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Ep. 90 Amidst The Ruin
148 Plays1 year ago
The swords attempt to make sense of a civilization left to ruin. What is there to be learned from here? How will they bring to light so much lost and forgotten?
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Transcript
Introduction & Fun Facts
00:00:21
Speaker
You're listening to The Hired Swords, a podcast made of two parts adventure and six parts tender love and care.
00:00:41
Speaker
Hello, everyone, and welcome to this, another episode of The Hired Swords. I'm your dungeon master, Michael, and with me are four of my good friends. They all have an interesting fact about themselves. They're going to share with you, as they say, their name and their character name. Derek, you go first. Okay, I think that A-1 Sauce is overrated.
00:01:06
Speaker
and he plays Daven. Ash, what about you? My name's Gwen, and I like dogs. Oh, fascinating. Mikey, you play Joxer, right? I do. My name is Mikey. A fascinating fact about me is I like sparkle, laffy, taffy. Sparkle, laffy, taffy. You've never had that. Sounds good. Blaze, how about you? What's up? I'm good. Good. Good to hear from you. Hey, what character do you play in this podcast?
00:01:34
Speaker
Well, I play a dwarf paladin. His name is Craig's Galdor, but his actual name is Safran Ember Oak. We don't need your whole backstory again. We've already done a season of you. Just a fact, please. You got a whole adventure story arc. Fair. As for my fun fact, I believe that an appetizer can be whatever you set out in front of your actual entree. You can do a whole podcast about this, but we're going to nip it in the bud now. Yeah. I mean, I think that just answers it. I don't know what else there is to talk about.
00:02:03
Speaker
If I give you a porterhouse cut into bite-sized pieces, that's your appetizer. Only if you wrap it in bacon. Or deep fry it. And then add a hamburger. Deep fried bacon-wrapped porterhouse burger. I mean, as long as you say it's an appetizer, it doesn't matter the size of the appetizer. If I bring you a turkey and say, here's your appetizer, what are you going to do? You're going to eat turkey and say, where's the main course? Hey, are you going to give me more food after?
00:02:30
Speaker
You're getting two more turkeys. It's a three, it's a tri-turkey dinner. Well, you just called it a tri-turkey dinner. It's not an appetizer now. It's a three course. A three course turkey dinner. Yes. Enjoy your turkey dessert.
Exploration of the Elven Village
00:02:47
Speaker
Well, my favorite color is orange. And where we left off last time, we had found this elven surface mining village where they had been seeming to mine these gems from the top of this hill. They've dug down and built some of their buildings, their other structures, some of their work houses and a temple kind of into this these this below the surface.
00:03:16
Speaker
kind of mind that they've started, that they've been working, obviously. Of course, it's abandoned. The party explored quite a bit, actually. They went through a warehouse and a place where there's some, or not a warehouse, it was a canteen and found where, you know, some of the, some more of the frozen food with a frozen gemstone inside of it. Walked through some of the huts and hovels and kind of tent-like structures of the people who
00:03:42
Speaker
had one point at one point lived here, including one that seemed to be a nicer place, somebody who was in leadership of some kind found some interesting information. There's a better map of the area as well as a goblet that had some gemstones. We also found an office that goblin. Yep, exactly. And
00:04:02
Speaker
Yeah, good one, I like that. And then we, it all kind of made our way to a temple. And in this temple, we discovered a statue of a god that we were not really familiar with, looked like an elf, and, but Davin kind of stepped away as a voice started telling him about this god and what this god was like, and that this voice, this person, whatever this is that is speaking to Davin, had fought this.
00:04:32
Speaker
person's armies in the past. And so there was a little bit of a back and forth there between Davin and whatever that voice is that he sometimes speaks to. And Ash realized she kind of recognized this face on this statue.
00:04:49
Speaker
And that's where we kind of left off the episode last time. Everyone in the temple looking at the etchings. The temple, there was an entryway where the statue stands. You go beyond that and you see everything's kind of circular around this, looking like an altar in the middle with these etchings carved into stone all around the walls, mostly drawing some writing. Some of the writing, the writing is this crazy old, very old elven language.
00:05:16
Speaker
And the gemstones are set in to kind of emphasize and highlight different parts of these etchings in the wall as well. And this is where we stand looking around at this stuff as we pick up this episode. And Gwen, I think it just joined you guys. Yeah, I had my hands full because I was reaching up to touch this face and I dropped the cup. That's right. You heard the cup outside and you guys. Oh, what's that? It's Gwen. Oh, what's that? A stumbled butterfly.
00:05:46
Speaker
I don't really know what that is, but those are the words that came out of mouth. Oh, it's a stumbled butterfly. I'm lightly treading, but I'm still cautious as the cup falls down. Like a clumsy butterfly. Yeah. Yeah. And so, but then I look back at the statue and I just kind of look at it eerily. I kind of forget about the cup at this point. Oh no, that's just Gwen. That's just me. So is everyone in this building now? Yes.
00:06:16
Speaker
Have I, has anyone noticed Daven speaking to himself?
