything in its place, it's much more function than form. But it functions beautifully, that type of thing. It's very German in construction. Okay, cool. So are there any decorations? Or is it just very functional? So as you walk down, I hate to keep comparing this place to a mall, but you know the maps? This is it. I know, I'm doing this. I'm fucking it up. But you know that "you are here" map?

There's that, but it's sort of a wall projection. And you can point to anywhere, and it will not only show you how to get there, but it'll kind of project what that area looks like. Kind of a bird's eye view now. But this runs the length of this huge hallway. So as you walk, it'll show off randomly just different sections of the city. And this place is massive. It is a sprawling metropolis, but it's sort of encased. It's not out in the elements. There's no sky over the place. It is sort of the opposite of Umineiro, if you think about it. Where it's in the rock, it's underground.

But it has all the amenities of a major city that you'd expect. Would Yona just take them? Where would you be taking them? This is a great question. Do you wanna... Is this like a "let me give you the tour" or is it like "look, we got a job to do"? I feel like she'd be business first. So she'd take them to check in with the council or whatever. Whoever commissioned this expedition first. Just to say we're here. Checking in. We're alive. This is all old hat to you. The grandeur is lost on you. Oh yeah, wall projections. So Yona would be walking very slow, doing that thing where you're kind of like walking forward but still turning in a circle, where you're kind of walking to the side, then walking backwards, then walking back to the side.

As you kind of spin around and just take all this in, he'll probably be at the front of the group and then quickly fall to one of the last members of the group. At the end of this hallway, you're going to see it sort of end and there's a horizontal curved road. And if you were to walk out there, there's lots of foot traffic and stuff like that, but you're over the city right now. There is a curved glass window that goes overhead and into the rock, so instead of there being a guardrail or something like that, it's just encased. So there's no way you can fall.

But you can see the entire city laid out before you. And you're up high enough that it's all kind of twinkling lights and stuff, but you can see everything. And it's a bit strange in that they seem to simulate night and day, even though they're in the city. So right now, the lights are kind of adjusting and there's kind of this amber glow about everything. And they're sort of mimicking sunset. It's kind of freaky when you're inside and it's like if I turn the lights on the table and simulate something, it's like, "Ooh." But there's no weather, there's no nothing.

You're just perfectly safe. What about the races that are here? Is it just like pretty much all Quar? I thought you were going to say, "What about the racism?" And I was like, "Well, um..." See, I thought you were talking about horse races. Like, where's the gambling? Where's the action? Can I see the bar from here? It is mostly Quar. That isn't to say that there aren't some transplants, but this is... You stick out. I'm not going to lie to you. You are in the 3% of not-Quar. Yeah, so he'd still be doing the same thing in the back of the group. Somebody would probably have to yell at him, "Jegman, come on!" Or something.

He'd be delaying that much. I was going to say, Bella would probably just like, "All right." And probably grab him by the upper arm and say, "Come on." Because she's also trying to scope out, "All right, if we need to make exits, where do we go besides there?" I'm sure, even though she's used to it, she probably understands that, "Oh, this is probably a site. I did not see anything like this on the mainland. I'll let them take this in for a second." And then say, "I would suggest that we check in first, and then I will go see my family. You're welcome to join." Or, "I could show you to the nearest inn." Oh, yeah.

Sure. Which one? Yeah, that wasn't a yes or no. The first one? And he'd look over to Gaius, like, he answered it right? Gaius is still trying to adjust his eyes to the atmosphere, because he is not liking it at all. Oh, yeah, it's artificial. Do you guys remember Gremlins 2? Yeah, the new batch? Okay, yes, the new batch, yes, of course. That's my favorite Gremlins, I don't care what anybody says. But do you remember the building that they were in? Everything's artificial, but kind of like, "Here's what the 80s thinks the future's going to be." Like that type of thing.

It's kind of that vibe from the perspective of people walking into it where it's like, "Oh, my God, that's automated? This is a thing? Oh, wow, that's neat." But it does feel a little cold. It doesn't, like, if you're used to, you know, wood carved signs hanging outside of an old pub, and you go in, you get that rich smell that is sometimes good, sometimes bad, depending on what night you go in. But it feels like it has a personality, the building. This building does not feel that the structure doesn't feel like it has a personality. It's just, it just is.

It just does the thing. It's not quite as bad as the Cybertruck, but I mean, it's, you know. I'll stick with you, Jelena, if that's okay. That's fine. Yes, that's quite all right. I will warn you. I differ from, I am timid in comparison to my dad. My father's all right, but my dad, you'll see. Are there going to be just like personal space issues or? Let me enter first. Absolutely. This will be fun. There is an elevator, a, almost a big freight thing. If you got into it, it's, it's this 20 by 20 box, basically. You step into it and again, kind of a, they're really into curved doors here.

It's very Ikea, very minimalist, and this is going to shut and you're going to feel this thing move and you're going to, after the initial jostle, it's going to be smooth as butter. Like you're just going to kind of fall is the wrong word. I don't want to use the word fall. You're going to very slowly drop. And when the door is open again, after a good minute or so, you're going to be on the ground floor of this city. And it's kind of built in stacks. Almost there are almost floors to the city itself, but this is the most people you've seen so far in that this is kind of the market district.

There are shops, there are things that it's kind of a bizarre, but beyond that, Yolna would kind of take you to this. It's another set of corridors, basically, where, you know what the mall? No, no. No, Jason, no. So it's almost like, oh, I'm going to open this door and almost step out of the city part of the city, and this is the corridor is behind a section of the city that, you know, you can get to a place faster. It's like a shortcut. And a gentleman is going to greet you after you after you walk for a bit. This is much less crowded and it's going to reach a handout to Yolna.

And this would be since. Oh. Yeah. So very... there's sort of, I don't want to be all big brother about this, but there's kind of a tracking thing in the city. So he knew when you were approaching. Lisa doesn't like that. Neither does Vella, so don't tell her that. Yeah, like, just tell her he's been standing here for eons waiting. As soon as she left, he was waiting for her. And it seems a little bizarre, but he's going to reach a hand out like he's going to shake her hand. And if she gives his hand, it's kind of like a gentle clasping of the hand for a moment and then letting go.

