Transcript
Speaker: Previously on the Hired Swords. How did we even get here? Traveling with someone who's hired to kill me? Into this darkness. I can't even sleep anymore. This must be a gift from the Keeper. Maybe... Maybe I can use it to keep everyone safe. Even him. Everyone deserves a form of redemption, right?
Speaker: You're listening to the Hired Swords, a podcast that's been off the rails since 1985.
Speaker: Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the Hired Sorts. I am your dungeon master, Michael. I waited for them to say hi Michael and they didn't do it.
Speaker: It's okay. It's okay. Hi, Michael. Hey, how you doing? Hi, Michael. Hi, Michael. Hi, Michael. My name's Michael. I play Joxer. Nice to meet you all. Yeah, Davens here. I'm also Michael, and I'm playing Daven today. My name is Michael. I'll be playing Michael Galder. Hi, I'm also Michael, Coincidence, and I'll be playing Gwendolyn and Dale.
Speaker: the hired mike michaels the hired mike michaels the show just got so much better yeah pleased to have all of you on today yeah hello michaels in our last episode davin gwendolyn joxer and blaze and ale and ale uh battled a
Speaker: couple of interesting wind spirit kind of creatures that were attacking them seemingly out of nowhere, hard to see or next to invisible. After some crafty use of spells and some blind sight from spell slots and
Speaker: creating a barrier of of plant life to cause the plant life to kind of blow in the little breeze that these creatures caused as they came to attack the party was able to defeat them after suffering a little bit of damage and experiencing some confusion at the fact that it's basically couldn't see who was attacking and.
Speaker: Then realized shortly after the attack that during the attack, the figures with the eyes that had been watching them had, they have kind of removed, like they kind of disappeared. They went away during this battle and came back when the battle was over. Again, watching this party as they settle back in for the evening to finish their rest. What are you guys doing now?
Speaker: Listening stuff. This is a solid episode. All right. Thanks for listening. And if you want to keep up with all the behind the scenes, nevermind. As Michael five, as Michael five, I would like to be Gwendolyn and sit there and kind of just. I don't know, go over the realization of what has happened and feel kind of
Speaker: Not annoyed, but a little aggravated with these things that are watching us. Okay. As an annoyed Michael number two, Joxer is going to walk amongst the group and make sure everybody's, I don't know, feels okay. Just trying to understand the moment.
Speaker: in just, you know, Greg site. I just don't know where where this is happening or why this is happening. I don't know much about. Anything this side of the river, honestly, I mean, I guess that's why they call these the untouched lands. And as Michael number four, I'm going to.
Speaker: I'm going to kind of like wave just at these eyes that are watching us and I don't expect a reaction previously in the forest. The first time I ever saw these things, I tried walking to him and that was a failure. I don't know what they are, what they want. If they even care, I'm just trying to communicate in some way that's like as friendly as possible.
Speaker: Yeah, you try to kind of zero in on one wave and it's this weird feeling that
Speaker: As soon as you get like, where you're focused on one of these, they fizzle out, they dissolve and go away. And then when you focus on another one, it goes away. And the one that was there is there still, but it wasn't when you looked right at it. And it's just this strange perception filter, strange feeling thing in your eye that when you try and focus on it, just zooms away. Exactly. That's exactly what it feels like. And it's very frustrating. And so you just kind of, I guess, aggravated Lee just kind of wave at the area. Like, I can't.
Speaker: Focus on one. Hello, all of you weird things. Yeah. I just do like a circle wave. Hello. Hi. They don't seem to respond in any way. It's it's literally it's it's just like a dark shadow with these glowing golden eyes. I'll just put my hands down, turn back around to the team and I tried. I think we should just ignore them. I mean, they don't seem to do anything.
Speaker: Why won't the answer? Maybe it's not even a thing, maybe it's just an illusion of some sort. You know, it might not be like a real creature.
Speaker: That could be right, but I wonder, I don't know, maybe they're just not on this plane. Do any of you have any way of, I don't know, going into different planes? I can go for a second, but - It's anyone, it's Magic Man over there, and I just do the finger snap point over to Davin.
Speaker: Well, I did just banish one of them. I suppose I could punish one of you all. I don't know where you're going to go. That sounds like a really bad plan, honestly. I don't think so. Can you explain what banishment would do?
Speaker: Well, I'm not really entirely sure. I just know that I can concentrate and make it leave this plane of existence. Now where it goes, I don't really know, but as long as I keep concentration, it stays away for a while. Are you able to make it come back? Yeah, that's kind of the big deal there. Well, you can make it come back? I can, yes. All right, maybe. Why can't you travel to the plane? Well, I can't idle it to myself.