Mystery of the Temple Statue
00:06:21
Speaker
Joxer did, I believe. Yeah. I went outside and pretended to pee. Yeah. And then it came back and yeah. Sure. All right. Well, I'm not sure we didn't really find anything in this building that's telling us what happened to the people here. It seems like we're running out of options here.
00:06:40
Speaker
Yeah, for a mining town, everything seems fairly empty so far. And we did pretty thorough investigating of this room, right? There's nothing. You focused more on the statue, if I remember correctly. It's been a couple of weeks, but if I remember correctly, you focused more on the statue and really
00:07:01
Speaker
looked at that and then walked in and just kind of observed what was around and looked for doors and things like that. But that was about it. Okay. I'll just for funsies, I'll take a gander, you know, see if there's anything more than a rug in the center.
00:07:15
Speaker
Yeah, that's an investigation check. Also, I do remember that Krigs did investigate the gemstones and found that they were kind of soft for gemstones, not like marshmallows for goodness sakes, but they were just, you know, normally a gemstone's diamonds and things are very, very hard rock kind of items. Do I have a kid cup? Do I have a kid cup? Yeah, do I have a sippy cup? Is that what this is, with jewels in it? Got the cheaper version. It's a stone goblet with jewels in it.
00:07:44
Speaker
A rich baby stone goblet? That was not great. So that was a 10. It's a room. The middle, you do notice, doesn't have any rugs or anything in the very center. The center is just kind of open with a painting of a symbol in the middle. And the painting is very... It's mostly an outline.
00:08:10
Speaker
And it's almost like a plus sign, like a cross, but it looks like two crescent moons facing away from each other back to back in the center of this kind of diamond-ish kind of cross-looking thing that has the inside of it.
00:08:27
Speaker
So it's a it's like a silver. Well, it's actually what you see on the on the ground is not colorful at all. It's it's literally just like white markings hand drawn into a symbol on this floor of it looks like four spear points with a diamond in the middle. So it's like, yeah. And then you've got two crescent moons facing away from each other like back to back in the center.
00:08:53
Speaker
And they are it's just that's that symbols right in the middle of the room and everything else seems to kind of be facing that and then those etchings are on the walls around you behind. You know, if you were facing that, the etchings would be behind you.
00:09:06
Speaker
What do I recognize this symbol? Is this a thing that that'd be a history check? Oh, come on. I mean, no, no, that's a no. Okay, so no, you don't. That's a that's a three total. Yeah, you you don't you've known you don't think you've ever seen it before. You're not sure.
00:09:27
Speaker
Anybody, this is kind of a unique, I'm sure it's related to maybe who they're worshipping, but anybody recognize this symbol here? I'm not the most religious person, but I can check it out. May I check it out? Yeah, you can make a history check as well.
00:09:44
Speaker
While he rolls his check, Gwen probably looks over and then she just kind of blinks and goes back to looking at this statue. Just trying to picture who it is. I got an eight. An eight. Okay. It doesn't ring a bell. The symbol doesn't look like anything that you've seen.
00:10:03
Speaker
You may be able to kind of put two and two together though based on the statue plus this you know what the building you're in all that stuff but yeah the symbol itself doesn't give you any information. Ash would you please make a history check as well as you try to remember where you've seen this face before. Do I get advantage because I remembered joking. Sorry I don't like saying no but no it's fine.
00:10:34
Speaker
You said history, right? It's like the tip of your tongue. I know this face, but you're pretty sure you don't know who it is, but you've seen the face before. That's all you really get from looking at it again, trying to remember.
00:10:52
Speaker
Trucks are, I don't recognize this, but I can only assume it's the symbol of that corallon, the god or the creature, whatever this deity is that the churches do. Yeah, you said the name before, because I think, what was it? Because you're what I didn't get here. Corallon. Yeah, okay, that's right.
00:11:16
Speaker
I mean, maybe he has something to do with the moon. It looks like two present moons, but that could just be coincidence. It also looks like a throwing star to me. So I doubt he's a ninja though. That's probably, he didn't look very stealthy from a statue perspective. When you're okay over there, you've been staring at that statue for a while.
00:11:39
Speaker
Um, when they look over at Gwendolyn, she's kind of just like so close to the statue, just examining every spec of this, like, whether it be a wrinkle or a feature on the face.
00:11:54
Speaker
I'm fine, but I don't... And she's too close for comfort for the statue if the statue had feelings. Right. Very invasive. You gotcha. And she's poking. I swore. Do you know who this is? And her finger is up his nose because she was checking.
00:12:18
Speaker
some sort of deity named Corellon or Corellon, something like that. That's all I know. I know that. Make another history check. Unlock my brain for knowledge. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my gosh. Roll up so many times. Roll that into. 12 plus two, 14.
00:12:41
Speaker
You don't know who it is. You just can't place the face very well. Why do you hate me? And the name you've just never heard before.
00:12:55
Speaker
No, that can't be right. It just, and
Discoveries & Tensions Rise
00:13:01
Speaker
she steps back and she did this thing that her mom did and it looks like she's taking a picture, even though cameras don't exist in this realm, but that's how she just takes a memory shot. Her mom always did it. She never knew why. I'm not sure we're going to find much in here. We should probably keep investigating.