It's not a big hug. It's not a big... It's like, oh, you're back. It's like, good day. Like that type of thing. I trust you didn't encounter any wildlife. Some of your friends look a little worse for wear. We may have encountered three polar bears that weren't welcome to our presence, but thankfully we all made it. Everyone, this is my father, Sessun. Senzu. Sorry, I even got it wrong. This is my father, Senzu. Why, hello. And he'd give like a big overarching bow because it's the only thing he knows to do. He kind of returned an awkward one. It's like, OK, that's what you're doing.

OK, I guess that's what you're used to. And he'd kind of give this kind of like he won't meet your eyes when he bows. It's just it's like, OK, this is emotion we're doing. I guess that's how you people do it. I guess we'll just give... He's just so uncomfortable right now. He's going to give a nod, but that's about all he can do. I think that's what Bella would do, too. Just like, I acknowledge your presence. Nice to meet you. Hi. That was too loud. His eyes are just going to like, oh, like, just like widen just a bit. But other than that, it's not like he doesn't make a big deal out of it.

We've taken the liberty of creating a space for you all to stay. I hope it's to your liking. I doubt it. Under his breath. Please come with me. We've prepared a meal and I can tell you what the task is that you'll be doing here. I'm very appreciative that such a skilled party was sent to deal with this. To be honest, we're at a bit of a loss for words. About the phenomenon or just in general? He's going to kind of like me in general. The phenomena. There's quite a few things we should catch you up on. To be honest, we don't really know what is going on beyond our borders.

We haven't investigated that, but I'm sure Yona has found just the people for the job. The guy's got this soothing presence. It's a very even tone, kind of like a like a psychiatrist or something like that. It's like, OK, how did that make you feel? That type of thing. Like very. Yes. And there's going to be this fairly large room. Think about the size of one of the larger panel rooms at a con, something like that, like that type of thing. There's going to be a single large table in the middle and there's going to be food laid out and drinks. Some of this food is going to be somewhat familiar.

Some of it is going to be completely alien. And they're going to uncover dishes. There are servants there to uncover stuff. I hope you don't mind, but we've taken our best approximation of what we feel mainlanders eat. So there'll be, you know, there'll be a couple of fish dishes and stuff, and, you know, they're prepared a little odd, like some of the fish aren't scaled or some of the it's, you know, it's like one degree off. It's like, oh, you almost had it. And then there's stuff that you'd never think to eat. Like, OK. There are there's no rhyme or reason to the animals that they grabbed because to them it's like, well, it's all animals.

I guess they just eat animals all the time there. So it's like, you know, it's like, yeah, there's a bore. Here's bits and pieces of chickens. We don't know which part of the chickens you guys eat, but like here, here you go. Here's some ears. I like lumps of things like, you know, where do the ears come from? I don't want to alarm anybody, but they did prepare three cats. Oh, you know, how do like how do we know they're cats? Did they leave the paws on? Because if not, it could be a raccoon. So, OK, one of the dishes is going to be uncovered and it is OK.

Do you know there's Egyptian cats that don't have any fur? It's going to look like that, but they're in that little cloud puffball formation, but they're clearly roasted. Oh, no. It is horrifying to view, but he is there's kind of this problem. I hope we did a good job. That type of thing. Like everyone eat up. Corvus is so afraid of offending this new culture, but in horror, in like sweaty horror, he just like grabs like one of everything. Oh, God. Just eating it and like, hmm, very, very good. The seasoning is I wouldn't say the seasoning is off, right?

It's you know what? Someone give me a flat D10 on a scale of one to ten. How like how it was cooked, how how closely did they approximate these dishes to what you're used to? OK, that's a solid five, right? So some of these might be a little more salt or pepper. Some of them have a bit of kick to them, like those cats are surprisingly spicy. And like it's like it's even stuff like the boar, you pop a little bit in your mouth. It's like, oh, that's not what I expected. That's like that's that's a lot of oregano. Yeah, something like it's it's it's like is that lemon like that?

It's weird. Like it's it's, you know, it's not choice. Yeah, it's not bad. It's like they were on a cooking show and they're like, look, I got to think outside the box here to get some points. They just did shit. So Yegman's going to do that thing where you kind of get that involuntary like throw up just a little bit and like kind of catch it. Thank you. And then just like kind of sidestep over towards Corvus to like just follow his lead. He looks like he knows what he's doing. So. Oh, he does not know. He's taking it. He looks like he knows what he's doing.

So what do what do Quarra usually eat? Well, OK, it's not that they don't eat meat. They do. But they kind of have several dishes that are your proper portions for protein. And so it's it's OK. There's some veggies, there's some meat, there's some there's some things, but it's all kind of blended together into like. It's a violent, isn't it? It's it's very OK. Do you know, OK, every time The Simpsons eat, there's always that gray mush on a plate that they just kind of shovel into their face. It's kind of like that, but not gray. It's like it's like, oh, this is like it's almost baby food.

It's a RoboCop eats like everything. Yeah, like it's got everything that you need. It's just not it's it doesn't have as much. It's like, hey, it's honestly it tastes better than what you were eating now. OK, you know, a guy is going to dig right in because food is food to him and if it smells good, he doesn't care. He's going to eat it. It's a buffet, right? There's something to pick at, like, you know. Yeah. And to be honest, Bella has like a negative to perception. So I feel like she just like, oh, that's meat. So somewhere in between Corvus and Gaius, because like her perception is not the greatest.

So she probably sees like, oh, that's meat. How lovely. And doesn't notice that it probably doesn't taste funny, you know, or is not seasoned the way that she's expecting. She's like, this is lovely. Thank you. And she's trying to be polite like. There will be like dinner rolls and stuff like that. And here's the thing. The dinner rolls are stuffed with almost a haphazard random amount of objects like you bite into one. It's like, oh, that's baby corn. Why is a baby corn in the middle of this roll or or you bite into it? And it's like, here's just a big, thick piece of ham.