Speaker: I don't know. I mean, I, I imagine because I put a concentrate on, I don't know. It's not a good question, but I don't think I can pull that off. I don't know if that's our best option right now, but that's definitely something that could provide some interesting results. I don't know how comfortable you feel with that, Devin. It's technically in your control. You could send one of us quite literally to our doom.
Speaker: for all I know it could be someplace very dangerous and I don't know what happens to you while you're there. It's what kind of condition you're in. I don't want to like throw somebody into like a land of fire, you know. That definitely doesn't sound pleasant. Gwendolyn just stares at Daven. She knows that planes have existed but like she didn't think they were really real. Yeah.
Speaker: She kind of holds her bag closer because Dale's inside and just kind of stares at Daven. Too powerful. Demon boy, we're going to bed. I don't remember what time of day it is. It is in the big, fat, dark middle of the night. Yeah, the setting around us kind of.
Speaker: paint me a mental image, what we're looking at. You got it. You are, you've set up camp with no fire. I mean, there's a little bit like it's like embers burning at this point now. And you were resting when this thing awakened or attacked and you were awakened by that, but jocks are waking you up when this happened. And then, uh, you,
Speaker: As you look around, you're in the middle of the forest. It's a little bit of a clearing, but not huge, just enough to kind of settle down.
Speaker: You're walking, you know, as you've been walking through the forest, it's dark. It's filled with this, this, uh, dark fog, but it's not like the fog's not like billowing and stuff as it was, but you do have these creatures. These are, I don't know if they're even creatures or whatever these figures hovering here and there as well. And, uh, if you look up and it's so much fog and darkness, there's no stars, there's no moon. There's just the faint glow of light from the embers still burning in that fire.
Speaker: I think the best thing to do is just get some sleep and then continue on in the morning. I mean, surely sooner or later we got to find something besides just darkness, right? Sleep. We did. We just got here, but it's some of the darkest dark I've seen out here. And this is, this is a new kind of night for me. And honestly, I've lived underground for much of my life or almost it feels like being a mountain dwarf, but
Speaker: Uh, this is... entirely new. Yeah, we can only hope that there is something a little bit further down. I think it's best you all lay down. I'm... I'm just... I just can't sleep myself. Look, how many... When was the last time you slept? I honestly can't remember. I don't like this. I really don't like this.
Speaker: I'm starting to wonder if this might be a gift. How is never resting a gift?
Speaker: Well, I don't miss anything when I sleep. I can continue learning while I'm awake. So seems like a pretty amazing gift as is. Alright, nerd. I guess I'll let you keep watch. I don't know. My aunt, Menky, she used to have trouble sleeping and sometimes she would just have these fits of craziness. What kind of craziness?
Speaker: Oh, she would just be like normally talking to everybody. And then all of a sudden she would just get really upset for no reason and start yelling. If you start getting really upset for no reason, we're going to have some more words, but really upset, really upset. Look, I said you could keep watch nerd. Don't be like manky. All right. Don't be like manky. The new man or the new, the new motto of the hired new mama, Dolby manky. Okay.
Speaker: I guess if you're going to keep watch, I'll find some spot near here. Yeah, Michael three is going to get ready for bed and just go lay down. Feel free to snuggle Michael for I don't want to have everyone to spread out around here. I don't I don't know. We're really dealing with these these lands.
Speaker: Michael 5 is going to go up to Michael 3 and - I'm seeing this real good in the line right now. It's very uncomfortable for me. All right. It's like I'm playing The Sims and I made everybody look like myself. Is there another way of playing The Sims? I'm for a narcissist like me. We all have uneasy little icon faces next to us.
Speaker: Uh, Gwendolyn, feeling a little ridiculous for asking this, is gonna go up to Daven and... Is it alright if I, uh, uh, and she's kinda like twiddling her fingers and her thumbs and just... Can I sleep next to you tonight? I'm strong, but I... I am cold.
Speaker: She's obviously lying and it's no insight. Yeah. Okay. Great. You just said, obviously lying. Yeah. All right. Is everything all right? Uh, of course. And then you see her talk to her back. No, shut up, Dale. And she goes back to looking at Daven. Is it okay if I sleep right here? And she points at her spot right next to Daven stuff. Sure. That's fine.
Speaker: And then she just plops down. Daven just like suspiciously looks at her. All right, have a good sleep. You too. And it worked, Dale. We're going to be fine now. And she pulls Dale out and just kind of just stares at him as she softly goes to sleep and then begins snoring. Daven will wait until he starts hearing the snoring and then he'll close his eyes and he'll go to sleep.
Speaker: I'm going to, as I'm trying to fall asleep and just doing my standard routine of polishing the shield and tightening and bolstering various bits of armor pieces and whatnot because I'm ready for whatever this night holds.