00:13:24
Speaker
Did you find something? We found a more detailed version of the map we have. It's got some names of places on there. We could check that out to see if it has any more information. But nothing else? The cop doesn't say anything? The cop? You mean the one, this cop you dropped on the ground right here? Oh, why didn't you pick it up?
00:13:46
Speaker
I didn't realize that I'm just a sleeve that picks things up for you. I mean, if someone drops something, I feel like it's the nice thing to do is to pick it up. His eyes just kind of squint a little while and then the cup just raises up in the air and just floats right there in front of her. Right when she tries to get down. Oh, thank you. And she's like, I found this with the map and she shows off the gyms and stuff. Okay.
00:14:12
Speaker
Does I don't feel anything, but I only know so much magic. Well, I mean, it's got some gemstones in it. That's more of Craig's expertise. I think what fancy a cup. I just hold my hand out. Toss our hair. I throw it really fast. OK. All right. Make a make a make a dexterity saving throw.
00:14:38
Speaker
All right. You said it was made out of marshmallows. So seven joking. Oh, no, it totally it totally bounces out of your hand and hits the floor. Oh, sorry. I I don't know what got into me. And she kind of just shakes her head. Someone needs to lay off the peppercorns. Oh, but nothing, dear. I pick the cup up and I start investigating the gemstones.
00:15:07
Speaker
Okay, it's a green, orange and pink in that order from left to right, green, orange and pink gemstones. They look like they're very, they're very small compared to the ones on the wall here, but they're the same kind of gemstone. They're a little softer. They have kind of similar cut to them. Most of them though, while they are a little bit cut, it's kind of interesting because they're
00:15:27
Speaker
They all have a different natural shape to them. None of them seem to be finely cut like you would into jewelry or gin stone that's to be sent to turn into jewelry. It just seems to be taken out of the earth, cleaned up, and used as is.
00:15:47
Speaker
I've seen a few things in this area that's using, I guess, the same or similar patterning, the colors anyway, but these gems don't seem too unusual to me. I'd like to try once again, I think I did last time we played, I would like to double check my
00:16:05
Speaker
Dwarven stone knowledge and see if there's anything special or magical or rare about these that I could muster up from any previous brain juice. Make a intelligence check with advantage for that. I rolled a two and a five. Oh, and well. We're not meant to know anything in this place. Yeah, interesting. What a nature nature's intelligence base, too, isn't it? Yeah, I got nothing to help out. Yeah. OK, so a five total.
00:16:36
Speaker
Yeah. What if I apologize for throwing in the cup only get advantage? You already got advantage because it's only they can't do a double advantage. So I tried the yeah, it's it doesn't seem to be unique in any way other than what you've already noticed. And it's that like if you push on it with your thumbnail,
00:16:57
Speaker
it'll leave a little thumbnail mark in it is just a little bit soft like that and then it seems like overtime after a minute or two it kind of comes back that feels back in. But you do actually recall seeing these three color gems in a building across the way in this village that does come to mind. I remember that yeah ye olde building back yonder remember that i guess we could just check out the next building over and see if we find anything else.
00:17:26
Speaker
I'm surprised we haven't really found anything. Well, let's not get discouraged. We've got a lot of things to check out still. Yeah, definitely. There's this building to the left here, number eight on the map. We can kick over to go into there. And this is, it looks like a warehouse of sorts.
00:17:48
Speaker
The outside of it is clay stone up to about halfway, and then there's wood on the top part of it. And there is a door on the side facing where you're coming from at the temple. There's a door there.
00:18:03
Speaker
And it stands long. It's a long building, but you're kind of at the site of it. So it stands going from right to left longer than it looks as far as being further away from you. And so as you approach, you see the couple of long, like tall windows and a tall with just the windows just have just seems like seems like some black kind of stone kind of stuff set into them that that isn't even see through. And you have the door there and it's too big.
00:18:30
Speaker
Doors that are that are made of wood big thick wood paneling and they have a they actually have a one of those kind of hanging open and there's a large piece of.
00:18:42
Speaker
timber sitting on the ground in front of it and you see two wooden posts sticking out from the front of the door that looks like where you would latch the door with this big timber if you wanted to just kind of shut the door and keep it sealed up inside there.
00:19:02
Speaker
And yeah, but the doors kind of hanging open and it's very close if as you approach you realize that it's right. It's it kind of at the edge of that building. There's another there's a pathway that starts to lead down into this big hole in the ground that's been dug for the for mining these gems. So this seems to be kind of like the last building before you just go down into the mine. So it looks like that you could barricade something into this building.
00:19:25
Speaker
It looks like you could, yeah, but it does have that on both sides of the door. So it looks like you could do either one, whichever you need, or one. Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha.
00:19:34
Speaker
I will try to open the wedge door and then walk in. See if I see anything. Pull that door open, walk
Villagers' Intentions Revealed
00:19:42
Speaker
in. It's pretty dark in there as the windows are blacked out with more clay or stone. Seems like they were just to look nice on the outside. And as you get in, it's literally just walls. You don't see any windows inside here. And it's pretty dark. There's a little bit of light. I'll throw off my little lights. Sure. OK. So your orbs come out.