Like, why is that in here? That's weird. These aren't supposed to be little tiny meals. These are just rolls. It's just it's it's it's like food was described fourth hand to someone. It's like, I got a rough sketch. I got this. Jason, can I just can I say that there's like at the end of the table, like where you put like cutlery and like a cup, but there's like almost like go-gurt tubes and you're almost going to take one of those and like squeeze it into her mouth. And that's that gunk. It's like astronaut food. It's yeah. You know, if you'll all have a seat, I'll I'll get to the point.

I don't want to waste professionals time. Oh, I appreciate that. He is, if you haven't picked up yet, absolutely of the mindset that you guys it's like he called the Ghostbusters. Like you guys are one of a kind. You're here. You traveled a great distance to figure shit out and ain't nobody better. You're going to write me down for my dad, guys. All I'm saying is somebody better start talking or else you're going to have Yegman out there talking. Over the past few months, we've encountered several anomalies. Some of our explorers were out and heard a pounding, almost a drumming in the distance.

Now, one would think that there's another civilization somewhere. But if this didn't seem to be orc drumming, for instance, this was almost unnatural. It filled the air. Didn't seem to come from any one direction. Honestly, we were just stumped. But that's not the strangest part. We've sent people out and we've only encountered random body parts. The body parts weren't cut or eaten by wildlife. They were simply sheared off. The wounds were almost burned closed, but it was incredibly clean. What does the drumming sound like? Is there a place that we could hear it?

We could definitely point you in the direction. It would be a few miles outside of the city to the north in the mountains. But it was the loss of several of our people that honestly concerns us the most. Were those the body parts of your people that you kept finding? Yes. This has only happened three times so far, but... Well, you can understand how concerned we all are. If this can happen outside of the city, who's to say it couldn't happen inside the city? Do the drums play constantly? No. It seems to be intermittent. We've heard them on several occasions, increasing and decreasing volume, but there doesn't seem to be a rhyme or reason.

It's not based on time of day or time of month. Is it consistent? Or is there an aberration to the pattern of it? It seems to start slow, and sometimes it'll take hours to ramp up in tempo, but it always seems to end on a crescendo. Almost like a fireworks display. And then it stops. Sometimes for days, sometimes for nearly a month. I know you said it's in a minute. Is there like a minimum time frame between? The quickest it's ever started back up again is one to two days, an hour... Ten minutes. What? Okay. Sorry. A genuinely confident part. Excuse me. Sorry. Why do you think the body parts and the sound are related?

We're not entirely sure that it is related, but... The body parts aren't the only anomaly. Holes have started appearing in the ground. Deep shafts that weren't there the day before. They are between ten and a hundred feet across, and they seem to be perfectly carved into the rock, straight down. We've compiled a list of anomalies, if you'd like them, so that you can research before you head out and investigate. And I have the utmost confidence in Jolnia. I'm sure she can guide you and answer any questions you might have. That would be perfect. Anything that could lead us to these drums would be amazing.

And of course, on top of paying you for your time, I understand that you're professionals, the city is at your disposal. Please, anything I can do personally, I would be happy to. I would look across the party to see if there's any more questions. Vella would have one. In the list of anomalies, could we also include information on the adventurers that were sent out to investigate? Of course. That way, we have some sort of idea of what they might have been prepared for, and what we could try to also... Well, these weren't combatants, I can tell you that.

We've gotten better at avoiding local wildlife. Obviously, weather is our biggest concern, but we've gotten quite good... ...telling when a large blizzard is coming. But these... there didn't appear to be a struggle, a fight. This seemed to happen almost instantaneously. There was no scuffle, and we only recovered approximately 30% of each body. What was the first party out looking for or scouting for before they encountered this, do you know? And he's going to shift through some papers, like, "Oh, yep, okay, I know that." Well, this party was actually looking for some rare ore, and we had reason to believe that it was in the northwestern portion of the mountains.

Sadly, they never made it to their destination. Have you explored any of the holes? We haven't, when spelunking, if that's what you mean. We thought it best to do some more research before we sent anyone inside. I would advise not traveling in yourself unless you feel as though there's no other recourse. Did Jallnacht tell you about the Frost Roots? We all look to Jallnacht. I may have failed to mention it. It's perfectly understandable. In the northern portion of the mountains, we've discovered a creature. Very aggressive, territorial, also incredibly adaptable.

We've tried several instances unsuccessfully to frighten the beasts or distract them. They're single-minded and stubborn. They're also... effective killers, I would say. How many seems to be in their pack? Well, we know that they have a leader. We don't know exactly how many of them there are. We've counted over a dozen, at least, but we're not really sure. Okay, we'll have to keep an eye out for them. I would advise you to be very careful. They do tend to travel in packs, and they have a tendency to call for help if they feel as though they're in trouble.

They resemble large apes, but their leader seems to be nothing else entirely. Almost a completely different evolutionary split from the smaller ones. Intelligent? Quite. We don't think it's capable of speech, but it's definitely capable of figuring out small puzzles. We've tried to trap it several times, to no avail. None of our explorers have survived an encounter with it yet. And you say you know where they're located? Roughly? Yes. Sorry, that was in the northern mountains for Lisa? Yes. Okay, thank you. He'll mark it down in your... Frostbruits, yes. Roots with a B.

Yeah. And he'll mark it down on your map. Just kind of watch out for that. Okay, thank you. I know this is a lot to take in. If you need more time to rest from the journey here, I completely understand. Probably wouldn't hurt to stay the night. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Yeah, Yegman would suggest that we at least give it probably 24 hours. We should come up with some kind of, you know, what are we gonna do going out there? Make a game plan. Precisely. Vella will probably look at you a little fondly and be like, "And maybe get some more food stores." You can just grab stuff from the table, honestly.