Speaker: After I finally settle down and look around and see Gwen and Daven and then see Carmen doing whatever he's doing in his little sneaky self, I'm just going to watch Joxer until I officially fall asleep because I feel some kind of way about whatever's happening with him. Yeah, Carmen has leaned himself up against a rock nearby and he's got his hood pulled all the way down.
Speaker: arms crossed over his chest, sleeping quietly. So I think I'll just kind of make a round of where I can see that everybody's kind of sitting in and not veer too far out, but just kind of weave in between a couple of trees outside and then back. Nothing. Nothing. Just a couple of feet out of like a perimeter and make sure everything's good.
Speaker: Yeah, you're walking through and, and, uh, just every now and then catching, catching sight of one or two of these interesting beings that are just kind of hovering nearby. Uh, they seem to be watching you and watching everyone else kind of all at the same time. And just gives you a little bit of this discomfort, right? Just feeling like, Oh man, they are, they're always just always watching. It's very uncomfortable, but, uh, um, something interesting that like,
Speaker: In that note, I feel like walking by these trees, I'd pull up probably just a dagger that I'd have on me and start writing in different languages, just hello. And I would start with common on one tree and then elvish on another tree, and then just go down the list of the languages I know
Speaker: And, uh, and just see as I walk by, cause I'll, I'll make a couple of rounds and see if maybe something comes up. Um, nothing really seems to impact anything as you're walking. It doesn't seem to have any effect or just kind of, you know, language to language. Yeah. That's about it. And the night.
Speaker: goes on, drags on, it feels like for you, especially jocks or things just kind of drag on and on. And you look at them sleeping and kind of feel a little jealous, maybe a little bit jealous that they get to kind of skip all this time right now. Like just kind of fast forward through it. And slowly the sky turns from a dark black to a grayish brown as the sun rises somewhere.
Speaker: behind all of that fog and can't see like the ball of the sun or anything like that anywhere. But you know, that day has come and, uh, morning.
Speaker: I'll start with Krigs because I feel like, although I don't think I would have seen him see me or like watching me, I just felt that with that last conversation, he was the most uneasy. Yeah. And I'll just kind of tap him lightly and it's time for your time up.
Speaker: already sleep at all. This place sucks. I agree. I honestly might prefer pre us Wild Hill at this point. Those were some times, you know, it's weird. I was just thinking the other day as we were traveling, speaking of pre Wild Hill us, it
Speaker: In that bar that night, I'd never, in a million years, imagined it was, what, a few months down the road and we'd be here of all places in this godforsaken land of
Speaker: nothing. I never saw this coming. I don't know if you did, but that was some interesting brew you gave if this was the fate it held for us. We might need to rename that to be a fated brew of some sort, but yeah. I don't regret it. I don't know if you do, but
Speaker: Absolutely not. I am glad to be by your side. Honestly, I never imagined that we'd meet anybody else I could handle. Well, especially with you. You turn most people off, but you know. I'm used to that. I imagine you two looking over and just seeing Gwen big spooning, Devin. Oh, probably. I also want to let the audience know this isn't to be romantic. This is genuine Gwen.
Speaker: Oh, yeah. Look, Jocks, I know I have my concerns and I've always been a friend. And I know if I seem overbearing, I'm sorry. I don't know if it's training. I don't know if it's being a big brother to four godawful siblings. But I genuinely worry about you and this new path you've taken
Speaker: is it concerns me, but if it is what's best for you, you have, if this is what you are now, you have my support. I think both of us took paths that we didn't expect.
Speaker: Although, my leaving the monastery and meeting you was kind of leading me in this direction, but - I do have that affection on people. I think we both have found something bigger than us, and I don't know if it's - For me, that's most of you, but I get what you're saying. I get it. That's funny.
Speaker: I don't know if it's, if it's good for me or I mean, right now it seems good for you. The, the power you found at least better than what was there. You can feel, or you look like you respect it more, which is, I couldn't ask for anything else. It is interesting.
Speaker: I will do my best to update you. I mean, we can talk about the things I've seen at this point. Just know that when that time comes, if you feel it's not the right path for you, you'll receive no judgment from me, whatever path that might be. I just know some of the things you're doing aren't of a natural sort.
Speaker: Yes, I don't think if I spoke to Joxer in that bar that night and told him about spell slots, it would have been a very normal conversation at all. I highly doubt that. I appreciate it. And I am behind all three of you, 100%. Same.