00:20:02
Speaker
And they just kind of distribute amongst the building. This building's very large. We're talking like 90 feet long and about 40 feet wide. And there are shelves and barrels and things just kind of stacked all over the place with stuff.
00:20:19
Speaker
stuff in them. You see a lot of a lot of shelves that just have mining equipment. You see lots of rope, lots of pickaxes and things like that. You also see lots of large, large, large barrels kind of stacked towards in like running down the middle of the building where the shelves are more up against the walls. And you see right near the door to your right, there's a rack that has spears in it and some shields, wooden shields leaning up against it.
00:20:47
Speaker
And a few staffs also are kind of there, like a little weapons area, weapons rack, just right there by the door. And all the weapons and everything are still there. And as you kind of look, you notice the ground is just like padded down earth. It's clay. It's not a finished floor, stone floor of any kind.
00:21:09
Speaker
And the walls seem to be clay as well, like padded clay. And then the roof is, is this from about halfway up the wall to up to the roof is all wood at that point from about your shoulder height up higher would be a wooden structure above this clay foundation. Oh, I, I recognize what this is. And I'll go and grab two staffs or, you know, two, uh, and, uh, I'll, uh,
00:21:34
Speaker
Yell over and Krigs catch and then I'm gonna toss him one of the staffs. Okay, roll a d4 Which one of us three Mikey, okay, so odd. Okay, so you toss him a staff he looks at it Krigs this staff is just a basic wooden staff Simple, you know wooden just defensive staff the one you're holding jocks are this staff actually has a really nicely
00:22:02
Speaker
a nicely stitched, fine fabric wrapping on the center of it. It's nicer. You realize this is, after you toss him the regular one, you look at yours a little bit closer. And it's actually a lot nicer. It's got really fine silver etching. It's got blue fabric. And it's just got, it feels like perfectly balanced and weighted. There's something to this one.
00:22:27
Speaker
um prepare yourself and then i'll uh i'll go in for like a you know a sparring attack okay make an attack roll as you attack craigs that's uh uh wait i'm gonna pull or well this would be probably on our well no it's it's a it's a weapon it's a simple weapon simple yeah so i'd be uh so that's a 13 okay and then uh as you go to attack him you realize
00:22:53
Speaker
The balance of this thing is so good. It's so finely made that you are, as you swing, you get a little extra oomph behind yourself as you swing this thing. And so that's actually plus one for 14 as you swing it. And Krigs, you easily block it. And even if you didn't, it would just ching right off your armor, no problem with a 14. I'm not defending at all, but I will still let it... Ching!
00:23:21
Speaker
What the? Yeah. So it hits his armor. It's a training room. I don't know what the, maybe there's demons around or, you know, there's monsters or something in the mines, but clearly this is where they, they sparred. Warn a guy next time. I said, prepare yourself. What do you, are you kind of makes a point if you can't be ready for him, what are you going to be ready for? It comes out of that giant hole.
00:23:46
Speaker
Prepare yourself. And I just throw my shield at you. Okay. Make an attack roll. Jockster, are you going to try to jump out of the way?
00:23:58
Speaker
And probably not. What's your armor class? I don't even remember. It is currently 20 with my mage armor. OK. So yeah, you easily kind of step to the side. And it just barely catches you in the shoulder as you step to the side. But the mage armor deflects it. And it just kind of spins and clangs on the ground and kind of spins like a coin when you kind of flip a quarter and then
00:24:29
Speaker
and settles on the ground. And there you two stand, no shield anymore for Krigs and you both standing there with those staffs. You guys, I'm sure you, Daven and Gwendolyn, you hear them in there. You hear the clang of this wood against the stone or the metal armor. And then you hear the shield landing and being spinning on the ground. And are you going to react in any way after hearing that kind of stuff happening?
00:24:53
Speaker
Uh, yeah. Gwendolyn's probably gonna run towards the noise. W-w-what was that? She doesn't even make words. She's kinda good to go. See, parties aren't fun when you're not invited, jockser. Heh. Kriegs is being a- just a fuddy dud. He's cranky today, apparently. He hit me!
00:25:09
Speaker
I hit your arm. Why didn't I hit him is the real question. This is a sparring room. I thought it'd be fun, but apparently he's out of sorts. Doesn't want to train at all. I think, I don't know what to think. I'm going to look around. You guys do whatever you want. Just be careful. Don't poke an eye out. And Gwendolyn goes that kind of the opposite direction of Davin, but looking around at stuff. Okay.
00:25:37
Speaker
Both of you make investigations checks as you look around. Anything in particular you're looking at or around, there's the shelves, the barrels, there's a lot of just storage here. Large wooden crate, like boxes that are open, nothing like not sealed. I'll check out all the shelves and see if there's anything particularly interesting on them. Okay. And I'll look at the barrels.
00:26:00
Speaker
Okay. Man. Gosh. Eight. And we should be doing combat right now with these roles. We're fighting you. Party jokes. What'd you roll, Quinn?