Let's go. This stuff's ready to go. By the way, Yegman hasn't really touched his food. We got you a doggie bag for your cat. You each get one cat. One cat for everyone. Unroasted cat. So you guys wanna retire to the inn? Kind of get your bearings, get a nice long rest in? Yeah. Okay. So they have, they've prepared a room for you. Room is, room is a bit of an overstatement. So they're real big on maximizing a space's potential here. So you're going to step into another large space, right? And you're gonna see these tiny doors all along the walls. And they're gonna point you over to a space.

It's like, "Oh, here you are." And these things are spaced out about six to seven feet apart, and there's about 20 in a room. And if you open it up, there's no other way to say this. You know what a morgue looks like? Yes. So imagine a morgue had sex with a Japanese pod hotel thing, and that's where you'll be sleeping. It's spacious. It's not like a coffin. It's kind of this, it's like a 10-foot dome type of thing, and you use, it's almost like a big pizza oven you're being slid into. But there's, the entire surface of the dome above you is another set of holograms, and you can adjust what you see.

If you want to sleep on a starry night type of thing, you can adjust it to that. If you, it's almost like a white noise machine, but it also comes with visuals. You want to be in pitch blackness? Go ahead. If you want the amber glow of a fire next to you, you can do that. You can, like, you can basically set this thing any way you'd like. But it's, it's not a room. And it's communal, right? Like, it's... Well, each one of you get one. Right, right. But like, there are, it's like one big room that has all these... Yeah. Yeah. Kind of tough to have a private conversation.

Unless, I don't know, you both snuggle in, like you could do that. This, okay, this has got to be a nightmare for some of you. Yeah. These are the worst accommodations I have ever seen. When do you get to the bathrooms? You know how to use the 3C shelves? Sorry. Alright, come on, Roots. It can't be that bad. And he's talking to guys. This place is horrific. It's warm, I'll give it that. But this is so unnatural. It is, but do you want the caves in the cold? I have half a mind to go sleep with those bears right now. It's only for a night. It's only for a night. We'll be out tomorrow.

It'll be fine. Would you feel better putting a bedroll on the floor instead of it in the pod? Uh, maybe. I think I have an idea. I think if he can, he's going to cast Entangle on himself. As he lies down to surround himself in vines, essentially. I would say there's sort of potted wildlife. Like, it's sparse. It's like if you go to offices or something like that, it's like, "Oh, this will make it more homey." It doesn't make it more homey. So you can make one of these plants kind of overgrow, but yeah, other than that, there's no wildlife down here. Okay.

Okay. He'll grasp whatever straw is sticking out, and he will surround himself with as much of the little nature there is around him. I think Corvus will pull out one of these things and sit down. I think it reminds him of home a little bit. It reminds him of his family business and being there. I mean, not a great part of home, but it's something that's familiar in an unfamiliar land. And he just sort of sits down in this little alcove, sets his pack down, and he looks a little bit more relaxed than usual. It's weird. I almost think this would be kind of soothing to Corvus, in that once you shut the door, it's just your space.

Nothing's going to creep up on you. It's just yours. Yeah, yeah, totally. I mean, I think it's a little small. I picture maybe when him and his brother would hide in where they keep the bodies when they're really, really young. It's definitely tall enough with the dome and everything. You could sit up. It's not like you're compressed. It's just not a room. It's so not a room. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, I think he kind of digs this a little bit more. At least he seems more relaxed. Yeah. So you guys are going to get a long rest. Can you all just spend the night pouring over the papers from her father and see if there's like, try to discern any patterns or clues or anything that she could gain further?

Totally. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. At the very least, study wildlife and kind of get a bead on that. So yeah, let's just say that from now on, if you're out and about and you do a little nature check, we're going to give you a plus two to that. And if I ask you to identify anything out there that has anything to do with the anomalies, you're going to get a plus two to that as well. Okay. And then just looking this over, is there like any... I'm not trying to... I don't know. Like an investigation? Like this attack was here that like triangulate so the center is here or...

Give me an investigation check. Where a good place to start would be. Yeah. Oh, Jesus Christ. 23. Okay. You have a plus seven. Oh my God. Okay. Gave us 20s and two steps. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You paid for those. Yes, I did. Yeah, this is... you're definitely going to have that Kaiser Soze moment where you're pouring through stuff and you're like, oh, oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would check here. There's a space in between the mountains to the north. I'll mark it on the map for you. And that would be a fantastic area. There's a space in between three mountains where you notice the attacks have been concentrated a bit and you've noticed more of those shafts are in that area than anywhere else.

That would probably be the best place to start looking. So as people are like starting to head to bed and all those starting to research, the Eggman's going to be over there for a while just like pressing buttons, seeing what all these buttons and stuff do for probably way too long. And then starting to walk over towards probably the center of the room where all that has everything spread out and then just start to look and seem like he has this glossed over look over his face. So what you doing? So just to give you some... if the door was open a crack or something like that, you're pushing buttons and cycling, like you're just getting cozy.

It's like, oh, let's see what the vibrating bed does, that type of thing. So when I say that this thing can recreate almost anything, flipping through the channels on this, it's made to make anybody feel at home. It's like, oh, here's crickets, here's a starry night, here's a little bonfire, here's pigs having sex, here's a battle waging in the background. It runs the camera. It has everything. So if the doors open a crack, it's like a little cricket sound and just like... It's like if I'm watching TV with the volume up and it's just like next channel.

No context. It's just weird. And it happens for way too long. After you approach Jona, she will glance up. She was so engrossed in research that she didn't even hear you approach. Oh, I'm familiarizing myself with the anomalies. I think I found where we should start. He's got to kind of look down like he wants to ask something, but he's not quite sure how. He's going to look back up. And how are you doing that? Well, I'm taking the locations that have been marked down and putting them all on one map. And then I'm also taking note of how vicious the attack was or how many people were present.