Speaker: Gavin's sitting up rubbing his eyes. Awesome morning already. Uh, as morning as it's going to get, I just look up to the sky. Yeah, it's hard to come in. Carmen starts to stir and he's like, Oh, you're all very loud in the morning. That's a, that's how friends are. How's it going, Carmen? How are you doing today? I walk up and start patting him on the back. Oh, Carmen, nice to see you. I'm typically a late riser. Um,
Speaker: This place is god -awful. How did you even know it was daytime? I use minor illusion to make a rooster crow sound. He was the crows. As the cock crows. Gwen only sits straight up. That worked well. I should do that every morning. She just looks at David. Did I hear a bird? I don't know. Not really. I'm sorry.
Speaker: What? It's just another illusion. Don't worry about it. Oh, and she looks so sad. And I hope Davin feels guilty for making her think there was some kind of wildlife here. She just kind of stares off, rubbing her eyes. I find you some bird soon. I can feel we're coming out of the darkness.
Speaker: I hope so. There's something about this place that I just, it doesn't make sense. I definitely agree with that. It's not going to make any more sense standing here. Are you ready to push forward? I am. Carmen hands, just holds out a handful of like large strips of beef jerky, like meat is like anyone.
Speaker: Pretty heavily. I make sure that Gwyn isn't looking and I grab two pieces. I'll grab some as well. Excited to have something not just seed based here. Something that actually has a flavor and it's the flavor it's supposed to taste like. The gnome at Wild Hill, he gave me
Speaker: anything I wanted when I told him I was after the likes of you guys looking for you all. So he seemed to want me to find you. Gwendolyn stands up and just her bag and then pulls like her baby hairs back to someone to just her hair. Uh, what did you say you had? You had some what's here and he puts it in your face. Take some jerky. I've never heard of jerky before. Is it good? And she looks around at everyone.
Speaker: Yeah, it's great. It's just dried meat. I think this is lamb or sheep. AC Gwendolyn just staring at it, making the most unpleasant face. You just see a hand appear like floating right above you and it just with two fingers just plunks it out of your hand and then just floats away. And in that same face, she just goes, thank you.
Speaker: Thomas, she doesn't eat meat as a whole. Okay, okay. Okay. If you have any nice bark or trail mix. I do like bark, but I'm fine. I'm not usually hungry in the morning, but I thank you. Of course. Fortunately, I have a little bit of
Speaker: hosted grain. That's about it other than the meat. So I'll be getting on now later. Yes. Let's, uh, let's keep in this direction. The faster we march, the faster we get to wherever it is. We're going to go. Yeah. And I'll, I'll double check those trees. Just, uh, just one last round just to make sure nothing happened at night. I'm going to lose it. If they say what new phone who this new tree, you start, you just kind of look around and
Speaker: The figures are there. They're a little more dim in the little bit of light that kind of makes its way. It seems like the light kind of diffuses them a little bit, but they're there. Definitely looking at you all, just staring, watching. No additions to my carvings in the trees. No. Nice.
Speaker: I wrote on these trees just to see if they try to communicate, but I'm guessing if they're real, they can't get to this plane with us. Well, we're not going after them, right? True, but it was just to make sure that they couldn't communicate or get to us.
Speaker: Well, that's good. All right. If you guys continue walking and again, walking, leaving this little area, sprinkle stir sprinkles, just going north, right? Like we don't have an actual direction aside from that. I believe that's what you guys have been doing. So unless you have a reason to change that. Nope. I don't think so. You begin traveling north and you walk or, uh,
Speaker: a long time and leaving behind your campsite and the carvings in the trees. And everyone make perception checks as you're walking about three, maybe four hours into your journey for the day. Maybe you've grabbed some things out of your bag and started munching as you're walking. 17 for a cringly. 10. I said perception. Mm hmm. That's a five.
Speaker: Nine plus 17. Real big. Lord. I think she made 17 plus nine, but yes. Yeah. Same answer either way. What'd you get, jockser? Uh, a whopping five. Okay. So, so Safran and Gwendolyn, you guys, you notice that while you still see these figures in the trees every now and then,
Speaker: They are nowhere near as dense at this point as they were. Seems the further north you get, the fewer and fewer they are. But you do also notice that the squishier the ground gets, like you're walking in mud, but instead of water coming up in the squishy dirt mud, it's that black tar -like substance. The trees are kind of oozing it now through the
Speaker: the cracks and the bark that there are no more leaves on any of the trees. It's just getting more and more gross and yucky. And Ash, you begin to hear the sound of voices in the distance. What kind of voices? They are lower voices. What languages do you speak?