00:26:11
Speaker
Oh my gosh, four plus two, six. All right, cool. So as you guys dig around and look, you're finding a lot of, you're finding a lot of gemstones kind of stored in these open crates. Some of, most of them are sorted by color and they seem to just be basic, just these basic softer gemstones. You do find, like I said earlier, there's, there's a lot of sections of wall that have different mining apparatus hanging from them, whether it be rope or,
00:26:38
Speaker
back bag like backpacks or wheelbarrows leaned up against the wall. I mean, it's just like a warehouse of equipment for mining. And then there's that little section that jocks are found as well where it seems to be just the fence stuff for defense is set there by the by the door as well. And just a few items. And yeah, so that's basically all you guys find just some of the basic the basic stuff that would just be stored in somewhere where they're mining nearby.
00:27:05
Speaker
I wonder how can I find anything good on here? This is just storage. It's for mining and weapons and whatnot. Yeah. I'm not really finding anything either. It's just so much stuff was left. Well, it seems like in both places they left in a hurry. So whatever they went, it was because something chased them out of here. Or I guess somebody could have drawn them away. Gwendolyn just nods. Okay. And she looks back at the two dinguses that were fighting with the sticks. Yeah.
00:27:35
Speaker
OK, I mean, when she looks back, I have drugs and a headlock before you can say that you're a niggy. Yeah, no, that's that's that's that makes more sense. You wanted to spar. I'll I'll try to I'll try to, you know, pick him up and then slam him on the clay. I lean into Gwen and I'd say, how did he even reach up to grab him by the neck?
00:27:58
Speaker
Storms are great jumpers. He hit my knees first. They're just really bad. I mean, it's usually you and me that carry the fights. I imagine that if there were giant like spider creatures here, then they would need to escape from this village too. So we should probably pay attention. If there's something dangerous here, we haven't found it yet. Yeah.
00:28:28
Speaker
We haven't really looked down the deep hole, so... I don't think I've had enough sparring for one day. I'm gonna collect my shield and, um, I guess... Do we just have two buildings we haven't looked through yet, I think?
00:28:41
Speaker
Yes, I believe so. You've looked through the village homes, you've looked through the canteen, Blaze looked through the like office kind of building and you've been through the temple. Now you've been through this warehouse and then there's two other buildings over by this large crane looking item that's kind of hanging over the hole there. Let's take a guess what those buildings are going to be. I think one is going to be a preschool and the other one a bathhouse.
00:29:07
Speaker
What combinations starts to get like a sad look on her face. Gwendolyn gets a little sad look on her face when he says preschool. OK.
00:29:21
Speaker
You wouldn't think anything happened to those kids. Why would you think it's a preschool? What? I was just speaking something up. I don't think it's an actual school. A tear comes out of her eye. She pulls Dale out and she kind of just wipes her tear with Dale.
00:29:43
Speaker
Okay. This is an elven place, right? Are there even kids that are elves? I feel like they're always born adults. I was a kid. I went to preschool with a bunch of preschool people. I upset the elf girl. Let's just go check out. Anyways. I vote one is an inn and one is a tavern. Why would they put those in the same building? Well, they're better guesses. That's right. The inn's a...
00:30:13
Speaker
Okay. I'm going to walk that way. Okay. I follow. All right. So you guys walk past the temple, pass a large cart that is sitting there right. It's the edge of the cliff there and around kind of the cliff. It's kind of like a cliff edge that kind of goes straight down into this hole that's been dug.
00:30:34
Speaker
And you come up on the first building there to your right, it's labeled number two on our map. And it is slightly smaller than the building you just left, the big warehouse building. It's a little smaller, but the door's open on the front facing the big crane that leans over this giant hole.
00:30:57
Speaker
And there are, it looks like this has a two, two floors to this building, the lower floor. And then there's windows at the top, like in the roof area, make it look like there may be a second floor up there. I have no reason to be suspicious. I just walk through the front door. Okay. As you approach the front door, it is closed. It is not locked in any way. It just pushes open. As you push through and pass it, it closes automatically, just kind of swings back through and swings both ways, like a saloon door almost, but it's very large, regular,
00:31:26
Speaker
a regular large size door and then you look inside and what you see inside this building is a few tables that are kind of set out in the rectangle tables are set out there. They're higher than like what you would sit at to eat. They look like almost like counters and on these counters you see gemstones kind of spread out.
00:31:51
Speaker
And there are clay pots at the end of each of these three tables that are filled with different numbers of gemstones. And each one is a different color. There's some blue ones, there's some orange ones, and there's some green ones. And the tables are, they're sorted in the buckets, the pots, but the tables seem to be, the tables are, they're all mixed. The colors are just kind of mixed on the tables. And there's next to the door,
00:32:20
Speaker
To your left there are large like burlap sack kind of bags that have been just kind of stacked there. And then on the other side of the door there are these large burlap sack kind of bags that are filled with something. And you see in the back of the room this is a large rectangle that you are facing that goes left to right longer than it does.
00:32:44
Speaker
front to back and towards the back of the building straight across from the front door is a small table with a chair there with papers and stuff strewn about the table. Not messily. Looks like somebody worked there and maybe kind of set things up to go back to work the next day or something, but it doesn't look like, oh no, something came through here and tore all this stuff up. It's not like a mess. It's just kind of strewn about like in somebody's sense of order, but not really order.