And then I'm categorizing it by severity and then I'm triangulating the center of that or the most frequent amount of attacks. He'll kind of like look over his shoulder in both directions. I'm talking about that. He's going to point to text on paper. Like, "Oh no." That. You mean reading? Yeah. Would you like to learn? Oh, absolutely. And like his voice got elevated there for a second. He's just like, "Oh, okay. That was too loud. Yes. Yes, please." Of course. And then immediately pushes aside all the papers, gets a blank one and starts reading the I guess common is English.

So the phonetic alphabet and then explaining this is a sounds like a or a. B. B is a boy. C is in COVID. Or cat like in that doggy bag you have. And D is in doggy bag. But chill. That's probably going to go on for a while. With gusto, she very gladly will teach you. For as long as you want to learn. Oh, he'll stay there for as long as you teach until probably gets like obviously too late. He's like, "I probably need to get some sleep." Oh, of course. We'll pick this up whenever you want to keep learning. Absolutely. Thank you so much. And he's going to like almost skip without skipping back over to his little pod.

Just like very giddily. Just like I learned something new today. Did you leave the pod on at like full blast? I was going to see like he comes back and Corvus is like, "I adjusted the volume." I just went ahead and did that for you. Oh, sorry. You're welcome. The battle cries too loud. It was one of those. I'll do better next time. The next morning, there's going to be a representative and she's going to very just very crisp, clean, like presentable. Like there's not a wrinkle on her clothing. It's kind of kind of straight starchy. And she's going to approach the party with the goodie bag, basically.

My name is Kjellna. I have been tasked with handing you these supplies for your journey. Oh, well, it's... Is it more cat? Just asking... Would you like more cat? I can get you more cat. We have... No, there's... So full of cat. Very much plenty of cat. Well, these would be healing potions and other rations. We thought that you might enjoy these. These are not as... How would you put it? Distinctive as the meals you had yesterday. These are more things that we'll keep on the road and can be frozen and unfrozen. But we think that you'll enjoy them and the healing potions, of course, will come in handy and some tourniquets and the like.

Oh, we've also included some climbing gear in case you need to scale the mountains. Is there anything else I can get you? Jegma is just looking through the bag open, rummaging through it like it's some sort of to-go bag from Taco Bell or something. I think I'd rather have cat. But yeah. I got today and we asked for a little bit of hot sauce. And they gave us four handfuls of hot sauce. Yeah, it's a currency, a Taco Bell. They don't care. I have enough hot sauce to last five years. It makes sense because they give you some even when you say none. Exactly. They're drowning in it, literally.

They have to get it out of there. So you guys are ready to go. Is there anything you want to do before you leave the safety of Saunte? I think I just can't wait to get out of there. Can we can we purchase anything? Is there any like... Oh, yeah. Magical items or something we can we can get here at the Bazaar or anything? Magic's a funny word here. Yes, there are magically infused items, but they really pride themselves on craftsmanship here. There will be... it's almost an as seen on TV thing where they will... they will... They'll combine items you never thought to combine to make things a little easier, a little automated or something like that.

But there's a wealth of things that you've probably never seen before in these shops. Is there something particular that you're after? Like something... I'm looking for like something like a cloak of protection or something like that. Oh, so OK. That's pretty basic, bitch, here. Like that is the pumpkin spice latte of adventure gear. Yeah, let's see what we can do for you. I mean, I'd love to peruse if there's, you know, quaran artifacts, but that's what I'm looking for is just like, yeah. Yeah, just a standard... Quaran is kind of a basic bitch. There's nothing... look, basic bitch keeps you alive, right?

The spear of sub reality might not. So, you know... Hey, don't kiss the spear. I'm not... look, I'm saying that sometimes just keeping it simple. There's absolutely a cloak of protection that would set you back about 200 gold. Oh, OK. Do you have anything basic-er? No, I don't have anything basic. So is the group there with you? I mean, they can't. They want to be. I may need to borrow... I may need to borrow some money. So is there a beany of protection? Jegman would be kind of perusing with you and then after he kind of sees like the look on your face as far as like, wait, it's how much?

He'd poke you. It'd probably be like in your thigh or something. Oh, do you need more? Here. Hold up his bag of gold. Really? Jegman? Really? Yeah. That's... I couldn't. That's so kind of you, but I just... Well, think about it this way. You help keep the party alive. So if you're alive, we're alive. Go ahead, buy it. It's fine. And we're going to get paid after we find this drum anyways. OK. Thank you, Jegman. Yeah. You... you do this... Paladin thing really well. Do you have any maybe like tips or tricks or anything like that? He starts to get a big smile on his face.

How much time do you have? I mean, I imagine quite a bit. We're going to be hiking and maybe then maybe climbing and a lot of sweating, which is fine. I don't mind sweating, but it'll sap the heat. And that's what I'm mostly worried about. OK, well, we won't do so much of that, but it starts with a little bit of physical and a lot of prayers. I have them all memorized. Really? Yeah, I could tell you. I could teach you all about it. We can go over some of the physical stuff, but... So is that a shovel on your back? Yeah. Yeah. OK. That's my shovel. That's new. But yeah, I... we could do something with that.

I mean, we'll have to. That's all I have. We'll make it work. It's just I've never fought with the shovel. I fought with a chair before, but I've never fought with a shovel. OK. OK, thank you. Thank you, Yegman. And he'll take this gold and buy a cloak. So let's let's slide that in your inventory. I'm sure that'll come in handy. Is there something like that, but maybe an amulet? Like a necklace or something? You know what I mean? If you're in the shop, the shopkeeper is going to... like, it's like, "Oh, while you're in the cloaks, maybe your party would like..." Is this the most boisterous quarp that you've met so far?

Boisterous isn't the right word, though. Kind of like... Outgoing? Total Recall. Total Recall. There are cab drivers that are automated, but they speak in like a very robotic way. It's like, "Wow, thank you!" That kind of thing. Kind of a 50s milkman droid. And it's very, very... So he's going to speak to you in a way that's like, "Well, while you're looking for cloaks..." And he's going to grab one off of this mannequin. And it's this this beautiful kind of lore. Blue on the outside, yellow silk on the inside. And he's going to shake it. And it's going to completely change.