Speaker: Um, I speak Michael five, Elvish. Good callback. Uh, celestial Johnny five. Yeah. Halfling and Sylvan, which is Elvish. So I said that twice. So you're, you're, you're hearing these voices and right now they just kind of sound like. There's no real like,
Speaker: back to the words coming through is there's it sounds like they're so far away that you're just kind of picking up because there's you're always ready to like listening for the sounds of birds or critters in the woods or something that can make you feel comfortable especially here you're just like longing for that sound so you're you're kind of on high alert and so you catch that you catch that sound of those it just sounds like conversation in the distance and every now and then one of the voice kind of booming Lee just
Speaker: just kind of like shouts and the others kind of quiet down and you continue to walk forward or what do you want to do? You're the only one that hears that. Do these wah -wah -wahs sound nice? Like it's going to sound weird. I actually don't. Hang on. Thoughts. I won't hang on. I mean, you can make an insight check if you want to just kind of gauge the tone or the
Speaker: Is that what you're thinking? Like what's the tone of these? Yeah, but I feel like I would know what that tone is if I heard it loud and then.
Speaker: The one time. Soft. It's an insight check. And I'm not going to do it. Your specialty, I'm guessing. You know what? I'm just going to start walking past people. I'm going to walk towards the sound. I'm not going to be loud when I do it, but obviously I'm going to have goopy steps when I go. OK. In this tar substance. So you continue walking forward. OK. Guys, Gwendolyn just starts to like kind of elbow past you.
Speaker: and kind of go on ahead again. I'm distracted by, do they have any flowers here in the goopy areas? Maybe, I don't know. Are the flowers also goopy? Yeah. Maybe she has to pee and she's trying to get far enough ahead so that we don't see.
Speaker: Uh, you hear Gwendolyn like, she's not really talking to the group. She's just kind of, she pulls out Dale. Did you hear that? I, I thought I heard something up this way. It couldn't be those creatures. Could it? I just, yeah, we should check it out and she just keeps going. Okay. Who's acting sus y 'all? Uh, I'm going to.
Speaker: trying to catch up. If she's, if she's pushed ahead of me, I'm going to try to catch up and at least be parallel to as she, as she's walking. Okay. So you guys continue walking forward and it's about 10, 15, 20 minutes and make perception checks again for me. Oh no. I got a natural 20 for 21 total. Two plus nine. 16. 11.
Speaker: That one fell. Okay. Hey, it's a five again. Okay. Blaze. Consistency. Everyone starts to hear the voices a little bit. Blaze, you start to make these voices out. And you can hear, and it's something you haven't heard in a while. They're speaking dwarvish.
Speaker: Gwendolyn probably turns around when she hears Craig's feet and she's probably like, she probably signs, do you hear this? That's doorfish. And she kind of stops and she just sits there and then just kind of looks at Craig's.
Speaker: I put my hand up, kind of like get everyone to shush because all the splashing and splashing is kind of distracting. I want to try to like put an ear up and really see if I can hear what's being said. Is anyone anyone else speak? Dwarvish, I think. Yeah, I do. But with a five, he's looking for. Yeah. Yeah, I'm probably still squishing around. I don't know. I put my ear to the wind and just try to pick up any semblance of what's being said.
Speaker: Okay. As you kind of tune your ear and try to listen a little bit more, you definitely make out words here and there in, in, in dwarvish, you hear one voice kind of commanding the others.
Speaker: And he's saying, he's saying, we've got to stay together. We don't stay together. We'll get lost out here. Stick together. Keep quiet now and do more chatting, please. And he's, he's walking or he's speaking this kind of calling out to everyone and you can hire kind of hear the others just kind of shuffling around and, and just having like little hubbub conversation. Can I tell distance wise, like,
Speaker: I don't have any, any idea of the distance that the sounds might be coming from. It feels to you like just from the, the volume of the sounds and I like your, if you were hunting or stalking someone or something, um, this from experience from that, you kind of get the idea. This is, this is now probably a mere couple hundred feet away. It's not, it's not super far anymore. You're, you're, you're coming up on, you know,
Speaker: coming to them and they're getting closer from the right side of you. Coming our direction. Yeah, towards you from the right, which would be like the west. Nope, that's the E. My bad, you're heading north. I'm going to look back at the group and be like, wait, you said it was east?
Speaker: Yes. Sorry. Western Bound. They're going north, and they're from the right. That's the east. Okay. Just making sure. I'm going to look back at the group and be like, guys, Western Bound, there's a group of dwarves. You can not... At least they're speaking dwarves, which I don't know if they're actually dwarves, but I say we parlay with this group. I don't know who's out here.
Speaker: I'm sorry, what was that? Have you seen the foliage here? Drugs are concentrate. What if these people are stuck here? We... What if they need our help?
Speaker: Carmen, find a spot, find a location. You do what you do best. Just keep an eye. The rest of us, if you want to hide, hide. I have no problem. I don't have quarrel with these people, but if they're headed this direction, maybe we try to see what they know or who they even are at this point. All right, I got an idea. I'm going to first cast Mage Armor on myself. Of course.