00:33:13
Speaker
Kind of like my desk. I'll come in guys. It looks, it reminds me of the one in the peppercorn village or where they would put everything together, right? It feels like that same sort of set up, you know, where they kind of pack things up and send it off probably. And not preschool. No, no signs of kids. I can't think about that. She peaks in and sort of. I'll walk in and throw, throw up the dancing lights just so ever, you know, any, any darkness.
00:33:40
Speaker
Yeah, it looks pretty, it's pretty bright in there now. You can see the, the gemstones glistening in that light and, and definitely a lot of them piled up on the tables and, and they look like they're pulled into little stacks in front of sections of table, like where somebody maybe had been standing and sorting and you can see little piles sorted around those little stacks. Like it's very, very obviously obvious what was going on here. What had, what this room was for this work house.
00:34:06
Speaker
I'm going to open up one of the large burlap sacks and just assume it'll be gemstones inside. It's full of mixed gemstones. Yeah. Mixed colors. Surprise.
00:34:15
Speaker
Well, I could probably fit one of these into the brew hole, just in case. Well, we can take on, but I have a feeling, I mean, critics has not been too excited about these gemstones yet. It doesn't seem like they're worth too much. If nothing else, they could probably be broken down into some kind of paints or something to do with the colorism. They're worth something, otherwise they wouldn't be doing it, right? Yeah, they've got to have some use. Gwendolyn probably walked in a different direction, still holding Dale and talking to Dale.
00:34:45
Speaker
Okay. I don't really see anything of interest. Did you go Dale? She kind of has him look around. She looks around and talk. She what? I don't expect him to talk, but he might before I so rudely interrupted. Uh, you just hear him. You just hear his voice say, I see the same thing you see.
00:35:09
Speaker
She kind of holds him closer. I'm sorry I got upset, but just thinking about there possibly being children. I don't know. Adults are one thing, but I don't know. And she kind of slips into talking to Elvin as she's talking to him just quietly. You don't get any reply.
00:35:32
Speaker
It feels like death, no noise, nothing. I just, I couldn't imagine that happened to children. It's not Daven's fault, to be fair. Too much to think about. Let's go, forget we really had this talk and she kind of just goes back to the group.
00:35:51
Speaker
OK, I'll probably fall back to that table because we found kind of some papers and stuff in the last one. So I'll look back, look through those papers, see if I see kind of the same thing or anything interesting. OK, make an investigation check. God bless. I'm going to use a love die if I get just trash. Hold on. Nat 20. Hey, there it is. Had to roll above an eight eventually.
00:36:18
Speaker
Yeah, make it up for the whole rest of the night. It knew that I was going to waste a luck die for it.
00:36:24
Speaker
Well, if you're gonna use luck, I may as well just roll the 20. All right, so you kind of scrounge through the papers and you find some simple counting, people using hashes to just kind of count, obviously, hundreds and hundreds of these hashes. Thousands, I mean, they've counted papers full of them. And then you see another book, like a central book, that is written out in Elvin, these numbers, that you recognize the numbers.
00:36:52
Speaker
And then suddenly as you kind of turn the pages and you look through suddenly towards a little further than halfway through this little booklet.
00:37:02
Speaker
it stops and all the numbers stop. And the writing there is now words, it's language and it's no longer just keeping track of dates and numbers and things. And so what it says, it's hard to make out again, cause it's this old ancient Elvish tongue, but you gather from it something like work stopped, leaving, joining others will not return.
00:37:30
Speaker
That's all there's more there like you there's it's not broken like that and how it's written you can tell but it's it's hard to make out so that's about all you really get from it. Okay hold up hold up here. Okay so i mean everything here is what we expected except for here right here i think i think they all left.
00:37:52
Speaker
I wish I could tell maybe where. Joining others. Okay, so I don't know why they left, but there was a reason to stop. And I think this goes for all the villages here because they're joining others.
00:38:09
Speaker
And there's nothing that I could, any, any glean of like maybe a central point of where they were trying, or if they were just straight up leaving all villages. Look up over, look over the, the text again, as he looks over, as you look over the text again, trying to find, just pull something else out. Just make a straight intelligence role for me. Or, um,
00:38:34
Speaker
Well, or if history is better than do history, but that's still intelligence, right? My intelligence is no, uh, point for that. Okay. That is a 19 minus one. Great. So that's an 18. Okay. So you're looking again, and now that you have some context, you're able to kind of turn some of them, some of the, the words into a little more, just the, the basic idea of like the root of what these words may mean.
00:39:04
Speaker
And.
00:39:05
Speaker
When you were reading the word others, you realize it continues and says, basically says other tribes, you're gonna join the other tribes. They're gonna join the other tribes. And then about halfway down, you recognize a word and you think, you're 99% sure that it's a phrase that's similar to follow, we're following him, we're following the man, we're following
00:39:34
Speaker
the leader kind of something, something along those lines. Would I gather that they were leaving all the villages, like they were just exiting everything here, or that they were trying to go to one central village, or would I not gather anything? I don't know that you would gather that much detail, but what is very clear is that they stopped working here to leave and gather with the other tribes because they were following someone.