Now it's this black silk number, and he's going to shake it again. And it's going to keep changing and alternating. Now it's got these frills around this, and boom! Here's a big vampire collar and butt! Like, over and over again. It has different... it's like, "Oh, you can take this to any event, and you can look the best you..." You know, that type of thing. And if he doesn't... if he's going to read you, and if that doesn't get the... doesn't elicit the reaction, he's like, "Okay." He's going to grab this... this... this parted black number, and he's going to put it on.

And he's going to kind of kick his elbows out, and they're going to turn into bat wings. And he's... he's going to hover above the ground for just a moment. It's like, "Ah, ah!" That type of thing. And if that doesn't get a reaction... He's going to take a very special cloak and drape it around your shoulders. And he's going to lead you outside of the store. Alright. There is a balcony. And there's like a three-story drop. Madam, if you will, please leap off. Uh, no. I understand. I understand. But I promise you, no harm will come to you whatsoever. Can I roll an insight check on this?

Please! You can't pay him if you're dead. Heh heh. Thirteen. It seems on the level. Again, why would he lie to you? Like, why? So he could go through my stuff. Well, he'd have to run downstairs to get it. True. So she'll side-eye, and she's like, "Okay." And she'll take a timid step off. So you're going to plummet about thirty feet. And then this cloak, while it's kind of billowing behind you, is going to shred itself, spread out, and turn into a giant web that attaches to the side of the wall. And you're just going to like hang there, Mission Impossible-style for a moment.

And it's going to slowly wind you back, and creep up the side of the wall until you're back on the balcony again, and kind of pull you over, and then, pfft, cloak. Like spawn? Kind of like spawn. Sorry, I was like... Well... Lisa loves this. Yeah! It's so awesome. I'm going to go through one of those holes. Mm-hmm. This was like, "Mm." Ooh. Just go leaping into those holes and climb back out. Well... That was impressive. Yeah! A little heads-up might have been better, but that was impressive. I think... So in this city, people just kind of blindly trust each other, right?

That there's not a lot of deceit. So I think to him it's like, "Of course I'm telling you, why would I lie? That's insane. Like just leap off this balcony." That type of thing. There's no logic behind lying. Why would we... Right! Excellent point. I really jive with fellas back around the thing. Yeah. You are helping out the city, are you not? Yes. I can put you on an excellent payment plan. Tell me more. Well, you would have credit with the store. Whenever you get it, while you're in the city, you swing by and pay me another hundred gold. For a thousand, you can have that.

Oh, Jesus. That was out of care. Not... Not... She'll take it off and probably hand it back to him. She'll be like, "Sorry, are you saying that I could take it with me now and just pay you in installments when I return? Or pay you and then once I pay it off, then I get it?" Well, of course you could take it with you. Like, to him it's like, "Yeah, you'd come back and pay. Why wouldn't you?" You're honest. Yeah. I think it would be at that point. It would be at that point, Vella would look around and realize you haven't seen a fucking city guard since you've been here.

She has not. I would appreciate that. And so she'll actually... She'll kind of shake his hand if he's offering it. She'll be like, "All right, you have a deal." And she will give him a hundred. Just to make sure. Because she feels kind of bad. She's like, "Oh, shit." Okay. Well, your loss, I guess, if I don't come back with it. So you got yourself a spider cloak. Elliot! Sorry, that's so cool. There's all kinds of weird shit like that. Like, you'll walk by and it's like, "Oh, there's an amulet." And you'll touch it and it'll do something. Or it's like, "Why does it do that?

That's weird." But it's like, "Oh, I could see why that would be useful in these situations." It's just, what a weird way to go about that. Like, why a spider cloak? So on the way out, Jegen's gonna look for a basic shovel. Like, just a shovel that's a shovel? Just a shovel that's a shovel. So that way when he's working with Corvus that he can kind of use that as a basis. Well, that's really boring. They don't... Yo, that's some shade, yo. But like, okay, to them it's like, "But it's just a shovel. It only does one thing." So they have shovels with like a spade that heats up so that you can dig into the ground more efficiently.

They have some that almost act like sonic jackhammers so that you can plow through rock with them. They have all kinds of stuff, but a shovel that's just a shovel? What would be the cheapest shovel? [Inhales, exhales] The cheapest shovel... That's not like a little trowel or something. No, no, no, no, no. Like an actual shovel. The cheapest shovel would probably be 50 gold. And it would be a shovel that's kind of like, it has grips that you can actually... Like it's not just a piece of wood. I'm doing this into the camera. It's not just a piece of wood, but it actually has these almost like a rubberized hand grip thing.

And the tip of it expands once it sinks. So it's kind of pointed and then it sinks into the ground and kind of like spreads out a bit to almost scoop. The hand motions doesn't bother Yegman. It's just like, he wants to get this as like a training tool and he doesn't want to spend 50 gold on it. I mean, he would make a similar deal. Like, here's the thing. This isn't like Brightport, where like you walk in and it's like, "Ah, don't fucking touch that. This isn't a library. You fucking read that on your own." That type of thing. These people are being insanely accommodating to the point where it's like, this is against your best interest, like that type of thing.

Like, yeah, you're here to help out. It's like, yeah, man, I'm sure you'll make good on this. It'll be fine. Oh, and I will see you over there. Seeing you eyeing it. What interests do you have in this shovel? You see that Corvus fights with the shovel, right? Yes, it is an odd way of fighting, but it seems to serve him well. I thought so as well. And he also was asking me about some of the paladin stuff and I figured if I was going to do any sort of training, it would be best for me to have a shovel as well. Oh, so you wish to further his education? Yeah, yeah.

When you put it that way, yeah. Then allow me. I will get this. Okay. And he just kind of steps to the side. It may not be a shock to you, but I am an advocate of learning new things. Well, we'll see how much you can really fight with the shovel. Be new to me. And then I will take 50 gold out of mine. We'll just buy a thing for everybody else. Yeah, this is just a nice group. This is Super Santa, basically. Getting all geared up for the holidays. Does anyone else want to buy anything else? I got lots more weird shit. What's the weirdest thing in here? Yes. Boy, the weirdest thing?