Speaker: And then I'm going to cast Minor Illusion to create a five foot by five foot rock. I was like, Gwen, hide behind there, just in case. Krigs, why don't you make first contact with them? Maybe like you said it's Dwarvish, right? Maybe a dwarf to dwarf conversation will be better. It'd be probably easy to do. Can trip, no? Joxer, let's fling come just to be safe. And I'm going to put a hand on the shoulder and I'm going to cast Invisibility and Twin Spell it so that we will turn invisible. Cool.
Speaker: Uh, you guys look around shortly after Krigs is talking and with a roll of 31, Carmen is nowhere in sight. Oh, nevermind. I had to say the role because it was a 19 plus 13. So that's pretty sick. He's a sneaky boy. All we do. All right. So we've got Krigs ready to parlay. We have.
Speaker: Gwen hiding behind a fake rock and a magical rock. We have Davin and Joxer are now invisible. You could do both of those, that rock and the invisibility. Yes, because the rock minor illusion is not a concentration spell. Great. And so you are able to kind of prepare yourselves and hide. And sure enough, this sound gets louder as one of them is just like,
Speaker: The hubbub is just like, we've been walking for days. It's going to be forever. We have to figure out where we're supposed to go. It's not fair that we have to keep doing this. We should just go back. And you hear the main one that seems to be in the lead. He says, we have been given an assignment and we will complete it. We will not return until it is completed. Do you understand me?
Speaker: Have they just about sin? Huh? Just about then he comes into sight and he stops. He says, Oh, he puts up a hand like this with a fist at the top and puts his arm up and they all stop and reach for weapons as they are all military men. You can see I put up both hands and hail fellow travelers. The
Speaker: in 100 % Dwarvish. I'm speaking for sure. They've been speaking Dwarvish this whole time. So the the main one that looks to be in the lead, he's wearing he's wearing armor that is that is kind of this cool like marbled black and white with a symbol of helm on his chest. And he has a shield strapped to his back with a sword in his sheath. And he when he stops, he looks at looks at you and he blinks his eyes and he says,
Speaker: Uh, I never intended to come across the likes of you here, please. Uh, stand down, stand down. As he kind of looks you over as you're standing there, Krix. What brings you to these parts? Well, I, I'm merely just an adventurer coming, coming to see the untouched lands.
Speaker: Yes, that's not what is done here most of the time. You know there is a war on. What war? The war... What? The darkness here! Do you see the darkness here? It is waging war against us. We must fight it. We must hold it back. That is our assignment. I don't feel as if our...
Speaker: Our journeys are too different from each other, honestly. I'm something of a, I guess, darkness fighter myself, but what is this war? Who's giving you orders? Well, first, tell me your name. Well, and I look around knowing that my party probably sees me. Because you look familiar to me. Oh. What is your surname? I am Safran of House Imboreau.
Speaker: That is it! That is it! Yes, yes, I saw you. I remember at the forts, we were training. You spoke to us. You spoke to us on flanking strategies in battle and how to use them in a smaller force.
Speaker: Yes, I remember this because I use these techniques all of the time. It was a wonderful lecture. I appreciate your words and your mother is a, just a beacon to us all. We are all very proud to serve under this day. Men, men, let me introduce you to the sovereign of House Imboreau. He is, and this is all endorphish, but so Davin, Gwen, you, you won't understand in any of this, but he, he is his, his, uh,
Speaker: expression and his demeanor has completely changed. His guard is completely let down. There is no element at all of trying to, like, remain, you know, protect himself. He says, well, sir, I guess it is I who should just say thank you for for waving us down here. And I I don't know. Should I hand over our mission and our my men to you? You are the ranking officer here, are you not?
Speaker: that won't be necessary. I am curious, what chain of command are you following in this war you speak of? The captain of the stone fortress he sent us down here. The supplies were being intercepted on the way from the elven towns to our
Speaker: to the forts and we were sent to. How long have you been at this war? It's been a number of years. We definitely have been fighting for what seems like, gosh, he looks at everyone, the ones behind him. It seems like our whole lives, doesn't it? When's the last time you've visited the Southern lands or home on leave?
Speaker: How long have you been in this darkness? Who is that? He says, as he points over at Gwendolyn, who now no longer has a rock in front of her, since that was a 60 -second rock. Oh, my apologies. My compatriot, who's been following me on this journey, half -Elvish lass, she's been following me. I do have other friends.
Speaker: gone exploring a little bit into the woods. They may have been taken back slightly by such regal dwarven voices coming from the distance, but this is my friend Gwendolyn. She is of the best sort.
Speaker: When they look back at Gwendolyn, she's doing her awkward smile and waving. This is 100 % still dwarvish. You're just waving. Oh yeah, I have an idea. We're just all looking at you and they're all just kind of look at you and then this one in the back that doesn't have a beard.