00:40:04
Speaker
I don't know where, but they clearly just, they had to leave. And it doesn't seem like it's specifically, at least, you know, monster fear. I mean, there might be something there, but I just, I feel like we're just going to find something similar to each one of these.
00:40:28
Speaker
But that's actually really good. Gwen, they weren't extinguished. They all moved on. They found a new spot or they moved to one central area. They left on purpose. It doesn't look like they ran in specific fear. They were following someone.
00:40:49
Speaker
following? Does it say where it went? Can you read it again? I just... I mean, maybe you can peck out some more of the words, but it doesn't really... From what I can see, they were following, we'll say, someone, a leader, I don't know, someone they respected of some sort?
00:41:14
Speaker
they seemed to hold someone in high esteem enough that they would follow and pick up and go. I mean, it clearly was important enough to just grab everything and go. And I think the spices had the same idea. I imagine that all these tribes picked up and left to accomplish whatever this individual needed.
00:41:42
Speaker
whether it be moving to one new location or escaping some event that they foresaw.
00:41:50
Speaker
Gwendolyn just kind of sits there thinking, processing what Joxer just said. In her mind, can she remember any kind of elven leaders from her studies when she was trying to be like a proper druid? I know that sounds weird to most people out there, but there was a school and she went to it and she dropped out like- Make a history check. Oh my gosh. Six plus two. This dice is cursed.
00:42:21
Speaker
You rack your brain and you honestly you didn't spend a lot of time around other elves other than the little bit of the kids at your school and stuff, you know, and so because of just kind of living outside the city and and just kind of those who would come through your dad leaving, you know, the tradition is typically like any kind of
00:42:44
Speaker
party or gathering was all had to do with the men of course getting together and stuff and so your mother just kind of kept to your you and your mother just kind of kept to yourselves. So other than just learning about the main rulers of the main rulers of the towns which most of them weren't elves, most of them were men or dwarves or
00:43:05
Speaker
you know, further south other beings you've never seen before. Other than that, you just you don't really have any, anything, any knowledge of those kinds, that kind of leadership that would that would cause this kind of, you know, sudden change in people's way of life.
00:43:22
Speaker
Her, her expression of processing turns like almost kind of an angry thought because her eyebrows are kind of moved in closer and she's just so frustrated with herself. So she doesn't, she's just going to sit there pondering. No, I mean, I said this was, this was good news. It wasn't, there wasn't any, any, any, any children that were hurt or I mean, everybody left of their own accord.
00:43:54
Speaker
I know, I just, I need to know who the leader was. The way you look right now, I just feel like I gave you worst news somehow.
00:44:05
Speaker
Well, this is this is at a preschool right now, is it? No, no. But I mean, if even if it were the other but they left, it wasn't there were no. Never mind. I'm going to walk out and just start admiring my my new bow staff. She just kind of just looks all confused. And then she goes back to thinking, who can this be? Who could they possibly follow? Who is the guy? The statue? Does the cup belong to just
00:44:35
Speaker
Why did they leave? Why did they go? I have two theories. Either they were following this car loan, this DZ. Maybe he came and actually took them all away. Or didn't you say that your father came to find his people, right? Yeah, but... Maybe your father's... Father's always not...
00:44:55
Speaker
everywhere we go it's not a place it's just known so I mean if it is him why why don't why is there nothing that says his name well why isn't it in his journal why do I not feel anything here there's no nature
00:45:16
Speaker
she takes a deep breath just i'm frustrated that as soon as we're close to something it just slips out of our hands like this mist that we walk through almost every day and it's just it's frustrating where would they go
00:45:34
Speaker
If Al Menor is a place and she just kind of keeps going only in the background it could be this way but but if it's not real and she's just kind of now talking and mumbling there's obviously more to learn let's keep looking let the last building has to have some answers let's let's go check it out she nods her head through her ranting okay you guys go check out that last building head to number one
00:45:59
Speaker
Yeah, ending with the first building. You open the doors to this clay building and inside you see several rows of clay shelves that have been kind of carved into the walls of this building. They hold basic supplies or sacks, pitons, spikes that you use to climb. One shelf's got some water skins on it. There's a rack on the back wall that holds a few pickaxes with hardened clay handles.
00:46:23
Speaker
There are four large clay pots in one corner and there's a counter along the back of this room that have bins hanging from the front. And it looks like they maybe once contained different kinds of like foods, like fruits, vegetables, and that sort of stuff. But most of them that are just kind of disintegrating with this black ooze that kind of seems to permeate this place. And yeah, this is looks like maybe like a supply shop of some kind.
00:46:50
Speaker
Gwendolyn's probably coming in last, um, behind the group, just mumbling to herself. If it is Almonora, I don't know. And now she's like starting to talk to Dale. Devin walks in and he's immediately dejected by the fact that it just looks like another place where they store things. Mm-hmm. Well, I, maybe with a social mistake coming here. Well, it's not quite an introvert. I don't know what we should do. Craig's, I, I'm lost. Do you have any idea where the tribes may have gone?
00:47:19
Speaker
towards, at this point, I'll say, the hero. Whoever was able to gather them all together with enough respect, it didn't give just with the others, we're following him. And at this point, I don't know if we can travel backwards. We have kind of two options.