But what's the weirdest weapon in here? Oh, the weirdest weapon? Because I was going to say tentacle belt, but we can come back to that. Oh, let's hear about that too. Actually, yeah, hang on. It's very open with whatever your kink is. I mean, look, so the tentacle belt, for lack of a better term, seems to almost be organic in nature because it sort of like writhes gently as it's wrapped around you. The clasp in the back is actually the tentacle kind of like coupling with itself, right? So one of the benefits, and this is minor, is that it stretches to fit any waist, basically.

The secondary benefit is if you take it off, you can whip it at something, it will stretch out up to 30 feet, grab something, and either pull you to it or try to pull the object to you. Do you get to choose? Yes. I think Corvus is playing with this in the background. Do you remember having this conversation? You just see him nonchalantly whipping it around a mannequin and then pulling him, and he's trying to pull back. It's very much like Miles Morales figuring out the sticky spider powers, but do you guys remember gumball machines and those sticky hands that you get out of them?

Yes, those things. It's like that. But, you know, large. And writhing. And writhing. Gentle writhing. It's got all kinds of applications. I, you know, I'm... Get creative. You say natural looking, but it sounds very unnatural. I don't know if guys would be interested. It's not... It's... Okay. It's like a living leather, almost. It's weird. It's weird. This is enchanted. Eh... Yes. Eh... Yes. I don't think he would go for it. If anyone else wants to. It sounds cool. Any other character, if I was playing someone else, I for sure would go for it. Oh, Masoka. We're trying to steal it.

Oh my god, yeah. I just don't think, as a guy who believes so fiercely in the natural order, I don't think you would. Yeah, this shop might have... This might be a tough pitch for you. A lot of this is... I wouldn't say natural. Yeah. Which sucks because it sounds super cool. If you... Here's the thing. If you told them your interests, they would try to make some stuff just for you. It's like mail ordering, but like... I'm trying to figure out if he would even be interested in anything. Right. Just sort of like, this is what I got, this is good enough. Yeah, kind of looking around, it's like, I've made my mind up about these guys.

I'm good. Yeah. Yeah. You're fine. You do you, but, yeah. So he's good. He's good. Okay. So if there's nothing else, we can get you guys back up to the surface. Wait, what was the weirdest weapon? We never touched that. Oh! So, okay. The weirdest weapon is actually something kind of improvised. What it is is a ball. It's like a large steel ball bearing, and it's attached to this exceedingly thin tether, almost like fishing line, right? And the tether wraps around your wrist, and it's almost like a yo-yo. You can throw out up to 60 feet. And as it goes out, it's meant for climbing and stuff like that, but it can absolutely be used as a weapon.

The ball unfurls into this almost, almost like an eight-legged metallic pointy spider thing. And what it's meant to do is dig into rocks. Now, this is purely to them, it's just a gadget to help you get around. Someone who's a bit more unethical could wrap this around someone's head and squeeze until it breaks open like a grape. It's like a flying guillotine. Yeah. I would say it's the modern version of Valus's weapon. This is the kenjund? Yes. Yeah, it's like a space age version of that. There's other weird shit in here, but maybe I'll send you guys a catalog, like a U-line type of thing.

We'll be back. I want the sky mole. Holy shit, that should be in the book, right? Just like a fucking... I want to play a different character now. Well, maybe that's your arc. Maybe it's like, you know what? Embrace the weird. Embrace the weird. So we're coming back up to the surface. We're ready to go. I guess we could end the mole episode. So you guys got your furs back on. You're ready to go. You're going to work your way back up to the entrance. That dome is going to open. You'll crowd in. And man, is this unpleasant. But the other side is going to open and you're just going to get hit in the face with the cold.

Like it is just nipple-hardeningly cold out there. It's terrible. Well, the time has come to wrap things up, but I think... Susan knows what's up. I need someone to roll me a flat D20 to see how the next leg of your journey is going to go. 20 got us polar bears, so... No, 20 got you a badass spear. No, it did. It got us a really cool weapon. Who rolled the first one? I did. Well, I think James should. Just cuz? Just cuz. Fair enough. Alright. Here we go, baby. A six. Almost a 13. I saw it. They dance around for me. It's like they're going forward and backwards. They're kind of sliding?

Yeah, it's weird. It's like it's on ice. I don't know if I like that. That's unnatural. Good to get the bad one out of the way. We'll call that the bad one. Shuffle of spreading? It lets you really dig into holes. You know, you just get that... That's the way it was described, so that's the way I named it. Guys, I think it's a good time to wrap things up for the day. You got to see the city of Saunt. You're getting out there. You're gonna figure out this mystery, gang. And no one died. We'll be right back after these words from our sponsors. Please don't go anywhere.

This week I thought I'd do a little something different and let you hear our entire newsletter for the month of December. Each month we try to give you guys a real insight into what we're doing and how we're trying to go about doing that. And this month is pretty informative. We had a lot of stuff going on. Sadly, I was very busy that day, so Bre took over and did the entire newsletter by herself. I really hope you guys enjoy it, and please, if you'd like to see more of our newsletter, please do so. And please, if you'd like to hear more stuff like this, head on over to our Patreon at patreon.com/dantr.

And you can support the show, help us keep the lights on, and do more stuff like this. Without further ado, here's the newsletter for December. Howdy folks, and welcome to the newsletter, the place where we, or I, let you know all the goings on here at Dungeons & Randomness headquarters. So first off, let's address the obvious, just Breanna here today. Jason has sessions every day this week on days that end with Y. So I told him that I would take over the newsletter for today and by proxy for this month, I suppose, so that he could prep for a session he has tonight, and then tomorrow he has a session.