Speaker: long red flowing hair that's braided partially but flowing down their shoulders. Is he beautiful out of all the dwarves there? If there is a beautiful one, that's the one. And just kind of gives it the same kind of grin, like half grin and waves.
Speaker: She especially waves. It's elbowed by the one next to him like. I say in common, Gwen, come come and introduce yourself and well, your your friend, maybe our other friends will show up in the near future, he says in common. Gwendolyn tries to go along with it. Yes, in the future.
Speaker: And she slugs her way up to where they're at and, hi, I'm Gwendolyn. Oh, and she pulls up. This is Dale. Hello. It's a pleasure. Dale, okay. You would say there are more of you here. He looks trying to find
Speaker: They are good at staying out of the way, I must say. That's about all they're good. I'm just kidding. They're wonderful companions. I'm sure they'll scurry back. How do you find the endorphin? Everyone else just sees his ear wiggle slightly as I go and flick it from behind. Those creaks? Yeah. Bees. Does that count as an attack? Because if so, then I'm no longer invisible. Yeah, you flick his ear and then boom. There you are.
Speaker: A rock just slowly flies at his head. These are my fellow compatriots, the ones that I have traveled with. Sorry, we're a little worried about running into intruders or visitors. We're not really used to finding nice people out here or taking some precautions. That's very wise. In fact, these forests, they are filled with
Speaker: wild creatures and animals and just, you know, dangerous, dangerous things, as well as the patrols of giants. Those who have, uh, we assume it's the giant patrol that has been raiding our supply lines. That's why we are here to end, put an end to their destructive ways. We plan to be back within the week to afford so that we can report that our supplies lines could be reopened. We have taken care of the problem. It's been, well,
Speaker: I don't know if I've ever been this far north and visited these forts. How far are we from your stone fortress, your base camp? Well, it's really hard to remember exactly. We traveled. How long did we travel? He looks back and like, well, we, we left on
Speaker: I'd like to do an insight check and not necessarily insight. I want to, I, I don't feel like they really know what they're doing. Like this feels like a, I could be wrong, but this feels like they've slowly lost their mind and are just circling around out here. Okay. So you're going to make an instant check. Whatever I need to roll for that insight. Are you accusing them to be a part of Monty Python? Yeah, for sure. I rolled a 16 plus six or plus five. So 21.
Speaker: Yeah. So first of all, he is showing too much confidence. You get the sense that somebody showing this kind of confidence has some insecurity going on about something, right? The men or his companions there seem pretty, um, the word, they seem to be like they're following, but they're a little agitated by following about following at this point.
Speaker: They've kind of, they're doing it out of duty. Maybe no respect or real honor of their leader at this point. Yes. 100%. And I forgot to introduce myself. I am Trigore, by the way. My name is Trigore. Trigore, it's a pleasure to meet you. What house do you hail from? House Browbeater. Great house. It's a good house. We, we, uh, we were.
Speaker: fighting men, all of us. I knew, I believe it was your uncle, Sven. Yes, Sven Brabeeter. He was the champion of the further, the further, farther south Ash's Taunton tribe. And he, in fact, he's the only one to have defeated
Speaker: the previous champion whose name escapes me right now. Was it not Dimitris? That's it. That's it. Dimitris. Burnwillow. Something like that.
Speaker: Anyway, have you come to check in on our assignment? We have not passed the deadline for our assignment. We have time to complete it still in return. We have had a little trouble tracking these giants. Believe it or not, these giants have not been easy to track, but we are still within our window of opportunity. I don't know why you've been sent.
Speaker: I've not been, I've not been sent on any kind of reconnaissance on your, your mission, or it's merely just a pleasant happenstance. We've run into each other. Hmm. Well, pleasant indeed. What say you, uh, where are you traveling? Are you continuing to travel? We've. Towards the West or we're headed Northwest ourselves.
Speaker: We've got our mindset to be headed north, so some similar pathing to what you're expected to be, to your marching orders, or at least directing you towards. But I hope we don't go too far north. How far north have you been? This is as far as we've gone. We've been heading northwest since we began. The Elvin tribes are somewhere west of here, so the north is
Speaker: where they say the giants are, so we figure the raiding party must be somewhere between here and there. That's why we are headed in that direction. Oven tribes, you say? Yes, what he said. Where?
Speaker: They are pretty far from here west. A few days travel probably. I was there one time. It's been a year or so. I stopped there and traveled to the stone fortress with a supply group that went southeast towards the mountains. Have you ever had a place called Al Menorah?
Speaker: That is, that is not a place. That is the people. They are the Almanora. But have you, and Gwendolyn kind of like steps up towards this dwarf, but have you, have you, and she kind of places her hands on his shoulders. Have you heard them talk about Almanora? I have heard them talk about each other who are the Almanora tribe.