00:47:43
Speaker
I feel like it's staring us right in the face. Oh? Almost. Maybe literally. We have very little information to work with as to what happened to these people and why they were inclined to leave besides going with either a hero or a leader of sort.
Exploring the Mine
00:48:00
Speaker
We can gather the understanding of what they were doing at each of the locations. Don't necessarily know implications of what could have been either warbound or if they just lived their lives here.
00:48:13
Speaker
So we know nothing. That's what we're saying. We don't know anything. That feels pretty common for me anymore. Gavin's starting to get visibly angry and he just, you said there's like clay pots in here. Yeah. I'm going to shoot a firebolt at one of them. Okay. So you make an attack roll. Okay. Uh, 19.
00:48:35
Speaker
Yeah, you fire and you you hit the hit the pot. It bursts. Water just splashes all over. It's immediately extinguishing your fireball and any flame and and another one. The the the fireball kind of also just happens to hit the pot next to it, which burst open. Pepper corns pour out all over the ground as well and.
00:49:01
Speaker
Just kind of made a mess over there and now there's wet peppercorns laying around over there in the corner. How's Krigs feel about that? I honestly understand at this point. Risking life and limb to ultimately come here and feel as lost as I currently do. If I wasn't so lazy, I'd be through hammer swinging this whole place down at this point.
00:49:27
Speaker
What about them wet peppercorns? Don't you touch my peppers. My cornies. He done soaked them. There's only one place we haven't looked here. True. We can definitely check out the mining area. From my memory, we can see the bottom or no. No, you have not been able to see the bottom. I do want to relay.
00:49:51
Speaker
that if maybe we don't find an answer at this point and we're already staggering, we do have a way back to Wild Teal if needed. So just give up. Just go back and just pretend like we never did any of this. I'm not coming back here if I leave without answers.
00:50:09
Speaker
And that's fine I just want to make sure that no one feels completely without choice we are we are not bound to whatever or if we are then that would fail I guess but.
00:50:24
Speaker
We have ways of getting back. I didn't travel for weeks just to say, let's go back home. We have no answers. We don't know Aleman Nora. We don't know where Gwen's father or family is. We don't know where the jerk is. I can't even think of his name right now.
00:50:42
Speaker
It's fine. I'm happy to hear it. I just wanted to make sure that everybody here, because of the frustration, was on the same page. I don't want
00:50:59
Speaker
to continue this journey if no one is here. We will be in more danger if everybody is ready to give up and continues this dangerous journey as opposed to just giving up. So I just needed to know.
00:51:15
Speaker
Well, I'm not giving up just because I'm frustrated. I just, we know that they follow these people. We can't just leave them. What if this person was bad? What if this hero was not a hero, but a villain all along? What if he took them to hell possibly or another realm? I just, it's frustrating, but we have to keep going. I guess standing around here isn't
00:51:39
Speaker
Really helping all that much. I guess I'm just going to walk away from the conversation abruptly and go to the last location. We have not looked and see if anything actually stands out to me. The last location is the giant hole, I think.
00:51:54
Speaker
Yeah, so you're going to start heading towards, okay. If there's one thing I know about, it's a hole. I'm going to also look at the device that lower or the crane. I'm going to investigate that. Yeah, make an investigation check on that. Don't break this one. Did we take the new map with us or do we leave it somewhere? Yeah, Ash has it. We took it. Or Gwen, she took it off the wall. Someone has it. That is a 15.
00:52:17
Speaker
Yeah, it's pretty basic. You know, it's two large timbers, one braced with several smaller ones on a circular base that is made of that is carved into the stone beneath it. It is then there are ropes and pulley system that is pulling. There's a sack hanging from the rope at the end of the crane. That is one of these large burlap sacks, like you saw in the other building where they were counting out and distributing the stones amongst the different pots.
00:52:46
Speaker
And it looks empty, it's kind of just hanging there loose like it was ready to be lowered again, you know, for the next day's work. And yeah, there's a crank on the side of it to crank down and back up the rope and it's just pretty basic. Instead of having to haul all the gemstones up, it looks like they would just clip these bags and pull them up with this crane.
00:53:05
Speaker
This could be a way down or up, might be ways to see what's at the bottom without going down. Gwen, can I see that map? She hands them a map and then she turns into a raven. Okay. And makes her way down the hole. Okay, so as you look at the map,
00:53:26
Speaker
Gwyn turns into a raven and you look up over the map again and she's just something flapping in front of you. Sweet pearls. And she darts down into the hole, the black dark raven disappearing, vanishing into the hole pretty quickly. And you're all left standing with Gwyn having gone on ahead once again. Gavin stares blankly for a second and then just kind of shrugs. Like he's just used to it at this point.
Conclusion & Call to Action
00:54:09
Speaker
Thank you for listening to this episode of The Hired Swords. If you liked the episode, do us a favor and tell a friend about us. And if you really liked the episode, well, leave us a review. If you want to keep up with us and all the behind-the-scenes content, well, if there is any, I guess, you can find us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at TheHiredSords. And again, thank you so much for listening.
00:54:22
Speaker
And that's where we're going to leave the episode.