He actually does not have a session Wednesday, so I did lie to you. But then he has a session Thursday, Friday, Saturday. So he's got a lot going on and I decided I wanted to step in and try to help. So there are two big announcements today, and I think I'm going to lead off with the more positive of the two announcements and then move into the negative of the two announcements. The first good news, and something that I think you guys are really going to like, is that from now on, any time we have a five Monday month, we are going to try to have content every single Monday.

And the way we are planning to do that, at least for the fifth Monday of January, and probably proceeding forward unless we have other ideas, we're kind of using that fifth Monday to put out things that we think you guys are really interested in, or things we want to experiment with. And put it out for everybody, not just the Patreon folks. So, in January what we are going to do is put out a one shot on that fifth Friday, which we are really excited about. We already have plans for I think three other one shots, and these one shots are meant to help you guys catch up with the characters on DNR that you haven't seen for a while.

So, figure out what's happening in the world that you were invested in, and then a group kind of turned away from that, or we ended up having groups on other continents now. So there's a lot of loose threads that everyone wants us to go back to, and we want to go back to. So that's going to be what that fifth Monday of the month functions for. I believe there are five more left in this year. Sorry, I believe there are five in this coming year. The year is almost over guys. Woohoo. Wait, this is the last newsletter of this year. Yay! Anyway, so in this coming year there should be five Monday months if I recall correctly.

I wrote it all down. The point is, we're really excited to get these to you, and we hope that you guys like them. Next up, the less good thing. And it's tough to talk about this one without Jason, but he knows I'm talking about it, don't worry. The role-playing game we've been working on, the tabletop RPG that we wanted to make specifically for dungeons and randomness, is going to be put on hold for the time being. There are a lot of reasons for that. I think the big one is just that it would take so much time and so much effort, and that time and effort comes away from other projects.

Even the first book, we had to stop doing GMTs. One of the things that the surveys really showed us, and something we definitely acknowledged, is that we need to put more work into the main show. We need to spend more time working on that. So, while we were thinking about that, we thought one of the other things that the survey brought up, and people were not wrong, is how many projects get started for DNR and then kind of fizzle out or don't get finished. Granted, it's not all of them, and the show's been going on for a very, very long time, so we haven't just fizzled out on that, but things on Patreon and things like that.

So, what we thought about was this first book that we are extremely proud of, and we're very happy with. We think that instead of taking a wide departure from Dungeons and Dragons, which is our bread and butter, we stick with Dungeons and Dragons and we start working on the second book for An Adventurer's Guide to Theria. We are going to have a vote, eventually, on which continent we'd like to roll out for you, but that is going to be our main big project in the background, and we're actually not going to start that until January, because we really want to refocus, you know, armor up and really make the actual main show as amazing as we possibly can.

However, those of you on the Patreon who signed up for the Fly in the Wall episodes are not going to be going without. We do already have a replacement, which is the concept for the original Fly in the Wall. If you guys remember, when we switched to 5e, we went through all the spells, all the races, everything, and made it fit DNR. We are going to do that again. Which, obviously, there was a lot to be said about the fact that we did not know 5e well enough when we first went through everything to make solid judgments on every single spell, every single everything.

And the modified spells, we found out, were really hard to carry out within the show, because it was really hard to get that message across, the way we had it organized was a little bit confusing. So things would sometimes happen on the show that should not have technically happened because it was an illegal spell or something that we had changed, but the player did not know that when they did it, because there were just so many spells to look through. So, clean slate, we are going to be going through every single spell starting from the beginning, and going through all the new classes that we haven't already gone through, and all of the bonus content.

So if Tasha's Cauldron is one of the ones that we need to go through, we are going to go spell by spell, class by class, and figure out whether it belongs in Tharia, whether it doesn't, or whether it needs to be tweaked. And then we have to figure out an organization system that makes it a little bit easier for us, because right now, the way we have it, it allows for error. And that's usually because we did not know 5e 100%. So there's some spells that we modified or nixed that might make it back in, there are some spells that made it in that might end up being nixed or modified, but we won't know until we try.

And that's something that we are going to be recording again, and that's going to be the fly on the wall for a few months. After that, maybe book meetings again, we're not sure. I don't think we've thought that far ahead, but that should get us through a few months of flying the wall. You guys will be listening to us talk about spells and whether or not they fit Tharia and what changes we'd make, or, you know, our whole thought process behind our homebrew of Dungeons & Dragons. And at the very least, it's still very TTRPG heavy. It is still very mechanics heavy for those of you who like that and it is still very, it still helps define the Tharia in the way that I think that you guys liked during the tabletop role playing game meetings.

So, with that all said, I'm sorry for anyone who's disappointed about us tabling that for now. It's just, it was just such a big project and one of the other things we figured out is we think we need to play some more games. We think we need to branch out from D&D and see other systems and see what we like and see what works. And a huge part of that is just going to be research, which we can't sit down every week and talk about what decisions we're going to make for the tabletop role playing game if we're still doing research. And 2020, I know everyone uses that as an excuse. 2020 has kicked everyone's asses.

We are working really, really hard and we want to make sure we're putting out the best of everything that we can possibly put out. So that's what went behind this decision. We hope you guys understand. We hope you're excited for the fly in the wild that is happening. We hope you're excited for the one shots that are going to be happening. We will see you next month with another newsletter in the year 2021. And I hope you're all as hyped as I am for a brand new year. Alright, thank you guys so much for listening. Thank you for supporting us. I hope you have a wonderful holiday season and I hope you have a great new year and I know Jason does too.

Bye. We really hope you guys enjoyed today's show. Obviously, we'll be back next week with a brand new episode. I think this arc is going really well so far, but you might have different opinions. If you want to let us know what you think, you can send us an email at danddrapodcast@gmail.com. That's danddrapodcast@gmail.com. Or you can swing on by our Facebook page. You can swing on by our Discord. If you're a part of our Patreon for just a dollar, we have a Discord with hundreds of members and they're always talking about something new. So swing on by, let us know what you're thinking and until next week, I hope you guys have fun with your games, good luck with them and keep yourself safe.

See you guys in one week. We'll see you guys in one week.