Speaker: And they're to the west, right? Yeah, they're far, quite a little ways west, farther than we've traveled thus far. We've come from the stone fortress in the east, and we've been heading northwest this whole time. We have a mission. We have to stop the giants from raiding the supply lines from the elves that are in the west to the stone fortress in the northern mountains.
Speaker: east of here. So you're helping prevent a supply line breakage for the elves, you're helping the elves in that area. Yes, they have been helping us at our fort by supplying
Speaker: some of what they grow in their village, their towns. How far away is this supply line from this tribe, the Albinora tribe? It takes normally a couple of weeks to get from them to us at the fort. And how well do you know these elves? I'm sorry? How well do you know these elves? Like, do you know their names? I spent a night there, that is all.
Speaker: Who is their leader? Oh, he is a interesting man. Um, I can't, I can't place his face at the moment. Um, Gwendolyn's so frustrated. She just wants to spit out the name. I'll tell you what he is. His name is a, it's a strange one. It's very long, um, car. I can't remember what say the name. I can't remember his name. It starts with you back here. What is his name?
Speaker: And one of them calls out, um, I think it was, um, like Chris, Christophson or something, or no, that's not it. I don't, we don't remember. We don't recall. It was a Carmen. Darn the dwarves that are terrible memories. Wendell just looks at him. Was it Carrick? Carrick. Carrick. That doesn't ring a bell.
Speaker: Sorry, is there, do you know someone named Carrick? Gwendolyn takes the most, she takes his hands off him and she takes the most like the biggest inhale of breath and walks away from the group and just screams. She just, cannot.
Speaker: She's just yelling over and over. I lean in and they're probably probably having some interesting looks. I lean into the dwarfs and I think Carrick might owe her money. I'm not really sure. Well, then that is if that is him. I just don't remember his name. Maybe that's it. I don't know. There is a lot.
Speaker: They just hear like, how do you forget a name? Yes, it's just it'll she'll be she'll be OK. How how far are we from the tribe right now? Oh, a number of days, I believe. Is that correct? He looks back at the one that waved at Gwen and that one with a slightly lower, slightly higher pitched dwarven voice in Dwarvish, though only
Speaker: Yoxer and Briggs hear this, replies back, I estimate a couple of days. It's just two days from here. And if that's the case, we should be heading more north than west or we're going to end up at the tribes instead of with the Giants. I look at Gwen, I just look at her and I'm trying to like
Speaker: I'm honestly at this point trying to justify continuing going north when I know that we are potentially this close. So I'm just looking at her and wondering what to say. Yeah. I think this is all. I think we're going to head west. We need to speak with some of those elves. I think
Speaker: Do you travel with us? That'll be fine. Just then behind you, somebody says, well, we should probably just start traveling then as Carmen suddenly appears behind all of you and speaks. Oh, you. Sorry, this one must have really had to go. It.
Speaker: don't know where he was. And then just try my best to like lie off the fact that he was hiding watching this. That's what makes me useful. Okay. Um, hello. Um, Carmen stone, he says, and, uh, Trago looks at him with a, his, his eyebrows kind of furl and comment. Oh yes, this, uh, I was cursed by a dark wizard of some kind. Um, you know,
Speaker: Just these things happen. And uh, Gregor says, I wish I was of the kind who could correct your curse. But alas, my gifts are merely with the sword and not in any other manner. Oh, don't worry about it. He kind of deserves it anyway.
Speaker: So how many of this total does that make it? How many is in our party now? There are five of them total. Well, six, including Trigore. Yeah, six, including Trigore. So we're all going to die. As you guys kind of start to get together, they introduce themselves and they all kind of introduce themselves to all of you. And there's Seb Ashbraid. She's got a.
Speaker: cloak on a bow in her back. Is she cute? And she is a little bit, yeah, for you as a dwarf. I think you would think so. What are you trying to say? She's just traditionally cute? She looks like a dwarf, yes. Ben Nygard is there as well. He has got a large
Speaker: Sword on his back, shield. He's fully armored up. Also very armored up is Nancy Shorefoot and Tate Stoneborn is there. He's in robes only. Carries a book on his belt and you catch, you can see him casting spells here or there, just little things that he does. What was his name? His name was Tate Stoneborn.
Speaker: And then another one actually comes from the trees right after Carmen does. And you didn't see this one. And this is Bryn Nobleton. He introduced himself as the scout, Bryn Nobleton. And this is Tragoors party. Tragoors troops. And that's where we're going to leave the episode. Oh man. There's too many of them. Oh goodness. Our replacements in case of a team wait. Yeah.
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